7: Maria Esguerra & Children of God

Dave speaks with psychologist Maria Esguerra who was raised inside the Children of God, founded by David Berg. Berg claimed to be an apocalyptic prophet and professed a doctrine that led to widespread sexual abuse within the group, including against children. Maria reflects on her experiences, especially after the cult, and touches on key psychological concepts relevant to post-cult recovery.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:06

Hi, I'm Dave Mullins. Welcome to Aftercult, a podcast of interviews with former cult members by a former cult member. My guest today is Maria Esquera, who was born into the children of God, one of the more infamous cults of modern times. The cult has made headlines over many decades due to doctrines that institutionalize sexual abuse, especially of children. These days, Maria is a psychologist and raises some useful psychological concepts in our chat that are helpful in understanding the impact of ideological abuse. One such concept is learned helplessness, whereby we might become so accustomed to feeling like we can't improve our situation that we lose the capacity to think outside of those hopeless beliefs. In cults, our worldview is often absolute and apocalyptic, and our only hope out is via the cult leader who generally has impossible standards. So that's a powerful situation in which to create dependency on the cult and a sense of hopelessness when we're not living up to those standards. Maria also references the work of Dr. Gilly Jenkinson, introducing the term pseudo-identity, which I hadn't heard before but really like as a description of someone under the influence of cultic dogma. We also touch on the incredibly relevant Freudian concept of introjection, a term which represents the tendency to take on the ideas and attitudes and behaviors of others. In this case, cult leaders. A quick apology about the occasional sound drops in this episode. Remote interviews can be tricky at times. It's still very listenable, I promise. So let's chat to Maria. What I have to remind myself when I'm in these podcasts is that I have to sort of give my input. Sometimes I get quite engaged with what I'm listening to and just have to remember this is I have to throw my two cents in. And sometimes that will be because maybe you'll say something about your experience and it will be quite different to mine. But that will be an interesting point for me to sort of bring up how it's different from my experience or how it's the same. And but there's not really any there's not a firm structure to it outside of that. It really is just the chat because I think that's going to be appealing to people who are listening.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

More interesting than some rehearsed talk or something, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:23

Exactly. And I think there's plenty of information, not necessarily about my group, but there's plenty of information about a lot of groups out there that people can dive into if they really want to. So my aim is certainly not to be, you know, an investigative journalist diving into details and people can access that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

I prefer that, yes. I'm kind of tired of talking about. I think the the main thing is we're trying to psychoeducate people, right? To like help them not get into this and not give up their right self-sovereignty to a narcissistic sort of leader or and uh and live with the ongoing negative adverse consequences after, which is what we have to live with now, and um and also giving hope to survivors that there is some healing, you know. So I think I'm much more comfortable with that than talking about the specifics and gory details of everything I went through. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:17

Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. And you know, even just talking about some of the hard stuff that we might still be dealing with, and so that people out there who may not be kind of understanding why they feel the way they do, people who have left groups and are sort of feeling struggling in one way or another, but haven't put their finger on why that is. And I think listening to people talk about it who are, you know, not that we're perfectly healed or anything, but just people who are a bit further along the road in a sense, so that they can hear that and maybe it triggers something for them that can help them move forward in some way, I think can be really powerful. I wish I'd stumbled across conversations like this years ago somehow.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

It's really reducing shame and stigma. I mean, they say, you know, shame, you can't live, but you know, safe conversations are like the most important thing, really, to reducing that. A lot of times that we all feel like we're freaks and we're all living in our own little world. Um but so many of us have very similar feelings and experiences, and it's really kind of painting like this happened and then it's created this now, and then when you're aware of it, then you can realize that's the human experience, it's normalized, but it's also makes sense. And so just no being aware of that takes some of the shame away.

SPEAKER_03 4:34

Yeah, for sure. And I, you know, already I've recorded a few episodes, and it's amazing how helpful it's been for me. I mean, the premise of this whole podcast is that I haven't really spoken about it. So I'm learning a lot with every conversation I have because I haven't explored it as much as a lot of my guests have. And it's just been fascinating to realize how much I relate to what people are saying, to the point where I can't ignore the impact it's had on me, which is a sign of I can do something about this. If I'm aware that this is a real thing, uh, I can now take action around it to some degree and know what to target in a sense, you know, from a psychological perspective. I sort of recognize where the flaws are in my thinking, the sort of flashbacks that I get emotionally around things. I sort of understand all that a lot better than I did months ago before I started doing this. So, I mean, if I can, if we can help, if anyone listening is having similar experiences and can hear people talking about it, I'm sure it's going to be super useful.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Absolutely. And it helps you explain to other people as well. But also I think some people can use it against you as well. I've seen that happen so often in my friendship groups and and even in my own life, even in a professional setting once it was very shocking. So I think when you are quite aware of yourself and your experiences and the support that you need, then you can't allow other people to use that to gain an upper hand against you as well, because not only are we victimized by the cult, but we're kind of victimized for the rest of our lives for our association. Even if we were born into it crazy enough, we think there would be support and care, but there's it's just that ongoing stigma. And people that are usually they've got their own major issues and maybe dark sort of triad traits uh can actually use that to exploit you and uh be abusive towards you. So I think the more that these conversations come out, like yes, it happens, it happens to so many people, multi-millions, say even more. And um, you know, being under an authoritarian sort of structure, and then the things that happen in that setting and the group think and all of that, and then coming out and all the supports that you need. I think if you can say that without shame and you feel confident about, you know, how you're a survivor and that you've actually gotten a lot of amazing information that you can pass on to people and help them. You can't allow other people as much to kind of knock you around a bit, people who are willing to use that against you. So uh it's just that's why I'm doing it. I mean, it's not fun, like it's uh, you know, looking into these things, there's no benefit, no one's making money off these stories. Yeah, but it it really is, I just find it just so important. It's just important that we're we're not all hiding away in our little room, you know, terrified of it.

SPEAKER_03 7:36

I couldn't agree with you more, absolutely. And I think something's very interesting to me is the effect that, you know, being in these belief systems has on our our identity and our sense of trust, not just in the world around us, but in our own thoughts and feelings and and who we are. And to me, that seems to be at the crux of everybody's experience that I speak to. There's something in that, maybe that represents the core sort of injury that is going on for all of us. I'm not sure. But you know, I think that speaks to a lot of what you've just covered. So let's let's just for for the sake of people listening, just give people an idea of what the group was that you were involved in that you were that you were born into, I should say, which was called the Children of God at one point, which I think is the name it's probably most commonly known by. Um, but I believe it it's still running to this day under the name of the Family International.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

It is. Um, unbelievably. So so there's loads of information online. So I'll let people sort of go and and look that up themselves, but just in a nutshell, it was uh apparently Christian, uh, it was apocalyptic, and um, it just sort of took a lot of Bible verses and and made them incredibly literal. So it was David Berg who started it in the late 60s around that Jesus Revolution hippie time, and uh it was just something that was right for that. People, you know, idealistic youth, um, you know, on drugs and looking for a different way and and unhappy with the way the world was going, and they just wanted to, you know, didn't want to do the nine to five like their parents did, and and capitalism, and you know, there was all this uncertainty and unhappiness. And so he was out there with his teenage kids or all singing songs about, you know, you gotta be a baby to go to heaven and freedom and living communally, and all these things that you kind of think like actually sounds pretty good, like going to all the world and sharing God's message of love and hope and and all that. So it sort of started off like that. I think some people thought it was quite innocent and pure, but I don't really think a cult can turn into a cult unless there are some serious issues with the leader. Um, and he had some major issues. He had his own sort of child sexual abuse growing up and a lot of shame, you know, that purity culture that he grew up in. His mom was a preacher herself. So I think he just sort of started to morph his beliefs, which were, you know, there was actually no sex before marriage and everything in the beginning. But as he got all this extra power and control, and he started to get hundreds, you know, tens of thousands of members and people just willing to do anything that he said and all looking up to him. Then he started to sort of, you know, morph a lot of his views and and take sort of, like I said, Bible verses literally like um whatever is done in love is not a sin. So that is like a terrifying concept that you can do absolutely anything as long as it's in love and it's not bad. Like instead of that was called the law of love. So there was a lot of things, and you know, Acts 2, 44, and 45. So they're all based on Bible verses, his revelations, and so it's kind of like you can't dispute them, but they're almost like mimetic infections almost, they're like these self-sealing beliefs. So it uh it just became more and more crazy and bizarre and extreme to um most people know a lot about the sexual stuff, like the flirty fishing, where he would send um women out to go and proselyze with sex and uh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:28

So this was, and as I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think so. David Berg, who was the founder, he uh like you say, he was he was raised in a Christian environment. I think his his parents were missionaries of some sort. And he himself, when he became a minister, was I believe maybe kicked out of the church or whatever it was he was a part of due to some sort of sexual allegation. Absolutely, which suggests some history of this from him.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:52

And then you mentioned flirty fishing, which is for anyone who's familiar with the children of God, I'm sure they know about it. But for those who don't, I mean, and you mentioned this as women. I I was curious, I didn't know if men were also engaged in this or it was expected just of the women, but it was this sense of sending people out in the world to be to be sexual with with people in order to attract them to the group, effectively. Is that is that right?

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Yeah, absolutely. Look at it was men as well, so it was anyone, so they would call us fish. I mean, it wasn't the whole time, it was only a period of time, and that just shows how extreme. Like you can't you tell 10,000 people like do this now, go sell your body, you know, people who are technically Christians, and then all of a sudden overnight everyone's doing that, and people are sleeping with a hundred people for months. That's crazy stuff. Right, right. So, um, yeah, so men did it as well, it's just not as effective, probably. Um, and I think someone ended up dying of AIDS because there was also no uh contraception or protection used at all because it's all it was that trusting God and having faith 100% for absolutely everything, whatever is meant to be will be. God's gonna, you know, save or protect you, which is also a super harmful and dangerous way of completely giving up your rights and and just your critical thinking skills because you're all everything's kind of magical thinking. So rather than just being safe and protective and saying, you know, obviously there's STIs and if everyone's sleeping with everyone, you know, that would be incredibly dangerous. But also just making babies without actually thinking about what's going to happen to them or having any any thought for their future or who's gonna care for them.

SPEAKER_03 13:36

And so that was all about sort of sacrificing your will to God in a sense.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Like 100%.

SPEAKER_03 13:41

Who was represented, of course, by David Bird. Yes, supposedly.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Yeah, that's the big problem. So people's it's almost like um, and this has happens in most uh, you know, cultic groups. It's like you have to come through us to get the wisdom of God, or um, we're the oracles. So they put themselves like he was the prophet, and uh Moses David, he called himself, and his letters that came out were Mo letters, so we'd have to read them for hours and hours every day and then memorize and quote them. So that's how the propaganda sort of came out and and how we got so much control over people, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:21

And these were like comic books, weren't they? These Mo letters, they were kind of, or were they all like that? I just I remember seeing a lot of imagery, a lot of comic book like imagery that he was using, or were they pure sort of literature?

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Um, some were literature, and I think for children, they would sometimes uh draw them up like comics, and I mean these pictures are like etched in my memory forever. And I was seeing them when I was a very young child, things like uh a woman with a hook, you know, and her private parts is a flirty fishing, just awful grooming sort of publications, incredibly sexualized. So that was something that we were exposed to at a very young age, some of his very bizarre beliefs. And then, yeah, those those publications came out for children, and there would be there was a story of Heaven's Girl, and that was like a comic book, and we weren't allowed to have any outside influences at all. So we didn't we couldn't read books from the outside world, so the information was tightly controlled. So we were just like sponges or any information whatsoever. So, you know, some of these books had just very, very not child-friendly things, but just incredibly damaging things about if you get raped or something, it's God's will, and you should show God's love to the person, the poor person who's raping you. So just kind of teaching you completely to give up your sense of self and not to protect yourself. Yeah. Quite dangerous, really, to teach young children that.

SPEAKER_03 15:49

Absolutely. And you know, it's such an interesting point. The sort of scarcity of information in a cult makes you quite thirsty for anything you can get. That makes a lot of sense. And I I did look at some of this imagery online to an extent, and I was really taken by how childish a lot of it was. And it was very easy to see that David Berg was sort of attuning to children and trying to pass these messages on to them from a young age. It feels like it was very much geared towards kids, to sort of, like you say, to groom them. And knowing the history of the group, it was quite shocking to see that that imagery. I'd never seen them before. And I think, you know, obviously this is what made children of God, I suppose, grab so many headlines, especially in the 80s. I think it really got a lot of attention in the 90s as well. Was the the child sexual abuse that was prevalent throughout. And people should understand as well that you, um, your parents, is that correct, had had joined the group. So you were before you were born, and then you were born into the group and were there until you were, I think it was 22, is that about right? That's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

It's funny. So I you I think you looked at the decult uh kids and cults panel and he asked me a little bit about myself, where I'm from, and and my family. And and I mean, we can't even answer those questions, which if you can imagine you talk about identity, like if you can't even say who your parents are, because there was so much they called it sharing, but partner swapping and um sleeping with each other. And and it wasn't really free love so much as coerced, like everyone had to sort of be pushing and being coerced into you know, basically being sacrificial and sleeping with each other. So, and then all these children are being born. I think at some point it was like 700 to 800 kids being born a year, just in the group. So that's by far where the most numbers came from, rather than people joining. So, yes, it's like identity, like who are your parents, who are your grandparents, where did you come from? Where do you sit in the world? People ask us, you know, where are you from? And that's kind of like a traumatizing question. Because it's like, I don't know. And I I'm I I am Australian and Canadian, but uh lived in so many different countries, like over 20 countries, moving every few months, and just like where are am I from? I'm not 100% sure. So, you know, a big extended family with lots of different dads and my siblings, and we're all it's it's just so confusing and convoluted. So it's really hard to have a sense of self when you are you can't even answer those simple questions. Yeah, and um and most of us, you know, we'd have times with our parents, but like my mom, but then we'd also have times that we were away from them in like school homes or in team camps or you know, victor programs. If you want, you can look that up. Uh I'm not gonna get into that. But uh that so that breaking down of family bond was a huge part of our group.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

Right, right. So the family units were sort of a threat in a way to say 100%.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_03 18:55

Yeah. I mean, it's such a common feature of cults, isn't it? This idea of, you know, for us, it was we were taught to think that everyone outside of us was essentially a dark force that was there to tempt us and fool us and lead us astray, including our family. And yet the leaders, Mark and Edith, would be very accepting of people's inheritance from their parents or support from their families if it was available, while all at the same time spreading this message that they weren't on the path and therefore they were a threat and a problem. So it yeah, it's it it does make a lot of sense for a for a cult leader to want to divide people and and control them in that way. When you left the group, you were in Sydney, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Yes, I was.

SPEAKER_03 19:36

So you'd moved around because I know that the family of God are present in, I think it was like 70 countries or something, or they were at one point. So what was it that led to you leaving?

SPEAKER_00 19:47

So um cults really break down the developmental phases, but um, you've got like Eric Erickson developmental phases where you sort of develop a sense of self, a safety with your family, and then which is the first couple years, and then a sense of am I like good, like a sense of yourself and being and then industriousness, and then as teenagers, it's about individuality, and you're kind of trying out different things and and exploring, and uh it's pretty much all of those stages are completely destroyed when you're in a group because it's about your responsibilities way beyond your capacity. So I was uh making money, you know, from as old as probably two years old, as you know, pretty much in my whole life. I've I feel like I've always had to think about finances and bringing in money. So responsibilities well beyond uh a child's uh responsibility for caring for other kids and supporting and cleaning, and but also just lacking safety, lacking play, and and then always having a sense of yourself being uh destroyed, like there's spiritual sins, things you're always in trouble for. We had a lot of demerits and times of corporal punishment and and that sort of abuse. And then of course, there was those sexual aspects as well. It was just a very unsafe environment for children. So yeah, it was in 2020, and um, you know, I just had a brand new baby and one with a toddler who had a brain injury from medical neglect, which is a big part of culture groups as well. And so I just kind of it was kind of like I was looking at my life almost, and I was seeing my children's life, and I think that's really what it was, where I I kind of felt, yeah, I just didn't want that life for them, especially a son with a disability. I'd seen a lot of horrifying things towards other people with disabilities, you know, exorcisms for people having asthma attacks and uh seizures rather than getting them medical care. So it's like we're in the dark ages, really. Like there was no science in belief. Even doctors of science. So just seeing the incredible risks to my children and just having this incredible love and maternal instinct towards them, I was just like, I'm out. You know, I just realized that the Australian government gave a little few hundred dollars or something. And that, and you have to realize like people in these groups, they don't have any money. Like they have no resources and no family on the outside and no ability, no education. Like we didn't go to school or have any jobs or anything. Like our work was always fundraising, cash in hand, sort of things to try to uh support the group. So like the it's just insurmountable when you try to leave. Like I try to I say it's like being a refugee from a country that doesn't exist. So uh it's pretty pretty powerful and uh intense thing to go through, especially with two little kids with you know challenges and developmental delays. So my feeling, I mean, it as fearful as I was, um, you know, it's a scary, very scary thing to to leave the only life you've ever known. And so I just felt like I had to do it for my kids. And then, and I suppose there's a grief also that your parents couldn't have done that for you, you know. So there's a lot to it, but uh a lot of times it doesn't, it's not awesome when you leave. It's not like everything works out perfectly. A lot of times there are massive things that you have to overcome and not being aware of laws and rules and and protections, you're incredibly unprotected, and you also are very compliant, and so you're just used to doing whatever people tell you to do. So a lot of these things, learning to advocate for yourself and stand up and your rights and all of that's something that takes a long time, and it usually happens with a lot of really traumatic events as well. So uh, so that's why I'm really passionate of people when they leave, getting, you know, a large amount of support to sort of socialize them, you know, for lack of a better word. Um when they come out so they understand what they they're entitled to and they can get that wraparound support like a refugee would.

SPEAKER_03 24:21

Yes, yes. You know, it's I mean, I think about my own experience and I was not born into this group. I joined in my late teens and was kind of sacrificed a lot of my 20s to them. And even I struggled to adjust coming out of that. I mean, to to have had my whole childhood in the group, I I can't I can't imagine. And I think it seems to me that people must intuitively understand that hearing this sort of story. But you do mention that there is a lot of judgment nonetheless for people who have been through a similar experience. What do you think it is that makes some people very judgmental of this experience?

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Well, I guess it's lack of understanding. Uh, you know, you fear what you don't know, really. It's probably the media doesn't help because cults are you know, sacrificing babies, and they are sacrificing babies, but it's just in a very different way. Um saying God, you know, wants you to give up your Isaac, whatever that thing in the Bible about.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Yes, sacrificing the son, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Yeah, absolutely. So so it is like that, but it's very different to the rituals and the cloaks and the you know. Yeah, so I think the media doesn't do a great job, they almost dehumanize us. I find that really uncomfortable. There's the Morkham family here, you know, uh Daniel Morgan's parents, and they've got red shirt day. So their son was abducted, and you know, it was really traumatic experience. But they're like they're pretty much heroes, like people just think of them as heroes talking about stranger danger and um how many children's lives have they saved from that. But but strangely enough, when you talk about something, I suppose maybe it's more frightening that your own family can be in on the abuse, that the whole community can be in on it rather than just the stranger, which is far more common and far more dangerous. And even people who get abused, like they're much more likely to be abused by people in their own homes or family members, and and religious communities are some of the most dangerous places to raise children, according to the Royal Commission. Faith-based organizations are some of the most dangerous, and people don't want to hear it, they just don't, they're scared of it. So I think it's it's kind of like maybe a fear of the unknown, it's a dehumanizing of us, and then there's definitely bad people. Like there's no other word for it. There's people who are, you know, they've got the dark, dark triad or dark triad of traits, and they like to find people who are targets that they can be abusive to, that they think of as the little broken lamb with a broken leg, and they can use and manipulate, and and that's a very small percentage of people, but they're out there. And so when they hear that you've got this background, they'll try to use it to their advantage to gain an upper hand. And like I said, it's happened to me and it's and it's shocking, but it's true, like it's it's a reality. And I know people who've been in domestic violence relationships for decades because that person has held that information and against them and knowledge of their past, you know, to further victimize them and abuse them. So there's nothing more abusive. In my mind, that is the reddest flag you can get. There's nothing more abusive than someone knowing a bit about your childhood disadvantages or abuse and using it against you and just say, Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Like they're just bad people.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

And unfortunately, our court systems and governments and legal systems and and even mental health systems, you know, they're supposed to be there to support the survivors and protect people and victims, but a lot of times they further victimize people.

SPEAKER_03 28:07

Yeah, and I think you're absolutely right. I mean, my experience of being judged from my experience, and I think in all of those cases, people, the people who have done so have just assumed that I am inherently a bad person because I was running a cult in Canada, which on paper sounds kind of reasonable. But the fact that we sort of fixate on something that someone once was a part of, especially when it's a a system, uh a coercive system. Yes. Um and I was certainly brainwashed. You know, I it's very difficult to be judged that way. And I've lost a couple of yeah, it's affected me in a couple of significant ways. And it's surprised me every time that people are taking advantage of it when I'm being so open about it. But I think you're right. I think there are just some people who are who are vindictive and who have their own issues and will pick up on whatever they can to have a go at you, especially if it advantages them in the long run. So true.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

And as a community, we just need to stop, just literally say that is a massive um, that should be a target on that person using some knowledge of someone else being victimized in the past to try to abuse them because that's all it is, is abuse. They're abusing them.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

So someday, this is why we're having these conversations. Someday, you know, just like in the old days, it used to be what did you do, you know, to the domestic violence survivor? Like, why did he beat you up? How did you, you know, push his buttons? And that's very inappropriate now to say, I can't imagine someone saying that anymore. I mean, it does still happen about the victim blaming, but there's a lot more knowledge about coercive control and being in a domestic violence relationship and learned helplessness and and that actual process uh across the it's not just like one abusive thing, it's an actual process of breaking a person down, a human being, and making them into a deployable agent for your group, and and uh there's definitely bad people at the top who are creating an actual system of control.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

And um yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

And I think uh we are in a very individualistic society, so it makes people feel uncomfortable as well, you know.

SPEAKER_03 30:23

I think that's I think that's an excellent point. And uh I've been thinking a lot about this recently is uh this notion of sort of free will. We we don't want to breach other people's free will. So when someone is part of a a religion or a belief system of some sort, there is this reluctance to challenge it or to get involved. But of course, for a coercive group, there's a gradual process by which that coercion takes place and does, as you say, start to break down that person. And they're not even aware that they're in a cult or in an abusive relationship necessarily. And we mentioned at the top of this conversation, I think, that this does really seem to be relevant for a lot of people who've been in groups like this, lead to a complete lack of trust in your own thoughts and feelings and predictions about the world. So it leaves you very open to absorbing what other people are doing to you or saying to you and believing them more than you believe yourself in a way. And I can't help but feel that this has played into me getting into certain relationships I've got into since and uh where I feel that I've really not been able to trust my instincts. Whereas as a result of work I've done in recent years, I am getting better at that and feel that I can, you know, I'm trusting myself more. That's really all there is to it. You know, if I have an instinct about something, I trust it. I don't doubt myself. In the Gnostic movement, we were pretty much trained to distrust every single thought and feeling that we had from one moment to the next over the course of years and years and years. And this was happening for the large part of my early 20s, for all of my early 20s.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

And that's such an important developmental stage. Like you really, your brain is developing till 25. So that is a massive, you know, where all the synaptic pruning happens, and and you know, cults are really a young people problem. There's almost everyone joining my mum was 19 or 18 or something, you know. So most people joining are teenagers, so I think it's a really vulnerable stage, and uh, and that's such a good point, what you just made, and and that's why normal therapy doesn't work, it really doesn't. Like just uh it's just so important to actually do a huge process of deconstruction before, because all you're doing is as a therapist is you're actually talking to the pseudo-identity, you're kind of talking to the cult identity, and until there's like a big process of of deconstruction, of understanding thought reform or thought form if you're born into it. Uh, you know, Lifton's uh research as a psychiatrist, um, yeah, Lifton's eight. So so there's the I'd say two there's two stages. I just did uh Dr. Jenkinson's course, very welcome book as you see. Oh yeah, I can say I've heard good things about her.

SPEAKER_03 33:08

I haven't read, yeah. Jillie Jenkins's.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

I've actually done three, yeah, I've done three courses with her this year and uh two conferences. So we've um you know been quite close. And uh this year I've just really been soaking it up after 20 years of being terrified of anyone finding out.

SPEAKER_03 33:25

So she's a specialist therapist around cult survivors, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 33:29

Yeah, so she did her thesis um or her dissertation, I think, for her PhD around what helps people when they leave. And she's also worked at Wellspring, so way back, you know, for a decade she's been working in this industry. So I'm really grateful that she's kind of taken everything from that cultic sort of research in the last century, really, and uh and kind of put it into this book. There's a lot of really great research, and this is a bit of a guide. So her theory is that you don't even do normal therapy, kind of like that emotional healing until the third stage. So you've got stages before that that are a huge, you know, deconstruction, like I said, psychoeducation, and you have to do things like understanding your introjects, for instance. And and she describes introjects as kind of being like a lump of meat or something that you swallow and you can't digest it. So it's kind of like what the cult will put into you. So all of these fears and belief systems that aren't yours at all, they're actually just indoctrination. And like I said, mind control, brainwashing is not really a term that's used very much anymore, but it really is kind of like they have told you exactly what it is you need to feel, think, and believe. And so you can be exploited by them. So unless you actually undo that first, all you're doing is you're just stouting out the interjects of what you've been taught. So the big part on that, just kind of it might be something like, um, you know, if I do something for myself, I'm selfish. And so you have to really doubt, okay, where did that come from? You know, kind of a little bit like CBT, but it's it's more so than that because it's really the indoctrination that you've experienced that is actually your you're creating almost like a pseudo-identity in that. So it's so, so important now to do that work.

SPEAKER_03 35:34

Yeah, and I think you mentioned synaptic pruning, which is happening throughout adolescence and early adulthood, and this idea of pathways in the brain that are responsible for pretty much everything that we do, but uh sort of letting go of pathways that aren't being used as much and really focusing on the ones that are being used over and over again, even if they're not that healthy. It's just learnt that by this time we're gonna get rid of this stuff that isn't being used and we're gonna build stronger networks around what is being used from a neural perspective. So it makes sense that this stuff is very hard to shift if you've been through that process uh in childhood or up through 25-ish. I mean, I'm sure it can affect people at any age, even if they're later in life, but especially in those periods, there's so much changing in the brain that will influence the way we feel for the rest of our lives and the way we think. And you know, it's been many, many years since I left this group, and I feel like it's only been in the last few years that I'm really having some aha moments. I thought I'd kind of figured it out, but really I was just burying it and just trying to get on with things and imagine that everyone was experiencing what I was experiencing in the way I felt about myself and thought about myself. And to some degree, you know, everybody has moments of being down and anxious and unsure of themselves, but it took me a long time to realize that what's happening with me is a bit more extreme. And I'd become very good at masking it and pretending that everything was fine. And I think it was after a, you know, I had a several periods where I was, you know, it uh you know, I was suicidal. Um, and I really didn't understand why everything was so difficult for me. Um, and it really has only been the last few years that I realized that all this pattern of thinking, how embedded it is and how much it influences everything in my life. I mean, so much feels like a threat to me. In the last few years it has gotten better, but um, even when I'm, you know, if someone accuses me of something I didn't do, it's very hard for me to just go, oh, well, that's not true, I'm just gonna ignore it. It feels threatening in a way that is quite exaggerated to me. Um, and it activates all of these networks in my brain that like to give myself a very hard time. And I notice that I will take on board what people say about me, even if I know it's not true. It's like, well, I must be a bad, terrible person, and I sink into this depression that is very, very heavy. And I think the last time this happened a few years ago, I had this realization that why am I thinking like this? What's being said about me is objectively not true, and I'm just buying it wholesale because it fits the network that doesn't like me, that feels like I'm at fault all of the time. And I I I think it's it's very tough to realize that stuff because it's very hard to work through it, because you can't just think your way out of it. You have to really practice not thinking a certain way or reframing things and taking deep breaths and working on being relaxed in situations and learning to train your brain to behave in a different sort of way, which does not come super easily, but I am relieved to notice that things have been improving for me. And I think that's one of the reasons I'm doing this podcast. I would not have been able to talk about this five years ago.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

That's great. Well done. I think it's an amazing thing that you're doing. Um, but it's that's such a good point. And almost everyone I know that have has ended their lives, and and it's a lot, it's a lot of people that I grew up with. I look at my childhood photos, and you know, a lot, a big percentage are not here anymore from suicide, but also, you know, health issues. And I'm only in my 40s, so uh it's it's pretty tragic. And and I'd say most of them um don't actually talk about their past. Like it was kind of something that they said, uh, you know, just being gone happened a long time ago or something. But the problem with that is that you blame yourself when all of these things are happening, you're like thinking there's something wrong with me, which is perfect because that's the cult narrative. You know, you're evil, you're bad, there's something wrong with you. You can only have salvation through us, you know, follow us to become enlightened or, you know, and and strangely enough, you're super, super special, but you're just special as part of the group membership, but you yourself are a piece of trash and garbage. So that's the saddest thing that I've seen, the ones that have ended their lives. Um, they they internalize these things and uh and they actually think it's them. But I'm I think that's the best part of kind of looking at the introjects and unmasking the leaders as well, and going through the process of identifying these harmful things that are really thought reform and you know, mind control, and ejecting them because it's not even a sense of you know, like you do in tart or whatever, you kind of make friends with them and you connect with them, like some of them are just bullshit, and you have to actually eject them out of your mind and just say, Well, that's not true, that's objectively not true. That is something that was taught to me, and that was something that was indoctrinated into me from birth, and it's not true, it's actually bullshit, and so that's why this kind of work is actually quite powerful because you just have to actually look out for those things that are just complete garbage, and the reason why they put them in your mind is because they could control you and point you for their own benefit.

SPEAKER_03 41:11

And give you this illusion that, you know, I think I often think about our group, and maybe this is particularly true for groups like mine that are inspired by theosophy, sort of new age mystical groups where, you know, you do believe you do believe that you can become a walking god. You're all there to escape life and death cycle, you're there to become a superhuman being, you know, the leader claims to be, you know, a more or less a mortal figure. So it's kind of this free will extremism, the dogma is anyway, where everybody is a blank slate and you can overcome every biological human constraint and turn into something that is impossible. But that free will that you're led to believe you have means that you're responsible for everything that goes wrong, every mistake that you make, anything bad that happens to you. It's not circumstance, it's not environment, yeah, it's not other people, it's all you. And if something goes wrong, it's your fault and you're failing on the path.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

And that was that works really well for a soon as a friend tells me that I'm responsible for everything that's happened in my life. I'm in this new group and I'm like, bullshit. There's literally people who are intending to abuse you and take you down. Yes, are you uh like I love you know Vic Victor Frankel's work around, you know, um being in the Holocaust and uh man's search for meaning. And he does say, you know, the last of human freedoms really is to choose your reaction in any given circumstances, you know, to choose your own way. And he talks about the Holocaust, the people giving their last loaf of bread or piece of bread to a person who's younger and more likely to survive than them. And that was their final act of defiance against the guards. But for them to sit there and say, I am responsible for this, I somehow brought on the Holocaust and all my family to be dead and me to be murdered in a horrible way. And I mean, that's yeah, stupid. It's bullshit, it's garbage. And so I think it's really important to differentiate that. Yes, we can choose our reaction in given circumstances, and we do have some self when we get out of those groups and we are thinking for ourselves, then there is things that we can do to make our lives better and to support people around us and find meaning in the hard things that we've been through, like you're doing with this podcast here. But the fact that we are responsible for every bit of abuse that happens to us is just giving an out to abusers. It's such garbage. And that would be one of your introjects that you'd have to, you know, every time you get sick or something happens, you probably constantly have that feeling. I brought this on myself somehow. Whereas, you know, shit happens. You get sick sometimes, even if you're really. Healthy person. It's not a spiritual sin. And then is there things you can do about it? Yes, there are actually medical practitioners with lots of training, and you can figure out the right way to go. So I think that's a really dangerous uh belief system. And I find because even though I think the cult is stupid, David Burke's an asshole, you know, he's a disgusting human being. I still have all of these things, these like almost fear indoctrinations that are in me. So, you know, I know that, you know, I don't believe all of that. You know, that mystical thinking or that sort of magical thinking is it it's real. Like I do still jump to that straight away. Like I went and got a parking ticket, and then it's like, oh shit, I shouldn't have been here today. There was something wrong, you know. Like you're just constantly having those feelings, and that's why it's so important to just like point the finger at them. Where did this come from? It's garbage, it's not true.

SPEAKER_03 44:58

Yeah, you know, yeah, it is it is it is fucking insane when you really think about it. And like you say, you don't believe David Berg was a legitimate person, it was all ridiculous. Um, and I have the same thing, you know, I was following a guy who said he was the reincarnation of a fallen angel, Beelzebub. I believed that we could turn into superhuman beings. I was uh unlike, you know, you mentioned uh, you know, and all the groups that are wearing cloaks and doing rituals, we we kind of were, you know, we were dressing up in cloaks, we had all these rituals, we'd be up all night praying to Egyptian gods and all sorts of strange stuff. And this was all just exhausting us and wearing us down, and everything was a ritual, everything was significant, everything was meaningful, and everything was our fault. You know, we were we were always never doing well enough. One of the last straws for me in this group was when Mark Pritchett or Belzebub had a had a bunch of followers build a house for him in Queensland, and he intended it to be used, or said he intended it to be used as sort of a meditation retreat for students and the rest of it. And once it was built, he sent everyone an email and said, You're not working hard enough on your spiritual journeys, so Edith and I will be living in it in order to spread the message most effectively. And you know, I it's interesting when I wasn't facing all of this for even after I left for years and years, I I thought kind of kindly about Mark and Edith in a weird way. I was like, you know, he seemed a bit maybe he believed his own myth. But now that I'm facing it a bit more, I mean that's a ridiculous thing to be patient with. I mean, he knew that he was taking advantage of people, even if he did buy into his myth to some degree. The objective truth is that many, many people's lives, many young people's lives especially, were sent way off course. And uh, you know, I certainly in my case, and I think in many other people's case, their lives have been changed in some permanent way as a result of it, and were exploited for his own ends, for his own advantage. I mean, that's you take away all the dogma and you realize it's ridiculous. You're like, well, that's what was happening. You were taking advantage of people who thought they could become like you and this spiritual being, but they couldn't. You know, they don't have that capacity, that free will, neither do you, because you're not that spiritual being. But you benefited from it. Yes. You know, we I traveled overseas, I traveled to Canada to start this chapter of this group to Toronto, um, very young.

SPEAKER_00 47:26

I'm sorry you heard that. So you're free. Canada is not always that.

SPEAKER_03 47:34

Um and you know, I had Canadian citizenship through my mother, so it I was a good target to go over there and start it. You know, it was good for the the school. You know, I could do that. And I wanted to because I was invested in the group. But we also had a young son who was conceived just before we joined the cult. And so we took him over there. We had no money. Um, it was very, very difficult. And I remember Mark being very expressing concern about it at times, which I thought was him caring about us, but I realized very quickly that he was just worried about how it looked on him that these two young people with a kid were over in Toronto that knew no one and were starting this chapter of this group, spending all their energy and time doing it, for his advantage to sort of push his image and his uh and his teachings. And then at the end of the day, when I got too much influence in Toronto, and a lot of my students really looked up to me very strongly, he demoted me very severely. And that was the last straw for me, and I just thought, you know, I'd already, the doubts had been building, but I just thought, that's it. This is ridiculous. What am I doing? You know, all of that cognitive dissonance started to get too much, and I just thought this is not happening anymore. And walked out, tried to convince some of these guys to get out as well. And they just turned on me. You know, I became the demon. You know, I went from being this uh spiritual hero in their eyes to being a force of evil. So it's just um yeah, to look back and just realize how ridiculous it is, and then just move on and sort of say, we're just gonna put my head down and get on with things, and then come to this point where I'm like, no, I really have to to face it because, like you say, despite the absurdity of it all, it has in affected me in such deep ways that I have to look at it. I have to pay attention to it. I can't just ignore it and pretend that this is I have to look at it.

SPEAKER_00 49:33

Yeah, and it externalizes the blame and shame. Like everything you're saying right now is I'm like, yeah, heard it a hundred times. Like there's actually nothing you're saying that's like, oh shit, yeah, shocking. You know, like it this is exactly their playbook. And I think it's a little bit uh naive to think that it just happens. Like these are people, cunning people. Um, we always say, you know, traumatizing narcissists, but I always say this word wrong, but it's machiavism.

SPEAKER_02 50:02

Machiavellian. I'm gonna say it wrong now. Machiavellianism, Machiavellianism.

SPEAKER_00 50:08

Yes, which is really that incredible cunningness and always trying to be in in power and just like willing to do and say anything. And most of them, like I was talking to a friend the other day, and she said her cult leader, um, you know, I won't say names, but um a big, very wealthy one, he had like Hitler's book, uh or something on his desk. And like they know what they're doing. It's actually not, I really don't like. I know David Berg actually went and did communism at university. Like, none of us were allowed to go to university, none of us were allowed to even read books from the outside world, like there's such information control. But here he is going out and reading all of these things, um, you know, about mind control and how to control people and how communistic societies. And uh, there's no doubt in my mind that they all, you know, actually learn manipulation and how to control people and um for their own benefit. So yeah, I don't think it just happens, I think it's uh it's a genuine desire to manipulate and and to just use people for their own age. And um it's yeah, if you want to be rich or if you want to be really rich, start a religion.

SPEAKER_01 51:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:31

And I'm not saying that all religions are uh you know cultic. I'd say that I try to say, you know, it's like saying you shouldn't have marriage because of domestic violence, saying that we shouldn't have married. I mean, it's about the systems of control, systems of influence, the undue influence, the power imbalance and you know, narcissistic leadership uh structures, like that's what it's about, really.

SPEAKER_03 51:56

Uh some years ago I was dating someone from Colombia who was here briefly, and she invited me along to a meditation group that she was doing. And I was well and truly not interested in anything spiritual at this time. And I was a bit suspicious of it, and she was a very sort of idealistic, very open person. And I thought, I'm gonna go to this because I just I just want to see what's going on. We sat down in the room and there was probably about 10 or 11 people, and there was a the founder was meditating up the front and there was a photo of him on the wall behind him, and I was immediately like, this is not gonna end well. You know, I mean, I understand that you're you know, you're you feel a community and that as soon as you see someone's uh, you know, persona taking top spot, there's something just uh red flags everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 52:43

So true. And I think uh actually Dr. Steve Hassan said to me that those of us who've been in cult, um we're like the white blood cells of the world right now. We're kind of like the immune system because we've been there, like we literally can pick up on these red flags. Uh not to say that people don't cult hop because it's very common to also cult hop if you haven't, you know, done the deconstruction and you haven't done your work to understand why you got into it in the first place or or how it's impacted you. But once you have done that and you know, learning about all of these amazing theories and research about thought reform and and uh dictatorships and history and you know, history repeating itself. So those of us with the knowledge, like we have an obligation to actually speak up. And I have before, you know, I've been to little people's groups at home and one person carrying on and creating these new belief systems or something. And I'm like, you know what? I grew up in a group and David Burke would say the exact same thing that you know we should all live together communally and share everything. It's like that's a very recipe for disaster. Because, you know, you can't actually create those kind of perfect socialist environments without a dictator, which is strangely enough, like we can't create utopia without having someone in there constantly forcing people to to give their all to the group, and and it puts people in serious danger as well. Can you get an over sense of familiarity with all these dangerous people and people coming into the group and children being you know used and harmed? So it's it's quite important that we we share our stories so people can know just how quickly this can actually be.

SPEAKER_03 54:36

Yeah, and how subtly and how subtle. You know, to your point earlier, I mean, there are just people in the world who do take advantage that is part of the human experience. There are people who are I mean, we know this from very extreme examples like serial killers who seem to lack all sorts of empathy, but these are human beings too. They exist in the world and uh they're going to continue to exist in the world. So they're going to take advantage of systems like this. I mean, it's just sort of what's going to happen. And I think sometimes the idealistic version of myself does intuitively just feel like everyone's doing their best and everyone's being as kind as they can be, but it's just not true.

SPEAKER_00 55:15

It's true, and I think that as empath, you know, like we are prime candidate because uh you do want to see that um, you know, that people are doing the best they can and they would never intentionally do that. But I've looked uh narcissistic people in the eyes, and uh you can see that there's something not right, you know, and and like like I said, um someone finding out a lot of information, love bombing you to get all this information about you and then using it against you, that is the biggest red flag and sign. The fact that they're they're trying the only friends listen to get what they want. It's like uh, you know, there's a lot of information about narcissists now, but it's like you're a cup to them or something, and the second that you're not beneficial, you're just like throw you up, you know. And you can see that serious lack of empathy in some people, it's just about their furthering their agenda, whatever that might be.

SPEAKER_03 56:12

Yeah. Do you feel that the experience ruined spirituality for you? Do you think there's any room in your life for being spiritual? I mean, what what is your state of mind in that regard these days?

SPEAKER_00 56:25

Um, it's a hard question. I I think uh organized religion at all or anything like that is is very triggering, even though I do know um just speaking with people who I really respect who are Christians or um other religions. Uh I, you know, I I see that there was pretty much nothing in our childhood that was Christian. It was it was quite bizarre. Um, the we were, you know, there was just a lot of talking to dead people all the time and obviously all the sexual stuff. And it was just not very Christian and and uh very unloving, most of it. So I'm not saying putting that, but yeah, but it had been associated with it for me. So I can't find myself in those experiences, definitely not with you know, um with power over me saying that my way to enlightenment is to uh give them lots of money or or some sexual more adapt. Like, I'm sorry, that's not my way to heaven. Like, you know, it shouldn't really be a relationship with yourself, but I think I just love nature. Um, that's really kind of for me to mean that's my spiritual practices. Um, I do do like a Zen Yan Buddhist practice because I just like it's not really religious, but I like the kind I just really resonate with some of the the teachings and the antidotes to life suffering. So I sort of like that. And I watched the Camino last year, which is an amazing experience, even though obviously the you know all the harm Catholics and all the horrible stuff. But I mean, most people on the journey weren't there for any religious purposes. Most of them were in a transitional period, maybe lost a job or a relationship or something, and they were just on this journey to be uh on a pilgrimage uh together. So I did the north the north coast of Spain, so pretty much lost the whole sounds incredible. Um it was amazing, lots of octopus and uh Alberino wine and that was my spiritual experience.

SPEAKER_01 58:32

I like it.

SPEAKER_00 58:33

And walking 30 things a day, and you know, and and I had a lot of really incredible experiences, like spiritual experiences, I'd say. And it's kind of like life. I think um, yeah, I just there was a lot of you know dynamics with people, even though you're sort of walking on your own pilgrimage, you get to know people really, really closely because you might spend like 12 hours talking to someone in a day. Whereas if you in the real world that would take you like months or a year to get to know them that well. So you get to know people, but it for me it was it was like about finding myself and saying, look, you know, I just want to walk myself, you know, now and not being sort of coerced into doing things that I didn't necessarily want to do or feeling obligated, people pleasing, I have to be around this person, you know, it was it was really me learning a lot of those sort of lessons, um, and first time being alone in my life. And then also, you know, when you say goodbye to people, you know, sometimes people are in on the journey for a short period of time, sometimes we meet up with them later, and there was just so many things that that happened on the trip that were very beautiful and hard, and you know, thinking about being alone in life as well, having days that you're just completely on your own and the loss of and thinking about your family and loved ones, you just have so much time to reflect. And and I did have a I watched they read the pilgrimage on the trip as well, um, and uh just you know, a sense of this oneness with nature because usually you're just so stressed and busy, and you you don't even see all the gorgeous magic really in our world. So watching like a bug you know crawl across the road or just sitting with a horse for half an hour and having a chat and patting them, like I felt so full from that. Like I didn't need other humans constantly to be, you know, validating me. Like I felt a sense of oneness, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:32

Yes, it is very interesting because we talk a lot about having people around us is very important for mental well-being and and the rest of it. But you know, there's a lot of benefit in having that time to yourself, especially when you've been through the sort of things we've been through and really learning how to be with yourself and enjoy that experience and you know, enjoy the world around you. You know, in a natural setting, I have the same reaction. There are times where I've just felt I've just been on the beach at night looking at the moon by myself and am overcome with something, you know, something as simple as that, which is really profound because so much of my meaning in the cult came from, and you know, to I'll be honest, to some degree, I sometimes miss how significant everything was in my life when I was in the cult. It like I was so important to the universe, you know, coming the other way. True.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:20

And certainty. Yeah, like I miss being so, so sure of things. Just go and pray about it, and you go and pray, and you get this magical message of exactly what the leaders wanted you to get, of course. And then I'm just totally sure that my pathway was right, even though it was completely off course, like you said, but just that sense of like, oh, I'm so sure, like certainty and complete uncertainty about where we're going when we die and what the point of it all is, if I'm on the right path, making all those choices for yourself. There's like no direction or path. Like that's very overwhelming. And um, you can see why people get drawn to it. Like, like, tell me a fearless leader, what do I do?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:03

Yeah, especially when you're young. It's like you there's so much uncertainty about where things are going, especially if maybe your childhood's been uncertain as well. And you, you know, you come across a group that seems to have all these answers. And and and in my case, it was the late 90s. It was kind of, you know, I was doing mushrooms and stuff. I was just, I was so primed for this sort of magical world where anything could happen. And I do, I really, again, as part of the last few years of getting a bit better with this stuff, a big part of that has been exactly what you've just said, where it's really accepting the uncertainty and the fact that there's no right decision, you know, and there's no right there's no right view of myself, there's no perfection that I'm ever going to reach. And that's and that's just accepting that it is what it is and how powerful that is and how difficult it can be to come to that when you've spent so long. Yeah, just it just absolutely saturated in these profound universal meanings that you you believed, you know, over the course of years and years and years. It's um yeah. I mean, what's what that's doing to the brain is is is not a small thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:06

For sure. And I think, yeah, a lot of us have extreme anxiety around making the wrong decision or decision making. And I think coming to the conclusion, like that's an introject that there's one right and one wrong, black and white, and coming to the conclusion that there's actually tons of shades of gray. A lot of times you'll make a decision with the information you have, it might be good, it might be bad, does it matter? Like it's part of your life's journey, and a lot of times you leads you to wherever you were supposed to be anyway, eventually. So there's actually no right and wrong necessarily answers or decisions, they're all just part of that life's journey. And um, you know, living in the grays is scary, but uh it's actually much better. And also learning to critically analyze things rather than just a magical person telling you what to do. That has really been one of my biggest therapeutic tools, I think. Learning how to read research, to know if someone's bullshit, if I could say that word. Yeah, so I you know, it's just very powerful, like critically thinking after a lifetime of not being allowed to, just saying your thoughts are bad and evil, and um, you need to actually, you know, not think, like you said, not trust yourself and any of your thoughts and any of your intuitions, and then realizing that you actually can trust yourself. You do have the capacity to make pretty good decisions based on the information you have. You know how to read some research, you know how to pick out the flaws in it, or you know, it's not like all science is the same, like there are uh biases and they're this like being able to read between the lines and to understand you know cognitive biases and and all of those things is just a very powerful tool in how you can actually decide on what questions to ask, a big red flag of not being allowed to ask questions. Yes, that's right. That's right. Then being threatened by a question. A question, absolutely. Get out of there. Like if you can't even ask a question, or someone's gonna feel incredibly threatened or judge you harshly, or even punish you in a violent way, yeah, then uh you need to leave. That's a very bad environment.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:20

Yeah, yeah. You know, it's interesting. Um, I I had an excellent lecturer at uh UNSW who did a subject on cognitive dissonance, and he made this point about people going from one abusive relationship to another. And there's some research that suggests that cognitive dissonance is playing a role in the sense of people who think very poorly of themselves, if they get good feedback from someone, it causes a dissonance in them because it doesn't match with what it is that they believe about themselves. So then they alter that, they sort of dismiss the feedback in order to get rid of that discomfort, which is a really fascinating idea to me because I've I realize that I'm doing that. A lot. And you know, I've on paper I've done a lot since I left that group and in theory should be very proud of myself, and sometimes I am. But for the most part, I hear that feedback from people, and people give me this feedback, and I just don't believe it. I just don't believe it at a very deep level. But as a result of like starting to realize that how little I trust myself and working through that, I'm now starting to feel more proud of myself and what I've done. And again, not expecting perfection, this sort of spiritual perfection, and just allowing myself to be who I am and being happy with that. I know it sounds very cliche, but it it's such a profound revelation to me, given the way I've been thinking about myself for years and years and years, and just how pervasive that thinking was and how much it was affecting every single aspect of my life in a way that I think, you know, only I really understood because again, I was masking it well a lot of the time, unless I was under a lot of stress. And I just feel so much freer now, and that in itself is a somewhat spiritual experience. I'm just have these moments where I'm just like, wow, I just I feel kind of properly relaxed for the first. I don't know if I felt relaxed for 20 years ever, really. Even when I said I was relaxed, I was just tense and you know, watching the world around me with threatening, sort of with threatened eyes.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:21

So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:23

So the experience of like coming on my own.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:25

I totally get that. Yeah, that psychoeducation is that huge part of it. I'd say that is that is the grounding almost of uh, you know, they talk about doing a lot of grounding stuff. So like being able to ground yourself in in understanding, you know, how that benefited the leader to make you believe that about yourself, and that it's actually not your own belief, it's a belief that was indoctrinated into you. That's why I think these other things about you know, self-compassion, all of that's really good. You know, Kristen Meth stuff or um integrating these different parts of you affectionate, it's it's good. Um, but at the same time, you have to also just inject some of the things that are just not right. And uh it's just not true. Like, um, yeah, I had a friend who who, you know, in her mid-boys as well, university for like first time going to school, and like anyone else would look at her, she's climbing Mount Everest every day, basically, to actually go into university without even having this any schooling, just some propaganda schooling as a kid, and uh and she ended up for failing uh a test and and she just had kind of a massive meltdown. And you know, she thought I could share this story, so this is not a client, but uh the uh psychologist said, tell me time you felt proud about yourself, you know, in childhood. She couldn't remember a single time. So can you imagine? Like you've never in your life been allowed to feel proud of yourself for doing something good. Then how why would you know how to do that if you've not been modeled that? You've not had like that template for hey, you're good just because you're you, not for what you can do for the group or the community. Like you're good yourself. You should be proud of who you are. Like we're all valuable as human beings, we're alive, we're valuable, we're creating you know, experiences with other people, whether they're voter, they're all part of their journey and part of our journey. So that was such a huge realization for her that she never had that feeling in her life and uh super powerful. And then she sort of realized, you know, that the feet, and she ended up passing with flying colors, and I'm like incredibly proud. But it it's just it's like realizing these things, all of a sudden it's like lift some of that that being so hard on yourself, and uh always looking for the bad and and fear and anxiety about failure and losing, and uh, because it was life-threatening, you know, making mistakes and life-threatening in the way we you know, we were indoctrinated to believe. So everything had this crazy weight and power to it, and it's terrifying and and to realize now that you know, yeah, it could be good and they can be bad, but at the same time, like look at the amazing feats that you've accomplished. You should be bloody proud of yourself. And uh, it's such an important thing to just to get people to sort of understand and realize that those weren't even their own thoughts, they're they're indoctrinated thoughts.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:41

And maybe, and I hope that's a hopeful thing for people listening who are maybe still struggling with this sort of thing, not that we aren't struggling in our own ways too, but just who are maybe haven't had these realizations of before. It is really profound, you know, when you do start to face it a bit as hard as it can be. And you do have moments like that where you, like you say, you you realize something that you had never really considered before. And it opens a doorway that allows you to sort of work forward in some way. And and the fact that I've started to feel much better in the last couple of years has been really surprising to me in a way. I just didn't think I ever I just thought I that was who I was and that's how it was going to stay. So I certainly encourage people who are going through something like this to. I mean, and it can be hard, but you know, if you're listening to this, I guess you probably are looking to to face it in some way. But there is sort of there's definitely light at the end of the tunnel. And, you know, I'm seeing this now that I'm talking to people such as yourself and connecting with people in this community, I've just realized how much hope there is. Um, even though a lot of the stories are very hard and tragic often, there's there's something quite powerful about, especially in our case, being able to turn it into something helpful, you know, take that experience that was quite rough and then talk openly about it, like you say, to sort of diminish that shame, which it's already doing for me. I still have a fair bit of shame around it, but it's is I can feel it lifting. And that loosens you up in some ways mentally to sort of notice these things that you've been thinking that haven't been very helpful in life. And I so that when that as that shame sort of goes away a little bit, I'm starting to see things a lot more clearly, and that's helping me move forward with things.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:17

Oh, I think that's so important. And we have a support group once in mind, but we just meet up and you know, sometimes that we talk about a topic and sometimes it's just fun, and sometimes it's really hard, and you know, it's it's just about sharing those experiences and and so almost seeing yourself through another person's eyes sometimes because you're so hard on yourself, and then um when you hear someone, oh, that makes complete sense, you know. Um, Dr. Levine says trauma is not what happens to you, what happens inside you in the absence of an empathetic witness. So when we're living in that shame and experiences and we can't tell anyone, that's the biggest abuse of the cult is the secrecy, and don't ever tell anyone and keeping because all you're doing is actually keeping the secrets of the perpetrators.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:09

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:10

So that the absence of that empathy and that empathetic witness to our struggles, and that's actually where the trauma comes from.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:19

So as much as yes, we're learning about different things about ourselves and we're learning through other people's journeys, we're actually just being that empathetic witness to each other's experiences. And I think that's the most healing thing we could possibly do actually and people who've been through these things.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:35

I think that's such a beautiful point. Do you have before we finish up, are there any thoughts you have that you would want to give to people who are maybe, you know, in the position that maybe we were when we left these groups and weren't really sure what was going on and what we were doing? Like, what sort of encouragement or advice would you give to people who are dealing with that right now?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:55

Yeah, I think um I mean it happened to you, not because of you. I think just like it's Martin's fault. Like genuinely uh none of that stuff that you went through is is your fault. Um, there's a lot of times a uh moral injury when you left a group that their culture was just so ugly and so abusive. And so you're almost implicated in that abuse. So I think that's where a lot of the shame comes from, not just the things that happened to you, but some things that you've done to other people. Maybe you've recruited people in, or you know, all sorts of things go down in these in these environments that are just toxic.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:36

So I think that sense of that moral injury that shows that you morally didn't agree with that. Like you literally, it was against everything that you stood for, and it was survival. You're doing what you needed to do just to live and survive every day. And um, I mean, maybe you didn't have a gun into your head, but it was literally your social identity, your survival of being in the group, of of not being uh ashamed and shunned and eternal damnation, you know, these are fears, massive fears that that most of us went through. Um there's nothing more terrifying than that. So I think just giving yourself like understanding these processes. I can tell you, like in my therapy sessions, when I tell someone you did exactly what anyone would have done in your situation, like that always results in like tears of just like relief. Like honestly, it is the most powerful thing for most people to get their head around. And I think a lot of the psychology research on you know obedience to authority, that 65% of people would like literally electrocute someone just because they're told to, and that doesn't even look at social processes and group thinking dynamic and social proof. So that just looks at simply an authority figure of telling us to do something. So I think those sort of things can also eliminate some of that sort of guilt and that immoral sort of sense of injury. Yeah. And I just say connect with people. I mean, you know, if you uh if someone uses trying to use it against you, like that is a great gift because then you know that you they're just not people you want in your life. So I think it's just instead of like taking it on as your thing, like put it on them. It's really their thing, and it's actually great. Like, well, thank you for showing me what kind of person you are. I don't actually want to be around people like that, that means someone else's, you know, traumatic experience to gain an upper hand. So I think that's that's really important too, and and just being around those people who normalize it, that supports you, you know, learning what a healthy relationship looks like and healthy attachment, and that can be to humans, but that can also be in a wider sense, the attachment to our bodies, to our sense of time, attachment to the wider world, to our ancestors. You know, there's so much more to it. I think uh our sense of oneness to the whole world, because like the the seclusion is really what kills us, and the sense of otherness is another biggest risk. So I think that that attachment and connection is is really important as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:24

Yeah, yeah. No, that's beautiful. I couldn't agree with all of that more. And I think, you know, you touch on a point about, you know, how significant things are when you're in this cult and you feel like there's a doomsday coming, you feel like the end of the world's gonna happen in your lifetime, and that has eternal consequences, which are probably hell for a very, very long time if you don't do well enough. And then to come back to a place where you appreciate life for what it is, and uh you just mentioned having a better relationship with time, you know, just and what we have now and what um how beautiful that can be uh in the moment and not having to worry about this illusory future that we were chained to um and driven by in so many ways. Yeah, Maria, I've I've loved chatting to you. This has been awesome. Thank you so much. I mean, I think I think these conversations, you know, I hope will be very useful. And I think just having these sort of loose chats about the experience and is um, you know, I'm sure going to be interesting to people. And I hope to people who are listening who haven't been in a cult. And I'm sure sometimes this stuff sounds very strange, especially the things that are believed at the time. And but I hope it's helped kind of uh give you an insight into, you know, how reasonably we can be sort of persuaded into believing things that we don't necessarily believe in ourselves that are against our values, and especially when we're young and and how hard it is to step away from that, especially when we don't have social supports around us otherwise, whether that's being a child that's born into a group or being living overseas and investing in that group with no family and friends around you. It is something that I think any human being could potentially experience if they were put in that circumstance. And some of us have just been I don't know if unlucky is too strong a word, but unlucky to be uh in that situation.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:08

Yeah, I'm sure. In the transitional period, I think that's the most, it's not really about the person's character, it's just the more in the transitional period in their life, and then just coming across the wrong place. So I think that's where a lot of the stigma sort of needs to be lifted. That just like a domestic violence relationship, it doesn't discriminate, you know. Anyone can fall prey to the love farming and the sense of community and the thing, and then the social proof is we just do what other people are doing around us. So uh absolutely it's such an important message to get out there because those people who think they could never do it are the ones that are probably the most at risk.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:49

Yeah, yeah, that's true. Maria, this has been awesome. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:55

It's good to chat, it's just I always sort of forget that I'm really doing a podcast when I'm having these conversations because it's just I think it's good because you're actually like a real human being. Um, I actually really appreciated your point. Oh, great thoughts. I think you can get like um an vulnerability hangover. I always get that when I share a little bit about myself. But um the quote when I said, you know, you can either be completely fucked up or completely okay. That's the culty way of thinking, but actually we are fucked up and we're okay. And then after I was like, oh wow, the psychologist say back on stage. And I was like, I was so like so like beating myself up. And then I had like a dozen people come up to me, that's so powerful. Thank you. That's my tagline. I'm fucked up and I'm okay. We are fucked up. So, like sometimes something you share that you think is kind of stupid could be completely change someone else's life trajectory and and make a massive shift along. Yeah, so um, yeah, your insights are incredibly powerful and also kind of helped give me a little bit of um forgiveness for my mum and crazy shit she did so.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:08

Yeah, of course. You know, I think about that too, you know, entering psychology soon and the fact that I'm openly talking about all this stuff, you know, I have some nerves around that, but I just value this sort of authenticity so much. And I just I'm so tired of pretending And it's actually life-saving.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:25

I I believe I believe that I truly believe that as well. But yeah, so lovely. I I I want to be friends as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:34

Please. I mean, it honestly, this is this is connecting with all of you guys has been so much more profound than I expected it to be. I'm just so glad I'm doing it, even for that reason alone. So please, absolutely, we'd love to keep in touch. So great to chat with Maria. It's so comforting to have such uh easy understanding about the cult experience with others. I I wish I'd done all these interviews years ago. I hope you found the conversation as interesting as I did, some really great insights into post-cult psychology. So much so that I think I might leave it there for today. So thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time. Thanks to Neil Sutherland for producing and the band PVT for the music. For extra content and updates, please visit us at aftercultpod.com or on Instagram at aftercultpod.