Episode 19 with Guest Dr. Benjamin Zeller

In this episode of My Wife Joined a Cult, Dr. Benjamin Zeller, an expert on new religious movements, dives deep into the complexities of cults and new religious movements. He shares his insights on the blurred lines between new religions and cults, focusing on how groups form around charismatic leaders and how the term “cult” often carries negative connotations. Zeller’s expertise provides a nuanced view of why people join such movements, highlighting the emotional, spiritual, and psychological factors at play.

Guest Bio: Dr. Benjamin Zeller is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Religion at Lake Forest College, specializing in new religious movements, religion and science, and American religious history. He is known for his research on groups like Heaven’s Gate and the interaction between religion and popular culture. His work offers a balanced academic perspective on the motivations behind why people join new religious movements and the societal responses to these groups.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Yeah, Hi, everybody, welcome to my wife joined a cult.
We have guests now, which is great to start it
off as me talking about my wife joining a cult
and all the difficulties to come with it. Now it's
time to bring in the experts. And this is to
help all of us.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
That's what this is.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
To be of service, not about me being a bitter
ex husband or worried about what's going on, which I
am continue to be. But let's find out more about cults.
And we have a guest now. I'm very excited to
have him, doctor Benjamin Zeller. He's a professor of chair
and he's a chair of the Department of Religion at
Lake Forest College, which is a private liberal arts college

(00:43):
outside of Chicago.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Right, correct, All, correct, there, I'm going to call you, Ben.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
We're already we know each other for one minute.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
We're good. Should I call you? Should call you, Craig,
call me Shoe if you want.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
All right, A lot of people I have a nicknamed
Shoe because of Shoemaker obviously, and a lot of people
call me that.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
You call me Craig, I'll call your shoe. I'll call
your shoe. Do you ever get Zell when you were
growing up. Some of my students call me Zell.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Do they really Well, now they have an app for it.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
There we go, Yeah, the Zell exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
So well as you can tell maybe you can tell this.
I like to have fun with it. It is a
serious subject, but I take laughter seriously, and I imagine
you do as well. You're already smiling, and you know,
let's get into this. I'm so excited to have you
because you you can really give me some more insight
into what I saw you study and tell me correct

(01:35):
me if I'm wrong. It's like the new religions that
have happened and the new spiritual practices and things like
that are that are couched in different ways that seem
like they're really good for people that sometimes they're not.
And so that is what your area of expertise is
in correct, correct?

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah? Yeah, So I studied new religious movements and so
these overlap if you did like a ven diagram with
like the cults and new religious moves, And it depends
what you asked, but there's certainly an overlap there. Scholars
of new religions, we don't tend to use the word
cult when we're studying the groups we're studying, even if
they are a group which we would say is a
profoundly horrible group. So for example, the typical one you'd

(02:14):
use an example would be like People's Temple or Jones Tone,
which resulted in mass murder. Although I certainly think it
is a bad group, and I think the leader was
a bad person, I don't call it a cult because
I don't want to dehumanize the members, many of whom
lost their lives in murder or suicide. So by calling
it a cult, I mean automatically culled. It almost by
definition means that it's that it's a bad group, which

(02:37):
it may be, but I don't want to start there.
I might end up there.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Well, I'd like to discuss that. You say cult is
it's kind of construed as a bad word, but is
it really? What does the mean? What is the meaning
of cult? I believe it's part of culture and it's
a derivative of that which would not be a bad thing,
would not be a bad group. Obviously, we associate the
word because there's so many examples of this cultish activity,

(03:04):
or maybe even of the cult. So it's yeah, I
understand what you're saying, but I also want to challenge
it a little bit. Is is it necessarily could it
be necessary to call it that for what it is
to kind of enlighten people or wake them up to
maybe they're part of something that's more of like a cult.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
I would argue there was an historical transformation sort of
in the seventies when you had sort of the Great
Cult Scare with groups like Jonestown, with the People's Temple,
other groups as well, like the Hari Krishnas, the Scientologists,
the Moonies, the the Family, or the Children of God
as they were called, all sorts of groups which were
deeply threatening and deeply upsetting, and some of them really
did horrible things, some of which were basically harmless or

(03:46):
were harmless to some members but harmful to others. So
because of this, because of the news coverage and the
actual events which occurred, and then this gets repeated in
the nineties with Heaven's Gates and the Branch Davidians and such,
the term cult comes to become equated with all sorts
of bad stuff. So that's I think the way it's

(04:08):
if a new group were forming which fits within the
same sort of category, it inmediately would get sort of
that connotation. So, but the word cult didn't used to
have a negative connotation. I think early twentieth century it
certainly didn't. Sociologists still sometimes use it in sort of
a formal, a technical sense without a negative connotation. The

(04:28):
thing is that it's sort of like the formal definition
of a cult doesn't actually match the way we use it.
So if you're asking me to formally define it, it
means sort of a group that coheres around one thing,
but it with sort of a loose, loose social boundary.
So think like a cult of personality, like you know,
Swifties or something like that. That's like the classic model

(04:49):
of cult. It was like like the cult of the
virgin marry or something. You did other stuff too, It
wasn't your main thing. We didn't actually mean that when
we say called, we don't mean most of us don't release.
Although there's all sorts interesting overlaps between you know, I'm
to be clear, I'm not saying Swifties are part of
a cult, But there's all sorts of interesting overlaps between
fandoms and cults and cultures and subcultures, political parties, and

(05:13):
it gets super fascinating.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
It is fascinating it's also bringing me to the point
of I'm actually exploring now even talking to you, really
what is that about? And you did say something about
a group, But I do think that one definition is
it has a leader.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
Oh yes, that's that's my.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Exploration, subtle exploration into this is someone who's deified, canonized,
And actually that's the case where that leader they give
everything over to that leader. I can't even think of
an example of a cult that doesn't have that, even

(05:51):
if it's Tailor's swift, you know what I mean it
and it is fandom. I love to use that term
because it's basically that's what it is. I know in
the case with my ex wife, she's a fan of
this leader who leads women into getting out of their marriages,
sovereign freedom, all these terminologies and which we're going to

(06:11):
get to if it's semi spiritual practices or whatever they
define it however they want to define it, which are
ever changing. By the way, it's all theoretical. Yeah, I
always say, there's no history to this, there's no proven
history to all.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Of your Well, so I think you're right that pretty
much every group has a has a leader, and it's
usually a charismatic leader. Now you can't have older groups
whose founder is dead and then sort of there there's
no one, like there's a different leader. Even so, for example,
I'm trying to think of any movement that doesn't have

(06:45):
a leader. I mean, you can't have a functional group
without someone in charge. I mean, one could imagine it.
I'm unaware of any groups that have I'll give you
we'll have no one in charge. I'll give you one.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
I've discussed this to give you one, and I'm absolutely
certain that it's not a cult. But it's been called
a cult Alcoholics Anonymous. Oh yeah, yeah, literally literally. In
part of the preamble is we are with trusted service,
We do not govern. There are no leaders, there are
no does or fees for membership. All that makes them
not a cult. But people will say that it is.

(07:18):
But there's no one recruiting. There's no one saying give
me some money.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
Here you go.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
It's all suggestive only and so on. So I think,
I you know, I think sure the one piece of
little research that I've done that would define them not
as a cult.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
I suppose if you want to talk about like social
movements too, you could do that as well. So people
who are into like crystal healing, there's no single crystal
healer who like in charge of the whole group. But
there's lots of different crystal healer to disagree with each other,
but crystal healing as a whole, you could say, I mean,
I don't want to say things are cults because it
implies it's bad. I don't think crystal healing is necessarily bad. No.

(07:54):
I think someone who like doesn't go to like normal
medical treatment and instead goes to crystals and ends up
hurting themselves. I think that's personally think that's bad. But
this is I don't want to marriage the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, it's really interesting where we're going with this. As
I'm responding, my thought is that these individuals bastardize these things.
They're probably wonderful at its roots. As a matter of fact,
religions wonderful at its root roots. I mean, all of
these things they get the leader though that it does

(08:24):
the subgroups of Crystal's multi level marketing, and then everybody
thinks that all multi level marketing are a bunch of cults.
Not certainly to your point. Not. You know, as a
matter of fact, it's great for some people. They made
a lot of money and a lot of community and
things like that, and all of these even religions I know,
for instance, scientology.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
You mentioned that earlier, and they certainly have a bad rap.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
I was talking about this yesterday. This is I'm not
kidding bed. I hung out with when I moved to
Hollywood about ten major major scientologists, including Lisa Presley was
a good friend, el Roy On Hubbard's son Arthur. None
of them ever recruited me. I was kind of insulted.
I called one of them recently. I said, hey, man,
how come you guys never came on to me. But again,

(09:10):
it's the people within the structure. Like obviously there's people
that are exposing the bad apples. That's the problem. There's
bad apples with egos that deemed themselves.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
I think you're entirely right. And now I will say
I I know several scientolgists as well. Now I'm not
I'm not you know, a famous student. So people I
know them are like the average scientologists, but of them
are deeply dedicated to like doing good stuff in the
world that that that group is often held up as
sort of the poster child of you know, of of
of cultum, and most of the scientologists I know are
you know, average people. Again, there there are always exceptions.

(09:46):
There's both bad apples and there's also groups that have
dangerous ideologies. So I mean there are actual movements that
espouse you know, racism and things like that. Uh, you know,
groups that that that advocate terrorism, and so clearly there's
like bad theologies as well as bad actors. But by
and largement most most people are not part of such groups.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
But even then they believe that they're doing good, they're
doing well.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
That's what's interesting. Yeah, I mean, it's be honest, Yeah,
it is one of the basic models we have for
studying conversion to such groups. Why people would would join me?
So basically, I mean, why would anyone join a cult
is one of the questions people often have, right, I
love that. Yes, the answer is typically because it does
something for them. I mean there are a few exceptions,
if you're raised in the group, if you're you know,

(10:32):
kidnapped or something. But for the vast majority of people,
it does something for them which makes sense to them outside.
It often doesn't make sense to those of us who
are family or loved ones, or or just observers. It
doesn't necessarily need to be rational. It can be rational,
but it's often emotional. It's often spiritual. But a person
who says I joined this group because it made me

(10:53):
feel whole, or it gave me a sense of community,
or it made me feel as if I could recover
from from the traumaville, if those are all reasons. Some
people join groups because it makes them feel good, because
it makes other people bad. I mean, so if you
join a group which says you're part of the stage
and everyone else is damned, then that offers a certain
sort of appeal to many people and not everyone. And then,
of course they're individuals who've suffered a lot in their

(11:15):
life and this group tells them how to in their
minds sort of deal with it and feel better. And
that can be very positive to them, but it could
also be very manipulative if you're looking at it from
the outside. You know, if you have victimize people.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
And they pray upon these they prey upon these vulnerabilities,
They pray upon people who haven't found their purpose, somebody
who's wounded and hasn't dealt with their wounds properly.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
Which that's the other thing that.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
Calls to is where are the proper channels for dealing
with this, like mental health even where you know what
I mean, who's the expert on that, who's the expert
on dealing with your specific trauma? I mean, it's really
difficult out there right now. I'm finding this too, but
there's no solutions, very few solutions.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
And on different groups will appeal to different people too,
because everyone has a different experience and the sort of
person who would join a group with sort of like
a new age focus on self actualization, it's it's not
the same person who would join a fundamentalist group, which
would say, you know, read the Bible and you know
the end of the world is coming. We might call
them both cults, but they're they're really They work differently

(12:21):
and they attract a different sort of person.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Well, I guess there's levels that you could say, but
it doesn't mean that they're not under the same heading.
I wonder if we could come up with a different
word today for cult. Well, I mean so that the
connotations that come up with it.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
That's what we've been trying, and as scholars, we use
this term new religious movements, but it's messy because some
of them aren't new and some are that religious and
some of them aren't movements. But we know what we're
talking about. It's like that, who is the Supreme Court
justice to talk about pornography? I know when I see it, right,
So I know the groups when when I know the
sort of groups we're talking about. But it's really hard
to have a single definition to encompass them all. Some

(12:56):
of the shared commonalities you talked about sort of a
charismatic leader idea that people are willing to invest huge
amounts of themselves in the group, either financially or psychologically
or spiritually. Typically, these groups what we would call secretarian.
They're sort of which means they split off, so they
see themselves as special and everyone else as sort of

(13:16):
your other in or you're out, you're saved or you're damned,
you're right or you're wrong. Now, the problem is we
see this in lots of other you know things too,
like politics. I mean, so I'm wary of crafting an
approach to cult where like pretty much everyone's part of it,
it doesn't mean anything.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
I'm kind of proud that I'm not though, you know
what I mean. I made different groups and things like that,
But I first of all, I don't really want to
be in a group necessarily. I don't want them tell
me what to do. I like the self actualization. I
like self examination. I love to explore my insides. Even
That's why I have you here, is to give me

(13:54):
other perspective and other choices and other solutions and other
path ways to take and methodologies to take to get
to my own personal well being. But this is also
about other people listening to your suggestions to not be
a part of something that could be destructive. I always
one of the things I've said before is no one

(14:15):
ever admits they're in a cult. I mean, I shouldn't
say no one, but very few people say I'm in.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
A cult unless it's in jest or if it's an
act of sort of like satire. I mean that there
are a few groups say we're a cult, but then
it's it's usually also a critique of like, oh, you're
all on a cult because we're in a cult. But
you're right if they're being serious and not in jest.
No one, even the members of these groups. So I
had a journal on the study of these groups, and
we had a scholar who did research on ex members

(14:43):
of Osham Rico that was the group in Japan with
that horrible subway gas attack killed a lot of people.
But there are a lot of ex members, and even
those ex members don't think about it as being that
they were part of a cult. I mean, there's the
charismatic leaders is gone, the group is gone. I mean
the group was made illegal, they were anyone who was
involved was arrested. But the people who are part of
it still don't see it as a cult. They see

(15:04):
it maybe as a mistake, but they gained some sort
of spiritual satisfaction from it. And that's if you're outside
of the group. Very weird.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, well, we always hear about when they take actions
that have impact on our world, with negative actions, killing
and things like that. That's how it does get the
bad name. So where's the good name that we can
call whatever a group is that has maybe has well,
I'm going to take it back. Every one of them

(15:33):
has good intentions. They all believe that they're doing something
good for the world. Yeah, they're convinced. One of the
things that I studied with Manson one of the things
that he did and my dad was a cult leader.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
By the way, you mentioned that in the prologus. So
I listened to the first few episodes of the podcast,
and I remember you mentioned.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
That, Yeah, and so I kind of have this other
insight and experience into this. And one of the things
I have noticed is man's.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
And my dad.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
Hate to use them in the same sentence, but I
will for lack of other knowledge. But they prey upon
the vulnerability of women and their relationship with their father,
and they'll almost like predicted, Hey, you have a problem
with your dad.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
Don't you. Oh, yeah, you're right. How'd you do that? Magician?
You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (16:22):
And that's how they lure them in. And then other
people pray upon vulnerabilities of perhaps husband, perhaps mother, whatever
it is they bring. They fulfill those needs that people
aren't willing to go to another discovery path with, and
they will help them along with that path and convince

(16:42):
them that they are the answer.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, yeah, No, it's disproportionately women, but men too. There
was a great documentary done on the Source Family, which
was a big group in the seventies. I don't know
if you've seen this, this documentary. I think it's just
called the Source Family. This was a group with sort
of a central daddy, figure, and I mean they actually
there's a quote from where he says, I'm the dady
you've always wanted, you know, I'm the dad you've always wanted.

(17:04):
So yes, disproportionately. And he was having sex with all
the women, and there was all sorts of horrible stuff
going on. But even for the for the men who
are part of the group, this was the father figure
they wanted. This guy knew karate and he was he
could like commune with commune with God. And he said,
it was okay, Tomcus most most pot as you want it.
I mean he was. He was the cool dad that
they wanted. So, I mean, is it victimization. He's clearly

(17:26):
in some cases it is. In other cases it looks
like a sort of self therapy, a person who grows
up in a sort of a horrible situation and is
looking for that aware of that. I'm not a therapist,
so I couldn't. I'm not really good at drawing the
line where clearly some cases are explicitly victimized and we
own children and things like that. Others look like consenting
adults who have made some very maybe bad choices in

(17:48):
their lives and have gotten into groups which satisfy their
psychological needs, and they really probably ought to have gone
and seen a therapist instead.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
But we're how much how much do you think I
can attribute? What I observation is that it's mental illness. Also,
mental illness is not being dealt with properly. I'm talking
about the people that get into these things that empower
other people to dictate how they operate, how they feel.
I think it's just it's a mental illness, it's not

(18:21):
being addressed. What do you think about that?

Speaker 2 (18:23):
It could be? I mean again, I want to make
clear I'm not a therapist. I don't have any sort
of therapeutic background, but it certainly could be, particularly if
we're talking about the sort of mental illness like depression
and anxiety and a lot of people face if you
don't have good medical insurance coverage, and if you don't
have a therapist, you can go to and a group says,
come and chant our mantras, or use our our prayer technique,

(18:46):
or study our tacks that will make you feel better.
It makes you feel better, Well, there's a therapy. And
you know, if you're a person who is feels if
you don't belong in the world, you know the the
group I studied and read a book about having Skate,
which was the group with the mass suicide nineteen ninety
seven with the comet and everything. It's a comet overhead
right now, actually apropos. But they yeah, there's a this

(19:10):
this week, there's a some I forget the name of
it's it's got a Chinese name of some sort. It's
a big comet. Read the news. But anyway, So the
group I studied in matheinety seven, the people who joined
Heaven's Skate felt like they didn't belong in this world.
They literally thought that they were alien, and they join
a group which tells them, yeah, you're right, you're an alien.
You don't belong in this world, you're an extraterrestrial. That

(19:32):
that is effectively a form of self therapy. Now, I
don't endorse suicide, and I think and I wish the
suicides had not happened, but for them that was a
therapeutic act which.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
They're looking at as their pathway to enlightenment. This is
where they were.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
Yeah, that's really why I study this because I've always
been struck by why do people do things which look
insane from the outside, but it's totally saying to them
you mentioned earlier, all of these groups think they're doing
the right thing, and that to me is what is
so fascinating. Even a person who wants to, you know,
drop nerve gas in the subway in Tokyo thinks he's

(20:08):
doing it to save the world. Bresh, Davidians, that are
common case we bring up right, So David Koresh and
Waco this in nineteen nineties. They thought that they were
doing the right thing. They were ushering in the end
of the world. They thought they were good Christians, and
the outside said what do you what are you doing?

Speaker 1 (20:27):
Andresh was having sex with them as well, by the way,
it was charismatic leaders they have multiple partners or polyamorous
and all that kind of stuffy. They tailor it to
fit their needs.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
And ego.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
Ego is a big part of this as well, wouldn't
you say you think so? Is to me, my observation
is that ego is such a force. And ego, I'm
sure you've heard the term edging God out. And because
you're not going to a higher source, you're going to
your mental source, You're going.

Speaker 2 (20:59):
To a source of ego that's fed That's the other.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
Commonality I find is the leaders that bring them in,
they feed them the food that they need or they
think that they need. That's praise, adulation, connection, all of
these things. And they start bandying about these terms. They
keep them their ego fed.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
Yeah, well you're you're you're playing on two things there.
One is the ego of the leader, right, which it's
whether you believe it or not. I mean, it's a
narcissistic claim to claim your God or you can speak
for God or things like that. Now, I think some
of the people actually believe it, some are cloly Charlatan's
and somewhere in the middle, and we don't know, right,
but the claim you speak for God or our God

(21:41):
is an extreme claim. But then there's this weird interplay
between leaders and members because the members are made to
sort of feel empowered by that. Yes, people who join
these groups to get to hang out with God is
a pretty cool thing, right, you know, there's there's an
appeal to that. There. There are some people who really

(22:01):
join groups because they ultimately like hate themselves and they
want to sort of diminish themselves. But most people actually
want to feel good about themselves. So you join a
group not because it makes you feel bad, but because
it makes you feel good, you get something out of it,
and that maybe you get to ride in the coattails
of someone who's God or who's speaking for God or
the Spirit or the Goddess or whatever else you believe in. Right,

(22:22):
So now not, I don't want to paint too proud
of a Brusha's all sorts of new religions are called
groups which don't operate this way. But for the sort
of groups we're thinking about with a sort of profoundly powerful,
charismatic leader at the center, this certainly looks like it.

Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah, and they're like spitballing as they go along to
I've watched the in my case with my ex wife
and her leader.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
I've observed the switch.

Speaker 1 (22:47):
And they are committed to whatever the switch is, which
is good, complete hypocrisy to what they had initially come
out with. It's all theoretical, it's all. It's just as
they go.

Speaker 2 (22:58):
But what do you mean about the switch? You mean,
like in what they believe or what they I'll tell
you what one of them is.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
This This leader comes out a few years ago my
ex wife went away with her and she announces on Facebook.
I had a one night's I snuck out of my room.
My wife was with her in Australia or what else
was going on, and it's she was married at the time.
She's oh, and this man had power over me and
I had this one night stand and he was filling
me my vagina.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
All this this unbelieved for kids to read, by the way.
So then so.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
It's basically, okay, mama's get your sovereign freedom from the men,
which my ex did. Now it's let's get a man
who dominates us. That's the new that's the new twist.
Now let's get a man who would kink and sato masochism.
This is what we need, ladies. We need to still
have our freedom and all this, but we need this man.

(23:49):
And here's here's how we need the man. It's a
complete reversal. It's it does. But that's what they can
do because they have no doctrine, they have no nothing
to go on from history. It's all made up on
the fly. They're paving the road as they go.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
I suspect, without knowing the group, that the logic behind
it is probably that of empowerment. In some way. It
was empowering to free yourself and then it's empowering in
some way itself. I would guess that that that's the
logic because people would Ultimately, I think people would would
leave if it's a total break. But on the other hand,
I mean, again, I don't know this group. But when

(24:24):
when people are already involved with a community or with
a leader, they're getting something out of it, and it
may not be related to the content and may be
more related to the feeling they get. Right. Sometimes sometimes
the content can entirely change. It doesn't matter though. If
you feel like I'm part of this group, it's what
I it's what I'm into a community or from the leader,
then it does matter less.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
Even the products change. They went from soap to Guiding
Mothers to the Top of my Head to water systems
to Dildo's is one of the latest so orgasms they're selling.
There's actually a documentary called orgasm Inc. But kind of
this cult, that's a lot of people. I wouldn't mind

(25:06):
it be in the note. But anyway, but I want
to ask you this question that I've asked myself, and
I have my own theories, but nobody wants to hear
from me anymore. I've been had twenty episodes in Let's
hear yours the difference between spirituality and religion.

Speaker 2 (25:20):
Oh, it's a great one, yeah, because my students bring
that up all the time. I'm a college teacher, so
I teach religion classes. So that's on the one hand,
they're basically the same. It's really hard to distinguish. People
mean though, often is when they say spiritual but not religious,
is they mean it's not institutionally anchored. Spirituality is more individualistic. Now,

(25:43):
the fact of the matter is we get our spirituality
from something from a website or a book or a
person or you know, something like that. So it's always
anchored somehow, but the authority is seen as within the self.
So spirituality is self self religion in a certain way,
whereas really religion is typically taken as institutional or textual.

(26:03):
You know, you're part of a church, you're part of
a synagogue, you're part of a temple. I think it's
sort of a fuzzy line because a group which says
that they're spiritual, but they all live in a commune
and follow what a leader says, that is functionally the
same thing as what we're going to call religion. In
terms of sort of their structure, so it's sort of fuzzy,

(26:24):
but the way people use it is actually interesting to me.
If a person says I'm spiritual as supposed to think
of religious, that often means they they identify sort of
individualism or individual choice or openness as important to them,
because that's another idea too. So I was talking socially before,
but sort of ideologically or theologically, religions typically have they

(26:45):
have a dogma or a doctrine. I mean that those
are not words people like to use. But you're supposed
to believe something. Right, you're a Christian who doesn't believe
in Jesus, you probably aren't really a Christian. Right. You're
a Jew, doesn't you're not in the Torah, you're probably
not really a Jew. Right. So there's a lines were right,
Whereas spirituality is seen as open in a certain way.
So a person says I'm a spiritual might just mean

(27:05):
they're not. They don't want to buy into a particular
doctrinal set of assumptions, and they might be doing the
same thing. I mean, they might still be reading the
Bible or the Dora or praying, but they they don't
want to say, you know, I'm I'm a blank because
being a blank means that you've ascribed to that doctrine
or that dogma. And actually throw a third thing out too,

(27:26):
just the way that we use the terms. I mean,
religion has gotten sort of smeared as being you know,
we think of like you know, televangelists and you know,
like politics and all this stuff like that, which I mean,
who wants to be associate with that? Right, which is
cultish as well? Yeah, I mean that's that's actually interesting.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
I guess on the wrote that he wrote the book
of the Cult of Trump.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
Well, that that's it. I was about to allude to that.
So I think Steve Hastin has a book. I think
about that as well. Yeah, so Hastin, actually we would
probably disagree on a lot of things, but I will
agree with him that he he's honestly interesting there. So,
I mean, he and I would really disagree on the
question of brainwashing, for example, but I absolutely think he's
out something interesting thinking about sort of politics and what

(28:10):
we traditionally thought of as cults. Right, politics does something
So the cult of Trump or the cult of Dei,
or wocism or sort of the there's different sort of
political cults, if you want to use that word. I'm
always wary because I don't want to dehumanize the members,
even if I happen to disagree with him, I want

(28:31):
to sort of, I don't want to they're part of
a group just because they're like diluted and wrong, like
they might have a very good reason for voting or
believing or group, and I don't believe you.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
I'm glad you said that. That's related to my spiritual practice,
if you will, is the individual in me, the spirit
in me, the divine you know essence that I.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Am, that we all are right.

Speaker 1 (28:53):
That that informed me to leave my left cult, if
you will. But also now, because I didn't like the
intolerance and the lack of compassion, lack of empathy for
the troulta of the coccult of what mag or whatever
you want to call it. I see all this attack
method that's not spiritual to me. So I had to
leave that group right to go to this middle space,

(29:17):
this centered mindful space, which I do consider spiritual in
practice because it's a practice, and I have to practice
this tolerance all the time, the mindfulness, consciousness all the
time to go okay, I don't think the answer is
to attack them, because now you are wrong. If you will,
you're you're not being the person that you want them

(29:38):
to be. Yeah, you want them to be tolerant, but
you're being tolerant. So I'm digging this space. But I
do think it is a spiritual place because I'm not
led by a religion to this conclusion of I got
to step aside, step back and into me and if
I think, if you will, I think that this is
a kind of a way that we should probably go

(29:59):
in these directions of it gets its self actualization and
you don't where you look at all of it. So
now I'm able to know the right by the way,
which I never would imagine this before.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
I actually went to a convention.

Speaker 1 (30:12):
Where there's all these people I oppose they were by enemies,
there were might defined enemies. I'm going, Wow, they've got
some interesting points that they're making, some interesting conclusions and assertions,
and I was fascinated by it and I really dig it.
So now I already know my lefties. That's me for years,
but now I'm getting to know this and it's interesting.

(30:33):
But they're both in my version is I was in
a cult. If I was in that attacking I'm right,
you're wrong. You know, here's I'm going to tell you
all the reasons that you're not. So I think that
we could all step back and kind of be in
this spirit, this true spirit, the truth of who we
truly are.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
It play and all of that. There's sort of a
sense of assuredness. The idea that I'm right and you're
wrong is often with what sort of underneath that right?
And I get sometimes really about like fundamental and i'm
when it's religious. I mean that clearly works, But I mean,
but I see that as sort of this this idea
that there is a bedrock assumption that my position is

(31:11):
unchangeable and correct, and if you don't agree with me,
something is wrong with you. Now Here's the thing. In
some ways we're all party to that, right, we all
have bedrock assumptions. Yeah, and bias exactly. Yes. So I
mean it's it's I realized the totally subjective, like I

(31:32):
stand on right, I mean mine, if I had to
write mine down, it would probably have to do with
things like I don't know, tolerance or things like that.
But I mean, do you if fundamentally like tolerance is
your bedrock assumption. And how is that different in some
ways than a fundamental assumption that that everyone should be
like you? I mean, which is which the opposite right?
I'd like to say it is different, but I recognize,

(31:54):
I recognize the same psychological logic as at play right,
where my position must be right and yours must be wrong.
At the end of the day, we all still have
to decide what group you're gonna be part of, who
you're gonna hang out with, who you're gonna vote for,
what you're gonna believe. At the end of the day.
You still have to make those decisions.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
Yeah, you do, but to be informed out of these
echo chambers, which, by the way, a cult is an
echo chamber. But them, just like the news is, if
you go to a certain news source, that's your echo chamber.
If you go search for these confirmation biases, then you're
going to get in form I was talking to some
of the other days. She said, Oh, I'm gonna leave

(32:30):
the country for a little while because of the unrest
and all this stuff. And she has a certain take,
and she says, well, and it was all about what
she was fed. So they'll go to what about storming
the Capitol. Okay, so that's their echo chamber. But I'm saying,
you know what, the people who storm the capitol, they
have their own take on why they storm the capitol

(32:50):
and all of that. You see what I mean. Everybody
can get these echo chambers that feed them the information
that keeps an enemy defined, they obsessed, separate. So spirituality
to me is wholeness, wellness, a community. That's what I
believe spirituality to be, and that has no leader. That's

(33:10):
just my own light that's being released.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
One of the sort of standard interpretations for groups, which
we're gonna call cult sort of cult like groups, is
that they hand to you what you need to do
and believe on a silver platter, basically telling you what's right,
and you don't need to effectively think for yourself. And
this is a you know, within a group, you would
never talk to this, right, but this is one of
the models. It works for some people. I mean, I'm

(33:37):
wary of applying it broadly because I've met members of
many new religious movements and they are people who are
critical and self reflective and open and often say, but
I've chosen this, I think this is right, and they
have very good reasons why it makes sense to them. However,
I understand sort of on a psychological level, the power
of being part of a group, which says you don't
need to decide what's right, this is the one right

(33:59):
way to be, because that is it's certainly it's it
helps to navigate the complexities of our world. Right to
be able to be told this is the one right
way to be and every other way is wrong. We
see that in the groups we're gonna call cults, but
again we see that in lots of other things too,
in religions, in politics, again, in subcultures. You can even

(34:20):
see it in like sports fandoms. Right, I mean you know,
if you're you're a fan of one group, you would
never even considered being fan of another group, right, it's
just and why simply because it is.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
Turned into violence as well, especially English soccer.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
Oh yeah, I mean that's English socers. We can think
of all sorts of examples of things which look like
religion but aren't really religion, but English socer, I mean
Premier League, it's absolutely a good example. Or yeah, I
mean we have probably some American examples too. I think
hockey fans maybe who get really into it and maybe
are you kidding me?

Speaker 1 (34:52):
Football fans? You talked, I'm from Philadelphia. Do you mention
Dallas Cowboys?

Speaker 2 (34:56):
Oh? Yeah, they'll hang them in effigy. You know.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
I'm went to a game once they had a former
Eagle hung in effigy with his jersey on because he
went to the Cowboys.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
He was the weren't the Eagles fans wants who beat
up Santa Claus or something one year because your team
was all right? All right, yeah, I think I remember that.
That's our cult. We've got that reputation. Well, you know,
I will say, you know, I'm a I'm a Packers fan,
so I wear a star fum cheese in my head.
So that's equally ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
Right, But my friend is your new kicker by the way,
as of really okay, Brandon mcmahonus, Yes.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
Let's hope. Let's hope he does well because our last
few have not is that he's a great kicker. Yeah, well,
Norvis and who he just we just caught we had
we were just really the last few years of not
being good for kickers for the Packers.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
So let's see, really, well, you've done good on this one.
He happened and he's a really good foot.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
Yeah good.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
And but he went to he went to the same college.
I went to Temple University, Temple.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
I taught at Temple for a while. You did, not,
I did. I taught for a couple of years part
time at Temple. You got the hell out of there though.
The reason, well, I was just part I was just
part time. But yeah, I lived there, right, It wasn't
a zoom. I lived. I lived in Jersey.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
Oh yeah, see, you don't want to. I lived on
the corner of crack and eight ball, you know what
I mean. So it's crack.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
I took this up to and I lived up in Jersey.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
Oh nice, that's what That's what people do, you know.
But it was it was a It was a great
university for me. And by the way, speaking of that,
that was the first time I was ever approached by
a cult resisting.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
On campus.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
Yeah, the hardy Christnas. And I was vulnerable. I went
to the I went to if. I followed this beautiful woman.
H Hassen talks about this as well. The same thing
happened him when he was in college. And I followed,
go ahead, tell me where we're going. Where you're vulnerable
you're wanting, You're wanting some sort of a connection with

(36:50):
especially the opposite sex, so they use sex. And the
other thing I was going to say is shame. I
think Brenee Brown talks about shame as a is a
room of so many I've seen the shame. I remember
when my ex she was in another cult and then
she was in a semi cult. I watched her try
to get out of those and the shame that they

(37:11):
put upon her.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
She couldn't leave.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
She said, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna leave, and then
she would come back from the zoom and they had
shamed her right back into it. And do you so,
what's your what's your experience with that or your studies?
What does it say about that use of shame to
keep you in.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
The Yeah, well, I'll go back to one of the
things you said earlier, which I comment on the use
of sexuality or sex for acruitment. The sort of Christine
example that would be the Children of God and their
model of flirty fishing, where they literally said to the
female members, use your sexuality, sleep with people to bring
them into the group, because they believed that would to
save their souls was worth it. The hard Christians you

(37:50):
ran into. They were they were celibate, they weren't going
to sleep with you, but they maybe flirt a little
bit to get you at the shop, the use of
they might have been moonies. I get them all mixed up. Well,
well you didn't join. That's interesting, So I don't know
whatever whatever you went to, and it obviously failed.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
I've never joined. I've never I have a hard time
joining any group I am. So I'm actually joining a
group this weekend. I'm to be honest with you, I'm
joining a group because I really have a difficult time.
I've powered I'll tell you what it is. I've empowered
women my whole life, right, and I've taken this feminine perspective,
my entire life. And now I'm examining, going, where did

(38:26):
that get you? Disrespected? Disdain that comes to comes my direction,
and we'll look at all the theft that she's done
and the abuse and all that. That's where it got
me is being this really sensitive feminist man, and it
has got me into this place where go. I always
thought it was women who had the sensitivity that I
could speak to vulnerably and so on, So here I

(38:48):
am vulnerable attacks stolen from all of these the deception
beyond belief that's been the result. So I've been compelled
to say, why not speak to men? So I joining
this men's group, and by the way, and by the way,
to be honest with you, between you and me, well
it's nice, but that's not between you and me because
everybody's listening.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
You're making a podcast. So yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
One of the things that a few of the members
have already done that I don't resonate with is they
talk about money.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
I don't like to talk about money.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
I like to talk about spirit first and then the
money flows after that. So that's one thing I'm already
little hesn't going okay, But I definitely have come to
the conclusion that I need a group. It's not a
cult because that has different people, you know, it's it's
a community, and it's men that are expressing themselves these
frustrations that I used to say, a bunch of misogynists,

(39:43):
sexist pigs, you know, because I was taught that by women.
Because a man expresses himself, he's a patriarch, what do
you know, and all that stuff. So now I'm in
this position. I'm still a beautiful, loving person. But I
want to have communication with men, educated, men, experienced men,
wise men. They can share back with me this whole

(40:04):
other perspective that I ignored because I have a dad.
So I went the rout of the women. Anyway, That's
what it is. I started the.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
Men's groups for for you know, a long time, and
everything from you know, like Bible studies to like you know,
drummers in the woods and things like that. Yeah, exactly
when you asked about shame and the shame of So
the technical term for this is apostasy up. So apostasy
is leaving the group. So the study of apostates people
who leave the group. And if we're gonna the groups

(40:36):
we're gonna call cults typically have a strong inst or
outside distinction. So if you're you're either in or you're out.
You know, we'll use a group like maybe the Amish
as an example. So like the Amish, if you if
you're this fellowship, Jehovah's witness is actually good example too.
If you're if you leave the group, you're shunned in
a technical sense, and they have their theological reasons for that.

(40:57):
Now we don't we don't tend to think about the
Amish as bad because we've sort of hold them up nostalgically.
Is But but the fact of the matter is if
you if you leave the group, you're you're out and
size so you're yeah, and then there's this can be deeply,
deeply upsetting to a person who's been raised in the
group or was part of the group for a long
time to then you lose your family, you lose your

(41:17):
your your your friends, you lose your your connections. If
you're raised in the group, you lose you may not
have the skills or even the language to function outside
either of the of the group. So there's all sorts
of memoirs written by people who've been raised in movement.
By the way you've left, I mean, so that's this
is common right, So you.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
Know, and that and that threat they're aware of that
threat from birth, from the time they enter this cult
or born into it. They are aware of that threat.
You will be completely disowned, devalued, that's it. And so
they are aware of that. Then a lot of times
I guess that keeps them in. And then there's the
shame you get to speak to that.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
Yeah, And I think what we see this to a
lesser extent. Probably in every religious or social group, there's
always what we call ex it costs. So one of
the main models of religion is called rational choice, or
rational choice talks about exit costs. So people aren't really rational,
we're sort of rational rationalists. But if your exit costs
are too high, you're not gonna exit. And you could
use actually interpersonal relationships this way too. I mean you've friends,

(42:17):
or significant others or or spouses. Sometimes people stay in
a relationship not because it brings them great joy, but
because the cost of leaving is too high. You know,
we all have that friend who you sort of begrudgingly
deal with even though they're mouching off of you, because
you don't want to deal with having a fight with them,
so like, yeah, you buy them a slice of pizza,
or like, you know, you let them hang out, but
really you don't want to, but it's easier than dealing

(42:37):
with it. Now, if we're talking about a group where
the exit cost is you're going to go to hell
and burn forever, then that's a pretty high exit cost, right.
If we're talking about an exit cost, which is you
lose all of your friends, you lose the people who
you've connected with you lose your one connection to the divine.
That's a really high exit cost, even before we get

(42:58):
to questions of sort of of shame as an exit cost,
and that certainly can be in some groups to be
told what you really You're gonna leave the chosen and
go join a group where you're one of the damned. Again,
we see this in lots of other groups too. You'll
lose You'll leave a fundamentalist church or even even a
non fenomenalist church or a regular sort of you know, church, synagogue,
mosque to say, you know, to go up to it
to think about like the most like average normal religious

(43:21):
group you can think of. Imagine going up to the
person in charge saying I'm out of here, right, there
would be some shame involved, right. So even more so
if it's a closed community where the sense is you
are you are really cutting yourself off and they're gonna
cut you off because most meanstream churches or synagogues or
mosques would welcome you back in, right. But there's the
idea for some of these groups. Once you leave, you're out.

Speaker 1 (43:42):
Yeah, part of the system, and the paradigm is to
actually recruit they build that into the system. I'm sure
you've seen this.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
Uh sure, when some groups more than others. But and
one of the interesting sociological observations we've had is even
if you don't make recruits, the actor trying to recruit
is actually a powerful incentive. So there's a really classic
study on Mormonism. No, I should be clear, I don't
I'm not saying Mormons are part of a cult. Would
be very very clear. But it's the study of religion.

(44:12):
But but so if you know anything about the Latter
day Saints or that the Mormons, they send missionaries out.
So most missionaries don't have much success at all, like
they almost make no converts, but it solidifies their sense
of belonging within the Latter day Saint tradition, the fact
that they had to go out there and try to
sell their religion for lack of a better term. Now, again,
to be very clear, I'm not saying Mormons a partact.

(44:33):
But I have lots of Mormon friends, right, So you're.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
Talking about fat it's a fact though they're sent out
these they go all over the world, these missionaries.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
Trying to convert someone, even if you never convert them,
makes you feel more assured in your own identity. So yeah,
so so now if we think about like an MLM
group or something like that, you know, the idea of
you really are you know, if you don't make it,
if you don't make that convert, then you failed. I
mean that that's even more powerful and incentive. But yeah,
so all groups, all groups try to make converse. Otherwise

(45:04):
they wouldn't they wouldn't last as a group. That's what
it doesn't.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
This particularly this particular cult of my ex wife and
her leader. That's exactly what they are. It's MLM, and
it's all about recruitment. Everything everything they post has a
d M me because you want what I have and
all that kind of thing. This is what they do
is it's all part of the paradigm. It's the system
that they're under, and they are. They do get shame

(45:28):
though if they if they say I'm going to leave
this and then they're going to blow the whole pyramid operation, because.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
What are you talking about?

Speaker 1 (45:37):
You told me all these things, you you proposed that
I was going to have financial freedom, Now you're leaving.
That is enough to keep someone in just that amount
of shame.

Speaker 2 (45:46):
And that's why I know you mentioned you're familiar with
Nixium because you mentioned it in one of the prolog
episodes I listened to. But I mean Nixiums can sort
of almost like a model case of that, an ideal
type of sort of a MLM HALT like quasi religious
or religious spiritual group. Again, in that case, clearly the
founder of blanking out his name was it a sexual

(46:07):
pervert and all sorts of other stuff too. But for
the members there was this sense of meaning and belonging
you got from being part of it, as well as
it is incredibly high exit costs. So think about it,
there's this huge pull in. You're part of this group.
You're made to feel special. It's gonna elevate you. It's
going to bring you and expand your consciousness, elevate you
to a spiritual level, unite you with sort of the

(46:27):
center of being. If you stay, and if you leave,
then your your exile from this. You lose your friends,
you lose your connection, you lose society, you lose what
you're gonna do Saturday nights, and also you might go
to hell. And in the case of Nixteme, I think
they also had, like you know, you naked pictures and
things right, So there's all sorts of bad stuff, so
bribery to keep them so super super high exit costs,

(46:49):
super strong sense of belonging within you can see what
people would would stay. I love I love your term
by the way, exit costs. Exit costs. Yeah, I think
it's not mine. I take it from from scholarship, but
it's it's it's a way to try to quantify what
is in some ways unquantifiable. And the idea of exit
cost analysis is that people basically act rationally, even if

(47:10):
it's like an emotional decision, it's basically somewhere in your
mind you're like you're doing things for a logical reason.
And this is why I'm wary of sort of brainwashing models,
is I think basically people do things which make sense
to them, and it may not make sense out of
them or even five years later or five minutes later,
when they look back at their decisions, they say, huh,

(47:30):
that was wrong, but at the time it made sense
to them. And I think that's actually that's really important
to me as a scholar who studies these groups, because
I talk to members of these movements, even if they're
making decisions but I think are totally wrong. I want
to recognize that it makes sense to them. No one
joins a cult saying I'm joining a cult. No one
gets into an MLM basement level saying I'm going to

(47:51):
lose all my money and get get financially and spiritually abused.
People join a group saying this is offering me something
meaning full financial incentive, spiritual incentives, community, something like that.
Then they end up making a whole bunch of bad
decisions typically or a good decision, depends on the group,
and then you know, a couple months years later, decades later,

(48:11):
they say whoops, or maybe they stay in. I don't know.
By the way, the guy's name is Keith Ranier. You're
near thank you, yeah, yeah, thank you yeah. And he was.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
He had his cult type of cult like activity before
he had this specific group.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
He did a salesperson bas if. I recall he actually
still has some members to like hang out outside of
the window that the window. Absolutely, yes, I was reading
about that, and that's that is so fascinating to think
about it. Now, I'll go back to Jonestown, which I
mentioned earlier.

Speaker 1 (48:43):
Manson they had all the way till he's dead now
and they still still as followers and it's just did
some people that they get literally brainwashed. I'm going to
ask you a personal question, a pivot here, just because
I really like you. I mean, I really connect with
you personally. I think that people like I'm going to

(49:06):
say us. You know, we're academic, you know, successful, we
have a lot of answers. Happy with our own lives.
I can tell you're happy with yours. I'm happy with mine.
Do you ever, I'm I'm compelled to be a leader,
but there's this rub here that I don't want to

(49:27):
be that leader. I don't want to lead people and
have the ego lead the way. But I do have
some things to share with people, my shared wisdom, which
you do as an educator. Yeah, So do you ever
battle with that?

Speaker 2 (49:38):
With the ego thing? And you know you want to
be a leader.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
You know you have some answers which you have had
many today and I thank you for that. So on
a personal level, I mean, I'm sure no one's going
to ask you this question before in an interview, but
you know, how does that operate with you? I mean,
how do you how do you sit with that?

Speaker 2 (49:55):
Well? Sureman as an educator or you're doing you know,
as a you don't stand up. You're doing podcast. I
mean you're acting something. We all like, Well, I'm a coach.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
I'm actually a coach again, and I love my program,
by the way, but I don't want I want people
to follow it and I call them fun assignments instead
of assignments and things like that. I want people to
grow and with me though. Yes, but I am in
a kind of an educated leader, so so.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
So for me. I think one reason I teach is
I love seeing the transformation in my students when they
realize that it's on their own. You know. I remember
I remember a course evaluation I got once where the
person the person said, like, the question is comments on
the quote of the teaching, and the person said, the
teaching was horrible. He didn't teach us anything. He made

(50:42):
us all figured out on our own. That was my
great success, right, Yes, that's why I'm here. I was
the great students to figure things out in the one.
If I have to tell you and you're memorizing and
you're spinning it back, I mean I'm failing as a teacher.
Like the last thing I want to do is in
doctrinate someone thinking what I want to do the same
thing I do. I want to give people materials to
study and to think about it, and I want them
to come away and I I mean, there are some

(51:05):
things like because if you're studying history and you're like,
you're wrong, now correct you right? But if there's different
ways to interpret history, right, So I love I love
seeing students figure stuff out. And I think I'm probably
as a coach, you do the same thing. You like
seeing people figure things out and excel on their own. No,
do I admit that it's it's it's an ego boost

(51:27):
when a person comes back and says thank you, or
I really learned from you, or that really inspired me,
of course, but that's ultimately that's not what drives me.
I mean, that's nice, but if that's what drove me,
I probably would be a different line of work. And
I'm not saying I be a cult leader, but that.

Speaker 3 (51:42):
Would be a cult leader if you're motivated. If a
person is motivated by always needing someone to stroke your
ego and tell you how good of a job you're doing,
then you and I are in the wrong line of
WORKSHOE mean, because that we're you're not going to get that.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
You use two words words that I would separate here
in doctrinate and inspire. So we are inspiring people instead
of induct It's so we're not forcing them, We're not
We're we're kind of like I was. I consider myself
a sherpa, a shift slep. Well that that happens too,

(52:19):
that's all part of the problem. Okay, I'm schlepping. I'm
a schlep sherpa. So sometimes those slept Sometimes I'll have
nice guided steps I sell people'll I've been up the mountain,
and I will show you here's how to get up
their hair.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
So I get up that mountain.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
But I can't prevent you from from falling in potholes.
And you know, I can't prevent at langes. I can't
prevent that. I can show you the way, though, And
I don't need to be congratulated. My congratulations is seeing
your transformation, seeing you get to the top of the hill.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
Yeah. So I'll use an example for my teaching my cults. Actually,
so I would say the first day of class, when
I teach a class on culture new religions, and say,
I don't use the T and I don't use the
term and I and for empirical reasons, I don't think
brainwashing really exists. But at the end of the day,
if you disagree with me, that's fine. I just want
you to ground your position in the empirical research we're
gonna look at together. So the end of the day,

(53:15):
if you say I want to use the word culture,
I think brainwashing does exist, that's fine. Just be able
to tell me why you don't. I'm good at that.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
But now we're going to have a disagreement. I do
believe brainwashing exists. Well, so the terminology thing is, it's semantics.
Brainwashing is to me, it's the steady flow of this
alternative information that wishes you to follow them, and that's
what took place.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
I know that.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
My kids say it all the time. My kids will say,
what do you think that? Why do you think your
parents got divorced? We don't need to tell people years
familiar because this woman brainwashed our mom.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
How do you how do you distinquish brainwashing from convincing
is sort of a question I would have for you,
because that we do that all the time. You're trying
to convince me right now to believe in brainwashing. I
don't think you brainwashed me. Maybe I do. I don't know,
you're you're not gonna succeed though, Man, do you how
do you draw the line between something vulnerable enough? You're
not one of my it's manipulative convincing. It's your model

(54:11):
of brainwashing, I guess to be why not just call
it that? Why not just because I don't want to
make brainwashing. I don't want to have a magic idea.
Because when I when I've heard people say that it
was brainwashing, and I say, what do you mean? They said, well,
they used mind control or like they were telepathletic controlling me,
and that that's I mean, if you want to believe that,
that's fine, but that's not an empirical claim. But to
say manipulative convincing, then I can compare it to other

(54:36):
sorts of convincing, and I cannare manipulation.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
It's it's funny because you've had two words that you
object to, cult and brainwashing. It's an interesting concept to
be explored by the way, which is wonderful that you
do in an academic sense, you do explore it. My feedback,
my immediate feedback is well, it's just a word. It's
a word that we find the word easily for people

(54:59):
that don't understand. Even the premise of this podcast is
called my wife joined a cult. That's not a culture
a cult because they think of a cult as Jim
Jones and all the ones we've named. But that's me
and it doesn't have a charismatic leader who's manipulating the subjects.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
If you want to use the word cult or brainwashing
to get people to think critically, by all means, go
ahead and do it. In fact, I do that. The
title of my course has the word cults in it.
The first day I say, I don't want to use
the word, but you know what it means. Everyone knows
what it means, right, So I'm fine with that. What
I'm really wary of is subjecting innocent people to the
power of these words. Right to say to someone you

(55:35):
know that person has been brainwashed, that person's part of
a cult. Necessarily then means they don't have self control,
they don't have a self ownership, They've they're part of
a destructive group. And that's what I'm wary of doing
until I know the group. And instead I might say
the person who's joined a dangerous religion, or the person
was manipulated into joining a spiritual group or a social group.

(55:57):
But I don't want to start with that. If I
end up that way, then that's fine based on you know,
what I've studied. But I just don't want to start
by assuming that people who do weird things are necessarily
bad or wrong or manipulated or brainwashed. Because there's lots
of weird things people do. Well, believe all sorts of
weird stuff. They do all sorts of weird stuff. Religion,
spirituality is super fascinating. People believe, you know that God's

(56:19):
in rocks and crystals and angels and gods and mountains
and everything else. And who am I to say, right
I don't want to tell your religion is wrong, man,
I just want to I want to understand it right now.
If you believe God told you to kill a bunch
of people, I think that's wrong. But I want to
start with the idea that you get to decide your
beliefs and your practices, and if they're going to have

(56:40):
a bad repercussion on you people around you, then we
can talk about that and why maybe you shouldn't well.
I think a lot of this has to do with it.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
If I were to kind of summarize some of this
is the meaning we put upon words.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Actually, I mean words are powerful.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
Yeah, about the word religion, About the word spirituality. Some
people think it's kooky to be spiritual, but the US
religious and vice versa. So when you think about it,
all of these words are buzzwords to people because of
how we were indoctrinated, what we were introduced to, manipulated by,
you can be manipulated by. I don't watch the news anymore.
I won't watch the news because they are completely manipulat.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
By the way, that's a proven fact because when it bleeds,
it leads. When you know, just watch who sponsors the news.
If you want to be logical about this, step back
and be in your own source of energy that will
tell you, would inform you.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
Yeah, they're not up to your best interests. And there's
a power in religion. It's not just sort a philosophy
of you know, we're just mixed mixing words. It doesn't
matter what we say ultimately, but if you're a religion,
you get certain legal rights that if you're not a religion,
you don't, right. Yeah, so I mean in the US
at least, and then you can't canon in places, I know.
But if you if you are part of a religious group,

(57:52):
you're also afforded certain sort of cultural assumptions.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
Right.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
Religions are things which are considered basically valid or good,
or at least you politely accept that someone's part of
a different religions even if it's not yours. Cults are
not that way, right, So the examples I can think
of would be neo pagan's wickens like modern day witches. Yeah,
want to like have their you know, be able to say,
you know, you have towns where like you always open
the town council with like a prayer. Right, the Christians

(58:18):
do it, the Muslims do with the Jews do it?
Do the Wickeds get to do it? If we're going
to count neopaganism or worganism as a cult, the answer
is no, you don't invite cults to address your town council.
If neopaganism counts as a religion, then the answer is
ethically and probably legally. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm
pretty sure that the answer is yes, you can't discriminate.
You can't say some religions are good and yours is not.

(58:39):
So that that's a powerful claim right to say is
your group a cult or is your group a religion?
And actually wick Er Neopaganism is one of the ones
which is slowly, over time move from sort of being
seen as more cultish to more more religionish and actually
made Mormon is a good example too, although if oer
call Romney still had to get up and say I'm
not part of a cult before or he was allowed

(59:00):
to run for president. Then again, JFK said the same
thing about tools to say I'm not gonna I'm not
gonna take orders from the pope.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
So there's there's Yeah, at that point, Catholics were never off.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
Catholics and Jews slowly were made okay, right, there's this
long process of you know, which which groups get from
being seen as bad religions or cults to being okay,
clearly some groups never will and and groups that espouse
like human sacrifice or like you know, stuff which is horrible,
we'll never do it. But Jews, Catholics, yeah, sure, maybe
neil pagan have sort of come in Native Americans absolutely, Yeah,

(59:38):
so they we were taught to believe. Yeah, so much change, absolutely,
so much.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
Exchange, scalping and all the everything is is all about
you know what echo chamber you are in, and you're
going to have confirmation bias, and speaking of this is
wanders in the way of the conclude very soon here.
But this wanders into uh free speech, the words that
have different meanings to different people. For instance, censorship that's

(01:00:07):
going on right now. Who's does Who decides even ratings
and movies? Who decides these things? Who decides what is objectionable?
What is what is not okay for a child to
see or whatever it is, and who decides not So
there's a really slippery slope where language. I always said,
if I call you a that might be my f

(01:00:28):
word a horrible thing, but if you smile when I
called you all a really bad thing. Ben languages is it?
And that's the thing of the cult and all the
we're religion, All of these things have all this connotation,
everything is attached to it as opposed to let's get

(01:00:50):
to the bottom line. The bottom line is can we
be good people with you know, bring back civility unity?
Can we bring that community? And here's the big thing.
My cult is laughter. We need more laughter. I want
to start up. I'm starting a movement that you could
be part of a movement of laughing. It's it's the

(01:01:12):
most your cult.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
You have to join your cult that you're saying.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
That's exactly right. But I'm asking you to be a
co leader. Now, everybody is a leader in this in
this cult because laughter is such a beautiful essence of
who we truly are. It's love, it's light, it's levity,
all those things. That's what laughter is. And it's it's
neutral in its very essence. It's just neutral. There is

(01:01:36):
no leader of laughter. Now. Comedy is a different story.
That's subjective. Laughter, though, is so beautiful and it's within
all of us. I have to conclude now, boy, this
was fun.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
A lot of time. All right, I've enjoyed chatting. This
is fun.

Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
Yeah, it was fun. Now it's speaking of enjoying chatting.
Were you the one that my assistant told me you
were resistant to do this because you thought it was
about a guy that was bagging on his ex wife.

Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
Were you the one? Were you the guess? You know?
I got to tell you. I listened to your prologue
and that does not sell the rest of your podcast.
I have to say, man, because you're I'm glad you're
less angry now you seem very angry, sir In in
the prologue, So I think I sounds like you've done
maybe some healing, had some healing experience, because when I
when I listened to your prologue, I thought, this guy

(01:02:20):
sounds like he's really mostly still upset with his ex wife.
So I'm glad I'm talking to you that I can see.

Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
That it doesn't come across as I'm mad at the
leader of the ex wife. That's what really, that's the
it's the whole getting into the cult.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
Think there was both. I think I think it's honest
and not was.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
It's really watching this person. I hope this comes across
and I'll say it again, watching a person you love,
whether it's my wife or anyone go all pray to
and have this descent into darkness that I've never even
witnessed before. I've never seen in my life almost possess Yeah, anger,

(01:03:02):
there's a lot of feelings. It's there's literally the stages
of grief, which you're.

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
Probably there's a there's a place for anger, and it's
fine to be angry about things, but you know, I
I think that the reticence I had was that angers
a response but anger is not productive ultimately. Yeah, so
that's yes, that was maybe a mailed Your assistant said,
I I'm not sure. I'll still I'll talk to pretty
much when I'll talk to people that think they're you know,

(01:03:27):
spirit communicators, all sorts of things. Ultimately, I'm an educator.
I want to talk and you seem like a great guy.
So it's nice to chat with you. You. I've been enjoying it.
It's been fun, but ultimately glad.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
I'm glad we got past that because I get past
these things and I believe that I'm doing it in
a way. Part of the reason for the podcast is
to help other people have a better understanding of when
they lose someone to alcoholism, drug addiction. On knowf that
came across in the prog I can't even what I said.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
I couldn't imagine. I have a very loving family. I
love my wife, my children, and my parents to my brothers.
For me, family is very important. So what you've gone
through in terms of the separation from your ex and
the way it's impacted your children, and I couldn't imagine.
I would never want to Yeah, So clearly that's that's
impacted you and I'm sorry. And we see in terms

(01:04:18):
of the study of cultsure new religions, that is ultimately
something that happens. People make choices. What you're self empowering,
and they understand is self empowering for their own spirituality
or their own identity or their own psychology. That cause
all sorts of really horrible pain for the people around them.
And we see they don't understand it. Not just in

(01:04:38):
cults and new religions, other groups too, in any conventional
religions too. People make these choices, and it is profoundly upsetting,
and it is a profoundly in some way sort of
selfish move a person makes to join a group to
say you are going to be saved. You have the
right way, but no one else does. So there's real
effects of that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
And DM me because I've got something. Were you a
water water system?

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
You should have? Uh? Hey ben or.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
Doctor Benjamin Zeller. This has been a real pleasure.

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
It's been a pleasure. Shoo, nice to chat with you.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
How do we find you? Do we find How did
my assistant find you?

Speaker 2 (01:05:15):
It probably googled me if you find me online. I
think I have all Twitter, I have an X, I
have an X sounds wrong. No, I have a Twitter
account that you have the X. I have the Twitter account.

Speaker 1 (01:05:28):
You have family, and I have such a desire to
have a family. That's all I ever wanted.

Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
In my life. And it just got boom. Yeah, of
course you find that. I hope you find peace and
love and family in your future. I should.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
I am, my kids are really we're seeing somebody that's
really helping us stay in an ethereal, divine space.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
It's not a cult. It's it's the cult of us.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
It's the cult of family, and we're together, and we're
really on this journey together and we're really hoping and
for their mom. I mean not in a way of
like some bad identified patient. This is somebody that really
does need help. And that's why I had you on
here as well. Let's define some of these things, let's
find solutions all the guests. That's what it's here for.
It's not some griping session and anger over this over

(01:06:18):
what happened. Of course there is anger about it, but
what do you do after the anger? And there's all
the stages of grief, and we're in one.

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):
Of the stages. I'm in a nice stage right now.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
Forgiveness.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
I can tell good good pream Thank you man, take
care

Speaker 1 (01:06:31):
To see you