On this episode, we explore life's alluring question, "What’s the Meaning of Life?,” with Rick Alan Ross – a prominent figure and expert in the study of destructive cults and controversial movements like Jonestown, NXIVM and Heaven’s Gate. A cult intervention specialist, media consultant and court expert who testifies in high-profile cult-related legal cases, Rick shares how his life’s work – educating people about destructive cults – gives him, and others, important meaning. Author of the well-researched, resourceful book, “Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out," Rick shares how he was introduced to a destructive cult at his grandmother’s nursing home, and offers stimulating facts, deep truths and personal experiences that illustrate how people who join cults aren’t the only ones seeking a greater purpose in this world. Learn more about what a cult is – and why meaning and logical thinking are critical in our modern world – in this special episode of “We’re Not Blowing Hot Air."
Do us a solid and smash a subscribe, share or 5-star rating button for the show. That way more people can elevate their mental wellness as they explore some of life’s biggest, most important questions with remarkable and fascinating guests.
Oxygen Plus powers “We’re Not Blowing Hot Air.” Nice Guy Creative Services is our producer, and brought the beats. Lesley Blennerhassett is designer. Lauren Carlstrom is creator and host. Arlene Appelbaum is editor.
Catch Oxygen Plus at @oxygenplus on TikTok and Instagram
On this episode, we explore life's alluring question, "What’s the Meaning of Life?,” with Rick Alan Ross – a prominent figure and expert in the study of destructive cults and controversial movements like Jonestown, NXIVM and Heaven’s Gate. A cult intervention specialist, media consultant and court expert who testifies in high-profile cult-related legal cases, Rick shares how his life’s work – educating people about destructive cults – gives him, and others, important meaning. Author of the well-researched, resourceful book, “Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out," Rick shares how he was introduced to a destructive cult at his grandmother’s nursing home, and offers stimulating facts, deep truths and personal experiences that illustrate how people who join cults aren’t the only ones seeking a greater purpose in this world. Learn more about what a cult is – and why meaning and logical thinking are critical in our modern world – in this special episode of “We’re Not Blowing Hot Air."
Do us a solid and smash a subscribe, share or 5-star rating button for the show. That way more people can elevate their mental wellness as they explore some of life’s biggest, most important questions with remarkable and fascinating guests.
Oxygen Plus powers “We’re Not Blowing Hot Air.” Nice Guy Creative Services is our producer, and brought the beats. Lesley Blennerhassett is designer. Lauren Carlstrom is creator and host. Arlene Appelbaum is editor.
Catch Oxygen Plus at @oxygenplus on TikTok and Instagram
Welcome to the We're Not Blowing Hot Air podcast powered by Oxygen Plus. This season we're zoned in on mental wellness as we explore some of life's biggest, most important questions with fascinating guests. Get ready for a colorful, curious exploration of this thing called life with today's remarkable guest. I first wrestled with the question what's the meaning of life? In high school Reading Victor E Frankel's Man's Search for Meaning. The psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor voices the powerful message that people can choose how they think, feel and respond to everything that happens, and that doing so fosters a sense of purpose, which is super handy when things go south. I find a lot of meaning going after what makes my toes curl. One of those things is learning about cults. When recently thinking about purpose, I wondered are people drawn to cults because they're seeking some greater purpose, perhaps to God or others? My quandry led me to our incredible guest who discovered his life's purpose educating people about destructive cults.
Lauren Carlstrom:Rick Allen Ross is a cult expert and founder and executive director of the Cult Education Institute, an online database and research library dedicated to controversial groups and movements, some of whom people call cults. He's also the author of the research-rich book Cults Inside Out how People Get In and Can Get Out, which, I can attest, offers a thorough history and explanation of destructive cults. Rick's work has garnered national and international recognition and he's regarded as a prominent figure in the study of destructive cults and controversial movements like Jonestown, nexium, heaven's Gate, helping people evade the snare inherent to cultic thinking. Rick works as a lecturer, consultant in media and video games and cult intervention specialist with a 75% success rate. He's also a sought-after court expert, testifying in various high-profile cult-related legal cases, including the DOJ and FBI. To enrich our understanding of why we exist, let's welcome the intriguing Rick Allen Ross as we explore life's alluring question what's the meaning of life?
Rick Alan Ross:Well, lauren, I think the meaning of life is a very important subject when it relates to cults, because I think that that's what is often the lure of a cult organization is that they claim to have a patent or they claim to have the answers to the meaning of life, and so, for many people who join destructive cults, that's their thinking. This will give meaning to my life. Sadly, it's a deceptive kind of bait and switch scam, but that's really the essence of what I think. All of us are looking for the meaning of life, and some of us are caught up in what could be described as a cult.
Lauren Carlstrom:And I can't wait to discuss more about what that looks like and share that with our listeners. With you, I do know, rick. You have a very poignant story about your own experience with a cult, and if you'd be willing to share it today, about what first brought you into the world of cults, it would be amazing.
Rick Alan Ross:Well, lauren, it was really serendipitous. I mean, I was working in the salvage business. I had a cousin who owned a large wrecking yard in Phoenix, arizona, and I worked at the yard and was all involved in cars and parting out cars and crushing cars for metal. But I had one grandparent and she lived in a nursing home, a Jewish nursing home in Phoenix, and I would visit her often and would take her out to lunch and I went to see her and she was really upset and I asked her why. And she told me that she had been confronted by someone in the nursing home trying to convert her to a religion. And I couldn't understand it. At first. I said, grandma, how did this person get in the nursing home? And she said, well, they work here.
Rick Alan Ross:And I eventually found out that a group that targets Jews for conversion to essentially fundamentalist Pentecostal Christianity though they claimed to be both Jews and Christians and they were targeting elderly people in the nursing home by covertly inserting their members onto the paid staff as nurses' aides. And when I found out about that I was really I'll just be blunt I was royally pissed off. So I then got in touch with the director and I became really an activist to try to bring awareness about what was happening, first at the nursing home, and then later I found out that this was a common practice and that this was going on in hospitals, that minor children were being approached by various groups, and so my interest expanded from that and I found myself deeply involved in anti-cult activism and community organizing in Phoenix.
Lauren Carlstrom:First of all did you? How did it end with your grandma?
Rick Alan Ross:Well, my grandmother was not affected in the sense that she converted or persuaded in any way to convert. She was just simply upset with the confrontation. You know, lauren, you have to know that my grandmother immigrated to the United States in 1906. She came from Poland and she fled persecution, and she would tell me stories of what were called pogroms, where people would Jews would be beaten, their homes would be burned, women were raped. I mean, it was really horrible. And this went on at the turn of the century in Eastern Europe. And so my grandmother immigrated through Ellis Island in 1906 and she came to the United States to escape religious persecution, and at the time that she was accosted by this missionary, she was 82 years old and I just felt that it was wholly inappropriate for them to be doing something like that.
Lauren Carlstrom:No.
Rick Alan Ross:I had no problem with them coming through the front door if somebody wanted to study the Bible with them on request. But to surreptitiously covertly insert themselves into the nursing home with this kind of hidden agenda of not being a nurse's aide but proselytizing, I thought that was just horrific.
Lauren Carlstrom:It's. I see it as unjust in three ways. It's the elderly. They're vulnerable. It's the Jewish people. That's a target that is prolifically accosted and it is also position of power. It's someone who actually came as a. They got staff roles in the nursing home and I'm glad that your grandma was able to tell you about it and that she had someone who was her own advocate for her. And then eventually, rick, you got, you made it more of your life work. You made it actually kind of gave up the car business, I'm assuming, and all the crushing and selling of car parts and now and you got into cults in a good way, the good side of cults.
Rick Alan Ross:Yeah, I think so yeah.
Lauren Carlstrom:We'll get into this again. I hope we say it a lot and that people really understand. Anyone can find themselves in a cult. It's no one's too smart, no one's too good, no one's too protected. It really you have to insulate yourself through knowledge and awareness, right of why the pitfalls of a cult are. But the beautiful side of it is asking the questions like how can something give me meaning? And I think people do ask that question and they want meaning in their life. How do you see that dovetailing into people finding meaning, the work that you've done in cults and the people who have been searching for meaning to come into a cult?
Rick Alan Ross:Well, I think all of us are looking for meaningful things in our lives, or meaning in our lives. For many of us it's family, others it's a partner, it's love, or it could be work, or it could be faith. I mean, there are many things that give meaning to life. And I think that cults understanding that from really a marketing sales perspective. I mean because what they're doing is they're trying to sell themselves and recruit people, and so they portray themselves as filling that void. So if you're craving meaning through family, they will try to say, well, we can be your family, we can be your community. If you're looking for love, they will bombard you with seemingly unconditional love, which is called love bombing. And if you're looking for work, they may tell you well, these projects that we're working on, what we're doing is we're gonna save the world, we're gonna make the world a better place, and that can give you meaning.
Rick Alan Ross:And for many groups that are religiously based not all cults are religiously based, but for those that are they target people and they say look, we are working for God, we're working for the Lord. If you love Jesus, be with us. But Jesus warned that many would come in his name and they would not know them, he would not know them, and so they're like. What is described in Christianity is wolves in sheep's clothing coming to prey upon people in a very predatory manner. So a cult can appear to be very meaningful. It can appear to be very idealistic, very special, and people who are going through a difficult time in their life can see the group or people that approach them from a group as being a way of adding meaning to their life, finding meaning in their life, or simply finding someone to provide them with love and understanding at a point of pain in their life.
Lauren Carlstrom:Meaning is ultimately important and it's exploited by cults. Is that fair to say?
Rick Alan Ross:I think so because I think that the appearance of projecting meaning and fulfillment is a bait and switch con. I mean, cults can be very deceptive. They come on very loving, very kind. They don't tell you everything. They try to hook you in and then pull you in and step by step you become more deeply amashed and embedded in the group in a way that you probably didn't anticipate. When I talk to people about cults that are actually involved and I do intervention work I don't think anybody that joins a group really understood what they were getting involved in and so they were not joining with informed consent, they weren't making an informed decision becoming involved.
Lauren Carlstrom:And that has been correct me if I'm wrong, because you have a lot of experience, not just in research and practical experience with cult intervention but also in legal cases that informed consent has become very important now in prosecuting and getting convictions and a lot of the malignant narcissists that are running a lot of the cults.
Rick Alan Ross:Yeah, frequently the cult leader fits the same profile, personality wise, so they tend to be deeply narcissistic people. They have little empathy or sympathy for anyone. Many have been described as psychopaths, sociopaths. So we're talking about leaders that are not really very caring or kind people and they can be very destructive and, in some groups, extremely destructive, and so I think that people becoming involved really don't realize the true nature of the leader, who they may not ever meet, or, if they do, the leader misleads them and tries to trick them into becoming more involved.
Rick Alan Ross:And you're right, I do testify in court cases. Frequently these are custody cases in which one parent is involved in a group that is very authoritarian, very controlling, cult-like or a cult per se, and the other parent wants to protect their minor child from being involved. There are so many children who they make no choice, either informed or otherwise, to be involved in a cult, and they become involved because their parent is involved and brings them into the group, and the parent, who should be in a role of protecting their child, making sure they're safe, their ability to make value judgments and critically think, has been greatly compromised, in large part by being involved in a cult, and so the child really has no meaning. They have no protection and they're very vulnerable. So the courts will intervene and in situations where there is a destructive cult based on the group's behavior, they will make an effort to protect the child.
Lauren Carlstrom:Awesome. First of all, I'd love that you're making the point about the behavior, because it's not about a belief of a cult, right, it's the actions that a group would take that would be destructive, that would make it something that needed to have action taken against it. Secondly, I'm thinking of a lot of examples of children that have suffered because of the River Phoenix. That family, that's an example. Even Paris Hilton is out talking about how troubled teen industry has that similar thing. So I'm seeing it like Rick. I try to look for the trend and what I see is kind of a culture and a world that has fallen asleep to being alert and watchful. And then I also see people who are, like you're saying, already ingrained in a cult. They're born in it as children and so their capacity to make decisions and have a healthy life is really difficult. I mean, look at Scientology, children that are born into Scientology. I'd love it if you could, if you're able, to share some examples about tying it back into meaning.
Rick Alan Ross:Well, let's look at Leah Remini. Leah Remini was brought into Scientology as a child. She was raised in Scientology, she believed in it. Her parents taught her to believe in it, and they nurtured her in Scientology. Eventually, she and her family would leave, but for years she was involved as a television star, and she gave Scientology millions of dollars. And Scientology told her and this is their way of describing it we're going to clear the planet. This is a wonderful mission that you're on, this is a wonderful philosophy that Elrond Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, left us his legacy, and he gave us the technology, they will say, to clear the planet of negativity, to alleviate human suffering. We have the perfect drug rehab program, we have the perfect study tech. We have it all. And so Leah Remini felt that Scientology gave meaning to her life, as I'm sure Tom Cruise still does, and John Travolta and others. And eventually, though, she saw behind the curtain, so to speak, I mean, and she saw the mechanics of it all, and that it wasn't what she had been raised to think it was.
Rick Alan Ross:And then she left, and she exposed the pain and suffering of many people in Scientology, most notably the Danny Masterson rape case. So Danny Masterson, the star of the 70s show, a special elite Scientologist, a celebrity Scientologist, and he raped women that were also Scientologists and he got away with it because as a celebrity he had really kind of a pass in Scientology. In my opinion I think it was basically that people in Scientology the women that he raped were afraid to come forward because of his special status in Scientology. And they have said they were discouraged from coming forward and they stayed silent and eventually they would leave Scientology and expose Danny Masterson and he was found guilty. He's a convicted rapist now and he's spending 30 years to life in prison in California. So his days of being both a Scientologist and an actor are pretty much over and Scientology, my understanding is they dumped Danny Masterson, so they really tried to protect him for a long time but when he was convicted afterwards it appears that they basically severed ties with Danny Masterson. So that is an example of a child, lea Remini, who grew up in Scientology, thought it gave her life meaning and eventually she kind of navigated through the kind of coercive persuasion that I think is what Scientology is really all about and she escaped. And then, of course, her show Scientology and the Aftermath helped the public to better understand Scientology and it encouraged many people that had been burned by Scientology to come forward and to talk about what had happened. River Phoenix that is a very, very sad story.
Rick Alan Ross:River Phoenix was raised in a group called the Children of God, led by a pedophile by the name of Moses David Berg, and he taught the people that followed him and there were many thousands of them to sexualize their children. Women were encouraged to become prostitutes. They were called literally hookers for Christ, and Moses David Berg profited off of this and lived a very comfortable life. He molested his own family members. His granddaughter, who I met, and River Phoenix said in one interview that he was introduced to sex at the age of four and eventually, when he left the group, his family left, I believe. He was terribly traumatized by what happened to him and children of God and eventually he overdosed from drugs at the age of 26. And for those that don't remember, river Phoenix was a great actor. He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and he just had enormous potential ahead of him. But his life was cut short, like many of the survivors of children of God, by the trauma that he experienced and really never got the proper help, in my opinion, to recover from.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yeah, yeah, and the trauma right for all of the people involved in cults is a result, and getting help is not something everyone gets when they're in a cult. Rick, you've mentioned before the concept of cult hopping, like not really dealing with the issue. So then they go from one cult to the next after that one burns out and anything you want to share about that in terms of how maybe we're still looking for that meaning in life.
Rick Alan Ross:Yeah, I met a woman, Lauren, who had left Jonestown and then joined Senanon. Mark Vicente was in a group he described as a cult, the Ramtha School of Enlightenment, led by Jay-Z Knight, and he ended up in Nexium. And then he called me and he said you know, rick, keith Reneary, the cult leader of Nexium, who's now in prison for the rest of his life due to sex trafficking and torturing women and terrible things that he did, you know. He called me and he said you know, keith Reneary told me you were the most evil person practically on the planet. So when I realized that he was in fact a really bad guy and I wanted to leave the group, I wanted to talk to you. And he said and I worry that I'm going to join another cult because I was in this one group called the cult, and then I ended up in another group even worse than the first one.
Rick Alan Ross:That is a cult. And so how can I avoid that? And I said, mark, you've got to unpack the experience in an educational process. The key, the first step in recovery from a destructive cult is to educate yourself. What are cults, how do they operate, what are their tricks, what are their techniques of influence and coercive persuasion. How can I recognize a group like that? So I walked him through some reading material and I recommended various books to him, including my own, and I said, Mark, you need to read up on how these groups function and then look at the ways in which you were manipulated and see the parallels in the other groups, and what you will recognize is they all pretty much operate the same way. And, lauren, so that we can clearly understand what a destructive cult is, let me give you what I consider to be a concise definition, or the nucleus for the definition, of a destructive cult.
Lauren Carlstrom:Please do yes.
Rick Alan Ross:It was first written by Robert J Lifton in a paper published at Harvard titled Cult Formation. So there are three core characteristics that all destructive cults share and have in common. The first one is an absolute authoritarian leader who becomes an object of worship. That leader is the defining element and driving force of the group. Whatever the leader says is right is right. Whatever the leader says is wrong is wrong. Second, that leader uses coercive, persuasion, thought reform techniques to gain undue influence over his or her followers.
Rick Alan Ross:And again, lifton wrote a book, thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism that has chapters defining how to recognize thought reform. But suffice to say that when people are acting against their own best interest and consistently in the best interests of the leader and the group, that is really a way of recognizing that undue influence has been achieved, because people are not acting in their own best interest but consistently in the best interests of the leader. And then, finally, the leader uses undue influence to exploit and do harm to his or her followers and maybe others outside of the group. And that varies by degree from group to group. Some groups are much worse than others. They're not all planning mass suicide or arming themselves, but typically groups will exploit the members financially, there will be free labor that could escalate to physical and sexual abuse and even criminal acts. So you look for those three things the all-powerful leader, who is totalitarian, has no accountability and is an object of worship.
Rick Alan Ross:And then, second, the existence, the identification of coercive persuasion and thought reform as part of the group's dynamics, that is, their indoctrinational process yielding undue influence. And then, third, that the group is destructive. Otherwise they might be called a benign cult. They do no harm, they have an absolute leader, they have a mindset, but they're harmless. They're not hurting people Because it's not about, as you said, what the group believes. It's about how they behave. And the question is are they doing harm? Because if they're benign and they're doing no harm, then so what they believe? Unusual beliefs, they're not hurting anyone and so they would not be considered a destructive cult.
Lauren Carlstrom:Would you be willing to share go through those three points with perhaps let's go back to your grandma again and walk through why that was a cult based on those lift-ins.
Rick Alan Ross:Three criteria Well, that group had a leader that had become very authoritarian, very controlling. I wouldn't say that he was an object of worship. So I would describe the group as an authoritarian, personality-driven group, but perhaps not a group with a leader that had become an object of worship. Second, there was a process of indoctrination in the group where people were being broken down, where they were being changed and where they were being locked in through what could be seen as social isolation and peer pressure, and then, finally, that they were being exploited. In the group that targeted my grandmother, they were constantly asking for money and I found out that a number of people that had been involved with the ministry had bequeathed their estates or substantial property to the group when they died. So the group exploited the members. The group may have traumatized some of them by their forcefulness, by their intensity of their indoctrination, and they basically were after money. But a more classic example would be, let's say, jim Jones.
Rick Alan Ross:Jim Jones, the leader of Jonestown, the People's Temple. He was an object of worship, he was an absolute authority figure and people would say that he had what they called the Christ force within him, actually supernatural powers, and they worshiped him. Second, he isolated people. He deprived them of sleep. He controlled the compound in Jonestown in such a way that he controlled the narrative. There was nothing but what he wanted people to see, what he wanted people to read or listen to or be aware of. He cut them off from their families, which is a key, foundational aspect of thought reform to control the environment, to control communication. And then finally, of course, jonestown was the most destructive cult in regards to the loss of human life. In 1978, jim Jones decided that everyone in the compound would die, and over 900 people died in a single day. That's where we get the expression mixing the Kool-Aid or drinking the Kool-Aid.
Lauren Carlstrom:Even though it wasn't Kool-Aid right it was an off-brand yeah.
Rick Alan Ross:A brand called Flavorade. But to this day people say, oh, you drank the Kool-Aid and it's an allusion to Jonestown that they mixed cyanide and phenyl barbatol and second all and other barbiturates in this tub with Kool-Aid, and then individuals were told to fill a syringe with the Kool-Aid and give it to their children. Over 200 children died at Jonestown Jonestown for those that don't know the story. Jim Jones had a huge church in Northern California, in the Bay area of San Francisco, and after much exposure, bad press about his harsh treatment and abuse of people in the church, he took more than 1,000 members and they relocated in Guyana English-speaking Guyana in South America, and they carved out a compound in the jungle that was named Jonestown after the leader, jim Jones.
Rick Alan Ross:Well, congressman Leo J Ryan in 1978 decided I want to go to Jonestown to address concerns of people in my district who have family members and loved ones in that compound, and Jim Jones agreed to let Congressman Ryan come in. But then he was very concerned because he realized that Congressman Ryan had been asked to by different people there please take me with you when you leave and they were passing notes to the congressman about the conditions there. So Jim Jones realized that he would be exposed that the horrible things he did in Jonestown, that he would be held accountable for it. So he decided that all of the people, including himself, that they would all die rather than be exposed and face any kind of scrutiny by either law enforcement in Guyana or in law enforcement from the United States. And so that was
Lauren Carlstrom:What a coward.
Rick Alan Ross:Yeah, it was the larger cult suicide in modern history. But another thing, lauren, is that there is a cult right now in Kenya, in Africa, and this is the group called the Good News International Church, led by Paul McKenzie. Mckenzie fashioned himself again as an object of worship, a doomsday prophet that he spoke for God, that he knew the mind of God and he told his people that the end of the world was coming and they needed to fast and pray. And ultimately, more than 400 bodies have been recovered in Kenya of McKenzie's followers, including, I think, almost 100 children.
Lauren Carlstrom:Was this the one that was a fire in the church or in a building, and they closed off the windows.
Rick Alan Ross:That was the movement for the restoration of God, the different commandments. Let's say of Kebua Terri. That was in Uganda.
Lauren Carlstrom:OK, so this is a current one.
Rick Alan Ross:Is it?
Lauren Carlstrom:American or is it a Kenyan?
Rick Alan Ross:It's a Kenyan cult led by Paul McKenzie, and more than 400 bodies have been recovered In the other cult you mentioned, in Uganda. That was in the year 2000. There were more than 700 bodies recovered. So Jonestown almost a thousand, uganda over 700, and in Kenya now over 400 dead. So these are the most extreme examples of destructive cults, and what we see, though, is the same pattern that the leader has total power, that the leader is making value judgments for his or her followers, and that, when the leader goes off the rails, he takes his followers with him. And that is what has happened in these horrible cult tragedies.
Lauren Carlstrom:And that's the danger of why powerful cults getting more powerful. Look Scientology, you say it has maybe 25,000 to 50,000 members, right. However, the power they have not just still within their own group, but still are they. I know they're less successful because of the internet. I think that they and Leah Ranami I believe that she's really helped loosen the power. They get on new entrants, but aren't they still recruiting more people? And doesn't the immense wealth that they have and the power that they have make Scientology a threat?
Rick Alan Ross:Well, I think Scientology continues to be, in my opinion, a destructive cult and they haven't really changed that much.
Rick Alan Ross:I mean, elron Hubbard the founder died in 1986. He was succeeded by a man who appears to be dictator for life, David Miskevich, and Scientology can be very harsh. In a way, what Hubbard did was he constructed a machine, and it's a very finely honed machine with a number of redundancies of control, and so you become involved in Scientology and they have all these courses and they have what they call auditing, which is also called spiritual counseling, and in that process a person that's being audited holds metal cans that are connected by wires to a box called an e-meter. And really what the e-meter is is a galvanic response measuring apparatus or part of a polygraph or lie detector, and it measures nervous tension and perspiration in your hands, and the needle will move when you get nervous and that is when the auditor knows that something is bothering you regarding certain questions he has asked in the so-called counseling process, and so he'll drill down into that area. And also he's taking copious notes which go into your file, your pre-clear file, and then that becomes the property of Scientology, even if it contains highly confidential and personal information about your life and you go through various levels.
Rick Alan Ross:Scientology has eight levels of what they call operating THETAN. So there's operating Theton, level one through eight. I think Tom Cruise now is either a seven, an OT seven, or an OT eight.
Lauren Carlstrom:What's he doing?!
Rick Alan Ross:He certainly is very devoted, very deeply involved and has been in Scientology for many years and I think he's really kind of a poster boy for not just Scientology but for the reality that a destructive cult can indoctrinate someone that is very intelligent, very skilled, very talented, and they can subdue critical thinking and pull someone in. That is really quite exceptional and many of us would think, well, no, a cult could never get me. A cult could never get someone who's really smart, who's really got their life together. Cults get crazy people, losers, stupid people. Well, look at Tom Cruise. I mean, he's worth like what? $600, $700 million. He's the most successful movie star in Hollywood. He not only is a great actor who's been nominated for an Oscar I think at least twice but in addition to that, what a genius he is as a producer, with the Mission Impossible series, with various projects he's on, but at the same time he's been divorced three times and I think that is because of Scientology. His first wife, Mimi Rogers, who introduced him to Scientology, later decided to leave.
Rick Alan Ross:Divorce Number One. His wife, Nicole Kidman, just wouldn't get on board all the way with Scientology. Divorce Number Two and then Katie Holmes, reportedly afraid that her daughter, Suri, would be indoctrinated into Scientology. She bailed Divorce Number Three. So Tom Cruise, wow, what a poster boy for, in my opinion, cult indoctrination and how good it can be. And that is something about Scientology that persists to this day is that it is a very well-oiled machine and that if you become involved and you go through courses and you go through auditing, you're in the machine and then ultimately, that machine will produce intense devotion, obedience, submission to Scientology. That's my opinion, and I think David Miskevich has kept the machine well-oiled and well-functioning and at the same time, he's managed to make Scientology tax exempt. He's gotten them religious tax exempt status and they have over $3 billion at least in assets. The last time I heard an estimate.
Lauren Carlstrom:That's what makes me ill is how they get people's. They exploit labor money, you know, and I think what it is is in another, maybe tying it back to meaning. These cult founders, like Elron Hubbard and carried on it by David Miskevich, like in Scientology, they're actually stealing meaning from people's lives or they're making the meaning, they're forcing it to be about what the cult stands for, and I guess that the only way out of that is personal empowerment. Right, when we're disempowered is to find our own personal empowerment. So, you know, and today, as I said earlier, I feel like we're kind of not as aware of all the wolves and sheep clothing, right, Like we were too trusting the cults of the 60s, 70s and even 80s. How are they different, or are they not different than how we're seeing the budding new cults happen today, especially in social media?
Rick Alan Ross:Well, lauren, you know back in the 80s. You know my work started in 1982 and I've watched the evolution of cults for four decades now and what recruitment was like in the 80s, the late 70s was face to face. Cults would target college campuses, they would have members bring friends in, and so forth. That's completely obsolete, virtually now, I mean compared to the way in which groups recruit today, because they use social media platforms. You've got cult leaders that have tens of thousands of followers on Twitter, on Facebook, they have group meetings on Facebook, they indoctrinate people through their YouTube videos, and there's even a group called the TikTok cult, and then they get money through PayPal, through Vemo, and so everything can be done online. You can have people meeting online remotely, you can have people streaming online. Everything is online Now.
Rick Alan Ross:The flip side of that is you can also Google, search for information about a group or a leader online, and culteducationcom, which I launched in 1996, is a huge archive with historical information on controversial groups and movements, some that have been called cults.
Rick Alan Ross:But the flip side is that all of these groups are online and I think that that has served to be a two-edged sword, that is, you can find information to debunk their claims and expose their lies online, but at the same time, people are pulled into these informational bubbles where they're following like-minded people.
Rick Alan Ross:They're creating a kind of network reaffirming the leader and the indoctrination of the group online. So that's what we see. And then let's not forget the algorithms that govern social media. So as you are searching for something, and these groups meta tag and use the technology online so that you will find them, you will find their videos, you will find their website and so forth, and you get sucked in and the more you get search results served up to you about a particular topic of interest that the cult may be using as a lead or a lure again a bait and switch con that pulls you into them and then you become consumed and embedded within them and then they indoctrinate you online remotely, and I've had case after case after case of interventions that I've done in recent years where that is the way that people were recruited and that is the way in which they were sustained in the destructive cult was totally online.
Lauren Carlstrom:That is terrifying. That is more scary to me personally than what Scientology's three billion dollars might be able to do.
Rick Alan Ross:Well and Lauren, the old groups called cults are not oblivious to all the advantages of being online, so a lot of these old groups like Scientology are very much online.
Lauren Carlstrom:Okay, now I'm scared again.
Rick Alan Ross:No, they're very much online and they have a presence online and they're very adept at social media and PR and everything. So what we see now is that anyone with an electronic device, anyone with a smartphone, can be recruited by a destructive cult through that device. And it really gets creepy when you start thinking about minor children and that the fact that parents typically they don't know everywhere that their kids are going online and that a group can recruit minor children without parental notification or consent. It's sleazy, but that's what's going on. There's one group that I've dealt with. They call themselves Jesus Christians, led by an American who now lives in Australia, dave McKay, and he has done this repeatedly.
Rick Alan Ross:He will recruit someone who is a minor child. He will indoctrinate them. He will tell them do not tell your parents anything about your involvement with our group, but when you turn 18, you can leave and then you will become a full-time member and this particular group people disappear. I mean parents will call me. They have no idea where their child is. They turned 18, they left. Dave McKay controls all of their communication. He even edits their emails. So this is a group that recruits online, that has a social media presence. They're on YouTube, they're all over social media and their point of entry can be anyone with a smartphone, and this is the way that recruiting is done, primarily today.
Lauren Carlstrom:All right. So that's why we need to be educated, because it can, like we said before, it can happen to anyone, and if we're not teaching our children or each other how to think critically, we ain't got a chance, right? Am I right on that?
Rick Alan Ross:I mean, like, if you're Well, I think we all have to ask questions, we all have to go through a process of questioning what we're being told by people and that if they're not responsive to those questions and they don't answer them directly and they're evasive, that's a big red warning flag. And when you enter into a group and you notice that the leader is what the group is all about, not the issues of faith or whatever the group claims to be about, but you really realize that there is this tangible worshiping of the leader of the group and that this leader totally controls the group, has no meaningful accountability, there is no transparency regarding the funds that are being given to the group and that when you ask tough questions, the group reacts in a kind of negative way. Why are you asking that question? You're too critical, you're just looking to find something wrong instead of having faith or instead of giving this a chance.
Lauren Carlstrom:Or they do a thought terminating cliche, right, robert Lifton, also can you just briefly say that, because that's all the buzz right now in the cultivars. Can you explain what?
Rick Alan Ross:Yeah, well, in the cultivars. Robert J Lifton, who wrote the book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, talks about the eight criteria to identify a thought reform program, and one of them is loaded language or thought terminating cliches. I'll give you an example.
Rick Alan Ross:In Scientology, if you question too much, if you ask too many troubling questions about, well, what's this about and what's going on here and I don't believe that why do you believe that? That's not based on facts or science and you're supposed to be Scientology. So what they may say to you is you know what? You are a suppressive person, you are an SP. And once you are labeled a suppressive person, you're just dismissed, and so that becomes a thought terminating cliche. Someone is asking too many questions about Scientology. When a loved one becomes involved and they are told well, your family member is an SP and you need to just Disconnect from them, which means cut them off. So that is an example of loaded language or thought terminating cliche.
Rick Alan Ross:Or In some groups that do large group awareness training, they will say oh, you're uncoachable, you're uncoachable. That would be a thought terminating cliche. Rather than really answering questions and dealing with the person, you just label them You're uncoachable. Or if the group is religious and and they're there they claim that they're based on the Bible. They may say you know, that's not you thinking, that's the devil attacking your mind. Satan is attacking you.
Lauren Carlstrom:Couldn't, yeah, could it also be like that's just God's will, or it is what it is, or like what you want is for the person to shut down their mind.
Rick Alan Ross:Okay, and so if you tell them Satan is attacking your mind, like, for example, I once said to a young man that I met that was involved in a particular Bible-based cult. I said to him you know, you're your leader just bought a new Expensive car and he lives in a very expensive house. Did you know that? And he? He paused for a while. I could see that he was thinking, and then he looked at me and said I rebuke you, satan, in the name of Jesus, I rebuke you. And that was his reaction to me, pointing out what's going on with the money in the group.
Rick Alan Ross:And the way that he came to that was the group teaches Well, when you doubt the leadership, if you doubt what we're doing, that's not you thinking, that's Satan actually attacking your mind and what you need to do is rebuke Satan and and and Name Jesus and you will be protected from that attack. And so when, when I heard him say that, I looked at him and said you know it's okay to doubt, because I knew the chain of thoughts that led to him saying that, and it was an example of a thought terminating cliche or loaded language to literally shut his mind down from thinking and different groups have different verbiage or loaded language or thought terminating cliches to achieve that, and I Would, I would love if I made.
Lauren Carlstrom:Just to point out Conway and Siegelman, is that correct? In your book they they call it information disease, but that it Can actually there's real mental and physical health benefits to or not when they start over, that the brain wears down and sharply Adjusts to not thinking and that information processing capacities may be disrupted or enter a state of complete suspension, detachment, disorientation, hallucinations, delusions and, in extreme cases, total withdrawal. So not only like. We have to remember, like everything that happens to us, it's happening in our brain, in our neural network, and that that's why cults are also so powerful and focus on thought reform, because they're just literally it's like a program running in your head and after a while you're out and the cults thinking is in.
Rick Alan Ross:Yeah, conway and Siegelman, who are longtime friends of mine, they they wrote the book snapping and then and that was in 1978, which Coincided with Jonestown excellent book, by the way and that's where they identified information Disease. And then subsequently they wrote the book Holy Terror, which was about extreme fundamentalist Christian groups within the United States, and they identified what they called Emotional control as well. So Conway and Siegelman really added quite a bit of research to this, and one of the examples they use that I think is really a good one is the Hari Krishna movement. These are the people that claim to be Hindu but really were following a leader who's since died, and it's a very authoritarian Kind of splinter group from mainstream Hinduism, and they have temples in the US and abroad and the members will chant the same chant over and over and over again. And if you, if you observe them, they they sometimes will have their hands in a bag and they'll literally be counting out their chance on a bead. But unlike someone who's prayed, praying the rosary In a Catholic church, they might do this same chant over a thousand times a day.
Rick Alan Ross:And what Conway and Siegelman say is this is a form of thought stopping or, you know, shutting down critical thinking and that people go into almost a trance like state which is another means by which groups can frequently disorient people and implant Suggestions in their mind is they have a chanting exercise or a meditation exercise that puts the person in a trance state when they are highly suggestible, and at that point they come in and suggest things within within their, within the context of meditation and trance, and that can become quite a hook. That's another example of thought stopping and manipulation that I see in certain groups that focus on meditation or guided imagery or some form of Control in that way. And that's not to say that meditation itself is bad, because people will meditate for a sense of calm and and, to you know, relax for 15 or 20 minutes a day, something like that. But in groups like transcendental meditation and and other groups, they use excessive meditation to Shut down critical thinking and then they suggest what the person should believe. It's a way, if in in my opinion, of programming the mind, there's a book written, coercive persuasion, by Edgar shine, who taught at MIT and he wrote this seminal book in the early 60s and he studied what then was called Chinese, a Thought reform, or by a journalist, hunter, who coined the phrase brainwashing To describe it.
Rick Alan Ross:So. So what what shine said is there are three stages of coercive persuasion. The first he called unfreezing, or Breaking someone down. The second he called changing. The third he called refreezing. And so if we follow that, in a group that uses meditation for thought reform purposes or coercive persuasion purposes, that could be seen as Breaking people down, taking down their critical thinking, making it easier to change them and suggest what changes should occur. And then the Refreezing is when the person is in some way, shape or form socially isolated Within the group, where they're constantly reinforced through other members of the group but really kind of isolated from any alternative perspectives or accurate feedback From people that they might spend time with Discussing what they're learning in the group that are not in the group and outside of the group.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yeah, it's as you've mentioned it. It's a lot like what happens in an abusive relationship.
Rick Alan Ross:Yes, I mean, if you know someone that's in an abusive controlling relationship and I have a chapter about this and in my book, they they are very typically very deeply narcissistic people, abusive controlling partners, they lack empathy, they lack sympathy, very much like a cult leader and and very and. In the same way that a cult breaks people down, changes them and then isolates them and reinforces that change, an abusive controlling partner can do the same thing. It's been called gaslighting, what Lifton calls in the book thought reform, the psychology of totalism, mystical manipulation or planned spontaneity. Which is the?
Rick Alan Ross:The controlling partner, the abusive partner, is systematically chipping away at the person's self-esteem, making calculated comments to make them feel that they're, that they're a loser, that they're, they're not not really that intelligent, that they're stupid, and so the abuse of controlling partner is breaking them down so that they can then change them. And so frequently an abusive controlling partner will say things like well, why do you hang out with those old girlfriends? Or I don't like that guy, I think he's after you, or can't we spend more time together? Or let's move and move to another city, and that is, socially, they salating the, the, the person who's being abused, so they're being cut off from old friends and family in a new Environment controlled by the abuse of controlling partner. So if you know someone that's in an abusive controlling relationship, you can draw parallels between that relationship which is, if you will, a cult with one leader and one follower and Extrapolate that to a cult with one leader and many followers. But the techniques, the manipulation for control is the same.
Lauren Carlstrom:It is well so, Rick. We have a A. Abusive Relationships can be an example. We can be exposed to this cultic danger online. We can find it in schools, we can find it at work. We can find it in a job prospect, like in MLM. There's this is gonna be out there, right? It's gonna be in social clubs. It's gonna be all around us. So what we can do is insulate ourselves, and you've mentioned before that that's about. It starts with education. So I thought it'd be fun if I could ask you common logical fallacies and then you can give an example of any cult that you've worked with or know about or even wanna warn us about in your answer. So first one is an ad hominin. This may not apply to cults, but we'll try. That's attacking the person making the argument rather than addressing the argument itself. It involves personal attacks or character assassinations. Anything on that one.
Rick Alan Ross:Oh sure, I mean. There are Bible based groups who will say that person is an unbeliever. They don't accept the beliefs that we believe, based on the Bible. So how can you even listen to them? I mean, who cares what they think? Who cares what they say? They are under the dominion of the devil, or Scientology would say well, that's a suppressive person. Well, what about this person? Well, they're a PTS, a potential trouble source, because they're near an SP. So why do you even listen to those people? They have nothing to offer? Who cares about SPs, people that are only out to suppress people that are on the path of enlightenment?
Lauren Carlstrom:Awesome, okay, strawman. Misrepresenting or distorting an opponent's argument to make it easier to attack.
Rick Alan Ross:Yeah, I mean you would say, for example, if I sit down with someone in an intervention which has been called deprogramming, they will say well, this guy, he's a deprogrammer, he's out to brainwash you himself. That's what he does. He's a brainwasher and he's here to brainwash you. And my response to that would be that's a false argument, because I'm not here to recruit you into an organization or a group or to follow me after this few days that we have for the intervention. So they're creating a false argument. That is not what brainwashing really is.
Rick Alan Ross:Let's talk about what it really is. It's a synthesis of identifiable influence, techniques, coercive persuasion and thought reform, and they're making a false argument to divert your attention from studying those techniques and then asking them do you do this? There are parallels that I'm beginning to see in my process of indoctrination in this group. And why is that? Why is it resonating in these criteria of thought reform? So this again is a diversionary tactic that groups will use. They create a false argument so that you'll spin your wheels on that rather than really scrutinizing what they're doing.
Lauren Carlstrom:Wow, yeah, I love that. Thank you. I also see it a lot in politics. Just not obscuring the argument happens a lot. So okay, this is an easy one, I'll say it. But we'll just move on, because it's number one of your criteria for what a cultic group looks like Appeal to authority, relying on the opinion or endorsement of an authority figure rather than presenting valid evidence or reasoning. So we'll just skip that one, Zizi. Well, here we go. Let me give you a little bit more.
Rick Alan Ross:First of all, I think people need to hear this because it really goes to what you're going to hear from a destructive, authoritarian organization.
Rick Alan Ross:There used to be a guru from India who had a large following. In fact, carlos Santana, the rock and roll musician, was one of his followers for many years. His name was Guru Shree Chinmoy and he would do photo ops with world leaders and they had no idea who he was. He would give money or whatever and he'd get a photo op and he'd use those photo ops to say look at me, I'm with this important world figure, I'm with this leader or, for that matter, carlos Santana is my follower, and this imbues me with authority, because these are authority figures. Another example would be a Bible-based cult invoking the Bible and saying this is the word of God and what I am preaching is the word of God, even though it is quite antithetical to what Christianity may teach. They will invoke the authority of the Bible and insinuate, whether they say it directly or not, that if you disagree with me, you aren't disagreeing with me, you're disagreeing with God.
Lauren Carlstrom:And also, did you know the Dalai Lama once had a picture with Keith Ranieri of Nexium?
Rick Alan Ross:Oh yeah, I remember that. And not only did he have a picture with Keith Ranieri, who I dealt with for many years and met on numerous unpleasant occasions, but he had every bit of documentation that had been sent to him by concerned people saying please, please, do not do photo ops with Keith Ranieri. But reportedly one of the Bromphmans gave the Dalai Lama $2 million.
Lauren Carlstrom:That'll do it.
Rick Alan Ross:That'll do it. And so he ended up doing a speaking engagement in Albany, new York, which is where Nexium was, and Ranieri was actually lauded by the Dalai Lama, who put a white scarf around him and said he was a very special guy. And when the Dalai Lama was asked what he thought about all the bad press that Nexium was getting, he gestured oh, like a Pinocchio nose, like the press lies. Well, now that Ranieri is in prison for the rest of his life and has been convicted of horrible crimes, including torturing women physically, you know, I wonder what the Dalai Lama has to say for himself.
Lauren Carlstrom:Well, he also in the late I think I read this in your book, Rick in the late 1990s that the Dalai Lama called a friend of the Japanese gas attack guy a friend, although an imperfect one, was the quote. Is that correct? Is that in your book?
Rick Alan Ross:Well, another $2 million was reportedly involved. I guess that's the magic number Give me $2 million and I'll do whatever. And so the Dalai Lama did photo ops with Shoko Asahara, which he showed to people to demonstrate that an authority figure that had won a Nobel Prize, a Nobel Peace Prize a very famous individual was seemingly saying hey, I like Shoko Asahara, he's okay.
Rick Alan Ross:Well, of course, shoko Asahara notoriously gassed the Tokyo subway system in 1995. Thousands of people were hospitalized, many people died, and Asahara would eventually be convicted and sentenced to death. But the Dalai Lama would simply say well, you know he's still my friend, but he did something that wasn't nice. I think the bottom line with the Dalai Lama, in my opinion, is how much money are you willing to donate to my organization? If you're willing to pony up $2 million, I'll do a photo op. Heck yeah. So I'm not a big fan of the Dalai Lama because of Shoko Asahara and Keith Rinnari.
Lauren Carlstrom:Okay, appeal to emotion, using emotional manipulation such as fear, pity or anger to sway an audience instead of providing rational arguments.
Rick Alan Ross:Yeah, well, that's exactly what Flo Kanwe and Jim Siegelman identified in their book Holy Terror is emotional control and how it works. And so you appeal to the emotions. You create in the mind of the follower unreasonable fears about the end of the world, about suppressive persons, about the outside world. You create a we-they mentality where we are the elect, we're safe in the group and everyone out there is at best negative, at worst evil, under Satan's control. And so you create this fear in people of anyone or anything outside of the group, particularly if they're critical of the group. And then you appeal to their sense of loyalty and devotion to the group, which they believe has protected them and given them this truth, and so that can be of a source of manipulation.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yeah, okay, great Red herring is diverting attention from the main issue by introducing unrelated or irrelevant information or arguments.
Rick Alan Ross:Yeah, that happens to me on in voy d'air, which is the process of being qualified as an expert in court. So the opposing council will bring up anything and everything that they think that could not only discredit me but divert attention from what I am there to testify about. And so this may be. For example, if you were in Synanon and you ask tough questions of people in Synanon leadership, they might say to you you were a really bad heroin addict, weren't you?
Rick Alan Ross:Once upon a time, you did heroin every single day and you chased that high for years, didn't you, didn't you? And when you did that, didn't you steal to support your habit? So what they're really doing is creating an argument that has nothing to do with what you're concerned about in order to divert your attention from your initial inquiries, and that would be an example of a red herring argument. Or it could be something as bizarre as just completely changing the subject and talking about some issue in world events, a war in another part of the world and you're just trying to create an argument on that in order to pull them away from their focus on what you're doing.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yeah, we see that a lot in politics in other places too, don't we? Well, I mean, there's a lot more. There's the ad-popular bandwagon, fallacy, appeal to tradition, the no, true Scotsman. The point is is we have to learn what these are, because we'll be susceptible to even something like a phishing on an email. Right, there's a lot of bad players out there that we need to be aware of and cautious of. So I think that's for me Rick, that's what I take away is like. As interesting as it is to learn about cults, it's also devastating for the people involved and a problem for our culture that I don't think we quite know how to deal with it because we don't think about thinking enough.
Rick Alan Ross:So I agree. I think it's very important to hone your critical thinking skills and anyone that would dissuade you. You need to look at them in a skeptical way at that point and ask yourself why would they possibly want to dissuade me for thinking independently and for myself?
Lauren Carlstrom:Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, it's been meaningful for me, rick, to have you here today and to our listeners, we're really honored. I wanted to just quote the end part of your book, your book. You say hopefully the book will make a difference and stimulate more critical analysis, research and education about destructive cults. Others may also find this compelling and begin a journey of their own. That is the purpose of this book to build on the information we have and share it in such a way that others may continue the ongoing educational process. Educating and thus helping people to be personally free of cults can be both a personally fulfilling experience and a purposeful professional life. Thoughts on that.
Rick Alan Ross:Well, it's been 40 years and I feel good about it. I mean, I've been sued and harassed and my life has been threatened, but on the other hand, I have done hundreds of interventions and I've seen people come out of some pretty darn destructive situations and I've testified to make sure that children are being protected as well. So I think it's been very fulfilling and it's given my life great meaning and I think for me that has been a very central part of my life and I'm grateful to have done the work.
Lauren Carlstrom:Yeah, well, I think I'm grateful and many people are grateful. I'm grateful to your grandma. May her memory be a blessing, and thank you for all of the color that you bring to our world.
Rick Alan Ross:Thank you, Lauren.
Lauren Carlstrom:Thanks for listening. Do us a solid and smash that subscribe, share and five star rating button or link for the show. That way, more people can elevate their mental wellness as they explore some of life's biggest, most important questions with remarkable and fascinating guests. Oxygen Plus powers this episode of We're Not Blowing Hot Air. Nice Guy Creative Services is our producer. Leslie Blennerhassett is designer. I'm Lauren Carlstrom concepting and host. Arlene Appelbaum is editor. Thank you, valued listener. Keep breathing easy so together we can color our world.