CCChat-Magazine Cults-Coercion - Flipbook - Page 17
There was a movement, a women's movement
that brought that abuse out of its hidden place
within the home and now we have a law, we
have education about it. We've got a long way
to go but it's come out of the shadows as an
issue. Cults are still 40 years behind, it's still a
hidden issue. I cannot tell you the number of
times I run into people where I'm giving a
lecture and they say, “Oh wow I realised I've
been in a cult” or “I was in a cult and I didn't
know that's what it was”, as they've not had a
language for it because it's been a hidden
issue. When I speak about it nearly everyone,
or at least a large proportion of people go:
“Wow you know, yeah, my brother was in
something I always thought it was funny” or “I
was in something”, you know, they start to be
able to name this thing.
M: Also multi- level marketing.
A: Absolutely, absolutely. I did an interview for
the BBC, ‘Ellie Undercover’ a series on BBC
Three and she did a wonderful really intelligent
piece of work on that. Yeah, those are going
rampant. I'm sure they're really taking off now
that everyone's sitting at home with nothing but
their internet, so that's definitely an area of
concern.
M: It’s so important that people understand
this.
A: That’s the value of education. There needs
to be more public health based preventive
education, because we can learn to identify
these dynamics and protect
“we have a hidden epidemic of cults and also cults are very
secretive so they're not out there advertising themselves.”
So we have a hidden epidemic of cults and
also cults are very secretive so they're not out
there advertising themselves. There are certain
ones I'm very worried about right now in the
UK, the wellness area, there's a lot of stuff
happening under the guise of wellness, and
then a lot of Pentecostal cults are targeting
especially minority communities - and I feel
they're being a little bit ignored because you
know it's a lot of young black kids or
communities that tend to have less of a voice.
But there's heavy recruitment going on in those
communities, and that worries me, and I want
to be somebody who's speaking about that and
saying, you know, we need to be concerned
about that. The most recent one being SPAC
Nation where there was some publicity but
there are many others like that group or
similar.
The 2nd Edition of
Terror, Love and
Brainwashing: Attachment in
Cults and Totalitarian
Systems
will be released on
March 18th 2021.
Available on routledge.com
Making The Invisible Visible
