Cult Hackers

One of the most emotional interviews ever on our podcast, author Kimberley L Miller talks movingly about her life as Jehovah's Witness. She describes growing up as a Witness and the struggle to just be a child, to just be herself, and the fear that came along with that upbringing. She also talks about her leaving the organization, her return and the lowest point in her life. Kimberley's story is u...

In today’s episode I spend a very pleasant afternoon having a walk and a chat with a friend of the podcast and former guest John Elson at Castor & Ailsworth, a village just outside of Peterborough. John is a successful artist and he talked about his journey out of the Jehovah’s Witnesses back in September of 2021.  Our main topic of conversation today is the natural world and we had an interesting...

When you are a fundamentalist Christian, Theocracy sounds like a great idea but when you leave, the reality becomes clear. Celine and Stephen discuss what it's like to live in a Theocracy and then explore more democratic forms. They get 'into the weeds' about how these systems work, and why sometimes they seem not to. What is a filibuster? And why gerrymander? are two of the topics of discussion,...

The 'What should I think about..?' podcast goes 'sight & sound' this week on this special edition of the show, with an episode being shown on YouTube for the first time as well as a pure podcast. Stephen speaks to Dr Heather Ransom, who researches the experience of living in, and leaving a high control group often called a cult. Dr Ransom is a former 'born-in' Jehovah's Witness who left as an adul...

High control religious groups often discourage games, warning about the 'dangers' of being influenced by Satan or the world. But what about the benefits of playing games and their role in finding community, experiencing a sense of competence and potential benefits around memory and thinking? Germ joins Celine and Stephen this week to talk all things gaming and games. There's also a bit of reminisc...

I (Stephen) had an online conversation recently with a friend who had recently experienced a family loss. We chatted and she suggested that the way we think about death changes after we leave a belief system such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, who preach the possibility of living forever. It got me thinking about an episode Celine and I recorded about a year ago when we had very few listeners about t...

Ex Jehovah's Witness Poet and Podcaster Leon Helsby tells his story of leaving the organization, why he finds poetry so important to him and describes the challenges of being creative within a high control setting. Stay till the end as Leon performs his poem 'An Amnesty'. Leon has a podcast called 'A Hug From The Moon'. Link below. https://open.spotify.com/show/2FIBwQGqOUNEQqdK5FxECh?si=e51f0a692f...

Celine and Stephen get into some pop psychology to see what we know, what we think we know but don't, what we don't know and.... you get the picture. The importance of learning styles, the power pose, the madness of crowds, attention blindness and diffusion of responsibility and more all feature on today's show. Become a patron and support the show for just $1:50 per month. https://www.patreon.com...

Today we interview Marcia and Riley (AKA Jexit) about falling in love with someone who was a member of a cult and still in the process of deconstructing, or as ex JWs call it POMI (Physically Out Mentally In). Riley is an ex Jehovah's Witness You-tuber who talks about his experiences leaving the Group. We've discussed the difficulties of relationships, love and sex for ex members of cults in previ...

This week Celine and Stephen review, and do a cult reading of the 1999 movie, Fight Club, directed by David Fincher and starring Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter and Meat Loaf. If you haven't seen the film, it's violent but it covers big subjects including masculinity, capitalism and mental illness and importantly for us cult dynamics and coercive control.  Become a patron for just $...

Author, Mary Mahoney talks about her 31 years in the Children of God. She tells Celine and Stephen about her life as a young woman, believing she was called by God to missionary service, her travels around the world and her efforts to obey increasingly dark and exploitative demands by the Group. She explains the implications of leader David Berg's bizarre doctrine on the 'law of love', the use of...

As if this world isn't confusing enough, today Celine and Stephen explore virtual worlds and our seemingly unavoidable destiny with them. From Zoom to Second Life, from Virtual Reality to Web 3.0, NFTs, Crypto and even whether we are already living in a simulated reality! On top of all of that Stephen explains what actors named Chris have to do with Non Fungible Tokens! Oh and Virtual Cults.. Beco...

Becky Armstrong-Corbett is a qualified psychotherapist and solution focused clinical hypnotherapist. Raised as a Jehovah's Witness she was sexually abused by a member of the congregation as a child and has since  worked to raise awareness of neglectful practices within this and other organizations. She contributed to the work of the Inquiry Into Child Sex Abuse in the UK and has appeared on a numb...

Today Celine and Stephen decide to take a sober and even-handed approach to the question of how we should research and talk about High Control Groups or Cults, and then find themselves getting all worked up! The term 'New Religious Movements' is seen as a more appropriate and less prejudicial label than the word cult, should we be using it? Are anti-cult activists getting in the way of proper soci...

Daniel O'Brien is an educator, musician and ex Jehovah's Witness elder. He talks to Stephen about his experience being recruited into the organization and his tough journey out. He also talks about his upcoming lecture at the 2022 International Cultic Studies Association Conference.  Daniel's Essay - Are Religious people happier? https://t.co/yUMEX7zTnv   International Cultic Studies Association C...

As it's Stephen's birthday today , 'birthdays' is the theme of this week's chat. As a Jehovah's Witness child, birthday celebrations were something alien to Stephen and so Celine and her dad try to work out why JWs really don't celebrate them. Stephen finds a paper that provides some of the history and the sociological context and he then demonstrates his slow decent into grumpy old man by having...

Ashlen talks about her experience as a born-in member of a small Christian Fundamentalist group called the Churches of Christ, and her work now as the Director of Events at the International Cultic Studies Association. Ashlen also discusses her own research and her studies with the University of Salford on the psychology of coercive control. Such an interesting discussion. Why not become a patron...

Riley from the Jexit YouTube channel joins Stephen today to analyse the 2002 movie Equilibrium, directed by Kurt Wimmer, starring Christian Bale, Take Diggs, Sean Bean and Emily Watson. Giving the movie a cult reading reveals some spine-tingling and remarkable parallels with living in a dystopian state and being in a High Control Group.  Become a patron for just £1 ($1:50). We only have a single t...

Today Celine and Stephen are joined by Jordan Robertson from the Shunned Experience to talk about the history of atheism. Is atheism a new phenomenon, and is it predominantly a Western idea associated with the period of Enlightenment? Also did the reformation and protestantism pave the way for critical thinking about religion, giving birth to atheistic thought and is that paralleled in religions l...

We manage risk every day but how we calculate it is often difficult to understand. Our attitude towards risk is influenced by our beliefs about what we think we know, as well as a balance of likelihood of something happening and the impact if it does. Leaving a cult is bound to impact upon this calculation as old beliefs about the world are replaced with new ways of making sense of what's going on...

Producer Bob joins us to talk about the use of signs and symbols in religions, cults and the social world in general. Producer Bob thinks about some of the symbolism she was taught as a Jehovah's Witness and Celine talks about semiotics - how meaning is created through symbols and why cults are different in how this is done. Stephen delves into types and anti-types and takes a look at the psycholo...

As a member of totalistic group or cult, morals and ethics are to a large degree determined by the Group. Upon leaving, making decisions about right and wrong  can be difficult as we grapple with putting together our own moral code.  Celine and Stephen also discuss the famous trolly problem and explore the question of consequentialism vs deontology as well as the psychological research around how...

Daniel Schricker grew up in the Kwasizabantu Mission and since leaving has written a number of blogs about the psychological use of fear particularly on children. This is a follow-up to the discussion with Erica Bornman about this fundamentalist group with worrying cultic practices. Daniel's essays are themed 'Scaring the hell out of you', where he documents how (i) fear of God, (ii) fear of autho...

This emergency podcast comes out on the day Russia launches an attack upon Ukraine. It's natural to feel some anxiety and for ex members of all-encompassing groups such as Jehovah's Witnesses, who interpret world events in very specific ways, it can be quite disturbing. How to think about these events is the theme of this discussion as well as a reality check for religious groups who claim to be a...

Celine and Stephen review Midsommer, a movie released in 2019, directed by Ari Aster and starring Florence Pugh. There are a number of readings of this movie but one that is often overlooked is the most obvious - that of recruitment and indoctrination into a cult.