Living Cult Free: The Podcast

In this episode, we speak with author and survivor Beth Granger , who spent 30 years inside a Canadian boarding school that functioned as a hidden cult. She shares her experiences with coercive control, public shaming, family separation, and religious trauma, along with the difficult, non-linear reality of healing. Beth also discusses the landmark class action lawsuit she helped lead—the first his...

When a cult leader put his towel next to Hoyt’s on a beach in Nantucket, the then 16 year old’s life changed dramatically as he was slowly drawn deeper and deeper in. This is a story of coercive control that took over everything, how he ultimately escaped, and reclaimed what was stolen from him - including his connection to the love of his life. Find Hoyt at his Instagram and catch the documentary...

We are so excited to share this bonus episode: a  follow up conversation with Mariama. Her first episode (#5 - “Breaking Free: Mariama’s Journey of Healing and Self Discovery”) focused on her exit from the cult she was raised in. If you haven’t heard it already, we encourage you to hit pause on this one and listen to that one first! On this one, we invite you to listen and help us celebrate Mariam...

Please note this episode has been edited to keep some names and identifiers confidential. Having grown up in a religious cult, Cerese shares the confusion, doubts, and even self hate - especially as an adolescent - feeling betrayed by her maturing body. The prescribed norms of the church dictated her reality, severing the healthy bonds with her father. Adolescence heralded the end of them sharing...

Lori shares her story of how she became deeply involved in an online school that blurred the line between education and coercion. She opens up about the power of community, the subtle ways control takes hold, and the moment she realized she had to break free. In this candid conversation, Lori reflects on the challenges of leaving, rebuilding her life, and reclaiming her personal power. A powerful...

In this powerful episode, Mariama shares her deeply personal journey of growing up in a high-control religious group. She reflects on her upbringing, the constraints on personal expression, and the challenges of finding her identity while under constant scrutiny. Mariama opens up about the pivotal moments that led her to question the group's teachings, the emotional toll of leaving, and the c...

Elad shares how he grew up a secular Jew with Israeli parents and went on a spiritual journey, seeking meaning and community. This led him to a Hasidic community where he found “beauty, truth and beautifully true people.” Over time, though, he realized that ongoing acceptance within this religious family required a “total sublimation of my selfhood.” He describes the painful journey into a spiritu...

Rebecca’s story transcends individual experience to illuminate universal themes of resilience, identity, and healing. It underscores the power of community, self-discovery, and the ongoing process of healing from psychological and emotional wounds inflicted by cults and similar restrictive groups while celebrating the courage and strength required to break free and reclaim one’s authentic self. Li...

Grappling with existential questions about the origins of her thoughts, the influence of external forces on her autonomy, and her experiences within a religious cult, Ciara reflects on themes of control, deception, and the struggle for personal identity and freedom within a structured belief system. Listen to find out how Ciara finds bursts of inspiration often fueled by a sense of urgency or emot...

Today we explore strategies you can use to get out of a cult or help a loved one get out. To setup the framework for our discussion, we look at numbers and definitions. The numbers are huge. Up to 10,000 cults still exist today in the United States. That number is growing. “Millions of people have been affected by undue influence. Many of us have had religions chosen for us or we’ve joined self-he...

The subject of today’s podcast is Emotion Control. Like it or not, as human beings, we creatures tend to respond emotionally. Comfort, praise, recognition, and a sense of belonging are among our top stimuli. Our yearning for these is manna from heaven to cult leaders. They prey upon exactly this type of vulnerability. They lure us in under the veil of comfort and specialness and then set up an “us...

As smart, functioning adults, we like to think that we are in control of our own thoughts. This is not always the case. As we know from Gerette’s book An Everyday Cult and from this podcast, we know that destructive cults use any number of techniques to get members to stay and commit themselves to what may be harmful activities. Thought Control is the most insidious.  Listen in as we discuss the d...

Controlling information is a critical way authoritarian leaders and cult leaders control the hearts and minds of their followers. This week we discuss how they do it and how you can take some agency regarding the information you consume.  Dr. Hassan suggests that we must each do independent research, that we must ask difficult questions, and really dig beyond the cult-controlled internet algorithm...

Our focus today is Behavior Control, the first methodology in the BITE model, which refers to control of Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotion. Dr. Hassan developed BITE as a model for evaluating degrees undue influence. As functioning adults, we like to think that we are in control of our own behavior. Last week’s conversation about Influence leads us to reexamine that possibility. In this...

Can understanding the nature of influence support people in cult recovery?  Dr. Steve Hassan, former cult member, author, educator, and world authority on cults will be our honored guest throughout this season .  His published works include: The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control, Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recove...

We explore what Gerette has identified in her book as the final stage of cultic involvement: Waking Up Again and Again. In this ongoing phase, one becomes fully aware of the reality of cultism. Awake, cult survivors remain ever watchful for the potential for harmful power dynamics that play out in the world or in themselves. Waking Up Again and Again is the effort required to be a conscious, consc...

In this episode of Everyday Cults. Everyday People, we explore what Gerette identified in her book as the fourth stage of cultic involvement: Snapping—as in snapping out of it.    This is the period of dawning recognition; it’s the acknowledgement that you have been indoctrinated. It demands a huge shift in consciousness. For many, it is also an awakening of conscience when you see how you or your...

Everyday Cults. Everyday People explores the five stages of cultic involvement identified by Gerette Buglion in her new memoir An Everyday Cult. In this episode, we discuss what she calls “Asleep,” the third stage of cultic involvement. Gerette estimates that she was asleep for five out of the eighteen years she was in the cult. We discuss how the cult leader lulled members into this stage and the...

In this, our first season of Everyday Cults. Everyday People we explore the five stages of cultic involvement Gerette identifies in her new memoir An Everyday Cult . Last week, our subject was Falling—as in falling for the trickery of a cult. Today, we discuss drifting, the second stage. Drifting is a period of psychological meandering where part of one’s psyche is lulled into unconscious complici...

Just as no one intentionally falls in love with an abuser, no one intentionally joins a cult—we fall for them. Falling, in this case, refers to both falling in love and falling asleep. Gerette fell. Her fall lasted eighteen years.  Often - but not always – cultic involvement begins with 'love-bombing' - a starry-eyed stage where someone is magnetically drawn to a group or a leader who pr...

What is a cult? How are they created? Who joins a cult? Why? How can we recognize a cult if we’re in one? In this introductory episode, cult survivor Gerette Buglion, author of An Everyday Cult, delves into her experience living in a cult for eighteen years to answer these compelling questions.  Cult dynamics exist in all layers of society. They can be political, racist, religious, sexual, satanic...