Into Quicksand: Kate Amber on How Cults Pull You In

[00:00:00] This winter, take your icon pass north. North to abundant access, to powder-skiing legacy, to independent spirit. North where easy to get to, meets worlds away. Go north to Snow Basin. Now on The Icon Pass.

[00:00:27] The views and opinions expressed by A Little Bit Culty are those of the hosts. And don't reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any of the quote, fire content provided by our guest, blogger, sponsors, or authors of the opinion

[00:00:39] and are not intended to malign a religion, a group, a club, an organization, business individual, anyone or anything. Unless Sarah... You're a douchebag. Yeah. We're not doctor, psychologist, therapist, license counselors or shamans. Even though you kind of think you are sometimes.

[00:00:54] I'm like an urban shaman. Okay? Good talk. Hey everybody, Sarah Edmondson here. And I'm Anthony Ames, aka Nippy, Sarah's husband, and you're listening to A Little Bit Culty, aka ALBC, a podcast about what happens when devotion goes to the dark side.

[00:01:20] We've been there and back again. A little about us, true story, we met and fell in love in a cult and then we woke up and got the hell out of dodge. And the whole thing was captured in HBO docu-series The Vow now in its second season.

[00:01:33] I also wrote about our experience in my memoir, Scarred, the true story of how I escaped next to him, the cult that bound my life. Look at us. A couple of married podcasters who just happened to have a weekly date night

[00:01:45] or we interview experts and advocates and things like cult awareness and mind control. Wait, wait, this does not count toward date night babe. We got to schedule that that's separate. So it's two days we gotta hang out?

[00:01:56] We do this podcast thing because we learned a lot on our exit ramp out of Nexium. Still on that journey and we want to pay the lessons forward with the help of other cult survivors and whistleblowers.

[00:02:05] We know all too well that culty things happen. It happens to people every day across every walk of life. Join us each week to tackle these culty dynamics everywhere from online dating to mega churches and multi-level market.

[00:02:16] This stuff really is everywhere. The Cultiverse just keeps on expanding and so are we. Welcome to season five of A Little Bit Cultie, serving cult content and word salads weekly on your favorite podcast platforms. Learn more at alittlebitculti.com Hi everybody, welcome back to A Little Bit Cultie.

[00:02:51] What up ALBC listeners? It's been a big week in the Cultiverse and one of the cool things we appreciate about being in this space is that when something happens we get about 90,000 emails about said cultic event, especially about what happened with the Dalai Lama.

[00:03:06] The Dalai Lama doing the thing with a kid in his tongue and sucking on his tongue has to be one of the most disgusting things and deserves way more outrage I think than it's getting.

[00:03:15] I was really disturbed to see this video, especially with the connections between Keith Ranieri and being endorsed by the Dalai Lama. My conspiratorial mind is going off right now because nothing surprises me at this point.

[00:03:27] Right, I follow an account called the attachment nerd and I heard her saying something that I really appreciate, which is that we don't know. It could be like best case scenario, not best case but like at the very least he was abused as well.

[00:03:38] He doesn't know that that's not normal and the worst case is he's a raging pedophile and we don't know. I don't know how you explain that away. I wonder if more people will come forward after this. What, kids?

[00:03:48] Yeah, imagine being the parents in that situation and watching that happen to your kid. Dude, I would have bitch slept a Dalai Lama right then and there. You don't touch my kid like that in the way he did it. This shit is everywhere. It is so inappropriate.

[00:03:58] If you haven't seen the video, check it out but also maybe you don't because it's really triggering and upsetting and gross. So that happened.

[00:04:06] Look, suffice to say I think there's a lot of people in leadership that get a hall pass for being the persona that is being projected out into the world and it goes unquestioned. And I don't know how long he's had that persona unquestioned 30, 40 years.

[00:04:23] And at a certain point, the reality for people who feel like they can just do what they want might lead there. It certainly wouldn't lead there for me but I just think certain things need to be questioned a little bit more. Agreed.

[00:04:35] I can't imagine us the first time. Nope. Well, we'll see. We'll keep reporting as things unfold and you all will be listening to this episode a few weeks after this is in the news. So maybe more things will have come out by the time you hear this.

[00:04:48] But the other thing that about a million people emailed us was about a new cult that's being documented and exposed in the UK called Lighthouse, a life coaching program to help people realize their dreams. Sounds familiar. Sounds familiar. Wow.

[00:05:04] And we'll be of course doing an episode on that as soon as we can find the best person to interview and also looking for somebody to interview about the Lori Vallow Debell case, which is... Which you got interviewed last night by Elizabeth Vargas. In a van.

[00:05:18] In a van down by the river. Kinda. Kinda. Down by the creek. Yeah, we have a river nearby. Yeah. That was pretty wild. It wasn't an inspirational talk. Well, I was only in there for four or five minutes.

[00:05:30] So, a little note to people who are new to the space if you're getting out of a cult. I highly... Well, first of all, don't recommend talking about your trauma until you're out of your trauma. No live TV. Yeah, it's very difficult.

[00:05:41] It's a challenging space to talk about something when you're still dealing with trauma. I don't recommend it. You did great. Thank you. I was exhausted because Ace has been sick and he was up coughing. But I got my sound bites out the best that I could.

[00:05:54] And it was nice to see Elizabeth Vargas after. It was great. Yeah. And then, I think, Elizabeth was the one. For those of you who don't remember, she interviewed Sarah for the 2020 thing two weeks after the New York Times article came out.

[00:06:06] So this is Halloween of 2017 and some Hollywood Hills mansion. But they turned into a set. Yeah. Yeah. And we were very new in this, traumatized in this and very alone because it... I felt very objectified when the crew showed up, started doing hair and makeup.

[00:06:23] They kinda looked at us, I don't know, side-eye and kind of... The lowest of this point, I felt like. Yes. I did interview another interview with her for Cults and Extreme Beliefs. It was supposed to be Leah Remini and then... That's right.

[00:06:36] Can't remember why she couldn't do it. And Elizabeth Vargas was there again. That's where I met Yanya Lalich and a bunch of other survivors from other cults. That's a cool series. Clearly you earned Elizabeth's respect, which I think is a testament to you to how

[00:06:47] you've emerged and how she sees you as someone who can articulate and rely on to make her show informative. You did great. Thank you. I'm gonna say fist bump. Oh yeah, not fist bump. Last time we did that for me is when I birthed our children.

[00:07:00] So it's a real compliment. I gave you a hug and a kiss too. Jesus. But also a fist bump. I was like, where'd it bust out my kid? He's like, respect, that looked hard. No respect, girl. Oh yeah. I was coaching you. I was like locking loose.

[00:07:13] Side Barton if he was the best birth coach anyone could ask for. I had a bit of a football vibe to it too. The second one was like, all right, Sarah, and then it was out. Nippy was lying on a mattress on the floor checking sports scores.

[00:07:24] I was like, hey, there's a baby coming out. She's taking hits to this laughing gas offering it to everyone in the room. Like she's having a party over there. Oh yeah. It's four in the morning, Sarah. I was like, guys, you gotta hit this.

[00:07:37] She's like, hit this shit. It's so good. Just kind of. First one's free. I was trying to get the eschewsialogen. It was so funny. All the nurses to hit the laughing gas. And they were like, no, we're working now.

[00:07:47] I'm like, no, but seriously just a little bit will be so fun. She's just lying. She's lying. Serious tangent. Serious tangent. We do have a guest. We do have a guest. Who's a baller as well? Love speaking to her.

[00:07:58] One of the things I love about our show is we get to meet very, very intelligent guests, informed guests who have done a lot of homework research and our wealth of knowledge. And I find if you can ask two, three, four questions for them,

[00:08:14] they can kind of take over and use our platform to inform people. And Kate Amber is certainly one of those people. Truly. She is a course of control expert who holds postgraduate certification in executive leadership of violence and abuse prevention from the University of Pennsylvania.

[00:08:29] Hello Ivy League, as well as a degree in the psychology of course of control from the University of Salford. I did not even know that you could get a degree in course of control. I think that's very cool. Very important because it's what we're all about sniffing out.

[00:08:44] She recently finished her master's dissertation and research on psychosocial quicksand model of coercive control, which she helped to create in order to inform professionals about course of control and trauma. Bless on topic. She's also a massively professional photographer and is also an artist.

[00:08:59] More on topic, she has a lived experience as both an adult and child survivor of domestic abuses as well as a survivor of the cult like organization Landmark Worldwide, which is formerly known as Landmark Education Corporation. Whether or not Landmark is or not a cult will be

[00:09:15] determined in the future. Some people say it is some people say it isn't. We'll let you figure that out. And very on topic as a college senior back in the 90s, Kate signed up for consumers byline incorporated a pyramid scheme that was started by whom?

[00:09:30] The one and only Keith Ranieri, AKA Vanguard, Vanguard 120. That's a great band name. Right. And then the spin-off group when lead singer dies is called five years probation. So it only made sense to have Kate on given her course of control expertise, her Landmark experience

[00:09:50] and her CBI experience. So this will be a fun conversation for you. I hope as it was certainly for us. And that's it. Enjoy. Enjoy Kate Amber. Come Kate to a little bit culty. Oh, I am so excited to be here. Us also.

[00:10:19] We have so much to talk about. I don't know if I've told you this. Where do we start, Sarah? Well, as our listeners know the focus of this is your journey in and out of Landmark and everything you've done since.

[00:10:31] And I want you to know that we get suggestions and requests daily, but the thing probably from the beginning that people have asked about, in fact, I got two messages just this morning about Landmark and people saying, you know, I have a friend who's

[00:10:45] into this and worried, do you have a podcast yet? I'm like, I'm recording it today. And lots of people have written to me about it who just don't want to talk about it because they're so litigious. And everyone, I'm sure all our listeners have probably

[00:10:58] heard of Landmark, know someone in Landmark. Even before I did ESP or Nexium, whatever, I had heard of Landmark and known people had gone through Landmark and I have friends who swear about Landmark. And when I got out of ESP, Nexium,

[00:11:14] people were texting me like, what's the deal on Landmark, cult or not? So let's discuss. Here we are. Here we are two years later, three years later, finally. Here's my first question just to tease our audience. Before you even heard of this, back in your college years

[00:11:30] you signed up for something else. What was that? And tell us all about it. I believe I was a junior in college, either a junior or senior in college and someone introduced me to something called Consumers Byline Incorporated. I had never seen or heard of anything

[00:11:47] called network marketing. I was unaware that that was a thing and I was immediately fascinated by the circles. The math part of my brain was going, oh yeah, this is great. This is gonna make tons of money. I'm gonna love this. It's gonna be amazing.

[00:12:01] And of course with most network marketing companies, unless you get in super early or very high to the top, you're probably not gonna make anything and if anything, you're gonna lose money. And so for me that was how it went in CBI

[00:12:15] was that I didn't earn any money really. I didn't lose a ton, but I didn't really make anything even though I put in a lot of effort. But what was really interesting about CBI was that I had forgotten all about it

[00:12:28] until I was studying at university the past few years and I was looking into Nexium because studying coercive control in school, Nexium was one of the places that we were looking at how coercive control works. And while watching the series,

[00:12:49] it wasn't the Vow, it was the other one. While I was watching that series, I saw Keith Ranieri and I went, wait a minute, like I really didn't remember and then I did a quick search on the internet and I found the video of Keith Ranieri

[00:13:07] drawing the circles. It just took my breath away because I already had known, I knew what had happened in Nexium and how incredibly dangerous and traumatizing it had become for so many people that were there and so to see that and then think,

[00:13:26] oh my God, that could have been me. I mean, I was so easily drawn into CBI, I would have very easily been drawn into Nexium. It has all the things that I would have been attracted to and that's why I was attracted to Landmark

[00:13:41] was for the same kinds of things. Any details about that time that you can share with us? Like did you meet Keith? I don't even remember. The video that I saw seems to be exactly what I remember

[00:13:52] so I think what I was doing was going to like meetings and they were playing that video so I would bring people and they'd play doing the video and drawing the circles on the white, those boards, whatever those are called.

[00:14:05] And so that was really my only experience with that. I don't even remember much about how it operated. Maybe I blocked it all out. Oh, I know that. Oh, wow. Okay, so you left CBI and then how long after that did you join Landmark?

[00:14:23] So Landmark was a lot further down the road so I graduated from college. I moved several times, worked as a photographer for many years and then I moved down to Austin, Texas and was running a portrait studio in Austin and I didn't know anybody.

[00:14:42] I was brand new to Austin. I'd been transferred down from Washington State and so I was out trying to meet people and I met a couple of folks that I just felt like I connected with them right away. They seemed like really good, decent, smart people

[00:15:00] and after a few interactions with them they invited me to a meeting and they brought me into one of those, you know, I think it was at the advanced course that we would do that the final night where people would bring guests

[00:15:15] and so I was brought to one of those and I just dated up. I signed up for the forum right away. And how old were you at this point? So it would have been about 20 years ago so I was in my early 30s.

[00:15:28] Okay, so what was it about that pitch that inspired you? Like what were you signing up for? Oh, I was going to change the world. The tagline I guess you would call it at the time and it's been 20 some years

[00:15:43] so I don't know what Landmark is doing now. I haven't looked into it since I left so I don't know if they're still doing this but the tagline at that point was a world that works for everyone by 2020. Well, obviously we've already passed 2020. They messed that up.

[00:15:59] I look around and they go, the world is not really working for everyone. No. So I think it was really that. I wanted to make friends. I was drawn to a community. I felt very accepted. It was kind of a love bombing environment at first.

[00:16:16] Did you feel pressure to sign up? Because I know that's a big thing. I think the most pressure that I felt was around the money part of it. Like they weren't going to take a no. And even though it was a real soft no on my part

[00:16:31] I just didn't have the money in that moment. But they went into this conversation about how I could make it happen and that, you know, is this how you live your life? Are you going to let money stop you in your life?

[00:16:47] You know maybe that's what's stopping you and if you sign up for Landmark then you're going to be able to get past that. Right? So there was that pressure but they didn't have to pressure me very much because I was really into it.

[00:16:59] I mean it looked fun and interesting and I was into it. And I liked the people that were there. Had you done any other personal development before? I had done a lot of personal development actually. From the time I graduated college I started reading Tony Robbins books

[00:17:19] and then I did his whole personal power series at the time they were cassettes. You remember those names? Yes. And I had gone through that whole series and then I read lots of books, you know, The Wrangler and How to Win Friends, The Influence People all that stuff.

[00:17:35] And I had done that from the time I graduated until the time I signed up for Landmark. So the words were all very familiar. They were able to draw me in with the language that felt to me it felt freeing and powerful

[00:17:53] and it felt like, oh these are my people. Like when people normally sign up they're normally like, I'm choosing my words carefully like you're susceptible in a certain way and it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's ultimately what these groups prey on. Right so in violent relationships

[00:18:13] inside of domestic violence, inside of cults inside of human trafficking there are as you said like vulnerabilities that are preyed upon but there are also strengths that are preyed upon. And there are also principles as well that it appeals to. Oh yes, especially in Landmark

[00:18:31] they use your values to kind of get you hooked and then they sort of push on those values in order to cause you to give up all your time and energy for their cause. Right, they use your values. Yeah, that's right. They leverage them. Yes, leverage perfect word.

[00:18:54] I know I did have, I certainly had weaknesses on the side of vulnerabilities but I also had these strengths where I mean I've always been an entrepreneur. I've always wanted to go out there and do that, you know,

[00:19:06] I'm innovative, I'm sort of on the cutting edge of things and so I saw Landmark as being this place where I could be more of who I wanted to be and less of a follower. More of a leader. Yeah, yeah.

[00:19:21] And so I think that and the whole idea of making a world that works for everyone. Right. I mean, I thought that was really, That's beautiful. That was amazing. It is. I mean, the word idealistic comes like, you know, Yeah, you would have been great in ESP.

[00:19:35] If I had met you in 2006, I would have scooped you up and put you on Team Humanity. I would have totally been all into that. I have to tell you something funny, I think our listeners know this but when we were in NXM,

[00:19:47] Landmark was quite big in Vancouver and lots of people had done Landmark and then came over to ESP. And when they were asking like, what's the difference? I'd say, well, it's a similar, you know, goal to like be the best version of yourself

[00:19:59] and work through your limitations and all that stuff. But I would say that Landmark was like McDonald's version and ours was gourmet food. It's true. I heard her say that's a great way. That's a great way to put it. It's cheap and cheerful, you know, right.

[00:20:13] But also from what I know, like the group sessions were huge, right? It could be up to 100 people in a room. Am I right? Oh yeah, our forum and advanced course had, I'd say more than 100 people in each one of them. Right.

[00:20:26] So that was the other thing we would say is that like ours were 15, 20 max 40 people and there was always like a three to one ratio coach to a student. Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, and the other thing that's really different between NXM and Landmark is that,

[00:20:39] you know, NXM had a guru, right? There was the person at the very top sort of, so to speak of the organization, whereas in Landmark that is spread across a group of leaders. Right. And so that's a little different. Because Warner Earhart had already stepped back. That's right.

[00:20:56] Yeah. As I understand that Warner Earhart had recognized the guru model doesn't work and I need to remove myself if I want to continue this. So it was someone of a strategic move because when he was doing Aston, all those things back in the 70s,

[00:21:10] he had to rebrand it and then remove himself as the guru. I can see that that was possibly a reason for that. I haven't heard it before and it makes perfect sense. But I think also Landmark was supposed to be the kinder gentler-est. Right. I see. Right?

[00:21:27] So there was some actual physical... I've seen the footage. Psychological abuse going on. Yeah. And so Landmark was a softer version of that. One thing I've noticed with, and we've been in touch with so many people, including the assistant of somebody in his inner circle

[00:21:42] who did share that that was a strategy, but they're constantly reformulating. And even now since COVID it's all online. They don't meet in person anymore and they'd a lot of follow with that. And they keep changing the mantra, changing the format. But generally it's similar to Nexium

[00:21:59] and most LGATs, Large Group Awareness Trainings, where you're in a room, there's chairs lined up, there's someone at the front of the stage, you break out into groups to do a process. Right. Somebody comes to the front of the room. Right? They do a process, they're a demo.

[00:22:14] Everyone like cheers. If they don't do the process. Yeah, you're in the hot seat. In the hot seat, then you get like pressured. Like give me some of those moments of like what you remember. First the good ones and then I want to hear about the red flags.

[00:22:26] Well, I really, from the beginning, I kind of loved the hot seat idea. And maybe that was one of my vulnerabilities was that I didn't have super strong boundaries because I did, as a child I was kidnapped by my father. What? And so some of my boundaries

[00:22:41] had been broken down pretty badly. So the hot seat didn't bother me, but I didn't want to do the hot seat if I didn't want to do it. So like normally the way the hot seat worked is people would volunteer. But on the last evening

[00:22:56] of the advanced course, I ended up accidentally volunteering because what they had us do is they had everyone stand up and this was going to be the last conversation of the whole weekend. The only thing left was our Tuesday night bring people to sign them up thing.

[00:23:13] And so the last conversation of the advanced course was going to be on playing like your life depends on it. And so this all sounded great until playing like your life depends on it turned into, okay everybody stand up and so we all stood up

[00:23:30] and the leader says, well, who's willing to play like their life depends on it and bring 10 guests to the Tuesday night enrollment conversation. And at least half the room sat down immediately. They were willing to commit to that. I was still standing.

[00:23:50] So the leader talks a little bit more about why it's important to play like your life depends on it and how by bringing guests to this Tuesday night thing you're going to overcome all these obstacles in your own life and you're really going to have a breakthrough

[00:24:05] and blah, blah, blah. Well, a whole bunch more people sit down. Well this continues and continues and continues until everyone is sitting except for me and one other woman. And at that point the leader decided to have a one-on-one conversation with me. And I wasn't really ready

[00:24:27] for this conversation but I was going to tell them why I was still standing up because the first thing I realized was that Landmark's focus from word one out of their mouth was it's all about being an integrity. Well, she said,

[00:24:44] well why aren't you willing to commit to this? And I said, well I think that Landmark is out of integrity with this conversation. This is basically threatening people so that you can make money off of our guests. You know, and so I went around and around.

[00:25:02] And while we were talking, the second person who was still standing sat down and it was still me and the leader going through it and finally the leader I think she just gave up. I think she just realized if she pushed me any harder

[00:25:19] it was not going to go well. And so finally she made some comment that made it all fine and good and made it all fit into her story and then she turned her head to the other woman who popped right back up and the whole room

[00:25:37] like burst into laughter over the fact that she stood up. The leader gave her a glare and she sat right back down and so that conversation when I found what was really interesting about that because this happens in cults and I'm not saying that Landmark is a cult

[00:25:54] there's a gradations of this coercive control. You know, it's from the very extreme on this end and when we finished that evening with the advanced course I had all these people come up to me at the end and say I got the advanced course from your conversation

[00:26:15] like I didn't have the advanced course until you stood up and had that conversation with the leader and I just want to thank you and I was getting hugs and handshakes and admiration from all these people and what's interesting about that is I was really standing up against

[00:26:36] what they were doing but similar to how what happens in a cult like when the time period passes for when something's supposed to happen like oh, our group is going to be taken up in a spaceship right on January 1st, 2020

[00:26:53] and we get past the date of January 1st, 2020 the people who are inside the group actually become stronger believers of the group instead of like coming to the realization of what's happening and that's what it felt like happened in that exchange in that experience of the advanced course

[00:27:15] This is the golden age of cult recovery The more we speak up and share our stories the more we realize we are not alone Your voice and your story can empower others This is Sarah and I'm proud to be a founding collaborator

[00:27:30] of the hashtag I Got Out movement Learn more at IGotOut.org The Franckys were a picture-perfect influencer family but everything wasn't as it seemed I just had a 12-year-old boy so up here asking for help he's emaciated he's got tape around his legs

[00:28:13] through the walls of his house and he's been doing it for about 10 years and he's been doing it for a very long time and he's been doing it for over a year and he's got tape around his legs Ruby Franckys is his mom's name

[00:28:28] Infamous is covering Ruby Franckys the world of Mormonism and a secret therapy group that ruined lives Listen to Infamous wherever you get your podcasts So like there was a reframing of this negative thing that had happened just like the passing of the spaceship arrival

[00:28:51] which would be normally a time to go oh maybe this is bullshit instead of people going oh maybe this is bullshit they're going oh wow look at how strong she is now that's a real leader Oh my God so they weren't coming to you because you were voicing

[00:29:10] what they were really thinking No, they were even more enthralled even more willing to lay it all out on the line They were gonna play like their life depended on It wasn't an indication of a flaw of the system

[00:29:25] it was an indication of how powerful the system is that it gave you the strength to stand up to the leader Right? Exactly Oh my God That's perfect I feel like we've seen stuff like that It's kind of like when Keith would do a forum

[00:29:37] and then Ness who would always come out on stage and be like wasn't he amazing wasn't Jeff that just incredible Is there anyone who's seeing Keith for the first time and then people would put up their hand and she'd go what did you think and somebody new

[00:29:49] who didn't know how to edify him all the time and pump his tires would be like yeah I don't know he just seemed kind of like a normal dude you know like kind of just a guy and then Ness he would go isn't that amazing

[00:30:00] Isn't it incredible that somebody that intelligent could have that good rapport that they bring themselves down to your level and be so relatable It's amazing Why is he dressed like a hobo? Isn't it amazing that he can dress like a hobo and be so relatable

[00:30:15] Fuck we're talking about Right? Like if you could turn anything into a positive for the cause Cognitive dissonance Cognitive dissonance Oh totally Yeah so can I just ask you before we get into some of the other red flags like was there one particular nugget

[00:30:29] of truth that you got people sometimes give a shit for being like don't find the good in these cults it's like you don't want but at my point is that I think people get hooked and they stay because there is good initially Right there's a helpful thing

[00:30:42] Oh totally Can you share what some of those things were that made you feel positive about it? Well the thing that made me feel really positive was also the thing that turned out to be the most negative so and it's probably and as I understand

[00:30:55] it was also a large tenet of nexium which was this idea that we are at cause What's good and what's dangerous about it? First of all it's very alluring to believe that this whole sort of law of attraction thing right that I can attract

[00:31:11] whatever I want to into my life based on what I do or say or feel or think and that everything that comes to me as a result of my ability to do that which if you can do that and know that it's not really true

[00:31:29] because in one aspect you can really get over a lot of things that hold you back if you believe that but you have to be really careful not to believe it 100% because it's not true we do not cause everything that happens to us and the biggest problem

[00:31:48] with that concept is that it allows individuals and groups to control and harm and oppress others while blaming the people that they're oppressing and so that's the piece that I saw running through network marketing it runs through cults and through other high control groups

[00:32:13] and through domestic violence relationships where the victim is blamed for whatever it was that was done to them that they're trying to stand up against it also empowers abusers because the abuser can always come in and leverage that by not adhering to the own tenets

[00:32:32] that they're pretending to adhere to so it allows them plausible deniability what were some of the red flags along the way that you clocked but didn't understand until you know what you know now that we can share with our listeners

[00:32:45] well so just when you first walk into the forum the chairs are all lined up in what would be called absolutely perfect formation and I didn't know until later but they actually measure the distance between the chairs like the people who set up the room

[00:33:03] they set that room up very specifically the fact that we didn't have breaks when I say we didn't have breaks and they didn't give us a single break what I mean is that we went from pretty much first thing in the morning probably a I'd say 12 hour day

[00:33:19] so maybe 9 to 9 and we had two like 15 minute breaks and one meal break and while we were on our meal break we had homework so there was no time for processing and I was completely oblivious to this at the time because I sort of worked myself to death

[00:33:42] so I was already used to working way more than I should have been and I already didn't take lots of breaks myself but for somebody who's on a regular schedule and they have breakfast and they work and then they have lunch and they take breaks

[00:33:56] and like there's time to process for someone like that going in having that degree of just intense focus without any time to process really allows for the information to get into the brain in a very controlling way there's very little ability to consciously

[00:34:18] question the information that's coming in and so it sort of goes directly in so that was one of the things that struck me later on So they don't even have an opportunity for you to challenge things there's no discourse going on

[00:34:34] where you could actually go hold on a second let me think about that or there's nothing like that Well, there's a little bit like the fact that I ended up standing up at the end of that advanced course but it's done in a way

[00:34:48] like what you said Sarah about the way that things get reframed and turned and twisted everything that you say as an objection or as some kind of a setting some kind of a boundary to get around that and go past it and get behind your no

[00:35:10] and so it's certainly not par for the course that people disagree and if you do they're going to find a way to sort of put you in your place so that then everybody goes oh see look how great this is

[00:35:22] One of the things I've heard from the people who have written in but didn't want to be public was that they felt that and I see this across the board at large group awareness trainings and people who are volunteers and leaders or whatever

[00:35:34] that are not therapists or counselors but you're doing some pretty deep psychological work with people like digging into people's psychology was that something that you saw as well in your time there? Oh absolutely, we had this one exercise we were paired up all the way around the room

[00:35:52] I can't remember if it was the advanced course I think it was probably the advanced course and we were paired up with one person and we sat face to face and we ended period of time I can't remember how long it was I'd say probably an hour

[00:36:06] maybe two hours where each person told their story the story of their life until they were sick of it so you tell your story and you start it over again and you tell it again and the other person would do it next

[00:36:22] and you would just tell your story back and forth until you were sick of your story and this was supposed to sort of edge off of it It's just a story and nobody is a victim And it's just your story you can let go of the story

[00:36:38] I mean story means it's false narrative right? Exactly Yes, from what you asked if you were telling your story and you had a really traumatic story I mean people could have gotten deeply emotionally harmed inside of an environment where they then rather than being validated are

[00:37:02] pretty much shamed for being a victim and it minimizes that fact too Right and then what that does is it sets you up later for where the organization itself if it decides to victimize you can get away with it in plain sight right in front of everybody

[00:37:22] Right, this is your story Yes, yes A lot of the words were similar Was it a red flag to you ever that if you're really there to work your shit as they say that so many people were there just sort of on the sidelines

[00:37:36] it seemed to me that that's where I'm like that's a big money making thing sure if you're going to go in the hot seat and have an aha and get your shit worked great this is also feedback I'd heard that people had gone and been like

[00:37:52] you could also sort of be not pretended to Interesting, see I was so into it That wasn't your experience It was definitely not my experience and I would have not have even noticed that anybody else was coasting because I was so into it

[00:38:08] Anything else that you would say is a red flag before we get to your departure Well there was lots of loaded language but I didn't know what that meant Loaded language is something that you find in the literature when I was doing research

[00:38:20] Loaded language is part of coercive control it's one of the ways that you're controlled and the things like at cause there was this concept that breakdowns leads to breakthroughs Wow Well, yeah sometimes and sometimes breakdowns just need to break downs what that does is it encourages

[00:38:42] it encourages breakdowns it encourages people having and do you really want to be in a big group of people encouraging one another to have psychological breakdowns It's like your boundaries you have to let your boundaries down to have a breakthrough but then you're defenseless and

[00:39:00] if you have any boundaries then at least in next year you were called defiant right, like if you expressed a boundary like that so yeah, it's so unhealthy Quick question, consistently almost every person who goes to the landmark complains about the pressure to enroll Did you experience that?

[00:39:18] Oh yeah, well, you know that whole play like your life depends on that thing that was all about enrollment and it was pretty much a given that you were expected to bring other people in I mean that's how we're going to make

[00:39:34] a world that works for everyone by 2020 so if that's our whole goal then that's the way we get them in is to enroll and it's interesting because I was watching one of the second one of those episodes from the second season of The Vow and somebody was mentioning

[00:39:50] that we don't use the word recruit we use the word enroll and again, that's loaded language the way that words are redefined inside of a closed system so any kind of group like this would be considered a closed system you're not allowed to have

[00:40:10] information coming in from the outside and when information does come in from the outside you sort of resist against it or you have reasons you have ways to claim that that's an attack on you somehow spirit campaign so those were the language and that was the biggest problem

[00:40:28] not just while I was in landmark but after I was out getting that thinking process out of your belief system because I didn't want to get it completely out so that was the thing was figuring out how to incorporate what was good about it and then pull out

[00:40:46] all the stuff that wasn't so that I could get back to who I was and not be this person that was created inside of that totally, no Nipi and I spent a lot of time talking about what was good about something and I think what's helped us

[00:41:00] or at least I'll speak for myself with that cause piece is when something happens whether it's little like miscommunication and somebody doesn't get picked up from school or a flight gets missed or whatever you can always look at

[00:41:14] how I look at it now is what could I have done differently what could I have done differently what was my piece in this that's powerful versus oh this is all my fault blaming myself and beating myself up and thinking that it's not like a two way street

[00:41:30] communication and things like that are two way streets so that's been our journey with that but back to loaded language real quick another funny thing about the word enrollment is that not only was it another way of saying recruitment but Keith said it was synonymous with building humanity

[00:41:44] enrollment is building humanity so that's what we were just building I'm not even recruiting or enrolling I'm just building humanity like why wouldn't you want to do that? It's so beautiful oh it's so wonderful and perfect and peaceful and then you realize wait a minute

[00:42:04] there's something else behind this that is much more dark and malevolent when the words we're using don't mean what they really mean that's when things become a problem we're going to be doing some helpful resources on the topic of cult recovery check out our website

[00:42:40] at a little bit culty dot com and now here's a brief message from our sponsors this episode is sponsored by better help what are your self-care non-negotiables? maybe you never skip leg day or never miss yoga maybe it's getting eight hours of sleep that's my personal

[00:43:18] and everyone's dream isn't it well I definitely have some non-negotiables like I'm in Vancouver right now and I'm spending literally as much time as I can outside in nature so I'm going to be doing some non-negotiables I'm going to be doing some non-negotiables

[00:43:34] I'm spending as much time as I can outside in nature hashtag cold pools hashtag crushing it nature is a non-negotiable not enough time in the fresh air and the trees around me and I start to feel not great, not myself not grounded

[00:43:48] therapy day is a bit like my nature walks I try to not miss it and I know I'm just going to feel so much better all around if I make it a priority I get so much out of it

[00:43:58] it helps me put my worries and anxieties in their rightful place and helps me clear my mind so I can focus on what I really need and I'm working myself just because I hate to say no to people you know what I mean? Thanks therapy

[00:44:06] thanks for helping me see that and if you're thinking of starting therapy give Better Help a try it's entirely online designed to be convenient flexible and suited to your schedule just fill out a brief questionnaire and get matched with a licensed therapist

[00:44:20] and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge look even when we know what makes us happy it's hard to make time for it but when you feel like you have no time for yourself non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever

[00:44:30] so I'm going to skip therapy day with Better Help visit BetterHelp.com slash culty today to get 10% off your first month that's BetterHelp H-E-L-P dot com slash culty what was your final straw? what was your leaving point? well so I would love to say that I left Landmark

[00:44:47] okay but I didn't I was taking Landmark courses for five years I did the forum the advanced course I even did the wisdom course which was like this year long went numerous times to another city for days and then I did lots and lots of seminars

[00:45:05] which were like one night a week for several weeks and near the end of my time at Landmark I was in an abusive relationship and ended up having to get a protective order and unfortunately the person that I was in the relationship with was also in Landmark

[00:45:23] so I had this document that would protect me from this person and I was told to contact the police if this person came within 200 yards of me when he came to the seminar that I was in and I knew that he saw me

[00:45:43] and he sat down and he was not leaving like if he had just left it would have been different right like if he saw me and went oh I'm not supposed to be here and he left I wouldn't be like on the phone with 911 but when he came

[00:45:55] and he didn't leave I did what I was told to do by the county attorney's office which was to contact the police and the police came and Landmark said you are both kicked out because you can't get along and so that was the way that I

[00:46:11] left it was very abrupt it was very painful all of my friends were in Landmark because as I said I didn't know anybody when I first moved to Austin and so I had built a whole community my entire support system was inside Landmark and all of a sudden

[00:46:29] I was ostracized completely and so again like they couldn't have me in there they couldn't have me as sort of this beacon of well there are occasions when being a victim is actually real like you didn't choose that and when a crime

[00:46:49] has been committed against you and there's a protective order to protect you from having it happen again the way I see it in my opinion is that they could not have me there as an example of the incongruity in what they were teaching so they blamed you

[00:47:05] that's so painful now they kicked him out too but he was the perpetrator so it felt a lot more punitive against me when the only thing I had done was to try to keep myself safe in an environment where I felt like

[00:47:21] I ought to be allowed to be safe and how long after did you put the pieces together about what you'd been a part of was it when you started doing your cursive control work what happened after that? Initially someone had said you know the forum came from Est

[00:47:35] and I did a little bit of reading to find out some more information about Landmark and kind of got the okay this is a large group awareness training thing but then for many years I just sort of didn't think about it or pay any attention

[00:47:47] to what had happened in Landmark but then when I started studying course of control from a master's degree that's when as each of the things we would study would come up you know we would study the vitamins chart of coercion we'd study Chaldeany's influence for sales people

[00:48:05] and just all of these different researchers and theorists that studied course of control and how it worked I would start having little flashes little memories, little oh that was and that's when I was like we didn't have any breaks and what that meant why was it significant

[00:48:25] that we were in there from 9 in the morning till 9 at night without any breaks well the significance was that your brain gets tired and when it gets tired the part of your brain that's responsible for critical thinking and analyzing facts before it absorbs it as truth

[00:48:45] shuts down in those situations and so that's when I really started to see oh that's what happened to me in Landmark. So it wasn't your experience in Landmark that sent you on a journey to study this stuff? No actually it wasn't it was

[00:49:01] from an abusive relationship that ended where the coercive control was the significant aspect of it because I understood domestic violence domestic violence as physical violence and the relationship I was in didn't have a lot of physical violence it was pretty minor by comparison to the psychological violence

[00:49:23] and I didn't even know what coercive control was until I read Evan Stark's book and after reading his book and I went oh that's what happened to me. Was that book called? It's called coercive control I think the subtitle is something about men and women and their

[00:49:39] personal lives how men dominate or control women and their personal lives something like that and that was the book that sent me on the journey of really studying about coercive control and then I found that Salford had a degree and that's how I ended up there. Wow

[00:49:55] oh here we go. Coercive control how men and trap women in personal life. There you go how could I forget in trap that's the perfect word that is coercive control. So our audience I think will kill me if I don't want to speak a little bit more about

[00:50:09] that little nugget you dropped earlier about your dad. Kidnapping you at the age of seven would you perhaps share what happened there and how that relates to the work you're doing now? Sure when I was seven and my brother was five our father who my parents had divorced

[00:50:25] years earlier when I was four years old and my mother had experienced abuse from my father physical violence as well as other types of violence and of course, the controlling behaviors and when I was seven and my brother was five we went on Christmas break with dad

[00:50:45] and he told us that he wanted to make sure that we got to keep our relationship and that we got to stay close and so we got on a plane and we flew to Australia and we were in Australia away from my mom for almost a year before

[00:51:03] she and the United States government didn't there wasn't a lot of help let's say with getting us back so my mom in essence had to kidnap us back so she flew to Australia and she knew where we were going to be she saw us walking home from school

[00:51:19] and put us in a car and took us straight to the passport place we got our pictures taken at the passport place the gentleman who gave us our passports said here are your passports I'm going to be locking up so that if anyone comes here

[00:51:35] they won't be able to get any information from me and we went straight from the passport to the airport and got on a plane and flew back to the US so it was a very unique situation and once I started studying about coercive control I realized

[00:51:51] how that fit into my story so I've experienced coercive control in a lot of different areas and I think that's one reason why some people consider it a thing that happens in cults and some say it happens in human trafficking and some say

[00:52:07] oh it's a domestic violence thing the fact is that coercive control happens all over the place and I know because I've experienced it in many different contexts how do you define it? Coursive control is essentially an abuse of power it's when one person

[00:52:25] abuses their power over another person it's like some form of instilling fear or threatening or forcing them it often involves deception and so when equality is kind of the antidote to coercive control that's why you'll see coercive control operating anywhere where you see oppression

[00:52:47] tell us about the work you're doing now and the model that you created, is that right? I created a model called the psychosocial quicksand model and I came to this quicksand analogy in the middle of the night, I woke up 3am something had just happened where the

[00:53:05] county attorney had dismissed the protective order violation case that I'd been waiting for and they told me that they were not going to be prosecuting my acts for violating the protective order and I woke up in panic attack I couldn't breathe, my heart was

[00:53:25] beating out of my chest I felt like I was suffocating and drowning and after about an hour of that I thought to myself this must be what it's like to die in quicksand and that was where I came up with the model because from my perspective

[00:53:45] coercive control is both the use of psychological tactics so it exploits our normal human psychology and then it's additionally it's social tactics so that's why I called it psychosocial because it's not just usually one person doing the coercive control often times that person will bring

[00:54:07] a whole bunch of other people in to help maintain their abuse of this person so they use social systems to do that as well that's one of the things that's happening in the family court system right now and the abusers will use professionals within the system

[00:54:23] to help them abuse their victim by proxy and to help take away custody of their children from the protective parents who happen to be their victim so let's see if you've even answered your question I created this model it's based on researching all these other models

[00:54:41] so all these other researchers and theorists in the area of coercive control I researched other stuff and I came up with the 5 D's of my model so we've got double binds, double standards double speak, double vision and darvo and so those are the elements of coercive control

[00:55:03] in the model that I teach and it's a visual model that uses pictures and it shows how it feels from the victim's perspective to be trapped in this quicksand and to escape and that they can't get anybody to see what's even happening to them

[00:55:21] because the quicksand is invisible such a good metaphor I'm curious, can you define what you call double binds? yeah so double binds are when you basically have only bad choices so it's when somebody puts you in a situation where no matter what you do

[00:55:37] you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't between a rock and a hard place anything like that so just as an example, Child Protective Services told me if you don't get a protective order against your ex we can take your children

[00:55:52] so I got a protective order I didn't want my children taken from me a year later that same system said well he's their father he has to have unsupervised contact with them and turned the same kids over to the person who a year before CPS said

[00:56:10] couldn't have them so I was expected to protect them in one scenario by getting a protective order but when I did that in another scenario then I'm seen as being vindictive and trying to keep them from their father so that's that's a double bind from that situation

[00:56:28] wow so you've created the system, what type of work are you doing with it now and how does that relate to your healing from all of these different situations you've been through so I am currently doing speaking, training consulting and expert witness testimony

[00:56:46] in the area of coercive control so I've been speaking at conferences I've been doing trainings for professionals my model simplifies coercive control as you guys know it's very complex there's a lot of pieces to it and so that's why I created these 5Ds

[00:57:04] so that it's easy to remember and then I put all these pictures to it and have these sort of visual things that pop into your brain as you recall pieces of the model so training speaking consulting and then the thing that I've been doing the most

[00:57:16] has been working with victims of domestic violence related coercive control in the court system so I've been doing reports and assessments on cases and then testifying in family court cases where coercive control is a factor so that the judges and the attorneys have enough information to understand

[00:57:38] why those children need to be protected from that that's kind of the piece where the story about my father fits in is that I adored my father when he kidnapped my brother and I and when we returned it was like we had come back

[00:57:54] from a cult of one because we had been brainwashed into believing that our mother was the problem and that our father was great and he gave us whatever he wanted and so because I know that coercive controllers can do that with kids I know that in a family

[00:58:12] court situation just because the child wants to be with the abuser it doesn't mean that it's safe it actually means that it's even more dangerous because that person has managed to brainwash them against their other parent. It's very complicated we when we did our episode about parental alienation

[00:58:32] which we'd since found out as a loaded term in and of itself and has a bunch of controversy around it and again we're not experts we're just figuring this out but we got a lot of letters a lot of emails from people from all sides

[00:58:48] of situations like you just mentioned and I realize that it's much more complicated than I even could have imagined in terms of knowing what you're looking at and I guess if you don't have this education you can really screw up a child's life long term. Oh absolutely

[00:59:02] and when you bring up parental alienation parental alienation would fit under my D of Darvo. So Darvo stands for deny, attack reverse victim and offender so the perpetrator denies that they did anything wrong they attack the victim and then they make it appear

[00:59:20] as though they are the victim so what parental alienation does is it allows the perpetrator to go into court and say I'm not abusive she's alienating the children from me and so it's a tactic of Darvo to turn the court against the protective parent and hand over

[00:59:40] custody to the abuser. Is there anything else that you want us to cover or anything that you didn't get to say that's important for you in terms of your message and what you've learned and what you we could share with the audience of a little bit culty?

[00:59:52] Probably the only thing that I didn't mention is that because coercive control as I said is in all over the place it's in every context you can think of because our systems, our societies are hierarchical there's always going to be somebody willing to abuse power

[01:00:06] and so the thing that I'm seeing more and more is that this is systemic and if we're going to reduce domestic violence reduce harm to people in controlling groups reduce human trafficking we're going to have to do it systemically

[01:00:24] we're going to have to do work in every area across the board to be able to reduce people's ability to abuse power and allow victims to stand up for themselves because right now victims aren't being allowed to stand up for themselves they're being blamed in many cases

[01:00:40] and as soon as we can stop blaming the victims and start pivoting to the perpetrator systemically that's when we're going to see some real change. It starts at home too. Oh, absolutely. Any nuggets about that since a lot of our listeners are also parents about teaching our kids

[01:01:00] to spot these things? Yeah, that's a tough one because so much of society is giving them the wrong messages so what I would say is really to validate kids' feelings and experiences and reality and treat everyone with dignity and respect and if you can teach

[01:01:18] your kids to see everyone as equal everyone is valuable and to treat people with dignity and respect I think that will make a huge difference as we move forward and hopefully as things change over time. That's a very positive, lovely note to end on. Like my co-host

[01:01:49] she's a baller. What do you say, Sarah? Total baller and just to be clear this is not the Schmanmark episode there will be a full Schmanmark episode down the road. I know we've been promising that for almost a hundred episodes. Everybody like does an episode

[01:02:05] and they can freak out and they get scared or then they say yes and then they go back to Landmark. I know. It's weird. Okay, so you can learn more about the Psycho-Social QuickSan Model of Coercive Control at ncoercivecontrolusa.com which will include in the show notes

[01:02:21] great reviews, subscribe, follow us on Instagram, head to our Patreon to support us and get a boatload of extra content. Wave Osrin Characters everybody. And in case you haven't figured it out that's the best way to say goodbye. It's a special language here in the Edmondson Amos household.

[01:02:37] See you next week. Bye for now. And if you're looking for our show notes or some sweet, sweet swag or official ALBC podcast merch or a list of our most recommended cult recovery resources visit our website at allilbitculti.com And for more background on what brought us here

[01:03:21] check out Sarah's page-turning memoir It's called Scarred. The True Story of How I Escaped Nexium, The Cult that Bound My Life. It's available on Amazon, Audible, Narrated by My Life and at most bookstores. A Little Bit Cultie is a talkhouse podcast and a Trace 120 production.

[01:03:37] We're executive produced by Sarah Edmondson and Anthony Nippy Ames with writing, research and additional production support by senior producer Jess Tardy. We're edited, mixed and mastered by our rocking producer Will Rutherford of Citizens of Sound and our amazing theme song, Cultivated is by John Bryant and

[01:03:55] co-written by Nigel Asselin. Thank you for listening.