Decult, the first ever cult awareness conference in Aotearoa New Zealand over the weekend of 19 & 20th October 2024, exhausted me. Instead of finishing my reflections in one post I've had a wee break between part one and part two. Go back and read part one about day one - Saturday - if you haven't already.
Day two - Sunday - of Decult started with Lindy (my Cult Chat co-host) and I, turning up to Tūranga Library a little later than the day before. Sadly at home we were out of coffee - both a disappointment for a guest (Lindy) and a hosting (me) ball-drop. Fortunately the barista on the second floor of the venue was working in fine form, and the queue was short. While in the line we both met up with friends - Liz (another co-host on Cult Chat) and her team from the Gloriavale Leavers Support Trust were facing the morning and the second day with big smiles. The only blue dress to be seen was the one hanging up at the info table, though I know there were Gloriavale leavers attending in glorious incognito amongst the crowd.
The morning started with an introduction from the super awesome Dame Dr Sue Bagshaw. Dr Bagshaw is a hero in my profession, a local GP, and an innovator. As an expert in youth health in Christchurch, she founded Youth 198 in 1995 (now called Te Tahi Youth). She had a vision to provide free, accessible health services for young people, and she made it happen. She told the Decult crowd that one key action to prevent the spread of cults in our country is to make a habit of being kind to our neighbour - to never underestimate the power of baking muffins and taking them next door. Loneliness can be a factor in a person's vulnerability to being recruited into a cult; if we were all better connected in our communities, cults might have less opportunities. As she spoke I reflected that cults impact young people heavily - either those within a cult struggling to differentiate themselves and find their identity, those who have been booted out and are trying to find a safe landing spot, and those young people at life transitions who fall prey to a recruiter. Youth are sucked in or spat out, and so often fall victim.
In the coffee break I overheard several people commenting on the inspiring Dame Doctor Bagshaw. In particular, the moment when she was talking about the devastating impact of stigma and she pointed to the teeshirt she was wearing which said "Make New Zealand the Best Place in the World to have Herpes". It's all about removing stigma.
Next on to the stage we had the wonderful Dr Gillie Jenkinson of Hope Valley Counselling in the UK, whom Liz and I from Cult Chat met in Barcelona recently (you can check out this page for our Barcelona chat with her in July 24 and this link for the interview we did with her in August on Cult Chat).
Gillie talked us through a brief overview of her Walking Free model - the work of her PhD - which she offers to her post-cult clients (she's a therapist) and trains psychotherapists in this model too. She highlighted to us how important it is for people who have left a cult to come to understand what happened to them, and to explore the ideas and beliefs which the cult has required them to swallow whole - she calls these introjects - which sits in the mind like a hunk of undigested food in a person's stomach. She pointed out how critical it is for a therapist to explore the impact of the cult on the person, and to understand how cults work - in fact, that without this cult specific knowledge and skill with unpacking the cult experience, the person is likely to find therapy frustrating. She has packaged her post-cult recovery model into a workbook which a survivor can use alone, or at a steady pace with their therapist. While I have a copy of the book, I couldn't find it anywhere (of course) and hence missed the opportunity to get it signed by the woman herself. Doh!
Speaking of "doh", actually, there were repeated references throughout the conference of the uncomfortable phenomenon that people experience when they come out of a cult - failure to understand cultural references, which is particularly common amongst people born and raised in a cult. Not understanding cultural references like the "storming of the Capitol", the Dukes of Hazard, the Christchurch earthquakes, or the Springbok Tour, is a daily reminder of not fitting in, and feels alienating for people who have left a cult. If you're a cult leaver, you might not understand that "doh!" is a cultural reference. Homer Simpson says it all the time, and for some reason The Simpsons were mentioned all throughout the conference as one of those decades-long cultural references which some may have missed while cloistered in their cult. Those who were learning about cults were amazed that anyone would be ignorant of The Simpsons. Those who were survivors (and had no idea about Lisa, Bart, Maggie, Homer and Marge) chuckled a little uncomfortably.
Before morning tea the delegates split into two rooms - the presentation in the larger room with the Gloriavale panel (Liz Gregory, Pearl Valour, Virginia Courage, and Dennis Gates) and the ISTA presentation in the smaller room downstairs. This was a difficult choice for me; while I have no personal experience of the Gloriavale Community, I was gutted to be unable to attend to support this team of advocates and activists. The buzz at morning tea was this was a powerful and shocking session, and left many attendees in tears. Thankfully I had chances in the coffee breaks to connect with some of the panelists however, so all was not lost.
Downstairs was the ISTA (International School of Temple Arts) panel. Bronwyn Rideout is a member of the NZ Skeptics Society, a volunteer organisation which aims to promote critical thinking, and a host of the Yeah Nah! podcast, the Skeptics' weekly podcast. Critical thinking is often in very, very low supply in cults (if you dare to think critically, you risk getting booted out), so Bronwyn's thoughtful analysis of the history and development of ISTA in New Zealand (through her skilful research efforts, rather than personal experience), along with its connection to the Palmerston North Highden Temple, was invaluable. She was joined by Dave Booda, who has personal experience of the ISTA trainings in NZ, and shared with the room the controversy around ISTA, the large number of allegations from ISTA attendees in New Zealand relating to sexual harm in this "sacred sexuality" business, the connection to Large Group Awareness Trainings and how ISTA trainings replicate these. Dave mentioned the research of Dr John Hunter, which has widened understanding of how LGATs work to create a euphoric state in attendees followed by a chemical comedown (much like that which occurs with addictive substances) - see Dr Hunters PhD research presentation here. Bronwyn and Dave were also joined from Israel through a pre-recorded video from two Israeli survivors of ISTA (Shany Kedar and Mordechai Braunstein), speaking about their experiences in ISTA and their efforts to speak up and out - and how much their advocacy has cost them.
I came away knowing a little more, but still unsure how "sacred sexuality" in any context can be safe and consensual, and not be elevated rapidly into something that provokes trauma, and abuses power... as occurred at Centrepoint. It wasn't called sacred sexuality there but the extreme freedom sexually was highly coercive and involved pressuring people into uncomfortable situations sexually while exposing them to powerful social influences, and lead to abuses both of adults, but also of children. At the same time these abuses were described as being highly evolved teachings from the spiritually elevated guru and were in the best interests of the person, and if they couldn't cope with it, it was on them. It seems to me that the line of safety and full enthusiastic consent is a fine one to cross - particularly when you mix this with a potent dose of social influence - who is discerning enough to recognise in advance or in the moment when and if the line of safety has been crossed?
After morning tea it was my turn back on the stage again. I shared my 70 minute session slot with Adam Dudding, who had the job of delving into the complexity which surrounds the now historical Centrepoint Community. Adam Dudding is an award winning long-form journalist, and the podcast series he created "The Commune" (which aired in June 2022) explored the history of the community through interviews with former members, children, and those on the fringes of the cult, many living locally. He reached out to me right at the beginning of the podcast development, asking for help to find people to interview, and over a series of phone calls I eventually decided he was a good guy, and encouraged others to talk to him about their experiences. The creation of "The Commune" was for me (and other former children of Centrepoint) a gift of objective historical and social analysis of a group which sucked many parents in and turned the lives of their children upside down. Often the narrative the children heard was their tiny wedge of the history (much that they could not personally recall, but still lived in their bodies as chronic illness, psychiatric conditions and ongoing relationship issues), filled with the justifications and legitimisations of their parents, who often lacked the strength of character in later years to repair the relationship damage that these events inflicted on their children. Adam was able in his short 20 minute overview to highlight the complexities that existed at Centrepoint during its 22 years of operation, and the subsequent years which followed, with factions, silencing, failure to repair, and for many people, very little learning.
Adam left me to discuss the health impacts of Centrepoint and other cults. In the last two years I have been collecting stories from survivors of various different cults about how the group that they were a part of affected their health at the time (through failure to address their injury or disease, or through missed opportunities to prevent future illness) and then their own going struggles to physically (as well as psychologically) recover after they left the cult. These conversations of mine with survivors have occured in parallel with conversations with international researchers on cults, and New Zealand based health practitioners who work at the coal-face in health delivery to cult-impacted people. I have noticed a huge gap - in the care these people get during and after the cult, their own understanding of the cult's role in this gap, and understanding from the health workforce of the problem.
This has lead me to develop a resource for community-based New Zealand physicians and their support staff to use when working with cult-impacted people, and was also a focus of my talk - the ways that cults get into your thinking and change how you approach your health, and how doctors can better understand this and mitigate ongoing harms.
I haven't really come across anyone writing specifically about the whole person health impacts of cults on a person. I have found very little in the way of research on whole person health neglect in cults. I have heard many stories though. Though I had an inkling that this topic silently and invisibly mattered, I was unprepared for the crowd of people standing at the back of the room, sitting on the floor, and wanting to hear me talk about cults and health impacts. I failed to aniticipate that people would be turned away because the room's capacity was maxed out. I was surprised at the people who approached me at lunch and told me how disappointed they were to miss the talk because there was no room. The fact is, everyone has a body, and cults do everything they can to exploit and neglect that body, and the reality is that this leads to suffering and loss of life years which are likely very preventable and persist well beyond leaving. It is a tragedy, and I feel privileged that I was able to draw attention to this avoidable consequence of cults to a room of survivors who felt validated and a room of professionals who saw something important for the first time.
After attending the special speakers-only luncheon across the road, and being a part of the group speaker photo, Lindy and I nipped away to the library stacks to record a summary of the morning at Decult for #CultChat.
The afternoon was very impactful. I attended the rainbow panel presentation, which included Dr Janja Lalich (the day one keynote speaker), Andre Afamasaga (the MC for the event and a human rights activist), Luke Hollis (psychologist and raised in the Jehovah's Witnesses) and Craig Hoyle (journalist and writer of the book "Ex-Communicated" about his five generation Brethren family and his journey out of the Brethren). They spoke eloquently about what it is like to be queer in a community which inherently will not accept homosexuality. As someone said at some point in the conference, this is Robert Jay Lifton's Thought Reform criteria "doctrine over person" in action - the rejection of the individual, leading to social and psychological devastation in the life of that person (and sometimes suicide), in order to maintain a doctrine which will not tolerate diversity.
A quote read out by Dr Lalich was particularly impactful. Quoting from research she published in 2010 about the impacts for gay young Jehovah's Witnesses, she read, "...gay and lesbian JWs may expereince a triple, and in some cases, quadruple stigmatization. First, they are stigmatized by society for being a JW; then stigmatized by the JWs for being homosexual - in their innermost thoughts, even when they do not express their sexual orientation in deeds. If they decide to come out, at that point they are stigmatized by society for being gay, and stigmatized once more by the JWs for sinning and either walking away, formally disssociating, or being disfellowshipped. This tends to look like a no-win situation for the gay or lesbian JW." I am grateful that Decult could be a place where such multi-layered stigmatisation and othering - the kind that leads to corrosive impacts on self worth, connection and suicidal thinking - was not present.
As we neared towards the end of Decult, it was an opportunity to reflect and look forward. We heard from Lindy Jacomb and Tore Klevyer about what a cult survivor support agency looks like, and the need for more advocacy in this area, and support at a government funding level to enable a pathway for survivors to exit and recover. There were break out sessions for survivors and professionals which gave attendees an opportunity to debrief and prepare for Monday. There was a final address by the convenors, and an announcement of what to expect in the future. Rachel Bernstein (an American therapist and podcaster with 30 years history working with people impacted by cults) shared via pre-recorded video the exciting news that she has been invited by Decult to present a 1-2 day training for professionals in 2025.
Decult was closed with a beautiful te reo Māori waita (song) from Lisa Tui Aroha, and a chance for attendees to stand and sing "Te Aroha". Lindy and I nipped out afterwards for a final wrap up for our Cult Chat Facebook page (if you haven't followed or liked it already, what are you waiting for?), a little bit high on people energy, the buzz of being connected in a unified goal, and the warm glow of a job well down. Some might say this is a little bit culty - and in fact right in the first address someone did ask "Is Decult a cult?" but in reality, humans are social animals and the group is the unit of our humanity. Gathering with others and being unified is not an inherently harmful thing nor is it culty - it can be a wonderful thing, and movements like feminism, anti-slavery activism, civil rights, suffrage, #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter could never occur without leadership and a co-ordinated response from a community that support and collaborate with them to bring about powerful change. I see this event as a huge leap forward in the cult awareness movement in New Zealand and I am grateful for the volunteers and speakers who gave of themselves because they believed that an event such as #Decult could bring about changed hearts and changed minds.
Thank you to the virtual and in person attendees, thank you to the speakers, and thank you to the volunteers who made Decult 2024 happen. No reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tatou katoa.
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