Cult expert Joe Szimhart discusses attitudes toward death from prehistoric times to present cult recruitment. This fear makes us all vulnerable to cultic lures.
Scientology's most highly trained defector discusses Ron Hubbard's inhumane treatment of his followers - from throwing a pensioner who couldn't swim from four storeys into the sea to ordering a four-year-old to be locked in his ship's chain locker. Karen considers the attributes of a human predator given in Jon's book Opening Our Minds as they apply to Hubbard.
ANALYTICS EDIT VIDEO Recovery counselor Frances Peters talks with Jon about the signs that show someone has joined an extreme authoritarian group and how best to help them reconsider their involvement.
For some people, meditation can be devastating. Scientific investigation showed this decades ago, but health systems continue to recommend Mindfulness as a panacea. Joe and Pat were long-term meditators and are steeped in the scientific literature. They describe the puja ceremony in Transcendental Meditation and Jon describes his own experience at age 18 of learning zazen in an accredited Soto Zen monastery. This is also a discussion of the possible benefits of meditation and offers resources for the 40% of people for whom meditation causes difficulties.
Mark Laxer was there from the beginning when Frederick Lenz splintered from the Sri Chinmoy group and created the Rama cult. Mark has written three books and is currently working on a screen play about his experiences. Mark reconnected with a friend from those earlier days and was interested he felt that the experience - although in many ways negative - had been formative. Although Nietzsche's 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger' is usually untrue, those of us who survived membership of authoritarian groups can be tremendously helpful to others.
A deep dive into the reality of 'racial purity, the origins of Aryanism, and the reality of our genetic interconnectedness to all the people of Earth. As Yuval says, there's no such thing as race, but there is such a thing as racism.
Karen and Jon discuss the 70-year criminal history of Scientology.
Chris joins Jon to answer a question a commenter asked over on Chris' channel - why is auditing bad for you? Their answer delves into history, psychology, and contains many twists, turns and some excellent minutiae of the Scientology world.
WARNING: this video contains descriptions of physical harm to a child. William Pierce's Turner Diaries inspired the Oklahoma City bombing and is an essential text for neo-Nazis. Kelvin Pierce talks about his father, a professor of physics who became embroiled in the American Nazi Party and created the National Alliance and the Church of Cosmotheism. Kelvin and Jon discuss about the hatred that turned his father into a monster.
Scientology inc's obsession with sex, particularly the sexual activities of its members, comes to a head when it demands every detail in "confessional" interrogations, which public members pay for. The demand for sexual activity secrets is a disturbing preoccupation. All confessions are stored on video and in worksheets, as ammunition for later blackmail as needed. Wholesale coerced abortions are also discussed.