Speaker 1: We'd like to acknowledge that traditional custodians of the land
Speaker 1: on which this podcast was produced the Gadigl people of
Speaker 1: the orination. We pay our respects to Elder's past and present.
Speaker 1: This episode contains discussions of physical and emotional abuse and
Speaker 1: coercive control. If this raises any issues for youth support
Speaker 1: is available through the links and phone numbers in the
Speaker 1: show notes.
Speaker 2: It's nineteen ninety six and we're at a wellness festival
Speaker 2: in Sydney.
Speaker 3: We're here with Carl McConkey. After she made the last
Speaker 3: minute decision to head along and see what it's all about.
Speaker 2: She strolls past the stand and is handed a brochure.
Speaker 2: It's for a course that promises to help her reach
Speaker 2: her full potential in all aspects of life. Carly's been
Speaker 2: feeling lost and thinks this encounter could be it the
Speaker 2: sign she's been searching for. With hope in her heart,
Speaker 2: she excitedly signs up for the course. What Carly doesn't
Speaker 2: realize is that this will become the first step into
Speaker 2: the descent of a cult. This cult is where she's
Speaker 2: spent the next thirteen years.
Speaker 3: Of her life.
Speaker 2: I'm at Middleton and this is head Game Today a
Speaker 2: story of mind control and resilience on the road to recovery.
Speaker 2: Carlie McConkey, Welcome to head Game. Your mindset has been manipulated.
Speaker 2: You've taken control of it. It's been taken charge of
Speaker 2: It's fascinating because you were a brainwash, let's say, into
Speaker 2: a cult.
Speaker 3: But take me back to the very beginning.
Speaker 4: So I'm twenty one years old. I graduated, you know
Speaker 4: even I think it was March that I got my
Speaker 4: graduation certificate. And then in the May, it was one
Speaker 4: Sunday afternoon. I'd been having a sleep and I just
Speaker 4: saw in the newspaper that the first of all was
Speaker 4: on you know, it was on a story newspaper. Yeah,
Speaker 4: click exactly. It was three o'clock in the afternoon. I thought, okay,
Speaker 4: I'm going to go and have a psyche reading. So
Speaker 4: I went straight there, got the psyche reading, sat down
Speaker 4: with this lady. She was lovely told, gave me the reading,
Speaker 4: and then she said, you know what you need to do.
Speaker 4: You need to do this personal development course. It's called
Speaker 4: the next Evolutionary Step. You only have to do this
Speaker 4: one course. It will give you all the tools to
Speaker 4: enable you to reach your potential, find your direction, you know, destress,
Speaker 4: have health and well bank, build better relationships. So she said, okay,
Speaker 4: she gave me the brochure and the little package and
Speaker 4: directed me to the stand.
Speaker 2: So this is sounds like a bit of a behind
Speaker 2: the scenes work here. So definitely this was all pre
Speaker 2: emptied from that spiritual.
Speaker 4: Reading exactly and pretty like in hindsight, obviously she was
Speaker 4: recruiting me. That was the recruitment method, and she was
Speaker 4: part of the cult.
Speaker 2: Wow, so they've gone deep into you, answered a few
Speaker 2: questions probably this is amazing, you know, this is where
Speaker 2: I need to be there.
Speaker 5: This is where I thought it was a sign is yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that step into when they took you were just.
Speaker 4: Like sold straight away. And then so I went up
Speaker 4: to the stand. So all the smiling people, you know,
Speaker 4: looking healthy and vibrant and that type of thing. You know,
Speaker 4: there's kind of that love bombing that you hear about.
Speaker 4: And then what happened was they said there was a
Speaker 4: free stage one seminar at the Hilton Hotel. Okay, so
Speaker 4: I took my mom, yeah, and my sister to the
Speaker 4: Hilton Hotel. You know who is now we realize the
Speaker 4: cult leader, the head of the company. She stood at
Speaker 4: the front. She's like less than five foot tall. She was,
Speaker 4: you know, slim and trim and fit, very charismatic and
Speaker 4: was just walking across the stage talking about, you know,
Speaker 4: what the program would do. She had people who had
Speaker 4: completed the program stand at the front do testimonials. They
Speaker 4: were all smiling and you know, all that type of thing,
Speaker 4: and then you know, I was already sold, but then
Speaker 4: I signed up straight away. My mom and my sister
Speaker 4: actually did do the first program with me. That was
Speaker 4: at McRory University. Okay, so you know, these locations are
Speaker 4: all very above board. You think everything's fine. It's just
Speaker 4: a personal development company. You're doing this course to better yourself.
Speaker 4: So that was on a Thursday night, Friday night, all
Speaker 4: weekend and Monday night.
Speaker 3: So intense it was.
Speaker 2: It was it was a case of not giving you
Speaker 2: much time to think from the reading into the hills
Speaker 2: and then bang, bang bang it.
Speaker 3: That was early July for you know, you engulfed in it.
Speaker 4: Exactly exactly clever, Yes it is. And that particular course,
Speaker 4: we were vegan and we would get up early. We
Speaker 4: were given sort of exercises to do meditation, listen to
Speaker 4: her on a meditation tape. Every night, we had homework,
Speaker 4: we had to write down our dreams, we had to
Speaker 4: juice fresh juice every morning, that type of thing. So
Speaker 4: you'd literally get up at seven and you wouldn't even
Speaker 4: finish the course to like ten, and then it had
Speaker 4: to go home do all this stuff. So sleep deprivation
Speaker 4: already started, food deprivation already started. And the ultimate thing.
Speaker 4: Her premise was that we were cleansing our cellular memory
Speaker 4: from this lifetime, lifetimes and our ancestors, and we had
Speaker 4: to do a lot of emotional release. So there was
Speaker 4: eighty people on that course and in this one room,
Speaker 4: really people, eighty people, and we were yelling and screaming
Speaker 4: and getting our anger out and rage, and you know,
Speaker 4: they said, okay, here's a pillow.
Speaker 5: He's a big black.
Speaker 4: Gymnastic mat, you know, the six x four foot gymnastic mats.
Speaker 4: We had to think of either our teacher, our parents,
Speaker 4: our siblings, whoever, and yell into the mat, punch and
Speaker 4: you know, yell and scream. So we had eighty people
Speaker 4: doing that, so complete sensory overload. And there was one
Speaker 4: point where I was hovering in the corner with my
Speaker 4: mom sort of hugging her like obviously distressed. And you know,
Speaker 4: the woman came, the cult leader as such, came up
Speaker 4: and said, you know, I think you need to take
Speaker 4: responsibility and move away from your mother and you know,
Speaker 4: take responsibility for yourself.
Speaker 3: It's happening.
Speaker 4: So it's already she's yeah, pushing me away from my
Speaker 4: mum and my family.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: So they're controlling your food, ye, your sleep, yes, your mind. Yes,
Speaker 2: they're not giving you even time to think for yourself.
Speaker 2: They're thinking for you.
Speaker 3: That that's right, the actioning stuff for you.
Speaker 2: Would you say that you were hugely before you went
Speaker 2: to that reading, were you and were you vulnerable? Do
Speaker 2: you think that you were still looking for yourself and
Speaker 2: they came in and you thought there'd be that that
Speaker 2: piece to the puzzle, right exactly, we complete you.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And I think because I was a very idealistic person,
Speaker 4: I had everything to give. I wanted to do something
Speaker 4: good in the world. I wanted to contribute, be of
Speaker 4: service in the world and do something big that would
Speaker 4: help in some way. And I think I was vulnerable
Speaker 4: and unfortunately what happens with cults, you're in the wrong
Speaker 4: place at the wrong time. I mean that was obviously
Speaker 4: what happened.
Speaker 2: In place at the right time, which she thought you
Speaker 2: were at the right place at the right time.
Speaker 5: That's exactly right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ultimately you weren't exactly that, you're at the wrong
Speaker 2: place at the wrong yeah.
Speaker 4: And I think something else important is that the woman
Speaker 4: who the founder, who was up the front, the charismatic
Speaker 4: we'll call a cult leader. Now, she it felt like
Speaker 4: she was psychic and she was reading you and knew
Speaker 4: everything about you. But the fact is is that we'd
Speaker 4: had to complete a background questionnaire all about our health,
Speaker 4: medical history. She and her there was a support team
Speaker 4: of about six people who were her You know, it's
Speaker 4: like a gang.
Speaker 2: Really, they're breaking all that information down. They know when
Speaker 2: they know when to you. They're running the course, they're
Speaker 2: running you, they're running your life. So they know we're
Speaker 2: going to use that on day four.
Speaker 3: For exactly exactly this type of exercise. And then you're like, wow, you.
Speaker 5: Know, how do they know that about me?
Speaker 3: Really working?
Speaker 2: There the blank gaps that I never knew were there,
Speaker 2: and now they're identifying new things. But ultimately they are
Speaker 2: they're doing the full takeover of your heart.
Speaker 3: Body, and mind. Spiritually as well. Yeah, so how long
Speaker 3: was this? Did this course go on for? How long?
Speaker 4: So I went to the site reading in the May.
Speaker 4: I believe that the free stage one seminar was in
Speaker 4: the June, and I did the next evolutionary step in
Speaker 4: the early July. And as soon as that finished. At
Speaker 4: the end of that program, you learn that there's seventeen
Speaker 4: other courses that you can do, and you know their
Speaker 4: week long weekends, a year long course, this type of thing.
Speaker 4: And because you've been in I'm to overload. You know,
Speaker 4: you've been vegan for most of that course. You're on
Speaker 4: a high, but you've still you've just opened up all
Speaker 4: of this trauma and everything, and so you're feeling so unsettled,
Speaker 4: and you know, she says to keep sort of integrating
Speaker 4: and evolving or enlightning, you know, you have to keep going.
Speaker 4: And so then it's like, okay, well I have to
Speaker 4: keep going. So I signed on to the September cost
Speaker 4: which was a weekend course which was all about funnily enough,
Speaker 4: talking to you, you know, climbing a mountain. Mountain warning
Speaker 4: a lot lower than Everest, but you know you had groups,
Speaker 4: the top group, the second group, and third group, et cetera.
Speaker 4: I went in the second group because I thought, you know, oh,
Speaker 4: I really want to be in the top group, but
Speaker 4: I'm not really sure. And then I ended up making
Speaker 4: it to the top group anyway. But then when I
Speaker 4: got back, she humiliated me and this other girl in
Speaker 4: front of everyone. I think there was eighty people in
Speaker 4: that one just calling me, you know, a black cloud
Speaker 4: on the mountain and all this because I was trying
Speaker 4: to make it up the top. It's a long story,
Speaker 4: but so you know, she humulated me in front of everyone.
Speaker 4: So I'm like, oh, I'm a bad person. I need
Speaker 4: to keep going, you know, that type of thing. That
Speaker 4: was September. I saw on to the next course, which
Speaker 4: was October, which was an eight day, seven night course.
Speaker 4: And I think this is probably the most important to
Speaker 4: reflect how in one small space of time you can
Speaker 4: utilize all those what we call thought reform and mind
Speaker 4: control techniques.
Speaker 2: So yeah, mind control techniques because they're very very clever
Speaker 2: at what they do, right, definitely very clever as well
Speaker 2: just making you feel bring you up and knocking you
Speaker 2: back down, making you feel worse. It's going to have
Speaker 2: to keep you in that system.
Speaker 5: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: So this this seven go back to this sounday, course, this.
Speaker 5: Sounds yeah, it is very interesting.
Speaker 4: So what happened was so this we all met at
Speaker 4: Queensland University campus. We went into a big hole there
Speaker 4: and we'd had a list of things that we had
Speaker 4: to bring and you're not supposed to tell anyone about
Speaker 4: the courses that you've done, absolutely anything about them. The
Speaker 4: lady said, you know, keep an open mind and all
Speaker 4: of this, and you know, if you find out what's
Speaker 4: in the course then that's going to block you with
Speaker 4: being open, et cetera. So we had this list of
Speaker 4: things we need to bring and basically we got in there.
Speaker 4: She's standing up the front with her six support teams,
Speaker 4: you know, black cat, white and black clothes and just
Speaker 4: blank faces. They started sort of basically verbally abusing us,
Speaker 4: telling us we're not allowed to go to the toilet
Speaker 4: unless we have permission. They took off our id wallets, watches,
Speaker 4: all that type of thing, all of a sudden, wearing
Speaker 4: complete fear. The premise of that program was to move
Speaker 4: through your fear. Right, we were completely terrified and we'd
Speaker 4: already had to wait hours to go in, so that
Speaker 4: was anxiety building. We were in there for hours and yeah,
Speaker 4: just basically being verbally abused, etc. We were walked out
Speaker 4: eventually late in the night and onto a big coach
Speaker 4: bus and all the windows were blackened out. Then we
Speaker 4: were taken for hours. We didn't have a watch, so
Speaker 4: we didn't know what time it was we got down.
Speaker 4: I know she's tried to say now that it's just
Speaker 4: like survival courses and you know, and whatever, but you know,
Speaker 4: we didn't choose to do all of this, so that's
Speaker 4: the difference. So then we got out on this completely
Speaker 4: isolated property in the morning and we had to line
Speaker 4: up in lines, and yeah, there was all these verbal
Speaker 4: assaults and things, and we had to keep bringing up
Speaker 4: issues with each other. As I said, we weren't allowed
Speaker 4: to go to the toilet. There was three portaloos and
Speaker 4: we only had like five minutes and there were seventy
Speaker 4: people on that one. And this was nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 4: and we all had to go to the toilet within
Speaker 4: five minutes, and if you didn't, you know, you had
Speaker 4: to wait.
Speaker 5: You never knew when you could go to the toilet.
Speaker 4: We were in a marquis for hours and hours. She
Speaker 4: was lecturing us about all these things. We only had
Speaker 4: like around two hours sleep a night. We went with
Speaker 4: that food for over twenty four hours. We were in
Speaker 4: tents with two people, and you know, sometime they'd take
Speaker 4: the tents away and just do.
Speaker 3: All these weird and really messing with.
Speaker 5: You, all, totally messing with our head.
Speaker 3: We complete just smashing you back down.
Speaker 4: And yeah, and we didn't you know, we couldn't trust
Speaker 4: anyone obviously, because you'd have people bring up issues with
Speaker 4: you all the time and all that type of thing.
Speaker 4: And then like in the morning, we'd have to go
Speaker 4: for a run every morning, and then we'd have to
Speaker 4: jump into this pond, murky pond naked. I know, it
Speaker 4: sounds terrible, and it was weird. It is, I know
Speaker 4: it is. So we had to stay in the pond
Speaker 4: and we couldn't get out until she said so. And
Speaker 4: if someone took a while to get into the pond,
Speaker 4: that just prolonged the time. And we were in the
Speaker 4: pond for we don't know how long. And then in
Speaker 4: the Marquee late at night. You know, I don't really
Speaker 4: like talking about it, but she was showing us pornography
Speaker 4: and on the TV, like it's totally weird. And there
Speaker 4: was one stage where We had to stand up on
Speaker 4: a stage naked in front of like seventy people from
Speaker 4: the age of you know, seventeen eighteen to you know, eighty,
Speaker 4: and we had to say what we liked about our body,
Speaker 4: what we didn't. This is the type of complete she's
Speaker 4: a status obviously complete humiliation. Yeah, and you know you've
Speaker 4: got this support team in her who's been verbally abusing
Speaker 4: you the whole time. You're going through your sleep deprived,
Speaker 4: food deprived. You're in survival mode. So as you would know,
Speaker 4: you know, you're using your you're operating on your reptilian brain.
Speaker 4: Your emotions and intellect have been like pushed down to
Speaker 4: a pilot light almost gone. You're on an isolated property.
Speaker 4: You can't even go anywhere, you can't run away, you
Speaker 4: have no idea where you are. So it was very sophisticated,
Speaker 4: calculated manipulation and mind control techniques. And at the end
Speaker 4: of it, you have this big party where you dress
Speaker 4: up and you know, in your beautiful dress and high heels,
Speaker 4: and the guys and we have a really big party
Speaker 4: where we all dance with each other and.
Speaker 3: A horror movie.
Speaker 5: It is a horror movie.
Speaker 3: Take me back to.
Speaker 2: That hardy, did you feel a sense of relief, like
Speaker 2: we've been there, we've done it, we've passed it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, been nice to us again and then again, That's.
Speaker 5: That's what it was all for.
Speaker 4: That's what happened, you know, that's why we went through that,
Speaker 4: because and we're only supposed to be able to do that.
Speaker 4: Course once flipped forward many years and I actually had
Speaker 4: to do the horrible thing again. But I guess yeah,
Speaker 4: like you know, at the party, you're so in shock
Speaker 4: at what happened and your brain can't process what the
Speaker 4: hell has happened. But you know, okay, you're having of course,
Speaker 4: you enjoy that as much as you can. But I
Speaker 4: think you just go home to your normal life and
Speaker 4: your shell shocked. People can't relate to you anymore because
Speaker 4: you can't relate to them. You can't tell anyone what
Speaker 4: you've been through.
Speaker 3: Of course you can't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no one can relate to you because you tell
Speaker 2: them what you've been through, that you've lost.
Speaker 5: Your mind exactly, which you actually have.
Speaker 3: Which yeah, but no you haven't. They've got charge's they've
Speaker 3: taken over.
Speaker 2: And they've got your mind. So when you go back
Speaker 2: to what was your normal life, if you have on.
Speaker 4: So I guess at that stage I was leaving with
Speaker 4: my parents, just doing tent work, et cetera. And I
Speaker 4: think I was in a pr job for about a year.
Speaker 4: I went out to Italy just to be a nanny.
Speaker 4: I was offered a position and I went there only
Speaker 4: for a few months, and I ended up leaving and
Speaker 4: going to Siertle and learn Italian. And then I went
Speaker 4: to London and I'd got a job within the first week.
Speaker 5: I was so happy.
Speaker 4: I'd met some travelers and I had an apartment a
Speaker 4: job within one week. And unfortunately, my dad almost had
Speaker 4: a heart attack and had sort of five bypasses, so
Speaker 4: I flew home the next day and then that was
Speaker 4: cut off, and then it was like trying to find
Speaker 4: myself again. And then at the end of that year,
Speaker 4: I ended up doing what was called Personal Mastery and
Speaker 4: Metaphysical Counseling certificate. So you know, we were offered you
Speaker 4: can be a counselor, you can be a healer, you
Speaker 4: can be a psychic.
Speaker 3: Reader through the cult.
Speaker 5: Yes, so through all of these courses.
Speaker 2: So now they're not only taking charge of your mind,
Speaker 2: they're taking charge of your life. Yes, they want you
Speaker 2: to work for them and yeah wow. So talk about Wolf.
Speaker 5: Yeah that he keeps going.
Speaker 2: So what did you think you'd get out the first bit?
Speaker 2: Because you say you went off and traveled to London
Speaker 2: and Nanny and Italy. It sounds like you were your
Speaker 2: mind was still here there and you were still broken
Speaker 2: and still searching for something. Yes that this course is
Speaker 2: ultimately didn't do. It sounded like that your life was
Speaker 2: completely theirs. It was outside of outside.
Speaker 4: Of the even though I was on the other side
Speaker 4: of the world, Like I was still with this Italian
Speaker 4: family and they were obviously having all this beautiful Italian food,
Speaker 4: but because I thought that I had to be vegan vegetarian,
Speaker 4: I was just eating bread and butter pretty much because
Speaker 4: they were making meat and everything else. So and then
Speaker 4: I'd still go for these runs and she told us
Speaker 4: to have like a face cloth scream on our runs.
Speaker 4: So you can imagine me in the you know, the
Speaker 4: vineyards of Italy and this country town just sort of
Speaker 4: screaming and people probably heard me and thought I was
Speaker 4: honestly crazy.
Speaker 3: These thousands of miles away.
Speaker 5: Exactly still completely mind controlled.
Speaker 3: Yeah wow.
Speaker 4: So then this particular year long course that was when
Speaker 4: it just hit another level, and you know, I think
Speaker 4: that was about twenty nine people.
Speaker 3: How they get you back into the how are they going?
Speaker 3: What come on? You need to come over now and
Speaker 3: do this course and.
Speaker 2: Again quickly financially, Oh yeah, throughout these years you paying
Speaker 2: for these courses? Are you paying for are you given
Speaker 2: a monthly donation or how's that working?
Speaker 4: So you know, for instance, the first course, I can't
Speaker 4: remember if it was sort of three ninety five or
Speaker 4: five hundred thick Keeping a Mind was the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 4: It ended up going up to nine ninety and all
Speaker 4: of that later. But so and then you know, the
Speaker 4: final step was three thousand at that time, and then
Speaker 4: it became five thousand, and then this particular we called
Speaker 4: it PMC Personal Mastery, that was about five thousand and
Speaker 4: then but then went up to ten thousand and all
Speaker 4: that type of thing.
Speaker 5: So it's constant, yeah. Money.
Speaker 4: How we kept getting pulled in was she'd write newsletters
Speaker 4: and send them out to Oliver. She had a big database,
Speaker 4: so at the end of every program you'd get like
Speaker 4: a four or five page little booklet of everyone's address
Speaker 4: and phone number. And yeah, she just keeps sending all
Speaker 4: of her stuff and in her newsletter she'd put in
Speaker 4: articles and things and comics and things, and I've looked
Speaker 4: at them now and I'm just like, you know, that
Speaker 4: was completing doctrination what she was putting in the newsletter,
Speaker 4: talking about different things, you know, and the aspect came
Speaker 4: in that she I can't remember exactly when it was,
Speaker 4: but there was a few things that she was teaching us.
Speaker 4: Definitely in PMC, and I'm pretty sure it happened on
Speaker 4: the final step as well. But the further you go
Speaker 4: into your development and integration, she started to innuendo that
Speaker 4: she was Jesus Christ reincarnated. So she said that we
Speaker 4: have all these shafts and that she could I guess
Speaker 4: it's like other past lives, these shafts into all these
Speaker 4: other lives, and she could tap into hers, and one
Speaker 4: of her shafts was Jesus Christ reincarnated. She talked a
Speaker 4: lot about Atlantis, and from what she said, you know,
Speaker 4: I and others believe she was the Queen of Atlantis
Speaker 4: back then.
Speaker 3: God goddess complex.
Speaker 4: Definitely, definitely she thought she was a yeah, yeah, Jesus bactically.
Speaker 3: Goddess, I know, and you were her children. Alto me,
Speaker 3: well that's the thing that disciples.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she was separating us from our friends and family,
Speaker 4: and she was putting herself forward as the mother figure.
Speaker 2: There was a spiritual and religious connection and religious because
Speaker 2: you're both right, you're you're huge spiritual and you're hugely.
Speaker 5: Religious.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so go so you are you were her prime target?
Speaker 5: Definitely, definitely yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: So you go on and so now you're at this stage.
Speaker 2: You've got your life, you've got your finances. The indoctrination
Speaker 2: is it, but now it's.
Speaker 3: I want your career. I want you fully involved in this.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So you can become an instructor, you can become
Speaker 4: a counselor a healer.
Speaker 3: What did you do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So that particular year when I was doing the
Speaker 4: counseling certificate, you know I did that. I also did
Speaker 4: at the same time the Heeler's caused to become a
Speaker 4: healer and I did the psyche Reader's course a couple
Speaker 4: of years later. So, and you know, it was all
Speaker 4: about you can make money on the side being a counselor,
Speaker 4: being a healer, et cetera. And you can make money
Speaker 4: with me being an instructor. Eventually, after you evolve and
Speaker 4: integrate up to you know, good enough. Basically, yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 4: So this year course was just crazy. We hardly slept
Speaker 4: and we had these books we had to read, and
Speaker 4: we had to like just a lot of sleep deprivation
Speaker 4: and crazy. We had to bring up issues with each
Speaker 4: other and it ended up getting a little bit physical.
Speaker 4: So it was all right for there to be a
Speaker 4: bit of physical altercations and things, which, now, in hindsight,
Speaker 4: having educated myself, is radicalization and violent extremism, because you're
Speaker 4: radicalizing to believe that violence is okay and warranted. And
Speaker 4: I think, you know, she talk about Jesus Christ and
Speaker 4: you know, oh, why do you think he went into
Speaker 4: the desert for forty days and forty nights basically a
Speaker 4: new end doing that, they were bringing up issues and
Speaker 4: beating the heck out of each.
Speaker 5: Other, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: So she was normalizing it normalizing, And I think that's
Speaker 4: an important point because, as I said, with the final step,
Speaker 4: they test you, like they don't start out knowing, Okay,
Speaker 4: I'm going to do this and I'm going to get
Speaker 4: this reaction. They will test the boundaries and boundaries boundaries
Speaker 4: with you know, one of the ex cult members, says
Speaker 4: that he reckons the final step was definitely her indicator
Speaker 4: of Okay, who's who's weak, who's strong, who aren't going
Speaker 4: to be able to you know, get through? And I
Speaker 4: think you know a lot of people, yeah, think that
Speaker 4: cult members are crazy, they're idiots, and they're weak. But
Speaker 4: I mean to go through what we did, you have
Speaker 4: to be incredibly strong, have the head, head games.
Speaker 2: It's you know, committed, totally, you know, driven all those
Speaker 2: positive traits that you need.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right, Ye, hugely.
Speaker 2: So they're making the what's not normal normal now, so
Speaker 2: when you're stepping outside of the cult, everything is unnormal.
Speaker 5: That's correct.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's in us versus them. So it's like
Speaker 4: we are the chosen ones.
Speaker 5: You know this.
Speaker 4: You know there's extreme ASoft shoots of all the institutional religions,
Speaker 4: which you know you would deem cults. There's New Age cults,
Speaker 4: there's these personal development cults. You know, we've heard of
Speaker 4: yoga instructors and founders being cult leaders, and you know
Speaker 4: that the yogis in India, et cetera. So it doesn't
Speaker 4: So mine was a new age spiritual because that's what
Speaker 4: I had been interested in but you know, anyone out there,
Speaker 4: whatever your interest, they are going to hone on that.
Speaker 4: So every cult has a different recruitment method that they
Speaker 4: pull you in and then those mind control and thought
Speaker 4: reform techniques retain you and then they exploit you. So
Speaker 4: I ended up doing almost all the courses. There was
Speaker 4: about twenty six courses.
Speaker 2: Right, so you're fully committed career, social family, do you
Speaker 2: meet anyone in their life?
Speaker 4: So yeah, So when at the end of that PMC
Speaker 4: was ninety eight and then in the May of ninety nine,
Speaker 4: I still hadn't had a relationship. I've been too scared
Speaker 4: and fearful to be in a relationship.
Speaker 2: So that's what they don't want, right, because then you
Speaker 2: start to see what is actually normal, what is actually real,
Speaker 2: the reality of life, and they don't want that.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So well, I think it really depends on So she
Speaker 4: was maneuvering relationships the whole time. So I did actually
Speaker 4: meet my now three children's father, and he I think
Speaker 4: had done one course by that stage, and I met
Speaker 4: him through one of the girls on my year long course.
Speaker 5: So I did meet him.
Speaker 4: I was scared to obviously go on a second date,
Speaker 4: but I after everything, I pushed myself and I went
Speaker 4: out with him. So we ended up moving in together,
Speaker 4: and we were in Prisone at that time. I'd moved
Speaker 4: up to be closer to the cult, and then we
Speaker 4: moved down to Byron Bay because that's where his father
Speaker 4: was living. He comes from that area. I had applied
Speaker 4: for a job with the woman at her property and
Speaker 4: with the organization, and you know, in September, I wrote
Speaker 4: my second later and she said, no, there's no jobs.
Speaker 4: By November she said, yes, come and work for me.
Speaker 2: There was always a job for you. Yeah, right, that
Speaker 2: was always a job for you. She pushed, all not
Speaker 2: good enough again and going yeah. Then her offering the
Speaker 2: olive branch again, right.
Speaker 3: Rather than you you go and can yeah.
Speaker 4: And the unfortunate thing is that she said, okay, you'll
Speaker 4: learn the ropes. I won't give you money right now,
Speaker 4: but once you know, learn the ropes, then you'll get paid.
Speaker 4: I ended up working for the next ten years for
Speaker 4: her as her personal assistant and on the property, one
Speaker 4: hundred acre property, and I never got paid. I got
Speaker 4: one five thousand dollar check.
Speaker 3: You're on our property, She's I'm.
Speaker 4: Renting one of her properties right adjoining her so she had.
Speaker 2: This big property, almost thinks that she's doing you a favor.
Speaker 2: I've got definitely, but not paying Yeah, but you know
Speaker 2: you don't need you're not paying you, but it's almost
Speaker 2: payment for her in her mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're staying there.
Speaker 4: Well I wanted to be me. Yeah no, no, I
Speaker 4: was paying rent. So I had to get a second,
Speaker 4: like another job to pay the rent. And meanwhile she's
Speaker 4: not paying me wages. Okay, I know, it's crazy. That
Speaker 4: happened to quite a few of us, and I was.
Speaker 4: She had an office and the course center on her
Speaker 4: property where her house was, and it was up like
Speaker 4: a one kilomity hill, so no one could see what
Speaker 4: was happening up there. And anyway, an important thing is
Speaker 4: that at the end of ninety ninety eight she was
Speaker 4: actually featured on Channel nine's a Current Fair Australia Wide
Speaker 4: as being a cult leader, a con artist and saying
Speaker 4: that she was basically Jesus Christ. After that time, throughout
Speaker 4: ninety ninety nine, all of the courses diminished to like,
Speaker 4: you know, two, three or four or five people because
Speaker 4: she had such a bad reputation. And then and that's
Speaker 4: when I came on board. At the end of ninety nine.
Speaker 4: I worked with her for two years. A couple of
Speaker 4: girls in the office. One lady just disappeared three weeks
Speaker 4: later after I started, another girl ended up disappearing as well.
Speaker 4: We'd call it running away. People would run away. She
Speaker 4: proselytized that the world was going to end. Okay, so
Speaker 4: doomsday cult around eleven eleven eleven, So the eleventh of
Speaker 4: November twenty eleven, the world was going to end. The
Speaker 4: Earth's axis would shift or some big event would happen,
Speaker 4: and we had to survive. And she knew how to survive,
Speaker 4: and she was, you know, in touch with all of
Speaker 4: her shafts Jesus Christ. She literally said that people, there'll
Speaker 4: be about a two week period where it'll be dark
Speaker 4: and things will be happening, and we have to People
Speaker 4: want to kill us for food and water, so we
Speaker 4: will have to kill them.
Speaker 3: It sounds like the zombie poet.
Speaker 5: It's like, on a.
Speaker 2: Super serious note, she's not not any your journey that
Speaker 2: you're going on through life. She's now got your destination,
Speaker 2: which you all have one destination in life, and we
Speaker 2: know where that is. So now she's got full full
Speaker 2: control of till your last last day exactly does it
Speaker 2: get quite dark and quite aggressive and quite right.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: She talked about rifles being buried on the property. On
Speaker 4: there was a survivor's course and we literally went to
Speaker 4: a gun range and learned how to shoot.
Speaker 5: And there's just so much in.
Speaker 3: The package saying what kept you there doing this during
Speaker 3: this time?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I think I owe her. And when with
Speaker 4: the world ending, it's like you are cleansing your cellular
Speaker 4: memory and integrating to your highest involvement because you're going
Speaker 4: to save your children, yourselves, your family, the planet. So
Speaker 4: this is like a mission for God and Jesus that
Speaker 4: I wanted to move us to the fourth dimension, she
Speaker 4: called it. So I need to be like this army,
Speaker 4: you know, military disciplined person. I'm like a h at
Speaker 4: the end of the world, I'm going to be fighting
Speaker 4: for the planet because we have to. You know, she
Speaker 4: said that most people will be dead, but we will
Speaker 4: help take the planet to the next, you know, fourth dimension.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're going to be the levee survivors.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're going to you know, we need We've got
Speaker 2: to step up because exactly it's the new awakening of
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ. Ultimately, she and she thought she was the
Speaker 2: powerful messiah exactly.
Speaker 4: And I've since found in a newsletter she had that. Yeah,
Speaker 4: she talked about the thousand years of peace, right, So
Speaker 4: you know, it's it's just so many layers. As you
Speaker 4: can tell, flash forward ten years. It's the end of
Speaker 4: two thousand and nine.
Speaker 3: So you're you're in it.
Speaker 2: You're in this to you in the trenches for years.
Speaker 3: This wasn't just a case of months and something.
Speaker 2: You realize something, you know, you're You're just this is
Speaker 2: completely normal to you.
Speaker 4: Your you still have you know, your doubts and things anything.
Speaker 4: I don't know if I can keep going with this
Speaker 4: or you know, then she froze.
Speaker 5: She does.
Speaker 4: It's always like and then they'll be I will have
Speaker 4: gone through all of this crap and then like we
Speaker 4: went to Samoa in two thousand and five after I
Speaker 4: got married, and then I separated from my husband about
Speaker 4: three times because she would like put us together, separators,
Speaker 4: put us together, separator.
Speaker 3: So do you remember the moment or.
Speaker 2: The awakening for yourself when the penny dropped, when you
Speaker 2: were like, this is insane. You know, did obviously the
Speaker 2: eleventh of the eleventh of the eleventh didn't come because
Speaker 2: it must have been like a like having a balloon
Speaker 2: then going pop, and.
Speaker 3: It's just like the reality of everything.
Speaker 4: So it was about the twenty third of December, before
Speaker 4: Christmas two thousand and nine, and I just couldn't handle
Speaker 4: it anymore. And I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to escape. Right.
Speaker 2: It's just a case of I can't cope with this,
Speaker 2: This is too much out of this job exactly. Can't
Speaker 2: realized that this stage, that all of this was a
Speaker 2: was a master plan exactly.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So this twenty third of December, it was two
Speaker 4: am in the morning. I was working in the office.
Speaker 4: A phone call comes through with one of the other girls.
Speaker 4: She tells me, you have to take this iPod up
Speaker 4: to basically the cult leader for her son. Right, So
Speaker 4: at two am the morning, I have to drive up
Speaker 4: to Burly Heads at that point, and I thought, okay,
Speaker 4: I because she'd been to America and all this crap
Speaker 4: was going on, and she was screaming at me all
Speaker 4: the time and stuff again, and I knew that things
Speaker 4: were going to happen. It was getting volatile. So I thought, okay,
Speaker 4: I'm going to leave with my children. So my children
Speaker 4: were sleeping downstairs on the property. You know my three
Speaker 4: children that I'd have to get ready every morning night
Speaker 4: and take them to daycare, and god knows what, I
Speaker 4: scooped them all up. I put them in my car
Speaker 4: two am in the morning, got there at three am,
Speaker 4: and the guy, her partner at the time, didn't answer,
Speaker 4: and I thought, you know, you're so paranoid. I didn't
Speaker 4: want to leave this stupid iPod on the doorstep until
Speaker 4: if it got stolen, I'd be in big trouble. So
Speaker 4: I slept in the car for about three hours with
Speaker 4: the kids, and then the guy phoned me said why
Speaker 4: the hell didn't you just drop it and go? And
Speaker 4: then I was too tired to escape, okay, But then
Speaker 4: this other girl found out that I tried to escape,
Speaker 4: got back to the court leader. She ended up calling me,
Speaker 4: abused me for five minutes, calling me an abusive mother.
Speaker 4: I'm going to if you leave, Carli, I'm going to
Speaker 4: dab you into doc's Department of Child Safety. I'm going
Speaker 4: to sign office as psychologist and have your three children
Speaker 4: taken away from you because you're an abusive mother. Why
Speaker 4: did you take your three children out in the middle
Speaker 4: of the night in the car. That's abusive flank, you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: and she.
Speaker 3: Just get at it.
Speaker 4: She's still if you leave, you know, it's going to
Speaker 4: be detrimental to your children. Because the whole time she'd
Speaker 4: be calling me a really bad mother. I was sterilized
Speaker 4: and as a mother. So then fast forward, that was
Speaker 4: the twenty third of December. I was really in the
Speaker 4: shed with as we call it. Then the twenty seventh
Speaker 4: of December, I went into her house. She just punched
Speaker 4: me straight in the face. And so, you know, first
Speaker 4: of all, I'm in this like hide and state of
Speaker 4: fear again, and I'm like, I just don't know if
Speaker 4: i can keep going with this. I have a black eye.
Speaker 4: And then the next day, so two days after the
Speaker 4: black eye, the co leader she came up into the
Speaker 4: office screaming. She was totally enraged. The other girl in
Speaker 4: the room. They tried to block the collage from coming
Speaker 4: into me because she could see something really bad was
Speaker 4: gonna happen. She tried to stop the door, but the
Speaker 4: colle just pushed by the way. She threw me on
Speaker 4: the ground. It was in this accounts office and she
Speaker 4: started punching me, kicking me. She peemed me to the
Speaker 4: ground and she was screaming in my face, and for
Speaker 4: the first time, I just thought, oh my god, this
Speaker 4: woman doesn't love me.
Speaker 5: She hates me. That was it was.
Speaker 4: It was just terrible, and I'm just like, you know,
Speaker 4: after that, I was in a state of few thinks.
Speaker 3: Everything that you've gone through.
Speaker 5: And how much I've given you.
Speaker 3: And you know that she's using you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just thought I've given everything to this woman
Speaker 4: and I had nothing left. And then I just thought
Speaker 4: I can't do this anymore. I basically just thought to myself,
Speaker 4: you know what, I would rather die in two years'
Speaker 4: time and spend the next two years with my children
Speaker 4: because I'd hardly been spending any time with them. I'd
Speaker 4: rather do that and then just die. And then I
Speaker 4: just I was yeah. And then so I just played
Speaker 4: a stupid game with myself. I said, if this girl,
Speaker 4: who you know, knows the truth that I've been doing
Speaker 4: everything right, doesn't tell her that I have been doing
Speaker 4: everything right, then I'm going to leave. And this girl
Speaker 4: just like walk past me and said, I'm not supposed
Speaker 4: to talk to you. I just thought, Okay, I've made
Speaker 4: that bet with myself, with the universe. This is my sign.
Speaker 4: I ended up passing that girl's poor teenage boy who
Speaker 4: was there, and I just said, sorry, I have to go,
Speaker 4: went down the bottom of the hill, packed the car
Speaker 4: with just everything I could fit in there, and I left.
Speaker 4: I picked up my eight year old who was at
Speaker 4: vacation care. My other two were asleep at daycare. We
Speaker 4: just went to like the Ocean, bought some hot chips,
Speaker 4: and just sat there overlooking the ocean. I said, was
Speaker 4: trying to say to him, you know, do you like
Speaker 4: it there? Do you think we should stay? But he
Speaker 4: obviously knew he couldn't say anything because it would come
Speaker 4: back on him. And then you know, went and picked
Speaker 4: up the boys, went to my ex husband's workplace, and
Speaker 4: I said, I just don't think I can do this
Speaker 4: anymore or whatever. He said, he can go to my
Speaker 4: mum's safe place, safe space, And within five minutes my
Speaker 4: brain just started filtering, Oh my god, that is a cult.
Speaker 5: She is a cult leader. And that was it.
Speaker 2: So with so you once you're you're out of it,
Speaker 2: and you know you've got this in your place, You've
Speaker 2: got this safe place that you can go to. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you're almost that relief of and then everything just yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: My brain just lit up and you know, just filtered,
Speaker 4: and it's like, oh, yeah, what the hell, Like, yeah,
Speaker 4: what everyone has been saying for all these years, it's true.
Speaker 2: So and then So that is literally instantaneously, right within
Speaker 2: five minutes within Do you feel do you feel like
Speaker 2: you're there's a new you? Do you think do you
Speaker 2: feel like this is a new beginning for you as
Speaker 2: an individual?
Speaker 3: Did you did you get back with your husband?
Speaker 4: I did for one year and then I just knew
Speaker 4: that it wasn't going to work because we've made in
Speaker 4: the colt and you know, I'm so grateful because I've
Speaker 4: got three beautiful boys. Yeah, you know, we've just gone
Speaker 4: through so many bad things, you know, together.
Speaker 3: Wow, Yeah, what a journey you've been on. What So,
Speaker 3: what's life right now?
Speaker 5: Just getting back to life?
Speaker 4: And you know, I've just turned fifty and the last
Speaker 4: fifty years have been pretty horrifying. So I just really
Speaker 4: want the next fifty years to be full of joy
Speaker 4: and great experiences, concentrating on my children and my family
Speaker 4: and just having fun.
Speaker 2: There you go, listen and Carly, fascinating story. Thank you
Speaker 2: ever so much, No doubt, no doubt this will save
Speaker 2: many lives and help a lot of people.
Speaker 3: So thank you for coming in.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Anne, thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Carl McConkey is the author of the book The Cult Effect.
Speaker 2: We'll put a link to it in the show notes.
Speaker 2: If you suspect you or someone you know could be
Speaker 2: involved in a cult, we'll put the contact details for
Speaker 2: the Cult Information and Family Support Network in our show notes.
Speaker 3: I'm Att Middleton. Catch you again next time.
Speaker 4: Es