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Speaker 1: You're listening to Amma mea podcast. If you hear the

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Speaker 1: word cult and think matching robes and remote compounds, you're

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Speaker 1: missing what it looks like in twenty twenty six, from

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Speaker 1: wellness communities to coaching gurus and high control religious groups,

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Speaker 1: more young people are being pulled into the spaces, especially

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Speaker 1: after the pandemic blew up their sense of certainty and belonging.

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Speaker 1: But just how do we identify them and stop our

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Speaker 1: loved ones or ourselves from literally drinking the kool aid.

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Speaker 1: It's the Quikie for Tuesday, March twenty four. I'm Taylor Strano.

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Speaker 1: Here's Claire Murphy with the latest news headlines.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Taylor. Public schools across Victoria and Tasmania will be

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Speaker 2: operating at reduced capacity from today as teachers go on

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Speaker 2: strike for improved pain conditions. Some schools have called on

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Speaker 2: parents to make alternative arrangements for their children, while all

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Speaker 2: public schools say they will remain open, but with only

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Speaker 2: a handful of support staff on board to ensure the

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Speaker 2: safety of the children who don't have any other option

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Speaker 2: but to go to school today. The twenty four hour

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Speaker 2: teachers strike in Victoria is the first in more than

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Speaker 2: thirteen years, the Victorian branch president of the Education Union,

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Speaker 2: saying our students and their families do not deserve to

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Speaker 2: have teachers, principles and education support staff that are underpaid

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Speaker 2: and undervalued. A Victorian parliamentary inquiries investigating Labour's decision to

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Speaker 2: delay increasing school funding to seventy five percent of the

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Speaker 2: Schooling Resources Standard until twenty thirty one, the union arguing

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Speaker 2: that this effectively equates to a two point four billion

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Speaker 2: dollar cut in funding from what was previously committed. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 2: in Tasmania, where the strike is planned for three days,

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Speaker 2: the government has offered teachers an eight percent pay rise,

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Speaker 2: below the thirteen percent offer made to those in Catholic schools.

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Speaker 2: US President Donald Trump says there's been talks between the

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Speaker 2: United States and Iran, saying that a deal could be

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Speaker 2: done soon to settle the war. Trump's Middle East envoys,

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Speaker 2: Steve Whitkoff and his son in law Jared Kushner, We're

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Speaker 2: in talks with the Ranian officials over the weekend, Trump

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Speaker 2: saying those talks will continue and that they'd reached major

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Speaker 2: points of agreement and that they're in the throes of

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Speaker 2: a real possibility of making a deal. He declined to

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Speaker 2: say who the United States was speaking with in Iran,

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Speaker 2: but said it was not Iran Supreme Leader Ayatola Mochabahemini.

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Speaker 2: Trump has now backed down on a threat to target

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Speaker 2: Iran's power network, saying he would postpone any strikes on

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Speaker 2: power plants and energy infrastructure. The pilots of an Air

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Speaker 2: Canada flight have been killed after their aircraft hit a

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Speaker 2: fire truck while coming into land in New York. The

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Speaker 2: truck was responding to an issue with another aircraft when

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Speaker 2: it was given permission to cross runway for the air

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Speaker 2: traffic controller then urgently telling them to stop.

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Speaker 3: Stop stop stop, stop truck, one stop truck.

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Speaker 2: It's unclear whether the truck attempted to stop or not.

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Speaker 2: The air traffic controller then admits he's made a mistake.

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Speaker 4: Front there.

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Speaker 3: Nine five.

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Speaker 4: I got the word that we're going to be close

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Speaker 4: for a little while. If you want, prepare to return

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Speaker 4: to the let me know.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we got stuff at progress for that man. That

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Speaker 3: was was it good to watch?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 4: I know.

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Speaker 3: I was here.

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Speaker 4: I tried to reach out to my stuff and we

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Speaker 4: were dealing with an emergency earlier.

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Speaker 5: I no, man, he did it best?

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Speaker 2: You could More than forty people were injured. The pilot

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Speaker 2: and co pilot died at the scene. The collision has

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Speaker 2: caused further delays at LaGuardia Airport that had been dealing

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Speaker 2: with travel disruptions caused by the weeks long partial government shutdown.

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Speaker 2: A spokesperson for Sarah Ferguson, the former Duchess of York,

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Speaker 2: has put down the rumor she planned to clone the

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Speaker 2: Queen's Corgies. Sarah and husband, the former Prince Andrew, were

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Speaker 2: given custody of the Queen's beloved dogs after she passed

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Speaker 2: in twenty twenty two. A TV source telling The Daily

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Speaker 2: Mail that eight months after the Queen's funeral, Sarah was

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Speaker 2: in talks with the US company about making a reality

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Speaker 2: show where she clones the corgies and sells them for profit.

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Speaker 2: A spokesperson for Ferguson says she did receive the proposal

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Speaker 2: from the TV execs, but after talks with the Hollywood

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Speaker 2: production company, the idea was rejected. The spokesperson says Sarah

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Speaker 2: had no plans to monetize the Queen's pets and that

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Speaker 2: any perceived enthusiasm from her regarding the project is just

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Speaker 2: a reflection of who she is and that she had

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Speaker 2: no intention of going through with it.

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Speaker 1: Thanks Claire. Next, the rise of colts post pandemic. What

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Speaker 1: do they look like in twenty twenty six?

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Speaker 5: You know, when I think about colts, I think about

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Speaker 5: people in white robes, these famous cases like Heaven's Gate,

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Speaker 5: But a lot of cults are actually so much more

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Speaker 5: ordinary than that.

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Speaker 1: That's ABC, reported Dominique Bayans, and she, like many of us,

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Speaker 1: thought we had a pretty good idea of what a

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Speaker 1: cult looked like. That was until she started working on

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Speaker 1: the latest season of Expanse, looking into the disappearance of

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Speaker 1: the nun Up four, a family of three and a

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Speaker 1: friend who vanished from their secluded home in Nuannup, Western Australia,

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Speaker 1: leaving only a note claiming they'd moved to Brazil, though

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Speaker 1: they never arrived.

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Speaker 5: It was four people who, on the outside you would

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Speaker 5: never have been able to tell that they were in

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Speaker 5: a cult, and a lot of people didn't. And that's

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Speaker 5: probably the number one thing that I've learned is that

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Speaker 5: my understanding of cults was very limited, and that they

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Speaker 5: can take all these different forms that on the outside

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Speaker 5: don't necessarily look like what you think of a typical

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Speaker 5: cult as being.

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Speaker 1: The concept of cults has morphed over time. Once reserved

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Speaker 1: for fringe religious groups on the outskirts of society, now

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Speaker 1: it's a label we throw around for everything from wellness

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Speaker 1: communities to online fan bases, sometimes something far more sinister.

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Speaker 1: And while the traditional picture of a cult may be

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Speaker 1: a thing of the past, people across the world are

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Speaker 1: still drawn to these groups in staggering numbers. In an

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Speaker 1: Australian first, last year, the Victorian Parliament launched an inquiry

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Speaker 1: into the recruitment methods and the impacts of cults and

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Speaker 1: organized fringe groups. The inquiry aims to separate harmful practices

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Speaker 1: from belief and tests whether our current laws actually go

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Speaker 1: far enough to protect people from manipulation and control. It

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Speaker 1: was prompted by recent events, including reports of coercive behavior

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Speaker 1: at the Geelong Revival Center, with the final report expected

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Speaker 1: to be tabled in September this year. Unco Richt is

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Speaker 1: a journalist, author of Cult Trip and head of De Cult,

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Speaker 1: a charity supporting people impacted by coercive control. She gave

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Speaker 1: evidence as part of the inquiry detailing her own involvement

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Speaker 1: with a cult.

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Speaker 3: My own experience with a card was and I'm still

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Speaker 3: cringing when I say that was with a sex card.

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Speaker 3: And my experience started when I went to the Taste

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Speaker 3: of Love festival and Byron Bay. I think back then

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Speaker 3: it was still called the Sexton Consciousness Conference, very much

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Speaker 3: an ISTA affiliated event. I went to this festival. It's

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Speaker 3: a bit cynical about all these Tantrick people, Cladden and

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Speaker 3: the hippie vibe and all of that, but I kind

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Speaker 3: of fell in love with some of the things there.

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Speaker 3: Something hooked me and it actually happened during an Ecstatic

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Speaker 3: dance session. I think that I had this epiphany of

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Speaker 3: I always want to feel like this. I want to

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Speaker 3: be more around people like this. The Esther cult met

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Speaker 3: me at the right time and maybe not having certain

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Speaker 3: needs met in my personal life around that time, so

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Speaker 3: that's what hooked me in. I went to this festival

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Speaker 3: and then I think it was a few months later

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Speaker 3: I did my first training with Esther in the Yarra

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Speaker 3: Valley outside of Melbourne. I pulled back in twenty seventeen,

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Speaker 3: twenty eighteen because I was researching cults myself.

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Speaker 1: Well you've done extensive research on this topic. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you've lived it, but you've also written a book about it.

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Speaker 1: You now run an organization centered around that. What does

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Speaker 1: a cult look like in twenty twenty six?

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Speaker 3: Oh, it comes on different chaps and forms. We still

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Speaker 3: have the typicals that are old school nineteen seventies cults.

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Speaker 3: They're still around, not like they've all gone away, but

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Speaker 3: they're not all based around a guru clad in orange

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Speaker 3: and people doing strange rituals and charging in the woods

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Speaker 3: or whatever in their temples. I mean, the stuff still exists.

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Speaker 3: But now we have self help cults, we have self

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Speaker 3: development cults, we have business cults, coaching cults. We have

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Speaker 3: MLMs that actually fall under that same marco. And a

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Speaker 3: better word maybe is high control group or high demand group.

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Speaker 3: I use the wood cult all the time, but it's controversial.

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Speaker 3: So if you say high demand, high control group, people

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Speaker 3: get a better idea what the actual issue is, because

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Speaker 3: it's not the strange look or the strange beliefs, or

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Speaker 3: that we think these people are all weird.

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Speaker 4: It's actually the level.

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Speaker 3: Of power and control. They are also online cults, just

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Speaker 3: you know, if we want to talk about that, it's

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Speaker 3: actually a new phenomenon these days. So I think a

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Speaker 3: lot of cults that we see emerging are in the

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Speaker 3: self helpe scene, but there are also a lot of

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Speaker 3: evangelical ones that are becoming stronger, especially in Europe.

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Speaker 1: Why do you think it is that young people can

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Speaker 1: maybe be more susceptible to joining a cult.

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Speaker 3: I think it depends on First of all, witch carts

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Speaker 3: recruit where, and we know that's some Bible of Korean

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Speaker 3: Bible cults like Providence, Ocean, Johnji and others. They're aggressively

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Speaker 3: recruit on campuses. So young people are susceptible because they're

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Speaker 3: young and idealistic. That's the one thing. Then often if

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Speaker 3: they leave home and start UNI in a new city,

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Speaker 3: it's a very vulnerable time. Another hunting ground, so to speak,

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Speaker 3: are spiritual festivals. Yeah, like the one I went to,

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Speaker 3: or alternative festivals, and they're great. I'm one of those

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Speaker 3: people who go to Kiwi Burn and lots of lots

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Speaker 3: of festivals and people are in a heightened state. They

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Speaker 3: want community. They're often young, they love exploring new things.

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Speaker 3: They go to workshops, and that's often when some groups

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Speaker 3: have a store there, they offer a workshop there and

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Speaker 3: that could be the first step of recruitment.

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Speaker 1: And what about in certain periods of time. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the COVID pandemic is one of the most recent examples

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Speaker 1: of that. There's been a huge spike of young people

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Speaker 1: joining cults after the pandemic, or even due it is

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Speaker 1: that because they're online more, they're looking for, like a

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Speaker 1: sense of certainty and an unprecedented time.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, especially if you account not just the traditional cults,

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Speaker 3: but also the conspiracy movements.

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Speaker 4: If you look at QAnon.

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Speaker 3: Very very cult like, and some of the anti vax movement,

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Speaker 3: which is also cut like, and there's a real overlap

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Speaker 3: and people of course far down the rabbit hole during

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Speaker 3: COVID because they were online. Because we're in uncertain times,

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Speaker 3: so people are definitely more susceptible when they're in crisis,

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Speaker 3: or when there's a large crisis where there's uncertainty and

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Speaker 3: they have a lot of time spending now on the

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Speaker 3: computer and they're disconnected from the real word or people

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Speaker 3: or real community out there, and then they'll find these

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Speaker 3: online communities and these easy questions and these asy answers

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Speaker 3: to their questions.

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Speaker 4: On the other hand, though I'm.

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Speaker 3: Not sure if that was in their Victoria inquiry as well.

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Speaker 3: We know that a lot of people have come out

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Speaker 3: of cults during COVID because maybe for the first time

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Speaker 3: they didn't have to go to all their church meetings

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Speaker 3: all the time, or they had to be in lockdown,

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Speaker 3: was maybe their actual family and not spend all the

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Speaker 3: time with the CUP members, or they were in hospital

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Speaker 3: for some reason and it gave them an out. So no,

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Speaker 3: I'm definitely a person of a few people who could

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Speaker 3: live or where the whole process of deconstructing and leaving

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Speaker 3: started because of COVID, so pros and cons, but overall,

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Speaker 3: I would say difficult times make people more susceptible for

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Speaker 3: cults and especially online.

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Speaker 1: A survey of more than three hundred cult survivors run

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Speaker 1: as part of the Victorian Inquiry found around ninety five

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Speaker 1: percent reported psychological harm and more than half had experienced

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Speaker 1: physical harm financial control, all being blocked from education or

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Speaker 1: medical care. And this isn't about extreme fringe groups. The

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Speaker 1: Inquiry heard harrowing stories from people raised in high controlled

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Speaker 1: religious environments, from scientology to the Children of God and

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Speaker 1: certain Pentecostal churches. Claire Heath macivern knows that experience all

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Speaker 1: too well. She's a survivor of the City of Church

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Speaker 1: and those first hand the lasting impact groups like these

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Speaker 1: have on people. She's also the co runner of the

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Speaker 1: Victorian Cult Survivors Network.

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Speaker 4: I grew up in the City Builders sect, which as

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Speaker 4: a child, you know, my dad's the pastor. I'm the

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Speaker 4: oldest of five children. It was just a normal life

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Speaker 4: experience for me. I didn't realize what it was. Now

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Speaker 4: that I've had time on the outside posts, I guess

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Speaker 4: you'd call it shunning. I've had an opportunity to scrutinize

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Speaker 4: what it is. We believed we're very dominionist. We would

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Speaker 4: talk about crossing over to takeover. We'd talk about taking

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Speaker 4: dominion in every domain, bringing the government of God. They

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Speaker 4: were very political. There's matty allegations of branch stacking and

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Speaker 4: of coordinated efforts to infiltrate political parties, including the Nationals

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Speaker 4: and the Liberals. I was part of that effort in

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Speaker 4: the National Party before my then husband and I left.

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Speaker 4: It was a sect that was very driven towards purity,

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Speaker 4: towards biblical marriage, with men at the head of the house,

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Speaker 4: women to be submissive, very anti lgbtqia that would treat

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Speaker 4: that as a demonic possession or a mental illness, and

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Speaker 4: there were conversion practices that went on in that group.

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Speaker 4: A lot of the classic cult indicators like high volunteerism,

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Speaker 4: which one might interpret as coerced labor, high degrees of

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Speaker 4: accountability on different things. But it's an interesting phenomenon cult

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Speaker 4: because we get really attracted to what they believe, but

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Speaker 4: it is their practices that sets them apart from a

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Speaker 4: normal church. But also, not all cults are churches. Not

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Speaker 4: all churches or cults. There can be yoga cults, there

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Speaker 4: are you know, political cults. There are all sorts of things.

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Speaker 1: Talk to me a little bit about the relationship between

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Speaker 1: young people and cults, because there's been a bit of

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Speaker 1: a weird rise in the amount of young people who

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Speaker 1: fall into cults, especially in recent times. I mean, we've

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Speaker 1: been looking at the COVID pandemic and how the points

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Speaker 1: in history can sometimes bring out that searching for meaning

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Speaker 1: or desire or wanting to feel safe. Is that a

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Speaker 1: fair assumption to make.

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Speaker 4: The issue with young people and cults. Huh, it's all

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Speaker 4: the time. Young people are the ones who are being targeted,

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Speaker 4: either you're born in and the Victorian inquiry into cults

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Speaker 4: and fringe groups showed that around sixty three point four

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Speaker 4: percent of people were either born into a cult or

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Speaker 4: they were recruited through an intimate partner or a family member.

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Speaker 4: So the family ties is often what keeps people in there,

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Speaker 4: but youth is a very important time. Those first sexual partners.

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Speaker 4: We wanted to get to people before that, because you know,

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Speaker 4: we're all about purity and we believe that sex before marriage,

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Speaker 4: promiscuity as we called it, it was, you know, almost

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Speaker 4: a cardinal sin. And the other thing about young people

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Speaker 4: is they're idealistic. We're thinking about what we want to

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Speaker 4: do with our lives. We're thinking about the difference we

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Speaker 4: might want to make in the world. We're looking at

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Speaker 4: the world with a bit of eyes deism. At the

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Speaker 4: same time that mum and dad are less important, our

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Speaker 4: social emotional strings are changing. We're looking to our peer

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Speaker 4: group more so. It's a powerful time for cults to

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Speaker 4: come in and sweep in and go. Will be your

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Speaker 4: peer group, will be your mother and father, will be

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Speaker 4: your cause, your answer, your safety, and your purpose in life.

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Speaker 4: And unfortunately, a lot of people enter coults as youth,

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Speaker 4: whether it be through a fairly innocious looking youth group

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Speaker 4: that then draws them into this inner circle. They can

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Speaker 4: lose decades. They can marry within these groups, and then

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Speaker 4: they can lose family. I spoke to a grandfather this

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Speaker 4: week whose wife and children and grandchildren are still on

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Speaker 4: the inside. He's been shunned, so he can't have anything

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Speaker 4: to do with them.

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Speaker 1: Claire, talk to me about the long term effects of

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Speaker 1: people who join cults but then come out the other end,

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Speaker 1: or are able to step away, because you not only

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Speaker 1: yourself have done that and lived that experience, but you

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Speaker 1: also now run an advert cause he grouped the cult

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Speaker 1: Survivor Network, who are basically they're waiting to catch people

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Speaker 1: at the other end.

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Speaker 4: Some of us have not had the experience of decision

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Speaker 4: making autonomy at any stage in our lives. We have

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Speaker 4: to learn how to do things like open a bank account,

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Speaker 4: or some of us have been told not to buy

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Speaker 4: certain brands of cereal or toothpaste because it was funding

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Speaker 4: the occult, which is ironic, but you know, we have

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Speaker 4: to get through all these various different fear triggers that

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Speaker 4: might be huge or might be nothing. I found that

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Speaker 4: buying a car was a huge thing for me. I

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Speaker 4: had the money sitting in my account for three years

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Speaker 4: and just caught ubers because I couldn't bear the thought

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Speaker 4: of buying a car. A lot of survivors have CPTSD,

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Speaker 4: there's complex post traumatic stress disorder. A lot of us

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Speaker 4: have somatic so body trauma that might come up as

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Speaker 4: autoimmune conditions, trauma that might look like ADHD, late diagnosis

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Speaker 4: of autism, these sorts of things. The one thing that

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Speaker 4: unites absolutely every cult survivor, I swear to God is

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Speaker 4: the feeling that they're the only one in the world

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Speaker 4: to experience this, and that sense of isolation is a

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Speaker 4: profound disabler when it comes to escaping, that feeling that

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Speaker 4: no one's going to understand you. And that's why it's

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Speaker 4: important to connect with advocates because we can we can

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Speaker 4: vouch for you when you might need to go to

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Speaker 4: the police, or you might need to go to child services,

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Speaker 4: or you might need to do all these different things

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Speaker 4: that are so daunting without somebody to literally go, Okay,

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Speaker 4: we got this, we can do this.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for taking some time to feed your mind with

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Speaker 1: us today. Hey, be for your head off. Make sure

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Speaker 1: you're following the quiki in your favorite podcast app, and

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Speaker 1: do you have your notifications turned on so you don't

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Speaker 1: miss an episode including this afternoon, We're back with you

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Speaker 1: another news update. The Quiki is produced by me Taylorstrano,

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Speaker 1: Laria Brophy, and Claire Murphy, with audio production by Lou Hill.

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Speaker 3: MoMA.

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Speaker 2: MEA acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that

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Speaker 2: this podcast is recorded on