Cults, Culture & Coercion with Dr. Steve Hassan

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• The War on Trans Healthcare Is Not About Science What a study of 957 detransitioners revealed, and why Washington gets it wrong, with Dr. Kinnon Ross MacKinnon 08.06.2026 1h 5min

  Trans healthcare is an evolving discussion, and the implications greatly affect those in the LGBTQ+ community. At its heart, this is a conversation about the science meant to inform transition-related healthcare care, and what happens when politics deliberately distorts it. On March 31, 2026, The Supreme Court handed down an 8-to-1 ruling that conversion therapy, a practice every major medical and mental health organization has condemned as harmful and without scientific basis, now qualifies as “protected speech” under the First Amendment. The case, Chiles v. Salazar, centered on a Christian counselor in Colorado who argued that a state ban on the practice violated her right to speak freely with her clients. Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, declared that the First Amendment “stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.” Only Justice Jackson dissented, warning that the ruling “misreads our precedents, is unprincipled and unworkable.” This decision puts laws in 23 states and the District of Columbia at serious risk. It tells LGBTQ+ young people that any licensed therapist with a personal ideological or religious agenda now has the constitutional right to try to change who they are. It arrived on a day meant to celebrate trans lives. This ruling lands in the same moment that Professor Kinnon Ross MacKinnon, a trans researcher whose work I deeply respect, published in the New York Times that the Trump administration has been weaponizing detransition research to justify bans on gender-affirming care. At the same time, his guest essay outlines the complexities of gender fluidity that can occur after accessing medical treatments for gender dysphoria. Early studies from the 1970s through the 2000s found detransition rates of roughly 1 to 6 percent, primarily among adult transgender women who had full surgical transitions. New research focusing on younger populations, though, identifies that between 2-17% [GU1] of young LGBTQ+ people may experience a detransition process. The field of pediatric gender-affirming healthcare, when it was rapidly scaled up in the United States and Canada over the last 10-15 years, was not prepared for the question of detransition and how to care for these experiences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• He Was Ordained by the Mormon Prophet: Former Mormon Bishop Ian Wilks on 37 years inside the LDS authoritarian cult 01.06.2026 1h 4min

  Ian Wilks was a high-ranking leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is a former bishop, a former branch president, and a member of the stake presidency in British Columbia, with responsibility for shepherding twelve congregations and thousands of members. Then-apostle Dallin H. Oaks, now the 18th president and living prophet of the LDS Church, personally recruited him, interviewed him, called him, set him apart, and trained him into that role.¹ For 37 years, Ian devoted his entire life to his church. He paid tithing on his gross income. He sealed his marriage in the London Temple. He conducted hundreds of worthiness interviews. He trained bishops. He stood at pulpits and at altars. He made sacred covenants in the temple to give all he had, including his own life if required, for the building up of the kingdom on earth. In a snowstorm, the cost of those 37 years lands all at once. The thing he wanted most to be true, he learned was untrue. I spoke with Ian on my podcast Cults, Culture & Coercion and in a recent livestream. He is the co-host of the Inside Out podcast with Jim Bennett, son of the late US Senator Bob Bennett. What he told me confirms what former members of the LDS Church have been describing to me since my first book was published in 1988. The Mormon Church meets every criterion of an authoritarian cult under my BITE Model of Authoritarian Control™ and sits on the destructive end of my Influence Continuum©. Ian himself took the BITE Model self-test based on his decades of experience and scored the church at roughly 85 to 90 percent across the four dimensions of behavior, information, thought, and emotion. This group is one of the wealthiest, most influential groups in politics and its believers are over represented (compared to all other faith groups) in our FBI, CIA, Homeland security and faithful people will follow the direction of the Prophet over the Constitution (even though they swear an oath to uphold the Constitution) which should make all Americans worry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Smart People Fall For The Cult Of Trump With Journalist Virginia Heffernan 25.05.2026 1h 9min

  From Richard Dawkins to Larry Summers, brilliant minds get pulled in. I sat down with the journalist Virginia Heffernan for a recent conversation on Cults, Culture & Coercion to talk about who falls for the Trump cult and why. Virginia spent time inside a group of academics and intellectuals sponsored by Jeffrey Epstein, called Edge, run by literary agent John Brockman. She wrote about involvement in the Epstein cult for The New Republic. She told me she was fortunately kept at arm’s length from the worst of it. “I was only there as a fig leaf because they didn't have any women,” she said. “They didn't want me at the parties or on the island.” She watched the dynamics around her. Edge included Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary and Harvard president. The Epstein correspondence released by the House Oversight Committee in November 2025 documents a years-long stream of personal advice Summers sought from a convicted sex offender. In the messages, Summers asked Epstein for guidance on his pursuit of a younger woman he described as a mentee. Epstein called himself Summers' wing man and urged Summers to play the long game by keeping the woman in a forced holding pattern (Harvard Crimson, November 17, 2025). Virginia framed it bluntly: “I would venture to say someone you would least expect to fall under a spell. These are grown men who should know better.” Virginia writes the Magic and Loss Substack, hosts the Omni Shambles podcast, and contributes to The New Republic. The 10th anniversary of her book Magic and Loss has her circling back to a question she has carried since 2016. I thanked Virginia for reading my book and then being the first media person to bravely and publicly support what I wrote about. She wrote a Los Angeles Times op-ed that it was the “best explanatory framework” for what was happening politically. She then went on CNN to be interviewed about it. This led to Brian Stelter interviewing me about my book for his CNN show Reliable Sources. She put it plainly: “I was trying to solve a problem in my mind, which was, how did we get here? And you came along with your book; The Cult of Trump and you did me the favor of giving me a framework.” This is a fascinating interview with a crack journalist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• He Was 18. Scientology Put Him in Charge. A former Scientology executive in Scotland on recruitment, control, and getting out with Amir Essalhi 18.05.2026 1h 1min

  Scientology recruitment rarely looks the way people imagine. There is no shadowy figure pulling you into a back room. The process is warm, and, for a curious young person, entirely easy to be “handled” and sucked in. Amir Essalhi was 18 years old and studying film when he first walked into the Edinburgh organization in late 2022. He had never heard of Hubbard. He did not know who David Miscavige was. He knew one thing: He was into being an aspiring filmmaker, and loved Tom Cruise. When he was shown a Scientology recruitment video with Tom Cruise his curiosity to know more was the tool used to manipulate him. Less than two years later, Amir was running the group's social media strategy across TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram, delivering public lectures, and serving as one of the senior executives of the only Scientology organization in Scotland's capital. He was 19. I spoke with Amir twice, first on a live stream, and then on my Cults, Culture & Coercion podcast. What he shared in both conversations is something every young person, and every parent of a young person, needs to hear. Scientology has been all over some social media channels as some people were running into Scientology buildings and posting the video of their illegal trespassing. I have been vocal criticizing this as has Leah Remini- whose original show I was on as a guest. Many of the platforms Scientology uses to reach young people carry no Scientology branding at all. Amir confirmed that promotional materials would sometimes run under names like "Dianetics" or localized event names, with "Scientology" buried in fine print or absent entirely. The group also uses front organizations, including Narconon (drug rehabilitation), the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, and Drug Free World, none of which disclose their Scientology ties in their public-facing materials. Destructive authoritarian cults know that if they give fully informed consent, no one would ever get involved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Why filmmaker Deeyah Khan sits with extremists demonstrating how listening matters! 11.05.2026 1h 6min

  She Sought Out the People Who Threatened Her Deeyah Khan was editing a film when the BBC called. The threats were serious enough the police were already on their way. “Stay where you are,” they told her. “If there are windows in the room, move to a different one. Wait for us.” She had given an interview saying Britain would never be all white again. White supremacist sites in the United States picked it up and ran with it. One of those sites had been frequented by Dylann Roof, the man who murdered nine Black parishioners in Charleston in 2015. Now their followers were sending death threats by the hundreds, telling her to be afraid, telling her she should not exist. The police gave her a personal alarm and a security briefing. That night, sitting alone, she made an unusual decision. She would not hide. She would seek out the people threatening her, sit with them face to face, and try to understand who they were. I had the privilege of speaking with Deeyah recently on Cults, Culture & Coercion. She is a BAFTA and two-time Emmy winning documentary filmmaker. Over the past fifteen years, she has done what almost no one in journalism has been willing to do. She has interviewed convicted anti-abortion terrorists from the Army of God, the leader of America's oldest and largest neo-Nazi organization, and pro-Trump militia members plotting violence against refugees. She has done it warmly, with genuine curiosity, while also holding strong positions of her own about human rights, women's rights, and the basic dignity of every person. She is an inspiration and she has, but being respectful snd curious and asking questions without attacking, has been able to help deradicalize a major figure in the hate cult. Please read this blog on Substack and listen to this amazing interview. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• The Cult That Helped Shape Christian America: The Community of Jesus child abuse and Christian Nationalism with Ewan Whyte 04.05.2026 54min

  The Community of Jesus was founded in 1970 by two housewives, Cay Anderson and Judy Sorensen. They told members they were "God's anointed" with a direct line to God. Any authority figure they appointed carried that same divine authority. Members were taught to obey without questioning the leadership’s authority. I spoke with former member and award-nominated writer Ewan Whyte. His fifth book, Mothers of Invention: Essays on the Community of Jesus and Grenville Christian College, details life inside this cult and its affiliated boarding school in Canada. Ewan was raised in the group from childhood. He knows this organization from the inside, and what he shares deserves your full attention. The Community of Jesus is one of three surviving original covenant communities founded in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The other two are the Word of God, founded in 1967 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and People of Praise 1972, - founded around the same time and known today as the community Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett is closely associated with. Of the three, the Community of Jesus has been, as Ewan argues, is historically, the most politically influential in shaping American evangelical culture of today. Here is something that stops most people cold: the most important best-selling book of Christian nationalism, The Light and the Glory, was secretly written inside this cult. As Ewan documents in his book, this revisionist version of American history, which argues that God intended the founding the United States to be a Christian nation, was produced by Community of Jesus members David Manuel and Peter Marshall Jr. Their work became a cornerstone text for the Christian nationalist movement and has shaped the beliefs of millions of Americans. Come listen to this enlightening interview. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• The Missionary Kids: Unmasking the Myths of White Evangelicalism with Holly Berkley Fletcher PhD 27.04.2026 1h 6min

  Missionary kids often carry the weight of their parents’ choices. They are inculcated into the faith without opportunity for independent thought, according to author, historian, and former intelligence analyst Holly Berkley Fletcher, PhD. Her parents were Evangelical Christian missionaries in Kenya, and she speaks about that and the experiences of other children with similar backgrounds through her book, The Missionary Kids: Unmasking the Myths of White Evangelicalism. “The mission field has long been the rugged frontier in a grand evangelical narrative, the ultimate proof of the American church’s virtue, rightness, and importance,” she writes in the book’s introduction.Holly’s unique first-hand knowledge of missionary work has enabled her to explore the role of missionaries as “Super Christians” in the eyes of the church. Likewise, she has been able to write about the more devious aspects of mission culture, including physical or sexual abuse, neglect of children, and other crimes often not prosecuted due to jurisdictional gaps in the legal relationships between nations. Holly would eventually return to the United States, go on to teach at universities, and work for 19 years as an Africa analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency. Then she noted that the Trump / MAGA movement “would not exist without white evangelicals.” “That’s really the foundational, most solid support base that he’s had this entire time,” she concluded. She called White Evangelical Christianity a high-control religion with a persecution complex that has empowered a malignant narcissist. She said that’s what inspired her to write the book. “I felt like the missionary kid experience was a great way to shine a light on it, because it’s not a well-known facet to the broader public, but it is kind of the distillation of a lot of what white evangelical is.” While reading her book, I noticed that the religion reflected both a male-centric and colonialist perspective, as well as a problematic treatment of children. As I put it, “The kids get farmed off to boarding schools and to other places, while the parents do God’s work.” Holly agreed, explaining that she specifically included the term “White” Evangelical Christianity because the racial dimension is deeply rooted in the culture. She acknowledged that while the movement has become global, with many White Evangelicals who are not white, “you see similar dynamics in other cultures replicating this both on the political front and on the religious front as well.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• The Olive Leaf Network: Public Testimony to the Parliament of Victoria on Children in Cults and High-demand Religious Groups with Psychologist Maria Esguerra 20.04.2026 1h 1min

  As the United States remains stalled on full disclosure and holding Epstein file perpetrators accountable, the Parliament of Victoria, Australia, has launched an inquiry into the recruitment methods and societal impacts of cults and organized fringe groups. Maria Esguerra is one of the directors of The Olive Leaf Network who testified and presented a written submission at the public hearing of this inquiry in November 2025, alongside her co-directors Mirriam Francis and Dani Sorensen. Maria is a Queensland-based registered psychologist with over 15 years of experience working with people with disabilities. Bringing her professional expertise as well as personal insight from being a Second-Generation Adult (SGA) cult survivor, she is a leading voice for those harmed by high-control groups in Australia, as well as her global advocacy. Maria was born into and raised in the Children of God cult, one of the most abusive cults. The cult rebranded as “The Family” (one of numerous cults calling themselves this). She escaped at age 22 with her two young children. The Core Argument stated in The Olive Leaf Network’s written submission to the Parliament of Victoria inquiry, titled Children in Cults, is “Children in high-demand groups are victims of systemic coercive control”, not “recruits.” They are captives placed into systems of abuse by manipulated caregivers.” This leads to their Central Thesis statement, “The fundamental rights and safety of a child must supersede the claimed religious freedoms of any group or parent.” In our discussion, Maria emphasized, “My care is always for the most marginalized and the victims.” She noted the unique importance of focusing on the survivors, especially in SGA conversations, versus empathizing with adults who may have brought these children into the cult for a variety of reasons.In our discussion, Maria noted the importance of not remaining neutral in the face of harm against children, as “it’s important to look at the impact over the intent.” I agreed and noted that, while I was coerced into certain modes of thinking during my time in the Moonies, I would still expect to be held accountable for any criminal behavior committed during that time. Maria cautioned against protecting perpetrators or people who have harmed children or destroyed their lives. She noted that in addition to the mental, physical, or sexual abuses that children may experience during their time in a cult, they may lack even the most basic paperwork to document citizenship or necessary identification later. “We’re not talking about the same thing here. We’re not talking about an adult being coerced into something and having sort of a psychological moral injury, versus a child who’s had serious crimes,” she said. “Just because you are sort of coerced into it doesn’t negate the harm of that person,” she later followed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• American Dominion: The Rise and Radicalization of a New Christendom with Keri Ladner, PhD 13.04.2026 1h 2min

  Tracing the roots of Christian Nationalism and the New Apostolic Reformation is no longer a fringe concern. It has become one of the most urgent forces reshaping American political life, and most people still do not understand where it came from, how it operates, or what it ultimately wants. Keri Ladner, PhD, does. A scholar of fundamentalist politics, she has spent years tracing the theological roots of movements like the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and documenting how they moved from the margins of American religious life into the centers of government and policy. Her new book, American Dominion: The Rise and Radicalization of a New Christendom (Bloomsbury Academic, official release April 16, 2026), offers one of the most carefully researched accounts yet of how we arrived at this moment. Keri has been a guest on this podcast before. In our first conversation, we explored her 2024 book End-Time Politics: From the Moral Majority to QAnon, tracing the ideological line from Jerry Falwell through the movements that helped bring Donald Trump to power. I encourage you to listen to that episode. In this second conversation, we went deeper: into the theological architecture behind the New Apostolic Reformation, the manipulation of faith healing, the alleged sexual abuse inside NAR-affiliated churches, and what the so-called Seven Mountain Mandate has to do with your children's school curriculum. Why “Christendom” and Not “Christianity” One of the first things Keri established was her word choice in the title of American Dominion. She did not write “Christianity.” She wrote “Christendom,” and the distinction matters. “When we're talking about Christendom, we're really talking about power structures,” she told me. “The term has historically been used to describe the Church-State relations in Europe, particularly medieval Europe. What I'm trying to show is that we are looking at an age of very heightened Church-State relations, to the point that the church is pursuing a level of power that we have not seen really since the Middle Ages.” This is not a story about religion. It is a story about control. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Holy Disobedience: Sex, Sin, and Secrets in the Biggest Church No One Knows with Melissa Duge Spiers 06.04.2026 54min

  Melissa Duge Spiers was raised as a several generations Seventh-day Adventist. It wasn’t until years later, when she discovered information about her father, who had been both a youth pastor within the Adventist church and a Loma Linda-educated doctor, that Melissa would be called to deconstruct her entire relationship with the organization. “In my early middle age, I found out that my father, during his youth Co-founded by Ellen G. White, who claimed to possess the power of prophecy, the Seventh-day Adventist Church often emphasizes annihilationism (a belief in the Judgment Day) and the second coming of Christ. “Basically, it is at heart an end times cult still,” Melissa said, “It is severely high control in so many ways. And a lot of what they think makes them special, the true remnant, etc., is based on Ellen White, and it’s not biblical.” Melissa noted the strict focus on a “great fear of sex” in the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s founding. “That was one of the biggest control things, and purity culture, of course, is a control thing. But some of Ellen White’s first writings were admonitions for mothers on preventing masturbation in children, in babies, and I know that was sort of a Victorian obsession, you know, very puritanical,” she said. Melissa also noted the association with John Harvey Kellogg and the Battle Creek Sanitarium, which was founded by the Adventists. Of Kellogg, she related, “He was big into the health message, which, of course, Ellen White carried on. But his huge obsession was preventing sex and lust … He himself never had sex his entire life. He was married, but never had children, never consummated the marriage. He was even obsessed with preventing masturbation, or anything like lust itself was the big sin, and so you just had to shut that down no matter what.” She also noted his theories that a high fiber diet, like that found in Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, would supposedly help prevent sexual impulses. To this day, many Adventists choose vegetarian diets largely based on White’s visions of the proper way to eat. Once Melissa was able to reconcile some of her own trauma around finding out about her father’s past, she noted the patterns of abuse cover-ups within the church. “This is an organization that does this. They are practiced at this. This is what they do. And so, I started speaking out on social media,” she said. It’s at this point that more abuse victims began to contact her. “At first, I just started saying I was raised in this really weird religion, and people started talking to me, and my DMs would fill up every day. I was abused. I was abused. I was abused. And so, I started interviewing survivors, and I started telling their stories,” she said. After accumulating lists of survivors, she had helped start a mass tort lawsuit through the law group Pintas & Mullins. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds with John Fugelsang 30.03.2026 1h 4min

  Christianity has been “hijacked” by Christian Nationalists, right-wing Conservatives and Dominionists, according to John Fugelsang, author of the 2025 book Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds. “The entire history of the organized religion has been authoritarian control,” he said on our interview for the Cults, Culture & Coercion podcast. However, he also noted a deep appreciation for the teaching of Christ through the Bible and as used by non-violent activists like Martin Luther King Jr., “There’s this incredible history of liberation thought and a true history of Christian activism that’s almost always in resistance to Christian authoritarianism.”   “This book is a guide to everything the haters got wrong, and how, even if you’re an atheist, if you’re debating a Christian fundamentalist, Jesus agrees with you whether he exists or not, on every topic that divides us, it gives you the right-wing arguments and why they’re full of crap.” I replied that I’d interviewed many biblical scholars over the years and that I felt John really knew his stuff when it came to countering Christian nationalist fascists. I encouraged listeners to read or listen to his book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Why We Elect Narcissists and Sociopaths - And How We Can Stop! with Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD 23.03.2026 1h 2min

  Bill Eddy has authored more than 20 books on high‑conflict personalities and disputes. He wants Americans, and societies everywhere, to keep a simple mantra in mind: “fantasy crisis, fantasy villain, fantasy hero with fantasy solutions.” Whenever we encounter another wave of chaos from the Trump administration or any potentially abusive elected official, this phrase helps us recognize the manufactured narratives at play. It highlights the endless cycle of contrived trauma spun by those in power, while also providing a mental shield against the constant barrage of fear, anger, intimidation, and hidden agendas driven by money or power. Bill is a therapist, lawyer, and mediator, and he serves as co‑founder and Chief Innovation Officer of the High Conflict Institute. The institute’s mission is to make “high‑conflict behavior manageable—even when it feels impossible.” Their “About” page explains that they “equip professionals with proven skills to navigate high‑conflict behaviors in any setting—confidently, ethically, and effectively.” Bill has also created practical tools such as the CARS Method®, BIFF Response®, EAR Statements™, and the New Ways® series, which are used to train others to regain control in high‑conflict situations. The Importance of Focused and Refined Messaging in Politics Bill understands how powerful words, repeated phrases, and tightly crafted messages can be in countering high‑conflict personalities such as narcissists and sociopaths. He argues that the Democratic Party must coordinate and sharpen its messaging to confront Trump. “What I find is Democratic politicians have hundreds of ideas, hundreds of words, but they haven’t settled on anything repetitive,” he said, “and that’s where we get into what we both talk about is the emotional mind.” Bill notes that Trump excels at creating short, memorable slogans that stick in voters’ minds. “You target the emotional mind with these really short, you know, build the wall, send them back, those kinds of phrases, and the Democrats are saying similar stuff, but all different words,” Bill explained. I asked Bill to discuss some of the basic rules in dealing with narcissistic personalities in conflict situations. He noted that trying to give them insight into their behavior often doesn’t help. Neither does focusing on the past. “You’ll never agree on the past. You'll just argue forever about the past, because they may be totally committed to something that you can totally show as false, but they’re locked into that,” he said’ We discussed Trump’s obsession with the 2020 election results and his focus on rewriting past history so that he has a win, for instance. Lastly, Bill advised against name-calling or attempting to confront the narcissist on their emotions. Bill then focused on what we should be using, like the CARS Method® “C for connecting A, for analyzing, R, for responding as for setting limits” or using EAR Statements™ where E is for Empathy, A is for Analyzing and R is for Respect. He gave an example, “So if somebody’s angry and they're pointing a finger at you, and they're saying, ‘Bill, you’re an idiot, and you don’t know what you’re talking about,’ then I would say, ‘Wow, well, I can hear you’re really upset. Let’s look at what we can do here. Let’s analyze what’s going on, what we can do here.’” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• White Nationalism, MAGA, and the NAR: A Conversation with Adam James What a former NAR pastor and geriatric PT sees in Trump 16.03.2026 1h 11min

  White Christian nationalism is not an abstract political concept. For Adam James, it was the air he breathed from birth. Adam, who goes by @epistemiccrisis on Instagram with well over 700,000 followers, grew up in the Pentecostal and charismatic church culture of Augusta, Georgia, was raised inside the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), served as a worship leader and helped plant a church that is still operating today. He is also a licensed physical therapist with fourteen years of geriatric home health care experience and holds a Doctorate in Physical Therapy (DPT). He has spent the last several years applying that dual expertise, as a former insider in authoritarian religion and as a clinician who works daily with elderly patients, to analyze what he sees happening at the highest levels of American government. I invited Adam to Cults, Culture & Coercion because the combination of his lived experience and professional training is genuinely rare, and the clarity he brings to both subjects is something my listeners need to hear. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Bethel Church and the New Apostolic Reformation: Holly Pivec and Doug Geivett on Two Decades of Tracking the NAR’s Apostles and Prophets 09.03.2026 1h 10min

  Holly Pivec and Doug Geivett on Two Decades of Tracking the NAR’s Apostles and Prophets You walk into a church on Sunday morning. The worship band plays songs you’ve heard on Christian radio for years. The lyrics feel familiar, uplifting. What you don’t realize is that the words you’re singing were written to export a specific theology from a single church in Redding, California, one whose leadership claims direct prophetic authority from God. The church is Bethel. The movement behind it is the New Apostolic Reformation. And according to researchers Holly Pivec and Doug Geivett, who have spent over two decades studying this movement from inside Christian scholarship, it represents a radical departure from historic Christianity that is reshaping churches, politics, and millions of lives worldwide. I sat down with Holly and Doug on a recent episode of Cults, Culture & Coercion to discuss their latest book, Reckless Christianity: The Destructive New Teachings and Practices of Bill Johnson, Bethel Church, and the Global Movement of Apostles and Prophets. I’ve written about the New Apostolic Reformation in The Cult of Trump and interviewed researchers like André Gagné and Frederick Clarkson on these topics. Holly and Doug bring an essential angle: they are committed Christians sounding the alarm from within the faith, grounded in biblical scholarship and philosophy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Pam Hemphill on Leaving MAGA and Making Amends 02.03.2026 1h 15min

  Pam Hemphill has been fighting MAGA propaganda since the day she realized it nearly killed her. A retired substance abuse counselor cancer survivor and one of the most visible former participants of the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol Pam served a 60-day federal prison sentence for her role that day. Her decision to reject Donald Trump’s presidential pardon and become a prominent activist exposing the cult dynamics of the MAGA movement makes her story truly remarkable. I was honored to have Pam join me again for a conversation about her ongoing activism. She is one of the few January 6th participants who not only accepted full responsibility for her actions but rejected Trump’s presidential pardon after his inauguration. Since her release she has received recognition from Mike Pence testified before Congress and become a courageous voice pushing back against the propaganda that fueled the attack on American democracy. More and more true believers are leaving MAGA and I wanted to highlight her activism. She continues to go to protests against ICE. It was an interesting interview because we got into techniques and strategies for communicating with those still in the thrall of the Cult of Trump. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• Restart and Restore: A Journal for Survivors of Manipulation with Rachel Bernstein, LMFT, MSEd 23.02.2026 1h 5min

  Rachel Bernstein is a licensed marriage‑and‑family therapist in Los Angeles and a seasoned cult specialist with more than 35 years of experience. Rachel specializes in helping individuals exit authoritarian cults and narcissistic relationships and begin healing. She works on a one-on-one basis, hosts group therapy sessions, and speaks more broadly through education and media appearances. Rachel also hosts the weekly podcast, IndoctriNation, which explores cults, manipulators, and strategies for protecting oneself from systems of control. Over the course of the show, she has interviewed hundreds of cult survivors, journalists, and experts. Through the years, I’ve had the pleasure of working with Rachel on cases, witnessing firsthand the depth of her expertise and her commitment to empowering survivors. “I never thought this would be happening in the United States, that people would be looking for ways to escape for their safety,” Rachel observed of recent national events. We discussed the assaults on peaceful protesters and the recent killing of Nicole Good and Alex Pretti. Rachel noted that her own children, who are within the trans community, worried about their personal safety, and many in different communities are looking for routes of citizenship to other countries. Rachel also noted the quote from Kamala Harris about Trump turning the military against his own country, and how that was once deemed “hysterical”; now, it is spot-on predictive. Her newest book, Restart and Restore: A Journal for Survivors of Manipulation, combines psychoeducation, therapist notes, journaling prompts, and integration practices into a self‑paced guide for individuals emerging or healing from a manipulative relationship. The accompanying Companion Notebook offers additional activities and provides space for personal reflection and notes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• From JD Vance’s Family of Origin: ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ Christian Nationalism and Potential Vice‑Presidential Succession with Nikki McCarty 16.02.2026 1h 3min

  With speculations by experts that Donald Trump’s health appears to be deteriorating regularly noting bruises on his hands occasional stumbling or slurring in his speech and gait. The White House has denied these claims. As vice‑president JD Vance born and raised in Middletown Ohio stands to assume the presidency should Trump become unable to serve. Vance author of Hillbilly Elegy a memoir that chronicles his working‑class upbringing was once an outspoken critic of Trump but has recently become a “true believer” and advocate for the administration’s policies.  Nikki McCarty is JD Vance's cousin who grew up in the same family structure. She offered a unique view into the Vice President’s upbringing including an analysis of her family’s spiritual beliefs and practices utilizing my BITE Model of Authoritarian Control.  Nikki McCarty at times identifies herself as the “childless cat lady related to J.D. Vance” a reference to his direct public criticism of women who choose not to reproduce. She also identifies as a “neurodivergent queer disabled” person and has spent many years deconstructing her Christian Nationalist upbringing and its views on those topics. With a master’s degree from Liberty University she has worked as a social worker and therapist in the child welfare system for 8 years.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• End Time Politics: From the Moral Majority to QAnon with Keri L. Ladner, PhD 09.02.2026 58min

  For many Americans, untangling today’s U.S. politics feels especially tough because the rise of religious‑right conservatism can seem sudden and ominous. Without a grounding in religious history and its influence on American political development over time, sweeping dominionist initiatives like Project 2025, fringe movements such as QAnon, and shadowy organizations like the Heritage Foundation may appear to come out of thin air. Fortunately, author and fundamentalist‑politics expert Keri L. Ladner, Ph.D., guides listeners back through the archives, tracing these phenomena to roots that reach back to the late 1800s. Ladner, who earned her doctorate in Divinity from the University of Edinburgh, is the author of End‑Time Politics: From the Moral Majority to QAnon (2024). The book maps the evolution of conservative Christianity, from its use of prophecy and rapture‑focused visions to the rise of figures like Jerry Falwell. She shows how those ideas have mutated over decades, ultimately feeding the ideologies that underpin today’s Trump‑era regime. Ladner first explained that the type of religious movements she specializes in is not the same as what was known as ‘Christianity’ before the late 1800s. “The movements that I’m looking into are very new. They’re very new offshoots of Christianity, specifically of Protestantism, American evangelicalism. They did not begin to develop in a form that we would recognize today until the late 1800s,” she explained. Her doctoral thesis essentially covered Jerry Falwell and the theological system known as dispensationalism, a historical movement she connects to John Nelson Darby, a 19th-century religious leader. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• NEST Harm Reduction: Licensed Clinicians Delivering Psychedelic‑Adjunct Care With Erica Siegal, LCSW 02.02.2026 1h 7min

  Research on psychedelics has shown that one of the most profound effects of the experience is how it places people in a more vulnerable, highly susceptible state. Along with creating time dilations, this powerful period is also capable of establishing new thought patterns surrounding trauma or addictions. For those who aim to support healing, this moment offers tremendous opportunities to empower individuals and help them reset temporarily or for good. Yet it’s that same openness that can be exploited by individuals attempting to manipulate, control, or indoctrinate.   This tension prompted my guest Erica Siegal, a licensed clinical social worker who facilitates psychedelic sessions, to ask, “How do we as facilitators of psychedelic experiences, not create undue influence…?” Erica enrolled in my clinicians’ course, a nd we subsequently crossed paths at a Harvard‑hosted psychedelic‑assisted psychotherapy program where I was a speaker. I am honored to have her as a guest on this episode of Cults, Culture & Coercion.   Erica is the founder of NEST Harm Reduction, “an organization focused on psychotherapy, psychedelic-adjacent care, drug education, and consultation for communities and organizations working in high-influence environments.” She has worked for over 15 years in the realm of psychedelic research, behavioral health, community gatherings, and spiritual care settings. She aims to help individuals and organizations reduce harm while preserving autonomy and dignity. Join us for this illuminating interview. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
• The Gaslight Report: Understanding Narcissism, Addiction, and Neuroscience with Frank R. George, PhD 26.01.2026 1h 5min

  Dr. Frank R. George is an internationally recognized authority in psychology, neuroscience, narcissism, and addiction. Through his Substack newsletter, The Gaslight Report, he demystifies pathological narcissism, explores its underlying causes, and offers practical strategies that readers can apply in their own lives. Over many years, his research has spanned neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, and genetics as they relate to the field of addictions. He currently ranks among the top 1% of Google Scholars worldwide, with nearly 200 publications and over 30 patents. Additionally, he has received almost 4,000 citations for his work in the scientific literature. Dr. George explained that there is a growing amount of scientific evidence showing an overlap between symptoms of addiction and traits of narcissism, even to the extent that functional MRI reveals distinct neural activation patterns in individuals with that personality type. Similarly, withdrawal patterns appear when the person does not receive their preferred types of attention. “What do you see when a narcissist is not getting all that supply? They go through what’s called narcissistic rage, narcissistic collapse, and it just overlaps with withdrawal,” he said. This is a really important interview shedding light on Trump and other malignant narcissist cult leaders. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices