This week's episode features a conversation with author Ronna Russell, whose book "The Uncomfortable Confessions of a Preacher's Kid" has just recently come out. We talk about Ronna's backstory, growing up as a preacher's kid in evangelical churches. But what happens when things don't go the way they're planned, and all the pieces don't fit into the nice "churchy puzzle?" Ronna has worked through some absolutely amazing experiences, and this episode will be helpful as much as it is empowering for those who grew up in church, and who have since walked away from it all.

In this special follow-up bonus episode to the one I recently did on "The Psychology of Conversion," I move further into developing psychiatrist Dr Robert Jay Lifton's model of cult formation. Lifton demonstrates how, in 8 different ways and methods, cults and cult leaders operate to control and manipulate their followers. This is a fascinating study for me, and has  proven to be very helpful for others who have come out of cults or groups with undue influence. Beyond exploring his 8 characteristics of cults, I also delve a bit into the markers of cult leaders and how it is they tend to operate. Further, I relate much of it to evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity, which is my own background.

Keeping it in the Great White North, this week I'm returning to Canada for a great conversation with Neil604--the Canadian atheist! On his YouTube channel, Neil loves to speak with people who have left religion behind--religious deconversion, spiritual transitions, divorcing religions--whatever you'd like to call it. Religion has done a tremendous amount of harm to humanity, in spite of its claims to the contrary. Strip away the ideology, and much of it looks very similar in terms of the psychological, and other, effects on people worldwide. In this conversation, we get into Neil's own story and discuss how people can recover from their time spent in religion.

In this return visit from Canadian ex-evangelical David Hayward, "The Naked Pastor," we get right into the subject of religious trauma, how evangelical churches can resemble cults, and how people can recover from the damage they may have suffered while in the system. As a former evangelical pastor like myself, David has a large and supportive group of people who have left church, and possibly their Christian faith too, behind them. But they are in recovery...which means David is ideally placed to serve as a pastor--somewhat ironically, since he's left the church long ago!

As I've been connecting with more and more ex-cult members, I have been learning that even though each cult has very different ideology, the psychology of mind control, thought reform, manipulation, abuse and exploitation is virtually identical group to group. Thus, whether you've come out of a dangerous cult group, or a fundamentalist Christian church--chances are, you'll have suffered a lot of religious trauma, identity suppression, and many other forms of abuse. Helping you to recover from your experiences in such groups is the goal of people like this week's guest, former Scientologist Chris Shelton. Although we don't delve much into Scientology itself, we get into the practicalities of how groups control their followers--and how you can rebuild your sense of identity after leaving.

This special bonus episode draws upon the work of psychologist Dr Robert Lifton and his seminal 1961 work on the psychology of brainwashing, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China.  In particular, I make use of Lifton's 12-step model to explore further the psychology of conversion, as well as what happens to a person who deconstructs his or her religious faith and leaves their church or cult group behind--the process of "deconversion," or spiritual transitioning. This is a helpful discussion particularly for ex-evangelicals, but also for those who have left a cult. Unpicking the conditioning, and understanding how you were controlled and manipulated will help you reconstruct your sense of self--and your identity. 

In this episode of MindShift podcast, I catch up with Keith Davis, formerly of the Pilgrims & Prodigals podcast. Last year we had a great chat with ended up on their show, and since then a lot has changed--both for Keith and myself. Since I've been studying the psychological aspects of how cults (and some evangelical churches too) control, manipulate and coerce their followers, I wanted to see if Keith's experiences in evangelicalism matched up to the classic markers of cults as laid out by psychologist Robert Lifton in his 1981 article, "Cult Formation." In our exploration of the cult-like aspects of evangelicalism, Keith and I discuss theology and coercion--why the dogmas of evangelicalism, along with the mind control aspects, have affected us psychologically and in other ways--and how we're recovering from it all.

This week's episode of MindShift podcast features cult expert Rick Alan Ross, author of the book Cults Inside Out: How People Get in and Can Get Out. Rick is not just someone who is informed about cults--he is a court-certified expert who has testified in multiple cases in courts all across America related to cults. In this informative and thought-provoking episode, I have a whole series of questions I had prepared for Rick, as I had been doing reading and research on how cults operate, controlling and manipulating their followers. In our discussion, we covered not only most of the questions, but went further into areas related to cults: fundamentalism and its associated dangers. If you're an ex-evangelical, or ex-cult member looking to educate yourself and reconstruct your identity, then this episode is for you!

Catch the early release of my conversation with 2 ex-Jehovah's Witnesses from Melbourne, Australia: Lara Kaput and Steven Unthank. We'll go behind the scenes of the Watchtower organization and talk about not only their experiences of leaving the cult behind, but major issues such as the epidemic of child sexual abuse within the organization that has been covered up by the Watchtower for decades.  

In this episode of MindShift podcast, I talk to ex-pastor, ex-evangelical and...progressive Christian, Chris Kratzer. Chris is the author of the new book Leatherbound Terrorism: Crucified by Conservative Christianity, Resurrected by Jesus. Although Chris is no fan of conservative evangelicalism, somehow he has not abandoned his beliefs in God and Jesus--albeit in a radically different form. So why didn't Chris walk away from it all? And why is he, although still considering himself a Christian, so vociferously speaking out against the evils of the church?