Talking ICSA 2025: the International Cultic Studies Association's Annual Conference

[00:00:00] At Seek Safely, it's our mission to empower seekers to have a safe and meaningful self-improvement journey. Why do we care? Seeking to be your best self is an amazing, beautiful human impulse that has led us to create art, invent technology, tell amazing stories, and reach the moon.

[00:00:19] But we saw the dark side of self-help in 2009, when a recklessly run self-improvement retreat led to the death of three people, including my sister, Kirby Brown. We want people to seek, to dream their big dreams and chase their beautiful goals. But we want to make sure they're safe along the way. This podcast is about education and empowerment and getting real about the promises and problems of self-help.

[00:00:46] We talk with people who understand and care about the self-help industry and everyone it touches. I'm Jean Brown. I'm Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle. And this is the Seek Safely Podcast. Hello, and welcome to the Seek Safely Podcast. My name is Jean Brown, and I'm here with my co-host, Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle. What's up, Dr. Glenn?

[00:01:13] Jean Brown, it is an honor and a privilege to be here with you, as always, on the Seek Safely Podcast. Likewise. Yeah, so right before we started recording here, I went to the washroom, as one does, before sitting down for a period of time after drinking an entire can of Coke. And my dog was mad at me, and he grabbed my AirPod case, and now my AirPods are not working, and I'm mad.

[00:01:42] It's, well, you know, you're allowed to have feelings, Jean. You're allowed to feel your feelings. He's a vindictive little, very cute, vindictive little dog, who you might hear, I gave him a bone filled with peanut butter just to get him to not be naughty. But he's, like, right nearby, so you might hear some bone-chewing noises in the background. My apologies.

[00:02:04] No, it's okay. As a psychologist, I feel compelled to point out that we can't actually impute motives to him. All we have is the behavior, right? That's true. Like, there could be many motives behind. So, what is he trying to communicate to you, Jean? He's trying to… He wants me to listen more. He wants you to listen more? To him. That's what we're always asking, like, what's the function of this behavior? What's the purpose of this behavior? Yeah. Or maybe he's vindictive. I don't know. Maybe. Ah.

[00:02:33] Who were you being that he needed to do that? It's true. Who was I being? That's the question. Yeah. It's definitely my fault that my 11-month-old dog ate my AirPods. Well, there we have it. He had thetans getting to him, and they just needed to chill him on out. I'm going to have to give him an EM now. Yeah, he needs an EM. He needs to be audited and an EM. Woof! He's a suppressive dog. He's a suppressive… He's an SD. He's a suppressive… An SD, a suppressive canine.

[00:03:02] Man. Ah. Well, we had the thought that, you know, gosh, here at Seek Safely, it seems like we're always talking about cults. And, you know, we've often said on this podcast, we're not actually a podcast about cults. It's just so interesting how often we're talking about cults when we talk about ethics and accountability in the self-help space. So, we know a lot of people in the cult recovery space. And, you know, we know Sarah, we know Nippy, we know Anne. Mm-hmm.

[00:03:30] And as it turns out, there are professional organizations dedicated to this phenomenology of cults and coercive organizations and whatnot. And as it turns out, we've made some inroads into at least one of them. Yeah. Our very own Jean Brown has presented this. So, this upcoming conference of the ICSA, right? Yeah. International Cultic Studies Association, right? That's it. Yep. What kind of an org is this? So, they've been around for many years, many decades, in fact.

[00:03:59] I think they started coming together during that, you know, kind of new age wave in like the 70s. They came around in response to that and they wanted to provide kind of an area to gather research and allow for sort of information sharing about different groups.

[00:04:21] And then also how, you know, just learning about how these groups recruit people and then providing, you know, resources for recovery for victims and this kind of stuff. So, yeah, I first got connected because I was invited by Jennifer French, who is a cult recovery therapist. And she has been a guest on our podcast, in fact. We love her. Yeah, I'll link to that episode in the notes.

[00:04:50] So, she had invited me to kind of co-present with her and Kelly Sorenson, who is another person in the cult recovery space. And yeah, so this will now be my third year attending the ICCA conference. And it's been really interesting on a personal level. It's been really interesting and really useful to meet people. You know, I find it very interesting.

[00:05:14] So many of the people who are doing the work, doing the research, doing the therapy, the recovery work with other victims themselves have personal experience in the cult world. You got it. And so, it's given me, again, like reaffirmation of that idea that we've always held since our experience with losing Kirby.

[00:05:38] We knew that Kirby wasn't like some just, you know, sad, vulnerable little person who got sucked into a bad situation. We knew that she was a strong, motivated, intelligent person. Hmm. So, interacting with all of these people in the ICCA conference has just reaffirmed that understanding that the majority of people who are often involved in these situations, it's not that they were stupid or that they were weak. It's that they were actually highly motivated.

[00:06:08] They were actually taking the steps to go out there and try to, you know, find the community that they wanted or find the improvement program that they wanted, find the leadership training that they wanted. Mm-hmm. They were the people who were actually like going to get up off the couch and do something about the things they wanted to improve in their lives. You bet. Yeah. So, that's been interesting.

[00:06:29] Well, and something that I feel we talk around a lot is the fact that one of the reasons why we tend to know so many people in the cult recovery space is because almost all cults begin as, at least with the promise of self-improvement, right? Like, you know, the self-help paradigm or the wellness paradigm, personal empowerment paradigm tends to be often the gateway into these high control groups.

[00:06:58] And so, that's where that overlap is. And so, it's funny that we often wind up, you know, again, kind of being a de facto player in the cult recovery space, even though our org is not specifically geared toward cult recovery, simply because the overlap between folks who tend to wind up in coercive control situations and the people who are really interested in self-improvement tend to be, you know, that Venn diagram is very close to a circle.

[00:07:55] Yeah, exactly. Like, quote-unquote good self-help that's not really harming anybody. That seems to be fine. You've got that on one end, and then you kind of keep working down the line of coercion and, oh boy, there's a dog. You keep working down the line and you get to the cult. So, yeah.

[00:08:17] For our audience at home, this dog, Gene is being an incredibly focused podcaster while this dog has been, for the last few minutes, has been destroying her house. Oh my God. He's destroying the bone. And she's stayed on message. He's destroying the bone. Go, where's your bone? And he's chewing it very loudly. And then I just took him for an hour-long walk. There we have it on the hardwood floor. That was my fault for putting in a hardwood floor.

[00:08:46] I mean, it's interesting. So, something that our founder, your mom, Jenny Brown, talks about a lot is how frustrating it was in the early years of the Seek Safely organization and movement that it was really hard to gain traction. Like, it was really hard to kind of put the issue in front of people who cared about it in such a way that they could really hook into our concerns.

[00:09:10] And, you know, one of the ways that we have, you know, gained a lot of traction in the last few years is kind of hooking up with cult recovery survivors. Like, I remember a few years ago, there was a segment on, oh, I forget what TV show it was, but it was one of these TV shows that's like, you know, cults, like, you know, modern cults, et cetera. And they wanted to do a section on spiritual warrior instead of, and I remember your mom had really mixed feelings about it because she's like, I don't know.

[00:09:38] Like, we don't really think of Kirby as a, as you said, as a cult person, but it's definitely the case that James Arthur Ray, who was a self-help guy, was very much using kind of coercive tactics that strongly resembled those that, you know, high control group. I mean, his inner circle was a high control group. Right. Yeah.

[00:10:00] And one of the points that we've made, like, we always described it as, you know, Kirby may not have been in a cult, but she was in a situation where the leader, the teacher was using culty practices, culty techniques to control and influence people. So we definitely see that as a thing in terms of the link.

[00:10:23] And then, so one of the things that we've talked about as well, I, you know, during one of the presentations that I've done, I presented a list of red flags that are typically offered as red flags to look out for cults. And then I presented our red flags that we've always identified at Sikh for, you know, rooting out kind of dangerous self-help and they're all the same. You don't. So, yeah.

[00:10:48] So, yeah. So, yeah.

[00:11:18] So, yeah. So, yeah.

[00:11:53] It's a very loaded word. Right. Right. Like, MLM, right? Like, it's just, they're really, you know, there are no excuses into their craft. I remember years ago, I was on a podcast called The Art of Charm. And it was one of these podcasts geared toward young men and how to improve their dating and their relationship skills and, you know, how to pick up chicks. And I remember that was one of those podcasts. I probably wouldn't do that podcast now.

[00:12:21] But I remember in listening to some of the episodes that came before me, they'd had on the influencer named Grant Cardone. You know Grant Cardone? Does that ring a bell? Yes. Yes. And he had been talking, you know, he's one of these guys who's very big into sales, philosophy of sales and whatnot. And he was, you know, I'm sure he thought he was being motivational, but he was really talking about, like, you know, if you took the things that he said in terms of how you need to be dedicated to your goals.

[00:12:49] And in this case, the goal was to be in a relationship with a particular person. If you just took what he said and put it in a different context, you're like, oh, wow, that's clearly culty. Like, that's clearly coercive. That's clearly kind of stalkery. That's weird. That's right. So, I think certain words, and cult is one of them, they flip the switch of like, well, I would never. I don't have to worry about that. As long as I, as long as it's just a self-help thing, it's fine. But as you point out, it's a continuum. And, you know, those words, you know, they're not a talisman to make sure. Well, as long as it's not a cult. Yeah.

[00:13:19] Okay. So, three presentations. This will be a third. Yeah. Your first presentation was all about kind of that idea of the continuum. And by the way, and these are not all local to you, right? Like, so where were these conferences? Yeah. The first one was in Louisville. So, because it's an international organization, they tend to alternate between presenting in North America and then, like, having the conference in North America and having it in Europe.

[00:13:47] So, the first one I went to was in Louisville. The second one last year was in Barcelona, which was awesome. And then this year is in Montreal, which for me is actually very easy to get to. So, that's good. Last year, going to Spain, you really took the hit for the team. Yeah. Yeah. I was really, I really. You were so grateful. It was a big sacrifice, but I was happy to do it. You listeners don't even know, when there's tough international work to be done, we send Jean. Like, that time we sent you to Cancun for that event. Yes, that's true.

[00:14:15] I did get to go to Cancun one time. It was hard. She takes the hit for the team, guys. Oh, yeah. Dedicated. Thankfully. So, in Spain, what was the topic? What did you delve into? Yeah. So, at that conference, I talked about our Seek Safely Empowerment Compass. Yeah.

[00:14:36] Which is our tool to help seekers kind of create a roadmap to keep them focused on their own goals and their own values while they're undergoing a process of looking for self-improvement resources. So, yeah, that was well-received as well. And then, again, like, talking to other people there, I got some good ideas about how to improve it also. So, that was really great. Yeah.

[00:15:03] The Seek Safely Compass is a tool we've been refining for a few years now. We're going to do a whole episode just devoted to the Seek Compass. And we're looking at, you know, maybe doing some trainings or some events to, you know, kind of help people get acquainted with it and use it as a tool. But it really came out of our organization's awareness that, you know, man, you know, self-help people, like, you know, I often talk about self-help people, like, I'm a self-help person. I approach the world with like, eh, maybe, right? It's a wacky idea.

[00:15:32] There's a magnetic law of attraction that can manifest stuff. Maybe, right? But we, self-help people, we love tools. And, you know, for years, we at Seek had been talking about, you know, staying grounded in your values and keeping in mind your aspirations and your authenticity and whatever. But we kind of came to this realization that, man, our target audience, self-help people like me, we love tools. And so, we kind of codified it into this tool. We used, you know, the symbol of a compass. It's the symbol of our organization. Yeah. But it's this awesome tool.

[00:16:02] Again, stay tuned for that episode all about the Seek Compass. But I think it's something that we can really give the world in terms of, you know, man, we don't just talk about this stuff. But, you know, here's how you actualize it. Here's how you operationalize it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, I presented about that last year. And then this year, you know, they try to kind of have a theme for the conference.

[00:16:24] So, this year, one of the kind of prompts or themes was about the perceptions of cultic phenomena within society and the role of the media. Wow. So, I said, wow. We definitely have, you know, some stories to tell that since our involvement in this whole space, it started right away with a story that hit the media.

[00:16:48] And it involved us, you know, as a family navigating the media, figuring out how to respond to the media and use the media coverage of what had happened in Sedona to, you know, kind of further when we ultimately identified our goals as an organization and how to, you know, use the media to further our goals. And then, yeah, in the last few years, we've also seen the media play a role kind of much larger than our organization. That's been interesting.

[00:17:17] So, I thought, yeah, I can definitely put together something to talk about there. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, even going back to the very early days of Sikh, of course, Sikh Safely founded kind of around the time, I mean, almost in conjunction with the release of James Arthur Ray from prison where he'd served less than two years, having been convicted of negligent homicide in Kirby's death in the Sedona event.

[00:17:43] So, the organization starts with your mom and dad actually in a press conference, actually inviting James to take the Sikh promise. Yeah. So, from the very early days… And even, I'll back it up, even part of the story is that Kirby first encountered James Ray because of Oprah. Oh, certainly. You bet.

[00:18:04] Right. And so, one of the issues that we identified was that the media is a means of validation for people that are offering something. And it can provide that validation even if the people aren't really qualified to offer what they're offering or to do what they're promising, which was the case with James Ray. But you see somebody on Oprah and you make an assumption that they're legit, which is exactly what happened.

[00:18:32] So, that was kind of the first idea of the media has the power to legitimize people who don't deserve that legitimization. So, it's interesting, right? So, back in the day, Oprah really was the kingmaker when it came to self-help personalities. We saw it with the secret teachers. We did a whole episode about Peter McWilliams and John Rogers. Yeah. They were Oprah phenomena.

[00:18:56] But something I was thinking about recently was Oprah platformed a lot of self-help people back in the day. And as we know, their credentials often weren't really anything. Like James Arthur Ray had really no credentials to speak of. But she would have him on and the argument would be, well, okay, maybe he's not credentialed, but he's an interesting guy and it's her show and she gets to have people she finds interesting on. And, you know, if the lack of credentials is a problem for you, let it be a problem for you. But this is just about what Oprah finds interesting.

[00:19:26] But that ended up investing them with a lot of credibility. We see kind of the same thing now with good old Joe Rogan, right? Yeah. In fact, recently, I think criticism of Rogan has intensified to the tune of, you know, man, how many guys is he going to have on for, you know, three hours at a time who are just asking questions? Right. And it was pointed out recently, in fact, by one of his recent guests, he has pointed out, you know, man, Joe, you've got these guys on there who really aren't credentialed. They're not experts, you know, to talk about these things.

[00:19:57] And Rogan's response was kind of like, well, I get they're not experts, but I find them interesting. Like, you know, they're just talking, they're just asking questions. And the pushback to that was, well, okay, but having them on invests them with credibility. You know, it exposes them to millions. It's literally the same thing that Oprah was doing back in the day. And I think they don't always make it very clear.

[00:20:17] Like, I don't think, you know, it was made very clear with the, it's not like they presented him and said, well, he doesn't have any background in, you know, whatever, like nuclear physics or like any background in. Yeah, quantum physics. Thank you. My brain wasn't producing the word for me. He doesn't have any background in quantum physics.

[00:20:39] He doesn't have any background in psychology, but, you know, nevertheless, where he has got an interesting perspective we want to hear. Like, I don't think that is ever really, people don't start with that. They don't lead with that. And so I think that those details get lost in the hype that they'd rather focus on. And so then it's like, you know, people might be left with questions that never really got answered or they never even think to ask the question.

[00:21:09] They never even think to ask, why is this person qualified to talk about? You just assume that because they're there, they are. And if they don't address it explicitly, then it never gets addressed. Well, and the related problem, right, is in addition to their credentials never really being at issue, the limitations of their knowledge, experience, or expertise are never really discussed. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[00:21:35] So, for example, we know about James that he was kind of like L. Ron Hubbard insofar as he kind of invented a life story for himself, much of which was later shown not to be, you know, not to be at least verifiable, not accurate. And he would kind of trade on that. He's like, well, okay, you know, I might not have a PhD, but I've got all this cool life experience. And, you know, that, okay, I mean, people with cool life experiences can be interesting podcast guests or talk show guests, right?

[00:22:04] But when we're talking about making huge changes in your life based on what they say. Yeah, exactly. Or if we're talking about paying 10 grand for a retreat to hear more of what they say. Yeah. You know, it needs to be kind of talked about, like the potential limitations of their knowledge and their experience. Like it's, I don't know, I used to think about this a lot vis-a-vis James. I mean, James had, his experience was as a telemarketer. Yeah.

[00:22:28] And he was claiming, you know, deep esoteric insight to quantum physics and to metaphysics and, you know, shamanic. Like it reminds me of, you remember Carlos Castaneda? Yes. Right. So, so sociologist who, you know, wrote a series of books supposedly based on his own experiences learning from a Mexican shaman named Don Juan. And later on, the veracity of his experiences were really called into question.

[00:22:57] Whether that shaman actually existed or whether, you know, the cultural stuff that he said was accurate. But the point is that because he had an interesting story and because he presented it with confidence, that stuff didn't really get asked. And that's the whole thing that, you know, folks like James and the other secret teachers, you know, they tell their stories with such confidence. Yeah. They're like, well, God, I'm sure that, I'm sure that happened to them. Of course. Right? Right.

[00:23:21] Well, I think for many, for kind of, I'm going to say normal people, because I think there's probably an over, I think like this self-help space is probably has an over-representation of people with, I don't know, like sociopathologies and such. You said it so delicately. This is Jean in no mood, but she's bending over backwards to be diplomatic, gang. Yeah, I think there's. You think the self-help space draws more than it shares dark personalities?

[00:23:51] Yes, yes, exactly. Narcissists and the like. So I think to those of us who maybe wouldn't fall under those categories, it just, you just don't think somebody's going to lie like that. Like it just doesn't occur to you that somebody would just make up an entire history for themselves.

[00:24:11] So yeah, I think again, like they rely, the bad actors in this, in these spaces rely on the goodness that maybe veers toward naivete of people who just don't ask questions because you just don't assume that's going to happen. Oh, you bet. Yeah. I'm strongly reminded, do you remember a few years ago, this is the part, we're about halfway through, so this is the part of the podcast where I just start hijacking and talking about other stuff.

[00:24:40] Do you remember a few years ago, This American Life, the podcast, the radio show, had on a guy named Mike Daisy. You remember this? I don't remember, but I'm intrigued. He said he was a monologuist. He was a storyteller. Yeah. And he would do these stage shows that were just him talking. He was a mesmerizing storyteller. And he had a show called The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.

[00:25:02] And his deal supposedly was he had traveled to China to check out labor conditions in these factories that produce Apple products. Right, right. And he'd met all these people who are harmed by these very bad labor practices. And he came back and constructed this monologue around it. And Ira Glass and This American Life had him on to talk about it. And it was a super popular episode. As it turns out, though, he made up most of what happened to him in China.

[00:25:32] Like the stuff that he was talking about, like the issues he was talking about were legit, like the labor practices and stuff. However, the people he said he met, he just did not meet. And then as it turns out, they tracked down his translator. Like, you know, man, like we didn't do any of this stuff. That didn't happen at all. Yeah. Like he was here for a few days. Like it makes it seem like he did this in-depth thing and whatnot. But anyway, This American Life did a whole episode retracting the previous episode and kind of analyzing how in the world did we fall for this made-up narrative?

[00:26:02] And Ira Glass had kind of the insightful thing. It's like, you know, look, when somebody says this happened to me, like my assumption is that happened to them, right? Like, I mean, we fact-checked it as much as we could. However, you know, we just, we didn't account for the fact that maybe he was just full of it. Right. Yeah. But what occurs to me about that is one of the reasons why that was kind of difficult to fact-check in that way was the message was useful and valuable. Like the message that overseas labor practices are terrible.

[00:26:32] Like that's something we wanted and needed to hear. Right. And so we were motivated to not question, you know, the experiences that supported that narrative. Much like these self-help guys, if I'm selling you this narrative that there's this universal law of attraction and it is a scientific law because it's quantum physics and that means I can have a new car by thinking about it. I want that to be true. Yeah. So I'm motivated to not check out the background of James who turns out to not to be a shaman or a hoona or any of these things I claim to be. Right.

[00:27:01] Well, it's funny because in a way I want to be like, you know, if you want to make a point with something that's not actually real and didn't actually happen, write a novel. So then it, of course, that takes me to Scientology because I think it's interesting there because, you know, L. Ron Hubbard wrote some novels. Lots of them. Lots of them. And then he turned them into a religion or whatever you want to call it.

[00:27:29] He sort of did the opposite because maybe it was more marketable when you could like pull people into it for their entire lives rather than just have them read a book one time. Oh, well, he famously supposedly said that to make real money you had to found a religion. Like that's the way you make real money. In an unrelated matter, the church of Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle and Abbey Road is about to open its doors. We accept PayPal.

[00:27:57] Well, and it's interesting because I've always found a comparison to L. Ron Hubbard who writes all this fiction. He has like a record. Like he holds a Guinness, like legitimately, he holds L. Ron Hubbard holds the Guinness record for like most pages of fiction turned out or something like that. Like he was this incredibly prolific fiction writer. I've always found the comparison to him to somebody like, say, Ayn Rand, who was a philosopher who started a movement like the objectivist movement.

[00:28:27] But she started out in fiction as well. Like and she used fiction to kind of dramatize these philosophical principles to get people interested in our ecosystem and stuff. And I mean, objectivism is kind of a religion as well. If you've ever met any objectivist, you know that they consider it. They take it as seriously as any zealot takes their religious faith. But the point is, yeah, just write a book. You can do that, actually. You don't have to pretend you're a hoona. Yeah, you can just make anything up. It's totally fine.

[00:28:56] But yeah, and they really go heavy on how to market it, how to make money off of it. You bet. So you're headed off to beautiful, exotic Montreal. I presented in Montreal. Yeah, nice. In 2011, I presented at the ISSTD, the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation in Montreal. Man, they take the French thing seriously up there. Yes. Well, I did live in Montreal for two years. So I'm familiar with the city.

[00:29:25] Yeah, it's definitely like a bilingual city. So there will be presenters in French as well, which is kind of cool. There's like a sister organization that is based out of Montreal. So they'll be either kind of like co-hosting the conference. So, yeah. So I'll be talking about, again, that sort of the role of the media in Sikh's origin story.

[00:29:49] And then, you know, kind of the taking this into today, what we really see in the media is, again, that whole question of cults. I think has really, like you said, there's like that word really takes people to a specific place. But I think that has changed a little bit in the last few years because there have been so many docuseries and shows about people's cult experiences that has kind of normalized it in a way.

[00:30:18] And sort of expose just how many of these groups are out there and how easy they are to stumble upon, especially with social media. So I'll be talking about the way that has kind of, I think in many ways, raised a lot of awareness. I think there are some negative aspects to that, too, like just kind of the way it sort of sensationalizes some things or even glamorizes some things.

[00:30:42] But on the balance, I think it's been a good thing to have that, you know, that storytelling kind of normalizing the experiences of people who are in cults. And also, again, just showing that they're like normal everyday people, not like crazy hippies or something that get pulled into cults. So, yeah, we'll talk about that.

[00:31:01] And then I think, you know, the point I want to make, the next step, I think, the kind of evolution of that storytelling is about that link between self-help and cults. And trying to present that more clearly because that's really where I think you help people avoid these situations is by educating people about that link.

[00:31:24] So, in terms of the role of the media, well, backing up a sec, I think kind of the take-home message of a certain amount of what we've talked about around this is that it doesn't have to be a cult. Like when you invest in a certain kind of way in either a teacher or a system or even a community, right, it can become real coercive real fast. And they'll frame that as a feature, not a glitch.

[00:31:53] Like it reminds me of James' old, you got to go all in. Because there's, that resonates with us. Like we think to ourselves, well, man, if I'm going to make this big change in my life, of course I have to go all in. And of course I need to be in a community where they're all in. And of course I need to be with a teacher who doesn't let me off the hook, like who doesn't let me make excuses. So it'll be framed as a great thing for your personal development transformation. And that's why these, you know, it's real.

[00:32:22] We're very vulnerable to not realizing that we're in a coercive relationship with a teacher or a community or a system until we're really deep in because we've given that the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, exactly. I was going to say, as you were talking about the certain amount of glamorization that happens, I feel that cult leaders are very much glamorized. Oh, totally. And something that struck me while, so a few weeks ago we had India Oxenberg on.

[00:32:48] Before she was on, I read her book and something that just really, that I think India does. Hi, India, if you're listening to this. Something that I think she does really well in her book is paint a picture of Raniere, the leader of the NXIVM cult. And it's like, you know, in the media is kind of portrayed as this big boogeyman, like this big, you know, this highly, and he is highly manipulative and, you know, arguably an evil person. But I think India really humanizes him in her book as a schlub. Like he's actually not, like his hygiene's not very good.

[00:33:18] Right. Right. Like he's not actually all that bright. He's the smartest man in the world. He's actually not that clever. Like, it's useful to de-glamorize the cult thing. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So one of the last things that James did before he passed from this mortal coil was he put up a video. I remember you and I talked about this. Like, you remember he put up this video. Like for years he had kind of tried to rewrite the narrative about Sedona. And he had made a YouTube video that basically blamed the media. Right, right.

[00:33:48] It blamed the media and the government for persecuting him and making him in this monster. So for years James complained that the media had treated him unfairly. Right. What's your take on that? You were there. You were intimately involved. What do you think of that? Did the media treat James Ray unfairly? I mean, I'm going to say no, but I don't think the media got it. You know, we've mentioned this before too.

[00:34:17] Like the courts didn't get it either. I think the media immediately saw him kind of as a cult leader at this time, especially in 2009 when, again, that term cult really was like, you're like a fringe crazy person. You know, it's like this was like could have been the next Waco or something like that. I think that's kind of what the media saw. And I think, I mean, it's so hard because he was the person in charge.

[00:34:44] And so the media looked at it and said, well, this guy was in charge and then three people died. So is that the media being unfair or is that the media just presenting facts? You remember when the media did that for presented facts? You remember that? Yeah. Back in the day when the media presented facts. If they ever did, who knows? Maybe they never did. I don't know. Look, I think a lot of the media still does present facts.

[00:35:08] But one of the things that was interesting for us was, you know, they said they described Kirby as a middle-aged woman. And we were like, okay, that's just no, that's not going to cut it. So we realized, okay, we need to work with this here to really take this story to another place. So we immediately, we just sent everybody any picture. All of the pictures of Kirby. And then we would talk to anybody.

[00:35:35] We were willing to talk to anyone because we wanted to make sure that, you know, the reality of the situation and the fact that these were like real human people involved didn't get lost in the sensational image of people who'd shave their heads dying in a quote-unquote sweat lodge. You know, doing some crazy ritual. We didn't want that to be the way the story was presented because that, you know, wasn't accurate. So, but yeah, was James Ray portrayed unfairly?

[00:36:05] I don't think so. And then, you know, there was a trial and he got, well, he got due process. I mean, my thought about it is it's unreasonable to expect the media. I don't know if I'm being unduly harsh or too fair to them here, but because I have no background in journalism. I think it's unreasonable to expect the media to cover something like Sedona with a lot of nuance, right? Yeah, totally.

[00:36:36] I mean, especially when something tragic like that happens, let alone any other kind of self-help, personal empowerment, event or phenomenon or personality. Yeah. And in part because what happens is it's complex. Like the process of coercive control, the process of how people get pulled into these types of groups, it's complicated. There are a lot of different aspects to it. It happens over time.

[00:37:02] So, it's not a story you can easily tell in a two-minute spot on a news show. Because that's the thing. Like I can read media accounts of Sedona and I can spot inaccuracies, right? Right. I can actually spot ways that James was misrepresented. Do I think that that somehow makes him not responsible for Sedona? Well, no. I think it kind of misses the point. His fixation on that kind of misses the point. Right.

[00:37:26] One of the things that made, you know, Friend of the Pod and Friend of the Org Matt Stroud's reporting about James so remarkable was that he actually dug into it. Like he actually did capture a lot of the nuance. Right. And when he did, it took a huge long-form article. Yes. In The Verge. Yes. And it took a 10-episode podcast series. Yes.

[00:37:48] So, it, you know, and I think that is what has changed and is so interesting about the time that we find ourselves in now. These docuseries are attempting to tell the stories in a more complete way that I think allows for people to gain a more nuanced understanding of these situations. Mm-hmm. And again, as I said, there might, there are some issues with how some of these stories get told, but on the balance, I think it's a positive step.

[00:38:17] I think the more transparency, the better, certainly. Yeah. Like we saw something similar. There were a lot of discussions around the deep end, Teal Swan, because on the one hand, so the deep end was kind of sprung from actually a podcast series called The Gateway. Right. Jennings Brown. I think, yeah, he and I follow each other on Twitter. Did this podcast. I think it was a six-part podcast. I had been excellent podcasters about Teal Swan called The Gateway. And that kind of gave rise to the deep end.

[00:38:46] I think it was a four-part documentary on Hulu. And on the one hand, it exposed a lot of people to what Teal Swan was all about, good, bad, and otherwise. I know Teal Swan herself had lots of problems with how she was portrayed in the doc. But then, and of course she did, as you would if you were in her position. However, the doc series came in for criticism to the tune of like, well, the editors, in fairness, kind of had chopped it up, actually.

[00:39:16] They'd kind of not been terribly straightforward with how they edited that and edited some things together to make the narrative hang together the way they wanted. But it was kind of that same thing that we're talking about of like, well, their fundamental message might have been valuable and important, etc. But man, they might have taken some shortcuts and getting there. And we're able to do so because this docu-series format that we've seen, gosh, now we've seen it so many times.

[00:39:41] You know, The Deep End and Wild Wild Country and Stolen Youth and The Guru Podcast. Like all these things. Like we're so used to this format now, and it's incredibly evocative, can really kind of connect with us on emotional levels. But it just gets complicated. Yeah, for sure. So what would you say is going to be the take-home message of your upcoming presentation in Montreal? It's hard to say in a way. I guess this is a part of the presentation I need to do a little more work on.

[00:40:09] Again, I want to highlight that idea of trying to add a little more education into this storytelling to present some of the information as like kind of like a red flag. Like here's what you need to look out for. And I think I'd love to see more on some of the more traditional self-help things. And I think that's coming.

[00:40:34] Like I think there's some stuff coming about Landmark that will be useful because Landmark is really seen as like one of the big self-help organizations. So to have that kind of outed even more, I think will be great. I think the kind of new part of the conversation is, okay, well, what, you know, the old media as we knew it is kind of dead, right? Oprah's not on the air anymore. But instead, you mentioned someone like Joe Rogan. So what does the kind of new landscape look like?

[00:41:02] And then what do we have to kind of be aware of and look out for as that landscape changes in terms of how we think the media will still play a role in this culty kind of world? Yeah. It's always such a potentially delicate balance between, on the one hand, giving due respect to credentials and experience expertise on the one hand, but also being open to, you know, value from folks with, say, lived experience.

[00:41:31] They might not have academic expertise necessarily, but have lived experience or are just interesting people. Because that's the thing, that I'm not anti just interesting people having interesting things to say. Yeah. And maybe those things having value. Nor am I necessarily always pro-expertise. Like I can think of, man, like kind of where I operate in the social media space.

[00:41:54] I can think of certain psychology figures who have tons of credentials whose, I just, I do not respect their output very much because they seem to be miserable people. Yeah. But enough about Jonathan Shedler. I'm going to challenge you on that point though. I agree.

[00:42:12] It is kind of complicated that balance of, you know, respecting the idea that anybody can have an interesting story that might be useful and wanting to value, you know, proper credentials and kind of needing that for certain things. It is a little complicated. On the other hand, it doesn't have to be. Kind of come to is the idea that you can always say, this is my story. This is what I have learned.

[00:42:39] This is what I found worked for me. Take it or leave it. And that's really easy to do. But what we see so often is people needing to say, this is the way. I'm the one who's going to teach you and therefore pay me to do it. And, you know, and I think that's the difference. Like, I think it actually is really easy to just say, hey, I'm putting this out there.

[00:43:07] If you find it works for you, that's awesome. If it doesn't, that's okay. And yeah, I think it's pretty simple. And I think even people with credentials can do that too. Oh, absolutely. And they should. And I think like any therapist I have ever dealt with has said that. Where it's like, I use this technique. I follow, you know, kind of this school of thought. It might not be the right approach for you.

[00:43:30] And if you're fine, it's, if you find it's not working out, we can either try something different or you can find somebody else who might be a better fit for you. Oh, you bet. Right? I think that's the responsible approach. Yeah. Sure. Well, right now there, there is a, there's always been, but right now, again, there's a conversation happening on mental health Twitter. By the way, I'm always going to call it mental health Twitter. I can't wrap my brain around X, mental health X. That doesn't even. I still haven't updated my app. Oh, God bless you.

[00:44:00] You still got the bird. Still a little bird. But there's right now a conversation unfolding on mental health Twitter again about borderline personality disorder versus complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Mm-hmm. My take on it has, if you follow my material, you know my take on it. My take on it is I personally have never found a lot of value in the construct of personality disorders. Mm-hmm.

[00:44:23] I'm also not an expert in personality disorders, and I will never say, I will never say personality disorders don't exist. I actually think it's more of a, I think what we're talking about are more kind of conceptual and definitional issues rather than the existence of, like, like, no one denies the pattern of symptoms and reactions that people are talking about when they say borderline personality disorder. Nobody's denying that it exists. Mm-hmm. What we're debating is what's a more useful way to think about that? Is it a more useful way to think about that?

[00:44:53] Is, like, it's your personality that's disordered? Or is it more useful to think about the experiences that may have injured you? Mm-hmm. And that's where folks kind of on my side of the debate, the complex trauma side of the debate, say, no, we think it's more useful and less stigmatizing and more empowering to talk about, you know, the trauma piece of it and talk about it as an injury as opposed to a disordered personality. Right. But the point is, you know, look, I write from my perspective as somebody who has experienced abuse and somebody who has experienced trauma.

[00:45:20] I famously write from my perspective as an addict in recovery. It would never, it would never even occur to me to say that, look, I know existentially that this position is correct. This has been my experience as somebody who has experienced these things and someone who treats these things. But it would never even occur to me to say, like, you know, look, this is, to make the argument that borderline personality doesn't exist, right? Mm-hmm.

[00:45:45] I can't help but notice that a lot of folks on the other side of the debate love doing that. Yeah. They love giving me personally lots of, you know, lists of reasons why complex post-traumatic stress disorder just does not exist. It's all a personality disorder. And what occurs to me about that is, you know, man, if you're somebody seeking help and you're somebody who's seeking support, you know, it's real easy to get, you know, find yourself drowning in opinions offered by people with letters after their names, whatnot.

[00:46:14] And so I think we need to, I think everybody needs to up their game when it comes to, this is going to be my standard for evaluating whether what this person is saying is useful to me and how invested am I going to get? How invested am I going to get emotionally? How invested am I going to get financially? Yeah. Which comes back to our seek safety spiel of, you know, we're not just about, you know, leaders and providers should uphold certain ethical standards they should.

[00:46:40] But we're also about educating folks who are going to consume, you know, this material such that, you know, we can make some intelligent decisions and specifically about how invested we're going to get. Yeah. And I think, you know, one of the things that occurs to me as you're talking is when you're looking for a tool to help you, we want someone to tell us that they have the answer. We want the answer. We want the thing that's going to work. And that's just not realistic.

[00:47:08] But I think we all have to recognize that for anybody, that's a vulnerability that you walk into this situation with because your impulse is going to be to find the thing that's going to work. And so, you know, then when somebody says, I've got the thing, you're primed, you're already primed to just go with it. So we all have to see that as a vulnerability, which is one of the things you could put on your empowerment compass as a... There you go. ...on your South Point.

[00:47:36] See, Jean, this is why I'm never going to make that sweet Tony Robbins money is because I don't have the answer. I don't have the thing. Sorry. So my girlfriend, Megan, and I have a running joke where we say, we're always waiting for the thing. And we're joking about it. But what we're saying is, what's going to be the thing that, oh, I have to break up with this person? Like, so for example, I like blueberries. She doesn't like blueberries. And she'll be, oh, no, is this the thing? Is this the thing? We're all seeking the thing.

[00:48:05] Some with dread, some with anticipation. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Jean. Well, my dog, I think he finally found the thing. Now that we're just about done. Yeah. He is lying down peacefully. He looks like he's about to fall asleep because he has destroyed my living room. I think the cover photo for this podcast episode is going to have to be the destruction in my back room. It's pretty epic.

[00:48:30] So apologies for the intrusions by Chester Copperpot, the yellow Labrador who is 11 months old and a little bit of a monster. You guys, look, you are a lovely listening audience. You guys don't even know. This has been, I've been watching Jean this whole time. This has been a master class in divided attention. And there have been so many times when I've been speaking when Jean has been off mic, like her mic muted, trying to contain this dog. Look, I'm a mom.

[00:48:59] For two years after giving birth, my brain was rewiring itself so that I could multitask more effectively. This is a testament to how good a podcaster Jean Brown has become. So, all right, gang, let's wrap it up. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, everybody, for listening. If you are enjoying the Seek Safely podcast and you want to support Seek's mission, we would love for you to become a regular contributor to Seek Safely.

[00:49:28] And if, you know, contributing financially isn't within the cards right now, which we completely understand, you can always support us and help us out by sharing and telling people about us and helping to spread the message. So, thank you for listening. If you all would be so kind as to go to your favorite podcast platform, subscribe to our show, leave us a lovely five-star review. If you liked us, if you didn't like us, forget I said anything. Exactly. If you didn't like us, this is called the Joe Rogan Experience.

[00:49:59] Anyway, also keep an eye out. We are about to relaunch the Seek Safely newsletter. It will contain monthly things written by me, written by Jean, and written by an all-star cast of Friends of the Org, all about issues of ethics and accountability in the self-help space. So, keep an eye out for that. Yes. Jean, as always, it's awesome speaking with you. Likewise. Until next time. Catch you next time. Ciao, ciao.

[00:50:29] Thanks for listening to this episode. We hope that you have found it enlightening, and we'd be so, so grateful if you'd share it with the seekers in your life. We all know at least one, right? Until our next episode, you can find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at Seek Safely. Connect with Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle at Dr. Doyle Says. And me, Jean, at Jean C. Brown on Twitter. Feel free to send us an email, info at seeksafely.org.

[00:50:58] To support Seek Safely, you can make a secure donation on our website, seeksafely.org slash donate. The Seek Safely podcast is produced by Citizens of Sound.