Living Cult Free: The Podcast

Jan 20 2025 17 ep. 39 mins 58
Living Cult Free: The Podcast artwork

Welcome to "Living Cult Free: The Podcast," where survivors of high-control groups share their raw, unfiltered stories. No narrators, no sensationalism—just pure, unadulterated survivor accounts. Listen to the voices often eclipsed by cult leaders and hear the truth, one story at a time.

This podcast was originally called: Everyday Cults, Everyday People and produced by C. Jane Taylor and Gerette Buglion. To hear Gerette riff about the stages of cultic involvement as described in her memoir, An Everyday Cult, listen to Season One, Episodes 1-6. 

To check out helpful conversations with Dr. Steve Hassan about the Influence Continuum and the BITE model, head over to Season Two, Episodes 7 - 12. 

  Education  Religion & Spirituality  Society & Culture
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S3: Breaking Free: Mariama’s Journey of Healing and Self Discovery

Jan 20 2025 53 mins  
In this powerful episode, Mariama shares her deeply personal journey of growing up in a high-control religious group. She reflects on her upbringing, the constraints on personal expression, and the challenges of finding her identity while under constant scrutiny. Mariama opens up about the pivotal moments that led her to question the group's teachings, the emotional toll of leaving

S3: A Mother’s Journey: From Control to Freedom

Nov 11 2024 56 mins  
Karina reflects on how her challenging childhood created a deep yearning for connection and stability and how she and her husband sought belonging. They turned to a messianic congregation that combined Jewish traditions with Christianity. The pressure to conform grew, as the group insisted on rigid adherence to its rules and practices about child rearing - and all aspects of church

S3: Finding Home: Elad's Journey Into and Out of Hasidic Judaism

Oct 06 2024 46 mins  
Elad shares how he grew up a secular Jew with Israeli parents and went on a spiritual journey, seeking meaning and community. This led him to a Hasidic community where he found “beauty, truth and beautifully true people.” Over time, though, he realized that ongoing acceptance within this religious family required a “total sublimation of my selfhood.” He describes the painfu

S3: Rebecca’s Story: The Profound Impact of Religious Cults on Personal Identities

Aug 04 2024 34 mins  
Rebecca’s story transcends individual experience to illuminate universal themes of resilience, identity, and healing. It underscores the power of community, self-discovery, and the ongoing process of healing from psychological and emotional wounds inflicted by cults and similar restrictive groups while celebrating the courage and strength required to break free and reclaim one’

S3: Ciara’s Story: Is it a Sin to Talk About It?

Jun 30 2024 60 mins  
Grappling with existential questions about the origins of her thoughts, the influence of external forces on her autonomy, and her experiences within a religious cult, Ciara reflects on themes of control, deception, and the struggle for personal identity and freedom within a structured belief system. Listen to find out how Ciara finds bursts of inspiration often fueled by a sense of

S2: STRATEGIES - Get Out or Help Someone You Love Get Out

Nov 11 2021 44 mins  
Today we explore strategies you can use to get out of a cult or help a loved one get out. To setup the framework for our discussion, we look at numbers and definitions. The numbers are huge. Up to 10,000 cults still exist today in the United States. That number is growing. “Millions of people have been affected by undue influence. Many of us have had religions chosen for us or we

S2: EMOTION CONTROL - Emotional Backfire

Nov 04 2021 37 mins  
The subject of today’s podcast is Emotion Control. Like it or not, as human beings, we creatures tend to respond emotionally. Comfort, praise, recognition, and a sense of belonging are among our top stimuli. Our yearning for these is manna from heaven to cult leaders. They prey upon exactly this type of vulnerability. They lure us in under the veil of comfort and specialness and

S2: THOUGHT CONTROL - They Co-Opted my Brain!

Oct 29 2021 37 mins  
As smart, functioning adults, we like to think that we are in control of our own thoughts. This is not always the case. As we know from Gerette’s book An Everyday Cult and from this podcast, we know that destructive cults use any number of techniques to get members to stay and commit themselves to what may be harmful activities. Thought Control is the most insidious. Listen in as

S2: INFORMATION CONTROL - Standing up to Scrutiny

Oct 21 2021 34 mins  
Controlling information is a critical way authoritarian leaders and cult leaders control the hearts and minds of their followers. This week we discuss how they do it and how you can take some agency regarding the information you consume. Dr. Hassan suggests that we must each do independent research, that we must ask difficult questions, and really dig beyond the cult-controlled int

S2: BEHAVIOR- Love is Stronger Than Mind Control

Oct 15 2021 40 mins  
Our focus today is Behavior Control, the first methodology in the BITE model, which refers to control of Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotion. Dr. Hassan developed BITE as a model for evaluating degrees undue influence. As functioning adults, we like to think that we are in control of our own behavior. Last week’s conversation about Influence leads us to reexamine that pos