Welcome to indoctrination, a weekly conversation series about protecting yourself from systems of control.

I'm your host, Rachel Bernstein.

Stephen Kent is a sociology professor and an adjunct professor in the interdisciplinary program of religious studies at the

University of Alberta in Canada. He researches and teaches courses on groups variously called

sects and cults and alternative religions. He's also been involved in a lot of high-profile

court cases concerning controversial groups in Canada and the United

States, the United Kingdom, and has given invited testimony before a federal German

parliamentary committee investigating sex and psychological groups. He's been quoted in hundreds of

media accounts around the world, and he's also studied a lot of anti-government movements and polygamy and Scientology

and brainwashing and religious-based child sexual abuse.

And so, as you can imagine, our conversation went in a lot of different directions.

The last time we started talking, he was starting to talk just at the end about what's happening

around the world, specifically in China.

And then we pick up the conversation there, and he's able to continue talking about things

happening in other places in the world, too, and a little bit

about what we can do, about some of the movements that bring out the worst in people and possibly

how to turn that around. I look forward to having you hear the second part of my conversation

with Stephen today. Here's Stephen now. And so what else have you heard about

in China? Because it's not something I'm as familiar with. It's very frustrating to hear about

and also how we're not really hearing about it. And so, you know, there should be much more

education about it and exposure,

but maybe that's on purpose that we're not getting all this information.

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