My name is Mark Vesente. I'm a director, producer, writer, and troublemaker. I'm most known as the director of the film What the Bleep Do We Know, and as one of the next-team whistleblowers featured in the HBO series, Aval. Let's just say, I know a thing or two about cults. I don't consider myself a cult expert, but I'm definitely an expert in being screwed over, waking up, and

knowing how to spot them.

And let me tell you, they're everywhere.

My mission is to help people see patterns of abuse across multiple contexts.

From personal to family, to group, to societal.

It's all the same pattern at every scale.

As you'll hear, I have a pretty salty approach to most things.

So there might be some blasphemy.

One or two sacred cows might get knocked over, and there'll likely be some foul language.

You never quite know what you're going to get, because it really does depend on what the

fuck is on my mind.

There are conversations that feel less like interviews and more like soul retrievals,

and this was one of them.

Today I'm joined by Bethany Joy Lenz,

actor, singer, writer, and author of the gut-punching,

exquisitely human memoir, Dinner for Vampires,

life on a cult TV show while also in an actual cult. You may know her as Haley from One Tree Hill, but what most people didn't know

until recently is that for a decade she was entangled in a high-control religious group while

filming that very TV show. We talk about what it means to live two lives, the visible one on set and the hidden one

ruled by spiritual coercion, fear, and identity erosion.

We explore the ways cult dynamics masquerade as love, the manipulation of God language,

and the cost of losing and finally reclaiming your own voice.

...