Mark & Avoid w/ Em Thomas

IndoctriNation

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 566 Ratings

🗓️ 19 July 2023

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Em Thomas was born and raised in the dogmatic Christian cult The Way International. The daughter of a Way Corps graduate and WOW ambassador, Em attended a fellowship in her home three nights per week, monthly branch meetings with other leadership families, and prolonged stays semi-annually at TWI headquarters. Em’s family was labeled “Mark and Avoid” (excommunicated) in 1998, after which they attended fellowship within a splinter group until 2000 when Em was 15 years old. Em has two main goals for sharing her story: to connect with other survivors of cultic abuse, especially second or third-generation survivors of The Way International, and to bring attention to this once well-known organization that is still operating and doing harm to its members today. She hopes that by telling her truth, she can bring hope to folks who are still finding their way out. In this revealing conversation, Em shares publicly for the very first time her story of abuse, homophobia, and coercive control as a member of The Way International. She explains to Rachel how she struggled with her identity and sexuality growing up in the very unsafe, and predatory environment of the church and how that experience primed her for abusive relationships and self-harm as a teenager. Together Rachel and Em analyze the harmful dogma of the church, its fraudulent and plagiarized teachings, and the abusive culture of control, secrecy, and excommunication. Before You Go: Rachel addresses the importance of fortifying bodily autonomy in young children and explains how high-control organizations often intentionally work to erase the natural boundaries of self-determination and physical sovereignty to assert total control over their followers and weaken resistance to abuse. Em can be found on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/markandavoid/ You can contact her via email at: iammarkandavoid@gmail.com All of Rachel's free informational PDF documents are available here: https://rachelbernsteintherapy.com/pdf.html All of Rachel's video lectures are available for purchase here: www.rachelbernsteintherapy.com/webinar.html To help support the show monthly and get bonus episodes, shirts, and tote bags, please visit: www.patreon.com/indoctrination Prefer to support the IndoctriNation show with a one-time donation? Use this link: www.paypal.me/indoctrination Connect with us on Social Media: Twitter: twitter.com/_indoctrination Facebook: www.facebook.com/indoctrinationpodcast Tik Tok: www.tiktok.com/@indoctrinationpodcast Instagram: www.instagram.com/indoctrinationpodcast/ YouTube: www.youtube.com/rachelbernsteinlmft You can always help the show for free by leaving a rating on Spotify or a review on Apple/ iTunes. It really helps the visibility of the show! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to indoctrination, a weekly conversation series about protecting yourself from systems of control.
0:11.1	I'm your host, Rachel Bernstein.
0:14.0	If you haven't already done so, please go to patreon.com slash indoctrination to become a wonderful supporter of the show to keep it on the air.
0:25.0	And be sure to go to my website at rachel Bernsteintherapy.com.
0:30.0	If you want to get the PDF, the writings of a talk that I gave recently at the International Cultic Studies Association Conference,
0:40.4	so many people, when they get involved in groups, when they get involved, especially in
0:46.6	psychotherapy kind of cultic groups, they are very often told that they shouldn't say no
0:53.1	any longer, that saying no is the thing getting in the way
0:56.8	of their life, of opportunities, and they have to be in a yes mode, a permanent yes mode,
1:02.4	being willing to say yes to anything. The work that I do, though, I deal with the opposite.
1:08.3	I deal with the fact that people often say yes when they meant no,
1:13.3	or they really wanted to say no, or they knew it would be best and safest for them to say no.
1:18.5	But they felt like they couldn't, and they had to say yes.
1:21.8	And so there are so many reasons usually driven by fear that we agree to do things or to put up with things and tolerate
1:30.8	things, go along with things when we really didn't want to, when we really didn't feel like we
1:38.2	should or feel like it was the right decision. So feel free to pick up the writing that I put together along with that talk if you are interested.
1:53.7	And so for today, we have a special guest, someone who you will hear from on the podcast and also who is going to be doing
2:03.9	a special bonus episode for the Patreon supporters. We have M. Thomas. She was born and raised
2:12.3	in the dogmatic Christian cult the Way International, the daughter of a way core graduate and wow ambassador.
2:22.0	M attended a fellowship in her home three nights per week, monthly branch meetings with other
2:28.9	leadership families, and prolonged stays semi-annually at the Way International Headquarters.
2:37.1	M's family was labeled Mark and Avoid, which is basically their term for being excommunicated
	...

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