If you have your own story of being in a cult or a high control group or if you've had

experience with manipulation or abuse the power that you'd like to share, leave us a message

on our hotline number at 347-86 Trust. That's 347-868-7878. Or shoot us an email at

Trust me, I'm like a smart person. If you think that one person has all the answers,

don't welcome to trust me. The podcast about cults, extreme belief and manipulation from two

overcomers who've actually experienced it, I am Lola Blonk and I'm Megan Elizabeth.

Today our guest is Marlene Winnell, psychologist, educator and author of Leaving the Fold,

a guide for former fundamentalists and others leaving their religion. We're going to talk about

how she came to study the negative impacts of religion, how some of the basic concepts of

Christianity can actually be inherently harmful, and why authoritarian structures of religion

can lead to all kinds of challenges, including possibly trauma. We'll discuss whether religion can

be healthy, learned helplessness, and a framework where you believe the world is ending,

the difference between knowing something rationally and believing it emotionally,

and the spectrum of meaning, and what that looks like after leaving a religion.

That's right. Before we go in, before me, before me mow in, before we get into it with Marlene,

what's your coldest thing? There's so much. It's been a crazy last couple weeks, but I've been

really excited to speak to Marlene for a really long time. She is the person who coined the term

Religious Trauma Syndrome, which I think is so important and helped me unwrap a lot for myself,

and I think we talk in an episode about how cognitively it's easier to unwrap

indoctrination than it is emotionally. I think I'm coming to a point in my life where I'm just like

these emotional blocks are these ways of not moving forward in my life. We speak briefly in the

episode of like I was kind of always taught the world was about to end. It wasn't like I was

...