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

I'm your host, Rachel Bernstein.

Hi, everyone. For a number of weeks now, we have been having shows specifically dealing with COVID-19, the coronavirus.

We decided to do a three-part series, which did end last week.

We know that this is still something looming large in people's lives,

if you are hearing this podcast episode during April of 2020. And we haven't forgotten.

We just know that a lot of people have expressed that while they really appreciated the three

episodes, they're also really wanting to get back into something that feels regular and usual,

more of the style of the show that we've done in the past and we'll resume now,

just to help people get back into a kind of a feeling of normalcy to a certain degree.

So with that, I will now introduce my guest.

Today on the show, it is my pleasure to have Joe Zimhardt back, and he began his research

into cultic influence in 1980 after ending his two-year devotion to a new age sect.

He began to work professionally as an intervention specialist and exit counselor in 1986 on an

international scale. From 1985 through 1992, he was chairman of the interdenominational cult information

organization in New Mexico. Since 1998, he has worked in the crisis department of a psychiatric

emergency hospital in Pennsylvania. And he continues to assist families with interventions and former members

in recovery. He's done a lot of media, a lot of lectures. He also had written a book in the past,

Mushroom Saturi, the Cult Diary. And it was released in 2013. And he's back today to tell us a little bit more about

his kind of interesting experiences in this world and also to tell us about his brand new book.

Here's Joe now.

So I want to welcome Joe Zim Hart back to the show because we were able to have a conversation already a while ago.

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