My name is Mark Vissente. 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, The VAL. 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.

Hello there.

I am making a slight departure for my regularly

scheduled darkness to let you know that today is my birthday. I am 60 years old, born June 22nd,

1965. I am officially an old fart. I share this birthday with my birthday buddy Sarah Edmondson.

She is not 60, just so you know, she is far younger than I am, but give her a shout out as well.

So, 60. Wow. Yeah. It's weird, right? I mean, those of you who are older, like you understand what I'm saying. It's weird. It's odd. Yeah. It's weird, right? I mean, those of you who are older, like you understand what I'm saying, it's weird, it's odd. Like, I remember being younger and thinking about being older. And I kind of wanted to be older for much of my life. And now that I'm, you know, getting older. And it's relative, of course, because I have like people I work

with in their 70s and 80s who say like, oh, you're a baby still. And to them, I'm a baby. And to people

younger, I'm like, you know, an old geezer. But I remember wanting to be older. And now it's odd because

here I am. I was always as a kid thinking ahead

to what would it be like when I'm older. And I think it's because I wanted to be,

I guess, more mature than I was.

And it's interesting, there's possibly a reason.

...