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.

Well, hello everybody.

Welcome back.

Today is the last podcast episode that I will be recording in Portugal before we head

back to the U.S.

The next episode, I will be recording in the United States of America.

I am going to chat about some things that might ruffle some feathers. What I'm going to ask my

audience to do is to pay particular attention to if you feel triggered, if you feel upset,

if you feel like you want to call me names, because I understand that a small percentage of

you may say, oh, you know, he's the problem.

But I think it's valuable to notice, like, how we respond.

Because, like, when I was in a cult, anybody who said something that sounded like it was

criticizing the cult or the leader or the doctrine or the ideology, I would want to shut them down in my mind.

...