Soul Bruises

Episode 14 - Understanding Cults & Bounded Choice: A Conversation with Dr. Janja Lalich

• Christie Hodson • Season 2 • Episode 14

Share episode

Send us a text

"Be Human, Be Kind, Be Both."

Christie Hodson: Hello my friends and fellow soul defenders. My name is Christie and this is Soul Bruises, a podcast devoted to taking a closer look at spiritual abuse. Whether you're a new listener or returning, I want to welcome you to a podcast that is addressing spiritual abuse out loud. I've been looking forward to this day since I started the Soul Bruises podcast.

For the very first time, I am welcoming a guest host, sociology professor and cult expert Dr. Janja Lalich. What an incredible human being. I was first drawn to Dr. Lalich while watching several cult documentaries. In an attempt to understand the mindset of indoctrination and coercion in light of spiritual abuse. The same cult expert kept popping up during these interviews.

That person was Dr. Lalich. I grew to really appreciate her insights, her wisdom, and her compassion for so many. She has extensive knowledge of cults, indoctrination, and coercion. And was incredibly gracious in sharing her valuable time and expertise. I could have talked with her for hours, so I was exceedingly grateful that she gave the Soul Bruises podcast even a small portion of her precious time.

I think you'll find her quite fascinating. Janja Lalich, PhD, Professor Emerita of Sociology is an international authority on cults and coercion, researcher, author, and educator. She specializes in analysis of recruitment, indoctrination, and coercive methods of influence and control. Dr. Lalich is the author and or co- author of six books, including the now classic, "Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships", now in its third edition. "Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults", elucidates her groundbreaking framework and theory on why cult members do the things that those on the outside cannot understand. Her research on children born and raised in a high control group is the basis for "Escaping Utopia: Growing Up in a Cult, Getting Out, and Starting Over". Her work has been translated into Spanish, French, German, Italian, Polish, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Serbo Croatian, Farsi, and Sinhala. In addition to working with survivors and families, she has been a keynote speaker at domestic and international conferences. and leads workshops for government agencies, international intelligent agencies, private companies, educational institutions, non-profit organizations, as well as facilitating psychoeducational courses, workshops, and discussion groups for trauma survivors, families, and mental health professionals. She has also served as an expert witness in civil and criminal legal cases.

She has been featured in countless interviews in print, online, and in podcasts, and has appeared in numerous documentaries on cults and related subjects. Dr. Lalich is the founder and CEO of the non-profit Lalich Center on Cults and Coercion. at www.lalichcenter.org and may be reached at janja.l@lalichcenter.org. That's janja.l@lalichcenter.org. 

Today, I'm honored to speak with Dr. Janja Lalich, a renowned sociologist and expert on cults and coercion. Her groundbreaking research has shed light on the complex dynamics of high control groups. Helping us better understand this often misunderstood phenomenon. Welcome, Dr. Janja Lalich. I really appreciate you coming to the Soul Bruises podcast.

Thank you for accepting the invitation despite your incredibly busy schedule. I truly am humbled to have the opportunity to speak with you. 

Janja Lalich: Thanks, Christie. I'm glad to be here.

Christie Hodson: Oh, awesome.

Janja Lalich: I love the name of your podcast.

Christie Hodson: Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. What I so respect and appreciate about you is your continued effort to educate the public. Passing on your wisdom to others and being so transparent and vulnerable about your own experience. So, thank you for that. And, for those that are meeting you for the first time, would you briefly share some defining moments, of your past that brought you to where you are now? 

Janja Lalich: Okay. Well, I would say probably the most defining moment is that I was in a cult myself for 10 years, in the '70s and '80s. I was 30 when I joined, so I wasn't a kid. I had a, I had a college degree. I had been on a Fulbright Fellowship to Europe. I lived in Europe. I, yeah, anyway, I wasn't a kid. I wasn't naive.

But I joined a, a left wing political cult that supposedly we were going to get rid of racism and sexism and all those terrible -isms and, you know, we were going to create a better world. And, and that sounded wonderful to me. I mean, this was 1974, 75, when there was a lot of political activity happening in America. A lot of, movements like the Black Panthers and the Puerto Rican liberation movement. I mean, just millions of movements plus the women's movement. So I just fell right into that when I moved to San Francisco. So that clearly is one of the things that brought me here. because when I got out, I was, 41 and, I felt like I was 15 and I, you know, people who've been there will know I just felt like a zombie. I felt like, you know, I would have to go on these business lunches and I just felt like an idiot because I didn't know what to talk about and, you know, all of that, and then at night I would try to write and I would just sit and cry and it was like, anyway, eventually I found a really good therapist.

I was really lucky at the time. There was a cult clinic in New York, one in L. A. And one in New York, they're not there anymore. But the therapist there knew about cult phenomena and cult after effects. Yeah, so that, you know, I finally sort of went through my recovery process, which was very difficult.

I, I was suicidal a lot because I had been in high leadership and so when I got out, I was like, how did I become that person? Like, Oh my God. And so I, you know, I tried to apologize to the people I could, but, you know, there's never enough of that. Anyway, I eventually went to grad school, got my PhD. and throughout all that time, I was doing cult related stuff. You know, when I got out, which was '86, the only cults that were talked about at that time were religious cults. And so I had to go through this whole thing, well, maybe we weren't a cult because we weren't religious, you know and so I was one of the first people to start going to conferences and talking about other types of cults and so that, that was an important, part of, sort of my discovery. anyway, 

I went to grad school, got my PhD, taught Sociology for 20 years, and all of that time, I was working, I was educating the public, as you mentioned, in whatever way I could. I was going to conferences, and I think probably the most important thing for me in terms of the question you asked, How did I get here? was working with former cult members. I, you know, I had support groups. I worked with a lot less. So when I got the teaching job, because I was so busy, our workload was very high. But, you know, working one on one with cult members and also having support groups. Yeah, just really deep in my understanding of this whole phenomenon, right?

Because people came from all different kinds of cults and yet everything was the same, right? They maybe just called it something else. so anyway, that's kind of a winded answer to your question.

Christie Hodson: It's great. Thank you. So I've always found cults to be both fascinating and unsettling. I used to think that I could never be directly involved in one, but the more I learned about them, the more easily I knew you could come right up to the edge of one without even realizing it. And I personally have spent my life in a patriarchal, closed religious system so I know how subtle these lines can be. So I have to ask the question that I and so many people, want answered by a cult expert and I think you know what it is and that is what is a cult? What makes a cult a cult?

Janja Lalich: Well, for me, there are several characteristics that I look for. One is, of course, the, authoritarian leader who is sometimes considered charismatic. and that person is usually the founder of the group and purports to have some kind of salvation for you, whether that's religious or political, financial, whatever, right? They've got something that is going to help you achieve whatever and only by being with them. Can you do it? So first, there's the authoritarian leader. Second There is what I call the transcendent belief system And what I mean by that is it's a belief system that has the answers to the past the present and the future It doesn't need to be religious, but it has all the answers and it is the only way right? and sort of within that belief system, there is a requirement that you have to go through a change, in order to be on this path, right? And so that is the setup for the whole indoctrination process, right? 

And then the final things that I look for are, and these are kind of sociology terms, but what I call systems of influence and systems of control. And what that means is systems of control, obviously just means all the kind of rules and regulations, right? It might be what you can wear, where you should live, how many children you should have, how you should raise your children, you know, whatever, the, the obvious rules. and. That's, you know, obviously to keep you in place and keep you compliant, but for me the more powerful aspect are what I call the systems of influence, and these are the social psychological pressures on you to get you to submit, and so the cult will prey on, you know, shame and guilt and love and anger and, you know, all of these emotions. and and of course, then offer you the answer. So you keep looking to the group as the answer or the leader. and that's where the real danger comes in because the goal of all of that is to get rid of your sense of self and build a new self. And so the, the kind of self loss of self esteem, the loss of self confidence, you know, the, the eventual hatred of the self before the cult and then the family or whatever, all of that is the really essential part of the indoctrination, that they have to get rid of everything you thought and believed before.

Christie Hodson: Okay, wow. So, many people assume that they can easily recognize a cult, but cults can look often surprisingly normal at first,

Janja Lalich: Mm hmm.

Christie Hodson: what are some common misconceptions? And you did name some of them people have about cults.

Janja Lalich: Well, I think one of the one of the main ones is that all cults are religious. I think people still think that when I think we've we've had plenty of examples now of other types. I think another myth. is that only the young people join cults. And that's also not true. I mean, that was relatively true back in the '70s and '80s when we have what was called the "Jesus Movement." and there were some cults that got very big that were recruiting, the children of God, the unification church, groups like that. and, and focusing primarily on young people who were kind of in that hippie era wandering around. But today actually it's, It's more people of in their late '20s '30s. I rarely get a call anymore about my kid in college has disappeared or something. I mean, that still happens. but now it's really because the cults have learned. For one, young people are too hard to control.

Christie Hodson: Yeah.

Janja Lalich: And secondly, the cult wants people who already have skills, right? That they can help run the cult, they can run the businesses, they can bring in other people, they can earn money, whatever it is, right?

So they want, typically want people who are already Hopefully educated and have a career have have a way to bring in money, or are influenced influential in some way. so that's another myth about the, you know, that basically anybody can join at any age, and the focus isn't still on young people. And there are plenty of cults in the, in the corporate world and in the business world, that disguise themselves as sort of, management leadership training programs, et cetera. so I think those are the main sort of misconceptions.

Christie Hodson: Okay. Wow. So in, in defining a cult, you used your Bounded Choice Theory 

Janja Lalich: Mm 

Christie Hodson: As a framework to explain this structure. So could you elaborate on the four systems of your Bounded Choice and how they interact to create this self-sealing system and then how those specifically erode the individual autonomy leading to a situation where everyone is encouraged to think alike?

Janja Lalich: Uh-huh. You got it.

Christie Hodson: Yeah. 

Janja Lalich: So the, my Bounded Choice Theory, I'm sorry, came out of my graduate work and it was actually my dissertation. and the four characteristics are the ones I just mentioned the leader, the authoritarian leader, the belief system, the controls and the influences that that that interlock and work together to create as you said, what I call the self-sealing system, which means the group is kind of closed in on itself, and then you as a person become closed in on yourself. Right? Because what happens when you're in a cult is that you you tend to model yourself after the leader and after the older members, right? Especially when you're a new recruit. and so this loss of sense of self is a very important part of gaining the conformity and compliance, which is what cults look for.

Right? so you've got these four characteristics that kind of feed off each other and yeah. I would say not, not, not, not necessarily for everyone who's in a cult, but certainly for people who were in for any length of time, people who were born in, you get to a point where, you enter the state of mind that I call bounded choice, which means that Any decision that you're going to make, you, you know, that you can only make that decision in, in conjunction with what the cult wants.

Right. So, so your choices are limited and you have what I call the illusion of choice. So this obviously I'm not talking about. You know, there may be everyday decisions where obviously you can decide what to eat for lunch, or you might decide what kind of car to buy, or something like that. but I'm talking about significant, substantial decisions, like, can I criticize the leader?

Can I leave? You know, can I go outside and talk about this, right? those are things that are absolutely taboo. And so when you're in this state of mind bounded choice, you know that you can only go that way. Because to go any other way means, in a sense, literal or figurative, means death, right? To go against what the cult wants you to do, either by leaving on your own or perhaps getting kicked out, you're going to lose everything, right?

You're going to lose your family, potentially. You're going to lose your whole belief system. You may lose, your income because you might be working for the cult. You lose where you live, you know, and most people can't face that and don't want to face that, right? so people will continually choose for the cult and choose for the cult because that's what they have to do.

And so, what I think is helpful about this is that, a lot of people, when they get out of a cult, they feel really ashamed. Like, oh, how could I have been so stupid? And why didn't I leave sooner? And da da da da da. And I think this helps explain that. and so, what, what you, what you gain from that is not just what happened to you because you kind of know what happened to you, but it explains how it happened to you and that's the really important thing. That's what you need to unpack. and so, yeah, so that's, that's my Bounded Choice Theory

Christie Hodson: Yeah. I, I love it. Cause it really, you know, like you talk about the shame and the guilt, you know, really, you know, people that when they come out of it, that just having, you know, you can put a why to it. yeah. Helping people through that process. Yeah. So thank you for that.

Janja Lalich: And I do, and, and when I do work with people or when I've led my, online courses or workshops, I, I am a big promoter of writing. I think that writing things down is really helpful, whether it's keeping a journal, or writing essays, or writing songs, you know, whatever it is. And, and by writing, I mean writing by hand, not on the computer.

Because when you write by hand, Yeah, that you actually remember what you wrote and it goes deeper into your mind than when you're just clicking on a computer. And so I often will tell people, take my four characteristics, put them on a sheet of paper, and right underneath how your group exhibited that. Right? What was your leader about? What did you believe? How did your leader act? What was the belief system? Where did it come from? And by doing that process of writing it all out, and then you look at it, and you see, oh my God, you see the enormity of what you were trapped in. And I think that also helps get rid of the guilt and the shame. Because how could you not have succumbed to that?

Christie Hodson: Right, Right. So as I mentioned, I am a part of a closed group denomination, and that some, that believes we have the truth. Some have thought my religion is a cult, and have come short, and I have come short of saying, so, because I felt like it didn't quite meet all the requirements, of being considered one. So my next question is, many groups exhibit some cult like features, but what truly distinguishes a high control group from a fully fledged group, fully fledged cult? Does your bounded choice, theory require all four elements to fully be present? 

Janja Lalich: Yes. 

Christie Hodson: group to be considered a cult, or, or is it more of a spectrum?

Janja Lalich: Yes, it does. In my, in my opinion, my view is that it requires all four, but there can be groups that exhibit some of these characteristics, but perhaps not as intensely as another group. So especially when it comes to the squelching of one's autonomy, right? The squelching of one's own decision making power, the squelching of your sense of self.

The more that a group does that, the more cultic it's going to be. And so it may not have the super duper charismatic leader, right? it'll have some kind of leader who's usually authoritarian, but it's really the, These pressures on you, that that sort of seal seal the deal, so to speak. and I just want to say something about charisma while we're talking about this, because I think people have really have a misunderstanding of what charisma is. people think tend to think that charisma is a trait that someone is born with, right? You're inherently a charismatic person, right? And so you might see parents say, oh, my little five year old, he's so charismatic. Or, oh, my, my high school daughter, she's so charismatic. She always has people around her.

No, charisma is not an innate characteristic. Charisma Is a social relationship, and it was first described back in the 1800s, I think, by a Sociologist named Max Weber. and so what I mean by a social relationship is that you are the one who attributes that characteristic to that person, right? You are the one that decides, Oh, my God.

He's so charismatic, right? Once you do that, you give that person power over you, because you're basically saying that person has something that I don't. That person has something special, right? And so you, in a sense, by believing this person is charismatic, in a sense, you're already setting up this imbalance of power. this bad relationship. Right. and that and because and because of it being a social relationship. It's why in my book, "Take Back Your Life". There's a place where I say, you know, charisma is in the eye of the beholder. Right. It's why some people can think, God forbid, donald Trump is very charismatic.

Right? And someone else would go, oh my God, or somebody more obvious like J John, John F. Kennedy, or Martin Luther King, or, you know, or a movie star, right? And, and so some people can think that, and other people will think, no, I'm absolutely not. Right. so it's not universal. It's you attributing that to the person.

Christie Hodson: Mm. Wow. That's, that's pretty profound. Okay. so, so cult leaders, much like, religious institutions, they, they cultivate this "us versus them" mentality, that strengthen this, group identity. Could you describe the specific tactics that cult, leaders use to create this division and how does this mentality once created, give them control over the members, erode the critical thinking, and shape this perception that the outside world is dangerous and that the inside the group is the only safe place.

Janja Lalich: Well, you, you said it right there. I mean, it's basically a way to. to use fear as one of the control mechanisms and cult leaders do that by creating this us versus them mentality where, you know, we are great and wonderful. We're the only ones who know this. We're safe with each other and everything else out there is evil and if you go out there, you're good. I mean, in my, in my group, which was not in the least religious, you know, we told if you leave the cult, you're going to die in the gutter because we were a communist cult, right? Well, in America, everybody hates communists. So if you leave the cult, you'll never get a job.

You'll never succeed. You'll, you'll just die lonely and poor in the gutter somewhere. Other groups may, may say, if you leave, you're, something horrendous is going to happen to your family. Or they say, oh, if you leave, you're going to die in a car accident, right? And they might have an example of that that they can use.

They say, see? A blow left and he died in a car, right? So, using fear as a control technique is, is really important and is part of almost every group. And the, The "us versus them". I mean, the way they do it is, you know, picking on. a segment of the population that you are supposed to hate or be afraid of, right? Or be against. I mean, and so we see this very blatantly today, right? Who are we hating? We're hating immigrants, we're hating black people, we're starting to hate women, we're, you know, and so Trump was a master at this, at getting people to hate other people who weren't these nice white people, and, and actually I'm not saying that that the racism or whatever originated with Trump. I think people had a in our country. Unfortunately, a great deal of latent racism that Trump unleashed and so it during his first term, you know, we did see a lot of violence. Right? We did see these things being acted out and we're going to see it for sure. And already are seeing it for sure. just in the last month and a half.

So, yeah. And having that enemy is a really important part of keeping you there, making you feel special, right? Oh, I'm part of this elite, you know, we're the only ones who are going to go to heaven or whatever. You know all of those things work together to, to tighten the screws, so to speak.

Christie Hodson: Okay. You know, and one, one way I think that, Donald Trump and others use, they, they use language, you know, they will, they will, speak with immigrants as if they're animals. They'll use terms, that degrade them to a lower than a human. and, 

Janja Lalich: we know the Nazis did that in Nazi Germany. Yeah,

Christie Hodson: I read a book by Amanda Montel called "Cultish", and she emphasized that language is one of the most powerful tools that cults use. From your perspective as a sociologist, how does language shape the cult's influence and how it maintains control over its members?

Janja Lalich: Well, language is important. I don't necessarily agree with Amanda Montell. I have some real criticisms of her work,

Christie Hodson: Okay. 

Janja Lalich: But but language is important. And Robert Lifton was the first person to talk about this. Robert Lifton was a psychiatrist in the fifties who studied the Chinese communists and, and wrote a book called "Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism". Or if we want to call it brainwashing, because that's what the Chinese called it. They had this Chinese word, which I don't know how to say, but it meant washing the brain, right? It meant getting rid of, in that case, your bourgeois tendencies, right? and that's what we did in my group. We were, you know, we were for the proletariat. We hated anything bourgeois, middle class, whatever. So, but what Lifton pointed out is groups will have what they call, what we call, or what he calls, I'm sorry, a loaded language. And, and the, what that means is there, there are going to be certain terms, certain words, certain phrases that have a particularly powerful meaning that you are, Early on ingrained with understanding what these terms are using these terms and, and knowing that when you hear a certain term, you know exactly what to think or do and so it's one of the ways in which your own critical thinking is being shut down,right? and your loss of autonomy, as I spoke about earlier. 

So, so, so these, this loaded language is very important and every group is going to have different ones, different ways, that they express, express that. one of my colleagues, who's a psychotherapist in, Australia, who, grew up in the children of God, and who I met last fall at the, cult conference in New Zealand.

She just did this amazing piece of work where she took every different kind of cult, and what were some of the phrases, what are some of the phrases used in that cult, and what, what is the power of that phrase? And it's a whole, Part, which she has sent me and I'm going to be putting on my website. because when you look at it, you're like, wow, you know, she has religious cults, political cults, the new age cults, the business cults that, you know, whatever. And it's just brilliant.

Christie Hodson: Fascinating. Oh,

Janja Lalich: Language, you know, language too. I mean, language. The other thing that loaded language does is that it isolates you from the outside world. Right. And, and I'll give you an example. I Years ago, God, this was in the '90s I worked with a young woman who came out of a group that we used to call, unfortunately, we used to call the garbage eaters, because they would not take anything from society.

They, they were like nomads. And the way they ate was to take food out of garbage bins, right? eventually, it was figured out who the leader was and then it came to be called the Jim Roberts group. But anyway, they had their own language, they had their, just like every other cult. Well, a girl left that cult, a young woman, she actually got expelled.

He asked to see her family, and the cult said, Okay, you can go see your family, we're going to pick you up at such and such a telephone booth at On Saturday at three, and she went there Saturday at three, and of course they never came, and they never came, and they never came, and they just abandoned her and she, of course, felt horrible. She lost everything. so she was staying with the family, and they found me, and they, they arranged for me to have sessions with her. And she talked like, because in this group they were like super biblical. They had to take a different name, a biblical name. blah, blah, blah.

So she talked like she was in the Bible, you know, "saith, doeth", you know, whatever, however the Bible goes, right? and, and she had a job at a, like a stationery store or something. And she said to me one day, she said, you know, it's so, it's so strange. I'm so upset because when I'm waiting on customers, they all kind of look at me like there's something wrong with me and I said to her, I said, do you realize that the way you speak is, is not the way the rest of us speak? And, and so they are, you know, they're, they're probably wondering what's wrong with you that you speak like that, or they might be making fun of you. and she had no clue that she was speaking that way.

I mean, it was so natural to her, but at that point, and she had to really work on getting rid of that language.

Christie Hodson: Mm. Wow. You kind of get in a, in a bubble, right? Yeah. okay. So, so I've been personally meeting with some, meeting over zoom with some, members of the two by two church. and some of them have been going through some really difficult issues with

Janja Lalich: The what? Church? I'm sorry. Which

Christie Hodson: 2x2 church. two church. 

Janja Lalich: the two by

Christie Hodson: Yeah. and some of them, 

Janja Lalich: What, that's not what you were in.

Christie Hodson: No, that is not what I've been in. and, and it's really bizarre how I've come across meeting them, fellow person from my, religion, met up with their religion and, and anyway, yeah, so we, we just connected and anyways, but they're having some really difficult issues with family members. They've left the cult and, and so they had, they had a question they wanted me to ask and that is what advice can you offer family, families trying to maintain relationships with a loved one deeply involved in a cult, especially when it comes to setting boundaries? And how can former members deal with harassment from family members still within the group?

Janja Lalich: Mm. Yeah. That's a big question.

Christie Hodson: Yeah.

Janja Lalich: Yeah, I, so there's, there, there are a couple of aspects to that. I think first and foremost. The person, this person who left the cult, this former member, has to protect him or herself. That's the most important thing. So, and, and also, I think it, you know, people, when they leave cults, they have a tendency In a lot of cases, they have a tendency to want to go back and get everyone else out, right, get out the people you recruited, get your siblings out, get, right, and that's not your job and I have a hard time getting people to understand that but that is not your job. Your job when you get out is your recovery, right, and it, and it, and it's, it's a time when actually for the first time in. In your life, maybe you can be, quote, "selfish", right? Think about yourself and what you need and how to recover from the experience.

And too too often, former cult members will become activists too soon. And that may cause them a great deal of stress and upset and breakdowns and it also is a way that sometimes when former members of a group want to work together to do something, they kind of trigger each other, because they remind each other of the cult, right? So, be becoming an activist too soon is is something to really watch out for. Now, that doesn't necessarily apply to one's family, right? Okay, so you wanna you wanna still stay in touch with your family, if you're even allowed to. In many cases, you're not even allowed to, right? I I think the important thing is thing is to tread very carefully to not talk about cult stuff, to just, and I think it again, it'll depend if, if you were born in, if they were born in, if your second, third generation, which in the two by twos is often third, third, or even fourth generation.

Right? So it just goes way back. Right? so you have to figure out a way. So, so I guess what I'm saying is, yeah. Because of that, you don't have any prior experiences, right? Like, when I talk with families who have someone in a cult and I want to give them a bit of advice about what to do, right? I always say, remind that person of things you did before he or she joined the cult, right?

Did you go fishing? Did you You know, go to the fair, whatever, and, and those try to do those things with the person to remind them that there was another way to be right. And don't be confrontational. Don't talk about stuff like that. Just have a good time together, you know, and on the holidays, send them their favorite cookies or whatever.

Right. So that's a little easier to do when, when it's, it's not, it's, You're not the former member, right? You're just the mom or dad or the aunt or uncle or whatever, right? When it's your mom or dad who are in the cult and you leave or your siblings, if you are allowed to see them and be with them, I think the important thing is similar to what I tell other people is to not be confrontational, try to do fun things together. As I say, tug at their emotional heartstrings, right? Because it's your emotions that are most manipulated, right? Try to reawaken, you know, something in them. and, you know, you just have to do it in tiptoes. I mean, I had a brother who was very racist, very right wing, very racist. And It was for a long time. It was impossible. This is not the same, obviously, but for a long time, it was just impossible to talk to him. Right. And he would bait me and you know, all of that. He was an older brother and finally, when every everyone else in our family died and we were the only two left alive. I think we kind of realized that we better kind of hang on to each other a little bit. So we kind of came to this understanding of things. We weren't going to talk about, right? We weren't going to talk about immigrants. We weren't going to talk about race. We weren't going to, you know, and that, and that really worked. And, and we actually were very close in many other ways. I still thought he, you know, I still thought he was a racist. I mean, he's passed now and, you know, that. Okay. And on the other hand, I loved him as my brother. But, so I think that the idea of finding that middle ground where you can see your family or talk to them on the phone or whatever it is, and try to, you know.

I use this, my shelf metaphor, right? I think everybody who's in a cult has hesitations and has doubts. Now that may be a little harder for second and third generation because it's all they've known, but people do seem to have some kind of inner sense of morality that they're born with and that's why so many children of cults are leaving now because they go, wait a minute, something's not right here, right? And how do they figure that out? I don't know. It's a, it's a some kind of innate resilience. So, but I do believe that everybody has doubts, right? Or they think, I don't know, we should probably shouldn't have done that. Or maybe we shouldn't have robbed that store. Maybe we shouldn't have, you know, whatever it is, right? And I think the way I see it is you want to so they'll have doubts and they can't express them, right? They can't say to their partner or to someone else. Hey, don't you think the leaders a little cuckoo? I mean, you can't say that. So you put all these doubts on this shelf in the back of your head, right? 

And one day, too many things happen and the shelf breaks. Now, when the shelf breaks, you don't necessarily say, aha, I'm in a cult, but you know that something's wrong. And you know that maybe what, being in this group is not in your best interest, that this is not healthy. And then, if you're lucky, you can start to work your way out.

Which again, is tough, depending on what kind of resources you think exist out there. so, what I say to people trying to communicate with people in the cult is try to plant seeds on that shelf. Little bitty things on that shelf that are going to make them doubt more going to make them question more. and I think that's the best we can do.

Christie Hodson: That, that connect with them emotionally

Janja Lalich: Yeah.

Christie Hodson: Yeah. Okay. That's good, good information.

Janja Lalich: I mean, I wish I had magic answers,

Christie Hodson: Oh, I know.

Janja Lalich: There are no magic

Christie Hodson: I know.

Janja Lalich: Yeah, yeah. The two by twos is an amazing group. I mean, when I first, I first heard about them, probably five years ago, because a student at the university had grown up in it and I was blown away when when she started telling me about the two by twos. And how huge, how many, how many members around the world and, only recently has stuff started coming out. 

So there are criminal charges, you know, there was a lot of sexual abuse of children, you know, the typical stuff. and so people are learning about the two by twos. And of course, they're called the two by twos because they didn't have a name.

They didn't have churches. They did everything in people's homes. They were very underground in a way that they were working in the community. And I was thinking, it was actually, I, you know, I did that talk with former 2x2s, which is on YouTube, which you mentioned. And I thought, here's this group that's been around for decades, centuries almost, that has hundreds of thousands of members around the world, literally around the world, and we knew nothing about it. I've been doing this for almost 40 years. I had never heard of the 2x2s until four years ago. Right. So it makes me wonder how many other groups are there out there like that that we don't even know about.

Christie Hodson: Right. Because you're even in the field. Of course, Right?. Wow. That's, that's incredible.

Janja Lalich: Yeah.

Christie Hodson: Okay, So I know that children being born in cults is something that's really holds a special place in your heart. the indoctrination of that experience from birth is deeply profound. how does being raised in a cult impact the children's development, their sense of identity, and that long term critical thinking skills?

Janja Lalich: Yeah. so normally in, in the quote, normal world,

Christie Hodson: Yeah. Yeah.   What's that?

Janja Lalich: From, from the time we're born, we all go through, these developmental stages and, and the person who wrote about this was a, a, a psych psychotherapist, I guess. Named Eric Erickson, E R I K S O N. And he outlined, I think it was eight or nine stages, right?

That are by year, so, and, and each, each, each stage is maybe three years, right? So you go from birth to three years old, four to six, whatever. And during that stage, there are things that you are supposed to accomplish, that are supposed to be, be accomplished. And if they are, then you graduate to the next phase. Right. So there are things like learning to trust, you know, stuff like that. People can look online. You can find his whole chart. So what happens in cults is obviously you're not able to Have control over your own developmental process and, and in most cases, neither are your parents, right? because they're probably brainwashed as well, right?

If they're in the cult. So, the most important part, the most, I think the, the part that's the, the most effective, for the cult is the stage, is the stage of adolescence. And I think, I think the years are 11 to 13 something like that. Those are the stages when you are really trying to figure out who you are, right?

So this is when, you know, you go get a tattoo, or you get a ring in your nose, or you, you know, you don't want to, you don't want to sit down and have dinner with your parents anymore, and you, you, you make friends with somebody at school and you decide, no, that's not who I want to be friends with, I'm going to go over here, right? And you're trying to figure out who you are and what you believe in. Right? And it's, it's that process that's called Individuation, separating from your parents and, and becoming your own person, your own self. Well, in the cult, that doesn't happen. And so that those phases, especially those, those two phases of, say 11 to 15, which are so crucial, it's, it's completely controlled by the cult and what the cult wants you to be.

So, in a sense, you have this stunted development. And often what happens when, when people leave is in many ways there's, they still act like adolescents because they never got past that, that stage. Right. And they, and you don't learn, you don't learn, the life skills that those of us who aren't in a cult learn.

Right. We learn how to deal with the bully at school. We learn how to, you know, We learn how to, you know, take a criticism, you know, these, these social skills that you learn by, by trial and error, all through your life. You know, I still remember the girl who hit me in the eye with her baton, you know, and I was like, damn you, you know, and I actually said damn, and I was like in fourth grade or something.

So, you know. So, so what I'm saying is when for people born in a cult, you don't develop those skills, those innate, but what become innate skills about how to function in the world. And so the, the, you know, the, the tragedy of that is, people born in cults leave and they don't know how to function in the world.

They don't know where to get help. They don't, sometimes they don't even know their real name. They don't have birth certificates and they don't know how to navigate. the external world. and so they, they get depressed, they get suicidal, they end up doing drugs, they end up selling themselves for sex, they end up living on the streets, you know, all, all this shit happens, in part because we don't have any social resources for people coming out of cults and that's my pet peeve. you know, someone can go to a domestic violence shelter and they'll get turned away because they don't qualify, right? So where do these people go? Where do they go? And they're, and, and they're leaving cults and droves now and have been. And so I do call this, you know, the number one public health issue that That, that we just are not dealing with in our society and not in any society that I'm aware of. and, and so that's the real criminal part of, of, the people born and raised in, which is just tragic, really

Christie Hodson: And you kind of addressed that in your book, Escaping Utopia, correct?

Janja Lalich: Yes. And, and I'll tell you something that surprises me if you have any people out there who are thinking of going to grad school or anything like that. That book came out in, 2017, I think, Escaping Utopia.

It's, it was, I interviewed 67 or 68 people who grew up in a cult, right? As far as I know, that is still the only published research on the experiences of children in cults, other than a book that was done by some of the cult apologists, which we don't pay any attention to. right.

So as you know, all these years later, and we need more research, we need more statistics so that we can go to people and say, You know, start a shelter for these people, do something, put some, put some of the civic budget into helping this population, right?

And, if anyone's thinking of going to school, these are the things you want to study, these are the statistics you want to build. We're trying to work right now on, trying to figure out the statistics of suicide, how many suicides happen. It's unbelievable. I mean, obviously there's also deaths that happen because of medical neglect, which is very common, or maybe accidents, but the suicide, both suicide ideation and actual suicides, the rates are so high and higher than the general public. But we need, we need proven studies to show those statistics, right? I have a couple of mentions in my work, but we need so much more.

Christie Hodson: Hmm. Hmm. Wow. Thank you for, for plugging that. Yeah. Cause 

Janja Lalich: Yeah, and I just want to add, I just want to add.

Christie Hodson: Please do.

Janja Lalich: I'm about to be 80 years old. I'm going to be 80 years

Christie Hodson: No way!  That's awesome. 

Janja Lalich: And I can't, I can't do this forever. At some point I have to stop, right? and right now I'm even cutting back some because the board of my nonprofit is like, Janja, "you've got to have a life", "you've got to stop". So we need people to rise to the occasion. We need people to take up the banner. and that's why I'm, I'm so adamant about like helping train people and educate people in, in these things. because the cults aren't going to go away. and, and we need, we need the so called experts. like myself who are knowledgeable to to educate the public to help the former members, you know, whatever. So that's my pitch.

Christie Hodson: Oh, thank you so much. Thank you so much. okay. And, and we mentioned this earlier. I know not all cults are religious, but for those that are, what's the difference between a religious cult and a healthy religion?

Janja Lalich: Okay. I get asked that a lot.

Christie Hodson: I bet you do.

Janja Lalich: So, in my opinion, first of all, a healthy religion is going to have you worshiping some kind of higher being. Whether that's Allah or God or a tree or whatever, right, 

Christie Hodson: Yeah, 

Janja Lalich: You're not worshipping this human being right in front of you, right? That is not the person who has control over your life, right?

So that's, that's number one, the difference. and secondly, a healthy religion, all religions are going to have, you know, sort of guidelines to live by, right? Norms that that particular church wants to emphasize, right? So whether it's somebody moves into your neighborhood, take them a cake and welcome to the neighborhood or, for example, the Catholic Church don't use contraception, right?

But they're not going into your bedroom to see if you're using contraception, right? They're not going to chastise you because you didn't take the cake to your new neighbors, right? Whereas if they're going to your That's a healthy religion. If you're in a cultic religion, there's no, there's no, bending those rules, right?

You got to do what they say, or there's, or there's consequences. so that's, that's certainly another, difference. also, I think if you leave a healthy religion, In most cases, you're not going to be ostracized, you're not going to be shunned, people are not going to stop talking to you if they see you in the grocery store, right? People pretty much respect each other's religious decisions, right? 

But in a cult, again, people leave a cult and they are they are criticized. They are made to be demons. The terrible things are said about them in back inside the cult and in many, many cases, no one is allowed to have any contact with them. so I think those are the, probably the three main, differences that I see. Yeah. 

Christie Hodson: What are some key signs of indoctrination and that you could look for? And if, If we're worried about ourselves or other others that we care for.

Janja Lalich: Yeah, I, I think indoctrination is, As I said earlier, it's all about getting rid of you, right? Getting you to give up your sense of self, right? Yeah. so, I think, you know, one sign of that, of, of, of an indoctrination program, one sign is almost always the fact that you cannot criticize the leader. Whatever the leader says goes. Whatever documents the leader wrote, those are the, that is now the Bible. Whatever, right? so if, if you're joining something and everybody's just worshiping and praising and falling down all over themselves for this man or woman who's up on the stage, that should be a sign to get the hell out of there, right?

Also, you know, also, I think if there's no transparency, right, you don't know where the money goes, you don't know, you know how decisions are made, you don't, there's no obvious chain of command with, Measures of accountability to hold people accountable. Right. and I think just, I think also with indoctrination, a lot of times what will happen in groups is they will assign if you're a new person, they will assign someone who's been in the group a while to be your, in my, in my cult, we called it your "one help" in some groups. It's your disciple, right? Your discipling memberships, right? So you have this person who has been in the call for a while, who's supposed to help you and guide you and be there to answer your questions, right? But what happens is you might say to that person, I don't know, this seems a little cuckoo to me.

Well, what are they going to do? They're going to go back to the leadership and say, uh-oh, Janja just said this was really cuckoo. We got to take care of her, right? So they can't, they cannot be trusted, right? And so that, that's an early way that you learn you cannot trust anybody and you cannot even trust your own spouse or your children or anybody because the only loyalty, the only allegiance is to the leader.

Christie Hodson: To the leader, okay. Okay. 

Janja Lalich: Yeah. 

Christie Hodson: Okay. 

Janja Lalich: And of course, let me just, I think one other. One other, classic indoctrination technique is, is using what I call high arousal techniques. And so that could be, chanting, it could be meditating, it could be, speaking in tongues, it, whatever. So many cults will, will do that to, and again, when you're in, when you're speaking in tongues for a long period of time, when you're meditating for a long period of time, when you're doing whatever for a long period of time, your critical thinking shuts down and you don't, you, you, your mind isn't really sharp anymore, right? You're just spaced out, right? And, and in that spaced out phase is when you are more susceptible, right? And And it's also very contagious. So again, if we go back to Trump, when you think about the Trump rallies, right?

He was great at this because people would be, you know, lock her up, lock her up, and they're all yelling, lock her up, lock her up. And it gets into a kind of frenzy, right? It's the madness, what we call the madness of the crowd. So using those high, high arousal techniques, and they're, they, they will, they will be. In different ways, they'll be different in a management training program than in a, say, a church that speaks in tongues, but 

That's another thing to watch out for is when, when, when you're expected to participate excessively in something that is shutting down your critical thinking.

Christie Hodson: Okay, okay. This is definitely timely. It seems that throughout history when both political and religious powers mix and react defensively to outside perspectives, this dynamic can easily create a cult like atmosphere. Would Christian nationalism be an example of this? And does this threaten religious freedom and individual rights?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

Janja Lalich: Yeah,

Christie Hodson: If you have some,

Janja Lalich: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the Christian nationalism is probably the scariest thing that's happened in quite a long time in this country. And I think people don't realize how long they have been working on that and organizing themselves and inserting themselves into both local and federal governments, school boards, right?

Oh, suddenly we have book banning. I mean, in Florida, they ban Anne Frank's book. Anne Frank, I mean, come on, right? And obviously, they're banning, The Handmaid's Tale, right? Because that's what they're creating. So The Christian Nationalists are organized, they are, their belief system spreads across a lot of different religious groups.

It's not just one group and their belief system is very much based on hate and on violence, right? and so, that's exactly what's happening right now in our country and I, I, there's a couple of really good book. I just read a great book called "The Flag and The Cross". So if people want to learn kind of more systematically how this happened in our country. "The Flag and The Cross" is a really good book, and it's easy to read it's short excellent book is called the family by by a was called Jeff Sharlet S H A R L E T. And he, he exposed that there is a group in Washington, D. C., called "The Family", where they have a house on whatever street, and

Christie Hodson: C street,

Janja Lalich: Yeah,

Christie Hodson: The documentary really good about this too. Yeah, Yeah, 

Janja Lalich: They are the people who started the prayer breakfast. So the fact that our government even has prayer breakfast is such a violation of the separation of church and state. Not to mention that now we have some cuckoo woman who's like the, the, what is her title? Do you remember? She's like the religious czar. The American religious 

Christie Hodson: Paula White. Correct.

Janja Lalich: Yeah, Paula

Christie Hodson: Yes. Yeah.

Janja Lalich: and, yeah, So this is, this is really scary, because these aren't do gooder Christians. These are hateful Christians, and they're, and they want to shut down women. They want to, they want to, get rid of immigrants. They want to serve only themselves. They want women to have as many babies as possible. They want women to have no rights. it, it, it's really scary. I don't know if you saw the thing that just happened in Idaho. There was a, a town hall meeting, or a city council meeting in Idaho the other day. And, they, whatever the guy on the stage was saying, I don't know, but this woman in the audience spoke out. And they sent. the, these brown shirts, I call them brown shirts, they sent these militia guys from a private security firm to take her out of the, out of the, out of the auditorium or whatever it was, they went over she resisted there were three of them. They got her down on the ground. They zip tied her. They dragged her out. They said she was going to be criminally charged for disrupting this meeting. The guy up on stage was making fun of her, laughing about her, calling her a little girl who didn't want to do what she was told. And this entire room full of people, not a single person stood up to help her.

Not a single person, not a man, but also not a woman. And this is what we need to be afraid of.

Christie Hodson: Yeah. Yeah.

Janja Lalich: Because that's what happened in Nazi Germany.

Christie Hodson: Yes.

Janja Lalich: People just pretended it wasn't happening.

Christie Hodson: Yeah. It's not only the act, but the silence and compliance. Right. Correct. Okay, so, so many people that leave or escape a cult, believe that they have PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder or moral injury or both.

Can you explain the difference between the two and how do these play into the healing process?

Janja Lalich: Right. Right. So, so there's two types of PTSD. There's regular PTSD, and there's what we now call, complex PTSD. which was first written about by a, a therapist named Judith Herman way back when. In fact, it was one of the books that helped me in the 90s. So and most cult members are going to have complex PTSD and and there's several Problems related to that one is that a lot of therapists don't even know about this or know how to treat it So let me explain the difference PTSD is something tragic, horrendous, awful happens to you.

So maybe you are walking down the street with your kid and the kid gets killed in a car accident and that's incredibly traumatic and you're gonna have post traumatic stress disorder or you're a soldier that goes off to war and you're killing a bunch of people but But they're strangers, right? But it's still of traumatic experience, right?

But it's post traumatic. It's not complex. What makes something complex PTSD is longevity, how long it happens to you, it's going on with you, and the fact that it's being done by people you know. doing it to people you know. And the moral injury comes in. Right? So complex PTSD.

So complex PTSD, is about, as I was saying earlier, you're in a cult, you can't trust anyone, right? Your, your best friend's going to turn you in, your spouse, your children, whatever, right? and you may be expected to punish your own child. You may, so, so these things that are happening are done by people you know, and you are doing things to people you know. and in most cases it'll last for a while, so that's the longevity. And the moral injury is that aspect of Either doing things or seeing things that you couldn't do anything about. So when you leave, you have such enormous guilt and shame. When I talked earlier about being suicidal when I got out because I was in leadership.

It's exactly that. It's like hating yourself because of the things you know you did or the things you didn't try to stop. Yet, you wouldn't have been able to try to stop them, right? For all the reasons we've already talked about. but that, that is probably the biggest hurdle, for former cult members to go through in their recovery process.

Because it's about forgiving yourself. Right. We always hear, Oh, you have to forgive people. You have to forgive people. Right. And you'll see these people, you know, in trials where some guy killed their daughter and those and he's going to prison for life and they say, Oh, we forgive him. Yeah, you don't ever have to forgive your cult leader right.

You have to forgive yourself because in a cult. And this is again the moral injury in a cult we all become perpetrators, you have to write it's the only way you can survive it's the way it works. Right? You're trained and you're indoctrinated to do it all to each other. Right? And so, that, that sense of being a perpetrator is what's really hard for people to accept.

you know, and, and that's, and there's a lot of people who don't want to look at that. And so they will never really complete their recovery process. And they may, they may end up being stunted in, in a number of ways as life goes on in their relationships or whatever. yeah. 

Christie Hodson: Okay. Okay. What advice would you give those who have physically left a cult but still feel mentally trapped by it? They feel isolated and lost without the system that once they once belonged to. How would you help them navigate this transition? What would you offer them?

Janja Lalich: Yeah, I think, I think, and I know it's hard because I know a lot of people will, often giving up the cult leader is the last thing people do. They're like, they know horrible things happen, they know it was awful, but they'll say, oh, but he really meant to do well, and he really was so special. And I had these amazing experiences when he touched my head or whatever, right? and so giving up the cult leader, realizing who the cult leader really was, probably a malignant narcissist, is important to do, for your own recovery. 

But also people will, especially people who were in I would say Eastern cults, where they, where they did a lot of meditation, or they did yoga, or they did whatever, and I'm not criticizing those practices, but often what'll happen is when they leave the cult, they feel like, oh, I've got to meditate, you know, because they're so used to it. It's like, it's ingrained in them at this point, like, oh, I got to do this three hours a day or whatever. And so the important thing I, you know, is to try to stop doing those things. Just stop doing the things that you had to do in the cult, the rituals, the kind of ritualistic stuff. and as I said earlier, change your language.

You may have to change the way you eat, depending on if there were certain restrictions in the cult or not. and that's why I think what I said way at the beginning about writing, that's why I think making a list, like these are all the things I was trained to do. That I no longer want to do. And, and if you have a list, you can kind of systematically then work on that list. Right?

Christie Hodson: Right, right, right.

Janja Lalich: Yeah. So,

Christie Hodson: Okay. wow. so, as someone who has dedicated their life, like yourself, to studying and helping individuals affected by cults, what legacy do you hope to leave in this field? What contributions do you envision your work making to the broader conversation about cults and their impact?

Janja Lalich: well, I think, certainly my, my published books are one legacy that I hope they will stay in print, which is always an issue.

Christie Hodson: Yeah.

Janja Lalich: But about two years ago, I started a nonprofit organization called the Lalich Center on Cults and Coercion, and I saw that as a way of trying to establish a legacy so that there would be people who could carry on after I'm gone.

We're making it so that, say, the royalties from the book don't come to me, they go to the Lalich Center, right? so that we can pay for our Google Drive and our Zoom account and all these things that, you know, these monthly expenses that you have to pay for. and so. So I think the hopefully the Lalich Center will continue.

We've just brought two new people on board who are younger because most of the other board members were kind of my age. So we've got a couple of 40 year olds in there. 

And, you know, and I think just just, being out there I what I'm doing is training them to. be able to do the, the journalistic interviews. I get called all the time to do an interview with the media or do a podcast like with you. and so I'm trying to train them to start taking those things. Like, you know, a newspaper contacts me, I say to them, I'd like you to contact Adam Koontz. He's a professor of philosophy. He's a former Mormon. And, and, and I'm trying to Have it not be all about me, because we need many, many, many people qualified to do This work. so I guess that's it. 

And then also, we're, we're, next week, actually, we're recording a course for therapists that, where they will be able to get continuing ed credits. And it's going to be a webinar, which means once we record it, It's out there, and people can take it whenever they want. It's not like a one time shot where it's live and, you know. and I'm sure there's drawbacks to doing a recording. People can't ask me questions or whatever. But still, it'll be, it's got seven segments, and, it'll be a way for therapists, social workers, whoever. It's approved by the American Psychological Association. so that'll be out there, and hopefully that'll stay out there for quite a while.

Christie Hodson: That'll be on your lalichcenter.org.

Janja Lalich: Yeah, that'll be yes, and and we actually if people are interested, we are keeping a list of therapists or social workers, whatever, who want to know when the thing is launched. So what you can do is email. info@lalichcenter.org and that, and those go to, the ad the admin person and, and tell her you wanna be on the therapist list. that way when it's released, hopefully in a month or two, you'll get an email saying it's ready now here's how you can sign up.

Christie Hodson: Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much. Yeah, that's the Lalich Center on Cults and Coercion @lalichcenter.org so Dr. Lalich I truly thank I can't thank you enough for this precious time and your extensive knowledge on this complicated topic. I have learned so much today and I knew I would. and I know this will benefit so many others. I'm so very grateful. if you're ever in Maine, I would love to have a cup of coffee with you.

Janja Lalich: Yeah. And you've got that great governor, right?

Christie Hodson: Yes, yes, we do! Yeah, she's amazing!

Janja Lalich: Okay. I'm glad we got to do this

Christie Hodson: Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. It means so much to me.

Janja Lalich: Okay.

Christie Hodson: All right. Take care. Bye.

I appreciate you taking the time to listen to this podcast interview of Dr. Janja Lalich. I hope you learned a lot from what she had to say today. I know I certainly did. I hope you'll check out her website at lalichcenter.org and consider donating to their cause. None of us are immune to falling into the arms of a cult, so education is so key.

And I'm grateful that Dr. Lalich continues to share her expertise with so many. I hope you'll consider sharing this podcast episode with family and friends who you think might find it helpful. This is Christie Hodson, and you've been listening to the Soul Bruises Podcast. Until we connect again.  Be Human Be Kind  Be Both

People on this episode

Head Shot

Christie Hodson

Host