From a guru who appeared to glow gold to a modern leader who brands himself in gold, how does controlled imagery actually influence the human mind?

Join filmmaker and former cult member Jim Picariello, a longtime friend and protégé of cult expert Dr. Steven Hassan, for a special LIVE Q&A on his firsthand experience inside the meditation-based cult led by Rama (Frederick Lenz) and what it reveals about charismatic influence, hypnotic language patterns, and psychological control.

As a college student, Jim was recruited through a simple meditation class that escalated into intense altered states, vivid shared “golden light” experiences, and a belief system centered around spiritual enlightenment, computer programming, and total devotion to their leader. Over time, he was encouraged to fear “negative energy,” distance himself from loved ones, and reshape his identity, all while believing he was becoming more focused and successful.

In this livestream, Jim will break down how these experiences felt from the inside and how techniques like hypnosis, group trance states, social proof, and neuro-linguistic persuasion patterns can bypass critical thinking. The discussion will also explore broader questions about influence in today’s world, including how propaganda, repetitive messaging, emotional triggers, and larger-than-life branding can shape beliefs and mold people’s minds.

In this livestream, we’ll explore:

• how meditation and altered states can be used for influence and control

• the recruitment tactics used in cults like MAGA and the Rama / Frederick Lenz group

• hypnosis language patterns and group trance dynamics that cults and Trump both utilize

• the psychology of “golden” or idealized imagery in charismatic leaders

• fear programming, “negative energy,” and isolation from family

• how intelligent, creative people are especially vulnerable to cult recruitment

• what actually helps people leave high-control groups

• Jim’s journey from cult member to educator and filmmaker

📅 Was LIVE on Wednesday, June 3, 2026 at 2PM Eastern | 11AM Pacific
💬 Bring your questions for the live Q&A
This is essential viewing for anyone interested in cult psychology, mind control, hypnosis, NLP, persuasion, charismatic leadership, and recovery from high-control groups.

#StevenHassan #JimPicariello #MindControl #Cults #CultPsychology #Hypnosis #NLP #Persuasion #CharismaticLeadership #MeditationCult #TrumpCult #CultRecovery #FrederickLenz #RamaCult #LiveQA #PsychologicalInfluence
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Learn more at:

https://freedomofmind.com/

Subscribe to The Influence Continuum podcast: https://freedomofmind.com/podcast-3/

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His dark rom-com screenplay, The Cult of Us, is currently in development and was a Quarter-Finalist in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nicholl Fellowship and a Coverfly Top 1% Project, among many other high accolades.

His previously optioned, modern, feminist, family animated feature, Igor and Frankie, was in the “Top 10%” in the Nicholl Fellowship and in the Top 14 of all family screenplays on Coverfly.

Connect with Jim: Instagram — IMDb — Website — LinkedIn — BlueSky

Filmmaking

Jim’s 5-time award-winning short film, This Time It’s Shopping, made for $100, was selected by 18 film festivals.

This achievement got the attention of Sesame Street, which hired Jim to make a short film about “the number 6” (seen at minute 18:42), which takes place on a coastal Maine farm.

Jim’s subsequent short film, Passive Aggressive Dads, has since been selected by 25 festivals, including Sedona, Nantucket, Breckenridge, SOHO, and BFI London. The film has also won 4 top awards, including Best Comedy (up against features) at the Beaufort International Film Festival.

A Little History

In 1993, Jim was slated to graduate from UMass Dartmouth with an impossibly practical combined degree in Philosophy and Electronic Music Production.

Without a clear career path and some lingering spiritual aspirations, Jim was promptly recruited into a Buddhist, Computer Programming Cult.

You read that right.

And it was run by a white dude named Frederick Lenz, a.k.a. Zen Master Rama.

Clearly, young Jim had not yet been introduced to the term “red flags.”

After being rescued from the cult by friends and family (I’m all right, by the way), Jim turned to activism, speaking out against mind control cults and the grip they have over their followers. Jim was widely featured across national media on the topic.

In 2002 Jim and Jill (pre-children) needed to get away from the noise and rush of the Boston area and purchased 11 acres in Brooksville, Maine, where they designed and built their own house. (i.e., with their own hands)

Jim now runs cult expert Dr. Steven Hassan’s company, Freedom of Mind, which helps individuals and families escape and heal from trauma and control by cults, while also making educational media on the topic.

Previously, Jim has been a Socially-Conscious Web Entrepreneur, run a quaint food Co-op, and founded Wise Acre – a widely distributed all-natural frozen treat company (which was wildly successful until it crashed and burned in 2008).

Contact Jim at jimpicariello@gmail.com

It was going to be my big break.

I was heading to the 2013 Austin Film Festival (AFF) for its infamous screenwriter’s conference. My dream was to 1) rub elbows with my favorite screenwriters, and 2) soar straight to the finals of the elite Pitch Contest — where in 90 seconds I would pitch my screenplay to three big-time movie producers (including Lindsay Doran), to the roar of applause from over 500 peers.

And I did it all. I even got the roaring applause.

Yet it all went so… so… painfully wrong. And the Pitch Finals went wrong in such a manner that it would be considered impossible.

And because everyone likes to watch the hero suffer, I will share with you the ways I brought the impossible into the world.

If I’d had a vision board, it would have been full of images of me selling a screenplay and moving my family to the Los Angeles area, and away from our home in coastal, rural Maine – where, outside of the vast and beautiful setting, the most exciting thing that happens here is a really good puppet show.

On a whim, I sent an early draft of my very first screenplay to the AFF screenwriting contest, which is widely considered second in significance only to the Academy Awards’ Nicholl Fellowship.

My feature-length script, The Cult of Us, was inspired by the fact that people in cults do believe that cults exist; they’re just unable to believe they’re in one. It’s about Ren and Leena, friends and roommates, who fall in love as they attempt to save each other from their respective cults.

Can you please remember the character name, Leena? We’re going to need that name later. Leena. Great, thanks.

I’d heard of the Austin Film Festival on my favorite podcast, Scriptnotes, where two successful screenwriters, John August and Craig Mazin, discuss the craft in an entertaining way. And when they spoke about AFF, I pictured in my mind’s eye this idyllic, mythological place that one can only visit and confirm its actual existence when one has money to burn – like Hawaii.

So, when I got my letter stating my script was an AFF “Second Rounder” (aka quarter-finalist) I was surprised to hear my wife, Jill, ask if I wanted to go. So, after begging family members for money and air miles, and securing a bed at the near-by youth hostel, I was packed and ready to go.

The conference is known for its casual atmosphere, where you can sidle up to the bar next to a famous screenwriter, introduce yourself, and have a pleasant conversation. If you don’t act like a douche-bag, everyone is generally open to talking. And though I’ve never been called a douche-bag to my face, Jill says that when I get extra nervous and excited, I tend to transform into a mild version of a 1970’s-Steve-Martin-stand-up-comedian-wild-and-crazy-guy kind of guy.

The screenwriters of my favorite two movies were attending AFF that year: Scott Neustadter, co-writer of (500) Days of Summer, and Leslie Dixon, who wrote the screenplay for Limitless (among many other great movies); and I’d finally get to see my heroes from Scriptnotes, John August and Craig Mazin.

I flew into Austin, late at night before the first day (repeating my pitch over and over during the 11 hours of flights and layovers from Maine) and checked into the Firehouse Hostel. I had trouble getting to sleep that first night, since I was anxious, it was literally a humid 86-degrees in the room, and my 5 other roommates came and went, slamming the door every few minutes until 2:30 a.m.

At 4 a.m., directly outside the open window by my head and one floor below, a garbage truck beep-beep-beeped into position and emptied a large dumpster entirely full of beer bottles, exploding like a glass bomb.

Let’s start keeping track. We’ll call this: Night #1 of Jim Not Experiencing REM Sleep.

The first day at AFF was a flurry of checking into the conference at the crazy-fancy Driskill Hotel, euphorically running from inspiring panel to enlightening panel, and sweating through my black suit-jacket the second I would step outside into the 90-degree, late-October, streets of Austin, Texas.

Later that day, at a gourmet grilled-cheese party, I was fortunate to meet some of my current close friends, like Carrie Wachob and Eric Cotten. This had been a great day.

That night, I slept for a solid, sweaty, noisy, two hours in a row. This is Night #2 of Jim Not Experiencing REM Sleep.

The following day, I was starting to feel periodic waves of nausea from the very real exhaustion setting i,n and my body was beginning to sway. I was glad that I’d decided not to drink alcohol at the conference. However, I was taking regular swigs from the Pepto-Bismol bottle I kept stowed in my jacket’s inside pocket, like a pink hip-flask.

I pushed through the discomfort, since I was about to have the opportunity to meet the Scriptnotes guys themselves, and maybe shake their hands after one of their panels. I wanted to thank them for all the great advice, tell them that I had started writing exactly when they started the podcast, and how it seemed serendipitous that their advice came when I needed it most.

But that’s not at all what was spoken from my intelligence-hole. When the chance came to shake their hands, I enthusiastically explained about listening to their podcast from the beginning and how, “… your advice came like you were reading my mind! I mean, you were, like, in my head. Like in my head in a really creepy way!” Craig seemed to minutely wince when I said the word “creepy.” And even after I noticed that, I inexplicably used the word “creepy” again when I spoke to John! They each seemed relieved to move on to the next fan.

Later that day, I found myself in line at a BBQ dinner with writer/producer Leslie Dixon, who was at the top of my people-to-find list. I was shocked when she recognized me from being in the front row of two of her previous sessions. Things were starting to turn around!

We started talking and getting along. I was thrilled! I had so many specific questions for her, and wondered if we’d sit down and even eat dinner together. My new best friend was going to be Leslie Dixon!

And while we stood in the buffet line, under a tent, scooping ribs and baked beans, she asked, “So, tell me… what fills your soul?”

I was struck dumb. Was this a test? Wait, what does fill my soul? My kids? My wife? Do I have a soul anymore from living for twelve years in nowhere-Maine? Would moving to L.A. fill my soul?

So, I took a deep breath, turned, smiled, and said, “Writing. I don’t know what I’d do without writing.”

She politely hmm’d at that. What a lame answer! I was so confused and mortified, I just wandered off in an existential daze, never to speak with her again.

But all that’s nothing compared to what’s coming.

Snoring, sweating, door slamming, glass exploding: Night #3 of Jim Not Experiencing REM Sleep.

This was the big day. I was heading to a session where I would pitch my movie to two professional screenwriter-judges, and if I was one of the top two pitches of that session, I would get to the Pitch Finals later that very evening.

I was so tired, I was drooling. As in, from time to time, liquid fell out of my mouth.

In that pitch session, I listened to some good and bad movie ideas, a couple of people rambled on for 4 minutes (well past the 90-second limit), and one woman bizarrely pitched her resume of contest wins. I was sitting next to a future good friend, Handsome Timmy -Tim Davis. The two of us shared thoughts on the pitches and our state of nervousness. I was terrified, and the room was spinning.

My name was called. I stood up, smiled at the judges, and when I finished my pitch, I had no idea how it went. The judges’ faces were blank.

They looked at each other, turned to me, and said, “That was perfect. We have no notes.”

I asked them if they were sure, since I couldn’t believe that I’d made it to the finals with a perfect movie pitch. But, apparently, according to them, I had.

Quick check-in: Does everyone remember the name of the character in my pitch, which is significant to this story? If you said Leena, you would be correct.

A half hour before the Pitch Fest, Nan — the pitch coordinator and the sweetest woman you would ever meet — was having trouble with the sound system. I’m kind of a sound geek, so I stepped in and fixed the technical issue. Nan was immensely appreciative, and I won some karma points.

We all pulled numbers out of a hat, and I was to be fourth in line, out of twenty pitches. The conference goers packed into the venue, and all my new friends sat around tables on the balcony to watch and cheer me on.

As the judges were introduced, my heart jolted with my very last squirt of adrenaline when I heard the name, “Lindsey Doran.”

At this point, my head felt like it was full of coleslaw.

The woman who was to pitch before me, number three, walked on stage.

She introduced herself and said, “I just wanted start off by telling you, I grew up in a cult. And the title of my screenplay is Leena.”

That’s right. The pitch before mine had to do with cults and was titled Leena. What are the odds? Correct, the odds are too great to consider. I was convinced I was hallucinating, and my head reeled as my two functioning brain cells tried to reconcile what I’d just heard.

Nan was standing nearby, and I asked, “Did she just say she grew up in a cult and her title is Leena?”

Nan said, “I think so.” I told her my dilemma and that I couldn’t directly follow her pitch. She said, “Oh dear! Let’s move you further down the line.”

Recently earned karma points: cashed.

When the next person came and went, taking my place in line, my friends in the balcony felt terrible, assuming I was in the bathroom puking until I was inside out.

When my turn finally came, I felt extra self-conscious about saying the word “cult” and the name “Leena” so many times, but I was getting the laughs from the audience where they were supposed to go, and I got a big roar of applause at the end.

“Yes!!” I thought, “My pitch was a success.”

The judges all disagreed with this assessment and had the same critique: “For a romantic comedy, I couldn’t feel that they were actually falling in love.” This elicited groans and grumbling from the audience. Lindsey Doran specifically said, “I was a bit distracted by your pitch style. You seemed kind of like a stand-up comedian.”

“Oh,” I thought to myself, “like a 1970’s-Steve-Martin-stand-up-comedian-wild-and-crazy-guy, perhaps?”

And, would you believe it, the Leena pitch won the competition. When I went to congratulate the winner, she said, “Thanks! I gotta run, Lindsay Doran wants to meet with me…”

Oof!

But, after attending three more AFFs, people still recognize me and say that mine was one of the best pitches they’d heard. So, that’s kind of nice.

And as I rewrote The Cult of Us, I realized Ren and Leena were not overtly falling in love during the course of the script. My pitch reflected this weakness, so the judges were correct! And a couple of drafts later, the script made the Academy Award’s Nicholl Fellowship Quarter-Finals, which is top 5% of submitted scripts. So, that’s kind of nice, too.

Since that first year, I’ve spent more energy at AFF making and reconnecting with friends, and not focused on “getting ahead” or “getting signed,” which is an easy trap to fall into with these kinds of events.

And do you know what was the best part of my first year at the Austin Film Festival? It was the day I arrived home in Maine, to the quiet, rolling hills, farms, and seaside… when I opened the front door of my house, walked right past my smiling wife and children, into to my bedroom, and fell asleep for 18 hours.

Side Note: The Firehouse Hostel has since fixed its air conditioning, and the doors no longer slam, so I would suggest staying there for those who need to stay in Austin on the cheap. They also no longer empty dumpsters in the middle of the night, and the hostel is literally across the street from the Driskill Hotel.

My black tux was a rental. Ali borrowed a pale, blue dress that accentuated her angular Scandinavian features and short, dirty blond hair. We never had occasion to get dressed up for anything, and we had never ventured beyond Olive-Garden-grade restaurants. But there we sat, at a large table, surrounded by about three hundred women and men dressed in gowns and tuxes, in a five-star Westchester, New York restaurant. The place was lit by the glow of a million white Christmas lights, strung over the vast dining room’s low, sloped ceiling.

The excitement was palpable, and the people were fascinating. Doctors, lawyers, businesspeople—they’d all inexplicably, and somewhat recently, decided to become computer programmers. As a senior in college, finishing off a questionable combined degree in philosophy and music studio recording at a small state college, I found their professional life choices bold and impressive on a number of levels.

I finished the last sips of what was the best cup of gourmet coffee I ever had when he strode into the room.

Rama was a handsome, white guy, with an aquiline nose, a helmet of blond curly hair (it was the early 90s), a black leather jacket, and jet-black sunglasses. He stepped onto the small, low stage, sentineled by two large, stunning arrangements of flowers.

At the microphone, Rama looked around with a grand, Tom Cruise smile. He performed a monologue about politics, movies, and meditation, which everyone in the room, including me, found hysterical. From time to time, he made little statements that sounded like deep, Zen puzzles, such as, “I like my students not to understand everything. If they understood everything, they would have nothing more to learn… Understand?”

He eventually sat on a stool and told us to meditate on him, with our eyes open, and watch what happened.

I got comfortable in my seat, took a few controlled breaths, and within a minute the entire room glowed as if every inch of the place, and everyone in it, had been inlaid with radiant gold leaf. I was slammed with a wave of pump-my-blood-with-opium-and-purring-kittens euphoria. I internally calculated that, if this is the kind of thing I experienced on my first night with Rama, it’s a no-brainer to follow this guy for the rest of my life. I was twenty-one years old.

Twenty-three years later, I can tell you with certainty that drugs had not been slipped to us, and the guy calling himself Rama was not emitting mystical energy. Those in the room, who shared this exact same vision, were what modern psychologists call: shitheads.

No, actually, the phenomenon is slightly more complex than that, but only slightly.

Let’s jump back to a month earlier, where we can watch the first stages of Jim getting fucked over.

As a twenty-one-year-old, my semi-unconscious plan was that Ali and I would get married, have kids early, make life decisions based on financial scarcity, and eventually get divorced. This world outlook was based on my childhood perceptions of how adults behaved and the inappropriately romanticized cautionary tales from after-school TV specials.

Here’s a vivid memory from immediately before my recruitment: I was manning the ice cream fountain at a customer-free Friendlies restaurant, in the depressed city of Fall River, Massachusetts. A co-worker was heading out on break and asked if there was anything I needed. My deadpan answer: “Spiritual fulfillment.”

Enter the Boston Meditation Society, which posted colorful fliers on every one of UMass Dartmouth’s concrete columns, announcing free meditation classes. I had always wanted to learn meditation, curious to see if it could calm my restless, distractible mind. And nothing sounded better to a college student without a pre-paid meal plan as “Free.”

That Thursday evening, Ali and I sat in a small classroom with eight other college students. Randy, the meditation teacher, was dressed in a business suit and tie, had kind, smiley eyes, and clearly loved talking about meditation. We finished an exercise where we concentrated on our breath with our eyes closed, and watched our thoughts float by. Then Randy talked about these people who could meditate really well, and how they gave off a kind of golden glow. You can see this glow depicted as halos in paintings of Jesus, Buddha, and saints from around the world. And for those who were spiritually sensitive… well, they got to see the glow.

For everyone keeping score at home, we’ll call this: Red Flag #1.

After going to a few of these mediation seminars and staying after to talk with Randy about spirituality and hear more stories of historically enlightened people, he invited Ali and me out to dinner at… Olive Garden. While Ali and I gorged on breadsticks, he clued us in that he could tell we were indeed spiritually sensitive people and that he could let us in on a little secret. He was a student of a guy who is one of these enlightened beings.

As crumbs fell from my mouth, I asked, “Oh, is his name Rama?”

(Wait, what? How did Jim know Rama’s name?)

Let’s jump back to a few years earlier to where we can see how the first seeds of Jim getting fucked over were sewn, ever so carefully.

In high school, I worked at a Bread and Circus health food store, a place that would soon be absorbed into the Whole Foods regime. As a dorky 16-year-old, I was interested in the supernatural, like ghosts and ESP, and I would incessantly talk with my coworkers about that kind of stuff, as I cleaned and rinsed lettuce in the produce prep room sink. There was a married couple, who I worked with, who said that it sounded like I should go hear their guru speak, since he knew a lot about the supernatural and was a really cool guy.

They gave me a tape of this Rama person lecturing about meditation and the mystical powers that it can bring. When it came time to take me to the seminar, they were told by someone in their organization, at the last minute, that I couldn’t go since I was under 18.

Back to the Olive Garden, where Randy was staring at me with bugged-out eyes: I was a cult recruiter’s wet dream.

For those keeping score at home, we’re going to stop counting Red Flags. This entire piece is a list of Red Flags.

So Ali and I got a box set of Rama tapes, on which Rama discussed, in a smooth, cool tone, techniques for “Buddhist” meditation and the mind states to carry when walking around in the world. We listened to these tapes all the time and learned that people vibrated, spiritually, on different frequencies, and that those who vibrated at lower frequencies drained everyone around them. We’ve all been around those people.

And since, according to Randy, Ali and I naturally vibrated at a higher frequency, the key to spiritual growth was to meditate and save your energy from being drained by slower-vibrating people. That way we can grow a savings account of, what is called, Kundalini. This will eventually lead to enlightenment. And by studying with a teacher like Rama, we get an extra boost of Kundalini every time we meditate with him, and instead of having to reincarnate for a thousand lifetimes to gather enough Kundalini, we could attain enlightenment in just one. In the world of Buddhism, this is considered a sweet deal.

We also learned that our minds start out as pure vessels, and when we have a negative thought about anything, especially during meditation, we should give it a little shove aside. We’re just picking up negative psychic junk from the slower-vibrational people for miles around. I had some doubts, but it didn’t sound entirely implausible.

Randy told us that Rama was coming to the East Coast to speak at a formal dinner. It cost $300 per person (1992 money) to get into the event, but since Ali and I showed such promise, and Randy was such a successful computer programmer, he was going to pay our way.

That brings us to the tuxes, gowns, delicious food, and Christmas lights.

That night, Ali didn’t see the golden glow during the meditation, but she did feel a surge of good feelings. What she also felt, like all of the people who didn’t see anything that night, was that she was somehow lacking and would have to work harder or somehow be more worthy to see the gold. Since we walked in wanting 1) to be special, and 2) for life to have some magic, they had us, whether we saw the gold or not.

In a short time, after that first of many nights in the presence of Frederick Lenz (aka Rama), I would start organizing every item of clothing by color, keep an OCD-clean apartment, quit college (with 9 credits to go) so I could lie my way into a computer programming career, break up with Ali (relationships drain the spiritual path), and decide to move away from my family (more drains) and never again see anyone I ever knew. I’m leaving out the two dozen other compulsions and anxieties I learned over this course of time.

There are entire books that discuss how all the visual effects and my rapid personality/belief changes were possible, such as Lifton’s, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, and the more recent and more practical book by Steven Hassan, Combating Cult Mind Control.

But the bottom line is this: I was under hypnosis. Just like at a hypnosis show, where a person, within a matter of minutes, goes into a trance and then behaves like a chicken or believes they’ve lost their penis. From the very first night of Randy’s lecture, I was being taught the techniques to regularly put myself under hypnosis.

After meditating or praying, you go into an otherwise healthy trance state, but also become open to suggestion. So, Randy’s stories about seeing halos, which were told to us right after meditation, went into a personal database of possible experiences I would have with someone I believed to be enlightened. “Rama” was an expert in talking in the same way a hypnotist would, but his trance-inducing speech was camouflaged as stories and jokes. He didn’t have to say what to see, since my brain had Randy’s stories stored away, so I experienced a kind of waking dream.

When I meditated using “Rama’s” techniques by pushing away negative thoughts, I was training my subconscious to quickly and efficiently avoid critical thought. Good luck convincing someone in a cult that they are in a cult. They will just hear static.

As you read this and think your brain is too strong to be hypnotized, congratulations. That is precisely the mind state someone needs to be hypnotized. Your guard is down, dude.

In fact, if you went away for a three-day or week-long “retreat” with some of these cults, it doesn’t even matter if your guard is up; they’re experts in breaking you down. The recruiters are doing it out of good, since they believe they are saving your soul or the world.

If you have ever read a book or watched TV and didn’t hear someone trying to talk with you, you have experienced a trance state. When you watch TV or a movie, you suspend judgment about reality and get absorbed into the story. Your reality becomes the show’s reality, for a time. And like in prayer and meditation, when you go into this altered state, you are open to suggestion for a while afterward. This is why there are commercials.

Some of us are more susceptible to a given cult based on where we are in our lives, especially if we have moved, have lost a loved one, or feel unsure about our future. There is a cult to fulfill any hole we might have in our lives, and cults try to recruit smart people, since smart people do better work. The more brains you have, the more brains they have to grab onto.

You think you’re smart, so if you’re convinced of something, you must be right. You’re smart.

Not only are there spiritual and religious cults, but there are business, political, and psychological/relationship cults. They all operate the same way using the same mind control techniques; they just use different terms and attract people with specific needs.

My cult didn’t have a compound, and we didn’t dress differently or eat different food. We meditated in private and worked hard to get computer programming jobs. Unless I was trying to recruit you, you’d never know I was in a cult. Even then, you probably didn’t know I was in a cult, since I was just trying to get you to a meditation class. I’ve even heard of cults recruiting through soccer clubs and knitting circles.

What could I have done differently? There was no internet in the early 90s on which to look stuff up. I would have had to search through old articles on Microfiche, which was always hit or miss at best. Now, I would just look up the organization online and add the word “cult” or “abuse” to the search terms. You’ll quickly see if the group you are researching is an alias for a larger organization and/or if they have a history of manipulation, lying, and abuse. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

And above all, I would not walk into a meeting/retreat of a controversial organization, by myself, with the attitude of, “Eh, I’ll just check them out. If they’re fake, I’ll be able to tell and I’ll just walk away.”

Yeah, don’t do that.

If someone gets hypnotized in less than two minutes at a hypnosis show, what could happen when you listen to a cult recruiter or leader speak for hours or days?

Everyone who gets trapped in a destructive cult had moments of doubt in the beginning. The nail in the coffin is when they gave the cult some more time to prove itself.

I ultimately got out with help when my concerned high school friends and family joined forces, did the research on how to communicate with a cult member who cannot think critically, and engaged me in a peaceful intervention.

But all that’s for another post. It was dramatic, to say the least.

They even got Ali out.