Interview Episode: Victorian Inquiry into Cults with Ryan & Catherine Carey

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You can potentially save thousands of dollars every year, pay off your loan quicker, and get a refinance cashback. Mention Let's Talk About Sets and on settlement of a loan, Money Saver Home Loans will donate $250 to support the podcast. Let's Talk About Sets really appreciates their support. The Parliament of Victoria has recently launched an inquiry into the recruitment methods and impacts of cults and organised fringe groups, which is open for submissions until the 31st of July 2025. If you or anyone you know has been involved with a cult that has a presence in Victoria, Australia, I highly encourage you to make a submission. There's also an anonymous questionnaire option available for those who might not wish to make a full submission. Find all the links in the show notes or on our website. Ryan and Catherine Carey are two former members of the Jolong Revival Centre who, along with a working group of other cult survivors, have been at the forefront in instigating this inquiry. They gave me some of their time to explain how it came about, and what information the inquiry is seeking from the public. Welcome to Let's Talk About Sets, a podcast about cults around the world. I'm your host Sarah Steele. Before we get into the episode of Content Warning, this podcast deals with issues that some people may find disturbing related to emotional abuse and controlling behaviours. This episode also includes mentions of child sexual abuse and suicide. Please use your discretion as to whether this will be suitable for you and those around you who may be listening to. Please also consider supporting this project via Patreon. Let's talk about sects has now been running for seven years and has always remained completely independent. It relies on listener support to remain viable. Now on with the show. You might recall the Jolong Revival Centre from my interview episode in January with journalist Richard Baker, who is the creator of the Secrets We Keep podcast. Ryan and Catherine Carey's story can be heard in greater detail on that podcast, and I really recommend the listen. But what they've achieved since it was released has amazed me. Over the seven plus years that I've been working in this area, it's the most promising development I've seen in Australia. Along with a wonderful group of cult survivors, including Laura McConnell, who spoke with me for our episode about the two-by-two's back in October 2020. They secured the support of Victoria's Labour State Member for Jolong and Parliamentary Secretary for First People's Christine Cousins and Victorian Attorney General Sonja Kilkenny, who launched the current inquiry into the recruitment methods and impacts of cults and organized fringe groups which opened last month. I couldn't wait to hear more about Ryan and Catherine's work and share how others can get involved. So first up, can you each give me a bit of background about the personal experiences that led you into the advocacy work that you're doing now? So I grew up in a cult in Jolong, called the Jolong Revival Centre. It's quite an old cult. The cult leader died last year, was he 92? In his 90s. My father was, he's right-hand man, sick and in charge of the cult, it was a global cult. When I left it was, I had a lot of information, true stuff my father had said, and I'd seen a lot of damaged people and I spoke to other people from cults and it just seemed to be a non-stop meat grinder of people going into these cults and I'm coming out damaged in the other end. And it's just something that I felt that we needed to stop at the root, really. The thing that made me leave the cult, the main reason was watching how people with mental illness got treated. I suffered from anxiety, CPTSD and I was getting help secretively while I was in the cult and I was watching the cult leader put people out of fellowship for psychiatric issues. I watched him put a person out that was made depressive and I was just watching this cycle of people that were suffering from these conditions and being put out of fellowship or being told that they were broken or it was a devil that was causing it or was there fault for their psychiatric conditions. And on top of that, I think it goes into the podcast, the horrors of the Gelano Revival Centre in the secrets we take podcast with Richard Baker and yeah when I left I left with a mission really and so I left wanting to dump enough information out there that survivors felt like they weren't the only ones and they're not crazy, it wasn't them, it was that cult that did it to them. So that's how it all started really. Yeah and we look, we've both got a background in trades, both got a background as volunteer firefighters, I think we're used to fixing the problem and and not just, yeah I think we're just used to. We wanted to put the fire out and then clean up the mess instead of just trying to clean up the mess while the fire kept going. Yeah and so which let us down this journey and it was good, there was good survivors from our group that joined up with us, we know Jeremy first and he started the Facebook page, made him a mate and we discussed it, he started up, got it going which is good that ended up being about 320 ex members that we can start putting information there that hey we can group you together, you don't have to do this alone, you don't have to do this by yourself and that ended up being a very positive experience and then it was just on and on. Catherine did you want to share anything about your background with this organisation as well and what led you into this advocacy work? Yes I joined when I was 19 so I came along and joined the cult then and obviously we Ryan and I got married and had children and everything like that and we left during, I left during COVID about 18 months after Ryan and for a while I didn't really want to, it wasn't sort of top of my mind doing any advocacy work until it was looking on the Facebook page and seeing the number of damaged people but damaged in different ways but all the very similar story, you know a lot of them grew up in that place and had no choice about attending there and others had joined when they were at a really vulnerable point in their life and it was like a meat grinder just watching these people come out the other side and we talked about you know there's got to be something that can be done to stop these places and we sort of looked at could you get it shut down but you see these places and they get shut down and someone just starts up another one it's just another they phoenix themselves into another organisation they splinter and become different and or they go underground and so we sort of wanted to look at where could we try and look at stopping their actual abuse if they want to worship in that way it should be fine it's more a matter of how do we prevent the abuse happening and so we we'd I'd seen on the algorithm really got us on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok and that's sort of where we'd seen the religious coercion and then the laws had changed in Queensland to actually make it a inner domestic situation a criminal offense for coercive control and we sort of that was sort of the the catalyst the catalyst for us going well hang on what about organisations coercive control and that was sort of what started out journey because we were both aware that being a cult is very similar to being a domestic violence situation and there's a lot more moment when Catherine goes well I think this is how we hit it and she brought up what the laws of being talked about in Queensland and it fit our experience and it just made a lot of sense that that was the path we needed to go on and bring public awareness to hey look these are such similar situations that's a solution for that it is transferable to this situation that we're in so we started dumping it to Mason online what I knew about the cult and we got everyone together we've done a couple of news paper articles Ryan Van Laugh who is an absolute genius of a man he started interviewing people for a podcast because podcasts get get changed the long format podcast will get changed he actually started emailing out like secretly an emailing out reporters and sitting down having coffees with him to make sure that they're going to be the best compassionate person for the mix and one of the guys email does Richard Baker Richard Baker grew up in gelong he's dad nearly got sucked into the cult he actually knew quite a few of the cult members itself so that was the right fit Ryan did an amazing job at facilitating that and seeing the opportunity there to make that happen and right in himself an amazing person he is responsible for the blood test for melanoma quite an incredible individual who may catch from both live dearly but he's on the podcast itself but yeah he brought that to light but when Richard approached us with the idea of interviewing us for the podcast we thought about it and we decided if we're going to we're going to share our trauma we're going to get something back in return and we're going to use it instead of just letting it be trauma porn for people to listen to and then never think about again we're going to use it to fuel change if we could so that's sort of that was when we really started knuckling down it was it was an interesting time too because at that stage people were actually too frightened to talk a lot of people had family connections into the place and me being me I just went I wanted to say the what's my eyes I want him to didn't know it's me I'm gonna use my own name and show him I'm not afraid of him there was a lot of people who would speak but they'd use a pseudonym zoom in right now I want him to know it's me I want him to know that I'm not afraid of him anymore and that was good because that was a catalyst for other people to start man Catherine several both going to use our names and then that started the ball rolling as far as other people speaking publicly using their own names and actually standing up and even I think now if we put the shout out into the group there's a lot of people that will actually talk talk is what a people willing to talk it's a hard thing to ask somebody to do that I know it's not a lot thing I still have a family that are in the cult and you know once you talk that that relationship any height like it's already dead but it's doubly dead if you talk about the horrors of that place because they see you as a dog returning to their its own vomit in the minute you speak about the horrors that place you are the worst person on the planet and it wasn't a decision that I think man Catherine took lightly to talk but we knew if we didn't talk that place we get away with it and we weren't prepared to let that happen at all and at the slightest you know at the best hope it was hey let's stop the victims getting sucked into there let's maybe save people from going in but now now it's a different story so it all started with that that's yeah it's so incredible and I mean I think that that's a really big driver in why people talk to me on my podcast as well as just to try and protect other people but coming out with this with this mission a lot of people come out of a group like that and they want to take that specific group down because of their experiences and what's so incredible about what you've done is you've looked at it from a holistic perspective cultic groups and how they operate and brought in other people with those experiences to try and affect change and it's so incredible so let's start with stop religious coercion Australia and what you're looking to achieve with that organization and how people can get involved so we initially wanted to form it probably about a year or so ago probably more than that but we had a gag or to put on us during the podcast that we couldn't speak publicly so we put it on hold put it on hold which we didn't want to do but it was always sitting there that we had to formalise and legitimise and go forward that way and start a public push we start to that main mission because we wanted to keep it to coercion because that was that was the tool that the cult uses to control its members so we kept it very focused in that path so that's the reason we started it so we set up the I think we'd set up the Facebook group first and the TikTok about the same time and we'd invited a few other ex members who had really good skills in different areas asked if they would like to help us with it because we're not we've only got certain skills that we can use and we knew that we couldn't do everything because it's a big job so we thought all right this is the stuff we can do let's find the people who can do other tools to get us across the line but we also wanted anyone to join the Facebook group just so they could feel like they had somewhere that they could put things up and say I know people in this group are going to understand what I'm saying that I've been in a group that a religious organisation that used coercive control and I I thought it was just me is a common one I thought I was the only one who'd suffered this we've got to a certain level with the advocacy where we needed to pull in other coping attempts for other advocates that was the other thing we were looking for we knew it couldn't be just a extra long revival centric group we wanted more than that even though we'd like our extra long while people and put our nose down and bum up and and we're willing to do the work but we got to a stage where we realised that hey look we know that our story is replicated across Australia a lot of our ex members listen to your podcast so the similarities are across the board we're well aware of this and that we really needed to stop working our own silo and start opening it up also they needed a point where the broader population could see the work being done and understand and get to join that sort of push having a close survivor group is great but it's only for ex members and the outside world might not know what's going on in that environment and that needs to be a protected environment for ex members to feel psyched in that's why we we start up the Facebook with the Tiktok C Instagram I've flipped out my phone and started doing videos the start of it I think it took me about 80 times for the first video so only 60 for the second and I can't watch the older ones because I'm like oh man and then veterans like just leave the imperfections in there that's all good so yeah that's when we started really pushing with the group we had the meeting with Christine cousins which was amazing like was was absolutely amazing we also needed to know that they're yeah we've got this great podcast there but they need to be a groundswell of people that know what's going on so we we started the group and started pushing really amazing and so the bigger picture and what has come of this initial meeting I don't know how long ago it was with Christina cousins is there is this current Victorian Parliament inquiry into the recruitment methods and impacts of cults and organized fringe groups so I mean incredible that this is happening can you tell me what this inquiry is looking into and how people with experiences in these groups in Victoria can get involved so they're looking into how cults recruit people and the behaviors that they use to control them so it isn't anything to do with beliefs that people have or beliefs that the groups have because that's no one's here to tell people this is how you should be worshipping and this is how you can't worship the way you want to but it's more looking at the group is try if a group is trying to control someone under the guise of their religious freedoms that's not actually okay and it's also I don't think there's many religions in the world that say you should be able to be controlled by someone else so most of them preach about you know the golden rule of treating others as you treat yourself and that's definitely not what happened in the place we grew up we're in and it's not what happens in so many of these cults and they're also very interested which is I was really pleased to see in how they recruit because all of these cults of praying on vulnerable people and people who are in often desperate situations people who are in have had traumatic events happen to them and are looking for comfort people who are lonely and looking for community and so I think if we can drill down into that we can find a way that they can continue worshipping their god or their faith or their yoga or you know if it's a multi-level marketing scheme anything they want they can continue to do that because it's that in itself is not the issue but it's when the people running the place are actually controlling who you can marry you know where you can live your finance what you're spending your money on and things like that that is when the government's really interested in hearing from people just so that they know the actual tools that these places are using in order to to control them you should be going to go to your church and come out the same or better than when you when you got there and there's plenty of churches that I like that when people go they go on you know whatever day of the week they want to go and they leave and then they don't have to think about it obsessively until the following week when they go again so look a lot of people from the cult that I grew up in a lot of kids in their adults it's surprising the amount of numbers that have been dying as a CPTSD and that goes through the controlling and fearful stuff they put in our head there's so much that needs to be fixed in these situations and it's great we've got the parliament inquiry there's a lot it's all open now there's a type of a people to tell their stories but it's been the Wild West as far as cults go and you know because you see it every week these places have been ungoverned unchecked and unruly really you know everyone should have a right to worship but no one has the right to cause permanent damage to people and when you're in one of these places you feel like you are owned by the cult leader you feel like you're absolutely owned by the cult leader and you don't feel like you have any rights you're just there to obey and it's a horrible place to be and it needs to stop really you know it's just it's been the Wild West for too long really but they've got an excellent their terms of reference are very clear that they're they're not interested at all in what the actual worship is of the group they are only interested in the behavior so which is amazing which is good yeah I might actually quote a portion of the definitions that were provided in the inquiry because I was like really impressed with it and so it says a cult is best understood as a group defined not by its beliefs but by its behavior while the term is sometimes applied to fringe religious spiritual or ideological movements it more accurately refers to groups that use manipulative or controlling tactics to dominate members cults typically demand excessive loyalty to a leader or cause and employ various harmful coercive techniques that can harm individuals emotionally psychologically financially or even physically and I mean this is this is so important that we understand that this is not about religion and religious freedom and you alluded to it earlier when you when you mentioned kind of yoga groups and you know multi-level like the cults come from all different types of organizations it's even though your group is about religious coercion it's also outside of religion religion can be used in such a powerful way to control people if a group is cultic because of that sort of spiritual element to it and the afterlife and the kind of ramifications of all of that stuff but many of these other groups are not religious at all so it's like to me so important to disentangle it from that religious freedom idea so that good good religious people of which there are so many who are practicing in ethical ways should be on side with this inquiry completely right I've been amazed by the positive feedback I've had from different faith groups and I've had a lot of conversations with Muslims that when I when I go through the whole what we're trying to achieve this is what we're doing and they're like incredibly supportive and they're like yeah like we're not giving any away we'll actually support you we think this is a good idea we've had Christian groups when you explain it to them hey look we want to make this safe we want to make this place safe cults are no good for any mainstream religion at all they're negative and they're all they're negative for society in general but when you explain hey let's make it safe let's clean up these aspects you know I've had Jewish people say to me like this is good each mainstream religion has cult offshoots it's not just Christianity that that has this problem we're talking about it from a penny fossil Christian background because that's what I know but I know this is replicated across the board and there are people out there from every single faith group that will acknowledge it and want it stopped as well so the Muslims are great like you know I had to Muslim men to do my MBN this week and I was sort of explaining to them and they they they were playing away they thought it was fantastic and then I love it they bless you they bless your house and they bless the car you came in and stuff like that but yeah I've it's really changed my perspective we came from an environment where we were told that every other religion out there was bad and evil and I think we were told the Catholic church were the antichrist and the Muslims were going to be discouraged for the West and all this sort of stuff and then in the end of the day people are people you know people are people wanting to you know if they want to worship they should be able to worship freely and safely and I think that's a common it's a common problem for everyone and I think that's something that everyone desires and these cults occur normally when you get a charismatic cult leader that's got bad intent in any across any mainstream religion or any religion wants to rise up and any fructies bad will on people and they've never been put in check yet so I think this is a very common problem I think this is a language that we can broaden across the board and identify the risk really yeah fantastic and I just wanted to sort of rewind to the submissions process for the inquiry itself so one thing I wanted to mention for anyone who might be considering making a submission is that you know a lot of people they'll get in touch with me but they they feel that they can't talk about their experience because of fears of defamation but if you make a submission and it's published under a parliamentary inquiry that is under parliamentary privilege so that means that there can't be any legal action as a result of that submission so I would want to encourage people to think about maybe submitting if they've been potentially afraid to speak openly about it in other avenues and I guess I just want to ask what sort of people should be submitting to this inquiry anyone infected by a cult or one of these coercive control groups anyone if you're a family member that's being sucked in definitely do it if you're a friend that you're mourning a loss of and I do get I get messages flat out and you know I do get messages from people that have a real sorrow for friends that have been sucked into these groups and all of some they've lost them put us a machine you know if you're a man it's plenty of male victims out there that are probably too afraid to to talk you know but I know plenty of men that have lost their families to cults or be destroyed by these places put a submission in anyone that's been affected if you're disabled put a submission in if you feel that your language or your written understanding is not great contact us will help you put put it in we're not going to put words in your mouth but we'll sit down and make sure your voice is heard and the other thing is if you feel like there's a lot of damaged people out there who probably might not have the capacity to write a submission but there's also a questionnaire you can do on the website and so you can just answer some questions about them and they can just get a general overview so you don't have to go into as much detail as you might need to in a submission but you can just do the questionnaire and if you do that a submission you can do the questionnaire as well you can do both of them with the parliamentary privilege it's only you can't republish your submission yourself and be under parliamentary privilege it's only what the parliament publishes for you and you can also if you're worried about your submission being read by someone who you might feel like you would be unsafe or anything you parliament can redact your name and any identifying details as well that's part of the submission process they're happy to do that for you they want your submission more than they need your name put out there it's mainly if you've been affected by a cult in Victoria or if you connected to that cult in Victoria so it might that clear yes there's been a bit of a fad I've noticed and you would have noticed it as well about cults have tended lately have threatened litigation to silence people I get this so much and I always wanted would they spend a hundred grand to have all their dirty secrets put out in the open but look they they do threaten litigation and it is a scary experience do they go through with it very rarely but occasionally they do and it not only backfires if that it's something that I know is when somebody threatens you with that it's daunting this is your opportunity to talk this is your one shot to put a submission in where you can tell your story and you do not have any fear of that there will be no blowback on the individual and it's one time you can tell your story and it has a major impact a lot of us carry the sorrow of people lost and there's people that witness now that will never tell a story and a lot of us carry that every day and there's a lot of people that are affected by it and it's the one opportunity that you can make a difference we get a right in Victoria this can roll across the states I know New Zealand are looking at it and this is the first time this will be done ever and look if you do one thing do this please yeah and I want to just yeah reiterate what you were saying there about for people in other states in Australia I think it yeah we'll all have our eye on this and the hope is that actually if a Victorian inquiry kind of comes out with some really solid recommendations that other states will look to that as an example you know and ideally not have to go through an inquiry process as well because it can be a pretty full-on experience yeah that's yeah that's the hope for us too we think that if the Victorian government have taken this on really well they've been really supportive of us they were very supportive when we went to speak with them and they've taken on board what we've said and they're willing to look at an issue that's been around for as long as you know some of these cults have been around for generations and generations of children being turned through in the meat grinder and so we're hopeful that the Victorian government can come out with you as you said some really solid recommendations and it means that other states won't have to go through and people won't have to tell their stories the Victorian system as far as parliamentary inquiry is is really robust and it's very effective and it's known globally as being a very robust and effective system that we can we can do some really really good work in this situation if you look at other parliamentary inquiries and the outcomes and the amount of detail that's gone in and how far they're willing to go with recommendations I'm very confident that we can do a lot of good good in this space I'm so happy that they're starting to be inundated with submissions like I am I'm so pleased but please do not stop because this is a big problem and we've opened that Pandora's box and finally finally there's light coming in to a shameful part of society that people have felt ashamed to talk about it please talk you don't have to be ashamed that shame isn't yours it's those cult leaders or those people in those groups that have done it it's their shame you know they've made you hide it this is time for you you can you can talk you can you can stop this so the more submissions in the better really an easy parent and place place if you go to get in touch with it we've got people who sit down and help you right work upwards in your mouth but we just want everyone's voice to be heard that's it yeah and you're you're totally right that for some people it's particularly if the background has been in a very highly controlling group and maybe they haven't got a great education or whatever it might be difficult for them to to put a submission together and go through that process but it's it's great that you can offer that that help to them or they can do that questionnaire education in cults like a lot of cults homeschool homeschool there's no emphasis on further learning or education as well especially for women yeah so yeah it's important that we're that people in that situation feel that they they have a voice and a lot of people are ashamed at their level of education or their written skill or their their verbal skills like we're okay with that you know we love you and we just want you to tell your story if that's you know like yeah it's not your fault we love you you'll be right yeah and I think it's it's maybe it comes as a surprise to the people and the receiving end of these submissions that you say that they've already inundated but it's really I mean I'm telling this to people all the time since I started this podcast it's just obviously it's a subject that has come up in my general conversations a lot more than it ever did before and it's totally unsurprising to me because any time I talk to someone about this subject someone I've never met before I'm like chatting to them at a bar right they will know someone who joined a cult they'll have a family member who like it's just it's so much more of a common experience than people actually realize so I think this being the opportunity to kind of show legislators how big of a problem this is is just you know it can't be emphasized enough like what a great opportunity it is I think for too long it's been put in that too high basket and they've got a way to say or religious freedom and now that is with the way social media is and information flow and people ask getting the courage to talk but podcasts let yourself is addressing this and which we're grateful for it's sort of like all these rubbish has been swept under the carpet all of sudden it can't be swept under the carpet anymore that there's a big pile there you can't hide and in society and look why don't you start talking about it everyone knows somebody that's been affected by a cult or lost a family member by a cult or even Jolong Jolong's a big small town but why don't you say I look I was in the Jolong revival center oh man the stories that come up and the people affected and these sort of like two degrees of separation by somebody that's been affected by that one place let alone the hundreds and hundreds are the costetta and so it's 1500 registered religions in Victoria so there'd be and not all of them are registered as religions yeah and I'm starting not to be surprised now like I thought like I was across it and there's so many different ones that are starting to pop up that I just and now people are talking all have somebody contacting about this one and I think I've heard it all and yeah I just seems like daily I'm getting my mind blown by another one really so and their tools are all the same they do the same thing across the board if so as coercion goes they just give himself different names really yeah that's exactly right and I've been doing this for seven years and I think everyone expects that I must have heard of every cult that exists I'm getting emails all the time have you do you know this one I'm like no I never heard of them because that's just for everyone that that kind of winds up there's another one that pops out again so it's sort of until we can name the behaviors and you know through these coercive control laws I think that absolutely is it makes total sense to me and I like I wrote about this in my book as well I'm just there has to be a way to deal with all of these things and so I guess in terms of like what might be the future when we hopefully get some good recommendations from this inquiry I just wondered from your own experiences and others that you've heard about in your advocacy work what are the main things you think we could be doing to better protect people from cultic groups and to help those who exit one of these high control organisations Renee Spencer she's on TikTok I think as exposing cults yeah she's very passionate about the idea of having education for kids sort of in the same vein as teachers consent laws which we've now got in Australia she's it should be it should be shown ways to be aware of a high control or cultic group science to be aware of because if you can give kids the tools to know what these groups look like or if a group's slowly changing that they're already in into one of these places it can help them prevent them being sucked in or know when to extract themselves a lot of cults really prey on teenagers they know that teenagers are just by their very nature in conflict with their parents and they're in a vulnerable situation and also looking for community so they're very susceptible yeah very susceptible to give that like a little bit of context Renee Spencer lost her own daughter to the Jesus Christians when she was a teenager yeah yeah yeah and so and she's got some amazing work that she's doing in that space and it's such a great idea to be able to say you're never going to be able to shut all of them down some of them will hide and go underground and things like that the idea is to make a mainstream bring him into the light make him mainstream or like there has to be enforcement in this we have to make this behavior criminal because it helps race like a biker gang or like you're looking at criminal organization the standard of tactics that threats they just do it under the guise of religion or faith or spirituality so there has to be an enforcement and protection but also education for the groups yeah for them to this is what you should do and rehabilitation really yeah but also there's there's no there's no training required for anyone who's becoming a leader of one of these groups so that's something an area that um there's so there needs to be an order in process where I would really love to see a system where hey look whatever back to stretch down the road each year goes gets ordered their child safety policies get checked you know do you have really good child safety policies yes all right can we have a look and yep they're up to scratch do you have a reporting system for abuse do you a manager yes we've got that this is our systems we got that what else is it does your ministers have mental health third first day training crew as a minimum I think that's incredibly important because in that space officially faith base it draws people with a lot of psychiatric issues and you could have a schizophrenic person or a person with cyclosis walking to a place like that and becoming incredibly damaged and that could feed into that person's ideations and make it worse I'd seen that happen so many times or they'll start blaming that person like their possessed and their mental illnesses there if there is shoes so I think giving these people an understanding of mental health and mental health first aid and stuff like that is it is crucial because it's just a make-grinder for people like that so that's one aspect that I think is is critical but being able to say this is a safe place to worship they're getting ordered they're getting checked and they're even after the stand itals even I'd love to see like worksafe posters for coercion in some of these places so you know I think you get a building site you've got worksafe in your lunchroom there's all these mandatory worksafe posters on the wall hey like this is coercion and this is what to look at this is a reporting number you know some really proactive stuff that could be done in this space which would change it if we get rid of the coercion we can make these places safe they either gonna play nice or they're gonna disappear and if they want to keep this behaviour yeah they deserve to disappear they deserve to not exist they cannot continue to keep doing the damage they're doing they need to reform and I think there's so much scope we can do but it needs oversight and needs governance and needs auditing and needs framework there to fix this issue and it also means that for people looking for a church or somewhere to worship they can they can no we can they can have it they can have a little sticker on their door saying safe place to worship yeah this is not a cult yeah we'll workshop the sticker we'll say this is something that places worship should strive to have you know they should be proud it's they can pass an order every year and tell everyone hey this is a safe place to worship like this is actually a good thing for you to do in an environment where a lot of these places get a lot of bad press it should be something they strive for and it could be a positive place for these for any religious or group to heart hey look this place is free from coercion this is a child's safe place we have systems and practices in place you then one thing about the child's hate is like you know my cult used to be proud I you know all our Sunday school teachers have have working with children's checks you know and they used to carry on like that was a good thing and yeah it was a good thing but the working with children tech just means that person has a main court yes if they're there you know the pedophile that got caught now called how to working with children's check there wasn't systems or processes in place to mitigate that risk you know there wasn't a never alone with that child policy there wasn't an ability to to stop it before it happens and there was an education program or whatever so it there's a lot of work that needs to be done to clean up this space it feels like when workplaces were at the wild west back in the 60s and 70s and people were dying on the building side all over the place like cults are like that like they're like these unsafe workplace or unsafe place to be let's make them safe really and while it is a lot of work it's also not like it's all these policies like there's already child safe policies that if you have children in your organization you're supposed to have them but they're not ordered and things like that so a lot of these organizations would already have all the all their child's extended all their mandatory reporting up to scratch but if it's just a matter of having someone come once a year and check it and then don't give them a big tick and saying and having a reporting hotline where people can reach out and and say hi is this right or this has happened to me is this right um actually putting a bit of fear into these leaders because that they get away with treating people horrendously and you don't have any rights in that place a minute that you're fallen out of favor with the cult leader or the leader of that group you are disposable I think everyone needs to realize if you're in a cult or a high-demand religion or one of these groups you are a disposable asset to that leader you have no rights we need to give protection and rights to the people in this place so they're not disposable and the leaders are now unnoticed they have to behave or else you know you behave because I don't trust them to do it themselves because they haven't in the past so well you're flipping the power dynamics so now it's the the people who have the power yeah are they leaders yeah and I think what you said earlier about you know educating the groups themselves and rehabilitating them is so important too because even if you have a leader who is consciously using those controlling tactics you probably have many many members who don't recognise that that's what's happening so if those members can understand and recognise coercive control they can start to see it and but I also think that there are many groups that wouldn't maybe technically have enough coercive control to maybe qualify as a cult but they are using a few of these techniques yeah and if they understood the damage of them it would they they would be happy to actually try and fix 100% we're looking at identifying it before it gets too far so we're working with great people like there's some great people in the working group Claire and Patrick Makawa legends Renee Spence Laura McConnell and others like you know we we have some really great stuff we're working on to identify these groups before they tip over the edge or maybe pull them back from the edge as well like hey you're getting a bit too far this is behaviour let's pull it back a little bit let's just get you back into a safe level so the part of the enforcement area is going to have to be a rehabilitation period or an opportunity to change really but yeah there's some really good positive stuff that's being worked on currently and it's exciting really by some brilliant people too yeah just some some great people so it's fun it's all not fun it's it's it's inspiring really yeah so yeah fun's probably not the right word yeah yeah it's just really hopeful stuff there can be done really so yeah well yeah I really can't wait to hear what's next I will have links to the inquiry and submissions what's the best way for people to contact you if they do need a bit of help you can contact us through our webpage as an email address there or Facebook group or TikToks there's also the between cults of live network we work really heavily hand in hand with them Renee and Laura and Clara on that so the version broke is in constant contact with each other so the cults of live network is a close group as well there's people there that will help you we just want to make sure everyone submissions gets forward and just don't waste this opportunity please so if you're not doing it for you do it for the children who are trapped in these places because there are thousands of them who don't have a voice and can't speak yeah but all of us have an opportunity to speak now and we can do it to ensure that no one else gets trapped in these places well I might never see my family members I might never be have a good relationship with my family that's in the cult of regain but I could probably sleep better at night knowing that that place is safe you know there are people that I care about and and still love that are in that place I think I can make it safe before and you know we've got the opportunity to to bring a bit of order to this chaotic situation so hopefully you can run you out of podcasts like hopefully we can maybe do you out of a job inside I'm I would be I would be so happy if I could retire the project that would be amazing you've probably got enough still just backlogs you know it'd be good to stop cult documentaries being on TV all this time because they run out and they run out of work but look yeah I think it's it's time for it to happen really so I don't want another kid to be born into the same situation I was born into there was no one doing this for me when I was growing up and it's a lonely experience growing up in a cult and you know there's so many damaged people there's so many suicides from all these places there's so many victims it's it's been overdue really but now is the time there's a time well I just want to thank you both again so much first for taking the time to speak with me but most of all for all of the work you've done in this space it's incredibly inspiring I'm so excited by it and just a huge a huge thing we're not the only ones working it a massive group effort some great people Brian's just on the tic-tops yeah probably see my face front and center that we're all we're all working flat out we couldn't have done it alone yeah never got and we would have been slaving away for years trying to find the right path to take but I think we would we would drive behind from the ages the attorney general meeting was quite a powerful meeting and we could sense that something was going to happen and I think we had drinks afterwards we'd run them and we sort of looked at each other and we're like wow this is happening and we're like wow okay the next step and I remember the main captain going home just looking at each other are these things to be happening will need help and you know we need to pull in as the best people we can and it's just at ease happened it has happened and everyone in this space is just so victim oriented you watch him care for their own victim group and they're passionate about it but it's good there's been very little egos everyone's there working as a team victims front and center and yeah watch his face really watch it so yeah I will not be taking my eyes off it it's good in a negative space this place is so negative like talking about cults and that it is such a draining and negative space to be in because it doesn't feel like you've got anywhere it feels like it's just more victims and you're listening to people's story and it's too long it's being there there there it's just good to have a bit of attraction a bit of ground and a bit of fight where we can actually put on notice and the benefit is meeting all these wonderful things oh yeah yeah so yeah always really blessed I said all the time it's like anyone who comes on the podcast who's had an experience in one of these groups and is speaking out they're speaking out because they want to help other people they have this amazing motivation and like almost without fail just incredible people so yeah I know exactly what you're talking about you don't you want to involve in this place if you're just doing it for yourself because it's a lot it's a lot but the people that are here in this space that are working hard what they're doing it because they love the people lost or they know the victims or they want change and it's inspiring to say so this inquiry it's going to be big and yeah we're down for it aren't we Catherine yeah so yeah that it's a lot of work which is good it's good work good problems good work and I think it'll make a real difference yeah it's it's the most hope for change that I've seen in the years that I've been doing this so it's yeah incredibly exciting and yeah just congratulations to the whole team the working party's sensational so and it seems to be drawing in more and more good people but yeah look hats off like Laura McConnell you know she's been battling away for years you've seen some that have been battling away for years and just same get traction and just chipping away keeping away and actually to say that hey look there's a bit of a lot the end of this tunnel is just fantastic so good on the government for taking us on for too long it's saying like the impossible task hasn't it but we're finally doing that impossible task my thanks to Ryan and Catherine Kerry for speaking with me for this episode and be sure to check out the show notes for links to the inquiry for submissions the pray harder podcast for more of their story and links to stop religious coercion australia and the other resources we mentioned today let's talk about sects as an independent listener funded project please consider supporting the show via patreon as your support is what makes it a viable endeavor you can access episodes early and add free with your contribution at patreon.com/ltaspod you can also listen to my audiobook do as I say which is linked in the show notes or grab some merch something you can always do for free is give the podcast a rating on the podcast platform of your choice or share it with a friend this episode of let's talk about sects was produced by me Sarah Steele and the music was by Joe called grab yourself a copy of his soundtrack album nobody joins a cult on band camp or stream it on Spotify thanks again to the finance and property survival guide podcast this episode's presenting partner take a listen to the finance and property survival guide podcast for easy to understand info for first home buyers as well as great tips on budgeting how to save money what to do and not to do when you're buying or renting a property and how to improve your chances of getting finance there's also awesome interviews with finance and property experts and thought leaders it's a great 20 minute investment in your future the finance and property survival guide is presented by Dave and Damien from money saver home loans chat to the guys if you need help with finance for property a car or to consolidate debt if you already 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