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Today I am so excited to talk about cults because what if the most dangerous spiritual abuse isn't going to look like abuse? I have the cult expert to talk about it and a kicker. What if it looks like loyalty and obedience and being quote on fire for God?
How it actually works, what it actually looks like, how do people get pulled into it, and how do we see examples of this in.
The Bible? I had loved ones caught up in a local cult group and it was vile. I mean it was really really crazy. A spiritually abusive environment is an environment that tries to step in between your relationship with Jesus.
Jesus is your mediator, nobody else is. Wow, so like how.
Does someone become an expert in cults? Hello hello, welcome to Biblically Speaking. My name.
Is Cassian Bellino and I'm your host. In this podcast we talk about the Bible in simple terms with experts, PhDs, and scholarly theologians to make understanding God easier. These conversations have transformed my relationship with Christ and understanding of religion.
Now I'm sharing these recorded conversations with you. On this podcast we talk about the facts, the history, and the translations to make the Bible make sense so we can get to know God our creator better.
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I'm your host, Cassian Bellino. Today I am so excited to talk about cults because what if the most dangerous spiritual abuse isn't going to look like abuse? What if it looks like loyalty and obedience and being, quote, on fire for God?
So today we're going to get into cults and coercive control within the Bible, how it actually works, what it actually looks like, how do people get pulled into it, and how do we see examples of this in the Bible.
Today I have the cult expert. I guess I could call you that. The cult expert to talk about it. Anna Kitko, you have a Master of Arts in Biblical Studies from Reford Theological Seminary. You have a Master of Science from the Psychology of Coercive Control from the University of Salford in the UK.
You have areas of specialty like Christian apologetics, neurochemistry, PTSD, dissociative disorders, and the world's greatest hair. Welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you back on. Wow, and I consider this a bad hair.
Day. I'm glad to be back. It's a super privilege and I always have fun on the show, so no problem.
At all. You were just on to talk about biblical canon, which was amazing. There has to be a part two to that episode because it was so wonderful, but now you're here because this was kind of like how we connected.
We connected to talk about cults and this is your area of expertise. I wanted to talk about canon and you brought up this topic. So before we even got on, you were talking about how people really want to bring you into psychoanalyze.
How did you get wrapped up in.
This? Yeah, I have a background that was not in any way, shape, or form going to be in cult psychology at all. I wanted to become a brain surgeon and I was well on my way to doing that, but I had loved ones caught up in a local cult group and it was vile.
I mean, it was, yeah, it was really, really, really, really, really crazy and I just couldn't believe. It was unbelievable what I was experiencing and what I was seeing and then anytime you would try to explain what was happening, you sounded crazy and it was like, I'm not though.
Like, I'm valedictorian of Cambridge in my state. Like, I know I'm not crazy. Like, what is happening? And I could not get away from it. So the too long, didn't read version is that I decided, well, I'll use all of my fancy training to try to help people who are caught up in course of control.
And what you see today is a result of.
All of that. Wow. So like, how does someone become an expert in cults? Do you have to go back to.
School for that? So that's tough. Cause like, how do you, how do you measure expertise? Technically speaking, I tend to do that by some type of standardization so that you can measure me. And it's not just, Anna thinks she's an expert.
Cause I think that sounds nice. So it's more like, okay, what are the tools that you would need to actually be able to be accountable to hire the folks that hire out like a board or some type of like measurement system?
Like, do you actually do have chops in this? Can you measure a mental illness? Can you also be able to tell like, how does brainwashing work? Have you done all the studies? Have you done any clinical research, all those things?
So I just put together what I imagined I would need to trust somebody who claimed to be an expert in this. And then I walked through all of those hoops to the best of my ability, which is part of why you see me wear so many hats and I have all these credentials.
It's not because I really wanted to do that. It's because I wouldn't trust me without those credentials. If I were in a cult listening to me talk. Totally. Does that make sense?
Yeah. So is the work that you do right now, restorative healing for people that are coming.
Out of cults? Yes. Yeah. So we have a clinic locally that where we focused exclusively on that and like in here and you'll hear things that like you might see shadows walk past. That's because it's an active clinic.
And so, yeah, in this office, we specifically treat victims, of course, of control in particular victims of high control groups or what we would call.
A cult group. Oh, my gosh. I have so many questions on like modern day groups that are like arising that we'll have to talk about offline, but I would love to spend time today kind of talking about like coercive control isn't a new thing.
So we see examples of it in the Bible, but I want to kind of use that of what was it like back then for that course of control? Like, was it any different than what we see today that like the modern cults and then kind of relate it to today of, OK, based on the biblical example, does that still happen today?
How is it a little bit different and how do we recognize it? How do we know if we're in it? So I do want to talk a little bit about. The Bible to use it as a framework for modern churches, but before we get into some scripture, let's do a little bit of definitions.
OK, so how do you define spiritual.
Cults or high cortisol groups or high control groups? Yeah, it's OK. Also high cortisol groups. That's a great. So the definitions are people are still really trying to come up with one single way of articulating what it means to be in something like this.
And because it's so complex, that's really, really difficult. For the most part, you are looking at groups that are attempting to assert or destroy your autonomy using spiritual language to control you as though they are speaking on behalf of God.
And so like they're not controlling you. It's really God that's doing it. They just have a secret ability to talk to him that you don't have. And so you need to come under their authority and do what they say.
And there are stipulations through this that we can talk about things like milieu control. And I can go into some more details later. But overall, a spiritually abusive environment is an environment that tries to step in between your relationship with Jesus.
Jesus is your mediator. Nobody else is. So watch for people who are forcibly trying to tell you that you require they require you. So like any leader that's like, oh, I have special knowledge that you need in order to access Jesus or I have special authority in your life that you need to come under in order to access Jesus, anything like that.
You're immediately like a key to unlock a door. Yeah. Yeah. Like you need them as for something special that they can only tell you about. You're in a dangerous environment then.
OK, so with that example, you know, I'm just going to play devil's advocate like we both know which team I bat for. But what's like somebody walks in and this pastor is like really unlocking somebody's faith.
They're they're part of this deep commitment to facilitate someone's faith versus coercion. You know, how do we kind of recognize like, you know, that pastor that's like on fire for a church, but like you kind of develop a codependency on him because he's facilitating so much or her.
And then you have, you know, what you're talking about,.
That coercion, that that key, that locked door. Yeah. Excellent. So that that leader, if that leader is not actively protecting you from them, so like actively protecting you from that codependency, actively protecting you like, hey, I am not the Messiah.
You need the Messiah. You are going to move on from me. You will if I'm a good teacher or a good discipler, then there should be a point where you arrive at the same level as me and move past me. Otherwise, I'm just enjoying the fact that you're boosting my ego.
Like they should be protecting you from them. They should be actively making you strong enough to not need them anymore. Does that make sense? That totally makes sense, because I could see.
How someone could get like high off of that power that they have over someone. And that do you think. I mean, I'm interpreting that as like that's where the enemy kind of comes in and takes advantage of that situation, like takes advantage of somebody's pride.
Absolutely. Yeah. The leader should be aware of their impact in the life of the person who is vulnerable in front of them. They should be protecting their vulnerability. So if they're saying I'm stepping into a position of authority in your life, they should also be saying, and therefore, this is why I am not going to speak into things that are none of my business biblically like your marriage.
I'm not just going to insert myself into your marriage. I'm not going to start telling you exactly what to do after hearing a story that you've told me for two seconds. I'm not going to be making judgments on things that are not my business to make judgments about.
Instead, I'm going to be emboldening you to know your Bible well enough to make winsome judgments yourself. And I'm going to step back. Your relationship is with Jesus, and I'm facilitating that. Your relationship is not with me so that.
You can access Jesus better. Got it. Got it. Do you think there's like, do you think there's areas with like high control within the church that are necessary?
I don't think there are areas of high control that are necessary, except from a leadership to leadership perspective. So like, not the parishioner, but yeah, yeah, yeah. Big distinction. So like once you step into the role of a leader, now it's high scrutiny.
It's a different standard in the scriptures that you're held to. And from a leader to a leader, a thousand percent, there's a lot of control. Well, from a hierarchy down, like a bishopric, a ton of, but as soon as you get to a leader and a parishioner, no, there should not be any high control going on.
They're too vulnerable, and they have not been called into that hypercritical space. It's completely inappropriate to take advantage of the vulnerable that way. Wow. That's a, because some.
Would even say that like, you know, if I undergo a major transformation, but I'm not necessarily in a leadership role, I have a higher standard that I'm being called to because now I'm, you know, now I have, you know, a holiness, you know, a set apartness that I need to set apart, but even,.
You know, still kind of maintain that, like I'm not a leader yet. But that autonomy should remain with you. So that accountability and that autonomy stays with you. So like, if you go against your conscience and you begin to act in a way that is not as holy as you ought, that moment is for confession.
It's coming to the people of God for help. It is not you surrendering your autonomy to somebody else for them to then control you in your potential backsliding or in your sin or however they want to phrase it.
That's that it remains with you. Yep. Okay. Let's get into what.
I think is an example of a cult in the Bible. In Jeremiah five, we see fear, false authority, we see manipulation, all of which is being used to control God's people. How do you view.
Jeremiah five? No, I love it. I go there first, as far as the Old Testament is concerned, because it's such a remarkable breakdown that the Lord anticipated. I mean, it's a lot of our frameworks mirror, like our current modern frameworks for understanding cults and measuring them mirror are mirrored in, in Jeremiah five.
So we have, you know, maybe not one cult, but maybe several, there are lots of different gods that the Lord references that are being worshiped. So it's like Jerusalem has been overrun. Right. And then on top of that, the prophets in Jerusalem at the time that Jeremiah is concerned with, and that the Lord is deeply concerned with is that they are prophets who are prophesying lies.
And he makes a note that this is a critical component to the structure that he's being upset. He's upset with the Lord's upset with the structure because he has warned his people about this. They recognize the lies and they're still willing to put up with the leadership continuing to behave this way.
So it's not just, yeah. Oh yeah. It's not just the leaders messing up. It's that the people who hold the leaders accountable are going, nah, we're, we're going to just go ahead and give up that framework.
We don't need to do that. We'd rather like this and they're staying. So like the whole group has been given over to coercion. For those that aren't familiar with Jeremiah five, do you mind just kind of giving some contextual background of like what's going on?
We're getting ready to jump into in the history of the people of God, the Babylonian exile, which is one of the darkest chapters in the history of the church. And Jerusalem has been given, Jerusalem is acting as basically the representative of all of Israel and the context of that city and how the people are behaving in that city is being used as emblematic of everybody's internal disposition all the way through the people, the Hebrew people.
So the Lord is very concerned and he's giving final warnings beginning with Isaiah and then moving on through Jeremiah and it's getting, it's getting like more and more and more severe, the warnings, because the people are ignoring him and he's being very, very clear about what he is expecting of them and they're going, we don't care.
So this is like a really defiant, really ugly moment in the history of the church and Jeremiah's role is to just weep and grieve and beg and like there's no, he doesn't parse words, right? You know exactly what's going on and this is the most defiant like middle finger to God moment in this city's history.
And so that's where Jeremiah is when he says, here's what's going on with your people, here's what your leadership is behaving like, here's what the parishioners are purposely, like this is willful blindness, this isn't just like a naivety.
They're aware that their leaders are doing this, I have made you aware and you're doing absolutely nothing about it. So that's the context. A lot like what we're seeing going on today with the NAR stuff going on where we've got some, we've got accountability building up, right?
The new episode. What is the NAR? I'm sorry. That's okay. I'm just going to make context for your, for your listeners because it's happening right now. So there's a whole movement in Christianity, it's the biggest church in the world right now, which is Bethel, Reading, where and their extensions, what's going on at the International House of Prayer.
There's several extensions, Todd White, these guys that came all came through the Bethel framework and they've been exposed. And so there's this question of, are you actually going to repent and do something about this on a really, really public level or are you not?
And so far the not part is a way stronger answer than the yes, we are going to be accountable and actually talk through all of these other prophets who we have allowed to, we've knowingly allowed them to falsely prophesy.
So it's literally Jeremiah five going on right now in America. Okay. This is.
Perfect. We can kind of use this as like a parallel. It's like what's happening in the Bible and what's happening now, because I'm pretty ignorant about this. Actually, I don't know much about this going on, but okay.
So the earliest warning signs that someone is entering a coercive spiritual environment, what are we seeing in Jeremiah and what are we seeing today with the NAR?
Yes. So it agenda driven theology. So this is like we're seeing that people are more interested in their own personal movement and their own kingdom building. They'll call it kingdom building. They're building little fiefdoms to themselves, right?
I've got an idea for a movement or the Lord's given me some special revelation. It's going to be this, it's going to be things like the seven mountain mandate. It's going to be, you know, like I got this really special vision and I'm prophetically going to walk this out.
And then they proceed to do that beginning with the belief that their personal revelation from God is for the whole world. So they begin to behave like they're shepherds to the world after like a single prophecy.
And that's a real, that's a really, really bad sign because there's only one shepherd to the world and that's Jesus. So for sure, if the message was, this is for the whole world, that was not from Jesus.
The last person I know who gave you messages for the whole world and you weren't Jesus was Satan. So we gotta.
Really slow down. Oh my gosh, because it's tough when you feel an overwhelming power of God gave me something, it'll benefit not just me, but other people. And then the people receiving that see it also as almost a gift.
So they don't even feel like they're being deceived. Would you say, you know, like people in Jeremiah, in Jeremiah five, they, they willfully and honestly knew that they were kind of buying into something that wasn't right.
Whereas like people within the NAR with Bethel, it sounds like they think they are buying into something that is actually good.
Yeah. And I'd say that does happen. I, and in some capacity, I would imagine that happened a bit in Jerusalem. However, the critical component was that it's for the people being warned. It's the people who do have a knowledge.
They have a knowledge that they're, they're, because they are getting a following for themselves. They're garnering their own followers, not followers for Yahweh. It's the people who were willfully blind.
He does not, in Jeremiah, he does not comment on the people who are genuinely being taken advantage of. And we can talk about some of those protocols in the New Testament, because the Lord actually designs protections for the people who have been taken advantage of, and that they will be spared from these things and that he loves them and that he's held holding the leadership accountable.
That's first Timothy five, for example, and the book of Jude as well goes into it. So I would point out that in Jeremiah five, and then into six, the crux of that context is for the people who know what's going on.
It's not for the people who are being taken advantage of.
Okay. Cause I mean, I've gone to a couple of churches that have just like blown up. They have just become so big. And would you say that it really is just like the heart posture of the leadership that has to be watched?
Cause it's like, they are becoming kingdom builders, you know, but how do we know that? Yeah. Why does, why does your,.
Why does the kingdom of God need t-shirts? Why do they need marketing strategies and branding? I'm not saying that everybody who does this is not building for the Lord. I'm just pointing out, those are questions that the leadership should be panicking about and really discerning over.
So these guys that kind of just like walk into their celebrity and they're just fine with it. That's called pre-list and pre-list is warned about in the history of the church. Pre-list is the sin that comes over a church leader with their not paying attention to where Satan is.
And it's the sin of feeling your oats. It's the sin of, of being overcome with your own celebrity that you begin to forget who's in charge and that you're not actually needed. And they begin building little kingdoms to themselves.
It's called pre-list. Yeah. Whoa. Okay.
Would you say that this is happenchance or do you think that this is very targeted in who these kingdom builders are using to build their kingdom? Like, is it targeting these specific vulnerable groups or is it just kind of like, well, if the message is big enough, you know, build it and they'll come at, I don't care who comes, you know, as long as the kingdom's being.
Built or is it more targeted? Yeah, that's a tough question. In, in the cases of, I think that people can have stumble into accidental celebrity and it can overtake them. So I, I do believe that, but in those cases you see when it really, when things start falling apart, you see them repent and show contrition and go, here's what happened.
Like this, the fact that the Holy spirit resides in them shows up really in a really, really big way. Um, and so although it's tragic, what happens, like they step into major sin or something happens under their care, you see the leader show repentance, like genuine contrition walked out, they step down, they take responsibility, right?
The guys that are forming cults, cults don't form by accident. We're talking like the scary ones. Okay. These are guys who stepped up with a game plan about how they were going to lie to the masses and pulled it off effectively.
So these are guys like, let's take a historical example. Joseph Smith. Did he know what he was doing? Yes, he did. He fabricated a lie. He fabricated the whole thing. He kept the lie going. It's a mess.
And you can see that because the story changes over and over and over again. And when he was 14, he went to jail for exactly the same thing, but nobody talks about that. Um, like, Oh yeah. So like things like that, like, no, this is, this is a perpetrator.
Like this is somebody who is, who is actively trying to succeed in an endeavor that amasses for them wealth and power and sex and whatever else they're going after. Um, so yeah, there, yeah. If you see, if you see a movement that gets started on one man's prophecy, be really careful, like go really, really slowly because that, yeah, predicating an entire, like a move of the people of God on one person's private revelation, that's very dangerous.
How do you double check that? We're supposed to test all things and hold fast to that, which is good. How is he checking that? Right? Angels of light appear to lots of people. So what we're warned that they're going to be angels of light that appear to people who are not angels of light, what happened to all of those details of that moment of their personal Lord or whoever they encountered really matter.
Why are they under the impression? This is for everybody and not just for them or just their local congregation. You see what I mean? Yep. We got to have some frameworks in place. It's more than just, yay.
I'm excited that there's a.
Prophecy. So, I mean, I would say like, I mean, you're a smart person. I would say I'm a smart person. We're both, you know, God fearing people, but why are, would you say, I mean, disagree with me if like you think, but why would you say like Christians there that kind of fell victim to Joseph Smith?
Why are they especially vulnerable? Like why not? Like atheists who just are trying.
To find meaning in the world, but like specifically Christians. So with Joseph Smith's case, he actually was predatory over the most vulnerable. Part of the reason why he kept heading West is because he was using the pioneer framework of the time period to take advantage of the people who did not have access to local congregations or Bibles in a lot of ways.
Oh yeah. Yeah.
And a lot of, so he was kind of picking up like the stragglers that needed community.
Yes. He was also targeting women who didn't have husbands. He was targeting families that were in dire straits. So one of the ways he did this was by doing what's called glass viewing glass viewing is that you walk up to a farm that's struggling that, you know, locally is struggling.
You say, Hey, I'm a prophet. And I can see that you have buried treasure on your property. And for a fee, if you'll just pay me a fee, I will find the exact location. And then you can just go dig up your treasure.
Like that's just, it's how I apply my craft, right? I'm going to, I'll prophesy on demand for you where this treasure is. And at the time period, this was like fairly normative, like a belief that was kind of superstitious in the culture of where he was at the time was New York.
There's a whole series of, of New York state called the Burnover district. And this was very common in that district. Um, so he would go and he would say, okay, yeah, give me my money. And they'd pay him up front and he'd say, yep, it's over under that Oak tree.
Have a nice day. And then he'd leave and then they'd go dig up. And sure enough, there's no treasure. And then where do you find him? He's already gone. And he, now he has your income for now. Yeah. So glass viewing, that was, that was what he was famous for doing.
So yeah, he's, he is targeting the vulnerable. He is targeting the people who are, um, I don't want to say that this was gullibility, but it's more like desperation. And when you're desperate, you are very, very, very suggestible.
And people who are in leadership and care for the desperate know that and protect them from themselves, right? This is like a therapeutic environment. You don't become friends with your therapist for a reason.
It's because the therapist is protecting you from them. You are vulnerable. You're going to feel all the feelings of like transference and counter transference in a session, because you're talking about the most intimate details of your life with someone who is showing you an actual place.
It's safe to do that. And intimacy is going to be developed automatically. That's how neuroscience works. So the therapist then goes, I'm protecting you from me. We are in a professional environment and go on your way.
Right. And if we happen to see each other at target, I'm not gonna, I'm not going to acknowledge it so that you know, you're safe and you don't have to be in a therapeutic environment all the.
Time. It's too intense. And Jeremiah five was their target there, or was it just pure ignorance.
And people just kind of going with the whims of their heart? I can't tell from the text exactly what's going on. There are a couple of moments in Jeremiah where the Lord does. He, he implies, and he might say it outright.
I have to double check. Um, he implies that it is their hearts that are so turned against him. They don't want him. Like this is an active rejection moment. This new flow, what was going on? But with the leaders, this is a targeted thing.
The leaders know they are lying. They are profits who are established profits. And they know that they're not telling the truth about their prophecies and that he is like, that is completely unacceptable.
And I will never permit that for my people. You have been warned. So when it comes to Bethel and what's.
Happening with what you're seeing, I mean, I'm pretty ignorant to this entire situation. This is a group of leaders who are just kind of taking advantage of their loyal congregation,.
Or is there a more specific targets there? Yeah, no, they're specific targets. So what they're doing is they're saying things like they're saying prophecies. Like I, the Lord spoke to me that you needed to move to Reading and have, which is where Bethel is, is in California.
Um, you need to move to this city. Like this is a word from the Lord and come be a part of the church. And they go to the most millionaire oriented people to get them to come give money to that congregation.
I'm not kidding. This is like that. They're data mining things off of social media, um, so that they can have prophecy that feels real for the people in the congregation. So they'll preempt to find out who's going to be there and then go on their social media, come, come up with material that they shouldn't know about and then use it in the service as though they have a secret knowledge about people they haven't met.
Um, and we can prove this because, um, they get caught on the regular, almost getting it right. Or they accidentally looked up the social media profile of somebody with the same name, but it wasn't the right person.
And so they, they start rattling off addresses that are wrong. Oh, the angel in my head got it wrong. Yes. Yes. Um, you catch them reading off of their phones, like at podiums, like they, like they forgot what the detail was.
Um, and this is all like the thing about narcissism, which is what I would say this primarily is. Um, the thing about it is that that particular pathology cannot stop recording itself. Like it loves itself.
It loves its face. It loves its words. It wants to listen to it. So like they, they, they set themselves up for failure by recording themselves making mistakes and don't care enough to not send it out to millions of people so that people like us who are monitoring this stuff is like, or like, look at what it's their own video.
Todd white, for example, is one of these that keeps, he keeps filming himself. It's like, dude, like somebody needs to advise you to just stop. Like this is, this is, this is.
Sad. Okay. Wow. Um, but I think like people have a pretty good radar for this kind of stuff. So like dependent, like when things start getting a little like weird when, you know, when you, you know, it's on the nose, people are typically like, Hey, this doesn't feel right.
This doesn't seem right. And you leave, but people stay. Is it like a honeymoon phase? Like, is it just a loyal, is it just like, what is it? Um, that term where like, you've already invested too much.
So you might as well not throw out the, you know, the baby with the bath water. It's more like, well, I've been at this church for 10 years. My community is here. Yeah. Maybe, maybe it's,.
I shouldn't really trust my feelings. Maybe it's me that's off. Maybe I'm struggling with some secret sin that I can't tell, you know, they start using like thought stopping techniques of things like the Mormons will say, give brother Joseph a break, which means stop thinking so hard about this.
Right. So things that, Oh, absolutely. Yep. That's called, I don't know much about the Mormon faith. That's thought terminating cliches. Yeah. They've got some really good doozies. Um, but like, um, God is they'll use things like phrases like God is sovereign just to like, have you stop.
You don't need to keep critically like picking this apart. Like you can start telling these, there are problems and you don't really, you want to carry on with your life. Like most of us are not going to church to like become, you know, investigative journalists on our own, trying to figure out what's going on.
We just want to worship with our families and love the Lord and experience his spirit. So like there's, there's an incentive when you hear something problematic to go, yeah, but my children love the children's ministry and the music is so good.
And maybe there's a miscommunication and I'm sure that the leadership will handle it and you go to go to lunch. Like it's, it's, you don't spend a whole lot of time. What going, how accountable are my leaders?
And actually did they prophesy falsely? Cause that's really bad. You know, how long has it been since we sat and studied Jeremiah, for example, you know, for a lot of us that's been like, gosh, I haven't studied that for however many years.
Like the very normal. Um, so like, it's just, we start to get, I think as parishioners and in, we were tired and we're doing, we're working 14 million hours a week in America and you just want to rest and you go to church to rest.
And so there's, there's an incentive to keep doing that, I think. And I, um, I think that that incentive gets taken advantage of by leaders.
Who know that that's going to happen. Okay. So if I, that thought stopping cliche is really sticking with me, I think that's a great word. And I feel like I, I love my church. I love all the churches that I go to, but are they a cult when they say things like, like, and I'm not saying like, it's either one bucket or the other, but like, is it, should the alarm bell come up?
Or is this kind of part of the Christian experience that we gave our life to when they say something like God has a plan, you know, like, well, you know, there are things that the Lord knows that he just won't tell us about like those to me, I feel like a thought stopping cliche.
So do you think that's something that we as Christians shouldn't accept?
I, in this day and age, I would advise that we don't accept it right now, just because there we have, our country is the kingdom of the cults. We literally have other countries coming to us as missionaries because they're so concerned about how bad America is.
So as a point of, I'm not kidding, that's real. Um, we're called the kingdom of the cults in China. Yep. Oh my gosh. Yep. Because we turn out the really biggest, the biggest, weirdest movements from Scientology to Christian science, to the LDS, to Jehovah's Witnesses, like this all here.
Um, and now NAR potentially. Um, so all that to say, I mean, those are all the biggest movements in the whole world. So that matters. Uh, the, so I, as a point of wisdom, if you are finding that you're using, having to use thought stopping things like that regularly, I would go hold up.
It's time for me to do a little bit of due diligence, not forever. I don't need to start a podcast, but I do need to double check, hold up. Can I access my pastor or is he completely inaccessible? Is he so far up there that I couldn't like monitor his personality and whether or not he's got, you know, women on the side, like, is he so detached from me that he couldn't tell who I was or have any knowledge of my family?
We're that's kind of weird. I mean, he's supposed to be a shepherd to sheep that he knows. Like we're already in like a weird scenario. So, okay. Does he have accountability then from people who I trust to actually tell the truth and say something when they find it and not hide it?
So that's the really, it's the, it's the plausible deniability. It's the coverup culture stuff that really creeps me out. That's when you're, you are in significant spiritual danger. If you are in an environment that covers up sin, like just ask yourself the question, when was the last time you saw your pastor repent or confess to his congregation about something he did?
Whoa. That's weird. Like we're all humans. We repent. We're called to repentance every day. Your pastor is included. When was the last time you saw that happen? Like you should be considering these questions.
Like, okay. What exactly is the board of directors, all family members of his? That's a problem, right? Are the people, yeah. Are the, are all the people in charge all related? Do they owe him money? If you ask for a breakdown of the finances and you don't get to the penny, what the pastor makes, run.
Oh my gosh. You think that's an appropriate thing for a parishioner to do is know how much their pastor makes? Yes. Absolutely. That's tithe money. They're accountable to you. They don't, they work for you.
That's not, they're not owed that. That's the Lord's money. They're claiming to be stewarding. That is absolutely information you should be able to access to the penny. Okay. So we're kind of talking a lot about ignorance here and.
Like how a cult leader is going to capitalize on that. But what about fear? Because it feels like in Jeremiah, there's a lot of fear that is being used as a tool, but I mean, and describe to me how fear is being used over time to kind of escalate and manipulate and control for the NAR or even what we see with Jehovah's witness.
Because I know as a Christian, like I do have the fear of God. Like side note, when I was in high school, my mom was like really, really strict and like love her for that. So glad she did that. But like, I knew fear of God because I had fear of my mother, you know?
And I think that, you know, it kept me in line to an extent. It was very helpful. However, in cults, fear is used as a tool to manipulate. So where's that thin line between.
Those two things? Yeah, I, the fear of the Lord should be something that's between you and the Lord. And it's something that the parish should be able to see in their leadership. The leadership should have a healthy dose of fear before stepping up to give a sermon because they're being held to a double standard.
So if you've got just, you know, this individual, and I'm not saying that everybody who is like too laid back is a problem. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is if you've got somebody who's just chill and they're throwing out jokes and it's kind of crass sometimes and they don't really care and haha, like it's like, that's kind of a, that's an odd attitude to have for somebody who understands the level of seriousness and the level of scrutiny they're under while they're about to exegete the scriptures in front of the people of God.
Like, that's odd. We should, we should like put a pin in that. That should be a dose of fear of God. Yeah. It does not mean they have to walk out shaking like a leaf, but like, that's weird. There's an oddity to that.
There's nobody in the scriptures or leaders and the scriptures, you don't ever see them coming out and just cracking rough jokes and just being a good old boy and like, everything's just chipper. Like it's nobody behaves that way.
Like that's kind of odd. Like if you were being called directly by God to, to give his message to his people, would you not take that deeply seriously? And would that seriousness not be conveyed in your body language?
Absolutely. Yeah. So there's the unnatural nature to that. Like that you and I can sit here as members of the body of Christ and be like, I would never behave that way. Like we should probably make a note of all of the leaders who are behaving in a way that we would never behave if we were in that seat.
Absolutely. But even on like the other side.
Of that spectrum, I like in my head, when I think of like a really traditional church, it's, if you don't do this, you'll burn in hell. It's almost like, Oh yes. Yes. Yes. No,.
I get what you're saying. Yes. And use and using that fear to, to garner compliance.
Right. Yeah. But is that, is there a healthiness to that? Like as a Christian, am I being controlled by saying like, well, I don't want to do that sin. Cause I, I do want to do my best. You know, like if that's the consequence, like it's fair, if we have a fair and just God that there are consequences, but then there's the, if you don't.
Do this. Sure. So then we have, we have an issue of emphasis potentially there. Cause is it healthy? Yes. Cause there is an element of, of fear. You should have, there should be fear reference in how serious your sacredness is and how serious your eternity and where you spend it is.
But is it only ever fear? Now we have an imbalance problem because perfect love casts out fear. So are you ever getting introduced to the perfect love component that is supposed to cast out the fear that is real and healthy?
Who is Christ? Who is love abundant? Like if, if we're only ever doing fire and brimstone preaching, we are, we are overemphasizing, right? It's the guy at the gym that skips leg day. Like, stop it. It looks bad.
It makes everybody else hate it. Nobody wants to see that. Like it's, it, the scriptures also don't do that. There's a balance. You still have to be introduced and walk closely with the definition of love Christ himself.
So like,.
We should be getting both. So in a healthy church, there is a healthy dose of here are consequences that we take seriously, but this is, you know, the God that loves us where it's like in a, a cult situation, whether it's LDS or Jehovah's witness or what's happening with the NAR or even in Jeremiah, it's you, it's either totally crass, super lax, not really a lot of consequences, or it's the opposite.
And it's more like, if you don't do this, there's an, if you leave, this is what's going to happen. Like, how do we recognize if we're in that situation?
Gosh, what a great, I mean, it's a, what's a wonderful question. Um, I, I would recommend bowing before the Lord in prayer and saying, Lord, I desire to be in an environment where I get to walk closely with you and I am not coerced to either extreme.
Please disclose to me if that's going on and let me walk closely with you in the scriptures and I will be setting the scriptures. And then I would be testing what I am personally experiencing at church on the regular, start measuring.
Yeah. It's 15 minutes. Just pay attention. Hey, this is like, gosh, we're at like six months now and I haven't heard the gospel a single time. It's time to start asking why that's an awfully long time to not hear the good news, which is the point.
Would you, in a more toxic situation with the fear manipulation control escalate over time,.
Or would it just kind of be a steady line? It will escalate over time because people will, the people will buck, like there will be people who have, um, a disagreeable, a disposition, one that's okay with asking questions, right?
The people like you and I, that'd be like, I want a meeting, right? We're not afraid of some, a little bit of confrontation, a little bit of like, okay, like help me understand what's going on here. Um, those people will start bucking at this kind of like over control and they'll be like, yeah, I, that was an overstep and you don't get to control me.
And as soon as that, like that roughness steps up against the leadership, a narcissistic leader will shut that down immediately. Narcissism cannot handle, uh, criticism, backlash, any type of accountability.
So watch for congregants who suddenly disappear. Okay. Suddenly are shunned. Suddenly are, you're told that don't talk to that person. All of that is very strange. Do not, do not be in church groups that allow for that sort of thing.
The leadership does not have that much control. Yep. Yeah. Go talk to the people that suddenly are not in church. Hey, what happened? I was pulled into a meeting and told that I can't talk anymore and they behave differently behind closed doors than they do up from stage.
All right, now we've got a two-faced leadership. We've got some serious investigating to do.
No transparency. Okay. Wow. We've talked a lot about leadership here, but there is this sense of deliverance and prophecy that we also touched on. So is there a sense of like pseudo teachings that are going to pop up that are going to be more so in NAR, LDS, even cults of the Bible that are not present in a healthy, well-balanced God-fearing church?
Yeah, I would be really,.
Might be in the bonnet issue right now for all of those categories is the deliverance movement. And the fact that it has taken off. I love the deliverance movement. So all of my clinical work, don't worry, don't worry, it's going to be okay.
In general, deliverance is real. Okay. Right. In practical application of the scriptures, there isn't a whole lot of guidance as to how that goes down in the scriptures. There are 26 unique instances of Jesus casting out demons and those all correlate to very specific exorcism protocols.
Okay. In the modern deliverance movement, all the way through the cults, as well as the NAR, and what I would say seeping into just regular evangelical churches even, are well-meaning people who are seeing the need and they're mimicking, because they haven't done this before, they're mimicking these apostolic leaders who are claiming they have a special deliverance ability and they're demon slayers and they're all this.
And these guys are bald liars. And I know that for a fact and can help you navigate that if you need to. That's my dissertation work and all of my clinical work. These guys who are developing these like their own personal systems of demonic deliverance, and there's all these mantras being chanted, and they're cutting soul ties and all that stuff, that none of that correlates to anything other than Derrick Prince's work, who was a false prophet in the Fort Lauderdale Five as one of the beginnings to the NAR movement.
There are no ancient protocols that match any of this. This is people who are riffing live in front of people taking advantage of the mentally ill and then asking them to pay for deliverance that they then have to hold on to.
When was the last time when Jesus cast out a demon that anybody had to hold on to that?
Hold on a second. So are you saying that deliverance should follow ancient protocol? Anything else is just kind of riffing? Because I think, because like I have encountered a lot of people that do a lot of deliverance work and it comes from a place of like, you know, we have that resurrection power within us.
We have that Holy Spirit within us. Let's break off these chains, like the spirit of jealousy, the spirit of, you know, and kind of treating sins as spirits. And let's break off this because you, you are a child of God.
There is no, you have authority over those spirits. So let's break them off.
Where does that go wrong? Yeah. So if you have not correlated what those spirits actually are in the head space of the person. So if you, if you study the, the, the different categories of demons, there are four.
If you treat a category three demon, like it's a category four demon, you've actually just induced post-traumatic stress into the nervous system of the person in front of you unknowingly. This is called iatrogenic harm.
This is the harm that healers can give to the people they are trying to help. And so these very well-meaning Christians who are being very serious about the authority we do have, and we do have these things, but they're misidentifying the demonic.
And then they're planting in the memory space of the person in front of them that they should be interpreting what they're experiencing as demonic and then doing the wrong protocol. You've actually just induced something very, very damaging in the nervous system of the person in front of you.
Now, if the Lord got you through it and everything's fine, praise him. That's awesome. Good job, Lord, that he does that all the time with us. Right. But like the guys that I see who are then developing functional neurological disorder, because they went to a deliverance session and the person did it wrong and we can track exactly what they did to them.
That is a permanent thing. Like you have just harmed that person because you didn't do the due diligence to know what you were talking about before claiming to be a healer. That is not a claim that you need to take on.
Like if you don't know what that means to yourself and you're doing your due diligence to make sure you don't harm somebody else, you have no business claim to be a healer.
So is there any, like, healthy dose of deliverance that's safe?
I have not seen any yet. I have not seen any yet. None yet. Like, so like inner healing sozo is really awful. They're claiming to be prophetic in the moment. They're asking the one of the members of the Trinity to enter the memory space of the person that they're trying to treat a trauma in.
Like, none of that is appropriate in any way, shape or form from either a clinical perspective or a scriptural one. That's not how even Jesus behaved. Like if it, we need to, if we're going to claim to be somebody who understands demons and can identify them, then we need to be able to demonstrate we actually can do that.
And just having, like, a sense that you're just jealous as opposed to, no, that's a symptom of a scar of your brain. And actually, if we poke at that a whole bunch, you're going to develop schizophrenia.
That, like, they need to know that. Like, you need to be in a position where you can anticipate that and not harm somebody further. And so my work is in all of these, some of them very well-meaning Christians who are inducing very, very terrible mental health issues accidentally because they don't know, and leaders who absolutely know what they're doing and don't care.
Because it's easy, it's easy to ask those people who are already vulnerable and mentally ill to pay them. They're desperate. All they want to do is be delivered from their depression. And these people are, hey, I can do it.
Pay me 250 bucks. I'm a special prophet. I've got special abilities. I've got apostolic authority. Come chant these mantras. Don't mess up because that demon will come back then. And then they become depressed again because the depression is not a demonically oriented depression.
And they believe that they've done something wrong. And so now they need another deliverance. And that is called an engine. They are funding their own power play by making certain that they never actually heal anybody.
You'll always need them.
Wow. Oh my gosh. Is there... So many questions. Oh my gosh. I'm going to talk your ear off once.
We're done recording. That's fine. That's fine.
Is there... Okay. So I love therapy. Big fan of EMDR. Is there an aspect to trauma that kind of plays a role in this like, it becomes like an idol. It becomes a part in this deliverance. It becomes demonic, like this kind of thin line between mental health and like treating a trauma that happened to me when I was young versus I don't even know like where the demon would come into this, but like, is there an aspect to it?
I love that you already, you're like,.
You're naturally, you're, you're inclination because you've experienced EMDR is like, wait, that actually did what the clinician said it was going to do. And she, or he like had a way to measure that they were actually healing me and it worked.
Right. So that's what I'm getting at. Yeah. That's what I'm getting at. So is, is there a line, let me make sure I understand your question. Is there a line like where, where trauma becomes demonic as opposed to just is trauma?
So I don't know of a line, but then again, I do not have an exhaustive knowledge of how trauma can behave overall. However, I will say this as a caveat. If you treat demons, the demonic as third party entities that attach themselves to you, that you need to then strip off, you have failed to understand the differing categories of demonic application in the scriptures because demon, demonion was being used as a blanket turn for any healing ailment from viruses to bacteria to traumas.
Right. So that's, that's, that's something that's latent inside the cognition of the person, a memory they can't get away from because it's haunting them because their neural pathway, as you know, from EMDR, their neural pathway can't get past the scar.
And the whole point of EMDR is to make it so that it can, so that it's over and it doesn't haunt them anymore. That is not a third party entity attaching itself to you and afflicting you. That is simply the result of the fallen nation, nature of creation and the fallen nature of creation's impact, both inside the body of the human being, as well as in the soil and in the seasonal changes like allergies and amoebas, as well as third party entities that attach themselves to you.
So this would be like an Enochian body snatcher. This is like the scary ones that are coming up with dead Nephilim and Heizer's work and all this stuff for your, the people who want to look into this further.
That's a category four demon. That's the garrison demoniac scene that Jesus conducts, right? That is not the same thing. Just because the scriptures say demon, demon, demon, demon does not mean all of them are to be interpreted that way.
And it wasn't that way in Jewish exorcisms. So you'll remember Jesus says, what do we do? The disciples come to him and he says, or what do we do about these Jewish exorcists? And Jesus says, leave them alone.
They're casting out demons one through three, which is what physicians now do. It's the same protocol. Yes. Category four belongs only to Yahweh to cast out, which is why Jesus says of this kind, they can only be cast out through prayer and fasting.
So I guess when I hear that, I hear people can cast that out. Not just Jesus. Yeah. And Jesus confirms it.
So you're saying like the power of Yahweh is in those people to cast out that type of category.
Type for demon it's type four. Yes. But you would never claim that for yourself. You would never say I cast out this category of demon ever. It'd be, you always let Jesus do it. Yeah. You don't go talking to these demons.
You don't start claiming mantras and power over them. You don't start asking them for their name. You don't, that's only Jesus's work. So these pretenders who are out there doing these big shows about how I got the demon's name and his name was behemoth and it's the spirit of Jezebel speak to me, demon, all that nonsense is nonsense run.
Those people have.
No idea what they're doing. And can like perpetually hurt you for bringing out because the harm in that, because I watched, um, come out in Jesus name, that documentary about that entire church. So every service was about deliverance and you say, and I thought that was so cool that like you focus on healing, you know, that whole, every service is just healing.
I love that. And I think everybody loved that. You know, that's why it was a thing. Um, they're calling out demons kind of from the authority of being a pastor. The damage there is their talk. They're hanging out with demons.
Like what, how, like what happens to that person who goes to a deliverance? It's there. That pastor is unequipped to talk to a demon, but does it anyways, kind of like what we saw and come out in Jesus name.
And then now that person, like, do they have in permanent scarring or permanent issues that you were referencing before that they go home with? Yes. They're,.
They now have a memory that is inside of their head that involves, they can't get away from everything, our brain store, every single experience we have. So they now have a memory that is being calculated into the narrative framework of their entire nervous system that says that there are entities in the world that you cannot see who can attach themselves onto you at whenever they want for whatever reason.
And you won't necessarily know that they're there. Um, they can do any, they can provide any symptom that from laughing to crying to feeling a feeling to nausea. I mean, every single human phenomena is available to claimed it's a demon.
Um, and that on top of that, you were just healed of demons. But if your faith is not strong enough to not then become worried about whatever you're feeling as a human at any time past that point, that could be a demon.
And wouldn't you know it, if you start getting worried that that's a demon, since you can't tell ever, then you're going to have to go back to the person who apparently can and get them stripped from you again.
And so come out in Jesus name is a bunch of hogwash and total drivel. And I, I'm not upset at all. I just want you to know, like, I'll go ahead and call, I'll call it out now just because I haven't seen it happen yet.
Greg Locke has no idea what he's doing. Oh my gosh. This is insane. Um, okay. I have like.
A thousand more questions to ask. Do you care if we do a part two on this?
I do not. Absolutely. This is, you can absolutely do a part two. And remember, do not trust me because I'm telling you a bunch of stuff you've, you've not heard before test me. And I will demonstrate that if through the very clear teaching of scripture and through the testimony of all of human history, whether or not what my synthesis of this information for your show is accurate, because the Lord doesn't need me.
Somebody else could easily do this. And that's part of my, my hangup is that if Greg Locke had taken two seconds to Google ancient protocols for exorcism, he wouldn't be doing what he's doing, which means he didn't care.
I, I have so much more that I want to go into with you kind of on leadership, but also more on theology and deliverance and the impact on survivors and then leaving prevention resources. Like I think that this has given us a great foundation, uh, kind of on recognizing it.
And I want to spend a whole episode on recovery and what that looks like to give more hope to this conversation. So, um, but just kind of wrap up on this, you know, let's say somebody stops here. They've gotten what they've needed from this episode and they want to talk to you and they want to connect with you.
How do they do that? What, how do they learn from you,.
Work with you, whatever it might be? Yeah. Um, I do not have the time I'm with, I'm with clients and patients all day to keep up with like this exquisite establishment of podcasts that people like you do.
So I am not as capable as you all, but I do have recordings of that other people have made of a lot of my lectures on this material. So if they do want to type in my name, Anna Kiko, it'll come up, but you'll, it'll be self-evident that we're not building a channel.
Sorry that it's not that interesting, but if it helps people, please go get that. It's free. It'll always be free. Just enjoy. Cause a lot of that stuff was developed specifically for people who are trying to recover, who are like, Oh my gosh, this is my story.
Um, if, if none of this is resonating with you change the channel because you don't need to listen to me further. I am not a shepherd to the world. Um, go enjoy your life. There, there are a lot of really interesting podcasts to listen to on your channel that they could be spending their time doing.
Um, past that though, if they wanted care, if they were like, Hey, I need to pursue care. Um, there's an incredible ministry called be emboldened. That's run by my very good friend, Naomi Wright. And I am one of the spiritual mentors for that to help people who have been through something like this, understand like where they're at in wherever they're internationally.
So we can get you connected with the care that you need, where you are abide by all the laws that are, are for that really like protect you from people are going to try to prey on your vulnerability, all that stuff.
So we can mentor you there. Um, be emboldened .com is where you would establish that there's also group sessions so that you can be in a think tank of other people who have been through what you've been through.
Um, highly recommend that route. Uh, and then of course I'm in Tennessee and for my, my practice is in Tennessee and by law, that means I can only practice in this state. Um, so if you are in, if you're close to me, don't hesitate to reach out.
You can just Google my name. Um, go to Russia Christie, which is R A T I O C H R I S T I, which is a global apologetics ministry of which I'm the cults and new religion specialist. Um, and shoot me an email and I'll do my best, um, to get back to you.
Just give me time because sometimes I am inundated, but I should be around. I don't have time to write books cause there are so many people who need care. So that's at least a good sign that I'll be around.
I mean, I think that this episode is just going to be like, am I,.
Is my church a cult? And I think you've done such a beautiful job in just kind of explaining what to look out for because I don't think, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. I think we all slip in and out of it because we're, you know, people, I mean, nobody's perfect, but we're all trying to do our best.
But sometimes people are genuinely trying to do the worst. And you know, seeing that in Jeremiah five and already with the NAR and everything with the LDS, but thank you so much for being so well informed on this.
I mean, you know more than I do, so it'll be, I'm going to try to test you on more things and push back, but you've already educated me so much. So thank you.
So much, Anna. Absolutely. Anytime. And I guess I'll see you for a part two. Yeah. Uh, we'll.
Schedule that right now. Cool.