Rick Ross

It was happening while she was at work. He had gone through some hardships. A very close friend that he regarded as a virtual brother had died suddenly in his 30s from a heart attack. I mean, he was just gone. There was incredible grief. The husband dealt with this. And eventually he found... answers he thought online.

And keep in mind, Sean, that based on the algorithms that are online, if you find something and you identify it on YouTube or on Facebook or on Twitter, the algorithm is going to push more of the same to you and you're going to go down the rabbit hole. And that's what happened to this husband.

And he became totally indoctrinated in a group called Israelites United in Christ, led by a former police officer in New York. And this is a kind of racial identity group that believes that African Americans are the new Israel. and that white people are devils. And the husband was recruited into this, MBA and all. And of course this became a point of friction with his wife.

And then she brought me in and I did work with him for about a day, but then the group became involved. He would not unplug completely from them and give himself a break to discuss things with his wife and family. And so the group coached him and He would not continue beyond the first day. But he was recruited in a home office in a major city in the Midwest.

And his wife had no idea what was happening. And they eventually would divorce because she could not accept the hate beliefs of this group. So it can happen to anyone. And the way that it happens now increasingly is online. And it's happening through social media. For example, you know, the so-called TikTok cult that's been exposed by Netflix. That group has a following online.

Members of this group called the Shekinah Church are controlled. by ultimately this leader, Robert Shinn. And as a result, they work for him, they live in group housing, they attend his church, which by the way is by invitation only. So just a regular person cannot attend the church. You have to be invited. which is not the typical church. So we're not talking about the typical groups.

But what you see in the Shekinah church is, again, milieu control. So Shin has them living together. reinforcing his teachings, reinforcing his control. And they work together. And people cannot attend their church unless invited. And so he's controlling the environment.

Just basically, people are all indoctrinated. They're all like-minded. And so if someone were to say, this is crazy. We're working for very little. We don't have health insurance. We're being exploited. Some would say, oh, that's not true. this is a holy and wonderful thing that we're in. And our leader, he's a wonderful man, and this is a great church, and how can you possibly think that?

Now, outside of the group, If he were to say that, or someone were to say that, someone would say, well, those are valid concerns. But in the group environment where they're living together, working together, reinforcing the indoctrination of the leader, they're not able to think outside of the box. And that's how these groups control the mind and control people.

How many of these, I mean, how many requests do you get for deprogramming? Well, every year I'll do interventions throughout the year. And some of those interventions are with people that are in abusive controlling relationships, but most of them are people that are in groups called cults. And I have traveled all over the world. I've done interventions in Europe, in Asia, in Australia.

I've worked in every state within the United States, except for Wyoming. I've yet to do any work in Wyoming. I think Dick Cheney will probably say, good. You know, and Liz Cheney will probably say, good, I'm glad Wyoming is not on your list. But every other state I've worked in. And I've done hundreds of interventions.

And all an intervention really is, Sean, is it's a process of educating someone about what is a destructive cult. defining that? And then second, how does thought reform and coercive persuasion really work and explaining that? And then the third, what information has this group withheld from you that you deserve to know to make a more informed decision about continuing?

And finally, why did your family bring me here? Why are they concerned about you? So this discussion can take three or four days. And you ask the person, can you take a break? Can you do this for your family? Three or four days, just take a break.

And if this group is everything they say they are, and they're really a great group, they won't have a problem with you taking a break for three or four days. And then you can unplug, think about these things, and ask yourself, does it make any sense to me? How do I feel about all of this? Why is my family so concerned? And then at the end, you decide what you wish to do.

So you can continue with the group, you can continue to take a break, or you can decide to leave. About 7 out of 10 of the people that I work with will decide that they're not going back.

Oh, heck yeah. You know, the first thing is, why did you do this? Because the intervention regarding cults is typically very much like an alcohol or a drug intervention. You don't tell the person there's going to be an intervention. So it's a surprise. And initially they may say, well, how could you do this? You should have told me.

And the answer is, well, if we had told you, would you share that with someone in the group? Would you tell the leader? What would they do? Would they say it's okay for us to have this process, this analysis of the group apart from them? Would they let you participate? Would they insist on coaching you? I mean, what would really happen?

And then if the person is honest, and they most often are, they would say, well, yeah, probably they wouldn't like that. And so I guess I understand why you did this the way you did. But I'm kind of shocked. But then the family will say, well, look, we love you. We really, really care about what's happening in your life. We care about you. We love you.

And we wouldn't do this if we didn't feel there was a reason. So would you trust us? You've known us all your life. You know we love you. So all we're asking you to do is give us some time. We're not telling you that you have to leave the group ultimately. What we're asking you is will you give us three days maybe to think about things, to talk about things.

And if you'll do that, that will ease our concerns and we'll feel like that is okay, that we've addressed what we're worried about. And usually the person will say yes.