“They Cut You Off From Everyone” - Cult Deprogrammer Breaks Down 764 Network, Scientology & NXIVM | PBD Podcast | Ep. 699

Patrick Bet-David sits down with cult deprogrammer Rick Alan Ross to expose the manipulative tactics of the 764 Network, the inner workings of Scientology, and the psychological control methods behind NXIVM. ------ Ⓜ️ CONNECT WITH RICK ALLAN ROSS:https://bit.ly/4iMHUhQ 📕 REGISTER FOR BPW: ⁠https://bit.ly/3IU2YWx⁠ https://bit.ly/3IU2YWx Ⓜ️ CONNECT ON MINNECT: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4kSVkso⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4kSVkso Ⓜ️ PBD PODCAST CIRCLES: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4mAWQAP⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4mAWQAP 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON SPOTIFY: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g57zR2⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4g57zR2 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ITUNES: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g1bXAh⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4g1bXAh 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ALL PLATFORMS: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4eXQl6A⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4eXQl6A 🥃 BOARDROOM CIGAR LOUNGE: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4pzLEXj⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4pzLEXj 🍋 ZEST IT FORWARD: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4kJ71lc ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4kJ71lc 📕 PBD'S BOOK "THE ACADEMY": ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/41rtEV4⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/41rtEV4 👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4lzQph2 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4lzQph2 📺 JOIN THE CHANNEL: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g5C6Or⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4g5C6Or 💬 TEXT US: Text “PODCAST” to 310-340-1132 to get the latest updates in real-time! ABOUT US: Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:29Speaker 01

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• 0:44Patrick Bet-David?

  His question's very innocent. How does one start a cult today?

• 0:47Speaker 03

  Well, the times have changed. So if you wanted to start a cult today, you would do it online. You'd have your social media accounts. You'd stream. And all of these things that I'm describing have in fact been done by cult leaders. This is the new way in which cults thrive.

• 1:04Patrick Bet-David?

  But what is the point where they go to, now sacrifice your life?

• 1:09Speaker 03

  The leader starts telling you that the outside world is evil. This is when it starts getting very dark. And then the leader can say things like, let's attack the Tokyo subway system. Or you can have a situation which recently happened. Paul Mackenzie told his people to fast and pray because the end of the world was coming, and over 400 bodies have been recovered in Kenya.

• 1:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Are you following anything with Diddy?

• 1:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, I followed a bit. I don't necessarily see him as a cult leader, but I see him as using cult-like techniques of coercive control to dominate and manipulate women. Cassie felt, he loves me. He's going to take care of me. And then it changes and morphs into something entirely different.

• 1:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Here's a conclusion I've come up with. Somebody may listen to you and say, what are you talking about, Rick? Jews don't doctrinate? Like, it's full-on cult-like to convert. Let me just finish, and then you'll see where I'm going with this. Everybody is in a cult, including you. I think you're in a cult.

• 2:35Speaker 04

  My handshake is better than anything I ever signs, right here.

• 2:39Patrick Bet-David?

  You are a one of one?

• 2:40Speaker 04

  My sundry. I don't think I've ever said this before.

• 2:48Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't know what the name of the movie was, but maybe, um, Score is what it was called. Score with, uh, Robert De Niro. Anyways, we're, we're having conversations about how much we both respect Edward Norton's, uh, movies, but he was not a cult leader, right? He's not a cult leader.

• 3:04Speaker 03

  No.

• 3:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Maybe Fight Club.

• 3:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, in Fight Club, he played.

• 3:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Maybe Fight Club.

• 3:10Speaker 03

  He, he kind of played a cult leader and also in, uh, in, uh, in the movie that he, he followed a man who led a hate group. Uh, what was that?

• 3:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Primal Fear?

• 3:23Speaker 03

  No, in X.

• 3:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, American History X.

• 3:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, in American History X, he followed a hate group leader and that leader was charismatic and he was enthralled with him and he followed him and eventually realized that it was a mistake. But I think that's a typical, a typical story of someone who becomes disenchanted in a cult.

• 3:47Patrick Bet-David?

  And then the story ends with him trying to get his brother out of it.

• 3:50Speaker 03

  Right.

• 3:51Patrick Bet-David?

  And his brother ends up, you know how the movie ends where, uh, it's, it's a wild ending to a movie, but okay, we're not going to talk about movies today. Today we're trying to learn how, you know, you identify as a, uh, a deprogrammer, right? You're a cult specialist and a deprogrammer and you've done this to over 500 patients of yours, right? Over the years.

• 4:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:14Patrick Bet-David?

  So, you, you know, we have one of our guys in a, in a back who's Humberto. He came in this morning, he's begging me to ask you this one question. He said, Pat, please start with this question. His question is very innocent. Some may call it a dumb question, but they say there's never a bad question. He said, how does one start a cult today? He's interested in starting a cult today. He wants to have a cult like Fallen. He wants people to be crazy about him. And he's wondering, if you wanted to do that, how do you do that today?

• 4:41Speaker 03

  Well, the times have changed. And so if you wanted to start a cult today, you would do it online. This is the new way in which cults thrive and recruit people and raise money. So you'd have your social media accounts, X, Facebook, TikTok. You'd stream. You would have websites. You'd have a YouTube channel. You might book a retreat through Airbnb. And all of these things that I'm describing have in fact been done by cult members. Uh, excuse me, cult leaders to pull in members. And so they recruit online. They get money online, you know, PayPal, Vemo.

• 5:25Speaker 03

  And everything happens online. And that is the new world of cults. Almost any of the old cults that were established have now reinvented themselves or rebranded themselves online. And people who are aspiring to become cult leaders begin typically online.

• 5:47Patrick Bet-David?

  So, okay, and I want to talk about that because the question that becomes, is it easier to be a cult leader today or 50 years ago, pre-social, pre-cell phones, pre-all that stuff? But prior to that, is the word cult, where does the word cult come from? Does it come from culture? Because it's a bunch of different words that it comes from. Where does cult come from?

• 6:07Speaker 03

  Well, you know, it's a, I believe, you know, from a language standpoint, it would go back to Roman times. Uh, but, but the word cult can, has a range of meaning. So for example, you could have a cult following. Uh, you could have a podcast and have fans that are very devoted to you. And that could be called a cult following, like Taylor Swift and the Swifties. Or you could be, be obsessed with shopping at

• 6:40Speaker 03

  Trader Joe's and that could be called a kind of cult following. But when we use the word cult, typically what we're talking about is a destructive cult. And there are three core characteristics that form the nucleus of virtually every definition of a destructive cult. And that would be number one, that you have this dictatorial leader who becomes an object of worship. And that leader is the defining element and driving force of the group. So it could be like David Koresh, Keith Rennery, Jim Jones, Charles Manson. And whatever the leader says is right is right, whatever the leader says is wrong is

• 7:21Speaker 03

  wrong, and the leader dominates and controls everything. And then number two, that leader uses identifiable techniques of coercive persuasion and thought reform to gain undue influence over his or her followers. And then, once they have that undue influence, they use it to exploit and do harm to the people that follow them. And that varies by degree from group to groups. Not all groups are mixing the Kool-Aid, as they say, to poison and kill their members through some kind of mass suicide or engage in criminal activity. Most cult leaders are really interested in cash, adulation, and maybe sexual favors.

• 8:06Speaker 03

  So that is what defines a destructive cult, those three core characteristics.

• 8:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Cash, adulation, and sexual favors.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:16Patrick Bet-David?

  All right, Humberto, there you go, buddy. So I'm sure, you know, so, all right, so cash, adulation, and sexual favors. Okay, so the word cult comes from culture. The word by itself is not a bad word, is the people who have, who use their cult-like following to harm and take advantage of people, rather than those, like, I would say Joe Rogan's got a cult-like following, I'm sure you would agree.

• 8:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:44Patrick Bet-David?

  I would say, you know, Ronaldo has a cult-like following, right? A massive cult-like following. There are many actors and singers and comedians that have cult-like following, podcasters have cult-like followings.

• 8:57Patrick Bet-David?

  But what's the switch? Like if you look at the pattern of a guy that uses their influence and their cult-like following to turn it into hurting somebody, harming somebody, what is that switch? What is... Where are those guys willing to go to that others with high influence don't? Wha- what's the difference? What's the place they're willing to go to?

• 9:20Speaker 03

  Where we're going is that basically, the leader takes control of critical thinking and decision-making and value judgments. And the followers become increasingly socially isolated because the leader influences them to cut off family, old friends, and to embed in this, if you will, bubble or alternate reality controlled by the leader. So as the leader takes his following further and further away from their moorings, their family, their community, and isolates them, they become very easily influenced

• 10:04Speaker 03

  because they have no other frame of reference. And everyone around them, by a deliberate process, is a member of this group. So if, for example, you look at someone else and say, "Hey, I think what the leader's saying sounds kind of crazy." The person next to you, "What are you talking about? He's all powerful, he's wonderful. We should just go along with him." So there's no way to get accurate feedback as you become more and more embedded. And then, once you lose your friends, your family, you're socially isolated in this group, and the leader starts telling you that the outside world is evil,

• 10:48Speaker 03

  everyone is really negative, they're awful, and only...

• 10:54Speaker 03

  The people within this group are right and, and good. And we need to protect ourselves. We need to defend ourselves against the persecution and the onslaught from the outside world. This is when it starts getting very dark. And then the leader can say things like, "Let's attack the Tokyo subway system", which Shoko Asahara, the leader of Amsun Rikio, did. And thousands of Japanese in the 90s were hospitalized. Many died. Or you can have a situation which recently happened in Kenya, where the leader of this group called, uh, the Good News International Church, Paul Mackenzie,

• 11:36Speaker 03

  told his people to fast and pray because the end of the world was coming. And over 400 bodies have been recovered in Kenya. So, so-

• 11:46Patrick Bet-David?

  How did they get, how did they die? How did they take their lives?

• 11:48Speaker 03

  They died from starvation. And, and, and hundreds of them were children. And so, not only did the adults fast and pray and starve to death, but their children did as well. And this is one of the most horrible things about destructive cults.

• 12:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Can you pull up the leader, the picture of the leader? Please continue, go for it.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, it, it, this is one of the most horrible things about destructive cults. Is, uh, we, we can talk about the process of undue influence and coercive persuasion, and how people are bent to the will of the leader. But, you know, their children are simply brought in by their parents, who think the group is good. And the children then become captives, if you will, of the cult. And many times, children are hurt terribly. I recently have been involved in helping the children of a group called Lev Tahrir, which is a spin-off of ultra-orthodox Judaism.

• 12:50Speaker 03

  Uh, this is a group that has members from New York, uh, from the United States, Canada, and Israel. And after fleeing multiple investigations for child abuse, uh, they ended up in Guatemala. And they created a compound outside of Guatemala City. Uh, eventually, the authorities rescued over 150 children from that compound, who were being horribly mistreated. And sexually abused, physically abused, not receiving proper care, food, medical care. And this is what happens in destructive cults is the children suffer because they were brought

• 13:35Speaker 03

  into this group or born into this group and they have no other choice.

• 13:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, but what I want to know is what is, what is the, everything you said at the beginning, you know, they tell you the world is negative, stay positive, you know, so, okay, that to me could be a Tony Robbins, that could be some motivational guy, so, you know, you have to protect yourself from negativity from the outside. Sometimes your own family doesn't want the best for you. You know, it's not about, you know, the, the, family isn't just about blood, it's about who's with you today when you have big dreams and you want to do some, okay, all of this stuff we've heard a million times from a lot of different people, right? Okay. So, all that's good. Some of that stuff has some truth behind it, you know, when you're going out there, people, even parents would probably teach that to their

• 14:21Patrick Bet-David?

  kids. But what is the point where they go to now sacrifice your life and what were the three words you said? Cash, adulation, and sexual favors. What is that tipping point?

• 14:35Speaker 03

  That tipping point is when you become so socially isolated within the group. Unlike a motivational speaker, you go to their seminar, you leave, you rejoin the world, you take with you whatever principles they may have taught you, and to some extent, some of the themes used by cults can be seen in, in, in other areas in the world. And that's part of the facade of, of destructive cults, is that they are going to project a positive image, they're going to put forth a kind of mask that, that doesn't let you see what is behind the door, what the more dark demands might be of the group. So unlike a seminar,

• 15:20Speaker 03

  you know, let's take NXIVM. NXIVM was a seminar selling company that did self-help.

• 15:27Speaker 03

  Motivational kind of of seminars. People would go off, they'd do a thirteen fourteen day intensive. They would be assigned a coach. Uh, they would go through a a training process that was dictated by a manual. And behind all of this was Keith Raniere, who they called Vanguard. Uh, what the difference is.

• 15:52Patrick Bet-David?

  This from Nxivm.

• 15:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, this is the leader of Nxivm, uh, which, uh, really was, uh, congregating around Albany, New York. Uh, and Raniere would eventually be, uh, arrested, tried for sex trafficking, fraud, uh, various things. And now he's in prison for a hundred and twenty years. But when the people became involved, they had no idea what Raniere's darker intentions were, where he really wanted to take them. They thought it was like other self-help groups, motivational speakers, et cetera. Where it where it changed was it became more and more demanding.

• 16:35Speaker 03

  And it became a complete way of life. In other words, you don't just come here and learn what we have to teach you and then take it home and then use it and and goodbye and get on with your life. We become your life. We consume your life. We expect you to move to Albany, New York to so that you can be close to Vanguard. Uh, Keith Raniere, we want you to recruit people. And if anyone in any way, shape or form is criticizing what we're teaching, we want you to cut them off, disconnect from them.

• 17:14Speaker 03

  And so so that's very different than a Tony Robbins or some type of motivational speaker. Um, Tony Rob, uh, Tony Roberts certainly has his, uh, critics. But I don't think anyone would say that, uh, you know, he has a compound. People have given up their lives to be with him and live near him and that their life becomes completely controlled by him.

• 17:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it. Yeah, I just found a clip of his most recent thoughts he shared before he went away, sentenced to 120 years in prison. Is this it, Rob? Yes. Can you go back to the one you just had? I just want to know how the guy speaks. What's his tone, the way he speaks? Can you press play?

• 18:00Speaker 05

  They called him Vanguard, the founder of NXIVM, a shadowy self-help organization described by federal prosecutors as cult-like. Keith Raniere has not spoken publicly since his arrest more than two years ago. But now, just days from being sentenced on federal charges, he is talking.

• 18:18Speaker 06

  You know, one of the things that's most important in our country is the justice system. And although, you know, people can hate me and do and think I'm an odious type of a character, you know, awful, actually, both the devil and the saint should be able to get the exact same treatment under our justice system.

• 18:43Speaker 05

  Today, Raniere spoke with, of all people, the man who helped bring him down, web journalist Frank Parlato, a former NXIVM spokesman. Parlato himself has pleaded not guilty to tax and other charges that originated from his NXIVM involvement.

• 18:58Speaker 07

  You plan out 14 steps ahead.

• 19:00Speaker 05

  If you have seen the HBO docu-series The Vow, Parlato's name may ring a bell. Parlato broke the story that a group within NXIVM was treating women as sex slaves and branding them with Raniere's initials.

• 19:12Patrick Bet-David?

  You gotta be kidding.

• 19:13Speaker 05

  Raniere was convicted in 2019 of sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy, and racketeering.

• 19:18Speaker 07

  Do you intend to make a statement at your sentencing that you are innocent?

• 19:25Speaker 06

  Yes, I am innocent. And although it is, this is a horrible tragedy.

• 19:33Patrick Bet-David?

  You can pause it right there. You've spent a lot of time with Keith.

• 19:36Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:37Patrick Bet-David?

  How many hours have you spent with Keith?

• 19:39Speaker 03

  Many hours. I sat through his deposition. He sued me. Interesting story. Basically, I deprogrammed people that were involved in NXIVM, four families. I worked with Victims and I facilitated reports being written by a clinical psychologist and a forensic psychiatrist analyzing the seminar training that Keith Raniere used, which by the way, he ripped off Scientology. He was really a plagiarist because many of the things that he taught were lifted directly from Scientology.

• 20:17Speaker 03

  For example, calling people that were critical of NXIVM suppressive people or suppressive persons.

• 20:25Patrick Bet-David?

  SPs.

• 20:26Speaker 03

  SPs urging people to disconnect from SPs. This was right out of Scientology. So Raniere, what he did was he put together something that took a little bit from landmark education and seminar structure.

• 20:44Patrick Bet-David?

  That was from forty years ago, thirty years ago.

• 20:46Speaker 03

  Est.

• 20:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Landmark and PSI and there was a couple of programs like that back in the days. And they would call you at the end crying, I'm so sorry what I did to you. And I'm like, why is this person calling me?

• 20:57Speaker 03

  Right.

• 20:57Patrick Bet-David?

  I'm at this thing called Landmark Forum and you know, I just really messed up. I should have never said that. Please, you just took me back thirty years, twenty, five years.

• 21:04Speaker 03

  Landmark just recently went bankrupt, but they were ongoing up until very recently. And by the way, they also sued me and lost. But the, but the point is that Raniere was not an original thinker. He cobbled together and many cult leaders do this. They copy other groups. They may have been in, in another group before they created their own. And so what you end up with is a composite. Raniere's composite was a little bit landmark Scientology, Ayn Rand, the philosophy of objectivism. And the multi-level marketing he learned as an Amway distributor.

• 21:43Speaker 03

  And later he created his own MLM called Consumer Byline, which was sued out of existence by attorney generals of various states. Raniere was soft spoken. He seemed like an introvert. He lied about his background. He was a genius. He was a stellar student in at university.

• 22:06Patrick Bet-David?

  He said he had like a two hundred and forty IQ or something like that.

• 22:09Speaker 03

  The man.

• 22:10Patrick Bet-David?

  He had a two point two six GPA.

• 22:12Speaker 03

  The the man was an average student. This came out in deposition and sworn testimony. He lied about all that. So what he really was was not a very smart guy. Because he ended up in prison for a hundred and twenty years. He could have done a correction along the way. And avoided that. Instead, like many cult leaders, he fed on his adulation. And it led to a kind of hubris and arrogance. That ultimately meant that he kept escalating his bad behavior, hurting more and more people. Thinking he could get away with it forever. And eventually he was held accountable.

• 22:53Speaker 03

  And I would agree with him. He is odious. He is a very negative person. But the way he projected himself was as a kind of philosopher king. Quiet, soft spoken, not the brash charismatic kind of of extroverted cult leader. That you typically see. But he was able to pull people in. And the people who were pulled in were, they went through intensive after intensive after intensive. So by the time the women were branded and and there were quite a few of them that that were branded.

• 23:35Speaker 03

  With a cauterizing iron and no anesthetic. And Keith Raniere would watch remotely. And these women, they had been through so much by the time that that event occurred. That you have to rewind it and understand that this took years of what we would call brainwashing. Before they reached that point. And in fact, it was a medical doctor, a D O. That eventually lost her license that did the branding with the cauterizing iron. And she was that caught up in Renary's alternate reality. And, and of course, you had the actress Alison Mack.

• 24:20Speaker 03

  And, and she was brought in by another actress, Kristen Krueg, from the series Smallville. And these were successful women who had very good careers and thought that NXIVM would improve their lives. And then I worked with Catherine Oxenburgh, who is best known from the series Dynasty in the eighties. And her daughter, India Oxenburgh, was also brought into the group. And at that time, Catherine Oxenburgh's husband, Casper Van Deem, also went to some of the training. But eventually Catherine and Casper Van Deem would drop out of NXIVM.

• 25:03Speaker 03

  But the problem was India was still in. And she would eventually be branded and go through a horrible.

• 25:12Patrick Bet-David?

  She was branded?

• 25:13Speaker 03

  Yes. And she would go through a horrible process of being separated from her family, turned against her family. You know, incommunicado. And Frank Parlato, by the way, was originally hired by Keith Renary as a kind of fixer and PR guy. I think, as I recall, he, part of what his job was, was to deal with me. And let me backtrack and say that there were these two doctors, a clinical psychologist, a forensic psychiatrist, who wrote three reports about NXIVM that were withering in their analysis. I put that online and published it. That is why Renary sued me.

• 25:58Speaker 03

  He wanted to shut down the, any kind of discussion of his training online. He wanted me to remove those reports. And I refused to do that. And he sued me for 14 years. And eventually that suit was dismissed and then subsequently he was arrested. In fact, I testified at his trial.

• 26:22Patrick Bet-David?

  You testified at his trial?

• 26:23Speaker 03

  Yes, I did.

• 26:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Have you had a one-on-one conversation with him?

• 26:25Speaker 03

  Oh, yes. You know, we went through what's called court-ordered mediation. The lawsuit was in federal court, and the federal judge ordered that we get together and try to negotiate a settlement. And I'm telling you, that was an interesting experience, sitting with a cult leader, trying to negotiate a settlement from this harassment lawsuit. And I can remember that very well.

• 26:51Patrick Bet-David?

  What vibes did he give you? Like, you know, think movie characters. Like, when you think about movie characters, you know the character Kaiser Soce from The Usual Suspects, right? I don't know if you know Kaiser Soce in the movie Usual Suspect. Think about, you know, Edward Norton from Primal Fear. What character can you tell us what he was like when you were negotiating with him?

• 27:14Speaker 03

  I don't know. He was like a little, he's a very short guy. I mean, I'm not very tall. I'm 5'7". And he was quite a bit shorter than me. Not impressive at all. And by the way, he literally stank. I mean, the guy didn't...

• 27:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Stank?

• 27:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Like, smelled?

• 27:31Speaker 03

  He smelled bad. He wasn't too big on showers. He was ill-kept. He was an odd guy. And he tried to come across as a deep thinker, very quiet. But when he didn't, when he was confronted, he would blow up. So what happened in the negotiations that we had was he kept running his philosophy, which is called rational inquiry, which is a bunch of junk, that he used to subdue people, their critical thinking. And he kept throwing that out at me and saying, "You don't understand. Listen to this. Listen to that."

• 28:15Speaker 03

  And I looked at him at one point and I said, "Look, Keith, I don't care what you believe." I'm not interested. What I'm here to do is court ordered mediation and settlement. And that's what we're here for. And he would keep starting up. And finally, I looked at him and I said, Keith, you know what I think is you're a cult leader and you brainwash people and you're destructive and you hurt people and that's who you are. And nothing you say is going to change.

• 28:42Patrick Bet-David?

  What did he say to that?

• 28:43Speaker 03

  He, he kind of blew up. You know, he got very red faced. He, he, his voice shook and he was very upset. And I could tell that in the bubble that he inhabited, where no one ever criticized him, that was just, uh, that was the cardinal sin. So he went directly from that into a deposition in which he was asked many questions about his life, his past. By the way, those depositions are now online. And I also met Nancy Salzman, who was the second in command of NXIVM.

• 29:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Can you hold that thought? This is a clip I found of Keith from 1980s. I just want to know how this guy speaks. Can you, can you play this clip, Rob?

• 29:27Speaker 00

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• 29:59Speaker 03

  What is Pac-Man fever and who's likely to get it? Now, just about anyone. Pac-Man has come out of the video arcade closet and is moving into your living room. The home version is out.

• 30:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Is he about to come up? Fast forward a little bit.

• 30:15Speaker 03

  See if he's anywhere there. Right here. Right there, okay, let's see it.

• 30:31Speaker 03

  That was him. What a, so, okay. Yeah. Seems like a regular guy. Uh, I don't know about that. In that? I mean, there were stories that were reported about Keith Raniere harassing little girls and terrorizing them at the age of 10. So I think that, in my opinion, and I think, uh, you know, this can be borne out, he was really bad from a very early age. Uh, he was, he was harassing people, terrorizing people, manipulating people. What do we know about his parents? Uh, from what I gathered, they were pretty good people. And, uh, he would at times imply that he was somehow an abused kid, that he had suffered and whatever.

• 31:16Speaker 03

  But in reality, from what I gathered, from talking to people that, uh, knew the family, he had, he had nice parents, his father in particular. And so you could argue that this man is a psychopath. I think, uh, mental health professionals would see him as that. And that he was born that way, perhaps. It's in his DNA, you know, as they say, bad to the bone. And many of the cult leaders that I've dealt with over the years, uh, they seem to be that way. They, they seem to form, uh, a pattern where they're insensitive to the suffering of others. They're incapable of empathy. And when they hurt people, they just don't feel anything. Interesting.

• 32:00Speaker 03

  Uh, and that their idea of right and wrong is what's good for me is right and what's wrong is what's bad for me. So do what I tell you and cooperate with me to get, give me what I want and you're good and we're good. But otherwise, it's bad. And so that's how Keith Raniere was, uh, was he obsessed with video games, uh?

• 32:24Speaker 03

  Whatever. I mean, what came out in his deposition was he never really had a real job. He was either a student or he was running an MLM. Uh, he was always taking advantage of people.

• 32:35Patrick Bet-David?

  What MLMs was he in? Who was, was Amway? What else was he?

• 32:38Speaker 03

  He was an Amway distributor is my understanding, and then he created his own uh MLM called Consumer Byline. And uh, it was a scam and that's why it went under. And then he created uh Nxivm with Nancy Salzman, his second in command, and Salzman was a nurse. Uh, she had a background in what's called neuro-linguistic programming, NLP.

• 33:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Yep.

• 33:03Speaker 03

  And she shared that with Renary and together they designed his training, which I think anyone who reads through the manual and looks at the study notes will recognize a pattern of coercive persuasion and manipulation that is evident in the way the course curriculum was designed from the very beginning. So Salzman knew that, though she might argue today that she's a victim. I don't see Nancy Salzman as a victim. In fact, when they raided her house, they found $500,000 in cash in the house. To me, if you have that much money stashed, you're not really a victim. You're, you're a co-conspirator.

• 33:43Speaker 03

  And, and Nancy Salzman would eventually go to prison for withholding information in the lawsuit against me, uh, which is a crime in a, in, in a federal lawsuit. And also they would find files in her basement of the perceived enemies of Nxivm, including me. And I saw this file when I testified in the criminal trial of Keith Renary. They showed it to me. Did you know they had a file on you? And uh,

• 34:10Patrick Bet-David?

  On you?

• 34:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, and they showed me.

• 34:12Patrick Bet-David?

  This is very similar to Scientology, so far what you're saying. Every time I've interviewed somebody that said something bad about Scientology, I've gotten an email. And a website about why that person's wrong and history of that person's wrongdoing over their lifetime, whatever it is.

• 34:30Speaker 03

  That's their dead agent file, that's what it's called.

• 34:33Patrick Bet-David?

  For Scientology?

• 34:35Speaker 03

  In Scientology, if they put together a file on a perceived enemy, it's called your dead agent file. I think mine is hundreds of pages long, it's been thrown around.

• 34:49Patrick Bet-David?

  You're famous in Scientology?

• 34:50Speaker 03

  Well, I'm certainly considered an SP. I've been labeled an SP for decades.

• 34:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Not good.

• 34:57Speaker 03

  For decades, yeah.

• 34:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Boy, you're a troublemaker, it's to them, that's not...

• 34:59Speaker 03

  And their lead counsel, Kendrick Moxon, and I have crossed swords in court. So, I think, yeah, Scientology is an example of a group that goes after its enemies. Keith Raniere, I think, learned from that example.

• 35:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Did they ever meet? Does he have any, I just tapped right in, if there's any affiliation, there's nothing connected between the two?

• 35:21Speaker 03

  I have been told that one of the inner circle in NXIVM was a former Scientologist. And I was also told that at one time, when Keith Raniere was suing me, he exchanged ideas or thoughts or had some kind of input from Scientology in regards to going after me. Certainly, my dead agent file was used by NXIVM. And by the way, NXIVM had me under surveillance. At one point, they were actually buying my garbage in a building that I lived in.

• 35:58Patrick Bet-David?

  That's Scientology?

• 35:59Speaker 03

  Well, very similar. And they went into my banking records and phone records, and I would eventually sue and settle with the PI company that was hired by NXIVM. So, you know, NXIVM was, they were brutal, they were very insidious in the way that they went after people. But let's, let me just share this. The key to understanding NXIVM is that Keith Raniere was able to recruit two heirs to the Seagram's liquor fortune, and that is Claire and Sarah Bronfman. These sisters reportedly gave Keith Raniere over a hundred million dollars.

• 36:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Stop it.

• 36:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. He was, when he was arrested, there were... Yes.

• 36:44Patrick Bet-David?

  She looks like somebody that would waste that money.

• 36:46Speaker 03

  Well, she went to prison for almost seven years over Nxivm.

• 36:50Patrick Bet-David?

  That's a terrible mugshot. Is that a mugshot or is that just a picture?

• 36:53Speaker 03

  I.

• 36:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Can you see if that's a mugshot, Rob?

• 36:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Doesn't say down here. Oh, that, I mean, she.

• 37:00Speaker 03

  To be honest with you, I think that's kind of a flattering picture, because I've.

• 37:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Stop it.

• 37:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, because I've seen Claire Bronfman.

• 37:07Patrick Bet-David?

  You met her?

• 37:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, I didn't meet her face to face, but at another court ordered mediation, she was there representing Nxivm. She was an officer of Nxivm, the corporation. And she was scurrying around, talking to different mediators, former federal judges, trying to follow through on whatever Renary's plan was at that mediation. But she really was a pawn of Renary for years and years and went to prison for seven years. And to this day, I think she would still say positive things about Keith Renary.

• 37:47Patrick Bet-David?

  She would?

• 37:48Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 37:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 37:52Patrick Bet-David?

  I'm trying to think about another guy that 20 years ago, he had this blue CD set that I listened to every one of them and he had, he's, but I don't think he ended up going this far. I think to him, he was just a guy that, trying to pull up his name to see if I have it or not. I'm not talking about the great ones that changed a lot of people's lives. I'm not talking Napoleon Hill, Jim Rohn, Nightingale, Brian Tracy. I'm not talking about any of these guys. It was a different guy. But, okay, Scientology. You know, I've worked with Scientologists and I will tell you, from my experience,

• 38:26Patrick Bet-David?

  I've never had a bad experience with Scientologists. They work very hard. I recruited people from the C organization. They would work 16-hour days.

• 38:37Patrick Bet-David?

  They were not my agents. We shared an office together, selling insurance. So they ran their own agency. I ran my own agency, but we were overlapping each other and I would help them grow their business because one of the guys, you know, became a friend and.

• 38:51Patrick Bet-David?

  When we're at the office late at night, midnight, you know, 11 o'clock, I'm finishing up my day. And I would say, well, you know, do you know what assist is? Let me, we do something called assist, we do something. And I, I went to the facility, I got some of the books, I read some of the material, dianetics and other things. I probably have a couple of dianetics copies in my office. Uh, and you see some things that are interesting. Then you read about the founder, then things get a little bit suspicious and like, wait a minute, what's? And then you read Leah Remini and watch the stuff she did or Presley, is it Leslie Presley? If I'm saying it correctly, one of the Presleys, right? Who was the one that was?

• 39:29Speaker 03

  Priscilla Presley, joined and she brought in Lisa Marie Presley, her daughter.

• 39:35Patrick Bet-David?

  That's right. So what patterns do you notice with Scientology like this? However, they've never gotten in trouble, not they've never gotten in trouble. They're still around, they're still there, they still have their religion exemption, they still have the tax benefits. What patterns do you notice there?

• 39:54Speaker 03

  Well, I think what you see is worship of the leader. I mean, L Ron Hubbard is considered sacrosanct, really. And his writings are, are sacred. In fact, they have them written in, in, uh, in, in, in metal and stored in a mountain to preserve them. So I think what you see typically is a kind of worship of L Ron Hubbard, though he is dead. He was succeeded by his secretary, David Miskovich, who now occupies a similar, similar position in Scientology.

• 40:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Very powerful.

• 40:29Speaker 03

  He's, he's a virtual dictator, in my opinion. Uh, and so what you see-

• 40:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Have you ever met him?

• 40:35Speaker 03

  No, I have not.

• 40:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Never met him?

• 40:37Speaker 03

  I've, I've met their lead counsel, Kendrick Moxon. Uh, I've met quite a few Scientologists over the years and former Scientologists. There, there's a division of, of- Who is what could be called a public or a member of Scientology, but they are not a full-time member? The people that are in SeaOrg, the Sea Organization, are full-timers. There are thousands of them, and they staff buildings and so forth. I would question the way those people are treated, because I've talked to former SeaOrg members, and, you know, what is their healthcare benefit? What is their retirement benefit? How much are they actually paid?

• 41:22Speaker 03

  Why do they have to sign billion-year contracts for this life and successive lives? You know, are they or are they not treated fairly? There are allegations that they're not, based on what people have said that have left. Then there's the whole celebrity crowd, you know, John Travolta, Tom Cruise, Jenna Elfman, the people who are treated very well within Scientology. Scientology has celebrity centers to cater to celebrities. So I would say that you could divide Scientology up, and you could say, "Well, the celebrities are treated in one way," in which they would say Scientology is great, "we're being treated

• 42:07Speaker 03

  very well." And then at the bottom, you have these SeaOrg members, many of them brought into Scientology as children, raised within Scientology, schooled by Scientology, and they become the backbone of Scientology. You know, the worker drones that keep everything going. So Scientology also, the families that call me will talk about how a loved one became involved in Scientology, and the deeper they became involved, the more control Scientology had over their life.

• 42:47Speaker 03

  And as the family questioned that, and questioned what was happening and how it was affecting their life, Scientology would say, "Well, they're a suppressive person, and you need to disconnect from them." So I have done interventions to get people out of Scientology. In one case, which I recount in my book, Cults Inside Out, was a man who had been in Scientology for 27 years. He was almost 50 when I met him. And he had a wife, he had two children. He had always functioned as someone who would take courses and be active with Scientology,

• 43:29Speaker 03

  but had his own home, his own life, his family. And his wife would take courses and his children to humor him, as they would tell me. But they never became fully immersed. At one point Scientology says to this guy, "We want you to become a full-time Sea Org member. Divorce your wife, leave your family, move into Sea Org housing." Because Sea Org members, you know, they eat, sleep, breathe Scientology. And he was going to do that. And then his family contacted me. We did an intervention and he decided to leave Scientology.

• 44:10Speaker 03

  Which for him was really very difficult because all of his friends were Scientologists. And he had grown up in this organization. So when he walked away, he thought, "Can I still have these friends? Or will I have to let them go?" And it ended up where he had to let them go because they kept trying to pull him back in. And he had to leave. And I can remember at one point, his children literally getting on their knees in front of him. He was sitting in his living room. And they were crying and they were saying, "Dad, don't do it. Don't go into Sea Org. Don't leave us. We love you. We want you in our lives. Please don't do this." And of course, his wife was crying.

• 44:55Speaker 03

  He started crying. I think what finally helped him to get out of Scientology was realizing that the writings of L. Ron Hubbard were flawed. Hubbard believed...

• 45:09Speaker 03

  That toxins could reside in the fatty tissues of the body indefinitely. And so Scientology has a routine called the purification rundown in which you go through saunas.

• 45:23Patrick Bet-David?

  Lake Arrowhead is one of their main facilities.

• 45:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, and you take large doses of niacin and so on, and you're supposedly going to sweat out whatever toxins are in your body. And Hubbard would, uh, would, would propose, or he wrote, that let's say you at one time, uh, did LSD, or at one time you, you took antidepressants or whatever, they're in your fatty tissue indefinitely until you do the purification rundown, which of course Scientology collects money for. You know, they can collect thousands of dollars for somebody doing the purification rundown. At one point, they

• 46:04Speaker 03

  were through an organization called Narcanon, which is, in my opinion, a front for Scientology. It's an anti-drug program and Narcanon runs drug reabs, but it's based on Scientology. And it's controversial. And so Narcanon approached the California school system and they said, let us do an anti-drug program for your schools to help kids say no to drugs. And they asked them specifically at that point, uh, is this religion? Because we can't have you teaching religion to the kids. And they said, no, no, Narcanon is separate from Scientology, and this is not us teaching Scientology. So they let them in, and then

• 46:48Speaker 03

  they had complaints and they brought them back in. And they said, we're getting complaints. The kids are having nightmares. They're telling their parents they've got drugs in the fatty tissue of their bodies that could be, uh, let out at any time without warning and could cause them harm. Why are you teaching that to kids? It's not true. Science has proven that drugs do not reside indefinitely in any part of the body and that they are dispelled. From the body in a certain period of time and you know, you know that from people taking drug tests, how many days before did you use drugs? It's going to come up in the test and if it's distant, it won't come up in the test.

• 47:32Speaker 03

  So Scientologists said, well, this is a truth. We, this is, this is, this is what, what we say is the truth. And the school said, no, it's not the truth. It's a belief. And it's, and now you're teaching religion. You're not doing a typical drug, anti-drug program. You're teaching something. And so I shared this with the man who had been in Scientology for 27 years. And I said, I can understand that L. Ron Hubbard had some quaint beliefs that seemed valid at the time that he wrote, which was in the 1950s and, and, and 60s.

• 48:12Speaker 03

  So he wrote and he thought that this was true, but science has proven it is not. So it was a theory that was disproven. And if, if what you believe in is science and, and the name of the organization is Scientology, implying it's kind of scientific, uh, why can't the group acknowledge that this was a, a mistake? This theory has been proven false and then move on, which is what science does. Science through evidence will move beyond a theory that has been disproven.

• 48:51Speaker 03

  And he really struggled with that because he realized, yeah, what he's saying is true. And I, I showed him the documentation and everything and what had happened. And he realized, well, if, if, when Hubbard is wrong about something, what do we do with that? Can't we, uh, realize that that theory has been disproven and move on? And so that was the crack that opened up, that let everything else in. And then he left Scientology.

• 49:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. The last time he did an interview, Miscavige, was with Ted Koppel. And I believe it's in 94 or something like that. It could be, Rob, can you say what year that was, the Koppel interview? It's a long time interview and, and people have had a hard time. Have had a hard time finding his wife. They don't know where his wife is.

• 49:41Speaker 03

  Uh, she's been located. She, she is in relatively comfortable setting.

• 49:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Good shape?

• 49:48Speaker 03

  In, yeah, in nor- in northern, in northern California, um, I think, uh, somewhat near.

• 49:55Patrick Bet-David?

  She was missing for 20 years though, 15 years though.

• 49:57Speaker 03

  Not really. I, I think, I think there was a point where people questioned, where is she? Where is she? But eventually it would be established that she had been assigned to a Scientology branch in California, and that's where she works and she lives. And it's relatively secluded and she is somewhat isolated. And you could even go so far as to say, well, David Miscavige did the equivalent of, woman, get thee to a nunnery.

• 50:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, I mean, it says, since her disappearance in 07, she has been the subject of speculation and inquiries with her whereabouts. In 2012, attorneys who said they represented her responded by saying she was leading a private life devoted to the Church of Scientology. In 2013, Liam Romani, a former Scientologist and critic of the organization, filed a missing person reporting Miscavige with the LA Department. LAPD closed the investigation within hours and described the report as unfounded. Has she showed herself? Have people seen her?

• 51:01Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 51:01Patrick Bet-David?

  She has?

• 51:02Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 51:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 51:03Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 51:03Patrick Bet-David?

  And what, what, uh, where has that been documented?

• 51:07Speaker 03

  I, I think, I think she was seen at a restaurant, eating out, outside of the-

• 51:12Patrick Bet-David?

  That's great news.

• 51:12Speaker 03

  Outside of the compound. She also has, uh, the, the compound that she's in is in northern California. It's relatively secluded. It's actually quite nice, from what I've heard. So she is basically comfortably living, devoted to Scientology in seclusion. Uh, and you could argue that David Miscavige wanted to get rid of her, that he put her there to take her out of the limelight, that he didn't want to share the limelight with her, and that he wanted her out of his life. Be that as it may, she's, she's not unaccounted for. She, she lives in this relatively comfortable

• 51:56Speaker 03

  place in Northern California, albeit a full-time Scientology facility where she's working for Scientology, day in, day out, and this is her life.

• 52:09Patrick Bet-David?

  This is the only Scientology in Northern California I could find, the Petriola, is that correct?

• 52:16Patrick Bet-David?

  They say it's a giant compound with a hidden bunker underneath.

• 52:20Speaker 03

  And says what, that she is there?

• 52:22Patrick Bet-David?

  That's the only Scientology headquarters that I could find in a remote secluded location in Northern California.

• 52:28Speaker 03

  I am not, I'm not really sure which facility it is by name, but you know, it is in Northern California, and it's not a huge facility, but it's where she is. That may be the facility in fact there. But she's, people know where she is. I mean, it's not a mystery. She has been there for a number of years.

• 52:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, the niece was on News Nation just a few months ago. Did you see that interview?

• 53:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I'm aware of it, yes.

• 53:03Patrick Bet-David?

  She, she, she claimed that she has been seen, but doesn't want to give proof. So the, the, you know, obviously she was critical of Scientology, but you know, the niece herself says, "I'm not sure."

• 53:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Let me just have this, Rob. I'm gonna send this to you if you want to take a look at this. But if you're telling me this is breaking news for a lot of us, because you know, most people didn't know if she was

• 53:33Patrick Bet-David?

  out there or not, but that's phenomenal news, that she is good. Can you just watch that to see what she says about her being around and that being the most recent incredible source coming from the niece?

• 53:42Speaker 03

  Hi, I'm Rick Allen Ross, cult expert, intervention specialist, author of the book Cults Inside Out. You can find me on Manect.

• 53:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so now, let's, let's, let's kind of, um,

• 53:59Patrick Bet-David?

  somebody from that community could say, well, um, on the Scientology side.

• 54:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Tom Cruise is how old, Rob? Can you look up how Tom Cruise is? Tom Cruise is...

• 54:12Speaker 03

  63?

• 54:13Patrick Bet-David?

  63 years old. Go to Grant Cardone. Okay, Grant Cardone's age. He's probably gotta be late 50s, early 60s. 67 years old. Can you go to images of Grant Cardone? He does not look 67 years old. Okay, that's an older picture, but a recent one. The guy doesn't look 67 years old. It's probably a two-year picture, one-year picture, something like that. So somebody may say, "Why, why do these two guys, why do they look so good? In their 60s?" Maybe, maybe they have figured something out that others haven't. What would you say to that?

• 54:46Speaker 03

  I think that they live very healthy, productive lives. And I think that what we should disabuse ourselves of is the notion that intelligent, successful people cannot get caught up in cults. I have personally deprogrammed five medical doctors. One was an orthopedic surgeon, another was an anesthesiologist. Very respected physicians. And each one of them, at the time that I worked with them, and each intervention thankfully was successful. They truly believed in the group that they were in. And only through an intervention were they brought out

• 55:31Speaker 03

  when their family supported that intervention. So the, it is possible for someone very intelligent, very, very successful in life to be caught up in a group that has been called a cult. In the case of Tom Cruise, he became involved in Scientology through his first wife, Mimi Rogers, who had been herself raised in Scientology. After her parents left, I think Mimi Rogers probably wanted to continue to have a, a life with her parents. And she feared the, the process of disconnection, I, I believe. And so she ended up leaving Scientology. And Tom Cruise ironically,

• 56:16Speaker 03

  who had been introduced to Scientology by Mimi Rogers, he divorced her. And I think it's fair to say that the reason, or at least it's been reported, that the reason behind each of his three divorces... Has been Scientology. Mimi Rogers left. Nicole Kidman wouldn't go all in. Katie Holmes wanted to protect her child from Scientology. Tom Cruise's only biological child, Suri Cruise. So what has happened with Tom Cruise is an interesting thing. Here's this man who is a very accomplished person, very successful, arguably brilliant when it comes to producing movies,

• 56:59Speaker 03

  understanding, you know, what are the vehicles that he wants to back? People often call him the last big movie star in the world. But if you look at his personal life, how has Scientology affected that? He doesn't seem to have a relationship with his daughter, Suri. His two adopted children with Nicole Kidman are involved in Scientology, but they have largely been separated from Nicole Kidman, who is very careful what she says about Scientology in order to preserve her relationship with her two adopted children. So even though you can look at Tom Cruise and say,

• 57:41Speaker 03

  what an incredible guy, incredibly successful, but Scientology has had an effect on him, and the effect has been three failed marriages. And that must be very painful for Tom Cruise. Also, the recent relationship with the actress Anna Diarmis apparently ended when he wanted her to become involved in Scientology. That's been reported. So to the extent that Scientology can be a negative influence in your personal life and cause divorces, family estrangements, that's a problem that even the celebrities in Scientology deal with.

• 58:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, makes sense. Yeah, I mean, it's... I've heard stories and the business model of when they get so much intel from you and your personal life mistakes you made, that when you want to leave, it's a very difficult thing to do. But that business model of confession is a business model from the Catholic Church. It's actually, if you think about, where does confessions go to?

• 58:49Speaker 03

  If you're a Catholic and you're confessing, you're, there's a curtain. You don't know who the priest is on the other side. The priest has quite a few-

• 59:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Are you a Catholic?

• 59:01Speaker 03

  No, I am not. I'm Jewish. So, a Catholic priest has, you know, ethical standards that he must adhere to. He cannot reveal a confession.

• 59:14Patrick Bet-David?

  But he's still a human being. He's a sinner.

• 59:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, but, but let's, let's contrast that with what Scientologists do, which is auditing. And this is a form of what they call spiritual counseling. So, you're sitting across the table from your confessor or your auditor. You are holding two metal cans connected by wires to a box called an E-meter, which is actually what could be seen as part of a polygraph. It measures nervous tension in your hands. And the needle moves when you're nervous. So, you're being asked questions by the auditor about your personal life, your business life, whatever. And he has the advantage of not only looking you in the eye and reading your

• 1:00:01Speaker 03

  body language and so forth, but seeing on the E-meter when you are nervous. And so, at that point, when he sees, oh, the needle's moving-

• 1:00:09Patrick Bet-David?

  So, this is confessions with the use of technology?

• 1:00:12Speaker 03

  Yes. And then drilling down into whatever makes you nervous, supposedly to help you. But also, this is revealing your secrets, revealing your inner life and your private life. And then, they're taking notes that go into a folder that might be called your pre-clear folder, or, or the records of Scientology. And routine-

• 1:00:39Speaker 03

  People that become involved in Scientology sign releases regarding their records and so forth. So Scientology, then, they've, they've got the goods on you. They know about what makes you tick.

• 1:00:53Patrick Bet-David?

  It's an organized form of confessions.

• 1:00:55Speaker 03

  It's organized in a methodical way and there are copious notes and records. That can be used ultimately to your detriment.

• 1:01:04Patrick Bet-David?

  But it's confessions.

• 1:01:06Speaker 03

  It, it is confession, but I, I would call it more like an interrogation.

• 1:01:14Speaker 03

  I would, I would liken it to.

• 1:01:15Patrick Bet-David?

  They're cousins though, right? Confessions and interrogation, if they're asking you a question, you know, um, I, I understand. Like you can even, you can ask people that have left religions of what they were uncomfortable with. Because there was a church in LA called the Los Angeles Church of Christ.

• 1:01:33Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:01:34Patrick Bet-David?

  And Los Angeles Church of Christ, a guy named Edward once came up to me. And I was introduced to it by a guy named Fernando, who was one of my groomsmen, a good guy. And he says, come meet this guy named Edward. I go meet the guy Edward, nice guy. And he meets my girlfriend and he starts asking me questions. He says, so when's the last time you guys had sex? And I said, probably 30 minutes ago, prior to meeting with you. And he says, really? I said, yeah. He says, you know, you're going to hell. I said, what's your point? Where are you going with this? Says, well, I'm just telling you, you're gonna go to hell. I said, I said, I already know I'm going to hell. What's the purpose of me meeting with you? Like, I'm trying to see if I have a shot at going to heaven. What's the? Anyway, so we start kind of going through the process and it was such a controlled environment.

• 1:02:18Patrick Bet-David?

  And Fernando was dating a girl, I won't say the girl's name, that that relationship ended up very nasty because she was fully in. That he had to do certain things that he didn't want to do, that he was forced to do, that he did. Anyways, long story short, can you find out who was the pastor? Was it guy named?

• 1:02:36Speaker 03

  Kit McKean.

• 1:02:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Was it Steve Sap or Kit McKean?

• 1:02:39Speaker 03

  Well, Kit McKean was at the top. And eventually, he would step down from leadership.

• 1:02:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Right, and he came up and he said, "I've been wrong. What I've been saying..." One of the guys gets up. Actually, it's Steve Sap. Can you type in, uh, uh, Los Angeles Church of Christ and type in Steve Sap?

• 1:02:54Speaker 03

  But this was actually called the International Church of Christ. Not to be confused, by the way, with the United Church of Christ, which is a mainline denomination, or the Independent Churches of Christ, which this group broke away from. So Kit McKean started this group back in the seventies with just a handful of people in Massachusetts. And at its highest point, it's estimated that there were about 250,000 members worldwide.

• 1:03:22Patrick Bet-David?

  They had Hollywood, they had celebrities, they had actors. I would go in there, I'm like, "Holy moly, they got everybody."

• 1:03:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, and, and it was all based on a concept of discipleship, in which every member was assigned a discipling partner. And there was an ascending hierarchy with Kit McKean at the top, the one person who wasn't being discipled. Uh, and they worshipped him as a kind of prototype of the perfect Christian. And they also believed that every other Christian church was lost. Only their church-

• 1:03:58Patrick Bet-David?

  The only way to go to heaven is through their church.

• 1:04:00Speaker 03

  Under their leadership.

• 1:04:01Patrick Bet-David?

  That's right.

• 1:04:02Speaker 03

  And so, when you see a Christian church that is saying, "Look, I, I, I'm not just saying that Christianity is the way. I'm saying that Christianity writ large is not the way. It is my organization that I run, that you must belong to in order to be saved." And that is what Kit McKean taught until he stepped down. Now, he has restarted, uh, recently. And he, again, has followers, not very many. And the ICO-C, as it's often called, the International Church of Christ, is now greatly diminished. I, I, I don't know how many members, but I would speculate 50,000 or less.

• 1:04:46Speaker 03

  So they've, they've toppled quite a bit. But when they were in their heyday, I was doing inter-

• 1:04:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh my goodness.

• 1:04:53Speaker 03

  I was doing interventions to get people out.

• 1:04:55Patrick Bet-David?

  I was talking to my friend, I'm like, "Buddy, I don't know..." This doesn't, this doesn't sound like a good church you're a part of. He says, no, you don't understand. I said, alright, I mean, do your thing, but this is why I don't want to go to church. Because of churches like this. They were very good though, very organized.

• 1:05:12Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:05:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Very systematic.

• 1:05:13Speaker 03

  Very much so, very much so. And I once did a, a, a, a news program with Fox News. And, uh, producers for Fox News infiltrated in the late nineties, the church in Atlanta, Georgia. And they actually were able to get recordings of what that discipleship was like. And how they would talk to you. And specifically their, their training and they're saying to someone, you, you need to consider leaving your boyfriend. They're telling a female producer at Fox. Because, uh, he isn't coming along with the program and therefore you need to get rid of him.

• 1:05:55Speaker 03

  And, uh, and, and that kind of inner discussion that is, uh, not heard by the general public and not known when you become involved with the church, uh, is, is what really makes it tick, that kind of control. And I can remember I was retained by Fox as an analyst and consultant. And the producers would actually call me to be debriefed. Because even though they knew that the group was a cult, they would say to me, Rick, I, I feel like I'm getting taken in. I feel like I'm starting to become a believer. Help me here. What's wrong with what they're saying?

• 1:06:32Patrick Bet-David?

  With these guys?

• 1:06:33Speaker 03

  Yeah. And, uh, so I had done-

• 1:06:35Patrick Bet-David?

  They were good.

• 1:06:36Speaker 03

  They were very good. I did eighty interventions-

• 1:06:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you find sexual things? Did you find, cause I didn't find anything there. Like-

• 1:06:43Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:06:43Patrick Bet-David?

  The adulation and the sexual stuff, I didn't see the sexual stuff at all. So they were all actually very good people.

• 1:06:50Speaker 03

  Hmm, the leaders were, were living large. A lot of the leaders were-

• 1:06:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Financial part-

• 1:06:56Speaker 03

  The finances were, which were exposed.

• 1:06:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, if you take the three, the cash, the adulation and the sexual, I didn't see the sexual.

• 1:07:03Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:07:03Patrick Bet-David?

  The adulation I saw, I know nothing about the cash, cause I wasn't at the higher up level. I was in my early twenties.

• 1:07:09Speaker 03

  Let me, let me just say that when Kit McKean stepped down, he did so for sins in his life that remain undisclosed. So I don't know what that involved. If was it, he wasn't faithful to his wife, he was excessively controlling, he used money in a questionable way. I don't know. He did not disclose. And certainly, there were wonderful people that were involved in the ICOC. And I think that's part of the phenomenon or the situation you're in, in a destructive cult. You're in this group, and the people around you are very idealistic,

• 1:07:53Speaker 03

  they're very positive, because they believe that the group is good. And they're, and they're there feeling that they're, they're, they're promoting something that is positive, that is good for, for people. And so you are mistaken by these people around you. You look at them, and they're smiling, and they're loving, and they're kind, and you think to yourself, this is a great group. But if you, if you, if you sat with Kit McKean in a situation where he had to answer for himself, you probably would say, what the heck am I in here? And so many people, when they leave cults, they leave because something happened, there was

• 1:08:36Speaker 03

  a revelation, there was something shocking that they witnessed, that was not according to what the group said they were about. And they were disturbed by it, or they're just plain exhausted, worn out from working so hard for the group, and they leave. And I think that many people, when they leave, leave thinking, well, there's something wrong with me, I'm ashamed of myself, I failed, I, I let God down.

• 1:09:05Speaker 03

  Et cetera. And they don't really understand, no, it wasn't about me doing something wrong or me being to blame. It was the group. And that the group had predatory practices and that the group leadership wasn't ethical. And there were conflicts that I had as a person wanting to be ethical and reasonable with what I was being told to do in the group. And so I think for everyone that leaves a group, you have to go through a process of unpacking your experience, looking at it, understanding it. And I would say it's very similar to being in an abusive controlling relationship.

• 1:09:48Speaker 03

  Initially, you fall in love. The person who is the abusive partner is very effusive and they tell you how much they love you and you go through this honeymoon period. But then comes the abuse and you don't want to believe it. And that your partner is telling you, it's your fault. It's your fault. Why did you make me have a meltdown? Why did you make me hit you? I did it because of your behavior. And so the cult member feels the same way. And I know that people often say about women that are in abusive controlling relationships, well, you know, love is blind. But when the perpetrator, the partner, is constantly manipulating you

• 1:10:33Speaker 03

  and there's all this smoke and mirrors, how can you see clearly? And it's the same way with a cult. They're not giving you accurate information. They're playing with your head. They're gaslighting you. How can you think clearly when they don't let you?

• 1:10:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, both ways, by the way. I've seen guys also caught up with a controlling woman. I mean, it's very easy to always just say men. I saw a guy that he lost himself, married a girl. And afterwards, I'm like, buddy, you've lost yourself. I don't know what just happened to you. He's happily married now. He's got a beautiful family. But for about three years, nobody could recognize him. He was controlled by her. Vice versa. Of course, I've seen more stories with men than I've seen with women. It's two to one on a number of stories because men are more the aggressive, the assertive. But women have a way of controlling in a very different way. I just messaged my guy to see who we were talking about.

• 1:11:30Patrick Bet-David?

  And regarding to this Kip guy from Los Angeles Church of Christ, this is a clip from 1993 where he is a CBS reporter, a reporter is trying to interview him. And go ahead, Rob.

• 1:11:43Speaker 04

  Last month, we found out that the man who some followers call God's greatest living treasure would be coming to this New York hotel for an annual meeting with his world sector leaders. Mr. McKean, I'm Trish Wood from Fifth Estate. I believe you were talking to our researcher on the phone. Could we ask you a couple of questions?

• 1:12:03Speaker 07

  Well, you know, we have no comment. I appreciate.

• 1:12:06Speaker 04

  Could you just maybe explain to us why so many of the ex-members of your church are suggesting that there was mind control involved in their time in the church? Can you explain why people are saying that?

• 1:12:18Speaker 07

  We have no comment this time.

• 1:12:20Speaker 04

  But the questions really are about you and your role in the leadership of the church. And many of the ex-members would like to know why these things happened to them.

• 1:12:31Speaker 07

  Well, I think you've talked to many of the ex-members, so you have the information.

• 1:12:36Speaker 04

  But they would like, and I think some questions are appropriate for you to answer. Why are all these people suggesting that there was mind control being done to them while they were in your church? Mr. McKean?

• 1:12:50Patrick Bet-David?

  So the question then becomes the following. It's easy to demonize these guys, right? To me, sometimes, you know how they say offense wins, you know? You have a lot of teams that have great regular season records and they suck in the playoffs because they're an offensive team with not a defensive, you know, strategy. And you'll see these football teams that were decent offense season, but their defense was ridiculous and in the playoffs, they crush. I have four kids. To me, I like to play prevent. Okay, preventative and, uh, uh, uh, what's the word? Um, anticipation.

• 1:13:34Patrick Bet-David?

  So I'd like to anticipate things that could potentially happening. On ways for them to try to divide the family. On ways that people in the future will try to divide us or say things because, "You know, all your care, father cares about is this, or your brother is this and your sister is this," and they'll try to come in between them. And, you know, the goal is I want to keep the family. And I'll tell them, "You guys are the most important to each other. It's even more important in your relationship with me. You guys got to stay buddies forever because we're not going to be around, but you guys going to be around. You guys got to stay strong." So you're giving them these messages, reaffirming messages for them to stay strong. So maybe give me, because right now, first thing you talked about in the first two minutes, when I asked you a question about Humberto who aspires to be a cult leader, uh, which maybe he's changed his aspirations, who knows?

• 1:14:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Maybe he's changed his mind. He's probably very disappointed right now, maybe even left for the day to call him sick. But, so, so let's just say, uh, for those who are going through it. In the first two minutes, you said, "Social media today are cult-like leaders." Right? They're using all these things. Give me the defense. How do I know if I have been infected and I am in the delusional community? Because it's always the other person that's part of a cult. Right? It's never us. It's always the other person that's delusional. It's always the other person that's brainwashed, not us. You know?

• 1:15:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Rick, it would never happen to you because you're a, you're a guy that deprograms people. You're, it can never happen to you, right? Never. Can never happen to me. I'm successful in this. What can you tell people to anticipate signs to not fall for the trap?

• 1:15:16Speaker 03

  Well, first of all, are you becoming involved in a group that has a leader that is worshiped by the group? I mean, are they constantly talking about the leader? Are they extolling how wonderful the leader is? Uh, and how is that leader accountable? What are the checks and balances in the organizational structure that address accountability? Is there financial transparency in the group? Do they disclose their, their annual budget?

• 1:15:47Patrick Bet-David?

  I like that.

• 1:15:48Speaker 03

  In detail?

• 1:15:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Yep.

• 1:15:50Speaker 03

  In which they explain all compensation paid out to whomever? And how do they regard people who have left? Do they say, "Oh, yeah, you know, so-and-so left, and we had coffee with, we still have coffee with him. We talk with him." Or do they stigmatize people that leave? And they're critical of them, and they cut them off? And then, what's happening to you? What's happening to you? Are you becoming socially isolated? Are you withdrawing from old friends and family? Are you becoming preoccupied with the group? Because a typical church or organization would say,

• 1:16:32Speaker 03

  "Hey, you gotta have a life outside of our church, outside of our organization. Sure, you belong to our club, our church, but you need to also spend time with your family and have a balanced, healthy life." So is the group drawing you into imbalance? Or are they also encouraging you to have a balanced life? And how do they view other organizations? Do they negatively characterize them? Or do they have a sense of community? For example, a church that says, "Yeah, we work with other churches to feed the homeless

• 1:17:15Speaker 03

  or to help the elderly, or we do community projects." And how are they regarded? And if you go online and you do a search looking for any information about this group, what is their history? Have they been controversial? What was the controversy about? What are people talking about? Have they been sued by former members? Have there been criminal prosecutions? Many of these groups that I deal with, they have a troubled history. And I think before you become committed, before you become embedded, find it all out. And a healthy group with healthy leadership will not question that.

• 1:18:00Speaker 03

  They will say, "Sure, check us out, whatever." We're, we are... We have, here's our budget. This is how our bylaws hold our leadership accountable through our incorporation. And you realize that they have, they're not hiding anything from you and they're being forthcoming. And, and how is criticism regarded in the, in the group? When you go to group meetings, if someone says something critical about a practice of the organization or group, how is that, uh, how is that taken? Is it seen as being really negative and oh, you're a suppressive person and there's something wrong with you? Or are they saying, well, gee, that's interesting.

• 1:18:44Speaker 03

  Uh, we can use that, you know, because we, we have room to grow, room to evolve. And we like feedback from members that help us to make this organization a better organization. Or are people being attacked for criticizing? So if you see that dynamic, that's a, a warning flag. And there are others that I've outlined and you look for those and then you know what you're dealing with.

• 1:19:12Patrick Bet-David?

  So are you, are you active on X? Are you active on Twitter?

• 1:19:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 1:19:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:17Patrick Bet-David?

  So, you know, today's political climate is a very, if I were to ask you right now, uh, uh, in your twenties or your thirties, okay? Who would you have said was somebody that you looked at? That influenced you politically or philosophically? What names would you give in your twenties or your thirties?

• 1:19:41Speaker 03

  Well, Barry Goldwater. Okay. I, I grew up in Arizona and Barry Goldwater.

• 1:19:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow, what a name, Barry Goldwater.

• 1:19:48Speaker 03

  Yeah. He was, uh, his father was Jewish and the original family name was Goldvasser. And they created a department store in Arizona called Goldwaters. And of course Barry Goldwater went on to become a United States Senator. He ran for president. I greatly admired him and, uh.

• 1:20:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Who else would you say?

• 1:20:08Speaker 03

  Well, I think.

• 1:20:09Patrick Bet-David?

  That's a pretty, that's a pretty heavy name.

• 1:20:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I, I would think, uh. Well, the first time I voted, I think I voted for Richard Nixon. But he ended up being a disappointment, you know, when he left office.

• 1:20:24Patrick Bet-David?

  You were saying, meaning, he should have never left office. That's what you're saying?

• 1:20:28Speaker 03

  Uh, no, I'm saying that there was a scandal. He decided to leave office. I think he probably made the right decision. In fact, Barry Goldwater, I think, talked with him at one point and said, "If this goes to impeachment, uh, we don't have the votes to stop it. You're gonna lose." And so Nixon decided to leave the White House and he resigned. And I think later apologized belatedly for some of the things that he did uh, in the David Frost interviews. Uh, so I would say when Richard Nixon was, was president and he opened the door to China, he created the EPA.

• 1:21:09Speaker 03

  Uh, he was a very anti-communist and he had his famous debates with Khrushchev. I greatly respected Richard Nixon and, and thought he was, and he was also a self-made man who came from nothing and made a great career for himself. He was a vice president under Eisenhower, who I greatly respected as a great general and a great president. And so I think that, um, growing up, that, that was, uh, those, those were very important figures in my life. And, and also John F. Kennedy.

• 1:21:48Speaker 03

  And, uh, the way in which he led the country at one point, uh, that, that he, he, uh...

• 1:21:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Inspired you, he sold a vision to you.

• 1:21:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:21:59Patrick Bet-David?

  By, "We're gonna land on the moon, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that." It was an inspirational guy. But here, here's kinda where I'm going with it. Barry Goldwater, by the way, some will say he's the reason why Republicans lost the African-American vote. In 1960, I think, um, if I'm not mistaken, 64% of African-Americans voted Democrat. The rest was Republican. After Barry Goldwater in 64, 92% of African-Americans voted Democrat. And they lost him. And the story is two different things. Of course, one of the things has to do with the African-Americans, but the other part is also MLK's wife. When they wanted to meet with Nixon, Nixon's camp never got back to him. John F. Kennedy's camp did.

• 1:22:41Patrick Bet-David?

  From that moment on, they said, "We're gonna be voting Democrat." Because Kennedy heard us out, but Nixon didn't. And then African Americans have been voting Democrat since then. The stories, when you hear about it, you read about it. Uh, uh, they're documented. They're all over the place. But who did you fall for that spooked you and you were disappointed afterwards outside of Nixon? Who was your guy when you were watching and you're like, "Oh, my God, this guy's..." And this is when you were impressionable. Think from 16 to 28. Who was the person where... Because I'm thinking for myself as well with names, right? Who did you fall for where you're like, "Man, but later on, like, what? I fell for this trap." Did you have anybody?

• 1:23:20Speaker 03

  I... The name that comes to mind for me is Nixon. Because I can remember when Watergate started, I felt that he was being persecuted, that he was, uh, being wrongfully, uh, harassed. And I felt very strongly about it. But as Watergate unfolded, and it unfolded, you know, it was on television. And so I watched the hearings and I, and I remember thinking, "How can this be?" And it was a very gut-wrenching, difficult thing. Because here was this man that I had voted for and I had believed in. And it, it turned out he had made some, some pretty bad calls, which he would admit himself later.

• 1:24:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Did it cause you to no longer want to vote that way?

• 1:24:06Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:24:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 1:24:07Speaker 03

  No, I, I continued to vote for Barry Goldwater. And then later I voted for John McCain, who, who I greatly admired as well. I think Arizona has produced, uh, this is my state-

• 1:24:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Good call.

• 1:24:19Speaker 03

  -that I, that I grew up in. Uh, though I spent quite a bit of time in New Jersey, uh, before moving back to Arizona. Uh, Arizona, given our population, we've produced some really big people that have, uh, been very prominent in American history.

• 1:24:37Patrick Bet-David?

  You know who else said that in his book? Uh, Rob, can you pull up, uh, Billy Graham leadership? Type in Billy Graham leadership. There's a few questions I still got before we wrap, but we got time. Yeah, that one right there. I think it's in chapter 11, where he talks about betrayal. Can you, can you go back and type in "The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham", and then type in betrayal? Type in betrayal, I think it's chapter 11 or chapter 12. Uh, uh, check to see which one it is. Uh, PDF. Which chapter is the one where he talks about betrayal? Keep going down to see the content. Uh, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. Okay, chapter 12 is betrayal. In chapter 12 of that book, you know who he talks about that betrayed him and let him down? Nixon.

• 1:25:24Patrick Bet-David?

  To Billy Graham was also Nixon. Because it was the first time that he got behind a president. I think Rob, can you control F Nixon and see if that's what he talks about? I don't want to misquote him. Uh, there you go. Yep. "One of Bill Graham's painful expedient was filmed to betray by Nixon during the Watergate scandal. Graham had a close relation with Nixon and felt deeply affected by the revelation of Nixon's true character, which contrasted sharply with the image he held of him." Okay.

• 1:25:48Patrick Bet-David?

  So, how old were you at the time when you went through this?

• 1:25:51Speaker 03

  Teenager.

• 1:25:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, teenager, perfect. That's great, because bring that teenage Rick Allen Ross today.

• 1:26:00Patrick Bet-David?

  And back then it was news once a day. Whatever, 6 o'clock, 8 o'clock, I don't know what it was, but I was in Iran, so I wouldn't know. Okay, I don't even know if I was born yet. I'm born 78, so, so let's just say teenager. You're getting the news once a day. Now bring that Rick Allen Ross today, teenager, 16, 17 years old. Twitter, YouTube, Rumble, Instagram, TikTok. How the hell do you know if you're falling for this trap? With some different people that are out there messaging?

• 1:26:30Speaker 03

  The way in which they respond to criticism. I think that if, if they are a reasonable leader, a good leader, that they will respond to criticism thoughtfully. They will, they will answer directly about what they're being accused of, or, or what issues are being raised, and they will put it to rest. And they will provide meaningful documentation and they will deal with it. Uh, I, I think what disappointed me with Richard Nixon at one point was that he was attacking the messenger and he wasn't dealing with it. Dealing with the story itself. I mean, what happened? Did they, were you involved in this break in?

• 1:27:15Speaker 03

  Were you involved in the cover up? I think there are some questions as to how deeply Nixon was involved in the actual break in. But no question about how he would eventually be involved in the cover up and, and other things. So I think the way in which a leader responds to criticism is, is a good, a good way to understand who and what they are. Barry Goldwater, for example, he would acknowledge criticism. He would deal with it head on. I think he, he was, he was a really good man, in my opinion, Barry Goldwater.

• 1:27:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you ever meet him?

• 1:27:58Speaker 03

  I never met him, but I met members of his family. And at one time, you know, there were people in my community, the Jewish community, that were saying that Barry Goldwater was not good to the Jewish people, that he was, somehow they implied, you know, he was anti Jewish or whatever. Nothing could be further from the truth. His best friend was a Jewish man that he grew up with, Harry Rosenzweig, who at one time was a leader in my own synagogue congregation. And he, he greatly admired Barry Goldwater as well.

• 1:28:37Speaker 03

  I, I, I think that what is so important is to not characterize people who don't agree with you as being somehow evil or terrible, but instead looking at what they have to say and considering it, and then taking it apart and explaining why you're opposed to it.

• 1:29:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, so, so some younger influencers today on X would say,

• 1:29:11Patrick Bet-David?

  You can't criticize Jews, for instance, okay? And you're gonna be called anti-Semitic, you're gonna be called this, you're gonna be called that. And for many years, that was scary to have that, you know, label. Which today, younger kids, social media, they no longer fear that label. That adults feared 10, 20, 30 years ago.

• 1:29:36Speaker 03

  I think the most important thing that I have come to realize as a Jew is that if you disagree with the political policies of the state of Israel, that does not mean that you are anti-Jewish. That it is possible to disagree with the government of Israel and have political disagreements, but not be anti-Jewish.

• 1:30:03Patrick Bet-David?

  So at what point does one graduate to actually be an anti-Semitic?

• 1:30:08Speaker 03

  If, when you begin to say, you know, for example, that Jews are involved in a global conspiracy, they're linked to the Illuminati and whatever, and you go along with that kind of a narrative, where you're characterizing an entire people negatively. You're not just disagreeing with the policies of the government of the state of Israel. And likewise, I find myself in an interesting position because there are many young Jewish people who greatly object to what is going on in Gaza. And I, I don't agree with them.

• 1:30:49Speaker 03

  I think that what Hamas has demonstrated, and they're very cult-like in their indoctrination process and their extreme leadership. What they demonstrated to the Israelis is, no matter what we do, we really can't trust you. And because you attacked unprovoked, you murdered all these people, you took hostages. And at the same time, we were hoping that by you getting money for infrastructure and everything in Gaza, that we could somehow come to terms with you in a peaceful way.

• 1:31:28Speaker 03

  And Hamas struck out, and then the Israelis felt, well, we can't really trust you. And they took this action to be essentially a declaration of war against Israel, and they went after them. And there are many young people that are Jews, that are on college campuses across the country, and who feel very negatively about the way in which Israel has responded to Hamas, and how the collateral damage, that is, all of these Palestinian people who are completely innocent, and had nothing to do with supporting that, and who many

• 1:32:07Speaker 03

  of whom have themselves doubts about Hamas and grievances with Hamas, are suffering disproportionately. And so, it's a very... And I think what you have to do in situations like that is not broadly characterize an entire people in a negative way, be it the Palestinians, or be it the Jewish people. And you can't conclude that all Jewish people support the state of Israel, because many Jewish people don't support certain actions of the state of Israel. And then you have to recognize that the Israelis themselves are arguing, for example, as

• 1:32:52Speaker 03

  to whether or not the ultra-orthodox will serve in the military, which is a very contentious issue right now in Israel. So I think that cults and cult-like thinking tends to paint everything black and white, no shades of gray. And our lives are often in shades of gray, much more nuanced than, you know, that...

• 1:33:15Patrick Bet-David?

  You know what conclusion I've come up with? Here's a conclusion I've come up with. And by the way, I want to ask you about a couple of cults with kids, 764, a few things before we wrap up, but here's a conclusion I've come up with. Somebody may listen to you and say... What are you talking about, Rick? Jews don't doctrinate? And they don't send all their kids to Israel? And they don't ask them to go into IDF? And AIPAC doesn't recruit people to bring them to Israel? And Israel doesn't prevent negative media in Israel? What are you talking about? Like, it's full-on cult-like of what Israel is doing. To convert. Let me just finish, and then you'll see where I'm going with this.

• 1:33:58Patrick Bet-David?

  So, and then you're gonna come back and say, "Well, no, because of this, because of that." And I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but what I'm trying to go to is the following. Here's where I'm going to. Where I'm going to is the following. Everybody is in a cult, including you. I think you're in a cult. I think I'm in a cult. I think you're also cult leader. Because I think as a cult leader, you're leading the cult of people who wanna expose evil people who do harm to others. So you have a following of people that can't wait to see who you're gonna take down next. And you have a cult-like following. Where people follow you because they're like, "I can't wait to see him take..."

• 1:34:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Who was the guy that was getting the pedophiles? With pizza that would go to a kid's house and he would do the interviews? And he had a big show. Rob, I think we had him on the... Chris Hansen. Chris Hansen was like, "Oh, my God, who's he gonna get next? Who's he gonna get next?" Right? We had him on the podcast once. So, to me,

• 1:35:00Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't know if, like, my position. I lived in Iran 11 years, almost 11 years.

• 1:35:09Patrick Bet-David?

  So I saw what it was like to live with Hezbollahs. When you're a Christian family. I witnessed it, I lived it. And in Germany at a refugee camp, I was with Afghans, Pakistanis. Everybody that was leaving a Muslim, you know, driven country to escape to somewhere that gave them freedoms, but they were also Muslim themselves. So, I've witnessed it firsthand. And I've spent a lot of time with Jews. Spent a lot of time with Scientology. You notice I was complimentary of Scientologists. People get upset. "He's shilling for Scientology." I've never had a bad experience with a Scientologist. Ever. I've never had a bad experience with Jews, ever. Do I think Scientologists are part of a cult? Yes. Do I think so are Jews? Yes. Do I think they're very proud of their background? Yes.

• 1:35:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Do I think I am as well? Yes. The crossing of the line to me is when it becomes about, with the words you said, the cash, the adulation, the sexual favor. Take the sexual favor out. The cash, okay, yeah, some of these guys are doing it for cash. Okay. You know, if you, what percentage of billionaires in America are Jewish? 9.6%. Oh my God, but what percentage of the world population is Jewish? 15 million on 8.5 billion. Where are you at? You're not, you're not, you're point something percent. Small, small communities, a very small community. So, and, and so it's, it's more my, my position with this is more, let's stop acting like we don't all admire somebody.

• 1:36:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Let's stop acting like we don't have somebody. Like Nixon gets, you know, two sides of the story. There's a part of Nixon that he did a lot of good. The other side of Nixon is, he empowered China to be able to equalize Russia because USSR was so powerful. They needed somebody, China, that was number eight, number nine economy, to come and take after Russia that was number two or number three because they were a threat and Russia wasn't negotiating. So they were using triangular diplomacy with Kissinger to bring that guy up and then boom, and then we got off the gold standard. All the rich get richer, poor get poor, the middle income's getting destroyed. It's because of Nixon. If we didn't get off a gold, we probably wouldn't be in a situation we're in today. The moment we got off the gold, then it's all about what? Hey, trust me, this is the American dollar. You can trust us, you can trust us. But then Nixon also did a lot of good stuff. So,

• 1:37:22Patrick Bet-David?

  to sit there and see both sides, tear apart anything I just said.

• 1:37:28Speaker 03

  Well, I just want to focus on a couple of things.

• 1:37:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Please.

• 1:37:31Speaker 03

  First of all, deception.

• 1:37:34Speaker 03

  Is there a bait and switch con with the group that you're involved in? For example, I went to religious school, I was bar mitzvahed, I went to Hebrew school. There was no deception. What my family believed or thought I was going to go through in indoctrination is in fact, what happened. It wasn't like a group like Kip McKean, which we discussed, the ICOC, where there was this mask, "We're just Christians," when that isn't really what they're all about. And the indoctrination was locking you into a discipleship system controlled by Kip McKean. That was not the case in my religious education.

• 1:38:18Speaker 03

  And I think that, for example, when a Catholic priest or a nun is expected to take vows and they become involved in a religious order, they know what they're getting involved in and the order explains to them, "This is what we're all about. These are the sacrifices that you will have to make." Celibacy, vow of silence, a devotion system that they may have. So is the group deceptive? Is there a mask that they wear to the public in order to pull people in? And then, once you become involved, it's something completely different. Is it a bait and switch con?

• 1:39:01Speaker 03

  And then, second, what I would say is, I really don't care how a group believes. They can believe whatever they want, but they may not behave in whatever way they wish under the guise of beliefs. So, for example, when they cross the line criminally and they're doing things to defraud people, abuse people, etc., that's where they step over the line and it becomes an issue of criminal prosecution. And I've been involved in a number of cases, testified as an expert witness. And again, it's not about belief, it's about behavior. So, we may not like what another

• 1:39:43Speaker 03

  group believes, but as long as they behave in a way that is not criminal and they are not hurting people. Then we can say, well, I don't agree with your beliefs, but you're entitled to them. So if they want to believe that, you know, Scientology is largely kind of a science fiction space opera, their belief system, you know, Xenu and and intergalactic.

• 1:40:11Patrick Bet-David?

  We're all being indoctrinated. That's kind of what I'm trying to say.

• 1:40:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:40:15Patrick Bet-David?

  And the part that we have to be careful with is what I'm trying to get from you is.

• 1:40:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:40:19Patrick Bet-David?

  I'm trying to say, at what point?

• 1:40:24Patrick Bet-David?

  You know, at what point is it a, there's a going to a bad thing? You said something earlier, the organization lacks accountability, right? There is no open financial where you, you know, employees or people are going on with the money. Where did the money go to? People don't know the finances. So, hey, be open about where you're at financially with the company, lack of accountability, force pushing you away from your own family, you know, some of those things. I'm, I'm tracking with that. I'm with that part.

• 1:40:57Patrick Bet-David?

  You know, but also at the same time, like you mentioned the organization earlier, I've never heard of it before. Lev to whore, lev to whore, am I saying it correctly?

• 1:41:04Speaker 03

  Lev, lev to whore.

• 1:41:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Lev to whore.

• 1:41:06Speaker 03

  It's a Hebrew for essentially the pure ones.

• 1:41:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. And this was a Jewish cult, right? That you were talking about.

• 1:41:12Speaker 03

  It was a spin off from ultra orthodox. It was started by a man named Shlomo Halbrins in Israel. And then he came to the U S, went to Canada, ended up dying in Mexico.

• 1:41:24Patrick Bet-David?

  What does Guatemala have to do with this?

• 1:41:25Speaker 03

  They, they were constantly running from authorities and they would eventually end up in Guatemala and create a compound outside of Guatemala City. And the issue was not what they believed, the issue was how they behaved. So they were, they were having children as young as 12 married.

• 1:41:46Speaker 03

  They were abusing the little girls in the group. There was sexual abuse of little boys in the group. I alleged against the leader, Shlomo Helbrins. They weren't being properly fed. They weren't being, receiving proper medical attention. They unearthed a child's body in the compound when they raided it. And the children, and I, I went through their testimonies because I prepared a report for the court. They were beaten brutally. The corporal punishment in the group was very excessive. And of course, Helbrins was a, was a virtual dictator. And then his son, who succeeded him, occupied that same position.

• 1:42:31Speaker 03

  And I would work with children in the group and families affected by the group and see how anyone that left was labeled in a very negative way and you had to let go of them, disregard them, and so on. So again, it wasn't about what the group believed. There were beliefs of the group about how women had to dress, that they were different and more extreme than even the most orthodox Jews. The issue was, how do they behave? How, how are the children being treated? Are they being treated abusively, illegally, criminally? And so the group was investigated again and again, and it would flee from one country

• 1:43:16Speaker 03

  to another to, to evade those investigations. And the issue for them, they would say, "Oh, we're being persecuted. We're being persecuted." No, they were being prosecuted because of their behavior and it was criminal.

• 1:43:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, and, and this guy even went to, because when you're saying 12-year-olds, I mean, that's normal in a, many Muslim countries. You, you hear stories about that, right? And they're so, they even seeked...

• 1:43:48Patrick Bet-David?

  He wrote a letter to Ali Khamenei. Did you know about this?

• 1:43:51Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:43:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, apparently, he wrote a letter to Ali Khamenei, seek an asylum. The son did. After Levhtohor, the founder died. So, leadership shifted the figures, including Nachman Helbrandt, his son, and Mayor Rosner. Beginning in 2018, 2019, their leadership attempted to seek political asylum in Iran. Out of all the places, why would you want to go to Iran? And wrote letters pledging allegiance to Ayatollah Khamenei.

• 1:44:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Declared their desire to establish a Levhtohor community under Iranian protection. Were intercepted while trying to travel through Central America towards Iran. US court filing later revealed that they attempted to smuggle children internationally. Planned to flee to Kurdish-controlled region en route to Iran. Held an ideology that revered Iran as safe haven. Can you imagine? The link between this Jewish organization that felt safe going to Iran because they had younger children that they felt safer over there. Now, this you would call a cult.

• 1:45:01Speaker 03

  Most definitely, and most recently, there were a number of children that were taken out of Guatemala. And they were then apprehended by the police in Colombia. So, this this group has a history of evading investigations of child abuse by moving from country to country. And again, whatever the group says, the leadership says is right, is right. Whatever the group says is wrong, is wrong. Regardless if it conflicts with the law. And this is the issue, really.

• 1:45:42Speaker 03

  I mean, this is the difference between what could be seen as a benign cult and a destructive cult. Is the group criminally hurting people? How is the group hurting people? What is it doing? Its behavior? And of course, what Lev T'hor would say is, we're doing what the Torah teaches. They would wrap themselves in Judaism, the Torah, the Talmud, whatever, and say, this is what we're about. Well, speaking as a Jew and someone who has worked with the ultra-orthodox community to help children escape Lev T'hor and be reunited with relatives where they are safe, they're not practicing ultra-orthodox Judaism.

• 1:46:27Speaker 03

  I've met with rabbis that are leaders of the Hasidic communities, and they abhor what Lev T'hor has done. And they have supported helping these children. In fact, one of the children that I worked with was later kidnapped by Lev T'hor. At the time, she was 14, and Nachman Helbrunz is now in prison. And that is one of the reasons he's being held as a prisoner, is that he flagrantly broke the law. Well, see, these groups that have often been called cults or destructive cults, yeah, I think that's, that might be Shlomo Helbrunz

• 1:47:10Speaker 03

  or one of the leadership. So he would-

• 1:47:15Speaker 00

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• 1:47:46Speaker 03

  Oh, excuse me, Nachman Helbrins. So what happened was the leaders were being held accountable for their decisions, how they affected families, how they affected the lives of children. And it wasn't about their beliefs. Because the ultra orthodox Hasidic rabbis I've spoken with would agree with some of their beliefs, but not their beliefs regarding how they treated children. Or, or for that matter, how they often treated women. And so groups like Lev T'Hor hide behind the mask of religion. But the question is, how do they behave? Do they behave criminally? Do they hurt people?

• 1:48:30Speaker 03

  What are they doing to the children? What are they doing? Not what are they praying? But what are they doing? And, and so the issue of accountability is about behavior, not about belief. And I would not propose that groups be labeled destructive cults because of their beliefs, but rather because of their behavior and lack of accountability.

• 1:48:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it. Makes sense, and I'm with that. But to me, a lot of times when you go through this, we ourselves forget that we also have an ideology and something that indoctrinated us. You know, you, you, you're not a Christian, you're a Jew. Why? Your parents probably were, and your grandparents probably. So that's form of indoctrination.

• 1:49:17Speaker 03

  But was it, but was it deceptive and?

• 1:49:20Patrick Bet-David?

  No, it's not deceptive. No, again, to me, that's like, I'm a Christian. Why am I a Christian? I went to Scientology. I went to Mormon church. I went and studied Gordon B. Hinckley. I wanted to find out what, why Mormons are so united with each other and why they work together. I wanted to find out what was going on with Seventh Day Adventists. I wanted to find out. And then I went to non-denomination. I was going to Los Angeles Church of Christ. I went there, God knows for how long. And I'm like, no, this is, I never got baptized there. I'm like, nope, this is not me. And then I found my home. And then it was a, a journey that I went through. But that is a form of indoctrination. The only part that it goes away is the deceptive part. And I'm going to Bible study in 2000, 1999, 2000, 2001. And this one guy said something very powerful.

• 1:50:05Patrick Bet-David?

  He said, if you ever judge Christianity horizontally, you will always be disappointed.

• 1:50:12Patrick Bet-David?

  But if you judge it vertically, you will never be disappointed. What is he talking about? Man fall. We sin. We are tempted. We do some stupid things. Everybody and anybody that acts like they walk on water, they're really hiding some stuff. It's typically the person that walks, acts like their life is perfect and then you dig deep like, whoa, I pushed a button, didn't I? So what's there? So all of us act like the other person is the bad guy. We all have some things. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about criminality, 12-year-old girls. Forget about it. There's not even a place for that. If you watch our podcast, we get in trouble for calling out certain communities that practice certain behaviors like that. We're not for it.

• 1:50:57Patrick Bet-David?

  But to me, that's, that's a, that's the black and white that we have to be careful with. Meaning sometimes it's okay if somebody is, I, I don't mind the fact that my dad brainwashed me to say, man has to work hard. Man has to have money that his own family doesn't know about, that when crisis happens, you can still protect them. A man who doesn't make money is not a real man. He's a weak man. He does stupid things. He has a hard time looking at his wife in his face and in her eyes because he doesn't feel like he's a man. He's not a provider. A man has to protect. This is brainwashing, but I'm glad, glad he washed my brain. And the detergent he used was good things, right? There, there's an element of the reaffirmation of some of these positive,

• 1:51:43Patrick Bet-David?

  you know, affirmations that are good for you.

• 1:51:45Speaker 03

  There, there's a difference between indoctrination and what could be called brainwashing or thought reform. There's a great book written about this called Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism by Robert J. Lifton, who died not too long ago. Lifton interviewed POWs in North Korean prisoner camps or that had been interred in North Korean prisoner camps. And he laid out in the 22nd chapter of his book, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, how they were able to manipulate and change people.

• 1:52:21Speaker 03

  So one of the key elements.

• 1:52:23Patrick Bet-David?

  Send that to me, Rob, please. Please continue.

• 1:52:25Speaker 03

  One of the key elements is, is, is there deception? Is there a bait and switch con? And, and is there a claim of what Lifton calls the sacred science? That is, that our ideology is faultless. We are faultless. We present it. It is perfect. You cannot question anything. When my dad raised me, and he was a hardworking plumbing contractor, and he raised me very similar to what you just described. If you don't provide for your family, if you don't live the right kind of life, you will be sorry. But my dad would often admit mistakes.

• 1:53:07Speaker 03

  He would say to me, you know, I trusted that general contractor. He was supposed to pay me. He didn't. Our family is now suffering for it. And I learned, I can't do that anymore. And likewise, my rabbi, who, who mentored me in my early career, Rabbi Albert Plotkin, he was a liberal Democrat. And he knew that I was a registered Republican. And he recognized that that was different from him, that that was okay. He did not, he did not take me to task.

• 1:53:44Patrick Bet-David?

  I love that.

• 1:53:45Speaker 03

  And in fact, at one point, the leader of our congregation was a Barry Goldwater best friend, Harry Rosenzweig, who was very prominent in our community. And he also, he was, I think, a leader in the Republican Party of Arizona. So our rabbi could tolerate differences. And, and he could understand that people had different opinions. And one of the things that I think is so important for all of us is if someone thinks you're wrong, that doesn't mean they're brainwashed. If someone doesn't agree with you, that doesn't mean they're brainwashed. And, you know, because families will come to me,

• 1:54:28Speaker 03

  and I get calls and emails every day. And people will say, "Well, I think my kid is in a cult. I think my father's in a cult. I think my cousin's in a cult." And about half the time, I'm telling them, "No, that's not. That's not what's going on here." And just because you don't agree with your family member does not mean that they're brainwashed. It just means they have a differing opinion. And I give them the criteria that they can determine that with. And I can tell them, "I cannot deprogram your family member because your family member wasn't programmed in the first place. This is who they are. These are their sincerely held beliefs."

• 1:55:12Speaker 03

  What we're looking at in deprogramming is someone whose beliefs have been radically changed by an authoritarian leader using identifiable techniques of coercive persuasion and thought reform. And in my book, I explain all of that in a chapter titled Cult Brainwashing, in which I incorporate Lyfton, Edgar Schein, who taught at MIT and wrote the book Coercive Persuasion. And you look at these techniques and ask yourself, you know, if it quacks like a duck and it walks like a duck, maybe it's a duck. But if it doesn't fit that profile, admit to yourself, "Okay, my family member has peculiar beliefs that I don't agree with.

• 1:55:57Speaker 03

  I think they're nuts." But that doesn't mean they're brainwashed. And that doesn't mean they're in a cult. And let's not use the word cult indiscriminately. I would say there are destructive cults, benign cults. I would say there is such a thing as a cult following that would not fit the profile of a destructive cult. And we need to make those distinctions.

• 1:56:20Patrick Bet-David?

  I agree. I totally agree. By the way, are you following anything with Diddy?

• 1:56:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, I followed it a bit.

• 1:56:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. Would you put him as a... Because a lot of the stuff you talk about, cash, he wanted to make the money. Adulation, he had to be in every music video. Sexual favors, are you kidding me? He did that with men, women, you know, by force, you know, all this other stuff. How do you profile Diddy in regards to being a cult-like leader?

• 1:56:52Speaker 03

  And I don't necessarily see him as a cult leader, but I see him as using cult-like techniques of coercive control to dominate and manipulate women. And in particular, there were various women that talked about their life with him and what it was like. I believe there was one video of him dragging a woman, beating a woman.

• 1:57:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Cassie.

• 1:57:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, and so, so I think what you could honestly say about him, he fits the profile of an abusive, controlling partner. And that the women that he controlled were somewhat isolated and manipulated by him and made to feel that whatever bad happened to them was somehow their fault and that he was not to blame. And so, he kind of follows in the footsteps of OJ Simpson in his relationship with Nicole Brown Simpson, which was very similar, where the woman was degraded, the woman was socially isolated,

• 1:57:59Speaker 03

  the woman was mistreated, but lived in that kind of an abusive situation. Another example would be Ike Turner, Tina Turner, which has always fascinated me because Tina Turner, as we saw her in her later career, was such a strong woman and such a dynamic woman. But what I've seen over and over in my casework with families that I've worked with, interventions that I've done, trials that I've testified in, is that even the most independent-thinking, intelligent person can

• 1:58:41Speaker 03

  Step by step, slowly but surely, be pulled into this kind of trap. And I've often said that people are tricked and then trapped by abusive controlling partners.

• 1:58:53Patrick Bet-David?

  I like that, tricked and trapped.

• 1:58:55Speaker 03

  Tricked and trapped.

• 1:58:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Not, I like that. I like the structure of the way you're saying it, tricked and trapped, makes sense.

• 1:59:00Speaker 03

  Tricked first.

• 1:59:01Patrick Bet-David?

  That makes sense for this guy.

• 1:59:02Speaker 03

  Into becoming involved, thinking probably that Cassie felt, he loves me, he's gonna take care of me, he's a wonderful man, he's very talented, I admire him. And then it changes and morphs into something entirely different.

• 1:59:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, she was nineteen apparently when he got a hold of her, and the rest is history. By the way, kids, I asked a couple of the guys here, one of our guys said, Pat, you may want to ask him about 764 COM, C-O-M. It's a self-harming cult group started in 2021 that decentralized, are you following what's gonna? They're making kids kill, you know, it's some radical.

• 1:59:46Speaker 03

  Child, there are leaders now being charged with child pornography.

• 1:59:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Who is the leader, by the way? I couldn't find the leader.

• 1:59:53Speaker 03

  There was one man arrested that there were claims that he might be the leader, or that he is alleged to be the leader.

• 2:00:01Patrick Bet-David?

  This Bradley guy?

• 2:00:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Bradley Cattenhead?

• 2:00:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I think that would be the person they arrested, that they characterize as being in a leadership position. And a number of people have been arrested. And what's interesting about this group is how they recruited young people online, and that some of those people were in the gaming, video gaming community. And that adjacent to that, there would be areas online where they would recruit these people, these minor children. And then they would get incriminating information, they would coerce them, and basically exploit them. So this is typical of what we're seeing online.

• 2:00:51Speaker 03

  And so if someone is a parent today, how much more challenging it is than in my father's day, when there was just a telephone on the wall, there was no internet. Today, your kid can be on a smartphone in their bedroom.

• 2:01:09Speaker 03

  Texting with a cult leader or cult members and being recruited and indoctrinated in a cult online while they're in your own house. And I have been involved in in getting minor kids out of groups like that.

• 2:01:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, so the guy's name, Rob, if you want to pull him up, is Prasann Nepal. If you can pull up Prasann, because I said, what does 764 come from? Apparently, it's the area code that it started from San Mateo, California. But this is the guy who got arrested. His name, online handle is known as Trippy. Twenty year old man from High Point, North Carolina, who has been arrested and charged as one of the leaders of 764, global child exploitation and violent extremist network. The network is a nihilistic, violent, extreme group. I think they just got categorized as a terrorist group, if I'm not mistaken. Nepal is accused of being a leader and a founder of the core subgroup.

• 2:02:06Patrick Bet-David?

  He allegedly admitted to creating and still controlling the network. Arrested April 22, 2025. He is charged with operating international and international child exploitation enterprises. Co-defendant Leonidas Varagianis, known as War, was arrested in Greece. Can you look that guy? So wait a minute, this is international. So they're all over the world, working together to get kids. What a mess. Grooming and extortion. The group allegedly targets vulnerable minors, including those with depression or mental illness, and groom them to produce sexual explicit and self-harm content. Guidebook, the defendants are accused of creating a guide for aspiring 764 members. Coercion and violence.

• 2:02:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Nepal and Varagianis allegedly ordered victims to perform acts of self-mutilation, online sexual acts, and harm to animals, often livestreamed for the group's content and as form of discipline. Wow. What, what, what do you tell parents? What do you, because you know this whole new thing, six, seven, this whole thing that they're doing? I don't know if you heard about the six, seven. Are you following it or no? I can't see you going like six, seven or whatever they do. But these kids are doing this thing called six, seven, right? What do you tell parents? Like, you know, that are, uh, seeing their kids behave a little bit weird? What, what feedback do you give to parents?

• 2:03:27Speaker 03

  Well, I think that, uh, that parents have to be vigilant, that they have to understand, where is my kid going at online? And they may want to track where they're going online and look where they're going online. And they may even want to restrict their use of the internet and their, and, and, and their access to technology that puts them on the internet until they're old enough to better understand what's involved. You know, uh, there's nothing wrong with video games per se, but we have to recognize that they can be used in a negative way by cults to recruit people, which they have

• 2:04:07Speaker 03

  been, and that people are being, young children, minor children are being recruited online. So if you're a parent, this is very challenging, it's very daunting, but you're going to have to, you know, be hands-on and understand exactly what's going on in your child's life. Who are they visiting? What websites? What, what videos are they watching on YouTube? What's going on? And if you see a change in behavior, they seem to be, uh, they, they seem to, uh, become more isolated, uh, they're moving away from you, they're, they're becoming sullen, they're staying in their room for long periods of time.

• 2:04:51Speaker 03

  Uh, that, that, these kind of changes may signal outside influence online, and you need to be vigilant as a parent.

• 2:05:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, it's a, it's a strange time right now because...

• 2:05:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Kids are being targeted and if you're not too careful. The other day I'm talking to my kids and I said, "So by what age you think we should get you guys social media? What age you think I'll approve?" And I'm just kinda trying to see what they'll say. And my youngest says, "I think you'll probably let us use social media at 16." And then my other one says, "I don't know if I need it till 18. Just give it to us at 18. I manage all their Instagram accounts." So I'm creating an Instagram account for all of them that I'm gonna hand it to them at 18 years old. And, you know, from there on you're an adult, but you get a head start and daddy's your social media manager for now. I think it's so important to be involved. So important. If you're not, the other guys are watching.

• 2:05:49Patrick Bet-David?

  A famous pedophile interview came out, I don't know if you saw this guy or not, in a yellow shirt. And he asked, they asked him, "Who do you target?" He says, "I target any kid whose father is not involved." That guy right there. This guy right here. He flat out says, "I target kids who don't have a strong father and don't have certain values, faith, values in their lives." Rob, let's finish up with this clip here.

• 2:06:14Speaker 04

  I'm alone.

• 2:06:21Speaker 07

  I would check out their family situation. I would check out their...

• 2:06:28Patrick Bet-David?

  This guy's 15 years, I believe.

• 2:06:30Speaker 07

  ...clothes and see how well they were, you know, financially. I would check out their social interaction with other kids. You know, when we were on the ballparks or on the gym floor, you know, I would make sure which ones I wanted to molest. I would give them special attention, congratulate them, talk to them, and I know that I would never be allowed to talk to anybody.

• 2:06:55Speaker 00

  You know, aside from everybody, I would give them the attention that an official is not supposed to give anybody and it made them feel like, wow, he's paying the attention. You know, it is a direct form of grooming.

• 2:07:13Speaker 05

  Were there certain characteristics that you looked for in children before molesting them?

• 2:07:18Speaker 00

  In children, yes, but more I also looked at their families. If I thought the father was a threat, bingo, I would not approach the child. If I thought that the child had friends that he would tell, I would not approach him. If I thought the child had friends that were in the same capacity he was, I would approach him. For the simple fact that if I could molest him, I could lure him into believing, wooing him into believing that he would enjoy it and therefore I could manipulate him into having his other friends come.

• 2:08:00Patrick Bet-David?

  You know what it made me just think about, Rob? It just made me think about Epstein's business model. If you think about it. Because Epstein got the girls to recruit other girls to his facility. I'm sure you've seen the documentary with Epstein.

• 2:08:13Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:08:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. By the way, who do people say you look like? Did they tell you you look like somebody or no?

• 2:08:18Speaker 03

  That I look like the rapper Rick Ross? I don't think so.

• 2:08:23Patrick Bet-David?

  You're the third most famous Rick Ross in the world. Is that fair?

• 2:08:27Speaker 03

  Maybe, but I will say this, I was always Rick Ross. I didn't change my name.

• 2:08:33Patrick Bet-David?

  So they took your name?

• 2:08:34Speaker 03

  Uh, yes.

• 2:08:35Patrick Bet-David?

  These guys.

• 2:08:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, you know, what's interesting? Ricky Ross is my legal name on my birth certificate, R I C K Y, Alan Ross. And so Freeway Ricky Ross became the first person that used the same name as me. And then subsequently, of course, Rick Ross was not thinking of me, he was thinking of Freeway Ricky Ross and then he, he took the name Rick Ross, which was not his given name. But all I can say is what a successful guy he is. And he's quite the entrepreneur. And sometimes I wish I was that Rick Ross because he's so.

• 2:09:12Patrick Bet-David?

  You gotta rap better, Rick.

• 2:09:13Speaker 03

  He's so successful. But let me just say this, the consistent narrative that pulls through all the people that I talked to that are cult victims, survivors of destructive cults, is similar to what that man just said, that pedophile, which is that they were at a vulnerable point in their life. Things were not going well and they were looking for someone to help them, someone to make them feel better about their situation, about themselves. And at that point, an authority figure or a seeming authority figure or someone they trusted, it could be a coworker, friend, a relative who was involved in the group, came

• 2:09:57Speaker 03

  to them and said, hey, come to this meeting, do this. And they didn't know what the group was really all about, but they trusted the person that approached them. And at the same time, they were hurting. And so that made them vulnerable. And what I'm going to say is that all of us go through periods of time in our lives where we are vulnerable, where things are not going well. And when that happens, be careful. Be careful not to trust someone too much that they have all the answers.

• 2:10:29Patrick Bet-David?

  I'm assuming you run a consulting firm. You run a firm where people pay for you to help out with these types of things?

• 2:10:33Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:10:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay. Fantastic. Well, we'll put the book here. Cults Inside Out, Rick Allen Ross, How People Get In and Can Get Out. We'll put the link below. Rick, this has been a pleasure having you on. I've really enjoyed learning more about you.

• 2:10:50Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 2:10:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Thank you. Take care, everybody. Bye bye, bye bye.

• 2:10:54Speaker 03

  Hi, I'm Rick Allen Ross, cult expert, intervention specialist, author of the book Cults Inside Out. You can find me on Manect.

• 2:11:09Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.