Newsletter: It’s Time to Learn and Reevaluate
From the Occult to Shen Yun/ Falun Gong
All of my blog archives here on Substack are now free for you to access through to the election!
This week’s Influence Continuum podcast was with my friend and colleague, Joe Szimhart, a noted cult expert and interventionist. Joe is also an author and artist with over 25 years of experience working in mental health. We had a wide-ranging discussion on belief and what happens when what we believe becomes “top-down” and authoritarian. I think you’ll find it a fascinating and enlightening talk.
The New York Times recently published an article about the Shen Yun dance troupe, which has ties to the Chinese Falun Gong cult based in NY. This was a front-page article but online there were several supplemental articles exposing this cult group. I made a short video on this group; you can read about it below.
Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen interviewed me for his Mea Culpa podcast and on his YouTube channel. That audio/ video should be released on Friday. If you wish to see my past interview with Former Cult of Trump member Cohen, check out this blog post.
In this episode of the Influence Continuum, I spoke with my good friend and long-time colleague Joseph Szimhart. He has an over 25-year history of working in mental health. He also works at creating opportunities for persons to exit cults and wrote about his journey in his 2020 memoir Santa Fe, Bill Tate, and Me: How an artist became a cult interventionist. His current work also includes a YouTube channel focusing on “Cults and the Occulture” as its central theme.
Read the blog post, or listen to the podcast:
While I was very happy to see such an in-depth article on a major authoritarian group, there was an obvious lawyerly “vetting” not to call it a cult or have a cult expert weigh in. I look forward to the day when American media can educate the public openly. People have to get over confusing religious freedom (which I thoroughly support) with authoritarian cultism that uses religion to cover its violations of trafficking and human rights law.
The Epoch Times (associated with Falun Gong) is one of the MOST active propaganda far-right groups, supporting The Cult of Trump and QAnon!!
As always, please let us know what you think about these pieces or what you’d like to see us discuss in the future. Thanks so much!
