News You Can Use: The Crypto Finance Scam Targeting Older Adults
This cult industry is now a large-scale predatory business model
Due to my travel schedule, we will not be having our usual Wednesday livestream. However, yesterday I had a livestream with former Jehovah’s Witness elder Isaac Carmignani to discuss the predatory financial practices of that organization, and last Friday I hosted a livestream with recent Scientology defector Amir Essalhi.
One of the hallmarks of any high-control, destructive group is financial exploitation.
In commercial cults and multi-level marketing groups (MLMs), the primary purpose of control is to facilitate financial abuse.
In short, the methods of psychological manipulation, groupthink, and social pressures are there for the sole purpose of separating you from your money.
In this week’s Substack article, Crypto Cults Are Scamming The Life Savings You Worked Years For, I explain how and why cryptocurrency functions like a commercial cult.
Although we think of “crypto” as something used only by the younger generation, the sad fact is that those 60 and older are the preferred targets of scams, with the highest losses of roughly $83,000 per victim.
No matter what your age, you’re going to want to take a look, as we discuss:
What cryptocurrency is and how it works
Why this asset lacks long-term value
How economists know this is a scam
How crypto communities function as cults
How Trump went from “Crypto is a scam” to profiting off his own
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Paid subscribers gain full access to our full archive of resources, which include expert interviews, comprehensive guides, and informative articles, such as:
Talking MLMs with Douglas Brooks
Douglas Brooks is a specialist in franchise law who defends victims against financial exploitation by multi-level marketing companies, also known as MLMs.
Multi-Level Marketing and Self-Help Cult Groups: Learn the Warning Signs
MLMs are pyramid schemes that focus on recruiting people to recruit others, presumably giving a cut of the income up the chain. Statistics show that over 99% of people involved lose money.
How the Trump University scam used the same playbook as MLMs and destructive cults, and how one prosecutor fought back.
Multi-Level Marketing Groups Defraud Consumers!
An exploration of how MLMs like Herbalife pressure people to aggressively recruit their friends and family, using loaded language and social pressure.
Last week, I shared that I spoke at the Principles First Summit in Washington, DC. They have kindly uploaded the complete playlist of panels to their YouTube channel. Here is the link to the panel I was on. I start speaking eight minutes into this presentation.
Evangelism and the BITE Model©
One of the many fascinating people I met there was author Holly Berkley Fletcher, whose amazing book, The Missionary Kids: Unmasking the Myths of White Evangelicalism, recounts her upbringing in a high-control religious group.
We zoomed on Saturday, and I suggested she take my BITE Model Survey and shared the surprising results in her Substack article, “So, I might have been raised in a cult.” This Substack and her book will be of particular interest to folks raised in evangelical Christianity and second-generation folks as well. We will be interviewing Holly in the near future.
Do your own analysis of any group or relationship through the lens of my BITE Model of Authoritarian Control™! The survey is free and anonymous, and every response helps us quantify experiences of manipulative control, creating valuable research material for future scientific publication.
Moving Away From MAGA
It’s hard to believe that the January 6th insurrection attempt was over five years ago!
We are still dealing with the fallout as Trump continues to rewrite the narrative of what happened then, giving pardons to those who stormed our Capitol.
Pam Hemphill, a former MAGA activist and January 6th participant, has since come out of the Trump cult and has been speaking out against it. The good news is that many MAGA folks are now overtly questioning Trump and his statement not to release any more of the Epstein files, not to mention his war on Iran with no real plan.
In this week’s Cults, Culture & Coercion podcast, Pam Hemphill on Leaving MAGA and Making Amends, I speak with this brave woman, and we talk about how human connection, stripped of any political agenda, can be used to dissolve the bonds of groupthink and reclaim the relationships so many of us have lost to this destructive political cult.
Listen on Apple | Spotify | Watch on YouTube
Read my Substack post about the interview:
Pam Hemphill on Leaving MAGA and Making Amends
The Question of Religious Freedom
As part of a continuing discussion on the difference between religious freedom and groups that use religion to control their members, my latest blog post in Psychology Today, Religious Freedom Includes the Freedom to Leave Religion, explores the question, What happens when someone feels trapped in their religious belief?
Millions globally face a grim reality within highly controlling religions, cults, and other coercive environments. Though physically able to leave, these individuals are often psychologically ensnared.
The issue is not centered around whether we have the legal freedom of belief, but whether a person possesses the psychological ability to stop believing, and whether they can depart without being utterly paralyzed by terror.
If you know someone entrapped in their belief system, you won’t want to miss this important article.
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!
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As Stark and Brainbridge observed Cults sell the promise of compensators, intangible future rewards. These compensators are their product that they market to their target market. For some, their structure is overtly commercial, but not always. The Bible Cult I grew up in promised that we will be Kings and Priests reigning with Christ in the millenium. But, there were all these conditions attached like conditions attached to some product or service such as Microsoft Office. These conditions were indecipherable and opaque, but required handing over all our personal and financial resources to the Cult. The compenstor though was a mirage, leaving us poor, exploited and tired all the time.