Becky Garrison is a spiritual seeker and researcher exploring the Pacific Northwest craft culture, including beer, wine, cider, cannabis/CBD, psychedelics, along with the regional festival scene and the sacred sexuality/ecstatic dance community. She served as Senior Contributing Editor for The Wittenburg Door from 1994 to 2008 and is now on its board of directors since its 2021 relaunch. She is the author of nine books including Jesus Died for This? A Satirist's Search for the Risen Christ and Distilled in Washington: A History.

Book: Gaslighting for God: A Satirical Guide to Save Yourself from Spiritual Narcissists (Lake Drive Books, January 2026) Purchase: https://www.lakedrivebooks.com/books/gaslighting-for-god/

Website: http://www.beckygarrison.com Substack: https://beckygarrison.substack.com Medium: https://medium.com/@becky_garrison YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GarrisonBecky Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/becky_garrison/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BeckyGarrisonWriter/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beckygarrison

RESOURCES:

• Safer Sex-Positive and Spiritual Communities: 3SC.Community
• ICSA (International Cultic Studies Association): ICSA.org
• DECULT: decult.net
• Seek Safely: https://seeksafely.org/
• Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741

CONNECT:

If this episode resonates with you, I'd love to hear from you.

Questions or feedback: foolsgoldpodcast@proton.me Substack: https://caracordoni.substack.com/ Instagram: @caracordoni

CREDITS: Music: "Midnight Rendezvous" by Sasha Ende (ende.app) Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

Carol's current legal practice has focused on coercive control and undue influence; sexual abuse in spiritual and religious communities; forced labor and human trafficking (civil) in high-demand and high-control groups; civil RICO and systemic abuse litigation; survivor-centered investigation and advocacy.

As member of the Board of the International Cultic Studies Association, she has collaborated closely with clinicians, scholars, survivor-advocates, and other professionals. She has been a guest on more than thirty-five podcasts; had numerous television and media interviews in the United States and Canada; and been a speaker at national and international conferences across legal, therapeutic, academic, and survivor-centered communities.

RESOURCES:
Safer Sex-Positive and Spiritual Communities: 3SC.Community
ICSA (International Cultic Studies Association): ICSA.org
The BITE Model: freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model/
Seek Safely: https://seeksafely.org/
Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741

CONNECT:
Conversations like these helped me get through the darkest times, and I hope they help us get through dark times together.

I'd love to hear from you.
Questions or feedback: foolsgoldpodcast@proton.me

Substack: https://caracordoni.substack.com/
Instagram: @caracordoni

Music: "Midnight Rendezvous" by Sasha Ende (ende.app)
Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

Bronwyn walks through the digital evidence trail connecting Highden to ISTA despite public claims of separation, the systematic erasure of online records, and the broader context of why New Zealand has become a magnet for alternative spiritual groups. She shares findings from her DeCult conference presentation and the challenge of documenting harm when websites disappear and records get deleted.

Content Note: Discussion of alternative medicine fraud, financial exploitation, cult manipulation, and organizational harm.

ABOUT BRONWYN RIDEOUT:

Bronwyn Rideout is a registered midwife by night and the Chair of the New Zealand Skeptics by day. She has been researching Highden and ISTA since 2022 and delivered a presentation on both organisations at the 2024 DeCult conference with Dave Booda, Shany Kedar, and Mordechai Braunstein. As regular contributor to the NZ Skeptics newsletter, Bronwyn regularly writes about Autism, Multi-level Marketing companies, cults/coercive groups, and skeptical history through a New Zealand lens.

Articles: https://articles.skeptics.nz/author/bronwyn-rideout/

ISTA Research: https://skeptics.nz/ista

Podcast: https://podcast.skeptics.nz/

RESOURCES:

• Safer Sex-Positive and Spiritual Communities: 3SC.Community
• ICSA (International Cultic Studies Association): ICSA.org
• DECULT: decult.net
• Seek Safely: https://seeksafely.org/
• Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741

CONNECT:

Conversations like these helped me get through the darkest times, and I hope they help us get through dark times together.

If this episode resonates with you, I'd love to hear from you.

Questions or feedback: foolsgoldpodcast@proton.me

Substack: https://caracordoni.substack.com/

Instagram: @caracordoni

Like what you're hearing? Subscribe, share with someone who might benefit, and leave a review. Your engagement helps others find these conversations.

CREDITS: Graphics: Paxton Scarberry | Music: "Midnight Rendezvous" by Sasha Ende (ende.app) Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

References:

ISTA's FAQs

The Joint Statement Jan 18, 2024

A Disappointing End June 9, 2025

Israeli Center for Cult Victims (ICCV) Update on ISTA November 2025

Jon and Cara discuss manipulation techniques shared across cults, gangs, and terrorist groups—love bombing, finding your ruin, weaponized meditation, and why certainty is a red flag.

Content Note: Discussion of cult manipulation, Nazi ideology, sexual abuse, and authoritarian control.

BOOKS MENTIONED:

Jon Atack: If Scientology Ruled the World (2025), Opening Our Minds (2015), A Piece of Blue Sky (1990)

Other: Bare-Faced Messiah by Russell Miller, The Secret Doctrine and Isis Unveiled by Helena Blavatsky, The Red Book by Carl Jung, Ghost Hunters by Deborah Blum, The Wrong Way Home by Arthur Deikman, The Myth of Genesis by Robert Graves and Raphael Patai, Oxford Handbook of Meditation edited by Miguel Farias

Jon Atack has been recognized as a leading expert on authoritarian cults since 1990, when his best-selling Let's Sell These People a Piece of Blue Sky was first published. After nine years in Scientology, Jon left in 1983 and has since helped about 600 people recover from cult abuse. He has been consulted in over 150 court cases worldwide and recognized as an expert witness by the English High Court.

In 2015, Opening Our Minds became the first book to explore manipulative techniques from advertising and propaganda to cults, gangs, and terrorist groups. His 2025 book If Scientology Ruled the World: Nazi Occultists, Sex Magick, Space Aliens, and the Second Coming exposes the origins of the Aryan Race fantasy and the relationship between cult groups and Nazi ideology. Jon has published over 500 articles and co-authored academic chapters with Steven Hassan, PhD, on topics ranging from anti-Semitism to lone-actor terrorism.

Website: https://jonatack.co.uk
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jonatackfamilyfriends6176

Connect: Instagram @jon_atack | Bluesky jonatack.bsky.social | Twitter @atack_jon | Facebook /AuthorJonAtack

RESOURCES: 3SC.Community | ICSA.org | freedomofmind.com | seeksafely.org | Crisis Text Line: HOME to 741741

CONNECT: foolsgoldpodcast@proton.me | calendly.com/caracordonicoaching | caracordoni.substack.com | Instagram @caracordoni

Subscribe, share, and leave a review to help others find these conversations.

CREDITS:
Music: "Midnight Rendezvous" by Sasha Ende (ende.app), CC BY-NC 4.0

John traces LGAT history from Mind Dynamics (1967) through EST, Lifespring, and Landmark, explaining how these organizations evolved from overt abuse to covert manipulation. He and Cara discuss ISTA's format, the weaponization of personal responsibility, why educated people are vulnerable, and the industry's financial incentives to ignore harm. John shares his Fight Club research, federal court testimony, and why publishing cult research is risky but necessary.

Content Note: Discussion of psychological manipulation, induced mania, sexual assault, and institutional harm.

Dr. John Hunter is a South African researcher and lecturer based in Johannesburg. His interest in large group awareness trainings (LGATs) stems from personal experience with bipolar disorder and LGAT participation in 2010. He completed a PhD in psychology (2017) proposing the dopaminergic-defense hypothesis, explaining both "transformational" experiences and psychological harm associated with LGATs. Dr. Hunter published this research in the Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion (2022), presented at ICSA (2023), and testified as expert witness in US federal court (2024). His book Manufacturing Mania: The Dopamine Hypothesis of Religious Experience is now available.

Website: https://johnhunterphd.com/#about-me
Book: Manufacturing Mania
Article: "LGATs and Fight Club: Dissecting a Delusion" -

RESOURCES:

• Safer Sex-Positive and Spiritual Communities
• ICSA (International Cultic Studies Association): ICSA.org
• Freedom of Mind (Steven Hassan)
• Seek Safely
• Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741

CONNECT:

Conversations like these helped me get through the darkest times, and I hope they help us get through dark times together.

If this episode resonates with you, I'd love to hear from you.

Questions or feedback: foolsgoldpodcast@proton.me
Schedule a 30 min curiosity call with Cara: calendly.com/caracordonicoaching
Substack: https://caracordoni.substack.com/
Instagram: @caracordoni

Like what you're hearing? Subscribe, share with someone who might benefit, and leave a review. Your engagement helps others find these conversations, especially because this is a new show.

CREDITS:
Graphics: Paxton Scarberry | Music: "Midnight Rendezvous" by Sasha Ende (ende.app)
Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

Anya walks through the challenges of trauma-informed interviewing with seven survivors, the editorial process at a major publication (fact-checkers, lawyers, revisions), and ISTA's responses both public and private. She addresses accusations of bias and "bait and switch." Cara and Anya name what survivors received from ISTA’s Accountability efforts versus what perpetrators got, the devastating impact of ISTA's post-publication response, and why Anya regrets editors cut her disclosure of attending an ISTA-like retreat, herself.

Content Note: Discussion of sexual assault, organizational harm, and cult dynamics.

Read Anya's ISTA investigation

Listen to her article on YouTube

ABOUT ANYA KAMENETZ:

Anya Kamenetz is an award-winning journalist, author, and speaker who has worked for National Public Radio and contributed to The New Yorker, New York Magazine, the New York Times, the Atlantic and many other publications. As an advisor to Climate Mental Health Network, she co-created the Climate Emotions Wheel. Her Substack The Golden Hour and her forthcoming book Falling In Love With The World Again (Bloomsbury, 2027) explore how to cope and thrive in a time of rapid change and intersecting crises.

Website: http://anyakamenetz.net/
Substack: thegoldenhour.substack.com

RESOURCES:

• Safer Sex-Positive and Spiritual Communities: 3SC.Community
• ICSA (International Cultic Studies Association): ICSA.org

CONNECT:

Conversations like these helped me get through the darkest times, and I hope they help us get through dark times together.

If this episode resonates with you, I'd love to hear from you.

Questions or feedback: foolsgoldpodcast@proton.me
Schedule a 30 min curiosity call with Cara: calendly.com/caracordonicoaching
Substack: https://caracordoni.substack.com/
Instagram: @caracordoni

Like what you're hearing? Subscribe, share with someone who might benefit, and leave a review. Your engagement helps others find these conversations, especially because this is a new show.

CREDITS:
Graphics: Paxton Scarberry

Music: "Midnight Rendezvous" by Sasha Ende (ende.app)
Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

No commentary, just the article read aloud.

Ellie and Cara discuss power dynamics between teachers and students, the difference between genuine empowerment and pseudo-importance, and recovery after leaving. They explore finding your voice after years of silence, the spiral nature of healing, and holding both harm experienced and harm perpetuated.

Content Note: Discussion of sexual relationships between teachers and students, power dynamics, and grooming. References to emotional collapse and recovery.

Disclaimer: Views expressed represent individual opinions and experiences, not official positions of the podcast or producers.

ABOUT ELLIE WILDE:

Ellie Wilde is a somatic facilitator who brings lived experience and discernment to conversations about power, intimacy, and integrity. For over a decade, she was an ISTA facilitator, working internationally in immersive trainings. Her years inside gave her intimate understanding of both the potential and serious distortions when embodiment work, trauma, eros, and spiritual authority mix without sufficient accountability or nervous-system awareness.

Today, Ellie works primarily with men in one-to-one settings, supporting emotional literacy, grounded masculinity, and ethical relational capacity—helping men move beyond performance-based spirituality into genuine presence and responsibility. In groups, she prioritizes safety, consent, and nervous-system coherence. She's passionate about dismantling charismatic power dynamics and helping people separate authentic growth from coercion and unintegrated trauma.

Ellie speaks not as an outsider but as someone who loved these worlds deeply and is now committed to truth-telling.

www.essentialtantra.org | ellie@essentialtantra.org

RESOURCES:

• Safer Sex-Positive and Spiritual Communities: 3SC.Community
• ICSA: ICSA.org
• Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741

CONNECT: foolsgoldpodcast@proton.me Schedule with Cara: calendly.com/caracordonicoaching Substack: caracordoni.substack.com Instagram: @caracordoni

Subscribe, share, and leave a review to help others find these conversations.

CREDITS: Graphics: Paxton Scarberry | Music: "Midnight Rendezvous" by Sasha Ende (ende.app) Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

In Part 2 (of 2), Cara and Jack explore what comes after you recognize harm in a community you loved. Cara shares her two-year journey attempting accountability through mediation—believing transformation was possible, documenting patterns of harm, and slowly realizing the organization wasn't interested in genuine change. The conversation moves through the stages of disillusionment: from hopeful participant to concerned insider to reluctant whistleblower. Cara reflects on why she stayed in dialogue so long and what it took to finally walk away from the dream of accountability.

Jack and Cara discuss the mechanics of institutional betrayal—how organizations respond to harm reports, the ways victims get blamed for their own trauma, and what happens when mediation becomes performative. Cara describes her current work supporting survivors and building alternative models for community and leadership.

Part 2 of 2. For Cara's full ISTA origin story, start with Part 1.

DISCLAIMER
Views expressed represent individual opinions and experiences, not official positions of the podcast or producers. Content is not intended to malign any religion, group, organization, business, individual, or entity.

ABOUT JACK RIKESS
Jack Rikess was a stand-up comic for twenty-five years performing across the USA. Along the way he became a producer of comedy shows and other productions, including two years as an Operational Manager for The Emerald Cup. In the early 2000s, he wrote about the Northern California Cannabis scene. That led to a column with Village Voice Media, "Toke of the Town" which was distributed in twenty American cities including LA Weekly, SF Weekly, and City Pages in his hometown of Minneapolis.

His work is featured in Stephen Sparks and Tom Allman's book, "Out There In The Woods"—an account of being embedded with law enforcement in the 36-day manhunt for a double-murderer hiding in the hills of Mendocino County. His first novel, "Just For A Couple Of Weeks" will be published in spring of 2026.

Connect with Jack:

RESOURCES
Safer Sex-Positive and Spiritual Communities: 3SC.Community
ICSA (International Cultic Studies Association): ICSA.org
New York Magazine Article: http://3sc.community/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/The-Neo-Tantric-Sex-Group-That-Promised-to-Change.pdf

CONNECT
Conversations like these helped me get through the darkest times, and I hope they help us get through dark times together.

If this episode resonates with you, I'd love to hear from you.

Questions or feedback: foolsgoldpodcast@proton.me
Schedule a 30 min curiosity call with Cara: calendly.com/caracordonicoaching
Substack: https://caracordoni.substack.com/
Instagram: @caracordoni

Please subscribe, share with someone who might benefit, and leave a review. Your engagement helps others find these conversations, especially because this is a new show.

No commentary, just the article as written, read aloud to you by Cara Cordoni.

Stuart and Cara discuss the archetype of the fool, the mechanics of large group awareness trainings (LGATs), and how bright, thoughtful people end up in harmful organizations. Drawing on Cara's own experiences with multiple cultic groups—from Miracle of Love to the International School of Temple Arts (ISTA)—they examine the patterns that make us vulnerable to coercive control and the "counter-indicators" of real transformation.

Stuart brings perspective from advertising strategy, communication psychology, and his own neurodivergent lens on "the dominator game." Together, they model the kind of collaborative excavation this podcast aims for: not sensationalizing harm, but honestly examining how we got fooled and how we develop discernment.

Content Note: Contains discussion of emotional abuse, religious manipulation, mentions of suicidal ideation, and brief references to substance use. Adult language used sparingly.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast, its host, or producers. Guest content represents their own opinions and experiences and is not intended to malign any religion, group, organization, business, individual, or entity.

ABOUT STUART PARKINSON: stuart parkinson is a former advertising and experience design strategist who turned from persuasion as extraction toward meaning as repair. his work moves between political economy, psychoanalysis, eastern and western spirituality, and the psychology of propaganda. he makes psychedelic music, writes poetry, and studies how power shapes inner life. he is interested in healing that doesn't bypass structure, and philosophy that still touches the body.

Connect with Stuart: https://soundcloud.com/mospod

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

• Tantra Not Trauma (Facebook group supporting survivors)
• 3SC (Safer Sex-Positive and Spiritual Communities): 3SC.Community
• Manufacturing Mania by Dr. John Hunter (upcoming guest)
• ICSA (International Cultic Studies Association): ICSA.org

CONNECT WITH FOOL'S GOLD: Conversations like these helped me get through the darkest times. If this episode resonates—whether you're processing your own experiences, working with survivors, or simply curious about discernment and power—I'd love to hear from you.

Email: foolsgoldpodcast@proton.me Schedule a curiosity call: calendly.com/caracordonicoaching Follow: @caracordoni (Instagram, Bluesky) Substack: caracordoni.substack.com

Like what you're hearing? Subscribe, share, and leave a review.

Music: "Midnight Rendezvous" by Sasha Ende (ende.app)

Fool's Gold Podcast © 2026 by Cara Cordoni is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/