39 How Cult (Brooke Arnold)

Trigger Warning: Rape/Sexual Assault/Cults

This week we are joined by comedian, writer and professor Brooke Arnold. Brooke tells us all about her experience of growing up in a cult that has been called "The world's most woman-hating cult" from the ages of 7 to 17, how she escaped and what adjusting to life afterwards was like. We get a look deep inside her former cult-- The Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) and its '7 Non-Optional Life Principles' - and how those principles (Design, Authority, Responsibility, Suffering, Ownership, and Freedom) were constructed to justify and perpetuate a pyramid scheme of abuse and sexual assault. We discuss what makes something a cult, how to tell if something is a cult, and what makes people vulnerable to being sucked in. Finally Brooke tells us how cults are just indicators of larger culture, why she prefers a psychedelic approach to therapy and how a recent trip to her former cult leader Bill Gothard's house led her to a healing revelation.

Follow Brooke @TheBrookeArnold

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