“They Cut You Off From Everyone” - Cult Deprogrammer Breaks Down 764 Network, Scientology & NXIVM
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.
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TIME STAMPS:
00:00 - Intro
05:22 - Defining a Destructive Cult
14:30 - Nexium & Keith Raniere Deep Dive
37:05 - Scientology: Structure, Celebrities & Criticisms
1:00:01 - International Church of Christ & Disciple Systems
1:13:59 - Signs You're in a Cult & Prevention Tips
1:18:05 - Political Influences & Personal Disappointments
1:32:00 - Is Everyone in a Cult? Jews, Scientology & Ideologies
1:54:36 - Modern Cases: Diddy, 764 Cult & Online Dangers
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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.
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.
But what is the point where they go to now sacrifice your life?
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 McKenzie told his people to fast and pray because the end of the world was coming.
And over 400 bodies have been recovered in Kenya.
Are you following anything with Diddy?
Yeah, I followed it 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.
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 you'll see where I'm going with this.
Everybody is an occult, including you.
I think you're in a cold.
Adam, what's your point?
The future looks bright.
And Jacob is better than anything I ever saw.
right here you are a one-on-one my son's right there i don't think i've ever said this before i don't know what the name of the movie was but maybe um score is what it was called Score with Robert De Niro.
Anyways, we're having conversations about how much we both respect Edward Norton's movies, but he was not a cult leader, right?
He's not a cult leader.
No.
Maybe Fight Club.
Yeah, in Fight Club he played.
Maybe Fight Club.
He kind of played a cult leader.
And also in the movie that he followed a man who led a hate group.
What was that?
Primal Fear?
No, an X.
Oh, American History X.
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 story of someone who becomes disenchanted in a cult.
And then the story ends with him trying to get his brother out of it.
And his brother ends up, you know how the movie ends, where 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 identify as 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.
So, you know, we have one of our guys in the 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 following.
He wants people to be crazy about him.
And he's wondering if you wanted to do that, how do you do that today?
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, excuse me, cult leaders to pull in members.
And so they recruit online, they get money online, you know, PayPal, Vemo, 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.
So, okay.
And I want to talk about that because the question then 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?
Well, you know, it's, I believe, you know, from a language standpoint, it would go back to Roman times.
But the word cult has a range of meaning.
So, for example, you could have a cult following.
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 obsessed with shopping at 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 Raneri, Jim Jones, Charles Manson.
And whatever the leader says is right is right.
Whatever the leader says is wrong is 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.
So that is what defines a destructive cult.
Those three core characteristics.
Cash, adulation, and sexual favors.
Yeah.
All right, Humberto.
There you go, Buddy.
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.
It's 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.
Yeah.
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.
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?
Where are those guys willing to go to that others with high influence don't?
What's the difference?
What's the place they're willing to go to?
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 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 is 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.
Everyone is really negative.
They're awful.
And only the people within this group are right 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 Amshinrikyo, 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 the Good News International Church, Paul McKenzie, told his people to fast and pray because the end of the world was coming.
And over 400 bodies have been recovered in Kenya.
How did they die?
How did they take their lives?
They died from starvation.
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.
Can you pull up the leader, the picture of the leader?
Please continue.
Go for it.
This is one of the most horrible things about destructive cults is 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 Tohor, which is a spin-off of ultra-Orthodox Judaism.
This is a group that has members from New York, from the United States, Canada, and Israel.
And after fleeing multiple investigations for child abuse, they ended up in Guatemala.
And they created a compound outside of Guatemala City.
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 into this group or born into this group and they have no other choice.
Yeah, but what I want to know 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 family isn't just about blood.
It's about who's with you today when you have big dreams and you want to do something.
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 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?
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 other areas in the world.
And that's part of the facade of destructive cults, is that they are going to project a positive image.
They're going to put forth a kind of mask 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, you know, let's take Nexium.
Nexium was a seminar-selling company that did self-help motivational kind of seminars.
People would go off, they'd do a 13, 14-day intensive, they would be assigned a coach, they would go through a training process that was dictated by a manual.
And behind all of this was Keith Ranieri, who they called Vanguard.
What the difference is— It's from Nexium.
Yeah.
Yeah, this is the leader of Nexium, which really was congregating around Albany, New York.
And Rani would eventually be arrested, tried for sex trafficking, fraud, various things.
And now he's in prison for 120 years.
But when the people became involved, they had no idea what Rani'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 changed was it became more and more demanding, 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 goodbye and get on with your life.
We become your life.
We consume your life.
We expect you to move to Albany, New York so that you can be close to Vanguard.
Keith Ranieri, 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.
And so that's very different than a Tony Robbins or some type of motivational speaker.
Tony Roberts certainly has his critics, but I don't think anyone would say that 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.
Got it.
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?
They called him Vanguard, the founder of Nexium, a shadowy self-help organization described by federal prosecutors as cult-like.
Keith Ranieri 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.
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.
They both, the devil and the saint, should be able to get the exact same treatment under our justice system.
Today, Ranieri spoke with, of all people, the man who helped bring him down.
Web journalist Frank Parlato, a former Nexium spokesman.
Parlato himself has pleaded not guilty to tax and other charges that originated from his Nexium involvement.
Can you plan out 14 steps ahead of him?
If you have seen the HBO docuseries, The Vow, Parlato's name may ring a bell.
Parlato broke the story that a group within Nexium was treating women as sex slaves and branding them with Ranieri's initials.
You've got to be careful.
Ranieri was convicted in 2019 of sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy, and racketeering.
Do you intend to make a statement at your sentencing that you are innocent?
Yes, I am innocent.
And although it is, this is a horrible tragedy.
We can pause it right now.
You've spent a lot of time with Keith.
Oh, yeah.
How many hours have you spent with Keith?
Many hours.
I sat through his deposition.
He sued me.
Interesting story.
Basically, I deprogrammed people that were involved in Nexium for 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 Rani 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.
For example, calling people that were critical of Nexium suppressive people or suppressive persons, SPs, urging people to disconnect from SPs.
This was right out of Scientology.
So Ranieri, what he did was he put together something that took a little bit from landmark education and seminar structure.
That was from 40 years ago, 30 years ago.
Yes.
Landmark and PSI.
And there was a couple 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?
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 30 years.
So 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 point is that Ranieri was not an original thinker.
He cobbled together, and many cult leaders do this.
They copy other groups.
They may have been in another group before they created their own.
And so what you end up with is a composite.
Ranieri'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.
And later he created his own MLM called Consumer Byline, which was sued out of existence by attorney generals of various states.
Ranieri was soft-spoken.
He seemed like an introvert.
He lied about his background.
He was a genius.
He was a stellar student at university.
He said he had like a 240 IQ or something like that.
He had a 2.26 GPA.
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 120 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.
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 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 there were quite a few of them that were branded with a cauterizing iron and no anesthetic, and Keith Ranieri 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 DO, that eventually lost her license that did the branding with the cauterizing iron.
And she was that caught up in Ranieri's alternate reality.
And of course, you had the actress Allison Mack, and she was brought in by another actress, Kristen Kruk, from the series Smallville.
And these were successful women who had very good careers and thought that Nexium would improve their lives.
And then I worked with Catherine Oxenberg, who is best known from the series Dynasty in the 80s.
And her daughter, India Oxenberg, was also brought into the group.
And at that time, Catherine Oxenberg's husband, Caspar Van Diem, also went to some of the training.
But eventually, Catherine and Caspar Van Diem would drop out of Nexium.
But the problem was India was still in and she would eventually be branded and go through a horrible.
She was branded.
Yeah.
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 Ranieri as a kind of fixer and PR guy.
I think, as I recall, 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 Nexium that were withering in their analysis.
I put that online and published it.
That is why Ranieri sued me.
He wanted to shut down 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.
You testified at his trial?
Yes, I did.
Have you had a one-on-one conversation with him?
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.
What vibes did he give you?
Like, you know, think movie characters.
Like, when you think about movie characters, you know, the character Kaiser Society from the Usual Suspects, right?
I don't know if you know Kaiser Society in a 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?
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.
Stank?
Yeah, 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 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.
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.
What did he say to that?
He kind of blew up.
You know, he got very red-faced.
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 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 Nexium.
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 play this clip, Rob?
What is Pac-Man fever and who's likely to get it?
Now, just about anyone.
Pac-Man has come out of the video.
What does this have to do with Keith Minier?
Is he about to come up?
Fast forward a little bit.
Chief is anywhere there.
Right there.
Okay, that's a teacher from RPI, Keith Minier, who has scored over 2 million points with a single Pac-Man.
This is like the Rubicund to a certain extent.
A lot of people play it just competitively, but it's actually like a puzzle.
And because the game appeals to Ruby, it's called.
What a so okay.
Yeah.
Sounds like a regular guy.
I don't know about that.
In that?
I mean, there were stories that were reported about Keith Rani harassing little girls and terrorizing them at the age of 10.
So I think that in my opinion, and I think, you know, this can be borne out, he was really bad from a very early age.
He was harassing people, terrorizing people, manipulating people.
What do we know about his parents?
From what I gathered, they were pretty good people.
And he would at times imply that he was somehow an abused kid, that he had suffered and whatever.
But in reality, from what I gathered from talking to people that knew the family, he had nice parents, his father in particular.
And so you could argue that this man is a psychopath.
I think 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, they seem to be that way.
They seem to form 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.
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 Rani was.
Was he obsessed with video games, 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.
He was always taking advantage of people.
What MLMs was he in?
Who was Amway?
What else was he in?
He was an Amway distributor, is my understanding.
And then he created his own MLM called Consumer Byline.
And it was a scam, and that's why it went under.
And then he created Nexium with Nancy Salzman, his second in command.
And Salzman was a nurse.
She had a background in what's called neuro-linguistic programming, NLP.
And she shared that with Raneri.
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 a co-conspirator.
And Nancy Salzman would eventually go to prison for withholding information in the lawsuit against me, which is a crime in a federal lawsuit.
And also, they would find files in her basement of the perceived enemies of Nexium, including me.
And I saw this file when I testified in the criminal trial of Keith Raneri.
They showed it to me.
Did you know they had a file on you?
And they showed me.
This is very similar to Scientology so far what you were saying.
Every time I've interviewed somebody that said something bad about Scientology, I've got an email and a website about why that person's wrong and history of that person's wrongdoing over their lifetime, whatever it is.
That's their dead agent file.
That's what it's called.
For a Scientology?
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.
You're famous on Scientology.
Well, I'm certainly considered an SP.
I've been labeled an SP for decades.
Yeah.
Boy, you're a troublemaker.
It's to them.
That's not.
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 Raneri, I think, learned from that example.
Did they ever meet that?
Does he have any, is I just tapped right now if there's any affiliation.
There's nothing connected between the two.
I have been told that one of the inner circle in Nexium was a former Scientologist.
And I was also told that at one time when Keith Rani 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 Nexium.
And by the way, Nexium had me under surveillance.
At one point, they were actually buying my garbage in a building that I live in.
That's Scientology.
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 Nexium.
So, you know, Nexium was, they were brutal.
They were very insidious in the way that they went after people.
But let me just share this.
The key to understanding Nexium is that Keith Raneri was able to recruit two heirs to the Seagram's liquor fortune.
And that is Claire and Sarah Bromfman.
These sisters reportedly gave Keith Ranieri over $100 million.
Stop it.
Yeah.
Yeah, he was, when he was arrested, there were, yes.
She looks like somebody that would waste that money.
Well, she went to prison for almost seven years over Nexium.
That's a terrible muckshot.
Is that a muckshot or is that just a picture?
Can you see if that's a muckshot, Ra?
Doesn't say down here.
To be honest with you, I think that's kind of a flattering picture because I've stopped.
Yeah, I didn't meet her face to face, but at another court-ordered mediation, she was there representing Nexium.
She was an officer of Nexium, the corporation.
And she was scurrying around, talking to different mediators, former federal judges, trying to follow through on whatever Raneri's plan was at that mediation.
But she really was a pawn of Raneri 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 Raneri.
She would?
Yes.
Okay.
I'm trying to think about another guy that 20 years ago, he had his blue CD set that I listened to every one of them.
And he had, 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 Rawlin, 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, 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.
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 when we're at the office late at night, midnight, 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 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.
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.
And then you read Leah Romini 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?
Priscilla Presley joined and she brought in Lisa Marie Presley, her daughter.
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?
Well, I think what you see is the worship of the leader.
I mean, L. Ron Hubbard is considered sacrosanct, really.
And his writings are sacred.
In fact, they have them written 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 Miskevidge, who now occupies a similar position in Scientology.
Very powerful.
He's a virtual dictator, in my opinion.
And so what you see.
Have you ever met him?
No, I have not.
Never met him.
I've met their lead counsel, Kendrick Moxon.
I've met quite a few Scientologists over the years and former Scientologists.
There's a division 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 Sea Org, the C 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 Sea Org members.
And, you know, what is their health care benefit?
What is their retirement benefit?
How much are they actually paid?
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 very well.
And then at the bottom, you have these Sea Org 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.
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.
And 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, 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, 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.
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. 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.
Lake Arrowhead is one of their main facilities.
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 propose, or he wrote, that let's say you at one time did LSD, or at one time 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 were through an organization called Narconon, which is, in my opinion, a front for Scientology.
It's an anti-drug program, and Narconon runs drug reabs, but it's based on Scientology, and it's controversial.
And so Narconon 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, is this religion?
Because we can't have you teaching religion to the kids.
And they said, no, no, Narconon is separate from Scientology, and this is not us teaching Scientology.
So they let them in, and then 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 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.
So Scientologists said, well, this is a truth.
This is what we say is the truth.
And the school said, no, it's not the truth.
It's a belief.
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 60s.
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 what you believe in is science, and the name of the organization is Scientology, implying it's kind of scientific, why can't the group acknowledge that this was 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.
And he really struggled with that because he realized, yeah, what he's saying is true.
And I showed him the documentation and everything and what had happened.
And he realized, well, when Hubbard is wrong about something, what do we do with that?
Can't we 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.
Yeah, the last time he did an interview, Miscavige, was with Ted Koppel.
And I believe it's in 94, something like that.
It could be Rob.
Can you see what year that was, the Koppel interview?
It's a long time interview, and people have had a hard time, have had a hard time finding his wife.
They don't know where his wife is.
She's been located.
She is in relatively comfortable setting.
Good shape.
Yeah, in Northern California, I think somewhat near.
She was missing for 20 years, though, 15 years now.
Not really.
I think there was a point where people will question, 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 Miskevidge did the equivalent of, woman, get thee to a nunnery.
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 Romeni, former Scientologist and critic of the organization, filed a missing person reporting Miscavige with the LA department, the LAPD, closed the investigation within hours and described the report as unfounded.
Has she showed herself?
Have people seen her?
Yes.
She has.
Yes.
Okay.
Yes.
And where has that been documented?
I think she was seen at a restaurant eating out outside of outside of the compound.
She also has 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.
And you could argue that David Miskevich 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 not unaccounted for.
She lives in this relatively comfortable 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.
This is the only Scientology in Northern California.
I could find the Petriola.
Is that correct?
They say it's a giant compound with a hidden bunker underneath.
And it says what?
That she is there?
That's the only Scientology headquarters that I could find in a remote, secluded location in Northern California.
I am not, I'm not really sure which facility it is by name, but 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 people know where she is.
I mean, it's not a mystery.
She has been there for a number of years.
Yeah, the niece was on NewsNation just a few months ago.
Did you see that interview?
Yeah, I'm aware of it.
Yes.
She claimed that she has been seen, but doesn't want to give proof.
So the, you know, obviously she was critical of Scientology, but, you know, the niece herself says, I'm not sure.
Let me just have this, Rob.
I'm going to 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 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 thing, credible source coming from the niece?
Hi, I'm Rick Allen Ross, cult expert, intervention specialist, author of the book Cults Inside Out.
You can find me on Minect.
Okay, so now let's kind of somebody from that community could say, well, on the Scientology side, Tom Cruise is how old, Rob.
Can you look up how Tom Cruise is?
Tom Cruise is 63 years old.
63 years old.
Go to Grant Cardone.
Okay, Grant Cardone's age.
He's probably got to be late 50s, early 60s.
67 years old.
Can you go to images of Grant Cardone?
He does not look 67 years old.
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 do these two guys, why do they look so good in their 60s?
Maybe they have figured something out that others haven't.
What would you say to that?
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 when their family supported that intervention.
So it is possible for someone very intelligent, 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 life with her parents.
And she feared the process of disconnection, I believe.
And so she ended up leaving Scientology.
And Tom Cruise, ironically, 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, Surrey Cruz.
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, understanding 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, Surrey.
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, 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 de Armas 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.
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?
If you're a Catholic and you're confessing, there's a curtain.
You don't know who the priest is on the other side.
The priest has quite a few.
Are you Catholic?
No, I am not.
I'm Jewish.
So a Catholic priest has ethical standards that he must adhere to.
He cannot reveal a confession.
He's still a human being.
He's a sinner.
Yeah, but 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 polyograph.
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 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.
So this is confessions with the use of technology.
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 the records of Scientology.
And routinely, people that become involved in Scientology sign releases regarding their records and so forth.
So Scientology then, they've got the goods on you.
They know about what makes you tick.
It's an organized form of confessions.
It's organized in a methodical way, and there are copious notes and records that can be used ultimately to your detriment.
But it's confessions.
It is confession, but I would call it more like an interrogation.
I would liken it to being— They're cousins, though, right?
Yeah.
Confessions and interrogation, if they're asking you a question, you know, 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 L.A. called the Los Angeles Church of Christ.
Oh, yeah.
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, 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?
He says, well, I'm just telling you, you're going to 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.
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 didn't.
Anyways, long story short, can you find out who was the pastor?
Was it a guy named Kip McKean?
Was it Steve Sapp or Kip McKean?
Well, Kip McKean was at the top, and eventually he would step down from leadership.
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 Sapp.
Can you type in Los Angeles Church of Christ and type in Steve Sapp?
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 Kip McKean started this group back in the 70s with just a handful of people in Massachusetts.
And at its highest point, it's estimated that there were about 250,000 members worldwide.
They had Hollywood.
They had celebrities.
They had actors.
I would go in there.
I'm like, holy moly, they got everybody.
Yeah.
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 Kip McKean at the top, the one person who wasn't being discipled.
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.
The only way to go to heaven is through their church.
Under their leadership.
That's right.
And so when you see a Christian church that is saying, look, 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 Kip McKean taught until he stepped down.
Now he has restarted recently, and he again has followers, not very many.
And the ICOC, as it's often called, the International Church of Christ, is now greatly diminished.
I don't know how many members, but I would speculate 50,000 or less.
So they've toppled quite a bit.
But when they were in their heyday, I was doing interventions to get people out.
I was talking to my friend.
I'm like, buddy, I don't know.
This doesn't sound like a good church you're a part of.
He says, no, you don't understand.
I said, all right.
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.
Oh, very systematic.
Very much so.
Very much so.
And I once did a news program with Fox News, and producers for Fox News infiltrated in the late 90s 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 training and they're saying to someone, you need to consider leaving your boyfriend.
They're telling a female producer at Fox because he isn't coming along with the program and therefore you need to get rid of him.
And that kind of inner discussion that is not heard by the general public and not known when you become involved with the church 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 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?
With these guys.
Yeah.
And so I had to do.
They were good.
They were very good.
I did 80 interventions.
Did you find sexual things?
Did you find, because I didn't find anything there.
Like the adulation and the sexual stuff.
I didn't see the sexual stuff at all.
So they were all actually very good people.
The leaders were living large.
A lot of the leaders were the finances, which were expensive.
Well, if you take the three, the cash, the adulation, and the sexual, I didn't see the sexual.
The adulation I saw.
I know nothing about the cash because I wasn't at the higher up level.
I was in my early 20s.
Let me just say that when Kip McKean stepped down, he did so for sins in his life that remain undisclosed.
So I don't know what that involved.
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.
They're very positive because they believe that the group is good and they're there feeling that they're promoting something that is positive, that is good 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 sat with Kip 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 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 let God down, 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.
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 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 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?
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 in 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.
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. McCain, I'm Trish Wood from Fifth Estate.
I believe you were talking to our researcher on the phone.
Can we ask you a couple of questions?
Well, you know, we have no comment.
I appreciate.
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?
We have no time at this time.
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.
Well, I think you've talked to many of the ex-members, so you have the information.
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 the senior church?
Mr. McPhan?
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 without a defensive strategy.
And you'll see these football teams that were decent offense season, but their defense was ridiculous.
And then the playoffs, they crush.
I have four kids.
To me, I like to play prevent, okay, preventative and what's the word?
Anticipation.
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 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 are 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 talk about in the first two minutes, when I asked you a question about Humberto, who aspires to be a cult leader, which maybe he's changed his aspirations, who knows?
You maybe have changed his mind.
He's probably very disappointed right now.
Maybe even left for the day to call him sick.
So let's just say 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, Rick, it would never happen to you because you're a guy that deprograms people.
It can never happen to you, right?
Never.
It can never happen to me.
I'm successful in this.
What can you tell people to anticipate science to not fall for the trap?
Well, first of all, are you becoming involved in a group that has a leader that is worshipped by the group?
I mean, are they constantly talking about the leader?
Are they extolling how wonderful the leader is?
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 annual budget in detail 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.
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, hey, you got to 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 or do they have a sense of community?
For example, a church that says, yeah, we work with other churches to feed the homeless 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.
They will say, sure, check us out, whatever.
Here's our budget.
This is how our bylaws hold our leadership accountable through our incorporation.
And you realize that they're not hiding anything from you and they're being forthcoming.
And how is criticism regarded 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 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.
We can use that, you know, because 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 warning flag.
And there are others that I've outlined, and you look for those, and then you know what you're dealing with.
So are you active on X?
Are you active on Twitter?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
So, you know, today's political climate is a very, if I were to ask you right now, in your 20s or your 30s, 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 20s or your 30s?
Well, Barry Goldwater.
I grew up in Arizona and Barry Goldwater.
Wow, what a name, Barry Goldwater.
Yeah.
His father was Jewish and the original family name was Gold Vosser.
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 what else would you say?
Well, that's a pretty heavy name.
Yeah.
And I would think, 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.
The same meaning, he should have never left office.
That's what you're saying.
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, we don't have the votes to stop it.
You're going to 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 in the David Frost interviews.
So I would say when Richard Nixon was president and he opened the door to China, he created the EPA.
He was very anti-communist and he had his famous debates with Khrushchev.
I greatly respected Richard Nixon 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 growing up, those were very important figures in my life.
And also John F. Kennedy and the way in which he led the country at one point, that he inspired you.
He sold a vision to you.
Yeah.
We're going to land on the moon.
We're going to do this.
We're going to do that.
It was an inspirational guy.
But here's kind of 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, 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.
From that moment on, they said, we're going to be voting Democrat because Kennedy heard us out, but Nixon didn't.
And then African Americans have been voting Democrats since then.
The stories, when you hear about it, you read about it.
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, you're like, what?
I fell for this trap.
Did you have anybody?
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 being wrongfully 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 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 turned out he had made some pretty bad calls, which he would admit himself later.
Did it cause you to no longer want to vote that way?
No.
Okay.
No, I continued to vote for Barry Goldwater, and then later I voted for John McCain, who I greatly admired as well.
I think Arizona has produced, this is my state that I grew up in, though I spent quite a bit of time in New Jersey before moving back to Arizona.
Arizona, given our population, we've produced some really big people that have been very prominent in American history.
You know who else said that in his book, Rob, can you pull up 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 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.
Check to see which one it is.
PDF.
Which chapter is the one where he talks about betrayal?
Keep going down to see the content.
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.
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.
There you go.
Yep.
One of Billy Graham was a painful experiment with film betrayed 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.
So how old were you at the time when you went through this?
Teenager.
Okay, teenager.
Perfect.
That's great.
Because bring that teenage Rick Allen Ross today.
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 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 remessaging?
The way in which they respond to criticism, I think that if they are a reasonable leader, a good leader, that they will respond to criticism thoughtfully.
They will answer directly about what they're being accused of 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.
I think what disappointed me with Richard Nixon at one point was that he was attacking the messenger and he wasn't dealing with the story itself.
I mean, what happened?
Did they, were you involved in this break-in?
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 other things.
So I think the way in which a leader responds to criticism is 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 was a really good man, in my opinion, Barry Goldwater.
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 greatly admired Barry Goldwater as well.
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.
Yeah, so some younger influencers today on X would say you can't criticize Jews, for instance.
Okay.
And you're going to be called anti-Semitic.
You're going to be called this.
You're going to be called that.
And for many years, that was scary to have that label, which today, younger kids, social media, they no longer fear that label that adults feared 10, 20, 30 years ago.
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.
So when at what point does one graduate to actually be an anti-Semitic?
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 don't agree with them.
I think that what Hamas has demonstrated, and they are 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.
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 many 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 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 that.
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.
So, and then you're going to 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.
What I'm going to is the following.
Everybody is an occult, including you.
I think you're an occult.
I think I'm an occult.
I think you're also a cult leader because I think as a cult leader, you're leading the cult of people who want to expose evil people who do harm to others.
So you have a following of people that can't wait to see who you're going to 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, 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.
He had a big show.
Rob, I think Chris Hansen.
Chris Hanson was like, oh my God, who's he going to get next?
Who's he going to get next?
We had him on the podcast once.
So to me, I don't know if like my position, I lived in Iran 11 years, almost 11 years.
So I saw what it was like to live with Hezbollah when you're a Christian family.
I witnessed it.
I lived it.
And in Germany, at a refugee camp, I was with Afghanis, Pakistanis, everybody that was leaving a Muslim 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 Scientologists.
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.
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, 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 point-something percent.
Small, small community.
It's a very small community.
And so it's more my position with this is more, let's stop acting like we don't all admire somebody.
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 of 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 to sit there and see both sides, tear apart anything I just said.
Well, I just want to focus on a couple of things.
Please.
First of all, deception.
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 mitzvah.
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.
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?
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, et cetera, 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 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 Scientology is largely kind of a science fiction space opera, their belief system, you know, Zenu and intergalactic.
We're all being indoctrinated.
That's kind of what I'm trying to say.
And the part that we have to be careful with is what I'm trying to get from you is I'm trying to say at what point, you know, at what point is it a, does it go into a bad thing?
You said something earlier.
The organization lacks accountability, right?
There's no open financial where you, you know, employees or people are, what's 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 tracking with that.
I'm with that part.
You know, but also at the same time, like you mentioned the organization earlier.
I've never heard of it before.
Leftohor.
Lev Tohor.
Am I saying it correctly?
Lev Tohor.
Left to Hor.
It's Hebrew for essentially the pure ones.
Yeah, and this was a Jewish cult, right, that you were talking about.
It was a spin-off from ultra-Orthodox.
It was started by a man named Shlomo Helbrins in Israel.
And then he came to the U.S., went to Canada, ended up dying in Mexico.
What does Guatemala have to do with this?
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 having children as young as 12 married.
They were abusing the little girls in the group.
There was sexual abuse of little boys in the group alleged against the leader, Shlomo Helbrins.
They weren't being properly fed.
They weren't receiving proper medical attention.
They unearthed a child's body in the compound when they raided it.
And the children, and 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 virtual dictator.
And then his son, who succeeded him, occupied that same position.
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 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 to another 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.
Yeah, and this guy even went to, because when you're saying 12-year-olds, I mean, that's normal in many Muslim countries.
You hear stories about that, right?
And there, so they even seeked, he wrote a letter to Ali Khomeini.
Did you know about this or?
No.
Yeah, apparently he wrote a letter to Ali Khomeini seeking asylum.
The son did after Lev Tohor, the founder, died.
So leadership shifted to figures, including Nachman Hellbrens, 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 Khomeini, declared the desire to establish a Love Tohor community under Iranian protection, were intercepted while trying to travel through Central America towards Iran.
U.S. 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.
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 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.
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 Tohor 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 Tahor and be reunited with relatives where they are safe, they're not practicing ultra-Orthodox Judaism.
I've met with rabbis that are leaders of the Hasidic communities, and they abhor what Lev Tohor has done.
And they have supported helping these children.
In fact, one of the children that I worked with was later kidnapped by Lev Tahor at the time she was 14.
And Nachman Hellbrens 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 might be Shlomo Helbrens or one of the leadership.
So he would, oh, excuse me, Nachman Helbrens.
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 for that matter, how they often treated women.
And so groups like Lev Tahor hide behind the mask of religion, but the question is, how do they behave?
Do they behave criminally?
Do they hurt people?
What are they doing to the children?
What are they doing?
Not what are they praying, but what are they doing?
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.
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're not a Christian.
You're a Jew.
Why?
Your parents probably were.
And your grandparents probably.
So that's a form of indoctrination.
But was it deceptive?
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 why Mormons are so united with each other and why they work together.
I wanted to find out what was going on with Seven-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, I never got baptized there.
I'm like, nope, this is not me.
And then I found my home.
And then it was 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 and 1999, 2000, 2001.
And this one guy said something very powerful.
He said, if you ever judge Christianity horizontally, you will always be disappointed.
But if you judge it vertically, you will never be disappointed.
Like, 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.
But to me, that's the black and white that we have to be careful with.
Meaning sometimes it's okay if somebody is, 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, 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 he washed my brain.
And the detergent he used was good things, right?
There's an element of the reaffirmation of some of these positive affirmations that are good for you.
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.
So one of the key elements— Can you send that to me, Rob, please?
Please continue.
One of the key elements is: is there deception?
Is there a bait and switch con?
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.
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 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 take me to task.
I love that.
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 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 and I get calls and emails every day.
And people will say, oh, 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 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.
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 Lift and 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.
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.
I agree.
I totally agree.
By the way, are you following anything with Diddy?
Yeah, I followed it a bit.
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?
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.
And 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 O.J. Simpson in his relationship with Nicole Brown Simpson, which was very similar, where the woman was degraded, the woman was socially isolated, 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, 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.
I like that.
Tricked and trapped.
Tricked and trapped.
Not I like that.
I like the structure of the way you're saying it.
Tricked and trapped.
Makes sense.
Tricked first into becoming involved, thinking probably that Cassie felt he loves me.
He's going to 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.
Yeah, she was 19, 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 764COM, C-O-M.
It's a self-harming cult group started in 2021 that decentralized.
Are you following what's going on?
They're making kids killed.
It's some radical.
There are leaders now being charged with child pornography.
Who is the leader, by the way?
I'm the leader.
There was one man arrested that there were claims that he might be the leader or that he is alleged to be the leader.
Bradley guy?
Bradley Caddenhead.
Yeah, I think that would be the person they arrested that they characterized 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.
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 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 getting minor kids out of groups like that.
Yeah, so the guy's name, Rob, if you want to pull him up, is Prasan Nepal.
If you can pull up Prasan, 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, 20-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.
He allegedly admitted to creating and still controlling the network.
Arrested April 22nd, 2025.
He is charged with operating an international child exploitation enterprise.
His co-defender Leonidas Varagianus, 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-harmed content.
Guidebook, the defendants are accused of creating a guide for aspiring 764 members, coercion and violence.
Nepal and Varaginas allegedly ordered victims to perform acts of self-mutually mutilation, online sexual acts and harm to animals, often live streamed for the group's content and as form of discipline.
Wow.
What do you tell parents?
Because you know this whole new thing, 6'7, this whole thing that they're doing.
I don't know if you heard about the 6-7.
Are you following it or no?
I can't see you going like 6'7 or whatever they do.
But these kids are doing this thing called 6'7, right?
What do you tell parents, like, you know, that are seeing their kids behave a little bit weird?
What feedback do you give to parents?
Well, I think 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 access to technology that puts them on the internet until they're old enough to better understand what's involved.
You know, 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 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 dawning.
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 videos are they watching on YouTube?
What's going on?
And if you see a change in behavior, they seem to become more isolated.
They're moving away from you.
They're becoming sullen.
They're staying in their room for long periods of time.
That these kind of changes may signal outside influence online.
And you need to be vigilant as a parent.
Yeah, it's a strange time right now because 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 do you think we should get you guys social media?
What age do you think I'll approve?
And I'm just kind of trying to see what they'll say.
And my youngest says, I think you will 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 going to hand it to them at 18 years old.
And 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.
A famous pedophile interview came out.
I don't know if you saw this guy or not, in a yellow shirt.
And 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.
I would check out their family situation.
I would check out their...
This guy did 15 years, I believe.
I'm going to 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 else, 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 me attention.
It was a direct form of grooming.
Were there certain characteristics that you look for in children before molesting them?
In children, yes, but more I also look 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, winning him into believing that he would enjoy it.
And therefore, I could manipulate him into having his other friends come.
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.
Yeah.
By the way, who do people say you look like?
Did they tell you you look like somebody or no?
That I look like the rapper Rick Ross?
I don't think so.
You're the third most famous Rick Ross in the world.
Is that fair?
Maybe.
But I will say this.
I was always Rick Ross.
I didn't change my name.
So they took your name.
These guys.
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 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.
He's got a rap better, Rick.
He's so successful.
But let me just say this.
The consistent narrative that pulls through all the people that I talk 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, a friend, a relative who was involved in the group, came 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.
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.
Yes.
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.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Take care, everybody.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Hi.
I'm Rick Allen Ross, cult expert, intervention specialist, author of the book Cults Inside Out.
