Men's Group Cult...

I was dealing with some past and recent traumas (PTSD) and other mental health issues when I began looking for a support group or a group where I could feel welcome, my issues or myself wouldn’t be judged, but a place where I could have deeper, meaningful conversations and support from others. 

I found a group of men who masked/presented themselves as a group of “conscious” men who had these deeper conversations and meetups that wouldn’t take much of my time but held space for me to speak and be heard. I was upfront about what I was looking for and that I had some mental health issues relating to PTSD, major depression and anxiety disorders. (All diagnosed by a medical professional my Doctor) and that reaching out for support was difficult for me, so I was very nervous to begin with. 

My first meet up was 3 days after I had come out of hospital after a suicide attempt. 

Now I realise I was extremely vulnerable and this was used to the group leader/coach’s advantage. 

I was welcomed and had a few deep discussions with some other members trying to find common ground but when I began talking with the group leader the conversation revolved around money and this leader/coach’s financial health and how he was going to be a millionaire. (Giant red flag I didn’t see as I wasn’t thinking clearly not was I aware of what these unqualified “life coaches” do.) I was surprised when he mentioned this but didn’t think much of it as my mind was on thinking about fitting in with this group of guys who used language that I didn’t really understand. 

I decided I would join in a few more physical meet ups and joined the Facebook group for more of an interactive experience. I was accepted into the group after supplying my personal phone and email addresses (which I now know were for marketing purposes) 

What I found were some interesting things being spoken about such as “consciousness” and a lot of new age-isms, law of attraction stuff and “Men’s work”. 

The “Men’s work” part of the group was of interest as I haven’t had many good male role models and was looking ways to understand myself as man and how to interact with the world as a “conscious” man. 

Where it started to feel a bit off was when I was invited to attend a free half day trip while the leader of the group was filming to promote a future retreat setup just for men. That sat ok with me so I went along and didn’t pay much attention to what he was saying as I really wanted to connect with other men on a deeper level than just small talk.

After the filming finished we circled up at a coffee shop and began a discussion about what ever anyone wanted to bring up. Another member began discussing his NLP (Neuro linguistic programming) journey and how he wasn’t able to break through some personal barriers in his relationship. I spoke up and mentioned some techniques and tools I was given from a licensed psychologist.

This was met with a combination of silence and the men talking over what I was saying. I thought that was really strange, but I wanted to see if perhaps I’d made the mistake of speaking up when it wasn’t my place. The leader then began to “coach” this other member and I noticed the member go into a sort of strange state, like he was hypnotised but not as deeply as say a stage hypnotist. I felt very uncomfortable with that so I finished my coffee, paid and left to process what I had seen.  

I distanced myself for a week or so from the group until I received a personal message from the leader/coach who said his new 6 week online course would be really good for me in overcoming my issues. I didn’t think it sounded like a bad idea as I was trying to better myself and heal from the trauma that had been ruling my life. I was at a stage in my PTSD journey where I was searching for ways to alleviate the pain and was up for giving anything a chance if it helped. So I signed up and waited for a week or so till it began (he was starting on a preselected date).

As the start date was getting closer (a thursday), I organised that first evening to be free for the online zoom call. He then changed the dates so it would start the following monday which I had commitments made months in advance so I would end up missing that first call. He created a seperate group for this online course so we could chat amongst ourselves while keeping an eye on us. So when I missed that first call, I wasn’t the only one. He went “live” in the group and berated those who missed the first call, like we had made the conscious decision to not show up. I felt horrible and publicly shamed after hearing him shut us down by name and judging us for “not showing up or sticking to our word”, even though he’d changed the dates at a whim. 

I made an arrangement to be there for the next Call and shuffled my schedule around so I wouldn’t have to deal with his anger and “tough love bullshit”. The next week we received emails “coaching” us on whimsical aspects of life that anyone could read in a book and another man made a public comment about his personal actions. The coach again made a live video shaming this man for his behaviours and criticising his choices. The vitriol with which he spoke made me question the validity of what he was coaching us to do. I began to see the coach’s message was inconsistent with his behaviours and when I started to put some of the puzzle together I noticed a lot of things didn’t add up. 

I joined the next few weeks calls but didn’t participate in the group and spoke very little during said calls until he “invited” me into a conversation which turn into him shaming me for my PTSD, depression diagnosis and how I spoke to myself. He shamed me for believing I was traumatised when simply using his meditation technique and buying into his retreats would be the cure all. I promptly left the call, left the group and left the main group I had joined to begin with. 

Over the next few weeks I went back through his post on Facebook and noticed his manipulation, coercive behaviours and how he held power over other men. He would go “live” nearly everyday spewing some form of “I hold the answers to life questions” and how “only I can help you be the man you were meant to be” He even spread the messages of therapy and psychology don’t work but quoted Carl Jung in many of his videos. He began to use very specific language and controlled what people would say in the group, he also would control the information he gave out and what we were to avoid. 

The thing that woke me up was when I became aware that this group was a recruitment pool for a new age/new thought life coaching gurus/mentors that used questionable practices like covert coercion and covert hypnosis to change beliefs and pressure men into purchasing more and more courses to reach their “full potential”.

When I chose to withdraw myself from the group, I spoke up against the leader and told the group what I had experienced. I received that same shame and ridicule, with attention being placed on needing to change my beliefs then the leader also chose this exchange to “make an example of me” by making various social media posts and posted the private conversations between us to a public group. Not once were my medically diagnosed mental illnesses considered, it was just that I must align with this groups thinking or I’d be stuck in “destructive patterns and behaviours”.

I began doing some research and discovered something disturbing about these type of human potential groups. A high percentage operate like a cult or have cult like tactics, with some operating almost like pyramid schemes/MLM’s. 

I was humiliated when I discovered this and began to wonder how this could have happened to some one like me who I thought had some sort of intellect. All I can say is that I’ve learned a lot from my experience with this group and now with educating myself on these tactics they use I know what to look out for. 

~Anonymous