Host: Janice Selbie, MPCC
Warning: This episode discusses SA and coercion in cults
Dr. Janja Lalich is one of the world’s leading authorities on cults, coercive control, and authoritarian influence. A sociologist, researcher, and cult survivor herself, Dr. Lalich has spent decades exposing how high-control groups operate beneath the surface of belief, belonging, and power. She is the founder of the Lalich Center on Cults & Coercion and the author of groundbreaking works on charismatic authority and bounded choice.
In her powerful research on psychosexual exploitation, Dr. Lalich makes a critical point: sexual abuse in cults is not a side effect. It is a system – A mechanism of control.
Today, we’re pulling back the curtain on the intersection of sex, power, and control, and asking how these dynamics take hold, why they persist, and what it takes to break free.
