My name is Mark Vissente. I'm a director, producer, writer, and troublemaker. I'm most known as the director of the film What the Bleep Do We Know, and as one of the next team whistleblowers featured in the HBO series, The Vow. Let's just say, I know a thing or two about cults. I don't consider myself a cult expert, but I'm definitely an expert in being screwed over, waking up,

and knowing how to spot them.

And let me tell you, they're everywhere.

My mission is to help people see patterns of abuse across multiple contexts.

From personal to family, to group, to societal.

It's all the same pattern at every scale.

As you'll hear, I have a pretty salty approach to most things.

So there might be some blasphemy.

One or two sacred cows might get knocked over,

and there'll likely be some foul language.

You never quite know what you're going to get,

because it really does depend on what the fuck is on my mind.

Hello, everyone.

So brainwashing.

Does brainwashing exist?

There's a good number of people that have said things to me like, well, you know, brainwashing

is not a real thing.

It's not really an academic thing.

Or they say things like, yes, I know there's propaganda, but I could never be brainwashed.

Yeah, that's really cute.

Well, look, Fast New Seatbelts.

I'm going to be talking about a book that's been blowing my mind.

...