Disclaimer
The following conversation is shared for educational and awareness purposes only. The views expressed by the host and guest reflect their personal experiences and perspectives. Nothing discussed in this episode constitutes legal, psychological, or medical advice.
This discussion does not endorse, align with, or represent any group, organisation, or individual named or implied. Listeners are encouraged to use discernment, seek qualified professional guidance when needed, and approach all personal development environments with critical thinking and self-care.
Episode Title:
Confronting the Line on Transformation and Exploitation with Anne Peterson
Episode Summary
Anne Peterson’s story begins in a difficult marriage that led her to seek change through the personal development world. Her search for meaning brought her to Landmark, one of the most well-known large group awareness trainings promising empowerment and transformation.
Anne quickly became immersed in its leadership programs, dedicating long hours while her health and family life began to erode. She eventually helped organise a comeback tour for Werner Erhard, the founder of Landmark, and during that experience, she witnessed coercive practices and abusive behaviour within the organisation.
In this episode, Anne and Kellie examine how the idea of “transformation” can become a mechanism of control when it is used to override intuition and conscience. Together, they unpack the subtle ways that self-help systems can exploit human sincerity, including:
Anne speaks candidly about the psychological cost of chasing transformation and the importance of recognising red flags early. She highlights that authentic change requires time, grounded community, and the capacity to feel and process emotions, not suppress them.
This conversation calls attention to the need for industry regulation, ethical screening, and consumer protection laws within the self-help sector. It also encourages practitioners to understand the potential dangers of their work and the responsibility they hold toward participants who may be vulnerable.
Anne’s message is ultimately one of empowerment: trust your inner sense of truth, question authority presented as enlightenment and remember that real transformation honours the whole human experience rather than bypassing it.
About Anne Peterson
Anne Peterson is a writer, speaker, and advocate for ethics and safety within the human potential and self-help industries. Drawing from her lived experience inside Landmark and her recovery from its effects, she works to bring awareness to coercive influence, psychological manipulation, and the need for reform in unregulated transformational programs.
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· Seek Safely – seeksafely.org
· Kellie Rhea - @iamkellierhea
In this episode of the Wild and Worthy podcast, Kellie Rhea interviews Dave Hompes, who shares his journey from a sports scientist to a functional medicine practitioner. They discuss the awakening to the mind-body connection, the pitfalls of self-development programs, and some of the psychological and neurological implications of being involved in such organizations. The conversation delves into the nature of self, the influence of cult dynamics, cognitive dissonance, and the role of the immune system in self-identity. They emphasize the importance of understanding the self from a psychological and neuroscientific perspective, and the dangers of being trapped in a singular worldview.
Dave Hompes @davehompes
Kellie Rhea @iamkellierhea
The mind and body are interconnected and influence each other significantly.
Self-development programs may sometimes lead to negative psychological effects.
Understanding the self requires insights from psychology and neuroscience.
Cognitive dissonance can occur when individuals realize the limitations of self-help methods.
Cult dynamics can distort personal development and create dependency on specific methodologies.
The immune system may react to psychological conflicts within one's identity.
Language and thought patterns can shape our perception of reality.
Emotional health is crucial for making effective decisions and maintaining relationships.
The body should not be viewed as separate from the mind in personal development.
Awareness of the self is essential for authentic personal growth.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Background
05:22 Awakening to the Mind-Body Connection
10:19 Exploring the Self-Development Movement
15:02 Understanding the Concept of Self
21:18 The Dangers of Self-Development Organizations
31:07 The Emotional Flattening Effect
43:29 Dissonance Between True Self and Cult Self
44:14 The Journey into Self-Improvement
45:28 The Psychological Impact of Cults
49:10 The Structure of Cults and Their Methods
50:49 The Social Dynamics of Cult Involvement
52:46 The Dissonance Between Cult Beliefs and Reality
55:25 The Immune System and Psychological Health
59:04 The Nature of Truth and Perception
01:02:35 The Neuroscience of Self and Identity
01:04:11 The Dangers of Cognitive Dissonance in Cults
01:21:25 The Importance of Informed Consent in Self-Help
Inside Cult Minds
In this episode of Inside Cult Minds, Kellie Rhea sits down with filmmaker and whistleblower Mark Vicente (What the Bleep Do We Know?!, The Vow) to explore the inner mechanics of high-control groups, coercive systems, and the psychological patterns that keep people trapped. Together they discuss love bombing, data mining, infantilization, self-sealing belief systems, and the difficult road of recovery.
Mark also shares insights from his upcoming documentary The Narcissist’s Playbook, which investigates narcissistic abuse through the voices of survivors, clinicians, neuroscientists, and self-confessed narcissists.
Disclaimer
This conversation is based on our personal experiences and perspectives. We talk about high-control groups and coercive systems in general terms, and nothing here should be taken as a statement of fact about any named individual or organisation. Nothing in this episode should be considered legal, medical, or psychological advice.
Connect with Mark
Connect with Kellie
Listener Note
When seeking personal development or any form of mental health care, please ask many questions. Informed choice and careful discernment are vital. For additional guidance, visit Seek Safely.
What if the method that promised transformation was actually burying your conscience, leaving you emotionally flat?? In this powerful conversation with Martin Lass, we explore the hidden costs of spiritual methods that bypass feeling, silence conscience, and strip away agency. A raw look at conscience, creation, and what it means to truly transform.
In this episode of Wild & Worthy, I sit down with Martin Lass, a professional musician, longtime student of the esoteric, and former certified trainer of the Demartini Method. Martin spent fifteen years inside John Demartini’s Concourse of Wisdom before returning to the Gurdjieff Work, which he has studied and taught for nearly forty years.
Our conversation dives into the core mechanics of the collapse process taught within the Demartini Institute. Together we examine what really happens when emotional charge is forced into collapse, and the consequences this has on conscience, empathy, and creativity. Martin explains how collapsing charge can lead to temporary flashes of insight that quickly decay, leaving behind a strengthened ego, emotional flatness, and spiritual stagnation.
We also explore the dangers of bypassing real feeling. Conscience, Martin suggests, lives in the body and in our innate capacity to sense what is becoming or unbecoming of human behavior. When that compass is dulled or buried under ideology, the result is a distortion of empathy and a dangerous compliance with harmful ideas. From the teaching that “emotions are lies” to the claim that even acts of violence can be reframed as love, we unpack how moral agency and creative life can be eroded inside such systems.
Martin brings depth and clarity to these questions, drawing on his background in music, mysticism, and nearly four decades of spiritual study. This conversation is an invitation to reflect on the difference between collapsing emotional charge and truly transforming it, and why tension, conscience, and feeling are essential to authentic growth.
Martins contat Details : martinlass@icloud.com
Disclaimer
This conversation is based on our personal experiences and perspectives. We talk about high-control groups and coercive systems in general terms, and nothing here should be taken as a statement of fact about any named individual or organisation. Nothing in this episode should be considered legal, medical, or psychological advice.
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you can find me Kellie Rhea @iamkellierhea on instagram
