The present talk reflects on my experience of 30 year being a follower of former Roman Catholic priest Fernando Karadima.
This talk is an opening, a crack to let light into considerations of racialized survivor experience with hopes to expand this conversation, and invitations to research the lives, challenges, healing journeys, and to visibilize the living bodies of cult survivors of color.
How do people get trapped in cults? One tool cults use is emotional and mental coercion to exercise undue influence keeping people stuck in the group.
Gaslighting refers to attempts by cult leaders to manipulate their followers by creating an environment in which the cult members doubt their own thoughts, observations, interpretations, and memories.