CultNEWS101 Articles: 9/18/2025
Patrick Ryan
Elle: How Pamela Jones Went from Being a Cult Survivor to a Self-Made Millionaire
In her new memoir, The Dirt Beneath Our Door, the CEO tells the inspiring journey of how she found freedom.
"Jones was married at 15 to a husband who forbade her to have contact with outsiders, including her own family. She was told her throat would be slit if she tried to escape, but she did it anyway, bravely fleeing with her children. In The Dirt Beneath Our Door: My Journey to Freedom After Escaping a Polygamous Mormon Cult, out now, Jones tells the story of her liberation and how she ultimately built a new life for her family in the US. Here, in an exclusive excerpt, she tells the story of how her remarkable journey began."
Apostasy Conference 2025 | The effect of apostasy on mental health (01 October 2025, 09:30 -- 16:30)
"Leaving religion can come at a high personal cost – not only socially or culturally, but mentally and emotionally. Yet the psychological impact of religious trauma and deconversion remains one of the most overlooked issues in mainstream mental health discourse.
This year’s Faith to Faithless Apostasy Conference will bring together therapists, academics, and lived-experience voices to explore the mental health impacts of religious exit, with a focus on high-commitment religious groups and coercive faith-based environments.
From identity loss to family shunning, internalised fear to isolation, this one-day event will offer deep insight into what it means to leave faith behind — and what support looks like in the aftermath.
Whether you’re a mental health professional, a frontline worker, a researcher, or someone with lived experience of religious trauma, this conference offers space to listen, learn, and connect."
A study to understand the nature of meditation-related difficulties and adverse effects
Study Objectives
The Meditation-Related Challenges Study aims to answer the following questions:
• What kinds of challenges and adverse effects can result from meditation practice?• Are there specific practices, programs, or products that tend to cause more problems than others?• What predicts improvement, worsening, or growth after meditation-related challenges?• If someone experiences difficulties from meditating, what should they do? What types of support, remedies or therapies are most or least helpful?
Cheetah House research is focused on understanding difficulties and adverse effects that might result from meditation practices. We are interested in learning what helps people recover, and what can make these challenges worse. We are also interested in learning what might predict whether meditation has a therapeutic or destabilizing effect.
News, Education, Intervention, Recovery
Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.
CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.
CultNEWS101.com news, links, resources about: cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations, and related topics.
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