# Joining two cults and the liberation of breaking social rules

- **Episode:** [227](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/227.md) (2025-08-28)
- **Type:** interview
- **Tags:** cults, social-rules, liberation
- **Time:** 10:45–13:50 (start 645s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/227?t=645](https://truthliesandwork.com/227?t=645)

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[10:45] Leanne Elliott: I have to follow up on some of these experiences. I mean, you mentioned first of all that at the cult, you call it a cult light, and it was transformative. Tell us about that because I'm sure there'll be eyebrows raised. By some people listening to this
[10:59] Patrick Fagan: So for that book, I joined 2 cults. One, I think it's safe to say it is a cult, although I can't say that because they're very litigious. So I actually wrote a chapter on that, but I couldn't, we couldn't publish it because they were so litigious and their lawyers sent this big letter when we asked if they had any comments. You can probably guess who that is, right? They did a personality test and all of that. The other one was I think it's a little unfair to call it a cult, but it, you know, it's sensational. So I do. But what they do essentially is kind of like a psychological therapy for men. So it's a men's meetup in the woods where they take away your phone and your jewelry and take away your name and give you a number. And then you kind of do these therapy exercises where another person acts like your dad and you shout at him
[11:50] Al Elliott: Yeah
[11:51] Patrick Fagan: Uh, and get out all of your frustrations and vent that you might have against your father. Um, there was one point where we all sat around naked, uh, talking about our, our sexual insecurities and stuff. Um, which sounds crazy, I guess, in the way it was, but it was, it was, um, yeah, it was transformative. It was definitely memorable, I'll tell you that. But, um, it was just getting out there and having these like showers outside at 6:00 AM in the morning and doing a sweat lodge and These kinds of things, dancing around a bonfire at night, is cathartic in a way. It was, it was, there's this psychological principle called disrupt and reframe, where if you want to change people's behaviours and habits, you have to kind of grab them and shake them a little bit. You have to get people out of an old habit if you want to introduce a new one. I think in that sense, It was very powerful because it was a very odd, new experience that kind of shakes you up a bit and allows you to break off, break old habits, kind of break them down and get free of them a bit. So cultish, I mean, they did lots of cult things, like they took away my name. And when I arrived, actually, everyone was sat in this tiny room and they were all kind of cramped together. It was almost Guantanamo Bay light. Like, it was very uncomfortable and they all had to squeeze in there. It turned out they all had to wait in that room until everyone had arrived. And I was about an hour late because I'd stopped off for Burger King on the way. So they definitely used these kind of cult-ish techniques, but I would say to good effect
[13:32] Leanne Elliott: There's something I'd imagine quite liberating about that as well, kind of breaking all of those Those social norms. Yeah, I can see the cathartic aspect of that. And I also wanna ask you about the psychic. Did you go and were they right? Did they predict your future?