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When does a church become a cult? It’s a difficult question to answer, even finding a concrete definition of a cult is a challenge. Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton describes a cult as having three primary characteristics: a charismatic leader, who increasingly becomes an object of worship themselves, a process of coercive persuasion (or brainwashing) and exploitation - be it economic, sexual or psychological.

To many a cult conjures up the idea of being led off into the desert, with obscure rituals and perhaps a tragic end. In episode two of the 大象传媒 Sounds series, Different, presenter Nicky Campbell finds out about a very different kind of cult, operating here in the UK. One which involves Bible-based worship groups, taking huge sums of money from its congregation, monitoring them and ruling their lives.

Nicky’s guest is Richard Turner. Today Richard is a confident, softly spoken man, a counsellor and teacher at York College. But in 2013 Richard was drawn into what he calls a “hipster Christian cult” which took up to 35% of his £13,000 salary - a salary he was earning working for them - and drove him to a nervous breakdown.

Richard is autistic and it’s something he feels made him more vulnerable to the cult.

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“People have said I'm a very honest person, I project that honesty onto other people. It's only afterwards when I left and realised there was a lot of deception. And it wasn't what I thought it was, but I had to learn that the hard way.”

Richard had experienced bullying in school and the love bombing he received from the cult was overwhelming. He was told he was destined to be a leader and showered with praise, to him it felt “unchallengeable”. Now he works to help people escape coercive control but he explains that, at the time, being a member of the church felt like a gift. He was told he would be destined for great things and a community was built around him which, he says, felt like a family.

The red flags were easy to ignore, but they were there. The cult, very early on, held an entire service which centered around it stridently claiming it was not controlling - something Richard laughs about now. Leaders also put pressure on the congregation to donate staggering amounts of money each and every week. For Richard this wasn’t financially viable, but the leaders taught that giving, even beyond your means, was a way of showing your faith in God, and that He would reward you for investing in his kingdom. The cult would also build tension and fervour in the room, which often peaked at the point of the collection “In these services you’ve been singing for 45 minutes, you’re effectively high from all the singing, and they rush you to make a decision. You’re trying to fill the form in and you’re panicking, you can’t think clearly, they tell you your money is going to come back to you. I got into a reckless place where I’d just give £300 without thinking.”

Richard became more immersed in the cult. He began working for the group and started dating a woman who was also a member. It was then that things changed. Richard’s new girlfriend had been in the church longer than him and was more deeply embedded, which granted him further access. That was when he learned about the secret teachings. “In cult groups on the outside, you have the outward facing teachings that don’t look so bad, but then, as you go further into the group there are other teachings that aren’t publicly advertised.”

In Richard’s cult these secret teachings revolved around women, and shortly after starting to date his girlfriend he was taken aside and told that “women must learn to submit to men”, and follow men’s instructions. Richard dismissed it, thinking the man who spoke to him was an outlier, but he was soon told otherwise. Richard was told that the cult was in charge of his entire relationship. The church leaders began monitoring him, assigning him an “accountability partner” who secretly watched him and reported back. The nature of his relationship was pored over. He was told he couldn’t kiss his girlfriend, stay the night in a building she was also staying in, and that if he planned to propose to her then he must go to the leadership first.

Richard felt increasingly uncomfortable with the mounting control from the cult, and he brought those worries to his girlfriend, who ended the relationship. Leaders began to withdraw from him too, he says switching from love bombing to gaslighting. When Richard tried to contact his ex-girlfriend the cult reacted with horror, telling him he must never speak to her again. He listened to sermons where he was never named but his behaviour described and vilified. At this time Richard was living and working for the cult and as he tried to reconcile its teachings with his increasing sense of discomfort his mental health crumbled and he had, what he describes as, a nervous breakdown.

Vulnerable, suicidal and financially broken Richard was casting around for another spiritual home and almost fell into another cult, something he now knows is not uncommon, it even has a name, “cult hopping”. But slowly Richard rebuilt his mental health and began to see both churches in a different light, as cults.

As Richard found distance he was advised to move on, and leave his experience behind, but found himself unable to do so. He trained as a counsellor, and then gained an MSc in the study of coercive control; now he helps others to escape. Richard says escaping a cult is not unlike leaving an abusive relationship “the psychology is almost the same, it’s like a two person cult, you’ve got a leader and a follower”. The red flags are also the same, “the key thing in both contexts is the person gets isolated from other forms of information, and criticism, so the group - or partner - are the only reference point for what’s going on.”

Now Richard helps not only people trying to escape, but family and friends who are trying to get through to someone locked in a coercive situation. It’s not easy, and he counsels against forcing people to leave. Instead he advises families to research the group, understand its methods, which he says are often startlingly similar to MLM or Multi Level Marketing schemes, “If you took away the Bible language and the Christianity, they just look like businesses and the product they're selling is a church service on Sunday, and they are effectively just big businesses.” He advocates sitting down with the person they’re concerned about, and patiently and thoughtfully questioning just enough to plant “seeds of doubt”. He quotes another cult escapee and now founder of the charity The Cult Information Centre, Ian Howarth, saying the goal is “not to win the argument, or prove that you are right, but instead to help the cult member reevaluate the group.”

Richard had to rebuild his mental health after he left the cult, saying “I’ve done a lot of work to get to this point, I think I’ve been in therapy five times.” Now it’s his mission to stop others getting ensnared in similar schemes and teach the difference between church… and cult.

To hear more about Richard’s story you can listen to episode two of Different on 大象传媒 Sounds.

Details of organisations that can provide help and support on some of the issues raised in this episode or the rest of the series are available at bbc.co.uk/actionline.