After being part of a group in their youth that claimed people could levitate or bring about world peace through meditation, Joe Kelly and Patrick Ryan, from the US city of Philadelphia, now help others escape abusive cults. One of the cases they are working on is a 21-year-old from a wealthy family who is fascinated by Andrew Tate.
- Together with psychologists, psychiatrists and other specialists, Patrick and Joe develop strategies for the families of people who have been brainwashed so that they can escape the influence of the leaders of controversial groups.
- These two spoke with the HotNews journalist in Philadelphia.
I met Joe Kelly (69) and Patrick Ryan (67) in a hipster coffee shop in the neighborhood where they live. Joe and Patrick are a couple who are what are called “ cult interventionists ” or “deprogrammers.” That is, they help people get out of abusive cults: they say they “deprogram” them, after they have been brainwashed by charismatic leaders who, most of the time, are nothing more than scammers.
In most cases, Joe and Patrick are called to help by the families of those who fall under the influence of such a leader. According to some estimates from 2023, there would be over 10,000 cults active in the United States . But it's not just America on this map because the two have had cases from Europe to Australia. And in America, Joe and Patrick are not the only ones who are involved in this activity.
Success as a cult interventionist is by no means guaranteed, however. Joe Kelly tells me that since he began rescuing people involved in cults in 1992, he has had a failure rate of about 40-50 percent.
The Cult of Andrew Tate in America
Although when we talk about cults our mind automatically leads us to the idea of religion, in reality things are much more complex. Andrew Tate, for example, is nothing more than the leader of such a cult, even if there is nothing religious in what he preaches, according to Joe Kelly. And he is not the only one.
Beyond the criminal charges brought against him by prosecutors in Romania, of trafficking minors, sexual exploitation of women, money laundering and others, Tate has a huge impact on young people, even across the ocean. Or especially here.
The Tate brothers have both American and British citizenship, but have moved to Romania, which they describe as "a country where corruption is accessible to all. "
The influence in the United States of leaders who preach extreme misogyny is no coincidence, says Patrick Ryan.
"In the US, for example, there is the 'Sterling Institute of Relationships' where young men sign up to be taught to be 'real men'. And if they are real men, they can have sex with whoever they want. Because that's what men do. And women's role is to submit," Patrick Ryan explains to me.
The two say that they are currently working with a young man from Philadelphia whose parents want to remove him from the influence of Andrew Tate and the internet groups that follow the teachings of the former kickboxer, who moved to Romania.
The young man who started calling his own mother "unfortunate"
I asked Joe and Patrick to give me some details about the case they're working on.
It's about a young man from a wealthy family, with a father known in the U.S. The name and other identifying details are confidential, the two explain to me.
The 21-year-old was sent to one of the good schools in the USA.
"At some point, the boy started drinking and watching videos with Andrew Tate. He dropped out of school, after being instilled with the idea that 'you don't need a regular university, you have nothing to learn there. I went to university and it's useless, we tell you what you need to be successful in life'. That's what the so-called 'life coaches' he was following told him," says Patrick.
What's worse is that, from these videos, the young man learned that women are "bitches" and began to treat his mother in this way.
From their findings, people often join dangerous groups because the problems come from the family. And part of Joe and Patrick's work means therapy with families, which need to be transformed into safe environments where victims can return safely.
"We need to create a stable environment, with access to help for mental health issues, a healthy place. Because otherwise, dangerous groups become more attractive, and victims return there."
"How is the extraction of the young man from under Tate's influence going at this moment?" I asked the interventionists.
Patrick says that the process is ongoing, but that the young man's environment is difficult: he dropped out of school, stays at home, dates many women whom he treats like "dolls." Just as he was taught in the online schools promoted by the Tate brothers.
Joe believes that Andrew Tate's teachings are close to the idea of patriarchy, which can be found in the Old Testament or in fundamentalist Islam.
"In their minds, liberal woke societies have created these women who have equal status to men, when, by nature, men are stronger and should be in control," Joe adds.
But who are Joe and Patrick, and how did they get into the position of helping others break free from the control of certain leaders?
The two people I met the other day at the ReAnimator coffee shop in Philadelphia were also involved in cults. Their story begins many years ago, when there was no internet and the influence of television was overwhelming.
Both Joe and Patrick were part of the "Transcendental Meditation" group founded by an Indian guru, famous at the time, in the 1970s.
"In 1975, I was in high school, 17 years old, when I saw Maharishi Manesh, known as the "guru of the Beatles ", on TV. He promoted the benefits of meditation, along with famous actors such as Burt Reynolds, Clint Eastwood and others. At that time, the TM ("Transcendental Meditation") Center, founded by Maharishi, was very successful in America. Adults of all professions, from lawyers, doctors, to housewives, went there to be taught how to meditate and bring world peace. Many came from the Woodstock area, hippies, etc.," Patrick recalls.
The interventionist says his high school teacher encouraged him to take meditation classes, where he was taught by actress Mia Farrow's sister, Prudence . Prudence then referred him to Maharishi University , founded by the famous guru.
Patrick now remembers that at university, for two months in a row he took regular classes with renowned professors, then for a month he had to dedicate himself exclusively to the Maharishi techniques which involved meditation and spending time alone, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
People can fly or walk through walls
Things went crazy in 1977 when Maharishi announced that people could have supernatural powers: they could levitate, walk through walls, become invisible, etc.
"There were famous people who supported this, including, for example, Brian Josephson who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1973," Patrick continues.
Obviously, no one managed to acquire those supernatural powers, but, the former member of Maharishi's cult now says, the system was such that it made you believe that it was only your fault if you failed to fly.
"Friends of mine were sent to conflict zones like Mozambique, Lebanon, Somalia, to meditate and mentally stop the wars there. After that, Maharishi's people produced research that demonstrated that, indeed, wars stopped, crime decreased, the stock market increased, thanks to the meditation of these groups of people. So, here it is, the method works," Patrick says.
The interventionist says he began to realize what was happening to him when his father asked him to help one of his sisters who, in turn, had joined a Christian cult called " The International Way " and had severed all ties with the family.
"I called a woman who had also been part of this group to talk to my sister and convince her that it was a scam. As she was talking to my sister, I thought, 'wow, that happened to me at Maharishi University when I came to believe that I was going to save the world by flying,'" Patrick explains.
I was curious what they thought was at stake in this cult and this university (which still exists today). Patrick and Joe say it's about power and money.
"When he came to the US in 1958, Maharishi had no money, and when he died he had a fortune of over a billion dollars ." The Maharishi company also appeared in the Panama Papers revelations with money hidden offshore.
What exactly does a "cult intervention specialist" do?
Joe Kelly says he basically helps families develop strategies, along with psychiatrists, psychologists and other specialists, to communicate with loved ones who have become involved in these controversial groups.
"It's not a standard procedure, it varies from case to case, but we ask about 85 questions to see if we're a good fit to help them. Then, if we conclude that we can get involved, we do an assessment, which takes about eight hours, like 'where are you from, what's your relationship with your family members, etc. We also interview your family members to see what the dynamics are between them,'" Joe explains how the first interactions with those who have been victims of an abusive cult go.
The two say they turn to all kinds of specialists to help them in their endeavor because cults are also very different. For example, in cases of "sex cults", they turn to experts specializing in sex therapy.
I'm curious if Joe and Patrick need a license for their work and how many people they've helped in their work. They tell me they don't need to get a license, as long as the specialized help provided to victims and their families comes from people with the necessary training.
"The services we provide for the families who call on us are not cheap at all because the experts we call on are not cheap. In addition to this, we volunteer for non-profit organizations and also hold online workshops for families who cannot afford to pay these amounts," explains Patrick, who estimates that "hundreds of people a year" benefit in one form or another from their help.
How they ended up working with QAnon members
Patrick says that in January 2020, he began receiving calls from families whose relatives had fallen into so-called " rabbit holes ," a term used to describe people who fall prey to conspiracy theories and isolate themselves from others, usually because they "don't understand."
"For example, one of these people was a mother in her 50s, a doctor, who watched conspiracy videos, like " pizza gates " or other crazy ones that said that anyone wearing red shoes is connected to the Vatican or is controlled from another planet.
"The woman had entered a manic state, she no longer slept at night, she only watched videos and she even ended up writing to a local newspaper about these conspiracies," says Patrick.
QAnon has taken over mythologies, old conspiracy theories, such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion , a hoax invented by the Russians of the Tsarist Empire to justify the killing of Jews, Patrick and Joe further explain.
Why do people get involved in cults?
I ask Patrick and Joe why they think people get involved in these cults. What needs do they have that they can't meet otherwise?
Patrick says that, in his experience, neither a person's wealth, education, or intelligence matters.
"Generally, they are not satisfied with their lives and want a better one. They start reading about other people who have been helped by certain 'gurus', they go to seminars without knowing what the agenda of that seminar is. But many times, the problems are in the family," explains Patrick.
Regarding the differences between cults from the 80s, 90s, and today's, the two interventionists say that before the advent of the internet, the number of members of such a group was much higher, 10 million people, "like Scientologists, for example."
"Now the groups are much smaller, because people can Google and find out things about that group or leader: 'look, there's a problem here,'" says Patrick.
Joe believes that "aesthetic" is the word that best defines their work because what they do most is help families understand why some members value something that they cannot understand. Only in this way can they be convincing to those who have been seduced by a particular cult.
"If you come to my house and see a painting on the wall and say, 'What an ugly painting,' then where do we end up? On the other hand, if you say, 'What an interesting composition, but I wonder why the artist wanted to do that?' then it's a completely different matter. We try to teach families to appreciate what their loved ones appreciate, and then they will have a chance of success," concludes Patrick.
More information about the work of Joe Kelly and Patrick Ryan can be found on their websites, cultrecovery101.com , cultmediation.com , and cultnews101.com .
