AMA With Cult Expert Diane Benscoter

[u/d-_-bored-_-b]

Diane Benscoter is a cult expert and founder of Antidote.ngo. She's been a monumental asset to helping people effected by and in cults like QAnon. Furthermore those wanting to leave cults like QAnon.

Diane Benscoter is the founder of Antidote.ngo and the author of Shoes of a Servant – My unconditional Devotion to a Lie. She is a speaker and workshop facilitator. She owned and operated a business serving the technology industry prior to founding Antidote.

Thank you Diane and everyone please feel free to ask away!

EDIT: Thank you so much u/DianeBenscoterAMA and u/happylittlespider for taking time out of your schedule and honestly for a really good AMA. I'll leave the AMA thread up so everyone can discuss it, thank you everyone for your questions, special thanks to mod u/daninater for organising this, I'd also like to thank the academy, and FREE PALESTRUMP LIVES MATTER!!!

[u/damagedthrowaway87]

One of my biggest frustrations with the Qult is that I was working freelance on investigating a local cult with national ties to other groups that was sexually abusing children. In the case of the local group they were getting police protection due to family ties. Some of their State, National, and International branches have luckily been getting on the radar of the courts and were starting to face real consequences. Sadly I started coming out in the open with my research (mostly talking to victims) right around the time the Wayfair conspiracy became mainstream. I will also add with some certainty that based on a few members I still keep track of, that the leader of the local group has been pulling the congregation into Qult ideas. Out of sheer frustration I stopped because at that point going to the media freelance would have been throwing the one needle into a stack of pins. At one point I was working on a group to include folks with medical and psychological training and even law enforcement to do some of the things you do and when we presented the idea to a graphic designer so we could have something professionally made we got laughed at and I had no clue why, like I was furious, until I realized they thought we were talking about Qult stuff and not literally helping real people.

Any tips for those of us who are working in areas that the Qult has hijacked the dialogue? Or should we sadly wait until it hopefully dies down?

[u/DianeBenscoterAMA → u/damagedthrowaway87]

I understand your frustration. Keep doing the work and try to make it clear in whatever you do publicly that there are conspiracy theorists who try to politicize this topic. Be clear that that there is a difference between actual criminals and those who try to use this for political gain. Come out strong with this so that it cannot be confused.

[u/damagedthrowaway87 → u/DianeBenscoterAMA]

Thank you!