# Inst@Guru: Bentinho Massaro Ep 14 - The Cult Assassin

Free with YouTube's ads, posted by Mark Vicente | WTF is on my Mind?!.

For thirteen episodes, you've heard from the people Bentinho Massaro did this to. This episode is different. Carol Merchasin isn't a survivor, she's a lawyer, and some people call her 'The Cult Assassin.'

If this conversation resonates, watch my documentary on narcissistic abuse, 'Narcissist's Playbook: Empathy Not Included' www.narcissistsplaybook.com

Carol Merchasin is an attorney and advocate on coercive control and high-demand groups, and the founder of a litigation practice devoted to sexual abuse, trafficking, and coercive control cases against these organizations. She previously spent years as a partner at Morgan, Lewis, investigating sexual misconduct inside Fortune 50 companies. She's now president of the Board of the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA): www.internationalculticstudies.org

In this conversation, Carol and I get into what coercion actually looks like when there's no physical force involved: the isolation, the indoctrination, the slow process of cutting someone off from every outside voice that could tell them something is wrong. We talk about why "why didn't you leave" is the wrong question, and why "it could never happen to me" is the most dangerous thing anyone can believe about themselves. Carol also walks through the legal side most people never hear: how a case like this actually gets built, what the Trafficking Act has to do with coercive control that never involves physical force, and why the NXIVM case set a precedent that keeps getting built on every time a new case reaches a courtroom. These organizations act like they're untouchable. They're not, and this episode is about exactly why.

0:00 - Intro 0:13 - Who Carol Is: From Corporate Investigator to Cult Litigator 4:52 - The Shambhala Investigation 14:12 - How Isolation and Indoctrination Actually Work 19:39 - "It Could Never Happen to Me" 21:04 - Coercion Doesn't Require Physical Force 27:16 - The Slow-Motion Bullet: Coercion vs. a Gun to the Head 29:43 -…

- What it is: Full episode
- Series: [Inst@Guru: Bentinho Massaro](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/library/rights-holders/series/3783e5a891a2)
- Previous episode: [Inst@Guru: Bentinho Massaro Ep 13 - The Insane Text Messages Part 4](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/rights-holders/RLuSLlVS7wk)
- Length: 1 h 15 min
- Rights holder: [Mark Vicente](https://www.markvicente.com/) (its site links the channel: https://www.markvicente.com/)
- Channel: [Mark Vicente | WTF is on my Mind?!](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX1OsELrINqvPVImbyM6qdQ)
- Plays: Wherever YouTube plays: its rights holder sets no limit
- Who can watch here: Adult profiles and older (no rating is recorded on YouTube, so adults only)
- Made for kids: No, as YouTube designates it
- On YouTube: [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty3yVA3ih6w)

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