Watch Warping Reality: Inside the Psychology of Cults

2025
1 Season

In the 12 fascinating lectures of Warping Reality: Inside the Psychology of Cults, you will learn about some of the most widely known cults of modern times. But unlike any standard news reporting or documentary about these groups, your expert, Dr. Wind Goodfriend, will help you explore the psychology of these cults and their charismatic leaders.

Warping Reality: Inside the Psychology of Cults is a series that ran for 1 seasons (11 episodes) between March 20, 2025 and on The Great Courses

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Seasons

12. Stories of Cult Survivors

March 20, 2025

Here, you

11. Aftershocks: Healing and Finding Closure

March 20, 2025

What is life like for individuals who leave cults and move back into the normal world, possibly reconnecting with their families and living as independent adults? Explore the aftershock model and what it suggests about short- and long-term experiences after cult life. And learn the important differences between post-traumatic stress disorder and post traumatic growth.

10. Escaping a Cult

March 20, 2025

Cult members do not easily walk away from the cult

9. Cults as Abusive Love

March 20, 2025

Could an abusive romantic relationship be thought of as a

8. Having Your Sense of Self Stolen

March 20, 2025

Cult leaders change their members

7. Obedience and Commitment inside Cults

March 20, 2025

What are the indoctrination strategies that keep people committed to an organization that abuses them, sometimes for years? How can the leaders keep their members once they are on the inside and see the cults

6. Cult Recruitment and Seduction

March 20, 2025

Learn how cult leaders take advantage of the kindness and sincerity of their recruits by using tactics of manipulation and indoctrination. After promising that the cult will provide seemingly everything the recruits were searching for and welcoming them with effusive

4. The Psychology of Cult Leaders

March 20, 2025

Stereotypes tell us that cult leaders are fanatical, evil, power-hungry, sex-obsessed men. Explore a more nuanced and expanded psychological profile of cult leaders. These are the personality traits or circumstances that contribute to the cult leaders

3. The Destructive Nature of Cults

March 20, 2025

Continue to explore the eight characteristics of cults and learn why your professor adds one more criterion to that classic list. Explore the importance of describing cults as groups that are at least ultimately destructive

2. What Defines a Cult: The Eight Deadly Sins

March 20, 2025

Many scholars believe there is no clean and neat definition of a cult. Instead, you

1. Introduction to Infamy: Famous Cults

March 20, 2025

Thousands of cults exist in the world right now and they fall into five major categories: religious, political, self-help/pseudo therapy, commercial/business, and cults of personality. Explore seven of the most notorious cults in modern history

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Where to Watch Warping Reality: Inside the Psychology of Cults

Warping Reality: Inside the Psychology of Cults is available for streaming on the The Great Courses website, both individual episodes and full seasons. You can also watch Warping Reality: Inside the Psychology of Cults on demand at Apple TV Channels, Prime Video and Amazon.