The Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Recruitment Methods and Impacts of Cults and Organised Fringe Groups

By | 3 December 2025
I crawl into the guts of pain and its glorious   group based coercive control   the carcass on the beach   focused on behavior not beliefs   a submission for the inquiry   a winter rainbow in a gumboot   patterned sustained tactics   do I own selfless   gradual   what is in accordance with targets ability to act or think independently   a photo of me in my twenties   group based coercive matrix   the waiting leaning against the car in the wind tunnel   the 6am full moon   the fox in the driveway   the drive out of town   the stopping for coffee   the road ahead   the talk of a business plan   the wet road   the wet bark   the walk in the fine rain at the top of the mountain   6 domains of coercive control   standing on volcanic rock   the fluorescent greens of moss   the walker’s wet dog   the standing by the fire someone left burning   the kookaburra on the fence post   the full moon in the morning window   200 coercive acts to 40 existing laws   linguistic risk is a vulnerable generosity   I grew up in a cult   14 recommendations   wind under my skin   victim to perpetrator continuum   addiction to lack of commitment   who is doing what to whom   closed ideologically framed settings   carefully drying my hair saying you are not sure if you are doing it right   tenderness creates a universe where right is not the issue   with no   structural risks   the distant crow in the ache in my shoulder   on the clothes line of my wet skeleton   the blue eggshell sky   charter of human rights   the cross hatched weave of   authorized   committing to abandonment   reasonable   confusion of longing for love   necessary   how can you be so resolved your DNA still in my bed   precautionary   your hair on the sink   a bin full of tissues   to fulfil duty of care   ice-cream in the freezer   my head on your chest your heartbeat the percussion to the tanpura master we watch on your phone   I was able to ask you to play while I wrote my submission   I give myself clear and mutual consistency of self



The italicized words are from Beyond Belief, a report responding to coercive cults and high-control groups. The report was submitted to the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Impacts into Recruitment Methods and Impacts of Cults and Organised Fringe Groups.
Authors: Patrick McIvor, Clare McIvor, and Renee Spencer, on behalf of Survivors of Coercive Cults and High-Control Groups (SOCCHG) and Stop Religious Coercion Australia (SRCA), with guidance from the Survivor Working Group on Group-Based Coercive Control July 2025

 


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