E68: 11 Years Inside a Buddhist Community: A Cult Researcher on Spiritual Abuse and Trauma-Coerced Attachment

A cult researcher spent 11 years inside a Buddhist community, rising to her teacher's inner circle, before a spiritual crisis broke it open.

CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains open discussion of spiritual abuse, coercive control and psychological manipulation within a high-control spiritual community. If you are a survivor of spiritual or religious abuse, please take care of yourself as you listen — that might mean listening with someone you trust, taking breaks, or choosing not to listen right now. Your wellbeing matters more than any conversation.

She spent 11 years inside a Buddhist community, rose to assistant to the teacher, and watched abuse allegations surface from within. Then a concussion changed everything.

In this episode, Anne talks with Rayann Gordon, a writer and researcher finishing her master's in the psychology of coercive control, about a topic most people don't expect: spiritual abuse inside Buddhist communities. Rayann shares her path from an early apprenticeship with an unregulated channeler who claimed to be infallible, into 11 years inside a Buddhist group where she rose to one of its most trusted roles, and finally to the disorienting experience that broke the spell and let her see clearly.

They dig into what spiritual abuse looks like when there's no physical or sexual abuse to point to, how coercion gets woven directly into spiritual teachings, and what Rayann calls "trauma-coerced attachment" — when a leader manufactures crisis and then offers comfort, binding people tighter the more chaos they create. They also talk about implicit versus explicit coercion, why "suspend your boundaries until Monday" is a red flag in large group trainings, and why it so often takes 7 to 10 years to fully understand what happened.

This conversation is about how a genuine hunger for meaning and growth can be quietly redirected until questioning it feels like betrayal — and why no space, however sacred it looks, is automatically safe.

Find Rayann at rayangordon.com and rayangordon.substack.com

Resources mentioned: Rachel Bernstein's resources and Healthy Healing group https://ilumn8.life/op/lgat-recovery-group/

A Practical Guide to Life After a Cult by Chris Shelton https://ilumn8.life/op/what-now-book-chris-shelton/

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