
I found Nick Pollard, known online as 'The People Displeaser,' through his Instagram reels, and three days later we were recording this conversation. Nick is a coach and recovering people pleaser who survived a brutal childhood, three divorces, and an addiction that nearly killed him. He came out the other side with ideas that a lot of people find hard to hear. We talk about how people-pleasing quietly turns into resentment, why he calls it "little bottles of rage," and why the explosion alm...
Oct 18
1 hr 14 min

This one is personal. When I was waking up from NXIVM, Raniere and the people around him were turning on my wife Bonnie and trying to destroy our marriage. At one point she asked me where she stood in all of it. I checked in with myself, deeply, and I gave her my answer. The cult saw that answer as weakness. Last week in New York, someone asked me about that moment on a podcast, and it brought back something I had completely forgotten. In the 90s I read a book called "The Nine Faces of Chri...
Oct 4
14 min

You're sure you know who the enemy is. You've seen the evidence. You've read the comments. But what if the fight itself is the product? In NXIVM, Raniere kept us busy fighting each other so none of us looked up at what he was doing. I'm watching the same pattern play out on a massive scale, and most people are too inflamed to notice. So I want to ask you a question I think very few people are asking right now: who benefits when you hate the other side? And if the answer makes you uncomforta...
Sep 20
24 min

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 devot...
Sep 13
1 hr 14 min

This is a crossover episode between WTF Is on My Mind and Remember Your Greatness. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/remember-your-greatness-with-mark-vicente/id1838356198 People have watched me go from What the Bleep Do We Know?! to Narcissism, Cults, and Dark Psychology, and some have asked what the two have to do with each other. This episode is my answer. Narcissism is, in essence, the ego gone completely out of control. Spiritual and philosophical traditions have talked about...
Aug 30
20 min

Inst@Guru is an investigative series examining Bentinho Massaro, a Dutch-born spiritual influencer, and the high-control dynamics inside his organization. It's built around the accounts of three former members who spent years close to him: Jacqueline Graham, Keilan McNeil, and Jade Alectra. Each brings their own texts, memories, and evidence to build a full picture of what actually happened, and why it's so hard to see from the inside while you're living it. This is part four of the text mes...
Aug 23
1 hr 37 min

I've been sitting with a theory for a while now: that dissociation isn't just what happens to survivors; it might be the actual cornerstone of narcissism itself. Not just what a narcissist does to the people around them, but something disconnected inside of them too, from their own shame, their own actions, maybe their own humanity. Watch Narcissist's Playbook: https://narcissistsplaybook.uscreen.io Join the Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/MarkVicente Dr. Heather Berlin: https://w...
Aug 9
1 hr 2 min

Narcissist's Playbook is out now and available to rent at https://narcissistsplaybook.uscreen.io/ From July 24th to 26th, we held our Narcissist's Playbook launch weekend, and Dr. Ramani Durvasula was one of our featured speakers. I got to sit down with her for this conversation, and this time we didn't talk about the narcissists. We talked about the survivors and the road back to themselves. PLEASE NOTE THE EMAIL MENTIONED IS NOT AVAILABLE NOW. THAT WAS ONLY FOR THE LIVE WEEKEND. We get in...
Aug 2
1 hr 13 min

Dr. Jamie Zuckerman and I sat down to talk about our film, Narcissist's Playbook. https://www.drjaimezuckerman.com/ Dr. Zuckerman is a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in narcissistic abuse, and she's seen the film. In this conversation, we get into why my team and I spent five years making it, my own experience in NXIVM, and how it shaped this project, and why we brought self-aware narcissists into the film alongside survivors and clinicians. Dr. Zuckerman brings the clinical s...
Jul 12
58 min

This is episode 12 of Inst@Guru: Bentinho Massaro, an ongoing deep dive investigation into the world of Dutch spiritual influencer Bentinho Massaro and the people inside it. Gaby Petris Youtube https://www.youtube.com/@UCvHpiQAiTKxoodufKO5_Viw The text messages continue. This episode is mostly Jade Alectra’s, and what you're going to see is her mind and her instincts getting dismantled in real time. The sequence involving pillows alone is a masterclass in how intermittent reinforcement work...
Jun 28
1 hr
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