Author: Patrick McIvor
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What Victoria’s Cult Inquiry Needs to Deliver
This week, the Victorian Parliament’s Legal and Social Issues Committee is expected to table the final report of its inquiry into cults and organised fringe groups. The report follows an avalanche of survivor testimony, alongside evidence from advocates, researchers, faith representatives and government bodies, which has made it impossible to ignore that Victoria has a…
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It’s Not Laziness. It’s January.
If you feel lower in January and find yourself trying to “get going” without much success, it’s easy to assume something has gone wrong. You might notice a familiar line of questioning: Often, those explanations don’t quite fit the experience. January low mood is common, predictable, and shows up even in people who enjoyed their…
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It’s Hard to Explain
In Victoria, a parliamentary inquiry is finally listening to what survivors of cults and high-control groups have been saying for decades. The testimony emerging is devastating in scale and strikingly consistent: across registered charities, religious organisations, health practices, and community initiatives, people have been targeted with patterned coercion that reshapes
Patrick McIvor 