© Stephanie Findlay/Tornto Star
Carla Brown, director of the Edmonton Society Against Mind Abuse (ESAMA), talks with Tyler Newton on Friday at the annual conference of the International Cultic Studies Association, held in Montreal. The conference lasts three days.
Carla Brown, director of the Edmonton Society Against Mind Abuse (ESAMA), talks with Tyler Newton on Friday at the annual conference of the International Cultic Studies Association, held in Montreal. The conference lasts three days.
She has been told there is a self-described prophet living near Okotoks, Alta., a quiet town in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, who claims to speak with Adam and Eve.
Brown, the director of the Edmonton Society Against Mind Abuse (ESAMA), said the prophet controls the lives of some 20 people.
"One ex-member leaked audio tapes of her to me," said Brown. "It was this sing-song prayer, everything in rhyme. It gave me goosebumps."
Brown is part of a tight-knit group of cult experts in Edmonton who field calls from distressed Albertans - and, increasingly, Canadians from other provinces - who have lost a family member or friend to a group like that of the Okotoks prophet.
She is one of more than 30 experts who have come to Montreal to speak at the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) annual conference. Held in the Chinatown Holiday Inn, the event is known for its diverse group of participants, one of the few in the field where academics, mental health practitioners and former cult members sit side by side to take in the presentations.
"This conference is one of the biggest in years," said organizer Michael Kropveld.
Stephen Kent, a professor of sociology at the University of Alberta studying anti-government cults in the province, serves as a kind of academic adviser to Brown, who, in return, tips him off to new groups.
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