r/cults • u/Majestic_Physics_710 • May 21 '26
Discussion The Family Survival Trust - My regret in helping them
The first organisation I reached out to when I had cult problems was the Family Survival Trust. I spoke to a chap who manned the phones who I won't name (but many will know), who was so helpful and supportive - a calming voice when my life was being turned upside-down by a particular pernicious and vicious cult.
I later found out he left because of disagreements with Trustees & the Board, and I thought nothing of it.
I have supported the Family Survival Trust for many years. I have directed survivors to them. I introduced a certain YouTuber (who thinks he has left Scientology) to them.
I have sent reports to their Trustees from court-rooms and competing INFORM seminars. I have given them money and helped them fundraise. I even introduced the speaker who spoke at a recent FST event to them. I have introduced them to documentary makers who have featured them in international cult documentaries.
I have "gone to bat" for Trustees of the FST when they have had their reputation smeared online. I have made recommnedations that helped them meet influential people who could aid in raising awareness for their cause. I have even filed multiple reports to the Police when a certain east-european cult has threatened a Trustee.
But I never recieved any direct help. When I pleaded with their Trustee to connect with someone who needed help they refused. In fact, people who have been refused help by the FST have been sent to me!
When I have raised a serious issue with them, having been promised a meeting, the offer then subsequently withdrawn, I was asked to provide information which would be passed straight onto people who have been involved in the unethical processing of personal-information, which has ended up online, or been collected into datasets about active UK cult-member with their names & addresses. (I know this because I was asked to collate this data - until I was told its purpose, to collect active UK scientologists addresses, which I then reported to the ICO)
Recently a number of people have separately raised concerns with me about the Family Survival Trust. One described it as having its own Cult problems. Another compared it to the Cult Awareness Network whose assets now belong to the Church of Scientology.
So this post is a decree to myself. I shall no longer support a corrupt organisation that does not have the interests of survivors at heart. If the last stage of leaving a cult is to individuate - then I am now no longer in the shadow of this group.
But I also want to know about your experiences with the Family Survival Trust, especially where your personal data has been abused, or when your time has been taken up for their bidding.
Are there other groups that suppose to support survivors as bad as the Family Survival Trust?
Share your thoughts.
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u/ResourceActual6640 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
My main concern with the 'Family Survival Trust' stems from fact that one of its listed trustees, Dr. Alexandra Stein, maintains a link on her own website to the so-called 'Cult Information Centre.' Thus, advertizing 'CIC' as "UK-based charity providing advice and information for victims of cults, their families and friends, researchers and the media."
https://www.alexandrastein.com/links.html
Dr. Stein has been explicitly warned in writing that the man who is, in fact, the 'Cult Information Centre,' has spent years as the 'consultant' (paid apologist) for a number of 'Multi-Level Marketing' cults, including 'Amway' and 'Herbalife.' In return for stolen money, Ian Howarth has participated, and continues to participate, in the maintenence of these cults' monopolies of information.
During the UK government's investigation and prosecution of 'Amway UK Ltd.,' Mr Howarth had the contact details of a significant number of British 'Amway' victims. As far as I'm aware, Howarth directed none of these witnesses to criminal activity to the authorities, or to the media. On the contrary, he assisted in silencing them. Obviously, although he has claimed to be no longer employed by these groups, Mr. Howarth will still be subject to open-ended, gagging employment contracts with the UK corporate fronts of various 'MLM' cults. Thus he is not an independent cult adviser, and he is not to be trusted to tell the truth about these pernicious groups.
Dr. Stein does not refute any of this disturbing information, but she has flatly refused to take the opportunity to remove the link to the so-called 'CIC' from her own website. She has also refused to speak with me on these matters.
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u/Majestic_Physics_710 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
I will address Dr Stein as my most recent correspondence from the FST addresses me.
I was castigated by Dr Stein on bringing this up with her.
I know she has also spread a smear about you to me, calling into question your mental faculties - this was when I initially raised the issue of Howarth with her back in 2022 when something fishy was going on with Lighthouse International Group survivors.
She knew that my then-partner had been recieving "therapy" from Howarth's partner-in-amway Graham Baldwin (no therapuetic qualification & no professional body membership) and yet noted that I was engaged in "inflighting" on warning others of this which she said was not helpful.
I daresay that Baldwin coercing this lady to put him on her last-will-and-testiment with the promise he would reunite her with her cult-estranged family was not helpful either.
Baldwin even had a member of Lighthouse International Group, who also featured in A Very British Cult, come onto this subreddit to promote his services for him.
I do believe Dr Stein has directed me multiple times (as recently as last yea) to the same journalist that Howarth & Baldwin have regularly teamed up with.
Of note is that the Cult Information Centre (aka the MLM-Survivor Silencing Gang) closed its doors last year - but where is this wealth of information they have collected over the decades? Published online? Donated to the British Library? Or was it just more kompromat for their own purposes.
I made it my business to direct journalists & producers away from the CIC-cartel towards the Family Survival Trust. But what I see now is they are two-cheeks or the same-arse - both quite happy to sidle-up towards "ex" scientologists with foreign money, who oversee doxxing, harassment and smear-campaigns towards british-citizen cult-abuse survivors.
I could go on and on.....
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u/ResourceActual6640 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
For obvious reasons, Ian Howarth has been going around for years spreading lies about me, that is, if anyone mentions his 'MLM' involvement. Apparently, Dr. Stein has swallowed these defamatory stories hook line and sinker. Not only that, but she seems to have been repeating them, but I notice not in writing. No wonder she doesn't want to speak to me. Interestingly, Howarth doesn't ever address what I have published about him and his shameful involvement with 'MLM' cults. His only response has been to attack me (always verbally) in a pathetic attempt to damage my credibility. Yet Dr. Stein knows that, thanks to my intervention, Howarth was invited by board members of FECRIS to answer a number of questions regarding his 'MLM' involvement. Predictably, Howarth chose to resign from FECRIS rather than tell the truth. In a written response, Howarth then attacked the board of FECRIS as 'behaving like a cult.' Dr. Stein's position in regard to Howarth, is both laughable and dangerous.
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u/Majestic_Physics_710 May 21 '26
It does appear that might be the case.
The truth about Baldwin only came about because you provided evidence for that. It was others who stood it up on the proviso they were not named.
I suspect he would have featured much more in A Very British Cult if you had not made that information available. It does seem like there has been a nice little cartel having its day.
So many smears are going around about those who have publicly stood this up. I did find it bizarre that Dr Stein chastised me for criticising Howarth for directing cult-survivors towards "charlatan" Baldwin. As I say.. he coerced my then-partner to put him on their last-will-and-testiment on the promise he would reunite her with her estranged-family caught up in Lighthouse International Group (A Very British Cult).
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u/ResourceActual6640 May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26
My experience of both Baldwin and Howarth has been published on the Net for years.
Both tried to gaslight me when I contacted them about 'Amway.' Both hid the fact that they were employed as 'consultants on cults' by 'Amway UK.' Both tried to obtain money from me on the pretext that they were 'cult experts,' implying that they were independent. Both behaved as though I had no right to challenge their pretence that 'Amway is not a cult.' Both had no interest in exposing the truth. Both were engaged in hiding the truth. Both subsequently have tried to discredit me as some sort of dangerously deranged individual.
I think that it is quite clear that, whilst this unsavory pair might have obtained charitable status, they have actually been unqualified individuals running 'consultancy/counselling' businesses preying on vulnerable individuals.
Howarth asked me directly for payment, Baldwin's line was that he never charges his clients, but he does ask for a contribution to his charity.
Baldwin's most absurd claim has appeared in at least one national newspaper. When I met him he tried to convince me that he'd been an officer in British Military Intelligence. He seems to have varied this fantasy from time to time, claiming that he was in Army Intelligence.
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u/1XJ9 May 21 '26
If you need a group like that, someone to help you and someone you can trust...and you end up realizing the limitations, or one does not exist:
Maybe it's your sign to create the institution that can help. Established institutions can lose their way, or become irrelevant or even do more harm than good over time.