HOW TO LEAVE A CULT

Patrick Ryan and Joseph Kelly are a couple who rescue people from cults. They explain how they make their clients believe it was their decision to leave.

- Nic M Neves

WHEN THE PHONE RINGS AT PATRICK RYAN AND Joseph Kelly's home in Philadelphia, chances are the caller is desperate. One couple rang because their son was about to abandon his medical practice to follow a new-age guru in Spain. Another call came from a husband whose wife was emptying their life savings for a self-proclaimed prophet in Australia. Yet another family phoned about their niece, who was in a relationship with a man stealing from her, maybe drugging her, probably sexually assaulting her.

These families had tried everything else. When nothing worked, they heard there were two men in Philadelphia who might still be able to bring their loved one home.

What Ryan and Kelly do is unusual: they help people leave cults.

Over the past 40 years, they have handled hundreds of cases - some simple and local, others stretching across borders and decades. They have been hired by families of both modest and considerable means.

They say they have even been hired by government agencies, and that some cults have left them genuinely afraid for their lives.

Although many people are involved in cultic studies and education, fewer than 10 people in the US do anything like what Ryan and Kelly do. And among those, only Kelly and Ryan practise their strange and unique method: embedding themselves in families' lives, pulling on threads like marionettists, sometimes for years.

Their method goes something like this. A family reaches out about their daughter, husband, nephew or grandchild. Ryan and Kelly conduct an assessment that can take anywhere from a day to a week (they would not say exactly). They charge $2,500 for the assessment, then $250 an hour after that, interviewing the family until they understand the dynamics well enough to devise a strategy. Then, over months or sometimes years, they work to create the conditions in which a person might begin to question the beliefs their life has been built on.