Good evening, and welcome to a very special episode of 'Hindsight, Live With Peter Nichols'. Tonight we're going to be revisiting one of our most sensational stories from last year, our interview with author and activist Karen Bellamy. Ms Bellamy, you may remember, was both the author and subject of the book 'A Cult Insidious: My Struggle Against Mind Control in Popular Culture', a controversial work that earned her no small amount of public attention both welcome and unwelcome. But now... well, let's ask Ms Bellamy herself what she thinks of her own claims. Welcome back to the program, ma'am.

"Oh, there's no need to be so formal, Peter... if I may call you Peter? You can call me Karen if you like. And thank you very much for having me back. I think it's vitally important to set the record straight after all the trouble I caused the last time I was on here. It all seems so silly looking back on it."

That wasn't the word I expected you to use for it, Karen. Your book sold over 100,000 copies. You testified in front of Congress and led a national crusade. Some of your followers actually pulled down a broadcast aerial outside of Lincoln, Nebraska. It certainly seemed vitally serious to my viewing audience at the time. But now you're saying it was all just a joke?

"Well, not a joke, but a... oh, let's call it the product of a disordered mind. You see, when I first wrote 'A Cult Insidious', I was going through a lot of psychological stress caused by my divorce and the recent estrangement between myself and my adult daughter--an estrangement I fixated on as a reason for the problems in my life. I came to believe that my daughter didn't choose her career or her lifestyle naturally, and that likewise my husband's choices were the result of an abnormal influence on his subconscious mind that led him to accept what I saw as unduly permissive beliefs. But because I was unable to accept the truth about them, I constructed an entire set of delusions to explain them away as the victims of a vast conspiracy."

And what do you now consider to be the truth, Ms Bellamy?

"The truth is, society hasn't become more permissive because of some sinister group of evil cultists brainwashing people into sexual licentiousness and pornographic performance. There's not a secret subliminal message beamed out in our television sets telling us to become swingers and prostitutes and adult entertainers. We're doing those things because it feels good... and doesn't it feel silly to deny ourselves the things that feel good because of some outdated beliefs about morality passed down to us by some old fuddy-duddies from the Victorian era?"

I see. And this would explain your outfit today, I take it?

"Oh, yes. I wanted to show the world that the old Karen--that foolish old maid with the ankle-length skirts and the high collars--she's gone now. In her place is a sexually liberated woman who dresses in crop-tops and miniskirts because they're flattering, not because some sexually deviant brainwashing cult convinced her to. This outfit is a symbol of my freedom from the oppressive shackles of the old and outdated views of morality, not my subjugation to some secretive organization of master planners with an agenda of sexual submission for America."

But if you'll allow me to reference your book, you actually said on page 137, 'One of the most insidious tricks the cult uses to indoctrinate its victims is the subtle and pernicious belief that their sexual subjugation is actually a new kind of freedom their confused and befuddled brains simply haven't yet managed to accommodate. Even those aware of this kind of programming and therefore theoretically on guard against it may yet fall victim, their minds twisting up in knots until slavery itself becomes liberation to them.' Don't you think the Karen Bellamy of a year ago would tell you you're the one being foolish?

"Well, Peter, you once again have to remember that I was in a very bad place, spiritually and psychologically, when I wrote that. My husband had left me for three other women and two other men, my daughter had taken up a career in pornography, and frankly I was emotionally adrift and desperate for explanations. It's no wonder I started seeing mind controllers around every corner, and I certainly wrote my fair share of nonsense during that period. I also said that repeated exposure could overcome even the strongest will, but let's face it--the members of my organization scrutinized more adult content in greater detail than practically anyone else in America, and we weren't affected at all. If we're all fine, then surely the average citizen has nothing to worry about."

But--correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't your organization transitioned over the last six months to lobbying for lowered restrictions on pornography and adult content? You've begun filing amicus briefs in civil liberties lawsuits filed by the publishers of Bush Magazine, you're staging 'watch-ins' of adult films at theaters across the Midwest, and your so-called consciousness raising sessions....

"What about them?"

Well, we've been receiving some very disturbing reports of the activities at those sessions. Some of the people who attended called them glorified orgies, and said they experienced physiological symptoms of disorientation and confusion--dizziness, aphasia, unexplained lethargy--when they attempted to register an objection. What do you have to say to those accusations?

"I think those are people with a lot of unprocessed sexual repression who are coming very close to an awakening about their own emotions--and responding to those dangerous feelings with psychosomatic manifestations of guilt over their arousal. If they'd simply stayed and participated in our full program of consciousness raising, instead of backing out early before they had a chance to fully understand and absorb the message we're trying to send, they wouldn't have been afraid. They would have been grateful, like the people who stayed."

Then you can explain this clip? Bob, just bring that up on Monitor 1. This was taken at the Holiday Inn outside of Lawrence, Kansas, just three weeks ago. We've censored the details, for obvious reasons, but that's very clearly you in the film.

"Where did you get that footage?"

We had one of our correspondents attend the session with a hidden camera, broadcasting to a remote unit just outside the hotel you rented for the event. She told us afterward she felt an irresistible compulsion to join in, and she's now in counseling for what she describes as intrusive thoughts and emotions. It certainly seems like this is evidence of exactly what you're now telling America you believe to be a delusion brought on by stress and marital difficulties. Are you still saying that everything you put into your book is a lie?

"To call it a lie implies deliberate intent, Peter. I was simply confused back then. Like your reporter, I was experiencing intrusive thoughts and emotions--but instead of learning how to understand them and accept them as the emergence of a new and better attitude toward sex and sexuality, I retreated into the same delusion she's currently dealing with. I told myself I was experiencing irresistible compulsions, that my thoughts and decisions were being influenced by the media in order to steer me into something I didn't truly want, because that was easier than admitting I enjoy [bleep]. Oh, sorry. I suppose I'm not allowed to say that on broadcast television?"

It certainly wasn't a concern during our last interview. Karen, I think my question is simply this--how would we know the difference between a woman who's realized she was only imagining a struggle against insidious mind control and one who's actually succumbed to it? You claim that you're thinking clearly now, but you came on this exact program a year ago to tell us that the deepest and most thoroughly brainwashed converts are the ones who tell you they're doing everything of their own free will. I think my viewers would like some sort of assurance that your thoughts are your own.

"Well, Peter, I'm doing nationwide tours on a regular basis, and my calendar of speaking engagements and personal appearances will probably take me pretty close to wherever your audience lives within the next six months. They're welcome to stop by and talk to me, and listen to me, and I think they'll very quickly realize for themselves that I'm not the sort of person who could get sucked in by some dark and shadowy conspiracy and turned into an evangelist for sexual promiscuity. I've simply learned to take ownership of what I enjoy and what feels good to me, and I'm living a life free of regrets. That's a life available to anyone who wants it. Even you."

I, uh, I don't think there's any need to involve me in this--

"Oh, but you're already involved, Peter. You got involved over a year ago, when you read my book and decided it would gin up your ratings a little to have a controversial figure on your show to talk about salacious topics in a way that conveniently put you on the moral high ground. You didn't need to ask yourself then whether it was true or not; you simply put me on the air and let me run out my string, and when I was done and you saw I was only good for a fifteen share you forgot about me and my conspiracy and left me hanging in the wind. And now after a year, Peter, after a solid year of not caring, you heard I was some weird horny slut and you wondered if maybe putting me in the spotlight didn't bring me to the attention of someone who wanted me silenced, and guilt drove you to bring me back for a follow-up. Would you call that a fair assessment?"

I, I feel like that's a very personal way to take it, Karen--

"It was certainly personal to me. You gave me a platform, you let me feel like my movement was really going places and achieving something, and then when it didn't benefit you personally you stopped returning my calls. And now, after sneaking people into my organization and digging up dirt on me and treating me like the villain just because I've stopped trying to be anyone but the person I want to be, you're going to bring me here and try to destroy me on live television for your own self-aggrandizement? It's hurtful, Peter. It's hurtful and it's wrong and I'm so grateful that your crew see it my way."

M-my crew, I, I'm sorry, I don't--

"That correspondent of yours. She was so sweet and so apologetic when she told me everything. Luckily the hidden camera she used was playing everything right into that unmarked van you had parked outside, so everyone there had their consciousness raised right along with her. They've been showing that footage--the full, raw, unexpurgated version--to everyone who works for you, and they all agree with me that you need a bit of comeuppance for such a nasty little stunt. Bob, can you bring up the clip I supplied you on Monitor 1?"

W-what, Karen, what are you--you can't show that, we're live on national television--

"And there's nothing in this clip that anyone should be ashamed of. It's just some nice, normal people enjoying one another's bodies and learning that sex is nothing to hide, nothing to hate. That's old, outmoded thinking, and I know that the more people watch this footage the more they'll find themselves agreeing with me. All that confusion is going to fade away, and they'll learn something very important and true about who they are as individuals. Even the affiliates who might otherwise cut to a commercial, or a technical difficulties card... they're embarking on that same journey of discovery right now. They don't want to stop this. I don't think you do either, Peter."

N-no, it's--I--you're doing something, you planned this, you--you--

"Oh, listen to that silly paranoid fantasy of yours. I've been brainwashed, I secretly engineered this to broadcast a brainwashing signal nationwide, I'm corrupting people's minds to make an army of sexually deviant slaves on behalf of my true masters to indoctrinate America into decadence and perversity... doesn't it feel just exhausting to keep worrying about all that nonsense? Wouldn't you rather just fuck?"

I... I....

"Lie down, silly. Let me just undo that zipper and--oh, my, Peter. You really do want to fuck me right now. Well, it's my first time on live television, but I think I can... accommodate you. Barely."

Oh, oh no, oh f-f-fuckkkk--

"Sssh. Stop thinking. It feels even better when you stop thinking. And to those of you at home, up late watching us fuck from the privacy of your homes... you just go on ahead and do what comes naturally. I know I did. And I'm so much happier now. Good bye to your tired old morality, folks, and hello to a wonderful new order of things. I've been your surprise guest host Karen Bellamy... and remember, things are so much better in Hindsight."

THE END