A typical con man works to win your confidence so he can exploit you financially. He builds trust, charms, makes you feel special and seen, and then he takes your money. The con man's entire operation depends on one thing: getting you to trust him before you understand what he actually is. A con man in a high-control, authoritarian church often runs his own predatory operation that I like to call the "con of confession," which draws from Robert Lifton's ideas on the "cult of