Narcissism, Cult Recovery, Spiritual Awakening, and Discernment
Mark Vicente is an author, speaker, and award-winning Writer/Director/Producer from Johannesburg, South Africa. His passion for filmmaking began early. Taking his first photograph at age four, he worked his way up through the ranks of the camera department, shooting a number of anti-apartheid films in the 1980s before relocating to Hollywood.
Because of the atrocities in his native South Africa, he found himself propelled to question fundamental assumptions at a young age: beliefs about human behavior, morality, cosmology, existentialism and mysticism. Unifying his love of science, philosophy and filmmaking, his dream of creating cinema to inspire and provoke thought emerged with the creation of “What the BLEEP Do We Know?!” Several books have been written about the film’s remarkable grassroots marketing campaign, which led to its unprecedented success.
Later, deeply moved by the violence consuming Mexico, Mark released “Encender el Corazon,” a film about the kidnapping epidemic there and one community’s courage in standing up to the cartels. It was a bittersweet victory. While the film touched many people deeply, it was by association supporting the criminal enterprise NXIVM. Mark made the difficult decision to pull the film from distribution and, with a small band of whistleblowers, exposed NXIVM’s criminal behavior, resulting in multiple arrests and prosecutions. This journey is captured in the HBO Documentary Series “The Vow.”
He has since developed a passionate interest in exposing the coercive, duplicitous environments of high-control groups. His feature documentary “Narcissists’ Playbook,” examining malignant narcissism through self-confessed, self-aware narcissists, juxtaposed with testimony from victims, survivors, scientists, and mental health professionals, has now been released. He is also developing “Inst@Guru,” a series examining the rise of predatory self-help culture in the social media age, centered on Dutch social media guru Bentinho Massaro.
Websites:
Bonnie Piesse is an Australian/American actress, singer-songwriter and soul alignment and manifestation coach. She’s best known for her roles in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, and was recently seen in My Favorite Girlfriend alongside Tyler Johnson and Michael Nouri. As a singer-songwriter, her music has been featured in film and TV including Miss Arizona, HBO’s The Vow (in which she was also a subject), and CW’s Life Unexpected. Through her business, Your Quantum Life, Bonnie helps soul-led leaders remember who they really are and step into authentic expression and embodiment.
Website: bonniepiesse.com
Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group
Interview recorded August 4, 2026
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