"The person who never alters his opinion is like standing in water, breeds reptiles of the mind."
Performer, clown, Relationship Anarchist, keynote speaker; ex cult member, author, researcher, multimodal arts therapist – Cara Flame is an avid explorer and lover of life. Cara believes in the life changing power of play. With our words we can bring forth life.
Cara Flame
Cara came from a background in professional theatre before joining a cult, then pursued the path of the independent filmmaker whilst living as an expat in Mainland China, paying the bills as a professional singer. Returning to Australia, Cara worked in film, education, and small business. She became an arts therapist. She lived her life in fear of the religion she grew up in and the cult she left, until she one day found the confidence to speak out. What followed changed her life.
Finding the power to speak inspired Cara to empower others to speak. It empowered her to speak out further, about institutional fundamental religion, and about control. It inspired her to speak out to encourage others to embrace their true selves, follow their dreams, live in the freedom of their sexuality.
Now, Cara works as a keynote speaker, author, performer and arts therapist, working with people who want to explore their own values, find a preferred way of being, discover their own freedom.
Cara’s journey through fundamentalist Christianity
Raised in a Fundamentalist Evangelical Christian church, Cara spent a lifetime waking an hour earlier for morning devotionals, attended church between two and seven times a week, dedicating her life to the gospel of Jesus. She believed in no sex before marriage and that every woman’s purpose is to serve the church and her husband. Post high school Cara studied theatre arts, but with the aim of working towards becoming a Chaplain, to advance God’s Kingdom.
After years of searching for fulfillment in almost every Christian denomination, Cara landed in Pentecostalism, and at the age of 25, convinced that only by fully surrendering her life to Jesus could she find freedom, Cara gave up a highly successful theatre career to join a residential Pentecostal Christian cult.
Years later; a heterosexual marriage and two children later, two Independent feature films later, numerous more denominations later, Cara found enough strength and courage to overcome her fear of the Church. She spoke out in the media about the Esther Foundation, the cult she joined at 25. This sparked a year long media exposure that saw Cara appear in 20 – 30 media reports. The coverage sparked a Parliamentary Inquiry that resulted in the government committing to amending five points of legislation.
Cara’s newfound lack of fear of the Church led to her speaking out about other things. About Christianity and about sexuality within this world controlling institution. It also led to the end of heterosexuality and monogamy for Cara as she embraced the pansexuality she had been consciously repressing since her teenage years, praying to God to let her be a lesbian and ‘knowing’ He would not answer. It led to her exploring freedom and sexuality in all its shades and colours. Now she is passionate about others questioning their own ‘knowing’ about what is right and wrong.
Cara is an Arts Therapist with Professional registration and is halfway through doctoral studies on the subject of using arts therapy to facilitate paradigmatic change – from control and suppression to play, breath and joy
“My work, in all its forms and manifestations is about play, and freedom. It’s about finding your voice and using it. About adventuring within yourself and discovering not what is important, but what is essential for your happiness. It’s about messiness and the joy of wading in muddy puddles.”
Cara Flame
Cara dedicated the vast majority of her life to serving, loving, knowing and worshipping Jesus. If you’re reading this and you are not a Christian or an ex Christian, insert whatever God or prophet is relevant to you. She gave up careers, she gave away thousands and thousands of dollars, countless hours, to ‘serve the Lord.’ She sold out for Jesus.
And gradually, over years, this was unpicked. Painfully. As each stitch of belief came out it felt as suggested by that analogy – it left a bleeding hole in my psyche.
“But those stitches were replaced by – me. By my own belief, my own self, my own love. My own desire. My own first love.” Cara Flame
When we deconstruct from any religion, which has served as a psychological container for the majority of our life, it is so, so hard to fully remove all the threads. We may first heal in our head, intellectually, but it can take years longer to heal in our heart and soul and body.
That’s right, our body. Our bodies store the religious trauma. Our bodies also come alive from years of longing, years of suppressed desires that are natural and beautiful.
Cara is in the midst of creating a course that is designed to walk with you on that journey. The journey to uncover your wondrous, natural, sensual desires. It’s about sex. Kink. Pleasure, pain, multiple partners, same sex attraction – whatever it is that turns you on.
It is messy and raw and completely uncensored, no euphemisms or polite Christian lady talk here. It is designed to walk with you along your journey of discovery.
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Cara Flame AThR Qualifications
- Doctoral Candidate (Experiential and Creative Arts Therapy, MIECAT)
- Masters in Therapeutic Arts Practice (MIECAT)
- Masters in Professional Communication (Screen Studies, WA Screen Academy)
- BA (Theatre Arts, Curtin University)
- BA (Indigenous Knowledge, History and Heritage, UWA)
- Licentiate Diploma of Speech and Drama Teaching (AMEB)
- Diploma of Youth Work (ACAS)
- Graduate Certificate of Divinity (Vose Seminary)
- Cert IV of Training and Assessment (ACAS)