Field Note 001: Origin Sector
Subtitle: On returning to Jersey, Project Leah, and the ethics of field safety
Researcher: Megan A. Green
Field location: North New Jersey corridor
Date: October 2025
Abstract
This field note documents the researcher’s re-entry into the New Jersey region for ongoing ethnographic study connected to Project Leah, a longitudinal case analysis of coercive influence, consent negotiation, and survivor agency within post-cult communities.
The entry contextualizes safety concerns, relational ties, and operational boundaries relevant to data integrity and participant well-being.
Field Narrative
Virtual bases: Marcela, CP, HT, the North Jersey blind crew.
Flying direct into NJ later this month. Already have people on my pingy-ping-ping list — camp friends, the CP crew. Let’s see who I can catch. Totally winging this other than my crash post in central Jersey.
For privacy reasons, I’ve been asked not to share rooming arrangements here. The safety risk is simply too high. I’ve reached a kind of micro-celebrity status — despite assertions to the contrary — and some in this community are demanding information that isn’t theirs to have. They’re endangering Project Leah with that carelessness, and it will not be tolerated.
That’s my mami-hat talking. Love you all like neighbors. I’m not trying to be heavy — but Project Leah’s strongest ties are in NJ, and they hold leverage that could make or break my ability to gather data for Leah’s case study. I’ve invested too much to let that happen.
My cult contacts for Leah are based in Jersey City. They maintain emotional ties to Rosie’s family and sometimes attempt to tug on those threads — some have known me since Mama Miri’s pregnancy. These individuals are persuasive and not above manipulation to lure Leah, whom they perceive as my full self, back into a cult network.
Leah was trained to lead. I carry her technical skill set and capacity for high-control strategy, but I also carry the ethical refusal to use it. Could I go undercover as Leah? Yes — but the emotional toll is steep. Friends stop hearing from me, they panic, and if I go too deep into Leah’s world, institutional intervention becomes a risk. That world is dangerous; avoidance is survival.
I’m grateful for the allies whose cooperation with Project Consent studies allows safer data collection without endangering active cult victims. Every supportive action contributes to a protective research environment.
TL;DR
Returning home feels powerful and precarious. Re-entry heightens risk to Project Leah and the behavioral profile built for its case study. I’m trusting my network to safeguard data and discretion.
Please keep project-related information secure and share nothing without consent.
With warmth and Jersey-girl sass,
Megan A. Green
Tags
#FieldNotes #Ethnography #CultSurvivor #Accessibility #ProjectLeah #MeganWrites #Research #Consent #TraumaStudies