Armchair Anonymous: Cult

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous.

[1] Ooh, juicy episode, Monica.

[2] What do we got?

[3] Cults.

[4] Wow, really juicy.

[5] This one runs the gamut.

[6] I left this episode with tremendous heartbreak for people who grow up in some of these microcultures or cults or whatever you want to call them.

[7] Ooh, culture, cult.

[8] That's what it comes from.

[9] Wow.

[10] I've never thought of that.

[11] I think I say this in the episode, but even though we tell people not to listen, and this one's tough to listen to, I think this is required listening.

[12] Yeah, this one is pretty required listening.

[13] Not that I've never acknowledged this, but it was yet again another opportunity to acknowledge.

[14] You can start in a pit.

[15] You just get brought home from the hospital and you don't pick.

[16] Exactly.

[17] And so wherever I've evolved to needs a big old asterisk.

[18] Like, I started in a super open dialogue house where the truth was the reigning principle, where there was justice, where I could have my own opinion.

[19] Yeah, when I look at where I started to where I ended, it's probably a tenth of the ground that some of the people in this episode have covered in their lifetime.

[20] Yeah.

[21] And fuck, I'm so lucky to have been born in Laura LeBoe's household.

[22] Shout out, Laura LeBoe, I love you, and I'm so lucky.

[23] And my heart breaks for people.

[24] Yeah, it's tough.

[25] It's also juicy, though.

[26] It's also a great episode.

[27] Yes, it's a great episode.

[28] Oh, before we go, we have prompts for next month.

[29] So, tell us about crazy cosplay.

[30] Whatever that means.

[31] I mean, I'm doing this prompt because I don't really understand what cosplay is.

[32] And I don't even know.

[33] Am I saying it correctly?

[34] Yeah.

[35] Okay.

[36] So tell us about a crazy cosplay experience.

[37] Okay.

[38] Tell us about your worst day.

[39] This is inspired by Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad.

[40] day.

[41] You guys both knew that, but I don't, that doesn't ring a bell to me. It's a big children's book.

[42] Okay.

[43] So tell us about your worst day.

[44] Tell us your best cautionary tale.

[45] Is that the same as worst day or no?

[46] No, it's not.

[47] Cautionary tale is like a story that when you say it.

[48] Like don't eat the shrimp at Sizzler.

[49] Exactly.

[50] Okay.

[51] So this is a pretty wide net.

[52] Okay.

[53] And then this one I'm particularly excited about.

[54] Tell us about a crazy experience you've had as a delivery driver.

[55] That could be UPS, that could be, that could be any kind of delivery service where you're entering people's property, food delivery, you name it.

[56] Messenger.

[57] I was a messenger.

[58] Oh, yeah.

[59] Nate has the best.

[60] We should almost talk to Nate for that one.

[61] Oh, we should.

[62] About dropping something off to, um, yeah.

[63] Okay.

[64] TBD.

[65] Please enjoy Armchair Anonymous.

[66] Cults.

[67] Johnny.

[68] Juicy cold.

[69] This one's going to be scary.

[70] This one's going to be juicy.

[71] Hello.

[72] Is this Christina?

[73] It is.

[74] I'm Dax.

[75] This is Monica.

[76] Is it your real name?

[77] It is.

[78] You look young to me. I'm actually 30.

[79] 30.

[80] Oh, my God.

[81] You made it to 30.

[82] I did.

[83] And where are you in the world?

[84] I'm in Brooklyn, but I'm actually in the process of moving to Spain on Monday.

[85] No way.

[86] How exciting.

[87] Are you so excited or are you nervous or both?

[88] I'm super excited.

[89] I'm going to move to finally be with my long -distance boyfriend of two years.

[90] Oh, wow.

[91] And is he a Spaniard?

[92] He's Venezuelan.

[93] Oh, my gosh.

[94] Ana.

[95] I wonder if he knows Ana's family.

[96] That's improbable, but it's a nice thought.

[97] It'd be great.

[98] They're a great family.

[99] Did you guys meet online?

[100] No, we met in Spain.

[101] His cousin is my sister's ex -boyfriend.

[102] Okay.

[103] Cute.

[104] All right.

[105] So you were so crazy to say it, right?

[106] You were in a cult?

[107] Somehow, there's a cult story.

[108] Yes.

[109] So it starts in 2016.

[110] You're 22.

[111] Yes, at the time.

[112] My dad and my stepmom had just done this self -development course that they were super pumped about called Executive Success Program, now known as Nexia.

[113] fuck oh my god i almost got chills you did like my brain got chills but my body didn't well you might be a um malaria pills well no you might be a um a responsive arousal person oh maybe right right right okay so we're 22 in your dad and your stepmom they took a course and by the way when i was watching the doc the courses are good they're very similar to many landmark all these ones that would help you there's some good stuff find the truth and the story you're telling yourself, right?

[114] There's some good shit.

[115] It actually changed my life and my family's life.

[116] My mom and my dad had a really tough divorce.

[117] And after doing this, it brought my entire family together.

[118] And we now spend Thanksgiving all together with my mom and my stepdad just because they were able to go back and heal.

[119] That's great.

[120] A lot of positive came from it.

[121] Not all bad.

[122] Yeah, yeah.

[123] So they ended up convincing.

[124] My sister and I to do it.

[125] They're like, you have to do this.

[126] We'll pay for you to do the first course.

[127] It's worth it.

[128] We go to this five -day intensive from 8 a .m. to 9 p .m. In the photo studio where it's 20 people, you're sitting in front of a screen, and you watch videos and do exercises.

[129] And these videos are like from the 80s.

[130] Okay.

[131] Now, this is probably a tricky.

[132] thing to go through because you now have a relationship or feeling about all of it but you have to kind of access what you felt like back then so i'm imagining at 22 you show up and you're like this is so awkward but pretty quickly in does it start feeling fun and productive some things were fun and some things were really emotionally hard there was a lot of crying oh really because you have to face a lot of fears and it's all about separating the emotional from the actual experience that you have.

[133] I think that's the positive that you get out of it, but in it, it wasn't the most enjoyable.

[134] Super exhausting.

[135] I mean, you're there for 13 hours, too.

[136] And were you and your sister kind of having parallel experiences or was she taking it differently than you?

[137] She took it differently.

[138] She took it very much, like, I am not a fan of this, really.

[139] And I was like, I think this is great.

[140] I'm committed.

[141] I'm in.

[142] Yeah.

[143] I mean, they start everything with like a pledge and they have the sashes and I was in a sorority so those things to me weren't as woo -woo and my sister was the opposite so for her she was skeptical super and a few months later was this thing they do called V -week which is Keith Reneery's birthday that they celebrate and they call him Vanguard oh yeah yes yes yes yes yes yes and they call it V -week well all of these programs have way too many acronyms Scientology's all got acronyms they live on acronyms.

[144] Well, that's not the weird part.

[145] The part is that they dedicated this whole week to this.

[146] Well, he's the smartest man who ever lived.

[147] He deserves a week -long birthday.

[148] His whole thing was, I'm not here to celebrate myself.

[149] I'm here to celebrate my mother.

[150] She's the one who birthed me. A lot of full humility.

[151] Yeah.

[152] The way I was able to go was because I was going to volunteer for the kids camp.

[153] They had this, like, other program school for kids called Rainbow Cultural Gardens, similar to like a Montessori sort of structure, but it was all based on exposing these kids to different languages.

[154] Sorry, we just laugh, but it has more to do with.

[155] We were just arguing the merit of requiring people to take two years of a foreign language for college.

[156] So you just kind of wandered into the aftermath of that debate.

[157] So it's kind of funny that you just said that.

[158] Yeah, that's simple.

[159] So Keith Riniari agrees with you.

[160] Whatever.

[161] That was funny.

[162] I don't believe in that.

[163] Okay.

[164] Because I speak English and Spanish, they were like, even better.

[165] More languages, more cultures, great.

[166] So this is where I was introduced to India, who was one of the women.

[167] She tells her story in the documentary.

[168] She was one of the main women who ended up being in the DOS.

[169] I was watching Sarah Edmondson's son.

[170] So I was around all of these really big members.

[171] and I will call her Gabby.

[172] I'm not going to say her name because she's still anonymous in the world.

[173] She was one of Keith's girlfriends.

[174] I didn't know at the time.

[175] She and I got really close because she was the other Spanish speaker and Keith would do these big speeches in the auditorium and would sit and talk and share.

[176] And at the end, she's like, I'd love for you to meet Keith.

[177] And she brought me and introduced me to him.

[178] Wow.

[179] And it felt very much like a presentation.

[180] Now, up until this point, so you like the program and you see the merit in it and you had a good time.

[181] How enamored are you with Keith?

[182] Are you kind of buying in?

[183] Yeah.

[184] The listener needs to know this.

[185] I'm not saying this to make you uncomfortable.

[186] You're outrageously cute.

[187] You're like so cute.

[188] It's impossible.

[189] So I'm already thinking the girlfriend maybe wanted to introduce you.

[190] Just like, bring in a new girlfriend.

[191] There's no way he didn't notice you.

[192] Wouldn't the girlfriend not want to bring a cute girl?

[193] No, he had tricked all of them.

[194] They were getting more love from him by getting more girls for him.

[195] I'm sorry, I shouldn't speak.

[196] You would know better than me, but my understanding is like the girlfriends would go out and recruit new girlfriends.

[197] Yeah, because they wanted to please him.

[198] And so the more women they could bring to him, the better.

[199] Okay, so you were enamored by him.

[200] Because I was like, wow, this man is so smart.

[201] He's taught so many things.

[202] he has so many ideas and I was 22 and I so wide also your most trusted figures in your life they're in too your parents like the whole thing yeah so I had no second thoughts about anything and just after that I was planning on moving to London I hop around a lot yeah and they have one of the rainbow centers the schools in London and they were like you should go work there it'd be so great.

[203] And I was like, sure, that way I have a job there also.

[204] And they paid you.

[205] I mean, minimal.

[206] Right, right.

[207] And they have a lot of well -known clients that have their kids there as students.

[208] And what they ended up having me do is one of their clients wanted one of the teachers to go with them to their house in Madrid, to stay with them for two weeks to be with their kids, sort of like the nanny teacher.

[209] And I was like, great.

[210] You're like on a wild adventure through this.

[211] It's like all over the place.

[212] I go and this poor kid wants nothing to do with me. He hates me. Oh, he does.

[213] Because he has so many nannies and teachers and people being rotated and he was four.

[214] He's like, just give me my fucking mom.

[215] He saw his parents 30 minutes a day.

[216] Oh, that's not good.

[217] Yeah.

[218] And eventually because of the stress, I ended up having a seizure.

[219] Ding, ding, ding.

[220] Ding, ding.

[221] Congratulations, you guys.

[222] Both really cute.

[223] Did you like it?

[224] Yes.

[225] Yeah, that's scary.

[226] It was like my second or third seizure, so they didn't really know what was happening yet and what was going on.

[227] And so I ended up going to the hospital, then flying back home to California, which is where I'm from.

[228] And then I was like, okay, I'm sort of done with this.

[229] And Gabby had reached out, and she was like, I'd love to continue mentoring you.

[230] Let's try and get you to do more courses and work on these things.

[231] And I was like, A, I can't afford this.

[232] This is completely out of my budget.

[233] And I have too much going on.

[234] I can't.

[235] And that was when I dropped out.

[236] But during all of this, my stepmom and my dad are like full on.

[237] Right.

[238] They're going all in.

[239] My stepmom was in all of the women's groups and going to different events in Mexico.

[240] and she was full on moving up the ranks also and trying to bring as many people in as she could because she was completely obsessed with everything that they offered.

[241] Really quick, Christina, when you left, would you say you were disillusioned at that point?

[242] Or you knew you had other shit and you just lost interest?

[243] Or were you like, this is weird and I actually don't want anything to do with it?

[244] A bit of both.

[245] People are a bit of aggressive, forcing things on you.

[246] And emotionally, people are just on your back of like, I need you, I want you.

[247] You're so great.

[248] You can see through it a bit.

[249] Definitely.

[250] But I was like, you do you to my parents.

[251] If it's working for you, great.

[252] Oh, my God.

[253] Your poor sister.

[254] Or your lucky sister.

[255] Well, no. She's just like, my whole family's in this.

[256] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[257] As my stepmom gets more involved, she was having more of the higher -ups also reaching out to her.

[258] hey, we actually have this sort of discreet, confidential group we'd love for you to be a part of.

[259] But to do so, we need you to give us collateral.

[260] Yeah, and for people have not watched the dock, which you should, it's incredible.

[261] Collateral is going to mean something that you'd be incredibly embarrassed to get out so that they have some kind of leverage over you to make sure you'll maintain secrecy.

[262] She was very much like, this seems super wrong, but I also love this.

[263] I don't know what to do.

[264] And finally, she was like, this shit's too weird.

[265] Oh, good for her.

[266] So she got to the crossroads and she, wow.

[267] Oh, good.

[268] And because of how high up she was, they, like, black you out.

[269] They sort of shun you.

[270] It's like getting labeled an SP in Scientology, a suppressive person.

[271] Your persona non grata and a threat to everything.

[272] Exactly.

[273] And as more women and more people started dropping out and they started talking, they're like, something isn't right here.

[274] And then finally when she heard that Sarah Edmondson had spoken up about it, she decided to be one of the witnesses that went against him in court.

[275] Oh, wow.

[276] She was part of that trial.

[277] She was part of the trial.

[278] She ended up writing a book about her whole experience in it, too, because it was a lot of ups and downs.

[279] Was she one of Keith's girlfriends?

[280] No. That's what I'm wondering.

[281] Like, I can totally understand being enamored.

[282] The person's like a Dalai Lama or something.

[283] They're on some different spiritual plane.

[284] But when the rubber meets the road, like when you actually end up in a bedroom with them, it's got to be a moment where you're like, whoa, wait, this godly creature.

[285] Not if you think so highly.

[286] Yeah, you're in love with them.

[287] I'm happy for you because I could imagine he would have very much wanted you to be a car.

[288] You were almost going to be his girlfriend.

[289] Yeah, yeah, because I watched the doc and I feel like you were a bullseye of what he was looking for.

[290] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[291] Oh, God.

[292] It was an experience in a wild story to tell, especially when all of the documentaries and the stories were coming out.

[293] Yeah, it must be so wild for you to watch the doc and know you were a part of it.

[294] And see all these people that I was with mind -blowing, but I'm so grateful that my family, A, got a lot of good things out of it and also didn't go too deep.

[295] Also, weird to be thankful for it, but epilepsy.

[296] Oh, wow.

[297] I mean, literally, that might be how you don't end up getting deeper and deeper and deeper.

[298] Are you on Kepra?

[299] Kepro didn't work for me. I'm on LaMectal, Zonagran, and Exculpary.

[300] Because my epilepsy is drug resistant.

[301] Oh, wow.

[302] So every time they put me on one, it'll work.

[303] and then I'll have breakthrough seizures and so I actually just did a procedure where they test to see if I'm a surgical candidate to do the little corridor in your brain.

[304] They put in 17 depth electrodes and opened up my cranial to put in strip electrodes on my brain and found out I am a candidate.

[305] So next year I'll be getting this surgery.

[306] Oh my gosh.

[307] We're sending you lots of love for that.

[308] Big time.

[309] And then look for the prompt.

[310] Have you ever gotten brain?

[311] surgery it can you know that could come down the pike have you ever gotten radical wait till you've done it yeah before we add it all right thank you for sharing that yeah this was delightful i hope you have so much fun in spain thank you i'm so excited it's time for me to be with my love oh wonderful all right well have fun nice meeting you nice meeting you guys i guess she was wearing a medical bracelet she was wearing one of those um cups she was wearing a bone It's fashion.

[312] But also, she was wearing a medical bracelet.

[313] But that was kind of fashiony.

[314] It was pretty.

[315] But what's the name of that one that's?

[316] Tiffany.

[317] Yeah.

[318] But I thought the bone cuff was a big boy like you wear.

[319] Yeah.

[320] I'm talking about the one that a lot of people have.

[321] It's thin that has circles in it, like with the screws.

[322] It's popular.

[323] Oh, I don't know what that one's called.

[324] Okay, I'll figure it out.

[325] Colts.

[326] This is awesome.

[327] It is really cool.

[328] I mean, it's awful.

[329] It's really awful and cool.

[330] Hello.

[331] Oh, wow.

[332] Look at this bizarre microphone.

[333] I know.

[334] It lets me know when it's on.

[335] Just for the listener, you're holding a very phallic, and the shaft is glowing blue.

[336] It's got lights in it.

[337] And you sound great.

[338] Thanks.

[339] Is this a $1 trillion this thing?

[340] No, I got it on Amazon.

[341] It was recommended.

[342] I'm a podcaster as well.

[343] I think I might want this.

[344] It's very tight -tech.

[345] If we ever did a night episode.

[346] Okay.

[347] It'd be fun to do like an armchair in the dark.

[348] And we have glowing microphones.

[349] Do we do that once?

[350] We have gone past when the sun went.

[351] down and there's no lighting in here.

[352] Okay, I feel like I have a memory, but maybe it was a dream where we did one in the dark.

[353] We should do one in the dark.

[354] I don't think we have.

[355] Okay, then I made that up.

[356] And then let's get these glowing microphones.

[357] Ruan, you have really opened up the door for a whole new thing for us.

[358] Glad I could contribute something.

[359] Okay, so Ruan, you were involved with a cult.

[360] I was.

[361] Oh my gosh.

[362] Please tell us.

[363] A little over 10 years ago.

[364] Do you want me to say how we got into it?

[365] That thing's glowing blue.

[366] It means you're hot.

[367] Let's go.

[368] I used to watch TED Talks a lot when I was in college.

[369] One, I kept going back to, it was titled, Orgasm, the Cure, the Hunger, and the Western Woman.

[370] Oh, my.

[371] I was a 19 -year -old man, so I clicked on it, obviously.

[372] It was the founder of the cult I was in.

[373] She gave a talk that was kind of about sex, but was really about connection.

[374] And it really spoke to me as a kind of lonely, very anxious 19 -year -old.

[375] What was the premise of her TED talk?

[376] I've heard this one thing that's maybe it's a cult, but it's about orgasm yoga?

[377] Yeah, orgasmic meditation.

[378] Is that what the topic was of her TED Talk?

[379] Yeah, it was about how she found it, how intimate touch was a way to deeply connect in a way that most people didn't connect in society.

[380] So that spoke to me. I never thought about that, although I was quite socially disconnected and awkward and pretty lonely without realizing it.

[381] Right.

[382] So a couple of years later, Tim Ferriss, whose books I really enjoyed, had a chapter, The Orgasm chapter, and his second book was written with One Taste, the cult I was in.

[383] No one knew it was a cult back then.

[384] That was a couple years after college, and I kind of decided that I really wanted to take classes with them.

[385] They seemed to have the answer to my dysphoria or quarter -life crisis, if you will.

[386] Or loneliness, we might call it.

[387] All of those things.

[388] I had a lot going on.

[389] They were based in San Francisco, but they were like setting up a New York branch.

[390] I started going to their intro events.

[391] I didn't really understand what they were about, but they got me to speak vulnerably in a way that I was not used to as a, at that point, 23 -year -old.

[392] And one thing led to another, it seemed like this magical...

[393] group of people that were super expressive and could read people in an amazing way.

[394] And, you know, there was sexuality as part of their practice that was intriguing.

[395] What was the extent of that?

[396] Well, they taught this practice called Argasic Meditation.

[397] It actually is an iteration of a practice other cults from the 60s did.

[398] There's a whole family tree of cults.

[399] Maybe you've discovered this already with your other interviews.

[400] But it was a practice where a man strokes a woman's clitoris in a meditative fashion to achieve.

[401] Various benefits.

[402] Some were greatly exaggerated, but it was like you feel a level of connection that you don't normally feel in day -to -day.

[403] Well, we know biologically.

[404] That's just regular sex, right?

[405] And we know biologically, yeah, after an orgasm, a woman gets a big release of oxytocin, which is the love hormone.

[406] That is true.

[407] You do connect from post -orgasmic activity.

[408] Yeah.

[409] The idea is you're entering a state of high sensation together where the man is not being stimulated.

[410] I worked for them, so I know how to explain this in their fashion, of course.

[411] but the man trains his intuition to put his attention on a woman, which most men are not trained to do.

[412] So, I mean, within a couple of months, I moved in with them.

[413] They had a residence in Harlem.

[414] It was a penthouse.

[415] It was kind of like a reality show mixed with like a yoga ashram.

[416] We got up at seven every day.

[417] We did the own practice.

[418] We meditated.

[419] We did yoga.

[420] We ate super healthy.

[421] Did you feel great?

[422] It was amazing.

[423] I mean, the first couple months, it was very weird because it was a totally different world.

[424] It was also a female -run cult, which I think is kind of unique.

[425] It was like kind of anti -patrival.

[426] hierarchical and feminist and egalitarian and all about connection and not competition.

[427] So this spoke to me at this time of my life.

[428] And then within a few months, I started working for them.

[429] That's when I started to see the dark side of how they mixed sex and seduction and with sales.

[430] I mean, a lot of it was driven about trying to get people's money essentially.

[431] Right.

[432] They sold personal development courses for really high prices.

[433] A lot of people went into debt, including myself, to pay for their courses.

[434] And I was basically in for two years.

[435] And I saw a lot of things that were both incredibly positively transforming for me, but also a lot of the dark side of human nature, people getting mind fucked and brainwashed and gaslit, emotionally shattered.

[436] Had you fallen in love with anyone there in that two years?

[437] Could you have a girlfriend?

[438] Yeah, well, one of the things they did, and probably all cults do this to some degree, is they wanted to control how people fell in love.

[439] So if you entered in a relationship, that relationship usually was broken up.

[440] and then somehow you'd be encouraged to be with someone else, but it was kind of within the cult structure.

[441] Because everyone was kind of in love with the cult, ultimately.

[442] That's what they wanted.

[443] I'd also imagine, too, like when you fall in love with somebody and then you develop this real bond of trust, you're going to maybe start airing some of your questions that normally you wouldn't bring up to someone that you don't trust.

[444] So as two people get closer and the trust bond gets there, they might defect.

[445] It seems potentially damaging for the cult.

[446] It's like they wanted to have control of the reality.

[447] And when you're in love separately, you kind of have your own personal reality.

[448] So they made people fall in love.

[449] I did fall in love a few times while I was there, but it was almost under the guidance or approval of my cult mentor.

[450] Because the cult is kind of like a family.

[451] And my mentor jokingly, she would say she was my mom, like a work mom in like a office.

[452] But she actually was my mom as far as our behavior.

[453] But did you have to stimulate her ever?

[454] No one had to do anything.

[455] That was kind of one of their principles, like everyone acted by desire.

[456] But then they found ways to twist people's desires, of course.

[457] Right.

[458] Right.

[459] Okay.

[460] So to answer your question, I didn't have to.

[461] I did because everyone did this, but it always felt weird.

[462] We really did have like a mother -son bond.

[463] Even for her, I think, it's kind of strange for us.

[464] I find it a little comforting because all these men, when you give them unlimited access and power, they will indulge in this way.

[465] And obviously, we're terrible.

[466] I'm at least comforted that women, too, will do this.

[467] Yeah, I'm your mother, but also stimulate you.

[468] That's very scumbaggy, too.

[469] I think it's a dynamic of power that corrupts people in this weird way.

[470] You know, one thing that was interesting about this group, and I think it's because it was female run, is that because women were encouraged to be expressive and outward with their desire, it kind of flipped the script where women were kind of the hunters.

[471] And a lot of men were like, please leave me alone for a second.

[472] Yes, they were pushing off the sexual advances.

[473] I mean, I got to feel what it's like to be a woman in like a normal dating environment for that time.

[474] Yeah, probably made you more compassionate, I'd imagine.

[475] Totally.

[476] So when did the wheels start coming off?

[477] Within my first year there and I was working for them, I saw how them using sex for sales and also like romance for sales, that's when I was starting to get knots in my stomach and like my conscience.

[478] I was having trouble with this because I really looked up to my mentor, the group itself.

[479] They had helped me a lot.

[480] They did have a lot of wisdom.

[481] I still think that's true.

[482] Yeah.

[483] They also do all these weird things.

[484] So it was a little bit challenging.

[485] But I did spend another year kind of as a leader within the community trying to distance myself.

[486] But in that year, they became pretty successful in the mainstream.

[487] Like, they got endorsements from Tony Robbins and CrossFit and a bunch of other celebrities.

[488] Inc. Magazine listed them in the top 10 female -run companies, or the top 10 in health and wellness.

[489] Like, they were really blowing up.

[490] Really quick, I just want to put a point on what you just said, which is, like, people have to acknowledge these things have good things to offer or people won't be there.

[491] It doesn't surprise me at all that you say some percentage of it you still really cherish.

[492] If it didn't have anything appealing or transformative, you wouldn't have been there.

[493] We just talked to someone from next thing.

[494] I'm like, yeah, a lot of the shit is appealing and works until you get into the zone where it's not.

[495] Yeah, I mean, they had a really good front end product.

[496] I mean, they got you into their sales funnel.

[497] Everyone in the cult that I was in, but also culty people I've met, they all are powerful in the sense that they can create an effect in you.

[498] And of course, they're going to give you a positive effect at first.

[499] Actually, in the ex -One Taste community, there's a saying that One Taste shows you your power and then sells it back to you piece by piece.

[500] Because, like, the first few months are amazing when you're there.

[501] Guys get off porn addiction, women who are shut down physically, have orgasms for the first time or fall in love for the first time in a year, get over trauma.

[502] Like, they really did amazing things in the first six months for almost everyone.

[503] Maybe the move is to, like, go through all of these cults and just do the first three months and then bounce.

[504] Well, I think if it's an effective cult, you probably won't.

[505] Right.

[506] But if you go on with a game plan?

[507] No. Were you starting to have any physical ailments?

[508] Like, was your body telling you you're not comfortable with all this, but you're pushing it down?

[509] The first few months I was working for them, I was hired with like a bunch of other young people.

[510] And all of us, we know, we didn't have a career.

[511] Like, this is awesome.

[512] We're saving the world.

[513] We're going to help people get connected.

[514] And we had this like maybe two month period of barely sleeping, doing all sorts of stuff.

[515] Over 100 hour weeks.

[516] We were working seven days a week.

[517] and not tired.

[518] And we're like, wow, we're like so spiritually charged up.

[519] We're charged up with orgasm, so to speak.

[520] It's amazing.

[521] But, of course, we all crashed.

[522] Like, after two months, we all had red eyes and were zombies.

[523] And we're shamed for being zombies.

[524] Not to be too pervy, but is the dude ever allowed to come in this?

[525] It was an advanced practice.

[526] You know, it was something that only after some amount of time you were considered able to do it.

[527] Responsibly come.

[528] And also, like, they changed the definition of orgasm.

[529] There was, like, a sequence of definition changes through every course you took.

[530] like in the intro class, they said people think of orgasm from the male perspective of coming, whereas orgasm for a woman is a state of high sensation.

[531] And then when you take another class, it's like, well, orgasm is also all the emotions that come with feeling good.

[532] And it's also kind of the Tao, like in Taoism.

[533] It's kind of like chi in Chinese medicine.

[534] And eventually it becomes God.

[535] Slowly over time, the definition shifts where it's like, oh, the orgasm is telling, or I'm serving the orgasm.

[536] And it's kind of joking at first, the first time you say But all of the terminology, it starts off facetious, and then you kind of take it seriously because you've been talking that way for so long.

[537] Right.

[538] You desensitize your shock to it.

[539] Was anyone in your life like parents or siblings or friends outside were they like, hey, this feels a little...

[540] Culty.

[541] Or do they call anything out?

[542] I joked about it as it being my cult with everyone.

[543] I mean, I just thought that was a good way to talk about it because it was a strange environment.

[544] But it had so many benefits, and especially when I was working for them, I learned how to speak about the benefits well.

[545] that no one could really argue with me. Oh, wow.

[546] Okay, so when does it crash and burn for you?

[547] So after I worked for them officially as an employee and burned out, I left the company as an employee, but I was still in the cult.

[548] I was still in the community.

[549] And I knew I wanted to leave eventually, but I was having a great time and I was growing as a person.

[550] I wanted to stay for a while.

[551] But they were putting a lot of pressure on me to work for them again, because in my eyes, at least, I was becoming a liability because I wasn't directly controlled by them, but I had some influence because I used to work for them.

[552] I was like the protege of the second in command, so I kind of had some status.

[553] I reached out to the cult leader, the founder, because I wanted to write a book with her.

[554] I always wanted to write a book.

[555] I am writing a book about my cult experience, maybe ironically.

[556] But she agreed to write a book with me. But in exchange, without saying it directly, I had to commit my life because that would have given me a lot of status.

[557] And after a lot of pressure, I just decided I had to leave because I couldn't commit my life.

[558] And that was basically the choice to commit your life or leave right now.

[559] Well, this is one of the few cults I feel like I haven't followed the trajectory.

[560] Have they been exposed as one?

[561] Are they still thriving?

[562] Anything happened to them?

[563] Yeah, in 2018, there was a Bloomberg expose that was a source for, and that kind of brought a lot of the negative attention.

[564] The FBI is now investigating them.

[565] The founder was just indicted a few months ago, I think.

[566] There's also a Netflix special that I'm in.

[567] Wait, it's already out?

[568] Last November.

[569] Oh, what's it called?

[570] I got to watch it.

[571] Oh, no, sorry.

[572] It was two November's ago.

[573] Orgasm Inc. Orgasm, Inc. We haven't seen that.

[574] I didn't love the documentary personally, but, you know, it was a complicated story to tell.

[575] You thought it was, what, too sensational?

[576] Yeah, I think they went for kind of the typical sensational story structure.

[577] I think they missed the nuance.

[578] And it might have just been challenging because I think the only people that were willing to talk to them were either really traumatized or men.

[579] It kind of gives like a weird impression because it was a mostly female cult, but I think five of the seven people who speak are men.

[580] Oh, interesting.

[581] What was the ratio?

[582] At least in New York, it was, I think, 6040.

[583] In California, it might have been actually the opposite, but the New York part of it was mostly women.

[584] Oh, man. That's fascinating.

[585] Thank you for sharing that.

[586] Yeah, that was incredible.

[587] How do you feel now?

[588] You've been out of it for a while, I guess.

[589] Do you have a hard time reconciling that you were susceptible to that?

[590] I overall had a positive experience, honestly, even though they did some really bad things.

[591] Right.

[592] Sometimes I think, I wish I didn't have to do something like that.

[593] Like, if I wasn't anxious as a teenager, I probably just would have had a normal life.

[594] It was definitely an adventure.

[595] Right.

[596] Quite a bit of life experience forever.

[597] Well, Ruan, that was.

[598] was incredible.

[599] I appreciate you telling us that.

[600] Thanks for coming on.

[601] Thanks for having me. You don't have a title for your book yet, do you?

[602] Tell us the name of your podcast.

[603] Rwondo Podcasts, and the book is Orgasm a Memoir.

[604] All right, so everyone looked for that.

[605] Well, thank you so much.

[606] Good luck with everything.

[607] Thanks, guys.

[608] Bye.

[609] These are phenomenal.

[610] There's so many.

[611] I didn't even know about this Orgas.

[612] We're not up to date on our talks.

[613] Sorry, we're late.

[614] These have been juicier than anticipated.

[615] They've gone a little longer than we were expecting.

[616] No worries.

[617] I plan to stay in the same vein.

[618] Okay.

[619] Wonderful.

[620] So, Seth, where are you?

[621] I'm currently in Los Angeles, California.

[622] Oh, nice.

[623] Nearby.

[624] All right, so you were involved in a cult.

[625] Please tell us what happened.

[626] Okay.

[627] So when I was 14, I was actually sent away to a cult against my will for two years.

[628] I wasn't able to communicate with my family for the vast majority of the time that I was there.

[629] It's going to feel like I'm dumping around, but it's important for just the context.

[630] We found out years later that the communications that were allowed were done via email and were thus altered so that they could decide what information I was given from my family and what information they felt my family needed to hear from me. Is this a similar situation to like the Paris Hilton thing?

[631] It's exactly that.

[632] Oh my God.

[633] So the staff at my school had opened a previous school 10 years or so before and it had been shut down.

[634] And mind you, I was 14.

[635] I didn't know all these things.

[636] The internet was a baby at this time.

[637] It's like 2007.

[638] And I remember hearing about one of my staff.

[639] members being like, yeah, Paris Hilton went to our program and she was airlifted out of here.

[640] I remember being like, Paris Hilton's cool.

[641] You're just saying cool people's names.

[642] Twelve years later, she's in front of Congress talking about this.

[643] And I have goosebumps, like, no fucking way.

[644] Yeah.

[645] What behavior were you exhibiting that your parents wanted to send you there?

[646] So externally, my behavior had a lot to do with, like, drug use.

[647] At 14, I had done ecstasy.

[648] I had smoked a lot of weed.

[649] I was drinking.

[650] I was stealing.

[651] I had driven a car illegally.

[652] I was just defying a lot of what my parents wanted from me. It also had a lot to do with me being gay.

[653] That wasn't something that I had said out loud.

[654] Sure.

[655] You were having a crisis.

[656] Yeah, to say the least.

[657] Okay, so you did that for two years, 14 to 16.

[658] Was sexuality disgust in there?

[659] Were they like, hey, no one can be gay?

[660] Was that the premise?

[661] Sexuality was off limits completely.

[662] We were only allowed to talk about sexuality in the form of drama, which a lot of times was based in, like, shame, and a lot of the staff would use it against us.

[663] So there were a lot of times where, like, we would do disclosure circles.

[664] There was workshops.

[665] This whole school program is built off of this thing called C -DU, C -E -D -U.

[666] That's the beginning for all of these programs from Paris to mine, Provo Canyon, Discovery Ranch, Carl before I went, like, all these places.

[667] They use that as the incubator of, like, their ideas.

[668] And, like, that's where these, like, shame ideas came from and things like that.

[669] And so I personally went to a school that was supposed to be for 12, like, 18 months.

[670] And they had an IQ threshold.

[671] They, like, specifically wanted to get a hold of people of a certain echelon.

[672] People that they could influence and people that they felt were, like, affluent or important.

[673] I knew I was a bad kid.

[674] I felt that way my whole life.

[675] So I went there with the understanding, like, I'm a bad kid and this is supposed to help me. It became very clear to me, like, this was on a plantation in South Boston, Virginia.

[676] So really beautiful homes on the sprawling area.

[677] Like, it was meant to look really nice.

[678] And it wasn't registered as a mental health institution, specifically for the reason of protecting our reputations so that we could get into colleges.

[679] What with that really meant was, they didn't have to abide under the mental health laws.

[680] Right.

[681] I felt very quickly, this place is really phony.

[682] Everybody here's really fake.

[683] Everybody's putting on this, drink the Kool -Aid, and everything will be fine, and I'm not a Kool -Aid drinker.

[684] I was an obstinate, defiant kid.

[685] It translated really poorly for me while I was there.

[686] We were incentivized in these group attack therapies to invite each other for, like, almost any minor infraction, and to then scream at them or accost them.

[687] And, like, as a group, you were supposed to get in on it.

[688] And that was called Doing Work.

[689] Really quick, the Seedew Foundation, who came up with that?

[690] Where does that come from?

[691] The guy who started, it's been around from, like, 60s or the 70s, but it just became more and more popular throughout, like, the 80s and the 90s.

[692] And then a lot of these troubled teen industry programs are based off of his ideas or their ideas.

[693] All right.

[694] And so this is very cadre system communism where you're incentivized to write each other out and constantly be telling on each other.

[695] So you'll trust nobody.

[696] It becomes really frustrating.

[697] It's at the time, like, I'm a 14 -year -old who's just, like, this feels wrong.

[698] I don't have all these words and all of these things to express why this feels so wrong.

[699] But even the staff were duped.

[700] This is the middle of nowhere, Virginia.

[701] No one's from here.

[702] By the way, none of these people are licensed psychologists.

[703] These weren't people who were qualified to be, like, live -in residential therapy advisors for all of us.

[704] And they had, like, caseloads that were way beyond their means.

[705] And we would be encouraged, and the staff would participate in the shame therapies and in these screaming assaults that they'd have, like, in, like, a suggestion box.

[706] Someone's name found so you could make sure they were in group with you so you can frail the shit out of them.

[707] Oh, my God.

[708] And that was terrifying.

[709] And did you feel uniquely picked on by everyone?

[710] Absolutely.

[711] I was a gay southerner Jew.

[712] I came out three weeks before I got sent to this place in the woods.

[713] There's like a wilderness program that's a prerequisite for a lot of this.

[714] And so I went to that, came out there, then got sent to this program.

[715] It very much was like, why do you keep bringing up that you're gay?

[716] We don't care that you're gay.

[717] You have these other things you need to deal with.

[718] And I'm like, actually, I just came out.

[719] Yeah.

[720] Yeah, like this is a pretty crucial element.

[721] This is what all the other things are built on top of.

[722] Yeah, I think we need to get into this.

[723] Exactly.

[724] But then all of my sexuality was used to shame me. I had one staff member who knew I felt really dirty and disgusting for things that I had done at 14, which weren't bad.

[725] They weren't biblical.

[726] Yes.

[727] She, in one group in front of 30 of my peers, told me, how do you feel?

[728] And I was like, I feel disgusting.

[729] And she was like, that's right.

[730] And if you don't buy into this program, if you don't do what we're all here doing, you're going to end up being a dirty faggot who sucks dick for money.

[731] Oh, my God.

[732] This was a reference to something someone else had said in the group to me. Oh, I'm sure you just feel like a dirty faggot.

[733] And I was like, yes, I do.

[734] And I'm just like, you play along.

[735] Yeah.

[736] Because you can't fight it.

[737] What am I going to do, say I'm not?

[738] So dark.

[739] This is horrible.

[740] That sentence, I've said it in my head like a million times, like a grown woman said to a 14 -year -old boy that, like, if I don't do this program, I don't drink the Kool -Aid, like, that was my future.

[741] Yeah.

[742] Nothing else, just that.

[743] Are they trying to pretend, like, it's school?

[744] Is there, like, math class also?

[745] They marketed themselves as a college preparatory boarding school.

[746] They emphasized a lot on, like, the, if you send your kid here, we'll fix them, and they'll be such a great education.

[747] I was put in isolation, which is out -of -school suspension, and that's their word for it.

[748] For six months, I wasn't allowed to go to school.

[749] So I was, like, held back.

[750] I was set in a room for 12 hours.

[751] day, I had to face forward, security guards sat in the back of the room and I was allowed to raise my hand if I needed to go to the bathroom.

[752] I wasn't allowed to turn my head to look out the window.

[753] I wasn't allowed to turn to look at anybody walking in or out of the room because the women's bathroom was also in this room.

[754] And so I was not allowed to make any type of reference to what was going on.

[755] You're describing like a P -O -W experience.

[756] It's like so fucking wild.

[757] If your parents are only reading edited transmissions from you, how do you get out of this at 16?

[758] What ended up happening was like this was right around my birthday, it was about the 16, 17 month mark.

[759] At this point, I had had my phone calls taken away, which you were given one phone call a month that was monitored.

[760] Someone sat in there and listened to you and turned up the phone call if you became indeclative, which meant me crying or saying what was really going on.

[761] So they had removed my phone call.

[762] It was about three weeks before I was, I was actually kicked out of the program.

[763] Thank God.

[764] Exactly.

[765] And I had called my parents.

[766] They gave me a birthday phone call and I used it to just say everything.

[767] I was like, Mom, it's too far gone.

[768] I can't redeem myself here.

[769] Every group I'm in, I'm annihilated.

[770] I have no interest in building me back up.

[771] I am here as an example.

[772] You guys are wasting your money, which, wow, was this so expensive?

[773] Oh.

[774] We're talking multiple six figures.

[775] People went bankrupt trying to help their children.

[776] This was just a nightmare.

[777] So I got kicked out because I was just so defiant.

[778] And my parents eventually at some point said, like, we can't keep paying you if you're going to put me in this room.

[779] We've done this for six months.

[780] Yeah.

[781] Are you kidding me?

[782] So I got kicked out and sent to another program in Utah.

[783] That's a similar program?

[784] So Utah's the hub of all of this.

[785] Mormons run this whole industry, and the hubs of Mormons are obviously in Utah.

[786] I'm not saying all Mormons are bad.

[787] I'm saying 90 % of Troubled teen industries are run by Mormon.

[788] So I was sent to a different program.

[789] And at this program, when I would tell them about what the other program was like, because the new one was registered, they were horrified.

[790] Okay, so it was a big improvement.

[791] It was a noticeable difference.

[792] I felt like there was way more structure and a lot more rules about why and how versus just the dogma and you'll die if you don't do what we say.

[793] At the first school, we had this thing called smooching.

[794] At the end of every day, we were all supposed to like, lay together and touch each other and like spoon staff included it was bizarre because it was so manipulative you'd stay at this like heightened aggressive angry attacking like nobody's safe ever and then at night they'd be like now cut your friends and coddle them and everything's gonna be okay and we're all in this together and like staff are touching you it's like beating a dog and then inviting the dog up under your lap home syndrome that's how we're like building it yeah so when i described the attack therapies with the smushing alone to the new school they were like that's not legal staff can't cut you i just was so brainwashed at that time i like to see that i sipped the kool -aid i didn't really drink the kool -ate i did what i had to to like survive i think ultimately what protected me and the reason i get to be like a normal well -rounded successful person in my 30s compared to the unfortunate percentage of people who have committed suicide or have died from overdoses from the school is the fact that i inadvertently put myself in isolation i think the fact that i missed out on so much of the program, the workshops.

[795] I only got to go through two of the five workshops.

[796] And the third workshop is the one that apparently breaks your brain.

[797] Well, also, like, I think a lot of people listening and be like, yeah, that wouldn't work on me. This would work on everyone over a long enough period of time.

[798] Like, no one's conviction is so strong when your community around you is all doing one thing.

[799] You can only resist that for so long.

[800] It is the reality you live in.

[801] So you have to contend with that.

[802] You live in a one mile bubble.

[803] You are never not monitored.

[804] And everyone that you trust, the focus is either on me or it's on someone else.

[805] So if I don't want the focus on me, I have to kill one of my friends.

[806] Yes.

[807] Yes, it's hunger games.

[808] If you didn't talk in group, someone would be like, why aren't you talking?

[809] What are you hiding?

[810] Everyone would dog pal on you.

[811] And then everyone would encourage it because, well, as long as we're yelling at him, my ass, say, sorry, Charlie.

[812] Everyone's just trying to protect themselves.

[813] So did you stay at the Utah one all the way to adulthood?

[814] No, because I was sent away at 14, this full experience was two years.

[815] So I spent the vast majority at the first program, and then like the last four or five months, I was at this Utah program, which because it wasn't so mind -fucky, I could manipulate and play my way through.

[816] I just understood you climb the ladder, muck the stalls, feed the cow.

[817] It was a ranch.

[818] So I was able to like navigate that one a little bit better and get out at 16.

[819] When you got home, did the bad behavior continue or did it stop?

[820] I'm putting bad in quotes.

[821] The cries for help, did they continue?

[822] I guess I could also say.

[823] The cries for help had different lyrics.

[824] Okay.

[825] When I came back, Carlbrook is the original school.

[826] I can say it's been shut down.

[827] It doesn't exist anymore.

[828] But I still lived what I call the Carlbrook machine, which is just like my mental need to process things through the lens of the people there and what they wanted from me. And so once I got out, I definitely had a Stockholm syndrome.

[829] I first got home, even after the other program where I was like, I have to go back and prove to them that I can finish this program, that I'm just as good as all those other kids and like, I'm not going to die.

[830] And I can do it.

[831] And my mom was like, you're nuts.

[832] A, we're not sending you back there and be like, what is going on?

[833] Like, why would you want to go back?

[834] What is your resentment level towards them and what's their guilt level about this whole experience?

[835] It's been 15 years in February when I got out.

[836] It took about 10 years of me processing before I was able to be honest with my parents about what had to happen.

[837] My father's very empathetic.

[838] But if you ask them today, my dad will tell you we had to do something and we did something.

[839] If you ask my mom, she feels terrible.

[840] I harbor a lot of guilt in the fact that, like, my parents needed to do this.

[841] You felt you put them in a position.

[842] Yeah, into such a corner that they were so desperate.

[843] Which at 14, I didn't have that conscience.

[844] Yeah, kid doesn't do that, by the way.

[845] Like, you didn't.

[846] You were a kid.

[847] Right.

[848] But nonetheless, like, I felt a lot of disappointment in myself because I know my parents financially took a big hit to try to protect me. And I know that my parents did all of the stuff out of love and affection and, like, care for me and belief in me in my success.

[849] And I know that ultimately, like, sharing with them that what they did was probably one of the worst thing that's ever happened to me in my life.

[850] Feels really shitty.

[851] Even now, like, you can tell them a little bit steamy about it.

[852] You will be for the rest of your life.

[853] It's trauma.

[854] The people that are there to protect you, put you in a situation where you were harmed.

[855] I 100 % forgive them because I saw my peers, many of them have died, have overdosed, and did not have the caring, loving parents that I did.

[856] They were sent away because their parents didn't want to raise them because they were difficult.

[857] They were rich and they just didn't want to deal with it.

[858] My family was none of that.

[859] My parents wanted to protect me from myself.

[860] Yeah.

[861] Yeah.

[862] Fuck, man. It's just a rough situation all around.

[863] And then also 15 years ago, the vibe was different.

[864] You'd see these people on daytime talk shows and they're like success stories.

[865] Popular culture is kind of supporting that this is a good solution.

[866] No one's speaking out yet at that point.

[867] No. Hearing Perry Silden talk about it, I know that she's been on the podcast with y 'all and talked briefly about all of that within her long interview.

[868] And it makes me so happy to know not something like that would happen to her.

[869] more people like us exist that industry still exists the people are still profiting millions of dollars off of insecure parents who just want to help their kids and it takes somebody like her giving somebody like me or whatever a platform to tell that story so that like maybe we can fix this stuff we could stop doing this to children yeah absolutely Seth I'm very sorry that you had that experience so unfair I appreciate that we appreciate you sharing and I do think it will help people to know more about it.

[870] Well, as she was saying, the numbers are outrageous.

[871] There's like tens of thousands of kids who've gone through these programs.

[872] And yes, just to not feel alone.

[873] The comfort she gave you is that you weren't alone.

[874] That's why fucking AA works.

[875] Exactly.

[876] There's community.

[877] Well, Seth, thanks so much for sharing that with us.

[878] Absolutely.

[879] I appreciate you both for having me on and letting me share my story.

[880] All right.

[881] We'll be well.

[882] Likewise.

[883] Bye.

[884] Wow.

[885] That was heavy.

[886] That's so sad.

[887] I know.

[888] What the fuck.

[889] What is wrong with like Who could be doing this to children?

[890] Unfortunately, you have two options.

[891] You've got to either chalk the whole thing up to the, there's someone evil who wants to hurt kids versus more likely, in my opinion.

[892] Someone really believes this works, and they're wrong, which is even trickier to confront.

[893] Well, it should just be illegal.

[894] We can have regulations that make these things illegal.

[895] Good for Paris.

[896] No shit.

[897] Ow, my knee.

[898] Do you have a bad knee?

[899] Yeah.

[900] Oh.

[901] Hello?

[902] Can you hear us?

[903] I just punched Monica in the knee and it turns out she has a bad knee.

[904] I didn't even know.

[905] Is it rosy?

[906] Yes.

[907] Okay.

[908] That E. I could go anyway.

[909] It's because all the rosy, I .E, was taken.

[910] I was like, I got to be unique in some way.

[911] Okay, great.

[912] One of my cardinal complaints about the English language is I before E except for after C, but that's not even close to the truth.

[913] There's so many examples.

[914] Yeah, it's a lie.

[915] One of the many lies.

[916] Well, it's a cult.

[917] It's a cult.

[918] Yes, this English language.

[919] Right.

[920] Okay.

[921] So, so you, You have very exciting eye makeup on.

[922] Oh, thank you.

[923] And then you have angel wings behind you.

[924] So part of my journey through healing religious trauma has been there's a lot of cosplay, makeup, that sort of thing.

[925] This was from a demon cosplay that I just ended up putting on the back of my streaming setup here.

[926] It's very dramatic.

[927] Pretty demon.

[928] Those are kind of like white feathers.

[929] I'm going to try to not get derailed on cosplay because I think we need a prompt about cosplay because I'm so intrigued and dumb about.

[930] what that means and what people do.

[931] Okay, cult.

[932] Where are you from?

[933] Where did this occur?

[934] I am a pastor's daughter from the Seventh -day Adventist organization or what I refer to online in my content as a culture for legal reasons.

[935] Tell me about Seventh -day Adventists.

[936] Seventh -day Adventists originate in kind of the same place with a cult of personality, which is William Miller.

[937] From William Miller, you go from Adventist, the guy who started Jehovah's Witness.

[938] He was former Adventist preacher.

[939] It's all under the same umbrella of William Miller back in the day.

[940] From upstate New York as well.

[941] With Adventists, that is actually Michigan.

[942] And it's all from a spot called Battle Creek.

[943] And there's a prophetess, a lot about how the government's going to hunt us down for our beliefs.

[944] I basically grew up believing that my family was going to be murdered in front of me someday.

[945] We were going to have to run for the hills.

[946] So Battle Creek, Michigan, home of the cereal brands.

[947] Kellogg is one of the founders.

[948] of Adventism.

[949] Oh, wow.

[950] There's a lot we could go into with just Kellogg alone, which includes eugenics, female genital mutilation.

[951] There was a device he invented to shoot about four gallons of hot water up.

[952] Yeah, he was way into enemas, right?

[953] He had like a spa retreat where he thought he could cure people of their common maladies.

[954] Yes, so Adventism and sanitariums go way back.

[955] Did you see the movie about him?

[956] Sir Anthony Hopkins played him, right?

[957] I haven't seen the movie, but that would probably be a very good casting.

[958] You could play a creepy guy pretty well.

[959] So Adventism is one of the ones that went almost like an MLM route.

[960] Most people would not see something wrong.

[961] Their basis is their health message.

[962] So people look at it and they're like, oh, that's a good thing, right?

[963] So I was raised on a lot of very odd dietary programs, restrictions.

[964] Of course, no alcohol stuff, no coffee.

[965] protein was quite often replaced with soy and tofu, which causes a lot of long -term health issues.

[966] Kellogg's obsession was the stool.

[967] He was obsessed with having a big, fluffy stool.

[968] Yeah, so they're very big on veganism, vegetarianism.

[969] So for myself, I'm about fourth -generation Adventist, at least on my mom's side.

[970] My dad was brought into it through an evangelistic series.

[971] They both met at like an Adventist school.

[972] Adventism is a contained environment.

[973] They have their own hospitals.

[974] They've got their own educational system.

[975] You can exist within Adventism, essentially, and never really go outside of it.

[976] Like Amish or something?

[977] Practically, however, Adventists are very performative.

[978] To look at them, you wouldn't know.

[979] They do exist out and about in the world, but they are very much, in their minds, the protagonists of the planet, as most of these organizations think they are the main characters.

[980] So to them, they'll go out there and essentially you can't work on Saturday.

[981] So you get all of these prescriptions for how to get out of tests, how to talk to employers, things like that.

[982] There's a lot that's closed off for you employment -wise because you can't work on Saturday or do a whole bunch of stuff.

[983] So Adventism keeps to itself as much as possible, but it's big money.

[984] This is one of like the big earners in terms of religions.

[985] Where are they primarily concentrated?

[986] Are there big pockets?

[987] Loma Linda is one, Walla Walla, Washington's another, of course, Michigan.

[988] They show up in things like Time Magazine for the Blue Zones.

[989] Aventists are known as one of the organizations that lives for a very long time due to their health message is what they claim.

[990] But if you actually look at a Blue Zone, it's lots of money, very warm climate, access to medical care.

[991] And so there's a little bit of confirmation bias in what they sell you with a Blue Zone.

[992] That's so true.

[993] I like you pushing on Blue Zone.

[994] People are obsessed with Blue Zone.

[995] There's some stuff I could say about that having been raised in.

[996] And when I was a student, I was put through their educational system, especially in university.

[997] The nurses all knew us at the local hospital.

[998] They'd be getting fluids into us immediately because we would all be low on vitamins, nutrition.

[999] We were all malnourished.

[1000] Oh, wow.

[1001] How did they deal with that reality that they have an express diet that's going to result in peak health, but they regularly have to send their kids to the hospital to get infusions of vitamins?

[1002] Like, how would they write that off or dismiss that fact?

[1003] It's something that they don't necessarily acknowledge.

[1004] Because Adventism, and as a pastor's kid, I can tell you this, masking is the big thing.

[1005] It's all about presentation, and you don't really want to tell other people you're having health issues because then you're not right with God.

[1006] So usually what happens is it's not going to be discussed.

[1007] You're not going to be open about it.

[1008] Students would be with each other, but on a higher level, you're not going to talk about it.

[1009] So that's kind of how it'll continue.

[1010] Okay, so there's a ton of food.

[1011] things.

[1012] And then what are the other kind of restrictions?

[1013] I don't know if you've seen these shiny happy people thing that happened with the Dugger family.

[1014] Their whole thing was on the learning channel.

[1015] They pumped out a bunch of kids.

[1016] And they got their stuff from a guy, I believe his name is Bill Gothard.

[1017] And Gothard is one of the darlings of the Adventist church.

[1018] His thing was the umbrella model of Christian marriage.

[1019] So consent is not exactly a thing.

[1020] Your body is owned by your and then to your husband.

[1021] They do an umbrella.

[1022] God, father, wife, kids.

[1023] And then if it's the opposite, it's Satan, wife, husband, kids.

[1024] Interesting.

[1025] So then dating, I presume, is completely off the table.

[1026] Leave room for Jesus type of dating.

[1027] But a lot of my friends, myself included, you get married very young.

[1028] Does your dad pick your husband?

[1029] So Adventism, it's not arranged marriage.

[1030] It's conversion therapy.

[1031] That's the one that Adventists are big on.

[1032] They're one of the first and possibly the, first religious organization to fund conversion therapy.

[1033] To make gay folk straight.

[1034] Yeah.

[1035] But conversion therapy goes also under the umbrella of you're starting to deconvert and bringing you back.

[1036] So part of how I got out of the whole situation, I'm married another pastor's kid.

[1037] So essentially, some of the timeline for myself is that my mom passed away under mysterious circumstances as a pastor's wife.

[1038] Oh, boy.

[1039] That started a deconversion process for me. However, I married back into it.

[1040] So their family put in a lot of effort to try to get me back in.

[1041] So the person I married, there was some non -consensual stuff happening.

[1042] Social media was basically the shield.

[1043] At the time, I was telling people, if you don't see me post in 72 hours, call somebody.

[1044] 2020 was a rough year.

[1045] Basically, at the time, he was saying things like, I'm the only thing standing between you and disappearing into conversion therapy.

[1046] Your husband.

[1047] Yeah.

[1048] A lot of people wouldn't look at Adventism from the outside as being that intense.

[1049] However, from the back end of it, my side of the family and the family I married into, they're high up, at least in the Canadian side of Adventism.

[1050] I took it very seriously when I started getting that messaging from him because with what happened with my mom and the way that my dad's employers reacted to that.

[1051] It was creepy and very much like a, oh, no, I'm in an organization that has a lot of money and doesn't treat women well.

[1052] What was your journey mentally?

[1053] At any point, did you buy in fully?

[1054] When did it start cracking?

[1055] I was fully bought into this because I was born into it.

[1056] Sure.

[1057] I was dedicated as a baby, baptized into it.

[1058] When you grow up in those organizations as a woman, you're very much the caregiver and an eldest daughter, so you take care of the family.

[1059] So I got into some psychology program stuff because I wanted to be a counselor.

[1060] And then I started to realize I can't be an effective counselor and an Adventist that started really clashing.

[1061] I'm supposed to be converting people.

[1062] But all of what I'm learning about ethics says otherwise.

[1063] So when I started getting out of that, I had a friend who works in the oil field because I'm out in Alberta.

[1064] He would be gone for a few months at a time.

[1065] And I was like, hey, could I just like crash at your place for a little bit?

[1066] But at one point, I just didn't go back home because certain types of people in a relationship as they start losing control, they get weird.

[1067] They start doing things that are just trying to get control back.

[1068] So I started posting all the time on TikTok and Insta and basically being like, if I do disappear, something happens to me along those lines because when my mom passed, no one asked questions.

[1069] And was your father largely emotionless about her passing?

[1070] Well, that was the weird thing about.

[1071] that is I was at an Adventist University and it was my third year.

[1072] I got a call from him very early in the morning where he was sobbing about how she had passed and how she had, in his words, suffocated in her sleep.

[1073] Keeping in mind, she was about 43.

[1074] Also, you don't suffocate in your sleep on your own.

[1075] Unless you're in like a crazy drug user.

[1076] Well, that's what he was claiming is that her pain medication because she was in a lot of chronic pain.

[1077] However, your central nervous system, and I talked to a few medical experts since, they'll tell you that.

[1078] that'll still roll you over.

[1079] So when I showed up, I'm fully expecting him to be a mess.

[1080] But for the week I was there, I flew home the same day.

[1081] When I walked in the door, all of her journals had been collected and he was hauling them out in a garbage bag.

[1082] Whoa.

[1083] Basically telling me that she had written that he'd done this, that, and the other.

[1084] And he didn't want the police finding it as evidence.

[1085] That's weird.

[1086] But at that point, I still trusted him.

[1087] And then for the week I was there before the funeral, it was like deadpan, nothing had happened.

[1088] And normal.

[1089] And then as her family started showing up, siblings, that's when the tears started.

[1090] He can cry on cue.

[1091] I've seen him do it for sermons.

[1092] This is life on planet Earth for people.

[1093] It's so scary.

[1094] Oh, this is scary.

[1095] Yeah.

[1096] And I will disclaimer, this was a few years back.

[1097] I've been through therapy, all that stuff.

[1098] I know it sounds very heavy.

[1099] You were born into this.

[1100] Yes, man. It's like you're playing the lottery when you come out of somebody.

[1101] Like, what household are you going to land in?

[1102] And it could be insane.

[1103] Yeah, I've thought about that before where I was like, why did I get the doomsday parents, the conspiracy theory parents, lucky me. But I eventually got my hands on her autopsy report.

[1104] And what the autopsy said obviously did not align with what he said.

[1105] But of course, like immediately, as I say accidental suffocation, you say that shouldn't be a thing for a grown woman who is mobile, even on heavy pain meds.

[1106] The autopsy says something completely different.

[1107] Nobody questioned anything, not her siblings, not all the employers.

[1108] And so at her funeral, her friends were not there.

[1109] It was all these guys from the SDA conference.

[1110] I look around and it's just like men.

[1111] It's like handmade's tale.

[1112] It felt very dystopian.

[1113] And then within a couple of months, my father had moved on to dating somebody else, had married them.

[1114] They're much younger.

[1115] I have a younger brother.

[1116] He called them us 2 .0.

[1117] He basically got a more functioning family for the pastor's commercial that they sell.

[1118] Then he was promoted to working in the capital of Canada after that situation.

[1119] So as I'm trying to get out of my situation where I'm experiencing not a safe relationship, I've got him plus our dads, plus the whole conference behind them.

[1120] And so I was like, oh dear, this could turn out really terribly for me, hence me going through social media.

[1121] and being like, hey, I exist, anybody out there and started talking about it.

[1122] Wow.

[1123] And so you stayed with your friend.

[1124] He was drilling oil.

[1125] Oh, right.

[1126] You got to have some alone time unbrain -washed, stop receiving the signals.

[1127] Yeah.

[1128] After my mom passed, I started to very gradually move away from the church, and it started to become a trigger point for me. And during the time that I was married, I basically stopped attending and was really pulling away.

[1129] And then we were in the same city as his parents.

[1130] So we had a lot of things, including his father attempted to make us do marriage counseling with him.

[1131] He's a pastor.

[1132] He's not qualified to do that.

[1133] It's also his dad, for Christ's sake.

[1134] We're a very controlling environment.

[1135] And we actually had somebody from the youth group come into our home and then report back to the youth pastor about what was going on in the house.

[1136] According to them, I was an alcoholic because I had a bottle of wine that I used for cooking pasta.

[1137] sauce.

[1138] There's a lot that could be laid out, could probably keep you for hours.

[1139] How'd you get a divorce?

[1140] That is actually still being processed.

[1141] I've been separated for a while, but because of COVID, everything's backed up.

[1142] But they let you, for the first little bit, it was tough.

[1143] But fortunately, because of social media, they wanted to distance themselves from me as fast as possible.

[1144] Because I became the fallen woman.

[1145] According to them, I met one of his co -workers and And they claimed that he told them I hexed him with COVID.

[1146] They claim a lot of spiritual warfare stuff where essentially I'm a witch.

[1147] But then you're dressing up like ones.

[1148] You're kind of playing into their hands.

[1149] Lean in.

[1150] You should lean in.

[1151] I bet that's your way of empowering yourself.

[1152] You should become a witch.

[1153] I like witches.

[1154] I absolutely played into it.

[1155] I think for a little bit I wrote that like good Christian girl to pagan pipeline.

[1156] Right.

[1157] But it definitely played into that shield because Adventism is all about image.

[1158] They want to look as professional as possible.

[1159] They want to look as put together, competent, smart.

[1160] Like, it's all about selling you the lifestyle.

[1161] So Adventism didn't go the route of, like, child marriage or anything like that that would set you off.

[1162] They're trying to sell you almost in the same way.

[1163] And MLM would sell you essential oils.

[1164] Oh, man. Well, look, I guess I would hope for you that the gift you have now is that you can talk to people who have gone through what you, have gone through and you can comfort people and you have spidey senses now and you are going to be intuitive and helpful.

[1165] Funny you should say that because I ended up building a whole life and platform around that concept or essentially a community of deconstruction that also became like a big part of the social media side is a whole bunch of other people are deconstructing from this stuff at the same time.

[1166] Inside that organization, they'll tell you that you need their community.

[1167] The world's out to get you.

[1168] If you go out there, your whole life is going to fall apart.

[1169] And it will feel like that for a bit.

[1170] It's going to feel awful.

[1171] You're going to feel disoriented.

[1172] All alone in the world, the scariest feeling you can have.

[1173] It is.

[1174] It's very scary.

[1175] And what I tell people is essentially, if you're in that feeling of deconstructing your questioning stuff, you have to get past that time period that they're counting on.

[1176] You're going to feel so awful that you come back just for the comfort of what you know.

[1177] You have to get past that point.

[1178] because there's a whole world of people waiting for you, waiting to interact with you that are going to love what you do, that are going to want to be part of your life.

[1179] You've got to get past the drop of exit.

[1180] Yeah.

[1181] If someone that's listening can relate to this and wants to find you, how could they do that?

[1182] They can find me under Rosie Quartz just about anywhere.

[1183] With Rosie, like the R -O -S -E -I and then Quartz, yeah.

[1184] Quartz like Quartz Crystal.

[1185] Yes.

[1186] Okay, great.

[1187] Thank you for sharing that.

[1188] What a story?

[1189] Honestly, I just want to say thank you for the opportunity to talk about it because whenever I can, I just try to put out there, hey, there is this organization that you might be vulnerable to because they intentionally target people who are struggling with health, physical or mental, and also lack of community.

[1190] So this is something to be on guard for and be careful of.

[1191] Well, thank you.

[1192] Wow.

[1193] That was insanely informative.

[1194] I wish you a ton of luck.

[1195] I hope a lot of people find you and keep.

[1196] hear what you're saying.

[1197] Thank you very much.

[1198] Okay, take care.

[1199] Wow, man, I feel so lucky.

[1200] Yeah.

[1201] I do think many people walk around thinking, I can never be me. I would never, and it's all circumstance.

[1202] Everyone's way more like their parents and they want to acknowledge.

[1203] You know, you're just brought home to a house and then they tell you what reality is and it is until some crazy intervention happens to break that.

[1204] And most of the time it doesn't.

[1205] Well, this is heavy.

[1206] Heavy, but I'm really glad we did it.

[1207] Yeah, me too.

[1208] We hit it all.

[1209] Yeah, we really hit it all.

[1210] I love you.

[1211] I'm so glad you're not in a cult.

[1212] Yeah.

[1213] I'm in one, so it's kind of tricky.

[1214] No. No, because there's multiple definitions of it, and one of it is high controlling.

[1215] That was all four of these, and yours is not.

[1216] So it doesn't qualify.

[1217] It's not high controlling.

[1218] Yeah.

[1219] There's also no charismatic leader, by the way.

[1220] Yeah, yeah.

[1221] There's no charismatic leader at the top either.

[1222] You can't elevate.

[1223] There's no. status to be gained.

[1224] Oh, all right.

[1225] Well, I love you.

[1226] Love you.

[1227] Do you want to sing a tune or something?

[1228] We don't have a theme song.

[1229] Oh.

[1230] We don't have a thing song for this new show, so here I go, go, go.

[1231] We're going to ask some random questions, and with the help of our cherries, we'll get some suggestion.

[1232] On the fly a rhyme dish.

[1233] On the fly a rhyme dish, enjoy.