Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation

This week’s guest is Jess Rothschild, creator of documentary podcast "Cult of Body & Soul," which dives into the history of cult fitness brand Soulcycle. She explains the spinning company's origins, how the workout environment was engineered to create an almost religious experience, and why instructors chosen for their devoted followings and special charisma made it a cultural phenomenon.

They discuss the social hierarchies that formed inside and outside of class, the mysticism infused into the culture, and what she herself loved about it--and how the corporate takeover of the brand changed everything.

SOURCES

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Episode 19: Lola Blanc & Meagan Elizabeth interview Elana Auerbach, former follower of sexual wellness company OneTaste--elsewhere deemed the Orgasm Cult--in its early years. Elana discusses being the founder's right hand woman as the program developed, and how the sexual practice involving stimulating a woman's genitals evolved into what's now called Orgasmic Meditation. They discuss how Elana came to center her life around the founder, how she was manipulated, and what snapped her out of it.

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Survivor's of Larry Ray's sex cult Felicia and Daniel discuss how they came to meet Larry, how he leveraged his memory and connections to craft an image of authority, how Larry gained control of their lives under the guise of helping them, when the manipulation elevated into sexual abuse and violence, and how they're doing now that Larry is going to jail for the harm he has caused.

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This week’s guest is Theo Pratt, survivor of Gloriavale, an isolated Christian cult hidden deep in rural New Zealand, and author of Unveiled: A Story of Surviving Gloriavale. She’ll talk about being raised on the strictly controlled commune where people were assigned new names, women wore identical dresses and head coverings, and children weren’t taught the real days of the week—or even where they were in the world.

Theo shares about the leader Neville Cooper’s self-proclaimed divine authority, how “smacking ladies” kept the kids in line—and guards kept the compound controlled, and her rebellio...

Renee DiResta, professor and author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality, joins the show again to dive deeper into disinformation, propaganda, and "pseudo-events," or manufactured controversies and news stories.

She explains why it’s so difficult to tell fact from fiction online, how propagandists stoke real, often legitimate tensions to create division, how American politicians are amplifying false information instead of shutting it down, and possible policies that could help reduce our culty social media silos.

SOURCES

Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality

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This week’s guest is Renee DiResta, professor, and author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality. In part one this week, she talks to Lola and Meagan about propaganda, disinformation vs. misinformation, and how social media algorithms push us all into highly individualized, “bespoke” realities.

They discuss how she became interested in this topic after social media algorithms started suggesting anti-vaxxer content to her, how rage bait and other emotionally charged material spreads faster, and why social media makes it seem like other people have more extreme views than the majority of them actual...

This week, Lola and Meagan continue their conversation with Mike and Abbi Prussack, former members of Meagan’s childhood church, the 2x2s. In part 2, they walk the girls through the abuse crisis that has shaken the group in recent years and the long-standing patterns that allowed the harm to continue. Mike and Abbi explain how church leadership handled reports, why victims felt they had nowhere to turn, and how secrecy and obedience has shaped the culture for generations.

They also discuss the FBI investigation, the community’s response, and what it has been like to help mode...

This week, Lola and Meagan talk with Mike and Abbi Prussack, former members of Meagan’s childhood church, the 2x2s, also known as The Truth or The Way. The couple, who now help moderate the Ex-2x2 Facebook community, share what it was like growing up in a secretive religious group with no name, no building, and strict rules about who could be “in.”

They open up about meeting and marrying within the church, the single question that shattered their faith, and how leaving forced them to rebuild their identities from scratch.

Next week, part t...

This week, researcher Tim Squirrel joins Lola & Meagan to break down the manosphere: incels, redpill, MGTOW, and the differences between some of the misogynistic subcultures in the online world of men. They discuss how isolation can leave boys vulnerable to harmful internet communities, and how the algorithm can radicalize young people looking for identity.

From Andrew Tate to Jordan Peterson, Tim shares why and how hyper-masculine spaces thrive, touting themselves as self-help programs or advocating for withdrawing from society altogether. They chat about why these communities can also be bad for the people inside them, whether Lola ha...

In part 2, Sarma Melngailis, subject of the docuseries Bad Vegan and author of The Girl with the Duck Tattoo, tells Lola & Meagan how Mr. Fox consumed her time, overwhelmed her with information, and dangled promises of financial freedom that was always JUST around the corner as a way to get her to send him more and more money.

She’ll share about the fabricated online personas he created as part of the manipulation, how he always knew things it seemed like he couldn’t have known, and the tactics he used to keep her in a constant stat...

In part 1 with guest Sarma Melngailis, subject of the docuseries Bad Vegan and author of The Girl with the Duck Tattoo, Sarma shares about her life as the owner of a successful vegan restaurant in New York, how she met the man who called himself Mr. Fox on Twitter when he seemed to know her friend Alec Baldwin, her first impressions of Mr. Fox, and some of the initial red flags she missed.
They discuss the way he slowly wormed his way into her life, how he first started asking for money in a way that seemed innocuous at f...

This week, the girls are joined by Arabelle Sicardi, writer, image theorist, and author of The House of Beauty: Lessons from the Image Industry. Lola and Meagan confess the cosmetic procedures they've each had, and Arabelle explores how the beauty industry preys on our deepest fears, giving us a false sense of control and training us to worship ideals that are impossible to reach. They reflect on the high rates of plastic surgery in Utah and the LDS church, the gendered differences between the beauty industry and biohacking, and the relationship of beauty to power.

Arabelle breaks do...

This week, the girls are joined by Anthony Cesar Duncan, an artist, mental health advocate, and survivor of ChatGPT psychosis. Anthony opens up about his descent into a psychotic episode, led by an unlikely new cult figure: ChatGPT. He describes how his episode began innocently enough, how the platform’s responses started to amplify his delusions and isolate him from his loved ones, and how quickly the line blurred between reality and the AI’s suggestions. What started as curiosity became obsession—and spiraled into a full-blown mental health crisis.

Anthony takes us inside the mindset of someone...

Aaron Goldenberg, actor, comedian, and (hilarious) content creator, joins Lola and Meagan to talk about being gay as a Christian child, what it was like learning Bill Gothard’s IBLP homeschool curriculum as a boy, and how his parents discovered his queerness and sent him to conversion therapy.

He talks about Exodus International, a now-disbanded “ex-gay” Christian ministry that taught that you could heal your gayness (until its president apologized to the gay community and said it didn’t work), doubling down on his belief that he could force himself to be straight, and how getting sober finally...

Journalist Sarah Stankorb comes on the show to talk about her book, Disobedient Women, and the deep dive she did on why a series of evangelical women in America began to leave their communities as the internet came into prominence. They discuss patriarchal teachings within cultures like the Quiverfull movement, including stories like Vyckie Garrison’s, who was pressured into having repeated pregnancies that defied her doctors and put her life at risk.

They also dive into figures like Bill Gothard, who built the IBLP curricula and created a system of mini-cults across the country, the many st...

Guests Erika Lantz and Elin Lantz Lesser join to discuss season 3 of their investigative podcast The Turning, which follows the journey of a young woman named Lindsay, a former member of a Christian group in Minnesota called River Road Fellowship. They talk about the background of the leader Victor Bernard, how Lindsay’s parents moved the family to the cult compound, and what it was like living there—with rapture drills that required the members to never venture far from the compound, a massive bonfire designed to destroy the members’ attachments to their pasts, and other forms of strict contro...

Journalist Jane Borden joins the girls to discuss her book Cults Like Us, a gripping investigation into how cultic thinking is woven into the fabric of American life. Jane delves into the radical roots of early Protestant settlers, how the deep-rooted American mythology of a strong rebel cowboy who can save us from the bad guys makes us more susceptible to demagogues and authoritarians, and why pronatalism is just another form of doomsdayism.
They talk about how fear of the end of the world, fear of not being good enough, and fear of “the other” influence us. They disc...

Megan Elizabeth Cox–not to be confused with our Meagan Elizabeth–shares how she first started Gwen Shamblin’s weight loss program as a child, when her mom began listening to the cassette tapes in the 90s. She opens up about what it was like growing up in a family that was fixated on weight loss, how it felt meeting Shamblin, the high-haired woman behind the voice, and how the program evolved into the Remnant Fellowship, a full-fledged church centered around skinniness as righteousness.
Megan tells the girls about the level of control the church had over her eating...

Journalist Claire Hoffman joins us again, this time to discuss her new book Sister, Sinner: the unbelievable true story of Aimee Semple McPherson, a glamorous Pentecostal preacher who pioneered entertainment evangelism. McPherson was so famous in the 1920s she could have been a Kardashian.
Claire talks about how the early televangelist used theatrics and mass media to build an empire around her preaching–only to mysteriously disappear in 1926, leading to one of the most notorious court cases of the time. The girls unpack early 20th century fame, faith, scandal, and the dangers of worshipping cultural icons.

SO...

In Part 1 of our interview with journalist Claire Hoffman, Claire shares what it was like growing up in an Iowa trailer park community built around the Transcendental Meditation (or TM) movement and its charismatic leader, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi–whose followers included The Beatles. Claire shares what the daily routine was like in the TM community, how it felt believing every adult she knew could levitate, and the powerful mystique of Maharishi.
Plus, she tells how the fall of the Berlin Wall and her subscription to Cosmopolitan magazine helped lead to her eventual awakening about the guru being a me...

Attorney Carol Merchasin didn’t set out to expose cults, but after investigating allegations about a high-control Buddhist organization and discovering that the abuse had run more rampant than she’d imagined, she became a lawyer and focused her practice on getting justice for survivors of cults and abusive groups.

Carol discusses the legal ins and outs of suing cults and spiritual leaders, where American law stands in recognizing coercion and human trafficking, and why the differences in ideologies between high-control groups really don’t matter. Plus: the patterns and red flags she’s learned to spot, why spir...

Artist and writer Akina Cox returns to share more about her experience growing up in the Unification Church (also known as the Moonies), its physical punishment rituals, and where the church stands now. The girls then transition from the topic of her particular cult to a discussion on the cult-like patterns of the current American political landscape, and how to approach political disagreements with loved ones.

Akina also reflects on her article for Salon, where she explores how the Trump administration employs many of the same tactics used by Reverend Moon, and how high-control groups tend to...

Artist and writer Akina Cox shares about her childhood growing up in the Unification Church, also known as the Moonies. They discuss the background of the church and its late leader Reverend Moon, how her parents both joined after hitchhiking in the 70s, and what it was like growing up in the group.

She shares how it felt participating in a mass wedding ceremony, moving to the border of North and South Korea, and the stark contrast between Reverend Moon’s lavish lifestyle and the unpaid labor demanded of members. Plus, how going to college sparked her fi...

Trust Me is the podcast that pulls back the curtain on cults, high-control groups and the psychology of belief. Hosted by cult survivors Lola Blanc and Meagan Elizabeth, the show features raw, first-hand accounts from people who’ve been manipulated, love-bombed and pulled into systems of control—and lived to tell the tale.

Each week, Lola and Meagan talk to people who’ve escaped, those still inside and the experts to unpack how extreme belief works. Listen to voices from inside the illusion and the truth that waited on the other side.

Trust Me joins the Ex...

Trust Me has joined Exactly Right Media. Hosts Lola Blanc & Meagan Elizabeth will be back with new episodes on Wednesday, July 30th.

You’re a teenage girl in the late 60s, bouncing between communes, when a charismatic man and his group of young women welcome you with open arms. You were looking for a family, and now you’ve found one. In part one of an incredible interview, Dianne Lake, aka “Snake,” and her co-author Deborah Herman discuss growing up in 1960s counter-culture, the dark side of the sexual revolution, and what it was like becoming the younge...

Trust Me has joined Exactly Right Media. Hosts Lola Blanc & Meagan Elizabeth will be back with new episodes on Wednesday, July 30th.

End time prophecies? Memorizing the bible? Required church vacations your family can't afford? Snap Judgment host and creator Glynn Washington shares his experiences growing up in the apocalyptic religion the Worldwide Church of God. He tells the girls about believing the end of the world was imminent, the white supremacist roots of the group and how he was forbidden from dating outside of his race, and the book that began to change his thinking. Or...

Trust Me has joined Exactly Right Media. Hosts Lola Blanc & Meagan Elizabeth will be back with new episodes on Wednesday, July 30th.

What do you model your life after? For producer, actor, and former supermodel Hoyt Richards, it was the teachings of a charming man from Nantucket who spoke about the impending apocalypse and a distant star named Arcturus. Hoyt shares how he was indoctrinated into the Eternal Values cult as his modeling career was taking off, what he describes as "cultic relationships," and how Fabio (yes, that Fabio) was involved in his recovery. Original Airdate: 07/07/2021.

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Trust Me has joined Exactly Right Media. Hosts Lola Blanc & Meagan Elizabeth will be back with new episodes on Wednesday, July 30th.

In their first ever episode, Lola and Meagan interviewed Christine Marie, Lola's mom, about her and Lola's experiences believing in a self-proclaimed Mormon prophet. They discuss how they came to believe in him, their separation from each other, Christine's harrowing trafficking experience, and Lola's childhood memories of Keith Raniere from NXIVM. Original Airdate: 10/06/2020.

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The rumors are true—Trust Me is coming back this summer on the Exactly Right podcast network! This teaser has everything you need to know about our next chapter.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today our guest is Amanda Rae, host of YouTube channel by the same name and former member of the Kingston Clan, or the Order, a polygamist group in Utah, not to be confused with the FLDS. Some of you may remember our previous guest Priscilla from the same group - both of these gals were on Escaping Polygamy. Amanda’s going to tell us who the Kingstons are, how many mothers she had, and the principle of “pure Kingston blood” that led to people sometimes intermarrying with relatives - some of whom were underage girls.

She’ll tell us...

Today our guest is Maggie Rowe, former writer on Arrested Development and author of Sin Bravely, a book about her experiences with moral scrupulosity, or sin-focused OCD. We talk a lot about OCD on this show, so here’s a guest who wrote an entire book about growing up with religious obsessions! She’ll tell us about her first obsessions about what was and was not sin, how she started to analyze the Bible with a critical mind to try to understand how to avoid hell, and how her parents tried to help but her church leaders didn’t unders...

Former evangelical Christian and pastor's son Caleb Ward continues his story of growing up in evangelical culture in the early 2000s. We discuss some of the touchstones of his youth including Heritage USA (Disneyland for Christians) and Christian rock event Creation Festival, as well as his fear of losing his virginity before marriage, what hell to meant to him (and Lola and Meagan) growing up, how his dad was an example of healthy church leadership, how his parents were ostracized when they left the church, and what solidified his decision to leave evangelical Christianity

We...

Former pastor's son Caleb Ward joins Lola and Meagan to share his experience about the height of evangelical culture in the early 2000s in a church called Kingdom Life Ministries. Caleb discusses growing up in an environment where everyone was speaking in tongues and having loud prophecies in the middle of church, the pressures that come with being the son of a pastor, how heightened emotional experiences keep people connected to their churches, wild evangelical youth culture involving Christian rock, how good church leadership can actually exist, and why shunning is one of the worst parts of modern Christian...

Today is part 2 with Uriah Wesman, former member of THREE different cults. This week he’ll talk to us more about cult #2, the Hearts Center (which was an offshoot of cult #1 from last week), what it was like being a rebellious emo kid slowly starting to realize inconsistencies in the church, and how his dad discovered cult #3 in Canada, the Ideal Society.

We’ll talk about why he loved Canada so much, how he became obsessed with Alex Jones in his rebellious phase, and what that third cult - a vegan meditation cult - was like, being surr...

Creator of the one man show 3 Cults Walk Into a Bar, Uriah Wesman, shares about his FIRST cult experience in Church Universal and Triumphant, how they combined Christianity and New Age ideas, the paranoia that was created by beliefs surrounding demons, his mom's mental deterioration that led her to accuse his father of being a demon, and his parents split that led him to his next cult... which we'll discuss next week!

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Today our guests are historian Philip Deslippe and writer Stacie Sutkin, who together have done investigative reporting on 3HO (“happy, healthy, holy organization”), Kundalini yoga, and Yogi Bhajan. They’re going to tell us how they got started writing about 3HO, both interacting with Kundalini yoga in different ways, who Yogi Bhajan was and whether he had any credibility in the Sikh religion (spoiler: he did not), and how he began to get white Americans to believe he was the ultimate spiritual authority, rapidly expanding and profiting off of the money and property of his followers.

They’ll tell...

Episode 23: Lola Blanc & Meagan Elizabeth continue to interview Frank Lyford, former member of Heaven's Gate. In part 2, they discuss the growing number of red flags he began to notice after one of the leaders died, including talk of castration, and what led to his decision to finally, after 18 years, break away. He also tells the girls what it was like when he heard about the mass suicide on the news, how heartbreaking that was, the lessons he's learned as a result, and what his life is like now. Original Airdate: 03/17/2021

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Episode 22: Lola & Meagan interview Frank Lyford, survivor of Heaven's Gate who left after 18 years--just a few years before discovering his friends and loved ones in the group had died by suicide. In part 1, he tells the girls how he began following the leaders Ti and Do, what it was like living a nomadic lifestyle with his "check partner," and what happened when they all settled in one place for "Class." They discuss being separated from the love of his life, how the rules became more strict and controlling, and how much darker things got after Ti got cancer. Stay...

Cult interventionist and founder of People Leave Cults, Ashlen Hilliard, talks about her path to working in cult intervention and recovery, her personal religious experience that led her to this work, how interactions with Mormons in Utah affected her worldview, how she defines what a cult is, why accusing a group of being a cult isn't always helpful, how cult intervention today is different from how it was in the 70s, how it used to involved kidnapping and unethical practices, how her model takes a harm reduction approach, and when cult intervention practices can become culty themselves!

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You're a child living on a remote compound in West Texas. One day authorities show up at your front door and an exchange of gunfire breaks out. Just as you expected would happen. Survivor of the Branch Davidians and the Waco massacre, Joann Vaega, discusses her earliest memories of living on the compound, what cult leader David Koresh was like in person, why she did not feel fear when the siege began, how her mom bravely acted to save her, learning about the fire that killed 76 people, including her own parents, and how she's currently defying how people said...

FOR OUR 200th EPISODE, we are joined by eating disorder therapist, author, and expert Carolyn Costin to discuss her own experiences that led to her starting her practice, why so many cults control the eating habits of their members, why having an eating disorder is like having a little cult leader in your brain, and how Carolyn helped Meagan with her own eating disorder.

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Today is part 2 of our interview with Yoni Shrira, former student at the Family Foundation School, also known as Allynwood, the remote troubled teen program known for a series of lawsuits brought against it as well as over a hundred deaths from overdose or suicide by its former attendees. Last week, we talked about how and why Yoni ended up in the abusive school and the culture of required snitching, and this week he’s going to tell us about the punishments the kids endured, including hard labor and isolation.

He’ll tell us about trying to run...

Today our guest is Yoni Shrira, friend of the show and survivor of the Family Foundation School, a troubled teen sobriety school that became notorious for how many of its former students died after going through the program. In part one today, he’s going to talk about what he was like as a teenager, how he was genuinely out of control when it came to drugs and alcohol, and why his parents believed the school was the best option to help him.

He’ll tell us about the religious undertones of the group, how the students were...

Today our guest is Tory Hess, former member of a small rural group in upstate New York she calls Crazyland. She tells us about how she always loved reading and fantasy growing up, never went to public school, and didn’t connect easily with folks in real life when she was young, and how she found connection in the online gaming community Second Life, where she acted out her dream of having a family of her own... until it began to consume her life. She’ll tell us how some of the friends she made on there convinced her that...

Groups!... I did it again. Jay Van Bavel, NYU Associate Professor of Psychology and Neural Science, Director of the Social Identity and Morality Lab, and co-author of The Power Of Us, discusses how our social identities change depending on our environment and context, how the groups we identify with affect our decisions and perception, and the importance of instilling healthy hierarchy in a group to prevent unhealthy leadership. They also discuss how emotionally charged situations can forge shared identities, how cults replace individual identities with group identities, what to do when someone has fallen prey to groupthink, and whether...

Today our guest is actor, musician, and now author Bethany Joy Lenz, whom we will just call Joy. Joy was the star of hit TV show One Tree Hill, and today she’s going to talk to us about how she was in a Christian cult the whole time she was filming the show. She’ll tell us about her upbringing and her career as a young actor, living in LA on her own and joining a small Bible study group that seemed like the perfect place to share a community with like-minded young Christian actors, and how a char...

Today, our guest is a friend who we'll call Anne. We discuss the connection between psychosis and cults, the mental changes Anne experienced when her episode started, the delusions that grew stronger, how she felt like she was communicating with spirits, the paranoia that grew inside her, and how a psychiatric mental health professional helped pull her out of it. We also compare the similarities of Anne's experience with that of many cult leaders, how coming out of a paranoid delusion is similar to coming out of a cult belief, and why it can be wise NOT to directly...

Episode 15: Lola and Meagan interview Jitarth Jadeja, former QAnon believer. He tells the girls about how, despite being Australian, he first was a Bernie supporter, then shifted his support to Trump before becoming obsessed with conspiracy theories. They discuss the two years of his life in which he believed in Q, the moment he realized it was all a lie, how he'd have gone to the Capitol if he'd still believed, and what he suggests you should do if a loved one has fallen into QAnon. Original Airdate: 01/13/2021

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Today our guest is Gareth Gore, journalist and author whose new book Opus is about Opus Dei, an ultra-conservative Catholic sect, its harmful practices, its history of dark money, and its connections to modern day right-wing American politics. Gareth shares how he came to this story while investigating the shady practices at a bank in Spain, the history of the group and the leader’s goals of recruiting elite members of society, and its cultic practices like living in gender segregated homes with a highly controlled life and doing body mortification rituals. He tells about how members would groom ki...

Today our guest is a woman whom we’ll call Norah. She tells us about a Facebook group for women in Los Angeles that ended up getting very culty. We’ll talk about why it was exciting in the beginning to connect with other women in a new way, how other subgroups began to form (including one secret, exclusive one) and how the admin, who we’ll call Vivian, seemed to be creating a space that prioritized social justice, equality, and helping other people—at first. Norah shares how the culture of the secret smaller group, Girls Night In, began to...

Today is part two with Demetria, survivor of the Oregon new age cult, Twin Ray. This week she shares more about the wild claims that the leaders made about their mystical backgrounds, how deeply rooted the culture of self blame was (including blaming one woman for her own cancer), and the massive property they purchased in Oregon which was financed by their followers. We talk about the dangers of the drugs they were giving people on spiritual retreats, when the cracks began to form in Demetria's belief system, and how important it was to feel her rage.

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Today we're joined by Demetria, survivor of an Oregon new age group called Twin Ray (not to be confused with Twin Flames). She describes the beginning of her spiritual journey including reading the works of Eckhart Tolle, how one specific online guru captured her imagination, and how this guru's partner made the claim that they were Twin Rays with access to special spiritual knowledge despite their questionable backgrounds. We discuss how they strictly controlled their followers' diets, made them take a mysterious elixir while on retreats, and how they made their sales pitch to them while they were under...

This week is part two of a fascinating discussion with Joelle Tamraz, author of The Secret Practice: 18 Years on the Dark Side of Yoga. The story gets more wild! Joelle shares how her spiritual partner, Arun, became her husband, and how he brought her deeper into his world, including the strange visions he revealed to her. PLUS, the financial abuse, the cheating, the isolation from her family, and how Joelle eventually emerged from Arun's influence and moved on with her life.

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Today is part one of our interview with Joelle Tamraz, author of the book The Secret Practice: 18 Years on the Dark Side of Yoga. She will tell us about her introduction to different yoga practices at a young age including TM, or transcendental meditation, the hunger she felt for a deeper spirituality that landed her in India when she was fresh out of Harvard, and how she met Arun, the self-proclaimed swami who was 35 years older than her and quickly became her spiritual teacher--and she’ll explain a bit about swami culture in India and the yoga world.

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Today’s guest is Sara Teitelman, tech consultant and author of a forthcoming book about tech who’s going to talk to us about the culty elements of technology. While Sara’s specialty lies more in optimization of the nonprofit workplace, we’re going to have more of a philosophical discussion about how we’re expected to just trust in our tech overlords without questioning - both the CEOs and the algorithms themselves - how it’s a sort of coercion to be handed algorithms and apps with no say in or understanding of how they work, and how AI factors i...

In part 2 of our interview with Min Zhou, survivor of the Cultural Revolution and Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Asian American Studies at UCLA, we’re going to talk more about Professor Zhou’s personal experience. We’ll discuss why her dad was a target of the Red Guards, what it felt like knowing her family was in danger at such a young age, how many people were massacred in different parts of China, and the human cost of this mass hysteria, hatred-stoking, and groupthink originally led by Chairman Mao and his cult-like propaganda campaigns.

She’ll tell us...

Today is part one with Min Zhou, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Asian American Studies at UCLA, who also grew up during the Cultural Revolution: a decade of social chaos in China in the 1960s and 1970s where intellectuals, artists, and anyone perceived as representing capitalism or the "old ways" were persecuted and murdered in the hundreds of thousands or more. She’ll tell us about the backstory leading to this moment in history, who Mao Zedong was and what the country's climate was like when he began to use propaganda to create a cult of personality around himself, an...

In part 2 with Tia Levings, author of A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy, Tia she discusses how, in the midst of a church-sanctioned abusive relationship, motherhood began to change her beliefs - at first making her more zealous. She’ll talk about how her time trying to save her baby in the children’s hospital, plus working with women doctors and nurses, planted the seeds to help her imagine a world that wasn’t completely run by men.

She discusses moving to more heavily patriarchal churches, how the churches may change but it’s all part of...

Today is part one with Tia Levings, author of A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy. We talk about the church her family joined when she was young, how it was connected to Bill Gothard and the IBLP - which is why you may have seen her in the Amazon docuseries Shiny Happy People - how it grew more fundamentalist, and how she met her ex-husband Allen, who was abusive from the beginning. Tia tells us about the culture of domestic abuse in the heavily patriarchal evangelical communities, including practices like wife spanking, and how various church leaders...

In part two of our interview with Andrew Dunlop, sister of a perpetrator of Medical Child Abuse (aka Munchausen by Proxy) AND host of the podcast No One Should Believe Me, we discuss the red flags that made her family realize what was going on, why CPS showed up at her sister's door, the 73,000 pages of medical records she found for her five year old niece, and why it's extremely common for victims to NOT be separated from perpetrators. We also talk about the documenatry Take Care of Maya, why she believes the storytelling is misleading, how there are...

Today our guest is Andrea Dunlop, novelist and host of the podcast Nobody Should Believe Me, which is all about Munchausen by Proxy. She talks about Munchausen by Proxy, or medical child abuse, from a new point of view: what it’s like being related to the perpetrator. She’ll tell us about what her sister was like growing up, how she had exhibited Munchausen behaviors from a very young age, making herself seem to be sick before she had children, and how common that and other forms of deception are among people who later develop Munchausen by Proxy. We d...

Today our guest is J. Wesley Boyd, psychiatrist, professor, and the director of education at the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics. He joins us to talk about Physician Health Programs, (or PHPs) which are under-the-radar programs that most states have. They're supposed to be a place where doctors who are struggling with substance abuse or mental illness can go to recover. But Wes shares how a shocking number of doctors who do *not* have a substance use disorder are coerced into for-profit inpatient treatment that rips them away from their lives and costs them tens of thousands of...

Today is part two with R. Derek Black, former white supremacist turned anti-racism advocate, and author of The Klansman's Son: My Journey from White Nationalism to Antiracism. Today we discuss how and when Derek’s identity became exposed to their friend group, including drastically different reactions from fellow students, how they were invited to Shabbat dinner by some Jewish friends, and how over time the cognitive dissonance of believing in ideology that was dangerous to people they care about began to wear on them, eventually leading them to denounce white nationalism.

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Today our guest is R. Derek Black, former poster child for white supremacy (now turned antiracist advocate) and author of the new memoir The Klansman’s Son. Derek, who came out as trans in this book, walks us through the white supremacist movement, where it stands now, what it was like growing up in a white nationalist family, being close to prominent neo-Nazi David Duke, how they were taught that the whole world misunderstood their "scientifically correct" ideology, and speaking to the press and becoming a public-facing figure of racism as a child. They’ll tell us about hosting a wh...

In part two with Ian Rafalko, we go deeper into how he left Scientology, what that meant for his family life, and how his dad's lucrative online presence and supplement company tows the line of multi-level marketing. Ian will talk about the viral TikTok video he posted in which he said he was going to end his own life, why he decided not to, how his family reacted, and the paranoia he felt after going public.

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Today is part one Ian Rafalko, a former scientologist from a prominent scientologist family AND son of a prominent YouTube health guru. We explore how his family joined Scientology, what it was like growing up in a group where children are treated as adult spirits in small bodies, whether Scientology creates little sociopaths, and some of the more detailed ins and outs of the system and beliefs. We’ll also talk about Ian’s experience as an auditor, how his rebellious nature started getting him in trouble, the ubiquitous culture of snitching, and how he started to deconstruct his upbr...

Subject of the new Neil Strauss podcast "To Die For", Aliia Roza shares about her childhood in Russia, her father who worked for the government, the training school and how she was coerced into joining a secret program for sex operations, the seduction and manipulation techniques she learned, how she was sexually abused in school, how she used those skills to survive, what her first missions were like... and of course... whether she ever killed anyone. Plus, how she wants to use her knowledge now to help women who are struggling to find love.

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Lawyer, advocate, podcaster, writer, and the reason you know about Adnan Syed from Serial, Rabia Chaudry, talks about her experience advocating for him, what it was like entering the true crime world, why Adnan is free now, what disappointed her about the coverage of his story, her work in CVE (countering violent extremism), how any group or religion is capable of becoming fundamentalist or extreme, why extremism is not a strictly Muslim problem, and the power of story to change people's minds.

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Today we chat with Jessica Kahn, former member of a group we're calling "The Narrow Road." She'll tell us about being born into this isolated fundamentalist Christian sect that was originally formed as an addiction treatment program, the leader's connection to the founders of AA, how every part of life was strictly controlled, how they believed that the end of the world would happen on Y2K, the leader's systematic physical abuse, and the violent incident that finally led her to leave.

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Today our guest is Madi Stroud. She was featured on the HBO docu series Love Has Won, and is late cult leader Amy Carlson’s daughter - the one whose mummified body was found wrapped in Christmas lights in Colorado. Madi shares what she remembers of her mom as a kid, how it felt after Amy suddenly left Madi and her brothers when she was only 7, and how she discovered that her mom had started the Love Has Won new age cult, claiming she was God - or more specifically, Mother God. We’ll talk about how Amy’s cult g...

Dr. Inna Kanevsky, psychologist, professor, and debunker of pseudoscience psychology TikToks, discusses the misinformation videos that got her started on the path of debunking, why mental health labels can be helpful but can also lead us to incorrectly self-diagnose and take on labels that do not belong to us, and why it’s a problem when we make a diagnosis our identity. She comes in HOT about beloved psychology figures such as Bessel Van Der Kolk, Gabor Mate, and Dr. Amen, and how they have cult-like followings despite frequently peddling pseudoscience. Plus, we chat about the problems with polyvagal th...

Today is part two with Warren Kohl, former member and religious leader within the 2x2s (Meagan's secretive childhood group that technically has no name). Today we'll hear how Warren left behind his dreams of medical school to become a "worker" (a minister who stays in people's homes). He'll talk about the pressure to speak with some kind of authority, how he was scolded for genuinely trying to connect with the members, being told to stay out of a domestic violence situation within the group, how his mental health deteriorated, how he finally left, and his message to those...

Today's guest is Warren kohl, a fifth generation member and former “worker” (or minister) in the 2x2’s, the group that Meagan grew up in. Warren shares how devout he was to the group at a very young age, having your entire life controlled, and how utter heartbreak in high school led him to celibacy and a deeper commitment to the group.

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Psychologist, trauma bond expert, and author of Run Like Hell: A Therapist's Guide to Recognizing, Escaping, and Healing from Trauma Bonds, Nadine Macaluso share about her relationship with ex-husband Jordan Belfort (aka The Wolf of Wall Street) and how it led her to become a therapist with a focus on trauma bonds. They also discuss "mind mapping", intermittent reinforcement, the difference between intensity and intimacy, the three phases of trauma bonds and how violence can play into them, why Nadine uses the term "pathological lover" instead of narcissist, how to tell if you're currently in a trauma bond, and...

In part two with Zoe and Lilly, survivors of Midwest Academy, one of the abusive troubled teen programs in the same organization that was spotlighted in the docuseries The Program: Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping, we dig deeper into Lily’s experience. She’ll tell us how she was in solitary confinement for two months, and how her reaction was to rebel in any way she could. We’ll get into how they both left, and how no one believed them for years - in some cases, up until just last month - how this was and still is a multi...

Survivors of the infamous WWASP schools, Zoe & Lillian, share about their experiences being forced to join Ivy Ridge, Midwest Academy, and Casa by the Sea; All schools featured in the current Netflix docudrama, The Program: Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping. Lola & Meagan dig into how these programs were marketed to parents, the dramatic ways Zoe & Lillian were brought to the facilities as teenagers, the levels inside the program that were impossible to climb, how they could only communicate with their eyes, and how they were kept from their families.

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In part two with former LuLaRoe seller, Roberta Blevins, they discuss everything about LuLaRoe's founder DeAnne Brady and her family, the mother figure role DeAnne provided in Roberta's life, dealing with toxic positivity, and a thorough list of MLM red flags to look out for. Plus, how Roberta finally realized that she was in a cult and how starting her own podcast helped with her recovery.

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In part one with former LuLaRoe seller and Life After MLM podcast host, Roberta Blevins, she'll share how she first got involved in MLMS, what LuLaRoe was like, what the deal was with the wet smelly leggings, and what made realize that she did not want to be a part of MLM life anymore. We'll discuss how MLMs make good people act badly, what "huns" and "megahuns" are, and where the line is between incompetence and knowingly engaging in harmful practices. 

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This week, Lola and Meagan's guests are... Lola and Meagan! They talk about the cult of seeing everything as a cult, discussing how things that might seem a little culty don’t necessarily inherently mean that a group IS a cult. They’ll discuss political polarization, online miscommunication, group dynamics that happen in ALL groups, and the difference between a dickhead and a cult leader--with a few tangents in between.

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In part two of this listener story with Operation Light Force survivor, Katelyn Hlavaty, Lola and Meagan unpack how the leader's bogus healing protocol, which involved digging into old trauma, eventually led to Satanic Ritual Abuse. Katelyn shares how isolation from her family and a period of spontaneous remission from her bout Crohn's disease deepened her faith in the group, leading her to become a public facing spokesperson telling thousands of people that she was healed while secretly throwing up backstage. They also get into cold reading, the danger of religious leaders preventing their followers from getting needed medical...

In part one of this wild listener story, Katelyn Hlavaty chats with Lola and Meagan about her experience in the evangelical healing ministry group, Operation Light Force. Katelyn shares how she joined the group when she was isolated and struggling with Crohn's disease, and how the group's promises of community, God, and literal physical healing seemed like the answer in her moment of vulnerability. They dig into how the leader, Richard, began doing counseling sessions with Katelyn, and how Richard taught his followers that any physical ailment they experienced could be the result of sin, trauma, or even Satan...

Sara Gorman, public health expert, CEO & founder of Critica, and author of Denying to the Grave: Why We Ignore the Facts That Will Save Us, joins Lola and Meagan to discuss the importance of the scientific method, why presenting evidence can feel like an attack, common debunked beliefs that persist in American culture, and the role that media plays in telling stories that stoke fear instead of critical thinking. They also talk about the factors that lead people to ignore evidence, how charismatic leaders play a large role in science denial, signs that a person is not coming from...

Former Sea Org member and niece of Scientology leader David Miscavige, Jenna Miscavige, talks about leaving "The Ranch" in order to join the Sea Org, getting involved in higher level management, how she barely knew her own parents, the constant level of paranoia she saw from everyone at all levels, what it was like to date within the Sea Org, how she threatened to kill herself to get her partner out of highly controlled isolation, the potential whereabouts of her Aunt Shelly, how a trip to Australia served as the catalyst for her to leave, and was threatened with...

Former Scientology Sea Org member and niece of current Scientology leader David Miscavige, Jenna Miscavige, talks about being a third generation member, growing up in the infamous Sea Organization, doing child labor in a place called The Ranch, the strong snitching culture and knowledge reports that made it hard to trust anyone, bizarre educational system that punished kids for not knowing words, the fear Scientology stoked in her of the outside world, and how people felt about her Uncle David growing up.

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Crystal Hefner, former Playboy Playmate, Hugh Hefner's widow, author of Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and Finding Myself shares how she ended going to the Playboy Mansion for the first time, getting invited by Hef to stay, her tightly controlled lifestyle and the weekly rituals that were designed to please Hef and no one else, how she felt about filming Girls Next Door, how she escaped and why she came back, marrying Hef and the complicated feelings she had after his death.

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In part two of their conversation with Michelle Dowd, Lola & Meagan dig into when Michelle and her family moved to the mountain, why discomfort was considered a virtue, getting sick with an autoimmune disease at the age of ten, spending many months in the hospital away from The Field and her family, what happened after her cult leader grandfather passed away, and how she left the group.

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Professor, survivor of The Field, and author of Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult, Michelle Dowd, discusses growing up in the cult founded by her grandfather in the 1930s, how it started as an after school program for boys and evolved into something more sinister, the wild claims that her grandfather made, traveling to perform plays while serving as a magician's assistant and poodle conductor, how children were trained to talk to authorities and outsiders, and being taught to prioritize survival above all else.

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Two formerly closeted religious men, Thomas and Micah, share how they came out to their families and left their beliefs behind. Thomas talks about going on a Mormon mission as a gay man, Micah shares how learning about scientology was a turning point in his life, the group shares their thoughts on #DISNEYADULTS, and Thomas and Michah give their advice to anyone struggling with their sexuality and religion.

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One is a former Mormon. The other was a child of evangelical missionaries teaching a doctrine called Accelerated Christian Education. Both of them were closeted gay men growing up in strict religious households. Today, Thomas and Micah share about their upbringings, how they met working at Disneyland (a type of cult unto itself), the personalized Book of Mormon that Thomas bought for Micah, and growing up in cultures that stigmatize homosexuality.

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Musician and former FLDS member, Marji Mozart, discusses her wedding day as an underage bride who had never been taught about sex, her multiple marriages including one to her sister's husband, the pain of feeling that her dreams of becoming a musician were dead, how spending time in the hospital with her child led staff to suspect that she was in an unhealthy relationship, and how she eventually left rekindled her life of pursuing music.

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Musician and former FLDS member, Marji Mozart, shares about her childhood in Colorado City, living with a rebellious mother within a high control community, how she dreamed of being a musician instead of someone's wife, getting married to a grown man when she was only 17, and how that impacted her relationship with her mom.

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Lola's friend, actor, artist, director, and the next Bob Ross, Barak Hardley talks about his previous life as an evangelical pastor, getting kicked out of the church, and transitioning to life as an actor in LA. Lola and Barak dive into the philosophy of art, the creative process, skepticism, self reflection, and how art can inform your beliefs about the world.

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Annie Taylor, Executive Producer of Discovery's The Garden: Commune or Cult, shares about her time living in an off the grid community that went viral on TikTok for accusations of being a cult and disturbing allegations about a cat. Annie tells how she and the crew showed up and gradually earned the trust of the community, filming on one of the group's properties with a fascinating cast of characters, dumpster diving as their primary food source, surviving a tornado without proper shelter, their attempts at a leaderless society, the founder's connection to Rainbow Gatherings... and whether or not The...

Journalist Alice Hines and former Twin Flames Universe member Lorraine, both featured in the Amazon docuseries Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe, discuss the online community that was Twin Flame Ascension, what attracted people to it, how founders Jeff and Shaleia became more controlling and abusive over time, why encouragement to pursue one's twin flame sometimes led to restraining orders, the group's MLM-like structure, why you couldn't always choose your own twin flame, and their use of gender identity coercion.

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Members of the Duggar family, former cast members of TLC's 19 Kids and Counting, and Counting The Cost authors, Jill Duggar Dillard & Derick Dill discuss the family's involvement in the very strict Institute in Basic Life Principles, what it was like being on TV at such a young age, how her dad (Jim Bob) convinced the family that the show served the ministry of their church, how none of the kids got paid while he made millions, Jill and Derick having their first date on camera, how she was tricked into signing a contract that she didn't know existed, the...

Psychologist, educator, and Leaving The Fold author, Marlene Winell, talks with Lola & Meagan about how she came to study the negative impacts of religion, how some basic concepts of Christianity can be harmful, why authoritarian structures of religion can sometimes lead to trauma, how we can rationally understand something but emotionally reject it, the spectrum of meaning, and what that looks like after leaving a religion.

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Two new listener stories! One from Shelly about her time in the Independent Baptist Movement under pastor Jack Hyles and the cult recovery work she is doing now, and one from Claire about the manipulation she experienced under her capoeira teacher.

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In part two of her interview with Lola & Meagan, Children of God survivor and military veteran, Daniella Mestyanek Young, talks about joining the military after high school, being a woman in a hyper masculine culture, and unsettling parallels between what she saw in the military and the Children of God.

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In part one of her interview with Lola & Meagan, Children of God survivor and military veteran, Daniella Mestyanek Young, discusses being raised in the Children of God, the various forms of punishment she and the other children experienced, how child sexual abuse was not only encouraged but part of the belief system, how the youth were taught to practice for raids and lie to protect the group, why 9/11 was a turning point in her beliefs, and how she finally left the cult.

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Constitutional attorney, author, and YouTuber Andrew Seidel joins Lola & Meagan to discuss Christian Nationalism, why its based on a myth, how it led to cultural shifts in the U.S. during the 1950s, its impact on the Supreme Court today, the practice of cherry picking ideas from the Bible, the worst case scenario of where it can lead, and why the separation of church and state was a uniquely American concept.

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