Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings, and Mysteries - 152. Reddit Scary Stories: Terrifying Cult Encounters With Amanda Montell

Episode Date: November 20, 2025

Go to https://kachava.com and use code HSP for 15% off your next order Rula patients typically pay $15 per session when using insurance. Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at https://www.rula.com/HSPPOD #rulapod Today, we're discussing real terrifying encounters that people had with alleged cults. We’re talking Scientology, people from a “church” showing up at your door to maybe kidnap you, and more. Joined by Amanda Montell, author of the book Cultish, and the host of the Sounds Like A Cult podcast. Where to Find Amanda & Sounds Like A Cult:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AmandaMontellPodcasts Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cult-of-kundalini-yoga/id1566917047?i=1000702659814 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/452tBQmqzU9wcisVglD8vW?si=rQYnpUTqQZmKD9SpRFr1zA If you feel you need help getting out of a cult-ish situation, below is a support group:  https://www.igotout.org To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amanda Montel, welcome to Heart Starts founding. Oh my God. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. I'm going to try to keep my enthusiasm to myself. No, I'm so excited to have you truly because I wanted to do an episode like this for so long. Just reading through real cult stories of like experiences that people have had firsthand with cults. I felt like there was no one better.

Thank you. I'm honored. What a privilege. Can I ask before we jump in, when for you did the like fascination, dark deep dives into cults begin? Ooh, my earliest memories. I'm dead serious, though, because my dad grew up in a cult. My dad spent his teenage years against his will in a cult called Sinanon, which was this, you know, now what we imagine to be a classic cult, this 70s California compound in the Tawny Brown Hills of the Bay Area that started out as an alternative drug rehabilitation center that later grew to accommodate so-called lifestylers or people who. didn't struggle with addiction, but who just wanted in on this blossoming countercultural movement

of the 1960s and 70s. Oh, interesting. And that was my grandfather. And so yeah, when my dad was 14, my grandfather forced him and his two toddler age half-sisters to move onto this compound where kids lived separately from their parents and there were head shaving rituals and reassigned marriages and this traumatizing truth-telling ritual called the game. And in fact, this cult was the entire basis for the troubled teen industry. I was going to say it's interesting that your dad was a teenager when he joined because I've read about that kind of playing the foundation for what has become the troubled teen industry today. That's right. That's right. Yeah, it planted the seed. So I grew up on my dad's stories of synon. And so he had left by the time he was born and all that. Okay. Yes. So his experience was really interesting because he joined as a young teenager who had.

up until that point lived in poverty in Spanish Harlem, New York. And so he'd been kind of through the school of hard knocks. And for whatever reason, some combination of nature and nurture, he shows up to Synanon and he looks around and the word cult was not necessarily at the forefront of his mind. In fact, the word cult was not even on, you know, the mainstream public's radar in 1969, the year that he joined. That wasn't really until the Manson family murders, which happened later that year. And then the Jonestown Massacre of 1978, those two cult tragedies.

got so much press. And after those two happened, kind of everybody knew what a cult was. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. But when my dad joined, the word cult was not necessarily in his mind, but he took a look around and he was like, something is off. Something's really wrong. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. And it was also interesting growing up the daughter of not only a cult survivor but a scientist because I grew up like really skeptical, sometimes to my detriment, you know? Yeah, I bet. I want to surrender to group rituals sometimes. And oddly, like writing. and podcasting about cults, and specifically the way that I do it where, like, every week on my podcast, I'm trying to categorizing whether these, you know, cult-like groups from the zeitgeist

are, live your life, a watcherbacker, get the fat level cold. It's oddly, like, helped me orient myself around communities that may be a little bit cult-like, but are ultimately healthy, as opposed to just, like, writing off all group think as, like, irrational and stupid. Totally. Well, that's great because we're going to have so much to talk about in this episode. I have these stories that I want to get into of real people who also kind of came to in situations and we're like, what is happening? And then at the end, I want us to go through things that aren't necessarily labeled as cults, but feel like cults. Perfect. And get your perspective on some of them.

Love it. There's some really fun ones. And I added a couple ones myself that I think are maybe little culty groups. I'm chomping at the bit. Okay. So this one that I'm going to start with, I think honestly, just hearing your dad's story, this is really, this sounds really similar. to kind of what he went through. So this was posted originally on July 12th, 2019 on Reddit in our legal advice by a user named About to Be Taken 21. And the title of this post was just,

My parents have joined some new age religion and intend to move me to a compound against my will. What can I do to get the hell out of here? So they were looking for legal advice as to what they could do. So let me get into it, what they posted. So I really don't know how to start this. get right to it. My mom and stepdad are really into new age, science, and beliefs. I've never agreed with them on this and I didn't know how extreme it was. Recently, though, they've become involved in a extremely weird support group. I say that in quotes because I have no clue who this support group is. When I'm around, my parents never mention any group names or what organization they work for or a part of. Because of this, I've not had much luck finding out more about them. And

when I Google new age cult, it gives too many results to look into. This Monday, my mom and stepdad sat me and my four siblings down. They told us that we will be moving at the end of the month to a more stable location within a spiritual community. According to them, they plan to pull all five of us out of school here and enroll us in their mind awakening school wherever we move. I tried to get more information out of them, but they refused to talk to me at all about it. According to them, because I'm still a child in mind, body, and spirit, even though I'm 16 years old, hardly a child, I need to listen to them and not ask questions. I've actually been freaking out since then and have been trying to get advice, but I've been unable to. They cut me off of the internet, they cut off the phone, the TV on Tuesday, and they've been keeping a laser focus on me and my siblings since then.

I'm currently at a friend's house, and this is the only way that I've gotten access to the internet. Now, to me, this sounds like a cult. Last night, they had three people come talk to me and my siblings, and the stuff they told us was crazy. I was talked to alone by an old man who told me about how my mind is closed and that I will slowly learn to open it as my parents have, and that the leaders of this group would love to meet me and put me in their programs. I need to know what I can do here. My biological dad has shared custody of me, and since Monday, I've not been able to contact him. He's supposed to have a call with me every night, but my mom claims that he's been informed of this situation and supports it

100%. I tried calling him this morning, but he didn't answer. He lives in another state, so it's kind of hard to get into contact with him outside of phone and email. I'm out of friend's house because I was able to leave my house for the first time in a week when I told my parents that I just wanted to go to the park, but I came here instead and I told my friend everything. Her parents are not home, but she's trying to call them, and I plan to stay here tonight if I can. My parents have forbidden me from using the internet because it's, quote, full of lies from them. I'm so lost right now and it makes me sick. I don't want to go with them to this obvious compound and I need to know what I can do here. Can I just run away and if my parents find me,

can I get in trouble? Can they get in trouble? If my mom has been lying about my dad, is there anything he can do? Thanks. And that was the end of the original post. Wow. Which reminded me of what your dad went through. Yes, freaky parallels. Totally. I mean, well, one thing that stuck out to me here, because you talk about this a lot in cultish, is like the language that the parents are using about the like closed mindedness and just I don't know that I feel like there were so many flags and the internet being full of lies from them from them from like an unknown them right you don't know who they're talking about and this person is 16 they're a minor still so immediately people kind of jumped in on the comments and they were like as a 16 year old the family

court system will take into consideration where you want to live your father will need to file for a hearing request to, for a hearing to request a modification. So it actually kind of works out better that the parents are separated and that he has one parent outside of the organization. Totally. Who could potentially. Okay. So what's funny and crazy, not funny or crazy. What is unfortunate and eerie about this story is that my dad was also a child of divorce. his father and stepmother forced him to join Sinanon. But the thing is, he fled his situation with his biological mother because that was almost like

even a worse living situation than the cult. He fled that environment trying to seek a better life with his dad and his dad's new kind of replacement family. And weirdly, like, compared to the situation he was in in New York, the cult was not ideal, but at least he had food. He had a bed. You know, like, and, and, and unfortunately, there was, you know, not a better alternative for him, but it sounds like there are maybe some options for this individual. Yeah. Well, I would be curious to, I don't know what it was like for your dad, but this is so jarring as a child to have the parents come and tell you, like, this is what's happening. I'm taking you out of school. A lot of times, I mean, we've, we have an episode on Heart starts pounding about the Runawald secluded family. Have you heard about them? No. So the parents were Moonies. Okay. Who lived in Amsterdam. At some point they had gone to South Korea and become moonies. Came back, but really started indoctrinating the children from birth. Got it. Into the

religion. So by the time they were telling the kids like, hey, the world is ending. We're going to move to a farm. That way the world's going to end. We're going to survive. But like no one else will. You're going to live in the basement of this farm. The kids were like, oh, yeah. Okay. Right. Because they grew up in it. Yeah, you grew up in it. So you're used to that language. It's when your parents come to you and they're like, hey, the world is poison. Yeah, yeah.

We never told you this before, but we joined this group. They say that we have to do all these things. No, it's like, it's a little late to try to convince me that Santa is real. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember, you know, my dad telling me that he had a very similar experience where one day his dad was like, yo, we're joining Sinan. Oh, it really was that fast. Yeah, it very much was that.

I mean, Synanon had a sort of outpatient, you might say, club where members didn't have to live on the compound. It was literally called the Synanon Club. And it was like this, I believe, a weekly gathering where members would come and eat free snacks, which is an underrated reason to join a cult. Sometimes you just want to hang out with people and eat snacks, which dispels the myth that people join because they're desperate and gullible. Yeah. Anyway, my dad's dad was a member of the Synanon Club where they would get together and play the Synanon game, which was this very cathartic, traumatizing at times, truth-telling group therapy activity where people would gather in a circle and malign one another with vicious interpersonal criticism. And there was all kinds of language to describe, you know, what were these like really negative experiences within the Synanon game. kind of reframe them as positive and character building. So, like, first of all, this was called a game. It was referred to as something you played.

Yeah, something that's like, yeah. It wasn't fun. Playing. But, and even, you know, on the compound, even young people, minors had to play it. And sometimes, you know, the vitriol hurled at people during the game could be really intense. So you would just be standing in the center and people would scream. Yeah, people would. Like, I hate you.

You're whatever. Yeah. Let's say, you know, I would. I would isolate someone. I would sit, my dad's name as Craig. It would be like, hey Craig, you know, I notice you skulking around the compound here. You are such a lazy and great piece of sh-like, it would be really specific, going in. And then everyone else in the group was supposed to support the accuser.

And that was called backing the play. And then when you were like, you know, kind of viciously or at least very assertively, telling them how they needed to fix their behavior that was called a pull up like you need to pull yourself up and all of this insiderly language was really compelling it made people feel like they were in on a culture and so when i hear things like mind awakening or whatever like that's that kind of loaded language those charged buzzwords that make people feel like they're a part of something even if they're not living there yet but yeah my dad you know was familiar with the synonon club already. But by the time his dad was like, yeah, no, we're moving. He was like, what? You know,

like I just got out of this terrible situation with my mom. Like, tell me more. Like, obviously, the internet didn't exist at the time, but he was spooked for sure. And there wasn't much he could do. I mean, I don't know if this is quite fortunate, but I guess what's a little more hopeful about this situation is that this person is 16. So even in the worst case, if he does have to live there, if there's no actual like physical abuse happening, he might just have to, well, I don't know, the gender of this person, they might just have to lay low and wait until they can, they can get out and find support. But there are services for people who are in cults, surviving cults that I can mention. Yeah, we'll include links in the description of this episode for people who are also

feeling that. Well, I do have two little updates on this story. Okay. So someone did comment, call CBS and tell them that you're concerned about your safety and the safety of your siblings. Totally. So the first update said, I talked to my mom and I told her that I would like to stay at my friend's house tonight because I'd be moving soon and this would be one of the last times I could see them. So she said it was okay and that this family was trustworthy and not trying to corrupt my view. I ended up getting in contact with my dad and he was pissed. He did not agree and was told that I didn't want to talk to him anymore. My 15 year old sister's dad was told the same despite the fact that he has primary custody and she only spends the summers with us. So,

So my sister's dad is going to call CPS. Oh, what a relief. Yeah, I'm going to be spending the night here. When my mom asked me to come back tomorrow, my dad has told me to not go back and tell her that I'm going to be flying down to meet him immediately. And if I don't check in with him or if he hears that I go back to her, he's going to call into CPS and ask for emergency custody. Oh, wow. So that was like how the situation struck out. I was suspicious that there might have been some lying happening between the mom and the dad. Turning the parents against each other or saying like, your dad is fine with this or I could also see situations where it's like, well, your dad is poison. Your dad is one of them. Exactly. Or, you know, one of the cult red flags that I've learned about

and talk about sometimes on my podcast is this ends justify the means philosophy. So if, you know, you're a member of a group where you truly believe that they have the answers to salvation and healing and all these things, but they're like, you need to lie or steal or deceive or something in order to get everybody on board, that's a red flag that you're a member of a high demand exploitative group. For example, in the Moonies, whenever lying needed to happen in order to recruit people or manipulate them in some way for the benefit of the group, that was referred to with the euphemism, heavenly deception. Oh, wow. So that happens to. Yeah, exactly. It's like a total way to rephrase it to be like, this is actually a good thing. Yeah, it's like emotionally

fraught euphemistic language to get people in this headspace where, like, even if they're doing immoral or illegal things, if it ultimately benefits the group, then it's fine. Makes me think of some like MLM pitches I've received in my life. Totally. The ends justify the means. Exactly. Get everyone you know involved in this. Yeah.

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SimplySafe. Okay, do you want to read your story? I really do. Okay. This story is titled My Experience with the Church of Scientology. It's posted in Thea Flair and it was posted six years ago. It goes like this. This happened when I was around 17 years old and is still happening now. What an opener. At 17, I felt lost in the world and stuck in a job I disliked with work colleagues that didn't like me. It all started on a Friday after work. The factory I worked in had a half day on Fridays, so I would just spend the rest of the day wandering around the city I lived in. It had been a tough day of relentless mocking by my coworkers, and I was reaching my breaking

point. I went around the city looking for a new job. I visited the police recruitment center, the Army, Navy, and Air Force centers, and even the International Red Cross. I just wanted to get away from it all. After a few hours, I had a bag full of career pamphlets and still no idea what to do with my life. I turned a corner and immediately saw a sign sitting in front of me. I can remember it so vividly now. It said, free personality test. Are you curious about yourself? Come in. I then looked up at the building and in a big fancy sign outside, it said, the Church of Scientology. Now before I continue, yes, I already knew about Scientology. However, I had a morbid curiosity about it.

I had heard all the horror stories and goings-on inside the church, but Tom Cruise was my favorite actor, and he seemed to have his life sorted out pretty good. My famous last words right there. So I went inside. I was immediately greeted by a very nice lady. She asked me how I was doing and what she could do for me today. I asked if I could speak to somebody about the church and the personality test.

She smiled and said, I would be happy to. Please take a seat and I will get someone to speak to. After a minute, I was introduced to an older man named Alan, and he was the head of my city's Scientology Center. Alan took me to a small room to talk privately. When we entered, I immediately noticed the large picture of El Ron Hubbard on the wall. We sat down and had a nice talk. I told him about how I was unhappy about where my life was going. I told him about how I wanted to leave, plus all the trouble I was having at work. He seemed genuinely concerned for me, and I felt like he wanted to help. After a while of talking, I agreed.

to do the personality test. He gave me the test and left the room saying to give the test to the receptionist after I had finished. Two hours later, I finished it. Not joking, that's really how long it took. It was around 500 questions about anything and everything. I handed it into the receptionist, and she told me it would take some time to process. In the meantime, Alan had told her to take me to their private cinema and show me a film. I thought it was just going to be some old room in the back with a TV on the wall, but no, they did indeed have a private cinema. It could seat around 50 people and had a large screen in the front. It did feel a bit weird just being by myself in a cinema owned by Scientology, but I bet that hadn't happened to many people. Or maybe it has. Anyway,

I sat down, and they played me the film. It was about 30 minutes long and consisted of a narrator explaining those strange feelings you sometimes get, with some mediocre acting following along. I remember a section about how much you doubt yourself, knowing you have a locked door, but going back to check multiple times. At one point, the film showed how a past event that happened to your mother while she was pregnant with you could affect your life in a negative way. For example, your mother was sick on a flight, so you're scared of flying. I also remember something about rotten eggs and how much an event involving them could hurt you.

I know it sounds absurd, but in some ways, the film really made sense to me. When the film was done, I was taken to Allen's office. and he told me my results. He told me I was extremely depressed, one of the most unmotivated people he had ever met, lacking cognitive thinking and I was a waste of talent. Now, this made me very upset, but Alan said he could help me. He gave me about four books in a DVD. He told me to read the books and watch the film before my course. I asked what course, and Alan told me he had signed me up to do a course at the center. He convinced me that if I didn't do this course, that my life would soon spiral out of control. He made me hand over quite a lot of money and said I would

receive an email about the course, which was in a month's time. I left the center, ran home, and immediately started reading the books I was given. This happened all over the weekend. I basically locked myself in my room and did nothing but read and reread these books and watch the DVD over and over again. Over the next week, I began taking notes about myself and my family. I emailed Alan with questions and concerns, I started resenting my mother for my life. I began to think that she was the problem, that everything bad that had happened to me was the result of her. I started to treat her badly, swearing at her and did the best I could to ignore her. When I emailed Alan about my mother, he told me that if she was the catalyst for my problems, then maybe I should

consider disconnecting from her. And I took it seriously. I made plans to totally leave her out of my life. A week before my course, I developed some kind of God complex toward everyone around me. What I read in those books told me what I could become. I saw everyone in my family as below me. I really became a truly spiteful person. Just days before my course, I was confronted by my mother and father. They said they were concerned about me, and they searched my room. My dad took out all of my Scientology books in the DVD. I was outraged. I screamed and cursed at my parents. I said horrible wicked things to them. I told them how I was going to leave them and how I never wanted to see them again. Hours of arguing back and forth, tears and crying. However, in the end,

they did convince me that the church was a bad place. They said, if I was so miserable at work, I should have told them. And that is true. To this day, I can't believe I didn't say anything to them. Instead, I went to Scientology. After the arguing had stopped, they sat me down and comforted me. I really couldn't believe it. After the way I treated them for the past three weeks, they still cared for me. The next day, I emailed Alan and told him I would not be coming back to the church. He quickly got back to me asking why, asking if it was my family and if I was being forced not to go. However, I ignored him. The emails I revived in the next few weeks were mad. He told me stuff like, I should leave my family now and I could stay at the church. He

tried to convince me that it was all because of my mother. He even emailed me to say something along the lines of, he won't be surprised if he read in the papers that I was found dead by suicide. I'm very sure he crossed a line there, but I just kept ignoring him. The strangest email I got was all in binary code. Zero one one this and one zero zero zero one that. I used a binary code translator, but it all came back as mixed up letters and numbers. None of it made sense to me. I eventually blocked him. However, it still hasn't stopped. About two or three times a year, I will get an email from the church. It's either asking how I am or asking about my family.

When I get them, I immediately block the email address, but they just keep coming. It's always someone new, saying they heard about my case and they were worried about me. The whole reason I'm writing this is because I just got another one the other day, and I thought it would make a good warning. Please, I beg of you,

do not go to a church of Scientology Center. If they can make me into a spiteful degenerate in just a few hours, then what can they do with a person in a few months or a year? If anyone has any idea how to block an entire religion slash cult from my email, then please let me know. And if you're lost in life, sad or upset, then please, please talk to your family, friends, or a doctor. When you're down, don't let others make you into a monster. Take it for me.

After this event, I got help and I'm a happy, confident person now. Oh, and Alan, if you're reading this, you made me into a monster. or for your sake. Let's not meet again. Oh my gosh. Wow. Juicy. Very confessional. Very confessional, but so classic to everyone I know that's had an experience with Scientology. When I was 19, as a bit, a friend and I, a new friend and I were, yeah, hailed down on the side of the street on Sunset Boulevard, right where Scientology HQ is and asked to take a personality test. It always starts with the personality test. It often does, yeah, because like, you know, we're all slightly navel-gazing. Who doesn't want to learn a little more about yourself? Yes. This friend of

mine, I think, is a little more adventurous than I was. I really didn't want to go, but she was so convincing and she thought it would be fun. And yeah, our experience was a little different, but yes, the personality test took two hours. Yeah. We were in there for a really long time. But when they started to sell us things, like breaking out the DVDs and the course and wanting our email addresses, I literally, like, grabbed her arm. And I was like, we're getting the fuck out of here. And we ran out and got in our car and like, never darkened their doorway again. But, or the opposite of that, they never darkened our doorway or email inbox. But I was only willing to like go with the bit for so long. No, that's what I mean, so I had an experience very similar to yours. It went for,

I think a lot longer than yours did and I was out maybe four hours. I was there for maybe nine hours and I was out like 300 bucks by the end of it. Oh no way. Yeah. So what happened to me was I had a friend. Honestly like I feel for this person so much because this was like I had first moved to L.A. I started a new job. I was 22. Just out of college. Didn't have many friends. So I had a friend who I like just kind of knew very casually and she was like we should grab lunch. I'm going to be in town. Yeah. sends me the address. I don't even think to check the address. Oh my God. I'm like whatever. Day of I'll just show up. Whatever. I'm like driving up to the restaurant and it's on the campus of the Church of Scientology. I'm like, oh, that's kind of strange. I guess they have a restaurant there that's maybe like not involved with the church at all. I meet her for lunch. We have this lunch. And that's when she's like, hey, if you're here already, do you want to do a tour with me? Like, we should check this out.

Oh, my God. I didn't realize like she was already very deep inside of it and had kind of lured me there. So by the time they're asking for my credit card, I do the personality test. It takes two hours. It's 500 questions. that is not an exaggeration. They tell me I have like debilitating anxiety and they feel bad for me and they're worried and like just like the language they use is so like we're here for you. Like we care about you. Something is going wrong in your life and we want to help you figure

it out. Totally. I remember them. I don't remember exactly what my results were, but the guy telling me. It's always very drastic. It is. It's always like we have to do this immediately. Yeah. I don't remember what he said because I was just like, I was just incredulous, you know? And he had this like smarmy suit and a smarmy hairstyle and this like overly twinkly look in his eye. And I was also disturbed by the fact that like he was this white guy, but a lot of the people who seemed to be working for him were Latino. They seem to be like, because Scientology like the multi-level marketing industry does prey on immigrant communities. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I was I was very disturbed by that.

I just remember after every sort of personality critique he made of me, he just went Scientology. can help you with that. Yes. And I'm like, we have the things here. Yeah. But yeah, by the time they asked for my credit card, I was already like, I mean, there was just so many people there that were like, we want to help you. And you've already been there for nine hours. I didn't even for so long. I put so much into this. So I was like, if I give them my credit card, maybe I can leave. Oh, oh wow. And I'll go home and I'll cancel my card, which is what I ended up doing anyways. But I gave them my card. And then that was just, I mean, after that, they're like, okay, your class starts now. Did they retain your contact information?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So they got calls for years afterwards. I blocked all their numbers. They would call me from restricted numbers. I have, like, restricted voicemails on my phone that I saved. They really get on your, um, yeah. I don't know how I think God, I mean, thank God they did not get our contact information.

One weird detail about the story that I just read is, um, the person who wrote it was definitely British and from the UK. Yeah, I was wondering about that. Something funny about that is that Scientology does claim to have something like 10 million followers around the world. I just think personally, allegedly, my opinion, that they have 10 million email addresses. Yes. That is so fair. That they're like, we have a contact list of 10 million people that we've been able to like farm for their emails. That's what I think. I mean, because, you know, if you've watched documentaries like going clear or read about Scientology, you know that

you know, they have so many absurd beliefs as a part of their ideology. Like, you know, some of that stuff that the, the teller of that story brought up was, you know, stuff about like when your mother was pregnant with you, you know, some of her behaviors might be passed on. And the weird thing is that, like, there is a grain, at least, of truth in a lot of different cults philosophies, you know, generational trauma is real and stuff like that. But Scientology, believes that like children are just adults and tiny bodies. Which is so dangerous. Very dangerous.

That always leads to really bad behavior. Yeah. And so, you know, children are punished within Scientology in the ways that adults are punished a lot of the time. And mothers are forced to undergo, you know, high ranking, whatever. If you're really in Scientology, mothers are forced to undergo a silent birth. They're not supposed to make noise when they give birth. That's what Katie Holmes had to do. I remember reading about that. Because like, you know, negative spiritually bankrupting energy could be passed along to the child.

Which we know is not exactly. Of course it's not true. And, you know, they have all these beliefs about like invisible body Thetons and aliens. But if they brought all that stuff up on your first encounter in the church, you know, no one would ever join because it would be ridiculous. They get you with things that are really accessible. And the first courses that you might take are things like, you know, communication or like, up. and downs in life. I interviewed a source for my book, who was an ex-scientologist. She was in it for a very, very long time. This woman named Kathy Schenkelberg, who now, or at the time that I interviewed her, was doing this, like, one woman's show about her experience called Squeeze My Cans, which is a reference to the Scientology auditing machine. Yeah, yeah. Squeeze cans. But anyway, she was very forthcoming about her story. And you can read more about it in the book. But yeah, she was really transparent about how, you know, they, they get you in the beginning by promising that this is secular. Like, you can be a part of any religion. Scientology is just here to supplement. And then as you move along the bridge to total freedom, as they call it, on your path to going clear, you realize that there is just this like endless, you know, truly like this path that will never get you to enlightenment.

There are all these convoluted tears, this massive hierarchy, and that, you know, you'll never achieve. the benefits you were promised. Well, if, I guess in your experience with all the research you've done, if this really is like being a frog in a pot of water that's like slowly the temperature is rising, what is like the first notch? Like what's kind of like the first thing that people would look out for? Well, because I see the world or like rather hear the world through a language lens, for me, it's always linguistic cues. So like my book is about the language of cults from Scientology to Soul Cycle. So like how this wide spectrum of cult-ish groups uses a specific roster of linguistic techniques to get people to join and stay

and fall under their influence for better and for worse. And so I find that when you join a group and yes, there's like fun buzzwords that you pick up right away. And sure, there's like rousing mantras and chants. But when you start to use these buzzwords, they make you feel a part of the group. They make you feel really emotionally activated. They definitely are dividing you into an us and of them. But you can't really explain concretely why you're using them or what they mean. They don't make sense to outsiders. That's a red flag, especially in combination with this cult language technique called the thought terminating cliche, which is a phrase coined by a psychiatrist named Robert J. Lifton in the early 1960s. And it describes a sort of zingy

stock expression that's easy to memorize, easy to repeat, and aimed at shutting down independent. dependent thinking and questioning so that the person at the top can remain in power. What are like examples of those? Yeah. So let's say you're a member of some group and there's a rule that you want to push back against even gently. They might hit you with a phrase like you just need to trust the process or yeah, yeah, yeah. Or like it's all in God's plan. Yeah, one of those cliches of like immediately shuts it down. Exactly. Just don't think about this for a single second longer. Correct. And it's work to have to think. And if you've already sunk a lot of costs into this group and you really believe in it and

you've invested a lot into it, then you don't want to have to, you know, reckon with that cognitive dissonance. In Synanon, their go-to thought terminating cliche was act as if. And it essentially meant pretend that you believe until you do because our leader is all knowing. And you can trust that if he has instituted a protocol, you will get on board eventually. In conspiracy theory groups, you know, you might hear certain Q&ani types say things like, oh, you just need to do your research. Yes, that's a big one right now. It's like the do your research. Yeah. It's like, we can't have a conversation anymore after you've said that. Correct. So I see battles of the thought terminating cliches in Instagram comments all the

time. And I'm like, oh, that's a sign of cultish affiliation. Yeah. So that's what I keep a year out for. Because if you're a member of a group that's healthy, if not a little bit ritualistic and mystical or whatever, if you're allowed to express pushback and people will entertain that and respect that and engage with that in like a sincere dialogue that even an outsider could comprehend and aren't just going to serve you with a thought terminating cliche or shame you or something like that. That's like that's really something to listen out for. This episode is brought to you by Bobby. As someone who is about to be a first time mom, it is very overwhelming getting everyone's recommendation on baby products. Everyone has opinions on everything from swaddles to bottles to

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yeah, definitely crosses a boundary that the other ones haven't crossed. It's called I was almost kidnapped by a religious group. I was posted six years ago in the let's not meet subreddit by Sugar Baby 2019. And the story starts. This happened to me about six months ago. My boyfriend at the time and I were sitting in the living room of my apartment when I heard a knock at the door. He asked if I was expecting anyone. I said no, but I was going to go take a look just to see who was out there. He stayed on the couch while I looked through the people. The apartment we were in was set up in a way that didn't allow him to see me from the living room where I was out at the front door. But outside, there were two people, one young guy who looked about maybe mid-20s and a much

older woman who was about 60-ish, for whatever reason I decided to open the door. That's when the young man says, hi, we're a part of so-and-so religion. I don't really remember what they said. And we would like to talk to you about it. Now, I have a 50-pound dog who's trying to get out, so I said, sure, hold on, I'll come outside because my dog's trying to get out. And that was a huge mistake. I want to clarify that this was very out of character for me. However, I had recently become closer to God, and I was willing to give these people a chance. I didn't think there was any harm that would come just from listening to what they had to say. So I stepped outside, and I closed the door behind me, and they said something about how they prayed to Mary instead of God, because she was the one

that birth, Jesus. I don't exactly remember, but it was something like that. I ended up just thanking them for their time and saying something like, thanks, you guys, stay safe out there. That's when the woman visibly starts panicking and starts saying things I don't really understand in a language that I'm pretty sure was Korean. When I looked at her partner to see what he had to say about the situation, he goes, no problem. Maybe you want a pamphlet though. I reply, uh, yeah, sure, not wanting to be rude and also to do some research on the religion because I had never heard. of it before. The guy then tells me, okay, great, we have them in the car. You can come with us. We parked right out front. And this is when I started to feel weird. I lived on the third

story of an apartment complex that was really not the best and there were no cameras anywhere. Why would they leave their pamphlets in the car? If they were going door to door, it wouldn't make any sense to have each person they intrigued come down to their car. And also the parking spots outside my house were all handicapped so no one could park there. The woman then grabs my arm and starts directing me to the stairs. In a split second, I said, you know what, I'm happy in my faith, thank you both anyways.

The woman said something again and what I think is Korean, and the man goes, are you sure? We can get it to you fast. We're parked right there. My heart genuinely sank. I started sweating

and looking for ways to remove myself from her grasp and the situation entirely. I know I must have looked panicked because I was. What do I do? How do I get away from this immediate danger that I've put myself?

in. I wasn't thinking, and I just blurted out that I was very sure I yanked my hand from the woman who ended up scratching me from her grasp, and I bolted inside. I locked my door behind me and told my boyfriend what had happened, what they said and their pitch on praying to Mary instead of Jesus. And that's when he looked at me with a face that I have never seen him make before in my life. He told me about how that specific religion has been in the news the last few weeks because women have been going missing. And the only thing that they all have in common is that their neighbors said that they had been solicited by this group around the same day or around the time of that disappearance.

I read some articles to fact check what he was saying, and he was right. The police were saying that it might be in connection to a sex trafficking ring that was moving from neighboring cities and now was suspected to be in ours. It gets even weirder, though, somehow. I was seriously freaked out, so I went straight to Facebook Live and I shared with my friends because I wanted to warn whoever I could. I set the privacy to public after the live ended, and I went on with my life, still a bit shaken, but I was fine.

One week later, I got a Facebook message from someone who's part of that religious group, telling me that I needed to take the post down, and she was not nice about it. After I said that I wouldn't do it because I wanted to educate anyone who lives in my town, she told me I was a spoiled egg and I would regret ever making that video. I was so scared. I blocked her immediately. I said the video to private and called the police. The police said they couldn't do much because they didn't have the make or model of the car they were in and there was ultimately no proof that they had even come to my apartment or even who they were. Here's the part that still freaks me out, though. When I went to show them the message from Facebook,

I went to unblock the lady and her page was completely deleted. I still had the messages, but it was like I was talking to a little gray default profile picture. Even the name had been changed to something that seemed to be random letters. I want to end this by saying I'm working on not being such a trusting idiot with people. I know the things I should have done differently. I still get upset with myself or how stupidly I had acted. And so to the religious group or sex trafficking pair that showed up at my door and the Facebook lady, whatever your motives were, let's not meet again.

And then there's an edit on this page. There's an edit on this post that goes, oh, by the way, the name of the group is God the mother. And to clarify, I was at my college apartment when this happened. I hope you all stay safe. It's a crazy world out there. Oh, my God. Now, do you know much about God the mother? No.

I didn't really know much about them either. Apparently, they are very known to target college kids. Like, this is specifically, like, they go campus to campus. Oh, that is so sinister. Targeting college kids. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that makes sense. A lot of cult like groups target college kids, immigrant communities, stay-at-home moms. It just depends what you're after. I found a little blurb here on them. So God the mother is kind of their like colloquial name. They're the World Mission Society Church of God. I've never heard of it. They're a South Korean-based religious organization classified as a destructive cult by multiple experts, former members, and mainstream Christian denominations. They were founded in 1964 by a man named Aungong, and the group teaches that he was the second coming of Christ and that this living

82-year-old Korean woman named Zong Gilja is God the Mother, a divine being necessary for salvation, which kind of reminds me of the movies that we've been talking about. Yeah, I don't know what the pattern is there. I mean, I know why cults crop up so consistently in the United States, particularly during times like the 60s and now. It's because whenever there's like, a cultural uprising or a lot of turbulence in society where we lose trust in the institutions that were supposed to keep us safe. We look to alternative groups and some of those groups are probably okay, but a lot of them tend to be pretty exploitative.

So that's why, you know, this group and Synanon were founded during a similar era. Yeah, the 60s. Yeah, same with, you know, Scientology was a little before that. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that is chilling. That's a very scary story. So then I imagine, I mean, we've kind of, there's been documentaries that have touched on this a little bit, but like all of the cults that came up during COVID, all of those like cyber cults, I imagine that was a time where it just exploded.

A hundred percent. Yeah. And I think people were not necessarily perceiving groups like QAnon or in cells as the same kind of cult because they're not compounds where people are dancing around in mid Samar-esque outfits. Right. Yeah. They're digital cults, you know. like comment sections are our new compounds. Yeah, that's a really good way to put it, honestly. The thing that stuck out to me about the story too was the targeting of college students. Yeah. Because I think that is something, like I remember we had this drink company come to my college when we were, when I was like a sophomore. And I lived in a housing, whatever, like a suite with three other girls.

And all of them joined. I ended up being an MLN, right? It's like you have to just like get people on. under you. It was one of the only ones, too, where the founders actually went to jail. Because usually that doesn't happen. But they actually got arrested and the whole thing got dissolved. Damn. But we had $1,500 worth of energy drinks in our dorm because you had to buy in at, like, exorbitant rates. And then they send you all the product. And yes, they don't care what you do with it. You're just supposed to get people under you. And yeah, I remember knowing some

college kids who fell to the Cutco knives, MLM scam. That was a big one. Big one. Yeah, I mean, college students have a built-in community of fellow classmates to recruit from. They're at the beginning of their lives. They're full of hope. You're looking for identity. You're looking for identity. And odds are if you have the resources to go to college, you might have resources to spare on the cult. Yeah, of course. So it makes sense. Yeah. Very spooky. Very, very spooky. That one was very scary. I found, I did find an article actually that came up from, this is from WCNC because this is was happening. I don't know where this story specifically took place, but this article is about Charlotte, North Carolina. But they wanted to verify as a religious group outside of Charlotte stores connected to sex trafficking. And they said that concerning posts had been circling the

Charlotte social feeds warning women to stay away from people who might be connected to sex trafficking. And it was about the mother of God people. And what they found was it wasn't like explicitly sex trafficking. I think a lot of times, too, people think of, like, human trafficking and sex trafficking is, like, ripping someone off the sidewalk, kicking and screaming into a van. They found that that wasn't what was happening, but they were hosting, like, retreats. Yeah. And then the women were, like, not showing up after the retreats. Oh, wow. Because they were either going off grid or, like, living on a compound or something. Well, speaking of the legality of it all, it's really hard to hold cults accountable because, you know, they can make the argument in a court of law because they can

make the argument like, oh, these people volunteered to give us their money and time and bodies and their adults. Yeah. And they're adults. But if you can get someone on a charge like sexual assault, sex trafficking, racketeering, you know, something like that, then you can hold them accountable. Yeah. But it's a big problem. Yeah. Because you don't necessarily want to be able. You to prosecute someone for a psychological crime because then people could start climbing any old thing as a psychological crime. Well, I imagine it's a very, very gray area. Yeah. And I know that there's a lot of gray area with like, well, how much were you a willing participant in this? And like, to what extent were they a victim versus a perpetrator? A willing participant. Yeah. Also, like I know

families that are trying to get people like their family members and loved ones out of cults. It's very hard if like the person still wants to be in that cult. Totally. And then there were scandals in the 70s where cult D programmers were getting in trouble for kidnapping cult followers out of the cults. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's like yeah. Yeah. So reverse. It's delicate. It's delicate stuff. Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, kind of speaking of the ones that cropped up during COVID. I have one for you to read. We've got one more. This one is titled, My Friend, a 23 year old female, is being stalked by someone who is part of the cybercult twin flames theory, a 36-year-old male, and has started posting worrying YouTube videos, trigger warning, emotional abuse and manipulation,

obsessive behavior, stalking, grooming, harassment threats. This post was originally made in November of 2016. Hi guys, I'm sorry if this is the wrong sub to post you as it's about a friend and not me, but I was really hoping for some advice and how to support my friend and point her in the right direction. She doesn't do Reddit. This story started a long time ago, and my friend originally met who I'll call Twin Flames Guy when she was 16 and he was 30. Apparently he became obsessed with her from that point on, which is extremely inappropriate in hindsight. My friend saw him only as a friend and had absolutely no romantic dealings with him. She agreed to

meet him on several occasions for coffee or acting classes, but once he'd pick her up, suddenly the plans would change to dinner and dates. There's a lot more to the backstory, and eventually my friend realized that it was creepy and wrong and stopped seeing him. However, occasionally still had contact with him throughout the next six years. My friend had never disclosed this to anyone until recently, and they said it sounded like she had been or was in the middle of being groomed. She quickly sent Twin Flames guy a message and asked to cease all contact. But since then, things have escalated. He's been posting weird videos on YouTube about how he met his twin Flame when she was just 16, and now the time is right. It's his God-given right to be with her, and it was his

for the taking. She also has evidence he turned up outside her house at 3 a.m. one morning and just stood there. What can she do? How can I help her? So there are some relevant comments. This one comes from, this is obza throwaway. They said, call the police, document everything, save the videos. They may not be able to do anything, but she does need to, at the very least, make an efficient. report. This behavior is dangerous and should not be ignored. He obviously knows where she lives. Does she live alone? She should invest in a camera for the outside of her home. Honestly, everyone should. If for no other reason than to protect your property, it's better to have and not need it. I don't mean to go all paranoid sounding over here, but being vigilant with someone who is obviously

unhinged is always wiser than the wait till it blows over approach. I would even go so far as to say some self-defense classes are in order. This is a wise thing for anyone and everyone to have knowledge of because again, it's far better to have it and not need it. They said that their source for this was that I once had a crazy and obsessive stalker when I was younger. I initially was scared and paralyzed by it. Once I started taking action, aka a police involvement, he disappeared quickly. And then the original poster said, thank you. I think she's been in touch with the police and waiting to give a statement or report. I'll update when I know more. Luckily, she lives with her family and has a boyfriend who's ready to kick ass. Yeah, it's so

important to have some support. There's another comment that said, twin flames guy. Wait, what? What is this? And what is the twin flames theory? In any event, she needs to contact the police and get a restraining order and stop all contact with him. So the original poster replied to that, I honestly don't know enough about Twin Flames to be able to give you a proper answer. But it's along the same lines as a soulmate, and they believe a deeper connection than that. I've done a bit of research, and he calls himself a chaser and her a runner because she's not accepting him. as her twin flame cult language, insider language. A chaser and a runner.

It's giving yellow jackets or something. It's like victim and prey. Exactly. She's the prey. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so there was an update that was made 16 months later in March of 2018. Hi, guys. I know it's been over a year since the original post,

but I've been supporting my friend through a lengthy court battle with, to be honest, not a great result. So first of all, thank you for your advice. On your suggestions, we contact the police straight away, and they said there wasn't much they could do. Twin Flames guy was arrested, and he admitted to everything. The police made him sign a piece of paper that basically said, I promise I will not contact her again and let him go. My friend had given countless statements, and I had sent them all the videos and screenshots of even weirder Facebook posts he was making, and the police told her there was nothing they could do.

If she sees him on the street, run into a shop, and get a security guard. They told her she couldn't get a restraining order until he tried to make contact with her again as he had willingly signed The Promise piece of paper. Disheartened, we gave up, and he continued to post creepy YouTube videos about her online for months and months, sometimes 20-minute-long videos twice a day. His stuff began to get more intense. He is definitely mentally unstable. You could see it in his eyes and this roller coaster pattern of emotions he seemed to fly through

in such short periods of time. After his arrest, he made videos of him crying, saying he forgave his twin flame and that he would give her space, but really there was nowhere in the world she could hide for long because Archangel Michael had showed him that they were meant to be together for eternity, and that signs and sinks meant they had a 4D relationship. He made videos of him kissing his hands, pretending that it was her. Finally, one day he posted an absolutely manic video from his car

that was really quite scary, claiming his God-given right to be with his twin flame and mentioned that he had killed people in his past life. He also slipped up and made some reference with their two names merged together like celebrities do. I want to vomit everywhere even thinking about it, but we knew this was concrete proof slash evidence that he was talking about her. So once again, we contacted the police, who seemed to take it more seriously this time. An outside service called Paladin and SAS National Stocking Advocacy Service got involved and pushed the police to take it to court.

long story short it went to court however not for stalking but for harassment i'm still not entirely sure how this has happened whether the twin flame weirdo has managed to plea bargain or something but all he got was a slap on the wrist and a straining and a restraining order which although is great hasn't stopped his obsession they live in the same town and it is very likely their paths will cross at some point we were really hoping he would get some sort of mental help it has really upset my friend but she's trying not to dwell on it. I keep an eye on his movements online, but try not to tell her unless it's something particularly worrying,

as I do not wish to cause more stress. He still continues to post videos about speaking his truth and how he will not be silenced, how he went through a triggering ordeal, but came out stronger because of it, and there's nothing I can do about it. He's become clever and calculated now in what he says in his videos,

even though we know they're still about my friend, and there are no obvious links, so the police say all the evidence is circumstantial. This has been going on for six years. We thought he would have given up by now. I feel like it's just a waiting game now until he slips up again. That is exhausting. What a horrible experience.

I'm surprised that they weren't able to seek more recourse considering her age. Yeah, I was going to say with the Twin Flames cult specifically, even like in the documentary, it's a lot of minors that they pursue this like doggedly. Yeah, yeah. And I know, well, at last I checked. So it sounds like a cult. did do an episode on the cult of Twin Flames. Oh, interesting.

And we interviewed a survivor named Jesse. She goes by Jesse's stories online. And she interviews cult experts and things. And she has been forthcoming about her story. And she's in the documentary, too. She, you know, told me a lot of details at that time. I don't remember all the ins and outs of how Twin Flames operates. And I don't know the latest on their legal standing.

But last I heard, like, they, had not been sort of brought to their knees quite yet. I mean, they've gotten like horrible press and are having trouble recruiting, as you might imagine, but it's not like anyone has been sent to prison like Keith Reneery or anything like that. Right. Yeah, they were still operating when the documentary came out, which the thing that was so shocking is how much they encourage stalking. Yeah. It really, and it seems like they even take people who wouldn't otherwise be stalkers. Right. And encourage them to start stalking. the people that they see as their twin planes. Well, it's that ends justify the means philosophy.

Yeah. And the ends to them is spiritual. Like this is a theology. If you're, I mean, it has its roots in like romantic relationships. Yeah. But this is a mystical supernatural belief system. He said, you know, he has this God given right to his twin flame. And the 4D. Like I remember that being a big thing too, like living in 4D is like this spiritual thing you can do. And this is why religious cults or supernatural cult's language is so profound because it invokes like all of your life and afterlife. Like this is why prayer is so profound because it strengthens your beliefs. So the more that you use this language, the more you're going to believe it, the more you're

going to feel certain that you do have this kind of mystical right to abuse this person because this is just earth, you know? like this is bigger than Earth. And the language solidifies that. Yeah, like they are these spirits that have to be together. What we're doing right now is just Earth. Yeah. So, but like the ultimate thing is that our spirits need to be together for this like

afterlife or whatever it is that they're trying to achieve. Yeah. And it's such an interesting cult premise for this particular time in history when loneliness is an epidemic. Yeah. And people are struggling in more ways than. ever to couple up. Yeah, during COVID. Yeah, everyone was so lonely. Yeah, yeah. And this is the promise that like, not only will we help you find someone, but we will help you find like that

perfect spiritual divine personally we've always been looking for. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Which is so scary. But yeah, I don't know. Like even watching that documentary, because there's still like a lot of these YouTube videos up online that the people post because they're all, they're really encouraged to use like video diaries, it seems. Yeah, it's a kind of YouTube. YouTube is their compound. Yes, it is. It is. And they're like, because they, none of them live in the same area. It was all started on the internet. So they, I guess, kind of meet up sometimes. Yeah, they do. But yeah, most of it was like online. But the amount that they talk about their twin flame and think about it. It just feels kind of counterintuitive to actual dating, I guess. I know. Yeah, that cult is is definitely a get the out and it's also a product of our time. Yes. It feels like it could only exist in 2020, like the 2020s. For sure. The loneliness and the two, I mean, the, like, most theater kid leaders ever. True.

Jeff and Chilia are so. I know Shaliyah, not even her real name. Dorky. Dorky. Deeply. Dorky. And, like, they also just don't seem happy. And they're like, you could have a relationship like ours.

And the relationship just sucks and is so dorky and weird. Yeah. Okay. I want to, for our last little segment, I have a couple of things. So I was looking up thread that was called, what's something that's not a cult, but feels like a cult. And this feels like your whole bag. Okay. So the first one that came up as one of like the highest rated ones, which I was very surprised about this. But then I thought about it. I was not so surprised. Marching Band. Oh, my God. We just did. It sounds like a club episode on it. I know. And I saw that you had just done an episode. This person goes marching band. If you know. Yes. Oh my God. Wild. I had absolutely no idea. But now I do know. And spoiler alert. But it's a hardcore watcher back. Especially drumcore. Like the high school marching band is more of a light. a light watch your back. I mean, literally physically watch your back because those instruments are

heavy. Yeah. But the drum core where there's a lot of like hazing and like honestly sexual abuse. Like it's oh my gosh. It's no way. It's really intense. Listen to the episode. It gets it gets really dark. Drumcore is college. Yeah. And it's like outside of a school. Oh yeah. So it doesn't have maybe the protections of like the school institution. And like people drum, okay, this is not my expertise, but my understanding is that, you know, like 19-year-olds in the band are, you know, playing alongside, you know, 65-year-olds and everyone in between. And so, yeah, there can just be some weirdness. Power dynamics. Okay. Because in my mind, I was thinking of like high school marching band. Yeah. Which also, no, that's culty too. When I went to high school, it was very culty.

For sure. They're just a group in themselves. I mean, think of it. It derives from like military and nationalism. And yeah. You have your costumes. You have your rituals. You have your language. your physical exploitation and it completely colonizes your time and you're like sleeping together when you go on tour yeah yeah band kids are pretty horny I would add theater to that too then like totally high school theater community we've compared and contrasted these extensively oh really you gotta listen to the episode everyone has to listen to that episode I'll link it okay and then another one that came up was this one comment that goes I work for a nonprofit they tend to refer to employees as family working for a cause, which wouldn't be culty on its own, but they definitely use it to

manipulate employees to work themselves half to death instead of culture where boundaries are thought of as not being invested in the mission. That's right. They also use your passion for the mission to justify working you harder and paying you less. Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love my job and what I get to do, but I'm old enough to see what's been done to me over the years. The rotating door of young employees who are worked to burnout and replaced, though, I do feel bad for it. It's a hard lesson to learn. Not to sound like a broken record, but we also did a sound like a whole episode on nonprofits years ago. Wow. Yeah, so much labor exploitation justified with, you know, service of the mission. Yeah, that gets, that gets pretty dark too.

I think we classified it as a watch your back. But one of my best friends works for a cancer nonprofit whose mission I really believe in. But I remember when I started fundraising for them, just the mantras alone to like whip people up. Yeah. very MLME to get people excited for the like very small amount of money they're actually making to do this job yeah yeah and the burnout I get the burnout yeah any a comment under that was like any job that refers to itself as your family massive red flag tech they will drop you in a second they don't care if the numbers suggested they are not your actual family nor one that came up after that was essential oils we get it your single mom you want to work from home but damn you

guys sure do drink the Kool-Aid. Yeah, yeah, with the essential oils episode we did. Yeah, I'm sure, like literally, I'm sure all of these are episodes that you've done. I'm feeling very validated. And our topic choices right now, yes, there are so many essential oils, MLMs that have led to death and destruction. You know? The one where, the one that almost got me in college was my friend's mom came and pitched it to us, but we had to put our hands on this election. device. Oh. And it would measure something about the electricity in our bodies. And then results would pop up as to like what essential oils we needed in our body more of. It's giving squeeze my cans. It's very squeeze my cans. Like the hand on the electrodes. And then I was told

I needed more thieves. And she wanted me to take like the thieves essential oil, put it in a capsule, swallow the whole thing whole. And she had told me to, she was like, yeah, I did it yesterday. I had a stomach ache. I did it yesterday and I threw up violently because the essential oils knew that I needed to purge myself. I'm dead. I think it was just the fact that you swallowed that many essential oils. I love essential oils, but I also know what they can and cannot accomplish. I, yes. Yes. Limit your expectations for the essential oils. Truly, it's like, yeah, rub some lavender oil on your pulse points, pop off. Pepperment on my head during your headache. Yes. But the like really woo-woo stuff that they say they can do? No. No. Okay, this one I'm going to get yelled at in the comments, but I'm saying

this as someone who is married to someone who went to the school, whose whole family. Can I guess? Every, yes, guess. Texas A&M. Yes. Yes. Oh, my God. Literally, they've all, like, my husband's entire family all went to the school. They all get married on campus. There's like boots that they get given and like hand signals I'm not allowed to do and chance. And Matt's like, you have to come to the midnight chant one time. And I'm like, what? Everything about it feels so culty. And then I tell him that.

He's like, yeah, absolutely it is. We have gotten so many requests for this one over the years. We're going to have to do it eventually. I don't have personal experience with Texas A&M, but I do have personal experience with Princeton because my husband went there. And their culture is also very culty. I think in kind of a live your life border line watcher back way,

but they throw this monstronstrum. of a reunion every year. They call it reunions. They transform the campus into this like debauched almost like music festival type thing. Whoa. So ritualistic. And it's, um, it is fun. But as an outsider, I'm like, I'm prepared to do one weekend of this. And then I need to like take a cold shower. Yes. Yes. That's exactly how I feel about A&M. I've already been told that our son is going to go there. Like it's just already like it's written in the stars for all of our children. Okay. We have to heavy watcher back yeah it actually might be watch your back i'm curious if anyone listening has gone there because i would be curious to hear the case that it's not a cult look like we all

we all we cult obsessed people at my podcast have a general rubric in our heads that we use to categorize every cult of the week yeah so if you have light us versus them dynamics and some ritual and some mysticism, that's okay. But if there are severe exit costs and this group is like completely taking over your headspace and your decision making in an outside group, that's when it's starting to inch along this cultish spectrum. Yes. There's one that I added after we had this entire conversation, it made me think of it as someone

who has both gone to them and worked at them. But I do think sleepaway camps might actually be a cult. My two co-hosts, Reese and Chelsea just did a sleepway camp. episode. Oh my goodness. I'm sure you just got a lot of really crazy stories. Oh, yeah. I think back at my time there, like the language is fully different. You learn an entire code language. I know. The rituals, the mysticism. The borderline offensive, like rituals that you do. Appropriative, yes. Yes. Yes. I remember one of the cultiest things being like the ritualistic pranks, like at night or the last night of sleep way camp, you weren't allowed to fall asleep or like a prank might befall you. And I remember I wasn't

feeling well and I fell asleep when I woke up like covered in shaving cream. Yeah, all stuff, which is like, whatever. It was a little, it was honestly a little, it was humiliating. But I do remember like, I mean, of course I went to sleep with theater camp, which is like another layer. But we had so many chance. People cried so hardcore on the last day. Yes. But I remember there was this one song that I was reminded of recently by a listener of Sounds Like a Colt, who also went to this camp. And the song went, we'll. of magic around us the sun and the moon to guide us it was like so emotional yes truly and I was like oh my god that was so culty yes it is yes it is very

culty I guess there's not really like the exit costs but you do kind of get like I always worked with the 13 year old girls and like if you didn't come back to camp or a lot of stuff would happen over the school year where they would ostracize one girl and then they'd all come to camp and now you were ostracized like it actually did start having that kind of power dynamic that was spooky no there are hierarchies for sure yeah i mean i would have called my experience a live your life maybe it was a maybe it was a watcher back just because we were adolescence and everything's just like supercharged emotionally and psychologically when you're that age so like be careful with kids yeah inherently any group with like a sense of hierarchy and power like this involving kids might be a default watcher back but loki the greatest days of my life

go say would I go back in an instant oh my god I was drinking the Kool-Aid so hard back then definitely if I if the smell of my sleepway camp campus hit me right now I would be 14 years old rehearsing for the final performance transported I'm curious if anyone listening has anything to add to the list, whether you went somewhere that you felt like was a little culty, joined an organization. I don't know, maybe a sorority or fraternity. I think those are up there too. Scroll through the sounds like a cult back catalog. Maybe we've covered it. There's definitely an episode.

I mean, how many episodes have you done at this point? Oh my God, 200. Yeah, there's definitely, there's going to be an episode that sounds like a quote about this. A lot. You can also check out cultish. Thank you. And thank you so much for joining us. God, thank you so much. This was perfect. I've loved every second of it. No, I've loved having your

insight. I wanted to do this episode for a while. And we'll have you on sounds like a cold. Yes. I would be so happy to talk about truly anything. Yay. Love it. Okay, we will be back next week with another episode. You can join me then. And until then, stay curious. Bye guys. Bye.