It Could Happen Here - That Matchmaking Cult Doing Conversation Therapy

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

Robert and Mia talk with journalist Sarah Berman about a matchmaking cult called Twin Flames Universe and their disturbing conversation therapy practices.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Oh, man. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about it, meaning bad things, happening here, meaning, you know, here. Obviously, here at Cool Zone, we have a little bit of a habit of talking about cults. Some of you who have been listening to Behind the Bastard since the beginning will remember how we kind of started that series with several long episodes about a guy named Keith Raniere. And today we're here to talk with a wonderful author and journalist, Sarah Berman, who has written both about the NXIVM cult and about a new cult that some of you are probably familiar with. If you caught the recent Netflix documentary. Prime has a documentary out too on the Twin Flames cult. And so we're going to introduce why this is such an interesting cult, why it's kind of groundbreaking. But first, Sarah,

welcome so much to the show, Graham. Hey, hey. So good to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Hey, hey. So good to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Yeah. Sarah, your book is called Don't Call It A Cult, wonderful book about the NXIVM cult. And yeah, you are kind of the person who first – I'm not sure if you're the very first person to ever report on Twin Flames, but you're certainly the person who broke the story in a meaningful and detailed way. How did you – well, first off, we should probably start with, how would you describe Twin Flames to people? Right. So Twin Flames Universe began as sort of a YouTube channel and a Facebook group that was all about finding true love. So this group promises not only that you find your true love, but also that you will find career fulfillment and enlightenment

and basically everything good will happen to you. Miracles will happen only if you spend thousands of dollars on their coursework and keep up with their sort of spiritual homework, which is a never-ending treadmill. And eventually it sort of becomes, you know, an all-powerful control over people's lives, where they go, who they interact with, even their life partner, even their gender identity. So, yeah, lots of people calling it a matchmaking cult. Yeah, it's a matchmaking. I mean, one of the things that I think is interesting to me about the kind of like rhetoric of the cult leaders, and this is one that there do seem to be kind of two people heading it up, a to, among other things, kind of the deep loneliness that a lot of younger people feel, you know, as we're dealing with this kind of increasingly closed off, isolated nature of society, especially since covid, as well as kind of mixing that with some of these, you know, much longer standing older cult traditions in a way that felt really, really interesting to me and also like something that could only exist now. Yeah. Totally. Yeah, there's so much to impact there. So in their early days in 2014, this couple, Jeff and Shalia, I mean, Shalia is actually a Megan, but Shalia is the name she arrived at through some conscious journeying.

Sure. They have these videos where they just met and they are in love and they are making eyes at each other. And this is something to attain. It was sort of started as this, you know, romantic YouTuber content. And then they start selling. Yes, you can have this, too. All you have to do is buy our, you know, coursework and whatnot. And I think it does speak to, especially during the pandemic, a sort of deep, dark loneliness

and isolation that's happening where people are enticed by this couple who they're just regular, you know, Michigan white people. They're making eyes at each other doesn't look like anything special to an outsider. But clearly, you know, thousands of people have sort of latched on to it, have, you know, hoped that the secret knowledge that this group is giving them, you know, will bring them happiness. And because it's sort of an all-encompassing ideology where if you even question the group, well, then you are definitely never going to see your life partner and will probably see hell at some point in your life. You know, it just creates this perverse incentive to just keep pouring time and effort into this group in a way that, yeah, I don't think could exist in any other timeframe, especially not through Zoom,

right? So most of these classes that they sell are happening on Zoom, just like you and I are on today. So that, you know, NXIVM could never achieve, right? This group has achieved a level of, you know, connection and, I don't know, just getting into people's brain stems through a laptop screen, which is incredible for our time. Yeah, it's very, I mean, again, this is part of what's so modern about it is it appears to work entirely, like cults and particularly cult leaders tend to be such social phenomena. This is nearly always a thing that involves person-to-person contact. In fact, one of the things any cult expert will tell you is a hallmark of a cult is the focus it

puts on isolating members and prospective members away from their friends and their family and keeping them under the power of the cult leader at all times. This is very – people are not all together. They're not all living in one area. They're geographically isolated. The dynamics that this reproduces itself with are parasocial dynamics, the same dynamics podcast listeners have with like – it's a more extreme version of that. But it's part of this thing we see with Twitch streamers. We see it with like YouTubers, this kind of – and it solves one of the mysteries because I've watched this doc with a couple of friends who kept being like, well, these people don't seem charismatic. They don't seem, this doesn't seem like, it doesn't seem like they could be attaining this degree

of control over people. And I think part of what explains that is just like, well, someone may not seem charismatic when you're watching little clips of them in a documentary, but when they're in your ears and, you know, on calls with you and stuff all day, every day, it, you, your body builds up, like they get through your defenses that way. Like that's how parasocial relationships kind of work. Absolutely. Yeah. You, you just have the binging quality of how people consume media these days. And it's the same for, you know, YouTube rabbit holes that radicalize sort of right wing white men. So it's the same process. These folks who I was speaking to, they were consuming up to 10, even 15 hours of this content per day. And they were feeling like they had to keep up with that just to maintain

their coaching title or what have you. So yes, they have Jeff inside their head at all times. They start speaking like him. You can kind of tell when a still involved member emails you that it sounds just like the leaders. It is a fully saturating, indoctrinating process. And I guess, yeah, you don't have to be particularly charismatic in person to achieve that kind of saturation when you have the YouTube algorithm. You know, unfortunately, my YouTube algorithm is also ruined. So my next up on YouTube is looking pretty, it's yikes these days. No, I actually discovered a really effective method for my own research in various cults, which is I just use my roommate's YouTube premium account. So I have ruined his life, but it's not a problem for me.

So it's it's worked out really well is what I'm saying. I mean, I might try that solution, but I live with my, you know, partner. So he might not appreciate that. We'll see how it goes, though. I'm kind of curious. How did you get on this story? Like what was what was your backstory there? Yeah, so I was in the depths still of reporting on NXIVM. I don't believe the sentencing for Keith Raniere had happened yet at that point. So this was late 2019, early 2020.

One of the mothers was the first to reach out to me. And she had two daughters who are featured in the Netflix series in the group. And she had told me that she was cut off from all contact, that the only contact she did have with one of her daughters was when she sent thousands of dollars. And so that to me right away, like you said, you know, isolating people from their family members who might, you know, raise questions or, you know, want to know more about what's happening, asking for money so blatantly, you know, and denying contact based on an amount of money sent that all sounded pretty bad to me. And so I started looking into it. That mom pointed me towards Elle, who is also featured in the Netflix series. She's also Katie in the Vanity Fair piece that later came out after our reporting. And it just sort of snowballed from there. Elle put me in touch with, I would say half a dozen ex-members at that point.

Some different mothers started contacting me because they all were sort of in a group chat trying to figure out how they could reestablish contact with their mostly daughters. That was my origin story. We put out a piece fairly quickly. I tried to get it out within a month or two of that first contact. Yeah.

Well, that makes a lot of sense. And I want to continue talking about this. We'll get into a lot more. But first, it's time for an ad break. So here we go. Hey, guys. I'm Kate Max. Here we go. keep going. That's what my podcast Post Run High is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High.

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Ah, and we're back. Mia, did you have anything you wanted to move into next? Yeah, so there are some parts of this that are very familiar in the sense of the combination of Christianity and weird New Age spiritualism stuff, I think it's a pretty old combination. I mean, the Moody's very famously sort of pioneered this thing. I mean, you know, you can go back to the 1800s and find versions of it. The thing that I think is interesting about it is the way that they've effectively been doing

conversion therapy on people. And I don't know, this is something I haven't really seen before from a cult. And I guess I think the way into this is talking about the sort of masculine, divine, feminine stuff. For sure, yeah. stuff for sure yeah i agree that this seemed new and you know sort of bizarre to me and certainly i've already seen on twitter some uh right wing takes on it that give me a lot of uncomfortable feelings because they're obviously taking the wrong opposite lesson. You know, when I guess when I watch this, I see, see, you can't tell someone what their gender is. You know, it doesn't work. It falls apart. It doesn't make sense. But I think, yeah, something that's been taken away

in some smaller circles is that, oh, see, you can coach someone to change their gender. And that's, you know, blame teachers, blame whoever for doing that. So this particular group does have a divine masculine and divine feminine teaching that used to be a little more flimsy. That used to be a little more flimsy. So in the early days, they just said, if you're in a queer couple, it just means one of you has the more wearing pants vibe. know, cis women who are, I mean, they're interested in finding their man. And that's not happening because, you know, the group makes it very hard to actually meet outside people. If you're on this constant treadmill of doing spiritual homework, you don't have time to meet your people. And maybe when you talk about it, it's pushing people away. get around the fact that, you know, folks said, well, that's not my, you know, orientation. I'm not attracted to women. They started actually telling people, well, you're the divine masculine and actually, you know, you going back your whole life probably knew this all along and we're just

revealing something to you. Um, and that sat the wrong way in a lot of cases. Um, and a lot of people left around that time. Um, but they successfully paired up, I think more than a dozen people around that time and they continued to do pairings into 2020. Uh, and some folks did come along on the journey. They did, in some cases, pursue top surgery and hormones and have changed their names, changed their pronouns. coming to terms with this. And, you know, they're not always using the right language and they're a little confused, you know, and that confusion was often used as a reason to cut off all contact, you know, say, hey, mom, you're transphobic, you know, and push them aside. And so I think it is new in some sense, but it's also very old in the sense that cults often create a brand new identity for people, right? Like new names when you join a cult is not a new thing. That's something that a lot of, you know, and changing hair, right? Shaving a head. That's like one of the OG cult things.

Exactly. Yeah. So, I mean, this is, I guess, an updated version where, I mean, it's kind of smart in a way that like people might be afraid to question it. Right. Like you're hiding behind something that sounds very progressive and very inclusive. And that's what a lot. It's a lot to take in. And I definitely like to bring experts up to speed on this and get their perspectives because I don't know everything. You know, I can't possibly pretend to know what's in someone's heart and mind and body, you know, at any time. So everyone is just working through it. Like one of the experts in the documentary says, you know, some of these folks could have been trans men all along, but the way that they're being told to do it is concerning to say the least. Yeah. And I mean, I think there's some

interesting stuff with how they were able to do this, which is, even before they started forcibly transitioning people, there was, this is, I think, the most trans people I've ever seen in a cult like this. The number of people who were trans going in was really high. And I suspect that was how they were

able to sort of, like, you know, like one of the people in the documentary was talking about how she was, like, a trans woman was she was being basically like tokenized by the group as this like hey we're like trans inclusive thing and i wonder how much of the way they were able to do this is from basically taking the first-hand experience of like actual trans people and then like using that to try to convince people of this really weird sort of essentialist like we've decided that you're the divine masculine so you have to transition to be a man now stuff the origin story of it is you're right in reaching out to LGBTQ type communities. So folks like Arcelia, who you see in the documentary, and also Jesse, who you see in the Netflix documentary, they were sent

out recruiting in queer spaces. So any type of queer Facebook group, Twitter user, you know, YouTuber, they were in the comments there talking about their twin flame journey and talking about how queer inclusive it was. So they were actively doing that. And it's fascinating to see, you know, you can go back through Twitter history and find, you know, how they were phrasing these things, you know, like that was their job basically to do outreach for the group in queer spaces. They also did lots of PTSD spaces, former military spaces. You know, they really like tried to find any slice of a person who might need a community who might be lonely and, and sort of feed them into the group. And you're right. I think if you have a bunch of queer, open-minded people

in a space, there's a lot you can do with, you know, suggestion. There's a lot you can do with a deck of tarot cards. It seems a lot of these, you know, gender conversions started with a tarot reading where they would just hold up a card that represented them or their supposed partner. And, you know, sort of building off of that. So it is, it's new and old in so many ways because, yeah, you're just using the divine to basically just dictate any aspect of someone's life. You know, what they eat, what what they wear where they go everything yeah and it's i mean it's also we're talking about like how uh uh how much of this kind of plays

on loneliness the fact that people are desperate for companionship that particularly younger people are like dating less or more socially isolated and And like, if you want to push that up to the nth degree, you take a group of people who is under siege right now. And so particularly having trouble like being safely out and around people, right? Like you, you give them what looks like it's a safe, welcoming community that's supportive of them. And if especially they have not had that, yeah, it's, I mean, it's deeply insidious and evil, I would say. It's powerful stuff. I would say when I go on the Facebook group, you know, I'm blocked now, but when I could, it would, you know, show folks really deep into a fantasy, you know,

You know, show folks really deep into a fantasy, you know, like they want a perfect life for themselves where they are openly welcomed with open arms, where the people that they care about, care about them back, you know, if I just put in the work, this will happen for me. That straight guy who I'm into is going to come around and see that we're twin flames. And so, yeah, it definitely also feeds into a bit of fantasy and delusion. That's, you know, I think maybe a symptom of us being so isolated in our, you know, being so isolated in our, you know, pandemic brain spaces. Speaking of isolated, shit. Well, it's an ad. It's an ad break. I don't know anything that goes with that, but here's some ads.

Hey, guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run

and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal

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I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit,

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Ah, and we're back. Sorry. You've just encountered some of our classic incompetent ad transitions. But what's not incompetent is your reporting on this subject. And I'm curious, as you realize how potentially a lot of what's going on in this cult with this divine masculine, divine feminine stuff could, if not handled carefully, play into some really pernicious culture war stuff that's going on in the country right now. How do you kind of like how consciously did you sort of work to avoid that? Like how consciously did you sort of work to avoid that? Yeah, that is definitely something I'm worried about is that this could feed into some sort of culture war talking point. And, you know, you're seeing the seeds of that. If you search Twitter very deeply, you can find it. I guess X.

I'm calling it Twitter. It's still Twitter to me. Yeah, it's still Twitter to me yeah it's still it's still Twitter only acceptable dead naming speaking of dead naming yes so I definitely wanted to be as careful as possible listen to trans

people as much as possible you know so that's why Arcelia was one of the first folks that I talked to and you know she had just such an interesting understanding of this because she, you know, had transitioned before she came into this group and she was able to witness so much of the coaching that was happening. And I'm just so grateful for someone who goes through that ringer and still is able to articulate what happened afterwards because you know not

everybody um comes around to understanding it as deeply as she did so that was my main you know thing was I was gonna listen to trans people and then yeah I guess just trying to sort out what was the ideology of the group, how that was being, you know, I guess, executed. And yeah, just trying to come from this expert perspective that, yeah, nobody can tell you what your gender is. And this is actually an example of that. It was hard to wrap my head around and I still worry about it it i'm still worrying about my words kind of right now yeah that was something in the documentary that like you could see the filmmakers kind of like you can you can see them kind of going back and forth between wanting to use people getting top surgery as this kind of like shock factor thing but then also

like at the same time being like wait hold on like this is you know this is something that you can very very easily like be a right-wing transphobe and just like take a clip of and put on the internet and be like hey like we need to stop gender clinics from being able to do this and i don't know like i i think i i think you've handled it pretty well but i don't know like this is this is something that is like i i think like one of the important things is like this cult is ran by cis people and this is you know and i i i think it was a good decision for you to talk about in terms of conversion therapy because that's a lot closer to what's happening than people transitioning and you know i mean like it's i don't know like i would say the thing that's complicated about it right is you know you it's you can't

talk it's really really it's almost impossible to like talk to the people who are going through this and get an understanding of what their sense of their gender is i mean like i've i watched a couple of the videos that they made and like i don't know it's's, it's, it's really difficult to like, it's, it's, it's easy to play armchair psychologist with it. And I don't want to do that. And so I think, I think you've been walking a difficult line and yeah, I keep my hands off that too. You know, like I am not going to tell any one of those folks, you know, Gabe Ray, what's going on in their brains and bodies. I just do happen to know about the systematic sort of coaching that they were, you know, exposed to.

So, you know, for in the case of Jesse Hersey, she had months and months of coaching around letting go of her entire life, her entire identity, starting over, let go of any image of what you think your twin flame could be, right? And so if you're doing that, you know, and eventually folks do sort of acquiesce. I think it's similar in a gender conversion coaching situation. Some people acquiesce, you know, they get into a high pressure situation, Some people acquiesce, you know, they get into a high pressure situation. They're being told who they are. They're being told there will be consequences if they, you know, go back to their normal queer self.

So that actually does get somebody to change, but in a fear-based situation. So I can speak to the coaching, but yes, I'm never going to be a person telling anyone what their gender is because we don't know. Hopefully, you know, they can break free of what I think is, you know, pretty manipulative, coercive practices, and then they can tell us more about who they are. out who they are yeah and i mean i i think the other thing i'll say about that is like well i mean we we know just on a societal level that it's possible to force people to live as a gender that they're not and to identify themselves as that gender by systematic social pressure we know this because this is the story of like every trans person who's ever lived right and totally you know and like it sucks, it really fucking sucks. Like, having someone force a gender on you. And I really hope that these people, like, I hope these people find who they are and, you know, whatever form that takes that they're not being coerced into it because like yeah this is something i think that was in

i think it was in the netflix documentary that people were talking about this it's like you know in terms of people who could understand what this is like like i think other trans people are probably some of the only people in the world who actually do like even sort of understand what it's like to be forced to be a gender that you're not. And so, yeah, I'm hoping that this develops in a way of solidarity and not of weaponization by right-wingers. I mean, I think you guys have done all you could reasonably do

to avoid that. The culture war is going to do what the culture war does. I wanted to get into Keithith ranieri a little bit and kind of how what went on with the nexium cult uh because he's a friend of the pod over here we've talked a lot about the the details of what he got up to he's obviously probably the biggest recent cult in, in, in the U and like us popular culture, at least, you know,

there's a couple other, there's a little bit of other competition for that title, but not a ton. And yeah, you, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about how some of how people's awareness of that, because like,

obviously given the media environment, all the people getting pulled in by the Twin Flames cult were aware to some extent of cult dynamics and probably of this story of this cult that is not unrelated. Definitely. Yeah. So there is a bit of stories colliding. When you write about cults, there's only so many of them and inevitably the stories start to cross over. So I was still covering the NXIVM trial and, you know, fallout sentencings when this story came across my desk, you know, and even the first person who talked to me about it was like, I think it's similar. You know, I think their practices are similar. And sure enough, I go and look at this mind alignment process. And you're right, it's kind of similar to leaders of Twin Flames have studied other groups, including NXIVM.

There is the detail in the documentary that Jeff actually made folks in the group write an essay about why Keith Raniere was a cult leader, but why he was not one based on watching The Vow and Seduced. So that's just, yeah, worlds colliding for me. But yeah, I think NXIVM has in some ways brought a certain understanding. So some of the sources I was talking to, yeah, had an understanding of how that worked and, you know, what made that wrong, what made that coercion. how that worked and, you know, what made that wrong, what made that coercion. Twin Flames doesn't have as many of the aspects as NXIVM. So they don't have a blackmail program, right? There's no branding in Twin Flames universe. And, you know, their diet plan was actually, you know, load up on calories, right? So there's some various differences that, you know, maybe

Jeff studied and thought he could fly under the radar with that. I don't know. I don't know Jeff's motivations. He has only sent me long rambling emails. He has never agreed to an interview. But yes, there's so much commonality um including the lawsuits that came out of this so when i reported on this in 2020 uh immediately after our first story uh twin flames universe sent a bunch of threatening letters to all of um who they suspected was cooperating with my reporting. So this was a group of some 35 people. I definitely didn't interview all of them, but they were suspected collaborators. And it basically said, if you do not retract your story within 24 hours and write a public apology, we are going to publish very damning information about you um and we

might pursue a lawsuit and this letter was not signed by a lawyer you know so vice felt that's the first sign it's legit yeah in reporting on it um which we did um and of course, nobody retracted. But sure enough, a couple months after that, they did file a defamation suit against, I want to say, seven or eight members and one mom. And of course, that got thrown out. But that's that's the NXIVM playbook is sue folks until they don't speak to anyone anymore. Right. So it's a silencing tactic. Um, and it worked. It really shook people up. Uh, I definitely wanted to give people space after that. Yeah. It was definitely deja vu, I guess, uh, to see that many lawsuits, uh, cause there were two separate ones, uh, both thrown out.

Yeah. I mean, and that's like something I've had to like coach some younger journalists and stuff through too, because it's a favored tactic of a lot of terrible people like send out legal threats. And like, this is not legal advice, you should always consult a lawyer. But the vast majority of threats like that that are sent out cannot be backed up to any realistic extent. Again, don't ever assume that. Always consult a lawyer about this sort of thing. But like, the fact that somebody sends you a, we're going to sue you or like a cease and desist does not mean they can actually hurt you, right? It just means like for a lot of people, that's like a go-to sort of thing. Yeah, But it does, um, evoke emotions in the Netflix. And it does mean you've

got to reach out to a lawyer, which is scary, you know? Yes. Yes. Thankfully we had vice lawyers on that one. Um, but I don't know, in the Netflix documentary, Jeff actually names me, you know, and tries to intimidate me by name. And that was actually cut from a much longer video. And I have to say, when it first came out, it did make me want to puke. Now, when I see it in the series, it makes me laugh. But yeah, you can really intimidate someone with that stuff. Sure. I think we should probably end on kind of talking about where things are now. Because again, if you've watched the documentary. I think we should probably end on kind of talking about where things are now, because again, if you've watched the documentary, I think the thing that was brought up to me

by a couple of people I know who watched it was like, so wait, they're still just out there doing it. You know, we're used to when stuff like this gets covered, there being some sort of satisfying narrative arc. They've been charged. They're in prison. They're on the run. But this like they're just

continuing to do cult stuff. And I think part of one of the things that is unfortunate is just, I'm not a law expert again, but just from what I've looked at, it's not clear to me that they've broken a law in a way that's going to be easy to come after them for. Yeah. So this is the interesting thing about Twin Flames Universe is it does sort of straddle this line between you know it's not nexium they weren't clary uh they haven't abducted people yes exactly they haven't risen to that level uh although there are folks who are in this group who believe they were trafficked which is an interesting perspective because they weren't able to choose the person that they were having sexual contact with, that they didn't even get to control when or how that sexual contact happened. It would take, I think, you know, a very ambitious prosecutor to take on that kind of case. But back in 2020,

some of these moms were already calling, you know, the FBI and the local Farmington Hills police. Farmington Hills has been like, this is not our jurisdiction. If anything, like go to the FBI. Um, we haven't heard any particular updates from that,. Certainly, folks have said things to me that sound a bit like fraud. You know, wire fraud is a very broad concept. I don't know if that's actually the case. I am not a lawyer. I am not a prosecutor. But definitely, I think the filmmakers behind the Netflix documentary in particular think that this is up to the FBI. They should

be taking action and they want their documentary to spur that action. So yeah, we'll see what happens. I, you know, um, and as I said, not an expert, not a lawyer, uh, but certainly a lot of the things that I've heard about sound very concerning and very similar. Yeah. I mean, and I, yeah, it's tough because like, I mean, I do, I will say I would be shocked if there's not an active FBI investigation purely based on how popular the documentaries have been, right? Like that doesn't mean anything will actually happen, but at this point I would be shocked if they were not seriously looking into it just because it's like,

they're probably getting hassled by a bunch of people. Yes. And I mean, it is a very culty thing that they also collect everything, you know, video of everything they've done. There's a lot to look into. Yeah. The yes,

the hard drive that one of the folks in the documentary named Keely collected was literally called the Holy grail, right? For NXIVM, for Keith Raniere, his, you know, damning evidence was called studies. So I feel like this is the studies hard drive yeah uh in that case gosh well we'll continue to all look at into this and and excited to kind of see hopefully eventually some sort of justice being done although that's always yeah a lot to ask for out of the world. Yeah. Well, Mia,

did you have anything else you wanted to get into? I think that's basically everything. Okay. And Sarah, did you have anything else you wanted to make sure to mention? Well, I would just like to mention that, you know, having a belief about something like a soulmate

is not necessarily a bad thing. I don't want people to feel stupid for having weird beliefs. having a belief about something like a soulmate is not necessarily a bad thing. I don't want people to feel stupid for having weird beliefs. If you open your third eye and, you know, believe your partner has been, you know, in your dreams since birth, that's fine to me. I don't want to disparage that kind of person. It's the systematic coercion that, you know, I'm particularly concerned about in my

reporting. Yeah. But yeah, maybe you could check out my book. It's called Don't Call It a Cult. It's about the NXIVM case. You can follow me on Twitter, SarahBerms, B-E-R-M-S, not X. I'm dead naming Twitter again. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, that's about it. All right. Well, everyone, that's been another episode of It Could Happen Here. Until next time, why don't you go happen somewhere else? It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com,

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