Soul Boom - Escaping a Cult (w/ Chess Master Danny Rensch)

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

Danny Rensch stopped being a pawn in his family's cult and broke free to rebuild his life and found Chess.com. He and Rainn unpack what life is like growing up in a cult, the painful process of leaving, and the long journey of healing and reconnecting with his mother. Together they explore resilience, forgiveness, and how meaning can be rebuilt after spiritual manipulation and control. THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS! Green Chef (50% OFF!) 👉 ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://greenchef.com/50soulboom reMarkable (FREE returns for 100 days!) 👉 ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://remarkable.com Ollie (60% OFF!) 👉 ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ollie.com/soulboom⁠⁠⁠⁠ Fetzer 👉 ⁠⁠https://www.fetzer.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⏯️ SUBSCRIBE!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠👕 MERCH OUT NOW! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠📩 SUBSTACK!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  FOLLOW US! IG: 👉 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://instagram.com/soulboom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: 👉 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://tiktok.com/@soulboom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  CONTACT US! Sponsor Soul Boom: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠ Work with Soul Boom: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Send Fan Creations, Questions, Comments: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Executive Produced by: Kartik Chainani Executive Produced by: Ford Bowers, Samah Tokmachi Companion Arts Production Supervisor: Mike O'Brien Theme Music by: Marcos Moscat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. It's a terrible clickbait catchphrase, but you grew up in a chess cult. Yeah, okay, here we go. The Church of Immoral Consciousness was founded by Stephen and Trina Camp. Ultimately, the leaders of the collective kind of decided everything about people's lives. How old were you? Maybe 11 or 12. Chess started to be weaponized against me as my purpose.

Was at one point he started joking with me like Danny, which is more important. The King of Your Honor. mother. I would not speak another word to my mom for seven years. Now we're going to go into territory I've never talked about. At one point, and this is where the story gets really wild. Oh, this is where the story gets wild.

Hey there, it's me, Rain Wilson, and I want to dig into the human experience. I want to have conversations about a spiritual revolution. Let's get deep with our favorite thinkers, friends, and entertainers about life, meaning, and idiocy. Welcome to the Soul Boom podcast.

Danny Wrench, welcome to Soul Boom. Thanks for having me. I am going to say something to you. I have never, ever, ever, with the 70 guests we've had so far, been as excited to have a conversation with someone ever. Yeah, I don't even know what to say to that, but thank you. First of all, let's start with chess. You have an outrageous tale to tell, and we'll get to it,

but let's start with the game of chess. What is chess? Is it a sport? Is it an art form? Is it a game? It's funny. I've been asked this question so much. Obviously, as chess.com has grown, and now we even get asked, is it an esport, right? We get asked all of those things, right? Sure.

Or is it content? Is it streaming content, right? I think that the people in the sporting bucket who defend sport as a physical trial or activity feel offended if I ever say that chess is sport, although there's a lot of evidence with the way they've measured someone's heart rate and what happens to them, they lose a lot of calories when they play chess. Well, in what ways is it a sport? It's a one-to-one combat where your will has to be imposed over another.

And you have to take victory versus being given it. And I think that there are sports. People consider sports that have less contact or like literally energy exchange in an intimate setting, right? I mean, you see like Magnus Carlson bang the table because there's a lot of tension that builds up over a six-hour chess game. And I mean, golf or, you know, other things that are considered sport, I think have less of a one-to-one relation where you're literally trying to out-maneuver someone, out-smart someone. So I think it is a sport from that perspective.

Yeah, I mean, how would it be less of a sport than like discus throwing? Exactly. Where there's like eight people going and throwing their discus. Right. And you're not even like, you're barely seeing them. Exactly. And you never see your opponent. And also, you don't have to take anything from your opponent, right?

They're competing against the course or in archery even. Like they're competing, you know, for accuracy. And again, I'm not disparaging any of those sports, but it's a very different experience than like the idea that you will be denied everything you want by another human being in a battle to win. You know, I don't even know what else to say. So I think it is. It's more like boxing or like tennis.

I think boxing and tennis are actually the best one-to-one comparisons. One, because they're both one-to-one. And two, because there is literally a reason why they, use the, it's a chess game out there analogy because there's often what the fans at their level of understanding see when the punch is delivered is not where the first mistake was made, right? It was like someone stepped on their back foot. They didn't properly respond to this. And then we all see the punch. Or they've been telegraping their punches in a certain way throughout. The other person picked up on it. Then they telegraph it and they get counterpunched.

Because that's not everyone has to be an expert on boxing to see all that. They can see the final punch just like not everyone has to be an expert on chess to see a checkmate or to see whatever, you know, the final moment is. But the mate is coming 20 or 30 moves before the mate actually lands, unless it's an accidental kind of blunder. Yeah, same with tennis, right? I mean, I love tennis, but certainly there are times where I see something great that happens at the end when there were, it was a foregone conclusion, right? But anyway, sorry, go ahead. Yeah, no, no, it was it's, it was set up and it's, it's been set up, many, many moves previously. And how is chess, we all know how it's a game, right?

And checkers is a game. Chinese checkers is a game, you know? Like, in what way is chess an art form? Like, I am a mediocre middling chess player. I was on the high school chess team for a year and a half. I played in a couple of tournaments when I was younger, got decimated in them. Tournaments are hard.

We'll talk about that. But because I know just enough about chess, sometimes I can watch masters, grandmasters playing in tournament conditions and see kind of like an artistry that is behind the moves. I can, I imagine for someone at your level, you can see the artistry much more clearly. Yeah, obviously, art is subjective

and in some ways certain people will love one painting versus another, just like in chess, some people love a long, drawn-out endgame that is like, it requires a level of precision and in the end, the geometry of the board comes to life because a king that is separate from a king on the other side of the board

is already controlling the other king's movement, and the advanced artists see it and beginners don't, and they can see the beauty of how the board is manipulated and the geometry is worked and are used against someone. That's one way I would say that there's like that aspect of it. there's because the board is kind of a canvas in that world. I think one of the other things that defines art is like, maybe not the unexpected,

but where you see something that isn't even there, like you see something a little beyond the current position. And one of the things about chess that has a lot of that is when someone is able to sacrifice and be down on the board, right? You look at the pieces off the board and it seems like someone's losing, but when you look on the board, the pieces that are still there are controlling everything that matters. And we always joke in the chess world that if you get a description by the chess mom or

dad who comes out and goes, well, I counted the pieces off the board and looked like they were winning. And then the kid comes back and says, I just got checkmated, right? Because there was a queen sacrifice and a beautiful attack that was launched that ultimately denied the math of chess, which is, that's such a beautiful thing when you think the math of chess does matter. Like if you, if you're up material most the time you win, but the rare times where it doesn't, where you are sacrificing for something that is beyond the material. I think is one of the things people really love about chess. And then as an artist and in the creative way that we have seen that come to life,

where sacrificing a queen for a checkmate attack is maybe the most like content worthy for the content world, the meme worthy. But there are so many other ways where someone sacrifices for something much more abstract, control over a square or an aspect of the board. And that is a time where you look at it and you do see kind of a painting where you see just something that is that is not supposed to be that way, but it works. One thing that I think people don't understand about chess is like how the game changes every decade or two.

You can literally look at a game played by chess masters from the late 19th century, and you'll be like, oh, that's an 18th century game. Then you can look at chess masters from the 20s, watch a game, not be told who it is, say this is the world chess tournament. You'd be like, oh, that's from the 20s. One of the things I've reflected on it and kind of talked about it in my book, which we'll get into is how chess has sort of mirrored and been aligned with sort of the way people thought at the time, not just on a chessboard, but off the chessboard. And it really is true what you said. I mean, you know, you know chess so you know, like there was chess being played right after the Renaissance.

You know, we're talking like 17, 1800s and what we revered and admired, like what royalty revered and admired was like art and like theater and express. in a way that like it was like the birth of things you would know way more about than I would as far as that. And then as we moved into the, you know, the birth of machines and the artificial intelligence, like a lot of what became the most, you know, the most modern reflection of all these different ways we had played chess. We had learned to play romantically and sacrifice like the Renaissance era taught us to. But okay, now we know how to be smart and only take what's given to us along the way. Now we know we can build tension and either win with a sweeping attack or a precise end game. We're evolving as human chess species now. And what we want to see is can we make something that can do it better than all of us.

And like, that's what the early computers were. They were taking all this knowledge and plug it into a jet engine and go see what the superpower can do. And chess was very closely tied to the, you know, to mankind's early relationship with computers and AI. And unfortunately, that brought us to what we thought we were going to have in the 2000s. it brought us to full circle. We had created something that was so much better than us at chess and had beaten Gary Kasparov. People were afraid to make mistakes.

Like we weren't doing any of the things anymore. Well, because part of it is when you play online at a high level, you constantly have this engine running in the background. It's like, oh, that's not what the computer would have done. The computer would have done this or would have done this. I imagine when you're competing at that high level, you're like, what would the computer do? What's the computer move?

Well, would the computer? Oh, would the computer have done that? You know? Yep. And now sky's the limit. Who the fuck knows? Well, yeah, no. And so we get to where we are now.

The chess that is being played is more creative than ever. The DNA that has been injected into the next generation is more, you know, more open-minded and kind of risk, risk-tolerant than they've been in decades before it. And, yeah, I mean, I think combine all that with the knowledge that they have before, it's, it's the best chess ever. It's awesome. Amazing. Amazing. Who are the guys to, there's up-and-comers, especially from India. Who do we watch out for now?

Who are the next champions? It's got to start with Gukesh. Damaraju Gukesh is the current world champion. Again, partly because of the vacuum where Magnus walked away, the title has been sort of, you know, he, whatever. How old is he? So Gukesh is 19. Amazing.

Amazing. And he's the youngest world champion ever. He, again, won the title over these last few years in this odd time. Magnus is still the best player in the world. but he's up and coming. The other person is Prague-Nand-a, and I bet if I lined up the faces of Gou-Kesh and Prague, you might recognize Prague more than Gou-Kesh,

partly because Prague sort of burst onto the scene. We say Prague, because it's a shorter nickname, but Prague-nan-onda. Prague was sort of the first real superstar. Gou-Kesh ultimately won the candidates tournament, which allowed him to win the match. But Prague and Goukesh right now, I mean, it's neck-and-neck as far as who might end up being better when all is said and done, who knows.

And Prague is very famous. because he he was the first of that generation to beat magnus, which led to the India Prime Minister gave his family a car, which led to this like crazy photo of like Prague getting off the plane. Like it was, I think it was like in times or time or something, like where he's just being swarmed by human beings. He just became an absolute star. And the other one I was mentioning quickly,

because it's unfair not to is Arjuni or Ageisi. Arjun is funny for me personally because Prague and Gukesh are here. and as far as their status, they're known more. But Arjun has been a kid that, like, literally grew up. Also from India. And he grew up on Chess.com. And unlike Prague and Gukesh,

he's been more into the faster time controls of like online blitz and online bullet, which is sort of, you know, our domain on chess.com. And so I have been looking at Arjun's games and then defending accusations where people thought this kid was cheating because he was coming. He came from out of nowhere in India for so long that, like, I think of his talent as being maybe, maybe potentially surpassing both of them.

I don't know. He's really just now starting to get opportunities to play an over the board called OTP classical chess. There's so many different versions of chess, which I used to get frustrated about. Now I go like, maybe I need to stop fighting the system and embrace that like in running, people don't expect to compare the winner of the marathon versus Hussein Bolt, right? Bolt wins the whatever the, I don't know enough about it, right? But we understand and accept that there are different disciplines.

and different body types, right? And in some ways, chess actually does have that with like its fastest time controls, its slowest time controls. So I won't go into the philosophical debate of what it means. But that was another great thing about Magnus is he was able to dominate on both.

And he still is. One minute chess, three minute chess. And over the board, you know, three hour chess, he can win. Yeah, and he still does. And that's one of the things about him. It's like he, we will see the passing of the torch at some point, but we're still living

in the Magnus Carlson era. It's his world and we're living in it. And we'll see where that goes. I think one of the most disappointing things about him choosing not to defend the throne and giving it up in the vacuum way he did, despite the politics of the chess where we all live in and different scandals is it kind of robbed all of us as fans of what you want to see, right? You want to see someone knock out Lennox Lewis or Mike Tyson.

Like you want to see it. You want to see Sinner be a joke of it. Exactly. And so we've been kind of robbed of that currently as all of us living in the chess world, and we'll see maybe Magnus starts playing more classical again. I don't know. But that's the one thing. Yeah. So anyway. Part of the framing of your new book, Dark Squares, which is just magnificent. I couldn't put it down. I thought it was beautiful, riveting, is this chess cheating scandal. Can you fill us in on where we are with that right now? Because modern world and all of its perils has created new. possibilities for cheating in over-the-board classical chess in ways that we never thought possible. Yeah. So cheating in chess, for those who don't live in our world, is an existential crisis. And it is... And there's cheating online, like on chess.com, and there's also cheating over the board. In competition. Yeah. It's funny because part of what you just said there is important to share that I think for a long time cheating online was considered,

even now maybe you would say it's still less of a sin than if someone cheated in a world championship match as far as how people think about it. I don't know what the blood doping or PED comparison would be to other sports if it's less of a sin. But because online was considered more casual, it didn't hold the same weight if a young person or an old person broke these rules, right?

We dealt with it and they were penalized in whatever way. but because of the amount of money that has come into the game, both in terms of the competition itself, I talked about whether chess is an e-sport and there's millions of dollars in prices happening online only, but also the opportunity to become a content creator and to win the vanity economy, which is its own very lucrative opportunity, right,

that exists in an attention-based world, right? There's dozens of chess influencers playing on Twitch and they have YouTube channels, chess lessons, on chess.com, So that carrot, if you will, has changed. Some of them have millions of fans and followers that tune into everything they say. It's crazy, right? I mean, you know, you think of Gotham Chess on YouTube with Levy, but, you know, Hikaru,

there are millions of followers and then with it millions of dollars, right? So the online world has completely changed. And we can get into that and chess.com in terms of how we tackle cheating. But then to this thing, and just to kind of explain the framework, as like you said, there was a huge scandal that happened. And I write about my side of that. that whole behind the scenes journey in my book, but the over the board world had cheating before,

before computers became better than every human being on the planet, and before that computer was available on your phone or in secret or a device, before all that happened, online chess was dealing with this actually early because we were already not in front of a human being. They already had an easier way to cheat. So we kind of had to tackle and build infrastructure

that was going to deal with it differently. The over the board world was basically, basically kept, they were kind of like, kept isolated from this. They were protected because the assumption was, how could someone cheat if they're right in front? I'm playing chess with rain right here. Like, how could he cheat as long as I can see him? Someone could be throwing signals from the audience.

That was the first thing is people started with audience signaling. Then what was the next wave of cheating? Then the next one was not monitoring well enough people's ability to leave the room. Because like you said, a grandmaster has an engine telling you not just one move, but all the next series of moves. And their memory is next level compared to, to the average human, so they could leave the room, quickly check a device in the bathroom.

There was literally a thing called toilet gate and chess that people don't know about. This happened during a World Championship match between Kromnik and Tupoloff, where one of the players was accused by the other of visiting the bathroom too much because there was a device held in one of the stalls. So the first one was signaling under the assumption that the signaler has access to this information, the computers. The next one was leaving the room because chess has always had such a gentleman's culture, the, whatever, the assumption that no one would do this. Now we have to worry about someone

leaving. And then we moved into the world we have now, which is Bluetooth, ability to communicate wirelessly. You were saying there's earpieces. Yeah, I'm going to get to that, which is, so after Bluetooth, which is just the basic wireless phone we all have on our speakers, now there's RFT devices that are way more available than people think. An RFT is a radio frequency transmission device where something is on you, but unless I'm actively sending a six, it's not showing up to something that's being detected because it's not it's not actively sending a signal so you can wear an rfti buzzer you can wear an rfti earpiece you can wear something that essentially would let you know that there's something happening and what's interesting is obviously

you would prefer an earpiece if you could because then someone could say English words or whatever language you speak but if you think about what a grandmaster would need what a top player would need to have information is, again, not what the mere mortals would ever need, right? Literally, chess.com's data online proves this, which is the average grandmaster, let's say, is rated about 2,600 ELO for those who would look up the rating system. Most of those grandmasters solve puzzles at a rating level that is close to the computers, like 3,300. Like, because just knowing, like a tap on the shoulder from the bluebird that there's something going on here is a signal that is like a crazy amount of information, right? All they need to know is that this

position matters, let alone one buzz means rook, two buzz means night, three buzz means bishop, right? So suddenly, and sadly, these devices, again, are more available than people would think. We were in a world where you couldn't trust the person right in front of you, right? You didn't have any real idea and security, you know, whatever. They say, they say happiness is the delta between expectations and reality. The chess world has been very unhappy about this for a very long time because the reality. because the reality is this is available,

but the expectations and the security and the infrastructure to catch it is like, is not in line at all. Like they are not caught up to the situation. And so all of that I just described leads us to this cheating scandal that happened in 2022 where Magnus Carlson accused his opponent in an over-the-board game, this opponent was Hans Neiman, a young player, who then to describe everything that went into this,

Hans Neiman had a record and a history of cheating on chess.com. And even though this was never publicly confirmed by us at that time, like the chess world is very small, they all knew about it. Everyone knew that this was a person who at least as far as online goes, couldn't be trusted, right? Then he has this performance where he beats Magnus Carlson as black. Magnus had not lost a game as white in 53 classical games, which was a span of many years,

and did so in a way that, was followed with Magnus himself said this, which is like, when I lose, it's the biggest win of someone's career. And like, he had no emotion. He exerted like no energy. Like, like people have beaten Magnus and started sobbing at the board.

You know what it's like? It's like winning an Olympic gold medal, right? And so Hans, you know, for those who love him, had this bravado and this sort of like, doesn't give a shit, like, and I'm just better than Magnus. And the game itself was like a perfect game of chess.

and he has this history of cheating and and shit went crazy. And Magnus was like something's wrong here. He accused him of cheating. The world broke. There are still, there are still, I mean, I'm sort of talking about it. Netflix is watching this hurry. Like there's a documentary that's been done about this. I was one of the ones who went under NDA to like to do my side of the story.

Although my book's coming out and, you know, that's happening. So they can't really stop that. We all told our sides of the story of this. Magnus accuses Hans and chess. And chess.com was caught in the middle because, what we had been keeping as a secret for Hans was sort of forced into the public, which came with the expectation, well, what do you think about what Magnus is saying now, right? And so we delivered a report that in some ways backed up Magnus and in some ways didn't.

And then Hans sued all of us for $100 million. And it was one of the craziest stories ever. And I can keep going, but I'll shut up just to say that that's what happened, basically. And there's still fears about this. And one of the accusations was that he had anal beads. Yes, yeah. That would vibrate. Yeah.

And his little chest playing butthole. I want to say that that was a rumor that is like, I don't think that was ever realistic. It's kind of like Richard Gere and the gerbil in his butt. Kind of like that. And it's kind of like Rod Stewart drinking a bucket of cum before a concert. That's a thing? Yeah, that was a, apparently that was a thing.

It was really big in Seattle in the 70s. Okay. So because I want to be fair to, I want to be fair to Hans here because he was also a young person. And now again, I've also been on record many times saying that Hans doesn't get to play the young kid card in a way that would happen in other worlds because it sounds good to mainstream media. But we live in a world that not only celebrates and gives opportunities to child prodigies, but also gives those child prodigies opportunities to affect the livelihoods of professionals, meaning they get to play against the best players in the world for thousands of dollars at a young age. So you can't have both. You don't get your cake and eat it too. You can't have the opportunity for the vanity economy and to be pursuing it and be cheating

online, which he was in ways that he still denies to some degree, admits to some degree. I don't even care because I don't want to go into it. But you don't get to play that game and then play this other card of like the victim card of whatever. Like you were actually a full grown adult who had been competing against the best players in the world for thousands of dollars. And so if you were cheating, there's an accountability. So that's one thing.

But I want to be fair to Hans that the anal beats thing was never true. Literally this was a rumor that happened in a. a Twitch chat that Elon Musk then tweeted without any verification, right? Go Elon. No looking into the matter. He tweeted and gave life to it. And the whole thing went viral on Reddit. And before you knew it, it was it was borderline fact. I mean, even now, like I will talk to people and the assumption is, and this is that's sad for Hans, the assumption is, oh, you mean the kid who cheated with anal beads? When here's, I'll just, I'll defend the fact that he did use anal beads in this way. I know more about what's available to cheat in technology

than most people, you don't need to use anal beats. Like, you can do anything else. And if he was into that world and was cheating over the board, he wouldn't need to do that. So regardless of the accusation, being ridiculous and leading to all the memes that happened. I just love the fact that this podcast now

holds the world record for the most times. Someone said anal beats. There were probably podcasts that will challenge you for that, but yes, yeah. your new memoir dark squares is one of the best i've ever read i thought it was searing i couldn't put it down um obviously the stakes are a little higher for me because i know you and i had heard little snippets about your life previously but your story is astonishing for those who don't know essentially it's a it's a it's a terrible uh clickbait catchphrase but you grew up in a chess

And I would love to hear that story. I'd love for you to share that story and your learnings and what it was like for you to write this searing memoir about it. So how did this all start? How did you and your mom and dad for a while get involved with the Church of the Immortal Consciousness? Yeah, okay. Here we go. Um, Green Chef. Folks, I love the fall season.

The leaves remind me of my own impermanence. The crisp air forces me into my coziest flannels. And pumpkin spice lattes remind me that I should, well, pretty much just stick with black coffee. But it's also a great season to reset healthy habits. And Green Chef makes that ridiculously easy. I've been using Green Chef at home. I love it. I really love it.

I can have wholesome, nutritious, filling meals in three minutes. Green Chef uses fresh organic seasonal ingredients with proteins that are 100% responsibly sourced. There's over 80 options every week from plant-based to protein packed. I'm going to be honest with you. If you can't find something you like at Green Chef, you might be the problem. Make this fall your healthiest yet with Green Chef. Head to greenchef.com slash 50 Soul Boom and use code 50 Soul Boom 5-0 Soul Boom to get 50% off your first month, then 20% off for two months with free shipping. That's code 50 soul boom at greenchef.com slash 50 soul boom.

Green Chef. Hey, I wanted to give a quick shout out to our spiritual partners at the Fetzer Institute. They have just launched a brand new shiny website over at Fetzer.org. That's Fetzer.org. That's Fetzer, and it's full of spiritual tools for modern struggles, which is exactly what we're trying to cultivate here at soul boom. Fetzer believes that most of humanity's problems are spiritual at the route and they're helping people plant some deeply soulful solutions. So I urge you to go poke around their new website, check out fetzer.org. Thank you, Fetzer Institute, for helping sponsor the show and all of the truly amazing work that you do over there. Fetzer.org. That's Fetzer.org. That's Fet ZER.org. The Church of Immoral Consciousness was founded by Stephen and Trina Camp.

Trina Camp was a transmedium who trance the spirit of Dr. Paul Ball-Duran, who was, as the story goes, a 15th century doctor. I actually don't have any way to document that. That was just kind of what I was told as far as the spirit that spoke through her. No, I've seen footage of her doing this. And you see a woman, a middle-aged woman, kind of throw her head back. and then this kind of crazy voice of what's supposedly a 15th century English doctor who has kind of interesting phraseology, interesting accent, a kind of outlandish sense of humor is speaking through her to bring a message of love

and peace to the world. And this was kind of the centerpiece of the creation of the cult. Yeah. And so I'm glad you mentioned that because that time period, Stephen and Trina traveling the world and doing trance circles for different people. And the one that you referenced is one that was on national television. And there is some footage out there. That was what they were doing.

That was what Stephen and Trina Camp did. And regardless of people's perspective or feelings on the validity of trance or not, that was their show. That was their job, right? And their bread and butter. And their bread and butter. But also their mission to bring this message of love and peace and unity. 100%.

And so they were doing that long before I was born. in the 70s and into the early 80s. And as I've learned it from not just my parents, but other members of the former collective, the former Church of Immortal Consciousness, which is now no more, as it's been told to me, that was the plan. And they sort of accidentally or decided at some point

to stop traveling and instead invite people to come and visit Duran and them in Mesa, Arizona. And that's when my parents entered the picture. So trances, rather than being on the road, not to say that they never traveled again, but they set up camp in Mesa, Arizona, and my parents were two of the earliest members of the collective, Debbie Sampson and Steve Wrench. They had heard Dr. Duran during one of these travel sessions.

I think it was in Southern California. I realize I've never actually 100% confirmed that, but I'm pretty sure that my parents first heard Dr. Duran together in Southern California when they were married. And for all kinds of reasons, and some I wrote about, some I kind of think I know about that I've been told, others I've kind of surmised, they decided along with a lot of other people that they wanted to move to Mesa, Arizona, and they thought that would be good for their relationship and that it would maybe help save or heal some of the issues they were having. So people were drawn like moths to a flame to Trina's transmitting Dr. Duran because they thought there was a spiritual power there. They wanted to be a part of it. They wanted to get kind of healing and guidance from Duran.

100% all of those things. And they also wanted to kind of form a collective together, share resources. So it's funny. Early on, like so many cults, things maybe were kind of good at the beginning, right? Yes, the original plan was people were coming to seek healing, right? And to seek help for their marriages or relationships or with their kids or insert anything, right? And Trina Transduran and Duran was magnetic. And everything that was happening at that time was based around this idea.

that this was going to be a collective, formed also with the idea of certain logistical things, like merged finances. There would be a communist approach to life in terms of everybody's in this together. We're all working toward the greater good, which has its own potential failures and systems that we'll get into. But that was part of the idea, along with regular trances that people would experience with Dr. Duran to give lessons and sermons. And then where and when needed, something that was called group processes, a process. And the reason I jumped to that, because really, if I was founding or describing the founding things that defined, how did the collective work, I would say it was those three things. It was merged finances, a collective commune,

hearing the wisdom of a spirit through the deity of Trina Camp with this idea of group meetings where essentially people would get together to tell each other their feelings, at best it was like, you know, describing things you're going through in your own marriage to seek help from both your peers and the teachers. At worst, it was, it was a lot of bad things where people were yelling at each other and screaming. Just berating each other. And berating each other. But those, yeah. Because that was an essential pillar of this community where these group meetings, what did you call them?

Processes. These processes where someone would say, you kept hanging up your laundry in my yard and you're always selfish in that way. You just got to work it out. Yeah, exactly. And just like unedited and even it would get into like fist fights and stuff like that. No, and. Even though the message of Dr. Duran was one of peace

and harmony and unity, you had people kind of like yelling at each other. But the idea was like, we'll process this. We'll get all of the resentments out of the way and then we'll be able to live in greater harmony. Yeah. Who developed this process? It's funny because I don't know where it came from. I was born into it and it was always just a way of life.

right? I would, I have since learned that this type of idea exists in a lot of other cults as well. And again, that was one of the things that I became educated about that maybe gave and or changed my perspective on some stuff. But to just answer the question specifically about the collective, the idea was that if part of Duran's teaching was to tell the truth and love other people, partly how you love other people is past their faults, past their weaknesses, past also their deepest fears. And so by creating a space, for everybody to be fully open and vulnerable. In theory, if everybody was really doing that equally with no judgment,

with only love and discernment and kindness, why can't we all just get along, right? But in reality and in practice, what was often the case was not only were you revealing your deepest, darkest fears, character flaws, maybe sins you had committed in the past that you had been keeping secret, whatever that was, you were revealing them to kind of a non-professional therapist,

to be honest with you, which I think nowadays would probably just be ill-advised. So someone was running it? Someone was right. Stephen and Trina Camp and eventually my father, Steve Wrench, really ran the processes. They were the leaders of it. Not only was it like maybe not the best environment ultimately because you didn't have as much professional guidance as you thought you did,

but also you were revealing it to people who within your peer group were ultimately kind of like going to use it against you, right? They were sort of going to compete with you for not just status within the collective. there was literally something taught to us in terms of there was a literal hierarchy. There were processes where people had to group each other into the haves and the have-nots where the peer group itself would sort of decide what the caste system was. And sometimes that got bloody and violent in terms of how people felt. So it was not egalitarian.

No, I mean, I educated enough now that I can't not quote Orwell when you say that there are, you know, equal and those who are a little more equal, right? And I think that that is in practice what happened, the human experience. of communism, if anyone wanted to ever see why it doesn't work. I mean, we're going to talk about it. But there was a lot of things that were just revealed in terms of the fact that that was never actually the case, right? And when you had Stephen and Trina, as the deities financially receiving most of the benefits of the collective and living a life that was way more luxurious than the majority of the people in it, which started in Mesa on the block, as we called it,

it was all these houses on 7th Street, eventually moved to Tonto Village, Arizona. And you had people living in cabins and unable to provide basic needs and deal with basic problems while there were $400,000 cabins over here. It didn't work out well, right? And back to the idea of the processes is that part of the good thing of learning the skill, I guess, or being in an environment where you were encouraged to tell the truth and love other people was, I guess, it was good as long as you thought that everyone else was playing the same game. Everyone else was trying to do the same thing. But when it became clear that it was not the same game,

not only was information being used against you. Ultimately, the leaders of the collective kind of decided everything about people's lives. But then you add like what happens to the actual processes themselves. You have people, you have power moves. You have just manipulation, people not being honest, people again, fighting to perform within the collective, like learning how to articulate and express using the words of the teaching,

where literally that is the exact. of the teaching itself might have been okay. It was how it was being used was the problem. The teachers were the problem, right? And the environment was not reflective of Duran's teaching in regards to whatever that would be, the golden rule, you reap what you so, love and kindness and whatever. And it was one of the things in Duran's teaching that you embodied as a soul. You are a spiritual being having a physical experience. Your job is to learn lessons from those around you and ultimately become your best self, whether that's Christ. like self on the planet or ultimately the best soul you can to evolve to your next state of being.

Not a bad theory. Good stuff, right? But then you come back. But if you don't do it well, then you will have to reembody. So reincarnation became weaponized. Similar, I would argue, ways that reincarnation is weaponized in a caste system, the fear of having done wrong in terms of your embodiment. You're going to come back as a dog or a cockroach or something and have to work your way back up again. And in our church, in our way of being, that was also a direct threat. Like literally the term you'll have to reembody over this would be like the term of a Jehovah's Witness saying, you'll go to hell for this.

Like literally it was that type of threat and control in terms of, in terms of if you don't play the game the right way, do processes the right way, ultimately follow your purpose and have integrity the right way. Literally like being told by Stephen and Trina, like, I think you're going to reembody over this was like literally like a death sentence. The worst thing you could say. Now, now I have a question.

Dr. Duran and Trina and Stephen very much like followers of the Bible and of Jesus. And Jesus was front and center. What role did Jesus play in this collective? Because the reason I'm asking that is like, that's nowhere in the Bible. Like, where did they, do they just borrow it from Hinduism? Or did they borrow it from like psychics talking about past lives? The way I would answer it is Jesus may have been front and center, but Christianity was not.

They actually honored more like that there have been prophets and saints with messages, whether it's Buddha, Jesus, Ganesha, name a prophet of other major religions, and we'll go down all of them. But there have been great teachers and great prophets, and there is a singular truth of oneness in regards to all the teachings of love thy neighbor like you love thyself because you are thy neighbor. And karma being less of an opinion of what goes around, around, but more of like a spiritual law in terms of you will reap what you sow, either this

lifetime or the next. There was a mixture. It was a, it was a non-denominational take on striving toward your spiritual being, becoming the best being it can while in the body. And so Jesus was, Jesus had great lessons, but so did others. Like, like there were Buddhism mixed in, as I said. There was, again, there were Hinduism and Buddhism, which is, which is a different take. And so I would say that those were all tools at best like I think a lot of religion, stories that can be effective and helping people be their best selves or ask good questions. But then where it became a cult is exactly where, you know, a lot of religion can lose its way or dogma can. And this collective while claiming to be the best was no exception, which was literally pretending you have the answers is where you become a cult versus helping people ask life's biggest questions. and then pretending that only two people have the answers.

Stephen and Trina becomes a cult. And even more so creating a hierarchy of where people will keep themselves in check so that you make sure that everyone is always being compared and contrasted to this certain level of teaching, otherwise they'll have to reembody and they're lower on the totemple now. So I'll shut up there to just say, yeah.

But it's very interesting to say, you know, because I've seen a lot of documentaries about cults and read a lot about cults and whatnot. and there usually is this one like cult leader and things start good and then sex gets involved or sex and drugs gets involved and that's when it really becomes a cult. You know, a good idea like the Jonestown guy,

you know, early on, I forget the name of that particular church, but early on they were in the Bay Area. They were like planting food. It was interracial. They worshipped Jesus. There was arts and singing. It was like paradise. And it drew people in.

and then things started to get a little funky and a little shady, and then they ended up in Guyana and the whole madness. But with this one, what's so interesting about it is like there isn't like that cult leader. You could say it's Stephen Camp, but then you could kind of say it's Trina, but then you could say it's Dr. Duran, because they all shifted to Duran. Do you know what I mean? And then your dad played a very powerful and important role at the center of the cult. as well. So it was, it's not a typical cult in that fashion. They, they, they fabricated this

incredible dynamic among the populace from this kind of like triumvirate of Stephen Trina and Duran. Yeah. No, I, but you said it well. And what I would, what, what it makes me think of is in some ways it was all of those things. It was, it was, it was a matriarchy run through the deity of Trina camp and it was proposed as like a feminine based teaching, which was manipulated, manipulated, and weaponized, especially against the young women. But then you could also say it was a patriarchy posing as a matriarchy and actually using a front person effectively so that the real work and manipulation was being done behind the scenes. Then you had my dad who was kind of the enforcer of keeping everything together and Stephen Camp got to be the good guy with a lot of people's processes. The word process in the collective was both was both a noun of a thing that happened.

There's a process tonight. We're going to the process. Also, your process was like an adjective to describe what your current issues are that you're working on. that everyone always knew. And then you could be processed. It was like you could be, it could be avert. Right. So I'm saying that to say that my dad,

in many ways, became actually the face of the process. Like that's really true. My dad was like the most aggressive, the most abrasive. He was like the drill sergeant of the process. He was the number two who was willing to do all the dirty work. And for whatever reasons,

my dad was willing and able to be that person, Stephen Camp was then able to play cleanup in many ways. And so there was all those things. It was patriarchy posing as a matriarchy. It was matriarchy because Trina Camp, and again, especially a lot of the young women, if they write their own memoir, they might have different things. They might even tell different stories about that relationship with Trina. You have my dad, who was the enforcer in all these ways.

And then to go full circle back to what you said about what was the driving agenda, I think one of the things that makes it very gray and confusing is it didn't have, it certainly didn't have a violent end, like we're all drinking Kool-Aid or a goal for this. There was no ascension plan. And it also didn't have like, like weight goes ending or what led to like polygamy and the thought of there being like a Christ-like person who could have whatever he wanted. And there also wasn't like the anti-government kind of stance.

There wasn't that. Like we're going to arm ourselves against the tyranny of the Republic. If I was to say the one thing that was the, it's funny, I've never thought about this, but we're probably going to get into a lot of things I've never thought about today. But if I was to pick what it was, if it wasn't having wives or even like the sex, there was a lot of promiscuity in relationships. We'll get to the sex thing in a minute, but do you have something else? I want to say this one thing because I think is important because I would say, we'll get into other stuff.

But if I was to pick the thing that it was that was like the fuel, it was probably money. And I think a lot of that actually stemmed back to the fact that Trina Camp was raised dirt poor. She was literally was a poor country girl, cowgirl, and she never wanted to be poor. And meeting Stephen Camp and taking their proverbial roadshow in house, house and creating this dynamic where people tithes to them and they ran the collective money. If I was to say the one- So they ran the money. They ran the money. All money ran through them. They made all decisions. All money was put into one account, but they were the caretakers of the purse trains. Yeah. And there were different delegates, different generals like my father and others,

who at some point may be the ones delegated to oversee that particular checkbook. But they made all the big decisions and little decisions. And what I was reflecting on is I haven't really thought about what was, what was the agenda, what was the one thing? I think if I had to put my finger on, it would be that Trina Camp was dirt poor. They weren't making enough money on the road. They didn't want to be poor. They didn't think they had to be poor given Trina Camp's gift and her following. And the infrastructure that was built around the money of the collective.

And then, frankly, how Trina Camp dealt with her daughters ultimately being married off to the most influential, potentially rich men in the collective, which is what happened to my dad and my mom, makes sense. that that would be the one thing they were trying to create was wealth for their family. What about power and prestige? I think Stephen Camp. Because they gained a tremendous amount of power over hundreds of people that they didn't have in 1982 and they had in spades in 1990. Do you know what I mean? For sure.

And I think what I was going to say is I think Stephen Camp, I think Trina cared about money. And I think Stephen Camp liked the influence that he had over people. And together, I guess that was kind of a winning combo. in many ways. And I think that over time, as the collective was at its peak, and Stephen Camp had more of his, like, goals to sort of spread that mission to the world, it probably became even more pronounced that he really cared about how the collective was perceived, that he wasn't perceived as a cult leader, and that he wanted to prove those

things wrong. But I would actually say, and again, I don't know, this is just my thought, but I don't know that he cared as much about that in the beginning as Trina did about money. but I think over time it may have become even more equal to both. But that's just my opinion or maybe what I saw. So the most terrifying aspect of your story is the stuff having to do with sex. It had to do with forced marriages of underage girls. It had to do with you taken from your mother.

Couples ripped apart. Stephen and Trina determining who should be together, who should wed whom, what middle-aged man should wed a teenage daughter. It has echoes of, you know, kind of the worst of the early Mormon church and a lot of other cults where all of a sudden you throw sex into the mix

and things start to get really bad, really fast. Can you take us through that? Yeah. So the spiritual justification, the pretense for what was being done, was that everybody has a soulmate. in theory, the term used in the collective was like vibration. Everyone has a person they're supposed to be with.

And that means you're on the same vibration with this person, right? You're connected. The idea would be that if you're in alignment with your like vibration, your soulmate, things will go well for you. You'll have a successful life. You'll be like Stephen and Trina. One day you'll get to have the biggest house or have, you know, a large family and all the, all the means to do that, right?

Or boxes of cereal in the cover. Exactly, right? And so like vibration was, I mean, I jumped right to the areas where it was being manipulated, but at least first, before we even get to that, the idea of Duran's teaching initially was use your relationship as a tool to get closer with another person because ultimately if you're close with a person, that's getting close to God. So the healthy, I'll start with the healthy aspect first. The spiritual justification was a relationship as a tool to move toward your highest self, like

vibration as a tool. Then it became the next step. And monogamous like vibration. And monogamous, exactly. So the fundamental part of it was a like vibration is a tool. Monogamous relationship, living in integrity will ultimately be rewarded this lifetime, but move you closest to your highest self. Okay, great.

But what happens if your relationship isn't working? Is it an excuse to work on the relationship or is in a thought that like, ah, maybe this woman isn't my like vibration? Maybe that woman is. Right. And maybe it doesn't matter that that woman is actually only 19, right? And I'm 38 or whatever that looks like, right? So the reason I jump to that aggressively is because you talked about it with sex, because I obviously thought a lot about this.

And like, one, how was this ever okay? How the fuck did we get here? All the shit, right? And you go, because the spiritual underlying was so powerful in its justification that if you're not with your like vibration, you're going to reimbabody, which is going to hell. If you're not using your relationship to move toward God, then like you're fucked. Right. And so the idea is like, I need to look and find who that person is. Unfortunately, it was never like, well, I need to make my relationship work with this person

because that would be the way to get there. It was like, let me see who else is out there. And so what ended up happening like in practice was a ton of sleeping around, a ton of permiscuity, a ton of men leaving their wives for other women, particularly the men. I'm not saying that women were not permiscuous as well, but particularly the men taking advantage of the environment because, one, it was a patriarchy posing as a matriarchy, and the men were empowered to find their spiritual voice. This is something I talked about because it was told to be a feminine-based teaching.

This is an important thing to understand because it explains the justification of behavior. A feminine-based teaching meant because Trina was the ultimate deity that Stephen was finding God because he was with his right woman. That was the idea because she's the spiritual voice to God, which is different than other religions. Most of the time it's the man, right? So the woman was the spiritual voice to God. But that meant for the man, rather than him like honoring his wife or figuring out a way to listen,

often it meant the men like, oh, I need to go find my Trina camp so I can be like Stephen. And so when it ended up happening was a lot of the women were left because they weren't up to snuff. They weren't their spiritual voice. They weren't doing a good enough job. And then when you add that to two other dynamics because you touched on it, one is you had, well, before we get to the kids being born, you had Trina's desire for her daughter to be financially better off than she was and to be married to men who could provide. And I would later learn, I didn't know this, or I didn't even know some of this before I started writing my book,

which is its own fascinating tale. I would learn and like sharing with a couple of trusted people from the collective that it was actually not some spiritual moment or movement that my dad had in leaving my mom and marrying Stephen and Trina's oldest 19-year-old daughter when he was 38, but that Trina Camp actually put them together one night in a process when she was drunk. was like, you should be together. And the moment she implanted that idea, my dad didn't immediately leave my mom, but that became a thing.

Then, ironically, or not ironically, my wife's dad, my wife's mom would run in the collective in the night and take her kids away, as would be understandable. My wife's dad also left to marry Trina and Stephen's second youngest daughter, and he was a very wealthy general carpenter, general contractor. So my dad was a lawyer, general contractor,

then another one of their younger daughters was married off to someone who was becoming a woman. becoming a lawyer. And so no one was able to question this or even thought about it, but over time, it became very apparent what was happening and led to this hierarchy in the collective. And then the last thing I would say is where it really got fucked up was then as kids were being born into the collective. These are now kids and children. They're also being raised under this idea that like vibration is going to be the ultimate tool to get you to God. So wouldn't it make sense that the sooner we can get them with a like vibration, the better? Right? If like vibration is the

ultimate tool. So they're getting married to each other at what age? Well, so two versions. One is younger women were with older men. Yeah. So you had, let's say there's a guy named Carl, he's a favorite of Stephen Camps. He's got a wife, he's got three kids. She's like middle age now. He's not, she's kind of being bitchy. He's like, I'm not feeling my like vibration with, you know, Carlotta, my wife. And Carl is like, but you know, this 16 year old girl from the Johnson next door. I'm feeling like that's my like vibration. And he's culturally sanctioned to leave his 40-year-old wife. He's 40. Yeah. And get with some teenager. Yeah, the youngest marriages that happened there were the young, the people born in the collective, people were told who their like

vibrations were at like 9, 10, 11, which is its own damage. The youngest marriages that happened was someone 15, I believe, actually. Yeah, I think 15 was the youngest someone was married off to someone in their 20s. But there were 18-year-olds married, as I already said. to men in their mid to late 30s, more than 20 years older. Was there sexual abuse of girls younger than 15 or 16 pre-marriage? Not openly. There was not any open sexual abuse. And like you touched on earlier,

that was kind of one of the weird things where this particular cult experience doesn't fully check that box because Stephen Camp for himself was not engaged in like sexual relationships with younger women. He was with Trina. And part of that was because her rescuity was promoted, finding your life vibration was promoted. But once you were with them,

the expectation was monogamy. And so Stephen... Monogamy until you didn't feel your like vibration anymore. For sure. And you traded in the older model for a younger model, which happened a lot. Yeah. And again, that was done under the pretense of they're now my like vibration, so I'm fully with them.

And I'm only saying that not to sound like a cult apologist, but just to say there wasn't ever a plural relationship that happened in the collective because that was against that particular doctrine. Yeah, but it's just, it's all, it's all lingo. it's all like patriarchal older men wanting to get with multiple older women because then they would go with that 19 year old. That would go five or six years and they'd trade it in for another 19 year old. Yeah, the collective probably didn't last long enough for that to happen. But there definitely were.

There definitely were young men, sorry, men who left women multiple times for sure. And yeah, and there were men who were with wives who have kids with multiple women, you know, because of that. And so for sure, I think. So they were, the monogamy then was not, you know, foundational to the cult, to the collective, if they were having kids with multiple women. Yeah, but I guess I would say that it was never at the same time. I think it was a difference between monogamy and polygamy in terms of you're with someone.

That is the only active sexual relationship you have until you decide there's a better one. So I'm not, I'm just clarifying as far as how I thought about it. But, but yeah, so my dad left my mom. when I was six weeks old to marry Stephen and Trina's oldest daughter, who was 19. And my mom was 36 at the time. My dad was 38. Yeah, it's funny because you asked me that in the beginning, and I'll come back to it, because we jump right into my story.

I was born in the collective in a home birth. But part of the reason I was born is a funny story because my dad and mom came to the collective to save their marriage, which ironically was a fast track to getting divorced. my dad rose very quickly in status and embraced his role as kind of the number two guy. My mom quickly was kind of not up to snuff. She wasn't fulfilling the duties of the relationship. And my dad also was promiscuous and slept with other women while he was still legally married to my mom, more of an affair, like I said, less of a polygamy thing.

But then at one point, and this is where the story gets really wild, at one point my dad demanded. This is where the story gets wild. I'm sorry. Did you ever notice how in meetings they can get kind of awkward when someone pulls out a laptop? What are they doing? Checking their fantasy football scores, Googling themselves. That's why I have been using the remarkable paper pro move. And let me tell you, truthfully, I am obsessed. It's a paper tablet designed to keep you present. There's no apps. There's no notifications. The paper pro move feels exactly like writing on paper. But it's I can jot down notes with their amazing templates and then instantly convert my handwriting into typed text. It slips easily into my jacket pocket. It's way smaller than a laptop. The battery lasts up to two weeks. Two weeks.

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That's OLLL-I-E.com slash soul boom. Code soul boom. My dad demanded that my mom have a baby. My mom says that she always wanted to have me, but she just was afraid she was already too old. They've both justified their side of the story. My dad tried to use that side as saying, see, I was always the one who wanted you, not your mom.

My mom is like, no, I always wanted to have kids. I was afraid it was too late. I'm actually grateful that our relationship was falling apart because it made me want to have you. Either way, I got inseminated. My mom was inseminated with my dad's sperm because they weren't having sex despite his demand that she get pregnant. Then they got back together for a very brief moment while I was born. And then my dad immediately left my mom and married Marlowe. And that whole story has been told me a million times over.

I can go to any more details you want. but I'll just say that it ended up being like the nail in the coffin in regards to my mom would forever be the former non-like vibration relationship that Steve Wrench came to the collective with, but Marla was really always meant to be his like vibration. And the bastard son of Steve Wrench, Danny Sampson, eventually Danny Gordon when my mom remarried, would always kind of be the bottom of the totem pole, right? And so that was sort of this starting scene of... So you and your mom were the outcast.

We were the outcasts, totally at the bottom. And she was forced to do a lot of like the worst menial labor for the collective. Yeah. Because of her station. Yeah, she was the house cleaner. House cleaner, window washer. Yeah. Yeah.

And you know what's so funny is again, and I share it with the same tone in my book. But that's another way that people were controlled and mind controlled. You're a have not. You're going to wash the toilets. Yeah. And again, what I was going to say is what's funny is growing up and this is just more of a testament to my mom's character, like, she never presented it that way, and I never even realized it was that way. Like, literally, it took so long, even as I continue to do my own

deconstruction and consider the biases and the damage I have, I've been like, like, was she ever fucking mad about that? Like, what the fuck was going on, right? Because I, I, why did she stay? And why did she stay, right? And why didn't she go? Cleaning toilets for decades. And, and she had me, so why not leave, right? And I did talk to her about this, fortunately, before I wasn't able to anymore. And she said that she never left because she was afraid eventually my dad would pull me back. And if she didn't just stick around anyway, she was going to lose me anyway, which ended up being, you know, exactly what happened. Exactly what happened. So let's jump to that story. The most tragic part of your incredible memoir, Dark Spaces, is you being taken from your mom

and your role that you played in that happening. I think you were 12 years old, right, when that happened, but you were in some ways kind of manipulated to be complicit in that and rejecting your mom. It's heartbreaking. It's heart wrenching, no pun intended. And can you tell us a little bit about why you were taken from your mom and what that reunion was like? those were some really dark hard years. So to start, it comes full circle, back to chess,

because we've been talking about the cult and the dynamics and all the things about my parents' relationship. But my mom is a have-not close to the bottom, if not at the bottom of the totem pole. And I'm a pretty happy, shoeless village kid, to be honest. But at some point, I learned how to play chess. You watched Searching for Bobby Fisher. Which, by the way, incredible movie.

You got inspired? Yeah, and again, it was on the one TV we had out of the house, very, very small. We literally had eight channels. Channel eight was PBS and channel seven was HBO. That's what I remember. And channel seven was HBO. You got it, you got a movie. And so I watched searching for Bobby Fisher, became obsessed with the game.

And I'm jumping to what would ultimately happen in my relation with my mom to say that I got very good, very fast. And the term prodigy is loose because I can hear all the chess pundits saying, well, you weren't as good as Magnus. at that it doesn't matter, but I was a talented chess prodigy, especially in the U.S. And that started getting accolades, right? The Shelby School chess team itself was there were other kids who were playing two at the time because we all watched searching for Bobby Fisher. We all loved the movie. And the Shelby School group of kids formerly not doing anything but messing around in the village were now taken under Stephen Camp's wing to play chess. For two reasons. One, he also loved chess. He loved the game. But the second reason was,

obviously he saw the opportunity for what this could be. And the idea that he had control, to say he had control over how we spent our time doesn't even begin to cut it, right? He decided pretty much anything he wanted to. And so we were studying chess for hours every day. We were traveling to tournaments locally. Suddenly the chess team was like this thing

that was taking the local Arizona scene by storm. And at the top of the list was me. I was like the highest rated kid in the country for my age. I became an all-American. I was performing at very high levels, right? And it's been something that is like, okay, it's both easy and hard to talk about as I get better at talking about it. Because one of the things that happened during this whole process is I became even more aware of talking about things I didn't even know before I started the book of what really happened now that I'm an adult, now that I've had conversations with former members of the collective, people who were at different trances where Stephen Camp was openly talking about taking me away from my mom and dad. It was small trances. It wasn't that big. I don't think it would have flown over that large of a group.

It was a thing that I came to realize was way more premeditated, which of course is even more heartbreaking in many ways knowing how I ultimately was complicit in my own abduction on the other side. Because what happened over those years, especially around the age of 12 to 13 in that summer, was I had already been getting separated from my mom. So when I was first taken from my mom was when I was 12, Stephen Camp told me it was time to fly the coop. And he had me move in. I think I first moved in with Trina and William Hodec. They were one of the families who lived that.

then I lived with Roger and Amanda, eventually lived with Lane and Nicole, who was his oldest son. Why? The reason was I was told that I was having bad chess tournaments and that I needed to get other types of mentorship in order to make the next breakthrough. And everything in my life was about the next breakthrough.

Everything about my value within the collective came from the way I was viewed by Stephen Camp. And you started as a half-knot, you and your mom cleaning toilets, and then you became this chess prodigy, started winning actual cash money, that would go into the collective. You were making money for them.

I was making money, small amounts, but I was, I was getting accolades. You were winning hundreds of dollars at chess tournaments and putting it into the collective. For sure. Yeah. That's a fact. Yeah.

You are making money for the collective. And you were bringing accolades to the collective. Yes. And so, I was still, I have not still. That's the thing. That's why that separation started to happen because I was, I was doing these things. I was earning accolades, earning money,

becoming the apple of Stephen Camp's eye, but then the pressure was mounting. First, there was a trance where Duran said that chess was my purpose. Now that sounds like a, okay, what does that even mean, right? But in the collective, your purpose is, there were two real tools to get to God in the collective. And it's impossible for me not to digress, so you'll have to forgive me for the rabbit holes up.

Like vibration. Yeah, like vibration and purpose. Right. So it's covered like vibration. And so now purpose. Purpose is the reason your soul has incarnated on the planet. It's the reason you're here. It's why you are a being.

I think your purpose was to do this podcast. Okay. We're here, right? So what's fucked up is obviously thinking about things you educate yourself on and you see. I've learned this idea and concept has existed in other cults as well. But in practical terms, for many people, their purpose was like just their job that Stephen and Trina Camp decided. Like, you're just going to do this because that's your purpose in the collective. Your purpose is to be a plumber.

and you're going to do all the plumbing for the collective. My mom's purpose was to clean the houses. My stepdad's purpose was a mechanic, was to fix the cars. So it's part of your vocation and your avocation. It's, uh, exactly. Yeah, it can be a higher thing, but it can also be like, exactly. And so we need an auto mechanic.

Exactly. And so I was a chess prodigy over here, but in some ways, this is a weird thing I came to understand. I became like a bit of a collective prodigy and that I was one of the youngest people to ever be told their purpose. So I was 12 years old when Duran in a chance said, and Dana you will accept chess as your purpose and achieve it. And what's really weird is it literally came down almost like a scorning of like a knighting.

It was like, oh, fuck. So now there's no choice anymore. Like this is why I'm here. I've now been given my purpose. I remember like leaving the trance circle and people being like, like way to go. Like this is great. Like chess is your purpose. And again, in many ways it was like, oh, this is awesome.

Now I'm like king shit, right? Like I have this high purpose that Stephen Camp loves and here we go. back to the story what would happen over time was the expectations for me to perform grew the accolades and the opportunities for money grew and so i was first separated from my mom so you better keep winning the pressure keep winning and when i didn't what were the repercussions right chess started to be weaponized against me as my purpose right the idea would be that oh sometimes it's both ways sometimes like is chest still your purpose dany because if so like why are you not performing are you in your ego here like do you really do you want this or not, like a passive aggressive sort of, which I've learned when it comes to leading a cult is much more effective than just outright asking someone how they feel is implying and questioning

whether they should even have those feelings. Like, hey, like, are you sure you want to do this? Because then they will re, they will re-sign the covert contract. And the more times you can get someone to re-sign the covert contract, the better, because the harder it is for them to ultimately reflect that they never wanted to sign up to begin with, right? At one point, I now reflect and realize this was like a really early sign was at one point, he's, started joking with me like Danny which is more important the king or your mother I've never actually told that story before it was in it was in my it wasn't in my book so I just told her for some sorry I got a little emotional with that he actually asked me straight up whether the king was

more important than my mother how old were you I maybe 11 or 12 um so that was like an actual thing right it was like seeds being planted then I was moved out into these other families which was the fastest way to make Stephen Camp my real parent because I'm living with these other families. My mom is still my mom at this point. I get to call it. There was no harsh separation. There was the seed that was being planted, which is that her and Dennis weren't doing a good enough job or I wouldn't be struggling in chess. Yes. Sorry. So yeah, Dennis was my stepdad. So there was the seed of I'm clearly not performing well enough or this wouldn't have had to happen. That was obvious. And there was certainly implications in terms of them now being processed, which I would learn later, they were being heavily

processed about whether their marriage was going to be up to snuff to raising this chess prodigy. I was being closer. I was being made closer with Stephen Camp because, again, I can see my mom and I have these kind of surrogate parents who I'm sharing kids' beds with, but really Stephen Camp is in charge. And so I learned over this six to eight months and I was conditioned that that was okay and that it was not that abnormal. What happened with the separation, because what you already, you know, kind of planted to get to is how in the world does a 12 slash going on 13 year old become complicit in his own

abduction. Not only do I have these ideals of purpose being the most important thing on the planet, I'm receiving the kudos and accolades that come with it. I'm slowly having my relationship with my mom sort of severed and undermined. And then in moving back with Debbie and Dennis, which happened in this last summer, I started to be much more actively processed in terms of asking the question openly, whether they were my mother and father. And part of this comes to one of the third pillars of the teaching. This isn't a pillar like purpose and like vibration, but one of the key doctrines was children choose the parents before embodying in a lifetime. They choose their parents. Let's start with the spiritual foundation. It always sounds good because it makes sense to some degree

and can be helpful. With the idea being to learn to take ultimate responsibility for your life and not be a victim because the parents are the initial characters in your play, both their biology and also the play that they set up for you, the nurture, in order for you to learn your lessons. So the idea is you chose your parents for a reason. Ultimately, as a young person, even at a very young age, you're taking responsibility for your life to understand that you chose the play and all the characters in it to learn. Okay, sounds great, can be useful or not.

Now let's talk about how it was weaponized and used in practice. And on the one hand, it was used as a threat to the parents because if the children chose you, but they've learned everything they need to learn from you because you're not growing anymore spiritually, they might choose new parents. And this happened a lot. This actually was something that was created

and encouraged by Stephen and Trina Camp. So men would often choose new wives. And children could choose new parents. And children could often choose new parents. It had never been done as aggressively as it was with me and we'll get to that. But it had been done in this way, right? Through that sort of spiritual framework I just said.

So both to the parents as a threat to be up to snuff, but then also as the children came of age to consider this question, are your parents still your spiritual parents? Carmatically, do you feel like you've worked everything out in terms of what you needed to learn from them? Do you want to choose new parents, right? So it worked both ways, right?

And ultimately this chaos worked because really the only people who are ultimately anyone and everyone's parents is parents are Stephen and Trina, right? Because they're kind of in charge of everything. They end up being the parents of both the adults and the kids in this case, right? Because they're kind of overseeing it all. This idea has sort of been spiritually stamped

as something to consider. as possible. And then you add the expectations of my chest and the idea that this purpose is something that is super important to Stephen and Trina Camp and the opportunity to do it. And also, Danny, don't you want this? Like, who is my mother, who was my father? Is one of the last questions Jesus asked on the cross. Like, biological relationships are temporary. Your spiritual place in God and your evolution is the most important one. And so with all of that kind of being planted, and then the two things that happened in this summer was he introduced the idea, which was a, an ironic one that maybe my dad was a good person to teach me. I had been bounced to these other

surrogate families, but the one person I hadn't gotten to know yet was my father, and he's a spiritual man, which was ironic because I had been told for all these years to never even think for a second that my dad will be my dad. I had had major conflicts with his other kids because of like jealousy and weird politics where I didn't even know my dad was my dad until I was like seven or eight because they had to tell me that he was my dad because one of his daughters, my half-sist, or Trina Bean had a crush on me. So they had to tell us about that biological relationship. Oh, that's disgusting.

So I didn't even know that this guy, I knew him as Uncle Steve, kind of like the enforcer of don't fuck within the community, otherwise he'll come over and yell at you and maybe abuse you, right? So I was afraid of my dad as this enforcer of the collective. But now I was aware he was my dad, but told, don't ever think for a second,

you're as good as the wrenches. You're a have not, like, both openly and subliminally. But now it's like on the table that I'm supposed to learn from my dad. And then the other question that just became open was like, hey, like, we've been talking about it. I don't know that Debbie and Dennis are going to figure it out. Don't stress about it right now. Here's the book I got for you.

I love you. Get out, get out the door. Stick with me. We'll talk about it later. It would be like an interaction with camp. Next interaction, be like, hey, how are you doing today? Remember, I was joking with you. Who's more important?

The king of your mother. All right. I'm kidding. But, you know, whatever happens, remember I'm with it. So all the seeds were being planted. All the seeds were being planted. And then came the time to. to kind of pull the rip cord.

And I went to a meeting with Stephen Camp, which now I know was like the final moment. I also later learned that he had just had a meeting with Debbie and Dennis because he had also been convincing. Your mom, Debbie and Dennis. He had also been convincing them that it was best for me as well. Do you really want to stand in the way of someone who could change the face of the collective

could bring like a level of spiritual attention and sort of accolades and kind of validates and kind of validation to what we're doing. Like, his purpose is more important than all of us. Like, are you up to snuff? Like, I say up to snuff because it was a term he used, right? So that's their process, in addition to other shit in their marriage. My mom was also made to feel perverse.

Like, why are you holding on to Danny so much anyway? Is it because you're still in love with Steve Wrench? Like, what's going on with you about that? Like, are you? And so that kind of stuff. So then they're over here. It's so funny that as you're telling these stories and you're a chess master, international master,

these chess games that were going on in the collective are everything was like a series of moves looking on down the line. Like, you know, Stephen Wrench is going to go here.

He's going to marry our daughter. Later, we're going to tell him this. You're going to tell it. We're going to shame them and keep them down here. Like, everything was a chess game. It was an emotional, abusive chess game

among 300 people living in this village. Yeah. And I think one of the hardest things for me has been just acknowledging that. Because I think for many years, I spent not just time like telling myself the story that people were doing their best, but something bad happened. Or people actually really did believe in their spiritual mission and they just fucked it up. I do still adhere, you've heard me talk about it already enough today that it won't surprise

you to believe that I do have some view of there were good teachings. The teachers abuse them. And I think that could be true in a lot of religions. whatever. And there are some feelings I have of, oh, like, that's something I still hold today, even though I know that it was also weaponized and used and abused, not just against me against others, but overall, just acknowledging that has been, has been crazy. And so what ended up happening was I went over after talking with Stephen Camp and told me it was time to tell Debbie and Dennis that I needed to leave them, which was crazy because I didn't even know it was intentional, but I was already

calling them Debbie and Dennis instead of mom and dad because I was being conditioned and prepared to do it. And brainwashed. Yeah, they were being told the same thing. And in one of the most, you know, just inexplainable things that has ever happened in my fucking life, I went over and sat down with them at the table and told my mom that I said, who was my mother, who was my father? And you've served your purpose for me this lifetime. And I'm choosing new parents. And I can't let you stand in the way of my purpose. and then even more fucked up through gritted teeth and tears,

she was like, I understand that perspective and I need to protect my marriage and you need to go. And the moment she said that, like, there was like a part of it that was like, oh, wait, we're doing this. And it was a part of me that like called out like, I remember, this is the one thing I remember saying as a twist. I was like, wait, how long is this going to be for? I had this like moment of like, wait a second. Like how long is this going to, how long is this going to happen? You know what I mean as a kid? And she said, she was like, you need to go like it's forever.

And I went into my room. I packed up my black garbage bag, like in a hurry because she was like, Steve Wrench is already on his way. And I packed in a hurry. I told my younger brother Josh, he could have my CDs, which I shared about in my book because it's a funny story because Josh and I both remember that he was just fucking over the moon about getting my CDs having no idea what was about to happen. And then Steve Wrench came and I went with him.

and very quickly I was moved away from Marlowe and Steve and orphaned in the valley because that was kind of the plan all along. But then I would learn later because my siblings would tell me, in particular, Noel, that like the moment I left, my mom, like, collapsed and, like, screamed and started crying. And it was just like, yeah, that was the play that happened. And, sorry, I stopped talking about it. And I'm not, not that I'm avoiding crying, but I haven't talked about it like this before.

And so it's going to be, it's, it's going to be interesting. And I may not be the last time that I get emotional about it. Well, I just want to acknowledge that, you know, you were brainwashed and played and turned against your mother. Could she have done a better job at protecting you? Absolutely. But those are just horrific circumstances to put any 12-year-old child. you've raised kids, I've raised kids, you don't do that to a 12 year old

where you make them divorce their mother. Yep. It's funny because one of the things that, you know, do all the years of therapy and coming to terms with and now fucking writing a book, the thing that like always like, you know, gives you perspective and clarity

is like looking at your own kid and going like, I was that old. Yeah. Like that's not okay. There was never any circumstances that justified that. And the fact that I was complicit in it is wild and if had taken so many of its own kind of therapy to like forgive myself and understand that I was in survival.

And I was doing, you know, I was literally, not only was I brainwash, but I was literally like doing the only thing I could do, given where it was out. But I would spend the next many years of my life crying myself to sleep every night and pretending that I made the choice openly to the collective while I was crying myself to sleep. And, you know, that led to a lot of stories I obviously share in the book in terms of, you know, remembering my first ever panic attack and what that was like.

At some point, you know, eventually convinced myself for sure that it was good, you know? And like, you know, it's like one of those things where like you kind of grieve it and die in secret enough times that it becomes this like massive wound that I believe the lie. You know, I wasn't openly lying and then crying asleep. You know, it took a long time. The holidays were the hardest part because when you're spending time in a house that isn't yours,

and there's a bunch of pictures on the wall that don't have you in them. You know, and then around the holidays, you have traditions. Like you have like, you know, my mom had her own Christmas carols and different, whatever, right? And so that stuff was like...

But not only that, you were taken to your dad, but then you were quickly shuffled off to leave the community itself. Yeah. To be closer to Phoenix so you could compete more. Yeah. And then you were just put on planes and buses to chess tournaments and away from your mom and stepdad that you're closest with

to your away from your natural father. Yep. Just in various households. And then it's kind of like get out there, kids, serve your purpose, which is like go fucking win. Yep. Or else you're dead to us. And everything was always on the table.

Like now the threat became the other way, which is like, do you need to? to go back to being with Debbie and Dennis. Like, are you really just a Gordon? Maybe you're not up for this. So it was weaponized that way. Let's fast forward to, you know, you've become a chess master, your winning tournaments, and there is an eventual reunion with your mom.

Can you talk to us about that? Yeah, the first one or the second one? because I saw her one time when I was 16, a night when Trina Camp was super drunk and decided she was going to kind of overrule what was happening for a minute. And she knew I needed to see my mom, which at the time I was angry about because now I'm three years into this game. I'm kind of dead inside and kind of angry at my mom that she has allowed the whole fucking thing to happen, right?

I bought into the spiritual hierarchy at this point. I'm a wrench. I'm a half, or at least posing as much. I'm no longer crying myself to sleep every night. That was like for the first, whatever, I'm there. And by the way, we need to talk about this Trina Camp drinking situation. Yes. Which got worse and worse.

Yeah. Throughout the course of the cult. Yeah. Where by the end, she was like soused. Yeah. Don't you think that might have affected her? 100%. Her being a medium for, 100%.

What did Duran have to say about like, Trina, you've been drinking so much I feel drink. Yeah. You know? Yep. No, her alcohol was always a serious problem, but it became more and more pronounced and worse. Was that ever brought up in the process?

Probably not because she's... No, because alcohol was justified as a truth serum. Alcohol was sort of, in fact, alcohol was encouraged and sanctioned in the process. In fact, you were judged if you didn't drink. And how old did people start drinking in the collective? People started stealing drinks in their like 7, 8, 9, 10. people were encouraged to drink in the earliest of their teen years.

Okay. And then no one was really prevented from drinking, even if they had a problem. So there's, it's a chess and alcohol. Oh, for sure. Yeah, I once heard a member. You have an alcoholic leader of the cult, sanctioning it by saying it's a truth serum. Yeah.

And let's get our kids started early. Yep. No, and it was, it was super fucked up in all the ways you said. It was also, I heard one member of the collective described their experience in the end is realizing it was just a bunch of mentally ill people with alcohol dumped all over them. And that was, that's definitely a perspective. And yeah, so yeah, she was really drunk one night. And despite it being against the wishes of her husband, Stephen Camp, and despite

knowing that Stephen Marla would not be happy about it at this point, she took me to see my mom, called my mom and said, meet me, meet me at the Fitch Cabin, which is a well-known Kevin. And I met my mom for one very, very awkward night and hardly said anything to her. I obviously shared the story in the book. If anything, I don't know, it might have made things worse in the end because the moment Stephen Marlow got home and I saw them kind of rushing around the corner, two things were kind of unspoken and known. Like my mom was not going to keep me with her. Like it had been three years. We had had, despite living a thousand yards from each other, had like no words.

She had been scorned and basically told she wasn't up to snuff to have me anyway, which is why this all needed to happen. And my chest results bore that out. I was doing well. And to her own like misunderstanding kind of confusion, she would tell me later, like, I was hiding it well. She was like, I thought you were doing okay. I was like, maybe I did need to do this at this point.

So there was nothing going to happen other than this was like a really temporary reunion that Trina, that a drunken Trina camp forced. and I ended up going home and just getting absolutely destroyed over this. Stephen Marlowe, I mean, put me on the hot seat and it was all the passive aggressive threats of, am I in this family or not? Am I choosing them as parents or not? You know, at one point Marlowe looked at me and said, where are you going today? And before I could answer, she said, hell would be nice.

And it said, don't ever do that again. And, like, I was just like basically put in a position where there was no option to actually, like acknowledge the feelings for my mom. But no one blamed Trina. They blamed you. No one blamed Trina. They blamed me. And which is super fucked up in in of itself.

I mean, she was drunk. Yeah, they blend a 15, 16 year old. And so I would not speak another word to my mom for seven years. So literally, as I've described it, it was 10 years of a full separation before we reunited, not counting this one crazy night that again I share. And I'm, how were you ultimately reunited? Ultimately. And now we're going to go into territory I've never talked about.

Not in the book either. Ultimately, I was reunited because when I had kids, when I had my first son, Nash, I started having, I had always had these memories, but I started really dealing with my own sexual abuse in a way that I had never really interrogated before. I had had these memories of a woman who did these things to me. And I remember it was a woman and I remember what she did to my penis and the sexual abuse that like could physically hurt when I thought about it. But I was like, was that a dream? Like what is going on with this? And when I had a son and I was changing his diaper, I was like, wait, am I supposed to touch a penis that way?

Like, how do I handle this? Like, this is weird. Like, I'm actually struggling with the idea that I'm like touching my own naked son, right? which is not normal. And I mean, I've since learned through a lot of therapy and I will not pretend to be a therapist, but that happens for a lot of people in terms of once you sort of, it's like once you see yourself in another thing that you would die for a million lifetimes over, you kind of get your priorities straight and go like, I love this thing. And like, I've been fucking avoiding this for a very long time, right? And I actually am very confused about how to

handle this naked baby. And so I had been talking about this with my dad and Marlowe. And they had convinced me, my dad in particular, that it was my mom who had sexually abused me. And so this sort of reinforced for quite a while that not only that my mom was the devil, obviously, but obviously thank God I left her, and that these memories I had were her. And so this was a thing that I had been carrying forever and, or not forever, for over these years of having Nash. So now I'm 22, 23. I had Nash when I was 20. That's what happens when you're in a cult. You're encouraged to have kids young.

You're still in the cult in your 20s. Still in the cult of my 20s. And the cult is evolving over this time. Like I said, I'm with Stephen Marlowe and my young wife, Shauna, were young and having a baby. And it was because of my memories of being sexually abused that I had scorn my mother even further. But my wife basically was never buying it. My wife was like, something's off about this whole thing.

and not denying me like my memories of being sexually abused, which by the way was its own very big thing, because at the time, so much stuff was going on in the collective around sexual abuse, other people who had remembered that they were molested. And I didn't want to share this idea that my mom had molested me and kind of be like bucketed in this like confusing group of shit. And so it was a very like wild experience.

And my wife was encouraging me to be like, hey, is this really true? Like, are you, you know, interrogated? What's going on with this? I don't think your mom would do that. And she was doing this in secret to Stephen Marlowe, because to do that openly with Stephen Marlowe would like, they would like divorce us, you know,

they would pull us apart and they still had that kind of control over everyone's relationships, not just Stephen and Trina, but also Stephen Marlowe. At some point, my wife and I basically had had enough of Stephen Marlowe. And I can get into this as much as you want. I'm only realizing I'm opening up so many fucking wounds. it's so hard to not go down a million rabbit holes. But to get to the reuniting with my mom, the reuniting with my mom started with me,

having gone sort of full circle and anger and kind of at war with Stephen Marlowe, just to then going to my mom and blaming her openly for molesting me. I thought that she had done it. And over the course of all types of conversation with my mom, with Shauna, with my wife, and with everything,

not only did my mom help piece the pieces together of the woman who did molest me, this woman was an active member in the collector for a long time and had left and had also sexually abused other kids. And so that memory being validated and my mom helping me piece this together and also then by confirming, like feeling good about this whole situation, kind of changed like everything for me. There was like this, there was this part of me that was like, to say I like hated my father in these years would be the understatement of the.

century, right? I mean, my dad had been a part of this convoluted, complicated abduction, basically played the victim card that it was all Stephen Camp's idea, planted the seeds that like further tore me apart from my mother, while also actively and openly telling me my mother was like a horrible, was a horrible person. And now I'm reuniting with my mother in a way that was healing not only my own kind of perspective that she wasn't the person who sexually abused me, but also that maybe she wasn't, she wasn't bad at all. But the main catalyst was that my dad was actively telling me that my mom had sexually abused me and, and she didn't. And that ultimately, he had no evidence. He had no evidence. He just was, yeah, he was just angry and, and had his own,

my dad would share later, he had his own abuse as a kid and different things. And I don't want to get into all that just because it's not necessary. And so whatever the reasons are, people project their own shit onto a situation. My dad did that. And at the end of the day, yeah, I know that reuniting with your mom at 23 was yeah, was one of the most healing things, if not the most healing thing that. Yeah, my life, honestly. I mean, we'll just continue. I mean, ultimately it became the most important thing that could have ever happened because I lost my mom a few years later very quickly to a stroke. And that's its own twist ending, right? So for anybody who's watching, of this one who hasn't read the book, the reality is this doesn't have a happy ending in terms

of my relationship with my mom. But you had a few years of healing. We did have a few years. Super important. Super important few years. And, you know, it's not a, you know, I think, I share everything that does justice. And I'll keep talking about here. It was a lot of, it was a lot of trials. It was a lot of pain. It was a lot of conversation, a lot of anger. But over time, like, we got through everything. And it was like, understanding compassionately now that I had my own kids, like what my mom had gone through and was going through with the collective understanding, frankly, how my wife felt about my mom was kind of like, in hindsight, all the evidence I really needed. And how my mom felt about my wife, you know, which was also a huge breath of fresh air, because my wife had been

tortured by by Stephen Marlowe and told that she wasn't good enough. And I bought into that. I mean, I was, I was an asshole. I mean, the whole premise of you find your like vibration, and if they're not up to snuff, you could find someone else. That didn't end in me either until until I was able to break that, to break that pattern. I mean, I inherited a lot of my dad's misogyny and the way that he thought about this whole thing. And many times it led to explosive fights between me and him where I was like literally up,

like just screaming like, I'm not like my spiritual journey is not more important than my wife and children. I'm not like you. He didn't like it when I said that. And there were a lot of things like that where my dad in the end was a great teacher precisely because he was all the things I didn't want to do. And in the end,

my mom, healing my relationship with my mom, saved my marriage. Standing up to your dad and saying, I'm choosing marriage and family over my purpose from the Church of the Immortal Consciousness was an incredibly brave act and a rebellious act and a healing act and is a testament to who you are as a man. Thank you so much for sharing your story. I know it's heartbreaking. it's terrifying. This is only the beginning. Your book is absolutely fantastic. Rividing. I couldn't put it

down. And people are going to love it. And just thank you for coming on soul boom and sharing your heart and your soul and your chess. And I'm so glad for you and your family and where you are today, what you've gone through and what you've built, not only with chess.com and in your career, but with your marriage and family is a miracle. I cannot believe that you're still. You're still, alive and able to have this conversation with me today. Thank you. And I want to say I really appreciate your support. It means a lot.

When you do this, I don't think it'd be healthy if you do something like this and don't have imposter syndrome and wonder if anyone's going to care or think this is interesting, but your support and belief has meant a lot to me. So thank you for having me. Thanks, Danny. The Soul Boom Podcast. Subscribe now on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you get your stupid podcasts. Thank you.