Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Essential Oils

Episode Date: April 19, 2022

Lavender can cure headaches and tea tree oil can clear your acne (and heal Covid/your whole life)? The cult of essential oils blurs the line between fact and fiction and this week, Amanda and Isa team up with a special guest, Buzzfeed reporter Stephanie McNeal, to learn about these controversial little potions, their “cult following,” and the snake oil salespeople who weaponize them. Head to MeritBeauty.com/CULT to get their free signature reusable makeup bag with your purchase.  Go to DailyHarvest.com/cult for up to forty dollars off your first box! Get Honey for FREE at JoinHoney.com/CULT Listeners get 10% off your first month by visiting our sponsor at BetterHelp.com/CULT 

Issa, here are two truths and a lie. Essential oils cult edition. Interesting, let's get into it. What are they? Okay, number one. The Essential Oils brand Jade Bloom swears its angelica root oil can relieve anxiety, clean infections, fight viruses,

assist with respiratory ailments, help with indigestion, regulate menstruation, and aid sleep. I can do all of that? Number two. The Essential Oils MLM Deutera recommends ingesting cinnamon oil, AKA cassia, to support

healthy cardiovascular, metabolic, and immune function. Oh, okay, what's the last one? And the third one, the Essential Oils MLM Young Living, claims its thieves oil is connected to an elaborate backstory involving the Spanish flu, then claims that the product can provide healing to the body and mind

with its de-stressing properties. I don't know why I have to do that voice when I read this marketing language. I don't believe the cinnamon thing because it reminds me of the cinnamon challenge. And I'm like, I think the cinnamon challenge was like really unhealthy to kids. They almost went to the hospital.

We're really dating ourselves. That was like, it's what, is that a 10 year old YouTube challenge at this point? No, I'm 15. The answer is number three is a lie. Young Living's thieves oil backstory is about how it was used during the black plague and the claims are that it offers immune system support

and is cleansing to the digestive system. What, how is there a claim to fame that it was like used during the black plague? Didn't like so many people die during the black plague? Like I feel like it didn't work. It didn't. Terrible marketing. Terrible, terrible marketing.

Half the world population died. Yeah, and then like, I mean, I think once something like garners the name plague instead of like pandemic, it's like you've gone to the other side. Indeed, you failed. Yeah, plague is biblical at that point. I also think it's just remarkable

that any of these claims, the regulate menstruation immune support are made despite the FDA's rules, preventing companies from making unsubstantiated promises about essential oils. My gosh, yeah, these companies are pros and just like ignoring the rules. You're completely right.

I mean, that is their MO. It's like, fuck the man, fuck the government, fuck the healthcare system, fuck the FDA. I'm gonna say whatever, fuck I want. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm Amanda Montell, author of the book, Cultish the Language of Fanaticism.

I'm Issa Medina and I'm a comedian. Every week on our show, we discuss a different fanatical fringe group from the zeitgeist from astrology to Tony Robbins to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult, but is it real? To join our cult, follow us on Instagram at SoundsLikeACultPod.

I'm on IG at Amanda Undersport Montell and I'm on Instagram at Issa Medina, I-S-A-A-M-E-D-I-N-A-A. We also have our episodes up on YouTube if you haven't already checked it out. It comes with full video. I'm talking to the camera right now. And if you wanna support us even more,

you can check out our Patreon at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult. Now we already got into it a little bit. But we're gonna be talking about the cult of essential oils today. Oh yes. Issa, do you use essential oils? I don't use essential oils often,

but the only time I ever really enjoy using them is when I go to a yoga class and in Shavasana, they put a little bit on your arm and I'm like, hmm, that smells good, because I just sweat a fuck done. And I'm like, wow, a little something something. To make you smell a little bad. Yeah, that's the only time I ever use them.

But you've never bought them? Mm, no, I haven't. Oops. I have bought them. Again, it's like when I was in Venice and I was at like a little trinket shop and like I bought one of those little roller ones. That's literally the only context

in which I've bought essential oils too. Yeah, and it was only because I was like, oh, maybe if I do yoga at home, I'll put it on my own wrist. I mean in Los Angeles and elsewhere, essential oils are everywhere. You cannot walk into a farmer's market or a coffee shop without being assaulted

by essential oil merchandise. As you know, I just moved to Silver. Like I can't even walk down the street. Exactly. I have like a little lavender roly-poly that I'll put on my- Yeah, lavender is the one. Pulse points or whatever.

I don't take it seriously. This is something I've been wanting to talk about for a long time. Ever since I posted this one meme on Instagram. Yeah, Amanda and her Venn diagrams. Yes. Honestly, kind of like it's a skill to make a Venn diagram. It's like a logic puzzle.

I consider myself a Venn diagram hobbyist. The last time I tried to make a Venn diagram was when a lesbian woman told me that I couldn't call myself gay because I'm just bisexual. And I'm like, yeah, but if you make it into a Venn diagram, like bi women are gay, gay women are also gay.

Also gay. I have in recent years heard the term gay just mean sapphic queer. Yeah, with regard to women. Yeah, and if you look up the definition of lesbian, it literally is a gay woman. So like, I also sometimes say I'm a lesbian. People are like, but you're not, you're bisexual.

But I'm like, but if I was like dating a woman, you would be in a what quote unquote lesbian relationship. Yeah. The cults of labels literally stress me out to no end. As a queer person. That's why I love the word queer. That's why I just say queer. There was one cult of essential oils Venn diagram I made

where the cult of essential oils was in the middle. And in the three main circles were Doomsday Preppers, MLM salespeople and Goop readers. Where Doomsday Preppers and Goop readers converged were anti-vaxxers. Where Doomsday Preppers and MLM salespeople converged were rural Mormons. And where Goop readers and multi-level marketing salespeople

converged was what I termed boho Karens. Which are the kind of people who use essential oil. They all do. Yeah. All do. That's the thing is that essential oils, despite being these seemingly harmless little droplets of smell good vibes, literally so small,

but they have such a big effect on people's lives. They do. They have come to play a near spiritual role in the lives of all these different people who fawn all different points along the political spectrum and have somehow found themselves at the center of so many different fanatical fringe groups. It is obviously cult enough for us to be talking about,

but I think the interesting part about essential oils is that it has so many layers. You know, when I sit down to draw these connections, I don't necessarily know where I'm going when I set out. I'm just a true artist. Noticed. I'm like Salvador Dali over here. No, I'm just like noticing cultish patterns

throughout culture and I'm trying to find the center. I'm trying to find the convergence of them all. And if you look at truly the most cultish corners of our society at the moment, the center point is motherfucking essential oils. Yeah. I completely agree, but I do think a caveat is to say that it's very much specific to American culture too.

Like in terms of like the cultiest like centerpiece, like essential oils are talked about as we'll discuss in other countries too. Oh, 100%. I mean, they originally come from like Persia in the Middle East. But of course, Americans made them cultier than ever. We can't help it.

Yeah, I mean, the emergence of essential oils as this cult centerpiece has very much to do with all of the trust that we've lost in the institutions that are supposed to provide us with support. It's like the doomsday preppers are into essential oils because they don't trust the government. The New Agers are into essential oils

because they don't trust the healthcare system and that overlaps with anti-vaxxers and the like. The MLM salespeople are into essential oils because they don't trust the bureaucratic corporate labor market. And so it is this defection away from institutional support that has just like opened the door for essential oils to be like, I will save you.

Yeah, and I just find it so ironic that it's like people are stepping away from institutional support, but they're stepping into a very structured, rigid other type of support, which is like a cult leader's support, but they are like, it's anti. It's alternative.

Yeah, so I'm different. Yeah, truly. I mean, have you seen that meme? This was circulating a few years ago. It was like a picture of a Cheeto like stuck in a lock as if it was like trying to keep the door closed and trying to keep the people behind it protected. And it was like saying that that Cheeto

was essential oils trying to, and then we are not in the same meme spaces. Not at all. I'm like, everyone outside of the door was like, pandemics, fucking like all these dangerous things. And it's like pandemic war, like climate change. Exactly. And the essential oils are the Cheeto in the lock

being like, don't worry, I got it guys. Yeah. And if you still can't get a great picture of what this meme looks like, go on YouTube. We have it on there or go to our Instagrams. We're going to dive a little deeper into essential oils in a bit, all the different layers as you were mentioning, the casual use of them,

the promises that are made falsely by many corners of culture. And of course, the MLM aspect of essential oils, because that's where it gets cocky. Oh yes, you may have heard of brands like Young Living, Deuterra, and we're about to talk to a very special guest who wrote a fascinating culture piece about Young Living in particular.

And it's going to expose some darker corners of the cult of essential oils. So up next, we're going to talk to Stephanie McNeil. She is a senior culture reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York. If you like the subjects that we talk about on our podcast, you will love her articles because she literally covers Peloton, The Bachelor,

the cult of the early 2000s. Her articles are just, hmm, chef's kiss. Could you first just tell our listeners about yourself and your work and have you developed an interest in critiquing essential oils? My name is Stephanie McNeil. I'm a senior culture writer for BuzzFeed News and essential oils just kind of came to me.

I am really interested in online communities and especially how group think can develop in online worlds. I am interested in online communities and online worlds. I couldn't stop watching all of these videos and reading all of this content from women who were convinced that essential oils were so much better than any mainstream medicine and I just fell into it.

They got me. You got me there. As they get us all, the fixation with cults either is like earnest or anthropological and I'm interested in when it like teeters on that line. You're necking or am I fully in the cult? Yeah, exactly. Because it's so interesting you start just digging in

because you want to learn about it and sometimes that's how people get swept into them. I'm the type of person where I totally believe in mainstream medicine but I like a vitamin. I like a supplement. I like to try everything. I love taking Nyquil but I also like taking a herbal supplement.

But I feel like the more that I've been exposed to the essential oils community, it actually makes me not like that stuff more and become more anti. Like I feel like if someone had told me five years ago, like, hey, you know, you're stressed. Why don't you put some essential oils on your wrists? I would be like, okay, sure, yeah, whatever.

But now I am like absolutely not. I would not do that just because I hate like the arrogance that comes out. Yeah. Totally. That's the problem with extremism is that it just breeds more extremism on both ends. So you wrote an article the other month that like literally so many people DM'd us about.

Your article on some drama involving young living essential oils and the resurgence of the satanic panic. Can you briefly summarize this insane story? Young Living is an essential oils company that is one of the two main essential oils companies in the US. It has a lot of religious origins. The founder was a member of the Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and he started

a essential oils company because he really believes in the power of oils. It has really taken off over the past five years. So even though it's a company that's been around for decades in the MLM community with women signing up and people, you know, really espousing these ideals online. And one thing that happened as a result of that

is people who were really big in essential oils and in young living ended up becoming essentially MLM influencers on Instagram. And we get hundreds of thousands of followers talking about their lives in essential oils. So it was like they were able to take their influence in this company and their belief in essential oils and all of the people who worked under them

in Young Living and create this influencer platform where they were espousing these ideals about essential oils to hundreds of thousands of people. Something interesting that happened last year was it was probably about six or seven months ago now, a couple of like top tier, I think they're called Royal Crown Diamond sellers in Young Living who were making reportedly over a million dollars a year,

decided abruptly just leave the company. And they gave really no explanation, probably the most popular one that people might have heard of her name is Madison Vining. And she is essentially a lifestyle influencer who also is a big Young Living seller. And she had a couple of people who were these top sellers came out and they basically said, we have,

we can't tell you why we're not gonna get into it, but we're leaving our former company. And we have decided to go to this other company called Modere where that offers a similar product on essential oils, but they're really big into putting collagen powder and all of that kind of stuff. And people were really confused about it

because they were like, why would you walk away from this company where you have thousands of people under you, you're making a million dollars a year. And I mean, it's not like a normal business, you can't take that with you. And so they just left leaving all this money on the table and everyone was very vague about it. They didn't really say why.

It seemed like there might be some sort of restrictions on what they could say just because they were so incredibly vague about it. And it kind of died off and was silent for a while until people started coming out and saying that the reason they decided to leave the company was because they felt the company had fallen under some sort of demonic influence.

And they are all very strong Christians and they felt like something had changed, the vibes had changed in the company. And over time they had realized that this was a demonic force. I don't know how familiar you guys are with evangelical Christianity. I'm very familiar.

Oh, man, I'm more familiar than I perhaps should be, but I'm fascinated by it. I mean, my all-time favorite film is Jesus Camp. Yes, yes, yes. So I mean, this is the kind of faith that they ascribe to. And I am not an evangelical Christian, but I have some familiarity with it. I knew people growing up with it.

And to an outside observer saying this company has demonic influence sounds a little out there, but in the context of evangelical Christianity, it's something that actually people kind of say all the time. There is a sense in Christianity that your life is a constant push and pull between Satan and his demonic forces

and Jesus and his good forces. A lot of people who have this brand of Christianity are kind of primed to see demonic forces in some aspects of everyday life. Basically, pleasure of any kind is automatically a demonic force. Preach. What kicked it off for these women

was they were sent a book. This was not through Young Living per se, but Young Living has a seller who is top tier, who's been there for a long time, who co-authored a book. It's a book about how you can use essential oils to self-actualize or to make your life better. When I first saw this story going around,

I put it in order for the book. It was $80, which is a lot for a book. That's so expensive. Hardcover, at least? No, I'm just kidding. It's like the cost of an academic textbook. Yeah. Right, right, yeah, totally.

My boss gave me blessing to order this book, and so I ordered the book. I got a shipping notification, and then five days later, I got an email saying my order had been canceled and I had been refunded. Conspiracy? Yeah, so I was never able to actually read the book, unfortunately.

But from what I have seen on the internet and what people have told me, it's a lot of putting oils on yourself and tapping into your higher power. Well, I have friends in Venice who would just eat that up. That's the thing. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. It's the religion of the self.

That's what wellness is. It's the religion of the self. Women like Madison Vining and Melissa Truett, this book to them felt demonic because of its focus on the self and self-actualization versus putting your trust in God and relying on God to do things for you and all of that stuff. Melissa said that she was spooked even having

the book in her house. She felt like it was demonic forces in her house. And what they did was they went on Instagram and they essentially said, if you're a Christian and you believe in God and you're allowing young living to bring this kind of material into your home, you are going against God. And so kind of an underhand way of saying,

you should leave this company. Now, I want to caveat and say, I actually spoke to Young Living and they said that they weren't involved in sending out this book at all. This was a woman who wrote the book, who had the mailing addresses of all of these other women in Young Living and sent it to them unprompted. But the CEO of Young Living did write the foreword

for the book. So there you go. It's hard to know, is this something that they truly believe or they clearly had issues with the company? That's what I was going to say, because a lot of times with these cults, you trace the paper trail and a lot of it leads back to money.

And so it's really hard for me to believe that they would leave so much money on the table because of demonic forces. Like, how much does it cost to just get someone to get those forces out? How much is an exorcism in this economy, you know? With inflation? Maybe just too expensive.

That's absolutely true, and I think that is probably the more grounded and more cynical perspective. But I will say, and I don't know if we've talked about this on the podcast before, but holistic New Age ideology and evangelical Christian ideology, it's kind of one in the same. I mean, being born in trauma, that's

the same message as being born in sin. The idea of a rapture, or a second coming of Christ, is very similar to the idea of a paradigm shift or a great awakening. Both communities have the same good, evil binaries. So there's a reason why New Agers often turn evangelical, and evangelicals often go New Age, because the messaging feels so familiar.

Yeah. But it makes sense that you were saying that they were scared that the ultimate messaging from the book was that it was self-actualization instead of a god's actualization. Because I feel like when you do self-actualization, you could go down these rabbit holes that lead to sexual identity awakening, like queerness.

Like, it could lead to a lot of things that they find devilish, or things, sins. I think the main thing that I was able to gauge that these women had a problem with the book was they were saying all of the qualities that we believe should be given to Jesus and God, this book is saying that we should take on ourselves. I don't think the book is flat out saying, like,

you can turn water into wine. But it's that kind of stuff. You know, like, the power is within you. And it's very tame stuff. So then maybe it was a question of, like, money still, because then you're giving money to yourself to heal yourself instead of giving money to the church, because the church no longer will heal you.

I think it's all intertwined. I think in this country, enlightenment and money are that that's the same conversation. Yeah, I totally agree. So what was the sort of coda on the story? Like, was there an ending? Not really. One of them blocked me.

That's sad. Luckily, I have more Instagram accounts. Of course. Like a true journalist. But, you know, I would like to dive into the community a little bit more eventually down the line, because I just think that the prevalence of essential oils in social media slash the normal world,

it's really, really interesting. And especially when you look at it over what's happened over the past couple of years with COVID, a lot of these thinking that, you know, Western medicine is harmful, or, you know, we're all being poisoned by the things we eat every single day. So, you know, we have to have all these non-toxic things. We have to take essential oils to cure a cold instead

of day quill. You know, it can have really damaging long-term consequences if you could take it all the way where, you know, you could take that line of thinking all the way into becoming an anti-vaxxer. And then during COVID, that wasn't great. And it's something that I've really seen just spread like wildfire on the internet to even to the point

where people that I know tangentially from back home, you know, I've seen them saying, oh, you know, my child has special needs. And, you know, so I'm giving them this regimen of six essential oils a day and all of this stuff. And it's just like, where is this coming from? And I would love to dig into the psyche

of what makes someone go down this path. Is it a bad experience with Western medicine? I'm fascinated too. I think it's a combination of like a few different biases, the cultural tumult, the algorithm. I mean, doing this podcast and like talking about this so often and all learning from Amanda,

like I've dismissed a lot of my preconceptions about the kind of people that fall into these cults because I always thought it was like these people that were like dumb and like they didn't know what they were doing. And that's really just not the case. It's like so unique in every situation. Speaking of those false promises

that you were mentioning, like these people who can fall into these like rabbit holes, what do you think are some of the biggest myths that exist about essential oils? I think the most damaging part of it is it's so subjective, you know? Like if you read blog posts from people who are in the essential oils community,

they'll say, my children kept getting colds and they kept getting stomach viruses and I never knew why. And then I threw out all of the toxins in my house and I stopped using Western cold medicine and I started using essential oils and now my children haven't had a cold in two years. That's really damaging because it's not really something

you can prove or unprove, you know? It's just anecdotal. And that's what pseudoscience is, right? I mean, for that matter, that's what religious faith is. It's something that you can't prove either way. It's just something you feel. Yeah, yeah. Like I can see why that would intrigue someone.

Even I'm kind of like, huh? So it's a weird like amalgamation of mom guilt and not trusting authority and wanting to be natural and all of this kind of stuff. But I think those are the most damaging things. Well, I think it's no wonder that those anecdotal stories really resonate with us because it's personal, it's relatable.

And the science we'll talk about this later isn't really there. So all they have are these anecdotal stories. Like I have a former high school classmate who isn't an idiot at all, who is a distributor of whatever they're called for young living. She never says young living though.

She just calls herself an oily mama and her community, their oil is not gross. She calls herself an oily mama and is always talking about like the various blends that she swears put her kids to sleep. The anecdotal stories really distract people from the fact that there's really no science to support it or very little anyway.

What do you think it is about essential oils that fit so well with this panoply of different fanatical groups? I think a lot of people, they want to solve things that unfortunately sometimes can't be solved. You can't really stop your kid from getting a bunch of colds at the end of the day. They're either gonna get a bunch of colds or they're not.

And another thing that I've seen is people with children with special needs, learning differences, neurodivergency, they can become really susceptible to things like this because if you're dealing with a child with autism, for example, and someone comes to you and says, oh, if you just give them all these essential oils, they are going to have an easier life. That can be really tempting on something

that's a really challenging thing to solve as a parent. So we don't like trusting authority in America. And I think there's a lot of pressure for moms to take care of their kids and do everything for their kids. And I think it's just like a mix of all of those things. Definitely, it reminds me a lot the way that you described it, a lot of the community that believes in astrology because it's like,

you can really apply it to specific situations. And it's like, you only see what you want to see, you know? So do you think that there's a legitimate use for essential oils and what's your advice for our listeners about how to engage with essential oils in a way that's culty, but not too culty? Like I said, I like a supplement. I have felt like probiotics have helped me.

I take a lot of vitamins. I'm all about that. And I think the thing about essential oils, if you're using them as a supplement in everyday life, like I don't think they would harm you. And I think there is something nice about, you know, diffusing an essential oil. It just smells good.

Yeah. That's my favorite part about them. Is it demonic to smell good? It's definitely not demonic to smell good. Maybe if it leads to sex, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I think if you're just using them, maybe as God intended, let's say, where you're just enjoying them.

I think once you start saying to yourself, the doctor is telling me to take this antibiotic, but I'm going to treat it with essential oils instead. I think that's the time where you need to take a step back and be like, uh-huh, this is just a good thing. Yeah, like dismissing advice from a professional who's like dedicated their whole life to studying medicine, red flag.

All this stuff is so nuanced because sometimes doctors don't give the best advice. So it's like important to question everyone, but it doesn't have to be 100% faith in one thing versus 100% faith in the other thing. We're allowed to create a sort of bespoke lifestyle for ourselves with that. And then I think this is what lends itself to cultishness

is that we're either in the camp of Western medicine only never questioned big pharma or the camp of big pharmas destroying you and implanting microchips in you, essential oils only, it doesn't have to be that way. It's so hard to be like that. It's so hard to be independent. And I feel like everyone in this world

is already so exhausted from like all the information overload that like that's why we're so culty these days because people are exhausted and they're like, tell me what to do. I don't wanna check my sources. I don't wanna ask multiple people. I just wanna listen to one person and lie down.

Here, here. I also would kind of blame the internet for that. You know, you get into essential oils, you're like, this is nice, I really like this. And then you go down this rabbit hole and then the algorithm keeps feeding you all this stuff about how bad Western medicine is. And all of a sudden your essential oils fanatic,

the algorithm takes it from, oh, this is just something I enjoy to like this is my obsession and I can't ever take Tylenol. I'm afraid I might be falling into that with the mushroom situation that's going on right now. Cause of the ads I'm getting, I'm like mushroom water, okay, I'll do it.

Thank you so much for joining us on Sounds Like a Cult. If listeners wanna keep up with your work, which like I DM you all the time, you always care about the exact zeitgeisting niches that I'm interested in, like whatever reality TV show is like randomly my obsession of the moment, you are covering it on Buzzfeed. So if someone wants to keep up with your work,

where can they do that? The easiest way is to follow me on Instagram. I'm at Steph E. McNeil. Next, we're going to talk about the background of the essential oils industry, the science, or lack thereof. So ever since the dawn of essential oils use in the West, there have been larger than life claims made about them.

So essential oils were not invented in Europe or in the United States. Steam distillation is an old art that probably originated in Persia and the Middle East and spread here from there. But the term essential oils has been used in the West since around the 1750s and it's always been wildly misunderstood. Yeah, I feel like whenever anyone extracts anything

from like a natural substance, because that's what it is, it's essentially like extracting an oil from a flower or something like that. People think that it has like additional powers. And at times like, you know, we make medicine from plants and flowers. So like there is that version of extraction that is healing,

but essential oils are just like, they kind of just smell good. Well, there is this glorification of plant medicine because it's ancient. Where that gets problematic is when sort of new age curious Westerners who have no education in plant medicine in the way that many indigenous and Eastern people do

sort of exalt these essential oils as this magical curell because they're natural and quote unquote, chemical free. But what essential oils fundamentally are, are volatile chemicals. Like everything on the planet is a chemical. We're all made up of chemicals. Have you heard the song about the atoms? Like we're all atoms, you know?

We're all little atoms. We're all little atoms and molecules. I thought you were gonna say that the only effective part of essential oils was the placebo effect. Well, that is most of it. The other effective parts, if they exist are still being confirmed. You know, the term essential is really misleading

because people hear essential and they think it's indispensable. Yeah. You need it. But really what essential in essential oils means is these products are just the distilled essence from a plant or tree. Yeah, it comes from the word essence. I think that's a classic little word, a conundrum.

It is a semantic ambiguity. Synambic at, wait, synambic? Symantic ambiguity. Okay, learn something new every day. The term has been used in the West since the 1750s and ever since then, sellers have made false claims about what it can do. In the 1500s, for example, when diseases were thought

to have been caused by bad air, essential oils were viewed and used as preventions and cures. And it wasn't until the first big essential oils company was founded in New York City in the 1870s that the idea of even empirically looking into essential oils was put forth, which actually wasn't until the 1920s.

Yeah, it sounds like essential oils kind of like come back into the zeitgeist whenever like something is threatening society because what ended up happening this past two years was that they really had an uptick during COVID. A lot of essential oil companies started to claim that they could literally cure COVID, that they could prevent COVID,

that things that the FDA literally had to like send letters out to be like, you legally are not allowed to claim that your oils can cure this. Absolutely. So many MLM salespeople for essential oils companies were claiming that COVID was a wonderful opportunity to make money, to take your health into your own hands.

Deutericellors were posting online that the main benefits of essential oils are specifically to support immune systems. Natural defenses provides antioxidant benefits, energizes and uplifts with its aroma. And all of this will help protect you from the COVID pandemic. The crazy thing is the FDA was sending them these letters

but they were still saying it. Oh, absolutely. It didn't stop them. Absolutely. Essential oil brands, MLM and otherwise do what so many cultish groups do which is they prey on people's vulnerabilities and they prey on people's hope.

So for example, there are companies that claim that using essential oils is better than chemotherapy and that's attractive to people because chemotherapy really is toxic and scary. Yeah and a lot of people, especially in America don't have good experiences with the healthcare system. A lot of people don't even have healthcare or they have experienced situations

where you go to the doctor and they tell you oh, nothing is wrong and then you still are feeling symptoms. A thousand percent, especially marginalized people, women, people of color, like medical science has not treated these people with equality and so it really is the sort of situation that would inspire you to look

to alternative sources of wellness. Yeah and those people are not only already in a vulnerable place because they don't trust the institutions that are supposed to help them but they're also probably looking for a solution to a problem so they're maybe on a time crunch. When a company is telling you this product is gonna help not only with your physical health

but with your anxiety, with your happiness, with your stress, that is such an attractive message. Yeah and we talked about it with Stephanie but I think where that gets dangerous is where if you actually have a medical illness that you need treatment for. Or if we're in a worldwide pandemic where people are dying. Yeah, where people are dying

and where you getting an illness can give someone else an illness. You ignoring the doctor's orders and instead turning to essential oils that is going to have a negative repercussion on your health and on other people's health. So I mean, there is ongoing science about the efficacy of essential oils

but science is slow and science is hard and people don't wanna wait. So while it's true that in Germany for example, lavender oil is used in capsule form to combat anxiety with support in clinical trials and in the US tea tree oil is legitimately found to treat the eye condition blepharitis. People are like too impatient.

They're like no, I want it to cure all these other things. Yeah. I don't wanna wait. And that's where the anecdotal evidence comes in. That's where you see people being like, oh, I gave this to my kid and it fixed him so it's gonna fix you. And that's where I think a lot of it is placebo effect and everyone is so different

and that applies to real medicine too. That applies to medicine prescribed by a doctor. It's like they prescribe people lexapro for anxiety and then they prescribe and then they prescribe people lexapro for depression and it's supposed to cure both. And I think that's insane but that's why you have a psychiatrist

that you go back to to assess how did this medicine affect me? How can I readjust my prescription? But with essential oils, it's all under like the blanket term. It's just gonna fix you and you don't have a professional to discuss the symptoms with.

Well, what's interesting is that doctors do often still recommend essential oils like peppermint oil for digestion and lavender oil for anxiety because even if the benefits are mostly placebo which right now the science is still inconclusive, it is low side effect and it is low cost. So you're not gonna get fucked by using essential oils

but at the same time, if it doesn't work for you, you need to pursue actual medicine. Yeah, it makes so much sense that essential oils have found their way into all these different groups that mistrust the healthcare system and more like I was on the way here we were talking about the book educated,

the memoir that was like a best seller a few years ago. This is like an extreme group that you don't think of as being essential oil users but they were. It was the story of this woman who grew up the daughter of Mormon doomsday preppers who like didn't believe in the government, didn't believe in the healthcare system.

They'd never used antibiotics or been to the doctor or even had birth certificates. And whenever one of the kids got seriously injured or had an infection, the mother would just prepare an essential oil, take sure and be like, put this down your throat and stand outside toward the sun. That's so funny that like when you explain that story to me,

I was like, oh, that's crazy. But then I was also thinking like my parents never gave me like tinctures of essential oils but I feel like it's like a very immigrant mentality thing to do too is to be like, oh no, like drink this tea or like my mom was like, Americans go to the doctor for everything. Like we don't need to be going to the doctor for everything.

And it was like, now I'm like, mom, do we have like a history of cancer in the family? Well, and she's like, yeah. I'm like, dude, I feel like you should have told me this. Well, the thing that makes essential oils so insidious is that it's based on these half truths, you know? It's like, yeah, Americans probably are hypochondriacs. We probably are too paranoid.

We are probably aren't looking to alternative sources to help our physical and mental health enough. But if you take it too far into an extreme, yeah, exactly. And I think we should talk about that extreme example of a man who has a chokehold on the essential oils industry. And this man is Gary Young. Gary Young, if you couldn't tell by his name, is the founder of Young Living,

the same company that Stephanie wrote about in her article, which we've mentioned is one of the biggest essential oil companies that also happens to be an MLM. It sure does. It was founded in Utah. Gary Young is a Mormon. Utah, if you've listened to our MLM episode, is the low-key direct sales capital of the world

because the MLM message and the Mormon message of, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity coming from your cousin or your next-door neighbor, those two messages go hand in hand. The crazy thing about Gary Young is his story started when he claimed to be paralyzed from an accident and the doctor said he was never supposed to walk again.

These stories always relate to like Jesus. It's like, dead for three days and came back to life. Totally, or like the pastor helped restore this person's vision. Yeah, it's like, they're these like miracle stories that we're so attracted to. Yeah, and he came up, he told everyone that this story was true and it happened to him.

And then he found essential oils and they cured him and all of a sudden he could walk again. But he didn't immediately found Young Living. He founded a couple other companies. Serial entrepreneur, classic. Just like the Keith Ranieri of essential oils. Exactly, it's like they fail and fail until they succeed. And how are they even allowed to continue is my question.

A company like Young Living? No, a man like Gary Young. Because his first company, yeah, he lacked training, he claimed to graduate from the Institute of Physiogenereology, which isn't real. It was a false claim. He was arrested for practicing medicine without a license. He pled guilty, he served a year of probation,

but after that is when he moved to California and started Young Living. Yeah, I'm unsurprised. I mean, my impression of Young Living is just this girl that I went to high school with who was like the one sort of conventionally pretty popular girl in my arts high school, who of course went on to marry someone in the military

and become a teacher. Live this very Middle America nuclear life. And then after she had her first baby, she stopped teaching and became a Young Living sales person. But, and I can't look away from her Instagram account. I mean, she makes these reels of her using essential oils in all of these different ways. And you know how that MLM filter that they all use

that makes it look kind of like vintage-y and chuggy and Pinterest-y? Yeah, and the songs that they choose, like it's kind of like not elevator music, but it relaxes you like elevator music. So when you're... For me, it gives me like Mumford and Sons vibes, you know what I mean?

Yeah, it's like after you've had a lot. You know, like when you were a kid and you would like wait at the dentist and you like, they just played that like Monday music. Music. Yeah, and you would just like want to take a little nap in the waiting room. That's like the vibe I get when I watch those people's

Instagrams because I'm like, after a long day, I'm like just like so tired and I just like look at their shit on Instagram. It's like hipster boho music with like stomping and clapping. You know what I mean? It's like... Oh!

I can't believe that. I'm just saying on the podcast. Yeah. That's the vibe. It's exactly, exactly. And her like little baby is in the shot and she's like rolling peppermint oil on the baby's arms being like,

my baby had like yucky diapers and now I'm like, I'm your baby now. I'm just kidding. Totally. So yeah. She just like wants to make all of her followers feel like they're her mommy. Yeah.

And if you use essential oils the way I do, then you'll be a perfect mommy and also my perfect baby. Yeah. But it's so weird to me how this whole company, which is this like essentially like a mommy vibe company, like be my baby company. Is helmed by a fucking dude. Of course.

They all are. And even though this man was like arrested for fraud and false licensing before he even founded the company, and since the company has been founded, FDA has given them a bunch of letters and warnings about not saying that they can cure things, the company is still going strong. 100% because the direct sales industry

has all this protection from the government that we talked about in our MLM episode. But it's so true. It's like COVID has really brought conversations about the controversy surrounding MLMs to the forefront. But Young Living has been making claims for years about Ebola, cancer, Parkinson's disease, MS. Even though there's no scientific evidence stating

that it can cure any of these things. Like Ebola? Like they really went after Ebola? Like Ebola didn't even get to America. Seriously. Why did they have to like throw that in there? Keep it on domestic shores. Yeah.

But it's just wild because this guy is sort of a microcosm of the Venn diagram that we were talking about earlier, where he has made bullshit claims about everything from religious miracles to the health care system to how you can become rich. And yet he's able to thrive. Yeah. And he's like free.

In the way that Elizabeth Holmes was the first female Silicon Valley CEO that we wanted to see, we want to see people like Gary Young in power. You want to see? I do not. I mean, I'm saying the world. No, not even. I'm saying like the collective we like people who are struggling.

It goes back to that idea of people who like are just so exhausted by like the choices that we have to make day to day. And so they want someone to tell them what to do. They do. And they want these promises to be true. And it's like, just get Kinky in bed. Like literally.

Get someone to tell you what to do in bed and then figure out the rest of your stuff. So as we mentioned at the beginning of the episode, essential oils have different levels of cultiness. Definitely. But what do you think in our categories it falls under? Live your life. Watch your back.

Or get the fuck out. So obviously, if you're doing your thing independently using essential oils because you think they smell good, they're a live your life. I think we use them in a live your life way. But because there are so many fanatical fringe groups in our culture who are weaponizing essential oils, I think they have to be a watch your back.

And then certainly there are cults within the larger cult, like Young Living, that are a get the fuck out. So it's kind of all three. Yeah, I was going to say the exact same thing. Like on the surface level, if you just like look at essential oils, like yeah, you bought one at the grocery store, like a little oil stick, live your life. But unfortunately, because these groups,

like Young Living, exist, it kind of, like because of those groups, they are a watch your back. Totally, because when you log on to Pinterest or Instagram or even Google, when you're looking up what these essential oils do, it's hard to tell if that information is substantiated. It's hard to tell where it's coming from, because it could very well be Young Living propaganda.

Yeah, and all of these companies are affecting that propaganda, because they have such good branding. And some of them, even though they don't have FDA approval, they create like these stamps or these brands that kind of look like it's FDA approved. They do, and they use these buzzwords and loopholes, like has been shown to instead of making promises, you know?

Exactly. So, but I mean, some of them boldface lie. Yeah. But at least the big guys who've been pursued in the way that Young Living and Dutera have will sort of like skirt around it by making these promises in creative ways. So ultimately, Young Living is clearly a get the fuck out, because it's an MLM, and it's just not a good thing.

And there's a direct essential oils MLM, two anti-vax, two QAnon pipeline. Yeah, yeah, literally. And so if you're in Young Living, please get the fuck out. But if you're just using essential oils, just keep an eye on it. Don't think it's going to fix everything. But get them the fuck away from your cats.

Yeah, because they are not good for them. They're not good. Well, that's our show. Thanks for listening. We'll be back with a new cult next week. But in the meantime, stay culty. But not too culty. Sounds like a cult is created, hosted, and produced

by Amanda Montell and Issa Medina. Kate Elizabeth is our editor. Our podcast studio is all things comedy, and our theme music is by Kase of Cult. Thank you to our intern slash production assistant, Naomi Griffin. Subscribe to Sounds Like a Cult wherever you get your podcasts. So you never miss an episode.

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