Was I In A Cult? - [ENCORE] Eternal Values - Pt2: "Vanity Un-Fair"

Episode Date: June 29, 2026

A dear friend of the show, Hoyt Richards, who we had on the show back in 2023, has a new HBO docuseries "Bring Me the Beauties: A Model Cult" featuring his story. We caught up with Hoyt to discuss everything. But before we air that, we're going to re-releasing our original three-parter we did on his incredible story.  Before the footage, before the headlines, before the world could see the jawline for themselves, Hoyt shared his story with us.  Listen here, watch the doc, and come back next week for our brand-new interview with Hoyt about what it's like to have a hit documentary about your very personal life out there for the world to see.   THIS IS PART 2 ...  The now quasi-famous group takes it to the next level. They get a name, a book, a show, a hit song, and a distant star doomsday getaway. Hoyt, meanwhile, becomes his own star, modeling for millions but returning home to sleep on the floor. All is going well (or so they think) until the group puts a well-known phrase to the test. Is there really no such thing as bad press?   FIND HOYT: Website (speaking, blog & cult-recovery resources): https://www.hoytrichards.com Instagram: @hoytrichardsofficial Watch his new HBO docuseries "Bring Me the Beauties: A Model Cult" — directed by Chris Smith (Fyre, Bad Vegan, American Movie), streaming now on HBO Max.___________________________________ FOLLOW US  → For more culty content — follow us on Instagram & TikTok → @wasiinacult SUPPORT THE SHOW Join our Patreon! Get ad-free episodes, bonus content, and behind-the-scenes conversations. (And our forever gratitude)   HAVE A CULTY STORY? Email us → [e-mail]

We had a system of punishment that we would call the hot seat. And the group, like, mob, you know, comes at you. And it's like hurling stones. I remember this one guy, they found a candy bar in his pocket, you know, and it's like, you would have thought he'd shot somebody the way he was treated. Welcome to the second episode of the second season of Was I in a Cult. I'm your host, Tyler Meesum. And I'm Tyler's prop master, Liz Ie Coozy.

Now, if you didn't listen to the first part of this story yet, then we admire your unconventionality. But in order to understand this episode better, we suggest starting with episode one, where we introduce our guest, Mr. Hoyt Richards. And you will learn all about how ridiculously good-looking he is. But we will make no mention of that in this episode. I mean, we'll try not to, but it's just so damned hard.

So to recap, our fearless, devilishly handsome... Liz, he lasted five seconds. I'll do it. So at this point, Hoyt, our supermodel, had just started modeling, but he wasn't quite super yet. He had graduated from Princeton and moved to New York and was living back with self-proclaimed socialite, Freddie. The book Aliens Among Us had come out, touting Freddie as the next philosopher that could revolutionize humanity. And the group that was now formed had just given itself a name, Eternal Values. And a cult was born. Oh, so cute, just a little baby cult.

Just a little cult. Just a good little culty. Just a good little cult. Can you say love bombing? Can you say coercion? Oh, you can't. Of course, at this point, it was just a little baby cult, and nobody knew that it was a full-blown cult yet.

People had read aliens among us, and we're now reaching out to Freddie from all over the world. So to keep up with the incoming interest, they set up an office. We don't even have an office. The time I spent in New York was really only five. years. A lot happened in those five years. Once we started to kind of get involved with the, you know, a business, that's when things got much more into, how are we going to make an imprint on a bigger scale. So the good times of whether it was going clubbing or whatever, you know,

those all kind of went out the window and now it's like full-time work mode. And the job duties were numerous. They would take phone orders and sell new age books. Or they would record their own take on spirituality and sell those tapes. Of course, Freddie, like most co-leaders, wasn't doing much, well, any of the work. It was his job to do these life readings, and he was a terrible procrastinator and putting it off.

And, you know, the book had given him this kind of celebrity status. But Hoyt was a budding supermodel. And supermodels get to travel the world. I traveled a lot. I mean, I was on the road 300 days a year for like 10 years from rolling, you know, easily. So I was gone a lot.

But when I would be home, I had to go straight to the office, I was answering letters from people who were really seeking help and supposed to give advice to, which I never felt very comfortable doing. Supermodel by day, emerging light worker by night. And all of the outside attention the group was getting led to many more followers. More people moved into the building then. More people were getting involved. We had originally two apartments in the building.

I think we had like upwards of eight or nine at that point. of which Freddie would have called them, you know, chambers in the pyramid. We'd have our painters come and repaint the place so it's in line with the whole eternal values vibe. Which, if you were wondering, was in new age colors of, quote, high vibrational harmonics. Which, if you were wondering, is shades of pink, lavender, turquoise, and chartreuse. All accented by carefully painted silvery clouds. You know, colors of the new age, according to Freddie and my grandmother's house robes. We had up in the Bronx, this area called the loft, where you could house upwards of 20, 30 people.

I mean, there was a guy up there called Christopher Pratt, a very specialized high-end painter. It was basically his role to take the new recruits who would come in and not really have the means to sustain apartment in New York. They would go to be sent up to the loft and they would go work for Christopher and he would kind of train them and they would go paint houses in like celebrities' homes. and then the rest of the people who were more kind of, I would say, the frontliners, the branding people were successful, you would get them to move from where they were in the city, to move into the building. And then we'd all meet for dinner every night, you know, and when I'd be in town, I'd sometimes be responsible to cook for 30, 35 people. We had a very strict diet. We had definitely, we called it the diet. We actually ended up printing it out and marketing it as well.

So it kind of fruits and vegetables, meats and fish. It was actually a pretty solid diet. People were getting pretty strong and healthy on it. And we'd all eat together, and that's kind of the routine that we'd go back and work in the office. And, you know, sleep was not considered something that you were supposed to do. Like, you had to get your work done. Most of those involved in those early days were attractive, well-dressed,

20-and-30-something-year-olds. Fashion was important to Freddie. Specifically, gemstones. Frederick would stress the importance of the gemstone being worn next to the skin, calling them the chakra centers of the earth. Or as Freddie called them directly, the condensed light of God's own thoughts. I was going to say that.

Freddie would, of course, sell gemstones to his followers and others for thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars. It's been speculated that he sold over $2 million worth of gemstones over the years of the group, Which seems like an appropriate time to bring up our was I an occult gemstones. That's right. Was I in a cold gemstones? Operators are standing by. Wear them in your underwear only to receive the full benefit. But in addition to gemstones and jeans, the Eternal Values Group did have a unifying appearance. That was in the late 70s early age with the advent of all the tanny salons.

So everyone in the group was so tan because that was kind of status quo. I mean, it's like part of our uniform. We were just, we eventually ended up buying one of those machines and using it. Like, it put it on top of one person's bed. And it just, everybody was so tan all the time. Tan, handsome, skinny and professional. The hip, 1980s, New York, New Age commune. It was architects, lawyers, other models.

There was a accountant, you know, things like that. So people had had other jobs. We were all kind of living in the same building. So it was a little bit more communal that way, but it was understood that not everyone could give up their job. The women got treated badly in our group. I mean, there was a whole misogynistic vibe that Freddie had created. I don't know why he looked down on women. I mean, it's impossible to get inside his brain, but he was just against almost heterosexuality in general.

There is always a hierarchy in cults. I guess I would have been clean in toilets then. If you were a heterosexual woman, you were the bottom of the first. food chain and he made you feel like that. And he would actually tell them like, your job is to bring in, you know, recruit people, you know, seduce them and bring them in here. Yeah. And that was kind of the narrative that he was creating for them, which was awful. Freddie naturally took the leadership position. He was definitely present himself as a teacher and he was looking for his students. He would call them the child deans, the deans.

In Aliens Among Us, he claimed he was eager to reach as many, quote, wholesome people as possible to help prepare them for the new age that will be dawning soon in, guess what year. Y2K, baby. That's right. The year 2000. My God, so many terrible things were supposed to happen that year. But the only thing to actually go extinct that year was the Pyranian Ibex when a falling tree landed on the final surviving member of the species. That's true.

So sad. Poor little wild goat. In an occultic environment, you're targeting the people that will bring up. and more people. So you're looking for people that have like inherent leadership qualities, you know, have a certain level of charisma, have a background of success. You know, that's a very appealing thing because it's all, it's like marketing. You know, if you're going to put people in the front lines out there to kind of set an image,

you want them to reflect the image you think that would, you know, will bring more people in. And Waltz hanging out in Milan, clad in Gucci and Versace, with other fabulous people. Versace, Versace, Versace, Versace, Versace. Hoy did his share of recruiting as well. I definitely unconsciously was a recruiter, for sure. I just thought I was doing everyone a solid. A lot of models are in, you know, kind of a spiritual path of different source, and we have all sorts of conversations

and I might, you know, offer up an opportunity to say, oh, well, you should come meet, you know. I did recruit in quite a few people, and that's another thing that's not fun to live with. But I can't say at the time I thought I was trying to, you know, do some benefit. But the group would also recruit right at home. We held seminars in a church in New York City, just trying to find different ways that we could get the word out to people and potentially recruit in some new members.

It's a warm audience, right? They're coming there because they're interested in the subject matter. And then Fred would go on this radio show sometimes and sometimes people call in and sometimes those people would get involved. We had this cable access show. Oh, my God. You have to see it to believe it. And see it we have.

Hoyt gave me a drive full of these clips, and I watched way, way, way too much of this terrible cable access show. We would come on at 2.30 in the morning right after the Robin Bird show, and Robin Bird was a adult movie star, you know, who would interview other adult movie stars. And so you'd have all these porn stars on for an hour, and then Eternivor actually would come on like, ooh, this one year's, oh, new age music. How do you do, ladies and gentlemen? I'm Frederick von Mierrez with another platform across, America of the eternal values. This platform will deal and touch upon the towering intellects and geniuses who presented what became Western philosophy. Plato, Socrates, Kant, Descartes, and others.

It would be mostly Frederick and John riffing about different metaphysical topics. Nothing was planned, just riffing. A universal dispensation. the kind of which that is taking place on our planet in this day and age is bringing together a focal point where we realize that the material world, as we thought existed from a subject-object point of view, we realize no longer exists. For actually what we're all we're ever experiencing from a material point of view, all you are experiencing this moment, are the vibrations of light bouncing off the atoms of your television, sir. And on that show, Freddie would often spout off about his theory called a walk-in. We touched on walk-ins in episode one, but it definitely warrants more description. Freddie's whole take on his life was, I don't know if you're familiar with a walk-in.

Have you heard of that concept? I don't know. Maybe. Tell me. A walk-in is if a person's struggling in their life, consider looking at them from like a soul level, like a soul level, like a soul. in a body having a terrible time, they're contemplating suicide. In that scenario, they can, in essence, be pulled out of their body and given liberty without killing the body. A new soul will come in.

They'll take on that person's karma. But because they're an evolved soul, they'll actually be able to not only take on that karma, but also do the work that they want to do to kind of jump past, catapult past childhood and all those childbearing years and get right into action. So the idea is the person kind of has a little bit of a breakdown. They emerge like a brand new person. It clearly defines historical walk-ins. For instance, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln were all walk-ins.

Mohandas K. Gandhi. Jesus of Nazareth became the Christ Consciousness walked into Jesus' body when he was baptized by John the Baptist. We're all walk-ins. And you know who else was a walk-in? Let me guess. Freddie. And so the way Freddie would reference that is, oh, the old Frederick would do this, this, and this, you know, but, you know, I'm V, the short for Von Mears, you know. And so he kind of would reference his prior self with who he really was and that he was not that prior person.

He claimed he could look at the astrological chart and tell you if you were walking. So this is all kind of this nomenclature that came up around the whole new age thing. and I think it was Van Halen actually read the book, Aliens Among Us, got fascinated with the walk-in idea and wrote the song Love Walks in. Oh, yes, a music reference, and not just a music reference, a good music reference. Hearing this made me happy because I do love me some Van Halen. In fact, Eddie and Alex Van Halen grew up just down the street from where I currently live in Pasadena. And I do dig this song.

heard the song, you should. Here, I'll help you. Siri, play Love Walks In. Siri. Fuck you, Siri. Love walks in is a ballad. It's a love song. But it's also very much a super weird song about aliens. The song is from the 1986 Van Halen album 5150. This was the first album released with Sammy Hagar as the lead singer who replaced David Lee Roth. The songs with Sammy Hagar were a bit softer than the David Lee Roth songs. They were a little more well-rounded. So the The first single from 5150 was, Why Can't This Be Love? Good Song. The second was Dreams, and the third was Love Walks in. And as we just discovered, was inspired by an alleged alien encounter.

Sammy Hagar has stated numerous times that he has been visited by aliens. In an interview with Guitar World, he says that when he was 19 or 20, a group of aliens came into his room, hooked into his head, and downloaded all of the information from his brain. He supposedly woke up while they were doing it, and they quickly disconnected. You know, one would think that alien life forces wouldn't need to plug in with some kind of USB cable. Right, they can travel thousands of light years, but they can't use the Bluetooth. This alien encounter inspired Hagar, as he says, quote,

it sent me on a course of curiosity, I bought a telescope, and I started reading UFO books, and I just got into the whole thing. One of those books he read was Aliens Among Us, where he certainly discovered the term walk-in from Freddy. Love walks in Did you hear that It's a change All your dreams are strange Love comes walking

Did you hear that? Some kind of alien Waits for the opening Then simply pulls a string Love comes walking in It's like a jingle for eternal values Yes but accompanied by the world's Greatest guitar player

No disrespect to Jimmy Hendrick Naturally. Look, it goes on. Listen to these lyrics. Liz, did you catch that last part? Earth returns to what it was before. I sense a hint of Doomsday coming. Yep, Friday's ultimate plan in a platinum selling album. The song itself reached number 22 on the top 100 Billboard charts. And I personally remember slow dancing to the song in 1986, as I suspect many people did. Not I, Tyler. I slow dance to key sweat and usher. It's seven. clock on the dot I'm in my drop-top cruising the street how do you dance how do you you can't even slow dance of that you know I have a friend Chad a huge Van Halen fan and he actually played love walks in at his wedding immediately after they exchanged vows and he had no idea that this song was inspired by an ego maniacal cult leader sorry Chad we just ruined your wedding even though we were a very small group we

had an effect on pop culture. Kind of crazy looking back at it. Because we weren't, we were less than a hundred people. I happen to know a few stats about the human body. Oh dear, I hear the mild rumblings of useless trivia coming down the tracks. For example, every time you breathe, you bring in 25 sextillion molecules of oxygen, which means that every day you will likely inhale at least one molecule from the breaths of every person that has ever lived. Is that why I'm tasting Cleopatra? I could go on. Look, guys, just because someone, knows random facts about the body. Doesn't mean you should take their medical advice.

Nor should you go down the TikTok wormhole of questionable medical advice from these so-called experts. The care you deserve should come from trusted professionals and not randos on the internet or a podcast. And the best way you can find these professionals is with Sock Doc. Zock Doc is the only free app that lets you find and book doctors who are patient reviewed, take your insurance, are available when you need them, and treat almost every condition under the sun. Like hypertacosis, also known as the werewolf syndrome.

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That's ZOC, doc, dot com slash in a cult. Zocdoch.com slash in a cult. So where is Hoyt now? He's graduated from Princeton and living in New York where he is full on eternal values. He was staying in Freddie's one bedroom apartment, one of the chambers of the pyramid. He would stay in the bedroom and then the rest of us,

two people, sometimes seven people, sleeping on the floor at night. It's like an ashram. You had a one-inch foam mattress. We would roll it up and then put it in the closet, and then at night you'd roll it out and a pillow and a blanket, and that was it. I had about a three-by-five-foot space in the closet that was mine,

and that was it. That was the only part of the apartment that was really mine, and where I could put my clothes and things like that. The apartment was in Manhattan, near the East River on 54th Street and First Ave. Not a bad piece of property. But when Hoyt wasn't at home, He was off being handsome. I'm flying all over Europe.

The way I'd like to frame it as an extreme is I'm staying in a five-star hotel. I fly back on the Concord. I come back to the apartment. I unpack my bag and I go to sleep on my mat. You know, it was kind of like I had these two personas. I was born John Richards Hoyt. And when I had to join the union, there was already an actor named John Hoyt. So they said you had to come up with a new name.

and in your 20-year-old mentality, I'm like, I can see Hoyt Richards in lights. But then the mechanism that it served me in my career was I always felt a little bit like Hoyt Richards was my Clark Kent. You know, that was the persona I took on to be seen in the world. And in that persona,

Hoyt Richards stayed in the nice hotels. Hoyt Richards, you know, went on the nice flight. But that's not me. So I would play the role and I'd try to see it as best I could from that point of view, and then I'd come back and be with my spiritual family. But Freddie's not dumb. He was never going to let Hoyt out of his grasp.

And the other part of it was I was giving all the money back to the group, so I would pick up my paycheck from Ford, and I would figure out how much money I needed to pay my bills, and then I'd take the rest of it out in cash, and then I'd hand it to Freddie. And then there'd be times, like, I'd go to, to Europe and I'd literally come back with like 20 or 30k in my socks. And then I'd come back and I'd just, you know, I'd just hand that stuff over to him.

It seemed to be the more I gave away, the more money I started to make. And that was the pattern that kind of developed. Like, the more I gave it away, the more my star started to rise. I got him a credit card. At that point, I had like a platinum American Express card. He'd go out and spend 10, 15K a month on that fucking credit card that I'd have. to pay at the end of the month and acting like a holy roller. And also, I love being generous.

And I also realized that it bought me privileges. You know, like I kind of liked being the Golden Goose on some level. And the main key that he said to me over and over again, he goes, Lord Age, you are just impossible. But your generosity will save you in the end. Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up. Why did he call you Lord Age? I think the name giving was part of building that cult personality.

He used certain names like Lord or Lady or Duke or Duchess. He'd kind of give you a sense of royalty attached to it because he was very, very effective at introducing you to someone in a very inflated version, an exaggerated version of who you were. That's a part of the love bombing phase, right? I mean, he was very, very quick to tell myself and others how much he loved them. You know, so I think when you grow up in a family like I did

where we didn't really throw around the love word too much that when someone does it very flippantly, it's very effective. And like many cult leaders, Freddie was extremely charismatic and charming. He could work a room like he was Liberace. Do you think Liberace could work a room, Tyler? If a piano was in it, yes. Freddie had a kind of sense of humor that would like make you laugh sometimes, like a belly laugh, like he was just a master entertainer.

And then this sense of purpose was great. I was so enthralled at them at the time. There were definitely some great times. We had all felt like we had found our spiritual family. So you have all these people that you really respect and you really, really like. Can you just sacrifice one lifetime and give your life this time to service and to God and to helping the planet? Part of the dogma of eternal values was about true selflessness. Can you live a life that is entirely about being of service and not make it about your own hope's dreams and ambitions?

Just really hand it over to a greater cause. And not everyone would say yes to that, but because of that, I really respected everyone else who had kind of bought in that way. And that original thing you signed up for is beautiful and noble and wonderful. I committed myself to this group for the rest of my life. To be perfectly candid, the fact that I'm in this group and thinking I'm going to be a leader of the new age, you know, I literally got to the point where I would step on a plane and I would think to myself, I wish I could just announce everyone here, they don't have to worry because I've got such important work I'm going to do on this lifetime. Everyone in the plane is safe. You're all safe. And that's how I used to think.

I feel safe. Right now, Liz, do you feel safe? I feel safe. I feel safe. That's how deluded I was. But he wasn't alone. There were many others sleeping on the mat, working for the group, nights and weekends, all in the hope of returning to the star Arcturus to live as a hydrogen being. This is, of course, all based on the holy words of Frederick von Meals. But like most cult leaders, he didn't really practice what he preached. We thought he was living the same way, but he had a, It's kind of covert. And I found this all out after he died. But he would go free base cocaine for a few

hours and come back. And he had to take all his teeth out. He basically lost all his teeth. He had just choppers. From the drug use? The drug use. Freddie actually claimed in the book, Aliens Among Us, that quote, I sleep only three or four hours a night. And I work 20 hours a day. If we eat the right food and think the right thoughts, anyone can do that. Yes, the right food, the right thoughts, and copious amounts of cocaine. And then also, you know, he did like five facelifts.

Well, he was, his whole thing was, I can't stand looking like the old Frederick. I have to be closer to what I look like on afterwards. Oh, and another thing he preached was abstinence. Well, there would be these quite questionable men that would arrive. And he would say, oh, I've met this person on, you know, I'm trying to help them. And he would take them back into the back room. And I thought he was like doing, you know, doing the effemorting. thing and help put this person on track.

And then he'd come out and he's like, oh, Lord H. Lord H., this one's having such difficulty with his wife. And look, he's been shot. So I'd look at the scars and, you know, could we help him out? So I literally would peel off $100,000 thinking I'm helping someone roughen their way. And in fact, he's getting a trick pulling in the back room. You were paying off his prostitutes? Yeah, I had no idea.

Freddie says in the book, Aliens Among Us, quote, I teach my students that it is better not to engage in sex, but rather to redirect that drive into spiritual growth. I redirect my drive into the making of this podcast, Tyler. Our listeners certainly appreciate your abstinence, Liz. You're very welcome. And boyfriends or girlfriends in the group? Oh, hell no. The downfall of mankind was romantic love.

Don't get involved with anyone romantically. That was a biggie. Originally, the group started out very kind of monastic. Monastic, a great word. It's an adjective relating to monks, nuns, or others living under religious vows, or resembling or suggestive of monks or their way of life, especially in being solitary or celibate. Also known as the early stages of the pandemic. Everyone's in their 20s then. That really got to be problematic. I was given a green light that I could have encounters because I was out on the rodal, and it kind of went along with my persona as being who I was. But the group was really shut down in that way, and that eventually got to the point. He was like, oh, you just all fuck each other then, you know, and that was a shit shell.

Okay, so you could have sex, I guess, fine, just don't talk about it. But do not catch feelings and having babies? Oh, hell, hell, no. And also with the philosophy that the end was coming, so why would you ever bring a child into this cataclysm that's about to hit? Like, how selfish are you? Yeah, that's the new slogan for motherhood. mothers. What a bunch of selfish bitches. Oh, Liz, wait. Did you catch what Hoyt said? Did you hear that? The end is coming.

We can worry doomsday cold. Yes! That's right. Another doomsday cult. Doomsday, doomsday, doom's day. Tyler, there should be a calendar with all the doomsday dates. Which seems like an appropriate time to bring up our Was I in a Colt calendar? That's right. Twelve months of Colts, Colts, Colts.

Was I in a cult calendar? Operators are standing by. We could like host costume parties on the doomsday, day, days, and listeners can come dressed up in that cult. We'll serve snacks. And Kool-Aid. Now back to Hoyt. You know, you have to realize that we,

Fritig had prophesied that this end times, which he basically plagiarized from Edgar Casey, who was a psychic back in, I think, the 30s or 40s down in Virginia Beach, who had talked about this pole shift. Edgar Casey is the tour. 20th century's most famous psychic who made predictions while asleep. You know how I feel about psychics.

Casey claimed to absorb books by sleeping on them, and he gave over 14,000 documented readings before his death in 1945. A few were correct, but the vast majority were wrong. Law of averages. A number of these were what Casey referred to as, quote, Earth changes, the belief that the world would soon enter a series of cataclysmic events causing major alterations to human life on the planet.

And one of these prophecies given in 1936 was sometime around the year. 2000. 2000, Liz. He said, quote, when there is a shifting of the poles, a new cycle begins. He claimed that many areas that are now land would again become ocean floor and that Atlantis would rise from the sea and that the California coast would slip into the ocean. Why does everybody want California in the ocean so badly? So Freddie adapted that into his own prophecy. The axis itself does not change.

The magnetic poles will shift as the plates snap. In the year 1999, and all the present continents that exist, as they exist in their present form today, 150 miles inland will be submerged beneath the water within six hours. And with that, 99.9% of the population will be annihilated. Fortunately, Freddie had predicted that a great leader would help during this time. As a matter of fact, the last precedent of a century will be a walk in it will prepare the multitudes, for the horrendous times ahead.

And that leader would be none other than Bill Clinton. We're going to leave that for you all to interpret, all right. But because Freddie is in touch with the space people who are looking out for Earth, we will be transported out of here while the pull shift happens. We'll be rejuvenated and trained, and then we'll come back and repopulate. So knowing that they weren't going to be on Earth for too long, Hoyt didn't feel like he needed to plan for the future. Which meant not needing to save any money

or worry about things like Crow's feet or the 11s. You guys know what I'm talking about, those damn 11s. You know, as I said earlier, we were super tan in our group. And I'm always tan. And I've got makeup artists or other moms going, dude, you know, you might be damaging your skin. I'd brush them off because in my mind, I'm like, dude, you have no idea. I'm getting picked up by the space people.

I'll be in the rejuvenation chamber. none of this is going to matter. I'm going to be tan until that happens. And that's how I looked at it. I guess growing up in the era of Star Wars, I was just so excited to think that it's all real. Freddie also predicted that prior to the pole shift, there would be major storms and flooding that would remake the maps. AKA global warming, Freddie, you're no sense. He would be like, now you do know. And this dates and that's when the storms are going to start. That was a very powerful technique to try to tell someone, are you interested? Are you in? are you out? When the storms all started coming, New York was going to be underwater. So it was really about moving out of New York and setting up the compound down in North Carolina.

Up in the mountains, so it's going to be beachfront property. And when was that supposed to be? That was around the turn of the century, so we're all safe now. Good. We missed that. Pull shift averted. Probably because of all the prayers we gave. That's true.

Thank you, Hoy. Thank you, Lord H. You're welcome. You're welcome. all are chanting and yeah. All right, so folks, normally Liz and I, we record together in a booth in Los Angeles, but right now, through the magic wonders of technology,

we are actually a half a world away. I'm in Australia, yeah, how you going, Tyler? What the hell are you doing in Australia, Liz? I'm here because my fiancé is directing a movie. That is so fantastic. Good for him. Give us a little dirt, Liz. Give us some movie star shit.

What's, what? Who's in it? Who's in it? Okay. Well, you had to do. to guess, he's a major Australian celebrity. He's working with Bluey. Bluey?

It's Bluey, yep. Bluey is really cool in person. No, it's not Bluey, though. Well, whoever it is, it's wonderful. I think it's definitely something to crow about. So, congratulations, Liz. Now, on the show, we talk about cults, obviously. But the lens into them is through one person's individual experience.

But what makes a cult a cult? I mean, what's the difference between a workout class and a workout cult, a religious, and a religious cult. Well, it all comes down to a charismatic leader. I try to tell people, like a cult leader is very similar pathology to a serial killer in the sense that most serial killers were made to feel abandoned or abused at a very young age, and they experienced a sense of powerlessness. These certain types will seek out situations where they feel powerful.

They can put someone else in that position of powerlessness. powerlessness, but they're now pulling the strings to put that person in that place. And that actually feels good to them. It's almost like a fix, like an addict. That's why they keep growing a group, because once you've got someone indoctrinated, it's not so exciting anymore. And I have to go off and get someone else. And that becomes the evolution of the cult leader kind of, you know, building the tribe around them. And Frederick von Miers was no different. But behind the curtain, he was just Freddie from Brooklyn. When I think back on it, he's just acting out of these wounds that he doesn't understand that he's not dealing with, and he's acting out

in a way that this feels good, but it's destructive to others. And I think that the part that was most challenging about him is he could be so funny and really, really just engaging and fun to be around, and then he could turn on a dime and just rip you apart like no one's ever done. So that was the part that you were so attracted to this fun part, but this lurking part in the back of this other side that could come out was terrifying. And that terrifying part, sadly, had to be exercised somehow. I'm also watching him punish people all the time, and I did receive some punishment, but less than others, for sure.

John, he would just slap the shit out of his face, like, just physically beat him. And there's another guy whose name was Paul, Swedish guy, and super well-read and articulate and smart. and he had become kind of Freddy's man-servant, and he would beat the shit out of Paul sometimes, and all claiming he was trying to break through his ego. People always say, like, why would you take the abuse? But when you think you're encountering someone who's godly on some level,

that this is somehow for your benefit. Oh, no, it can't be abuse. This person's got to be operating in my favor. And this is the stuff that's hard for me to live with. is asking that question, well, why didn't I stop it, right? And then the answers I come up with is I was shit-scared, I was afraid it would turn on me,

I rationalized in some way that he was doing this for Paul's benefit or John's benefit. Those are some of the uncomfortable memories, for sure. We had a system of punishment that we would call the hot seat, where you basically get isolated and put down in a chair or some scenario like that, and the group like mob comes at you and it's like hurling stones.

If you do not, in essence, throw a stone, then the whole mob comes at you and now you're in the hot seat. If someone would be behaving out of alignment to the principles that we were supposed to be living by, you know, so whether they were being lazy or they were being secretive or whatever it might be, boy, did they get taken down. I remember this one guy, they found a can, candy bar in his pocket, you know, and it's like, you would have thought he'd shot somebody the way he

was treated, yeah. And so many things were blown out of proportion. Like, if you literally took clothes out of a drawer and then you didn't close the drawer completely, like left it just because you were just rushing. I could put you in the hot seat. Because the fact that you do not have the thoroughness to do this all the way to completion, when we most need you to do this when our lives are at stake, this is where you're going to fall short. So if you don't get it together now, you're going to end up killing all of us because you left the drawer. So I've been on both sides, and neither one of them is fun. You would get punished if you did something self-serving?

Yeah, sure. Early in my modeling career, I had a job, which was at a hotel down in St. Lucia, and part of my payment was a free week back at that place. The day before I left, hit it off with the aerobics teacher, or she kind of ran the gym, whatever. And so I was like, hmm, maybe I'll just go back this, you know, Christmas time and go and see her and I had this wonderful, like a honeymoon experience, you know, going back. But when that came out later that I had done that, I mean, it was like I could never live it down. Never live it. It's like, the world's going in and you're down in St. Lucia having a honeymoon with some woman, you know,

and so I learned pretty early on. Yeah, that's not acceptable behavior. No, no, you don't ever get to leave. Not for a fun weekend. Not at all. Well, certainly, uh, don't leave. Cowards do that. You leave, you're fucking just going to get crushed. You're Satan's child. So he stayed, eventually losing all contact with his former life. My family really, uh, struggles with it. My mother was the first one that diagnosed that something was wrong and actually used the word called. There was a 12-year period where I just broke contact with all of them. And so I've got all these letters and cards.

I kept a lot of stuff, and my parents kept a lot of stuff of those exchanges. My family always did a Christmas card to be a picture of everyone. And so first I started to disappear. There's always a letter with the picture saying what all the kids are up to. And then at a certain point, it's like, oh, well, our son's still doing the modeling, and we see him in pictures, and we're still praying for him. And then there's just no mention of me for another 10 years. It's like I'm not even in the family.

I have got a birthday card. My mother says, you know, I haven't seen you. And the card basically says, you haven't seen you in 365 days, you know. And she crosses that out plus 3,650 because it had been 10 years. She's like, we're still love you and we're praying for you. Where were these letters sent? to New York. Somebody hid them from you, or you...

No, I, you know, it's one of these mysteries. Like, I don't know whether I just kept them or whether I returned them to sender. I don't know, but I had no contact with them. It was February of 1990, 12 years after Hoyt first meets Freddie. And 10 years before the world was going to end. Freddie gets contacted by the journalist, Marie Brenner, who's a well-known writer with Vanity Fair.

I think she's written books and exposing a lot of stuff. So she, someone from her family or friend of her family, had a young boy who got involved with Eternal Vise. I remember his name. He'd gotten out through an intervention. And so Marie Bernard heard about the group. I think that's why she came on the story. And she was really adamant to make him pay, so to speak.

And they lied to Freddie and basically said, oh, we're doing these stories on all the great spiritual teachers in America right now. We've heard about your work. And we love the interview. At this point, Freddie was quite ill, suffering from what he said was a staff infection. But no illness could stop that man's ego. And he was like... Yes, absolutely. You know, he would have gone to the opening up an envelope.

Marie Brenner spent time with Freddie and his followers. She did her research, and she started writing her takedown of eternal values. One of my friends from college was working for Vanity Fair. And it had given me a heads up saying, you know, well, they're doing this or, I go, yeah, yeah, I've heard it's going to be. great. He's like, I don't think it's going to be very good. I'm letting you let you know. I'm like, what? And then the woman, Marie Brenner, tried to call me once, and I

refused to talk to her because I'd be giving the heads up. I'm like, I'm not going to talk to her. She's going to spend this. You know, this is the evil outsiders. You know, the people in the Matrix, you know, trying to hurt the people who've gotten out of the Matrix. But then? So the Vanity Fairlocko came out. I mean, as you can imagine, that's awful.

The article was called Eastside Alien. And in it, she describes her initial visit with Freddie. Quote, I was staring into the face of Frederick von Mears. We were sitting in his apartment, an elaborately decorated airy on East 54th Street. Behind him were a golden Buddha and a massive display of pink azaleas and lilies that seemed to take up an entire wall.

Pulsating ionization machines cleansed the air and billowing clouds were painted on the walls. What is that? I asked. It is the beyond, he answered. This is a holy place. She goes on, quote, Near me, six of Von Meir's friends and followers stared at us as if hypnotized throughout our interview. They all had striking similarities. They were all young, mostly in their 20s and early 30s,

and quite good-looking with taut muscular bodies. During this lengthy article, Brenner attempted to figure out Freddie's background to no avail. but she discovered that he was a failed model, and she addressed how he wormed his way into the New York social scene. She discovered that in 1977, he had been writing checks on his godmother's account to himself after she had had a stroke and was unable to speak. Who does that, Tyler?

It's actually quite crazy. It talks a lot about his grandmother and how he took advantage of her. But the article also spends a great deal of time discussing Freddie's gemstone business. which he marked up shoddy gems, 300%. He also addressed his prophecies and his abject racism, which were tied together. You're not going to believe what Liz is going to read next. Quote, terrible storms will destroy the world.

You will all be dead within 10 years. Only the elite will be saved. I am here to train the leaders of the new age. Everyone I am training for leadership will have perfect features. I believe in the master race. Jews have been evil since the beginning of time Hitler was divinely inspired. What a motherfucking piece of shit, Tyler.

Oie, none of that is good. And for Hoyt, as you can imagine, it's a total shit show. This whole thing comes out kind of exposing him. I mentioned in it. I tried to call my parents because it was everything, the worst, version of you could imagine your kid would get involved in.

But the thing that was so interesting is, as we were picking up the pieces, Freddie had died. Freddie died like, I think, five days before the article hit. Freddie had said that he didn't expect to be around for the poll shift in the year 2000, and that was one prophecy that was true. His ego couldn't survive the truth. And while he was dying of this supposed staff infection, members of the group all took turns watching over him.

The big push was to try to get him to North Carolina. We thought he was like magically healed when he got the North Carolina on some level. And I was in Reno, Nevada, working for GQ. As one does. And I get the call that he's not going to make it through the weekend. And I need to come back. And that blindsided because I was completely delusional and thinking that he was going to somehow survive all this.

And I remember the whole flight just trying to cope with the fact that I'm like, there's no way he's going to die. But then when I got there, he looked like a human skeleton. He was dying. You're basically starving to death. You know, your organs are shutting down. You're losing weight. Never fun to watch someone die like that.

You know, I don't care who they are or what they've done. It's just a horrible way to go. The whole house was filled like 30 plus people. we were each given 15 minutes with him. And this dropper, which was, you know, had water. They said, you know, just keep him hydrated. You know, you give him the droppers. And it kind of said, like, whatever words I said to him.

And we found out later that we were all feeding him morphine, unbeknownst to ourselves to try to speed up his death. And then because we had all kind of flown in and, you know, made it down this weekend, Fritz and David decided, when he continued to hang on, that during that night, they just put a pillow over his head and ended it. And that's how he died.

Days later, after an autopsy, the group discovered that Freddie didn't die of a staff infection. It actually was AIDS-related, and eventually Paul, I think he finally came forward. And then I was like, well, how did he get it? And he's like, oh my God, he goes, Don't you know, I would go down and find those male hustlers on 42nd Street, and that's those guys that we could be coming in.

I'm like, what? So now their leader was dead. Ding, dong. Without our fearless leader, then it was like, well, who's going to run controls? And that's where this guy Fritz took over, but he didn't have any of the charisma and savvy. And we usurped him, got kicked him out. And then we just put all our focus on getting everyone in the North Carolina.

And do they make it? You'll find out next week. On our third and final episode. Not final episode, Tyler. Just the end of Hoyt's story. Where you'll hear moments like this. One of the guys actually slept in the doorway to make sure I couldn't leave the apartment. And I have a fourth floor apartment in New York.

And I remember looking out the window and looking at the cars below. And I go, I might break my legs, but I think I'd live. Maybe I should just jump. Thank you, Hoyt, for. sharing your incredible story with us. We can't wait to hear the ending. And thank you listeners for being here and being you. And with that, take us out, Mr. Mears. There are no sins in this world, only one sin. To impose your will on someone else's will against their will for a selfish motive. Otherwise, if you're dancing on the tabletops at Studio 54, or making love to your wife,

or eating in a restaurant, or worshiping in a church, a synagogue or a temple, All you're ever experiencing every moment is consciousness, which is God. As we leave you tonight with these happy thoughts. God bless you all, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists. Good night with another platform from the eternal values. Wasay and a cult is produced written and hosted by the slow dancer, Tyler Mason. And the booty grinder, Liz Ayakruz. Edited and produced by the electric slider, Kristen Vermilia.

And for those who want to see pictures of Hoyt's modeling days, we have some picks on our Instagram, as well as some screenshots from the Vanity Fair article. And if you're just dying to watch Freddie on the cable access show, or Hoyt on the million dollar man, the clips in all their glory are on our Patreon. Find us at patreon.com slash was I in a cult, or click the link in our show notes. Trust us.

It's worth it. If you or anyone you know we're in a cult and has a story you'd like to share on our show, please email us at info at was Ianacult.com. That's info at wasianicult.com. And now that is the end of this episode. The end. I just said that.