Was I In A Cult? - Online Vampire Cult - Pt1: "Armand Has Entered The Chat"

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

At 16, Celeste Mott was alone, grieving, and searching - for meaning, for connection, for something that felt bigger than her small, suburban life.And then she found them.An online world inspired by Anne Rice.Dark. Seductive. Intelligent.A place where vampires weren’t just characters… they were real.Or at least—that’s what they lead her to believe.This was the early 2000s internet— before social media, before real names, before anyone was asking who’s actually behind the screen.Message boards. Chat rooms. Total anonymity. The perfect environment for something to take hold… unnoticed.What begins as a message board for Anne Rice fans, transforms into something far darker. Something that on the surface, sounds completely unbelievable. Except not when you know how cults operate. Because this wasn’t just fandom.This was belonging.This was identity.This was… a promise.And like every good cult—it knew exactly what she needed to hear.This is Part 1 of 2.  ______FOLLOW CELESTE → Instagram @celestemott | Tiktok @celestemothFOLLOW US  → For more culty content — follow us on Instagram & TikTok → @wasiinacultSUPPORT THE SHOWJoin 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] Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The views, information, or opinions expressed by the guest appearing in this episode solely belong to the guest and do not represent or reflect the views or positions of the hosts, the show, podcast one, this network, or any of their respective affiliates. When you look at the way that the dynamics operated, it's very cult tactics. You strip away the vampire costume, the trappings, and it's pretty standard stuff. It's telling you that if you believe hard enough, if you invest enough time, enough energy, you have the promise of immortality. I mean, you look at a lot of cults, whether it's Scientology or evangelical Christian cults, there's this promise of an afterlife that's going to be so much better than the shit you're having to deal with in your boring mundane 9 to 5 life. And so suddenly feeling like maybe this is all real was, it was my life plan. You know, I was like, okay, well, I'm going to be a vampire then. Let's go.

This is my objective. Every cult has a promise. A better life. A new identity. An escape from whatever it is you are hoping to escape from. And for Celeste Mott, that promise was immortality. This is Wasa an occult. I'm Liz Ayakuzi.

And I'm Tyler Meesam. And today. Vampires. Real vampires, dear? Not real ones. internet ones, Liz. But sexy ones. I mean, I, you don't really see ugly vampires, do you?

Because no one wants to suck their blood. No. That's why. No one wants your blood sucked by Fred the vampire. No, no. And no one wants to suck Fred the vampire's blood either. Nobody wants a plumber, beer drinking, chicken wing eating, dude. You want like a guy who's fit, has six-pack abs, takes care of himself.

That blood, pristine. Just call me sucky. Just call me sucky. All right, sucky. Sucky. What are we talking about today? My listeners who know who Suki is. You guys know.

You co-host doesn't, but that's okay. But today we're talking about the fun kind of vampire, the emotional, manipulative kind. Yes, those are always the fun people to be with vampires or not. Today, you guys, is about a Y2. Anne Rice inspired vampire cult that lived on the internet. The internet. That's on computers now, right? Back when the internet was kind of what podcasts are today, a bit of the old Wild West.

When fan fiction was having its it girl moment. There were message boards, forums. They had those little, remember when you got online early and it had site counter and it counted all the people that got on your website? Oh, yes. You remember those? And then they had entire online communities. And where chat rooms were the opposite of the Cheers theme song.

You know what I'm saying? You want to go to a place where no one knows your name. That was the whole point. I had a fantastic conversation with our guest today who was a part of this cult for the better part of a decade. And her getting out story is kind of unlike we've ever heard on this show. Let's be real. Her entire story is unlike. anything we've heard on this show.

We've heard a lot. This one is a little bit crazy, hearing about vampires, reading everything about vampires, editing about vampires. It made me dream about Brad Pitt. Well, thank you for that, Celeste, said Tyler. I sleep well in my bowl and brand sheets

with Brad Pitt as a vampire running through my head. It is a two-barter, but lucky for you guys, both parts are available today because, yes, last week, I had surgery, so we apologize. We had to skip a week, but we're making up for it by giving you both parts one and two right now. What do you think of that? I think it's great, but I want to say, are you okay?

Oh, you mean for mine? That's me being empathetic. Oh, thank you. I'm fine, but I don't want to talk about my blood because I don't want to tempt any of the vampires that may be listening. currently. It is late at night. It is 9.30. At night, we did it.

My blood is very tasty. Yes, I bet it is. So with that, let us welcome our wonderful gas. That's my vampire voice. It's terrible. It's really not good. Let's welcome our guest, shall we? I want to welcome our guests.

Ha, ha, ha. A little better. She did it better than me. So my name is Sluss-Mod. I'm a writer and a professional full-time witch, and I live in New Orleans, Louisiana. And I was in a Y2K vampire cult from the ages of about 16 to about 25. What it crystallized around was the works of horror novelist Dan Rice. So, yeah.

So I was born in England. It was no siblings, just me. My parents both worked in media, television news, so pulling a lot of long graveyard shift. dad was a reporter doing a lot of war correspondence so overseas a lot. And so I was, I've spent a lot of my time by myself, just in my own company reading, making up imaginary friends, being lost in my own daydreams was kind of the vibe. I was always drawn to paranormal stuff and spooky stuff as a very young child and was voraciously reading which books, mostly fiction when I was a little kid, but I had a picture book called Meg and Mogg. It's like a British children's book. And that was about like a

witch and her cat. I loved that. And then when I was old enough to start searching the internet, you know, I discovered that there were people out there practicing witchcraft either as a religion or as a form of spirituality. And I was like, wow, I'm about that life. I would say that I was experiencing what I would call spirit activity from a pretty young age. I lived in a very haunted home when I was about, I guess, 11 through about 13 or 14. But I was very scared of ghosts when I was a kid, fascinated by the paranormal, but really scared of it. So it's kind of interesting that I wound up doing this for a living.

And now I'm like, come at me, ghosts. Let's talk. I was very close to both of my parents, but my dad left home when I was six. and he was like the parent that I was closer to. So when my dad left, it was like losing the parent who was my sort of safe, warm space. And then we moved to Australia because my mom was struggling as a single parent. As I look back on it as an adult, just many different kind of stages of abandonment and having to then readjust. I went from living in a small village in like the rural UK kind of fairy tale.

village vibes to being in suburban Perth. Perth is like the Ohio of Australia. No offense, Ohio. But there's not a lot going on in Perth. And so at that point, I just didn't give a fuck, honestly. And then my dad died when I was 12. And when you lose a parent at a young age, it is totally life-changing.

It completely reshapes your entire conception of reality. That's a huge thing. to grapple with as a kid. And my mom's sister, who was paying for my education, my auntie hat, who was amazing, a very influential figure in my life, but she got a recurrence of breast cancer. And so she died in 12th grade. And so at that point, my mom was just so checked out, you know, like, that's too much one thing after the other. So yeah, I was just out here on my own a little bit. And so I became very morbid. I just wasn't scared. of death anymore and by reading about it and learning about it and poking into the sort of spiritual

corners of what people were saying about death, near-death experiences, past lives, astral projection, all of these kinds of things. And when I was 12 or 13, my aunt who passed away, she was an avid reader. She loved fantasy. She loved horror. She loved paranormal stuff. And I was at her house one day trolling through her bookshelves and I found a copy of like an Anne Rice novel and I was just really smitten by the world a bit and then I started going to the library and getting the books out. So I have truly just so much love in my heart for Anne Rice as a writer and a human being. She changed the face of horror fiction and vampire fiction specifically in ways that no one since Bram Stoker has done. So Anne was born in.

She was born in New Orleans, Irish Catholic. I think her dad died or maybe her mom died. She had a loss in her family too and she moved away. And then she subsequently met and married the poet Stan Rice, who was very, very well-known and well-respected, especially in like the 70s. She had lost her daughter, Michelle, when she was little. And that loss was what kind of sowed the seed for Anne to write the book. she just had this idea in her head,

what if a child was immortal? What if a child was a vampire? What would that look like? I'm not sure that she had ever really set out to write a novel per se. You know, and apparently some friend of the couple had said at one point, oh, well, you know, leave the writing to stand.

You should be at home like raising your kids, da-da-da-da. And turned around and wrote interview with a vampire. She was like, well, fuck you. It was that grief that really pulled that story out of her. And central to the plot of Into With the Vampire, I mean, it's Louis's story, but it's really Louis's story about Claudia. Claudia is the little child vampire that Louis turns into a vampire, and it's the moral and emotional and psychological ramifications of what happens when you can capture youth like that. And that's kind of like what immortality is, you know. Anne will be immortal forever because of the stories that she told and the way that she impacted so many of us.

She turned the worst thing that happened to her into the best thing that ever to happen to us. A lot of her books, they have intersecting pathways that go through New Orleans. She had these morally complex characters who were struggling with their nature as these kind of primal, like arguably evil. beings. She's got characters that their stories start in ancient Greece, ancient Rome. She has characters that were alive and kicking the Middle Ages in Italy. I felt like I could sit in my hammock in my yard in Perth, West and Australia and travel not only to these other places, but these other times. Anne Rice's interview with a vampire was published in 1976. It tells a story of Lewis, a man who turned into a vampire in 18th century New Orleans,

by the charismatic and reckless Lestat. But instead of embracing immortality, well, Lewis was horrified by it, struggling with guilt, mortality, and what it meant to take a human life to survive. Together, they turn a young girl named Claudia into a vampire, creating this strange, broken family bound by eternity. The book was no small. No. No.

The book went on to sell millions of copies worldwide and launched an entire genre of modern vampire storytelling. Of course, later adapted into the 1994 films starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, as vampires. What? Yeah. But Anna Rice didn't write just one vampire book. She wrote more than 30 novels, including 13 in The Vampire Chronicles, turning her vampires into a full-blown universe.

Anne Rice did sadly pass away in 2021, but her work and her vampires are still very much a lie. Lurking in the shadows. It felt like the characters could be almost like confidence or friends. I felt like if Lestat was going to walk through my front door and sit down, like he and I would have some stuff to talk about. And the way that her books are written is it is framed as if it's real. For most people, you know, it's obviously not, but so many people had that little glimmer in the back of their head.

It's kind of like being a kid in the closet, pushing on the wall and hoping to get to Narnia. So many people were like, well, maybe. And, you know, around the time that I started reading the books and I had seen the movie, I had some friends at school who were also super, in to the books and the world. And I remember hanging out with this friend of mine from school. And she said to me, have you ever considered that maybe it's real? And so I was like, yeah, like I have wondered. She was like, yeah, I think it might be. And she said, I've had these dreams about Lestat. And I really think that maybe it's all real. And I had weird dreams.

And so her philosophy was, we should research. Let's hit the books. You know, we loved Buffy too. Let's be like the Scooby gang about this. Let's go to the library. Let's find a Giles. Let's research. But we were also going on Ask Jeeves and Dogpile and searching Anne Rice Vampires, Anne Rice Vampire Encounters, and Rice Vampire's Real. And it was through that searching that we came upon this series of websites and forums

where people were claiming exactly what we had been hoping for. They were claiming that the vampires were real and that they had met them. I mean, I was all in, man. I was like, wow, this is fascinating. Let's talk about skin care for a second, shall we? This is where I get judged, isn't it? You got the serums, the retinoles, the eye creams. People are out there with full nighttime routines that look like they're basically prepping for surgery.

But here's the thing, guys. Everyone's spending all this time and money on what goes on their skin. Yet, they're completely ignoring what their freaking skin is present. against for eight hours every night. Eight hours is ideal, but for a long time. You're lucky. That is your sheets. If you're investing in skincare, you're betting, it matters. And bowl and brand sheets, here it comes. Bowling brand sheets. They're kind of a cheat, right? Because they're 100% organic cotton. They're super breathable. They're really soft. And guys, this matters. They have no harsh chemicals. So your body isn't absorbing harsh chemicals. Yes, right. This is asleep.

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I fall asleep. I don't wake up as much. And I mean it. They're really, really great. And the whole thing about like getting softer with every wash, it actually does happen. So if you have been thinking about upgrade. your betting. And your face.

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That's a lot. That's a lot. Exclusions apply. See the site for details. But also use sunscreen because that's good for your skin, too. Yeah, and you don't want to burn, especially if you're a vampire. Well, the vampires don't need. They don't go on in the sun.

Maybe there's vampire sunscreen. Have you ever thought about that? You would think after being around for eternity, they could figure out how to make vampire sunscreen. How to make it work for a day. Right. So they can go outside. Nobody said they were. smart, they're just pretty.

All righty. Time for a little vampire 101. Yes, it is. Anytime you can give me the floor to give some useless, not useless, fascinating facts, I shall take it. Vampires have existed in folklore for centuries long before Anne Rice ever put pen to paper. Across cultures, they were often seen as bloated, monstrous, undead creatures who fed on the living.

They were symbols of disease. Death and the unknown. They were all named Fred. Dirty Fred. But over time, these creatures evolved, and by the 19th century, stories like Dracula, vampires became more refined, more seductive, less corpse, more aristocrat. Traditionally, vampires survive by feeding on the blood of the living,

often believed to maintain their youth, strength, and immortality. They're, of course, nocturnal, because they're, are weakened by sunlight, and they have supernatural abilities, strength, speed, and ironically, or not so ironically, the power to influence and control others, like some other types of people. Mm-hmm. Yes. Okay, so that's a little bit of vampire backstory knowledge. We'll have more, but let's get back to the real vampires on the blood-suckin Internet.

The internet of today is like just not the internet of 2003, 2004. It was like the Wild West. But the funny thing is, I was already very savvy to the idea of online fandom. Online fandom is amazing. It's incredible. It's a great participatory community for people to be creative in. But it can be a toxic place, regardless of what the fandom is. and it can get pretty unhinged.

And the forum was an Anne Rice forum. It's called The Looking Glass. It was N-O-S-F-T-U.com. So the forum was a old-style message board with multiple different sort of sections that you could go to. And then there was also a separate chat room. Yeah, so you would have to fill out

their little sign-up thing. You would pick your little display name. Most people did not go by. real names. I joined originally under the username Ambrosine, but it was like adopting a different identity. It was the internet of 2004. You could be whoever you wanted to be because no one was going to find your Facebook because you didn't have one. The moderators of this forum were claiming to be the Anne Rice vampires from the book. It was straight up, I am a vampire. I am this specific and Rice Vampire.

Right. I'm 500 years old. I drink human blood, et cetera. But I think that's what appealed to me because there was no safety net. It was we are in character. We are not breaking character. And not only are we not breaking character.

We're going to like really hammer home the fact that what is going on here is real. The motto of the forum, like on the banner at the top, was belief is the key. The vampire moderators were, Statt, Armand, Louis, Daniel, the interviewer from Interview with a Vampire, who subsequently does become a vampire in the books. And then, somewhere around 2003, a new character arrived who was not in the books. His name was Maxwell the Demon, and Maxwell the Demon had been a

regular human member, like the rest of us, before he was turned into a vampire. Okay, a little bit more vampire knowledge. For a human to turn into a vampire, it takes a little bit more than simply having a vampire biting them. That's the common misconception, right? The old tale was that it was an attack by a vampire. You're bitten on the neck, boom, immortality, and apparently, then you have to wear a cape. But the more modern and rice version is that both sides are involved, right? You don't just get bitten, you're drained to the edge of death, and then brought.

drop back by drinking the vampire's blood. Yeah, so the vampire drains almost all of your blood. You die, you come back to life, you have to drink the vampire's blood, then you're a vampire. Awesome. Or terrible. Is this basically the best metaphor for cults we've ever had ever? Yeah. And it's just coming to me in this very moment.

Yeah. Obviously, this became a cult. I mean, it's not an attack. You step into it. it slowly and they drain the blood from you and then you drink their blood. Yeah. They drain your old identity and then you drink their blood to give you life force. Let's move on. Yeah, it's a little on the nose now. You get it. Yeah. So when I joined these forums initially, you know, even at 15, I wasn't joining thinking like, oh, I'm just, you know, they say they're

vampires. Well, they must be vampires. You know, I was aware that people. would role play on the internet and would write collaborative stories together. There are probably about 300 members. I think this is the beautiful part about it really is that it was very diverse. You know, you think Anne Rice Forum and you're thinking, oh, God, is everybody wearing, like, fake fangs and has, like, badly dyed, home dye hair and thick eyeliner, you know. But it was all sorts of different people. There were older people.

there were people my same age. There were certainly some like little goth kids, for sure. But it was a very diverse group of people and mostly women. And I would say my last year of high school, I was a member on this forum. I would get up and go to school. And then I would just sign myself out and leave. Private school, be like that. So I'd go home or I'd go to my friend's house.

She had dropped out of school at this point. and we would just log on to the forum. And then I would be on that forum in the chat room, posting on the forum, five, six, seven, eight hours a day, easy. The level of discussion on this forum was pretty robust. It was active. People were interesting. People had a lot of fascinating things to say. They were intelligent.

And there was nowhere else that I was getting to discuss the philosophy of Emmanuel Kant or the spiritual ramifications. of the movie inception, like people in my sphere were not doing that, really. An internet forum already really sets up an interesting power dynamic because you had moderators, right? They have particular power on the forum to kind of ban you or silence you or kick you on a whim. And then you add to that the fact that they are supposedly immortal vampires and you, the regular person are getting the rare opportunity to speak to like a paranormal being, it's instantaneously developing this very intense power dynamic. If a moderator, vampire showed up in the chat room, we would all be talking about hot dogs

and charmed or whatever. And then a vampire would come in. And suddenly we were all like, hello, good evening, Lestat, how are you? Let me tell you about the continental philosophy that I was just reading. So we were all vying for that attention at all times because there was really an environment of emotional intimacy that I would say was encouraged. We were very much encouraged to share. So I'm engaging as myself. I'm me.

And I'm just talking about my life to these people. I'm sharing about my dad passing away. I'm sharing about the paranormal experiences that I've had. I'm being very vulnerable about my living situation, my mom's alcoholism, and also definitely talking a lot to everybody, but specifically to the moderators, about the experiences that I'd been having, the dreams and the other weird kind of paranormal stuff that had happened my whole life. And fairly early on, I started getting that attention. I'm not sure why that was, whether it was just sheer persistence on my part, because I was just on there so fucking much.

Lestat, especially, seemed to really derive a lot of joy out of just that raw kind of human connection. What are you doing? What do you believe? What do you yearn for? And of course, like as a teenager where no one's listening to you in your real life and your mom's an alcoholic or your parents are dead or whatever it is. And that was a very common story, by the way, I was by no means the only person in that kind of situation, a lot of vulnerable people on there. You know, we were like, hell yeah, you want to listen to me? You care about what's going on in my head? Fuck yeah. I'm into it. And a lot of those people were much older and much wiser than me. You know, you had people in their 60s. who were grandmothers and parents, from my perspective as a child, people who were very serious,

intelligent grownups. And they were spending their time on this forum having conversations with me and saying, no, like this is real. Like we have seen stuff happen. About perhaps six months before I joined, there had been this situation called the game. And to be clear, this may have been called the game, but it wasn't framed as a game to everyone. For many members, this was presented as real. And the game was a project that Lestat, the vampire, had started where he had basically said, look, I know a lot of you don't believe that I'm real. And so I'm going to pick three of you and I'm going to visit you. And the only condition to all this is that you have to come back and report to the other members that you saw me. Three of them got picked and they came back and they

reported what had happened. And one of them was this woman whose username was Dolce. And Dalche was like 65, sweet little grandmother lived in Rhode Island, liked rose gardening and knitting, you know. And she told this amazing story where she was like, you guys, like, Lestat, I woke up in the middle of the night and I heard someone playing the piano in my house downstairs and I walked downstairs. and I saw him and his hair was like slightly damped from the rain and you know he took my hand and I knew in that instant that it was really him like beautifully written but people trusted dulce people loved her and her vouching for this being real went a long way to convincing a lot of these people that it was so I miss out on all of this thank God because I probably would have lost my

damn mind. But I hear about it from these adults and they're telling me like, no, this happened. There was another woman around that same time. We'll call her Pia. Pia had allegedly met Lestat multiple times and she was telling everybody the reason that I'm so sick is because Lestat and I are lovers and his blood is making me sick. And this is kind of in Anne's books too. You can be a human person who has ingested vampire blood and not be made into a vampire. To be made into a vampire in her mythology, you need to be drained to the point of death. And then all the blood in your body has to be replaced by like ingesting vampire blood. So you could theoretically be a person still, but who's getting a little bit of vampire blood here and there, it's going to make you somewhere

between a vampire and a human. And that's what supposedly had been happening to Pia. Yeah, she was saying, look, Lestat is real. I've seen him. We are lovers. And this is what happens if you get too close to a vampire. And she was kind of, she was the cautionary tale. She was telling the rest of us, you don't want this. Once I started hearing these stories about people like Pia, Dalchais saying that she had really Matt Lestat, hearing the story also of this Maxwell guy who supposedly was turned into a vampire by Armand, And at that point, my investment really doubled down because suddenly it felt like, wow, maybe this is real. In vampire world, right, it felt like there weren't limitations in the way that there would be in the normal human world. It's opulent. It's luxurious. It's whimsical. There's this opportunity to travel and see amazing things and experience amazing things.

And like, that's all I wanted. And the draw for me, the compulsion was that I just didn't want to be alive, to be honest with you. I was horrifyingly depressed, like suicidally depressed, wasn't doing well in school. My mom was totally checked out. I didn't really see a future for myself in any kind of like normative sense. And so I would lie awake at night just begging for one of these vampires to like come and just take me away. I desperately wanted an escape and to feel like someone was taking care of. of me and that someone cared about me. Like, truly, I think that need for care can't be understated. The need for positive attention and care was a big part of it. And so suddenly feeling like

maybe this is all real was my life plan. I'm going to be a vampire then. I am going to do everything that I can to ensure that I am the next one who gets chosen for this. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You guys ever play that budgeting game? You know the one I'm talking about. Oh, I play it constantly, Liz. It's like move a little money here. Pretend that charge doesn't exist.

That's my favorite one. Ah, blind. I mentally round down until everything feels basically free, which is really kind of... Yeah, I don't know if that works. But what if budgeting didn't feel like a shell game? Enter Progressives. Name Your Price Tool. Oh, you're selling something.

I thought we were just having a conversation. I'm not selling. I am just helping people make better choices in their life with progressive insurance. And what is it? You tell them what you want to pay for car insurance and then they show you options that actually fit your budget. What? You know a lot about this product, Liz. That's great.

Where should I try it? Try it today at progressive.com, Tyler. I mean, are there any limitations? Progressive Casualty Insurance Company Affiliates, Price and Coverage Match, limited by state law, not available in all states. All right. For vampire talk, everyone. You are now the biggest vampire fan. I'm not a vampire fan.

You are really selling it then. I just did some research. That's what inquisitive, curious people do, Liz. They do research. But it's gotten you excited. I wouldn't say it's gotten me excited. I'm not going to go read interview with a vampire. I'm not going to watch Twilight.

You know what you should watch is what we do in the shadows because that... I have watched that. That I have watched. It is funniest. Fantastic. On that note, vampires have for decades, if not 100 plus years, have had a really good run in pop culture, especially of late. Twilight, Vampire Diaries. True Blood, Anne Rice.

Dracula, Nosferatu. The movie Sinners, which just came out, that was full of vampires, the bloodthirsty, dancing, singing vampires. We don't discriminate. We'll put vampires in food. Yeah. Count Chocula. Count Chocula. It's a really terrible cereal, but really good. I like, if I were to pick vampires, I'm going to go with Grandpa Munster from the Adams family. Editor's note, Grandpa Munster was from the show The Monsters, not the Adams family.

I had gone into the chat room by myself. It was daytime in Australia, and no one was there. It was just me. So vampire time, night time in America was daytime for me, so I didn't have to lose sleep to be on there for eight hours. They were very committed to the bit. They were only there at night. And very shortly after I popped into the chat room, Armand popped in. And it was so rare on the looking glass for there to be like no one else. Like getting like the one-on-one attention of a moderator was like you had won the lottery. But I was kind of scared because I knew that I was just a stupid kid.

And so I remember saying to him, oh, I'm sorry, like I can leave if you want. And I remember he just said, no, I came here looking for a human company. And so we have this conversation where he's asking me about myself, why did you come to the looking glass? What are you looking for? And I start telling him, I'm here looking for answers because I've had a really rough couple of years. And he just said, have you ever encountered a vampire? And I remember instantaneously feeling very hot and flushed. And my anxiety started to spike because it really just felt

like being caught in the crosshows of a predator, honestly. Like that was the felt sense in the body. And so I just panicked. And I think I said, oh, I have to go now. My mom's cooking dinner. Bye. And I logged off. But that was our first moment of contact. And then from then, Armand and I went on to develop a years-long, very intense connection that fucked up my life for a long time. So obviously, I did graduate high school, but for those years between 2003 when I graduated high school and 2010, it monopolized all of my time. But if I wasn't physically on the forum, to the vampires, I was talking about them. But anyway, so it escalated after I graduated because I had a lot more free time. And also I subsequently, you know, I moved out of my mom's

house. I was living by myself. I got a job briefly, which was horrible and terrible and I hated it. And then I went to college because it was preferable to working a shitty job. It turned out. To the credit of the cult, I don't know that I would have gone to college to study for philosophy if I hadn't had their influence in my life. So this is the hard part because there were things that came out of that experience that were advantageous and changed my life in really beautiful ways. There was a lot of encouragement. There was also a lot of tearing me apart and ripping me down. So it was, again, it's classic cult stuff, but it was the hot cold. And at that point, things were really escalating within the cult and was becoming inner circle. So part of it was just me,

being there all the time and investing in the community. But I think another thing that they looked for was vulnerability, authenticity, intelligence, creativity. Those people were more likely to wind up in the inner circle. Those of us who were in the true inner circle had just greater access to the moderators. So we would get pulled into one-on-one conversations more often, private chat rooms. We would get access to private writings that the moderators had made, things like that. You know, everybody else got the, oh, we're not role-playing, we're really vampires' version of the narrative. But if you were really inner circle, you got more details on how that worked.

And the narrative became more complicated. So suddenly it became, we are the vampires who inspired Anne Rice. And it became, you know, what? actually is a vampire. Well, it's not exactly like it is in the books. It's similar. We don't age and we don't, you know, we're not going to die, but we can go out in the day, actually. And it is a little bit different than it's represented in fiction. So we started to get this more carefully crafted, nuanced version of the fantasy. But over the course of the decade that I was in the cult, I would say maybe 20 of us probably got this scoop. But a big part of it too was how much you were

willing to believe. It was always just a kind of unspoken agreement that we weren't going to bring it up. Like obviously over the years, many of us were pushing for it. Can we hear your voice? Can you show us a video? And it was always like no, it was couched in metaphor. It was always, oh, we can't break the glass like that. It's dangerous. Look what happened, you know, to these. other people that went crazy or got sick. We can't subject you to that. It was very like gothic intense. I was talking to a lot of the moderators. If anything, I would say Lestat was more the life advice moderator. I was talking to like Armand a lot and we were kind of getting closer and closer and I was really developing a strong bond to this person simultaneously kind of still

a tiny bit of me being like, well, what's the real truth, though? Like, who is this person? Are they, Armand, the vampire, or is something else going on? We've been talking to each other for years at this point. You can tell me who you are. But of course, like, then that would become kind of a fight. And it would be like, well, I can't believe you don't believe me. After everything that we've been through, like, after all these dreams that you've had,

like, why would you not believe? And meanwhile, I'm in college trying to do my undergrad degree. I was only on campus maybe like three days a week. So the other days I was able to be on the forum a whole ton. I would be in the chat room talking to Armand or Maxwell. And I'd be like, I have to go catch the bus to campus. But they would have me caught up in some kind of psychological head game and be berating me for something. And I would miss the bus and miss class.

It was a shit show. It was definitely like almost like an addiction where you're like, oh, God, I got to go back. I mean, I would try and. put myself in timeouts and be like, okay, I'm not going to go on there for a week. I'm going to detox a little bit, try and get back into my real life. Yeah, so because we were spending so much time together on the internet, like all of us, especially those of us who were in the inner circle, you grow friendships with people over time as you do with any group of people. We would talk on the phone. Yeah, we would exchange stuff in the mail. And so we would have meetups in

New Orleans. And then there was New Orleans. basically vampire headquarters. As well as headquarters for 25 ounce hurricanes, Mardi Gras. You know, you can legally drink while you're walking down the street in New Orleans. I've seen it. I've been there.

I see people walking out of the street, just drinking. They do have a rule. It has to be in a plastic cup. You can't carry around a glass. But you've just watched people do that. You've never actually. I've done it. I'll admit, I've done it.

I was there at Mardi Gras. Many breasts were exposed for the, mere exchange of cheap plastic jewelry. That was back in my 20s. I wouldn't do it now, but I did it then. Marty Groh. So yes, you can drink on the street in Marty Groh. And that is not common in most U.S. cities.

I mean, the rest of the world, sure. You know, you go to Berlin. Berlin, they can just walk around drinking, like a big leader, like an Octoberfest big beer. Tokyo, they can drink in the streets. Of course, nothing bad happens in Tokyo. So it happens, but in the U.S. not common at all.

But there are some cities, Liz. You want to take a guess? Which cities? That what? That you can drink walking around. In America? Really? It's basically the cities we would imagine.

Florida? Somewhere in Florida? Yeah, somewhere in Florida. I don't know. Do you want? Okay. Vegas is one. Oh, obviously.

I forgot that was part of our country. Nashville, which is basically country in western Vegas. Memphis, which is basically the country in western Vegas. Savannah, Key West, Florida, and oddly enough, the very small town of Fredericksburg, Texas. Those are the towns that you can drink legally as you walk. That's where I got married. All right, so you can drink in New Orleans.

But it's also a city known for its Gothic architecture, above-ground cemeteries, and a long history of voodoo and the occult. And then Anne Rice was like, perfect. Let's sprinkle in some sexy vampires. I had come to New Orleans for the first time. It was magical to be in the city. Totally felt like stepping into an Anne Rice novel for me. I was very much like rose-colored glasses.

My mom came with me on a lot of these trips because she's a big traveler. She loves to travel. So she was kind of down for an adventure. She didn't know that it was a cult. Meeting all these people was truly a. a wonderful experience, making something more concrete out of this space that had been entirely digital and nebulous, but suddenly we were all there in real life, not the vampire moderators, but the other people who I had come to be friends with. And it was magical. We were running around

the French quarter, you know, getting a little drunk talking about, ooh, what if Lestat's in the shadows watching us? And it was like fiction and reality blending, you know. So yeah, the vampires were never present that we know of. They would sometimes say that they had been in New Orleans at the same time that these meetings were going on, that they had been observing us from the shadows. People would receive roses in their hotel rooms. Lestat sent me a book once. It was like waiting for me at the hotel.

I'd come back to Australia. It was kind of in the thick of it when things were starting to get dark, and I was pretty suicidally depressed. And I was in the chat room one day, and Maxwell was just picking a fight with me. He did not like me very much. We had a very complicated, weird relationship because he was Armand's lover. So it was like a weird vampire love triangle or something. But anyway, and he just kept saying, why don't you believe what's wrong with you?

Don't you trust your own eyes? And I think I had just kind of had it that day. Like I wasn't interested in doing this. So I was just like, whatever, man. And finally, he said, well, do you trust your mom? I said, what do you mean? And he said, when you were lost to New Orleans, Armand and I saw your mom in a restaurant. She was really drunk.

She forgot her bag. And like, I had to hand it to her. And you should ask her. You should ask her if she remembers that happening. And I think I was just like, sure, man, like, I'll ask her. He said, no, call her right now. So I pick up the phone. My mom answers.

I'd say, hey, mom, do you remember being in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago? And do you remember seeing like a guy about six foot tall, super pale with dark hair in a restaurant? He picked your bag up because you forgot about it. She paused and she said, yeah, I think I do. I think I remember that happening. I said, are you sure? She said, yeah, yeah, that rings a bell. And Maxwell in the chat room is like, are you going to doubt your own mother now?

It got crazy. They were really willing to go to pretty like intense extremes psychologically to prove the point for what purpose, just to have power and control. Hi, I'm Julia Cowley, a retired FBI profiler and host of the True Crime podcast, The Consult, Real FBI Profilers. If you're fascinated with true crime and criminal profiling, then join us as we discuss real cases and examine the behavior. behavior exhibited before, during, and after the commission of the crime. You can listen to the consult wherever you get your podcasts. It's as close as it gets to being in the room with the FBI's behavioral analysis unit. So there was this period of time. I think I was about 21 or 22. And I got really, really, really sick, kind of out of nowhere, just like overnight,

couldn't hold food down for weeks, completely aggrateful. exhausted and the doctor had essentially done some tests and said, we don't know why you're sick. I remember lying in bed talking to the vampire moderators. I was talking to Daniels specifically and explaining, man, I'm just so sick and I don't know what's going on. And he was like, you're sick because you have vampire blood. Surely you know at this point that Armand's been visiting you and giving you blood and that you have that bond with him. that's why you're sick. Don't bother going to see any more doctors.

And I remember just breaking down and being like, fuck, okay, guess I have vampire blood. Daniel told me that I would never ever be able to connect with other human beings and that I would be sick and isolated kind of forever. So I better just get used to it because this is what it was like to be marked by a vampire. I was saying like if this is the case, then why won't you just show up? why can't I like have an interaction? Finally, I had just had enough and I had hit the wall. And I remember having a conversation with Armand where I just said,

I just want to know what the fuck is going on. I don't care who you are. I don't care if you're not a vampire. Just tell me what is going on. And he essentially insisted that he was who he said he was. And then I said, well, you know, Daniel told me. that I have your blood, is that true? And he said yes. And then I said, you have to trust that I will be fine with whatever answer you give me, but I desperately just need you to tell me what this is that

we are doing here. And he said, do you promise that this will stay in confidence? And I said, yes. And then he said, well, then yes, I love you. And I remember I was working a job. I was at work on the work laptop in this tiny little boutique lingerie store, which no one ever came into. And I just started sobbing because it finally felt like everything that I had on off believed and hinged my life on, the narrative that had been driving me crazy for almost a decade. Finally, I had a concrete affirmation from this person. And it was very overwhelming. And, yeah, that was kind of the beginning of things getting really dark.

That is where we're going to leave you today. On a declaration of love from a possible vampire, which honestly is kind of not where I thought this episode would go. Now, this is where things stop being whimsical, internet fantasy, and start getting dark. Very dark. Dark as the night. that thy vampires dwell. Because at this point, Celeste isn't just flirting with a strange online world.

She's kind of built her life around it. And like all cults, when someone or something has become your entire world, your identity, they're your family, they're your future, walking away is never easy. Even when deep down you know something is very wrong. Now, in part two, things unravel. The manipulation escalates.

The lies get harder to hold together. Celeste starts getting closer to the truth of who was really behind the curtain. Or under the cape. Or behind the fangs. Guys, this was a reveal that even shocked me. Even Liz. The unshackable Liz. So I set a trap using an IP tracer.

And so I installed this tracker on a live journal entry. And I made sure the only people who could see it were, people that I suspected might be one of the moderators. And then I waited and went and looked at the analytics. And it was Lestad, Armand, and Julie. And they all had the exact same IP address, which was deeply suspicious. And lucky for you, listener, you don't even have to wait till next week because part two is out right now. So you can cancel your three o'clock Zoom.

is that person's annoying you anyway. Get some hot cocoa, light of fire. Listen to part two. It's 100 degrees in L.A. Why would I have cocoa and fire? In Michigan, it's not. It's snowing in the Midwest. In Ohio.

Perth, what's going on in Perth? Perth, it's probably a perfect temperature. They're probably looking at the quackas. So yes, listen to episode two. You can listen to it on your transistor radio. Like it's 1955. The family huddled around the big radio. And then go read and rice if you haven't already.

This has been Was I in a cult, of course. If you enjoy the show, you can help us by following. You can subscribe, you can rate, you can review. Those things matter. And of course, bite us. Tell all your vampire friends. And your blood sisters and your blood brothers.

Mm-hmm. And your vampire friends. And sookie. Don't forget, you can join our Patreon for ad-free episodes and more. really does help us. Like the recent badassical bloodsuckers that joined the highest level of culty vampire heaven you can get to, Ryan Mace, Lindsay, just Lindsay. And that's cool, man.

And I have to appreciate the spelling. It's K-U-H-L. Yeah. I imagine that that person's name is Coolman. The last name is Coolman. Well, they are cool, man. They are cool, they are cool. Yeah, we had a great amount of people joining this week.

We do really appreciate it. Seriously, Emerson Van Noe joined. Kelly Sullivan Herring. Anthea Ward, Stella Newman. I'm going to bite you. I'm going to, sorry. I got weird. We love you all.

Thank you so much. I want to bite your neck. I want to drain all of your blood. I want to make you drink my blood after. If you're going to say it, say that at least in a very much. vampire voice. I want to bite your neck. It's just matter of back.

I want to drain all of your blood. No, then it becomes a character. This is genuine. I genuinely want to bite the neck of Kelly's Sullivan, Herring our Patreon. Subscriber. I want to raise her blood. Nobody's listening anymore.

They are on to part two. They have stopped listening. Go listen to part two. Wasn't a call. It's written. Give us some credits. Posted, produced it by me. Liz.

So vamp blood sucking, I cousy. And me, Tyler, and goth 90s girl, mesum. That's what I say about you all the time. Sound mix and design is by the lovely and always never forgettable Rob, Ohio of Australia. Perth. Perth Perth Parth. All right, go listen to episode two. Oh, wait. Did I say Perth? You did. That's fine. It's late. You've had wine.

by Rob Designed by Rob Ohio of Australia Para not Perth. I liked it the first time but it's good for you to use your voice. Rob you've wanted to change your last name for a while so I just gave you an idea

for what it could be. Episode two everyone. Here we go. Thousands of free movies and TV shows You swear. If I'm lying I'm dying. This is the mindset. Free.

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