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Press Replay: Robert Gavin on the NXIVM Trials

The press has been perhaps the most crucial third party for world happenings since, well, whenever the press was invented. While there is of course no shortage of fake news out there, the main goal of the press is to keep society honest, investigating everything from corrupt governments to those cute little cliques we like to call cults.

Robert Gavin has been a news reporter for 28 years, having also worked for two years as an editor. Originally from Staten Island, Gavin began his career by covering the New York City police and fire departments, the NYS Capitol, State and Federal Courts, various murder trials, and cases involving terrorism, the mafia, street gangs, and political corruption. And eventually, Robert’s role in the NXIVM trials and their coverage would play a crucial part in bringing down Keith Raniere, which we’re sure you saw on HBO’s “The Vow.” On today’s episode, we talk to Gavin about his time covering the cult, as well as the aftermath.

Please note, this series includes details of sexual abuse. Listener discretion is strongly advised. If you, or someone who know, is a survivor of sexual assault, abuse, grooming, child abuse, or human trafficking, RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline offers support at 800.656.HOPE (4673).

Episode available since March 27, 2023

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Sinner or Saint: Will Retherford on Navigating Religious Waters

There’s certainly no shortage of groups that are A Little Bit Culty. That said, there are some major differences between cults and organized religions, and it’s worth remembering that not ALL religion is bad, per se.

Our very own producer and editor, Will Retherford of Citizens of Sound, grew up in the Evangelical Church, specifically the Word of Faith movement, and even ventured off to countless missionary campaigns across the globe to spread the good word. He became a worship leader, was on his way to become a priest, and was committed to all things Jesus Christ until he realized that, perhaps, his entire life was built around something he wasn’t sure he actually believed in.

In today’s episode, Will discusses his time in the church, navigating through toxic groups, leaders and doctrine, his deconstruction, and how he feels about religion today.

Episode available since March 20, 2023

From Deep End to Deepfake: Inside Teal Swan's Marketing Machine

Fake News
Rising Prices and the Shrinking Tribe
Breathtaking Cruelty

When Teal Bosworth Scott Swan got her long-sought break into "mainstream" media coverage, it did not go well. Her quest for fame brought her infamy instead. By the fall of 2019, attention from the BBC had cost her the Teal Tribe group on Facebook and a number of YouTube videos, as both platforms cracked down on her suicide-friendly messaging. It was against this backdrop that teal presented another example of her bizarre understanding of how news media (or what she calls "mediums") operate. In this video, she explains the following to her credulous followers:

[O]nce you get to a certain level of fame, let's say that there's a little under the carpet contract that occurs, though not in writing, it's understood in the business that once you get big enough to be of interest to people, what they will do is they'll write a negative article about you. At which point you are then welcome to spend a large amount of money to pay them to do a positive one. After which they will do a negative one, after which you will pay them again, to do a positive one.

In the real world, most of us know that news coverage and advertising sales (or any other form of payment) are separate functions, and that their separation is crucial to the reputation of any news organization. One need look no further than the unfolding scandal at Fox News, with Rupert Murdoch's confession that Mike Lindell bought his way into guest spots on Fox with ad buys. Murdoch's admission that the decision to let an obviously unhinged pillow magnate on the air "is not red or blue, it is green," is scandalous precisely because news coverage isn't meant to be pay-to-play. Trust in news organizations, and the viability of their business model, is dependent on the expectation that they cannot be bought.

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Stop the Presses: Vanessa Grigoriadis on NXIVM (Part 2)

This is Part 2 of our interview with Vanessa Grigoriadis, an award-winning longform journalist and podcaster who has published profiles on the likes of Karl Lagerfeld, Lady Gaga, and Arianna Huffington. So how did she get tied up in NXIVM’s bullshit while also reporting on the cult? Well, the short answer is: anyone and everyone is susceptible to coercive control and persuasion, even members of the press. The long answer? Well, you’ll just have to listen to find out.

You can listen to Vanessa’s podcast Infamous here.

Please note, this series includes details of sexual abuse. Listener discretion is strongly advised. If you, or someone who know, is a survivor of sexual assault, abuse, grooming, child abuse, or human trafficking, RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline offers support at 800.656.HOPE (4673).

Episode available since March 13, 2023

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Stop the Presses: Vanessa Grigoriadis on NXIVM (Part 1)

Vanessa Grigoriadis is an award-winning longform journalist and podcaster, having published profiles on the likes of Karl Lagerfeld, Lady Gaga, and Arianna Huffington. So how did she get tied up in NXIVM’s bullshit while also reporting on the cult? Well, the short answer is: anyone and everyone is susceptible to coercive control and persuasion, even members of the press. The long answer? Well, you’ll just have to listen to find out.

Make sure to catch the end of our conversation next week, when we drop part 2!

You can listen to Vanessa’s podcast Infamous here.

Please note, this series includes details of sexual abuse. Listener discretion is strongly advised. If you, or someone who know, is a survivor of sexual assault, abuse, grooming, child abuse, or human trafficking, RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline offers support at 800.656.HOPE (4673).

Episode available since March 06, 2023

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Stolen Youth Continued: Zachary Heinzerling on Larry Ray’s Cult

If you haven’t heard of the Sarah Lawrence Sex Cult, it is perhaps time to get out from under that rock you’re living under. Also, you should listen to our last episode with Daniel Levin, for which this episode is part two! But essentially, after being released from prison, Ray moved into his daughter’s student residence just 30 minutes north of Manhattan and began terrorizing her friends through physical, sexual, and psychological abuse. This lasted a shocking ten years before Ray was finally arrested and held accountable for his wrongdoings.

Our guest today is Zachary Heinzerling, the director behind the Hulu docuseries “Stolen Youth,” which depicts the cult’s bizarre development with real footage (which is, by the way, not for the faint of heart).

Watch STOLEN YOUTH on Hulu.

Please note, this series includes details of sexual abuse. Listener discretion is strongly advised. If you, or someone who know, is a survivor of sexual assault, abuse, grooming, child abuse, or human trafficking, RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline offers support at 800.656.HOPE (4673).

Episode available since February 27, 2023

Esoterica

Inside the Unholy Sex Scandal Rocking Trump’s Ex-Adviser

Frank Pavone, a defrocked priest who was formerly a Catholic adviser to Donald Trump, is engulfed in a sex scandal that is rocking the anti-abortion movement.

. . .

Now, at least four different women have accused Pavone of sexual misconduct according to reporting by The Pillar. Pavone and Priests for Life have strongly denied the accusations.

The women, some of whom gave their accounts anonymously, accuse Pavone of inappropriate behavior in the workplace, ranging from unwanted sexual advances, non-consensual touching, grooming and lewd suggestions.

. . .

“Priests for Life had an excellent sexual harassment policy on the books. But they had no human resource department and their sexual-harassment committee reported to, and was headed by, Frank Pavone. So it was neither safe nor independent,” [Father Stephen] Imbarrato says. “I went directly to the board and demanded a safe and confidential, independent sexual harassment committee that reported to the board directly.”

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Stolen Youth: Daniel Levin on Larry Ray’s Cult

If you haven’t heard of the Sarah Lawrence Sex Cult, it is perhaps time to get out from under that rock you’re living under. After being released from prison, Ray moved into his daughter’s student residence just 30 minutes north of Manhattan and began terrorizing her friends through physical, sexual, and psychological abuse. This lasted a shocking ten years before Ray was finally arrested and held accountable for his wrongdoings.

Our guest today, Daniel Levin, was one of Ray’s victims, and has survived to tell the tale on Hulu’s recent “Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence” docuseries. Today, we’re breaking down exactly what happened, as well as how Levin is healing. Don’t forget to tune in next week, when we’ll be speaking with the director of “Stolen Youth,” Zachary Heinzerling.

You can learn more about Daniel Levin and his writing, which includes his memoir about Larry Ray, Slonim Woods 9, here.

Please note, this series includes details of sexual abuse. Listener discretion is strongly advised. If you, or someone who know, is a survivor of sexual assault, abuse, grooming, child abuse, or human trafficking, RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline offers support at 800.656.HOPE (4673).

Episode available since February 20, 2023

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Darkness Unveiled: Sochil Martin Exposes LA Luz Del Mundo

Around the same time as Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous arrest, another billionaire was going to court for similar appalling crimes. Naasón Joaquín García, the ongoing leader of the Light of the World non-traditional La Luz Del Mundo (LLDM) church is currently serving a maximum of 16 years and 8 months in prison for the sexual abuse of minors. The self-proclaimed “Apostle of God” was eventually denied bail after setting that bail at $50 million, which according to the California Attorney General, was the highest ever imposed on an individual by the Los Angeles County. The denial came about because prosecutors feared his extremely loyal followers might actually raise the cash.

We spoke to Sochil Martin who was born into the LLDM and broke away from it after a lifetime of abuse. The outspoken survivor and whistleblower shares her experience–from being raised in church’s clutches and ultimately fleeing, to helping federal agents bring García to justice, and how she’s healing now.

Please note, this series includes details of sexual abuse. Listener discretion is strongly advised. If you, or someone who know, is a survivor of sexual assault, abuse, grooming, child abuse, or human trafficking, RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline offers support at 800.656.HOPE (4673).

Episode available since February 13, 2023

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The Antidote: Diane Benscoter on Getting Victims Out

It was the early ‘70s and life was weird. War was still going on in Vietnam, and those back in the US of A were struggling with political, societal, and economic changes. One day, Diane Benscoter passed a van where some strangers were giving out bananas. She grabbed a snack and avoided making conversation with the van people. Shortly after, she was on a five-day trek from Omaha to Des Moines with those banana enthusiasts, who were in fact Sun Myung Moon enthusiasts. Next thing you know, Diane’s cut off all of her hair, done some fasting, and has dedicated five years to selling candy and flowers while devoted to the second coming of Christ.

You can read all about this in her memoir, linked out below. But on today's episode, we’re focusing on Diane’s organization, Antidote, which helps people escape from cults, or to get their loved ones out of cults and extremist mentalities such as those shared by QAnon. Having experienced cult life herself, Diane knows that convincing someone that everything they hold true in their life is a vicious lie can be next to impossible. That’s why she became a master at it.

Episode available since February 06, 2023

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Revisiting ‘The Vow’: Season 2 Recap with Ayla Fitzpatrick

Do you have a million questions about season 2 of HBO’s The Vow? Do you want to be part of a super exclusive club full of people that are rock and roll as fuck? Do you get a buzz out of supporting culty content creators and storytellers?

Then you should totally join our Patreon, where we unleash a whole slew of bonus content for our nearest and dearest listeners. But while we’ve traditionally reserved our coverage of The Vow for said exclusive cult—sorry, I mean club—we’re making an exception today and sharing some of it with all of our listeners. If you like what you hear, just know there’s plenty more of it available for an extremely agreeable price. If you’re not interested, don’t worry, we still love you! Just less. (Kidding)

On today’s episode, we’re recapping our feelings about the entire second season with special guest Ayla Fitzpatrick, who previously worked in Albany, New York at News10ABC covering NXIVM, focusing on Keith Raniere’s arrest and the ensuing trial. Even though she’s no longer a journalist, she loves to keep up to date with all things cultiverse—just like you guys!

So what did we think about being featured less heavily in this season? Did NXIVM actually cure Tourette’s syndrome (hint: no!), and was the whole documentation and conversation around this triggering or retraumatizing for us? Well, you’ll just have to tune in to find out.

Episode available since January 30, 2023

Esoterica

Humans can understand apes’ sign language, new study finds

From pointing to animated arm movements and nodding, people regularly employ gestures to accompany and create language.

Now, it’s been suggested that humans can also understand sign language used by apes, meaning humans may retain an understanding of ape communication from their ancestors.

Great apes deploy more than 80 signals to communicate everyday goals, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Biology.

. . .

Chimpanzees and bonobos, which share more than 90% of their gestures, are humans’ closest living relatives, the study said. Their gestures have been suggested to be an important framework in the evolution of human language, according to study authors Kirsty E. Graham, a research fellow at the University of St. Andrews’ School of Psychology and Neuroscience in Scotland, and primatologist Catherine Hobaiter, a principal investigator at the university’s Wild Minds Lab.

Infants ages 1 to 2 have been found to use more than 50 gestures from the ape repertoire, researchers said. It was therefore thought that humans may have retained their understanding of core features of ape gestures.

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The Community: Jamiyla Chisholm’s Memoir of a Brooklyn Islamic Commune

Hold onto your seatbelt, cuz we’re blasting back to the ‘70s for this one. Here’s the scene: we’re in Brooklyn, New York, at a time when all five boroughs were spiraling into ungovernable anarchy, with crime, violence, and widespread racism leaving the deteriorating metropolis totally ungovernable. If you were Black, you were particularly ostracized and lived in constant danger as a second class citizen (if only this weren’t still true today). And so it’s no real surprise that when people like Jamiyla Chisholm’s father heard about a religious community that would, as Jamiyla put it, protect them from the hellish world and teach them how “they should live as Black people,” they were drawn like moths to a flame.

While we’ve seen time and time again that cults prey on the vulnerable, this often takes advantage of an individual’s current mental, financial, or even physical state. In this particular case, one leader took advantage of nation-wide racial tensions in order to seduce hundreds of people into his community, which merged practices from Islam, Judaism, and various political ideologies.

Who was this leader? Well, we don’t want to give it all away…but here’s a hint: the supreme douchebag is serving 135 years in prison for what’s been reported as the largest prosecution of child molestation ever directed at an individual in the history of the USA.

To find out who we’re talking about, tune in to hear author, journalist, storyteller and educator Jamiyla Chisholm discuss her own experience as a member of this cult, as detailed in her memoir, The Community.

Episode available since January 23, 2023

Esoterica

#GoldenGlobes host Jerrod Carmichael makes a dig at Scientology: "Backstage, I found these three Golden Globe awards that Tom Cruise returned...I think maybe we take these three things and exchange them for the safe return of Shelly Miscavige." https://t.co/m069JEKekW pic.twitter.com/fw25ng5nU2

— Variety (@Variety) January 11, 2023

The Scientology Joke That Sucked the Air Out of the Room at the Golden Globes

If, like me, you spent much of Tuesday’s 80th Golden Globes scanning Twitter, you probably noted that its host, Jerrod Carmichael, received some mixed reactions. During the ceremony, the comedian told the audience to shut up (he was justified), made a new joke about The Slap™, and spent much of his monologue reminding viewers why he was hired for the not-not-racist Hollywood Foreign Press Association-helmed show in the first place: “I’m here ‘cause I’m Black.”

In this girl’s book, though? Carmichael scored even more points when he dared to mention the wife of a certain terrifying institution leader. In case you stopped watching after the first award, midway though the ceremony, the host returned from a commercial break, toting three statues in his hands. “Backstage, I found these three Golden Globe Awards that Tom Cruise returned,” Carmichael began. “Look, I’m just the host briefly, whatever, but I have a pitch: I think maybe we take these three things and exchange them for the safe return of Shelly Miscavige?”

Invoking Scientology’s She-Who-Must-Not-Be-named elicited “shocked gasps,” per reports. I know! How dare this man mention a woman who hasn’t been seen in public since 2007!

Now, in the if you’ve never heard her name (unlikely), Shelly is (was?) the wife of the Church of Scientology leader, David Miscavige. For nearly two decades, questions have swirled surrounding Shelly’s whereabouts. In 2013, former Scientologist and friend of the Miscaviges, actress Leah Remini, filed a missing person’s report with the Los Angeles Police Department after she left the institution. She’s since dedicated entire episodes of her A&E series to her investigation, mentioned it innumerable times in the press, and wrote viral Twitter threads about Shelley’s disappearance from public life.

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One Billion Years: Mike Rinder on How Scientology Could End

Scientology: You know it, you hate it. To be fair, unless you’re a Scientologist, they hate you too! So it’s all even-stevens. But one person they really hate is Mike Rinder. How could anyone hate someone who’s last name sounds like reindeer, especially just a few weeks after Santa made his international rounds on that reindeer-driven slay? Well, having spent his youth doing things like, for example, swabbing the decks of L. Ron Hubbard’s yacht, Rinder eventually made it into the elite sect of Scientology known as the Sea Organization, eventually becoming Scientology’s International Spokesperson and the head of its Office of Special Affairs. Then, he escaped and became a fearless and outspoken ex-member. If you didn’t listen to the first interview we did with Mike, we’re officially mad at you! But we can forgive and forget—just check it out here.

So why did we have him back on the show? Because he’s so fucking lovely. Also, because he just released his new memoir: A Billion Years: My Escape From a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology. It’s a batshit crazy and exclusive, first-hand look into the inner workings of Scientology and the harm this organization does to its brainwashed members. And in today's episode, we specifically get into how Scientology could potentially come to an end (hint: it involves the IRS no longer putting up with the “church’s” bullshit).

So say a little prayer to Xenu and strap on in, cuz this one’s a wild ride!

Episode available since January 16, 2023

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The Kids Are Alright: Sarah & Nippy on Zen Parenting

Here’s a scary thought: fully-grown adults are susceptible to cults, or cult-adjacent behavior (there is truly cultish influence all around us in politics, wellness communities, and so on). So imagine how dangerous this whole world is for children, who are far less likely to have the wherewithal to identify and refute coercive persuasion. If you’re one of our regular listeners, you already know how ubiquitous this shit is (unfortunately); so what can we do to protect our youth?

Well, that’s exactly what we got into with our friends over at Zen Parenting Radio, where Cathy Cassani Adams (a self proclaimed “spiritual and emotional mom”) and Todd Adams (“a logical and practical dad'') get into all things parenting. On their show, we not only recount our own story with NXIVM (perhaps you’ve heard about, read about, or seen it by now?), but also the importance of talking to kids about how relationships that might initially feel exciting or just “good” in some way—friends, coaches, teachers, bosses, etc.—can quickly pivot into something abusive. How can we teach kids to identify culty behavior and help them feel safe enough to ask for help?

This one’s for anyone who believes we need to keep our kids safe from evil, shitty shitheads.

Episode available since January 09, 2023

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Cult to Comedy: Shannon Payton on Turning Trauma into Humor

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Shannon Payton, perhaps better known online as “Shanny Pants,” is a hilarious mother of three whose Tiktoks (etc.) have turned her into a viral queen, with her videos even appearing on TVs across the nation via The Kelly Clarkson show. It’s crazy to think that, for the first 31 years of her life, Payton was actually living something more similar to The Culty Clarkson show (we’re so sorry, we had to try), having grown up in Northern California within a community that her grandparents originally joined as a non-denominational bible study club before it turned into a fear and shame-based cult, ruled by a wacky shithead who loved “marking” (ex-communicating) anyone who questioned him, and who also forbid women from wearing pants or basically being like, humans with any rights or autonomy whatsoever. Fun!

Episode available since January 02, 2023