Today our guest is Tory Hess, former member of a small rural group in upstate New York she calls Crazyland. She tells us about how she always loved reading and fantasy growing up, never went to public school, and didn’t connect easily with folks in real life when she was young, and how she found connection in the online gaming community Second Life, where she acted out her dream of having a family of her own... until it began to consume her life. She’ll tell us how some of the friends she made on there convinced her that she was spending too much time on the game, and that she should come live with them in upstate New York... in Crazyland. We’ll talk about how 13 people were living in one trailer, extremely uncomfortable living conditions, but how it fulfilled her desire for a family to take care of (at first). We’ll get into who the leader Ron was, the financial and sexual abuse he was committing, how he isolated her from her parents, and how she finally got out.

Email Tory to learn more about her story! toryhess037@gmail.com

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Groups!... I did it again. Jay Van Bavel, NYU Associate Professor of Psychology and Neural Science, Director of the Social Identity and Morality Lab, and co-author of The Power Of Us, discusses how our social identities change depending on our environment and context, how the groups we identify with affect our decisions and perception, and the importance of instilling healthy hierarchy in a group to prevent unhealthy leadership. They also discuss how emotionally charged situations can forge shared identities, how cults replace individual identities with group identities, what to do when someone has fallen prey to groupthink, and whether groups are even... good? Learn more about Jay's work here! https://www.powerofus.online Original Airdate: 01/04/2023

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Today our guest is actor, musician, and now author Bethany Joy Lenz, whom we will just call Joy. Joy was the star of hit TV show One Tree Hill, and today she’s going to talk to us about how she was in a Christian cult the whole time she was filming the show. She’ll tell us about her upbringing and her career as a young actor, living in LA on her own and joining a small Bible study group that seemed like the perfect place to share a community with like-minded young Christian actors, and how a charismatic preacher named Les began showing up, leading the meetings, and changing everything.

She’ll tell us about going to a house in Idaho they called the “God spa,” how she was drugged at the house (but did not realize until later), and how Les began to exert more and more control over her life - including isolating her from her family and taking over her finances, which were being drained without her knowledge the entire time she was working on a hit television show - and how the group’s hold over her led her to turning down her dream role in her dream Broadway play.

Plus, how she discovered her money was gone and finally decided to leave.

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Today, our guest is a friend who we'll call Anne. We discuss the connection between psychosis and cults, the mental changes Anne experienced when her episode started, the delusions that grew stronger, how she felt like she was communicating with spirits, the paranoia that grew inside her, and how a psychiatric mental health professional helped pull her out of it. We also compare the similarities of Anne's experience with that of many cult leaders, how coming out of a paranoid delusion is similar to coming out of a cult belief, and why it can be wise NOT to directly attack the beliefs of someone experiencing a psychotic episode.

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Episode 15: Lola and Meagan interview Jitarth Jadeja, former QAnon believer. He tells the girls about how, despite being Australian, he first was a Bernie supporter, then shifted his support to Trump before becoming obsessed with conspiracy theories. They discuss the two years of his life in which he believed in Q, the moment he realized it was all a lie, how he'd have gone to the Capitol if he'd still believed, and what he suggests you should do if a loved one has fallen into QAnon. Original Airdate: 01/13/2021

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Today our guest is Gareth Gore, journalist and author whose new book Opus is about Opus Dei, an ultra-conservative Catholic sect, its harmful practices, its history of dark money, and its connections to modern day right-wing American politics. Gareth shares how he came to this story while investigating the shady practices at a bank in Spain, the history of the group and the leader’s goals of recruiting elite members of society, and its cultic practices like living in gender segregated homes with a highly controlled life and doing body mortification rituals. He tells about how members would groom kids as young as 11 or 12 to become people of influence in the group, how there are a number of reports of trafficking low-income young women and girls in various countries to exploit their labor at Opus Dei retreats, how some people were fed a cocktail of prescription drugs they didn’t need, and whether there’s been any accountability for these practices—which the group tries to officially distance themselves from. Plus, its ties to prominent US conservative activist Leonard Leo, who’s had an outsized influence in naming three of our current Supreme Court appointees and who’s tied to Project 2025, seeking to “crush liberal dominance.”

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Today our guest is a woman whom we’ll call Norah. She tells us about a Facebook group for women in Los Angeles that ended up getting very culty. We’ll talk about why it was exciting in the beginning to connect with other women in a new way, how other subgroups began to form (including one secret, exclusive one) and how the admin, who we’ll call Vivian, seemed to be creating a space that prioritized social justice, equality, and helping other people—at first. Norah shares how the culture of the secret smaller group, Girls Night In, began to change, becoming a place where posting nudes was normalized and encouraged, sending them to other people’s boyfriends, and attacking anyone who deviated from Vivian’s ideas about what was good or bad. Plus, red flags that popped up along the way, controversies that made Norah begin to question, and how the group finally collapsed.

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Today is part two with Demetria, survivor of the Oregon new age cult, Twin Ray. This week she shares more about the wild claims that the leaders made about their mystical backgrounds, how deeply rooted the culture of self blame was (including blaming one woman for her own cancer), and the massive property they purchased in Oregon which was financed by their followers. We talk about the dangers of the drugs they were giving people on spiritual retreats, when the cracks began to form in Demetria's belief system, and how important it was to feel her rage.

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