Cults Like Us: Jane Borden on LGATs, Humor & Human Potential (Part 2)

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[00:00:28] [SPEAKER_05] Das Podcast ist für informational purposes only und nicht beachtet, legal, medical, oder mental-health-advise. Die views und opinions expressed do nicht necessarily reflect die official policy oder position of the Podcast und sind nicht intended zu malign any religion, group, club, organization, business, individual, anyone, oder anything. Ich bin Sarah Edmondson.

[00:00:54] [SPEAKER_04] Und ich bin Anthony Nippy Ames. Und das ist A Little Bit Culty. Cults are commonplace now. Von fandoms to fads, wir examen sie alle. Wir schauen, was passiert, wenn Dinge, wie ein Schwer zu tun sind, sind sie zu tun. Wir schauen, was passiert.

[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_04] smart to get sucked into something culty, you might be prime recruitment material. And who knows, you could already be in a cult. If you're not aware of your programming, you're probably being

[00:01:29] [SPEAKER_05] programmed. So keep listening to find out. We'll talk about all sorts of topics on the show, but be aware, this podcast might contain stories that could be alarming to some of our listeners. So please check our show notes for more detailed descriptions and take care of yourself.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_04] Subscribe to our Patreon for Thursday bonus episodes, Q&A, and all sorts of exclusive content. That's patreon.com slash a little. Welcome to season seven of A Little Bit Culty. Welcome back to part two, everybody. If you didn't listen to the first one, you know the drill.

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_05] I think that one of the things that did keep us strong in the aftermath in relation to your book is that we had us versus them thinking, obviously, when we're in NXIVM, like we were the best, we were superior, we were better than Landmark, we were better than all the other things. And then we had us versus them thinking on the other side of it. So when we got out, we were still in battle. We were trauma bonded for many years, just dealing with the aftermath of the fallout of NXIVM, but we were together. And I think that may have had some unhealthy things in it, but like

[00:02:56] [SPEAKER_05] we weathered that also. Also our kids. But our kids, I think like helped us get out of that as much as

[00:03:02] [SPEAKER_04] we could. And we were just present. And I'll say this to you, COVID helped us a lot. We were in the house with our kid, present every day, not in a rad race. It slowed down the tumultuous stuff. And we got to really take inventory and get in nature. You mentioned nature in your book. That became a very real thing to me to be in nature every day. And Vancouver is like prime real estate. If you want to go heel and sit in like the woods and heel.

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_05] And we understand that obviously COVID was devastating for so many people. It feels hard to say that, right? But it's true. We were lucky and we had government support to take a break. But anyway, us versus them thinking we were just on the other side. But the reason I bring it up is that that us versus them thinking was as mission oriented on the other side. Like we were on a mission when we were in NXIVM, like we're proselytizing. And then we were mission

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_05] oriented on the other side as anti-cultists. This is to tie in where we left from the other episode. So anti-cultists can come into confrontation with academics who believe in new religious freedom of thought and first amendment and all that. Did I get the amendments right?

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_02] You're getting there.

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_05] I'm getting there. Same Canadian trend. Definitely not the second. Learning all of the amendments. Okay. So let's talk about that because you did your research and kind of laid it all out what happened in that era. And I think it's fucking fascinating. And it has its echoes even now in the cult recovery space. So tell us what you learned.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_01] I find it fascinating as well. Thank you for asking about it. It almost did not appear in the book. I had to fight to keep it in and no one has asked me about it yet. Oh, yay. But at least you and I are into it. Yeah. No, it's fascinating. It was called the cult wars of the 80s and 90s. And this was at a time, you know, traditional media, as you know, has always been somewhat dismissive of cults and cult followers. They don't really cover it in the press still today, which is shocking to me because I

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_01] think we ignore it at our own peril. And so these groups didn't get a lot of attention, serious attention from American culture and society. And so in the 80s and starting in the 70s as a result of the counterculture movement, as a result of this huge influx of gurus following the 1965 repeal of immigration caps. And there was a huge influx of immigration, people from India.

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_01] And so not just an interest in those spiritual traditions, but a lot of fake gurus, right? A lot of con artists in guru clothing. And then of course we have Scientology, we have the Moonies, there's just this explosion of cult activity in America. And so parents start freaking out and they're looking for help. What's happening to my kid? What do I do? So the anti-cult movement developed

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_01] in this time period. And so guys like Rick Allen Ross were very active at the time. He was a deprogrammer. He calls himself now, as you know, an exit counselor, but at the time deprogramming was all the rage. And so this organization developed called the Cult Awareness Network and parents could call them. It was like a hotline and they could get information about certain groups and what they could do about it. They could also call a deprogrammer to come and kidnap their kid.

[00:06:14] [SPEAKER_01] And so in response to all of this developed what's become known as cult apologists. And so on the one hand, there were a bunch of academics who firmly believed that the anti-cult movement had gone too far, that a lot of these groups weren't destructive, that the people participating in these groups were having their First Amendment rights stepped on and they came to the defense of

[00:06:40] [SPEAKER_01] some of these groups. And a little bit of this, I think, is just the academic nature to be like, well, actually, you know, just to stand up and argue with whatever you're saying.

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_04] Which is necessary though.

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_01] Sure, sure, sure. But then the other force behind the cult apologists is that organizations such as the party line to say, well, Scientology isn't problematic and here's why, and I'm this accredited professor and I say it's not a problem, so it's not a problem. And there were a lot of so-called

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_01] apologists on the payroll for Scientology, for the Moonies, et cetera. Not all who've been called cult apologists were getting money. And not all who were called cult apologists ended up supporting groups that turned out to be destructive cults. But some of them ended up on the wrong side of history, for sure. And so what most interests me about this time period is that we then have this us versus

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_01] them thinking developing between the anti-cult movement, the deprogrammers, and the cult apologists. And they start fighting each other. And of course, who does that ultimately benefit? The Church of Scientology and the Moonies, right? And so this really came to a head because there were all these major court battles. And in order for a person to prove, often the suits were brought by people who'd been successfully deprogrammed and then came back to sue the organization in which they'd been involved.

[00:08:09] [SPEAKER_01] And in order to prove that they were exploited and taken advantage of, they had to prove mind control, undue influence, coercive control, whatever you want to call it. At the time, they called it brainwashing. And so to prove that, they had to pull in all these experts. And so then suddenly you have experts from the anti-cult movement coming in, like Margaret Thaler Singer or like some of these deprogrammers to give testimony. And on the other side, you have these professors coming in to give testimony. And

[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_01] there were $50, $60 million settlements at stake. And so that really increased the tension at the time. And it was in this firestorm that brainwashing came to be determined as non-existent, as something that doesn't exist. And of course, looking back now, we understand that that's not true. Maybe we don't call it brainwashing anymore, but undue influence and coercive control absolutely exist. And will we ever

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_01] know what happened, why the APA determined brainwashing didn't exist? I don't know that we will. I don't think we'll ever know. Some people claim that it's because it doesn't. And some people claim that there was funny business going on, that the APA was- Compromised in some way? Was compromised or had been influenced in some way. Yeah. Yeah. Some deep pockets, perhaps. Mm-hmm. Oh, it's so fascinating. We've heard this before. Yeah. Okay. Where do we go next?

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_01] Oh, I'm interested in the arguments against brainwashing. We don't have to keep using that phrase, but against undue influence. Because at the time during the cult wars, people were saying, well, you know, people are joining these groups voluntarily. People are staying in these groups voluntarily. And so how do you prove undue influence? It's very challenging. And of course,

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_01] with 30, 40 years hindsight, we've been able to. But there's a connection between that and the idea of blaming a victim of a con, just like a street con. You got lied to. So you believed the lie. It's your fault, right? How do you police lying? And we found ways. I mean, you know, the FDA says you have to print on your food label what's actually in the food. I mean, over the centuries,

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_01] we've found ways to police lies. Yet it's been very difficult for us to do that with quote unquote cults. And I think part of that is because, as I said, the press, much less law enforcement, has been dismissive of these groups and not really paid enough attention to them. But also it's very difficult to prove. And you guys experienced it. You lived through it.

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_04] Well, it's also difficult to prove when certain institutions that are incentivized to not prove it and profit from not proving it. You mentioned Edward Bernays. And it's funny, I watched that Century of the Self documentary. And I've mentioned it a handful of times in our podcast. If you want to prove that there is undue influence, why do marketing companies spend so much money trying to get you to buy their product? Because they're trying to influence you. And I'm sure

[00:11:12] [SPEAKER_04] they're willing to justify any way to do it. And Edward Bernays' Century of the Self, that whole documentary opened my eyes because there's more money spent by Coca-Cola. I think I looked it up. It was $3 billion a year just to get you to drink Coke.

[00:11:26] [SPEAKER_05] Sugar water.

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_04] Sugar water.

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_05] I don't drink Coke, just for the record.

[00:11:29] [SPEAKER_04] It's a multifaceted problem with incentives all over the place and people pretending that those aren't their incentives.

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_01] And we, in many ways, like to be influenced, I argue. I think that was part of what propelled the human potential movement, which, of course, you can eventually trace to NXIVM. But this idea that people would sign up for these large group awareness trainings to spend two weekends in a row being influenced. That's what it was.

[00:11:59] [SPEAKER_05] And actually having your brainwashed of your limiting beliefs and your fears and your things that hold you back. That sounded like a good thing to us at the time. Like, let's get rid of that stuff.

[00:12:08] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah, brainwashing.

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah, let's get into El Gats. Let's get into El Gats. So what did you, in your journey into that element of American exceptionalism and the virtue of working hard and being the best version of yourself and all that shit, what did you discover? Tell us about that journey of your research.

[00:12:29] [SPEAKER_01] So I described the El Gats and the larger human potential movement as a desire for inner New Jerusalem. So at first, the Puritans wanted Jesus to return and literal New Jerusalem would descend from heaven. The gates were made of pearls, as we know. And then over time, New Jerusalem became kind of allegorical. That was the perfectionist movements, all the communes in the middle of the 19th century.

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_01] They were trying to find a way to create New Jerusalem. They thought God wants our help. It was very much tied to progress, which was booming at the time post-Civil War and during the Industrial Revolution. And they thought we can bring heaven on ourselves. We can create New Jerusalem. It's not going to be a city made of gold. It's going to be perfection, this perfect society that we live in that only America is capable of creating and then spreading to the world.

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_01] And then eventually, in the 60s and 70s, Jerusalem moved into the mind, or this is my argument at least. And that's the human potential movement. The idea that we can achieve this apotheosis of self and enlightenment. We can get enlightenment. And so organizations like Mind Dynamics, and then later Est, and then later Insight, and eventually Landmark, and on and on and on. I mean, there have been

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_01] dozens of these LGATs said, come to us, pay us a bunch of money, and we're going to spend four days breaking you down and rebuilding you back up. And through that process, you'll achieve some sort of enlightenment-like understanding of the self. You'll have breakthroughs. You'll be better capable to do whatever the things in life are that you want to do. And a lot of people found these incredibly

[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_01] helpful. People got a lot out of them. Est in particular, which stood for Erhard Seminar training. Thank you, Werner Erhard, who basically ripped off Mind Dynamics and Scientology, for that matter. They all ripped off Scientology. Was Scientology the first from your research that you

[00:14:29] [SPEAKER_05] found? One of. Because didn't L. Ron Hubbard also rip off? I feel like he pulled from a bunch of places too, but I can't remember. Everybody ripped off. Yeah. There was nothing. But who was the first?

[00:14:38] [SPEAKER_01] That's what I want to know. Mind Dynamics was certainly an early one. I'm not sure though. I think Scientology predates Mind Dynamics. This might be a whole other episode. It's like mapping out

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_05] who stole from who. Yeah, the tree of Elgats. The tree of Elgats. This podcast wouldn't even exist without our amazing, supportive, generous patrons. Come find us on Patreon. We are at patreon.com slash a littlebitculti. Go there for bonus episodes, live Q&As with past guests, exclusive content, and lots of other goodies. Subscribe now and help us

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_05] keep this podcast going. That's patreon.com slash a littlebitculti. And now a brief message from our Little Bit Culti sponsors. And remember, when you support our sponsors, you're supporting this podcast. You've heard from our sponsors. Now let's get back to a little bit culti, shall we?

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_01] One of the guys I interviewed, David Lane, who's a professor who's written a lot about this, says it's always two degrees to Scientology. Yes. Yeah. So Est had a lot of celebrity devotees, John Denver, Valerie Harper, Ted Danson, Yoko Ono, and authentically helped, I think. In my opinion, the reason people were found so much out of these is not necessarily because of the seminars themselves, but more because they were getting

[00:16:06] [SPEAKER_01] therapy for the first time. Yes.

[00:16:08] [SPEAKER_05] A lot of it in a short period of time. Condensed therapy. I loved that. Yeah. When I read that. You said that in your book. I was like, yep, that's it. In fact, I think Landmark, which came from Est, as you know, really did that. Like mass therapy, quick, condensed mass therapy, if you've never done it before, can be mind-blowing for someone. Oh, the reason I think this about myself is because my mother, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_04] Just the responsibility aspect.

[00:16:30] [SPEAKER_05] Or the responsibility aspect, yeah.

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_04] It's powerful.

[00:16:32] [SPEAKER_05] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But then do you need to keep doing it after that? No. No. Probably not. That's the exploitation. And when people say to me, oh, I'm so sorry that happened to you in NXIVM, I never would have fell for it. But you know what I find really helpful is my landmark training. And then they, and I'm like, dude, that's the same fucking thing. It's the same, minus the branding and the harem. Okay. It's the same thing. And you said this in your book, but the problem is, is that they say that you actually do have a problem and that's the only place to fix it.

[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_01] Right. They create the belief in you that you have problems only they can fix. And this is the same thing we see, to your point, Nippy, in advertising. It's the same damn thing. We create in you the idea that you have a problem and then, oh, guess what? We're actually selling the solution. How lucky for you. And we're the only people selling it. So you have to come see us. And oh, we're at the end of our session or you're at the end of your bottle of face cream. Your problem still isn't fixed.

[00:17:23] [SPEAKER_01] You probably need more. Come on back next time. Give us another 10 grand. Go recruit all your friends and family. And then you're hooked because if they actually solve the problem, then they wouldn't have a customer in you anymore.

[00:17:35] [SPEAKER_05] Did you read Hoodwinked by Mara Epstein? I did. It's a great book. It's great. We just had her on a couple of weeks ago and I keep meaning to tell her and I'll tell you this. I saw something on Instagram the other day and I'm super hooked into way too much health and all this stuff and it's a problem.

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_04] Do you see our door when I come back from picking up the kids?

[00:17:52] [SPEAKER_05] I have to be careful. And I texted Mara, I'm like, I want this collagen drink. Should I get it? She's like, don't get it. But this, anyway, I saw this meme and it was this woman explaining how cellulite is formed and women tend to get more of it and the fascia and how it all works. And I thought it was going to be an ad for some cream that fixed it because I was curious about for myself being 47. Anyway, and then she was like, so this is just something that happens to women. Instead of trying to change it, why don't we just accept that this is something that happens

[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_05] to our bodies and like just move on? And I was like, oh, that'd be so fucking amazing. But I'm not quite there yet. I still want it to go away. But like, why? Why is it so bad? We all have it. It happens to our bodies. It's just something that our fascia creates after a certain age. Anyway, I thought that was an interesting, yeah.

[00:18:37] [SPEAKER_01] Acceptance doesn't make anyone money. No, no, it does not. Shame on them. And that's the, to return to what we talked about on the last episode about looking for control in the chaos. What if we just accept the chaos? Right. Right. What if we just find a way and I, you know, maybe now we're talking about Eastern religion, but what if we just find a way to ride the waves of chaos instead of trying to still the pool?

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_04] Hmm. I like that.

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_01] That we wouldn't seek false prophets and fall for false promises, hopefully.

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_04] So I'm making the parallels of like, so our son, Troy's playing baseball and he's, he's doing really, really well. And I know that he's going to have some storms ahead of him. That's just how that works. The most successful people have failed the most. And I'm not going to try and cover that up. I want him to ride those waves. You know, there's didn't come a point where people are going to be able to hit his fastball far, right? And that's, he's going to have to, well, you know,

[00:19:35] [SPEAKER_04] he's 10 and he's going to have to go through that. When I got to playing, I got hit in the mouth and then I was, but my dad was like, no, you got to get back up. This is part of it. Right. And similarly with what you're saying, we just, the chaos is part of it. In fact, it's where you grow the most.

[00:19:52] [SPEAKER_05] Mm-hmm. So what you're saying is life is like our son's baseball game. I'm trying. I'm not very good with chaos.

[00:20:00] [SPEAKER_04] There's that meme that's going around now. It's like, you're not a real parent if you haven't secretly wished for your kid to lose so you can go home.

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah. No, that was me. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. So staying, you know, I like how your book doesn't necessarily, you know, lean either way, left or right, and just sort of looks at the doomsday backdrop to what does seem to be more right in terms of evangelical Christianity and whatnot. Did you see any cult-like behavior manifesting on the left as well? Or are there any parallels

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_01] you draw with more progressive ideologies? Definitely. I think we all fall for us versus them thinking, especially right now as politics are so divided. Specifically speaking from history, Jonestown was a leftist cult, right? And the Sullivanians were a leftist cult. So they have existed. When we're talking about what's happening in politics right now, I think cult-like thinking

[00:21:00] [SPEAKER_01] is more clearly has a foothold in the far right. Because cult-like thinking is extremist. And I think that's where we're seeing the most extremism currently. Not that there isn't extremism on the left, there is, but it's not as entrenched, I suppose. As you said, the book is not political. I did not set out to write a political book. However, in tracing certain ideas from the Puritans

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_01] up through today, I found that a lot of these train lines ended at the alt-right depot. And so I'm not a political expert, but I did try to point out the existence of cult-like thinking where I could see it. And Donald Trump, whether you like him or not, I think we can all agree that he's fashioned himself

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_01] an autocrat. He said things on the campaign trail like, I alone can fix it. He held his first rally of 2024 in Waco at the Branch Davidian Church, the existing remnant of Koresh's legacy. And he said things like, I am your retribution. I actually can quote it. He said, I am your warrior. I am your justice. For those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. Those are things that

[00:22:17] [SPEAKER_01] a redeemer says. That to me sounds like that American monomyth that we mentioned. He's painted himself as the vigilante outsider crusader who's coming in to drain the swamp, right? And he started doing it on day one. He pardoned or commuted the sentences of 1,500 January 6th participants and

[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_01] fired or demoted everyone who had worked in January 6th prosecution. So he's very much choosing to follow that narrative. Whether he's doing it on purpose or not, I don't know. But the parallels are there and pretty undeniable in my opinion. He's not afraid to market himself either.

[00:22:58] [SPEAKER_05] No, he's the only one who knows how... What does he always say?

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_04] Nobody knows this better than me. It's so insane.

[00:23:06] [SPEAKER_05] Nobody knows how to save a country better than me. We'll see. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see what happens. And I love how your book blends humor with very serious cultural critique. How did you balance the heavy topic of cults and what role has humor played for you in helping readers confront those ideas as we're laughing about Trump being a savior?

[00:23:30] [SPEAKER_01] Well, I think these are tough things to look at and investigate. And it can be really dark. And what I really want to do is wrap my arms around the shoulders of my readers and say, hey, we're all in this together. And it's scary, but let's laugh at ourselves too. I think humor, you know, a spoonful of sugar, as they say. And also just personally, I think I needed that. I

[00:23:56] [SPEAKER_01] was worried when I started working on this book, if I was just going to be depressed for five years. And so the humor, I think, was also a little bit of a compulsion on my end to remind myself that we can also be lighthearted when we approach these topics. I will say that the humor wasn't the only thing that got me through. I actually found researching this,

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_01] it made me feel a lot better. It was very comforting in some ways, because again, as we said on the last episode, once you see the magic trick, you're not going to fall for it again. And even the last third of the book gets into some evolutionary biology, trying to figure out why as a species we're so prone to us versus them thinking and why we desire control. And I did a lot of research into the origins of violence, and I found it incredibly comforting. Because when you

[00:24:50] [SPEAKER_01] understand why we behave a certain way, you just can't be as afraid of it anymore.

[00:24:59] [SPEAKER_04] For more background on what brought us here, check out Sarah's page-turning memoir. It's called Scarred, The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, The Cult That Bound My Life. It's available on Amazon, Audible, and at most bookstores. Highly recommend, of course, because she's my wife. And now, a brief message from our Little Bit Culti sponsors. Remember, when you support our sponsors, you support our podcast. Break time's over, people. Let's get

[00:25:27] [SPEAKER_03] back to this episode of A Little Bit Culti. It's a good one. Was it reassuring to see that we've been

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_04] here before and gotten through it? Absolutely. Yeah, that's kind of where I am right now. Like, don't take the bait. Don't get extreme or don't get upset. Don't let it upset you. And then I read that part about, was it the protein, glycine 3? What was it called? The protein- Oh, galactin 3. Galactin 3. And I was like, oh my God. That's another reason, if you can explain to our audience what that is, another reason just to chill.

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. Yeah. Tell us about the protein.

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_04] It was very, very informative.

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_01] So I did some research into the work of a doctor of integrative medicine in California named Isaac Elias. And he studies a protein in the body called galactin 3. And the purpose of galactin 3 is to help the body in response to stress. So when you have a fight or flight stress response, your body is flooded with galactin 3. It produces this protein. And as you exit the stress response, your body flushes

[00:26:32] [SPEAKER_01] the galactin 3 out of its system. So it's a helpful protein and we need it. The problem is that in modern life, we less commonly exit a stress cycle because there are so many stressors constantly facing us. We're almost at high alert. We're always somewhere in the middle of a stress response. So as a result, galactin 3 is building up in the body instead of flushing out. And as it does,

[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_01] it tends to bind together with one another. The shape of these proteins is like a lattice network as he describes it. And so a bunch of these little proteins hook up and they can create pockets within the body that are isolated from the rest of the body and disease can develop there. More troubling, disease-causing agents such as cancer cells can hijack galactin 3, get it to kind of bind around it

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_01] in order to hide from the body's immune system. And the reason I explore this in the book, well, there's a few reasons, but one is because that sounds a lot like the way cults isolate people and the larger communities or civilizations don't know what's happening within this isolated group

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_01] until it explodes into violence. And isolation is not just like a side effect of cults as they grow. It's the driving force that leads to violence when groups become isolated. The leaders become more paranoid. They enter an amplification loop with outside governing forces. They hold on more to power.

[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_01] Isolation also causes people to lose their filters because when you're engaging with different people, your body is constantly thinking, how would these other people think about what I'm going to say? And so you kind of lose that filter when you don't have any more access to people of differing views. There's a folia group or shared psychosis spreads in isolated groups. Delusion is literally

[00:28:38] [SPEAKER_01] contagious, like a communicable disease. We see that happens in isolated groups. All of this leads to violence. So isolation is a real problem. And Dr. Elias studies how isolation happens within the body and affects the body. And ultimately it leads to disease. And so his work as a healer is often to help people exit the stress response so their body can flush galactin-3. And he's not only a doctor, he's also a Buddhist and has trained with Tibetan monks. He's one of those people who's like meditated for days

[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_01] in a row. And he works with a lot of his patients on meditation and sees incredible results. People extend their life expectancies by years, often after working with him. Most people come to him after they're already incredibly sick. So most often his patients do eventually die. But the effects of this work are pretty incredible. And I found to be an apt comparison to the effects of cults on us

[00:29:33] [SPEAKER_01] individually and as a society. I found it fascinating. And it made sense. It made so much sense. Yeah.

[00:29:39] [SPEAKER_05] Like how I, for me personally, like I have to do things to get into my nervous system, into parasympathetic response so that I relax because I definitely like mostly I'm on cortisol and also work with a functional medicine doctor to balance those things. But I wasn't aware of the protein. And the other term I was not aware of was the term normative dissonance versus cognitive dissonance, which I think our listenership probably understands cognitive dissonance pretty well right now. Can

[00:30:07] [SPEAKER_05] you just compare the two so we can understand how that fits in here? And you did mention like people were, when they're isolated, they don't have any normative dissonance.

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_01] Yes. So normative dissonance is what I was mentioning earlier, that when you're accustomed to living with and navigating among different people with a diversity of values who practice different social norms, you behave differently in each of those environments. So it's kind of like light code switching almost, but when you're no longer doing that, you lose the moderating effect that that has. You're no longer negotiating among differences.

[00:30:45] [SPEAKER_01] And so it's almost like those differences create filters for you on what's acceptable behavior. And when you're no longer navigating among differences, you lose that filter completely.

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_04] It's a filter of tact.

[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_05] And all sorts of things, like all the groups that we've looked at where you're totally isolated, everyone becomes robotic because there is no normative dissonance to negotiate. And you can just forge ahead with prepping the meal for 80 men or whatever you're doing in your cult. I think that, you know, like I said at the beginning, we were so excited to find somebody who also wants to inoculate against cults and feels so disheartened by the division. And one thing that I found really

[00:31:31] [SPEAKER_05] interesting that I didn't really understand, also I'm Canadian, right? So I'm new to American politics, and I didn't understand how we got to such a divided time. I didn't know that it wasn't always so divided between Republican and Democrats or however you want to, like in the Senate and the Congress, but that that was a very specific change that happened to end the bipartisan friendship across the aisle. Can you tell us a little bit about that before we wrap?

[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_01] Yes, that was all orchestrated by Newt Gingrich, who wanted to take power back at the time the Democrats had the power. And he thought, if I can keep Democrats and Republicans from working together, then government won't work. And who will get the blame? The Democrats. And then the Republicans can get back in power. And so he did whatever he could to isolate Democrats and Republicans from one another.

[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_01] So that involved encouraging House members to stay in their home districts instead of coming to DC. So he changed the number of days they had to be in Washington. He made it physically harder for people to cross the aisle, so to speak. Another effect of these people not being in Washington as much is that they weren't seeing people from the different political party at their kids' sporting events,

[00:32:54] [SPEAKER_01] right? Because their kids weren't going to school in DC. So the whole plan was to separate and isolate. And Biden and McCain, of course, had a very famous across the aisle friendship and collaboration. And Biden has been quoted saying that it was during this era that that really struggled because they were specifically told that they weren't supposed to be talking to each other as much, that that was being discouraged.

[00:33:18] [SPEAKER_04] That's awful.

[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_01] Mm-hmm. And, you know, did he understand what the ramifications of that would be? Who knows? But it was a reckless plan. And it was about power. It was about power. It was a coup.

[00:33:32] [SPEAKER_05] Mm-hmm. And that division that you speak about and then the isolation that we've talked about a lot and then the consequential echo chambers where people aren't discussing and sharing and bridging just, you know, snowballs the problem, which you talk about in your book in different cults and different groups and lots of wonderful examples. And I really do love, though, how it ends. Oh, no, I don't want to give away the ending. Yeah, don't do that. I'm not going to give away the ending. But I'll just say that the feeling that I'm left with,

[00:34:01] [SPEAKER_05] similar to when I, with Cultish with Amanda Montel, is just the humanity of it all and bringing us back to what's important. And if we really did feel that, we wouldn't need any of these cults. That's really what it comes down to.

[00:34:12] [SPEAKER_01] It's like in the kids movie where the protagonist finds out that they don't need the special amulet because the power's in their heart the whole time. Yeah.

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_04] There you go. There's the positive aspect of the Puritan culture.

[00:34:25] [SPEAKER_01] Let's make that the American monometh.

[00:34:26] [SPEAKER_04] Yeah.

[00:34:27] [SPEAKER_05] Yeah, I love that. Anything that we didn't cover that you're really passionate about, like any major takeaways that you want our audience to know?

[00:34:35] [SPEAKER_01] Oh, gosh. There really is so much, so much in there. And I hope it's not, I hope it doesn't give people whiplash as they read through it. But I feel really purpose-driven with this work. You know, as I said in the beginning, I decided, I guess it was around 2015 or 2016, that I wanted to take my talents and time and effort and put them toward trying to bridge division.

[00:35:00] [SPEAKER_01] And that's certainly been a goal with this book. And so I really appreciate being invited to come on here and talk about it, to help spread the word. You know, I hope people will buy the book so I can continue having a career. But I really hope people will buy the book so that we can start seeing the magic trick and stop falling for it and try to bridge the division, which you alluded to that that's a big part of the book's conclusion is how do we bridge divides? Because I don't think

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_01] we're going to reach any of the solutions we need until we have bridged divides.

[00:35:34] [SPEAKER_04] I agree.

[00:35:36] [SPEAKER_05] Couldn't agree more. One of my notes says, the book, the latter chapters talking about like kinship societies and how that ended. Am I saying that right? You could have called it like, the return to kinship, you know, is the answer to it all. Or kinship, again, it's not a good title. But it's just like, that's what I'm feeling after reading it. And I know our audience is going to love this. And I think so many of the cult survivors just want to educate ourselves. So we don't

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_05] do it again. And I'd like to think that we wouldn't and we'd see it coming. But we've danced on the outside.

[00:36:10] [SPEAKER_04] This is great because it's forensics based as opposed to ideologically based, right? So I really appreciate like putting intel into these things so people can kind of have a foundation of how to think about it.

[00:36:24] [SPEAKER_02] Thanks, guys. Thank you.

[00:36:28] [SPEAKER_05] Do you like what you hear on A Little Bit Culty? Then please do give us a rating, a review, and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Or even better, share this episode with someone who you think needs to hear it. Maybe they're in a cult. Maybe they're a little bit susceptible. Just share the love. Thanks.

[00:36:50] [SPEAKER_04] That was a great conversation.

[00:36:52] [SPEAKER_05] Jane, thank you so much for your time. It's easy to think of the Puritans as sort of ancient history, but they clearly left an impact.

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_04] Yes, it's crazy how much we're still influenced by a doomsday cult from 400 years ago.

[00:37:04] [SPEAKER_05] It's kind of depressing, actually.

[00:37:05] [SPEAKER_04] I don't feel depressed.

[00:37:06] [SPEAKER_05] How do you feel?

[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_04] Not elated, but not depressed. If any of you want to learn more, pick up a copy of Jane's book, Cults Like Us, Why Doomsday Thinking Drives America. We'll drop a link in the show notes. Thanks for listening, everyone. And until next time, don't join a cult.

[00:37:21] [SPEAKER_05] No. And check out the myths in all the movies that you watch and see if you can make parallels. I think we should start a book club and analyze these books and give people homework.

[00:37:31] [SPEAKER_04] If we had time, yeah, I would do that.

[00:37:33] [SPEAKER_05] Between baseball?

[00:37:34] [SPEAKER_04] Between baseball and reading other books while we're at baseball. Bye, everyone. Bye. Baseball season. Enjoy. Bye.

[00:37:47] [SPEAKER_02] A little bit culty is a trace 120 production. Executive produced by Sarah Edmondson and

[00:38:06] [SPEAKER_05] Anthony Nippy Ames in collaboration with Amphibian Media. Our co-creator is Jess Temple Tarty. Audio engineering by Red Cayman Studios. And our writing and research is done by Emma Diehl and Kristen Reeder. Our theme song cultivated is by the artists, John Bryant and Nigel Aslan.