International School of Temple Arts (ISTA): Two Insiders Expose Consent, Control, and Cult Dynamics (Part 2)

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[00:00:30] This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical, or mental health advice. The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business, individual, anyone, or anything. I'm Sarah Edmondson.

[00:00:58] And I'm Anthony Nippy Ames. And this is A Little Bit Culty. We woke up from a cult. And that journey was captured in The Vow on HBO and in my memoir, Scarred. Now in this podcast, we break down the shame and secrets that make these experiences so destructive with honest conversations on how seemingly benign groups can cross into the cultiverse and how to spot and recover from trouble if it happens to you. Each week, we bring in experts, survivors, and whistleblowers to explore red flags, resilience, and even share a few laughs because sometimes you gotta laugh.

[00:01:26] Subscribe to our Patreon for early and ad-free listening, some live Q&A, and exclusive content at patreon.com slash a littlebitculty. Welcome to Season 8 of A Little Bit Culty.

[00:01:36] Season 8 of A Little Bit Culty.

[00:02:06] And the final things that caused you both to decide to get the fuck out. Who wants to go first? Cara? So in April of 2022, I attended Level 2. And at the time, I thought it was fine. But it was actually way more harmful than Level 1. But I still was in.

[00:02:33] I was signed up to be an assistant another six months later. I was committed to the path. But a couple of months later, in Facebook, one of the facilitators, the one who Darvod me, put up a post and said, I know there's some people who are upset and they've formed a Facebook group. And then she was very vague. And so, of course, I got curious. And I was like, what's this Facebook group? And I was also very naive. And I thought, oh, I'll go find out what these accounts of harm are.

[00:03:02] And I can be the bridge. I'll bring back the knowledge. And we'll make ISTA better. And I went into this Facebook group and very soon found that there were accounts of harm, coercion, sexual assault that went back 10 years, went back four years, went back. And that these folks had tried to address those harms with facilitators and with ISTA.

[00:03:28] And they had all been victim blamed and shamed and excluded from the group, right? Ostracized. And at that point, I shared my story about Darvo because my framework was, well, that didn't happen to me. And it wasn't so much I got mine-ism, which happens a lot. But it was, I don't know exactly how to frame it. I didn't disagree that those things happened.

[00:03:56] I just thought we could fix it still. It sounds like you, in hearing other people share their experience, were able to reflect on yours with a different lens. And you stopped blaming yourself for what happened. Yeah. I thought, well, I wasn't sexually assaulted. But let me tell you about this weird experience I have. And I prefaced it. I feel like I'm gossiping. I feel like I'm sharing secrets I shouldn't share, but I'm going to tell you anyway. And I shared the incident of getting Darvo. I didn't know the term Darvo.

[00:04:24] It was someone who responded and said, hey, what they did to you is Darvo. And that's not okay. And you were right to raise these concerns. And for me, that was the rug pull. Remind people what Darvo is. We know what it is. But just, yeah, for anyone listening. For the audience, it's when you bring a grievance to someone and they deny it, they attack you. And in doing that, they reverse the position of victim and offender. So, right, that's basically what it is. Which is also gaslighting.

[00:04:54] It is a gaslighting technique. And when it was revealed, when I recognized it was all... I mean, I fell apart, basically. I had been married to a spiritual narcissist in my 20s into my 30s. I had done a week-long retreat with the Miracle of Love, which is another cult. And I had only kind of been involved with them for maybe three or four months and got out.

[00:05:23] Didn't fully deconstruct my experience. And so then here I am, 10 some years later, finding out I've done it again. I've joined basically an abusive organization. And so it was just completely went into a dark depression, completely dysregulated. And that was, you know, the beginning of getting out. Okay. So it was basically connecting with other people who'd had these experiences to be able to see

[00:05:52] how it was unhealthy for you. And giving language to it, right? Like there's the way they bring you in with all this language. But then when you start learning the language of manipulation, of priming, grooming, misdirection, I started to have that language, which Darva was the first piece to realize, oh, there's words for what happened to me. I am not alone in this. Okay, great. Okay. Pause right there because I want to hear about how you healed.

[00:06:20] But Lina, tell us about what the audience needs to know about your experience that caused you to decide to leave. I don't really know how else to tell it, but just to tell a little bit the events that happened. So my level one was great. I felt like I left that level one with a bunch of friends and I felt alive and connected and all those fancy, beautiful words that mean absolutely nothing in the real world. Like I felt all of those things. I was like, this is great.

[00:06:50] I just want to, you know, do it continuously until the end of my days. Like, this is awesome. Level ones are great. I just want to, I can repeat this. And then, of course, there's the level two was the next promise at level one. They said, you know, it's, you know, it's very different from level one. Level one is just, it's just, it's horizontal. It's social. But level two is another level. It's vertical. It's about death and rebirth. It's very different.

[00:07:19] So, of course, I was like, I want it. This is, this sounds like a great promise of this transcendence of this, like the, whatever the mystical there is, I can get to that. This transformation and, you know, while some people were attending ISTA for sex, some people attending for sexual healing, I was there for this spiritual transformation that I was always very focused on in all my, in all my cult hopping days. So I wanted that, what they were saying.

[00:07:47] And my level two, I did in May in 2022 in Turkey, just a month before flying. I started to feel nervous about this, but in the spiritual world, in the cult universe, in the cultiverse, if you feel afraid, that means it's something for you. That is a sign. Red flag. Yeah. Yeah. It's a sign you have to overcome this fear. That's how you know that it's for you. You feel afraid.

[00:08:14] So I was like, okay, so this must be it. And so a few days before flying out to Turkey, we receive an email that, so the Turkey did level one and level two consecutively. So right after the level one, the level two training started. And I was not joining level one. I was doing only the level two. And we received an email that level one had a COVID outbreak.

[00:08:40] And I already had negative experiences with COVID and retreats and workshops. So I did not want to have anything to do with it. Also, I didn't want to have anything to do with authorities in Turkey, which is outside of the European Union. I didn't know about my rights as a woman, as a human being. So it was a very different country to have serious problems at. So I emailed the organizer and I said,

[00:09:09] it's very important for me, you know, not to get COVID, not to need to extend my trip and so on. So can you guarantee that there's going to be safety? Otherwise I cannot go. And he hesitated for another day. And then the, like the day before flying out, basically, he said, you know, the facilitators have decided to split the two groups and the requirement, the health requirement at the time was to keep distance

[00:09:35] and to quarantine for those who have been exposed to those who got COVID. So basically the level one had to go to quarantine and level two people had to keep distance, not to expose themselves. So I was like, okay, if you keep the two groups separately, then I'm coming. And I'm coming, like we already arrived there. It's another, like, I sleep, like, it's like the trip. It's a lot. It's long.

[00:10:04] It's expensive. Finally, we arrive. And the very first thing that the facilitators do, they tell us that they merge the two groups because love is more important than fear and separation. Oh my God. So it already started as a lie for me. But because of my previous indoctrination, the psychotherapy cult,

[00:10:28] the only thing that I knew that I could do is to express my anger in order to get over it. That was my indoctrination from the other cult. So I stood up in front of 60 or 70 people group, hippies, who are all like lovey-dovey, like hugging, they're hugging each other. And I'm standing there and I said, you know, I'm angry at you for saying you're merging the two groups. I specifically came here so that I could,

[00:10:56] I don't have to, you know, expose myself to COVID. And I, you know, did the thing that I usually do in the psychotherapy cult and I felt my feelings and I was like, had like, felt kind of like blurry in my mind. I could not think critically. And I was like, okay, I'm done. And then the facilitator said, okay, thank you for sharing. Anybody else? That's it. Nothing happened. So eventually I asked the group to like the people to distance themselves from me,

[00:11:25] but I had to be responsible for my own safety. The, not the worship leaders. And I thought as a facilitator myself at the time, as a trainer, I felt like these are shitty facilitators. Yeah. So I judged them. I was like, ah, I got probably those facilitators that were like, they were praised for me as like the best of the best. The Ohad. Bele was praised as like the old wise man who can like transcend and,

[00:11:54] you know, do this amazing. It was like, he's probably not that good. So, yeah. And then on the, we got different names. So we couldn't use our own identity. We had to like, I was a flying mosquito. No, a screaming mosquito. That was dangerous flea. Yeah. So people got to pull out to, to like, they kind of got assigned humiliating names or funny names. That was your new identity for the seven days.

[00:12:22] And on the second night I was attending a ritual in where I was forcefully raped. My experience now was later published in the New York magazine article in detail. So I don't want to tell about it more because I get re-traumatized again and I don't want to talk about it ever again. And for a year afterwards, I did not realize that I was raped. So I went back home. Things were different.

[00:12:50] I did not feel connected to community or, you know, I did not feel like I made friends. I got more harassed on the street. I started to feel anxiety in public spaces. So I stopped taking public transport. I started to get stalked in the park. I usually would go for walks in the park. I started to get stalked by different men. So I said, it's just like everything started to feel unsafe for me. And I started to feel anxious while being alone.

[00:13:19] And I stopped going outside. And then I got into a relationship with, in another cult with a guy who's also a sex, a sex addict who's also has been predatory for other women in this other cult. And then he betrayed me, of course. And then I flipped. That's where the shelf broke for me. I was at the time in Costa Rica, in the middle of my own retreat, completely thinking like to end my life. I wanted to end my life.

[00:13:49] It was so intense. I think that I was starting to get psychotic because I couldn't sleep and I couldn't eat and I didn't want to live. So somehow I pulled through. I took vacation. I went to Denver to another cult member, stayed at her place. All my people, like all my people were from cults. Like I was surrounded by people from cults. And then eventually I realized that this psychotherapy cult is an actual cult. And then I contact you, Sarah.

[00:14:19] And it's like, my world is turning upside down. It seems like I don't have any identity anymore. What I used to believe is up is actually down. It's like everything just got flipped and I felt like I'm floating in the air and there's no solid ground for me to stand on. Like for three months or so, I thought, I'm not going to make it. This is too intense. I felt like my heart is going to stop from all this stress. Strangely, my genitals started to spasm.

[00:14:49] So like I felt pain where I felt the pain at the Easter retreat. But I didn't, I still did not connect that it was because of the rape. I could not conceptualize that I was raped. And eventually, six months later, I'm sitting with some friends of mine in a cafeteria. And somebody says like, I want to do an Easter retreat. And I said, well, you really should know about this. And I told my experience and I said, and then the guy raped me.

[00:15:18] And I used the word rape without really conceptualizing what it actually means. Like I used the word rape without really knowing what it means. That is a crime. I did not get that yet. And he got, he flipped. He was crazy mad. He's like, and those motherfuckers didn't call the police and they did nothing? What? And he got mad. And I felt like the anger that I put somewhere in the back, I felt the anger go through me. And then I got mad.

[00:15:47] And that's when I started to look, Google ISTA. And that's when they found the 3SC form. Then I filled out the form and they said, anonymously, I want you to tell to ISTA about my experience because I want ISTA to be better. So I was still believing in ISTA as this organization that could improve. And that's when I started to read on Reddit and then there's still, the articles were just coming out and I was like, oh, okay. So I'm not the only one.

[00:16:14] Actually, now that I realized that it was a crime. And after speaking with journalists, the way that journalists would ask questions got me kind of more and more thinking. Cause I like, even when I was telling my story to the New York Magazine article in 2024, I was still indoctrinated. I was still trying to be fair to everybody. I was still trying to be like neutral, detached.

[00:16:41] Like even I was, I also gave my story to the documentary in New Zealand and we did several interviews over a year. And, you know, I kept realizing that I was actually still indoctrinated while I was giving on the first interview and the second interview. So it's like I deconstruct. Yeah. And this, and because of this other cult, it wasn't difficult for me to believe that ISTA is also a cult.

[00:17:07] I just did not connect that ISTA might be a sex and labor trafficking cult. Before we hear from our sponsors, just a quick reminder. Our book, A Little Bit Culty, Navigating Cults, Control and Coercion is officially out and available on Amazon. Signed pre-orders have closed, but you can still get your copy today. This book is the culmination of five years of conversations, interviews and research,

[00:17:34] everything we've learned about how people get pulled into high control groups and how to avoid, escape or heal from them. If you've been listening to the podcast and want a deeper go-to resource, this is it. Available now on Amazon in print and as an ebook for Kindle. And yes, the audio book is coming soon, narrated by us. Just search A Little Bit Culty and grab your copy. Do it. Thanks, everybody.

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[00:19:00] That's selectquote.com slash culty. Escape's over. Let's return to our regularly scheduled cult talk. Lina, first of all, I'm so sorry that you went through that, and thank you for sharing what you're able to, and I definitely do not want you to be any more traumatized than you already were, and we'll make sure there's a link to the article in the cut in it so you

[00:19:30] don't have to share those details. What she illustrates is, I think, exemplary of a lot of things. People are in these atmospheres. Abuse is normalized, and someone objective hits the alarm of outrage in their own mind, right? Their morality, their standards of right, wrong, kick in and remind you that, oh my God, yes, that's where mine used to be or where it should be or something like that. It actually allows you to be objective about what happened, which is why I went in and yelled

[00:19:57] what I did, but I think the appropriate response to abuse is outrage. Is outrage. And it took me a really long time to get there too, so I joined that Facebook group, which eventually became a small activist organization, Safer Sex Positive and Spiritual Communities or 3SC, and there were folks who had not attended ISTA, but were very ISTA adjacent, and they

[00:20:25] had been receiving these horror stories from friends, community, and they basically decided to dedicate some time, again, from the perspective of, we have friends in ISTA, we can fix us ISTA. And my mind as well, I think trying, you know, it's like you don't want all the ground to come out from under you.

[00:20:51] You're in quicksand, and so there's these different strategies to try to make sense of it. And so I wrote like 21 things ISTA could do better, and this group that was leading it was like, hey, you have a really aligned attitude. Would you like to join our leadership? And that point, we put out a report form and asked people to report their harms and that

[00:21:17] we were going to take that information and basically confront ISTA and fix them or help them fix themselves. Because I still believed that these were bugs, not features, right? Like we often think, right, we're just going to fix these little things. It's like I'm pulling weeds, but then you realize, oh no, it's the soil that's poisoned, everything that grows out of it.

[00:21:42] So I didn't get there for a while, and we took those reports, compiled them obsessively organized, analyzed. And the highest level of reports really fit into the high control group category. There were not as many reports. There was one report that leaned towards rate. Again, people are writing their narratives, and sometimes it's hard to parse.

[00:22:08] But the majority were re-traumatizing, consent boundaries being pushed, being approached by facilitators for sex, having them text or approach you as a student, which they weren't supposed to do. And we created a letter that was like, here's a bunch of things you could fix. Here's the reports. And here are three of the worst offenders.

[00:22:35] And our recommendation is you take them out of teaching. We recommended they shut down for a year and fix themselves. But of course, they did not. They continued. So four of us on the 3SC side basically leveraged the reports to convince us to go into mediation. We found a mediator. They paid for the mediator.

[00:22:59] And long story short, I showed up at these Zoom meetings with four of their leaders, biting my tongue, really trying to assume best intent, build relationships, because when you're in relationship, you're more influential. And we spent over 30 hours over the course of 2023. They did pull three facilitators out of circulation.

[00:23:24] Ohad Pele was the one that was also at Lina's training, had been my level two facilitator, has a history of harms, which are outlined in the New York Magazine article. Started talking to journalists. And we even hit a point where we were like, well, it's just taken a few steps. Let's celebrate the few steps they took because it's a marathon. But it takes a few steps to get started.

[00:23:50] And people had warned us they're just going to use your work to whitewash themselves. They're not going to change. It's a cult. They're narcissistic. They're predators. And I had, again, like this idealism. What if this is the group that can turn itself around? Like, they're headed for a cliff and we're yelling, turn the wheel, turn the wheel, don't go off the cliff. We didn't realize they lived off the cliff, right?

[00:24:16] So I was in this very shut down place because we had positioned it, well, we don't want to be cancel culture. We, you know, got stuck in that idea that speaking out means you're cancel culture, which is what they collapse together. And it wasn't until February of 25 when the New York Magazine article actually came out.

[00:24:45] And I had known many of the stories. I didn't know all the stories. It's pretty damning investigative reporting that went on. And then ISTA's response to it, they posted, which they've since taken down, basically saying, we're so sorry this happened, but it's not rape and blah, blah, blah. And I reached out to one of the facilitators, Rafa Manakorda, who had been in the mediation team.

[00:25:15] And I said, hey, I'm really concerned about this response that you've had. This is your chance to demonstrate that you've really changed. And his response was, you don't have consent to talk to me. Oh, wow. And so the weaponizing of consent, right? So basically, they would weaponize every tool. And that kind of broke the spell because I had to admit that, you know, I hadn't wasted

[00:25:42] time because we can say we had tried to change them with goodwill, good intent. But I later found out we were like enemy number two in ISTA. Like it was always just bidding time and... On the bright side, I think they demonstrated who they are and you helped expose that even more. Yeah. So that's not a waste of time. Your work isn't a waste of time. It's actually what you've uncovered can be a case study going forward and they hang themselves. They did.

[00:26:10] Like we really gave them the opportunity to and they showed who they were. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost like an algorithm, you know, like it's gotten to the point, you know, because Sarah and I have done this so many times that like, if I go do this behavior, this will be the response. The irony that they can't take responsibility in that ecosystem. Well, their incentives are off. You are exposing their incentives. And so once you do that and you know the incentives, you know that if I do this, they will either

[00:26:39] change, they will adapt and go, you know what? That's antithetical to what we're saying. Thanks for pointing it out. And the incentives of what they really are doing will be exposed to you. So either way, you know, you're exposing the incentives. And part of what happened was, you know, they took these facilitators out. They built their own accountability system. They hired these external mediators who are actually in their orbit.

[00:27:05] They hired consultants to come teach them and train them who are all, again, in their orbit. No one was really objective. And that also whitewashed, you know, their image. And at the time, I still had some hope where I was like, oh, I also will contact these mediators. I had even encouraged other survivors to contact the mediators.

[00:27:33] And that ended up being re-traumatizing at all. Like, they gaslit me. They were so sweet and kind and perpetuated the harm that ISTA did. And I've been contacted now by multiple survivors who had the same experience with that third party part. And so then what we realized is they've hired coaches, accountability pods, trainers for everybody in the cult.

[00:28:02] And they didn't do anything for the harmed people except offer at one point. This shame on them. Yeah, that you could sign an NDA and maybe get a refund, which happened with Alina. Well, they are. Is that what happened with you? They offered you a refund with an NDA? Oh, yes. So on the line of me watching them unravel themselves.

[00:28:25] So they, in 2024, they came up with this, we have transformed message on Facebook. They had this like live video where it's like, we have learned so much about ourselves. Thanks to 3SC. They have exposed to me, you know, it was so difficult to see differently and all that. And I was like, okay, let me test that. And I sent a request for a refund plus a compensation for the therapy that I was undergoing up until that point.

[00:28:54] I have, you know, shared in detail event by event what happened. And I received an email saying, thanks so much for letting us know. We're sorry this happened. We're going to pass your request to the team and we'll get back to you. Nobody got back to me for another seven months. I then on Facebook group in the comments wrote, hey, you guys, I was raped at ISTA. And I have sent them an email asking for refund and compensation.

[00:29:22] Could someone please, you know, pass the word to leadership that I'm waiting for that response. Then my former friend from the Cultiverse, who is now ISTA facilitator. He was back at the time. He was just aspiring ISTA faculty. He got back to me. He sent me a message being like, Yuda, we're so sorry. Please talk to Lori. Lori was a director or counsel, I think, at the Lori Handlers. Governance. Yeah. Lori will fix everything.

[00:29:52] Lori's so great. Lori's different from ISTA. Lori works. She has her own business and I'm training with Lori and Lori's, she's amazing. And so Lori writes to me, apologizes for the delay, offers me to have a conversation with Safe Mediation. Safe Mediation is that quote unquote neutral third party, not accredited mediation company that ISTA hired.

[00:30:18] I go to Safe Mediation's website and it's just cult speak. It's just the way the marketing is language. It's portals and healing and journeys and all that language. It's just like red flag, red flag, red. And it's like, no, thank you. And then Lori said, OK, I'm going to send you a document to sign and then you can get your refund. And at that moment, I was speaking with Ania Kemenitz, who is the journalist from the New York Magazine article.

[00:30:45] And I'm sending the email to forwarding everything to her and be like, check this out. I think I'm about to get an NDA. We need to do that interviewing because I really needed the money for the therapy because the therapy is crazy expensive. And I wasn't working at the time. Right. So I'm not making any money. I'm living with my parents. I'm absolutely PTSD. Like I'm desperate. I need that refund. So Lori, she sends me that document to sign.

[00:31:12] And the document is a very strict liability and non-disparagement and NDA, basically. That kind of limiting where in court, I wouldn't be allowed to bring it up and speak about it. And I was like, that's outrageous. Of course, I got angry and I did not respond. And I was like, I'm not going to sign this. This is just ridiculous.

[00:31:36] For like 1,500 euro, that's like you sent me a settlement, basically, for 1,500. So I did not respond. And that just added to the showcase of ISTA exposing itself as a very hypocritical, yeah, trafficking cult. Now for something a little less culty. A quick sponsor message.

[00:32:14] Sponsor Breaksden, back for more culty stories. Where is it now? Is it still thriving? Is it still like, what's the status of ISTA? And you say trafficking. Can you back that up a little bit where the trafficking happens? Because I can make my guess, but I want to make sure we don't get sued also. Where's the trafficking? And is there a civil case? No, not yet.

[00:32:43] Because I'm still, so I think experts need to look at it and evaluate. But the structure of the business is that some people are going to have sex. Some people are buying tickets to have sex at ISTA. And some people, mostly vulnerable women, because that's what the marketing is designed for. To get vulnerable women to get sexual healings are buying tickets to attend.

[00:33:05] So you have men who pay for sexual services, attend retreats with women who pay for sexual healing. When those two groups meet together, they travel to other places in the world, pay thousands of euros to find themselves, some to find themselves exploited like I did. I think that what happened to me was some dude just played out his sexual fantasy to rape someone one day.

[00:33:35] Because when I told that story to some of my male friends, to my surprise, because I'm not a man, I don't think that way. I would never think that way. But they do. They said, that's just like the most common male fantasy ever. It's like every dude in his life wishes that he could, you know, violently rape someone and get away with it. That's just, I was shocked. But that's the reality. And I had to accept it because, you know, yeah, you go, Cara.

[00:34:00] I just want to say one of the framings, and this doesn't happen at every level too, but I think it will illustrate the priming and grooming and that there's a song called Cosmic Snake. And we sing it as a call and response. About the third verse is, open your legs like a cosmic whore. Grab your dick and open that door. She'll fuck you and suck you on the temple floor.

[00:34:28] And when you are done, she'll be ready for more while the black hole beats in your core. Yikes. Those are the lyrics? Yes, those are the lyrics that we sing as a call and response. And some people say it's not demonic. That's twisted. Yeah. Yeah. So I just wanted to add about, so this is for the sex trafficking and then for the labor trafficking. There are many staff, there are many people who come work for free.

[00:34:56] So despite the fact that assistants are paying for a 24-7 labor for seven days, they are paying to do that labor.

[00:35:05] But there are also participants who stay then at retreats or at ISTA facilitators and they do work for free for them in exchange for like, you know, student teacher exchange where, you know, it's like I'm going to live at your place and do accounting for you while, you know, you teach me some sexual healing practices, for example. So that's just one of the story, but there are many.

[00:35:30] And then it goes into if you go into the practitioner training where you're being taught how to give yoni and lingam massages and how much you can charge for that. So we're really sex positive, but then it gets into is the sex work? Have we turned this into prostitution? Right, right, right. It gets really muddy and conflated.

[00:35:53] So this is also where I think someone else could speak about this more because while sex work is legal in many places in Europe, for example, procuring sex work is illegal in probably most of places in the world. And what ISTA is doing while selling its genital massage business program, basically, it's probably looks more like procuring prostitution.

[00:36:22] So my journey after the mediation failed, after the article came out, was rediscovering my voice. I slowly over the last year or so started speaking out. And as I did that, more survivors have come forward. So other rape cases. And there are people who are, you know, pursuing legal action where they can.

[00:36:51] And, but ISTA, by not being an organization, they call themselves an organism. And they use organizers. They're like contractors. Like they have all these things, right, that make it really hard to follow the money and to hold them accountable. Which tells you that they know what they're doing. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:37:13] So what would you say to somebody who wants to explore their sexuality and become more free and might be thinking about taking a training and ISTA training? What would you tell them? I would say it can't be done with integrity and that even if you're not hurt in that room, someone's getting hurt in that room. I would say even though it's a great experience, you are being brainwashed. You are being taught concepts, ideas, and frameworks that are not to your advantage. That's what I would say. Yeah, I like that.

[00:37:41] I would say, why would you even pay for a grift? Like they're scamming you. Why would you pay money for that? Right. I'll make sure the right people listen to this. And hopefully, you know, this episode will be sent far and wide and it will come up when people talk about it on Reddit. And it's, you know, your experiences are really important, you know, regardless of where they've land on this, on the spectrum of abuse from Darvo to rape. It's, it needs to be exposed. Is there a single leader? Is there one person that, you know, if it topples, the rest of it topples?

[00:38:11] There was, so Des, Robert Nichols started it. And then he attracted a group of women who basically built it for him and with him, as you do. Sounds familiar. Right? And then he got thrown out.

[00:38:28] And so I think part of what understanding is, if you look up the International School of Temple Arts, ISTA, it's important to understand that they're then connected to another cult in New Zealand called Haiden Temple. And recently there was kind of a, I called it like the old guru bitch fight in public, where they basically wrote letters to the community. They're really bad and they're the problem. And then they're like, no.

[00:38:56] So, and they claim they're not all entwined, but you can track facilitators, you can track money. They're super entwined. Then Haiden, in particular, has this idea that the ultimate job is to land temples. And so ISTA people then are buying land around the world and starting their own little pod of this bullshit.

[00:39:21] And so I would say to people who are doing research into it, watch out for any temple trainings. They're in Greece, Portugal, Costa Rica. And they, unlike Landmark, right, where Landmark would come down on you if you took their content and then you did your own thing. ISTA doesn't seem to care. Like some of these websites are almost a ripoff of ISTA's site with a few word changes.

[00:39:48] But I think the key word to watch out for is temple trainings. Okay. Okay. So I just also want to say that it's a funnel. It's a pipeline. The funnel starts with temples. So in Berlin, for example, I attended temple nights. Those temples are for priming, for grooming people. This is where you get these initial ideas about, you know, nakedness is freedom and, you know, all this stuff.

[00:40:14] And the pipeline goes to New Zealand, where the most expensive trainings for like six, seven thousand apart cost. And that's six weeks. So you go from ISTA and then if you're really, you know, gung-ho, then you do these few ISTAs and then you go to Haiden for six weeks. And people's brains come out scrambled. And someone died by suicide after those six weeks. We have the voice recordings of the person.

[00:40:43] Normally that's what gets law enforcement to respond, something in the physical world. Yeah. Well, it's really difficult. We made multiple reports in multiple jurisdictions and they're all looking at, like, first of all, nobody wants to deal with multiple jurisdictions. So it's really difficult. But where I'm specifically, I am calling out for all survivors.

[00:41:06] I would like survivors to reach out to Lina from the New York Magazine because I am studying law right now. And I am gathering information and gathering reports and researching how to file lawsuit or lawsuits in multiple places and how to report to the police to what's happened. Well, that's great. Hopefully people listen to this and reach out to you. Do they operate in France at all? Yes. They do. Yeah. Did you know that there's a whole section of the police? Yes.

[00:41:36] Did you hear an episode with Ashley from the other yoga sex cult? I'm already in contact with the cult watch department in France and in Belgium where it is also operating. So things are happening. Because they seem to have their shit together. And there are overlaps. I think it's helpful for people to understand, like, Nicole Dédon, One Taste, she has gone to jail. We have Bilivaru, Gregorian, he's in jail in France. There's overlap there.

[00:42:05] Benito, what's his name? Bilivaru. Yes. There's overlaps a lot with the language and the framing. And so ISTA is not special. I think it's really important, right? Like you find with so many of your guests that come on and we're like, oh, they've got the playbook. They've got... There's different variations or covers or colors, right? It's the sacred sexuality.

[00:42:31] But the harms and the mindsets and the assaults, we can track them across all these organizations. And there's a huge overlap with ISTA. 100%. 100%. Well, I would love to share our new book with both of you for different reasons. Lina, especially, and you said it a couple of times, cult hopping. There is a chapter called The Cult-Shaped Hole in Your Heart. And how we want to just fill it and fill it.

[00:42:58] Even now with this work we do can be one of the things, at least for me, I always have to check. Like, am I doing this to be a part of a community that's doing good work? Like, what am I doing even on this side? So I would like to share that with you, Lina. I'll get your details after. And Cara, I'll give you one in person this summer when we speak at ICSA together, which I want to do a little plug for that. If people want to come and meet us and talk to us, we are going to do a panel together. And hopefully that will inspire some more change. Right.

[00:43:27] And that's the International Cultic Studies Association, is ICSA. We'll be doing a panel about media, right? Like, that's really what we want to talk about is how can we use media to help advance accountability. And I think ultimately changes in the laws, right? We have these statute of limitations, right? That make it almost impossible for a survivor to come forward because of the time it takes to realize you were harmed,

[00:43:54] be dysregulated and heal enough to have the capacity to speak out. And have language for it. And language for it. And I think because I wasn't sexually assaulted, there's a big question about if you don't have informed consent, is it consent? This is a mystery school. You don't know what's coming next. So there is a way where I'm like, oh, was I actually in consent to the things I did

[00:44:23] because I did not have informed consent? That's a really sticky area. It's the same thing with me and my branding is that they would say, as they said with me, that you were basically consenting to not have consent. You were consenting to go along with the... You were surrendering to whatever happens, which is basically saying you're giving up your ability to consent, which is really fucked up. Yeah, we have courts that can... We've mastered what physical abuse looks like and we have great apparatus to stop physical abuses.

[00:44:53] We don't have them in the emotional realm yet. At all. And they're harder to prove in court because they're abstract and... Nuanced. There's lupals. Yeah, someone can abuse it. Someone can say, oh, I didn't have consent. Maybe they did. But, you know, so there's a lot of things that, you know, are going to be... It's hard to come up with something that's consistent that can... When you're lied to about the nature of something. Improving that and all that stuff.

[00:45:22] So we're going through some of that stuff right now. But anyway... Well, thank goodness in France, they're actually studying it, have a team dedicated to understanding this and stopping these kinds of people. And I hope that spreads. I hope that can educate, you know, here in the U.S. law enforcement. And because as we all know, there's a preponderance of these organizations. Yeah. And until we can stop them in courts and bring that criminal process,

[00:45:52] people continue to be really vulnerable, you know, vulnerable to it. Is there anything else that you want to say we didn't ask you just to wrap up these amazing episodes, you two? I mean, just thank you for doing what you do. It's so hard to feel safe and then to feel empowered, I think, is part of it, you know. Our voices were negated and crushed. And then there's the fear of speaking out.

[00:46:20] And so, you know, your personal stories that you've shared and then the reach of this podcast, it does feel really empowering. My concern particularly is for the young women that are getting lured in because they are more vulnerable. They are more impressionable. They are thinking that they're coming to a safe place. And so my hope is to get the word out, both to let survivors know they're not alone

[00:46:50] and have them speak up in what ways they can or come to me because I am being a loud mouth and I can speak up on their behalf. And then also to spread the word to young women in particular, like, don't do this. And to the men, it's like, do you really want to be in a place where these vulnerable young women are going to be taken advantage of, harmed, manipulated? I don't think you do. Men, if you do, fuck you.

[00:47:19] So that's my final statement. I'm going to add a statement to your statement. And I'm thinking about the version of you that was like, you know, listening to those 14 agreements and had that moment of like, and my, you know, think back to my first five day and I'm known to be had moments of like, what the fuck have we gotten ourselves into? Why don't we leave? Why don't we walk away? Like, and we all have our different reasons for that. And just to give people permission, if they're listening to this and they do end up going to a course, it doesn't even have to be sexual related, anything they're a part of. And everyone else is saying, yeah, sure.

[00:47:49] I agree. Like I'm a 10 or whatever it is. If you don't feel really good about it, like permission to leave, you know, permission to be a bit awkward in that moment, whether it's a party and everyone's doing drugs and you don't really want to, or like whatever it is to be, just to stand up and be like happy for you guys. I'm going to go. Maybe you're not going to get your money back. Maybe you're going to look weird. Maybe people aren't going to like you. Who the fuck cares? Just cut and run, cut and run.

[00:48:14] Also that, that how hard that is because we have social studies, science experiments. People will lie if other people are lying. Like we don't want to stand out. We want to belong and it's not intellectual. It is like instinctual. It's safety. It is safety in the group versus no, this group is not safe. I need to get out. So I am like, yes, notice where you're not consenting. Notice those red flags.

[00:48:44] Get out if you can. Like hold on to the idea that I might need to leave this. I think that is a good mindset to go into. Like I'm prepared to leave. And I, if I can, and then also not to blame ourselves when we do stay, because it's like so many of this is manipulating our goodness, our basic human nature, human design. Just to like a little caveat on that, I want to share to people listening who have maybe teenagers who are like going to parties.

[00:49:14] It's hard for a kid to say, I don't want to get in your car because you're drinking. And we've encouraged, we're going to encourage our kids. And we always encourage people with teenagers to have some sort of code word where they can get their parents to interject. So the parents are the bad guys. Like, oh shit, I have a family emergency. I got to go. Like that's an option too. If you're in a situation, you can't don't feel strong enough to say, I don't want to do this. You can fake it. You can be like, I'm so sorry. My kid just is sick. I got to go pick him up. Just get out of there. Like find a way to get out of there. You don't have to be like,

[00:49:43] this is going against my consent. And I feel abused, you know, like you don't have, you can get out. And that's such a good tip because they'll try to talk you out of it. But if you're like, oh no, it's not me. This place is great. I just need to go get my grandmother out of the hospital. Yeah. And you're going to shortcut, you know, their ongoing. The gaslighting. Yeah. The barragement of phone calls. I really liked that little chunk as a sort of learning nugget. I hope we can use that as a soundbite moving forward and aware of the time.

[00:50:12] Thank you guys both so much for your time. This has been such a fascinating conversation. Look forward to meeting. Yeah. Look forward to meeting you in person, Lina. Hopefully our paths will cross one day. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:50:42] All right, everybody that wraps up our two-parter with Cara and Lina, please let us know what you thought of the episode. Don't do ISTA. That's my opinion. We're speaking to someone specifically. You know who you are. Don't do it. Don't do it. Walk away from the dessert table. All right, everybody. See you next time on A Little Bit Culti.

[00:51:20] We hope you're enjoying A Little Bit Culti. If so, please do show us some love. Drop a rating or leave a review. Hit subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen. And subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com slash a little bit culti. Even better, send this episode to someone who needs it. Maybe they're in a cult. Maybe they're just a little bit susceptible. Or maybe they just love a good story. Spread the word. Spread the love. Thanks for listening. And see you next time. A Little Bit Culti is a Trace 120 production. Executive produced by Sarah Edmondson and Anthony Nippy Ames

[00:51:50] in collaboration with producer Will Rutherford at Citizens of Sound. Our co-creator is Jess Temple-Tardy. Our production coordinator is Leslie Dinsenbor. Writing by Sandra Nomoto and social media marketing by Eric Swarczynski and Brooke Keene. Our theme song Cultivated is by the artists John Bryant and Nigel Aslan.