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

[00:00:00] This winter, take your icon pass, North. North to abundant access, to powder-skiing legacy, to independent spirit. North where easy to get to, meets worlds away. Go north to Snow Basin. Now on the icon pass. The views and opinions expressed by a little bit cultier, those are the hosts.

[00:00:31] And don't reflect the official policy or position of the podcast, right Sarah? Correct. Any of the quote fire content, I prefer lava content provided by our guest blogger, sponsors, or authors

[00:00:42] of the opinion and are not intended to malign a religion, a group, a club, an organization, business individual, anyone or anything. Unless Sarah? You're a douchebag. Yeah, I mean pretty much. Also, we're not doctors, psychologists or wizards.

[00:00:57] We're just two non-experts trying to make you a friendly and formative podcast based on our experience that we've turned into wisdom. Okay? Good talk. Okay. Hey everybody, Sarah Edmondson here. And I'm Anthony Ames, aka Nippy, Sarah's husband, and you're listening to

[00:01:20] A Little Bit Cultie, aka ALBC, a podcast about what happens when devotion goes to the dark side. We've been there and back again. A little about us, true story, we met and fell in love in a cult.

[00:01:33] And then we woke up and got the hell out of dodge. The whole thing was captured in HBO docu-series The Vow, now in its second season.

[00:01:41] I also wrote about our experience in my memoir, Scarred, the true story of how I escaped Nexium, the cult that bound my life. Look at us.

[00:01:49] A couple of married podcasters who just happened to have a weekly date night where we interview experts and advocates and things like cult awareness and mind control. Wait, wait, wait. This does not count toward date night, babe. We got to schedule that. That's separate. So it's two days?

[00:02:03] We got to hang out? We do this podcast thing because we learned a lot on our exit ramp out of Nexium. Still on that journey. And we want to pay the lessons forward with the help of other cult survivors and whistleblowers.

[00:02:13] We know all too well that culty things happen. It happens to people every day across every walk of life. So join us each week to tackle these culty dynamics everywhere from online dating to mega churches and multi-level market. This stuff really is everywhere.

[00:02:26] The Cultiverse just keeps on expanding, and so are we. Welcome to season five of A Little Bit Cultie, serving cult content and word salads weekly on your favorite podcast platforms. Learn more at alittlebitculti.com. Welcome to our podcast, A Little Bit Cultie. What voice is that?

[00:03:01] Here's my co-host, Sarah Edmondson. Take it away, Sarah. Well, thank you. What is it? I'm just seeing what works. Our fans gave me feedback on it. Is that sweet honey voice going back in time? I have a Tiger Woods impression from the 90s that I do.

[00:03:16] So Tiger, how was it out there? Well, you know, my short game, it just wasn't going early. And that proved to be problematic later on, but fortunately my putting game was spot on and I was able to birdie the final two holes.

[00:03:30] And hopefully that'll work out and I'll just come back tomorrow and just improve my short game. Just trying to take a picture of Nippy doing this because it's not just the voice, it's the face. It's all the face.

[00:03:42] Nippy and I have had to laugh again because if you're listening to this podcast in order, you just listened to last week Daniel Barbin-Lovin from the Sarah Lawrence cult of Larry Ray. And before that, social Martin of La Luz Del Mundo.

[00:04:01] And those are two survivors of some horrific, horrific, dark, painful, awful abuse. And I know that like for us, it affects us and our listeners are like, please, oh God, that was sickening. And they're, you know, I think we all just need a little break, right?

[00:04:15] So we're not totally over. Yeah, to the point where I'm like, I don't know how long. Yeah. I'm like, good Nippy, let's just take a little break from the survivor stuff and we're going to talk to some experts today. We speak to the director of stolen youth.

[00:04:30] Many of you have watched the documentary, which means you get a gold star and a stripe on your sash for being a good student because it really will help you to enjoy this podcast if you've seen the series.

[00:04:41] But after this, we're going to have a whole series of experts and some journalists and some definitely some lighter fare as we work our way into season six. Wow. Season six. And no, we will not take a break. But yes. We had spring break.

[00:04:56] We will take a break. We have stockpiled last week. We recorded five episodes. OMG. We are ballers. And then I went to Dallas and recorded three episodes for the new football podcast.

[00:05:07] So if you're not aware of that, we will be announcing something more official, a little pen gentile project for Nippy. And I'm very excited for him. So stay tuned for the A Fish Announce. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[00:05:20] And our guest today again, if you haven't listened, well first of all, watch the docu series and definitely listen to last week's episode with Daniel Barb and Levin. Does someone get mad at you for giving homework again? Oh my God.

[00:05:31] But he was like, first of all, they were mad because wherever they were, they couldn't get the series. And I'm sorry about that. It may have been Australia or Canada. I apologize. I wish we could do more about that.

[00:05:40] You know, just maybe star the episode and come back to it once you have access to the series. I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, I just thought it was fun. People get mad at us for all sorts of things.

[00:05:51] Every episode there's something that we did wrong. I had a great time on Amanda Montell's podcast Sounds Like a Cult and she was asking me what I do for my own spirituality now. And I say, look, I do a hodgepodge of different things. I don't follow any leader.

[00:06:05] I don't have a guru. I don't follow capital F, follow anyone. But one of the things I mentioned is that before my bath, if I especially if I've done an interview, I like Palo Santo or Sage. And I got accused of cultural appropriation.

[00:06:16] So, you know, can you appreciate? I've seen you do that. Here's actually, I'm asking legitimately. Can you appreciate a ritual from another culture or religion and not be appropriating? I don't know. I'm actually, I'm not, I'm asking that seriously. Like what are the rules?

[00:06:32] Please weigh in in the comments below on this episode. Thank you very much. So our guest today, no tangent. There was no segue Sarah there. No, there's no segue. There is no segue Sarah there. No, it was just like, I'm lost. Yeah. I have no answer.

[00:06:46] A cultural appropriation. Carry on. You actually, you know who did culturally appropriate a lot? I don't know. Larry Ray. Oh, there you go. Larry Ray. You got even surprised. He for sure did. He took from all sorts of places and claimed it as his own.

[00:07:00] And as a quick recap, we are covering the cult that surrounded the now infamous Larry Ray, a man who spent his fifties and sixties living with his college student daughter at Sarah Lawrence and unleashing all sorts of abuse on her friends. Daniel Loven was one of Ray's victims.

[00:07:15] That was our guest last week. Beyond these two episodes, you can also learn more about the insane story by watching Hulu's stolen youth inside the cult of Sarah Lawrence, which is out now. That's homework that Sarah is assigning.

[00:07:27] Nippy was like, I don't know if we should be giving our audience homework, but... Don't make me the bad cop. I'm just sorry. I just thought that happened. For today's episode, we sat down with the director behind stolen youth, Zachary Heinzerling.

[00:07:38] Heinzerling is an Academy Award nominated and Emmy winning director currently based in New York City. You've probably seen some of his pieces before, such as his work with Beyonce on creating her 2015 five part web series self titled for her Ponymus album.

[00:07:52] He also worked on the critically acclaimed six part series, McCartney 321, starring Sir Paul McCartney and Rick Ribbon for Hulu. Today we get into the thick of stolen youth trying to find a better understanding

[00:08:04] of how to make Daki series about content that we cover in A Little Bit Cultie. How to be trauma informed, how to deal with subjects who have gone through harrowing experiences such as the brave victims in stolen youth.

[00:08:18] We also discussed with Zach how he was able to obtain all this footage and how he managed to produce this entire documentary of what went down within the cult. Without further ado, Zach Heinzerling. So welcome to A Little Bit Cultie. How are you doing?

[00:08:43] Are you doing a lot of press right now? We're doing some press. Yeah, the series airs on Thursday. So we're excited to get it out and show people what we've been working on. How do you feel about it? I feel good. Larry was just sentenced two weeks ago.

[00:08:58] You know, this thing is coming out. I feel like for me and for a lot of people involved, it's sort of coming to an end. You know, I think the sentencing for the survivors is hugely important.

[00:09:10] Just the knowledge that he'll be away for the rest of his life. And I think if this had come out in a year, you know, they would still kind of have obligations with the documentary and stuff.

[00:09:22] So I think it's really nice that it's all just kind of happening at the same time. Yeah, it's a relief for me. You know, it's been a long three-year journey. So, you know, as I'm sure the people making the series get very involved,

[00:09:38] everyone is talking about really personal stuff. There's a lot to making a documentary about this kind of traumatic subject matter. So I think we're excited to introduce it to the, you know, to the public. And we feel really good about the series. We're giving birth to the baby.

[00:09:58] And that's exciting. This is going to be a multi-part question. It'll let you riff for a little bit. But it's more of like what attracted you to it? Did you have an idea of what you were looking at when it happened as opposed to how you ended?

[00:10:13] What was your hypothesis matched and what did you learn in the process of going into it? Thinking one thing, doing the project. What wisdom did you have by the time it was over?

[00:10:22] Yeah, I think my approach in this series was kind of similar to all the documentaries I've worked on. You're interested in someone or something. You can relate to it. You find a little bit of yourself in it. In this instance, Daniel was the kind of starting point.

[00:10:38] He approached me about making a documentary. He was writing a book about his experience with Larry. And Daniel sort of wanted to protect the other victims by making something that, you know, was done responsibly and not gratuitously.

[00:10:53] And, you know, he sort of felt like I was someone who could develop a relationship with and gain a sense of trust enough to sort of put this story in my hands.

[00:11:04] I think for me, I kind of thought I was pretty similar to Daniel in a lot of ways. We're around the same age. You know, I went to a liberal arts school and kind of had a lot of the same kind of friends.

[00:11:15] I was interested in the same kind of things. I was kind of artistically minded. Didn't really know who I was. I was trying to define myself in college. Diverse set of friends. And weirdly, you know, we both have mothers who have diabetes and dealt with.

[00:11:32] We weirdly have an older brother whose name is Josh, who his brother, his older brother, I think went to Harvard.

[00:11:40] And my other brother went to a prominent school and we both sort of felt like we were the sort of younger brother trying to follow the footsteps of the older brother. Anyway, a lot of like strange, coincidental similarities.

[00:11:54] But more so, I just felt like, you know, this could have been me. I felt like reading the article. I did not feel that way. Reading the article, I felt this is almost like too insane to understand.

[00:12:10] His relationship with Gorbachev, he was maybe in the CIA, you know, this idea that he had convinced individuals that they had poisoned him at the behest of Bernard Carrick and Rudy Giuliani.

[00:12:22] You know, all of it just seemed like, and this is not at all to place judgment on the writing of the article. I think the article is very effective in gaining attention for this and ultimately led to Larry being convicted.

[00:12:34] But, you know, you need a longer, you need a bigger page. You need a wider canvas to tell this kind of story to really understand that, you know, these are people like you and I, you can relate to this.

[00:12:47] You may think that it's very esoteric and rarefied territory. And when you think about the word cult, you immediately go to the kind of like three to four primary examples of cults in history that define what it means to be in a cult.

[00:13:03] And I think that's all like changing now. I think Daniel really wanted this to not be like everything else out there, but wanted it to be a human story told from the perspectives of the survivors so that audiences could empathize with their story and see themselves in it.

[00:13:24] So I saw myself in it. And then as far as where the journey went, you know, like all documentaries, you know, I think you start from a place of interest. And then you don't know where it's going to go.

[00:13:38] And that's part of the joy in it for me. I think I developed relationships with people I never would have met and follow them on journeys that I could never hope to understand by reading a book about it or an article, you know, or having a conversation.

[00:13:56] But you know, you're really kind of living this experience with people and because they're real people going through a real experience that can go in any number of directions.

[00:14:05] You know, so the idea that Felicia would want to see her family again certainly was not in my mind when I met Felicia with Larry Ray back in 2020. She described herself as his wife. So the journey was beyond anything I could have imagined.

[00:14:24] And so of course, that's what happens with the film or the series becomes, you know, a reflection of that journey. So here we are. Didn't know where it was going to go when we started. Good on Daniel for having those instincts and knowing to do that.

[00:14:39] It speaks volumes about him from my perspective because I can speak for Sarah and most of us when we were kind of tailspinning and the thought of going to a director who is sensitive enough to tell the story was the first. Well, that came later.

[00:14:53] Sarah, we looked into that fortunately. Yeah. But for Daniel to have the foresight and to understand that that's the lane his story would be in speaks volumes about Daniel I think good for him. He said something to me in our first meeting.

[00:15:08] I made this film called Cutie in the Box here about these two Japanese artists and he said that what I liked about that film was that he imagined that when the subjects watched it that they would see themselves in it in a new way and would be supportive of the project but that they would learn something from watching their lives on screen.

[00:15:33] And he hoped that because when we started you have to imagine that you know a lot of the people in it were still under the influence of Larry so in his mind, he imagined that the documentary could be a way of people seeing themselves in a new light gain a new perspective and help in the process of getting out of the kind of mental prison they were in.

[00:15:57] So it's always kind of a blessing that documentary can serve multiple purposes.

[00:16:03] You know, I can serve the purpose of entertaining and communicating to wide audiences but can also serve a completely different purpose for the people involved for him to have that kind of sensitivity because I know my instincts and I'll speak for myself here was like a little bit of frustration with the people that were still kind of in one to hit it hit it with a blunt object more than have the sensitivity and compassion to lead them through that and it comes through.

[00:16:26] He actually said something in his book about like wanting to go in there and rescue them and pull them out but he knew that just because he did that didn't mean they wouldn't be out and they had to we call it we maybe and I call it waking up like they had to wake up on their own terms has anybody like woken up or left Larry in their mind since the dock or since the filming that you know of.

[00:16:48] Well, Alicia obviously in you know in the process of making the time I mean I think it actually became more that kind of a chain reaction. You know in the process of making the film starting with Felicia having an interest in finding her family conversations.

[00:17:07] You know I was in touch with her family members at the same time but it really took Felicia like reaching out to them to really get them to like fully open up and talk about what had happened to them and regain their sense of self worth.

[00:17:22] You know they had distanced themselves from Larry physically.

[00:17:25] I think mentally we're still defending him and I think you know when Felicia sort of goes and in this you know I was filming her when this happened but it goes through this process of like really you know step by step trying to understand what happened to her and re narritivizing her life for herself and really differentiating you know Larry's version of her versus the real her the self prior to her.

[00:17:52] Larry re engaging with people.

[00:17:54] It kind of had a chain reaction for her siblings as well and then in the news you know Isabella is about to be sentenced and she has released court documents basically explaining that she now sees Larry as her user is apologizing to the other victims you know for the things that she did at the

[00:18:18] behest of Larry so she's going through her own process you know it's not a part of the documentary although I will say that I felt you know there were times where she was pushing in that direction but her legal situation was a lot more difficult because you know she ended up pleading guilty to a felony.

[00:18:38] We kind of had to stop our communication as a result of that but I think we'll see you know we don't know exactly what's going to happen with Isabella you know we'll find out actually in a few weeks or sentencing I think is at the end of February but you know I think she's going through her own process and I don't know you know I think everyone has their own path and all of the survivors were in some form of therapy.

[00:19:03] I think you know they had to deal with the trial which makes things more difficult but also I think their legal support was really good about providing them with outside therapists outside to just having a lawyer.

[00:19:18] You know I introduced Felicia and Isabella to a nonprofit called Sanctuary for Families which does help with legal services and counseling services for victims of domestic abuse which I think a lot of cultic relationships have similarities to domestic violence.

[00:19:37] So anyway you know they did have help and as far as the documentary and I think telling their story on their own terms helped them in this process of really like redefining themselves and feeling like having ownership because their narratives have been stolen from them so I don't know that that was the intention that Daniel had in mind but I think it was a benefit of this process.

[00:20:01] Well he's coming from the right place so I think whatever the emergent property is of that is going to reflect that and I think them claiming their stories might be one of those things.

[00:20:11] I mean just logistically I was so curious how did you get access to all of the recordings, crazy similarity that both Larry and Keith Ranieri recorded everything like the brilliant sociopaths that they are but how would that become public domain and or all the footage of the apartment.

[00:20:31] Where is that from if you can say.

[00:20:34] Yeah well there's a few places I met Larry it's not in the series but I met him before he was indicted and he started emailing me recordings which you know were to him of course proof of his innocence but to anyone outside of his delusion were the opposite of that.

[00:20:55] And then Felicia she contributed with some videos and audio from her archive but the main source of the archival was the trial you know I think we didn't really have we had a lot we had audio which was very effective but so much of the video came out in the trial and once it's used in the trial then it becomes public record.

[00:21:21] There's a lot of video that thankfully was not made public and at some point I want to have a conversation with the district attorney or the prosecutors about you know how they determine what should and shouldn't be public because a lot of the video immediately after the trial you know went up on all these websites like Daily Mail.

[00:21:43] You know but it without context that video is so hard for these people to see.

[00:21:51] That chat my ass by the way as a survivor that was like so unfathomable but that was out there and they you know release like full length I mean these like 20 minute videos of like kids getting tortured.

[00:22:03] They're getting tortured and kids torturing themselves because they were in such a state of manipulation that you know this was the only thing that was like serving the sick delusional narcissist so I actually think that because of that happened there was more of an effort to just like understand you know we spent the whole first hour basic

[00:22:23] on what is memory manipulation and kind of slowly understanding how strategic and methodical and slow this processes so that by the time you see the videos you know exactly what's going on and I mean it's still shocking you know it's it's it's still shocking and still hard

[00:22:44] to explain but yeah that's where the video came from we also did sort of creative interpretations of the apartment and can shot it in a way where it felt like you know it was based on images of the apartment but kind of felt almost like a hazy memory.

[00:23:01] I thought that was really really well done and I also really appreciated the use of the journals and the the drawing and the whiteboards and the the visuals to go with it I thought that was such a perfect blend of just bringing the observer through the process without being too sensational which I'm sure was something that you were very aware of from the beginning.

[00:23:26] Yeah yeah it's tough because you know I don't know we've now established this genre in American media documentary cinema you know it's it's super popular you know your North Star is the fact that you know these individuals have trusted you with their story so yeah you know I don't know it's like the

[00:23:49] the appetite that's a whole other conversation. This is the golden age of cult recovery the more we speak up and share our stories the more we realize we are not alone your voice and your story can empower others.

[00:24:06] This is Sarah and I'm proud to be a founding collaborator of the hashtag I got out movement learn more at I got out.org. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.

[00:24:23] What are your self care non-negotiables maybe you never skip leg day or never miss yoga maybe it's getting eight hours of sleep I mean that's my personal and everyone's dream isn't it well I definitely have some non-negotiables like I'm in Vancouver right now and I'm spending literally as much time as I can outside in nature hashtag cold pools hashtag crushing it.

[00:24:43] Nature is a non-negotiable not enough time in the fresh air and the trees around me and I start to feel not great not myself not grounded therapy day is a bit like my nature walks I try to not miss it.

[00:24:53] And I know I'm just going to feel so much better all around if I make it a priority I get so much out of it it helps me put my worries and anxieties in their rightful place and helps me clear my mind so I can focus on what I really need and sometimes what I don't need like I don't need to be overbooking myself just because I hate to say no to people you know what I mean thanks therapy thanks for helping me see that.

[00:25:11] And if you're thinking of starting therapy give better help a try it's entirely online designed to be convenient flexible and suited to your schedule just fill out a brief questionnaire and get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge look even when we know what makes us happy it's hard to make time for it but when you feel like you have no time for yourself non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever.

[00:25:33] Never skip therapy day with better help visit better help dot com slash culty today to get 10% off your first month that's better help H.E.L.P. dot com slash culty meals bring people together but for many families providing their next meal can be a challenge you can help by participating in Macy's annual feeding the hungry food drive all proceeds go toward local food banks and families now through January 31st you can purchase an icon in store or online or watch

[00:26:03] out for the blue feeding the hungry shelf tags where a portion of your purchase will be donated to local pantries together we can combat hunger in our local communities at Macy's.

[00:26:15] I think that's the responsibility of people like you Zach Daniel us and those things is yes there's this sensational kind of aspect to it but if people can take the wisdom out of it and put into sound bites and content so people can

[00:26:32] understand it then I'm kind of willing to be sacrificed in your mind is at the altar of sensationalism it's up to you to turn into something positive and it's up to.

[00:26:44] The human team to come in and someone with Daniel sentiment and impulses to know to do that even when he's in trauma to me is exactly what I think is laying is and it's up and up to him so hopefully we're adding to that yeah.

[00:26:55] I think his book is really beautiful I think in a book also it's a little bit easier for you to just purely be the author you know I think my role was a little bit more of like juggling a lot of interest you know you're making compromises you know this still has to be like digestible for lots of people.

[00:27:16] You want to be seen by a lot of people but you also want to have integrity so I think that yeah it's a lot of like checks and balances a lot of like is this too much is this too little lots of people you know a real like group effort to get something as opposed to like my voice but you know as far as

[00:27:34] like things like the animation stuff that's where my voice comes in because I felt like that was the kind of is like how do you get people in the mindset of like what it was like to be when you're 18 or 19 and in this kind of progressive artistically minded so felt like needed to have a playfulness to it everything so like serious like these are the definitions of X, Y and Z and like expert focused

[00:27:59] I feel like you lose the like this is what it's like you know to be in the dorm is what it's like to see my friend this is what it's like to like you know a lot of all those images were you know stuff that they have drawn in college and some of it was more like inspired by but the styling of those animations

[00:28:21] and you know what you see on the wall or the actual like drawings of the kids from college and stuff.

[00:28:28] Zach I don't know if you know this our podcast has a segment you know we've had our own trauma and part of our healing is laughter and levity in all the darkness and so we have a segment called what chaps your ass and it's basically what's the thing that bothers you the most

[00:28:43] I'm going to tell you what chaps my ass about this situation and then you can you can tell me yours I mean other than the obvious of the whole thing but I just don't understand how this school let a grown ass adult like sleep in the dorm and they just like it's so wildly inappropriate and we know that people like Raven and Max some of their peers said things to authorities and nothing happened that come out in any way did you try to get a statement from the university or did they ignore you or can you give me some resolution there please.

[00:29:10] I think we're all still looking for resolution honestly I think the most damning indictment of the school that I know of came actually from the New York magazine reporters which is that Claudia's parents you know contacted the school at least one time if not more to ask about Larry and I think at this point you know she was living in the apartment on the every side.

[00:29:36] The period of time he was staying on campus was a semester and it would be some night is a bit like four or five nights some weeks another week it would be less.

[00:29:47] Yeah so I think from the school's perspective you know at the time it's like a parent crashing in their daughter's dorm room I think in reality we see exactly what happened and it was much more sinister than they ever could have happened but as far as the school's response you know we include this in our documentary at the end of a piece of paper.

[00:30:17] This is a piece of paper that's from their statement which says at the time we had no reports of Larry living on campus you know I imagine their legal team you know crafted that and it says at the time so I don't know if that means like that semester that he was there and wasn't living which like how do you define living but subsequent reports say that he was you know so.

[00:30:44] I don't know I think they're having a hard time like just coming clean with that admission that they messed up and honestly I think the film talks a little bit about the school but I'm hoping that there's more that's done and I'm hoping that there is some kind of you know I don't know lawsuit or something that makes them face this.

[00:31:09] I obviously know that they have a very different policy for dorms now than they did then and they've had to deal with this but I don't feel that they have come forth and really taken this on and they declined you know request for interviews they just kind of sent us a statement.

[00:31:28] I will say they did allow us to film on campus some of the buildings and B rolls kind of shots and Daniel was a big part of that because I think they felt like Daniels and alum he'd written this book.

[00:31:45] He was trying to talk about it in a healthy way and the school wanted to you know support those efforts. You know they wouldn't grant us an interview but they did allow us to film on campus I think in you know they didn't have to do that.

[00:32:00] Right at least they could do. It does back in a lot of questions because if you look at a lot of college campuses and kind of how dorm life is. Yeah I mean I think about it and I'm like this could have happened on my door.

[00:32:13] I think it's like anywhere. That's what I'm saying. And Sarah Lawrence at the time they encouraged students to have relationships with like different generations of people and the idea that a dad would crash on the couch was not actually crazy to any of these kids.

[00:32:29] I totally agree yeah. And the same was probably true of the administration. And I think that's what comes like later when he's maybe he's not living on campus anymore but do a thorough investigation of whatever. Yeah yeah yeah for sure.

[00:32:43] And find out like what's going on with Santos the fact that Santos basically was put on leave and suspended for school because he had you know this isn't something we go into the documentary so it won't go too far into it but he was basically

[00:33:00] confessing to the violent thoughts and so the school put him on leave. This was of course because Larry was manipulating him. No one looked into it. The crazy thing about it is like how did it take 10 years for anyone to say anything about this person.

[00:33:17] And I think you know I think that's because like Raven says like it was just too crazy. I don't know it's like people just don't think that this can happen. People don't think that there are people like Larry out there.

[00:33:26] That's the biggest thing that we've discovered in this is like when Sarah went to the FBI for her story the FBI was kind of like shrugged her shoulders.

[00:33:35] And I think one of the things that allows these guys to get away with it is to your point it's so absurd and crazy that people just don't think they're susceptible to it. They don't think other people are going to be susceptible to it.

[00:33:48] They need an education themselves and what these things look like and sound like before it's five 10 years too long. Specifically coercive control. There's precursors that at least people could say hmm that might be this.

[00:34:02] Let's kick the tires a little bit and I think it's too late between they find out. Yeah I mean there's a story Isabella and Felicia are in the house in New Jersey where they were living in squalor.

[00:34:14] And this is eight or nine years after this started and their parents stage of intervention where they come to the house and you know try to rescue their daughters.

[00:34:23] This is after the article came out and the cops come to the house and the cops and Larry's like so and so the Rosarios are drug dealers. Isabella's mother is like you know abuse sexually abused her and yada yada yada and the cops are like OK.

[00:34:41] And I'm like you're standing in this house where Larry a at this point 60 year old man is living with two women in a house that doesn't have any furniture.

[00:34:55] Like something is up here and if that isn't like a red flag of like we need to further investigate this what is.

[00:35:03] Yeah I can't tell you how many people we've interviewed who were almost saved could have been saved by law enforcement who didn't know what they were looking at.

[00:35:11] And didn't know what questions to ask and clearly didn't know how to spot a traumatized victim who'd been brainwashed or indoctrinated or coercive controlled whatever you want to call it into saying no I'm happy here.

[00:35:23] Don't take me there's very specific physical signs in someone's eyes someone's demeanor in their body and how they even talk. I mean I can see it now but we've been educating ourselves for five years.

[00:35:35] There's also a visceral component to it as well that you can kind of feel. Also just talk to that person without Larry next to that.

[00:35:43] I have another logistical question and this is a question that we got off and with the vow even though we were subjects not producers or directors but was it a topic or did you consider or how did you end up deciding not to have experts sort of give their opinion of the unfoldings.

[00:36:00] We did actually interview experts and we just didn't end up using some of the material in the film.

[00:36:05] I always felt like when we cut out of what was this like very tight story told by like four or five people that it just like sort of popped the balloon of like being in that mindset and like sustaining it.

[00:36:22] And there's something something about like immediately like we're in this kind of more intellectual space and I think we were trying to create more of a feeling of feeling of being continually being a part of the world.

[00:36:35] And then we boxed in and digging into a deeper and deeper hole and like the feeling that you can't get like a feeling that you can't get out of. So it wasn't necessarily a choice from the beginning.

[00:36:46] I think we maybe my sensibility is that I'm more interested in this story that is just a little bit pure and in the telling of it in the format but you know we did we talked to Dan Shaw.

[00:36:58] We had we had a scene of these I guess the cult specialist intervention list in conversation with the parents about you know this is the type of way that that you could speak to your loved one and not immediately be judgmental meeting them where they are.

[00:37:17] I mean there's so much to learn about this world and and so we did do a lot of that filming but I guess in the end it just yeah I get it. It's like you could make more. Bonus.

[00:37:29] Well it's also a different documentary in a lot of ways. We have a little bit of a smaller canvas. Right. You had two episodes that's not a lot of time. Yeah I think you know there's a lot more that could be done. Is that what you were given?

[00:37:43] Was that your parameters? Originally it was a film because it was just Daniel's story and then with Alicia and Isabella and the other Rosario's it's three parts and the third part is almost an hour and a half.

[00:37:58] It's three and a half hours but we kind of figured that out along the way.

[00:38:03] You know you have to imagine too this started in 2020 so as the trial got delayed and things kind of delayed you know like we did feel the need that we needed to sort of finish the project in somewhat of a timely manner so that also dictated the series too.

[00:38:20] So many complicated factors with documentaries about real people who are and the legal stuff. Hey there listener. Hope you're enjoying this episode and that you're taking deep breaths when we cover the enraging stuff that cult jerks are up to. Let it out as in the yoga practice.

[00:38:40] Inhale positivity, exhale negativity. That's for you Sarah. We got this. No hulking it out all you will hulksters and if you need some helpful resources on the topic of cult recovery check out our website at a little bit culty.com.

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[00:39:57] I'm just curious can you say who the cult interventionists were that you interviewed that didn't use? Pat Ryan. Pat and Joanne. So we've had Pat on our podcast. We've had Dan on our podcast. We've had all the people. I interviewed Rachel Bernstein too. She's great.

[00:40:17] I had a weekly meeting with her where she was instrumental in this process. She would basically kind of coach me on this would be a responsible reaction to this situation. Or this is something that you could say that might garner a different response.

[00:40:33] She's just like very, she's very like careful and sensitive throughout the process. She's great. That was actually one of our questions. Like for you how did you self educate or how did also take care of yourself?

[00:40:46] Because we had a nippy and I had a question based on what cream told you about. So by the end of our shooting on our dock, the Val, the producers, directors and a lot of people that have worked on it.

[00:40:58] And some people decided they didn't want to work on the second season. We're so averse to people in that kind of trauma, particularly sexual trauma. And I think the subjects had gone through it in a longer period of time than yours.

[00:41:10] That many of them said, I'm not touching that subject matter again because it was so hard to navigate. And there's so many people that you have to be sensitive to and people are blaming each other. They're in this state of trauma.

[00:41:23] I don't know if that was similar to your experience, how you feel about it going forward. Are you talking about the producers? Well, I'm talking about as a director producer, do you have similar feelings about that subject matter being in it for what did you say three years?

[00:41:37] Yeah. Would you do it again? Yeah, not for a while. I don't know. I think it's hard to talk about it as if it's difficult as a director or producer because it's so much more difficult for the subjects. Of course, yeah.

[00:41:56] It's difficult in different ways, but you do take on a lot of their trauma. Not that you take it away from them, you share it with them. And just what an awful human. I don't know.

[00:42:09] A lot of the times I kept trying to figure out, and this would be interesting conversation for you all, but the why of it.

[00:42:19] And with Larry, when he was indicted, he was living on an air mattress in a friend's house in New Jersey with junk everywhere and holes in the yard and no money to his name. His scheme was not one that was this pyramid scheme creating loads of wealth.

[00:42:43] He wasn't living a life of luxury. Like what was feeding him was perversion that this sickness where anything he could do to make himself feel empowered, in control, empowered.

[00:42:59] But to an extent that is beyond what you could imagine, like expending so much energy, having hours long interrogation sessions with individuals that is a form of torture, but you aren't getting anything actually in return other than just seeing them. It's like evil. It's like indescribable evil.

[00:43:25] And I think that honestly affected me the most. You know, you can say yes, it's like he's a traumatic narcissist. He's like Renier. He's like these other kind of cult figures, but I could list like there are things that are not included in the documentary that are worse.

[00:43:42] If you can imagine worse than what you see in the documentary and you know, I don't need to talk about them. But you know, so it became kind of like this supernatural evil.

[00:43:51] And I think that there's a lot of lessons because in lesser degrees of everything he does, everything he does, you can see in other instances in everyday life. And I think there is stuff to learn.

[00:44:01] But you know, sometimes it just felt like that kind of evil where like it's like a movie, but it's real life. And that affected me, I think the most.

[00:44:11] And I think what probably what you were talking about more is interpersonal relationships and just, you know, morale amongst the team was hard to kind of, you know, because, you know, luckily, I think a lot of the people on the team had relationships with the subjects.

[00:44:28] And we were all very excited to see them like progressing and the Rosario family getting back together and like Dan with his book. And like there was a real sense of pride amongst the team that like we were doing something positive.

[00:44:42] But it's hard to find positive in what is like a cesspool of Larry's like delusion. Well, what you just described when you talk about that supernatural force that is oversimplified when you say, oh, he's just liking torture and stuff like that.

[00:45:02] There's something I think more conversations to be had about a the difficulty of projecting into that psychology and seeking to understand it.

[00:45:10] But not just that how that psychology sometimes seems to thrive in our culture and those ecosystems that support it and don't know what it's looking at right away. And hopefully this is our thumbprint on bringing attention to that and words to it and wisdom to it.

[00:45:25] But everything you're saying about that, I felt I had a supernatural thing kind of get a grip on me. And I'm sure Larry was traumatized. I'm sure there's like the problem is we couldn't really figure out. We couldn't really verify Larry's childhood.

[00:45:38] There was no credible sources that would talk to us. So we didn't go down the path of understanding Larry. And I think for all of these individuals it is that would be probably good for society to help us understand like how someone like that's created.

[00:45:53] But at the same time, a lot of the behavior is condoned in society.

[00:45:57] A lot of it is we don't really necessarily see it as bad yet and the fact that, you know, he can do what he did for so long and only until he publishes a website of one of the women like basically being abusive.

[00:46:14] Is he caught? You know, that's more the question that's worthwhile to answer right now. Just to clarify that was Claudia being an escort. Yeah. Well, the website that kind of broke the story was was claudierdrew.com and there was a video of her basically interrogated by Larry.

[00:46:34] Right. That one. In Larry's mind she was confessing to poisoning but people that saw the video were like this isn't Claudia. This is something's wrong. Yeah.

[00:46:43] Before we go like in your experience is the why of it? Like even important or can it just be kind of whittled down to like the kind of a mental health issue sickness, you know, in this individual?

[00:46:59] I can't answer that not being in contact with my own story and in hearing somebody else's stories.

[00:47:07] But what I can say in Sarah, I think would back me up on this. It's the same fucking playbook for all these guys. Every fucking time it's just a different thing that they're doing a little bit differently. Different flavor.

[00:47:20] But the psychology is I'm going to hook them emotionally. I'm going to abuse them emotionally. There's no real symptom of that yet. After love bombing. Yeah. They provide value. They get you.

[00:47:30] But the overall objective is that and how they do it is pretty much the same. And I think everyone at any point in their life is going to have a moment where someone can get their meat hooks in you, not entirely, but they're susceptible in different ways.

[00:47:46] And I think just seeing that over and over and over and over again and just letting that knowledge spill out into the world is the best we can do with just what's in front of us and me giving you a platform and vice versa and all that stuff.

[00:48:00] And it helps it. It feels though like people are always asking me like why did he do it? And like the audiences feel the need to know was it for money?

[00:48:11] It makes sense in people's minds if it's for money and for sex. It doesn't make sense in people's minds if it's just for some more esoteric like power and it's a psychological disorder. It is.

[00:48:24] You know Dan Shaw actually helped us with that a lot to understand that type of traumatized narcissist. I read his book. Yeah. And that really makes sense to me just on my mom's, you know, my parents are in that field.

[00:48:35] Like if you understand the attachment theory and like what happens as a little kid, if your parents don't love you or you don't feel loved or whatever. And then what you do to fix that.

[00:48:44] And almost all of the people we've studied from Koresh to Ranieri, yeah, they have some traumatic childhood and they couldn't ever reconcile it. And I'm not a psychologist, but he usually goes there somewhere.

[00:48:58] I think also people might be asking those questions because on one level they want to validate that they're not susceptible to it.

[00:49:05] So if there's an easy simplistic answer as to why that exists, they can say themselves and it's somewhat it's difficult to get people past the point of I'm not that stupid to fall for that. And in a lot of ways that sets up your susceptibility in a way.

[00:49:19] Yeah. People also just want it to be some magician with spells. He is also grounding who that person is so that we can understand that people like this can exist even if they're among us.

[00:49:33] You know, they're not necessarily get to the level of Keith or Larry, but you know, this can be, you know, someone you know could have this kind of self worth issue that metastasizes into an abusive like power hungry, you know.

[00:49:50] And also on top of that, most of the organizations at least that we've looked at where it's not such a like direct one-on-one, you know, smaller group is that the narcissist or the sociopath or whatever pulling the strings is on the top.

[00:50:02] And the people around them don't look like that. They don't look as obvious as what you may see in somebody like Larry Ray or Keith Ranieri and people going, oh, I would never fall for that. Like he's obviously a con man or a douche bag or whatever.

[00:50:13] Those guys are often not on the battleground. They're behind the scenes. So the more we educate, the more we make movies like this and inform and educate and get to the human story underneath it all.

[00:50:25] I think the more people will avoid these things. And I want to pass on a message too. We have a whole slew of resources, documentaries, podcasts, books, people like Dan, Yanya Lalich, Pat and Joe at DelilbitCulty.com. Please pass that on to anyone who's still in recovery.

[00:50:43] You know, we're not therapists, but we'd like to connect people to the right resources and I feel like that's a real missing resource in this space is, you know, people coming out and telling their story now on mass, which is great.

[00:50:54] But like, I worry for them. I worry for their well-being. So please share that and I'll make sure to put this one on the list as well to add to the growing list of cult documentaries to warn people. Great. Okay, great. I will. Thank you.

[00:51:08] And a big hug too. Thank you very much. Yeah, thanks for telling the story. Thank you all. That was great. Yeah, I'm a big fan of your show and really feel like it's done so much good for this topic.

[00:51:20] And I know Karim and Jahan really admire their work. So it's great. I feel like we're continuing the torch. Yes. Hopefully the torch will not have to be passed on one day. Yeah. Thanks, Zach. Take care. So, Nip, what did you think?

[00:51:37] I think it's a tough job to do a documentary like that and not walk away kind of with a sense of some dark forces out there and also be on the end of other people's trauma was hard.

[00:52:01] Yeah, and actually we didn't talk about it in this, but I heard it in another interview that Zach actually spent time with Larry and had footage of that.

[00:52:10] So I was, I wish I'd asked him at the time why he didn't include that and also why he didn't talk more about Larry's daughter, Talia and her stance.

[00:52:19] But I think after piecing it all together that they wanted or at least Daniel was aware of the fact that Talia was still in and wanted to leave her out so that maybe she would watch it and wake up. And he had three episodes. Right.

[00:52:33] So you got to leave a lot of it's a candle like why Mexico City was left on the. I think it was kind of room for for season two of the vow. Yeah. I think so.

[00:52:40] Well, I would love to hear what you all thought please message us on Instagram leave us a voicemail over on speak pipe if you're following us on Patreon.

[00:52:48] We are back doing the weekly lives last week we did a zoom calls we could all see each other with social and social Martin and Yara Wilde who will be doing an episode with her soon to hear her story. Yeah, we'll hear you are a wild story.

[00:53:01] Last week we also will have had Daniel Levin on a Q&A on zoom and patreon so please follow us over there. And actually this week we will not be doing a live patreon because Sarah is going to be in Portland.

[00:53:12] Why am I speaking myself in the third person? I don't know skillset. We'll be back with live patreon soon again stolen youth is now on Hulu Larry raise in prison for 60 years. Thanks everybody and have a great day. Bye bye. Bye. Thanks for listening.

[00:53:29] Hope you like this episode. Let's keep the conversation going and come hang out with us on patreon where we keep the tape rolling each week special episodes just for patreon subscribers and where we get deep into the weeds of unpacking every episode of the valve.

[00:53:58] And if you're looking for our show notes or some sweet sweet swag or official albc podcast merch or list of our most recommended cult recovery resources visit our website at a little bit culty dot com.

[00:54:09] And for more background on what brought us here check out Sarah's page turning memoir. It's called scar true story of high escape nexium the cult that bound my life.

[00:54:17] It's available on Amazon audible narrated by my wife and at most bookstores a little bit culty is a talk house podcast and a trace 120 production. We're executive produced by Sarah Edmondson and Anthony Nippy Ames with writing research and additional production support by senior producer Jess tardy.

[00:54:34] We're edited mixed and mastered by our rocking producer will rather for citizens of sound and our amazing theme song cultivated is by John Bryant and co written by Nigel Asselin. Thank you for listening.