Stolen Youth: Daniel Levin on Larry Ray’s Cult

[00:00:00] The views and opinions expressed by A Little Bit Culty are those of the hosts, and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. That's true. Any of the fire content provided by our guest bloggers, sponsors, or authors are of their opinion

[00:00:13] and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. Unless you're abusing people then I have a problem maligning you. Also we're not doctors, psychologists, or wizards. We're just two non-experts trying

[00:00:27] to make you a friendly, informative podcast that helps you understand culty shit. Hey everybody, Sarah Edmondson here and I'm Anthony Ames, aka Nippy, Sarah's husband, and you're listening to A Little Bit Culty, aka ALBC, a podcast about what happens when devotion goes to the dark side.

[00:00:54] We've been there and back again. A little about us. True story, we met and fell in love in a cult. And then we woke up and got the hell out of dodge. And the whole thing was captured in HBO docu-series The Vow, now in its second season.

[00:01:08] 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. A couple of married podcasters who just happened to have a weekly date night

[00:01:19] where we interview experts and advocates in things like cult awareness and mind control. Wait, wait. This does not count toward date night, babe. We got to schedule that that's separate. So it's two days? We gotta hang out?

[00:01:30] 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. We know all too well that culty things happen.

[00:01:42] 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 marketing. This stuff really is everywhere. The Cultiverse just keeps on expanding and so are we.

[00:01:56] 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 back everybody to this week's episode of A Little Bit Cultie. We hit 80 yet? We're like 80 something. I lose count, Sarah.

[00:02:33] It's so hard. It's just so hard. Why do you want to have a birthday party or something? I was gonna say like the 100th episode, I'll get some confetti and fortune champagne. Maybe that should be what we do our live event in Atlanta.

[00:02:44] Could be our 100th episode live in ATL. There you go. Cocktails. LBC cocktails. A little bit cocktail. With Sarah and Nibby. Just trying to make that sweet, sweet lemonade. Actually all the cocktails should be lemons based. You know what I mean? I see what you're doing there.

[00:02:58] Yeah, it's the lemonade that we made. Lemonade is actually, check out this segue. No, I was gonna say dude. I was like I saw the wheels turning on that one. When I find a good segue, it just really makes me happy.

[00:03:11] But truthfully, it's true, a terrible experience can be turned into a beautiful story. Does it make it worth it? But sometimes it helps. And our guest today is an example of that. Daniel Barbin-Levin is the author of a 2021 memoir called And I Got It Wrong Last Week.

[00:03:28] So for all the people who want to write me and tell me I got it wrong, I know I got it wrong, I'm fixing it now. Slownam Woods 9. I miss the woods part. Slownam Woods 9 is an incredible book. I actually listened to it on Audible.

[00:03:39] It tackles Daniel's experience getting into surviving and escaping an abusive cult while in college. You can check out this book in our show notes. Still marveling at the segue. Thank you. Segue history right there. Anyway, specifically he's talking about the story of Larry Ray.

[00:03:54] A dad who moved into his daughter's college dorm and started a sex intercult. Slownam Woods 9 is the actual dorm room where it all started. If you're unfamiliar with the story, here it is in a nutshell. And note, our episode today mostly focuses on Daniel's healing journey.

[00:04:10] And if you want to understand what happened within the cult, we highly recommend the doc on Hulu called Stolen Youth. And we think it was a very well-made documentary. This particular story, like we said, is more focused on Daniel. Next week we'll be interviewing Zach Heinzerling, the director.

[00:04:27] But if you haven't seen the doc yet... Here are the cliff notes. Yes. In 2009, Talia Ray showed Bessara Lawrence College North of Manhattan, New York and began telling her group of newly found college friends about how great her father was. As she explained it, her dad, Larry Ray,

[00:04:43] was waiting to get out of jail on false charges. And specifically there was stories about his work with Gorbachev, his work with the police force, with his work with all these high-level people in various fields. And by the time he showed up on college campus,

[00:05:02] he was being touted as this great man who was the victim of a conspiracy theory. And this is where a lot of people are like, wait, how is this grown man allowed to stay in the dorm room? And we're going to answer those questions.

[00:05:15] Well, he had been edified. Well, he'd been edified and I guess the university was not super involved with these sort of off-campus dorms, or Edmondshofer's off-campus or adjacent to campus. But it's kind of common. It's common, I guess.

[00:05:30] But we're going to get into that and trust me, we all wanted to know. In 2010, when Larry finally did get out of jail, he moved in with his daughter in student housing, initially playing the role of caretaker to Talia and her housemates. He would clean up for them.

[00:05:43] He'd cook them elaborate meals. He would give them advice. He was like this cool older dad who was going to help them. One night, he called a meeting and began a presentation on a philosophy. He'd stolen called, quote, quest for potential. Sound familiar?

[00:06:00] Essentially, he told his daughter's housemates that there was a better version of themselves deep down within them and that he could unblock whatever traumas or obstacles were lying in the way. Again, sound familiar? This manifested into Ray having an enormous amount of control over these kids,

[00:06:15] unleashing domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking eventually, and also financial abuse. This lasted an entire decade during which his victims reportedly surrendered a million in cash to Ray as well as sexual favors. Many were seriously beaten and physically harmed.

[00:06:30] Larry was sentenced to 60 years in prison for human trafficking as we reported a few weeks ago on January 20th. The Hulu Documentary Stolen Youth is a tough but important watch that covers the Sarah Lawrence-based cult. Daniel, our subject today, currently lives in Los Angeles and is a teacher,

[00:06:47] helping his students transform their most difficult memories into compelling writing. He holds an MFA in poetry from the University of California, Irvine. He has won several poetry awards and his writing has been featured in Bat City Review, the Sarah Lawrence Review, The Offbeat, and many, many other publications.

[00:07:03] On today's episode, Levin gets into toxic masculinity and how it intersects with how men treat themselves and their bodies. And as a writer, he also gets into the meaning of the word cult, especially how it intersects with domestic abuse and masculinity.

[00:07:18] Please note, major trigger warning, especially with the documentary. There's some very violent graphic images. We don't get too much into that here. Again, we recommend the doc, we recommend Daniel's book, and all of it covers domestic, sexual, financial abuse, and also coercive control. Without further ado, Daniel Levin.

[00:07:49] Daniel Levin, welcome to A Little Bit Cultie. And I don't want to love bomb you, but I also want you to know that I really deeply care for you and I loved your book. And I'm going to try really hard not to cry in this episode,

[00:08:01] but I guarantee you that's not going to happen. Love bombing is starting. The love bombing has started. And sometimes you can express love and it's not love bombing. Yeah. It's okay. I know. Love without control. We know this now. Love without bombing is always good, I think.

[00:08:17] What a weird term that I say it all out. Yeah. First of all, welcome officially to the show. Thank you so much for having me. It's just so great. I don't know if you remember this, but like a year ago when you first connected with Yanya Lalich,

[00:08:30] I think she tried to connect us, but like you weren't ready and then there was a trial. But then I started reading your book and everything. So you've been in like my mind, I think, since the story came public.

[00:08:39] So for me, I feel like I'm good to reunite with an old friend who doesn't know me. It's just sort of weird. It's so nice. Yeah. I'm so happy to be here. That's how I feel. The process of when this story first broke,

[00:08:50] I mean, I'm sure as you know, when the story broke and then writing the book and then making the documentary and then navigating the legal side with the trial and the FBI. And it's been a really crazy few years. So yeah, I'm so happy to be here now.

[00:09:06] We're on the other side of Larry having been sentenced a couple of weeks ago. So it's a, it's an auspicious time. You want to start with that, Sarah? We should have sent some champagne to start this off and then like let's first toast to Larry Ray

[00:09:20] being in prison for the rest of his life. It's going to turn into a little bit culty cocktail hour. Yeah. We should have a cocktail. That's a really good idea. We should have a cocktail hour. Make a great cocktail. Yes.

[00:09:30] Daniel, you're going to be on our first cocktail hour. Oh my God. It is 9 AM in LA. It's 5 PM somewhere. Anyway, listen, I know I messaged you last night because I couldn't wait because that was like on the last few pages of your book

[00:09:46] and just like tear streaming down my face. And if you don't know this and if you went to bed ahead of me like an hour and a half. I could feel it. Could you feel me like weeping? I was hoping to wake up and be like,

[00:09:55] are you okay? And then make I just finished Daniel's book and it was so good. I talked to you Anne while you were sleeping. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. I want you to know that we're really going to, obviously we encourage everybody to watch the documentary,

[00:10:08] which we think is wonderful. And I think your book is like, you know, a fabulous companion piece and the two together really give such a full scope. And we don't want to go through all the details in this podcast. It's A, unnecessary because it's all elsewhere

[00:10:25] and B, just like for you and your heart and your well-being. And I know how it feels when people are like, so tell me about the night of the branding. And I'm like, seriously, like Google it. We go in and out of seriousness and I also laughter.

[00:10:40] So you just let us know how you feel with all that. But first of all, how are you doing? Like how are you right now in all of this? You know, I'm doing well and I love the approach that you just described

[00:10:51] because one of the things that's really hard about navigating being a survivor of this kind of abuse but I suspect of any kind of abuse is like, you know, still being a full human being who experiences the full range of emotions not just like constantly suffering.

[00:11:07] So figuring out how to be like, yeah, one of the amazing things about being here now after Larry has been sentenced is like, I can get together with Santos and Felicia and Claudia Yali, like other survivors. And we laugh not just about life

[00:11:23] but at like the things that were so absurd about the experience that we had. Like of course, you know, all of this couched in this context of abuse, but it was like, you know, there's this like mid 50s, you know, deep New Jersey accent man

[00:11:37] lumbering around in his like tidy whiteies and like, yes, that's horrifying. But you can like take something out of the fear and pain by like laughing at this like clown. Look, I think that's the best, Elixir. That's the best.

[00:11:51] I'm so glad that you brought up the tidy whiteies because that was an image. Are we going to pick on people with tidy whiteies again? No, again, it's not the tidy whiteies. It's- I'm just a little defensive of the tidy whiteies. It's the whole, it's the,

[00:12:05] you don't even wear tidy whiteies. I don't know that. It's, yeah, it's a deal. I were married. I'm ready. It's not the tidy whiteies. It's the whole gestalt of the thing, you know, and the absurdity. And I, and I'm so happy to hear

[00:12:17] that you can go into the laughing stage. I think that's so healthy. And I know not everybody's there every now and then we get an email from someone being like, you're not taking this seriously enough. Yeah. I mean, it's a hard line to walk

[00:12:30] as someone speaking about this and it's hard to know how to navigate it as a survivor encountering media, you know, around cults, around coercive control. Because you want, I mean, what I want is to figure out how to kind of take this experience

[00:12:46] which made me feel so isolated and so separate from the rest of society. Like I, it was so hard for me to conceptualize what I was experiencing while I was experiencing it because I didn't feel like anyone talked about

[00:13:01] cults that had people who looked like me in them. You know, we, I'm sure you talked about this over and over but you know, it's not robes and it's not religious and at least in my experience and there's no Kool-Aid and all these things.

[00:13:14] And you know, not to mention that it's hard enough for anyone being a survivor of sexual assault in any way but being a man, you know, there weren't many models to look at so it's just was so hard to understand what was happening and then after I left

[00:13:32] it took me a long time to call it a cult at all. And so you sort of enter this world years later where still the discourse is really limited and it feels like others, cult survivors more than it sort of brings them in

[00:13:47] and so trying to figure out how to normalize the experience and I think that being sort of light about it is part of that being like this isn't, this doesn't have to be so scary to talk about but also figuring out how to take it seriously

[00:14:01] and respect the pain. I have about 83 hours of little bit culty episodes to send you that I think does that and it's like people write to us all the time survivors but then also people who were like I totally see cults differently now

[00:14:14] and see how this could have happened. Yeah, I think that's what's amazing. Well, I don't know if it's too early to address but there is a particular ecosystem I think that goes on amongst men who are sexually abused and then it is for women simply because

[00:14:29] there's not a lot of men that are inspired to come out and tell their stories. It hits on a different level for a man to be in that position I think and to do it and transcend that

[00:14:39] I think would pave the way for a lot of other people and put a language to it, minus the jokes obviously but I think that's one of the serious aspects of this and I love it. I love that that's one of the things

[00:14:49] that you wrote on your job form because I think it's a conversation to be had. Yeah, agreed. I think I grew up in kind of rural New Jersey. My parents are progressive but it was a really conservative area and just I think in our society in general

[00:15:06] your race masculinity is really limiting when there's kind of only one option it feels like and you're taught that you're not supposed to care what happens to your body and any sex is good sex. Anything is good. And then Larry comes along while I was at Sarah Lawrence

[00:15:27] which is a much more open-minded environment I was starting to explore and find out that there might be different avenues for me to live and express myself as like a person who looks the way I do again a man's body but with femininity and with fluidity

[00:15:47] and yeah as great as that exploration is it's also really scary and not having answers as you know it's really scary. You know we just living in a world without clear answers is so frustrating and so this guy shows up

[00:16:01] and is like I have simple answers for you you know you don't have to struggle with all of these worries and fears that I think most young men do which is like am I straight or am I gay? You know why do I have these feelings

[00:16:17] where I'm bouncing up against the limitations of what it means to be a man? You know as my body okay I'm not allowed to ask about that or talk about that. You know why are relationships so difficult? You know who do I talk to about these things

[00:16:32] and for someone to just come along and say you don't have to worry about that because I have all the answers is unbelievably appealing. In terms of how you got in your hook I really loved how and this was in the documentary and the book specifically

[00:16:46] the way you wrote out the conversation when I because I read your book before I watched the doc and I remember saying to Nippy you know people don't remember this I said oh my god listen like Nippy this conversation between Daniel and Larry Ray

[00:16:57] is like word for word us and Geethe Reneary. Do you remember it was like the coaching, transformation, potential, clarity, truth. Oh all the buzzwords. All the buzzwords and the hook of that and how you described how he helped you

[00:17:14] and you gave and you use the word later in your book you were basking in his warm in the light of his warmth or something like that. The words your metaphors are amazing by the way Daniels clearly a very accomplished writer.

[00:17:25] He puts two words things that I've always struggled to articulate in terms of like the inner process of somebody in this case getting hooked right like so when you get hooked then you have this moment and you realize you've been in the cafe

[00:17:39] for six hours you walk out and your friends all of your friends and roommates are sitting in a limousine waiting for you and you wrote something about how like there wasn't even an option like to not get in like of course you're getting in right. Right totally yeah.

[00:17:51] I love that how you express that hook. Yeah that's what I really wanted with the book is like I said I felt like part of what Larry did and what I think a lot of cult leaders do is create a situation where the circumstances are so absurd

[00:18:07] like it's not just that they're hurting you but the things they're doing are so crazy that it feels like you couldn't possibly begin to explain them. You know so it was all of it it was from the beginning

[00:18:19] the fact that I had gotten to this Starbucks around that you know in the morning and we sat down and talked and that because of the way he talked and you know try to talk about like that feeling of you know

[00:18:33] when you're waiting for a pause in the conversation so that you can say something and there's like a natural flow to conversation that we all kind of subtly learn over time but you're not really conscious of. Larry just part of his power was not hewing

[00:18:48] to any social etiquette at all. So I just waited for something to say and in that Starbucks I waited essentially for hours or it would only be able to talk when he sort of let me talk and then in a lot of ways it would felt like

[00:19:03] I was waiting for a moment to say hey I think I need to go for like years and that moment almost never came until finally I just realized you have to in a sort of larger metaphorical sense like be willing to interrupt as uncomfortable as that feels.

[00:19:19] So yeah I you know all that time passed in the Starbucks there's that weird time dilation of not really understanding how you've been talking to someone for that long you're disoriented already you've been love bombed a lot of this was him telling me how special I was

[00:19:34] how he could see that I had these qualities that you know and it and it felt like he was sort of ringing the that bell inside of me of like these are things that I've always wanted someone to say you know plus getting to open up

[00:19:47] about all these things I was insecure about and had never ever talked about and then we walk out of the Starbucks when he said we were done and around the corner and it was at that moment

[00:20:00] that he said you know part of why I'm sort of a little all over the place but part of why I agreed to have that conversation in the first place was my friends at school had been encouraging me to talk to him

[00:20:13] because they had been helping them yeah exactly and I was going through a breakup which you know makes you vulnerable and it was a long drawn out breakup and it wasn't clear to me what I should do and and then on top of that

[00:20:28] it was the summer in the middle of college at St. Lawrence's right outside New York City everyone seemed to live in the city and I didn't understand how they could afford it and you know what I didn't what I didn't get is that everyone has

[00:20:42] parents who are it's supplementing income which I didn't I didn't so all these things together they were like talk to Larry he'll help you because you seem like you're struggling he'll help you figure out the situation with your relationship and maybe

[00:20:55] you know you can crash on his couch or something or he'll you know he's very generous it's just like fine what harm can a coffee do you know and then however like conservatively six hours later

[00:21:07] I'm walking around the corner with him he at that point is like also you just end your relationship just you know don't answer phone calls don't answer texts so you can be done and there was a stretch limousine waiting on

[00:21:20] the corner and the door opened and all of my friends were inside and they had been waiting that whole six hours and of course yeah what was I gonna do not not get in

[00:21:31] and that's what's the whole thing like it would be weird for me to not do what he said yeah the love bombing and the glam making it kind of clever glamorous also he loved with steak

[00:21:41] which would totally be my weak spot right somebody came over and cooked me steak on the regular steak and wine what do I got to do next yeah he was a good cook yeah so many great details here in terms of your

[00:21:54] your slow foray into being more and more enthralled which I think was a word that your dad used in the documentary that you were under his thrall knowing what you know now with all your cult research and education what were some of the

[00:22:08] red flags that you couldn't see because you didn't know what you were looking at from the beginning he was pretty early on creating the sense that we as a group were kind of exalted or special

[00:22:22] that we were had some kind of he didn't say what it was initially but if we worked together and followed his program we'd be able to sort of achieve great things and essentially like save the world so

[00:22:33] that and I think as a college student but also as anyone at any age you want to be doing something important right plus you know early I was watching him first with my friends kind of separate them from their

[00:22:48] families from their support network he was convincing folks that their parents had abused them as children and and for me you know I watched my friend you know I'd never seen anything like this before but they were having conversations in front of me and over time

[00:23:05] you know I'd see Isabella say that her parents had in fact abused her and she hadn't remembered this and this is at the end of hours and hours and hours of conversation and when you're just watching that and you have no exposure to this kind of thing

[00:23:20] why would you question that what your friend is saying is it true you know it it seemed true and so all of these sort of these early things I mean not to mention just that there was a man in his 50s

[00:23:33] living in a college dorm if you want to go there but yeah yeah definitely red flag one of the things that stuck out to me and it's hard for us not to make comparisons between Larry Ray and Keith Reneary but I don't know if

[00:23:45] you know this but Keith also had nicknames for people and when he named you Danil without the I I thought that was a pretty interesting metaphor and I wondered what what you've come to terms with in regards to that since leaving yeah it's amazing that

[00:24:01] the various subtle ways that one person can control another person you know we we think about the really extreme ones but a nickname is power getting to decide what you call someone yeah he would call me Danil which is weird and it's not something anyone

[00:24:19] else has ever called me or would call me well it's not affectionate no it was sort of pejorative normally nicknames have kind of an affectionate kind of a relationship to your personality and oftentimes a nod to how they like you yeah Danil doesn't have that ring

[00:24:35] right yeah it was kind of everything you know that in a lot of ways signified our dynamic which is that you know it was a means of control it felt to me like it somehow simultaneously had this soft edge of being like I care for you I

[00:24:52] guess because he was giving me you know at a certain point just to have any kind of attention felt good because of this kind of addiction to a person but also it always sounded like he was calling

[00:25:04] me like you idiot you know so all of it wrapped up together makes you very confused and really just this desire to just be good or to look good in his eyes or to somehow just fix the situation you know that was the power he had interesting

[00:25:24] 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 this is Sarah and I'm proud to be a founding collaborator of the hashtag I got out

[00:25:40] movement learn more at I got out.org this episode is sponsored by better help 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

[00:26:03] 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 of nature hashtag cold pools hashtag crushing it nature is a non-negotiable not enough

[00:26:15] 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 and I know I'm just going to feel so much better

[00:26:25] 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

[00:26:34] 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 and if you're thinking of starting therapy

[00:26:43] 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

[00:26:57] 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 never skip therapy day with better help visit betterhelp.com slash culti today to get 10% off your first month

[00:27:10] that's better help h-e-l-p dot com slash culti 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

[00:27:29] you can purchase an icon in store or online or watch 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

[00:27:43] at macy's i want to ask on the heels of zack the question asked him one of the things that i found out in interviewing zack is that you went to him with the idea of covering this and with the sentiment of wanting to

[00:27:59] own your own story and recognizing the importance of that and then being sensitive to everyone else's and not telling theirs which i related to with you know how i wanted to tell my story i didn't want anyone

[00:28:09] else to tell it and i didn't want that thing so but he ended up growing into what became the documentary can you tell me about that process why it was important to you and why it was so vital that you do it in

[00:28:20] that way totally yeah thanks for asking that you know what larry did was make me and my friends question or memory of what had actually happened not just before we met him in our past but also

[00:28:34] while we were there it was so hard to hold on to anything and and he took away our control you know from you know as big as our whole lives and our futures and as small as like getting to

[00:28:46] decide when you go to the bathroom and and he in a lot of ways kind of took our the stories that everyone tells themselves about who they are and what their lives are and he rewrote them and made us tell them

[00:29:02] his way and so you know when i got out and i lived with this as a secret for many years and that's its own story what that does to you and then i got contacted by at the time of freelance reporter he had been a sarah lorenz student

[00:29:20] and he had heard a story that my friend who had also gone to sarah lorenz had been poisoning people and this was because larry published a website with her name you know with all these false confessions that

[00:29:32] he had extracted from her all the stuff saying that she was poisoning people and so this was the first time in after six years of being out that i learned that it was still happening you know i just hoped when i left that

[00:29:44] it would fall apart you know that didn't seem sustainable and i dreamed of going back and saving my friends and knew that that was impossible to do safely for anyone and so you know when this reporter said i heard your friend has been poisoning people it felt like

[00:30:00] it was an imperative just starting then to set the record straight to protect everyone you know because i couldn't let larry's narrative about her life be what was the record you know so i said i have to tell you a lot of things you know

[00:30:18] and so i i let them use my name for this story that ended up going into new york magazine because i wanted it to be credible and it became this kind of battle of credibility because larry was still out there

[00:30:34] there was no investigation happening my friends were still with him and i you know i still had the sound of the camera shutter when he took a photo of me while he was you know had put me in a dress and was

[00:30:46] making me like swallow a dildo in my brain right so these things were terrifying but it felt like it's easy to make the decision to kind of take that risk when it means like trying to protect a bunch of people you care about and then after that story

[00:31:03] came out there was immense media interest and it became really clear it was made very clear to me that other people were more than willing to tell the story without any survivor involvement at all or with superficial involvement and still i was

[00:31:19] essentially the only one out and i felt like to make it possible for my friends to leave without having to make that decision leaving into a world that didn't understand them that saw them as like

[00:31:32] participants in the kind of horror movie you know i had to make sure that the story was told accurately and compassionately and it basically took on writing a book in like nine months and getting it published and doing the whole thing just to try to reclaim

[00:31:49] the right to what had happened and then brought a couple of chapters of that to zack and we sat down and talked about it and he shared my ethos about you know wanting to do this in a way that was careful and that protected

[00:32:05] the the victims and and he wanted to expand the amount of empathy that viewers might feel for people like us and that's all that i wanted and he didn't want to make something that was like classic true crime scary music and titillating

[00:32:24] whatever so and he did that he did that yeah he did i mean in the process of making this documentary this investigation started larry got arrested my friend started coming out after the conviction i was able to speak with them for the first time

[00:32:41] in like a decade what was that like it's so hard to evoke what it's like i mean as i think you know like you grieve people that you think you're never going to be able to talk to again and there's all these points

[00:32:55] and then experience like this where you know you think you're supposed to feel a certain way and when you don't it's confusing you know the when my friends came back i felt fear because i had learned to fear them you know we learned to fear each other

[00:33:11] because we were all played off of one another in this abusive environment but mostly it was just disorienting because it felt like talking to ghosts you know it was like you you died you know and here you are over time getting to this place where like the

[00:33:28] moment when they watched the documentary for the first time which i had been making so many choices that felt like life or death about making the documentary and how it was made and what zack

[00:33:40] should and shouldn't do and when they watched it and felt good about it like i cannot tell you how that felt and then when larry was sentenced and watching them watching santos and felicia and yollie like hug and cry and be safe finally

[00:33:56] after years of just trying to get here i had a question that i don't think was answered anywhere like when you went to england i was like oh for sure that that separation will be enough

[00:34:07] and he'll snap out of it but it wasn't and i'm wondering now that you're now that you're out like what do you think was the force that was was it just the strength of larry or you just weren't wasn't bad enough yet or what

[00:34:18] do you think it was that kept you in even though you had this a year away from him yeah there's something really valuable and people seeing that even when i left this apartment this like insulated abusive environment and traveled across the ocean and was in

[00:34:35] england at school that still i was in it you know and i think that it was a combination of things it was fear right i mean that's what like thought control is it felt like

[00:34:49] he would know if i thought bad things about him or wanted to leave i knew that eventually i was going to have to come back you know it's going to have to come back to school and to the us and i was going to

[00:35:02] have to see everyone and i didn't know how to avoid encountering them and and i was going to have to reckon with that i think that a lot of the most extreme physical abuse for me started after i got back so it it was bad but

[00:35:18] not so bad that like if the survival instinct had kicked all the way in and and it's isolating to study abroad i made friends but in a lot of ways felt alone and and then having had this experience was even more isolating you know i didn't tell anyone

[00:35:35] at all what my life had been like you know right before i got on the plane wow well you're waking up and escaping was it was very profound and one little detail that's not in the documentary

[00:35:46] that's in your book is that on the way out you grabbed a bedside table that somebody was getting rid of in the foyer what does that bedside table represent and do you still have it yeah so yeah still got that table

[00:35:57] they don't always have that table yeah there is this bedside table that someone was getting rid of in the lobby of the building where i had lived with larry and everyone else and and they were getting rid of it i guess

[00:36:10] i hope they were getting rid of it i hope so too otherwise you're a thief no no i think they were getting rid of it yeah and so i grabbed this table and carried it with me all the way to the subway and on the train you know

[00:36:23] up to school and that table has stayed with me everywhere i've lived since all the way across the country now to los angeles good it represents that moment of me choosing me you know of me like believing something inside of myself

[00:36:40] just for an instant say like i don't care you know what's true or what's false if this guy is a good guy or a bad guy i don't know and for the first time i'm okay with not knowing

[00:36:53] i just want to feel okay for like one second you know and i know that i feel that way if i'm away and also like i get to have something that's mine you know and from that table

[00:37:04] the rest of my life has expanded i love it i love the meaningfulness of that table i also love once you bet on yourself and this is something i think sarin i've experienced once you bet on yourself the world does open up and the people show up

[00:37:19] yeah i don't know if you've experienced that it's true and the good ones right it's been a real blessing to just go make that pivot and then through no real conscience thing you don't have the shackles on you anymore

[00:37:30] it's your light that's out there now and as a result of that the support will come yeah and look at what you've done i mean from that moment how many years is that so it's been about a decade since then maybe almost 11 years now

[00:37:46] yeah and i mean the biggest accomplishment of my life in a lot of ways it's it's hard because they was helping to create the circumstances that made it more possible for my friends to make themselves safe and to be able to do that for themselves

[00:38:00] i think that's an amazing accomplishment thank you yeah yeah i feel pretty good about it yeah and that thing that you're developing you know when you're 18 and 19 but that honestly you're like working on your whole life is the that compass where

[00:38:14] you know you trust yourself and you decide which way you want to point yourself and what you care about and it's that larry and abusers like this try to take the place of that compass right he was everything ran through him every decision every thought so getting to

[00:38:32] like be back in charge and to listen to myself and writing the book and talking to you now is really every time for me it's about stating that what i saw what i remember is true you know my witness account

[00:38:49] matters you know it's it matters and i believe myself so important and profound and it really is the antidote to everything it's funny that you said that about the compass because i'd always said that he dismantled

[00:39:03] our compass which i think is true but i hadn't had that piece about like replaced it and became the compass and i i think that that's such a huge part of the healing journey is to to rebuild it

[00:39:14] and you know telling the story and especially for you like so many times during your book i was like wow i don't know how you feel about the word bravery but it's like it's it's a mixed feeling for me but

[00:39:24] there is certainly i will say for you that there is so much bravery in saying these what would be perceived as shameful you know experiences like most people don't talk about it because of the shame yeah yeah and you know shame is the darkness

[00:39:40] in which people like this are able to operate and a big part of my healing has just been like embracing every part of myself including like i'm fine with word bravery because i love compliments and validation because

[00:39:54] i'm insecure like everyone you know like you're a human person and i think being messy yeah like part of what made me vulnerable to this was i like one i wanted so badly to be good and not have

[00:40:06] anything wrong with me and it's just like we have to be okay with being kind of sloppy or not perfect and like and not knowing the answers and like it's just all you know part of the joy of living can you listen

[00:40:21] to bill withers to this day or no yeah one of the many like oddly self-aware things that larry said to me when it was clear that i was going to like leave but i don't know if he knew

[00:40:35] that i was gonna leave forever you know it was i had gotten housing on campus it was like i was sort of graduating uh in a way he said how are you gonna listen to any of these songs again

[00:40:46] you know he had made this playlist that he played every morning the same order and lovely day by bill withers was on it and what a horrible thing to wake up to every morning in an abusive cult

[00:40:59] horrible irony that's what i was telling sarah i was like that song to me would drive me up the wall that's when i knew larry rey was bad so you know that's how you can tell that bill withers shit doesn't fly

[00:41:14] but can you can you listen to any of that music or no yeah you know like it's totally i it's like i had a friend who's just reading my book and we were out somewhere and that song came on and he turned to me it was like

[00:41:24] oh that song's in your book it was like yeah i know it's yeah it sure is and it's fine it's fine you know i think the reality in like yeah and sort of individuating and identity forming since then like i love

[00:41:39] my music tastes i love music and it feels good to be like yeah you know those songs are fine but they're not really like for me i just think like larry's music tastes was kind of like boring and not that great

[00:41:51] just kind of like a very new jersey classic rock radio these total sets hey there listener hope you're enjoying this episode and that you're remembering to hydrate stretch and unclench your jaws sometimes listening to conversations about heavy topics can really make you tighten up

[00:42:11] you know and remember a little bit culty loves you also come hang out with us on patreon after you finish this episode it's fun over there fun is good and now here's a brief message from our sponsors this episode is sponsored by

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[00:44:16] communities at macy's on that note also is there anything and this is like also part of me and it be journey trying to figure out like what was good what was bad obviously larry stole from a lot of different places is there anything that you're able to distill

[00:44:33] and still apply in your life or did you just check it all out and kind of start fresh yeah i went to um there was a dan shaw's support group for survivors of cults and family members oh good i'm so glad you

[00:44:45] found that that was like right after i started thinking of it as a cult and one of the really useful things that i heard there that felt like seeing myself with someone said you know part of what's so confusing about

[00:44:57] an experience like this is that there are elements of it that even afterwards feel like they were good or useful and you want to just say it was all bad so you can like get rid of it but how do you

[00:45:08] deal with these things and they were saying you can kind of choose what you take with you and i think that's sort of true my feeling is it's important to recognize that you you wouldn't get pulled into it in the

[00:45:19] first place if there was nothing good or appealing about it right it's not like whole cloth bad it's been funny to look back on it and be like what like larry taught me how to make good pasta sauce like is that

[00:45:31] worth it you know like and was even right about like i could just like google a recipe you know yeah i think and a lot of the things that for a long time i thought were helping me or were good

[00:45:45] we're in fact part of what made me keep it a secret or not process it like he was all about stoicism you know marcus really it's like you don't feel your feelings and what happened is like you know you decide

[00:45:58] if it's good or bad but it's just sort of a fact and so it was all these things are that i thought were good at first i think really turned out to kind of all be pretty bad in a lot of the ways that i

[00:46:10] thought i developed because of him i think i really developed in spite of him yes i do think it's ironic that or poetic justice or something that the one one of the things he did teach you the first piece of advice he gave you

[00:46:24] about your ex-girlfriend was that you could just walk away and that was the piece of advice that you took to to make your exit so yeah i'm so glad you noticed that i did notice that yeah yeah i definitely thought about that afterwards that

[00:46:38] i used larry's first piece of advice to leave him you know yeah and that was i really thought about it was like he said that i could not answer phone calls and texts and that you're allowed to do that and you don't have to feel like you're a

[00:46:52] bad person you know and so i was breaking up with him yeah you know we broke up yeah he was a bad boyfriend very bad he was a bad yeah i'm so glad you dumped him on his

[00:47:02] white tiny whitey ass me too go ahead and be sorry i should just wrap that up mine was more of his tactics did he get you to disassociate from your body your feelings and stuff like that and get you to live more intellectually

[00:47:14] yeah i haven't gotten to talk about this very much and i maybe because i don't know quite how to articulate it so larry was all about the mind and about logic one of the things he would point out is when you start a sentence with

[00:47:28] i think you know like i think that this is blah blah or i feel like you know and anytime that you would say like i feel well and and you start to notice this when someone points out this kind of

[00:47:40] thing and then you're like analyzing everything you say but you would say that you know the language you're using reveals that you're coming from an emotional place rather than like just a intellectual place and therefore it's unreliable and this focus on like the

[00:47:53] intellect and intellectualism seems to me like a very toxic classic masculine thing like a masculinity thing like feelings are in no way legitimized and so a big part of me leaving was trying to be like you know what maybe i don't need to just deny

[00:48:12] these feelings i don't have to have language for them or have answers to like where they're coming from what they mean but i feel this way and i'm just going to lean into that feeling over having to like

[00:48:24] work out the maze of larry's logic and what's true and what's false because you know once you start with a false premise you can build this like house of cards and yeah it's really hard to get away from it

[00:48:37] one of the things that we've been noticing consistently amongst these people is they the overemphasis on the intellect and the logical framework as a basis for making decisions as opposed to how you think and feel about things is dangerous and that's

[00:48:52] it's an easier domain for people to be controlled because you're using using words and you're influencing them there sarah and i were talking about at a dinner last week how it's consistently going on even in schooling and stuff like that

[00:49:03] like the intellect and that stuff is you know that's our standard ours testing as opposed to thinking and feeling more and i'm not going to get into my theories of it separate podcast that's a separate podcast off

[00:49:15] getting cut off from your feelings and that's where you deal that's where you feel your morality that's your humanity in your humanity yes yeah that's where you experience it and your thoughts and your feelings that is your humanity i agree you know it's really hard for me to

[00:49:29] account for you know why i left earlier than everyone else and i think that a big part of that is i grew up in a family that was like that you know my dad

[00:49:41] this is a good guy and they mean well and but there was no talking about feelings in a way that is very you know typical i think and so i started writing poetry you know from a really young age and for me poetry

[00:49:54] was this way to feel my feelings you know to to talk about my feelings kind of with myself and while i was in the cult and everything was going on around me i still was writing poems even as larry was trying to sort of choke off

[00:50:10] that feeling part of me i think that being able to write the whole time was this kind of lifeline to that part of my brain that he was trying to completely remove and you know and

[00:50:23] and so for me there's also a kind of poetic irony and like the way that i took him down was through writing right well i would say also through love and light that stuff lives there and your love and light lives in your

[00:50:36] body and that's where you come from and if he's trying to cut you off from that and he may have made you stronger i actually had it as my last point i'll say it now could you just brought it up

[00:50:46] yeah the poetic justice slash irony of you maintaining yourself and being able to express yourself with feelings with words with metaphors with meaning and to be successful at it to be successful and then also from there go to you know to to participate in the

[00:51:04] documentary all of it but specifically for me as a as another survivor it's like a big fuck you big fuck you i'm gonna get out i'm gonna be successful and i'm gonna share my story and prevent other people from falling into the grips of

[00:51:17] douchebags like you mr larry ray if that's your real name anyway no it's not you fucking conman excuse me i can say this for you i just think that's great and i encourage all our listeners to buy

[00:51:28] the book and support the book because that is the biggest thing we can do to support you you know as as you continue on your journey to know that you have all these listeners who want to support you and see

[00:51:38] you thrive because somebody took time out of their life to try to thwart that so we get to do the opposite thank you that's really nice yeah i mean i think that what's been really remarkable to me about the two of you about everyone that i've met through

[00:51:54] the recovery community is that a big part of the healing process for a lot of people doesn't have to be but for a lot of people it seems to be helping other people it's pretty hard for me to

[00:52:05] think about you know what helps me but it feels really easy to direct that care towards other people who need it and to think about you know the families that i talked to who have kids who are either inside of a similar abusive situation

[00:52:20] or trying to figure out how to process the after word or you know all of the people out there who have had similar experiences and maybe are either in it or in that period of time that i

[00:52:32] was in for so long where i didn't know what to call it and i didn't know if there was anyone else who would see me and you know i see you well we'll take care of each other how about that yeah

[00:52:45] let's do that speaking of being in that space where you didn't know what to call it one of the things that the metaphors that stuck out for me towards the end of the book where you learned about calls

[00:52:54] and i'm going to butcher your exact words but it was something about that your brain had been separated into and then understanding the word cult was a bridge to bring your brain back together and i just thought that was such a profound chunk we talked about this

[00:53:09] last time over instagram do you feel comfortable reading that last little bit you have it this is what happened was i had been emailing with someone at the time i kind of couldn't remember how i had

[00:53:19] come across this or what had happened and it drove me crazy while i was writing the book that of all things i like couldn't find what was this list or who i and i think whoever it was that i've been

[00:53:30] emailing with sent me or pointed me to robert liftins list of criteria i'm pretty sure that's what it was the 16 characteristics yeah i think so that's in yann yall alch's book yeah there's a lot of places yeah

[00:53:42] yeah i've cut and pasted and set that to a lot of people they really appreciated that it's pretty amazing it's really useful i tried to recreate it from memory okay i have the it's this one paragraph that i think you're referring

[00:53:53] to yeah please read it i had been in a cult not just living in an apartment with my friend's dad not some weird relationship with isabella not just hanging out with my friends everything going constantly awry and us never able to

[00:54:08] catch up to fix it all not broken suicidal needing to be saved i was shaky and raw stranded on top of the blanketless bed i felt like i just returned for many years living on a planet with different gravity

[00:54:25] like my bones were thinned out entirely it wasn't a surprise exactly but it wasn't quite like i had known it all along either it was like the two sides of my brain had been separated and the word was a bridge that put them back together

[00:54:44] my dad had said it so early on i remembered now but the saying had been made impossible unallowable it was as if i'd been experiencing a unique kind of pain but i'd forgotten what pain was so i didn't know how to tell anyone what was

[00:55:01] wrong here it was other people have been through this had felt it knew what it was called it's not so good nipi wow that's pretty amazing the part about the bones too and the gravity it's like for those listeners

[00:55:15] who have been through similar things it's just such a knowing and for those who haven't that's what it feels like when you figure out you're in a cult it's a death scare i call those death scares viscerally it's a death scare it's like hitting turbulence except

[00:55:29] you're in turbulence like and it stays you know that that shape you feel but then it stays yeah it's there at like two in the morning when you wake up it's just there until it's not and then you kind of go okay

[00:55:39] did you have any ptsd after yeah yeah i did yeah i would imagine like when i first tried to talk to a therapist about it i thought i'll just tell the whole thing you know and then we can just kind of move forward

[00:55:52] and i yeah that was the beginning of knowing i couldn't it was so hard to talk about my throat closed up my whole body was shaking i was like sweating and watching this person you know her jaw slowly getting closer to the floor

[00:56:05] and it's been a long process through really great therapists and it's multiple therapists and and having like reconnecting with all the people in my life and kind of putting things back together and i think the part like helping my friends has had a significant effect on my

[00:56:22] ability to feel stable but getting to a place where i can talk about it like this and i'm i'm not but like about to throw up it's really cool yeah i did hear an interview with you early on that i

[00:56:34] noted that you didn't sound ready to yeah not that it was bad interview but that you were still in trauma yeah and you know and no judgment we did tons of interviews and in deep trauma so it's like which i don't

[00:56:47] recommend i don't recommend no they don't age well yeah yeah i mean i it's lucky like with the documentary i had zack picking and choosing because i think i sat in that chair in front of the camera for

[00:57:02] probably dozens and dozens of hours you know and what's actually in the documentary isn't all that much and kind of like thank god i keep meaning to ask like how was it for you to watch the doc now

[00:57:13] was it cathartic hard yeah or all of it you know so many people experience abuse and all they have to go on is that feeling that i was talking about of like i believe myself which is empowering but really hard and then

[00:57:28] i got to have first some journalists and then the fbi and then this documentarian doing all the work of corroborating my story you know that there's this fbi agent went through every line of my book and tied it to a piece of like video evidence or something that's

[00:57:49] another survivor had said so getting that is an unbelievable privilege to go from being alone and in isolation and just hoping someone would believe me to being told again and again this is true you know look

[00:58:03] and then to watch the documentary it's hard definitely to see that footage of you know there's footage that larry took in the documentary of of the abuse happening and one of the most disorienting things is that his whole abusive program was predicated on

[00:58:22] memory not being reliable and then i watch video of me you know being hit with a hammer and i have zero zero memory of that happen you know and i sat in a room full of lawyers and fbi agents and they showed me this

[00:58:40] and i had to in front of those people yeah i don't you know that is me yes so that's a strange thing to go through wow i bet i had more questions i'm gonna go

[00:58:51] rapid fire okay okay yeah is it okay yeah and just pay pass if you don't want to talk about it so have you had a chance to kumbaya or connect reconnect with raven and max so do you feel comfortable saying yeah totally

[00:59:02] yeah i've gotten to reconnect with like everyone that i lived with and with everyone i lived with that's great raven and i talk often her she's incredible and i think that comes through in the documentary we're trying to work on a children's book together

[00:59:18] oh that's awesome did talia and isabella wake up or is anyone still in isabella just submitted court documents like last week saying that she sees herself as another victim of larry which is a big change that's a big shift my audience for all of this was always

[00:59:36] like the people who are still in and i hope that seeing the documentary might do something and and so yeah the process of getting out has been really paired with making these things and i hope that isabella is on her way

[00:59:48] as far as talia i can't really say you know she's been larry's victim so she was born so i i don't know where she's at did you see her at the trial because you testified right i did all the trial prepping was

[00:59:59] lined up to testify and then larry had a bunch of supposed seizures and they caught 10 witnesses at the end of the trial so i didn't get to testify but i did get to give a victim impact statement

[01:00:11] and get to speak while larry sat silently which i did not get to do for a long time yeah that's great can we end on that moment yeah can we end this and just keep telling us about that yeah i mean i got to

[01:00:24] as i said like the way that i express myself is in writing and i got to write down everything that i felt in my truth you know and i got to walk up there in the room with this human

[01:00:36] being this man who i hadn't been in the room with for a decade and to stand there and say my piece you know while he had to listen which i didn't get to do the whole time i knew him

[01:00:51] and that was an incredibly powerful moment i'm so proud of you obviously we'll get everyone to read the book and watch the doc and i'm going to send you a song by somebody from the hashtag i got out movement and it's called it's your turn to listen

[01:01:07] and after this episode is what you just listen to it and oh i have a feeling you'll have a big cry like i did the first time i listened to it and i hope it helps you in your in your healing journey and

[01:01:18] just stunned by your your willingness to put yourself out there truly thank you i appreciate it it's a gift thank you daniel thank you both of you for everything you do so much i love dan's book and i love the doc too i think they're great companion

[01:01:48] highly recommend both the thing i like most about he has the hindsight of having some years away to think and approach the subject in a very sensitive way in ways that we couldn't is that he was extremely sensitive i think to telling his story and then

[01:02:04] allowing space for everyone else in there to tell their story ours was we have to get out and burn it down and it was a lot of self-preservation and we didn't know we were looking at

[01:02:14] it we didn't know what happened he's had time to reflect on that and and approach it where he could be sensitive to those things in a way that we just didn't we couldn't at that time we were being thrown into litigation so

[01:02:24] there's two different ways these things go oftentimes right like you're covering people in real time they don't know what they're looking at it's going to be messy no matter what right and you might not approve of how

[01:02:32] they do it right and what are we supposed to do check in with the cult leaving gods about how we're supposed to leave it or you know and we were dragged into the fight or it's you leave you go back you

[01:02:42] reconcile your delusion on your own and then you can re-enter the conversation sensitive to everyone's perspective as much as you can right without being clumsy about it it's a gift it's a gift to have all these different documentaries that tackle this very sensitive subject in all sorts of

[01:02:56] different ways giving victims and survivors all sorts of templates and playbooks depending on what their personal needs are both legally emotionally financially and depending on the nature of the group or in this case the man Larry Ray whose real name is

[01:03:12] Lawrence Greco by the way could it was to Daniel and how he's handled it and how he's emerged and how he's turned it into a positive yes he actually brought this story to Zach the director we interview next week and I love their camaraderie and their friendship

[01:03:25] and how Zach created a safe place through that trust for not only Dan to tell his story but the other victims of Larry Ray so stay tuned for next week make sure to follow us in all the places blah

[01:03:37] blah blah you know the drill in the interim if you have questions for Daniel and you're on patreon or want to join us over on patreon we will be doing a live stream this coming wednesday on zoom so we'll be able to see each other

[01:03:49] ask questions and process the emotional overload that is dealing with this whole topic so we thank Daniel in advance for that please do join us there again that's 8 30 p.m eastern on zoom and the link will be on patreon for the flying monkeys and the inner circle

[01:04:08] yes that is tongue-in-cheek I hope that you all know that again thank you for joining us see you there look forward to it thanks for watching bye for now hope you like this episode let's keep the conversation going and come hang out

[01:04:38] 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 vow and if you're looking for our show notes or some

[01:04:49] sweet sweet swag or official albc podcast merch or a list of our most recommended cult recovery resources visit our website at a little bit culty dot com and for more background on what brought us here check out

[01:05:01] Sarah's page turning memoir it's called scar true story of how I escape maximum the cult that found my life it's available on amazon audible narrated by my life and at most bookstores a little bit culty is a talkhouse podcast and a trace 120 production we're executive

[01:05:17] produced by sarah edmondson and anthony nippy aims with writing research and additional production support by senior producer jess tardy we're edited mixed and mastered by our rocking producer will rutherford of citizens of sound and our amazing theme song cultivated is

[01:05:31] by john bryant and co-written by nigel assilin thank you for listening