Summer Bonus: Sarah & Nippy on Cults to Consciousness with Shelise Ann Sola (Part 2)

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[00:02:04] This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical, or mental health advice. The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business, individual, anyone, or anything. I'm Sarah Edmondson.

[00:02:33] And I'm Anthony Nippy Ames. And this is A Little Bit Culty. We woke up from a cult. And that journey was captured in The Vow on HBO and in my memoir, Scarred. Now in this podcast, we break down the shame and secrets that make these experiences so destructive with honest conversations on how seemingly benign groups can cross into the cultiverse and how to spot and recover from trouble if it happens to you. Each week, we bring in experts, survivors, and whistleblowers to explore red flags, resilience, and even share a few laughs because sometimes you gotta laugh.

[00:03:01] Subscribe to our Patreon for early and ad-free listening, some live Q&A and exclusive content at patreon.com slash a littlebitkulti. Welcome to Season 8 of A Little Bit Kulti.

[00:03:26] And that's something that is important to bring up because a lot of people do like to impart the black and white thinking, which is ironic because that's usually what the cults do. Yeah. But on the outside, people like to be like, people in cults are dumb, people outside cults are smart. You know, everything is pretty clear cut, which is why we do what we do to show that there is severe nuance when it comes to all of those things. And she is the perfect example of that.

[00:03:51] And so many times, women especially become the victims and then become the perpetrators. We see it over and over and over again. And they are primarily used to be the ones to recruit because if another woman is recruiting you, you're more likely to have your guard down and trust her and CFLDS again, right? That's how Warren Jeffs would get his underage wives and he would get the older ones to groom them into being ready for it.

[00:04:19] Well, see Joseph Smith, the originator of Mormonism. So it's such a common thing. And I would like you, Sarah, to speak on both your experiences as a recruiter and being recruited into DAWs if you are willing to do that. Sure. So with NXIVM, I think that the reason why I was such a good recruiter, and I don't say that like proudly, like I was such a good recruiter, but I was successful in... Your talents were manipulated. My talents were manipulated. I mean, one is that I'm very social. I have a lot of friends.

[00:04:49] I have always been very passionate about whatever it is that I'm into and share it loudly. That's just like kind of my personality, you know, whether it's a movie or a green juice yoga, a new song on Spotify, like I just love to share. And this was something where I did that naturally. And then I was told that I could, you know, earn money from it and put that towards future training because I was like really broke when I started on that journey.

[00:05:15] And so when I saw that I could earn money and have a career and also at a time when I was acting, so like acting was, as you know, not a reliable source of income. Yeah. And I found great... I mean, at the beginning, it was also very weird, like recruiting your friends and things like that. And I got EM'd, which is the process of, you know, working through your limitations around it to the point where I enjoyed it. And I love sharing with people and I love building team humanity.

[00:05:44] That's what they call recruitment. Enrollment was synonymous with building humanity. So I felt like I was building my team. I was telling my friends. I was bringing people in that I wanted to work with and helping them do the same. And that was part of the straight path. You couldn't grow unless you were doing that and helping other people do that. That's the nature of the MLM, which, of course, we were told it's not an MLM. But now, of course, we look back and see that it was 100% an MLM. So I could go...

[00:06:11] I could do a whole episode on my recruitment strategies and how I did it and what my techniques were. But the long and short of it is that I just walked the walk. I was happy. I didn't do hard sales with people. I just said, this is what I'm doing. If you want to know more, you know, either I'd refer people to Mark at the beginning. And he did the pitch. And then I got better at the pitch. And then I did the pitch. And then I trained other people to do the pitch. Like, I was there for 12 years. It changed a lot. But I was very clear on what it was and how it could help people.

[00:06:37] And that was my general strategy was meeting someone, getting to know them, build rapport, find out what it is that they wanted, show them how the tools could help them or not, and then figure out if it was worth it for them and then help them commit to it. And that was easy for me. Yeah. And I'll just say that you were, as you put it in your book, a busy bee, a very busy bee. I was a very busy bee. I also liked how you talked about, and it's because it puts humanity to this where people

[00:07:05] are like, oh my gosh, I can't believe she was a recruiter. It's not like you were doing it with the intentions of harming somebody. Of course not. And that's why you were a whistleblower and you're like, I need to right it wrong. And that's why you do your podcast now is to be like, sorry, guys. I didn't know what I was promoting. And I think that's the case for so many people. But I liked how you were talking about, well, when I would go to speaking events, I would go right to the speaker instead of the crowd because I wanted to get the best of the best because we're saving humanity.

[00:07:33] And so it really humanizes the whole process. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, when I think about the people who were in NXIVM that were close to Keith and knew who he really was, as in part of his harem and knew what his sexual appetite was, none of them were good recruiters. Interesting. And I think that they either knew or couldn't lie well enough. You know what I mean? I was out there being like, he's not a good recruit. Well, they lied to us. They were pretty good liars. Well, they did.

[00:08:03] They kept the truth from us. But I'm saying none of those people were excellent recruiters. The people that were out there bringing people in, like myself, didn't know what was going on. Yeah. And some people might look at the vow and be like, how could you not know? Like, it's so obvious. And it's very obvious now. But yeah, we underestimated the capacity of those people to lie. But in answer to your question about DOS, and I can't go through all the steps of how I got recruited to DOS because it's like another hour.

[00:08:31] If anyone wants to know how I agreed to be a part of the secret society within NXIVM, that's really laid out well and scarred better than I think than in here. But the long and short of it is I committed to something that I thought would be like the next level of my growth. And they got me at a time when I'd stagnated in NXIVM. And, you know, I had a kid and I wasn't really growing. Yeah, we were actually talking about other careers and making NXIVM more peripheral and doing other things.

[00:09:00] We weren't going to leave, but I'd started to go back to voiceover. We were producing. Nippy was doing a web series. We were producing other work. We were kind of. They reeled me back in. And what I thought of the main reason I joined is because I was invited by Lauren Salzman, Nancy's daughter, who is my best friend in the organization. She's head of education. Super smart. Very good at the skill at the things that we were taught to do in NXIVM. I really admired her. And I also had a hard time getting her time. Trusted her implicitly. She was my. Our kids.

[00:09:31] Our kid at the time. Godmother. She married us. You know, she's one of my best friends. But I will say that as soon as I was in and committed, then I was told that I had to do the same. And I was not good at it because I didn't know what it was yet. And I didn't believe in it yet. And so I had to. So part of being in DOS is that you had to. It was a vow of obedience. So whatever you were asked to do, you had to do. And one of my sticking points before even committing, I was like, well, what am I going to be asked to do?

[00:10:00] And she's like, it's all things for your growth. I'm like, well, you're not going to ask me, like, rob a bank and I have to rob a bank? And she's like, no, of course not. Like, this is for you and your goals. It's just more accountability. So when then I was told I had to start recruiting, I kind of just played along. I was like, and I realized that in many ways I had been playing along in NXIVM for the last three or four years before I even left. I was, and I just got this from one of our guests recently who said he was, go along to get along.

[00:10:30] Like, I just didn't want to rock the boat. I loved what I was building in Vancouver. Everything that was happening in Albany was getting more and more strict, more religious. They introduced tenants. They introduced collateral, all these different things that were sort of the foundations of DOS and made DOS sort of like normal and like sort of acceptable. But like, I was just kind of faking it. But I wasn't even aware so much that I was doing that. I was like, yeah, I did my data entry, but I hadn't because like nobody was checking. You know what I mean?

[00:10:58] Like I wanted to be a good girl on the outside, but internally I was sort of had started to rebel. So when the DOS recruiting started, I mean, I just was like, hey, I'm doing this thing. And then people would say no. I'm like, okay, fine. Like I wasn't put, I wasn't, because I didn't, I didn't know how to even sell it yet because I was new to it. Yeah. So I wasn't great at it. The first person that came in through me, actually Lauren recruited for me. Like I got her on the, I failed. She said no. And then Lauren's like, let me talk to her.

[00:11:27] So Lauren got her on the phone and convinced her to do it. And I was like, okay, I guess she's my slave now, which we didn't talk about. It was a whole master slave thing. Yeah. I think a lot of that, again, going back to using people who you trust already, whether it's Mark Vicente, whether it's your best friend, whether it's someone who is extremely smart, like Nippy's ex-girlfriend's dad type of thing, where you're like, oh, I'm going to be on their level or I trust them because they're smart people.

[00:11:57] And we see that over and over and over again, that if everyone in cults just dropped the assumption that everyone else knew what was going on, it would crumble so fast because everyone's thinking the same thing. The brain surgeon is looking at the lawyer going, well, the lawyer understands it. Right, right. Maybe I'm the problem. And so that's something that we had all the time within Mormonism was fast and testimony, meaning where every Sunday you're probably familiar, you go up on the stand and, you know, if you feel called, you go up and you bear it.

[00:12:27] Bear your testimony that the church is true. And so it's just little indoctrination ceremonies every month where people haven't eaten all day and then they listen to these things and have spiritual experiences and say, oh, the church is true. See, they know, I know, we all know it. But secretly, everyone is sitting in the pews going, am I the only one that doesn't really believe this? And then the church itself has preached that even if you don't know that it's true, bear your testimony until you believe it. So they actually tell you to lie.

[00:12:54] And so everyone is just getting up and kind of lying and going along with it. And then any emotion that they have is monopolized into, well, if it feels good, then that's the spirit. And that's the spirit telling you that the church is true. And if you have a bad feeling, that's just Satan trying to tempt you out of the good feeling. And so they really monopolize everything. Did you guys have something similar where they really hijacked your actual feelings and emotions to perpetuate the group even more? Oh, 100%.

[00:13:23] I mean, I think the whole idea, the whole goal of NXIVM and ASP was like, it's the path to joy, right? You want to be not reactive. You want to be joyful. And if you're having any other feeling, you're suffering. So if you wanted to get the gold star or go up the stripe path or whatever, you had to sort of spiritually bypass or override any negative feelings. So it's like toxic positivity at its extreme. If you weren't happy, the tools weren't working.

[00:13:53] And you have to be happy to get the next stripe or the gold star, which is very confusing because the feedback I got at the beginning was that I was too intellectual about things. I needed to feel more. And so I started to feel more. And then I was emotional. And then I was suffering. I was like, wait, but I'm feeling the things I was supposed to be feeling to grow. It made my head spin, like major inconsistency. Yeah, that kind of left me alone there. Yeah. I wasn't really. You weren't targeted that way. I wasn't targeted that way.

[00:14:21] I have a hard time being unauthentic. Like if there's a character flaw and kind of a strength at the same time, I err on the side of letting people know what I'm thinking and feeling in real time. Sometimes I could edit it. So if it came to. Be a little abrasive sometimes. Yeah. So if it came to like a testimonial, my testimonial would be really strong because I was being authentic. And I was going, look, this can help you with X, Y, Z.

[00:14:45] So a lot of times it could be great, but it was pretty rare because if it wasn't going on with me, I wasn't going to say it. And so sometimes they came to me and said, hey, you want to do a testimony? I go, no. Like I'm not. I go, we can't. I just, I could. There's a, there's a great line about people are pretending and then they're pretending that they're not pretending. And I feel like I have a good barometer of figuring that out when people are doing that.

[00:15:13] And I just have a harder time doing that. But if I'm really behind something, it's when I think, you know, it's kind of like when I share my real feelings with Sarah, she knows that it's really going on. I don't ever say things that I don't have going on. So I couldn't be effusive inauthentically about something that wasn't going on. It's not, it goes, it's antithetical to my wiring. I grew up in a house of four boys. We got feedback in real time. So I didn't really train.

[00:15:40] I didn't train my nervous system to be good at that. Whereas I'm a total people pleaser. Yeah. Let's take a break from the cult of her, shall we? Here's a word from our sponsors. Remember when summer meant actual freedom?

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[00:20:49] So what are some other things that you both have learned through your journey of coming out, deconstructing, and now conducting interviews with other cult survivors? Those aha moments where when you're interviewing somebody, you go, oh, that's why I'm that way. Oh my goodness. I think it happens every time we interview somebody. I get a nugget. Even if I feel like, okay, I've kind of heard this story before. Like I see, I've seen this template. All sorts of different, like even from the time of writing Scarred to this book,

[00:21:16] like the Scarred is like, okay, this is what happened to me. And then since then, I'm like, oh, layer after layer after layer. Let me think of something. Oh, you got one? You got one. Yeah, let's go. It's not a high, it's just more of a consistency I see. And then everyone is like, everyone is susceptible. So I think a healthy disposition to take on this is assume that you have an area of susceptibility. And some people might already know and are well fortified and inoculated it.

[00:21:42] And most people or some people haven't had their area of susceptibility revealed to them in any sort of meaningful way or way that made them crash in with reality. And in a day and an age where we have online content in the way that it is and the vast array of opinions and perspectives are going on, and you're bound to find your area of susceptibility or it's going to find you through the algorithm, right?

[00:22:12] So understand that that is going on, whether you want to believe it or not. And we have over 300 podcasts and content points of people's basically explaining how the area of susceptibility was exploited. And it's in your best interest to understand that it's there. And there's probably an entity out there that's targeting it. Now, unless you're living under a rock, and I said this in an interview about a year ago,

[00:22:41] it's like if you're not going to put yourself out there, you're never going to find it. Yeah. So that's my biggest takeaway. And the people that think they're too smart for it are oftentimes going to fortify their blind spot. Do you think it's possible to really understand your blind spots and your areas of vulnerability before it's been exploited? Because how do you feel like you could recognize that before it's too late? We read our book. Yeah. I mean... That's a good one. No, I mean...

[00:23:11] Seriously. No, seriously. I mean, we have a checklist. We have a lot of things that are going to be... This is... Usually it happens that way, though. Yeah. Usually you have to learn it through experience. Well, life is going to give you experience. Reality is the best teacher. Sarah and I, when we have our arguments about raising our parents, I go, you can't shield them from... Raising our parents? I mean, raising our kids. That too. Kind of. Kind of raising our parents. Is you can't shield them from reality. Reality doesn't care about your opinion. It's always going to be there. It's always the best teacher. You don't have to enforce it.

[00:23:40] So if we can introduce our kids to reality, they can pivot. But I'd love them to introduce reality without joining a cult. So I think it's above. Like, you have to interface with reality, right? Well, you don't let them walk off the cliff. Yeah. And the reason we call our podcast a little bit culty is because the abuses of power that go on in cults are going on in a lower level outside. So they're not proprietary to cults. They're going on in your churches. They're going on in your schools. They're going on in your relationships. They're going on.

[00:24:09] And just having those little kind of understandings of, oh, that doesn't mean the person's bad or the thing's bad. Maybe that's just something they learned how to get what they want. But you have to understand there's some sort of exchange that's not integrous or integral going on. And you have to understand yourself and where you end and where you begin to mitigate and offset those mistakes. That's a good point. And relationships are really where you learn them the most.

[00:24:37] And just to piggyback off that, what I was going to say earlier, it's like one of those things in one of those spaces, like Nippy said, it might not be a full-on cult, but it's a little bit culty. It's a relationship where, I don't know, like in a circle of friends, I might not voice my opinion because I don't like confrontation. And I might fawn a little bit. And the whole, like I said earlier, going along to get along, that was a major problem for me in NXIVM. There were a lot of things that I didn't like from the get-go.

[00:25:05] And I didn't say it because I didn't want to rock the boat. And I wanted to be liked. And I wanted to be, I wanted to get the gold star. And that's the area of susceptibility and then also of vulnerability in that I also didn't fully trust my own intuition. You know, and assume that because, okay, maybe I don't, I wasn't strong enough in myself to say like, this is not okay, this is weird piece. I would see the weird thing. I felt the weird thing.

[00:25:33] And I'd be like, maybe I don't understand what's going on here because I'm not like high on the straight path enough. You know what I mean? So a lot of that, the sort of perfect storm of all of those factors allowed me to stay. You know, lots of things were going on. But anyway, I interview people and they tell me about something and I go, oh yeah, I had that going on too. And I didn't even recognize it. Like I was fawning. I was legit fawning or dissociating. Yeah, just completely checked out.

[00:26:02] Like you asked earlier about, you know, how they overrode emotions. There were times when I was sitting in the front row of a forum. So Keith was like, you know, teaching something. And I'm supposed to be a green sash. I was like, I'm a high level. I'm supposed to be paying attention. And I was pretending to take notes. And I'm doing my to-do list. Like all the things I need to do after the training just so I stay awake because I can't even hear him. You know what I mean? But like I would never say that because then I'd be in trouble. Then I'm not walking the walk. And I'm not actually integrated.

[00:26:32] I'm not a green. Like there's all sorts of things going on. Yeah. And like you said earlier, I think everybody else is getting it. They think I'm getting it because I'm taking notes. So to answer your question, what kind of things, ahas do I have? Every episode, it's a different aha. Either about like something that I did myself or how cults work or the template. In some ways, I'm never shocked. Are they more common than you think? Yeah. That they're everywhere. Yeah.

[00:26:57] And all sorts of like ridiculous places like in dance moms groups, you know what I mean? Or like book clubs, college campuses. You talked about. Yeah. Sororities. Yeah. Sororities and things like that. One of the ones that I still struggle with and I'm getting better at it, but sometimes I catch myself is outsourcing.

[00:27:21] So within Mormonism, anytime there was something going wrong in your life, you were told to go talk to the bishop, to confess, to get right, whatever it was. And so not only the oversharing thing, which I think I mentioned to you off camera, oversharing of like, okay, these are all the nitty gritty details that you need to know. Am I worthy enough? Am I okay? It's outsourcing my issues to a man who's not trained and shouldn't be hearing about my life, especially my sex life as a young girl and teenager, young adult.

[00:27:51] And outsourcing my problems, I guess you could say, to someone who can give me the answer. And it seems like that's also something that NXIVM did was tell you that, and you put this in your book, sell you the problem. Well, basically tell you you have a problem and then sell you the solution. Is that something that you've found yourself after leaving, wanting to find that person to outsource things to versus just handling it yourself? That's a great question. I don't think anyone's ever asked that.

[00:28:21] I think it depends on the thing. Definitely not nippy. I mean, I still go to friends for advice if I'm still unnippy, if I'm trying to like hash something through in my mind. But I'm just so wary of handing over my authority to anybody else. Yeah. I might go out and get some health advice from my functional medicine doctor. Yeah. I don't know. I'm not. I wasn't into this in the first place.

[00:28:47] And to go into it and get burned in the way that I did kind of fortified my belief. And I kind of have a belief now is I look at kind of like a sports game. You're going to play hurt sometimes. You're going to heal. Go take care of yourself. Figure out what you need to do. Take responsibility for what goes on with you. When I have something go on, I'll go self-correct. I'll go, hey, I need an hour or two to figure out like, you know, how I wasn't optimal.

[00:29:14] And, you know, I'm self-aware enough and smart enough to figure out how to pivot, you know? And she reminds me. Well, the reason that I brought that up too was because in your book, you mentioned that it's so common for people to leave one cult to get into another because they've already been willing to maybe outsource things that they need help with or they understand what it's like to be submissive and maybe they're craving without realizing it somebody to tell them what to do or how to live or how to act.

[00:29:43] And so I wondered if that was an issue that you guys face, but it seemed like it's the opposite the second you were burned. You were like, yep, never doing that again. And you were able to clearly see from then on out what to avoid. I think so. Yeah. I mean, I'd still say there's probably areas of susceptibility that, you know, we have. I find myself, I'll give you a perfect example. During the whole COVID melee and the political thing that was going on, I was like over here, over there, over there.

[00:30:10] I ping ponged back and forth on like all these issues of like anti-vax, vax, like what's going on. And I didn't know necessarily where to land. And so I just kind of took a moment, you know, went slower with it. But it was hard. It's hard to figure out. And then people trying to cancel you and for having the wrong opinions felt just like a cult. And like, and so a lot of that stuff is, you know, you have to just figure out what's important to you, what's in front of you.

[00:30:38] Like for me, it's like, I have a philosophy, just dominate what's in front of you, like do well in what's in front of you. And then I think kind of you get wisdom from that and then the universe will take care of you accordingly. But I just remember seeing all the information. It's like, how are people so confident in this perspective? And they have the other one. And so, you know, it's not easy and it's going to get harder because, you know, I know I'm in a generation that knew what it was like to do a research paper in college, you know. And have to go to the library.

[00:31:06] And have to go actually, you know, and I'm probably one of the last generations that could leave the house, go to the grocery store and get a carton of milk and no one would know about it. Now everything is so curated and targeted and your intel is out there. So it's going to be harder for the next generation to figure out what is what. I find that scary and it's hard. It's going to be, it's hard for me. I'm sure it's going to be harder for everyone else and everyone's going to be air susceptibility with all the information that's out there. Yeah.

[00:31:33] I think of joining another cult, especially what I see a lot is people leaving a group and then having, we call it in the book, the cult shaped hole in your heart, having that gaping hole, whether it's community or whatever it is that the person was going for in this, Nibby's case, talking about information and having answers or like a way to analyze what's going on in the world is really helpful. And I think a lot of us were drawn to NXIVM for those tools.

[00:31:58] And for those, for that same reason, people will leave something like this and then join even a community of cult survivors or, you know, put an expert up on a pedestal in that space because they want the guidance, you know, and they want to be told what to do or how to heal or whatever. And yeah, there's no group that isn't susceptible from culty dynamics. Yeah. So you got to be careful. Even if that group is right, air quotes, right. Yeah.

[00:32:26] Even if what they're teaching is good and helpful, you could still abuse power. Every group has an extreme version of itself. Which is why you need your culty checklists, everybody. Yes. So you know what you're walking into. This episode would not be possible without the support of our sponsors. Let's hear what they have to offer.

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[00:38:10] After leaving and going through this deconstruction process, is there anything that you still find yourself struggling with that one of your guests brings up? Like, for example, with me and black and white thinking, I feel like I always have so many aha moments when I talk to Danielle Messenech-Young. I know you've interviewed her. She's fantastic. One of the ones that she recently just jogged in my brain a couple weeks ago was the fact that Mormons are often very good at being performers.

[00:38:39] And she's like, I think it's because you're so used to being one way and you're just craving to be something different. And I'm like, oh my gosh, Daniela. She's like, a lot of fundy kids tend to be into theater, into acting, and into all of that. And for me, it was such a light bulb moment because I was like, yeah, I was only allowed to be this one thing growing up. And I was just craving to act. I wanted to try on other shoes. I wanted to be different. I wanted to be scandalous.

[00:39:07] I wanted, you know, I wanted to try on all of those outfits that I wasn't allowed to. And it really, and also just be seen without being condemned for it. Because in Mormonism, it's don't be vain. Don't be vain. Be humble. Be humble. Be quiet and submissive and all of that. And I just wanted to be seen. And so dancing and performing and singing was always so close to my heart. So that's something that was like an aha moment.

[00:39:32] But I guess I went off on a tangent because I was meant to say the stuff I struggle with now, which is black and white thinking of, oh, yeah, I'll be vegan for five years. No big deal. Because I'm used to cutting something off completely. Or I'll go all in on a workout. But then if I miss a day, everything's over. And I can't get back on track because it's all or nothing for me. I'll tell you right now, I still struggle with it. Happened last week. I'm very bad at chilling out. And you can attest to this.

[00:40:02] I was starting to get sick because I was operating at a very high output level and made myself sick. I was like very stressed. You were just going faster than you needed to go. I was going, yeah, because I was stressed about my to-do list. And I made myself sick. And it'd be like, force me to take bed rest. It was very, very hard for me just to lie in bed. I never did his force. And no, you like, no, he didn't please force. He held you down. Yeah, yeah. He locked me in my room. Gently suggested.

[00:40:29] I would be in bed like, you know, prepping the next episode or returning emails, which isn't real rest. You know, it's not real rest. And I had to put everything away and really rest. And I'm not good at that because I feel like I still feel very anxious about output and creating and doing. And, you know, we have stuff to do. And that's, I lived in that for 12 years. You know, and I was able to kind of come out of it and take some breaks afterwards. But it's still my go-to operating system is still to go, go, go, go, build, build, build, build. Overproduce.

[00:40:59] Overproduce. Yeah. And commenting on what you just said as well. You're a slave to your anxiety at that point. Yeah. And so you're not really, I'm not picking. No, I am a slave to your anxiety. It's something I struggle with, for sure. And it kind of can sometimes be at odd, let's say, a principled based decision or something tethered to something that you really want. And sometimes those are at odds. Similarly, when you see people leave like a religious cult, they tend to go do the opposite.

[00:41:23] And there's a pitfall in doing the opposite, in my opinion, because you're now, you're still dependent on the church to define what you're not. So you're, you, you take on a personality that is no longer the church or whatever. It's not the church. Mm-hmm. Right? So it may feel, it may feel individuating and it may feel stronger and all that stuff, but it's still not the church, but you're still dependent in defining yourself on what you're not. And you see, it's an individuation phase.

[00:41:53] You see a lot of teenagers kind of like, I'm not my parents. Yeah. So they'll go get a nose ring or, you know, or whatever, do something to, to assert their dominance. A lot of people that are, or not dominance, individuality. A lot of people that are in churches or whatever tend to do something like that. And then they're the anti-cult person now or, or whatever. So it's. That happened with NXIVM too? A little bit. Yeah. I mean, but we were taking it down. I didn't ever think I was anti-NXIVM. And I was just like, we're taking you down and I'm going to throw it punches. I have.

[00:42:23] That feels a little anti. Yeah. But there were people who. We have to put a label on it. But there were people who left and like broke all the rules. We, I mean, we didn't drink. Right. And that wasn't my identity. Yeah. Anti-NXIVM wasn't my identity. Yeah. We didn't. We just thought we were. Yeah. We were just. Righting the wrongs. We were exposing the bad stuff, but there were people who like dropped what we were doing. I simply say that just to be careful. You're not, you're not replacing one identity with the other. Yes. That's why. No, I think that's a really good point.

[00:42:52] And that is something that happens frequently. Yeah. It's the pendulum swing of. Exactly. If I can't do this and I'm so restricted, I'm going to try everything until I figure out where my middle is. Yeah. And so we talk about that too, is understand that if you don't know anything about this crazy world on the other side of the pendulum, just tread carefully. Don't dive in. You need to know your limits with alcohol. You need to know what boundaries and consent are if you were in extreme purity culture and just understanding that there is nuance and you don't have to do the full pendulum swing.

[00:43:21] So just to finish out this interview, when you were writing this book, Sarah, I know you wanted to talk about the process and how it was for you and anything that came up during the whole, I mean, the whole process really. I mean, the main reason that we wrote it is that we felt like we've learned, you know, we've learned a lot as I'm sure you have as well. And when people reach out and say, you know, I just got out of a cult or like, you know, my daughter's in this thing and I don't want to help.

[00:43:46] People reach out all the time and we didn't, we have a huge resource list on our website. And it's a lot, you know, to sift through. We don't know what's going to hit. And we wanted to be able to say, it's all in here. Like, just read this. You don't have to, you don't have to listen to our whole catalog. You don't have to watch eight documentaries. And, you know, if you want to watch both seasons of The Vow, that's a 14 hour commitment, right? That's like a long time. Yeah. I had a hard time getting through it and I was in it. Yeah.

[00:44:16] That was part of it. And at some point, who knows when, you know, we're going to close this chapter and do other things. And we wanted to have it documented. Like, what did we learn in one place? But what was difficult, in addition to writing with your, the love of your life and co-host and husband, which is, it's hard in and of itself, is that like, this, it's not linear. Like, how these things work isn't, it's not like, you do this and then you do this and then this and you're in a cult. And there's all these things happening at the same time.

[00:44:46] You probably read that when you read the book. It's like, we're trying to write a book that is linear and explain it in a linear way. But like, you're not being love bombed and then isolated. Like you're isolated as your love bomb. And like, all these things are happening at the same time. That was the biggest challenge trying to. Yeah. Like, try to take what we learn and put it in a format that people could understand and also make it palatable and not dry and not academic and related to things that were happening currently and have some humor. Did you find it funny?

[00:45:15] Can I ask you a question? What did you find? Yeah. What was it like to read it? Because you know as much about cults as we do and we've done more, if not, yeah, probably more. I don't know how many episodes you've done, but you have the same body of knowledge. Did you learn anything new? Was it interesting? What was it like to pick it up and see it in a written format like this? Yeah. I think the way that you laid it out was really helpful. It's easily digestible.

[00:45:40] So you would provide love bombing, for example, and then you would give a little vignette of someone that you've interviewed to help illustrate that so it really sinks in in people's brains. Because for me, I'm a very visual person and I like to picture things, which is why we do a storytelling podcast so we can really get into the person's shoes. And so I think it was really helpful the way that you explained the concepts while providing the examples, but then also going a step further and showing examples within your life,

[00:46:08] both of your lives, Sarah's side, Nippy's side. And then you could kind of see differing opinions too, because that's also important that, as we said in the beginning, not everybody's experience with the cold is going to be the same. And so I really liked the way that it flowed and helped provide more context and more information. And also, it's basically a really great way to, if you're interested in one specific topic, whether it's the recruitment or whether it's being in or escaping or helping someone else escape,

[00:46:38] it's a great way to just point to an episode and be like, if you want to learn more about this situation, go listen to Amanda Ray's season, whatever it was, episode blink. And so it's a good way for people to have a starting point. But then also, here's where you can dive in further if you want more information, if you have the time and the bandwidth to listen to these survivor stories. Exactly. That was our goal. And I would say, I want all parents to get this for their kids.

[00:47:04] High school, particularly if you're going off to college, college is a place where I think a lot of people are going in and they're told to be open. So I find them more susceptible simply because- Like the Sarah Lawrence story you added. Yeah. So- I think it's very common. I think I wrote this in the book that I was young and I didn't think I was young. And I think that's a big pitfall that a lot of, you know, early 20-year-olds, you feel like you're an adult, but you're not really an adult. Yeah. That was actually a moment for me.

[00:47:34] So you asked if I learned anything. That was a moment that I was like, yeah, that was me. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Like I was so susceptible to stuff as a young adult, even in my early 20s, like 2021 when I moved to LA. I was like, oh yeah, I can see how problematic this is, but I'm not going to go deeper and I'm not going to fall for it.

[00:47:56] But just knowing like I was smart enough to see things, but also still young enough and still naive enough to not fully distance myself from it. Because I thought that I could handle it. And those are one of, that was one of the thing I even just was thinking about a moment last night, just to give you a really stupid example. I remember when I was trying to find acting work in LA, looking at all the wrong places because I didn't know what I was doing.

[00:48:24] There was something that was like PB Millionaire and it was like Pacific Beach Millionaire, which who knows if he actually had money, but he wanted to create his own little reality series. And he cast me to go to one of the parties and it was like this costume contest for Christmas. And I dressed up like sexy Santa and everyone in the party was like, oh, you should have won because I had the best costume.

[00:48:45] But when he came up to me later, he was like, yeah, you really did have a great costume, but I didn't pick you because you don't have large breasts. Like he literally said that to me because I was very, you know, I am small. I ended up getting implants like not that long after because everyone kept telling me you need to look different. You need to look different. You need to look different. And that also was programming for my Mormon past of usually everyone in Utah gets implants by the time they're 23, 24.

[00:49:15] That's just kind of part of the culture there. I didn't know that. I didn't know that at all. Oh, yeah. It's very much and people will push back. But I don't. If you go to Utah, you'll see it. Just look out. I have seen there. There's a real beauty standard of like in the real house lives. A beauty standard. Yeah. Secret lives. Yeah. You guys get it. And it's true that they have the most surgeons per capita than any other city is in Utah. It's not Miami. It's not Los Angeles.

[00:49:45] Those are close. They're close. But it's Utah. It's this perfectionism thing. So anyway, I let that programming carry in and also be that confirmation bias of, oh, I could have won this competition. And this millionaire clearly thinks that I need to look different. And in my head, I was like, this is so dumb. Why am I even here? Why am I participating with this guy who's trying to be relevant? But I also said to myself, it's fine. You can get out whenever you want.

[00:50:12] It's just like I shouldn't have been there in the first place. Right. 100%. So any other final thoughts or nuggets of wisdom you want to impart onto our listeners before we wrap up? Like Nippy said, we do want all parents to give this to their kids. Or if the kids won't read it, read it themselves so they can spot the signs and help their kids if they get involved in anything culty. Yeah. And we're really passionate about it. And we hope that it reaches people far and wide. And we love talking about it.

[00:50:41] So thanks for having us on. And I can't think of any other nuggets. I feel like we covered a lot. And I think the other thing I was going to say, aside from learning about myself with your book, is just certain terminology that I think people don't really understand. And it's good to just have it in your toolbox, even if you never come across something like that, just to understand the language of it so that you can talk to your kids about it in an informed way or you can be more aware of it.

[00:51:07] I think, like we were talking about earlier, vocabulary is such a huge thing in cults. They change the language so that there's an in crowd and an out crowd. But we need to know how to name those culty aspects too so that we have the language to talk about it. So, yes, everyone go check out A Little Bit Culty. Thank you. Wherever you get your books, where's the best place to buy it? Amazon? Right now, Amazon. Eventually our Audible. We're still narrating the Audible we got behind. That'll come out soon. And then it eventually will be in bookstores as well.

[00:51:34] But right now, Amazon, so people can also write a review, which really helps. Great. I need your Linda Listen moment. Oh, yeah. Sassy statement. Sassy statement. It's pissed you off or inspirational. Nippy? Nippy's got one first. If you think you're too smart, you've just advertised your blind spot to the world. Perfect. Well said. Sarah? I thought I had it. It just disappeared. I blame my hormones. It's the hormones again. The hormones. What did you say? I think mine was similar. These things exist everywhere.

[00:52:02] You're probably already in something that's a little bit culty. You just haven't hit the weird shit yet. Knowing the red flags is great, but also learn the green flags. Learn to... Which is at the end of the book. The green flag section is like, learn to look for the things that will protect you and seek those things out. And you're going to be okay. Some very sassy. Yes. I love that. Instead of just full-on avoidance, lean into the things that are actually going to be helpful and useful. And forget cults. Is this thing healthy for you?

[00:52:32] Is this group healthy? Do you feel good with your friends? Do you feel like you can share who you really are and be authentic with your friend group or the parents at your school? We interact with people, and it's people that make up culty shit or just toxic shit. And forget the word cult. It's like, is this group healthy for you? And do you want to be in it? And if you don't, then join another group. That was kind of sassy. I agree. Great. Yeah. Tell everyone where they can find your show, support you, aside from the book.

[00:53:02] Social media. I'm Sarah Edmondson. Nippy's Anthony. Are you Anthony on there? I'm Anthony Ames 11. It's hard to find because it's not Nippy there. Anthony Ames 11. A little bit culty on Instagram. The book is Amazon. Podcast is called A Little Bit Culty. Podcast is A Little Bit Cult. The book is called A Little Bit Cult. One day we'll be on YouTube as much as you are, Shalise. Thank you for helping us make that transition. Yes, of course. We just need to get this book. We made a hundred bucks on YouTube last month. Yeah. Yeah. Get in there.

[00:53:31] Got a steak dinner out of it. Got a steak dinner out of it. Yeah. Amazing. Well, thanks for it. It's a grind. It is a grind. And now that the book grinds over, we can really figure out if we're going to do that. So we'll keep in touch about that. And yeah, we super appreciate your time. Thanks for having us. And you're awesome. And hopefully we'll meet in person one day down in Texas. We've got to do a book thing down there. Yeah, we'll be there. Yeah. Yeah. If you do a book tour in Austin, I would love to be the person to interview you. Oh, yes. Absolutely.

[00:54:00] We've got to be our conversations with person. We have our Austin trip. We've got to do it probably in the fall. Yeah. In the fall. Yeah. Before or after a UT game. Oh, that'd be fun. All right. All right. All right. Thanks, Shalise. Of course. Everybody, thank you so much for watching. This has been awesome. Make sure to go check out A Little Bit Culti, the book and the podcast. And all the links will be in the description so you can find that easily. Leave those words of encouragement down below or anything that you found helpful or insightful. We love to hear your perspectives too. And it boosts the algorithm.

[00:54:29] Best way to support the show and the guests. And if you want to support even further, we do have channel memberships now where you can get early access to some of our videos, some behind the scenes content and members only live streams. If you want to join on Patreon instead, if you're not into the whole YouTube thing, you can do that at patreon.com slash cults to consciousness. If you want shorter versions of our guest stories, we have a clips channel. All of that's in the description. And if you like this video, I'll link two more down here below. We've had a few fantastic conversations with Sarah already.

[00:54:59] The eight women in eight cults compare notes and her story from like years ago when we first started. But I think that's it. And until next time, follow your highest excitement, be conscious and be well.

[00:55:30] We hope you're enjoying A Little Bit Culty. If so, please do show us some love. Drop a rating or leave a review. Hit subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen. And subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com slash a little bit culty. Even better, send this episode to someone who needs it. Maybe they're in a cult. Maybe they're just a little bit susceptible. Or maybe they just love a good story. Spread the word. Spread the love. Thanks for listening and see you next time. A Little Bit Culty is a Trace 120 production.

[00:55:57] Executive produced by Sarah Edmondson and Anthony Nippy Ames in collaboration with producer Will Rutherford at Citizens of Sound. Our co-creator is Jess Temple Tardy. Our production coordinator is Leslie Dinsenbor. Writing by Sandra Nomoto and social media marketing by Eric Swarczynski and Brooke Keene. Our theme song Cultivated is by the artists John Bryant and Nigel Aslan. The The The Thank you.