152. Reddit Scary Stories: Terrifying Cult Encounters With Amanda Montell

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That's b-y-r-n-a dot com slash protection. Must be 18 plus. Purchase and shipping restrictions vary by state and municipality. Amanda Montell, welcome to Heart Starts Pounding. Oh my god, thank you for having me. I'm so excited. I'm going to try to keep my enthusiasm to myself. No, I'm so excited to have you, truly, because I've wanted to do an episode like this for so long, just reading through real cult stories of experiences that people have had firsthand with cults. I felt like there was no one better than you to be on. Thank you. I'm honored. What a privilege. Can I ask before we jump in, when for you did the fascination, dark, deep dives into cults begin? Ooh, my earliest memories. I'm dead serious, though, because my dad grew up in a cult. My dad spent his teenage years against his will in a cult called Synanon, which was this, you know, now what we imagine to be a classic cult, this 70s California compound in the tawny brown hills of the Bay Area that started out as an alternative drug rehabilitation center that later grew to accommodate. So-called lifestylers are people who didn't struggle with addiction, but who just wanted in on this blossoming countercultural movement of the 1960s and 70s. Oh, interesting. And that was my grandfather. And so, yeah, when my dad was 14, my grandfather forced him and his two toddler-age half-sisters to move onto this compound where kids lived separately from their parents. And there were head shaving rituals and reassigned marriages and this traumatizing truth-telling ritual called The Game. And in fact, this cult was the entire basis for the troubled teen industry. I was going to say, it's interesting that your dad was a teenager when he joined, because I have read about that kind of laying the foundation for what has become the troubled teen industry today. That's right. That's right. Yeah, it planted the seed. So, I grew up on my dad's stories of Synanon, and. So, he had left by the time you were born and all that. Yes. So, his experience was really interesting because he joined. He joined as a young teenager who had, up until that point, lived in poverty in Spanish Harlem, New York. And so, he'd been kind of through the school of hard knocks. And for whatever reason, some combination of nature or nurture, he shows up to Synanon and he looks around and the word cult was not necessarily at the forefront of his mind. In fact, the word cult was not even on the mainstream public's radar in 1969, the year that he joined. That wasn't really until the Manson family murders, which happened later that year, and then the Stonestown Massacre of 1978. Those two cult tragedies got so much press. And after those two happened, kind of everybody knew what a cult was. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. But when my dad joined, the word cult was not necessarily in his mind, but he took a look around and he was like, something is off. Something's really wrong. Oh my gosh, yeah. Yeah. And it was also interesting growing up the daughter of not only a cult survivor, but a scientist. Because I grew up really skeptical, sometimes to my detriment. Yeah, I bet. Because I want to surrender to group ritual sometimes. Sometimes. And oddly, like writing and podcasting about cults, and specifically the way that I do it, where like every week on my podcast, I'm trying to categorizing whether these, you know, cult-like groups from the zeitgeist are live your life, a watcher backer, get the level of cult. It's oddly like helped me orient myself around communities that may be a little bit cult-like, but are ultimately healthy, as opposed to just like writing off all groupthink as like irrational and stupid. Totally. Well, that's great because we're going to have so much to talk about in this episode. I have these stories that I want to get into of real people who also kind of came to in situations and were like, what is happening? And then at the end, I want us to go through things that aren't necessarily labeled as cults, but feel like cults. Perfect. And get your perspective on some of them. Love it. There's some really fun ones. And I added a couple ones myself that I think are maybe little culty groups. I'm chomping at the bit. Okay. So this one that I'm going to start with, I think, honestly, just hearing your dad's story, this is really, this sounds really similar to kind of what he went through. So this was posted originally on July 12th, 2019 on Reddit in our legal advice by a user named about to be taken 21. And the title of this post was just my parents have joined some new age religion and intend to move me to a compound against my will. What can I do to get the hell out of here? So they were looking for legal advice as to what they could do. So let me get into it, what they posted. So I really don't know how to start this. So I'll get right to it. My mom and stepdad are really into new age science and beliefs. I've never agreed with them on this. And I didn't know how extreme it was. Recently though, they've become involved in a extremely weird support group. I say that in quotes because I have no clue who this support group is. When I'm around, my parents never mentioned any group names or what organization they work for or a part of. Because of this, I've not had much luck. Finding out more about them. And when I Google new age cult, it gives too many results to look into. This Monday, my mom and stepdad sat me and my four siblings down. They told us that we will be moving at the end of the month to a more stable location within a spiritual community. According to them, they plan to pull all five of us out of school here and enroll us in their mind awakening school wherever we move. I tried to get more information out of them, but they refused to talk to me at all about it. According to them, because I'm still a child in mind, body, and spirit, even though I'm 16 years old, hardly a child, I need to listen to them and not ask questions. I've actually been freaking out since then and have been trying to get advice, but I've been unable to. They cut me off of the internet. They cut off the phone, the TV on Tuesday, and they've been keeping a laser focus on me and my siblings since then. I'm currently at a friend's house, and this is the only way that I've gotten access to the internet. Now, to me, this sounds like a cult. Last night, they had three people come talk to me and my siblings, and the stuff they told us was crazy. I was talked to alone by an old man who told me about how my mind is closed and that I will slowly learn to open it as my parents have, and that the leaders of this group would love to meet me and put me in their programs. I need to know what I can do here. My biological dad has shared custody of me, and since Monday, I've not been able to contact him. He's supposed to have a call with me every night, but my mom claims that he's been informed of this situation and supports it 100%. I tried calling him this morning. He said, I'm not going to be able to contact him. I'm not going to be able to contact him, but he didn't answer. He lives in another state, so it's kind of hard to get into contact with him outside of phone and email. I'm at a friend's house because I was able to leave my house for the first time in a week when I told my parents that I just wanted to go to the park, but I came here instead, and I told my friend everything. Her parents are not home, but she's trying to call them, and I plan to stay here tonight if I can. My parents have forbidden me from using the internet because it's, quote, full of lies from them. I'm so lost right now, and it makes me sick. I don't want to go with them to this obvious compound, and I need to know what I can do here. Can I just run away, and if my parents find me, can I get in trouble? Can they get in trouble? If my mom has been lying about my dad, is there anything he can do? Thanks. And that was the end of the original post. Wow. Which reminded me of what your dad went through. Freaky parallels. Totally. I mean, well, one thing that stuck out to me here, because you talk about this a lot in Cultish, is the language that the parents are using about the I don't know. I feel like there were so many flags. And the internet being full of lies. From them. From them. From like an unknown them. Right. You don't know who they're talking about. And this person is 16. They're a minor still. So immediately, people kind of jumped in on the comments, and they were like, as a 16-year-old, the family court system will take into consideration where you want to live. Your father will need to file for a hearing request to, for a hearing to request a modification. So it actually kind of works out better that the parents are separated and that he has one parent. parent outside of the organization totally who could potentially okay so what's funny and crazy not funny or crazy what is unfortunate and eerie about this story is that my dad was also a child of divorce his father and stepmother forced him to join synanon but the thing is he fled his situation with his biological mother because that was almost like even a worse living situation than the cult he fled that environment trying to seek a better life with his dad and his dad's new kind of replacement family and weirdly like compared to the situation he was in in new york the cult was not ideal but at least he had food he had a bed you know like and and and unfortunately there was you know not a better alternative for him but it sounds like there are are maybe some options for this individual yeah well i would be curious to i don't know what it was like for your dad but this is so jarring as a child to have the parents come and tell you like this is what's happening i'm taking you out of school yes a lot of times i mean we've we have an episode on heart starts pounding about the runerwald secluded family have you heard about them no so the parents were moonies okay who lived in amsterdam at some point they had gone to south korea and become moonies came back but really started indoctrinating the children from birth got it into the religion so by the time they were telling the kids like hey the world is ending we're going to move to a farm hey that way the world's gonna end we're gonna survive but like no one else will you're gonna live in the basement of this farm the kids were like oh yeah okay right because they grew up in it yeah you grew up in it so you're used to that language it's when your parents come to you and they're like hey the world is poison yeah yeah i never told you this before but we joined this group they say that we have to do all these things no it's like it's a little late to do all these things but it's like it's a little late to do all these things but it's to try to convince me that santa is real yeah yeah and i remember you know my dad telling me that he had a very similar experience where one day his dad was like yo we're joining synanon oh it really was yeah it very much was that i mean synanon had a sort of outpatient you might say club where members didn't have to live on the compound it was it was literally called the members would would come and eat free snacks which is an underrated reason to join a cult sometimes you just want to hang out with people and eat snacks yeah um which dispels the myth that people join because they're desperate and gullible yeah anyway my dad's dad was a member of the club where they would get together and play the synanon game which was this very cathartic traumatizing at times truth-telling group therapy act activity where people would gather in a circle and malign one another with vicious interpersonal criticism and there was all kind of link all kinds of language to describe you know what were these really negative experiences within the synanon game but kind of reframe reframe them as positive and character building so like first of all this was called a game it was referred to as something you played yeah something that's like yeah it wasn't fun playing um but and even you know on the compound even young people minors had to play it and sometimes you know the vitriol hurled at people during the game could be really intense so you would just be standing in the center and people would scream yeah people would i hate you you're whatever yeah let's say you know i would i would isolate someone i would say my dad's name is craig it would be like hey craig you know i notice you skulking around the compound here you are such a lazy ingrate piece of like it would be really specific going in and then everyone else in the group was supposed to support the accuser and that was called backing the play and then when you were like you know kind of viciously or at least very assertively telling them how they needed to fix their behavior that was called a pull-up like you need to pull yourself up and all of this insidery language was really compelling it made people feel like they were in on a culture and so when i hear things like mind awakening or whatever like that's that kind of loaded language those charged buzzwords that make people feel like they're a part of something even if they're not living there yet yes um but yeah my dad you know was familiar with the synanon club already um but by the time his dad was like yeah no we're moving he was like what you know like i just got out of this terrible situation with my mom like tell me more like obviously the internet didn't exist at the time but he he was spooked for i mean i don't know if this is quite fortunate but i guess what's what's a little more hopeful about this situation is that this person is 16 so even in the worst case if he does have to live there if there's no actual like physical abuse happening he might just have to well i don't know the gender of this person they might just have to lay low and wait until they can they can get out and find support but there are services for people who are in cults surviving cults that i can mention yeah we'll include links this episode for people who are also feeling that well i do have two little updates on this story okay so someone did comment call cbs and tell them that you're concerned about your safety and the safety of your siblings totally so the first update said i talked to my mom and i told her that i would like to stay at my friend's house tonight because i'd be moving soon and this would be one of the last times i could see them so she said it was okay and that this family was trustworthy and not trying to corrupt my view i ended up getting in contact with my dad and he was pissed he did not agree and was told that i didn't want to talk to him anymore my 15 year old sister's dad was told the same despite the fact that he has primary custody and she only spends the summers with us so my sister's dad is going to call cps oh what a relief yeah i'm going to be spending the night here when my mom asked me to come back tomorrow my dad has told me to not go back and tell her that i'm going to be flying down to meet him immediately and if i don't check in with him or if he hears that i go back to her he's gonna call and tell her that i'm going to to cps and ask for emergency custody oh wow so i was like how i was suspicious that there might have been some lying happening between the mom and the dad turning the parents against each other or saying like your dad is fine with this or i could also see situations where it's like well your dad is poison your dad is one of them exactly or you know one of the cult red flags that i've learned about and talk about sometimes on my podcast is this ends justify the means philosophy so if you are a member of a group where you truly believe that they have the answers to salvation and healing and all these things but they're like you need to lie or steal or deceive or something in order to get everybody on board that's a red flag that you're a member of a high demand exploitative group for example in the moonies whenever lying needed to happen in order to recruit people or manipulate them in some way for the benefit of the group that was referred to with the euphemism oh wow so that happens too yeah exactly it's like a total way to rephrase it to be like this is actually a good thing yeah it's like emotionally fraught euphemistic language to get people in this headspace where like even if they're doing immoral or illegal things if it ultimately benefits the group yeah and it's fine makes me think of some like mlm pitches i've received in my life totally like the ends justify the meme exactly get everyone you know involved in this yeah okay do you want to read your story i really do for you okay this story is titled my experience with the church of scientology it's posted in via flare and it was posted six years ago it goes like this this happened when i was around 17 years old and is still happening now what an opener at 17 i felt lost in the world and stuck in a job i disliked with work colleagues that didn't like me it all started on a friday after work the factory i worked in had a half day on fridays so i would just spend the rest of the day wandering around the city i lived in it had been a tough day of relentless mocking by my co-workers and i was reaching my breaking point i went around the city looking for a new job i visited the police recruitment center the army navy and air force centers and even the international red cross i just wanted to get away from it all after a few hours i had a bag full of career pamphlets and still no idea what to do with my life i just wanted to get away from it all and i was like i just wanted to get away from it all i turned a corner and immediately saw a sign sitting in front of me i can remember it so vividly now it said free personality test are you curious about yourself come in i then looked up at the building and in a big fancy sign outside it said the church of scientology now before i continue yes i already knew about scientology however i had a morbid curiosity about it i had heard all the horror stories and goings-on inside the church but tom cruise was not the only one who was curious about it i had heard all the horror stories and goings-on was my favorite actor and he seemed to have his life sorted out pretty good my famous last words right there so i went inside i was immediately greeted by a very nice lady she asked me how i was doing and what she could do for me today i asked if i could speak to somebody about the church and the personality test she smiled and said i would be happy to please take a seat and i will get someone to speak to after a minute i was introduced to an older man named alan and he was the head of my city's scientology center alan took me to a small room to talk privately. When we entered, I immediately noticed the large picture of L. Ron Hubbard on the wall. We sat down and had a nice talk. I told him about how I was unhappy about where my life was going. I told him about how I wanted to leave, plus all the trouble I was having at work. He seemed genuinely concerned for me, and I felt like he wanted to help. After a while of talking, I agreed to do the personality test. He gave me the test and left the room, saying to give the test to the receptionist after I had finished. Two hours later, I finished it. Not joking, that's really how long it took. It was around 500 questions about anything and everything. I handed it in to the receptionist, and she told me it would take some time to process. In the meantime, Alan had told her to take me to their private cinema and show me a film. I thought it was just going to be some old room in the back with a TV on the wall, but no, they did indeed have a private cinema. It could seat around 50 people and had a large screen in the front. It did feel a bit weird just being by myself in a cinema owned by Scientology, but I bet that hadn't happened to many people. Or maybe it has. Anyway, I sat down, and they played me the film. It was about 30 minutes long and consisted of a narrator explaining those strange feelings you sometimes get, with some mediocre acting following along. I remember a section about how much you doubt yourself. Knowing you have a locked door, but going back to check multiple times. At one point, the film showed how a past event that happened to your mother while she was in the hospital, and how you had to go to the hospital to see if she was pregnant with you, could affect your life in a negative way. For example, your mother was sick on a flight, so you're scared of flying. I also remember something about rotten eggs, and how much an event involving them could hurt you. I know it sounds absurd, but in some ways, the film really made sense to me. When the film was done, I was taken to Alan's office, and he told me my results. He told me I was extremely depressed, one of the most unmotivated people he had ever met, lacking cognitive thinking, and I was a waste of talent. Now, this made me very upset, but Alan said he could help me. He gave me about four books and a DVD. He told me to read the books and watch the film before my course. I asked, what course? And Alan told me he had signed me up to do a course at the center. He convinced me that if I didn't do this course, that my life would soon spiral out of control. He made me hand over quite a lot of money, and said I would receive an email about the course, which was in a month's time. I left the office, and I was given an email. This happened all over the weekend. I basically locked myself in my room and did nothing but read and reread these books and watch the DVD over and over again. Over the next week, I began taking notes about myself and my family. I emailed Alan with questions and concerns. I started resenting my mother for my life. I began to think that she was the problem, that everything bad that had happened to me was the result of her. I started to treat her badly, swearing at her and did the best I could to ignore her. When I emailed Alan about my mother, he told me that if she was the catalyst for my problems, then maybe I should consider disconnecting from her. And I took it seriously. I made plans to totally leave her out of my life. A week before my course, I developed some kind of God complex toward everyone around me. What I read in those books told me what I could become. I saw everyone in my family as below me. I really became a truly spiteful person. Just days before my course, I was confronted by my mother and father. They said they were concerned about me, and they searched my room. My dad took out all of my Scientology books and the DVD. I was outraged. I screamed and cursed at my parents. I said horrible wicked things to them. I told them how I was going to leave them and how I never wanted to see them again. Hours of arguing back and forth, tears and crying. However, in the end, they did convince me that the church was a bad place. They said if I was so miserable at work, I should have told them. And that is true. To this day, I can't believe I didn't say anything to them. Instead, I went to Scientology. After the arguing had stopped, they sat me down and comforted me. I really couldn't believe it. After the way I treated them for the past three weeks, they still cared for me. The next day, I emailed Alan and told him I would not be coming back to the church. He quickly got back to me asking why. Asking if it was my family and if I was being forced not to go. However, I ignored him. The emails I revived in the next few weeks were mad. He told me stuff like, I should leave my family now and I could stay at the church, he tried to convince me that it was all because of my mother. He even emailed me to say something along the lines of, he won't be surprised if you read in the papers that I was found dead by suicide. I'm very sure he crossed a line there, but I just kept ignoring him. The strangest email I got was all in binary code. 0011 this and 10001 that. I used a binary code translator, but it all came back as mixed up letters and numbers. None of it made sense to me. I eventually blocked him. However, it still hasn't stopped. About two or three times a year, I will get an email from the church. It's either asking how I am or asking about my family. When I get them, I immediately block the email address, but they just keep coming. It's always someone new saying they heard about my case and they were worried about me. The whole reason I'm writing this is because I just got another one the other day and I thought it would make a good warning. Please, I beg of you, do not go to a church of Scientology Center. If they can make me into a spiteful degenerate in just a few hours, then what can they do with a person in a few months or a year? If anyone has any idea how to block an entire religion slash cult from my email, then please let me know. And if you're lost in life, sad or upset, then please, please talk to your family, friends, or a doctor. When you're down, don't let others make you into a monster. Take it from me. After this event, I got help and I'm a happy, confident person now. Oh, and Alan, if you're reading this, you made me into a monster for your sake. Let's not meet again. Oh my gosh. Wow. Juicy. Very confessional. Very confessional, but so classic to everyone I know that's had an experience with Scientology. When I was 19, as a bit, a friend and I, a new friend and I, were, yeah, hailed down on the side of the street on Sunset Boulevard, right? Yeah. Where Scientology HQ is and asked to take a personality test. It always starts with a personality test. It often does. Yeah. Because like, you know, we're all slightly navel gazing. Who doesn't want to learn a little more about yourself? Yes. This friend of mine, I think is a little more adventurous than I was. I really didn't want to go, but she was so convincing and she thought it would be fun. And yeah, our, our experience was a little different, but yes, the personality test took two hours. Yeah. We were in there for a really long time. But when they started to sell us things like breaking out the DVDs and the course and wanting our email addresses, I literally like grabbed her arm and I was like, we're getting the out of here. And we ran out and got in our car and like, oh, good. Never darkened their doorway again. But, um, or the opposite of that, they never darkened our doorway or email inbox, but I was only willing to like go with the bit for so long. No, that's what I mean. So I had an experience very similar to yours. It went for, I think a lot longer than yours did. And I was out for maybe four hours. I was there for maybe nine hours and I was out like 300 bucks by the end of it. Oh, no way. Yeah. So what happened to me was I had a friend, I honestly, like I feel for this person so much because this was like, I had first moved to LA. I started a new job. I was 22, just out of college. Didn't have many friends. So I had a friend who I like just kind of knew very casually. And she was like, we should grab lunch. I'm going to be in town. Yeah. Sends me the address. I don't even think to check the address. Oh my God. I'm like, whatever day of I'll just show up. Whatever. I'm like driving up to the restaurant and it's on the campus of the church of Scientology. I'm like, oh, that's kind of strange. I guess they have a restaurant there that's maybe like not involved with the church at all. I meet her for lunch. We have this lunch. And that's when she's like, hey, if you're here already, do you want to do a tour with me? Like we should check this out. Oh my God. I didn't realize like she was already very deep inside of it and had kind of lured me there. So by the time they're asking for my credit card, I do the personality test. It takes two hours. It's 500 questions. That is not an exaggeration. They tell me I have like debilitating anxiety and they feel bad for me and they're worried. And like, just like the, the language they use is so like, we're here for you. Like we care about you. Something is going wrong in your life and we want to help you figure it out. Totally. I remember them. I don't remember exactly what my results were, but the guy telling me that was very drastic. It is. It's always like we have to do this immediately. Yeah. I don't remember what he said because I was just like, I was just incredulous, you know, and he had this smarmy suit and a smarmy hairstyle and this like overly twinkly look in his eye. And I was also disturbed by the fact that like, he was this white guy, but a lot of the people who seem to be working for him were Latino. They seem to be like, cause Scientology, like, like the multi-level marketing industry does prey on immigrant communities. And I was, I was, I was very disturbed by that. I just remember after every sort of personality critique he made of me, he just went Scientology can help you with that. Yes. Yes. And I'm like, bro. But yeah, by the time they asked for my credit card, I was already like, I mean, there was just so many people there that were like, we want to help you. And you've already been there for nine hours. I've been there for so long. I put so much into this. So I, I was like, if I give them my credit card, maybe I can leave. Oh, oh wow. And I'll go home and I'll cancel my card, which is what I ended up doing anyways. But I gave them my card and then that was just, I mean, after that they're like, okay, your class starts now. Did they retain your contact information? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they got calls for a while afterwards. I blocked all their numbers. They would call me from. restricted numbers i have like restricted voicemails on my phone that i saved they really get on your um i don't know how i thank god i mean thank god they did not get our contact information one weird detail about the story that i just read is um the person who wrote it was definitely british and from the uk yeah i was wondering about that something funny about that is that scientology does claim to have something like 10 million followers around the world i just think personally allegedly my opinion that they have um 10 million email addresses yes that is so fair that they're like we have a contact list of 10 million people that we've been able to like farm for their emails that's what i think i mean because you know if you've watched documentaries like going clear or read about scientology you know that you know they have so many absurd beliefs as a part of their ideology like yeah you know some of that stuff that um the the the teller of that story brought up was you know stuff about like when your mother was pregnant with you you know some of her behaviors might be passed on and the weird thing is that like there is a grain at least of truth in a lot of different cults philosophies you know generational trauma is real and stuff like that but scientology believes that like children are just adults in tiny bodies and which is so dangerous very dangerous that always leads to really bad behavior yeah and so you know children are punished within scientology in the ways that adults are punished a lot of the time and mothers are forced to undergo you know high ranking whatever if you're really in scientology mothers are forced to undergo a silent birth they're not supposed to make noise when they give birth because katie holmes had to do i remember reading about that because like um you know negative spiritually bankrupting energy could be passed along to the child and which we know is the most dangerous thing in the world is not exactly of course it's not true um and you know they have all these beliefs about like invisible body thetans and aliens but if they brought all that stuff up on your first encounter in the church you know no one would ever join because it would be ridiculous they get you with things that are really accessible like and the first courses that you might take are things like you know communication or like ups and downs in life yeah i interviewed a source for for my book who was an ex-scientologist she was in it for a very very long time this woman named kathy schenkelberg who now um or at least she's in it for a very very long time and she's been in it for a time that i interviewed her um was doing this like one woman's show about her experience called squeeze my cans which is a reference to the scientology auditing machine yeah squeeze cans but anyway she was very forthcoming about her story and you can read more about it in the book but yeah she um she was yeah really transparent about how you know they they get you in the beginning by promising that this is secular like you can be a part of any religion scientology is just here to supplement and then um as you move along you can be a part of any religion and along the bridge to total freedom as they call it on your path to going clear you realize that there is just this like endless you know truly like this path that will never get you to enlightenment there are all these convoluted tiers this massive hierarchy and that um you know you'll never achieve the the benefits you were promised well if i guess in your experience with all the research you've done if this really is like being a frog in a pot of water that's like holy the temperature is rising what is like the first notch like what's kind of like the first thing that people would look out for well because i see the world or like rather hear the world through a language lens for me it's always linguistic cues yeah so like my book is about the language of cults from scientology to soul cycle so like how this wide spectrum of cult-ish groups uses a specific roster of linguistic techniques to get people to join and stay and you know fall under their influence for better and for worse yeah and so i find that when you join a group and yes there's like fun buzzwords that you pick up right away and sure there's like rousing mantras and chants but when you start to use these buzzwords they make you feel a part of the group they make you feel really emotionally activated they definitely are dividing you into an us and a them but you can't really explain concretely why you're using them or what they mean they don't make sense to outsiders that's a red flag especially in combination with this cult language technique called the thought terminating cliche which is a phrase coined by a psychiatrist named robert j lifton in the early 1960s and it describes a sort of zingy stock expression that's easy to memorize easy to repeat and aimed at shutting down independent thinking and questioning so that the person at the top can remain in power what are like examples of those yeah so let's say you're a member of some group and there's a rule that you want to push back against even gently they might hit you with a phrase like you just need to trust the process or yeah yeah yeah or like it's all in god's plan yeah one of those cliches of like immediately shuts it down exactly and just don't think about this for a single second longer correct and it's work to have to think and if you've already sunk a lot of costs into this group and you really believe in it and you've invested a lot into it then you don't want to have to you know reckon with that cognitive dissonance in uh synanon their go-to thought terminating cliche was act as if and it essentially means that you believe until you do because our leader is all-knowing and you can trust that if he has instituted a protocol you will get on board eventually in conspiracy theory groups you know you might hear certain q and a types say things like oh you just need to do your research yes that's a big one right now it's like the do your research yeah it's like yeah we can't have a conversation anymore after you've said that correct so i see battles of the thought terminating cliches in instagram comments all the time and i'm like oh that that's a that's a sign of cultish yeah so that's what i keep an ear out for because if you're a member of a group that's healthy if not a little bit ritualistic and mystical or whatever if you're allowed to express pushback and people will entertain that and respect that and engage with that in like a sincere dialogue that even an outsider could comprehend and aren't just going to like serve you with a thought terminating cliche or shame you or something like that that's like that's really something to listen out for this episode is brought to you by bigelow tea by now you should all know that i'm a very curious person and i'm also a big tea drinker so i've always heard about this tea called bigelow constant comment it's been around forever and people absolutely love it i realized i had no idea what it actually tasted like obviously i had to investigate and now i'm obsessed constant comment is this incredible black tea with real orange rind cold pressed orange oil and sweet spices the best way i can describe it is it's like christmas in a cup except you get to drink it all year long the recipe is still a bigelow family secret over 80 years later so this one is a mystery worth investigating for yourself bigelow constant comment curiously different impossible to forget okay i want to read you another one that i was able to find okay so this one is a mystery worth investigating for yourself bigelow constant comment curiously different impossible to forget this one yeah definitely crosses a boundary that the other ones haven't crossed it's called i was almost kidnapped by a religious group it was posted six years ago in the let's not meet subreddit by sugar baby 2019 and the story starts this happened to me about six months ago my boyfriend at the time and i were sitting in the living room of my apartment when i heard a knock at the door he asked if i was expecting anyone i said no but i was gonna go take a look just to see who was out there he stayed on the couch while i looked through the peephole the apartment we were set up in a way that didn't allow him to see me from the living room where i was at at the front door but outside there were two people one young guy who looked about maybe mid-20s and a much older woman who was about 60 ish for whatever reason i decided to open the door that's when the young man says hi we're a part of so-and-so religion i don't really remember what they said and we would like to talk to you about it now i have a 50 pound dog who's trying to get out so i said sure hold on i'll come outside because my dog's trying to get out and that was a huge mistake i want to clarify that this was very out of character for me however i had recently become closer to god and i was willing to give these people a chance i didn't think there was any harm that would come just from listening to what they had to say so i stepped outside and i closed the door behind me and they said something about how they prayed to mary instead of god because she was the one that birthed jesus i don't exactly remember but it was something like that i ended up just thanking them for their time and saying something like thanks you guys stay safe out there that's when they said i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry a woman visibly starts panicking and starts saying things i don't really understand in a language that i'm pretty sure was korean when i looked at her partner to see what he had to say about the situation he goes no problem maybe you want a pamphlet though i reply uh yeah sure not wanting to be rude and also to do some research on the religion because i had never heard of it before the guy then tells me okay great we have them in the car you can come with us we parked right out front and this is when i started to feel weird i lived on the third story of an apartment complex that was really not the best and there were no cameras anywhere why would they leave their pamphlets in the car if they were going door to door it wouldn't make any sense to have each person they intrigued come down to their car and also the parking spots outside my house were all handicapped so no one could park there the woman then grabs my arm and starts directing me to the stairs in a split second i said you know what i'm happy in my faith thank you both anyways the woman said something again and what i think is korean and the man goes, "Are you sure?" we can get it to you fast. We're parked right there. My heart genuinely sank. I started sweating and looking for ways to remove myself from her grasp and the situation entirely. I know I must have looked panicked because I was. What do I do? How do I get away from this immediate danger that I've put myself in? I wasn't thinking, and I just blurted out that I was very sure. I yanked my hand from the woman who ended up scratching me from her grasp, and I bolted inside. I locked my door behind me and told my boyfriend what had happened, what they said, and their pitch on praying to Mary instead of Jesus. And that's when he looked at me with a face that I have never seen him make before in my life. He told me about how that specific religion has been in the news the last few weeks because women have been going missing. And the only thing that they all have in common is that their neighbors said that they had been solicited by this group around the same day or around the time of that disappearance. I read some articles to factor in the fact that they and he was right. The police were saying that it might be in connection to a sex trafficking ring that was moving from neighboring cities and now was suspected to be in ours. It gets even weirder though somehow. I was seriously freaked out, so I went straight to Facebook Live and I shared with my friends because I wanted to warn whoever I could. I set the privacy to public after the live ended, and I went on with my life. Still a bit shaken, but I was fine. One week later, I got a Facebook message from someone who's part of that religious group. Telling me that I needed to take the post down and she was not nice about it. After I said that I wouldn't do it because I wanted to educate anyone who lives in my town, she told me I was a spoiled egg and I would regret ever making that video. I was so scared. I blocked her immediately. I sent the video to private and called the police. The police said they couldn't do much because they didn't have the make or model of the car they were in. And there was ultimately no proof that they had even come to my apartment or even who they were. Here's the part that still freaks me out though. When I went to show them the message from Facebook, I went to unblock the lady and her page was completely deleted. I still had the messages, but it was like I was talking to a gray default profile picture. Even the name had been changed to something that seemed to be random letters. I want to end this by saying I'm working on not being such a trusting idiot with people. I know the things I should have done differently. I still get upset with myself for how stupidly I had acted. And so, I'm going to end this video here. I'm going to end this video to the religious group or sex trafficking pair that showed up at my door and the Facebook lady, whatever your motives were, let's not meet again. And then there's an edit on this page. There's an edit on this post that goes, oh, by the way, the name of the group is God, the mother. And to clarify, I was at my college apartment when this happened. I hope you all stay safe. It's a crazy world out there. Oh my God. Now, do you know much about God, the mother? No. I didn't really know much about them either. Apparently, they are very known to target college kids. Like this is specifically like they go campus to campus. Oh, that is so sinister. Targeting college kids. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that makes sense. A lot of cult-like groups target college kids, immigrant communities, stay-at-home moms. It just depends what you're after. I found a little blurb here on them. So, God, the mother is kind of their like colloquial name. Okay. They're the World Mission Society Church of God. I've never heard of it. They're a cult by multiple experts, former members, and mainstream Christian denominations. They were founded in 1964 by a man named Ahn Sang-hong. And the group teaches that he was the second coming of Christ and that this living 82-year-old Korean woman named Zong Gil-ja is God, the mother, a divine being necessary for salvation, which kind of reminds me of the movies that we've been talking about. Yeah. I don't know what the pattern is there. I mean, I know why cults are so popular. I don't know why they're so popular. I don't know why cults crop up so consistently in the United States, particularly during times like the 60s and now. It's because whenever there's like a cultural uprising or a lot of turbulence in society where we lose trust in the institutions that were supposed to keep us safe, we look to alternative groups. And some of those groups are probably okay, but a lot of them tend to be pretty exploitative. So that's why, you know, this group and Synanon were founded during a similar era. Yeah, the 60s. Yeah. Yeah. Same with, you know, Scientology was a little before that. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is that is chilling. That's a very scary story. So then I imagine, I mean, we've kind of there's been documentaries that have touched on this a little bit, but like all of the cults that came up during COVID, all of those like cyber cults, I imagine that was a time where it just exploded. 100%. Yeah. And I think people were not necessarily perceiving groups like QAnon or incels as the same kind of cult because they're where people are dancing around in Midsommar-esque outfits. Right. Yeah. They're digital cults, you know, like comment sections are our new compounds. Yeah. That's a that's a really good way to put it, honestly. The thing that stuck out to me about the story, too, was the targeting of college students. Yeah. I think that is something like I remember we had this drink company come to my college when we were when I was like a sophomore and I lived in a housing, whatever, like a with three other girls and all of them joined. It ended up being an MLM, right? It's like you have to just like get people under you. It was one of the only ones, too, where the founders actually went to jail because usually that doesn't happen. But they actually got arrested and the whole thing got dissolved. Damn. But we had fifteen hundred dollars worth of energy drinks in our dorm because you had to buy in at like exorbitant rates and then they send you all the product. And yes, they don't care what you do with it. You're just supposed to get people under you. And that was a big one. Big one. Yeah. I mean, college students have a built in community of fellow classmates to recruit from. They're at the beginning of their lives. They're full of hope. You're looking for identity. And odds are, if you have the resources to go to college, you might have resources to spare on the cult. Yeah, of course. So it makes sense. Yeah. Very spooky. Very, very spooky. That one was very scary. I found I did find an article actually that came up from this is from WCNC because this was happening. I don't know where this story specifically took place, but this article is about Charlotte, North Carolina. But they wanted to verify as a religious group outside of Charlotte stores connected to sex trafficking. And they said that concerning posts had been circling the Charlotte social feeds warning women to stay away from people who might be connected to sex trafficking. And it was about the mother of God people. And what they found was it wasn't like explicitly sex trafficking. I think a lot of times, too, people think of like human trafficking and sex trafficking is like ripping someone off the sidewalk, kicking and screaming into a van. They found that that wasn't what was happening, but they were hosting like retreats. Yeah. And then the women were like not showing up after the retreats because they were either going off grid or like living on a compound or something. Well, speaking of the legality of it all, it's it's really hard to hold cults accountable because you know, they can make the argument in a court of law because they can make the argument like, oh, these people volunteered to give us their money and time and their bodies and their adults. But if you can get someone on a charge like sexual assault, sex trafficking, racketeering, you know, something like that, then you can hold them accountable. Yeah. But it's a big problem. Yeah. Because you don't necessarily want to be able to prosecute someone for a psychological crime because then people could start claiming any old thing. No, totally. Well, I imagine it's a very, very gray area. Yeah. And I know that there's a lot of gray area with like, well, how much were you a willing participant in this? And like, to what extent were they a victim versus a perpetrator participant? Yeah. Also, like I know families that are trying to get people like their family members and loved ones out of cults. It's very hard if like the person still wants to be in that cult. Totally. And then there was a cult in the 70s where cult deep programmers were getting in trouble for kidnapping cult followers out of the cults. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. It's like, yeah. Yeah. So reverse. It's delicate. It's delicate stuff. Oh, my gosh. OK, well, kind of speaking of the ones that cropped up during COVID, I have one for you to read. We've got one more. This one is titled My Friend, a 23-year-old female is being stalked by someone who is part of the cyber cult Twin Flames Theory, a 36-year-old male and has started posting worrying YouTube videos, trigger warning, emotional abuse and manipulation, obsessive behavior, stalking, grooming, harassment threats. This post was originally made in November of 2016. Hi, guys. I'm sorry if this is the wrong sub to post to as it's about a friend and not me, but I was really hoping for some advice and how to support my friend and point her in the right direction. She doesn't do Reddit. The story started a long time ago and originally met who I'll call Twin Flames guy when she was 16 and he was 30. Apparently, he became obsessed with her from that point on, which is extremely inappropriate in hindsight. My friend saw him only as a friend and had absolutely no romantic dealings with him. She agreed to meet him on several occasions for coffee or acting classes. But once he pick her up, suddenly the plans would change to dinner and dates. There's a lot more to the backstory. And eventually, my However, occasionally still had contact with him. him throughout the next six years. My friend had never disclosed this to anyone until recently, and they said it sounded like she had been or was in the middle of being groomed. She quickly sent Twin Flames Guy a message and asked to cease all contact. But since then, things have escalated. He's been posting weird videos on YouTube about how he met his twin flame when she was just 16, and now the time is right. It's his God-given right to be with her, and it was his for the taking. She also has evidence he turned up outside her house at 3 a.m. one morning and just stood there. What can she do? How can I help her? So there are some relevant comments. This one comes from ThisIsObsathrowAway. They said, call the police, document everything, save the videos. They may not be able to do anything, but she does need to, at the very least, make an official report. This behavior is dangerous and should not be ignored. He obviously knows where she lives. Does she live alone? She should invest in a camera for the outside of her home. Honestly, everyone should. If for no other reason than to protect your property, it's better to have and not need it. I don't mean to go all paranoid sounding over here, but being vigilant with someone who is obviously unhinged is always wiser than the wait till it blows over approach. I would even go so far as to say some self-defense classes are in order. This is a wise thing for anyone and everyone to have knowledge of because, again, it's far better to have it and not need it. They said that their source for this was that, I once had a crazy and obsessive stalker when I was younger. I initially was scared and paralyzed by it. Once I started taking action, aka police involvement, he disappeared quickly. And then the original poster said, thank you. I think she's been in touch with the police and waiting to give a statement or report. I'll update when I know more. Luckily, she lives with her family and has a boyfriend who's ready to kick ass. Yeah, it's so important to have some support. There's another comment that said, twin flames guy. Wait, what? What is this? And what is the twin flames theory? In any event, she needs to contact me. I'm going to go to the hospital. I'm going to contact the police and get a restraining order and stop all contact with him. So the original poster replied to that. I honestly don't know enough about twin flames to be able to give you a proper answer, but it's along the same lines as a soulmate. And they believe a deeper connection than that. I've done a bit of research and he calls himself a chaser and her a runner because she's not accepting him as her twin flame cult language, insider language. A chaser and a runner. It's giving, um, yellow jackets or something. It's like victim and prey. He's the predator. She's the prey. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So there was an update that was made 16 months later in March of 2018. Hi guys. I know it's been over a year since the original post, but I've been supporting my friend through a lengthy court battle with, to be honest, not a great result. So first of all, thank you for your advice on your suggestions. We contacted the police straight away and they said there wasn't much they could do. Twin flames guy was arrested and he admitted to everything. The police made him sign a piece of paper that basically said, I promise I will not contact her again and let him go. My friend had given countless statements and I had sent them all the videos and screenshots of even weirder Facebook posts he was making. And the police told her there was nothing they could do. If she sees him on the street, run into a shop and get a security guard. They told her she couldn't get a restraining order until he tried to make contact with her again, as he had willingly signed the promise piece of paper. Disheartened, we gave up and he continued to post creepy YouTube videos about her online for months and months, sometimes 20 minute long videos. Twice a day. His stuff began to get more intense. He is definitely mentally unstable. You could see it in his eyes and this rollercoaster pattern of emotions. He seemed to fly through and in such short periods of time. After his arrest, he made videos of him crying, saying he forgave his twin flame and that he would give her space. But really there was nowhere in the world she could hide for long because Archangel Michael had showed him that they were meant to be together for eternity and that signs and sinks meant they had a 4D relationship. He made videos of him kissing his hands, pretending that it was her. Finally, one day he posted an absolutely manic video from his car that was really quite scary, claiming his God-given right to be with his twin flame and mentioned that he had killed people in his past life. He also slipped up and made some reference with their two names merged together like celebrities do. I want to vomit everywhere even thinking about it, but we knew this was concrete proof slash evidence that he was talking about her. So once again, we continue to post creepy YouTube videos about her because we know that Archangel Michael had killed his twin flame and that he was meant to be together for eternity and that he was meant to be with his twin flame and that he was meant to be with his twin flame and that he was meant to be with his twin flame. We were really hoping he would get some sort of mental help. It has really upset my friend, but she's trying not to dwell on it. I keep an eye on his movements online, but try not to tell her unless it's something particularly worrying, as I do not wish to cause more stress. He still continues to post videos about speaking his truth and how he will not be silenced, how he went through a triggering ordeal but came out stronger because of it, and there's nothing I can do about it. He's become clever, and I'm sure he's going to continue to do the same. He's clever and calculated now in what he says in his videos, even though we know they're still about my friend and there are no obvious links, so the police say all the evidence is circumstantial. This has been going on for six years. We thought he would have given up by now. I feel like it's just a waiting game now until he slips up again. That is exhausting. What a horrible experience. I'm surprised that they weren't able to seek more recourse considering her age. The Twin Flames cult specifically, even in the documentary, it's a lot of minors that they pursue this doggedly. I remember all the ins and outs of how Twin Flames operates, and I don't know the latest on their legal standing, but last I heard, they had not been sort of brought to their knees quite yet. I mean, they've gotten horrible press and are having trouble recruiting, as you might imagine, but it's not like anyone has been sent to prison like Keith Raniere or anything like that. Right, yeah, they were still operating when the documentary came out, which the thing that was so shocking is how. How much they encourage stalking. Yeah, it really, and it seems like they even take people who wouldn't otherwise be stalkers and encourage them to start stalking the people that they see as their Twin Flames. Well, it's that ends justify the means philosophy, and the ends to them is spiritual. Like, this is a theology. If you're, I mean, it has its roots in like romantic relationships, but this is a mystical supernatural belief system. He said, you know, he has this God given right to his. And the 4D, like I remember that being a big thing too, like living in 4D is like a spiritual thing you can do. And this is why religious cults or supernatural cults language is so profound because it invokes like all of your life and afterlife. Like this is why prayer is so profound because it strengthens your beliefs. So the more that you use this language, the more you're going to believe it, the more you're going to feel certain that. You do have this kind of mystical right to abuse this person because this is just earth, you know, like this is bigger than earth. And the language solidifies that. Yeah, like they are these spirits that have to be together. What we're doing right now is just earth. Yeah. So, but like the ultimate thing is that our spirits need to be together for this like afterlife or whatever it is that they're trying to achieve. But yeah. And it's such an interesting cult premise. For this particular time in history when loneliness is an epidemic. Yeah. And people are struggling in more ways than ever to couple up. Yeah, during COVID. Yeah. Everyone was so lonely. Yeah, yeah. And this is the promise that like not only will we help you find someone, but we will help you find like that perfect spiritual divine. Exactly. Person you've always been looking for. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Which is so scary. But yeah, I don't know, like even watching that documentary, because there's still like a lot of these YouTube videos up online that the people post because they're all they're really encouraging. They're encouraged to use like video diaries, it seems. Yeah, it's a kind of YouTube. YouTube is their compound. Yes, it is. It is. And they're like, because none of them live in the same area. It was all started on the Internet. So they, I guess, kind of meet up sometimes. Yeah, they do. But yeah, most of it was like online. But the amount that they talk about their twin flame and think about it, it just feels kind of counterintuitive to actual dating, I guess. I know. Yeah, that cult is definitely a get the f*** out and it's also a product of our time. Yes, it feels like it could only exist in 2020, like the 2020s. The 2020s, for sure. The loneliness and the two, I mean, the like most theater kid leaders ever. Truly. Jeff and Shalia are so. What dorks. I know Shalia, not even her real name. Dorky. Dorky, deeply. Dorky. And like, they also just don't seem happy. And they're like, you could have a relationship like ours. And the relationship just sucks and is so dorky and weird. Yeah. OK, I want to for our last little segment, I have a couple of things. So I was looking up. thread that was called what's something that's not a cult, but feels like a cult. bag yes okay so the first one that came up as one of like the highest rated ones which i was very surprised about this but then i thought about it i was not so surprised marching band oh my god we just did it sounds like a club i know and i saw that you had just done an episode this person goes marching band if you know you know yes oh my god i had absolutely no idea but now i do know and um spoiler alert but it's a it's a hardcore watcher back especially drum core like the high school marching band is more of a light a light watcher back i mean literally physically watch your back because those instruments are heavy yeah um but the the drum core where there's a lot of like hazing and like honestly sexual abuse like it's oh my gosh it's no way it's really intense listen to the episode it gets it gets really dark drum core is college it yeah and it's it's like outside of a school oh yeah so it doesn't have maybe the protections of yeah and like people okay this is not my expertise but my understanding is that you know like 19 year olds in the band are you know playing alongside you know 65 year olds and everyone in between and so yeah there can just be some weirdness power dynamics okay because in my mind i was thinking of like high school marching band yeah which also no that's culty too when i went to high school it was very culty for sure they're just a group and i mean think of it it derives from like military and nationalism and yeah you have your costumes you have your rituals your language your your physical exploitation and it completely colonizes your time you're and you're like sleeping together when you go on tour yeah yeah band kids are pretty horny i would add theater to that too then like totally high school theater community we've compared and contrasted these extensively oh really you gotta listen to the everyone has to listen to that episode i'll link it okay and then another one that came up was this one comment that goes i work for a non-profit they tend to refer to employees for their work and i'm like oh my god i'm not going to work for a non-profit i'm not going to work for a non-profit i'm not going to work for a non-profit i'm not going to work for a non-profit i'm not going to work for a non-profit i'm not going to work for a non-profit they tend to refer to employees as family working for a cause which wouldn't be culty on its own but they definitely use it to manipulate employees to work themselves half to death instead of culture where boundaries are thought of as not being invested in the mission that's right they also use your passion for the mission to justify working you harder and paying you less don't get me wrong i absolutely love my job and what i get to do but i'm old enough to see what's been done to me over the years the rotating door of young employees who are worked to burn out and replaced though i do feel bad for it's all right hard lesson to learn not to sound like a broken record but we also did a sounds like a whole episode on non-profits years ago wow yeah so much labor exploitation justified with you know service of the mission yeah that gets that gets pretty dark too i think we classified it as a watch your back but one of my best friends works for a cancer non-profit whose mission i really believe in but i remember when i started fundraising for them just the mantras alone to like whip people up yeah very mlm to get people excited for the like very small amount of money they're actually making to do this job yeah yeah and the burnout i get the burnout yeah any a comment under that was like any job that refers to itself as your family massive red flag tech they will drop you in a second they don't care numbers suggested they are not your actual family nor one that came up after that was essential oils we get it you're single mom you want to work from home but damn you guys sure do drink the kool-aid yeah yeah with the essential oils episode we did yeah i'm sure like literally i'm sure all of these are yes yes um i'm feeling very validated in our topic choices right now yes there are so many essential oils mlms yeah that have led to death and destruction you know the one where the one that almost got me in college was my friend's mom came and pitched it to us but we had to put our hands on this electric device oh and it would measure something about the electricity in our bodies and then uh results would pop up as to like what essential oils we needed in our body more it's giving squeeze my cans it's very squeeze my cans like the hand on the electrodes and then i was told i needed more thieves and she wanted me to take like the thieves essential oil put it in a capsule swallow the whole thing whole and she told me too she was like yeah i did it yesterday i had a stomach ache i did it yesterday and i threw up violently because the essential oils knew that i needed to purge myself i was like i think it was just the fact that you you swallowed that many essential oils i love essential oils but i also know what they can and cannot accomplish i yes yes limit your expectations for the central truly it's like yeah rub some lavender oil on your pulse points pop off peppermint on my head during a headache yes but the like really woo woo stuff that they say they can do no nor okay this one i'm gonna get it in the comments but i'm saying this as someone who is married to someone who went to the school whose whole family can i guess every yes guess texas a&m yes yes oh my god literally they've all like my husband's entire family all went to the school they all get married on campus there's like boots that they get given and like hand signals i'm not allowed to do and chance and matt's like you have to come to the midnight chant one time and i'm like what everything about it feels so culty and then i tell him that he's like yeah absolutely it is we have gotten so many requests for this one over the years we're gonna have to do it eventually i don't have personal experience with texas a&m but i do have personal experience with princeton because my husband went there and their culture is also very culty i think in kind of a live your life borderline watch your back way but they throw this monstrosity of a reunion every year they call it reunion they transform the campus into this like debauched almost like music festival type thing so ritualistic and um it is fun but as an outsider i'm like i'm prepared to do one weekend of this and then i need to like take a cold shower yes yes that's exactly how i feel about a&m i've already been told that our son is gonna go there like it's just already like it's written in the stars for all of our children okay we have to heavy watch your back yeah it actually might be watch your back i'm curious if it's gonna be like a day or two or something like that i don't know anyone listening has gone there because i would be curious to hear the case that it's not a cult look like we all we all we cult obsessed people at my podcast have a general rubric in our heads that we use to categorize every cult of the week yeah so if you have light us versus them dynamics and some ritual and some mysticism that's okay but if there are severe exit costs and this group is like completely taking over your headspace and your decision making in an outside group that's when it's starting to inch along this cultish spectrum yes there's one that i added after we had this entire conversation it made me think of it as someone who has both gone to them and worked at them but i do think sleepaway camps might actually be we literally i my two co-hosts reese and chelsea just did a sleepaway camp episode oh my goodness i'm sure you just got a lot of really crazy stories oh yeah i think back at my time there like the language is fully different you learn an entire code language i know the rituals the mysticism yes the borderline offensive like rituals that you do appropriative yes yes um yes i remember one of the cultiest things being like the ritualistic pranks like at night or the last night of sleepaway camp you weren't allowed to fall asleep or like a prank might befall you and i remember i wasn't feeling well and i fell asleep when i woke up like covered in shaving cream yeah awesome um which is like whatever it was a little it was honestly a little it was humiliating but um i do remember like i mean of course i went to sleep with theater camp which is like another layer but um we had so many chants um people cried so hardcore on the last day yes but i remember there was this one song that i was reminded of recently by a listener of sounds like a cult who also went to this camp and the song went we all have magic around us the sun and the moon to guide us it was like so the mysticism yes truly and i was like oh my god that was so culty yes it is yes it is very culty i guess there's not really like the exit costs but you do kind of get like i always worked with the 13 year old girls and like if you didn't come back to camp or a lot of stuff would happen over the school year yeah where they would ostracize one girl and then they'd all come back to camp and now you were ostracized like it actually did start having that kind of power dynamic that was spooky no there are hierarchies for sure i mean i would have called my experience a live your life maybe it was a maybe it was a watch your back just because we were adolescents and everything's just like super charged emotionally and psychologically when you're that age so like be careful with kids yeah inherently any group with like a sense of hierarchy and power like yes involving kids might be a default watch your back but loki the greatest days of my life i know go same would i go back in an instant oh my god i was drinking the kool-aid so hard back definitely if i if the smell of my sleepway camp campus hit me right now i would be 14 years old rehearsing for the final performance transported transported i'm curious if anyone listening has anything to add to the list whether you went somewhere that you felt like was a little culty joined an or fraternity, I think those are up there too. - Scroll through the Sounds Like a Cult Back catalog. we've covered it. There's definitely an episode. I mean, how many episodes have you done at this point? Oh my God, 200. Yeah, there's definitely, there's going to be an episode on Sounds Like a Cult about this. A lot. You can also check out Cultish. Thank you. And thank you so much for joining us today, Amanda. Oh my God, thank you so much. This was perfect. I've loved every second of it. No, I've loved having your insight. I've wanted to do this episode for a while and I think just- And we'll have you on Sounds Like a Cult. Yes, I would be so happy to talk about truly anything. Yay. Love it. Okay, we will be back next week with another episode. You can join me then. And until then, stay curious. Bye guys. Bye.