Where are they now? Mark Vicente on the Narcissist’s Playbook (Part 1)

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 Edlinson. I'm Anthony Nippie 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, SCARD. 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 cult of us and how to spot and recover from trouble if it happens to you. Each week we bring experts, survivors, and whistleblowers to explore red flags, resilience, and even share a few laughs because sometimes you got a laugh. Subscribe to our Patreon for early and ad-free listening, some live Q&A and exclusive content at patreon.com/a little bit culty. Welcome to season 8 of a little bit culty. Welcome back to a little bit culty everybody. This is part of our "Where Are They Now" series as promised with Marc Vicente, author, speaker, filmmaker, and one of the voices who helped turn the vow into required viewing for anyone who ever said, "That sounds a little bit culty." We first spoke with Marc back in season 3 and since then he's been doing what he does best. Using film, the drag manipulation out of the shadows and into the light where it cannot hide behind buzzwords, branding, or fake smile, wellness glow. And by branding we mean like marketing branding. To be clear, his latest project, "Narsis's Playbook" is a feature-length documentary. You may have noticed if you listen to our reload throwback episode last week with Dr. Robbony, that he's been working on this for quite some time. This documentary pulls back the curtain on the psychological abuse with expert insight, survivor testimony, and some truly jaw-dropping confessions from self-aware narcissists. I didn't even know that was a thing. The film makes the case that the same manipulation tactics show up in intimate relationships, workplaces, dysfunctional families, and even authoritarian systems, just scaled up or down depending on the venue. What makes it especially remarkable is that it's been entirely funded by survivors. Marc and his team are still raising money for marketing, advertising, and outreach, and putting the film in theaters themselves. So head over to www.narsisplaybook.com to watch the trailer, share it, donate, do whatever you can to support this important mission. You'll remember we interviewed survivors Ben Tino and Massara organization right here on ALBC in 2022. Marc has since gone deep on that story where he talks to survivors about experiences inside the organization. It's part of a much larger TV series he's been developing for the past five years. That's available on his podcast. WTF is on my mind. So yes, Marc is doing a lot in this space and he knows the terrain from the inside. From his years as a filmmaker of what the book do we know to his role in exposing NEXIAM and now his ongoing work on unpacking malignant narcissism, coercion, and the mechanics of abuse. So in this conversation, we catch up because you know we love to do that on his life, what he's been building, and why he's so fired up about telling these stories and how he's trying to turn hard-earn lessons into real world tools for survivors and awareness for the world. Hope you enjoy this two-part catch-up with our friend and colleague Marc Vicente. Marc Vicente, I have the film industry. It's a wide net. That's a wide net. What kind of. You don't. You might not know this because you've been busy with your pod, but we've been doing a series called Where Are They Now? I did see that actually. I saw you saw. You did. Isabel I think. It is Isabel. Yeah. You're the second. You're the second-year. This is you. We just sprung it on you. Where are you? Where are you now? You may have sprung it on me, but your producers actually had reached out months ago and I forgot. And I was, by the way, intending shameless plug. Oh, thank you. How far did you get it? I didn't read this. Well, I actually skimmed through the entire thing. I've read a bunch of sections that I had to skim through some of it because some of the stuff I knew I kept on going through. But let me just give it a shameless plug quickly. I think it's a super important book, like super important. And I think that what's amazing about it is you show the pattern and then you show all the examples of how the pattern plays out, which I think is very important. And also the stuff at the end, about recovery, about advice and stuff like that. I think that's super important because a lot of people reach out and say, "What do you think I should do?" And I'm like, "Well, we didn't exactly heal, and we went to war." I don't know. Maybe heal a little bit before you go to war. And do you want to go to war? Because maybe war isn't the best way, but super important books. So well done, guys. Well done. Thank you so much. Yeah. The chapter healed before you, Haller. At one point it was healed before you squeal. I think Haller was better. Yeah. You liked the Dylan quote, huh? I'm going to read it again. So it says, "Could be the Fuhrer, could be the local priest." You know, sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace, Bob Dylan, man of peace. I'm like, "Dude, that's wisdom right there." He was ahead of his time. Good song. Listen, people don't get Dylan. I think they go, "Oh, we can't sing, we can't whatever." Dylan's, and they think he was prophetic, and one of the things about that movie is like, "Oh, the left thought he was apolitical." He was apolitical. His songs were like, "Yeah, they're prophetic, but they're also kind of like warnings." There's a great album of his called Infidel's, and he made it like a 1980 or something like that. And he has Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits on it, and he has Mick Taylor, who's the Rolling Stones guitarist from '68 to '74. In my opinion, when the Stones did their best work. And it's such a good album. It has Joker Man. It has all these, if you look at the, just the lyrics, let alone the songs themselves. That's what Man of Peace is on that album. I think it's one of his best albums. Can I give you some trivia about Dire Straits quickly, since you're on Dire Straits? So I went to school with a guy called Terrence Rage, his Portuguese dude, and in drama school, a drama in film school. And Terrence was obsessed with playing the guitar, but all he ever played was Dire Straits. That's all he played. Cut to decades later, he became the frontman for Dire Straits, the Dire Straits experience, and now travels the world. Being that dude that plays the guitar. No way. Look, that's a great risk. That's dreaming. That's a man who knew how to dream. Derrick, I would say he was persistent and did a dire state persistency. A Mark Knopfler. Like persistency. I mean, he was, he was embodying Mark Knopfler. He was embodying him, and now he's a dude. So this has turned from, turned from where are they now, Mark Vicente, too? Where are they? Where do they get to? This is what Mark and I would do. We go talk about growing the men's group, and then we just riff on life shit. Yeah. And then, yes. That's a good old days. Alright, call it tomorrow. Alright. Gotta go. Next meeting. Gotta go. Gotta go. Gotta call. Okay. That was me all the time. All the time. And probably we'll end this call the same way. Okay. So we're going to talk about, is your third time on a little bit called T, I believe? That's right. Where are you now? So I think the world knows you've spent how many years now making your film? This is five years now. Five years. How long have you been doing this podcast? Five years. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. So like, the journey. Yeah. So basically, I just start. Remember when Bonnie was basically giving us all the articles to help us figure out what's going on, and she made that first list. And she was trying to explain to me like what narcissism actually was versus like what we were all taught by, you know, fuckface. A narcissist. A narcissist. And then I think around 2019, after the trial, she said to me, I think you should make a film about narcissism. And I thought, actually, that's a really good idea because I was so obsessed with trying to understand like how it worked. So I think we did our first, you know, reached out to Scott who you know, did our first shoot in, we began prepping in 2020, did our first shoot in 2021, which was actually I think it was with Dr. Romani. And then we went to, I think Macedonia or Prague or wherever it was. We did a whole bunch of stuff. So basically, we've been going for five years. And it became my obsession. I'm really happy like we're finally like at the finish line, but here's what's cool in the film, which you guys have seen. I get to sit down and I get to interview these people with these pathologies, right? We never got that opportunity with Reneerie, like he never admitted anything. He never told us who he was. Yes, you know, you know, we saw him in court the way he behaved. But like in some ways it was healing because I got to interview him, the archetype of him through other people. And I got to understand, oh, this is what's going on. Or this is how it works. This is what he would never confess if he even was aware because talking to self-aware narcissists is really really interesting because some of them really have deep insight into their behavior. They say they don't have a choice, which I don't know if that's true, but they have deep insight into the behavior and very deep insight into what they do to other people. and why and how much they enjoy it, right? - That's an incredibly valuable asset that you put forward to people because I don't think anything like it exists. - Well, also-- - Does it? - Nothing I know. I remember our Dan Shaw interview and one of the things we were talking about with these kinds of people is they never put themselves in a position or conversation they can't curate, which is, I don't know how many others have been done or why these people break that mold or maybe you just found people that broke that mold and are kind of getting the attention from revealing their psychology, still doing the behavior while explaining the behavior. - That's it, that's exactly what it is. I mean, I remember having a conversation with, 'cause we reached out to HG Shooter, I had a conversation with him and I just wanted to be out of friends and I just said, like, why are you doing this? Like, why are you going to do this? And he says, 'cause I'm going to get something out of it. And I said, okay. I said, what exactly? He said, well, I'm going to get an audience. I'm going to get fuel and you're going to get what you want. Very clear discussion. - Wow. - Trans-actional. - Very transactional. The same with all of them. I mean, I think what happens is the, you know, being on YouTube, whatever being on the internet is a lot of fuel, being in a film is like a lot of fuel. You know, so they just spoke. I mean, it was kind of insane. I was like, I kind of surprised. And by the way, there's some stuff that's not in the film that's way worse. Like, H.E. Shooter told me stuff that I thought, that's amazing. I put it in the cut. It was so dark that the audience couldn't recover from how dark it was. Like, they went down a tall hole. - You shared or no? - There was one thing he said. There was a few, but there was one thing he said that really struck me. He said that he was, I guess, dating or with some woman who basically left him. And he just waited. I think he waited for like seven years. And then what he did is he basically started to encroach back into life. At this point, she was married. She had children, she had an amazing, life. He worked his way back into her life. He seduced her and blew up her entire marriage and destroyed her entire family and everything. And I thought to myself, that level of evil, like where you just played the long game from maybe seven or nine years or whatever it was, to completely destroy somebody who left you. Less than a decade before, that's a level of like strategy and evil that's profound. But the problem is it was so dark the way he said it that I was like, the audience can't come back from that. Because we do try to give the audience some solutions at the end as you saw. If it goes too dark, I mean, look, it's already fucking dark. But there were some things like that. That's too much. Too much. Yeah. Did you feel like you gained more insight into what happened with us and with Keith? Doing the film? I did. There's so many different things. One of the things is that, you know, I just saw how we kept on projecting on an empty wall, like, you know, to different degrees. Like we kept on projecting stuff on him that was based on our own values. And when they talk about themselves as empty, they really are empty. But what they can do is they're good chameleons. In some ways they're kind of good actors. They basically mirror back to you everything that you want. You know, that's why like, you know, let's take nippy for instance, like, you know, your love of the ideas of democracy and the founding fathers and all that shit. You know, he would mirror that back to you and it moved you. I mean, it moved Jim as well. You know, rest his breasts and piece and all that. Jim would cry about those things, you know, and he believed that Reneerie understood those values better than even he did. So that was one thing. The other thing that I didn't understand but did later. And I saw this with Reneerie and a new woman that came into the organization. I remember once we were in Apropos. And I'm not going to say who it is. It's an actress who you know very well. Starts with a letter R. Blonde. And I remember, yeah, exactly. And I remember her walking out the back door, that back door to the parking lot. And he and I were talking. And he pretty much pushed me over, like pushed me to get to her. And I was like, it was so weird because it was like, the act of a desperate boy going after a girl. And I'd never seen him do that before. But there was something he was so desperate about it. And I thought to myself, you know, let's say you're a complete psychopath. Like, why would you be desperate? Well, the thing that's interesting, and I don't know what his actual pathology is, but I realized that they actually idolized their targets. Before the target is going to become a target, they idolized them. They actually kind of like fall for them. They become obsessed with their targets, which I didn't realize. Until the person they're obsessed with doesn't behave the way they think they should behave based on the internal picture of the person. And that's when they start destroying them and devaluing them. Like, they live in a fantasy world. I didn't quite understand the level of fantasy that Renere must have lived in to do some of the stuff he did. You know, we can say yes, he's evil and all of that. But there was some very boyish things that he did. That was one example. Like obsessed like a teenage boy about some girl who was walking out the room that it just had to get to. Well, that's also consistent. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, impulsive. Yeah, I was in the also consistent with what we know about his reaction with some of the sisters like kissing band or the other like finding out that they maybe had a crush on somebody else. Like he couldn't handle that. Yeah, like the whole cock measuring fucking text messages bullshit. I mean, my God, my God. God, I mean, when you're 13 maybe, you know, but like, come on. Grow up. You're 13. You didn't? Yeah, 27. Closer than 5 or 20. Yeah, but this dude was like, he was like in late 50s at this point, you know. Come on. Before we hear from our sponsors, just a quick reminder, our book, A little bit culty. Navigating cults, control and coercion is officially out and available on Amazon. Signed pre-orders have closed, but you can still get your copy today. This book is the culmination of five years of conversations, interviews at research. Everything we've learned about how people get pulled into high control groups and how to avoid escape or heal from them. If you've been listening to the podcast, I want a deeper go-to resource. This is it. Available now on Amazon in print and as an e-book for Kindle. And yes, the audiobook is coming soon narrated by us. Just search a little bit culty and grab your copy. Do it. Thanks everybody. 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You know, Mark, you mentioned that guy waited seven years ago ruined his ex's wife. That's why I said, you know, you need to monitor Keith and Jail. I agree. I think he's the guy that gets out. All he has. I'm going to keep it clean. - I have fucked. - That's all he has, right? So he's sitting around and cocking away. He's probably manipulating people. - But like people still listen to his phone calls, right? Like those phone calls are monitored, are they? - They are. The BOP monitors them. But I don't know, maybe he talks in code or I don't know. But then again, I really have problems with lawyers because like, his lawyers can tell him anything from somebody else. You know, client-confidentiality and all that. So like I don't know, do the BOP evaluate those messages as well? I mean, I would hope they do, but maybe they don't. So I don't know. I don't know. - Speaking of the long game, do you remember there was a module that was like about suppressives level two. I think it was like the best game in town. - Mm. - There was a module. I don't remember. I think it was something like-- - The late gratiface. - Yeah, it's where we learned that suppressive people, AKA him, instead of like if you, if you were a jealous neighbor and you know, they got the job you wanted or whatever, you wouldn't just scratch the car and as an impulse, you would slowly poison the dog over time. - I remember that. - Yes, I forgot. - Yeah, so he did tell us that the long game was the best game for a suppressive. - Yeah. - So it's your bath. - It's amazing, 'cause it was all in there. I mean, literally, I would sit there like interviewing some of these people. Because some of them I spent days with, you know, some of the people in the film I spent days with. And I would sit there sometimes and they would say something and I would suddenly realize, oh my God, there it is, that's the thing I didn't understand before. - Mm-hmm. - You know, and there's a certain charm as well. I'm gonna say one thing, like about HG Shooter, he has the kind of confidence that seems impenetrable and unbreakable. And I do remember that in the mindset that I was in when I was still in the SP, I found Renere's confidence like a good thing. 'Cause I didn't understand what I was looking at. The fact that he never seemed ruffled by anything, which wasn't true 'cause later when I went back and thought about it, I said, he was ruffled about that and he was ruffled about that. But I just believed that he was unruffled. I thought, well, that's a level of certainty that must mean he's right. You know, that wasn't an intellectual putting together of an idea that was just like a gut feeling like this dude fucking knows, you know. - It's to be expected. Like everything he felt like was, yeah, that's part of it. And this is how you handle that. Like, yeah. - You know, after so many episodes and, you know, being in this world for a while, I thought, I kind of like had a pretty good handle on a topic. You know, but one of the things that I learned from your film, and I wonder how you think this applies to Keith, is one of your narcissists I won't say who. So it's not a spoiler for the audience, is how he explained that when he's looking for some, you know, when he's scouting, he can tell whether or not the person wants to be healed or the whether the person wants to be destroyed. - I know, I know. - That was new. Was that a surprise for you? - That was new. That was a surprise for me too. And look, a lot of people have pushed back against that. They don't believe that, but like, we all have at some point self-destructive tendencies. And I've known people that just are on the path towards self-destruction. And depending on your wiring, I think there's some people that keep on going into situations probably not consciously because they, maybe he's right, maybe they don't want healing. I think it's a minority, maybe they want to be heard. I mean, shit, there's a reason this, SMM exists, right? I guess, and all that bondage shit, whatever. But it's a very dark thing. Now look, I think he was in a very performative mode as well, 'cause I don't know if what he's saying is true. - I know, sir. - Yeah, I think it felt like he's been a performance. - He's enjoying the camera a little bit. - Yeah. - A lot, a lot, yeah. But there's something about that, about the way they can scout people. It's just fascinating. And by the way, what was so interesting about that senior talking about is there was a woman in the audience that had flown in to see him for a tree kind of thing. And I thought to myself, he's saying this stuff in front of her. And you can see, and I won't try and describe her, 'cause you know, privacy and all that, but like you see her melting down in the audience. 'Cause he's literally talking about-- - I need to watch again. - I saw what he's going to do to people. And she's sitting there, and I was like, this is the most fucked up thing I've ever seen in my life. And you know, 'cause you're behind the camera, you're shooting, you're doing all this stuff, but at the same time you're aware of this. You're like, something's not right here. That's just horrible. Anyway, there's a long story. - And I was also surprised that he was married. - He's married, he's married. - That's crazy. - But listen. - My God. - I will say that, I think in some ways, he's done a service to the field of psychology. Because I think there's a level of insight. Like I think it's one thing to be a psychologist that studies this shit. It's another thing to actually have it. - And to watch about his experience. - Yeah. - There's something about really having it and understanding what motivates you. Now, that's the topic for a lot of discussion, because you know, the question is, does he understand does not, whatever, I'm not sure. But I will tell you, I learned a lot, a lot. - Yeah, you have experience. This forensics there that anyone watching superficially can get. You know, the parallels that I saw when he was saying, what was it, some people want to be destroyed or taking care of what was the line? - Some people want to be healed and something like some people want to be destroyed. - Simply how he was putting diagnostics everyone. Like there's not a coincidence of all the parallels between all the DOS women. And we don't have to call them all out, but they all have emotional congruencies that I'm seeing just kind of knowing them. - Yeah. - I'm sure Keith developed an acumen where he can go. This person's susceptible, this person's susceptible. They're not, they're gonna take some work. Like I think his forensics were able to just go boom. This is what this is gonna be. Silo these two, their loyal. Use them to indoctrinate the others. Normalize, you know, like I'm sure that's like, 'cause if this is what you have a lifetime of doing, I mean, look, I got good at throwing the football 'cause I did it all the time, right? This is what he's been doing. We've heard from Barbara Shay since he's a teenager. - Yeah. - So he's a master. - I think so. - He's a master recognizing impulse sets. And just from like, you know, I said this in a podcast a little while ago, just from the fact that you and I sat down for 10 years, elicited information of the same questions to thousands of people. We got a sense of like, oh, this is probably how they're gonna answer this question. And I wasn't trying to do it for any sort of manipulative reason. I just started recognizing impulse control. Right? You can almost, they can walk in and we could probably go, this is probably the module they're gonna have a problem with. - Yeah. - Right? So key with this pathology from early age, just can walk into the room and recognize, oh, I'm gonna sleep with her in one month, six months. You know what I mean? Like, if that was him, he was practicing and honing. He got good at it and then was able to create an architecture around it. - It's interesting you say that 'cause I was thinking back to like one of the things I learned from a renair, well, we all did actually. That is actually very valuable is understanding that whatever prison says, they say it's based on believing something. - Yeah, the base assumption. - Base assumption. If you can understand enough about them spend time with them, you understand the base assumption. The base assumption is what drives everything. You know, which is very NLP and also, you know, what he taught, which is interesting because it's not like I've been able to shut that off completely. But I interact with people like I say, I start to not only analyze it, but I also feel a lot more now than I did inside ESP like I feel a lot more. And I feel what's probably gonna happen. And you're right, somebody that's trained their whole life to do that, but uses it not to help but to hurt. Like of course, and that's what you see in the film. You see people that have trained themselves to do that. And I mean, look, I know the film is very shocking in some ways. I think one of the things that I was trying to do so much, remember how when we came out, when we started coming out, people were saying, "Oh, I can't believe he's evil. I can't believe this. I can't believe it about renair." And we were trying to explain to them like, "No, this should exist." He really is another species. He said it himself. He described it those people are the species. I wanted to make a film that dissuaded people from the idea that these people could just be loved back into wholeness. Like that they really is something wrong. And just because you're a good human being and you love people, that ain't gonna do shit. So I think we did do that. I think a lot of people, we did a screening at UCLA a week and a half ago, and they were all like clinicians and like the cream of the crop, you know? And they were blown away and they were like shocked. And I was like, "Wow, that's, it felt really good. I was terrified of that screening." Yeah, because I was scared because they were all like, they were experts and they loved it, you know? So I was, I feel like we were, - What was it like? - Were there parallels? Like did they disagree or agree? - No, they pretty much agreed with everything. And they thought it was basically an amazing tool to help explain how it works. A lot of people saw the parallels like with, you know, domestic violence and with, you know, other kinds of sexual abuse. And they saw all the parallels because the film really, as you see, all of these things come from a pathology. I mean, I talked about this all the time. And I know, I know Renere did as well, which sometimes irritates me. All the bad things in the world are coming from people with this pathology. - Mm-hmm. That's right. - And that's what we're totally showing the film, you know? - It's true. - That is where it comes from. - He just talked about it to hide the fact that he was one of those people. - Exactly. - And what you're talking about. - He described how those people worked inside systems. - Yeah. - In shifted strategy and all that, which is another conversation. But when you were talking about how we, you know, systematically found those people, I still don't have an answer to this. And maybe Karen Entireiner or one of the, you know, OG, you know, inner circle members would know. But do we ever know for sure if those intake sheets, like those, what are they called? - Evaluations. - Evaluations. - They were, they were, they were NPD evaluations. Yeah, so who read them and who would do keys it with them? I can tell you what I know. What do you know? What do you know? Talking to Mark or me. You. Okay. After a training because I was staffing it. Yeah. Karen Ront, Hunter, and I gave me a box of them and told me to take them over to the shredding after everyone had done it. That's interesting. You're telling me in this now for the first time. I mean, okay. I'll tell you that I know that there were boxes of them in the center. There were no boxes of them. Yeah. And there being some of them at least. So the early years they must have. We're being shredded. Maybe I think it was just fucking wear us down. I think in the early days they must have looked at them and said, okay, this person's a narcissist or this person's, you know, a grandiose or I know that this person has this birth day. Go find this birthday. I want to find out how they answer these questions. Yeah. I just texted Karen. How he used the intake. The intake. I mean, and for those who don't know we're talking about, we to fill out this like 25 page questionnaire that was basically different questionnaires from the internet printed out and then photocopied. And we think about it that like the format and the font was different on each, but somewhere multiple choice. True false. Yeah. Somewhere true or false, somewhere, the format changed, the font changed. It was so bullshit. But we were told that they were being shipped off to be analyzed to see how we changed over time. But I think it was a way for him to see who was anonymous. 100%. There's just been our births. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. And then what I found out later is that it was basically a questionnaire to determine whether somebody had narcissistic traits or I don't know if it was NPD or just narcissistic traits. I was like, why would he want to know that? I think we figured it out because we, with you Google, am I a narcissist or like take home test for narcissism? Yeah. And then I think that was the question. I think that was the question. I loved and smart and smart and I think he used all of those things and how do you do sets? Yeah, all of those things and gave her that at first But what was interesting later I was telling somebody the other day in 2015 because I would you know all those executive board meetings Some of them or green meetings some of them like I think before you came in Sarah into green Some of them she was at as well Renere would treat her like shit like he was just means her and I remember at one point in 2015 I was taking a walk with her and saying like do you notice how he treats you and she's like no I'm like treats you really fucking badly. She just couldn't take it in You know, but like a lot of other people could see it that was in a green meetings and executive board. So I think at first He did love bum her and then he made her believe that she wasn't living up to Her potential of what she should live up to and then she spent the next like you know decade and a half Trying to live up to something yeah, live up something that she couldn't do and he would punish her all the time Which is exactly kind of what he did to all of us like he told us we should have these goals and we should have these Whatever then when we try to get there he would punish us back You guys I mean you saw that as well constantly Mark. I remember I don't know what year it was, but I remember I always had kind of an arms distance relationship Especially to certain things that Nancy would say, but you know a lot of times I'd be in the training and I'd be like Okay, but I was on board with what we were doing or I thought we were doing yeah, and I remember Nancy comes in one day and she was talking about how Keith was in a meeting ignored her turned her back to her and Did not answer her questions directly and Reprimand her and she was gushing about what a great master teacher he was by making her see her attachments and I remember thinking What a fucking dick like why would you what's And she was raving about how like Like he was doing it for this noble reason treating her like shit. I remember thinking what I Was peripheral this is peripheral. This is like probably when I came back to work on a film and like not there for the curriculum per se but like hearing like What the fuck is she talking about I remember her bragging also about how she he would wait to like the very last minute to give her the Craculate abusive like for me is a planner can you know control freak? I was like that's not okay That's not in the name of her In the name of your know like people are paying lots of money that he gets a full failure. Yeah, and then she would actually talk about it with enjoyment How she was being tortured yeah, it was insane. I don't know the curriculum until I get up at 8 a.m And I go over to Keith's he downloads me and then I have to make him smags But by the way, that's why the first trainings were chaotic chaos. They were fucking chaos Chaos remember and we'd say things like it doesn't make sense and then she get upset and we'd say I It still doesn't make sense You know, you know what I remember the other day sorry I Remember like nippy and I just started dating I'd come to New York to visit him We were doing it and we decided to go to Albany for New Year's and then while we were there They announced Moby us to start in three days Yes, and I was like I've got a guy got a flight and I remember Nancy pulling me into her office and saying What does it mean that you are a center owner and you're not taking every piece of new curriculum that Keith Reney rolls out? Yeah, it's extraordinary It's extraordinary It is I got this close to yeah, we had to take it was there ever curriculum that we didn't take that was rolled out Also the word me I didn't take ethicist to the first time it came out and I got so much shit for it Ethicist was such a load of shit also what you guys in a situation to be watching program where you guys had to go I make the same phone calls You know what that's job though Mark was with the university program Yeah, we're in their world of the university program in the last few months That was my last conversation with Nancy. She called to ask why I hadn't recruited anyone for the university program I was like well five grand a month for the same curriculum that's at those is kind of not really doable for the people that in my Realization, fuck you very much You know it feels so good not to be like not to feel afraid of that shit anymore, you know yeah to talk about it Yeah, and I'll tell you you know that people that have been People that have been and you guys know this because you talked to these people as well people that have been abused by these people when they come out and they start Comparing notes and they feel the relief not at first at first they're terrified But then they start to feel the relief of being able to say whatever they want about the leadership It's very freeing which is why they start saying horrible things Yeah, yeah, it's have a free for all I have a bitch session with former members who know I like that Yeah, I like that. There's been a lot of things that we that you've gone through with us Trying to put it all in one book so we can you know give it to So hard so hard to compile it all but you'll appreciate it. We're gonna make the cheat sheet top 10 That was the other thing I told you privately t-shirts the cheat sheets are amazing shirts. I love them. I love them because you Because for people who got out of stuff and have PTSD and they might not be able to even read a chapter They can skip to the cheat sheet and still good. I think I think I think if you're out in public and someone has cheat sheet for love bombing And they read the back of it and go, oh shit that happened to me. What's love? Oh, it's in this. Yeah, the conversation starter - Exactly back to them. No, no, not bad. Yeah, back to the movie Let's take a little break from the cult of ours. Here's a word from our sponsors Thank you sponsors. We couldn't do without you now. Let's get back to the show Yeah, I was so good so good and also very uncomfortable as you know, which I think it was uncomfortable Is uncomfortable you you tell me you stopped it about I think 30 minutes and then you continued the next 40 minutes. Yeah, we split it up also because just the way our lives are but I needed to just take a little breather and Yeah, the interviews are great, you know, the twist which we're not gonna get into because we want people to watch it We're can't so where can people watch it by the way? Let's wait. Let's not wait till the end Like what's the story tell what's been going on? Yeah, so look we've worked this room for a long time. We actually showed a few streamers and studios And earlier cut there was really interesting like I'm not gonna say the name of the studio. It's a big studio The woman that ran things at the very top Love the film wanted the film were like oh my god. This film's incredible, but their boss a man Said there's no audience for this movie And if you'll remember with what the bleep it was the same story So a few streamers and a few studios have said like oh, it's no audience. We're like you guys are fucking idiots And then what was interesting is we submit started submitting it to film fest with the normal you make something similar to the film festivals get the buzz going. We got turned down by 26 film festivals and we were like everybody was like what? Everybody everybody who seen the film is like what? And so we were like very puzzled and then a few of the festivals said it's too hot to touch and like what do you mean it's oh it's a legal nightmare and like whatever and I was like that's interesting but there's something about this film and maybe because it goes tangentially after power structures and how the power structures have this narcissism embedded inside of it that seems to be terrifying people I think. The Guardians of the Gates. Yeah exactly and or some of the people that make decisions at the film festivals are like kids who just don't fucking understand like what they're looking at. I don't know but what we decided to do is okay we had the same problem with what to believe we turned it into something amazing you know we're going to just start putting it out ourselves. So we've been raising money as we go we've had this amazing donation campaign which is still going on the people that have donated they're going to get to see the film on May 30th the general release will be in July but what we'll do in between then is probably do like a weekend event where we'll show the movie like on a Friday and we'll have a bunch of panels and all the experts and people in the film and make an amazing weekend out of it and what's basically happening just like what the bleep is the audience is coming on board to promote the film which is what we hope would happen because what the streamers and studios didn't understand was that like the audience is there they're hungry for it and the minute they know it exists they're going to want to tell everybody about it because the thing I'm going to say it this way because I know we want to be careful. The film takes you through the experience and you guys will probably nod your head of what it's like to be fooled and fucked over and it does so very effectively and what happens to survivors and everybody who's ever been in that kind of relationship or a cult gets asked the question how did you not see it well motherfucker let me tell you in an audience of 400 people at UCLA 399 people didn't see the twist they did not it was a fucking surprise one person said yeah I thought so that's clinicians that's trained people that's people who are doctors and professors and fucking masters and everything so I think what happens is when people see it who have been through it they're going to tell other people like I want you to see this film this film will explain why I didn't see it this film will explain like why I stayed because I can explain it to you because that's the thing all the people always ask well why did you stay 10 years well I did you say seven years you know you're on my meme list we send memes oh yes my brother sent me a meme and I can't remember the artist but it was someone like prince or someone like that there and it was something like the people at studios don't know what the people want tell them what they want that's true that's true tell them what they want right also and I think if you can I mean I'd love to help you out and get it in the schools here Sarah and I like when we talk about our book I'm not good at self-promotion but I have zero problem saying to high school parents high school college kids read this book if there's anything I feel comfortable saying is read this book your kids need this knowledge that is true and thing about your film right you gotta get these kids early because they're in risk of going down the road of narcissism right because this new world is training narcissistic there's no shortage of narcissistic people yeah right and it's being nurtured and it's being rewarded you need to get the kids going this is the wrong path and it's the sole of existence right yes I think the work we're doing at least I feel like hopefully I don't think it's presumptuous is it's soul-saving I think our Scott sucked on and now we're giving back oh yeah you know yeah that you just reminded me that makes sense I mean I think I got language for but that's the importance of it and I want to get you in schools so I mean I want to get into universities you know universities yeah I want to get it in universities and I want clinicians to see it because it's one thing to study the shit it's another thing to have an experience you know like in a theater with people that's the other thing we really want people to watch it in theaters yeah we want to do a road show you know to go to different cities to have people together because what happens is remember what's like with what the bleep sorry you and I spoke about this years ago like people when they finished watching it just wanted to talk to each other they just wanted to connect remember on the cruise ship right it was talking about the same thing happens with this film what happens when the credits are over is everyone just and stun silence at first and then they start talking to each other and then they start comparing notes and then they start sharing about what happened to them it's incredible because there's this really interesting community that builds and often you have clinicians who or people at different stages you know who are further along who can talk to the people that have just come out or some people realize in the theater like oh shit this is my marriage that's intense mm-hmm and what does support group yes yeah that's we're gonna do that as well but I will tell you and I'm not gonna name names one of the experts in the film who has many degrees we interviewed her and then she found out that's what her marriage was no she said how did I sit in that chair and be interviewed by you twice and not know she was stunned you can't say who that is I can't say who this but that's the whole thing you tell us and we're not recording yes we're not recording yeah you can never fall for it yeah that's why I love that's why I love maybe I love what that you say in the book you know like when you say I can't fall for it you are you're you're you're a sucker yeah you're for your fun spot totally all you get all your vulnerable yeah you're sitting duck for those five years intelligence agencies know how to build a profile in somebody and get them then then calls you to you know yeah that's why I'm spinning yeah I'm well think about it to a lot of these people I'm picturing a liat scenes from it has a mathematical feel to it yeah the feelings I get around I'm like oh this person's probably gonna do this that's a math yeah well actually I always said that because that is kind of what I'm hoping people get is like either the right class is to see how the shit works or the math to know how it works yeah you know to to me it's a bit like remember seeing chess when I was a kid the first time it made no sense until I understood what everything did and then I was involved in watching the games you know you need to understand how shit works right you know because then you can be like oh that's what's gonna happen and then that's what's gonna happen oh here comes a devaluation oh there we go you know also history is really great history is amazing pattern recognition I don't remember where it was someone was saying everything that's going on right now and the go in the world right now has happened before yes will happen again yes and it has a kind of trajectory trajectory to it that could go one of a handful of ways if these things happen and being able to recognize it and pattern went to Churchill's quote the further back into my past I looked the more I learned about my future yes I'm happy you said that because you know what I've been thinking a lot of us I think nippy you and I may have discussed this at one point you know the whole thing that's been happening in the academic world where people get pulled up in front of boards and they get interrogated and they are told you you have to get training to change the way you think and I'm like that's the Marxist struggle sessions that's the struggle sessions from China it's crazy like how do you not see the relationship between those two things you know it's crazy and any criticism is evidence of your perpetrating yes yeah it's really it's nasty someone should that's going on yeah speaking of patterns I didn't know that you were into chess did you hear our episode or have you seen anything about Danny ranch and dark squares his pot his book about chess no no he should have him on he's so let me tell you really quickly the attention he's crazy great interview too great interview and you'd love his book you're really into chess how did I know no I just no no I just I just thought about like how I'm nothing it's a kid you know and just then when I learned how it works it's like oh that's fucking amazing so just a quick sidebar he was in a cult called the collective he was raised in the 70s and 80s and I want to say you talk it doesn't matter and there's one and there was a medium not dissimilar to dumpster should we call her dumpster you're talking about mm-hmm we're not going to say names dumpster a medium that you may or may not have studied with a trans person yeah you're calling her dumpster that's what Keith called her yeah Keith used to make fun of her name and say by as well say what else could you call her how about dumpster boomster yeah that's a guru envy guru envy yeah that's true that's true I do so he grew up with that and the leader of it Stephen camp at a certain point everyone was watching searching for Bobby Fisher and they were also kind of unlocked down because the community around was like being aggressive towards them so they're all kind of staying at home or something like that so they all got really into chess and Danny got really into chess and got really good at chess and so the leader was using that using him as a pawn to basically prove to the world that the group was good the collective was good I think got really good at chess and became like a master at a young age and anyway he broke free of that and now is one of the co-founders this chief cco chief chess office of chess calm which is like that biggest online platform so we went from like literally having no shoes owning this like billion dollar company and he wrote a book about it and it's just fascinating well I think what you'll like about him is that he's he started chess calm kind of for the love of the game you know and it was like his project and didn't expect it and then the queens gambit hit and then and then and then he has this huge company now so So it's kind of cool the way he wasn't this guy. I got 10 times this. He was doing it. He liked it and then fortune hit him. It's a great, right? Interesting. The universe took care of him in a way. I definitely want to check it out. It's funny. I never liked playing chess. What am I? I told you what am I? What am I? What am I? What am I? What am I? What am I? I love to go once a week to the gun range. And I have learned so much. But I have learned so much from the gun range. I will tell you. I learned so much about breathing relaxation. That sounds like counter-tuitive. Relaxation, trust, calm and high stakes. It's been amazing. It's the weirdest hobby that you can ever imagine me doing. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] 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 ever you listen, and subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/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. Executive produced by Sarah Edmondson and Anthony Nippie Ames in collaboration with producer Will Rutherford at Citizens of Sound. Our co-creator is Jess Temple Tarty. Our production coordinator is Leslie Dinsbor. Writing by Sandra Nemoto and social media marketing by Eric Swarsinski and Brooke Kean. Our theme song, Cultivated is by the artist John Bryant in Nigel Aslan. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]