Armchair Anonymous: Cults II

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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Shepard. I'm joined by Mon Padman. Hi. You're trying it out. It doesn't sound right on you. Well, not when you do first and last name. Mon Padman. That sounds like Mansoor Padman, which is pretty cool. Yeah, that is cool. Maybe it is good. Monty Padman, that sounds crazy too. These nicknames, when they're in conjunction with your full name, maybe don't work. Okay, that's fine. Yeah.

Like D.D. Shepard. Oh, D.D. Shepard. That sounds fun. Today is part two of one of our favorite prompts ever. escaping a cult. This is It's tough. It's tough out there. It is. We learned a lot. There's some real through lines. Oh yeah, there's some consistencies. Yeah. And it's good to know them. Some patterns. And maybe if you've recognized that one of these things is happening in your life. And if you're a vegetarian, you're in a cult. If you get invited to a vegetarian meal, you're a dog.

no but i will say it made me think there's a lot more than i'm aware of i just stupidly assume i'll see a doc about them if they're real it makes me think you're bumping into people all the time that probably were raised in some of these fringy religious tradition. I'm pussyfooting around about it. Please enjoy cults part two. We are supported by Squarespace and boy, do we have a gorgeous website. I implore everyone to check out. We made it on.

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Hi, is this Taj? Yes, it's so good to meet you guys. Oh, wonderful to meet you. You're my first Taj. Is this a family name? My real name is Amy. Oh, okay. I have a very common last name and about... Ten years ago, I decided, you know, there's too many in the world, so I'm just going to pick a different name. Oh, I love this. You rebranded. My brother and I both have done this. And did the people around you immediately accept it, or did you have people that were still calling you Cassius?

Clay. Well, I live in Portland, Oregon, where everybody changes their name. Oh, that's a great place to change your name. But my mom, who at the time was still living in New Jersey, she has passed since then. She freaked out because she was a therapist and the only person that she knew who had changed their name was a schizophrenic patient. Oh, okay. She thought that was a battle. she thought that her kids were going over here you know the topic i would love

To briefly touch on with you, Dax, is improv. Oh, yes, please. So I used... to be painfully shy and that comes out in the story because it happened just after college and improv has really changed my life and it's not that I was ever interested in being in front of the camera but it's a mindfulness practice and also for helping you be a better human. So I just wondered if you had ever come across

that approach to improv. I want to hear about yours. So someone taught you and it was taught with the intention of a life practice more than a pursuit. I actually came across that myself. When I was living in Flagstaff, my next door neighbor was a meditation teacher. I was a lapsed meditator.

And you know that old Reese's commercial where two people bump into each other, one has peanut butter and one has chocolate? Yes. So it was like, you got meditation in my improv. No, you got improv in my meditation. So during the pandemic, we started teaching.

mindful improv, and meditation using improv games. Okay, now tell me why you think that's a good overlap. Right out of the gates I would go like presence is required. Listening. Yeah, and you have to let go of your idea because let's say... You start a scene with somebody and you think you're in a barn and they say, nurse hand me the scalpel or something like that. And you have to just let go right away or else it's going to be like tug of war.

and just be present with what is and let go of ego and the less you try to be funny i know you guys know if you're trying to put in the crazy things it doesn't work yeah there's a spirit of harmony And collaboration. It doesn't work. someone steamrolling okay i like that all right alas this episode though is about cult

I hope it's on an improv cult. Well, but as we've already acknowledged, they are cult-y. They can be cult-y. I wouldn't call them cult-y. My experience was not with an improv cult. So this takes place in 94 when I was in my mid-20s. I was vulnerable to this because I had just gotten out of college a couple years before. I was just lost. I had been really successful in the structure of college.

I was so shy, I just had no idea how the world worked, so I was looking for something to latch on to. So one day I saw a sign at a bookstore saying they were having a meditation class. And I went and it was in this little room above the bookstore and it turned out I was the only student. It was me and this teacher. We did the meditation for a bit and then...

He turned into my therapist for that day. And that was very attractive. Someone would listen to me and he told me about his teacher who was going to be giving this. Free vegetarian dinner at a fancy restaurant in downtown Boston. I always get you with the vegetarian dinner. We had somebody else on talking about this. If someone offers you a vegetarian dinner, just... Run. Well, maybe not run, just, you know. Run. He said his teacher was named Rama.

to describe Rama a little bit. He's this tall guy with a jufro, as we say in my backgrounds, blondish hair. very kind of awkward. but also very, very confident that pulls people in. But not Indian, because you said his name was...

Well, his chosen name was Rama. And I think I can share the real name because it's all over the internet. The story has come out about him. It was Dr. Frederick Lenz. I don't know if you guys have ever heard of him. No, but a doctor. He had a PhD in literature and then he chose from then on.

to call himself doctor which is already a little shady so he's going by this other name where he's not indian i thought indian i heard the name and i thought meditation but no he believed he was a reincarnation of St. Thomas More and Indian teachers and all kinds of people. It's never like I'm a reincarnation of a field worker. I went and he gave a little talk. He was very into Carlos Castaneda and he wanted us to read those books. How many folks were at this?

initial free vegetarian dinner? I'd say 100. Oh, okay. There's some critical mass. If you show up somewhere to see a spiritual guide and there's three people, you're like, well, this guy's bunk. 100, you're like, okay. It can't be that crazy if all these people are here. That's right. If you are starting a call. Stock it with some extras, even if you don't have that many followers. Maybe get some hourly folks to build out the audience.

The thing that- grabbed me was we meditated with him and he was sitting on a little stage in front of everyone and he asked us to keep our eyes open and look at him while we were meditating. When we started meditating with him, I started almost immediately seeing light coming out of him. And his face started morphing into an old man and then a child and then a woman. And I would close my eyes and try and...

clear my vision, and it just kept happening. And I thought, wow, there's something going on. That's quite a thing to observe. Are you not terrified? It was subtle, almost like you're having a dream. Or if you're on Shrooms or something. Well, exactly. That's what I was about to say. Oh, no. Oh, no. Hold on. But, you know, I could clear it. If I blinked my eyes, he was normal again. So I thought, you know, this is part of channeling other entities. It's not like he's...

actually changing into someone else so it wasn't terrifying it was more intriguing to me the senior student of his that had invited me to that Dinner said that there was going to be this 10-day meditation retreat coming up. Sort of felt like it was an audition to be part of the cult in a way. They wanted people to have headshots and full body, especially women, to have pictures to submit as part of the application, which you have to wonder what those are for. Sure. But I decided to go.

against better judgment. And we went to this summer camp that they had rented for the 10 days. A lot of the time he wasn't there. It was his senior students leading meditation sessions and talking about Zen Master Rama. That's the full name he went by. And they said that they had seen him levitate and teleport and projecting light from his hands. and...

Apparently, if anyone criticized him, if he had any enemies, he could cause them to get cancer or be in a major car accident. Oh. Okay, so he had a dark side. Yes, very much. They also claim to control the weather and pass through alternate dimensions. create and destroy universes and i was just starting to get very skeptical at this point we're on day three four and i'm like i think i need to get out of here yeah yeah and it did not feel like a place where you could just say okay

Bye. I'm not into this. They were kind of, you are staying for the 10 days. You're committed to this no matter what. So he had shown up for one evening and he's talking about Kundalini. The image is this snake that's curled up at the base of each person's spine. And when you raise the Kundalini energy, that snake is supposed to come up. So that night I had a dream that the Kundalini snake was not inside me, but was wrapping around me and trying to just kill me. And I woke up with terrible cramp.

And I decided to kind of embellish the cramps into, I think, that my appendix, I have to get to a hospital. So I finally got them to...

call an ambulance get me out of there from which i called my family and just went away from this whole thing but i forgot to mention he always would talk about his dog by And apparently he believed that he was one of 12 enlightened beings on the planet, and Vayu was another one of the 12. Okay, so two of the 12 were accounted for between he and Vayu. Yeah, and he believed that Vayu was... the reincarnation of his. spiritual teacher.

I'm glad he didn't try to heal you. Well, I'm sure that was coming. No, I mean like with the appendicitis. Oh, right. Well, he was not actually present. He had just come in for a talk and jetted off. He had all these mansions and lots of cars. He had a whole collection of Porsches and Mercedes and Range Rovers, and his senior students got together for his birthday and bought him a Porsche. They claimed to have memory of technology from Atlantis. Oh, okay.

And Zen Master Rama said his form of Buddhism was what he called materialistic Buddhism. That's the kind we need to practice. Where it's okay to make a pile of money because that is a reflection of your spiritual progress.

Once you left did you keep following this? and what was happening. A number of years later I read an article about how he died. But I did want to mention one thing I did see personally, which was that evening that he showed up. Somebody had asked him if he would be able to drink a whole bottle of hot sauce without any physical manifestation. You know how you would turn red and you would be in pain. So he did that.

no big deal so the guy had something but i wouldn't say it was for the good of all yeah but his death really nailed that this was not a sane person because his dog had passed away. And apparently Zen Master Rama could not handle being in the world without this dog. His master. So he committed suicide. Wearing a Versace suit and the dog's collar and tags

He was found in the water by one of his mansions, and he had over 150 Valium in his system. And he made a suicide pact with one of his followers who happened to be a former model. You had sort of a harem going. Yes. Yeah. They're going to have a harem. They're going to have some nice cars. Oh, it's so classic.

so do we think he did drug you guys i think it's hypnosis because you hadn't eaten the vegetarian meal prior to seeing all that or had you we had actually so there's always that possibility but there were other times where i hadn't eaten something and was sitting in some of the students presence and felt some interesting stuff wow wild wow did you know anyone that stuck with that no i just got out of it and stayed away there's a quote from uh

documentary i saw about people who win the powerball that i think really fits with this kind of person in the quote it's about winning the lottery but i think it's if you attain a lot of money and a lot of power it's like pouring miracle crow on your character flaws Yeah, that's good. That's really good. Those lottery documentaries fascinate the hell out of me. I've seen a couple. Talk about, be careful what you wish for. There's almost no good stories in those.

And the one that I saw years ago, it's called Lucky. There are some good stories and some negatives. It can't all be bad. No, I shouldn't say that. There's just an incredibly high rate of people filing for bankruptcy. There's a lot of stress with their family. Yeah, a lot of suicide. It upticks a lot of things. I also have a joke for you guys if you want a really bad taste joke about cults. Oh yeah, we love bad taste jokes. Why aren't there very many popular jokes about Jonestown?

I think it must have to do with Kool-Aid, but I don't know. What is it? The punchlines are too long. I don't get it. Standing in line for the punch. Very literal. Terrible. It's a pun. Well, Taj, this has been a delight meeting you and hearing your story. I love you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. All right. Take care. As someone who saw grandlady hands, grandma hands.

That's what she saw. Yeah, on shrimps, and you stare at any given thing long enough, you'll just see some. Yeah, things morph. Yeah, I think they definitely chalk that vegetarian meal. And to their credit, mushrooms are vegetarian. Maybe that's why, because they can technically get away with it. It's technically legal. Mushroom medley.

Hi how are you? Good how are you? Good. Is this a beautiful photo of you and your lover engaged in play on the beach? Engagement photo. Oh, that's cute. It looks like you're either doing hacky sack or you could be doing the kid and play dance. I think I was kicking water at him. Okay, because you're playful and you taunted him. 17 years ago. You don't look nearly old enough to be engaged 17 years ago. I'm 38 now. I was 20. Were you high school sweetheart?

Well, this kind of comes into play. I grew up in a cult. Oh. So I did not know him in high school. Okay. Kristen, where are you from? I'm from Northern California. You know, Humboldt County. I think you've talked about it, actually. Golden Triangle or Green Triangle.

up where all the good weed and meth are yes i was almost born into it my mom got married and i was in that religion from At the time, I was really tiny. So it wasn't something where I joined. It was something where I was there as a child. And are you allowed to say the name of what the religion was? It was called Gospel Outreach. It's still around today.

It's one you wouldn't have heard of. It's a lot smaller and they're pretty good at keeping themselves on the down low and not being too obvious about it. what's going on there. Their religious beliefs would be evangelical Lutheran type of thing. They believe that you are born full of sin. and every day your old man, as they call it, needs to be killed so that your new man can come forth and cry.

So the way they do this is they try to like break you by beaten down on you you have meetings as children we would have circle meetings where you'd pick a person and you just verbally attack them until they finally get to their breaking point and they would do weird things like make us wear signs about our shortcomings

and wear those around school oh my god okay really quick so this has huge overlap with this doc i saw about synonym which was this offshoot of sobriety a guy invented in venice and He had this thing called the game, and it's how the group therapy worked, and you attacked each other, and then all these people wanted to be a part of that. organization that weren't drug addicts and then all these civilians joined up in the Bay Area. I just wonder if there's any bleed out of this.

do you know the history of this religion i don't know a whole lot i know originally it started the church that i went to was kind of in the jesus movement and it was taking hippies and helping them function in the world type of a thing But then that church got associated with a church up in Olympia, Washington, and that's what I call the Mother Church. Where... lot of the very culty things came from in the way we lived life so I think it's more

From up there is where it all started. It's pretty small. It's not very connected with other things. There's a few churches kind of in Oregon, Washington, and then the one in Northern California. So there's really not many. There's maybe five total that are really involved.

And then the church has its own school where we're all educated. We were taught by parents originally. None of them really had degrees or educations. They weren't teachers. Some of the classes we were self-taught. I didn't really learn science or anything like that. It was pretty... It's been 80 years since we're

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How many parishioners were at the church and then how many kids were you in school with? It's grown. So they always say that their church growth plan is be fruitful and multiply. They almost never let people come in from the outside, but they just have lots of kids and then they kind of intermarry and eventually that's going to get interesting. They send women to the other churches so that they kind of have more of a pool to choose from. That was it.

student teacher at a very young time there in the school. And then when I was 15, they said, okay, time to be done. Go take your California high school proficiency examination. So I went and took it and I failed. And then I took it a while later once they offered it again after some studying and I passed. And then at that point, I just taught full time in the school.

I was never paid. It was all free. I didn't have any really education to speak of, but I was one of the teachers, which was somewhat of an esteemed position. You wanted to be a teacher. As a woman in that environment, your job is to be a wife and a mother. There's nothing else for you. You should pursue a career. No one should go to college. College is considered to almost be evil. Getting married is a really huge thing. You have to be recommended.

For a marriage, you have to attain a certain level of status. And the last thing you would want is to be all alone. The marriages were somewhat arranged. You could express interest in a person as a man if you wanted to. The men who leave the church might say no, they might say yes, they might say look at someone else.

You also might just go to the men and say, who should I marry? And they would tell you who you should marry. As a woman, you do have the right to say no to a marriage offer, but it will probably be your last offer. Oh my god, this is wild. And is there any visible impropriety? There's no multiple marriages happening. No plural marriage. It's all one-on-one and it's all of age.

So, they're winning there. Yes, yes. Kudos. They're keeping it legal. They look really good from the outside and they do well at that. People are always very impressed. How do I get to be a part of this? This is so amazing. You guys are doing such good things. Your kids are so well-behaved. How many boys your age were in your...

school? So my school, the Y in Eureka, California, was very small. So at the time I was there, it was only maybe 40 kids in the school. So in my age group, I have five boys. Very few options, unless I was to be sent to another church. And did you have a crush on any of them? It's a really, really sinful thing to admit that you would have a crush on somebody.

So you really have to kind of suppress that part of yourself. Be very careful not to be seen interacting too heavily with boys. You don't ever touch in any kind of a way or sit too close. If they think you might like somebody, it's not. gonna work out well for you. Generally, you need to leave that to the church. And how much natural questioning did you have? I was pretty bought in. This is my life. This is everything I know.

I've got to do the right thing. Leaving the church is the ultimate worst thing you could do. And so it was really scary. I was kind of doing what they wanted me to do. The other thing that's interesting about the school day is we did school as in math language. till noon and then from noon on we did only music we recorded and produced cds i think wobby wob has some pictures oh wow i was 17 and the picture of me and that for the listener you're on stage it's a good size stage we've got a lot of

Huge pictures of biblical paintings behind you being put on a projector. Now that I see the stage, I'm assuming the music portion is like the attractive part of the... Like if you were to observe this, you'd be like, oh yeah, they're having so much fun. Yeah, but they're not trying to recruit, which I find interesting. Well, recruiting can get dicey because people aren't usually willing to give.

everything if they didn't grow up in that environment. There's gonna be some inherent skepticism. It'd be tough and then people would question things. Were you guys inviting non-church members to witness the music? We would go perform in front of large audiences. We would do Christmas performances. The CD that I sent the song and the pictures, we did Boxworth Cantata. We did very intricate, difficult music and got pretty good because it's literally everything we do.

It's pretty insane and comical to me to listen to because it's like a whole different person. So how I left, I wasn't the highest status, but I was doing all right. But I was very bought in.

And then one day, my dad sat my whole family down in the living room. There's seven of us kids and I'm the oldest. And I was 19 at the time and he said, we're leaving the church. Total shock to us. We all just started sobbing. We were devastated. It's our whole life. We don't even know people outside the church.

So it's like... the worst thing that could happen to us and i remember he said we could stay for like another month until some performance happened with music so we had to go back to school and my friends were crying in the grocery store crying till they'd throw up like it's the worst thing that could happen we went through the last little bit and we left But the day that he told me we were leaving, I called someone who was like a mentor, a woman who was higher up as far as women can be.

And she said to me, how much do you love the church? Do you love the church enough to leave your family? And I remember that I thought, yes. And I said, maybe, I don't know. The next day she took back her offer and said, I talked to my husband and he said, I need to stay out of it. Cause she had mentioned maybe me coming and living with them. And she was like, nevermind, you stay with your family.

And I was devastated by that. And I found out later that my dad had gone and threatened the men of the church and said, don't. fuck with my family. Don't try to come after my kids. When your dad told you you were all leaving, did he give an explanation as to why?

I don't remember a lot of that day, but I know that he had gone to the men of the church and said, I don't believe that we're doing things biblically here. I think there's some real... issues and we should make some changes and they said we don't care you need to either do what we're doing or get out and then when we left the church

To me, it felt a lot like if you moved to a different country that was English speaking, like, yeah, we speak the same language, but I don't really get your humor, your culture. I don't really understand what you're saying. I was really shocked by boys just being even mildly flirtatious. It was very alarming.

you were clutching your pearls a lot exactly oh my gosh it was really scary and lonely it was so hard but i met friends and gradually have become the person i am now it was a very long evolution because

There's a lot of boundaries in your head that you might not even realize you have, like pursuing a career. I really didn't feel like I could pursue a career. And I remember one day early in my husband and I's marriage, I said something about one day, it'd be cool to go to nursing school. And he said, you should do it.

And I was like so shocked by his response because I was like, wait, I can do it. It just didn't seem possible to me. I did eventually go to college. I was 30 when I took my first ever college class. I had nervous shits in between every class. It was so scary, but I have a bachelor's. degree and i'm a er nurse it's so cool to look back and it's a big part because i had people in my life who just supported me and wanted me to be

a full person and my husband was a huge part of that. Any foreign objects? What's the term? Rectal. Rectal foreign objects. There's a cucumber, Gatorade bottle. Oh, Gatorade bottle. A kid with a lipstick. Oh, no. Did you watch The Pit? Yes, I watched The Pit. Hands down the most accurate medical show I've ever seen. There we go. The one thing they never get right is nurses are so underrepresented.

We're doing everything. The docs put in orders, we do it. Wow. Really quick, did dad find his way to another? fringy religion he is a pastor and he has a small church and what about your siblings do they transition well into the worldly world We've all kind of had a hard time in different ways. They're all doing good, but it's been a struggle. Mentally, it's a lot to get through. Locally, some of them were a lot younger. I was the oldest.

Some of them had much shorter periods of time that they lived in the religion and they were mostly outside. So that helps a ton. Does it diminish your confidence in your ability to evaluate reality? to some degree there's things I have expectations of people, how they're going to treat me, how they're going to act. And I think that's been most poignant in my marriage where he'll say something pretty benign. And I'm like, why are you trying to attack me? Why are you coming after me?

expect that so we've had to definitely work through some things to me there is nothing more impressive than shedding an old life and starting Thank you. Do you like Megan Phelps Roper? Have you heard her talk at all? I don't think so. She was in Westboro Baptist, that wild Baptist church that... Holds the terrible signs up at funerals. She did leave her family. I'm just in awe of people who can do that. Me too. It's very hard. Well, can my husband come say hi? Yeah, of course.

Hi, handsome husband. Oh, there's a cat in the mix. My daughter talked me into one and then now we have four kind of got duped on that deal yeah i think that's what happens with one cat they're like mogwai all of a sudden you have five it's like they got wet yeah they worked their way in there i'm glad you guys got to Me and my wife, she's a huge fan. She's definitely a full package. She'll go to work. Save a couple lives, come home, paint the house.

oh my god yeah it's good to get someone that really was like brainwashed and had to do a lot of stuff because then Just doing normal stuff feels like nothing. That's like a hack. I had a pretty good inside track on it because I work. with a lot of people she went to church with for about 11 years.

So I was probably as close as you can get to the inside circle without being on the inside. You are well versed. That's helpful. Well, it's so nice meeting both of you guys. Thanks for sharing. Nice to meet you. All right. Take care.

Hello! Is this Anna? It is! Hi, Anna. Nice to meet you. I love your floral wallpaper. Thank you. I'm in a B&B. In what state are you visiting? I am in Toulouse, France. I live in Portland, Oregon, but I'm visiting a friend who's getting married who lives in Toulouse.

She is the one who recommended this prompt to me. And we're in a cult together. Oh, together. That's how you met. Well, we were children, but it feels very full circle to me. I just arrived today to see her. Oh, how lovely. This may or may not shock you, but... Of the three people we've spoken with, two are from Portland.

oh interesting yeah I feel like cults are kind of a western coast deal i do too oh yeah northern cal we had and then now two portlands wasn't the rajneeshies that was oregon too that was eastern oregon yeah the og Okay. The OG. The original guru. No, Oregon. Oh, that too. Okay, Anna, please tell us your experience.

to be fair to portland oregon i was in california we were all up and down the coast my group that i grew up in i don't know if you've ever heard of a group called the assembly It's also called the Giftakis Assembly. No. Not Assembly of God. I'm thinking Assembly of God. That's a different group. No, I've never heard this, but I like the name. It already is ominous. Yes, so... The assembly doesn't exist anymore, but it was a Christian cult, basically, a Protestant church that started in the 70s.

where the leader just wanted to go back to basics, be really minimal. People didn't wear makeup, they didn't dress up too much. People kind of lived communally. I think it was kind of nice in the beginning. Everyone sort of participated and, you know, sang acapella and it was just like, forget all that worldly stuff. It had a heyday in the 70s. It started in Southern California, but it was...

all over. There are branches in Canada, Mexico, England, a lot of places in South America. And did it have a founding charismatic leader? Georgia and Betty Giftakis are guiding light. They were divinely inspired as far as we were concerned.

when you talk about cult at first you think it's gonna be like fun and sensationalist and wild but it's actually just sad and you know a lot of stories are really grim and a lot of them are about abuse but i wanted something that had a little more sparkle to it

So my story is about a pseudoscientific medical device that my family used that kind of caught on in our very insular group. It's called the Zapper. And the zapper was supposed to heal you by giving you a very light, sustained electric shock. Okay. And I want to be clear, this wasn't reached from the pulpit like the zapper will heal you.

But it was a kind of insular environment where we didn't have any other friends and just weird fads would take place. And if someone of influence brought in a certain fad, one time it was a planner. Oh, like a Franklin planner? It's almost like an MLS. That's funny because we actually did a lot of MLMs together and just sort of marketed to each other. I'm Indra Varma, and in the latest season of The Spy Who, we open the file on Hardy Amy's.

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So to set the scene, because I sometimes go down a dark rabbit hole trying to explain the assembly, I made a kind of list of our fears and loves, which I'm going to share with you. If the assembly is a person, the assembly loves. abstinence all day all night meetings chores which are also called stewardship communal living door-to-door witnessing fellowships which are like really lame parties our leader george katakis homeschooling the left behind franchise modesty multi-level marketing

straight preaching, spankings, tithing, and of course the zapper Z. If you have a Z and you have an alphabetical list, you gotta put it in there. So these are our fears. abortion, bikinis, evolution, government, homosexuality. When you'd go to church or you'd see the service, how tied to Christianity was it? Was the Bible still being primarily used or had he deviated so much that?

A lot of what you were learning had nothing to do with the Bible. In a way, we were trying to be so strict and like he was so closely to scripture. We thought all the other churches were kind of too diluted. But you know the verse about straining a gnat and swallowing a camel? No. There's a verse that's about foolish.

people who would strain a gnat and swallow a camel, meaning focusing on the real detail, and then swallowing something enormous without even considering it. I mean, that reference is not the right audience. No, it makes sense. It got...

so granular that the bigger picture was crazy. Yeah. The thing that made it a high control group was that we believe that our leader and people closely associated with him were receiving divine inspiration. If someone suggested something to you, like you just sort of did it. It wasn't a suggestion. It was, this is my way of being closer to God.

So what was novel about the Mormons is that the parishioners could receive revelation. That was the appealing part, as I understand it. But in this sect, they could at least receive revelation. Yeah. My family left when I was probably like 13. I wish I had like the adults or I, but my memories are mostly just being incredibly bored. When I look back on it, it feels as though a lot of the revelations were kind of ad hoc.

and they're kind of convenient. Well, it's like Joseph Smith's revelations that a man should have multiple wives once he was busted having sex with a young woman that lived next door. That's interesting timing of that revelation. Yeah. I don't know if I would call it a revelation, but by the time I was... conscious of participating. One of our big things was we didn't

mainstream music. We didn't watch film and television. We didn't even sing in harmony. What? They were worried there was a lot of pop Christian music at the time and people would get caught up in the music and the emotion and sort of lose the message. so that way we're focused on the message but yeah let's see our fears government homosexuality eastern mysticism we're like no can do feminism no public schools

and their agendas, mainstream music, makeup. We were so scared of Satan worshipers. We never met anyone. We were talking about them all the time. Secular holidays we didn't participate in. And really quickly, on the zapper,

I'm guessing it was a pre-existing product that this was an off-label use for. Or did someone invent this thing within the church? The person who claimed to have invented it was like a quack doctor who wasn't part of our church. Her name is Holda Clark. She's also the author of a quack book called The Cure for All Diseases. She was investigated for like medical malpractice. I later learned and moved to Mexico.

because they were going to close down her wellness center in California. Her whole thing was, well, all diseases, including cancer and AIDS, are caused by a parasite in the body. So you just need to electrocute the parasite, and then you'll be all better. So simple. It's crazy how these doctors thought of this. Well, they just want to keep you sick.

If you commit to life in the assembly, you're asked to push away your friends. You're going to meetings every day. This group of people down in Fullerton, they were just always sick and no doctors could tell if it was wrong with them. They were fatigued, it was headaches, sometimes it was...

stomach ache, they wouldn't have any energy, like they just weren't well. George and Betty would give them like a special diet and they would follow and that wouldn't work. We started to call it Fullerton disease. When I hear this as an adult, I think Fullerton disease is probably depression. When you're a kid in the assembly, it sucked, right? Because you're in meetings all day, like you're getting...

spankings all the time. So many rules. You don't sound like Christmas. You're just like, this sucks.

But the best thing in the world was to be sick. or someone in your family is sick. Everyone's looking after you. You don't have to participate. Oh, God. This is like producing Munchausen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the late 90s.

The apocalypse is kind of around the corner. We're big into Y2K. We need like our best soldiers on the ground, but people have coming down with Bollerton disease. So enter this amazing device that's going to solve what doctors and diet can't. Suddenly we're all zapping around the late 90s. Imagine a black plastic box, maybe around the size of your face or smaller, with a little light on the top. Inside it's got batteries and wires and stuff, and it's got on-off switch.

wires are coming out of it the wires kind of lead to these two copper handles and you're meant to hold on to the handles and just turn on the thing and get an electric shock it'll work up to 20 minutes if it wasn't working you could get a paper towel wet and put that over and get like a little more of a shock oh okay you could juice it up a little bit exactly

I'm thinking of basically the lie detector device that's been rebranded within Scientology where you hold the handles and you get an e-meter. You did it? Yeah, I did it at the Celebrity Center. You went to the Celebrity Center? Yeah. You don't know this story? No. I don't know this story either. What?

How could we have done all this Scientology? Wait, you should be a caller. I wasn't joining. We had an improv show at UCB. Yeah, across the street. Sorry to commandeer this. Yeah, but this needs immediate attention. I'm fascinated. The Scientology Center had a recruitment day and it was...

exciting and they had a fair and we were like we're gonna go as a bit as a bit but also what are they gonna say yeah yeah yeah reconnaissance yeah we all went to this movie theater and there was a woman there who was in charge of us she was Barry? odd, I would say. And then we watched this crazy movie about Scientology. It's not produced considering the people who are involved in Scientology. They have a TV station too. They kind of have Tom.

act in the movie at the very least famous writers have been involved exactly then they separated us all and then we had to do the thing with the hands and then they told us they asked you some questions they asked questions and it isn't how much you're holding how much you're not it's very primitive psychology for like a lie detector test. Yeah, it's a polygraph. Yeah, but even way more basic than that.

Wow, okay, so it sounds like a similar setup. Dark thing did even less than what you're describing. They didn't even produce any kind of results or anything. Well, this didn't either.

tell you a result so you were doing the zapper 20 minutes a day yeah we were zapping a lot you know if you felt like you're coming down with something you might zap or just kind of proactively you could zap in my head i associated with like a punishment i remember my parents being like

Go zap. Your parasite was acting up. Yeah, I would think it was like the parasites are out of control. My mom, she likes to be active. She can't just sit and hold something for 20 minutes. That's torture to her. She has the same stress, but she wanted to be like working at her. I remember that everyone used to take the copper rods and just put them down the back of her pants.

They need to make skin contact, but it didn't matter what kind of skin it is. It could be butt skin. Analy. Yeah. My dad notices this. He's an engineer. He's got his own shop where he works with some industrial tools. so he goes away and like makes his own modification where instead of the two round handles which are kind of uncomfortable to put down the back They're fans. They make them two curves, butt cheek shapes.

sort of thing like big spoons yeah exactly then you could just put them down this is madness this is how he's spending his time someone knocks on the door and walks into this scene oh yeah this is an original manufacturing this is a hybrid to do what to kill the parasite obviously this bit as now if someone else in the family is using it you know it's like been down on your cheeks or something about that they've been on mom's bottom cheeks at 13 how do we get out of it

My mom decided she was going to leave. She was not going to leave the group. She's going to leave my dad. She got another apartment and she bought a car and disappeared away to this other life. just to get out. When you live in this kind of environment, you don't know who you are and what your favorite color is. You can't have a conversation. You just crack. Did she stay in the same town as you? So we lived in San Luis Obispo and she went to

Atascadero. I know Atascadero very well. Is it close? It's the same county, so it shouldn't go very well. Oh my gosh, she was also probably in perimenopause and her hormones. Oh, you think this is on all fours? It's a little bit all fours. Okay. She leaves, and then after about a year, my dad decides to officially remove the family from the group because he was just kind of seeing them for who they really were. Yeah, ruined his family. Yeah, how was this celibate?

command working out? Is there celibacy within the merit? Oh, not within the marriage. Sex is only okay in this really specific context. Okay, right. But there was this idea of no sex outside of marriage. You're not supposed to have crushes. You didn't really date. You weren't really supposed to have desire. You were just obeying God's command. Oh. This is wild. There's a lot of these. There are. There's so many.

You're not thinking when you're driving through St. Louis Abyss. That's the home of Cal Poly. And that these engineers are involved. I know that's a stereotype, but I guess I imagine how could an engineer get trapped into this? It's the straining a gnat, swallowing a camel thing. You get so focused on engineering the zapper that you're not thinking about, why am I doing this? Yeah. Do we really think George and Fullerton has all the answers?

and he never got busted having multiple lovers most of these founders He definitely did have multiple liaisons. I learned a lot of allegations against him. To be honest, why else deal with all the obligations of having cult followers if you're not having sex with them? Like, what is the reward? What's the point of power if not sex with them? hot people for you but

I mean, that's what power is about, really. It wasn't totally monetarily driven, but the tithing, you give a percentage, sometimes like 10% of your earnings to the church. That's all going to George. Quickly to tie this. follow on at your friend's wedding so she was a member of the church and she presumably left as well yeah her family left a little bit earlier under the guise of oh we have to move away

Tascadero. Tomorrow night. Exactly. I'm going to see her get married on Saturday. I'm going to see a lot of old family friends from the assembly days. Wow. That It's such an interesting reunion. Yeah, what a group to get together with. Well, Anna, nice meeting you. Thanks for telling us that story. Thank you so much. Have a great trip. Bye.

Hi. Is this Francesca? This is me. I'm so nervous. Oh, don't be nervous. You have a very cute sweater on. And do you go buy something shorter than Francesca? Because I can go all the way with Francesca. But do you have like a nickname? People call me Fran. Or my dad calls me Frankie. That's so cute. I used to hate it, but I like it now. What age do you think you get to when you finally start liking all this cute stuff your parents did? When you feel like they might die.

Oh, gotta wait that long. For once they've died. Yeah, once or they're getting close. Then you love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, did you make a fort for us? I did, and I've really found my center in here because I was really nervous. And it feels good just to sit here and then. slight dark cozy do you do any breathing exercises or anything i tried but they aren't working okay where are you are you in portland oregon no i'm in big sky montana oh okay so you've got a cult story francesca

Fran, Frankie? I sure do. What if I said Frankie and she just started bawling? Yeah, it's too dangerous. But I want you to be. Okay, good. You just need to ask and then I'll officially say yes. He's everyone's dad. No, you want to see my dad? That's my dad. That's a sweet picture. So if you're wondering who joined the cult, it was these people. They're so cute. They look like they're on either a Seals and Croft or an Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon album cover. I feel like they're in Italy. Oh.

Are they in Italy in that photo? I don't think so. I'm guessing they're in Texas. Okay. At the Alamo. I haven't seen the pic. Okay, so those gorgeous young people, they found their way into something. What was it? They met.

These two people, their names were Trina and Steven. They met them at a rebirthing seminar. I don't know if you guys have ever heard of that. I don't really know what it is either it's just where you practice redoing your birth. It was the early 80s. Wait, you're reenacting your own birth? So that if you had any trauma coming in, you can get rid of it. They joined Trina and Steven because

Trina believed she could trans a spirit through her body. A dead trans medium is what she was called. So she would leave her body and then the spirit would take over. And that's what I did on Sundays. Thank you very much. from when i was born until i was 18. oh my god you'd go see trina channel spirits so they collected a bunch of people it was called the collective was an actual collective so they all shared money and everything but by the time i was born

It was not so much a collective. Everyone had their own money. And this was in Texas? It was in Arizona. We went to trance every Sunday. It was like a dimly lit room. Everyone entered. And we would sing, which was my favorite part. It was the only part that made sense to me. So we would sing a song and then she would meditate and then the spirit would come through.

Dr. Duran who was a 14th century doctor and basically he would say a sermon And then he would open up for questions. So people basically sought advice from him. How many folks were in attendance normally? 100 at its peak. When I was growing up, it was probably more like 50. And was it held in a church or what kind of space? We had this trance room that was locked out, no windows or anything. So she needed darkness.

but it wasn't so dark that you couldn't see her. And it's so hard because this was real for all of us, but it wasn't. obviously but i grew up in it so it was all i knew yeah i just remember being a kid sitting in church and going like i don't know were you having any battle later on when i got older But no, they created chaos so that you just wanted to be a part of this family. So Trina and Steven had kids and grandkids.

and there was a hierarchy. They were treated better than my family. It was all based on money, and I realize that now. They targeted people who had rich families, and my mom had wealthy parents. My dad didn't. but my parents weren't giving any money because my grandparents wouldn't provide. So they were basically just treated like the lowest on the totem pole. My mom and dad never had a chance.

I'm surprised they weren't like, we gotta get out of here. No one's even being nice to us. If you can't climb the ladder. Yeah, what's the incentive? We were told that we are the closest to God. because we're with the spirit in this lifetime so it did have some like buddhist principles we believed in reincarnation and we believe that

This life was our last because we were with the spirit. So we were special. Was it Christianity linked or no? Not really. We would make fun of it a little bit. So trans, you never knew what you were going to get. Sometimes it was him like, oh my God, you guys need to lighten up and have a party. Literally the spirit talking through her was telling us this or he would rip. people to shreds and then after trance sometimes there were like processes

where the adults would all get together and they'd all drink alcohol and just like rip each other a new one. Wow. I wasn't there. I was too young. but I was usually babysitting the kids. By the time they got home, you could tell they had been crying and just unregulated. Oh my God. Okay. This again is like the game, this kind of group participation therapy where you call out each other's character defects.

People would make stuff up just to like get the attention off of them. Yeah, that was what was happening in the game is like you want to sit down with the gun loaded. to direct at someone else to get the heat off yourself. So you're like incentivized. Yeah, it was pretty bad.

there were good parts like growing up in tono village i had a bunch of friends and it was dirt roads and it was a good place to grow up but it was pretty toxic we had our own school you weren't encouraged to go out and get a degree or anything you were encouraged to just Stay small. Service was a big thing. People who weren't even qualified would be teaching at the school with no pay. Free bad teaching is what we offer. We think teachers who do get paid don't get paid enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was so afraid of everybody. It was so scary. But also I wanted their approval so bad. But my dad was always kind of like half in, half out. He didn't actually want to go. He did it for my mom.

And so when I was seven, they divorced. And he kind of left the community. But even before that, he was just painted as a terrible person. Because he didn't want to be there. And that showed. I knew my dad was a good guy. I loved him. But people would talk crap about him in front of me. Oh, that's the cruelest thing you can do to a kid. Yeah, this is nasty. That was part of the problem with trance was you were like asking a question and then you're airing all of your shit.

in front of everybody and in front of the kids. Do you know what it was that your mom was getting out of it? At first, she wanted a community and then they end up creating chaos to where it's like if you leave the community you're leaving all of your friends your family you'll lose everything and that's what they do they make it so that you can't leave There were people who left.

but it sounds easy to just pick up and leave, but it's not. You don't have anything. Yeah, starting from scratch. How far away did your dad move? He just moved down to Phoenix area. So I would still see him, but not very often.

So later on, when I was 11 years old, My mom decided to get a boyfriend who did not want to be in the community. It was just kind of looked down upon to have a boyfriend at all. And he was a Vietnam vet. He was sort of abusive, so I had to live with him for a little bit.

Basically, my mom was shunned because she wanted to be with this man who didn't want to be in the community. So there was a point around that time where I was also shunned. The whole community was having Thanksgiving at Trina and Stephen's house. I wasn't allowed to go. I met with my sister and she's like, Fran, you're not allowed.

My oldest sister, I'm the youngest of five, but she was my person when my mom wasn't around. Why was she allowed to go? Because she had her own life. She actually got pregnant.

16 that was part of it too you get married and you have babies assigned marriages she had a baby at 16 because they told her don't wear a condom it hurts how old was the dude he was only a couple years older than her but they ended up getting married and then torn apart because one of the leader's daughters wanted to marry the guy she was with oh boy yeah my sister's the real mvp she's the first born child of the cult and i say it shows

So she told me I can't go. They're mad at my mom. And I was like heartbroken about that. So later on, I'm going to feed my horses. And I'm walking past Trina and Stephen's houses, which is where everyone was gathered. And my friend Scout came outside and she's like, Fran, what are you doing? Innocently. She's like, come on, we're all having a party.

And I was like, okay. So I go up the stairs and I get abused by Stephen Camp, who is the leader. He just screamed at me. Everyone told me that I can't be there. I need to go home. And I'm 11 years old. Oh my God. What a fucking coward. Oh, he was a scary, scary guy. I don't even remember, to be honest, what I did after that.

pretty traumatizing so i had moved out of the house because of the guy she was with so i moved in with my sister for a little while and then i was gonna move back i was told this later but paul her boyfriend didn't want me to move back in and so He asked her for a divorce. And then after that, my mom took her own life. Oh my goodness. What a horrific act. You've really been through the ringer. After my mom died.

It was kind of like my family was finally in it. We were finally treated better, which is just absolutely crazy. Oh, they decided to extend some compassion in the wake of that? Or do they feel guilty? I think they felt guilty. Basically, she just lost her whole support system because the women in the family all stopped talking to her and then the guy that she was doing it for.

wanted to leave her and he was just a terrible person what age were you when that happened i was 11 oh jesus it was rough i don't blame them for it but I do think.

My mom, dying, did shatter the glass a little, had people questioning, what the fuck are we doing here? And then I didn't actually leave myself because I was young. I ended up living with multiple different families, plus my sister, and it just got worse once I was living with the cult leader's daughter, and they were really sweet. Everyone's a victim to this. I think including their children I had a boyfriend at 15 I went to trance one time and I got called a whore in trance

My spirit called me a whore. Was that boyfriend part of this? No, he wasn't. When you were around other people, were you like embarrassed to talk about it no it was kind of a joke like oh you guys live in tono village you guys are a part of that cult and we're like Yeah, you guys think it's a cult? It's not. I listened to a recent recording of a trance, which it's the only one I have. I don't know where they all are because they recorded them all. In the recording, he says...

Yeah, because everyone out there thinks we're a cult. We're not. They were always trying to stress that we're not a cult. In school, they showed us.

Jim Jones and David Koresh. They showed us those and they're like, see, that's a cult. If no one gets murdered, it's not a cult. How'd you exit? Eventually, my sister moved down to the valley, down to Phoenix. she tried to stay in it but basically if you're away they're not really

letting you do it. Everybody tithed money. Everyone was paying for Trina and Steven's life. For her weekly show. Exactly. My sister went up there to tithe and I guess she was trying to quit smoking. One of the cult leader's daughters said, Oh, Tasha's trying to quit smoking and Trina went. Smoking doesn't cause cancer and Dosh was like

Okay, that's it. That was our last straw. Well, 14th century doctors don't really know yet about small cell carcinoma. The irony, too, of the spirit being invoked somehow would have some... elevated something because they were a 14th century doctor like nobody on earth right now would be as bad of a doctor as a 14th century Right. And he would give medical advice. Oh, God. What blood pressure medication are you on? I don't like it. Oh, my God. Even though he only dealt with blood.

and probably leeches. Yeah, like my friend's mom died of a stroke. If we were getting actual medical care, we would have known that she had high blood pressure.

but instead we were listening to the spirit. So that kind of stuff makes me really angry. Did you end up having a relationship with your dad? Turns out he had manic bipolar, which he also would have known if therapy was a thing or if medical psychology was a thing. So I ended up having a relationship with him and then it kind of fell out because...

I didn't go live with him. I lived with my sister. And then he had a huge episode, kept having episodes. He would get off his meds, on his meds, and then he started doing drugs. And so now his brain is pretty fraught. We still have a relationship with him. We love him. He comes over for dinner and everything, but he's just not the same guy.

Francesca you have been dealt quite a fucking hand my lord the fact that you're in that cute sweater and put together I made this sweater oh my gosh So cute. One of the guys from the cult is a chess master because there was like this whole thing. Steven was obsessed with chess. He was a co-founder of chess.com, which is where you play online chess.

And he just wrote a book and it's coming out in September and it's going to be about the cult a little bit and also his chess journey. Did he ultimately leave the cult? Will it be a critical look at the cult? Yes, everyone has left. Nicole, there are still people that still have it in their brain. They're so brainwashed that it's still real for them, including my dad. He'll go in and out because he was so abused.

But yeah, Nicole has dismantled. I want to see Trina's show. I wish she would just do it at a black box theater so I could see it as like a one-woman show. She used to do public trances. she passed actually she died three years ago it was like an alcohol induced dementia which makes sense i still don't know if she was Right. It's hard to know that. Or was it Stephen like saw this craziness about her and.

decided to capitalize on it i wish i could be a fly on the wall to hear a conversation that went on if we're to like just look at the pattern of history and acknowledge it is real and my hunch is steven was somehow Pulling the strings. Pulling the strings of this whole thing. Definitely, but I think probably at some point whether she started off believing it i'm sure at some point she did believe she was channeling this person yeah i don't think you can keep that up for that long if it's a

Full ruse. This is a terrible false equivalency, but we've talked about it on here with other improv people. A lot of comedians have certain characters. I have a couple of them that when I start talking like them, they have a whole language that I don't necessarily have. It's true. The second I'm talking is Frito. All of these thoughts are just very quickly there. They're not my normal thoughts.

I've not even tried to embrace that in a way that would be my identity. But I understand the notion of feeling like you're creating things that aren't really your. Does that make sense? for her to buy into it. I don't think it'd be that hard to buy into it. Yeah, I mean, not to get so Buddhist, but we are all sort of buying into our identity.

all the time it's not that much of a stretch to believe something about yourself and then just be it yeah i think your brain does crazy stuff especially if you have some dementia going on later on yeah I'm impressed you've made it out. And I'm doing okay. Me and all my siblings are doing pretty well. Good. I'm happy to hear that. My sister, I just want to shout her out. Her name is Tom.

She raised me pretty much. Oh, good on you, Tosh. Big shout out. Well, Francesca, thank you for sharing all that with us. That was heavy. And I'm sorry for all that. I'm sure it will help a lot of people. You never know who's listening who might be like in a bad... situation and needs to be heard and seen. Yeah. Just know that they're creating chaos to keep you there. Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for chatting with us. Yeah, it was so nice to meet you guys. I can't believe this. This is crazy. Really nice to meet you. All right, take care. Bye. What you would hope people would hear is there's such a pattern to all this stuff. Exactly. They all do almost the same. The arranged marriage piece is interesting. That's come up multiple times.

The beating you down. The group criticism. If any of these things are happening in your book club, you know, maybe the book club is a... Maybe take a second glance. My teeth look really white. Yeah, you have exceptionally white and nice teeth. If you want to have white teeth. Just join this team now. Join now for $19.99. And I'll also throw in a free sermon. I want to see you channel and talk in tongues.

I want you to lose your marbles a little bit for an hour every Sunday. I would go to your show. Then you'd be laughing at me and then I'd cry. No, you'd be a warlock from the 14th century. I understand how it happens. You're there and it's what you know. It's so amazing what the brain does that it can't just pull out for a minute. But they did a good job of saying it's not a cult. I was a...

exposed to some weird stuff. I went to church on Sundays, two different religions, whatever, that's standard. But my father was also quite woo, right? Like through AA, he found a COA, Adult Children of Alcoholics. And then the Course of Miracles. And then all of it.

it's fine but i was in a basement with him where a guy's like making someone hold something then pushing on your liver and then pushing the arm down a lot of the people that are in a are there and they're kind of intrigued by it there's crystals I don't want this to sound like a pat on the back to myself or casting any shame on anybody.

But I'm just not very susceptible. I was like, what the fuck? Okay, but the reason you weren't is because you had an environment that also was opposite that. Yes, that in fact applauded critical. skepticism yeah so if everyone you know is doing one thing there's no way I'm not suggesting that I too couldn't be this way I just

am remembering that I was in lots of different situations where I was like, this is horseshit. This is why they don't want to let other people in. They shouldn't invite me in because I'll probably be like, hold on.

How do you know about that? That was invented in the 16th century. I'd like bust the 14th century doctor. Then everyone would stand up and go, Oh my God, the spell's been broken. Thank you, Dax Shepard. You are our new leader. Exactly. That's what you always wanted. I am the leader of the truth. I have a proprietary understanding. You sound just like all of them. Get off your clothes and let's talk about your spirit. Bye. Enjoy!

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