CULTS Part 2: How Intuition Can Save Us with Sarah Edmondson
December 8, 2022
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. We are back with the really fascinating and amazing and just lovable as hell Sarah Edmondson.
Abby Wambach:
Fucking brave.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, brave, brave, brave. And Sarah is here to talk to us about her experience with NXIVM. Please, please go back to the last episode and listen to it and then we’ll catch you back here. Content warning that we will be discussing cult culture and sexual coercion. Sarah, we’re going to start with what we ended with at the last episode was the moments after your initiation into NXIVM, where you’re starting to figure out that this is all nefarious, but how the hell are you going to get yourself out? So start us there and tell us, you had some friends who were starting to come to you and say this isn’t right, but you were trying to hold on to your beliefs, your community, your collateral.
Abby Wambach:
Her life, her world.
Glennon Doyle:
Your life, whole world.
Abby Wambach:
It was like her whole world.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. Take us back to that time and let us know, and also want to know the moment when you figured out what that brand really was.
Sarah Edmondson:
So those happened in two separate moments. I believe the first moment where things fell into place is when Mark and I had that honest conversation under his NDA, and we actually had a pretty clear picture of what we now know as DOS in terms of we women being collateralized to stay loyal and to subject themselves to be sexually intimate with Keith and for him to procure as much sex as he wanted through this blackmail MLM scheme. There was so much more that we didn’t know that we found out later, but we had a pretty clear picture then. And we knew that we had to get out. And my world crumbled so quickly in that one conversation because everything rested on a key tenant, which I believe holds all of these groups in place. In my case that Keith is good, or in some groups it like so and so is the prophet, this person is the voice of God or whatever.
Sarah Edmondson:
As soon as you don’t have that belief anymore, everything else crumbles. And so many of the things that had made no sense to me over the years that I had to rationalize and put on the proverbial shelf, which is a metaphor we use a lot in cult recoveries. It’s like you see things but you can’t wrap your head around it so you put it on a shelf and you put the other thing on the shelf. Same thing in an abusive relationship, they use a tone or they’re a bit aggressive and you’re like, did he just do that? No, we can’t. And I’m going for this relationship and you put it on the shelf. But one day the final straw happens and the shelf crumbles. When my shelf crumbled and I recognized, and Mark really helped me see this, that not only was Keith not who he said he was, and it was all like a con, but he was what he taught us as a full suppressive.
Sarah Edmondson:
In other words, a psychopath or a sociopath. I didn’t have all the terms yet, but I just knew that he was very bad. I could see the whole thing for what it was in a moment. And part of that was recognizing that the brand, as I said, the branding itself didn’t wake me up, but recognizing that the symbol was actually a cryptic monogram of his initials. And it was under my bikini line in my most intimate area. And that sent me into quite a rage, quite a fury. And Mark and I very quickly recognized that we had to get out. And then I actually had Mark tell Nippy because I was still at this point too afraid that if I broke my vow somehow I thought I was safe under Mark’s NDA. It didn’t make any sense.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh yeah, it was the loophole. Mark’s the one saying it. I’m not saying it.
Sarah Edmondson:
Yeah, if Mark says it, then they won’t release my collateral. And Mark told Nippy, and luckily Nippy just got it immediately. There was no humming and hawing. Like both of us were equally as relieved to figure this out and to get out. And there was like, I don’t even know, maybe 24 hours of us just figuring out how to escape. We’d seen what happened to people who left NXIVM and how the company had gone at, I say company, how the cult had gone after them. And we knew that we didn’t want to get sued and spend the next 10 years in litigation. So the first step was to extract ourselves without raising alarms. And we’d seen other people try to have conversations and to confront the leadership. We knew that didn’t work. So I spent a couple weeks basically being a double agent.
Sarah Edmondson:
And that was a very difficult time because I had to lie to get out. I had to be like, oh yeah, I’ll see you all at the coach retreat, love you Lauren, and keep doing my penances and my collaterals and playing along so they didn’t suspect. Meanwhile, I was getting on the phone and telling Paige my best friend, who I knew was going to Albany the next day for her initiation ceremony and risked everything to show her my brand over FaceTime and say, “Look, I know you’re going for your ceremony. I want to show you what you’re going to get and this is what I believe it is.” And we’d like hatched a plan so that she’d be sick and not get on the plane.
Sarah Edmondson:
Meanwhile, as I’m packing up my home in Albany and pretending to go to Toronto to see my ailing grandfather, which was true actually at the time, he was sick. But I used that as an excuse to not attend the coach training. It was probably the most stressful, crazy time of my whole life. And I just spent most of the time on the phone with people trying to tell them what had happened without putting myself at risk. So I set up for somebody else to tell people the details of the branding, and just did what I could to save as many of the slaves as I could before they figured out that I was a defector, which they eventually did.
Glennon Doyle:
And did a lot of the people that you told resist? Did they also have that reaction of Keith is good, Keith is good?
Sarah Edmondson:
Most of the people, everyone in Vancouver, by the time we got back to Vancouver 10 days later, just the fact that we were resigning was enough for them. They’re like if Sarah and Nippy aren’t involved, I’m not. Because they hadn’t even met Keith and Nancy, most of them. The people that had moved to Albany and were in the inner circle, they’d already been indoctrinated and they moved quickly to do this whole thing. It’s just a sorority and men brand each other all the time.
Sarah Edmondson:
And that this is just about them not understanding that why can’t women do it too? And this has nothing to do with NXIVM. They put out a statement that Keith had nothing to do with it. I mean, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies. So the people that confronted me and tried to get me to stay, I knew the people I could trust or not, because they’d say things to me, “But what specifically is bad about it, Sarah?” And I’m like, if you don’t know what’s bad about branding, branding is you take a… It’s what farmers do to cattle. And they’d say something like, “Well, it’s only that if you make it mean that.”
Glennon Doyle:
Because you make the meaning.
Sarah Edmondson:
Yeah, exactly. I make the meaning.
Glennon Doyle:
You’re meaning making the meaning. So that’s your fault.
Sarah Edmondson:
Yeah, I’m making the meaning. I’m like, no, that’s what it means. That’s what branding means. And then I’d be like, go fuck yourself. Good luck. You’re on the wrong side of history. Mark and Nippy and I, Bonnie and Catherine, we had a war room set up in our homes for a good few months to try to get the word out. And most people left. Most people left immediately. And then once the news with the branding, that just like… at what point is branding people with your initials part of personal development?
Glennon Doyle:
Right. Well, and Sarah, tell us about how you went public. When did you decide to go public? Because there’s the war room and there’s the reaching out to people individually. But then when did we get this huge New York Times story that really broke open NXIVM to the entire world with you on the cover? You were on the front page.
Sarah Edmondson:
So that happened in stages as well, in terms of me knowing what I wanted to do. As soon as I found out that I was a defector, which by the way happened with somebody calling me being like, “Oh my God, supposed to move to Albany. Is the branding true?” And all in distress. And I just said, “Do I need to show you my fucking brand? Do not move to Albany.” And it turned out that that woman who had called me for help was already in DOS and already branded. And she was recording me to show that I was breaking my vow of secrecy. And that made me a defector. And then they were coming after me. Then there was a legal case being made against me. Claire Bronfman came to Vancouver and tried to talk to the Vancouver police to get me arrested for fraud, mischief, and theft because I wouldn’t return the student files, which had all their credit card and address information and everyone’s intake forms with worst moment, worst decision, people’s personal private secrets. And you’re not getting these.
Sarah Edmondson:
And that was what she wanted. Because when I said I was going to leave, I was like, I’m going to step back and focus on my family. When I was doing the double agent thing, they knew I was leaving, but they didn’t know that I was upset. So I had this whole plan to leave in a way that wouldn’t raise flags for them. But once they knew I was a defector and they started coming after me and all these women in my center from Vancouver who were sharing with me that they were already recruited in DOS and given close up pictures of their vaginas, sexy photos and intimate secrets, the more women that I found out about this, the more enraged I got. And so it changed in a very short period of time to being like, I just got to get my family out to being like, we got to take this fucking thing down.
Sarah Edmondson:
And I think you see that in The Vow as I get more information. But ultimately Mark and Bonnie and Catherine and Nippy and I had been talking to the New York Times that summer. It was like a month after we got out, but the story didn’t air till the end of October. And from in those five months were probably the scariest times of our lives because we didn’t know it was going to happen. Claire was trying to get me arrested. We’d given them the story. Barry Meyer, who wrote the story for the New York Times had spoken to a number of DOS slaves, not just me. Some of them wanted to be anonymous, they keep changing their mind if they want to be in it or not. We wanted more people on the record. And unfortunately, I was the only one that was willing to be public. And that felt very alone and very scary.
Sarah Edmondson:
But I felt like it’s what I needed to do because I’d been so loud for so many years about Keith being the noble humanitarian, and then to find out that he wasn’t I felt like I had to compensate on the other side and be equally as loud as to what was really going on. And that meant putting it all on the line. And I didn’t really think about the ramifications of that, or even just how somebody might read that New York Times cover and never get beyond the sex cult headline. And that’s how I’m known. It didn’t matter to me. If this is the proof of the emotional abuse that’s been going on for years now, there’s physical proof, then I have to do it. And I knew that there were women inside that had been slaves for even way longer than I ever had been. So I felt very driven to fix things, and they did, we did.
Amanda Doyle:
Thank God that you did Sarah, because even though there had been outreach at points to investigators, that they had never followed up on that. And the New York Times piece would not have been published if you did not go on the record. And the New York Times piece is what the FBI looked at to decide to start the investigation that led to Keith Raniere’s prosecution and is the reason he’s behind bars. And if you had not done that, none of that would’ve happened.
Glennon Doyle:
I can only imagine what it’s been like for you. And I actually want to talk about that in the aftermath of that New York Times article with people just reading the surface of the story. But I don’t see you as a sex cult person at all. I see you and have read you and have watched you as a woman who is a seeker who got indoctrinated and then got herself out and got other people out. And I see it as nuanced and complicated and hard. And I know there’s responsibility in it and also heroic.
Abby Wambach:
You’re a warrior. To me, what character is, when things go wrong, how do you respond? It might have been easier in an easier life, easier path in some ways to just go away and say nothing. But you not only stood up for yourself and your family, but for all of the women that were still in. Whether it’s your responsibility or not, your character to step up in such a public way, to me, I don’t know if there is a higher caliber of character. Somebody when things go wrong to say this is wrong and I need to say why. And by the way, you accept the responsibility in your life for what you’ve contributed to. I find so much love for you in my heart around you coming forward. It’s really beautiful.
Amanda Doyle:
And it wasn’t just women, it was girls too. I mean, there were teenagers in this as well.
Glennon Doyle:
Sarah, it was me too, right? New York Times, they weren’t even putting the story out. It wasn’t vibing enough for them.
Sarah Edmondson:
The timing was crazy. I kept saying to Barry, when is this coming out? When is this coming out? Meanwhile, NXIVM’s having corporate retreats, the had a Vanguard week with very low attendance, but people still went. Inside they’re talking about how well Sarah and Nippy are going to get arrested because they’re criminals. And that was scary because Claire Bronfman has terrorized people with the legal system for years.
Glennon Doyle:
And has like billions of dollars.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, Claire Bronfman is the heiress of the Seagram fortune. And her role was funding-
Abby Wambach:
The bank.
Amanda Doyle:
…many things, but in part to fund all of the litigation that was going after anyone who tried to leave or anyone who tried to talk again. So she flew to Canada to try to get you arrested for this.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
So Me Too comes out and this is so touching to me because when all the women come together who aren’t even together, and so Me Too happened and then New York Times decided that it was a good time?
Sarah Edmondson:
The Weinstein story broke and I remember waking up and seeing this #MeToo and sharing very cryptically my Me Too, about what happened in Albany. And then the New York Times story broke. It was like the zeitgeist was ready for the story. And truthfully, had the story come out two or three years prior, I don’t even know if it would’ve had the same results in terms of a woman like Moira Penza, my personal hero, reading the New York Times and be like, what the fuck is this guy doing? We have to investigate. Because it had been investigated for years. And we still don’t know if the wheels were being greased by Bronfman money in the Northern District, which is different than the district where Moira prosecuted Keith or people were looking the other way. We still don’t know.
Sarah Edmondson:
And then that I think will eventually come to light, but to be on the tail of Me Too, which ironically is what the current loyalists, and I don’t want to give too much attention to them, but they’re saying that we use the Me Too thing to play the victim, but for us it could not have been better timing. And then, yeah, the story exploded. We just lived in the aftermath of that chaos for a while, but then also felt like, okay, that was the biggest punch we could throw. New York Times. And it did a lot of damage, but it didn’t destroy the company.
Sarah Edmondson:
And we found out later that what actually destroyed the company was that we had shut down people’s credit cards. My admin person went into the system, my assistant went in and shut down people’s recurring payments and erased all their information so they couldn’t even charge their credit cards. And we had all the students that we were in touch with and we’re talking about hundreds of people, call Visa, call Amex and say I signed up for personal development, turned out it’s actually a sex cult and on the inside and women are being branded with the leader’s initials and I want my money back. And when a company has enough chargebacks requests, then the companies will shut down their access to funds. And that’s actually what killed the company.
Glennon Doyle:
Not the courts, not the New York Times, but the credit card charges done by an admin. If we were ever going to change the world, I feel like it would be Dynna. It would be our admin. It’s like she’s the biggest badass.
Sarah Edmondson:
Yes. So that happened.
Glennon Doyle:
Can you tell us what was your life like after the New York Times story came out, and what was the world’s reaction to you? And how did you deal with it as a precious, soft human being?
Sarah Edmondson:
It’s a hard time to even remember because it was so stressful. I don’t know how grounded or in my body in any way that I was. But what I do remember, and keep in mind that we’d been filming at this point because we didn’t know we were making The Vow, we just knew we had to document things. So there was always a camera around and which I got very used to and often forgot about. But we felt like we had to make sure that this was on camera so we could, if anything, defend ourselves. Because we still thought that Claire was coming after us.
Abby Wambach:
And you were recording all of your conversations.
Sarah Edmondson:
Yes, right.
Abby Wambach:
Everything was recorded. So that’s one thing that makes me watching The Vow because it’s real, your actual voices.
Sarah Edmondson:
Yes, it is very real. There’s not reenactment. There’s some parts that are reenactment, but you know what that is, it’s obvious. But yeah, from that point, it was a lot of media requests. I went on 20/20, which was another big punch, was not the best interview. It’s 20/20. It’s like little sound bites. It’s not like this where you get into the nuance and the gritty and the feeling, it’s just clips. And that was really difficult because between that and the New York Times, people didn’t know what they’re looking at. And even differently than now. Now we have so many documentaries about cults and I feel like people are so much more aware. Even five years ago, I know not to do it now, but I couldn’t help myself to look at the comments. And it was horrible. It was very dehumanizing. And you know, what the fuck? Why would she even say yes to that?
Glennon Doyle:
That was the one part, Sarah, you should know in The Vow. We made it through the whole thing. We weren’t talking back to you at all. But the second you started looking at the comments, Abby and I were like no.
Abby Wambach:
She’s lost her mind finally.
Sarah Edmondson:
Yeah. Ironically, when The Vow came out, that’s when the slew of comments in the other way came to me. Like no, we believe you. We got your back and you’re brave and all. It’s been so positive, I can’t even tell you. My life now is so not that. I feel very understood. And I really attribute that to The Vow. I feel The Vow really did us a solid in terms of showing the world what it looks like and what we thought we were building. And I’ve had friends over the years that have supported me and Sarah’s just doing her thing, didn’t necessarily think it was a cult, but it was weird.
Sarah Edmondson:
And now they’d be like, if I had known it was that I totally would’ve joined. To have people say I would’ve joined that, that’s very vindicating to me because when you otherize groups like this, and that’s so weird and I would never be a part of that, it doesn’t give people any knowledge or any education or any nuggets of wisdom. And I think that The Vow does that, and why I continue to speak about it in our podcast as well is that I want to give people the nuggets of what those good things look like when you join these groups.
Glennon Doyle:
Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about high control groups because that’s something, that’s a term that we use to describe this kind of situation. And I’d love to talk about it in a wide way because a lot of us have experience with abusive relationships. A high control group can be two people, a high control group could be a family. I feel surprised when people say that this is so stunning and I could never be involved in this. Abby and I were talking about, we both come from Catholic backgrounds and Catholicism. Again, does a lot of beautiful things in the world, and also is a group with a shared dogma that has a belief system that often encourages its followers to rise above their intuition and not listen to themselves. I mean, the Pope has lots of robes, has a sex scandal at the tippety top of it, and people stay. So I feel like we need to be humble in this conversation. And let’s talk about you knowing what know now, talk to us about what a high control group is and what we should be looking for.
Sarah Edmondson:
Absolutely. And I appreciate that because the word cult in and of itself actually isn’t great because it has a perception, like I said from the beginning, that is very sensationalized and is very 1970s, 1980s, Jim Jones, Kool-Aid, robes, all those things.
Glennon Doyle:
And othering. Allows us to be like that’s over there. That’s not me.
Sarah Edmondson:
Yes. And I will say just a little tangent about that. Every single person who’s ever said to me that, I really appreciated your story, but that would never happen to me because I’m so much more skeptical or I’m more discerning or whatever. And then later in the conversation they’re telling me about something that they do. Like, oh yeah, I just do meditation. I’m part of transcendental meditation and it’s really helpful. I’m like, well, that’s also a fucking cult. Your mantra is not a problem for you. I meditate as well. I don’t have a mantra. But that organization has so much scandal behind it that you haven’t researched. That’s the thing, is that many people dabble. I did Bikram’s yoga.
Abby Wambach:
Ah that guy.
Sarah Edmondson:
I love yoga, but it has to be non dogmatic.
Glennon Doyle:
Totally, me too.
Sarah Edmondson:
Non-denominational yoga.
Glennon Doyle:
Because here’s what I think this is my commitment too, because I know I’m a seeker. I’m obsessed with purpose, community, although I’d rather not actually be in person, but community purpose, healing, seeking all the things. My theory is everything a little bit, but nothing all the way. Nothing all the way. Because what I think is that when I look at my people, the seekers, the ones who get in trouble are the ones who think they’ve found. Seekers cannot find. If you are a seeker who thinks you have found, you are likely in a cult.
Glennon Doyle:
The job of the seeker is to seek until we die. There’s nowhere to land. There’s no solid ground. There’s nobody who has solved humanity or life. There’s no science of emotion. There is no sense to be made of it. So the purpose of the seeker is to keep seeking. You’re like a seagull who never gets to land.
Sarah Edmondson:
Absolutely. And it’s something that we recently had probably our biggest guest of all time, we had Eckhart Toll on our podcast and we got some shit from our audience. They were like, “I thought this was a safe space.” People often equate spirituality with culty, especially if they’ve been in a spiritual group. There’s lots of overlap and the words sound the same. They call it word salad where things don’t make sense and you’re trying to make it make sense. Other people found it very helpful. But it has been our most controversial episode. And I said to our audience I’m really sorry people were upset and it brought up stuff, apologies.
Sarah Edmondson:
I gave a trigger warning, but obviously it wasn’t enough. But I also said, I never said that he’s the way or this is the only way. This is a book that was helpful for me and my healing at the time. And we were having a conversation with an expert, which is what we say we do. Experts, whistle blowers and survivors. He’s an expert in the field of spirituality with billions of books sold. Hey, we get to talk to him. Let’s find out what he has to say. If you don’t like it, skip it.
Glennon Doyle:
What’s the difference between an expert and a cult leader? Talk to us about this.
Sarah Edmondson:
This is what I said to my team, because some people, I’m worried about you, Sarah, that you found a new guru. I’m like, I never said he was my guru. But you can take the tools and put them in your life and that’s going to be fine. Put them in your toolbox. But when you make the tools in your life, that’s when it’s a problem. And I said, if I start working with Eckhart Tolle and joining his inner circle and following him around the world, then you can be concerned and call an interventionist. But I’m not saying that. I’m not doing that. So I’m self-aware about my journey now. I’m very skeptical. It’s taken me a long time.
Sarah Edmondson:
So I think the thing that I look for, and I have to go back to my own experience, are the things that make you right for abuse. And it’s a little bit different in each group, but the same template like when we have people on Jehovah’s Witness and ex FLDS, and ex Scientologists, the things that happen to them are the exact same thing every time. And it almost always starts with an invitation to something like a potluck or a party or a personality quiz or a yoga class. And in that invitation, the person feels really good about where they are. And they call it love bombing. And I’m not just a preface to say, not everyone who’s nice to you is trying to love bomb you.
Glennon Doyle:
But you’re saying we should not go to parties.
Sarah Edmondson:
Definitely don’t go to parties or potlucks or dance parties or personality quizzes. But it’s good thing to be skeptical of. And I am certainly very nervous about any invitation and I always do my research, but usually it’s that bait and switch. Come check out this, we’re having a book club or a lot of political cults. We’re raising money for this or that. And people get involved and then they find this camaraderie, they find this sense. And for me, hugely belonging. Such a drive for me my whole life, I didn’t fit in growing up.
Glennon Doyle:
What does love bombing look like?
Sarah Edmondson:
Love bombing is, and we were taught to do this and I thought it was a good thing. But when people came to our intro nights, we’d welcome them and be interested in them. And I genuinely was interested in them. So I’d be like, oh my god, Glennon. I heard so much about you, Abby said that you’re really a seeker and I’m a seeker too. And can I get you a glass of water? Here, and talk to me about your life. And I heard you were a writer. I’d want to know about you and connect with you. And for me, that was really authentic. But I also knew that I was creating an atmosphere in the center for people. And people would say this after my info nights. I don’t know what this is, but I want to be a part of it because it feels good.
Amanda Doyle:
So it’s one of the top 10 things that are characteristics of what we’re calling cultish, which is the idea that the brand new people are immediately showered with praise and love and to make them feel a sincere sense of belonging. And I want more of that.
Sarah Edmondson:
Yes, and connection. And it’s across the board. Probably one of the most meaningful interviews that we’ve all had recently was with Evan Rachel Wood about her experience with Marilyn Manson. And she talks about that a lot as well. When he met her, he picked her out of a crowd and very much groomed her. Wasn’t like, hey, you’re going to be in a relationship with me and I’m going to exploit you. He made her feel special and that she thought that he was having this relationship with a cool, older, artsy alternative guy. And there was love bombing in that grooming process. And this happens in relationships all the time. It’s one of the number one things that a narcissist will do, is bomb you with love. So that when you deliver the first zinger of in the game, they call it nigging when you’re bringing somebody down. Then the person who’s been loved bombed thinks that they can only get that love again from that person.
Glennon Doyle:
So the difference between kindness and love bombing is love bombing is just too much. It’s right away. It’s a showering. There’s no build, there’s no actual connection. It’s just immediate shower of affection.
Abby Wambach:
There’s a motivation.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s the intent. How it would feel to people?
Sarah Edmondson:
How it would feel, it’s a tricky thing because if you’re not aware of it, you might not be able to tell the difference.
Amanda Doyle:
Which is why all of these things together, they have to be viewed together. This is why it’s so sneaky. If you have that experience of love bombing, it might just be a person who’s genuinely excited to see you. It’s only when it’s also connected to isolation and threat of your leaving.
Sarah Edmondson:
Well, that was the next on my list was isolation. And all groups seek to isolate their followers from the outside world, either physically in a compound or emotionally in a way. If I had a problem with anything in NXIVM, I could never tell anyone outside. If I could tell my mom I don’t like it actually that Keith is blah, blah, blah, blah, then my mom would, because she knew the whole time and she was keeping the doors open for me to come back to her. And I knew she disapproved of him. I knew she thought that he was a mega maniac, but I was like, oh, she just doesn’t understand. So I couldn’t give her anything. So any concern you had to go inside the group. And that’s key. A man named Dr. Steven Hassen has this thing called the bite model where he breaks down the different things that a cult will do to control in a bite.
Sarah Edmondson:
Being controlling behavior, controlling information, thoughts and emotions. So all the red flags to look out for are the leadership controlling how the cult member behaves. So that would be things like restricting calories or sleep deprivation. My first five day I slept very, very little because the days were so long. And the response to that would be like, oh, we’re just trying to give you your money’s worth. There’s always a response to how this thing is not that. Or with the calories, but people are choosing who are you to say how they diet or don’t diet.
Amanda Doyle:
And that’s all physiological. When you don’t have the sleep, your prefrontal cortex is exactly primed to be in the most vulnerable place to be receiving those messages. It’s the idea of time and food deprivation being this magic space.
Glennon Doyle:
So it wasn’t just that Raniere liked skinny women.
Abby Wambach:
Or walking in the middle of the night.
Glennon Doyle:
It was like, right. It was that. Oh, he always walked people in the middle of the night.
Sarah Edmondson:
He’s always walking.
Abby Wambach:
And wasn’t he always like the one person, well all of the leadership saying, well if somebody doesn’t want to be here, then that’s great, right? Because their intuition is like, something’s going on here. They’re like, just go. We don’t want you here. And so you keep the core people who are there are the ones that will buy into all of the dogma and all of the rules that require somebody to stay in the actual cult itself.
Sarah Edmondson:
Yes, I was a good sheep. And I always have been a good girl, but I’m also internally a bad girl. There were things, like Nippy for example they wouldn’t promote him because they called him defiant. Because he wouldn’t do the things that we had to do. But I would do them because I wanted the rewards, I wanted the promotions. I wanted to keep getting rewarded. But then I started to realize nobody was checking. So I said that I was doing the things. I would be like, yeah, I entered my coach points. Well no I didn’t because it’s so tedious. There’s the cult identity and there’s the pre-cut identity. And I learned that when I got out because I was like, I went right back to my pre-cult identity very, very quickly. And I realized that I was doing the things that I needed to do to survive in the group, but I didn’t really believe in all of them.
Sarah Edmondson:
So I was able to snap out of it very quickly.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, so isolation.
Sarah Edmondson:
Back to red flags, isolation. One of the huge red flags that I see all the time is when there’s a leader who’s accountable to nobody, there’s no checks and balances around them. This is the person that can get away with anything and no one’s going to tell them no. And often they’re narcissistic, they’re charming, they have this following that people just will do whatever. No one’s giving them a reality check because you see this a lot with movie stars as well. They just have an entourage around them that are just a bunch of yes people.
Sarah Edmondson:
So it’s the same thing with a cult. And a huge red flag is you can’t question. Any criticism is met with gaslighting. And I called it in my book, the NXIVM flip. If I were to say, I don’t know how I feel about X, Y, and Z, well you seem reactive, you should get an EM on that or sit with that or journal on it. You seem invested, and work on that before we talk about it. So because I was reactive about it, it meant that my issue had no merit. That’s why we presume Nancy didn’t call me back when I left her the voicemail when I left because I was too angry.
Glennon Doyle:
Well if you teach people that being reactive is wrong, then that’s a really good way to make sure no one ever reacts to what you’re doing.
Sarah Edmondson:
Exactly. And another thing they taught us was speaking dishonorably is wrong. Which is true, if we have a mutual friend who I’m trying to share information, I could say to you, oh that person’s a real dick, that’s dishonorable. Or I could be like, oh this person’s working through some of their anger stuff right now. That would be more honorable. So Keith was protected anytime anyone said anything negative, even if somebody said, “Oh I just met Keith. He seems kind of just a normal, kind of a schlub,” or whatever. I actually even heard Nancy say multiple times because she would always ask people after forums, “Who’s here seeing Vanguard for the first time?” And people would put up their hand. And she’d say, “What do you think? Isn’t he amazing? Isn’t he amazing?” Oh, clap, clap, clap. And somebody would always say, “Yeah, it’s weird. He’s just kind of a normal guy.” And she’d go, “Isn’t it incredible that he’s able to bring himself to our level and just relate at that level?”
Abby Wambach:
Because one of the things that you were told is that he scored one of the highest IQ tests in the world.
Glennon Doyle:
Did he just make that shit up?
Abby Wambach:
I’m sure that’s a fucking lie.
Sarah Edmondson:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like Kim Jung Un saying that he beat Tiger Woods at golf. It’s just laughable.
Glennon Doyle:
Or Trump said that he’s the best bested that ever bested and everyone else is the worst.
Sarah Edmondson:
When he did that test, it was a take home test and he had a bunch of women helping him fill it out.
Glennon Doyle:
Of course.
Abby Wambach:
That’s amazing.
Glennon Doyle:
Too on the nose.
Sarah Edmondson:
That’s how we got that.
Amanda Doyle:
Speaking of Trump, the dynamic of isolating is this idea of preempting that the people that are in your life pre you being part of this will not understand. They will resent and be jealous of your evolution. So they will say that this is a cult. They will say that this is bad. And in a way, that kind of perfectly insulates you because whenever people express concern, you’re like, oh, it’s working. What I’m supposed to be doing is working, which is the exact same disaster cycle of calling media fake news. Because then any time someone who is in the MAGA sees that there’s any news report about anything bad that’s happened, it’s further evidence of the underlying doctrine, which is the media’s going to try to take us down because we’re so great. Everything becomes propaganda.
Sarah Edmondson:
Yes. Which is the second thing in the bite model. So we’ve talked about control of behavior and then control of information. And we were specifically told not to read the articles about Keith because that would be dishonorable. What’s being said about Keith is dishonorable. You wouldn’t want to change our internal representation of Keith. That would be violent. So we just didn’t even read it. And that’s so much control of information that’s huge right now. Control of thoughts. We could do an hour podcast on each thing and all the different subcategories, but just to give the overall structure to Steven’s bite model, it’s really, really helpful. And his books have helped me a lot. Also, I would say for anyone listening who thinks they have a family member in a cult and they want to know what to do or how to approach it, his books are great.
Glennon Doyle:
Wonderful. Control of what was the B?
Sarah Edmondson:
Behavior.
Glennon Doyle:
Behavior, information, thoughts, emotions. The emotions. So just because of the work that we do here in Untamed, I know that we all can’t live all of our lives based on all of our emotions. There’s ways of using emotions as information. But it is fascinating to me the emphasis of what you were taught at NXIVM, that emotions were really something just to overcome. This idea of state of being, that something happens in the world, and then you make meaning of it in your mind, and then you have an emotion about it. So whatever the emotion is, you have chosen because of what by the meaning you make. So if somebody says to me, “You are a total fucking asshole,” then I make meaning in my mind that that person is mean and doesn’t like me. And so I feel angry and sad, but that means that I have chosen that anger and sadness and so I have made myself a victim. That is my problem. Because I didn’t have to think that.
Abby Wambach:
Or the meaning that you attached to what asshole is based on your life. So you’ve attached meaning to that and because they’ve said this, now you are a victim to this thought, this emotion. And it’s only up to you to be able to, what is it called? Stimulus and response. So you have to break the stimulus so that your response is different.
Glennon Doyle:
But my point is that wow is that the opposite of what we try to encourage, which is that when a woman is angry or heartbroken, that is a signal to her. That we’re not always acting exactly upon our anger, but that is a signal, not that there’s something wrong with us that we need to change internally, but perhaps it’s an arrow pointing towards something in this family, in this relationship, in this institution that should change and it’s valid. So what an abandonment of self. That has to be a key to all of these groups, is just the recurrent encouragement of abandonment self and difference to a different authority.
Sarah Edmondson:
Exactly. There’s an example you give in your book about how Abby’s able to relax and it causes you, Glennon, to violently tidy.
Glennon Doyle:
Loudly.
Sarah Edmondson:
So I do the same thing with Nippy, and we’re still working on this, but I was laughing because what you described in your book, in your unraveling of that, is kind of what I would’ve looked at as how I would EM somebody. Is you looking at, okay, it’s not really about Abby relaxing. It’s about what does it mean about you that you can’t? And then that memory came up about how your parents would come home and then you’d have to show your productivity. And we’d dig in around how your productivity is separate from your worth and your worth stuff, whether you produce or not. And then you’d be able to be you and relax or not relax. And Abby’s chillness wouldn’t trigger you. That’s what a good EM would’ve looked like. So the tool of an EM and breaking a stimulus response could have been healthy.
Sarah Edmondson:
And I think there was times that it was. But it’s a tool. So it’s like the knife in the hand of a murderer or the knife in the hand of a surgeon. So if Abby was doing something more destructive, like say branding people, and Glennon and you were like, “I don’t like that, that bothers me,” I could say, “Well, why does it bother you?” And take you down a path where the branding doesn’t mean that, and what it means is just a symbol for people’s growth and it’s what they’re doing in a sorority, which is a really positive thing. And I can change the meaning for you, versus you coming up with the meaning of yourself about your self-worth and not being reactive to it. So that’s what he did. He changed people’s reaction to something horrific, something that people should and have been in the world completely outraged by. That’s the manipulative piece is that there were aspects of the reaction. The work with emotions that were really healthy and good, similar to what you’ve talked about, and then twisted for someone. Goes back to intention.
Glennon Doyle:
Intention or the extreme of it, taking it to the extreme.
Amanda Doyle:
That is so powerful and it’s this wild paradox because there’s one person who’s the alleged genius at the top, who is the all knowing, and yet every single person is responsible for everything that happens to them. So if something terrible happens to someone else, you called that into yourself. You made that happen. What did you do to make that happen in your life? So you are perversely responsible for anything that is bad going on in the group toward you, but you are not able to rely on your thoughts or emotions.
Sarah Edmondson:
Which is a huge inconsistency. And that’s another one of my red flags, is when the dogma is inconsistent. And I’m sure you’ve seen this, where it’s like Jesus loves everyone except for gay people. Hugely inconsistent. That makes no sense.
Glennon Doyle:
Or Jesus wants us to beat all of our weapons into plow shares, but please vote for more guns.
Amanda Doyle:
When you were saying about how there’s really valuable things to be taken from what you learned, and it’s just whether you’re following it with kind of enthralled passion and it’s got to be your whole world, it reminded me of Amanda Palmer posted something that said I was totally devoted to evangelicalism when I was a kid because I always felt so moved during worship songs at my megachurch. Then I felt the exact same way at a One Direction concert and realized I was just devoted to live music.
Glennon Doyle:
No, but that’s right. It’s like this feeling. There’s realness to it.
Amanda Doyle:
There might be a certain thing to it that is really good. It’s just that maybe you can have that without attaching your family, career, life and every aspect of your being to the community.
Glennon Doyle:
Which they tell you is the opposite of what you should do.
Sarah Edmondson:
And that was the other red flag on my list is like what happens when you leave the group? Can you leave the group without being shunned? Without becoming a villain? Which is a hundred percent. I mean, people came and went from NXIVM in the early days and it wasn’t a big deal. It’s when they left and they had something bad to say, and then there would always be a lawsuit or they’d be dragged through court. And the main thing that I say to people when they’re like, but how do I know if this group is good? I say, well, have people left it? Is there any smoke? If there’s smoke, there’s fire. If you ask the leadership, what about this person who’s saying X, Y, and Z and there’s a lawsuit, how do they respond to that allegation? Are they saying, oh, that’s just a lover scorned, huge red flag. Or they’re responsible in the way that they handle it, is you have to discern that and you have to do your research, but ultimately most of these groups have some sort of lawsuit or allegation that’s probably true.
Glennon Doyle:
Sarah, I want to end with a couple things. First of all, I know so many people who leave the church, who leave evangelical church or whatever because they can’t anymore because of the dogma, because of the danger, because of all of it. But there’s a real loss because it’s like the groups that are a little bit culty have also managed to create whether it’s good or real or whatever, but this closeness of belonging that we all kind of want and it feels like so hard to get. Is there a loss?
Sarah Edmondson:
Yes. There was a huge loss. We called it the cult shaped hole in my heart. I lost a lot of friends very quickly, and I also figured out who my real friends were very quickly.
Glennon Doyle:
I just wanted to tell the pod squad that Sarah, you sent me your book Scarred and in that you wrote that one of your manifestations was to dance with Abby and me to Closer To Fine by the Indio girls. And I read that a few times and I just thought it was so beautiful and interesting that you chose that song to write in the book because that song, which we love so much, is about spending our lives looking for some kind of answer. We went to the doctor, we went to the mountain, we went to the college, we’re always looking for some set of rules, somebody that knows some solution or answer. And then finally discovering that there is none.
Glennon Doyle:
There is an answer. And the answer is that there is no freaking answer and that you will never solve yourself and you will never solve other people and you will never solve the world, that there is no awes behind the curtain. And that there is a way to come a little bit closer to peace, which is finally being fine when we stop begging for something definitive. The actual repetitive line is the less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, seekers got to seek Sarah.
Sarah Edmondson:
Yes. It’s so funny you bring that up because I was in preparation for this I did yoga and took the morning to myself and just really wanted to get grounded, and I had that song playing. And I was like, I’d been playing that song for 20 plus years. I never thought of it that way. And I was playing it in my head in yoga. I was like, the closer I am to fine. That’s what we’re just trying to be is fine.
Glennon Doyle:
And not even. Just closer to it.
Sarah Edmondson:
Yeah, just closer. Finding that balance, it’s just trying to like… So I do appreciate that.
Glennon Doyle:
Letting go.
Sarah Edmondson:
Letting go of all the memos.
Glennon Doyle:
All the memos and all the memo we got that we have to find an answer and that it’s right around the corner and somebody else has it. It’s just us. Always the return to authority of self in life is what you say over and over again. And Bonnie says, which is remembering that I am the authority of my own life. And not relinquishing that to any damn body.
Sarah Edmondson:
And that’s where, to answer your question about earlier, that’s what my journey has been, is my own inner belonging and then close to me, my family and as best as I can in a not culty way, the community through the podcast of just people trying to heal and offer the tools that I’ve learned to other people leaving cults or avoiding cults or getting people out of cults. It’s very meaningful to me and healthy, I think. Always questioning it.
Abby Wambach:
You are such a badass.
Glennon Doyle:
I think we should say I think at the end of everything, Sarah. That’s what I do. We say strong opinions very loosely held.
Abby Wambach:
You are such a badass, Sarah, thank you for being with us.
Glennon Doyle:
We love you Sarah. Be in touch. Pod squad.
Sarah Edmondson:
Thank you guys. This is a dream come true.
Glennon Doyle:
We will see you guys next time. As you go through the week, just try to be a little bit closer to fine. See you next time. Bye.