April 14, 2023 • 49 mins
Hi everyone. Lisa here introducing this episode with a personal life update. Thank you for your continued support and understanding that sometimes surrendering over pushing through is the only way out. big hugs! xx, Lisa
In this first part of Surviving a Sex Cult ft. Sylvie Lloyd, we learn about the “cult” called NXIUM: how Sylvie got involved, her first introduction to Keith, and how her reality was warped by his “teachings”. Sylvie was the first witness to testify against Keith: she shares the humiliating story behind the trial and why she’s stayed away from the media since. She also shares why she’s sharing her story with us and has a message for all victims.
Content Warning: Sexual Abuse
Sylvie Lloyd is now a mother to a beautiful baby girl. From ages 18-32, she was a member of NXIUM + DOS, described as “an American cult that engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor and racketeering.” Her brain was molded by the teachings of the convicted Keith Reineire, and she was the first witness in the federal case. She is a powerful woman we can expect A LOT from in our lifetime.
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Edited by Houston Tilley
Intro Jingle by Alyssa Chase aka @findyoursails
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, everybody, Welcome back to the Truthiest Life. It's your host,
Lisa Hame, and in this short intro, I'm letting you
in on some personal life stuff and a heads up
on what's coming up this week and next week. You
may have seen on social media. I took a break
two saturdays ago, and I was honestly trying to recharge
(00:20):
after slowly was sick for seven days. But recharge I
did not have the opportunity to do. Right now, I'm
definitely in a bit of a more quiet season for me.
I'm sitting back a lot, and I'm valuing privacy for
the sake of conserving as much energy as possible. When
(00:42):
we put it all out there, we unknowingly open up
our energy to other people, for good and for bad.
And right now I am just in conservation mode to
the max. The cliff notes, which I would feel very
comfortable sharing with my audience here, is that after the
seven days that Soli was sick at home, when I
(01:04):
thought we had actually gotten better, things actually took a
turn for the worse. And many of you know that
we spent the first five days of the new year
in a hospital for Soli after she had febrile seizures,
and we ended up this past week as well, ending
up in the hospital for another five day visit as well.
(01:26):
So that is ten nights for a baby under two,
and ten more nights in a hospital than I've ever
had before, and it has certainly worn on me. Just
three months later, we found ourselves back there and most importantly,
we are home now, and most most importantly, Solely is
(01:49):
doing really well. She is adjusting back to normal life
in many moments as if it never happened. I know
that's going to be my top question, which I so appreciate.
How Solely has you're done her house, all of that,
and I just want to let you know that she's
doing really, really, really really well, Thank you God. But
mom isn't quite there. It took a lot out of
(02:10):
me to re enter the hospital vortex that day, and
even more to be spit out of it and put
back into normal life when nothing feels very normal for
me right now. I need for my mental health to
take a moment, and I have a very supportive podcast team,
Thank you, Amy Brown, Houston, Fasio Kat, my little cheerleaders
(02:35):
behind the scenes that helped me always realize and make
sure that mental health comes before podcast. That is something
I don't take for granted at all. But for the
next two weeks, I just don't have it in me
to be doing interviews and putting my heart and soul
into new episodes of The Truthius Life. So instead, we
(02:55):
are going to revisit Surviving a Sex Cult with Sylvie Lloyd,
a two part episode which is beyond inspiring. When I
decided to replay this episode, which when we aired it
initially got Sylvie a lot of attention on media sites,
a lot of negative attention as well, she replied, Yes,
you can replay it. It's still all true, Sylvie. As
(03:19):
you know, I look up to your strength immensely, and
I think we can all learn a thing or two
about how to take our power back in situations where
it was attempted to be stolen from us. I hope
you all understand where I'm coming from. I certainly know
that you do. In being a quote unquote influencer this
weird word and landscape that I accidentally found myself in,
(03:41):
I feel that the most important thing that I can
showcase is taking care of your mental health, resting when needed,
taking breaks, and not just pushing through. This was certainly
not easy to do, this little impromptu break that I'm taking,
but the hard conversations actually got me to another side
and I gotta just kind of make my way through this.
(04:02):
So thank you all so much for listening, for understanding,
and I will see you back here real soon on
The Truthius Life. And no fioye. Even when times getheart
and you feel you're in the ducie, just how beautiful
(04:25):
life can be when you soph in your heart, you
can finally steyr tue Seius Life. Welcome back to The
Truthius Life. It's your host, Lisa Ham, and I'm humbled
and honored to bring you this conversation with Sylvie Lloyd,
(04:48):
ex member of an organization called Nexium and Doss, which
are often referred to as a cult or a sex cult.
I'm honored and humbled because Sylvie is one of us.
She's a listener of The t Truthius Life, and she's
also an online friend of mine for a lot of years.
For most of our friendship, I actually didn't know that
she had any affiliation to Nexium or DOS. It was
(05:10):
only when the documentaries started to come out that Sylvie
confided in me that she was part of this, and
that she wanted to come on The Truthius Life to
share her story. Sylvie has not shared her story with
the media. She was not part of these documentaries. She's
not somebody that is trying to push anything on anybody.
She simply is here because she wants to heal, be healed,
(05:34):
and heal other victims who may feel some of the
shame that she was left with. This is going to
be a two part episode, so expect one episode this
week and one the following. And in the first episode,
Sylvie's going to break down how she got involved with Nexium,
how she got pulled in, and in the second part
we're going to hear about DOS, the sub organization often
(05:55):
referred to as the sex cult part of it that
she was also a part of. This maybe the first
time that you're even hearing these words Nexium or Dust.
So just to orient you, Nexium is an organization that
was founded by Keith Ranieri, and Nexium was under this
guise of being a self improvement, self development program organization,
and they offered classes and things like ESP. ESP stands
(06:18):
for Executive Success Programs, and these courses were sold to
you as if you want to better your life. If
you want to get more joy, be more successful, take
these courses. And at the time, a lot of successful
people were doing these programs. They were endorsed by billionaires,
they were endorsed by celebrities. And so when we understand
that they didn't have the label cult, or we didn't
(06:40):
know that Keith was this bad man, we could understand
maybe how all of us were kind of susceptible to
being part of this if we were to learn about
it at the time, I at least know that somebody
who loved self development work courses programs, I feel like
I easily could have been pulled into these types of programs.
It's important to understand that people don't just join cults willingly.
(07:02):
There's often something that pulls them in and before they
know it, they're part of a cult. And to the
outside looking in it might be really obvious, but from
the inside looking out, there's so much mental manipulation and
brainwashing that has already happened that you defend it and
you protect it because it becomes your community and your
knowing and your beliefs. DOS is the subgroup that started
(07:24):
long after nexim So a lot of people hear the
words nexium, and they just think sex cult and they
think that people just joined willingly. Sylvie was a part
of both Nexium and DOS and she's so brave to
tell her story. She's part of Nexium for twelve years,
ten years before Doss even came to be, and she
was the first witness to testify against Ranierie. Sylvie's now
(07:45):
a new mom and truly one of the most special
people that I know. This episode is really important and
I hope that you listen with open ears and an
open heart as we really understand the psychology of cults,
how they begin, and how they affect people long after
they fall apart. And just as a little content warning,
the story does involve sexual abuse. Thank you all for
(08:07):
listening and supporting Sylvia as she shares her story. As
a reminder, this is going to be a two part episode,
So this week we'll hear all about Nexium and how
Sylvie became a part of it, and next week we'll
learn more about DUS. Welcome to the Truthiest Life, Sylvia.
I'm so excited to see you get a break from
(08:28):
momming with you. Yeah, that's straight my first actual break. Yeah,
like this, you have no help right. Well, I mean
I feel like bad saying that that. Yeah, I look
after her full time. You're doing You're doing the most
out there, and it's been really fun to mom with
you have babies almost exactly the same age and watch
(08:48):
you really step into this new role. It's a big
one for you and for me, but really for you.
I feel like, ah, well yeah, no, completely different and
breath of fresha after show. So today's episode is going
to be I think, really interesting for me and the listeners.
I know that this is probably scary to talk about
(09:10):
for all of our listeners. Sylvie and I have had
pre calls before, so that I can, you know, better
understand and create a safe place for Sylvie to speak
about these things. Today we are talking about your experience
with Nexium with dus Am I saying those words even right, No,
(09:31):
you actually are completely okay, Yeah, that's right on. These
are topics that have been exploited. I feel like, for
lack of a better word, in the media, your words
were this is a salacious story and you're not a
salacious person. No, not at all. Well that's not how
(09:52):
I identified myself for seeing myself. No, right, there's been
a lot of opportunities for you to be in the media,
for you to tell your story two millions of people,
and yet you're coming on this podcast specifically, which you know,
we've got a nice reach, but we're not big media
over here. When I get who am I kidding? But
why here? What do you want our audience to take
(10:15):
away from this episode? Well, I think that the story
of Nexium, of the US and all these different things
has been told. Obviously, there's an HBO series, there's another
series that was on Stars, there's a million different normillion,
but there's a lot of podcasts out there speaking about
the Nexium and Dost story. And I think that the
(10:37):
thing that's a little bit different from my perspective is that, yeah,
I never chose to go public with what happened. Obviously,
I'm so glad that the FBI and the government stepped
in and took the whole thing down, and I'm unbelievably
grateful for them. But if I'd have had a choice,
I wouldn't have been like, Hey, I volunteered to be
(10:57):
a witness in the trial, and for sure not the
first wit. Then it was almost as traumatic as everything
I went through, So it's very different for me, and
for that reason and as advised by therapists and psychologists
at the time, it wasn't a good idea for me
to be public, and one hundred percent didn't want to
be so I think I never had a chance to
(11:19):
sort of speak about this on my own terms, not
that I would have planned on doing it, but having
gone through the trial, been the witness in a trial,
being the first witness in the trial, and feeling like
it was an exercise and public humiliation, honestly, it gave
me such immense amounts of empathy for anybody that's had
(11:39):
to advocate for themselves on the stand, and probably the
number of people that say in these kinds of cases
or situations that have advocated for themselves and then not one,
it's not like there it's gone the way that they
would have wanted. And my story alone, for sure didn't
do that on the stands. There was other There were
(12:00):
many other witnesses and other girls within DOUS that spoke
on the stand, but none of our met and those
other girls have not spoken publicly, and I think it
is a different story, a different throughline, and a different
recovery to have been in it. And then also been
involved in the trial. So it was a really long
winded answer, but I think essentially, if this podcast could
(12:23):
speak to anybody who has been a victim and then
had to also testify and stand up and feel the
weight of that and what everything that comes in the
aftermath of that, I would love to help them feel
not alone in that part of the struggle, because that's
my experience. And so yeah, if this could speak to
anybody in that way, that's what I would love to do.
(12:46):
I think, you know, that's the part that nobody I'm
speaking for myself. You know when I watched I watched
that HBO documentary over a year ago, and I purposely
didn't want to go back and watch it again before
doing this interview. I kind of just want to move
forward with what my memory left with me, because, like
you said, you know, we watched these documentaries and then
(13:06):
the rest of us get to move on with our
lives and we have takeaways. But never was my takeaway
that the trial the part that's supposed to give you freedom,
a break, to feel good, to feel heard, to feel
like justice is being served. You know, never did I
think that that could add to what was already very
(13:28):
traumatic with Doss. We heard about, you know, sex trafficking,
we heard about branding, like really very traumatic things that
you experienced. Never did I think that the trial itself
could be, as you said, possibly more traumatic. So I
actually think that's a really interesting unexplored area and as
well as your goal of who you want to kind
(13:48):
of help here, you keep kind of saying I was
the first witness. What did it mean to be the
first witness? Does that mean that? Yeah, I guess I
don't think I even realized her, like how much of
a big deal about as to me and speaking here.
But I'm sort of the reason why I think if
you knew my personality, I don't identify as a leader
in anything, and I'm always like I don't want that responsibility.
(14:09):
I don't want to be a leader. I'm happy being
a follower, although obviously since the whole cult thing, I'm like,
I need to rethink that strategy, like what are you following?
Is a good thing to really look into. But never
want to go first in anything. I'm the youngest of
four children in my family, and I'm so used to
(14:30):
going last, or like watching everyone else get through something
safely and them being like Okay, now I'll write like
that's kind of more my strategy. And I think also
given the whole breadth of Nexium and the other women
in Darston, everything that each individual went through, it was
shocking to me that they wanted my testimony in the
(14:52):
trial anyway. And I love more Repenza, who was the
prosecutor I worked with the most, like genuinely just feel
like she's one of the most strongest, amazing women out there,
and you can listen to her on other podcasts if
people want to hear from her and her sort of
approach to the trial. But I wish I could say
(15:13):
to her, ask her like why, like why was my
story so relevant to the bigger picture? And why first too,
because I just I feel like the way that trials work,
and I learn a lot about that as things went along,
is that they're kind of like making decisions about what's
allowed to be included and what's not allowed to be
included as they go along. So the different sides of
(15:37):
the trial, the prosecutors and the defense are kind of
presenting things to the judge like we want to like
we should be allowed to talk about this, and then
there's like a sidebar and you don't know what the
outcome of that going to be, and you're just like
sat on the stand being like I don't even know
what they're arguing about or what's about to happen and
come from that. So I felt like as the first person,
there was a lot of things still being figured out
(15:58):
about what could be even spoken about in general during
the whole trial, and so I just felt like a
little bit of a guinea pick, like in so many ways,
I would just if I had gone last. For some reason,
I feel like that might have been easier, but maybe
it was. I'm sure it was just as hard for
the last person as it was for the first person.
But I think just in my personality, I was like, what, No,
(16:21):
the one just would never choose to do this and
to going first, it's like my neighbor. From a juror's
point of view, that first witness is going to be
the most memory. Yeah. Yeah, And basically I think you
(16:44):
are on the stand for quite a long time because
you're giving context to the entire story, and so that
meant that I needed to speak on things that were
more general to how nexium worked. And I can see
from that perspective why I was a good person for
that because of the amount of time I was in
the organization and how Keith, through an area who led
(17:05):
the organization, kind of groomed me over so many years.
Like I came in at age eighteen. By the time
this whole thing fell apart, I was thirty two, so
that was a long time. I saw a lot of things.
I experienced a lot of things. And it's not like
I rocked up one day and he was like, Hey,
why don't we dods like come and join me with
(17:26):
dust And that never happened. Just for context, I never
knew that Keith was involved from the beginning, Like I mean,
I did obviously find out through it, but that's not
how it was ever presented to me. And I think
that that's kind of been talked about in these HBO
series a bit about how Dusk was presented to each woman.
But essentially I was like, and they used to use
this analogy indexium, but they'd talk about a frog in
(17:49):
boiling water, like you could put a frog in tepid
water and raise the tempature and raise the tempature and
raise the temperature until it boils itself alive and it
would never jump out and they would actually teach us
this it's metaphor, and I think, yeah, that was me
and other people. But like, things got more weird and
more traumatic over time, but you just didn't even notice
(18:11):
to the point where my friends post esp are like, oh,
wasn't this a red flag? Or wasn't that a red flag?
And I'll be like, well no, because by that point
you're so numb to what is normal that Yeah. I
mean that's the way he had structured the whole thing,
is like doing whatever he wants and setting it up
(18:31):
in a way that we would actually agree that it
was a good idea. Things that are wrong, right, So,
I mean, there's so much to break down here, and
for our listeners that are like what's nextim, what's does?
Just to stay focused on the trial for one second,
then we'll kind of move out to how you even
got to the stand to begin with. Yeah, I just
(18:52):
want to ask why was that publicly humiliating? My testimony
is public knowledge, like if you know how to find
people's testimonies and read it. So the reason why I
don't have a problem sharing it. I don't feel publicly
humiliated by sharing it right now. But one of the
things in dusk was that we had to send Keith
all these naked photos, and so there were literally hundreds
(19:14):
and hundreds of photos of my vagina, like just my vagina,
not my face, nothing, And I'd had no prior warning
that this was going to be included in the trial.
And actually it was something that Keith's lawyer didn't submit
as evidence for the trial. So he'd found a loophole
(19:34):
of how he could present this at trial without having
given the prosecution any warning, without having given the judge warning,
which normally you have to say what you're going to
use as evidence. But because he was like, this isn't
for evidence, this is but identification purposes, only he spent
I don't know how long it was, because in my
head it was like hours and hours and hours. But
it doesn't really matter how long it was. It was many,
(19:56):
many photos that were presented to me on a screen
in front of me, where I had to say, yes,
this is my vagina, Yes I sent it to Keith Ranieri.
And there's the judge looking at pictures of my vagina.
To my left, there's the prosecution in front of me.
Keith is looking at these photos again like it's obviously
like I used to not be able to speak about
(20:17):
this without crying because it was the most deeply humiliating
thing ever to me. It still is. I mean, I've
had a very amazing therapist but has sort of put
a different spin on it for me, which is like,
your vagina is so powerful, Keith. The first time she
said it made me laugh so much it lifted like
(20:39):
a giant weight off my shoulders. She's like, no, your
vagina is amazing, Like you've got to celebrate that. But
at the time, obviously, and my dad and John are
both in the courtroom. You know, it's just like every
that those tons of media, there's always people it's like,
this is not I'm not sure that I would anyone
(21:00):
that would be like, hey, I would love to have
that happened. Let me have a go with that. So
it was awful. My jaw has dropped because when asking
that question, why was it publicly humiliating? I was expecting
you to say just telling your story and the things
you had to do would be humiliating. What you're saying,
my stomach. Listen, I agree with your therapist. Your vagina
(21:24):
did an incredible job. It put right I do one
hundred percent stand behind that. But that was not public
humiliating because you felt it was publicly humiliating. It was
public humilian because it was designed to be publicly humiliating.
It was attacted, No, it was. And then he went
into his questioning. This was like the start of his questioning,
(21:47):
and the questioning went on. I mean I was on
the stand for a day and a half, So that's
how long that went on. And say, I mean that's
not how long the stouto part was, but that's how
he started as far as I couldn't remember. But but
obviously that stood out that that's felt like the stop.
But that was that's mental manipulation, because I mean, for anybody,
all of us listening, you know, when something like mortifying happens,
(22:10):
whether like you burp or past gas in like an
area that like you don't want anyone to be, you know,
all of a sudden, your body turns on you and
your brain turns black. When you are humiliated, when you
are made that nervous, it takes at least for me
time to regulate, to get back into my rational brain
to speak from a factual place. So that was I mean,
(22:32):
the lawyer himself should be in jail. Yeah, I mean
I have. I try not to hate people, but I do.
I don't feel hatred towards him so much, but it
just makes me like that must have been attacked it
from Keith. That is so Keith, Like Keith is written
all over that type of behavior that I'm like, of course,
(22:56):
it makes sense that you did that, knowing everything that
I know, and if you knew me, if people knew me,
you'd know that I'm not an exhibitionist in any way.
So it's like they literally couldn't be anything worse as
well for me than something like that. And it was
humiliating enough to say to keep those photos in the
first place, but having to re look at them again
(23:19):
and then know that he's looking at them right now,
all his lawyers are looking at them and he had
like so many lawyers on his table. The FBI agents
I've worked with are looking that went again, and there
was people the jurors were not allowed to look at
the photos that they've decided that and so they weren't
showing them to the jurors. But there are a couple
of men in the front row that was like, I'm
kind of going to do the thing to you, and
(23:40):
I think you call it like a smug but we're like,
you know, like laughing, and so it was just like
the whole thing I was like, whoa, I really want
to like die? Basically is how extreme it felt in
that moment. And it's not a situation where you can
be like, you know what, I tap out, I don't
want to do this anymore, like I'm done. And there's
just so many layers to it because you're, you know,
(24:02):
I'm going to purge yourself. You're trying to think like
I have to remember everything as clearly as I can,
Like there are so many things that that feel at stake.
It's just like, wow, that was like a big punch
in the gap, like right before we even get going.
And like you said, you're the first one. So maybe
they're also trying to scare away the other witnesses. Yeah right,
(24:25):
I mean, I'm sure you know there's other witnesses that
aren't going to want to step up to that stand
after they saw what they just did to you. I
think it's a witness you're not allowed to be in
any way privy to what the other witnesses have said,
And so I don't think they could have known, but
it would for sure put people off being public about supporting,
you know. So let's back up a little bit to
(24:46):
kind of give our audience the broader understanding of what
ESP is, what Nexium is, and what das are, and
how the three kind of played together. Nexium was like
(25:06):
an umbrella organization for a bunch of different organizations underneath it.
So I think everyone uses Nexium as the name because
it's the easiest way to describe how Keith had this
organization and all these different trainings within the organization so
that he could almost appeal to any kind of person.
(25:27):
So there was a women's organization called Janesse, and then
he'd bring women in through Janesse. And then there was
a men's organization called Society of Protectors, which is hilarious,
and he'd bring in men through that. And then there
was like an acting organization and a different and then
so there's all these different things that sit under Executive
success Programs was more like the kind of business, yeah,
(25:52):
and so there was all these different things that sat
under Nexium. That's one. And Nexium was, like I say,
what it was sold as is like personal growth, bettering yourself,
becoming the person you've always wanted to be. Blah blah
blah blah blah. Right, just explain it enough. So next
to him is the big organization created by Keith Ranieri. Yeah,
(26:16):
and within this big organization that he created, he's created
sub organizations that you could join in to be part of,
whether it's a women's society, men's society, business, which is
what ESP was, and I think why a lot of
a lot of big businessmen maybe took classes came through,
so it got a lot of press that way. And
then there was DUS. Maybe we should save DUS for
(26:38):
a second. Yeah, this DUST was not like a public
organization that you could sign up for, so that was
like that was a different thing. So what did you
come in under? This is a backstory I left. I
grew up riding horses. My family had horses before I
even remember. I competed in show jumping specifically, which is
(26:59):
I don't know if any to describe what that is,
but jumping fences on horses rightly the best way that
I can describe it. I competed in that from when
I was tiny and I was trying to become like
an elite show jumping rider. So basically, an elite athlete
would be the same as in any sport. And you
grew up not in the US, right, not in the US.
(27:19):
In the UK, i'd say privileged and normal. Privileged slash
normal childhood. I don't really know how the weather those
two words go together. But I had a good childhood
and I was given the freedom to pursue something that
was important to me, which was trying to become an
elite show jumping rider. So I left school at sixteen.
I trained with some riders in the UK for a
(27:41):
couple of years, so i'd left home as well, stationed
with them, and then I kind of long story short,
came to America to train with an American show jumping
rider who also happened to be taking classes with ESP
and very involved in Nextium, very close to So what
year was this. That was two thousand and five, so
(28:03):
I was eighteen. So eighteen, you come to the US,
you are training somebody who is already affiliated with ESP. Yeah,
I'm training with them. I'm not training them. They rode
for the US, so they were like very they were
like elite. They were what I wanted to be basically,
(28:24):
and I felt like this was an amazing opportunity for
me to achieve my dreams essentially. But this person was
like heavily entrenched in nexiem and all the people that
worked for her also took the classes, so it was
kind of it was just kind of expected that you
take the classes, and the person who I was training
(28:45):
with actually paid for them for you to take them,
so it was very It wasn't a difficult decision for me.
I was like, yeah, okay, for sure, I'll take them.
These were just described as personal development classes. This wasn't
that's not growth, yeah right, This wasn't about, you know,
joining cult or anything like that. No, And honestly, it
was kind of a foreign thing that made me very curious.
(29:06):
I thought it was a very American thing to want
to better yourself and just like kind of makes me
laugh now, but I was like, wow, I was kind
of apprehensive going in just because there were some and
that's the sad thing to me. Right on the first
few days were there worse, some genuinely major red flags,
But I think I got talked out of my gut
(29:27):
feelings right there and then, and it just that just
took me through the rest of the time, which sounds nuts.
But in those original classes the first two days I
was so because it was a five day course and
for the first two days I didn't speak at all
because I was so nervous and so weirded out by
what was happening. Well, were those red flags. The way
(29:49):
that they talked about Keith Ranieri freaked me out because
I think in I hate to speak for all of
English culture, but my experience of English culture is like
you don't really have idols, like you're don't overly idolize someone.
We just don't. People are a lot more like self
deprecating in general, like that's our that's more. Yeah, my
(30:10):
experience of growing up in England is like you didn't
make idols of just normal people. And there was this
person that we're like, we call him the Vanguard is
what they had this word for him, and he was
like the most amazing intelligent man in the world, and
like you didn't even meet him. This was like them
talking about this like ethereal creature. It was so it
(30:33):
was just it was very strange to me right from
the start that there was kind of this person that's
like the greatest in the universe. Was the way that
he was talked about and that he's created. We're so
lucky to be taking these classes because he's created all
this curriculum and you can become the person that you're
going to be. It just sort of freaked me out.
And then on top of that, some of the classes
(30:54):
themselves were really freaking me out. Like one of the
first things that I remember that you used to do
is like an excited state. And he was supposed to
come up with an excited state and act it out
to the whole class, and like I said, not an
exhibition it is. I was like, oh my god. Like,
for one, I'd never spoken about my feelings in general.
I think that is another English culture thing. So I
(31:15):
was like, I can't even think of the time I
was exciting. Obviously I've been I've been excited before, but
it's just like it just wasn't in my remit to
like really even think that way. I just couldn't participate.
I was just terrified the whole time. So that was
like the first couple of days, and then on the
third day there was this class and this has been
(31:37):
spoken about in the HBO series because this happened to
a lot of people. But on the third day of
this five day course, there was a class where they
talk about the suppressives, which are like the bad people
that when they see something good in the world, they
want to squash it. But then there's like these different
levels of who a suppressive person could be and the
(31:58):
path that takes you down to be a suppressive person.
And part of the way that they pitched this thing
was like, if you feel uncomfortable around the vanguard Keith Mnieri,
like you could be one of those people. And so
then I was like, oh my god, like I, how
did you I might be a bad person, like I
might be as suppressive, and it really terrified me. Like
(32:20):
it's not it's funny now, but as an eighteen year
old never exposed to any of this, that is the
thing that really hooked me. It's like, I'm worried I'm
as suppressive and I don't want to be as suppressive,
so like I will do anything to try and be
a good person like I. Really that was what really
hooked me in. You stayed from eighteen to thirty two,
(32:40):
which I think you know is crazy. It's not just
the length of time, it's the when, as we talked
about in our in our pre call in you explaining
to me, like, you don't just sign up for a
cult because you want to be in a cult. It's
the fact that your brain was modeled by these Keith
the Vanguards a teaching and I won't even call it
(33:02):
that as him, that as a joke, but Keith's made
up world. He created a made up world and convinced
thousands of people that this is right, this is wrong,
and restructured their brains in believing this was real. It
sounds like, is that accurate? No, one hundred percent. Well,
because the other thing that he did is he really
had a whole class on what he could. I think
(33:25):
it was even called good and Bad or something like that,
where he literally redefines good and bad, what's a good
thing and what's a bad thing, and leads like the
door wide open for basically his own immorality to run
rain free because he changed the definition of those things.
And we would take these like I literally took these
(33:46):
same classes hundreds and hundreds of times because that's the
way that they would have you do it. They were like,
for sure, you have to take it twice, this five
day course, but the more you take it, the better basically,
so we were kind of like channeled into these classes
over and over again, to the point where I know
all of the stories in the metaphors used in the teachings,
and like sometimes we'll like say it was a joke,
(34:07):
although not so much anymore, but it was like different
little stories. Just I know those classes so well. And
so yeah, that's had an effect on my brain. It's
had an effect on my thinking, and it takes a
lot of undoing to try not to do this kind
of automatic thinking that's been programmed into my head. This
(34:29):
is what kind of confused me when I watched the
documentary and hearing your story too, you know, you being
part of something for twelve years, and seeing like you said,
you've taken the classes so many times. I know that
the facility, I don't know that's right word was in
Upstate New York. Did everybody live there in Upstate New
York or did some people just come take a class
and then leave? Like how did that? So then by
(34:50):
the end of nextium, they had sent they called them centers.
They had the center in Upstate New York, they had
one in New York City, they had one in Mexico City.
Tomala Guadalajara, Monterrey, Mexico, Canada, in Vancouver, Miami, La. Like
they were everywhere got it by the end and at
(35:13):
the beginning, but right in that very beginning, I think
there were only two centers when I was there. There
was like one in Seattle and one in Albany. And yeah,
people would fly in to take the classes, but not
everybody who took a class stayed, like you did, right, No,
I don't even want to try and get into Gee's head,
but there were certain people that he would really push to,
(35:36):
like you need to move to Albany, And he'd kind
of do that with a lot of people, but I'm
pretty sure it was mostly the younger women looking at
it in retisements like and this is why some of it.
I almost laughed because I'm like, oh, I wish I
could have seen things differently, because it's almost so obvious
and sick in the end that it's like he kind
(35:57):
of surrounded himself with women that he wanted in under
his control basically, But that doesn't mean there weren't also
other families or men that moved to next move there,
because I think that understanding that and I'm not the
person that has diagnosed him this way, but many other
professionals has was like a sociopathic narcissist or malignant narcissist,
(36:20):
I think is the word that's used a lot. I
think that everybody had a purpose that he had around him,
and you might not know what that purpose was or
how you fit into the puzzle. That everyone was like
a tool to his game and what he wanted. So yeah,
there was kind of a mix of people up there,
but there were certain people that he pushed really hard
(36:41):
to try and get them to move to Albany and
was successful with someone not with others. So after those
red flags, you were really uncomfortable the first few days.
What influences did you have around you that said, I'm
going to keep going with this even though it feels wrong. Well,
the person that I came in under I was like
one hundred percent deferential to her as an authority. I
(37:04):
would describe it as in love with Keith and still
is in my perspective, would like still one hundred percent
supports him, would do anything for him. And so to
have you know the person that you kind of also
want to impress because I was working for her and
training under her, and I wanted to get opportunities. I
wanted to be considered like I wanted to do a
(37:24):
good job. I always wanted to do a good job.
That's like a huge drive for me. It was just
kind of like I wouldn't hurt It felt like I'm sorry,
I'm just not even being super clear. But maybe that
gives a sense of what was going on with me
at the time. Because she's paying for these classes. I've
moved my life to America to train with her. This
(37:45):
is two days in it. I couldn't feel like I
could just quit that class without there being major repercussions.
That was meant saying goodbye to my dreams in my head.
So there was that huge pressure and then that I
felt like I didn't have anything else. I felt like
I didn't have another option at that time, and going
(38:06):
back to England after having only been there for a
couple of weeks felt like a failure to me, like
I wouldn't have you know, made it, if you know
what I mean. And then I did multiple things that
took me in more and more deep, like we flew
my horse out from the UK to the US to
train with her and things like that, where it's like
another layer. That's another hook that like, you know, I'm
(38:26):
not going to back out at that point, my horse
is here, my life is now suddenly here. It kind
of felt like a runaway train, honestly. And then before
too long there were multiple times where I actually tried
to break free from living in America and I'd always
end up coming back because of things that Keith would
(38:46):
say to me and things that this person would say
to me. And there was this line of accusation that
was used with me, and I think everybody had a
different one. From the people from the leaders of Next
seem of like why they needed to stay in Nextium
or why they needed to be in Albany. And for me,
Keith would describe me as that I was just a
(39:09):
robot to my indoctrination. This was a word that he
used a lot, and that at one point he even
told me that if I ever had children, they wouldn't
love me because I was so cold. Things like that
where and say then and their answer to not be
in that way was to take more classes, was to
stay in Nexium, was to move to Albany like he
(39:29):
was the cure to all of my ailments, was how
he described it, and then that was then supported by
the person who I saw as the biggest authority in
my life for the majority of those years, like I
was one hundred percent felt like she had all the
answers and that she would even say things like I
know you're better than you do, and that I believe
(39:50):
that I did believe that I didn't know myself, and
I don't think I did, just to be honest, because
I was so disconnected and disassociate. She ate it. But
it's not like I don't know myself. I think I
was just traumatized and I didn't even see it at
the time. When you're eighteen, you know, living in another country.
Who knows themselves at eighteen? First of all, you know
(40:12):
and if somebody says I know you better than you
know you. I think if anybody said that to me
at eighteen, I would believe that too, especially when you've
left so much behind you are trying still to pursue
your career, and it all falls in line with believing
that these people have the answers. It's all like I
said to you in our precall, I feel like it
(40:33):
could have been me. Yeah, well, I do feel like, yeah,
it could have been a lot of people, and I'm
really glad it wasn't. But yeah, I think if people
can step into that kind of thinking of that age,
or maybe if they even were that age, they would
kind of get it. Well, I feel like, I mean,
I could get it with someone else telling me the
story at different times. I also went back to live
(40:57):
in the UK for like a year at a time
or whatever, but I would always be I was still
taking classes all the time. I still had an ESP coach.
I was still I was summised to check in with
Keith and the other person every day, So every single
day by email and phone, I would check in with
them wherever I was in the world, and may not
(41:17):
have been in Albany for every second, but I was
never not in Albany in my head. Right. So when
you took that first ESP class, you said, the teacher
described the Vanguard and Keith and you know, this mystical
creature that knew everything about every you know, he was
so smart and amazing. At what point did you actually
(41:37):
meet him. I think I met him pretty soon, so
it was maybe like a week later, and I did
actually have to tell this story on the stand, and
I think it was kind of funny because he had
this like weird thing where he liked to play volleyball
in the middle of the night, so he would rent
out a jim I know there's been some funny memes
done on it. I think I was even an SNL
(41:58):
skit done of him is in his volleyball outfit. I
just think he'd just liked to do weird things and
make people do them for him, so we'd all have
to well, he would he wanted people to come and
watch him play volleyball with a group of other people,
but it would be like from midnight to like five
in the morning or something like that. And so I
was encouraged greatly to come to volleyball to meet with Keith,
(42:22):
like this is like a grand honor type thing. So
I remember showing up. It was like ABC Fitness in Albany,
I think that's what it was called, at like two
in the morning, and there's this like tiny man with
a like seventies sweat band on and a ponytail, and
he's like tiny and sweaty and creepy. And that was
(42:45):
my first experience of him. And he would just come
up and kiss you on the lips, and I thought again,
like it just even in English culture that's like whoa,
like these minds that's not invited, but then that was
the standard that was set. It's so gross they just
can't even It makes me want to be thinking about it.
It's not UK culture and it's also not American culture.
(43:07):
I put so many things down to this must be
an American thing, which now I'm like I kind of
laugh at, but I sometimes I think I still get
it wrong where I'm like, maybe this is an American
thing about and it probably really was a key thing,
not an American thing. I mean, it just goes to
show that your reality is what you're surrounded by by
(43:28):
even a short amount of time. You know, if you're
surrounded if you walk into that two am volleyball thing
and everybody that you know is doing this two am
volleyball you go there and he's kissing someone else on
the lips when they see them, and then you see
him and he kisses you, you're just you know, you
don't you go along with it, Yeah, you don't. You
don't question it because that you've seen that this is
(43:49):
the normal, in this pseudo reality that's been manufactured by
him himself. So he kisses you on the lips immediately, Yeah,
and all the women he said, and just there were
so many things about that experience that were weird to me.
And it's not that they didn't continue to be weird
to me all along, because I mean, he lived in
(44:09):
a house with two other women, and I always would
It was like I would try and refriend things in
my mind or like make them more palatable to me,
where I was like, oh, one of them's his friend,
and the other ones like, you know, I just wouldn't
ask any questions. I just didn't want to think about
things as being weird. And He'd see him walking around
(44:30):
the neighborhood of all these women and always surrounding himself
of all these women all the time, and I'd always think, well,
he's helping them, or like you'd try and think that,
but really underneath, I'd be like, that's creepy. That's creepy.
This is creepy. I find him creepy. But that voice,
I think became so quiet. It wasn't that it was
never there, but I was like, there's no one that
(44:52):
I can say this too that's going to agree with me.
And I think hundreds of people felt the same way
in Nexium, because yeah, no one would speak like blasphemy
of Keith. That was just not the way it worked.
So I think loads of us were probably like, wow,
this is really weird and didn't say anything about it.
(45:13):
And there were a lot of smart people that would
go to ESP classes. You know, if you google Nexium
and ESP, you hear a lot of big business people
were taking the classes. There. There's a lot of celebrities,
female celebrities associated with Nexium, Like you knew a lot
of celebrities just being part of it, I assume, right,
yeah I did, And I think that, yeah, all of
(45:33):
that it normalized things. And also because like the party
line was always that Keith was making people more successful,
and he actually wasn't. He was attracting successful people and
then they were becoming less successful through staying in Nexium.
Like that's the reality to of it, looking back on it,
but that's his spin on it. And you kind of
(45:54):
felt like that it was a very like idealistic environment.
People would be going after their goals and nobody was achieving.
I think that's the thing that we were all blind to,
which is nuts in retrospect, But it was kind of
like you had this huge community of friends around you
(46:15):
that was like a really strange eclectic mix looking back
on it, because it was people from all different random
walks of life. But at least you were kind of
felt like you had friends and you were surrounded by people,
And I think that was another huge hook, and that
was kind of addressed a lot in the HBO series,
I think, because that is probably what kept a lot
of people was like, well, all my friends are even
(46:37):
in this and I'm part of something that's bigger than me,
and yeah, so it had that aspect too, that kind
of just would they would get all these testimonials from
the successful people and have them on video being like,
you know, Keith, you're an area has changed my life
from la la la la la. And I've never been
in one of those videos. Hilarious obviously, because I think
(47:00):
if you really looked at it, keeps me nearly made
my life so much worse and there's nothing that I
could really show for that. But yeah, I was never
in one of those testimony of the years, which I
do find quite funny considering the amount of time that
I was there. Not that I would have wanted to be,
but I'm just saying, like, the people that I've been
around for a really long time were not often the
(47:20):
people that were the face of things. I understand, right,
because you're really the most enamored when you're not in
so deep. When you're in so deep, you know a
little bit too much exactly. Yeah, and the reality of
what Maxium does to you has started to kick in.
And that's not as impressive as someone who's like, I'm
(47:41):
a famous actress and yeah, maybe they've only been there
a year or even less, and they're saying like this
has really done so much for me. Their life still
looks very appealing to a lot of people in the public,
and they don't know what's on the other side of that. Well,
Sylvia's clearly the bravest person that I know, and I
(48:02):
hope that your eyes and ears are a little bit
more open, and most importantly, your heart is a little
bit more open after hearing this part of her story.
As a reminder, next week, we're going to hear the
rest of this episode where we learn how she got
affiliated with Dus, the sex cult part of Nexium, and
how it also fell apart. Here's a little clip so
(48:23):
you can be prepared for what's coming next. Nobody can
know about this. Apparently nobody can know about this. This
is a completely secret project and all my collafter all,
which by that point she'd already collected a couple of
naked photos of me, but again she was like, they're
just going in a safe I'm not even going to
look at them. And I was like, okay, super weird.
(48:44):
But they were going to Keith and I just didn't
know that at the time. Yeah, and then basically one
of the first things that I was asked to do
was I need you to seduce Keith, was what she said.
And I was like, seduce Keith, Like what, like why?
Like does he know? You know? It was so far
out there for me. I'll see you next week back
(49:07):
here on the Truthius Life.
Hello, everybody, Welcome back to the Truthiest Life. It's your host,
Lisa Hame, and in this short intro, I'm letting you
in on some personal life stuff and a heads up
on what's coming up this week and next week. You
may have seen on social media. I took a break
two saturdays ago, and I was honestly trying to recharge
(00:20):
after slowly was sick for seven days. But recharge I
did not have the opportunity to do. Right now, I'm
definitely in a bit of a more quiet season for me.
I'm sitting back a lot, and I'm valuing privacy for
the sake of conserving as much energy as possible. When
(00:42):
we put it all out there, we unknowingly open up
our energy to other people, for good and for bad.
And right now I am just in conservation mode to
the max. The cliff notes, which I would feel very
comfortable sharing with my audience here, is that after the
seven days that Soli was sick at home, when I
(01:04):
thought we had actually gotten better, things actually took a
turn for the worse. And many of you know that
we spent the first five days of the new year
in a hospital for Soli after she had febrile seizures,
and we ended up this past week as well, ending
up in the hospital for another five day visit as well.
(01:26):
So that is ten nights for a baby under two,
and ten more nights in a hospital than I've ever
had before, and it has certainly worn on me. Just
three months later, we found ourselves back there and most importantly,
we are home now, and most most importantly, Solely is
(01:49):
doing really well. She is adjusting back to normal life
in many moments as if it never happened. I know
that's going to be my top question, which I so appreciate.
How Solely has you're done her house, all of that,
and I just want to let you know that she's
doing really, really, really really well, Thank you God. But
mom isn't quite there. It took a lot out of
(02:10):
me to re enter the hospital vortex that day, and
even more to be spit out of it and put
back into normal life when nothing feels very normal for
me right now. I need for my mental health to
take a moment, and I have a very supportive podcast team,
Thank you, Amy Brown, Houston, Fasio Kat, my little cheerleaders
(02:35):
behind the scenes that helped me always realize and make
sure that mental health comes before podcast. That is something
I don't take for granted at all. But for the
next two weeks, I just don't have it in me
to be doing interviews and putting my heart and soul
into new episodes of The Truthius Life. So instead, we
(02:55):
are going to revisit Surviving a Sex Cult with Sylvie Lloyd,
a two part episode which is beyond inspiring. When I
decided to replay this episode, which when we aired it
initially got Sylvie a lot of attention on media sites,
a lot of negative attention as well, she replied, Yes,
you can replay it. It's still all true, Sylvie. As
(03:19):
you know, I look up to your strength immensely, and
I think we can all learn a thing or two
about how to take our power back in situations where
it was attempted to be stolen from us. I hope
you all understand where I'm coming from. I certainly know
that you do. In being a quote unquote influencer this
weird word and landscape that I accidentally found myself in,
(03:41):
I feel that the most important thing that I can
showcase is taking care of your mental health, resting when needed,
taking breaks, and not just pushing through. This was certainly
not easy to do, this little impromptu break that I'm taking,
but the hard conversations actually got me to another side
and I gotta just kind of make my way through this.
(04:02):
So thank you all so much for listening, for understanding,
and I will see you back here real soon on
The Truthius Life. And no fioye. Even when times getheart
and you feel you're in the ducie, just how beautiful
(04:25):
life can be when you soph in your heart, you
can finally steyr tue Seius Life. Welcome back to The
Truthius Life. It's your host, Lisa Ham, and I'm humbled
and honored to bring you this conversation with Sylvie Lloyd,
(04:48):
ex member of an organization called Nexium and Doss, which
are often referred to as a cult or a sex cult.
I'm honored and humbled because Sylvie is one of us.
She's a listener of The t Truthius Life, and she's
also an online friend of mine for a lot of years.
For most of our friendship, I actually didn't know that
she had any affiliation to Nexium or DOS. It was
(05:10):
only when the documentaries started to come out that Sylvie
confided in me that she was part of this, and
that she wanted to come on The Truthius Life to
share her story. Sylvie has not shared her story with
the media. She was not part of these documentaries. She's
not somebody that is trying to push anything on anybody.
She simply is here because she wants to heal, be healed,
(05:34):
and heal other victims who may feel some of the
shame that she was left with. This is going to
be a two part episode, so expect one episode this
week and one the following. And in the first episode,
Sylvie's going to break down how she got involved with Nexium,
how she got pulled in, and in the second part
we're going to hear about DOS, the sub organization often
(05:55):
referred to as the sex cult part of it that
she was also a part of. This maybe the first
time that you're even hearing these words Nexium or Dust.
So just to orient you, Nexium is an organization that
was founded by Keith Ranieri, and Nexium was under this
guise of being a self improvement, self development program organization,
and they offered classes and things like ESP. ESP stands
(06:18):
for Executive Success Programs, and these courses were sold to
you as if you want to better your life. If
you want to get more joy, be more successful, take
these courses. And at the time, a lot of successful
people were doing these programs. They were endorsed by billionaires,
they were endorsed by celebrities. And so when we understand
that they didn't have the label cult, or we didn't
(06:40):
know that Keith was this bad man, we could understand
maybe how all of us were kind of susceptible to
being part of this if we were to learn about
it at the time, I at least know that somebody
who loved self development work courses programs, I feel like
I easily could have been pulled into these types of programs.
It's important to understand that people don't just join cults willingly.
(07:02):
There's often something that pulls them in and before they
know it, they're part of a cult. And to the
outside looking in it might be really obvious, but from
the inside looking out, there's so much mental manipulation and
brainwashing that has already happened that you defend it and
you protect it because it becomes your community and your
knowing and your beliefs. DOS is the subgroup that started
(07:24):
long after nexim So a lot of people hear the
words nexium, and they just think sex cult and they
think that people just joined willingly. Sylvie was a part
of both Nexium and DOS and she's so brave to
tell her story. She's part of Nexium for twelve years,
ten years before Doss even came to be, and she
was the first witness to testify against Ranierie. Sylvie's now
(07:45):
a new mom and truly one of the most special
people that I know. This episode is really important and
I hope that you listen with open ears and an
open heart as we really understand the psychology of cults,
how they begin, and how they affect people long after
they fall apart. And just as a little content warning,
the story does involve sexual abuse. Thank you all for
(08:07):
listening and supporting Sylvia as she shares her story. As
a reminder, this is going to be a two part episode,
So this week we'll hear all about Nexium and how
Sylvie became a part of it, and next week we'll
learn more about DUS. Welcome to the Truthiest Life, Sylvia.
I'm so excited to see you get a break from
(08:28):
momming with you. Yeah, that's straight my first actual break. Yeah,
like this, you have no help right. Well, I mean
I feel like bad saying that that. Yeah, I look
after her full time. You're doing You're doing the most
out there, and it's been really fun to mom with
you have babies almost exactly the same age and watch
(08:48):
you really step into this new role. It's a big
one for you and for me, but really for you.
I feel like, ah, well yeah, no, completely different and
breath of fresha after show. So today's episode is going
to be I think, really interesting for me and the listeners.
I know that this is probably scary to talk about
(09:10):
for all of our listeners. Sylvie and I have had
pre calls before, so that I can, you know, better
understand and create a safe place for Sylvie to speak
about these things. Today we are talking about your experience
with Nexium with dus Am I saying those words even right, No,
(09:31):
you actually are completely okay, Yeah, that's right on. These
are topics that have been exploited. I feel like, for
lack of a better word, in the media, your words
were this is a salacious story and you're not a
salacious person. No, not at all. Well that's not how
(09:52):
I identified myself for seeing myself. No, right, there's been
a lot of opportunities for you to be in the media,
for you to tell your story two millions of people,
and yet you're coming on this podcast specifically, which you know,
we've got a nice reach, but we're not big media
over here. When I get who am I kidding? But
why here? What do you want our audience to take
(10:15):
away from this episode? Well, I think that the story
of Nexium, of the US and all these different things
has been told. Obviously, there's an HBO series, there's another
series that was on Stars, there's a million different normillion,
but there's a lot of podcasts out there speaking about
the Nexium and Dost story. And I think that the
(10:37):
thing that's a little bit different from my perspective is that, yeah,
I never chose to go public with what happened. Obviously,
I'm so glad that the FBI and the government stepped
in and took the whole thing down, and I'm unbelievably
grateful for them. But if I'd have had a choice,
I wouldn't have been like, Hey, I volunteered to be
(10:57):
a witness in the trial, and for sure not the
first wit. Then it was almost as traumatic as everything
I went through, So it's very different for me, and
for that reason and as advised by therapists and psychologists
at the time, it wasn't a good idea for me
to be public, and one hundred percent didn't want to
be so I think I never had a chance to
(11:19):
sort of speak about this on my own terms, not
that I would have planned on doing it, but having
gone through the trial, been the witness in a trial,
being the first witness in the trial, and feeling like
it was an exercise and public humiliation, honestly, it gave
me such immense amounts of empathy for anybody that's had
(11:39):
to advocate for themselves on the stand, and probably the
number of people that say in these kinds of cases
or situations that have advocated for themselves and then not one,
it's not like there it's gone the way that they
would have wanted. And my story alone, for sure didn't
do that on the stands. There was other There were
(12:00):
many other witnesses and other girls within DOUS that spoke
on the stand, but none of our met and those
other girls have not spoken publicly, and I think it
is a different story, a different throughline, and a different
recovery to have been in it. And then also been
involved in the trial. So it was a really long
winded answer, but I think essentially, if this podcast could
(12:23):
speak to anybody who has been a victim and then
had to also testify and stand up and feel the
weight of that and what everything that comes in the
aftermath of that, I would love to help them feel
not alone in that part of the struggle, because that's
my experience. And so yeah, if this could speak to
anybody in that way, that's what I would love to do.
(12:46):
I think, you know, that's the part that nobody I'm
speaking for myself. You know when I watched I watched
that HBO documentary over a year ago, and I purposely
didn't want to go back and watch it again before
doing this interview. I kind of just want to move
forward with what my memory left with me, because, like
you said, you know, we watched these documentaries and then
(13:06):
the rest of us get to move on with our
lives and we have takeaways. But never was my takeaway
that the trial the part that's supposed to give you freedom,
a break, to feel good, to feel heard, to feel
like justice is being served. You know, never did I
think that that could add to what was already very
(13:28):
traumatic with Doss. We heard about, you know, sex trafficking,
we heard about branding, like really very traumatic things that
you experienced. Never did I think that the trial itself
could be, as you said, possibly more traumatic. So I
actually think that's a really interesting unexplored area and as
well as your goal of who you want to kind
(13:48):
of help here, you keep kind of saying I was
the first witness. What did it mean to be the
first witness? Does that mean that? Yeah, I guess I
don't think I even realized her, like how much of
a big deal about as to me and speaking here.
But I'm sort of the reason why I think if
you knew my personality, I don't identify as a leader
in anything, and I'm always like I don't want that responsibility.
(14:09):
I don't want to be a leader. I'm happy being
a follower, although obviously since the whole cult thing, I'm like,
I need to rethink that strategy, like what are you following?
Is a good thing to really look into. But never
want to go first in anything. I'm the youngest of
four children in my family, and I'm so used to
(14:30):
going last, or like watching everyone else get through something
safely and them being like Okay, now I'll write like
that's kind of more my strategy. And I think also
given the whole breadth of Nexium and the other women
in Darston, everything that each individual went through, it was
shocking to me that they wanted my testimony in the
(14:52):
trial anyway. And I love more Repenza, who was the
prosecutor I worked with the most, like genuinely just feel
like she's one of the most strongest, amazing women out there,
and you can listen to her on other podcasts if
people want to hear from her and her sort of
approach to the trial. But I wish I could say
(15:13):
to her, ask her like why, like why was my
story so relevant to the bigger picture? And why first too,
because I just I feel like the way that trials work,
and I learn a lot about that as things went along,
is that they're kind of like making decisions about what's
allowed to be included and what's not allowed to be
included as they go along. So the different sides of
(15:37):
the trial, the prosecutors and the defense are kind of
presenting things to the judge like we want to like
we should be allowed to talk about this, and then
there's like a sidebar and you don't know what the
outcome of that going to be, and you're just like
sat on the stand being like I don't even know
what they're arguing about or what's about to happen and
come from that. So I felt like as the first person,
there was a lot of things still being figured out
(15:58):
about what could be even spoken about in general during
the whole trial, and so I just felt like a
little bit of a guinea pick, like in so many ways,
I would just if I had gone last. For some reason,
I feel like that might have been easier, but maybe
it was. I'm sure it was just as hard for
the last person as it was for the first person.
But I think just in my personality, I was like, what, No,
(16:21):
the one just would never choose to do this and
to going first, it's like my neighbor. From a juror's
point of view, that first witness is going to be
the most memory. Yeah. Yeah, And basically I think you
(16:44):
are on the stand for quite a long time because
you're giving context to the entire story, and so that
meant that I needed to speak on things that were
more general to how nexium worked. And I can see
from that perspective why I was a good person for
that because of the amount of time I was in
the organization and how Keith, through an area who led
(17:05):
the organization, kind of groomed me over so many years.
Like I came in at age eighteen. By the time
this whole thing fell apart, I was thirty two, so
that was a long time. I saw a lot of things.
I experienced a lot of things. And it's not like
I rocked up one day and he was like, Hey,
why don't we dods like come and join me with
(17:26):
dust And that never happened. Just for context, I never
knew that Keith was involved from the beginning, Like I mean,
I did obviously find out through it, but that's not
how it was ever presented to me. And I think
that that's kind of been talked about in these HBO
series a bit about how Dusk was presented to each woman.
But essentially I was like, and they used to use
this analogy indexium, but they'd talk about a frog in
(17:49):
boiling water, like you could put a frog in tepid
water and raise the tempature and raise the tempature and
raise the temperature until it boils itself alive and it
would never jump out and they would actually teach us
this it's metaphor, and I think, yeah, that was me
and other people. But like, things got more weird and
more traumatic over time, but you just didn't even notice
(18:11):
to the point where my friends post esp are like, oh,
wasn't this a red flag? Or wasn't that a red flag?
And I'll be like, well no, because by that point
you're so numb to what is normal that Yeah. I
mean that's the way he had structured the whole thing,
is like doing whatever he wants and setting it up
(18:31):
in a way that we would actually agree that it
was a good idea. Things that are wrong, right, So,
I mean, there's so much to break down here, and
for our listeners that are like what's nextim, what's does?
Just to stay focused on the trial for one second,
then we'll kind of move out to how you even
got to the stand to begin with. Yeah, I just
(18:52):
want to ask why was that publicly humiliating? My testimony
is public knowledge, like if you know how to find
people's testimonies and read it. So the reason why I
don't have a problem sharing it. I don't feel publicly
humiliated by sharing it right now. But one of the
things in dusk was that we had to send Keith
all these naked photos, and so there were literally hundreds
(19:14):
and hundreds of photos of my vagina, like just my vagina,
not my face, nothing, And I'd had no prior warning
that this was going to be included in the trial.
And actually it was something that Keith's lawyer didn't submit
as evidence for the trial. So he'd found a loophole
(19:34):
of how he could present this at trial without having
given the prosecution any warning, without having given the judge warning,
which normally you have to say what you're going to
use as evidence. But because he was like, this isn't
for evidence, this is but identification purposes, only he spent
I don't know how long it was, because in my
head it was like hours and hours and hours. But
it doesn't really matter how long it was. It was many,
(19:56):
many photos that were presented to me on a screen
in front of me, where I had to say, yes,
this is my vagina, Yes I sent it to Keith Ranieri.
And there's the judge looking at pictures of my vagina.
To my left, there's the prosecution in front of me.
Keith is looking at these photos again like it's obviously
like I used to not be able to speak about
(20:17):
this without crying because it was the most deeply humiliating
thing ever to me. It still is. I mean, I've
had a very amazing therapist but has sort of put
a different spin on it for me, which is like,
your vagina is so powerful, Keith. The first time she
said it made me laugh so much it lifted like
(20:39):
a giant weight off my shoulders. She's like, no, your
vagina is amazing, Like you've got to celebrate that. But
at the time, obviously, and my dad and John are
both in the courtroom. You know, it's just like every
that those tons of media, there's always people it's like,
this is not I'm not sure that I would anyone
(21:00):
that would be like, hey, I would love to have
that happened. Let me have a go with that. So
it was awful. My jaw has dropped because when asking
that question, why was it publicly humiliating? I was expecting
you to say just telling your story and the things
you had to do would be humiliating. What you're saying,
my stomach. Listen, I agree with your therapist. Your vagina
(21:24):
did an incredible job. It put right I do one
hundred percent stand behind that. But that was not public
humiliating because you felt it was publicly humiliating. It was
public humilian because it was designed to be publicly humiliating.
It was attacted, No, it was. And then he went
into his questioning. This was like the start of his questioning,
(21:47):
and the questioning went on. I mean I was on
the stand for a day and a half, So that's
how long that went on. And say, I mean that's
not how long the stouto part was, but that's how
he started as far as I couldn't remember. But but
obviously that stood out that that's felt like the stop.
But that was that's mental manipulation, because I mean, for anybody,
all of us listening, you know, when something like mortifying happens,
(22:10):
whether like you burp or past gas in like an
area that like you don't want anyone to be, you know,
all of a sudden, your body turns on you and
your brain turns black. When you are humiliated, when you
are made that nervous, it takes at least for me
time to regulate, to get back into my rational brain
to speak from a factual place. So that was I mean,
(22:32):
the lawyer himself should be in jail. Yeah, I mean
I have. I try not to hate people, but I do.
I don't feel hatred towards him so much, but it
just makes me like that must have been attacked it
from Keith. That is so Keith, Like Keith is written
all over that type of behavior that I'm like, of course,
(22:56):
it makes sense that you did that, knowing everything that
I know, and if you knew me, if people knew me,
you'd know that I'm not an exhibitionist in any way.
So it's like they literally couldn't be anything worse as
well for me than something like that. And it was
humiliating enough to say to keep those photos in the
first place, but having to re look at them again
(23:19):
and then know that he's looking at them right now,
all his lawyers are looking at them and he had
like so many lawyers on his table. The FBI agents
I've worked with are looking that went again, and there
was people the jurors were not allowed to look at
the photos that they've decided that and so they weren't
showing them to the jurors. But there are a couple
of men in the front row that was like, I'm
kind of going to do the thing to you, and
(23:40):
I think you call it like a smug but we're like,
you know, like laughing, and so it was just like
the whole thing I was like, whoa, I really want
to like die? Basically is how extreme it felt in
that moment. And it's not a situation where you can
be like, you know what, I tap out, I don't
want to do this anymore, like I'm done. And there's
just so many layers to it because you're, you know,
(24:02):
I'm going to purge yourself. You're trying to think like
I have to remember everything as clearly as I can,
Like there are so many things that that feel at stake.
It's just like, wow, that was like a big punch
in the gap, like right before we even get going.
And like you said, you're the first one. So maybe
they're also trying to scare away the other witnesses. Yeah right,
(24:25):
I mean, I'm sure you know there's other witnesses that
aren't going to want to step up to that stand
after they saw what they just did to you. I
think it's a witness you're not allowed to be in
any way privy to what the other witnesses have said,
And so I don't think they could have known, but
it would for sure put people off being public about supporting,
you know. So let's back up a little bit to
(24:46):
kind of give our audience the broader understanding of what
ESP is, what Nexium is, and what das are, and
how the three kind of played together. Nexium was like
(25:06):
an umbrella organization for a bunch of different organizations underneath it.
So I think everyone uses Nexium as the name because
it's the easiest way to describe how Keith had this
organization and all these different trainings within the organization so
that he could almost appeal to any kind of person.
(25:27):
So there was a women's organization called Janesse, and then
he'd bring women in through Janesse. And then there was
a men's organization called Society of Protectors, which is hilarious,
and he'd bring in men through that. And then there
was like an acting organization and a different and then
so there's all these different things that sit under Executive
success Programs was more like the kind of business, yeah,
(25:52):
and so there was all these different things that sat
under Nexium. That's one. And Nexium was, like I say,
what it was sold as is like personal growth, bettering yourself,
becoming the person you've always wanted to be. Blah blah
blah blah blah. Right, just explain it enough. So next
to him is the big organization created by Keith Ranieri. Yeah,
(26:16):
and within this big organization that he created, he's created
sub organizations that you could join in to be part of,
whether it's a women's society, men's society, business, which is
what ESP was, and I think why a lot of
a lot of big businessmen maybe took classes came through,
so it got a lot of press that way. And
then there was DUS. Maybe we should save DUS for
(26:38):
a second. Yeah, this DUST was not like a public
organization that you could sign up for, so that was
like that was a different thing. So what did you
come in under? This is a backstory I left. I
grew up riding horses. My family had horses before I
even remember. I competed in show jumping specifically, which is
(26:59):
I don't know if any to describe what that is,
but jumping fences on horses rightly the best way that
I can describe it. I competed in that from when
I was tiny and I was trying to become like
an elite show jumping rider. So basically, an elite athlete
would be the same as in any sport. And you
grew up not in the US, right, not in the US.
(27:19):
In the UK, i'd say privileged and normal. Privileged slash
normal childhood. I don't really know how the weather those
two words go together. But I had a good childhood
and I was given the freedom to pursue something that
was important to me, which was trying to become an
elite show jumping rider. So I left school at sixteen.
I trained with some riders in the UK for a
(27:41):
couple of years, so i'd left home as well, stationed
with them, and then I kind of long story short,
came to America to train with an American show jumping
rider who also happened to be taking classes with ESP
and very involved in Nextium, very close to So what
year was this. That was two thousand and five, so
(28:03):
I was eighteen. So eighteen, you come to the US,
you are training somebody who is already affiliated with ESP. Yeah,
I'm training with them. I'm not training them. They rode
for the US, so they were like very they were
like elite. They were what I wanted to be basically,
(28:24):
and I felt like this was an amazing opportunity for
me to achieve my dreams essentially. But this person was
like heavily entrenched in nexiem and all the people that
worked for her also took the classes, so it was
kind of it was just kind of expected that you
take the classes, and the person who I was training
(28:45):
with actually paid for them for you to take them,
so it was very It wasn't a difficult decision for me.
I was like, yeah, okay, for sure, I'll take them.
These were just described as personal development classes. This wasn't
that's not growth, yeah right, This wasn't about, you know,
joining cult or anything like that. No, And honestly, it
was kind of a foreign thing that made me very curious.
(29:06):
I thought it was a very American thing to want
to better yourself and just like kind of makes me
laugh now, but I was like, wow, I was kind
of apprehensive going in just because there were some and
that's the sad thing to me. Right on the first
few days were there worse, some genuinely major red flags,
But I think I got talked out of my gut
(29:27):
feelings right there and then, and it just that just
took me through the rest of the time, which sounds nuts.
But in those original classes the first two days I
was so because it was a five day course and
for the first two days I didn't speak at all
because I was so nervous and so weirded out by
what was happening. Well, were those red flags. The way
(29:49):
that they talked about Keith Ranieri freaked me out because
I think in I hate to speak for all of
English culture, but my experience of English culture is like
you don't really have idols, like you're don't overly idolize someone.
We just don't. People are a lot more like self
deprecating in general, like that's our that's more. Yeah, my
(30:10):
experience of growing up in England is like you didn't
make idols of just normal people. And there was this
person that we're like, we call him the Vanguard is
what they had this word for him, and he was
like the most amazing intelligent man in the world, and
like you didn't even meet him. This was like them
talking about this like ethereal creature. It was so it
(30:33):
was just it was very strange to me right from
the start that there was kind of this person that's
like the greatest in the universe. Was the way that
he was talked about and that he's created. We're so
lucky to be taking these classes because he's created all
this curriculum and you can become the person that you're
going to be. It just sort of freaked me out.
And then on top of that, some of the classes
(30:54):
themselves were really freaking me out. Like one of the
first things that I remember that you used to do
is like an excited state. And he was supposed to
come up with an excited state and act it out
to the whole class, and like I said, not an
exhibition it is. I was like, oh my god. Like,
for one, I'd never spoken about my feelings in general.
I think that is another English culture thing. So I
(31:15):
was like, I can't even think of the time I
was exciting. Obviously I've been I've been excited before, but
it's just like it just wasn't in my remit to
like really even think that way. I just couldn't participate.
I was just terrified the whole time. So that was
like the first couple of days, and then on the
third day there was this class and this has been
(31:37):
spoken about in the HBO series because this happened to
a lot of people. But on the third day of
this five day course, there was a class where they
talk about the suppressives, which are like the bad people
that when they see something good in the world, they
want to squash it. But then there's like these different
levels of who a suppressive person could be and the
(31:58):
path that takes you down to be a suppressive person.
And part of the way that they pitched this thing
was like, if you feel uncomfortable around the vanguard Keith Mnieri,
like you could be one of those people. And so
then I was like, oh my god, like I, how
did you I might be a bad person, like I
might be as suppressive, and it really terrified me. Like
(32:20):
it's not it's funny now, but as an eighteen year
old never exposed to any of this, that is the
thing that really hooked me. It's like, I'm worried I'm
as suppressive and I don't want to be as suppressive,
so like I will do anything to try and be
a good person like I. Really that was what really
hooked me in. You stayed from eighteen to thirty two,
(32:40):
which I think you know is crazy. It's not just
the length of time, it's the when, as we talked
about in our in our pre call in you explaining
to me, like, you don't just sign up for a
cult because you want to be in a cult. It's
the fact that your brain was modeled by these Keith
the Vanguards a teaching and I won't even call it
(33:02):
that as him, that as a joke, but Keith's made
up world. He created a made up world and convinced
thousands of people that this is right, this is wrong,
and restructured their brains in believing this was real. It
sounds like, is that accurate? No, one hundred percent. Well,
because the other thing that he did is he really
had a whole class on what he could. I think
(33:25):
it was even called good and Bad or something like that,
where he literally redefines good and bad, what's a good
thing and what's a bad thing, and leads like the
door wide open for basically his own immorality to run
rain free because he changed the definition of those things.
And we would take these like I literally took these
(33:46):
same classes hundreds and hundreds of times because that's the
way that they would have you do it. They were like,
for sure, you have to take it twice, this five
day course, but the more you take it, the better basically,
so we were kind of like channeled into these classes
over and over again, to the point where I know
all of the stories in the metaphors used in the teachings,
and like sometimes we'll like say it was a joke,
(34:07):
although not so much anymore, but it was like different
little stories. Just I know those classes so well. And
so yeah, that's had an effect on my brain. It's
had an effect on my thinking, and it takes a
lot of undoing to try not to do this kind
of automatic thinking that's been programmed into my head. This
(34:29):
is what kind of confused me when I watched the
documentary and hearing your story too, you know, you being
part of something for twelve years, and seeing like you said,
you've taken the classes so many times. I know that
the facility, I don't know that's right word was in
Upstate New York. Did everybody live there in Upstate New
York or did some people just come take a class
and then leave? Like how did that? So then by
(34:50):
the end of nextium, they had sent they called them centers.
They had the center in Upstate New York, they had
one in New York City, they had one in Mexico City.
Tomala Guadalajara, Monterrey, Mexico, Canada, in Vancouver, Miami, La. Like
they were everywhere got it by the end and at
(35:13):
the beginning, but right in that very beginning, I think
there were only two centers when I was there. There
was like one in Seattle and one in Albany. And yeah,
people would fly in to take the classes, but not
everybody who took a class stayed, like you did, right, No,
I don't even want to try and get into Gee's head,
but there were certain people that he would really push to,
(35:36):
like you need to move to Albany, And he'd kind
of do that with a lot of people, but I'm
pretty sure it was mostly the younger women looking at
it in retisements like and this is why some of it.
I almost laughed because I'm like, oh, I wish I
could have seen things differently, because it's almost so obvious
and sick in the end that it's like he kind
(35:57):
of surrounded himself with women that he wanted in under
his control basically, But that doesn't mean there weren't also
other families or men that moved to next move there,
because I think that understanding that and I'm not the
person that has diagnosed him this way, but many other
professionals has was like a sociopathic narcissist or malignant narcissist,
(36:20):
I think is the word that's used a lot. I
think that everybody had a purpose that he had around him,
and you might not know what that purpose was or
how you fit into the puzzle. That everyone was like
a tool to his game and what he wanted. So yeah,
there was kind of a mix of people up there,
but there were certain people that he pushed really hard
(36:41):
to try and get them to move to Albany and
was successful with someone not with others. So after those
red flags, you were really uncomfortable the first few days.
What influences did you have around you that said, I'm
going to keep going with this even though it feels wrong. Well,
the person that I came in under I was like
one hundred percent deferential to her as an authority. I
(37:04):
would describe it as in love with Keith and still
is in my perspective, would like still one hundred percent
supports him, would do anything for him. And so to
have you know the person that you kind of also
want to impress because I was working for her and
training under her, and I wanted to get opportunities. I
wanted to be considered like I wanted to do a
(37:24):
good job. I always wanted to do a good job.
That's like a huge drive for me. It was just
kind of like I wouldn't hurt It felt like I'm sorry,
I'm just not even being super clear. But maybe that
gives a sense of what was going on with me
at the time. Because she's paying for these classes. I've
moved my life to America to train with her. This
(37:45):
is two days in it. I couldn't feel like I
could just quit that class without there being major repercussions.
That was meant saying goodbye to my dreams in my head.
So there was that huge pressure and then that I
felt like I didn't have anything else. I felt like
I didn't have another option at that time, and going
(38:06):
back to England after having only been there for a
couple of weeks felt like a failure to me, like
I wouldn't have you know, made it, if you know
what I mean. And then I did multiple things that
took me in more and more deep, like we flew
my horse out from the UK to the US to
train with her and things like that, where it's like
another layer. That's another hook that like, you know, I'm
(38:26):
not going to back out at that point, my horse
is here, my life is now suddenly here. It kind
of felt like a runaway train, honestly. And then before
too long there were multiple times where I actually tried
to break free from living in America and I'd always
end up coming back because of things that Keith would
(38:46):
say to me and things that this person would say
to me. And there was this line of accusation that
was used with me, and I think everybody had a
different one. From the people from the leaders of Next
seem of like why they needed to stay in Nextium
or why they needed to be in Albany. And for me,
Keith would describe me as that I was just a
(39:09):
robot to my indoctrination. This was a word that he
used a lot, and that at one point he even
told me that if I ever had children, they wouldn't
love me because I was so cold. Things like that
where and say then and their answer to not be
in that way was to take more classes, was to
stay in Nexium, was to move to Albany like he
(39:29):
was the cure to all of my ailments, was how
he described it, and then that was then supported by
the person who I saw as the biggest authority in
my life for the majority of those years, like I
was one hundred percent felt like she had all the
answers and that she would even say things like I
know you're better than you do, and that I believe
(39:50):
that I did believe that I didn't know myself, and
I don't think I did, just to be honest, because
I was so disconnected and disassociate. She ate it. But
it's not like I don't know myself. I think I
was just traumatized and I didn't even see it at
the time. When you're eighteen, you know, living in another country.
Who knows themselves at eighteen? First of all, you know
(40:12):
and if somebody says I know you better than you
know you. I think if anybody said that to me
at eighteen, I would believe that too, especially when you've
left so much behind you are trying still to pursue
your career, and it all falls in line with believing
that these people have the answers. It's all like I
said to you in our precall, I feel like it
(40:33):
could have been me. Yeah, well, I do feel like, yeah,
it could have been a lot of people, and I'm
really glad it wasn't. But yeah, I think if people
can step into that kind of thinking of that age,
or maybe if they even were that age, they would
kind of get it. Well, I feel like, I mean,
I could get it with someone else telling me the
story at different times. I also went back to live
(40:57):
in the UK for like a year at a time
or whatever, but I would always be I was still
taking classes all the time. I still had an ESP coach.
I was still I was summised to check in with
Keith and the other person every day, So every single
day by email and phone, I would check in with
them wherever I was in the world, and may not
(41:17):
have been in Albany for every second, but I was
never not in Albany in my head. Right. So when
you took that first ESP class, you said, the teacher
described the Vanguard and Keith and you know, this mystical
creature that knew everything about every you know, he was
so smart and amazing. At what point did you actually
(41:37):
meet him. I think I met him pretty soon, so
it was maybe like a week later, and I did
actually have to tell this story on the stand, and
I think it was kind of funny because he had
this like weird thing where he liked to play volleyball
in the middle of the night, so he would rent
out a jim I know there's been some funny memes
done on it. I think I was even an SNL
(41:58):
skit done of him is in his volleyball outfit. I
just think he'd just liked to do weird things and
make people do them for him, so we'd all have
to well, he would he wanted people to come and
watch him play volleyball with a group of other people,
but it would be like from midnight to like five
in the morning or something like that. And so I
was encouraged greatly to come to volleyball to meet with Keith,
(42:22):
like this is like a grand honor type thing. So
I remember showing up. It was like ABC Fitness in Albany,
I think that's what it was called, at like two
in the morning, and there's this like tiny man with
a like seventies sweat band on and a ponytail, and
he's like tiny and sweaty and creepy. And that was
(42:45):
my first experience of him. And he would just come
up and kiss you on the lips, and I thought again,
like it just even in English culture that's like whoa,
like these minds that's not invited, but then that was
the standard that was set. It's so gross they just
can't even It makes me want to be thinking about it.
It's not UK culture and it's also not American culture.
(43:07):
I put so many things down to this must be
an American thing, which now I'm like I kind of
laugh at, but I sometimes I think I still get
it wrong where I'm like, maybe this is an American
thing about and it probably really was a key thing,
not an American thing. I mean, it just goes to
show that your reality is what you're surrounded by by
(43:28):
even a short amount of time. You know, if you're
surrounded if you walk into that two am volleyball thing
and everybody that you know is doing this two am
volleyball you go there and he's kissing someone else on
the lips when they see them, and then you see
him and he kisses you, you're just you know, you
don't you go along with it, Yeah, you don't. You
don't question it because that you've seen that this is
(43:49):
the normal, in this pseudo reality that's been manufactured by
him himself. So he kisses you on the lips immediately, Yeah,
and all the women he said, and just there were
so many things about that experience that were weird to me.
And it's not that they didn't continue to be weird
to me all along, because I mean, he lived in
(44:09):
a house with two other women, and I always would
It was like I would try and refriend things in
my mind or like make them more palatable to me,
where I was like, oh, one of them's his friend,
and the other ones like, you know, I just wouldn't
ask any questions. I just didn't want to think about
things as being weird. And He'd see him walking around
(44:30):
the neighborhood of all these women and always surrounding himself
of all these women all the time, and I'd always think, well,
he's helping them, or like you'd try and think that,
but really underneath, I'd be like, that's creepy. That's creepy.
This is creepy. I find him creepy. But that voice,
I think became so quiet. It wasn't that it was
never there, but I was like, there's no one that
(44:52):
I can say this too that's going to agree with me.
And I think hundreds of people felt the same way
in Nexium, because yeah, no one would speak like blasphemy
of Keith. That was just not the way it worked.
So I think loads of us were probably like, wow,
this is really weird and didn't say anything about it.
(45:13):
And there were a lot of smart people that would
go to ESP classes. You know, if you google Nexium
and ESP, you hear a lot of big business people
were taking the classes. There. There's a lot of celebrities,
female celebrities associated with Nexium, Like you knew a lot
of celebrities just being part of it, I assume, right,
yeah I did, And I think that, yeah, all of
(45:33):
that it normalized things. And also because like the party
line was always that Keith was making people more successful,
and he actually wasn't. He was attracting successful people and
then they were becoming less successful through staying in Nexium.
Like that's the reality to of it, looking back on it,
but that's his spin on it. And you kind of
(45:54):
felt like that it was a very like idealistic environment.
People would be going after their goals and nobody was achieving.
I think that's the thing that we were all blind to,
which is nuts in retrospect, But it was kind of
like you had this huge community of friends around you
(46:15):
that was like a really strange eclectic mix looking back
on it, because it was people from all different random
walks of life. But at least you were kind of
felt like you had friends and you were surrounded by people,
And I think that was another huge hook, and that
was kind of addressed a lot in the HBO series,
I think, because that is probably what kept a lot
of people was like, well, all my friends are even
(46:37):
in this and I'm part of something that's bigger than me,
and yeah, so it had that aspect too, that kind
of just would they would get all these testimonials from
the successful people and have them on video being like,
you know, Keith, you're an area has changed my life
from la la la la la. And I've never been
in one of those videos. Hilarious obviously, because I think
(47:00):
if you really looked at it, keeps me nearly made
my life so much worse and there's nothing that I
could really show for that. But yeah, I was never
in one of those testimony of the years, which I
do find quite funny considering the amount of time that
I was there. Not that I would have wanted to be,
but I'm just saying, like, the people that I've been
around for a really long time were not often the
(47:20):
people that were the face of things. I understand, right,
because you're really the most enamored when you're not in
so deep. When you're in so deep, you know a
little bit too much exactly. Yeah, and the reality of
what Maxium does to you has started to kick in.
And that's not as impressive as someone who's like, I'm
(47:41):
a famous actress and yeah, maybe they've only been there
a year or even less, and they're saying like this
has really done so much for me. Their life still
looks very appealing to a lot of people in the public,
and they don't know what's on the other side of that. Well,
Sylvia's clearly the bravest person that I know, and I
(48:02):
hope that your eyes and ears are a little bit
more open, and most importantly, your heart is a little
bit more open after hearing this part of her story.
As a reminder, next week, we're going to hear the
rest of this episode where we learn how she got
affiliated with Dus, the sex cult part of Nexium, and
how it also fell apart. Here's a little clip so
(48:23):
you can be prepared for what's coming next. Nobody can
know about this. Apparently nobody can know about this. This
is a completely secret project and all my collafter all,
which by that point she'd already collected a couple of
naked photos of me, but again she was like, they're
just going in a safe I'm not even going to
look at them. And I was like, okay, super weird.
(48:44):
But they were going to Keith and I just didn't
know that at the time. Yeah, and then basically one
of the first things that I was asked to do
was I need you to seduce Keith, was what she said.
And I was like, seduce Keith, Like what, like why?
Like does he know? You know? It was so far
out there for me. I'll see you next week back
(49:07):
here on the Truthius Life.
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