Claire Hoffman - Levitation, Meditation, and a Childhood in a Transcendental Meditation Trailer Park
August 20, 2025 • 39 mins
In Part 1 of our interview with journalist Claire Hoffman, Claire shares what it was like growing up in an Iowa trailer park community built around the Transcendental Meditation (or TM) movement and its charismatic leader, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi–whose followers included The Beatles. Claire shares what the daily routine was like in the TM community, how it felt believing every adult she knew could levitate, and the powerful mystique of Maharishi.
Plus, she tells how the fall of the Berlin Wall and her subscription to Cosmopolitan magazine helped lead to her eventual awakening about the guru being a mere mortal, and the book she wrote about that experience, Greetings From Utopia Park.
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Greetings From Utopia Park
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Trust me? Do you trust me?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Right? Ever?
Speaker 3 (00:04):
Lead you wish your trust?
Speaker 1 (00:06):
This is the truth, the only truth.
Speaker 4 (00:09):
If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't
welcome to trust me. The podcast about cults, extreme belief
and manipulation from two levitators who've actually experienced it, not
the levitation though.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I'm Lola Blanc and I'm Megan Elizabeth.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Today is part one of our interview with Claire Hoffman,
former member of a transcendental meditation community and author of
two different books we're going to talk about, but for today,
we're going to discuss her book, Greetings from Utopia Park,
Surviving a Transcendent Childhood, which is about her childhood growing
up on a commune like trailer park organized around transcendental meditation.
(00:47):
In part one today, she's going to tell us why
her mother started practicing TM, what it felt like arriving
at Maharishi's school at age six, and growing up in
the meditation focused community, what levitation actually was, and why
life there was actually kind of magical and gave.
Speaker 5 (01:01):
Her a sense of purpose when she was young. She'll
talk about how she began to question the group and
the unhealthy worship of the leader almost like he was
a god. How Cosmo Magazine factored in, and how doing
research for her book and learning about how much he
was really just a human man shaped her perspective on
idol worship and helped inform her next book.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Real Quick. Some context for folks, So.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Transcendental meditation is a meditation practice initially popularized by a
man named I think I'm pronouncing it correctly Maharishi Mahesh Yogi,
who was the Guru to the Beatles and lots of
very very famous people in the nineteen seventies, and most
people use it relatively harmlessly, since it's just one of
many meditation techniques and directing your focus through meditation can
(01:45):
be generally helpful for folks, but some former members who
were deeper in reported levels of control and isolation, an
inordinate amount of worship of Maharishi and his alleged special powers,
prohibitively expensive courses claiming to offer enlightenment, and claims that
the TM community alone knows the right way to meditate,
so some do consider it a cult. David Lynch, may
(02:08):
he rest in peace, made it more popular, and most
likely that's the more chill version that your friends are
practicing today, but that is a little bit of context
for what we're going to talk about. Absolutely, before we
do talk about it, Megan, please kindly tell me your
cultiest thing.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
The cultiest thing of the week for me is that
I have been infected by TM. We go into it
a little bit into the episode. I got taught it.
I was given a mantra and every day I feel
guilty twice a day for not doing it.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
You feel guilty twice a day sounds healthy. I can't
get over the mantra thing. The mantra thing will never
cease to be funny to me because it is just
based on your birthday, yes, and it's presented as this
like big mysterious otherworldly thing, right.
Speaker 5 (02:54):
Well, at least it's not like the final Boss in
Scientology where they hand you a crown drawing of like
a it's true.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
But it's misleading.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Like I feel like people go in thinking it's this
like mystical, you know, specialized.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Like maybe nobody even else even has it.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
Yeah, yeah, but it's it's no, there's like one kind
of them.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
You're one of ten.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Yeah, yeah, I wonder what my birthday mantra is. Well,
you could probably go I mean you can google it,
don't you can google it? Oh I was gonna say,
I don't want to pay for it, but if I
can google it, great? Yeah, should we google it right now?
Let's google it right now?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Okay, what is my TM mantra? How do you find
it by putting in your data birth? Okay? Yeah, oh,
here we go mine. It looks like would be kareem. Wow,
what's yours?
Speaker 4 (03:46):
You're selling curing? I'm not telling mine still feels slightly sacred.
Oh no, no, you have to say multiple things. Oh
I see. Oh I had a second course where I
got a longer part of my mantra. Actually, oh, it's
like first there are advanced techniques. You get more words
as you go, but initially it's it's categorized by your age.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Okay, this is too confusing.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
I see it on a website that's trying to expose Tam.
Speaker 5 (04:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
I liked my Tam teacher. I think a lot of
people have really good intentions with it. I don't feel
like I was exploited at all for it, but I
can see how this could turn bad very quickly. Yeah,
if you're like totally, you're gonna Lavi Tate and.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
Shit right, Yeah, so you got you've been infected with this,
and yeah, I'm infected forever.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Anyway, what about you? That's such a tangent. I'm so
sorry everyone.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Okay, here's michaeld Is thing.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
I'm someone for whom politics is a very important part
of my life.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
And social justice. I don't even like that term.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
I feel like that term gets a bad rap, but
social justice is an important part of my life and
basically just like fighting the man, you know, fighting abuses
of power on a governmental level. And and I've attended
a lot of different actions and meetings and events and trainings,
and I have been having a lot of conversations with
friends who also value this sort of thing about how
(05:12):
we can bring more people into come to this stuff
and to like show up for that kind of work.
Because in this day and age and particular, our attention
spans are shot. There's a constant barrage of bad news,
so it's hard to even know what to panic about,
because then the next thing comes that brings a new
(05:32):
wave of panic, you know, so like it's hard to
know how to fight back against that because there's just
so much coming at us all the time. And that
is why in some of these conversations we've been talking about,
like how to motivate people to participate in a cause
and to show up to stuff, because like we'll get
a new news story that's horrific and then we'll react
(05:55):
to it, and then people will go to like a
really big protest, But it's hard to get people to
continue to show up beyond the point where it's like
the top headline in the news story that day, you
know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (06:04):
Yeah, I mean I think I know where you're going
with this. Yeah, I bet you do.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
So, so one of the you know, topics of discussion
is like how to pull more people in and provide
an emotional reward beyond having an outlet for their anger,
because our anger can only last so long, like it metabolizes,
you know. Like so you mean like a culture, I mean,
like maybe some of the things a cult sie but
(06:32):
for good, but for good. And that's a very important
asterisk because as we know, some of these tactics to
recruit people into causes can often be for bad. But
in the case of like building a movement to promote
justice and equality and solidarity, like you do need to
(06:52):
inspire people for the world that they want to create
and not just the world that they're upset about in
that moment. I think some groups are really great at that,
and some groups are more policy driven and it's a
little dry, and you know, it's all different. But there
have been times where I've attended some of these things
(07:13):
and I have almost expected that we were going to
like sing a song or something.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
I'm like, it feels you're like holding a candle ready, yeah, or.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Like waiting for like not a you know, I'm not
a pastor, but like waiting for someone to get up
there who's gonna, like, you know, give a fiery speech
and make me believe in something bigger than myself. And
that is not always what happens. And of course that's
maybe unrealistic to expect all the time. But I will say, like,
I think more people that I know certainly would probably
show up to stuff if it functioned a little teeny
(07:45):
bit more like church. They're going, and they're they're not
only finding purpose, they're finding community, They're feeling emotions, they're
feeling an outlet for their hopelessness, you know what I mean.
And sometimes I think active who are doing such crucial
work I shouldn't generalize, but in some cases, they're so
(08:05):
focused on the important, important work that they're doing that
maybe the seemingly less important component of like the emotional
experience people are having while they're there, isn't as much
of a consideration, which totally makes sense because people's lives
are on the line a lot of the time with.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
This kind of work.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
But yeah, anyway, so that's why I'm like, let's just
sing a song, you know, let's sing a song. Let's
join hands. Some places are good about that though. We
talked about alan On in another episode and how you
get up at the end and end twelve step programs,
how you get up at the end and you like
hold hands and you say the thing together. All I'm
saying is I want a little bit more ritual and
just like it, just like a touch, just like a
(08:43):
little bit more cultiness to just kind of basically motivate
people to keep coming.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
Back and never cross the line into badness. As our goal,
that is always the goal.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Speaking of groups that we're good at making you feel
like a big family.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Let's talk to Claire do it. Welcome Claire Hoffman to
trust me. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
We're excited to talk to you because you have not one,
but two books that we want to talk to you
about today, not one but two cults.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Not one but two cults.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Will be curious to ask her later if she defines
the second one as a cult or TBD.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
We will ask you that, but not yet. So the
two books.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
First, there was Greetings from Utopia Park, Surviving in Transcendent
Childhood that is about your own childhood growing up on
a commune.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Correct commune ish yesh.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Okay, yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
And the second book, which we will also get into,
is called Sister Sinner, The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance
of Amy Semple McPherson. So let's dive in, and first,
can you just tell us a little bit about your
childhood and how your family first joined to this commune
ish that was a transcendental meditation community, right.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah, So my parents met at a transcendental meditation retreat
in the early nineteen seventies near Riverside, California. Actually they
were My mom was from New York and my dad
was from Santa Cruz. But they met and kind of
instantly fell in love, and they were both to different
degrees kind of followers of Marishima Heshiogi, who was this
(10:25):
guy that the Beatles were super into, and who was
teaching this transcendental meditation technique to a lot of college
students all around the world and especially in American universities.
That was sort of their evangelical technique, so to speak.
They really they was like thirty five dollars to learn
to meditate, and you know, they very quickly got pregnant
(10:47):
with my brother and got married, and they moved to
New York City where my dad was trying to be
a playwright and my mom was going to fashion design school,
and the kind of fell apart, and you know, my
dad was an alcoholic and super into coke and everything,
and he just left and my mom was like, uh, like,
(11:10):
what do we do? I have these two little kids.
So she moved us to this little town in Iowa
that the Mari she had bought a bankrupt university in
and put out like a call to his followers all
over the world for everyone to move there and practice
meditation together. And kind of extra layer on top of that,
(11:31):
in the late nineteen seventies, he had introduced a new
form of meditation that was called the Tmcity program, which
involved levitating.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Ah, yes, it sounds real.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Everything is real or the opposite, I can't tell.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
So he had he was really into quantum physics, and
he had a mathematical formula that that if large groups
of people got together and practiced this levitation technique, we
would create world peace. My family moved there in nineteen
(12:20):
eighty three with this like sense of purpose to all
meditate together and change the world. And by my family,
I mean my mom and my brother and I my
dad was gone.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
How old were you when you moved there?
Speaker 3 (12:32):
I was six.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Okay, do you think that this is something your mom
would have ever done without your dad kind of bought
them off.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Yeah, yeah, it's a great question.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
I mean my dad was always a little like Saltier,
I would say, and a little more cynical and just
less you know. He would say afterwards like she was
more into it and he was just really into her.
So yeah, I do wonder about that. And just the
incredible d stables. I mean he left I think fifty
dollars on our dining room table, and my mom was like,
(13:04):
what am I going to do?
Speaker 1 (13:05):
And you're in New York City.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Yeah, exactly. It's like, do you want a sandwich? So, yeah,
it was. It was a really tough situation.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
And she, I think that felt like her community in Iowa,
Like those were people that she was connected to through
college and through the TM movement, which is what they
called it, and she sent us. We went to the
mari She School of the Age of Enlightenment, which was
mariy She's Special School K through twelve.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Can you just talk to us about like what the
experience of arriving there was like at such a young age,
Like was that confusing or exciting or like what did
that feel like?
Speaker 3 (13:42):
I mean, I think I was really excited.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
I mean it had been like a super tumultuous time
for us, you know. I mean my mom was like
a really good mom in a lot of ways, so
she created stability, but it's super unstable, and you know,
we got there and I had just this vision of
like a story book, Like I was like, oh, I'm
(14:05):
going to be able to play outside. I was like,
my main thing, I'm going to get to be outside.
Although when we got there, my mom was really scared
of me being kidnapped.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
So because it was the eighties, right, whole milk carton,
a lot of milk carton for us.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Yes, yeah, yeah, I was like, actually, just equally is intense.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
Did you believe in the religion at that age? I
mean like, yeah, oh totally.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I was so in Like I mean, I feel like
my memories are all from those early years in a
palette that is TM. I would say, like if you were,
like AI make a TM like a movie, it would
all be like a TM filter which is pastel colored,
(14:51):
you know, and slightly.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Magical, and yeh yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I mean there was a lot that really worked for
me as a kid, right, there was a a sense
of purpose and magic and possibility which felt really good.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
I mean, you know, as someone who also believed I
was going to save the world or something.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
As a child, I can attest.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
I mean I was a little older, I was twelve,
but I can attest that, Like that's a really special
and exciting feeling.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
You're like, oh my gosh, I'm a part. It's like
being Harry Potter.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
I'm a part of this bigger thing and I'm like
part of you know, these chosen people.
Speaker 5 (15:26):
It also just sounds like it's so it sounds beautiful.
Am I imagining that correctly like this, it.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Wasn't that big.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I mean, yeah, like we got there, we were still
super poor, and we ended up. I mean, my mom
had gone to college and was getting her master's degree.
My dad had gone to the University of Iowa writer's workshop.
Like my grandfather was a scientist like we were.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
I was a legit writer.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, but but for the cocaine, right right.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
But I mean, like it was I guess more, I'm saying,
like my mom grew up middle class, like her dad
worked at Princeton in a lab. My grandmother was a nurse,
like like we sort of came from a family of
middle class professionals, I would say. And when we got there,
I mean, my mom like there was no work like
she I think she took a job as a waitress
(16:19):
at like a vegetarian cafe, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Like, and we moved.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Really quickly, I mean, which we were really happy about, frankly,
to Utopia Park that's what the book is named after,
which was a meditator only trailer park. So it wasn't
I mean there was like a real rose colored glasses situation,
you know, where like I mean Utopia Park to me
in some ways, says it all right, like it's like, oh,
(16:45):
it's heaven, and by that we mean.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
A trailer park.
Speaker 5 (16:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
Can you paint the picture of just like everyday life,
like what are you doing in the trailer park day
to day?
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah? I mean some of it was awesome because lots
of kids live there from the school, and I could
walk to my school. It was like a mile walk
or maybe less from there, and like all my friends
lived around me. Like trick or treating was awesome, you know,
after school was great. But so the adults in our
town and things are different now, Like this was really
(17:18):
kind of hardcore time for the TM movement. This doesn't
really exist anymore. But the adults would meditate from like
six am to eight am and then five pm to
seven pm. So my mom would be gone during that
time and then come and take us to school and
(17:38):
I would be at school all day, you know, see
my mom for like an hour in between before she
would go meditate, and then you know, everything was just
really organized. According to Maury, She's principles of living, so
you know, like when you wake up, when you eat, like.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
What you eat, how you eat.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
I mean literally, there was a point where they were
sort of prescribing how many shoes to take a beach
bite of food?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Wow? And was it vegetarian? Was that the yea?
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (18:07):
And so was the restaurant your mom working at? Was
that owned by the group or no?
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Okay, yeah, it was like some hippie entrepreneur or something.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
I never know how to refer to him, the Maharishi.
If I don't want to say the full name, what
do I say?
Speaker 3 (18:21):
I just say Mari Si.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
But I've also been told that I say all Indian
things like a South Park character, which made me made
me feel really seen.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I was like, that's pretty much it. Like I grew
up in Iowa. Actually, like I.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Was nailed it, Mari she.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Yeah, just pretend you're a cartman.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
To what extent were was?
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Were there actual interactions with him, like was he very
involved in the community or.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
No, super Wizard of Ozzie like he always lived when
I was growing up. He was either in India or
in Europe, and apparently they were like has issues, so
he never came. I mean, we also heard that his
state of enlightenment made it hard to be around people,
but wealthy donors would travel to go see him. So
(19:14):
he would communicate with us. You would either get like
trickle down knowledge, like if somebody rich who was like
a donor to the school, they would like go visit
him in India and come back and be like, all
the math now needs to be in Sanskrit or something,
and they'd be like, let's change everything, you know. I
mean they did that literally when I was in sixth grade.
They switched to something called Vedic math, which like destroyed
(19:37):
my brain forever. You can't do that, yeah, yeah, oh,
my standardized test scores were amazing. But otherwise he would
communicate with us through telecast. So like these big for
people to meditate together. They built these two giant golden
(19:58):
dome buildings and that were covered like their big arched
wooden ceilings, and then they had you know, like almost
like bed foam with white sheets across the whole floor,
which was like super fun, but that was for people
to be levitating on. So they would have all the
celebrations and ceremonies there, so like I mean, I think
(20:18):
they each held a couple of thousand people.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
They had the men's dome and the women's dome.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
And he they would put down a big screen and
he would like it was like early days of zoom
or whatever, and he would talk to us, you know,
for five minutes a few.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Times a year.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Did you ever meet him in person?
Speaker 3 (20:36):
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
He was apparently there. I saw him. I have like
a shard of a memory of seeing him. He came
to Fairfield once when I had first moved there, and
I saw him up on stage. But I mean, if
you couldn't imagine the amount of video that I've watched.
Speaker 5 (20:54):
Right right, can you say more about the levitating? Like, yeah,
what is what is the levitating?
Speaker 2 (21:02):
My kids are always like say the same thing. They're like,
can you say more about them?
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Like what do you just google it?
Speaker 3 (21:08):
You guys? Leave me alone?
Speaker 1 (21:09):
There's some mean to me? What is that? What's the levitating?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
So I think cities, like the city techniques come from
like some kind of ancient text like the yoga potandually texts,
So they're not specific to Maurisi. Like it's a book
that you can buy in a bookstore, And I think
the idea is that it promises you sort of superpowers,
Like they are forms of meditation that promise you extraordinary powers,
(21:38):
and he kind of developed them for you know, the
Western world in the seventies, and supposedly initially he was
also teaching like the power to walk through walls and
invisibility and like, you know, there.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Was a lot of imagine sounds real. You have to
stop that teaching pretty quick, should right now?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Yeah, people have barely kind of lost their minds doing it,
and maybe even like the CIA tried to infiltrate, which
is really really wow. Yeah, I mean you feel like
the late seventies like people were just like down for
more magic than they are now totally. Yeah, it's it's
a it's a meditation technique. Like you meditate for like
an hour and then you start seeing these other different mantras.
(22:26):
And there's one the levitation one that's supposed to make
you sort of lift off the air, but no one
as far as I know of, has actually maintained levitation.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
It's a hop.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
It's a hop.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
What does the hop look like?
Speaker 2 (22:41):
It looks like kind of butt hopping or like a yeah,
like it's a kind of it's I mean, some people
achieve more grace and beauty and theory. You're supposed to
be in lotus position, you know, with your like legs
crussed and yeah, you kind of bounce along.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
It reminds me of why does a feather stiff is
a because it's like, yes, technically I'm in the air,
but there is a physically feasible reason why I'm in
the air, which is that there are fingers lifting me.
It just sounds like it would really hurt your back
or your butt. Yeah, did people get injured like levitating hopping?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
That's a great question, not that I know of. That
wasn't like a common complaint. I mean there was they
had like that big old like yellow foam people who
kind of bounce.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
As a child, were you participating in those like, were
you doing long meditations yourself?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
No, you could start to learn in high school, but
like a lot of my friends weren't allowed to learn
because they were deemed not ready or bad.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Interesting, So was it like relatively normal then in terms
of like the structure of your day to.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Day life levitating or to meditate.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
I mean, like because in many cults, the children are
like they either have to like be doing religion all
day long or working, you know, Like, but it's like
you weren't necessarily participating that much in the practices themselves.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Yeah, we meditated twice a day, like the kids meditated
twice a day, and you meditated, so until you're ten,
you would do like a walking meditation that was your age,
so you would like walk around for seven minutes saying
a mantra, and then once you turn ten, you get
a seated meditation, which is the basic meditation that like
(24:25):
all those college students learned in the seventies, Like that
was the kind of entry level TM, and it's like
what just to fast forward now like people learned through
the David Lynch Foundation.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:36):
Yeah, I was going to say, it's like what I
paid five hundred dollars to learn from me?
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yes, teacher, I also dated So.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
For my mantra, how did you go from believing in
this like magical thing where you're like saving the world
basically to having some more skepticism about it?
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Yeah, I mean it kind of was like this confluence
of events. I mean, when I was either eleven or twelve,
my dad came back into our lives. He had done
he had gone through AA and gotten sober and had
you know, been trying to reconnect with us, and he
moved to Iowa.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
He actually moved to Iowa City.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
So we didn't move to I think he tried to
move to Fairfield for like six days and kind of
freaked out and had to.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Move to the Iowa city.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I heard that, Yeah, and so he started being part
of our lives, and I think, you know, I mean,
he's just was like a naturally like very funny, very cynical,
just like kind of sophisticated person, and he would just
make observations.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
I would say that that started to like stick with me. Anyway,
I was.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Twelve and I had this moment at a school assembly
where this will definitely give you my exact age, but
the head of the school and the university made this
announcement that they had just torn the Berlin wall down
and that it was because our meditations have been so
powerful over the last few weeks.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
And I was just like that, that's not true.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Like my meditations, I've been reading Cosmopolitan inside my bedroom
during the time I'm supposed to be just to be meditating,
like that is just not a fact. Wow, that was
It was a real moment.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Actually.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
What's funny is like I've been at parties, like big
groups of kids that I grew up with, you know,
like when I was in my twenties, and there's like
a number of people that that school assembly was like
the snapping. Yeah, there was just a handful of us
that were like, no.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
That is so interesting because I would think that if
I were in that position, I would you don't believe
it so badly because it would I would want to
feel like I contributed something to the world.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
I don't know if that would be an awakening point
for my teenage Self's that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Yeah, I mean this is why I say, like there
was a bunch of stuff happening around the same time
for me, you know, with my dad coming back and
just like getting older. But it was just I think
it just registered suddenly as completely absurd, and that was
like this moment where the fabric to start to tear,
you know. And it didn't like happen right away. But
(27:22):
my brother was a couple of years older than me,
and he was super rebellious and like got into like
smoking pot and skating, and you know, my mom wasn't
around a lot, like she was working all the time.
First of all, was to afford like our private school
tuition to go to the Marketry School of the Age
of enlighten meant and to afford to be able to
go the domes and to be able to afford like
(27:43):
all the crazy supplements that you needed to do to
achieve higher states of consciousness.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Oh wow, did you have to buy them from them?
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah. I mean that's like I just to like zoom
out for a second. I feel like it's always interesting
looking at religions where you're like, what's.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Your what's your bag? Like what's your shadow? Is it
like sex? Is it like power? Is it violence? Or
is it money?
Speaker 2 (28:08):
And we were definitely like it was a money thing,
as you can tell by the deal you got.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Yeah, yeah, my deal, Yeah exactly, my Montra deal.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Yeah yeah, it's money that usually comes up.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Right.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
What was the emotional response to being like this is bullshit?
Speaker 3 (28:24):
I think I.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Felt myself just retreat into myself more and become more
interested in the outside world. And I mean I will say,
like TM wasn't like a high control situation, you know,
like I how did I leave? Like I got on
a plane to go move in with my dad, and
like no one tried to stop me, and no one's
(28:46):
ever tried to stop me from saying anything, and like
it's it's not.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
It's not like that.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Quick note for our listeners, Like we have talked about
in many previous episodes, different people can have a whole
range of experiences in the same group depending on the context.
We did actually interview Patrick Ryan and Joe Kelly, who
can talk a little bit more about a different experience
of TM.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
It was a very intensely devotional atmosphere, and people, you know,
would pay a cost for not showing that devotion, you know.
Like so there was a point where just as an example,
like people were not being allowed to meditate in the
domes that went to go see other Indian like teachers, cheating,
(29:32):
cheating exactly.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
I moved in with my dad, so that was kind
of easy, But I mean I wasn't until like, I
mean I was in college and I remember being like, wait,
like could I actually marry somebody who didn't do TM right?
You know, like could I Like there were a lot
of ways that I was like my brain had been
fiddled with.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
And my mom still lives.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
There, Oh really is it still tmy?
Speaker 2 (30:00):
It's super tmmy, it's just not quite as vibrant. I
were not as big as it used to be. And Mary,
she's been dead for like fifteen years. So I think
David Lynch was a good thing for the TM movement
in the sense that he sort of returned it back
to the simple, like just the meditation technique, unless of
the guru culture. So I'm assuming when you learned TM,
(30:23):
like you didn't really learn a lot about.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Marie She not at all.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
It was it was very celebrity they Lynch says, this
is what keeps him creative and clear.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Yeah, there wasn't.
Speaker 5 (30:36):
You know, threads back too, and there's whole community is
that this is helping to support.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I don't I still practice TM,
is the truth, Yeah, I imagine, so it's very helpful.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Actually yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Yeah, but that wasn't That's why I sort of always
say it was a moment in time in terms of
the eighties and the nineties. It just like it was
when mari She was alive and the people who had
first sort of formed his movement, their level of devotion
and sense of his importance was all encompassing.
Speaker 4 (31:09):
I bet the Beatles had a lot to do with
that too, just like it was so cool.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah, yeah, he was an icon hanging out with icon. Yeah,
that's really cool.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
Yeah, speaking of him, Mari, she how was he viewed
in the community, and and then I would also like
to connect that to how it informed your next book.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Great, I mean he was to me. I mean, I'll
just speak from my experience. He was like an omnipresent god,
Like I believe that he had the ability to know
my thoughts and feelings and you know know if I
had been meditating regularly or not, although that obviously faded.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
I got more magazines.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
Yeah, Cosmo really saved both of our lives. Actually, Cosmo
girl to it really helped me deconstruct.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
I became a lady because of it. Was like, this
is my other way of being, Like I could go
to cocktail parties.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
And data and nice to get it data and nice.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
So you're allowed to read Cosmo because I got tips
and I got.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
A Cosmo subscription. Your parents, you know, I would say,
like ten tips to blame.
Speaker 4 (32:19):
They didn't look at it. Wow, I was like, here's
my Cosmo. I got seventeen. I got I got seventeen,
I got Cosmo. But yeah, I don't think I was allowed.
I'm surprised you were allowed.
Speaker 5 (32:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
When I was, we got like a thing where you
got like eighteen magazines, and I just chose a lot
of them, and they just didn't even like a magazine
descriptions were for a cult kad in those decades.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
I don't know where I would be without magazines. And
to be fair, very brainwashed in many different directions where
I'm like twenty ways to give him an orgasm, like yes,
when I need two different things in my brain.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Skinny as humanly possible. So yeah, yeah, interesting.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Well, you know everybody's off ramp looks different, you know,
that's that's when it looks.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
I do remember. I remember that.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
I like learned how you're supposed to answer the phone
sounding like you just finished having sex star what Hello?
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Hello?
Speaker 1 (33:21):
This is from so Long.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
No, No, that's from Cosmo.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Do you still do that? I assume.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
I mean I try not to, but sometimes.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
It just comes. Okay.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
So he's like he's like a god. And you I imagine
in this like slow awakening that you were having started
to kind of see that more for what it was.
Can you talk about that and how that evolved over
the years for you.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Yeah, I'll try and condense this because it really was
a long process. But like so for example, you know,
when we had birthday parties at school or celebrations, there
would be like always like these giant cakes and they
would cut them and they'd take the first slice of cake.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
And put it in front of Mary. She's photographed.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
I think there was a point where I was like,
that's lame, you know, like I don't think that's cool.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
I don't like that.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
And I feeling just grew That's basically my personality and
view of life. But yeah, over time, I just started,
like as I was teenager, I was like just really
rebellious and exploring other ways of being and drinking and doing.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Drugs and whatever.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
And I left for college and I wrote Greetings from
Utopia Park. It came out in twenty sixteen, and I
would say during the reporting of that, I did start
to get a more nuanced view of him. I would say,
of like just really understanding him as a person instead
of this like figure you know who was just controlling
(34:58):
everything from Afar. That has changed my perspective on so
many things where you know, I would read I remember
reading this book by this woman who said she had
an affair with him, and she talks about their like
pillow chats together and he's talking about his ambitions and like,
you know, his interest in banking and politics, and it
(35:21):
just kind of made me be like, oh wow, like
he's just like a man's surreal.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Yeah, Like I.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Think he was trying to have her go on birth
control and like, truly I grew up with him as
like a deity who was like sexless and ageless and
you know, enlightened. But I also kind of wondered as
I got older and doing that book, like what it
cost him? You know, like what does it mean that
he never came? Like did it feel terrible to be
(35:52):
around us? You know, like did it feel incredibly isolating?
Speaker 4 (35:57):
You have these very curious perspective on almost like the
characters that are these figures, the complexity and not just
like this sort of evil person who's a leader, And
I think that's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
I should just say, like he like never did anything
to my family that like I hold against him. So
it's it's I can kind of do that empathy exercise.
But I feel like you guys have a lot of
people who come on your show hoogo art like from
totally different things. So I'm not saying like everybody should
be extended that thought exercise. But for me it was
(36:34):
it was kind of liberating in a way of like, oh,
he's he's a regular person who was ex age from
this province, and like, did it feel awesome and powerful
to be living in like a little room in Holland
where you were calling all the shots or did it
feel like sad? And so that perspective informed my next
(36:55):
book somewhat.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:56):
So I guess that's a good place to transition into
this book that you've written, which is a biography called
Sister Center, The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Amy
Semple McPherson. So come back next week for part two.
We have more to talk about, and that concludes part
one with Claire Hoffman. Megan, Yes, would you join TM Yes,
(37:22):
you literally already have already joined it. Would you join deeper?
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Yes? Absolutely? And are you going to maybe you do
have the money too?
Speaker 2 (37:32):
No?
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Okay, imant important distinction.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
No, but move into Iowa living on a commune and
just meditating.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
That sounds so fun.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
I went on a meditation retreat to France for graduate school,
where we were silent for like ten days, I mean
for hours a day. We could talk at dinner and stuff.
It was like the best week of my life, best
ten days of my life. When I got back to
the States, I was having crazy auditory hallucination.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
That's actually what I was going to ask. Did you hallucinate?
Oh yeah, when you were there, you were no.
Speaker 5 (38:07):
Once I got back, I took a nap and I
woke up and it sounded like I had five billion children,
and my chest screaming.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Oh that happens to me sometimes when I'm half asleep,
that it actually does. Like my sleep paralysis is well,
I keep my eyes closed because I'm too scared of demons,
not literal demons, but seeing a demonish figure. But what
happens to me when I get sleep paralysis is I
hear It's so scary.
Speaker 5 (38:33):
And we did. We did an episode with the guy
who who talked about how meditation just increases the likelihood
of those audits.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Yeah, hallucinations.
Speaker 4 (38:41):
We talk about that with Nittai Joseph is his name, Yes,
wonderful guest, love to That was a few years ago. Now, Wow,
time flies, It really does, especially when you're not meditating.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
So we're so glad you spent this episode with us.
Speaker 5 (38:57):
We can't wait to talk to you and her next week,
and as always, remember to follow your gut, watch out
for red flags, and never ever trust me.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Bye.
Speaker 4 (39:10):
This has been an exactly right production hosted by me Lola.
Speaker 5 (39:13):
Blanc and Me Megan Elizabeth. Our senior producer is g.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Holly. This episode was mixed by John Bradley.
Speaker 5 (39:19):
Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain, and our guest booker
is Patrick Kottner.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Trust Me as executive produced by Karen Kilgareth, Georgia Hartstark
and Danielle Kramer. You can find us on Instagram at
trust Me podcast or on TikTok at trust Me coult podcast.
Got your own story about cults, extreme belief, our manipulation,
shoot us an email at trustmepod at gmail dot com.
Listen to trust Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts
Trust me? Do you trust me?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Right? Ever?
Speaker 3 (00:04):
Lead you wish your trust?
Speaker 1 (00:06):
This is the truth, the only truth.
Speaker 4 (00:09):
If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't
welcome to trust me. The podcast about cults, extreme belief
and manipulation from two levitators who've actually experienced it, not
the levitation though.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I'm Lola Blanc and I'm Megan Elizabeth.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
Today is part one of our interview with Claire Hoffman,
former member of a transcendental meditation community and author of
two different books we're going to talk about, but for today,
we're going to discuss her book, Greetings from Utopia Park,
Surviving a Transcendent Childhood, which is about her childhood growing
up on a commune like trailer park organized around transcendental meditation.
(00:47):
In part one today, she's going to tell us why
her mother started practicing TM, what it felt like arriving
at Maharishi's school at age six, and growing up in
the meditation focused community, what levitation actually was, and why
life there was actually kind of magical and gave.
Speaker 5 (01:01):
Her a sense of purpose when she was young. She'll
talk about how she began to question the group and
the unhealthy worship of the leader almost like he was
a god. How Cosmo Magazine factored in, and how doing
research for her book and learning about how much he
was really just a human man shaped her perspective on
idol worship and helped inform her next book.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Real Quick. Some context for folks, So.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Transcendental meditation is a meditation practice initially popularized by a
man named I think I'm pronouncing it correctly Maharishi Mahesh Yogi,
who was the Guru to the Beatles and lots of
very very famous people in the nineteen seventies, and most
people use it relatively harmlessly, since it's just one of
many meditation techniques and directing your focus through meditation can
(01:45):
be generally helpful for folks, but some former members who
were deeper in reported levels of control and isolation, an
inordinate amount of worship of Maharishi and his alleged special powers,
prohibitively expensive courses claiming to offer enlightenment, and claims that
the TM community alone knows the right way to meditate,
so some do consider it a cult. David Lynch, may
(02:08):
he rest in peace, made it more popular, and most
likely that's the more chill version that your friends are
practicing today, but that is a little bit of context
for what we're going to talk about. Absolutely, before we
do talk about it, Megan, please kindly tell me your
cultiest thing.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
The cultiest thing of the week for me is that
I have been infected by TM. We go into it
a little bit into the episode. I got taught it.
I was given a mantra and every day I feel
guilty twice a day for not doing it.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
You feel guilty twice a day sounds healthy. I can't
get over the mantra thing. The mantra thing will never
cease to be funny to me because it is just
based on your birthday, yes, and it's presented as this
like big mysterious otherworldly thing, right.
Speaker 5 (02:54):
Well, at least it's not like the final Boss in
Scientology where they hand you a crown drawing of like
a it's true.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
But it's misleading.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Like I feel like people go in thinking it's this
like mystical, you know, specialized.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Like maybe nobody even else even has it.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
Yeah, yeah, but it's it's no, there's like one kind
of them.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
You're one of ten.
Speaker 4 (03:16):
Yeah, yeah, I wonder what my birthday mantra is. Well,
you could probably go I mean you can google it,
don't you can google it? Oh I was gonna say,
I don't want to pay for it, but if I
can google it, great? Yeah, should we google it right now?
Let's google it right now?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Okay, what is my TM mantra? How do you find
it by putting in your data birth? Okay? Yeah, oh,
here we go mine. It looks like would be kareem. Wow,
what's yours?
Speaker 4 (03:46):
You're selling curing? I'm not telling mine still feels slightly sacred.
Oh no, no, you have to say multiple things. Oh
I see. Oh I had a second course where I
got a longer part of my mantra. Actually, oh, it's
like first there are advanced techniques. You get more words
as you go, but initially it's it's categorized by your age.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Okay, this is too confusing.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
I see it on a website that's trying to expose Tam.
Speaker 5 (04:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
I liked my Tam teacher. I think a lot of
people have really good intentions with it. I don't feel
like I was exploited at all for it, but I
can see how this could turn bad very quickly. Yeah,
if you're like totally, you're gonna Lavi Tate and.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
Shit right, Yeah, so you got you've been infected with this,
and yeah, I'm infected forever.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Anyway, what about you? That's such a tangent. I'm so
sorry everyone.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Okay, here's michaeld Is thing.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
I'm someone for whom politics is a very important part
of my life.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
And social justice. I don't even like that term.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
I feel like that term gets a bad rap, but
social justice is an important part of my life and
basically just like fighting the man, you know, fighting abuses
of power on a governmental level. And and I've attended
a lot of different actions and meetings and events and trainings,
and I have been having a lot of conversations with
friends who also value this sort of thing about how
(05:12):
we can bring more people into come to this stuff
and to like show up for that kind of work.
Because in this day and age and particular, our attention
spans are shot. There's a constant barrage of bad news,
so it's hard to even know what to panic about,
because then the next thing comes that brings a new
(05:32):
wave of panic, you know, so like it's hard to
know how to fight back against that because there's just
so much coming at us all the time. And that
is why in some of these conversations we've been talking about,
like how to motivate people to participate in a cause
and to show up to stuff, because like we'll get
a new news story that's horrific and then we'll react
(05:55):
to it, and then people will go to like a
really big protest, But it's hard to get people to
continue to show up beyond the point where it's like
the top headline in the news story that day, you
know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (06:04):
Yeah, I mean I think I know where you're going
with this. Yeah, I bet you do.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
So, so one of the you know, topics of discussion
is like how to pull more people in and provide
an emotional reward beyond having an outlet for their anger,
because our anger can only last so long, like it metabolizes,
you know. Like so you mean like a culture, I mean,
like maybe some of the things a cult sie but
(06:32):
for good, but for good. And that's a very important
asterisk because as we know, some of these tactics to
recruit people into causes can often be for bad. But
in the case of like building a movement to promote
justice and equality and solidarity, like you do need to
(06:52):
inspire people for the world that they want to create
and not just the world that they're upset about in
that moment. I think some groups are really great at that,
and some groups are more policy driven and it's a
little dry, and you know, it's all different. But there
have been times where I've attended some of these things
(07:13):
and I have almost expected that we were going to
like sing a song or something.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
I'm like, it feels you're like holding a candle ready, yeah, or.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Like waiting for like not a you know, I'm not
a pastor, but like waiting for someone to get up
there who's gonna, like, you know, give a fiery speech
and make me believe in something bigger than myself. And
that is not always what happens. And of course that's
maybe unrealistic to expect all the time. But I will say, like,
I think more people that I know certainly would probably
show up to stuff if it functioned a little teeny
(07:45):
bit more like church. They're going, and they're they're not
only finding purpose, they're finding community, They're feeling emotions, they're
feeling an outlet for their hopelessness, you know what I mean.
And sometimes I think active who are doing such crucial
work I shouldn't generalize, but in some cases, they're so
(08:05):
focused on the important, important work that they're doing that
maybe the seemingly less important component of like the emotional
experience people are having while they're there, isn't as much
of a consideration, which totally makes sense because people's lives
are on the line a lot of the time with.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
This kind of work.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
But yeah, anyway, so that's why I'm like, let's just
sing a song, you know, let's sing a song. Let's
join hands. Some places are good about that though. We
talked about alan On in another episode and how you
get up at the end and end twelve step programs,
how you get up at the end and you like
hold hands and you say the thing together. All I'm
saying is I want a little bit more ritual and
just like it, just like a touch, just like a
(08:43):
little bit more cultiness to just kind of basically motivate
people to keep coming.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
Back and never cross the line into badness. As our goal,
that is always the goal.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Speaking of groups that we're good at making you feel
like a big family.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Let's talk to Claire do it. Welcome Claire Hoffman to
trust me. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
We're excited to talk to you because you have not one,
but two books that we want to talk to you
about today, not one but two cults.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Not one but two cults.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Will be curious to ask her later if she defines
the second one as a cult or TBD.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
We will ask you that, but not yet. So the
two books.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
First, there was Greetings from Utopia Park, Surviving in Transcendent
Childhood that is about your own childhood growing up on
a commune.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
Correct commune ish yesh.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Okay, yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
And the second book, which we will also get into,
is called Sister Sinner, The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance
of Amy Semple McPherson. So let's dive in, and first,
can you just tell us a little bit about your
childhood and how your family first joined to this commune
ish that was a transcendental meditation community, right.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah, So my parents met at a transcendental meditation retreat
in the early nineteen seventies near Riverside, California. Actually they
were My mom was from New York and my dad
was from Santa Cruz. But they met and kind of
instantly fell in love, and they were both to different
degrees kind of followers of Marishima Heshiogi, who was this
(10:25):
guy that the Beatles were super into, and who was
teaching this transcendental meditation technique to a lot of college
students all around the world and especially in American universities.
That was sort of their evangelical technique, so to speak.
They really they was like thirty five dollars to learn
to meditate, and you know, they very quickly got pregnant
(10:47):
with my brother and got married, and they moved to
New York City where my dad was trying to be
a playwright and my mom was going to fashion design school,
and the kind of fell apart, and you know, my
dad was an alcoholic and super into coke and everything,
and he just left and my mom was like, uh, like,
(11:10):
what do we do? I have these two little kids.
So she moved us to this little town in Iowa
that the Mari she had bought a bankrupt university in
and put out like a call to his followers all
over the world for everyone to move there and practice
meditation together. And kind of extra layer on top of that,
(11:31):
in the late nineteen seventies, he had introduced a new
form of meditation that was called the Tmcity program, which
involved levitating.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Ah, yes, it sounds real.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Everything is real or the opposite, I can't tell.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
So he had he was really into quantum physics, and
he had a mathematical formula that that if large groups
of people got together and practiced this levitation technique, we
would create world peace. My family moved there in nineteen
(12:20):
eighty three with this like sense of purpose to all
meditate together and change the world. And by my family,
I mean my mom and my brother and I my
dad was gone.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
How old were you when you moved there?
Speaker 3 (12:32):
I was six.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Okay, do you think that this is something your mom
would have ever done without your dad kind of bought
them off.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Yeah, yeah, it's a great question.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
I mean my dad was always a little like Saltier,
I would say, and a little more cynical and just
less you know. He would say afterwards like she was
more into it and he was just really into her.
So yeah, I do wonder about that. And just the
incredible d stables. I mean he left I think fifty
dollars on our dining room table, and my mom was like,
(13:04):
what am I going to do?
Speaker 1 (13:05):
And you're in New York City.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Yeah, exactly. It's like, do you want a sandwich? So, yeah,
it was. It was a really tough situation.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
And she, I think that felt like her community in Iowa,
Like those were people that she was connected to through
college and through the TM movement, which is what they
called it, and she sent us. We went to the
mari She School of the Age of Enlightenment, which was
mariy She's Special School K through twelve.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Can you just talk to us about like what the
experience of arriving there was like at such a young age,
Like was that confusing or exciting or like what did
that feel like?
Speaker 3 (13:42):
I mean, I think I was really excited.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
I mean it had been like a super tumultuous time
for us, you know. I mean my mom was like
a really good mom in a lot of ways, so
she created stability, but it's super unstable, and you know,
we got there and I had just this vision of
like a story book, Like I was like, oh, I'm
(14:05):
going to be able to play outside. I was like,
my main thing, I'm going to get to be outside.
Although when we got there, my mom was really scared
of me being kidnapped.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
So because it was the eighties, right, whole milk carton,
a lot of milk carton for us.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Yes, yeah, yeah, I was like, actually, just equally is intense.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
Did you believe in the religion at that age? I
mean like, yeah, oh totally.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I was so in Like I mean, I feel like
my memories are all from those early years in a
palette that is TM. I would say, like if you were,
like AI make a TM like a movie, it would
all be like a TM filter which is pastel colored,
(14:51):
you know, and slightly.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Magical, and yeh yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
I mean there was a lot that really worked for
me as a kid, right, there was a a sense
of purpose and magic and possibility which felt really good.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
I mean, you know, as someone who also believed I
was going to save the world or something.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
As a child, I can attest.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
I mean I was a little older, I was twelve,
but I can attest that, Like that's a really special
and exciting feeling.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
You're like, oh my gosh, I'm a part. It's like
being Harry Potter.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
I'm a part of this bigger thing and I'm like
part of you know, these chosen people.
Speaker 5 (15:26):
It also just sounds like it's so it sounds beautiful.
Am I imagining that correctly like this, it.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Wasn't that big.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I mean, yeah, like we got there, we were still
super poor, and we ended up. I mean, my mom
had gone to college and was getting her master's degree.
My dad had gone to the University of Iowa writer's workshop.
Like my grandfather was a scientist like we were.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
I was a legit writer.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, but but for the cocaine, right right.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
But I mean, like it was I guess more, I'm saying,
like my mom grew up middle class, like her dad
worked at Princeton in a lab. My grandmother was a nurse,
like like we sort of came from a family of
middle class professionals, I would say. And when we got there,
I mean, my mom like there was no work like
she I think she took a job as a waitress
(16:19):
at like a vegetarian cafe, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Like, and we moved.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Really quickly, I mean, which we were really happy about, frankly,
to Utopia Park that's what the book is named after,
which was a meditator only trailer park. So it wasn't
I mean there was like a real rose colored glasses situation,
you know, where like I mean Utopia Park to me
in some ways, says it all right, like it's like, oh,
(16:45):
it's heaven, and by that we mean.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
A trailer park.
Speaker 5 (16:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
Can you paint the picture of just like everyday life,
like what are you doing in the trailer park day
to day?
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Yeah? I mean some of it was awesome because lots
of kids live there from the school, and I could
walk to my school. It was like a mile walk
or maybe less from there, and like all my friends
lived around me. Like trick or treating was awesome, you know,
after school was great. But so the adults in our
town and things are different now, Like this was really
(17:18):
kind of hardcore time for the TM movement. This doesn't
really exist anymore. But the adults would meditate from like
six am to eight am and then five pm to
seven pm. So my mom would be gone during that
time and then come and take us to school and
(17:38):
I would be at school all day, you know, see
my mom for like an hour in between before she
would go meditate, and then you know, everything was just
really organized. According to Maury, She's principles of living, so
you know, like when you wake up, when you eat, like.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
What you eat, how you eat.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
I mean literally, there was a point where they were
sort of prescribing how many shoes to take a beach
bite of food?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Wow? And was it vegetarian? Was that the yea?
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (18:07):
And so was the restaurant your mom working at? Was
that owned by the group or no?
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Okay, yeah, it was like some hippie entrepreneur or something.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
I never know how to refer to him, the Maharishi.
If I don't want to say the full name, what
do I say?
Speaker 3 (18:21):
I just say Mari Si.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
But I've also been told that I say all Indian
things like a South Park character, which made me made
me feel really seen.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
I was like, that's pretty much it. Like I grew
up in Iowa. Actually, like I.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Was nailed it, Mari she.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Yeah, just pretend you're a cartman.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
To what extent were was?
Speaker 4 (18:47):
Were there actual interactions with him, like was he very
involved in the community or.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
No, super Wizard of Ozzie like he always lived when
I was growing up. He was either in India or
in Europe, and apparently they were like has issues, so
he never came. I mean, we also heard that his
state of enlightenment made it hard to be around people,
but wealthy donors would travel to go see him. So
(19:14):
he would communicate with us. You would either get like
trickle down knowledge, like if somebody rich who was like
a donor to the school, they would like go visit
him in India and come back and be like, all
the math now needs to be in Sanskrit or something,
and they'd be like, let's change everything, you know. I
mean they did that literally when I was in sixth grade.
They switched to something called Vedic math, which like destroyed
(19:37):
my brain forever. You can't do that, yeah, yeah, oh,
my standardized test scores were amazing. But otherwise he would
communicate with us through telecast. So like these big for
people to meditate together. They built these two giant golden
(19:58):
dome buildings and that were covered like their big arched
wooden ceilings, and then they had you know, like almost
like bed foam with white sheets across the whole floor,
which was like super fun, but that was for people
to be levitating on. So they would have all the
celebrations and ceremonies there, so like I mean, I think
(20:18):
they each held a couple of thousand people.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
They had the men's dome and the women's dome.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
And he they would put down a big screen and
he would like it was like early days of zoom
or whatever, and he would talk to us, you know,
for five minutes a few.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Times a year.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Did you ever meet him in person?
Speaker 3 (20:36):
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
He was apparently there. I saw him. I have like
a shard of a memory of seeing him. He came
to Fairfield once when I had first moved there, and
I saw him up on stage. But I mean, if
you couldn't imagine the amount of video that I've watched.
Speaker 5 (20:54):
Right right, can you say more about the levitating? Like, yeah,
what is what is the levitating?
Speaker 2 (21:02):
My kids are always like say the same thing. They're like,
can you say more about them?
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Like what do you just google it?
Speaker 3 (21:08):
You guys? Leave me alone?
Speaker 1 (21:09):
There's some mean to me? What is that? What's the levitating?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
So I think cities, like the city techniques come from
like some kind of ancient text like the yoga potandually texts,
So they're not specific to Maurisi. Like it's a book
that you can buy in a bookstore, And I think
the idea is that it promises you sort of superpowers,
Like they are forms of meditation that promise you extraordinary powers,
(21:38):
and he kind of developed them for you know, the
Western world in the seventies, and supposedly initially he was
also teaching like the power to walk through walls and
invisibility and like, you know, there.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Was a lot of imagine sounds real. You have to
stop that teaching pretty quick, should right now?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Yeah, people have barely kind of lost their minds doing it,
and maybe even like the CIA tried to infiltrate, which
is really really wow. Yeah, I mean you feel like
the late seventies like people were just like down for
more magic than they are now totally. Yeah, it's it's
a it's a meditation technique. Like you meditate for like
an hour and then you start seeing these other different mantras.
(22:26):
And there's one the levitation one that's supposed to make
you sort of lift off the air, but no one
as far as I know of, has actually maintained levitation.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
It's a hop.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
It's a hop.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
What does the hop look like?
Speaker 2 (22:41):
It looks like kind of butt hopping or like a yeah,
like it's a kind of it's I mean, some people
achieve more grace and beauty and theory. You're supposed to
be in lotus position, you know, with your like legs
crussed and yeah, you kind of bounce along.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
It reminds me of why does a feather stiff is
a because it's like, yes, technically I'm in the air,
but there is a physically feasible reason why I'm in
the air, which is that there are fingers lifting me.
It just sounds like it would really hurt your back
or your butt. Yeah, did people get injured like levitating hopping?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
That's a great question, not that I know of. That
wasn't like a common complaint. I mean there was they
had like that big old like yellow foam people who
kind of bounce.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
As a child, were you participating in those like, were
you doing long meditations yourself?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
No, you could start to learn in high school, but
like a lot of my friends weren't allowed to learn
because they were deemed not ready or bad.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Interesting, So was it like relatively normal then in terms
of like the structure of your day to.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Day life levitating or to meditate.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
I mean, like because in many cults, the children are
like they either have to like be doing religion all
day long or working, you know, Like, but it's like
you weren't necessarily participating that much in the practices themselves.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Yeah, we meditated twice a day, like the kids meditated
twice a day, and you meditated, so until you're ten,
you would do like a walking meditation that was your age,
so you would like walk around for seven minutes saying
a mantra, and then once you turn ten, you get
a seated meditation, which is the basic meditation that like
(24:25):
all those college students learned in the seventies, Like that
was the kind of entry level TM, and it's like
what just to fast forward now like people learned through
the David Lynch Foundation.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:36):
Yeah, I was going to say, it's like what I
paid five hundred dollars to learn from me?
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yes, teacher, I also dated So.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
For my mantra, how did you go from believing in
this like magical thing where you're like saving the world
basically to having some more skepticism about it?
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Yeah, I mean it kind of was like this confluence
of events. I mean, when I was either eleven or twelve,
my dad came back into our lives. He had done
he had gone through AA and gotten sober and had
you know, been trying to reconnect with us, and he
moved to Iowa.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
He actually moved to Iowa City.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
So we didn't move to I think he tried to
move to Fairfield for like six days and kind of
freaked out and had to.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Move to the Iowa city.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I heard that, Yeah, and so he started being part
of our lives, and I think, you know, I mean,
he's just was like a naturally like very funny, very cynical,
just like kind of sophisticated person, and he would just
make observations.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
I would say that that started to like stick with me. Anyway,
I was.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Twelve and I had this moment at a school assembly
where this will definitely give you my exact age, but
the head of the school and the university made this
announcement that they had just torn the Berlin wall down
and that it was because our meditations have been so
powerful over the last few weeks.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
And I was just like that, that's not true.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Like my meditations, I've been reading Cosmopolitan inside my bedroom
during the time I'm supposed to be just to be meditating,
like that is just not a fact. Wow, that was
It was a real moment.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
Actually.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
What's funny is like I've been at parties, like big
groups of kids that I grew up with, you know,
like when I was in my twenties, and there's like
a number of people that that school assembly was like
the snapping. Yeah, there was just a handful of us
that were like, no.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
That is so interesting because I would think that if
I were in that position, I would you don't believe
it so badly because it would I would want to
feel like I contributed something to the world.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
I don't know if that would be an awakening point
for my teenage Self's that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Yeah, I mean this is why I say, like there
was a bunch of stuff happening around the same time
for me, you know, with my dad coming back and
just like getting older. But it was just I think
it just registered suddenly as completely absurd, and that was
like this moment where the fabric to start to tear,
you know. And it didn't like happen right away. But
(27:22):
my brother was a couple of years older than me,
and he was super rebellious and like got into like
smoking pot and skating, and you know, my mom wasn't
around a lot, like she was working all the time.
First of all, was to afford like our private school
tuition to go to the Marketry School of the Age
of enlighten meant and to afford to be able to
go the domes and to be able to afford like
(27:43):
all the crazy supplements that you needed to do to
achieve higher states of consciousness.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Oh wow, did you have to buy them from them?
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah. I mean that's like I just to like zoom
out for a second. I feel like it's always interesting
looking at religions where you're like, what's.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Your what's your bag? Like what's your shadow? Is it
like sex? Is it like power? Is it violence? Or
is it money?
Speaker 2 (28:08):
And we were definitely like it was a money thing,
as you can tell by the deal you got.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Yeah, yeah, my deal, Yeah exactly, my Montra deal.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Yeah yeah, it's money that usually comes up.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Right.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
What was the emotional response to being like this is bullshit?
Speaker 3 (28:24):
I think I.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Felt myself just retreat into myself more and become more
interested in the outside world. And I mean I will say,
like TM wasn't like a high control situation, you know,
like I how did I leave? Like I got on
a plane to go move in with my dad, and
like no one tried to stop me, and no one's
(28:46):
ever tried to stop me from saying anything, and like
it's it's not.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
It's not like that.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Quick note for our listeners, Like we have talked about
in many previous episodes, different people can have a whole
range of experiences in the same group depending on the context.
We did actually interview Patrick Ryan and Joe Kelly, who
can talk a little bit more about a different experience
of TM.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
It was a very intensely devotional atmosphere, and people, you know,
would pay a cost for not showing that devotion, you know.
Like so there was a point where just as an example,
like people were not being allowed to meditate in the
domes that went to go see other Indian like teachers, cheating,
(29:32):
cheating exactly.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
I moved in with my dad, so that was kind
of easy, But I mean I wasn't until like, I
mean I was in college and I remember being like, wait,
like could I actually marry somebody who didn't do TM right?
You know, like could I Like there were a lot
of ways that I was like my brain had been
fiddled with.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
And my mom still lives.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
There, Oh really is it still tmy?
Speaker 2 (30:00):
It's super tmmy, it's just not quite as vibrant. I
were not as big as it used to be. And Mary,
she's been dead for like fifteen years. So I think
David Lynch was a good thing for the TM movement
in the sense that he sort of returned it back
to the simple, like just the meditation technique, unless of
the guru culture. So I'm assuming when you learned TM,
(30:23):
like you didn't really learn a lot about.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Marie She not at all.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
It was it was very celebrity they Lynch says, this
is what keeps him creative and clear.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Yeah, there wasn't.
Speaker 5 (30:36):
You know, threads back too, and there's whole community is
that this is helping to support.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I don't I still practice TM,
is the truth, Yeah, I imagine, so it's very helpful.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Actually yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Yeah, but that wasn't That's why I sort of always
say it was a moment in time in terms of
the eighties and the nineties. It just like it was
when mari She was alive and the people who had
first sort of formed his movement, their level of devotion
and sense of his importance was all encompassing.
Speaker 4 (31:09):
I bet the Beatles had a lot to do with
that too, just like it was so cool.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Yeah, yeah, he was an icon hanging out with icon. Yeah,
that's really cool.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
Yeah, speaking of him, Mari, she how was he viewed
in the community, and and then I would also like
to connect that to how it informed your next book.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Great, I mean he was to me. I mean, I'll
just speak from my experience. He was like an omnipresent god,
Like I believe that he had the ability to know
my thoughts and feelings and you know know if I
had been meditating regularly or not, although that obviously faded.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
I got more magazines.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
Yeah, Cosmo really saved both of our lives. Actually, Cosmo
girl to it really helped me deconstruct.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
I became a lady because of it. Was like, this
is my other way of being, Like I could go
to cocktail parties.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
And data and nice to get it data and nice.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
So you're allowed to read Cosmo because I got tips
and I got.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
A Cosmo subscription. Your parents, you know, I would say,
like ten tips to blame.
Speaker 4 (32:19):
They didn't look at it. Wow, I was like, here's
my Cosmo. I got seventeen. I got I got seventeen,
I got Cosmo. But yeah, I don't think I was allowed.
I'm surprised you were allowed.
Speaker 5 (32:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
When I was, we got like a thing where you
got like eighteen magazines, and I just chose a lot
of them, and they just didn't even like a magazine
descriptions were for a cult kad in those decades.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
I don't know where I would be without magazines. And
to be fair, very brainwashed in many different directions where
I'm like twenty ways to give him an orgasm, like yes,
when I need two different things in my brain.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Skinny as humanly possible. So yeah, yeah, interesting.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Well, you know everybody's off ramp looks different, you know,
that's that's when it looks.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
I do remember. I remember that.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
I like learned how you're supposed to answer the phone
sounding like you just finished having sex star what Hello?
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Hello?
Speaker 1 (33:21):
This is from so Long.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
No, No, that's from Cosmo.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Do you still do that? I assume.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
I mean I try not to, but sometimes.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
It just comes. Okay.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
So he's like he's like a god. And you I imagine
in this like slow awakening that you were having started
to kind of see that more for what it was.
Can you talk about that and how that evolved over
the years for you.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Yeah, I'll try and condense this because it really was
a long process. But like so for example, you know,
when we had birthday parties at school or celebrations, there
would be like always like these giant cakes and they
would cut them and they'd take the first slice of cake.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
And put it in front of Mary. She's photographed.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
I think there was a point where I was like,
that's lame, you know, like I don't think that's cool.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
I don't like that.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
And I feeling just grew That's basically my personality and
view of life. But yeah, over time, I just started,
like as I was teenager, I was like just really
rebellious and exploring other ways of being and drinking and doing.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Drugs and whatever.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
And I left for college and I wrote Greetings from
Utopia Park. It came out in twenty sixteen, and I
would say during the reporting of that, I did start
to get a more nuanced view of him. I would say,
of like just really understanding him as a person instead
of this like figure you know who was just controlling
(34:58):
everything from Afar. That has changed my perspective on so
many things where you know, I would read I remember
reading this book by this woman who said she had
an affair with him, and she talks about their like
pillow chats together and he's talking about his ambitions and like,
you know, his interest in banking and politics, and it
(35:21):
just kind of made me be like, oh wow, like
he's just like a man's surreal.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Yeah, Like I.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Think he was trying to have her go on birth
control and like, truly I grew up with him as
like a deity who was like sexless and ageless and
you know, enlightened. But I also kind of wondered as
I got older and doing that book, like what it
cost him? You know, like what does it mean that
he never came? Like did it feel terrible to be
(35:52):
around us? You know, like did it feel incredibly isolating?
Speaker 4 (35:57):
You have these very curious perspective on almost like the
characters that are these figures, the complexity and not just
like this sort of evil person who's a leader, And
I think that's really interesting.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
I should just say, like he like never did anything
to my family that like I hold against him. So
it's it's I can kind of do that empathy exercise.
But I feel like you guys have a lot of
people who come on your show hoogo art like from
totally different things. So I'm not saying like everybody should
be extended that thought exercise. But for me it was
(36:34):
it was kind of liberating in a way of like, oh,
he's he's a regular person who was ex age from
this province, and like, did it feel awesome and powerful
to be living in like a little room in Holland
where you were calling all the shots or did it
feel like sad? And so that perspective informed my next
(36:55):
book somewhat.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:56):
So I guess that's a good place to transition into
this book that you've written, which is a biography called
Sister Center, The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Amy
Semple McPherson. So come back next week for part two.
We have more to talk about, and that concludes part
one with Claire Hoffman. Megan, Yes, would you join TM Yes,
(37:22):
you literally already have already joined it. Would you join deeper?
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Yes? Absolutely? And are you going to maybe you do
have the money too?
Speaker 2 (37:32):
No?
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Okay, imant important distinction.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
No, but move into Iowa living on a commune and
just meditating.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
That sounds so fun.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
I went on a meditation retreat to France for graduate school,
where we were silent for like ten days, I mean
for hours a day. We could talk at dinner and stuff.
It was like the best week of my life, best
ten days of my life. When I got back to
the States, I was having crazy auditory hallucination.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
That's actually what I was going to ask. Did you hallucinate?
Oh yeah, when you were there, you were no.
Speaker 5 (38:07):
Once I got back, I took a nap and I
woke up and it sounded like I had five billion children,
and my chest screaming.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Oh that happens to me sometimes when I'm half asleep,
that it actually does. Like my sleep paralysis is well,
I keep my eyes closed because I'm too scared of demons,
not literal demons, but seeing a demonish figure. But what
happens to me when I get sleep paralysis is I
hear It's so scary.
Speaker 5 (38:33):
And we did. We did an episode with the guy
who who talked about how meditation just increases the likelihood
of those audits.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Yeah, hallucinations.
Speaker 4 (38:41):
We talk about that with Nittai Joseph is his name, Yes,
wonderful guest, love to That was a few years ago. Now, Wow,
time flies, It really does, especially when you're not meditating.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
So we're so glad you spent this episode with us.
Speaker 5 (38:57):
We can't wait to talk to you and her next week,
and as always, remember to follow your gut, watch out
for red flags, and never ever trust me.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Bye.
Speaker 4 (39:10):
This has been an exactly right production hosted by me Lola.
Speaker 5 (39:13):
Blanc and Me Megan Elizabeth. Our senior producer is g.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Holly. This episode was mixed by John Bradley.
Speaker 5 (39:19):
Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain, and our guest booker
is Patrick Kottner.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Trust Me as executive produced by Karen Kilgareth, Georgia Hartstark
and Danielle Kramer. You can find us on Instagram at
trust Me podcast or on TikTok at trust Me coult podcast.
Got your own story about cults, extreme belief, our manipulation,
shoot us an email at trustmepod at gmail dot com.
Listen to trust Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts
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