February 11, 2026 • 52 mins
This week, the show is joined by Parvati Shallow, two-time Survivor winner, current cast member on The Traitors, and author of Nice Girls Don’t Win: How I Burned it All Down to Claim My Power. Parvati shares about her childhood growing up in the Kashi Ashram, a high-control commune led by Joyce Green–or, as she made everyone call her, “Ma”. She discusses Joyce’s origin story and how she claimed to have experienced the stigmata, Joyce’s relationship with Ram Dass (who he later said he’d been bamboozled by her), and how she became increasingly coercive and controlling, including taking children from their parents and instructing members to scam their own families for money.
Parvati reflects on how her parents escaped but ultimately came back to the group, what it was like living on the commune and being wild in nature, and how surviving that environment shaped her instincts, resilience, and ability to read people–skills that later helped her win Survivor, and how she’s now unpacking what it means to reclaim her power on her own terms.
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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 lead you astray?
Speaker 3 (00:06):
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 of course, manipulation from two survivors have actually experienced it.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I'm Lola Blanc and I'm Megan Elizabeth Wow.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Today our guest is Poverty Shallow, reality TV icon who's
won Survivor twice and is currently on Traders, and author
of new memoir Nice Girls Don't Win. How I Burned
it all down to claim My Power. She's joining us
today to talk about her childhood in a commune called
the Kashi Ashram, led by a woman named Joyce Green,
who made everyone call her Ma. She'll tell us about
(00:50):
Ma's history, including her relationship with Ram Doss, who said
he had been bamboozled by her, and some of the
controlling behaviors that Ma exhibited in the group, including taking
children from their parents and making members scam their own
families for money.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
She'll talk about how her parents escaped but ultimately came
back to the group, what it was like living on
the commune, being wild in nature, and how some of
the good and some of the bad of the group
helped give her some of her skills she needed to
win Survivor later on. Plus how she processed everything that's
happened to her. And that's cult resilience. And we have
(01:25):
an episode on it.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
That's right. No, Parmony's book is really really great.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
I connected with so much of it in there, and
we'll talk about a little bit of it in this episode.
Wish we could talk about it with her own five
more episodes.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I know, it's really interesting to see a female cult
leader because so many of them that we talked to
are mone And.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
That's feminism, baby, yep.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Equal rights.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Although you know, we've talked to more people now who
had female cult leaders than I anticipated when we first
started the podcast. You're uncovering more and more I feel, yeah,
and that's feminism baby, totally.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Definitely still disproportionate, but no, for sure more than we expected.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
For sure.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Yes, before we get into this particular woman cult leader
and what poverty experienced with her, Megan, can you tell
me your cultiest thing please?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
My cultiest thing is a documentary I watched this week
on Netflix. It's called House of secrets, very dark.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
House of Secrets is not the Army Hammer one. No,
that's is that called something similar?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Maybe it's called House of Secrets the Berrari Deaths and
I'd never heard of it before. I went into it
very blind, thinking what's this about? And it turns very culty.
I won't spoil it, but please, if you're gonna watch it. No,
It's like I almost feel like I'm telling people to
(03:01):
watch the real life version of the ring, Like I'm
like passing on some like, oh no, first.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Because it's so dark and upsetting, so upsetting. But I'm
also trying to keep it grounded because these are real
people and I don't want to sensationalize it, and like
they deserve, you know, to the story deserves to be told.
So if you want to see it, watch it. I'm
gonna contact people from it this week to try to
get somebody who knows about the case on the show.
(03:31):
I don't want to spoil it per se, but shall
I tell you a.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Little bit about it? Yeah? Tell me a little.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
In this city in India, they find eleven members of
a family hanging in their house. In this very intricate pattern.
All of their hands are tight like and some of
them are young children, know, all of their hands are
tied behind their back, all of their mouths are taped,
(03:57):
there's cloth over their eyes, and nothing is disturbed. They
can't figure out, like, it doesn't seem like it was
a break in, you know what I mean, It seems
it seems like it was a suicide.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
But they just can't.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Figure out how eleven people would do that. Then they
find this notebook where one of the uncles was communicating
with their dead grandfather, so his father. Oh, so he
was getting all of his life advice from his father.
And this is just completely ruining the end, which is,
(04:33):
you know, a murder mystery that if you want to
watch it, you should watch it, so skip this part.
But basically this uncle is like, oh, we have to
do a ritual of killing ourselves and at the very
last second we'll be freed and we'll have amazing karma.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Oh no, oh no, that's so horrible. Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, I mean, and a lot of really interesting psych
callous and stuff in India on the documentary just talking
about like how it just really showed. One woman says
something so interesting, which was like It showed me what
is the difference between my belief and a delusion? And
like our where does faith and and a delusion starts?
You know? And so yeah, I've never seen anything like it.
(05:19):
It's heartbreaking and it's a topic I would love to
explore further with somebody who worked on the case or
knows more about it.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Yeah, Oh my gosh, I have to know more. I'm
like scared to watch, but I also.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Really want to know.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yeah, yeah, you know more about the case. Yeah, it's
pretty it's pretty intense. Well, no, it's extremely intense. So yeah,
you got to be ready for that level of horror.
But like I said, it's worth knowing how these things happen,
you know.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah, yeah, because.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Basically, you know, the like father's authority is so important
in India that when his father died, it's like, did
it trigger a psychosis in this uncle where like he
needed to be hearing from his dad or like, right,
it brings us back to that age old question of
like did he think he was really talking to her
his dad or was he just trying to control his family?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
You know?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Anyway, what's your cultiest thing of the week. Well, to
switch tones for a second here please, So you know listeners,
longtime listeners will know. I am a quite political person.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
I always have been, and I joined an organization that
I love currently, But like any organization, it's full of
humans and it's ups and downs, and it depends on
which chapter you're in, et cetera, et cetera. I'm a
member of DSA DSA LA, which is the Democratic Socialist
of America, which Zoramum Donnie came out of DSA. New
York Bernie Sanders is very associated with DSA, And it's.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
The first time I'm like, oh.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Yeah, like this is how I would join a cult
because I feel so much better about Like it gives
me meaning and purpose, Like obviously there's been so much
in our country that's just off, and I am someone
like I really only feel okay when I feel like
I'm doing something instead of just handwringing and doom scrolling.
(07:08):
And it's been hard to figure out, like in all
my years of LA, it's been hard to figure out,
like where do I plug in?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Where am I useful?
Speaker 4 (07:14):
How can I help beyond like posting in my story
was just nothing, you know, I mean, it does something,
it doesn't do nothing. But it's not great, it's not ideal.
You know, you want to like actually be doing work.
And so now I'm more involved in this organization that
is electing candidates here in LA who share my same
values and doing a lot of great work to combat
(07:36):
ice and doing a lot of great work for all
kinds of issues that I care about, the environment, queer liberation,
Palestinian liberation, all of it. So right now I'm like, ah,
thank god, I have some political community with people who
share like we all want to just make the world better,
and we're trying to figure it out together, and you know,
the goal obviously is to create a larger movement of
(07:57):
people who want to do this with us and get
politicians in office who are not beholden to like billionaire interests.
So anyway, I'm like able to be useful and that's
such a great feeling. And this particular organization is democratic,
like there are elections, it's it's democratic, so there's not
like a leader that's like dictating everything. So that's why
it feels healthy and fine for me at least right now.
(08:19):
But I can just totally see, you know, like we're
such an atomized nation, like we feel so lonely and
like we can't do anything. And it's just like such
a perfect time for an organization that maybe isn't democratic
to swoop in and be like I have the community
and the answers for you, and this is how you're
gonna make the world better.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
You know.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
It's like somebody cult start with those same ingredients. And
I'm like, if there weren't elections, like I'd be so
susceptible right now.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, now it's worth noting. I mean, we all are
right now because everybody has strong opinion, I mean hopefully
has strong opinions about what's happening in the world right
now one way or another.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
And yeah, it's a very vulnerable time.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Yeah, and we're all it's like with a lot of
division division in my life with people I love very much,
and so it's it's just so like healing.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
I hate the word healing.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
It just like feels really nice to be like standing
like doing work next to people who understand basically is
the thing. And we're like, you know, able to actually
make a difference politically in our city. So you know,
if there's a cult, I would join it to be a
political one. Hopefully this is not one. I don't think
it is. I think they're doing really great work. But
(09:31):
I can see, you know, I could see the path
like I could see how it could happen.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Oh no, well I'll keep an eye on you.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Thank you. I know this, you know, and I'll let
you know. Great.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
But listen, I'm aware that it could happen, and that's
the first step.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Perfect. You're actually very correct. Yes, just no know your
vulnerabilities exactly. Speaking of vulnerabilities, good, good segue. Yes it
shall we talk to poverty. Let's talk to Parverty. Welcome Parverty,
Shadow to trust me.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Thank you so much for.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Joining us, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
When we told people you were coming on, the reactions
were so I had multiple people be like, shut, I
love Parvety.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
People were so excited. So we're very excited as well
to have you.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Oh my god, me too.
Speaker 5 (10:24):
I feel like the conversation topics that you guys discuss
is really my wheelhouse.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Amazing.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Yeah, well, we both just finish your book and there's
so much to talk about.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
But first, obviously this is a cult podcast.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Your parents were in a cult when you were a child,
and can you just tell us a little bit about
how they first joined the Is it the Kashi Ashram.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Yeah, I did write about this in my book, and
both my parents they were was sort of the moment
in time when India and gurus were here bringing meditation
in go to the West. So a lot of people
in the United States were disillusioned with the government structure.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
It was the Vietnam War.
Speaker 5 (11:10):
Catholicism was kind of the predominant religion, I would say,
and I think it was just very controlling and a
lot of people were looking for some kind of way
to claim their freedom and serve in a spiritual way
and be a part of the solution make love not war.
And my parents both met this. I mean, she was
(11:33):
a self proclaimed guru. She was not from India. She
was Her name was Joyce Green. She was born in
Brooklyn and good old joy She was like a married mom,
Jewish mom from Brooklyn, and then went to this weight
(11:54):
loss clinic after she'd had her babies to lose some
weight and she learned breath work there and then that
sort of like opened up these hours for her and
she claimed to have had the stigmata, even though no
one else witnessed this except for her best friend friend.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
It's not your best you she won't vouch for your stigmata.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Yeah, I mean a T shirt.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
So yeah, her best friend was like, yep, she really
was having this great movie, by the way, stigmata but
like bleeding from the you know, from the hands and
all the things that Jesus experienced, which.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Is interesting because she's raised Jewish and then she's saying, oh,
I'm doing this Jesus thing, but then she's doing this
Eastern religion like she's really mishmashing it all up here.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
Well, they do say that Jesus went and trained with
the yogis, so he kind of considered a mystic in
that way and learned that sort of meditation technology.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
But I mean, I don't who's a sick yea.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
This woman also said, I mean she was very charithmatic,
she was very power full, she had some kind of
spiritual mojo because she was having meetings with I mean,
she dated Rhomdas for a while.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
I love that lure doul so, I mean, not only
did she date him, he was like a devotee and
then he was like, wait, you're a fraud.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
Yeah, and literally wrote an article about it, which I loved.
That detail called in your book called egg on my beard,
saying that he'd been duped by this woman.
Speaker 5 (13:27):
Right because she was saying that she needed gold jewelry
to kind of tether her to this earthly plane.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
I think of that.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Can you can you kind of tell us what this
woman looked like in the height of her this white woman,
shall I say, very.
Speaker 6 (13:45):
Tan, okay, very damn Barry Tan could pass for Indiana,
had long dark hair, always wore the bindi dripping in gold,
always dripping and gold kind of war sorries, the like
Indian kind of clothing.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
She dressed the part.
Speaker 5 (14:17):
I was born there, and then my parents fled the commune,
and then they ended up going back, which you know,
it takes people many times to leave an abusive situation,
and so they went back because it was all they
knew and sort of the only community they had. And
things were okay for a while, and then the rampage occurred,
(14:40):
which was sort of it was like the hallmarks of
that time where the guru was getting more aggressive, like
physically violent, and people would be in meditation and she
would have these all night meditations, so it was like
she was using sleep deprivation. If anyone knotted off, would
(15:00):
kick them or slap them to wake them up.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
My god.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah, and she.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
Was saying that this time, like if you couldn't handle it,
you were weak. So she was like using people's humanity
against them and saying she was clearing their karma at
an accelerated right.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, that's one of the things I was going to say.
I mean, it sounds like one of the reasons your
parents returned is because it seemed as though she'd put
a curse on them. So she's like promising to clear
your karma, also saying I can put a curse on you,
and like if bad things were happening, which they were
when your family left, it kind of makes it easy
to say, oh, like she's right, you know, very bad
(15:41):
timing on that front. Why did they leave initially?
Speaker 5 (15:43):
Again, they left because they recognized that they couldn't have freedom.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
It wasn't really what they'd been sold.
Speaker 5 (15:52):
They were sold this community of like minded spiritual seekers
that were going to support one another and create a
sort of utopian, ideal neighborhood. And it turned into like
the Guru was surveilling people's phone calls, she was arranging marriages.
If people were dating without her approval, she would have
(16:12):
them broken up, and like one the man would have
to turn into a celibate monk, and then the woman
would be like assigned to job somewhere else on the commune.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
She was just it was very like whiplashy.
Speaker 5 (16:25):
I think for them where they realized like, oh no,
we gotta get out of here.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
There might have.
Speaker 5 (16:31):
Been a specific moment, but I'm not remembering right now.
I mean I was told all these stories, right because.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
Yeah, yeah, and then they do leave, And then, as
Megan was saying, it seems like maybe.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
The curses real.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Was your understanding of what brought them back, because that's
always just something that's so interesting to me. Obviously, we do,
like you said, see that in abusive relationships all the time.
A lot of the people we talked to, I feel like,
once they leave, their out, And maybe part of that
is because you know, the cult members will disconnect and
you'll be considered someone who's like bad and that shouldn't
(17:09):
be spoken to after or because you physically have to leave.
So I feel like I don't think we've had on
as many guests who like kept going back necessarily. It's
almost like once you've subretised with the cult, you've subvertized
with the cult. So I find those stories really interesting.
And when people do return after they have first made
that decision, just curious if you knew more about their reasoning.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
How you know what?
Speaker 5 (17:28):
I think it was the woman the guru, her name
was Ma. This is the name she gave herself.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
She co opted, like she gave herself the title of mother,
yeah of the community.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
So it really was this sort of like it reminds
me of narcissistic mothers or that kind of relationship where
they will use guilt or emotionally manipulate their children or
say they're bad, or say they're like they owe their
mom something. And I think for my parents, the guilt
was such a conditioned response because they grew up Catholic,
(18:05):
where there's so much guilt involved in being a Catholic,
and it's really is what manipulates people's behavior is through guilts.
So I think there was some of that laying apart.
It was like the distorted mother where they just they
wanted I think everyone in the community wanted the mother
to approve of them, to love them, protect them, guide them,
(18:29):
care for them, and they got glimpses of it. It was
like little bits of that kind of love, sort of
like how narcissists will like dangle the carrot and they
just keep you chasing this perceived goal.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
It's just part enough off in the distance.
Speaker 5 (18:44):
Then they moved the goalpost, and then they moved again,
and they're like, oh.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
I can never get there. It makes you freaking crazy.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
So I think it was some of that where it
was like they also didn't have enough of their own structure,
safety community the outside of that, Like my mom, they
didn't have anywhere to go. They moved back in with
my mom's parents, and there was like her sister, my
mom's sister was escaping an abusive marriage and her kids
(19:12):
weren't there, and it was just chaos everywhere, and they
were like, nobody understands us. And I think there was
some peace living in this commune because it was so
close to nature, like we ran around barefoot. Was very
sort of like survivor environmental environmentally. Yeah, so I'm like, oh, well, no,
(19:32):
wonder I recreated this five times in my life.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Tell us more.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
I think that's a good way to transition us into
talking about what you experienced before your family left the cult.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
What was that like?
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Yeah, for me.
Speaker 5 (19:48):
I felt like there was freedom as a child because
I was running around with a group I had, like
a girl gang that I ran with, and we were.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Just we wore whatever we wanted to weigh.
Speaker 5 (20:01):
It felt like we were fairal children, sort of like
swimming in a pond, running around barefoot in the woods,
going to these fire ceremonies at night, where all my
friends would be there, all the adults would be there,
everyone's chanting and singing. It was all this kind of
like ecstatic communion with nature and this mysticism, this magic
(20:23):
existed there where it felt like something really special was happening.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
And if the Guru turned her.
Speaker 5 (20:32):
Light on me as a child, I was special in
that moment and I was always like hungry for that
as a kid, because it was strange, like I had
kind of three primary attachment figures I had, but the Guru,
which all the adults and everyone all the kids were
devoted to, and she was taking people babies and having
(20:53):
them live sort of in close proximity to her. There
were some kids that were called MAM's kids that were
seen as a special ones, but they were just sort
of like deeply neglected and abused.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
And like kidnapped from their parents essentially.
Speaker 5 (21:07):
Essentially, but like the parents gave them over sort of
like because they were manipulated into doing so. And yeah,
so there was this like beautiful it's been I've been
really working on untangling it for really, I mean ever
since I was started writing my book. I've been working
on unentangling this because I hadn't looked back at my
(21:28):
childhood at all until I fouled for divorce and moved
out and like got out of my marriage, and then
I had the like space and time to sit and be.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Like how did I get here? How did I make
this in my life?
Speaker 5 (21:41):
And I think it was because I had this experience
as a child of this beautiful, ecstatic kind of like
peek experiences over and over again and then.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Like dry spell like kind of nothing.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
And also there was a chef side of course that
was like not really spoken about in the commune. It
was like this beautiful on the surface, looks perfect on
the surface, is really like everything you could ever want
and dream of gives you all of these beautiful connections,
and then underneath it, it's like there's lying, there's course
(22:19):
of control, there's abuse, there's all this like power over domination, curses,
like so much shadow in there that I just it
was never articulated to me in a way that I
was like, oh, okay, that's what was happening.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
So I had to uncover that for myself later in life.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Right, lots of cognitive dissonance there, Oh my god, so much.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
I can't imagine.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Like the running freely through the woods with your girlfriend's
things sounds yeah, like a fucking dream. Like of course
you'd have these like conflicting ideas about this, because like,
what magical memories those must have been. I grew up
on a farm with woods, eighty acres of land, and
my memories of being in the woods are like the
most precious special thing ever. And if that was combined
(23:05):
with these weird like guru worship, guru taking the children
stuff like that, what a contradiction of feelings that must be.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
It was such a distortion of the mother archetype.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
And she the guru used she said she was teaching
through Collie, which is a goddess in Hinduism who's sort
of like the destroyer of death. So she's one of
the dark goddesses and she teaches through like struggle and suffering,
and pain and death like sort of in the underworld.
But then she's claiming to be this like benevolent mother
(23:42):
and doing these really horrific things.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
So it was like, what is actually happening?
Speaker 5 (23:49):
And as a kid, everything is just normal because it's
the water that you swim in.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
You don't really like I didn't. I had no idea.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
And yeah, I know that you end up going, you
guys end up leaving. But when you're on the commune,
what was the schooling Like?
Speaker 5 (24:06):
There was a school in the community that was like
grade school, so I went there for kindergarten.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
There was a daycare.
Speaker 5 (24:15):
My mom worked in the daycare because everyone just worked
for free.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Of course they do as they do in these groups.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
It's like support the community.
Speaker 5 (24:27):
Give us all your money and your time and your
intentured servitude. And then when I turned when I was
started second grade, we had moved across the street because
my parents were starting to distance themselves. I think they
needed an escape plan that involved more sort of slower
(24:48):
structured stability where they were like, Okay, we're going to
slowly separate so it's not such a harsh cut.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
And in that way they.
Speaker 5 (24:57):
Were able to leave berga right but we first it
was like an intermediary step, sort of like harm reduction.
I think about like Heroin addicts who go on whatever
the suboxen.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Yes, yes, exactly.
Speaker 5 (25:12):
It's like, okay, this seems like we're going to be
dipping our toe in and out. So we lived across
the street in our own house outside of the gates
of the commune, but we would go back for dinners
like group dinners and the fire ceremonies and any kind
of like event that was going on.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
So how did the children that stayed there, Like how
did they learn to do all? I'm always so fascinated,
like how did they learn to read? How did they
learn math? How did they was a traditional classes.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
It's like homeschool.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
I guess, yeah, it was. I don't remember what the
classes were. The only thing I remember is we took
a field trip to an art museum and I remember
the African art exhibits. That's all I remember from school.
And then the Land Before Time story that I told
in my book.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Right, will you will you refresh us with us?
Speaker 5 (26:03):
Yeah, so we took a field trip to the theater
to go see Land Before Time.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
As we all know and love this.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
Movie, loves Land before time? Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3 (26:13):
They're so cute.
Speaker 5 (26:14):
So we're in there and then all of a sudden,
there's like men dressed in black kind of silently moving
through the theater, and then they leave, and then the
teachers are like, we're leaving. So this is mid movie
and we all are forced to get up and leave
in the middle of the movie. And I'm like, what happened?
No one will tell us. We get back on the
(26:34):
bus and go, but there's a kid missing. And it
was this girl named Ganga whose parents had organized a
sting operation to get her back from the Guru because
the Guru would have returned their child.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
This bitch was taking people's babies.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
Like that's so crazy, and like was she taking care
of them or like was she just like mine? And
like they're just living in the house and no one's watching,
Like what was how did that work?
Speaker 3 (27:00):
I mean, I don't really know all the specifics.
Speaker 5 (27:03):
I do know that they were living in like sort
of her chambers, which they had like their own rooms,
and I think it was just like kids rooming with kids,
and so there were like six year olds and thirteen
year olds and like who knows what was going on
in there.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
WHOA.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
I mean, I know some of the things that were
going on, and it wasn't good. Yeah, I can imagine that.
Not my story to tell.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
One of the things that struck me was just how
y'all were living when you were on the compound. Like
it was like closets would be transformed into bedrooms and
just so many people in one area. Like it's kind
of hard to even imagine what that looked like.
Speaker 5 (27:44):
It's like I lived in a sorority house when I
was in college. Yeah, and they had three girls in
one bedroom and it's just a shit show.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah, but you were used to it. You were like,
I lived with three people in a closet, Oh my god.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
And then I go on Survivor and I'm like, oh yeah,
like sleeping in the dirt fine.
Speaker 7 (28:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
It sounds like you were very comfortable in discomfort from
a very young age and that kind of became normal
to you to sort of live in this chaos.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Truly.
Speaker 5 (28:27):
Yeah, like I could step into chaos and be in
a place of power.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Interesting, I'm also shadowing.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
I want to shout out what your parents did when
you left, because one problem that so many people run
into when they do attempt to leave these groups is
if they do it too quickly, they're not going to
have the infrastructure when they leave. They're not going to
have the job or the support system, or it's going
to be too much all at once. And making that
plan and being really careful and measured about it and
making sure you have somewhere to go and somewhere to
(28:57):
land is so important. And it sounds like that's believe
why they were successful in their second attempt, So yeah,
good on them.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
And it took a really long time. I was born there,
they left, they came back, and then when I was nine,
we left for good. So it was like nine years
of them working on finding enough support and then enough
assistance to sort of change the way that they were thinking.
Because the Guru had such mind control over people, and
(29:28):
she really hooked into their fear of They were just
terrified if people left. She would have like a goon
squad go and terrorize them, like scientology, how do you
see people do that? Yeah, she would have people like yeah,
doing crazy stuff to scare people. My dad met these
people at he worked outside of the commune. A lot
(29:48):
of people did, and they worked outside the commune. They
would make money and then the guru would be like, Okay,
pay me the money that you win. So he worked
in a high school and there was a teach there
are two teachers I think that like heard historian. We're like, no,
you need to like get some real support. So they
helped him with some psychotherapy and well, yeah, like mental
(30:11):
health support to get him out of this magical thinking.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
I'm back into a right frame of mind exactly.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
And that's what it feels like. There was this trigger
switch you get. Y'all moved to Atlanta and there was
like some tornadoes and hailstorms and all this scary thing
and scary things, and like the instinct is to be
like we're cursed or whatever. And then I was just like, no,
we're gonna survive this. And there was kind of the
switch from magical thinking and this gurus world to.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Like let's dig in and get through it.
Speaker 5 (30:41):
Yeah, it was a switch to self sovereignty from being
under a spell.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
Yeah, there's a theme kind of recurring throughout your book
where you know, talking about giving yourself this space to
actually really think about what you've been experiencing. And I
you know, we see over and over again, people, one
of the big reasons that they don't leave for so
long is because they don't have the time and the space.
They're not allowed at the time and the space to
(31:07):
pause and think critically about what they're experiencing and what
the contradictions are that the leader is telling them versus
what they're doing. And you know, it's like when you
do start to venture into the outside world and do
some things for yourself and take.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
A little bit of time to actually consider what's part.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Of the design. All part of the design to keep
you busy all the time. And when we spoke to
that Sarah Lawrence kid, he had like two hours by
himself and he deconstructed it's like really interesting how that
works well.
Speaker 5 (31:37):
And it's like this corporeal intensity, right, It's like she's
using sleep deprivation. People are working constantly to keep the
machinery going. I mean, it's sort of everyone kind of
had to learn how to dissociate. Everyone was existing in
(31:58):
fight or flight in that sympathetic nervous system and that's
addictive and it's self reinforcing those chemicals that we have
when we go into the sympathetic nervous system is like, okay,
you're in survival mode.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
We're going to keep you here because it's the only
way you can survive.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
So you're in that scarcity mode of operating in your body.
And then I think once we left the commune, my
parents stayed in that mode of operating because they had
to establish like a whole new life for their kids
without any friends or family or any money, so they
were working multiple jobs. And then my sister and I
were sort of on our own to figure out how
(32:35):
to assimilate into society where there's like clothes and music
and shoes and we're like, what, yeah, that's wild. But
doing the body practices for myself. Once I left my marriage,
I started doing a lot of somatic work to bring
me into a place of recovery in my body, which
(32:58):
created capacity in my nervous system. And then when I
had more space internally in my body and felt safe
in my body, my thoughts changed. It was just this
sort of like cause and effect of creating the safety
inside my body.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
It's so important, it's so important, and I suck it
doing it. No, Like, there's so much there's so much
in your book where you're like, I'm go, go, go go,
I'm like, you know, achieve more, accomplished more, do more.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
And I'm like, that's me. I relate to this very much.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Okay, your parents leave, then you are sort of hit
with this like normal life world.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
What is that transition like?
Speaker 4 (33:41):
And how do you think the cult experiences shaped who
you became?
Speaker 5 (33:48):
I mean, they're completely The foundation from which I built
my entire life was my childhood and those the years
from zero to nine commune. I just I like absorbed
power and strategy and survival and how to stay safe
(34:11):
and how to maneuver in any situation. I knew I
could do that from how I grew up because everyone
on the commune had a different strategy to survive and
I think I just inherited it by being around it
and then moving into And I think also, I'm like,
I'm a very resilient person and I lead with courage
(34:32):
and I love adventure. I'm just like that's my style
of done. I'm a seven on the Endeagram. I've done
all the tests.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
I'm like, you know, like, I know, I'm the prospective,
whiny one. I'm different.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
You can't fight who you are where you are.
Speaker 5 (34:55):
Yeah, so just sort of like I just I found
my way I know I always will. There's thing in
me that like it holds the light even in the
darkest places, in the darkest situations. I think that's why
I was able to do so well on Survivor and
a container like a game that's based on killer be Killed, betrayal, manipulation,
lying like I have.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
A great time out there. Well, I love this.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
I was going to ask you because like, sometimes you know, we'll.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
Talk to people who work on reality shows or whatever
world sometimes we'll hear from people who are on them,
and like obviously completely depending on the show and the context,
Like a lot of people will be like, oh, it
was totally cult that experience.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
But it seems like.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
You really loved your Survivor experiences and you viewed these
them as these like great challenges, Like what is your
take on that.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
I didn't know what I was getting into when I
first said yes to go play, and I got a
harsh education my first season, and then I was like,
you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna win this game,
like I'm going to this is going to be my game,
and I just decided to do it.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
I don't have.
Speaker 5 (36:01):
Any desire to control people's lives like that would bring
me no joy and sounds like far too much work.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
Yeah, but I do have so a lot.
Speaker 5 (36:12):
I have this like cult leader ability the galvanize people.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
And I could bring them into my sphere and have
them do what I want them to do. We work together.
Speaker 5 (36:25):
So there was something about Survivor where I was like, Oh,
we are match made in heaven, like we were destined
to connect in this lifetime.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
I think I was kind of born into it.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
And yeah, I mean you're out at the campfire, like
sitting around the thing, just like when you.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Were a kid.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
It's it's very interesting how it copied itself into a
different version.
Speaker 5 (36:46):
Like carbon copied. When I look at images side by side,
it's wild.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Oh my god, Yeah when you were a kid. Did Ma?
Do you call her ma? What do you call her now?
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (36:56):
Ma? It's so weird. She doesn't deserve that the mother title,
I know. But did she have like specific things she
was telling people they needed to accomplish spiritually that like
did she have those moving goalposts?
Speaker 1 (37:10):
And if so, what were they?
Speaker 5 (37:12):
Yeah? I think so everyone, Like people wanted to be
people just want to be chosen. They wanted to be
close to her, She knew how to use people's desire
to be chosen to manipulate them and this desire to
feel special.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Oh, she really exploited that.
Speaker 5 (37:30):
And I think she knew exactly what people wanted to
achieve and excel at, and then she would give them
like the thing like there was a guy who I
mean there was there was people who she would turn
into that She called them Sonyawson's and that was just
like a celibate monk. So she was like, Okay, you're
going to do this until I say stop basically, which
means you're celibate, you shave your head, you're pure. She
(37:54):
used the principles of Brahmacharya in Hinduism. There's I've studied yoga,
so there's like these different things to abstain from. There's
these different principles and qualities to adhere to. It's like
non harming and Brahmaturia is like essentially has been distilled
(38:15):
into celibacy, which I don't think that really was the intent.
I think the intent was more like communion with the
divine rather than getting caught up in sort.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Of the material world.
Speaker 5 (38:26):
But she made it into like your celibate, like you
can't masturbate, you can't hook up with anyone. You certainly
can't date, and people would do it, and she promised
them whatever rewards, spiritual rewards like powers, enlightenment. Mostly she
was going for. People were going for enlightenment. They wanted
(38:48):
to achieve Nirvana.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Was she hooking up with people?
Speaker 3 (38:52):
Honestly, I have no idea. I know she dated.
Speaker 5 (38:54):
She dated the like karate teacher who was like the
dojo master, and that's why, like they started this business
that was like karate gear.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
It was like foam pads for we've never heard of
that one or usually it's food. This is interesting.
Speaker 5 (39:13):
Yeah, I think, yeah, I think they probably did food too,
but I know they definitely did it. It was called
macho and we would go into the plant. It was
like a rubber plant where they would like coat these
foam pads with rubber paint and it smelled cool, like
so disgustingly text.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Yeah, So that was the business.
Speaker 5 (39:31):
And my parents were trained in taekwondo, and a lot
of people were trained in taekwondo, and they were also
eating a vegetarian diet because that's been sort of the
Indian yoga way, and so she would have because she's
dating the dojo guy. They would go and do these
tournaments all over Florida and they were passing out because
(39:52):
they didn't have enough nutrition.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Oh my god.
Speaker 5 (39:55):
So she was like, okay, okay, we can eat fish.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
We can eat fish so we don't pass out while
we're fighting.
Speaker 4 (40:03):
Colt Leada doing taekwondo tournaments is such an incredible visual.
Speaker 7 (40:08):
It's so good.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
She's really intriguing. I mean, you want to lose weight,
you start doing breath work, you end up in Florida.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
That's an intriguing arc.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
It's quite a trajectory.
Speaker 5 (40:22):
And of course she did a lot of charity work
as well, Like she worked with the AIDS epidemic in
a significant way and gave a lot to support that cause.
So we see that always as they offset the darkness
with like this kind of benevolence.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
But you're like, where does that actually come from?
Speaker 4 (40:41):
Meanwhile, I think you wrote correct me if I'm getting
this detail wrong, but I think you wrote that early
on she was having people call their family members to
essentially try to scam them into giving their money to her.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
You reminded me that's why my parents left the first time.
When I was in the baby because she had already
taken and everyone's money, everything they had, Like she took
my dad's precious guitar and like fold it for whatever.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Damn.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
I know.
Speaker 5 (41:07):
People were giving her their like frised, heartfelt possessions for
whatever she used them for. And then she was asking
people to call their parents and say they had cancer
so they could get money from their parents.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
And my parents were like.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
That's so sad, that's the.
Speaker 5 (41:23):
Line, and then we're not gonna do that, and they
fled and they the middle of the night.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Damn.
Speaker 4 (41:31):
Somebody doing good deeds or you know, being charitable in
one area is just like not enough of an indicator
of whether or not you should trust them because so often,
I mean always, they're always doing something good or like
providing something helpful to the world, or they wouldn't get
followers in the first place.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
It's just like priming you to trust them more.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
To trust yes.
Speaker 5 (41:51):
And it's like it's their public facing persona as benevolent,
generous mother who's caretaking the six sort of like mother
to style, and then there's photo ops for all of that,
and that's what the world sees. But behind closed doors
and we hear about this all the time in domestic
situations of abuse and control inside the house. But then
(42:15):
you see the partner whatever going out into the world
and being like the best dad at the pta.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
You know, there's so many parallels you you wrote in
the book. Once her devotees were locked in, Ma began
behaving more erratically, And I think that that's just so
true of most cult most abusive relationships, Like as soon
as you are locked in, it all switches.
Speaker 5 (42:39):
As soon as you're married and pregnant at waybe that's
when they get.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
You, right, I get you.
Speaker 4 (42:45):
I imagine myself in that scenario as the cult leader,
and I'm like, wouldn't that be the moment where you'd
be like, COOLT got the you know, Gumma followers, let's
just chill now. But instead they lose their fucking minds.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
Yeah, but you're not mentally ill.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
That's the problem.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
And it's and it's true because if they want mentally ill,
it could just be fun, yeah, and it could just
be like a compound where people ran around and believed
in something bigger than themselves. But it's like these leaders
are always going to make it horrible.
Speaker 5 (43:20):
I think it starts with such a lack of love internally,
it's like the hungry ghosts. Like gabora mate talks about
the land of the hungry Ghost. It's like this bit
of hell where there's a hungry ghost and you keep
pouring in and pouring in and there's it's just there's
a there's a hole in them or something. They can't
really fill up with anything, love, enough, material goods. Nothing
(43:44):
is going to be enough for them, so they just
like once they get more power, they just want more
and more and.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
More, and they want to hurt people and they want
to like get you sicker.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
I feel like sometimes.
Speaker 4 (43:55):
They really and I'd be curious if you have any
strong opinions on where she is on the spectrum. But
as we talk about, like, I think sometimes they think
they are being good to people.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Yeah, it's and it's so hard to know which one
it is.
Speaker 5 (44:08):
I do think she was definitely sucked into her own delusion.
I don't think she realized what she was doing was
so harmful. I really don't think she had that capacity
for awareness and that kind of conscious understanding of what
she was doing. But she had like a drug addiction problem,
(44:30):
and I think she just had that that delusion that
some people just get caught in and then the whole
world around them becomes the delusion, and then it just
reinforces that person's fantasy about who they are and what
they're doing, and they think they think they're good.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Were her kids in the group, I.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Actually don't know. I know that she had a daughter,
she had a son.
Speaker 5 (44:53):
The daughter had some like there's some articles about the
daughter online where the daughter sued because she was married
off at thirteen years old to some older man by
her mother.
Speaker 7 (45:04):
Damn.
Speaker 4 (45:06):
Yeah, Wow, these dynamics are being modeled for you at
this young age, and it sounds like you learn these
skills that were helpful for you on Survivor. But also
you write in your book about how you were entering
these really really high intensity situations like for so many
years and kind of not stopping and then recovering would
(45:27):
be so difficult because all you knew was to keep going.
You touched on it earlier, But tell us more about
the process of learning how to recover from these high
intensity situations so you're not in fight or flight all
the time.
Speaker 5 (45:39):
Well, it took me a really long time to even
start to believe recovery was a thing like I lift
weights now, and my weightlifting instructors are like, you need
a sleep, you need to take EPs and salt baths,
you need to have your nutrition. And I'm like what,
because I would just push myself on empty and accomplish
(46:00):
these pretty heroic feats. So I was like, oh, my
body doesn't need that at all. Once I made a
very big mess of my life, I was like, okay, okaykay,
like let's don't and also.
Speaker 8 (46:14):
When let's like, let's take a look at what this is,
but really it was this I didn't want to Like
some like the pain in my present moment felt more
bearable and more acceptable than visiting the pain of my past.
Speaker 5 (46:34):
So I think I just stayed in this cycle of
survival mode because it kept me only like in this
sort of surface level pain that was just like, oh,
I could handle it, Like if I'm doing an endurance
challenge on Survivor and holding my arm up for six hours,
I'm not thinking about how I.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
Was totally exploited as a child.
Speaker 5 (46:55):
And you know, my friends and family were really were
you used and abused?
Speaker 3 (47:01):
So it's just it was too hard to look at that.
Speaker 5 (47:03):
And also my family like we didn't open up the conversation,
like it was just we just moved on and that
was the survival strategy for us.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
That just helped us create a new life.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (47:14):
So then now at this point in my life, I'm like, oh,
I don't. I want to create something very different in
my present and in my future than what I created
in the past. I want to have a life that's
really rich, really abundant. Really do you see loving fun
like feels good. I want to life that feel really good.
I want to be connected to pleasure and sensuality, and
(47:34):
I have to be in.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
My body and enjoy being in my body to have that.
Speaker 5 (47:41):
So I've started incorporating a buck ton of recovery. Like
I do acupuncture, I do roll fan, I go to
somatic therapy.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
I'll take naps during the day.
Speaker 5 (47:53):
I do yoga nindra, which is like a very gentle
form of deep relaxation, progressive relaxation. You just lay down,
I go into this.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
I can't do that. Oh you would love that, I'm gonna.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
You sound like me.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
Like, So, I had a period which I talked about
endlessly on this podcast, where I was like in hardcore
OCB and like just recurring severe anxiety, and I did
so much mental health shit in such a short period
of time where I.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
Was like, I'm gonna do everything. I'm gonna get the
most better anyone's ever gotten.
Speaker 4 (48:28):
Even when it came to my recovery, I was like,
I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Oh no, I'm gonna fix my brain more than anyone's
ever fixed.
Speaker 3 (48:35):
The brain such a hard habit to break.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
What do you a Scorpio moon, I'm a scorpio moon.
Speaker 4 (48:42):
I'm a sagittarius. Everything I don't know what it means.
I don't do astrology. Well, your book is called Nice
Girls Don't Win. How I burned it all down to
claim my power? And I will say, like, beyond the
cold stuff, there's so much in this book that I
connected with, just like as a woman, it's like I
feel this, I feel this, I feel this even down
(49:03):
to brother overdose saying like there's just so much in
there that I really connected with.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
So thank you for writing it and thank you for sharing.
Speaker 3 (49:11):
Ah, thank you.
Speaker 5 (49:13):
I haven't had a conversation that's been so focused on
my childhood. And it's so interesting because this is the
work that I'm doing right now is to go into
those memories and like feel that part of my life
because I haven't really touched on it.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
So it was perfect timing.
Speaker 4 (49:31):
Yeah, and there we will leave it with poverty.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
I'm so glad she came on. Megan.
Speaker 4 (49:38):
It's the time of the day where I ask you,
if you think you would join Ma's Ashram Ashram, how
do you say it?
Speaker 1 (49:48):
It doesn't even matter.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
I feel like we've just been mispronouncing so many Indian
terms this podcast that it's it's like it doesn't matter
how I say it, because it's going to be wrong.
Speaker 4 (50:00):
Okay, the Internet or like dictionaries say it's ashram, but
I feel like nobody pronounces it that way, so I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
I mean, my cat just screamed at the top of
her lungs, so we're definitely saying something wrong and we apologize.
And indeed, indeed, would I join, Yeah, I probably would.
It has all the components that I am susceptible to,
such as a pretty piece of land. It sounds like
(50:27):
they were all doing like art and drugs and uh,
you know, just like the initial recipe of something that
I would think would be healthy. I can see how
quickly I would get sucked in, and then I would
be very confused when it started becoming abusive and horrible
(50:49):
and would probably go through the exact same story arc
as her parents.
Speaker 4 (50:53):
Yeah, I see this for you, Yeah, I do. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
Not for me, No, not when I look at ma I.
Speaker 4 (51:01):
You know, some cult leaders, I look at their photos
and I'm like, yeah, I could see it. When I
look at her, I'm like, I feel like I would
be repulsed by the way that this woman styles herself.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
It was the seventies, Lola, I know, I know.
Speaker 2 (51:15):
I do think it's interesting that ron Das did that
like hit piece on her of like she sucks, but
it was already too late.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
That's interesting to me, Like, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (51:25):
Yeah, it doesn't matter, like, doesn't matter what comes out
about I mean, we see so many examples of this
in modern politics. It does not matter what comes out
about someone to most people who have once they follow them, yikes,
exactly because their allegiance is to the leader. It's like,
we talk about this all the time, but like, yeah,
we connect to the person and so whatever choice they
make must be the right choice. Yeah, which is not true.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
Well, thank you so much for listening to another week
of trust Me.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
We appreciate you. Please rate us five stars by some March.
Speaker 4 (51:58):
And exactly Right store dot com.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
And as always, remember to follow your gut watch job
for red flags.
Speaker 4 (52:06):
And that ever ever trust me, Bye bye. This has
been an Exactly Right production hosted by me Lola.
Speaker 2 (52:16):
Blanc A, Me, Megan Elizabeth. Our senior producer is G.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
Holly.
Speaker 4 (52:20):
This episode was mixed by John Bradley.
Speaker 2 (52:22):
Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain, and our guest booker
is Patrick Kottner.
Speaker 4 (52:27):
Our theme song was composed by Holly Ambert Church.
Speaker 2 (52:29):
Trust Me as executive produced by Karen Kilgareth, Georgia hart
Stark and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 4 (52:35):
You can find us on Instagram at trust Me podcast
or on TikTok at trust Me Cult podcast.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
Got your own story about cults, extreme belief, our manipulation,
Shoot us an email at trustmepod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 4 (52:46):
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 lead you astray?
Speaker 3 (00:06):
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 of course, manipulation from two survivors have actually experienced it.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I'm Lola Blanc and I'm Megan Elizabeth Wow.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Today our guest is Poverty Shallow, reality TV icon who's
won Survivor twice and is currently on Traders, and author
of new memoir Nice Girls Don't Win. How I Burned
it all down to claim My Power. She's joining us
today to talk about her childhood in a commune called
the Kashi Ashram, led by a woman named Joyce Green,
who made everyone call her Ma. She'll tell us about
(00:50):
Ma's history, including her relationship with Ram Doss, who said
he had been bamboozled by her, and some of the
controlling behaviors that Ma exhibited in the group, including taking
children from their parents and making members scam their own
families for money.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
She'll talk about how her parents escaped but ultimately came
back to the group, what it was like living on
the commune, being wild in nature, and how some of
the good and some of the bad of the group
helped give her some of her skills she needed to
win Survivor later on. Plus how she processed everything that's
happened to her. And that's cult resilience. And we have
(01:25):
an episode on it.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
That's right. No, Parmony's book is really really great.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
I connected with so much of it in there, and
we'll talk about a little bit of it in this episode.
Wish we could talk about it with her own five
more episodes.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I know, it's really interesting to see a female cult
leader because so many of them that we talked to
are mone And.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
That's feminism, baby, yep.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Equal rights.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Although you know, we've talked to more people now who
had female cult leaders than I anticipated when we first
started the podcast. You're uncovering more and more I feel, yeah,
and that's feminism baby, totally.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Definitely still disproportionate, but no, for sure more than we expected.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
For sure.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Yes, before we get into this particular woman cult leader
and what poverty experienced with her, Megan, can you tell
me your cultiest thing please?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
My cultiest thing is a documentary I watched this week
on Netflix. It's called House of secrets, very dark.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
House of Secrets is not the Army Hammer one. No,
that's is that called something similar?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Maybe it's called House of Secrets the Berrari Deaths and
I'd never heard of it before. I went into it
very blind, thinking what's this about? And it turns very culty.
I won't spoil it, but please, if you're gonna watch it. No,
It's like I almost feel like I'm telling people to
(03:01):
watch the real life version of the ring, Like I'm
like passing on some like, oh no, first.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Because it's so dark and upsetting, so upsetting. But I'm
also trying to keep it grounded because these are real
people and I don't want to sensationalize it, and like
they deserve, you know, to the story deserves to be told.
So if you want to see it, watch it. I'm
gonna contact people from it this week to try to
get somebody who knows about the case on the show.
(03:31):
I don't want to spoil it per se, but shall
I tell you a.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Little bit about it? Yeah? Tell me a little.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
In this city in India, they find eleven members of
a family hanging in their house. In this very intricate pattern.
All of their hands are tight like and some of
them are young children, know, all of their hands are
tied behind their back, all of their mouths are taped,
(03:57):
there's cloth over their eyes, and nothing is disturbed. They
can't figure out, like, it doesn't seem like it was
a break in, you know what I mean, It seems
it seems like it was a suicide.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
But they just can't.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Figure out how eleven people would do that. Then they
find this notebook where one of the uncles was communicating
with their dead grandfather, so his father. Oh, so he
was getting all of his life advice from his father.
And this is just completely ruining the end, which is,
(04:33):
you know, a murder mystery that if you want to
watch it, you should watch it, so skip this part.
But basically this uncle is like, oh, we have to
do a ritual of killing ourselves and at the very
last second we'll be freed and we'll have amazing karma.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Oh no, oh no, that's so horrible. Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, I mean, and a lot of really interesting psych
callous and stuff in India on the documentary just talking
about like how it just really showed. One woman says
something so interesting, which was like It showed me what
is the difference between my belief and a delusion? And
like our where does faith and and a delusion starts?
You know? And so yeah, I've never seen anything like it.
(05:19):
It's heartbreaking and it's a topic I would love to
explore further with somebody who worked on the case or
knows more about it.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Yeah, Oh my gosh, I have to know more. I'm
like scared to watch, but I also.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Really want to know.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yeah, yeah, you know more about the case. Yeah, it's
pretty it's pretty intense. Well, no, it's extremely intense. So yeah,
you got to be ready for that level of horror.
But like I said, it's worth knowing how these things happen,
you know.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah, yeah, because.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Basically, you know, the like father's authority is so important
in India that when his father died, it's like, did
it trigger a psychosis in this uncle where like he
needed to be hearing from his dad or like, right,
it brings us back to that age old question of
like did he think he was really talking to her
his dad or was he just trying to control his family?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
You know?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Anyway, what's your cultiest thing of the week. Well, to
switch tones for a second here please, So you know listeners,
longtime listeners will know. I am a quite political person.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
I always have been, and I joined an organization that
I love currently, But like any organization, it's full of
humans and it's ups and downs, and it depends on
which chapter you're in, et cetera, et cetera. I'm a
member of DSA DSA LA, which is the Democratic Socialist
of America, which Zoramum Donnie came out of DSA. New
York Bernie Sanders is very associated with DSA, And it's.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
The first time I'm like, oh.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Yeah, like this is how I would join a cult
because I feel so much better about Like it gives
me meaning and purpose, Like obviously there's been so much
in our country that's just off, and I am someone
like I really only feel okay when I feel like
I'm doing something instead of just handwringing and doom scrolling.
(07:08):
And it's been hard to figure out, like in all
my years of LA, it's been hard to figure out,
like where do I plug in?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Where am I useful?
Speaker 4 (07:14):
How can I help beyond like posting in my story
was just nothing, you know, I mean, it does something,
it doesn't do nothing. But it's not great, it's not ideal.
You know, you want to like actually be doing work.
And so now I'm more involved in this organization that
is electing candidates here in LA who share my same
values and doing a lot of great work to combat
(07:36):
ice and doing a lot of great work for all
kinds of issues that I care about, the environment, queer liberation,
Palestinian liberation, all of it. So right now I'm like, ah,
thank god, I have some political community with people who
share like we all want to just make the world better,
and we're trying to figure it out together, and you know,
the goal obviously is to create a larger movement of
(07:57):
people who want to do this with us and get
politicians in office who are not beholden to like billionaire interests.
So anyway, I'm like able to be useful and that's
such a great feeling. And this particular organization is democratic,
like there are elections, it's it's democratic, so there's not
like a leader that's like dictating everything. So that's why
it feels healthy and fine for me at least right now.
(08:19):
But I can just totally see, you know, like we're
such an atomized nation, like we feel so lonely and
like we can't do anything. And it's just like such
a perfect time for an organization that maybe isn't democratic
to swoop in and be like I have the community
and the answers for you, and this is how you're
gonna make the world better.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
You know.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
It's like somebody cult start with those same ingredients. And
I'm like, if there weren't elections, like I'd be so
susceptible right now.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, now it's worth noting. I mean, we all are
right now because everybody has strong opinion, I mean hopefully
has strong opinions about what's happening in the world right
now one way or another.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
And yeah, it's a very vulnerable time.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Yeah, and we're all it's like with a lot of
division division in my life with people I love very much,
and so it's it's just so like healing.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
I hate the word healing.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
It just like feels really nice to be like standing
like doing work next to people who understand basically is
the thing. And we're like, you know, able to actually
make a difference politically in our city. So you know,
if there's a cult, I would join it to be a
political one. Hopefully this is not one. I don't think
it is. I think they're doing really great work. But
(09:31):
I can see, you know, I could see the path
like I could see how it could happen.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Oh no, well I'll keep an eye on you.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Thank you. I know this, you know, and I'll let
you know. Great.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
But listen, I'm aware that it could happen, and that's
the first step.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Perfect. You're actually very correct. Yes, just no know your
vulnerabilities exactly. Speaking of vulnerabilities, good, good segue. Yes it
shall we talk to poverty. Let's talk to Parverty. Welcome Parverty,
Shadow to trust me.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Thank you so much for.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Joining us, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
When we told people you were coming on, the reactions
were so I had multiple people be like, shut, I
love Parvety.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
People were so excited. So we're very excited as well
to have you.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Oh my god, me too.
Speaker 5 (10:24):
I feel like the conversation topics that you guys discuss
is really my wheelhouse.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Amazing.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
Yeah, well, we both just finish your book and there's
so much to talk about.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
But first, obviously this is a cult podcast.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Your parents were in a cult when you were a child,
and can you just tell us a little bit about
how they first joined the Is it the Kashi Ashram.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Yeah, I did write about this in my book, and
both my parents they were was sort of the moment
in time when India and gurus were here bringing meditation
in go to the West. So a lot of people
in the United States were disillusioned with the government structure.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
It was the Vietnam War.
Speaker 5 (11:10):
Catholicism was kind of the predominant religion, I would say,
and I think it was just very controlling and a
lot of people were looking for some kind of way
to claim their freedom and serve in a spiritual way
and be a part of the solution make love not war.
And my parents both met this. I mean, she was
(11:33):
a self proclaimed guru. She was not from India. She
was Her name was Joyce Green. She was born in
Brooklyn and good old joy She was like a married mom,
Jewish mom from Brooklyn, and then went to this weight
(11:54):
loss clinic after she'd had her babies to lose some
weight and she learned breath work there and then that
sort of like opened up these hours for her and
she claimed to have had the stigmata, even though no
one else witnessed this except for her best friend friend.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
It's not your best you she won't vouch for your stigmata.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Yeah, I mean a T shirt.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
So yeah, her best friend was like, yep, she really
was having this great movie, by the way, stigmata but
like bleeding from the you know, from the hands and
all the things that Jesus experienced, which.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Is interesting because she's raised Jewish and then she's saying, oh,
I'm doing this Jesus thing, but then she's doing this
Eastern religion like she's really mishmashing it all up here.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
Well, they do say that Jesus went and trained with
the yogis, so he kind of considered a mystic in
that way and learned that sort of meditation technology.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
But I mean, I don't who's a sick yea.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
This woman also said, I mean she was very charithmatic,
she was very power full, she had some kind of
spiritual mojo because she was having meetings with I mean,
she dated Rhomdas for a while.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
I love that lure doul so, I mean, not only
did she date him, he was like a devotee and
then he was like, wait, you're a fraud.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
Yeah, and literally wrote an article about it, which I loved.
That detail called in your book called egg on my beard,
saying that he'd been duped by this woman.
Speaker 5 (13:27):
Right because she was saying that she needed gold jewelry
to kind of tether her to this earthly plane.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
I think of that.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Can you can you kind of tell us what this
woman looked like in the height of her this white woman,
shall I say, very.
Speaker 6 (13:45):
Tan, okay, very damn Barry Tan could pass for Indiana,
had long dark hair, always wore the bindi dripping in gold,
always dripping and gold kind of war sorries, the like
Indian kind of clothing.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
She dressed the part.
Speaker 5 (14:17):
I was born there, and then my parents fled the commune,
and then they ended up going back, which you know,
it takes people many times to leave an abusive situation,
and so they went back because it was all they
knew and sort of the only community they had. And
things were okay for a while, and then the rampage occurred,
(14:40):
which was sort of it was like the hallmarks of
that time where the guru was getting more aggressive, like
physically violent, and people would be in meditation and she
would have these all night meditations, so it was like
she was using sleep deprivation. If anyone knotted off, would
(15:00):
kick them or slap them to wake them up.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
My god.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Yeah, and she.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
Was saying that this time, like if you couldn't handle it,
you were weak. So she was like using people's humanity
against them and saying she was clearing their karma at
an accelerated right.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, that's one of the things I was going to say.
I mean, it sounds like one of the reasons your
parents returned is because it seemed as though she'd put
a curse on them. So she's like promising to clear
your karma, also saying I can put a curse on you,
and like if bad things were happening, which they were
when your family left, it kind of makes it easy
to say, oh, like she's right, you know, very bad
(15:41):
timing on that front. Why did they leave initially?
Speaker 5 (15:43):
Again, they left because they recognized that they couldn't have freedom.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
It wasn't really what they'd been sold.
Speaker 5 (15:52):
They were sold this community of like minded spiritual seekers
that were going to support one another and create a
sort of utopian, ideal neighborhood. And it turned into like
the Guru was surveilling people's phone calls, she was arranging marriages.
If people were dating without her approval, she would have
(16:12):
them broken up, and like one the man would have
to turn into a celibate monk, and then the woman
would be like assigned to job somewhere else on the commune.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
She was just it was very like whiplashy.
Speaker 5 (16:25):
I think for them where they realized like, oh no,
we gotta get out of here.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
There might have.
Speaker 5 (16:31):
Been a specific moment, but I'm not remembering right now.
I mean I was told all these stories, right because.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
Yeah, yeah, and then they do leave, And then, as
Megan was saying, it seems like maybe.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
The curses real.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Was your understanding of what brought them back, because that's
always just something that's so interesting to me. Obviously, we do,
like you said, see that in abusive relationships all the time.
A lot of the people we talked to, I feel like,
once they leave, their out, And maybe part of that
is because you know, the cult members will disconnect and
you'll be considered someone who's like bad and that shouldn't
(17:09):
be spoken to after or because you physically have to leave.
So I feel like I don't think we've had on
as many guests who like kept going back necessarily. It's
almost like once you've subretised with the cult, you've subvertized
with the cult. So I find those stories really interesting.
And when people do return after they have first made
that decision, just curious if you knew more about their reasoning.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
How you know what?
Speaker 5 (17:28):
I think it was the woman the guru, her name
was Ma. This is the name she gave herself.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
She co opted, like she gave herself the title of mother,
yeah of the community.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
So it really was this sort of like it reminds
me of narcissistic mothers or that kind of relationship where
they will use guilt or emotionally manipulate their children or
say they're bad, or say they're like they owe their
mom something. And I think for my parents, the guilt
was such a conditioned response because they grew up Catholic,
(18:05):
where there's so much guilt involved in being a Catholic,
and it's really is what manipulates people's behavior is through guilts.
So I think there was some of that laying apart.
It was like the distorted mother where they just they
wanted I think everyone in the community wanted the mother
to approve of them, to love them, protect them, guide them,
(18:29):
care for them, and they got glimpses of it. It was
like little bits of that kind of love, sort of
like how narcissists will like dangle the carrot and they
just keep you chasing this perceived goal.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
It's just part enough off in the distance.
Speaker 5 (18:44):
Then they moved the goalpost, and then they moved again,
and they're like, oh.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
I can never get there. It makes you freaking crazy.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
So I think it was some of that where it
was like they also didn't have enough of their own structure,
safety community the outside of that, Like my mom, they
didn't have anywhere to go. They moved back in with
my mom's parents, and there was like her sister, my
mom's sister was escaping an abusive marriage and her kids
(19:12):
weren't there, and it was just chaos everywhere, and they
were like, nobody understands us. And I think there was
some peace living in this commune because it was so
close to nature, like we ran around barefoot. Was very
sort of like survivor environmental environmentally. Yeah, so I'm like, oh, well, no,
(19:32):
wonder I recreated this five times in my life.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Tell us more.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
I think that's a good way to transition us into
talking about what you experienced before your family left the cult.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
What was that like?
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Yeah, for me.
Speaker 5 (19:48):
I felt like there was freedom as a child because
I was running around with a group I had, like
a girl gang that I ran with, and we were.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Just we wore whatever we wanted to weigh.
Speaker 5 (20:01):
It felt like we were fairal children, sort of like
swimming in a pond, running around barefoot in the woods,
going to these fire ceremonies at night, where all my
friends would be there, all the adults would be there,
everyone's chanting and singing. It was all this kind of
like ecstatic communion with nature and this mysticism, this magic
(20:23):
existed there where it felt like something really special was happening.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
And if the Guru turned her.
Speaker 5 (20:32):
Light on me as a child, I was special in
that moment and I was always like hungry for that
as a kid, because it was strange, like I had
kind of three primary attachment figures I had, but the Guru,
which all the adults and everyone all the kids were
devoted to, and she was taking people babies and having
(20:53):
them live sort of in close proximity to her. There
were some kids that were called MAM's kids that were
seen as a special ones, but they were just sort
of like deeply neglected and abused.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
And like kidnapped from their parents essentially.
Speaker 5 (21:07):
Essentially, but like the parents gave them over sort of
like because they were manipulated into doing so. And yeah,
so there was this like beautiful it's been I've been
really working on untangling it for really, I mean ever
since I was started writing my book. I've been working
on unentangling this because I hadn't looked back at my
(21:28):
childhood at all until I fouled for divorce and moved
out and like got out of my marriage, and then
I had the like space and time to sit and be.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Like how did I get here? How did I make
this in my life?
Speaker 5 (21:41):
And I think it was because I had this experience
as a child of this beautiful, ecstatic kind of like
peek experiences over and over again and then.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Like dry spell like kind of nothing.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
And also there was a chef side of course that
was like not really spoken about in the commune. It
was like this beautiful on the surface, looks perfect on
the surface, is really like everything you could ever want
and dream of gives you all of these beautiful connections,
and then underneath it, it's like there's lying, there's course
(22:19):
of control, there's abuse, there's all this like power over domination, curses,
like so much shadow in there that I just it
was never articulated to me in a way that I
was like, oh, okay, that's what was happening.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
So I had to uncover that for myself later in life.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Right, lots of cognitive dissonance there, Oh my god, so much.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
I can't imagine.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Like the running freely through the woods with your girlfriend's
things sounds yeah, like a fucking dream. Like of course
you'd have these like conflicting ideas about this, because like,
what magical memories those must have been. I grew up
on a farm with woods, eighty acres of land, and
my memories of being in the woods are like the
most precious special thing ever. And if that was combined
(23:05):
with these weird like guru worship, guru taking the children
stuff like that, what a contradiction of feelings that must be.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
It was such a distortion of the mother archetype.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
And she the guru used she said she was teaching
through Collie, which is a goddess in Hinduism who's sort
of like the destroyer of death. So she's one of
the dark goddesses and she teaches through like struggle and suffering,
and pain and death like sort of in the underworld.
But then she's claiming to be this like benevolent mother
(23:42):
and doing these really horrific things.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
So it was like, what is actually happening?
Speaker 5 (23:49):
And as a kid, everything is just normal because it's
the water that you swim in.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
You don't really like I didn't. I had no idea.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
And yeah, I know that you end up going, you
guys end up leaving. But when you're on the commune,
what was the schooling Like?
Speaker 5 (24:06):
There was a school in the community that was like
grade school, so I went there for kindergarten.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
There was a daycare.
Speaker 5 (24:15):
My mom worked in the daycare because everyone just worked
for free.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Of course they do as they do in these groups.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
It's like support the community.
Speaker 5 (24:27):
Give us all your money and your time and your
intentured servitude. And then when I turned when I was
started second grade, we had moved across the street because
my parents were starting to distance themselves. I think they
needed an escape plan that involved more sort of slower
(24:48):
structured stability where they were like, Okay, we're going to
slowly separate so it's not such a harsh cut.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
And in that way they.
Speaker 5 (24:57):
Were able to leave berga right but we first it
was like an intermediary step, sort of like harm reduction.
I think about like Heroin addicts who go on whatever
the suboxen.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Yes, yes, exactly.
Speaker 5 (25:12):
It's like, okay, this seems like we're going to be
dipping our toe in and out. So we lived across
the street in our own house outside of the gates
of the commune, but we would go back for dinners
like group dinners and the fire ceremonies and any kind
of like event that was going on.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
So how did the children that stayed there, Like how
did they learn to do all? I'm always so fascinated,
like how did they learn to read? How did they
learn math? How did they was a traditional classes.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
It's like homeschool.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
I guess, yeah, it was. I don't remember what the
classes were. The only thing I remember is we took
a field trip to an art museum and I remember
the African art exhibits. That's all I remember from school.
And then the Land Before Time story that I told
in my book.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Right, will you will you refresh us with us?
Speaker 5 (26:03):
Yeah, so we took a field trip to the theater
to go see Land Before Time.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
As we all know and love this.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
Movie, loves Land before time? Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3 (26:13):
They're so cute.
Speaker 5 (26:14):
So we're in there and then all of a sudden,
there's like men dressed in black kind of silently moving
through the theater, and then they leave, and then the
teachers are like, we're leaving. So this is mid movie
and we all are forced to get up and leave
in the middle of the movie. And I'm like, what happened?
No one will tell us. We get back on the
(26:34):
bus and go, but there's a kid missing. And it
was this girl named Ganga whose parents had organized a
sting operation to get her back from the Guru because
the Guru would have returned their child.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
This bitch was taking people's babies.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
Like that's so crazy, and like was she taking care
of them or like was she just like mine? And
like they're just living in the house and no one's watching,
Like what was how did that work?
Speaker 3 (27:00):
I mean, I don't really know all the specifics.
Speaker 5 (27:03):
I do know that they were living in like sort
of her chambers, which they had like their own rooms,
and I think it was just like kids rooming with kids,
and so there were like six year olds and thirteen
year olds and like who knows what was going on
in there.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
WHOA.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
I mean, I know some of the things that were
going on, and it wasn't good. Yeah, I can imagine that.
Not my story to tell.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
One of the things that struck me was just how
y'all were living when you were on the compound. Like
it was like closets would be transformed into bedrooms and
just so many people in one area. Like it's kind
of hard to even imagine what that looked like.
Speaker 5 (27:44):
It's like I lived in a sorority house when I
was in college. Yeah, and they had three girls in
one bedroom and it's just a shit show.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yeah, but you were used to it. You were like,
I lived with three people in a closet, Oh my god.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
And then I go on Survivor and I'm like, oh yeah,
like sleeping in the dirt fine.
Speaker 7 (28:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:16):
It sounds like you were very comfortable in discomfort from
a very young age and that kind of became normal
to you to sort of live in this chaos.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Truly.
Speaker 5 (28:27):
Yeah, like I could step into chaos and be in
a place of power.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Interesting, I'm also shadowing.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
I want to shout out what your parents did when
you left, because one problem that so many people run
into when they do attempt to leave these groups is
if they do it too quickly, they're not going to
have the infrastructure when they leave. They're not going to
have the job or the support system, or it's going
to be too much all at once. And making that
plan and being really careful and measured about it and
making sure you have somewhere to go and somewhere to
(28:57):
land is so important. And it sounds like that's believe
why they were successful in their second attempt, So yeah,
good on them.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
And it took a really long time. I was born there,
they left, they came back, and then when I was nine,
we left for good. So it was like nine years
of them working on finding enough support and then enough
assistance to sort of change the way that they were thinking.
Because the Guru had such mind control over people, and
(29:28):
she really hooked into their fear of They were just
terrified if people left. She would have like a goon
squad go and terrorize them, like scientology, how do you
see people do that? Yeah, she would have people like yeah,
doing crazy stuff to scare people. My dad met these
people at he worked outside of the commune. A lot
(29:48):
of people did, and they worked outside the commune. They
would make money and then the guru would be like, Okay,
pay me the money that you win. So he worked
in a high school and there was a teach there
are two teachers I think that like heard historian. We're like, no,
you need to like get some real support. So they
helped him with some psychotherapy and well, yeah, like mental
(30:11):
health support to get him out of this magical thinking.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
I'm back into a right frame of mind exactly.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
And that's what it feels like. There was this trigger
switch you get. Y'all moved to Atlanta and there was
like some tornadoes and hailstorms and all this scary thing
and scary things, and like the instinct is to be
like we're cursed or whatever. And then I was just like, no,
we're gonna survive this. And there was kind of the
switch from magical thinking and this gurus world to.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Like let's dig in and get through it.
Speaker 5 (30:41):
Yeah, it was a switch to self sovereignty from being
under a spell.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
Yeah, there's a theme kind of recurring throughout your book
where you know, talking about giving yourself this space to
actually really think about what you've been experiencing. And I
you know, we see over and over again, people, one
of the big reasons that they don't leave for so
long is because they don't have the time and the space.
They're not allowed at the time and the space to
(31:07):
pause and think critically about what they're experiencing and what
the contradictions are that the leader is telling them versus
what they're doing. And you know, it's like when you
do start to venture into the outside world and do
some things for yourself and take.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
A little bit of time to actually consider what's part.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Of the design. All part of the design to keep
you busy all the time. And when we spoke to
that Sarah Lawrence kid, he had like two hours by
himself and he deconstructed it's like really interesting how that
works well.
Speaker 5 (31:37):
And it's like this corporeal intensity, right, It's like she's
using sleep deprivation. People are working constantly to keep the
machinery going. I mean, it's sort of everyone kind of
had to learn how to dissociate. Everyone was existing in
(31:58):
fight or flight in that sympathetic nervous system and that's
addictive and it's self reinforcing those chemicals that we have
when we go into the sympathetic nervous system is like, okay,
you're in survival mode.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
We're going to keep you here because it's the only
way you can survive.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
So you're in that scarcity mode of operating in your body.
And then I think once we left the commune, my
parents stayed in that mode of operating because they had
to establish like a whole new life for their kids
without any friends or family or any money, so they
were working multiple jobs. And then my sister and I
were sort of on our own to figure out how
(32:35):
to assimilate into society where there's like clothes and music
and shoes and we're like, what, yeah, that's wild. But
doing the body practices for myself. Once I left my marriage,
I started doing a lot of somatic work to bring
me into a place of recovery in my body, which
(32:58):
created capacity in my nervous system. And then when I
had more space internally in my body and felt safe
in my body, my thoughts changed. It was just this
sort of like cause and effect of creating the safety
inside my body.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
It's so important, it's so important, and I suck it
doing it. No, Like, there's so much there's so much
in your book where you're like, I'm go, go, go go,
I'm like, you know, achieve more, accomplished more, do more.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
And I'm like, that's me. I relate to this very much.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Okay, your parents leave, then you are sort of hit
with this like normal life world.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
What is that transition like?
Speaker 4 (33:41):
And how do you think the cult experiences shaped who
you became?
Speaker 5 (33:48):
I mean, they're completely The foundation from which I built
my entire life was my childhood and those the years
from zero to nine commune. I just I like absorbed
power and strategy and survival and how to stay safe
(34:11):
and how to maneuver in any situation. I knew I
could do that from how I grew up because everyone
on the commune had a different strategy to survive and
I think I just inherited it by being around it
and then moving into And I think also, I'm like,
I'm a very resilient person and I lead with courage
(34:32):
and I love adventure. I'm just like that's my style
of done. I'm a seven on the Endeagram. I've done
all the tests.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
I'm like, you know, like, I know, I'm the prospective,
whiny one. I'm different.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
You can't fight who you are where you are.
Speaker 5 (34:55):
Yeah, so just sort of like I just I found
my way I know I always will. There's thing in
me that like it holds the light even in the
darkest places, in the darkest situations. I think that's why
I was able to do so well on Survivor and
a container like a game that's based on killer be Killed, betrayal, manipulation,
lying like I have.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
A great time out there. Well, I love this.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
I was going to ask you because like, sometimes you know, we'll.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
Talk to people who work on reality shows or whatever
world sometimes we'll hear from people who are on them,
and like obviously completely depending on the show and the context,
Like a lot of people will be like, oh, it
was totally cult that experience.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
But it seems like.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
You really loved your Survivor experiences and you viewed these
them as these like great challenges, Like what is your
take on that.
Speaker 5 (35:42):
I didn't know what I was getting into when I
first said yes to go play, and I got a
harsh education my first season, and then I was like,
you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna win this game,
like I'm going to this is going to be my game,
and I just decided to do it.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
I don't have.
Speaker 5 (36:01):
Any desire to control people's lives like that would bring
me no joy and sounds like far too much work.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
Yeah, but I do have so a lot.
Speaker 5 (36:12):
I have this like cult leader ability the galvanize people.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
And I could bring them into my sphere and have
them do what I want them to do. We work together.
Speaker 5 (36:25):
So there was something about Survivor where I was like, Oh,
we are match made in heaven, like we were destined
to connect in this lifetime.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
I think I was kind of born into it.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
And yeah, I mean you're out at the campfire, like
sitting around the thing, just like when you.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Were a kid.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
It's it's very interesting how it copied itself into a
different version.
Speaker 5 (36:46):
Like carbon copied. When I look at images side by side,
it's wild.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Oh my god, Yeah when you were a kid. Did Ma?
Do you call her ma? What do you call her now?
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (36:56):
Ma? It's so weird. She doesn't deserve that the mother title,
I know. But did she have like specific things she
was telling people they needed to accomplish spiritually that like
did she have those moving goalposts?
Speaker 1 (37:10):
And if so, what were they?
Speaker 5 (37:12):
Yeah? I think so everyone, Like people wanted to be
people just want to be chosen. They wanted to be
close to her, She knew how to use people's desire
to be chosen to manipulate them and this desire to
feel special.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Oh, she really exploited that.
Speaker 5 (37:30):
And I think she knew exactly what people wanted to
achieve and excel at, and then she would give them
like the thing like there was a guy who I
mean there was there was people who she would turn
into that She called them Sonyawson's and that was just
like a celibate monk. So she was like, Okay, you're
going to do this until I say stop basically, which
means you're celibate, you shave your head, you're pure. She
(37:54):
used the principles of Brahmacharya in Hinduism. There's I've studied yoga,
so there's like these different things to abstain from. There's
these different principles and qualities to adhere to. It's like
non harming and Brahmaturia is like essentially has been distilled
(38:15):
into celibacy, which I don't think that really was the intent.
I think the intent was more like communion with the
divine rather than getting caught up in sort.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Of the material world.
Speaker 5 (38:26):
But she made it into like your celibate, like you
can't masturbate, you can't hook up with anyone. You certainly
can't date, and people would do it, and she promised
them whatever rewards, spiritual rewards like powers, enlightenment. Mostly she
was going for. People were going for enlightenment. They wanted
(38:48):
to achieve Nirvana.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Was she hooking up with people?
Speaker 3 (38:52):
Honestly, I have no idea. I know she dated.
Speaker 5 (38:54):
She dated the like karate teacher who was like the
dojo master, and that's why, like they started this business
that was like karate gear.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
It was like foam pads for we've never heard of
that one or usually it's food. This is interesting.
Speaker 5 (39:13):
Yeah, I think, yeah, I think they probably did food too,
but I know they definitely did it. It was called
macho and we would go into the plant. It was
like a rubber plant where they would like coat these
foam pads with rubber paint and it smelled cool, like
so disgustingly text.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Yeah, So that was the business.
Speaker 5 (39:31):
And my parents were trained in taekwondo, and a lot
of people were trained in taekwondo, and they were also
eating a vegetarian diet because that's been sort of the
Indian yoga way, and so she would have because she's
dating the dojo guy. They would go and do these
tournaments all over Florida and they were passing out because
(39:52):
they didn't have enough nutrition.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Oh my god.
Speaker 5 (39:55):
So she was like, okay, okay, we can eat fish.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
We can eat fish so we don't pass out while
we're fighting.
Speaker 4 (40:03):
Colt Leada doing taekwondo tournaments is such an incredible visual.
Speaker 7 (40:08):
It's so good.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
She's really intriguing. I mean, you want to lose weight,
you start doing breath work, you end up in Florida.
Speaker 1 (40:18):
That's an intriguing arc.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
It's quite a trajectory.
Speaker 5 (40:22):
And of course she did a lot of charity work
as well, Like she worked with the AIDS epidemic in
a significant way and gave a lot to support that cause.
So we see that always as they offset the darkness
with like this kind of benevolence.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
But you're like, where does that actually come from?
Speaker 4 (40:41):
Meanwhile, I think you wrote correct me if I'm getting
this detail wrong, but I think you wrote that early
on she was having people call their family members to
essentially try to scam them into giving their money to her.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
You reminded me that's why my parents left the first time.
When I was in the baby because she had already
taken and everyone's money, everything they had, Like she took
my dad's precious guitar and like fold it for whatever.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Damn.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
I know.
Speaker 5 (41:07):
People were giving her their like frised, heartfelt possessions for
whatever she used them for. And then she was asking
people to call their parents and say they had cancer
so they could get money from their parents.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
And my parents were like.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
That's so sad, that's the.
Speaker 5 (41:23):
Line, and then we're not gonna do that, and they
fled and they the middle of the night.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Damn.
Speaker 4 (41:31):
Somebody doing good deeds or you know, being charitable in
one area is just like not enough of an indicator
of whether or not you should trust them because so often,
I mean always, they're always doing something good or like
providing something helpful to the world, or they wouldn't get
followers in the first place.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
It's just like priming you to trust them more.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
To trust yes.
Speaker 5 (41:51):
And it's like it's their public facing persona as benevolent,
generous mother who's caretaking the six sort of like mother
to style, and then there's photo ops for all of that,
and that's what the world sees. But behind closed doors
and we hear about this all the time in domestic
situations of abuse and control inside the house. But then
(42:15):
you see the partner whatever going out into the world
and being like the best dad at the pta.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
You know, there's so many parallels you you wrote in
the book. Once her devotees were locked in, Ma began
behaving more erratically, And I think that that's just so
true of most cult most abusive relationships, Like as soon
as you are locked in, it all switches.
Speaker 5 (42:39):
As soon as you're married and pregnant at waybe that's
when they get.
Speaker 1 (42:43):
You, right, I get you.
Speaker 4 (42:45):
I imagine myself in that scenario as the cult leader,
and I'm like, wouldn't that be the moment where you'd
be like, COOLT got the you know, Gumma followers, let's
just chill now. But instead they lose their fucking minds.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
Yeah, but you're not mentally ill.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
That's the problem.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
And it's and it's true because if they want mentally ill,
it could just be fun, yeah, and it could just
be like a compound where people ran around and believed
in something bigger than themselves. But it's like these leaders
are always going to make it horrible.
Speaker 5 (43:20):
I think it starts with such a lack of love internally,
it's like the hungry ghosts. Like gabora mate talks about
the land of the hungry Ghost. It's like this bit
of hell where there's a hungry ghost and you keep
pouring in and pouring in and there's it's just there's
a there's a hole in them or something. They can't
really fill up with anything, love, enough, material goods. Nothing
(43:44):
is going to be enough for them, so they just
like once they get more power, they just want more
and more and.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
More, and they want to hurt people and they want
to like get you sicker.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
I feel like sometimes.
Speaker 4 (43:55):
They really and I'd be curious if you have any
strong opinions on where she is on the spectrum. But
as we talk about, like, I think sometimes they think
they are being good to people.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
Yeah, it's and it's so hard to know which one
it is.
Speaker 5 (44:08):
I do think she was definitely sucked into her own delusion.
I don't think she realized what she was doing was
so harmful. I really don't think she had that capacity
for awareness and that kind of conscious understanding of what
she was doing. But she had like a drug addiction problem,
(44:30):
and I think she just had that that delusion that
some people just get caught in and then the whole
world around them becomes the delusion, and then it just
reinforces that person's fantasy about who they are and what
they're doing, and they think they think they're good.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
Were her kids in the group, I.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Actually don't know. I know that she had a daughter,
she had a son.
Speaker 5 (44:53):
The daughter had some like there's some articles about the
daughter online where the daughter sued because she was married
off at thirteen years old to some older man by
her mother.
Speaker 7 (45:04):
Damn.
Speaker 4 (45:06):
Yeah, Wow, these dynamics are being modeled for you at
this young age, and it sounds like you learn these
skills that were helpful for you on Survivor. But also
you write in your book about how you were entering
these really really high intensity situations like for so many
years and kind of not stopping and then recovering would
(45:27):
be so difficult because all you knew was to keep going.
You touched on it earlier, But tell us more about
the process of learning how to recover from these high
intensity situations so you're not in fight or flight all
the time.
Speaker 5 (45:39):
Well, it took me a really long time to even
start to believe recovery was a thing like I lift
weights now, and my weightlifting instructors are like, you need
a sleep, you need to take EPs and salt baths,
you need to have your nutrition. And I'm like what,
because I would just push myself on empty and accomplish
(46:00):
these pretty heroic feats. So I was like, oh, my
body doesn't need that at all. Once I made a
very big mess of my life, I was like, okay, okaykay,
like let's don't and also.
Speaker 8 (46:14):
When let's like, let's take a look at what this is,
but really it was this I didn't want to Like
some like the pain in my present moment felt more
bearable and more acceptable than visiting the pain of my past.
Speaker 5 (46:34):
So I think I just stayed in this cycle of
survival mode because it kept me only like in this
sort of surface level pain that was just like, oh,
I could handle it, Like if I'm doing an endurance
challenge on Survivor and holding my arm up for six hours,
I'm not thinking about how I.
Speaker 3 (46:52):
Was totally exploited as a child.
Speaker 5 (46:55):
And you know, my friends and family were really were
you used and abused?
Speaker 3 (47:01):
So it's just it was too hard to look at that.
Speaker 5 (47:03):
And also my family like we didn't open up the conversation,
like it was just we just moved on and that
was the survival strategy for us.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
That just helped us create a new life.
Speaker 1 (47:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (47:14):
So then now at this point in my life, I'm like, oh,
I don't. I want to create something very different in
my present and in my future than what I created
in the past. I want to have a life that's
really rich, really abundant. Really do you see loving fun
like feels good. I want to life that feel really good.
I want to be connected to pleasure and sensuality, and
(47:34):
I have to be in.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
My body and enjoy being in my body to have that.
Speaker 5 (47:41):
So I've started incorporating a buck ton of recovery. Like
I do acupuncture, I do roll fan, I go to
somatic therapy.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
I'll take naps during the day.
Speaker 5 (47:53):
I do yoga nindra, which is like a very gentle
form of deep relaxation, progressive relaxation. You just lay down,
I go into this.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
I can't do that. Oh you would love that, I'm gonna.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
You sound like me.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
Like, So, I had a period which I talked about
endlessly on this podcast, where I was like in hardcore
OCB and like just recurring severe anxiety, and I did
so much mental health shit in such a short period
of time where I.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
Was like, I'm gonna do everything. I'm gonna get the
most better anyone's ever gotten.
Speaker 4 (48:28):
Even when it came to my recovery, I was like,
I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Oh no, I'm gonna fix my brain more than anyone's
ever fixed.
Speaker 3 (48:35):
The brain such a hard habit to break.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
What do you a Scorpio moon, I'm a scorpio moon.
Speaker 4 (48:42):
I'm a sagittarius. Everything I don't know what it means.
I don't do astrology. Well, your book is called Nice
Girls Don't Win. How I burned it all down to
claim my power? And I will say, like, beyond the
cold stuff, there's so much in this book that I
connected with, just like as a woman, it's like I
feel this, I feel this, I feel this even down
(49:03):
to brother overdose saying like there's just so much in
there that I really connected with.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
So thank you for writing it and thank you for sharing.
Speaker 3 (49:11):
Ah, thank you.
Speaker 5 (49:13):
I haven't had a conversation that's been so focused on
my childhood. And it's so interesting because this is the
work that I'm doing right now is to go into
those memories and like feel that part of my life
because I haven't really touched on it.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
So it was perfect timing.
Speaker 4 (49:31):
Yeah, and there we will leave it with poverty.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
I'm so glad she came on. Megan.
Speaker 4 (49:38):
It's the time of the day where I ask you,
if you think you would join Ma's Ashram Ashram, how
do you say it?
Speaker 1 (49:48):
It doesn't even matter.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
I feel like we've just been mispronouncing so many Indian
terms this podcast that it's it's like it doesn't matter
how I say it, because it's going to be wrong.
Speaker 4 (50:00):
Okay, the Internet or like dictionaries say it's ashram, but
I feel like nobody pronounces it that way, so I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
I mean, my cat just screamed at the top of
her lungs, so we're definitely saying something wrong and we apologize.
And indeed, indeed, would I join, Yeah, I probably would.
It has all the components that I am susceptible to,
such as a pretty piece of land. It sounds like
(50:27):
they were all doing like art and drugs and uh,
you know, just like the initial recipe of something that
I would think would be healthy. I can see how
quickly I would get sucked in, and then I would
be very confused when it started becoming abusive and horrible
(50:49):
and would probably go through the exact same story arc
as her parents.
Speaker 4 (50:53):
Yeah, I see this for you, Yeah, I do. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
Not for me, No, not when I look at ma I.
Speaker 4 (51:01):
You know, some cult leaders, I look at their photos
and I'm like, yeah, I could see it. When I
look at her, I'm like, I feel like I would
be repulsed by the way that this woman styles herself.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
It was the seventies, Lola, I know, I know.
Speaker 2 (51:15):
I do think it's interesting that ron Das did that
like hit piece on her of like she sucks, but
it was already too late.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
That's interesting to me, Like, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (51:25):
Yeah, it doesn't matter, like, doesn't matter what comes out
about I mean, we see so many examples of this
in modern politics. It does not matter what comes out
about someone to most people who have once they follow them, yikes,
exactly because their allegiance is to the leader. It's like,
we talk about this all the time, but like, yeah,
we connect to the person and so whatever choice they
make must be the right choice. Yeah, which is not true.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
Well, thank you so much for listening to another week
of trust Me.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
We appreciate you. Please rate us five stars by some March.
Speaker 4 (51:58):
And exactly Right store dot com.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
And as always, remember to follow your gut watch job
for red flags.
Speaker 4 (52:06):
And that ever ever trust me, Bye bye. This has
been an Exactly Right production hosted by me Lola.
Speaker 2 (52:16):
Blanc A, Me, Megan Elizabeth. Our senior producer is G.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
Holly.
Speaker 4 (52:20):
This episode was mixed by John Bradley.
Speaker 2 (52:22):
Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain, and our guest booker
is Patrick Kottner.
Speaker 4 (52:27):
Our theme song was composed by Holly Ambert Church.
Speaker 2 (52:29):
Trust Me as executive produced by Karen Kilgareth, Georgia hart
Stark and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 4 (52:35):
You can find us on Instagram at trust Me podcast
or on TikTok at trust Me Cult podcast.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
Got your own story about cults, extreme belief, our manipulation,
Shoot us an email at trustmepod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 4 (52:46):
Listen to trust Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts
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