August 5, 2026 • 59 mins
Today is part 1 with Anke Richter, journalist, author of Cult Trip, former member of Tantric group International School of Temple Arts, and founder and director of New Zealand’s cult conference DeCult. In this week’s episode she shares how she began as a journalist investigating cults, but when she went to a tantric sex festival, she had a peak experience with ecstatic dancing that made her never want to go back to her old way of life.
She’ll talk about doing her first training in tantric pleasure, which got her deeper into ISTA and the idea of tantric polarity and exploring her feminine energy that she’d felt she’d been missing, and how the intensity and the highs she felt in these communities made real life seem boring. Plus, how there often aren’t a lot of sexual communities to choose from in general, which can create room for the sketchier ones to flourish.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Trust me? Do you trust me?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I ever lead you astray?
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Trust? This is the truth, the only truth.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't
welcome to trust me. The podcast about cults, extreme belief
and manipulation from two lovers who've actually experienced it. I'm
Lola Blanc and I'm Megan Elizabeth, and today is Part
one with Anca Richter, journalist, author of Cult Trip, former
(00:30):
member of Tantric Group, International School of Temple Arts, and
the founder and director of New Zealand's cult conference called
De Cult. In this week's episode, Anca is going to
tell us about how she began as a journalist investigating colts,
but when she went to a Tantric sex festival she
had a peak experience with ecstatic dancing that made her
never want to go back to her old way of life.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
She will tell us about doing her first training in
tantric pleasure, which got her deeper into ESTA and the
idea of tantric polarity and exploring her feminine energy that
she felt she'd been missing, and how the intensity and
the highs she felt in these communities mad real life
seem boring, plus how there often aren't a lot of
(01:14):
sexual communities to choose from in general, which can create
realm for the sketchyra ones to flourish.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Ain't that the truth? Ain't that the truth?
Speaker 4 (01:25):
I feel like this is such a like common movie
thing where it's like the journalist goes in to explore
a thing and then you know, but she's so cool,
and I do have her book on my bedside table.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
It's really good. She's cool. She's very cool.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
And I love that we're talking about this type of
cultic group too, because I feel like we talk a
lot about religious cults and new age and this sort
of sexual community one is one that I find very interesting.
And absolutely the line between like what's healthy and what
isn't healthy, I think can be hard for people to
navigate because it's so often just like in the dark,
you know, like we're not talking about them. Yeah, And
(02:02):
I feel like it's an easier need for people to
understand sometimes where it's just like I want to reach
a deeper sense of my sexuality. Obviously that's a more
complicated want than like I want to have, you know,
dinners with a bunch of people does not make any sense.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I'm so tired, I.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Mean, not really, but we all have sexual needs and yes,
but it's like with any call, they're all praying upon actual,
real human needs that we all have.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Yeah, but like sometimes I guess in this isolated community
that we've built, especially in America, sometimes people don't understand
the need for community. You know.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
That's what I meant by dinner.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
I see, I see it, Okay, but people still seem
to understand the need to have sex.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
That that's true.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Yes, Also the donkey's braid and hopefully the hopefully it
got filtered out. But if you hear braying in the background,
it is the guard donkey.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Oh my god, that's the hero donkey. I am at
my mom's house donkey b Brian.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
And everyone who doesn't remember this is the guard donkey.
About when doctor Christine Marie was doing her interview work,
her investigative journalism work.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Rather, that was their security system.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
If somebody's going to come her, the donkey would bray
and I remember it well.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Or waites that the go we have a lot.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
There are a lot of animals in this household.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Before we jump into it with Unca, take a deep.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Dive into the hand trick world. Megan, what's your cultiest
thing of this week?
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Okay, so there's a Wired article written by Amy Harredy
entitled a teen reporter searched for his community and the
Epstein Files a ELTs freaked out. An Instagram post turned
one California student newspaper into a free speech flashpoint. The
(04:09):
students say they were just doing their homework. So, as
we know, journalism is getting very censored, correct under kind
of a more fascist regime. Yes, so this kid, Ben
Muller decided to do his homework. He's from a really
affluent part of California. And you know, if you want
(04:31):
to go on that Justice a Department website and type
in a few names, it is pretty interesting. I've found
a lot of people I know from different walks of life,
and there is i will say, a ton of people
and them that are just like referenced, they're just mention
I'm a big I'm a big fan, or like they're
movies playing. But it's it doesn't take too much homework
(04:53):
to figure out who's talking to people and who's not
in a real way. So he exposes a couple of
people and one of the women sues him, which brings
us to one of our favorite topics, which is cognitive biases. Right,
(05:14):
so there's like the confirmation bias. You said your favorite
one was attribution bias.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
My favorite cognitive bias is the fundamental attribution error, also
known as attribution bias, which is when we attribute other
people's actions to their inherent character and we attribute our
own actions to the context and the circumstances.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
So you do it because you're a bad person. I
do it because I had a bad day.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Wonderful. Yeah, I love that one. Mine is the rhyme
as reason effect. We did a really interesting interview with
Amanda Knox where we talked about her kind of having
the rhyme foxy Noxie and the news that really hurt
her case, like people were like, she's bad, she's boxy.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Whatever.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
So this woman has sued this child and it has
brought up the Barbara streisand effect, which is when Barbara
streisend suit a photographer fifty million dollars to remove a
photo of her Malibu cliff Top mansion. Before the lawsuit,
(06:23):
the photo had only been downloaded six times, two of
which were by her own lawyers, and then following the lawsuit,
four hundred thousand people immediately viewed the image within a month,
kind of like also when Beyonce tried to take the
only ugly picture Reppers I've ever taken off the internet
and now it's just a meme. So this story has,
(06:47):
you know, so many layers of it, and I encourage
people to do a little bit of their own investigative journalism.
I promise you you'll be surprised at what you find.
And you know, these people are suing, but instead of winning,
she now has a lot of people looking at her,
(07:08):
which is interesting.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah, which I would say is more of a social
like a social phenomenon than a cognitive bias.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
But it's true.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
The more you're like, don't look at this thing more,
everyone's gonna be like, what thing?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
What's the thing I'm not supposed to look? So the
thing I'm not supposed to wak. Yeah, that is so interesting.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
She's suing a high school newspaper, hilarious, which, by the way,
like it's publicly available, the information in the files, so like.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yes, it's literally publicly available.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
And she was just like running a very sketchy, fake
modeling center and being like, yes, I'll bring my models over.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
So she moved to Canada.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
It's just very interesting that the high school students are
the ones having to do some yeah, some hardheading journalism. Yeah,
what about you? What's your Cultiest thing of the week.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I went to a friend engagement party and at this
engagement party, I spoke to a man I don't think
I've ever spoken to before who casually mentioned that he
was going away for the weekend with a group of
men to one of those like military like simulation camps
(08:22):
or whatever they're called, or maybe it's survival It was unclear.
I don't think he even totally knew, but I was like, Oh,
what's it for? And he was like, I'm on this
men's team. And I was like, oh, is it like
a sports team, like what sport? And he's like, no,
it's not a sport. It's just a group. But we're
supposed to call it a team. Oh and I what
(08:43):
do you? What do you You can call any group
a team.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
It turns out, yeah, and I guess it's he It's
like a zoom group that's been going on for years
that will do these in person meetups over the weekend,
and it is like this men only like men's community
and apparently there's a ton of them and they're not
(09:07):
really supposed to talk about them, oh, which is.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
What he was telling me, a complete stranger. But yeah, there,
I guess they're free, which is good.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, because we.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Know that there are men's communities and men's groups that
exist that are charging a fuck ton of money and
you know, praying on vulnerable men and or just maybe
some evil men in there, but praying on men who
are seeking community and you know, offering them answers and stuff.
Apparently this is almost structured like more like a like
(09:37):
a like AA or something where it's like this free
meetup that you that they go to and they just
like talk about being a guy and the problems that
they're facing and the challenges of being a man, which
like doesn't sound it sounds kind of good.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, what's the military part?
Speaker 1 (09:56):
He said.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
It wasn't really toxic or anything. It was just more
about like finding a healthy way to be masked. But
then they're also doing these weekends that are like we're
tapping into our masculinity together, and so that that's the
part that I'm like, I don't know, it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
I'm not saying it's inherently bad. Got you.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
I thought you said there was a military component, and
I was imagining them doing like Civil war re enactments.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Oh no, it's like I think it's like they're you know,
they do these like boot camp weekends.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Got you?
Speaker 3 (10:24):
And I know a couple guys who've been a part
of programs that go to this. There's like one in California.
And I have not actually done any research on it
other than hearing men men kind of vaguely talk about it.
But my understanding is that it's like, yeah, you can
go like to survival camp for men, or like he's
kind of a boot camp. They're crawling around and they're
(10:46):
in the woods and they're trying to survive and it's
just like a bunch of grown ass men together.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Listen.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Yeah, I can see the benefits. I can also see
the downfalls.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, I'm like.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
What this the tea, the language of it all, and
the sort of secrecy of it, I'm like, what what
are you guys doing.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
I'm just so curious about the origins of.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
It, because apparently there are many of these and it's
not like publicized.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
It seems like it's like a.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Word of mouth thing. His friend asked him to join.
So I don't know. I want to know more. I
want to know more.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
I'm gonna maybe ask for a follow up.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
We want to know a lot more. So yeah, get
that follow up. I'll get that follow up. Girl, that's
super interesting. I can't wait to hear more about his experience.
You ready to talk to Unca.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
I'm so ready.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Welcome, Unca Richter to trust me. Thank you for being
here across the world.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
I know it's so exciting. I can't really believe that
you found you here, just never getting Los Angeles traffic
has been a challenge for you.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
I am well, Yeah, welcome from the other side of
the world. Yeah, so much to get into with you.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
I want to start by learning a bit about It's
so confusing because the cult conferences this weekend, which is
called IXA, but then the cult that you're in is
called ISTA, and I'm going to accidentally say the wrong
one at some point it is going to happen. But
before the International School of Temple Arts ever was a
part of your life. What were your experiences with spirituality
(12:26):
and you know, religion or alternative lifestyles.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
I would say I was probably pretty cynical about it
or being being a journalist for Starters. During the pandemic,
I became very involved with an anti conspiracy movement. I
actually started a not for profit a charity called fact
Fight against Conspiracy Theories. So I wouldn't have called myself spiritual. Oh,
(12:50):
hang on pandemic, that one that was only six seven
years ago. Okay, backtrack growing up? Okay. I grew up
in a Protestant family, but not heavily religious, more like
sort of kumbaya, you know, sing some songs, going to
church at Christmas and Easter maybe, but not not religious,
just sort of culturally Christian. Right in Germany, that's right, right,
(13:15):
So Christian you know, for me had a very different
ring there than it had when I left Germany and
then understood what fundamentalist Christianity is because I didn't have
any or conservative Christianity. I didn't have any touchstones for
that really in Germany. I actually exited the Protestant Church
when I was twenty, so I didn't have to pay
(13:35):
the tax there anymore. I guess I was a really
true believer in my teens. I had some love for
Jesus and actually ran a youth group with a YMCA.
But I think it was more about meeting boys and
singing songs, the ries of camps and all of that.
So it was quite cynical about I guess, spirituality in general.
(13:58):
For decades, and because you mentioned Ista International School of
Temple Arts, I was never drawn to the Tantra movement.
I actually did want to check it out at some
stage when I lived in Hamburg and I went to
one workshop one day workshop and I left halfway through
and I thought, I just can't do this is the
Inia music and people, the sweaty T shirts that are
(14:18):
rolling their hips and going ah. I would also at
ten o'clock in the morning, I don't even know these
people now have to hug them all on this spot
and be into me like well, and I left and
I thought that was that. And then fast forward to
when was it two thousand and twelve thirteen or so
when I kind of fell into this whole new Tantra
(14:39):
movement by accident because I went to a festival I
was curious about called the Taste of Love Festival. Byron
gives you an idea. It gives you a taste in
Byron Bay, and it's very much an ister festival, even
though they claim we're not Ister, but they're so affiliated.
It's a gate where it's a funnel for Ister.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
So what did you think it was like a sexuality
festival or yeah, it is.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Much is it's a neo tantra festival. And and there's a
lot of you know, there are different flavors in there,
but of all I would say, it's neo tantra and
it's spirituality. And I went and I thought, all these
people clad in purple silk, and.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
What does a tantra festival look like?
Speaker 1 (15:19):
All right, I give you, I give you an idea.
The evening entertainment was this I think it was called
the Lover's Mask Ball. No drugs, no alcohol. Everyone was
sort of high on love and on life energy. And
the founder of Ister, his name is Barbadez infamous, you know,
Robert Nichols, who goes by the name of Barbadez and
(15:40):
has since been I guess sort of kicked out of
ist Barba Barba Daz. Yeah, yeah, you google him. His
real name is Robert Nichols. Sot's this guy. Sorry, I'm
looking at photos of him. He's saw this guy? Okay,
keep he's got sex grriven all over him. In fact,
he has a doco called Magic. I mean, I knew
(16:01):
all this when I'd watched the doc or i'd heard
about the guy. I was kind of cynical about him
and all his two thousand probably by our four thousand lovers.
But I still went to this festival because I wanted.
There was something that I clearly wanted. But I was
also writing like a personal piece of journalism about it,
slightly tongue in cheek. But then I got really hooked in.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
And yeah, is what helped me.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Okay, yeah, you know what I because it's only later
when I try to unpack what that was. It actually
happened when I went to an ecstatic dance session there,
so it wasn't even anything sexual. It was ecstatic dance.
I was jumping around and looking at people's eyes and
moving and dancing. And then I stepped outside. It was
spiral and bay, very tropical, and the rain was just
(16:46):
coming down. I stood on the balcony there and I
put out my hand and I felt these rain drops
on my skin, and I was just and I had
this little epiphany of I always want to feel this way,
and there's no stepping back. This is the real me.
So live and so expressive and so essential and so
connecting with people. This is how I always want to feel.
I can't go back to my old self. And it's
(17:07):
almost like a line in the sand. And then I
I was like, oh wow, there's so much to discover here.
There's a part of me that hasn't really experienced all
this before. I mean, this is probably you know, I
could talk to my therapist about that. That's what that is.
But yeah, that's what That's how it started. I got
a taste of something. I thought, oh, I want a
piece of that.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Prior to that point where you like restrained or like
concerned it, Like, what was it about it that unlocked
something in you?
Speaker 1 (17:34):
I was certainly not conservative. I've always been a progressive
liberal from a liberal family, A leftist. I would say,
it's sexually open minded, but probably deep down also, oh god,
I mean, have you ever heard of David Data?
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Oh yeah, okay, right, I think he was that. I
think he was actually the entry point that someone pointing
me into his direction. And I listened to some other
Waspeck in the days when you listen to CDs, some
of his CDs, and again there was something like ended
For me, I thought, oh, I'm this typical, strappy, masculine
woman who's just focused on her career. And I mean,
(18:14):
luckily my parents didn't raise me to be pretty unlike
by men. But it was all about achievement and get
good grades, and so I was very much raised in
that mindset. And David Data he knew how to get
his little hocks in me and saying on his CDs, ah,
but what about your femininity? And there's a whole potential
that you haven't really expressed. And I think this is
(18:34):
what got me. And then when I was at later,
maybe a year or two later on my exploration path,
and I came to the Test of Love festival and
then discovered some of these courses, that's I think really
what got me was say, oh, there's a part of
me that hasn't really fully blossomed, and that's my femininity.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah. There are so many David disciples. I don't know who.
I've never heard of this man.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah, lucky.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
It like it's all about finding your womanhood or whatever.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
His most popular book is called The Way of the
Superior Man gives your idea. Okay, yes, so it's all
about these paraphrasing this, right, it's all about the three
stages of men in the nineteen fifties type, the housewife
and the provider and he's the macho and she's submissive.
And then we have the next stage where probably I
(19:25):
thought I was stuck in this sort of nineteen seventies
type person where the guys wear long hair and they
dance around the fire and there's sing songs and it
will soft and the women are all emancipated and empowered,
but the polarity is missing because they're not real men,
are really women anymore. And then David Data talks about
the third stage or whatever it is, where you find
(19:47):
this true polarity again in the tantric sense. And this
is when the you know, the erotic energy comes back
in woe. Who doesn't want that, right, especially when your
middle aged and marriage for decades and all of that.
So all of that really was like, oh, there's something
that I hadn't that I hadn't really looked at because
I was so cynical about all this esoteric and tontric
(20:09):
and spiritual stuff. Yeuh. But then I thought, actually I
need some of that just for my own life and
from our own relationship and for our own I guess
sort of sexual well being. So that was the gateway.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
That's fascinating.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
It's also incredibly relatable to just like hit a point
where you're like, I gotta break out of whatever I'm doing,
Like I have to explore more, have adventures, open up sexually.
Like these are very common experiences for adult women.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Very legit.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Yeah, so it makes sense that you know, you'd come
across some of this stuff and also have this like
peak experience at this you know, ecstatic dance place, and
then you're like, give me more of that.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
I'm just shocked that you were able to just jump
into a static dancing that seems because no drugs, no alcoholic.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
I love ecstatic dons.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
I still love and actually like you incredible. I don't.
I didn't really know what it was. I had heard
the term.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
It's basically, you know, it's wild music and you just
dance but not partnered up, not with a drink at
the bar, and but you don't talk, you don't interact.
It's all very self expressive. And I mean if you
look at I guess the Russian niche movement, you see
some of that. So I think it has the roots
in five rhythms and some of those modalities from the
(21:26):
seventies and eighties, but actually just dancing to music without
being being on anything and without you know, trying to.
I mean, I guess subconsciously people are still trying to
pick people up and look good. You know, I'm certainly there,
but it's but I really love it because it's like
exercise and release and you've moved and you had some
(21:46):
good music and you've been on the dance floor, but
your home, you know, at eight.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
O'class getting out your head.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
It's kind of an acting class thing, like I've done
it an acting class before, where it's like lose yourself
and I've been moved. However your yeah, and even in
that situation, but like, oh I'm sick, I have to go.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
So no judgment about you know, ecstatics also, I mean,
even with some of these contric technique, techniques are so
I don't want to dismiss all that, but unfortunately, I
think because there is such a need in our society,
especially for women, you know, to find their desire and
to to kind of you know, find out who they
truly are, and to find their organism and all these
things can I say this word on this show?
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Say it as much as you want.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Thank you. I know we are in the United States
of America. GE's spicy.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
I have so many books on Tantra and I love them,
and there you go.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Yeah, And I think it's such important work.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
And this might be jumping ahead, and this might just
be not fair to say, but I almost feel like
it's gaslighting me into connecting with men in a way
that's always going to end up being bad because it's
just like, connect your energy with this person. And I
(23:15):
mean I was doing it with my past relationship and
ways that were bringing me to places I was completely
out of control of.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
That felt amazing.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
But then if that person, your partner, suddenly becomes perhaps
abusive or not well in the head, you're connected in
a way that is quite dangerous.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Oh interesting, Yeah, Well, so I'm still wondering about these
masculine and feminine stereotypes, prototypes, whatever they are, you know,
in the I mean, I'm really not an expert on contra,
but you must have I mean, you come across the
masculine and the feminine and how you have both in yourself.
But even those concepts, they're so binary in some ways,
and I think I bought into that for quite a while,
(23:59):
and all sort of checking my masculine parts and which
I probably have a lot of, and feeling guilty of
not for not being feminine enough. And then with Ista,
which was my tantra thing, even though they don't really
call it tantra, they're called or shamanic whatever that means,
probably heavily culturally appropriated. I was getting a bit guilty
if I'm not surrendered enough, because in the feminine is
(24:20):
surrendered and she just oh.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
My god, at all.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
And if you look at what you've already told us,
you're running the groups at the y m c A,
you're starting these things, you're like doing all these things
that are very yourself motivated and control and now somebody
is telling you that's bad essentially, or that you should
soften a bit.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
And I hate that for you.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Yeah, I mean, it's thank you. It's it's a mix
bead because on one level, I guess this is also
why you would find a lot of I guess, very
dominant men who love to be dominated by a dominatrix,
because there's something about actually giving up your power and
not always being on control. And I am a control
and I'm very driven, so there's something, Oh, how wonderful
(25:07):
I can be a fully embodied woman by just.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
I could see that being very appealing as someone who
is a control freak, and in parties, whatever the fuck
they think is masculine. I think most days of most days,
I could see there being this like, oh, no, you
need to let go, you need to like not hold
on so tight and like experience a little bit of
(25:31):
freedom and opening up.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
To me, It totally makes sense.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
And I want that for you too, for all of
us the context of sex God that want to talk to.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
But is that possible? Let's that's the question, you know.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
I think I was on attention before. But I think
because we live in a society in general and the West,
baby everywhere, I guess everywhere where, we don't really get
the holistic sexuality or erotic life that we probably deep
down all desire, or maybe some people do and some
people think that don't have it or whatever. Anyway, there's
(26:11):
definitely a lack of something, whether it's you know, consent
or sensuality versus porn country and whatever. I think because
there is a real need to do better in this
fear there's the gap where the sex cults can come in.
And because it's such a typoo subject, because it's not
like taking a cooking class and you tell all your
friends about it. I mean, I was leading a double
(26:32):
life when I was an this. I had another Facebook profile.
I wouldn't have been seen dead going, you know, to
these things. Officially, most of my friends didn't even know
that was my you know, it'd become a sex sculpturist,
my malidays so to speak, and booked courses around the
world to be part of all this this exciting new movement.
But there's still a part of me that's judging that
(26:54):
and going cringe crunch crunch. It can't be seen with that.
But if we could bring this whole topic out of
the shadows more, then I think groups like ist and
and they're not the only abuseve ones I think in
this in this.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
One days, one day long exactly.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
They wouldn't have such a power to take us down
into their rabbit holes if we could just been you know,
if we had a better criteria to assess these groups
and talk about it openly and to our friends and
go Actually, I want to check something out because it
seems to be good for female orgasm and people go,
oh no, no, don't do that, and it's not a taboo.
You can talk about it, can look it up, and
(27:28):
there would be journalism and media about it too. They
would be checked out like other businesses that have business reporters,
you know, looking at what they're doing. That's really what
I hope totally.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
I got really lucky and that my friends and I
found like a woman who teaches tantra and we went
to Joshua Tree and just had like an orgasm retreat
of sorts and then you didn't have to like do
anything after and it was and it wasn't like sexual
with each other, but it was very enlightening and deep
and it was wonderful, and it's like, why can't people
(28:00):
do that more often?
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I'm so glad you you know what I'm talking about
that it's not all weird for you and you had
that experience. Actually, yeah, it's actually something that can be
really positive and wonderful. Sure, I don't want to discourage
people from trying out tantra, but then the fear is
also rife with predators and completely Yeah, good on you
for going with a woman maybe and you're not all
lacking about a sexual hook cup, but experiencing this within
(28:23):
yourself and.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
That's become my main lover myself.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
That's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
It's nice that you guys. I meant it in a
sad way, but thank you. No, I think it's I
think it sounds great.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
How did we get there?
Speaker 3 (28:38):
I mean I like this though, and I want we'll
come back to your story in one second, but I
think that that's such a valuable point. I like with
my ex and I like we were, you know, with
multiple excess.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
We've been interested in exploring.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Various sexual things outside of ourselves, and there's such limited
options for what's available.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Even though you guys live in La.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Sure, well there they're there, but like a lot of
them are fucking weird or like they're they have a reputation.
You Yeah, you don't really want to tell your friends
about Like I'm a very open person and so is he.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
So we would tell people about it, but we'd see
people there.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Like don't want anyone to know that they're there, you know,
not that this was like that.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
I was, I was by myself.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Yeah, there is like even though we I will say
LA has gotten very like everybody's poly and there's a
there's a very sexually open culture that's becoming a lot
less tied, stigmatized.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yeah, from a Field being a big part of that.
I think we have an app do you know Field?
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Yeah, but that but just just remember you you grew
up in the two U two someone right, Yes, because
we've had a lot of exposure of them in Australia
and New Zealand, and I know some of the activists
and I'm just thinking it's stuff. For instance, is heavily
recruiting with ex magelicals that's really yes? Isn't that interesting?
And I'm just asking, you know, I mean because I
mean I wonder if you can relate to people who've
(30:03):
come out of fundamentalist groups that then be more prone
to being hooked into something that promises them now get
rid of your shame for you and guilt. That's absolutely
and then they go from the fire into the frying pan.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Well, and when you emerge from a repressed, a sexually
repressed culture as Mormonism is so much too like where
having sex is the worst in that you can commit
next to murder if you're not married to the person.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
We've definitely talked about this.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
Yeah, so murder than sex, at least when I was
in the church. I don't know if anything's changed, but
when I was in the church that was the case.
So I cried for three hours the first time I
had sex, and so then like my response to sexuality
became so fraught and tortured, and yeah, it's just not
a healthy relationship to sex, which can render people very vulnerable,
(30:53):
I think to this kind of thing, because also then
we can overcorrect and we're like, well, I'm not repressed anymore,
so I'm gonna try everything, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Absolutely, yeah, what could possibly go wrong?
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Anyway, Anyway, you were also researching a different group, right
called Center Point.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
I know, and this is a bit of an ironyre right,
I was. I fell into the sex cult ist at
the same time when I met a survivor from this
former sex cult Center Point in New Zealand at the
Taste of Love festival in Australia, probably both ecstatic dancing
at the same time, Angie, and she was the commune concubine.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
This is the word she used. What is what is
a commune concubine?
Speaker 1 (31:35):
She was basically sleeping with all the men in the
in the community at the age of you know, at
a young age. A concubine is I think it's an
old fashioned term for the kings and someone they had
their concubines.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
But back in those days they were like kind of
well revered, Like those are the women who would learn
how to read Ang.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
I guess maybe this is why she used the truth,
because you were more over it and you know, I'm
the same as true for the Russianiche cult. All these
sex girls, women who were promiscuous and were available for men,
especially the young girls. They had status, They gained status,
and this is why they were often not seen as
the children there were, but they were treated and seen
(32:18):
as adults, even if they were thirteen years old, no
understanding of you know, our guess of child's actually abuse
or consent or long long long before the mid Toio
movement and all of that. So in the context of
that cult, this was the right way to be as
a child, as a young girl in this former sex
and therapy cult centerpoint from the Human Potential movement. It
(32:38):
had by then shut down and a few months later
that guru founder of that Cultbert Potter, died, and this
is when I met Ange again. And something sort of
lifted for her and a lot of other people from
that cult.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Once he died. Once the leader died, it kind of
a spell broke.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
It spell broke for quite a few people. But I
first heard about it from Angie at the Taste of
Love festival because she said, Oh, I'm actually healing myself
from a sex gut ha ha ha by being around
another sex guru that was Barbadaz at the time. And
she thought that was a funny. And I, of course
didn't realize that Esta was a cult. I was just
getting into it at the same time. As with my
(33:14):
journalist hat On, I thought, wow, Centerpon, that's a big story.
Because I'm an immigrant from Germany and New Zealand, I
hadn't followed that story obviously. It all happened before the Internet.
They had two big police rates in the nineteen nineties.
It was a New Zealand's largest intentional community based on
the Human Potential movement. The founder Bert Potter, he went
(33:37):
to Osho Rajanese community in Puna and then also to
Eslen in California, and then he decided, well, I could
do the same a little in New Zealand and start
my own community there, and unfortunately, sadly, shockingly, about a
third or fourth of the kids there were sexually abused
that took drugs. They manufactured drugs on the proper in
(34:00):
a secret lab, psychedelics, ecstasy and LSD which they took
together with teenagers as young as twelve, and big group experiments.
So they were quite extreme, even on a global scale.
And when I heard about Center Point, I mean, I've
always been interested in cults, but never looked into them
in all my decades as a journalist. And then met
Angie and heard some of her story and looked it
(34:23):
up and thought, wow, what a what a story. And
then I actually found a book publisher, a really good one,
and they signed me up and I had a contract
to basically research the history of Center Point, starting with
Angie and all that happened while I was also drifting
into Ista. And I think that actually makes a lot
(34:43):
of sense, because I was just discovering polyamory and communities
and in Tantra and all these self help workshops, and thought, well,
these people who got into Center Point, they were maybe
the same, They kind of wanted the same, They maybe
wanted to heal some of their sexual warns and they
wanted to be better partners, and they wanted to live
(35:05):
in community. I get all that. I could relate to that,
and I thought, where did things go so wrong that,
you know, two twenty thirty years later, twelve people were
you know, I had been arrested on sexual abuse, child
sexual abuse charges and drug manufacturing charges. And this has
been like the biggest, probably one of the biggest scars
(35:25):
on the on the social history in New Zealand. But
it all happened before the Internet. So most people that
I knew around me back then, they didn't even know
what Center One was. It was the older people.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I've never heard of it.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, No, you wouldn't have. It was only New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
And it's serving in like kind of children of God.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Yeah, I would say probably more more comparable with the
Russianiche movement. Okay, and I now see the parallels much
stronger than I knew. I didn't know how big the
per how common the expenses of especially the young girls
the teenagers were in the Russianische movement in Russianish Porum,
especially like Siricha Carol if you're familiar with her, and
(36:04):
the former childrem from Centerpont who are interviewed. So I thought,
this is a this is an exercise of interviewing a
few families. I had access, had access to some of
the form of perpetrators as well of the Guru's son
who had been in jail, and they were the former
perpetrators and enablers or denies. Were some of the nicer
(36:25):
people and often some of the victims because they were
truly damaged. Were they're freaked out? I had legal threats.
I retriggered people's trauma, I guess two. And they were conflicted.
They've been told by their families before I interviewed them
to only think of the good time. So they were
under all this. So I had actually no idea that
(36:46):
I was getting myself into the cesspool of different factions
of denial of trauma that has been shoved under the
carpet for twenty years. Were people never had the right counseling. Yes,
they had been court cases and not everyone had been
caught up. And then there were still perpetrators out there pretending,
you know, there they were the good guys at center
Point and I met some really really trauma sized people,
(37:10):
especially this one well I called her the girl in
the caravan. In my book Louise. And when I met her,
she was in her late forties, and she changed her
name so many times. She was hiding. She hadn't she
had never really held a relationship. She couldn't even drive
a car because of her anxiety. She tried to kill
herself at the age of eleven, a year after her
(37:33):
parents brought it to Center Point, and her abuse with
a guru and other men started. Three months after she arrived.
She was brought to the Potter's caravan or hut by
his wife because his wife was one of the goal getters.
It gives you an idea of the kind of you know,
environment that she lived in. She barricaded herself in a
caravan full of junk so men couldn't get to her.
(37:56):
And wow, this was the most extreme case. But hearing
her story, and I was the first person she ever
told her whole story to, not even she had never
even seen a therapist in all these years. And it's
fair to say it was life changing for her and
for me because I had hit her dad and I'd
knocked on so many doors. I got interviews and people
pulled them back the next next day because they got
(38:17):
cold feet. I had so many conflicting information. It was
like this massive labyrinth that I got lost in at
some point, and I wasn't even cleaning met was what
was right and what was wrong? Because I think some
of these adults, the adult generation, I think they also
got to me in some way. It was the first
thing they always asked me was so have you sexually
abused yourself? Why are you doing this? They were guests
(38:39):
lighting me, They were using their techniques on me to
make me wrong, And with what I was doing, I
was questioning myself whether I was completely out of my
depth in some ways I was. I didn't have any
training in how to interview sexual abuse victims. And I
was also completely on my own because the editor who'd
signed me up at the publishing house she'd actually left
and there was actually no one I could talk to
(38:59):
it and I know it was I didn't have supervision.
What was I thinking? And then meeting Louise and hearing
her story, it just put a fire in my belly.
And then I was on a crusade, which is not
ideal either. If your journalists, you're supposed to stay neutral.
So I think it really made for a great book
in the end, even though I had to abort the
first round of the book. For many years, I couldn't
finish the Center Point book. I had to pull out
(39:21):
because I was too affected by the vicarious trauma I absorbed,
and there were legal threats and I gave up. But
long story short, in the end, HarperCollins continued me many
years later, and they wanted a book on Carlson. I said, well,
you know I did all these hard yards was the
Centerpoint victims, and I still have that. And then I
added more from other cars that I researched. But yeah,
(39:42):
all the while while I was researching this former sex cut,
I was also dabbling in an esta in my sex
cut without seeing the parallels. But I think it also
gave me an advantage, not just because I had that compassion,
I guess, and the curiosity about the parents and the
people went in the first this place, but quite a
(40:02):
few doors also open for me because I wasn't from
New Zealand. The ex community members had all been burned
by the media. Also the kids, because I mean a
lot of them, not everyone obviously there had been abused,
especially the ones who were born into it much.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
Later that we're still talking about center point right.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
They hadn't experienced the worst of it, but they were
then honestly traumatized. And you, I deeply felt deeply stigmatized
by going to school past headlines and tabloid headlines about
their parents and their jail sentences and their court cases.
So they had to deal with all that. And I
had no idea about the complexity of of all of
(40:41):
that when I got myself into this, so I really
had actual idea what I was doing, otherwise I probably
wouldn't have done it.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
So they thought you dead.
Speaker 4 (40:48):
And am I hearing you correctly when you're saying that
the people who are perpetrators were actually easier to talk.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
To and that like more open and.
Speaker 4 (41:04):
Like more put together, because you see, I'm seeing this
very often in the two by twos, where it's like
the perpetrators are so slick and put together and the
victims are like falling apart and people like they're crazy.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Absolutely, But look, I didn't know back then that this
is all part of part of the aftermath of a
cult or of people coming out of it, and how
it's still playing out on the outside. And I also
didn't know that there were all these factions of for
femin in the children kind of I wouldn't say fighting
each other, but really in different and opposing camps. And
(41:37):
it's quite sad because different some to another cut which
I researched a Glorial which is still going and where
there's a great support organization on the outside for them,
and I guess the same is true for you know,
a lot of other cuts in the US are so
where you know or your mom, you know Lola, what
she's been doing in Utah, where people know that they
find the right support when they come out with a
(41:58):
centerpon children. I mean, the whole thing closed down in
two thousands, so you know, we're talking twenty five years
or when I did my research almost twenty years or so,
where this was just a big taboo that you couldn't
talk about even your own family, and apart from the
court cases, there had been no real help and we
didn't have any trained cult counselors in New Zealand. So
(42:20):
I can really see the difference now of people coming
out of groups. Well, maybe there's still some kind of
hierarchy and competition and all these toxic dynamics that take
to the outside, or you know, maybe not a lack
of trust in people that didn't trust in the cut
and someday they're all on the outside and they should
will be friends. And doesn't always work like that.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Right, really, it really doesn't.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
Yeah, there can be a lot of infighting in the survivor.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Oh look tell me about it. Yeah, and also in
the anti community by the way. Yeah, yeah, same dynamics
to some degree. But it's especially bad if the only
processing of the cult has been done in the media,
but in the way that wasn't necessarily trauma and for
or so other centric or in the courts, and then
you just left with this this this, this this aftermath
(43:06):
of broken people who can't even tell anybody where they
grew up. Yeah, like Louise, the girl in the caravan,
where this is just like a dark spot in her
history that she could never mention. And I learned so
much from this. It was It was hard, but looking
back at what was something this was my my that
was my cult education, even though I didn't study it.
(43:26):
I'm not an expert, you know, I never even went
to university. I'm a you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Yeah, how does how do you get deeper into ista?
Are you just going to more classes like what does
it actually look like?
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Yeah, it's a week long course. I mean I started
off with a festival and there some little workshops here
in there. But then actually pretty much after that festival,
I did my first training in Australia and it's a
week long course where they don't tell you much upfront.
It's because it's a mystery school, right, So yeah, it's
(44:01):
already a red flag. Too much mystery, not enough informed consent.
But back in the days, I didn't know much about consent.
They even have a wheel of consent thing at the beginning,
and the wheel of consent is a great modality, you know.
I would always recommend people look into that and do that,
but unfortunately it's kind of its used as a bit
of a figure leave. I think still because you do
(44:22):
that in the beginning, and then you think you how
to you know how to own your yes and you
know and how to express that. But then you're in
this pressure cooker of an algat large group of wareness training,
which is the actually a group of hate group awareness training.
So I took so fast. Now now I get I'm
sure you've you've heard about those you know, like Tony Robbins,
(44:43):
or yeah, it's just it's just one of those where
you they promise you, you know, ten years of therapy
and one weekend, then it's all in chance, and you
don't get enough sleep and and and you're on a high.
Basically a brain chemistry actually changes. You're on a high.
But then you you trip add to the shamanic superpower
as anista or the teachers or whatever you're learning, whereas
(45:07):
it's actually just your it's just just your dopamin and
your and your endorphins are just flooding your system and
you're on a high. You're literally on a workshop high.
Why you feel so amazing when you come out and
these incredible life changing experiences and then you know, usually
a week or so later that abs off, and what's
the next thing is to go on another training? Probably
(45:31):
I don't know in US dollars, but probably about between
maybe around two k or something euros maybe in Europe
and about two thousand New Zealand dollars maybe two thousand
US around around that mark. They're not super cheap.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
Yeah, the training is to become an instructor or No.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Initially they had these trainings for sexual practitioners so that
you would be. I mean you could say it's basically
in sex work where you can you become a ducker
or dakini and you know, like a tantrick pleasure a
giver or sex worker.
Speaker 4 (46:07):
You know, I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, paying
them to become a sex worker.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Not hang on, this is the original I think how
they started off, right, But you're right, this was the
original training. It's like a training in these kind of
time track techniques. And you know, again nothing wrong with
sexual body workers. There's also sexual body work without all
the spiritual war blah blah, and that's probably all good
and there's a need for that, and if it's done
(46:33):
professionally and correctly, I have no issue with that. But
what they're offering now is actually just for people who
just want to experience this, this wild ride, and they
offer these different different modalities within this first week from
I was grunib but there's a group masturbation sessional they
(46:53):
call it self pleasuring, and then there later there's a
sacred spot ritual. You kind of moved towards it, but
it's you know, they make it. They always point up
this is not about hooking up. This is not a
sex workshop. This is about finding your own erotic energy
and circulating that. And then they do a lot of
In the first training, they do a lot of these.
(47:14):
They teacher the emotional release tools. So this this very
old school nineteen nineties, eighties, cathartic therapies, cushion, banging hands,
green pallow thrusting, all of that aspecting where you talk
to someone and it's awesome.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
Do any of the things you're saying streaming?
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Yeah, you can still do a lot of that there. Look,
I mean, these are these are.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
I also don't know what it is. Wow, Okay, isn't
that like landmark kind of No?
Speaker 1 (47:47):
I was, I mean, but yeah, but I think they're
kind of connected in some ways. Essadent is this is
this sort of mecca of spirituality, self discovery and the
human financial movement, and in near big sur up the
close on the way to San Francisco. I spent a
week there a few years ago and wrote an article
(48:08):
about it, and and I actually thought it wasn't as
culty as as I had assumed. Away some of their
loyal fans reacted to my article and their pr person
I thought, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Maybe they are. You're like, oh, I should have. I
should have spent a year there, then it's a great week.
So you're doing you're doing these well LNG training.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
I think it's become a bit of my trademark of
my I would say exploratory, but also often investigative journalism
is actually to go to places and experience them, which
I never really did. With Esther was really my own.
It was almost sacred to me. It was very personal
and and I loved it. I wasn't harmed in it.
But I now see it as I now call it,
(48:54):
call them out. This is why I'm here talking about them.
I see them as a as an unethical organization that
has been accused of sexual violation, and I think they
haven't done their accountability and they haven't addressed it in
the proper way, and they're harboring predators and one should
take their money there so just to stay there. It's
also very expensive.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
You talked on a different podcast about the highs that
you felt going to these and how real life felt
boring in comparison, and I want to hear more about that,
because even just with relationships, that's such a real thing
where it's like the exciting, chaotic people who are absolutely
(49:35):
bad for us, make everyone that's healthy seem really boring.
So yeah, could you tell us about some of the
highs you felt and where they were coming from?
Speaker 1 (49:44):
Right? And as you might have noticed my fast talking,
I have ADHD, which I'm now fully aware of because
I've been diagnosed, but I wasn't diagnosed back then. And
again it makes sense that I was so hooked and
by a high intense group and all the sort of
risky stuff and the edgy stuff that was like bring
(50:04):
it on, you know, I need the intensity. So the
high for me came from that intensity from but also
from connecting deeply with people. And I'm still not quite
sure and I'm still unpacking some of these things. Was
that were those connections just based on going through these
same intense experiences. Was this manufactured in some ways by
(50:29):
what we're all going through by design? Or were these
real connections and only very very few have lasted and
only actually was, you know, especially one person who has
also left that movement. So for me, it was also
thinking I don't want to be too you know, I
don't want to dismiss everything that I that I had
(50:49):
in there, Because for me, it was also thinking I'm
having these really authentic, deep connections. And this was on
the back of living as an immigrant in New Zealand
for ten years. And I come from Jimmy and people
very direct and very serious and very intense, and New
Zealand is kind of the opposite, which is also very refreshing,
but it can feel a bit shallow and just nice
and sweet, and no one really digs deep into it.
(51:12):
And now I'm just like, let's talk about how we
really are. And then you're in this workshop where all
this is wanted, where I can be intense and emotional
and deep. And I loved all that. That's what it
was for me, really, was this sense of I'm tapping
into something really profound, and then you have this framework.
(51:35):
It kind of gives it a sense. And I absolutely question,
of course, because yeah, I wonder, you know, I'm still
I guess in a lifelong process till the end of
my life. I guess to have not maybe the intensity,
but the depth of experience of connections of authenticity without
having to go somewhere and pay for it. Yeah, not
(51:57):
buying into a community and thinking wow, this is it, right? Yeah?
And I you know, I have to watch myself a
bit there because then I also just going to Kibi Burn,
the New Zealand burning men for the first time. So oh,
a lot of free spirited people and they're doing amazing things.
And now they're all talking about Kibi Burn the whole time.
(52:18):
You know, where does that because Culty And so it's
actually for me now finding those those moments of deep
connection authenticity with people without them all being into the
same thing. And that's you know, and that includes even
the anti cart movement that that doesn't happen another high
that I'm writing.
Speaker 3 (52:41):
But at the same time, like connection with people is important,
and we you know, I don't know how it is
in New Zealand. I know in America there's a loneliness epidemic.
Obviously men are experiencing a lot, but it's not just men,
it's everyone. Gen Z is incredibly lonely. I'm lonely. We're
all lonely. So, like there are cases in which you
do have to seek out community in spaces that are
(53:03):
not just like organic, because it's the only way to
like connect with others. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that,
even sometimes if you have to pay to go to
stuff like because there are communities that are harmless and
there's no obligation, and you know, like obviously the line
is when there's control happening. But I want to make
sure that we honor the humanness of that need to
(53:24):
connect with people and to seek it out.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
We're social animals, you know.
Speaker 1 (53:27):
I guess deep down I've always had a deep hunger
for that. I'm wondering where it comes from. I went
to a boarding school, a Rudelfstin Anthroposophical World of school
in England for one year, so maybe that was my
first cultent environment back then. But I loved it, and again,
you know, the strong sense of community that I did
(53:48):
not have when I went back to my old school,
my old high school in Germany. And then fast forward
to my thirties, I took a sabbatical with my husband,
who's a doctor. He was the island doctor in the
South Pacific on Toakola, a little a little at all
north of Sawhere, and we were the doctors slimming there
with our son. I was pregnant the whole time, and
(54:10):
even though it was very suffocating in some ways, I'm
very very Christian, but I also felt a sense of
community that the islanders, the Tocoalaan's head, and that moved
me deeply. How they looked after each other, how they
sang together, how they ate together. And I think, deep
down I've always no, we all want to be tribal.
Speaker 4 (54:31):
I guess to some degree, there's no way my future
does not include living on a commune with my friends.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
If you've got a good one going California and Trump's gone,
I come back like.
Speaker 2 (54:43):
That is just where I want to be.
Speaker 4 (54:47):
But yes, there are so many factors you have to
measure and put into effect so that it doesn't become abusive.
Speaker 3 (54:55):
I just don't want the answer to be we should
never be seeking out exactly community, you know, like that's
just not the answer, And it's just an ongoing thing
to navigate and to do our best at, and sometimes
we fail at and we're like, well, maybe.
Speaker 1 (55:10):
Not that groupy. I'm I guess I'm so sensitive these
days when my alarmbers go off so quickly. So I
have been to a few groups and retreats again, just
sort of carefully over the last few years and just
dipping my toes and like really low level stuff like
a meditation retreat. But even then I just feel a religiousity,
(55:31):
so so soon, maybe sooner than owther. I don't do
that in the same you know, if I use the
word soul, I think of oh it's and I mean
and that's probably unfair because there are a lot of
great groups and modalities and teachings out there and communities
and sharing circles. But I'm really fussy these days and
(55:52):
it's a bit of a shame because I feel I'm
missing out. I'm probably some some good stuff that's wholesome
and healing and connecting, but I'm like that feels ood.
Speaker 3 (56:01):
I know, I know it's hard not to become hyper
vigilant about it when you are working in this space
and you've had these experiences.
Speaker 1 (56:08):
And then also a lot of people in in and
know what I do, or they write my book with
it about Decard and our conference and all of that,
and then when they see me showing up somewhere, it's
had to kind of just be anonymous, like, oh, are
you here to check if we are cut? I don't
want to. I just want to be mega.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
And that's the end of Part one.
Speaker 3 (56:28):
Stay tuned next week for Part two with Uncle Richter
to talk more about this tantric world. Megan, it's time
for the question of whether you would join maybe even
let's go broader than Ista specifically, let's say a tantric
sex group.
Speaker 4 (56:45):
Yeah, I'm so susceptible to that, for sure, And I
completely see how this journey unfolded for her, and I
think something very similar could happen to me.
Speaker 3 (56:58):
Yeah, I both think that I would be susceptible to
something like this, and also that is tempered by the
fact that when I have engaged with people who are
very heavily into like the sex world, they're often so
into it that it almost makes me not want to
be a part of it as much, if that makes sense. Like,
(57:20):
I feel like sometimes people will make it their entire
personality that they do sex stuff, and I find that
not appealing for me personally. So if that was the
vibe I was encountering, I don't think i'd be susceptible.
But otherwise, like as someone who seeks novelty and deepening
my relationship to myself my sexuality, whoever my partner.
Speaker 2 (57:40):
Is, Like, I totally see the appeal for sure.
Speaker 4 (57:42):
Yeah, there's a lot to unpack with the pros and
cons with stuff like this, and some are you know,
some are really good at people having like this be
a small part of their life.
Speaker 2 (57:54):
Mmmmmm.
Speaker 4 (57:55):
But we dig a lot more into that next week.
That's right, So come back for part two. Come back
rate us five stars, leave us a review, and as always,
remember to follow your gut, watch out for red flags.
Speaker 2 (58:12):
And never ever trust me. Bye.
Speaker 3 (58:20):
This has been an exactly right production hosted by me Lola.
Speaker 2 (58:23):
Blanc and Me Megan Elizabeth. Our senior producer is g.
Speaker 1 (58:26):
Holly.
Speaker 3 (58:27):
This episode was mixed by John Bradley.
Speaker 4 (58:29):
Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain, and our guest booker
is Patrick Kottner.
Speaker 3 (58:34):
Our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.
Speaker 4 (58:36):
Trust Me as executive produced by Karen Kilgareth, Georgia Hartstark
and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 3 (58:42):
You can find us on Instagram at trust Me podcast
or on TikTok at trust Me Cult Podcast.
Speaker 4 (58:46):
Got your own story about cults, extreme belief, our manipulation,
Shoot us an email at trustmepod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3 (58:53):
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):
I ever lead you astray?
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Trust? This is the truth, the only truth.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't
welcome to trust me. The podcast about cults, extreme belief
and manipulation from two lovers who've actually experienced it. I'm
Lola Blanc and I'm Megan Elizabeth, and today is Part
one with Anca Richter, journalist, author of Cult Trip, former
(00:30):
member of Tantric Group, International School of Temple Arts, and
the founder and director of New Zealand's cult conference called
De Cult. In this week's episode, Anca is going to
tell us about how she began as a journalist investigating colts,
but when she went to a Tantric sex festival she
had a peak experience with ecstatic dancing that made her
never want to go back to her old way of life.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
She will tell us about doing her first training in
tantric pleasure, which got her deeper into ESTA and the
idea of tantric polarity and exploring her feminine energy that
she felt she'd been missing, and how the intensity and
the highs she felt in these communities mad real life
seem boring, plus how there often aren't a lot of
(01:14):
sexual communities to choose from in general, which can create
realm for the sketchyra ones to flourish.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Ain't that the truth? Ain't that the truth?
Speaker 4 (01:25):
I feel like this is such a like common movie
thing where it's like the journalist goes in to explore
a thing and then you know, but she's so cool,
and I do have her book on my bedside table.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
It's really good. She's cool. She's very cool.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
And I love that we're talking about this type of
cultic group too, because I feel like we talk a
lot about religious cults and new age and this sort
of sexual community one is one that I find very interesting.
And absolutely the line between like what's healthy and what
isn't healthy, I think can be hard for people to
navigate because it's so often just like in the dark,
you know, like we're not talking about them. Yeah, And
(02:02):
I feel like it's an easier need for people to
understand sometimes where it's just like I want to reach
a deeper sense of my sexuality. Obviously that's a more
complicated want than like I want to have, you know,
dinners with a bunch of people does not make any sense.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I'm so tired, I.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Mean, not really, but we all have sexual needs and yes,
but it's like with any call, they're all praying upon actual,
real human needs that we all have.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Yeah, but like sometimes I guess in this isolated community
that we've built, especially in America, sometimes people don't understand
the need for community. You know.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
That's what I meant by dinner.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
I see, I see it, Okay, but people still seem
to understand the need to have sex.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
That that's true.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Yes, Also the donkey's braid and hopefully the hopefully it
got filtered out. But if you hear braying in the background,
it is the guard donkey.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Oh my god, that's the hero donkey. I am at
my mom's house donkey b Brian.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
And everyone who doesn't remember this is the guard donkey.
About when doctor Christine Marie was doing her interview work,
her investigative journalism work.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Rather, that was their security system.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
If somebody's going to come her, the donkey would bray
and I remember it well.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Or waites that the go we have a lot.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
There are a lot of animals in this household.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Before we jump into it with Unca, take a deep.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Dive into the hand trick world. Megan, what's your cultiest
thing of this week?
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Okay, so there's a Wired article written by Amy Harredy
entitled a teen reporter searched for his community and the
Epstein Files a ELTs freaked out. An Instagram post turned
one California student newspaper into a free speech flashpoint. The
(04:09):
students say they were just doing their homework. So, as
we know, journalism is getting very censored, correct under kind
of a more fascist regime. Yes, so this kid, Ben
Muller decided to do his homework. He's from a really
affluent part of California. And you know, if you want
(04:31):
to go on that Justice a Department website and type
in a few names, it is pretty interesting. I've found
a lot of people I know from different walks of life,
and there is i will say, a ton of people
and them that are just like referenced, they're just mention
I'm a big I'm a big fan, or like they're
movies playing. But it's it doesn't take too much homework
(04:53):
to figure out who's talking to people and who's not
in a real way. So he exposes a couple of
people and one of the women sues him, which brings
us to one of our favorite topics, which is cognitive biases. Right,
(05:14):
so there's like the confirmation bias. You said your favorite
one was attribution bias.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
My favorite cognitive bias is the fundamental attribution error, also
known as attribution bias, which is when we attribute other
people's actions to their inherent character and we attribute our
own actions to the context and the circumstances.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
So you do it because you're a bad person. I
do it because I had a bad day.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Wonderful. Yeah, I love that one. Mine is the rhyme
as reason effect. We did a really interesting interview with
Amanda Knox where we talked about her kind of having
the rhyme foxy Noxie and the news that really hurt
her case, like people were like, she's bad, she's boxy.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Whatever.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
So this woman has sued this child and it has
brought up the Barbara streisand effect, which is when Barbara
streisend suit a photographer fifty million dollars to remove a
photo of her Malibu cliff Top mansion. Before the lawsuit,
(06:23):
the photo had only been downloaded six times, two of
which were by her own lawyers, and then following the lawsuit,
four hundred thousand people immediately viewed the image within a month,
kind of like also when Beyonce tried to take the
only ugly picture Reppers I've ever taken off the internet
and now it's just a meme. So this story has,
(06:47):
you know, so many layers of it, and I encourage
people to do a little bit of their own investigative journalism.
I promise you you'll be surprised at what you find.
And you know, these people are suing, but instead of winning,
she now has a lot of people looking at her,
(07:08):
which is interesting.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah, which I would say is more of a social
like a social phenomenon than a cognitive bias.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
But it's true.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
The more you're like, don't look at this thing more,
everyone's gonna be like, what thing?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
What's the thing I'm not supposed to look? So the
thing I'm not supposed to wak. Yeah, that is so interesting.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
She's suing a high school newspaper, hilarious, which, by the way,
like it's publicly available, the information in the files, so like.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Yes, it's literally publicly available.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
And she was just like running a very sketchy, fake
modeling center and being like, yes, I'll bring my models over.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
So she moved to Canada.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
It's just very interesting that the high school students are
the ones having to do some yeah, some hardheading journalism. Yeah,
what about you? What's your Cultiest thing of the week.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I went to a friend engagement party and at this
engagement party, I spoke to a man I don't think
I've ever spoken to before who casually mentioned that he
was going away for the weekend with a group of
men to one of those like military like simulation camps
(08:22):
or whatever they're called, or maybe it's survival It was unclear.
I don't think he even totally knew, but I was like, Oh,
what's it for? And he was like, I'm on this
men's team. And I was like, oh, is it like
a sports team, like what sport? And he's like, no,
it's not a sport. It's just a group. But we're
supposed to call it a team. Oh and I what
(08:43):
do you? What do you You can call any group
a team.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
It turns out, yeah, and I guess it's he It's
like a zoom group that's been going on for years
that will do these in person meetups over the weekend,
and it is like this men only like men's community
and apparently there's a ton of them and they're not
(09:07):
really supposed to talk about them, oh, which is.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
What he was telling me, a complete stranger. But yeah, there,
I guess they're free, which is good.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, because we.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Know that there are men's communities and men's groups that
exist that are charging a fuck ton of money and
you know, praying on vulnerable men and or just maybe
some evil men in there, but praying on men who
are seeking community and you know, offering them answers and stuff.
Apparently this is almost structured like more like a like
(09:37):
a like AA or something where it's like this free
meetup that you that they go to and they just
like talk about being a guy and the problems that
they're facing and the challenges of being a man, which
like doesn't sound it sounds kind of good.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Yeah, what's the military part?
Speaker 1 (09:56):
He said.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
It wasn't really toxic or anything. It was just more
about like finding a healthy way to be masked. But
then they're also doing these weekends that are like we're
tapping into our masculinity together, and so that that's the
part that I'm like, I don't know, it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
I'm not saying it's inherently bad. Got you.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
I thought you said there was a military component, and
I was imagining them doing like Civil war re enactments.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Oh no, it's like I think it's like they're you know,
they do these like boot camp weekends.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
Got you?
Speaker 3 (10:24):
And I know a couple guys who've been a part
of programs that go to this. There's like one in California.
And I have not actually done any research on it
other than hearing men men kind of vaguely talk about it.
But my understanding is that it's like, yeah, you can
go like to survival camp for men, or like he's
kind of a boot camp. They're crawling around and they're
(10:46):
in the woods and they're trying to survive and it's
just like a bunch of grown ass men together.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Listen.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Yeah, I can see the benefits. I can also see
the downfalls.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, I'm like.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
What this the tea, the language of it all, and
the sort of secrecy of it, I'm like, what what
are you guys doing.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
I'm just so curious about the origins of.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
It, because apparently there are many of these and it's
not like publicized.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
It seems like it's like a.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Word of mouth thing. His friend asked him to join.
So I don't know. I want to know more. I
want to know more.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
I'm gonna maybe ask for a follow up.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
We want to know a lot more. So yeah, get
that follow up. I'll get that follow up. Girl, that's
super interesting. I can't wait to hear more about his experience.
You ready to talk to Unca.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
I'm so ready.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Welcome, Unca Richter to trust me. Thank you for being
here across the world.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
I know it's so exciting. I can't really believe that
you found you here, just never getting Los Angeles traffic
has been a challenge for you.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
I am well, Yeah, welcome from the other side of
the world. Yeah, so much to get into with you.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
I want to start by learning a bit about It's
so confusing because the cult conferences this weekend, which is
called IXA, but then the cult that you're in is
called ISTA, and I'm going to accidentally say the wrong
one at some point it is going to happen. But
before the International School of Temple Arts ever was a
part of your life. What were your experiences with spirituality
(12:26):
and you know, religion or alternative lifestyles.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
I would say I was probably pretty cynical about it
or being being a journalist for Starters. During the pandemic,
I became very involved with an anti conspiracy movement. I
actually started a not for profit a charity called fact
Fight against Conspiracy Theories. So I wouldn't have called myself spiritual. Oh,
(12:50):
hang on pandemic, that one that was only six seven
years ago. Okay, backtrack growing up? Okay. I grew up
in a Protestant family, but not heavily religious, more like
sort of kumbaya, you know, sing some songs, going to
church at Christmas and Easter maybe, but not not religious,
just sort of culturally Christian. Right in Germany, that's right, right,
(13:15):
So Christian you know, for me had a very different
ring there than it had when I left Germany and
then understood what fundamentalist Christianity is because I didn't have
any or conservative Christianity. I didn't have any touchstones for
that really in Germany. I actually exited the Protestant Church
when I was twenty, so I didn't have to pay
(13:35):
the tax there anymore. I guess I was a really
true believer in my teens. I had some love for
Jesus and actually ran a youth group with a YMCA.
But I think it was more about meeting boys and
singing songs, the ries of camps and all of that.
So it was quite cynical about I guess, spirituality in general.
(13:58):
For decades, and because you mentioned Ista International School of
Temple Arts, I was never drawn to the Tantra movement.
I actually did want to check it out at some
stage when I lived in Hamburg and I went to
one workshop one day workshop and I left halfway through
and I thought, I just can't do this is the
Inia music and people, the sweaty T shirts that are
(14:18):
rolling their hips and going ah. I would also at
ten o'clock in the morning, I don't even know these
people now have to hug them all on this spot
and be into me like well, and I left and
I thought that was that. And then fast forward to
when was it two thousand and twelve thirteen or so
when I kind of fell into this whole new Tantra
(14:39):
movement by accident because I went to a festival I
was curious about called the Taste of Love Festival. Byron
gives you an idea. It gives you a taste in
Byron Bay, and it's very much an ister festival, even
though they claim we're not Ister, but they're so affiliated.
It's a gate where it's a funnel for Ister.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
So what did you think it was like a sexuality
festival or yeah, it is.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Much is it's a neo tantra festival. And and there's a
lot of you know, there are different flavors in there,
but of all I would say, it's neo tantra and
it's spirituality. And I went and I thought, all these
people clad in purple silk, and.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
What does a tantra festival look like?
Speaker 1 (15:19):
All right, I give you, I give you an idea.
The evening entertainment was this I think it was called
the Lover's Mask Ball. No drugs, no alcohol. Everyone was
sort of high on love and on life energy. And
the founder of Ister, his name is Barbadez infamous, you know,
Robert Nichols, who goes by the name of Barbadez and
(15:40):
has since been I guess sort of kicked out of
ist Barba Barba Daz. Yeah, yeah, you google him. His
real name is Robert Nichols. Sot's this guy. Sorry, I'm
looking at photos of him. He's saw this guy? Okay,
keep he's got sex grriven all over him. In fact,
he has a doco called Magic. I mean, I knew
(16:01):
all this when I'd watched the doc or i'd heard
about the guy. I was kind of cynical about him
and all his two thousand probably by our four thousand lovers.
But I still went to this festival because I wanted.
There was something that I clearly wanted. But I was
also writing like a personal piece of journalism about it,
slightly tongue in cheek. But then I got really hooked in.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
And yeah, is what helped me.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Okay, yeah, you know what I because it's only later
when I try to unpack what that was. It actually
happened when I went to an ecstatic dance session there,
so it wasn't even anything sexual. It was ecstatic dance.
I was jumping around and looking at people's eyes and
moving and dancing. And then I stepped outside. It was
spiral and bay, very tropical, and the rain was just
(16:46):
coming down. I stood on the balcony there and I
put out my hand and I felt these rain drops
on my skin, and I was just and I had
this little epiphany of I always want to feel this way,
and there's no stepping back. This is the real me.
So live and so expressive and so essential and so
connecting with people. This is how I always want to feel.
I can't go back to my old self. And it's
(17:07):
almost like a line in the sand. And then I
I was like, oh wow, there's so much to discover here.
There's a part of me that hasn't really experienced all
this before. I mean, this is probably you know, I
could talk to my therapist about that. That's what that is.
But yeah, that's what That's how it started. I got
a taste of something. I thought, oh, I want a
piece of that.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Prior to that point where you like restrained or like
concerned it, Like, what was it about it that unlocked
something in you?
Speaker 1 (17:34):
I was certainly not conservative. I've always been a progressive
liberal from a liberal family, A leftist. I would say,
it's sexually open minded, but probably deep down also, oh god,
I mean, have you ever heard of David Data?
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Oh yeah, okay, right, I think he was that. I
think he was actually the entry point that someone pointing
me into his direction. And I listened to some other
Waspeck in the days when you listen to CDs, some
of his CDs, and again there was something like ended
For me, I thought, oh, I'm this typical, strappy, masculine
woman who's just focused on her career. And I mean,
(18:14):
luckily my parents didn't raise me to be pretty unlike
by men. But it was all about achievement and get
good grades, and so I was very much raised in
that mindset. And David Data he knew how to get
his little hocks in me and saying on his CDs, ah,
but what about your femininity? And there's a whole potential
that you haven't really expressed. And I think this is
(18:34):
what got me. And then when I was at later,
maybe a year or two later on my exploration path,
and I came to the Test of Love festival and
then discovered some of these courses, that's I think really
what got me was say, oh, there's a part of
me that hasn't really fully blossomed, and that's my femininity.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah. There are so many David disciples. I don't know who.
I've never heard of this man.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah, lucky.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
It like it's all about finding your womanhood or whatever.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
His most popular book is called The Way of the
Superior Man gives your idea. Okay, yes, so it's all
about these paraphrasing this, right, it's all about the three
stages of men in the nineteen fifties type, the housewife
and the provider and he's the macho and she's submissive.
And then we have the next stage where probably I
(19:25):
thought I was stuck in this sort of nineteen seventies
type person where the guys wear long hair and they
dance around the fire and there's sing songs and it
will soft and the women are all emancipated and empowered,
but the polarity is missing because they're not real men,
are really women anymore. And then David Data talks about
the third stage or whatever it is, where you find
(19:47):
this true polarity again in the tantric sense. And this
is when the you know, the erotic energy comes back
in woe. Who doesn't want that, right, especially when your
middle aged and marriage for decades and all of that.
So all of that really was like, oh, there's something
that I hadn't that I hadn't really looked at because
I was so cynical about all this esoteric and tontric
(20:09):
and spiritual stuff. Yeuh. But then I thought, actually I
need some of that just for my own life and
from our own relationship and for our own I guess
sort of sexual well being. So that was the gateway.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
That's fascinating.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
It's also incredibly relatable to just like hit a point
where you're like, I gotta break out of whatever I'm doing,
Like I have to explore more, have adventures, open up sexually.
Like these are very common experiences for adult women.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Very legit.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Yeah, so it makes sense that you know, you'd come
across some of this stuff and also have this like
peak experience at this you know, ecstatic dance place, and
then you're like, give me more of that.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
I'm just shocked that you were able to just jump
into a static dancing that seems because no drugs, no alcoholic.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
I love ecstatic dons.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
I still love and actually like you incredible. I don't.
I didn't really know what it was. I had heard
the term.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
It's basically, you know, it's wild music and you just
dance but not partnered up, not with a drink at
the bar, and but you don't talk, you don't interact.
It's all very self expressive. And I mean if you
look at I guess the Russian niche movement, you see
some of that. So I think it has the roots
in five rhythms and some of those modalities from the
(21:26):
seventies and eighties, but actually just dancing to music without
being being on anything and without you know, trying to.
I mean, I guess subconsciously people are still trying to
pick people up and look good. You know, I'm certainly there,
but it's but I really love it because it's like
exercise and release and you've moved and you had some
(21:46):
good music and you've been on the dance floor, but
your home, you know, at eight.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
O'class getting out your head.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
It's kind of an acting class thing, like I've done
it an acting class before, where it's like lose yourself
and I've been moved. However your yeah, and even in
that situation, but like, oh I'm sick, I have to go.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
So no judgment about you know, ecstatics also, I mean,
even with some of these contric technique, techniques are so
I don't want to dismiss all that, but unfortunately, I
think because there is such a need in our society,
especially for women, you know, to find their desire and
to to kind of you know, find out who they
truly are, and to find their organism and all these
things can I say this word on this show?
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Say it as much as you want.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Thank you. I know we are in the United States
of America. GE's spicy.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
I have so many books on Tantra and I love them,
and there you go.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Yeah, And I think it's such important work.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
And this might be jumping ahead, and this might just
be not fair to say, but I almost feel like
it's gaslighting me into connecting with men in a way
that's always going to end up being bad because it's
just like, connect your energy with this person. And I
(23:15):
mean I was doing it with my past relationship and
ways that were bringing me to places I was completely
out of control of.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
That felt amazing.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
But then if that person, your partner, suddenly becomes perhaps
abusive or not well in the head, you're connected in
a way that is quite dangerous.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Oh interesting, Yeah, Well, so I'm still wondering about these
masculine and feminine stereotypes, prototypes, whatever they are, you know,
in the I mean, I'm really not an expert on contra,
but you must have I mean, you come across the
masculine and the feminine and how you have both in yourself.
But even those concepts, they're so binary in some ways,
and I think I bought into that for quite a while,
(23:59):
and all sort of checking my masculine parts and which
I probably have a lot of, and feeling guilty of
not for not being feminine enough. And then with Ista,
which was my tantra thing, even though they don't really
call it tantra, they're called or shamanic whatever that means,
probably heavily culturally appropriated. I was getting a bit guilty
if I'm not surrendered enough, because in the feminine is
(24:20):
surrendered and she just oh.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
My god, at all.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
And if you look at what you've already told us,
you're running the groups at the y m c A,
you're starting these things, you're like doing all these things
that are very yourself motivated and control and now somebody
is telling you that's bad essentially, or that you should
soften a bit.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
And I hate that for you.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Yeah, I mean, it's thank you. It's it's a mix
bead because on one level, I guess this is also
why you would find a lot of I guess, very
dominant men who love to be dominated by a dominatrix,
because there's something about actually giving up your power and
not always being on control. And I am a control
and I'm very driven, so there's something, Oh, how wonderful
(25:07):
I can be a fully embodied woman by just.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
I could see that being very appealing as someone who
is a control freak, and in parties, whatever the fuck
they think is masculine. I think most days of most days,
I could see there being this like, oh, no, you
need to let go, you need to like not hold
on so tight and like experience a little bit of
(25:31):
freedom and opening up.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
To me, It totally makes sense.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
And I want that for you too, for all of
us the context of sex God that want to talk to.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
But is that possible? Let's that's the question, you know.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
I think I was on attention before. But I think
because we live in a society in general and the West,
baby everywhere, I guess everywhere where, we don't really get
the holistic sexuality or erotic life that we probably deep
down all desire, or maybe some people do and some
people think that don't have it or whatever. Anyway, there's
(26:11):
definitely a lack of something, whether it's you know, consent
or sensuality versus porn country and whatever. I think because
there is a real need to do better in this
fear there's the gap where the sex cults can come in.
And because it's such a typoo subject, because it's not
like taking a cooking class and you tell all your
friends about it. I mean, I was leading a double
(26:32):
life when I was an this. I had another Facebook profile.
I wouldn't have been seen dead going, you know, to
these things. Officially, most of my friends didn't even know
that was my you know, it'd become a sex sculpturist,
my malidays so to speak, and booked courses around the
world to be part of all this this exciting new movement.
But there's still a part of me that's judging that
(26:54):
and going cringe crunch crunch. It can't be seen with that.
But if we could bring this whole topic out of
the shadows more, then I think groups like ist and
and they're not the only abuseve ones I think in
this in this.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
One days, one day long exactly.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
They wouldn't have such a power to take us down
into their rabbit holes if we could just been you know,
if we had a better criteria to assess these groups
and talk about it openly and to our friends and
go Actually, I want to check something out because it
seems to be good for female orgasm and people go,
oh no, no, don't do that, and it's not a taboo.
You can talk about it, can look it up, and
(27:28):
there would be journalism and media about it too. They
would be checked out like other businesses that have business reporters,
you know, looking at what they're doing. That's really what
I hope totally.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
I got really lucky and that my friends and I
found like a woman who teaches tantra and we went
to Joshua Tree and just had like an orgasm retreat
of sorts and then you didn't have to like do
anything after and it was and it wasn't like sexual
with each other, but it was very enlightening and deep
and it was wonderful, and it's like, why can't people
(28:00):
do that more often?
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I'm so glad you you know what I'm talking about
that it's not all weird for you and you had
that experience. Actually, yeah, it's actually something that can be
really positive and wonderful. Sure, I don't want to discourage
people from trying out tantra, but then the fear is
also rife with predators and completely Yeah, good on you
for going with a woman maybe and you're not all
lacking about a sexual hook cup, but experiencing this within
(28:23):
yourself and.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
That's become my main lover myself.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
That's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
It's nice that you guys. I meant it in a
sad way, but thank you. No, I think it's I
think it sounds great.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
How did we get there?
Speaker 3 (28:38):
I mean I like this though, and I want we'll
come back to your story in one second, but I
think that that's such a valuable point. I like with
my ex and I like we were, you know, with
multiple excess.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
We've been interested in exploring.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Various sexual things outside of ourselves, and there's such limited
options for what's available.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Even though you guys live in La.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Sure, well there they're there, but like a lot of
them are fucking weird or like they're they have a reputation.
You Yeah, you don't really want to tell your friends
about Like I'm a very open person and so is he.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
So we would tell people about it, but we'd see
people there.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Like don't want anyone to know that they're there, you know,
not that this was like that.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
I was, I was by myself.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Yeah, there is like even though we I will say
LA has gotten very like everybody's poly and there's a
there's a very sexually open culture that's becoming a lot
less tied, stigmatized.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yeah, from a Field being a big part of that.
I think we have an app do you know Field?
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Yeah, but that but just just remember you you grew
up in the two U two someone right, Yes, because
we've had a lot of exposure of them in Australia
and New Zealand, and I know some of the activists
and I'm just thinking it's stuff. For instance, is heavily
recruiting with ex magelicals that's really yes? Isn't that interesting?
And I'm just asking, you know, I mean because I
mean I wonder if you can relate to people who've
(30:03):
come out of fundamentalist groups that then be more prone
to being hooked into something that promises them now get
rid of your shame for you and guilt. That's absolutely
and then they go from the fire into the frying pan.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Well, and when you emerge from a repressed, a sexually
repressed culture as Mormonism is so much too like where
having sex is the worst in that you can commit
next to murder if you're not married to the person.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
We've definitely talked about this.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
Yeah, so murder than sex, at least when I was
in the church. I don't know if anything's changed, but
when I was in the church that was the case.
So I cried for three hours the first time I
had sex, and so then like my response to sexuality
became so fraught and tortured, and yeah, it's just not
a healthy relationship to sex, which can render people very vulnerable,
(30:53):
I think to this kind of thing, because also then
we can overcorrect and we're like, well, I'm not repressed anymore,
so I'm gonna try everything, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Absolutely, yeah, what could possibly go wrong?
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Anyway, Anyway, you were also researching a different group, right
called Center Point.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
I know, and this is a bit of an ironyre right,
I was. I fell into the sex cult ist at
the same time when I met a survivor from this
former sex cult Center Point in New Zealand at the
Taste of Love festival in Australia, probably both ecstatic dancing
at the same time, Angie, and she was the commune concubine.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
This is the word she used. What is what is
a commune concubine?
Speaker 1 (31:35):
She was basically sleeping with all the men in the
in the community at the age of you know, at
a young age. A concubine is I think it's an
old fashioned term for the kings and someone they had
their concubines.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
But back in those days they were like kind of
well revered, Like those are the women who would learn
how to read Ang.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
I guess maybe this is why she used the truth,
because you were more over it and you know, I'm
the same as true for the Russianiche cult. All these
sex girls, women who were promiscuous and were available for men,
especially the young girls. They had status, They gained status,
and this is why they were often not seen as
the children there were, but they were treated and seen
(32:18):
as adults, even if they were thirteen years old, no
understanding of you know, our guess of child's actually abuse
or consent or long long long before the mid Toio
movement and all of that. So in the context of
that cult, this was the right way to be as
a child, as a young girl in this former sex
and therapy cult centerpoint from the Human Potential movement. It
(32:38):
had by then shut down and a few months later
that guru founder of that Cultbert Potter, died, and this
is when I met Ange again. And something sort of
lifted for her and a lot of other people from
that cult.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Once he died. Once the leader died, it kind of
a spell broke.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
It spell broke for quite a few people. But I
first heard about it from Angie at the Taste of
Love festival because she said, Oh, I'm actually healing myself
from a sex gut ha ha ha by being around
another sex guru that was Barbadaz at the time. And
she thought that was a funny. And I, of course
didn't realize that Esta was a cult. I was just
getting into it at the same time. As with my
(33:14):
journalist hat On, I thought, wow, Centerpon, that's a big story.
Because I'm an immigrant from Germany and New Zealand, I
hadn't followed that story obviously. It all happened before the Internet.
They had two big police rates in the nineteen nineties.
It was a New Zealand's largest intentional community based on
the Human Potential movement. The founder Bert Potter, he went
(33:37):
to Osho Rajanese community in Puna and then also to
Eslen in California, and then he decided, well, I could
do the same a little in New Zealand and start
my own community there, and unfortunately, sadly, shockingly, about a
third or fourth of the kids there were sexually abused
that took drugs. They manufactured drugs on the proper in
(34:00):
a secret lab, psychedelics, ecstasy and LSD which they took
together with teenagers as young as twelve, and big group experiments.
So they were quite extreme, even on a global scale.
And when I heard about Center Point, I mean, I've
always been interested in cults, but never looked into them
in all my decades as a journalist. And then met
Angie and heard some of her story and looked it
(34:23):
up and thought, wow, what a what a story. And
then I actually found a book publisher, a really good one,
and they signed me up and I had a contract
to basically research the history of Center Point, starting with
Angie and all that happened while I was also drifting
into Ista. And I think that actually makes a lot
(34:43):
of sense, because I was just discovering polyamory and communities
and in Tantra and all these self help workshops, and thought, well,
these people who got into Center Point, they were maybe
the same, They kind of wanted the same, They maybe
wanted to heal some of their sexual warns and they
wanted to be better partners, and they wanted to live
(35:05):
in community. I get all that. I could relate to that,
and I thought, where did things go so wrong that,
you know, two twenty thirty years later, twelve people were
you know, I had been arrested on sexual abuse, child
sexual abuse charges and drug manufacturing charges. And this has
been like the biggest, probably one of the biggest scars
(35:25):
on the on the social history in New Zealand. But
it all happened before the Internet. So most people that
I knew around me back then, they didn't even know
what Center One was. It was the older people.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I've never heard of it.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, No, you wouldn't have. It was only New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
And it's serving in like kind of children of God.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Yeah, I would say probably more more comparable with the
Russianiche movement. Okay, and I now see the parallels much
stronger than I knew. I didn't know how big the
per how common the expenses of especially the young girls
the teenagers were in the Russianische movement in Russianish Porum,
especially like Siricha Carol if you're familiar with her, and
(36:04):
the former childrem from Centerpont who are interviewed. So I thought,
this is a this is an exercise of interviewing a
few families. I had access, had access to some of
the form of perpetrators as well of the Guru's son
who had been in jail, and they were the former
perpetrators and enablers or denies. Were some of the nicer
(36:25):
people and often some of the victims because they were
truly damaged. Were they're freaked out? I had legal threats.
I retriggered people's trauma, I guess two. And they were conflicted.
They've been told by their families before I interviewed them
to only think of the good time. So they were
under all this. So I had actually no idea that
(36:46):
I was getting myself into the cesspool of different factions
of denial of trauma that has been shoved under the
carpet for twenty years. Were people never had the right counseling. Yes,
they had been court cases and not everyone had been
caught up. And then there were still perpetrators out there pretending,
you know, there they were the good guys at center
Point and I met some really really trauma sized people,
(37:10):
especially this one well I called her the girl in
the caravan. In my book Louise. And when I met her,
she was in her late forties, and she changed her
name so many times. She was hiding. She hadn't she
had never really held a relationship. She couldn't even drive
a car because of her anxiety. She tried to kill
herself at the age of eleven, a year after her
(37:33):
parents brought it to Center Point, and her abuse with
a guru and other men started. Three months after she arrived.
She was brought to the Potter's caravan or hut by
his wife because his wife was one of the goal getters.
It gives you an idea of the kind of you know,
environment that she lived in. She barricaded herself in a
caravan full of junk so men couldn't get to her.
(37:56):
And wow, this was the most extreme case. But hearing
her story, and I was the first person she ever
told her whole story to, not even she had never
even seen a therapist in all these years. And it's
fair to say it was life changing for her and
for me because I had hit her dad and I'd
knocked on so many doors. I got interviews and people
pulled them back the next next day because they got
(38:17):
cold feet. I had so many conflicting information. It was
like this massive labyrinth that I got lost in at
some point, and I wasn't even cleaning met was what
was right and what was wrong? Because I think some
of these adults, the adult generation, I think they also
got to me in some way. It was the first
thing they always asked me was so have you sexually
abused yourself? Why are you doing this? They were guests
(38:39):
lighting me, They were using their techniques on me to
make me wrong, And with what I was doing, I
was questioning myself whether I was completely out of my
depth in some ways I was. I didn't have any
training in how to interview sexual abuse victims. And I
was also completely on my own because the editor who'd
signed me up at the publishing house she'd actually left
and there was actually no one I could talk to
(38:59):
it and I know it was I didn't have supervision.
What was I thinking? And then meeting Louise and hearing
her story, it just put a fire in my belly.
And then I was on a crusade, which is not
ideal either. If your journalists, you're supposed to stay neutral.
So I think it really made for a great book
in the end, even though I had to abort the
first round of the book. For many years, I couldn't
finish the Center Point book. I had to pull out
(39:21):
because I was too affected by the vicarious trauma I absorbed,
and there were legal threats and I gave up. But
long story short, in the end, HarperCollins continued me many
years later, and they wanted a book on Carlson. I said, well,
you know I did all these hard yards was the
Centerpoint victims, and I still have that. And then I
added more from other cars that I researched. But yeah,
(39:42):
all the while while I was researching this former sex cut,
I was also dabbling in an esta in my sex
cut without seeing the parallels. But I think it also
gave me an advantage, not just because I had that compassion,
I guess, and the curiosity about the parents and the
people went in the first this place, but quite a
(40:02):
few doors also open for me because I wasn't from
New Zealand. The ex community members had all been burned
by the media. Also the kids, because I mean a
lot of them, not everyone obviously there had been abused,
especially the ones who were born into it much.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
Later that we're still talking about center point right.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
They hadn't experienced the worst of it, but they were
then honestly traumatized. And you, I deeply felt deeply stigmatized
by going to school past headlines and tabloid headlines about
their parents and their jail sentences and their court cases.
So they had to deal with all that. And I
had no idea about the complexity of of all of
(40:41):
that when I got myself into this, so I really
had actual idea what I was doing, otherwise I probably
wouldn't have done it.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
So they thought you dead.
Speaker 4 (40:48):
And am I hearing you correctly when you're saying that
the people who are perpetrators were actually easier to talk.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
To and that like more open and.
Speaker 4 (41:04):
Like more put together, because you see, I'm seeing this
very often in the two by twos, where it's like
the perpetrators are so slick and put together and the
victims are like falling apart and people like they're crazy.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Absolutely, But look, I didn't know back then that this
is all part of part of the aftermath of a
cult or of people coming out of it, and how
it's still playing out on the outside. And I also
didn't know that there were all these factions of for
femin in the children kind of I wouldn't say fighting
each other, but really in different and opposing camps. And
(41:37):
it's quite sad because different some to another cut which
I researched a Glorial which is still going and where
there's a great support organization on the outside for them,
and I guess the same is true for you know,
a lot of other cuts in the US are so
where you know or your mom, you know Lola, what
she's been doing in Utah, where people know that they
find the right support when they come out with a
(41:58):
centerpon children. I mean, the whole thing closed down in
two thousands, so you know, we're talking twenty five years
or when I did my research almost twenty years or so,
where this was just a big taboo that you couldn't
talk about even your own family, and apart from the
court cases, there had been no real help and we
didn't have any trained cult counselors in New Zealand. So
(42:20):
I can really see the difference now of people coming
out of groups. Well, maybe there's still some kind of
hierarchy and competition and all these toxic dynamics that take
to the outside, or you know, maybe not a lack
of trust in people that didn't trust in the cut
and someday they're all on the outside and they should
will be friends. And doesn't always work like that.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Right, really, it really doesn't.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
Yeah, there can be a lot of infighting in the survivor.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Oh look tell me about it. Yeah, and also in
the anti community by the way. Yeah, yeah, same dynamics
to some degree. But it's especially bad if the only
processing of the cult has been done in the media,
but in the way that wasn't necessarily trauma and for
or so other centric or in the courts, and then
you just left with this this this, this this aftermath
(43:06):
of broken people who can't even tell anybody where they
grew up. Yeah, like Louise, the girl in the caravan,
where this is just like a dark spot in her
history that she could never mention. And I learned so
much from this. It was It was hard, but looking
back at what was something this was my my that
was my cult education, even though I didn't study it.
(43:26):
I'm not an expert, you know, I never even went
to university. I'm a you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Yeah, how does how do you get deeper into ista?
Are you just going to more classes like what does
it actually look like?
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Yeah, it's a week long course. I mean I started
off with a festival and there some little workshops here
in there. But then actually pretty much after that festival,
I did my first training in Australia and it's a
week long course where they don't tell you much upfront.
It's because it's a mystery school, right, So yeah, it's
(44:01):
already a red flag. Too much mystery, not enough informed consent.
But back in the days, I didn't know much about consent.
They even have a wheel of consent thing at the beginning,
and the wheel of consent is a great modality, you know.
I would always recommend people look into that and do that,
but unfortunately it's kind of its used as a bit
of a figure leave. I think still because you do
(44:22):
that in the beginning, and then you think you how
to you know how to own your yes and you
know and how to express that. But then you're in
this pressure cooker of an algat large group of wareness training,
which is the actually a group of hate group awareness training.
So I took so fast. Now now I get I'm
sure you've you've heard about those you know, like Tony Robbins,
(44:43):
or yeah, it's just it's just one of those where
you they promise you, you know, ten years of therapy
and one weekend, then it's all in chance, and you
don't get enough sleep and and and you're on a high.
Basically a brain chemistry actually changes. You're on a high.
But then you you trip add to the shamanic superpower
as anista or the teachers or whatever you're learning, whereas
(45:07):
it's actually just your it's just just your dopamin and
your and your endorphins are just flooding your system and
you're on a high. You're literally on a workshop high.
Why you feel so amazing when you come out and
these incredible life changing experiences and then you know, usually
a week or so later that abs off, and what's
the next thing is to go on another training? Probably
(45:31):
I don't know in US dollars, but probably about between
maybe around two k or something euros maybe in Europe
and about two thousand New Zealand dollars maybe two thousand
US around around that mark. They're not super cheap.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
Yeah, the training is to become an instructor or No.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Initially they had these trainings for sexual practitioners so that
you would be. I mean you could say it's basically
in sex work where you can you become a ducker
or dakini and you know, like a tantrick pleasure a
giver or sex worker.
Speaker 4 (46:07):
You know, I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, paying
them to become a sex worker.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
Not hang on, this is the original I think how
they started off, right, But you're right, this was the
original training. It's like a training in these kind of
time track techniques. And you know, again nothing wrong with
sexual body workers. There's also sexual body work without all
the spiritual war blah blah, and that's probably all good
and there's a need for that, and if it's done
(46:33):
professionally and correctly, I have no issue with that. But
what they're offering now is actually just for people who
just want to experience this, this wild ride, and they
offer these different different modalities within this first week from
I was grunib but there's a group masturbation sessional they
(46:53):
call it self pleasuring, and then there later there's a
sacred spot ritual. You kind of moved towards it, but
it's you know, they make it. They always point up
this is not about hooking up. This is not a
sex workshop. This is about finding your own erotic energy
and circulating that. And then they do a lot of
In the first training, they do a lot of these.
(47:14):
They teacher the emotional release tools. So this this very
old school nineteen nineties, eighties, cathartic therapies, cushion, banging hands,
green pallow thrusting, all of that aspecting where you talk
to someone and it's awesome.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
Do any of the things you're saying streaming?
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Yeah, you can still do a lot of that there. Look,
I mean, these are these are.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
I also don't know what it is. Wow, Okay, isn't
that like landmark kind of No?
Speaker 1 (47:47):
I was, I mean, but yeah, but I think they're
kind of connected in some ways. Essadent is this is
this sort of mecca of spirituality, self discovery and the
human financial movement, and in near big sur up the
close on the way to San Francisco. I spent a
week there a few years ago and wrote an article
(48:08):
about it, and and I actually thought it wasn't as
culty as as I had assumed. Away some of their
loyal fans reacted to my article and their pr person
I thought, oh my god.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Maybe they are. You're like, oh, I should have. I
should have spent a year there, then it's a great week.
So you're doing you're doing these well LNG training.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
I think it's become a bit of my trademark of
my I would say exploratory, but also often investigative journalism
is actually to go to places and experience them, which
I never really did. With Esther was really my own.
It was almost sacred to me. It was very personal
and and I loved it. I wasn't harmed in it.
But I now see it as I now call it,
(48:54):
call them out. This is why I'm here talking about them.
I see them as a as an unethical organization that
has been accused of sexual violation, and I think they
haven't done their accountability and they haven't addressed it in
the proper way, and they're harboring predators and one should
take their money there so just to stay there. It's
also very expensive.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
You talked on a different podcast about the highs that
you felt going to these and how real life felt
boring in comparison, and I want to hear more about that,
because even just with relationships, that's such a real thing
where it's like the exciting, chaotic people who are absolutely
(49:35):
bad for us, make everyone that's healthy seem really boring.
So yeah, could you tell us about some of the
highs you felt and where they were coming from?
Speaker 1 (49:44):
Right? And as you might have noticed my fast talking,
I have ADHD, which I'm now fully aware of because
I've been diagnosed, but I wasn't diagnosed back then. And
again it makes sense that I was so hooked and
by a high intense group and all the sort of
risky stuff and the edgy stuff that was like bring
(50:04):
it on, you know, I need the intensity. So the
high for me came from that intensity from but also
from connecting deeply with people. And I'm still not quite
sure and I'm still unpacking some of these things. Was
that were those connections just based on going through these
same intense experiences. Was this manufactured in some ways by
(50:29):
what we're all going through by design? Or were these
real connections and only very very few have lasted and
only actually was, you know, especially one person who has
also left that movement. So for me, it was also
thinking I don't want to be too you know, I
don't want to dismiss everything that I that I had
(50:49):
in there, Because for me, it was also thinking I'm
having these really authentic, deep connections. And this was on
the back of living as an immigrant in New Zealand
for ten years. And I come from Jimmy and people
very direct and very serious and very intense, and New
Zealand is kind of the opposite, which is also very refreshing,
but it can feel a bit shallow and just nice
and sweet, and no one really digs deep into it.
(51:12):
And now I'm just like, let's talk about how we
really are. And then you're in this workshop where all
this is wanted, where I can be intense and emotional
and deep. And I loved all that. That's what it
was for me, really, was this sense of I'm tapping
into something really profound, and then you have this framework.
(51:35):
It kind of gives it a sense. And I absolutely question,
of course, because yeah, I wonder, you know, I'm still
I guess in a lifelong process till the end of
my life. I guess to have not maybe the intensity,
but the depth of experience of connections of authenticity without
having to go somewhere and pay for it. Yeah, not
(51:57):
buying into a community and thinking wow, this is it, right? Yeah?
And I you know, I have to watch myself a
bit there because then I also just going to Kibi Burn,
the New Zealand burning men for the first time. So oh,
a lot of free spirited people and they're doing amazing things.
And now they're all talking about Kibi Burn the whole time.
(52:18):
You know, where does that because Culty And so it's
actually for me now finding those those moments of deep
connection authenticity with people without them all being into the
same thing. And that's you know, and that includes even
the anti cart movement that that doesn't happen another high
that I'm writing.
Speaker 3 (52:41):
But at the same time, like connection with people is important,
and we you know, I don't know how it is
in New Zealand. I know in America there's a loneliness epidemic.
Obviously men are experiencing a lot, but it's not just men,
it's everyone. Gen Z is incredibly lonely. I'm lonely. We're
all lonely. So, like there are cases in which you
do have to seek out community in spaces that are
(53:03):
not just like organic, because it's the only way to
like connect with others. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that,
even sometimes if you have to pay to go to
stuff like because there are communities that are harmless and
there's no obligation, and you know, like obviously the line
is when there's control happening. But I want to make
sure that we honor the humanness of that need to
(53:24):
connect with people and to seek it out.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
We're social animals, you know.
Speaker 1 (53:27):
I guess deep down I've always had a deep hunger
for that. I'm wondering where it comes from. I went
to a boarding school, a Rudelfstin Anthroposophical World of school
in England for one year, so maybe that was my
first cultent environment back then. But I loved it, and again,
you know, the strong sense of community that I did
(53:48):
not have when I went back to my old school,
my old high school in Germany. And then fast forward
to my thirties, I took a sabbatical with my husband,
who's a doctor. He was the island doctor in the
South Pacific on Toakola, a little a little at all
north of Sawhere, and we were the doctors slimming there
with our son. I was pregnant the whole time, and
(54:10):
even though it was very suffocating in some ways, I'm
very very Christian, but I also felt a sense of
community that the islanders, the Tocoalaan's head, and that moved
me deeply. How they looked after each other, how they
sang together, how they ate together. And I think, deep
down I've always no, we all want to be tribal.
Speaker 4 (54:31):
I guess to some degree, there's no way my future
does not include living on a commune with my friends.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
If you've got a good one going California and Trump's gone,
I come back like.
Speaker 2 (54:43):
That is just where I want to be.
Speaker 4 (54:47):
But yes, there are so many factors you have to
measure and put into effect so that it doesn't become abusive.
Speaker 3 (54:55):
I just don't want the answer to be we should
never be seeking out exactly community, you know, like that's
just not the answer, And it's just an ongoing thing
to navigate and to do our best at, and sometimes
we fail at and we're like, well, maybe.
Speaker 1 (55:10):
Not that groupy. I'm I guess I'm so sensitive these
days when my alarmbers go off so quickly. So I
have been to a few groups and retreats again, just
sort of carefully over the last few years and just
dipping my toes and like really low level stuff like
a meditation retreat. But even then I just feel a religiousity,
(55:31):
so so soon, maybe sooner than owther. I don't do
that in the same you know, if I use the
word soul, I think of oh it's and I mean
and that's probably unfair because there are a lot of
great groups and modalities and teachings out there and communities
and sharing circles. But I'm really fussy these days and
(55:52):
it's a bit of a shame because I feel I'm
missing out. I'm probably some some good stuff that's wholesome
and healing and connecting, but I'm like that feels ood.
Speaker 3 (56:01):
I know, I know it's hard not to become hyper
vigilant about it when you are working in this space
and you've had these experiences.
Speaker 1 (56:08):
And then also a lot of people in in and
know what I do, or they write my book with
it about Decard and our conference and all of that,
and then when they see me showing up somewhere, it's
had to kind of just be anonymous, like, oh, are
you here to check if we are cut? I don't
want to. I just want to be mega.
Speaker 2 (56:26):
And that's the end of Part one.
Speaker 3 (56:28):
Stay tuned next week for Part two with Uncle Richter
to talk more about this tantric world. Megan, it's time
for the question of whether you would join maybe even
let's go broader than Ista specifically, let's say a tantric
sex group.
Speaker 4 (56:45):
Yeah, I'm so susceptible to that, for sure, And I
completely see how this journey unfolded for her, and I
think something very similar could happen to me.
Speaker 3 (56:58):
Yeah, I both think that I would be susceptible to
something like this, and also that is tempered by the
fact that when I have engaged with people who are
very heavily into like the sex world, they're often so
into it that it almost makes me not want to
be a part of it as much, if that makes sense. Like,
(57:20):
I feel like sometimes people will make it their entire
personality that they do sex stuff, and I find that
not appealing for me personally. So if that was the
vibe I was encountering, I don't think i'd be susceptible.
But otherwise, like as someone who seeks novelty and deepening
my relationship to myself my sexuality, whoever my partner.
Speaker 2 (57:40):
Is, Like, I totally see the appeal for sure.
Speaker 4 (57:42):
Yeah, there's a lot to unpack with the pros and
cons with stuff like this, and some are you know,
some are really good at people having like this be
a small part of their life.
Speaker 2 (57:54):
Mmmmmm.
Speaker 4 (57:55):
But we dig a lot more into that next week.
That's right, So come back for part two. Come back
rate us five stars, leave us a review, and as always,
remember to follow your gut, watch out for red flags.
Speaker 2 (58:12):
And never ever trust me. Bye.
Speaker 3 (58:20):
This has been an exactly right production hosted by me Lola.
Speaker 2 (58:23):
Blanc and Me Megan Elizabeth. Our senior producer is g.
Speaker 1 (58:26):
Holly.
Speaker 3 (58:27):
This episode was mixed by John Bradley.
Speaker 4 (58:29):
Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain, and our guest booker
is Patrick Kottner.
Speaker 3 (58:34):
Our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.
Speaker 4 (58:36):
Trust Me as executive produced by Karen Kilgareth, Georgia Hartstark
and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 3 (58:42):
You can find us on Instagram at trust Me podcast
or on TikTok at trust Me Cult Podcast.
Speaker 4 (58:46):
Got your own story about cults, extreme belief, our manipulation,
Shoot us an email at trustmepod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3 (58:53):
Listen to trust Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
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