Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation

This week’s guest is Jenny Eliscu, journalist, radio host, and producer on Britney vs. Spears, which covered Britney Spears’ infamous conservatorship. She explains how Britney’s struggles in 2008 were used to justify a permanent conservatorship—despite the contradiction of her being deemed too incapacitated to control her own life, yet well enough to tour, record, and generate massive income that her father,...

In part 2 with podcaster & writer Jonathan Hirsch (creator of podcasts like Dear Franklin Jones), Lola & Meagan discuss life in the cult of Franklin Jones, aka Adi Da. They discuss the dramatic meditation rituals in the group, what it felt like to get blessed by the leader, and how different members saw some of the same things that had happened completely differently, depending on whether they still believed in him later or...

This week’s guest is Jonathan Hirsch, podcaster, producer, and author who grew up in Adidam, a cult led by new age guru Franklin Jones - also known as Adi Da. In this week’s episode, Jonathan explains how his parents joined the group while on a spiritual journey that started with them following a different guru, how many of Jones’s followers were indoctrinated by listening to his tapes, and the cult’s consta...

This week, Trust Me is joined by David Farrier, journalist and filmmaker known for documentaries like Tickled and Netflix series Dark Tourist. He shares about his work studying strange subcultures and conspiracy theorists and what he’s learned along the way, and then dives into his investigation into Arise Church, the largest megachurch in New Zealand.

David explains how his interviews with ex members revealed the chur...

This week’s guest is Jess Rothschild, creator of documentary podcast "Cult of Body & Soul," which dives into the history of cult fitness brand Soulcycle. She explains the spinning company's origins, how the workout environment was engineered to create an almost religious experience, and why instructors chosen for their devoted followings and special charisma made it a cultural phenomenon.

They discuss the social hi...

Episode 19: Lola Blanc & Meagan Elizabeth interview Elana Auerbach, former follower of sexual wellness company OneTaste--elsewhere deemed the Orgasm Cult--in its early years. Elana discusses being the founder's right hand woman as the program developed, and how the sexual practice involving stimulating a woman's genitals evolved into what's now called Orgasmic Meditation. They discuss how Elana came to center her life around th...

Survivor's of Larry Ray's sex cult Felicia and Daniel discuss how they came to meet Larry, how he leveraged his memory and connections to craft an image of authority, how Larry gained control of their lives under the guise of helping them, when the manipulation elevated into sexual abuse and violence, and how they're doing now that Larry is going to jail for the harm he has caused.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy info...

This week’s guest is Theo Pratt, survivor of Gloriavale, an isolated Christian cult hidden deep in rural New Zealand, and author of Unveiled: A Story of Surviving Gloriavale. She’ll talk about being raised on the strictly controlled commune where people were assigned new names, women wore identical dresses and head coverings, and children weren’t taught the real days of the week—or even where they were in th...

Renee DiResta, professor and author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality, joins the show again to dive deeper into disinformation, propaganda, and "pseudo-events," or manufactured controversies and news stories.

She explains why it’s so difficult to tell fact from fiction online, how propagandists stoke real, often legitimate tensions to create division, how American politicians are amplifying fal...

This week’s guest is Renee DiResta, professor, and author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality. In part one this week, she talks to Lola and Meagan about propaganda, disinformation vs. misinformation, and how social media algorithms push us all into highly individualized, “bespoke” realities.

They discuss how she became interested in this topic after social media algorithms started sug...

This week, Lola and Meagan continue their conversation with Mike and Abbi Prussack, former members of Meagan’s childhood church, the 2x2s. In part 2, they walk the girls through the abuse crisis that has shaken the group in recent years and the long-standing patterns that allowed the harm to continue. Mike and Abbi explain how church leadership handled reports, why victims felt they had nowhere to turn, and how secrecy and ob...

This week, Lola and Meagan talk with Mike and Abbi Prussack, former members of Meagan’s childhood church, the 2x2s, also known as The Truth or The Way. The couple, who now help moderate the Ex-2x2 Facebook community, share what it was like growing up in a secretive religious group with no name, no building, and strict rules about who could be “in.”

They open up about meeting and marrying within the church, ...

This week, researcher Tim Squirrel joins Lola & Meagan to break down the manosphere: incels, redpill, MGTOW, and the differences between some of the misogynistic subcultures in the online world of men. They discuss how isolation can leave boys vulnerable to harmful internet communities, and how the algorithm can radicalize young people looking for identity.

From Andrew Tate to Jordan Peterson, Tim shares why an...

In part 2, Sarma Melngailis, subject of the docuseries Bad Vegan and author of The Girl with the Duck Tattoo, tells Lola & Meagan how Mr. Fox consumed her time, overwhelmed her with information, and dangled promises of financial freedom that was always JUST around the corner as a way to get her to send him more and more money.

She’ll share about the fabricated online personas he created as part of the manipulation, how he...

In part 1 with guest Sarma Melngailis, subject of the docuseries Bad Vegan and author of The Girl with the Duck Tattoo, Sarma shares about her life as the owner of a successful vegan restaurant in New York, how she met the man who called himself Mr. Fox on Twitter when he seemed to know her friend Alec Baldwin, her first impressions of Mr. Fox, and some of the initial red flags she missed.
They discuss the wa...

This week, the girls are joined by Arabelle Sicardi, writer, image theorist, and author of The House of Beauty: Lessons from the Image Industry. Lola and Meagan confess the cosmetic procedures they've each had, and Arabelle explores how the beauty industry preys on our deepest fears, giving us a false sense of control and training us to worship ideals that are impossible to reach. They reflect on the high rates of plastic surg...

This week, the girls are joined by Anthony Cesar Duncan, an artist, mental health advocate, and survivor of ChatGPT psychosis. Anthony opens up about his descent into a psychotic episode, led by an unlikely new cult figure: ChatGPT. He describes how his episode began innocently enough, how the platform’s responses started to amplify his delusions and isolate him from his loved ones, and how quickly the line blurred between re...

Aaron Goldenberg, actor, comedian, and (hilarious) content creator, joins Lola and Meagan to talk about being gay as a Christian child, what it was like learning Bill Gothard’s IBLP homeschool curriculum as a boy, and how his parents discovered his queerness and sent him to conversion therapy.

He talks about Exodus International, a now-disbanded “ex-gay” Christian ministry that taught that you could heal your gayn...

Journalist Sarah Stankorb comes on the show to talk about her book, Disobedient Women, and the deep dive she did on why a series of evangelical women in America began to leave their communities as the internet came into prominence. They discuss patriarchal teachings within cultures like the Quiverfull movement, including stories like Vyckie Garrison’s, who was pressured into having repeated pregnancies that defied her doctors...