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Speaker 1: professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue,
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Speaker 1: Heart Media, or their employees. But I had this group
Speaker 1: of women and I was like, this is the thing
Speaker 1: that we need. I haven't been able to help any
Speaker 1: of us, are limiting beliefs in our stumbling blocks. I
Speaker 1: felt very good about bringing what I learned to them.
Speaker 1: And when I went to next M, I didn't know
Speaker 1: about the financial all opportunity that was an offer to
Speaker 1: me was this for my personal growth? And then once
Speaker 1: I took it's like, oh, you can take it, and
Speaker 1: you can bring two people and get your money back.
Speaker 1: And if you're bring six people, you can can earn
Speaker 1: a commission and that's how you can pay for your
Speaker 1: next courses and it kind of built from there, and
Speaker 1: then it was like, Wow, I can make more money
Speaker 1: than I ever did in acting, and I can change
Speaker 1: the world, and why wouldn't I get paid for helping
Speaker 1: people grow? Every cult is a narcissistic relationship. Let's just
Speaker 1: start there. Earlier this season, we talked with Mark Vicente
Speaker 1: about his experience and Nexium, a self improvement program that
Speaker 1: ended up being something far more sinister and harmful. Nexium,
Speaker 1: like many cult like organizations, are often comprised of well
Speaker 1: intentioned people who were drawn to the teachings of the
Speaker 1: organization and who genuinely believed that they were making the
Speaker 1: world a better place and experiencing meaningful change within themselves.
Speaker 1: In the next two episodes, we are going to hear
Speaker 1: from Sarah Edmondson, who played a central role in the
Speaker 1: documentary The Vow as a whistleblower who facilitated the dismantling
Speaker 1: of Nexium. Sarah was branded as part of Doss, as
Speaker 1: in Sarah's skin was burned with a brand. Doss was
Speaker 1: a sub organization within Nexium, and in the years that
Speaker 1: would follow, teachings that she believed in, friendship, she trusted,
Speaker 1: and her life's work for over twelve years was dismantled,
Speaker 1: as well as having to live with a traumatic impact
Speaker 1: of being a part of such an abusive organization. It
Speaker 1: was gaslighting at the highest degree. Sarah also wrote a
Speaker 1: memoir about her experience entitled Scarred, The True Story of
Speaker 1: How I Escaped Nexium The Cult That Bound My Life,
Speaker 1: and she and her husband Nippy also co host their
Speaker 1: hit podcast A Little Bit Culty. In this episode, we
Speaker 1: are going to hear the experience of Nexium from the
Speaker 1: perspective of a woman who was in it and understand
Speaker 1: how insidious and gradual the process of indoctrination can be,
Speaker 1: whether you were in a cult or in any kind
Speaker 1: of toxic relationship. Sarah, it's so wonderful to see you
Speaker 1: and have you sitting right here. I've been on A
Speaker 1: Little Bit Culty, which was one of my very most
Speaker 1: favorite podcasts who have ever ever been on. I love
Speaker 1: talking with you and Nippy and it was both fun
Speaker 1: but also we were able to take it seriously. So
Speaker 1: your your podcast is amazing. Your book that's called Scarred,
Speaker 1: The True Story of How I Escaped Nexium The Cult
Speaker 1: That Bound My Life. It's not the usual memoir I
Speaker 1: think for us, we've all heard the story of Nexium.
Speaker 1: We've heard it through the vow, we've heard it through
Speaker 1: news reports. And I think I even approach your book
Speaker 1: thinking I'm going to read this again, and then I
Speaker 1: read it and it was absolutely extraordinary to me to
Speaker 1: read your experience as a woman within a system like
Speaker 1: this and so and we'll be revisiting parts of that.
Speaker 1: But everyone needs to read this book if they have
Speaker 1: any interesting coercive control, gas lighting, exploitation. Even if you've
Speaker 1: never been near a cult interested in a cult. What
Speaker 1: happened to all of you is something that happens in
Speaker 1: any toxic system. It just happened to be organized in
Speaker 1: that structure. So I can't tell you how happy I
Speaker 1: am to have you here. Thank you, Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for having me where I want to start with,
Speaker 1: and almost start with what one of the critiques from
Speaker 1: the world is and what you beautifully sort of lay
Speaker 1: out in the book. So many people looked at the
Speaker 1: story of Nexium and said, what were these people thinking?
Speaker 1: What were they doing? Why were they spending all this
Speaker 1: money on this um? Some people say, why didn't they
Speaker 1: just get therapy? I mean, there were so many critiques leveled,
Speaker 1: and when I read your book, I finally got it.
Speaker 1: If you could break down for us this journey into
Speaker 1: a system, because obviously you didn't sign up saying, oh,
Speaker 1: exploitative organization, sign me up right right, But you're in
Speaker 1: of shells on my body super you know, confuse me
Speaker 1: and gaslight me and manipulate me and destroy my friend's lives.
Speaker 1: That's what That's not what you wanted. Something drew you
Speaker 1: into this and hooked you into this, And I would
Speaker 1: argue there was a healthy and an unhealthy part of that.
Speaker 1: Can we start with the healthy part of what drew
Speaker 1: you into Nexium and what that part of your journey
Speaker 1: was like? Absolutely? So the healthy part, I think comes
Speaker 1: from my core values and a lot of that came
Speaker 1: from my parents and how I was raised in terms
Speaker 1: of wanting to leave the world a better place, and
Speaker 1: you know, values around leadership and social change and justice
Speaker 1: and those kinds of things and being part of a
Speaker 1: community and meaning and purpose and those things that drove
Speaker 1: me originally to become an actor, which was sort of
Speaker 1: falling flat in my mid twenties as as a meaningful career.
Speaker 1: So that was one thing that was going on my
Speaker 1: boyfriend at the time. Now, keep in mind, is a
Speaker 1: two thousand five, so this is not now the golden
Speaker 1: age of cult awareness. This is a different era. It's
Speaker 1: a lot of personal development. My parents were also in
Speaker 1: the mental health field. My dad's a school counselor of
Speaker 1: my mom's a therapist. I've always been a seeker. I've
Speaker 1: always been interested in workshops and bettering myself. And I
Speaker 1: was doing the artist way at the time, and and
Speaker 1: trying to be more creative and have the life that
Speaker 1: I wanted. All those things, and I my boyfriend and
Speaker 1: I met Mark Vicente, who I know, you know what.
Speaker 1: I met him at a film festival and I had
Speaker 1: seen What the bleep Do We Know? And I felt
Speaker 1: really moved by that film. I felt like this was
Speaker 1: I wanted to make media that shifted consciousness. And so
Speaker 1: when I when I had the opportunity to meet him
Speaker 1: at this film festival, that was one of the things
Speaker 1: that drew me in is this idea of being connected
Speaker 1: with other spiritual people and doing something more meaningful. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: what it was, I think the healthy part was being
Speaker 1: a part of something bigger than myself, being a part
Speaker 1: of this community of like minded humanitarians, which is hard
Speaker 1: for me not to roll my eyes, knowing what I
Speaker 1: know now, but putting myself back there, it's very idealistic
Speaker 1: and I and I wanted to be aligned with somebody
Speaker 1: like Mark. He was he was he was doing what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do and invited me into the this
Speaker 1: concept of this of this community, which sounded great. The
Speaker 1: unhealthy part, If you mind me jumping to that, go ahead.
Speaker 1: I think when I look, I've had to do a
Speaker 1: lot of self reflection and I look back at my life.
Speaker 1: I've always struggled to fit in. I was nerdy in
Speaker 1: high school. I was never a popular kid. And like
Speaker 1: the community is the positive way of saying it, but
Speaker 1: like the night, a side is that like I wanted
Speaker 1: belonging and wanted to feel also special. I think one
Speaker 1: of the things that really hooked me was the once
Speaker 1: I Once I did my first five day was this
Speaker 1: idea of the stripe path and the martial arts system
Speaker 1: of growth, which in the in the nature of acting,
Speaker 1: where like you know, you can do all the things
Speaker 1: and not get the part. Here's what was laid out
Speaker 1: to me and promised to be a measurable system of
Speaker 1: growth where you could do X y Z. You get
Speaker 1: your ex stripe, you get your next promotion. And it
Speaker 1: happened that way for a while, and I really it
Speaker 1: did good things for my saying quotes because this is
Speaker 1: a next um term. It helped me with my self esteem.
Speaker 1: I know that's a word in English, but but it's
Speaker 1: also like a big part of the foundational concepts. We're
Speaker 1: trying to raise your self esteem and feel good about yourself,
Speaker 1: not separate from whether or not you had the acting
Speaker 1: job or not, like an internal sense of self esteem,
Speaker 1: not esteem. And that was a good part of it,
Speaker 1: but the bad part of it it was it tapped
Speaker 1: into my my motivation to get to the next level
Speaker 1: and like somehow that I would be better if I
Speaker 1: got to the next thing, which was it just doesn't
Speaker 1: and it's never ending, you know that. Of course, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't graduate from these programs, which is you know,
Speaker 1: obviously a huge red flag that I know now you
Speaker 1: know one thing again, and having had the privilege of
Speaker 1: reading the book was, for lack of a better term,
Speaker 1: there was an almost obsessive zeal you were working. It
Speaker 1: felt like around the clock. Yes, it wasn't just like
Speaker 1: originally you went to their program. You know that market
Speaker 1: introduced to you. You went to it, you found it
Speaker 1: really beneficial because there was something interesting for you. You're
Speaker 1: doing it and other areas of your life we're starting
Speaker 1: to improve too. You were making money in a way
Speaker 1: you hadn't before. You were feeling much, you were feeling
Speaker 1: very aligned. That's the only way I could I could
Speaker 1: put it. And you just worked and worked, and yet
Speaker 1: at the same time you were working really hard, but
Speaker 1: it also felt like, you know, you'd work hard just
Speaker 1: to put it all back in. You'd make all this
Speaker 1: money just to put it all back into start actually
Speaker 1: really building out the programs in the Pacific Northwest and
Speaker 1: in Vancouver where you lived, and so there was this
Speaker 1: there's almost frenzied, obsessive feel to that was that who
Speaker 1: you always were. Um, I think it's a tendency that
Speaker 1: I think. There were so many naysayers around me saying
Speaker 1: like what is this? And you were these people. It's
Speaker 1: similar drive to what caused me to be an actor.
Speaker 1: It's like I can prove myself, like I can do this.
Speaker 1: I'm going to prove them wrong. You know, I'm the
Speaker 1: only I was the only center owner that didn't come
Speaker 1: from like millions. All the other center owners came from
Speaker 1: people who had inherited wealth. So I was like, I
Speaker 1: can do this, and it's almost like an underdog proving
Speaker 1: themselves kind of thing. And then I get into a
Speaker 1: frenzy to do that and work work, work, work work,
Speaker 1: And that's definitely was a major problem because I was
Speaker 1: so overworked. I didn't see the red flags Sarah's experience
Speaker 1: of this obsessive zeal working all the time. While it
Speaker 1: happened for her in an organizational setting, this is something
Speaker 1: that also happens in red flag filled narcissistic relationships. People
Speaker 1: want to make these relationships keep working, They want to
Speaker 1: prove themselves, keep the good days going, and there's almost
Speaker 1: a frenzy. People can have a sort of I am
Speaker 1: going to make this work, even if I have to
Speaker 1: put in super human effort. Right, And though the overworking
Speaker 1: was almost normalized, there's certainly no one around you in
Speaker 1: the Nexium organization telling you to engage inself care. If
Speaker 1: anything that would have been indulgent, right, that would have
Speaker 1: exactly that would have been indulgent. And it was any
Speaker 1: time you would do anything, And that was the languaging
Speaker 1: of Nexium was so interesting. Any time you would do
Speaker 1: something to individuate right to be to sort of do
Speaker 1: what was right for you, even if you were still
Speaker 1: adhering to a lot of what they were teaching you.
Speaker 1: Anything that was about Sarah and not Sarah embedded within
Speaker 1: the organization, that would be shamed using all kinds of
Speaker 1: technical terminology. Always, and it was very subtle and tacit
Speaker 1: and gentle. It wasn't overt and angry and punishing. It
Speaker 1: would be something like, if I was gonna go to
Speaker 1: let's say she was the best my best friend's wedding.
Speaker 1: When I was choosing between going to her wedding and
Speaker 1: attending an e M tech training that I needed to
Speaker 1: get to Procter, they would say something like, well, so
Speaker 1: you're choosing a relationship with someone who doesn't even support
Speaker 1: your growth over your actual growth. Or when they tried
Speaker 1: to get me and moved to Albany over and over
Speaker 1: and over again, I loved my home in Vancouver, and
Speaker 1: it's at your attachment. Can you see how your attachment
Speaker 1: to materialism and comfort is stopping you from your your
Speaker 1: true growth thro your true potential. Like it would be
Speaker 1: a very gentle, loving tone not not angry, so I
Speaker 1: thought I was being supported. I just wanted to make
Speaker 1: everyone clear on what an e M is. Sarah's using
Speaker 1: the term e M, which is a nexium term which
Speaker 1: stands for exploration of meaning moments where a person's motivations
Speaker 1: were unpacked, and over time it became clear they were
Speaker 1: unpacked in a rather shaming, gas lighting way. It's like
Speaker 1: being in a group where if you did something that
Speaker 1: the people in charge didn't like, they would subject the
Speaker 1: person to this kind of a process. Did it ever
Speaker 1: start to strike you as these incidents piled up when
Speaker 1: you were still in sort of the heyday of actually
Speaker 1: appreciating what was happening in nexium that every one of
Speaker 1: these suggestions, you're choosing someone who doesn't your growth you are,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't want to move here and have
Speaker 1: your true potential, That the outcome of every one of
Speaker 1: those decisions that they were pushing for would benefit them.
Speaker 1: It didn't know because it's so much of the mission.
Speaker 1: And it's even in the video of the last episode
Speaker 1: where Nancy says this is a mission. It's not you're
Speaker 1: dedicating yourself to Keith or dedicat yourself to Nacy. This
Speaker 1: is a commitment to you and your growth. So that
Speaker 1: was the premise. ESP is not for anyone else, It's
Speaker 1: for you. I mean, trying to wrap my head around
Speaker 1: it now, it's obviously makes no sense. The mission was
Speaker 1: your growth. Here Sarah uses the term e s P,
Speaker 1: which stands for Executive Success Program. Nobody just opens a
Speaker 1: cult in an office park one day. The Executive Success
Speaker 1: Program was a program and curriculum that Keith Rniery and
Speaker 1: Nancy Salzman were peddling as a program to tap and
Speaker 1: harness the potential within people, and that would call people
Speaker 1: out on the thoughts and beliefs that were blocking them
Speaker 1: from success. E SP is what Sarah signed up for
Speaker 1: with a goal of personal development and growth right your
Speaker 1: your growth, and it's it's it is really interesting, it
Speaker 1: is It is a really mind efford because they were
Speaker 1: almost selling individuation when they were doing the opposite. Because
Speaker 1: what we know in any narcissistic structure, and whether that's
Speaker 1: a family, whether that's a couple, whether that's a workplace,
Speaker 1: and whether that's an organization like you were in the
Speaker 1: goal when we're trying to help someone grow out of
Speaker 1: that space and heal is to foster individuation a self
Speaker 1: outside of that, and that you can have a relationship
Speaker 1: with someone but not subjugate yourself. That's that's that's sort
Speaker 1: of a core principle there, right, And nextium found a
Speaker 1: really really kind of well marketed, slick way of subjugation,
Speaker 1: which I've actually never really seen done so skillfully in
Speaker 1: my career. It's so ironic because this is actually a
Speaker 1: module that they taught is going from independence interdependence, looking
Speaker 1: at the child's parent relationship and I'm sure as a
Speaker 1: model he's stole from somewhere. Yeah, I don't know where,
Speaker 1: it's not his. And they really did talk about how
Speaker 1: it was really not good to be dependent on anything,
Speaker 1: even to the point of like that's why we didn't
Speaker 1: drink or do drugs. There was one inconsistency that I
Speaker 1: saw throughout is that Nancy was super dependent on coffee.
Speaker 1: And they called her the energy jazzer by the mean,
Speaker 1: and she got she I mean, she was our role
Speaker 1: model for that frenzy as well that she was go go, go,
Speaker 1: go gole never rest. And that was one of the
Speaker 1: very first sort of AHAs as I as I escaped,
Speaker 1: where I recognized that was a huge inconsistency is that
Speaker 1: we weren't supposed to be dependent on anything outside of
Speaker 1: ourselves to be happy, Like that's an attachment. You have
Speaker 1: to work your attachments. But we're all totally dependent on
Speaker 1: the organization and on the ownership dirt decisions. And I
Speaker 1: see that clearly with the people who are still loyal.
Speaker 1: For your listeners who don't know this, there are still
Speaker 1: people that follow Keith. They're like just drowned. They don't
Speaker 1: know what to do with themselves because they don't they're
Speaker 1: they have nothing to plug into, and they're just correct
Speaker 1: right their dependency, and and they're holding onto it and
Speaker 1: won't let it go. What you're talking about is the
Speaker 1: dependency on something outside of someone that is excessive and
Speaker 1: that one derives their self esteem from and are incapable
Speaker 1: of holding space for other perspectives and seeing themselves as
Speaker 1: an individual out of there. A lot of that is
Speaker 1: a definition of codependency, where the self esteem is completely
Speaker 1: linked into a structure outside of someone. So what you
Speaker 1: know next Singing was preaching simultaneously was codependency and independence,
Speaker 1: which are completely incompatible states. So there was a chronic
Speaker 1: state of confusion, yes for anyone, for anyone that that
Speaker 1: was confusing. And the other majorly confusing part was that
Speaker 1: it was a success program. I didn't join next thing
Speaker 1: and I joined executive success programs. And the whole idea
Speaker 1: was as a goals program to help you achieve what
Speaker 1: you want to achieve in the world. We had these
Speaker 1: classes about your infinity goals and your long term goals
Speaker 1: and your short term goals, and I was achieving them,
Speaker 1: but then it was also getting in trouble for having
Speaker 1: these attachments. And I couldn't wrap my head around like
Speaker 1: all the people that were around Keith seemed to have
Speaker 1: given up their goals and their attachments and now we're
Speaker 1: living in Albany and seemed really miserable and thin, and
Speaker 1: I just didn't understand like, And I think that's actually
Speaker 1: what saved me, is that I refused to give up
Speaker 1: my goals and I always had one foot out in reality.
Speaker 1: Isolation is an essential dynamic in all toxic relationships, whether
Speaker 1: it is an organization or program or an individual. The
Speaker 1: framing is often you are too attached to other things,
Speaker 1: other people, and the person is left feeling that the
Speaker 1: only way forward is to detach from important relationships outside
Speaker 1: of the toxic structure. Isolation is necessary if a person
Speaker 1: or a group is going to try to control another person,
Speaker 1: and ESP and Nexium were framing these as attachments that
Speaker 1: needed to be rejected, and then real commitment meant that
Speaker 1: you moved to their center of operations in Albany, isolating
Speaker 1: people further Sarah's resistance to this is a major protective
Speaker 1: factor that did save you is that you know you
Speaker 1: did have that foot in reality. By your own description,
Speaker 1: you said, you've come from a happy family, respected your parents,
Speaker 1: you admire your parents. That that helps, Yes, that definitely
Speaker 1: creates a sort of one piece of resilience bedrock, even
Speaker 1: when this stuff is floating around you. And you went in,
Speaker 1: and I think that this is what's important for listeners
Speaker 1: to hear, you went in motivated by personal growth. That
Speaker 1: was the motivation, and community and meaning and purpose. Those
Speaker 1: are what any therapist would be sort of extolling as
Speaker 1: virtues for an individual. So it's not some sort of
Speaker 1: sinister vision that was bringing you, or it sounds like
Speaker 1: anybody into executive success programs. They were just they were
Speaker 1: they were trying to better themselves and they seemed like
Speaker 1: a way to do that. And that's understandable. How did
Speaker 1: you view Keith FORNERI when you met him, because I
Speaker 1: think that he's such a central figure in this and
Speaker 1: when we heard Mark Vicente, like you said, it's been
Speaker 1: on this podcast, the reaction and the interaction with this
Speaker 1: man is going to be very different. And I want
Speaker 1: to hear from a woman who's had an interaction with
Speaker 1: this man, because I found him repulsive in every way,
Speaker 1: shape and form, from every photo to every word to
Speaker 1: the sound of his voice. Obviously I had already heard
Speaker 1: the story, but from the beginning you come into executive
Speaker 1: success programs, Marcus saying that it's really you know, it's
Speaker 1: helped him, you admired him. You come in, What was
Speaker 1: that first exposure to this man? Like? So the first
Speaker 1: exposure and I listen, my my arc with Keith changed
Speaker 1: a lot over the twelve years, but my first exposure
Speaker 1: was after I had taken a five day in Vancouver
Speaker 1: and then eleven day in Albany, where before and after
Speaker 1: every class we're saying thank you van Guard, thank you Vanguard.
Speaker 1: And the women who am I grow to respect are
Speaker 1: what we call like the Greek chorus. They're singing his praises,
Speaker 1: they're putting him on a pedestal talking about this how
Speaker 1: this man changed our lives. And by the time I
Speaker 1: finished that curriculum, I mean, I was hooked into the
Speaker 1: concepts that we're being sold to me. I was, I was,
Speaker 1: this is what I wanted to do, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to bring it to Canada. I totally respected this man
Speaker 1: before I even met him, is in terms of this
Speaker 1: is the brain that created this technology quote unquote. But
Speaker 1: when I met him, I definitely was very underwhelmed. I
Speaker 1: thought he was schlubby and not put together. I'm a
Speaker 1: put together person to the point of being like borderline
Speaker 1: O C D, you know what I mean, And so
Speaker 1: I'm looking at him going. But any time there was
Speaker 1: a forum where Keith spoke for the first time to
Speaker 1: new people, like a Vanguard Week or if they're look
Speaker 1: he did something of volleyball, Nancy would always debrief the
Speaker 1: forum and she would always say, wasn't he amazing? You know,
Speaker 1: wasn't he just incredible? And somebody knew would put up
Speaker 1: their hand and say, it's so weird because like he
Speaker 1: just seems so normal, like it just seems like a
Speaker 1: just a guy, and she would spin that as it
Speaker 1: is that incredible, that he just brings himself to our
Speaker 1: level and makes himself so accessible. That was the spin.
Speaker 1: He is a genius, but he's just a volleyball playing nerd,
Speaker 1: you know, the sort of humble thing. Yes, And I
Speaker 1: was actually struck, you know, even when Mark said he's
Speaker 1: the smartest guy. And I've listened to a lot of
Speaker 1: him trying to understand this and kind of underwhelmed, like
Speaker 1: I don't think he was saying seemed particularly smart, Like
Speaker 1: I think a really solid second year grad student would
Speaker 1: know that. I think like I haven't seen anything in
Speaker 1: any of the documentaries that would show like the full
Speaker 1: two hour forum, right, so that would be boring for everybody.
Speaker 1: But there were times when a form would lay out
Speaker 1: a bunch of concepts that seemed profound, and a lot
Speaker 1: of it seemed like was over my head. But everyone
Speaker 1: else is smiling and nodding, So I'm thinking I'm not
Speaker 1: smart enough for this, or I'm missing it. I found
Speaker 1: out later that most people felt the same way because
Speaker 1: it was a word salad, and word salad is a
Speaker 1: classical tool of anybody who actually doesn't know what they're
Speaker 1: talking about, but grandiose sleep must believe there are some
Speaker 1: sort of genius or messiah or whatever they believe or
Speaker 1: as it were, vanguard. Did that? Did that set off
Speaker 1: any red flags for you that have to call another
Speaker 1: human being by some sort of bizarre title sent I mean,
Speaker 1: all the things that happened in day one of the
Speaker 1: five day calling a vanguard, wearing sashes, bowing all the
Speaker 1: rules and rituals were massive red flags for me. But
Speaker 1: they had very smartly said right from the beginning, you're
Speaker 1: here to work. You're here to work your stuff. That's
Speaker 1: going to be uncomfortable. You agree when you were when
Speaker 1: you're working on your issues at something. We all agree, yes,
Speaker 1: all successful people I want to know their limitations. Yes
Speaker 1: we agree. So we've agreed to be that successful people
Speaker 1: know their limitations. We've agreed that our limitations are going
Speaker 1: to be uncomfortable, and we're gonna feel uncomfortable. So when
Speaker 1: we're uncomfortable we have the urge to leave, we agree
Speaker 1: to stay in the room and talk it through with
Speaker 1: a coach. So from the beginning, I'm agreeing to ignore
Speaker 1: my red flags because I'm a successful person and I
Speaker 1: want I want to work through my issues. So when
Speaker 1: I'm feeling like that, We're calling this guy vangor that
Speaker 1: I've never met, and then they say something before I
Speaker 1: can even put in my hand. Some people feel uncomfortable
Speaker 1: with this if they have suppressive tendencies or if they
Speaker 1: have some authority issues. So then I don't want to
Speaker 1: put in my hand and admit that I'm now a
Speaker 1: suppressive person. All I know is that I want to
Speaker 1: be a good girl, which is also one of my
Speaker 1: unhealthy traits. Right, I've learned about myself that I'm outwardly
Speaker 1: obedient and inwardly disobedient, and and now I'm I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm not a sheep anymore, and which is That's been
Speaker 1: a big part of my healing journey. But at this time,
Speaker 1: there's nine people in our class. This is not a
Speaker 1: person seminars nine students and probably just as many, if
Speaker 1: not more coaches. So we were being washed. We're like
Speaker 1: everyone's looking at her every move. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be like, what's with the sash craziness? Like I'm like,
Speaker 1: uh okay. One of the things I said also is
Speaker 1: when you go to someone's home and they asked you
Speaker 1: take off your shoes, you take off your shoes because
Speaker 1: it's their home. And there are a lot of the
Speaker 1: a lot of the rules were pitched that way, like
Speaker 1: this is what we do here, just for five days,
Speaker 1: you wear a sash, we bow to this person. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll follow your rules, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: it's it's not forever. It's interesting you made you made
Speaker 1: a comment early on because I just connected those dots
Speaker 1: here too, is that as we again you're right, as
Speaker 1: we look at this through the you know, through the
Speaker 1: lens of everything that happened, you know, the idea of
Speaker 1: vanguards and bowing and sashes and all of that, we
Speaker 1: can see it for all the you know, the terrible
Speaker 1: things that it is. But you had even said that
Speaker 1: in some ways sort of the system of stripes and
Speaker 1: everything was resident of martial arts. So too is bowing
Speaker 1: and sashes and belts and so I mean, they were
Speaker 1: taking some of the iconography of something that actually has
Speaker 1: a lot of respect, and rightfully so, martial arts is
Speaker 1: actually a place of tremendous sort of focus and discipline
Speaker 1: in and of itself, is actually a really great mindfulness tool,
Speaker 1: confidence building tool. So one would say, see that the
Speaker 1: idea of bowing to someone is built into another practice
Speaker 1: and so each one of these things that could feel troubling,
Speaker 1: just like in any toxic relationship, could rather quickly be justified.
Speaker 1: Sense of and in fact and in fact, I want
Speaker 1: to come back, I don't want to jump around too much,
Speaker 1: but you said, you know, one thing you had said
Speaker 1: about anyone who spoke, who provided a critique was shut
Speaker 1: down as being someone who is suppressive. That to me
Speaker 1: was the ultimate grooming technique, because what they were doing
Speaker 1: was they were creating this homogeneity because nobody wanted to
Speaker 1: be out it right. The whole idea was to belong,
Speaker 1: and so ostracism was going to sting even more in
Speaker 1: an organization like this. And ostracism is actually one of
Speaker 1: the greatest human fears there is because once upon a
Speaker 1: time in human history, to be ostracized would have been
Speaker 1: to starve to death, you know, because you needed your
Speaker 1: community to eat and all of that. So it still
Speaker 1: remains a primal fear. So by calling people suppressive, when
Speaker 1: I heard that over and over, not just in the vow,
Speaker 1: but in your book and anything else I've read, I thought,
Speaker 1: isn't this interesting because this happens in narcissistic families all
Speaker 1: the time. If anybody speaks out or speaks up against
Speaker 1: something that doesn't feel right. That child or adolescent and
Speaker 1: even adult in those family systems is told they're ungrateful,
Speaker 1: that they're they're a problem, that they're breaking with tradition,
Speaker 1: they're not you know, all the things that a family
Speaker 1: would do to keep everybody in line, rather than celebrating
Speaker 1: that someone's either an individual or maybe making a really
Speaker 1: good point. And so that concept kept coming up over
Speaker 1: and over again, and you bring up something that you know,
Speaker 1: we often talk about grooming in line with narcissistic relationships
Speaker 1: and toxic relationships. What we don't talk enough about is screening,
Speaker 1: and that's a lot of what the early phase of
Speaker 1: these relationships is. In many ways, what they're trying to
Speaker 1: do is it's almost like sort of you know, casing
Speaker 1: the joint or sort of shaking down a mark, like ken,
Speaker 1: is this a person I can hustle? Right? Am I
Speaker 1: going to be able to get the money out of them?
Speaker 1: It's no different than anyone who's walking down the street
Speaker 1: and they're playing tea with three card monty, who really
Speaker 1: stops to play that game? That person is already a sucker, right.
Speaker 1: They think they can beat the game, And so I
Speaker 1: think that there's this screening process that happens in any
Speaker 1: of these toxic relationships of if we're already getting them
Speaker 1: to suspend their incredulity to say, okay, I can work
Speaker 1: with this whole Sash and Vanguard thing. They're screening people,
Speaker 1: and I have to wonder if some of those early
Speaker 1: days weren't these screens as it were, and that you
Speaker 1: were almost sifting and then some people would say, oh,
Speaker 1: heck no, I mean level screens. You know. They might
Speaker 1: even say, and this is interesting because in Keith's history,
Speaker 1: he had a history of multi level marketing. They might
Speaker 1: even say this feels pyramid E today. You know, and
Speaker 1: you were doing, you were having to you were told
Speaker 1: you had to bring new people in. And any time
Speaker 1: I hear about somebody being told they have to bring
Speaker 1: new people and I'm like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. MLM,
Speaker 1: which totally we've had reverted Levin's on this podcast. So
Speaker 1: I know you know as well that idea of recruitment
Speaker 1: to me, and we know MLM structures and cult structures
Speaker 1: are quite similar. My session with Sarah will continue after
Speaker 1: this break. How did it feel for you having to
Speaker 1: recruit people and did you believe in it so much
Speaker 1: or did you want it to work that you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do the thing they're asking so I
Speaker 1: can continue ascending into this program. Unfortunately, that was a
Speaker 1: really natural fit for me. I've always I've always been
Speaker 1: somebody who brought people along on whatever it was I
Speaker 1: was doing. I was good at sales from a young age,
Speaker 1: whether it's a garage sales when I was young, and
Speaker 1: then like selling candy bars in Greade ten to raise
Speaker 1: money for the new TV. I was always I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was my network or just how I
Speaker 1: am I when I believe in something, and even what
Speaker 1: I'm doing right now with the podcast and like being
Speaker 1: a advocate for cult recovery, like I the loyalist right now,
Speaker 1: who are still loyal to Keith. I shouldn't have watched,
Speaker 1: but I watched one of their YouTube responses, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to send you the lad because it will blow
Speaker 1: your mind. One of the things is that they've said,
Speaker 1: you know, Sarah was a good salesperson building it. She's
Speaker 1: a good salesperson now with this with this narrative, like there,
Speaker 1: the whole thing is, this is Sarah mun Sin's a narrative,
Speaker 1: by the way, giving me a lot of potency because
Speaker 1: let's just say I'm making it up. You know, I
Speaker 1: did it for the book deal, as they said, what
Speaker 1: about all the other women and the other thing. I
Speaker 1: don't think I brought I did this in the book
Speaker 1: because I have still have a family member involved. But
Speaker 1: before did next Um, I was prepherbal to an MLM
Speaker 1: that my mom had signed me up in. I'm more
Speaker 1: I'm more public about it now because I just feel
Speaker 1: like it's it's weird to not disclose it. And I
Speaker 1: did okay in it, but I'd already learned about like
Speaker 1: how to recruit and it was a similar structure. You
Speaker 1: bring two people in and you train them to bring
Speaker 1: two people in, and it was like a vitamin thing.
Speaker 1: So I've already gone through some of that sales training.
Speaker 1: So that in combination with me being so zealous about
Speaker 1: whatever I'm into. Plus I had that women's group that
Speaker 1: I was doing the artist way with and I was
Speaker 1: trying to I'm not a therapist, but like you know,
Speaker 1: my parents are, so I'm always trying to help people
Speaker 1: and counsel people casually in a way that many people
Speaker 1: find annoying some people find helpful. I've learned to ask,
Speaker 1: now would you like my advice or would you like
Speaker 1: to me just just listen? But I had this group
Speaker 1: of women and I was like, this is this is
Speaker 1: the thing that we need, Like I haven't been able
Speaker 1: to help any of us through our limiting beliefs, in
Speaker 1: our stuffling blocks. I felt very good about bringing this
Speaker 1: what I learned to them. And you know when I
Speaker 1: went to next UM, I didn't know about the financial
Speaker 1: opportunity or like that wasn't that was an offer to me?
Speaker 1: Was this for my personal growth? And then once I
Speaker 1: took it, like, oh, you can take it and you
Speaker 1: can bring two people and get your money back, and
Speaker 1: if you bring six people, you can earn a commission
Speaker 1: and that's how you can pay for your next courses.
Speaker 1: And it kind of built from there and then it
Speaker 1: was like, wow, I can make more money than I
Speaker 1: ever did in acting, and I can change the world,
Speaker 1: and why wouldn't I get paid for helping people grow?
Speaker 1: Like it was you know I had some challenges along
Speaker 1: the way, but if I did, I'd just get them
Speaker 1: M which is your exploration? That was next point? Is
Speaker 1: these E M s? This idea of exploration of meaning
Speaker 1: and this idea that it's your why. They were constantly
Speaker 1: making you look for your why. Not necessarily a bad thing,
Speaker 1: except the e M s were only applied when you
Speaker 1: were doing something that was raising friction. It seemed like
Speaker 1: with the organization, when you weren't complying, when you weren't
Speaker 1: moving the way they wanted, it seems like that's when
Speaker 1: there would be a push. They could be used that way,
Speaker 1: but they started in the five Day the way the
Speaker 1: way it was originally presented. As you came to the
Speaker 1: five day with like, you know, what are your goals?
Speaker 1: And I want to be a better actress and I
Speaker 1: want to have a better relationship with my partner, and
Speaker 1: you you presented two things Stimus responses that you were
Speaker 1: challenged by, and one of them that I presented was
Speaker 1: my ex boyfriend leaving dishes in the sink and basically
Speaker 1: like anything that exposed my my pseudo CD right and
Speaker 1: feeling angry that this control issues right. So my first
Speaker 1: e M was unhooking the stimulus the dishes to my response.
Speaker 1: So and then I've I feel like I don't react
Speaker 1: to that anymore. What A what A? What a relief. Right,
Speaker 1: So now I have this impression that I can work
Speaker 1: through any reaction I have. So if I'm upset about
Speaker 1: something and e M is then applied to work through
Speaker 1: my reaction, not there's a problem with the thing that
Speaker 1: I'm upset with, That's what I'm saying. And that can
Speaker 1: over time cultivate a lot of self doubt, yes, and
Speaker 1: it destroyted view of the world. So you're in it.
Speaker 1: Let me go back for one minute, because I think
Speaker 1: red flags or early signs are so important. If you
Speaker 1: were to sort of say, what were the first few
Speaker 1: red flags that you saw that that you still pushed beyond,
Speaker 1: But what were the red flags that now you say
Speaker 1: that really was that was the thing? And this is
Speaker 1: such a good question. And I wish that I had
Speaker 1: the education I have now back then, because obviously it
Speaker 1: would have made very different decisions. But the very first
Speaker 1: red flag was the pressure to even sign up when
Speaker 1: I met Mark, And it wasn't him, because he wasn't
Speaker 1: a salesperson yet. It was somebody else who was running
Speaker 1: around with an application and saying, you know, you gotta
Speaker 1: get your forty eight hour discount. Knowing what I know now,
Speaker 1: I would say I feel like you're pressuring me, and
Speaker 1: if I really want to do this, it'll still be
Speaker 1: here down the road, you know. That's what I would say.
Speaker 1: First red flag, then getting to the training. Even before
Speaker 1: I got to the training, I tried to get my
Speaker 1: money back because I changed my mind and I got
Speaker 1: gaslet slash peer pressured, slash manipulated to believe that this
Speaker 1: was like the only thing that was going to change
Speaker 1: my life. Second red flag, third red flag, getting to
Speaker 1: the training and all the things we've talked about, the
Speaker 1: sashes edifying this this person I had never met. Nancy's
Speaker 1: eyebrows and her bath and power suit, like just the
Speaker 1: whole thing. I mean, I'm joking, but like the whole
Speaker 1: thing was so cheesy. It was so tacky, and I
Speaker 1: didn't like that it wasn't that was something I had
Speaker 1: to like, overlook and overlook even for the twelve years
Speaker 1: when I really loved it. I'd have to say to
Speaker 1: people that there are some people I wouldn't even bring
Speaker 1: in because I knew that they wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: look if I found it cheesy and tachi, they wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to see past it. So then I just
Speaker 1: didn't even tell them, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 1: those red flags to me are interesting because those are
Speaker 1: almost what I would call life the red flags, And
Speaker 1: what I mean by that is a high pressure sales technique.
Speaker 1: You know, anyone's doing it that much of a high
Speaker 1: pressure sale on you, it means you're probably paying too
Speaker 1: much for something that isn't worth it, right, you know,
Speaker 1: if the car guys chasing you around the dealership, I'm like, peace,
Speaker 1: I could now I know what I'm dealing with, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to be able to find this better, cheaper whatever.
Speaker 1: So that was that sort of sales pressure thing. And
Speaker 1: then it was sort of said the cheesy part, right,
Speaker 1: like do I really want to be at this sort
Speaker 1: of cheesy thing? When did the red flags for you
Speaker 1: transform from these more sort of life red flags into
Speaker 1: something that kind of left you more sort of unsettled
Speaker 1: red flags? The red flags that kind of sit that
Speaker 1: kind of give you that sort of feel a little
Speaker 1: bit of a very uncomfortable maybe even hairs on the
Speaker 1: back of your neck. Red flags. That's a good question.
Speaker 1: I didn't get those. I didn't get those in the
Speaker 1: five day early on. No, No, the things that were
Speaker 1: more unsettling, I mean Albany in general, just the whole setting.
Speaker 1: I intuitively felt I just never wanted to go. It
Speaker 1: didn't like the area, like there was something about it. Oh,
Speaker 1: and I forgot to mention because you asked me earlier
Speaker 1: about Keith. I'm going to come back to that. I
Speaker 1: want to. I just want to say something that I
Speaker 1: forgot to say is that it also intuitively felt very
Speaker 1: like I couldn't get close to him, like I didn't
Speaker 1: want to. And and people I was like, well, you
Speaker 1: know you're in town, why don't you the women around him,
Speaker 1: why don't you ask Keith if he's available to go
Speaker 1: for a walk. And like my thought was, what would
Speaker 1: I say to him? Because you were also not supposed
Speaker 1: to ask him for anything that you could ask someone
Speaker 1: else or like Google, you know what I mean. You
Speaker 1: don't want to waste his time. You only ask them
Speaker 1: things that only he knows, So like I don't have
Speaker 1: anything to and I kind of kept my distance. I
Speaker 1: only had two private walks with him that I can
Speaker 1: remember my whole twelve years there. I never let myself
Speaker 1: get close to him. I didn't I didn't want to,
Speaker 1: and and and in those times he gave me really
Speaker 1: awful feedback that was super uncomfortable, so I never did
Speaker 1: it again. There were red flags around my friend Nicki,
Speaker 1: who's still loyal to Keith, I brought her in. So
Speaker 1: I brought Nicky in and she moved to Albany, I
Speaker 1: think within a couple of years, and I'm just remember thinking,
Speaker 1: you why even Albany to go? Keith couldn't mentor me
Speaker 1: and my acting career, and her career was already more
Speaker 1: successful than mine was. So I was like, okay, you know.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until I came to visit later, maybe
Speaker 1: even a year in, and I wanted to spend time
Speaker 1: with her, and she said something like I can't because
Speaker 1: I just need to be available for Keith, right, And
Speaker 1: I was like, I had the hit, you know, when
Speaker 1: you have a hit that someone's sleeping with somebody. But
Speaker 1: then I dismissed it because a the age difference and
Speaker 1: be look at Keith and see he's the and also
Speaker 1: we've been told he was he was celibate, which is
Speaker 1: obviously so ridiculous now since we know that he's a
Speaker 1: sex addict. But that was like a oh, no, can
Speaker 1: be you know. And I had that with other women
Speaker 1: that I, and then I and then I remember asking
Speaker 1: around and people being like, he's a very very intimate relationship.
Speaker 1: He's mentoring people's intimate relationships, but he's celibate. So it's
Speaker 1: just then I would see that a lot, and I
Speaker 1: just assumed that that's how he worked with people. And
Speaker 1: then later as time went on, as I asked more
Speaker 1: questions to be like, how is that any anyone's business?
Speaker 1: You know, and that sort of became the thing, like
Speaker 1: it keeps private life. And then as I compartmentalized, so
Speaker 1: there were things that were uncomfortable, but you were also
Speaker 1: growing and so you're you're sort of growing within this organization,
Speaker 1: you're succeeding. And also you're not in Albany, so you're
Speaker 1: not sort of in the center storm of what we're
Speaker 1: seeing in all these TV programs, which you feel if
Speaker 1: you were in that day to day it would have
Speaker 1: probably really unsettled you. But you're actually building out things
Speaker 1: and running them in some ways the way you want
Speaker 1: to run them. In Vancouver in the Northwest. Time goes on, though,
Speaker 1: and you meet your husband even so, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: wonderful things happening, and you're a mean person would be
Speaker 1: your husband, and you get pregnant, and I have to say,
Speaker 1: and I look at your story in many ways, I
Speaker 1: think your pregnancy and your child is ultimately what saved you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, because it was there was to be no
Speaker 1: other priority for you. And it was very striking to me, Sarah,
Speaker 1: how children weren't built into that structure there that how
Speaker 1: many people I watched it. I'm like, we're out the kids.
Speaker 1: I have a mom. I'm a mom, right, so I'm
Speaker 1: always like, I couldn't have gone to these things. I
Speaker 1: have been running around off my kids and picking them
Speaker 1: up from music practice and all of this. So but
Speaker 1: I saw that, and I thought, that's very interesting to me,
Speaker 1: because if somebody did have a child in any form
Speaker 1: of a healthy way, that would have almost just pulled
Speaker 1: them away from the orthodoxy of what this was. And
Speaker 1: although Nancy Saltzman was a mother, she came into this
Speaker 1: after her children were grown, and interestingly, he almost caught
Speaker 1: her at a point where a woman is almost vulnerable again.
Speaker 1: And though after your children sort of grow up and out,
Speaker 1: you have a chance to sort of launch a second
Speaker 1: phase of your life. And and so she was almost
Speaker 1: caught in this second renaissance that a woman's life has
Speaker 1: at that time. All of that said, can you share
Speaker 1: with us what it was like at the point when
Speaker 1: things start getting sort of dark? Because what to me
Speaker 1: was always so compelling knowing Mark now is that Mark
Speaker 1: brought you into something that was ultimately harmful. And I've
Speaker 1: never quite understood how that might have affected your a
Speaker 1: friendship between you because at one level you might say, Wow,
Speaker 1: what did you get at me and get me into?
Speaker 1: But you would sort of evolved so much in the process,
Speaker 1: But it was really Mark and Bonnie who and you together?
Speaker 1: It was like this, something is not right here? What
Speaker 1: did things become like for you? Because basically what you
Speaker 1: were doing? Just to give you context is how I
Speaker 1: approached this. I tell people you never want to call
Speaker 1: out a narcissist. Never. You don't go up to someone's
Speaker 1: a YO you're narcissistic, or YO you're toxic. It's never
Speaker 1: going to work out for your say, once you recognize this,
Speaker 1: now you've got to run a ground game to give
Speaker 1: yourself a chance to build boundaries, to start separating, ow disengage,
Speaker 1: give yourself a safe space. You may not be able
Speaker 1: to leave this relationship. And I'm not saying that that's
Speaker 1: the right way, but you can't keep bringing your A
Speaker 1: game to this and you cannot invest your identity into this,
Speaker 1: no way, no how, that's the play. And so in
Speaker 1: some ways what was happening is you were now sensing
Speaker 1: alongside these other folks, this is not right, something is
Speaker 1: not right. Talk to us about your life at that point.
Speaker 1: So this would have been I mean, the last year
Speaker 1: before I left, couple of years there were a lot
Speaker 1: of things that were happening that I couldn't reconcile. And
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've used this metaphor of metaphor before put
Speaker 1: them on the shelf to shelve them. One of them
Speaker 1: was that Keith had created this new company, Ultima, that
Speaker 1: had like an acting program, the Source, the Knife, which
Speaker 1: was for media, ethical media, a number of other companies,
Speaker 1: and and to do that, he pulled basically my staff
Speaker 1: from Vancouver, like eight percent of my staff to come
Speaker 1: to Albany and build these new companies. And it was
Speaker 1: an opportunity to for people to be entrepreneurs and be
Speaker 1: mentored by Keith directly. Blah blah blah. That was a
Speaker 1: very challenging for me. And you're you're right, I did
Speaker 1: run my center the way that I wanted to. I'd
Speaker 1: like to say that I took the good of it
Speaker 1: and had this little community. Not to say that there
Speaker 1: wasn't bad things, but ultimately I even got in trouble
Speaker 1: by the way for Nancy who came once and she's like,
Speaker 1: there's not enough tribute for Keith and I here. They're
Speaker 1: they're not people. I don't even know who I am enough,
Speaker 1: like she didn't she wasn't a doored enough. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: like a lot of this stuff just wrabbed me the
Speaker 1: wrong way, and I just stripped it my own way. Right.
Speaker 1: So ultima was happening. I was helping to build it,
Speaker 1: but kind of reluctantly and being like, okay, guys, if
Speaker 1: you're gonna go to Albany, like make sure you get
Speaker 1: it on paper what the contract is. Because I knew
Speaker 1: many of them I lost forever. Some of them never
Speaker 1: came back. Wow, and remember too, I mean, at one point,
Speaker 1: I think it's important to make Jeffer and Sarah's for
Speaker 1: many years you worked for free, Yes, for this program,
Speaker 1: from like at least four and a half years. I mean,
Speaker 1: there was lots of things I did for free and
Speaker 1: lots of things I got really got paid really well for,
Speaker 1: and a lot of that money went right back into
Speaker 1: more trainings. And the center was incredibly expensive to run,
Speaker 1: going back and forth Albany because as you know, I
Speaker 1: never never moved there. But during this time I also
Speaker 1: didn't stop getting paid for some of building some of
Speaker 1: those things which didn't feel right. And when I voiced that,
Speaker 1: I was told I was being entitled right, so, which
Speaker 1: was one of the number one negative traits of being
Speaker 1: a woman. So all of this in the backdrop is
Speaker 1: s op is running in Janess's running. These are new curriculums.
Speaker 1: There was like so much training to take. We had
Speaker 1: to take us to take Jenness, we had to take
Speaker 1: the source. I didn't take the knife because I just
Speaker 1: didn't didn't want to. Also, I got I had the
Speaker 1: excuse of my new baby to get me out of
Speaker 1: things at this point. So there we was just things
Speaker 1: I was shelving. There's too many curriculums. I wasn't getting paid.
Speaker 1: You couldn't voice a complaint because now you're either not
Speaker 1: only suppressive, but you're you're entitled right. So they're pathologizing
Speaker 1: self advocacy. Yes, that's that's what's happening, and again classical play,
Speaker 1: classically and the narcissistic relationship. If a person really tries
Speaker 1: to fight for themselves, advocate for themselves, make a need known,
Speaker 1: they work with the courage to make a need known.
Speaker 1: They are told you're selfish, you're entitled, you're difficult, and that,
Speaker 1: for many people is an instant shutdown. Yeah, so all
Speaker 1: all of that was happening, and my priorities were being
Speaker 1: shifted to my family, and I guess, like I I
Speaker 1: didn't really even realize that I wasn't on board anymore
Speaker 1: because I had such a big investment. You know, my
Speaker 1: rent at the Center was like seven grand a month,
Speaker 1: needs a lot of money. I was so disconnected from
Speaker 1: those things, Like I always thought I was going to
Speaker 1: be a life or an exime life or this is
Speaker 1: the rest of my life. And I think that now
Speaker 1: that I've seen the vow as Keith was ramping up
Speaker 1: recognizing women would leave him, and he was ramping up
Speaker 1: his own, um, you know, trying to lock down his
Speaker 1: loyalty for for the women in his life and then
Speaker 1: through them other women. So we always have a fresh
Speaker 1: supply of women and powers. How I see it now,
Speaker 1: that's when I got invited into dust. Okay, so that's
Speaker 1: when you got invited to jos so before we get
Speaker 1: into Doss, which is so so so dark. It's fascinating
Speaker 1: to me all these names, Ultima s OP which is
Speaker 1: Society of Protectors, Janess which stands for nothing and sounds
Speaker 1: like a feminine hygiene product. And I believe that he
Speaker 1: what we were told it came from the route where
Speaker 1: like gynecology g U I N and then and then
Speaker 1: it sounded too gynecological. I was like, so that he
Speaker 1: made it Jane s janess like and the the nest
Speaker 1: of the the woman. That's how it was. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: meman in hygiene is what jumped out at me. But
Speaker 1: like all these names, this is what you see though
Speaker 1: in any kind of toxic organization, is this sort of
Speaker 1: these these secret handshakes and names and anything that almost
Speaker 1: isolates it rather than like a men's group or women's
Speaker 1: empowerment group. No, no, no, it had to have all
Speaker 1: these code names, which actually creates a very different kind
Speaker 1: of and more intense kind of a buy in in
Speaker 1: the sense that you're in something quote unquote special special. Now,
Speaker 1: there was definitely the whole time. And this is something
Speaker 1: that I'm sure you can see from a mile away
Speaker 1: that I couldn't see at the time. It's just the
Speaker 1: collective ego of the group, you know, the specialness, the
Speaker 1: eliteness that we And this is something the humble pie
Speaker 1: I've really had to eat in my healing journey is
Speaker 1: I really was righteous. I really thought that I had
Speaker 1: the only way we'd meet people who were successful in
Speaker 1: the world. Like if I had met you ten years ago,
Speaker 1: I would have wanted to connect with you and wanted
Speaker 1: to recruit you and think that you were doing good things,
Speaker 1: but that you really were limited because you weren't getting
Speaker 1: to the root cause and only we got to the
Speaker 1: root cause you were just putting band aids on things.
Speaker 1: I thought that about everybody interesting, that they didn't know
Speaker 1: what we know. In that way, you were a missionary.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's what proselytizing. That's what it was
Speaker 1: was proselytizing, always prosletizing. And that's like the biggest freedom
Speaker 1: for me is to just to meet people now and
Speaker 1: just to like be interested in them and not think
Speaker 1: about what I wonder if they'd be more of a
Speaker 1: jinas person or esp person like trying to think about what,
Speaker 1: you know, what was wrong in their life that I
Speaker 1: could then show them a way out right, which is
Speaker 1: a precarious way to go through the world. And before
Speaker 1: we talk about Dawson, I want to, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of set up that piece of Nancy Salzman, her daughter,
Speaker 1: Lauren Salzman. Yeah, Okay, they were very powerful people in
Speaker 1: nexting and one could argue that Nancy was Keith's right
Speaker 1: hand person, right and was the mother to Lauren Saltzman.
Speaker 1: Obviously Nancy was older than Keith. Lauren was her daughter
Speaker 1: younger and apparently brought into the organization and when she
Speaker 1: was eighteen, and you and Lauren became very very close.
Speaker 1: And I think Lauren, it's important just for us to
Speaker 1: articulate that she was incredibly close to her. You wanted
Speaker 1: to be in her good graces like you, It was
Speaker 1: important to you, and you did build a friendship. And
Speaker 1: then I think that really sets us up to talk
Speaker 1: about Das because what does DAWs Stanford Dominus subsequently Dominus obsequius, serrium,
Speaker 1: which sirium, yeah, which all of the names that we've
Speaker 1: since found out is his own personal kind of joke
Speaker 1: as well a god doss, he's a computer nerd from
Speaker 1: the eighties, right, So that's it's multiple meanings. But let
Speaker 1: me just to backtrack for a second about Lauren. I
Speaker 1: thought that we were close, and now I know there's
Speaker 1: this whole part. I always felt that there's a part
Speaker 1: of her life I couldn't really you know, connect with her,
Speaker 1: and now I know why. But ultimately, when you look
Speaker 1: at how everyone was so adoring to Keiths and how
Speaker 1: they worshiped him, I probably more was like that with
Speaker 1: Nancy and Lauren. I totally had them both on a pedestal,
Speaker 1: and Lauren and nance se were they were my guiding
Speaker 1: light for who I wanted to be, and this was
Speaker 1: like baked into the curriculum. It would always be things
Speaker 1: like you know who who who has the traits that
Speaker 1: you wish you could have, and what are those traits?
Speaker 1: And you know, nurturing and helps others and all the
Speaker 1: things that I was now I know, projecting myself and
Speaker 1: my own values onto them. But they I thought were
Speaker 1: my guiding principles. And so when when somebody like Lauren,
Speaker 1: who by the way, is also the head of education,
Speaker 1: so any promotion, anytime you're going to grow up the
Speaker 1: stripe path has to go through her. She's she's the
Speaker 1: guardian of those gates, so she's head of education. She's
Speaker 1: also who I trusted with all my personal stuff, anything
Speaker 1: was going on in my marriage. She knew me better
Speaker 1: probably than anyone. I didn't know she was reporting to Keith,
Speaker 1: but I found that out later. My session with Sarah
Speaker 1: will continue after this break. So you and Lauren are
Speaker 1: very close. She has a lot of decision making power
Speaker 1: in the organization, especially about how people had aunts and
Speaker 1: she approached you about something new. Can you tell us
Speaker 1: how she approached you and how all of that unfolded,
Speaker 1: because this was definitely the turning point. This was the
Speaker 1: turning point. This would be January of seventeen, and she
Speaker 1: came out to Vancouver to train a five day which
Speaker 1: at her level was a very rare thing that would
Speaker 1: only happen if I had what we called v I
Speaker 1: P s, like some famous entrepreneur actor, than somebody like
Speaker 1: Lauren or Nancy might train that that five days. So
Speaker 1: the fact that she was coming out was exciting. I
Speaker 1: didn't really know why. But when she got to Vancouver,
Speaker 1: she said to me that she wanted to talk to
Speaker 1: me about something. My first thought was that I was
Speaker 1: in trouble, because that's normally how it started. And I
Speaker 1: was going to get some feedback or something, and she's like,
Speaker 1: no, no no, I want to I wanna tell you about something.
Speaker 1: And then when we finally had a moment to ourselves,
Speaker 1: she asked me how committed I was to my growth?
Speaker 1: And I said, very committed. And to keep in mind,
Speaker 1: this is at a time when I was feeling a
Speaker 1: little stuck right and and disconnected from the communit and
Speaker 1: I'm focusing my family but not ready to pull out.
Speaker 1: My shelf hadn't broken yet. And she said, what are
Speaker 1: you willing to do for your growth? And I said
Speaker 1: something very similar to what I found out Lawrence said
Speaker 1: to Keith in the Vow, the episode that focuses on her.
Speaker 1: I realized that she had said to me pretty much
Speaker 1: what Keith said to her, setting her up to basically
Speaker 1: agree to do anything for her growth. She did that
Speaker 1: to me, and then she said she wanted to invite
Speaker 1: me to something, and she got very excited. She said,
Speaker 1: you want to invite me to something that had helped
Speaker 1: her more than anything that she'd ever done, including anything
Speaker 1: and nexium and before I could hear about it to
Speaker 1: give her collateral to make sure that I kept my
Speaker 1: word or kept the secrets around what she was going
Speaker 1: to tell me. Can you explain what collaterally and listen?
Speaker 1: I understand going back to your very first common of
Speaker 1: people saying like, why would people do that? Why would
Speaker 1: why would she say yes that? Why would she give collateral?
Speaker 1: Collateral had been normalized, had been a part of the
Speaker 1: curriculum since where people had started to use collateral as
Speaker 1: we were taught as a weight to our word. So
Speaker 1: if I said I'm going to go to the gym
Speaker 1: and I don't my collateral, something i'd put on the table,
Speaker 1: say maybe when you give like five dollars to charity
Speaker 1: or something like that. So there was like a wait
Speaker 1: to my commitments, right, So it's not like it's not
Speaker 1: like a swear jar, like I'm going to put a
Speaker 1: dollar in a jar every time I say the effort,
Speaker 1: in which case I'd probably just drop a twenty in
Speaker 1: and let it rip. That's not a high stake you're saying,
Speaker 1: like I don't go to the gym, it's five thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: So much so that you'd say, oh, okay, I am
Speaker 1: not not going to do this, Okay, so it's it's
Speaker 1: a big buy in, but it's a big buyon. So
Speaker 1: it was money, it was sometimes, it was money sometimes.
Speaker 1: And then there was another concept introduced called penance. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize because I wasn't raised religious, that this is
Speaker 1: a religious concept. So people were doing things like they
Speaker 1: collateralized their word with the penance, like having cold showers
Speaker 1: for a week, or waking up at three am and
Speaker 1: doing burpees in the snow like some painful thing. One
Speaker 1: thing we talked about a lot next him is there's
Speaker 1: a choice point in the choice between staying in bed
Speaker 1: and being comfortable or getting up and doing what you
Speaker 1: say you're going to do. In that choice point, you
Speaker 1: have to weigh. And Nancy says this in the vow,
Speaker 1: there's the ideology of who you are versus the comfort
Speaker 1: of your body, and that's the struggle. So the idea
Speaker 1: is the collateral would motivate you out of the discomfort
Speaker 1: to do the right thing. So when she's saying, when
Speaker 1: when Lauren is saying, I need you to collateralize this
Speaker 1: new thing I want you to do, was it money?
Speaker 1: Money was not an option? And like what like what
Speaker 1: She's like, oh, you know, like a nude photo or
Speaker 1: written confessional or I opted with written confessional as my
Speaker 1: first collateral. So I I wrote, I Sarah Edmondson in
Speaker 1: my twenties, blah blah blah, disclosed a bunch of things
Speaker 1: that like I wouldn't want to be public. And she
Speaker 1: took a photo of it. She sent it to somebody
Speaker 1: and then said it's not bad enough, and I said,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't have a like I've been a
Speaker 1: good girl, Like you know, I've dabbled in some recreational
Speaker 1: drugs and you know, experiment was and things. But I
Speaker 1: had to make it worse. So I exaggerated all the
Speaker 1: things and said things that weren't true in a written
Speaker 1: statement that she held, and that was enough collateral for
Speaker 1: me to be invited into dous what's done with the collateral?
Speaker 1: I understand that I don't go to the gym, I
Speaker 1: have to pay a thousand dollars. Okay, that's me accountable
Speaker 1: to me in some really intense, over the top way.
Speaker 1: But now they have could be a naked picture, it
Speaker 1: could be a confession. What is the implication of what's
Speaker 1: going to be done with that collateral? Well, This is
Speaker 1: where this is the problem with everything that's happened since
Speaker 1: and people being loyal and even in the case, is
Speaker 1: that they said, we're just going to hold this, We're
Speaker 1: holding this to me for you, for you and your word.
Speaker 1: But if you don't obviously that the implication there is,
Speaker 1: if you don't hold your vow of secrecy, that will
Speaker 1: be released. What's the point of giving collateral or giving
Speaker 1: something to for somebody to hold to maintain a secret.
Speaker 1: If that's the threat of release, isn't the holding it
Speaker 1: there like otherwise? I take it? So it's coercion, So
Speaker 1: collateralist coercid yes, okay, yeah, from now on, we can
Speaker 1: call it coercion or blackmail. Yeah, it's I mean, it's extortion,
Speaker 1: it's coercion. But what's happening is though it's an agreement
Speaker 1: like you're blackmail is almost like an after the fact,
Speaker 1: But they're saying from the jump, you're going to give
Speaker 1: us this thing that we're going to imprison you with, yes,
Speaker 1: And so it's making it look like I agreed to that, yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: So I'm saying you can hold this to help me
Speaker 1: keep my word that I'm never gonna release this information.
Speaker 1: Because I trust you so much as my friends, like
Speaker 1: the example of the Loyalists, give now. As I'm saying,
Speaker 1: like I have trouble drinking and driving, can you hold
Speaker 1: my keys, It's like I'm asking you for help here.
Speaker 1: So that's that's that's the metaphor, which doesn't make sense,
Speaker 1: but that's how they see it. The concept of collateral,
Speaker 1: the way Lauren framed it for this Doss group, was
Speaker 1: in essence, an attempt to make some one a collaborator
Speaker 1: in their own extortion. It is a very transparent, in
Speaker 1: your face form of manipulation that would result in a
Speaker 1: sense of self blame and coercion. It means that after
Speaker 1: this collateral is gathered, that none of the behavior that
Speaker 1: follows it, nor is the giving of the collateral consensual.
Speaker 1: People will obey whatever the demands of DOS are not
Speaker 1: from a place of consent, but from a place of coercion,
Speaker 1: with the fear that my collateral could be made public.
Speaker 1: This form of psychological exploitation and manipulation is a severe
Speaker 1: form of emotional abuse. So that's the first step, and
Speaker 1: from that point she invites menta DOS. So you've done
Speaker 1: your collateral, you've given it, you've made your confession story.
Speaker 1: Confession story I love wasn't entirely true, respect you even more.
Speaker 1: And then it made some standard standard. And then she
Speaker 1: invites me into DOS and she lays out the points,
Speaker 1: the first one being that it's a vow of obedience,
Speaker 1: and so I'm vowing to be obedient to her and
Speaker 1: her to her as my master. This is a master
Speaker 1: slave relationship, which obviously my all the alarm balls are
Speaker 1: going off, the biggest red flags I've ever had my
Speaker 1: entire time. And she's saying, that's good. That means you're
Speaker 1: doing it right, Like, this is supposed to be really uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: because it's a big commitment. You should feel uncomfortable. What
Speaker 1: I'm asking of you is a lot, and it's not
Speaker 1: for everybody. When this concept of master enslavery to me,
Speaker 1: slave is like it is a lightning rod word. You know,
Speaker 1: it is the it's the it is the worst experience
Speaker 1: of the humanization and degradation. Right even in the in
Speaker 1: the curriculum, we talk about how slavery is bad and
Speaker 1: people should have the right to the products of their
Speaker 1: own efforts. And now we're using this word, and I'm
Speaker 1: questioning this At this point, I feel like nothing you're
Speaker 1: doing you're consenting too, because there's so much manipulation happening.
Speaker 1: And talk about consent when it is because this idea
Speaker 1: of you consented to give this collateral. Was this because
Speaker 1: you inherently trusted Lauren? Yeah? Absolutely. If Alison Mack had
Speaker 1: asked me this, I wouldn't even have said yes. I
Speaker 1: didn't respect her in that way. And none of the
Speaker 1: women actually except for Lauren. Wow, okay, so they knew
Speaker 1: what they were doing. They say to be pulled in okay,
Speaker 1: and that and I also later I found out was
Speaker 1: done with me, like, oh, Sarah should be the one
Speaker 1: to invite this person. No, No, like there was very
Speaker 1: they were very strategic, but she was invited and by
Speaker 1: who Yeah, okay, so now you are in this group.
Speaker 1: She's using terminology like master and sla with a straight
Speaker 1: face's do this. But also, like, remember when I talked
Speaker 1: about how people taught rules and rituals and they'd be like, well,
Speaker 1: so you know, there's the martial arts and it was
Speaker 1: the same thing. Lauren was the best at teaching that module,
Speaker 1: and she was the best at doing this because she
Speaker 1: was like, you know, it's not really a master sly
Speaker 1: because you're in Vancouver and I'm an albuddy. It's like
Speaker 1: a guru disciple. Think of it as a heightened coaching
Speaker 1: coaching relationship. So that was my hook. That was my
Speaker 1: main reason for saying yes, is because Lauren is now
Speaker 1: offering to personally mentor me, even though we're close. It
Speaker 1: was very hard to get her time and I had
Speaker 1: to pay her. It was and a M but that
Speaker 1: was her rate. He three something. So if I had
Speaker 1: wanted an EM from her and she's only one of
Speaker 1: the only people I amed with, that was very expensive.
Speaker 1: Now she's saying she's gonna personally mentor me, I call it.
Speaker 1: Call it whatever you want. I'm master slave. Sure, I'll
Speaker 1: be your slave. What do you want me to do
Speaker 1: for you? Veronoa? Okay, Like I had no idea how
Speaker 1: serious it was. It was it was an exercise that
Speaker 1: she was mentoring me, taking me into her wing, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna call it master slave. Okay. So how did
Speaker 1: this play out? What did it mean to be her slave?
Speaker 1: Other than having to give her a lot of money
Speaker 1: to do these e m z s exploration I paid
Speaker 1: her before, Like when I was in the context of
Speaker 1: the of the structure of next time I would pay
Speaker 1: to get an a M from her, but getting one
Speaker 1: on one time with her even in trainings when I
Speaker 1: went to Albany, like maybe I could carve out a
Speaker 1: quick coffee break like she was always so busy. So
Speaker 1: the fact that she's offering to mentor me on a
Speaker 1: date and check in with me daily, I'm down. Okay.
Speaker 1: Here are my takeaways from this conversation with Sarah. First,
Speaker 1: Sarah was very clear that they were both healthy and
Speaker 1: unhealthy aspects of herself that drew her into the situation
Speaker 1: and dynamics at ESP and Nexium, and this is why
Speaker 1: it is also complicated. The challenge with any narcissistic situation
Speaker 1: is that there are elements that can be quite compelling
Speaker 1: and that even play upon healthy parts of ourselves, and
Speaker 1: yet simultaneously, neurotic fears such as not being good enough
Speaker 1: wanting to fit in, can also lead us to shape
Speaker 1: ourselves to fit these situations. We often want it to
Speaker 1: be simple that people get into this merely because of
Speaker 1: the unhealthy and neurotic parts of themselves. It's not that simple.
Speaker 1: In my next takeaway, I had a rueful moment when
Speaker 1: Sarah called this the Golden Age of cult awareness. I
Speaker 1: think that's because it parallels what we are entering as
Speaker 1: the Golden Age of narcissism awareness. She's right. Never before
Speaker 1: have I seen so much content movies, streaming shows on
Speaker 1: cults and cult like organizations. However, knowledge, while important, is
Speaker 1: not enough. This Golden Age needs to be a wake
Speaker 1: up call for people to do the deeper dive to
Speaker 1: recognize the patterns, universal and personal vulnerabilities to these patterns,
Speaker 1: and to stop falling into self doubt and disavowal of
Speaker 1: intuition at these times. In individual relationships, this is hard enough.
Speaker 1: In a cult, it can be downright impossible. Since there
Speaker 1: are so many people aligned with the distorted and manipulative behavior.
Speaker 1: The world still is drawn to the magnetic cults of personality.
Speaker 1: We have to be willing to pull back the veil
Speaker 1: and recognize that the emperor is not only wearing any clothes,
Speaker 1: he may also be speaking in word salad. In this
Speaker 1: next takeaway, self improvement organizations of all kinds raise concerns
Speaker 1: about communal narcissism that a leader may be getting validation
Speaker 1: just by holding onto the grandiose vision that they are
Speaker 1: changing the world and actually having that grandiosity be emboldened
Speaker 1: by students and followers who become devotees instead of collaborators.
Speaker 1: Any time a person enters a community singularly identified with
Speaker 1: an enigmatic leader who has been imbued with supposed virtues
Speaker 1: like genius, the safest play maybe to walk away. But
Speaker 1: if curiosity gets the best of you, then at least
Speaker 1: make sure you know where the exits are and maintain
Speaker 1: strong ties to people outside of the organization. It's quite
Speaker 1: clear that Sarah's pregnancy and then baby gave her something
Speaker 1: bigger than NEXI, M and E SP to focus on,
Speaker 1: and that may very well have saved her. In our
Speaker 1: last takeaway from part one, Sarah had a fascinating observation.
Speaker 1: She said that within Nexium that self care was viewed
Speaker 1: as indulgent. That's not an uncommon technique used by antagonistic
Speaker 1: and narcissistic people to control a partner, family member, or
Speaker 1: group member. One thing we know is that people in
Speaker 1: narcissistic relationships are notorious for their lack of self care,
Speaker 1: often neglecting medical care, rest other healthy routines, or pleasurable
Speaker 1: interludes like getting a massage or sleeping in self flagellation
Speaker 1: by collateralizing discomfort. Making people exercise in the snow, waking
Speaker 1: up at all hours is a way to create a
Speaker 1: sort of trauma bonded buy in. In every narcissistic relationship
Speaker 1: I have ever witnessed, shaming of self care was a
Speaker 1: common theme at the end of this episode, Sarah's faith
Speaker 1: in the organization and in her relationships with some of
Speaker 1: the folks she most admires and Nexium, such as Lauren Saltzman,
Speaker 1: are being tested and significant doubt has crept in. However,
Speaker 1: her belief in Lauren and the center Sarah has created
Speaker 1: in Vancouver matter to her, so as she's being pulled
Speaker 1: into the shadowy world of Doss, Sarah clearly recognizes that
Speaker 1: something is not right, but years of being indoctrinated into
Speaker 1: the social control and manipulation of the organization makes all
Speaker 1: of this very confusing. Stay tuned for our next episode,
Speaker 1: when Sarah shares how it all fell apart. A big
Speaker 1: thank you to our executive producers Jada Pinkett Smith, Valen,
Speaker 1: Jethro Ellen Rakaton and Dr Rominey Divassla, And thank you
Speaker 1: to our producer Matthew Jones, Associate producer Mara Dela Rosa
Speaker 1: and consultant Kelly Ebling and Fine Elie. Thank you to
Speaker 1: our editors and sound engineers Devin Donaghy and Calvin Bailiff.
Speaker 1: H