WEBVTT - That Matchmaking Cult Doing Conversation Therapy 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:11.239 Al Zone Media. Oh Man, welcome back to it could 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:16.759 Happen here, a podcast about it meaning bad things happening here, 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:21.560 meaning you know here obviously here at cool Zone, we 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:24.599 have a little bit of a habit of talking about cults. 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:27.000 Some of you who have been listening to Behind the 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:29.600 Bastard since the beginning will remember how we kind of 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:33.800 started that series with several long episodes about a guy 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:37.479 named Keith Ranieri. And today we're here to talk with 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:41.440 a wonderful author and journalist, Sarah Berman, who has written 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:44.479 both about the Nexium cult and about a new cult 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:47.800 that some of you are probably familiar with if you 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:51.800 caught the recent Netflix documentary. Prime has a documentary out 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:55.880 too on the Twin Flames cult, and so we're going 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:58.600 to introduce why this is such an interesting cult. White's 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:01.760 kind of groundbreaking. But first, Sarah, welcome so much to 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:04.400 the show. Graham, Hey, Hey. 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:07.360 So good to be here. Thank you for inviting me. 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:11.800 Yeah, Sarah, your book is called Don't Call It a Cult, 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:15.440 wonderful book about the Nexium cult, and yeah, you were 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:18.440 You are kind of the person who first I'm not 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:20.200 sure if you're the very first person to ever report 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:22.360 on Twin Flames, But you're certainly the person who broke 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:27.000 the story in a meaningful and detailed way. How did 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:29.320 you well, First off, we shuld probably start with how 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:32.720 would you describe twin Flames to people? Right? 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:36.679 So, twin Flames Universe began as sort of a YouTube 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:40.600 channel and a Facebook group that was all about finding 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:44.160 true love. So this group promises not only that you 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:46.800 find your true love, but also that you will find 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:51.640 career fulfillment and enlightenment and basically everything good will happen 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:55.680 to you. Miracles will happen only if you spend thousands 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:58.600 of dollars on their coursework and keep up with their 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:02.320 sort of spiritual homework, which is a never ending treadmill, 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:07.880 and eventually it sort of becomes, you know, an all 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:11.240 powerful control over people's lives, where they go, who they 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:15.880 interact with, even their life partner, even their gender identity. 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:20.440 So yeah, lots of people calling it a matchmaking cult. 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:25.040 Yeah, it's a matchmaking I mean. One of the things 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:27.520 that I think is interesting to me about the kind 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:30.440 of like rhetoric of the of the cult leaders, and 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:32.359 this is one that there do seem to be kind 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:35.840 of two people heading it up, a couple is the 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:41.760 idea that like they have the ability to see who 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:45.760 someone's soulmate is, and like that's a that's kind of 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:48.079 a it both sort of. I think the appeal this 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.280 has speaks to, among other things, kind of the deep 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:54.000 loneliness that a lot of younger people feel, you know, 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:57.160 as we're dealing with this kind of increasingly closed off, 0:02:57.160 --> 0:03:01.880 isolated nature of society, especially since COVID, as well as 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:03.880 kind of mixing that with some of these you know, 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:07.519 much longer standing older cult traditions in a way that 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:11.680 felt really really interesting to me and also like something 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:15.560 that could only exist now. Yeah, totally. 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:19.560 Yeah, there's so much to impact there. So in their 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:23.119 early days in twenty fourteen, this couple Jeff and Shelia, 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:27.000 I mean Shell is actually a Megan, but Shelia is 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:30.480 the name she arrived at through some conscious journeying. Sure, 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:34.079 they have these videos where they just met and they 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:36.280 are in love and they are making eyes at each 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:38.839 other and this is something to attain. It was sort 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:43.560 of started as this you know, romantic YouTuber content, and 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:47.520 then they start selling Yes you can have this too, 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:49.480 all you have to do is buy our you know, 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.000 coursework and whatnot. And I think it does speak to, 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:57.160 especially during the pandemic, a sort of deep dark loneliness 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:02.000 in isolation that's happening where people are enticed by this 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:05.800 couple who they're just regular, you know, Michigan white people. 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:09.840 They're making eyes at each other. Doesn't look like anything 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:14.000 special to an outsider, but clearly, you know, thousands of 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:18.000 people have sort of lashed onto it. Have you know, 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.719 hoped that this secret knowledge that this group is giving them, 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:25.200 you know, will bring them happiness. And because it's sort 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:29.080 of an all encompassing ideology where if you even question 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:32.359 the group, well then you are definitely never going to 0:04:32.400 --> 0:04:35.599 see your life partner and will probably see hell at 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:38.000 some point in your life, you know, it just creates 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:42.160 this perverse incentive to just keep pouring time and effort 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:45.560 into this group in a way that yeah, I don't 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:50.800 think could exist in any other timeframe, especially not through Zoom. Right, 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:54.960 so most of these classes that they sell are happening 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:57.480 on Zoom, just like you and I are on today, 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:02.280 so that you know, next could never achieve. Right, this 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:05.880 group has achieved a level of you know, connection and 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:10.159 I don't know, just getting into people's brain stems through 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:13.760 a laptop screen, which is incredible for our time. 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:16.080 Yeah, it's very I mean again, this is part of 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:18.919 what's so modern about it is that it appears to 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:23.599 work entirely like cults and particularly cult leaders are tend 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:26.880 to be such social phenomena. This is nearly always a 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:30.640 thing that involves person to person contact, and in fact, 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:32.680 one of the things any cult expert will tell you 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:36.000 is a hallmark of a cult is it's the focus 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:39.280 it puts on isolating members and perspective members away from 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:41.200 their friends and their family and keeping them under the 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:44.680 power of the cult leader at all times. And this 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:47.600 is very people are not all together, they're not all 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:51.400 living in one area, they're geographically isolated. The dynamics that 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:55.720 this reproduces itself with our parasocial dynamics, the same dynamics 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:58.840 podcast listeners have with like like like you know, it's 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:01.240 a more extreme version of that. But it's part of 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:03.440 this thing we see with twitch streamers, we see it 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:07.760 with like YouTubers, this kind of and it solves one 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:09.520 of the mysteries because I've watched this dock with a 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:11.760 couple of friends who kept being like, well, these people 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:14.680 don't seem charismatic. They don't seem this doesn't seem like, 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:17.840 it doesn't seem like they could be attaining this degree 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:20.440 of control over people. And I think part of what 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:23.600 explains that is just like, well, someone may not seem 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.640 charismatic when you're watching little clips of them in a documentary, 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.760 but when they're in your ears and you know, on 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:34.640 calls with you and stuff all day every day, your 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:38.159 body builds up like they get through your defenses that way. 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:40.680 Like that's how parasocial relationships kind of work. 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:45.480 Absolutely, Yeah, you just have the binging quality of how 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:49.000 people consume media these days. And it's the same for 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:53.520 you know, YouTube rabbit holes that radicalize sort of right 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:58.159 wing white men. So it's the same process. These folks 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:01.520 who I was speaking to, they were consuming up to 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:05.919 ten even fifteen hours of this content per day and 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:08.800 they were feeling like they had to keep up with 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:13.960 that just to maintain their coaching title or what have you. So, yes, 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:18.360 they have Jeff inside their head at all times. They 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:21.640 start speaking like him. You know, you can kind of 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:27.120 tell when an still involved member emails you that it 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:34.080 sounds just like the leaders. It is a yeah, fully saturating, 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:39.680 indoctrinating process. And I guess. Yeah, you don't have to 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:44.320 be particularly charismatic in person to achieve that kind of 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:49.400 saturation when you have the YouTube algorithm. You know. Unfortunately, 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:53.240 my YouTube algorithm is also ruined, so oh, my mess 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:58.840 up on YouTube is looking pretty It's yikes these days. 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:02.880 No, I actually discuss a really effective method of for 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:06.080 my own research in various cults, which is I just 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:10.440 used my roommate's YouTube premium account, so I have ruined 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:13.680 his life, but it's not a problem for me. So 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:16.119 it's worked out really well, is what I'm saying. 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:18.600 I mean, I might try that solution, but I live 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:23.440 with my partners, so you might not appreciate. We'll see 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:24.120 how it goes, though. 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:29.000 I'm kind of curious how did you get on this story, 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:31.080 Like was what was your backstory there? 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:35.440 Yeah, so I was in the depths still of reporting 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:38.600 on Nexium. I don't believe the sentencing for Keith Rnieri 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:42.240 had happened yet at that point, so this was late 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:46.200 twenty nineteen early twenty twenty. One of the mothers was 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:48.360 the first to reach out to me, and she had 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:52.679 two daughters who are featured in the Netflix series in 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:55.880 the Group, and she had told me that she was 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:59.200 cut off from all contact. That the only contact she 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:01.560 did have with one of her daughters was when she 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:06.280 sent thousands of dollars. And so that to me right away, 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:10.720 like you said, you know, isolating people from their family 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:14.520 members who might you know, raise questions or you know, 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:18.120 want to know more about what's happening, asking for money 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:22.960 so blatantly, you know, and denying contact based on an 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:27.560 amount of money sent. That all sounded pretty bad to me, 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:32.680 and so I started looking into it. That mom pointed 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:36.960 me towards Elle, who is also featured in the Netflix series. 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:42.080 She's also Katie in the Vanity Fair piece that later 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:45.240 came out after our reporting, and it just sort of 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:50.080 snowballed from there. I'll put me in touch with I 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:52.960 would say, half a dozen ex members at that point, 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:56.440 some different mothers started contacting me because they all were 0:09:56.480 --> 0:09:58.880 sort of in a group chat trying to figure out 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:05.160 how they could rea established content contact with their mostly daughters. 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:08.680 That was my origin story. We put out a piece 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.520 fairly quickly. I tried to get it out within a 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:14.320 month or two of that first contact. 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:16.959 Yeah, well that makes a lot of sense, and I 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:19.960 want to continue talking about this. We'll get into a 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:22.880 lot more, but first it's time for an ad break. 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:37.199 So here we go, ah, and we're back. Miyah. Did 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:41.240 you have anything you wanted to move into next? Yeah. 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:43.400 So there are some parts of this that are very 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:47.920 familiar in the sense of the combination of Christianity and 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:52.000 weird New Age spiritualism stuff. I think it is a 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:54.560 pretty old combination. I mean, the Moody is very famously 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:57.480 sort of pioneered this thing, and you know, you can 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:00.560 go back eight hundreds and find versions of it. The 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:05.840 thing that I think is interesting about it is the 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:08.960 way that they've effectively been doing conversion therapy on people. 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:13.640 And I don't know, this is something I haven't really 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:17.840 seen before from a cult, and I guess, I guess 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:21.120 I think the way into this is talking about the 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:25.479 sort of divine masculine, divine feminine stuff. 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:27.560 For sure. 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:32.080 Yeah, I agree that this seemed new and you know, 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:36.480 sort of bizarre to me. And certainly I've already seen 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:41.960 on Twitter some right wing takes on it that give 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:45.920 me a lot of uncomfortable feelings because they're obviously taking 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:50.560 the wrong opposite lesson. You know, when I guess when 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:53.840 I watched this, I see see you can't tell someone 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:56.840 what their gender is. You know, it doesn't work, It 0:11:56.880 --> 0:12:01.880 falls apart, it doesn't make sense. But I think, yeah, 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:06.280 something that's been taken away in some smaller circles is that, 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:10.760 oh see, you can coach someone to change their gender, 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:15.800 and that's you know, blame teachers, blame whoever for doing that. 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:22.160 So this particular group does have a divine masculine and 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:27.599 divine feminine teaching that used to be a little more flimsy. 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:30.760 So in the early days they just said, if you're 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:33.560 in a queer couple, it just means one of you 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:37.439 has the more wearing pants vibe. You know, it wasn't 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:42.000 supposed to literally translate to a gender expression or a 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:47.280 gender identity. But later on, when you know, you had 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:52.400 this growing amount of you know, siss women who are 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:59.120 I mean, they're interested in finding their man, and that's 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:02.200 not happening because, you know, the group makes it very 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:05.280 hard to actually meet outside people. If you're on this 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:11.120 constant treadmill of doing spiritual homework, you don't have time 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:14.559 to meet you people, and maybe when you talk about it, 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:20.960 it's pushing people away. So eventually, in late twenty nineteen 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:24.520 they started actually making pairings and to get around the 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:27.320 fact that, you know, folks said, well, that's not my 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:31.680 you know, orientation, I'm not attracted to women. They started 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:36.120 actually telling people, well that you're the divine masculine and actually, 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:40.040 you know, you, going back your whole life, probably knew 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:43.160 this all along, and we're just revealing something to you. 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:49.360 And that sat the wrong way in a lot of cases, 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:54.480 and a lot of people left around that time, but 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:59.319 they successfully paired up I think more than a dozen 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.720 people around that time, and they continued to do pairings 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:07.760 into twenty twenty, and some folks did come along on 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:11.360 the journey. They did in some cases pursue top surgery 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:16.120 and hormones and have changed their names, changed their pronouns. 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:23.200 It's yeah, it's not. Obviously, there are moms who are 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:27.160 just barely coming to terms with this, and you know, 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:29.320 they're not always using the right language, and they're a 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:33.400 little confused, you know, and that confusion was often used 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.560 as a reason to cut off all contact, you know, 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:40.600 say hey, mom, you're transphobic, you know, and push them aside. 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:44.080 And so I think it is new in some sense, 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:47.080 but it's also very old in the sense that cults 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:50.360 often create a brand new identity for people, right, Like 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:53.240 new names when you join a cult is not a 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:56.480 new thing. That that's something that a lot of you know, 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:57.840 and changing hair, right. 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:01.640 Shaving the heads, that's like one of the O cult exactly. 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:05.680 Yeah, So I mean this is I guess, an updated 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:09.080 version where I mean it's kind of smart in a 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:13.320 way that like people might be afraid to question it, right, 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:17.200 Like you're hiding behind something that sounds very progressive and 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:20.720 very inclusive. And that's what a lot of cults do, 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:26.080 is they hide in very progressive spacesh But yeah, it's 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:28.520 a lot. It's a lot to take in, and I 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:32.240 definitely like to bring experts up to speed on this 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.440 and get their perspectives because I don't know everything, you know, 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:41.200 I can't possibly pretend to know what's in someone's heart 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:43.800 and mind and body, you know, at any time. So 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:49.280 everyone is just working through it. Like one of the 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:52.760 experts in the documentary says, you know, some of these 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:57.040 folks could have been transmit all along, but the way 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:00.480 that they're being told to do it is can starting 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:01.320 to say the least. 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:03.960 Yeah, And I mean I think there's some interesting stuff 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:06.360 with how they were able to do this, which is 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:12.120 even before they started forcely transitioning people, there was this 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:14.520 is I think the most trans people I've ever seen 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:18.280 in a cult like this, Like the number of people 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:21.880 who were trans going in was really high, and I 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:24.920 suspect that was how they were able to sort of 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:27.560 like like you know, like one of the people in 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:29.320 the documentary was talking about how she was like a 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:32.160 transforman she was being basically like tokenized by the group 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:35.680 as this like hey, we're like trans inclusive thing. And 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:39.280 I wonder how much of the way they were able 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:44.239 to do this is from basically taking the firsthand experience 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:48.840 of like actual trans people and then like using that 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:53.080 to try to convince people of this really weird sort 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:58.280 of essentialist like we've decided that you're the divide and masculine, 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:02.040 so you have to transition to be a and now stuff. 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:06.719 The origin story of it is you're right in reaching 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:11.560 out to LGBTQ type communities, So folks like our Celia 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:14.200 who you see in the documentary, and also Jesse who 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:17.160 you see in the Netflix documentary. They were sent out 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:22.359 recruiting in queer spaces, so any type of queer Facebook group, 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:26.240 Twitter user, you know, YouTuber. They were in the comments 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:30.359 there talking about their twin Flame journey and talking about 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:35.040 how queer inclusive it was. So they were actively doing 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:37.680 that and it's fascinating to see. You know, you can 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:41.080 go back through Twitter history and find, you know, how 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:43.600 they were phrasing these things. You know, like that was 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:47.359 their job basically to do outreach for the group in 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:53.360 queer spaces. They also did lots of PTSD spaces, former 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:57.520 military spaces. You know, they really like tried to find 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:00.920 any slice of a person who might need a community, 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:04.680 who might be lonely, and sort of feed them into 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:06.920 the group. And you're right, I think if you have 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:10.840 a bunch of queer, open minded people in a space, 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.440 there's a lot you can do with you know, suggestion, 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:17.439 There's a lot you can do with a deck of 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:19.800 Tarot cards. It seems a lot of these, you know, 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:24.680 gender conversions started with a tarot reading where they would 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:28.000 just hold up a card that represented them or their 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:32.879 supposed partner and you know, sort of building off of that. 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:37.080 So it is it's new and old in so many 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:42.119 ways because yeah, you're just using the divine to basically 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:46.560 just dictate any aspect of someone's life. You know what 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:49.480 they eat, what they wear, where they go everything. 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:53.439 Yeah, and I mean it's also we're talking about like 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:58.920 how how much of this kind of plays on loneliness, 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:03.600 the fact that people are desperate for companionship, that particularly 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:06.959 younger people are like dating less or more socially isolated, 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:09.720 and like, if you want to push that up to 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:12.360 the nth degree, you take a group of people who 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:17.520 is under siege right now and so particularly having trouble 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:21.440 like being safely out and around people right like, you 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:25.560 give them what looks like it's a safe, welcoming community 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:28.800 that's supportive of them, and if especially they have not 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:33.520 had that. Yeah, it's it's I mean, it's deeply insidious 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:34.479 and evil. 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:39.000 I would say, it's powerful stuff. I would say when 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:42.320 I go on the Facebook group, you know, I'm blocked now, 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:45.760 but when I could, it would you know, show folks 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:49.040 really deep into a fantasy, you know, like they want 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:52.840 a perfect life for themselves where they are openly welcomed 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:56.520 with open arms, where the people that they care about 0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:00.040 care about them back, you know, and that's often not 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:04.080 actually the case in their home life, but it seems 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:06.720 to be real on this Facebook page, and they think, 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:09.400 you know, if I just put in the work, this 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:12.520 will happen for me, that straight guy who I'm into 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:15.640 is going to come around and see that we're twin flames. 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:19.440 And so yeah, it definitely also feeds into a bit 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:22.879 of fantasy and delusion. That's you know, I think maybe 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:26.520 a symptom of us being so isolated in our you know, 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:31.119 pandemic brain spaces. 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:36.800 Speaking of isolated shit, Well, it's an AD, it's an 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:39.040 AD break. I don't I don't know anything it goes 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:53.879 with that, But here's some ads. Ah and we're back. Sorry, 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:58.840 you've just encountered some of our classic incombatant AD transitions. 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:03.240 But what's not incompetent is your reporting on this subject. 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:09.879 And I'm I'm curious as you realize how potentially a 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:12.520 lot of what's going on in this cult, with this 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:16.560 divide masculine divide feminine stuff, could, if not handled carefully, 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:21.080 play into some really pernicious culture war stuff that's going 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:24.199 on in the country right now. How do you kind of, 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:28.760 like how consciously did you sort of work to avoid that. 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:34.440 Yeah, that is definitely something I'm worried about, is that 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:38.399 this could feed into some sort of culture war talking point. 0:21:38.640 --> 0:21:41.679 And you know, you're seeing the seeds of that. If 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:44.879 you search Twitter very deeply, you can find it. I 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:47.480 guess X, I'm calling it Twitter. It's still Twitter to me. 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:48.879 Yeah, it's still Twitter. 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:50.919 It's only acceptable dead naming. 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:57.840 Speaking of dead naming, yes, So I definitely wanted to 0:21:57.880 --> 0:22:00.840 be as careful as possible, listen to trans people as 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:04.080 much as possible, you know. So that's why our Celia 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:07.159 was one of the first folks that I talked to, 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:12.359 and you know, she had just such an interesting understanding 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:15.359 of this because she, you know, had transitioned before she 0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:18.040 came into this group, and she was able to witness 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:22.040 so much of the coaching that was happening. And I'm 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:25.280 just so grateful for someone who goes through that ringer 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:29.920 and still is able to articulate what happened afterwards, because 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:33.959 you know, not everybody comes around to understanding it as 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:37.639 deeply as she did. So that was my main, you 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:39.919 know thing, was I was going to listen to trans 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:45.240 people and then yeah, I guess just trying to sort 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:48.560 out what was the ideology of the group, how that 0:22:48.720 --> 0:22:55.280 was being you know, I guess executed, and yeah, just 0:22:55.359 --> 0:23:00.840 trying to come from this expert perspective that Yeah, yeah, 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:03.320 nobody can tell you what your gender is, and this 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:06.280 is actually an example of that. It was hard to 0:23:06.280 --> 0:23:08.399 wrap my head around and I still worry about it. 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:10.800 I'm still worrying about my words kind of right now. 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:14.320 Yeah, that was something in the documentary that like you 0:23:14.359 --> 0:23:19.679 could see the filmmakers kind of like you can you 0:23:19.720 --> 0:23:24.160 can see them kind of going back and forth between 0:23:25.000 --> 0:23:28.280 wanting to use people getting top surgery as this kind 0:23:28.320 --> 0:23:33.400 of like shock factor thing, but then also like at 0:23:33.440 --> 0:23:37.600 the same time being like wait, hold on, like this 0:23:37.680 --> 0:23:39.200 is you know, this is something that you can very 0:23:39.280 --> 0:23:43.159 very easily like be a right wing transphobe and just 0:23:43.200 --> 0:23:45.760 like take a clip of and put on the internet 0:23:45.760 --> 0:23:47.560 and be like, hey, like we need to stop gender 0:23:47.560 --> 0:23:51.760 clinics from being able to do this. And I don't know. 0:23:51.880 --> 0:23:55.919 I think I think you've handled it pretty well, but 0:23:56.240 --> 0:23:58.159 I don't know, like this is this is something that 0:23:59.119 --> 0:24:03.960 is like I think like one of the important things 0:24:04.080 --> 0:24:07.600 is like this cult is ran by SIS people, and 0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:10.840 this is you know what. I think it was a 0:24:11.080 --> 0:24:13.720 good decision for you to talk about it in terms 0:24:13.720 --> 0:24:18.520 of conversion therapy, because that's a lot closer to what's 0:24:18.560 --> 0:24:22.399 happening than people transitioning and you know, I mean like 0:24:22.400 --> 0:24:26.000 it's I don't know, like I would say. The thing 0:24:26.000 --> 0:24:28.960 that's complicated about it, right is you know you it's 0:24:29.080 --> 0:24:32.080 you can't talk. It's really really it's almost impossible to 0:24:32.280 --> 0:24:35.560 like talk to the people who are going through this 0:24:35.640 --> 0:24:38.200 and get an understanding of what their sense of their 0:24:38.240 --> 0:24:40.280 gender is. I mean, like I've I watched a couple 0:24:40.280 --> 0:24:44.560 of the videos that they made and like, I don't know, 0:24:46.119 --> 0:24:52.360 it's it's it's really difficult to like it's it's it's 0:24:52.359 --> 0:24:54.399 easy to play arm tre psychologist with it, and I 0:24:54.440 --> 0:24:57.280 don't want to do that. And so yeah, I think 0:24:57.320 --> 0:25:00.000 I think you've been walking a difficult line. And yeah, 0:25:00.080 --> 0:25:00.680 I keep. 0:25:00.480 --> 0:25:03.480 My hands off that too. You know, like I am 0:25:03.520 --> 0:25:05.959 not going to tell any one of those folks, you know, 0:25:06.160 --> 0:25:10.240 Gabe Ray what's going on in their brains and bodies. 0:25:10.320 --> 0:25:14.480 I just do happen to know about the systematic sort 0:25:14.520 --> 0:25:18.919 of coaching that they were, you know, exposed to. So, 0:25:19.240 --> 0:25:22.639