Speaker 1: You're about to listen to one of our favorite episodes
Speaker 1: of trust Me from July seventh, twenty twenty one, about
Speaker 1: how Hoyt Richards was indoctrinated into the Eternal Values cult.
Speaker 1: If you're new here, follow the show so you don't
Speaker 1: miss the July thirtieth three turn of trust Me on
Speaker 1: the Exactly Right Network.
Speaker 2: If you have your own story of being in a
Speaker 2: cult or a high control group, or if you've had
Speaker 2: an experience with manipulation or abusive power you'd like to share,
Speaker 2: leave us a message on our hotline number at five
Speaker 2: one three nine hundred two nine five five.
Speaker 1: Or shoot us an email at trust Me pod at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com.
Speaker 3: Trust Me, trust Me, trust Me.
Speaker 4: I'm like a swat person.
Speaker 3: I've never lived. To you, I never had a live.
Speaker 2: Do you think that one person has all the answers?
Speaker 2: Don't Welcome to trust Me, the podcast about colts, extreme
Speaker 2: belief and the abusive power from two supermodels who've actually
Speaker 2: experienced it. I am Lola Blanc and.
Speaker 1: I'm Megan Elizabeth, and.
Speaker 2: Today our guest is the endlessly fascinating Hoyt Richards. He
Speaker 2: is a producer, actor, and former supermodel who was in
Speaker 2: a cult called Eternal Values. He's going to tell us
Speaker 2: about being approached by a mysterious older man in Nantucket
Speaker 2: named Frederick von Meerers Mir I actually don't remember myers.
Speaker 2: Let's say when he was a teenager. This man had
Speaker 2: a lot to say about Eastern philosophy, astrology, and New
Speaker 2: Age thinking. And he's going to tell us about how,
Speaker 2: over time, as Hoyt's career as a male model was
Speaker 2: taking off, that man indoctrinated hoy until he believed that
Speaker 2: the apocalypse was coming and it had to do with
Speaker 2: a distant star called Arcturists.
Speaker 1: We're also going to talk about how hoy finally escaped
Speaker 1: and began to heal, how he thinks about what he
Speaker 1: now calls cultic relationships, and how Fabio yes that Fabio
Speaker 1: was involved in his recovery.
Speaker 2: Great Fabio stories.
Speaker 1: Oh who doesn't have a good Fabio's story? Uh? Everyone
Speaker 1: except Toy.
Speaker 2: I mean probably my friend. My friend just alerted me
Speaker 2: to the fact that he was like supporting Trump in
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen. Stars A little warmed about that. But you
Speaker 2: know what, Okay, we can't all be perfect. Now, we
Speaker 2: can all be perfect like me, So Megan tell me
Speaker 2: what's the CULTI thing?
Speaker 1: Well, mine, Holy shit, on a hike, you know how
Speaker 1: they have those little book things where people just leave
Speaker 1: books and like a little oh yeah, okay, So in
Speaker 1: a bookcase there was this book called High on Arrival
Speaker 1: by Mackenzie Phillips. I remember seeing it on Oprah. She
Speaker 1: is the daughter of the Mama and the Papa's John Phillips.
Speaker 2: The Mamas and the papas different bands. This is the
Speaker 2: Mama and the Papa. I don't know if you've heard
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 1: So I was like, oh, fuck you, I want to
Speaker 1: read this book. Holy shit. The cult of rock and
Speaker 1: roll is endless. It is wild. It's all stuff we
Speaker 1: already knew. But you know, she actually was in a
Speaker 1: sexual relationship with her rock star father for ten years.
Speaker 1: And just to see the things that these rock stars
Speaker 1: were able to get away with, how much they were worshiped,
Speaker 1: their lifestyles are just beyond the craziest cults.
Speaker 2: Wow, it's oh true when you actually look into the
Speaker 2: number of young teenagers, not like I'm talking year old,
Speaker 2: seventeen eighty nineteen, yeah, and fucking thirteen year old that
Speaker 2: these iconic rock legends were fucking.
Speaker 1: Making songs about yes, Oh.
Speaker 2: My god, it's insane. But that's next level though. Her dad,
Speaker 2: her dad, So how old was she when that started?
Speaker 1: Let me think, let me think, let me trigger warning,
Speaker 1: obviously we're about to chock pardon yes, trigger yeah. I
Speaker 1: think the first time it happened she was in her
Speaker 1: early twenties. But I don't know.
Speaker 2: Oh so it wasn't like from when she was a child.
Speaker 1: She wasn't a child, but she was young.
Speaker 2: But did she say how she felt about it?
Speaker 1: I believe they were in a different country, they were somewhere,
Speaker 1: they were in a hotel. They're both very high on drugs,
Speaker 1: and she said she passed out and then she woke
Speaker 1: up and that was happening. And then she like told
Speaker 1: her family about it, and everyone was very upset, but
Speaker 1: they were like, you know, this is going to ruin
Speaker 1: his reputation. He's on a lot of drugs, like whatever.
Speaker 1: And then I was very impressed. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: assuming this is all correct, which in real which I
Speaker 1: think it is. But she said she talked to him
Speaker 1: a few months later. I was like, Dad, we need
Speaker 1: to talk about when you rape me and he was like,
Speaker 1: you mean when we made love? Like no, no, and
Speaker 1: she was like, I think he's just so high on drugs.
Speaker 1: It's like he doesn't know what's right and what's wrong.
Speaker 1: And then a few years later it just started happening
Speaker 1: like every day.
Speaker 2: So he basically gas led her so hard and convinced
Speaker 2: her that the rape was actually something that she Yeah,
Speaker 2: oh my god, that's horrible. Sorry, made we already did
Speaker 2: the trigger warning, but I'm sorry. I wasn't prepared. I
Speaker 2: wasn't prepared for this one. Yeah, that's fucking insane. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you had mentioned another awful story about how Mick Jagger
Speaker 2: also was living with this poor girl's girl.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she said that her and her dad and mcgaiger
Speaker 1: were doing drugs one night and like mcjager ass her
Speaker 1: dad for a tuna sandwich and when her dad disappeared,
Speaker 1: McJagger locked the door and picked up with her, and
Speaker 1: her dad was like pounding on the door like, hey,
Speaker 1: that's my daughter. But not even really mad that McJagger
Speaker 1: is having sex with the stuff. Oh, it's just that
Speaker 1: it was even David Bowie.
Speaker 2: Even David Bowie was sleeping with thirteen year olds. Are
Speaker 2: we surprised by that?
Speaker 1: I'm I don't know. It just sucks.
Speaker 2: I think every old man listening to this is going
Speaker 2: to be like loads were different times, right, but thirteen y'all. No, No,
Speaker 2: that's a little kid.
Speaker 1: That's gross.
Speaker 2: That's a kid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what about you?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know I can follow that up, but
Speaker 2: that was my plan. We do really assign rock stars
Speaker 2: this iconic cult leader status and they get away with
Speaker 2: whatever the fuck we want, as we have talked about
Speaker 2: a bit, But that would be an interesting episode actually,
Speaker 2: like an old groupie, Yeah, that'd be cool. Yeah, we
Speaker 2: should try to find any groupies former groupies listening, please
Speaker 2: dm us my couldiest thing. Look, I had a real
Speaker 2: decompression week, so I didn't do that much. However, after
Speaker 2: last week's episode in which I talked about or was
Speaker 2: it the week before, I don't remember, one of the
Speaker 2: last two weeks in which I talked about the experience
Speaker 2: that I had with the Shabari artist, the rope bondage guy,
Speaker 2: and I was saying how that was a really cool
Speaker 2: experience for me because you know, previously, when I have
Speaker 2: hooked up with men who kind of identify as dominant
Speaker 2: or whatever, it's just kind of like purely aggressive and
Speaker 2: no communication. I got some angry messages. Oh and a
Speaker 2: couple of supportive ones as well, being like this is
Speaker 2: how BEDSM always is. It sounds like that's the only
Speaker 2: person you've ever, you know, had an experience with who
Speaker 2: was legitimately in the BDSM community. So let me be
Speaker 2: clear everyone, Yes, the safe. Do you remember what the
Speaker 2: acronym was?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: She was saying, they change it to risk aware consensual KING.
Speaker 2: But basically the idea is that, like, if you're actually
Speaker 2: in the KING community, you are practicing active consent, You
Speaker 2: are communicy in advance, you are making sure that the
Speaker 2: other person is comfortable with everything that's happening. It is
Speaker 2: really all about the subs comfort level, not the doms.
Speaker 2: So yes, if you are actually in the kink community,
Speaker 2: I am so sorry if I have offended you. However,
Speaker 2: I think it's important to discuss the fact that usually
Speaker 2: that's not what's happening. I've hooked up with a number
Speaker 2: of men in my day, even if it's just like
Speaker 2: a makeout or whatever. Like I've hooked up in some
Speaker 2: fashion with a number of fellas in Los Angeles, and
Speaker 2: let me tell you, a good portion of them were
Speaker 2: choking or you know, like doing something relatively aggressive the
Speaker 2: number of them who actually like asked what I wanted
Speaker 2: and checked in and communicated with me about that I
Speaker 2: can count on one hand.
Speaker 1: That's psycho.
Speaker 2: I mean, most women I know have this experience, though
Speaker 2: has not been your experience. No really no, I mean
Speaker 2: it's not like they're doing it crazy hard, right, but
Speaker 2: like I think that is deaf. Definitely more normal than not.
Speaker 2: And it's not like they're trying shabari on me and
Speaker 2: you know, like yeah or doing anything crazy. But most
Speaker 2: people just kind of willy nilly like do the thing
Speaker 2: because they think that that's hot or that's what the
Speaker 2: girl's gonna find hot or whatever. They don't fucking communicate
Speaker 2: about it at all. And this is what us who
Speaker 2: aren't in the king community are going about our lives
Speaker 2: and like not realizing that there is an alternative way
Speaker 2: to do it. That's cool anyway. I think it's important.
Speaker 1: It's not about shaming people who are doing it right
Speaker 1: or oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, y yeah, we want like that's great. We should
Speaker 2: all be communicating more during sex and before sex and
Speaker 2: after sex. You know, it's such a taboo topic we
Speaker 2: don't really talk about it. But I also think it's
Speaker 2: important to acknowledge that, like, without those discussions, nothing is
Speaker 2: ever gonna, like culturally get better if you're just gonna
Speaker 2: get mad, right, you know it makes sense, but so
Speaker 2: sorry if I offended, y'all.
Speaker 1: Wait before we start. Alison Matt got three years in
Speaker 1: gel three years.
Speaker 2: I don't ever know how to gauge what like a
Speaker 2: fair amount of jail time is to be honest.
Speaker 1: Well, you're not a judge, so that makes sense.
Speaker 2: But judges don't either, They're just people. Yeah, like what
Speaker 2: is justice? Sorry, I'll hear a number of years that
Speaker 2: a person who was going to prison for and I
Speaker 2: only understand no prison or lifetime prison, and everything in
Speaker 2: the middle just feels arbitrary. I don't know. Is that
Speaker 2: not enough? Is that too much? What do you think?
Speaker 1: I think it's probably not enough, just from listening to
Speaker 1: her victims who say they don't think it's fair.
Speaker 2: Do we know how much they wanted?
Speaker 1: I think the one I was reading was like she
Speaker 1: wanted maximum, which I believe was ten years.
Speaker 2: Okay, ten years would have made sense, I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I don't understand prison in general, I guess, so
Speaker 2: it's hard for me to wrap my head around. But
Speaker 2: I'm glad she is facing consequences. She harmed a lot
Speaker 2: of people. I thought that what the judge said was interesting.
Speaker 2: Do you remember what he said or.
Speaker 1: He said something about how like he knows that she
Speaker 1: heard a lot of people, but he doesn't doubt that
Speaker 1: she also was a under the influence of being her
Speaker 1: and manipulated.
Speaker 2: It is so hard in cases like these because like
Speaker 2: you don't really know where the line is and you
Speaker 2: just have to something has to be done about the
Speaker 2: harm that they've caused, even if they were brainwashed, Like,
Speaker 2: something must be done. They must see a consequence. So
Speaker 2: that's interesting though, because the thing is most people don't
Speaker 2: serve their full sentences anyway, right, so it probably.
Speaker 1: Right she's going to really see the inside of anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really interesting. Yeah it sucks, but well I'm glad
Speaker 1: she's going to jail.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's the upside. But yeah, I uh, well, we
Speaker 2: fully support India and all the rest of her victims
Speaker 2: and send love to y'all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: Also, last week, did I say that Alison Mack was
Speaker 2: the one who is all up on my Twitter? Because
Speaker 2: that's not what I meant. That was a I misspoke.
Speaker 2: I met Nikki Klein. Oh, her wife, her wife, And
Speaker 2: I didn't mean all up on my Twitter, but she
Speaker 2: faved one of my tweets, and she paved one of
Speaker 2: my mom's tweets, and she she just met her guy.
Speaker 2: I knows tweets who she knows? Uh, Nikki Klein, not
Speaker 2: Alison Mac That's weird. I need to stop just saying
Speaker 2: stuff cool?
Speaker 1: Cool?
Speaker 2: What if I just stopped talking?
Speaker 1: Not the podcast anyone wants to listen to. I don't know.
Speaker 2: It sounds soothing to me.
Speaker 1: Was breathing episode thirty eight.
Speaker 2: Honestly, I fox with that.
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: Anyway, shut up, Lola. So let's begin our interview with
Speaker 2: the wonderful, fascinating wit.
Speaker 4: Shall we welcome White Richards to the show.
Speaker 2: Nice to see you in person. Yes, our first in
Speaker 2: person guest in like a year, two years or something, maybe,
Speaker 2: is that true?
Speaker 3: I'm really the first one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have like our first few we did, but
Speaker 2: then you know, we didn't come out for a long time,
Speaker 2: so it's been a long time.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah after COVID, Yeah, you're first after COVID guests.
Speaker 2: Very exciting.
Speaker 3: I am happy to be back in that realm of
Speaker 3: no masks and just kind of seeing people's faces.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 2: We're back, we're vaxed, we've got no masks. Doing great.
Speaker 2: Your story is so fascinating, I mean.
Speaker 1: Fast it is.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, there's so many layers to it. Okay,
Speaker 2: the start us at the beginning is a good place
Speaker 2: to start generally. So you're born in Pennsylvania, correct, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm one of six kids, number four.
Speaker 3: I guess they always say that middle kids always looking
Speaker 3: for his identity. But every summer we would go up
Speaker 3: to Nantucket.
Speaker 2: I love Nantucket, Oh do you?
Speaker 3: Okay? So I love it. And I think if you
Speaker 3: could put one word to describe Nantucket, besides it being
Speaker 3: kind of waspy and preppy and all that stuff, is safe, right.
Speaker 3: I mean it's a small little island. When you were
Speaker 3: eight or ten years old, your parents have no problem
Speaker 3: letting you run wild through the town because there's only
Speaker 3: one town, right, So as a kid, you have vast independence.
Speaker 3: And I just said, I mean for my family, would
Speaker 3: which is I love my family. And we were a
Speaker 3: large family. And my cousins who lived two doors down,
Speaker 3: they had four kids, so I basically grew up in
Speaker 3: a family at ten all like toe Head blondes. We
Speaker 3: all ended up on Nantucket'd be Blonde at the yacht club,
Speaker 3: and we did the sailing at the tennis and the
Speaker 3: whole water skiing and so all of that was our
Speaker 3: highlight of the summer and something that I always remember
Speaker 3: as being the best times of the family, so to speak. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so at sixteen, when this individual puts a towel down
Speaker 3: next to mine, and my life took a tangent that
Speaker 3: I would have never imagined. I would not have thought
Speaker 3: that would have happened on Nantucket.
Speaker 2: Tell us about this guy, You're sixteen years old.
Speaker 1: Do you think he saw you and was like, I'm
Speaker 1: going to sit by him.
Speaker 3: I don't know, because because he had kind of been
Speaker 3: vetted by my peer group at that point. Okay, so
Speaker 3: i'd heard of him. His real name was Freddie Myers.
Speaker 3: When I met him, he was Frederick von Meers.
Speaker 2: Ah Megan Vonalisabeth.
Speaker 3: That's one of his friends at the time. Some we
Speaker 3: are on the ferry ride over the Nantucket. He dropped
Speaker 3: the Brooklyn Jewish background and became a wasp from Dutch
Speaker 3: heritage and all sort of stuff. So I've tried to
Speaker 3: psychoanalyze it with the limited information I've found, and I'm
Speaker 3: actually finding more information now. But he was born I think,
Speaker 3: to an unwed mom at sixteen. The mother had another daughter,
Speaker 3: which I just found this out, and then I think
Speaker 3: had two other daughters with another man. And he basically,
Speaker 3: as far as I've been told, has worked very hard
Speaker 3: to distance himself from that history that he grew up with.
Speaker 3: He developed a new kind of accent, he created the
Speaker 3: new name. You would call it kind of a attachment disorder,
Speaker 3: I think is the proper term. Someone who's been wounded
Speaker 3: by either abandonment or abuse at a young age and
Speaker 3: is seeking out some sort of situation where they never
Speaker 3: have to be hurt again, so they kind of foster
Speaker 3: code of pena relationships. One of the interesting things about
Speaker 3: my story is I basically got in on the ground
Speaker 3: floor of a startup that.
Speaker 5: Was It.
Speaker 3: Wasn't a cult yet. You know, when I met him,
Speaker 3: he was just spending his summers on Nantucket and he
Speaker 3: had met my friends, and he had the reputation of
Speaker 3: being kind of a throwback through the sixties. What year
Speaker 3: is this like, nineteen seventy eight? Okay, because it's important,
Speaker 3: Yet it's important to set the context of when these
Speaker 3: stories happened. It's one of the things I've realized in
Speaker 3: telling my story a few thousand times that if you
Speaker 3: don't kind of set the world that was going on
Speaker 3: at the time, and there's a real pushback against traditional
Speaker 3: religions and people are looking in the new alternative approaches.
Speaker 3: So this guy was into Eastern philosophy, kind of ancient civilizations, astrology.
Speaker 3: He mainly focused on the hindu Vedas, which are amazing scriptures.
Speaker 3: And I'm sure as you guys both know that most
Speaker 3: of the information you initially get introduced to is valid,
Speaker 3: and I think that's one of the hardest things to
Speaker 3: discern as you go through trying to figure things out,
Speaker 3: because a lot of the information you had was absolutely true,
Speaker 3: and maybe the interpretation of it or certainly how the
Speaker 3: behavior that you experienced in the group is vastly different
Speaker 3: than what is maybe on the page, But at that point,
Speaker 3: certainly early on, you don't necessarily figure that out, and
Speaker 3: if you question it, you're being told because you're looking
Speaker 3: at it wrong, not because that's actually what's happening. Basically,
Speaker 3: I meet this guy, and my friends had said, yeah,
Speaker 3: he was just someone who's kind of fun, but far
Speaker 3: out and just not to really take with more than
Speaker 3: a gran of salt. So he sits down next to me,
Speaker 3: and he starts talking about Eastern philosophy and ying and
Speaker 3: yang and making designs in the sand, and.
Speaker 2: Oh, just from the beginning, he's like jumping.
Speaker 3: Right in, right in, right in. And I remember because
Speaker 3: I'm sixteen and he was probably mid thirties at that point,
Speaker 3: and I really appreciated the fact that he was speaking
Speaker 3: to me like an adult, and he was also making
Speaker 3: the clear assumption that I understood what he was talking about,
Speaker 3: which for the most part I didn't, but he would
Speaker 3: frame it by saying, you're very smart too, you'll understand this,
Speaker 3: which is a great manipulation arget right, because then you
Speaker 3: feel really awkward to say, I don't know what you're
Speaker 3: talking about, right.
Speaker 1: I'm actually not really smart, not at all.
Speaker 3: But he's very likable, very charismatic, as a lot of
Speaker 3: these people are, of course, and it was not like
Speaker 3: a like a full court press by any standard. It
Speaker 3: was more about he was very social, and he invited
Speaker 3: me to these parties that he would have now sixteen,
Speaker 3: the drinking age in Nantucket was eighteen, so of course
Speaker 3: I was already drinking, and I just saw this as
Speaker 3: an opportunity to get free beer. Apparently he was having
Speaker 3: these quite frequent parties at his place. It was on
Speaker 3: India Street. I love you n Nantuck well, but it's
Speaker 3: right in town. And I went there, you know, just occasionally,
Speaker 3: because he would have these parties and I would get
Speaker 3: free I could bring my friends and we would have beer,
Speaker 3: and there was like people from sixteen to eighty. And
Speaker 3: I've since come to know that he was known for
Speaker 3: these parties. He was very much in this party mode,
Speaker 3: and so when I met him, basically it was like
Speaker 3: a narcissist with a entourage. That's what was going on.
Speaker 2: So was he like a Gatsby kind of figure? Like
Speaker 2: is it glamorous?
Speaker 3: Well, he had been a model, so he's a good
Speaker 3: looking guy. Now, this I did not know, but I
Speaker 3: found out from his friends who knew him before I did,
Speaker 3: because he'd been doing these parties for a long time
Speaker 3: on Nantucket. And he would actually run the way he
Speaker 3: had it set up. He would rent this house and
Speaker 3: then he'd invite his friends and they would all have
Speaker 3: to pay, and he would not have to pay for it,
Speaker 3: so he would just have enough friends to come pay
Speaker 3: for the house, and then he'd run it like a ship,
Speaker 3: like you had to be up early, clean everything that
Speaker 3: had happened from the night before, restock the bar, clean
Speaker 3: the entire house, and get ready for the party. Because
Speaker 3: Litty he was having a party almost every night.
Speaker 2: So he's got like these party servants who are just.
Speaker 3: Kind of well they're guests, but they're you know, they're
Speaker 3: all the party mode. But if you were going to
Speaker 3: be a guest, you had to kind of play by
Speaker 3: the rules that he and he would give them cards
Speaker 3: that would have the address of the house and then
Speaker 3: he'd give them the instructions. Only the beauties, only the bouties, wow,
Speaker 3: and not their friends. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: So that was kind of his modus operendum. So so
Speaker 3: that was the I met him when I was sixteen.
Speaker 3: I would see him during the summers, and it was
Speaker 3: never he had he had his ephemerist, which is the
Speaker 3: thing that astrologers used, are going to read where you
Speaker 3: came from and did all that, and and so that
Speaker 3: would be kind of his party trick. He'd say, O,
Speaker 3: when's your birthday? And you kind of and then you'd
Speaker 3: look in the effemeris and kind of do like a
Speaker 3: quick horoscope on you, and that was kind of something
Speaker 3: that a lot of people loved. And I remember, for
Speaker 3: me specifically that he seemed to be doing that with
Speaker 3: my friends and not doing it doing my chart, and
Speaker 3: I felt really jilted at first, and really like, well,
Speaker 3: on's he going to do mine? And I don't know
Speaker 3: if that was a conscious.
Speaker 2: Technique or not, right it sounds like it, but.
Speaker 3: The way it played out was I just saw him
Speaker 3: as an eccentric person I would see during the summer
Speaker 3: and I never felt like a full court press from
Speaker 3: him or any recruitment per se. It wasn't until I
Speaker 3: got back. I studied for a year in England before
Speaker 3: I decided to go to college.
Speaker 2: Which was Princeton, which was Princeton pretty fancy.
Speaker 3: Well, everyone in my family was going to very good school,
Speaker 3: so it's just trying to keep up with the Joneses.
Speaker 3: My brothers and sisters are all great students, and there's
Speaker 3: just kind of something my parents put high expectations on,
Speaker 3: so I didn't want to let them down. I loved Princeton,
Speaker 3: but when he knew I was going to be in
Speaker 3: Jersey and not that far from Manhattan, which was his home.
Speaker 3: That's when he said, oh, well, you should come up
Speaker 3: and bring some friends. And at this point I didn't
Speaker 3: really know he had a full entourage. I met his
Speaker 3: friends at these parties, but I didn't really know I
Speaker 3: went to New York to see him that he had
Speaker 3: literally this group that he would hang out with. And
Speaker 3: the big hook was we go to Studio fifty four.
Speaker 3: You know. So at this point, I'm like eighteen nineteen,
Speaker 3: and my perception at that time was I was working him. Now.
Speaker 3: I knew he was very effeminate and gay, but he
Speaker 3: never was hitting on me, and so I never felt
Speaker 3: like that was happening. But I knew he kind of
Speaker 3: liked me in that sense, not like sexually, but just
Speaker 3: kind of found me appealing. And so I literally remember
Speaker 3: having a very conscious thought pattern of like, oh, I
Speaker 3: can kind of work this to my benefit my friends,
Speaker 3: and we can get in Studio fifty four, which is
Speaker 3: exactly how it worked out. I'd go up there for
Speaker 3: a couple nights and we'd go to studio for both nights,
Speaker 3: and then.
Speaker 1: It's so fun.
Speaker 2: Wait, so for the kids, can you tell what Studio
Speaker 2: fifty four was?
Speaker 3: So Studio fifty four was the next level of a nightclub.
Speaker 3: I mean it was during the disco age, but walking
Speaker 3: in the studio, it was literally like it had a pulse.
Speaker 3: I mean it was originally set up, I think, to
Speaker 3: be a theater, and so they had all these kind
Speaker 3: of theatrical lightings, but they would have special shows and
Speaker 3: they have had dancers. I mean my first time walking in,
Speaker 3: I was greeted by this girl wearing nothing but Scotch tape.
Speaker 3: I mean she had like a Scotch little bra top
Speaker 3: and little panties, and I thought, my god, I never
Speaker 3: want to leave, Like this is just the best.
Speaker 2: I mean, And the people who would go there, I
Speaker 2: mean I think of Andy Warhol first.
Speaker 3: And foremost met and got to know.
Speaker 2: I mean I'm looking at the list of people who
Speaker 2: would fature.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Elton John.
Speaker 3: I am at Elton John later. But I did see
Speaker 3: Liza Minelli there. I mean everybody was there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like the place to be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was the place. And I actually only caught
Speaker 3: the second wave. The first wave in the late seventies
Speaker 3: was when it really kind of was off the hook.
Speaker 3: And then they got arrested for i mean, you know,
Speaker 3: Letty gardge Cans full of cash, dashed ol and it
Speaker 3: was I mean, I mean, drugs were just freely flowing.
Speaker 3: I mean sometimes you see people literally having sex on
Speaker 3: the dance floor. Sure, certainly in the rafters. And there
Speaker 3: was this one little rafters. Yeah. Well they had these
Speaker 3: kind of kind of like very wide seats that were
Speaker 3: kind of semi like sofas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're just asking for s.
Speaker 3: It was all very convenient. And then they had a
Speaker 3: downstairs area where it was kind of the VIP celebrity
Speaker 3: thing and and that's where people were just openly just
Speaker 3: doing lots of blow and things and and yeah. So
Speaker 3: I had several adventures in there. And coming from a
Speaker 3: very kind of conservative, waspy background, this was just like
Speaker 3: Alison Wonderlan, I'm walking through the looking glass and this
Speaker 3: is this whole new thing. So that's why as it
Speaker 3: played out, I was no way thinking I was getting
Speaker 3: involved in the cult, because I mean, I'm you know,
Speaker 3: I'm going to stud event for now. What we would do,
Speaker 3: which was a little bit out of the ordinary. He
Speaker 3: was always kind of targeting people, but he would do
Speaker 3: it from the point of view of, oh, that girl's fabulous,
Speaker 3: you should be with her. And he was great at
Speaker 3: introducing to people, and then we would kind of make
Speaker 3: half a dozen people that night, and then we'd go
Speaker 3: back to the apartment and we would have high tea
Speaker 3: as he would call it, at like six in the
Speaker 3: morning and talk about all these spiritual ideas.
Speaker 1: That sounds like heaven.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was great. And it wasn't like we were
Speaker 3: taking drugs and it wasn't like we were heavily drinking.
Speaker 3: It was much more this kind of spiritual thing, this
Speaker 3: kind of thing that was evolving. Again, this is the
Speaker 3: early eighties, and this is really when all that stuff
Speaker 3: like New Age movement was just starting to kind of birth.
Speaker 3: He was like an early inventor with health food. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I didn't even know what a health food store was
Speaker 3: until I met Freddie. And I specifically call him Freddy
Speaker 3: because he always wanted to be called Frederick, so I
Speaker 3: know he would cringe. It's always fready. Now to me,
Speaker 3: it's very very fulfilling, and so yeah, that was really
Speaker 3: what it was about at first. It's just opportunities to
Speaker 3: go to New York hang out with some people that
Speaker 3: seemed to be in things that most of my friends
Speaker 3: weren't really investigating. I was never a religious. I always
Speaker 3: had a belief in God, but I never really felt
Speaker 3: devout in any way. But I had a very strong
Speaker 3: sense of fairness, and I've thought there's a certain level
Speaker 3: of decency that way people should respect and treat each other.
Speaker 3: And a lot of the Eastern philosophy kind of resonated
Speaker 3: with that. Because my Christian upbringing, my impression was going
Speaker 3: to church and hearing someone talk a lot about stuff
Speaker 3: that I wasn't interested in, and then passing around this
Speaker 3: thing with the money, and then your slate's been made
Speaker 3: clean and then just come back next week do whatever
Speaker 3: you want, but you know, slate clean, slate for the
Speaker 3: week coming up. And I was like, that did not
Speaker 3: work for me. I felt there should be a sense
Speaker 3: of accountability. So when I got exposed to Eastern philosophy
Speaker 3: and karma and that sort of thing, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: that makes a lot more sense to me that you
Speaker 3: actually need to be accountable for your actions and for
Speaker 3: each reaction there's an equal and opposite reaction, and that
Speaker 3: really kind of resonated with me. And the idea of reincarnation.
Speaker 3: You know that you don't have just one shot. So
Speaker 3: someone's born into a wealthy family, someone's born on the street,
Speaker 3: someone's crippled, someone's blind, and someone's a billionaire at birth.
Speaker 3: I'm like, well, that doesn't seem very fair. So the
Speaker 3: fact that you have potentially multiple lifetimes that all really
Speaker 3: resonated with me.
Speaker 2: And when a message resonates like that and you don't
Speaker 2: necessarily have exposure to other sources of a similar message,
Speaker 2: it's hard to reject the person who is conveying that
Speaker 2: message to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And I try to relate it to people
Speaker 3: that if you don't have a game plan and you
Speaker 3: feel like you should and listen, I'm sixteen then eighteen.
Speaker 3: It's not like I needed to have one, but I
Speaker 3: did feel like I should have one. Like from the
Speaker 3: point of view that I seem to be Delta, pretty
Speaker 3: winning hand. I was capable of school, as a good athlete,
Speaker 3: I made friends easily. My parents gave me a nice
Speaker 3: genetic package that people seem to appreciate.
Speaker 1: So, well, no, he's a handsome fellow, you guys, first
Speaker 1: male supermodel.
Speaker 3: Well, I just I tell people I can't take credit
Speaker 3: for the costume. I just wear it. My parents get
Speaker 3: all the credit. So all of that, a lot of
Speaker 3: people would think, oh, well, you would be so secure then,
Speaker 3: and I was massively insecure because I'm like, I had
Speaker 3: no passion, nothing that I really got me terribly excited
Speaker 3: about other than football. And I knew realistically that I
Speaker 3: couldn't continue playing that for long. And that actually ended
Speaker 3: up being the critical factor that got me more involved
Speaker 3: with the group. Was I was playing football at Princeton
Speaker 3: and doing it okay, not setting the world on fire,
Speaker 3: but all my friends were football players, and that had
Speaker 3: been so much a self identity. And then I started
Speaker 3: really having problems with my shoulders and it looked like
Speaker 3: I may have to either have an operation or consider stopping.
Speaker 3: And that's where I went up to New York to
Speaker 3: see a shoulder specialist, because the trainer at Princeton he said,
Speaker 3: I think you need to stop because my shoulders were
Speaker 3: partially disocating. I had done gymnastics when I was younger,
Speaker 3: and so i'd stretched the league and it's doing the rings.
Speaker 3: And then I'd always played offense and been receiver or
Speaker 3: running back, but they switched me to the defense, and
Speaker 3: the tackling was just tearing my shoulders apart because my
Speaker 3: shoulders would just I could show you, so I can
Speaker 3: just discocate my shoulders like that.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm betting that's not good for both.
Speaker 3: So I actually went up to New York to get
Speaker 3: a second opinion. I found out that really they could operate,
Speaker 3: but they couldn't guarantee me full mobility, meaning that I
Speaker 3: wouldn't be able to necessarily reach my hand always over
Speaker 3: my head. And I said, I can't play the position
Speaker 3: if I can't if I can reach there. So I
Speaker 3: went through really an identity crisis. And that was when
Speaker 3: Freddy kind of said, well, this is why you should
Speaker 3: come to New York and you should start modeling and acting,
Speaker 3: and you've got these opportunities. And he had been a
Speaker 3: model and he knew the guy who ran Forward Models,
Speaker 3: and so that was kind of at my entry point.
Speaker 3: Now the story's a little convolut that you don't have
Speaker 3: to get into. So it didn't immediately work, but eventually
Speaker 3: it did. And at first I was told I was
Speaker 3: too blond, I was too big because I was playing
Speaker 3: football and I never saw myself as a model. That's
Speaker 3: not how I perceived myself to be. But eventually it
Speaker 3: did work out, and then it really took off. And
Speaker 3: because it replaced football, it's kind of this decision of
Speaker 3: a twenty one year old of like, well, if I
Speaker 3: can't be a football star, maybe I'll just try to
Speaker 3: be a star. Like that was literally where my ego
Speaker 3: could kind of find some solace.
Speaker 2: And it worked. You were modeling with the biggest supermodels
Speaker 2: of the time, right, like, can you drop some names
Speaker 2: for us?
Speaker 3: I can, because I came in if you consider it
Speaker 3: like an entry class like you were at university. I
Speaker 3: came in with Cindy and Christy and Naomi and Claudia.
Speaker 1: And Claudia subsessed, Wow, I'm a Naomi girl.
Speaker 2: Actually, Christy, I'm a Christie girls.
Speaker 3: I met when she was fourteen at the Christmas party
Speaker 3: and she was just like an alien genetic Marvel.
Speaker 1: I'm like, this girl was so before which Christy is
Speaker 1: it Turlington or yeah?
Speaker 3: So Christy Turley then was my generation. Brinkley was like
Speaker 3: the generation before me. I remember looking at Christy Brinkley
Speaker 3: and like the Sports Illustrated you know, when I was
Speaker 3: a teenager.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And actually my second modeling job was with Kathy Ireland,
Speaker 3: and I totally had a crush on to Kathy Ireland
Speaker 3: literally was in awe and then she had this squeaky,
Speaker 3: tiny little voice that I didn't have the heart to
Speaker 3: tell my friends, like it was not the voice I expected.
Speaker 3: She since corrected her voice, and good for her, but
Speaker 3: it was really disappointing.
Speaker 2: This kind of I find that all the time when
Speaker 2: I meet like hot girls on Instagram in person, I'm like, whoa,
Speaker 2: that's how you?
Speaker 3: Yeah right. That was the point when I started to
Speaker 3: come into New York a lot more to pursue the modeling,
Speaker 3: and that's kind of when the hooks went in, and
Speaker 3: that's where I started to really kind of be indoctrinated.
Speaker 1: So at this point online I read that he was
Speaker 1: from a star called Arcturist. Did you know this from
Speaker 1: the start? No?
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah. I think that's an important part of the
Speaker 3: story from the point of view that those type of
Speaker 3: things don't come out like in the opening conversation. That's
Speaker 3: not the pitch of right, because then you'd be like
Speaker 3: this guy, yeah, you're crazy, yeah exactly. So that information
Speaker 3: gets revealed as you move up the food chain. So,
Speaker 3: because he was into astrology, the premise he would make,
Speaker 3: which listen is not far fetched, was the idea that sure,
Speaker 3: you incarnate here on Earth, but you also incarnate all
Speaker 3: over the universe. Sure, Freddy said, the place that he
Speaker 3: considered home just happened to be the spiritual center of
Speaker 3: the universe.
Speaker 2: Am I on Earth?
Speaker 3: So the idea was supposedly he came back to Earth
Speaker 3: to find the fellow Auctorians. So the whole premise was
Speaker 3: that back on Octurius, when we're there on one of
Speaker 3: our lucky incarnations, we're at the spiritual center of the universe.
Speaker 3: We all got into a huddle and looked at Earth
Speaker 3: and said, oh, it's having all sorts of problems. We
Speaker 3: got to go down there and help out. And the
Speaker 3: idea was, all right, we're all going to kind of
Speaker 3: sacrifice and go down and help out things at Earth. Oh,
Speaker 3: it's going through this terrible period. And unfortunately none of
Speaker 3: us are going to remember this conversation except for Freddie.
Speaker 3: He's going to go back and find us and remind
Speaker 3: us why we're really here.
Speaker 5: Thank goodness, good good And so as outrageous as the
Speaker 5: story as that sounds, because it was kind of the
Speaker 5: common urban legend that was kind of going on in
Speaker 5: the group at that point.
Speaker 3: When it got revealed to me, all I wanted to
Speaker 3: do is know whether I was Octurnan or not. So
Speaker 3: that became this kind of carrot that was dangling will
Speaker 3: I because at certain points he would finally turn to
Speaker 3: someone and say, oh, yes, and you are actorian as well.
Speaker 3: And that was a big day.
Speaker 2: So when you say it was an urban legend in
Speaker 2: the group, people were talking about it, it was like
Speaker 2: a rumor, yeah planet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, But it was a star. It was a
Speaker 3: star where we were. We were light bodies, you know,
Speaker 3: like like like you know, like who's so it's like
Speaker 3: it's like leak the crystal. No, okay, well you're not
Speaker 3: missing too much, but it's very expensive crystal. And he
Speaker 3: would know about that because he was all into the
Speaker 3: social register and that sort of thing, and he was
Speaker 3: really in the high society. Again, going back to what
Speaker 3: I said earlier, trying to distance himself from his original roots.
Speaker 3: He presented this whole he knew duke, this person, duchess,
Speaker 3: that one prince, that one prince did he apparently it's
Speaker 3: very hard for me to look back into now and
Speaker 3: trust anything that came out of his mouth. But when
Speaker 3: you reached the level of pathology like this guy had,
Speaker 3: I don't think you can separate truth from fiction because
Speaker 3: I think he loses touch. Oh for sure, Because one
Speaker 3: of the most common questions I get all the time,
Speaker 3: and I'm sure you guys get it from your stories.
Speaker 3: It's like, oh, it was the cult leader in on
Speaker 3: the con so to speak.
Speaker 1: I didn't really think he was enturian.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And I can only say I think like
Speaker 3: a serial killer who starts to operate out of a
Speaker 3: certain kind of pathology and gets better at it as
Speaker 3: they do it. When you're a master manipulator in lying
Speaker 3: becomes kind of the way that you reinvent yourself, I
Speaker 3: think you kind of lose track of it, and certainly,
Speaker 3: as things continue to work on people, you start to
Speaker 3: wonder maybe if.
Speaker 2: I say it, it is true, right, I love that.
Speaker 3: And I guess you can't get inside someone else's head.
Speaker 3: But certainly, living with him like I did for five years,
Speaker 3: I didn't really catch him slipping up in that sense.
Speaker 3: I certainly caught him doing plenty of things, Like there
Speaker 3: was one time when he was trying to recruit my
Speaker 3: younger brother and I was on the phone with him
Speaker 3: and my mother was He's dropping. At this point, my
Speaker 3: mother had had identified that I'd been in a colt
Speaker 3: and said this guy was dangerous and so I was
Speaker 3: really pulling away from the family at that point, but
Speaker 3: she was easdropping and she confronted him on the phone.
Speaker 3: She's like, get off the phone. I can't believe you're talking.
Speaker 3: And he who for years have been saying You've got
Speaker 3: to confront your mother. She's so evil on this and
Speaker 3: that he freaks out and scattered. Yeah, just Liddy panics
Speaker 3: and hands me the phone and goes, oh, she's so awful.
Speaker 3: And I remember seeing him freak out and just suppressing
Speaker 3: that because that didn't fit in the paradigm of the
Speaker 3: guy who had everything figured out, was telling me what
Speaker 3: to do all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So there are plenty of instances like that that I
Speaker 3: can go back to and see the signs. But at
Speaker 3: the time I was so enthralled, and I'm working on
Speaker 3: certain projects retelling this story, and I've got certain footage.
Speaker 3: We had a cable access show which was.
Speaker 1: Saying I would love to see it.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and it's like twenty six hours of it. Wow,
Speaker 3: where there were even more. But when I went back
Speaker 3: and looked at this footage and thinking, know, this is
Speaker 3: going to be a great way to kind of show
Speaker 3: his spiel, so to speak. The most disarming and upsetting
Speaker 3: thing for me was seeing him and just going, man,
Speaker 3: I wish he was better because I just thought he
Speaker 3: was so all about everything and I just see how
Speaker 3: full of shitty is now, Like it's so obvious, you.
Speaker 2: Know my mom, right, Yeah, our former cult leader, Prophet Guy.
Speaker 2: He's on YouTube, which we've mentioned a few times on
Speaker 2: the show. And it is disappointing. You're like, damn, you
Speaker 2: are just crazy, right, How are you so charismatic? To
Speaker 2: me is yeah, no, it.
Speaker 3: Really really really is fascinating to kind of go through that,
Speaker 3: and I remember just thinking I just wish he was better.
Speaker 3: Then they don't look so naive, but we all are.
Speaker 3: And that's the thing. I mean. I had a girlfriend
Speaker 3: that one time told me you just don't know until
Speaker 3: you know, and at that time I'm like, oh, what
Speaker 3: the fuck does that mean? But it's a very profound
Speaker 3: statement from the point of view that once you figure
Speaker 3: something out, very often we want to reverse engineer and
Speaker 3: they say, oh, I should figured it out sooner, and
Speaker 3: just beat ourselves up. But the truth is you don't
Speaker 3: figure it out, that you figure it out, and once
Speaker 3: you do know something, then you can operate with a
Speaker 3: new lens, but until you get there, you can't beat
Speaker 3: yourself up for not kind of connecting the dots.
Speaker 2: We only have the information that we have. And before
Speaker 2: we were recording, you were referring to this relationship with
Speaker 2: a cult leader or a culture groups as a cultic
Speaker 2: relationship that you're in and saying how all of us
Speaker 2: can be in cultic relationships. Often they're just one on one.
Speaker 2: I think the idea that you suppress information that doesn't
Speaker 2: fit in with your idea of a person is something
Speaker 2: that we all do all of the time, every time
Speaker 2: we are dating somebody new and keeping our rose colored
Speaker 2: glasses on because we don't want to believe that we
Speaker 2: couldn't be compatible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's a fascinating thing. Is the way I
Speaker 3: do like to frame it is to just say I
Speaker 3: had a cultured relationship with a group, because I've done
Speaker 3: the cult bomb many times in social situations like, wow,
Speaker 3: I was in a cult for twenty years and people
Speaker 3: like what And I initially I did that a because
Speaker 3: I wanted to be transparent. It's kind of like an
Speaker 3: alcoholic good finally wants to take ownership of this part
Speaker 3: of their lives, you know, So that was part of it.
Speaker 3: But then I also kind of got off on the
Speaker 3: shock value of that, and I recognized that that was
Speaker 3: not really helping the cause, so to speak, and it
Speaker 3: wasn't reflecting well on me because I was kind of
Speaker 3: misrepresenting it just to kind of throw someone off their balance.
Speaker 3: So I felt that I was being so bold and
Speaker 3: brazen to be so open, and that's really I owned
Speaker 3: my story and I going to tell you, and I
Speaker 3: mean literally I would get into a cab and in
Speaker 3: New York and that's how I need to go to
Speaker 3: forty second and third, did I tell you was in
Speaker 3: a cult? Yeah? No, really twenty years.
Speaker 1: Minus twenty years.
Speaker 3: I mean it was like that. It was this compulsion
Speaker 3: which you have with a lot of addicts when they
Speaker 3: like they when you finally come clean. Because I had
Speaker 3: been so dishonest to so many people for so many years,
Speaker 3: I just wanted to be honest. Yeah, But I learned
Speaker 3: that that approach was not very effective, because ultimately it
Speaker 3: was important for me to own this part of my
Speaker 3: life but also do it in a way where initially
Speaker 3: my impulse was I don't want anyone to be uncomfortable
Speaker 3: or afraid to ask me about it because I don't
Speaker 3: want to be defined by this. But I want you
Speaker 3: to be okay to talk about it because I don't
Speaker 3: want you to feel uncomfortable that you're things I can't right,
Speaker 3: And I'd rather you hear about it from my mouth
Speaker 3: rather than going and googling my name later and going,
Speaker 3: what's this that you were involved?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 3: So I had learned Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I almost think it's a right of passage to
Speaker 2: start saying it, like really bluntly like that. The people
Speaker 2: I can think of who are doing that the most
Speaker 2: frequently on the people who are sort of recently come
Speaker 2: to terms with their experience.
Speaker 3: You know, that's exactly right. And so so I find
Speaker 3: by framing it as a cultured relationship, people are more
Speaker 3: like curious, like, well what does that mean because they
Speaker 3: haven't heard it kind of referred to in those terms.
Speaker 3: And a cultic relationship, by clinical terms, is any relationship
Speaker 3: with the person that you're seeking love and approval from
Speaker 3: is in some way controlling and abusing you because an essence,
Speaker 3: you've kind of put them in a position of power
Speaker 3: or authority by this desire to have their approval, and
Speaker 3: so that can be a parent. That can be a brother,
Speaker 3: a sister, a coach, a boss, a lover. That is
Speaker 3: one of the more common relationships we have, but we
Speaker 3: don't identify it as that. We don't realize how traumatic
Speaker 3: that relationship is. We usually are pretty effective at finding
Speaker 3: our way out of that relationship at some point, but
Speaker 3: then we write it off as a bad relationship and
Speaker 3: really don't deal with the trauma, and then we kind
Speaker 3: of start a cycle of finding similar relationships because we
Speaker 3: don't realize we've had this trauma and we're kind of
Speaker 3: re enacting that situation to try to learn from it.
Speaker 3: And this is you know, what you learn in therapy,
Speaker 3: like becoming conscious of unconscious patterns, and so that's why
Speaker 3: a situation like mine or what you guys went through,
Speaker 3: which is a more extreme version, because there's a group element,
Speaker 3: there's peer pressure, there's not just the stakes of one person.
Speaker 3: Our group was a doomsday cult, so the fate of
Speaker 3: the world was lying in balance, and so all of
Speaker 3: this is like that experience on steroids, but the actual
Speaker 3: dynamics at play are identical. And what I found as
Speaker 3: I became more effective at communicating my story and not
Speaker 3: trying to just shock everybody instead of, like I said,
Speaker 3: my initial impulse was, I just wanted to be able
Speaker 3: to own this part of my life and be able
Speaker 3: to be okay with people talking about it so they
Speaker 3: don't have to feel uncomfortable around me. But what I
Speaker 3: didn't expect and what the real silver lining was, as
Speaker 3: I got better at communicating my story like any good story,
Speaker 3: instead of you listening to the story, I'm telling, really
Speaker 3: great story resonates with someone in their own lives are going,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh, reminds me of And I kept that
Speaker 3: that's a point, and I kept having people going, oh
Speaker 3: my god, this sounds like when the relationship behy with
Speaker 3: my boss or my dad or my mom. And that's
Speaker 3: when I said, oh my god, this really is a
Speaker 3: universal tale. And that's where I felt even more important
Speaker 3: to kind of convey this story, because if we don't
Speaker 3: all start basically using the same language and the same
Speaker 3: nomenclature to describe these experiences we're having, then no one's
Speaker 3: really realizing we've got so much more common ground and
Speaker 3: so much more healing than it needs to take place,
Speaker 3: because we're not identifying the problem. You know, if you
Speaker 3: don't have the diagnosis, you can't really get.
Speaker 2: The medicine speaking some truth.
Speaker 3: I've got twenty years of talking about this, so it's like,
Speaker 3: hopefully I've made a few strides here and there. But
Speaker 3: it's really been interesting because, like when COVID happened to me,
Speaker 3: it was a very cultic reaction that was going on
Speaker 3: in the world. Like when I walked out during the
Speaker 3: two weeks to flatten the curve, I walked out the
Speaker 3: side walk, looked down the sidewalk and saw someone like
Speaker 3: a block and a half away who recognized I was
Speaker 3: a human, freaked out and ran through the side of
Speaker 3: the street. I'm like, Okay, this is not the zombie apocalypse, right,
Speaker 3: Like I was preparing for the zombie apocalypse, I thought
Speaker 3: the whole thing was so and this crazy experience of
Speaker 3: mine gave me this lens of what it's like to
Speaker 3: live in fear all the time. So I immediately said,
Speaker 3: that person's been indoctrinated. You don't get there on your
Speaker 3: own thinking like that. You get indoctrinated and be that terrified.
Speaker 3: Two weeks into this thing, I'm like, this is bad.
Speaker 3: And from that lens going forward, I just watched everyone
Speaker 3: gets sucked into this thing where I'm like, man, the
Speaker 3: mental health fallout from this is going to be astronomical,
Speaker 3: the PTSD. I don't think people realize how traumatized they've been.
Speaker 1: That's what I was going to ask you. I mean
Speaker 1: you expected the apocalypse at any moment, which is kind
Speaker 1: of no. Yeah, It's like when we've talked about this before,
Speaker 1: but when I would go to a movie when I
Speaker 1: was younger, I'd be like, can I go to a movie?
Speaker 1: And my parents are like, is that where you want
Speaker 1: to be when Jesus comes back? And I'd be shit, no,
Speaker 1: But you know you always thought that, like it's lunchtime,
Speaker 1: will Jesus come back before I finish eating?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: Was that what you were living under?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Because Freddie was in all in these prophecies, of
Speaker 3: which they were.
Speaker 2: All wrong but shocking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it was all kind of pointing towards the
Speaker 3: end of the millennium.
Speaker 2: So you guys believed that, correct me if I'm getting
Speaker 2: this wrong, that essentially aliens from the Star would come
Speaker 2: at the end of the world and pick you up.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's a great question and I should
Speaker 3: have the answer, you know, I can tell you. All
Speaker 3: he referenced was the space people did. I'd ever really ask, well,
Speaker 3: are they the good space people or no, just like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, Star Wars is coming to life. Space
Speaker 3: beople are out there, this is us. And he would
Speaker 3: refer to it sometimes like the Ashtar Command. There's some
Speaker 3: book written about that or something, the Intergalactic Fleet or
Speaker 3: some sort of thing. So I can just tell you
Speaker 3: because I was so caught up in it and so
Speaker 3: excited by that sci fi aspect of it, and no
Speaker 3: one was asking those questions. I mean, even when we
Speaker 3: bought property down in North Carolina where it was going
Speaker 3: to be one of the safe places as the storms
Speaker 3: were all going to come in and as the world
Speaker 3: is going to be moving towards this grand apocalyptic event
Speaker 3: in the western hills and mountains of the Appalachians. Western
Speaker 3: North Carolina was going to become beachfront property. So we
Speaker 3: had this mountain piece that we were buying and I
Speaker 3: remember looking at it and Freddy's looking at the top.
Speaker 3: He's like, Yeah, we're gonna build the platforms up there
Speaker 3: for the ships to land. And I'm like, yeah, that's
Speaker 3: gonna be awesome. And I'm like, now, if I was
Speaker 3: thinking like a normal person, like what we're going to
Speaker 3: build like plywood platforms for some metallic spaceship. Like, what
Speaker 3: is he fucking talking about?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: But I'm like, oh, yeah, it's gonna be all right
Speaker 3: there on the top of the mountain.
Speaker 1: So are you the one buying all of this? Sorry?
Speaker 3: No, I mean I was largely financing all of it.
Speaker 3: In another life, I was a very successful model, right,
Speaker 3: So that was all going on. That's where my story
Speaker 3: I think captures a lot of people's interests because I
Speaker 3: really lived a double life. You know, it's not probably
Speaker 3: unlike the tom cruises out there, you know, of where
Speaker 3: you you know, you kind of have a very public
Speaker 3: image when that, people would think, oh god, I'd love
Speaker 3: to have that life, And yet my every day is
Speaker 3: being controlled in some fashion. I had to call in,
Speaker 3: I had to check in and kind of spend doctor
Speaker 3: the way the day went. Because you know, people always think, well, god,
Speaker 3: if you were out all the time, you know, that
Speaker 3: must have been awesome. And one of the favorite questions is, oh,
Speaker 3: why didn't you just leave? Yeah, good question, but that's
Speaker 3: that's a question that really informs you that the person
Speaker 3: doesn't know what they're talking about. Yeah, And using the
Speaker 3: word just really makes it bad. I try to tell
Speaker 3: people I said, when you asked that question, it's kind
Speaker 3: of like if I came to you and said, you know,
Speaker 3: twenty one I was raped and you turned to me
Speaker 3: and said, what were you wearing that night, which, by the.
Speaker 2: Way, many people have said similar things to me, like
Speaker 2: people just don't understand the nuances of power dynamics.
Speaker 3: They really they don't. And I don't fault them because
Speaker 3: it's a defense mechanism. I mean, there were times I
Speaker 3: took it the heart and it's like what But it's
Speaker 3: the same sort of thing. Like during my early conversations
Speaker 3: of dropping the cult Baham, you know, I'd have people going, well,
Speaker 3: you know, I would never be involved in a cult,
Speaker 3: and they would have that or they would just very
Speaker 3: innocently look at me and say, so, what was so
Speaker 3: weak about you? They got you involved right, right right.
Speaker 3: And again it's it's a defense mechanism because what they're
Speaker 3: wanting to say to themselves and have me validate, is oh,
Speaker 3: that's terrible that happened to you, But just reassure me
Speaker 3: that won't happen to me exactly. And of course the
Speaker 3: whole point of me having the conversation is not only
Speaker 3: could it happen to you, it probably already has happened
Speaker 3: to you and you just haven't identified it. Now. You
Speaker 3: probably didn't go through what I went through when I'm saying,
Speaker 3: but you have had relationship and power dynamous like this
Speaker 3: that you've experienced, and you've probably been deeply wounded and
Speaker 3: just not really understood.
Speaker 2: It, right or they're on the other side and they're
Speaker 2: wounding everyone right right exactly.
Speaker 3: So it's a really interesting kind of thing the way
Speaker 3: it's played out for me in this way, and when
Speaker 3: it came down to this whole space thing for me,
Speaker 3: the way you know, Freddy would present it, it's like,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, the space people are going to come down,
Speaker 3: and he's the only one talking to them, of course,
Speaker 3: but they had the rejuvenation machines or were they going
Speaker 3: to lift us out? The planet's going to we believe
Speaker 3: in this thing called the poll shift, which is basically like,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, Edgar Casey, he was basically plagiarizing EDG. Casey
Speaker 3: and like ninety nine percent of the population get wiped out.
Speaker 3: There'll be a few safe places, but we were going
Speaker 3: to lift it out rejuvenated, you know, schooled and come
Speaker 3: back and basically make it heaven on Earth, so to speak.
Speaker 3: One of the things that's kind of hilarious is Freddy
Speaker 3: was really into being tan, and so in the eighties,
Speaker 3: all these tanning machines are going on, we were all
Speaker 3: just constantly tanned.
Speaker 1: A picture of them. I barely, yeah, I almost had no.
Speaker 3: Features herma tan and I was modeling, which is fine
Speaker 3: to be tanned, but but I used to have friends
Speaker 3: say like, are you sure you're not going to be
Speaker 3: like damaging your skins. I was like blasting my face constantly,
Speaker 3: and in my mind, I was thinking, Man, I'm going
Speaker 3: to be in the rejuvenation chamber two years. It's like,
Speaker 3: I don't have to worry about that, you guys, that
Speaker 3: is not an issue. Not an issue for me. Yea.
Speaker 3: I traveled constantly. I was on the road probably three
Speaker 3: hundred days a year for ten years running. And I
Speaker 3: would get on a plane and I'd immediately think, like,
Speaker 3: I wish I could tell if on the plane that
Speaker 3: this is going to be a safe flight because I've
Speaker 3: got a very important role to play on this planet
Speaker 3: and they're all safe. Wow.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: That was the kind of mental person I was in,
Speaker 3: you know, just thinking that I had this grand role,
Speaker 3: and of course you know, it's just all part of
Speaker 3: that magical thinking and all that stuff that we really
Speaker 3: get caught up. And I tell people all the time,
Speaker 3: if I can prove something in the lab, people like,
Speaker 3: you know what. But if I tell you all right,
Speaker 3: this thing only works if you believe in it, people
Speaker 3: are like, oh, I'm in, I'm in now, I want
Speaker 3: to know tell me how.
Speaker 2: It works, which is fucked up because that is true
Speaker 2: about out certain things. When it comes to placebos, we're
Speaker 2: taught that with Speaker Bell, remember, like you can't see
Speaker 2: her unless you believe. I mean the frosting in Hook
Speaker 2: does an even remember this scene, yes, here where they're
Speaker 2: throwing frosted like you can't see it to believe.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are so many fairy tales that were like,
Speaker 1: you can't see it unless you believe in it.
Speaker 2: That's right, And you're like, okay, the nothingness and never
Speaker 2: ending story.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean so much of well, I mean
Speaker 3: it is right. You know, faith is a very powerful
Speaker 3: mechanism and yeah, you know, a power used for good
Speaker 3: or bad. Right, That Hook's in our psyche much more
Speaker 3: I think than anything else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, evidence is boring. Yeah, well, we don't need that.
Speaker 3: And now apparently the aliens are here and I'll live
Speaker 3: youre in hearing that lately.
Speaker 2: In three days we're supposed to get all the afformation.
Speaker 1: Maybe the was right, I mean, I mean I think
Speaker 1: that there's some shit, but although.
Speaker 2: Although didn't they say that, it's like not, actually, there's
Speaker 2: no evidence really of anything.
Speaker 1: Of course there's not.
Speaker 3: I watched Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan's totally into it.
Speaker 2: I know, I've listened to those episodes and he's like
Speaker 2: that of these.
Speaker 3: Guys like, oh it the studio Area fifty one. I
Speaker 3: worked on the anti gravity machine studio I believe, Yeah, studios,
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, yeah, the Studio fifty one. Yeah yeah. So,
Speaker 3: I mean, who knows. It's a it's but my question
Speaker 3: if any of that does come out, it's like why now.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, that would be my question, because they're manipulating
Speaker 1: us in a different way now exactly. You know, they're real,
Speaker 1: we probably do this.
Speaker 2: It's like okay, or they're just dumb and haven't been coordinating. Well,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Well, clearly they're not aggressive. Otherwise we've been wiped out
Speaker 3: by now so oh.
Speaker 2: You mean, why now the aliens. I was thinking, why
Speaker 2: now the government?
Speaker 3: Oh no, yeah, yeah, well I know, I say, why
Speaker 3: now the government telling us about the aliens? I think
Speaker 3: the aliens probably have some plan that whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think they're cool.
Speaker 3: I don't think they're trying to wipe us out.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I hope our audience understands that we are not just
Speaker 2: talking about aliens. Willy nilly. There are documents that are
Speaker 2: being released by the.
Speaker 3: Pentagon by the Yeah right now do Pentagon UFOs and
Speaker 3: a lot.
Speaker 1: Israli, a head of defense, said that they have stop
Speaker 1: nuclear war three times.
Speaker 2: Excuse me?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Apparently the ships all come around like during
Speaker 3: the nuclear plants or where the foreheads are and they
Speaker 3: shut things down.
Speaker 2: Well that's nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they're looking out for it, thank god. I
Speaker 3: doubt they're Auctorian.
Speaker 2: Though they're not.
Speaker 1: I checked it. Were the other people in this group
Speaker 1: with you equally like charismatic and good.
Speaker 3: Looking and well if you think of like a profile
Speaker 3: that we would try to target, yes, but that doesn't
Speaker 3: mean you wouldn't take someone who was an eager beaver
Speaker 3: wanting to be got it. But it was like a
Speaker 3: branding mechanism. The idea was that you've gone to a
Speaker 3: good school. You are well presented, well spoken, everything that
Speaker 3: Freddie had wanted to be. This has been a really
Speaker 3: big missing piece for me getting more information about his background.
Speaker 3: Not that I have to figure out his backstory, but
Speaker 3: it is fascinating. It is interesting to say, like, how
Speaker 3: did that come about?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Totally, totally. It all reminds me a little bit of
Speaker 2: Will Allen's story. Are you familiar with him the documentary?
Speaker 2: Holy hell?
Speaker 3: You should like, Oh, yeah, no, I do. I have
Speaker 3: seen HOLLI how they're all very tan? They actually beautiful. Actually,
Speaker 3: when I watched it, I'm like, oh my god, he
Speaker 3: looks a lot like Freddy.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, was Freddy getting surgery too?
Speaker 3: Oh? Five facelifts by the time Wow died. Yeah, he
Speaker 3: looked like a freak.
Speaker 1: How old was he when he died mid the late
Speaker 1: forties and he died of aids?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, quick insert here. One question I meant to ask
Speaker 2: while we were doing the interview was how the group
Speaker 2: stayed together after the leader died, And basically the answer
Speaker 2: is that eventually a new leader emerged and he wasn't
Speaker 2: as savvy as the original guy, Freddy, but everyone was
Speaker 2: so indoctrinated already that he knew how to push the
Speaker 2: right buttons and invoke that trauma.
Speaker 3: I've reconnected with some of the ex members and know
Speaker 3: it because I escaped in nineteen ninety nine. I figured
Speaker 3: out it was a cult around two thousand and one.
Speaker 3: So that's a whole nother story because I didn't leave
Speaker 3: figuring out what it was. I figured it out later
Speaker 3: after going through his PTSD. But then I kind of
Speaker 3: went on the attack. I had all this suppressed anger
Speaker 3: and resentment. I know, money, and they were living in
Speaker 3: a house that I had bought.
Speaker 1: There had business and I read I read you who
Speaker 1: gave them like four point five million dollars?
Speaker 2: Oh my god?
Speaker 3: And so yeah, he's barely making ends meet. And I
Speaker 3: was living at Fabio's, which is.
Speaker 2: A hilarious part of the Fabio Everyone.
Speaker 1: Yes, though he helped you, Yeah, when you were leaving,
Speaker 1: you you remembered he said something to Bobby is just.
Speaker 3: Such a great guy. And what he's revealed to me
Speaker 3: looking back in that time, like I arrived and he
Speaker 3: knew something really bad had happened, and so he being
Speaker 3: very kind of aware like he is, he goes sometimes
Speaker 3: you know, that it's not in your place to push someone.
Speaker 3: Just let them have space, let them feel safe, and
Speaker 3: when it's time and ready, they'll come and talk to me.
Speaker 3: And so ially lived at his place for a year.
Speaker 3: He never once asked me why I was there. He
Speaker 3: never asked me wow. He just completely let me incubate.
Speaker 3: And that's how I kind of worked to the PTSD
Speaker 3: and eventually started to figure out what had happened.
Speaker 2: Because a god, we already thought he was a guy.
Speaker 3: A god, Oh yeah, he's crazy smart. Let's go engineer.
Speaker 3: And he is. And he's my stockbroker. He knows stocks,
Speaker 3: you know. I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, Fabia is amazing.
Speaker 2: Is he single? He is?
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, We just say Lola's dating a stockbroker.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 2: Can you talk about how you left?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And I wish I could tell you. I woke
Speaker 3: up one night in the middle of the night and said,
Speaker 3: oh my god, I think this is really dangerous. It
Speaker 3: might be a cult. I should get the hell out
Speaker 3: of here. Nothing even close. So it was Midsummer of
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety nine, two thousands, when the ship's supposed to
Speaker 3: hit the fan, right, I'm still traveling around all over
Speaker 3: Europe constantly. So I'm in London, Paris, Milan, and I'm
Speaker 3: looking around and like there's no storms going on, no
Speaker 3: government's collapsing, no economies crashing. So I'm like, it's nothing else.
Speaker 3: The timeline is raw in some way. My critical thinking
Speaker 3: is starting to come back slightly right and then very boldly,
Speaker 3: and you could say fortunately or unfortunately. I decided to
Speaker 3: voice some of those concerns, and of course I got crushed,
Speaker 3: kind of like being a blasphemer. So then it became
Speaker 3: kind of the modus operendum to save me from myself.
Speaker 3: So it was dictated that I would have to move
Speaker 3: down to our compound that we had down in North Carolina,
Speaker 3: and they started shaving my head so I couldn't model.
Speaker 3: I had to be the first one up, the last
Speaker 3: one to bed any type of slavelike labor to teach
Speaker 3: me humility or anything. Anyone they didn't want to do
Speaker 3: I had to do.
Speaker 2: They're like such haters.
Speaker 3: When Freddy was alive, he treated me with kit clubs
Speaker 3: and really got me into that generosity mode, like as
Speaker 3: long as you keep giving them money, you get a
Speaker 3: little freedom here. And so because of those years when
Speaker 3: Freddy was alive, I got kind of preferential treatment. So
Speaker 3: there's a lot of pent up resentment, jealousy, and the
Speaker 3: next ten years was much rougher for me, and it
Speaker 3: culminated with this last period of where they were really
Speaker 3: coming after me because I was starting to poke holes
Speaker 3: in this idea that our great fearless leader might be
Speaker 3: fucking wrong, you know, And so that made life very
Speaker 3: rough for me. And I was literally and figuratively living
Speaker 3: in the doghouse because we had renovated this house and
Speaker 3: we had built a garage where we kept the dogs
Speaker 3: and we had converted into an office. So I slept
Speaker 3: up there with the dogs while they were on But
Speaker 3: that's how I was able to escape because we had
Speaker 3: this whole phone system and whenever I pick up the
Speaker 3: phone in the office, everyone would know and they'd say
Speaker 3: who you're on the phone with. And so when I
Speaker 3: had to escape, if I used the fax phone, it
Speaker 3: didn't set off, and so I was able to actually
Speaker 3: escape that way.
Speaker 1: How'd you escape? What'd you fat?
Speaker 3: Well? I just well, no, I got on the phone
Speaker 3: and I called a cab. It took me three attempts
Speaker 3: to get away, like they caught me twice, but the
Speaker 3: third time my driving privilege has been taken away because
Speaker 3: once I'd driven myself to the airport and then they
Speaker 3: caught me. And so I just had a cab that
Speaker 3: was about a mile and a half down the hill
Speaker 3: that was meeting me at like two thirty in the morning,
Speaker 3: and I had to like stealthily go out like a
Speaker 3: prison break and not wake the dogs, hope that no
Speaker 3: one would hear me, and then bolt and I just went,
Speaker 3: you know, back there six weeks ago, to that same
Speaker 3: spot and that you know, they talk about how trauma
Speaker 3: stays in the body, and yeah, I've done a decent
Speaker 3: amount of work on this, you know, I talked about
Speaker 3: a lot. But when I stepped right back on the
Speaker 3: I tell you the he B Gv's, I felt it
Speaker 3: was like I was right back there. So trauma's very
Speaker 3: very real. But you know, each time I went back,
Speaker 3: it got better, and it's just always better to face
Speaker 3: your demons and avoid them. But it was really that
Speaker 3: visceral feeling of that I remember just looking down that
Speaker 3: hill and running like thinking they're behind me, because I'd
Speaker 3: even forgotten it's on a man made lake and there's
Speaker 3: this damn and I remember driving, and I'm like, I
Speaker 3: don't even remember that, damn, Like it's all so fuzzy
Speaker 3: because I think the trauma was so intense that I
Speaker 3: don't have strong memories as I would have thought I
Speaker 3: would have. But then when I was coming back from
Speaker 3: being up there and I saw it coming from that
Speaker 3: point of view, the way I actually had escaped, I'm like,
Speaker 3: oh God, I do remember this now because it's completely
Speaker 3: out in the open, and I thought, I am so exposed.
Speaker 3: There's nothing to hide, no trees, nothing, And I bolted
Speaker 3: across that bridge that high speed because I was like,
Speaker 3: there's no way I'm coming back this time. So it
Speaker 3: was after that that I went into kind of the PTSD.
Speaker 3: I hung at Fabio's.
Speaker 2: Another quick insert here. So one more thing I wondered
Speaker 2: after we did the interview was what the previous escape
Speaker 2: attempts were like. So here's what Hoyt told me after
Speaker 2: we spoke the first time. So basically, his two failed
Speaker 2: attempts involved him getting caught in his New York apartment.
Speaker 2: So on his first break, he was living in La
Speaker 2: at Fabio's, but was still in communication with a group
Speaker 2: and he must have like slipped up somehow and made
Speaker 2: the group think that he'd be passing through New York
Speaker 2: for a modeling gig, and a couple of the guys
Speaker 2: caught him in there. They didn't threaten for us, but
Speaker 2: he was so freaked out about being caught that he
Speaker 2: was easily convinced that he wasn't supposed to get away.
Speaker 2: And then that's when he agreed in quotes to go
Speaker 2: to North Carolina to become the living housekeeper. So the
Speaker 2: second time he got caught, he had fled North Carolina
Speaker 2: in the middle of the night and caught a flight
Speaker 2: to New York, and he figured they'd never think he
Speaker 2: was stupid enough to go back to his same apartment,
Speaker 2: so he thought he'd be safe there for a night,
Speaker 2: but they flew there immediately and caught him, and this
Speaker 2: time they took a more forceful approach. One guy actually
Speaker 2: even slept in the doorway of the apartment to make
Speaker 2: sure he didn't escape, which is terrifying. They made him
Speaker 2: sign a promisory note under dress of course, saying that
Speaker 2: he would be responsible for paying five hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 2: if he left again. And then the third time he left,
Speaker 2: when he finally did truly escape in the middle of
Speaker 2: the night on July fourth, nineteen ninety nine, a very
Speaker 2: fitting date for this episode. He did not go back
Speaker 2: to his apartment.
Speaker 3: Then I ran into a guy who had left the group.
Speaker 3: He lived out here in LA and he left the
Speaker 3: group like four years before me. You know, they're no coincidences,
Speaker 3: but I lit. He bumped into a friend of her
Speaker 3: and said, he goes, hey, you're hoying, aren't you? And
Speaker 3: my friend Dara. It's like, oh my god, I'd love
Speaker 3: to talk to Dara. And I had to really choose
Speaker 3: my words carefully because I had actually come out to
Speaker 3: California and Dar had left before, and I had pulled
Speaker 3: Dar back into the group, and so I was like,
Speaker 3: I was just gonna think I'm gonna try to get
Speaker 3: him back in, and so I literally had to tell
Speaker 3: his friend. I said, tell darr I'm living in LA
Speaker 3: and I'm alone, and I'd really like to talk to him.
Speaker 3: It took about three weeks. He called me from his therapist.
Speaker 3: This is my therapist said I should call. I've been
Speaker 3: avoiding this, and I'm like, wow, thank god you called.
Speaker 3: And so we started talking and he was kind of
Speaker 3: in a crazy Livy situation. I had felt like I
Speaker 3: had outworn my welcome at Fabio's. He'd been too kind,
Speaker 3: and I was kind of needing to talk about this.
Speaker 3: So Dar and I moved in together and we for
Speaker 3: the first six months just started to deconstruct everything. It's like,
Speaker 3: remember that happened, that was weird, Like what do you
Speaker 3: think was going on there? And it was through that
Speaker 3: process that we have finally got to the point where
Speaker 3: I remember going, well, you know everyone's been saying this
Speaker 3: was a cult. I know it wasn't a cult, but
Speaker 3: what do you think it was. He's like, oh, it
Speaker 3: wasn't a cult either. I'm like, well, I go, do
Speaker 3: you know anything about cult? It's like no, no, I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: maybe I should look into a Like I know it's
Speaker 3: not one, but maybe if I look into it, I'll
Speaker 3: find out what it might be like. And so that
Speaker 3: was how I found Steve Hassen's book. I remember going
Speaker 3: on the Internet and finding the best selling book and
Speaker 3: it was just combating cult mind control. And I also
Speaker 3: remember reading that you know this guy had been in
Speaker 3: the Moonies. I remember thinking, God, I actually remember the
Speaker 3: Moonies when I was a kid. These bald people in
Speaker 3: airports and orange suits and just going, god, how could
Speaker 3: you get involved with that? Like to me, like, oh,
Speaker 3: that's definitely a cult. And so I was really kind
Speaker 3: of dubious whether I should even get it because I said, well,
Speaker 3: that no way relates to what I went through. But
Speaker 3: it had so many great reviews, I figured, let me
Speaker 3: just give it a shot. Maybe I'll just learned something.
Speaker 3: The first sixty seventy pages was how he had been
Speaker 3: indoctrinated and you could have just changed the names, and
Speaker 3: I was like, holy shit, wow, And finally I had
Speaker 3: the diagnosis, you know, I finally knew like, not only
Speaker 3: had I been in a cult, but I had been
Speaker 3: in a textbook cult. Like I thought at least maybe
Speaker 3: I'd been in a special cult and anything not even
Speaker 3: specially just textbook and all of that was horrifying. But
Speaker 3: it was the beginning of the recovery. And then I eventually,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of got my balls back and I
Speaker 3: started my voice back, and I actually went on the
Speaker 3: attack with the group and then I sued them and
Speaker 3: took them down.
Speaker 2: You did, Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then you know, now twenty years later, going
Speaker 3: back and visiting some of these people and they're still
Speaker 3: caught up in it. Really, you know, I'd say out
Speaker 3: of our group of like we were never big. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's probably closer to fifty, but with the turnover, maybe
Speaker 3: one hundred four maybe five can admit it was a
Speaker 3: cult in knows so that word means it can talk
Speaker 3: about it. My gosh, everyone else is to on some
Speaker 3: form of trauma, denial, delusion, avoidance whatever. That is to
Speaker 3: me the most tragic part of the story. Yeah. So,
Speaker 3: like I was talking to this guy recently and he's
Speaker 3: definitely spend doctor this whole thing and saying, you know,
Speaker 3: because he's actually hadn't made a pretty good life for
Speaker 3: himself and been successful, and it's like, oh, you know,
Speaker 3: Frederick is the greatest teacher I've ever had. And I'm like,
Speaker 3: you know what, I'm not saying there weren't some good
Speaker 3: things that happened, because I think it's really important when
Speaker 3: you tell these stories, you have to talk about the
Speaker 3: good things because everyone's got to know, like, why did
Speaker 3: you say totally? So that's a better question rather than
Speaker 3: why did you just leave? It'd be like why did
Speaker 3: you stay? That's a really important question to answer because
Speaker 3: there are things that are really, really potentially positive that
Speaker 3: the group exposed to you. Whether it's the camaraderie, whether
Speaker 3: it's just the sense of purpose, the teamwork, the aspiration
Speaker 3: of doing something bigger than yourself, all those things are
Speaker 3: really really positive. So he's kind of taken that version
Speaker 3: of the whole thing. And I said to him, I
Speaker 3: have to look at the end of and I have
Speaker 3: to say a huge component of his personality, which is
Speaker 3: flat out deception. Yeah, I said, he lied about who
Speaker 3: he was, his name, his background, his covert drug use,
Speaker 3: his covert sexual forays. He got aids. He lied about
Speaker 3: that when he was sick and we were changing his
Speaker 3: bedsword not knowing that we potentially could have got infected
Speaker 3: because he was dishonest. And this guy's response was like, well,
Speaker 3: he was human. I said, you know what, there's lots
Speaker 3: of humans out there that don't behave like that, and
Speaker 3: they certainly don't claim to be spiritual leaders. So I said,
Speaker 3: I'm going to have to agree to disagree with you
Speaker 3: on this one. And I could watch like no one's
Speaker 3: pushed back on him. And I wasn't being aggressive at all,
Speaker 3: as being very gentle, but I could see no one's
Speaker 3: really pushed back on him because he's spoken with the
Speaker 3: other guys who all support this guy tribe that basically says,
Speaker 3: we don't have to look back and admit on some
Speaker 3: level we all got taken. Yeah, the key to recovery
Speaker 3: is the humility to admit something happened. If you can't
Speaker 3: admit that, no healing takes place, and the trauma stays
Speaker 3: in place, and it just kind of manifests in other areas.
Speaker 3: And it's absolutely awful. Witnessing that again two decades later
Speaker 3: has been triggering and disturbing and also empowering. And I'm
Speaker 3: just grateful I'm not where they are. I hope in
Speaker 3: telling the story that maybe some eyes will get opened,
Speaker 3: and certainly I think that their people around them might
Speaker 3: start to go, oh, I think we need to talk
Speaker 3: about this.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I hope the more you tell your story, the
Speaker 2: more impact it will have on those people and others.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was talking to someone who actually has gone
Speaker 3: through this and it has been on a recovery path,
Speaker 3: and they were deciding whether to talk about their experience.
Speaker 3: I said, I would never try to convince anyone doing anything,
Speaker 3: but I certainly know if nothing gets said, nothing changes.
Speaker 1: Ooh. I've never heard of public.
Speaker 3: If you talk about it, there's a chance thinks might alter.
Speaker 3: So I'm taking my chances. I'm going to talk about it.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. You're such a good storyteller. I've been enthralled
Speaker 2: this entire time.
Speaker 1: I know, I forgot we were doing a podcast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's why I'm in the movie business. I mean,
Speaker 3: this experience got me fascinated with telling stories because I
Speaker 3: would tell this story and people like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: it's something you're in a movie. I'm like, no, wonder.
Speaker 3: I like movies so much because I'm literally in one
Speaker 3: most for twenty years of my life. And it got
Speaker 3: me fascinated with that because it's really how we educate
Speaker 3: each other. I mean, you come home, you know, if
Speaker 3: you're married or with a partner, and you say, oh,
Speaker 3: you're not gonna be having them today, and you tell
Speaker 3: a story. That's how we communicate, That's how we teach
Speaker 3: you to that's how we find a connection and usually
Speaker 3: over the tough times. Pain is the most intense bonding component.
Speaker 3: If you feel someone can see you and can relate
Speaker 3: to your pain, that's a much tighter bond. Then let's
Speaker 3: just go it can go barty and have a great time.
Speaker 3: It's not the same thing.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, what is not. Please tell that to the men
Speaker 2: I date who won't share their pain with me. Give
Speaker 2: me maybe Fabi I will share his fame with me.
Speaker 1: I really liked reading that your mom you got to
Speaker 1: make up with her.
Speaker 3: Yeah. One of the components of the story that I
Speaker 3: feel gets left out, and when I try to do it,
Speaker 3: I'm really going to try to incorporate. This is the
Speaker 3: ripple effect. Like when you go down this journey, anyone
Speaker 3: who cares about you involuntarily it gets dragged on this
Speaker 3: journey with you. It's like having a drug attic in
Speaker 3: the family in that sense. And so when you are
Speaker 3: someone who loves someone and you see them making choices,
Speaker 3: albeit under influence whatever you may want to the situation
Speaker 3: may be, but things that are self destructive and self
Speaker 3: sabotaging and you feel powerless to stop them, you get
Speaker 3: deeply wounded. So for me in the recovery process, besides
Speaker 3: all the homework Guy's doing to try to get my
Speaker 3: shit together, so to speak, and answer all those questions,
Speaker 3: because you know, not only did I try to have
Speaker 3: to figure out how to forgive myself, but also communicate
Speaker 3: this story to all my friends who are looking at
Speaker 3: me like, dude, what the fuck happened? Right? But then
Speaker 3: the other side of it, which I never really imagined
Speaker 3: to going through it, was seeing how wounded they were
Speaker 3: all from this experience. Yeah, And that's just something I
Speaker 3: had to live with because I can't force them to
Speaker 3: heal that part, and so much of the focus is like,
Speaker 3: I just want to know you're okay. What you want
Speaker 3: to do again, I'm like, listen, I'm doing okay. How
Speaker 3: are you doing? What do you have? Fine? Fine? And
Speaker 3: I can see the wound. And that part's hard because
Speaker 3: it's counterintuitive in the sense that when someone goes through
Speaker 3: something the more elaborate side of the equation, everyone carries
Speaker 3: so much guilt thinking they should have done something, maybe
Speaker 3: more whatever. And I try to tell the story and
Speaker 3: communicate with them to say there's nothing you could do
Speaker 3: on we were all way above our pay grade, and
Speaker 3: deal with the saying thing, none of us, what the
Speaker 3: fuck was going? Yeah, none of us, So it's no
Speaker 3: one's fault. Yeah, But I still can't do that healing
Speaker 3: for them, and that's the part that's hard, and that
Speaker 3: ripple effect, I think is really important because people like
Speaker 3: when we talk about these cultic relationships and we talk
Speaker 3: about the severe ones, like the ones that we have
Speaker 3: gone through, when you then count in the ripple effect,
Speaker 3: I mean, this is having a monstrous effect on our
Speaker 3: whole psychea of our whole society, and so this is
Speaker 3: not going to go away. This is something that really
Speaker 3: needs to be dealt with. I'm trying very consciously to
Speaker 3: put in certain things, like at Princeton and other schools
Speaker 3: in the curriculum to teach courses on mind control and
Speaker 3: influence techniques and manipulation tactics, just kind of common sense
Speaker 3: things that you could teach a kid even at thirteen fourteen,
Speaker 3: so they have a couple of red flags available to
Speaker 3: them that when they're experiencing someone kind of sweeping them
Speaker 3: off their feed and being so complimentary and making them
Speaker 3: feel good really fast, go oh, this could be a manipulation.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The problem is narcissists are so fun. It's like that
Speaker 1: should be the warning if anybody's making you have way
Speaker 1: too much fun, way too fast.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, but no one tells you. And the other
Speaker 3: side of it is like my control works on everyone,
Speaker 3: but you have to be receptive. So the only time
Speaker 3: you're really receptive usually is if you're in some mode
Speaker 3: of seeking answers on some level, and if you encounter
Speaker 3: a person or a group that, from your point of
Speaker 3: view seems to be giving you those answers, that seems
Speaker 3: like a great thing. So I tell people when you're
Speaker 3: in that mode of seeking, everyone's like, oh, that's awesome, dude,
Speaker 3: it's so great asking the bigger questions. Why am I year?
Speaker 3: What's it all about? Like, that's all great, but you
Speaker 3: should also be saying, now, be careful. Though it's awesome,
Speaker 3: you're you're in that phase. Awesome, but every manipulator out
Speaker 3: there will see you as a target and they'll come
Speaker 3: after you, So be careful.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: No one say sded, No one says that, And I
Speaker 3: think that's a really important component. And until we make
Speaker 3: this kind of more common language of all of ours,
Speaker 3: we're all just so vulnerable all the time, and we're
Speaker 3: kind of predisposed as humans to follow the nature of
Speaker 3: us as humans there we're kind of social creatures. We
Speaker 3: want to get along, to get along, and we just
Speaker 3: want to be part of the pack. And so it's
Speaker 3: just kind of a DNA thing that if you want
Speaker 3: to become truly independent and become maybe a leader of
Speaker 3: your own life or others, you have to really work
Speaker 3: against that preprogramming. And we don't realize that how hardwired
Speaker 3: it is to follow, Which is not to say we
Speaker 3: shouldn't be a part of groups, not we just shouldn't
Speaker 3: devote ourselves to one and one only that controls our
Speaker 3: entire lives well exactly. And it's just acknowledging that there
Speaker 3: is some predisposition there that you need to be aware
Speaker 3: of that can potentially self sabotage, and like anything, if
Speaker 3: you know about it, you can have a fighting chance
Speaker 3: to work with it. But if it's just unconscious, it's
Speaker 3: the same sort of thing why people find unhealthy relationships.
Speaker 3: It's familiar even though it's unhealthy. I just, oh, I
Speaker 3: know what this feels like.
Speaker 2: It feels like what I grew up with, and that
Speaker 2: feels safe, no matter how unsafe it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, so all those dynamics I think are
Speaker 3: really important to and that's why these stories I think
Speaker 3: are great teaching tools. Because of the extreme nature of them,
Speaker 3: it's sometimes easier to see the more subtle version in
Speaker 3: your own life. And that's why I think it's important,
Speaker 3: like the three of us, we tell our stories because
Speaker 3: they potentially can awaken people to say, oh wait, that
Speaker 3: actually is very very relatable to me and it really
Speaker 3: resonates with something. But it's just a more subtle version
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, this is awesome. Do you have any social
Speaker 2: media you would like to share?
Speaker 3: Well, I'm on Instagram at hot rich, I'm on Facebook,
Speaker 3: but yeah, I'm not a huge social media person, but
Speaker 3: I eventually want to do some public speaking and that
Speaker 3: sort of thing and kind of talk to kids and
Speaker 3: build some awareness in these type of things. I always
Speaker 3: love doing the movies and all that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: I really love, but this is kind of my pet project.
Speaker 3: I get to work on cases where I help families
Speaker 3: get their kids out of cultic situations. That's been one
Speaker 3: of the most healing things that I've now potentially been
Speaker 3: a resource for others finding healing and finding their family. Again, Listen,
Speaker 3: every family's got their issues and there's dysfunction. But when
Speaker 3: you find a common enemy, boy, the family can really
Speaker 3: step up sometimes. And I've watched it and witnessed it
Speaker 3: and it is a beautiful thing to kind of see.
Speaker 3: And when you watch someone's critical thinking come back. The
Speaker 3: way I describe it is when you get indoctrinated, it's
Speaker 3: like a pilot light that gets turned down really really low,
Speaker 3: but it never goes out right. Kind of like Horton
Speaker 3: hears the Who, it's all the people trying to find
Speaker 3: some way to connect to this person. They get them
Speaker 3: information they're not getting in this kind of secluded group thing,
Speaker 3: you know. And so it's like all the Who's trying
Speaker 3: to find like, what's the sound that's going to make
Speaker 3: Horton here.
Speaker 2: That understand this reference.
Speaker 6: I understand it's the yop, right, you don't know what
Speaker 6: that little yop is going to be, and the little
Speaker 6: who goes yop and we are here, we are here.
Speaker 3: That's what you're trying, doctor. Yeah, but it's exactly like that.
Speaker 3: You're trying to find what's it going to be? And
Speaker 3: when the critical thinking kicks back in, boy, you pull
Speaker 3: yourself out, it's like all of a sudden, it's like
Speaker 3: the fog parts and the clarity comes back and the
Speaker 3: light goes back on. It's incredible to see. So that's
Speaker 3: been remarkable. And actually I've done some cases with Steve
Speaker 3: act I read his book and then when he did
Speaker 3: the twenty fifth anniversary. I'm now one of the stories
Speaker 3: in the book. So it's called a full circle like
Speaker 3: the book that got me out. Actually, I'm now part
Speaker 3: of that and I get to actually work with the
Speaker 3: guy who's you know, one of the best out there.
Speaker 2: So amazing.
Speaker 3: It's an incredible, you know, journey I've been on. And
Speaker 3: then I'm very grateful.
Speaker 2: Well, keep up the good work.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and thanks so much for coming on.
Speaker 3: No, my pleasure. I hope I didn't talk your ear off. Guys.
Speaker 2: No, it's great, Its perfect, perfect, My ear is on.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well here we are, so Megan, it's time for
Speaker 2: the question. I'm ready. Do you think that you would
Speaker 2: join Eternal Values?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Tell me more.
Speaker 1: Well, a handsome young model type taking me to clubs
Speaker 1: and telling me I'm awesome and giving me alcohol underage
Speaker 1: and partying is all I need to believe that you're
Speaker 1: from a different planet. No, I see it.
Speaker 2: Holy shit. When I was like nineteen, all I wanted
Speaker 2: was to go to cool clubs. Yeah, that was like
Speaker 2: my goal in life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and god knows, I was like going to en
Speaker 1: Cahoots literally in Wichita on like eighteen night. Imagine going
Speaker 1: to Studio fifty four.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I was living here and the cool
Speaker 2: club was what was it called do was like the
Speaker 2: sort of the douchier one. I feel like, well they
Speaker 2: both were, but hi.
Speaker 1: I was a mess.
Speaker 2: Hide. It was like Paris Hilton goes to hide or
Speaker 2: she had at least like a couple of years before
Speaker 2: or whatever.
Speaker 1: Do you remember my house?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: I think so? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Wait was that on like right off of Hollywood?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Bro?
Speaker 2: All the DJs, it was like Steve Aoki thought he
Speaker 2: was so cool? Who else I can't remember. It was
Speaker 2: like bands and DJs, and I would have followed any
Speaker 2: of them if they played at music festival. I would
Speaker 2: have done anything they said. It didn't fucking matter. Would
Speaker 2: have followed, would have joined those golds, which brings us
Speaker 2: right back to the band discussion. Yep, and how people
Speaker 2: in bands have too much power. Yeah, so it sounds
Speaker 2: like we both would join internal values.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm still so curious about the like about how the
Speaker 2: conversations began over. I wish I had like recordings of
Speaker 2: these conversations, you know, where the indoctrination's.
Speaker 1: Like slowly beginning.
Speaker 2: It doesn't seem like that big of a deal.
Speaker 1: First, it's just so fast planet you guys, it's no
Speaker 1: big deal.
Speaker 2: It's a star, Megan so smarty.
Speaker 1: Fuck yeah, a star a star. But you know how
Speaker 1: how yeah, how does the conversation go from I'm from
Speaker 1: a star and so are you to now give me
Speaker 1: all of your money?
Speaker 2: Or how does it go from I like astrology and
Speaker 2: Eastern philosophy is interesting too, I'm communicating with the light
Speaker 2: people right, Well, it.
Speaker 1: Does, and I can totally see myself following it.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, yep, good, well, glad we're in agreement
Speaker 2: on that one.
Speaker 1: Although I don't think I would have been as patient
Speaker 1: as why it was with the after he died, when
Speaker 1: it was no longer fun and just living in the
Speaker 1: middle of nowhere and being abused. I think he was
Speaker 1: being really loyal, and even my most loyal tendency is
Speaker 1: a big well Studio fifty four guy died, I'm good.
Speaker 2: But if you believed it, I know, I know.
Speaker 1: Believe that's I guess my my thing. Like I still
Speaker 1: think even if I believed it, I would be like, well,
Speaker 1: this isn't fun anymore, so I'll.
Speaker 3: Just like not.
Speaker 2: But that's the thing. That's exactly the frog in the
Speaker 2: hot water, because we would never join point.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm actually saying, like, I'm impressed with his
Speaker 1: ability to have such little ego because he was a supermodel,
Speaker 1: and he was a really powerful person, and he cared
Speaker 1: so much about this group that he was basically abused.
Speaker 2: Yeah about Yeah, he was. He was. Well, I'm so
Speaker 2: glad he got out of it. He seems to be thriving.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: We love him. We're gonna hang love some Hoyt. Also
Speaker 2: love the name Hoyt. Never heard that name before.
Speaker 1: It's a cool name.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay, everyone, Well, thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you for listening. Guys. We hope you have
Speaker 1: a great week and remember to follow your gut, watch
Speaker 1: out for red flags, and never ever trust me. Oh
Speaker 1: my