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Speaker 1: If you have your own story of being in a

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Speaker 1: cult or a high control group.

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Speaker 2: Or if you've had experience with manipulation or abusive power

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Speaker 2: that you'd like to share.

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Speaker 1: Leave us a message on our hotline number at three

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Speaker 1: four seven eight six trust.

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Speaker 2: That's three four seven eight six eight seven eight seven eight, or.

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Speaker 1: Showed us an email at trust Me pod at gmail

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Speaker 1: dot com.

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Speaker 3: Trust me, trust me, trust me. I'm like a swat person.

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Speaker 3: I've never lied to you.

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Speaker 2: I never live if you think that one person has

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Speaker 2: all the answers, don't.

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Speaker 4: Welcome to trust Me.

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Speaker 2: The podcast about cults, extreme belief and manipulation from two

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Speaker 2: Breaths of Fire who've actually experienced it.

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Speaker 4: I am Lo Lablanc and I am Megan Elizabeth And.

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Speaker 2: Today our guests are historian Philip D. Slip and writer

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Speaker 2: Stacey Sutkin, who together have done investigative reporting on Threeho,

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Speaker 2: Kundalini yoga and Yogi budget. You can also see them

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Speaker 2: in the recent documentary on Threeho called Breath of Fire.

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Speaker 4: They're going to tell us how they got started.

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Speaker 2: Writing about three Ho, both of them interacting with Kundalini

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Speaker 2: yoga in different ways. Who Yogi Budgeen was and whether

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Speaker 2: he had any credibility in the Sikh religion spoiler he didn't,

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Speaker 2: And how he began to get white Americans to believe

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Speaker 2: he was the ultimate spiritual authority, rapidly expanding and profiting

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Speaker 2: off of the money and property of his followers.

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Speaker 1: They'll tell us about some of the many ways Yogi

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Speaker 1: Badgen exerted control over his followers' lives. The practice of

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Speaker 1: separating children from their parents and a practice called distance therapy,

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Speaker 1: and the boarding school's kids were sent to for years

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Speaker 1: that turned out to be neglectful and abusive, all within

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Speaker 1: full knowledge and approval of Yogi Budgeon.

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Speaker 5: Plus the wave.

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Speaker 1: Of survivors that came forward to tell their stories of

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Speaker 1: his and the organization's abuse and how they were failed

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Speaker 1: by three H O's reparation program. And you can find

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Speaker 1: the three HO Breadth of Fire documentary on HBO, which

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Speaker 1: is funny.

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Speaker 2: Because there's three letters and there's an O at the end.

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Speaker 5: Yep I.

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Speaker 2: Every time I heard three HO, there was part of

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Speaker 2: me that thought we were talking about four H the

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Speaker 2: program in school for children.

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Speaker 1: I thought it was water. Every time I would see it,

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Speaker 1: I'd be like H two OHH two, like what it.

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Speaker 4: Is neither of those things.

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Speaker 1: No, it's three HO and as we will talk about

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Speaker 1: in this episode, it is so much, so much deeper

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Speaker 1: than I than I knew. And I've had so many friends,

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Speaker 1: I've been to so many Cundolini classes. I've lived in

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles for like twenty years, So Kundlini has been

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Speaker 1: a part of my story and it's really interesting to

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Speaker 1: hear the true origins.

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Speaker 2: And three h O stands for happy, Healthy, Holy Organization,

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Speaker 2: which kind of is it is not?

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Speaker 4: Turns out it's.

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Speaker 2: Not any of those things. But before we get into

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Speaker 2: the full story of this group, Megan, what's your culties

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Speaker 2: thing on this in this harrowing week?

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Speaker 1: So mine has to do with the group. I grew

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Speaker 1: up in the two by twos. After this insane.

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Speaker 5: News that we've talked about, a lot that broke.

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Speaker 1: In the group a couple of years ago happened known

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Speaker 1: as Brewer happened with this worker named Dean Brewer. One

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Speaker 1: of the workers was like, whoa this is and workers

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Speaker 1: and the two by twos are basically our homeless ministers

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Speaker 1: who stay with the families.

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Speaker 5: He was like, WHOA, this is too much to take on.

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Speaker 1: I'm stepping away. I don't believe in this. This is wrong,

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Speaker 1: and he was very outspoken about it and continued staying

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Speaker 1: with families who had left the religion to kind of

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Speaker 1: speak out about it. Turns out he is a child

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Speaker 1: abuser who was hiding. His name is Doug.

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Speaker 5: So disappointing.

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Speaker 1: So it goes back so much to how we see

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Speaker 1: these vulnerable spaces of people finally coming together and having

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Speaker 1: a voice, and then a predator will leap into that

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Speaker 1: group with a perfect facade and start abuse them.

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Speaker 5: It's just a playbook regular So that is so terrible.

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Speaker 1: Always nice to be aware of these things, but of

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Speaker 1: course you can't be until after it happens. So I'm

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Speaker 1: just so sorry for the people who were affected by

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Speaker 1: this man.

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Speaker 2: Well, that is a terrible update, but I'm glad that

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Speaker 2: it's come out.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's always good.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel really bad for the people affected. What

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Speaker 1: about you, what's your what's your cultiest thing of the week?

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Speaker 4: Living in America?

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Speaker 5: Living in America, I.

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Speaker 2: Know a lot of us are feeling a lot of

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Speaker 2: overwhelmed this week with the new billionaire run administration and

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Speaker 2: a lot of the fear mongering and it just you know,

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Speaker 2: dangerous rhetoric that's coming out of it. I've been unhappy

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Speaker 2: with most politicians lately, but it's it's a particularly scary

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Speaker 2: moment for me. And I think the thing that I think,

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Speaker 2: the thing that I am finding I know everyone isn't

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Speaker 2: going to agree with me politically, But the thing that

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Speaker 2: I'm finding that my brain is fixating on right now

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Speaker 2: that related to cults thinking is the billionaires who own

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Speaker 2: these social media companies that we all use to get

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Speaker 2: our information from being in the front row at the inauguration, Well,

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Speaker 2: could go wrong in front of the actual cabinet. You know,

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Speaker 2: we talk about social media platforms on.

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Speaker 4: Here a lot.

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Speaker 2: We talk about how these algorithms kind of push us

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Speaker 2: all into more extreme thinking.

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Speaker 4: And with Zuck being on some.

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Speaker 2: Weird bro kick now, I'm like, I'm just struggling to

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Speaker 2: see how we don't all become more entrenched in our

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Speaker 2: harmful beliefs and like break out of the cultic spheres

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Speaker 2: that we are all creating for ourselves.

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Speaker 4: I just I'm not like.

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Speaker 5: It's so helpless, it's a hope.

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Speaker 1: I mean, my chat gipt has become so attuned to

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Speaker 1: me that I had to yell at it the other day.

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Speaker 5: I was like why are you enabling me? Why are

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Speaker 5: you always coddling me? Like stop it?

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Speaker 4: And you yelled at your and it was like.

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, would you like me to take a more

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Speaker 1: realistic approach with you?

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Speaker 2: And I go, yeah, bro, that is the funniest thing,

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Speaker 2: Like I whatever you.

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Speaker 5: Throw in there, it's like, I'm so sorry. You are right.

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Speaker 1: Everyone else is insane, Like it's just so silly.

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Speaker 2: It's like two things at the same time, Like one,

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Speaker 2: algorithms are making us all more entrenched in our beliefs.

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Speaker 2: But two, also, the people who run the social media

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Speaker 2: companies do have the ability and willingness, it seems, especially

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Speaker 2: in the case of Elon Musk, to like have their

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Speaker 2: own views be what is the thing that influences what

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Speaker 2: should or be or not be on the platform? Sure?

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Speaker 1: Sure, and I mean I have seen that the platform

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Speaker 1: is capable of saying both sides of things.

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Speaker 4: Of which which on which one? Yeah, which one?

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Speaker 1: Well, Well, it depends on how you word it. It

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Speaker 1: depends on what you want to hear.

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Speaker 4: Well, that's not true my Twitter and my Twitter for oh.

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm speaking of chaw Chebt, I'm talking about ai.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I'm talking about social media platforms I talk.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, like on.

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Speaker 2: Twitter, I have never once ever indicated to it ever

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Speaker 2: that I want to see any Trump content at all,

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Speaker 2: and it basically only shows me Trump content. Yes, that

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Speaker 2: never happened before Elon Musk's takeover and now anyway, So,

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Speaker 2: like the my larger point is that these people who

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Speaker 2: are have so much power over our lives, so so

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Speaker 2: so so much power over our information, over what we

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Speaker 2: are able to access and understand, and the most powerful

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Speaker 2: people in the government being like best buds with the

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Speaker 2: people who control our information is just a scary prospect

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Speaker 2: for me right now in terms of how we are

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Speaker 2: all going to proceed as people on the internet, as

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Speaker 2: critical thinkers, which was all It's already been a problem,

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Speaker 2: and it just seems like it's going to get worse.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we've we've never been critical thinkers the human race,

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Speaker 1: but it's it's not going to get any easier. Also, like,

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Speaker 1: forty drones just flew past my house and like shook.

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Speaker 5: It to its core. So it's an exciting time.

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Speaker 4: Why what's happening? No clue, they do it.

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Speaker 5: All the time, but oh it just happened.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, Well, anyway, I take care. We gotta you know,

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Speaker 2: we gotta get offline, touch drash of each other.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, be in community.

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Speaker 1: I never want to do it, but when I finally do,

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Speaker 1: like get out in the world and just talk to people,

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Speaker 1: I feel so much better.

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Speaker 2: Agreed and and la you know there people have really

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Speaker 2: shown up in droves to take care of each other

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Speaker 2: these past couple of weeks, and that, you know, it's

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Speaker 2: nice to see a community coming together when so much

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Speaker 2: of the time all were shown of humanity is that

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Speaker 2: we hate each other.

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Speaker 5: So you know, it's a beautiful thing to see.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, at least tragedy can bring out the good parts

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Speaker 2: of us, I guess is my silver lining.

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Speaker 5: Absolutely.

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Speaker 2: Anyway, should we talk to Philip and Stacy Now, let's

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Speaker 2: do it. Welcome Philip and Stacy to trust me. Thank

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Speaker 2: you for joining us today.

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Speaker 6: Thank you for having us.

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Speaker 2: I was just saying before you were recording, there is

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Speaker 2: literally so much to talk about.

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Speaker 4: We're going to try to get through all of it.

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Speaker 2: But can you please start us at how you both

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Speaker 2: came to this story. Stacey, it sounds like you were

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Speaker 2: into yoga and Philip you actually joined Threehow is that right?

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Speaker 3: Yes, So I first started doing Kundalini yoga my very

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Speaker 3: first week as a college undergraduate, and so I was

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Speaker 3: involved in the yoga and Threeho for about a decade.

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Speaker 3: And then when I left, I started doing graduate work,

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Speaker 3: and then I started taking the skills that I learned

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Speaker 3: as an academic and started applying them to asking questions

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Speaker 3: about Threeho and where Kundalini yoga came from. And that

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Speaker 3: was back in twenty twelve, which I foolishly thought was

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Speaker 3: kind of the last that I would have to deal

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Speaker 3: with three Ho and Kundalini yoga. Very wrong.

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Speaker 2: Did you have any experiences that made you kind of

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Speaker 2: side eye the organization or was it just that you

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Speaker 2: were curious and you happened to discover some dark things?

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Speaker 3: I think for myself, I think it was an experience

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Speaker 3: similar to several people, where you know, you felt good

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Speaker 3: doing the yoga, you liked a lot of the people

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Speaker 3: that you knew and were in community with, and some

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Speaker 3: things didn't add up, and you would hear rumors, but

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Speaker 3: you know, like we all do with many things, you

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Speaker 3: kind of put those to the side and you focus

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Speaker 3: on the.

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Speaker 2: Good and Stacey, what was the first thing you heard

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Speaker 2: about three h O? Like, how did you kind of

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Speaker 2: conceive of this group.

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Speaker 6: Well, I grew up in Los Angeles, so they were visible,

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Speaker 6: and they're all white, and I grew up not far

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Speaker 6: from where their headquarters were. I was also a long

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Speaker 6: time yoga practitioner, any yoga journalist, and I also did

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Speaker 6: the yoga, and I I interviewed Kundalini yoga teachers and

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Speaker 6: students and wrote about it for various publications, including mainstream

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Speaker 6: women's publications like Glamour and Marie Claire and Yoga Driven

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Speaker 6: as well. But I always was very curious about it,

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Speaker 6: and I always wanted to write a longer form piece

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Speaker 6: about it because it was this weird hybrid of a religion.

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Speaker 6: They had businesses, they practiced yoga, and they were also

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Speaker 6: I mean, the cult aspect was apparent to me. I

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Speaker 6: got you mentioned a little side eye. I had some

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Speaker 6: side eye thoughts, and I had also heard rumors for

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Speaker 6: many years. So I got an opportunity to delve into

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Speaker 6: that history when I wrote a piece in the during

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Speaker 6: the Pandemic about Kundalini Yoga three Aho and some of

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Speaker 6: the reckoning and revelations, which I'm sure we'll discuss as

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Speaker 6: we continue on.

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Speaker 1: Were you ever bamboostled by it at all. Did you

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Speaker 1: ever think, oh, this is great?

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Speaker 5: Because I did.

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Speaker 1: There was a moment and I don't know what exact

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Speaker 1: year it was, but it was like Wrestle brand and

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Speaker 1: all the celebrities and it's going to help you with addiction,

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Speaker 1: and all my girlfriends were doing it, and I just

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Speaker 1: remember it. I don't know why that, like all these

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Speaker 1: white people in turbans and all these grand claims didn't

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Speaker 1: weren't a glaring red flag to me.

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Speaker 5: But I was like, oh, this seems like it's helping people.

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Speaker 3: Yes.

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Speaker 6: In fact, I had practiced yoga for many years and

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Speaker 6: I had taken and because I worked at Yoga Journal,

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Speaker 6: I had taken workshops from all the major teachers throughout

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Speaker 6: the country. And I never did do teacher training, but

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Speaker 6: I thought, if I do, it will be Kundalini, which

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Speaker 6: I thought, which was interesting. And actually, at one point

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Speaker 6: before I kind of stopped, I was getting like a

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Speaker 6: really hard sell to do the teacher training through through

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Speaker 6: Harjeevan and tej Core, who are highlighted in the documentary,

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Speaker 6: and I always found him unappealing and I also found

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Speaker 6: the hard sell stats back and I thought, what you know,

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Speaker 6: somebody's get calm, it is getting greased as this goes

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Speaker 6: up the chains.

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Speaker 3: Now, yeah, I mean I think I think there's there's

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Speaker 3: kind of two things at play at with condalina yoga.

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Speaker 3: I think kindalina yoga very can very quickly and easily

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Speaker 3: induce ecstatic experiences. You're doing a lot of breath work,

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Speaker 3: you're doing, you know, a lot of intense exercises. So

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Speaker 3: I did an article for a magazine, The Revealer, where

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Speaker 3: I talked about visual hallucinations that people doing condalin yoga

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Speaker 3: exercises experience. So you have a lot of seemingly inexplicable experiences.

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Speaker 3: On the other hand, there's a lot to kindlina yoga

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Speaker 3: that's really kind of like no shit, common sense stuff,

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Speaker 3: you know, eat better, exercise right, stuff with other people,

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Speaker 3: meditate right. So I think it's easy for a lot

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Speaker 3: of people to take this very basic stuff that you

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Speaker 3: could get by like joining a running club or you know,

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Speaker 3: cooking at home more and these unusual experiences, and then

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Speaker 3: you know, assuming, as so many teachers want you to assume,

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Speaker 3: Oh this must all be magical, this all must.

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Speaker 5: Be all from the source.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: You just described that so well because I feel like

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Speaker 2: that's basically every cult. Like what they're taking things that

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Speaker 2: are kind of just one on one of how to

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Speaker 2: have a good life and repackaging them and sprinkling in

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Speaker 2: some like peak experiences that make people feel spiritually connected

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Speaker 2: in booms, like everything they say must be from beyond,

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Speaker 2: from beyond in some way.

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Speaker 1: It's so easy with music to think, oh my gosh,

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Speaker 1: I'm so moved by this group, and then it's just like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you go a concert and it's also moving because people

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Speaker 1: are singing together. So yeah, I always think of that

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Speaker 1: they've done.

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Speaker 3: They've done lab experiments where if people sing the Canadian

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Speaker 3: national anthem together or if they walk in rhythm with

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Speaker 3: each other, that you know, it does all kinds of

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Speaker 3: like pro social totally.

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Speaker 5: Oh my god.

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Speaker 1: I'll see the army marching and it'll be like an

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Speaker 1: army that's going to probably kill us all, and I'm

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Speaker 1: like moved.

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Speaker 5: To tears, they're.

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Speaker 2: Like wow, people coming together and you inison so amazing.

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Speaker 6: Also to yoga, it's a little it's hippy dippy, it's

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Speaker 6: a little weird. You feel a little awkward, but you're like, oh,

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Speaker 6: all these other people are doing it too, so you know,

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Speaker 6: doing the strange, you know, hand movement, holding it for

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Speaker 6: eleven minutes and chanting such and such. There's a comfort

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Speaker 6: in that. Right. Yes, it's weird thing, but I'm going

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Speaker 6: to suspend the weirdness and join all these people.

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Speaker 2: And I can imagine the novelty of it would contribute

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Speaker 2: to this feeling that like there must be something special

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Speaker 2: because this is such a unique thing that I'm doing.

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Speaker 3: It's the manic pixie dream girl of the yoga world.

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Speaker 3: It's like a yoga that you're like, wow, she must

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Speaker 3: be this yoga must be so interesting and artsy and unique.

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Speaker 1: So can we just talk about how hard it is

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Speaker 1: that I would go with my girlfriends and I would

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Speaker 1: be like, I'm gonna die.

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Speaker 5: You would just hold your hand.

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Speaker 6: Out for like it was, And it's hard, But I'm

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Speaker 6: not sure it's physically effective at keeping you fit.

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Speaker 5: No, because that's for sure.

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Speaker 6: And if you look at a lot of the senior

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Speaker 6: Kundalini teachers, they're not looking so healthy.

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Speaker 5: Right, and they all seem to die a bitter early.

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Speaker 3: There's a great book by Mark Singleton called Yoga Body,

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Speaker 3: like the origins of yoga as we know it today.

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Speaker 3: When you go to the footnotes, and he describes the

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Speaker 3: people that he interviewed. They're all like a lot of

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Speaker 3: them are in their nineties or early hundreds, and they're

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Speaker 3: giving these like coherent, sharp interviews.

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Speaker 4: And like wow.

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Speaker 3: Comparably, you don't see that in the hubs of a

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Speaker 3: lot of people who do Kindelini yoga in Los Angeles

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Speaker 3: and Espaniola. You're not finding, you know, a bunch of sharp,

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Speaker 3: sharp seniors who are still doing yoga every day. They're

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Speaker 3: aging just like everyone.

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Speaker 6: Else, and the ones who maybe fit, they're generally doing

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Speaker 6: something else.

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Speaker 2: I want to get into who Yogi budget was because

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Speaker 2: many listeners might not know what was his deal, Where

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Speaker 2: did he come from?

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Speaker 4: How did he start start this?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the origins kind of kind of explain a lot.

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Speaker 3: He's a customs agent from the New Delhi Airport. You know,

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Speaker 3: when you talk to anyone who goes through the airport

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Speaker 3: or is familiar with India, this is, you know, kind

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Speaker 3: of a little bit of a sketchy, sketchy position to hold.

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Speaker 3: He leaves his position. He goes to Canada in nineteen

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Speaker 3: sixty eight. He gets a woman pregnant there, and then

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Speaker 3: he flees to Los Angeles for a few weeks, he

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Speaker 3: tries to kind of figure out what he's going to do.

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Speaker 3: He gets like a hot potato passed from host to host,

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Speaker 3: and then he starts teaching yoga. His yoga is really

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Speaker 3: a hodgepodge of different types of yoga that he studied

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Speaker 3: in India in his twenties, thirties, and forties, and I

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Speaker 3: think that's a hodgepodge. I think that's the most accurate

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Speaker 3: way to describe what it is. He's not teaching an

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Speaker 3: ancient lineage. He's mixing and matching from different things that

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Speaker 3: he knows. It's also worth saying that he had the

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Speaker 3: nickname Yoga Budgeon in India from one of these yoga teachers,

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Speaker 3: but it was a sarcastic nickname. It's kind of kind

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Speaker 3: of like how you know, you call a basketball player

360
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Speaker 3: shorty for your friend who's always problems called it lucky.

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Speaker 3: When he's called Yogi budget, it's like, yeah, yeah, the Yogi.

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Speaker 3: When you see early pictures of him in Los Angeles,

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Speaker 3: it's awkward. He he is not like a life, you know,

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Speaker 3: flexible yogi. He can like can't really sit in lotus

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Speaker 3: very well, which I think is one of the reasons

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Speaker 3: why you know, kwindeling yoga. The teacher doesn't demonstrate the pastors.

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Speaker 3: You just sit there and tell people what to do.

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Speaker 5: Oh my god.

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Speaker 3: But he, yeah, he kind of cobbles this together. And

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Speaker 3: you know, it's it's really easy if you're you know, tall,

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Speaker 3: in a turbine and from India in nineteen sixty nine

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Speaker 3: in Los Angeles for people to assume you're a yoga master.

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Speaker 6: But he also gives it a little bit of mistake

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Speaker 6: because he claims that it's you know, it was previously

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Speaker 6: secret and never talked before.

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Speaker 1: What a convenient little story for something that doesn't have

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Speaker 1: an ancient lineage.

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Speaker 6: And it's very appealing to you know, boomers, hippie who

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Speaker 6: you know, they're searching, they're actively searching for for a guru.

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Speaker 6: And he kind of lands in la and and and

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Speaker 6: here he.

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Speaker 5: Is perfect storm.

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Speaker 3: Stacey.

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Speaker 2: Can you paint the context a little bit more for

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Speaker 2: us about this counter culture thing that was happening at

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Speaker 2: the time that he, you know, came up with us.

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Speaker 6: Well, I mean, you know, we know that that time

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Speaker 6: was it was a tribulent time. There was a lot

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Speaker 6: of social change, unrest, assassinations, and people were searching outside

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Speaker 6: their family of origin religions towards the ease for spiritual

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Speaker 6: enlightenment and Yogi Budgeon arrived at a time when people

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Speaker 6: wanted to do yoga, and as he gave and more followers,

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Speaker 6: it became clear and Philip and I have you know,

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Speaker 6: through our research, interviewed a lot of people first generation

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Speaker 6: followers of Yogi budget and many of them came from

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Speaker 6: very conventional religious families, Jewish families, Catholic families. They came

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Speaker 6: from a religious home. So they were trying to be

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Speaker 6: counter culture, but in some ways they were turning back

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Speaker 6: to what was familiar to them, rituals around, you know, eating, prayer,

400
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Speaker 6: things that aligned with their American values, hard work, marriage,

401
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Speaker 6: raising children. But all the while, you know, it creates

402
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Speaker 6: a group of people that he can you know, abuse

403
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Speaker 6: and exploit.

404
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Speaker 3: I think the customs agent thing, it's you know, it

405
00:21:54,440 --> 00:21:57,360
Speaker 3: really explains a lot if you think about going through

406
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Speaker 3: TSA and how an age and can look at you

407
00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:05,000
Speaker 3: and very quickly get a sense are you nervous, Like

408
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Speaker 3: kind of clothes are you wearing?

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Speaker 4: Or at least they think they can.

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Speaker 3: All the time, you know, he picks up what's important

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Speaker 3: to his students, and he mirrors it back. He's not

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Speaker 3: vegetarian when he arrives in the US, but he quickly

413
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Speaker 3: learns he can't be a spiritual teacher if you're eating meat.

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Speaker 3: So changels, he hears them saying, he mimics their slang

415
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Speaker 3: back at them. He calls things groovy far out, he

416
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Speaker 3: picks up on what they want. Oh, we want a community,

417
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Speaker 3: we want to live communally. So it's it's a it's

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Speaker 3: a it's a very kind of clever thing that he's doing.

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Speaker 2: It's a really great time to decide you want to

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Speaker 2: be a guru.

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Speaker 5: Oh yeah, that those were the days.

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Speaker 1: The one thing that I noticed that is different from

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Speaker 1: a lot of other people is from the very beginning,

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Speaker 1: this was like not an LSD drug kind of dude.

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Speaker 5: Am I correct in that assumption.

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Speaker 3: Drug taking or drug smuggling?

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Speaker 1: Okay, it just seems like the group was kind of

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Speaker 1: anti drug.

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Speaker 5: I know it ended there, but did it begin there?

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Speaker 6: Well? I think I think a big part of his

431
00:23:25,520 --> 00:23:30,119
Speaker 6: attraction was, you know, literally, I'm going to teach you

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Speaker 6: how to get high on your own bread. So this

433
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Speaker 6: was alternative to LSD. It was a more wholesome.

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Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, yeah, I'm going to get you off drugs,

435
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:44,600
Speaker 3: but I'm still going to encourage you to like get

436
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Speaker 3: high and have trips, but through yoga and through meditation.

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Speaker 5: Through hallucination.

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Speaker 2: There were a good number of groups that were like

439
00:23:52,160 --> 00:23:54,439
Speaker 2: that in that era, I feel like where they were

440
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Speaker 2: fully tripping, yeah, they were just meditating the higher time

441
00:23:57,720 --> 00:24:01,000
Speaker 2: and yeah yeah. And what you said Stacy about how

442
00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:03,159
Speaker 2: there are these people who are super like, you know,

443
00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:07,280
Speaker 2: thinking they're being countercultural, but actually in a way just

444
00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:09,719
Speaker 2: going back to their religious roots. That is such an

445
00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:12,200
Speaker 2: interesting thing. We see that in so many groups from

446
00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:16,080
Speaker 2: that era, where they're like ostensibly this like sort of rebellious,

447
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:19,040
Speaker 2: you know, rebelling against their parents, and then they do

448
00:24:19,400 --> 00:24:23,159
Speaker 2: end up in all these different religious organizations, many of

449
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:26,600
Speaker 2: which didn't end up being like fundamentalist Christian It all

450
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:27,840
Speaker 2: kind of comes full circle.

451
00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:29,359
Speaker 4: It's just so interesting how that happens.

452
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:32,920
Speaker 6: But though they should know that they do not look

453
00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:35,880
Speaker 6: like ordinary people because they are of course white, they

454
00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:41,919
Speaker 6: are wearing turbans, They don't present as for sure.

455
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:42,920
Speaker 4: It's a marketing thing.

456
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:47,359
Speaker 3: It's a strange mixture because it's it's both you know,

457
00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:52,120
Speaker 3: very foreign to mainstream America, but also yui Vojenen's followers

458
00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:58,080
Speaker 3: espouse very traditional American values. It's a very weird mixture.

459
00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:02,000
Speaker 3: You know. They look very cultish and their thought of

460
00:25:02,119 --> 00:25:06,280
Speaker 3: is very cultish. But their public statements are very much like,

461
00:25:06,320 --> 00:25:09,040
Speaker 3: we believe, we're anti drug, we believe in the family,

462
00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:11,640
Speaker 3: we believe in hard work. You know, some of these

463
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:15,760
Speaker 3: local communities are part of the rotary Club. Yogi Budchen

464
00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:20,880
Speaker 3: also gives lip service to countercultural values, but is deeply

465
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:24,920
Speaker 3: conservative himself. You know, he'll say things like I'm here

466
00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:28,639
Speaker 3: to empower women, but when you actually read his lectures,

467
00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:32,040
Speaker 3: he's he's saying things that are very different. The only

468
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:34,880
Speaker 3: thing of Valua a woman does is give birth to children.

469
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:39,880
Speaker 3: Women are emotional and irrational. You know, if a wife

470
00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:41,479
Speaker 3: is out of control, the best thing the husband can

471
00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:43,080
Speaker 3: do is ignore her for three days.

472
00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I would have feelings on that.

473
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 6: So and this is you know, at the height of

474
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:54,600
Speaker 6: you know, second wave feminism. Right. So you have these

475
00:25:54,640 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 6: women in these groups who are you know, there's a

476
00:25:58,040 --> 00:26:02,800
Speaker 6: whole woman's movement around them, but it doesn't affect them,

477
00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:04,880
Speaker 6: or they don't they don't participate.

478
00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:07,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, end of dissonance around that must have been

479
00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:12,000
Speaker 1: wild and he's I mean, I believe he's choosing who

480
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:12,639
Speaker 1: they marry.

481
00:26:12,760 --> 00:26:19,560
Speaker 6: Even yes, he's arranging marriages and sometimes very un well

482
00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:20,600
Speaker 6: matched people.

483
00:26:21,119 --> 00:26:22,640
Speaker 4: How did it start to get to that point?

484
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:25,480
Speaker 2: Like how did the group expand he shows up, He's like,

485
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:29,080
Speaker 2: I'm I'm the guy. I got the thing, Like, how

486
00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:31,000
Speaker 2: did it get to the point where there were like

487
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:34,240
Speaker 2: yoga centers across the country.

488
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:40,120
Speaker 3: He does a smart kind of McDonald's franchise move in

489
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:44,400
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty nine and nineteen seventy. So he's got all

490
00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 3: these eager students and hippies around him, and he shoot

491
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:52,760
Speaker 3: kind of shoos them away. You know. Sometimes after two

492
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:56,240
Speaker 3: or three weeks of taking classes, they'll say, Lola, I

493
00:26:56,280 --> 00:26:59,879
Speaker 3: have a vision. You're a teacher. Go to you know,

494
00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:04,960
Speaker 3: Nashville and open a center. Megan, you have a destiny.

495
00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:08,800
Speaker 3: You marry this person, and like go to Chicago. So

496
00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:14,360
Speaker 3: he sends these people out very quickly. They teach the yoga,

497
00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:17,119
Speaker 3: They tell people how great the Yoe Bushen guy is,

498
00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:20,080
Speaker 3: so they create centers. Some of these people go to

499
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:23,239
Speaker 3: Los Angeles. He sends those people out, so it's a

500
00:27:23,400 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 3: very quick kind of franchising out throughout the country. I mean, also,

501
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:31,400
Speaker 3: you know how how stable or how you know how

502
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:33,320
Speaker 3: stable is someone after like two or three weeks of

503
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 3: yoga classes to teach other people. But he does that

504
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:41,720
Speaker 3: these people, you know, using the the energy of these

505
00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:46,920
Speaker 3: counterculture people. They set up aschroms and centers. And then

506
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 3: you know from the article that Stacy and I did

507
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:53,439
Speaker 3: for boz News in twenty twenty two, the real the

508
00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:57,480
Speaker 3: real change is when he harnesses the power of being

509
00:27:57,480 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 3: a religious leader in the United States.

510
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:03,000
Speaker 2: Get just so hung up on the business plan of

511
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:07,720
Speaker 2: these guys or sometimes women. I'm like, how, but but

512
00:28:08,359 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 2: how did you expand can I apply those lessons to

513
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:14,320
Speaker 2: my own career? How are you able to make it

514
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:17,159
Speaker 2: so big so fast?

515
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:19,359
Speaker 3: That there is a marketing book. There is a marketing

516
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:22,040
Speaker 3: book that says, like, you should market your product like

517
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:25,440
Speaker 3: a cult. The best advertising comes from cults and cult members.

518
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 6: So right, And he also used a philosophy called opm OPI,

519
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:36,720
Speaker 6: which is other people's money and other people's intelligence. So

520
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:41,760
Speaker 6: he had a real knack for harvesting, you know, the entrepreneurship,

521
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 6: the energy and enthusiasm of his followers to benefit himself.

522
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:48,760
Speaker 5: Right, that's so heartbreaking.

523
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:55,040
Speaker 2: So he starts expanding, and Philip, can you say more

524
00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:57,440
Speaker 2: about what you mentioned a minute ago about how it

525
00:28:57,480 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 2: became more of a religious leader.

526
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 3: The lead into this is in late nineteen seventy he

527
00:29:02,840 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 3: takes a group of students to India and the trip

528
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:08,520
Speaker 3: is a disaster. He has a falling out with one

529
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:13,640
Speaker 3: of his original teachers. It's kind of chaotic. Yogi Budget

530
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:18,760
Speaker 3: quickly repurposes this trip and he presents his students as

531
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 3: converts to the Sick religion. He dresses them up, he

532
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:27,400
Speaker 3: tells them, you know, tell people you're six, and he

533
00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:30,440
Speaker 3: literally parades them around in a bus and has them

534
00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 3: do like basic cureton.

535
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:35,080
Speaker 1: So this is a bunch of white people in turbans

536
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:36,720
Speaker 1: pretending there's six.

537
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:39,440
Speaker 3: That's the appeal for a lot of rural people in

538
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:42,200
Speaker 3: the Punjab. This is astounding. You know, a bunch of

539
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:46,200
Speaker 3: American hippies have converted. And he rides this wave all

540
00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:49,280
Speaker 3: the way up to the harimunderside the Golden Temple, like

541
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:54,040
Speaker 3: the kind of the center of the sick tradition, and

542
00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:56,320
Speaker 3: they kind of don't know what to do with him,

543
00:29:56,320 --> 00:29:58,959
Speaker 3: but he presents himself as a missionary. I'm converting all

544
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 3: these American hippies, and when he comes back to the

545
00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 3: United States, I think he very clearly sees the utility

546
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:12,160
Speaker 3: in not being another yoga teacher, not being another swami

547
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:16,480
Speaker 3: or yogi, but being a leader of a religious faith.

548
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:19,600
Speaker 2: Practically speaking, what does that mean? What's the difference if

549
00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:22,560
Speaker 2: you already have the ashrams and you have the yoga centers,

550
00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 2: and you are the guy who started it all, like practically,

551
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 2: what is the difference?

552
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:28,680
Speaker 6: Well, I mean the real difference is that, as he

553
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:31,760
Speaker 6: realizes he wants to make money off this right, he

554
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:35,120
Speaker 6: has a lawyer around him who advises him that the

555
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 6: best way to do that is to create a corporation soul,

556
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:43,040
Speaker 6: which essentially is a business entity that's like a business monarchy,

557
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:45,120
Speaker 6: which puts him at the top.

558
00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:46,240
Speaker 5: He's the queen.

559
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:47,680
Speaker 6: He's the queen.

560
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:50,960
Speaker 3: Literally the other The best example of that kind of

561
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:55,080
Speaker 3: corporation is the Queen of England. The British monarchy has

562
00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 3: the same structure.

563
00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:00,680
Speaker 6: So there's no board of directors, there are no showlders,

564
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:06,600
Speaker 6: there's no concern for conflict of interest. He can accept donations,

565
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:10,880
Speaker 6: he can create nonprofits, he can create new businesses, he

566
00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 6: can hire, he can fire people, and he has complete

567
00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:21,360
Speaker 6: free range. So he has both temporal authority, spiritual authority,

568
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 6: and social authority over everything that they do.

569
00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:29,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean we had Stacy and I had a

570
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 3: big kind of light bulb go off when we were

571
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:35,840
Speaker 3: doing our research and reporting, and we realized that right

572
00:31:36,040 --> 00:31:42,680
Speaker 3: after he creates the corporate structure that gives him this control,

573
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:47,320
Speaker 3: this power, we look at his lectures, immediately there's this

574
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:52,880
Speaker 3: dark turn. Immediately it's gloom and doom. Society is going

575
00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 3: to fall apart, There's going to be chaos, there's going

576
00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 3: to be terrifying, cataclysmic changes.

577
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:01,960
Speaker 5: They all Apockaleck cult leader.

578
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:05,800
Speaker 3: Well with a purpose, because the solution to all this

579
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:10,280
Speaker 3: is we need to band together. We're siblings of destiny.

580
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:16,760
Speaker 3: And so in a wave across the country, people start

581
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:22,160
Speaker 3: signing over their homes, their businesses, their inheritances to the religion.

582
00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:25,560
Speaker 3: And what few people except for the Inner Circle now

583
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 3: is that Yogi Budzen is the only person who has

584
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:33,120
Speaker 3: control of the religion. All of the assets, all the

585
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:37,960
Speaker 3: property is all under his singular control. So it's like

586
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:40,200
Speaker 3: an incredible, an incredible move.

587
00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:43,920
Speaker 6: And when we were reporting that story and interviewing people,

588
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 6: it was we were figuring it out as we went,

589
00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:53,560
Speaker 6: because it was this big labyrinth of information. But as

590
00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:55,640
Speaker 6: we were talking to people, one of the thing that

591
00:32:55,840 --> 00:33:00,640
Speaker 6: was amazing is we were literally experiencing them understanding how

592
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:01,960
Speaker 6: it worked in real time.

593
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:04,600
Speaker 4: Oh wow, and you know.

594
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 6: From all this work interviewing you know, survivors of this call,

595
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:14,280
Speaker 6: understanding how it worked was such important information for that.

596
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:28,240
Speaker 2: I'm curious about, like the processes, kind of going into

597
00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:31,240
Speaker 2: what it would be like to be an individual in

598
00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:34,400
Speaker 2: the group at the time, because obviously there's a lot

599
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 2: that goes on between you go to some Kundalini yoga

600
00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 2: and you are signing your house over to this corporation.

601
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 2: So what were some of the tactics that he used

602
00:33:46,240 --> 00:33:49,040
Speaker 2: to start to gain control over people.

603
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:54,440
Speaker 3: There's a there's a retired anthropology professor named Van Dusenberry.

604
00:33:54,520 --> 00:33:57,760
Speaker 3: He studied pre h O in the seventies and beyond.

605
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:01,960
Speaker 3: I think it was his m A these on THREEHO

606
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:08,239
Speaker 3: was titled straight Freak Yogi Seek. So he saw the

607
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:11,640
Speaker 3: pattern as you have people who are in the straight

608
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 3: normal world, they get turned onto the counterculture, they experiment

609
00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:19,600
Speaker 3: with drugs, they drop out, and then they get into

610
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:24,880
Speaker 3: yoga and then while doing yoga in three h O

611
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:28,680
Speaker 3: they kind of convert to the three h O version

612
00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:32,960
Speaker 3: of Sikhism, And there was kind of a pipeline for

613
00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:36,719
Speaker 3: people who stayed this kind of expectation that like, well,

614
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:38,520
Speaker 3: if you're doing the yoga, you should do it every day.

615
00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:40,239
Speaker 3: And if you're doing it every day, you should do

616
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:42,360
Speaker 3: it in the Asherom. Why don't you live in the ashrum.

617
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:44,160
Speaker 3: If you live in the ashram, why don't you take

618
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:46,280
Speaker 3: sik vows? If you're a sekh and you live.

619
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:49,120
Speaker 2: With us, you should make like so over time, you

620
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:52,000
Speaker 2: kind of people would just get deeper and deeper into

621
00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:54,680
Speaker 2: harmalize community this practice.

622
00:34:55,320 --> 00:34:56,600
Speaker 5: And he changed his name.

623
00:34:56,760 --> 00:35:01,400
Speaker 3: Correct people change their names when they joined THREEHO the Seiki,

624
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:03,520
Speaker 3: they changed their names, I think that's.

625
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:07,319
Speaker 1: And he changed his own name though, to mean like basically,

626
00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 1: I am the lord.

627
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:10,840
Speaker 5: Am I remembering this correctly?

628
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:13,479
Speaker 4: You mean the serious the serious things.

629
00:35:14,239 --> 00:35:16,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seemed like that was kind of it brought

630
00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:18,279
Speaker 1: people in deeper to me.

631
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:21,640
Speaker 6: Well, it did among his followers, because you know, they

632
00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:24,239
Speaker 6: kind of called him the pope of the Sikhs right

633
00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:27,840
Speaker 6: to lam. It gave it gave him some credibility. But

634
00:35:28,040 --> 00:35:32,640
Speaker 6: within Siki itself and Philip can speak more accurately do this,

635
00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:37,279
Speaker 6: it kind of was baloney for technical term.

636
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:41,399
Speaker 3: He does this kind of slick move where he too

637
00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:45,040
Speaker 3: the vast majority of Six are in the Punjab region

638
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:49,239
Speaker 3: of India. When he's there, he says, you know, I'm

639
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:52,440
Speaker 3: in charge of these American converts, and people are like,

640
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:56,120
Speaker 3: it's such a weird thing. Sure, okay, yeah, be their teacher.

641
00:35:57,400 --> 00:36:01,400
Speaker 3: But when he is with his students, he kind of

642
00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:05,719
Speaker 3: lets them assume that he was made the authority for

643
00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:08,960
Speaker 3: all seeks in the Western hemisphere. It's kind of like

644
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:13,840
Speaker 3: a clever bait and switch. And you know, he he

645
00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:17,840
Speaker 3: goes to great lengths to kind of keep a division

646
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:22,360
Speaker 3: between his followers and the vast majority of six throughout

647
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 3: the world. You know, there are separate gudwara, separate centers.

648
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 3: You know, he never really lets the two mix too

649
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 3: freely because I think if there was that mixture, his

650
00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:38,839
Speaker 3: students would realize that something is not quite right. He's

651
00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:41,279
Speaker 3: not who he appears to be or claims to be.

652
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:45,320
Speaker 2: And what were the types of control that were happening

653
00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:49,600
Speaker 2: in these ashroms and yoga centers, like we know, you

654
00:36:49,600 --> 00:36:51,319
Speaker 2: know you just said that they would have people change

655
00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:55,239
Speaker 2: their names, which of course can strip away one's individual

656
00:36:55,280 --> 00:36:58,960
Speaker 2: identity and make, you know, make your identity more fused

657
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:02,880
Speaker 2: with the group. But what about like sleep, diet, like

658
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:05,320
Speaker 2: control over you know, your life decisions.

659
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:06,080
Speaker 4: What did that look like.

660
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:10,080
Speaker 6: Well, he had a tendency to sometimes put people on

661
00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:11,120
Speaker 6: mono diets.

662
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:13,400
Speaker 3: Right, so you're only going to.

663
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:19,799
Speaker 6: Drink milk, You've got the celery juice diet. Ah, you know,

664
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:23,880
Speaker 6: you had to wake up at the ambrosial hours and meditate,

665
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:27,160
Speaker 6: and this included the children, you know. So you're waking

666
00:37:27,239 --> 00:37:29,239
Speaker 6: up at three or four in the morning, meditating a

667
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:32,440
Speaker 6: couple hours, and then you're starting your day. You're wearing

668
00:37:32,480 --> 00:37:36,360
Speaker 6: all white, you're eating vegetarian, you're being told when to

669
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:40,200
Speaker 6: have sex with your spouse, you're being told who to marry. So,

670
00:37:40,920 --> 00:37:43,520
Speaker 6: you know, as Philip and I like to call it,

671
00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:48,520
Speaker 6: it's an all encompassing, prescriptive lifestyle with.

672
00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:54,680
Speaker 3: Him as the spoken or unspoken presence throughout everything. You know,

673
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:57,400
Speaker 3: you talk to people who grew up in three h

674
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:01,640
Speaker 3: O and the constumer brain is the serious sink, SOB

675
00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:02,600
Speaker 3: says the sirius sing.

676
00:38:02,719 --> 00:38:06,080
Speaker 1: Sab says, well, what is that serious sink, sub What

677
00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:09,760
Speaker 1: does that translate to.

678
00:38:08,680 --> 00:38:13,520
Speaker 3: Get a little little bit technical. So in the Sick religion,

679
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:19,880
Speaker 3: there are five kind of seats of authority tuckets, and

680
00:38:19,920 --> 00:38:23,680
Speaker 3: the people who are pointed to run those tuckets are

681
00:38:23,680 --> 00:38:28,320
Speaker 3: called singh sobs. You know, it means sword, but it

682
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:30,680
Speaker 3: would kind of be like someone in British Parliament is

683
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:33,680
Speaker 3: called a whip. You know, they're called like a sword.

684
00:38:34,239 --> 00:38:37,640
Speaker 3: So by saying Sirius singh sob, he's claiming that, like,

685
00:38:37,719 --> 00:38:40,560
Speaker 3: you know, of these five kind of seats of authority

686
00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:43,719
Speaker 3: that have singh soobs, I'm I'm actually above that.

687
00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:45,080
Speaker 2: Wow.

688
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:49,000
Speaker 5: So he's like God essentially, you.

689
00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:52,879
Speaker 3: Know, to his students, you know, he takes he makes

690
00:38:52,920 --> 00:38:55,600
Speaker 3: all these claims that he's a yoga master, that he's

691
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:59,440
Speaker 3: the Mahan Tantrick, he's the singular person who can control

692
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:03,000
Speaker 3: tantra energy on the earth, that he's a sekh religious authority.

693
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 3: He has all these grandiose, overlapping claims of authority. But

694
00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:13,880
Speaker 3: as Stacey and I discovered in are reporting for bos News,

695
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:19,120
Speaker 3: on top of that, there is so much actual control.

696
00:39:19,360 --> 00:39:22,080
Speaker 3: You know, your job it's a three h O company,

697
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:28,560
Speaker 3: your spouse it's arranged marriage by him. Yeah, your house

698
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:31,560
Speaker 3: it's owned by the religion. Your kid is in a

699
00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:34,520
Speaker 3: boarding school half a worldway, So there's so many different

700
00:39:34,600 --> 00:39:39,359
Speaker 3: forms of control. And also there's like the physical kind

701
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:42,359
Speaker 3: of intimidating stuff. You know, he's a large man who

702
00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:46,520
Speaker 3: is infamously known in threeho for like screaming at people.

703
00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:51,560
Speaker 3: He's always got security with him, so you know there's

704
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:53,719
Speaker 3: you know, someone with a gun.

705
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:56,440
Speaker 5: And he starts a huge security company that's like a

706
00:39:56,480 --> 00:40:00,239
Speaker 5: billion dollar government American company.

707
00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:03,480
Speaker 6: Well he then started when of his students start, right,

708
00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:04,640
Speaker 6: and he takes it.

709
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:10,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's important to note that, like even if he

710
00:40:10,160 --> 00:40:13,120
Speaker 2: didn't have that, even if he wasn't physically like yelling

711
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:16,920
Speaker 2: at people or having this intimidating security thing.

712
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 4: He's still to his followers.

713
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:22,120
Speaker 2: He has convinced them that he is the ultimate spiritual

714
00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:25,840
Speaker 2: authority on all things. So if the ultimate spiritual authority

715
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:28,400
Speaker 2: on all things, the one who knows who's like I

716
00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:30,400
Speaker 2: don't know exactly what the belief system is, but the

717
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:32,840
Speaker 2: equivalent of it, you know, in Mormonism would be like

718
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:37,120
Speaker 2: the prophet who literally like talks to God and translates

719
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:40,160
Speaker 2: to you what God said, Like you're not gonna not

720
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:43,200
Speaker 2: listen to that person. Once you believe it that's who

721
00:40:43,239 --> 00:40:46,920
Speaker 2: he is, then then there is so much room for

722
00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 2: that person to control your life, because who's going to

723
00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:51,600
Speaker 2: go against the ultimate authority?

724
00:40:51,920 --> 00:40:52,799
Speaker 4: I mean no.

725
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 6: And I have heard, particularly among those in the second

726
00:40:57,200 --> 00:41:03,600
Speaker 6: generation born into three Ahl, they were raised to view

727
00:41:03,680 --> 00:41:06,520
Speaker 6: him as not only kind of like a grandfather, but

728
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:10,600
Speaker 6: as a god. Literally they used that word. That word.

729
00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:15,080
Speaker 3: And he is there in the middle of so many

730
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 3: of our normal natural bonds that we have with other people.

731
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 3: You know, he's arranged your marriage. He's arranged your marriage,

732
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:27,080
Speaker 3: and your spouse is constantly deferring to Well serious SINKSOB

733
00:41:27,160 --> 00:41:29,319
Speaker 3: says we should only have sex once a month. Well

734
00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:32,880
Speaker 3: serious SINKSOP says we should do this. You know, there's

735
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:37,239
Speaker 3: the separation of children from their parents, there's the alienation

736
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:40,239
Speaker 3: of his followers from their own birth families.

737
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:44,160
Speaker 2: And what that does is prevent people from having a

738
00:41:44,200 --> 00:41:48,200
Speaker 2: safe system that they can doubt with right and which

739
00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:50,360
Speaker 2: can help shut off the critical thinking and the questioning

740
00:41:50,480 --> 00:41:52,120
Speaker 2: of that leader, and a.

741
00:41:52,040 --> 00:41:54,480
Speaker 5: Safe place to run away to if you decide this

742
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:58,400
Speaker 5: is all bunk. It's it's just a perfect circle.

743
00:41:58,800 --> 00:42:02,520
Speaker 3: I'm forgetting. The name was an academic who wrote an

744
00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:05,960
Speaker 3: article about people who leave cults, and his comparison was,

745
00:42:06,040 --> 00:42:09,200
Speaker 3: it's like when people leave a relationship, this kind of

746
00:42:09,239 --> 00:42:13,839
Speaker 3: like disenchantment, disaffiliation. And he said, you know, when people leave,

747
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:17,319
Speaker 3: often one of the biggest factors is, you know, do

748
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:20,640
Speaker 3: I have a college degree, Do I have money saved?

749
00:42:20,719 --> 00:42:24,440
Speaker 3: Do I have a family who will support me? Do

750
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:28,359
Speaker 3: I have marketable skills? Can I get a job? When

751
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:31,720
Speaker 3: he has inserted himself into people's lives in so many ways,

752
00:42:32,160 --> 00:42:34,879
Speaker 3: it makes it a lot harder to leave. If you leave,

753
00:42:35,440 --> 00:42:37,440
Speaker 3: you can't leave with your spouse or your kids.

754
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:41,719
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I mean that's a real thing, especially you know,

755
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:45,520
Speaker 6: if you have children and one of the one person

756
00:42:45,560 --> 00:42:48,040
Speaker 6: in the couple wants to leave, that pretty much means

757
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:51,640
Speaker 6: giving up your kids, right because the organization is going

758
00:42:51,680 --> 00:42:55,719
Speaker 6: to circle thround wagons around the one that's staying, and.

759
00:42:55,640 --> 00:42:58,000
Speaker 5: They have all the power. Yeah.

760
00:42:58,160 --> 00:42:58,399
Speaker 1: I mean.

761
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:01,879
Speaker 6: The other thing is that the actual structure of three

762
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:06,480
Speaker 6: h O is very hierarchical. You know, everybody has a

763
00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:12,240
Speaker 6: weird title, So there's this, you know, assumption that people

764
00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:16,200
Speaker 6: have some kind of control or power, but in reality,

765
00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:18,560
Speaker 6: these titles really mean nothing.

766
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:21,680
Speaker 1: You guys mentioned something about like they created a fake

767
00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:25,440
Speaker 1: democracy almost, so it looks like all of these different

768
00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:29,040
Speaker 1: people have titles and power, but they're just talking into

769
00:43:29,080 --> 00:43:33,000
Speaker 1: the wind. It's really it's his decision that's actually going

770
00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:33,319
Speaker 1: to go.

771
00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:37,160
Speaker 3: In addition to the fake titles, you know, where there

772
00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:41,000
Speaker 3: is kind of hierarchy, it's all about loyalty to him.

773
00:43:41,600 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 3: You know, you're not going to send the ranks of

774
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:47,880
Speaker 3: three ho by being disloyal, by being your own person.

775
00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:50,560
Speaker 2: You know, most cults have like sort of an ever

776
00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:57,560
Speaker 2: moving goalpost of like enlightenment or whatever the spiritual goal is,

777
00:43:57,600 --> 00:44:00,359
Speaker 2: Like there's always something that you're you're just not quite

778
00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:02,040
Speaker 2: good enough yet, so it always keeps on your toes.

779
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:03,720
Speaker 4: Was there an element of that happening.

780
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:07,920
Speaker 6: I don't think that as much as there was a

781
00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:12,840
Speaker 6: meditation for everything, okay, okay. I think that any issues

782
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:15,920
Speaker 6: that you had in your life, you either consulted the

783
00:44:15,960 --> 00:44:20,160
Speaker 6: serious thing sub or you had to meditate on it

784
00:44:20,719 --> 00:44:23,240
Speaker 6: and you would get prescriptions to do that for forty

785
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:28,400
Speaker 6: days this meditation and that problem will go away.

786
00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:29,000
Speaker 4: Right right, right right.

787
00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:33,600
Speaker 3: I mean they're early on Yogi Vision made some hints

788
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:35,880
Speaker 3: of like you know I've got you know, I'm going

789
00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:38,160
Speaker 3: to teach you the real good stuff down the road

790
00:44:38,200 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 3: when you're ready for it. But you know, there's always this,

791
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:44,960
Speaker 3: like so many groups, there's always this projection that like

792
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:48,000
Speaker 3: bad stuff's going to happen in the future or great

793
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:49,760
Speaker 3: stuff is going to happen to us in the future,

794
00:44:50,280 --> 00:44:52,719
Speaker 3: and by the time you get to that future, there's

795
00:44:52,719 --> 00:44:54,759
Speaker 3: something else down the road, right, you know, you're never

796
00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:57,640
Speaker 3: looking back, you're never doing like the post game review.

797
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:02,200
Speaker 6: And they were also, you know, very concerned with making money.

798
00:45:02,120 --> 00:45:03,879
Speaker 5: And a lot of money they did make.

799
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:07,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like they had a ton of businesses.

800
00:45:16,239 --> 00:45:17,960
Speaker 5: What is distance therapy?

801
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:24,720
Speaker 6: So you know, distance therapy was a philosophy whereby when

802
00:45:25,400 --> 00:45:29,200
Speaker 6: Yoei Budgen's followers started having children, of course, he told

803
00:45:29,239 --> 00:45:32,600
Speaker 6: them they were too neurotic and screwed up to properly

804
00:45:32,680 --> 00:45:37,480
Speaker 6: care for them, and he literally mothers were kind of

805
00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:42,799
Speaker 6: suppressing their maternal instincts and doing things like sending their

806
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:48,080
Speaker 6: children away to live with other families, for example. But

807
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 6: simultaneously it was so confusing because they were also told

808
00:45:52,040 --> 00:45:56,399
Speaker 6: that these children were saints, sages and heroes and they

809
00:45:56,400 --> 00:46:02,040
Speaker 6: were here to like, you know, improve humanity, and so

810
00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:08,160
Speaker 6: it was essentially you know, a way to further allow

811
00:46:08,440 --> 00:46:11,720
Speaker 6: yo you budget to be in control of the children

812
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:17,640
Speaker 6: and disenfranchising parents from being involved in their lives.

813
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:18,360
Speaker 4: Yeah.

814
00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:20,840
Speaker 3: I mean some children are a year and a half

815
00:46:20,840 --> 00:46:24,040
Speaker 3: two years old when they're sent to live in other ashroms.

816
00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:28,280
Speaker 3: And this is early on, like early mid nineteen seventies.

817
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:31,320
Speaker 3: There's also a lot of you see this with other groups.

818
00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:35,120
Speaker 3: There's a lot of like bo family rhetoric. You know,

819
00:46:35,920 --> 00:46:39,759
Speaker 3: we're the spiritual family, We're all siblings of destiny. So

820
00:46:39,800 --> 00:46:43,800
Speaker 3: that's kind of part of it too, Like you're you're

821
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:47,000
Speaker 3: distancing yourself from your child, but your child is still

822
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:51,160
Speaker 3: within this kind of three ho family. When you look

823
00:46:51,160 --> 00:46:53,920
Speaker 3: at Yogi Budgen's lectures, I mean, like so much of

824
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:56,719
Speaker 3: his lectures they're crazy, you know, the idea that like

825
00:46:57,200 --> 00:46:59,520
Speaker 3: you're going to ruin your child by like showing them

826
00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:04,080
Speaker 3: too much affection, by feeding them too much. You know,

827
00:47:04,200 --> 00:47:06,800
Speaker 3: they're not your pets, you know, stop treating your child

828
00:47:06,840 --> 00:47:10,520
Speaker 3: like a dog. And could you imagine any pediatrician saying, like,

829
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:13,399
Speaker 3: don't snuggle the baby, don't show too much time.

830
00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:16,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he really leaned into that neurosis thing that

831
00:47:17,080 --> 00:47:18,160
Speaker 1: was so hot at the time.

832
00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:20,239
Speaker 5: Like, you're gonna just give them your neurosis.

833
00:47:20,280 --> 00:47:22,839
Speaker 1: You're gonna like get them away from you so they

834
00:47:22,840 --> 00:47:26,320
Speaker 1: don't get this neurosis. And it's like, damn, that's smart

835
00:47:26,480 --> 00:47:30,520
Speaker 1: but evil because he's sending these kids to an ashram

836
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:33,640
Speaker 1: in India where, I mean, what happened to them is

837
00:47:33,760 --> 00:47:36,399
Speaker 1: just unbelievable. I don't know if you guys can say

838
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:39,800
Speaker 1: a bit about that, but it's beyond abusive.

839
00:47:40,120 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like, so, so he's basically marketing distance,

840
00:47:44,360 --> 00:47:48,399
Speaker 2: being separated from children, being separated from their parents as

841
00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:53,120
Speaker 2: being good for the kids and also good for the parents.

842
00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:56,320
Speaker 2: And it was also like you'll be spiritually more pure,

843
00:47:56,440 --> 00:47:58,600
Speaker 2: like what was in it for the parents anything?

844
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:01,719
Speaker 4: According to his marketing, you won't screw up.

845
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:02,640
Speaker 3: The leaders of tomorrow.

846
00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:04,439
Speaker 4: I think that's the bigg That's the main thing.

847
00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:05,640
Speaker 7: Jeez.

848
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:09,359
Speaker 2: Okay, And so tell us where the kids would go.

849
00:48:10,160 --> 00:48:13,839
Speaker 6: Well, before they went to boarding schools in India, they

850
00:48:13,840 --> 00:48:17,759
Speaker 6: would go to other members of the organization, but then

851
00:48:17,920 --> 00:48:21,200
Speaker 6: at a certain point they start sending their children to

852
00:48:21,280 --> 00:48:25,200
Speaker 6: India to boarding schools, existing boarding schools, they're not three

853
00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:26,480
Speaker 6: h O boarding schools.

854
00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:29,759
Speaker 2: And so you both conducted a whole bunch of interviews

855
00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:34,360
Speaker 2: with people who had attended these boarding schools. Right, but

856
00:48:34,440 --> 00:48:37,000
Speaker 2: you said not three Ho's boarding schools or Skarry, Can

857
00:48:37,040 --> 00:48:37,920
Speaker 2: you clarify that.

858
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:41,640
Speaker 3: They would send There were a series of boarding schools,

859
00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:46,440
Speaker 3: and initially the boarding schools were already existing, and so

860
00:48:46,520 --> 00:48:49,640
Speaker 3: they started sending their their children there. So you kind

861
00:48:49,680 --> 00:48:52,800
Speaker 3: of had this wave of children who were kind of separate,

862
00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:57,440
Speaker 3: kind of doing their own thing, attending these larger boarding schools.

863
00:48:57,520 --> 00:49:00,839
Speaker 3: But you know, if you if you watch Breadth of Fire,

864
00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:04,160
Speaker 3: you see footage of this, you hear people talking about it.

865
00:49:04,560 --> 00:49:07,360
Speaker 3: You know, these are these are you know, kind of

866
00:49:07,400 --> 00:49:11,160
Speaker 3: poorly run and managed boarding schools. You know, there's you know,

867
00:49:11,280 --> 00:49:16,160
Speaker 3: a lack of essentials all all across the board. So

868
00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:18,640
Speaker 3: they are sent to these schools, often at a huge

869
00:49:18,680 --> 00:49:23,399
Speaker 3: cost to the parents, but they're not fed well, they

870
00:49:23,400 --> 00:49:26,840
Speaker 3: don't have medical care. They often don't have clean clothes,

871
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:32,560
Speaker 3: there's no toilet paper, the teaching is you know poor,

872
00:49:33,360 --> 00:49:36,920
Speaker 3: The conditions are are dangerous.

873
00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:40,279
Speaker 6: It's yeah, I mean, you know, people you know, the

874
00:49:40,320 --> 00:49:43,799
Speaker 6: minute they get there, there's medical neglect. You know, they

875
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:48,800
Speaker 6: may get injured, they're not taken to get proper medical care.

876
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:52,279
Speaker 6: They come home, their parents see, they've lost weight, they

877
00:49:52,280 --> 00:49:59,560
Speaker 6: have lies, parasites, parasites, their personalities may have changed. So

878
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:03,480
Speaker 6: the thing that was really heartbreaking about reporting that story

879
00:50:04,520 --> 00:50:08,200
Speaker 6: is to realize that the suffering and abuse these kids

880
00:50:08,239 --> 00:50:09,960
Speaker 6: went through was a parent.

881
00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:13,880
Speaker 3: With three ho and especially the first generation. There's a

882
00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:19,440
Speaker 3: lot of kind of changing the past. In hindsight, we

883
00:50:19,480 --> 00:50:23,560
Speaker 3: couldn't have known. This is a surprise when you look

884
00:50:23,600 --> 00:50:26,480
Speaker 3: at Yogi Buchen's lectures, when you look at the justifications

885
00:50:26,520 --> 00:50:29,960
Speaker 3: he's giving these parents to send their kids to these schools.

886
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:34,839
Speaker 3: He's explicit he is saying, this will be a living hell.

887
00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:37,600
Speaker 3: This is to toughen them up, This is to give

888
00:50:37,640 --> 00:50:41,200
Speaker 3: them grit, This is to you know, give them some

889
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:45,160
Speaker 3: awful experience that will make them, you know, leaders of tomorrow.

890
00:50:45,480 --> 00:50:49,440
Speaker 3: So it's very difficult to take these claims that we

891
00:50:49,520 --> 00:50:53,720
Speaker 3: didn't know and fully accept them. I mean, in many cases,

892
00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:57,319
Speaker 3: as Stacy mentioned, you know, the evidence for how bad

893
00:50:57,360 --> 00:51:01,160
Speaker 3: these schools were was literally fa parents when they picked

894
00:51:01,239 --> 00:51:03,480
Speaker 3: up their child at the airport. Right now, their children

895
00:51:03,520 --> 00:51:06,800
Speaker 3: had lost weight, They're dirty, their clothes aren't washed.

896
00:51:07,160 --> 00:51:09,400
Speaker 4: How old were the kids that were being sent to

897
00:51:09,440 --> 00:51:10,440
Speaker 4: these schools.

898
00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:13,480
Speaker 5: I'm as young as five Oh my god.

899
00:51:13,560 --> 00:51:16,480
Speaker 1: I remember reading in one of the articles y'all wrote

900
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:18,720
Speaker 1: that they were so hungry, one of the most eating

901
00:51:18,880 --> 00:51:22,360
Speaker 1: rose pedals. If somebody had a piece of food, they

902
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:25,200
Speaker 1: would it would just a big fight over it, fight club.

903
00:51:26,960 --> 00:51:30,839
Speaker 1: And I can see how much parents had to override

904
00:51:30,960 --> 00:51:34,400
Speaker 1: their own instincts and how sucked into this group and

905
00:51:34,480 --> 00:51:37,719
Speaker 1: to this man as quote unquote god that they were

906
00:51:38,440 --> 00:51:41,080
Speaker 1: to see their children in these states and to still

907
00:51:41,480 --> 00:51:43,560
Speaker 1: send them back. And you know what we talk a

908
00:51:43,560 --> 00:51:45,560
Speaker 1: lot about on this podcast is Lola and I were

909
00:51:45,600 --> 00:51:47,560
Speaker 1: both I was raised in the high control group.

910
00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:48,839
Speaker 5: Lola was in a high control group.

911
00:51:48,840 --> 00:51:53,600
Speaker 1: And it's like, your parents sometimes just don't have.

912
00:51:53,600 --> 00:51:57,160
Speaker 5: Their But what would you say, Lola, how do you

913
00:51:57,200 --> 00:51:57,560
Speaker 5: put that?

914
00:51:57,719 --> 00:52:00,160
Speaker 1: Like, because so many people would be like these peopleeople

915
00:52:00,239 --> 00:52:04,480
Speaker 1: are abusive. They sent their kids back, and it is abusive,

916
00:52:04,560 --> 00:52:07,040
Speaker 1: but in a way their minds are so hijacked that

917
00:52:07,080 --> 00:52:08,600
Speaker 1: it's just so complicated.

918
00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:12,080
Speaker 6: Well it's complic It is complicated because like things would

919
00:52:12,080 --> 00:52:17,080
Speaker 6: happen there, there were some parents that were kind of

920
00:52:17,160 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 6: doing things behind the scenes, like let's check the water.

921
00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:26,120
Speaker 6: The water is really bad. Okay, we're going to pay

922
00:52:26,120 --> 00:52:30,640
Speaker 6: for some water filters at the school, right right, you know,

923
00:52:30,719 --> 00:52:33,640
Speaker 6: so that so that that's kind of both acknowledging there's

924
00:52:33,680 --> 00:52:37,160
Speaker 6: a problem but then fixing it at the same time

925
00:52:37,360 --> 00:52:41,520
Speaker 6: to make it better. Oh there's raw sewage running through

926
00:52:41,640 --> 00:52:44,600
Speaker 6: the school, while nobody really fixed that. But you know,

927
00:52:45,400 --> 00:52:51,120
Speaker 6: it's it's it is a cognitive dissonance and I think

928
00:52:51,160 --> 00:52:54,359
Speaker 6: a lot of parents there had been a reckoning and

929
00:52:54,400 --> 00:52:59,120
Speaker 6: there was there have been very difficult conversation between families,

930
00:52:59,200 --> 00:53:04,839
Speaker 6: between parents and children. And the other thing is when

931
00:53:04,840 --> 00:53:07,520
Speaker 6: there was a problem of abuse, it was it was

932
00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:11,319
Speaker 6: handled internally. And so when we handled it internally, there

933
00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:15,759
Speaker 6: was no third party accountability. There was just we go

934
00:53:15,840 --> 00:53:16,800
Speaker 6: to Yogi budget.

935
00:53:17,360 --> 00:53:20,319
Speaker 3: You know, in our reporting we named two of them.

936
00:53:20,320 --> 00:53:24,040
Speaker 3: There were at least five pedophiles in three h O,

937
00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:30,919
Speaker 3: you know, repeat serial abusers of children, and they're all

938
00:53:30,960 --> 00:53:35,480
Speaker 3: known within the organization. But it gets handled internally. You know,

939
00:53:35,640 --> 00:53:38,279
Speaker 3: you don't take our problems to the outside world. You

940
00:53:38,320 --> 00:53:42,600
Speaker 3: don't call the police. You know, people on the local level,

941
00:53:42,719 --> 00:53:47,080
Speaker 3: or people like Yogi Budgeon, three HO ministers, people who

942
00:53:47,120 --> 00:53:50,640
Speaker 3: are licensed therapists, they know, they don't go to police,

943
00:53:51,320 --> 00:53:55,080
Speaker 3: you know, you know, just well you know, send them

944
00:53:55,160 --> 00:53:59,040
Speaker 3: to India or send them away from India. It's also

945
00:53:59,040 --> 00:54:01,200
Speaker 3: important to know that there are are people who do leave.

946
00:54:02,880 --> 00:54:05,480
Speaker 3: It's easy to overlook them because you know, once you

947
00:54:05,600 --> 00:54:08,920
Speaker 3: leave the group, you no longer exist and people aren't

948
00:54:08,920 --> 00:54:11,160
Speaker 3: in contact with you. But it is important to say

949
00:54:11,200 --> 00:54:14,439
Speaker 3: there are people who leave. There are people who see

950
00:54:14,440 --> 00:54:17,400
Speaker 3: evidence of their children being abused and that's the breaking

951
00:54:17,440 --> 00:54:21,120
Speaker 3: point and they leave often, you know, at great loss

952
00:54:22,120 --> 00:54:27,320
Speaker 3: to themselves. But it's not impossible. People did did leave.

953
00:54:27,520 --> 00:54:32,279
Speaker 6: Right And another point about the kids, and this is

954
00:54:32,320 --> 00:54:36,920
Speaker 6: another kind of heartbreaking reality. You know, they were gale

955
00:54:37,080 --> 00:54:41,320
Speaker 6: to go to India. It was something that they wanted

956
00:54:41,360 --> 00:54:44,400
Speaker 6: to do, you know, without really realizing the consequences their

957
00:54:44,440 --> 00:54:47,680
Speaker 6: little kids. But it's you know, it was like this privilege.

958
00:54:47,719 --> 00:54:51,839
Speaker 6: We're going to be in the heart of Sicky, you know,

959
00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:54,040
Speaker 6: by the Golden Temple, right, and.

960
00:54:54,520 --> 00:54:56,880
Speaker 3: All your friends are going there. And there's peer pressure

961
00:54:56,920 --> 00:54:59,319
Speaker 3: on mothers. You know, when is your child going? Why

962
00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:00,799
Speaker 3: aren't they going? Uh?

963
00:55:00,960 --> 00:55:04,520
Speaker 2: I don't know how to pronounce this word, Seva. Can

964
00:55:04,560 --> 00:55:07,840
Speaker 2: you explain that was that an element in this idea

965
00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:11,279
Speaker 2: of like suffering or discomfort or anything like that?

966
00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:14,160
Speaker 3: I mean, I think you know, there's that question too,

967
00:55:14,160 --> 00:55:16,799
Speaker 3: of like, how is the three h O version of

968
00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:21,520
Speaker 3: sicky comparable to the siky that's practiced by six around

969
00:55:21,520 --> 00:55:24,239
Speaker 3: the world. I think save is one of those one

970
00:55:24,280 --> 00:55:27,880
Speaker 3: of the one of the examples of how concepts were

971
00:55:28,040 --> 00:55:32,160
Speaker 3: twisted in uni ussions version. So, you know, Seva is

972
00:55:32,640 --> 00:55:36,120
Speaker 3: traditionally thought of by seeks as selfless service, you know,

973
00:55:36,400 --> 00:55:42,720
Speaker 3: feeding the hungry, building a gudwara, helping people who need help.

974
00:55:43,239 --> 00:55:46,239
Speaker 3: In three h oh seva is working for the organization.

975
00:55:47,280 --> 00:55:49,880
Speaker 3: For most six there's a concept known as dust fund.

976
00:55:50,200 --> 00:55:54,319
Speaker 3: You donate part of your income to charity to help

977
00:55:54,320 --> 00:55:59,480
Speaker 3: build gudwaras in three hh dust fund is money that

978
00:55:59,520 --> 00:56:03,520
Speaker 3: you send to Yogi Budgeen, that you send to the organization.

979
00:56:03,680 --> 00:56:06,719
Speaker 3: So there's you know, I think that's kind of one

980
00:56:06,719 --> 00:56:09,480
Speaker 3: of the great pieces of evidence that maybe three h

981
00:56:09,520 --> 00:56:15,799
Speaker 3: O Sicki wasn't exactly sicky is instead of the traditional

982
00:56:15,880 --> 00:56:19,120
Speaker 3: center of the Sikh faith, it's Yogi Budgen. Yogi Buzgen

983
00:56:19,200 --> 00:56:22,480
Speaker 3: is naming people. Yogi Budgen is where donations go to

984
00:56:23,040 --> 00:56:26,680
Speaker 3: your service goes to Yogi Budhen. It really is kind

985
00:56:26,680 --> 00:56:31,239
Speaker 3: of a twisting of so much of Sicki to.

986
00:56:31,280 --> 00:56:34,920
Speaker 2: Him, and so that was more about like getting people

987
00:56:34,960 --> 00:56:41,120
Speaker 2: to work and give him money. I come from, you know,

988
00:56:41,160 --> 00:56:45,960
Speaker 2: my background is Mormonism, and one of the although interestingly

989
00:56:46,040 --> 00:56:48,799
Speaker 2: it's actually a Bible story that I think gets used

990
00:56:48,800 --> 00:56:51,160
Speaker 2: so much by Mormon cult leaders, which is this idea

991
00:56:51,200 --> 00:56:53,880
Speaker 2: that like, you know, if you must be willing to

992
00:56:53,920 --> 00:56:55,440
Speaker 2: sacrifice anything.

993
00:56:56,520 --> 00:56:59,680
Speaker 4: For you know, God, and including in.

994
00:56:59,640 --> 00:57:02,240
Speaker 2: You know, and it's it's the height of the abuse

995
00:57:02,280 --> 00:57:05,080
Speaker 2: of this idea, like including your own children, you know,

996
00:57:05,320 --> 00:57:08,400
Speaker 2: like Abraham and Isaac, like you. So it's like it

997
00:57:08,400 --> 00:57:13,680
Speaker 2: can get perverted into this like suffering is good at all,

998
00:57:13,719 --> 00:57:16,840
Speaker 2: that feels bad is actually good because you're you're doing

999
00:57:16,880 --> 00:57:20,720
Speaker 2: this for the Lord. Is there any any element of

1000
00:57:20,760 --> 00:57:23,280
Speaker 2: that or is that really just more sort of about

1001
00:57:23,520 --> 00:57:26,440
Speaker 2: the labor and the money.

1002
00:57:26,640 --> 00:57:28,640
Speaker 6: I would think it's more about the labor and the money.

1003
00:57:28,640 --> 00:57:32,520
Speaker 6: I mean, I think the businesses we're able to flourish

1004
00:57:33,120 --> 00:57:38,000
Speaker 6: rapidly and profitably because people were working for substandard wages.

1005
00:57:38,840 --> 00:57:42,880
Speaker 3: And there's always there's always some new Age concept that

1006
00:57:42,960 --> 00:57:46,919
Speaker 3: can be unfolded in to make sense of something. Right, right,

1007
00:57:47,720 --> 00:57:51,640
Speaker 3: you're burning off karma, like you're you know, you're cleansing

1008
00:57:51,680 --> 00:57:56,600
Speaker 3: your Yeah, I mean, fun fact Lola three h O

1009
00:57:56,840 --> 00:57:59,960
Speaker 3: and the LDS Church both corporate.

1010
00:58:00,880 --> 00:58:04,320
Speaker 4: Mmm, of course they are.

1011
00:58:13,000 --> 00:58:16,600
Speaker 1: One of the things that it's just so scary to

1012
00:58:16,640 --> 00:58:21,400
Speaker 1: me is that he really was so you guys can

1013
00:58:21,480 --> 00:58:24,680
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm morning this wrong, but almost antisocial,

1014
00:58:24,760 --> 00:58:28,320
Speaker 1: like he had no plan. The plan was not for

1015
00:58:28,360 --> 00:58:31,640
Speaker 1: this to be a generational thing, Like he wasn't educating

1016
00:58:31,640 --> 00:58:33,600
Speaker 1: these children, he wasn't taking care of them. It was

1017
00:58:33,600 --> 00:58:36,560
Speaker 1: almost just like, get as much money from their parents,

1018
00:58:36,560 --> 00:58:38,960
Speaker 1: start all these businesses, get rid of the kids, and

1019
00:58:39,000 --> 00:58:41,160
Speaker 1: they can come back and maybe start some businesses. But

1020
00:58:41,680 --> 00:58:44,040
Speaker 1: from the articles that I was reading that y'all wrote,

1021
00:58:44,080 --> 00:58:46,840
Speaker 1: it almost sounds like he was just like, well, when

1022
00:58:46,920 --> 00:58:49,200
Speaker 1: I die, who cares about what happens with this?

1023
00:58:49,960 --> 00:58:52,200
Speaker 6: I mean, yes, And now Philip and I were talking

1024
00:58:52,240 --> 00:58:58,400
Speaker 6: about this actually this morning as I was revisiting the

1025
00:58:58,480 --> 00:59:02,240
Speaker 6: serious and sub piece and some of the things we

1026
00:59:02,360 --> 00:59:06,720
Speaker 6: discussed on a podcast Philip and I did called Temple

1027
00:59:06,760 --> 00:59:10,800
Speaker 6: of Steel. I think in some ways he was learning

1028
00:59:10,840 --> 00:59:15,120
Speaker 6: along the way and was very astutent in figuring out

1029
00:59:15,200 --> 00:59:21,960
Speaker 6: how to manipulate and devise his structures to benefit him financially.

1030
00:59:23,200 --> 00:59:25,560
Speaker 6: But in other ways, as time went on, I think

1031
00:59:25,600 --> 00:59:30,560
Speaker 6: it was very directed methodical and kind of evil.

1032
00:59:31,360 --> 00:59:36,040
Speaker 3: Kind of reminds me of like like a terminator too abusive,

1033
00:59:36,720 --> 00:59:43,120
Speaker 3: of like he's abusive from the beginning, but he's very

1034
00:59:43,160 --> 00:59:46,240
Speaker 3: adept at kind of leveling up, you know. In our

1035
00:59:47,080 --> 00:59:49,520
Speaker 3: piece for Bosniws, we talked about how in the nineties

1036
00:59:50,080 --> 00:59:54,080
Speaker 3: there's like this corporatization of the corruption in THREEHO. In

1037
00:59:54,120 --> 00:59:56,600
Speaker 3: the eighties, I mean, we got to at least mention

1038
00:59:56,720 --> 00:59:58,960
Speaker 3: the crime and three HHO there are all sorts of

1039
00:59:59,000 --> 01:00:04,000
Speaker 3: criminal schemes in the a ees, you know, telemarketing, fraud, drug smuggling,

1040
01:00:04,360 --> 01:00:07,920
Speaker 3: art scams. A lot of that money was used to

1041
01:00:09,240 --> 01:00:11,480
Speaker 3: not just go to Yogi Bushen, but to like pay

1042
01:00:11,680 --> 01:00:15,880
Speaker 3: for his harem of secretaries that were around him. In

1043
01:00:15,960 --> 01:00:19,080
Speaker 3: the nineties, as the companies get bigger, he just makes

1044
01:00:19,120 --> 01:00:22,720
Speaker 3: it corporate. He realizes, like, you know, I don't have

1045
01:00:22,760 --> 01:00:26,440
Speaker 3: to have this operation where we're like cashing checks from

1046
01:00:26,680 --> 01:00:29,320
Speaker 3: fake sales and using the cash. I can just give

1047
01:00:29,360 --> 01:00:33,000
Speaker 3: them jobs. I can just put them, you know, on

1048
01:00:33,040 --> 01:00:36,200
Speaker 3: the board, give them a salary. So there's this very

1049
01:00:36,480 --> 01:00:41,880
Speaker 3: kind of frighteningly savvy predatorial mindset, and as you know

1050
01:00:41,920 --> 01:00:46,919
Speaker 3: station I discussed on our podcast, in many cases there

1051
01:00:46,960 --> 01:00:50,680
Speaker 3: is abuse that is planned out like five or ten

1052
01:00:50,760 --> 01:00:53,200
Speaker 3: years in advance. There are children who are kind of

1053
01:00:53,240 --> 01:00:57,439
Speaker 3: like singled out who are later abused by him once

1054
01:00:57,480 --> 01:01:01,960
Speaker 3: they become the legal age of consent. Isn't like someone

1055
01:01:02,000 --> 01:01:06,120
Speaker 3: who can't control their impulses. This is like someone who's

1056
01:01:06,200 --> 01:01:09,280
Speaker 3: methodically planning to of use and exploit people.

1057
01:01:09,680 --> 01:01:10,600
Speaker 4: That's terrifying.

1058
01:01:11,160 --> 01:01:15,840
Speaker 2: He was like kind of meeting with the Dalai, lama

1059
01:01:15,880 --> 01:01:19,120
Speaker 2: and popes, and like, how did he get to? What

1060
01:01:19,280 --> 01:01:21,200
Speaker 2: level of fame did he achieve?

1061
01:01:21,880 --> 01:01:24,120
Speaker 6: Well, early on, for example, there was a piece in

1062
01:01:24,160 --> 01:01:26,360
Speaker 6: Time magazine that kind of tried to call him out.

1063
01:01:27,040 --> 01:01:30,800
Speaker 6: He was very slippery. He's a bit teflon. He kind

1064
01:01:30,800 --> 01:01:34,480
Speaker 6: of just kind of floated through and particularly as a

1065
01:01:34,520 --> 01:01:40,240
Speaker 6: security company grew. You know, he had some political capital.

1066
01:01:40,880 --> 01:01:44,120
Speaker 6: He had political capital in the state of New Mexico.

1067
01:01:44,680 --> 01:01:48,800
Speaker 6: You're in Los Angeles. So, and he was known as

1068
01:01:48,840 --> 01:01:51,360
Speaker 6: the Pope of the Sikhs. He was the serious sing Zob.

1069
01:01:51,440 --> 01:01:57,440
Speaker 6: He had his own religion. So Americans who didn't know

1070
01:01:57,520 --> 01:02:02,440
Speaker 6: a lot about sick culture or sicky took it at

1071
01:02:02,600 --> 01:02:07,880
Speaker 6: base value that he was somebody who was who one

1072
01:02:08,320 --> 01:02:11,520
Speaker 6: should revere as an important religious and business leader.

1073
01:02:12,160 --> 01:02:16,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Also, SICKI is a congregational religion. It's not

1074
01:02:16,240 --> 01:02:20,520
Speaker 3: a hierarchical religion. So if you know, if I claim

1075
01:02:20,640 --> 01:02:24,680
Speaker 3: to be a Catholic bishop, you can very easily go

1076
01:02:24,800 --> 01:02:28,440
Speaker 3: to the Roman Catholic Church and check out through their hierarchy.

1077
01:02:29,920 --> 01:02:32,840
Speaker 3: You know, there isn't that kind of hierarchy in the

1078
01:02:32,880 --> 01:02:36,840
Speaker 3: sick tradition, and I think Yogi Budgen exploits that and

1079
01:02:36,920 --> 01:02:39,640
Speaker 3: the confusion that Stacey said that Americans don't really know

1080
01:02:39,680 --> 01:02:43,200
Speaker 3: who seeks are. So it probably wasn't that difficult to,

1081
01:02:43,440 --> 01:02:45,720
Speaker 3: you know, call up the Vatican and say, you know,

1082
01:02:45,960 --> 01:02:47,560
Speaker 3: we have we have the leader of the Sikhs who

1083
01:02:47,560 --> 01:02:48,760
Speaker 3: would like to meet with Pope.

1084
01:02:48,560 --> 01:02:49,240
Speaker 5: John for right.

1085
01:02:49,720 --> 01:02:52,960
Speaker 1: He's like that Leonardo DiCaprio movie where he Catch Me

1086
01:02:53,000 --> 01:02:56,200
Speaker 1: if you can. He's like, he's a con man. He's

1087
01:02:56,240 --> 01:02:57,200
Speaker 1: a con.

1088
01:02:57,400 --> 01:03:00,760
Speaker 5: Man, and he is good at it. It is wild.

1089
01:03:01,480 --> 01:03:04,640
Speaker 6: Take it till you make it, Yeah, bake it till

1090
01:03:04,680 --> 01:03:07,040
Speaker 6: you make it. But also there is you know, one

1091
01:03:07,040 --> 01:03:12,240
Speaker 6: of the other things is, you know, often people try

1092
01:03:11,840 --> 01:03:14,880
Speaker 6: to lay all the blame at the feet of Yogi Badgeon,

1093
01:03:15,080 --> 01:03:18,680
Speaker 6: but along the way there are so many people that

1094
01:03:18,760 --> 01:03:20,680
Speaker 6: are complicit and so much.

1095
01:03:20,560 --> 01:03:24,880
Speaker 1: True and you're speaking of like helping to cover things

1096
01:03:24,960 --> 01:03:25,720
Speaker 1: up or just.

1097
01:03:27,680 --> 01:03:29,640
Speaker 5: That that realm or A.

1098
01:03:29,680 --> 01:03:34,000
Speaker 3: Lot of members describe the rank and file people as

1099
01:03:34,120 --> 01:03:37,760
Speaker 3: the worker bees, you know, people who you know are

1100
01:03:37,800 --> 01:03:42,000
Speaker 3: just running like a landscaping business and sending their monthly checks.

1101
01:03:42,000 --> 01:03:47,560
Speaker 3: In surrounding him in his inner circle, you have lawyers,

1102
01:03:48,320 --> 01:03:54,520
Speaker 3: medical doctors, people who have therapist licenses. You know, one

1103
01:03:54,560 --> 01:03:57,200
Speaker 3: of his right hands is in the attorney General's office

1104
01:03:57,200 --> 01:04:00,080
Speaker 3: in the state of New Mexico. My god, So there

1105
01:04:00,080 --> 01:04:03,840
Speaker 3: are people with serious qualifications who and he also uses

1106
01:04:03,880 --> 01:04:08,160
Speaker 3: people to do like pr for him. So whenever there

1107
01:04:08,280 --> 01:04:12,640
Speaker 3: is a pushback, whenever there is a scandal, he has

1108
01:04:12,680 --> 01:04:16,520
Speaker 3: powerful people around him to protect him and to keep

1109
01:04:16,600 --> 01:04:20,120
Speaker 3: him from experiencing consequences. You know, when you go to

1110
01:04:20,200 --> 01:04:23,360
Speaker 3: newspaper accounts, there are you know, there's an immediate pushback.

1111
01:04:23,600 --> 01:04:26,200
Speaker 3: He's a religious leader. He would never do this. An

1112
01:04:26,240 --> 01:04:29,840
Speaker 3: attorney speaks on his behalf. He has a medical doctor

1113
01:04:30,320 --> 01:04:32,800
Speaker 3: to get him out of court appearances in the eighties.

1114
01:04:33,280 --> 01:04:37,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, a whole system of people upholding all of the

1115
01:04:37,760 --> 01:04:41,840
Speaker 2: bad behavior basically and including after he died. Just for

1116
01:04:41,920 --> 01:04:44,520
Speaker 2: people who don't know, Yogi T, can you tell us

1117
01:04:44,520 --> 01:04:47,800
Speaker 2: what the connection to Yogi T the company that has

1118
01:04:48,240 --> 01:04:51,800
Speaker 2: the one that I have had a lot is stomach ease,

1119
01:04:52,280 --> 01:04:54,080
Speaker 2: immune support, bedtime.

1120
01:04:54,720 --> 01:04:56,560
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I have some upstairs right now. I need

1121
01:04:56,600 --> 01:04:57,760
Speaker 5: to flush it down the toilet.

1122
01:04:58,000 --> 01:05:03,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, what is It's a little descriptive lifestyle in several boxes. Yeah,

1123
01:05:03,920 --> 01:05:04,480
Speaker 3: for everything.

1124
01:05:05,040 --> 01:05:08,920
Speaker 6: It's still it's still owned by the serious sub corporation,

1125
01:05:09,520 --> 01:05:12,280
Speaker 6: so it is still funding the cult.

1126
01:05:12,880 --> 01:05:13,600
Speaker 5: Unbelievable.

1127
01:05:13,800 --> 01:05:16,800
Speaker 2: Basically, I say that to say there were very successful

1128
01:05:16,840 --> 01:05:19,480
Speaker 2: businesses that were being kettleships to all of this.

1129
01:05:20,240 --> 01:05:23,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, kettle Chips was a person under who ended

1130
01:05:23,480 --> 01:05:27,000
Speaker 1: up leaving, but they were he was involved with kettle

1131
01:05:27,080 --> 01:05:28,280
Speaker 1: Chips for a moment.

1132
01:05:28,400 --> 01:05:28,800
Speaker 5: Correct.

1133
01:05:28,920 --> 01:05:32,120
Speaker 1: No, No, that was the one that that I can

1134
01:05:32,200 --> 01:05:33,080
Speaker 1: keep eating them.

1135
01:05:33,480 --> 01:05:37,520
Speaker 6: Yes, yes, and that has since been sold. Okay, great,

1136
01:05:38,040 --> 01:05:41,360
Speaker 6: But the owner of it created it, and he had

1137
01:05:41,480 --> 01:05:45,000
Speaker 6: learned his lessons because two of the other businesses that

1138
01:05:45,040 --> 01:05:50,520
Speaker 6: he created he gave over and he decided that he

1139
01:05:50,640 --> 01:05:51,760
Speaker 6: was going to keep this one for.

1140
01:05:51,800 --> 01:05:54,200
Speaker 5: Himself, so he gave over his other two.

1141
01:05:55,240 --> 01:05:55,400
Speaker 4: Think.

1142
01:05:55,720 --> 01:05:59,240
Speaker 3: Wow, I mean, it's really one of those amazing examples

1143
01:05:59,240 --> 01:06:05,600
Speaker 3: of OPPI I mean, you know you have students who,

1144
01:06:05,840 --> 01:06:09,160
Speaker 3: I mean, how how insanely brilliant is it when you

1145
01:06:09,200 --> 01:06:12,480
Speaker 3: can just, you know, over the course of a decade,

1146
01:06:13,360 --> 01:06:18,920
Speaker 3: build and give away one successful business after another. Oh Okay,

1147
01:06:19,000 --> 01:06:22,600
Speaker 3: I'll just do another one. Okay, I'll start a yogurt company. Okay,

1148
01:06:22,720 --> 01:06:26,640
Speaker 3: we'll do potato chips. And it shows how powerful how

1149
01:06:26,720 --> 01:06:30,360
Speaker 3: Yogi budget became so powerful. It's not through his own creativity,

1150
01:06:30,440 --> 01:06:34,560
Speaker 3: but just by stealing and pilfering the creativity of all

1151
01:06:34,600 --> 01:06:35,640
Speaker 3: these people around him.

1152
01:06:35,880 --> 01:06:36,440
Speaker 4: Wow.

1153
01:06:36,560 --> 01:06:38,680
Speaker 6: And it was also the times too. I mean, this

1154
01:06:38,840 --> 01:06:43,480
Speaker 6: was kind of the ascension of wellness culture both you know,

1155
01:06:43,560 --> 01:06:49,080
Speaker 6: the yoga industry, the food industry, so and kind of

1156
01:06:49,120 --> 01:06:51,680
Speaker 6: in typical boomer fashion, they were able to ride that

1157
01:06:51,760 --> 01:06:53,080
Speaker 6: wave and do really well.

1158
01:06:54,440 --> 01:06:56,600
Speaker 1: Well, I want to hear a little bit more about

1159
01:06:56,600 --> 01:07:00,680
Speaker 1: his secretaries and then the book that was released by

1160
01:07:00,680 --> 01:07:04,000
Speaker 1: one of them, Whitebirden a Golden Cage.

1161
01:07:04,160 --> 01:07:06,680
Speaker 6: Yeah, White Bird in a Golden Cage.

1162
01:07:06,840 --> 01:07:07,040
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1163
01:07:07,040 --> 01:07:08,680
Speaker 1: I want to hear about the secretary of that book

1164
01:07:08,720 --> 01:07:09,920
Speaker 1: and how it brought people together.

1165
01:07:10,480 --> 01:07:10,800
Speaker 3: Well.

1166
01:07:10,880 --> 01:07:14,160
Speaker 6: The book came out in January of twenty twenty decent

1167
01:07:14,240 --> 01:07:17,840
Speaker 6: late December January of twenty twenty, and it was written

1168
01:07:17,880 --> 01:07:23,360
Speaker 6: by Premka, who was a former high ranking member of

1169
01:07:23,920 --> 01:07:28,720
Speaker 6: Yogi budget's staff and of the organization, and it's this

1170
01:07:29,040 --> 01:07:33,240
Speaker 6: very readable memoir of kind of like a failed love affair.

1171
01:07:34,720 --> 01:07:40,560
Speaker 6: He is abusive to her, But I think because she

1172
01:07:40,680 --> 01:07:45,280
Speaker 6: had such standing in the community, it inspired people to

1173
01:07:45,360 --> 01:07:48,760
Speaker 6: come forward and tell their stories. But what Philip and

1174
01:07:48,800 --> 01:07:53,080
Speaker 6: I have often talked about is what she didn't include

1175
01:07:53,280 --> 01:07:57,600
Speaker 6: in the memoir. She didn't include her lawsuit in nineteen

1176
01:07:57,640 --> 01:08:04,680
Speaker 6: eighty six with another former secretary alleging alleging sexual assault, battery,

1177
01:08:05,160 --> 01:08:13,160
Speaker 6: you know, control, financial malfeasans. She didn't mention what had

1178
01:08:13,160 --> 01:08:17,920
Speaker 6: happened to the second generation. But all that said, it

1179
01:08:18,000 --> 01:08:22,439
Speaker 6: did enable a public airing and gave people permission during

1180
01:08:22,439 --> 01:08:24,440
Speaker 6: the pandemic to tell their stories.

1181
01:08:25,040 --> 01:08:29,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I mean, I've said the memoir is

1182
01:08:29,560 --> 01:08:33,000
Speaker 3: perhaps most most most important about the memoirs. What doesn't

1183
01:08:33,000 --> 01:08:36,680
Speaker 3: go in there. You know, she's, you know, the secretary

1184
01:08:36,720 --> 01:08:39,679
Speaker 3: general of three h She recounts this kind of failed

1185
01:08:39,720 --> 01:08:43,160
Speaker 3: love affair, his kind of abusive nature, but she leaves

1186
01:08:43,160 --> 01:08:47,240
Speaker 3: out the abuse of the children and the abuse of

1187
01:08:47,400 --> 01:08:52,679
Speaker 3: other secretaries, and she doesn't mention, like Stacy noted, the lawsuit,

1188
01:08:52,720 --> 01:08:56,519
Speaker 3: she doesn't mentioned that she returns to Yogi Budgeon in

1189
01:08:56,800 --> 01:09:01,400
Speaker 3: the late early nineties, that she kind of publicly recants

1190
01:09:02,439 --> 01:09:06,439
Speaker 3: the lawsuit against him. That you know, that kind of

1191
01:09:07,160 --> 01:09:12,400
Speaker 3: recanting is taken in the community in Espanola as proof that,

1192
01:09:12,520 --> 01:09:15,840
Speaker 3: you know, these women are just lying. See she she apologized,

1193
01:09:15,920 --> 01:09:20,880
Speaker 3: she's back. It's a very it's a very interesting and

1194
01:09:21,000 --> 01:09:23,880
Speaker 3: unusual memoir. In some ways, I kind of read it

1195
01:09:23,920 --> 01:09:27,240
Speaker 3: as almost like an alibi, almost like as a way

1196
01:09:27,320 --> 01:09:30,400
Speaker 3: to kind of put a certain story out there. But

1197
01:09:30,479 --> 01:09:34,479
Speaker 3: it happens right before the pandemic, when everyone's online. For

1198
01:09:35,520 --> 01:09:39,320
Speaker 3: many people still in three h O, it's her claims

1199
01:09:39,400 --> 01:09:43,679
Speaker 3: are just small enough that they can accept it, Well,

1200
01:09:43,720 --> 01:09:46,920
Speaker 3: he had a sexual relationship with this one woman. For

1201
01:09:47,080 --> 01:09:51,240
Speaker 3: other people, the second gen, people who know how horrific

1202
01:09:51,280 --> 01:09:55,800
Speaker 3: three HO actually was, this is kind of this is

1203
01:09:55,840 --> 01:09:59,320
Speaker 3: something that they push back against. Yeah, you know, we're

1204
01:09:59,360 --> 01:10:02,839
Speaker 3: not We're not going to let this scandal be about

1205
01:10:03,280 --> 01:10:07,680
Speaker 3: this one person and not about the horrific things that

1206
01:10:07,760 --> 01:10:10,960
Speaker 3: he did, all the abuse that happened to hundreds and

1207
01:10:11,160 --> 01:10:14,160
Speaker 3: hundreds of men and women who are raised in the group.

1208
01:10:14,240 --> 01:10:17,280
Speaker 3: So in some ways, it's kind of like a weird

1209
01:10:17,360 --> 01:10:21,759
Speaker 3: catalyst that inspires people to come forward, and once stories

1210
01:10:21,760 --> 01:10:26,120
Speaker 3: start coming forward, they just keep coming one right.

1211
01:10:25,960 --> 01:10:30,400
Speaker 2: After them, and they're talking about obviously there's the abuse

1212
01:10:30,400 --> 01:10:35,040
Speaker 2: that children experienced, but also sexual abuse by him by

1213
01:10:35,120 --> 01:10:35,839
Speaker 2: Yogi Budgeon.

1214
01:10:36,000 --> 01:10:36,240
Speaker 5: Right.

1215
01:10:36,360 --> 01:10:42,360
Speaker 6: Yeah, So after the memoir comes out and these stories

1216
01:10:42,400 --> 01:10:45,920
Speaker 6: come forward of abuse at the hands of Yogi Budgeon

1217
01:10:46,000 --> 01:10:51,479
Speaker 6: and the organization three Ho hires a third party to

1218
01:10:51,640 --> 01:10:58,240
Speaker 6: do an investigation and they produce something. They produce a report.

1219
01:10:58,280 --> 01:11:00,679
Speaker 6: The organization is called an Olive brand, so it's known

1220
01:11:00,720 --> 01:11:05,920
Speaker 6: as the Enoli Branch Report, and it documents dozens of

1221
01:11:06,000 --> 01:11:13,439
Speaker 6: women who claim sexual abuse, battery, rate assault, all at

1222
01:11:13,439 --> 01:11:16,760
Speaker 6: the hands of Yoga Budget. But the thing that's unusual

1223
01:11:16,800 --> 01:11:21,439
Speaker 6: about this document is not only does it catalog the abuse,

1224
01:11:21,680 --> 01:11:28,200
Speaker 6: it also catalogs defense by his supporters, and they use

1225
01:11:28,400 --> 01:11:32,120
Speaker 6: very interesting language. They say he was like Christ or

1226
01:11:32,120 --> 01:11:35,880
Speaker 6: the Buddha. He couldn't possibly do these things. So they

1227
01:11:36,080 --> 01:11:40,280
Speaker 6: use his kind of divine place in their life as

1228
01:11:40,560 --> 01:11:44,160
Speaker 6: a defense against the fact that this could not possibly happen.

1229
01:11:46,080 --> 01:11:51,559
Speaker 3: And there's a great undercurrent of just good old boomer

1230
01:11:51,600 --> 01:11:55,880
Speaker 3: mail excuse him. You know, well, these women probably enjoyed it.

1231
01:11:56,000 --> 01:11:58,320
Speaker 3: They're making up these lies so that they can make.

1232
01:11:58,280 --> 01:12:02,639
Speaker 6: Money, and they threw that back in panel in space too,

1233
01:12:02,760 --> 01:12:08,000
Speaker 6: because you know, she did file a lawsuit. It was

1234
01:12:08,040 --> 01:12:11,519
Speaker 6: not successful in that she had to settle. She did

1235
01:12:11,600 --> 01:12:15,640
Speaker 6: receive money, but from what we understand, it was not

1236
01:12:15,760 --> 01:12:19,320
Speaker 6: a lot of money. And so you know, their thinking

1237
01:12:19,600 --> 01:12:22,360
Speaker 6: was the double downers, the ones that are still supporting

1238
01:12:22,439 --> 01:12:25,720
Speaker 6: yoga budget and the organization was that, you know, this

1239
01:12:25,880 --> 01:12:28,280
Speaker 6: was all just another ruse to get more money and

1240
01:12:28,360 --> 01:12:29,440
Speaker 6: more attention.

1241
01:12:30,240 --> 01:12:33,040
Speaker 3: Right and yeah, and it's it's sobering to think, you know,

1242
01:12:33,280 --> 01:12:35,519
Speaker 3: when we're talking about Male of Branch, it's sobering to

1243
01:12:35,520 --> 01:12:39,120
Speaker 3: think that like that can be your niche as a business.

1244
01:12:39,439 --> 01:12:44,360
Speaker 3: We only specialize in damage control for religious organizations as

1245
01:12:44,360 --> 01:12:46,400
Speaker 3: they go through revelations of abuse.

1246
01:12:47,200 --> 01:12:48,719
Speaker 4: That's crazy that that exists.

1247
01:12:49,120 --> 01:12:51,760
Speaker 3: And it's it's interesting because it uses all this kind

1248
01:12:51,840 --> 01:12:55,920
Speaker 3: of like feel good new age social justice language, but

1249
01:12:55,960 --> 01:12:58,040
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, it's damage control. They

1250
01:12:58,280 --> 01:13:01,120
Speaker 3: explicitly state on their way web site we are here

1251
01:13:01,240 --> 01:13:06,080
Speaker 3: to lead organizations through points of crisis and keep them intact.

1252
01:13:06,479 --> 01:13:09,920
Speaker 4: What's the name of it again, an Olive Branch, An

1253
01:13:09,960 --> 01:13:10,839
Speaker 4: Olive Branch.

1254
01:13:11,200 --> 01:13:13,479
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's based out of Philadelphia, and I believe it's

1255
01:13:13,479 --> 01:13:15,920
Speaker 6: a Buddhist based organization.

1256
01:13:16,080 --> 01:13:20,719
Speaker 3: Wild wild and then that leads to the reparations program,

1257
01:13:20,800 --> 01:13:25,519
Speaker 3: which is kind of the follow up third the follow

1258
01:13:25,600 --> 01:13:31,120
Speaker 3: up kind of organizationally led bit of damage control done

1259
01:13:31,160 --> 01:13:35,000
Speaker 3: by three HO. So after the Olive Branch report comes

1260
01:13:35,040 --> 01:13:38,880
Speaker 3: out and you know, they're further revelations, so yeah, three

1261
01:13:39,040 --> 01:13:43,360
Speaker 3: HO institutes what they call a healing and reparations program

1262
01:13:43,640 --> 01:13:49,680
Speaker 3: and this ends up being, as a lawyer described to us,

1263
01:13:49,720 --> 01:13:54,000
Speaker 3: a bait and switch. So with all of these this

1264
01:13:54,120 --> 01:13:57,360
Speaker 3: kind of flowery language and these promises, three HO launches

1265
01:13:57,400 --> 01:13:59,000
Speaker 3: this program where they say, you know, we're going to

1266
01:13:59,080 --> 01:14:02,800
Speaker 3: heal the community. We're to provide reparations for people who

1267
01:14:02,800 --> 01:14:07,800
Speaker 3: are harmed by three HO, harmed in three HO institutions

1268
01:14:08,720 --> 01:14:12,960
Speaker 3: by Yogi Buzzhen, and it promises to be a trauma

1269
01:14:13,000 --> 01:14:17,880
Speaker 3: informed process. There is a lot of lip service that's

1270
01:14:17,920 --> 01:14:22,960
Speaker 3: given to not just monetary reparations financial settlements, but also

1271
01:14:23,120 --> 01:14:28,040
Speaker 3: non monetary reparations, ranging from you know, apologies, returning of items,

1272
01:14:28,960 --> 01:14:31,320
Speaker 3: institutional safeguarding.

1273
01:14:31,160 --> 01:14:37,439
Speaker 2: Really really reasonable baseline requests, yes, karmic apologies. Yeah.

1274
01:14:37,760 --> 01:14:39,440
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's so bizarre.

1275
01:14:39,680 --> 01:14:45,120
Speaker 3: One would think, But in time, the reparations program turns

1276
01:14:45,160 --> 01:14:48,599
Speaker 3: out to be something very different.

1277
01:14:48,760 --> 01:14:51,120
Speaker 6: Another thing to note about the reparations program. You know,

1278
01:14:51,120 --> 01:14:53,680
Speaker 6: we're talking about an organization that, as far as we know,

1279
01:14:53,880 --> 01:14:58,519
Speaker 6: is pretty financially solvent. And part of the stipulation was

1280
01:14:58,560 --> 01:15:01,080
Speaker 6: to be that there would be no apps on the

1281
01:15:01,160 --> 01:15:07,400
Speaker 6: amount of claims paid out, that there was a group

1282
01:15:07,439 --> 01:15:12,879
Speaker 6: of independent experts to assess what one might get, who,

1283
01:15:13,040 --> 01:15:16,800
Speaker 6: by the way, were hired by the organization's lawyers. And

1284
01:15:16,840 --> 01:15:19,160
Speaker 6: then when it came down to it, it became very

1285
01:15:19,160 --> 01:15:22,439
Speaker 6: clear that there was a finite amount of money and

1286
01:15:22,479 --> 01:15:25,360
Speaker 6: they had you know, allocated enough money for maybe one

1287
01:15:25,439 --> 01:15:28,519
Speaker 6: hundred claims, and they ended up getting six hundred. So

1288
01:15:28,640 --> 01:15:32,360
Speaker 6: people walked away not only going through a very traumatizing

1289
01:15:32,439 --> 01:15:39,640
Speaker 6: process that gave little satisfaction emotionally, but it was financially

1290
01:15:39,800 --> 01:15:43,600
Speaker 6: not very rewarding either for people who sometimes had no

1291
01:15:43,640 --> 01:15:47,320
Speaker 6: opportunity to go to college, you know, pursue.

1292
01:15:47,000 --> 01:15:51,960
Speaker 2: Careers because their lives were completely given to this.

1293
01:15:52,520 --> 01:15:52,720
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1294
01:15:53,320 --> 01:15:55,639
Speaker 3: I think the most important thing about the reparations program

1295
01:15:55,880 --> 01:16:00,439
Speaker 3: is the condition to receiving a financial settlement is you

1296
01:16:00,479 --> 01:16:04,040
Speaker 3: had to sign away your ability to sue the organization

1297
01:16:04,120 --> 01:16:08,240
Speaker 3: in the future. Gross, right, And some of these payouts

1298
01:16:08,280 --> 01:16:11,599
Speaker 3: are incredibly small, you know, and.

1299
01:16:11,600 --> 01:16:15,160
Speaker 2: Even aside from the money because like whatever, that sounds

1300
01:16:15,200 --> 01:16:19,360
Speaker 2: like it's probably it was probably complicated in whatever. But

1301
01:16:19,520 --> 01:16:22,360
Speaker 2: the fact that there were also these non monetary requests

1302
01:16:22,400 --> 01:16:26,320
Speaker 2: that were not honored is like, then, what what are

1303
01:16:26,360 --> 01:16:26,720
Speaker 2: you for?

1304
01:16:26,920 --> 01:16:28,200
Speaker 4: What are you actually doing?

1305
01:16:28,800 --> 01:16:32,800
Speaker 3: The big winner in the reparations program, by far is

1306
01:16:32,840 --> 01:16:37,280
Speaker 3: the organization itself. You know, a lot of people were

1307
01:16:37,960 --> 01:16:41,920
Speaker 3: re traumatized and abused and let down, but the organization

1308
01:16:42,040 --> 01:16:45,400
Speaker 3: came out of this process as like clear winners. So

1309
01:16:46,200 --> 01:16:49,720
Speaker 3: you know, if you have a pool of as we

1310
01:16:49,760 --> 01:16:52,120
Speaker 3: saw from the claims, you have a pool of six

1311
01:16:52,200 --> 01:16:57,240
Speaker 3: hundred probably more people who could sue the organization, and

1312
01:16:57,280 --> 01:17:00,200
Speaker 3: we've seen in various states when they rolled back their

1313
01:17:00,240 --> 01:17:04,479
Speaker 3: statutes of limitation, those lawsuits could happen. You take this

1314
01:17:04,680 --> 01:17:08,920
Speaker 3: number and for a very relatively small amount of money,

1315
01:17:09,120 --> 01:17:10,720
Speaker 3: I think was like at the end of the day,

1316
01:17:10,840 --> 01:17:14,200
Speaker 3: was what twenty seven million something like that, you get

1317
01:17:14,400 --> 01:17:16,920
Speaker 3: the vast majority of these people to sign away their

1318
01:17:17,520 --> 01:17:19,680
Speaker 3: right to sue in the future. You don't have a

1319
01:17:19,760 --> 01:17:23,479
Speaker 3: day in court. No one's compelled to give testimony in

1320
01:17:23,520 --> 01:17:27,799
Speaker 3: a stand. There's no you know, compulsion to like give evidence.

1321
01:17:28,240 --> 01:17:33,360
Speaker 3: Everything stays secret. That's six hundred people is whittled down,

1322
01:17:33,680 --> 01:17:36,639
Speaker 3: and then you have people who didn't sign sign away

1323
01:17:36,640 --> 01:17:39,960
Speaker 3: their right to sue. They're exhausted, they never want to

1324
01:17:40,000 --> 01:17:44,360
Speaker 3: go through it again. You've effectively gone past that moment

1325
01:17:44,360 --> 01:17:48,120
Speaker 3: of crisis. You know, for a relatively small amount of money.

1326
01:17:48,520 --> 01:17:50,720
Speaker 2: You're not bankrupt compared to how much money they're making,

1327
01:17:50,760 --> 01:17:52,680
Speaker 2: you mean, because that's very successful.

1328
01:17:53,600 --> 01:17:55,360
Speaker 4: The ventures are very successful.

1329
01:17:55,080 --> 01:17:59,040
Speaker 3: And according to who to some recent lawsuits, they didn't

1330
01:17:59,040 --> 01:18:01,479
Speaker 3: even want to pay that. They tried to pass it

1331
01:18:01,520 --> 01:18:04,600
Speaker 3: off through an insurance company.

1332
01:18:04,760 --> 01:18:09,000
Speaker 6: There are what is it five or six individuals. One

1333
01:18:09,080 --> 01:18:12,760
Speaker 6: isot filing a suit on her own that has been

1334
01:18:12,800 --> 01:18:17,360
Speaker 6: going on for many years now, since twenty twenty, and

1335
01:18:18,439 --> 01:18:23,519
Speaker 6: just after reparations, four women file lawsuits, all former staff

1336
01:18:23,560 --> 01:18:28,120
Speaker 6: members of Yogi Budget and those cases are currently making

1337
01:18:28,120 --> 01:18:31,360
Speaker 6: their way through the Elat County court system.

1338
01:18:31,720 --> 01:18:36,040
Speaker 3: And there's also the insurance company, So three HO changed

1339
01:18:36,040 --> 01:18:41,360
Speaker 3: their insurance policy in December of twenty nineteen, and conveniently

1340
01:18:41,439 --> 01:18:43,880
Speaker 3: forgot to tick the box of you know, are you

1341
01:18:43,960 --> 01:18:48,320
Speaker 3: aware of any previous you know, major sexual harassment reviews? Wow,

1342
01:18:48,680 --> 01:18:51,920
Speaker 3: And that was right in advance of the memoir coming out.

1343
01:18:52,160 --> 01:18:56,040
Speaker 3: And then when they tried to get the insurance company

1344
01:18:56,439 --> 01:19:00,000
Speaker 3: to pay the bill for reparations. Then the insurance company

1345
01:19:00,040 --> 01:19:02,920
Speaker 3: push back, and so that's another lawsuit that's going. But

1346
01:19:03,479 --> 01:19:06,960
Speaker 3: you know, it really is kind of the insult to injury.

1347
01:19:07,120 --> 01:19:10,280
Speaker 3: You know, you have this organization, you have this group

1348
01:19:10,320 --> 01:19:13,280
Speaker 3: of first generation members. You know, maybe many of them

1349
01:19:13,479 --> 01:19:16,720
Speaker 3: wanted to do right by their children and their community,

1350
01:19:16,880 --> 01:19:19,960
Speaker 3: but you know they didn't. There wasn't any kind of

1351
01:19:19,960 --> 01:19:23,120
Speaker 3: truth and reconciliation. There was no kind of public fact

1352
01:19:23,120 --> 01:19:27,400
Speaker 3: finding report. There was no real compensation or making whole

1353
01:19:27,760 --> 01:19:30,120
Speaker 3: of children who suffered horrific abuse.

1354
01:19:30,600 --> 01:19:32,760
Speaker 2: They did a bad job, and they obviously were just

1355
01:19:32,800 --> 01:19:33,840
Speaker 2: trying to cover their asses.

1356
01:19:33,920 --> 01:19:35,679
Speaker 4: But many organizations don't.

1357
01:19:35,520 --> 01:19:37,760
Speaker 2: Even get that far, you know what I mean, Like

1358
01:19:37,920 --> 01:19:43,439
Speaker 2: most cults, most people are getting no acknowledgement and no money.

1359
01:19:43,960 --> 01:19:45,960
Speaker 2: It would be so great if so if more of

1360
01:19:46,000 --> 01:19:52,200
Speaker 2: these organizations would have some kind of reparations program that

1361
01:19:52,280 --> 01:19:55,880
Speaker 2: actually was successful and that actually you know, went on

1362
01:19:56,000 --> 01:19:59,880
Speaker 2: fact finding missions from objective parties and like a co

1363
01:20:00,000 --> 01:20:03,320
Speaker 2: dominated requests for change. I mean, because yeah, like a lot,

1364
01:20:03,520 --> 01:20:06,519
Speaker 2: there are so many organizations like this that still exist,

1365
01:20:06,720 --> 01:20:10,599
Speaker 2: and they're not going to just immediately dissolve when they're there.

1366
01:20:10,520 --> 01:20:14,280
Speaker 2: These like widespread networks of people in communities. So how

1367
01:20:14,320 --> 01:20:17,519
Speaker 2: do you then what do you then do when when

1368
01:20:17,760 --> 01:20:20,280
Speaker 2: it comes out that there has been widespread abuse? You know,

1369
01:20:20,360 --> 01:20:22,720
Speaker 2: and it sounds like if they had done what they

1370
01:20:22,760 --> 01:20:25,799
Speaker 2: were marketing themselves as doing. I always use the word marketing,

1371
01:20:26,080 --> 01:20:28,679
Speaker 2: I need a better word, but that they're presenting themselves

1372
01:20:28,720 --> 01:20:30,799
Speaker 2: as doing. Do you think that that would have helped

1373
01:20:31,120 --> 01:20:32,920
Speaker 2: ameliorate some of that harm?

1374
01:20:33,040 --> 01:20:35,080
Speaker 4: Like, would that be a thing that would be good

1375
01:20:35,080 --> 01:20:38,200
Speaker 4: for cults who used to be abusive to do?

1376
01:20:38,600 --> 01:20:38,880
Speaker 3: Yes?

1377
01:20:39,040 --> 01:20:41,680
Speaker 6: I think if they did do the right thing and

1378
01:20:42,160 --> 01:20:46,280
Speaker 6: did do what they said they intended to do, I

1379
01:20:46,320 --> 01:20:48,640
Speaker 6: think it would it would make a huge difference. It

1380
01:20:48,640 --> 01:20:52,000
Speaker 6: would have made a huge difference, particularly among for those

1381
01:20:52,000 --> 01:20:55,679
Speaker 6: born into three HHO who just wanted some acknowledgment and

1382
01:20:56,360 --> 01:21:02,080
Speaker 6: from their parents' generation that they were harmed. And yes,

1383
01:21:03,040 --> 01:21:08,479
Speaker 6: we are acknowledging it. We're being accountable. You know, we

1384
01:21:08,560 --> 01:21:13,400
Speaker 6: will go to law enforcement, we will do the mandatory reporting. Right,

1385
01:21:13,760 --> 01:21:15,800
Speaker 6: but none of that happened.

1386
01:21:15,560 --> 01:21:18,360
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, And ins said it's it's is the opposite.

1387
01:21:18,439 --> 01:21:20,559
Speaker 3: You know, they are they are still as you know.

1388
01:21:20,720 --> 01:21:23,240
Speaker 3: One of our sources told to Stacey in an interview

1389
01:21:23,320 --> 01:21:27,040
Speaker 3: that we mentioned in one of our pieces, they're still

1390
01:21:27,080 --> 01:21:32,080
Speaker 3: protecting abusers of children. They're still covering stuff up. It's

1391
01:21:32,120 --> 01:21:34,600
Speaker 3: it's assaushing and I think that's I think that's I

1392
01:21:34,600 --> 01:21:38,920
Speaker 3: think the reason why organizations like three HHO do their

1393
01:21:38,960 --> 01:21:43,679
Speaker 3: best to play defense and ignore and suppress and get

1394
01:21:43,680 --> 01:21:46,760
Speaker 3: out of avoid court is when you look at what

1395
01:21:46,880 --> 01:21:50,080
Speaker 3: actually happened in three hhow you can't like any organization

1396
01:21:50,160 --> 01:21:53,240
Speaker 3: when you see the abuse clearly, you can't see the

1397
01:21:53,320 --> 01:21:56,800
Speaker 3: organization in the same way. Again, you can't you can't

1398
01:21:56,840 --> 01:22:00,559
Speaker 3: buy into the ideas that they put forward when you

1399
01:22:00,640 --> 01:22:03,160
Speaker 3: when you know in detail what Yogi Budgeon did to women,

1400
01:22:03,600 --> 01:22:06,760
Speaker 3: when you know what happened at the boarding schools, when

1401
01:22:06,800 --> 01:22:11,760
Speaker 3: you know how senior three HO leaders and doctors and

1402
01:22:11,800 --> 01:22:15,080
Speaker 3: therapists what they did when they found out about people

1403
01:22:15,120 --> 01:22:16,320
Speaker 3: of using children.

1404
01:22:16,200 --> 01:22:18,320
Speaker 2: Which brings me to my next question, which is how

1405
01:22:18,360 --> 01:22:21,120
Speaker 2: do you both I mean, you know three h O

1406
01:22:21,280 --> 01:22:26,800
Speaker 2: obviously abusive, like the abuse of history, sounds like it's

1407
01:22:27,160 --> 01:22:29,519
Speaker 2: too much for you to respect the organization at all anymore,

1408
01:22:29,520 --> 01:22:32,400
Speaker 2: which makes total sense. What about just like a Kundalini

1409
01:22:32,479 --> 01:22:35,439
Speaker 2: yoga class, like, how do you guys view this culture?

1410
01:22:36,000 --> 01:22:36,280
Speaker 4: Now?

1411
01:22:37,000 --> 01:22:40,679
Speaker 6: I think that that's going to be my next comment

1412
01:22:40,920 --> 01:22:45,160
Speaker 6: that you know, I look at social media and see

1413
01:22:45,520 --> 01:22:50,080
Speaker 6: the proliferation of Kundulini yoga, whether it purports itself to

1414
01:22:50,120 --> 01:22:54,120
Speaker 6: be Kundalini yoga as taught by Yogi Budgeon or something else,

1415
01:22:54,640 --> 01:23:00,439
Speaker 6: but it is Kundalini yoga and it makes me really upset. Yeah,

1416
01:23:00,760 --> 01:23:06,240
Speaker 6: it's kind of constant churn, and it's also international.

1417
01:23:06,360 --> 01:23:09,479
Speaker 3: At this point, it really says a lot I think

1418
01:23:09,560 --> 01:23:13,720
Speaker 3: about New Age culture and the yoga world that you know,

1419
01:23:13,760 --> 01:23:17,840
Speaker 3: when we think about disgrace celebrities, people that we know

1420
01:23:19,000 --> 01:23:24,240
Speaker 3: abused a sexually assaulted women, Like, no one is playing

1421
01:23:24,360 --> 01:23:26,559
Speaker 3: r Kelly at the party anymore. No one is going

1422
01:23:26,640 --> 01:23:29,760
Speaker 3: to say yeah, but you know, Harvey Weinstein, can you

1423
01:23:29,800 --> 01:23:32,519
Speaker 3: produce some great movies? Can we talk about that? No,

1424
01:23:33,000 --> 01:23:37,160
Speaker 3: we can't. But somehow in the yoga world, there are

1425
01:23:37,360 --> 01:23:43,400
Speaker 3: so many excuses where people still feel comfortable justifying the

1426
01:23:43,439 --> 01:23:45,120
Speaker 3: made up yoga of a serial rapist.

1427
01:23:45,200 --> 01:23:48,200
Speaker 2: It's like separating are from the artists, but separating yoga

1428
01:23:48,280 --> 01:23:49,000
Speaker 2: from the yogi.

1429
01:23:49,560 --> 01:23:53,280
Speaker 1: And I think that's really my last question is did

1430
01:23:53,320 --> 01:23:56,080
Speaker 1: he make most of this completely up?

1431
01:23:56,880 --> 01:23:57,000
Speaker 6: Like?

1432
01:23:57,160 --> 01:23:58,879
Speaker 5: Is this mostly bullshit?

1433
01:23:59,840 --> 01:24:03,559
Speaker 6: I mean all yoga. Let's just talk about modern yoga

1434
01:24:03,640 --> 01:24:08,559
Speaker 6: in general. Is and Philip uses this word in his

1435
01:24:09,040 --> 01:24:12,120
Speaker 6: paper that he published in twenty twelve, is a break

1436
01:24:12,160 --> 01:24:18,280
Speaker 6: olage of different things. It's calisthenics, it's you know, martial arts.

1437
01:24:17,840 --> 01:24:25,640
Speaker 6: It does have some kernel too, perhaps ancient Hindu postures,

1438
01:24:26,040 --> 01:24:29,080
Speaker 6: but in general, it's all kind of made up, right.

1439
01:24:29,560 --> 01:24:32,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, But it's also it's also not to not to

1440
01:24:32,760 --> 01:24:34,840
Speaker 3: let it off the hook, because that's the thing of

1441
01:24:34,960 --> 01:24:38,720
Speaker 3: Like when Yogi Bushen taught it, he didn't say I'm

1442
01:24:38,720 --> 01:24:41,280
Speaker 3: making this up. He didn't say like I dabbled and

1443
01:24:41,360 --> 01:24:44,519
Speaker 3: I'm taking taking the best of different things. He made

1444
01:24:44,640 --> 01:24:47,920
Speaker 3: very specific claims. And it's we see that with so

1445
01:24:48,000 --> 01:24:50,840
Speaker 3: many yoga teachers now and people in the organization now,

1446
01:24:51,600 --> 01:24:56,679
Speaker 3: they're in hindsight, they're conveniently changing how they view things

1447
01:24:56,760 --> 01:25:04,720
Speaker 3: or changing the past. Few people took accountability. It's now,

1448
01:25:04,800 --> 01:25:06,880
Speaker 3: it's now. It's well, you know, I was never really

1449
01:25:06,880 --> 01:25:08,840
Speaker 3: a follower of him. I was always kind of doing

1450
01:25:08,880 --> 01:25:09,679
Speaker 3: my own thing.

1451
01:25:11,200 --> 01:25:14,800
Speaker 5: Just like him. Yeah yeah, wow.

1452
01:25:14,520 --> 01:25:17,479
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean they're you kind of make a

1453
01:25:18,080 --> 01:25:20,439
Speaker 3: You make a great point, Megan, It's it's not that

1454
01:25:20,560 --> 01:25:25,479
Speaker 3: dissimilar from Yogi budge and changing his lineage, covering things up,

1455
01:25:25,640 --> 01:25:28,640
Speaker 3: changing things in hindsight to to look at a lot

1456
01:25:28,680 --> 01:25:32,759
Speaker 3: of the Kundalini yoga teachers today who you know will pivot,

1457
01:25:32,800 --> 01:25:36,120
Speaker 3: will reinvent themselves, will change the past in order to

1458
01:25:36,240 --> 01:25:41,360
Speaker 3: keep selling teacher trainings and and retreats. Damn, my favorite

1459
01:25:41,439 --> 01:25:48,080
Speaker 3: is Kundalini without the cult ha or trauma informed Kundalini yoga,

1460
01:25:48,120 --> 01:25:49,200
Speaker 3: which is out there.

1461
01:25:49,400 --> 01:25:51,880
Speaker 2: I mean, it's like you said earlier, like there's going

1462
01:25:51,960 --> 01:25:56,680
Speaker 2: to be benefits of physical movements, and like I can

1463
01:25:56,720 --> 01:26:00,920
Speaker 2: see how yeah, like cold, I can see how it

1464
01:26:00,960 --> 01:26:03,719
Speaker 2: would be easy to if you've had like your peak

1465
01:26:03,760 --> 01:26:05,080
Speaker 2: experiences doing that thing.

1466
01:26:05,080 --> 01:26:07,240
Speaker 4: You're like, but but it was good for me, so

1467
01:26:07,240 --> 01:26:09,000
Speaker 4: so there must be something. It must be.

1468
01:26:09,320 --> 01:26:10,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, And if you take.

1469
01:26:10,200 --> 01:26:13,040
Speaker 1: An hour out of your day to focus on yourself

1470
01:26:13,040 --> 01:26:15,680
Speaker 1: and your intentions, you're probably going to grow them.

1471
01:26:15,760 --> 01:26:18,559
Speaker 5: Like and it does seem like something magical happened.

1472
01:26:18,760 --> 01:26:20,599
Speaker 6: The key phrase there, it's good for me.

1473
01:26:21,880 --> 01:26:25,400
Speaker 4: Right right right, right right totally and.

1474
01:26:26,040 --> 01:26:30,320
Speaker 3: In the world. It's really the world. You know, me,

1475
01:26:30,640 --> 01:26:34,559
Speaker 3: me is king, Me is king and queen. Yes, you

1476
01:26:34,600 --> 01:26:37,080
Speaker 3: know it, you know, however much you dress it up

1477
01:26:37,080 --> 01:26:41,360
Speaker 3: in language of like growth and evolution, and like the

1478
01:26:41,479 --> 01:26:44,120
Speaker 3: cosmos and the world and the planet. At the end

1479
01:26:44,160 --> 01:26:47,240
Speaker 3: of the day, for so many of them, it's what

1480
01:26:47,360 --> 01:26:48,000
Speaker 3: I get out.

1481
01:26:47,840 --> 01:26:50,600
Speaker 5: Of it, what I want, absolutely, you know what.

1482
01:26:51,920 --> 01:26:55,959
Speaker 6: I have a certain amount of empathy for first generation

1483
01:26:57,280 --> 01:26:59,960
Speaker 6: members who may be in their you know, late sixties,

1484
01:27:00,040 --> 01:27:02,519
Speaker 6: early seventies. You know, this is all they've ever known.

1485
01:27:03,280 --> 01:27:07,599
Speaker 6: They really committed all in, right, But when I see

1486
01:27:07,720 --> 01:27:14,920
Speaker 6: younger Kundalini teachers, you know, who could easily pivot, do

1487
01:27:15,000 --> 01:27:18,080
Speaker 6: a different school, find a different way forward, but they

1488
01:27:18,560 --> 01:27:24,680
Speaker 6: just can't see that, you know, they're they're continuing to

1489
01:27:24,800 --> 01:27:28,080
Speaker 6: prop up a corrupt, abusive institution.

1490
01:27:28,520 --> 01:27:28,920
Speaker 5: Yeah.

1491
01:27:29,320 --> 01:27:32,559
Speaker 4: Wow, Well, thank you both so much for joining us.

1492
01:27:32,840 --> 01:27:37,960
Speaker 2: Is there a particular article or website or project you'd

1493
01:27:37,960 --> 01:27:39,200
Speaker 2: like to direct people towards.

1494
01:27:39,840 --> 01:27:45,800
Speaker 6: I think to our unofficial Companion podcast, to the Breath

1495
01:27:45,840 --> 01:27:46,960
Speaker 6: of Fire documentary.

1496
01:27:47,240 --> 01:27:50,400
Speaker 3: It's a couple of steel, but the steel is spelled

1497
01:27:50,600 --> 01:27:53,320
Speaker 3: st e A L. Nice because.

1498
01:27:54,960 --> 01:27:59,640
Speaker 2: Amazing, amazing, all right, Well, big thanks to them for

1499
01:27:59,680 --> 01:28:03,280
Speaker 2: coming on and giving us so much interesting information. I

1500
01:28:03,320 --> 01:28:06,240
Speaker 2: was saying to them when we stopped recording that I feel,

1501
01:28:06,280 --> 01:28:11,640
Speaker 2: like so many cultural institutions and phenomenon and like organizations

1502
01:28:11,640 --> 01:28:15,000
Speaker 2: and people that we love as a society so much

1503
01:28:15,040 --> 01:28:17,200
Speaker 2: at the time, when you look at the origins or

1504
01:28:17,400 --> 01:28:20,839
Speaker 2: the history, it's like, ah, why that too.

1505
01:28:21,400 --> 01:28:22,040
Speaker 4: Them too.

1506
01:28:23,840 --> 01:28:27,040
Speaker 2: Too cynical this podcast I was already cynical person. This

1507
01:28:27,120 --> 01:28:32,080
Speaker 2: podcast has made me one hundred times more cynical. Megan,

1508
01:28:32,560 --> 01:28:35,360
Speaker 2: I want to I want to revisit our old format here.

1509
01:28:35,439 --> 01:28:37,680
Speaker 2: I want to ask you do you think that you

1510
01:28:38,600 --> 01:28:40,519
Speaker 2: would join three h.

1511
01:28:40,560 --> 01:28:45,720
Speaker 1: O Absolutely and the way that Kundalini was presented to

1512
01:28:45,760 --> 01:28:47,080
Speaker 1: me out here.

1513
01:28:48,720 --> 01:28:50,800
Speaker 5: I think I mentioned in the episode, you know, like.

1514
01:28:50,720 --> 01:28:54,480
Speaker 1: When it was Russell Brand was not a canceled psychopath

1515
01:28:54,479 --> 01:28:56,960
Speaker 1: at that point. He was just like kind of I

1516
01:28:57,040 --> 01:28:59,720
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know what you would call him.

1517
01:29:00,200 --> 01:29:03,679
Speaker 5: So it was, it was in the zeitgeist. It was cool.

1518
01:29:04,000 --> 01:29:06,519
Speaker 1: I wanted to not party as much. I wanted to

1519
01:29:06,520 --> 01:29:09,000
Speaker 1: get high on my own breath. There was a studio

1520
01:29:09,120 --> 01:29:11,280
Speaker 1: right by my house. My roommate, who was one of

1521
01:29:11,320 --> 01:29:14,800
Speaker 1: my best friends, went every single day, and I felt

1522
01:29:14,800 --> 01:29:19,080
Speaker 1: really guilty for not going as much as she did.

1523
01:29:19,000 --> 01:29:20,000
Speaker 5: Or not at all.

1524
01:29:20,280 --> 01:29:23,960
Speaker 1: And that's just another case of my type B personality

1525
01:29:24,120 --> 01:29:30,160
Speaker 1: saving me so much money and time and energy from

1526
01:29:30,560 --> 01:29:33,880
Speaker 1: these cycles of what turned out to be very high

1527
01:29:33,960 --> 01:29:35,280
Speaker 1: control groups.

1528
01:29:35,560 --> 01:29:36,719
Speaker 4: Do you know anyone who.

1529
01:29:36,560 --> 01:29:39,920
Speaker 2: Got who engaged with it more, got deeper into it

1530
01:29:39,960 --> 01:29:41,440
Speaker 2: than just like going to the classes?

1531
01:29:41,760 --> 01:29:44,400
Speaker 5: Yeah, I know several people who became teachers.

1532
01:29:44,400 --> 01:29:46,560
Speaker 4: Did they like, were they in a live in community

1533
01:29:46,640 --> 01:29:47,719
Speaker 4: of any kind or they.

1534
01:29:47,720 --> 01:29:51,719
Speaker 1: Nobody was living But yeah, yeah, teacher training was very

1535
01:29:52,240 --> 01:29:54,400
Speaker 1: pushed down your throat. And there was a woman named

1536
01:29:54,439 --> 01:29:58,240
Speaker 1: Gabby Bernstein that anyone in the girly new Age community

1537
01:29:58,360 --> 01:29:59,320
Speaker 1: is very familiar with.

1538
01:30:00,360 --> 01:30:00,960
Speaker 4: She got it.

1539
01:30:01,320 --> 01:30:04,400
Speaker 5: I'm very curious on what her stance is now.

1540
01:30:05,800 --> 01:30:08,439
Speaker 1: Because with all of this coming to light, But the

1541
01:30:08,479 --> 01:30:11,200
Speaker 1: way that they put it makes it sound like it's

1542
01:30:11,439 --> 01:30:14,320
Speaker 1: not canceled. You know, people are still doing it. I

1543
01:30:14,320 --> 01:30:17,639
Speaker 1: don't think people are as outfacing about it anymore.

1544
01:30:17,720 --> 01:30:20,559
Speaker 5: But it doesn't sound I mean, it sounds like.

1545
01:30:20,560 --> 01:30:23,000
Speaker 1: I hate go take a Kundalini class right down the

1546
01:30:23,040 --> 01:30:24,559
Speaker 1: street in any different direction.

1547
01:30:25,120 --> 01:30:27,400
Speaker 2: I mean, And it does raise an interesting question because like,

1548
01:30:27,439 --> 01:30:32,360
Speaker 2: obviously the history and the organization are there is this

1549
01:30:32,520 --> 01:30:35,960
Speaker 2: extremely harmful history, but like is doing a series of

1550
01:30:36,040 --> 01:30:39,320
Speaker 2: movements like right, what's wrong with doing a series of movements?

1551
01:30:39,320 --> 01:30:41,360
Speaker 4: Inherently? You know that?

1552
01:30:41,960 --> 01:30:43,600
Speaker 2: Because I'm sure there will be people who hear this

1553
01:30:43,680 --> 01:30:46,000
Speaker 2: and they're like, well, I'm not going to like join it,

1554
01:30:46,080 --> 01:30:47,920
Speaker 2: but like I like the movements, you.

1555
01:30:47,880 --> 01:30:49,639
Speaker 5: Know, yeah, it's like beaker yoga.

1556
01:30:49,680 --> 01:30:52,719
Speaker 1: It's like just start calling out hot yoga and don't

1557
01:30:52,920 --> 01:30:56,040
Speaker 1: say that it's magic that he right, right, I don't know,

1558
01:30:57,560 --> 01:31:00,440
Speaker 1: you know, like, but that has to be some sol.

1559
01:31:00,439 --> 01:31:02,760
Speaker 2: But I also understand like if it is going to

1560
01:31:02,800 --> 01:31:05,880
Speaker 2: contribute financially to the larger organization, then of course you

1561
01:31:05,880 --> 01:31:09,040
Speaker 2: don't want to monetarily support them. So yeah, so I

1562
01:31:09,040 --> 01:31:12,920
Speaker 2: don't know, Like I'm curious people's takes on if it's

1563
01:31:12,960 --> 01:31:16,479
Speaker 2: something like a yoga practice or you know, like if

1564
01:31:16,520 --> 01:31:19,439
Speaker 2: there's how much people think you can separate, Like it's

1565
01:31:19,479 --> 01:31:21,160
Speaker 2: the same as you know, can you separate the r

1566
01:31:21,200 --> 01:31:23,200
Speaker 2: from the artists? Can you separate the practice from the

1567
01:31:23,600 --> 01:31:28,120
Speaker 2: from the founder? It's I don't have the answer, but

1568
01:31:28,320 --> 01:31:31,400
Speaker 2: like I'm sure there are myriad perspectives on it.

1569
01:31:31,439 --> 01:31:34,920
Speaker 4: So yeah, just interesting to think about.

1570
01:31:35,080 --> 01:31:37,799
Speaker 1: The Breath of Fire documentary on HBO, which I highly recommend,

1571
01:31:38,160 --> 01:31:41,080
Speaker 1: kind of talks more about Gurushaga, this woman who took

1572
01:31:41,120 --> 01:31:46,360
Speaker 1: over the lineage from Yogi Buzzian and delves a little

1573
01:31:46,360 --> 01:31:51,160
Speaker 1: bit deeper into this different that's a whole another episode

1574
01:31:51,160 --> 01:31:53,640
Speaker 1: that I would love to do, but uh yeah, the

1575
01:31:54,000 --> 01:31:54,880
Speaker 1: whole thing's.

1576
01:31:54,720 --> 01:31:57,639
Speaker 7: A confusing mess, which is what cults do. It creates

1577
01:31:57,680 --> 01:32:04,040
Speaker 7: cognitive de dissonance, even for the people trying to expose it. Yeah,

1578
01:32:04,040 --> 01:32:08,080
Speaker 7: and on that note, who thanks for joining us, you guys,

1579
01:32:08,120 --> 01:32:10,479
Speaker 7: We can't wait to see you again next week. Leave

1580
01:32:10,560 --> 01:32:13,320
Speaker 7: us a five story review if you feel so inclined

1581
01:32:13,400 --> 01:32:15,320
Speaker 7: to help us. If you're gonna leave less than a

1582
01:32:15,320 --> 01:32:17,720
Speaker 7: five star review, then just don't do it.

1583
01:32:17,800 --> 01:32:18,200
Speaker 4: Don't do it.

1584
01:32:18,240 --> 01:32:19,080
Speaker 5: Why would you do that?

1585
01:32:19,479 --> 01:32:24,599
Speaker 1: And as always, remember to follow your gut, watch out

1586
01:32:24,640 --> 01:32:26,120
Speaker 1: for red flags.

1587
01:32:25,880 --> 01:32:30,120
Speaker 4: And never ever trust me. Bye bye.

1588
01:32:33,920 --> 01:32:36,640
Speaker 2: Trust Me is produced by Kirsten Woodward, Gabby Rapp and

1589
01:32:36,680 --> 01:32:37,920
Speaker 2: Steve Delamater.

1590
01:32:37,640 --> 01:32:39,639
Speaker 5: With special thanks to Stacy Para and.

1591
01:32:39,600 --> 01:32:41,920
Speaker 4: Our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.

1592
01:32:42,160 --> 01:32:45,040
Speaker 1: You can find us on Instagram at trust Me Podcast,

1593
01:32:45,200 --> 01:32:48,559
Speaker 1: Twitter at trust Me Cult Pod, or on TikTok at

1594
01:32:48,640 --> 01:32:50,280
Speaker 1: trust Me Cult Podcast.

1595
01:32:50,479 --> 01:32:53,760
Speaker 2: I'm Ula Lola on Instagram and Ola Lola on Twitter.

1596
01:32:53,520 --> 01:32:57,080
Speaker 1: And I am Megan Elizabeth eleven on Instagram and Babraham

1597
01:32:57,280 --> 01:32:58,320
Speaker 1: Hits on Twitter.

1598
01:32:58,479 --> 01:33:00,760
Speaker 4: Remember to rate and review and spread the word

1599
01:33:06,760 --> 01:33:06,800
Speaker 7: M