Shows
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationCaleb Ward, Part 2 - Disneyland for Christians and Exiting the ChurchFormer evangelical Christian and pastor's son Caleb Ward continues his story of growing up in evangelical culture in the early 2000s. We discuss some of the touchstones of his youth including Heritage USA (Disneyland for Christians) and Christian rock event Creation Festival, as well as his fear of losing his virginity before marriage, what hell to meant to him (and Lola and Meagan) growing up, how his dad was an example of healthy church leadership, how his parents were ostracized when they left the church, and what solidified his decision to leave evangelical Christianity We...
2025-02-2654 min
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationCaleb Ward, Part 1 - Kingdom Life Ministries and Evangelical Youth CultureFormer pastor's son Caleb Ward joins Lola and Meagan to share his experience about the height of evangelical culture in the early 2000s in a church called Kingdom Life Ministries. Caleb discusses growing up in an environment where everyone was speaking in tongues and having loud prophecies in the middle of church, the pressures that come with being the son of a pastor, how heightened emotional experiences keep people connected to their churches, wild evangelical youth culture involving Christian rock, how good church leadership can actually exist, and why shunning is one of the worst parts of modern Christian...
2025-02-1957 min
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationUriah Wesman, Part 2 - Growing Up in Three Cults (The Hearts Center and The Ideal Society)Today is part 2 with Uriah Wesman, former member of THREE different cults. This week he’ll talk to us more about cult #2, the Hearts Center (which was an offshoot of cult #1 from last week), what it was like being a rebellious emo kid slowly starting to realize inconsistencies in the church, and how his dad discovered cult #3 in Canada, the Ideal Society. We’ll talk about why he loved Canada so much, how he became obsessed with Alex Jones in his rebellious phase, and what that third cult - a vegan meditation cult - was like, being surr...
2025-02-121h 05
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationUriah Wesman, Part 1 - The First Cult: Church Universal and TriumphantCreator of the one man show 3 Cults Walk Into a Bar, Uriah Wesman, shares about his FIRST cult experience in Church Universal and Triumphant, how they combined Christianity and New Age ideas, the paranoia that was created by beliefs surrounding demons, his mom's mental deterioration that led her to accuse his father of being a demon, and his parents split that led him to his next cult... which we'll discuss next week! We have deals for you! ZocDoc: Stop putting off those doctors appointments! Go to Zocdoc.com/trustme to find and instantly book...
2025-02-0553 min
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationPhilip Deslippe & Stacie Stukin - 3HO,Kundalini yoga, & Yogi BhajanToday our guests are historian Philip Deslippe and writer Stacie Sutkin, who together have done investigative reporting on 3HO (“happy, healthy, holy organization”), Kundalini yoga, and Yogi Bhajan. They’re going to tell us how they got started writing about 3HO, both interacting with Kundalini yoga in different ways, who Yogi Bhajan was and whether he had any credibility in the Sikh religion (spoiler: he did not), and how he began to get white Americans to believe he was the ultimate spiritual authority, rapidly expanding and profiting off of the money and property of his followers. They’ll tell...
2025-01-241h 33
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationREWIND: Frank Lyford - Heaven's Gate, Part 2: Breaking AwayEpisode 23: Lola Blanc & Meagan Elizabeth continue to interview Frank Lyford, former member of Heaven's Gate. In part 2, they discuss the growing number of red flags he began to notice after one of the leaders died, including talk of castration, and what led to his decision to finally, after 18 years, break away. He also tells the girls what it was like when he heard about the mass suicide on the news, how heartbreaking that was, the lessons he's learned as a result, and what his life is like now. Original Airdate: 03/17/2021 Trust Me is sponsored by...
2025-01-1534 min
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationREWIND: Frank Lyford - Heaven's Gate, Part 1: The Nomadic LifestyleEpisode 22: Lola & Meagan interview Frank Lyford, survivor of Heaven's Gate who left after 18 years--just a few years before discovering his friends and loved ones in the group had died by suicide. In part 1, he tells the girls how he began following the leaders Ti and Do, what it was like living a nomadic lifestyle with his "check partner," and what happened when they all settled in one place for "Class." They discuss being separated from the love of his life, how the rules became more strict and controlling, and how much darker things got after Ti got cancer. Stay...
2025-01-1043 min
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationAshlen Hilliard - The Evolution of Cult Intervention PracticesCult interventionist and founder of People Leave Cults, Ashlen Hilliard, talks about her path to working in cult intervention and recovery, her personal religious experience that led her to this work, how interactions with Mormons in Utah affected her worldview, how she defines what a cult is, why accusing a group of being a cult isn't always helpful, how cult intervention today is different from how it was in the 70s, how it used to involved kidnapping and unethical practices, how her model takes a harm reduction approach, and when cult intervention practices can become culty themselves!
2025-01-011h 21
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationREWIND: Joann Vaega: Waco Survivor and Former Branch DavidianYou're a child living on a remote compound in West Texas. One day authorities show up at your front door and an exchange of gunfire breaks out. Just as you expected would happen. Survivor of the Branch Davidians and the Waco massacre, Joann Vaega, discusses her earliest memories of living on the compound, what cult leader David Koresh was like in person, why she did not feel fear when the siege began, how her mom bravely acted to save her, learning about the fire that killed 76 people, including her own parents, and how she's currently defying how people said...
2024-12-261h 03
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationCarolyn Costin - The Link Between Cults and Eating DisordersFOR OUR 200th EPISODE, we are joined by eating disorder therapist, author, and expert Carolyn Costin to discuss her own experiences that led to her starting her practice, why so many cults control the eating habits of their members, why having an eating disorder is like having a little cult leader in your brain, and how Carolyn helped Meagan with her own eating disorder. Check out our holiday sponsors!! Quince: Gift luxury without the luxury price tag! Go to Quince.com/trust for 365-day returns PLUS free shipping on your order! ZocDoc: Find and...
2024-12-181h 19
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationYoni Shrira, Part 2 - Hard Labor, Isolation, Running Away, and a Dark LegacyToday is part 2 of our interview with Yoni Shrira, former student at the Family Foundation School, also known as Allynwood, the remote troubled teen program known for a series of lawsuits brought against it as well as over a hundred deaths from overdose or suicide by its former attendees. Last week, we talked about how and why Yoni ended up in the abusive school and the culture of required snitching, and this week he’s going to tell us about the punishments the kids endured, including hard labor and isolation. He’ll tell us about trying to run...
2024-12-1155 min
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationYoni Shrira, Part 1 - The Family Foundation School, Troubled Teens, and Snitching CultureToday our guest is Yoni Shrira, friend of the show and survivor of the Family Foundation School, a troubled teen sobriety school that became notorious for how many of its former students died after going through the program. In part one today, he’s going to talk about what he was like as a teenager, how he was genuinely out of control when it came to drugs and alcohol, and why his parents believed the school was the best option to help him. He’ll tell us about the religious undertones of the group, how the students were...
2024-11-2746 min
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationTory Hess - From Second Life to Wilderness CommuneToday our guest is Tory Hess, former member of a small rural group in upstate New York she calls Crazyland. She tells us about how she always loved reading and fantasy growing up, never went to public school, and didn’t connect easily with folks in real life when she was young, and how she found connection in the online gaming community Second Life, where she acted out her dream of having a family of her own... until it began to consume her life. She’ll tell us how some of the friends she made on there convinced her that...
2024-11-211h 20
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationREWIND: Jay Van Bavel - Groupthink, Social Identity, and Cult PsychologyGroups!... I did it again. Jay Van Bavel, NYU Associate Professor of Psychology and Neural Science, Director of the Social Identity and Morality Lab, and co-author of The Power Of Us, discusses how our social identities change depending on our environment and context, how the groups we identify with affect our decisions and perception, and the importance of instilling healthy hierarchy in a group to prevent unhealthy leadership. They also discuss how emotionally charged situations can forge shared identities, how cults replace individual identities with group identities, what to do when someone has fallen prey to groupthink, and whether...
2024-11-141h 03
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationBethany Joy Lenz - One Tree Hill, a Secret Cult, and Living a Double LifeToday our guest is actor, musician, and now author Bethany Joy Lenz, whom we will just call Joy. Joy was the star of hit TV show One Tree Hill, and today she’s going to talk to us about how she was in a Christian cult the whole time she was filming the show. She’ll tell us about her upbringing and her career as a young actor, living in LA on her own and joining a small Bible study group that seemed like the perfect place to share a community with like-minded young Christian actors, and how a char...
2024-11-061h 15
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationAnne - Psychosis, Delusions, & the Cult of Your Own MindToday, our guest is a friend who we'll call Anne. We discuss the connection between psychosis and cults, the mental changes Anne experienced when her episode started, the delusions that grew stronger, how she felt like she was communicating with spirits, the paranoia that grew inside her, and how a psychiatric mental health professional helped pull her out of it. We also compare the similarities of Anne's experience with that of many cult leaders, how coming out of a paranoid delusion is similar to coming out of a cult belief, and why it can be wise NOT to directly...
2024-10-3154 min
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationREWIND: Jitarth Jadeja - Former QAnon BelieverEpisode 15: Lola and Meagan interview Jitarth Jadeja, former QAnon believer. He tells the girls about how, despite being Australian, he first was a Bernie supporter, then shifted his support to Trump before becoming obsessed with conspiracy theories. They discuss the two years of his life in which he believed in Q, the moment he realized it was all a lie, how he'd have gone to the Capitol if he'd still believed, and what he suggests you should do if a loved one has fallen into QAnon. Original Airdate: 01/13/2021 BUY OUR MERCH!! bit.ly/trustmemerch
2024-10-231h 16
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationGareth Gore - Opus Dei, Human Trafficking, & Project 2025Today our guest is Gareth Gore, journalist and author whose new book Opus is about Opus Dei, an ultra-conservative Catholic sect, its harmful practices, its history of dark money, and its connections to modern day right-wing American politics. Gareth shares how he came to this story while investigating the shady practices at a bank in Spain, the history of the group and the leader’s goals of recruiting elite members of society, and its cultic practices like living in gender segregated homes with a highly controlled life and doing body mortification rituals. He tells about how members would groom ki...
2024-10-161h 08
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationNorah - Girls Night In: L.A. Facebook Group Gone CultyToday our guest is a woman whom we’ll call Norah. She tells us about a Facebook group for women in Los Angeles that ended up getting very culty. We’ll talk about why it was exciting in the beginning to connect with other women in a new way, how other subgroups began to form (including one secret, exclusive one) and how the admin, who we’ll call Vivian, seemed to be creating a space that prioritized social justice, equality, and helping other people—at first. Norah shares how the culture of the secret smaller group, Girls Night In, began to...
2024-10-091h 28
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationDemetria, Part 2 - Twin Ray Mysticism, Spiritual Retreats, and the Necessity of RageToday is part two with Demetria, survivor of the Oregon new age cult, Twin Ray. This week she shares more about the wild claims that the leaders made about their mystical backgrounds, how deeply rooted the culture of self blame was (including blaming one woman for her own cancer), and the massive property they purchased in Oregon which was financed by their followers. We talk about the dangers of the drugs they were giving people on spiritual retreats, when the cracks began to form in Demetria's belief system, and how important it was to feel her rage.
2024-10-021h 06
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationDemetria, Part 1 - Online Gurus, Mysterious Elixirs, and Joining the Twin Ray CultToday we're joined by Demetria, survivor of an Oregon new age group called Twin Ray (not to be confused with Twin Flames). She describes the beginning of her spiritual journey including reading the works of Eckhart Tolle, how one specific online guru captured her imagination, and how this guru's partner made the claim that they were Twin Rays with access to special spiritual knowledge despite their questionable backgrounds. We discuss how they strictly controlled their followers' diets, made them take a mysterious elixir while on retreats, and how they made their sales pitch to them while they were under...
2024-09-271h 03
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationJoelle Tamraz, Part 2 - Meeting The Elders, Emotional Manipulation, and Moving OnThis week is part two of a fascinating discussion with Joelle Tamraz, author of The Secret Practice: 18 Years on the Dark Side of Yoga. The story gets more wild! Joelle shares how her spiritual partner, Arun, became her husband, and how he brought her deeper into his world, including the strange visions he revealed to her. PLUS, the financial abuse, the cheating, the isolation from her family, and how Joelle eventually emerged from Arun's influence and moved on with her life. Check out our great sponsors!! Quince: Find your high-quality fall...
2024-09-181h 09
Was I In A Cult?The Two-by-Twos: “Be Sad and Die”Today’s guest, Meagan, host of the "Trust Me" podcast, shares her journey growing up in the secretive Christian cult known as the Two-by-Twos. From a childhood dictated by oppressive rules that governed her every move, she reveals how this “hidden” religion shaped her life. With wit and raw honesty, Meagan recounts the manipulation and isolation she endured, and how she finally found the strength to break free.
And shortly after, when the cult’s darkest truths finally surfaced for all the world to see, her entire idea of her childhood came crashing down. This wasn’t just a tigh...
2024-09-1652 min
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationJoelle Tamraz, Part 1 - Traveling to India, Meeting a Swami, and "Past Lives"Today is part one of our interview with Joelle Tamraz, author of the book The Secret Practice: 18 Years on the Dark Side of Yoga. She will tell us about her introduction to different yoga practices at a young age including TM, or transcendental meditation, the hunger she felt for a deeper spirituality that landed her in India when she was fresh out of Harvard, and how she met Arun, the self-proclaimed swami who was 35 years older than her and quickly became her spiritual teacher--and she’ll explain a bit about swami culture in India and the yoga world. ...
2024-09-111h 03
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationSara Teitelman - The Culty Elements of TechnologyToday’s guest is Sara Teitelman, tech consultant and author of a forthcoming book about tech who’s going to talk to us about the culty elements of technology. While Sara’s specialty lies more in optimization of the nonprofit workplace, we’re going to have more of a philosophical discussion about how we’re expected to just trust in our tech overlords without questioning - both the CEOs and the algorithms themselves - how it’s a sort of coercion to be handed algorithms and apps with no say in or understanding of how they work, and how AI factors i...
2024-09-041h 11
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationMin Zhou, Part 2 - Labor Camps, Persecution, and Mass Killings in the Cultural RevolutionIn part 2 of our interview with Min Zhou, survivor of the Cultural Revolution and Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Asian American Studies at UCLA, we’re going to talk more about Professor Zhou’s personal experience. We’ll discuss why her dad was a target of the Red Guards, what it felt like knowing her family was in danger at such a young age, how many people were massacred in different parts of China, and the human cost of this mass hysteria, hatred-stoking, and groupthink originally led by Chairman Mao and his cult-like propaganda campaigns. She’ll tell us...
2024-08-2848 min
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationMin Zhou, Part 1 - The Cult of Mao Zedong, and Growing Up in the Cultural RevolutionToday is part one with Min Zhou, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Asian American Studies at UCLA, who also grew up during the Cultural Revolution: a decade of social chaos in China in the 1960s and 1970s where intellectuals, artists, and anyone perceived as representing capitalism or the "old ways" were persecuted and murdered in the hundreds of thousands or more. She’ll tell us about the backstory leading to this moment in history, who Mao Zedong was and what the country's climate was like when he began to use propaganda to create a cult of personality around himself, an...
2024-08-2152 min
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationTia Levings, Part 2 - Questioning Fundamentalism, Motherhood, and the Dangers of Christian NationalismIn part 2 with Tia Levings, author of A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy, Tia she discusses how, in the midst of a church-sanctioned abusive relationship, motherhood began to change her beliefs - at first making her more zealous. She’ll talk about how her time trying to save her baby in the children’s hospital, plus working with women doctors and nurses, planted the seeds to help her imagine a world that wasn’t completely run by men. She discusses moving to more heavily patriarchal churches, how the churches may change but it’s all part of...
2024-08-1448 min
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationTia Levings, Part 1 - A Well-Trained Wife in the Christian PatriarchyToday is part one with Tia Levings, author of A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy. We talk about the church her family joined when she was young, how it was connected to Bill Gothard and the IBLP - which is why you may have seen her in the Amazon docuseries Shiny Happy People - how it grew more fundamentalist, and how she met her ex-husband Allen, who was abusive from the beginning. Tia tells us about the culture of domestic abuse in the heavily patriarchal evangelical communities, including practices like wife spanking, and how various church leaders...
2024-08-0746 min
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationAndrea Dunlop, Part 2 - A Family Torn, Munchausen by Proxy, & Critiquing Take Care of MayaIn part two of our interview with Andrew Dunlop, sister of a perpetrator of Medical Child Abuse (aka Munchausen by Proxy) AND host of the podcast No One Should Believe Me, we discuss the red flags that made her family realize what was going on, why CPS showed up at her sister's door, the 73,000 pages of medical records she found for her five year old niece, and why it's extremely common for victims to NOT be separated from perpetrators. We also talk about the documenatry Take Care of Maya, why she believes the storytelling is misleading, how there are...
2024-07-3147 min
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationAndrea Dunlop, Part 1 - Munchausen by Proxy, a Faked Miscarriage, and a Perpetrator in the FamilyToday our guest is Andrea Dunlop, novelist and host of the podcast Nobody Should Believe Me, which is all about Munchausen by Proxy. She talks about Munchausen by Proxy, or medical child abuse, from a new point of view: what it’s like being related to the perpetrator. She’ll tell us about what her sister was like growing up, how she had exhibited Munchausen behaviors from a very young age, making herself seem to be sick before she had children, and how common that and other forms of deception are among people who later develop Munchausen by Proxy. We d...
2024-07-2452 min
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationJ. Wesley Boyd - When Physician Health Programs Go WrongToday our guest is J. Wesley Boyd, psychiatrist, professor, and the director of education at the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics. He joins us to talk about Physician Health Programs, (or PHPs) which are under-the-radar programs that most states have. They're supposed to be a place where doctors who are struggling with substance abuse or mental illness can go to recover. But Wes shares how a shocking number of doctors who do *not* have a substance use disorder are coerced into for-profit inpatient treatment that rips them away from their lives and costs them tens of thousands of...
2024-07-171h 05
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationR. Derek Black, Part 2 - How a White Supremacist Changed Their MindToday is part two with R. Derek Black, former white supremacist turned anti-racism advocate, and author of The Klansman's Son: My Journey from White Nationalism to Antiracism. Today we discuss how and when Derek’s identity became exposed to their friend group, including drastically different reactions from fellow students, how they were invited to Shabbat dinner by some Jewish friends, and how over time the cognitive dissonance of believing in ideology that was dangerous to people they care about began to wear on them, eventually leading them to denounce white nationalism. BUY OUR MERCH!! bit.ly...
2024-07-1057 min
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and ManipulationR. Derek Black, Part 1 - Former White Nationalist, Growing Up in the KKK, and Cognitive DissonanceToday our guest is R. Derek Black, former poster child for white supremacy (now turned antiracist advocate) and author of the new memoir The Klansman’s Son. Derek, who came out as trans in this book, walks us through the white supremacist movement, where it stands now, what it was like growing up in a white nationalist family, being close to prominent neo-Nazi David Duke, how they were taught that the whole world misunderstood their "scientifically correct" ideology, and speaking to the press and becoming a public-facing figure of racism as a child. They’ll tell us about hosting a wh...
2024-06-2650 min