SIO256: The Psychology Behind Cults, with Lindsey Osterman

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:30 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only, this is episode 256, I'm Thomas, and if I sound weird, that's because I am recording after the debate, I had watch the debate of course, Kamala Harris and Mike Pence, bot, dead rotting corpse Mike Pence, it was, I also went on Cognitive Dissonance and did a little livestream with them, go find that at, find YouTubes everywhere, just Google it, it was really funny. It was really fun. And all that is to say I didn't realize I would have to record this bumper and the kids are asleep and I can't go up in the studio so I know I sound a little weird but that's okay. The main episode was recorded at a different time. Don't worry. And speaking of, tonight today, whenever you're listening to this I have a conversation with Lindsay Osterman on cults.

0:01:23 Thomas: What draws people to cults? How do they keep people in cults and it does center around the HBO show The Vow, which is about a NXIVM cult. I have a ton of thoughts. And as always, I've got thoughts and Lindsay's got science. Hopefully it's good combination. So this is part one. There's actually a part two. I'll tell you more about that after the conversation. But here we go. Here's part one with Lindsey Osterman. And I'm joined again, by Lindsey Osterman. How you doing, Lindsey?

0:02:01 Lindsey: Doing well, happy to be here. It's hard to believe it's already been two years since

0:02:06 Thomas: Yeah, it may have been, like, my brain, for a split second, was like, geez, did we go another two years?

0:02:12 Lindsey: I think we've had that, that much news, for sure.

0:02:15 Thomas: I never know, and then somehow, though, Eli Bosnick's baby is only three and a half, three months, or something, because I, we were texting the other day and I was like, well, surely your baby's got to be in high school by now with how long the, uh, you know, the pandemic takes. And he's like, no, three months, three months. So it's both. I'm sure we're all having this mental process where it's a both. No time has passed. An infinite time has past depending on what thing you're thinking of. It's weird. It's Weird.

0:02:28 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, time is, is constricting and expanding all the time, I've noticed that. It's probably a quantum thing. That's my guess.

0:02:47 Thomas: Hey, speaking of that's a great transition. You know, uh Lindsay and I I've been talking a lot and there are just so many topics that I think your expertise, Lindsay, is going to make really interesting to explore, you know, because I'm just a dude. But you're like a learning science psychology person. And there's and I think that's what it says on your, you know. Various diplomas, I'm imagining they're learning science, psychology person,

0:03:07 Lindsey: You're too kind, too kind. Yeah, Yeah. Send, send my email signature.

0:03:18 Thomas: And uh, one of those things we've been talking about lately, I think, I think uh, there's... there's a lot of good stuff to talk about, we're excited to do some more episodes, but uh, one thing we've both been very interested in lately is this series on HBO that I think is four episodes in, I'm all caught up, but don't worry, this won't be something that you will have had to see, although we highly recommend it, but it's about this cult called Nexium, but it spelled all stupid because it's a a cult which is weird because Nexium is a... what is that, a heartburn pill? There's already a thing called but anyway

0:03:35 Lindsey: Yep, yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was super confusing. Like, when I first heard the name of the cult, I was like, wait, the guy who made the heartburn medication? Yeah, I don't know.

0:03:52 Thomas: Yeah yeah Um, yeah, so we've been watching this, it's called The Vow on HBO, if you want to check it out, I recommend you do so. Um, you know, we're going to be talking about it, but I was very curious about cults and uh, the psychology behind how that works, and I, there are so many, any observations that I have that uh, I'm curious maybe you'll be able to, you know, put, give us the scientific explanation of, and that kind of thing. Um, but also there are a lot of cults these days, it's not just particular to the Nexium cult, there's this little cult called Trumpism and q anon so yeah

0:04:29 Lindsey: Mm-hmm. I've never heard of that. That sounds fun.

0:04:37 Thomas: Um So all kinds of stuff to talk about. Um, how should we get going? Well, how would, would you recommend? I mean, we can talk about specifically NXIVM. Do you want to give the listeners a brief summary? Maybe, you know, we'll try to avoid some spoilers, but it's kind of weird when you're like, no spoilers on real life. It's kind OF a weird thing.

0:04:53 Lindsey: Ugh. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think it's going to be hard to avoid spoilers for this.

0:04:59 Thomas: All right.

0:05:00 Lindsey: Because, yeah. Yeah, so NXIVM is like this creation of Keith Raniere. Um, who is a self-professed genius. And what, what is the martial art that he's so proud of?

0:05:00 Thomas: Oh, I, cause I'm so into the volleyball. He's really into the volleyball. So that's all, that's ALL I remember now. Was he doing a martial art?

0:05:17 Lindsey: Oh God. He, he was like, he brags about the fact that he is like a black belt in judo. He's like way too proud that he became a blackbelt in judo when he was a kid.

0:05:27 Thomas: Oh, okay. Sure. He absolutely looks like the kind of guy, I'm just stereotyping. He looks like a black belt in judo. I don't know what it is. It's all these ways that he overcompensates and he's overcompensationed into a cult, which is something I'm very curious about. Speak it right off the bat. I have to ask you. This is like my first burning question.

0:05:50 Thomas: What percentage of cults are just some guy named Keith who wants to have sex with you? Like, like, is that 98% of them?

0:05:46 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah. Great. A 100% of cults. That's all of the cults, yeah, it's, it's hard to bring to mind a cult that's not also a sex cult, um, yeah, I think that

0:06:04 Thomas: Yeah. I'll say this. Remember the bag one? Did you watch that one? Wild Country? See, that one is interesting because I'm pretty sure, yeah, probably the bag ones having sex with women or whatever, but like there was also Sheila though. And she like kind of took over day-to-day cult operations and that, that was, so that's the one example I can think of, but so it can't be coincidence unless these are the the only ones that get coverage, like so many of these cults are about a dude wanting to have sex with women, am I, am I off base there, oh,

0:06:08 Lindsey: Oh yeah, totally. Uh-huh, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, I mean, Jim Jones, uh, no other cults are coming to mind, I mean, wait, Scientology, I'm sure

0:06:43 Thomas: Yeah, Scientology.

0:06:44 Lindsey: That, um, L. Ron Hubbard had sex with well yeah

0:06:45 Thomas: Yeah, he like had a boat that people went, yeah, there's a lot there, yeah.

0:06:49 Lindsey: I'm not sure who who he was having sex with, but he was definitely having sex. No, Um, like I think a lot of this for the, the cult leaders that start these things, I think a lot it comes down to power and, you know, a lot of power comes down sex. So yeah, there's definitely a lot of that.

0:07:04 Thomas: So spoilers on that, yeah.

0:07:05 Lindsey: Yeah. I mean, everybody might've seen this, this story when it came out a while ago, right? Like the New York times broke it. What? Three years ago or something.

0:07:11 Thomas: Oh, it's because it has the, the actress from Smallville, who I wouldn't have known because I haven't watched that show, but I know from the the documentary, now what is it, Al, Allison, Allison Mack, yeah, so. So that's how you might have heard of this, if you haven't, uh, made that connection here, yeah.

0:07:20 Lindsey: Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. Alison Mack. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, I did, I did want to say one thing about the documentary itself that I really like, and I think it, it echoes like how I, how I see this cult phenomenon as a social psychologist.

So the first two episodes of the show especially are like this amazing primer on how cults operate, right, and the most common manipulation tactics that they use, um, but also, and this is the thing that's, that's really cool to me, I love how sympathetic it is to the people who are successfully recruited by cults, I think that, like, a lot of these documentaries about cults take this kind of like outsider's perspective from the beginning, like they start with the bizarre behaviors of cults, and I think that that can give people kind of like a false sense of superiority from watching that, like, I would never be sucked into this shit, it, but like the first episode, right, is like basically an infomercial for ESP, right, yeah, uh, Executive Success Programs, that was like their entry point to to Nexium, um, yeah, these like essentially like self-help seminars, is essentially what they were, but by, by the ends of the first one, they were, I was like, man, this, this group seems great, like, I think I could

0:08:00 Thomas: Right right, well, when you say ESP, so what is what is that specific yeah,

0:08:39 Lindsey: Get a lot out of this, I'm ready to join.

0:08:39 Thomas: This is this, is my, uh, feeling as well, like I'm, well, I wouldn't join, I'm, so, you know, I know you said everyone says this, I am very unlikely, likely to be a cult person because I have no respect for authority in any way, and I don't, like, it's like there's a few characteristics I'd be curious if there's any like social measures of or psychological measures of, like, people who more susceptible, and that's not a value judgment because, uh, my, uh, my amazing wife, who I love dearly, uh, we were both watching this and I was like, you would have been in this cult, and she, and she agreed, like, wholeheartedly, there, she's, uh, I think that you could, it's people who like icebreakers.

If you're, if you're ever in a meeting or something and you get really into icebreakERS, I think that means you would be in a cult. I'm just saying. Cause like, I agree with you that it actually looks like a ton of fun. And then the joke, the next joke I made was once for some reason, confusingly this cult and specifically Keith and all the people are into playing volleyball at our all hours of the night. Then I was

0:08:51 Lindsey: Yeah, ah, yeah, yeah,

0:09:37 Thomas: Like, well, shoot, that's how they would have gotten me. I would have been in it for the volleyball. So no one's immune.

0:09:37 Lindsey: That's great. Yeah, see, they got something for everybody, and and I mean, also, also, I mean, let's, let's imagine a parallel reality where you didn't develop like 17 podcasts, um, like, I, I think that we've all had points in our lives where we, we can get to a point where we're like, you know, the career path that I've, that I'm chosen isn't doing it for me, and you start feeling this sort of like purposelessness and meaninglessness and the work that you're doing, and the stripe path that was part of, um, the progress you

0:09:42 Thomas: Yeah, exactly.

0:10:11 Thomas: Are you suggesting I cannot like that's mutually exclusive with my podcasting? Cause I very much, I feel like that still, yeah, that's still part of it.

0:10:17 Lindsey: Also want to do the stripe path yeah, yeah, but I mean, but that, I think that that is meeting a real need too, um, so yeah, no, I think Nexium had something for everybody, it's, it sounds great, I'm ready to join, yeah.

0:10:23 Thomas: Yeah. Well, that's, that interesting because one thing about this NXIVM cult is that it doesn't, unless I'm, you know, I'm four episodes in, you can correct me if I'm wrong. I don't see any religious component to it whatsoever. It seems to be a secular cult from everything I'm seeing. And that's interesting to me because I think that this, this, and you can put this much more scientifically, I'm sure, but it's like, we all have this need because in my opinion, as an atheist, I'M over here saying, well, life just sucks. And it was engineered. It wasn't engineered by anybody. There was no plan in mind. So life is just really crappy in a lot of ways.

0:10:42 Lindsey: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

0:11:04 Thomas: And, you know, we, we make everything we can out of it and all that, and You've got to find stuff to do and meaning and all that. And there's, there's a lot of great things, but at its baseline, in my opinion, there is no greater meaning, you know, like we make our own meaning. And so you either have like these religious cults where you've kind of got, that's a whole, in some ways, I guess like a separate thing, but also I think it's obviously playing on a lot of the same, same, some draws, but that, that has a pre-packaged, like if you join a religious cult, I'm, I'm imagining a lot of the, you baggage that goes along with God and meaning and all that is kind of smuggled in there and it's utilized in that way.

Or you have a cult like this where there's, there's not really a religious component, but it's about finding maybe some, that same meaning in life, but through a secular purpose or whatever. And, uh, so it's, it, it's really interesting to see the kinds of things that, uh. They're able to promise. And I think you said this maybe right before we went on the recording, but you said that you thought he was copying a lot of Scientology in a way.

0:11:17 Lindsey: Yeah, exactly.

0:12:08 Lindsey: Oh, yeah, yeah. Scientology, but also Heaven's Gate and Heaven's gate was, was definitely religious in nature, right? No, I think that, you know, the distinctions that you're pointing to are, are real, and they're really interesting. And, and, you know, the religiously focused cults are likely to have appeal to a slightly different group of people than a group like Nexium or Scientology, right? Um, but I, I do think that all cults, regardless of what their packaging is, come down to the thing that they're selling comes down to, like, two basic needs. Um, and I think one of the first need is belongingness, and the second one is, yeah, something in this arena of meaning, purpose, right, something in the, in sort of that status, a striving, or achievement needs domain. Um, they're, they're providing things for you to do every day that really feel meaningful. Um, and, and I think that's true whether it's religious or not. Oh.

0:12:11 Thomas: Hmm. Hmm. Right. Yeah. Yeah, OK. I'm just taking notes for forming a cult. Maybe we can form one right now as an exercise. OK, Everybody listening, you belong. You are part of this community of podcast listeners and we're all friends. Friends, okay, we got belonging. Okay. Meaning, um, more podcasts. I don't know what the meaning part is. What's gonna, what's going to make everybody feel like they belong. I have a, have a, yeah, yeah.

0:13:10 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. You've gotta Okay. No. It's, it's I mean, it's really easy, right? We've got a playbook for it. Just, uh, have a bunch of sashes, and people can earn better sashes through paying you more money to listen to more of your podcasts.

0:13:34 Thomas: Yeah, there We Go. Uh-oh, now we're, no, so I, this is a Patreon goal then, his sashes, okay. So my sash has to be totally badass. It has to be like but the funny thing is you could just make it yourself, self out there, but, but that's, but you need the system, you need, like, the community that all values the process, uh, and these worthless sashes that they, uh, they have become like this, yeah, the gamification component is really interesting.

0:13:41 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then Yes. The best sash Yeah. Exactly.

0:14:04 Lindsey: Precisely. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's beautiful. I mean, that, that really is the only thing about Nexium that I think is somewhat distinctive. It's not, it's only completely unique or anything, but, but I don't think that most cults have that kind of, like, MLM structure built into them. So that was really smart, I think.

0:14:08 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, just to outline it again for people who are not, uh, watching the show or up of in the thing, you earn these sashes essentially, as you say, by, by doing a multi-level marketing kind of thing, which is, like you say, a genius move. So as the people who are telling the story in the documentary, it's very unique because. So Mark is kind of the, at first, he's kind of main character. He made that stupid documentary that I'm sure a lot of people know called What the Bleep Do We Know, because I remember this as, like, a skeptic-y thing that people would have to debunk in, in the, in this community from time to time. I've never watched it myself, but it's a bunch of, it's basically entirely woo, it's just the, you know, quantum woo stuff, and he's the guy who made that, and he, he crossed paths with this Keith guy and was just blown away by him. And so what makes this so unique, and the reason I'm talking about it, is because this guy's a filmmaker, he's just basically filming everything, and Then

0:14:36 Lindsey: Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah, that's,

0:15:25 Thomas: Go yeah and so, minor, minor spoilers, he eventually, obviously, becomes disillusioned with this whole thing. And so then we have a lot of footage of the cult, but we also have actual footage, it's really incredible, this is why I highly recommend watching it, actual footage of, like, the deconversion process. And weirdly, I, in the last episode, I'm pretty sure, sure, we might've seen footage of, like, the moments that Alison Mack was, like, really taken in by this guy, which is just really,

0:15:26 Lindsey: Yeah, that was incredible. That's Oh, yeah.

0:16:00 Thomas: Really mind blowing. Um, yeah, a whole nother story, but, but anyway, the point is, we have all this footage and this audio and this recordings because this guy who was really, and he was in this filmmaker, was in, this cult was in with this guy for years, like, I want to say maybe even over a decade, right? Yeah.

0:16:02 Lindsey: Ooh, that was hard to watch.

0:16:20 Lindsey: I'm pretty sure. Yeah.

0:16:21 Thomas: So it wasn't like a casual, oh, blah, blah, he was, he was really in his inner circle. Um, and honestly, one, it's, weird to say, but, like, maybe the, the biggest flaw on Keith's part was that he let someone into his inner circle that wasn't a woman that he was trying to have sex with, because, like, he got to the point where Mark was like, hey, wait, are you just having sex with a bunch of the women? And then, and he's like, wait a minute, this is not what I thought it was. And he gets out, and he, and he's, uh, the deconverting other people. So we have all that footage and it's super fascinating.

0:16:38 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah. It is. But, but, you Know, it takes him forever. Forever, like, His his wife leaves, how, how long before he finally starts to to really question things deeply? I

0:16:54 Thomas: Uh, Yeah. Yeah. I can't remember. I think it's months. I don't think it was like years or anything, but it's, oh, really?

0:17:08 Lindsey: I Thought it was, maybe I'm Misremembering

0:17:09 Thomas: Okay. I could be wrong.

0:17:09 Lindsey: That, um, No, I'll go back and check that, but it was, it was a long time though, right? Like, There was a pretty extended period where she was like just bringing him all this evidence and all this reporting that had been done, and he was just like rejecting all of it. It took him forever to get to that place.

0:17:13 Thomas: Yeah.

0:17:23 Thomas: So what do you think is the belonging? I guess if we try to put it into words, um, the social part of this cult seems pretty Apparent. Like, I honestly, I'm almost down for that, like, I'd be cool, especially when you're watching this in quarantine, you're like, oh, I'll go listen To A crappy multi-level marketing pitch just, just to Be around people, so That's the community part, and then what would you say, like, the the meaning part, how would you summarize kind of what they're doing there? Oh,

0:17:23 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally. No. Yeah, Well, I want to say like one or two things about the belonging thing. So we talked about, actually, in our last recording, we were talking about the fact that belonging is like a fundamental need for humans. And the fact that when those needs are are unmet, in some way, if somebody is like super lonely and isolated, like it has all of these different effects in psychology. So like people's self esteem suffers, they're more likely to be depressed. But the other thing that's true if you're in this sort of socially deprived state is that you are hypersensitive to social cues.

So rejection becomes especially painful, but also acceptance becomes especially elating and rewarding. And so cults specifically are targeting sort of their marketing toward people with unmet belonging longing needs, so, You remember Sarah, like, this was toward the beginning of episode one, I think she was describing the place in her life that she was when she met Mark, and, you know, he told her about the ESP seminars or whatever, and she specifically cited like two things. She said that she was having struggles in a relationship, which I think was with a fiancee, right? It was, it was a long-term relationship at least.

0:17:55 Thomas: Mm-hmm. Yep, Right, Right?

0:19:02 Lindsey: So she was having major challenges there and she was have major challenges in her career. And so it was in this place where she was sort of like looking for meaning, right? And then she meets Mark, and he tells her about NXIVM, and she starts going to these seminars, right. She's hooked by the self-help thing. She pays like, like, three thousand dollars to go to the seminar, right, um, And one of the first things that she, I mean, after she gets back past the the crappy part, which we should come back to, um, one of the first thing that she notices, and Mark talks about this too, um, and Bonnie, right, they all emphasize how overwhelmingly accepting and kind everybody in the group was. That's Like one of the qualities that stands out most, so as you say, like, that's appealing to anybody to walk into to this group that seems to accept you for whatever. But if you're already in a place where you're lonely or isolated, like that's likely to be super seductive and intoxicating.

0:19:22 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:19:58 Thomas: Gosh, you know, I'm just realizing. So boring personal life things. But when I was in high school, so even despite the fact that, you know, my dad's an atheist, my, the, for some reason, the men in my family have been atheists and the women have been religious. I don't really know why, but that's my whole family. And they sent my sister, my older sister to this Catholic college and they were trying trying to get me to go too. And like, I came dangerously close to going to a Catholic college, despite having not being religious. And I'm now realizing like one of the best things about it was I, so I went to their summer program. That was like the agreement. Like I would, I would go do that, you know, and see how I felt junior year of high school. And it really, really was a powerful experience to have a community.

0:20:47 Thomas: It's like this little little tiny campus. Uh, I guess I don't, I don'T if I care about giving, I won't, just in case, I DON'T want to say what it was, but a tiny little campus where people who are very devoutly, uh, Catholic go and learn all these like old, you know, it's very much appealing to your sense of like, yeah, enlightenment, education, you KNOW, or, or also, uh yeah, Yeah, Socrates and Plato and Euclid and all these great minds and all this kind of stuff. And the feeling of everybody there being incredibly open to everyone else there, you know, was so

0:20:56 Lindsey: Yeah, exactly. It

0:21:28 Thomas: Positive. Like it really, it really does make you feel like, oh, you know, and I was just a junior in high school. So, but, but like feeling like, OK, maybe other places there's all these negative things and there's maybe I don't get along with people at high school or whatever, ever, but here everybody is just like, no, we're all great, we're all together, you know, we're all open to each other, and it really is a powerful, positive feeling.

0:21:53 Lindsey: Really it really is. Like I don't I what I'm about to say is not because my department is a is a cult. It's not it's just a great department. But when I when I interviewed, I had the same sense. Like it was just this, this really amazing group of people that got along really well and, you know, accepted each other and really seemed to like each other. And it's like, as soon as I, as long as I saw that, I was like, all right, this is, this was great. This is a great place to work.

0:22:20 Thomas: Yeah. And one thing we should, maybe, and I know maybe we should talk about it later or something, but it would be interesting to try to differentiate between like what's a healthy level of this thing and what's occult level of this thing.

0:22:33 Lindsey: I'm in. Well, yeah, no, I think that that's, that's a really good point to make. I, so this, like many of the other things that are sort of hallmarks of cults, are also just features of normal social groups. Um, so it's not, it's not this piece of it that's bad, the thing that's bad is that there's a guy behind the scenes that's like trying to have sex with women. Um, but

0:22:45 Thomas: Yeah.

0:22:54 Thomas: Well, and not just that, there's... there's, you know, you come to find out there's this weird blackmail stuff happening. There's a lot of layers to it.

0:23:02 Lindsey: There is, right. Um, and and yeah, like those are all in service of the the having sex with people, but but this is too, like, this is a normal thing, but they're, they're using it to eventually get people to the having sex with Keith part. Um, so I don't, I don't think that there's necessarily

0:23:16 Thomas: Well, and I, so I, like any good cult, there's a thriving economy to it too. You know, I think that there's probably a lot of just, you know, ancillary, you know, have people pay $3,000 for these seminars to get the self-help. I think there's plenty of that too. I don't know that the entire thing, because like when you look at the numbers, well, I don't know. I guess I haven't gotten to the end of the documentary, but I don'T know that Keith can be trying to groom every person that every customer, every cult member it's, but

0:23:17 Lindsey: No,

0:23:49 Thomas: You know, but anyway, yeah, sure.

0:23:51 Lindsey: He's just, he's just like developing a pool to draw on, I think, and to get money, you're right. I mean, yeah, it's power, money, and sex, that's that's what it comes down to. But no, I just, I didn't want to make it sound like, you know, the belonging, this thing itself is bad, or you know, are the fact that we respond to that as bad, it's just people who want to start cults are super aware of how powerful that is, and so so they, they exploit it.

0:24:05 Thomas: Yeah.

0:24:15 Thomas: And there's something about the difference. I'm trying to think. Cause like, it feels nice in any context to say, well, here's a loving, accepting community. Like that just feels like a positive thing no matter what. And then obviously it's kind of what you do with it or what the values are. But could it also be true? And let me know what you think. In my mind, I'm thinking like the more, I don't know, different the group is, the more incentive there is for that open community. You know, like when it's this Catholic school that, yeah, okay, there's a bazillion Catholics in the world, but they're very devout and they're very in some ways they're like kind of anti-modern in, like, there's... there's qualities to that school that would definitely set it apart from just your run-of-the-mill, you meet someone and they say they're Catholic kind of thing.

0:24:17 Lindsey: Um, yeah, yes,

0:25:08 Thomas: Um, and it strikes me that like, in the same way, and I'm not saying it's exactly a cult, but if it's on the cult spectrum, I think it's toward culty behavior, um, when you have something like this Nexium thing, the more, or or one of these, you, you know, maybe bizarre religious cults, the more weird assumptions or whatever that you've taken on as a group, like the more incentive there is to say like, yeah, if you're with us, you're awesome, we all love you, if you're not, then we don't, you know? Like, doesn't that, doesn't that kind of make that incentive even, even bigger? Oh, perfect.

0:25:40 Lindsey: Yes it does. Um, I've, I'm actually got like a big chunk of notes on that

0:25:48 Thomas: Okay.

0:25:48 Lindsey: So that, that idea of, of sort of like separation between the cult and the outside world, world, yeah, is, is very, very intentional. And so a lot of, a lot of the cults that you'll see, they'll build something into their ideology that kind of, um, is self perpetuating in an, in an interesting way. So, um, like this is after you get people like, uh, bought into the cult, right? They're already in, they, they feel like they got a group of friends and all that good stuff.

Um, the ideology that people buy into is like so strange and so disconnected from like mainstream beliefs that when they try to talk to other people outside the cult about it, they're likely to get sort of hostile responses, right? And so like part of the ideology that you'll see in cults is they'll lead people to anticipate those kinds of reactions. Like part of The Dogma will be like the outside world is separate. They're Hostile. They won't understand you. And so then when people try to go out and maybe talk to their old family members or friends about it and they get that response, it's like it's reinforcement that the cult was, the cult is right and that the ideology is right. So,

0:26:43 Thomas: Yeah. Um.

0:26:57 Lindsey: That's a, yeah, that's an aspect of things that I think sort of um, like perpetuates that isolation and really gets people to to double down even more on the ideology that the colt's asking them to buy into. Like I've got an example with with Nexium that it was kind of subtle in terms of that like isolation part and sort of setting up barriers through distinctiveness, essentially. So, you know, like in these seminars that they're doing, like the things that they called EMs or explorations of meaning. I guess in the seminars in general, like Keith created this whole language, this whole unique distinctive language to talk about things that are like, basic things about psychology. We already have words to describe the things that he's talking about that like normal people would understand.

0:27:21 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Everything has to be presented in a way that's like this is a revelation, like this person Is an absolute genius. And I'm curious about your opinion on Keith, because I think like quite clearly he's very smart, like there's no, he's not, I don't think he's like 100% bullshit. Like I think he's super smart, but part Of it Seems to me like finding ways to talk that make it sound like what you're saying is this hidden truth that other people don't have. Is that kind of what you are getting at?

0:27:56 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

0:28:19 Lindsey: Yeah Right. And yeah, so that's a, that's big part of it, right. To, to, to have this packaging that makes it seem like what you're selling is unique and that, you know, makes People think that they can only get what they're feeling from from your group. But I think that the other interesting effect that that has, um, of like creating that whole new language is that if somebody goes through all these seminars, learns all this language, like limiting beliefs and like rational inquiry has a special meaning in Nexium, um, viscera, unethical, like these all have different meanings. So if you have gone through this program and then you try to go back to your family members or friends and explain to them the experiences that you're having and why they're so powerful, uh, they're not going to be able to get what you're saying unless they too go through the program. And so they're probably going to look at you like you're crazy. And then that reinforces again, like the outside world is separate.

0:28:19 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:29:13 Lindsey: They're hostile. They don't have access to these truths that I do. And you, you sort of come back into the group, right? You're, you isolate from those people. It's just kind of like a subtle, interesting example of, um, like the kind of isolating techniques that I think that at least NXIVM used. I don't know if that's real common.

0:29:29 Thomas: And there's also a sense, I've had this feeling a lot where if you get enough people to say like, no, this person is a genius, then like you'll take what might be an ambiguous statement or what might feel like kind of a nonsensical statement or like a deepity, as as What's His name would say, something that Dennett would say, something that, you know, might have a chunk of wisdom in there, I guess. But you, you might think of it a different way. Like if you say, if you took a random quote and said, yeah, this is from your neighbor, you know, who just said this, versus no, this is from this one true genius person who has special access, you might like look deeper into it or think of it differently, you know? Yeah.

0:29:50 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're going to give them more of like benefit of the doubt or something.

0:30:20 Thomas: Or Think That there's something you're missing. Yeah.

0:30:21 Lindsey: Um, yeah absolutely. Yes, right. Yeah so if you, if it sounds like nonsense it's probably just because you're not smart enough to get it. That's definitely part of Keith's mystique and he, he definitely like like cultivates that intentionally.

0:30:29 Thomas: Right. Right. I think this is, I mean, just to go back to making jokes about me, this is why I wouldn't be in the cult. Cause I'm usually just like, no, I'm just about smart enough. You're just, it's not saying anything. I'm not, I don't have that quality where I'm like, this person is on a whole nother level. I's usually like, nah, I think you're kind of full of shit.

0:30:57 Thomas: And, and there are some people, Yeah, some people are like really into, and, and it gets so so interesting because I think there's also, um, it's not all about like, "Oh, I want this person's a genius and I'm dumb and I want to," whatever. It's also, I think, for specifically for what's, Mark and like some of these other people, and I think Alice and Mac as well, they also, there's a feeling of sort of like how the best restaurant or the best pizza place, it's never, uh, Dominoes or a Round Table or whatever, it has to be a hole in the wall place that only you've been to, in a, in a, you know, a fucking town in Italy that someone, whoever you're talking to hasn't been to. It's

0:30:57 Lindsey: Yeah, you're right. That is a, that is a vulnerably.

0:31:39 Lindsey: Exactly.

0:31:39 Thomas: That exact same impulse. It's like it serves you as well to be like, "No, no, I understand this guy," and I have found this genius, it's not all about you know. So, so it takes, I it takes that quality as well. Like wanting to be the one who has found this person who has this information.

0:31:45 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:31:57 Lindsey: Yeah yeah. I mean, I think especially for, for Mark and Alison Mack, it's, it's like the thrill of affiliating with somebody like that. Like you have more status by virtue of being close to Keith. Yeah, I mean there's probably something more general going on with, with everybody that's, that's in NXIVM, I guess. Um, uh, and it's often something that cults selling, you know, privileged access to these truths or whatever, but yeah, I don't have a single word to, to describe that. We were talking about, we're wrapping up talking about belonging needs and how cults exploit those, the other thing was that sort of that need for status or achievement or, or meaning, right? Things in in that ballpark, um, the fact that, uh, cults also target people who are are searching for those kinds of things in their life.

So I think we said this already, but, um, but yeah, like Sarah said that she was not feeling fulfilled in her career, and that's, you know, um, Nexium, and specifically going through the Stripe Path in in ESP, was like providing her with the sense of meaning and purpose that she'd never experienced before. Um, it's very touching moment really when she's like fondling that sash and

0:32:03 Thomas: Yeah.

0:32:19 Thomas: Well, Yeah.

0:33:04 Lindsey: She's like, "This is the first thing in my life that I ever felt like I really earned." Yeah. I

0:33:04 Thomas: Oh, Well, and you know I don't think it's a coincidence that a lot of these members are actors. A lot of them, actually, like, I think, because like, and, and, and the thing that might seem a little weird about it, or counterintuitive, is they're actually pretty successful, you know, um, they're people, they're, they're a lot of people from, and part of it is that once somebody got hooked in, they had connections via, you know, what the hell's that space show that I've watched that I already, of Battlestar Galactica. So if you're a big Battlestart Galactika fan, um, you may be disappointed or shocked to find when you watch this, there's like, I don't know, three, I think there's a lot, like two or three people that were in that show, show up in this. They might not be like at the highest levels of this cult necessarily, but they're, you see them on camera.

0:33:15 Lindsey: Yeah, right. Yeah.

0:33:57 Lindsey: They were in it Yeah.

0:33:58 Thomas: It's very interesting, and Um, I think that that, that makes sense, that like you're in a career where, you know, especially, especially with these actors, they have accomplished stuff, but they're not, you know, they're super famous or anything. So it always feels like there's further to go. And maybe, I don't know, maybe that applies to a lot of careers, but acting maybe in particular might be something where you feel like you could kind of always be on the brink, but you're not there yet. And so, and especially with a lot the members are maybe less successful than that. Like they've done a few like commercials or something, but they, you know, they, they need

0:33:58 Lindsey: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Sure. Yeah, but they never made it big. Yeah. And also, it I might have been Sarah that was saying that, you know, if you go to an audition, and you get it, you don't know why if you go to audition and you don'T get it. You don'T know why. And that that can really lead to a sense that like, whatever success you've had, you probably didn't earn, like, Maybe it was just that you looked a certain way or whatever, Yeah, Yeah, I mean, I, I think to a, to a pretty large degree it probably is. I mean, I'm not saying that acting doesn't require talent, but, um, but there's a lot of other things that are really required to make it big in Hollywood.

0:34:33 Thomas: To. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. Which honestly is probably true.

0:35:06 Thomas: Yeah.

0:35:06 Lindsey: Um, and I could definitely see that, uh, really sort of undermining the extent to which, um, actors like Sarah find their work purposeful, to not really feel like they're, they're earning it, I guess. I don't know, anyway. And so then, you know, along comes NXIVM, and in order to progress through the stripe path, I mean, anybody theoretically could do it as long as they're willing to invest the significant amount of time, money, and energy that it's required to, like, move up that path, right? And so you have all these like very specific tasks that you have to do to get to each next level. You know, you got to go to, you have to pay for so many more seminars. You have to recruit so many more people. That's the MLM part.

0:35:19 Thomas: Right. Yeah.

0:35:53 Lindsey: And you have to go through those, those EMs, the explorations of meaning. And so it's not like those are super skilled tasks, but they do require a shitload of effort.

0:36:05 Thomas: Yeah. And I would say the people who rose up, it seems as though they were, they're better at recruiting people. They're just, that's the key that the key to any good pyramid scheme. It's like, you never, whatever, you don't have to do it. Marketing thing is like the people are going to rise higher are going to be the ones who are just for whatever reason better at recruiting more people, and so it's all geared toward that. Yeah.

0:36:12 Lindsey: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

0:36:26 Lindsey: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But I mean, you you can see tangibly, like, these are the things that I've accomplished when I get this extra stripe or this different colored sash or whatever.

0:36:33 Thomas: Because I For sure Would be the person who like got into the cult and then just sucked at it, and they were like, you know, Take your entry level sash and go home, like, this is not Even, you don't belong here. That would would be me.

0:36:52 Lindsey: No, I don't think so. I think they'd have a place for you. Keith would be grooming you, I think. Yeah.

0:36:53 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. Just Like, just for the volleyball intramurals, I'd just be mainly Yeah. I'm Pretty Decent at volleyball. Yeah, of Course.

0:36:58 Lindsey: Um, yeah, yeah. What did you think that I meant? Jesus. Um, The the next thing that I thought might be, that I could lay some psych words out about. Um, Was, uh, so that's who cults are selling to and what they're selling, but then the next question is like, how are they selling this so effectively? Like, it's, it's great for Keith to say, I have all the answers, but how do you convince people that you actually do? Um, and actually, I think that, I think that part of that is just meeting those belongingness needs and like achievement needs, or whatever.

0:37:16 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:37:39 Thomas: And then you feel happier as a cult member, and you're like, wow, must be, must Be the magic they're selling. Yeah.

0:37:44 Lindsey: Must be, yeah, Keith must be a genius. Um. So that, that actually gets you pretty far, I think, but there's, there's also some more sophisticated machinery here that I think is, is, um, might be interesting to talk about. So, um, so one thing that I was struck by was how much people had to sacrifice to to join Nexium and to and to progress through, like, the stripe path and whatever, um, partly in terms of money, but also there was this sort of like psychological investment component. Um, so did we already describe the EMs and what those look like? Yeah. Essentially, you're doing something that looks roughly like a therapy session in front of an audience.

0:37:48 Thomas: Um, Right. Right, look,

0:38:22 Lindsey: And so you're disclosing these things that are painful. I think they're often things that people feel a lot of shame around and probably have a lot of insecurity about. And then with your coach, who's the, that's what they call them, right? The people who are doing the sessions.

0:38:41 Thomas: I'm Not In the cult, ma'am, I just, hey,

0:38:46 Lindsey: Yeah, so the coach is doing a couple of things. Some of them look like reframing, I think is what you'd call it if you were in cognitive behavioral therapy. But I think the other important part of it is that you're doing this in front of a bunch of people. And that at the end of it, after you've gone through this process of talking about these things you're you feel so terrible about, they all love and accept you at The the end. Which I just, I think is, I think is brilliant to go back to that, that belonging, this thing, right? Like, uh, they could be, they could be using whatever bullshit techniques they, they, they want to say the coaches are using, right? But I think that the biggest thing there is that they reveal these things and they're okay at the end of it, and everybody still loves them. So, yeah.

0:38:53 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:39:06 Thomas: Plus Think about how much, and maybe you can give me a psychology word for this or something, but, like, think about how much investment you would have in that being a positive story, you know, like, which is another reason that I wouldn't be a good cult member, because I'm fine being like, well, this sucked and I sucked and none of this worked out, but but, like, if you're in front, in an audience, you know, burying your soul or whatever, I think you're going to want to tell the story of, well, I did that and they reframed it or whatever the, you know, BS buzzwords they use, and then I had a breakthrough and I felt just amazing and we all hugged and cried and it was great. Like, you're gonna be so invested in that being a positive outcome that you kind of can make it happen that way in your mind, don't you think? Yeah.

0:40:11 Lindsey: Yeah, I I absolutely do. And I mean, I also think it's genuinely awesome to self-disclose something and to have somebody accept you after that, especially if there's like 100 people that are doing that. And if I'm super lonely, right? That sounds amazing. That was a little bit of a tangent. But the point is, like, NXIVM, a lot of investment, financial investment, but self-disclosure is a form of investment, right? You're being vulnerable with people. You're telling them things about yourself that you wouldn't necessarily tell everybody. And so that requires, like, a very real form of, like, psychological investment, right? So this is a nice illustration of something that cults do a lot, which is that they will require these displays of loyalty and commitment and investment in the group, and they will do it in a way that, like, slowly escalates over time as you get deeper and deeper into the group.

0:40:17 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:41:10 Lindsey: And this relies on actually a number of real classic, like, social psych type mechanisms, um, that are, uh, real big in, like, the attitude change literature and the compliance literature. So think, like, you shit that used car car dealers do and stuff, like low-balling, foot in the door, just, so one that I think, uh, Sarah illustrated pretty beautifully early on in episode one, is that she's talking about how she just paid $3,000 to go to the seminar, and she gets there, and her first reaction is, it's awful.

0:41:44 Thomas: Yeah, it is really shitty, because it's like a VHS tape of some lady talking, isn't It, like It's just nothing. Yeah.

0:41:49 Lindsey: Yeah, yeah. With a terrible power suit. And she's talking about whack-a-mole and it's just, it's awful. And so according to economists, right, what should somebody do if they just paid $3,000 and it turns out the thing they paid $1,000 for is stupid? If you're, if you're rational, right? What should you do?

0:41:52 Thomas: Yeah. Right. Uh, demand your money back and leave or something. Yeah, right.

0:42:12 Lindsey: Yeah. And if it's non-refundable, then like you should just cut your losses, right? You shouldn't stick it out through the seminar.

0:42:19 Thomas: Sounds like a sunk cost fallacy is What you're saying. So

0:42:21 Lindsey: It totally Does sound like a sunk cost fallacy. See, um, yeah, so that, for anybody who doesn't know, um, is the idea that, like, a lot of times, um, when people invest a lot money in something and it turns out to be disappointing, um, what they should do rationally is say, okay, I accept that I lost this money, but I'm gonna leave, because otherwise I'm just accepting that I'm also gonna suffer through this experience that I paid for that's crappy. But humans are not rational. And so what people typically do is they're like, all right, well, I'll stick it out. I've already paid all this money, so I may as well stick it out. And me

0:42:55 Thomas: Funny Stupid story about this, when, not, I was in college, I was quote unquote the honors program, and there was a lot of cool stuff about that, like, cool, yeah, I took these little seminars and stuff, and me being a kid who kind of did all that stuff, you know, like, whatever that stuff, whatever it was, if it said like it was, oh, gifted and talented, whatever, I, you know, I just tended to do that and thought, you know, okay, so this is that again, and I should do that. And I remember having a conversation with somebody who was also in that, but was an economics major reason I bring it up. And she revealed to me, like she was, I think she was a year ahead of me, I'm pretty sure if I'm remembering correctly. And she, you come to find out that the honors program is not actually quote unquote, graduating with honors. It's a a different thing for some reason. Yeah. Like graduating with honors, I think is just GPA based. I want to say if I'm remembering this correctly.

0:43:19 Lindsey: Too.

0:43:45 Lindsey: What? Oh,

0:43:52 Thomas: Um, yeah. And so if you get a 3.5, you're at something, uh, 3.75 or something, whatever it is. And the graduating from the honors program effectively does nothing like you get, um, maybe there's some benefit that I don't remember or didn't find out about. But so this, this friend of mine was telling me that this was a classic sunk cost fallacy because you get through like the, the main stuff you had to do in this honors program was in the first year. And we, you know, most of the time you just do it and blah, blah, blah. And then you get to, you don't have to do much into it until senior year.

You have to do like a final project. And she was like, yeah, The sunk cost is like, you find out it's not really worth it, but then everyone just does the final project to, because they did the first year or whatever. And uh, I took that to heart and I just didn't do it. And so I, I, I took the class for the final project. Like, there was a class and then you had to complete the thing, and I did the class and kind of went along with it and came up with an idea and then just never did it.

0:43:52 Lindsey: That's true. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah.

0:44:54 Lindsey: That's so funny. I actually did the exact same thing. Yeah, The only difference at my college was that if you, if you did the final project, you got to have the, the honors designation in Latin. And if you, yeah.

0:44:54 Thomas: Really? Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, maybe That was it, you get some meaning talking, you know, cults, you get something thing. Like, you did get to put your name on the program differently or something, like part of the honors, but it wasn't anything. I just remember, especially, you know, I was in the business school. Like, I probably wasn't, I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but one way or the other, I made the very lazy calculation that I didn't want to do this final project.

0:45:10 Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah, Exactly.

0:45:33 Thomas: And I was like, I'm just not doing it. And yeah. So anyway, sunk cost fallacy.

0:45:37 Lindsey: We didn't succumb, succumb to it. Good for us.

0:45:40 Thomas: Yeah, there you go. Oh, learn to quit things faster, everybody. That's my message.

0:45:41 Lindsey: Yeah, give up sooner. That's the main take-home from this podcast.

0:45:50 Thomas: We've gone off the rails. Get us back on track.

0:45:50 Lindsey: Yeah.

0:45:59 Thomas: Right, that is the end of part one. In part two, we talk a little bit more about how cults keep people and all that, and then we talk about little about QAnon, Trump, and how much those particular things resemble cults, plenty more in part two. So here's the thing, I'm going to do the thing I used to do where patrons at patreon.com/seriouspod get access to part two right away. So if you'd like to jump on over there, you can. And that's a good time to make this particular announcement. Here's the thing. I still have some people who are on the website. I started the website back when Patreon threatened to do a really dumb thing and basically ruin the entire business model of how Patreon would work.

0:46:44 Thomas: And they did that like two years ago or so, and they decided to not do that. And it looks as though that's permanent. So I still have people on the website. I still put out the episodes on the website, I don't have a great way of releasing content early on the web site. So if you would like to make that switch back from the website to patreon.com/seriouspod, you can do so, get the early episode. If not, that's, that fine, still works on the Web site, I will still post the episode, but I can't really do it early. So that's up to you. Feel free to make that decision either way, but as I said, part two available right now, patreon.com/seriouspod. Thank you so much to all the patrons who make the show happen. Thanks again to Lindsey, and I will see you for part two on cults.

0:47:41 Clip: Thank you so much for listening to Serious Inquiries Only. If you like the show, the absolute best thing you can do is support us at patreon.com/seriouspod. The second best thing you can do, is please share it on social media or by word of mouth. Speaking of social media, follow me on Twitter at Serious Pod. If would like to be Facebook friends, send me a request at facebook.com Thomas podcast. If not up for that level of intimacy, that's fine. Maybe you want to join the discussion at facebook.com/groups/SIO members. Thank you again for listening. We'll see you next time.