Smells Like Humans
Top 5% global podcast! Smells Like Humans is a seasonal podcast dedicated to bringing a humorous perspective to quirky and curious aspects of human behavior. Each show, the SLH crew will focus on a different topic, and share personal stories and observations in a way that sounds like you’re hanging out with your funny friends. The stories and commentary are presented with humor and warmth, since let’s face it: we all smell like humans. (Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com)
Smells Like Humans
CAN WE PUT YOU IN A BRAND NEW CULT TODAY?
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Co-host and cult-bait Madeline and guest Jaimee join Ross to discuss why more of us haven't joined cults. Tangents include: girl camp; food storage; branding; NXVM; India Oxenberg; loneliness epidemic; off-brand Kool-Aid; Heaven's Gate; Nikes; Big Hair; meat puppets; bride training; spaceships; cult-adjacent; MLM's; Scientology; Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt; Brazilian Butt Lift. Jaimee tells more Mormon stories. If you like drinking games, take a drink every time you hear "hermit".
Notes:
- https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/a10309417/scariest-cult-stories/
- https://www.amazon.com/Cultish-Language-Fanaticism-Amanda-Montell/dp/0062993151/ref=sr_1_1?crid=38X0HXFGGTMND&keywords=cultish+amanda+montell&qid=1644429708&sprefix=cultish%2Caps%2C165&sr=8-1
Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com
Also, the people that are susceptible are optimistic and smart. Ooh. Like Madeline here.
SPEAKER_03Oh no! I'm both complimented and thrown under the bus at the same time.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to another episode of Smells Like Humans. This is the podcast where we explore the curious things that people do, the very human things that grab our attention and cause us to wonder, what and why? I'm Rock, your host, and today my guest has one of the most interesting backstories that I know. The ever delightful and remarkably relatable Jamie. Hello, Jamie.
SPEAKER_06Hello, my friend.
SPEAKER_01And today, I am very pleased to have as my co-host the very smart, very engaging, and very how do you do, Madeline. Hello, Madeline.
SPEAKER_05How do you do?
SPEAKER_01Yes, welcome to the show. Thank you.
SPEAKER_05Glad to be here.
SPEAKER_01And welcome everyone. Friends, you know, you know what I'm going to say next. If you listen to the show, I always ask you at the top to please share the show. It really, really helps. Our show is growing, our community is growing, and we appreciate everything you're doing. But the very best way to help us is to share the show any way you can with anyone you can. We'll talk more about how you can help us at the end. But for now, I'd like to get started. So, Jamie.
SPEAKER_06Yes.
SPEAKER_01Madeline, we know that humans have a fundamental need for community, for meaning, and for ritual. If you don't, you may be a freaking hermit. And today my take is because we are seekers of community and we're seekers of meaning, we are all at risk for joining a cult. Some people think that people who join cults are weak, they're not very smart, they're very gullible, they're easily brainwashed, quote unquote. And sometimes that's the case, but not exclusively.
SPEAKER_05Definitely not.
SPEAKER_01It makes us feel safe if we believe that it's only the weak and the silly people that get hooked on cults. But in fact, lots of smart, otherwise discerning people join and stay in cults all the time. Especially right now when it's been reported that culture-wide feelings of isolation are at an all-time high.
SPEAKER_05Why do you think that is?
SPEAKER_01We're having a loneliness epidemic.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that sounds right.
SPEAKER_01So today, instead of bashing people for joining cults, which I know people like to do, I want to look at why more of us aren't in cults right now. Yeah. And I want to talk about the groups that may not be full-blown cults but are cultish.
SPEAKER_05Cult adjacent.
SPEAKER_01Right. And I want to share ways to recognize if your little QAnon coffee clutch might be leading to a cult situation.
SPEAKER_05If it's QAnon related, I think that's the information you need. I think you've got it.
SPEAKER_01You've got it. Jamie and I, uh, Madeline, we must confess, are seriously into cults. We have a problem. Okay. Yeah, I didn't really I thought of it more as an interest, not a problem. Um, but uh have either of you ever been in something that might be described as a cult or it felt cult-like to you?
SPEAKER_07Uh well, I was born and raised Mormon when I was a kid, so I would definitely call that cult adjacent.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, if not maybe a cult.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Well, we're gonna talk about some of the factors that um make something a cult, but I'm just wondering what made it feel like a cult to you or cult-ish.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, there were a lot of things. Obviously, I didn't choose to be Mormon, you know, I was born into it um when my parents were together, but um there were a lot of things. Me and my sister sometimes will like have a bunch of wine on a girl's night, and we'll talk about uh stuff that we went through uh growing up and just bizarre things will come out.
SPEAKER_01But is drinking wine on a girl's night one of the Mormon tenets?
SPEAKER_07Uh no, it definitely that's not allowed. Oh, I didn't think we were gonna ask if girls' nights were cults. Ooh, wow you might be onto some, you know, there's the set vocabulary of what happened to us. I'm adding that to my list.
SPEAKER_01I've never been to a girls' night, so I'm not sure. But I would like to do that.
SPEAKER_07Ross, you you're you always have an invitation to our see, androgyny pays off.
SPEAKER_01There you go. Okay, so back to you.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, so there was just like a lot of things that that uh I remember as a kid. Um, like for example, we used to have to go to this thing called girls' camp, which was uh all the the girls from the Mormon church when you go to church when you're Mormon, they separate you into your gender specific groups, okay, and they separate you by age as well. So when you're like uh uh middle school or high school, you have to go to this thing called girls' camp.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_07Which sound doesn't that sound fun? Like go kayaking or luxury? Sure. I don't know. I was poor, I never went to camp, but it sounds like it would be fun when actually it is like church but outside.
SPEAKER_01Outside church?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, but it's all the girls that are there, and they're kind of like like I remember one particular sermon was about the the hygiene that you should have as a lady for when you get married.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_07What does that mean? Like your personal hygiene, your business, your bits, yeah. And that was like a sermon, and I was like 12. Right. So I was like, what? Okay, you know, I had no idea. That's horrifying. Horrifying, right? And yeah, so it's like all these small girls kind of learning how to be brides, basically.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god.
SPEAKER_07The club of good wives and mothers.
SPEAKER_01Bride training. Yeah, there's an old joke that says cult plus time equals religion. And the Mormon faith hasn't been around that long, right? It's relatively relative. So it's like maybe they just need a little more time for it to seem normal.
SPEAKER_07I just feel like um as a woman being raised Mormon, it's a very uh patriarchal religion where it's like if you're a a woman in the religion, you can't hold any power at all. Um and you're kind of just trained from a young age to believe that your ultimate goal in life is to be a wife and a mother and work from home, yep, and support your husband no matter what.
SPEAKER_01And if you're a little kid and you say, Well, I want to grow up to be a doctor, yeah. And I don't necessarily want to get married, what happens? Murder.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Be a cat lady forever. Uh talking to. But yeah, you can definitely like have a job. They don't like discourage you from having a job or anything, but it's just like a big like red mark on you if you are a female that's not married and doesn't have children. Also, there's a thing called celestial marriage in the Mormon church. Okay.
SPEAKER_03If you've ever heard of No, but that's a heck of a turn of phrase.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, so when you get married in the Mormon church, you are sealed to your husband. So when you die, when you go to heaven, uh, you're still married to your husband. No way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. You're stuck with this dude forever.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, forever.
SPEAKER_02Oh man. But no fresh start.
SPEAKER_07If anything happens to you, um, or if you get divorced, or whatever, your husband can get sealed to other women. Oh, of course. And that's equality. Yeah. And you're all still sealed together in heaven. So your husband can have like multiple wives, but the the women can't get sealed to more than one. I hate that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I hate everything about this. It sounds gross.
SPEAKER_02Doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01It sounds gross, but also I noticed because I've looked at a lot of cults. Yeah. We both have. And I would say, just guesstimating, at least 80% of the cults, and I think I've looked at just about all the biggest ones, and a lot of ones that no one's ever heard of. Yeah. And I'd say eight out of ten times it involves some sort of exploitation of women. Yeah. That's sort of the central thing, and it's all gussied up as something else, but at the bottom of it, it's kind of like here's how we control the women, and here's how we exploit them sexually and in other ways.
SPEAKER_05Well, in these very staunch gender roles, it seems like, and no room for the natural fluidity of that, right? Like I can't imagine that there's safe space for trans Mormon youth.
SPEAKER_07Oh no. Yeah, the suicide rate in Utah is like super duper hot awful. It's horrible.
SPEAKER_05Or even I mean, even outside of transness, just people who don't uh line up with theoretical gender ideals.
SPEAKER_07The church s recently um came out with a they were trying to be like better about the LGBTQIA community and like so that they would look at it. Well, it would be hard to be worse. I yeah. Yeah, yeah. So there was a portion of time where they were trying to be better, and then uh recently they came out with a new uh policy that basically says if you are a child of gay parents, you have to disown your parents, or if you're a parent of gay children, you have to disown your children. Right.
SPEAKER_01Wait, that's now? Yes.
SPEAKER_07Oh, in recent years, yeah.
SPEAKER_05There was a God is love unless we don't like it.
SPEAKER_07Exactly. That's exactly it. Right. Wow.
SPEAKER_01So you have to unseal.
SPEAKER_07You have to unseal.
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, this it's fascinating. Um I was preparing for the show, and there are so many different interesting factors that make a cult a cult. Um, because there are religions and other activities that people do, and they say colloquially, oh, it's a cult, but it really isn't. So I tried to take all this long list of factors and boil it down to like six, and I just want to see if any of them resonate with you, either in terms of practicing or being a Mormon back in the day, because you're currently not a Mormon.
SPEAKER_07No, God, no.
SPEAKER_01You're on um, what do they call it when you're when you're like uh what do they call that? Are you excommunicated?
SPEAKER_07Oh, I got excommunicated, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I got excommunicated in the church, yeah.
SPEAKER_07They didn't want me.
SPEAKER_01Well, we want you for sure. Okay, so here are some of the key factors. Number one, every cult, no matter what it is, no matter what you're looking at, whether it's the Manson family or Heaven's Gate or any of that stuff, you have a charismatic or charming leader who claims to have, and this is very important for the cult, they claim to have special access or wisdom and insight into information about how to be a better person, how to be a more accomplished person, how to be a more spiritually sound person. And they have a system or a process or something that they can teach you somehow to work through that'll get you into a much better place than you are now. But only they have this information. Okay, so in the Mormon church, was there ever was there is there I go back to Joseph Smith?
SPEAKER_07Oh, yeah, Joseph Smith for sure.
SPEAKER_05I mean, I think I I don't know all that much about Mormonism, and I don't mean to um offend any of our Mormon listeners, but uh I feel like you have to be pretty charismatic to sell uh I found these words from God and you all need to do exactly what I say.
SPEAKER_07And Joseph Smith was before he founded the Mormon church, he was kind of known to be like a professional con man, like he always had like these different schemes cooking.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, and that's a theme that runs through cults when you go to the backstory of the leaders, they often start out as trying different kinds of cons or trying different versions of this until they kind of get the the one that works, the pattern that really sells. So charismatic leader, whether they be Jim Jones or uh Donald Trump or Charles Manson, they have that sort of appeal. Marshall Applewhite, that was the Heaven's Gate guy. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Um Heaven's Gate, is that the Kool-Aid?
SPEAKER_01No, that's Jim Jones and the People's Temple. Heaven's Gate. Um, this is one of my favorite ones.
SPEAKER_07Oh, it's okay.
SPEAKER_01So that's well, it's just I love the a really creative backstory or cover story. So that really gets me, that draws me into these stories because it's like, okay, so wait a minute, try to imagine myself listening to a pitch. And the pitch was basically that um if you followed the teachings of this cult, you would be saved. Okay, you would be transported somehow to a spaceship that was hiding behind a comet.
unknownWhat?
SPEAKER_01And then you would you would leave your body, uh, which was basically just a vehicle anyway, your body. And and the essence of you your meat puppet. Yes, and then you would basically go to uh see God.
SPEAKER_05Beat me up Scotty, be beat me up gaudy, yeah, yes.
SPEAKER_01So, but it was this very elaborate story. And um what happens in a lot of these cults is they, and this is one of the factors, they usually have some sort of doomsday scenario.
SPEAKER_05Because that's why it's important now, right? That's why you need to join now, is doomsday is coming.
SPEAKER_01Something's coming, it's end of times, only a few people can be saved. It's very similar to what you know Christianity teaches. Like it's like hurry through the narrow door as the Bible teaches, you know, like the end of the world is coming. There used to be the guy that would hold the sign that says the end of the world is near.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Well, there's definitely still facets of contemporary Christianity that are so focused on the end of days and yeah, so get with your get with the program, right?
SPEAKER_07So when I was a kid, we always had to have food storage. Every Mormon family has what's called food storage. So we you have like a big, huge, like a whole room in your basement that has like we I remember we're having these huge tubs of like flour and like grains and stuff, and we always had like stocked full for the second coming.
SPEAKER_05What? Yeah and and with So for in-between when things get really bad and when you get raptured, like the in-between period.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, when all the stuff is going down, right you just hunker down in your basement with your food storage and golden. Clear, good to go, okay.
SPEAKER_01So the Heaven's Gate people ended up in San Diego. They rented a house and you know uh they tried to recruit more and more people, but they had they didn't do very well. I think at the end there were maybe around 30 to 5 to 40 people, and they all committed suicide. Yeah boy taking phenobarbital mixed with applesauce, which is talk about food storage. Oh boy, and they all wore the same clothes, and famous famously they wore Nike shoes, which was Oh, really? If you yeah, that was what they showed like on the news, is just the shoes. And so that became uh the way people thought about having so it's kind of like a speed run of Scientology, yes, and uh that's the other thing I've noticed is that um like Nexum Nexium is that Nexium is it Nexum? It sounds like it was Nexium. Nexium is the antacid.
SPEAKER_05Oh, okay. Maybe that's what I heard.
SPEAKER_01I don't know the one with Keith Reneri.
SPEAKER_05Right, yeah, the horrifying cult.
SPEAKER_01Yes, he borrowed from Scientology, and Marshall Applewhite borrowed from Scientology, which was all made up by L. Ron Hubbard.
SPEAKER_05Well, it was originally published as science fiction novels, right?
SPEAKER_01Right. He was basically, I'm gonna make up a religion, and guess what? It worked.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And next thing you know, Tom Cruise. Hello. So uh so anyway, charismatic leader, yep. Very important, access to special wisdom.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_01When you first join, this is an important part of cult. They love bomb, they love bomb the heck out of you, which is showering you with unconditional love. You're perfect as you are, we love you. And and you would see this with people who um who uh convert to a new religion or convert to a religion for the first time. They often feel like, oh my god, I've never, these are my people.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I feel so welcome.
SPEAKER_01I feel so welcome, everybody's so cool, they're so like they love everything about me, I can do no wrong, and that's whatever the cult is, they all do that at first.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, gotta get those pleasure centers singing.
SPEAKER_01Yes, they go to your pleasure centers, they go to your pleasure centers with love bombing. Uh another thing, there's a whole book I read on this that I can recommend. It's called Cultish.
SPEAKER_05Um, I've seen that, yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's fascinating to read. It's all it was written by the linguist, and it's all about how um one of the aspects, defining aspects of cults is they change the language.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So they have a lot of secret code words and a whole lexicon that makes you, on the one hand, feel like you're doing something really cool and different, but it also disorients you and kind of squashes your critical thinking.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01So that you stop um asking questions and just accept this new reality which has been grossly distorted. Uh, it also language by changing the language, it helps separate you from the sheeple. Yes, yeah, all those other people, and that's another important aspect is to, you know, we're different. Yeah, we're different. Yeah, the uttering is really important. And Scientology in this book, Cultish, um, she has this one or two page dialogue between Scientologists. And I don't, you can't understand a word because they're all using all the secret language, basically, the specialized language, you have no idea what they're talking about.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_01And that's part that that's part of the role of the language is is that you it would be really difficult to have a cult without special language, special terms. And if you look at all the cults, they all have like their special technology um terminology and things.
SPEAKER_07When I was um twelve, uh, I think it's always when you're 12 in the Mormon church, you get something that's called your patriarchal blessing. Oh god. What is that?
SPEAKER_03That sounds horrifying.
SPEAKER_07It is horrifying. It's like uh uh kind of like a prediction of your life's path. And I wish I could find my match for Jesus. Yeah, they like print it out for you and but the thing that I remember specifically is they assign you to a tribe, which there's a whole backstory of this, but like how the Mormon church started. Um there's all these different tribes that came to America from across the seas, you know, and then you're assigned to your tribe. And I just remember mine was the tribe of Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_05What does that mean? I don't know.
SPEAKER_07I don't I'm just leaving that right there. Yeah, wow. It's I don't I didn't understand any of it. I was twelve, you know.
SPEAKER_01It sounds cool.
SPEAKER_07Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I like the idea of being part of something, and I think that's part of the attraction. Okay, totally charismatic leader, love bombing, the secret language, and this is the big one. This is how you start really knowing maybe this is a cult. There is some type of exploitation or abuse, whether it be financial, they're making you pay more and more money, like Scientology. If you want to keep getting better, you gotta come up with thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. Sexual, like uh Nexum.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_01Uh that was basically a sex trafficking cult, yeah. Uh, or some other psychological abuse or exploitation. And if you when you're early on into this, as you start realizing, wait a minute, they're asking me like a nexum, they uh the women in that had to be branded near their genital region. Um branded, it's horrifying, yeah, right. So if you raise any questions, it's all about your problem. Like you, oh, you're oh you're having a crisis of faith? Yes, yeah, it's always a crisis of faith. You know, this is this is something you need to fix.
SPEAKER_05No, I'm having a crisis of not wanting to be branded near my genitals, yeah, or anywhere. Yeah, actually.
SPEAKER_01Like I just personally, I would also prefer not to be branded. Can we do it in marker? Yeah, because yeah, I would not be able to do it. But a lot of people did. Yeah. So that's a big part of it. Next, isolation. Yes. This is what you were getting at. It's the othering, but it's really getting you to r to agree and believe that your problems are at least in large part due to the fact that you're hanging out with the wrong people. Doing the wrong kinds of things, and that includes your friends, your family, and anything that you do that's anyone outside of this.
SPEAKER_05Yes. I read a really interesting um personal accounting of something like that of someone talking about um missionary work and talking about specifically like sending people door to door in a community. Yeah. And they were theorizing, they were like, well, the point isn't that you might convert someone. That's just a bonus if that somehow magically happens. You're not going to. They know that people are going to shut the door on you, people are going to be frustrated. But what that does is that reinforces this. You're getting all of these negative feelings from the outside community, these people who are frustrated with you for coming to their door, and you come back to the church, and the church says, Oh, you did so good, we're so proud of you, you tried. Those people out there are also cruel, but we are here for you. And so it actually serves this purpose of reinforcing this othering. Right. Was this this theory that this person had, which makes sense to me totally.
SPEAKER_01So the problem is them, the problem is the others. The problem is the sheeple, and they're too silly, stupid, or unenlightened to know that they're on the wrong path. And ha by hanging around these people, you are impeding your own progress through the system to get to this enlightenment or get to this new experience like Heaven's Gate, you're gonna they're keeping you from getting to the spaceship that's behind the comet.
SPEAKER_05How can you beam up with all of these people waving you down?
SPEAKER_01And so that's why these people, when they're when they've when they've really um bought into the cult and they've been, you know, they've been totally indoctrinated into the cult, it's really hard to do anything to tell them and um to tell them anything about it, you know, will get them to change their mind. Uh and if you're thinking, well, I wouldn't be like that, we're gonna talk about that some more in a bit, but if whatever, let's say you're a religious person now and I tried to talk you out of it, whatever your faith is, you'd be like, Well, no, you can there's nothing you can tell me. I believe what I believe, right? Or even just something more pedestrian, like relationships. When people are in relationships and they can't sometimes they can't so hard to see a bad thing when you're in it, when you're deep in it. And they can't hear it, right?
SPEAKER_07People can tell you all they want, but you until you see it yourself.
SPEAKER_01And it'll make them mad sometimes, and you'll be like, you know, I don't think this person's my friend because they keep telling me this guy or this person is not good for me. So uh isolation from friends and family, that is key. That is so important part of a cult. If that's happening and people are saying you can't be in the re in the real world, you just have to be in our world, that's how you know it's a cult.
SPEAKER_05That's when you run.
SPEAKER_01Uh well, but it may be too late. But if you start seeing that or hearing that and you still have um your your logic and common sense going down, so you would run. And then the last one I selected was uh there's there's some implied or actual threats to you about leaving.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_01Whether it just be your whole life is gonna fall apart, that's a common one. Like you're just not gonna be able to function out there because it's horrible and you'll fall apart and your world will just cease to to work for you. Um sometimes there's actual threats like we will come and get you.
SPEAKER_07Gonna break your legs.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, something bad will happen to you. Uh, I think the Scientologists say your body will be snatched by aliens if you leave. I I I've read that up.
SPEAKER_05Well, there's that great cake song. I can't remember the actual name of the song, but it's the we're building a religion, we are building it bigger. Yeah. That's a great song. It has a line about uh we're behind you, we're behind you, and we'll send a car to find you if you ever lose your way.
SPEAKER_01There you go. So if you haven't paid attention to anything we've said so far, just listen to the side. Just listen to the cake song, yeah. And then you're up to be up to speed. So when all those factors are present, charismatically your love bombing, language, uh, exploitation, isolation, and threats, when these factors are present, you are most likely involved in a destructive, a destructive cult. Your old life has been erased, your total commitment and existence is uh to the group or the cult. So do you think either of you are susceptible to joining a cult?
SPEAKER_05I think anyone's susceptible to joining a cult. Me too. I think it I think especially when you are in a point of crisis or trial, or you know, you're you're going through something in your life. I think those are times when you're especially not that it can only happen then, but those are times when you're especially looking for bigger meaning, looking for comfort. I think it's very easy to find yourself in a moment like that, buying into someone offering it.
SPEAKER_01And I might have mentioned right now we're having a loneliness epidemic.
SPEAKER_05Just a little bit.
SPEAKER_01Um, you know, uh, here are some factors that they've found that research suggests are associated with people who are more likely to join cults. So you won't be surprised that the lonely and vulnerable are more susceptible, impulsive people, broken people, strong, they're people that have a really strong need to belong. And as I suggested at the beginning, we all have some baseline need to belong to something unless you're a freaking hermit.
SPEAKER_05We are largely packing a little bit, I am. We are packing. There are some people who are are less so, but but largely yes, freaking hermits.
SPEAKER_01Um the uh but yes, we evolved, we our our ancestors figured out that hanging in a group was better freaking. Better survival, better than being an individual or what they used to call back then a hermit.
SPEAKER_05A freaking hermit.
SPEAKER_01Freaking hermits. But here's the one that people are surprised to learn. Also, the people that are susceptible are optimistic and smart. Ooh, uh like Madeline here.
SPEAKER_03I'm both complimented and thrown under the bus.
SPEAKER_01Yes, at the same time, you believe in the power of people and groups. Yes, you're good at defending your beliefs because you're smart. Thank you. And a smart person in a cult is a dangerous thing to behold. Because they they can you can't argue with them. They're so they're so overprepared to to refute anything you say.
SPEAKER_05Oh, I hate that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, having big dreams makes you vulnerable, and Scientology and a lot of other takes advantage of this because they say, Hey, you want to do more, you want to be more, you know, you have so much untapped potential and you've struggled and you're frustrated.
SPEAKER_05You want to be special?
SPEAKER_01You are special, you are special, but you just need a system. Here's another thing.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01People with money.
SPEAKER_05Okay, I feel less in danger now.
SPEAKER_01People with money. People with money because um they're used to like spending money to feel good. Right. And they don't mind it, and they actually think it's kind of a status thing.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's just the way the world is. That's what you do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that shows we're all susceptible because at some fundamental level, whether we're rich or poor, or whatever our station in life is, we there's two things. We want to feel good, we want to feel valued, we want to belong to something meaningful, we want all that goodness. And the other thing that's true for everybody who's alive right now is they don't feel like they're actually sure how to get it. Yeah. Like everybody's uh insecure at some level. So, anyway, back to smart people being ripe for joining cults. So there was this uh cult called Nexum, not Nexium.
SPEAKER_05That was a medication.
SPEAKER_01The reason it's hard to know is it's spelled so weird. N V X, no, NXVM. Nexvum.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So that's an example of this. Like, we're just gonna call it.
SPEAKER_05It sounds like I'm gonna beatbox Yeah, the beatbox cult.
SPEAKER_01Well, so there's uh there was a couple of documentaries made, one The Vow, and one called Seduced. And Seduced, I think, is the better of the two. It's shorter too, but anyway, details both of them detail um the path of several people, one of them being India Oxenberg, who is uh daughter of a like a 70s TV actress. And she was very smart and uh obviously someone who uh had some means, you know. She wasn't poor, she wasn't uh weak, you know, you wouldn't identify her as anything but part of the glittering class. And she got hooked into this bad. She got she got the branding, she was sex trafficked, all that stuff happened to her. And the it's interesting to watch seduced because it focuses on her story with her giving interviews in it. And you can tell that she's an intelligent person. Yeah, and you can tell also now that she's out of the cult, she is still trying to understand it psychologically, like what how she got in it, and you have to, right? All the choices. And and you don't walk away from her story thinking, oh, she's just dumb, or she was just a broken person. She's like, no, this is like uh this is a high quality human who got involved. And I the thing that's interesting to me is that sometimes even after like the leader has been exposed and they like that um Bikram yoga guy, that yoga, another sexual abuse story. Yeah, well, he w went out of the country.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_01But but so like he gets exposed and there's whatever there is, and then people still still flock to him, yeah. They still go along with it. They're still in it. Like, what's his name? Keith Rainier from Nexus. He he went to jail for life for sex trafficking, good riddance, yeah, child abuse, child pornography, I think, too. I think is one of the charges. Anyway, he's in there theoretically for life.
SPEAKER_05Our justice system is uh pardon the expression, fucked, but there are certain people who should absolutely be locked away from society forever. And he is one of them, and he is one of them.
SPEAKER_01Uh, and um, but they're still like supporters of him. Oh, yeah. Women that are supporting him, that were in the cult and they're still in the cult. Yeah. To me, that's an amazing amount of commitment. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Jamie, yeah, you like these cult stories. I love these cult stories. What do you have a favorite one?
SPEAKER_07Um, I I have a lot of favorite ones. I think obviously one that's really interesting for me is the the FLDS church because of my background, where um, and I'm not talking about uh polygamy or polyamory. I'm fully supportive of uh consenting adults having multiple partners in a relationship. I think that's great and super healthy. Uh what I'm talking about is um the FLDS church led by Warren Jeffs, who uh marries children.
SPEAKER_01That's horrifying. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07This is the fundamentalist fundamentalist church of Latter-day Saints, yeah. Um and I don't know if you've ever watched like Big Love. No.
SPEAKER_05I I'm I know the name, I think. Okay, yeah. Commercial.
SPEAKER_01I know Big Love's kind of I know the unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
SPEAKER_07Oh my god, with the mole women. Yeah, it's gonna have to watch it. Yeah, if you've never watched Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, you've gotta watch it. Okay. Um when I was a kid, we used to go up to my grandparents lived in um Bountiful, Utah. And it because like downtown Salt Lake City, there's not a lot of uh polygamous uh fundamentalists there, but in some of the smaller towns, you would go to the grocery store and you see these women. There's like five women in their like pioneer dresses with like a long braid and 12 kids, you know. Oh yeah. And we would see them when we go visit my grandparents. But um, yeah, there was like they had a huge compound in Texas. Um, and I think Warren Jeff's was I think at this point had like 80, 85 wives and like more children than you can count. Um, and he was on the FBI's top 10 most wanted lists. I remember when this was happening when I was a kid, like watching uh America's Most Wanted and seeing Warren Jeff's on there and being like, oh, this is so crazy because it started in my in my state, you know, yeah, your neck of the woods. Yeah, totally. And um he got arrested and went to jail, but he's basically still running the church from prison. He just, you know, has his phone calls and gives his minions orders and stuff. And yeah, um, I think they raided the compound in Texas and took a bunch of the kids and child brides and stuff, and um, so that one's always crazy to me.
SPEAKER_01He married uh almost all of his father's wives.
SPEAKER_07Yes, when his dad died, he married his dad's wives. Oh man, within a week. Yeah, his dad dies and he marries I think his brother's wives too. There's a lot of people. Yeah, it was a lot. Um yeah, and when he got caught, when the FBI caught him, um, you know, the fundamentalists are supposed to wear like a full suit and all this kind of stuff. But I think he was with one of his brides and he was in like a a convertible and he was wearing like shorts and sunglasses and like yeah, just everything that he's not supposed to wear.
SPEAKER_05Right, well, because the rules never apply to the leaders, right? Exactly.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, that's almost always the case the more you get into it. And that's often how they break apart is people start realizing that with the biggest thing. The hypocrisy. Yeah. This guy isn't so special, and he's sleeping with everybody. I know. And it's almost always a guy, but lately, uh there was a podcast, I think, about Teal Swan, who's a woman. Okay, and she claims to have very special information. Like she can look at you and tell you what you had for breakfast.
SPEAKER_05What? I'm pretty predictable. She probably could. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, she would, and she's supposed to have ad you know uh access to a higher plane of wisdom and knowledge. That's one of her deals. But a lot of it is virtual, like it's like the new age kind of thing. It's like you can just be part of this.
SPEAKER_05Zoom cults.
SPEAKER_07Wow.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So that's you know, it's kind of interesting to think about.
SPEAKER_07Uh speaking of female cult leaders, because I know that there's not a lot of them, but a documentary that I know I recommended for you to watch that I was like, my mind was like, what? was called The Way Down. Have you ever heard about this? Oh wait, yes. Okay, so the way down was like a weight loss cult for Jesus.
SPEAKER_05Oh my gosh. Yeah, it was so crazy.
SPEAKER_01Jesus did not like the obese.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Yeah. I watched the trailer for this thing, and it's like there's this woman on there, and she's like, I lost 195 pounds for Jesus.
SPEAKER_05Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, crazy.
SPEAKER_05So this woman has Jesus is body shaming us now. I know right. Wow.
SPEAKER_07This woman has this whole program where she's basically like starving her constituents. But the thing about this documentary is that like the more followers she gets and the more like people are like losing weight, the bigger her hair gets. It's absorbed. Every episode the weight goes straight to her hair. Yeah. By the end, she's just like a walking candied apple. Like, it's just like an enormous ball of hair. Yeah, I'll have to post a photo of it on our Instagram or something. But yeah, uh, event eventually it gets really bad and people are actually like, you know, starving. And I she encourages her followers to like really discipline their children, and she d does it by having them um hit them with glue sticks because they hurt a lot, but they don't show the visible damage.
SPEAKER_05Jeez.
SPEAKER_07And a kid ends up dying.
SPEAKER_05It's uh that's horrifying.
SPEAKER_07It was it's a crazy, crazy documentary and a female cult leader, which I find super interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, very interesting. And what's important though about it is it's using the exact same techniques, they all use the same blueprint, they all have those same factors that I indicated. What I find especially fascinating, besides the fact that m more of us don't join, and I'm gonna talk about some characteristics that keep you out of cults and some practices, but I hope I have a few of those.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I think you will apparently line up with some of the go into culture.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. You're you're you're on the fence. So um so it's the cult-like kinds of groups that a lot of us belong to, but one of the ones that uh one of the types of groups that a lot of people um get involved in, and they don't think of them as cults, is like multi-level marketing groups like AMA or Mary Kay and all this kind of stuff. Um because um they can be extremely um involving and time consuming and ritualistic, they have their own language, they can exploit people financially. I mean, basically an MLM, you you have to pay money, you have to buy like a starter kit, and nobody really cares if you ever sell Jack after that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but if you are selling, it's typically to friends and family who you're exploiting, and but they just but then you need to bring them in in order to offset your debts and issues, and so yeah.
SPEAKER_01And um 99% of the people who start with some sort of multi-level marketing company never make any money. Yeah, the people are making the money are up the top of the pyramid, right? Because it's basically a scheme. By the way, MLMs are very popular with Mormon. Yeah. There's more MLM headquarters in Utah than anywhere else in the world.
SPEAKER_05In the queer community online, uh there are in order to be more inclusive of people who are uh either attracted to men or attracted to women or what have you, without saying, you know, gay men and buy men and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, there's two abbreviations. There's WLW, Women Who Love Women, and MLM, men who love men. And so every time people start talking about MLMs, my brain hasn't changed lately. Are we talking about multi-level marketing or both?
SPEAKER_01Get your cult straight.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_01Um, but a lot of these uh MLM groups, the ones that sell stuff.
SPEAKER_05Right. Um the marketing ones.
SPEAKER_01Like Mary Kay, they blend sort of those aspects of religion or have traditionally done that, or even places like uh Tupperware was kind of like another, another there's an interesting documentary about Tupperware that's fun to watch. Tupperware parties, yeah. Um but they they have these big conventions, and you kind of have to go and you have to spend your own money to get there, and you're basically just there getting more indoctrination and more just the same kind of ritualistic stuff without really no one's you're not getting paid. And people feel like they have to go or they are somehow they're lost, they're a loser, they've let go of this community, and their whole life becomes more and more focused. Now, do they have the same control over your life as a real cult? No, is it as destructive as a real cult? No, I mean, you know, you lose time and money, and and you maybe lose some friends, and maybe you miss out of some cool aspects of your life. But it's not, I mean, you can't really say they're cults, but they're really close.
SPEAKER_05By and large, I mean I'm sure there are some that cross the line.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's it's interesting looking into them, but and then even things like these investment clubs. So I think it's interesting where we can get really close to a cult and behavior, uh, in in the in our behavior and the behavior of how the group functions. Uh, certain religious groups. Um, I lived in the south for a while and I was right across the street from a Baptist church. And I got nothing against the Baptist, good on them. But this particular church, you could tell by the signs they would post out on their front lawn.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01All of the ways they were trying to get people to spend all their time at the church.
SPEAKER_05Yes. There were a couple of there's a church in my hometown and a church in the kind of sister hometown next door, both of which have, you know, here's the school that you send your kids to that we sponsor, here are the businesses that our members own that are the businesses you should shop at. Here's the, you know, all of the every facet.
SPEAKER_01And we provide one-stop shopping. So we have daycare for kids. Yes. If it's a holiday, bring your kids here. Don't like, don't let them go trick-or-treating. We'll do something right here. Um, you know, all the other religious holidays, of course, you'll be here. Yeah. But we also, you might need counseling. We do that here. Um, you might have need other kinds of support. We're all doing it here. You're gonna meet all your friends here. And so, Madeline, this is the part we talk about people who are less likely to join a cult.
SPEAKER_05Oh, I hope I fit some of these.
SPEAKER_01I think you I think you will. I think you will. So it turns out people who are raised in a low trust environment, like a dysfunctional family, and I know your family was a happy one, uh-huh. But that is an aspect that predisposes people to be more resistant to buying into the BS, so to speak.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. So since I have a happy family, I'm more likely to join a lot of people. Yeah, you're still more likely to be.
SPEAKER_01So I'm still I'm still screwed at this point. You're still, yeah, you're still right there. You're so close to close to putting on those Nikes. Yep. Um, another uh thing that seems to correlate with people being more resistant is just being an overall kind of cranky person, which you're not. You're no, oh no.
SPEAKER_06You seem to be very friendly and one. So two points for me.
SPEAKER_01You are killing it. Jamie's she she grew up in a very chaotic environment and at one point was locked in a basement.
SPEAKER_03Oh my god.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So you she was actually unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. I was I was a mole woman. I'm not kidding.
SPEAKER_05Now when I watch that show, I'm just gonna think of you the whole time.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah, but it was that cranky kind of I don't Like people that much anyway, and now I have to go to a group of people. I know, I know.
unknownUh-oh.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Oppositional by nature. No.
SPEAKER_05No.
SPEAKER_01I'm extremely oppositional.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. I don't know. I'm I'm oppositional depending on the circumstance, I guess.
SPEAKER_01Actually, as it turns out, um, it's hard to explain why you're not in a cult right now.
SPEAKER_05It really is. Are you in a cult? I don't think so. I'm not the only money I'm paying is like my rent and my car bill. So I'm not financially beholden to a cult.
SPEAKER_01What's your thing? What do you what groups do you belong to?
SPEAKER_05I mean, there's the terminally online thing. Yeah. But that doesn't, I don't I mean, people can be horrible online, but I feel like I don't uh uh You're not being exploited. Yeah, no, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_01I don't think so.
SPEAKER_05Am I being exploited? I don't know. I don't think so.
SPEAKER_01You're doing this podcast. Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_02I think this is we got her. We might we might have just gotten a new recruit, so to speak.
SPEAKER_05Oh no, Ross, the charismatic cult leader. Yes! I am the charismatic cult. I am the Charles Manson of this podcast. Lead us in some improv exercises, and the next thing you know, I'm giving you the keys to my car.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I can be very charming for five minutes.
SPEAKER_06That's true. That is true.
SPEAKER_01I can do a great five minutes. I don't know if I could keep it going. And I came up with this analogy on my very own. I call it the investment analogy. If you ever invest money, they tell you to diversify. Yes. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. So it's the same thing with your social life and your ritual life and your religious life. Whatever you're okay, whatever that is, just make sure you have lots of different little pockets that have different people doing different things. Okay, there we go.
SPEAKER_05I have a point now. I definitely do that.
SPEAKER_01Right, because you're in different groups, different things. And any one group might be a little cultish, but you're not just in the one group.
SPEAKER_05And I think it's the same thing that makes me susceptible is that I like people so much and I want to be around people so much that I end up befriending people from all these different areas. And that keeps you safe. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Diversity of interests and diversity of people in your life will keep you from joining a cult because cults absolutely want a hundred percent of you. Yeah. And if you are like, well, but I really like doing this other group, they will eventually clamp down on that. Initially, they'll they'll be kind of accepting of it, but sooner or later they'll try to close all those people out of your life so that you will not have any distractions and you won't have anybody in your ear saying, Wait a minute, are you sure you want to pay this much money?
SPEAKER_05Are you sure that's not a cult? Are you it sounds like it might be a cult?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, are you sure you want to buy those Nikes? And those people put five dollars and seventy-five cents in their pocket, by the way, when they committed suicide. And I don't think that's ever been explained.
SPEAKER_05That's wild.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like so being a vigilant person, just being vigilant about yourself, uh, questioning things, don't don't stop questioning.
SPEAKER_05I like questioning.
SPEAKER_01Yes, you're a question ask. And that's what they don't like. No, no cult likes questions, and it's always turned back on you. It's your problem. That's why you're questioning. Uh, and you just never abandon your logic and your instincts, you never let go of that. And you shouldn't have to to join a group. You shouldn't have to like let go of your own values and belief system. No, the problem is is you it's easy to get convinced that somebody else has a better plan.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god, we're constantly being bombarded with these ideas. Like we have a better idea for you.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Just follow this diet, follow this exercise routine, follow this set of beliefs, do these things in your life, whatever the things you want. You want to be thinner, you want to be fatter, you want to be richer, you want to be better looking, you want to have a great butt. You've heard about these Brazilian buttlets operations? People get butt operations.
SPEAKER_05Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01It they're very dangerous. They're like it's a dangerous operation to have someone make your buttons.
SPEAKER_05I mean, a butt should not be raised above its station.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, keep your yes, yeah, like these aspirational butts.
SPEAKER_05Aspirational? Yeah, I just see what you did there? See what I did there?
SPEAKER_01I didn't do it on purpose, but I'm glad you pointed it out. I think what we've learned is that Madeline's a goner.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah. I would like you each to just check in with me weekly and see if I've fallen prey to a cult.
SPEAKER_01Once you join a cult, though, will you come back on the show?
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah, I'll do inside reporting.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05If she stops texting us, it's because I'm in a cult they've cut us out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Um because that always works. Everyone's had great success with that. 100%. All the time.
SPEAKER_01So, you know, we're all we're all it's not just Madeline that's vulnerable. We're all vulnerable because we're all seeking community, we're all seeking meaning, and we have different ways of finding it. And right now, in in this long, everlasting pandemic, it's just like we're being bombarded with loneliness bombs, not love bombs. We're being bombarded with isolation, we're being bombarded with just a lack of physical touch of people, you know, it's just not being able to hide.
SPEAKER_02Touch starved is real. Touch starved is a real thing.
SPEAKER_01It is a real thing. And just you know, going through that, you do uh more than ever, I think, are susceptible to any any of us are susceptible to the that kind of messaging and that kind of thing. And now that it can be done online, uh, you can participate in these groups through Facebook. I mean, you look at uh like conspiracy theorists, they're involved in a community. I mean, you know, the whole pandemic thing and anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers and all these people, like they have this this the same thing. It's like we have special information, only us. If you don't believe it, you're one of the sheeple, you're not one of us, you're an idiot, you're stupid, we have the special information, you're on the outside, and only we know the truth and about this whole pandemic thing. And it's like, yeah, so on the one hand, yeah, it sounds to a lot of us as goofy and irresponsible, but it's basically the same kind of stuff, you know, the whole QAnon thing, it's the same thing, it's providing a community, it's providing a way to feel part of something, to belong to something, special language, special information. You want access to the secret stuff. I want to know what's going on at the pizza parlors.
SPEAKER_05Well, and we're in a time when the world is changing a lot, even outside of the pandemic, or or in that the pandemic has brought to the surface a lot of other inequalities and inequities that are have been existing in our society for, you know, forever. Um, but more and more people are starting to pay attention, and there's something about I think a lot of the people who uh are uh belonging to a group that has historically been quite privileged, learning that other people uh would like to have a society that is less uh less divided in that way, to share privilege between groups, right? You know, like we should. Uh I think that that feels to a lot of those people like losing privilege, right? It's not I'm I'm you know, it's not that other people are are elevating in order to have access to these same things, it's that I must somehow be losing something. And so I think that then it's easy to be drawn into a group that agrees with you and says, yes, you are losing something, here's how we maintain it, right?
SPEAKER_01One of the things I knew that would happen is that we would only be able to scratch the surface of all this cool information. But uh this also uh wasn't a podcast about here's the top ten cults, because we could talk about for hours. Because there's here's everything you need to know about cults, there's plenty of stuff out there, and you can find your favorite cult story. But the best thing about it is I think is to learn how they operate, because they do operate using the same principles, and I will tell I will make this argument that when some people are uh susceptible to this uh uh one-on-one, there are people in the world who are predatory who use these same techniques to um exploit people in relationships. Yeah, sure. Uh whether they be a dating relationship or a business relationship, absolutely or a marriage relationship. This is the these are the same techniques that um people who prey on children use, okay, to exploit children. It's the same stuff over and over again. So it's it's I think it's a cool. I mean, I wish, you know, it it that school is about learning life skills.
SPEAKER_05You could have left the sentence there. You wished that school was about learning. That would have been accurate of the American education system.
SPEAKER_07I wish instead of playing the recorder. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_05Well, and instead of getting ready for tests and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, I think we could teach people to be more crit better critical thinkers in the world. Um, that would be a great service. That would be a great thing that everyone should learn. And this would be one of the things is like be aware of these factors. And if you're finding yourself in a relationship or in a group and these factors are present, then you need to step away from it or reevaluate and uh try to understand what's going on and to feel empowered to ask questions and then yeah, step away if that the questions aren't answered, or it's all being put back on you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05So uh and also how not to start a cult. We teach people to be better, right? It's the same the reverse thing, right? Like teach some of these people to be better humans and and not take advantage of people.
SPEAKER_01What would Jamie and I watch? You're killing our I don't have a lot to do these days. I need my You're looking at two people who do not have anything going on.
SPEAKER_06We don't do anything.
SPEAKER_01Our cult is cults.
SPEAKER_05I guess I'm just thinking of the arguments that get made about rape culture, too, where it's you know, these are the things that you can do, particularly women, to protect yourselves, X, Y, and Z. And it's like, okay, why aren't we teaching people, particularly men, not to rape? So we we've made a good point of of of saying, you know, people who fall prey to cults are not idiots and are not fools. But I also just think that it's worth mentioning instead of just teaching here's how to not be in a cult, maybe we could address the the root of the people who take advantage of people like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, right, right. No, you're making a great point.
SPEAKER_05I'm susceptible to cults because I'm the kind of person who believes in in human goodness and redeemability. So I guess I'm saying maybe we can work on them.
SPEAKER_01Madeline.
SPEAKER_07Be more like Madeline.
SPEAKER_01Madeline could actually start a cult. Oh because she's so dynamic, she's charismatic.
SPEAKER_05I think, thank you.
SPEAKER_01She's very friendly, she has access to a lot of higher knowledge.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_01I think we just found an alternative career path. Okay.
SPEAKER_05This is how I escape being drawn into a cult, is I just create your own.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, the benevolent cult.
SPEAKER_05Yes, of course.
SPEAKER_01They all have benevolent features.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, they all start out good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they all maybe not all of them. They almost all do, except for the ones that don't. But if you end up drinking, literally drink, well, you know, it wasn't Kool-Aid that they drank it. The people was it? The expression is oh, you drank the Kool-Aid. It's based on the mass suicide of almost a thousand people in this church. Because Jim Jones basically said, Well, the jig's up, yeah, they're coming to get us. Uh taking them all with me. So the only way out is for you to die. It wasn't Kool-Aid they were drinking in Guyana. Um it was some off-brand. And see, that's where he cheaped out. See, that's where I've the Malto meal version.
SPEAKER_07Kirk Kool-Aid. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I could have been I could have been totally bought in to the whole kit and kaboodle. But when they're bringing out off-brand Kool-Aid, that's where you draw the line. Commit suicide.
SPEAKER_05Like, so much money into this cult. I deserve brand name Kool-Aid.
SPEAKER_01Sorry, I moved my whole life to South America and I've been like sucking on dirt for three weeks, and I'm getting off-brand Kool-Aid to off myself. No, no, that's just a no, Jim.
SPEAKER_06Or it's a hard pass.
SPEAKER_01Thank you both, Jamie. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_06Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01For having uh being in a cult and sharing your experiences. You're so welcome. You're you're our Kimmy Schmidt.
SPEAKER_07Yes, unbreakable. Unbreakable.
SPEAKER_01Madeline, it was great having you again. You're a delightful human, and uh I'm glad to get you on the show before you are join or start a world of famous cult leader.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And thank you. Thanks for having me. Yes, um, it's a pleasure. And thanks to all of you for joining us for this episode. If you like what we're doing, you know you can help us, and that is to share the show any way you can with anyone you can. That's the number one thing. You can also uh get on Instagram if you are and follow us there. And we're also on Patreon, you can support us there, and we appreciate that because uh believe it or not, this costs money, and we are totally independent, we have no sponsors, not even off-rang Kool-Aid. And we hope you will tune in to another episode because whether you are attending a girls' night or just someone trying on Nikes for a free ride on a spaceship to wherever, it's important to remember that we all smell like humans. Goodbye, everybody. Bye bye.