"I thought I'd found my wolf pack and I was, you know, so excited about that," she says. "Luckily, Mark had preempted me and said it's going to be weird." She joins a group of like-minded people in the Caribbean for an executive success program. The experience is described as strange but ultimately positive.
1. How attending a personal development training at a Holiday Inn led to Sarah being branded in a sex "secret sisterhood" initiation ceremony.
2. Her path from top recruiter to the whistleblower who helped take down the cult and its leader Keith Ranieri.
3. Why we’re all susceptible to cult culture – the need for belonging, the temptation of simplification, and how we’re trained to deny our gut instincts.
CW: Discussion of cult culture and sexual coercion
About Sarah:
Sarah Edmondson is an actor, podcaster, author, and cult-recovery advocate.
Sarah has starred in a number of TV series, yet she is most recently known for her real-life saga escaping the multi-level marketing company NXIVM – and DOS, a “secret sisterhood” within NXIVM – which can also be seen on HBO’s The Vow. Sarah’s memoir Scarred shares her true story from the moment she joined NXIVM, to her harrowing fight to get out and bring its founder to justice. Sarah co-hosts the podcast A Little Bit Culty with her husband Anthony ‘Nippy’ Ames, and lives in Atlanta with her husband and two sons.
TW: @sarahjedmondson
IG: @sarahedmondson
Sarah’s resource page: https://www.sarahedmondson.com/resources
Steven Hassan’s BITE model: https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model/
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