The cost of ignoring our own gut instinct...
Former NXIVM cult member Sarah Edmondson steps into The Confessional
Season 3 of my podcast, The Confessional starts today with a confession from former cult member, Sarah Edmondson.
Opening Essay:
It was only last week that I did the math and realized that in 2020 I watched 4 different documentary series about 3 different cults – and when I say I did the math I mean, I spent 23 hours and 17 minutes of my life mesmerized by the rise and fall of these high control groups.
That’s a lot of tv hours, even in a pandemic.
So I’ve been wondering why – I mean, there’s no way I would spend that long watching a show about people who joined the Lions club, but give me a long form show about people who joined The Rajneesh free love group in Oregon or the Heaven’s gate UFO cult and I won’t do my dishes for 2 days just to finish watching.
I think what separates these shows from say, a tennis documentary, is the way I vacillate between two very different responses. At first I think, man this is completely nuts, why would anyone throw their life away for this, and then I’d think, they all look so calm and happy and content – maybe I do see the appeal, and then I’d think How can they not see that the cult leader is a monster? and then I’d think The community they built is so beautiful. I want to live with others who share my values and my spiritual practices
I judge them - then understand them - then judge them again.
Fifteen years ago, my guest Sarah Edmondson was drawn into one of these groups.
She was a young actress struggling to launch her career. And then she learned about an organization that offered a series of self-improvement workshops to help people succeed more in their personal and professional lives. She went all in.
That organization --- based in Albany, New York --- is the multi-level marketing company known as NXIVM and the courses she was taking were called Executive Success Programs, or ESP
And thousands of folks like Sarah, including many celebrities, business leaders and even two actresses from Battlestar Galactica, loved these workshops. They were convinced that NXIVM could change the world.
But in 2017 it came to light that Keith Raniere -- the founder and visionary behind ESP had created a secret group of women within NXIVM -- a hierarchy of so-called slaves and masters, who were made to work without pay, rigorously limit their calorie intake, have sexual relations with Raniere and even brand themselves unknowingly with his initials.
Two years later Raniere was convicted of an array of crimes including sex trafficking, racketeering, and the sexual exploitation of a child for which he was sentenced to 120 years in prison.
Yet many still consider him their guide and leader
In the HBO documentary series, The Vow - My guest Sarah Edmondson told the story of what finally woke her up to the reality that she spent twelve years in a cult. But today in the confessional, she tells me about the moment that personally haunts her the most.
Sarah Edmondson is a Canadian actress who has starred in the CBS series Salvation and more than twelve films for the Hallmark Channel and Lifetime. In 2019, Sarah published Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult that Bound My Life, with Kristine Gasbarre.
She and her husband Anthony “Nippy” Ames host the podcast A Little Bit Culty.
Here’s the trailer for HBO series, The Vow:
Join me and Sarah for a short follow-up chat on my Instagram Live this Friday 4p PST/7p EST
(Just go to my Instagram page and when I go live, the circle on the upper left of your screen will change and say “live” - just click on that circle and you’re in!)
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I’m delighted that The Confessional is back! Like most episodes, this one got me thinking. In particular, it was the discussion about whether intentions matter or not when considering actions that do harm. The discussion in the episode is good, but I found myself bristling at the very idea that intentions don’t matter. First of all, it seems like a clearly flawed notion that intention is irrelevant. Our laws very much take intention into account. Our gut moral instincts are tuned in to intention. Taken to its absurd conclusion, one could say that great harm has been done by those who have misunderstood Jesus’s teachings, and even though Jesus intended no harm.... Too often, I think we’re tempted to dismiss intention because it’s hard to discern and because it makes for less moral and emotional ambiguity. If I can dismiss your intentions, I can judge you much more straightforwardly and get about the business of feeling superior & claiming the moral high ground.
Maybe we should challenge ourselves to let intentions matter more. Intentions don’t erase harm, but they might help pave a path to greater compassion.
I’m intrigued by how comfortable you are, Nadia, to draw a straight line between cult influence and practices in evangelical Christianity.
I grew up Evangelical and have only recently been able to attach words like heresy or cult to explain the disconnect I feel to what was before.
I still don’t quite know how to rebuild without that- particularly in parenting. Every time I open my mouth to answer my kids questions about God I feel like I am indoctrinating. I want to know how to stop.
I can’t read the Bible without my evangelical cult glasses. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy your work so much. I love your Bible story re-imaginings.