The Deeper Pulse with Candice Schutter

You may recognize Sarah Edmondson and Anthony ‘Nippy’ Ames from the critically-acclaimed HBO docu-series, The Vow. Sarah & Nippy left a self-development organization known as NXIVM in 2017, and they were immediately thrust into the spotlight, working alongside a handful of other whistleblowers to bring NXIVM’s leader, Keith Raniere, to justice. In this episode, Sarah and Nippy speak candidly about the NXIVM curriculum, where it came from (really), what they thought it was, and how it was eventually weaponized against them. Nippy shares his take on NXIVM’s ‘exploration of meaning’ exercise, and Sarah shares how - despite the early benefits of EMing - the technique was eventually used to coerce her into getting a ‘sisterhood’ brand on her body. Candice shares how much she can relate to the mindfuckery of always “being at-cause” and how she’s still unraveling it after 16 years. Nippy elaborates, speaking to how this no-victim mentality feeds shame - which is then leveraged to keep people from leaving or speaking out. Sarah breaks down NXIVM’s Stripe Path - which is uncannily similar to ‘the Org’ hierarchy - and then shares about a moment when Keith Raniere revealed the truth aloud to her - referring to it as something meant to offer "the illusion of hope." Nippy gets uber-honest about the anger he felt when he learned his wife had been branded, and Sarah shares openly about her lingering PTSD and how it's impacted her most intimate relationships. The episode wraps with a disarming response to folks who only want to ‘focus on the good.’ Listen in for a crash course in self-development-cult survivorship.

[CW:  This episode contains brief reference to physical and sexual coercion.]

Sarah Edmondson (@sarahedmondson) and Anthony “Nippy” Ames (@anthonyames11) are NXIVM survivors who co-host the A Little Bit Culty podcast where they talk about things that are... a little bit culty. Or in their case: a whole bunch of culty. As whistleblowers documented in the critically-acclaimed HBO series “The Vow,” Sarah and Nippy have a lot to say about their experience, and burning questions to ask people with similar stories. They’re here to help people understand, heal from, and avoid abusive situations one little red flag at a time. Listen in as they share their stories, have frank and unscripted conversations with other survivors and cult experts, and do a deep dive on how devotion can turn to dysfunction. Learn more at alittlebitculty.com.

Referenced In This Episode:

• Scarred: How I Escaped NXIVM, The Cult That Bound My Life, by Sarah Edmondson
• The Vow  Season 1 - HBO Docuseries
• Learn more about #igotout 
• Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto, by Tricia Hersey

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The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

CW: This episode contains reference to physical and sexual abuse, mental illness, and mention of suicide. Please listen with care.

It takes a tremendous amount of self-inquiry to get to a place in recovery where you can finally use the four-letter word - cult - and Trina Studebaker has done the work. In this episode, Trina bravely shares her life story with us. It's a story of cultic influence that starts early-in-life with sexual abuse and an ongoing battle with anorexia, culminating in an all-in devotion to Christian Fundamentalism. Trina shares how she first got involved with the group; how it hooked her, made use of her many talents, and why it felt impossible to leave despite the devastating toll it was taking on her family; courageous to the bone, Trina shares a number of shameful secrets for the first time. After 14 years, she and her family eventually left the group, only to find themselves in another non-religious-yet-culty situation that resulted in Trina being asked to testify against someone she'd long considered a friend, mentor, and respected leader in her community. Trina shares how she survived it all - including a suicide attempt in 2010 - and speaks poignantly about her continual path of healing - which has required a painful reckoning with chronic pain, shame, and bittersweet resiliency. This conversation is highly illustrative; together Candice & Trina touch upon many tools of ‘cult’ural indoctrination as identified in previous episodes, including: undue influence, control of language, and how we go about recovering a sense of inner authority when there's so much good mixed in with the bad. It's a must-listen.

You can find Trina Studebaker on her YouTube Channel, Growing Chronically Hopeful (link below), and/or message her directly at [email protected].

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

Candice welcomes friend and activist Jamie Smith to the podcast for an illuminating discussion on the ‘cult’ure of MLM. Jamie spent four years as a sales rep with dōTERRA, a multi-level marketing company known for its high-end essential oils. She shares when she became involved in the company - while battling postpartum depression and shortly after the death of her father - as well as what drew her into work as a distributor. As a health coach, Jamie found dōTERRA’s emphasis on health education to be a major selling point, but soon enough she'd be spending the majority of her (unpaid) time recruiting new distributors. Despite loads of lip service from top-line mentors, Jamie began to see through the gauzy promises and eventually left the world of MLM for good. A few years later, she realized that very few anti-MLMers were naming dōTERRA - an MLM who, in Jamie's own words, has taken great pains to “polish the turd” - so she began speaking out publicly on social media. Jamie insists that multi-level marketing is across-the-board problematic, calling it “capitalism on steroids,” and she shares the red flags to look out for when being pitched. Candice and Jamie also discuss pay-to-play privilege in the wellness world, as well as how they were both trained in coercive sales strategies in the coaching industry. They trade some real-talk on magical thinking, and the way in which they were each taught to believe that their business failings were a result of faulty vibes - versus a rigged system - and they discuss moral injuries and how they’re each learning to trust themselves again. Jamie pitches the idea of a ‘rest mindset’ versus all the endless self-helping, and together they discuss how gate-keeping (and other culty bs) sometimes bleeds into their cult recovery circles. Candice wonders aloud if the evolving business structure at ‘the Org,’ might also be a little MLM-ish, then the episode wraps with some helpful advice - what to do when you're pitched a product membership that sounds too good to be true (spoiler: it definitely is).

Jamie Smith is a former dōTERRA ‘Wellness Advocate’ turned anti-MLM advocate, helping to promote changes to protect consumers from pyramid schemes.  She likes to joke that her dōTERRA 'business' didn’t quite work out, so she finally made the transition to a real career in interior design.

You can follow Jamie on IG @essentially_over_mlms and explore financial literacy as it pertains to MLM via Jamie’s linktree.

Referenced In This Episode:

• MLM; the real numbers at-a-glance
• The Dream - Podcast Season 1
• (Un)well - Netflix DocuSeries
• dōTERRA' s most recent income disclosure statement

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

In another solo episode of the 'cult'ure series, we take a deep-dive into childhood conditioning and explore how ‘family systems’ might shape susceptibility to influence. Candice shares a recent ah-hah around her 'triggers’ and how allowing herself to feel has been helping her to step outside of culty indoctrination. Complacency is discussed, as the near enemy of mindfulness and as a roadblock to authentic self-awareness. Inspired by the work of John Bradshaw, Candice shares how to tell the difference between healthy and toxic shame, and how the latter reinforces 'the cult persona,' and a tendency to act as if we are more or less than human. She then shares what it’s like living just outside of Sedona - a new-age mecca that wreaks of 'cult'ural appropriation. Find out the history behind Sedona’s claim to fame - the energetic vortexes, and what the spiritual ego has to do with it all. Finally, be sure to stick around, because the episode wraps with the poignant (and anonymous) sharing of former Org members' stories. Purity culture is reality checked, orthorexia is defined, and a wake-up call is inspired by the work of courageous body-positive activists who are calling out the cults of ableism and anti-fat bias. There’s a lot packed into this episode; you may have to listen twice.

Referenced in this Episode:

• Unlocking Us with Brene Brown [podcast] — The Near and Far Enemies of Fierce Compassion, Parts 1 & 2
• Healing The Shame That Binds You, by John Bradshaw
• The Drama of The Gifted Child, by Alice Miller
• We Have to Stop Thinking of Being ‘Healthy’ as Being Morally Better [article], by Aubrey Gordon. Self Magazine. 
• The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love, by Sonya Renee Taylor

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

Candice is back with a reboot of the ‘cult’ure series. The episode opens with a big announcement and an intimate peek behind the scenes. She speaks about grind 'cult'ure, the work of Tricia Hersey, and why regular breaks from creating content are so damn important. Fawning is once again defined and explored in greater detail, including a share about a recent wake-up call - a ‘fan girl’ moment when Candice nearly lost her sh*t AND a valuable opportunity. Capital ‘C’ cults are explored as well as the super-subtle ways we are all indoctrinated to perpetuate systemic oppression. Undue influence is defined and illustrated through one of Candice’s most treasured childhood possessions, and we begin our deep-dive exploration of the f’ed-upedness of wellness ‘cult’ure... with all its good intentions. The episode wraps with a list of questions to strong consider when entering or exiting a group, and a very critical and timely PSA for those who are still active in ‘the Org.’ 

Referenced in this Episode:

• Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto, by Tricia Hersey
• American Detox: the Myth of Wellness and How We Can Truly Heal, by Kerri Kelly

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

Candice sits down with world-renowned cult expert Dr. Janja Lalich -- who retired for a hot minute in 2019 until the pandemic hit and her inbox began blowing up. The episode opens with Janja’s personal story about her involvement in a far-left political cult back in the late ’70s & early '80s. She shares about her role in leadership and the eventual disbanding of the group, speaking candidly about the mental health challenges she faced during her own cult recovery. Dr. Lalich shares some of what she's learned working as an expert in cults & coercive influence for over three decades, including a brief history of the human potential movement and how it’s since morphed into present-day conspirituality culture. Large group awareness trainings are a byproduct of this modern-day self-help economy, and Janja describes how LGATs alter judgment and erode personal agency in real-time. She highlights some of the red flags to look out for when it comes to cultic influence, as well as the #1 thing that people who join cults appear to have in common (it’s probably not what you think). Candice shares how she regrets moving from one wellness cult to another in her late twenties and early thirties, and Janja underscores the importance of psychoeducation to avoid this common ‘cult hopping’ tendency.  Other topics covered include peak experiences and why they’re so addictive, common misconceptions about coercion, what makes us vulnerable when it comes to recruitment, and Janja’s groundbreaking bounded choice framework. Finally, Janja celebrates Candice's recent decision not to consult with those who are still hoping to change things at the Org - a 'cult'ure she's spoken about in-depth in previous episodes. This is a jam-packed conversation and is quite arguably the seminal episode in the ‘cult’ure series.

Janja Lalich, Ph.D., Professor Emerita of Sociology, is an international authority on cults and coercion. Researcher, author, and educator, she specializes in recruitment, indoctrination, and coercive methods of influence and control. Dr. Lalich is the author and/or coauthor of six books, including the now classic, Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships. In addition to working with survivors and their families, she leads workshops and educational sessions for government agencies, international intelligence agencies, private companies, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and leads online psychoeducational courses for trauma survivors, families, and mental-health professionals. She has also served as an expert witness in civil and criminal legal cases. Dr. Lalich may be reached at [email protected], through her website www.janjalalich.com or on Instagram @janja_lalich.

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

Candice & Tracy reunite nearly six months after recording their previous convo. They discuss what it’s been like sharing their stories & unpack major takeaways on the other side of a transformative few weeks. Tracy shares new perspective on the tools-turned-weapons of self-help, along with a vision of how she'd like to do group culture differently in the future. Candice speaks about two nervous system adaptations commonly overlooked in group training environments - fawning & freezing. She describes the distress signals she often witnessed at the Org, calls herself out for staying silent, and cites the work of Robert Jay Lifton regarding the ’sacred science’ of culty culture and the limitations of new age spirituality jargon. Tracy examines why, after four-plus years, she’s still unable to teach or attend movement classes, and the two adamantly agree that spiritual authority is an inside job. Tracy shares why she thinks the idea of ’spiritual hustle’ is a total misnomer, and Candice speaks critically about the conflicts inherent in a culture where personal development is codified and commodified. She gets pretty fired up as she speaks to a great many who’ve invested so much of themselves in the Org’s training, challenging the idea that they need to stick around in order to make use of the best parts of what they've learned. The episode wraps with a peek into what listeners are writing & sharing about the ‘cult’ure series. 

Referenced in this episode:

• We Can Do Hard Things Podcast - Ep. 124 w/ Nedra Glover Tawwab
• Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, by Robert Jay Lifton
• The Deep End (docu-series) - Hulu

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

Due to unexpected weather patterns, Candice opens up the episode from her bedroom closet where she’s riding out a monsoon thunderstorm. The metaphor is a timely one, as she speaks candidly about a humbling week that put her face to face with her number one challenge — speaking hard truths & disappointing people. This leads directly into the third and final segment of the conversation she had with Tracy Stamper back in March of this year. In part 3, Tracy wraps up her personal story of exiting the Org. She speaks about the shame she felt after speaking out back in 2018, and how difficult it was to re-orient herself to a world outside of the practice. Candice shares more of what she has learned while doing research into cult dynamics, specifically the role language plays in groupthink ideology and how thought-terminating cliches can sometimes keep us from taking restorative action. She & Tracy discuss how cult fitness ‘costumes’ communicate credibility and allegiance, and how awkward it can feel to step outside of group norms. Tracy has an ah-hah moment when Candice shares the three reasons she thinks she was/is susceptible to high-demand influences, and then the episode wraps with a reality check around the new age ‘cult’ure of idealism. 

NOTE from the host:  The stories that my guest and I share in this episode are true to the best of our recollection. Memory is subjective and how we remember the past may be different than how others recall those very same events. We share our opinions, experiences, and perceptions openly; however, they are not meant to be generalized, nor are they intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Referenced in this episode:

• The Vow (docu-series) - HBO
• A Little Bit Culty Podcast w/ Sarah Edmondson & Nippy Ames
• Secrets of Playboy (docu-series) - A&E

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

In the fourth episode of the 'cult'ure series, Candice is back with Part 2 of her conversation with Tracy Stamper. In a follow-up to last week, Tracy shares candidly about the devastation she felt in 2017 when she was fired from the high-demand 'cult'ure where she'd devoted sixteen years of her life. She was let go within hours of her father's passing, and the loss - of a parent, a job, an identity, and a community - resulted in feelings of grief and overwhelm. Tracy shares about the months-long struggle she experienced as she fought to reorient herself to the outside world without revealing the Org family secrets... that is until chronic physical pain prompted her to speak out via Facebook. Candice describes what it was like to witness the shitstorm that resulted [cue the flying monkeys!] and why it is she chose to reach out to Tracy in the midst of the social media frenzy. Tracy shares what it was like to receive the unexpected support, and the two discuss how it felt to compare notes after over a decade of silence. Toward the end of the episode, Candice gets personal, sharing why their reconnection was so damn timely and how it clued her into her own family-of-origin cult dynamic. The episode wraps with Tracy describing why, despite how things went down last time, she decided to push through her fear & share the full story of her experience on this podcast.

NOTE from the host:  The stories that my guest and I share in this episode are true to the best of our recollection. Memory is subjective and how we remember the past may be different than how others recall those very same events. We share our opinions, experiences, and perceptions openly; however, they are not meant to be generalized, nor are they intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

In Episode 33, Candice shared intimately about what it was like to work in the ‘cult’ure of new age wellness; and this week she sits down with former colleague and long-time friend Tracy Stamper who has agreed to share her own personal story of separation from ‘the Org’ (referenced in the last episode). Tracy will be joining Candice for a series of episodes where the two reflect on what it’s like to survive the aftermath of a culty culture. In part one of their convo, you’ll hear about how they met one another and individually progressed through various levels of high-demand training - both of them ‘dancing on eggshells’ on opposite sides of the country. Tracy bravely shares about her own experiences working in the inner circle, sharing stories about the mixed messages she received and how disorienting it was to perpetually reframe chronic anxiety as ‘an exercise in personal power.’ She talks about why she felt sadness and betrayal when Candice left and started leading classes in another modality (no longer barefoot, wtaf?!), and Candice shares about the time she re-entered the practice and felt like the only sober person in the room. Tracy speaks about the addictive nature of the group awareness training environment and offers an intimate peek inside of the highest level of training, sharing about an exercise that leads the two into a fascinating discussion about agency and bounded choice. And the episode wraps with the red flag that helped Tracy to realize that stepping away from the practice wasn’t going to be as simple as it seemed. 

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates.