Was I in a Cult?

Four years after we first met her in our studio - just days after her victim impact statement in Alison Mack's NXIVM trial - Jessica Joan is back.

Since we last spoke, Jessica shared her story on the Hulu docuseries "How I Escaped My Cult", and a lot has shifted: in her healing, in what "justice" means, and in what accountability actually looks like over time.

This follow-up conversation was prompted by our recent interview with journalist Natalie Robehmed, host of the podcast "Alison After NXIVM", where listeners hear Alison speak publicly about NXIVM and her life post-prison. After that episode, it felt important to come back to Jessica - to hear directly from someone harmed by Alison, and to explore the messy questions of empathy, forgiveness, and what we're really asking for when we say we want "accountability."

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FIND JESSICA

Get your copy of The Untouchable: Jessica Joan & the Downfall of NXIVM

Check out her new website: www.thisisjessicajoan.com

Instagram/TikTok: @thesirenandthesunflower

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If you've been part of a cult - we want to hear from you.

Email us → [email protected]

**NOTE: This episode originally aired in 2021**

Welcome to the worst cult ever (in our humble opinions). This is a story of incredible resilience, bravery, and inspiration. Being born into a cult always comes with its challenges, but learning how to have an original thought in your mid-20s is a rare struggle that most people are fortunate enough to never have to face. This is just one of many obstacles Angel had to overcome as she ventured out of the cult and into the world.But when you've spent over 20 years of your life in a cult and it's all you know, the real world isn't always as sparkly as you hoped.

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FIND ANGEL

Instagram: @whatisangeldoing

Youtube: @AngelDeSantis

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If you believe in what we're doing — shining a light on manipulation, coercive control, and cultic abuse — please rate, review, and share the podcast.

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Join us on Patreon for ad-free episodes, bonus content, and behind-the-scenes conversations.

HAVE A CULTY STORY TO SHARE?

If you've been part of a cult — we want to hear from you.

Email us → [email protected]

A comet. A cultural fever. And a cult's failed prophecy.

In 1973, as the holidays approached and the world felt increasingly unstable, a comet named Kohoutek was predicted to light up the sky in way never seen before… right at Christmas. The media obsessed. The artists sang. And David Berg, an apocalyptic sex cult leader, saw confirmation that judgment was imminent. Christmas would be the end.

In this episode, we trace how the Children of God turned a celestial event into The Christmas Monster, sending families fleeing the United States, scattering members across the globe, and quietly erasing the idea of home altogether.

We speak with Perry Bulwar, who was recruited into the cult as a teenager and lived inside it for over twenty years. He takes us through belief, fear, failed prophecy, and the moment a pop song cracked the spell.

It's a holiday story - just maybe not the kind you're used to.

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PERRY'S BOOK

Get your copy of "Misguided: My Jesus Freak Life In a Doomsday Cult"

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This week we head to Nashville, Tennessee — where a cosmetology school promising structure, opportunity, and "professionalism" turned out to be something else entirely.

Our guest, Sophia, thought she was paying over $20,000 to learn how to do hair. Instead, she walked into a system obsessed with obedience, image, and silence — where being late cost money, smiling was mandatory, and your body, time, and labor were constantly monitored. Add in "motivational" rituals, public humiliation, and unpaid work dressed up as "education," and suddenly this isn't just cosmetology school… it's giving cult.

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FOLLOW SOPHIA

Find Sophia on Instagram & TikTok → @styledby.sophiaelise

If you're in Nashville, go get your hair done and TIP WELL!

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If you believe in what we're doing — shining a light on manipulation, coercive control, and cultic abuse — please rate, review, and share the podcast.

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HAVE A CULTY STORY TO SHARE?

If you've been part of a cult, high-control group, or something that didn't look like a cult until way later — we want to hear from you.

Email us → [email protected]

This week, Liz and Tyler head straight into the sweaty "this-is-definitely-not-a-cult-except-maybe-it-definitely-is" world of Ashtanga yoga.

Our guest, Magnolia Zuniga, was one of only 20 women in the world to become a Certified Ashtanga teacher. She spent 22 years inside the system — traveling to India, waking up before the crack of dawn, giving up apartments, and building her entire life around the practice and the man who created it.

Then, on her very first day studying with master Pattabhi Jois — the "grandfather" of modern yoga — she witnessed something that shattered everything she thought she knew.

What followed was years of confusion, devotion, cognitive dissonance, community pressure, and the slow unraveling of everything she believed Ashtanga Yoga to be.

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@wasiinacult

FOLLOW MAGNOLIA

YouTube: @MagnoliaSezSo

Instagram: @magnoliasezso

Magnolia's Newsletter

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HAVE A CULTY STORY TO SHARE?

We'd love to hear from you.

Email us → [email protected]

When we got the email inviting us to interview journalist Natalie Robehmed about her new CBC + Campsite Media podcast, Allison After NXIVM, we weren't sure what to do. Talking about Allison Mack — someone who caused very real harm, including to people we've had on this show - is complicated.

And honestly? We didn't want to accidentally platform or sanitize that harm.

But then we listened. And what we found wasn't a redemption story. It was complexity. It was discomfort. It was a journalist tracing how someone can be both a victim and a perpetrator.

In this conversation, Natalie takes us behind her interviews with Allison: childhood exploitation, Hollywood pressures, the hunger to be "the best," and the dynamics of NXIVM's inner circle that turned all of that into something horrifying.

We're not here to tell you how to feel about Allison Mack.

But we are here to sit in the space where victimhood and violence blur -

the space where a person realizes the monster they were running from is the one they learned to be.

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LISTEN TO "ALLISON AFTER NXIVM"

Hear Natalie's full 7-part investigation into Allison Mack (or search Allison After NXIVM wherever you get your podcasts.

SUPPORT THE SHOW

If you believe in what we're doing - shining a light on manipulation, coercion, and the messy psychology behind it - please rate, review, and share the podcast.

Want to be part of our inner circle?

Join us on Patreon for ad-free episodes, bonus content, and our eternal gratitude for helping us keep these stories alive.

HAVE A CULTY STORY?

We'd love to hear from you - drop us a line at [email protected].

She survived a violent polygamist cult.

She survived a husband who collected wives like property.

She survived the blood atonement doctrine that stalked her childhood like a shadow.

But this is the part of Pamela Jones's story where she does the impossible:

she runs.

In this final chapter of our three-part series, Pamela plans an escape nearly as dangerous as the life she's leaving behind—nine children in tow, no legal paperwork for half of them, almost no money, and the very real fear that leaving could mean death.

This episode isn't just about leaving a cult.

It's about rebuilding an identity from scratch.

It's about motherhood as revolution.

It's about reclaiming a life she was told she never owned.

And it's the story of what Pamela built on the other side—freedom, love, a business, and a legacy that's inspiring other women to walk out of the same darkness she escaped.

Her transformation is staggering.

Her resilience is unforgettable.

Her ending is exactly what she deserved.

Pamela's memoir, The Dirt Beneath Our Door, is linked in the show notes.

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FOLLOW US

For more culty content —

follow us on Instagram & TikTok → @wasiinacult

SUPPORT THE SHOW

If you believe in what we're doing (and want to help us keep shining light on the dark corners of control and charisma), please rate, review, and share the podcast. It helps more than you know.

Want to go deeper down the rabbit hole?

Join us on Patreon for ad-free episodes, bonus content, and our eternal gratitude for helping us keep these stories alive.

HAVE A CULTY STORY?

We'd love to hear from you — drop us a line at [email protected].

CONNECT WITH PAMELA JONES

You can follow Pamela Jones — speaker, author, survivor, and all-around badass — here:

• Her Book: The Dirt Beneath Our Door
• Website
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook

In Part Two of Pamela Jones' extraordinary story, the so-called "escape" she dreamed of at fifteen turns into a new kind of prison.

After growing up under the violent rule of the LeBaron brothers — a murderous offshoot of Mormon fundamentalism — Pamela marries young, believing it will be her salvation. Her husband David doesn't just take her innocence — he takes her freedom, her home, and her dignity. She raises babies on rationed potatoes, lives under the threat of blood atonement, and tries to stay safe inside a community run by fear, hierarchy, and men who call their control "God's will."

But years later, and many sister wives later, something in Pamela begins to shift. A spark. A voice. A quiet rebellion forged from decades of silence.

This is the part of her journey where the cracks in the doctrine begin to show… and where Pamela realizes the only person coming to save her is herself.

Next week: the escape — across a border, across a belief system, and into a life she was never meant to reach.

____________

FOLLOW US

For more culty content —

follow us on Instagram & TikTok → @wasiinacult

SUPPORT THE SHOW

If you believe in what we're doing (and want to help us keep shining light on the dark corners of control and charisma), please rate, review, and share the podcast. It helps more than you know.

Want to go deeper down the rabbit hole?

Join us on Patreon for ad-free episodes, bonus content, and our eternal gratitude for helping us keep these stories alive.

HAVE A CULTY STORY?

We'd love to hear from you — drop us a line at [email protected].

CONNECT WITH PAMELA JONES

You can follow Pamela Jones — speaker, author, survivor, and all-around badass — here:

• Her Book: The Dirt Beneath Our Door
• Website
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook

She was born into one of the most dangerous polygamist cults in modern history — led by the infamous Ervil LeBaron, aptly nicknamed "The Mormon Manson," a man who believed in murder for salvation.

Her father had eleven wives, fifty-seven children, and a thousand secrets.

This is Pamela Jones.

She was six when she became a caretaker.

Eleven when she learned to fear bullets.

And fifteen when she thought marriage might save her.

It didn't.

But what makes her story unforgettable isn't just the horror she survived — it's the woman she became after it.

In this first episode of her stunning three-part story, Pamela pulls back the curtain on the LeBaron cult and shows us how she found light, power, and freedom in the rubble.

Because sometimes, the ones born into darkness become the ones who burn the brightest.

FOLLOW US

For more culty content —

follow us on Instagram & TikTok → @wasiinacult

SUPPORT THE SHOW

If you believe in what we're doing (and want to help us keep shining light on the dark corners of control and charisma), please rate, review, and share the podcast. It helps more than you know.

Want to go deeper down the rabbit hole?

Join us on Patreon for ad-free episodes, bonus content, and our eternal gratitude for helping us keep these stories alive.

HAVE A CULTY STORY?

We'd love to hear from you — drop us a line at [email protected].

CONNECT WITH PAMELA JONES

You can follow Pamela Jones — speaker, author, survivor, and all-around badass — here:

• Her Book: The Dirt Beneath Our Door
• Website
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook

**Note: This episode originally aired in September 2021. Stick around til the end for a catch up interview with Daniel 4 years later.**

With rockstar aspirations, Daniel O'Brien wasn't looking for anything but a good time. But when heartbreak rocked his world, he tripped into something that lifted his spirits and rallied his hopes - the Jehovah's Witnesses. Before he knew it, Daniel had traded his guitar for a green Bible and found himself rapidly rising through the ranks of the religion. A wife, and two kids later, he was a fully indoctrinated, high ranking Elder in the church. But when Daniel realizes that he's part of a life much different than the one he originally signed up for, he knows that he must leave. The only problem is... he can't.

_____

FOLLOW US

For more culty content, follow us on Instagram & TikTok:

→ @wasiinacult

SUPPORT THE SHOW

If you believe in what we're doing — please rate, review, and share the podcast. It helps more than you know.

And if you'd like to go a step further, join us on Patreon. You'll get ad-free episodes, bonus content, and our eternal gratitude for helping us keep these conversations going.

→ Join us on Patreon.

HAVE A CULTY STORY?

We'd love to hear from you.

→ [email protected]