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0:59

I think one similarity between the military

1:02

and Synanon was that I

1:04

think a lot of the recruits in

1:06

the military were led

1:09

to believe that you needed the structure

1:12

in the military to survive. Yes. And that

1:14

you need to stay, that you'll fall down a

1:16

manhole if you leave because you

1:18

wouldn't have the structure. And that sort of philosophy

1:21

permeated Synanon.

1:22

So true. That's maybe the number

1:25

one thing that the two have in common is like

1:27

you will fall down a manhole if you don't have this structure.

1:29

And for some people, it's true. Yeah. I've known

1:31

people who say their lives were saved

1:34

by the military. Yeah. But I don't know

1:36

if I know any military wives

1:38

whose lives were saved by the military.

1:44

This is Sounds Like a Cult,

1:46

a show about the modern day cults we all

1:48

follow. I'm Amanda Montel, author of the

1:50

books Cultish and the forthcoming The

1:53

Age of Magical Overthinking. Every

1:55

week on the show, you'll hear about a different group

1:57

or guru that puts the cult in culture.

1:59

from academia to Disney adults

2:02

to try and answer the big question. This

2:05

group sounds like a cult. But

2:07

is it really? Okay,

2:16

this is a long time coming.

2:19

We have a really, really fun episode

2:22

for New All this week because the

2:24

specialist of guests is here,

2:27

patient zero, in terms of

2:29

my cult fascination. And

2:31

the loyalist sounds like a cult listener.

2:34

I know. His name is Craig Montel

2:37

and he's my

2:37

dad. Hello. I'm really,

2:39

really happy to be here today.

2:41

Me too. I'm re-cleved that

2:43

we're doing this. So I wanted

2:46

to bring my dad here today because

2:48

he grew up in a cult. My dad

2:51

was forced to spend his teenage years

2:53

in the sort of get the fuck out

2:56

70s compound type cult that

2:58

we tend not to focus on in

3:00

this podcast. But his story

3:02

is really going to come in handy today

3:04

because it's going to help shed light on and

3:07

contextualize the more

3:10

loosey goosey on the fence. Is it a

3:12

live your life? Is it a watch your back? Is it a get the

3:14

fuck out culties stories that we're

3:16

going to dive into today. But before we get

3:18

into all that, dad, could

3:20

you please introduce yourself to the

3:22

listeners? I'm Amanda Montel's dad.

3:25

What else do I need to say? I'm here

3:27

in this most magical place

3:29

called Santa Barbara and I'm a professor

3:32

of neuroscience at the

3:34

fabulous University of California, Santa

3:36

Barbara with a lab in office overlooking

3:39

the ocean where I occasionally

3:41

can see dolphins and even a whale

3:43

breach.

3:44

Wow. That's exciting. You've really

3:47

come a long way from those

3:49

capital T traumatic days

3:51

on the compound. And

3:56

don't forget you are a devoted

3:59

sounds like a cold. listener. I have not missed

4:01

one. What's your favorite episode?

4:03

My favorite episode were the

4:05

kids of Disney. Oh the cult

4:08

of Disney adults and I have to tell

4:10

you I could really relate to it having taken

4:13

you and your brother Brandon to Disney

4:15

World in Florida twice.

4:17

Oh well we are not Disney adults

4:19

for the record that is not my family's

4:22

particular cult story but do you remember my

4:24

favorite Disney character?

4:25

I would say it was

4:27

that pirate what's his name? Captain

4:28

Hook good job I

4:31

always loved the Disney villains. What are some

4:33

other top sounds like a cool episodes that you'd like to

4:35

recommend?

4:36

I'll tell you another one I absolutely

4:38

loved and this was way up there

4:40

in the top five was the cult of

4:43

children's theater. The cult

4:45

of theater kids. Oh it was it

4:48

took me back.

4:49

Oh yeah me too. So dad you

4:51

really are the origin story here

4:54

because I would not

4:56

have developed my demented obsession

4:58

with

4:58

cults if it weren't for you. I'm sorry about that.

5:00

No please I mean don't be sorry I've

5:03

you're like my culty muse my book wouldn't

5:05

exist without you this podcast wouldn't

5:07

exist without you. But

5:10

to back it up just to set the scene here for a second

5:13

for those who don't know my dad spent

5:16

his teenage years involuntarily

5:18

in a pretty notorious

5:21

70s era aspiring utopian

5:25

compound turned disruptive sociopolitical

5:28

sect. Would you say that's accurate?

5:29

Yeah I don't think that is all an overstatement.

5:32

And it was called synonym. So I want

5:34

the listeners to hear from the horse's mouth

5:37

about your

5:38

good one.

5:40

The dad jokes in this episode

5:43

are going to be

5:44

a get the fuck out I fear.

5:47

I was fortunate enough to

5:50

grow up on your stories of the

5:52

synonym game and the shaved

5:55

heads and the arranged marriages

5:57

and the eventual violence and And

6:00

while we unfortunately don't have time to

6:02

share the entire syninon story

6:04

in this episode, truly the reason why

6:06

I developed an interest in cultishness

6:09

in everyday life was because growing

6:12

up on your stories, I couldn't help but notice

6:14

that syninon-esque influence

6:17

could be found everywhere,

6:18

like

6:19

my high school theater program,

6:21

I know you remember, and the beauty

6:24

startup where I worked when I first moved

6:26

to LA, or the ways that people

6:28

would talk about SoulCycle and CrossFit,

6:31

I dedicated my book to you because you're really

6:33

responsible for this transfiction.

6:35

Thank you, thank you.

6:37

You're quite welcome. So yeah, for the listeners

6:39

to contextualize all of this, could

6:42

you describe a little bit about your

6:44

teenagers and syninons?

6:45

Well, let me start by just giving a little background

6:48

on what syninon was.

6:50

So it was started in 1958 by

6:53

a guy named Chuck Dieterich,

6:55

who was an alcoholic, who is an

6:58

alcoholic synonymous and left, and

7:01

started his own organization in Santa

7:03

Monica, where a

7:05

lot of drug addicts joined,

7:07

he called them dope fiends, and

7:10

an essential part of syninon

7:12

that tied it all together was this group

7:15

therapy session that was called

7:17

the syninon game. And people, maybe

7:19

a dozen, 15 people sat around the circle

7:22

and basically just catharted

7:25

at each other. And the more

7:27

vulgar and exaggerated

7:29

the accusations were, perhaps the

7:31

better. Anyway, that's how it started. And

7:34

it then morphed into

7:36

an organization that

7:39

not only was very attractive to

7:41

ex-alcoholics and drug

7:43

addicts, a lot of people who weren't

7:45

drug addicts and alcoholics became

7:48

really interested in moving in

7:50

for the so-called lifestyle.

7:53

And my dad was one

7:55

of those people. So it was

7:57

especially attractive to people who kind

7:59

of had left wing leanings like

8:02

my dad was a former communist

8:04

and so people lived in a commune

8:07

style. And so I don't

8:09

live with my dad a year because I

8:11

had been living with my mom but that's another story

8:14

and a year into it the

8:16

Sinon Club in Reno where we

8:19

were living it was just a game

8:21

club for non-alcoholics.

8:24

They were called lifestyleers closed

8:26

down and my dad announced that we

8:28

were all going to move in and I really

8:29

didn't want to do this.

8:31

Yeah and just so the listeners know

8:33

for closure Sinonon doesn't

8:36

exist anymore. It disbanded in the 1980s after

8:38

a series of crimes. One

8:41

of them involved a rattlesnake. Chuck Daedric

8:43

was dethroned. Again we don't have time

8:45

to get into the whole tale today but

8:48

in the beginning there what did your spidey

8:50

senses tell you about this group?

8:53

Like how did you know that

8:55

this might not be the best experience

8:57

for you?

8:57

I played some of those Sinon

9:00

games just out of curiosity as

9:03

a non-resident and

9:05

basically it was intimidating.

9:08

It was rough and it really

9:11

wasn't for me and especially I didn't

9:13

like the top-down style of

9:15

Sinon where you had

9:18

the leader, Chuck Daedric,

9:21

who was imposing his philosophy

9:24

on everyone and groupthink

9:27

was kind of the way

9:27

things were in Sinon. I just didn't

9:30

like that even though I was 15 years old. So

9:32

it was a very hierarchical organization. Very

9:34

much so. No one

9:35

question Chuck. Yeah and it's interesting

9:37

that you bring that up as one

9:39

of the prime red flags

9:42

because it connects so directly

9:44

to today's new subject.

9:51

I want to describe a little bit about how today is

9:53

going to work. Some listeners

9:56

may recall that a few months ago there

9:58

was an episode of the show where where

10:00

we collected some listener

10:03

written in stories. The listeners

10:05

submitted tales of brushes with

10:07

cult-like groups that they had had in the past.

10:10

Everything from meeting a

10:12

sweet old man in a coffee shop who ended

10:15

up trying to recruit someone into what seemed

10:17

like a kind of new agey cult, to someone

10:19

who upon reflection realized that

10:21

the school assemblies that they attended as a little

10:23

kid kind of seemed culty. And that

10:25

episode was very casual, more like a

10:28

bonus episode, but I wanted to dive

10:30

a little bit deeper into some of the listener

10:32

stories that we didn't get to tackle last time.

10:35

And the one that I wanna focus on the most

10:37

and that I went down a rabbit hole researching

10:39

myself is the cult of

10:42

military-wise. Because

10:44

the military is without

10:46

question one of the most accepted and well-funded

10:50

and yet controlling and hierarchical

10:53

quote unquote cults in American society.

10:56

But we don't often get to hear

10:58

about the spouses side of the

11:00

story and that's culty too. Dad,

11:03

I don't know if you knew this, but one of my

11:05

close childhood friends is now a military

11:08

spouse.

11:08

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I

11:10

remember her.

11:11

Earlier this year, I actually

11:13

went and visited her on

11:15

the base where her husband is

11:18

stationed. And she was talking to me

11:20

pretty candidly about some of the

11:22

protocols and rituals and sacrifices

11:25

and hardships that she's had to endure

11:28

as a military spouse. And it made me

11:31

all the more confident that I wanted to do an

11:33

episode on this topic. So when

11:35

I saw that someone had written in about the cult

11:37

of military wives, I knew it had to make

11:39

the list today. And then we have three

11:42

other shorter, slightly lighter hearted

11:45

stories that listeners wrote in that

11:47

I wanna talk through

11:47

with you as well. Sounds good.

11:49

And as we discuss these stories, I'll be asking

11:52

you more questions about Sinonon itself.

11:54

And I think it will be really, really interesting

11:57

because there are still listeners

11:59

who are fairly. unconvinced that

12:01

cultish influence can show up in places

12:04

that don't look like classic Sinanun

12:06

style cults. There are people

12:08

that aren't fully on board with that argument

12:11

yet but we have a firsthand

12:13

witness here. I'd love if you could identify

12:15

the parallels that you notice

12:18

between military wives and some of

12:20

these other stories and what you experienced

12:22

or witnessed in Sinanun. How does that sound?

12:24

Yeah that sounds good. I'll tell you right off the

12:26

bat without even hearing the story that

12:29

there has to be an exit cost for

12:31

those women, those military

12:33

wives.

12:33

It is so interesting that you say

12:36

that because that is at the center

12:39

of the story that this listener

12:41

wrote in.

12:47

So let's start with this first story on the cult of

12:49

military wives submitted by a Patreon

12:52

subscriber named Taylor. This is what she

12:54

submitted. Hi this

12:56

is Taylor from Florida and I'd like

12:58

to tell you about the cult of military

13:01

wives. While it may appear to be a supportive

13:04

group of women who are going through the same hardships

13:06

as you like spousal deployment or

13:08

parenting struggles, it's actually quite

13:10

insidious. First, your

13:13

condition to think that the stressors this puts

13:15

on your life are your patriotic duty.

13:17

Christianity is the default religion and you

13:20

must conform and participate in the public

13:22

prayers at various functions. The

13:24

exit costs are steep. If you

13:26

divorce your spouse, which a lot of military

13:29

wives do, you are abandoning your troop

13:31

and your country. Forget the fact that many

13:33

of these guys suffer from extreme PTSD

13:36

which can have violent effects on their families. The

13:38

military wives who were once your friends

13:41

will abandon you for prioritizing your own

13:42

safety and mental health. Well

13:45

I mean yeah the exit costs must

13:48

be really huge. You know in synonym

13:50

when people leave they were called split teas

13:53

and when they left

13:55

they were basically considered

13:57

dead and I would imagine

13:59

for the military wives, if they got a divorce

14:02

and left, that, you

14:04

know, all of their friends would consider

14:07

them dead too, they would

14:09

just be out of their lives completely.

14:11

For sure, because it's such a closed

14:13

system. Like when you're a military spouse,

14:15

a lot of the time your friends,

14:17

your community, everyone you interact with

14:20

is someone who's also associated with the

14:22

military. So you don't have a lot of

14:24

outside perspectives. Sometimes it reminds

14:26

me of Scientology. Like if you're really, really

14:29

deep into Scientology, your chiropractor is

14:31

a Scientologist, your best friend is a Scientologist,

14:33

leaving feels impossible.

14:35

But

14:36

one unexpected thing that I wanted to point out that

14:38

I think Sinonan and the cult of military wives

14:40

have in common, though in very different ways,

14:43

is the element of keeping

14:46

family members away from each other. So people

14:48

in the military obviously have to leave their kids

14:50

behind when deployed and military

14:53

wives also have to leave their family

14:56

support systems behind to follow their spouses

14:58

from base to base. And there was a similar

15:01

energy of like separating

15:03

families in Sinonan. I mean,

15:05

something that always haunted me about

15:07

the stories that you would tell was that

15:10

children lived in these dismal

15:12

barracks separate from their parents because

15:15

this place started as an alternative drug rehabilitation

15:17

center. According

15:20

to Chuck Giedrich's philosophy,

15:23

your family enables you. So that

15:25

extended to non drug addicts as

15:27

well. Your family enables you so naturally, if

15:29

you're a child, you should live separate from your parents. Can

15:31

you talk about that?

15:32

Yeah. And in fact, not just little

15:34

children live separately from the parents

15:37

as a 15 year old, I was also in a dorm.

15:39

Yeah. And once I moved into Sinonan,

15:41

I was there three years, you know, until

15:44

I was almost 18. I rarely

15:46

saw my dad. And in fact, when

15:49

I did, it was just by chance. And

15:51

he really had nothing to do with my day to

15:53

day life or my upbringing for those

15:55

next three years. There are a couple of things I was thinking

15:58

of that when you were reading this letter.

15:59

a hierarchy issue. Boy,

16:02

there are analogies there because

16:05

in Sinonon you had what was called

16:07

the tribe leader that was in charge

16:09

of a small group, well not so small group,

16:11

of about 50 people who organized

16:13

your Sinon games and what dorms you lived

16:15

in, who were your dorm mates, and then

16:17

above them there was a director

16:20

of the facility and then there

16:22

were members of the Board of Regents and then

16:24

there was Chuck. There was tremendous hierarchy.

16:27

And you probably couldn't skip rank.

16:28

No, and in fact what

16:30

rank you were were largely determined by

16:33

Chuck at the top. He was the king. We're

16:35

really a deity.

16:36

Yeah, and I feel like Sinonon

16:39

is what most people imagine

16:41

when they think of a cult because you have this charismatic

16:43

leader and you're on a compound

16:46

in like the tiny brown hills of California

16:49

and that's kind of what we think of as the canonical

16:51

cult image. But when

16:54

you think of the military,

16:56

like how would you invite someone to

16:58

consider that that is a cult aesthetic

17:00

as well?

17:01

So in Sinonon there

17:03

were uniforms. Yeah. You tended to

17:05

wear overalls and your hair

17:08

had to be really short. Like

17:10

a crew cut. Yeah, like a crew cut or maybe

17:12

even a bald head. And in the

17:14

military you of course have uniforms

17:17

and the way you groom yourself was

17:19

very strictly regulated. And

17:21

that was all controlled from the top. It was

17:23

top down. Sinon and the military

17:25

are very top down. Rules

17:28

that come down from Chuck that

17:30

you couldn't anticipate

17:33

and as soon as the rules came down

17:35

everyone was behind it whether they really felt

17:37

that way or not. And then the next

17:40

week or next month there could be another rule that

17:42

was 180 degrees different and everyone

17:44

was behind that and it's like that in

17:46

the military. The rule comes down from on high

17:49

and you don't question it.

17:50

Because there's this end justify the means

17:52

philosophy that is so profound. Like I'm

17:54

sure in Sinonon and I would love to hear your

17:57

perspective on this but I'm sure in Sinonon

18:00

the idea was we are living correctly.

18:03

We are living in an elite way.

18:07

And justify the means philosophy in the military is like we're

18:09

perfecting our,

18:11

I said perfecting, it's kind of a Freudian slip,

18:13

but we're protecting our country. We

18:16

are the reason why this country is not in shambles.

18:18

We are the reason why this country is the most powerful

18:20

in the world. And if you leave, you're not a

18:22

part of that really grand

18:25

divine mission.

18:26

Yeah, and Synanon in a way

18:28

was also claiming to

18:30

be protecting the larger

18:32

society. After all, they were accepting

18:35

all of these drug addicts to come

18:38

in and Chuck felt, well,

18:40

you had to stay if you were a drug addict

18:42

in Synan for the rest of your life because if you leave, you'll

18:44

return to drugs. So think about it, the

18:47

drug addicts, the former drug addicts that

18:49

Chuck called Dopheans that were in Synanon

18:52

were not stealing, were

18:54

not committing crimes, and

18:56

in fact, they weren't protecting society. Synanon

18:59

was by just inhabiting these

19:01

people in their community.

19:02

Which speaks to the sort of positive

19:05

side of cults too. Like there

19:07

is always an actual legitimate

19:10

allure. I remember another childhood

19:12

friend, Ivy, shout out. I remember

19:14

Ivy asking you years ago, what

19:17

was something positive that you gained from Synanon?

19:20

And I remember you saying that it was

19:22

the aphorism that Chuck is credited with

19:24

coining, today is the first day of the rest of

19:26

your life. Chuck Diedrich coined

19:29

that phrase, didn't he?

19:29

Well, I can't be sure, but the

19:31

folks in Synanon said he did. Okay. So

19:35

I don't actually know for sure.

19:37

But I remember you mentioning that that

19:39

was actually something positive

19:41

that you carried

19:41

forward with you. And especially

19:44

for folks whose lives

19:47

before were really fraught

19:49

with a lot of bad things and

19:51

negativity that you didn't have to feel

19:54

constrained. That was kind of a positive

19:56

philosophy. You didn't have to be constrained about

19:59

what occurred before. And I

20:01

even thought about why I was in Sinan

20:03

and even after I left if Things

20:06

were difficult if things didn't go right Don't

20:09

think back today is the first day

20:11

of your rest of your life And that was

20:14

one of the many positive things and you're absolutely

20:16

right. I think every call

20:19

can attract really extremely

20:22

smart Not necessarily

20:24

naive people but very smart people because

20:27

on surface There was a tremendous amount

20:29

of positive things that happened

20:31

Yeah because something that I think is similar

20:33

between those types of people who joined in Sinan

20:35

and maybe the type of people who Enlist

20:38

passionately in the military is a

20:40

sense of my participation

20:43

in this group could help literally

20:44

save the world. Yeah

20:52

So we've been talking about the military overall,

20:55

but I want to zero in on talking a little bit more

20:57

about military wives because I think actually your

21:00

story as a child of People

21:03

who join Sinan on someone who was forced

21:06

to join against your will that's

21:08

kind of more similar to the experience

21:11

of a military Spouse who is

21:13

not enlisting in the military on their own accord.

21:16

They are just sort of following this

21:18

person that they love there Can you

21:20

talk about how much agency

21:22

you did or didn't have in the group? And

21:24

then I want to move through some more

21:26

specific parallels with military wives

21:28

You really didn't have much

21:31

agency, especially as a child a teenager

21:33

in Sinan on you couldn't really question

21:36

What was going on and I definitely

21:38

retained that I never really bought into

21:41

Sinan the whole time was there I was just buying my time

21:44

That any kind of independent thought you had you kind

21:46

of have to keep to yourself You couldn't express

21:48

it and I imagine for military

21:50

wives They wouldn't

21:52

go about their daily lives Exposing

21:55

how much they may not like the

21:58

way they lived how much they didn't believe in the world

21:59

military and so forth.

22:01

Yeah, I mean I think

22:05

that there are really three main culty

22:35

aspects to life as a military

22:38

wife. Their overlap with MOM,

22:41

identity sacrifice, and

22:43

isolation. So

22:45

the first thing that I can't help but notice

22:48

is culty about the military wife experience is

22:50

their extreme vulnerability to multi-level

22:53

marketing scans.

22:54

Well I know about multi-level marketing

22:56

scans from listening to sounds like a cult.

22:59

That is wholesome. That warms

23:01

my heart. Well it

23:03

has been true for many many decades

23:05

that military wives are a

23:08

key target of the multi-level marketing

23:11

industry because military spouses,

23:13

particularly wives, are folks who have serious

23:15

trouble accessing dignified fulfilling

23:18

full-time employment and they also

23:21

lack close friendships when they show

23:23

up on a base and don't know anybody. According

23:26

to an article on military.com titled

23:28

The Truth About MLM Businesses and How They

23:31

Hurt Troops, many in the military

23:33

community report being bombarded with

23:35

requests to participate in multi-level marketing

23:38

and attend selling parties upon arriving

23:40

at a new duty station, often feeling

23:42

pressure to do so in order to fit in and

23:44

make new friends. The US Department

23:47

of Labor said that among military

23:49

wives, unemployment is three times

23:52

the national average. Just first of all

23:54

because of how often they have to move around.

23:56

It's tough to hold down a job. So the

23:58

MLM industry swoops. promising

24:01

not only to cure their financial

24:03

hardship, which is overall a huge problem among military

24:05

families, but give them purpose

24:08

and community. Of course, study

24:10

after study shows that MLNs do

24:12

nothing but lose your money and make

24:15

you stressed. So you basically show

24:17

up on your new military assignment. You're

24:19

ushered in by this group of seemingly

24:22

supportive new besties who

24:24

immediately recruit you into a scam.

24:26

Yeah, and you can't really say no

24:28

because you're in this insular situation.

24:31

Can you talk about the employment

24:34

situation in Sinanun

24:36

and how people were scammed out of

24:39

opportunity and money there?

24:40

Well, let me say a couple of things. First,

24:43

Chuck Dietrich had this saying, the

24:45

only thing that's constant in Sinanun is

24:47

change. You could get behind that, but

24:50

what that meant is that people

24:52

would often be dictated

24:54

in terms of what type

24:56

of job they could have and they could be in a

24:58

job and then switch,

25:01

not by their own volition, into

25:03

something else. And so there was constant

25:06

moving from one job to the next. One

25:08

of the things that

25:10

I'd like to bring up about the

25:12

so-called lifestyleers, like my dad,

25:15

who moved into Sinanun, who wasn't a drug addict,

25:17

who moved in for the so-called lifestyle, is

25:19

that you were expected to throw in

25:22

all of your resources, all of

25:24

your money into Sinanun. And

25:26

if you didn't, there was tremendous

25:28

peer pressure to do so. So

25:32

what ended up happening is that even

25:34

for lifestyleers, when you moved in, you

25:36

were no longer financially independent

25:39

because you gave up all

25:40

of your resources.

25:41

Which is so reflective of the cultural values

25:43

at the time, right? Like this was the late 1960s

25:46

when your family joined. And there

25:49

were a lot of people who were losing trust

25:51

in how America was operating

25:53

at the time. You have the Vietnam War, you have the Civil

25:55

Rights Movement, you have the Kennedy assassinations.

25:58

I mean, there was a lot of people who were losing trust in the American people. of

26:00

turbulence and that gave

26:03

rise to people wanting to embark on

26:05

these social experiments really. And

26:07

so, I mean, they remind me so much of conversations

26:10

that I have with my friends now where like America

26:12

is broken, let's start a commune, let's get

26:14

a tenants in common property, let's start a cult.

26:17

And I honestly get the motivation

26:20

I really do, but it can just so

26:22

quickly lead to power abuse. And it's

26:25

actually kind of ironic that

26:27

we're comparing the military to Sinonon

26:29

and that they have so much in common considering the

26:31

fact that Sinonon was kind of like an anti-war

26:34

reaction, right? But I don't know, I guess power

26:36

is power no matter the politics. But

26:39

anyway, for a military wife, it probably

26:42

actually feels good on one hand to have this

26:44

like paint by numbers plan

26:46

for how your life is going to look. But then

26:49

the cost to your financial independence

26:51

is huge because what if you change your mind?

26:53

One thing that

26:55

I'd like to point out that I was thinking about that

26:58

is slightly off topic, but not

27:00

completely, is that in Sinon,

27:02

they had their own sales force

27:05

that would sell pens

27:07

and all kinds of little trinkets to

27:09

businesses. And of course, the sales

27:12

people at Sinon didn't like

27:14

make money from this, it went to Sinonon.

27:18

And these were a lot of things that companies

27:20

would buy that would be giveaways to customers.

27:23

Okay, so it's like marketing? Yeah, it was

27:25

marketing. I mean, there are so

27:27

many super destructive classic get the fuck

27:29

out level cults that have these outside businesses

27:32

for marketing purposes. Like one example

27:34

that I bring up early and cultish that

27:36

you might remember is that 3HO,

27:39

the Healthy, Happy, Holy organization, which is

27:41

that super controlling Kundalini yoga

27:43

cult that Russell Brand has been a part of Red Flag,

27:46

they own Yogi Tea, that like popular

27:48

grocery store tea brand that I have

27:50

in my own cupboard at home, you know, so that's

27:53

pretty common.

27:54

Yeah, and Sinonon also had

27:56

their own gas stations, they

27:58

have a lot of outside businesses.

27:59

that people in Sinan would

28:02

work at and they themselves

28:04

didn't get any of the profits at all went

28:07

to Sinan. And outsiders could use

28:09

that gas station. Yeah, absolutely. And just

28:11

like chat with the Sinan honors while

28:13

they were, you know, filling on up.

28:14

Absolutely. Filling

28:15

on up with gas and the gospel.

28:19

Here's another stat for you. According to a 2019 Atlantic

28:23

piece titled The Dismal Career Opportunities

28:25

for Military Spouses, in 2014 there were a few

28:28

different MLMs that were shut down for

28:31

scamming military spouses specifically

28:33

by, for example, charging service

28:35

members for benefits they were already entitled

28:38

to or that were never even provided.

28:40

In one month alone in 2014, 230 service members

28:44

were involuntarily paying a portion of their income

28:46

to this MLM scam called USA

28:49

Discounters, which was like a home goods company,

28:51

that totaled more than $1.4 million

28:54

in scammed funds. Wow. It's

28:56

mind-blowing. And just like you said, there's

28:59

no way to like gracefully decline.

29:01

Where are you gonna go? These

29:03

are the people recruiting you or the people that you have

29:05

to interact with all day long.

29:06

Yeah, that's really a pernicious

29:09

situation. The analogies between

29:13

the military and Sinan

29:15

aren't that hard to make. And I really like the point

29:17

that you made that as a

29:19

child in Sinan that my physician

29:22

had quite a few similarities

29:25

to the military spouses. They help

29:27

us.

29:27

Exactly.

29:35

Now we're gonna take a break to make

29:37

some exciting announcements, including one

29:40

about my newest project.

29:42

It's my pleasure to tell you about

29:44

the age of magical overthinking.

29:47

If you've read Amanda's other books like I

29:49

have and know how awesome they are, well you're

29:52

in for a treat because this latest

29:54

book is the greatest of all. The

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title of this book is the age of

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30:01

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30:03

who's alive today knows how irrational

30:06

society has begun. It's available

30:09

now for pre-order wherever you buy books

30:11

or at the link in our show notes.

30:14

It's coming out April 9th, and I'm sorry

30:16

you have to wait till then. It's about

30:18

cognitive biases in the modern

30:20

age. Listen to these chapter titles.

30:23

Are You My Mother, Taylor Swift? A

30:25

Note on the Halo Effect. I

30:28

swear I manifested this. A

30:30

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30:32

A Toxic Relationship is Just

30:35

a Cult of One.

30:36

A Note on the Sunk Cost Fallacy.

30:39

Most of all, the book cover

30:41

is really beautiful and I have to tell you

30:43

that I added a little extra

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something to the book cover. You'll

30:47

have to guess what it is. My brilliant

30:50

Amanda has worked so hard

30:52

in this book. She would love to

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have you order it in advance because

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these pre-orders are really important. So

30:59

please, as soon as you're finished listening,

31:02

do not eat, do not go to the bathroom,

31:04

order it now. Yeah, don't eat. Don't

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eat. Don't eat. Don't eat. Don't

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go to the bathroom. Don't go to the bathroom. Holy,

31:14

holy, holy. Sounding like a cult leader.

31:16

Thank you, Dad, for that sensational

31:19

endorsement. It's true. My book

31:21

is available for pre-order now. If you like

31:23

this podcast, if you enjoy

31:26

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it. You can do so from any book retailer.

31:37

I recommend bookshop.org. Again,

31:39

it's called The Age of Magical Overthinking,

31:42

Notes on Modern Irrationality. It's

31:44

available April 9th. And my dad,

31:46

who we should protect at all costs, recommends

31:48

it. So Dad, what do you think

31:51

about my tank top

31:52

that I'm wearing right now? Well, you really

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are gorgeous with that tank top. It

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is fantastic.

31:57

Thank you, Dad. And I will have

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wearing comfortable clothes.

32:39

I am normally not a tank top person, but

32:41

the Skims cotton ribbed tank

32:44

is so comfortable and looks so good on

32:46

that I've been wearing it in and

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out. I've worn it to line dancing. You know how much I

32:51

love line dancing.

32:51

You do. And the tank tops look great

32:53

here in Santa Barbara.

32:54

Oh, yes, we're in Santa Barbara where my dad

32:56

lives recording this episode right now. And tank

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tops are perfect for warm weather

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or cold weather. They're great in all weathers.

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33:33

do you ever have racing thoughts or feel like

33:35

your brain is kind of interfering with your life?

33:37

Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes

33:40

I have anxiety that I

33:42

can't understand where it's coming from. Me

33:44

too. And you know what? You know this

33:46

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33:48

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33:51

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33:53

overthinkers out there. I was actually

33:55

pretty freaked out by the concept

33:57

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34:00

at the age of 26 and now I quote my therapist

34:02

all the time. She has guided me through so much.

34:05

You've been on a mental health journey in recent years

34:07

too, haven't you, Dad?

34:08

I have. It is definitely

34:10

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34:12

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34:49

I know there are analogies

34:52

to be made

34:54

with

34:56

this next point. Something else that I think is so

34:58

culty about the military wife experience

35:01

and something that I didn't really realize until I went

35:03

and visited my friend was the sacrifice

35:05

of identity and pressure to

35:07

conform to this expectation

35:10

of the perfect military spouse. So

35:13

when you marry someone in the military,

35:15

you're basically giving up not

35:17

only a career, but a sense of agency

35:20

in general to support not

35:22

only your spouse, but the military

35:24

itself. And according to a study

35:26

conducted at Syracuse University titled Making

35:29

Military Wives, factors like long-term

35:32

family separations, temporary duty assignments,

35:35

frequent geographic moves, and the strict

35:37

sense of protocol cause such stress

35:39

and disorientation for spouses that

35:41

they can start to lose themselves. And

35:44

that can pressure them to participate

35:47

in a lot of different weird military

35:50

wife rituals and rules. I

35:52

found this one blog post written by a military wife called

35:55

Manners for Milspouses, 12 Must-Know

35:57

Etiquette Rules of Military Life.

37:37

this

38:00

sort of like justifying of

38:03

violence for the ultimate goal, I mean

38:05

that's what the military itself is.

38:07

Yeah, absolutely. You know, Sinon

38:10

started off with two cardinal

38:12

rules, no physical violence

38:15

and no psychic modifiers, meaning

38:17

no drugs or alcohol, then they had

38:19

a third one, no smoking. But

38:22

just before I left Sinonon, Chuck

38:25

Dieterich, who normally when he played

38:27

the Sinon game was unchallenged, there

38:30

was a woman, a fairly junior

38:32

member of Sinonon, who kept challenging

38:34

Chuck, and at one point, Chuck

38:37

got up and went

38:39

over to this woman and threw his coke on

38:41

her. And that was the beginning

38:43

of the degradation of the

38:46

no violence in Sinonononon. And

38:48

then it got worse and worse, and worse. Wow,

38:50

wow. And isn't that why people shave their heads,

38:52

too?

38:53

Well, people would shave their heads

38:55

or be forced to shave their heads if they broke

38:58

one of the cardinal rules. The men were, and the women

39:00

would have to wear stocking caps. But later

39:03

on, there was situations where

39:05

there were massive numbers of people

39:08

who in unison would shave their heads for

39:10

one reason or another as part of a

39:12

show of unity for

39:14

Sinonon. And in fact, there was one situation

39:17

where there were so many people who had shaved

39:19

heads in Sinonon that they were

39:21

hired for a movie when that

39:24

movie needed a whole bunch of people with bald heads.

39:26

No way. I didn't know that.

39:29

Oh my god. But you never

39:31

shaved your head.

39:32

I did not shave my head. I was watching

39:34

my P's and Q's. I did have

39:36

a crew cut,

39:37

which I really, really didn't like. In

39:39

fact, when I left Sinononon and

39:42

started college,

39:43

I was really,

39:45

because it was at Berkeley, UC Berkeley.

39:47

Yeah. And this was circa 1973.

39:50

And to have a crew cut in Berkeley in fall of 1973 was really,

39:52

well, I was like a sore thumb.

39:58

Oh my

40:00

god. I mean, I really stuck out. Oh, I'm sure you look...

40:03

I mean, as well I've had a shaved head.

40:03

Yeah, you probably looked super

40:05

square. Yes.

40:06

Probably the shaved head would have looked better because then you could

40:08

have passed it off as like performance art.

40:09

I didn't think of that.

40:11

Well, next time. Okay, so

40:13

the last thing I want to talk about that draws such

40:16

a parallel between Sinonan and military

40:18

wives is obviously the sense of

40:20

physical isolation. This is

40:22

not an element that is a part

40:25

of many of the cults that we talk about on Sounds Like

40:27

a Cult because we often talk about like internet

40:30

cults or celebrity fandoms

40:32

or groups where they have no in-person

40:35

compound. But in the military,

40:37

when you're on a base, that literally

40:40

is like a cult compound. You're

40:42

separated from the outside world. You've

40:44

completely lost your perspective. And

40:47

all of the support systems

40:49

that are provided for military spouses to

40:52

help them thrive

40:54

are

40:55

run by the military itself.

40:57

Oh, yeah, the similarity

40:59

between living on a military base and

41:02

living in Sinon, in terms of the isolation

41:04

from the outside world is very parallel

41:07

because when you've lived in Sinonan,

41:09

it could be just in the Oakland facility

41:12

where there is one building and

41:14

then some dorms. You

41:16

were like completely discouraged,

41:18

in fact, often prevented from

41:21

experiencing the outside world and

41:23

going to the outside world because after all Sinonan

41:26

was utopia, it was perfect. The

41:28

outside world was all fucked

41:31

up. And so you

41:33

very much were living on the

41:35

compound. And sometimes you would

41:38

move to another Sinonan facility like

41:40

moving to another base. And

41:42

that resulted in making

41:45

a whole new set of friends at that

41:47

other facility. About six months before

41:49

I left Sinonan from Oakland, I

41:52

had just graduated early from Lowell

41:55

in San Francisco and then lived for six

41:57

months at the Sinonan facility

41:59

in Marin County. And yeah,

42:01

I didn't know any one there just a couple of

42:03

people and I'm so similar

42:05

very so freakishly

42:06

similar I

42:08

do think like just to create

42:10

a certain sense of balance I do

42:12

think one key difference and

42:14

maybe some listeners can tell me otherwise but

42:17

I do think one key difference between synod on in the

42:19

military is that in Places

42:21

like synod on and this is true in Jonestown

42:23

and heavensgate and like any of these compounds is

42:26

that they? Actively demonize

42:28

the outside world the outside world is evil

42:30

It's lesser than and I don't know if

42:32

that's done to the same degree After

42:35

all like the military is there to protect

42:38

America at large so it's inherently not

42:41

really demonized like the military

42:43

loves the rest of America offensively

42:45

yeah, so definitely in synod on the

42:49

Philosophy was the outside

42:51

world was all messed up but

42:54

I think one similarity between the

42:56

Military and synod on was that

42:59

I think a lot of the recruits in

43:01

the military Were led

43:04

to believe that you needed the structure

43:06

in the military to survive Yeah And that

43:09

you need to stay that you will fall down

43:11

a manhole if you leave Because you

43:13

wouldn't have the structure and that sort of philosophy

43:15

permeated synod on

43:17

so true. That's maybe the Number

43:19

one thing that the two have in common is

43:21

like you yeah You will fall down a manhole if

43:23

you don't have this structure and for some people

43:26

it's true Yeah, for some people it's like fully

43:28

fully true. Yeah, I've known people who

43:30

say their lives were

43:31

saved by the military

43:32

Yeah, I don't know if I know any

43:34

military Live to the heads

43:36

were saved by the military

43:46

Okay, so as

43:48

someone who's experienced one of the worst

43:50

cults in history and has

43:52

also heard quite a few stats about Military

43:55

wives at this point. Do you think

43:57

that military wives are a live your life? I'll

44:01

watch your back or

44:04

I get the fuck out level

44:04

cold. Well

44:07

for me, I may be on

44:09

the fringe here, but personally I

44:11

think I've got the fuck out. I

44:14

kind of do too. I mean because basically

44:16

they're tremendous exit costs. You're

44:19

not allowed to have your own agency.

44:22

You can't really pursue your career.

44:25

You have to move regardless

44:27

of whether you want to or not, on

44:29

and on and on.

44:30

You might get sucked into an MLM where you

44:32

have to sell owl jewelry against

44:34

your will.

44:35

I mean I don't think for

44:37

the folks, the men or women who are

44:40

in the military, it's get

44:42

the fuck out. I think it's watch your back. But

44:45

for the military wise or maybe

44:47

the military husbands, I think it's get the

44:49

fuck out. I

44:50

know. I kind of think

44:51

that too. But what if

44:53

you fall in love with a soldier?

44:56

We're going to move on to

44:59

three other stories and we're going to blitz

45:01

through these more quickly than we did

45:03

with the military wives. I'm having so much fun

45:05

with you.

45:05

I know me too, but we have to get to your birthday

45:07

dinner. We didn't even mention it. It

45:10

is my dad's birthday.

45:11

Thank you. Thank you. Today

45:13

is my 68th birthday, but no one would believe it

45:15

because I look like I am like a

45:19

really boxy 45 year old.

45:21

I have fountain of youth. Okay. So

45:23

this next story is from Emily

45:26

and this story is about the cult

45:28

of the music industry. Emily

45:31

says, hi, sounds like a cult. I was in

45:33

the cult of the live music industry throughout

45:36

my college and grad school years. I

45:38

was a fairly small indie music blogger

45:40

with a decent online presence. As a broke

45:42

grad student, I would interview bands. I was interested

45:44

in seeing live as a way to get free tickets

45:46

and backstage access, AKA cheaper

45:49

drinks. Normally I would hang around the

45:51

venue before and after the band would play. This

45:53

night after I interviewed the band, I had a migraine

45:56

but wanted to hang out. So I was walking back

45:58

to my car for meds, but I ever success. away

46:00

and got catcalled by three different men in the 15 minute

46:03

walk. I was super shaken when I ran into

46:05

one of the band members on the way back, but

46:07

this man seemed to suddenly get this angelic

46:10

glow. The rest of the night was a blur

46:12

of drinking with the band to try and forget the

46:14

experience, and I definitely saw

46:16

myself regarding these band members as heroes

46:19

when they weren't even remotely involved. I

46:21

no longer work in live music. I think it's a

46:23

watch or back. Alright, Emily, spoiler.

46:25

The industry is hard for women to break

46:27

into and is known for abusive power dynamics,

46:30

but still has plenty of people trying to change it.

46:32

Stay culty. Did

46:35

Sinonon

46:35

have a band? Oh my goodness,

46:37

that is a really interesting question. Music

46:40

in Sinon was a big deal because

46:42

there were so many fantastic

46:45

musicians that had drug problems

46:48

and came in and so they were

46:50

in particular in the area of jazz.

46:53

There were so many really famous jazz

46:55

musicians like Stan Kenton

46:57

and Art Pepper. They're like

47:00

our Saturday Night parties

47:03

had phenomenal music. So

47:05

music was really that was a

47:07

big plus. It was extraordinary.

47:08

Yeah, there's a lot of overlap

47:11

with really dangerous cults in music. I mean, a lot

47:13

of super fucked up infamous cults had bands

47:16

like the Manson's Charlie Manson. He just wanted to be

47:18

a rock

47:18

star. Yeah.

47:19

Who among us has not like

47:21

truly, truly cult worshiped a

47:23

music artist?

47:24

Oh, absolutely. And

47:26

I think that, you know, for the woman

47:29

who just wrote in that letter, I

47:31

think one of the

47:32

big issues is because there's

47:35

so much idolatry of the

47:37

people who run her in bands

47:40

and particularly the people who are really famous

47:43

that you don't feel like

47:45

you can just exert your

47:47

own will that you kind of have to

47:50

do what they want. And that sort of

47:52

reminds me of a cult where you don't have your own

47:54

agency.

47:54

Yeah, I think yeah, if you're like

47:57

a sort of groupie type and you're actually

47:59

interacting with these people, I think you would

48:01

truly be under a spell because when

48:03

I'm listening to my favorite music artist, even in

48:06

my own private room, I feel like

48:08

I'm a bit under a spell. And there's actually,

48:10

there's a lot of really interesting neuroscience research,

48:13

you would probably like it. I'm reflecting

48:15

that when Pentecostals

48:17

or other, you know, Christian cult followers engage

48:20

in glossolalia or speaking in tongues, the

48:22

same thing is happening in the brain as

48:24

when Swifties are like freaking out at the

48:26

eras tour. It's the sense of release

48:29

and catharsis and adrenaline. So

48:32

going to a concert and being in

48:34

actual in-person proximity to your favorite

48:37

rock stars is a religious experience.

48:39

And also when you're at a concert, everyone

48:41

is sort of acting like one.

48:44

It's like there's it's like a communal

48:46

animal sometimes with 20,000 parts.

48:49

Yes. Anything that

48:52

has idolatry at the center

48:54

of it is a little bit cultish.

48:56

For

48:56

sure. I mean, I've been thinking about this a lot because

48:59

the first chapter in my new book is about

49:01

celebrity worship and like the psychological

49:04

underpinnings of it and how it basically

49:06

takes our instincts about

49:08

finding role models and it brings them to this

49:11

parasocial extreme. And that

49:13

is like only getting more intense in our culture

49:15

these days as we have such an

49:17

uncanny relationship to role models. Celebrity

49:20

worship is getting more intense and

49:22

the consequences are getting more

49:23

deleterious over time. Yeah, you

49:26

had some great podcasts like about,

49:28

you know, Taylor Swift and others that

49:30

talked about this. But I would like to make

49:32

a comment because you did do an episode

49:35

on the cult of academia. I knew you're going

49:37

to have to tell yourself. I would like to say this that

49:40

in academia that we

49:42

don't have idolatry. In fact, you

49:44

could be talking to a noblest.

49:47

You could hear a seminar from a

49:50

noblest and you are really

49:52

striving to figure out whether

49:55

what they're saying is right or not. And you

49:57

don't back down from criticism. I don't know.

49:59

I for sure

50:00

idol worshiped some of my professors

50:03

in college. I would have let in the arts,

50:06

I would have done anything for

50:06

them. But as a scientist, okay,

50:10

that idolatry sort of counter

50:13

to the philosophy.

50:13

No, that makes sense. I hear you. I

50:16

think you're right. I mean, compared to like, worshiping

50:18

Taylor Swift, I think there's a difference.

50:22

Okay, I get it. So out

50:24

of the three cult categories, live your life, watch your back,

50:26

get the fuck out. What do you think about the cult of the life music

50:28

industry?

50:28

Well, I

50:30

think honestly, it's probably

50:33

a live your life. Okay.

50:35

Yeah, even though there's idolatry and

50:38

all this, I don't, is there really an exit

50:40

cost?

50:41

I don't know. I think like, I think it's,

50:43

I think I myself think it's a watch your back

50:46

because there are just

50:48

like a lot

50:48

of male rock stars. Yeah, yeah. You

50:51

know, I was trying to decide

50:53

that it was kind of borderline

50:56

between live your life, watch your back. But I could be

50:58

persuaded into it being watch

51:00

your back because, you

51:02

know, there's probably some abuse that

51:04

goes on. Well,

51:05

as a scientist, you should know that we'll probably

51:07

need more data than just Emily's

51:10

story here. But based on Emily's story, I would

51:12

still call it a watch your back. Okay,

51:15

we're going to move on. We've got two more. This next one

51:17

is from Claire. Claire is talking

51:19

about the cult of Abercrombie.

51:20

That's the name of one of your cats. That

51:22

is.

51:22

Thank you for mentioning her, Claire. So

51:25

Claire here is talking about the cult of Abercrombie

51:27

and Fitch. Claire says, I

51:29

had a culty experience working at Abercrombie

51:31

for eight years. But

51:34

I didn't even know, I didn't even know they let you work there for eight years.

51:36

I thought you aged out after the age of 23. I

51:39

started off as a brand representative back in 2004. And

51:42

even early on, they were judging people on their looks.

51:45

You would hear a manager on a conference call and

51:47

their district manager would ask, who are your hottest

51:49

employees on the floor right now? I worked there with

51:51

my best friend and

51:52

they said my name once and not hers. I

51:54

still remember how hurt she was. After

51:56

a lawsuit, they changed the title to model

51:59

so they could. justify judging people based on their

52:01

looks. But they weren't models. They worked

52:03

the sales floor and cash registers just like

52:05

any other retail employee. I remember

52:08

this, learning when Abercrombie employees were called

52:10

models, I was like, Jesus, there's something

52:12

cultish about that language. As

52:14

things went on, it got cultier, but it happened

52:17

gradually. At first you could wear whatever you wanted

52:19

as long as it was from the store. However, they

52:22

soon started putting out lookbooks,

52:24

demanding that employees wear one of three colors

52:27

and certain looks that they picked out. The

52:29

colors were usually limited to neutrals

52:31

like navy gray and white. Doesn't that sound

52:33

like synodont?

52:34

Oh yeah, yeah, exactly. The

52:36

colors that you wore were pretty neutral.

52:38

Yeah. If you weren't wearing these clothes

52:40

and a district manager visited, you were in trouble.

52:43

The lookbook also served as an ideal for the faces

52:45

of people we were supposed to hire. Natural,

52:47

not too much makeup, early on mostly

52:50

white people until another lawsuit. After

52:52

that you got bonus points if you hired a good looking person

52:54

of color. There's a documentary on Netflix

52:57

called White Hot, The Rise and Fall of Abercrombie

52:59

and Fitch that covers some of this. I got

53:01

so far into this cult, I ended up being a manager.

53:04

By then they implemented something called the cast

53:07

of tracker. You were supposed to recruit

53:09

and hire good looking people. Once I

53:11

was a manager, I got to see the interview forums

53:14

and the questions were mostly based on the person's

53:16

appearance. So you would hire that

53:18

person and send their photo to home office where

53:20

it was voted on. If three out of three

53:22

people approved the photo they got on the

53:24

cast of tracker, it's literally like swiping

53:26

right and left on a dating app. You were eventually supposed

53:29

to hire 10 guys and 10 girls on the tracker

53:31

and fill your schedule with only those people. The

53:34

sad news was if you hired someone and they didn't

53:36

get approved, you weren't supposed to give them any

53:38

shifts. So we would give them call ins

53:40

until they quit. Ultimately cutting staffing

53:43

hours while increasing workload led me to quit.

53:45

But thinking back, all the horrible judging we did

53:47

to people was completely normalized within the company

53:49

culture. So I found out later

53:52

that the CEO was weird AF.

53:54

So I think we have

53:57

a lot of information here from

53:59

Claire. comprehensive message.

54:01

Do you think Abercrombie and Fitch was a live real life a

54:04

watcherbocker get the fuck out?

54:05

Well

54:06

everything that you described in there kind

54:08

of turns my gut. Yeah. It's really

54:11

bad and I have to tell you I'm not surprised

54:13

to hear it because I remember when we used to go

54:15

into Abercrombie and Fitch when you were

54:17

a kid. Yeah. That it just

54:20

seemed a little unsavory. For sure.

54:22

Right to see these posters of

54:25

young teenagers with like

54:27

you know half their clothes off. It really bothered

54:29

me and so I really really

54:31

don't like it. The only reason that

54:34

I wouldn't call it get the fuck

54:36

out is because I don't think there's really an exit

54:39

cost to leave. I could be wrong

54:41

but for that reason only I would

54:44

call it a watcherback.

54:47

I think you're right. I think in certain scenarios

54:49

like this one where your gut is

54:51

turned and you're like this is obviously

54:54

disgusting and something

54:56

that no one in their right mind should participate

54:58

in. You do have to look at the worst case

55:00

scenarios and the worst case scenarios are

55:03

not synonym level or military

55:05

life level so I agree

55:07

I would call it a heavy watcherback

55:10

with a side of ew.

55:11

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Okay.

55:14

Here's the last story and this

55:16

one this one's kind of fun. This one's

55:18

like out of left field. The story is from Sarah

55:20

and it goes like this. Hi I have one for

55:23

you. The cult of circus

55:25

performers. I'm

55:28

so excited. I'm a circus performer and

55:31

generally there's a lot of great things about our community

55:33

but we definitely have our share of culty stuff.

55:36

From celebrities within our community who take

55:38

advantage of newer and younger performers they

55:40

are called first of May's to

55:42

the divide between traditional and contemporary

55:44

circus. That is so funny. There

55:48

is truly oh my god there's a subculture

55:50

and us them dynamics everywhere even in the

55:52

circus. We all keep a whisper

55:54

network of who to avoid if you don't want to work

55:56

somewhere who will steal your passport

55:59

and keep you in indentured servitude

56:01

or those who are predators. There's also

56:03

a lot of body dysmorphia, ageism,

56:06

and competition among circus performers. Despite

56:09

all of this, I would say the cult of circus performers

56:11

is a light watch your back. If you have a

56:13

trusted mentor and keep a good head, we

56:16

take care of each other and try to shield the newbies

56:18

from the sharks. I love your podcast. I

56:21

think it is, I still, I know that

56:24

this is like a part of the show and whatever, but

56:26

it is still such a trip to me and so fun

56:28

and adorable when people use the

56:31

live your life watch your back at the fuck out terminology.

56:33

Like I,

56:34

I love that. Yeah. Well, you

56:36

know, I think this is one of the lasting

56:39

gifts of sounds like a cult.

56:41

I think many people will be saying

56:44

those phrases for many years to come.

56:46

I use them, you know, yeah. Outside

56:49

of this podcast. One thing that I was

56:51

reminded of when I was listening to that letter

56:53

is when I was a kid, which

56:56

is a long, long, long time ago at wriggling,

56:59

Barn and Bailey's three ring circus, you

57:02

would go down to what

57:04

was called the

57:04

freak show in the basement. And

57:07

it, when you, when I think back about

57:09

it, it was really sad and

57:11

people would tour as part

57:14

of the circus. And in that

57:16

sense, these folks were

57:18

just part of a small community of

57:21

people and you know, you have

57:23

the circus master that was the person

57:25

at the top. And so there

57:27

was hierarchy and

57:30

a lot of these folks had

57:32

nowhere else to go. Right. So the people

57:34

that were in the freak show, they were

57:36

stuck. Yeah. What else did they do?

57:38

That's so true. When I think of the

57:40

more old school circus performer

57:42

culture, it's,

57:44

it seems very exploitative,

57:46

just, you know, like people who

57:48

might have a medical condition being ogled

57:51

because that's the only way to make

57:53

money in such a broken system that doesn't provide

57:55

opportunities like for differently abled

57:58

individuals. And then of course, like

57:59

animal cruelty

58:01

at all. It's really awful.

58:04

But in terms of Sarah's story, it reminds me

58:06

quite a bit of my friend Amanda Kay.

58:08

She spent most of

58:10

the year after she graduated college working

58:13

full time at a Renaissance fair.

58:15

Oh, I remember her mentioning that.

58:18

Yeah. And I mean, it actually

58:20

sounds really fun, but the language

58:22

of the newbies or the younger performers

58:24

being called first of May's reminds me

58:26

of how if you lived on

58:29

campus at the Ren fair, it was called

58:31

living on Shire. So there's

58:33

there's just such a robust culture and language

58:36

that separates those who are on

58:38

the inside of this community from everyone

58:40

on the outside, which is sort of like the more innocent

58:43

side of of cultishness. But

58:46

I think just whenever you have like a really,

58:48

really passionate subculture,

58:51

where money is also being

58:53

transacted, and it's super

58:55

competitive, and it's like an

58:57

art form, but kind of a fringy art form,

58:59

I think that is kind of an automatic

59:01

watch your back. And also, it's very

59:04

insular. So when you're,

59:06

say, even doing the Renaissance fair,

59:08

even if it's enjoyable during

59:10

that period of time when you're traveling

59:13

from one city to the next, yeah, you probably

59:15

are only interacting with the other people

59:17

for sure, who are part of the Renaissance

59:20

fair. And so I

59:22

have to agree with you, it's probably watch

59:24

your back because also

59:27

when you're doing that, it's probably hard to get

59:29

out that is that's your whole world.

59:31

It's your whole world. So one thing that didn't

59:34

come up in that letter is

59:36

who's the top

59:38

of the top of the pyramid,

59:41

because certainly in a circus, you

59:43

have the circus master. But I think that

59:46

from listening to your podcast, and

59:48

from living in synonym, that is a very important

59:51

element of a cult.

59:53

So yeah, it's probably a middle

59:55

of the road, watch your back, not a heavy

59:58

one. I totally agree.

1:00:01

Wow, Dad,

1:00:03

here we are at the end of

1:00:05

your much anticipated, at

1:00:07

least by me, guest episode of

1:00:09

Sounds Like a Cult. How would

1:00:11

you like to end this? Are there any

1:00:14

parting words of wisdom you would

1:00:16

like to leave our listeners with as someone

1:00:18

who survived a cult and is living

1:00:21

every day as if it's the first day of the rest

1:00:22

of your life? Well, first of all, I'd

1:00:24

like to say that

1:00:26

I'm really honored to be

1:00:29

your host today. It's like a great birthday

1:00:32

present. Today is my

1:00:34

birthday and it's been really

1:00:36

fun. And I would say

1:00:39

something that I've learned over the last couple

1:00:41

of years is trying to, as

1:00:44

much as you can, live the moment. So my parting

1:00:47

words to your wonderful audience

1:00:49

out there is learn

1:00:52

to be present.

1:00:53

That's

1:00:55

a great piece of advice, especially

1:00:58

for me, because I've not

1:01:00

been grounded lately. I

1:01:02

need to live in the present. And how can that

1:01:04

help you avoid cultishness? Because

1:01:07

you're connected to your instincts, maybe.

1:01:09

Well, you know, as you pointed

1:01:12

out, we are, I mean,

1:01:14

we're surrounded by cults. And

1:01:18

I'm not sure you have to avoid all

1:01:20

cults. You just want to avoid the ones that are

1:01:23

get the fuck out. I agree. And even

1:01:25

the ones that are watch your back,

1:01:27

watch your back. That doesn't mean get the fuck out.

1:01:30

Just watch your back. True,

1:01:31

we're words have never been spoken. That's

1:01:34

our show. Thank you so much for listening. We'll

1:01:36

be back with a new cult next week. But in the

1:01:38

meantime, stay culty.

1:01:39

But not too

1:01:42

culty. Good job. The

1:01:52

cult was created and hosted by Amanda

1:01:55

Montel and Isa Medina. Cabin.

1:02:01

Our theme music is by Kasey Kold. Thanks

1:02:03

as well to Kate Burns and Sue Miu.

1:02:05

To join the Sounds Like a Cult Cult, follow

1:02:08

the podcast on Instagram at SoundsLikeACultPod.

1:02:11

You can find me on the internet on Instagram

1:02:13

at Amanda underscore Montel or on Substack

1:02:16

at AmandaMontel.substack.com

1:02:18

and feel free to check out my book, Cultish,

1:02:21

the Language of Fanaticism, Wordset, a Feminist

1:02:23

Guide to Taking Back the English Language or

1:02:25

the forthcoming The Age of Magical

1:02:27

Overthinking Notes on Modern Irrationality.

1:02:30

And if you like the show, feel free to give us a rating

1:02:33

or review on Apple

1:02:33

Podcasts.

1:02:42

This is Craig Montel. Yes, that

1:02:44

starts with a C and ends with an L.

1:02:47

And today, I'm going to be assisting

1:02:50

Amanda in her podcast.

1:02:52

Now, Amanda thinks that

1:02:55

she does a good podcast, but

1:02:58

she doesn't know what a good podcast

1:03:00

is until she does one

1:03:02

with moi. Someone

1:03:06

is really excited to have a microphone.

1:03:10

This

1:03:10

is good stuff.