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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FOLLOW MAGNOLIA

YouTube: @MagnoliaSezSo

Instagram: @magnoliasezso

Magnolia's Newsletter

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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.

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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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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

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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.

____________

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

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• Website
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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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.

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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

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

**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.

_____

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→ Join us on Patreon.

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When Raidah left medical school in Sydney to spend the summer at what was promise to be an Islamic utopia in Jordan, she thought she was taking a break to heal.

Instead, she found herself inside a high-control religious community led by Nuh Ha Mim Keller — an American-born Catholic convert who reinvented himself as a Sufi sheikh and built a devoted following of Muslims living in Western countries.

Through his English-language books, lectures, and retreats, Keller promised these diaspora Muslims a spiritual home — a refuge from Western chaos and Islamophobia.

But what Raidah found instead… was a cult.

_____

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FOLLOW RAIDAH SHAH IDIL

Follow Raidah on Instagram → @raidahwrites

Check out her debut novel How to Free a Jinn — available now from Allen & Unwin (ANZ and Asia) and Simon & Schuster in the U.S

READ Storm Without a Port (PDF) — the 77-page survivor testimony compiled by former members of the Jordanian Sufi cult.

Visit In Shaykh’s Clothing — a resource for Muslim survivors of spiritual abuse.

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→ Join us on Patreon.

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Today’s story isn’t about a reality TV show—though a lot of people think it starts there. In truth, it began long before the cameras, before the matching outfits and the too-perfect smiles.

You know the TLC series 19 Kids & Counting—the Duggars and their seemingly perfect world built within the IBLP.

But there was another Duggar—of sorts. Not a sibling. The cousin. Amy. Or as America came to know her, “Crazy Cousin Amy.”

Except she wasn’t crazy. Isn’t crazy. Not even close. She just wasn’t in their cult—the IBLP. What no one saw, though, was that Amy—an only child—was surviving her own hell at home.

Her new memoir, Holy Disruptor, is a story of breaking cycles, setting boundaries, and finding herself in the aftermath. Today, she joins us to talk about her journey—from the quiet terror of her childhood to life in the public eye, through the scandals that shattered her trust, and toward a life built on truth, healing, and peace… even when it means disrupting “family.”

And no, she wasn’t in the IBLP, but by the end, she may just find herself wondering… “Wait—was I in a cult?”

______________

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FOLLOW AMY DUGGAR KING

Folly Amy @amyrachelleking 

Get her new memoir: Holy Disruptor — available wherever books are sold.

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Nine years. One strip-mall church. A duffel bag full of cash, a freezing pool full of goldfish, and a pastor who convinced everyone he had a direct line to God.

This week, Alisha takes us inside Church of the Harvest — a charismatic California congregation that promised purpose, purity, and a path to the pulpit… but delivered something far darker.

Hazing disguised as holiness, unpaid labor disguised as “discipleship,” and extreme control disguised as dating.  

Because when your pastor asks you to “volunteer” full-time, pay tuition to do it, and maybe jump into a swamp at 3 a.m. to save metaphorical fish — you might just be in a cult.

______________________

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Rate, review, and share the pod — it’s free, legal, and no one will ask for your debit card “in faith.”

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TikTok/IG @Spillingthekoolaid & 

IG: @Ezbakealisha

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Last week, we met Paige: a bright-eyed engineer who joined SpaceX believing she was helping to save humanity. In Part 1, we followed her through the seduction — the mission, the 80-hour weeks, the Elon slogans on the walls, the slow loss of self until the job became the identity.

This week, the mission meets the myth. Paige helps organize an open letter — a polite but radical act of collective dissent in a cult-like workplace. And almost everyone is too scared to sign it.

What begins as a measured plea for change becomes a window into just how deep the fear-mongering and punitive control at SpaceX really run.

And soon, Paige learns what every defector from a high-demand system eventually does: that questioning the leader isn’t seen as courage — it’s seen as betrayal.

____

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An ex–SpaceX engineer asks our favorite question: when does mission become mindset—and then eventually something more? Paige was convinced she was helping save humanity by working at SpaceX.

In Part 1, she traces the seduction: the purpose, the perks, the “Elon Algorithms” plastered on the wall, the complete devotion, the loss of individuality into one group identity, the isolation, the uncompensated labor, the belief that you are better than the rest… it all started to feel less like a workplace and more like… something else.

Today, we follow Paige’s journey into the belly of the rocket factory. And next week? The fallout. When speaking up against the culture didn’t just cost her a job… it made her a target.

———

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