Introducing Sarah Edmondson and Nippy Ames

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, Dr. John Dehlin. It is November 13, 2021, and we are so excited, if you can believe it or not, to have with us in studio today Sarah Edmondson and Nippy Ames. How are you guys doing?

Nippy Ames [00:00:19] Good.

Sarah Edmondson [00:00:19] Great.

John Dehlin [00:00:19] Welcome, guys.

Sarah Edmondson [00:00:20] Thanks for having us.

Nippy Ames [00:00:21] Thank you for having us.

John Dehlin [00:00:22] So I'm sure most of you know who these amazing people are, but for those of you who don't, once upon a time, there was a. We could just call it kind of a sex cult. Started in upstate New York by a man named Keith Ranieri. And the cult was called nxivm. And Sarah and Nippy are survivors of that cult. And you can see all about their story on a currently released multi series, nine hour epic documentary on HBO called the Vow. Margi and I just finished the Vow this week. You can also hear about Sarah's story, specifically in her book called Scarred, which I have begun to read, but I have a long way to go. But I'm super excited to read this book. Make sure and read this book. And also you can follow Sarah and Nippy on an amazing podcast that they're in their second season of Calling called A Little Bit Culty. And so we, when we learned about Sarah Nippy and all the amazing things they did and do and have done, and honestly, they, along with just a few other people, are responsible for bringing down Keith Renary and his cult. And he is now in federal prison for like 120, 150 years. We'll talk about that. They were key figures in bringing this cult down. A lot like Leah Remini and Mike Rinder were for Scientology and others. So these are, in my world, these guys are heroes. And we brought them to Thrive this weekend to help keynote. Now this, this episode is going to air after Thrive's over because we've already sold out. We don't need more promo and we want to be able to take breaks. But I am so super excited to have you guys in studio all the way from Vancouver, Canada. So, Sarah, Nippy, thanks for joining us.

Sarah Edmondson [00:02:13] Thank you for having us excited.

John Dehlin [00:02:15] Anything you guys want to fix or correct or add to the introduction?

Sarah Edmondson [00:02:19] Oh, bang.

Nippy Ames [00:02:20] You did a great job.

John Dehlin [00:02:21] Okay.

Nippy Ames [00:02:21] Yeah. All right.

John Dehlin [00:02:23] Well, we're also really thrilled to have in studio my beloved co host, Cara Burrell. Also, Cara, it's good to have you.

Sarah Edmondson [00:02:32] So good to be here. Had a great tour around Temple score yesterday with Sarah, Nippy and some other people. So.

John Dehlin [00:02:38] And Anthony and Anthony Magnavasco, right? Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:02:42] Yeah. So I'm really excited to get into this. So thanks for coming out, guys.

Nippy Ames [00:02:45] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:02:46] Yeah, so first of all, we have a couple hours because this weekend's going to be really full. So this is unlike many Mormon Stories episodes. This is not going to be a 15 hour or even an 8 hour interview. We're going to spend a couple hours with Sarah Nippy today. We're really honored to have that much time and I thought a lot about it, like we don't want, you know, we don't want to try and recreate this amazing book or recreate this epic nine hour series on the Vow or even their podcast. We want you to go watch all of that. And so all of that's going to be in our show notes. So I thought about what, what could we do to make the most of our time today? And what I thought would be really interesting would be to have them tell enough of their story in a emotional, personal way for you guys to just learn how epic and gripping it is. Because in some ways he takes Keith Renery, takes Colts to a level we haven't seen before in many ways. And in some ways it's kind of the same old, same old kind of cult forming, sex cult forming. But if any of you remember my interviews with like Chris Shelton or Lloyd Evans with Scientology, Scientology or the Jehovah's Witnesses, what so many of my listeners have valued is kind of seeing a little bit about the parallels between any, any high demand religion and, or cult and kind of the history of, of Joseph Smith and Mormonism. And so what I did, what I did to begin is I kind of pulled together my best description of Keith Ranieri and nxivm. And I want my listeners to begin by kind of just listening to this description. And I'm not trying to poison the well, but I just want to know if this sounds familiar because I read this to Sarah Nippy right before and I just checked to see if, if this sounded familiar to them, they endorsed it. And, and you listeners, you just tell me if, if this sounds familiar. So here goes my summary of Keith Ranieri, founder of Nexium man from upstate New York gets involved in fraud in the early part of his life. Everything falls apart and his early efforts are exposed as fraudulent, mostly commercial. Even though those early efforts fall apart, he realizes that he has the power to influence people and gains a small following and a reputation of being special, kind of having special powers. So he reinvents himself as more of a spiritual leader, writes a bunch of new stuff and creates an organization that's mostly focused around self improvement and living your best life and being truly happy. He claims to be special, and his followers start viewing him as special and having special powers and that he has the keys to happiness. So he acquires these followers and he sends them out all throughout the world to spread teachings. And he relies a lot on the help of volunteers. These people in the inner circle, some early people start to defect, and when they defect, they are harassed and defamed in, you know, the media and in their social circles. Over time, the founder starts to implement multiple levels in his organization, kind of multiple levels of advancement, and he even creates a secret society within the organization that's unbeknownst to the rest of the members of the group. In this group, throughout the time he is practicing. You can call it ethical non monogamy, you can call it polyamory, you can call polygamy whatever you want. But the leader has lots of female sexual partners throughout the history of this organization, and he even is involved with underaged women, some as young as 14 years old. So he has a penchant for younger women, and he even uses women to recruit for additional female sexual partners. Over time, more. He gets more and more powerful, more and more popular, and more and more people start defecting and they start to whistleblow. At some point, this reaches the press. Some very few but courageous whistleblowers are willing to go public, even at the expense of being punished and defamed and even. Yeah, yeah, just punished in very significant ways. And those defectors are attacked and smeared. Miraculously, eventually law enforcement gets involved and eventually this leader is put in prison. And even though he's put in prison and his movement is kind of put on hold, many of the women that he had sexual relations with continue to support and testify on his behalf, but believe in him and defend him. And to this day, he continues to have followers who believe in him, even though his movement ended with him being imprisoned. Now tell me, guys, is that an accurate description of kind of at least y. Is it. Am I cherry picking?

Sarah Edmondson [00:08:02] I mean, those are the broad strokes.

John Dehlin [00:08:04] Yeah, yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:08:05] It's probably a little more abusive and worse than. And that at certain.

John Dehlin [00:08:10] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:08:11] Comes to the emotional manipulation.

John Dehlin [00:08:13] Well, I don't. I usually don't take that long to kind of preamble. But. But it's. It's really stark to me, including the upstate New York. So. Welcome to Mormon Stories podcast, guys. I'm so excited to hear your story.

Nippy Ames [00:08:25] Thank you.

Sarah Edmondson [00:08:26] Yeah.

Life Before NXIVM

John Dehlin [00:08:27] So if it's all right, let's Begin with just a little bit of your backgrounds before you ever join Nexium. Just to kind of. Because, because one of the big questions is how do people get caught up in these. How you do demand religions or cults. And, and one of the things that I was struck by in the vow is it's not always poor, uneducated, kind of low IQ people. You know what I mean? Sometimes it's the best and the brightest. So let's start, let's start with you, Sarah. Let's a bit about your background.

Sarah Edmondson [00:08:56] Sure. Some of this may be repetitive in my. My talk tomorrow thrive, but that's okay

John Dehlin [00:09:02] because this comes out after.

Sarah Edmondson [00:09:03] Yeah, okay. So I'm from Canada. I'm the child of two kind of left wing, politically socially active ex hippie therapists. And I born and raised there. I was always very, I was very much encouraged to make a difference in the world. You know, leave the world a better, bless you, leave the world a better place type of thing. And at the same time, you know, not to be like, you know, dime store psychology, as if he says. But know I struggled with fitting in in, in school I was, you know, a bit of a dork and went to summer camp and like found a little bit of more security there. But I was always kind of trying to find my, my place in the world. And in my 20s, I was an aspiring actress, sort of the stereotypical cliche of living in a basement suite and auditioning and looking for meaning and purpose and community. And I met a filmmaker whose work I really admired. And he said, well, if you like liked my film, you may like this workshop that I just took. And I didn't research, I didn't ask anyone if they liked the course. I just trusted him and liked him. So I, I jumped into a training that happened to be happening in Vancouver, first Canadian one ever, a couple weeks later. And that first training was really, it was a mixture of like kind of bizarre rituals, but also helpful tools for life. And overall felt I felt uncomfortable after the first day. So I googled it for the first time and there was a lot of really nasty things that were said about the organization. So I called Mark, the director who'd recruited me, and he said, do you believe everything you read online? Just because it's there doesn't mean it's true. Why don't you trust your own experience? Wait till day three. And I did. And I overrode my gut instinct to get the F out because I couldn't get my money back. Also as part of it and I trusted Mark.

John Dehlin [00:10:57] And this is Mark from what the Bleep do youo Know?

Sarah Edmondson [00:10:59] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:10:59] Is that right?

Sarah Edmondson [00:11:00] He's the.

John Dehlin [00:11:00] Which is a movie that I like, thought was really interesting. It was kind of a, Was it a precursor to the Secret?

Sarah Edmondson [00:11:05] Yes, it was before the Secret, but it was the first of, of many films that were sort of bridging the, the gap between personal spiritual development and media and making those things more accessible to people. And I saw that film and I loved it. So when he, this person I really liked and respected said you should do this, I was like, of course. Which is how I now know how these things work, is how leverage trust. Right.

John Dehlin [00:11:27] Can I ask you a question?

Sarah Edmondson [00:11:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:11:29] So there are so many people leaving organized religion right now and they're leaving Mormonism. And so many of us think, well now, you know, I value science, I value education, I value logic and critical thinking. And so I'm going to be secular. I'm going to leave a religion that maybe is based on magical thinking and superstition and I'm going to be these progressive hippie kind, kind of parents where I'm going to raise my kids to be free thinkers and to love truth and to do good in the world. And that's going to. And I'm going to save them from this high demand, magical thinking based organization that's kind of abusive and that almost sounds like your parents. And what I've noticed for many of the people that convert to Mormonism is they were raised by secular parents who were free thinkers and wise and thoughtful. So I'm, I, I don't know if you've thought a lot about this. I'm sure you have, but like, why wasn't. What was it that your parents or your upbringing couldn't give you that made you curious, that didn't leave you feeling whole, like you needed something else. Does that make sense?

Sarah Edmondson [00:12:36] Yes. And I have to say I totally don't blame my parents for any of this. They did a great job raising me. I think partly it was that they split up when I was quite young.

John Dehlin [00:12:45] Divorce.

Sarah Edmondson [00:12:46] Yeah, when I was 2. So I think for me I was always looking for wholeness and togetherness anyway, you know, and feeling like this, I had anxiety from a really young age. But also, you're right, they, you know, my dad really rebelled from an extreme Anglican upbringing. His dad was a minister and so he was very much like against all of that. So he and my mom really wanted me to find my own way and figure out what was right for me and not force Any religion down my throat. But I did crave structure and a path. I didn't have, like a way to get to where I wanted to get to. So it wasn't. I didn't think I was joining a religion. I thought I was joining a community of people who were interested in personal and professional development. And it was a structure and it was measurable, which I really liked. And that was, I think, almost in direct contrast to me being an actor, which is super not measurable. You can do all the things, you can look great, you can be fit, you can be a good actor and still not get the part, you know, as it were. So I found a structure in NXIVM that said if you do X, Y and Z, then you get promoted and you go up this ladder that promised future enlightenment, measurable growth and all those things. So I think it was a combination of, you know, having a crappy career as an actor, which is not fulfilling.

John Dehlin [00:14:00] It's a hard career.

Sarah Edmondson [00:14:01] It's a really hard career.

John Dehlin [00:14:01] Even if you're great.

Sarah Edmondson [00:14:02] Even if you're great. Honestly, every. I want to quit, like, every, I still, I'm still doing it. I'm like, I should quit. This is ridiculous. But I still do it, you know? And then my parents, who gave me a sort of a smorgasbord of different religious things to try for myself, but without a lot of structure, and then my own internal needing to fit in and belong, and I thought that I'd found my tribe.

John Dehlin [00:14:21] In nxivm, one of the most powerful parts of the vow is episode eight where Mark says, nobody joins a cult, right?

Sarah Edmondson [00:14:31] Yeah, they join a good thing. They don't join a cult.

John Dehlin [00:14:34] Yeah, they join a good thing. And it's just that the good things got, got stuff going on behind the scenes that nobody can see. And maybe people aren't trained to be able to sniff out kind of the, the warning signs of an unhealthy or a high demand organization. Is that fair to say?

Nippy Ames [00:14:53] The abuses?

John Dehlin [00:14:54] Yeah. Yeah, right.

Sarah Edmondson [00:14:55] I know now, like, if I, If I knew what I know now about cults and high demand groups, I probably wouldn't have even gone to the training in the first place because I would have felt the pressure that I had been given 48 hours to get the 20 right, and I would. High pressure, high pressure. But I'm like, no, you know what? When is. If it's right, it'll be there when I'm ready. Or if I missed that red flag as soon as I got there, day one, when they asked Us to call him Vanguard. Somebody had never met before putting on sashes and all these things that were very weird and did trigger red flags in me. But again, I had Mark in my ear saying, just wait till day three. Wait till day three. By day three, I had had enough shifts. And now I know you can indoctrinate someone into a new belief system in three days.

John Dehlin [00:15:36] Yeah. Because I've been to, like, Landmark Forum and other things. It's basically all just warmed over. Secular Buddhism.

Sarah Edmondson [00:15:41] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:15:41] And anyone can get. Get you to have a shift if. If they captivate you for a long

Nippy Ames [00:15:47] enough period and you're willing, which is you go there willing.

John Dehlin [00:15:51] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:15:51] And. And also for people who, like, are going there on their own accord, not dragged by their spouse or like their boss or something, they want to get their money's worth.

John Dehlin [00:15:59] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:15:59] You know, they want to get something out of it.

John Dehlin [00:16:00] There's that. There's that sunk cost fallacy where the more time you spend in the car dealership, the more you're likely to buy a car because you're like, well, I've spent this time, I may as well get something out of it. So that's why the three day thing, it kind of encourages that sunk cost fallacy.

Sarah Edmondson [00:16:17] And also there's a term, the demand expectation that you. If you. You're expecting and you want to and you haven't. So it's like those two things combined really encourage people to have shifts.

John Dehlin [00:16:29] Yeah. Yeah. So it wasn't so much you had any defective upbringing. No. Divorce happens. I. I come from a divorce family. So it's not your parents. But I do sometimes feel like frauds emerge to fool people. But we also humans have this incessant longing to fill the empty holes, to improve, to find meaning and purpose and joy. And sometimes we create these charlatans as much as they rise up to fool us. Right.

How NXIVM Recruited and Hooked Members

Nippy Ames [00:17:00] A good metaphor is a magic show. You go to a magic show.

John Dehlin [00:17:05] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:17:05] Wanting to see magic.

John Dehlin [00:17:07] Right. Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:17:08] Right. So.

John Dehlin [00:17:10] Because otherwise life can be meaningless and drab and painful and, you know, there's

Nippy Ames [00:17:14] a trick to it, but you also are like, I want to see this. I like the payoff. I like the emotional payoff that it gives me. So.

John Dehlin [00:17:20] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:17:20] I don't know if that makes that much sense, but it kind of feels like there's a pro. You want to see this work? Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:17:27] We want magic in the world somehow. So nippy. Let's. Let's back up. And do you tell us a little bit about your story prior to who joined Nexium?

Nippy Ames [00:17:34] First, actually, I did.

John Dehlin [00:17:36] Okay.

Nippy Ames [00:17:36] And my story is. Is. Is what I think makes our stories together in tandem. Good is because mine's drastically different in a lot of ways. I had. So I went to boarding school in Connecticut and I had a girlfriend that I went to boarding school who is actually from the Albany, New York area. We dated, we broke up. I still kind of had a thing for her for a while. Never really got over her. And, you know, I knew her family since I was 15 years old and I run into her in New York City.

John Dehlin [00:18:10] Can I. Can I ask you a question about boarding school? I've only got the stereotypes in my mind of like, good. Is it Goodwill? No. Of. Of the Robin Williams Dead Poets, Dead Poet Society. It's like wealthy parents who don't really. And please forgive the stereotype. I do this sometimes on Mormon stories, but there's plenty I like to be honest about, like, impressions. It's like rich parents that are so self involved that they don't really want to raise their kids and they want to give their kids elite education. So they ship them off and that way they get a great education and the parents can kind of like do whatever they really want to be.

Nippy Ames [00:18:45] Not at all like that. My parents were very involved in my life, very involved with my education. My dad flew up from Atlanta to go to every one of my football games.

John Dehlin [00:18:54] Oh, wow. So that's my point.

Nippy Ames [00:18:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:56] So.

Sarah Edmondson [00:18:57] Well, they came from money.

Nippy Ames [00:18:58] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:18:58] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:18:59] Okay. Becomes wealth.

Nippy Ames [00:19:00] Yeah, there's wealth.

John Dehlin [00:19:02] But you felt loved and supported.

Nippy Ames [00:19:03] Yeah, there was none of that. In fact, when I went to boarding school, I felt. Because I'm one of. I'm one of five, four boys and a little girl. So I was very. We're all very on top of each other when I got there. It was hard being away at first, but I also felt like I can spread my wings and I. The boarding school that I went to is called Hotchkiss. And to me it was amazing. Amazing experience.

John Dehlin [00:19:26] Did you have a religious upbringing at all?

Nippy Ames [00:19:27] Not at all.

John Dehlin [00:19:28] Secular. Totally.

Nippy Ames [00:19:29] You know, my celebrated Christmas. Yeah. My, you know, my. We talked about it. My dad grew up a little kind of Mormon, but not really, which is

John Dehlin [00:19:37] a fun little interesting Mormon connection.

Nippy Ames [00:19:39] He's born in Ogden, Utah.

John Dehlin [00:19:41] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:19:41] Far from here. And I don't even know what my mom was raised, so there was no real religious background at all. So I run into my old girlfriend after college in New York City and she, I think had just taken a training or was going to take the training that she was telling me about. And I didn't really know much about it. She said her mom gave it to her as a gift because I think she was getting divorced or had some, you know, was in a vulnerable place in her life and it could help her. Was like, good for you. She gets out of the training and she tells me about it, and I was like, cool.

John Dehlin [00:20:22] And you're what age?

Nippy Ames [00:20:23] I'm 26, 27.

John Dehlin [00:20:25] Post college?

Nippy Ames [00:20:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:26] Had you started a career yet?

Nippy Ames [00:20:27] Yeah, I was auditioning in New York. I was working here and there, but, like, similar, like to grind, you know, you. You know, and there's no real way to gauge where you are but acting. But yeah, I was doing the Hustle. Doing the Hustle, Yeah. Doing print work, commercial work and stuff like that, so.

John Dehlin [00:20:42] And you'd been a. Like a quarterback at kind of cool.

Nippy Ames [00:20:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:20:47] Ivy League quarterback. Yes. No small deal.

Nippy Ames [00:20:50] It was fun.

John Dehlin [00:20:51] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:20:53] Silver lining.

Nippy Ames [00:20:54] And so it's about a year and a half, and every time she comes to New York, she mentions it to me and I'm like, cool. Not for me, not for me. And I even said to her, I'm not doing your cult.

John Dehlin [00:21:08] Wow.

Nippy Ames [00:21:09] Like, flat out, wow. And I had a situation where I just finished a independent film. She calls me on the phone. And every time I did, like, a job that I got paid for a little bit, I would go somewhere, see a friend from college, like, you know, somewhere warm and kind of reward myself or whatever, and she's like, well, instead of doing that, why don't you invest in your growth? I kind of was like, she got me. She know. She knew my values. And like, just a little backstory. Like, when we dated, I had books on John Kennedy, Troy Aikman, all the people that I looked up to. I even had Dale Carnegie's how to Win Friends and Influence People. I had. I was interested in that.

John Dehlin [00:21:51] So she knew that about self improvement.

Nippy Ames [00:21:53] Yeah. She knew that about me. Well, I wanted to be the best at what I was doing in any endeavor. And she knew that about me. And she's like, what if this could help you with that? And the money I was going to use, I was going to use kind of like for fun. And I decided to invest in my growth.

Sarah Edmondson [00:22:09] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:22:10] As they put it. And I went there, and for the first two days, my arms were folded. I was this guy. I was like, all right, Vanguard sashes, bowing. Come on, seriously. And about day three, I had a module called Blame and Responsibility that was really, really powerful for me. And it was just really the questions they were asking. I didn't feel like I was being forced anything. So the way to get someone whose arms is folded is you just don't force them.

John Dehlin [00:22:36] Yeah, right.

Nippy Ames [00:22:37] Because I was kind of expecting that. Right.

John Dehlin [00:22:39] Yep. Let them. Let them come to you with the energy.

Nippy Ames [00:22:43] Yeah. And of course they did. And I'm sure they've seen people with their arms folded before. And the backstory. One of the things that got me in is because I've known her family for so long, she told me that her parents did it, and I really respected her father. Her father's a brain surgeon in the area. He played football and hockey at Yale. So I kind of felt like, here's a guy who has my profile somewhat similarly, you know, and older than me, advocating it.

John Dehlin [00:23:09] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:23:09] You know, had a testimonial supporting it. And I thought, how bad could it be? So I went in kind of what we're talking about with the confirmation bias of, you know, in day three, I was kind of like, okay, this is good stuff. And so I'm involved for probably about a year, year and a half, coaching. I don't want to move to Albany. Albany, at the time was the only place you could take the training. And there was a group of people from. From New York City who would go up and try and bring it to New York. And I was part of that group.

John Dehlin [00:23:39] Missionaries.

Nippy Ames [00:23:40] Right. And we. We started running classes in New York. And after about a year and a half of doing that, I kind of looked around, took inventory and go, this is. This isn't working. It doesn't have the right people. It doesn't have people with credibility, for lack of a better way of putting it. I felt like there's a lot of losers in there. And I, you know, I know that's not a very nice thing to say,

John Dehlin [00:24:01] but that's how movements start.

Nippy Ames [00:24:02] They felt like losers.

John Dehlin [00:24:03] You get who you can get.

Nippy Ames [00:24:04] Yeah. And I just didn't. There wasn't. It wasn't my tribe at all. So I respectfully. And I wasn't, you know, it wasn't confrontational. I was like, look, I'm. I'm out. And for about two, three years, I would keep in touch with Lauren Salzman, who is the daughter of the president of the company, and Nancy. Yeah, Nancy Salzman. And my old girlfriend who was in and out of it at the time. And I just was like, good for you. Glad you guys are out there. It's good to know that's out there. And I went back to pursue my career. I got cast in something in la. And what I do is I just kept inventory on goals that I have. And I decided, like, every now and then, if there's a training, I'll take one, but I'm not the guy that's going to spearhead this brigade. It was my joke. It's not my. It's not my thing. So I took a training again, probably in early 2006, and the organization was considerably different.

John Dehlin [00:24:58] It had matured.

Nippy Ames [00:24:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:59] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:25:00] It was three. It had entrepreneurs, it had filmmakers, it had grown to Mexico City, Monterey. It was growing. And I was kind of eating my humble pie a little bit. I was wrong.

John Dehlin [00:25:10] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:25:11] This thing was catching on. And I was still living in LA at the time. I go back to LA in about August or September of 2006. Mark Vicente, who I kind of hit it off in a training with earlier in the year, comes out to LA and says, listen, we have a film project we're working on. Keith thought of you for this role.

Sarah Edmondson [00:25:34] Well, that didn't have the lead.

Nippy Ames [00:25:36] It didn't have.

Sarah Edmondson [00:25:36] Ooh.

Nippy Ames [00:25:37] To me, I was like, okay, great. You know, because I was still. Yeah, I had my myopia on my. What I wanted to achieve. Right. Um. And I was like, okay. So he's like, well, you'd have to come back to New York. I was like, great. You guys gonna move me there? And sure enough, about three weeks later, they pay for my move. They move my car, they put me up. All the things that look like are precursors to a film that's going to happen. Start to happen.

John Dehlin [00:26:05] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:26:06] And I didn't have any reason to think that it wasn't. And by this time, the Brons were involved.

John Dehlin [00:26:11] The heirs to the secrets to the

Nippy Ames [00:26:13] Seagrams, Sarah and Claire Bronfin were involved. Yeah, I moved.

John Dehlin [00:26:16] Billionaires, right?

Nippy Ames [00:26:17] Billionaires.

John Dehlin [00:26:17] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:26:17] Yeah. And I moved to New York. They have a room for me there, and upstate New York. And In October of 2006, I get on a helicopter in Albany, New York. We fly down the Hudson with Mark and Claire Bronf, and we land. We go to Bergdorf Goodman. I get fitted for suits. I get fitted for all these things, which is wardrobe for. And I don't have any reason to think this isn't happening. Then Mark has another project that Keith wants him to put him on. All these obstacles start to appear, and it's about May 2007. I'm pissed off because that's six months of my life where, you know, where I had inertia in another area of my life, I gave up because this felt like it was in alignment with it and it's not happening.

John Dehlin [00:27:03] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:27:04] And I'm pissed.

John Dehlin [00:27:05] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:27:06] You know, I'm in upstate New York spinning my wheels in a place that, you know, it's a one horse town.

John Dehlin [00:27:10] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:27:11] Doesn't have like there's. There's not an economy, there's not other places. It's not other places for me to exhaust, you know, things that I want to pursue. So now I start doing the back to New York thing because I still think the project's going to happen. And cut to about fall of early 2008, 2009. Sarah wants to start a city in New York City and have an actual center. Center there.

John Dehlin [00:27:31] Like a center.

Nippy Ames [00:27:32] And I said, okay, so I'm going to move back to New York. This can be an arena where I pursue one of the career paths of teaching the class because I still like the curriculum and I can audition again and I can be involved with. So my indoctrination was different than long was a longer thing. I always felt like because I was in a tribe of actors, directors and the personal growth aspect, I had two things that kind of filled my cup, if that makes sense. I had set my boundaries with the organization early on differently than most people. Also, I wasn't targeted. So it was kind of like, okay, we have, you know what I look like now is maybe a guy who can give us a little credibility.

John Dehlin [00:28:15] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:28:16] Selling this. And I was the only kind of alpha male around there.

John Dehlin [00:28:20] So you need that.

Nippy Ames [00:28:21] Yeah. You need.

John Dehlin [00:28:22] But you also need money and power and influence. Yeah. And you need foot soldiers. Yeah. So yeah. You kind of. I bet you could probably target people. Well, and super loyal people that are loyal beyond everything. So you can probably put certain people in buckets of like which were they. They bring the money. Did they. Were they super loyal followers? Did they have power and influence to persuade others or were they women who were targets of sex? Like those are. Yeah. But let me, let me go ahead now. Let's pause your story for just a second and let's tell a bit of Keith Ranieri story because here's where I want to start trying to just make sure and highlight a few of the parallels. So let's go back and. And you guys, if you want to tag team or whatever, tell us how Keith starts long before Nexium. How does he begin his life slash career? What do we know? Do we know anything about his childhood?

NXIVM's Origins and Keith Raniere's Methods

Sarah Edmondson [00:29:17] Yes, we know a little bit. There's actually a book called Don't Call it a Cult by Sarah Berman.

John Dehlin [00:29:22] Don't Call it a cult.

Sarah Edmondson [00:29:23] Put that in the show Notes. If somebody wants, like, a really good overview from a journalistic perspective, it's. I think it's the best book out there. Not written from a survivor's point of view, but just like this happened, and then this happened.

Nippy Ames [00:29:35] Investigative journal.

Sarah Edmondson [00:29:36] Yeah, investigative journalism.

John Dehlin [00:29:37] She's on Keith.

Sarah Edmondson [00:29:37] Yeah, on Keith. She's one of the people that I went to, one of the big interviews I did after the New York Times and with Vice, and she was a former journalist at Vice, and she writes a lot of great art.

John Dehlin [00:29:48] Vice can be great, I think. Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:29:50] So what we know about his upbringing, and I'm trying to be careful what I say, because I'm not. It's not my total area of expertise, but one we know is that his. His dad was a madman. What's that? What they call it? Ad man on, like, a mat. Like, in advertising. Wasn't really there a lot. And his mother got sick. And just from, like, what I know and would have studied from other sociopaths, he didn't have good attachment with his parents. Like, he didn't have the proper bonding, Particularly his mom. Particularly his mom had a lot of resentment, which I think fueled later, his resentment for women and didn't have, like, a good father figure in his life who was, like, really there for him. And from what we've heard from different people is that he realized that he was smart. Like, he was. He. He passed some, like, IQ test, I want to say, when he was, like, nine or 10 or 11. Like, early on. Eight. Yeah. So early. And he was like. Had this I'm special thing, but he's also really a nerd. Like, he was a big fat nerd. Not fat, but, like, you know, I mean, like, he was. He was nerd. And he realized that. And this is from interviews with people that were in his classmates. He learned that he could, like, kind of. He learned his skills from manipulation at a really young age. He also started. Became sexually hit puberty and was sexually active early. And apparently he realized that he could, like, have more. More than one girlfriend. And, like, he figured out what to tell them, you know, you're the only one. You're so special, blah, blah, blah. And, like, was, you know, doing the woman thing at a very young age. We know that. And then he went to rpi, apparently, which is like, Polytechnic Institute.

John Dehlin [00:31:22] That's a fancy Rensselaer. It's a fancy technical school in New York, right?

Nippy Ames [00:31:26] Yeah, Rensselaer Polytechnic.

John Dehlin [00:31:28] It's like Rice. It's not Harvard, but it's super respected.

Sarah Edmondson [00:31:31] Yeah, super respected.

John Dehlin [00:31:32] Rpa.

Sarah Edmondson [00:31:33] Right. And we were told that he had, like, three double majors or something. But since we found out that he, like, graduated 2.6 GPA, I got so

John Dehlin [00:31:41] sick of people calling him a scientist like, that. I almost wanted to blow. Yeah. I'll just say that. Frustrated.

Sarah Edmondson [00:31:47] Oh. I mean, there's so many things about, like, that we never looked into his credentials and, like, what. What he actually graduated with.

John Dehlin [00:31:53] But because he barely graduated from college. Barely graduated, but he's with an undergrad. Like, I don't think that makes you a scientist.

Sarah Edmondson [00:31:59] No. And I'm gonna give the Cliff Notes here. But basically, he started collect. He collecting his. The beginning of what would be his harem in, you know, in college.

John Dehlin [00:32:07] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:32:07] His first partner, Karen Unterreiner, at age of 17. And then shortly after, Pam K. Fritz, who was, like, from a wealthy family in Washington and had a ton of money and it was starting to, like, collect and grift. Right. And also.

John Dehlin [00:32:20] Grift. What do you mean, grift?

Sarah Edmondson [00:32:21] Being a grifter.

John Dehlin [00:32:22] Like, what do you mean?

Nippy Ames [00:32:23] Like, parasite.

Sarah Edmondson [00:32:24] Parasiting off of the. The women that he was with and using their money.

John Dehlin [00:32:29] Okay.

Sarah Edmondson [00:32:29] Which cut. Two years later, he said was one of the worst traits of a female, that women were grifters. Like fleas on dogs that would jump from dog. But was really talking about himself. We didn't know that at the time. It's called projection. Anyways, you're collecting these people. And then he. His first. He did, like, Amway and sold encyclopedias door to door. And he's looking for a way to make money. And I think that he started CBI, I want to say, in the 80s. Consumers Byline International. This is before Costco and Sam's Club, but basically, it was one of the first pyramid schemes. But he. It wasn't sold as that, obviously. It was sold as a buyer's club where you pay a membership and you have access to all these goods at a discount.

John Dehlin [00:33:12] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:33:13] And this company apparently did, like. Do you remember what they said?

Nippy Ames [00:33:18] 50 million in two years or something?

Sarah Edmondson [00:33:20] Yeah. Like, the company itself. Everything. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:33:23] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:33:23] Okay. The company itself did really, really well. And then they got brought to Arkansas and he had a bunch of. You tell this part. Could you remember the day? Well, it.

Nippy Ames [00:33:32] We're not sure. It did really, really well.

Sarah Edmondson [00:33:33] That's what we were told.

Nippy Ames [00:33:35] It made a lot of money, but it didn't pay out its employees very well. And I think 22 district attorneys from 22 different states ended up filing a lawsuit against Them. And then I think the one in Arkansas was the one that kind of broke the camel's back, from what I understand.

John Dehlin [00:33:51] And I don't know, was it an MLM or. Yeah, it was a financial.

Sarah Edmondson [00:33:55] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:33:56] Scheme.

Sarah Edmondson [00:33:56] Yeah. You bring people in and you get them to buy the membership and you get a percentage of that and things like that. So it folded and basically the, the. I don't know the details, but they basically said, you just can't do an MLM ever again.

Nippy Ames [00:34:08] No, he paid a fine, but didn't admit guilt and agreed to never open up a sales company in the state of New York. Mlm.

Sarah Edmondson [00:34:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:34:17] Yeah. And I just, you know, again, like, like when you think about Joseph Smith. Troubled, troubled youth. You know, there were always early rumors of sexual impropriety. And then he did this treasure digging thing because he was desperate for money. You know, wasn't super well educated but. But had charisma and knew how to influence people. So he does this treasure digging thing and he does it for four or five years, takes advantage of people. A fraudulent scheme where he's manipulating and deceiving people and he ends up in front of a judge and the judge says if, if you keep doing this, you're gonna live in prison. And so. So he has to. So that all implodes and then he has to figure out how to reinvent himself. Yeah. Like, it's so. It's so. And it's all in upstate New York.

Nippy Ames [00:35:05] It's a playbook. Y. And you look at the profiles of, you know, cult leaders. Jonestown, David Koresh, they all have a similar kind of.

Sarah Edmondson [00:35:12] Their upbringings are all very similar.

Nippy Ames [00:35:14] Tumultuous upbringing.

Sarah Edmondson [00:35:15] Tumultuous upbringing. Then they all find a skill that gives them some sort of attention. And then they.

John Dehlin [00:35:19] And they need money. There's also sexual impropriety involved.

Nippy Ames [00:35:23] And they're willing to do things that most people aren't willing to do.

John Dehlin [00:35:25] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:35:26] Buy, steal, cheat.

Sarah Edmondson [00:35:27] And around that time he had. So now at this point he had a little collection of women and he, he was taking classes at an ashram in upstate New York and saw how the leader was adored and everyone was just, you know, revering this person and he's like, I'm gonna do that.

John Dehlin [00:35:43] And Joseph Smith had people like Lumen Walters who would come into town and he would learn from other people what his opportunities might be. Yeah. Or to create a book or, you

Sarah Edmondson [00:35:55] know, he decided to reinvent himself. And with these women, they did a take home test. Like we were always told that he was the smartest man in the world. His IQ was 240. But we found out later the test was. He had six weeks to complete it. It was take home and he had all these other people helping him with the test.

John Dehlin [00:36:09] I'm a psychologist. That's not how IQ tests work.

Sarah Edmondson [00:36:12] No, no.

John Dehlin [00:36:12] IQ tests works are. They're like six hours. And I'm in. A licensed psychologist administers it.

Sarah Edmondson [00:36:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:36:17] And it's very standardized, which is why

Nippy Ames [00:36:20] after a year once the Guinness Book of World Records. Yeah, it was in the Guinness World Records. And then a year later, they came and evaluated the process of the IQ test and then Guinness pulled it.

John Dehlin [00:36:31] That's not how IQ tests work.

Sarah Edmondson [00:36:33] But from that point on, he was touted as one as of the top three problem solvers in the world because of an Omega Mensa and Omega Mensa because of the test he did with a bunch of other smart women, by the way. So this. So then they decided to create esp, but they were looking for someone to like teach it, to give it validity. And then they found Nancy Salzman, who taught neuro linguistic programming and Ericksonian hypnosis and was a psychologist apparently up in the area. And together they joined and started ESP Executive success programs, which became nxivm.

John Dehlin [00:37:03] And those early, you know, in Joseph Smith, it's either Oliver Cowdery or Sidney Rigdon always have to find people with more knowledge, more credibility to kind of partner with early on. And then you also need someone to bankroll it. So in Joseph Smith's case, it was Martin Harris. In. In. In Keith Rene's case, it was who, who are the early bankrollers? Like financial.

Sarah Edmondson [00:37:23] Say Pam Kam Kritz is an early bankroller. And then Nancy Salzman gave it credibility. And she could be a teacher because she spoke in front of large groups like con. She was working at Con Edison as a good goals teacher. And you know, and, and. And then things really got cranking for him when he got the billionaires with Sarah and Claire Bronfman in the.

Nippy Ames [00:37:43] Well, one of the things that's pretty interesting about it is the company started in July of 98 and by 2001, Nancy was coaching someone very influential in entertainment, religion and energy. Energy, was it?

John Dehlin [00:38:03] Yeah, yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:38:03] So she, she had.

Nippy Ames [00:38:04] So she was in the ear of some pretty influential people.

John Dehlin [00:38:07] Yeah. And that reminds me a lot of Scientology. If you can get John Travolta and you can get Nicole Kidman and if you can get Leah Remini and you get enough powerful influential people. We called it then, then the Momentum Yeah. Starts to. To grow.

Sarah Edmondson [00:38:21] We call it big fish.

John Dehlin [00:38:22] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:38:23] I. I had a big fish list of people that I was, like, slowly trying to bring in.

John Dehlin [00:38:27] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:38:28] VIPs.

John Dehlin [00:38:29] Yeah. That's how they grow. Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:38:31] Because they build more value.

John Dehlin [00:38:33] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:38:34] That's what we were taught.

Nippy Ames [00:38:35] Well, they just, you know, they give you. It's marketing. Right. So it's, you know, by the time I returned in 2006, I was impressed with how they overcome.

John Dehlin [00:38:43] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:38:44] Something that I didn't think they could.

John Dehlin [00:38:46] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:38:46] Right. So.

John Dehlin [00:38:49] Yeah. And I'm always just stunned by how many setbacks these cult leaders have along the way. But they just. They double down. Part of their. Yeah. Double down. Part of their superpower is never quitting and then learning from each mistake and never having any embarrassment. It's just like, I don't care what they throw at me. I'm coming back. Like you said, double down, coming back stronger.

Nippy Ames [00:39:09] You. To me, the thing that, what you just said, the lack of embarrassment that keep pressing on to me was so audacious, bold. That was. To me, it's like if I got caught or if I got. If I hit this kind of snag, like when I. Whenever I, like when I was a kid and I got caught doing something or like I should have done, I'd be embarrassed. I'd stop, I'd self reflect a little bit, I'd pivot, and I'd go, yeah. How did I start over? Like. Like there's things. Yeah. I learned my lesson. I would go, oh, yeah, that's probably not. Wasn't a good idea to do that. Right. Well, that's.

John Dehlin [00:39:48] That's your humble pie.

Nippy Ames [00:39:49] No, this person would go, and this is one of the things, the psychology of the narcissist that I've learned is like, they feel entitled to everything. There's nothing that they don't feel entitled to.

John Dehlin [00:40:01] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:40:02] Your wife, your money, your whatever. And that's what they're after. And that whatever that thing is, no matter. No amount of shame or whatever is going to stop them from that pursuit. And it's. It's impressive in a sense of. It's amazing that you can just plow through that. Not, you know, but if you understand the psychology, it's scary in a lot of sense.

Sarah Edmondson [00:40:28] One of the things that Keith did, and we learned this after, as we put it all together, is that he loved to tell us what he was doing about, but not. Not knowing it was him. Right.

Nippy Ames [00:40:36] Like, while he was doing.

Sarah Edmondson [00:40:37] While he was doing it. So it's a sociopathic, like, they get great joy out of talking about something that's happened in the world, but they're doing it to us as well.

John Dehlin [00:40:45] Like an example. Give a couple.

Sarah Edmondson [00:40:46] Yeah, like an example was he taught us this thing called the shifter strategy, where like you, a business or anything can create a problem in the world on purpose and then benefit from the cleanup of that problem. It's called a shifter strategy.

John Dehlin [00:41:01] And he's telling you to be aware

Sarah Edmondson [00:41:03] of that, Be aware of that. Like, you know, like a, like, like, like a lawyer can be like, oh, you really this. And then they like keep milking you for money, right? And the main thing they did to us is creating a problem that think. We were thinking that we were broken and we needed this curriculum for the rest of our lives to be okay as a, as an example, but it was based on deceit. We weren't. We didn't. We didn't need it. Like maybe a five day training to improve our lives a little bit, but we need to keep taking classes for the rest of our lives. As an example. But let me tell. Let me tell you this one thing that I think is really interesting because he taught us about sociopaths. He called them. So he calls them suppressives, like in Scientology. And he did a lot of thought experiments to help us like using metaphors to help us understand concepts. And this, I'm gonna paraphrase it, but it was something like this. He's like, if you really want to understand the psychology of a sociopath, think about this. Imagine. So, John, you imagine this. Kara, imagine being in prison, okay? Imagine you're in prison as you guys, okay? And to get out, you'd have to like kill your guards. Okay. You'd have to like strangle, kill, find a knife and kill your guards. And then you could be free. Like just. How does that feel? Awful, right? Probably don't want to kill someone. Now you find out that they're actually just robots and all you need to do is like pull their head off and pull out some wires and press a button. Better? Yeah, better, right? Better just dismantle the robots and then you'll be free.

John Dehlin [00:42:23] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:42:24] So he said, for our sociopath, that's what it feels like. Anyone in the way of you getting anywhere is just a robot that you have to dismantle. You don't see them as humans. They're just destroy, destroy, remove. So that is.

John Dehlin [00:42:37] He was telling you to watch out for those types of people.

Sarah Edmondson [00:42:39] Yeah, telling you to watch out for those people. Not. We'd never suspect it was him, but that's totally him. He doesn't see people as people. He sees them as. As dismantable. Dismantle? Is that a word?

Nippy Ames [00:42:48] No, he just uses them.

Sarah Edmondson [00:42:49] He just uses them. He get out of my way. And that's what he does. He uses people for power, uses people for money, uses people for sex, uses people to advance himself. All those things.

John Dehlin [00:42:59] Yeah. And this is something Gerardo really brought to my attention. I Whenever we do Mormon Stories podcast interview of like people raised Mormon, this is going to maybe sound a little bit weird. We always ask them about sexual shame and what they were taught about things like masturbation and sexual exploration in their teenage years and how they were made to feel awful about it. And with almost out any exception, every Mormon youth goes through a spin cycle of serious sexual shame. And the reason why we talk about that is because I've come to believe that shame is core to the business model of a high demand religion. Because on the one hand, they need to tell you you're amazing, you're a child of God, you have unlimited potential and we can help you be super happy. And you're awful and terrible and loathsome and you need us to be able. So it's this two handed. You're amazing, we love you. And you're terrible and you need me to not be terrible. And it sounds like just like Mormonism. Would it be fair to say that that was also you never enough, never terrible, always need to do better and you need me to get and be better.

Sarah Edmondson [00:44:15] Is that fair?

Nippy Ames [00:44:16] Underneath it all, that's what the whole life issue thing.

Sarah Edmondson [00:44:18] Yeah. We always had this thing that we were working on called our life issue, which is like the thing plan to evolve your first year to identify your life issue. Then you had to come up with a plan to evolve your life issue, which had to be evaluated and passed by other people.

John Dehlin [00:44:32] What are some examples of life issues

Sarah Edmondson [00:44:35] like mine was that internally I feel like I'm worthless. I called it dismissible. Runt was my name for my like the little version of myself.

Nippy Ames [00:44:45] And everything you do is designed to cover that up.

Sarah Edmondson [00:44:48] Yeah. And how like to be liked. I mean, according to them, I'm doing it right now. Like here I am seeking attention by writing a book and being a whistleblower just to cover up the feeling that I'm nothing. Right. So that. So I would have to write a plan to say this is. This is what I'm going to do now. So to overcome what they called like a like me disease, that I want to be liked more than I want to grow. So anytime I was going to like, not be at a training and maybe go to my best friend's wedding in California, they'd be like, see, you're doing it again. They could always use.

Nippy Ames [00:45:17] How does that relate to your life?

Sarah Edmondson [00:45:18] How does that. Yeah, that would be a gaslighting term. How does that relate to your life issue? What are you choosing versus your growth? So they'd leverage my supposed commitment to my growth to get to do what they wanted me to do.

John Dehlin [00:45:28] They would leverage your vulnerability and then use your vulnerability against you to have power over you. Is that fair to say?

Nippy Ames [00:45:34] Yeah. And certain people were susceptible to it at different times. Sometimes I would just be like, I don't.

Sarah Edmondson [00:45:40] Nippy was less obedient, but I wanted to be liked. Yeah, I wanted to be liked. And. And I was more obedient.

Nippy Ames [00:45:47] Care. Sometimes I was like, yeah, you.

Sarah Edmondson [00:45:50] And I always be like, nippy, don't do that. Because I'm. I was more of a good girl.

John Dehlin [00:45:55] But it reminds me of the confession confessions in the Catholic Church or auditing in Scientology. They got to find out enough about you to where they know where your weak spots are. Because if they can manipulate the weak spots and make you feel guilt and shame, make you feel like you continually are making mistakes and you need them to feel better, that's one of the main ways they have power and control over you. Is that fair to say?

Nippy Ames [00:46:19] Yeah. No. And. And I don't say that I didn't have the buy in. My buy in was different. So I don't say that as a self preservation comment. I just say my buy in was like, when the life issue thing was worked, it just used them. It just didn't work.

John Dehlin [00:46:35] What was your life?

Nippy Ames [00:46:36] I don't even remember.

John Dehlin [00:46:37] Oh, really?

Sarah Edmondson [00:46:38] It was like something about results?

Nippy Ames [00:46:40] Yeah, yeah. It was something about I identify myself through my results and my achievement.

John Dehlin [00:46:45] Like hustling for love through performance.

Nippy Ames [00:46:47] Yeah, yeah. No, I feel good about myself when I'm achieving. Yeah, that's it. And I don't. I don't give myself self love or something like that. So how does that relate to me trying to grow the organization? I want results within the organization and I want to feel good. And there you weren't going to talk me out of being successful, but that

Sarah Edmondson [00:47:05] was just very confusing. Like, yeah, it was a success program, but then when you had those success, they'd be like, well, you're just being attached.

John Dehlin [00:47:11] It seems like it could be a way to kind of get you to chill out in the. In the Back office and neuter me. Yeah, exactly.

Nippy Ames [00:47:18] Yeah, but, but, but here, but here's the other thing. It's if that's something that I do to feel good, how am I ever going to feel good? And you're never going to enjoy your results if you have an attachment to your results, which is kind of word salady.

Sarah Edmondson [00:47:33] It's like, that's a good part of Buddhism.

Nippy Ames [00:47:35] Red Porsche, the red Porsche example. So the red Porsche is like if I want to buy the red Porsche and I'm pursuing the red Porsche and I have an attachment to the red Porsche, when I get it.

John Dehlin [00:47:44] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:47:45] Am I going to enjoy it?

John Dehlin [00:47:46] Yeah, it's, it's the happiness trap.

Nippy Ames [00:47:48] Right? Yeah, so, so there's good, fair enough.

Sarah Edmondson [00:47:50] There's some truth in that with the happiness trap that nothing from the outside world will cause you to be happy. Right.

Nippy Ames [00:47:55] So they didn't over, they didn't offer a road map out of that. It was intellectual masturbation.

Sarah Edmondson [00:48:00] Stay in the, you stay in the. So that you feel shitty about yourself so that you can try to pay more, take more classes to get out of that. But really. So that was what was confusing. It was like, and also, also, by the way, just to jump ahead, I think why we were able to get out when we did, because we didn't, even though we were very devoted, we didn't fully buy in. We never moved permanently to Albany. I never gave up those things which was always held against me. Like the higher ranks would say, do you see that your attachment to materialism is stopping you from being the more the highest version of yourself? And I'm like, yeah, I guess I'm going to keep my attachment materials in my head. But I was like, yeah, I'm going to work on that. And, but like I like my apartment, I like my community.

Nippy Ames [00:48:39] You know, the inconsistencies are also to what you're relating to in the organization. You have someone who's not nearly as successful at you giving you advice on success. And I was just kind of like, you know, it's the old adage, like, why are you gonna take financial advice from someone who doesn't have money and is borrowing money from you? It just, it always felt like the person, quote unquote, coaching me doesn't have the acumen that they're trying to coach me in. And those were always things that when I would get feedback or something, I'd always have a. Yeah, but you don't really know.

Sarah Edmondson [00:49:14] I, I learned to follow the things and take the things that I like and Then pretend to follow the other things. We both kind of.

Nippy Ames [00:49:21] Also because we had buy in that we thought it was a good organization. When you would come in and take a five day, I thought you potentially identifying your life issue would be a good thing for you down the road.

John Dehlin [00:49:31] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:49:32] Like if you did a five day giant, I bet you'd actually really like it. Like the bare bones of the five day curriculum was quite awesome because it's

John Dehlin [00:49:38] warmed over secular landmark forum psychology 101. Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:49:43] Like how to communicate, how to build your self esteem, how to have a better relationship with money, how to have a better relationship with yourself, how to love yourself. Like and it was so good. And it created that processed food. What. But it created also that. What's it called that Janya talks about? Like that elevated.

John Dehlin [00:49:59] Elevated emotion.

Sarah Edmondson [00:50:00] Yeah. Elevated emotions.

John Dehlin [00:50:01] Which Mormons call the Holy Ghost or the spirit. Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:50:04] And I had all that you can

John Dehlin [00:50:05] manufacture that you manufacture people to feel elevation, emotion, elevated emotion. And then you can manipulate them.

Nippy Ames [00:50:10] Tony Robbins is great at it.

John Dehlin [00:50:11] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:50:11] I wish I had just done the five day, but then I was like I need to finish the five day. Because there's the 16 day and of course once you've done the first level, then there's level twos. And don't forget level two A, B, C and D and stories, traps and patterns. And because. And then this whole. There's. There was always more curriculum that you had to take as I'm trying to

John Dehlin [00:50:28] analyze this just as a observer like it humans biologically, however, we evolved to never feel satisfied. Because if you just sit on the savannah satisfied, you're eaten by the lion. So we have an unfillable hole in our hearts and souls because we're always supposed to be striving, improving, protecting, building. Because that's what it takes to have kids on the savannah and protect them and to build a society where you don't get eaten by a pack of lions or wolves.

Nippy Ames [00:50:57] Particularly in America and.

John Dehlin [00:50:59] But everywhere this is the human condition.

Nippy Ames [00:51:01] It is the human condition. But there's in America it's nurtured and it's fostered. In other countries you have governments that subtly try to neuter you and create an equality, we're all equal and stuff like that. I don't think you can kill that spirit. We're hardwired to thrive in a sense.

Sarah Edmondson [00:51:18] Remember that even the couch potato wants a better recliner. They want more snacks like you. Oh, even someone who's lazy wants more.

John Dehlin [00:51:25] And my point is our need to self improve is insatiable. And you can never arrive. That's what the happiness trap is. You seek happiness, then you're always disappointed and there's always suffering in the world. And so if you can come up with some sort of curriculum or doctrine or theology that is probably self contradictory. It's not. There's going to be enough good there to make people feel like, okay, well this is going to help me. But then you use their weaknesses and even sometimes contradictory doctrine just to keep people on a shame cycle of perceived self improvement. But for the leaders, the goal is not the actualization of the, of the followers. It's the maintenance and growth of their power and influence. And I think that's the formula for how all these things work and keeping people.

Nippy Ames [00:52:19] I would even add to that in

Sarah Edmondson [00:52:20] a state of shame.

John Dehlin [00:52:21] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [00:52:22] And, and low self esteem.

John Dehlin [00:52:24] So that they're compliant. Compliant and dependent.

Sarah Edmondson [00:52:26] And also isolated from anything on the outside that would help them recognize, well, this is not really good for you.

John Dehlin [00:52:31] Isolated is huge. You got to create that bubble.

Sarah Edmondson [00:52:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:52:34] And Mormonism has that bubble right now in space.

Nippy Ames [00:52:37] Yeah. And to your point, like, you know, I can remember being like 17, 18 years old and winning a football game or something like that. Winning a championship and oh, I'll be happy then. I was happy.

John Dehlin [00:52:51] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:52:52] The next day I wanted to go do it again.

John Dehlin [00:52:55] Yeah. Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:52:56] And take Tom Brady. What's your favorite ring? The next one.

John Dehlin [00:52:59] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:53:00] You know what I mean? Sarah and I were sitting and I woke up at like 5 in the morning and both my kids were here and Sarah was in the bed. And I was just kind of sitting there going because I think I still have aspects of what's the next thing? What's the next thing? And I took inventory on my life. I ever told you this? And I was like, it was dark, quiet, and I was with my family. I was like, this is everything. I was like, I'm actually. It didn't feel like it. This is the distinction I'm making is it didn't feel like I was doing well in life. That makes sense. But we have a successful podcast, I've got two beautiful children, a beautiful wife, and I just booked an acting job that. In a TV show. And I'm like, why is it so hard for me to go? This is awesome. All the time. Yeah, all the time. Like why, why do I, why do I get up and think I need to add to this every day? Like, why do I get up and feel like, why is that my objective? Why isn't my objective enjoy this more?

John Dehlin [00:54:06] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:54:07] And it's it to me, it's my life issue or whatever. But that. That is a struggle I think we all kind of can relate to. No matter. And you hear it, even with people who are winning seven Super Bowls or winning an Oscar like you, you recognize it's a human condition. And I just sat there, I was like, this is. This is great. This is.

Sarah Edmondson [00:54:25] This is practice.

Nippy Ames [00:54:26] I'm winning.

John Dehlin [00:54:27] Yeah. And that's what Jesus and the Buddha try to tell us is focus on the present moment.

Sarah Edmondson [00:54:31] Right.

John Dehlin [00:54:32] Eckhart Tolle. Don't focus on the past, don't focus on the future. Live in the present moment. And so we're like, oh, wow, that's really wise. But the hole never goes away. Okay, so we're going to have to skip different parts of the story, but let's jump to kind of the. The events that lead up to you guys getting married, because it almost felt like a Nexium wedding. And I'm just wondering, kind of. And just briefly describe what your roles with Nexium were leading up to your marriage and kind of how you met.

Rising Through the Ranks

Sarah Edmondson [00:55:05] Sure. This is all in painful detail in my book, but I went up the ladder.

John Dehlin [00:55:11] Here's the book.

Sarah Edmondson [00:55:11] Oh, thanks.

John Dehlin [00:55:12] Scarred by Sarah Edmondson. So that's what we want you to buy, but just to get you to buy.

Nippy Ames [00:55:18] I call it scared.

Sarah Edmondson [00:55:19] Thanks, Deb. I purposely. I say painful because there was this ladder of promotions, like getting your next sash and the stripes on it was like in karate, like in martial arts, you had to get promoted to the

John Dehlin [00:55:31] next motivating to have levels. Why do they have levels? Why do they always do levels?

Sarah Edmondson [00:55:35] Well, there's. Why we were told there was levels, and then why. I think he had levels.

John Dehlin [00:55:39] Okay.

Sarah Edmondson [00:55:39] But I mean, what we were told and why I liked it at the beginning is that it was very measurable. If you did X, Y and Z, you'd get to the next level. And I like that. And I went up. I went up pretty quick because I was motivated. I was a hustler. I like to work hard. And he. If anyone thought that was weird, be like, well, how is it different than martial arts? This is the first time there is a quantifiable growth structure. Yeah, Boy Scouts. Yeah. Quantifiable structure to your. To your enlightenment. And I think up until now, and Nancy would say, like, as a therapist, there's no way to measure happiness. There's no way to measure your success. But now we have a measurable way, a measurable system of like, that's amazing. Right? So I really liked it. At first. And the. The straight path measured your ability to teach and the curriculum, like your mastery of the skills, it measured your ability to bring in people because you can't be successful unless you can bring people along with your ideas. It wasn't about recruitment. It was about building that skill set. Like you can't. You can't do anything on your own. Were you gonna say?

John Dehlin [00:56:42] I was just gonna say. I'm gonna guess it's not about actual self development. It's about acquiring the skills and abilities necessary to help the organization be successful.

Sarah Edmondson [00:56:51] Ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:56:53] Although you think you're. You're self developing the whole time.

Sarah Edmondson [00:56:56] Well, the.

John Dehlin [00:56:56] What you're really doing is growing the organization.

Sarah Edmondson [00:56:58] Yes. You. I got rewarded because I was a good recruiter. I was. I've always been good at sales and always been good at sharing whatever it is that I'm passionate about. But the third thing was your own emotional maturity, which wasn't evaluated by you, is evaluated by other people who are

Nippy Ames [00:57:12] less emotionally mature than you and ethical.

Sarah Edmondson [00:57:16] Yeah. So I went up the stripe path pretty fast. But then I decided, like, there's different. Different career paths within the organization. You could do sales, you could become a teacher. You could be what's called an EM practitioner, an exploration of meaning practitioner, which is basically like a therapist trying to help people with their emotional stuff. And I decided not to go that route because the path seemed really long, really not measurable. They kept changing the goal post and the money wasn't as good. And I wanted to make money and I wanted to bring. Next came to Vancouver and opened a center. So I became a center owner in 2009 and I was in charge of a bunch of people with sales. Nippy was. What were you doing?

Nippy Ames [00:57:56] At what point?

Sarah Edmondson [00:57:57] Well, he wants to know what led up to our marriage.

Nippy Ames [00:57:59] Well, so I was running the New York City center with about three or four other people. And I would teach the classes in New York sometimes some of the trainings. And I found my niche, particularly with the goals program. So people would come to a class and they take goals classes or whatever. And I ended up actually, when we started dating, moving to Vancouver, helping with Vancouver and la, eventually traveling around and then eventually head of the men's organization.

Sarah Edmondson [00:58:35] We did have an axiom wedding. It was. I mean, there was other people there, my family and friends, but it was lot of people from the community. You know, is a big celebration. Do we need to pause for that?

John Dehlin [00:58:43] No, no. And it's usually super important. Usually high demand religions or organizations need to Grab things like births, weddings, coming of age ceremonies, and deaths, because those are like pivotal moments in life. And you want to connect those really emotional experiences with the organization. And that's why religions are always like, christening of the baby, kid coming into maturity. Oh, now you're an adult. Oh, you're getting married. Oh, someone passed away. There's always a ritual for that. Does that make sense?

Nippy Ames [00:59:17] It does, but I. I never felt those two aspects of our lives integrated well, and I didn't want them to.

Sarah Edmondson [00:59:26] We weren't actually encouraged to get married. We were discouraged to get married.

Nippy Ames [00:59:29] Well, that's because Keith wanted.

Sarah Edmondson [00:59:31] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:59:32] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [00:59:32] What he wanted.

John Dehlin [00:59:33] Yeah. Okay, so. So this is great. So you guys get married and there's a lot of nexting people at your wedding. What did that mean to have your wedding half. Half filled with Nexium people? Did it almost feel like you were like, getting married into the organization a little bit or not?

Sarah Edmondson [00:59:51] Or if anything, it was like. We thought it would be a great opportunity for my family members to see how amazing and cool and vibrant our community was. Every. Every event we ever had was always an opportunity to bring in more people.

John Dehlin [01:00:07] Yeah. So every member a missionary kind of

Nippy Ames [01:00:09] thing, or, you know, I. I thought it would just put them at ease.

Sarah Edmondson [01:00:14] Yeah. Like, they're like that, look, we're. We're so happy. And I mean, I found out later from family members who weren't part of Nexon that they were really put off because we were so happy. Yeah, we were. And not many of us were drinking.

John Dehlin [01:00:27] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:00:27] So they were like, why are they, like.

John Dehlin [01:00:29] Was drinking discouraged?

Sarah Edmondson [01:00:30] Drinking was discouraged. Well, no, you didn't not drink. But like, other drinking was anything that. Anything you would partake from the outside would be a dependency. So drugs and alcohol were discouraged. And that was also another inconsistency because Nancy was super dependent on coffee. To perform, to be on stage.

Nippy Ames [01:00:50] That's the only thing I saw her consume.

Sarah Edmondson [01:00:52] Yeah, she only drank coffee. But it was. It was confusing because. And back to earlier, what you said about, like, sex being shameful. What was really looked down upon as you didn't want to be satiative was the word. If you were satiating in anything, it's okay to have a drink. Like, it would be okay to have a drink every now and then. But if you're satiating in alcohol when you should be working on your goals, that was problematic. Or if you're having.

Nippy Ames [01:01:16] And I subscribe to that. I mean, I just. For me, I. I got that.

John Dehlin [01:01:20] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:01:20] That was one thing I was Aligned with.

Sarah Edmondson [01:01:22] Yeah, that made. That made sense. But also, you would do your own thing on the weekends and not.

Nippy Ames [01:01:25] Yeah, no, I would go smoke a Dube and have a beer and watch the ball game. Like, I didn't have a. I didn't. Because I knew I wasn't doing anything bad.

Sarah Edmondson [01:01:31] I was more obedient.

John Dehlin [01:01:33] If you look at Stephen Hasson's BITE model, high demand organizations, they need to control your behavior by some sort of rigid rules that make you always feel like you need to do better and you need to follow the rules. And that also sets you apart from other people so that the people who are members of the in group feel somehow different or differentiated and maybe even superior than the people outside of the group who don't engage in the same behaviors. And then, of course, they have to control. That's the B and bite. And they have to control the information that the members of the group receive.

Nippy Ames [01:02:07] Right?

John Dehlin [01:02:08] Because if you get information, you can have thoughts that lead you out of the organization. So they control the information so they can control your thoughts. And then they use emotion to manipulate you. And that's kind of the BITE model. And so I'm not surprised to hear kind of behavioral. And there's probably a lot more kind of rigid behavioral. What were some of the B's?

Sarah Edmondson [01:02:27] I mean, one of the first things that they had us do from day one, again, there's, like, good in this and then the bad of it. Like, what was good, but. And how it helped us. But then how they use it to manipulate. But they had us doing something called a persistency from day one, where you choose something to do every day. In terms of the BITE model, they had us doing something from the beginning called a persistency, where he chose to do something every day for a minimum of, like, five minutes or whatever you could manage, and you'd grow, grow that amount until you were. Could make it up to like a half an hour or an hour. But learning. Learning a new skill or learning a new language or something you've been wanting to do but haven't been able to do, like sorting your tax receipts or like, for me, it was. I was doing it to learn Spanish and, like, build, you know, building new things. And by the end, I had, like, six or seven persistencies happening at the same time. And we were encouraged to do that because you're trying to, like, be the best version of yourself. So in terms of controlling our behavior, I would say there was a lot of things like that and your average, devoted, obedient nexium Member like myself would have many persistencies. You'd be pretty clean, you know, not doing a lot of drugs or alcohol, exercising very regularly. All the women were teeny, tiny, very, very thin, almost like disorder.

John Dehlin [01:03:42] Encouraging disordered eating for the women.

Sarah Edmondson [01:03:45] Yes.

Nippy Ames [01:03:45] And Keith's immediate purview. Yes.

Sarah Edmondson [01:03:47] Yeah. I mean we found out later that the women were. Had to be thin for him.

John Dehlin [01:03:52] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:03:53] But I was, I was thin and I wasn't with him. But I was encouraged to be like, I, I think I had a little bit even of an eating disorder because I was so focused on being fit, you know, and being in shape. What else? I mean, just, just work because constantly working on yourself and like writing your life issue and doing your persistencies and, and having a goal, being in goals lab and, and going to class and getting your next stripe. It was this go, go, go, go, go. People who are really all in were just like, there was never any downtime. So in terms of you controlling your behavior and then, you know, keeping you super busy.

Community, Recruitment, and Busy Lives Inside NXIVM

Nippy Ames [01:04:28] Super busy, super busy all the time.

Sarah Edmondson [01:04:30] The first time I, I took a step back and took a break, I was like, we didn't have the space to think.

Nippy Ames [01:04:37] Breaks didn't feel good.

John Dehlin [01:04:38] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:04:38] We were trained that, that why would you take a vacation from your life was sort of the idea like you like, it's. It's not okay vacation.

Nippy Ames [01:04:45] The definition vacation is vacating your time, emptying out your time.

John Dehlin [01:04:49] And what's confusing about that is what's wrong with self improvement.

Sarah Edmondson [01:04:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:04:53] But the problem is the. A couple things it tell me if this was your experience. They keep you super busy. And in a way that being super busy is a way for you to drown out and mute out your own internal voice. And in terms of gaining wisdom, you're basically learning their way of life, which is molded to turn you into an instrument and a missionary to meet their needs instead of really fine tuning yourself to know what you want and need and then to, to create your own individual self empowerment. So it's confusing because there's lots of self improvement, but it's for the benefit of the organization not to, to self develop for your own personal intrinsic benefit.

Nippy Ames [01:05:38] And also I created boundaries.

Sarah Edmondson [01:05:40] Yeah. Nippy was better at that and I

John Dehlin [01:05:43] think which meant you probably weren't as much in the inner circle.

Nippy Ames [01:05:46] I didn't care to be in the inner circle.

John Dehlin [01:05:48] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:05:48] It wasn't, I wanted him to be.

Nippy Ames [01:05:49] It wasn't, it wasn't appealing to me.

John Dehlin [01:05:51] Me. Yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:05:51] There was nothing, There was no one in the inner circle that I was Going, I want to be like, no, none of them.

John Dehlin [01:05:57] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:05:57] And I took tacitly a little bit of for it, but I didn't care.

John Dehlin [01:06:04] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:06:05] And I was willing to fight. So I kind of. And I think we spoke. I had my boundaries. Like, you gave me some crap. Like, why don't you want. I was like, because that's not what I want to do. Like, you know, this, this is where I begin and that starts. And, and, and I, I didn't like pressure. Like, so they were strategic in who they sent after me. I think sometimes, and particularly with, like, there was a couple trainings that they were running during Thanksgiving and they were like, well, you know, Keith's running at this. I was like, good for Keith. I'm going home to see my family. Like, that's how this works. They'd run them over New Year's. I'd leave and go watch the Rose bowl because I wanted to watch the Rose Bowl. I wanted to see USC versus Texas. You know what I mean?

Sarah Edmondson [01:06:47] Like, in the model, he was called defiant.

Nippy Ames [01:06:49] Yeah, they call it defiant, but I didn't.

Sarah Edmondson [01:06:51] You.

Nippy Ames [01:06:52] That's where I was impenetrable. And I think that ultimately saved us. That doesn't mean I wasn't all in. In certain aspects, but I had my boundaries. I'd leave it training early because the gym was closing.

John Dehlin [01:07:03] So it was. It was important for your family that Nippy had some emotional detachment. But as I'm thinking about the self interests of the organization, they want to be able to. They want to have their inner circle where they're really having the power and the influence and getting what they need, but they want to have this outer ring who's not in the know about what's going on in the inner circle, where these people are like, hey, I'm independent. I do what I want. And this isn't a cult. And there's nothing weird going on. And so they kind of need nippies.

Nippy Ames [01:07:32] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:07:33] Right. As kind of fronts.

Nippy Ames [01:07:35] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:07:36] To kind of say, we're not a cult. Look at Nippy. We're not a cult. He's an independent.

Sarah Edmondson [01:07:40] Look at this face.

Nippy Ames [01:07:41] But here's the. Another thing too. Like, here's another thing. Like, I would sit with people and they'd be like, it's a cause. Like, yeah, it's a little bit of a cult. But, you know, it's. If you want. If it's a cult where you want to go do your goals and peace out, you can do that.

John Dehlin [01:07:52] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:07:53] We used to say it's a cult of Happy, successful people.

John Dehlin [01:07:56] Right.

Sarah Edmondson [01:07:56] I'd flat out say that, but we didn't understand. You didn't know what a cult really was.

John Dehlin [01:08:01] They needed you guys to be making the COVID what was going on.

Nippy Ames [01:08:05] Even, like people at the end of a five day who come in. But one of the reasons I did it was because Nippy said it was a culture. He was like totally, like, transparent.

John Dehlin [01:08:11] Exactly.

Nippy Ames [01:08:12] And then they'd be like, you know, thank you, because it's not. And you know, I can. And I was like. And. But I thought that was true.

John Dehlin [01:08:19] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:08:19] Yeah. That was a big part. Because you could come and go.

John Dehlin [01:08:22] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:08:23] And that's what. That's what was compelling is like, when I said it. There wasn't an emotional inconsistency that I was fronting. That's actually what I believe, because I actually embodied. You don't have to do that.

John Dehlin [01:08:33] Yeah. Yep, exactly. Really quick, Sarah, what was your. It seems like you were a recruiter, kind of like a missionary. You were basically a missionary, but for Nexium and Keith. And so what were you recruiting people to do and be?

Sarah Edmondson [01:08:46] Well, I would meet somebody, and pretty much anyone I met ever, anybody, I would be constantly looking to see, are they the kind of people that I would want to work with? Do I want them in our team, Team Humanity, we called it saving the

John Dehlin [01:08:59] world, big deal school.

Sarah Edmondson [01:09:01] And we were like, we were trained to go to events and look for the bright lights, to look for the people who really sparkle and, like, have a big network and really shine and. And, you know, not trained to look for the broken people who need it, which happens sometimes. But I was trained to be like, who are these people? What's their mission? Are they aligned with us and what are they looking for in their lives and can we provide it?

John Dehlin [01:09:23] And that's why Steve Young and Donny Marie Osmond fronting your organization. You want John Travolta and Kelly Preston, you know, and Nicole Kidman fronting your organization. How do we. Or people with money and hard workers. The Marriotts, you know, how do you get those people?

Sarah Edmondson [01:09:38] Right?

John Dehlin [01:09:38] Hard workers.

Sarah Edmondson [01:09:39] Hard workers.

John Dehlin [01:09:40] Worker bees.

Sarah Edmondson [01:09:40] Yeah. And Nancy said this all the time in public. She said it. You know, I say this in my book. If we had more Sarah Edmondson's, this company would be so successful. And I felt really good about that. Right. So I was looking for people like myself, like people who worked hard and had a big network and wanted to grow and were enthusiastic and, you know, social butterflies, really. But I didn't realize, you know, at the time that, well, There's a lot of things I didn't realize at the time, but in terms of recruitment, I felt really good about that, that I was good at it, and I was touted as that, and I was the poster child for it, you know, and because of that, that's why I grew up the ranks, you know, really fast, because I was recruiting so many people.

John Dehlin [01:10:20] Yeah. And that's. We'll come back to that. But I mean, so many people that I meet who served Mormon missions, part of their deep regret is that they were tools of the organization to recruit others when they didn't know what. What they were really recruiting people into.

Sarah Edmondson [01:10:35] And just say what. What I believed I was recruiting into people into, even if it was just to take a five day. I believed I was going to be inviting them to something where they'd get all the tools that they needed to improve their life.

John Dehlin [01:10:45] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:10:46] And I felt really good about that. What I didn't realize is it was ultimately a funnel, because the five day in itself is pretty benign. But if you get hooked and you want to continue into the 16 day and then move to Albany, that's where the bad stuff happened. And by the way, like, we even had. I think I mentioned this when you were on our podcast, but we were even taught that people are going to call us a cult. And the answer. Yeah, and. And the answer to that was a cult has there's bad things happening. And if. If there's bad things, like, what are the bad things? And if we're murdering people or if we're stealing money from people, then people would say we're thieves or murderers. But. But they're not. They're just saying it's a cult. What's the bad thing? I couldn't see the bad thing.

John Dehlin [01:11:26] Yeah. And you think about, why are Mormon missionaries 18 and 19 years old.

Nippy Ames [01:11:30] Right.

John Dehlin [01:11:31] It's because they know so little. You think you'd. You think you'd want missionaries who knew the most, but no, if you're doing shady, secret things inside, you want missionaries who know the least, who aren't on the inner circle because they're going to be the best salespeople, right?

Sarah Edmondson [01:11:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:11:48] Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:11:50] And I think that's why I kind of remained. Was. Remained untouched until the last few months. They kind of didn't. They didn't give me too much of a hard time because I was just a good recruiter. I was bringing in so many people. I was filling the pipeline.

Nippy Ames [01:12:01] I'll never figure that out.

Sarah Edmondson [01:12:02] No, I figured it out.

Nippy Ames [01:12:03] No, I know. I'LL never figure out how they thought I'd be cool with.

Sarah Edmondson [01:12:06] Oh, yeah, that. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:12:07] Okay.

Sarah Edmondson [01:12:07] Yeah.

Uncovering the Secret Inner Circle

John Dehlin [01:12:07] So what was going on? Let's just jump there. What was the inner circle? What was going on? And this is, I think, where Dos comes out.

Nippy Ames [01:12:14] Yeah. Now that you go. And then I'll add in where I think.

John Dehlin [01:12:18] What was Keith really doing behind the scenes?

Sarah Edmondson [01:12:20] Sure. So you have to keep in mind there's, like, what we saw and then

Nippy Ames [01:12:23] what Keith was doing, what he was always doing with women.

Sarah Edmondson [01:12:26] He was always doing it from the beginning. He just hit it. He decided to keep it from the people that he was growing because they weren't integrated enough. They weren't evolved enough to understand why having many women in his bed or his circle or whatever was actually totally okay. So when I joined, I was told that he was a celibate monk. He was a renunciate. He took no money from the company. He didn't. He was driven everywhere. He doesn't have a driver's license of a car because he doesn't believe in material possessions.

John Dehlin [01:12:54] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:12:55] That's how he got around. That's how he got around the legal ramifications of liability.

Sarah Edmondson [01:12:59] Reliability.

John Dehlin [01:13:00] That was all about avoiding liability. It wasn't that he was a monk, Right. No.

Sarah Edmondson [01:13:04] And I assume that the women around him. Because there were women around him and there were some of the. Some of them were my close friends. Not close friends, but good friends.

John Dehlin [01:13:12] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:13:12] And I thought that they were there to help him. That he was so busy using his scientific mind to solve the world's problems that he needed someone to go cook for him and choose out his clothes and drive him around. That made sense.

John Dehlin [01:13:23] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:13:24] He had assistance. I didn't realize that there were all women that he was sleeping with. We counted from the women that we knew, like, verified, because they're out. And we speak to them, most of them, that there was something like 40 to 60 women. And at any given time, I would say that There was probably 12 in Albany, 15, maybe, that he could call in a night. And who had their phones on waiting for that off chance that Keith would say, okay, booty call. Booty call. Yeah, booty call.

John Dehlin [01:13:51] And Joseph got up to 40, it looks like.

Sarah Edmondson [01:13:54] Yo, I'm sure. Yeah, Yeah. I seem to be a number, and

John Dehlin [01:13:58] I think 40 is the number.

Sarah Edmondson [01:13:59] 40 is a good number for your average sex addict.

Nippy Ames [01:14:02] And it's 10 top off there.

Sarah Edmondson [01:14:03] Yeah. So, yeah, so that's what he was doing. And, you know, I really do think that he saw. Thought, I'm going to Create this. This really helpful goals. Program stolen from Scientology and Landmark and NLP and homogenized Buddhism.

John Dehlin [01:14:21] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:14:22] And, you know, all these different things. Repackage it. People are hooked. Teach you that you shouldn't be dependent on anything in the outside world except for this. Right. And then keep them and then. And listen, what's interesting, it ramped up. Right. Like what got me hooked in the end with dos, which is the secret society. Let me explain this now.

Nippy Ames [01:14:42] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:14:42] Okay. Again, this is very complicated to explain. The details are in the book because it's. It's too. It's too complex. But ultimately he brought. He created the secret society called women. I'm sorry, a secret society of women called dos.

John Dehlin [01:14:56] And in the name of female empowerment.

Sarah Edmondson [01:14:58] Name of female empowerment, after years of this training called sop Society of Protector for men and Janesse, which is. Was a training for women. And all of that training had a bunch of indoctrination that set us up to be ripe to say, yeah, that's a good next step. So that's how the best.

Nippy Ames [01:15:13] Normalized abuse.

Sarah Edmondson [01:15:14] Normalized abuse, but normalized also. Like the reasons why I would even choose to say yes. So at that point, we believed that, you know, that men and women were, you know, we had our different primitive wiring and men were wired this way and women are wired this way, and women were gendered. Gendered.

Nippy Ames [01:15:31] All coupled with true.

Sarah Edmondson [01:15:32] Yeah. Some truisms. You know, women generally are more this or that emotional and men are generally can like override their emotions to go kill the tiger. And men need to learn that more. And women need to understand character and discipline and more. Because really we're just princesses. And then we'd start to divert. Like, we're princesses. We're entitled. Were grifting fleas off the backs of dogs jumping from one host to the other because really we don't want to work because we're entitled princesses and we gossip and all these negative things to the point where, like, I thought I was building a sisterhood, but I actually really had a. Quite a disdain.

John Dehlin [01:16:05] I was so bummed out by the misogyny.

Sarah Edmondson [01:16:08] Oh, it was awful.

John Dehlin [01:16:08] That the vow shows.

Sarah Edmondson [01:16:09] Yeah. And you have to understand, like, people watching. But, like, wasn't that so misogynistic? It wasn't presented as misogyny. It was presented as. Let's look at the misogyny in society so we can evolve it.

John Dehlin [01:16:19] Right, right.

Sarah Edmondson [01:16:20] That's how it was presented.

John Dehlin [01:16:21] It's that word style thing. Like.

Nippy Ames [01:16:22] Yeah, well, it's also. But the thing is in here. And this isn't a support for it. I'm giving context as to how you can go, okay, I relate. I subvert my emotions to do stuff. And I kind of dismiss a lot of the things that are going on with me emotionally. And if you statistically. And you have statistics to support it. Right. You know, a lot of men or most men are in suicide. There's a lot of things that go on there. I wanted to get in touch with that.

Sarah Edmondson [01:16:51] So it's under the guise of looking at these things while slipping in all these massaging.

John Dehlin [01:16:55] That's the work I showed you for.

Sarah Edmondson [01:16:57] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:16:57] Like we're gonna. We're gonna undermine all these things in society by practicing them here in the organization.

Sarah Edmondson [01:17:02] Yes. And by the end, I remember. I'll just tell you something that. And I don't know if I've ever spoken about this publicly. We were going through something, and after talking with one of my jeunesse female wise woman leaders, the answer was that I needed to be more subservient. I needed to come home and, like, change my state and be a little bit Mrs. Like, leave it to Beaver. This is cleaver. Right. And be happy wife. And not dump my emotions on my husband. And that would change the whole dynamic. And so, like, that was something that I was taught.

John Dehlin [01:17:31] Yeah. They're trying to undermine emotional intimacy between partners. Because if you guys are too strong and connected. Yeah. Then. Then they don't have as much power over each of you. Or.

Nippy Ames [01:17:41] That's interesting. Consider that would be the effect.

John Dehlin [01:17:44] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:17:44] I mean, truthfully, when we got out, Nippy and I had to, like, learn a bunch of stuff about how to communicate.

John Dehlin [01:17:49] And when you don't talk about your vulnerable things with your spouse, you're not developing emotional intimacy.

Nippy Ames [01:17:54] I'd say the biggest thing that was starting to have a chasm was you're. You were always on your phone with the dos thing.

John Dehlin [01:18:00] Yeah. Because they keep you super busy because.

Sarah Edmondson [01:18:02] And I have to be responsive.

Nippy Ames [01:18:03] Well. And that. That to me, I go, I understand you're doing an exercise. And I didn't challenge it. So. And just slowly I had to be more four to five to six months. We weren't connected.

Sarah Edmondson [01:18:15] We weren't connected at all. And also, we never even. Like, when we got married, we never even had a honeymoon because there was no time.

John Dehlin [01:18:21] Yeah. High demand religions don't encourage strong, healthy emotional intimacy in marriages because they want you married to the organization, not to each other.

Sarah Edmondson [01:18:29] Yeah. And if there was ever, ever something that I wanted to express, like I was, you know, I'd like to like you said, even connect more but you know, and like have a. And the response would be, and that's no harm. Like this is what Nippy was trained to say. He'd be like, why do you think you need that? Not like, oh, let's talk about that. It was always like, why do I need that? What's missing in me that I'm looking for more connection.

John Dehlin [01:18:49] Yeah, right.

Sarah Edmondson [01:18:51] Like that's, it's, it was this con. We were gaslighting each other. Yeah, that was meaty. Sarah. No, true. Like if you would say you're, you're needy.

Nippy Ames [01:19:00] I still say it sometimes.

Sarah Edmondson [01:19:02] It's like I can't provide that for you. Like you've got to figure that out within yourself. Like our therapist now has helped us so much be like, well that's actually not how a good relationship works. Like you support each other.

Nippy Ames [01:19:11] And truthfully I, even when I had the impulse to kind of address it with her, I didn't feel like that would be helping her.

John Dehlin [01:19:20] Yeah, no, it's true. So what was her.

Nippy Ames [01:19:23] A lifeline where she should be able to be self sufficient?

Sarah Edmondson [01:19:25] Yeah, we women need to be more self sufficient and more self reliant like men.

John Dehlin [01:19:29] Yeah. So talk about just this caveat.

Nippy Ames [01:19:33] I'm not that self sufficient. She needs to help me with a lot of stuff. So just that's, that's, that's a relationship. That's how it works.

DOS: Slaves, Collateral, and Coercion

John Dehlin [01:19:40] So give our listeners of viewers. Nobody has any this idea of slaves and, and then the, ultimately the branding.

Sarah Edmondson [01:19:46] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:19:47] Nobody. Nobody. This is where it gets more intense than probably what most people ever experienced in.

Sarah Edmondson [01:19:53] And I say this in my speech tomorrow as well. Like I always, I'm hesitant to talk too much about it because I don't want to alienate your, your listenership because it's so extreme and so violent. But ultimately what it ended up being is that he wanted people. The women in his circle were. Had started to defect and this h. Around the time that his, you know, some of his.

Nippy Ames [01:20:12] Once they realized it was abusive, once

Sarah Edmondson [01:20:13] they realized it was abusive, they were leaving and saying stuff and saying stuff and being whistleblowers. And so I think he started to create this curriculum which set us up for an invitation to what was called a secret society for women.

John Dehlin [01:20:26] That and in Mormonism, think about the Mormon temple ceremony in the endowment, the supers in the Masonic Lodge, the super secret ceremony inner group so that you could actually control people and recruit more. Anyway, I'm just making the connections.

Sarah Edmondson [01:20:39] No they weren't branding people, but they were doing initiatories in like, Sydney.

John Dehlin [01:20:45] Yeah. They're renaming people, they're giving them new underwear, they're making them make these covenants and oaths and it's all super secret, same thing. And then they're threatening to people with, with severe penalties if they ever divulge the secrets.

Sarah Edmondson [01:20:57] Right.

John Dehlin [01:20:57] And it's all grooming behavior.

Sarah Edmondson [01:20:58] Right? We were totally grooming. I mean, even the curriculum I just mentioned to get us to even say yes to this. And I was invited by my best friend who's the.

Nippy Ames [01:21:05] Can I add one more thing before.

Sarah Edmondson [01:21:06] One sec. Just said maid of honor.

Nippy Ames [01:21:08] We were talking earlier about how these people pivot and they refine it.

John Dehlin [01:21:12] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:21:13] Keith Wake had had a series of women, all ages, all groups leaving, going to law enforcement, those sorts of things. Right. So I think he figured out that's my only problem that I need to address.

Sarah Edmondson [01:21:27] You need to lock down.

Nippy Ames [01:21:29] How do I ensure. Yeah. How do I ensure loyalty? Just in loyalty. And even when they leave, how do I ensure they don't say anything?

John Dehlin [01:21:37] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:21:39] So even just to hear about this thing from my best friend who said that she was going to invite me to something that would take my, my career to the, you know, my, my everything to the next level, which should have been a red flag. Like, okay, wait, the tools I've been doing for 12 years don't work now. I need to do something else.

John Dehlin [01:21:53] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:21:54] But I trusted her. Like, literally. She was on my will, the godmother for our children.

John Dehlin [01:21:59] This is Lauren, which is the daughter of Nancy, who was Keith's right hand woman.

Sarah Edmondson [01:22:03] And truthfully, I respected her and held her on a pedestal probably more than I did Keith, which was unusual for the company. Like most people are like, oh my God, Keith, he's so great. And I'm like, Lauren is who I want it to be.

John Dehlin [01:22:13] Like, yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:22:14] You know, in terms of my role model in the company. So she's inviting me to this thing. It sounds crazy to even hear about it though. The secret thing. I have to provide collateral, which also sounds crazy. But for months, actually no years, people have been putting down collateral for other things. I'm committing to do XYZ and if I don't, I'm going to give 500 to XYZ. So, like, people had things on the line that they were using to what they called keep their word. So I was giving collateral to keep my word of secrecy that even if I said no to this thing, I would never talk about it. So that was the first step. But the problem is once they had collateral from you, they then had collateral from you, which is another way of saying blackmail. So when I heard about the thing and the way that Lauren presented it made it sound like really cool. A group of women who are taking themselves to the next level and holding themselves account accountable and using all the tools that we learned, but like going extreme with it. And at this point I, you know, I had a, I had a three year old, I was kind of like, you know, I had lots of problems that I wasn't even willing to voice to myself with the company. So I was kind of having some struggles due to cough go.

Nippy Ames [01:23:24] I was like, I was voicing the

Sarah Edmondson [01:23:26] problems, maybe was voicing the problems. But my point is, is that. And Lauren, just as a sidebar, like she'd come teach our first five day and I loved it because she, I felt that there were things in our first five day, like rules and rituals. Calling Keith Vanguard sashes, I'm like, oh God, people are gonna think this is so weird. She made it cool. She's like, yeah, you know, like a judge wears robes and we wear a sash and like, and these are different

John Dehlin [01:23:46] colored sashes that represent advancement in the organization. Like, like, like tenderfoot and star and life and eagle Scout. It's just like that. Yeah. And martial arts, like general, colonel, major, captain, lieutenant, military.

Sarah Edmondson [01:23:58] All of those things we would talk about in the, the five day. You know, the military does this and martial arts do this and we do this. Totally cool.

John Dehlin [01:24:04] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:24:05] And we call the self improvement.

John Dehlin [01:24:06] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:24:06] And we call the doctor doctor once they've earned it. And we call vanguard Vanguard because he's earned it, you know, no big deal. So she was really cool like that. And the way that she presented was like, I'm going to mentor you and I'm going to be your mentor. And. Except we're going to call it master slave. But like, I'm not really. You're not really my slave. Like you, you live in Vancouver and I. And like, but like slave for what? Like, what are you going to have me do? She's like, we have you. You're taking a lifetime vow of obedience to me. But I'm only going to be doing things that are good for your growth.

John Dehlin [01:24:33] And in the Mormon Temple it's called the law of obedience. Literally, bow your head and say yes in the Mormon Temple, the law of obedience.

Sarah Edmondson [01:24:39] Okay, so I, I was making a vow. I had to make a vow of obedience to Lauren, who'd be my master. But really it's just like a coach.

John Dehlin [01:24:45] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:24:46] Right.

John Dehlin [01:24:46] We'll just call it a slave.

Sarah Edmondson [01:24:47] We'll just call it a. Yeah, let's call it a slave.

Nippy Ames [01:24:49] Cute little name. Tomato.

John Dehlin [01:24:50] Tomato.

Sarah Edmondson [01:24:50] Yeah. And you're going to have to, at some point, find a necklace that was. Would symbolize, like your commitment, kind of like a slave collar. But you get to choose the necklace.

John Dehlin [01:24:58] Kind of like marks on your temple garments.

Nippy Ames [01:25:00] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:25:00] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:25:01] Okay.

Sarah Edmondson [01:25:01] You get to choose the fabric. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:25:04] I'm surprised they didn't rename you. Because part of the sign of a cult or I demand religion is you get a new name.

Sarah Edmondson [01:25:09] Well, I was. I was Senior Proctor Edmondson.

John Dehlin [01:25:12] Okay.

Sarah Edmondson [01:25:12] I did get a new name when I earned the rank of Green Sash. I was Senior Proctor Edmondson.

John Dehlin [01:25:16] Okay. Okay.

Sarah Edmondson [01:25:16] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:25:17] All right.

Sarah Edmondson [01:25:17] So I did get a new name. Nippy was Proctor Ames.

John Dehlin [01:25:21] Oh, that's how people referred to you

Sarah Edmondson [01:25:22] when you were teaching.

Nippy Ames [01:25:23] Oh, okay.

John Dehlin [01:25:24] So you did get a new name.

Sarah Edmondson [01:25:25] I did get a new name. All right. Yep. And when you were in the construct of the center, you called people by their proctor name or prefect. Nancy was prefect.

John Dehlin [01:25:32] Oh.

Sarah Edmondson [01:25:33] And the highest rank was Senior Counselor. Senior Counselor Boone, Counselor K Frames.

John Dehlin [01:25:39] Did they call each other brothers and sisters or in the.

Nippy Ames [01:25:42] Okay.

Sarah Edmondson [01:25:42] No. I did go on a trip with my girlfriend once and call her my sister wife, though. Cause I enjoyed splitting the child care.

John Dehlin [01:25:48] Because those Mormons are weird. Not at all.

Nippy Ames [01:25:51] No.

Sarah Edmondson [01:25:52] Sorry about that.

John Dehlin [01:25:53] That's fine.

Sarah Edmondson [01:25:54] Sorry about that.

John Dehlin [01:25:56] Glass houses.

Sarah Edmondson [01:25:57] Yeah. Yeah. Oh, gosh. Absolutely. Totally guilty of that.

John Dehlin [01:26:03] Those Mormons are weird.

Sarah Edmondson [01:26:05] I actually had no idea how weird until I interviewed you. Anyways, love you so much, Mormon. Yeah, Love you. Love you, love you. Mean it. Anyway, so yeah, we. I said yes to her. I said, okay.

Nippy Ames [01:26:17] And after.

Sarah Edmondson [01:26:18] After a couple of days of humming and hawing and feeling kind of anxious about it. And once I said yes, she's like, okay, now you need to give me more collateral to seal the deal and

John Dehlin [01:26:29] give our listeners a sense of what was used as collateral.

Sarah Edmondson [01:26:32] Yes. Just to hear about it. I had to sign a confession about all these things that I had done in my 20s that I wouldn't really want people to know.

John Dehlin [01:26:39] Yeah. You know, dirt, basically.

Sarah Edmondson [01:26:40] Yeah, Good dirt.

John Dehlin [01:26:41] Dirt.

Sarah Edmondson [01:26:41] And the first time I wrote it, she took a picture, sent it to someone and said, it's not dirty enough. And I had to add to it and even said things that weren't true just. Just to make it worse, which still incriminates you.

John Dehlin [01:26:51] Even if you're lying about your own history, you're still incriminates you More.

Sarah Edmondson [01:26:55] Yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah. To be a full member of dos, I had to give her a nude

John Dehlin [01:27:00] photo so they could threaten to expose that on the Internet if you ever defect.

Sarah Edmondson [01:27:05] And that's out there somewhere.

John Dehlin [01:27:06] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:27:09] I'm just making faces over here. Okay. Yeah. It's shocking.

John Dehlin [01:27:11] Some of this is new to Kara.

Sarah Edmondson [01:27:13] Yeah, no, and also Lauren was like, like, you know, Lauren's my really good friend. We've seen each other naked, changing, going to yoga, whatever.

John Dehlin [01:27:19] Like, what's a big deal?

Sarah Edmondson [01:27:20] Yeah, but she was like, I did this. You did this. I'll take. She took a picture for me. I was like, you know, I found out later that other women gave like close up vaginal shots.

Nippy Ames [01:27:31] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:27:32] And like little sexy videos and like masturbation videos and way worse than me.

John Dehlin [01:27:37] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:27:37] Just to get in. I don't know how I got let off so easily.

John Dehlin [01:27:40] But you weren't on the inner. Inner circle. But I guess I'll say that I

Nippy Ames [01:27:43] think Lauren had your back a little bit. A little bit. Now I, I think Lauren wanted you

Sarah Edmondson [01:27:49] in, but also wanted to spare me from Keith.

Nippy Ames [01:27:52] Well, she also knew that she. You had your boundaries. So to keep you in, she had to be a little bit lenient.

Sarah Edmondson [01:27:58] Yeah, she couldn't let me off easy.

John Dehlin [01:27:59] Like, I'm super curious. Did Sarah. Did you say to Nippy, Lauren's asking for naked photos?

Nippy Ames [01:28:05] I wasn't allowed to know about it.

John Dehlin [01:28:06] See, that's why they have to get between the couple. They have to split the. The couple.

Nippy Ames [01:28:10] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:28:10] Because they needed to groom Sarah without Nippy. Independent, high testosterone, alpha male Nippy. We don't want him, you know, messing around. So we got to split the couple, right?

Sarah Edmondson [01:28:20] No. Before I even had to beat his ass first. Yeah, but, but truthfully, he. Part of my commitment was obedience and total secrecy. She even said, you cannot tell Nippy

John Dehlin [01:28:30] from your own spouse.

Sarah Edmondson [01:28:31] Yeah. You'll never be able to tell Nippy. You can tell him that you're maybe partnering with some of the upper rank greens, like the high levels that we were and doing some extracurricular stuff for your growth. But I couldn't say what it was. I couldn't say what we were doing.

John Dehlin [01:28:42] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:28:43] And I was like, okay. And truthfully, like, because of the. Our normal banter, but also the wedge that was within us, like, Nippy didn't never thought that I was like, he loves me in a lot of different ways, I think and respected me. But also I'm not tough person, you know, I'm not a strong. I'm Not a strong. Like, the first time when he saw me give birth was the first time he was like, respect, you know, but up until then, he's like, you know, Sarah does yoga. Like, she doesn't work out.

Nippy Ames [01:29:08] She stretches.

Sarah Edmondson [01:29:08] She stretches. But like, I was like, I'm gonna be strong and I'm gonna, like, do something really tough, and he's not gonna know about it.

Nippy Ames [01:29:14] You're blaming me for this victims.

Sarah Edmondson [01:29:17] But. But there was a part of me that was like, I'm gonna do this and he's not gonna know, and I'm gonna be better wife and I'm gonna. And I was kind of. And there was an excitement to it. And it's like a secret thing.

John Dehlin [01:29:26] They're choosing you. You're special.

Sarah Edmondson [01:29:28] I was special. And I was a small group. Anyway.

John Dehlin [01:29:32] So you gave the collateral.

Sarah Edmondson [01:29:34] Gave the collateral. And it turned on a dime pretty quick. It turned to. As soon as I was in. Then I found out I had to give new collateral every month for the rest of my life to fortify my commitment. One of the second or third things that she asked me for, which was one of the things that I put on the shelf that eventually made the shelf collapse. And I woke up, she asked me for the deed to our home that she would hold just to make sure that I never strayed from the path.

Nippy Ames [01:30:01] I'm gonna add a caveat.

Sarah Edmondson [01:30:02] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:30:03] In the trial, it came out in the transcripts that Keith asked Lauren, does Sarah know that if she has to do sex or favors for me, she knows that this is part of it. And Lauren lied to Keith and said yes.

Sarah Edmondson [01:30:21] Sorry, just to clarify that, Keith said, does Sarah know that if you command her to have sex with another man, that she has to do that?

Nippy Ames [01:30:29] And Lawrence lied.

Sarah Edmondson [01:30:30] Lauren said yes. She never. She never said that to me.

John Dehlin [01:30:33] And this is kind of shaping up as like a sexual pyramid scheme.

Sarah Edmondson [01:30:36] Yes, kind of. That's exactly what it was.

Nippy Ames [01:30:38] Think of Keith like he's pissed he didn't get Sarah. Right.

John Dehlin [01:30:43] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:30:44] So this is the whole psychology. It's like, you know, I feel entitled to that.

John Dehlin [01:30:49] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:30:49] I'm the vanguard. And, you know, grayback. After I made fun of him at his.

Sarah Edmondson [01:30:56] Not on purpose, but did nipe it.

Nippy Ames [01:30:57] I did an imitation of him. I feel like, you know, he had it out and.

Sarah Edmondson [01:31:01] And we didn't know that he had tried with me in the past, but I didn't. I missed the cues, partly because I always found him kind of vanguard's got.

John Dehlin [01:31:11] He's not a sexy, hot. No, he's like, it Was these super short?

Sarah Edmondson [01:31:14] Like, how short? How short is he, 5, 5 or something?

Nippy Ames [01:31:17] He's like 5 7.

John Dehlin [01:31:18] How does a guy like you just physically, you wouldn't look at the guy and say, hey, manipulate.

Sarah Edmondson [01:31:23] He's really good at manipulating women and giving them what they want and speaking to them in the way that they want to feel loved and special. And truthfully, towards the end of my time there, I did feel closer to him, but for many years I kept him at arm's length and, like, distant. I felt uncomfortable around him, so I never got close to him. But also another way that I found out later that he got women in his fold that he wouldn't be like, hey, you wanna. He'd be like, I'm starting a new business. And it'd be from somebody else. One of his women around him would say, keith is starting this new thing and thinks that you might be good for it. You should come meet with him. And then you'd meet and you'd talk about the next steps, and you go do the next steps and then you get closer to him. And then he'd say, I think that maybe I could mentor you. And you seem, like, really rigid around relationships. And basically he'd then propose the romantic or the sexual part. I was invited to five different businesses with him, separate from the other stuff we were doing. And I never. They never made any sense to me, so I never. I never bit.

John Dehlin [01:32:16] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:32:16] You know what I mean? So I never got to the next step.

John Dehlin [01:32:18] He was. He was fishing, but you weren't biting.

Sarah Edmondson [01:32:21] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:32:21] I also. I had an old girlfriend that I brought to an event, and she worked, you know, in commodities previously. And the woman, Pam K. Fritz, who was. Is kind of like right hand woman, his pimp approached my old girlfriend. My girlfriend at the time says, keith heard you're in commodities, and he's interested in working with people who are interested in commodities.

John Dehlin [01:32:43] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:32:44] And I remember thinking, yeah, yeah. There's no one else besides my girlfriend.

Sarah Edmondson [01:32:49] She's tall, blonde, beautiful.

John Dehlin [01:32:52] You know, what you want to do is you want to. I mean, I think a lot of times sexual intimacy can follow emotional intimacy. And so what he wants is he doesn't want you and Nippy having emotional intimacy. He wants to find a way to make you feel like he needs your skills, he respects who you are. Then he can start working with you, develop the emotional intimacy, and then the sexual intimacy can come after the emotional intimacy is developed.

Sarah Edmondson [01:33:15] That's. That's pretty much what all the women we spoke to said. Who, who were in his harem and got out. And what's also interesting is we spoke to someone who left in, like, 2008 or 9 who said when she read about DOS, like, when we were public about DOS, and she's like, that's what our lives were like. She was a harem member. Then she left to pursue her doctorate and, like, snuck away quietly. She said, you know, we were available at all times of the night. We had to answer our phone. We couldn't turn our phones off. We had to be super, super thin because being fat affected his energy or some bs. We had to. You know, it wasn't called dos. I didn't use Master Slave, but basically he had a bunch of women slaves that were attending to his every need. So he just formalized what he'd always done and then put in the collateral blackmail aspects of people would be loyal and never leave. Of course, it didn't work because, look, here I am. And I mean, really, they. They invited the wrong person. Like, I really don't know what they were thinking.

Nippy Ames [01:34:07] I just don't know how they thought it was gonna get by me.

The Branding Ceremony and Its Aftermath

John Dehlin [01:34:10] So talk about. Talk about the cauterizing, because. Yeah, I have a question about that. That. That involves you, Nippy. So. So that's the part we haven't gotten to yet. That was, like, the.

Sarah Edmondson [01:34:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:34:21] Final collateral.

Sarah Edmondson [01:34:22] I'm hesitant to, like, get too into this part of it because I still find it super triggering to talk about it. And. And I'm also okay to just. Just answer, Read the book, watch the vow. But ultimately, whatever you're comfortable.

John Dehlin [01:34:34] Nothing that you're not.

Sarah Edmondson [01:34:35] Thank you. I was. I was invited to what was supposed to be this. The ceremony to officially bring me into dos. A couple months after I'd given the collateral and I flew to Albany. I was also there for another Genesque training, so everyone was going to be in town anyway, and I was supposed to get this tattoo that was part of, like, you know, my commitment. Right. I don't have any tattoos for a reason. I know that my trends and ideas change. Like, I almost got a Wonder Woman tattoo, and when I was, like, early 20s, and I'm not in that stage anymore, so I'm, like, glad I don't have a Wonder Woman tattoo. But Lauren was. Had Em me. Lauren, Em me through my fears at,

John Dehlin [01:35:12] like, tell us what an em is.

Sarah Edmondson [01:35:14] Exploration of meaning. So if you have a reaction towards something, you can always get an em so that meaning doesn't mean that to you anymore. And so she changed my mean meaning of, like, Something that is sort of like, you know, I don't want to get a tramp stamp, you know? No, this is a. This is a symbol for your growth, and this is for you on your body. And it's a. It's a physical reminder of what. What you're committed to.

John Dehlin [01:35:33] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:35:33] And I could get behind that. And also, like, I'd taken a vow of obedience. Right. And I. Collateral in the line. So everything that we chose to do from that point wasn't really choice. It was coercion because it was the gun to my head, of the blackmail. So that's how I explain it when people are like, why don't you just leave? Why don't you just say no? Because I was being blackmailed from that point on, and it was subtle blackmail. It's not like we're going to release this if you don't do it. It'd be more like, do you remember your commitment?

John Dehlin [01:35:59] Yeah. You promise, your vow?

Sarah Edmondson [01:36:00] Yeah. You made a vow.

John Dehlin [01:36:01] You made a commitment. It's honor. It's integrity.

Sarah Edmondson [01:36:03] Yeah. Trust.

John Dehlin [01:36:04] Of course. Of course. You don't always know what you're getting into when you make the vow, and that's in the Mormon Temple ceremony. You're not told what you're covenanting to before you go to the temple.

Sarah Edmondson [01:36:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:36:13] You make the covenants while everyone's looking at you. And it's too late by the time you're there to make your covenants. There's no consent beforehand.

Sarah Edmondson [01:36:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:36:22] And there's no realistic way to get out. And so you're. You're ramroded into a covenant before you understand what covenant you're actually making and before you have time to really think through the implications of the covenant you're making.

Sarah Edmondson [01:36:33] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:36:34] Is that right?

Nippy Ames [01:36:34] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:36:34] 100. And she's even reading what sounded like Mormon scripture to me as I lay down on this. And these. These details are, like, really specifically laid out in the. Actually the first chapter of my book. I start there, and then I go backwards and showing up with my sisters, who I knew from Nexium, but I've never. Wasn't that close with. And then I had to get naked with them, lie on a massage table, and the tattoo is on a tattoo, but actually a brand. So no informed consent and no explanation of what I was committing to. And then she started reading the scripture, which I was supposed to recite, and she had me say. And this came out in the trial later where Keith taught the leaders have them say, master, would you brand me? It would be an honor. So that. So it looks consensual. They have a recording of this is one of the ways they were able to get him on sex trafficking. Right. Because a lot of the women, once they were in, were then tasked with the. With the assignment to seduce Keith, of course, to help them with their own control and relationship issues, not for his gratification.

Nippy Ames [01:37:40] So, yeah, he wasn't enjoying it.

Sarah Edmondson [01:37:42] No, he wasn't enjoying it. The whole night is crazy as a couple of hours. When we first saw the first person who lay down on the table, it looked like she was being electrocuted. She was flipping around and crying, and her skin was being seared open by a cauterizing iron and a symbol right in the bikini line, like, right next, like, right on the pelvis, like an inch away from someone's pubic line, essentially. And I was trying to figure out, like, could I get out of there? You know, I was gaslighting myself. Like, you said that you were going to do this, and now you're backing out. And this is, you know, Keith said, this is what. What women do. They back out and they. They have no integrity. They have no honor. You have to do it and your end of the collaterals on the line. And also, I even pulled Lauren aside at one point, and she said, you're a green sash. I was the highest rank in the room other than her. You know, these women are looking up to you and I. And also another sidebar is that Lauren was the person that controlled any promotion in the company. So it's like the sit. Any situation where someone's like, with a higher rank, and if they don't do the thing, it's like their career is at stake. That was my career. I know that if I didn't show toughness and push through and make this thing happen, that I wouldn't get to get to the next level, which I don't care about now, obviously. But in that world, that was everything. So I lay down on the table and I breathe deeply. And I. What I now know from trauma therapy is that I disassociated. I left my body and I lay really. I saw that the women who. The more still you were, the easier it would be. And Lauren even testified in court that I did really well because I. I lay still. I did my deep breathing from yoga, and I peaced out and I got through it, but it was horrific pain. There was no anesthetic. That was the point. Go through something painful, be a strong ass, and be part of this boot camp where these women could do Anything and build the character that we needed to build as men had. So I was proud of myself, and I felt good about it. And I was in a total state of trauma and elation that I'd gone through it. And Lauren was there afterwards, whispering in my ear and hugging me and cooing. And we were all laughing and smiling and trying to make light of this awkward situation. Being in a room with six sweaty, naked women that we didn't know that. Well, it was weird. I mean, it was a totally crazy, weird event. And I can't believe I'm still talking about it, but, like, that's what happened. And it wasn't until about six weeks later that I figured out that the symbol was not a symbol for the elements, as I'd been taught, but it was. It was Keith's initials and a cryptic monogram. And maybe we don't know this for sure. Alice and Max. Is that what you're talking about? We don't know that. We think that, but we don't know that for sure.

John Dehlin [01:40:19] She's an actress that was on Small World.

Sarah Edmondson [01:40:21] Smallville.

John Dehlin [01:40:22] Yeah, Smallville.

Sarah Edmondson [01:40:22] She was one of the top women in dos. We don't know that for sure. It's never been verified.

John Dehlin [01:40:28] Okay.

Sarah Edmondson [01:40:29] But at the time, I was like, oh, my God, I've Allison, Max initials and Keith initials on my body. And that was ultimately what woke me up. But it was a series of things that happened up until then, you know, asking for the deed to my home, doing the branding, you know, and as soon as I'd committed, I was being asked to recruit other people for this. And. And, you know, it all happened very, very quickly. And then I was out very quickly. So it wasn't. It was a matter of months that I was in dos.

John Dehlin [01:40:54] Part of the perverse logic or strategy of putting members through super brutal, inhumane experiences is ironically, when you put them through something brutal, they end up feeling proud of themselves that they went through something super hard, like a Mormon mission, like pioneers crossing the plains. You put them through enough adversity, they're proud of themselves that they went through it. And then they're. Ironically, even though it's the organization causing the pain, they feel more bonded to the organization because they. They overcame the pain and did something very difficult. And the elevation. Emotion can follow the pain that the organization inflicted on you. And it sounds like it worked for a lot of them, and it worked for you. Maybe temporarily, but not. But. But with you, they. They picked the wrong person.

Sarah Edmondson [01:41:49] Yeah. I said in one of my first public interviews they effed with the wrong person. Like, I really don't know what they were thinking because I, I, I was not so isolated. I didn't live in Albany. I had a community and friends and family outside of it. And, and also at the same time, don't forget, Mark Vicente was waking up because his wife Bonnie had left. And he was my. Other than Nippy. He was, I called him my bonus husband in the company. Like, we were really, really close. He's my business partner, and he was questioning and he helped me question, and he knew certain things that I didn't. We'd all been so siloed, we all had separate information, Right?

John Dehlin [01:42:22] Yep.

Sarah Edmondson [01:42:23] So once we finally talked for the first time, he made me sign an NDA before I could even talk to him as he was leaving.

John Dehlin [01:42:30] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:42:30] And those conversations are what, what woke us up.

John Dehlin [01:42:32] And then members talking to each other.

Sarah Edmondson [01:42:35] Yeah, yeah. Not being allowed to share information was really. Because any concern I ever had if I went downline was not, it's not appropriate leadership. And if I went upline, I was always gaslit.

John Dehlin [01:42:47] So you guys may or may not want to talk about this, but this is one of the big questions, you know, like, just the audacity of having women be branded just blows my mind. Even married women. And by the way, Joseph Smith had at least 10 polygamous wives that were married to other men at the time. That's called polyandry, where the woman has multiple husbands. But we think Joseph used that as a cover because, oh, she's married. You know what I mean? Anyway, how the audacity of the branding in and of itself is mind boggling. But he had to have known that at some point Nippy's gonna see this. And how is he in the world? How did he ever imagine that? Nippy, number one, were you gonna hide this from Nippy? And then secondly, like, did you even. Did you wonder because Nippy didn't know. You didn't know she was doing this before she did it, which is also mind boggling. But then how did Keith and Lauren imagine that conversation was gonna go when Nippy found out?

Sarah Edmondson [01:43:44] Well, we were trained, so in my.

Nippy Ames [01:43:46] No idea.

Sarah Edmondson [01:43:47] In my group, honestly, he's just delusional. But in my group of women, myself and a woman named Jimena from Mexico were the first married women to get branded. Other than that, all the other women were single.

John Dehlin [01:43:56] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:43:57] And, and, and, or with Keith. So the first group of people were all his lovers.

John Dehlin [01:44:05] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:44:06] And then the second tier was some single people and some married people. So we Were. We were experiments. And Lauren was like, just try to keep it from him as long as you can. So when he does see it, she

John Dehlin [01:44:16] was telling you to keep it from Nippy for as long as you can.

Sarah Edmondson [01:44:19] Yes. And I did. I kept it for about six weeks because we were in separate cities. Six weeks he was out of town and then we were in separate beds because I was trying to.

Nippy Ames [01:44:26] Because Troy. We're trying to get Troy off.

Sarah Edmondson [01:44:27] I was trying to wean Troy at this point. So we were like kept. It was like a bed, musical beds.

Nippy Ames [01:44:33] And Troy was her 2 year old.

Sarah Edmondson [01:44:34] And like I'd walk if I was wearing underwear. You couldn't see it. So I was still like, I get out of the shower, the towel around me, he wouldn't see it.

John Dehlin [01:44:40] And in sex it's dark.

Sarah Edmondson [01:44:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:44:41] Right.

Sarah Edmondson [01:44:42] Well, truthfully, there wasn't a lot of that because we were in separate cities and I was weaning a baby.

John Dehlin [01:44:45] Yeah. So okay.

Sarah Edmondson [01:44:46] You know, that was so. And. Or dark. But either way he didn't see it. And. And she said, just keep it. So he will never associate this with Albany. And if he does see it, the. I was supposed to say something like that a group of us got together, we did this thing to experience pain and that we would grow. And it's just a little commitment to my growth. Like basically a modified version of what we did. Not telling him everything. Never got to that point.

Nippy Ames [01:45:10] And I think they weren't ever going to reveal that it was his initials.

Sarah Edmondson [01:45:14] Yeah, like that. And that's really like cut to.

John Dehlin [01:45:16] It's still.

Nippy Ames [01:45:17] No. Yeah, here's. Let me. If she had come back with a mark on her elbow, I would have been up there with a baseball bat. You're not going to mark my wife with anything.

John Dehlin [01:45:28] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:45:28] To teach her character growth. Whatever the. You think you're teaching my wife.

John Dehlin [01:45:33] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:45:34] And it's not your job to do that.

John Dehlin [01:45:35] Yeah, that.

Nippy Ames [01:45:37] That's where this ends. And you know, a lot of people are like, how did you let this happen? No, we happened to Keith Ranieri. We happened to him. That's where the line was going to get drawn. And look.

John Dehlin [01:45:51] What do you mean by that?

Sarah Edmondson [01:45:54] Meaning we ended it.

Nippy Ames [01:45:55] We ended it. It wasn't like it happened him.

John Dehlin [01:45:57] We happened to him, brought it to him.

Nippy Ames [01:46:00] This is where it stops. This is where the abuse stops. And one way or the other, it was going to be the end of Keith Ranieri.

John Dehlin [01:46:07] Sure.

Nippy Ames [01:46:07] Whether it was going to be legally or was it going to be me going in there and doing something about it.

Sarah Edmondson [01:46:11] It.

Nippy Ames [01:46:12] That's what I had decided. I had tacitly decided that I didn't tell Mark. I didn't tell Sarah. And there was a point where, because I found out over the phone, I was going to go take matters into my own hand. And there was a point where I was, like, going to drive up there because I knew where he was.

Finding Out and Deciding to Leave

John Dehlin [01:46:27] Wait, can you talk about when you found out and how you found out? If you're comfortable? Yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:46:33] I was in my car on 37th and 6th Avenue. I get a call from Mark because she's still in Vancouver, I'm in New York. My friend Eduardo is sitting shotgun to me, who, incidentally, is still loyal and still defending him.

John Dehlin [01:46:54] To Keith. To Keith, yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:46:55] And I get on the phone. Mark, he tells me, because she was afraid to tell me, and

John Dehlin [01:47:07] I didn't.

Nippy Ames [01:47:08] I was like, what? It was. Actually, hold on a sec. Let's just.

John Dehlin [01:47:11] Mark told you?

Nippy Ames [01:47:11] Mark told me.

Sarah Edmondson [01:47:12] I was like. I asked him to talk.

Nippy Ames [01:47:13] I was like, hold on a sec.

John Dehlin [01:47:14] After you guys were starting to defect.

Sarah Edmondson [01:47:15] Yes.

Nippy Ames [01:47:16] This is unraveling. And I'm like, hold on a second.

Sarah Edmondson [01:47:18] He used to tell us. I didn't want to break my vow of secrecy. I was that afraid. But I knew if Mark told him

Nippy Ames [01:47:22] at first, I'm like, hold on a second. Hold on a second. What? Wait, When. When did this happen? Like, what. When was this going? And I'm starting to do the math on all the abuses I had heard about, and I'm like, okay, well, this is over. Because Mark had also resigned two weeks earlier.

John Dehlin [01:47:41] How did it feel to you? Like, I imagine if this had happened to Margi, I'd be mad at Keith, but there to be a part of me that would feel like she betrayed me by doing it without telling me, and then by hiding it for me.

Nippy Ames [01:47:56] I understood it, really. I understood how it happened in the indoctrination. I also know my wife. Like, there was one moment when we were all out where I was kind of pissed, you know, it was like, you know, we're five days out at her when we're in Toronto. And I was like, you know, we had a fight.

Sarah Edmondson [01:48:12] I didn't think we were gonna make it.

Nippy Ames [01:48:13] Well, it was a fight. Like, how'd you let this happen? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But that. But you have to understand, there was. That I was. I had problems with the organization for a long time. And the reason I was staying is because I thought I was turning my back on my principles. Yeah, the. The principles of why I was staying all the Things that I was doing was why I hadn't left in the first place. There was enough things in the organization before that that I didn't like and I didn't want to. You know, I was done. I didn't like. This didn't work. So there's two things that went on. I was pissed it happened. Physical pain to my wife also. I wasn't able to protect her. Pissed I didn't see it. Right. Yeah. I put it on all this time and relieved I could leave now.

John Dehlin [01:49:03] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:49:04] Right.

Sarah Edmondson [01:49:04] Whoa.

Nippy Ames [01:49:05] All the things that, like, you don't have the. You don't have the moral hold on me anymore. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:49:10] Now I cross the line now.

Nippy Ames [01:49:11] I can now, like, everything I was feeling and everything that was going on with me was justified. I was right. My instincts were right. And Nippy was back, if that makes sense.

John Dehlin [01:49:22] Oh, I love that.

Nippy Ames [01:49:23] Does that make sense? And. And I was.

John Dehlin [01:49:25] I love that I wanted to go back.

Nippy Ames [01:49:27] I wanted to go, of course. Even the score in a primitive way. Just like he says, we're primitive. I was like, you're about to see how primitive I can be. Right. And so I got talked off the cliff, obviously. Homeboy next to me. Eduardo, just.

John Dehlin [01:49:43] Can I just say. Can I say one quick thing? Just like, you know the metaphor of, like, put a bunch of frogs in the. In the water and then you turn it up like. Yes. You weren't always engaged. Yes. You weren't always in. You know. Yes, you brought it to him later. But you guys were subtly groomed down a soft path.

Nippy Ames [01:50:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:50:02] As the water got turned up more and more, and at some point the water got to boiling and. And you guys were the lucky ones or the courageous ones or the smart ones or whatever, where you got out,

Nippy Ames [01:50:13] whatever you want to call it.

John Dehlin [01:50:14] He took. He. He took you guys way far down the path. And you're. And I don't say that to shame you.

Nippy Ames [01:50:20] We all.

John Dehlin [01:50:21] I don't feel we are all of our listeners. It's happened to all of us.

Nippy Ames [01:50:25] I don't feel that way at all

John Dehlin [01:50:26] to millions of people all over the world every day. You know what I mean?

Sarah Edmondson [01:50:31] I don't.

Nippy Ames [01:50:32] We felt. I felt that way a little bit

Sarah Edmondson [01:50:33] when we were maybe for.

Nippy Ames [01:50:35] For a handful of months. But once I see that this is a process that goes on everywhere.

John Dehlin [01:50:39] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:50:40] With. With all belief systems, no matter how you think you're not susceptible to it or vulnerable to it, you are. You just don't know how yet.

John Dehlin [01:50:48] Yep.

Nippy Ames [01:50:48] And that's to a certain degree. So once I've Once, you know, that all happened, then, you know, cooler heads prevailed. I went in and, you know, it's. It's in the valve where I go in and I shake some limbs. You know, I yell and do my official complaint to human resources. And then, you know, I just got my wife and kid as far as I could out of there. And then I tried to make a scene. I tried to, you know, flip some tables, and I told all my friends that I could, that, you know, this is bad. I was loud about it as much as I could, consistent with what they were going to say my personality was. And we were. We got out of harm's. Harm's way physically. And then the drama starts so really quick.

John Dehlin [01:51:28] This is a really important part of high demand. Religions and organizations. What do they do? How do they treat defectors? How do they treat apostates? Right.

Nippy Ames [01:51:36] Attack our character.

Sarah Edmondson [01:51:37] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:51:38] Attack our character. First thing first.

Sarah Edmondson [01:51:40] But we had learned as we were waking up that you. I mean, we knew that people had left over the years. If you left on good terms, you wouldn't be. You. You wouldn't be attacked, but you'd be labeled as, oh, it's too bad. So and so never worked through their issues. And I guess they're going to bump up against that in their life and they weren't strong enough to continue.

John Dehlin [01:51:57] Essentially, they're blamed. Blame reversal of being weak. They left because they're weak or broken.

Nippy Ames [01:52:02] We're acting out of fear, you know,

Sarah Edmondson [01:52:04] acting out of fear, not love. And. But we also knew that anyone who left on bad terms sued. So we were trying to leave on good terms whilst also bringing as many people as we could and trying to share. So we were kind of living a double life for a couple weeks, which was the most scary time in my life, because on one hand, I was like, lauren, you know, Nippy now knows about the brand, and I would. And. And Nippy, we. This was our strategy. Like, he's upset and, like, I gotta save my marriage. I think I'm gonna take a step back and I love you and everything's good, but, like, I gotta pull back.

John Dehlin [01:52:34] You're kind of. You're trying to take care of her feelings.

Sarah Edmondson [01:52:36] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:52:37] Don't be hurt. Lauren. Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:52:38] I love you, Laura.

John Dehlin [01:52:39] My marriage is falling apart, but don't be mad.

Sarah Edmondson [01:52:41] Yeah. Because I wanted them to think that I was choosing my marriage out of, like, weakness, because that would give. Like, I'd rather that they thought I was weak than I was being a ballsy defector and destroying the company.

John Dehlin [01:52:53] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:52:54] So I Was like, yeah, you don't

John Dehlin [01:52:55] wanna show your cards.

Sarah Edmondson [01:52:56] They don't show my cards.

John Dehlin [01:52:57] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:52:57] So we were doing a double standard, double st, double life for a little while and also trying to tell everyone we knew there was a training happening shortly where people were flying from around the world to do the next round of branding. And we just wanted that to stop.

Nippy Ames [01:53:09] So yes, we stopped that.

Sarah Edmondson [01:53:10] We stopped all except for one group who went. Did it anyway.

Nippy Ames [01:53:14] And they went and did it anyway after I went in and made a scene.

John Dehlin [01:53:19] Yeah, yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:53:19] Because they were like determined to keep going. But anyway.

John Dehlin [01:53:22] But see that's that, that's what Keith learned from day one. You can have a catastrophe. You can have it all unravel and blow up and then you just dust yourself up and you keep going.

Nippy Ames [01:53:31] Arrogance.

John Dehlin [01:53:32] The really successful ones know to never quit.

Sarah Edmondson [01:53:35] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:53:36] And that's how it always ends with Joseph Smith. By 1844, Joseph Smith has himself declared king of the world. Right? King of the world. I'm not joking. And he's got this a legion, a Nauvoo legion larger than like any standing domestic U.S. army. And he's parading his legion around from town to. To town, having had himself crowned king of the world while he was running for president of the United States. That's, that's where Joseph Smith got as things. So it's just the hubris. Just you double down, you double down. There's this exponential curve of hubris.

Nippy Ames [01:54:12] Genghis Khan.

John Dehlin [01:54:13] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:54:13] I think I mentioned this in my interview when you were on our podcast that I read something. I think it was under the, under the banner of heaven when I was educating myself.

John Dehlin [01:54:22] That's a good.

Sarah Edmondson [01:54:22] Yeah, it's such a good book.

John Dehlin [01:54:24] Show notes on it, cares all over it.

Sarah Edmondson [01:54:28] That there was a theory that when you lie to the level that Keith Renew is lying, Joe Smith was lying and living a like this double life of like I'm this person but really I'm polyamorous douchebag. You know, like, you know there's, there's, there's this, that, that like fuels this sort of like fuel. The theory was that it fuels libido as well. The, the lying.

John Dehlin [01:54:50] So yeah, the lying adrenaline.

Sarah Edmondson [01:54:53] The adrenaline and the like excitement of that was fueling the libido and that sort of like was a self perpetuating cycle. I just think that's interesting.

John Dehlin [01:54:59] I think that's true.

Sarah Edmondson [01:55:00] I think you do a whole doctorate on that. But anyway, just to wrap up what

Nippy Ames [01:55:03] happened my libido up. Is that what you're saying?

John Dehlin [01:55:05] Yep.

Nippy Ames [01:55:07] Jesus. Complicate things a little more for me.

John Dehlin [01:55:11] Jesus.

Sarah Edmondson [01:55:14] So anyway, we got out.

Nippy Ames [01:55:17] We.

Sarah Edmondson [01:55:17] We brought a lot of people with us and a lot of people left because especially in Vancouver, many of them never met Keith and Nancy.

John Dehlin [01:55:23] Can I just say one thing?

Sarah Edmondson [01:55:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:55:26] How many people before you had tried quietly went away? And I'm thinking about in Mormonism, how many Mormons realize that they're going to face. They're going to reap the whirlwind if they speak up and speak out. And so they either stay in quietly or they just try and fade away quietly. But they, but they feel too afraid to lift their voices. And I don't that a lot of this is privilege, but I really do have mad respect for people that choose the path of speaking publicly, knowing that it's going to come at a deep personal cost. What was it about you guys that either gave you the privilege to be able to do that or gave you the courage to do that when so many people who follow high demand religions just stay quiet and in fear, reaping the whirlwind?

Sarah Edmondson [01:56:19] Couple things. First of all, I don't know how many people because I'm not in touch with all of them. But I know that many people have come to me since saying I left not even knowing what you know now, but just things were weird and I didn't want to felt it. They felt it. They want to cause a scene and.

John Dehlin [01:56:31] But I'm talking about raising your voice.

Sarah Edmondson [01:56:32] No, no, not. Not many people did, but the people that did. In 2009, a bunch of people left.

Nippy Ames [01:56:37] Nine women left they face loaded gate.

Sarah Edmondson [01:56:39] But they made the mistake of trying to solve things internally first and trying to resolve things with Keith and talk it out. They didn't know they were what they were dealing with. They didn't like that he. They'd figured out that he was sleeping with people. They didn't realize he was a sociopath. He didn't realize what he was willing to do. And by the time they hashed it all out, he gaslit them so much, they looked crazy.

John Dehlin [01:56:56] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:56:56] And they were like. I mean, I know I felt super wacky whacked out, like an almost nervous breakdown. When I was leaving, these women were not in a good place. So I didn't trust them when they were like, keith is. And I'll be like, okay.

Nippy Ames [01:57:07] And they didn't have the resources to

Sarah Edmondson [01:57:09] go do your thing. Right.

Nippy Ames [01:57:10] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:57:11] So they left. Right. And then this is now 2009. How we do the math eight years later when we're waking up and we're going, oh, that's what they were dealing with, you know, and then. So we knew we weren't going to try to resolve it internally.

Nippy Ames [01:57:25] Yeah, no, I was.

Sarah Edmondson [01:57:26] We. We were out and we went through stages of like, first we got to get out.

Nippy Ames [01:57:30] That's the other thing.

Sarah Edmondson [01:57:30] Seek safety.

Nippy Ames [01:57:31] Everything that we had heard previously about Keith's wake up that had been denied immediately became true to me.

Sarah Edmondson [01:57:37] Yeah. It wasn't a smear campaign, like true.

Nippy Ames [01:57:39] And then, then some.

Sarah Edmondson [01:57:40] It was, it wasn't blasphemy. It was true. And that happened very quickly. And so in the answer your question, we first, we need to, like, get out and be safe. And then we realized we had tons of friends that were literally slaves. And I, for me, specifically, because I'd been a recruiter for so long, some of those women were there because of me. And we're way further deep because of me, because I told them that this was a good thing. So I, I knew I couldn't be quiet. I knew that I had to go loudly and. And destroy it. Same. Yeah, it was, it was. That was pretty quick.

Nippy Ames [01:58:13] Also.

John Dehlin [01:58:13] Listen, are you saying because you felt responsible for having recruited so many people, there's. That you needed to be a whistleblower?

Sarah Edmondson [01:58:19] Yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:58:20] To get them out. I think you say that in the vow. It's like, we. We got him in. We can get them out.

Sarah Edmondson [01:58:25] Just leave them there.

Nippy Ames [01:58:26] What allows abuse to exist is cowardice.

John Dehlin [01:58:28] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [01:58:30] And. Yeah. Right.

Nippy Ames [01:58:31] I mean, look at, look at. I mean, you can call it the American indoctrination or whatever. Like, I've. The reason I got involved with the organization is because I had a problem with that existing in the world. So I would be nothing to myself. Right. If I didn't do something about it. The first thing was get my. Get my family out of there. And then what's the fight?

John Dehlin [01:58:55] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [01:58:55] What does it look like? Unfortunately, you know, it didn't look like previous people who left fortunately, you know, and here's one thing I was betting on, you know, large on. I was pretty confident as a guy whose wife got branded with another man's initials. Those optics didn't look good for them. And when the cards were on the table, they were the ones that were going to be incriminating, looking more so than a guy having a problem with what happened to his wife and reacting to it. I was pretty confident that our culture would support that over. Oh, no, she chose it. And your reaction is the problem to another man's initials in her pubic area and character. And growth thing apply. None of the optics look good for them. And. And that bet turned out to be way more true than I anticipated.

Becoming Whistleblowers and Going Public

Sarah Edmondson [01:59:50] Right. We didn't know what we whistleblow on was like 10 of what ended up being true.

Nippy Ames [01:59:55] Superficial.

Sarah Edmondson [01:59:55] Way more like what came out in the trials.

John Dehlin [01:59:58] What was worse than what you just described?

Nippy Ames [02:00:00] Pedophilia.

John Dehlin [02:00:00] Rape.

Nippy Ames [02:00:01] Like his. His having his wake and his. The things that we exposed were like

Sarah Edmondson [02:00:05] manipulating so many more people. Financial. Yeah, financial drain.

Nippy Ames [02:00:09] All the stuff.

Sarah Edmondson [02:00:09] I mean. How much did the Bronfins lose to his commodities experiment?

Nippy Ames [02:00:12] $65 million were.

Sarah Edmondson [02:00:14] Were lost that the Bronfmans gave to him. Money like massive.

Nippy Ames [02:00:19] I'm not so sure it was lost. I think it's somewhere to be honest.

Sarah Edmondson [02:00:22] Like probably in a crypto account somewhere.

John Dehlin [02:00:23] Yes.

Sarah Edmondson [02:00:25] So yeah, it was the right thing for us to do 100 and you know, like not everybody wanted us to do that. Like my family was so happy to have me back and awake and all those things. And then I was like, I have to do this. And they were like, are you sure? Like, yeah, you know, and we didn't know. We didn't know it was going to happen. We didn't know it was going to be so obvious once it was all in. In trial. Like all came out in court and people were testifying.

Nippy Ames [02:00:50] It was a blowout.

Sarah Edmondson [02:00:51] It was a blowout.

Nippy Ames [02:00:52] It wasn't even. It wasn't even a close fight. But we didn't know that at the time. Right. And we. They also had ammo. They had a big litigation machine. And we didn't know, you know, how and what it was going to look like. And then when. When Clare Bronfman gets on a jet a month later to fly out and try and have my wife arrested. The arrogance. The I. It just enraged to get a lawyer

Sarah Edmondson [02:01:18] to like, you know.

Nippy Ames [02:01:19] So then we go to the New York Times and you know, I wasn't really want to go to New York Times, but we went to the New York Times and then everything. They dragged us into a fight that they lost.

Sarah Edmondson [02:01:31] I mean they could have handled it internally. Yeah, they could. They could have called like Nancy never even called me. Lauren never even called me.

Nippy Ames [02:01:38] Not for me. I wasn't in a place to like be gaslit and be, you know, talked off a leg.

Sarah Edmondson [02:01:43] That was a hard thing for me, like because I was closer to some of those people and to like lose all these friendships in. In a heartbeat. It was really hard. I'm still a struggle with that.

Nippy Ames [02:01:52] I don't why.

Sarah Edmondson [02:01:53] So is My community. Yeah, I really miss them.

Nippy Ames [02:01:59] They took a swipe at our character and my family and things.

Sarah Edmondson [02:02:01] There's some good people in there, you know.

John Dehlin [02:02:03] Yeah, but see that. I think that's like. If I had to reduce the grip Mormonism has on people to one thing, it would be community, I really do think. And it's so, it's so powerful that that's. You're kind of getting teary eyed a little bit and that's. That's what made it hard for you.

Sarah Edmondson [02:02:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:02:21] To raise your voice.

Sarah Edmondson [02:02:22] I walked away from a lot of people that I cared about a lot. And I knew there was going to be collateral damage, but it had to be done.

John Dehlin [02:02:30] And what'd you lose?

Sarah Edmondson [02:02:32] I mean, honestly, I lost all of them except for a handful. And I have a very small circle now, and I'm okay with that, but it's. I've always been the kind of person to seek closure and I still don't have closure with a lot of them. Only recently I had closure with Lauren when she got sentenced and she wrote me an apology letter which kind of ended that for me. And I still would like to see her and talk to her at some point down the road when she, when we're allowed. We're currently, we're not allowed to. It feels differently.

Nippy Ames [02:03:01] But, you know, you know, with Lauren, it's, It's different. But I, I really believe when people take a run at your character, they take a run at your thing. I think you can wish them well, but I think it's dangerous to let him back in your life.

Sarah Edmondson [02:03:14] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [02:03:15] I really do. Maybe it's different with Lauren because I think Lauren has kind of had the same experience that we've had and she can understand it and we can have that conversation. It seems that way from what I've seen. Lauren is the only one. I kind of hold that out for the rest. I just. Even how they're talking and how they take, you know, Sarah. Sarah doesn't. Sarah is the target, a lot of them, because I think Sarah demonstrated the character they. None of them have. And that's hard for them to, to really get their heads around. They don't want to see the fact that Sarah was right. She did a hard thing. She went through a hard thing. And none of them had the. Had the balls to do it. And they have to see that every day, see Sarah winning in a ways that they're losing and they're not willing to take that in.

Shunning, Community Loss, and Legal Battle

John Dehlin [02:03:59] Yeah. Jumping back to the community thing for just one second, it is Such a powerful binding force. And when I watched Wild, Wild country, which is a documentary I hope everyone will watch on.

Sarah Edmondson [02:04:12] I mention it in my speech.

Nippy Ames [02:04:13] Very good.

John Dehlin [02:04:14] Oh, yeah, yeah. And Carrick, you can add that to the show notes if you want. The guy. And this is true in Holy Hell, which was another documentary on Netflix. Yeah. What. What you hear these people saying is it was the happiest time of my life.

Sarah Edmondson [02:04:28] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:04:30] And, you know, it was terrible and horrible and awful. It was a cult. And I. I'm glad I got out. And I don't know that I've ever been happier. So there's something about. And you feel like. At the time, did you feel like these were your true family? This was your true family.

Sarah Edmondson [02:04:46] Chosen family.

Nippy Ames [02:04:48] I never felt that way.

Sarah Edmondson [02:04:49] Yeah. Nippy did in the first place. I. I did. I did.

John Dehlin [02:04:52] What did you feel about. You felt what? About this community. That they were what?

Sarah Edmondson [02:04:57] That they were. That we're all on the same path and that we really understood each other and we were sharing our lives in a vulnerable way and that we had a connection that nobody else would understand.

John Dehlin [02:05:09] And that bond was what.

Sarah Edmondson [02:05:12] I mean, it was. It was glue. It also.

John Dehlin [02:05:14] The belt. The bond felt like it was what

Sarah Edmondson [02:05:16] it felt like it was. The bond felt like it was glue for everything. And truthfully, even more so. My community in Vancouver, a lot of the people in New York weren't. I didn't relate to as much. But basically I brought all my friends.

John Dehlin [02:05:27] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [02:05:28] That I had. Were friends before even. And we made this little thing that we did together. And it was. And I didn't. It's like we showed up three times a week, like church. You know, we were consistent. There were a lot of people in it. Truthfully, that I wasn't that close with. I'm gonna. And I didn't really see that you brought.

Nippy Ames [02:05:46] It'd be akin to me going back to Atlanta and bringing all my childhood.

Sarah Edmondson [02:05:49] That's why.

Nippy Ames [02:05:49] That's why. Same thing I was.

Sarah Edmondson [02:05:51] I had my buddies in it.

Nippy Ames [02:05:52] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [02:05:53] But the people who were different than me, a lot of the people in Albany, I actually didn't like.

John Dehlin [02:05:58] Sure.

Sarah Edmondson [02:05:58] But I kept them at a distance. But the community that I did like, the part that I built in Vancouver, I was very attached to.

John Dehlin [02:06:03] There's this thing called Dunbar's number that no human can have. More like 150 deep, meaningful connections. So you don't need more than 100. 150 total. But the point that I'm trying to make is there's a saying, a lone monkey is a Dead monkey. We are tribal. Yes, we have evolved to be tribal. So what we're all seeking is this deep, rich, powerful, meaningful, tight knit community. And that's what you were seeking and that's what you ironically obtained. But the chemicals in your brain feel so amazing when you're in it, that it's like this. And Joseph Smith was seeking for Zion. He called it Zion. Someday we're going to be in the Zionic state where there's no poor among us and everybody loves each other and we're all. And that's what these cults generate ironically. And when you're in it, the chemicals in your brain are so amazing. It's like meth or heroin. I'm sure of it. Same chemical processes. But you also believe that these people are your homies. They're my real family. And they'll be, they'll be with me to the bitter end. And then as soon as you step out, I can tell you what happened to me when I get excommunicated. What? What happens to those relationships when you step out of that community that you thought was heaven on earth. Right. What happens to those relationships?

Sarah Edmondson [02:07:25] Well, I mean, because I was a defector, anyone who was still a believer wouldn't speak to me and they shunned me. Yeah, they would. They cut communication. Word spread very quickly that I was telling people about the brand and that I was not to be trusted. And I was a suppressive. And there's all sorts of rumors. One of them was that I didn't get promoted to the executive because they couldn't tell people. People like they couldn't tell the community at large that I'd been branded, left us. And I left us. So they made up a bunch of rumors like I was part of the executive, I wanted to be on the executive board and I didn't get promoted. And I was having a tantrum like women do when they don't get what they want, like terrible things or that Nippy was upset and I was gonna choose him over the company because I was so dependent and you know, blah, blah, blah.

John Dehlin [02:08:08] It's always blame reversal when you definitely effect you did something wrong, you're the bad person, you're defective, stay away. They're dangerous. High demand religions and cults have to demonize the defectors. Defectors are by far always the most dangerous force. Yeah, yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [02:08:24] And even people who are out now.

Nippy Ames [02:08:26] I still had some people that were talking to me. I had enough. I'd say there's about five to ten people that buddies that I had that were, like, playing both sides. They come to me, they go here. And then ultimately their process was like, I believe Nippy. And one of them was like, listen, Claire came to me. Bronfman came to me. Is like, okay, what dirt do you have on them? So this is what I knew that, like, you know, they're willing to do anything.

John Dehlin [02:08:53] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [02:08:53] And there's even people that have since left, and it took them a while, like, much longer after we left who don't. Who. Who don't support Keith anymore. Like, they don't think Keith is good, but they still won't speak to us because they think what we did was bad.

Nippy Ames [02:09:11] They didn't like the way we handled it.

Sarah Edmondson [02:09:12] They didn't like how we handled it. They thought we could have handled it internally, which is. We really get it.

Nippy Ames [02:09:17] You don't get to tell me how I defend my family.

Sarah Edmondson [02:09:19] Yeah. So there's. You know, we still get calls. People apologize, you know, say, hey, sorry we didn't believe you. I'm sorry I never reached out. But I was told that. Yeah, I was told. Sorry about that. That's our family motto. And we still get those calls, and I'm sure we'll continue to. But there's other people who will never call us because.

Nippy Ames [02:09:37] Well, they weren't our friends anyway.

Sarah Edmondson [02:09:38] Yeah. Yeah. I don't care. They weren't our friends.

John Dehlin [02:09:40] It felt like they were. Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [02:09:42] I mean, they were. Some of them were at our wedding.

Nippy Ames [02:09:43] Allies.

Sarah Edmondson [02:09:44] They were allies. Yeah.

Nippy Ames [02:09:45] You know, under a false premise.

Sarah Edmondson [02:09:46] But it also, luckily, we. When we left, we left with enough people that we had a little community. So there's enough.

Nippy Ames [02:09:52] Yeah, there was enough people. There's 20 to 30 people that were helping us take it down. Writing letters to the credit card company.

John Dehlin [02:09:59] Like, writing.

Sarah Edmondson [02:10:00] Yeah. One of the things that we did, we found out later, was a big demise of the company, is that we encourage people who are on. Because there's monthly payments towards the. Like, you know, the monthly commitment. It's like 300 bucks a month to call their credit card company and say that they didn't want to do it anymore and that the company was fraudulent, which it was. And so when you have enough. What's called a. What's it called? A chargeback. When you. When you say to Visa, I don't. This is fraud. Charge it back. When you have enough chargebacks, the same company, they freeze your accounts. Freeze your account. So that was one.

John Dehlin [02:10:30] Hit them in the pocketbook.

Sarah Edmondson [02:10:30] Yeah. With him in the pocket book. And they weren't able to get access to their funds and people were defecting and we. Part of our strategy, give them lots of fires to put out. We were putting up. We were giving them fires everywhere and they couldn't handle it.

John Dehlin [02:10:44] Yeah, it's, it's. We won. It's one thing to create a cult or high demand religion before the printing press, which was probably the best time, you know, pre 1500s, to create a cult or high demand religion. And then Joseph Smith made the mistake of creating a high demand religion after the printing press because so much got written down. And like Mark, he wanted everything recorded. Which by the way, is what. Partly what blew me away about the vow is how many audio recordings and video recordings existed so that there was evidence for everything you're talking about.

Sarah Edmondson [02:11:16] This is demise.

Nippy Ames [02:11:17] The evidence is pretty press was to Joe Smith what the Internet was.

John Dehlin [02:11:21] Exactly. And I was going to say that it's even worse to try and create a culture in the Internet age where everybody's got a cell phone and text. You know, it shows all these texts you guys are sharing, you know, Skyping each other, communicating across country and then harnessing social media and, and everything. Yeah, it's. It's a, It's a hard time to, to start a cult these days.

Nippy Ames [02:11:40] I mean, in a lot of ways that laid out what the FBI and the DOJ was going to just do. You just handed us a case.

John Dehlin [02:11:47] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [02:11:47] And we did, we did like we, Catherine had had all the screenshots, everything that was proving all these things, and we gave it to the DOJ saying this is sex traffic. This is. You know, and obviously they did way more investigation than that. But they had a great starting point.

Nippy Ames [02:12:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:12:02] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [02:12:02] I mean, when we learned Sarah didn't even have to testify at the trial, that's how, that's how, that's how egregious is. The behaviors were.

John Dehlin [02:12:09] It's the hubris. Yeah, hubris.

Nippy Ames [02:12:11] Like they could have thrown our situation away.

John Dehlin [02:12:14] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [02:12:14] And put him away.

John Dehlin [02:12:16] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [02:12:16] You know, but.

John Dehlin [02:12:17] But it's still mind blowing. And I remember part of the suspense of the vow is just like, are the cops going to pick this up? Because there's, there's such emphasis in the United States on protection of religious freedom and Scientology and, and you know, Joe's witnesses and probably Keith and even Mormonism that so many high demand religions hide behind religious freedom where like politicians and law enforcement, they tend to want to stay. And sometimes even the media, like if it weren't for the branding, I don't know that this story would have even.

Sarah Edmondson [02:12:51] I was gonna say That a while back, we were talking about the branding. You know, obviously, I wish it hadn't happened to me, but it. It's kind of what needed to happen in order to take him down. Because up until then, all of the abuses and like, when the Women left in 2009, it was really hard to prove. Now I had the mark on my body, and I can see say that this happened whether I chose it or not, whether I asked for it or not, it didn't matter. Keith was putting his initials on women's bodies like pimps do to their women and like farmers do to cattle. Not okay. There's no place this is ever okay ever, ever. And they were going, well, it's just like a sorority. That's what they're saying now.

Nippy Ames [02:13:26] Seek to minimize the abuse.

Sarah Edmondson [02:13:27] Right now there's still people who are loyal to it, and they're saying these are just like a sorority and women are committing with. No, it's not like a sorority because the sorority is for women. This is a man's. A man's sex trafficking ring where he's putting his initials in their bodies, not just like a sorority.

John Dehlin [02:13:41] Yeah. Yeah. And I want to be really careful how I talk about this, Sarah, and I want. I hope you can feel what I'm saying here, because I. I live in a world where Mormonism is kind of like a nice cult. Yeah. Because we've. We've had 150 years to mature, so we've stopped doing a lot of the stuff that, frankly, the government forced us to stop doing. And we changed our image to become, like, Donny Osmond, Steve Young, like quarterbacks and entertainers, and we're IBM salesmen, white, you know, clean cut, young Mormon missionaries. What's wrong with that? You know, in some ways, Mormonism has become the all American religion. Right, Right. And we're not branding people. We're not like David Miskovich who's, like, literally incarcerating people against their will. And his wife disappeared 10 years ago ago, and where is she? But nobody knows. Like, Mormonism isn't that. And so, you know, we'll have these situations where, like, LGBT people, we're not branding people. But then we've got thousands and thousands and thousands of LGBTQ Mormons that have ended their lives.

Sarah Edmondson [02:14:47] It's awful.

John Dehlin [02:14:48] Daily, Weekly. And the government's like, well, you know, we've done the sex cult thing. Oh, yeah, we don't really want to cover that. And, oh, yeah, we've done the, like, fraudulent drill financials. You know, none of those news stories. Bite. Oh, there's no branding. And so, like. But. But there. But branding is horrific. And there are emotional and psychological and intellectual brands are as bad, or sometimes they're even worse. I think you would agree that the. That the physical brands were not the worst.

Nippy Ames [02:15:22] This is what I've said for the physical. Physical brands are the physical manifestation of the emotional abuse.

John Dehlin [02:15:28] Exactly.

Nippy Ames [02:15:29] And that's the entry point into the emotional abuse. And the emotional abuses are very hard to quantify because there's kind of a plausible deniability of it.

John Dehlin [02:15:37] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [02:15:37] There's not a. There's not a modality. There's not a physical manifestation thing. And. And are you going to take that on to prove it? Are you an expert in that? Are legal experts which are like, I can only take on what I can prove. Am I going to prove feelings? Am I going to prove emotions? Those are very difficult things to take on. And there's not an incentive right now in our culture to solve those problems yet.

John Dehlin [02:16:01] Not only that, there's a disincentive, because as soon as you start getting into that territory, it's like religious freedom. You wait, this is First Amendment. You can't impinge on our First Amendment rights. That's like. That's bad. And so religions, they're tax exempt. They amass all this wealth and power, and there's all this psychological, emotional abuse, misogyny, racism, sexism, homophobia, and there's destroyed families. There's all this collateral damage in the wake. But because it's a religion, stay away.

Sarah Edmondson [02:16:34] That's where you have to go in on. And I think it was Mike Rinder. Mike Grinder said on our podcast that he was like, Keith really screwed himself by not making himself a religion because he would have been protected, you know, And I'm so glad that he did it.

John Dehlin [02:16:47] That's so dark.

Nippy Ames [02:16:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:16:49] You know what I mean?

Sarah Edmondson [02:16:50] Yeah. I'm really glad that he didn't, because he was able to be prosecuted. And I don't. There's got to be a way around that. I don't know what it is. I'm not a. You know, I'm not a.

Nippy Ames [02:16:59] This is it.

Sarah Edmondson [02:16:59] Yeah. We started to talk about it, getting the right people.

Nippy Ames [02:17:02] You have to have language shining light,

Sarah Edmondson [02:17:04] you know, on these abuses and the fact that that's happening and no one's willing to do anything about it. That's horrific. That's egregious.

John Dehlin [02:17:10] And just like, you know, Gerardo was talking about, and a family. I'll just say a family member saying, hey, Gerardo, who is an active, devout, believing Mormon. Hey, Gerardo, check out this weird Nexium cult that's going on as an orthodox Mormon that believes in Joseph Smith and somehow doesn't draw the connection.

Nippy Ames [02:17:27] Okay.

John Dehlin [02:17:27] It's like we, you know, we're all in our silos and we need to break out of our silos. Which is why I try and work with Lee and Mike and J.T. and Lady C and the Joe's Witnesses and Chris Shelton and Lloyd Evans and you guys, we have to work together, cross promote awareness for sure. Right?

Nippy Ames [02:17:47] Sure.

John Dehlin [02:17:49] Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Nippy Ames [02:17:50] One last comment. One of the things, and I said this in one of our podcasts. It's like when you're in one of these groups, it's very easy to spot another one. Right?

Sarah Edmondson [02:17:58] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [02:17:58] Because when we were in these things, we, we were, we were in esp. You're like, that's a, that's a cult. We'd be looking at.

John Dehlin [02:18:04] What was it called to you while you were.

Nippy Ames [02:18:06] Scientology.

Sarah Edmondson [02:18:06] Scientology. But I didn't really understand why I did it. But, but also, like, I remember going clear came out and I didn't watch it because someone told me that it was really, really biased to get Scientology. And hey, if Tom Cruise wants to jump on a couch and be happy, why is that? Why is that my problem? Like, that's his business.

John Dehlin [02:18:21] Hold that thought.

Sarah Edmondson [02:18:22] Hold the, hold that thought. Right. Exactly.

Reflections on Recovery and Cult Awareness

John Dehlin [02:18:24] So this has been so amazing, so powerful. I'm in love with today and you guys in this interview. So you guys became whistleblowers. I mean, I want one really quick thing. It was mind boggling to watch the vow and to see that so much of the, the, the behaviors that you guys had to engage in to try and become whistleblowers in an effective way to take down. You were able to film all that. So like you had a camera crew following you as you're strategizing, as you're brainstorming, and then as you're like taking him down. And that's, that's a weird element because usually you don't have like an HBO backed film crew sort of chronicling your takedown of a high, of a global, high demand cult.

Sarah Edmondson [02:19:10] Right. And keep in mind that HBO came, got involved later.

John Dehlin [02:19:13] So New York Times was your first.

Sarah Edmondson [02:19:14] New York Times was a big first press. And then we did a lot of other press. Meanwhile, we were documenting for ourselves. Just like with private camera people who know how to work the camera.

John Dehlin [02:19:23] Yeah. So you hired, you hired the camera crews originally hoping that someone would pick it up.

Sarah Edmondson [02:19:29] It wasn't Even that were documenting it to. Mostly for self preservation.

John Dehlin [02:19:33] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [02:19:34] At the beginning. Remember the first time Mark sent Anthony to come film us, it was like we just got to get, like, just document. So Mark knew it wasn't that they were hiring, like, somebody from the community come over, film us. We got to give it. We got to tell people what's happening right now, like, get it on tape. And then Jahan, who's one of the filmmakers who had taken our training, was like, we got to do something with this. And then it became more formal and that, like, you know, there was a production company involved.

Nippy Ames [02:20:00] Later, they sold the January of 18. They took what footage they had collected for the last six months and sold the concept. That's when things cranked up.

Sarah Edmondson [02:20:10] Okay. That's when things turned up. So then it was, like, for a while, it was just. We were filming ourselves.

John Dehlin [02:20:15] That's even cooler.

Sarah Edmondson [02:20:16] Yeah. I was filming with my cell phone. You know, we were.

John Dehlin [02:20:19] You know, that's an act of faith. Like, we. I come from a religious standpoint. Yeah, you guys had a lot of faith.

Sarah Edmondson [02:20:24] You know, what we did, and we've talked about this a lot in our podcast, is that we came from such a dark place, and all of a sudden, there was so much support and light and good people that just popped out of the woodwork and held our hands and made it.

Nippy Ames [02:20:35] And I think that's because we put a lot of goodwill into the world with what we were doing previously under a dark regime, that this is karma coming back.

Sarah Edmondson [02:20:45] So. Yeah.

Nippy Ames [02:20:46] And I don't speak in those terms very often, so for me, I really. When it happens to you, it kind of. It's kind of undeniable.

John Dehlin [02:20:52] Yeah. And I have to say, Mark and Bonnie are so lovable, and they come through in the vow. And there's. I'm sure there's just so many people that have been an important part of this takedown, but I'm sure at that point in the vow, when he escapes to Mexico, and then you guys are all wondering, what's going to happen? Is he going to flee? It reminds me of Wild, Wild country, you know, when the. When. Go ahead.

Sarah Edmondson [02:21:18] Oh, well, we were actually watching Wild, Wild country, and there was this part where he was, like, being taken on a bus and, like, they call it diesel therapy, where they, like, they drag the leader out and give him a hard time. That was literally happening to Keith at the same time as we were watching Wild, Wild Country.

John Dehlin [02:21:31] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [02:21:31] We were like, our lives are so crazy. I mean, how many people did you know in their 40s that have worked with the FBI and like taken down a criminal organization and put a leader in jail for 120 years. Like at least a pretty. That's when you asked me last night, like, do you want to talk about other things? I'm like, it's kind of the most interesting thing in my life. I can talk about daycare and my green juice habit and stuff like that, but it's not quite as interesting.

Nippy Ames [02:21:54] The good doctor.

Sarah Edmondson [02:21:55] And the good doctor. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:21:57] Yeah. So you're. You're like, are they going to get him and they nab him? And when they nab him, I'm just like. It was like this euphoric moment. It's like, they got it and you guys are crying.

Sarah Edmondson [02:22:06] And as far as I know, season two is more about the trial, you know, what happens Wednesday.

John Dehlin [02:22:11] So there's a season two.

Sarah Edmondson [02:22:12] Season two coming in the first quarter, apparently 2022. And there's more interviews with the inner circle. Apparently they interview Nancy and Lauren and more people from Mexico and more of the inner circle.

John Dehlin [02:22:23] Yeah. Oh yeah.

Nippy Ames [02:22:25] The people that are still loyal, but I don't know if they signed off on it or not.

Sarah Edmondson [02:22:28] Yeah. They interviewed the. What we call the loyalists, also known as the flat Earthers.

Nippy Ames [02:22:31] Cuz they want to curate it. They want to control the narrative. And look, none of their story holds up under like two or three questions. And they know that and the truth.

John Dehlin [02:22:45] That's the weird parallel when I think about Joseph Smith is he ends up in prison, lynched, killed. All of it comes out in the papers. Fast forward 180 years. The most powerful global world religion and church in the United States for sure.

Sarah Edmondson [02:23:02] More.

John Dehlin [02:23:02] No, no church in the United States has more power and money. And so. And it was an almost identical founding.

Sarah Edmondson [02:23:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:23:10] And so like people continue to believe. Beliefs are so resilient. And the worst thing you can do is make a martyr out of your founder because then you just give fuel to the ongoing beliefs. And I was just really quickly, like Gerardo, it turns out I didn't learn this until I was watching the vow that he had a really strong presence in Mexico. He was able to get like sons of like former presidents of the company to get involved. And it was really starting to spread in Mexico and it's already.

Nippy Ames [02:23:37] It was bigger in Mexico than it was in the United States.

John Dehlin [02:23:39] Becoming a global movement. Right.

Nippy Ames [02:23:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:23:41] And who knows if it's. It may. It may peter out, but it could continue because so many religions.

Sarah Edmondson [02:23:48] Yeah. You know, look, without Keith calling the shots.

Nippy Ames [02:23:52] Yeah. And it's It's. It's like eight to ten people that are. And I just don't.

John Dehlin [02:23:57] I mean, maybe, but. But like. But like, founder of Scientology. Help me, people. I'm spacing. L. Ron Hubbard died. And then there's David Miscavige, Joseph Smith dies. Then there's Brigham Young. It can't happen is all I'm saying.

Sarah Edmondson [02:24:13] There's. Honestly, there's nobody that's loyal that I trust that could do.

Nippy Ames [02:24:17] There's no one competent.

Sarah Edmondson [02:24:18] Yeah, there's no one competent.

John Dehlin [02:24:19] The difference now is the Internet.

Sarah Edmondson [02:24:20] Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, we had trouble recruiting even before this happened. People would go on, People Google them.

John Dehlin [02:24:26] They would Google branding.

Nippy Ames [02:24:27] I can't tell you how many people I lost that were going to do it.

Sarah Edmondson [02:24:31] And then they went online, Googled it, and like, probably 90%.

John Dehlin [02:24:34] So here's the biggest problem. We're going to end on this because you guys are here for thrive. What's thrive? It's literally just like, hey, ex Mormons, you've been conditioned to believe you can't be in happy and healthy and have a good family and raise good kids without a religion. That's what the church conditioned you to think and feel, and you've lost all your friends and family. So thrive is literally just like, hey, you can find healing and joy after your religion, and there are people who can help you find healing and joy. And that's why we brought you guys. Okay, here's the rub. Because even if Nexium dies out and even if Mormonism dies out, guess what? Our children. What. What do you call. This is a joke, kind of a dark joke. What do you call the children of secular people who have left high demand religions? What do you call those children? Kara, do you know the. Do you know the punchline of the joke?

Sarah Edmondson [02:25:20] Cult members and embryo. I don't know.

John Dehlin [02:25:22] Yeah. Fodder for the next cult. Because even. Even if. Ding, ding, ding. You win a prize, Kara. You win. You get an A today. Thank you. Because even if. Even if Nexium and the Mormon Church implodes, the next Keith Renari or Joseph Smith is right around the corner. And so how do we raise children that come to adulthood, get to college, become smart and enlightened and educated that have the tools they need so they don't feel like they need to fill their hole inside with. With. With some predatory cult members teachings that are always self improvement. It's not a cold, it's just self improvement. And then they don't see the signs, and then they get sucked right back in. And it. But it may not be a religion. It may be essential oils. It may be an mlm. It may be a yoga or a guru. It may be a beverage, a special beverage. Like, there's a million cult operators. And I know this is kind of the direction you guys hopefully want to go at some point. It's more of a theoretical, rhetorical question, but that's what keeps me up at night now.

Sarah Edmondson [02:26:28] Yeah, us too. We talk about anything you want to

John Dehlin [02:26:30] say, and then we'll have you guys tell us all the things you're doing to help me.

Nippy Ames [02:26:33] Mine's short.

Sarah Edmondson [02:26:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:26:34] Okay.

Nippy Ames [02:26:36] Whatever impulse you have to join these things, it's normally because you're not feeling a certain way that you don't. Like. You're supposed to feel that way.

John Dehlin [02:26:43] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [02:26:44] It's called growth. You're supposed to feel that way in your 20s.

John Dehlin [02:26:47] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [02:26:47] You're supposed to maybe feel a little confused. That's part of it.

John Dehlin [02:26:50] Yeah. It's not a sign that you need not.

Nippy Ames [02:26:53] It's not. It's not a sign of anything. And for me, I had always had a schedule. I was playing sports. I didn't have to face that stuff until I was 24, 25.

Sarah Edmondson [02:27:03] Right.

John Dehlin [02:27:04] Because you're performing.

Nippy Ames [02:27:04] Because I was always. I was. Well, I always had something.

John Dehlin [02:27:06] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [02:27:07] That wasn't exposing that to me. Then I was like, okay, I'm 24, 25. I don't have skill sets. Go build them. That's what most people in their 20s are doing. You're building them.

John Dehlin [02:27:17] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [02:27:18] It's normal.

Sarah Edmondson [02:27:18] And then finding a community that's in the world, healthy community, without a leader. Like, you don't need a leader.

John Dehlin [02:27:23] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [02:27:24] You know, it doesn't. You don't need a guru. You've got your own inner guru. We just did a podcast called Free youe Inner Guru, Someone else's that we really liked. How do you. How do you nurture that in kids so that they feel like they can have the tools themselves? Or, like, read a book, but don't, like, take a workshop, you know, you don't have to. How do you make those decisions? I don't know. I don't have the answer.

Nippy Ames [02:27:43] I said something. I said something in a podcast that the guy liked and extracted and maybe it's applicable. Find someone who's doing what you want to be doing at the highest level and figure out what they did.

John Dehlin [02:27:53] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [02:27:53] You don't have to.

Nippy Ames [02:27:54] You don't have to do that. But it'll open up another door that go, okay, what I'm doing is similar to them, but I like this avenue a little better.

John Dehlin [02:28:02] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [02:28:02] You know, and I actually.

Sarah Edmondson [02:28:03] You don't have to join a group to do that, though.

Nippy Ames [02:28:05] I actually did that when I was 14 years old. I read a book about Bill Bradley, who was a center of New Jersey and basketball player at Princeton.

John Dehlin [02:28:12] Senator.

Nippy Ames [02:28:12] Yeah. And I was like, I want to go play basketball at Princeton. That was my goal at 14, 15 years old. Right. I played all my sports and then I pursued that and then it opened up other stuff in football and it ended up being something similar.

Sarah Edmondson [02:28:25] So showing people a path that's healthy and not. Not dogmatic and, and open to question, you know, and transparency.

Nippy Ames [02:28:35] Listen to your parents.

Sarah Edmondson [02:28:36] All the opposite things of a cult.

Nippy Ames [02:28:38] Listen to your parents too.

John Dehlin [02:28:40] I mean, there's a book that we've covered in depth on Mormon stories called Recovering agency, which is a book about identifying the tools of cults and high demand religions. They're yanya. But what's the.

Sarah Edmondson [02:28:52] Danielle, let's take back your life.

John Dehlin [02:28:53] Take back your life.

Sarah Edmondson [02:28:54] My personal bible for healing.

John Dehlin [02:28:56] There's Stephen Hassan's books about combating mind control.

Sarah Edmondson [02:28:59] Freedom of mind.

John Dehlin [02:29:00] Yeah. But we need to become more literate about how to detect a high demand religion right out of college or, you know, when your career is sagging so that you can see those signs early and not tamp down your inner voice that's saying, danger, danger, Will Robinson.

Nippy Ames [02:29:17] Right.

John Dehlin [02:29:17] So you can detect them and stay away. Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [02:29:19] I'm really passionate about teaching people that.

John Dehlin [02:29:22] Yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [02:29:22] What, what those red flags look like. How to acknowledge that intuitive signal and not override it because you're trying to like, please someone or because you trust somebody. But like really listening to that instinct that we all had at some point and then we overrode it for some other reason which was well intentioned. It's not bad. It's normal.

John Dehlin [02:29:41] But the most, I think the most complex part of all of this is you said don't join a group or whatever. The problem is we're tribal. Like, it goes back that we need a tribe. And so like as I'm, as I'm like trying to develop thrive, it's just like people are alone, they're lonely. Then we just held a retreat. I'm thinking, oh man, I don't want to become Keith Renee. We hold retreats and workshops. Right. And all these people come and they need support. We ask them what's the number one thing you miss or need? You know what they say?

Sarah Edmondson [02:30:05] Community. Yeah. You know, so you can take the workshop and you can go to a retreat. You just can't make it your life.

Nippy Ames [02:30:12] And that's when it can't be consequences to leaving.

Sarah Edmondson [02:30:15] Yeah, you can. And you can come and go freely. There's no shame if you leave. And.

John Dehlin [02:30:19] But communities are hard to build. And as soon as you start building a community, then you have rules and you have leaders, and then it. You always have to be like, as I'm watching the vow, I'm thinking, I never want to do that. I can see how that can happen. Oh, I can see how you can get popular. I can see how people can start liking you. I can see how you can start wielding, undo, Influence. Influence on your employees. And I'm like, every step along the way, I'm like, wow, that's a. That's a pothole. Yeah. And, you know, for me, pothole for me and more. Everything for Thrive, like, every single step along the way.

Nippy Ames [02:30:48] Everything throughout history, too. Like, the Constitution had checks and balances in it. They understood that to a certain degree. And so they have things that four years here and then you're out, and then. Or eight.

John Dehlin [02:30:59] Term limits.

Nippy Ames [02:30:59] Term limits and all that stuff. So I, you know, balance of power

John Dehlin [02:31:02] is a separation of powers. Right.

Sarah Edmondson [02:31:03] So I'm part of the. Similar to you with your. With Thrive, I'm part of hashtag I got out, which is a mixture of experts and survivors and whistleblowers. And we're trying to expose the shame and help people tell their stories so that we change the stigma and all that. But even still, there's a group of people and there's dynamics. We all come from cults and we're laughing about, like, here we are. How do we do?

Nippy Ames [02:31:23] Overheard some of the meanings and have been like, oop, yeah.

Sarah Edmondson [02:31:26] But we're. But we're aware enough to go, okay, we gotta get this.

Nippy Ames [02:31:29] No, it's not.

Sarah Edmondson [02:31:30] But. But we're human. We're all human doing our thing.

John Dehlin [02:31:33] We got to figure it out.

Sarah Edmondson [02:31:34] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:31:35] Well, the book is Scarred by Sarah Edmondson. It's an amazing book. I have not finished it, but I will. The movie, the documentary is The Vow on HBO nine part series for season one. Season two coming in 2022. Tell us about your amazing podcast and everything else you want to plug in to our audience, because these are rhetorical questions. We've got to figure this out.

Sarah Edmondson [02:31:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:32:00] And let's do it together.

Nippy Ames [02:32:01] Yeah, for sure.

Sarah Edmondson [02:32:01] Yeah. That is largely what a little bit culty is. We talk to the survivors podcast, right? Yeah, well, it's a little bit culty. So we're looking. We're looking at things that are just a little bit. And then full on cults. And we mostly talk to whistleblowers, survivors, experts. Often they're experts that are used to be survivors. So almost everyone comes from a cult or researchers on cults. And we just have really wonderful conversations and we try to really come up with the red flags that are the template for people so they don't join in the first place. Or they can get out if they're in it, or they can heal if they're already out.

Nippy Ames [02:32:34] And the precursors to things that, if you're confused on it, these might give you a language to where the abuses that you couldn't articulate before might be. Or not.

Sarah Edmondson [02:32:45] Yeah. Instead of saying that's a little bit culty. Well, specifically it's culty because it's insular or because there's one person at the top, then no one's holding him accountable. Or you can't speak of what's happening inside of it or secrecy, like very specific things of what makes it a little bit culty or fully culty. So giving people those terms, I think has been really helpful. And it's helpful for us. Like, we're. We're still figuring, yeah, we have great

Nippy Ames [02:33:07] conversations with interesting people. We're actually having the conversations that we thought we were having.

Sarah Edmondson [02:33:11] Yeah. Because, like, Nibbie and I are the same people. We joined Nexium because we wanted to grow and we want to help other people. And now we get to actually help other people. It's very rewarding.

Nippy Ames [02:33:19] And finding an. Finding an arena to do it in was, you know, one of the things that lured me in DSP as well. I thought of law, I thought of other things, and it just didn't feel like those were the avenues. And this presented itself and this seemed like an avenue to go in. And I chose poorly.

Sarah Edmondson [02:33:39] But look where we are now. Look at the conversations we get to have. Like, where we are.

Nippy Ames [02:33:42] To my point earlier, I found something that I felt like was. Was right. And then it pivoted me here. And I think if you're on that journey, you're going to find it eventually.

John Dehlin [02:33:51] You probably can't answer the question of whether you are, looking back, wish it had never happened, or, like, are so grateful for the growth that you are. Are at peace.

Sarah Edmondson [02:34:00] I'm at peace.

Nippy Ames [02:34:01] Really?

Sarah Edmondson [02:34:01] Yeah.

Nippy Ames [02:34:02] I wouldn't change anything, really.

Sarah Edmondson [02:34:06] Not alcoholic beer.

Nippy Ames [02:34:07] I wouldn't.

John Dehlin [02:34:08] You really wouldn't.

Sarah Edmondson [02:34:09] After all that, I mean, like, you can't live in that way. Like, obviously with face, with certain decisions. I wish I had made a certain, like, you know, it would have been great. And I always wonder sometimes what would have happened if I'd pursued acting and not Nexium and can't live that way. I have to. You can't, because you. Then you're just stuck in something.

Nippy Ames [02:34:25] We're still alive and we're still have a lot of our lives ahead of us.

Sarah Edmondson [02:34:29] I wouldn't have met him. I would have had my two beautiful boys, who I love, you know, with all of my heart. I love our lives now. It's full of meaning, it's full of purpose, is what I was looking for in the beginning. So can I just ask, what do you think when you are getting out of the shower and you do see the branding on your hip? Oh, I had it removed. You did have it removed. Okay, so it's not like a trigger that you have to look at and remind yourself. No, I had plastic surgery that was actually paid for by a philanthropist who heard about the story. And this has helped some of the other women get theirs removed as well. Now it's just a thin. I can show you later. Maybe not on camera, but it's a white thin line, smaller than a C section. Okay. It's almost gone because. So you don't have to have, like, an emotional reaction every time you see it. I had it very, very faded after two and a half years of creams and lotions and exfoliating and. And I got it down to very thin white line. But I could still see KR in the mirror. And I saw a plastic surgeon. She was like, if you really want this off your body, which I think you do, then we just got to cut it out. So they literally, like, it's. It was this big, and they cut it shape like this around it, cut it out, and then sealed it back up. Oh, so it's just gone. Like, they literally cut the skin.

John Dehlin [02:35:38] My append.

Nippy Ames [02:35:39] Appendectomy scars. Probably worse.

Sarah Edmondson [02:35:41] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:35:42] I love that look.

Nippy Ames [02:35:43] I told you the universe greeted us and took care of us in many more ways than we could have anticipated and even thought we needed.

Sarah Edmondson [02:35:52] And to answer your question, Cara, before I had it removed, it fueled me to fight. It wasn't a trigger of what had happened to me. It was a trigger about why I need to speak up about it.

John Dehlin [02:36:02] That's a great reframe. Love that reframe.

Nippy Ames [02:36:04] I told her, try the initials are Keith Richards, not Keith.

John Dehlin [02:36:08] Yeah, didn't work.

Nippy Ames [02:36:11] I'm a stone.

John Dehlin [02:36:11] I get that reference, but that's because I'm old. Keith. Who?

Nippy Ames [02:36:15] Keith Richards.

John Dehlin [02:36:17] Well, I mean, it's a reframe, but it's also really good mental health to say, if you've been through something hard, how are you going to turn it into something where you're benefiting the lives of other people? And that is why you guys are so inspiring to me, because you've taken difficult things in pain, and now you're turning around and trying to bless other

Nippy Ames [02:36:38] people's lives, turning a negative into a positive.

Sarah Edmondson [02:36:40] Read something to you.

John Dehlin [02:36:41] And then also, what is extra special to me, and I think Sarah, Karen, Gerardo, and Margi are going to agree with this, because they're all here in studio, is that you are willing to come bless our people because sometimes you can't see it in your own organization. But if somebody else from a different organization comes to you and takes the time, you guys could have not come. You could have probably made a lot of money doing other things. You came at a discount. But you have a lot of other things you can do with your time. You came to Utah to help bless our people, and you blessed us with things we can't provide ourselves, which is an outside perspective to view and to learn from to actually ironically see ourselves better. You've done that. You're not just helping your own Nexium survivors, you're helping us and. And many other groups as well. And I can't. And in Kara, I think so. Well said.

Sarah Edmondson [02:37:36] Right?

John Dehlin [02:37:37] And we can't thank you enough for doing what we can't do ourselves.

Nippy Ames [02:37:41] Isn't that what both groups professed to do in the first place?

Sarah Edmondson [02:37:45] Now we can actually do it, right? Somebody sent me this meme. I want to read it to you real quick.

John Dehlin [02:37:49] Love it. This how we'll end on this.

Sarah Edmondson [02:37:50] When we Recovered Loudly. Oh, God. Now it's gone. Hold on a second.

John Dehlin [02:37:54] No problem.

Sarah Edmondson [02:37:56] Take two. When we recovered loudly, we keep others from dying quietly. So this is the Recovered Loudly podcast. If you wouldn't need to.

John Dehlin [02:38:07] I just got a tingle. I just felt the Holy Ghost.

Sarah Edmondson [02:38:10] Is that. Is that a revelation?

John Dehlin [02:38:11] Yep. When we recover loudly, we keep others from dying quietly. If you care's doing the air snaps,

Sarah Edmondson [02:38:18] I do the air snaps. If you need a title for this podcast, it could be called Recovering Loudly. Sarah and Nippy.

John Dehlin [02:38:24] That's your next book.

Sarah Edmondson [02:38:25] Oh, yes.

John Dehlin [02:38:26] It's like how to. Because I've never heard that before.

Sarah Edmondson [02:38:29] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:38:29] And you can cite it and it's like, you can be the next Glennon Doyle or better.

Sarah Edmondson [02:38:33] I said I wasn't Going to write another book. It was so stressful. But if. If preparing for this weekend and for the speech tomorrow is like, I have learned a lot. If I could, like, package it to something that, like, people could take because I'd like pulled from all these different things and I could.

John Dehlin [02:38:49] Getting out is just step one. It's healing and growing.

Sarah Edmondson [02:38:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:38:53] That's the whole point is the healing and growth.

Sarah Edmondson [02:38:55] Getting a new community, Educating self love, self care.

John Dehlin [02:38:59] All right.

Sarah Edmondson [02:38:59] Reclaiming your time and your values. Learning to deal with emotions, finding healthy practices.

John Dehlin [02:39:04] Stay tuned for the next episode of Mormon Stories with Sarah and Nippy. Come back in about a year. Year two. Love you guys back. We'll help you promote your book because it was born here.

Sarah Edmondson [02:39:16] Yes, it was born here.

John Dehlin [02:39:17] All right. Love you guys. Support. How can people give you money or

Sarah Edmondson [02:39:21] support you by buying the book is great. I also narrated the audible. If you want to hear me speaking it.

Nippy Ames [02:39:29] Going to listen a little bit culty.

Sarah Edmondson [02:39:31] Listen to a little bit culty. Follow your friend. Instagram. I'm on Instagram. You tell my friend. Tell your friends. Tell your friends to follow us. Sarah Edmondson, Anthony Ames. A little bit cultier. All on Instagram. We are working on setting up a foundation for survivors and not just of Nexium, but that's in the works.

John Dehlin [02:39:45] So love it.

Sarah Edmondson [02:39:46] Stand by.

John Dehlin [02:39:46] Okay.

Sarah Edmondson [02:39:47] Yeah.

Closing Thoughts and Resources

John Dehlin [02:39:48] All right, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you value this content, please become a supporter of Mormon stories@mormonstories.org you can become a monthly donor. Hope you enjoyed Thrive. This is after Thrive. We'll keep doing Thrive as long as it's helpful, but let's all be good to each other no matter what and learn the critical thinking skills and the coercive techniques of high demand religions and cults so that you don't leave one cult to join another. That's the lesson for today. Sarah, Nippy, we love you guys. Let's go see a jazz game. All right. And let's go to Thrive.

Sarah Edmondson [02:40:21] Okay.

John Dehlin [02:40:21] Kara, it's so awesome to have you. Thanks for joining us.

Sarah Edmondson [02:40:25] It was amazing to hear. Yeah, I, when I have those headphones on and I was like, this is the most intense thing I've ever heard come through these headphones. So I hope everyone listening to the podcast feels the same way too. So, yeah, thank you guys for sharing. That was an incredible story. I'm sure it was kind of summarized really densely, but yeah, I hope, I hope people enjoyed that as much as I did.

John Dehlin [02:40:43] And Gerardo and Margi off camera, we love you guys and we're to going. Glad you're here and you guys make what we do possible, so love you guys. Thanks so much. All right, take care, everybody. See you guys soon on more stories. Bye.

Sarah Edmondson [02:40:54] Peace.

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