Please note this episode contains explicit sexual references cults. Well, isn't it weird that all of the Armageddon seven and yeah, I guess one will one day and one prophet will have called it. Yeah, correctly, we're like nail. Then we're like, oh, you're all dead. Damn we're joined the wrong cult. This is was I in a cult? I'm your host, Tyler, me some along with me, Liz I ACCUSI And today is part two of Guenevere's story In and Out of a Cult. Now, if you haven't listened to part one, we highly recommend you do that first. I mean, otherwise you wouldn't learn about the time that Liz had Hope shoved up a rass if that's the main reason, yeah, or perhaps because it's filled with music and movies and pop culture singing. Yeah, it is a great story, though told by Guenevere, who is a great storyteller. I mean, obviously because she is a screenwriter. But she's able to recall wonderful events about her childhood, mostly because I wrote in a diary every day. Mostly everyone wrote in their diaries. I mostly I would write about like to takee we listened to? Who arrived or who left. I'm ten and eleven in this one, the earliest one that I have. I'm obsessed with the fact that I don't want to hang out with those young kids because they're making me childish and I'm a grown up. I'm ten. When I was a kid, that used to call me the little forty four year old, and there was a reason for that. In the family, kids weren't allowed to be kids. Children as young as five couldn't show emotion, complain, or even get out of line. I was that kid who would like read an entire book that was made for grown ups, but I would have no clue what it was about. But I would have read every word and been like, Yeah, I've read that book. Now let's catch you guys up. As you recalled, Guenevere is part of a Boston based commune led by the messianic musician Mel Lyman and his right hand, the millionaire painter's daughter Jesse Benton. And when we last left Guenevere, she had just been quote boked by Jesse and Mel's daughter Daria and ushered into the inner circle of the mel Lynman family. Jesse and whoever she wanted to bring with her would migrate to Martha's Vineyard for the summers, in l A for the winters, and that was two cross country trips a year. It kind of went Boston, Kansas, l A, Kansas, Martha's Vineyard. I moved among all of those places at least five times, so it's like this whole long caravan trip back across the country. I remember as really fun because they had a CBE radio. My CB handle was J nine because I was nine, so you know, there was like talking to trucker's, you know, and then sometimes we would play like is day nine over? That's it. I was so excited to say nothing, just to press the button and say something and just be excited. When they were like copy J nine, I'm like, yes, Gwenevere is living her best life. After all, she gets to travel with the king and the Queen. They had a limousine, like a silver limousine with the license plate that said the letter you the number are all one. That was the point card, and then they had a fancy camper that was sort of where the adults were, and then we had a renovated school bus that said venus or bust on the side of it. I am not kidding, and that was the kids bus. The bus was also known as Stupiter, so it would be like four or five vehicles, and we would camp every night until we made it to our destination. And on those camping trips, Mel would often pull out and his beloved banjo. Now remember this wasn't just any man playing the banjo, this was God playing the banjo, and his followers they believed he was God. He was sent to save the world, but not world people. Just again, world people being anyone outside of the Mail Lineman family. You know, one thing I often get asked is do these cult leaders actually believe their own bullshit? You mean their dogma, correct their dogma, i'm that ma. I'man believed what he was saying, like he wasn't making it all up to keep people. So yeah, I guess that makes you crazy because it's like the spaceships were not going to come and they were not going to bring us to Venus. Totally the behavior of a crazy person. I realized that this particular person defines a lot of who I am, but also it's challenging to me but also feels like my family. Even after all these years, there's a part of me that just doesn't want to speak ill of him. It's still there, which is interesting. But at ten years old, Mel was still an enigma to one of her I didn't know anything about him. I mean, we were given these books, and we were told the legend of who he played with, and you know how the family came to be. Now, as you recall, it was Mel who wrote a book that started this particular movement. Oh no, it's more than just a book, Tyler. It's his masterpiece, titled Autobiography of a World Savior. It was full of his ideas, although confusing, if you decide to believe it, and it's not terribly written, you know, only it's of compelling in like a lot of rhetoric in coercion groups, high control groups. If you want to find meaning, there's meaning to be found. Or you're like, that's just giberous and it doesn't make any sense. Here's a little taste. We'll let you decide. All the old rules just don't work anymore. I know, I tried them all and they were too limiting. They were made for a lesser man than me. If I have to write up a whole new set of commandments and creeds and laws and constitutions to make people freer. I'll sit right down and lay it out and whatever way best serves that purpose, and I will say this is where it's at, and this is the lot. And don't you dare not believe these words, or you'll go straight to hell. And I'll be making up as fast as I'm writing it. There is only one truth that you must love more, and whatever that means to you is the truth for you. And there is nothing else to say. I have a few things to say, like, for example, what the hell was that Mel's drivel? I think they call that and Guenevere, she is a bit of an expert at deciphering it. In among the sort of ranting nous of it is, you know, fight, make your own rules, challenge people. I mean, what can go wrong? Mel also wrote another book entitled Mirror at the End of the Road. It's more of a memoir. A lot of it is sexually graphic, like here, I just saw something September nineteen sixty three, New York. Moderation is the key. Too much pussy is bad for the soul and pecker. But I'm definitely not getting too much pussy. In fact, I voluntarily abstained from sex play. You see, I can't seem to funk without love motivations, and I can't fall in love with a pussy. And then I'm told this is a gas and everybody seems to be doing it. I guess I just missed that boat and I missed that pussy. Oh so, essentially Mel is saying he can't have one night stands. He needs to be in love to have relations. So he's the hope was romantic? Is that our first hope was romantic? Call Later we've covered perhaps it's the first one who openly uses the word pussy, but he just have pussy unless he has loved motivation. He used pussy and pecker in one paragraph, perfect, perfectly positioned pussy and pecker pontification. Kudos mel Lyman. We just read them right about them, memorized them. Sort of religious text for us growing up, Just like somebody read that to your eight year old. See what they say? Well, I bet we could conjure up a Bible verse that rivals it. Here's Exodus, chapter twenty two, verse sixteen. If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife. I prefer male's version. It was a bit more flowery and it came from the heart. Obviously, women found him incredibly compelling. He had thirteen kids with nine different women, all of whom lived together and managed to be fine with it. But it wasn't just adult women that mel was with. Man again, mil Lemon had a thirteen year old girl that lived in a room off of his room. That girl would have to like wait on him hand and foot, and no boys were allowed to go anywhere near her. Was their sexual abuse. I don't know how weird that got as time went on, but I'm guessing didn't go well. Unfortunately, the leader wasn't the only one with the teenage servant, barf. It was just adult men taking twelve thirteen year old girls, and all of a sudden, that girl was meant to serve him and sleep in his room and just follow him around and do whatever he wanted. Like, I don't know what was really happening. So this is from my diary. So it's March first of nine, also known as O two. I am an eleven year oldgo when I'm writing this, so just making it names right now. Sadie is a thirteen year old girl, and Bob his own thirty five year old man. Dearest Lavigna, every diaryde named this was Lavigna. Nothing at all to tell you, Oh yes, exclamation point. Something Linda told me about Sadie. Well, what happened was Sadie sleeps in Bob's room on a cot next to his bed in case he wants anything. And Bob was mad at Sadie, so when he woke up, he told Sadie to go stand near the closet and put her face to the wall so he didn't have to see her. She did, and she stayed there for three and a half hours, just stood there. Exclamation point. Bob was terribly mad, so he told her she couldn't go to school. She sat around in the kitchen all day. He came downstairs and asked her what she was doing and she said nothing. He said he hadn't had lunch yet, and she said oh. He asked her nicely if she would make him some and she said, I don't know what you want. This made Bob furious. He locked her up in her room, then wrote, sad exclamation point. Good night. Given that I started start out my passage oh, nothing really did to tell today. Oh wait, I didn't have an emotional reaction. I didn't understand yet because I was too young, Like I can't express the injustice. Soon Mel started to fade from the leadership position. He was actually really sick and he didn't want people to see him sick, so he had changed the schedule so you kind of never saw him. He would be up all night and sleep all day, and someone else stepped up as the de facto leader, Jesse Benton. Once he was receding, she took over and sadly for the world because it couldn't be saved anymore. In March of mel Lyman died, although legally his death is not confirmed. There was no death certificate. There's a conspiracy there that he just got sick of being a co leader and moved to Europe or whatever, so he faked his death like Elvis. Oh here we go. You know, Liz, I wrote a term paper in college all about Elvis faking his death. I don't necessarily believe it, but it's a very fun rock and roll conspiracy. So I did think I saw Elvis at Burger King recently. I think you're right. I think if the King. We're going to eat a burger. It would be from Burger King, And how would you order it? I'll take a seven Walberg's. Oh, y'all got French FROs back there like much. That's really good enough. Elvis So with mel now dead or playing Banjo's somewhere in a conspiracy theory rock band with Elvis and Tupac and the community closed off to the outside world, there were no new people. People sometimes got kicked out, but no new people came. People had kids, so those kids are new blood, but no new blood adults my generation. By the time they were teenagers, they were like, you have to let us at least go to a public school, because like we can't marry each other, we need fresh blood. There was a two week period where they decided here in l A that they were going to send us all the public school. It was a disaster. We were all just like huddled in a corner. We were scared, and we were clearly also probably released it out because we're all these weird kids who only talked to each other, all came at once. Sure she may have been the outsider in public school, but back home, Guenevere was still very much the privileged, cool girl hanging out with the exclusive inner circle. But there was one woman in the group who had it out for her, mostly because Gwenevere looked like her mother. She just did everything in her power to trip me up. And because of that, I was so nervous around her that I kept sucking up like I got soapen the baby's eyes. And the final straw was everybody was cooking for dinner and I was tasked to make the sald dressing and I shook the bottle and I didn't close it properly enough, and I sprayed her completely with salad dressing. Then I was shipped out the next day at five o'clock in the morning, with nobody to say good by to me. She was sent from Martha's vineyard back to the farm in Kansas. Why I was suddenly just like shunned and sent away, I don't know what anyone's logic was, but it was devastating, you know. I was totally demoted. In some ways. It was very like high school, because people would be popular and then not popular with like one Queen Bee. It was like you just fall out of favor. I fell out of favor. But all was not lost for our little share Horowitz. Because I had just been living with Jesse and the cool kids for you know, years. I was like, oh my god, I'm like such a rock star here. But because this was a cult and not Bronson alcohol high school, her rock star status didn't last long. You're throwing out references I don't know, as if clueless bingo. So one of your continued living and working on the farm, and then one day we are the kids house and then somebody called. They said you're wanted at the big House, just the adult house. To me, everybody was like, I can't be good. So she went to the big House right as the adults were having dinner and approached the man seated at the head of the table and he told me, your mom laughed. Her mother, as a reminder, had been on a separate compound for eight years, so when she heard the news that her mother had indeed left the mel Lyman family kind of fake cried because I thought that's what was expected of me. But I didn't really feel that bad about it because sadly, she had no real connection to her birth mom. Then he told me that I had to go. Mel's dogma constituted that in order to be a child in the group, you had to have one biological parent also in the group, which is part of the mind fuckery of it. All. Right, we don't value nuclear families, yet you need your nuclear family to validate your existence within the group. So I like really begged to state. She begged to stay in the cold. She was twelve. It was her everything, Her entire life was all she knew. The man listened to her appeal, then gave her instructions, and he was like, go talk to so and so in Boston. So they sent me to Boston on a plane by herself, and all she remembers is staring at the window and crying, but also like working out my speech, coping that I could make a case for myself. So one of your landed in Boston and she was taken to the main house and stood before one of the leaders, one of the more powerful men, and twelve year old Guenevere pled her case with all of her might, but it fell upon deaf ears, and he said, you have to go now. But if you really, really really don't like it out there living with your mom, you can come back when you turn eighteen. It messed with my head for years, and then they drove me and my sister, who was four at the time, to my grandmother's house, which is in New Jersey. I had met my grandmother once and it was there where she saw her birth mother for the first time in years. Her mother stood in the doorway, looked right at her daughter and said, I never thought i'd see you again. That is what she said. I never thought i'd see you again. I'm like, I'm you areld Yeah, that was but it wasn't mad at her. My biggest thing was like, see, like she doesn't want me, like, let me go back, but her mother refused. She wouldn't let me, which is a good thing, but I hate her for it at the time. I spent the rest of that year, like every week being like okay, mom, they said I could go back. I want to go back. Guenevere now felt like an outsider everywhere. I remember that my very first day of school was the middle of the school year. It was lunch, so I just was walking in there with my mom and meeting the teacher, and there was one girl in the class and she just was running out of the room. She's just like the Hamsters and the zigatte the Hamsters and the zigatte and I was like, I'm never going to make it in this world. They just built the models. They were out in the class. Hamster got stuck in it. But like to me, it was just like, this world is crazy. I don't even or a cigarette is I'm not gonna make it. Why had ams to be in there? By the way, A ziggarette is a large terrace compound built an ancient Mesopotamia, great scravel wring. It just was very daunting, and also at that time, I was starting to look around and see that I for sure was dressed differently with limited access to the outside world. Guenevere was stuck in. A decade earlier, I was wearing green valure bell bottoms which I made. They had big pockets all the way like halfway down my thigh, which I loved, and a blousy kind of thing that I made with it was white with big purple flowers on it in a tie right here tie in different and brown boots that came up to my knees and hair of course down to my ass, all of which I thought was so super fly that outfit would kill today, But at the time it was nine, not nineteen sixty nine, and now everyone had feathered hair and was wearing designer jeans. I was miserable and sad and alienated and lonely and had no one to talk to. And it wasn't a pretty transition. I was constantly trying to catch up and figure out what was socially acceptable and how it could be cool. And I was a weirdo. Not so much a weirdo, perhaps, but conflicted. She had been told her entire life that the kids that were now her peers were evil, but she was used to a certain level of cloud from her days with Daria, so if one of your couldn't win them over with her appearance, she would find another way. I quickly emerged and had an identity as like a smart kid, even though I wasn't a cool kid. There was a level of respect there, but kids will be kids. There was two girls who I think feel sorry for me, like I was like a project for them because I was obviously such a weirdo. I learned pretty quickly once I started talking about where I really came from that they just couldn't handle it. So I would say things like talk about the banjo or like bing Crosby, and I could just see him the look on their face that like it was too weird. They weren't curious, like what, why would you? They were just like, oh, weird, kids are dicks. So I think my biggest project in that first year was learning to hide where it came from and working really hard to assimilate. So at the time I got to high school to ninth grade, there wasn't a trace of cult on me, even though at the time she still did not know that it was a cult. And while school life came with its challenges, so did life at home with her mother. And why did her mother leave mel and the family in the first place. I think that she probably didn't really ever want to be there in the first place. And I think that this man that she was with, who is the father of my brother and sister, he was going to leave, and so she saw like a way out, like I was a person to go out into the world with together and figure out how to make a non CULTI life. But it's important to note that just because you physically leave a cult doesn't mean you're actually out. Basically, my mom Josily with a man who wanted to be a cult leader and tried to replicate that life that he wasn't allowed access to in the cult in his own little minicult and he would have pictures of my lineman on the walls, and he would do a lot of things that were as if we were still in the family. The man that my mom left with was a horrible, abusive person. Thankfully, they escaped and they all moved in with her grandmother. My grandmother was like, let me teach you all whatever restraining order is a useful tool to have. And finally Guenevere seemed to be free from the cult, free from domineering angry men. I was going to go back in the New Jersey school. I had gotten a job at the mall, and life seemed like it was going to be okay. And then one day she was home alone with her younger brother and sister, just blasting the radio. My youngest sister, Julie, was really cute. She could sing the words to Cyndey Lauper's True Colors, but like she couldn't actually say the words, so she would just be like truecal And so I was just having a gayl time with my brother and sister, thinking that I was safe and this man just shows up. You want to be mail Lineman walked into the room and he was just standing there and he said, it's time for you all to come home. And I was like, I don't know what to do, and so I said, well, I have to go to work. Can you please just take me to work, and you know, we'll just figure this out. And so I got to work my job in the mall. I called my boyfriend. Her boyfriend, Brian, knew all about the prior abuse occurring at her mother's home. And Brian said, my dad said that you can come stay with us and that he will adopt you. It didn't you believe that it could be true that it was happening. But I said to my mom, I'm leaving. I can't deal with this. Sadly, her brainwashed mother moved back in with the abusive, minicult leader, but Guenevere I packed my suitcases. I left and went to Brian's house, and eventually his dad became my legal guardian. He never ever asked me what happened. I think he knew enough from Brian. She had finally found a home, a real home. In high school was awesome because it was just my boyfriend's dad. Then his dad was a lovely man and let me do whatever I wanted. So like my house was the party house. I was like in the play and the editor of the newspaper, and my new persona was way more popular. Soon she graduates from high school and she begins to prep for college. And before she embarks on this big, scary journey into a young adulthood full of the unknown, she thinks about her previous life in the Lineman family, about the camaraderie, the safety. At a thought pops into her head. Something one of the leaders told her on the day she got kicked out. You can come back when you turn eighteen. And here she was, finally eighteen years old. I don't think I fully admitted it to myself, but I think I was wanting to see what it would feel like. So she went back to the Boston compound. It had been six years of detoxing the cult from her life, yet she walked in and was like, it's home. All of a sudden, it all just looked like rose colored glasses. Like it was just really I just felt really at home, and I'm like, these are my people. And then like a lot of them were like, you know, don't go to college. Stay here like you on, never have to work another day in your life, and you can be with us, and this is where you belong. Now, Guenevere's back living with the family, and she falls right into step with the group as if not a day had passed. She felt loved and accepted. It's just been so interesting because I really have been so focused for most of my life on my experience of this family, these people, that I haven't really ever looked at it as an adult. She had now been living back on the compound for one whole week, and then one night, everybody's hanging out after dinner and there was a man, one of the more powerful men, who was sitting in a chair and I was sitting on the floor next to him. A lot of people were sitting on the floor, and his wineglass was empty, and he just went like this like handidate to me without saying anything, meaning phil it, and all of a sudden it was like click. I just looked around and like, oh, if you're a woman here, you have to serve men and you have to do what they say. And I was like, noope, I'm going to college. One little gesture was just like everything got crisp for me. Yeah for misogyny, for it saved her life. Correct, college was exactly what guenever needed. She was smart, exploring, experiencing, doing all the things you're supposed to do in college bong heads and pig stands, and you had a very different college experience than I is. Did you do yes about Elvis? Yes? Nonetheless, Gwenevere put her upbringing in the rear view mirror as if it had never existed. But sometimes objects in the rear of your mirror may appear closer than they really are. I was twenty two. I think I was with my first girlfriend and she heard everything about my life and upbringing and struggles, and she said, you really need to go to therapy, and I was like, I don't want to go to therapy. I guess it was raised to believe that therapy it's for pussies. Oddly enough, you don't need to have been raised in a cult to feel this. Many people of my generation, men especially, are afraid of therapy. They think it's for the week. Someone once said to me that therapy is a privilege, not a punishment. But I went because, you know, my girlfriend was going to break up with me, but I didn't whatever it takes to get you there, right. So, being the great storyteller that she is, she enraptures a therapist with tales of her childhood living on a commune and she said, that doesn't sound like a community, sounds like a cult. And I was like, oh, like Jim Jones, Charles Man like cult. The therapist gave her literature from the Cult Awareness Network, which is an organization that helps rescue individuals from cults, and then reading all this anti cult stuff, I was defensive. I was surprised. I was like, they don't understand this life, and they're like putting this particular spin on it that makes everyone who lives in alternative life evil or aberrant in some way. But after a year of therapy and reading the Cult Awareness newsletter, at some point I had decided, Okay, I guess you would call when I grew up in a cult. Full disclosure, The Cult Awareness Network, which was found in had helped tens of thousands of individuals leave cults. This network went bankrupt in nineteen nine. It was however, purchased and is now currently being run by none other than scientologists who use it as a form to convince callers that scientology is not a cult. Full disclosure. It is what I would say, I grew up in a commune. People would be like, oh, hippie parents like free love, Like, well you must have been. Now when people ask me, I can't say I grew up in a cult. And that wasn't necessarily easy for her to admit that it's all a sham. Means you have to kind of like tear down your house of cards and start all over. Like my mom, she still can't talk about it. She's still it's just like, you know, it was weird. There was a different era. I said to college education or an intelligent person, like just start here. You knew that even scientifically human beings cannot actually live on venus because of the actual environment. And she's like, it's complicated until one does the work to actually heal from the trauma induced by a cult or any abusive relationship for that matter. Denial is a really great tool. And the Lyneman family, I suppose they're done now. Oh no, Tyler, they're still rocking on across the country, including a compound right here in Los Angeles. It's in West Hollywood. It's a very unassuming gate, but inside is two houses, a pool at tennis core in the school house, you know, pretty sizeable piece of property. And then Jesse's brother's paintings are like hanging everywhere in the house with millions of dollars. I live next to West Hollywood. Should we jump the fence? You know, we could play a couple of sets, cool off in the pool and swipe an original Benton. You bring the sunscreened, I'll bring the ladder perfect. We will be robbing this compound and next week you'll love new hosts. And the group is also rolling in it due to a highly profitable construction company called Fort Hill Construction, which is actually really successful here in l A. They built an extension on Madonna's house and they do well working on celebrities houses because celebrities trust like we're not going to talk about you and you're not gonna talk about us. So weirdly, it's like you could be in a call, it could be a celebrity. But celebrities get better tables at restaurants. Naturally. Gwenevere has taken a few positive things from her upbringing in the cult, but one is rather unique. You guys, remember how the girls were taught to embroider. As girls, we were never allowed to not be doing something with their hands if we were inside. So like, those houses are full of chairs with hand embroidered seats, and now she uses that skill for more than chairs. You know the bear in Griffith Park, the statue that's that's that's right. When you got Franklin, I went through a phase where I would make clothes for that bear, crochet clothes for that bear. Shoe fact. NPR did a story on me. Actually, if you were among the thousands of Angelina's who visited Griffith Park yesterday, you may have noticed a pair of bunny ears on the statue of the bear that stands at the entrance to the park. At various times, that bear has been clad in later hosen and in a jumper decorated with hearts lovingly crocheted by an anonymous yarn artist, Captain Hook. As she's asked me to call her for this story, sits in the front seat with a lap full of crocheted Granny squares. So why did she take up this very specific hobby. I just got through a bad breakup, so I was like I could become a heroin addict or I could put all my energy into this really weird pick. I probably put like fifteen outfits on that bear in two thousand eleven, and then other people started doing it. It was like this whole cool thing. When she first started clothing the bear in October, little did she know she was part of an international movement of so called yarn bombers, people stitching cozy's onto public fixtures like stop signs, parking meters like reclaimed my needlework trading, And when a scarf appears around the bear's neck later that week, she feels that maybe her work here is done and contemplates moving on. I was just looking at the other day, and there's a dolphin in Santa Monica somewhere that is actually standing much like the bear fins out. When I saw that, I was like, dude, your days are numbered, and so how does one of your survive today? Well, by dressing bears and Liederhosen, by writing, and by facing her cult passed head on. I mean, I guess the survivor is someone who has found a way not to live in that trauma every minute. I found a way to not live in trauma. First of all, by not letting it define me, which is a tricky space because obviously here I am talking about it. I think it's powerful to put forth that people who either were born into cults or who joined them at points in their lives are not people with spirals for eyes. You know, We're just normal humans who gets sucked into various things, are born into various things and survived them and figure them out and figure it out. She has She continues to write screenplays. In fact, she recently wrote the movie charl Lee Says, which just so happens to be about the Charlie Manson cult, but focuses on the point of view of the women who killed for him. Guenevere also has a memoir coming out. We are so excited to read it. I am so excited to read it too. Can give a time machine, and I'm just dying to jump into it and be like at the book party of which we're invited to write Guenevere, I'm gonna come dressed in embroidered Liederhosen, and I'm going to come dressed as nine Guenevere, but I will look like nineteen sixty nine Guenevere, except my hair doesn't grow that long anymore. I can't wait for the party, please invite us. Thank you Guenevere for coming to the studio not once, but twice to share your inspiring story with us, and folks, keep a lookout for her memoir coming soon. She's not sure of the release date yet, but once we know it, we'll share it with you. But while you wait for her story, there are plenty of other great stories right here on was I an a Cult? Including this one from next week. The leadership just naturally accumulated more wives than anybody else. It was kind of a confirmation that God saw them as a more righteous order member by blessing them with another wife. The leader of the order he's got twenty seven wives. And in the meantime, if you're a hamster, stay out of the cigarette, lad crucial. Was I in a Cult? Story? Produced and written by myself, Tyler Meso and me Lizaia Cuzi. Executive producer is Maya Cole Howard. Supervising producers Catherine Burt Canton. Audio editor is the amazing Chandler may. Additional story producer is Ari and our super fan of this week is Dr Whitney Blanket Ship. Thank you so much for discussing our podcast Thanks Whitney, we appreciate it. Visit us that was I in occult dot com and learn how you can support the podcast on Patreon

Please note this episode contains explicit sexual references cults. Well, isn't it weird that all of the Armageddon seven and yeah, I guess one will one day and one prophet will have called it. Yeah, correctly, we're like nail. Then we're like, oh, you're all dead. Damn we're joined the wrong cult. This is was I in a cult? I'm your host, Tyler, me some along with me, Liz I ACCUSI And today is part two of Guenevere's story In and Out of a Cult. Now, if you haven't listened to part one, we highly recommend you do that first. I mean, otherwise you wouldn't learn about the time that Liz had Hope shoved up a rass if that's the main reason, yeah, or perhaps because it's filled with music and movies and pop culture singing. Yeah, it is a great story, though told by Guenevere, who is a great storyteller. I mean, obviously because she is a screenwriter. But she's able to recall wonderful events about her childhood, mostly because I wrote in a diary every day. Mostly everyone wrote in their diaries. I mostly I would write about like to takee we listened to? Who arrived or who left. I'm ten and eleven in this one, the earliest one that I have. I'm obsessed with the fact that I don't want to hang out with those young kids because they're making me childish and I'm a grown up. I'm ten. When I was a kid, that used to call me the little forty four year old, and there was a reason for that. In the family, kids weren't allowed to be kids. Children as young as five couldn't show emotion, complain, or even get out of line. I was that kid who would like read an entire book that was made for grown ups, but I would have no clue what it was about. But I would have read every word and been like, Yeah, I've read that book. Now let's catch you guys up. As you recalled, Guenevere is part of a Boston based commune led by the messianic musician Mel Lyman and his right hand, the millionaire painter's daughter Jesse Benton. And when we last left Guenevere, she had just been quote boked by Jesse and Mel's daughter Daria and ushered into the inner circle of the mel Lynman family. Jesse and whoever she wanted to bring with her would migrate to Martha's Vineyard for the summers, in l A for the winters, and that was two cross country trips a year. It kind of went Boston, Kansas, l A, Kansas, Martha's Vineyard. I moved among all of those places at least five times, so it's like this whole long caravan trip back across the country. I remember as really fun because they had a CBE radio. My CB handle was J nine because I was nine, so you know, there was like talking to trucker's, you know, and then sometimes we would play like is day nine over? That's it. I was so excited to say nothing, just to press the button and say something and just be excited. When they were like copy J nine, I'm like, yes, Gwenevere is living her best life. After all, she gets to travel with the king and the Queen. They had a limousine, like a silver limousine with the license plate that said the letter you the number are all one. That was the point card, and then they had a fancy camper that was sort of where the adults were, and then we had a renovated school bus that said venus or bust on the side of it. I am not kidding, and that was the kids bus. The bus was also known as Stupiter, so it would be like four or five vehicles, and we would camp every night until we made it to our destination. And on those camping trips, Mel would often pull out and his beloved banjo. Now remember this wasn't just any man playing the banjo, this was God playing the banjo, and his followers they believed he was God. He was sent to save the world, but not world people. Just again, world people being anyone outside of the Mail Lineman family. You know, one thing I often get asked is do these cult leaders actually believe their own bullshit? You mean their dogma, correct their dogma, i'm that ma. I'man believed what he was saying, like he wasn't making it all up to keep people. So yeah, I guess that makes you crazy because it's like the spaceships were not going to come and they were not going to bring us to Venus. Totally the behavior of a crazy person. I realized that this particular person defines a lot of who I am, but also it's challenging to me but also feels like my family. Even after all these years, there's a part of me that just doesn't want to speak ill of him. It's still there, which is interesting. But at ten years old, Mel was still an enigma to one of her I didn't know anything about him. I mean, we were given these books, and we were told the legend of who he played with, and you know how the family came to be. Now, as you recall, it was Mel who wrote a book that started this particular movement. Oh no, it's more than just a book, Tyler. It's his masterpiece, titled Autobiography of a World Savior. It was full of his ideas, although confusing, if you decide to believe it, and it's not terribly written, you know, only it's of compelling in like a lot of rhetoric in coercion groups, high control groups. If you want to find meaning, there's meaning to be found. Or you're like, that's just giberous and it doesn't make any sense. Here's a little taste. We'll let you decide. All the old rules just don't work anymore. I know, I tried them all and they were too limiting. They were made for a lesser man than me. If I have to write up a whole new set of commandments and creeds and laws and constitutions to make people freer. I'll sit right down and lay it out and whatever way best serves that purpose, and I will say this is where it's at, and this is the lot. And don't you dare not believe these words, or you'll go straight to hell. And I'll be making up as fast as I'm writing it. There is only one truth that you must love more, and whatever that means to you is the truth for you. And there is nothing else to say. I have a few things to say, like, for example, what the hell was that Mel's drivel? I think they call that and Guenevere, she is a bit of an expert at deciphering it. In among the sort of ranting nous of it is, you know, fight, make your own rules, challenge people. I mean, what can go wrong? Mel also wrote another book entitled Mirror at the End of the Road. It's more of a memoir. A lot of it is sexually graphic, like here, I just saw something September nineteen sixty three, New York. Moderation is the key. Too much pussy is bad for the soul and pecker. But I'm definitely not getting too much pussy. In fact, I voluntarily abstained from sex play. You see, I can't seem to funk without love motivations, and I can't fall in love with a pussy. And then I'm told this is a gas and everybody seems to be doing it. I guess I just missed that boat and I missed that pussy. Oh so, essentially Mel is saying he can't have one night stands. He needs to be in love to have relations. So he's the hope was romantic? Is that our first hope was romantic? Call Later we've covered perhaps it's the first one who openly uses the word pussy, but he just have pussy unless he has loved motivation. He used pussy and pecker in one paragraph, perfect, perfectly positioned pussy and pecker pontification. Kudos mel Lyman. We just read them right about them, memorized them. Sort of religious text for us growing up, Just like somebody read that to your eight year old. See what they say? Well, I bet we could conjure up a Bible verse that rivals it. Here's Exodus, chapter twenty two, verse sixteen. If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife. I prefer male's version. It was a bit more flowery and it came from the heart. Obviously, women found him incredibly compelling. He had thirteen kids with nine different women, all of whom lived together and managed to be fine with it. But it wasn't just adult women that mel was with. Man again, mil Lemon had a thirteen year old girl that lived in a room off of his room. That girl would have to like wait on him hand and foot, and no boys were allowed to go anywhere near her. Was their sexual abuse. I don't know how weird that got as time went on, but I'm guessing didn't go well. Unfortunately, the leader wasn't the only one with the teenage servant, barf. It was just adult men taking twelve thirteen year old girls, and all of a sudden, that girl was meant to serve him and sleep in his room and just follow him around and do whatever he wanted. Like, I don't know what was really happening. So this is from my diary. So it's March first of nine, also known as O two. I am an eleven year oldgo when I'm writing this, so just making it names right now. Sadie is a thirteen year old girl, and Bob his own thirty five year old man. Dearest Lavigna, every diaryde named this was Lavigna. Nothing at all to tell you, Oh yes, exclamation point. Something Linda told me about Sadie. Well, what happened was Sadie sleeps in Bob's room on a cot next to his bed in case he wants anything. And Bob was mad at Sadie, so when he woke up, he told Sadie to go stand near the closet and put her face to the wall so he didn't have to see her. She did, and she stayed there for three and a half hours, just stood there. Exclamation point. Bob was terribly mad, so he told her she couldn't go to school. She sat around in the kitchen all day. He came downstairs and asked her what she was doing and she said nothing. He said he hadn't had lunch yet, and she said oh. He asked her nicely if she would make him some and she said, I don't know what you want. This made Bob furious. He locked her up in her room, then wrote, sad exclamation point. Good night. Given that I started start out my passage oh, nothing really did to tell today. Oh wait, I didn't have an emotional reaction. I didn't understand yet because I was too young, Like I can't express the injustice. Soon Mel started to fade from the leadership position. He was actually really sick and he didn't want people to see him sick, so he had changed the schedule so you kind of never saw him. He would be up all night and sleep all day, and someone else stepped up as the de facto leader, Jesse Benton. Once he was receding, she took over and sadly for the world because it couldn't be saved anymore. In March of mel Lyman died, although legally his death is not confirmed. There was no death certificate. There's a conspiracy there that he just got sick of being a co leader and moved to Europe or whatever, so he faked his death like Elvis. Oh here we go. You know, Liz, I wrote a term paper in college all about Elvis faking his death. I don't necessarily believe it, but it's a very fun rock and roll conspiracy. So I did think I saw Elvis at Burger King recently. I think you're right. I think if the King. We're going to eat a burger. It would be from Burger King, And how would you order it? I'll take a seven Walberg's. Oh, y'all got French FROs back there like much. That's really good enough. Elvis So with mel now dead or playing Banjo's somewhere in a conspiracy theory rock band with Elvis and Tupac and the community closed off to the outside world, there were no new people. People sometimes got kicked out, but no new people came. People had kids, so those kids are new blood, but no new blood adults my generation. By the time they were teenagers, they were like, you have to let us at least go to a public school, because like we can't marry each other, we need fresh blood. There was a two week period where they decided here in l A that they were going to send us all the public school. It was a disaster. We were all just like huddled in a corner. We were scared, and we were clearly also probably released it out because we're all these weird kids who only talked to each other, all came at once. Sure she may have been the outsider in public school, but back home, Guenevere was still very much the privileged, cool girl hanging out with the exclusive inner circle. But there was one woman in the group who had it out for her, mostly because Gwenevere looked like her mother. She just did everything in her power to trip me up. And because of that, I was so nervous around her that I kept sucking up like I got soapen the baby's eyes. And the final straw was everybody was cooking for dinner and I was tasked to make the sald dressing and I shook the bottle and I didn't close it properly enough, and I sprayed her completely with salad dressing. Then I was shipped out the next day at five o'clock in the morning, with nobody to say good by to me. She was sent from Martha's vineyard back to the farm in Kansas. Why I was suddenly just like shunned and sent away, I don't know what anyone's logic was, but it was devastating, you know. I was totally demoted. In some ways. It was very like high school, because people would be popular and then not popular with like one Queen Bee. It was like you just fall out of favor. I fell out of favor. But all was not lost for our little share Horowitz. Because I had just been living with Jesse and the cool kids for you know, years. I was like, oh my god, I'm like such a rock star here. But because this was a cult and not Bronson alcohol high school, her rock star status didn't last long. You're throwing out references I don't know, as if clueless bingo. So one of your continued living and working on the farm, and then one day we are the kids house and then somebody called. They said you're wanted at the big House, just the adult house. To me, everybody was like, I can't be good. So she went to the big House right as the adults were having dinner and approached the man seated at the head of the table and he told me, your mom laughed. Her mother, as a reminder, had been on a separate compound for eight years, so when she heard the news that her mother had indeed left the mel Lyman family kind of fake cried because I thought that's what was expected of me. But I didn't really feel that bad about it because sadly, she had no real connection to her birth mom. Then he told me that I had to go. Mel's dogma constituted that in order to be a child in the group, you had to have one biological parent also in the group, which is part of the mind fuckery of it. All. Right, we don't value nuclear families, yet you need your nuclear family to validate your existence within the group. So I like really begged to state. She begged to stay in the cold. She was twelve. It was her everything, Her entire life was all she knew. The man listened to her appeal, then gave her instructions, and he was like, go talk to so and so in Boston. So they sent me to Boston on a plane by herself, and all she remembers is staring at the window and crying, but also like working out my speech, coping that I could make a case for myself. So one of your landed in Boston and she was taken to the main house and stood before one of the leaders, one of the more powerful men, and twelve year old Guenevere pled her case with all of her might, but it fell upon deaf ears, and he said, you have to go now. But if you really, really really don't like it out there living with your mom, you can come back when you turn eighteen. It messed with my head for years, and then they drove me and my sister, who was four at the time, to my grandmother's house, which is in New Jersey. I had met my grandmother once and it was there where she saw her birth mother for the first time in years. Her mother stood in the doorway, looked right at her daughter and said, I never thought i'd see you again. That is what she said. I never thought i'd see you again. I'm like, I'm you areld Yeah, that was but it wasn't mad at her. My biggest thing was like, see, like she doesn't want me, like, let me go back, but her mother refused. She wouldn't let me, which is a good thing, but I hate her for it at the time. I spent the rest of that year, like every week being like okay, mom, they said I could go back. I want to go back. Guenevere now felt like an outsider everywhere. I remember that my very first day of school was the middle of the school year. It was lunch, so I just was walking in there with my mom and meeting the teacher, and there was one girl in the class and she just was running out of the room. She's just like the Hamsters and the zigatte the Hamsters and the zigatte and I was like, I'm never going to make it in this world. They just built the models. They were out in the class. Hamster got stuck in it. But like to me, it was just like, this world is crazy. I don't even or a cigarette is I'm not gonna make it. Why had ams to be in there? By the way, A ziggarette is a large terrace compound built an ancient Mesopotamia, great scravel wring. It just was very daunting, and also at that time, I was starting to look around and see that I for sure was dressed differently with limited access to the outside world. Guenevere was stuck in. A decade earlier, I was wearing green valure bell bottoms which I made. They had big pockets all the way like halfway down my thigh, which I loved, and a blousy kind of thing that I made with it was white with big purple flowers on it in a tie right here tie in different and brown boots that came up to my knees and hair of course down to my ass, all of which I thought was so super fly that outfit would kill today, But at the time it was nine, not nineteen sixty nine, and now everyone had feathered hair and was wearing designer jeans. I was miserable and sad and alienated and lonely and had no one to talk to. And it wasn't a pretty transition. I was constantly trying to catch up and figure out what was socially acceptable and how it could be cool. And I was a weirdo. Not so much a weirdo, perhaps, but conflicted. She had been told her entire life that the kids that were now her peers were evil, but she was used to a certain level of cloud from her days with Daria, so if one of your couldn't win them over with her appearance, she would find another way. I quickly emerged and had an identity as like a smart kid, even though I wasn't a cool kid. There was a level of respect there, but kids will be kids. There was two girls who I think feel sorry for me, like I was like a project for them because I was obviously such a weirdo. I learned pretty quickly once I started talking about where I really came from that they just couldn't handle it. So I would say things like talk about the banjo or like bing Crosby, and I could just see him the look on their face that like it was too weird. They weren't curious, like what, why would you? They were just like, oh, weird, kids are dicks. So I think my biggest project in that first year was learning to hide where it came from and working really hard to assimilate. So at the time I got to high school to ninth grade, there wasn't a trace of cult on me, even though at the time she still did not know that it was a cult. And while school life came with its challenges, so did life at home with her mother. And why did her mother leave mel and the family in the first place. I think that she probably didn't really ever want to be there in the first place. And I think that this man that she was with, who is the father of my brother and sister, he was going to leave, and so she saw like a way out, like I was a person to go out into the world with together and figure out how to make a non CULTI life. But it's important to note that just because you physically leave a cult doesn't mean you're actually out. Basically, my mom Josily with a man who wanted to be a cult leader and tried to replicate that life that he wasn't allowed access to in the cult in his own little minicult and he would have pictures of my lineman on the walls, and he would do a lot of things that were as if we were still in the family. The man that my mom left with was a horrible, abusive person. Thankfully, they escaped and they all moved in with her grandmother. My grandmother was like, let me teach you all whatever restraining order is a useful tool to have. And finally Guenevere seemed to be free from the cult, free from domineering angry men. I was going to go back in the New Jersey school. I had gotten a job at the mall, and life seemed like it was going to be okay. And then one day she was home alone with her younger brother and sister, just blasting the radio. My youngest sister, Julie, was really cute. She could sing the words to Cyndey Lauper's True Colors, but like she couldn't actually say the words, so she would just be like truecal And so I was just having a gayl time with my brother and sister, thinking that I was safe and this man just shows up. You want to be mail Lineman walked into the room and he was just standing there and he said, it's time for you all to come home. And I was like, I don't know what to do, and so I said, well, I have to go to work. Can you please just take me to work, and you know, we'll just figure this out. And so I got to work my job in the mall. I called my boyfriend. Her boyfriend, Brian, knew all about the prior abuse occurring at her mother's home. And Brian said, my dad said that you can come stay with us and that he will adopt you. It didn't you believe that it could be true that it was happening. But I said to my mom, I'm leaving. I can't deal with this. Sadly, her brainwashed mother moved back in with the abusive, minicult leader, but Guenevere I packed my suitcases. I left and went to Brian's house, and eventually his dad became my legal guardian. He never ever asked me what happened. I think he knew enough from Brian. She had finally found a home, a real home. In high school was awesome because it was just my boyfriend's dad. Then his dad was a lovely man and let me do whatever I wanted. So like my house was the party house. I was like in the play and the editor of the newspaper, and my new persona was way more popular. Soon she graduates from high school and she begins to prep for college. And before she embarks on this big, scary journey into a young adulthood full of the unknown, she thinks about her previous life in the Lineman family, about the camaraderie, the safety. At a thought pops into her head. Something one of the leaders told her on the day she got kicked out. You can come back when you turn eighteen. And here she was, finally eighteen years old. I don't think I fully admitted it to myself, but I think I was wanting to see what it would feel like. So she went back to the Boston compound. It had been six years of detoxing the cult from her life, yet she walked in and was like, it's home. All of a sudden, it all just looked like rose colored glasses. Like it was just really I just felt really at home, and I'm like, these are my people. And then like a lot of them were like, you know, don't go to college. Stay here like you on, never have to work another day in your life, and you can be with us, and this is where you belong. Now, Guenevere's back living with the family, and she falls right into step with the group as if not a day had passed. She felt loved and accepted. It's just been so interesting because I really have been so focused for most of my life on my experience of this family, these people, that I haven't really ever looked at it as an adult. She had now been living back on the compound for one whole week, and then one night, everybody's hanging out after dinner and there was a man, one of the more powerful men, who was sitting in a chair and I was sitting on the floor next to him. A lot of people were sitting on the floor, and his wineglass was empty, and he just went like this like handidate to me without saying anything, meaning phil it, and all of a sudden it was like click. I just looked around and like, oh, if you're a woman here, you have to serve men and you have to do what they say. And I was like, noope, I'm going to college. One little gesture was just like everything got crisp for me. Yeah for misogyny, for it saved her life. Correct, college was exactly what guenever needed. She was smart, exploring, experiencing, doing all the things you're supposed to do in college bong heads and pig stands, and you had a very different college experience than I is. Did you do yes about Elvis? Yes? Nonetheless, Gwenevere put her upbringing in the rear view mirror as if it had never existed. But sometimes objects in the rear of your mirror may appear closer than they really are. I was twenty two. I think I was with my first girlfriend and she heard everything about my life and upbringing and struggles, and she said, you really need to go to therapy, and I was like, I don't want to go to therapy. I guess it was raised to believe that therapy it's for pussies. Oddly enough, you don't need to have been raised in a cult to feel this. Many people of my generation, men especially, are afraid of therapy. They think it's for the week. Someone once said to me that therapy is a privilege, not a punishment. But I went because, you know, my girlfriend was going to break up with me, but I didn't whatever it takes to get you there, right. So, being the great storyteller that she is, she enraptures a therapist with tales of her childhood living on a commune and she said, that doesn't sound like a community, sounds like a cult. And I was like, oh, like Jim Jones, Charles Man like cult. The therapist gave her literature from the Cult Awareness Network, which is an organization that helps rescue individuals from cults, and then reading all this anti cult stuff, I was defensive. I was surprised. I was like, they don't understand this life, and they're like putting this particular spin on it that makes everyone who lives in alternative life evil or aberrant in some way. But after a year of therapy and reading the Cult Awareness newsletter, at some point I had decided, Okay, I guess you would call when I grew up in a cult. Full disclosure, The Cult Awareness Network, which was found in had helped tens of thousands of individuals leave cults. This network went bankrupt in nineteen nine. It was however, purchased and is now currently being run by none other than scientologists who use it as a form to convince callers that scientology is not a cult. Full disclosure. It is what I would say, I grew up in a commune. People would be like, oh, hippie parents like free love, Like, well you must have been. Now when people ask me, I can't say I grew up in a cult. And that wasn't necessarily easy for her to admit that it's all a sham. Means you have to kind of like tear down your house of cards and start all over. Like my mom, she still can't talk about it. She's still it's just like, you know, it was weird. There was a different era. I said to college education or an intelligent person, like just start here. You knew that even scientifically human beings cannot actually live on venus because of the actual environment. And she's like, it's complicated until one does the work to actually heal from the trauma induced by a cult or any abusive relationship for that matter. Denial is a really great tool. And the Lyneman family, I suppose they're done now. Oh no, Tyler, they're still rocking on across the country, including a compound right here in Los Angeles. It's in West Hollywood. It's a very unassuming gate, but inside is two houses, a pool at tennis core in the school house, you know, pretty sizeable piece of property. And then Jesse's brother's paintings are like hanging everywhere in the house with millions of dollars. I live next to West Hollywood. Should we jump the fence? You know, we could play a couple of sets, cool off in the pool and swipe an original Benton. You bring the sunscreened, I'll bring the ladder perfect. We will be robbing this compound and next week you'll love new hosts. And the group is also rolling in it due to a highly profitable construction company called Fort Hill Construction, which is actually really successful here in l A. They built an extension on Madonna's house and they do well working on celebrities houses because celebrities trust like we're not going to talk about you and you're not gonna talk about us. So weirdly, it's like you could be in a call, it could be a celebrity. But celebrities get better tables at restaurants. Naturally. Gwenevere has taken a few positive things from her upbringing in the cult, but one is rather unique. You guys, remember how the girls were taught to embroider. As girls, we were never allowed to not be doing something with their hands if we were inside. So like, those houses are full of chairs with hand embroidered seats, and now she uses that skill for more than chairs. You know the bear in Griffith Park, the statue that's that's that's right. When you got Franklin, I went through a phase where I would make clothes for that bear, crochet clothes for that bear. Shoe fact. NPR did a story on me. Actually, if you were among the thousands of Angelina's who visited Griffith Park yesterday, you may have noticed a pair of bunny ears on the statue of the bear that stands at the entrance to the park. At various times, that bear has been clad in later hosen and in a jumper decorated with hearts lovingly crocheted by an anonymous yarn artist, Captain Hook. As she's asked me to call her for this story, sits in the front seat with a lap full of crocheted Granny squares. So why did she take up this very specific hobby. I just got through a bad breakup, so I was like I could become a heroin addict or I could put all my energy into this really weird pick. I probably put like fifteen outfits on that bear in two thousand eleven, and then other people started doing it. It was like this whole cool thing. When she first started clothing the bear in October, little did she know she was part of an international movement of so called yarn bombers, people stitching cozy's onto public fixtures like stop signs, parking meters like reclaimed my needlework trading, And when a scarf appears around the bear's neck later that week, she feels that maybe her work here is done and contemplates moving on. I was just looking at the other day, and there's a dolphin in Santa Monica somewhere that is actually standing much like the bear fins out. When I saw that, I was like, dude, your days are numbered, and so how does one of your survive today? Well, by dressing bears and Liederhosen, by writing, and by facing her cult passed head on. I mean, I guess the survivor is someone who has found a way not to live in that trauma every minute. I found a way to not live in trauma. First of all, by not letting it define me, which is a tricky space because obviously here I am talking about it. I think it's powerful to put forth that people who either were born into cults or who joined them at points in their lives are not people with spirals for eyes. You know, We're just normal humans who gets sucked into various things, are born into various things and survived them and figure them out and figure it out. She has She continues to write screenplays. In fact, she recently wrote the movie charl Lee Says, which just so happens to be about the Charlie Manson cult, but focuses on the point of view of the women who killed for him. Guenevere also has a memoir coming out. We are so excited to read it. I am so excited to read it too. Can give a time machine, and I'm just dying to jump into it and be like at the book party of which we're invited to write Guenevere, I'm gonna come dressed in embroidered Liederhosen, and I'm going to come dressed as nine Guenevere, but I will look like nineteen sixty nine Guenevere, except my hair doesn't grow that long anymore. I can't wait for the party, please invite us. Thank you Guenevere for coming to the studio not once, but twice to share your inspiring story with us, and folks, keep a lookout for her memoir coming soon. She's not sure of the release date yet, but once we know it, we'll share it with you. But while you wait for her story, there are plenty of other great stories right here on was I an a Cult? Including this one from next week. The leadership just naturally accumulated more wives than anybody else. It was kind of a confirmation that God saw them as a more righteous order member by blessing them with another wife. The leader of the order he's got twenty seven wives. And in the meantime, if you're a hamster, stay out of the cigarette, lad crucial. Was I in a Cult? Story? Produced and written by myself, Tyler Meso and me Lizaia Cuzi. Executive producer is Maya Cole Howard. Supervising producers Catherine Burt Canton. Audio editor is the amazing Chandler may. Additional story producer is Ari and our super fan of this week is Dr Whitney Blanket Ship. Thank you so much for discussing our podcast Thanks Whitney, we appreciate it. Visit us that was I in occult dot com and learn how you can support the podcast on Patreon