Hot Mess Express: Karen Unterreiner on Dating Keith Raniere

[Music] it's time to gather loved ones together for all the holiday's best spread Lind has great prices on all your favorite Thanksgiving items from delicious turkey with all the fixings to mashed potatoes and yummy pies we have everything you need to create your perfect Thanksgiving dinner whether it's cooking the traditional meal completely store-bought or a combination of both your best holiday meal Starts Here learn more and start shopping today at Lind grocery.com Lind where delicious begins the views and opinions expressed by a little bit culty are those of the hosts and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast that's true any of the fire content provided by our guests bloggers sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion group Club organization business individual anyone or anything unless you're abusing people then I have a problem maligning you also we're not doctors psychologists or Wizards we're just two non-experts trying to make you a friendly informative podcast that helps you understand culty [Music] [ __ ] hey everybody Sarah Edmonson here and I'm Anthony Ames AKA nippy Sarah's husband and you're listening to a little bit Cy AKA albc a podcast about what happens when devotion goes to the dark side we've been there and Back Again a little about us true story we met and fell in love in a cult and then we woke up and got the hell out of Dodge and the whole thing was captured in the HBO docu series The Vow now in its second season I also wrote about our experience in my Memoir scarred the true story of how I escaped Nexium the cult that bound my life look at us a couple of married podcasters who just happen to have a weekly date night where we interview experts and advocates in things like cult awareness and mind control wait wait wait this does not count toward date night babe we got to schedule that that's separate so two days we got to hang out we do this podcast thing because we learned a lot on our exit ramp out of Nexium still on that journey and we want to pay the lessons forward with the help of other cult survivors and whistleblowers we know all too well that culty things happen it happens to people every day across every Walk of Life so join us each week to tackle these culty Dynamics everywhere from online dating to mega churches and multi-level marketing this stuff really is everywhere the Culvers just keeps on expanding and so are we welcome to season 5 of a little bit cult serving cult content and word salads weekly on your favorite podcast platforms learn more at a littlebit cult.com down to the deps of the ocean hanging on to the with my [Music] love all could [Music] know happy holidays everybody hi happy holidays everyone how's it going how are you bootness people might want to know why you call me bootness no no no no no we don't have to get into that no I feel like I should tell them you don't think I should tell them no okay I'll save it for another time I'll I'll let you I'll let it be a mystery no there's certain things that are always going to remain private okay we have a guest that we've been wanting interview for a long time but we weren't allowed to oh my God and we were originally going to use this slot to do a season two debrief I know we've been doing a lot of that over on patreon and we were going to do it but we haven't done a debrief for like the whole thing yet for our peeps yes so we're going to do a very very very special season 2 encapsulate the whole thing we're going to ruminate on it over the holidays and record that for the new year for you so stay tuned ruminating is our homework ruminating marinating percolating on season two I think there's a little news flash for the peeps out there we got our place we're going to be able to finally record in the same room oh it's going to be so good just so our listeners know there's like a delay sometimes in rooms and like it's hard to know like when Sarah stopped talking so you you're stepping on me I'm stepping on you and sometimes our guest and just being in the same room and be able to look at you and have cues is going to be I I think going to make our content smoother I wouldn't say necessarily better but it's smoother to listen to which I guess would translate to better but I'm really looking forward to that and having a nice fat comfortable chair to kick back on I can't wait oh no I'm excited I'm excited too and I hope all of you are having a relaxing holidays I know this drops the day after Christmas so if you celebrate that I hope it was festive and not stressful and we are actually about to head back to Canada for the holidays we're super excited about that about to see how all of our friends and family yeah be sure to talk politics with your family yeah don't talk politics just just find the opposing view and run we're just really like touched that this guest agreed to do our first big interview with us and she's somebody who is the goat and yes I'm so old I only recently found out that does not make them a goat but the greatest of all time you serious the goat I mean recently like within the last few months what do you think Troy was asking me the last two three years dad who's the goat and you know what I so funny just behind behind the times speaking of Troy we actually had to have a heart tohe heart recently he was helping us like stuff the book inside the hat that we were sending to the Inner Circle members of patreon Oh you mean that time you got our son to stuff the book with you Brandon into well I was like we had 100 books to stuff and I'm like he's just sitting around let's put this guy you what you're like Merry Christmas kid and he's seen the book but for the first time he looked at the scar and was like he wanted to know and we he knows the basics but now he knows a little more than he knew before he had an appropriate response if I am ever saw Keith I would just knee him in the nuts and I said yeah that's a good thing to do and he goes or I just like put my foot right in his crotch which is sort of the same thing but I gently reminded him you're not going to meet him until you're 125 so our guest today was 18 years old when she met Keith rer at College at their college orientation she then became his girlfriend a companion and many years later a top level Nexium trainer and the subject of his Infamous mind [ __ ] for nearly 40 years it's important to note that the meeting was a few weeks after her father died and that's relevant if you're caught up on season two of The Val you remember Karen unterer as the lady that Mark vente visited with and had kind of the reconciliation only discover Keith's Mom's ashes in a box in her house Keith's mom in a can as one of the top three trainers in nexum Karen has faced some legal scrutiny and some public shade as we all have in the Fallout of the trial and it's important to note she's never in charged with anything and she was very helpful to the prosecution and was not shy about diso the man we call Allan Karen's here today to share more about her experience and chat with us about what didn't make it into the vow please be warned this is about the vou so this is our gift to our Nexium Uber nerds and here's our chat with Karen oner hi hi all right all right all right we're so grateful that you agreed to do this with us we have so many questions and we'd love to and especially our our fans and our listeners and our patreon listeners want to ask you a bazillion questions about the vow specifically but before we get into that for those who don't know who you are will you give us a little overview about who you are and how you got involved in in this whole Nexium [ __ ] show starting with the beginning origin story the original origin story the original origin story I was thinking with the vow I'm actually the prequel to The Vow yes yeah I met what are we calling it these days Allan we call him Allan and Alan I know it just gives me chills every time I say the full name before College even started during freshman orientation we both went to RPI my father had passed a week before I was already very shy and insecure from a lot of childhood not good parenting trauma whatever you want to call it and then my father had just died so he noticed me when I arrived I had an Entourage moving me in h i was dressed like a hippie even though I was very withdrawn he saw the contradiction in my personality and at RPI there was nine men to every woman not a lot of us women there I was on the only floor of all freshman girls my dorm and he made the rounds down the dorm he went and visited everybody and when he stopped at my room we talked for a very long time he was was very mysterious he asked me if I liked older man cuz he was actually a year and a half younger than me he would do lots of weird things like that and then just slowly slowly dropped that he was eastern coast Judo champ which we now we're not sure and different things about him he could play piano and all this stuff he just slowly dropped all that stuff in but he was better looking back then for those of you say how can you do yeah he was better looking back then he was built you know he was muscular yes very muscular yeah very very very big broad shoulders small waist had been doing a lot of Athletics back then um but he and The Feathered back 70s hair you know so I was just like I can't believe this guy's talking to me you know I was just overwhelmed by the attention which you know was now we know is called love bombing we were inseparable pretty much through college I eventually found out I was not the only one in his life but I don't know how he found time cuz we were together so much but he was fooling around with a lot of people I broke up with him senior year cuz he um slept with my best friend over the summer but then he pulled me back I got pulled back in I me he said that while I was separated from him I had a little fling and that was supposed to be my ethical breach because you know he wanted us to never have been with anybody else my ethical breach really was going back he used the term ethical breach even then no it was used later but he did say it he made it like really really bad I left him because he screwed my best friend and he's been SC he was screwing half the campus but I had a one night stand and that made me awful I mean that's the standard Allen thing you know that's what he does y I thought I was still dating him for the following years after college but he was obviously he was living with other people and everything else you know we all were led to believe we were the important one and special one in his life right he just lied later he blamed me for it he told me I told him to lie to him I'm not sure that's true but because I'm sure that's what you wanted yeah after college I moved to Connecticut for a little while became an actuary and I found a job back up here and we moved in together up here eventually got what's now known as flint lock we both own that house that condo though I paid for the whole thing yeah that's the usual of course he technically owns half of it but I paid for everything pretty much but I was working as an act up here and he started consumers by line and I jump Shi from act work at some point and came on full-time at consumers by line which kind of grew up in my living room as did Nexium too later right he needed someone to do the work yeah I would get out of bed leave him in bed go into the office and I knew damn well as soon as I did he told me he wasn't screwing Pam that Pam was sneaking back into my room and and replacing me well I'm working at the office they're having their time together God backtrack backtrack for a second yeah you're living with Keith when did Pam slip into the picture yeah people were asking about Pam Keith had wanted to start a business called Life Learning Institute it was not about ethics but it was kind of the same format is next he ended up being with classes more of like a knowledge Network I know that's what it's called around here just where you could go take adult classes he needed funding so he was on a ski trip with his dad and they were on a gondola with a obviously wealthy man and his daughter Pam so Keith was going for money some people were asking you know does he looking for women with money he definitely was at that point he was looking for funding for that business her dad eventually did help us get the um consumer by line started he gave us a loan to get that going but he was looking for money and that's when he met Pam and brought her in how was that for you of course he claimed he wasn't screwing her as usual he was at first she was just very unusual to me because she was from a very wealthy family she was very ditzy but she was a lot of fun yeah yeah and so we became friends pretty much I didn't know and they would keep their relationship hidden she was kind of angry about that I think we were friends for most of the time how predatorial did he feel at the time did it feel predatorial in hindsight does it in hindsight yes I can see all the gaslighting and the manipulation that was going on it's weird looking back because it's very easy to look back and say oh that was a red flag and I may even seen it as a red flag at the time but he's able to get you to write it off so easily some people were asking about what happens when you confront him one of the hardest times for me was Pam was living in our house with us and I found a contraceptive device of hers on the bathtub she had left it there and so so I confronted him and you would think this is like I mean this is data this Smoking Gun yeah yeah yeah literally I challenged him on it and the scene ended with me on his foot begging him not to leave you know that's how things went in between that he would give me some [ __ ] story that it was for something else which is obviously even then I knew it was obviously crap he'll give you some lie that you can hold on to and then he pulls the thing you saw him do with Camila in the and with Lauren in the trial is he would say oh you're hurting my heart I can't do this with you you're killing me he would say if you ask any more questions I'm and if you want me to answer I can answer but I'll never be able to talk to you again basically threats his health was used a lot in those situations so he's lying which is different than saying oh I am being hurt you know I don't think I think he knows he's not being hurt it's just a tactic he used with every single one of us consistently so that would be praying on your empathy and or need to be a good person he set you up to think you're not a good person and then would play on that like you're desperately trying to be a good person and eventually in nexum he defines what a good person is pretty much so he's setting you up to want to do what he wants you to do in order to be a good person he makes those things line up so he's double binding you into a definition of a good person who's do something that's going to give the person you care about a heart attack you know right you back down in the back of your mind you know you've got a ton of competition for his attention so you're not going to screw up and put yourself on the bottom of that list interesting even when I thought I was the one you know the the only one or the one I knew there was a ton of women in line waiting for my position so you had to stay in line to maintain that attention from him which eventually I lost all the attention from him I barely saw him towards the end with no real explanation was there a time when he admitted about Pam or you just sort of like figured out okay well this is my situation and this is embarrassing but I got desperate I read Pam's diary yeah she was not happy about that yeah no and it was also at the same time that he was about to move in with Tony Natali it was right around right before that so he was having to come clean anyways I mean that made it obvious that he was having a relationship with Tony but I kind of fought to get the truth out of of him but also kind of my way of dealing with it was to if you can't beat him join them right I got to be okay with it you know sort of nobody was really okay with it no but we had to act like that corve control yes you got guilted right Barbara Pam and I became very close while Keith first moved in with Tony so when did Barbara pop in the scene and how was that introduced Barbara was recruited at the beginning of consumer by line she was in a different multi-level marketing company and she got pulled over in into ours she met Keith and then moved herself from Ann Arbor to Albany and was there ever since and then so she helped with consumers by line marketing after it was started so Barbara comes in and she's like this hot shot MLM whiz and I've seen pictures of her back then she's like petite and long blonde hair and yeah she grew her hair longer cuz mine used to be down to my waist cuz Keith would told me not to cut it and so everyone else thought they had to do that too I don't know if he told them to but was growing hers and then she you know had a relationship with him she would hang out in my house when he was over there and she be massaging his feet for hours while he laid on that couch that you see in The Vow she would sit at his feet and massage his feet for hours he's not getting any foot massages no I don't think so no or other kinds of massages he front loaded those in yeah he's he's gotten his chair he's done the karma karma is a real real [ __ ] was his mom still alive at this point no I did meet her when we were in college we went down to New York City to go to a Yes concert he was introducing me to rock and roll we stopped at his mother's on the way she was very eccentric she was a dancer a ballroom dancer but she had a heart condition so she couldn't really do it much anymore but she had that physique she was a little weird I was laughing because she made us craft macaroni and cheese which was a staple we had at school you know that's what that's what all college students make and that's what go home and that's what she made for us she was a very like vibrant person I thought and then we went and visited his dad who lived in New York City with his new wife I could see the tension the mother would complain about him and he would say something about the mother there was tension there obviously with his parents yeah between them between them well she's living in their old house and he's in this fancy apartment on 88th Street in New York City his mother passed I think our sophomore year of college because my father had just passed the first year we were dealing with that and then I think it was sophomore year his mother died around Christmas time what's your take by the way everything I say is what he told me I don't know what's true anymore but what he told me was his father was there so I think this one's true his mother was at her cardiologist funeral and dropped and passed there with cardiologist all over the place and nobody could restore her he said her heart was damaged when she had surgery once she just passed around a whole bunch of cardiologist do you believe that yeah I think that was true cuz his father was there when I was talking to him about that and he kind of dropped out for a semester he didn't really do the next semester that's why he had incompletes for a while and he didn't get his degrees for a little while well that's what he told me yeah yeah I was going to say yeah back then even he thought the faculty at the college were watching him and talking about him and he was already in the conspiracy theory stuff back then oh that started early well the conspiracy the stuff is really blame yeah yeah it gets him out of things little did he know that there would be a modu called blame and responsibility years later that he refused to take so he could hold us to things that standards that he did not right yeah a lot of the modules I think are him hiding in plain sight I think so too y saer yeah the fall expressives shifter I always said how does he know so much about these kind of people and for our listeners those are all names of modules that reveal certain Tendencies and strategies in in human psychodynamics that are clearly of abuse and are clearly Keith now that we know what we know now yeah but back to the ' 80s what were you doing with him for that decade after college after college I moved to Connecticut because it's the insurance Capital world and I was trying to get rid of a recruiter one day and that was on the phone and I said well if you got a job in Albany the next day he called back with a job in Albany in my field in a really good consulting firm so I moved up thinking that okay we just move in with Keith and we'd have you know not realizing he was actually dating other people up here too okay so back to CBI for those who don't know it was a mess it was a mess okay but it was like can you give us the cliff notes it was a purchasing service but it was also multi-level marketing it was supposed to be different multi-level marketing it supposed to be ethical multi-level yeah same old yeah it ended up what his idea was more the conspiracy theory is that we pissed off Amway and Walmart or something and some attorney generals came after us and eventually half the attorney generals came after us and we were in legal battles for years and years but he was like we're the good guys and it eventually took us down we won some of the legal battles because Keith was kind of smart in how he set things up but the money we paid to win the battles put us out of business so the story that we heard was a bit different than that no do you know the story Sarah about Arkansas yeah Arkansas is the people that came after us that he said was a conspiracy because Amway or somebody yeah and Walmart cuz that's where Walmart was founded yeah and one of Clinton's attorneys came after yeah well the reason I brought it up was that it feels like people who are still loyal I think we all know who they are but they say that this is like not the first time this has happened to Keith that he's gotten in the crossfire of unethical businessmen and you know the world's out to get him right this was the beginning of that type of conspiracy right yeah I mean he obviously had it back in college a little bit too but yeah that's the first time he started saying that there's forces out there against him he's done that with everything that he's failed at yeah he did that even with the stock market thing that he did when he lost everybody's money he said there were forces that were teaming up against him and that's why he lost for people who are like still believing in the Nexium tenants how can they say that Keith's the victim like did he not cause this in some way did he not do anything to to bring this upon himself when you're that deep in it there's so much crap coming at you from him that you don't see that inconsistency generally right well also every single behavior is proof that he's being persecuted not evidence that he's averting responsibility it it it actually fortifies their resolve because they go see they're doing it again he's got a response to everything the women are lying I knew the women weren't lying because I had the same conversations with Keith that they claimed they had Lauren with the baby I was promised a baby you know everything is the same they I'm sure they weren't lying because the exact same words he used with me were used with them so CBI was a huge success and then it fails oh it was huge we doubled in size every two months it was growing so fast wow which is what also supposedly scared the different groups because we were moving so fast we could have swayed the vote in New Jersey so what was the scam there what was the problem with it I mean it was definitely multi-level every single person was both a customer and a distributor everything was set up so that you bought and then you sold they had a thing just get two people so it was the tree of all 2 by Two by Two by Two by Two and a lot of money was made by the people at the top of the tree and very little money at the bottom typical yeah people did save and I Heard lots of wonderful testimonials of people that benefited from the service itself but it wouldn't have survived Amazon right that's the early 90s before the interweb yeah before the interweb that Keith invented yeah oh no wa he invented he invented the browser is what we were told where did that come from no tele marketing no the both we heard he invented the browser too oh my gosh he was busy this is the Golden Age of cult recovery the more we speak up and share our stories the more we realize we are not alone your voice and your story can Empower others this is Sarah and I'm proud to be a founding collaborator of the # iot out movement learn more at iot out.org the Frankies were a picture perfect influencer family but everything wasn't as it seemed I just had a 12-year-old boy show up here asking for help he's emaciated he's got tape around his legs Ruby Frankie is his mom's name Infamous is covering Ruby Frankie the world of Mormonism and a secret Therapy Group that ruined lives listen to Infamous wherever you get your podcasts meals bring people together but for many families providing their next meal can be a challenge you can help by participating in Macy's annual feeding the hungry food drive all proceeds go toward local food banks and families now through January 31st you can purchase an icon in store or online or watch out for the blue feeding the hungry shelf tags where a portion of your purchase will be donated to local pantries together we can combat hunger in our local communities at Macy's what year did CBI fail and when did Nexium come into fruition there was something in between we started in 90 around 94 95 I think it closed up at that time Tony natal was in the picture and before it ended he started going into some health care products vitamins and things like that the vitamins and so when it went down he and Tony created National Health Network which was basically stores that sold vitamins and things like that it was also wasn't an I don't know if that one was I don't think that one was an MLM but it had like C you get rebates and things like that Tony was developing that with him it wasn't doing that great it wasn't growing very fast and when she left him the business just ended and just closed down he had already met Nancy so there was a little bit of overlap and then he started up actually no there was overlap but ESP started when National Health still existed cuz was in the it's funny her book says she's the the fall of Nexium but she wasn't actually in Nexium she was in ESP for about six months to a year cuz ESP came first well National Health stff was going he would meet Nancy at the National Health Network at Tony's so there was a little bit of an overlap they were starting up ESP he must have known that the Tony thing wasn't going well because he was starting up the next one before National Health crashed a lot of the questions from our patreon fans I'm not going to read them all but there was a lot of them just wondering how it was for you at different I guess it changed over the years in terms of like the women and like how you felt about it and was it when did it become like an agreed upon thing that we're just doing this like did you use the word polyamory or no no was all tacit you can tell when you listen to some of these women Tony or Barbara me up to a point they all thought they were the one when they were the one some of them still don't realized that while he was with them there was a lot of other sex going on a lot abortion and everything else were happening while he was with them some of them still don't get it you saw in The Vow where Barbara bu got that he was with other women while he was with her but she doesn't really understand the extent of it that's a hard thing for a lot of us to really own that we were never ever special to him now you look at it special to that who cares but right but back then you know it's still hard to believe that you were being calmed that much particularly when it's it's so personal and invasive it's one thing to reconcile being conned or something like that but like a relationship and it's personal and it's you know sexual and intimate and then to have it just be like it's the worst it's the very worst yeah well some people came in knowing Pam knew that he was living with me so she knew there well and also that she had a Hider relationship with him from me but some people knew coming in but some of us thought we were it you know or that he had left the others you know that's one of the saddest things cuz I know there's a lot of people that I I know their healing isn't full because they haven't realized that yet I listen to some of them and they they don't quite get how bad it was threesums four SS did you and Pam ever talk about that like did you ever confront her after the diary thing she was real mad like I said I kind of did the if you can't beat him join them thing so I went the other way I started participating in some of the group activities should we say for a little while the cupcake making yeah yeah you bake together right yes we bake together just since you brought that up and I won't go into details but one of the things that did strike me from The Trial finding out that this was going on and that it was happening often during lunch breaks during trainings and I it always struck me as like how rude that we're all flying in for these you know sometimes 8,000 $15,000 $20,000 trainings and we take a break for lunch and all the higher ranks are late everyone from the not the whole EX board but certain key members in the executive board or the upper ranks are coming back late from lunch like you don't need 2 hours to have lunch no you need two hours to wow yeah even then you don't need two hours I think what's important too is I mean you make light of it but that's the abuse and in a lot of ways that's the collateral he's getting you to do things against your will coercively and he's abusing you it's collateral and he's making it look like oh you know this is normal it's hard to hear you know it's hard to hear because I consider a lot of you guys my friends and like it's just chaps my ass and that's what was going on the worst part is what they call the devaluation phase because you're replaced like he became a threesome with Pam and and Mariana at one point one of the sisters and Jesus I mean there was one time where I saw this is funny Mariana had stolen cake out of the fridge so Keith and I set up a camera to catch her you know it was like a joke but I looked at the film and I see Pam and Mariana kissing in the kitchen and I show it to Keith he then disappears in their room for 2 hours I felt so humiliated he got turned on by seeing them kissing on the film and then just went off with them and left me sitting there cuz you all lived together yeah yeah Pam and her shared a room I was never told they all kind of just left they didn't move out there was a fight with him and Mariana and then they just left and they never came back I'm still waiting I was on post for years something he always talked about leaving someone on post was a bad thing never told why it was just imp that I was not a good enough person to be around him all the time like that or for him to be with yeah it's just implied so you're always trying well maybe if I'm good enough maybe if I get skinny enough maybe if I whatever enough and you're left like struggling and trying to get that back the behaviors you saw where people got really skinny and did other things were trying to hold on I mean Karen I can't tell you how many times we'd be in a training and there'd be someone coming in late crying or whatever and I'd be thinking what's going on and they'd be like I'm working you know my issues and I'd be like it's really not that emotional you know but now we know to do this and well now we know it's like they were off getting literally abused we also couldn't talk about our issues you couldn't mention any displeasure with Keith you know you couldn't mention any kind of unhappiness even in the early days like before Nexium yeah yeah well it got worse well if you did then the others would come the other women would get you like Barbara Pam would attack if I said something negative the system kept it in place he set it up that way but in the beginning you had that and then later you had Nancy if you had a red flag and you're upset about it you went and got an em from Nancy and she basically helped you feel bad for seeing the red flag and for having a problem with it and getting you to feel okay with it which took her a few episodes to come clean not completely though she when she describes how she was sent in to put us back in line she acted like it was something that was bad for her which it is I mean I would I understand that but she doesn't look at what she did with us the lies she said to us making us feel bad for something that we should have felt bad about but there was a lot of that keeping us in line one of the worst things anybody has said since I got out was well the women around Keith were thriving I cried who said that a certain exd doctor male right oh yeah gotcha we had to make believe we were happy I was always in trouble because my state was too low I was depressed yeah I remember thinking that when I met you in 2005 my state was too low is too low and you're harming Keith because your state is too low is what we were told you're supposed to act like you're happy about your situation but we're not none of us pretending nobody was happy yeah right it read as much I mean Sarah when we go to Albany we'd be like we'd be leaving places going back into us like I would joke with Sarah I'd be like it's like we're going to a funeral every time we go to Albany it's just was an awful environment yeah so CBI ends Tony natal is in the picture she breaks up with him Keith meets Nancy how were you brought into Nexium like what was your role at the beginning the beginning used to talk about the five people that started it I was not one of them because I don't do sales I wasn't going to be a recruiter so they took five people that were recruiters I got in a month after it started because in my living room Barbara Jesy was doing things like you know making fun of me because I didn't get the joke I may have said something that was out of cause or something and they all go so I got I got to go figure out what this thing is so I went in and and started with it I quickly went in and started developing the computer system that held the thing together you know that charged people and did all the basically everything my role was that and a little bit of the administration cuz it was tied to my computer system and the beginning at some point I couldn't deal with running the operations of the company anymore because he had you running things with your hands tied you couldn't pay people you couldn't you know compensate people for work you couldn't hire people to do things I mean you had to hire people we knew who were not competent because we didn't want to hire people that we didn't know because he was paranoid it became an impossible job and at one point they offered for me to give it to Claire and I said sure take it they were a little surprised I was so willing that was number of years later yeah took over as CFO it started in '98 I didn't come in until 2005 but I remember being so like how is this a success program with this website that's like so mid90s even when we brought in you know talented people like Mark Venta he would not let us hire and pay people to do something good why do you think that was because I have my theory but you I think you know better my theory because we don't know what was going on in his head because I saw it at the end as things were falling apart was putting my fingers in all the holes of the dam you know he kept us busy trying to keep things going in such a bad environment so you were spinning your wheels all the time trying to make things happen you always felt like you were told it was you you're the reason why things weren't succeeding so you felt bad about yourself and you're very busy that's someone who's really controllable I think that was the motivation he wanted it to be a mess so that he could keep things spinning and also keep us feeling like we're [ __ ] cuz it's not his fault that things are a mess it's ours right he would do it perfectly he used to threaten to like write a program overnight that would replace what we did or something yeah she called his yeah then I would have been in the principal's office he outsourced the punishment what were some of like the biggest red flags along the way either that you EMD away or that you rationalized way or that you didn't understand what you were looking at now that you know what you know oh there's so many but a lot of it had to do with knowing he was telling different stories to different people like I'm a scientist my religion is science you know then you've got people who are very much the opposite and hooky spooky when he' talk to them he'd buy into the energy and all that kind of stuff and make it look like I was just spiritually deficient when he's talking to me he would say yeah I'd say what are you g these people they believe in you know fairies and say yeah I'm doing the best I can I'm trying to get them in line so it's whoever he was with you saw the discrepancies and how he was talking to people the biggest thing I think was in some ways Mariana saved me because we talked about integrity we talked about you can't move up the strip path unless just you know the program within Nexium you had to earn your way everything was integrous that was our big Spiel except when it came to Mariana and that discrepancy in what he said and what he did really stood out because it was right in front of him me in what way she felt special when she got away with things and he'd let her get away with things he'd let her throw a temper tantrum and feed into it and I'd be like with everyone else that's a bad thing but with her it was okay and then she was promoted a number of times where she didn't have the qualifications because he wanted it to happen there were just things in there that just weren't consistent you know she and Pam just slept all day they didn't produce anything but then he gave him a company janess yeah janess too many inconsistencies around her that just didn't go along with what he was teaching and I could not come up with a rationalization for what he was doing he'd say it's more complicated that would be his answer it's more complicated than you can your little PRI brain can understand right making it seem like he knows more than you yeah you just reminded me of something Pam and Esther asked me to help them once during a training like they pulled me out of a training which I was super relieved to be out of the training but to help them like make the phone calls to get people into one of the janess tracks and I sat with them for like a couple hours and I was like these two are completely inept like yeah terrible recruiters no follow through and I was trying to help them even be like you guys like can we get you like an assistant or somebody to like get you food and coffee so because they'd be like let's go get a coffee let's go like get nothing done no I'm like they're green sashes they were higher rank than me or purple Pam was a purple with Mariana it's really sad because Mariana is actually that mean that whole family everyone saw Danny in the tri terrible they are brilliant they are really really smart both Daniela and Marana it's not as many people recognize how smart she is I saw her in trainings come up with some things that are really bright and I could converse with her when I was trying to help her with janess in a way where she understood I recognize she's really smart but she was stunted stunted yeah that has gone completely to waste have you heard anything how she's doing no I know she was friends with Edgar's wife Edgar was one of the top people in the company top salespeople and I know they were friends someone wrote me personally and said that they're still trying to teach the curriculum down there I heard Edgar was still doing explorations of meeting with people but technically he never passed still trying to so yeah I'm not doing them hey there listener hope you're enjoying this episode and that you're remembering to hydrate stretch and unclench your jaws sometimes listening to conversations about heavy topics can really make you tighten up you know and remember a little bit culty loves you also come hang out with us on patreon after you finish this episode it's fun over there fun is good and now here's a brief message from our sponsors this episode is sponsored by better help what are your self-care non-negotiables maybe you never Skip Leg Day or never miss yoga maybe it's getting 8 hours of sleep I that's my personal and everyone's dream isn't it well I definitely have some non-negotiables like I'm in Vancouver right now and I'm spending literally as much time as I can outside of nature # cold pools # crushing it nature is a non-negotiable not enough time in the fresh air and the trees around me and I start to feel not great not myself not grounded therapy day is a bit like my nature walks I try to not miss it and I know I'm just going to feel so much better all around if I make it a priority I get so much out of it it helps me put my worries and anxieties in their rightful place and helps me clear my mind so I can focus on what I really need and sometimes what I don't need like I don't need to be overbooking myself just because I hate to say no to people you know what I mean thanks therapy thanks for helping me see that and if you're thinking of starting therapy give better help a try it's entirely online designed to be convenient flexible and suited to your schedule just fill out a brief questionnaire and get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapist anytime for no additional charge look even when we know what makes us happy it's hard to make time for it but when you feel like you have no time for yourself non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever never skip therapy day with better help visit that betterhelp.com culty today to get 10% off your first month that's betterhelp [Music] [Music] portion of your purchase will be donated to local pantries together we can combat hunger in our local communities at Macy's question yeah not from our patreon but from me what do you think about em do they have any Merit are they based on anything and were they ever measurable and what's the deal they weren't measurable we couldn't reproduce it obviously first of all the tech I believe that was stolen I was shown another organization of gentleman named Morty lefco who has a method that's very very similar based on the same Concepts and he predates us mhm so I'm pretty sure it was stolen and then modified a bit made it more difficult so if anybody wants an em they can go find a Mor Morty L go trainer it's yeah it's not an em but yeah it's basically the same process similar same Theory I stopped at some point I could have used the money I had people asking me for them but I stopped about 6 months after Keith was arrested I started to realize so much of the we called Tech was distorted I just didn't feel good and I was getting real therapy for myself and I was seeing the difference of dealing with a professional versus US amateurs there's just so much that is distorted and used for not good I couldn't do it like people talk about all the classes and everything they gained things out it the classes were great pany says how could someone like Keith create this wonderful thing as I've looked back at all the different things we taught all the different concepts I see how so so many of them were used to manipulate people they could have a good side I mean ethical breach could be a beautiful concept but someone else telling you what your ethical breaches is not an ethical breach no no it's because it's your ethics you know it's total abuse so so so much of this was used in that way every little piece so if someone got something out of it great but don't ever bring this tool back up Ems were often you I tried very hard not to do this I refused to work with some people because of it is you were told to get somebody to think a certain way the exact opposite of what we taught yes we were sent in to work with Barbara bue we had to get her to realize she was in the wrong with respect to Keith I refused to do that at the end they sented me because they gave up but I wasn't going to try to do that well I can say Karen when I sat down with you you didn't have a vested interest in having me believe or or think a certain way so you actually got me to introspect and think about things I had to walk a really fine line between getting in trouble for not getting somebody to think a certain way and helping me actually feeling like I'm compassionate towards the person helping the person giving them what they want I had to make it look like I was doing what the other guys want and then do what I thought was right it was a really hard line to balance when Bonnie was waking up she had a altercation with Nancy and she came to me and asked me for help and when I found out it was about Nancy I'm like oh shoot there's no no good way this is going to end for me and so I said I can't really help you with respect to her but I will help you with respect to you but then Nancy found out I was working with Bonnie and I got in big trouble because I hadn't fixed Bonnie the way she wanted her fixed really wow yeah there's that pressure that was going on and I'm sure Nancy had that from Keith to some level but she went above and beyond I was considered weak because I wouldn't do those things I wasn't sent in to like deal with Edgar or people like that because I was too weak when I realized later it wasn't weakness what happened with Edgar he was writing a a book oh his Guru book they were thinking he was stealing cont stealing the tech it was so esoteric I don't know how you could think that was stealing anything it was so out there well you couldn't do anything you couldn't do anything without having to pay tribute to Keith right everything was his responsibility that was good and everything that was bad was our responsibility that's basically the red flag red flag I wanted to also ask and a lot of our listeners want to know what did you feel like when all these like you know I know you did the documentary about the Lost women and had your hair tested that was me that was me that was you I did answer that so there's a time period where a lot of young women in their 20s and 30s were being recruited and I'm sure it was obvious to you at this point that he was sleeping with them or was that not was that hidden some of them I like I didn't know about CLA my mind didn't go there I don't but some of them yeah do you feel comfortable talking about what you're theory is around that being poisoned oh yeah I haven't gotten tested again I really need to I mean people extended it further than I think I mean Kristen who lived with us for a while the mother of his first child had one type of cancer barbaresi had brain cancer those things I think those are different what was suspicious is Pam died of what started as kidney cancer and I had bladder cancer those two things are really close literally connected and that sounded suspicious Keith himself when I got cancer said with his usual conspiracy theories somebody might have been trying to get to kill me him meaning Keith that maybe we should have the water tested at flint lock I'm the only one still living at flint lock at this point and he didn't want me moving out of there I'm like you think it's possible that it's bad here but you don't want me to move out but he's the one that brought up the idea of testing stuff when Frank parado called me with the results of the hair I was pretty surprised that actually came up with something and then of course he immediately drew the conclusion at that point I wasn't seeing Keith for what he was fully enough to go there now I think it's possible but we don't have any real proof that he could have been trying to get rid of us I mean he basically had written us off we barely got crumbs as we got older Barbara myself others barely got crumbs from him so it's possible I mean the question is was he trying to kill us I don't know but it's possible it's definitely possible I think it's for sure possible nothing surprises me now though I got him back I survived the bladder cancer yeah and he's in jail yeah yeah and I'm 10 years cancer free so or 12 years cancer free yay that's awesome okay so everybody wants to know how did you finally wake up what was the final St it wasn't like a moment there were a couple things one the fact that it was Mark vente I had EMD Mark vente I had heard his stories from his childhood I had heard what he was doing in Mexico and how scary it was I believed he was a very honorable upright man and when they started saying Mark is the one tearing this down I went there's something wrong here Mark talks about I ran into him at an event for the Tourette's thing and it was the hardest thing ever I had to shun him at that because that was the rule and it was the hardest thing I think he said to me like when did you start not liking me and I wanted to say I didn't but yeah that was hard and that made me think there's something not right here the biggest moment for me was Pam's Memorial I had a meltdown it was a bizarre event we talked about Pam didn't do crap you know she was very hooky spooky she would help people but she'd be just basic going on intuition I mean I loved her but she was not this incredible humanitarian or whatever else she was actually very mean to me at times even when I had cancer she was like mean that was was so over the toop and I would look at it and like this is not Pam they were videos and descriptions of her that were like and the thing cost hundreds of thousands of dollars they got special flowers brought in yeah the flowers alone were like $80,000 oh my God I saw the money move between companies it was just so surreal that this is this is not Pam why are we taking this person and putting her up so high on a pedestal and Barbara Jesy got like a little thing at apropo she got like a little gathering you know but this was like it was a very sad funeral oh my God yeah in comparison it was so over the top and there was that whole weird thing with I had to walk around pretending she was alive for a month oh yeah what was that about I totally forgot about that I don't know just so our listeners know real quick this would have been January this would have been like 3 weeks or so before Lauren invited me to Doss this event that we're talking about and she died in November yes she died in November and so why did they not tell people that she died don't know they said Keith needed time to process that's all I heard but I was getting my information through Nancy at that point so I don't know I was in front of a training when it happened and then we she and I had to go to a janess training in Mexico and people would say how's Pam doing and we had a lie it was killing me my friend that had for 20 years has died and I have to pretend she's alive but there was no consideration of what that meant for the rest of us that's a show crazy I was so upset at the memorial service Memorial at one point I was with someone and I told please take me home I can't handle this I'm about to pass out I was just so overwhelmed by how ridiculous the whole thing was they made people from all over come into town for it yeah it was in a very fancy Hall yeah but the final wake up the final wake up was during that period of time where Keith had been arrested I was awake they knew it they were worried about me turning on them I have nothing else in in the world and I was told I was weak so I didn't think I could handle going out on my own I couldn't break off where I could was when they were trying to deal with Keith being arrested I made a comment that the company needs to shut down and I was attacked with virtue blackmail you know loyalty and all this kind of stuff and by Lauren and Claire and I was like I'm done I quit the board a week later and started seeing a therapist immediately and the first words to the therapist were make sure I don't go back I had to keep my head down for a little while but I was out at that point and I remember you telling me about your last inter with Keith do you mind sharing that I spent a little bit of time with him I went down for the first weekend of where they were when he got arrested in that Mexico Town M and I just went for a couple days cuz the company was in crisis I didn't understand why we were taking a vacation but I had some time with him I was challenging him I told him I wanted to help with part of the company my only requirement was I didn't work for Claire and he went against that he said no I can't do that I would have to work for Claire and I said well I ain't doing it and I challenged him that the man that Danny got in trouble for kissing I didn't know that's why he didn't like him at the time but I was like you got to be this guy's a good guy you got to be nicer to him and I asked him about Doss and he was still claiming not having much to do with it because Doss is the name of a computer system the original computer system when computer PCS were started and I'm like oh you had to create that I know you you that would be you making a you know little pun like that and he said no so but I had a very nice time with him right before I left because we were talking about music mus as I was learning to play the bass guitar and I took the chance to give him one last kiss not knowing it would be the last one but I also had a feeling at that point that I was done because I was getting so much what I now know to be gaslighting from him in the conversation nothing made sense he stopped trying to explain it to me so I was done so many people want to know did you dispose of his mother's ashes since the filming of The Vow I don't live in my condo anymore but the condo next door was pams and all her stuff was in it and I had them move his piano into there so I could empty out my house and I snuck the ashes over there at the same time so they're in Pam's condo well I don't know what they did but the lawyers of Pam's trust are now in possession of all that I got it out of you offloaded the ashes I offloaded the ashes I didn't want to have to deal with them you know yeah they're not in my possession anymore mom and a can Mom and I got my mom and a can up there but yeah not his that makes more sense is there any anything that you've been this from Sabrina Allison anything that you've been chopping at the bit to say or share publicly that you want the listeners to know I think that what the vow didn't show is the depth of the manipulation I know you saw a lot but it was just the tip of the iceberg of the depth of the manipulation this man could do with you and understanding that you understand Lauren's choices and other people's choices a lot better is there anything else you've been doing that you can share about how you've gotten your life hands on as much therapy as I can U afford anything I'll try anything I've been following a lot of different people that are knowledgeable in this area some of them you've interviewed but the best thing has been the friends that I ended up with I've had the most lovely people from the whole company are still in my life you two included and they have been incredibly incredibly supportive I have people that call me every day that's awesome one gentleman calls me every day and I ended up with the best of the people the people I thought were my friends they weren't but these people are just the most lovely people and I'm very very grateful in my life you deserve it yeah you deserve it for sure Ken thank you all of our listeners have said and I hope you read the comments to read them all here they're beautiful they think you're amazing and I I think it's really true that you're you know you have a good heart nippy I know you this is something you say often about Karen you want to close it out yeah the people don't know I I coached nippy for a while yeah look I mean you put out a lot of Goodwill and I think it's the Goodwill you're getting back is because of that even though it was under an abusive regime you were able to be loving than thank you that's one of the things I always remembered about it we tried again in such an awful regime yeah but thank you you both have been an inspiration you saved my life I can't say that enough you guys saved my life I'd still be sitting in flint lock so thank you it means a lot it means lot that means a lot Karen big pugs to you [Music] well I think we figured out that there's going to have to be a car nter runner part D right because we didn't really get to really get to unpacking The Vow we had so many questions we were going to unpack The Vow and we have to punt that to the new year we had to pick up Ace so thanks Ace #p parent life and I really want to thank Karen for being so open and honest with us and look forward to more with her and yeah do take guts yeah she always has good Insight yes all right hopefully we'll schedule part two till then see you again in the new year thanks everybody happy New Year sinking down to the with the I'm hanging on to my love if I let go of it all I could leave but I know I won't hope you like this episode let's let's keep the conversation going and come hang out with us on patreon where we keep the tape rolling each week with special episodes just for patreon subscribers and where we get deep into the weeds of unpacking every episode of The Vow and if you're looking for our show notes or some sweet sweet swag or official albc podcast merch or a list of our most recommended cult recovery resources visit our website at a littleit cy.com and for more background on what brought us here check out Sarah's page turning Memoir it's called Scar the true story of how I escape Nexium the cult that bound my life it's available on Amazon audible narrated by my wife and at most bookstores a little bit culty is a talk house podcast and a trace 120 production we're executive produced by Sarah Edmonson and Anthony nippy as with writing research and additional production support by senior producer Jess tardy were edited mixed and Mastered by our rocking producer will Rutherford of citizens of sound and our amazing theme song cultivated is by John Bryant and co-written by Nigel aselin thank you for listening