A Little Bit Culty

Our merch store just got a glow-up, and yes, it’s as Gen X as it sounds. We’ve teamed up with Dashery for new designs and better deals. Every purchase helps support the podcast—think cozy hoodies, sweaters, and mugs for fall and winter, plus shirts, tank tops, phone covers, stickers, pillows, totes, pins, magnets, hats, and basically everything you could use in your house or on your body. No uniform required, but the hoodie is so soft, you’ll want to wear it while planning your exit from a high control group. Shop at alittlebitculty.dashery.com for all your ALBC merch needs.

Also…let it be known that:
The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any 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. Nobody’s mad at you, just don’t be a culty fuckwad.

Buy the A Little Bit Culty paperback, ebook, or audiobook on Amazon or order a signed copy.
Check out our amazing sponsors
Join A Little Bit Culty on Patreon
Get poppin’ fresh ALBC Swag
Support the pod and smash this link
Check out our cult awareness and recovery resources
Watch Sarah's TED Talk and buy her memoir, Scarred

CREDITS:
Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames
Production Partner: Citizens of Sound
Co-Creator: Jess Tardy
Audio production: Will Retherford
Production Coordinator: Lesli Dinsmore
Writer and administrator: Sandra Nomoto
Social media team: Eric Skwarzynski and Brooke Keane
Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We’re back with Mark Vicente for Part 2 of this joint A Little Bit Culty and WTF is on my Mind?! episode. This one gets into the real meat of what happened at our book launch event gone sideways—and what it means beyond just us.

We play the last 12 minutes of Sarah’s recording from the event, then the bookstore owner's public social media post about the incident. We contrast it with what actually happened, including eyewitness accounts from people in the front row who tried to set the record straight, only to have their comments deleted. We talk about what it feels like to be publicly misrepresented with no ability to correct the record, how cancel culture weaponizes the cloak of altruism, and why the best fight is the one you don't fight. We also get into identity politics, why fusing your sense of self to a belief system makes civil discourse impossible, and why Mark thinks we're all being triangulated against each other on a macro scale.

This episode is a case study in culty thinking without a cult—and a reminder that dehumanizing the person in front of you while claiming to fight for humanity is not advocacy; it's the problem. If the comments on this one devolve into a debate about geopolitics rather than the patterns at play, you've already missed the point.

Trigger warning: This episode contains frank discussion of public shaming, online harassment, and geopolitical conflict.

Also…let it be known that:
The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any 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. Nobody’s mad at you, just don’t be a culty fuckwad.

Buy the A Little Bit Culty paperback, ebook, or audiobook on Amazon or order a signed copy.
Check out our amazing sponsors
Join A Little Bit Culty on Patreon
Get poppin’ fresh ALBC Swag
Support the pod and smash this link
Check out our cult awareness and recovery resources
Watch Sarah's TED Talk and buy her memoir, Scarred

CREDITS:
Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames
Production Partner: Citizens of Sound
Co-Creator: Jess Tardy
Audio production: Will Retherford
Production Coordinator: Lesli Dinsmore
Writer and administrator: Sandra Nomoto
Social media team: Eric Skwarzynski and Brooke Keane
Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin

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

In this special joint episode of A Little Bit Culty and Mark Vicente’s WTF Is on My Mind?!, Mark interviews us about the “Massy incident” during our Vancouver book tour for A Little Bit Culty: Navigating Cults, Control and Coercion. Together, we unpack what happened when a conversation about cult dynamics, extremism, and pattern recognition was hijacked by a highly charged political conflict—and how loaded questions, forced verdicts, black-and-white thinking, and moral purity tests can turn a book event into a full-blown ideological cage match. Stay tuned for Part 2 on Thursday.

Trigger warning: This episode contains frank discussion of antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, the Israel–Gaza conflict, genocide, extremism, religious and political polarization, and online harassment.

Also…let it be known that:
The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any 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. Nobody’s mad at you, just don’t be a culty fuckwad.

Buy the A Little Bit Culty paperback, ebook, or audiobook on Amazon or order a signed copy.
Check out our amazing sponsors
Join A Little Bit Culty on Patreon
Get poppin’ fresh ALBC Swag
Support the pod and smash this link
Check out our cult awareness and recovery resources
Watch Sarah's TED Talk and buy her memoir, Scarred

CREDITS:
Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames
Production Partner: Citizens of Sound
Co-Creator: Jess Tardy
Audio production: Will Retherford
Production Coordinator: Lesli Dinsmore
Writer and administrator: Sandra Nomoto
Social media team: Eric Skwarzynski and Brooke Keane
Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In Part 2, Star gets into the red flags that finally became impossible to ignore at OneTaste: missing consent and accountability protocols, sexual boundary violations, spiritual bypassing, gaslighting, and an organization that seemed to have more “trust the process” than actual process. She shares how she slowly pulled away, eventually leaving the Bay Area, rebuilding her life, and finding her way back to herself through therapy, community, and the very thing she once avoided: feeling everything in her body.

Star also talks about turning her experience into a solo theater show, complete with original songs about red flags, narcissism, orgasm, and—because apparently the universe demanded it—corporate vagina. We talk about the unregulated wellness industry, spiritualized intimacy, predatory influencers, and the tools every sexual or spiritual seeker needs: ask questions, check credentials, find out what happens when someone says no, and remember that “no” is a complete sentence. We’ll also share a few minutes of Star’s show at the end, so prepare for trauma, time, and comedy to make one very entertaining baby.

Follow Star at starstonespeaks.com, on Instagram @starstonespeaks, and The Wild Project: thewildproject.org

Star performs Cl*t Cult September 10 and 11 at 10:30pm at Under St Marks Theater in NYC: https://tickets.frigid.nyc/event/6897:1495

Also check her out at  Brooklyn Comedy Collective on October 4 at 7pm.

Trigger warning: This episode contains frank discussion of sexual assault, rape, sexualized practices, nudity, orgasmic meditation, coercive control, gaslighting, spiritual bypassing, sexual boundary violations, financial exploitation, communal living, and trauma recovery.

Also…let it be known that:
The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any 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. Nobody’s mad at you, just don’t be a culty fuckwad.

Buy the A Little Bit Culty paperback, ebook, or audiobook on Amazon or order a signed copy.
Check out our amazing sponsors
Join A Little Bit Culty on Patreon
Get poppin’ fresh ALBC Swag
Support the pod and smash this link
Check out our cult awareness and recovery resources
Watch Sarah's TED Talk and buy her memoir, Scarred

CREDITS:
Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames
Production Partner: Citizens of Sound
Co-Creator: Jess Tardy
Audio production: Will Retherford
Production Coordinator: Lesli Dinsmore
Writer and administrator: Sandra Nomoto
Social media team: Eric Skwarzynski and Brooke Keane
Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin

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

In Part 1 of our third deep dive on OneTaste, Star Stone joins us to explain how a spiritual seeker looking for female empowerment and connection ended up inside a world of confusing intro events, “corporate vagina” demos, goalless orgasmic meditation, and communal housing that sounded like a nightmare waiting to happen. Star walks us through the slow creep from curiosity to commitment: Meetup mixers that felt like team-building exercises, increasingly intimate “communication games,” and a coaching program that promised transformation but delivered a grab-bag of incoherent teachings, hidden courses, and credit-card-friendly upsells.

Along the way, we talk about loaded language, financial exploitation, blurred sexual boundaries, coercive control, and the very real moment when your yoga-trained brain goes, “Wait, this syllabus makes no sense,” and the culty fog starts to lift. It’s insightful, unsettling, and darkly funny—because sometimes the only way through is to name the absurdity, laugh until it hurts, and keep asking the questions they really don’t want you to ask. Stay tuned for Part 2 Thursday.

Follow Star at starstonespeaks.com, on Instagram @starstonespeaks, and The Wild Project: thewildproject.org

Star performs Cl*t Cult September 10 and 11 at 10:30pm at Under St Marks Theater in NYC: https://tickets.frigid.nyc/event/6897:1495

Also check her out at  Brooklyn Comedy Collective on October 4 at 7pm.

Trigger warning: This episode contains frank discussion of sexualized practices, nudity, orgasmic meditation, coercive control, financial exploitation, communal living, and sexual boundaries and assault.

Also…let it be known that:
The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any 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. Nobody’s mad at you, just don’t be a culty fuckwad.

Buy the A Little Bit Culty paperback, ebook, or audiobook on Amazon or order a signed copy.
Check out our amazing sponsors
Join A Little Bit Culty on Patreon
Get poppin’ fresh ALBC Swag
Support the pod and smash this link
Check out our cult awareness and recovery resources
Watch Sarah's TED Talk and buy her memoir, Scarred

CREDITS:
Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames
Production Partner: Citizens of Sound
Co-Creator: Jess Tardy
Audio production: Will Retherford
Production Coordinator: Lesli Dinsmore
Writer and administrator: Sandra Nomoto
Social media team: Eric Skwarzynski and Brooke Keane
Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.