Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Twin Flames

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

New Age love & wellness influencers turned baby NXIVM: That's kinda the best way we can succinctly describe this week’s cult, Twin Flames Universe, one of the most chilling groups we’ve discussed on the pod thus far. Several months ago, Twin Flames survivor Jessi Hersey, whom you might recognize from the “Escaping Twin Flames” doc on Netflix, slid into our DMs and made a very generous and compelling argument as to why Twin Flames needed airtime on Sounds Like A Cult. After all, it’s important to represent the whole LYL, WYB, GTFO cult spectrum! This week, we're asking the fundamental questions: How did this niche online self-help “community” turn so destructive so fast, and how are its tenets low-key a threat to us all? Tune in to find out, and make sure to listen to the very end of the episode. We’re making a highly exciting announcement about the next season of SLAC… let’s just say there might be a couple new “cult leaders” (ahem, co-hosts) in your future! Follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod @amanda_montell @reesaronii To order Amanda's new book, The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality, click here. To subscribe to Amanda's new Magical Overthinkers podcast and/or watch full episodes on YouTube, click here :) Thank you to our sponsors!!  Visit BetterHelp.com/CULT today to get 10% off your first month. Dipsea is offering an extended 30-day free trial when you go to DipseaStories.com/cult.  Head to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, go to https://www.squarespace.com/CULT to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Get 20% off your first order of Liquid I.V. when you go to LiquidIV.com and use code CULT at checkout Further reading: How ‘Twin Flames Universe’ YouTubers Monetized Heartbreak and Trauma “Everywhere I Went, They Went With Me, Because They Were on My Phone”: Inside the Always Online, All-Consuming World of Twin Flames Universe Why We Can't Get Enough of Cult Documentaries Twin Flames, Explained

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is sponsored by BetterHelp. When your schedule is packed with work, with kids' activities, with school, anything life throws at you, it's easy to let your priorities slip. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash cult today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash cult. The views expressed on this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable fact. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Do you come across people on TikTok or Instagram or other social media platforms where you're

like, that looks like a baby twin flames universe? Yes, absolutely. Every day I even watch out for certain influencers and certain vibes I get of that. They're everywhere. And that's how Jeff and Shalya started, is as influencers, people seem to not fully get that. But literally, you can go anywhere and they could potentially be a cult. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow.

I'm your host, Amanda Montell, author of the books, Cultish and The Age of Magical Overthinking. And I am Reese Oliver, Sounds Like a Cult's coordinator. Every week on this show, you're going to hear us analyze a different fanatical fringe group from the cult role zeitgeist, from Lululemon loyalists to life coaches to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult, but is it really?

You know, I said that the ultimate sounds like a cult question was this group sounds like a cult, but is it really? That isn't quite true. The actual ultimate question on Sounds Like a Cult is, is this cult in scare quotes of the week a live your life, a watch your back, or a get the fuck out level cult? That is what we truly dare to ask on this show because cultishness, it falls on a spectrum these days. It can be found sort of everywhere, not just in basements

full of barrobed Satanists. You can even find it in your online forums. Look, not to be alarmist, but you can slip and fall into a cult from the comfort of your living room couch. You could fall into a cult simply because you're looking for your soulmate. That is among the things that can make you vulnerable to cultish influence. Yes, online forums and self-help groups,

even a little Facebook group where you're discussing pottery, any of these things can devolve into GTFO level cult, including and especially the topic that we'll be discussing today, the cult of the Twin Flames universe. If you were trolling Netflix about six to nine months ago by the time this airs, then you know exactly what we're talking about

and probably slid into our DMs about this. But I have to admit something to you, culties. We tend to record the show way in advance. Ha ha. Look how prepared we are. We are prepared. But the thing about it is that the Twin Flames universe is still an active group, an active and very exploitative group.

And I wanted to discuss it on Sounds Like a Cult for a few different reasons, which we'll get into because even though it is more of a classic cult than say Trader Joe's or Disney Adults or even Instagram therapists, although that is getting closer. This is what I'm saying, we're on a spectrum here. Twin Flames is one of these cults that we kind of all have to be a little bit more alert to or on guard for than you might think.

And please do stick around because while Reese and I are recording this intro together, and I'm so excited about that, I did interview several months ago an actual survivor of Twin Flames. And we're going to get to hear a first person perspective of what her experience was like. But at least for the purposes of this intro, I want to reintroduce our coordinator, Reese, who you may remember from our Cult of Trad Wives episode, which you are so good. You did so good.

Oh, hello, culties. How are you? Thank you, thank you. I felt very protective of you in that episode and the Cult of Trad Wives came out because you work so hard here in the Cult of Slack. And I was like, those culties, they better be sweetie pies to you. And you know what? They were. They were nice to you. And you know what? They were.

They were nice to you. They were. You guys are lovely. Thank you very much. I feel very accepted by my fellow Colt members. Yes, right. Because you were sort of just an acolyte and now have crossed the bridge to total freedom as a Zionist.

Now I'm a coach. Now I'm making money. Yeah, you have your own downline now. And I do look forward to the day when you put me in my Mary Kay Cadillac convertible and just gently in the middle of the night, push me off a bridge. It will be ceremonial and glorious. Don't worry. Yeah.

No, one day Reese will usurp me and I look forward to it so much. It is the fate of every cult leader. So, Reese, actually, could you set this up a little bit? Because I feel like we need to give a whole bunch of backstory about what the Cult of Twin Flames universe is, why it is actually unwittingly a fit for a Sounds Like a Cult episode and why this freaking cult is low key a threat to us all. It truly is.

And for me, the really intimidating thing about tackling Twin Flames was that it seems like a lot of things at once. Is it a dating website? Is it courses that you're taking? Is it like a group of actual people that you're communicating with? Like, what exactly is it?

And to my understanding now, it is a little bit of all of those things. Twin Flames Ascension School, as they call it, is a spiritual, new agey, self-help cult, truly. Spoiler. Sounded in 2017 by Jeff and Shalea Devine, or so they would have you think. A couple of truly fascinating people that we will learn a bit more about shortly. And as you were saying earlier, Amanda, Twin Flames is a little special because it is a little more of a cut and dry cult than

the topics normally covered. So I have to ask what made you want to cover it anyway? You know, we actually do get requests all the time for more classic cults because, I mean, the demographics of this listenership are multifarious. And we do have some fans of classic culty true crime content here. And the perfect tonal fit for a Sounds Like a Cult episode is that sort of Disney adult peloton, that thing that is like so fanatical. It has such a specific aesthetic. It whips its followers up into a frenzy, but it actually maybe is not as bad as it looks.

And yet we need episodes like this to sort of provide like a counter perspective so that the show doesn't sort of like lose the plot. You know, like we need to see the full bell curve in order to feel confident about categorizing each cult of the week as a live your life, a watch your back, or a get the fuck out level cult. So there's that aspect to it. There's also just the fact that like it is an active group still. It's not like Nexium where Keith Raniere is in prison and he still has his loyalists

who dance outside his window, but by and large he has been felled. And then there was just the practical side of things where like, Jesse, the twin flame survivor that we're going to be hearing from later, just slid into our DMs. And she was like, yo, I really think I would have something to say to you all. And I was like, dope, I'm not going to pass on that low hanging fruit. And also just a note for any new listeners, Sounds Like a Cult is not an investigative journalism podcast if that wasn't already obvious. This is cultural commentary.

And as we explain this topic in this intro, we are going to be summarizing information from not just the Escaping Twin Flames documentary on Netflix, but also a bunch of exposés and coverage that's been published in places like Fox, Vanity Fair, Vice News, The New York Times by a host of wonderful reporters who do do cult investigative journalism, some of whom are friends of the pod, including Sarah Berman, Alice Hines, Margaret Lyons, and we'll link these sources in our show notes for further reading. notes for further reading. I have a question for you, culties. Are you looking for a little extra spice in your life?

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Netflix documentary, Escaping Twin Flames, he operates his business and makes his money by quote, teaching others how to have beautiful, healthy, loving, romantic relationships, which sounds reasonable enough, you know, like finding love in the 21st century is actually such hard work and so confusing and such a sort of humiliating process that it totally can make people vulnerable to culty phenomena as common as Raya. Listen to our Cult of Dating episode or as fringe as twin flames. So Jeff refers to these relationships as being in quote, harmonious union, which is the first in a long list of extremely culty jargon that we'll hear today. Something particularly interesting about Twin Flames is that while the group has occasional meetups and

many join via relatives or people that they know in real life, much like an MLM. As we've said already, the vast majority of communication and influence in the Twin Flames community takes place entirely on the internet. Exactly. That is another thing that is so interesting to me about Twin Flames. Not to jump the gun and yet to indeculty stuff too quickly, but the online factor is really huge in terms of how much influence groups like Twin Flames have.

Computer-mediated communication interacts with our brains in a different way than face-to-face communication does in the book The Dark Side of Close Relationships, the second one, by William Kupatch and Brian Spitzberg, I think is how you would say their names. But they state essentially that some individuals immerse themselves in social networks online and connect with other people in ways that over-involve them and they lose perspective and engage in behaviors that are potentially disruptive either to themselves or to others. And this online interaction of the sort of separation from reality allows people to be really overly affectionate on the internet and build these

relationships much more quickly and much stronger than they might face to face. This is called a hyper personal relationship and I would bet that the Twin Flames universe is chock full of them. But anyhoo, Amanda, give us a lowdown on how this hyper personal online Tinder ban wrong came to be. Well, it is so funny, like how in the sort of fuck around era of social media, I think people thought that because online interactions weren't face-to-face, they weren't threatening. But the Twin Flames universe has proven that you can inflict unbelievable psychological harm and distortion of reality on a person without ever meeting them, IRL, to the point that they can inflict material physical harm on themselves in the wake of that reality distortion

and manipulation, if that makes sense. Allegedly. But to get into some of the history and background, it starts like this. The phrase twin flames was coined by an English novelist named Marie Carelli back in the 19th century. She wrote a novel called A Romance of Two Worlds, and that book introduced this term into the culture. But it actually wasn't until the early 20th century that it gained traction. And this was thanks to a dynamic duo named Guy and Edna Ballard.

They created the I Am activity, which may ring some bells. This was another sort of woo-woo cult movement of the 1930s. It is so funny that like, there are these sort of culty spikes in the culture, like in the 1960s and 70s during the pandemic, these times of mass tumult, but cults never die. Like people are out here culting no matter what is going on. Fast forward to the late 1990s though, that's when an American

spiritualist named Elizabeth Clare Prophet, and I will never get over, I will never get over that the word prophet, P-R-O-P-H-E-T, and the word prophet, P-R-O-F-I-T, are homonyms. Not a lot. She was an American spiritualist living in the nineties. She breathed new life into twin flames and brought it into the mainstream with her book, "'Soulmates in Twin Flames, the Spiritual Dimension of Love and Relationships.'"

Her take was that twin flames are like cosmic soulmates. Destined to help each other achieve enlightenment or salvation, she frankensteined a bunch of ideas and beliefs from Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, stirring up quite the spiritual stew as any good new age cult leader is want to do. Here's where things get kind of juicy though. Since Elizabeth Clare Prophet made that splash, the term Twin Flames has really been bouncing around contemporary new age circles like a little hot potato because it's not just about romantic love, which is itself like an invented concept. It's about finding your cosmic counterpart.

It is this higher spiritual frequency of connection, someone who is there to benefit your personal growth. You know how like an evangelical or fundamentalist spaces, it's like a key value in marriage that someone will be able to help you like connect to God more or like read the Bible better. It's kind of like that, but in a new age context. Yeah, I feel like I hear the phrase twin flames

even outside of culty spaces all the time. Maybe that's just us living in Southern California. I don't know. Do you remember the first time you heard it used in just everyday life? I first heard the phrase twin flame when I was 19 from the neighbor of my toxic ex who was living in Santa Monica, California.

She had angel cards, she had tarot cards, her home was covered in crystals, she's like low-key anti-vax. I didn't know any of this then. I was 19. I was just like, she's a witch. I'm obsessed with you. We were like exchanging poems, okay, as neighbors, as a neighbor activity. And she wrote a poem about her twin flame. And as it was presented to me, I kind of thought that it was like someone that you had been in love with in a past life and who had had like a major effect on you, who was sort of haunting you as you reincarnated.

It was not clear. Like a soul tie. Yes, it wasn't wholly positive. It was just somebody who had really like put a handprint on your spirit. And that in itself could be somewhat innocuous, but this is America. And that's where the words profit with a pH and profit with an F really do converge. Folks have really taken this concept to the extremes, leading to some downright

bizarre, troubling, and exploitative behavior. And that's really where the Twin Flames universe comes in. Uh, yes. The Twin Flames universe. But before we get into exactly what the Twin Flames universe consists of for members, I think it's time we zoom in a little and look at exactly who Jeff and Shalea Divine, the creators of the Twin Flames universe, Ascension School, whatever you want to call it, take a look at who they are so that way we can properly assess the vibes before we dive in. So Jeff Divine, aka Jeff, you grew up a starry-eyed little Michigan boy. He idolized billionaires like Warren Buffett because that's something normal children

do. He graduated from Western Michigan University's School of Fitness in 2010, as one does, and has been your archetypical charismatic, loud-spoken jerk ever since. Over the course of his young adult life, Jeff would dabble in various different pseudoscience websites. My favorite one is one that claims to have a cure for cancer. That's real fun. In 2012, he kind of reinvented himself, moved to Kauai, and as anyone having a new age spiritual revelation does, changed his name to an alias from his favorite video game. He called himself Ender from Ender's Game. Oh, that's a sci-fi book. That's not a video game. You know what I mean. Anyways, he started

this blog called Ender's Adventures, and he started spouting a bunch of new age spirituality teachings there. And that is how he met his wife. Him and Megan Plante, later renamed Shalya, met online in 2012. In real life in 2014, she moved to Hawaii, presumably to be with him, and they got married in 2016. They currently have a daughter. I feel bad for that child. This man, unfortunately, has like the cult leader look. If you've seen the Netflix doc, you know what I'm talking about. It's very, they're all like, I need to look like Jesus. And I gotta say, like out of all of the attempts I've seen, his is pretty solid, at least for your like super westernized image of Jesus at least.

I'm sure it's not accurate. All right, do the most. Costume contest won. So now that you have the most cringetastic mental image that you can conjure of the man behind it all, we can kind of get into how Twin Flames blew up because it shouldn't have and yet here we are. So Jeff and Shalea originally ran this blog, Awakened Intimacy, which they began shortly after meeting in person in 2014 when Shaleah, I'm like, if you're going to change your name from Megan to something wacky and woo woo, Shaleah, there's too many vowels. Yeah, not my pay.

Anyway, so Shaleah moves to Hawaii, as we mentioned. Of course she did. The blog eventually becomes a YouTube channel. And in 2017, these two found the Twin Flames universe, which basically offered the Twin Flames Ascension School online courses. According to a Vice Piece, the current recommended class pass on their website offering 300 plus online courses costs $4,444. And I have to tell you right now.

Angel numbers. Yes, angel numbers in new age online course prices, such a trend. They are not unique. The Skillshare courses are all $222. As Twin Flames has grown, they now have all these offshoots. So like in the way that there was NXIVM

and within NXIVM you had GENES, which was like the sex trafficking sub cult. There are these cults within cults. So Twin Flames universe also has these offshoots such as one called MAP, which stands for mind alignment process, which claims to be able to cure PTSD and other mental traumas. Divine Dish is their meal plan arm, which they say is, quote, the perfect complement

to your healing on your twin flame journey. They also have their Church of the Union, which was founded in 2019, which requires you to call Jeff God the Father, among other delightful rules. The Twin Flames Ascension School is structured not entirely like an MLM where coaches make money for selling and recruiting and selling and recruiting. To give you culties an idea of the numbers that Jeff and Shalea are bringing in here, their private Twin Flames Facebook group at the time of this recording has around 14,000 members. So it's not insignificant. You are at this point though probably curious to know what is being taught in these classes

that is so dangerous and culty enough to have warranted a Netflix documentary and of course this episode here. So Reese, why don't you kind of share some of the things that occur in these online video classes? So, Twin Flames essentially teaches that your twin flame, aka your soulmate, is predetermined by the universe, who of course in reality is Jeff and Shaleah, or, you know, their nearest extension to you. And no matter who they are, you should pursue them at all costs to no end. Full Joe Goldberg. Like, it's for real. Their teachings and encouragement has led Twinflames followers to get restraining orders

placed against them on 2014. Ryan Gosling, I love that man, had to put the brakes on a fan who claimed to be his Twinflame and she was wrong because it's me. Anyways. Oh my god, wait, Reese, who are your celebrity twin flames? My celebrity twin flame. Well, this is hard because I feel like to give some background on my understanding of the term twin flame, I feel like when I see it come up on like spirituality TikTok, it's oftentimes not referred to romantically. But I guess by Delephe and Cheff and Shalya standards, it would be.

Oh gosh. Let's see. Oh, I literally just have one and then I lost it. Who was it? It might come to you. I honestly feel like it might be a tech person. So it's some like, I don't think it would be someone in the public eye. But if the question is, what do you mean a tech person? Well, because I am in the cult of theater kids for the qualities. I am a performer and my boyfriend is a light designer and a director.

And I just, I, you know, theater men. They're in some- Of course I do. So like, I just feel like a performer. It's just not me. Oh my God. Do you literally mean a tech person like someone who does lighting? Yes.

Like my celebrities win flame like a gaffer for Wes Anderson. It's like something like that. I am on the floor. You look like you were lit by Wes Anderson's gaffer. That is the largest compliment I have ever received. Okay, actually, maybe Jude Law. Hard pivot. I mean, it's Jude Law, can you blame me?

No, I'm dead. I, yeah. Well, you could probably have him. I mean, you could nanny for his kids easily. Okay, anyway, so glad we got there. No, so glad we got there. So Ryan Gosling. Ryan Gosling.

Ryan Gosling. Much likeling. Ryan Gosling. Much like Jula should probably get a restraining order against me if he is ever to be in the country. I'm kidding. Anyways, another huge core tenet of the Twin Flames universe is the infamous mirror exercise, which might ring some bells for theater kids, but it's not what you're thinking. The Twin Flames mirror exercise is an exercise wherein you come face to face with an issue you're having in your life and you find a way to make it your fault. Twin Flame's mirror exercise is an exercise wherein you come face to face with an issue

you're having in your life and you find a way to make it your fault. I know a lot of us have brains that work that way anyway, so I think this is really fun. So for example, if you felt like hated and disrespected by your husband, your Twin Flame's coach would tell you that that actually means that you hate yourself and you don't respect yourself. It's pretty much like as black and white as victim blaming gets. And of course as internet, zeitgeist, mental health trends evolve, so do the teachings of the cults that inhabit the internet. Twin Flames' most recent grift is on the divine feminine energy and divine masculine energy and everyone is one of these two and your

Twin Flames the other one. But the problem they run into is that their followers are majority female and not all of them are open to being with women romantically. But Jeff and Joliet's answer to that is pretty much, well, suck it up. We say that you're eternally divine masculine. So, and that's just a little bit of the cultiness of the Twin Flames universe. Yeah. Oh, God. Can you imagine having like your spiritual leader who you just signed up for an online class thinking you would learn some things sucking you into the point where they're like, no, you're not who you think you are deep down inside. You are actually

like conversion therapy. Yeah. Masquerading as something transcendent and enlightened. So allegedly in Twin Flames universe, members are encouraged to cut off their families, to dismiss dissent, and they are punished by Jeff and Shaleah by questioning anything at all. We'll hear some more about this later from our survivor Jesse. But Twin Flames now very opportunistically has a finger in every sort of little sleazy internet pie. They make money off of their coaches. Most of their devoted followers work for one of their many businesses like MAP, as we previously mentioned, and they've begun operating this church in 2019 to make it so, a quote from Jeff, I don't have to pay people.

The group has gotten progressively more and more religious over the years, like politicians, just like the cult of America, with Jeff now comparing himself to Jesus Christ basically incessantly. So at this point, and what really pushes this into more classically culty territory is that Twin Flames essentially requires you to wrap up your whole entire life, career, well-being into the group.

Most members who manage to leave Twin Flames do so pretty broke, having devoted their lives and pouring so much income back into the group's various endeavors. It's a fucking shame, dude. And they're still at large. And this is the fucking thing. It is so difficult to bring groups like this down or to hold them accountable because- Because they're all online. Yeah, because they're online and because they are debatably consenting adults who like volunteer to get involved,

it's tough. Yeah. Asynchronous influence is truly so scary because so much of it is created in the brain of the recipient because you're not getting anything from someone via words on the screen. So the rest of it, your brain fills in and then it's a web you've trapped yourself in at that point. Totally. And if they can't be convicted for a sex crime or a business crime, then like...

On they go. Yeah, on they go. It's like not illegal to psychologically abuse someone. Which is crazy. Yeah. I mean, there is some tangible shit going on with Twin Flames. You listeners will hear about it from Jesse later, but it is really tough to bring a cult to its knees,

especially one that's online. It's so true. So the question though is, are we being dramatic? Have we totally crossed over into GTFO level territory? And if so, like how far into GTFO territory have we crossed? These are the questions that our interview with Jessie, our twin flame survivor, will get to the heart of. But for now, everybody please give a round of applause

unless you're driving, in which case, just holler into the void. For Reese, our coordinator in this week's intro, guest host, clap, clap, clap, hooray. That is actually the most culty form of asynchronous influence I've seen in a while. People just in their cars yelling it to the void because you told them to.

Well, thank you so much for having me. Oh my God, always, always, always. So with that, we're going to take a little break and then we're going to get right into our interview with survivor of the Twin Flames universe and sounds like a cult listener, Miss Jessie. ["Sweet Home Alone"] Can you believe how hot it has been lately? I am unwell.

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That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Colt. Thank you so much for joiningelp.com slash cult. Thank you so much for joining. Sounds like a cult. Could you introduce yourself to our listeners and how you're connected to the cult of the Twin Flames universe? I'm Jessi and I was in the docu-series on Netflix of Escaping Twin Flames. I was in it for almost four years and I was one of the females. I was told they were pretty much a male in a woman's body, but divine masculine, if we're going to go with their language.

And I'm also an author too. Nicole Cano Could you sort of like briefly summarize your journey of how you got recruited and how you ended up staying for four years? Emily Yeah, definitely. I oddly enough was first recruited by a YouTuber who did tarot cards. I don't know if she was necessarily directly linked to them because there's just a lot of I don't knows, but she is the one who introduced me to the book

that they wrote, which I'm not gonna say the name because I don't wanna promote it in any way. And she's the one who told me to go to the Twin Flames Open Forum that ultimately led me to seeing their YouTube videos because I had never seen any of their stuff until I was actually in the forum itself. And from there I eventually bought their classes, but it's only because I had free coaching services from a coach for say maybe three or six months. So it was a gradual process. And then I got both of their classes, twin flame ascension school and life purpose class. And then eventually

dreams coming true, which I know some of them they've started deleting and even the divine masculine, divine feminine, which you actually can see in escaping twin flames. You can see a little of it. So when you say that you discovered this YouTube video that kind of sent you down the rabbit hole, what was that initial YouTube video saying and why did you connect with it at that particular time in your life? Well, at this time, just like Sarah Edmondson,

when she was heading into NXIVM, I didn't have a job and there was someone I had a connection with that was my boss, not any longer at the time, but I felt a connection. Okay, so it started with a crush. Classic. Yeah. And on the tarot reading, she did it between a Taurus and a Gemini. I'm a Gemini. And technically that other person was a Taurus. And it felt like she was speaking directly to me. And then I emailed her right away and said, I'd like your services just because I resonate with this completely.

I mean, nowadays, like YouTube tarot readers, TikTok tarot readers, or psychics, or even just new age therapist types are a dime a dozen, and a lot of them are fairly harmless. And some of them have pure intentions, but that doesn't mean that they can't send you down an algorithmic rabbit hole that could like eventually take over your life. It's just wild to me how many TikTok astrologers will get people to engage with their content by saying something like, if this video was showing up on your for you page, then it was meant for you as if it got there through divine intervention rather than algorithm. So how did you get from watching a YouTube tarot reading that seemed to be speaking directly to you

to like full on joining these Twin Flame forums, psychologically, like what did that feel like? I felt that I was actually a part of a real community. So the open forum portion at least that and the tarot reader at least before going in, I felt like we had built trust and relationship even though I never actually saw her face. She did have my personal phone number. I didn't have hers. I know that. So you did get in touch with that Terra reader. Like you did sessions with her.

Yeah. She was the first person I ever did a mere exercise with. So she acted as a coach before there was actual existence of coach of my knowledge at the time. They could have already been there, but I didn't actually get a coach of my own until I was in the forum, but it was after getting to know that specific person because she's the one who eventually became my first coach. I will never get over this terminology of like referring to

this spiritual guide as a coach because it sounds like it should be someone who's teaching you how to play volleyball. I fully agree with that. That's a great way, actually. It's just so absurd, the labeling of it all. And that's actually something that I want to focus on talking about today because your experience with the Twin Flames universe was online, correct? Did you ever meet any of these people in real life? I did in New York City. That was their first ever meetup. So I did meet everyone, including Keely in the docu-series. We had all met and actually stayed in the same room. That's intense.

Yeah. Well, I'm also an introvert, so I was extremely uncomfortable. We had two houses in New York and one, they were with Jeff and Shaleah. I wasn't in that one. I was literally in the one next door to them, but we had like 15 people each in each house. And then we were also all cooking for each other. So it was very tight quarters, little space, little bedrooms. It was extremely uncomfortable. And in our case, at least our house that we were in, there was only one shower. And the one with Jeff and Chaleah, they had at least two showers, but Jeff and Chaleah got one of those showers. I'm out. I'm out. Yeah. See? See? I feel the same way. But by that point, you were already all in because it had been a purely online experience

up until that point. And this is what I want to kind of focus on is like what role language played in your experience. This is my whole shit, this theory that language is a cult leader's most powerful tool. And while we're distracted by cult iconography, like robes and shaved heads and flower crowns and dancing on a compound somewhere, we fail to realize that the truly like most manipulative form of cult indoctrination comes in the form of rhetoric. So could you sort of talk to me about

when you joined that open forum, immediately how were people speaking? Like what words were they using and how did they resonate with you? A lot of words is blocks, contrast, healing. Block, for example, when they're talking in a block, it's not an actual physical block. It's like a block to your twin flame or love. In this case they use love a lot as an excuse. So you had to do the mirror exercise and the mirror exercise is literally a gas lighting exercise because you start with an upset. So I'm upset because I didn't get flowers for Valentine's Day.

That seems to be a normal one. And then you turn it on yourself and go, I didn't buy myself flowers, pretty much. And then the healing part, which a lot of new age spiritual still cults use is pretty much giving yourself what you need, whether that's a hug or buying yourself flowers, like Miley Cyrus even says in the song. So there is a lot that falls into that. But then contrast and leveling up. So contrast was used if you're not matching your twin flame or matching your reality because you control your reality. That is something they

teach. So everything negative, that is contrast. Anything that doesn't match with your ideal heaven on earth because they use that too. So contrast can be you get in a car accident, but in this case, if you use the mirror exercise, it's still your fault, even if it's not, because there's no logic there. Or if a pet dies, but then Jeff would always say, you live forever. So they're just going to reincarnate and come back to you again, if you lose a cat or a dog or a brother or a sister. But it sounds all very euphemistic and positive. So much of this language is basically the exact same shit that you find in Scientology or NXIVM and similar to like the names of the courses. Like the first courses you take in Scientology are not about like aliens and shit. They're about like communication

or ups and downs in life. So it's all stuff that we can get on board with that's just like a little bit exclusive sounding, a little bit spiritual sounding. And we all love the feeling of using words that we didn't know before and that outsiders can't understand. It makes us feel special. Like when you're a kid and you learn Pig Latin on the playground for the first time, it like instills a sense of superiority in you. So then like the thing that I find interesting about Twin Flames Universe and why I think it's important to talk about on this podcast even though it's kind of more intense than other groups we normally cover is because these ideas are so present these like sort of pseudo spiritual commodified Tibetan Buddhist type ideas are so so present in mainstream society

and similar to the way that people find Teal Swan, it seems like a lot of people who like fall into the twin flames ascension school do so while Googling relatively innocuous spirituality related things. How have you noticed the type of rhetoric and the type of beliefs that are present in the extreme universe of Twin Flames also manifest, LOL, in everyday life? Like, how have you seen these Twin Flames-ish ideas trickle into the mainstream? I've seen just random celebrities like Megan Fox, I guess, randomly talked about it, but it actually has been around since

the 1980s. The term, the person who actually coined it was Mary Prophet in the 1980s and this concept of Twin Flames I guess have been around since then and the idea actually comes from Buddhism because there is a divine feminine and divine masculine energy and there is a god within the Buddhist religion which was brought up and taught and completely taught wrong in Twin Flames universe but there is that idea and where that idea has sprung from is Buddhism. If you go fully backwards in time because I love words too and looking them up so I do know some of the history of it. Okay, etymology expert, Slay. Yeah, I mean, so many sort of like problematic Western new age cults and cult-ish groups stem from commodified Buddhism. Buddhism, hot take, great ideas. Some great

ideas. Can you talk about how some of the other people you met on that forum found the group and how did people seem? Did they seem normal? Were you freaked out that forum found the group? And how did people seem? Did they seem normal? Were you freaked out by anyone at the outset? Automatically, honestly, it was very uncomfortable going in at first because when you first go in the forum, they just had a bunch of people like husbands, wives, leaving their husbands and wives for their twin flames and healing the block to harmonious union, which is another term they use harmonious. So being at complete peace and not having any contrast in your life anymore. So nothing bad happens anymore.

So you're an introvert, immediately uncomfortable in a lot of these experiences with twin flames. Can you talk about the way that the language that they used within the online forums and these other online spaces kept you going, kept you in, even when your gut was telling you, I need to GTFO? They would just tell you to mirror it is the number one thing. They tell you to go watch their classes. If you don't own the classes, they'll tell you to watch the YouTube videos until they gradually indoctrinate you back in. But if you just do the mirror exercise once, I can tell you from my own experience, your brain, your feelings, anything turns off.

Though that's supposedly peace. So if you don't like getting cussed out or abused, and just in general, if you watch Twin of Flame Ascension School or Life Purpose Class, which sadly you can't unless you own it, they are gaslighting you the entire time. So they're doing it in small steps of just talking about their day and saying how, well, I had UPS come today and then talking about, oh, this is how you're leveling up.

That's another one of their words they use. So leveling up in your reality. They use literally everyday concepts of anything that you already know or saying, like, for example, I work in schools and we do emotional regulation, so colors of feelings. Red is mad, blue is sad, yellow is frustrated, and then green is you're ready to learn, and just means technically you're emotionally regulated. So you could actually apply that to the mirror exercise in the reality you're in. So that's the scary part. So that can be applied just to everyday life. And the mirror exercise isn't something new at all, but Jeff and Shilia

take all credit for pointing the term harmonious union in the mirror exercise, though they had nothing to do with any of those words. So like, whenever you had any inkling that something wasn't fully sitting well with you or whenever you felt like this promise that was made to me might not be fulfilled, they could hit you with, you're just blacked or mirror it. Or go watch Twin Flame Ascension School or go watch Life Purpose class. Mirror it is the perfect fucking example of a thought-terminating cliche, which is one of these classic cult leader techniques. It's a short, highly repeatable, catchy, buzzy phrase that is

used to shut down independent thinking or questioning whenever a follower has an issue or a problem or even a question. So the Twin Flames universe is, I think, extra, extra scary and a good fit for this show because I feel like there are actually quite a few new agey type influencers who could become this. I'm going to ask you in short about how you got the fuck out. But as you go about your daily life now, do you come across people on TikTok or Instagram or other social media platforms where you're like, that looks like a baby twin flames universe? Yes, absolutely. Every day I even watch out for certain influencers and certain vibes I get of that. They're everywhere. And that's how Jeff and Shalita started is as influencers, people seem to not fully get that. But literally, you can

go anywhere and they could potentially be occult, even if it doesn't come off as red flags right away, because Twin Flames universe didn't right away, but I was part of the group that was there in the beginning before all the red flags exist like they do today. That's what I'm fucking saying, like cults are everywhere, babe! Exactly! What are some of those red flags now that you know and you're scrolling through TikTok and you're like, holy shit, what are some red flags that like send a shiver down your spine and you're like, damn, that's TFU in training? Just right away, since this is a common concept I hear constantly, just someone saying you

can manifest in your reality certain things or saying you can control your reality are two huge red flags in the first place. Even if the person seems like they're not that way, those are red flags automatically. That's leading down some path that's just not going to be great for you in the long run. Yeah. Subjective reality. That's one that I hear in like, spirituality, new age spaces all the time. What are some other red flags to look out for when you say, are just hoping to get some digestible nuggets of wisdom from your Instagram feed about love or wellness or mental health or whatever, as spoken by a Twin Flames Universe

survivor. Well, for one, in any relationship, whether it's friendship, you have fiancé or boyfriend, girlfriend, any relationship. If the post or YouTuber or TikToker say that that person is a reflection of you and that you need to look within yourself to heal the relationship. It's always a two-way street, not a one-way street. And the way Javin Shalya teach it is literally a one-way street because you're always doing the healing. And they even teach that it only takes one twin flame to do the healing work versus both parties. That is such a good point. Okay, so let's get into the culty specifics of your story. What was the beginning of the end? You're in this online space,

you're doing the courses, at this point you're spending money, now you've interacted with people in person, you're sharing showers, whatever. At what point were you like, okay, I think I need to start putting some pieces in place to bust out of here? It honestly wasn't until Sarah Berman, her first article on Twin Flames universe, because I was a coach and anyone who spews bad lies, we always end up going over and reviewing and he was saying that it was insanity that she wrote and she left all of reality. And if you read this, then you're leaving all reality and you're choosing hell.

A Scientologist would call it black PR. So what was your reaction to that article? Well, at first it was I was trusting what Jeff was saying, but a part of me was feeling this is true. I had already had little inklings through the years of red flags, but mirrored it and watched the classes. And this time I didn't want to mirror it or watch the classes. I wanted to try to genuinely, because I couldn't process it. People seem to not understand when you're in a cult and that's manipulated and coerced into believing what they're teaching or telling you. I couldn't function like a normal human, like I couldn't even think logically. I couldn't function like a normal human, like I couldn't even think logically. So trying to read that article was like going back to being a two or three year old,

just trying to read it and understand it. So I literally went through, I guess, like rehab of the coercion and manipulation and just went a whole month without watching anything, mirroring anything. And then I read the article again and I read it clearly and went, oh my gosh. And it was actually that same day that I could get it in my head and understand it. Because I had reread it at least 10, 15 times before that time. It finally made it through. This is why these groups purposefully focus with such concentration on shaping a linguistic reality, because it really affects your ability to think for yourself

when the only vocabulary words you're using for four years are mirror it, block, level up. You have like a default glossary of terms that reflects what the leaders want you to believe. And if any other ideas enter the picture, they can use that system of language to tell you like, no, those are outsiders, that's bad. And this is why when I am scrolling through social media

or even when I'm like out in the wild in my real fucking life, and I hear people using language too earnestly like the rhetoric of manifestation or I'm operating on a higher vibration now, or we need to holistically actualize even this type of language that you hear in corporate spaces. I'm just like, this sounds like Twin Flames Universe horror. It does because they do use higher vibration, but you only get that after leveling up if you continue the continuum of language. So after you level up, then you're a higher vibration, but you can never make it to Jeff and Shilia's level.

They made that very clear since the very beginning that they are the highest level. They actually in life purpose class, which I never forgot because it brought up a block. So everyone else was supposed to be a certain level and they said you'd find your vibration within your harmonious platoon flame union, but it would never be as high as them. So as cultish spirituality and wellness become increasingly trendy and increasingly commodified, the culty buzzwords that we've been discussing so far are also becoming more common in online discourse.

Do you think that the normalization of these words that are also used in the Twin Flames universe poses a barrier to ending a cult as bad as Twin Flames? The fact that like we're all kind of speaking like this in everyday life? I feel like in some sense, yes, but the fact that even those that aren't Twin Flames Universe speaking that way have the potential, not necessarily are, but have the potential of being another cult because they are speaking the same thing. And the funny part is if you want to go down the cult leader ladder, so going from Elrond Hubbert and then to Keith Raniere, then you go to Jeff because he pretty much copied off of Keith Raniere,

so you can literally play on that. And they have, like, even our, I guess, producer's director that language, they even stated saying that Jeff is a lot like Keith. But the only thing is we can't leave Shaliyah out, because she's equally as guilty, just because in the media we've seen more of Jeff talk, she's equally there. One concept that I explained is when it's the divine feminine part healing, then Shalee is talking because she counted herself as divine mother. If it's Jeff talking, that's divine masculine and healing that portion. So daddy issues, mommy issues, to put it easily. It's such a great idea to base a cult on because I feel like everybody knows what daddy issues and mommy issues mean. And

like, as therapy speak is becoming more normalized for better and for worse, you know, it's a double edged sword. Like as therapy is becoming less stigmatized and that's great, we're also sort of misusing a lot of this therapy adjacent terminology. And so that can make way for the kind of like new-agey spiritual stuff to trickle in. So like, if the rhetoric were like a little less woo-woo, I could totally see myself really going down the rabbit hole of like someone's ideas about mommy and daddy issues and how I could heal myself from that shit. You know what I mean? Like it's actually very of the moment.

It is, but it also sprung from like Sarah B and the docuseries I was in. She went through the history, which I like, of how she got the information. Jeff, way back when, was already asking people about soulmate relationships. When it turned into Twin Flames was only three or four years in when he was doing his figuring out and first becoming homeless in Hawaii and so on and so forth. He has a really interesting background, but they both don't have the education or the license to like for example do math or to do divine dish. They are not nutritionists. They don't have anything within that either or divine gaming. They don't have any of that either.

So aside from these sort of like occasional conferences and things, Twin Flames meetings and communication does take place on the internet. Do you think that the public's knowledge of and relationship to this cult would change if there were more of a tangible physical presence like a permanent commune? They are having a summit event for four days. I count that as a short-term commune. So they are doing that in Michigan. I think the authorities need to start looking at the fact, for one, we have a lot of evidence. You can just watch both docu-series and go online for yourself and see a bunch of evidence everywhere that everything ex-members such as myself are saying

is true. And just because they're online doesn't mean they're not dangerous. They're literally gaslighting people into believing they're male or female, which is sad because I'm part of the LGBTQIA community. This is really harmful during a very harmful time period with legislation and everything, which that's why I'm fighting extra hard. Right. Totally. And it is so hard to seek justice in terms of cults like this because cults aren't illegal. You know what I mean? Like you don't want the authorities to have too much control over what you do and what you believe. But also like if someone is systematically in an organized way, psychologically harming people en masse, there have to be consequences, but legally it's really hard to enforce those. What do you think would be the conviction for the leaders

of Twin Flames? Well, unpaid labor, they technically do in fact have sex trafficking and they do have children and there's a lot that they fall under. Even in Sarah Berman's first article, there's a lot there and there's even evidence within abuse, there's verbal abuse, there's a lot that they fall under. Even in Sarah Burman's first article, there's a lot there. And there's even evidence within like abuse, there's verbal abuse, there's actual physical abuse for, even though none of them are out yet, in the home for those that do the retreat. Because they do still have the retreat apparently going on, where they invite someone in, Twin Flames Inn for healing to cook and clean for them

and be their slave. And they also pay Jeff and Shaleah per month to stay there. So not only are they invited by Jeff and Shaleah, but they pay Jeff and Shaleah for spiritual wisdom of their harmonious union. Just to name a few things, because honestly there's a large list and I could not name it all just like that. And some of the evidence is already out there, including Jeff blatantly abusing everyone and cussing them out. So many of the Twin Flames teachings touch on relatively normal things to concern yourself with like finding a life partner and improving your mental health. After leaving Twin Flames, do you find it difficult to recontextualize those things through a healthier lens?

Well, I've been out for almost four years. Honestly, I didn't start being able to take normal terms and understand, honestly, a healthy normal relationship until presently. But your book honestly was one of my first steps of just getting things normal feeling and understanding better what I went through just to have that, since even though I'm not great with language, I do better reading and understanding things through the written word than I do the spoken word. Yeah, same. Oh my gosh, I can relate to that.

Whoa, well, that's wild to hear. I am really, truly so grateful to you for reaching out to me and sharing your story in light of all that happened to you. And I do so hope to use this work to create more awareness of abusive power dynamics that show up in places you might not think to look and empathy for people who get involved with groups like Twin Flames as unserious as this podcast can be a lot of the time. Can you tell us a little bit of the story

of how you actually got out and what those barriers to exit were and how you moved past them? Well, the first step, like I said, was reading Sarah Berman's article. And then the next step was I honestly went on YouTube just to better understand why people join cults. I literally typed in why people join cults. And then this little, I think it was Ted Talks, was a three-minute explainer video in cartoon, which was perfect for me. It helped me a lot and I went, oh my gosh, and it talked about pyramid scheme too within it. I felt really sick to my stomach because that was my final little step of,

oh my gosh, I'm so sick. I can't believe I've been in this for so long. I felt a lot of emotions. I felt sick, guilty, wanted out, but I didn't know how to get out. That's the thing when you're in it, especially when you're online. So again, logic, common sense still isn't fully there, even though I hadn't watched or done any mirroring in a while. There's still that fear instilled since Chef made sure if you are choosing to not stay there and be with your twin flame, you are choosing hell, you're choosing contrast. And he threatened Sarah Berman got to look at those letters and I think she wrote some of it in the second article, but he pretty much threatened that you would never have a job, that you would be poor and

homeless, and that he would send people after to watch you and blah blah blah and take you to court and put you in jail. So there was a lot on the line that people seemed to not understand and threats like that and the line that people seem to not understand and threats like that and the fact that they, at least at that time, had the finances to do that kind of makes it scary to try to leave. And the fact that you had insider information that could potentially not be great for them financially. It's super scary. I mean, anyone who's ever been in a toxic one-on-one relationship can relate to those feelings. You feel so, so

fucking alone when you're in one of those situations, especially if you've signed something or whatever. That's so challenging. So then how did you move past the fear of those threats to actually be like, I'm not engaging with this anymore? I actually just talked to my mom. We had a heart to heart. It's actually in the docuseries of my mom asking me, because I finally told her, I still was following through things. I told her that I was a man and she asked me, is this you or is this them? I purposely highlighted that language when I was interviewed for the docuseries because she didn't say cult. She just said you or them in simple terms and you

are trained when you're in a cult to respond to people so I was not trained how to respond to that and I actually thought about it before responding and I said them and I actually broke down and started crying because I had already felt sick after the video I'd watched. This is all within the same day because I cried for hours on end and we just talked back and forth and she Asked me near the end of our like four-hour conversation. What are you gonna do? How are you gonna leave? And I told her I don't know I don't know what to do and she said why don't you just block them? I went okay. That's actually a good idea cuz when you're in that situation, it's hard

I'm the only member known to have blocked them I haven't heard anyone else's story similar to that, but I'm the only one to have blocked Jeff and Shaleah and everyone. That's the funny thing when a cult mostly exists online. It's so hard to wrap your head around this when you're like in it and it feels like your world. But like you can just fucking block them and not look. Yeah, it's true.

It's like very interesting though and such a sign of our times that like the internet got you in this call, but that damn TED Talk also got you out. So it's like really representative of the double-edged sword that is the internet and social media. Like we really have to watch our backs on there. Absolutely, yeah. I've got two more questions. Has the popularity of these Twin Flames documentaries impacted the group?

Yes, actually their sales went down by 75% during Christmas time. And I know locals in Michigan aren't happy that they're doing the summit. How that's going to play out, I can't honestly say, but I know they don't want them there and also aren't happy that they're living in Michigan. And a lot of locals know exactly where they live, and a lot of them feel uncomfortable, including their children being around them or running into them. You know what's so interesting is like,

the fact that these two started out as influencers, and they're still pretty much just that. I mean, they're influencers who turned into a fucking colonel or really destroying people, but like at the end of the day, they're kind of not more powerful than influencers. If we take the wind out of their sails, then they won't be able to influence anymore. I wonder how many people would still need to support them for this to continue to be a cult.

They have a small pool, technically, of a little over 100 that will continue to pay them. When I was there, we had a bigger pool. It's funny, their language has changed since I was in there because they used to say that it was infinite pool of finances because everyone wants a Twin Flame and now suddenly it's a smaller pool. That's because they only have like a hundred plus followers that it's enough to keep them on their feet right now.

I think we need to just continue talking about how fucked up these people are, so that number, that 75% drop in sales will just continue to drop. It's like fucking cancel them. Yes, they need to be canceled. I've seen some people do a hashtag. I know a lot of just people in general,

public-wise, have been really upset. A lot of people have reached out to me too, and a lot of locals. There's been a lot of reach out of just wanting them gone and not understanding why authorities aren't following through. We literally have evidence of sex trafficking, actually, in Escaping Twin Flames with Marley. Marley's story. So there is proof of that in film form, and I can quote in Baal saying, we have a thousand hours of video footage so of evidence alone plus all of us ex-members including myself having evidence too. So you're hopeful that there will be like criminal justice? Yeah, because if they continue running just because their sales go down and everything

else Jeff comes up with something new. Like way back when Sarah Berman first did her article, Sales Went Down, and how he made up for that is bringing back his twin flame reading for the low price of like, I think $150 each. So no matter what another scheme comes out of that. So in order to shut them down, we need to literally shut them down. Like, they need to be in jail. They have been doing illegal things, just no one's doing anything. Like, there's a lot of work behind the scenes, including myself doing, and still nothing's moving. Families, everyone's working really hard behind the scenes. It's also why I'm making sure to be extra loud too.

It's so nuts to be able to like discuss this group that is this damaging that's still at large, and I'm glad that we're able to bring awareness to it. Even people who would never fall into twin flames specifically, it's good to be aware that this type of rhetoric is everywhere and there could be twin flames offshoots popping up in all corners of your TikTok or YouTube algorithm, so like be aware. We've now reached the end of our interview where I'm going to ask you the ultimate sounds like a cult question.

And I already know the answer, but out of our three cult categories, live your life, watch your back, and get the fuck out. Which do you think the cult of twin flames falls into? Get the fuck out. Without a doubt. So that's obvious, right? Like we knew that already going in. But then what would you say to folks who like follow some new agey type accounts on social media who maybe aren't getting involved quite yet in online forums or courses or whatever, but are still keeping those people in their feed, those spiritual type influencers, do you think they're a get the fuck out? Or which category do you think they fall into? I think they have the potential. I think a lot of them have the potential. Anyone has

the potential of being in the get the fuck out. You just don't know until you're fully involved in it, sadly, since it is a gradual process in the first place. That's why with me, as soon as I hear the word manifesting or anything, I quickly swipe when it comes to TikTok. And then YouTube, if I see anything that's just off putting to me, period, I go, nope, not for me. Don't want to see it. Totally. Yeah, no, you're right. I go, nope, not for me. Don't wanna see it. Totally, yeah, no, you're right. I mean, influencers in general are always a watcher back if they're trying to sell your soul back to you

or sell something that they don't have, like enlightenment or something beyond just like the discount code for an eye cream. Thank you so much for joining this very special episode of Sounds Like a Cult. If folks wanna keep up with you and your writing and just your post Twin Flames life, where can they find you? You can find me on Instagram with JessieStories7, and then you can find me on TikTok, which is JessieHStories. And I am on YouTube. My YouTube

channel is being restarted up in interview form and you have a chance to see some behind the scenes of Escaping Twin Flames. I interview a lot from Inval to Cecilia to Morgan. There's a lot of people you get to hear their perspective and everything, which is kind of fun because you get my perspective and then their perspective of me at the same time and of everyone that was there. I'm sure our listeners will be very interested in that. So go check that out on YouTube. Well, that's our show. Thanks so much for listening.

Stick around for a new cult, not next week, but next month. We're taking a four week mid-season break because we are preparing for something very exciting that's happening in September. This sounds like a cult. Cult is expanding. New co-hosts are in your future. So stick around for that. I could not be more excited. I could not be having a better time with these new cult leaders. and in the meantime, stay culty. But not too culty.

Sounds Like a Cult is hosted and produced by Amanda Montell and edited by Jordan Moore of the Pod Cabin. Our theme music is by Casey Kolb. This episode was made with production help from Katie Epperson and Rhys Oliver. Thank you as well to our partner, All Things Comedy. And if you like the show, please feel free to check out my books, Word Slut, A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language, Cultish, The Language of Fanaticism, and The Age of Magical Overthinking, Notes on Modern Irrationality. If you're a fan of Sounds Like a Cult, I would really appreciate it if you'd leave

a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.