Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation cover art

Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation

Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation

By: Exactly Right and iHeartPodcasts
Listen for free

About this listen

Trust Me is a weekly interview podcast about cults, extreme belief, and the fine line between devotion and delusion—told through firsthand accounts from the people who lived it. Hosted by two women who’ve been in cults themselves, Lola Blanc and Meagan Elizabeth, the show features survivors from groups like Heaven’s Gate, the Manson Family, NXIVM, OneTaste and more–sharing personal stories of how they got in, how they got out, and everything in between.

Each week, they invite these guests alongside experts who can dive deep into seductive leaders, the darker aspects of organized religion, and the subtler shades of groupthink and the psychology of influence. Trust Me explores it all with unfiltered honesty, dark humor, and a lot of heart. This isn’t a sensationalized deep dive into cults—it’s a compassionate, first-person exploration of what it means to believe, to belong, and to break free. At the end of the day, wanting to believe in something bigger than yourself is one of the most human instincts there is.

2025 2024 iHeartMedia, Inc. © Any use of this intellectual property for text and data mining or computational analysis including as training material for artificial intelligence systems is strictly prohibited without express written consent from iHeartMedia Social Sciences True Crime
Episodes
  • Theo Pratt - Blue Dresses, Smacking Ladies, and an Isolated Compound: Surviving Gloriavale

    Theo Pratt - Blue Dresses, Smacking Ladies, and an Isolated Compound: Surviving Gloriavale
    Dec 17 2025

    This week’s guest is Theo Pratt, survivor of Gloriavale, an isolated Christian cult hidden deep in rural New Zealand, and author of Unveiled: A Story of Surviving Gloriavale. She’ll talk about being raised on the strictly controlled commune where people were assigned new names, women wore identical dresses and head coverings, and children weren’t taught the real days of the week—or even where they were in the world.

    Theo shares about the leader Neville Cooper’s self-proclaimed divine authority, how “smacking ladies” kept the kids in line—and guards kept the compound controlled, and her rebellious streak that led her to planning an escape attempt on a tandem bicycle. And of course, the moment she realized she couldn’t stay, and what it felt like to step into the outside world she’d been taught would destroy her.

    SOURCES:

    Unveiled: A Story of Surviving Gloriavale

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 15 mins
  • Renee DiResta - Part 2: Pseudo-Events, More on Disinformation, and Telling Fact From Fiction

    Renee DiResta - Part 2: Pseudo-Events, More on Disinformation, and Telling Fact From Fiction
    Dec 10 2025

    Renee DiResta, professor and author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality, joins the show again to dive deeper into disinformation, propaganda, and "pseudo-events," or manufactured controversies and news stories.

    She explains why it’s so difficult to tell fact from fiction online, how propagandists stoke real, often legitimate tensions to create division, how American politicians are amplifying false information instead of shutting it down, and possible policies that could help reduce our culty social media silos.

    SOURCES

    Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality


    The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-events in America

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
    Show More Show Less
    50 mins
  • Renee DiResta - Part 1: Propaganda, Disinformation, and Bespoke Realities

    Renee DiResta - Part 1: Propaganda, Disinformation, and Bespoke Realities
    Dec 3 2025

    This week’s guest is Renee DiResta, professor, and author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality. In part one this week, she talks to Lola and Meagan about propaganda, disinformation vs. misinformation, and how social media algorithms push us all into highly individualized, “bespoke” realities.

    They discuss how she became interested in this topic after social media algorithms started suggesting anti-vaxxer content to her, how rage bait and other emotionally charged material spreads faster, and why social media makes it seem like other people have more extreme views than the majority of them actually do.

    SOURCES

    Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
    Show More Show Less
    52 mins
No reviews yet
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.