823: Daniella Mestyanek Young | How to Disengage from a Lifelong Cult

26:23It just encompassed our whole lives. And the way I briefed it to myself was just, I want to go to high school so I can go to college so I can be a lawyer. So I have to get out of here. And so it wasn't until I uprooted my whole life, got myself excommunicated two years later. And, you know, the other part was not only did we not call ourselves a cult, we spent hours and hours and hours drilling on how to answer questions if we were a cult. You know, to the point that when I had this realization, oh, we grew up in a cult, my next thought was, well, that should be obvious if you spend that much time talking about how you aren't a cult.

27:05Tell us about what kinds of questions you were being drilled on and what this was for. I mean, is this is this like, OK, when the police eventually raid this commune, we need you to be like, no, of course, I've been to the doctor. Of course, I'm not sleeping with a 72 year old man. I'm only 12. I mean, is that where are we going with this kind of training that you had? Yes, that was exactly it. And actually, for listeners, the chapter three shows this and it's published in Rolling Stone, a sample chapter. people can go check it out. And it was exactly right. We had so first of all, you have the concept of the persecution, right?

27:41The persecution is coming, it is out there. And we have proof because XYZ, right, which when I was a child was this compound in Argentina gets raided. And so after that, it's they're really coming, they really are what the prophet said, they really are out to get us. This is the same time Waco has just, you know, the Branch Davidians have erupted in Waco. So we are all terrified that they're going to decide we're a cult and come kill us all. And we have this doctrine called deceivers yet true, which is literally, it's not okay to lie, but it is okay to lie for God to the outsiders. And there would be all of these examples from the Bible and from Christian history.

28:27It was a cartoon book that my stepfather illustrated that we would read and drill on. And kind of exactly what you said about the touching and the sexual abuse, but also very similar to what they say in the movie Women Talking, which is we didn't talk about what happened. So we didn't have language for it. So in The Children of God, there was no such thing as sexual abuse, because you were supposed to give your body to whoever wanted it. We had a comic called Heaven's Girl that literally trained us how to give our body to multiple attackers in the end times, right? Antichrist soldiers, you know, training children and young teenagers about gang rape.

29:12You know, it wasn't until way later on when they put this charter of rules and responsibilities that I even had the language for, oh, grown men are not supposed to have sex with young girls. The training that you got for relating to outsiders makes sense, right? And for people who don't know what Waco Branch Davidian was, because you're maybe young or weren't watching the news, this was a cult in Waco, Texas. There was, of course, another prophet named David Koresh or, you know, self-proclaimed prophet named David Koresh. They all lived in a compound. And I believe I'm going off memory here, but they were stockpiling weapons, which is a great way to get attention from the FBI.

29:50And so they got attention for the ATF and the FBI. And the FBI said, all right, we're going to go in there and we're going to get the weapons. And the cult said, come and get it. And then the FBI went in there and accidentally slashed through gross incompetence, basically killed almost everybody who was in this house. They had let go of a bunch of women and children, but actually the FBI raided it. The place caught on fire and they all burned to death. My friend who works at the FBI was saying it's basically known as the worst sort of low point in the FBI because they bungled it so bad that they just ended up murdering all these people.

30:25And it was a complete accident. I mean, the accident through negligence and incompetence and not knowing what the hell they were doing. And there's all this footage of like an FBI tank running into the side of the building and the place is on fire and there's people on the roof. It's just a huge, a huge mess. So using that as propaganda for your cult and saying, look, they're going to come and kill us. They did this on purpose is kind of, I hate to say a stroke of genius because that's probably laying it on a bit too thick, but it really was a gift from the FBI to every cult out there that, look, all these lies we made up about how people are going to come after us, they turned out to be true.

30:58And here's the proof. And it was perfect both-siderism on our part. It was, we are not a cult. Waco was a cult. He thought, he said he was Jesus, right? He clearly is messed up. Our guy doesn't say he's Jesus. Our guy says he's the prophet, right? So we are not a cult, but look what America will do to you if they think you're a cult, right? And that is the other thing is that we were trained to hate America. We were trained that America was Babylon the whore. It was going to be part of God's judgment. This is why we didn't live in America. Also, because it's much, much easier to leave your cult if you live in the country that you are from or nearby it, as I would find out later.

31:43You know, so all of these things in my mind when I'm six, seven, eight years old is I want the cops to come rescue me, but I don't want to be murdered. You know, I don't want to be here. But also the outside world is evil. We aren't a cult, but we are like them. So we have to be careful. Oh, the double think is very 1984. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wow. Unfortunately, I think we do have to talk about the abuse because it's a big part of the cult. We talked about the sexually liberated children concept, which is gross just even saying out loud. And it wasn't just sexual abuse, right? There was spanking babies as young as six months old.

32:21And there was a punishment culture. Can you speak to that a little bit? Yes. So, you know, in this way, I think it was very similar to many of the kind of strict evangelical churches that you have out there that are very into spare the rod, spoil the child. It's one of the primary doctrines. you know, he says that babies should start being spanked at six months old, but we also don't have any limitations on spanking or hitting, right? So it just becomes sessions of beatings. We had a lot of group discipline, which of course I would later also encounter in the army because group discipline is a great way to, you know, control people because you are creating fear and you're creating this dynamic of kind of North Korean prison camps, right?

33:08Like everyone's going to tell on everyone else. People don't want to be disciplined or people do, you know, you can get back at the group by getting everyone disciplined. So you also can never like bond and have good friends because of the discipline culture. And then of course, you know, we would get separated. So there would be a lot of isolation. There would be this thing called silence restriction, where they would just tell you that you couldn't talk. A lot of times they would hang signs on you. I now have t-shirts that say, don't talk to me. I'm disrespectful. Wow. But these are like signs that they would put on and you would go for a week and everyone in the commune essentially knew they were supposed to shun you.

33:47Wow. And then, you know, with the isolation. So there's a scene in Uncultured where I go there, right? Where I take you into 10 hours in the basement with a pedophile who, from the outside, I have done something bad and I have been hauled away for discipline and I emerged 10 hours later and it's never talked about. Of course, what is happening on the inside is very, very serious rape and abuse and beatings and neglect, but it's not talked about. But I know that everyone else goes through this. I know that even my own mother grew up in this and has been isolated. So I think everybody knows what is happening.

34:34And I think that this is the raping is just another part of my punishment from God as the beating or the washing the mouth out with soap. How do you know that everybody else went through that? I mean, it was clear that they did. But if you didn't ever talk about it, did you just know that somebody was missing for a while? And you're like, well, they're probably going through the same thing as me because they went in the basement with creepy Uncle Jerry. Yes. And, you know, come to find out everyone is, of course, not going through the same thing, right? And this is another way that survivors sometimes don't support each other.

35:05You know, in the beginning, their sexuality stuff was very, very open. And then at some point, actually, when a 14 year old got pregnant, with me, they realized, oh, we can't have this evidence, right? So we're going to put rules in place. And this is when a lot of the survivors seem to believe that telling the pedophiles to stop raping the children worked. And I find it surprising that people believe that, of course, but that's where we were. It was this culture of you don't question the uncles, right? Anything the uncles do, they are the hand of God. And when you know someone has been separated and then they come back, the last thing you want to do is ask them what happened.

35:50because somebody else might tell on you. They might tell on you. Or, heaven forbid, I think you just have to face what happened. And again, we didn't, you know, have the words for that. So even you asking somebody else what happened would be considered you questioning the uncle's decision to do sadistic stuff to kids. Oh, absolutely. And, you know, heaven forbid you ask someone what happened and then you react negatively, right? Because that would really be judgment, right? I see. Something like rolling your eyes could get you isolated for days, right? So we absolutely walked on glass. It wasn't until decades later, I feel like, that we would all start talking about it.

36:37And this was another really interesting parallel to my time in the military, because I feel like it was the same thing. All of the women are going through the same mistreatment and the same kind of abuse. but we don't talk about it. That's the number one rule.

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40:06The course is about improving your relationship building skills, inspiring other people to want to develop a relationship with you. It's not cringy. It's not cheesy. It's not awkward. It's very easy and very practical. I want to make you a better connector, a better colleague, a better friend in just a few minutes a day. And again, the course is free over at jordanharbinger.com slash course. Many of the guests on the show subscribe and contribute to the course. So come join us. You'll be in smart company. Now back to Daniela Mastinick-Young. Some of the punishment that you describe in the book, aside from, of course, the, I can't believe I'm saying this, aside from the child rape, some of the punishment was really sadistic.

40:45And it made me wonder, do you think the people that joined this cult were sociopathic pedophiles or did they become that way when they joined the cult? Because I'm trying to figure out, It's like if you offer me to join a cult and have some power, I'm like, oh, that's kind of appealing from a human. But if you're like and you get to rape kids, I'd be like, dude, I don't what you gross. So I would imagine these guys join because they get to do that with impunity. But I'm like, how did they advertise that? How do you find people that are going to be OK with that? And you're like, hey, I got a secret.

41:20You can join this cult and do this all you want. I don't understand that. It's got to be part of the selling point to have these creeps join in the first place, right? Yes and no. Right. So what we know about rape is it's not about sex, it's about power. Right. So men primarily that get attracted to these patriarchal, high controlling, abusive religions, I don't think they have to know what the version of what they're going to be allowed to do is. It's just they're going to be given control. They're going to be able to exercise their will over people. And I think, you know, this is kind of what I call the difference between like the good uncles and the creepy uncles in the book.

42:02It's like there were some like Uncle Jerry, like my biological father, who were known to like young girls. Right. And then there were many, I think, who went along with it when it was the thing to do. And then when it wasn't the thing to do anymore, they were like, OK, great. Now we can get back to loving God. I've done shows on pedophilia or in part on pedophilia. And one of the interesting paradoxes, I guess you can call it that, is a lot of the guys and it's usually guys that offend, that are engaged in sexual acts with children. They're not actually attracted to children. It's just because they have access to children and they are psychopaths or sociopaths or otherwise enjoy hurting other people.

42:49It has nothing to do in many, many ways with sexual attraction. There are adults, of course, who are attracted to kids and it's a disorder. And many of them actually don't offend because they know it's bad. So a lot of the guys that do offend, they know that it's bad. That's what they like about it. And they couldn't care less if it's a child or an adult woman or whatever. They just don't care. It's about hurting somebody else. Yes. And that's exactly the case. And one of the other things, like the concept that I set out to write about in this book is this group psychology concept that humans will do almost anything to fit in with groups that they've voluntarily chosen.

43:27and the children of God had this very long-term, like six-month onboarding process, very similar to how long it takes you to become a qualified soldier in the army. You didn't get to know any of the creepy doctrines until you had already given up everything for six months. At that point, I think it becomes so much easier to justify things, to go along with things. And for all of the adults, you know, they, they tell themselves, I'm this good person. And I have a chapter in my next book called there were good people in the sex cult too. Because even the ones that aren't the ones doing the actual abuses, right, they're reading the literature with all the naked children in it, they are seeing the things that are being done, they're seeing the children coming back out of the torture chambers, right?

44:22And they're not walking away. So like, there definitely is a point where even the good people in really toxic environments are complicit, even though they might also be abused and coerced. Is there any element of blackmail? And I'm not trying to make this cult worse than it already is. But I would imagine, like, let's say I go and join some cult like this in South America and I'm like horrified at what's going on and I realize that I'm complicit and I'm an accomplice to this horrible stuff that's going on, I almost would think maybe I can't leave because what if I fly back to America? Is the cult going to be like, hey, this guy was around when all these bad things were happening.

45:02He's a criminal. I mean, I would from a legal perspective, I have I definitely have criminal liability as a result of being around that and not doing anything about it. So yes, what you're saying a little bit, right? So in 93, someone went on Larry King live and had this discussion, right? That he said, like, I didn't want to do this. They made me do it. And, you know, he's talking about this 10 year old girl that he was made to have sex with, who was the leader's daughter. And they did that to essentially have dirt on him. The 10-year-old girl was my mother. My God. And he's trying to explain this and he's trying to explain the coercive thinking.

45:42And it stands out because Larry King just looks at him and he goes, and you did it? And a few days later, this man took his life. And I think the much more real threat here and the exit cost is not legally you are going to be pursued. but it's just, you know, if you ever admit what it was really like and what was really done, nobody's ever going to accept you again. Right. And that's really the worst punishment people can have. And that's what so many of us survivors, even that grew up in it, deal with. It's like we live, you know, for 10 years, I didn't say peep about it because I thought people would judge me so hard just from coming from that environment.

46:25How did the cult instill fear of the outside world? We talked a little bit about how they're going to persecute us, but what were some of the other lies maybe that you had in place before Waco? How do they keep you from seeing the doctor, for example? I mean, people need medical care. For God's sake, you have people having kids all the time. I think the biggest way they instilled the fear was just by absolutely not allowing us access to any of it. It wasn't just like, oh, they're bad, right? So we feared sugar, right? So white sugar wasn't just bad for you. It was the literal antichrist. And we have, you know, a band member of Fleetwood Mac singing a song about how bad sugar is for you.

47:08So then you go out in the outside world to perform to all these people and you're seeing these evil systemites eating sugar and eating dessert in front of you, right? This will reinforce that what they're saying is true. You aren't allowed to see the doctor until it's a really, really extreme, horrible emergency. So the first time I'm taken to see the doctor, I have been bleeding for hours already. And so it is an extremely horrifying procedure. And so it reinforces to me, oh, doctors are evil. He did allow them to see doctors for having babies, although we did have both, like a lot of babies at home.

47:51But I don't think they want it to get too complicated. But also we just had kids die a lot, as many cults do, just from neglect, medical neglect, and diseases that could have been prevented. How did the cult bring in money? Because it sounds like they weren't able to do enough of that. Yeah, so nobody worked, quote unquote. Nobody worked for a legitimate company bringing in a salary. Everybody was expected to give 100 % of their time and labor to what we called living by faith, which just meant go out and do it and God will provide. So what that really looked like, again, was, you know, let's say like half of the commune was keeping the commune going, cooking, taking care of children, cleaning, all of the things.

48:36And we children were hugely part of that as well. And then the other half would be pounding the pavement, right? Begging at stoplights for money, performing. Another thing in a lot of these developing nations is you'll have really big street markets. And so you have all kinds of food vendors with food that they need to get rid of by the end of the day. So it's the easiest thing to go by and get them to donate almost bad food to your big giant missionary organization. So that was, you know, just the situation. And I would say I grew up from that context better than many of the children in the Children of God, because we were in a leadership home that got money from the lower down home.

49:21So we were kind of like higher up on the MLM than a lot of people. And still there was just never enough food. I know you got in trouble at some point for asking if the Bible was true. Can you talk to us about that? Because that's that seems like one of the things that when you're in a cult, you should probably not do. Yeah, I never got the memo of how to shut up. Yeah. So I'm about six years old and we're playing broken telephone with one of our older cult kid teachers, like an 18 year old that's in charge of us. And so we go through, you know, it starts with a Bible verse that everyone knows.

49:56And I'm like, OK, how can this get screwed up? And then it goes through 10 children and it comes out completely ridiculous, as happens with broken telephone. And so we had been taught that the Bible was handed down by word of mouth from Adam for 500 years until it got to Moses, who then wrote it down, which is this very archaic, you know, evangelical train of thought. When we first learned to play broken telephone, I just kind of piped up with, well, then how could the Bible possibly be true? if it was handed down for 500 years. Right, and we can't even do it for 20 minutes. Right, that was your line of thinking, yeah.

50:35And that was basically just my logic brain saying, well, like, is some of this maybe, you know, but translated funny or things got twisted. And again, in a cult, like that is not the kind of thing you can say. And so that was what led to the aforementioned, you know, basement punishment. And these are the kinds of things that would happen just all the time. Did you ever meet the cult leader, the grandpa figure, or was he kind of on the run? I couldn't really tell. It sounded like he was almost on the run at that point. Yeah. So ever since the point in the 70s when the FBI was looking for him and he left the country, he never, he not only lived in hiding from his own followers, but we didn't even see his face.

51:19So he communicated with all of us through endless written letters called the Mo letters, Moses David. And he always had over any picture was a cartoon lion's head that somebody like my dad would draw. I forget exactly why. Oh, he was the Lion of Judah or something. And the first time most of us saw his face was after he died. Again, it was the reinforcing of the persecution, right? He's so important. They're so out to get him. And one of the things that always made me feel really special was that my mom had lived with him and knew what he looked like and, you know, had even married him when she was a teenager.

52:01Where was he the whole time? If he wasn't living with you in Brazil and they raided the Argentina place, where was he? So he was in the Philippines in the 80s, like 87 when I was born. He was nearby. I don't know where he was in the meantime. At some point they were in Mexico. And then the rumor is that he died of syphilis in Portugal. Oh, wow. And that his wife, when he got really bad, just left him there with one of his concubines to just die in pain and just went off and didn't tell anyone in the group. So I kind of hope that's the way he died because it seems like justice. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

52:42How bizarre. It doesn't sound like he was exactly living it up. Because I sort of envisioned, if you've got an international cult, you're doing it wrong if you're not touring around and enjoying the fact that you've got homes in multiple countries. I mean, it seems like he should have figured that out. But I guess maybe the heat was up a little bit too high for cult grandpa. Yeah, and definitely like in the leadership homes, there's always a cult inside the cult, right? So the Children of God, that was the leadership homes. In Scientology, this is the Sea Org and the U.S. Army. It's the Special Forces.

53:15but like the closer you get to the leader like it always gets more serious and more extreme but i feel like he definitely had this double life that he had to keep from most of the followers so that they would continue to sacrifice their lives and their children and send him all their money and live in poverty and the other thing is just like nobody wins in power games so like the patriarchy hurts women and children but it hurts men too you know or like if you're gonna keep a slave in the basement, you're still also tied to that house and that basement. So I think at some point, like his organization also held him almost as much of a prisoner as it did the other people.

54:01Well, that's fascinating. I hadn't even thought about that. But you're right. The slave metaphor, or in many cases, not metaphor, I guess, is really apt here. Some of the tales in the book are just so bizarre. Can you tell us about these weird, over-sexualized parties that you had? Because it's so odd to read about this. And on the one hand, it's the Bible, but on the other hand, it's like something out of the movie Eyes Wide Shut. So first of all, it wasn't just the parties, right? Our entire life was over-sexualized. And the reason they call it a sex cult was literally because sex was just our number one belief, right?

54:34So every poster that we had of angels flying around heaven, the angels were all either naked or in transparent white gowns with boobs hanging out. You know, some of the survivors will be like, well, I didn't sort of specifically get sexually abused. And they won't understand that like, everything in our vicinity was that. So, you know, I show this party where there's adults walking around naked. So it's instead of like a Halloween party. It's a heaven party. We dress up like people in heaven. And there are games, right? But it would be musical chairs. But when the music stops, you have to lose clothes, you know, and the kids are just around involved in all of this.

55:23You know, they had this doctrine of loving Jesus, which was having sex with Jesus, which turned into like these big public orgies where they were all just making sex sounds and talking to Jesus. Again, in the middle of the living room, you know, where everyone can kind of hear this and know this. And again, it's one of those things that people ask, you know, how does nobody stop and question this? But when that's what everybody's doing, you know, if you go to a nude beach in Europe and you're wearing clothes, you feel awkward. And so when everyone around you is naked and saying Jesus is love and, you know, saying that Uncle Jerry's the coolest thing, nobody's questioning it.

56:08And Uncle Jerry, this isn't just a random name that we made up. This is an actual guy. And he was what, like a rock musician who had somehow joined the cult and he ended up with status because he had royalty checks coming in. So he had money. He sounds like a sadistic pedophile. Is that accurate? In my opinion, yes. You know, I think he was one of those ones that you talk about just like from birth or from a very young age was a sociopath. Like he wasn't only a pedophile. He was very violent in a lot of ways. And yeah, he was, you know, we were supposed to be in this society where there was no such thing as money.

56:47There was no such thing as rank. Everyone was equal. Everyone was the same. But somehow the people that came in with a lot of money always seemed to get whatever they wanted. And he was a very significant musician with royalty checks that would do very well for the children of God for the rest of his life. And he's still there. He's still there. I was going to ask, where is this guy now? Is he alive still? Yes. As far as I know, he's self-publishing his own book quite soon. I'm sure it's a fascinating read. I can't imagine. You thought getting your book published was tough. I would imagine self-publishing is the only way to go when you're a sadistic pedophile who runs a sex cult.

57:28This is The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Daniela Mestinick-Young. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by The Gist Podcast. If you're looking for a news podcast that is smart, unfiltered, and doesn't just echo whatever side you already agree with, check out The Gist with my friend Mike Peska. Mike's been doing this longer than just about anyone. It's actually the longest-running daily news podcast. It's earned that spot on Apple's top charts for a reason. Each episode's around 30 minutes, so it's perfect for your commute or while you're making breakfast. It's always packed with sharp, thought-provoking takes.

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58:51You can also search for any sponsor using the AI chatbot on the website as well. Again, over at jordanharbinger.com. Thanks for supporting those who support the show. Now for the rest of my conversation with Daniela Mestanek-Young. The founder eventually dies. And I want to know how this changes things. But the mourning of his passing kind of reminded me a bit of North Korea, right? where the leaders die and people go wild with this exaggerated show of mourning because, in part because other people are watching, but in part because they're so completely programmed and brainwashed that the crying, people always ask me, the North Korean, oh, they're crying so hard because if they don't, they'll get in trouble.

59:30And I'm thinking they're crying so hard because they've been told their whole lives that this is actually a divine being that is responsible for their safety. They're actually really sad. It's real. It looks fake because nobody mourns like that, but you would if you thought your entire country was going to fall apart and everyone was going to die as a result of this man passing. What you're saying is so true, right? And we see this in a lot of ways with cults. Like, the thinking is twisted, but the phenomenon that people are going through is real, right? Like, when you chant in groups, you get into this hypnotic state, this suggestible state.

1:00:06Like, Like that feeling is real. It doesn't just happen in cults, but a cult can manipulate that, right? And so we, you know, we called him grandpa, right? The adults that joined called him dad and we children called him grandpa. That was the only thing we ever called him. And we were taught from birth that you didn't have your family. You had the family, right? So exactly what you're saying, right? So we're ushered into this room. There's a giant easel with this giant picture of this like super creepy old bearded white man that all of the aunties are just crying and wailing. And for us, it is a little bit like, well, we've lost the most important person in our family.

1:00:52We've lost our patriarch. We've lost the head of whatever. But I also think for the children, it was like, yeah, but we also didn't know him. And, you know, just it was more like, how is this going to change now? Right. What's going to happen? Is the family going to be over? You did eventually get uprooted. What happened there? You know, so his wife takes over and she's her own kind of crazy who's been indoctrinated by this man since she was a young teenager. And I think in some ways she tried to make it better for the children. And then in some ways she just also standardized a lot of things that were horrible.

1:01:28But she decided, you know, we're not going to have these giant communes anymore. I think maybe she didn't want the work of, you know, running 10 ,000 people in large brigades in a military fashion. And so it was, you know, go out on your own, find three or four people that you can be in a home with and a commune with and go out and do your thing. and this is when we end up getting moved from the leadership home because my mom has had too many kids at this point even though this is what you're supposed to be doing and this in a way became like a really good thing that happened to me because we got into a much smaller commune and we interacted more in the population and this is when you know I remember I started learning Portuguese at 10 years old and I could speak before I was 11.

1:02:19I remember thinking like, okay, I can do it now. You know, like I'm closer to my freedom because I can speak the language because I know where I am on a map because, you know, I go outside the walls more often than I did before. When did you know you wanted to leave the cult? Because it sounds like that happened really early. So when I was six, I was like, I'm not going to grow up and do this. I'm going to leave the family. When I was 11, I started trying to make my plans. So that's when I actively was like, I need to get out of here. But because my whole family, including my grandparents, all my aunts and uncles, everyone are in the cult, I didn't have a lot of options and just thought I had to wait till 18.

1:03:04when I finally had my definite crack in the brainwashing moment was on 9-11. We've just come to the U.S. for the first time. I'm 14 years old. I'm watching live news on television. First, I have to understand what live news is because, of course, we've all been taught to hate the news and mistrust the media, all the things that are going on in the country now. And, you know, my people around me are praising God, right? This is God's promised judgment on America. This is what's been coming. This is what our prophet told us. And I'm just watching this horrible cartage and destruction and wondering to myself, you know, are we the bad guys here?

1:03:46And I hear the term religious extremism as they're talking about the terrorists. And that was like a moment that just stood out to me as probably the first time I questioned, not just, is this for me? But like, is this actually bad? Are we actually not good people? And then from there, I was like, I'm done. And this became my 1.5 year campaign to get myself excommunicated. And this for me was really important before I turned 16. Because when you turned 16, you were now considered essentially old enough to get pregnant, right? So an adult. And women didn't usually stay pregnant for very long. Girls, I should say.

1:04:34Stay unpregnant for very long once they turned 16. Unpregnant, yeah. So I was like, I need to get out of here. And I realized, you know, if they think they can save you, they will try. And exorcisms are not fun. So you have to do the worst thing. So for me, this was literally climbing over the commune walls in the middle of the night and going and having sex with a boy that I had met in the outside world. Because, you know, they'd gone from being the religious prostitution cult to AIDS, close the doors, because we all have sex with each other. The biggest sin is going outside. Oh, interesting.

1:05:16So once I had done that, it was essentially, now you're untouchable. Now we just need to get you out of here before you infect anyone else. Yeah, literally. Interesting. Wow. The irony is rich with them being so afraid of getting a disease. I mean, where to even start poking holes in the logic that is cult thinking, right? How did you end up going to the United States? Because it seems like that would be a radical change. There's no walls. There's no guards with automatic rifles. You can read the signs. You know, people are speaking English around you. That must have been insane. Biggest culture shock I've ever had in my life.

1:05:51So we left Brazil. My mom wanted to get out of there and she kept insisting. And we eventually left and we spent a few months in the U.S. And it really was that, Jordan, right? It was like the walls came down. And I remember thinking over and over again, wow, in the eight months that we lived in a commune in the U.S., like, oh, this is why they don't want us in the U.S., right? You cannot be panhandling on the streets in the middle of the day. An American will walk up to you and say, why aren't you in school? That doesn't happen in Brazil. People can't be walking around the commune half naked all the time when it's a house that you can see right into.

1:06:29And so the walls coming down, like you said, I can speak the language, all of this stuff. And so for most of us, when we left the cult, we just went back to wherever we had ties to, which for a lot of people was like the US, Australia, the UK. And I didn't have any of that. But I did have a stepfather with a daughter in Houston, Texas. I'd met her three times before. And, you know, she'd left the cult about three years before, 25-year-old living in Houston, trying to survive. And they were like, hey, do you want a 15-year-old? And she said, sure. Who was they? The cult asked her if she wanted it or the American authorities asked her?

1:07:15No, my parents, you know, my my dad. Your parents were like, hey, take your crazy sister who's causing trouble. And this is kind of what we did. Right. Her older sister had already taken the three younger sisters of my dad's. And, you know, now it was her turn to take the next one. When my 16 year old brother wanted to get out of home, he came and lived with me for a while. while I was a lieutenant in the army. Like this was kind of what we did, how we tried to help each other, I guess. This is life in high control religions, right? Your parents just kick you out if you don't believe like them.

1:07:50And so I was, yeah, I was 15 years old, $0 for about three weeks. Went to enroll in high school. I had a social security card and a passport. And they were like, so we can't enroll you because you don't exist. but also now that we know you exist we need to see proof that you're in school somewhere in five days or else we need to call the cops a little catch 22 you can't come to our school but you need to be in school right it was a process you know it took me about a month to get enrolled in school and you know and then after that it was i just i went to high school i worked i got through it all And fortunately, I had a counselor like see me identify I needed help and really changed my life in many ways.

1:08:38But also tell me about your experience at an American high school after leaving a sex cult. That must have been freaking crazy because you're going to an American high school. And, you know, we're kind of a puritanical society, despite what a lot of people might might say. And you're going in there and the people sitting next to you in language arts class are just not ready for Daniela Messunic at all. No, and neither was I ready for it. Right. So it was I went from nothing. Right. Being no schooled, living in a commune to 4000 students in an inner city Houston high school. Right. So it was the only thing I know about school came from like She's All That.

1:09:18Right. or high school movies. And I remember, you know, I was worried about being bullied or not accepted, but I was not prepared for was you're just completely ignored, right? And you just cannot make contact with anyone to your point. Everything I say is, is wrong. It's messed up. You know, I don't have any classmates that I knew of that are living on their own working 40 hours a week, just coming from a sex cult. America is so Christian. It still surprises me to this day, because we were taught that you all were fire-breathing agents of the end of the world. And America's very Christian. Yeah.

1:09:56And my version of Christianity was, like you said, like nobody, you know, you come up with your parents or missionaries, but also at 16, you're having sex. People don't know what category to put you in. Right. Like, so you're the devil, but we're doing all the things that you guys say is bad. But then also we're yeah, like you just you can't add things together because you're not only does the math not work, you're trying to add fruits and vegetables into it. It's like this. You can't make it work. There's no assembly of anything that's going to fit. And, you know, for sure, the hardest thing is just one of the first questions people say is, where are you from?

1:10:36And it's still a hard thing for me in my life, right? Because I am sure from this cult. Like, I am not from anywhere. I grew up in Brazil, but I didn't have a normal Brazilian life. I don't know hardly anything about America at this point. I was relieved six years later to find out that all of America was not like Texas. Texas isn't that bad. I mean, I guess it might be if you're in like a crazy rural area where nobody ever leaves, you know, the hills have eyes kind of place. But I feel like people throw a lot of shade on Texas. I even do it and people write it and they're like, you should come down here.

1:11:08It's not that bad. It's not. It is not like the rest of America. I'll give you that. It's an interesting place, you know, so it's interesting to have this very like evangelical experience of everyone you're meeting are these evangelical Christians, but you've been told like these people are evil. And, you know, honestly, one of the beliefs I think that I absorbed the most from the call and that I've had to fight the hardest at throughout these last 20 years is this idea that the outside world is evil. And writing Uncultured for me, part of the process was kind of taking off all of this armor that I put on and realizing probably didn't need most of it.

1:11:48You know, and that was the part I couldn't see through their lives, right? It was the nobody out there is going to love you. You're never going to belong anywhere. And when you try to integrate and try to be like, I'm here, I want to be this normal kid. and everyone treats you like you're really, really strange, you're like, oh, maybe they were right. You know, maybe I don't fit anywhere. Well, first of all, you didn't even have time to fit in anywhere. You said you had three or four jobs at once. What kind of jobs were you working during high school? So in high school, I first got a job at Chick-fil-A.

1:12:22Which is also somehow appropriate, right? Because it's run by the evangelical crowd. Interesting choice. It was one of the few places they would hire you before you were 16. Huh. There's a lot of interesting things about Chick-fil-A and control. Oh, I'm all ears. Wait, wait, wait. Don't just jump ahead. What are you talking about? Let's I want to hear about this. OK, so so, you know, Chick-fil-A is known to pay people better than any of their competitors. I heard about that. And in return, you are expected to always be smiling, to always say my pleasure. Anytime someone says thank you. basically there's this whole code of ethics for working at chick-fil-a right that is supposedly like this very strong culture and i'm not necessarily saying it's bad but it would result in things like my manager walking up to me and be like why aren't you smiling today we hired you because you have a pretty smile oh wow it being like i don't know why i'm not smiling today right but this sort of attitude policing just last year when that story about how chick-fil-a was asking people to volunteer in return for free food.

1:13:33Did you hear this one? I did, but I don't remember what it was. Volunteer for what? It was to volunteer to work at Chick-fil-A, like handing out samples or like advertising in return for food. Just like, we'll let you eat for free. And people were like, oh yeah, this is like a great thing that Chick-fil-A is doing. And I was Just like, I think Chick-fil-A has their hand a lot further in the power and control games than an ordinary fast food place. That's interesting. And you saw that right away because you're like, hey, this reminds me of the cult that I literally, like the literal cult that I grew up in has similar practices and they do these very specific things and nobody else is really seeing it because they don't have, they didn't have the insane childhood that I did.

1:14:19Yes. And not only did I see it right away, but I was good at it. Right. and this is going to be the same thing in the military. Like I am good at being attitude policed and just smiling no matter how I feel like and just saying my pleasure, even though I want to strangle you and doing all the things like the army is going to want you to do. So to me, this was my basic skill. I could do this. I could fit in wherever. There was a law firm above the mall. And so I ended up getting hired by someone who knew me from Chick-fil-A and was like, you always have a great attitude. We're looking for data clerks.

1:14:52And so then I got paid$8 or$9 an hour and went to high school in suits, which didn't make me more popular. Right. No, that's not a great way to fit in with the other kids is wearing a pantsuit. Yeah. And then in college, I got really creative and started actually using things that the cult taught me. So I could babysit for$10 an hour, but I could make balloon animals for$250 an hour at a child's party. and every once in a while I bust them out at my own kid's party now and people are always like, how did you learn this? And I'm like, I was once a teenage carnival clown in Mexico, you know, in another life.

1:15:31As one does. You know, could sing, could dance, ended up teaching chess, right? I get trained on how to play chess in college and end up teaching kids chess that pays a lot of money. And of course, waiting tables, you know, so all the things. At what point did you start thinking, hey, maybe I should be a normal teenage girl? Did that ever even happen? Or were you like, hey, that's never going to happen for me. Why bother? No, there was no point. And I specifically was not trying to be a normal teenage girl. So a lot of my peers and siblings who left the Children of God would kind of go wild. And I was very, very afraid.

1:16:11Looking back now, I know it's because I have an addictive personality and I had a lot of trauma. I went into perfectionism instead, right? So I just have to work hard. I just have to, you know, make perfect grades, do all the right things. And kind of eventually, my life's going to be good. Eventually, I'm going to outrun the trauma. Don't think about it. Don't talk about it. I didn't know how to be a normal teenage girl. I just liked being in school. You know, really, once I got to college and I was able to major in reading books and writing about books, I was like, okay, this is lovely. Yeah, I remember you wrote in your book that books were kind of a forbidden thing in the cult.

1:16:50You just longed for books, which no kid generally does, or few kids generally do, I guess you would say. It was, you know, one of the things with my imposter syndrome was, so now I'm in college, I'm studying literature, everyone around me has been reading whatever they can lay their hands on since they were three. And I have, again, no sort of knowledge to build on, except every literature class starts with the Bible. And I was good at that, right? And it turns out like every story concept you can find in the Bible, right? And that we have been trained since birth on kind of micro analyzing sentences and making up things about them.

1:17:34So, you know, one of the things we would have to do in the cult was read all the drivel from this quote unquote prophet and then write these reactions and responses about how it moved us. So basically spiritual journaling. I was good at that, right? And this was how I passed a bunch of the tests I needed to pass in high school to get out of classes. This is, you know, I used to say in college, like when you don't know how to answer the question, you just write two more pages and the teacher forgets that you didn't answer the question. That's funny. I was always surprised that this worked, but I think sometimes they would be like, well, you know, she writes this good.

1:18:13She's smart. That's funny. I was terrible at English class, which is interesting now because I read like two or three books a week. And back then it's like, whose story is it? And I'm like, what do you mean? No, that's your whole prompt. And I'm like, I'm going to just fail this class now. But if you're used to reading into something where there is frankly nothing because it's the demented ramblings of an old pedophile. It's like, well, I got this. There's at least something to chew on here. There's a throwaway line in your book where you say you started burning yourself with cigarettes and you say, well, oh, well, at least I felt something.

1:18:44I assume you had to work through that trauma in some way. Yeah, I'm still working through it. I say that I really connected with the term disassociation when readers told me that I described disassociation really well in my book. I was like, oh, maybe that's the thing. You know, I did a lot of self-harming kinds of things, things that we would consider actually self-harming. And then things I think for me that were doing it to myself, right? So running and running your body until you pass out or until you have barely any weight on you can be just as much of a way of punishing yourself as other things that we would consider self-harm.

1:19:27And that was one of the things I think that I fell into. And I have had to work a lot now on staying in my body, staying with your emotions. When you go through this much, I think pain and trauma in your life, you survive it by going away, going out of your body. most of us describe it in the same way, right? We're up in the ceiling watching, feeling bad for this poor little girl. That was actually a big part of how I was able to write the book is that it doesn't feel necessarily like it happened to me. It feels like it happened to this character in my life because that is how I survived it. And so a big part of my work today is staying in your body, feeling the feelings, being present.

1:20:16I know we all deal with that, just constantly wanting to be busy. Yeah. I know we're running out of time here. The cult is still around. Where is it? Do you track this at all? Okay. So in 2009, they kind of fell apart from the form they had had. And this was really the realization of the people running it, that all of their joiners were getting old. and most of the children that they had tried to bring up as the new army of God were not sticking around. So they just kind of were like, hey, all that stuff we've told you forever about dropping out of the world, like psych, go put your kids in school and go, you know, you have all these people like my dad, who's 70 now and has been working for them for, or my stepdad has been working for them for his whole life, you know, and what is he going to do?

1:21:06So most of the people that hadn't left yet, my parents had already left, but most of the people that hadn't left yet kind of had their awakenings then. And they were like, nah, we're just, we're going to go do our own thing. But there still is a core of about 1500 members. My grandfather still runs the money. They still bring in about a million dollars a year. It's an online thing. I think most of their active members are in Thailand and Brazil and, you know, places that are not, well, places that are still easier to hide cults in. Yeah. And maybe have a weaker rule of law and or corruption. Cause I'm guessing at some level cops do knock and go, Hey, what is this?

1:21:44Oh, it's, it's, we're definitely a bunch of white people doing sketchy stuff. And it's like, if you want us to pretend we don't see this, you're going to have to pay a visit to the chief of police and maybe drop off a package every now and then. Yeah. And also drop off some beautiful women. Oh gosh. The religious prostitution, at one point got turned off. But somehow, all of the women that were in relationships with police and politicians got the special permission to keep those relationships going, right? So like there was a woman in Rio, who had eight kids with a man who was very high up in the federal police, and like had a wife had his whole own life and just had eight kids, but like, donated probably 15 giant properties to the children of God throughout Rio and different parts of Brazil, right?

1:22:34So lots of power, lots of connection. And certainly in Brazil, they were very involved with trafficking and corruption in much more blatant ways than has ever really been talked about. How do they recruit now? And how large is it? Do you have any idea? I think now it's about 1500 members. I don't honestly know that they are recruiting or what they are doing. I just I think they tried to just become this online church. Please send us money. Just the last of the people that can't really admit that's what it was. And then many, many of like our parents and grandparents just are still in whatever country they were in, just living on the economy, making balloons, doing their missionary work, or they found other churches to fold up into, etc.

1:23:27Many people just are like, well, I can teach English and live in this country that's cheaper. And so that's what they do now. Does cult programming ever come out in your life now? Do you ever see some weird influence from the cult childhood pop up and you're like, oh, that's the cult talking or that's the cult making me think this way? A hundred percent. So I think, first of all, all of the reasons that I joined the army were probably the same reasons my grandfather joined the Children of God. I hate to be idle, right? I have to remind myself that it is okay to just like, sometimes lie around and watch television.

1:24:03Like I always think I have to be productive and be doing something and be accomplishing something. That perfectionism, which is of course, is the opposite of self love, definitely is still in my life. And then something I've just recently realized is like, So it's 20 years exactly since I walked away from the cult. And I've been searching for a mentor that will tell me, give me guidance, tell me exactly what I should do with my life. And I've only recently found out like that's a cult leader. Oh, yeah. My kind of desire sometimes to find an expert or to not have to make my own choices. Like that is a cult programming thing.

1:24:43You know, it wasn't until I had written Uncultured. I was at Harvard studying social identity theory, group behavior theory that I realized, oh, I never got to form a personal identity, right? Like that is what we're doing between the ages of one and six. You didn't forget. You weren't allowed to. Right. I went cult to perfect student in college to perfect soldier in the army to finally, I feel like I'm developing my own personality along with my daughter. And I say, for example, I love thrift stores because you have to go in and there's no messaging. Like in a mall, they're messaging you what you should be wearing.

1:25:23In a thrift store, you have to look at this and be like, do I love this or do I hate this? I think one of the good things in my life is that losing everything at 15 has meant that I have to be very deliberate about every single thing in my life because I don't have any models to go on. So everything I bring in, every way we decide to raise our children, you know, anything, it's like I have to investigate it. I have to be open minded. And then I have to go find people to like teach me the right ways to do things. And that's been kind of cool, like hard, but cool and a good way to connect with people, too.

1:25:59I assume your kids don't have any contact with anybody who's in your extended family because that family you're still they're still in the cult. right? Or have you been able to balance that somehow? So most of my family is not anymore. Okay. And like, I have a very good relationship with my mom. She and I both have kind of done decades of work, I feel like on understanding what has happened. And my mom left about a decade after me. So I've been a bit of a mentor in that process for them. And I have 25 siblings. So some of them I talk to and many of them don't want to have anything to do with me because they're not ready to have their background outed.

1:26:45So, you know, I think anytime you speak out about things that happened in your family, you're going to end up losing some family. Yeah. Well, especially this kind of stuff. Well, Daniela, you're a fascinating person. This is a really interesting conversation and I really appreciate how open you are about all this. I really enjoyed your book and thank Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much for having me. And to any of your listeners, I am on TikTok. We talk about cult stuff and where it shows up in the regular world all the time. So Daniela Mestinek-Young on TikTok. Would love to see you there.

1:27:18And yeah, check out the book. The New York Times says the audio is kind of good. Cult stuff showing up in the real world. Can you give us an example of that, actually? Yeah. So this will be a whole chapter of my next book, right? So every time a cult blows up on the news, there's always this skinny white woman who's right next to the cult leader, right? These are your Ghislaine Maxwells. These are your Alison Max of NXIVM. You know, our cult had the white woman that took over. And as I'm thinking about this, right, and it's because she, her presence, the stereotype of the white woman, the pure white woman and everything that entails is kind of whitewashing the sins of the leader, right?

1:27:59So she's always there. She's always dedicated. Her skinniness is about self-sublimation. And that's exactly who you want next to you in a sex cult is that woman. She ran the marriage ceremony to the leader. You see this in regular organizations. I think I played this role unwittingly sometimes in the army of like, well, we can't be sexist because look, we have Captain domestic up here, right? So we see this woman, this stereotype in all these places around us. Another example would be like you said about, or like we talked about earlier about the chanting, right? So we think of cults and we think of chanting.

1:28:39If we know the research that shows that it makes us susceptible chanting in groups, right? We see that in sports. We see that in political rallies. We see that in school when the children have to do the pledge. There's music that's like that. And so this is what my next book is called The Culting of America. And I'm looking at like all these different things about group behavior that I see in the cult, I see in the army. So I know they're sort of about programming and influence or power and control. but a group doesn't have to be a cult for it to be using these toxic methods of control or for it to be having these influences on you.

1:29:21And sometimes I think it's so comforting for people to be able to say, well, that's a cult and my group is not. And that's not how bad stuff works. Right. Oh my gosh. Well, we'll have to have you come back for that. When is that out? You're still writing it, I assume. Yes, still writing it. So no dates on that, But everybody does seem interested. So hopefully soon. Yeah. Well, you know, cult stuff, cult of America. I mean, you're just you're you're putting the pieces together in a way that's definitely really interesting. Thank you once again. And we'll link to all of your work in the show notes so people can follow up.

1:29:55Thanks so much, Jordan. This has been great. You're about to hear a preview of The Jordan Harbinger Show with Amanda Catarzi, who was raised in a cult and later sex and labor trafficked. The women were trained to be insanely submissive. Like you could never say no to any man. And then the men were trained in a very military way. These people are well-armed and well-trained. And it's a whole group that thinks that the world is evil and they need to repopulate the world with their people to bring the kingdom of God. When you turn 13 in that culture, you're an adult. So to be 13 years old, being courted by men twice my age, three times my age, to see if I would make a good wife, it was just kind of outrageous.

1:30:42So I moved to California to go to school and I start training MMA. And my trafficker was there. He was actually one of my boxing coaches. Then he's like, you know, I like you. And so now we're dating. So this is my first adult relationship. He's twice my age. at this point. And then he would always take me up to his cabin on the mountain, which was really far away from everybody else. No phone service, isolation, and it was on a Native American reservation. So whatever they wanted to do to me, they could, oops, you accidentally got getting raped. That was very common of going to go train. And then all of a sudden, now that you fought 12 rounds, now you're going to be raped.

1:31:26A girl ran a red light and T-boned my truck. So I pull out my phone and I text my trafficker and I say, hey, I almost just died in a car accident. He said, is your face fucked up? And I'm like, no. He said, well, you're still fuckable then. Something isn't right here. This isn't who I want to be. This isn't what I want. And it was like I was coming out of water. I had this moment of clarity and I knew something wasn't right. And I knew this wasn't what I wanted, and I knew I needed to act fast in order to get out of that situation because I knew I'd get sucked back in. To hear how she escaped her dire situation, check out episode 631 of The Jordan Harbinger Show.

1:32:11Such a fascinating and horrifying tale. She mentioned that she got really good at reading body language and nonverbal communication because she used it to gauge the mentality or mood of the adults, which of course were around her, abusing her at the time. I remember actually learning about this concept when I was younger because it was a guy who I worked with who was really, really good at reading other people and reading body language. And I just thought it was so cool. And one day my boss who worked with us later told me that he had developed those skills because he had a really abusive family.

1:32:43And so he was always hypervigilant. So he developed the superpower of being able to read other people in an almost uncanny way because his home life was so terrible. So, of course, I didn't think it was that cool of a superpower after that. It seemed really useful, but the cost of admission was just far too high. This cult, man, crazy. Couples had to share their wives, and they had to have children with other men. Couples were separated if they had too many children with the same man because they wanted to really spread it around. This is really 20-20 hindsight. This is how the cult keeps bonds between people weaker than the bond between the people in the cult, if that makes sense.

1:33:20You don't want people to pair up and go, we should take our family and get out of here. You can't do that if you got 15 kids with eight different dudes, getting everyone on the same page, moving around. It would just be impossible. Oh God, I can't even believe I'm about to say this out loud, but the children were not allowed to wear panties to bed. An adult named Uncle Jerry would go check at night, literally panty checks on children. Again, I need to go brush my teeth for even saying that out loud. Really, really horrifying way to grow up. And Daniela mentioned as well that they had previous prophecies from the so-called prophet, this creepy old guy, that had not come true.

1:33:53And the cult had lost a lot of followers, but everybody else doubled down on their beliefs. And I just want to highlight how common this is in cults, especially apocalyptic cults, where prophecies, of course, never come to light. The world doesn't end. Some people leave, but the ones who stay, they end up committing even more to the cause because of cognitive dissonance, right? I couldn't have given up all my job, possessions, family members for something that's not true, so you recommit. And now that anybody who's skeptical has bounced because it turned out to be a bunch of BS, you're now surrounded by other believers.

1:34:25The cost of being wrong was now too high, so they redouble and they recommit. Just a fascinating psychological study here that unfortunately took a lot of people down and created a lot of trauma in the process. Big thank you to Daniela Mestinick-Young. All links to Daniela's stuff will be in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com. You can also check out our AI chatbot to get anything from any episode of the show, feedback Friday, interview stuff, promo codes, jordanharbinger.com slash AI is where you can find it. And remember, no Thursday episode, no skeptical Sunday, taking a little bit easier around here now that we come into spring.

1:34:59Transcripts are on the show notes. Videos are on YouTube. Advertisers, deals, discount codes, and ways to support this show, which we always appreciate, that's going to be at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. I'm at jordanharbinger on Twitter, on Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn, and I'm teaching you how to connect with great people and manage those relationships using the same software systems and tiny habits that I use every single day. That's our six-minute networking course, and the course is free over at jordanharbinger.com slash course.

1:35:29I want you to dig the well before you get thirsty and build relationships before you need them. Many of the guests on the show subscribe and contribute to the course. Come join us. You'll be in smart company. This show is created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Millie Ocampo, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for this show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know somebody who's into the cult stuff, definitely share this one with them. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about.

1:36:01In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen. And we'll see you next time.

1:36:13This episode is sponsored in part by Conspirituality Podcast. You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling New Age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy-mad yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspirituality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies.

1:36:45An interesting episode to check out is called Speaking Truth to Goop, where Jen Gunter breaks down the pseudoscience behind the wellness industry in a way that is super entertaining and eye-opening. It's sharp, funny, and makes you a lot harder to fool, which, if you listen to this show, you know I'm all about that. From exploring cults to analyzing our cultural and political landscape, the Conspirituality Podcast will help you stay informed against misinformation and resist fear tactics. Find Conspirituality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.