Ellen Huet (on wellness cults)
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Armchair Umbrella
4.6 • 69.9K Ratings
🗓️ 28 January 2026
⏱️ 117 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ellen Huet (Empire of Orgasm: Sex, Power, and the Downfall of a Wellness Cult) is a journalist, startup founder, and author. Ellen joins the Armchair Expert to discuss must-haves versus most-haves in terms of cult sexuality requirements, her hot tips for avoiding cults that are too extractive, and her dealings with Silicon Valley and venture capitalists. Ellen and Dax talk about when she began covering orgasmic meditation startup OneTaste, the OM course to cult pipeline, and the intricacies and systems of manipulation concocted by OneTaste’s leader. Ellen explains unpacking potential power dynamics of sexual abuse, how much status games weigh into human behavior, and why she believes there’s no one invulnerable to indoctrination.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert. |
| 0:02.2 | Experts on expert. |
| 0:03.2 | I'm Dan Shepard, and I'm joined by Modis Mouse. |
| 0:05.7 | Hi. |
| 0:06.8 | Today we have Ellen Hewitt, and she is an award-winning investigative reporter. |
| 0:12.0 | And boy, does she have a barn burner of an investigation that we're going to talk about. |
| 0:16.2 | She's got a new book out now called Empire of Orgasm, Sex, Power, and the Downfall of a Wellness Cult. |
| 0:23.5 | You know, these cults are juicy, juicy, juicy. |
| 0:25.5 | They're so juicy. You want to talk. Juicy, uh-oh, pun intended. |
| 0:29.8 | Whoa. Better coming out of your mouth. Um, I feel like I should join a call. I'm so interested in |
| 0:35.1 | them. I should at least do it for a couple months. |
| 0:38.0 | Give it a little try. Like go live on, you know, some federal land or something. You would not. |
| 0:41.9 | You would be a bad cult member. You'd be so bad. Please enjoy Ellen Hewitt. |
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