Gentle Souls: Esther Friedman on ‘School’

A Little Bit Culty

Sarah Edmondson & Anthony “Nippy” Ames

True Crime, Society & Culture, Education

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2024

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today’s episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.

If you’re not already familiar with the culty cluster known as ‘School’, it was an ultra-secret Manhattan organization run by late actress and forever eccentric Sharon Gans. The shadowy group did its dark magic in the form of secret study groups, arranged marriages, and some pretty gnarly narcissistic abuse. In this episode, former School enrollee Esther Friedman discusses the five years she spent as a student after her study group love bombed her right into its clutches. We also cover how she got out, and how she’s healing now by helping other gentle souls navigate a culty, culty world. Empaths, this one’s for you. And if you’ve got Big Valedictorian Energy and are crazy about that extra credit, please note that we’ve taken our listeners to School before in our episode with the groovy Spencer Schneider who wrote a page-turning memoir about his experience titled Manhattan Cult Story: My Unbelievable True Story of Sex, Crimes, Chaos, and Survival.

NOTES

Esther Friedman is a licensed mental health counselor, expressive art therapist, songwriter, and author. To process and heal, she presents her misadventures as an “edu-tainment campaign.” Her memoir The Gentle Souls Revolution is a PSA/recovery guide/template for anyone who’s navigated exploitative relationships. She’s also a board member of the newly formed nonprofit “Living Cult Free” and is joined in that endeavor by some cult recovery heavyweights. You can learn more about their work at livingcultfree.com

You can find Esther at www.gentlesoulsrevolution.com, Facebook, and Instagram.

Also…

Let it be known far and wide, loud and clear that…

The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. Nobody’s mad at you, just don’t be a culty fuckwad.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical, or mental health advice. The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast and are not intended to malign any religion group club organization business
0:13.8	individual anyone or anything. I'm Sarah Edmondson and I'm Anthony air quotes nippy aims and this is a little bit
0:31.0	guilty a podcast about what happens when things that seem like a great thing at first go bad.
0:36.0	Every week we chat with survivors, experts, and whistleblowers for real cold stories
0:40.0	told directly by the people who live through them.
0:43.2	Because we want you to learn a few things we've had to learn the hard way.
0:46.7	Like if you think you're too smart to get sucked into something culty,
0:50.3	you're already prime recruitment material. You might even already be in a cold.
0:54.0	Oops, you better keep listening to find out.
0:57.0	Welcome to season six, a little bit colty.
1:00.0	Seeking down to the depths of the ocean
1:05.0	hanging on to win my love.
1:09.0	If I let go but all I could leave but I know
1:17.8	Welcome back to ALBC everybody. All right, call to the listeners, if you've been paying attention
1:22.9	and I know you have, you'll recognize
1:25.2	that we've already covered school before
1:28.2	in our episode with Spencer Schneider,
1:30.1	who detailed his journey back from the brink in his extremely readable memoir,
1:34.9	Manhattan Cold Story, My unbelievable true story of sex, crimes, chaos, and survival.
1:40.2	Hi Spencer, if you're listening.
1:42.0	Virtual Fist bump and listeners, be sure to check out that
1:45.1	episode if you haven't already we'll also link it in our show notes but if you're
	...

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