We're going to take a brief detour from the text messages.

Episode 9 and 10 were part 1 and part 2 of Jacqueline and Keelan reading those text messages aloud.

And we'll be coming back to that. Jade still has a lot that she needs to reveal.

But one of the things I've learned doing this work is that you don't put an interview on hold because the schedule says so.

When someone is ready to talk, you talk.

You probably heard the name Silvana mentioned in a prior episode. That's who we're talking to

today. When Benetio Masaru met her, she was in the middle of healing from sexual trauma.

She was working at Gaia, surrounded by a spiritual community, doing plant medicine work with Colombian shamans,

recovering memories that trauma had buried so deep she didn't know that even existed.

She was, by any measure, exactly the kind of person that predators target.

And she got away.

That's what makes this episode different from the ones you've heard so far.

Sylvana is not a survivor of what Bentino did to Jacqueline or to Jade or to Keelan.

She saw it coming and she walked out. But here's what I want you to pay attention to. She almost didn't. Because it didn't start as a cult. It started as a lovely female friend, a yoga class,

tacos, a hot tub, a group of people who felt warm and fun and alive.

And Silvana, who was smart, grounded, surrounded by people who loved her,

with years of spiritual literacy behind her,

still found herself pulled towards this group. Still found herself reading a text message from Bentino that she describes as the most

manipulative message she's ever received in her life and having to make a conscious decision

to get out.

When you hear her tell her story, she points to something important.

Her community is what kept her anchored. The friends around her,

...