Jonathan Hirsch, Part 2 - Meditation, Getting Blessed, and Leaving Adidam
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation
Exactly Right and iHeartPodcasts
4.5 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 28 January 2026
⏱️ 64 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
In part 2 with podcaster & writer Jonathan Hirsch (creator of podcasts like Dear Franklin Jones), Lola & Meagan discuss life in the cult of Franklin Jones, aka Adi Da. They discuss the dramatic meditation rituals in the group, what it felt like to get blessed by the leader, and how different members saw some of the same things that had happened completely differently, depending on whether they still believed in him later or not.
They discuss the lawsuits and allegations against Jones and how the cult panic of the time impacted the way his followers saw them, the importance of being able to admit when you’re wrong, and how ultimately Jonathan left.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is exactly right. |
| 0:07.6 | Trust me. Do you trust me? |
| 0:10.6 | Would I ever lead you astray? |
| 0:12.1 | Trust me. |
| 0:13.1 | This is the truth. The only truth. |
| 0:15.7 | If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't. |
| 0:19.4 | Hello, we record these episodes in advance, so I'm just going to add a quick insert here, because if you're listening in America, the mood in our nation is heavy this week, and it doesn't feel right to not address it. Alex Prettie, an American citizen, and an ICU nurse who was holding his phone to film, and not brandishing the gun he was legally carrying on him, was killed by immigration officers in |
| 0:37.9 | Minneapolis while on the ground just a couple of weeks after Renee Good was killed by ICE when |
| 0:43.3 | driving away. Her killer can be heard on video calling her a fucking bitch after he shot her to death. |
| 0:48.5 | Both of these people were there to observe, as is their legal right, to protect their communities |
| 0:53.1 | from the escalating violence of federal |
| 0:55.5 | agents in our country who Trump claims are there to protect Americans. Who feels safer? The Trump |
| 1:01.2 | administration's rush to characterize the victims of these extrajudicial killings as deserving |
| 1:05.2 | terrorists, despite video evidence clearly showing that they posed no threat, should alarm us all. Don't listen to your eyes and ears. |
| 1:14.1 | Listen to what I say, not what you see. For those who haven't been following immigration policy in the |
| 1:18.9 | U.S. and maybe don't understand what all the fuss is about, I know a lot of people think that people |
| 1:23.2 | on the left are just being hysterical, which of course sometimes we are. In May of last year, |
| 1:27.0 | Stephen Miller, White House Senior Advisor and DHS Secretary Kristy Knoem, both of whom are openly anti-immigrant. |
| 1:33.2 | Stephen Miller has made an entire career of fear-mongering about how immigrants are going to destroy |
| 1:37.6 | white culture. They ordered ICE to stop focusing on people with criminal records and just try to |
| 1:42.8 | reach a goal of 3,000 arrests per day so |
| 1:44.6 | they could arrest as many people as possible. There's been a nearly 600% increase in average daily |
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