Sarah Edmondson, Part 2 - DOS, Disillusionment, and Leaving Keith Raniere
Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation
Exactly Right and iHeartPodcasts
4.5 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 3 June 2026
⏱️ 49 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
This week is part 2 with Sarah Edmondson, NXIVM survivor, author, and host of A Little Bit Culty. The girls pick back up as Sarah goes deeper into the organization, eventually entering DOS and confronting the growing contradictions inside NXIVM. She’ll discuss the emotional grip of the group, the normalization of control, and the psychological unraveling that began once the cracks became impossible to ignore.
Sarah also opens up about loyalty, fear, cognitive dissonance, and the terrifying process of realizing the self-help system she devoted years to was built around manipulation. The conversation explores deconstruction in real time, what finally pushed her to question Keith Raniere, and how leaving meant rebuilding her entire sense of self.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is exactly right. |
| 0:07.4 | 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. |
| 0:15.6 | If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't! |
| 0:19.5 | Welcome to Trust Me, the podcast about cult's extreme belief |
| 0:24.0 | and manipulation from two A Little Bit Coulty people who've actually experienced it. I am Lola Blanc. |
| 0:30.9 | And I am Megan Elizabeth. And in part two today with Sarah Edmondson, Survivor of Nexium |
| 0:36.6 | and host of podcast A Little |
| 0:38.0 | A Little Bit Culty plus author of the book of the same name along with her husband. |
| 0:41.7 | Sarah tells us about how she'd been in Nexium but kind of doing her own thing in Vancouver for years, |
| 0:46.9 | how she was introduced to the idea of collateral and why it initially seemed to make sense |
| 0:51.3 | as a way to hold yourself accountable before it escalated. |
| 0:54.3 | And all of the context leading up to her joining DOS when asked by one of the other women. |
| 1:00.2 | She'll tell us why she assumed the initiation ceremony was just a symbolic ritual akin to joining a |
| 1:06.7 | sorority, what the last draw was for her after the branding, and how she sees Colts evolving now. |
| 1:13.7 | Yes, and like us, Sarah spends so much of her time talking to other people who were in Colts, |
| 1:19.7 | and I feel like she has such deep and thoughtful perspective on everything that she's experienced |
| 1:25.1 | and that everyone else she's spoken to his experience. |
| 1:28.3 | Exactly like you and I, deep and thoughtful. |
| 1:31.6 | Yeah, what I'm saying is we're deep and thoughtful. |
... |
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