OneTaste's Continued Operations and AI Lectures

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Visit bahamar dot com today The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of LipSN or its affiliates Guest accounts are personal recollections shared from their own perspectives. References to specific individuals, organizations or groups are presented as commentary, opinion, and personal experience and should not be interpreted as definitive statement of fact This podcast is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only Quick heads up before we start. This episode talks openly about sex, orgasms because those two don't always go together. Sexual exploitation and sexual abuse, please take care while listening. I would wait til after drop off to press play on this one Welcome back everyone too. Was I in a cult? I'm Tyler Miso. And over here, I am Liz Ayakuzzi. Now today, we are diving back into the world of O Taste. Muff diving, that is Ten seconds in and Liz Aready has a juvenile joke Wastting no time, Liz. Liz, my f. She me boy C host. Talking about sex and you gotta say diving I I did not say. I said the word diving and you the dirty S Juvenile, sure you did. That was the purpose One taste, everyone, of course, is the Orgasmic Meditation Company slash spiritual, sexual wellness startup. slash alleged sex cult founded by Nicole Dedon. Nicole, a woman who looked at Silicon Valley in the early two thousands. This was a place that was already full of men trying to disrupt taxis and hotels and dating and attention spans. and eventually, Our own American democracy, and she said, well, cool, let's disrupt orgasms as well. Specifically the female orgasm or more accurately the concept of the female orgasm as a mindfulness practice, spiritual path and eventually Federal criminal case Now, I know you ladies always boast, always boast about the power of the female orgasm. Don't be jealous, Tyler There's a slight tinge of jealousy But this, one taste, this takes it to a whole different level Most perplexing is The name onene taste. It sounds like a cute little cafe that has little orordeur. Are you wondering where it comes from? I know the answer. One taste, the name comes from a Buddhist idea That all of life, pleasure and pain, desire and discomfort can be met with the same One Awareness I think it's a stretch. but I will say and having done over one hundred of these episodes so far, cult leaders sure do love to take ancient philosophies and just put their own little sticker on it They're just a cover band. That's what it feels like and claiming they wrote the song That's true. That's the difference. Yeah. is thence. Yeah Yeah Yeah. Cover Band can cover the Beatles, but at least they're saying this is the Beatles Yeah. Call l leaders the Beatles and say I wrote that song. Yeah. you're like, no, actually you didn't. Change a word or two. Yeah Now today, we are going to look at One Taste through the reporting of Bloomberg investigative journalist Ellen Hewittt, author of Empire of Orgasm, Sex Power and the Downfall of a wellness cult She had been following the story for years and in twenty eighteen published a major investigation into the darker side of O Taste And her reporting was followed by the FBI investigation. So you know, just a little casual article that may have helped bring down an entire orgasm empire. The power of the pan No big deal Along the way, a founder Nicole D Done herself became strangely aware of Ellen, whichich we will get into in a bit as well as Oh my god, all the insane stuff that Nicole is up to currently from her jail cell wouldn't have it any other way One Taste grew into an expensive self help empire with courses costing tens of thousands of dollars celebrity followers wealthy investors, communal living houses, and devoted members who believe the practice completely transform their lives until former members started coming forward. And Ellen Hewitt started Asking questions I'm Really excited we're doing this right before you have a baby. so she could go into labor An seconds. so we're really grateful to's here Well, welcome to the show. Can you just briefly introduce yourself? Yeah, I'm Ellen Hewittt. I'm an investigative reporter and I work for Bloomberg News, but I am also the author of the new book Empire of Orgasm. The subtitle is sex, power and the downfall of a wellness cult. and it's the story of O Taste, a Woman led sexual wellness startup that was also alleged to be a sex cult that teaches a practice called orgasmic meditation I've been a journalist my whole career. It's an amazing job. I feel Like it's such a privilege to get to be a reporter in this day and age. You, I started out my career as a local crime reporter in San Francisco covering breaking news, fires, crime, courthouse, animal stories, that was kind of my training in San Francisco. and then I shifted to covering business news and I wrote about the startup boom of San Francisco and the Silicon Valley in the twenty ten. So you know, and then I started working at Bloomberg and covering startups. You know, writing about technology as journalists and the tech industry is a great opportunity for accountability journalism because there's so much money and power that's being collected in the hands of just a few people. likeike if you are running One of the major tech companies in the world right now, you are way, way more powerful than head of state becausecause these platforms reach billions and millions of people every day. The choices that they make have huge impact on society And I think that that is what keeps me going. That's what keeps me interested in writing about technology and how it affects like our daily lives. Yes, Ellen came to the story as a tech and business reporter, which is important because one taste wasn't marketed as Join our cult You know, if only Colts had the decency to put the actual ingredients on the label Truth and advertising finally, right? You know? It's rude, Colts. Yeah. Just tell us what we're getting into. It wouldd be a whole lot easier to get out of We could write the check accordingly. Yeah, Giving money away to something that will not change my life or actually will, but not in the way I wanted it to. Thank you. loveve. Pans H's my money Ellen's whole beat is accountability journalism around companies that get very powerful by promising to change human behavior. Which onene taste very much did just with more lobe And I was never focused on reporting on cults. I was not writing about the sex industry or anything related to one taste. What actually happened is in twenty seventeen, I was pitched a story about them from the angle of It's a woman led startup. and you write about startups, mayaybe you're interested in writing about this orgasmic meditation startup is obviously fascinating. Like it's a very interesting and attention grabingic because it's sex and it's gliteral stroking. It's like In the name of the spirituality of the female orggan. Rike Is it a body hack? Is it spiritual? Is it both? Is it sex? Is it not? It invites all these questions. So I was definitely curious Well, all of the coverage about One Taste U until that point had really been focused understandably on What is orgasic meditation? How does it work? Where did it come from? And yeah, decided to take a meeting with the leadership of the company at the time And they kind of gave me the basic pitch. They were like, this is what orgasmic meditation is about. They called themselves the whole foods of sexuality because it's organic and good for you. And I wasn't sure if I was going to write a story, but I mentioned a friend, I was like, Ohh, you know, I might write about orgasmic meditation or one taste and my friend said, oh, I know someone who you should talk to who had been involved in one taste and didn't have a good time And then when I met with this person and then when I met with a few other people after that, what I started to hear was that they had been financially exploited by the company, pressured to take on credit card debt in order to buy increasingly expensive courses, that they felt that they had been sexually exploited by the company in some cases, pressured to have sex with or do orgasmic meditation with customers with other staff members as part of furthering the business And yeah, just that they generally felt that this was a psychologically damaging experience and that side of the story had not been talked about before Before this, what was your understanding of cult and what constituted a cult. I mean, I think I had just honestly never thought about it. You know, I probably would have listed some of the well known characteristics of a cult, which are well known for a reason, you know charismatic leader and like they're very controlling and they have unusual beliefs. L I think I really would have tapped out at that level of knowledge. Talking to these people, were they coming to callalling it a cult or were they not aware yet Some people in that first story called it a cult. I have since come to an understanding in all my reporting that cults exist on a spectrum. and you know I don't want the focus to always be on like, is it a cult or not? Like I want people to understand like what are the characteristics that can create these types of groups and which ones are present and not I thought that. people who end up in these high demand groups, they deserve our compassion. they deserve our understanding of what it is that we all share as humans that makes us vulnerable to these things. Rather than the experience of being judged or ostracized, that was one of the big motivating factors for me writing this book is that I wanted people to hopefully glimpse some of the same things that I had come to understand I'm also not interested in like a bllack and white story. like it's boring. I didn't want to write something that felt sensationalized. it is really easy for me to see multiple sides of a story. and that means that when someone comes to me and shares something unusual, I it is it's not hard for me to try to imagine like what drew them in? what were the things about the teachings of the group that had value. likeike what about it was fun? What about these leaders? teachings are actually grounded in some kind of wisdom because there's a lot of that too. And, you know, I am again, I am someone who as a reporter, you know, like I like to listen to all sides and there have been plenty of times that I have wondered if I'm not somehow capturing the whole story or you know just like accepting that like the version of the story that I tell I just have to make peace with the fact that there are going to be people who vehemently disagree with the characterizations that I make And correct me if I'm wrong, Your article that was a piece on One Taste. Wisdom first dive into O Taste in this way, correct? Yeah, it was definitely the first article to go into depth about allegations that this group was a dangerous or predatory cult and although I don't know it for sure. it seemeems like it kicked off an FBI investigation, which then led to the criminal charges down the road. And then what I remember being surprised by was some of the reactions that I got from forer members reaching out to me and saying Thank you so much for writing this story or like I also want to talk about what I experienced and you know more about the history of the group and Nicole herself. She's not really a big presence in that first story, but she is obviously the main character of the story of this company and this group. And so a lot of people wanted to talk to me about their experiences with Nicole So that kind of kept my recording going All right, everyone, we have a new sponsor. And Liz and I both kind of had the same reaction when they reached out. Like, what is what not What exactly is what notot? What is what notot? And now I totally get it. I understand why people are obsessed with it. Whatnot? Okay, so those who don't know, it's basically a live shopping app where you can find deals on fashion, beauty, bags, jewelry, collectibles, honestly, almost everything. And by live shopping he means like an auction where you actually bid on the products in real time and When It feels like you stumbled into like a fun flea market and everyone is like knows what they're talking about and they're like holding up items and then you have to bid on them and it's really fun and good, you know, and then you win and then you get really cool stuff for cheap and You've never ever pay the full price. I don't think. I probably No, you don't. Not from what I've watched. Did you get anything? I did. I did. I got a um Like a little white summer dress situation. That's cool.'s cool. And I was like This was awesome. You basically just bid and then you, you can get out bid, but people don't bid like crazy amounts more. It's like a dollar increment. Probably got like a fifty dollars dress for twelve bucks or something? Yeah, it's kind of crazy. I got a tools. There's all kinds of great tools on there. And there's people selling everything. They've got vintage jackets and sneakers and the people answer the questions in real time if you're curious of what it is Fant. You can talk to the people, you know It's a fun way to spend for lunch Yeah. and there's also, it's kind of fascinating. I mean, I watched and there was this southern couple very, very southern and they were fun and they were selling housewares. It was very fun to watch. I didn't buy anything, but it was kind of interesting to watch's entering stuff Yeah So Whatnot is the largest live shopping marketplace in the country. And there are, as Tyler mentioned, over ten thousand fashion, beauty and bag sellers on there. So there's always stuff happening and it's always live. So download the Whatnot app today. Get free shipping on your first order. just search W H A T N O T Whatnot in the app store, sign up sccore some amazing deals. You almost never pay full price All right, everyone, so on this show, you often hear Liz and I extol the many virtues of our sponsor, Quint. That we do because Quince has become Our demigod inn aoc sense. We praise it, we love it and We really actually really love the quality and the price tag because it's we do. leegit. And we talk about shopping on quQince all the time, but we never actually do it on air. So I'm going to go right now Qusot com slash cult. I'm going to get a t shirt, men's cotton V neack tea, organic cotton. I'm gonna get two of them because I tend to get blood stains on my t shirts, not my blood, don't ask. There's some great great child has a lot on here. Is it something else Something like that. And then I do slash ct. placeace my order, Bing bang, boom and just like that, I just bought Two great t shirts Quint dot com slash cult. We love quQintince. Refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Just like Tyler did, head to quQuincez dot com slash Colt. You'll get free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Quintince is now available in Canada too Go get it Canada. That's Qu INcE dot com slash ct Once again, don't forget the slash cult, at check out, put in our podcast And you'll get free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Thank you for supporting our show quQints dot com slash Colt We're back. So Ellen did write a book about One Taste, but there was also a documentary made about the cult from Netflix with the very provocative title Orgasm Inc, the story of One Taste This uses years of archival footage and interviews with former members to trace one taste's rise from Buzzy San Francisco Wellness start up to the center of very disturbing allegations. But for a while, in Circa, I don't know, twenty eighteen One Taste was a very popular practice. It got media attention, celebrities got involved, Wellness world legitimized it. In fact, Gwyneth Paltrro's wellness brand gave Nicole a massive platform, endorsed her book, and had Nicole on her goop podcast. Chlorie Kardashian praised Nicole's method on her website, writing that, quote, orgasmic meditation is the key to ultimate satisfaction and also recommended her book This one might surprise you, listeners Theovon said he did orgasmic meditation and was involved in that world. mean it surprise me. Does it though? I don't know. Theo Von I don't see him as like this spiritual, I don't know, maybe is I don't listen to it. He's rubbing clits. Must a mail be spiritual Sure to rub vaginas. And Tim Ferris, the author of Four Hour Work Week, endorsed Oming in his follow up book The fourour Hour Body, he had two chapters dedicated to it The fifteen minute female orgasm, part un. That's French. partart un and the fifteen minute female orgasm Dh not complaining about celebrity endorsements I do think sometimes the celebrity culture has gotten a bit out of hand And I'm saying this as a massive celebrity myself. I understand the slippery platform in which I stand. For those who might not know, orgasmic meditation as developed and popularized by Nicoal at One Taste was a fifteen minute partnered mindfulness meditative clitoral stroking practice in which The strokeee, the person receiving the stroking, generally a woman would naked from the waist down. and then the stroker who tended to be a man would remain fully closed. Put a glove on his left hand, some move on his left index finger. and very gently stroke the clitoris of the woman for fifteen minutes exactly And during those fifteen minutes, both partners would have no goal other than to meditate on the sensations in their body that came up during that druggking session. So the idea was that if you owned multiple times a day and made it a daily practice that you would transform your life. You would experience better relationships, better sex, better intimacy, You become more in touch with your desiire. There were even people who claimed that it helped them get over symptoms from autoimmune diseases or other kind of depression and other things like that And so it was all focused on the female orgasm. if you followed this path that you would ye become enlightened And here is Nicole herself in an interview giving a bit more insight into Oming We're dedicated to spreading connection through the practice of orgasmic meditation. Orgasmic meditation. The new technology. OM.. O scientifically, there is so much potential in terms of what orgasm can do if it's intersected with a practice. Okay. In my mind, the end goal is to have an extraordinarily heightened capacity for empathy What number am I shooting for every week? How many orgasms am I looking for like in the twenties or thirties or So when I say orgasm, I have a more expanded definition.. So when we talk about orgasm, most people are referring to climax. and climax has physical signifiers really that the sympathetic nervous system has been activated So you see like swelling, you see maybe a pool of ejaculate involuntary contractions. If you have extended practice, you can get that from the very beginning Okay to the end. one. Okaykay? I hear me now. So like We could solve global warming by creating some warming down here Yeah, exactly. that maybe. Yeah. I feel like you might see that on her website now. That's so powerful. Yeahah I don't know who to mock more in that interview So I will just move on. I will keep silent Now, keep in mind with one taste that men would stroke the female Clitoris. I'm glad I put female in front of Clitoris But they were only allowed to stroke the upper left quadrant. Bea apparently in one taste, the clit had zoning laws Only one quadrant was approved for arousal And by the way, this wasn't taught in private One taste would hold live demonstrations in Conference rooms under sexy fluorescent lighting, and members would sit in these like uncomfortable looking plastic conference chairs And just watch. Yes This is exactly how I would picture a sex cult in Silicon Valley. Sacred sexuality A bunch of dudes coding in the background att the same time Much like everything in Silicon Valley, it all revolves around money Money, money, money Well, you didn't think magic orgasming was free now, did you, Tyler? and so Nicole, when she started this company The main business model was selling courses on first how to do orgasmic meditation, but then as people got more involved in one te, they would often take these courses on more esoteric ideas like how to become an Iignited M, orr they had a course called taboo in which you learned about your own taboos and then There was a multi mononth coaching program that could cost up to twenty thousand dollars and that was when you learned principles of an orgasmic lifestyle on how to become a coach, that you train other people to do Anyway, you get the picture, but In the first few years of the company, The business was not making money, which of course, is very common I love startups And the way that they their doors open is that Nicole met A man named Rese Jones, who's a Silicon Valley investor And he was interested in one taste. Hindicle started dating And he started supporting the company financially, like he would pay for business expenses, he would loan the company money. And in exchange, according to cour testimony and my own reporting and you many people's recollections, in exchange he was given sexual favors by One Taste employees. So those often looked like for his birthday every year, they would arrange these elaborate immersive theatrical experiences that often included a lot of sex and BDSM You know, one year it was themed after the Wizard of Oz, another year after seeven Deadly Sins. And then There was also an arrangement for many years in which a rotating cast of female one taste employees would be asked if they wanted to serve as Reese's handler, which meant living with him in his house in San Francisco attending to household tasks and then also sexually servicing him every day This was positioned as a spiritual honor and something that was very highly surpris So prostitution in the name of spiritual Enlightenment That is one way to look at it. I mean, I' not to be put any sex worker down, but When you're getting paid for sex, that's has a name No, I know. I think this is also the journalist in me being like I can't say that. You really you're really getting a sense of like how we think, which is like we really have to be careful about these things. but I can say it. I cant say it. And so this arrangement, which went on for many years, I think gives you a sense of M. pattern of a lot of the alleged exploitation that were also used to encourage people to say yes to these types of arrangements which would then benefit the company. You know For example, one of the teachings at One Taste was this thing called aversion practice where you were taught that to move further in your path to spiritual and sexual enlightenment, you should embrace doing actions that you felt an aversion to And the more of an aversion you felt the more liberated you would feel if you did it and these were often sexual And a lot of People who had been involved in One Tase talked to me about how they felt like Yeah, they were told by a manager or someone else within the company that they should or have sex with a certain customer to bring them in and help them have a good experience so that they buy another expensive course And if you said, I don't want to do that, then you would be told, okay, you should do it anyway because now it's part of your aversion practice. that can be incredibly damaging. Like it totally undercuts and bulldozes your sense of boundaries and consent But there was a very strong mentality and teaching within One Tase that consonsidering yourself a victim was Weak minded, small bad, shameful, like to have a victim mentality was such a put down. Yeah. And within this group, you know, when people had damaging and hurtful experiences, you know, if they tried to report it to someone else, they would be told like basically like it's your fault for feeling hurt That's your choice. If you're feeling like the victim, that's your choice. Again, another teaching within one case that I found pretty reprehensible is this idea that They really wanted to uphold women as super powerful. That was part of the idea of putting all this emphasis on studying the female orgasm. But In doing so, they would put forth these ideas like Women are so powerful that they are always emitting something called call And man Whatever actions they take are only in response to a woman's call because a woman is so much more powerful. So guess what This led to situations where like if a man violated some boundary with a woman within one taste Many women believed that it had been their fault because they had been taught that they were always the ones in control because they were always putting out call. and if a man responds well, it's like, What did the woman do to cause that? Yeah, so you can see how these things that on the very surface promised empowerment but then very quickly spun into these Extremes. And I think that's a tragic thing about oneu because it really reshapes your thinking about who is at fault, like, you like it made people feel so guilty for certain things that had happened or made them unable to access healing for a long time even after leaving because They had been taught for so many years that thinking of yourself as a victim was wrong How did the levels work When did you quote graduate to the next level So yeah, you would start off with these like basic courses about how to om or intro to om and then they would quickly become bigger and more esoteric. And so they offered a class, for example, called Magic schoolchool where you learned about all sorts of like occult practices that they thought related to energasmic lifestyle. And then there were these very expensive courses that cost up to thirty six thousand dollars for called the Nicole Day Don't Intensive, and that was a two week course where you would spend time getting a lecture from Nicole every day. There was also an offering that you could buy called membership, which was something like fifty five or sixty thousand dollars. It lasted for a year And it meant that you could take any course you wanted for free and that when Nicole lectured, you could sit in the front row and that you had special access. And then on top of that, there was even a three year option for a membership called lineage, which then cost one hundred eighty thousand dollars. In order to afford these courses, people did a variety of things. First of all, sometimes wealthy people were targeted by oneu T salespeople. They were given lots of attention and really warm invitations and love bombing to be brought in so that they would buy these courses Then There are many people who talk to me about being encouraged by one day staff to take on credit card debt or other kinds of debt in order to pay for these courses. And then Nicole You know, there are videos of her giving giving lectures to her students in which she says that Money is just energy and that, you know, if you really, if you need to make twenty thousand dollars a yearer in order to take a course like, if you can tap into your orgasm like that's going to happen for you. At the same time as the sales team was often pushing quite hard for people to spend large amounts of money with the company, they would be teaching philosophies and in their courses in which they devalued the reality of money, they would say it's It's not real, it's just energy. Like if you're feeling scared about spending this amount of money, it just means that there's something really big for you to learn in that experience. Yeah, all these things that we're being required of people in order to advance on that path. It was all framed as like, okay, well, if you want a personal growth, you're going to have to do this. You said in the beginning, like, you know, I talked to a lot of people who said This was a cult or they say I had it neegative experience. And then there's the people that push you off and say, no, I had a great. time I'm genuinely curious what did they say if anything was the positive thing that resulted from that So you know, in this practice of this fifteen minute Progastmic meditation session First of all, there's no goal. You know, you're not supposed to be trying to achieve orgasm or climax as they would call it. they kind of redefine what we call orgasm to be climax and then they expand the definition of the word orgasm to mean a much more broad erotic energy. But basically like you're not supposed to feel in any certain way. It really is like sitting meditation, you sit and you notice what's happening in your body, what's happening in your mind. I think the benefits of that are really huge for people who have felt trapped by this sense that within a sexual encounter you need to get somewhere, you need to You know, this is like people, a lot of people in the world struggle with performance, anxiety during sex somethingomething like ten percent to fifteen percent. estimate of American women struggle to like have an orgasm. So I think that goallessness is really can be quite revelatory for some people And then same, the OM session is explicitly taught to be non reciprocal. So offtten for women, the first time in which they are going to receive sexual touch from another person and be explicitly told like you do not owe this person anything. After that fifteen minutes, you don't owe them a handshake, a hug, your phone number, more sex, anything like that. And so other women have also described to me how powerful that was, how unusual, how revelatory. And I think Both men and women have described me and I totally believe them that they practice paying attention to their bodies in this intimate setetting and that it really made them more attuned to sexual partners, peopleeople came to one place when they had gone through a divorce or their marriage was falling apart or they realized that they really did not know how to connect with people sexually or intimately or you know maybe they'd had sexual trauma in their past or they just likeike these are really struggles that hit close to the heart I guess I just feel a lot of compassion for people who came to Oays looking for that because it is not commonly offered and it is something that a lot of people really yearn for. You know, there were lots of people who would talk to me about that dual M multifaceted experience All right, everyone, so on this show, you often hear, Liz and I extol the many virtues of our sponsor, Quint. That we do because Quince has become Our demigod in a sense, We praise it, we love it and We really actually really love the quality and the price tag because it's we do. leegit. And we talk about shopping on quQince all the time, but we never actually do it on air. So I'm going to go right now to quQintinceot com slash ct. I'm gonna to get a t shirt. men's cotton V neack tea, organic cotton. I'm gonna get two of them because I tend to get blood stains on my t shirts, not my blood, don't ask. There's some great great childild has a lot on here. Is it something else Something like that. And then I do slash Ct. placelace my order, Bing bang, boom. and just like that, I just bought Two great t shirts Qint dot com slash cult. We love Qintince. Refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use Just like Tyler did, head to quQuince dot com slash Colt. You'll get free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Quintince is now available in Canada too Go get it Canada. That's QuiNcE dot com slash ct Once again, don't forget the slash cult, at check out, put in our podcast. And you'll get free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Thank you for supporting our show quQints dot com slash Ct Discover a spectacular island destination with crystal blue seas, endless sunshine, and the cool Bahamian breeze. Bahamar, loocated in Nassau Bahamas offers your choice of three luxury hotels, over forty five fine dining and nightlife venues, John Batiste', All New Jazz Club, the Caribbean's most luxurious casino, and one of the kind experiences for the entire family. Like our fifteen acre tropical water park, wildlife sanctuary, world class golf course, and so much more. Visit bahamar dot com today So throughout all this, we have heard the name Nicole D Don uttered Certainly, a cult leader of her stature has to have some sort of twisted backstory Am I right? With Nicole, like we get so swept up in the cult of personality, right? and just just her charisma But what is her trauma? Okay, so Nicole has spoken frequently in her public appearances about her father who was a convicted child sex abuser. He was incarcerated once for child sex abuse when Nicole was young. and then again when Nicole was in her twenties and he died very soon after that. and she has often talked about death as being this catalyzing event for her that sent her on a period of wanting to search and understand the healing power of sexuality after seeing how it had been this poisonous influence in her father's life. In her public discussions about her dad, she never really addressed fully the question of whether he had ever behaved inappropriately toward her abused her. There's also a point in her story later on when she's starting one Taste, when she starts to reframe the story of what happened with her father. tell it from a point of view in which she casts herself as like an instigator of it and as wanting it or seeking it out in some way. And if you talk to experts who study Yes, child sex abuse, they will say that this is actually quite common. Yeah, young victims will see their experience through a lens in which they had agency It's a way to try to like regain agency in a situation that no one should go through Of course it then ties into these later lessons that she teaches at One Taste about how you should ever think of yourself as a victim and like you should take on one hundred percent responsibility for your life experience. And so There are many things that create Nicole simil to just like her personality and how she was born. but I have to believe that whatever happened with her dad is a big part of her story as well. you know, and I don't think it excuses what peopleeople have said that she's done to them, but it is part of understanding who she is and where she comes from One thousand percent it does So Nicole's father was a convicted child molester. Now there are rumors that he used Nicole to attract his young victims and she was mostly raised by her mother as her father was largely a distant sporadic figure in her life But then when Nicole was twenty seven She gets a call from her mom who informs her that her dad is not only in jail, After being convicted of molesting two young girls, but is dying of cancer in ninety minutes And so she drops everything, runs to the jail. and says goodbye to him Now, his death led Nicole to an apparent emotional collapse and sent Nicole down the road to exploring sexuality This is what she said about her father's crimes You know, my dad died in prison for fifty two counts of child molestation, and I never took on the idea that he was a bad person. I took on the idea that he was just so expansive and fourth dimensional that he couldn't confine himself into the arbitrary laws of the third dimension. That was his only crime in my mind Now, a few years after her father's death, she spent about two years living at a place called the Welcomed Consensus an alternative lifestyle commune and educational group based in Northern California, which focused entirely on teaching Gourmet sex and female pleasure and by educational group We mean a sex commune that figured out a workaround you know age group orgasms as a tuition based seminar to avoid The cops or being called a sex cult. I kind of have to go back to the gourmet sex word because it is very strange to put gourmet at the front of it. It goes great with sonsire. Everything goes great with sonscer He does. It's my favorite white Now The Wellness Consensus was known for its teachings on Wait for It Delliberate orgasm. Yes, they called it doing Do deliberate orgasming. And what was that guys? Well, it was a set of techniques. that was designed to extend the female orgasm and turn the entire body into a state of quote Turn on No, wa, wait, wait, wa, wait. that basically just means that she stole the entire thing from welcomed consensus. She took DO doing ed it in a yoga mat and called it Oing, oMing. You drew that conclusion. I just laid the facts Except she made one crucial change Cune versions were these massive hour long marathons, but Nicole probably realized Silicon Valley Tech Bros didn't have that kind of time So she put a timer on it, capped at exactly fifteen minutes, and marketed it as a quick wellness habit. Unbelievable. there's a part of you that wants to tip a cap to the marketing genius. It's like a shot of vital greens, but you charge thousands of dollars for it Tens of thousands, but no big deal And for reasons that we won't assume here today. No, we won't assume, we could assume If we wanted to assume, but we aren't We aren't choosing to do that. No, but we could if we wanted to assume We could, but we aren't. But Nicole used her own theories to deflect rape I did a women's And and they were like Oh, I'm so scared to turn on because all of those terrible men will rape me. And I said if you want to know the real way to deflect rape, it's to turn on one hundred percent Because then there's nothing to rape My experience is that a woman turned on one hundred percent has every single man around her bowing. Who was I, Ohh, I was talking to Kim and Yee about this yesterday. Like I can go out on the street and I can just be like the pied piper with like a whole I like, o my God, can't believe all these men are so attacted to Or I can go out on the street and I can just be like totally one hundred percent cloaked and invisible That's the power we have. The problem with the victim story for me is that it takes it It takes away your power. I'm not a normally guy who doesn't have much to say, but in that case, I have little to say, except for a lot. First off, everything about that is terrible Everything about what she said is awful. and why people didn't stand up and boo her immediately I don't understand Wh this person has a microphone Oh, but Tyler, there's more Oh O course there is. I think I told the story in here when I was a stripper And they put a knife up to my throat Oh well, anyway. I did it for whatever. I've had my experiences, but I did learn this little trick of turn on and limbic connection. And so there I was in this back black room with nine inch nails playing really loud. and there we were. you had it up against And I just like turned I said, How'd you know I like that And I turned on my p as high as I could turn it on. and bam We were just in that place together, and all of a sudden it absorbed everything that was in there Okay, good. there. That's great advice, everyone. Follow her Just to be clear, that was not our bleep over the word That one was though Because it's nice to censor Liz whenever I can. Pussy, gotot it Yes I'm glad you said it. I tried with me saying it and I just don't think me saying the word pussy. Oh God, grows. I know it grows, isn't? It's gross. Isn't it? I'm sorry. I'm sorry to our l.'s that Rob. spponsors. both my offspring and My ancestors for saying that word Oh into a recorded device A lot of people would say like when she looks at you She sees in here soul and there's Something about that, right? where We as humans are so desperate to be Senes. Yeah I mean, you're totally right that she is veryer, very skilled at putting her attention on people in a way that makes them feel special. and doing it at just the right moment, there are so many stories that people have told me about how it felt to have Nicole shine her spotlight on you. I think she's Very skilled at that And it's a big part of how she draws people in at these intro sessions, they would play a game called hot seat where some person gets put in the middle of the room and that everyone puts their attention on them for a certain period of time to ask them all these questions and these probing sorts of questions and One person described the experience of that as feeling drunk on attention, just feeling like, wow, like you just don't get that in normal life. And I think in what is the really understood on a deep level how to put attention on someone that they wanted to draw in, and then also how to pull it away. Like people have also described to me that A they made it clear that they were not going to keep buying courses that they would just feel the attention pulled away. And in fact, they even had a term for it which used like an o metaphor which was finger off. If someone told you finger off toward that person, that meant that like you should take your finger off of them as though you were in an om you're going to remove that point of contact so that they felt the like lack of connection. What's your relationship to Nicole? I know you didn't meet her a lot. I had never met her or I didn't meet her for many years when I started reporting on the book That was one of the first requests I made as I let them know I was going to be writing a book and I was like, I would love to interview Nicole And you know, as is her prerogative, she declined. And you know, I asked several times over the course of several years You know, but in the meantime I spent all this time talking to people about her dicking up old records about her youth and her past and talking to people who knew her before she started One Taste. And I had definitely devoted a lot of energy to trying to understand her. And we did meet have a conversation, a very short one one time in twenty twenty three, which was right after she hadd been indicted and she was going to have a court date And so Nicole and Rachel show up with this whole entourage of attorneys and supporters. Nicole stays me and she immediately says Hi. She's like, Hi, Ellen, and she calls out to me and I both surprised and not surprised. I think she is just someone who that's her mode is she likes to lay on the charm. You know, we walked up to each other and I asked her if I could shake her hand. And so we shook hands I said, it was nice to meet you. and she hold onto my hand and she looks at me and she says We have a strange intimacy And I was like very taken aback. It like it's a weird thing to say, but I think it is acknowledging this sense that our lives have intersected in this way. and I yeah, I think I said something like, okay, I'll see you in court. L went up to the courtroom. You know, during the trial, she, you know, she's very good at like always keeping a sort of a light smile on her face. And then during the trial, she would often turn around and smile at her supporters or try to make eye contact with the jurors. She's very poised like she' in control of how she's presenting But Nicole was sentenced to nine years in federal prison and Rachel to six and a half. What was she charged with? And then what was she actually convicted of So there was only one charge, one for Nicole and one for Rachel. It was the same crime. This is Rachel Cherwitz. She was One Taste former head of sales. Yeah, I think it's safe to say former head. She's also in jail So there was only one charge, one for Nicole and one for Rachel was the same crime, forced labor conspiracy. So that means technically that they were charged with the crime of conspiring to obtain someone's labor in an unlawful way as defined by the federal statute. You know, in this case, the prosecutors were arguing that labor was obtained by using serious harm or threats of serious harm And that serious harm is defined by not just physical, but can be psychological, financial, reputational, et cetera. So it's pretty broad. But her time behind bars has become interwoven with her continuing story. like it's very much has become the current chapter of what her supporters like to talk about, which is that she is a woman who is practicing unconditional freedom even when she is behind bars. They say that she's teaching other inmates how to meditate and things like that. And you know, One Tase has been very vocal especially in the last few years about seending It's side of the story, as is their right and the company still has many loyal devotees, some of them work for, you know, the company has changed names, they have some of these been off associated groups where there's a core group of looyalists who are very devoted to Nicole and Rachel, who believe strongly in and maintain their innocence even after the guilty verdict, even after I had their day in court. Beachbum's June Jackpot is dealing out winners all week long. sccore seven dollars Sun or sppray tans, seven dollarars Red light or sauna, seven dollarars lotions, and more. Feeling lucky? G buy one, get one seventy percent off packages. No gamble, just glow. The odds are in your favor, and these seven dollar deals are your ticket to a golden summer. Beach Bum's June Jackpot sale is live through june seventh. Don't miss it at Beachbum Tanning. Your glow up starts now. Head to beachbum dot com and stay tan and tasty all summer long in your learned pest eight years What do you feel like constitutes a cult? I think there's something central about B. ideology and practices of cults that strikes me as like it's necessary for a group to be damaging and it's that message which is I have something to offer you that is going to transform your life fix this deep problem and yearning that you have And If you reject my teachings, if you do not follow everything else that I say needs to come with that, you will suffer on a deep level. I think it's instilling in people that fear of leaving, I think is cruel and deeply exploitative. I have heard lots of people who describe to me the same thing, this fear that if they left they would, you know, not only lose there friends, their job, their home, their community, their lovers, but also suffer on a pretty extreme spiritual level. People would say to me thingsings like I believed that Orgasm was God and theoal was Jesus or Mohamaded, like she was the person by which we could access this divine Force And they felt like if they left they would lose access to God One taste is still functioning? Is this Yes. And it's still in the Bay Area Yes, in California and also New York, and they offer classes online and they're actually restarting the coaching program but calling it the connection program. and they run a food nonprofit in New York. Yeah, they're very active. How is that possible after all of these not just allegations, but yeah, they have sources of funding that are allowing them to continue. I don't know for sure exactly what they are, so I can't say I just have my g. Right of course And they'll probably rebrand soon if they haven't already. They have rebranded many times. It's currently called like the Arows platform, but it's okay Let you go. Colults lovever rebrand Okay, I have to pop in here real quick because Not only is this Aeros platform still going, But from jail I shit you not, Nicole is putting out lectures on her Instagram from jail How is she doing this They have created, and I'm not joking, this is the worst use of AI I've ever encountered. It's literally Liter I'm gonna to show this to you Tyler. I can't wait. It is It is her avatar standing with some sort of Weird Buddhist type in a robe across her left shoulder. Talking to Camera giving a lecture And a P eyed voice All in her voice, AI Her mouth is moving, she is talking. They made her look much better than she does in real life, by the way and She She apparently writes these dissertations, writes these lectures from jail, sends them to her people, the people then Create The AI version to all the forces visible and invisible that make this moment possible. My Lllama, Drpon, Rev And all who haveve come before the shoulders we stand on, who have supported this endeavor into being and have really been there to usher it into the world Today is an incredibly special day Right now, at MDC Brooklyn, something is happening that has never happened before I'm giving a Tibetan Buddhist empowerment inside of a prison goes on and on and on, by the way That's fifteen minutes long. there'sult There's multiple ones of these lecturers up on her Instagram We could put that link in our show notes, but we're not going to. No, we are not going to because Everything you just heard is more than enough. to satisfy your're craving for insanity jail. for your craving for genuine insanity Today is an incredibly special day Right now at MDC Brooklyn, something is happening that has never happened before I'm giving a Tibetan Buddhist empowerment inside of a prison. It is the same blessing the first Dalai Lama received pass down teacher to student all the way to the current Dalai Lama. To mylllama, Gwenne Mullin to me And now to the women of East MDC Brooklyn Federal Detention Center Prison can be a place of degradation can also become through practice, a place where the deepest vow is made visible Now Let' get back to a real human, shall we Isn't it nice when you talk to real humans nowadays? Oh feel like I just need more human Individuals, more drawings by people or songs from instruments A I from jail. We'll end on the positive note, which is How you live Oh yeah. People ask us all the time, what constitutes a cult And can there be a community without it being a cult? And then I meet you and you tell me Well, golly geez, yeah So just tell us brief I'll give you a brief overview. Yeah So you know a big part of One Taste was communal living. like they ran these formal and informal One Taste houses in which own practitioners lived together. And at one point, one of their communal residences was a fifty person warehouse in downtown San Francisco that people just two to a bed, peopleople were packed into this experience, and some people really loved it. Yeah, basically there's a network of these types of houses in the Bay Area. and I've lived in a couple of them. One of them was like one house with many bedrooms and then the current place that I live is six buildings on a compound, but there are dozens of these. But it's not a cult I think an important difference, like I said earlier, like it lacks that sense that if you leave you are dead to us, It's like in fact, we have lots of former members. forer residents who come by and hang out all the time You know, there's no charismatic dominant leader. there's no dogma of the way you need to live, right? It's actually just what we used to strive for as humans and used to have was community and we all pitched in and we all helped out. Totally we take rotations, cooking dinner for everyone. There's no like co parenting, but it's more like parallel parenting. so there's a lot of young kids and they will come and hang out in the yard together, like it is the kind of close living in proximity with other people that we used to have more of, it's more of a village There are a lot of forces that guide people toward nuclear family, isolated living, living in a single family home. and there's also like a growing interest you know among millennials and other young people in the Bay Area to try to live life differently. What's like the most reassuring or thing that brings you the most joy with living like this. I just think it's fun to, I mean, I'm such an extrovert. I don't think I've ever wanted to live in a place where I was living alone. But I think an extra fun thing is just getting to be intermittently in the lives of like your friends kids. like you really just get to watch them grow up and