Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes Present
The NXIVM Sex Cult Scandal: Branded, Breaking Free and Blowing the Whistle (With Survivor Sarah Edmondson)
27 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you?
I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. Mind Games, a new podcast exploring NLP, aka neurolinguistic programming. Is it a self-help miracle, a shady hypnosis scam, or both? Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you're seeking to try to understand the forensic science behind these cases that we hear about in the news, Body Bags is where you need to turn. There's no fluff. We do a deep dive into the forensics. Listen to Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan and start listening.
Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Killer Thriller with your host, Alisa Donovan. Hey, everybody. Elisa Donovan here, back with a new episode of Killer Thriller.
This is our second part of my interview with Sarah Edmondson, where she talks about getting out of NXIVM, the branding that they went through, and all of the work that she is doing today to help people escape cults and ideally never get involved with one. How much do you think actually being a mom in the midst of this helped you get out of it?
Because you must have thought, oh my gosh, wait a second.
Yeah.
It definitely helped me. Having Troy, and I know I'm jumping ahead a little bit in the timeline.
I know. Sorry. That's my fault.
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Chapter 2: What led Sarah Edmondson to question her involvement in NXIVM?
So it is a metaphor. It's a game. it's an exercise in, you know, putting someone else above you and, and honoring them and doing something for them. And then they were going to have people doing that for me eventually, which, you know, as you, as you know, cause you, you followed, like didn't really pan out, which is great. Yes.
But that was, that was really like the, the main reason is to be able to work with her and the master slave stuff was like just weird. But the, the branding was, was something that was pitched as I understood it as like a mark on my body like a tattoo. Now, in the trial, Lauren verified that everything I said was true, but she said that she did tell me I was going to get a brand, which...
she may have but I think you would never think I'm going to be branded like cattle I think I can imagine where if you hear that word it would sound like oh a brand of like a like a symbol you know something yes
That's what I've come to realize because she may have used the word brand, but up until the night of the branding, I didn't know that humans could be branded. I thought that was something that just happened to cattle. She said that she told me branding, but what I remember is a mark on my body like a tattoo. And then I was like, I don't want to get a tattoo. I don't have any tattoos.
I had a whole thing about ā that was my main sticking point. Master, slave, fine. Tattoo, eh. But doesn't that ā
And forgive me if I'm wrong, but that's also as a Jewish of the Jewish faith, that's pretty, a lot of people have feelings about tattoos in general, right?
Yes. Yeah. I mean, there were times when I was a teenager that I considered it, but ultimately that's one of the reasons. Yeah. So I was Jewish. I stalled for a while committing to DOS mostly because of that. And also I just felt really uncomfortable because,
And one of the things that kind of tipped me over the edge to help me say yes, and this is so dumb, but because Lauren was staying at my house and we were doing an intensive together that week, but I ran into another proctor who was like lower rank than me and much less committed and
She she like kind of winced and like tugged at because Lauren told me where the mark was going to be like right here under my under your bikini line. And then the next day or maybe even that day, I saw this friend of mine kind of like, oh, and I was like, are you OK? And she's like, oh, yeah, it's just like a little cut. And she was like all sketchy about it. She's in this thing. Oh, wow.
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Chapter 3: What were the circumstances surrounding the branding ceremony?
Yeah. Every woman was filmed with Lauren's phone.
Oh, God.
And I was holding her phone and a text came through from KAR that said, how are they all doing with each other? And I didn't know if that was K-A-R Keith Allen Ranieri or K-A-R Karen, who was a friend of, was another high ranking person. So I thought, oh, does Keith know about this?
Oh my God. This is in the middle when, while the branding is happening.
Yeah. Or is Karen involved? I don't know. Put it on the show. You know texts come through and they go, right? It was gone and I'm not going to go looking through her texts. So I was like, oh, okay. So Keith is now, now I know. Okay, well, Keith has seen my naked body. Now I know that. Keith is fully aware of all, like, oh, fuck. So anyway, and Mark and I had this conversation.
He tells me what he knows. I tell him what I know. And together we're like, that was the beginning of the end. I mean, that was the end. That was, we're out. Holy shit, I'm in a black male pyramid scheme. Right. Involving sex slavery.
Thank God you had one another though, right? It must have helped to have somebody that was like, I'm here too. We're going to get out of here. Like we're going to somehow do this. Yeah.
What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're gonna become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult?
NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka neuro-linguistic programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP. It's crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits.
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Chapter 4: How did Sarah Edmondson cope with the aftermath of leaving NXIVM?
NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you're seeking to try to understand the forensic science behind these cases that we hear about in the news, Body Bags is where you need to turn. There's no fluff. We do a deep dive into the forensics. Listen to Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan and start listening.
Let's talk about, you said there's no playbook for leaving a cult. Can you talk about some of the warning signs that people should look out for and what advice you would give to people listening who could be in one right now?
Yeah. I mean, ultimately what I've learned since leaving is that so many people are either in a cult or something culty that something's not necessarily a full blown cult in the traditional sense, but it's just toxic, you know, or problematic. And it could be something as benign as orange theory or something where like, or CrossFit where it's like, obviously that's not a cult, but it's culty.
And I've now since like eight years out, like let's not even use the word cult because people get all up in arms or it's overused or it's You know, people don't understand or they're like, well, my group doesn't have a charismatic leader. Therefore, it's not a cult. I'm like, that doesn't have to have all the things. It has to have some of the things. And again, let's just forget the word cult.
Is this healthy for you? So, yeah.
like with just back to the crossfit example you know it's all or nothing like you if you don't go you get shamed and like people change their names to have special crossfit names like all of those things are red flags of like i don't want to do that like i don't want to i don't i don't want to push myself to injury and if i don't then like i'm a pussy like that right right like that's that's what that's what not all of them i've heard that some people do that like
that forget cult like that's just not something that how i want to live that's how you want to live you know all the power to you but a lot of groups know that they're not gonna like you said you don't join a college on purpose they have to provide value people join good things right they join something and it feels great at first personal development a church a wine club A yoga studio.
All of these things have value and are great. So, like, what are the red flags? Well, it starts benign, like, you know, more intense commitment or more money or asking to, like, to make the thing become more your life, to be more of a commitment towards a particular thing. Yeah.
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