# Sarah Edmondson, Part 1 - Joining NXIVM, Meeting Keith Raniere, and Moving Up the Ranks

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/trust-me-cults-extreme-belief-and-manipulation-1320347/sarah-edmondson-part-1-joining-nxivm-meeting-keith-raniere-and-moving-up-the-ranks
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/trust-me-cults-extreme-belief-and-manipulation-1320347/sarah-edmondson-part-1-joining-nxivm-meeting-keith-raniere-and-moving-up-the-ranks.md
Podcast: [Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation](https://stenobird.com/podcast/trust-me-cults-extreme-belief-and-manipulation-1320347)
Published: 2026-05-20T07:01:00+00:00
Episode link: https://omny.fm/shows/trust-me-cults-extreme-belief-and-manipulation/sarah-edmondson-part-1-joining-nxivm-meeting-keith-raniere-and-moving-up-the-ranks
Audio file: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/f804eed6-dd2f-4bf9-ba37-b2de011a8b27/999d8a2d-a4b5-4953-ba70-b448016c8d30/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=462fb424-93c4-4e4b-8e00-b2de011a8b44
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Duration seconds: 3063

## Resource

This week is part 1 with, at long last, Sarah Edmondson, NXIVM survivor, author, and host of A Little Bit Culty, a podcast and now book, co-hosted and authored with her husband, Nippy Ames. She’ll tell the girls how she first joined the self-help group—which turned out to be a sex cult—starting with a comment by Mark Vicente that shook her worldview. She’ll discuss why she was drawn to the goal-oriented framework and define some core tenets of NXIVM, including what it means to be “at cause" by demonstrating the exercise on Lola and Meagan. Sarah will explain how tenets like being "at cause" were actually tools for manipulation used to deflect from the group’s wrongdoings. She will also discuss feeling starstruck when she first met leader Keith Raniere, who claimed to be the smartest man in the world, and the idea of “spiritual wives” (and how he may have stolen that from Lola’s prophet). Next week we’ll get into her later years in the group, DOS, and how she left. SOURCES A Little Bit Culty See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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## Transcript

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