Ellen Huet on OneTaste, WeWork and why AI is the future of cults

Plus eight of my favourite interviews from the last 16 years

Nicole Daedone, founder of OneTaste, currently behind bars for forced labour conspiracy

Here’s a video of this week’s event with Ellen Huet. Ellen is the Bloomberg journalist who first exposed the harmful cult-like practices of orgasm wellness company OneTaste – her article inspired an FBI investigation which led to the founder and head of sales of OneTaste being convicted this year of forced labour conspiracy. They’re due to be sentenced shortly and could face up to 20 years in prison. Ellen just published her first book, Empire of Orgasm.

Some highlights of the conversation:

• What did people get from OneTaste, what was the good stuff?

• Why people are attracted to cults because modern life often lacks meaning and community

• How OneTaste staged sex pageants – immersive erotic theatre productions involving large casts – solely for the gratification of their principal donor / investor (Reese Jones)

• Why cult expert Steve Hassan thinks we’re in the ‘era of female cult leaders’

• How OneTaste founder Nicole lived in an ‘acid house’ , took copious amounts of LSD, and once tried to brainwash a wealthy donor while he was tripping

• Whether ‘brainwashing’ is really a thing and to what extent members of cults share responsibility and complicity for what occurs in the cult

• Why did the human potential movement turn into such a predatory capitalist grift market with organisations like Landmark and OneTaste exploiting people with very aggressive course sales tactics

• How academic researchers including Roland Griffiths helped promote and validate OneTaste and why researchers should be careful not to let their university be a reputation-launderer for harmful fringe organisations

• Why companies, and especially start-ups, can also be cult-like

• How AI could be the future of cults

You can find over 100 videos and interviews I’ve done over the last 16 years on my YouTube channel, including with Alain De Botton, Michael Shermer, Andrew Harvey, Tanya Luhrmann, Rory Stewart, disgraced Christian cult leader Jean Vanier, Tom Morgan, Rupert Sheldrake, Daniel Ingram, Jamie Wheal and many others. After the paywall, I choose eight of my favourite videos from the last 16 years.