Twin Flames Universe Today and Dating App Burnout

Summary

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Infamous Podcast

Episode: "Twin Flames Universe Today and Dating App Burnout"

Date: March 19, 2026
Hosts: Vanessa Grigoriadis, Natalie Robehmed
Guest: Alice Hines (journalist and host of "Mind Games" podcast)

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Episode Overview

This episode of Infamous dives deep into the cultural phenomenon of "Twin Flames"—a spiritual concept that’s gripped Hollywood and online communities—contrasting it with today’s dating app burnout and dissatisfaction with modern romance. Hosts Vanessa and Natalie interview journalist Alice Hines, whose investigations into Twin Flames Universe exposed disturbing practices inside the group and led to a major exposé and documentary. The conversation unpacks the origins and spread of "twin flame" beliefs, the commercial and manipulative mechanisms behind spiritual influencer communities, and how neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) plays a part in cult-like dynamics both online and in self-improvement culture.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Twin Flames Obsession in Pop Culture

• Hollywood’s Embrace: Celebrities like Megan Fox, Machine Gun Kelly, Justin Bieber, and others have publicly discussed "twin flames," fueling interest and normalization of the idea.
• Beyond Soulmates:
  • "People often use [twin flame and soulmate] as synonyms. But if you dive into the twin flames theology, ...the soulmate isn't enough. The twin flame is your soulmate across all lifetimes...someone innately destined to be with you in this multiverse." — Alice Hines (03:20)
• Need for Meaning: In an era of disenchantment with modern love, twin flames offer a "grand narrative" for life, in contrast to the transactional feel of dating apps.
  • "People want some grand narrative of their life. And that's what twin flames is about." — Alice Hines (04:39)

2. Twin Flames Universe: Origins and the Rise of Online Spiritual Matchmaking

• The Gurus, Jeff and Shalia:
  • Late-30s couple who pivoted from various spiritual businesses to create Twin Flames Universe, leveraging savvy online marketing.
  • "I think they were really in love...but I also think they were like, wow, we can make a lot of money together." — Alice Hines (16:16)
• Business Structure:
  • Membership-based, with paid courses (up to $4,000), private Facebook groups, and an internal hierarchy of "ascension coaches."
  • "The answers were always like, pay more money to the group." — Alice Hines (18:55)
• Manipulation and Coercion:
  • Jeff and Shalia used their claimed spiritual authority to pair members as "twin flames," sometimes pressuring individuals to transition genders to fit matchmaking needs.
  • "They started telling certain community members to transition...it went from taking people's money...to this really specific form of conversion therapy and arranged marriages." — Alice Hines (19:01)

3. Modern Dating Burnout and Gender Dynamics

• Dating Apps as "Sushi Carousels":
  • Paradox of choice leaves users unsatisfied; twin flames offers perceived certainty and destiny in love.
• Women’s and Men’s Diverging Coping Mechanisms:
  • Twin Flames community is overwhelmingly heterosexual women still seeking love, while the "incel" counterpart descends into nihilism.
  • "The incels...give up...but these women are like still trying to take personal responsibility for their failure in the dating world." — Alice Hines (08:29)

4. Gender, Conversion, and Coercion in Twin Flames Universe

• Forced Transitions:
  • Systemic pressure for members to rethink sexual orientation or gender identity to facilitate spiritual pairings.
  • "They've said in multiple statements that they never pressured anyone to transition, but there's video evidence of them doing exactly that." — Alice Hines (20:53)
  • Manipulation during group sessions: "Are you sure Dan isn't the name you want? Like, why do you have so much resistance to this name?" — Alice Hines (21:01)
• Mirror Exercise:
  • Core technique that promotes radical self-blame for every negative event.
  • "The mirror exercise is to mirror that experience back on yourself and take agency for it...What did I do wrong to provoke this negative reality?" — Alice Hines (24:11)
  • Misuse can lead to victim-blaming and psychological harm.

5. Twin Flames as a Cult: Spiritual Authority, Wealth, and Self-Help Tools

• Self-appointed Prophets:
  • Jeff adopts messianic language, claiming "I am the Messiah...to enlighten the world, not to be gentle with it" (25:58).
• Power Dynamics:
  • "Jeff really demonstrates...typical dominant male behavior...encouraging women to transition to men so they can find their twin flames." — Vanessa Grigoriadis (25:58)
• Ongoing Expansion and Legal Trouble:
  • Group’s public activity has toned down, but their Facebook group continues growing; recent investigation launched by Michigan AG (28:11).

6. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Mind Control

• NLP Defined:
  • "A set of techniques from hypnosis and linguistics that are designed to alter beliefs and behavior...you can also use it on others to...influence them outside of their awareness." — Alice Hines (31:22)
• Real-World Examples:
  • Used by self-help gurus, cult leaders, and even timeshare salespeople.
  • "That example from corporate...is not a coincidence because...they got rich selling their programs to corporate America specifically for sales." — Alice Hines (32:27)
• Manipulative Techniques:
  • Repetition of questions ("Are you sure your name's not Dan?"), tone modulation, deliberate ambiguity, and "anchoring" emotional states to stimuli.
• Intersection with Biohacking/Self-Optimization:
  • Treating the mind like a machine to optimize—parallels between hybrid wellness/tech/self-help movements and cultic NLP use.
• Detecting Manipulation:
  • "Watch out for...manipulating tone of voice...deliberate ambiguity or confusing language...creates an opening for influence of the subconscious." — Alice Hines (35:55)
• NLP’s Promises vs. Dangers:
  • Paradox in self-help: the promise of agency requires surrender to authority, fueling profit models and dependence.

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Memorable Moments and Notable Quotes

• On Twin Flames being greater than soulmates:

  • "The idea of soulmate just got a little played out, just got a little commercialized, and now people want something else."
    — Alice Hines (03:20)

• On the pressure to change gender identity:

  • “In those videos...they start them out by saying, we know this is a very delicate topic and no one is going to be forced to do anything they don’t want to do. But then two hours into the video, they're calling...Anne the man, and saying Anne, why don’t you like the name Dan?”
    — Alice Hines (21:01)

• On self-blame within Twin Flames:

  • "You put a restraining order on yourself, you made false statements. Why did you do that?" — paraphrased group reaction to a victim (24:53)

• On self-help culture's paradox:

  • "What is said most about our culture is our desire for agency and self-determination that gets usurped via the guru power dynamic."
    — Alice Hines (39:39)

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Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-----------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:20 | Alice Hines breaks down the "twin flame" doctrine and why it overtook "soulmate." | | 04:39 | Discussion of the hunger for spiritual narrative in modern life | | 06:06 | Jeff and Shalia's recruitment tactics: promising spiritual love over dating app shallowness | | 08:19 | Gender and dating: Twin Flames women vs. incel men axes | | 16:00 | Alice describes Jeff and Shalia’s backgrounds, motivations, and methods | | 19:01 | Gender coercion and transition in the Twin Flames Universe | | 20:53 | Public denial vs. video proof of pressure to transition | | 24:11 | Explaining and critiquing the mirror exercise technique | | 31:22 | Introduction and application of NLP; Alice’s research on manipulation | | 35:55 | How to spot NLP in everyday persuasion and manipulation | | 39:39 | The paradox of empowerment in self-help that demands surrender | | 41:54 | Alice’s practical use of NLP for changing emotional states |

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Additional Insights

• NLP is deeply embedded in sales culture, corporate jargon, and even pickup artistry, originating as a way to hack human psychology for personal gain (32:27).
• The Twin Flames Universe’s trajectory from online coaching to possible legal action illustrates how internet-born spiritual movements can spiral into coercion and exploitation—even under the veneer of empowerment.
• Self-help tools and psychological techniques are ambivalent: offering both personal utility and danger, depending on whether one is a user or a subject.
• The episode ends on a cautionary note about panaceas and quick fixes, urging skepticism toward anyone offering a shortcut to fulfillment or healing (39:48).

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Conclusion

This episode offers a comprehensive, critical look at how modern spiritual trends, especially Twin Flames Universe, intersect with societal disillusionment around love, gender, and agency. By leveraging journalistic investigation and personal experience, the hosts and guest illuminate how old desires for meaning and connection are being manipulated for profit and control—often using sophisticated psychological tools. The episode is essential listening for anyone interested in the intersection of internet culture, cult dynamics, and the search for love in the digital age.

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Transcript

[Natalie Ropamed]

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[Alice Hines]

Campsite Media

[Natalie Ropamed]

welcome back to Infamous. Thanks so much for listening to our show today. We're getting into one of the most talked about spiritual concepts to take over Hollywood in the past few years, Twin flames. You've heard Megan Fox gush about Machine Gun Kelly being her twin flame, watch their whirlwind romance play out like a gothic fairy tale and wondered, is this love or is this something else entirely? But Megan Fox and MGK are far from alone. From Justin Bieber declaring Hailey Baldwin his one true soulmate to the love between Beyonce and Jay Z. Hollywood and those that follow it are absolutely obsessed with the idea that some souls are cosmically bound to find each other no matter the chaos that follows. But what does the concept of twin Flames have to do with heterosexual dating today and the way men and women interact with. Vanessa and I are going to talk about that now.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Infamous a Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment Production. I'm Vanessa Grigoriadis.

[Natalie Ropamed]

And I'm Natalie Ropamed.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

So this week we are going to be talking about love and also anti love.

[Natalie Ropamed]

We are going to be speaking with Alice Hines, a journalist for Vanity Fair and New York Magazine and the host of a new podcast, Mind Games, which is all about neuro linguistic programming and its connection to self help gurus, cults, and maybe also love.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Alice also made a documentary entitled Desperately Seeking Soulmate which is about the Twin Flames group, which I'm sure a lot of you know about. It was all in the news a few years ago and we'll discuss Also, what's happening with it now? Alice actually wrote an enormous story about this group for Vanity Fair and then made a documentary about them as well, which is quite the hot trick. Twin flames is something that I never heard when I was growing up. Everybody would just talk about soulmates. It's this concept that there's somebody out there for you who is the person that will complete you. Right. Alice, tell us more about why you think that concept of twin flames caught on so much a few years ago.

[Alice Hines]

I think twin flames is more than a soulmate. People often use them as synonyms. But if you dive into the twin flames theology, which is promoted not just by the gurus that I exposed, but also, you know, many, many other twin flames teachers, it's like the soulmate isn't enough. The twin flame is your soulmate across all of your lifetimes. This is someone who is innately destined to be with you in this multiverse of the universe that is orchestrated by God. You have this past life history with this person. And that is why often in twin flames, relationship people talk about conflict. People talk about having to learn really difficult lessons from your twin flame. So it's somehow not just associated with content, happiness, happily ever after, though. It's also that it's this deeper type of connection that is somehow your destiny. The idea of soulmate just got a little played out, just got a little commercialized, and now people want something else.

[Natalie Ropamed]

What you're describing, there's a level of spiritual buy in that you have to have, which is that you have to believe in the concept of past lives. Right. And so it's perfectly positioned for the rise of woo woo spirituality that's just in the water these days.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah. If you go and look at twin flames videos on YouTube or on TikTok, you'll get recommended Kundalini, you'll get recommended crystals. People want not just meaning in their life in terms of, like a ritual practice where they go to church or go to temple or do some type of spiritual ceremony with their friends, like they want some grand narrative of their life. And that's what twin flames is about.

[Natalie Ropamed]

I mean, this is like modern manifest destiny, what you're describing.

[Alice Hines]

Absolutely. I mean, I dug into the history of twin flames. It relates to American spiritualism and many different versions of positive thinking doctrine where if you meditate or really focus inward on the thing that you want and whatever, this grand narrative for your life, discovering it and making that your priority, that somehow it will then occur in the physical world. And for the people who are really Into Twin Flames. The culmination of that narrative is finding your ultimate lover, your twin flame.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

But what's so fascinating about Twin Flames is that it's happening at the same time when it seems like everybody who's on a dating app is saying it's the worst experience they've ever had. Right. And it's this idea of this endless buffet, this endless sushi carousel of choice. It just feels so bleak. So you have this epidemic of choice in dating apps, and then you have this idea of Twin Flames sort of hovering above it.

[Alice Hines]

So the gurus who started Twin Flames, Jeff and Shalia, this married couple, they are very explicit in recruiting people in response to dissatisfaction with dating apps. And they say that dating apps are too commercialized. Right. It feels like you're Internet shopping. It doesn't feel like you're looking for spiritual love. So people who want that, funnily enough, they're going back to arranged marriages, which is what ended up happening with Twin Flames. It's like the response to that sushi carousel of choice on dating apps. Modern love, modern dating culture turned into people wanting to get set up by a guru who forces them into a marriage with someone they never met before.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

This is also happening online. I think to some degree, this could only happen online because in the real world, young people are reportedly having less sex. Right. Like, marriage rates are declining. You know, there. There was a really viral article recently saying, like, having a boyfriend is even cringy. Love is sort of out in the real world.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah. I think that's in response to the same sort of dissatisfaction with the normative ways of finding love.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Meaning dating apps.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah. Or just dating a million people. Right. The idea that, I mean, I grew up with, which is like, oh, yeah, you'll, like, date a bunch of different people before you settle down. And, like, that's fun and that's cool. And dating apps facilitate that and that you learn something from these different relationships. People are. People are dissatisfied with that.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

But in my age range, in Gen X, you have a lot of people who are just like, I haven't been on a date in three years. I'm just basically now a forced celibate. And that's funny, because Gen X is the generation, when you look at the stats that had the most sex, right. Like, the teenage Gen X years were. They were really bad. People were acting out.

[Natalie Ropamed]

I also think there's something happening with regards to dating, at least in heterosexual relationships and also with twin flames about gender. The state of gender in this country is in flux. Women are outpacing men in college completion. And maybe like a heterosexual relationship doesn't offer the promise that it once did.

[Alice Hines]

I've also written about incels, and I wrote about incels before I wrote about the twin flame community. And I do think that they're a strange mirror of each other.

[Natalie Ropamed]

In what way?

[Alice Hines]

Well, the twin flame community is overwhelmingly women. It is overwhelmingly heterosexual women who have been dissatisfied by their relationships and who are looking for love and not finding it. And they are turning to spiritual gurus to be set up. And meanwhile the incels are saying we're so dissatisfied with the state of heterosexual relationships that we're nihilistic about it and we think it's going to be completely impossible to find love. And I think there's an interesting difference in ideology there where the incels are kind of, they give up, they're nihilistic, but these women are like still trying to like take personal responsibility for their failure in the dating world.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

I mean, you also were famously the person who introduced the word chad to the cultural lexicon. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, so that was the incel article that I wrote for New York magazine like a couple years before the Twin Flames piece that was called this is a Chad. And it was about this ideal specimen of male that all of the incels were obsessed with becoming. It was early looks, maxing culture. So they were already getting plastic surgery and trying to change their bone structure to find some sexual satisfaction. And yeah, it's. It's just really interesting to me that they're like, yeah, there's literally nothing we can do to get laid besides break our skull and make us look more like a male Dolce and Gabbana model. That was their ideal at the time. Today it's like Clifford. But yeah, here's what we have to do to like to ascend. And all these women in Twin Flames are like just taking this totally different but equally turbulent and disturbing and self destructive path to finding love that in neither case does it end in a relationship. It's so weird. I'm obviously describing these people as archetypes right now. And there's many individual stories that turn out a bit differently in both cases. But I think, yeah, there's just something about those narratives that I feel like is sort of this microcosm of what's going on with heterosexual dating now.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Yeah, and clavicular being the influencer who is even more extreme than the old school incels and chads. Right. About looks maxing and the different ways you need to have Your face. Look, it's weird. Like things are weird on the Internet between the sexes. There's just no question about it.

[Natalie Ropamed]

Real life. But sorry, is looks maxing not just like what women have felt the need to have to do for the male gaze forever?

[Alice Hines]

100%. Yeah. I think they needed their own word

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

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[Natalie Ropamed]

I'm James Buckley. And I'm Joe Thomas. Joe had to look at the script for our names and on our weekly show, Joe and James Fact up, we bring each other a fact that we think is fascinating. Our only rule. Go on. The more interesting it is, the more true it is.

[Alice Hines]

We dive into the weird and wonderful. Like whether you could survive on nothing

[Natalie Ropamed]

but beans or if Shrek deserves a

[Alice Hines]

Nobel Prize for discovering the fourth dimension. You might learn something new.

[Natalie Ropamed]

Probably something useless, but definitely something interesting.

[Alice Hines]

Listen or watch Joe and James Fat up every Tuesday. Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Natalie Ropamed]

I met my twin flame and it turned my entire fucking world upside down.

[Alice Hines]

Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly heating up their twin flames.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

So what I love, Alice, is that you're writing about all these different cultural trends and you have heard about the twin flames universe and you're actually planning to do something about them. And then an outlet that you also ended up working for, Vice in Canada, Sarah Berman, who was also a big journalist on the NXIVM story and wrote a book about it.

[Alice Hines]

Boom.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

She comes out with an article about Twin Flames, and you're reading it, and instead of being like, wow, I got scooped, that sort of is a bummer. Your thought is, huh? I guess the people who run Twin Flames Universe, the name of the company, probably want to have their side out now. So you start specifically talking to them. And in the wake of this Vice story, they're pretty receptive to you getting to know them.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, that was a really fascinating turn of events. So, yeah, I had already been interviewing survivors when Sarah published a couple stories for Vice, and I got scooped. But at the same time, there was clearly so much more here, and Sarah didn't get into what I'm sure we'll talk about in a bit, which is the gender identity coercion, and sexual orientation coercion that occurred in the group. I had already done a good amount of reporting to work out these important abuses that I felt like really needed to be covered. So that's when I reached out to Jeff and Shalia. I just emailed them, and they were very receptive in the wake of Sarah's article, which they thought did a unfair job telling their story, and they were immediately communicating with me. Covid happened around that time, too. It was March 2020 when I first reached out to them, and I was desperate to get out to Michigan to meet them, and they said that they would gladly host me in the new house they had just bought outside of Traverse City.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

So these are the two people who are running this organization focused on Twin Flames. And I understand that people were talking about Twin Flames a lot, like, in the culture at that time, but, like, really, when you say Twin Flames, it sort of does mean them, right? Jeff and Shalia, I think it started

[Alice Hines]

to mean them after my story came out and after my docu series came out, as well as Netflix did their own docu series. So it became. They became the Twin Flames people. They're by far the most famous Twin Flames teachers today. They weren't always.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

So describe who they are. They're just basically a couple. They're sort of, what, in their late 20s now? Maybe early 30s?

[Alice Hines]

Yeah. So Jeff and Shalia are the same age as me, actually. I think we're all 37 or right around there. They also have now a kid who's just a year older maybe than my Kid.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Wow. It's really. The universe is telling you that you need to be the third in the triplet. Yeah.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah. Well, they. They were very receptive to me and they used arguments about the universe sending me their way. So they said that they believed that God sent me to them to make them famous. So Jeff and Jaleah are this married couple. They are spiritual influencers. They've worked in several different niches. Before they sort of found the twin flame thing. They were living in Sedona for a bit. Jeff also was doing the spiritual multi level marketing thing. Like, here's how to become a spiritual teacher and make money online. And Shalia was this very head in the ether, channels messages through pendulums into numerology. Yoga, Canadian girl. Both of them grew up in Catholic families that they are now estranged from. And when they met, I think they were really in love. I think they probably are still in love. Like, I think that part of their story is true, but I also think they were like, wow, we can make a lot of money together. Like, we can really get rich. And they did.

[Natalie Ropamed]

I'm always interested by these deeply spiritual people who have no problem with the concept of getting rich. And in fact, that's built into their spiritual framework.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Jeff says on Alice's documentary, something along the lines of, like, a large amount of wealth is appropriate for me. That's the way he's thinking about it.

[Alice Hines]

And it's. He says it's destined for you too, if you quit your job and become a coach in his ascension school.

[Natalie Ropamed]

Yes. It always works out when you join to become a coach. So they had this Facebook group. Right. And can you tell me about the Facebook group?

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, this is a Facebook group that has no longer the crazy post that it had when I started reporting the story. But they were really into Internet marketing. They were very savvy Internet marketers. They had a YouTube channel. They had paid videos that you had to pay, like $4,000 to access on their vimeo. And they had this private Facebook group with over 10,000 members. Have a juicy class ahead of you today. This E course, Twin Flames Dreams coming

[Natalie Ropamed]

true is an incredible investment.

[Alice Hines]

And it was constantly growing because the coaches in the program were being told to, like, join other spiritual groups and recruit to, like, get people in the main group. And then once you were in the main group, it was a lot of people who were talking about their relationship problems. I just got dumped. I have been on 20 dates and, like, they've all been bad. I'm broke, and my credit card bill. I can't pay it. Like, what should I do? People were talking about their problems, and sometimes Jeff and Shalia would chime in as these spiritual teachers, but sometimes it would just be community members who would kind of respond to it. And the answers, I mean, unfortunately, the answers were always like, pay more money to the group.

[Natalie Ropamed]

A lot of times, people would wind up being told that their soulmate was actually in this very Facebook group.

[Alice Hines]

Yes, that's super interesting development in Twin Flames universe. So when they first started, it kind of grew organically. They had just, you know, a few members first, and then they really started growing more and more with their online marketing. And, you know, I mentioned before that there were majority women in the group and most of them straight. Not all, but that created a bit of a problem because you had all of these women who were all looking for men, and there were not that many men in the group. Jeff and Shalia started pairing people up so they would get messages from God about these harmonious twin flame unions, which were couples that could be made from the group members, sometimes with people that lived in different cities and had never met in real life. And they started pairing people up, but there weren't enough heterosexual matches, which was what was favored by the group. So they started telling certain community members to transition. So that's in a nutshell, where twin Flames universe got really, really bad. And it went from taking people's money and wreaking havoc in their lives in a sort of general way to this really specific form of conversion therapy and arranged marriages.

[Natalie Ropamed]

So gender stuff in Twin Flames was strange. Their basic backdrop and positioning is that love is between masculine and feminine counterparts and that we all have either masculine or feminine energy, correct?

[Alice Hines]

That's correct. The gurus insist that people choose their partners and that while they may have the divine channeling to that these two people belong together. Those marriages are never forced. That's what the gurus say.

[Natalie Ropamed]

And they also say that members who discover a new divine gender were never pressured to change their outward appearance. But that doesn't seem to have been what your reporting uncovered.

[Alice Hines]

They've said in multiple statements that they never pressured anyone to transition, but there's video evidence of them doing exactly that.

[Natalie Ropamed]

So tell me about that.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, I mean, people, quote, discovered this, but what that really meant was that they would be in a coaching session with either Jeff and Shalia or one of their coaches, and the coach would suggest that that maybe the reason they hadn't found their twin flame was because they were actually interested in women or actually interested in men, which they had gone their whole lives thinking that they weren't right. And so this was something that was brought up by the coaches. And there was a lot of double consciousness. Doublespeak. If you watch some of the videos of Jeff and Shalia coaching people into, for example, taking a male name and pronoun, like they filmed themselves doing this to people. And in those videos, they start them out by saying, we know this is a very delicate topic and no one is going to be forced to do anything they don't want to do. But then two hours into the video, they're calling some. This woman Anne, Anne the man, and saying Anne. Like, why don't you like the name Dan? Are you sure Dan isn't the name you want? Like, why do you have so much resistance to this name? So they are saying one thing and doing another.

[Natalie Ropamed]

That feels like neuro linguistic programming, which we'll get to in a second.

[Alice Hines]

Absolutely. And Jeff trained in neuro linguistic programming. I don't know to what extent, but it's referenced in a white paper that Twin Flames Universe published that they are drawing from neuro linguistic programming and some of their, quote, therapeutic methods.

[Natalie Ropamed]

So people within the group were reconsidering their genders. Shall we put it like that at least three people, including one person you talked to, were taking hormones. And you, you know in your Vanity Fair story that this is sort of like a conservative fantasy of what is happening with transness in this country.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, it's super fascinating that there is this argument going on and it's only gotten stronger that there is this trans cult and that people who transition are subject to social influence and coercion and that it's not coming from within them. And I mean, some of this narrative is driven by like the ex trans community and people who are saying, well, I was pressured and therefore everyone must be pressured. And even still, the vast majority of people who were pressured in. In this way, it didn't stick. They left the group. This was the end of it for the majority of people who were targeted in this way by Jeff and Shalia. So I just think. I think it's very interesting when people make that argument because people don't really know what coercion is. Like, that's very. That's a very specific thing. It takes time. It takes repetition. It's not like you watch a YouTube video and you're like, oh, that seems cool. That's not what happened.

[Natalie Ropamed]

So people were essentially stalking the people that they were told was their twin flame. Can you tell me a little bit

[Alice Hines]

about That I wouldn't call it the default experience, but it happened several times that people would post about it in this Facebook group that their twin flame filed a restraining order against them, that their twin flame blocked them and called them a stalker. And you would see the responses to these posts were like more encouragement. This is just confirmation that this is your twin flame. Because they're acting this way. This is confirming to you that there is like a deep bond between you and this person.

[Natalie Ropamed]

So you wrote that a cornerstone of their spiritual practice was the mirror exercise. That to me really seems like a tool of coercion. Can you explain to me what that was?

[Alice Hines]

The mirror exercise is something that I can actually see it working positively in some cases, but it can also be abused. And what it is is when something negative happens to you in your life, like you went on a date with someone and they ghost you. So the mirror exercise is to mirror that experience back on yourself and take agency for it. So you say, why did I ghost myself? What about my spiritual reality and that grand narrative that I'm trying to manifest for myself? How does this fit into that? And what did I do wrong to provoke this negative reality? If you're sick, if you get injured, why did I make myself sick? Why did I injure myself? This is the mere exercise. It's all about taking responsibility.

[Natalie Ropamed]

Right. But then as, as you write, you know, one woman posted in the group that she was, quote, having a hard time clearing the upset around my twin, filing restraining order and making false statements in it, and somebody else responded to her. You put a restraining order on yourself, you made false statements. Why did you do that?

[Alice Hines]

Yeah. So it really can be taken too far. Many things in our lives we can benefit from taking responsibility for. That's why self help broadly works for some people. Because a lot of teachings of many self help groups, whether it's nlp, neuro, linguistic programming, positive manifestation, this is about taking responsibility for the outcome of your lives. And that can be really good for people. But then telling that to like a victim of domestic violence or like someone who, who has a chronic injury, or you know, anyone or someone who's a person they're in love with filed a restraining order against them. Taking responsibility could be good. You could be like, wow, maybe I, maybe I shouldn't have stopped this person. Then they wouldn't have filed a restraining order against me. But they were so far down the rabbit hole of spiritual machinations, they lost the thread. It can be really dangerous.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

And then also on top of that, they're claiming all this spiritual authority. Right. In your Vanity Fair story, you have Jeff saying, behold, we are the prophesied. Second. I mean, they both grew up in. In Catholic families, right. And Shalia's mother, Christ, and he's Father Christ saying things like, I'm what was prophesied. And I say that with humility, but there's no other way to say it. And Jesus got the same response when he said, yo, I'm the son of God. I'm the Messiah. Look, my purpose is to enlighten the world, not to be gentle with it. From what I'm observing, you know, Jeff is the more complex character here because he really demonstrates a lot of. Of what we think of as typical dominant male behavior. As you say, in a group which is mostly women, I mean, even in this place, there's like a man shortage. And they're encouraging, you know, women to transition to be men so that they can find their twin flames within the group. It's really strange because when, you know, when you look at some of what you've reported, it seems like in some ways it is a mind game. It is a power play. It is him saying things like, take a guy's name and a guy's pronoun, or I will need to put somebody else in charge of sales who does respect my work. Are we gonna really mix these things up together?

[Alice Hines]

It gets really twisted when you get to Jeff's explanations for all that, because he's denying that he pressured Ann. He's very self aware and he likes these sort of like logical mind games.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Yeah. So after all of this, you know, after your documentary and everything else came out, you know, and you had gone to Michigan and seen them in this $850,000 house that they're living in today. They're, you know, they've got an open Facebook group. When you went to see them, they had something along the lines of, you say about 14,000 members in their Facebook group. They currently have close to half a million. So, you know, everything sort of continued. What can you tell us about what's been happening?

[Alice Hines]

They've dialed it back. I have not seen them talking about divine feminine, divine masculine in the group recently. I see people living around where their house is. I don't know that they're living in their house as they once were.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

You mean members of the group?

[Alice Hines]

Members of the group, Yeah. I see members of the group visiting Michigan for a wedding. I see members of the group posting about a twin flame summit in India. That's kind of an interesting one. So they're expanding internationally. I see the Ascension coaches these couples posting about their harmonious twin flame unions. Jeff and Shalia's main accounts are very dialed back. They used to kind of love to go off and say controversial things on social media. Think that's part of why Jeff made the Master Christ claim so publicly is to get attention? Yes, I I'm suggesting that could I be the Christ he knew it would be controversial and that was strategic. I think now they're really just posting more anodyne. They have a daughter now like happy family type content though I will say Last year in July, the Michigan Attorney General announced an ongoing investigation into the group and they executed search warrants. And that was after the authority of a judge finding probable cause that crimes have been committed by the group.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

What kind of crimes?

[Alice Hines]

Well, it doesn't say so we don't have access to those documents yet. There's been no case that has been filed, but it's been publicized by the Attorney Michigan Attorney General that they are under investigation and they asked for tips. Actually they have an online tip forum for complaints about the group. Foreign. Shark Facial Pro Glo A first of

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[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

so we talked a little bit before about Neuro Linguistic programming, which is something that Jeff had mentioned that he used in terms of the way that he conceptualized talking to people over the Internet and ways to basically win arguments. So Alice, you've just made this podcast, Mind Games about Neuro Linguistic Programming, which I mostly know and Natalie mostly knows as something that was used overtly in nxivm where Keith Ranieri and Nancy Salzman, who was sort of his number two were both students of this way of speaking to another person in order to gain an advantage. Can you tell us a little bit about neuro linguistic programming and what it is and why it works?

[Natalie Ropamed]

Works?

[Alice Hines]

So yeah. Neuro linguistic programming is a set of techniques from hypnosis and linguistics that are designed to alter beliefs and behavior. So this can be techniques that you use on yourself to sort of change your emotional reaction to a negative thing that happened to you. You can change your memories through it to feel better about a traumatic situation, but you can also use it in communication with someone else in order to basically practice a form of COVID hypnosis where sort of access the person's unconscious desires and influence them outside of their awareness.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

So like, what's an example of that? Because I think that a lot of what I hear about neuro linguists, it's so hard to say. Nlp, I guess we can call it, is very similar to like corporate speak. Right. The way people use these coded phrases when you're working at a job, at a white collar job, and they often do it to sort of back you into a corner, make you agree to something that you previously wouldn't have agreed to, and then ratchet up the pressure totally.

[Alice Hines]

That example from corporate sort of communication actually is not a coincidence because the developers of nlp, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, they got rich selling their programs to corporate America specifically for sales. So like one example would be a car salesman who is making a sale. They will, at the end of it, slow their vocal delivery, match their breathing to the person that they're trying to sell the car to. And they would have the person imagine a scenario where they would use this car, sort of like a fantasy of what this car represents to them. And then they might also use something like an anchor, which is like a smell or a sound or a physical sensation that is going to be matched to an emotional state. So maybe there's a weird smell that they use. The Wolf of Wall street talks about this actually in his book. He's a big fan of nlp.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

He uses like what kind of smell?

[Alice Hines]

Well, he uses it on himself actually. He uses a menthol nasal spray that whenever he like just made like a killer sale and he's feeling super psyched, he uses a spray. And then now whenever he wants to get himself automatically into that state of being, like super hyped, like really confident, about to close, he uses a spray.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

I use aromatherapy scents to relax.

[Alice Hines]

That's a nlp. Insiders would call that an Anchor. A lot of these concepts are basic psychology that is present in many other contexts.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

But.

[Alice Hines]

But what NLP is, is giving sort of a framework to it to use those either for personal development or in some cases, manipulation.

[Natalie Ropamed]

I love this because it's like the way that this intersects with biohacking and everything that people are into right now is so, is so interesting to be like, oh, let me smell the smell. And then it's gonna get me into the mode of selling. It's like using our physical means to make the most money or optimize.

[Alice Hines]

It's treating our brains and bodies like they're machines. Machines. Right. I think that's, I think that's the common thread between Nexium, NLP and biohacking is we are like computers and robots to be optimized and that's how we treat our psychology.

[Natalie Ropamed]

Yeah, I mean, I really feel like NLP is kind of this backdrop that's used in so many things without us realizing. Like, my husband recently went on a trial vacation for a timeshare. Like, don't ask why. And as part of research. Yeah, no, genuinely, that was it. Part of what he had to do was sit in a two hour meeting where he was basically upsold and they tried to convince him to, to buy a timeshare. And all they kept saying was, do you want to own your vacation? Do you want to own your vacation? And like going over and over and over to try and convince him to buy that stuff.

[Alice Hines]

That's a technique where you ask the same question over and over and over and over again. And you do it strategically so that the person kind of forgets their answer. So like the first time the person's like, not really, but the 20th time they ask that same question. Like if the person has at least a little buy in and is trapped in the room with you, part of them just wants to get out of the room. Another part of them is like, wait, maybe I do. Like, is there any part of me that could answer yes to this question? I've seen that in Twin Flames Universe videos. Like, are you sure your name's not Dan?

[Natalie Ropamed]

How do you think people can spot NLP in their everyday life or when they're being. Being spoken to? I mean, what are some other things that people should watch out for? Like this repeated question asking.

[Alice Hines]

The other thing that is a tell for NLP is someone who is quite good at manipulating their tone of voice and their vocal delivery. A lot of people from nlp, and it's sort of also hypnosis in general. NLP is a form of hypnosis. They are training their vocal delivery style. They are modulating the way that they deliver information, making their voice softer or louder to get you excited. Right. Like this type of vocal demonstrations is designed to have an effect on your emotional state as the listener. I would watch out for that. And the other thing to watch out for is deliberate ambiguity or confusing language. This sounds like something that maybe someone just made a mistake, but often is actually quite strategic. Where pickup artists who also, by the way, use nlp, and this NLP created the pickup artist movement, they will use sort of confusing rhetoric to put a woman off her guard so that all of a sudden she's trying to figure out what's going on. Her logical conscious mind is trying to figure out what just was said. And in that creates an opening for influence of the subconscious.

[Natalie Ropamed]

Well, of us in this conversation have a special interest in nxivm, the cult that was run by Keith Ranieri. But I mean, that strikes me, what you're saying of this purposefully obfuscating language is very. Keith Ranieri. He would kind of talk in these circles and say these things that were very confusing. And then for the voice modulating thing, that. That makes me think of Nancy Salzman.

[Alice Hines]

She's really good at it.

[Natalie Ropamed]

Yeah, she was number two in nxivm and was a big practitioner of nlp. You who interviewed Nancy, right?

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, I interviewed Nancy Salzman extensively for the Mind Games podcast. And when you're with her in person, watching her do that vocal modulation, control your emotional state thing, it is really wild to watch. Like, she can switch back and forth between crying over, you know, when I had interviewed her, like her mother had recently died to two seconds later talking about how ecstatic she was to learn NLP from Richard Vandler, the guy who created it. Right. So, like this emotional versatility, you're almost kind of envious of it. Like, I feel like actors also have that muscle of being able to sort of, they're channeling an honest emotion. Right. It's somewhere inside of them that they're referencing. Right. They're not making it up, but it's also a performance. It's really fascinating. And yeah, she still does hypnosis and she's still coaching, funnily enough. So she's still at it.

[Natalie Ropamed]

What is your takeaway of what this all means of where we're at in a culture where we have whole processes for manipulating each other with words? I mean, what's going on?

[Alice Hines]

Well, I think that manipulation through language and rhetoric is Something that is as old as humanity. So I will just say that I don't think NLP is unique in coming up with that, but I think that NLP influences groups like Nexium and Twin Flames, not just in the techniques, but in the bigger promise that if you join these groups you will get more agency, control over your life. You are going to to have more say in your decisions and be able to sort of manifest that future you want. And all you have to do is surrender to this powerful person to get it. So there's this paradox and I think that is so common in many self help groups and that's the profit engine in many self help groups. So I feel like that is what is said most about our culture is our desire for agency and self determination that gets usurped via the guru power dynamic.

[Natalie Ropamed]

Yeah, I mean, I think the lesson is that anything that promises to be a panacea or a shortcut is worth being suspicious of.

[Alice Hines]

Yeah, I think it, I think it goes back and forth because I, you know, in our podcast we also found ways to use NLP ourselves outside of the guru relationship. That surprised us, frankly, with how we thought they were fun and kind of useful, especially as a journalist who's always trying to get people to talk to you, who don't always want to talk to you. Like there's something here.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

What? How did you use it like outside of, of journalism?

[Alice Hines]

Well, so I used it in the Nancy Salzman sense of changing your emotional state. One thing that's coming to mind is if you have a kind of annoying interaction with a colleague and it's the end of the day and your mind is in that hamster wheel, like replaying the movie of it over and over again. I don't know if that's an experience you guys have had. So you play back the memory and change things about it. So you change like what the person was wearing. Maybe they're wearing a clown outfit and now all of a sudden you're laughing at that memory. Memory. So you literally alter things about your own memory deliberately. And it works best if you are like in a sort of like meditative hypnotic state. If you do some sort of relaxation exercise before you start to fuck with your memories, this shit works. I have to tell you. Like, I'm like, okay, haha, I just laughed at this annoying interaction and now I'm done and I just stopped thinking about it versus like, I could go to therapy and like rehash that. And I do go to therapy. I'm not dissing traditional psychotherapy but in that, you know, you talk about the annoying thing over and over and over again and then you're kind of still thinking about it. It's like, was that really what was needed? So I think there is something in some of these NLP techniques that I was surprised to actually use myself, but I do.

[Vanessa Grigoriadis]

Well, thank you so much Alice for coming on to Infamous to talk about all of this. We should mention that Jeff did say to you in his defense that with Twin Flames Universe, people find healing, people experience real breakthroughs in resolving traumas and pains, and people improve their lives in a sustainable and balanced way way. So that is something he said. And I hope that everybody checks out Mind Games so you can learn more about NLP and how to make other people feel the way you feel and also make yourself feel better but also know when you're being played. So check that out. And thank you so much, Alice.

[Alice Hines]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Natalie Ropamed]

That's it for Infamous. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a rating and review and tell your friends. If you want to follow me on Instagram, you can find me at Natrobe. That's N A T R O B E. And if you want to support Vanessa's work, you can buy her book Blurred Rethinking Sex, Power and Consent on Campus. See you next week. You know what they say. Early Bird gets the ultimate vacation home. Book early and save over $120 with Robo, because early gets you closer to the action whether whether it's waves lapping

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