REWIND: Hoyt Richards - From Supermodel to Cult Member

Summary

Podcast Summary: Trust Me – Episode: REWIND: Hoyt Richards - From Supermodel to Cult Member

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Introduction

In the episode titled "REWIND: Hoyt Richards - From Supermodel to Cult Member," hosted by Lola Blanc and Megan Elizabeth from Exactly Right and iHeartPodcasts, listeners are taken on a profound journey through the harrowing experience of Hoyt Richards. Hoyt, a former supermodel, producer, and actor, shares his firsthand account of being indoctrinated into a doomsday cult named Eternal Values. Co-hosted by two women who have themselves escaped cult environments, the episode delves deep into the psychology of manipulation, the allure of extreme beliefs, and the challenging path to recovery.

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Early Life and Introduction to Eternal Values

Hoyt Richards was born in Pennsylvania as one of six siblings. His childhood summers were spent in Nantucket, where his family engaged in typical island activities like sailing and tennis. However, at the age of 16, Hoyt's life took an unexpected turn when he met Frederick von Meyers, a charismatic older man with a profound interest in Eastern philosophy, astrology, and New Age thinking.

Hoyt Richards [16:35]: "At 16, when this individual puts his towel down next to mine, my life took a tangent that I would have never imagined."

Frederick, posing as a sophisticated intellectual, introduced Hoyt to complex spiritual ideas that resonated with his own growing disillusionment with traditional beliefs. This initial interaction laid the groundwork for a deeper, more controlling relationship.

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The Cult Dynamic and Indoctrination Process

As Hoyt's modeling career began to flourish, Frederick intensified his influence over him. Frederick propagated the belief that an impending apocalypse was orchestrated by a distant star named Arcturus, compelling members to prepare for salvation.

Hoyt Richards [38:00]: "Freddy said the place that he considered home just happened to be the spiritual center of the universe."

Frederick's methods were subtle yet effective. He hosted extravagant parties, reminiscent of the iconic Studio 54, creating an environment filled with allure and exclusivity. These gatherings were not just social events but strategic indoctrination sessions where spiritual and apocalyptic doctrines were seamlessly integrated into everyday conversations.

Hoyt Richards [22:35]: "We would have high tea, as he would call it, at like six in the morning and talk about all these spiritual ideas."

Frederick's charisma and the promise of a grander purpose attracted young, ambitious individuals like Hoyt, who were seeking meaning beyond their immediate lives.

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Life within Eternal Values

Eternal Values operated under the guise of a spiritual commune with Frederick at its helm. Members were led to believe they were part of a mission to save humanity, fostering a strong sense of purpose and camaraderie. However, beneath this facade lay manipulative control and psychological coercion.

Hoyt recounts the demanding routines, the imposed isolation from family and friends, and the financial exploitation that characterized his time in the cult. The environment was meticulously crafted to suppress dissent and reinforce loyalty to Frederick.

Hoyt Richards [42:09]: "When Freddie was alive, he treated me with kid gloves and really got me into that generosity mode. Like as long as you keep giving the money, you get a little freedom here."

Despite the oppressive control, Frederick maintained a veneer of benevolence, making it difficult for members to recognize the full extent of their exploitation.

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Path to Escape and Recovery

Hoyt's journey to liberation was fraught with multiple failed attempts to break free from Eternal Values. Initially believing in the group's mission, he struggled with cognitive dissonance as external realities conflicted with the cult's doctrines. It wasn't until a traumatic event in 1999, coupled with increasing skepticism about the group's prophecies, that Hoyt began to critically reassess his involvement.

Hoyt Richards [62:16]: "It took about three weeks. He called me from his therapist. He says, my therapist said I should call. I've been avoiding this."

With the support of individuals like Fabio, Hoyt navigated the complexities of PTSD and began the arduous process of healing. He sought therapy, engaged with former cult members, and eventually took legal action against Eternal Values, leading to the dismantling of the cult's operations.

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Insights and Conclusions

Hoyt Richards' story underscores the subtlety with which cults can infiltrate the lives of even the most seemingly stable individuals. His experience highlights the importance of critical thinking, awareness of manipulative tactics, and the need for supportive networks in preventing and overcoming extremist indoctrination.

Hoyt Richards [78:35]: "Every manipulator out there will see you as a target and they'll come after you. So be careful."

Hoyt emphasizes that cultic relationships are not confined to fringe groups but can manifest in various forms of interpersonal dynamics where power and control are exerted under the guise of love and approval. His narrative serves as a cautionary tale about the ease with which individuals can be drawn into destructive belief systems and the resilience required to break free.

The episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to educate themselves and others about the red flags of manipulative relationships and to foster environments where open dialogue and critical examination of beliefs are encouraged.

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Notable Quotes

• Hoyt Richards [16:35]: "At 16, when this individual puts his towel down next to mine, my life took a tangent that I would have never imagined."

• Hoyt Richards [38:00]: "Freddy said the place that he considered home just happened to be the spiritual center of the universe."

• Hoyt Richards [42:09]: "When Freddie was alive, he treated me with kid gloves and really got me into that generosity mode. Like as long as you keep giving the money, you get a little freedom here."

• Hoyt Richards [62:16]: "It took about three weeks. He called me from his therapist. He says, my therapist said I should call. I've been avoiding this."

• Hoyt Richards [78:35]: "Every manipulator out there will see you as a target and they'll come after you. So be careful."

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Conclusion

"REWIND: Hoyt Richards - From Supermodel to Cult Member" is a compelling episode that offers an unfiltered look into the seductive nature of cults and the psychological mechanisms that sustain them. Through Hoyt's story, listeners gain valuable insights into the fine line between devotion and delusion, the enduring impact of trauma, and the paths to recovery and empowerment. This episode not only narrates a personal tale of survival but also serves as an educational tool to recognize and resist manipulative influences in various aspects of life.

Transcript

[Lola Blanc]

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[Megan Elizabeth]

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[Hoyt Richards]

What do stuff they don't want you to know, Buried bones and betrayal have in common. These hosts are all headed to the Caribbean for the first ever true crime voyage on award winning kid. Free Virgin voyages and you're invited. Book [e-mail] TrueCrime Let your imagination take.

[Lola Blanc]

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[Frederick von Meyers]

You're about to listen to one of our favorite episodes of Trust me from July 7, 2021 about how Hoyt Richards was indoctrinated into the eternal values cult. If you're new here, follow the show so you don't miss the July 30 return of trust Me on the exactly right network.

[Lola Blanc]

If you have your own story of being in a cult or a high control group, or if you've had an experience with manipulation or abuse of power you'd like to share, leave us a message on our hotline number at 513-900-2955.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Or shoot us an [e-mail] Trust me.

[Fabio]

Trust me, Trust me. I'm like a smart person. Yeah I've never lied to you. I never have lied to you.

[Lola Blanc]

If you think that one person has all the answers, don't. Welcome to Trust Me, the podcast about cults, extreme belief, and the abuse of power from two supermodels who've actually experienced it. I am Lola Blanc.

[Frederick von Meyers]

And I'm Megan Elizabeth.

[Lola Blanc]

And today our guest is the endlessly fascinating Hoyt Richards. He is a producer, actor, and former supermodel who was in a cult called Eternal Values. He's going to tell us about being approached by a mysterious older man in Nantucket named Frederick von Meyers Meer. I actually don't remember Meyers. Let's say when he was a teenager, this man had a lot to say about Eastern philosophy, astrology, and New Age thinking. And he's going to tell us about how, over time, as Hoyt's career as a male model was taking off, that man indoctrinated Hoyt until he believed that the apocalypse was coming and it had to do with a distant star called Arcturus.

[Frederick von Meyers]

We're also going to talk about how Hoyt finally escaped and began to heal. How he thinks about what he now calls cultic relationships, and how Fabio. Yes. That Fabio was involved in his recovery.

[Lola Blanc]

Great Fabio stories.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Who doesn't have a good Fabio story? Everyone except White.

[Lola Blanc]

I mean, probably my friend. My friend just alerted me to the fact that he was, like, supporting Trump in 2017. So I was a little bummed about that. But, you know, okay, we can't all be perfect. Perfect like me. So, Megan, tell me, what's the cultist thing?

[Frederick von Meyers]

Well, mine. Holy shit. On a hike. You know how they have those little book things where you people just leave books in, like, a little case? So in a bookcase there was this book called High on Arrival by Mackenzie Phillips. I remember seeing it on Oprah. She is the daughter of the Mama and the Papas. John Phillips.

[Lola Blanc]

The Mama, Singular.

[Frederick von Meyers]

The Mamas and the Papas.

[Lola Blanc]

Different band. This is the Mama and the Papas. I don't know if you've heard of them.

[Frederick von Meyers]

So I was like, oh, fuck yeah. I want to read this book.

[Lola Blanc]

Holy shit.

[Frederick von Meyers]

The cult of rock and roll is endless. It is wild. It's all stuff we already knew. But, you know, she actually was in a sexual relationship with her rock star father for 10 years. And just to see the things that these rock stars were able to get away with, how much they were worshiped, their lifestyles are just beyond the craziest cults.

[Lola Blanc]

Wow. It's so true. When you actually look into the number of young teenagers. Not like 10 year old. Yeah. And fucking 13 year olds that these iconic rock legends were fucking making songs about. Yes. Oh, my God. It's insane. But that's next level, though. Her dad. Her dad. So how old was she when that started?

[Frederick von Meyers]

Let me think, let me think, let me think.

[Lola Blanc]

Trigger warning. Obviously we're about to talk.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Pardon? Yes. I think the first time it happened she was in her early 20s, but I don't know.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh, so it wasn't like from when she was a child?

[Frederick von Meyers]

She wasn't a child, but she was young.

[Lola Blanc]

But did she say how she felt about it?

[Frederick von Meyers]

I believe they were in a different country. They were somewhere. They were in a hotel. They're both very high on drugs. And she said she passed out and then she woke up and that was happening. And then she like told her family about it and everyone was very upset, but they were like, you know, this is gonna ruin his reputation. He's on a lot of drugs, like, whatever. And then I was very impressed. I mean, this is assuming this is all correct, which. And real. Which I think it is. But she said she talked to him a few months later and was like, dad, we need to talk about when you raped me. And he was like, you mean when we made love?

[Lola Blanc]

Like, no, no.

[Frederick von Meyers]

And she was like, I think he's just so high on drugs, it's like he doesn't know what's right and what's wrong. And then a few years later, it just started happening like every day.

[Lola Blanc]

So he basically gaslit her so hard and convinced her that the rape was actually something that she.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh, my God, that's horrible. Sorry, Major, we already did the trigger warning, but I'm sorry, I wasn't prepared. Wasn't prepared for this one. That's fucking insane.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

You had mentioned another awful story about how Mick Jagger also was sleeping with this poor girl.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah, she. She said that her and her dad and Mick Jagger were doing drugs one night and like Mick Jagger asked her dad for a tuna sandwich. And when her dad disappeared, Mick Jagger locked the door and picked up with her and her dad was like pounding on the door, like, hey, that's my daughter. But not even really mad that Mick Jagger is having sex with his dad. It's just that that whole.

[Lola Blanc]

And it was. Even David Bowie.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Even David Bowie was sleeping with 13 year olds.

[Lola Blanc]

Are we surprised by that? I'm not.

[Frederick von Meyers]

I don't know. It just sucks.

[Lola Blanc]

I think every old man listening to this is going to be like, those were different times.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Right?

[Lola Blanc]

But 13 y' all. No, no, that's a little kid.

[Frederick von Meyers]

That's gross.

[Lola Blanc]

That's a kid.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah. What about you?

[Lola Blanc]

Well, I don't know. I can follow that up, but that was my plan. We do really assign rock stars this iconic cult leader status and they get away with whatever the fuck we want, as we have talked about a bit. But that would be an interesting episode, actually. Like an old groupie.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah, that'd be cool.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah. We should try to find any groupies, former groupies listening, please DM us my culties thing. Look, I had a real decompression week, so I didn't do that much. However, after last week's episode in which I talked about. Or was it the week before, I don't remember one of the last two weeks in which I talked about the experience that I had with the shibari artist, the rope bondage guy. And I was saying how that was a really cool experience for me because, you know, previously, when I have hooked up with men who kind of. I identify as dominant or whatever, it's just kind of like purely aggressive and no communication. Got some angry messages and a couple of supportive ones as well. Being like, this is how BDSM always is. It sounds like that's the only person you've ever, you know, had an experience with who was legitimately in the BDSM community. So let me be clear. Everyone. Yes. The safe. What? Do you remember what the acronym was? Right. She was saying they change it to Risk Aware Consensual Kink. But basically the idea is that, like, if you're actually in the kink community, you are practicing active consent. You are communicating in advance. You are making sure that the other person is comfortable with everything that's happening. It is really all about the subs comfort level, not the doms. So, yes, if you are actually in the kink community, I am so sorry if I have offended you. However, I think it's important to discuss the fact that usually that's not what's happening. I've hooked up with a number of men in my day. Even if it's just like a makeout or whatever, like, I've hooked up, hooked up in some fashion with a number of fellas in Los Angeles and tell you a good portion of them were choking or, you know, like, doing something relatively aggressive. The number of them who actually, like, asked what I wanted and checked in and communicated with me about that, I can count on one hand.

[Frederick von Meyers]

That is psycho.

[Lola Blanc]

I mean, most women I know have this experience, though, is that has not. Not been your Experience.

[Frederick von Meyers]

No.

[Lola Blanc]

Really?

[Frederick von Meyers]

No.

[Lola Blanc]

I mean, it's not like they're doing it crazy hard.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Right?

[Lola Blanc]

But, like, I think that is definitely more normal than not. And it's not like they're trying shibari on me and you know, like.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

Or doing anything crazy, but most people just kind of willy nilly, like, do the thing because they think that that's hot or that's what the girl's gonna find hot or whatever. They don't fucking communicate about it at all. And this is what us who are in the kink community are going about our lives and, like, not realizing that there is an alternative way to do it.

[Frederick von Meyers]

That's cool.

[Lola Blanc]

Anyway, I think it's important.

[Frederick von Meyers]

It's not about shaming people who are doing it right or.

[Lola Blanc]

No. Yeah, yeah. We want, like, that's great. We should all be communicating more during sex and before sex and after sex, you know, it's such a taboo topic. We don't really talk about it. But I also think it's important to acknowledge that, like, without those discussions, nothing is ever going to, like, culturally get better if you're just gonna get mad because.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Right. That makes sense.

[Lola Blanc]

But so sorry if I offended y'.

[Fabio]

All.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Wait, before we start, Alison Mack got three years in jail.

[Lola Blanc]

Three years. I don't ever know how to gauge what, like, a fair amount of jail time is, to be honest.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Well, you're not a judge, so that makes sense.

[Lola Blanc]

But judges don't either. They're just people.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

Like, what is justice? Sorry. I'll hear a number of years that a person is going to prison for. And I only understand no prison or lifetime. And everything in the middle just feels arbitrary. I don't know. Is that not enough? Is that too much? What do you think?

[Frederick von Meyers]

I think it's probably not enough just from listening to her victims who say they don't think it's fair.

[Lola Blanc]

Do we know how much they wanted?

[Frederick von Meyers]

I think the one I was reading was like, she wanted maximum, which I believe was 10 years.

[Lola Blanc]

Okay. 10 years would have made sense, I guess.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

So I don't understand prison in general. I guess so. It's hard for me to wrap my head around, but I'm glad she is facing consequences. She harmed a lot of people. I thought that what the judge said was interesting. Do you remember what he said or.

[Frederick von Meyers]

He said something about how, like, he knows that she hurt a lot of people, but he doesn't doubt that she also was under the influence of being hurt and manipulated.

[Lola Blanc]

It is so hard in cases like these because, like, you don't really know where the line is. And you just have to. Something has to be done about the harm that they've caused. Even if they were brainwashed. Like, something must be done. They must see a consequence. So that's interesting though, because the thing is, most people don't serve their full sentences anyway. Right. So it probably.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Right. I don't think she's gonna really see.

[Lola Blanc]

The inside of anything. Yeah, that's.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah, it sucks. But.

[Lola Blanc]

Well, I'm glad she's going to jail. Yeah. Right. That's the upside. But yeah, I. Well, we fully support India and all the rest of her victims and send love to y'.

[Fabio]

All.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

You know, also last week, did I say that Alison Mack was the one who was all up on my Twitter? Because that's not what I meant. That wasn't. I misspoke. I met Nikki Klein.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Oh, her wife.

[Lola Blanc]

Her wife. And I didn't mean all up on my Twitter, but she faved one of my tweets and she faved one of my mom's tweets and she faved Another guy knows tweets. Who? She knows Nikki Klein, not Allison Mack. That's weird. I need to stop just saying stuff.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Cool. Cool.

[Lola Blanc]

What if I just stopped talking?

[Frederick von Meyers]

Not the podcast anyone wants to listen to.

[Lola Blanc]

I don't know. It sounds soothing to me.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Lola's breathing, episode 38 Honestly, I fucks with that.

[Lola Blanc]

All right. Anyway. Shut up, Lola. So let's begin our interview with the wonderful, fascinating Hoyt, shall we?

[Fabio]

Foreign.

[Megan Elizabeth]

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[Steve Hassan]

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[Fabio]

Oh.

[Steve Hassan]

If you're a college student or a teacher, make an education account through us and get 5% off your whole order. Shop [e-mail] A Better Future is waiting and it needs you.

[Hoyt Richards]

What do stuff they don't want you to know. Buried bones and betrayal have in common. These hosts are all headed to the Caribbean for the first ever true crime voyage on award winning kid. Free virgin voyages and you're invited book now@virgin voyages.com truecrime.

[Lola Blanc]

Welcome white richards to the show. Nice to see you in person.

[Fabio]

Yes.

[Lola Blanc]

Our first in person guest in like a year and two years or something. Crazy.

[Frederick von Meyers]

It's wild.

[Fabio]

Is that true? I'm really the first one.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, we have like our first few. We did, but then, you know, they didn't come out for a long time, so it's been a long time.

[Fabio]

Wow.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah.

[Frederick von Meyers]

After Covid. Yeah, you're our first after Covid guest.

[Lola Blanc]

Very exciting.

[Fabio]

I am happy to be back in that realm of no masks and just kind of seeing people's faces.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah, it's cool.

[Lola Blanc]

We're back. We're vaxxed. We've got no masks. We're doing great. Your story is so fascinating.

[Frederick von Meyers]

I mean, it's immensely fascinating.

[Lola Blanc]

Yes. Oh my God. There's so many layers to it. Okay, start us at the beginning is a good place to start generally. So you're born in Pennsylvania, correct?

[Fabio]

Yeah, I'm one of six kids. Number four. I guess they always say that. Middle kid's always looking for his ident. But every summer we would go up to Nantucket.

[Lola Blanc]

I love Nantucket.

[Fabio]

Oh, do you? Okay, so I love it and I think if you could put one word to describe Nantucket, besides it being kind of waspy and preppy and all that stuff is safe, right? I mean it's a small little island. When you are 8 or 10 years old, your parents have no problem letting you run wild. Through the town, because there's only one town.

[Lola Blanc]

Right.

[Fabio]

So as a kid, you have vast independence. And I just had. I mean, for my family, which is. I love my family. And we were a large family, and my cousins who lived two doors down, they had four kids. So I basically grew up in a family of 10, all, like, towhead blondes. We all ended up on the antagon. We blonde at the yacht club, and we did the sailing at the tennis and the whole water skiing. And so all of that was our, you know, our highlight of the summer and something that I always remember as being the best times of the family, so to speak.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah.

[Fabio]

So at 16, when this individual puts his towel down next to mine. And my life took a tangent that I would have never imagined. I would not have thought that would have happened on Nantucket.

[Lola Blanc]

Tell us about this guy. You're 16 years old.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Do you think he saw you and was like, I'm gonna sit by him?

[Fabio]

I don't know, because he had kind of been vetted by my peer group at that point. So I'd heard of him. His real name was Freddie Mey. When I met him, he was Frederick Von Mears.

[Lola Blanc]

Ah. Megan Von. Elisabeth.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Megan von Elizabeth.

[Fabio]

As one of his friends at the time said, somewhere on the ferry ride over the Nantucket, he dropped the Brooklyn Jewish background and became a WASP from Dutch heritage and all sort of stuff. So I've tried to psychoanalyze it with the limited information I found, and I'm actually finding more information now. But he was born, I think, to an unwed mom at 16. The mother had another daughter, which I just found this out, and then I think had two other daughters with another man. And he basically, as far as I've been told, has worked very hard to distance himself from that history that he grew up with. He developed a new kind of accent. He created a new name. You would call it kind of a attachment disorder, I think is the proper term. Someone who's been wounded by either abandonment or abuse at a young age and is seeking out some sort of situation where they never have to be hurt again. So they kind of foster codependent relationships. One of the interesting things about my story is I basically got in on the ground floor of a startup that wasn't. So it wasn't a cult yet. You know, when I met him, he was just spending his summers on Nantucket, and he had met my friends, and he had the reputation of being kind of a throwback to the 60s.

[Lola Blanc]

What year is this?

[Fabio]

Like, 1978.

[Lola Blanc]

Okay.

[Fabio]

Because it's important. Yeah, it's important to set the context of when these stories happened. It's one of the things I've realized in telling my story a few thousand times, that if you don't kind of set the world that was going on at the time, there's a real pushback against traditional religions, and people are looking in the new alternative approaches. So this guy was into Eastern philosophy, kind of ancient civilizations, astrology. He mainly focused on the Hindu Vedas, which are amazing scriptures. And I'm sure, as you guys both know, that most of the information you initially get introduced to is valid. And I think that's one of the hardest things to discern as you go through trying to figure things out, because a lot of the information you had was absolutely true. And maybe the interpretation of it or certainly how the behavior that you experience in the group is vastly different than what is maybe on the page. But at that point, certainly early on, you don't necessarily figure that out. And if you question it, you're being told because you're looking at it wrong, not because that's actually what's happening. Basically, I meet this guy, and my friends had said, yeah, he was just someone who kind of fun, but far out and just not to really take with more than a grain of salt. So he sits down next to me and he starts talking about Eastern philosophy and yin and yang and making designs in the sand.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh, just from the beginning, he's like.

[Fabio]

Jumping right in, right in, right in. And I remember because I'm 16, and he was probably mid-30s at that point. And I really appreciated the fact that he was speaking to me like an adult. And he was also making the clear assumption that I understood what he was talking about, which for the most part I didn't. But he would frame it by saying, you're very smart, so you'll understand this, which is a great manipulation, great manipulation technique. Because then you feel really awkward to say, I don't know what you're talking about.

[Lola Blanc]

Right.

[Frederick von Meyers]

I'm actually not really smart.

[Fabio]

Yeah, not at all. But he's very likable, very charismatic, as a lot of these people are, of course. And it was not like a full court press by any standard. It was more about. He was very social, and he invited me to these parties that he would have. Now, at 16, the drinking age in Nantucket was 18. So of course I was already drinking. And I just saw this as an opportunity to get free beer. Apparently, he was having these quite frequent parties at his place. It was on India Street. I don't know if you'd nap well, but it's right in town. And I went there, you know, just occasionally, because he would have these parties and I would get free. I could bring my friends and we would have beer and there was like people from 16 to 80. And I've since come to know that he was known for these parties. He was very much in this party mode. And so when I met him, basically it was like a narcissist with a entourage. That's what was going on.

[Lola Blanc]

So is he like a Gatsby kind of figure? Like, is it glamorous?

[Fabio]

Well, he had been a model, so he's a good looking guy. Now, this I did not know, but I found out from his friends who knew him before I did, because he'd been doing these parties for a long time on Nantucket. And he would actually run the way he had it set up. He would rent this house and then he'd invite his friends and they would all have to pay and he would not have to pay for it. So he would just have enough friends to come pay for the house and then he'd run it like a ship. Like you had to be up early, clean everything that had happened from the night before, restock the bar, clean the entire house and get ready for the party. Because Liddy, he was having a party almost every night.

[Lola Blanc]

So he's got like these party servants who are just kind of.

[Fabio]

Well, they're guests, but they're, you know, they're all into the party mode. And. But if you were going to be his guest, you had to kind of play by the rules that he'd pigeon a little and he would give them cards that would have the address of the house. And then he'd give them the instructions. Only the beauties. Only the beauties.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Wow.

[Fabio]

And not their friends. Just the beauties. Yeah.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Wow.

[Fabio]

So that was kind of his modus operandum. So that was the. I met him when I was 16. I would see him during the summers and it was never. He had his ephemeris, which is the thing that astrologers use. They're going to read where you came from and did all that. And so that would be kind of his party trick. He'd say, oh, when's your birthday? And you kind of. And then he'd look in the ephemeris and kind of do like a quick horoscope on you. And that was kind of something that a lot of people loved. And I remember for me specifically, that he seemed to be Doing that with my friends and not doing my chart. And I felt really jilted at first and really like, well, when's he gonna do mine? And I don't know if that was a conscious technique or not.

[Lola Blanc]

Right?

[Frederick von Meyers]

Sounds like it.

[Fabio]

But the way it played out was I just saw him as an eccentric person I would see during the summer. And I never felt like a full court press from him or any recruitment, per se. It wasn't until I got back. I studied for a year in England before I decided to go to college, which was Princeton. Which was Princeton.

[Lola Blanc]

Pretty fancy.

[Fabio]

Well, everyone in my family was going to very good school. So it's just trying to keep up with the Joneses. My brothers and sisters are all great students. And it was just kind of something my parents put high expectations on. So I didn't want to let them down. I loved Princeton. But when he knew I was going to be in Jersey and not that far from Manhattan, which was his home, that's when he said, oh, well, you should come up and bring some friends. And at this point, I didn't really know he had a full entourage. I met his friends at these parties, but I didn't really know until I went to New York to see him that he had literally this group that he would hang out with. And the big hook was we go to Studio 54. So at this point, I'm like, 18, 19. And my perception at that time was I was working him. I knew he was very effeminate and gay, but he never was hitting on me. And so I never felt like that was happening. But I knew he kind of liked me in that sense. Not, like, sexually, but just kind of found me appealing. And so I literally remember having a very conscious thought pattern of like, oh, I can kind of work this to my benefit and my friends and we can get in Studio 54. Which is exactly how it worked out. I'd go up there for a couple nights and we'd go to Studio 54 both nights.

[Frederick von Meyers]

So fun.

[Lola Blanc]

Wait, so for the kids, can you tell them what Studio 54 was?

[Fabio]

So Studio 54 was the next level of a nightclub. I mean, it was during the disco age. But walking in the studio, it was literally like it had a pulse. I mean, it was originally set up, I think, to be a theater. And so they had all these kind of theatrical lightings, but they would have special shows and they have had dancers. My first time walking in, and I was greeted by this girl wearing nothing but Scotch tape. I mean, she had, like, a Scotch tape little bra, top and little panties. And I thought, my God, I never want to leave. This is just the best.

[Megan Elizabeth]

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[Hoyt Richards]

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[Lola Blanc]

I mean and the people who would go there. I mean I think of Andy Warhol.

[Fabio]

First and foremost, who I met and got to know I mean, I'm looking.

[Lola Blanc]

At the list of people who would frequently place.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah, Elton John.

[Fabio]

I met Elton John later, but I did see Liza Minnelli there. I mean, everybody was there.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, it was like the place to be.

[Fabio]

Yeah, it was the place. And I actually only caught the second wave. The first wave in the late 70s was when it really kind of was off the hook. And then they got arrested for having, you know, litty garbage cans full of cash stashed all. And it was. I mean. I mean, drugs were just freely flowing. I mean, sometimes you see people literally having sex on the dance floor, certainly in the rafters. And there was this one little in the rafters. Wow. Yeah, well, they had these kind of. Kind of like very wide seats that were kind of semi like sofas.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah, you're just asking for sex.

[Fabio]

It was all very convenient. Then they had a downstairs area where it was kind of the VIP celebrity thing. And that's where people were just openly. Just doing lots of blow and things. I had several adventures in there and coming from a very kind of conservative, WASPy background, this was just like Alice in Wonderland, walking through the Looking Glass. And this is this whole new thing. So that's why, as it played out, I was no way thinking I was getting involved with the cult because, I mean, I'm going to Studio 54 now. What we would do, which was a little bit out of the ordinary, is he was always kind of targeting people, but he would do it from the point of view of, oh, that girl's fabulous, you should be with her. And he was great at introducing to people. And then we would kind of make half a dozen people that night. And then we'd go back to the apartment and we would have high tea, as he would call it, at like six in the morning and talk about all these spiritual ideas.

[Frederick von Meyers]

That sounds like heaven.

[Fabio]

Yeah, it was great. And it wasn't like we were taking drugs and it wasn't like we were heavily drinking. It was much more this kind of spiritual thing was this kind of thing that was evolving again. This is the early 80s, and this is really when all that stuff, like New Age movement was just starting to kind of birth. He was like an early inventor with health food. You know, I didn't even know what a health food store was until I met Freddy and I specifically call him Freddy. He always wanted to be called Frederick, so I know he would cringe if I referred him to Freddie.

[Lola Blanc]

Zing Freddie.

[Fabio]

Yeah, it's always Freddie now. To me, it's very, very fulfilling. And so, yeah, that was really what it was about at first. It's just opportunities to go to New York, hang out with some people that seemed to be in things that most of my friends weren't really investigating. I was never religious. I always had a belief in God, but I never really felt devout in any way. But I had a very strong sense of fairness, and I thought there was a certain level of decency that way people should respect and treat each other. And a lot of the Eastern philosophy kind of resonated with that. Because my Christian upbringing, my impression was going to church and hearing someone talk a lot about stuff that I was not interested in, and then passing around this thing with money, and then your slate's been made clean, and then just come back next week, do whatever you want, but clean slate for the week coming up. And I was like, that did not work for me. I felt there should be a sense of accountability. So when I got exposed to Eastern philosophy and karma and that sort of thing, I'm like, oh, that makes a lot more sense to me, that you actually need to be accountable for your actions. And for each reaction, there's an equal and opposite reaction. And that really kind of resonated with me. And the idea of reincarnation, you know, that you don't have just one shot. So someone's born into a wealthy family, someone's born on the street, someone's crippled, someone's blind, and someone's a billionaire at birth. I'm like, well, that doesn't seem very fair. So the fact that you had potentially multiple lifetimes, that all really resonated with me.

[Lola Blanc]

Right. And when a message resonates like that and you don't necessarily have exposure to other sources of a similar message, it's hard to reject the person who is conveying that message to you.

[Fabio]

Well, exactly. And I try to relay it to people, too, that if you don't have a game plan and you feel like you should. And listen, I'm 16, then 18. It's not like I needed to have one, but I did feel like I should have one. Like, from the point of view that I seem to be dealt a pretty winning hand. I was capable at school. I was a good athlete. I made friends easily. My parents gave me a nice genetic package that people seem to appreciate.

[Lola Blanc]

So that's a nice way to. Well, no, he's a handsome fellow guy.

[Frederick von Meyers]

First male supermodel.

[Fabio]

Well, I just. I tell people I can't take credit for the costume. I just wear it. My parents get all the credit. So all of that. A lot of people would think, oh, well, you would be so secure then. And I was massively insecure because I'm like, I had no passion, nothing that I really got me terribly excited about other than football. And I knew realistically that I couldn't continue playing that for long. And that actually ended up being the critical factor that got me more involved with the group, was I was playing football at Princeton and doing okay, not setting the world on fire, but all my friends were football players. And that had been so much a self identity. And then I started really having problems with my shoulders. And it looked like I may have to either have an operation or consider stopping. And that's where I went up to New York to see a shoulder specialist because the trainer at Princeton basically said, I think you need to stop because my shoulders were partially dislocating. I had done gymnastics when I was younger and so I'd stretched the legs doing the rings. And then I'd always played offense and been receiver or running back, but they switched me to the defense and the tackling was just tearing my shoulders apart because my shoulders would just. I could show you. But see, I can just dislocate my shoulders like that.

[Frederick von Meyers]

I'm betting that's not good for football.

[Fabio]

So I actually went up to New York to get a second opinion. I found out that really they could operate, but they couldn't guarantee me full mobility, meaning that I wouldn't be able to necessarily reach my hand or all the way over my head. And I said, well, I can't play the position if I can. If I can only reach there. So I went through really an identity crisis. And that was when Freddie kind of said, well, this is why you should come to New York and you should start modeling and acting and you've got these opportunities. And he had been a model and he knew the guy who ran Ford Models. And so that was kind of my entry point. Now the story's a little convoluted, you don't have to get into. So it didn't immediately work, but eventually it did. And at first I was told I was too blonde, I was too big because I was playing football. And I never saw myself as a model. That's not how I perceived myself to be. But eventually it did work out. And then it really took off. And because it replaced football, it was kind of this decision of a 21 year old of like, well, if I can't be a football star, maybe I'll just try to be a star. Like, that was literally where my ego could come of, find some solace.

[Lola Blanc]

And it worked. You were modeling with the biggest supermodels of the time. Right? Like, can you drop some names for us?

[Fabio]

Yeah, I can, because I came in, if you consider it like an entry class, like you would at university. I came in with Cindy and Christie and Naomi and Claudia.

[Lola Blanc]

Amazing.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Oh, God, Claudia. I'm so obsessed. Wow.

[Lola Blanc]

I'm a Naomi girl, actually. Christy. I'm a Christy girl, too.

[Fabio]

Christy I met when she was 14 at the Ford Christmas party. And she was just like an alien genetic marvel. I'm like, this girl is so fortunate.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Which Chrissy is it, Turlington or Brinkley?

[Fabio]

Turlington. Yeah. So Christy Turlington was my generation. Brinkley was like the generation before me.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Got it.

[Fabio]

I remember looking at Christie Brinkley in like, the Sports Illustrated, you know, when I was a teenager.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah.

[Fabio]

And actually my second modeling job was with Kathy Ireland. And I totally had a crush on Kathy Ireland. I literally was in awe. And then she had this squeaky, tiny little voice that I didn't have the heart to tell my friends. Like, it was not the voice I expected to come out of this. She since corrected her voice and good for her. But it was really disappointing. This kind of.

[Lola Blanc]

I find that all the time when I meet, like, hot girls on Instagram in person. I'm like, whoa, that's how you talk?

[Fabio]

That was the point when I started to come into New York a lot more to pursue the modeling. And that's kind of when the hooks went. And that's where I started to really kind of be indoctrinated.

[Frederick von Meyers]

So at this point online, I read that he was from a star called Arcturus.

[Fabio]

Arcturus.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Did you know this from the start?

[Fabio]

No.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Okay.

[Fabio]

Yeah. I think that's an important part of the story from the point of view that those type of things don't come out, like in the opening conversation. That's not the pitch, of course. Right. Because then you'd be like, this guy's.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah, you're fucking crazy.

[Fabio]

Exactly. So that information gets revealed as you move up the food chain.

[Lola Blanc]

Right.

[Fabio]

So because he was into astrology, the premise he would make, which, listen, is not far fetched. It was the idea that, sure, you incarnate here on Earth, but you also incarnate all over the universe.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Sure.

[Fabio]

Freddy said the place that he considered home just happened to be the spiritual center of the universe.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Lucky.

[Fabio]

Isn't that amazing?

[Frederick von Meyers]

Why am I on Earth?

[Fabio]

So the idea was, supposedly he came back to Earth to find the fellow Arcturians. So the whole premise was that back in Arcturus, when we were there on one of our lucky incarnations, we were at the spiritual center of the universe. We all got into a huddle and looked at Earth and said, oh, Earth's having all sorts of problems. We got to go down there and help out. And the idea was, all right, we're all going to kind of sacrifice and go down and help out things that are. It's going through this terrible period, and unfortunately, none of us are going to remember this conversation, except for Freddy. He's going to go back and find us and remind us why we're really here.

[Lola Blanc]

Thank goodness.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Good, good, good.

[Fabio]

And so, as outrageous as a story as that sounds, because it was kind of the common urban legend that was kind of going on in the group at that point. When it got revealed to me, all I wanted to do was know whether I was Arcturian or not. So that became this kind of carrot that was dangling. Will I. Because at certain points, he would finally turn to someone and say, oh, yes, and you are Arcturian as well. And that was a big day.

[Lola Blanc]

So when you say it was an urban legend in the group, people were talking about it. It was, like, rumored that he was from another planet.

[Fabio]

Yeah, exactly. But it was a star.

[Lola Blanc]

I'm sorry, I'm star.

[Fabio]

It was a star where we were. We were light bulb, you know, like. Like Lalique. Like Lalique.

[Frederick von Meyers]

I see.

[Lola Blanc]

Like who? Like what?

[Fabio]

So it's like. It's like, you know, Lalique, the crystal.

[Lola Blanc]

No.

[Fabio]

Okay, well, you're not missing too much, but it's a very expensive crystal, and he would know about that because he was all into the social register and that sort of thing, and he was really into high society. Again, going back to what I said earlier, trying to distance himself from his original roots, he presented this whole. He knew Duke, this person, Duchess, that one prince. That one prince.

[Lola Blanc]

Did he?

[Fabio]

Apparently it's very. For me to look back at it now and trust anything that came out of his mouth. But when you reach the level of pathology like this guy had, I don't think you can separate truth from fiction, because I think he loses touch.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Oh, for sure.

[Fabio]

Because one of the most common questions I get all the time, and I'm sure you guys get it from your stories. It's like, oh, was the cult leader in on the Con, so to speak?

[Frederick von Meyers]

Like, did he really think he was Victorian?

[Fabio]

Yeah. And I can only say, I think like a serial killer who starts to operate out of a certain Kind of pathology and gets better at it as they do it. When you're a master manipulator and lying becomes kind of the way that you reinvent yourself, I think you kind of lose track of it. And certainly as things continue to work on people, you start to wonder maybe if I say it, it is true.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Right.

[Lola Blanc]

I love that perspective. Yeah.

[Fabio]

And again, can't get inside someone else's head. But certainly living with them like I did for five years, I didn't really catch him slipping up in that sense. I certainly caught him doing plenty of things. Like, there was one time when he was trying to recruit my younger brother, and I was on the phone with him and my mother was eavesdropping. And at this point, my mother had identified that I'd been in a cult and said this guy was dangerous. And so I was really pulling away from the family at that point. But she was eavesdropping, and she confronted him on the phone. She's like, get off the phone. I can't believe you're talking. And he, who for years had been saying, you've got to confront your mother. She's so evil, and this and that. He freaks out.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Scattered.

[Fabio]

Yeah. Just literally panics and hands me the phone, goes, oh, she's so awful. And I remember seeing him freak out and just suppressing that, because that didn't fit in the paradigm of the guy who had everything figured out and was telling me what to do all the time. So there are plenty of instances like that that I can go back to and see the signs. But at the time, I was so enthralled, and I'm working on certain projects retelling this story, and I've got certain footage. We had a cable access show, which was.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Lola was just saying she would love to see it.

[Fabio]

Oh, yeah. And I have, like 26 hours of it where there are even more. But when I went back and looked at this footage and thinking, oh, this is going to be a great way to kind of show his spiel, so to speak. The most disarming and upsetting thing for me was, was seeing him and just going, man, I wish he was better. Cause I just thought he was so all about everything. And I just see how full of shit he is now. It's so obvious.

[Lola Blanc]

You know my mom, right? Yeah. Our former cult leader, prophet guy. He's on YouTube, which we've mentioned a few times on the show. And it is disappointing. You're like, damn, you are just crazy.

[Fabio]

Right?

[Lola Blanc]

How were you so charismatic to me at the time?

[Fabio]

No, it really, really, really is fascinating to kind of go through that. And I remember just thinking, I just wish he was better because then I don't look so naive. But we all are. And that's the thing. I mean, I had a girlfriend that one time told me, you just don't know until you know. And at that time I'm like, oh, what the fuck does that mean? But it's a very profound statement from the point of view that once you figure something out, very often we want to reverse engineer and then say, oh, I should have figured it out sooner and just beat ourselves up. But the truth is, is you don't figure it out till you figure it out. And once you do know something, then you can operate with a new lens. But until you get there, you can't beat yourself up for not kind of connecting the dots.

[Lola Blanc]

We only have the information that we have. And before we were recording, you were referring to this relationship with a cult leader or a cultic group as a cultic relationship that you're in and saying how all of us can be in cultic relationships. Often they're just one on one. I think the idea that you suppress information that doesn't fit in with your idea of a person is something that we all do all of the time. Every time we are dating somebody new and keeping our rose colored glasses on because we don't want to believe that we couldn't be compatible with that. Yeah, 100%.

[Fabio]

It's a fascinating thing because the way I do like to frame it is to just say I had a cultic relationship with a group because I've done the cult bomb many times in social situations. Like, well, I was in a cult for 20 years and people of like, what? And initially I did that a. Because I wanted to be transparent. It's kind of like an alcoholic who finally wants to take ownership of this part of their lives. So that was part of it. But then I also kind of got off on the shock value of that. And I recognized that that was not really helping the cause, so to speak. And it wasn't reflecting well on me because I was kind of misrepresenting it just to kind of throw someone off their balance. So I felt that I was being so bold and brazen to be so open.

[Frederick von Meyers]

And that's really interesting.

[Fabio]

My. And I'm gonna tell you, I relate to that. I mean, literally I would get into a cab in New York and I'd say, I need to go to 42nd and third. Did I tell you I was in A cult? Yeah. No, really. 20 years.

[Frederick von Meyers]

42Nd and third. That reminds me, minus 20 equals 20 years.

[Fabio]

I mean, it was like that. It was this compulsion which you have with a lot of addicts when they, like, they. When you finally come clean. Because I had been so dishonest to so many people for so many years, I just wanted to be honest. But I learned that that approach was not very effective because ultimately it was important for me to own this part of my life, but also do it in a way where initially my impulse was, I don't want anyone to be uncomfortable or afraid to ask me about it because I don't want to be defined by this. But I want you to be okay to talk about it because I don't want you to feel uncomfortable that you're thinking you can't. And I'd rather you hear about it from my mouth rather than going and Googling my name later and going, what's this that you were involved in?

[Lola Blanc]

Right.

[Fabio]

So I had learned. Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah. I almost think it's a rite of passage to start saying it, like, really bluntly like that. The people I can think of who are doing that the most frequently are the people who are sort of recently come to terms with their experience.

[Fabio]

You know, that's exactly right. And so I find by framing it as a cultic relationship, people are more, like, curious, like, well, what does that mean? Because they haven't heard it kind of referred to in those terms. And a cultic relationship, by clinical terms is any relationship with a person that you're seeking love and approval from is in some way controlling and abusing you, because, in essence, you've kind of put them in a position of power or authority by this desire to have their approval. And so that can be a parent, that can be a brother, a sister, a coach, a boss, a lover. That is one of the more common relationships we have. But we don't identify it as that. We don't realize how traumatic that relationship is. We usually are pretty effective at finding our way out of that relationship at some point, but then we write it off as a bad relationship and really don't deal with the trauma. And then we kind of start a cycle of finding similar relationships because we don't realize we've had this trauma, and we're kind of reenacting that situation to try to learn from it. And this is, you know, you learn in therapy, like, becoming conscious of unconscious patterns.

[Lola Blanc]

Right.

[Fabio]

And so that's why a situation like mine or what you guys went through, which is a more extreme Version because there's a group element. There's peer pressure. There's not just the stakes of one person. Our group was a doomsday cult, so the fate of the world was lying in bounds. And so all of the. This is like that experience on steroids, but the actual dynamics at play are identical. And what I found as I became more effective at communicating my story, not trying to just shock everybody instead of. Like I said, my initial impulse was I just want to be able to own this part of my life and be able to be okay with people talking about it so they don't have to feel uncomfortable around me. But what I didn't expect, and the real silver lining was that as I got better at communicating my story is like any good story. Instead of you listening to the story I'm telling, really great story, resonates with someone in their own lives. They're going, oh, my God, this reminds me of. And I would get. I kept.

[Lola Blanc]

That's a great point.

[Fabio]

And I kept having people going, oh, my God, this sounds like the relationship I had with my boss or my dad or my mom. And that's when I said, oh, my God, this really is a universal tale. And that's where I felt even more important to kind of convey this story. Because if we don't all start basically using the same language and same nomenclature to describe these experiences we're having, then no one really realizing we've got so much more common ground and so much more healing than needs to take place, because we're not identifying the problem. If you don't have the diagnosis, you can't really get the medicine right.

[Lola Blanc]

Speaking some truth, Hoyt.

[Fabio]

Well, I've got 20 years of talking about this, so it's like, hopefully I've made a few strides here and there, but it's really been interesting because, like, when Covid happened to me, it was a very cultic reaction that was going on in the world. When I. I walked out during the two weeks to flatten the curve, walked out the sidewalk, looked down the sidewalk, and saw someone like a block and a half away who recognized I was a human, freaked out, and ran to the other side of the street. I'm like, okay, this is not the zombie apocalypse. I was preparing for the zombie apocalypse. I thought the whole thing was so. And this crazy experience of mine gave me this lens of what it's like to live in fear all the time. So I immediately said, that person's been indoctrinated. You don't get there on your own thinking like that you get indoctrinated. And to be that terrified two weeks into this thing, I'm like, this is bad. And from that lens going forward, I just watched everyone get sucked into this thing where I'm like, man, the mental health fallout from this is going to be astronomical. The ptsd, I don't think people realize how traumatized they've been.

[Frederick von Meyers]

That's what I was going to ask you. I mean, you. You expected the apocalypse at any moment, which is kind of.

[Fabio]

Which I don't recommend.

[Frederick von Meyers]

No. Yeah, it's like when we've talked about this before, but when I would go to a movie when I was younger, I'd be like, can I go to a movie? And my parents would be like, is that where you want to be when Jesus comes back? And I'd be like, shit, no. But, you know, you always thought that, like, it's lunchtime. Will Jesus come back before I finish eating? Like, was that what you were living under?

[Fabio]

Yeah, because Freddy was all in these prophecies of which they were all wrong.

[Lola Blanc]

Shocking.

[Fabio]

Yeah. But it was all kind of pointing towards the end of the month.

[Lola Blanc]

So you guys believed that. Correct me if I. If I'm getting this wrong, that essentially aliens from the star would come at the end of the world and pick you up?

[Fabio]

Well, you know, it's a great question and I should have the answer. You know, I can tell you, all he referenced was the space people. Space people. Did I ever really ask, well, are they the good space people or the. No, just like, oh, my God, Star wars is coming to life. Space people are out there. This is us. And he would refer to it sometimes like the Ashtar Command, there's some book written about that or something, the Intergalactic Fleet or something. So I can just tell you, because I was so caught up in it and so excited by that sci fi aspect of it. And no one was asking those questions. I mean, even when we bought property down in North Carolina, where it was going to be one of the safe places as the storms were all going to come in, and as the world was going to be moving towards this grand apocalyptic event in the west eastern hills, mountains of the Appalachians, western North Carolina was going to become beachfront property. So we had this mountain piece that we were buying. And I remember looking at it and Freddy's looking at the top. He's like, yeah, we can. We're going to build the platforms up there for the ships to land. And I'm like, yeah, that's going to be awesome. And I'm like now if I was thinking like a normal person, like what we're going to build like plywood platforms for some metallic spaceship? Like, what is he fucking talking about? And I'm like, yeah, it's gonna be all right there on the top of the mountain.

[Frederick von Meyers]

So are you the one buying all of this? Sorry to interrupt.

[Fabio]

Yeah, no, I mean, I was largely financing all of it because in another life I was a very successful model. So that was all going on. That's where my story, I think, captures a lot of people's interest because I really lived a double life, you know, it's not probably unlike like the Tom Cruise's out there, you know, of where, you know, you kind of have a very public image, one that people would think, oh God, I'd love to have that life. And yet my everyday is being controlled in some fashion. I had to call in, I had to check in and kind of spin doctor the way the day went. Because, you know, people always think, well, God, if you were out all the time, you know, that must have been awesome. And one of the favorite questions is, oh, why didn't you just believe? Stupid questions, stupid questions. But that's a question that really informs you that the person doesn't know what they're talking about. And using the word just really makes it bad. I try to tell people, I said, when you ask that question, it's kind of like if I came to you and said, you know, at 21, I was raped. And you turned to me and said, well, what were you wearing that night?

[Lola Blanc]

Which by the way, by the way, many people have said similar things to me. People just don't understand the nuances of power dynamics. They really don't.

[Fabio]

They don't. And I don't fault them because it's a defense mechanism. I mean, there were times I took it to heart and I was like, but it's the same sort of thing. Like during my early conversations of dropping the cult bomb, I'd have people going, well, you know, I'd never be involved in a cult and they would have that, or they would just very innocently look at me and say, so what was so weak about you that got you involved?

[Lola Blanc]

Right, right, right.

[Fabio]

And again, it's a defense mechanism because what they're wanting to say to themselves and have me validate is, oh, that's terrible that happened to you, but just reassure me that won't happen to me.

[Lola Blanc]

Exactly.

[Fabio]

And of course the whole point of me having the conversation is not only could it happen to you, it probably already has happened to you and you just haven't identified it. Now, you probably didn't go through what I went through, what I'm saying, but you have had relations, relationship and power dynamics like this that you've experienced, and you've probably been deeply wounded and just not really understood it.

[Lola Blanc]

Right. Or they're on the other side and they're wounding everyone.

[Fabio]

Yeah, right, right, exactly. So it's a really interesting kind of thing, the way it's played out for me in this way. And when it came down to this whole space thing for me, the way Freddie would present it is like, oh, yeah, the space people are going to come down and he's the only one talking to them, of course. But they had the rejuvenation machines. They're going to lift us out. The planet's going to. We believed in this thing called the pole shift, which is basically like Edgar Cayce. He was basically plagiarizing Edgar Cayce and like, 99% of the population get wiped out. There'd be a few safe places, but we were going to lift it out, rejuvenated, you know, schooled, and come back and basically make it heaven on earth, so to speak. One of the things that's kind of hilarious is Freddie was really into being tan. And so in the 80s, all these tanning machines are going on. We were all just constantly tan.

[Frederick von Meyers]

I did see a picture of him where I could like, barely see. Oh, my God, Almost had no features.

[Fabio]

He had permatan. And I was modeling, which is fine to be tan, but. But I used to have friends say, like, are you sure you're not going to be, like, damaging your skin? Because I was, like, blasting my face constantly. And in my mind I was thinking, man, I'm going to be in the rejuvenation chamber in 10 years. It's like, I don't have to worry about that, you guys. That is not an issue. Not an issue for me. Yeah, I traveled constantly. I was on the road probably 300 days a year for 10 years running. And I would get on a plane and I'd immediately think, like, I wish I could tell everyone the plane that this is going to be a safe flight, because I've got a very important role to play on this planet and they're all safe.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Wow, wow, wow.

[Fabio]

That was the kind of mental prison I was in, you know, just thinking that I had this grand role. And of course, it's just all part of that magical thinking and all that stuff that we really get caught up in. I tell people all the time. If I can prove something in a lab, people are like, huh, so what? But if I tell you, all right, this thing only works if you believe in it, people are like, oh, I'm in. I'm in. Now I want to know. Tell me how it works.

[Lola Blanc]

Which is fucked up, because that is true about certain things when it comes to placebos.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Well, we were taught that with Tinkerbell, remember? Like, you can't see her unless you believe.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh. I mean, the frosting in Hook. Does anyone remember this scene? Yes. Where they're throwing frosted, like.

[Frederick von Meyers]

And he can't see it at first.

[Lola Blanc]

He has to believe it first.

[Frederick von Meyers]

I mean, there are so many fairy tales that were like, you can't see it unless you believe in it.

[Fabio]

That's right.

[Lola Blanc]

And you're like, okay, the nothingness and never ending story.

[Fabio]

I mean. I mean, so much of. Well, I mean, what are these references? And faith is a very powerful mechanism, a power used for good or bad. Right. That hooks in our psyche much more, I think, than anything else.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah. Evidence is boring. Yeah, we don't need that.

[Fabio]

Yeah. And now, apparently, the aliens are here. I don't know if you've been hearing that lately.

[Lola Blanc]

In three days, we're supposed to get all the information.

[Fabio]

Maybe the cult was right.

[Frederick von Meyers]

I mean. I mean, I think that there's some shit, but. Although.

[Lola Blanc]

Although, didn't they say that it's, like, not actually. There's no evidence really, of anything.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Of course there's not.

[Fabio]

I watched Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan's totally into it.

[Lola Blanc]

I know. I listened to those episodes.

[Fabio]

And he's like. He brings in these guys. Like, I was in Studio Area 51. I worked on the anti gravity machine.

[Lola Blanc]

Studio 51.

[Fabio]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Studio 51. Yeah. And so. So, I mean, who knows? It's a. It's. But my question, if. If any of that does come out, it's like, why now?

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah, exactly.

[Fabio]

That would be my question.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Because they're manipulating us in a different way now. Now they're like, yeah, no, they're real. We promise guys do this. It's like, okay.

[Lola Blanc]

Or they're just dumb and haven't been coordinating. Well, I don't know.

[Fabio]

Well, clearly they're not aggressive. Otherwise, we've been wiped out by now, so.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh, you mean why now? The aliens. I was thinking, why now? The government.

[Fabio]

Oh, no.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah.

[Fabio]

Yeah. Well, I know. I say, why now? The government telling us about the aliens? I think the aliens probably have some plan that, you know, whatever.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah, I think they're cool.

[Fabio]

I don't think they're trying to wipe us out.

[Frederick von Meyers]

No.

[Lola Blanc]

I hope our audience understands that we are not just talking about aliens willy nilly. There are documents that are being released by the Pentagon.

[Fabio]

By the Pentagon Right now. Do Pentagon UFOs and the Israeli head.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Of defense said that they have stopped nuclear war three times.

[Lola Blanc]

Excuse me.

[Fabio]

Yeah, yeah. Apparently the ships all come around, like during the nuclear plants or where the warheads are and they shut things down.

[Lola Blanc]

Well, that's nice.

[Megan Elizabeth]

Yeah.

[Fabio]

So they're looking out for it.

[Lola Blanc]

Thank God.

[Fabio]

I doubt they're Octurian, though.

[Frederick von Meyers]

They're not, I checked.

[Fabio]

They are.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Were the other people in this group with you equally, like, charismatic and good looking and.

[Fabio]

Well, if you think of like a profile that we would try to target, yes. But that doesn't mean you wouldn't take someone who was an eager beaver wanting to be.

[Lola Blanc]

Got it.

[Fabio]

But it was like a branding mechanism. The idea was that you'd gone to a good school, you were well presented, well spoken, everything that Freddie had wanted to be. This has been a really big missing piece for me, getting more information about his background. Not that I have to figure out his backstory, but it is fascinating. It is interesting to say, like, how did that come about?

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, totally, totally. It all reminds me a little bit of Will Allen's story. Are you familiar with him?

[Fabio]

No.

[Lola Blanc]

The documentary. Holy Hell, you should watch that.

[Fabio]

Oh, yeah, no, I. I have seen Holy Hell.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, they're all very tan.

[Fabio]

They're all very beautiful. Actually, when I watched it, I'm like, oh my God, he looks a lot like Freddie.

[Lola Blanc]

Really?

[Fabio]

Oh, yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

Was Freddie getting surgery too?

[Fabio]

Oh, five facelifts by the time he died. Yeah, he looked like a freak.

[Frederick von Meyers]

How old was he when he died?

[Fabio]

Mid to late 40s.

[Frederick von Meyers]

And he died of AIDS? Yep, yep.

[Lola Blanc]

Quick insert here. One question I meant to ask while we were doing the interview was how the group stayed together after the leader died. And basically the answer is that eventually a new leader emerged and he wasn't as savvy as the original guy. Fred was so indoctrinated already that he knew how to push the right buttons and invoke that trauma.

[Fabio]

I've reconnected with some of the ex members because I escaped in 1999. I figured out it was a cult around 2001. So that's a whole other story because I didn't leave figuring out what it was. I figured it out later after going through ptsd. But then I kind of went on the attack. I had all this suppressed anger and with Resentment. I had no money, and they were living in a house that I had bought. They had businesses that I read, I.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Read you gave them, like, $4.5 million.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh, my God.

[Fabio]

And so, yeah, he was barely making ends meet. And I was living at Fabio's, which is a hilarious part of the story.

[Lola Blanc]

The Fabio, everyone.

[Frederick von Meyers]

He helped you? Yeah. When you were leaving, you remembered he said something to us.

[Fabio]

Fabio's just such a great guy. And what he's revealed to me, looking back on that time, like, I arrived and he knew something really bad had happened. And so he being very kind of aware, like he is, he goes, sometimes, you know that it's not in your place to push someone. Just let them have space, let them feel safe, and when it's time and ready, they'll come and talk to me. And so I literally lived at his place for a year. He never once asked me why I was there. He never asked me for rent. He just completely let me incubate. And that's how I kind of worked through the PTSD and eventually started to figure out what had happened.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Because Fabio's a God.

[Lola Blanc]

We already thought he was a God. He's doubly a God.

[Fabio]

Oh, yeah. He's crazy smart. Like, he's an electrical engineer, and he is. And he's my stockbroker. He knows stocks. You know, it's like, oh, yeah, yeah. Fabio's amazing.

[Lola Blanc]

Is he single?

[Fabio]

He is.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh, interesting.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Lola, interesting. We just say, Lola's dating a stockbroker. We don't say it's not yet.

[Fabio]

Yeah, exactly. There you go.

[Lola Blanc]

Can you talk about how you left?

[Fabio]

Yeah. And I wish I could tell you I woke up one night in the middle of the night and said, oh, my God, I think this is really dangerous. It might be a cult. I should get the hell out of here. Nothing even close. So it was mid summer of 1999. 2000's when the shit's supposed to hit the fan, right? I'm still traveling around all over the place, Europe, constantly. So I'm in London, Paris, Milan, and I'm looking around and, like, there's no storms going on, no government's collapsing, no economies crashing. So I'm like, if nothing else, the timeline's wrong. And in some way, my critical thinking is starting to come back slightly. Right. And then very boldly, and you could say, fortunately or unfortunately, I decided to voice some of those concerns. And of course, I got crazy crushed. Kind of like being a blasphemer. So then it became kind of the modus operandum to save me from myself. So it was dictated that I would have to move down to our compound that we had down in North Carolina. And they started shaving my head so I couldn't model. I had to be the first one up, the last one to bed. Any type of slave, like labor to teach me humility or anything anyone didn't want to do, I had to do.

[Frederick von Meyers]

They're like such hate.

[Fabio]

When Freddie was alive, he treated me with kid gloves and really got me into that generosity mode. Like as long as you keep giving the money, you get a little freedom here. And so because of those years when Freddie was alive, I got kind of preferential treatment. So there's a lot of pent up resentment and jealousy. And the next 10 years was much rougher for me. And it culminated with this last period of where they were really coming after me because I was was starting to poke holes in this idea that our great fearless leader might be fucking wrong, you know. And so that made life very rough for me. And I was literally and figuratively living in the doghouse because we had renovated this house and we had built a garage where we kept the dogs and we converted it into an office. So I slept up there with the dogs while they were on the main. But that's how I was able to escape because we had this whole phone system. And whenever I pick up the phone and the office, everyone would know and they'd say, who are you on the phone with? And so when I had to escape, if I used the fax phone, it didn't set off. And so I was able to actually escape that way.

[Megan Elizabeth]

How did you escape?

[Frederick von Meyers]

What'd you fax?

[Fabio]

Well, I just. Well, no, I got on the phone and I called the cab. It took me three attempts to get away. Like they caught me twice. But the third time my driving privilege has been taken away because once I'd driven myself to the airport and then they called and so I just had a cab that was about a mile and a half down the hill that was meeting me at like 2:30 in the morning. And I had to like stealthily go out like a prison break and not wake the dogs, hope that no one would hear me and then bolt. And I just went, you know, back there six weeks ago to that same spot. Oh my gosh. And that, you know, they talk about how trauma stays in the body and yeah, I've done a decent amount of work on this, you know, talked about a lot. But when I stepped right back on that, I tell you, the heebie Jeebies I felt. It's like I was right back there.

[Frederick von Meyers]

That's so surreal.

[Fabio]

So trauma's very, very real. But each time I went back, it got better. And it's just always better to face your demons than avoid them. But it was really that visceral feeling of that. I remember just looking down that hill and running, like, thinking they're behind me, because I'd even forgotten it's on a man made lake and there's this dam. And I remember driving and going, like, I don't even remember that dam. Like, it's all so fuzzy because I think the trauma was so intense that I don't have strong memories as I would have thought I would have. But then when I was coming back from being up there and I saw it coming from that point of view, the way I actually had escaped, I'm like, oh, God, I do remember this now because it's completely out in the open and I thought, I am so exposed. There's nothing to hide. No trees, nothing. And I bolted across that bridge at high speed because I was like, there's no way I'm coming back this time. So it was after that that I went into kind of the PTSD I hung at Fabio's.

[Lola Blanc]

Another quick insert here. So one more thing I wondered after we did the interview was what the previous escape attempts were like. So here's what Hoyt told me after we spoke the first time. So basically, his two failed attempts involved him getting caught in his New York apartment. So on his first break, he was living in LA at Fabio's, but was still in communication with the group. And he must have slipped up somehow and made the group think that he'd be passing through New York for a modeling gig. And a couple of the guys caught him in there. And they didn't threaten Forrest, but he was so freaked out about being caught that he was easily convinced that he wasn't supposed to get away. And then that's when he agreed in quotes, to go to North Carolina to become the live in housekeeper. So the second time he got caught, he had fled North Carolina in the middle of the night and caught a flight to New York. And he figured they'd never think he was stupid enough to go back to his same apartment. So he thought he'd be safe there for a night. But they flew there immediately and caught him. And this time they took a more forceful approach. One guy actually even slept in the doorway of the apartment to make sure he didn't escape, which is terrifying. They made him Sign a promissory note under duress, of course, saying that he would be responsible for paying $500,000 if he left again. And then the third time he left, when he finally did truly escape in the middle of the night on July 4, 1999, a very fitting date for this episode, he did not go back to his apartment.

[Fabio]

Then I ran into a guy who had left the group. He lived out here in la and he left the group like four years before me. You know, there are no coincidences. But I literally bumped into a friend of his and said, he goes, hey, you're Hoyt, aren't you? You're my friend Dar. I was like, oh my God, I'd love to talk to Dar. But I had to really choose my words carefully because I had actually come out to California and Dar had left before. And I had pulled Dar back into the group. And so I was like, he's going to think I'm going to try to get him back. And so I literally had to to tell his friend. I said, tell Dar I'm living in LA and I'm alone and I'd really like to talk to him. It took about three weeks. He called me from his therapist. He says, my therapist said I should call. I've been avoiding this. And I'm like, thank God you called. And so we started talking and he was kind of in a crazy living situation. I felt like I had outworn my welcome at Fabio's, he'd been too kind, and I was kind of needing to talk about this. So Dar and I moved in together and we, for the first six months, just started to deconstruct everything. It's like, remember when that happened? That was weird. Like, what do you think was going on there? And it was through that process that we have finally got to the point where I remember going, well, you know, everyone's been saying this was a cult. No, it wasn't a cult. But what do you think it was? You think, oh, it wasn't a cult either. I'm like, well, I go, do you know anything about cult? It's like, no. I'm like, well, maybe I should look into a cult. I know it's not one, but maybe if I look into it, I'll find out what it might be. So that was how I found Steve Hasson's book. I remember going on the Internet and finding the best selling book and it was just combating cult mind control. And I also remember reading that this guy had been in the Moonies. I remember thinking, God, I actually remember the Mooney when I was a kid. These bald people in airports and orange suits and just going, how could you get involved with that? To me, oh, that's definitely a cult. And so I was really kind of dubious whether I should even get it, because I said that no way relates to what I went through. But it had so many great reviews, I figured, let me just give it a shot. Maybe I'll just learn something. And the first 60, 70 pages was how he had been indoctrinated. And you could have just changed the names. And I was like, holy shit. And finally I had the diagnosis. I finally knew not only had I been in a cult, but I had been in a textbook cult. I thought at least maybe I'd been in a special cult. Not even special, just textbook. And all of that was horrifying. But it was the beginning of the recovery. And then I eventually, you know, kind of got my balls back, and I started my voice back, and I actually went on the attack with the group. And then I sued them and took them down.

[Lola Blanc]

You did? Oh, I didn't know that.

[Fabio]

Yeah. And then, you know, now, 20 years later, going back and visiting some of these people, and they're still caught up in it, really. You know, I'd say out of our group of, like, we were never big. I mean, it's probably closer to 50, but with the turnover, maybe 104, maybe 5, get a million, admit it was a cult and knows what that word means, it can talk about it. My God, everyone else is still in some form of trauma, denial, delusion, avoidance, whatever that is, to me, the most tragic part of the story. So, like, I was talking to this guy recently, and he's definitely spin doctor, this whole thing, and saying, you know, because he's actually had made a pretty good life for himself and been successful, and it's like, oh, you know, Frederick was the greatest teacher I've ever had. And I'm like, you know what? I'm not saying there weren't some good things that happened, because I think it's really important when you tell these stories. You have to talk about the good things, because everyone's got to know, like, why did you say totally? So that's a better question rather than, why did you just leave? It'd be like, why did you stay? That's a really important question to answer, because there are things that are really, really potentially positive that the group exposed to. Whether it's the camaraderie, whether it's just the sense of purpose, the team, the Aspiration of doing something bigger than yourself. All those things are really, really positive. So he's kind of taken that version of the whole thing. And I said to him, I have to look at the individual, and I have to say a huge component of his personality, which is flat out deception.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah.

[Fabio]

I said, he lied about who he was, his name, his background, his covert drug use, his covert sexual. Sexual forays. He got aids. He lied about that when he was sick and we were changing his bedsore, not knowing that we potentially could have gotten infected because he was dishonest. And this guy's response was like, well, he was human. I go, you know what? There's lots of humans out there that don't behave like that, and they certainly don't claim to be spiritual leaders. So I said, I'm going to have to agree to disagree with you on this one. And I could watch like, no one's pushed back on him, and I wasn't being aggressive at all. I was being very gentle. But I could see no one's really pushed back on him because he's spoken with the other guys who all support this diatribe that basically says we don't have to look back and admit on some level, we all got taken. The key to recovery is the humility to admit something happened. If you can't admit that, no healing takes place and the trauma stays in place, and it just kind of manifests in other areas, and it's absolutely awful. Witnessing that again two decades later has been triggering and disturbing and also empowering, and I'm just grateful I'm not where they are. I hope in telling the story that maybe some eyes will get opened. And certainly I think that there are people around them might start to go, oh, I think we need to talk about this.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah, I hope the more you tell your story, the more impact it will have on those people.

[Fabio]

And, yeah, I was talking to someone who actually has gone through this and has been on a recovery path, and they were deciding whether to talk about their experience. I said, I would never try to convince anyone of doing anything, but I certainly know if nothing gets said, nothing changes.

[Lola Blanc]

Right?

[Frederick von Meyers]

Ooh, I've never heard it put like that before.

[Fabio]

If you talk about it, there's a chance things might alter. So I'm taking my chances. I'm going to talk about it.

[Lola Blanc]

That's awesome. You're such a good storyteller. I've been enthralled this entire time.

[Frederick von Meyers]

I know. I forgot we were doing a podcast.

[Fabio]

That's why I'm in The movie business. I mean, this experience got me fascinated with telling stories because I would tell this story and people like, oh, my God, it sounds like you're in a movie. I'm like, no wonder I like movies so much because I'm literally in1 for 20 years of my life. And it got me fascinated with that because it's really how we educate each other. I mean, it. You come with up home, if you're married or with a partner, and you say, oh, you're not going to be able to happen to me today, and you tell a story. That's how we communicate. That's how we teach each other. That's how we find connection. And usually over the tough times, pain is the most intense bonding component. If you feel someone can see you and can relate to your pain, that's a much tighter bond than, let's just go drink and go party and have a great time. It's not the same thing.

[Lola Blanc]

Absolutely.

[Frederick von Meyers]

No, it is not.

[Lola Blanc]

Please tell that to the men I date who won't share their pain with me.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Give me your fade.

[Lola Blanc]

Maybe Fabio will share his pain with me.

[Fabio]

There you go.

[Frederick von Meyers]

I really liked reading that. Your mom, you got to make up with her.

[Fabio]

Yeah. One of the components of the story that I feel gets left out and when I try to do it, I'm really going to try to incorporate this, is the ripple effect. Like when you go down this journey, anyone who cares about you involuntarily gets dragged on this journey with you. It's like having a drug addict in the family in that sense. And so when you are someone who loves someone and you see them making choices, albeit under influence or whatever you may want, the situation may be, but things that are self destructive and self sabotaging and you feel powerless to stop them, you get deeply wounded. So for me, in the recovery process, besides all the homework I was doing to try to get my shit together, so to speak, and, you know, answer all those questions because, you know, not only did I try to have to figure out how to forgive myself, but also communicate this story to all my friends who are looking at me like, dude, what the fuck happened? Right? But then the other side of it, which I never really imagined until going through it, was seeing how wounded they were, all from this experience.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah.

[Fabio]

And that's just something I have to live with because I can't force them to heal that part. And so much of the focus is like, I just want to know you're okay. I just want to know you're okay. I'm like, listen, I'm doing okay. How are you doing? What do you mean? I'm fine. Fine. And I can see the wound. And that part's hard because it's counterintuitive in the sense that when someone goes through something, the more elaborate side of the equation, everyone carries so much guilt thinking they should have done something, maybe more or whatever. And I try to tell the story and communicate with them to say, there's nothing you could do. We were all, all way above our pay grade in dealing with this thing. None of us knew what the fuck was going. Yeah, none of us. So it's no one's fault. But I still can't do that healing for them. And that's the part that's hard. And that ripple effect, I think is really important because people, like when we talk about these cultic relationships and we talk about the severe ones, like the ones that we have gone through, when you then count in the ripples effect, I mean, this is having a monstrous effect on our whole psyche, of our whole society. And so this is not going to go away. This is something that really needs to be dealt with. I'm trying very consciously to put in certain things, like at Princeton and other schools and their curriculum to teach courses on mind control and influence techniques and manipulation tactics. Just kind of common sense things that you could teach a kid even at 13, 14. So they'd have a couple red flags available to them that when they're experiencing someone kind of sweeping them off their feet and being so complimentary and making them feel good, really fast, go, oh, this could be a manipulation.

[Lola Blanc]

Yes, yes.

[Frederick von Meyers]

The problem is narcissists are so fun, right? It's like, that should be the warning if anybody's making you have way too much fun way too fast, right?

[Fabio]

Yeah, yeah. But no one tells you. And the other side of it is like, mind control works on everyone, but you have to be receptive. So the only time you're really receptive of usually as if you're in some mode of seeking answers on some level. And if you encounter a person or a group that from your point of view seems to be giving you those answers, that seems like a great thing. So I tell people when you're in that mode of seeking everyone's. I'm like, oh, that's awesome, dude. It's so great asking the bigger questions, why am I here? What's it all about? Like, that's all great. But you should also be saying, now, be careful though. It's awesome. You're in that phase. Awesome. But every manipulator out there will see you as a target and they'll come after you. So be careful.

[Lola Blanc]

Right?

[Fabio]

No one says that. No one says that. And I think that's a really important component. Until we make this kind of more common language of ours, we're all just so vulnerable all the time. And we're kind of predisposed as humans to follow the nature of us as humans. We're kind of social creatures. We want to get along, to get along and we just want to be part of the pack. And so it's just kind of a DNA thing that if you want to become truly independent and become maybe a leader of your own life or others, you have to really work against that pre programming. And we don't realize that how hardwired it is to follow.

[Lola Blanc]

Which is not to say we shouldn't be a part of groups, not at all. We just shouldn't devote ourselves to one and one only. That controls our entire lives.

[Fabio]

Well, exactly. And it's just acknowledging that there is some predisposition there that you need to be aware of that can potentially self sabotage. And like anything, if you know about it, you can have a fighting chance to work with it. But if it's just unconscious, it's the same sort of thing. Why people find unhealthy relationships, it's familiar even though it's unhealthy. I just, oh, I know what this feels like. It feels like what I grew up.

[Lola Blanc]

With and that feels safe no matter how unsafe it is.

[Fabio]

Yeah. I mean, so all those dynamics I think are really important. And that's why these stories I think are great teachings tools because of the extreme nature of them. It's sometimes easier to see the more subtle version in your own life. And that's why I think it's important. Like the three of us, we tell our stories because they potentially can awaken people to say, oh wait, that actually is very, very relatable to me. And it really resonates with something, but it's just a more subtle version of it.

[Lola Blanc]

Right. Well, this is awesome. Do you have any social media you would like to share?

[Fabio]

Well, I'm on Instagram Oitrich, I'm on Facebook, but yeah, I'm not a huge social media person, but I eventually want to do some public speaking and that sort of thing and kind of talk to kids and build some awareness and these type of things. I always love doing the movies and all that sort of thing. I really love, but this is kind of my pet project. I get to work on cases where I help families get their kids out of cultic situations, that has been one of the most healing things that I've now potentially been a resource for others. Finding, healing and finding their family again. Listen, every family's got their issues and there's dysfunction, but when you find a common enemy, boy, the family can really step up sometimes. And I've watched it and witnessed it, and it is a beautiful thing to kind of see. And when you watch someone's critical thinking come back, the way I describe it is when you get indoctrinated, it's like a pilot light that gets turned down really, really low, but it never goes out right. Kind of like Horton Hears the who. It's all the people trying to find some way to connect to this person, get them information they're not getting in this kind of secluded group thing, you know? And so it's like all the who's trying to find, like, what's the sound that's going to make Horton hear the.

[Lola Blanc]

I do not understand this reference.

[Fabio]

Oh, yeah, it's the yop, right? You don't know what that little yop's going to be in. And the little who goes yop. And we are here. We are here. But that's what you're trying. Yeah, Dr. Seuss Yop. Yeah, but it's exactly like that. You're trying to find what's it going to be. And when the critical thinking kicks back in, boy, you pull yourself out. It's like all of a sudden it's like. It's like the fog parts and the clarity comes back and the light goes back on. It's incredible to see. So that's been remarkable. And actually, I've done some cases with Steve Hassan. I read his book. Book. And then when he did the 25th anniversary, I'm now one of the stories in the book. So it's come full circle. Like the book that got me out, actually, I'm now part of that. And I get to actually work with the guy who's one of the best out there.

[Lola Blanc]

So amazing.

[Fabio]

It's an incredible journey I've been on. And then I'm very grateful.

[Lola Blanc]

Well, keep up the good work.

[Fabio]

Well, thank you.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

And thanks so much for coming on.

[Fabio]

No, my pleasure. I hope I didn't talk your ear off, guys.

[Frederick von Meyers]

No, it was great.

[Lola Blanc]

Perfect, Perfect. My ear is on.

[Fabio]

Oh, thank you.

[Lola Blanc]

Okay, well, here we are. So, Megan, it's time for the question.

[Frederick von Meyers]

I'm ready.

[Lola Blanc]

Do you think that you would join Eternal Values? Yes. Tell me more.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Well, a Handsome young model type, taking me to clubs and telling me I'm awesome and giving me alcohol, underage and part is all I need to believe that you're from a different planet.

[Lola Blanc]

No, I see it. Holy shit. When I was, like, 19, all I wanted was to go to cool clubs.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

That was like, my goal in life.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah. And God knows I was like, going to in cahoots, literally, in wichita on like, 18 night. Imagine going to Studio 54.

[Lola Blanc]

Oh, my God. I was living here. And the cool club was.

[Frederick von Meyers]

What was it called?

[Lola Blanc]

Oh, Ladue Ledoux was like the sort of the douchier one, I feel like. Well, they both were. But Hyde.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Hyde was a mess.

[Lola Blanc]

Hyde. It was like Paris Hilton goes to Hyde. Or she had at least like a couple years before or whatever.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Do you remember my house?

[Lola Blanc]

Oh, I think so, yeah. Wait, was that on, like, right off of Hollywood?

[Fabio]

Yeah, bro.

[Lola Blanc]

All the DJs, it was like, Steve Aoki thought he was so cool. Who else? I can't remember. It was like, bands and DJs. And I would have followed any of them if they played at music festival. I would have done anything they said it didn't fucking matter. Would have followed. Would have joined those cults. Which brings us right back to the band discussion.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yep.

[Lola Blanc]

And how people in bands have too much power. Yeah. So sounds like we both would join Eternal values.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

I'm still so curious about the, like, about how the conversations began over. I wish I had, like, recordings of these conversations, you know, where the indoctrination's, like, slowly beginning. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal at first. It's just so.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Fascinating planet, you guys. It's no big deal.

[Lola Blanc]

It's a star, Megan. So sorry.

[Fabio]

Fuck.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah. A star. A star. But you know how. How. Yeah. How does the conversation go from I'm from a star and so are you to now give me all of your.

[Lola Blanc]

Money or how does it go from I like astrology and Eastern philosophy is interesting to. I'm communicating with the light people.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Right. Well, it does. And I can totally see myself following it, so.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah.

[Lola Blanc]

Yep.

[Frederick von Meyers]

100%.

[Lola Blanc]

Good. Well, glad we're in agreement on that one.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Although I don't think I would have been as patient as Hoyt was with the. After he died, when it was no longer fun and just living in the middle of nowhere and being abused. I think he was being really loyal. And even my most loyal tendencies would be, well, Studio 54 guy died, so I'm good.

[Lola Blanc]

But if you believed it, I know I know.

[Frederick von Meyers]

That's. I guess my, my thing. Like, I still think even if I believed it, I would be like, well, this isn't fun anymore, so I'll just like, not.

[Lola Blanc]

But that's the thing. That's exactly the frog in the hot water analogy. Because we would never join when it's at that point.

[Frederick von Meyers]

You know, I'm actually saying, like, I'm impressed with his ability to have such little ego because he was a supermodel and he was a really powerful person and he cared so much about this group that he was basically abused.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah. Yeah, he was. He was. Well, I'm so glad he got out of it. He seem to be thriving now.

[Frederick von Meyers]

We love him.

[Lola Blanc]

We're gonna hang. Love some Hoyt. Also love the name Hoyt. Never heard that name before.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah, it's a cool name.

[Lola Blanc]

Yeah. Okay, everyone. Well, thank you for listening.

[Frederick von Meyers]

Yeah, thank you for listening, guys. We hope you have a great week. And remember to follow your gut.

[Lola Blanc]

Watch out for red flags and never ever trust me.

[Fabio]

Bye.

[Lola Blanc]

Bye.

[Fabio]

Foreign.

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