288: What if you didn't know you were in a cult?
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Thank you all again for an amazing season. I'm so grateful to all of you, and I can't wait to share a new season with you, bringing you all new stories starting September 12th. But today, without further interruption, the final new episode of Season 12, following the incredible story of Hoyt Richards. What if you didn't know you were in a cult? It's a lot easier to fool a man than to convince a man that he's been fooled.

You really just see what you want to see because you don't want to face the reality that maybe you've gotten yourself in something that it's not. And most people don't have the humility to do it. From Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldein. You are listening to This Is Actually Happening. Episode 288. What if you didn't know you were in a cult?

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That third date took place up on Nantucket. It's an island off the Cape Cod coast. He actually proposed to her on that third date. And my mother responded first by saying, well, how many children do you want? And my dad said, I don't know, maybe four. She's like, at least four. She had six. So we fulfilled that. And then she said the second thing she said was, and you have to promise me that we come back to Nantucket every summer.

My dad fulfilled that promise as well, and the family still goes up to Nantucket every summer. I'm number four of the six children. A lot of towhead blondes when we were young, and I guess you would say we're kind of a Norman Rockwellian appearance. We grew up outside of Philadelphia, a very preppy, kind of old-money kind of area.

My cousins, they lived just two doors down from us, and they had four children. So I basically grew up in a family of 10 kids. So it was always a form of kind of controlled chaos. My dad worked so hard providing for the family. I'll tell you, it was great that he would always come home in time for dinner. And I grew up with the family all being together, sitting at the same table for dinner every single night.

I think I lived a fairly sheltered lifestyle growing up as far as what I got exposed to. And so I had a very sheltered perspective of the world in particular. My mother was a very, very strong presence. And she very much wanted for the world to operate in the way that she saw it. And in the same way, if you didn't behave in the way that she expected you to, you would kind of get the wrath.

She had a very, very clear picture of who she thought I should be and what I should do. We were kind of a Christian Protestant point of view. And so I think it developed a little bit of a people pleasing mechanism in myself. It was just a need to kind of find your mother's love and recognizing that she was much more clear on what and who I should be than I was. And I didn't have the confidence to really stand up for what I was because I didn't know yet.

I think that the people-pleasing mechanism in me was incredibly strong as far as what I had kind of interpreted from my experiences with my mother was the best way for me to get along was try to figure out what people wanted me to be and try to be that so they would like me. And the destructive part of that mechanism is, you know, on some level, you're feeling like who you are just on your own isn't enough.

It allowed me to have a certain kind of insecurity about myself. And it just kind of became an automatic pilot for me of someone who just wanted to be liked, wanted to have attention, and was willing to mold myself to become what I thought people expected of me to hopefully get the attention and love that I was looking for. My family would always spend our summers up on Nantucket.

We belonged to the yacht club and my dad was an excellent sailor. I played tennis. We would water ski and do all sorts of boating activities and hit the beach all the time. Nantucket was a very insulated, white, wealthy area and was always the highlight of the summer in a place that I had a whole group of friends that I would only see in the summer. They were my summer friends.

They had told me about this guy that they had met a few times on the island. That was kind of this flashback to the 60s, you know, because at this time it's like 1978, I guess is when it would have been. This guy was hippie-esque in the fact that he was all into Eastern cultures and yoga and, you know, astrology and things like that. And his name was Frederick, but I'd never met him. This group of friends and I would always meet at this one beach. It was called Nobadir Beach.

And this one day I arrived and I put my towel down and I'm just kind of getting kind of situated. And this man walks up to me and puts his towel down right next to me and starts engaging me in conversation.

He was in his probably, I'd say mid thirties. So he's like 20 years older than I am, but he's not talking to me like he's much older than me. Like he's very, very relaxed and easygoing and kind of has this information that he wants to kind of talk about, of which revolves around these Eastern religions and things. And I'm thinking, oh, this must be this guy, you know, Freddie Frederick that they've, I've heard about from my friends. And

We sit there on the beach and we talk for probably an hour, maybe a little bit longer than that.

And he's drawing diagrams in the sand, kind of like yin and yang things and talking about the balance in the universe and telling me about astrology and about the ancient civilizations of Egypt. And I just remember thinking at the time, you know, it's like, why is this guy talking to me? And I could tell that he was probably gay, but he wasn't trying to make a pass at me. He was just being very, very friendly.

I'd never really been a religious person in any way. You know, I'd gone to church with the family and I just didn't buy into the Christian sentiment that I was being kind of exposed to. And then I'm sitting there on the beach with this guy, Freddie, and he's talking about karma and the fact that for every reaction, there's an equal and opposite reaction. And there's this sense of an accountability and responsibility for what you do and say or what you choose not to say and not to do.

Being introduced to these things, which I'd heard about but didn't really know, and being presented in a way of like, oh, this is the way to figure out how to be a better version of yourself. Well, that makes more sense to me. He said a couple of things to me that I'll never forget. He looked over at my other friends and he said, you're not like your other friends. You're different. And I remember thinking to myself, what's he mean? I don't see myself as being different than the other ones.

And he said, you're very smart. So you're going to understand what I have to tell you now. Your path is different than what you probably even realize. And I just remember coming away from the conversation going like, why did he tell me these things? And what did any of that mean? But I was intrigued. I liked the fact that he pointed me out as being somehow special.

I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I like to say, I didn't have a game plan. I didn't have a passion. And when you don't have a game plan and you feel like you should, and you meet someone who's really excited by theirs, and it certainly sounds better than your no plan, you're going to be receptive. I wish at a young age, someone had told most of us as youth that feeling good too fast with someone is a potential red flag.

flattery, ego massaging, all that sort of stuff is a very effective manipulation tool

If you're not aware, it just feels good. I mean, I don't care how healthy your family was and how much they told you they loved you and how much attention they gave you. Someone showering you with attention and compliments is pretty irresistible, especially if you've got some insecurities like I did as a teenager and being probably the middle child in a family and trying to seek my own individuality and independence and not knowing what that looked like. I felt very seen and heard.

I think one of the reasons I kind of kept quiet about this friendship that developed with Freddie was because it felt like something special and unique to me. So I didn't really share it with my siblings or certainly with my parents because I'm like, oh, this is my thing.

Yes, he's maybe eccentric, but it's much more of like, oh my God, I've been seeking on some level to find some answers. This person seems to be giving me some answers from my opinion. So you never consider that maybe this could be something dangerous.

There was a very high academic standard that kind of emerged out of my family. And some of my best friends from high school that were older than me had gone to Princeton and I had gone and visited them. So I had some great experiences already on campus and I had the opportunity to get into Princeton. And that's how I ended up there.

And I played freshman football and got to meet a whole new group of friends from all over the country. And I love the campus. It's beautiful. So I only saw Freddie during the summers when I go up to Nantucket and it would be sporadic. You know, I'd just bump into him around town and we're on the beach and we can have a chat. And when I was 18, I do remember him saying, oh, this year is going to be very, very important to you. And it's going to change the way you look at everything.

I can't remember. I think I knew at that time he lived in New York, but I never, ever contemplated going to New York myself. But he's like, oh, you have to come to New York. I'll introduce you to my friends. We go to Studio 54. You'll have an incredible time. And I'm thinking like, wow, that sounds awesome. Because I'd heard about Studio 54 and we had to tell my buddy or two like, hey, man, I got someone in New York. He says we can stay at his apartment. We can go to Studio 54. Let's go. You know, I thought that I'm taking advantage of him.

The first time I went to New York to see him, I got to his apartment and his apartment, boy, it is a trip. Like I've never seen an apartment like this. It's very small. It's up on the fourth floor. And you walk through the door and you're immediately hit by like new age music. And there's all these humidifiers going off. So it's all this kind of fresh air. And the place is painted with all these vibrant colors like purple and green and

You know, there's this like Lucite pyramid on a glass table right when you walk in. And there's all these symbols from all the different religions around the world that are, it's like a shrine of some sort. You know, I met a couple of his friends and some people that were kind of around my age, college kids going to Columbia that were there, I could identify with. He's got this kind of following, like an entourage, I guess you could say.

And then we went to Studio 54 and it's like, just like you see in the movies, they just stacked five, six people deep trying to get in to this club where there's just two guys in the front picking and choosing who gets to go in. And we get out of the cab and, you know, Freddie, you know, motions to the guy and he waves us over and we were like six or eight people. He just whisked us right in. And I'm like, holy shit, this is amazing.

go through the opening doors and it's kind of dark there's this girl that kind of greets us and she's literally wearing nothing but scotch tape like a scotch tape bikini and i'm just thinking like this is crazy you know there's clearly celebrities around and music pounding and people are drinking and and then as the night goes on there's literally you get to see people having sex like literally on the dance floor or up you know these kind of rafters or these kind of wide sofa type things and

I mean, I couldn't believe what I was witnessing. Freddie was very, very effective at introducing new people. There'd be some gorgeous girls like, oh, you're fabulous. You must meet my friend, you know, and just introduce you. And all of a sudden, the next thing you know, you're talking to this beautiful model-esque type girl and like thinking, how did I get here? And then what would happen by the end of the night, there would be our posse, but then there might be two or three new people that we'd met at the club.

and they would be invited with us and we'd go back to freddy's tiny little one-bedroom apartment and we would sit up and have tea and talk about all these spiritual ideas and then freddy would sleep in the one bedroom he'd go back and retire there but the living room area which is the only existing rest of the apartment there would be these futon mats they were like one inch futons we'd roll them out and there'd be a pillow and a blanket and you would sleep on the floor that was the setup

Every time I'd go, we'd go to either Studio 54 or Club A, you know, Zenon. And sometimes we'd hit all of them in one night. I mean, it was a crazy world that I never thought I'd experience, and certainly not as a 19-year-old.

And through these conversations, these kind of after club tea parties, I was starting to take an interest in some of the philosophy that Freddie was putting forward, a lot of these Eastern philosophers. And I had friends at college that I would introduce and they started to get interested in some of the stuff as well.

I wanted to do well at school, but it didn't become as important to me anymore. Now I was much more into the social arena. I loved playing football. I loved the friends I had from football. Like there was a real shift from like, I don't want to just be the academic guy. I wanted, I want to do more things. And I got very curious about a lot of different things in that stage.

I was playing football. All my roommates were football players. And between my sophomore year and junior year, I was having a lot of problems with my shoulders. I have a condition that's called a subluxation. And that ended up wearing down my shoulders. So that seemed very problematic and very, very depressing and not good news for me to hear. And so I was really distraught.

But the circumstances that played out was I had had this friend that I had met earlier who lived in New York and he was doing commercials. And so I met up with him for lunch. And so John said, listen, I got to go by my commercial agent. Why don't you come with me to sit in the lobby and it won't be long.

And so I was sitting in the lobby waiting for John to do his appointment. And one of the other agents sticks his head out and says, excuse me, are you are you here to see someone? I said, no, no, I'm just waiting for my friend. He's like, so are you an actor? I said, no, no, I'm a football player. He's like, oh, OK. So have you ever thought about acting? I'm like, no.

It led to me just going inside and meeting with the person and reading a couple of lines of like what it would be like in a commercial. And I remember being so self-conscious and turning completely beet red. You know, I just was so uncomfortable, nervous. And the guy goes, you definitely need to work on that, but you've got a great look. And I think we'd like to work with you.

It just opened this door of possibility that I never imagined and complemented with the fact that I just got this bad news about my so-called football career. And I was kind of faced with this 21-year-old decision of like, well, if I can't be a football star, maybe I should just try to be a star.

Like three weeks later, I get a phone call to go up to New York for a Brides Magazine cover. Okay, not that I've ever opened Brides Magazine, whatever. I get on the train, I head up to New York, and the woman I'm doing the cover with is this model, Kathy Ireland. Kathy Ireland was a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue model.

So I was like, I can't believe I'm seeing this person in the flesh who, quite honestly, I had fantasized like any adolescent kid would do. And that completely changed the whole game for me to think like, wait a second, this could be really, really fun. So I was still at school and Ford Model Agency is calling me.

And having an opportunity to not only make some money, but travel and be around beautiful girls and this whole lifestyle sounded like a great solution of what to do until I figure out what I want to do. You know, the senior year is supposed to be with all your friends, your last year all together. And I was spending a lot of time in New York. I was working and I would spend the free time. I'd also spend a couple of days hanging with Freddie and the friends.

I'd gotten very, very into this strict diet that Freddie had come up with, you know, eliminating all processed foods. I mean, a healthy diet. But my roommates were getting concerned and my mother in particular was getting very concerned. They always say, no one knows you like your mother does. And I think in this case, it was very, very appropriate. My mother sensed that I was being influenced by

My roommates had gone to the school psychiatrist and said, you know, we're worried about our roommate. He's not spending much time here. He seems very different. He's changing his behavior. He's painted his room purple. You know, the therapist is like, well, what's he doing? He's like, well, he's eating really healthily and he's, you know, he's not partying as much as he used to. And the therapist is like, well, those aren't necessarily bad things. And they're like, yeah, but he's so different. Everyone just didn't know what was really happening.

But my mother and my dad were concerned. And so they forced a meeting where they wanted to come to Princeton. And my roommates were there. I was there with three of the people involved in the group that, you know, a part of Freddie's entourage. Freddie did not come, but there was a lot discussed. There was, you know, I wouldn't say per se raised voices, but there were tensions there.

My mother, she even threw out words like, you know, I think you're in a cult. And I'm like, first of all, I would never get involved with something like that. And you don't even know what that is. And I don't know what that is. Like, stop saying stuff like that. My parents didn't feel any better. And I came away feeling much like the way the group had told me going in that your parents are never going to understand. Your friends are never going to understand. They're on a different path. You're seeking a spiritual life. They have no interest in that. They're just never going to get it.

I just have to kind of go do my thing and leave them in the dust. I graduated in May of 1985, and I moved right into New York, and I just started working. That was really kind of crazy to walk out of school and know that I'm walking right into a high-paying job

But, you know, I had had exposure to Brooke Shields when I was at Princeton and she actually became a good friend of mine. And I just watched how she dealt with her success. And she is just such a class act. And she was such a grounding force for me going into something that I didn't feel comfortable. She was a great example of saying, you can do this and manage it well.

You could say I was the class of 85 coming into the modeling business. And in that class was Cindy and Claudia Schiffer and Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington and Stephanie Seymour. That was all kind of like my class of models that all entered the industry at the same time. So I was there front row and center as this whole supermodel label emerged and became a thing. And all of a sudden, my career took off.

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And so you're kind of a fish out of water. You might be in a place where you don't speak the language, but you're in this incredible environment. You can take the weekends and take a train almost anywhere and experience all of Europe. And, you know, it was this opportunity to just be in a place you never imagined finding yourself doing a job that was hard to explain to anyone outside that realm. I mean, who thinks they're going to grow up to be a male model? Like it just doesn't happen. So it's a lot of weird feelings you have.

And simultaneously, I was starting to spend more time in Freddie's apartment and meeting more of his friends and getting more into this lifestyle. And I graduated college. And at that point, I moved right into Freddie's apartment. I was given like a three by three foot area in the closet that was mine to keep my stuff. It was kind of just a shared space and almost no privacy. And that was my home.

When I was working, I lived the high roller life. And then when I was staying at the apartment, I was living this kind of spiritual devotee type ashram existence. One of our basic philosophies within the group was that the world as we know it, and it's what the Hindus call the Maya, which is the material world. So the material world was, for lack of a better description, an illusion, meaning it wasn't really real material.

The world's just there to teach you. Freddie was all into this astrology thing, right? And different religions and things that he had put together into his, what he called his philosophy. But it was really kind of just a lot of plagiarizing a bunch of different other people and finding what he found worked for him. But the big thing that he did is the idea of some sort of doomsday outcome to the world.

You've got like revelations in the Bible. I mean, a lot of different religions talk about the end days and all this sort of thing. So Freddie had a version of that, which he had largely hijacked from this guy, Edgar Cayce. And the theory was the magnetic poles are kind of wobbling. And at a certain point, the wobble gets too big and the planet needs to realign itself to kind of get back on its axis. And in that realignment, basically the shit hits the fan.

You know, land that's below water comes above, land that's above water goes down, and basically 99% of the population would get wiped out. And apparently this has happened many times in the history of the planet, and that this was imminent, and it was going to happen around the turn of the century,

If you can create a ticking clock in any story, meaning that there's an event that's going to happen that's going to really affect everyone involved, that creates this ticking clock of urgency. So there's this incredible need to get it all together and perform and make it work. Otherwise, it's doomsday. There's this whole sci-fi element to Freddie's philosophy. So he was also claiming that he was in touch with the...

The Galactic Federation of Ashtar Command, you know, which is this intergalactic fleet that apparently is nearby our solar system waiting in tow for when the moment was ready to come to the planet, pull out the people that were on the program. You would be, in essence, kind of beamed up and, you know, put in the rejuvenation chambers and trained. And then after all the shit hits the fan with the pole shift on the Earth,

We'll send back all these new leaders to repopulate and rebuild the new earth. And so the big thing with Freddie, once you met him and once you started to hear whispers about some of this, was you were waiting for the day when he acknowledged to you that you were, in fact, an Arcturian and he had come back to find you and you were now part of the team.

You know, those are the type of things that when you hear they sound ludicrous, but it's like this information comes out in a piecemeal manner. It's not like first time you meet Frederick, he's talking about the pole shift. It's something that happens over time and it's kind of given to you as a reward to you kind of sticking around and being available to find out more of the truth if you've performed well enough to have earned it.

It's not so much that you're able to critically think about how ludicrous this sounds. It's more just the psychological scar of why am I being left out? You just want to be part of the team. And sure enough, I was told I was. Frederick made it very clear from the get-go that the downfall of mankind was romantic love. The basic operating premise is why would you bring a child into this type of environment with basically the shit hitting the fan?

That was one side of it. But the other side of it was that just romantic love was something that took away your love of God. It was frowned upon. And he claimed to be androgynous, and he had kind of moved past all this. So within the group, initially, it was very monastic. Any kind of relationship of any sexual nature was initially frowned upon.

Because I was modeling and I was out there around this heavily sexualized environment, I was given a little bit of leeway because of, number one, I think I was bringing in a lot of money and I was a main benefactor to the group. And Freddie had been a model and so he kind of knew that world. And the area that I was given a little leeway was that I could have an occasional sexual encounter, but I can never get involved in a relationship

And then I also had a living situation that would have been impossible to even try to get involved with someone. I couldn't bring them back to my apartment. How could I explain to them that I'm living on the floor in an apartment sharing space with sometimes three or four other people and my guru living in the bedroom? You know, I could talk to people about certain kind of spiritual ideas, but I would never divulge what I was involved with because I just figured it would be problematic.

I considered all those people on the outside part of the matrix, in essence, and that the only people I could really trust were the people back in Freddie and Friends, kind of the entourage. But the problem in that was it wasn't really how I felt. Like, I had some great friends from college, and I missed them.

And likewise, I was meeting people in the industry, whether it was my agents, whether it was other models that really seemed like good, decent, well-meaning people. And to be constantly being told that I needed to paint these people in an adversarial light and that they were somehow potentially dangerous to me. Basically, we're your spiritual family. We're the only ones that you can trust. We're the only ones you can confide in.

So whether I was in the group and lying about the fact that I had these relationships or people on the outside that I actually cared about, I couldn't divulge that. So I felt like I was being dishonest that way. And then likewise, whether it was my friends or new friends that I was making in the industry, I can never be transparent of the fact that I was in this group. So I felt like I'm lying to them as well. I just felt like I ended up lying to everyone all the time.

Freddie had this kind of sidekick guy, John Andreatis, who was being groomed to be kind of the protege that was going to succeed Frederick. Because Frederick had always claimed he wasn't going to be here that long. And he was just here to train us. And then he was going to be relieved. And then we were going to have to deal with the aftermath.

So John was out there kind of promoting Fred and what we were all about. And he actually found this woman who had written eight or nine books on different metaphysical topics. Her name was Ruth Montgomery, and she was a proper journalist and had been like press attache to like five or six presidents and had a legitimate journalism career.

And she started to discover that she was getting these messages kind of channeled through her. And she discovers entities from the other side, you know, that people have passed on. She called them her guides. And so she had written these eight or nine books on all these metaphysical topics. But ultimately, John reached out to her and said, oh, I love the work that you're doing. And you should meet my teacher, Frederick von Mears.

So she meets with Freddie and ends up including Freddie in her latest book, which is called Aliens Among Us, and has four chapters specifically on Freddie and Freddie and his friends and his mission and work that he's doing here. And at this point, the group has finally been named. Up to this point, we didn't really have a name. But when the Ruth Montgomery book came out, Aliens Among Us, we incorporated and called ourselves Eternal Values.

And that was the catalyst that catapulted us from being this little group in New York that was just going to have, you know, hovering around Freddie the Mystic to being all of a sudden now we're in, you know, 50 countries and all these different languages. We had to set up an office. We had a reading list so that we could sell books. We created autographs.

audio tapes. We started doing lectures in New York City where people could come and learn different metaphysical and spiritual information. We had a cable television show, you know, cable access where you could put anything on TV back then. It became heavily about recruitment, heavily about, you know, making money. Freddie was offering people to do their life readings. He had a backlist going back, you know, multiple years of people wanting to get their star charts done by him.

And that's where it really became what you would describe much more of a cultic operation in that sense. Yeah, it was crazy times. So John's being all set up to take over the reins. But John, at one of these seminars, meets this model from Ford and kind of falls in love and started spending more and more time with her. And he actually left the group. And that really fractured the group because all of a sudden now there's this big power struggle going on.

And simultaneously, Freddie is becoming more and more ill. As Freddie's health is decaying, Vanity Fair reaches out to him and says, Hey, we've heard about this great work you're doing, and we'd love to include you in the story we're doing on all these new religious teachers in America. And Freddie's like, Awesome! Sign me up!

First of all, Freddie's had like five facelifts in the time that I knew him. And so he's recovering from a facelift. He's dying and he's getting photos taken in the apartment with Vanity Fair to talk about this great spiritual leader that he is, not knowing that it's all set up.

There was a guy who I had actually gone to college with who rings me up and says, hey, are you involved with this group, Eternal Values? And I was like, yeah. And he's like, I'm working at Vanity Fair now, and this is not going to be a very good article on your group. I think you're involved in something dangerous. And I was like, what? So Frederick died in early 1990. And then the Vanity Fair article came out five days later.

It was absolute mayhem when the Vanity Fair article came out. I and I think every one of the groups said, it's all just bullshit. You know, it's just lies. It's all exaggerations, that sort of thing. Part of the Vanity Fair article was saying that he was ripping people off, which he was.

I'd gotten a credit card, like a platinum American Express, and then Freddie wanted one. So I'm making this money, but I got a credit card for Freddie and he's going out spending 10, 15K a month, just showing off to people as if it's his own money. And I'm paying the bills.

As Frederick's physical health was diminishing, it was all being attributed to the fact that he had had this bike accident out in California where he had smashed his jaw in a fall and ended up having a staph infection, which was ravaging his head and causing him problems. So that was the narrative that we were being told.

The actual narrative that was happening was, and this is, you know, again, remember, I'm living in the apartment. So what would happen in the apartment is kind of street-like people would come by and he would take this guy into the back room and he would read their star chart and kind of initiate them into the spiritual life and try to be helping them.

And then he would come out and say to me, he said, oh, you know, Lord H, you know, that was my nickname, Lord H, would you please just help this person look, they're down on their life, they're struggling. And so I'd whip off like a hundred bucks and pay this person thinking they're down on their luck. And, you know, I come to find out that these were actually street hustlers so that they would come and turn tricks in the back room with him, unbeknownst to all of us, because he's claiming to us that he is beyond anything sexual. He's asexual. He's beyond all that. He

So that was all BS. We didn't find that out until after he actually contracted AIDS. And even that admission of AIDS was something the group wouldn't acknowledge. Even though I wasn't witnessing what was going on in the back, the situation was such that it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to maybe figure out what's going on.

None of us knew anything about what cults were about. And I remember I actually got a book, and it wasn't a great book, but talked about cults. And I remember reading through it just so that I could try to understand, like, why are people calling us this?

And the Manny Farrow article said that. And just to show the level of denial you can be in, I'm like going through this list and I'm saying, well, we do do that. We do do that. We do this. And so I'm like, okay, so I can understand why people think we're a cult. Like I know we're not one. We need to minimize our cult-like behavior because otherwise people are going to think we're in a cult. I just wasn't ready or willing to see it. It's a lot easier to fool a man than to convince a man that he's been fooled.

You really just see what you want to see because you don't want to face the reality that maybe you've gotten yourself in something that it's not. And most people don't have the humility to do it. Their ego gets to this place where they just can't admit to themselves that they got manipulated and that led them down this path where a lot of bad things happened.

Frederick had said when the storms and all the catastrophes leading up to the pole chips were going to happen, the western mountains of North Carolina was going to end up being beachfront property. So we bought this lake property in the western North Carolina area, like near Asheville, and that was going to be the headquarters. Freddie actually lived long enough to get down there for about a month or two before he died.

After Freddie dies, the group went through a real power struggle and David Seaman ends up in the reins. He's a chiropractor. So now everything's being moved to North Carolina. This guy, David Seaman's in control and he takes the group into this much more of a survivalistic approach of where we have four years of stored food. We have guns, we have gold bullion because the economies are going to collapse. You're going to need money.

and bunkers and all this crazy shit and he gets really into the kind of patriot movement of you know these people saying that you don't pay taxes and the government's all corrupt and all the conspiracy theories of the new world order and all this stuff so we all go down that rabbit hole

As things kind of get more intense, people are always being kind of watchdogged and monitored. You kind of just look after each other and make sure everyone's doing it, you know, as far as following the rules. And if you're not, then everyone kind of teams up on you and you get put in what's called the hot seat where you get sat down and you'll get literally verbally assaulted for anywhere from an hour to sometimes six to eight hours sometimes.

And it's just flat out abusive. But at the time, you just think it's appropriate punishment because you're not following the training. You know, a lot of these groups kind of want you to cut off from your family. It's kind of like you have to disconnect. And at this point, it's been three years since I've seen my parents. So there was talk amongst my family to maybe try to do an intervention because now that Freddie was out of the picture, they thought, oh, maybe our son's vulnerable. We can maybe get him out of this thing.

But my brother Rory, he took a different approach and he started to educate himself. And he starts reading up on it. He's like, oh my God, my brother is in a cult. What are we going to do? And Rory's like, I'm going to get it done one way or another.

And Rory doesn't even barely have a job at this point, but he begs, borrows and steals enough money to put together this intervention. And it was kind of set up as a guy weekend. We're going to go up to Newport with Rory and this other guy, Nick, from college. And we get there and the intervention is there. And, you know, it's all set up.

I feel devastated and betrayed. And the next morning at the crack of dawn, I sneak out to go to the airport. And my brother wakes up and realizes I'm gone. So they're literally still in their pajamas. They jump in the car and run to the airport. And they're trying to confront me and trying to stop me from leaving. It failed. And ultimately, it led to me not speaking to Rory for almost a decade.

I had had a boring, almost professional image in the industry of showing up on time, Ivy League rad, polite, so very kind of milquetoast. And all of a sudden Vanity Fair comes out and everyone thinks I'm in a cult and people are booking me literally to see if I'm going to do something weird on set.

And my career kind of re-exploded to a whole nother level because I guess they say there's no such thing as bad publicity. So I'm traveling even more than normal. And so I'm not even around in North Carolina. I was traveling constantly. I was doing all these huge campaigns. I was doing lots of the high profile magazines and I was really doing well. And around that time, someone came up with the

of like, well, who's a male supermodel? Like, can we know about the female? Who's a male supermodel? And so because my career was peaking, I just happened to be at the right place in the right time. And I was basically named the world's first male supermodel. Because I was traveling and I'd be on different time zones, I would always have to let the group know what my schedule was, where I'd be, what the hotel would be, that sort of thing. But sometimes they would be having one of these altercations with someone in the group and the person would be in the hot seat and

And then some subject would come up and they'd be like, you know, and Hoyt, that asshole, he's just like that. Get that asshole on the phone right now. And so I get the phone call to this hotel, maybe 3, 4 a.m. And just get screamed at through the phone for anywhere from two to three hours sometimes to literally where my alarm goes off, where I've got to go to work. And then I'd show up on set like, oh, we all think it's so great you're here. You're so amazing. And I just like, what is my life?

You know, it's like I'm over there being Johnny Supermodel. I'm working with Naomi Campbell or Cindy Crawford and kissing them. And all I can think in my heart and soul is what a piece of shit I am. What a loser I am. And I have everyone so fooled. And the group used to always tell me if the world ever knew really what I was like, I would just be a laughingstock. And they were always holding that like, you just wait. We'll go tell the press what you're really like.

I would have agents I would have, you know, dinners with or whatever. And they were talking about how great my career was. Yeah, I said, but I'm really just an asshole. And they're like, what are you what are you talking about? You're like one of the nicest people we know. And you're so perfect. I go, no, you don't. You don't know me. I'm fighting my urge the whole day to just feel like I'm just this lowly piece of shit that doesn't deserve to be here. And that no one around me who thinks I'm great has any real idea of who I really am. And I'm just a fraud.

And I just couldn't believe that I was doing anything of any benefit. And I thought my only get out of jail free card was to keep throwing money. So it was very critical for me to keep making money.

The North Carolina thing goes over a decade. And by late '98, I'm still jet-setting around and I'm in Paris or Milan or Brussels, whatever. I'm looking around, I'm like, none of these things are happening. Where are the storms? Where are the economies collapsing? Where's all this devastation and thing that he was saying was going to be a lead up to the grand event? On some level, I guess you could say my critical thinking is starting to come back.

A certain weak moment, I get up the courage to vent this to the group. And of course, I get pummeled for kind of being like a blasphemer or a heretic against the legacy of Freddie because he claimed it was going to be this time. They start to realize that I might be pulling away, which I was. They start saying, it's too dangerous for Hoyt to be out there. He's just clearly getting lost.

And so they kind of orchestrate this plan that I'm going to do a couple of big jobs to make some money. And then I'm going to move to North Carolina and I'm going to give up modeling. And I'm just going to work there doing all the jobs that no one else wants to do to teach me humility, because I've clearly gotten too lost in the material world and no longer understand what's really important and the important work that they're doing down there.

This all crescendos to the point where they demand that I have to go to North Carolina. Once things kind of moved down to North Carolina, I was still in New York and I was there by myself. And I met this girl, Lara.

She was coming off of a very unhealthy marriage and she was not looking for a relationship either. And so the way it worked out is I had to get to see her like maybe once a month. And that's how this relationship began. And that went on for almost three or four years. I never imagined to fall in love. And that's kind of what it ended up becoming.

Simultaneously, at this time, things were heating up down in North Carolina. And it was around that time that I divulged to them, "Oh, by the way, also, I've been seeing this girl for the last three, four years." And of course, that was also met with massive resistance. At the time when I was being forced to move to North Carolina,

and stop my career, I was also forced to break up with Donna. I'd been in New York and two of the guys from North Carolina were also in New York at that time. And so all of us agreed to meet with Donna.

We sat down for dinner and they just immediately started tearing into me of how I had been completely selfish and non-transparent with her. And this meal went on where they just psychologically tore me down in front of her. And I just went catatonic.

She had never seen me behave like that. It scared the hell out of her. And the meal eventually ended. And then the two guys from North Carolina left. And then I went home with Donna and she was so upset. And she's just like, I've never seen you like that. Is this how they always treat you? And of course, I felt the need to defend them at that time.

She's like, I'm telling you, these are not your friends. People do not treat people like this. But I was so indoctrinated and I was so convinced that I had made the mistake to even get involved with her that I brought all this on myself. These groups control not only your mind, but also your heart. And I left her in tears and it was a horrible situation. I just remember feeling so awful about the way it was handled and it was never the way I wanted it.

And then I had to move to North Carolina. And shortly thereafter, they dictated to me a letter that I had to write to her that basically said, I can never see you again.

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I have to be the first one up. I have to be the last one to bed on a futon mat in the office. So I was literally and figuratively in the doghouse. Like I'm supposed to be so happy that I'm down here with my friends and I'm helping out whatever way I can. But of course, I'm not thinking along those lines. And so it finally crescendos with them saying, well, you just keep thinking that you could leave and go make some money. So we're going to eliminate that. And they started shaving my head all the way down to where I was bald so that they said, now you can't model.

And so I would have weekly shavings to make sure I keep my hair super, super short so that there was no way I could even entertain the idea of leaving and going and accepting a job or something.

I'm looking in the mirror and I look like a convict and I'm thinking to myself, God, if I had hair, I could actually probably be in London right now doing something kind of awesome. I guess I'm really not spiritual because I would really rather be there than scrubbing the toilet right now. I guess I am really as full of shit as they've been telling me for the last 15, 20 years. I guess this is really true. And so I would then get lambasted for having this shitty attitude and I would be put on the hot seat.

And I was literally put on the hot seat, and I'm not exaggerating, every night for about nine weeks straight. Every night. And sometimes it would be an hour. Sometimes it would be 10 or 12 hours. And it got so bad that I finally just said, you know, I just can't take this anymore. And it wasn't like I identified what they were doing was wrong or abusive.

I thought they're only trying to stop me from myself. It's very much kind of like the battered wife. You know, the sentiment that's coming from them is look what you're making us do to you. And I'm convinced that the only reason this is happening is because I'm so impossible. I'm broken. I'm not fixable.

And so the least I could do is relieve them of my dead weight so that all this time that they're spending with me, especially in these hot seats, could be used to do something more constructive. Why spend it on a loss-caused loser like me?

But the part that really kept me kind of hanging in and still taking all the abuse was thinking, but I was supposed to be in a position where it's going to help these thousands or even millions of people rebuild the new world. And I didn't want to be karmically responsible for all those people. I didn't want to be that guy. So I kept trying to make it work. But I finally got to the point where I'm like, you know what? I don't know what's going on. None of this makes sense. I just have to leave.

On the night of July 3rd, 1999, I had a cab organized to meet me at like 3.30 in the morning down the side of the mountain at this restaurant. So paranoid and so freaked out.

I get to the side of the driveway and rather than get on the road, I decided it's going to be better for me to go down the precipice and migrate along the side of the lake so that I'm not on the road in case they do see I'm gone, that they're not going to be able to find me. I remember just creeping down through the leaves and things and branches crackling and that sort of thing. And once I felt like I was out of earshot, I just bolted.

There's this one bridge and I remember that was wide open and I'm like, they could totally see me there. But I remember sprinting across there thinking like this, there's just no way I'm ever coming back. And I get in the cab and I was gone. I had about $3,000 to my name on a credit card. I had no other money.

I went up to New York for about four or five days staying in a Howard Johnson's hotel. And then I went to a friend's place in Brooklyn. And then one of the guys from the group actually came up and figured out I might be there. And my friend who I played football with went down there and said, no, leave. And he's like, no, I just want to talk to him. He's like, no, this is over. And then I eventually went up to see my parents. I hadn't seen them in about 12 years.

They were really surprised to see me. And of course I show up with a shaved head and, you know, and I convinced them it was some extreme modeling job, but you know, they, they sensed something had changed. One of my longest friendships of other male models has been with Fabio. Fabio Lanzoni, he's an Italian guy that I think most people know from, I can't believe it's not butter. And we used to work out together. We hit the clubs together and

He had moved to California. I hadn't seen him for a long time. He had always had this open-door policy, and so I just kind of appeared on his doorstep.

And he's like, come on in. And he frames it beautifully. He just said, he goes, you know, I saw you and you were just like a shadow of the person I knew. And I knew something terrible would happen. But he goes, I've learned in life that it's best not to ask someone in that situation and just give them their space and allow them to kind of process things. And when they're ready, they'll come talk to you. And so he gave me a room there rent free because I had no money. And he gave me a car.

And I stayed there for about nine, 10 months. I couldn't really make sense of how I'd gotten myself to where I was. I was conscious of the fact that I turned my back on this incredible opportunity and I was going to have to pay some sort of penalty for that. So it might be some sort of physical harm of some sort or some sort of mental breakdown or

And I also had a paranoia that maybe one of them might show up somehow. I just remember feeling like this doom that somehow something bad was going to happen. When you're involved with something like Eternal Values, you feel like you've got this important role involved.

you're going to do on this global landscape. I mean, as irrational as that sounds, they call it in the cult survivor community, they call it the buzz, like this idea that you're going to make a difference and your life is going to have meaning and you're going to affect people in a positive way. All those things are enticing to your ego. And then when you realize that you didn't measure up and because of your own flaws and weaknesses, you're not going to be able to fulfill that

Everything you can think of pales in comparison. And that was still kind of playing in my psyche even after I left. Like, I've done something wrong. I've wronged God. I've wronged this all-important work. And somewhere I'm going to have to pay the price and it's not going to be pretty. I was experiencing major PTSD from having gone through this experience and not knowing what it was.

I met up with a guy who had been in the group with me, but had left like four years before. And his name was Dar.

And Dar was really struggling. And I think it's always easier to see someone else's situation than your own. So when I linked up with Dar, I could see he was having a hard time and I felt like I'd overlasted my stay with Fabio. He'd been so generous. And so we ended up moving in with each other as roommates. And we spent the first six months kind of deconstructing our experiences at Eternal Values. It's like, hey, man, remember when this happened? What do you think was going on there? Wasn't that weird? Like, what

What do you think that was about? You know, people have been saying for a long time that this was a cult. Do you think it could have been? He's like, no, no. I'm like, I don't think so either. But why don't I at least look into it? At least I can cross it off the list after doing some research and find out maybe really what it was.

And so I got this book called "Combating Cult Mind Control" by Steve Hassan. And he had been in a group called the Moonies, and it was virtually identical to my indoctrination process. You could just change the names. That's where the light bulb went off, and that's where I realized that actually cult was the not only accurate term, but what I'd gone through wasn't even a special group. It was just a textbook type thing. So once I finally read Steve Hassan's book,

And I realized that I had been a textbook cult member. That brought up a host of thoughts and feelings and emotions. And one of the things it unearthed was a lot of repressed anger I had towards the way I had been treated.

Because once I finally had a diagnosis and knew what I'd been involved with and knew that the way I was treated actually was abusive. And I also knew that everyone who was involved in this group also had been brainwashed. So on one level, I could understand why they did what they did, because for a long time I was on that side.

But now that I had this new perspective, I felt the only thing I could do was to actually call them up and inform them of my new perspective that you're all brainwashed. You're in a fucking cult.

And it was very cathartic for me, but obviously it was received with deaf ears because the perspective within the group generally is anyone who leaves is leaving because they can't really cut it here. And now they're falling under the influence of the dark forces. So my point of view was being invalidated and also the fact that I was labeling them a cult enemy.

only verified that I had now become like an evil person on the other side. As time went on and I started to struggle financially, I started to get really angry at the fact that they were living in this house that I had paid for. They were operating with businesses that I had basically given the seed money and finance. And I'm struggling to make rent because I'd left everything with the group. And so that got me pissed.

Then I started calling them saying, I'm going to come down there and I'm going to sue them and I'm going to sell that lake house. And they're like, we're never going to sell the lake house. This is Frederick's Temple. We'll never do that. At this point, I'd started to contact some other people who had left. And one of them told me that they put the house on the market. And I was like, what?

What I came to find out was they were going through financial struggles and they basically had decided they were going to have to downsize and sell the lake house. So of course I became livid because I'm like, they are not selling that thing and running off with the money. And once I knew I had that kind of to go after,

We brought a RICO case against the guys in North Carolina, which is basically a racketeering case because we had like, I think, 36 or 38 corporations. I mean, we were always kind of moving things around. And I knew where all the bodies were to a large extent. I wasn't able to stop the sale of the house, but I was able to take the money from the house and take the lion's share and at least kind of start my life over again. And that was basically the end of the cult.

No businesses existed anymore. Everyone kind of ran for the hills. Everyone went to different places. The group as it was known basically was gone at that point. And that ultimately was very important to me to know that no one else could potentially be harmed by this group still existing. I was able to put the final nail in the coffin of Eternal Values.

One of the other results of coming out of the cult was reconnecting with my family. And at first, because it took me a while to take ownership of this experience and have the courage even start to talk about it, I really avoided the subject with my family. But one of the elements that was playing into this factor was my mother had been battling cancer and she fought it for 70 years and things started to take a turn for the worse.

what was pretty evident was she really needed like a full-time nurse of some degree there. And I remember thinking to myself, you know, this is something I really want to do. And not only did I want to go help out my family and my mother in this situation, but I also was very cognizant of the fact that I was doing this for me from the point of view that I wanted to look back at the mirror at someone that had this opportunity and chose to do it rather than not.

And so I really kind of just took care of my mother for the last eight months of her life. I was really her primary caretaker. And just by putting in the time and being there and recognizing kind of where she was, it kind of ingratiated me back with my family in a way that I think reassured them that I was back and I was wanting to be a part of their family and wanting to be a part of all their lives.

There's this kind of awakening to not only is this thing have a name and a label, but there's a way to heal. And the main way to heal, as far as I could tell, was to start talking about it. And that began my road to recovery. There's this kind of confessional process, you know, where you feel like you just got to take ownership of what happened.

I'd spent so much of my time living this false reality. It's kind of like I'd been in the fashion business. I had been this image for people's campaigns that, you know, this guy that looked a certain way, supposedly represented a certain kind of lifestyle, you know, certain mentality, all that stuff. And I'm like, no, you got to see the real me. This is the real me.

And I would blurt it out. And of course, people didn't know what to make of it. And it was really inappropriate. But it was just the stepping stone I had to make to kind of lend myself the opportunity to say, yes, this is what happened. And I'm not going to lie to anyone anymore. If you've been through something abusive or anything traumatic, and you never talk about it, nothing's going to change. No healing is going to take place.

I had a 15-year cultic relationship with a group. And what I would describe as a cultic relationship is any relationship, and it's usually a one-on-one relationship where you've gotten involved with someone and kind of unconsciously given your power away in the sense that you want so much to please this person or get their attention or get their love that you've put them in this kind of authoritarian position. And

And now from that place, this other person is potentially controlling and abusing you because of that unhealthy power dynamic. I think it's really important to recognize that we all are vulnerable to be manipulated. And I believe that cultic relationships are part of the human condition, meaning that this is a universal experience.

I think you have to think of it kind of like a spectrum. There's like on the battered wife scenario, on the one-on-one cultic relationship, that would be the one extreme all the way down to a very healthy one-on-one relationship. The same thing on the group dynamic, you have Jonestown on one extreme all the way down to like team sports where everyone's kind of pulling for each other and no one's, you know, so there's all sorts of ways that you can work within that spectrum. But every relationship is somewhere on that spectrum.

And I think the more that people recognize these power dynamics and how they emerge and how traumatizing they are and how much they require attention and healing,

And most of us have found a way to get out of that relationship. Most people find their way out, but they don't acknowledge how traumatic it was. And by not giving it the accurate label, you don't get the proper medicine and then you don't really heal. And you tend to start pulling that type of relationship back into your life again and again and not understanding or even recognizing that there's a pattern.

I will never beat myself up for what I thought I was getting involved in. You know, I really thought it was going to be this opportunity to be and create a better version of myself and be part of the solution, not the problem and move towards something better in our society.

And I signed up for that, you know, and so I won't beat myself up for that. Now, you can make a very good case that that's an irrational offer, but that's what I thought I was getting involved with, you know. And from that point of view, I'm happy that I even entertained trying to do something on that scale, that I was going to do something positive and make a positive impact in the world and make a difference and leave a better footprint behind than what I started with.

I think if you were at a place like I was where I really felt like I didn't have a passion and have a game plan, just felt like a dream come true. It's a position of ignorance. And I sat in that position so that when it was happening to me, I was my own worst enemy. And I don't think that these things are really something that we can escape from. They're there to teach us. I do think leaving a cultic situation is one of the hardest things anyone will have to do.

your identity, your community. A lot of times people leave these things with literally the shirt on their back. Sometimes they've been so sheltered, they have no education, they have no job experience.

You have this whole thing that you've wrapped up your identity in. And the reason you got involved with it was you thought it was going to be this great opportunity to really arrive at this better place in your life. And to acknowledge to yourself it's not working is absolutely devastating. It's like it's such an annihilation of the self.

And it's just really hard to make sense of and to get to the place where things are so bad. You're like, whatever is coming next has got to be better than staying here. I've witnessed some of the ex-members I've been in touch with now two decades down the road. And because they're still the true believers, they're stuck in time. It's been really interesting to kind of interface with them and recognize that basically there's been no change in their approach and mentality. It's like it's literally like they're stuck in time.

It's, I think, one of the most tragic parts of it is within the people who were involved with my group, I would wager to say 90% of them are unhealed. And that seems to be probably not an unrealistic ratio of people who experience trauma and make the choice not to deal with it.

You know, I have this level of compassion and empathy for just anyone who's gone through anything challenging and potentially abusive that our greatest resource is each other and safe space to have those conversations. And quite often the opportunity for the safe space is by you initially volunteering something which creates the safe space.

And it takes a certain degree of courage to do that. But it's so much better than the shame of thinking like, oh, if I say this to someone, they're going to think lesser of me. If you have the courage to talk about what you went through and someone's going to look down on you or judge you or something for that, that says everything about them and really nothing about you.

When someone's early on in the kind of the recovery process, very often your first dip into the water is not pleasant. The biggest obstacle is the compulsion to remain silent. And that just, like I said, that's the only constant out there. Nothing will change if you remain silent. You just have to stop keeping it in your mind and start to put it either on the paper or into words or into any form of art.

Initially, it's very important to take on the mantle of the victim in the sense that I did not ask for this. I did not plan on this happening in my life. There is a degree of victimization that has to kind of originate and kind of take place. If you don't have the humility to just admit you got conned on some level, you can't heal. But recovery is tough. There's no way to sugarcoat it. So either you're going to do the work or you're not.

What I mean by that is starting to take accountability for your role in it all. The victimization starts to fade away and you start to take ownership of being a survivor. And with that comes a lot of empowerment. As you take on the mantle of becoming the survivor, I think you start to express the story in a different kind of light. You start saying,

Well, yes, I did not ask for this. But the truth is, I'm still accountable for everything I said. And I'm accountable for everything I did. And I know the things that are even harder for me are the things where I chose to remain silent.

I was seeing someone getting reamed out for something that felt inappropriate and I didn't say anything or I saw someone being abused in some way and I didn't interfere. All of that is just, for me, the hardest stuff.

By taking the ownership of your role in it as well, this is where the sense of empowerment comes because you start to realize like even under these great circumstances, you were still able to survive. And ultimately, these experiences taught you something incredibly invaluable. And that's how I start to look at it.

It's now become this mantle that I wear that not only did I survive, but it actually taught me so much more about myself and the world that we live in, that it's actually probably the greatest thing that could ever happen to me. And I'm very happy with this perspective I now have. And if it took going through all what I went through to get to this place where I have this perspective, then I say so be it. Whatever you've gone through, however abusive or terrible it's been to endure,

you start to recognize that you have a very unique lens to express yourself. And that lens is built on your biography. And part of your biography was this terrible experience. So in some way, this experience is part of this gasoline that feeds your creative engine.

When you start to recognize that very unique lens and point of view you have can express itself in something beautiful, it rebuilds your confidence to say, oh, so there is a reason why this happened. There is method to the madness. Ultimately, the universe is conspiring in my favor, not against me. And then there's a chance that things can heal.

Today's episode featured Hoyt Richards. If you want to dive deeper into many of the elements Hoyt touched on in this episode and hear more from him, he also has his own incredible podcast called What the Flock? Cult Survival Stories. That's What the Flock? W-H-A-T-H-E-F-L-O-K.

co-hosted by Shel Rowland. They feature experts, guests, and speak to their own personal histories, sharing cult survival stories and exposing the underbelly of how cults use indoctrination to kidnap the mind and hijack the soul.

You can check out the podcast wherever you listen or on whattheflock.com. That's W-H-A-T-H-E-F-L-O-K.com. You can also find out more about Hoyt on Instagram at Hoyt Rich. That's H-O-Y-T-R-I-C-H. And if you'd like to contact him, you can email him through his manager, Rebecca Kitt at rebeckakittatmac.com. That's Rebecca K-I-T-T at mac.com.

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