Was I In A Cult?

As a young teenager, Darls Centola was searching for something steady in a chaotic world. What she found was the Jehovah’s Witnesses—a religion that felt warm, structured, and safe.
What she didn’t expect to find… was him.
Not the King of Pop. Not the global icon. Not Michael Jackson.
Just Michael.
A shy, curious, thoughtful teenage boy looking to her for religious guidance.
What unfolds is almost impossibly pure. Two kids hiding behind their school not to smoke pot, but to talk about faith and opening orphanages one day—all while trying (and failing) to suppress feelings they aren't allowed to feel.
Because inside their dogma, a crush isn't just a crush. It could get you killed at Armageddon. And as their bond deepens... so does the control.
Until the belief system that brought them together… is the very thing that tears them apart.
This isn’t a story about fame. It’s not a takedown. And it’s not a defense.
It's about first love.
And a deeply human, intimate look at a version of someone the world thinks it already understands, set against the very real, very damaging impact of cult abuse.
And the uncomfortable truth that both light and darkness can exist at the same time.
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Today, Darls Centola is a licensed clinical social worker, educator and EMDR consultant with a focus on the impact of spiritual abuse and high control systems.
She has written a memoir about the innocent and heartbreaking time in her life inside a cult with teenage Michael Jackson from the POV of that young girl. A time that didn't just change her life... but may have quietly shaped his too.
Purchase Darls' memoir here: "Finding Truth with Michael: A Memoir of Friendship, Faith and First Love"
Find Darls' workbook and other resources on her website: findingtruthwithmichael.com
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If Part 1 was the seduction… this is the unraveling.
By now, Celeste is fully in - the "true believer" phase we like to call it. The relationships feel real. The stakes feel real. And the consequences for questioning it? Also very real.
Because inside this world, there are rules. Rewards for loyalty. Punishments for doubt. And what once felt magical begins to shift. The cracks start to show. And Celeste is forced to confront a terrifying possibility:
What if none of this is real?
What follows is a slow, psychological tug-of-war between belief and reality - until one discovery changes everything.
After all, the most shocking part wasn't that there were vampires on the internet.
It was who was pretending to be them.
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FOLLOW CELESTE → Instagram @celestemott | Tiktok @celestemoth
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Join our Patreon! Get ad-free episodes, bonus content, and behind-the-scenes conversations. (And our forever gratitude)
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At 16, Celeste Mott was alone, grieving, and searching - for meaning, for connection, for something that felt bigger than her small, suburban life.
And then she found them.
An online world inspired by Anne Rice.
Dark. Seductive. Intelligent.
A place where vampires weren’t just characters… they were real.
Or at least—that’s what they lead her to believe.
This was the early 2000s internet— before social media, before real names, before anyone was asking who’s actually behind the screen.
Message boards. Chat rooms. Total anonymity. The perfect environment for something to take hold… unnoticed.
What begins as a message board for Anne Rice fans, transforms into something far darker. Something that on the surface, sounds completely unbelievable. Except not when you know how cults operate.
Because this wasn’t just fandom.
This was belonging.
This was identity.
This was… a promise.
And like every good cult—it knew exactly what she needed to hear.
This is Part 1 of 2.
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FOLLOW CELESTE → Instagram @celestemott | Tiktok @celestemoth
FOLLOW US → For more culty content — follow us on Instagram & TikTok → @wasiinacult
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Join our Patreon! Get ad-free episodes, bonus content, and behind-the-scenes conversations. (And our forever gratitude)
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Michelle Dowd was born into a cult that was literally training boys to fight in God’s army when the apocalypse came.
It started in sunny Pasadena, California when her grandfather - a former Boy Scout leader - decided the Scouts weren’t strict enough and built his own organization. Boys were recruited young, drilled like soldiers, and raised to believe they were preparing for the end of the world.
Michelle grew up inside the group known as “The Field,” running miles before breakfast, enduring military-style obedience drills, selling candy to fund the movement, and eventually living for years on a remote mountain with basically no formal education.
What eventually happened is almost unbelievable: a secret college application, a full scholarship, and a cult survivor with no formal education… to becoming a professor teaching critical thinking.
Michelle Dowd is now a writer and the author of Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult.
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MICHELLE DOWD LINKS → Instagram @michelledowdz |
Subscribe to Michelle's FREE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
Listen to Michelle's book "Forager" on SPOTIFY FOR FREE
Pick up a copy of Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult"
Michelle’s NYT Modern Love essay: “Love in a Time of Low Expectations”
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Tyler’s mascot book mention: Where Are the Fighting Giraffes? by David Winder
FOLLOW US
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Join our Patreon! Get ad-free episodes, bonus content, and behind-the-scenes conversations. (And our forever gratitude)
HAVE A CULTY STORY?
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Star Stone walked into a fluorescent-lit room on Market Street in San Francisco where a man who looked like Mark Zuckerberg stroked a woman's clitoris in business casual while thirty people watched. "This is it. This is what I need," she thought. It wasn't.
See, Star didn't join a cult (newsflash, no one does). She joined a sex-positive, orgasm-as-spiritual-practice kind of movement founded by a woman, for women. It was called OneTaste. It promised female empowerment. But what it delivered was sexual trauma. Thanks, Nicole Daedone!
Star Stone shares her story with the kind of honesty and dark humor that made us fall in love with her immediately. This isn't trauma porn - this is what happens when groups take your desire for connection, belonging, and sexual empowerment and weaponize it.
Star was a joy to have on the show. Be sure to check out her solo comedy show, "Cl*t Cult," premiering this April at New York Fringe. And don't worry... she promised to come back and tell us everything that happened at "the Land" after her show premieres.
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GET TICKETS TO CL*T CULT April 2–10 at the Wild Project, East Village, NYC
FOLLOW STAR For more from Star → Instagram @starstonespeaks |
FOLLOW US
For more culty content — follow us on Instagram & TikTok → @wasiinacult
SUPPORT THE SHOW
Join our Patreon! Get ad-free episodes, bonus content, and behind-the-scenes conversations. (And our forever gratitude)
HAVE A CULTY STORY?
Email us → [email protected]
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.