It's time to talk about cold, rainy, dreamy autumn vibes, why cults are interesting, and inexpensive lamps that will change your whole home.
On this episode, we chatted about our cold, rainy, dreamy October vibes. Then we talked all about cults and what makes them interesting to learn about. Sally recommended her top 5 pieces of nonfiction cult-related media for anyone who is interested in learning more. Then Rachel talked about her favorite lamp and why good lighting is worth investing in (but doesn’t have to be expensive).
This episode was produced by Rachel and Sally and edited by Lucas Nguyen. Our logo was designed by Amber Seger (@rocketorca). Our theme music is by Tiny Music. On the premiere episode of Oh I Like That, we—friends and lifestyle journalists Rachel Wilkerson Miller (@the_rewm) and Sally Tamarkin (@sallyt)—kick things off by introducing ourselves and our new show.
For our first-ever segment, we talk about something topical: autumn and its glories, including their recommendations for things to eat and do in this the most majestic of seasons. Then we dive into a discussion about a recent post on the Am I The Asshole subreddit, “AITA for getting angry my girlfriend is wasting my power words on her friends?” Finally, we close out the episode with a brief chat about fall care packages and the ritual of putting your winter comforter on the bed.
This episode was produced by Rachel and Sally and edited by Lucas Nguyen. Our logo was designed by Amber Seger (@rocketorca). Our theme music is by Tiny Music. MJ Brodie (@MJBrodieNZ) transcribed this episode.
Sally’s top 5 (plus 1) nonfiction cult-related media
1. Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath (2016-2019)
2. _Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belie_f by Lawrence Wright (2013)
3. Cults (podcast by Parcast)
4. Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006)
5. Any free documentary on any cult started in the 1970s
Honorable mention: xenu.net, a website full of primary documents and information related to Scientology maintained by a critic of the Church of Scientology
Rachel’s lamp and lighting recommendations
Tokabo table lamp (Ikea, $13)
Fado table lamp (Ikea, $25)
(Amazon, $30)
Rachel: Welcome to Oh I Like That -- a podcast about things we like and occasionally things we don't. I'm Rachel.
Sally: And I'm Sally. And we start every episode with a vibe check, see how we're doing, how we're feeling, how things are. And I've got to say -- October in an election year during a pandemic, the vibes are very up and down.
Rachel: The vibe changes hourly, I think at this point. Definitely day-to-day, but really the vibe when you wake up might not be the vibe an hour or two later when we're recording. So Sally, how's your vibe right now at this exact moment?
Sally: At this exact moment, all of that aside, my vibe is okay. I want to just say the vibe is autumnal.
Rachel: Yeah.
Sally: Which, you know, we've talked about that a bunch already, but I don't think it can be talked about too much, that autumn vibes are great ones. I got my skeleton set up in the front yard.
Rachel: Nice. Not the 12-footer, unfortunately.
Sally: Not the 12-footer yet, if that ever comes back in stock anywhere, I'll be getting at least one.
Rachel: Yeah [laughs]
Sally: But I got my zombie hand set up and I'm hoping that no one swipes them. The first year I had a skeleton someone took it -- but it wasn't in the ground, it was on the ground. So this I think would present-- you'd have to spend a little more time, you know, to get it out. So I think it'll probably be safe. But everyone, please extend your thoughts and prayers to my skeleton.
Rachel: Does the skeleton have a name?
Sally: Not yet. I called the first one Mr. Skellington, and I sort of feel like maybe this one... this is a totally brand new skeleton, it's not the same pile of bones. I also have actually have a pile of bones, I just remembered, I should put that out. But yeah, I mean, I'm totally accepting suggestions for the skeleton's name. So Rachel, if you have anything or anyone listening, I mean, look. Naming rights can be yours.
Rachel: Okay. I need to look at the picture again and try to capture... to get a better sense of the skeleton's personality and essence before I offer up a name. So I'll think on it.
Sally: Okay. Thank you for your care and thoughtfulness around that.
Rachel: Of course. [Laughs]
Sally: [Laughs] Rachel, what's your vibe like right now?
Rachel: My vibe is good. It is autumnal. We talked about this last week, but I think it is getting even better because it is getting cooler. And today, I have been legitimately waiting for this day after... I check the weather a lot more now than I did during the summer, because I'm just waiting for fall. And so I've been waiting for this day, which is the day that the temperature dropped considerably into the sixties and rain was predicted. And that's exactly what we have. So I am really looking forward. My plan for today is to have the door and window open and to put on basically -- you know the Yule log in the winter, or in the holidays? This summer, I had the idea of like, what if there was a summer version of that? And there is, there's a happy holidays from the beaches of Florida or California that's basically a beach bonfire. So that also unlocked something in YouTube for me, that is all of these different ambient background type of things. So I think that I'm going to do a little digging today and maybe put one of those on, or I'm going to put on the new Taylor Swift album. Regardless, there will be vibes. And then I'm going to light a jar candle and that's going to be my day. I'm so excited for this.
Sally: I love this. It's just like a cozy autumn den.
Rachel: Exactly. So the vibe, the vibe at this moment, not so bad.
Sally: Not so bad, okay.
Rachel: Yeah.
Sally: Great. Okay. So if you've listened to our first episode, you know that we have a segment called "Chatting about a thing" and we are going to chat about a thing once again today. The thing is a topic very near and dear to my heart. We're going to talk about cults.
Rachel: It's one of your... I don't want to say one of your passions, but an area of great interest for you, I've discovered.
Sally: Yeah. It's an area of great interest. I would like to consider myself an amateur expert on only certain aspects of cults. So just before we go further, I just want to include a content note just for cults, but also when you talk about cults, you're talking about abusive relationships, various kinds of mental, physical, and sexual harm and abuse, oftentimes suicide. So if any of those are things you don't want to interact with right now, totally skip to our next segment, which will be 900% less weird and creepy.
Rachel: [Laughs] Yeah.
Sally: But yeah, so why am I talking about cults? Why are we talking about it here? Is it because I'm a dark weirdo? The answer is -- Rachel just made the mezza-mezz, so-so motion with her head.
Rachel: [Laughs]
Sally: It's kind of because of that, but it's also because I find cults really fascinating. I think most people do on some level. I think it's one of my more basic qualities is that I'm interested in cults, but that's fine. I think it's fine to be basic. But the thing I think that's really interesting is when you really start to learn about how they work beyond the more prurient, surface-level stuff you hear about, I really do think you learn a lot about how groupthink works and how... not even groupthink, but just group dynamics, how people behave when they are in groups. And I find it really interesting that the group that is created by, for example, me and Rachel, our group is more than just what I bring to it and my personality and my sensibilities and Rachel's sensibility and personalities. There's a third thing that happens where a group's vibe and the way a group is, is totally more than the sum of its parts. And I think, you know, anyone who's worked in any kind of group situation, whether you've been in school and doing a group project, or even when you think about the vibe, I think about homeroom in junior high and what the vibe was like in that room, it just takes on its own personality. Or if you've done a group project, or if you've been in a workplace, the way group dynamics emerge. I just find it really, really fascinating, especially having been in groups that have some level of toxicity to them, like cliquiness or an in-group out-group mentality. I think, you know, the 2016 election can tell us a lot about the way groups think. Anyway, that is primarily what I find so interesting about cults and recognizing, seeing really familiar things like, you know, I think cults can be really interesting because some really fucking wild shit happens in them. But I think that beyond that, I think they're just really instructive in terms of how people behave when they're all in this thing together. And of course there's a lot of other really suspect, terrible things happening. So I don't want to just say-- I don't want it to sound like I'm saying, you know, "Cults, like a workplace," because I'm totally not saying that at all.
Rachel: Right.
Sally: [Laughs] I'm just saying the potential for understanding what goes on in groups, I think you can really learn a lot.
Rachel: Yeah. I think that we are both really interested in toxic social settings, whether that is families or friend groups or workplaces. I think that's why you and I both read certain advice columns and certain Reddit forums regularly. And we talk about those things, and a cult is sort of the most extreme version of things that show up in everyone's lives. And so it is both interesting for that reason, but it's also interesting because it's like, okay, where is an off-ramp or what are the many off-ramps before you get to this point? And is it even the same path at all? Obviously families don't regularly turn into cults, but the people who end up being called leaders also have families that are, I think, fairly toxic. So what is that distinction? For me the thing that's really interesting is denial. I'm interested in any story where denial plays a really large role because it is one of those topics that doesn't make sense to me. And I feel like if I just keep studying it enough from enough angles, I will eventually get it. And I have not gotten there yet, but I think that's one of the things too, and denial is one of those things that comes up in everyday life, in all these different ways. And so I think it's interesting to look at the most extreme version of that and the tragic consequences of that because cults are obviously not the only time where denial has tragic consequences. It's a big explosive one that gets a lot of attention. But I think for me, that's one of the most amazing parts is figuring out how do you get here? How do we get here? Because I think it does have real-world application for smaller-scale situations.
Sally: Totally. I think that's so well said, especially what you said about the pathways thing. Like, where are the pathways the same and where do they differ? And that's kind of the central thing that's interesting to me. And so I thought that what I would do is I would share five plus one honorable mention pieces of cult-related media that I have really enjoyed and learned a lot from, for anyone who's interested in seeing what I'm getting at with all of this "no, cults are actually interesting in deep ways" nonsense. So I'm just going to start out and I'll talk about each one. And then Rachel, I think some of these you've seen and maybe are familiar with and maybe some you aren't, but.
Rachel: Yeah.
Sally: So the very first one is a new discovery for me, but has completely changed my life, which is Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, which was a docuseries that ran from 2016 to 2019. Leah Remini, as you probably know, was a long time Scientologist. She was not born into it, but her mom joined when Leah Remini was like 13 and so she was in it for her adolescence and a lot of her adult life. She left, I think in 2013 and has basically ever since kind of dedicated herself to exposing the truly horrific abuse of every kind that you can imagine that goes on in Scientology. So Rachel, you've watched some of this docuseries. What are your thoughts? What is new to you about Scientology from watching it, or what sticks out to you about it?
Rachel: I think that this docuseries puts a lot of focus on the families of people who are in the quote-unquote 'Church' of Scientology or who left it. And so you really see the collateral damage that this does, in just really heartbreaking ways. So there's that. It also, you get a really good look at their marketing materials and their conventions, which I think is really helpful to see. But I think just hearing from all these people who were in it, who joined at a really, really, really young age -- you're seeing people in their fifties now who were like, "I was 16 when I dropped out of school and went to work for the church of Scientology." And it's like, oh, you kind of never stood a chance. It is remarkable that they managed to get out. And I think that is also a really interesting part of any of this, is the people who did leave, when and why and how, and just the difficulty of leaving. I think you said when you were telling me about this, initially, that it is reminiscent of the mob and that is a hundred percent correct. It is suspenseful to hear the story of each of these people leaving, because you're not sure if they're going-- you know that they get out eventually, but it is really stressful as you're hearing about them, you know, being chased down the highway as they leave. Like it is really shocking.
Sally: Totally. Yeah. It's very, very shocking. And I think one of the reasons that I think this is a really good thing to watch if you're interested in cults at all, but particularly in the 'church' -- I'm glad you said quote-unquote 'Church' of Scientology -- is that I think that people think that the way people join cults is they walk by someone on the street and someone's like, "Hey, I have this thing that's going to fix your life." And by the way, yes, that is a way people join cults. In fact in the seventies that was a way that Scientology got a lot of new members. But what you learn when you watch Scientology and the Aftermath is that a lot of people are second-generation Scientologists. A lot of people were born into Scientology, or their parents joined when they were very, very young. And like you said, Rachel, they just really didn't have a chance. But the reason I think it's important to understand that, is that I think that a lot of times we look at cults as things only really damaged or broken or susceptible or gullible people get involved with. And the reality is that Scientology has its hooks in much deeper, as do a lot of cults. And you don't have to be just a weird wandering seeker to get drawn in.
Rachel: I think the thing that has stood out to me in watching this and in watching The Vow and through other bits and pieces here and there is the very good intentions of the people who join, who ultimately are seeking to better themselves or who want to do something positive for the world, and who are quote-unquote 'normal' people who are not so different than anyone else. And so I think I just have so much empathy when I'm watching these shows because it's like, these are people who are really trying to do a good thing. They sort of looked at this as self-help and they were expertly manipulated. And that is fascinating, it's heartbreaking, and it's a reminder I think that none of us are immune to being conned. And I get really frustrated when people say nasty things about the people who are manipulated, because you see the manipulation happen slowly over time. And it's like, yeah, obviously you're not going to see it and know. It gets different when they do have people telling them otherwise, and I think that's where it gets really fascinating, when you have an outsider saying, "Hey, this doesn't seem right." But yeah, you just see the ways in which really well-meaning people are just completely taken advantage of.
Sally: Totally, yes, absolutely. And one thing that's an important distinction for this show is that it focuses a lot on people who are in the Sea Org, which is kind of like the... I don't know, I don't want to use the word clergy, but they're people who are charged with keeping Scientology going, they're employed by the Church of Scientology. And they do talk to just some regular parishioners too, and you see how their lives have been affected and harmed. But I think that making the distinction, the show I think helped me understand for the first time the difference between just an everyday Scientology practitioner -- who is still, by the way, getting financially scammed intensely, and harmed -- but it's different than members of the Sea Org. The other thing about the show that is really useful is that you start to understand how the Church of Scientology's tax exemption allows them to do so much of what they do and allows them to operate kind of extra-legally and kind of skirt the law. And you also start to understand the obstacles that law enforcement and government agencies are facing in trying to take down the Church of Scientology, which really gives you appreciation for what Leah Remini and her co-producer Mike Rinder are doing. Their strategy is, the more we talk about this and the more people know about this, the closer we will get to taking down the church, because nothing has worked so far. So it's just very... their righteous cause is also really compelling, I have to say.
Rachel: Yeah, I agree completely. And I think the tax exemption and just the financials and the financial abuse of the people who are in it is also really important and really critical. I think it's easy to overlook what people are willing to do when they've already paid $2,000 or $5,000 or $10,000. But, you know, they have an investment at this point in continuing with this thing. But also when they're talking about how much money they've spent over the years, I mean, these numbers are just staggering.
Sally: Astronomical.
Rachel: individual people spending more money than I have ever had in my life on being a member of this. And then couple that with the people who are in the Sea Org, who are making like $10,000 a year to do this, and you really see how mass amounts of money allow them to just do what they're doing on every level. And it's really, I mean, it's just, it really is kind of hard to watch, but it's really clarifying about the ways in which if you can throw money at something, you can really, really, really get away with a lot.
Sally: A hundred percent, a hundred percent. That was so well said. In the vein of Scientology, because I confess that I find it so fucking fascinating. And partially, I really like science fiction and fantasy as a genre, I play tabletop role-playing games. Lore and world-building are really important to me. I love Game of Thrones, any fictional universe that is really rich and really well-developed is really compelling to me. And that is one of the reasons that I'm really interested in Scientology. And this brings me to my second recommendation, which is for the book Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright. This is the book that the documentary Going Clear is based on. And Going Clear is good too, but the reason I love this book is that the author, what he does is he, first of all he tells you it's a mini biography of L. Ron Hubbard, who's the founder of Scientology. And then he also tells this story of the Church of Scientology by interweaving stories of L. Ron Hubbard, as well as John Travolta and Tom Cruise, and then a couple of other Scientologists. And he goes really deep into explaining the kind of mythos of Scientology and what L. Ron Hubbard -- who famously was a pulp science fiction writer -- what the creation myth of Scientology is, and what people who are Scientologists are taught to believe. And it is the most bananas shit you've ever heard. It's actually so bananas that if you heard it, you would be like, this wouldn't even make a good science fiction movie because it's so gonzo that it won't even draw you in.
Rachel: I completely agree. And I don't want to derail you, but this is something I've been thinking about a lot lately, as I've been reading what QAnon is all about -- which I was vaguely aware of, but then was like, I'm going to sit down and do the long reading on what they believe. And then I sort of lost it because I was like, wait, this is what it's about? And I think that is very similar when you're just like, this is terrible fan fiction. I can't believe this is the thing that compelled so many people, because it seems so preposterous and so outrageous. And it really is. You said this early on to me, but you were like, when I learn about a cult I'm like, what's your belief system? And having now read some of this and watched some of this, I totally understand why that's the first thing you want answered because both it's interesting and you need to know, but also it just puts everything in perspective of what exactly this leader is selling. And sometimes the thing they're selling is a little bit more compelling than others, but in this case, just really, really outrageous.
Sally: Totally outrageous. Fanfic is such a good way of putting it. And I think QAnon, there are a lot of similarities, like what we were talking about before regarding how people think in groups. I think QAnon is a really, really good example of that. It's really fascinating that when you look at some of these mythos that people have created, that they've gotten other people to believe, at what point people are like, "Well, this just doesn't check out." And it's really interesting. I heard someone actually on a podcast called Rabbit Hole talking about the moment they realized QAnon wasn't real. And it was something that was like, all of the things that I think would make anyone who thinks QAnon is nonsense. All of the things that would make us think that QAnon is nonsense were not a problem for her. She was totally on board.
Rachel: Interesting. Okay.
Sally: There was just one mundane detail that she picked up on and was like, "Oh no, this doesn't make sense anymore." And I don't want to go into it because I don't want to -- I can talk about it on another episode when I've actually -- I don't want to get anything wrong. But basically, it reminded me of reading about Paul Haggis. Actually I might have-- I've now been exposed to Paul Haggis talking about leaving the Church of Scientology so many times that I'm not even really sure where he talked about this. It might've been in Going Clear, but it might've also been in the Leah Remini docuseries. One of the things that that Scientology has is these different levels, these OT levels, which stands for Operating Thetan. And it's like OT1, OT2, OT3, and you pay a bunch of money to take these courses. And I do mean a bunch of money. And the idea is that you're ascending to different levels of Operating Thetan until you go clear. And Paul Haggis tells this story of reaching this level, this OT level, it might've been three, but I can't remember. And they're like, "Okay, now you're ready for this secret teaching." And they give him a briefcase. The way that L. Ron Hubbard's teachings are treated is like the most divine respect and protection. Oftentimes if people are carrying special documents, they're handcuffed to a briefcase and the briefcase contains the documents.
Rachel: Oh, my god.
Sally: So he goes into this room alone and he reads this secret document that he's worked so hard to get this level to achieve. And it's written in L. Ron Hubbard's handwriting, and it's just like one sheet of paper. And it's nonsense. It makes no sense. And he reads it and he's like, is this a test? Are they trying to see, this is nothing, this is nothing. And so he goes to the, whoever, I don't know if it's his auditor or whoever. And he was like, what is happening here? This doesn't make any sense. And the response he gets is one of these vague answers you get in cults often, which is just, you know, "You get it if you get it, real ones know," kind of a thing.
Rachel: [laughs]
Sally: And Paul Haggis who, by the way, is a director, a famous director in Hollywood. He eventually left the Church of Scientology, but not for many years after that.
Rachel: Wow.
Sally: That was very early in his being a Scientologist. He joined in the seventies and he only left in like the early or mid-2000s. So anyway, I say all that to say, the stuff that seems too out there to believe -- if you get it in the right context, it's not too wild to believe. And even if your faith is shaken, you can be pulled back in if the foundation is in place, which I think was very much the case with Paul Haggis. And I think is the case with a lot of people who question Scientology for a long time.
Rachel: Yeah. I think that is totally right. And I am very fascinated by the things that make people just suddenly see things very differently. And you're right, it's very often not the thing you think it would be. But to me, that's the thing that I tend to focus on. Because I'm like, if we can just figure out what that thing is and what it has in common across all of these, we can reverse engineer it and then there won't be any more cults, which obviously isn't quite right. But that's sort of how I think of it, is like, what is the thing? Because I think that again has a real world application in how we convince people who are being manipulated or who are in denial about things. If we can understand what these things have in common, there will be some knowledge to extract them, but I don't know if that is actually the case or not.
Sally: That seems real to me. I think the one thing that is important to remember is that most of these cults-- I mean, Scientology is a really good example of this. They basically strip you of every support system you have. Every material and emotional support system you have. So they incentivize never leaving.
Rachel: Right.
Sally: They make it so hard for you materially, even-- you'll see in the docuseries stories of people who, they have no money, they don't have a job, they have no education, they don't even have any place to live. And so the belief thing is really hugely important. And the other thing to remember is that just structurally they're also prevented from changing their lives.
Rachel: Right. Right. Yeah. That makes sense.
Sally: Anyway, so Going Clear is a really good book, highly recommend it. My next recommendation is the podcast Cults. Simply titled. Have you listened to this podcast before?
Rachel: No, I haven't.
Sally: Okay. So it's on the Parcast network and Parcast does a bunch of podcasts that are called, like, there'll be Cults, Serial Killers. They just take a topic, and it's usually two hosts. This is a really informative podcast, but it's very dry. So every episode is about a different cult. Sometimes they'll do things in two parts. So they've covered all of the cults that you've probably heard of -- Heaven's Gate, the Manson family, Children of God, FLDS, the Branch Davidians, Peoples Temple. The podcast is kind of like listening to a Wikipedia entry, is the best way I can describe it. It's just very dry and very "just the facts, ma'am" but they do a really good job of explaining to you. They'll usually do the origin story of the cult by talking about the person who started the cult and their influences. And they'll kind of speculate based on what experts who are qualified to do such speculation have said about why a person started a cult or whatever. They'll tell you if there's a famous story in the media about a cult, such as with the Peoples Temple or with the Branch Davidians, they'll tell that story of course. It's just a really good way to, it's a survey kind of a thing. And also they cover a bunch of really unknown, smaller cults that I've never, ever, ever heard of. And it's just really well-reported. So if you want kind of a quick hit of cult facts, that's the podcast for you.
Rachel: Good rec, thank you.
Sally: Moving right along. My next recommendation is the documentary The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, which was from 2006. The Peoples Temple, most people probably have heard of because of Jonestown, which is the place that Jim Jones who created the Peoples Temple, he established a little community there where in 1978, he basically coerced over 900 people to drink Flavor Aid that was laced with cyanide and kill themselves. It was the, not-fun fact, largest intentional loss of life in the United States history before 9/11. It was a huge, absolutely horrific tragedy. I feel like what happened in Jonestown is emblematic of... It's kind of like peak creepy cult shit basically. And the documentary is just, you know, there's a lot of archival footage, there's a ton of audio because Jim Jones had all of his sermons taped and stuff like that. So there's a lot of audio, there's a lot of archival footage. This is the kind of thing where you really have to be in a certain state of mind to engage with, because Jonestown is just horrific. And the more you learn about it, the more horrific it is. And there are some things that I don't think this documentary covers very well, which is that the Peoples Temple had a very weird relationship to race. The Peoples Temple started out as this as Jim Jones ostensibly wanting to have an integrated... He was sort of famously into integration and racial equality at a time when a lot of places and people weren't. Particularly churches. He preached socialism, living communally, racial equality. So a lot of his members were black. The church leadership was white though, and so there's a lot of really fucked up dynamics going on here, beyond all of the fucked up things we know about the Peoples Temple. And I think that this documentary doesn't really delve into that as much as I would have liked it to, but I think there are more recent documentaries that do.
Rachel: This is one I actually don't know a ton about, and had looked into this documentary and maybe one of the more recent ones fairly recently and was like, "Hmm, not right now for me." This one feels really intense and I don't know what the right time will be. But I've been, not avoiding this one, but I've just been like, yeah, I'm going to heed the warning on this one and wait until I'm in the mood for something really fucked up.
Sally: Yeah. It's very hard to watch, but very informative. So my last recommendation is any free documentary on cults. There's a ton of them and they vary in terms of quality and what you're going to learn. But a lot of them, all of the ones that I've watched -- and I've watched all of them -- they're all really interesting and they will give you some insight into cults. And also a lot of them really give you an insight into what the fuck was going on, particularly in the United States, particularly with white, middle-class people in the sixties and seventies, which is kind of interesting in and of itself. So I would say if you have... the Leah Remini docuseries is on Hulu and Apple TV, but if you don't have that, maybe you have Netflix, just whatever, you can stream all these free documentaries and I just recommend getting involved with them. Finally, and then I'm going to stop talking, I have an honorable mention, which is the website xenu.net. Xenu is famously a character from the L. Ron Hubbard creation story, the Scientology creation story. This is an incredible archive of Scientology-related primary documents, so LRH communications and memos. You can see various rundowns, which are these protocols in Scientology for dealing with different conditions of Scientology members. You can see a bunch of Scientology ephemera, a lot of explanations of how Dianetics works, how auditing works. You can see when you get audited what the questions you'll be asked are. Yeah. The famous Scientology stress test, which if you've ever walked by a Church of Scientology, you'll see a sign that says, take a free stress test. It shows you those questions.
Rachel: Oh, that's interesting.
Sally: It's all fucking bananas. I mean, you'll see testimony from people who are in Scientology, just all kinds of ephemera. It's like basically going to a library and asking the librarian to find you all of the primary documents on the thing. That's xenu.net. Xenu, of course, is the galactic ruler who 75 million years ago brought billions of people to earth, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs.
Rachel: Oh. [Laughs]
Sally: That is literally the origin story of earth, according to Scientology.
Rachel: Okay. Alright. Well.
Sally: You heard it here first. So that's it. I mean, that is what I have to say about cults. There's obviously a lot of material and a lot of media out there. But those are the ones that I would say to start with.
Rachel: Well, thank you. That is a great list, and I always trust your recommendations. The things that I've watched or engaged with that you've recommended in this area have all been really good and informative. So I think anyone who has been watching The Vow and wants more, or isn't watching The Vow but hears people talking about it and is kind of curious, this is -- if you're looking for, you know, a podcast for a road trip, this is an interesting area, and I think these are all really good recommendations.
Sally: Thank you. Thank you. I feel good about my curated cult list. Let's move on to something much more, just, good.
Rachel: Yes. you can say something later because that is a pun. This is a segment that we are calling "Show and tell" which is just chatting about a thing, but a little bit more about a thing that we recently bought or have bought in the past and loved. So here's today's show and tell. So I am going to talk about the Ikea Fado lamp, that's my show and tell, which is a $25 lamp that I can't say enough good things about. And I think it's the perfect thing if you are looking to make your space feel a little cozier and brighter as the days are getting shorter and you're spending a ton of time indoors. So this lamp just looks like a big round orb. We refer to it as the orb, because that's what it looks like. And it's again, 25 bucks. Ikea has been making this for a long time. My girlfriend got two about a year ago for her apartment, and we were both surprised by both how much light these orbs give off, but also how nice the light is. It's so soft, it's so glowy, it's so cozy. I got to say, Scandinavian countries really have lighting figured out. My girlfriend went to Stockholm in February and was like, yeah, they just have the candle situation, they just have lighting stores where all of the lights are so beautiful, so nice, a range of prices but you can get really nice lights for not very much money. And I think that is not something we're used to, but it makes sense that when it gets dark early and is very dark for a lot of the year, you would think a lot about lighting. So I think we think of Ikea as like, "Oh, a cheap furniture place, but also the nice stuff too," but I think Ikea lighting is something we shouldn't sleep on. That's a section of the store I would often walk through and just be like, oh, all the lights and then would kind of move on and not really think about it. But I think everyone would be wise to spend a little more time there.
Sally: You sent me a link to this lamp. And I am so horny for this lamp.
Rachel: It's so beautiful, right?
Sally: It's so beautiful. And I have to say, whenever you see something beautiful that you think would really add to your life and it's $25. I mean, usually I'm used to seeing things and being like oh, that's really nice, and it's $125.
Rachel: Right, exactly. $25 is a good price for this. And so we now have four -- one on each nightstand, one on a side table in the living room, and then one on the desk in the living room. It's so much nicer than your average desk lamp, which is usually a spotlight that feels like you're being interrogated. I will say that I don't know what's going on with Ikea right now in terms of the supply chain, which is completely understandable, but if you try to buy this lamp and you can't get it, don't be discouraged. We had the same problem when we tried to get the second two and it took maybe a month or a month and a half of me checking kind of regularly to see if it was back in stock. We didn't go to the store to buy it, but it was shipping from the local store and so we couldn't get it for a while. And then Sally, I think you mentioned the other day of having the same problem. So I think just don't despair. The lamp seems to kind of come and go. So the other thing about it is it comes with a bulb, which is nice, but I decided to take things to the next level and get a smart bulb to put in mine. I got the Yeelight bulb, which is $29.99 for a single bulb and it's a color-changing one. So you download an app, and the thing that I didn't expect is that you can change the color of the white too. So when it's on white you can make it bluer or more yellow, and then you can switch over to color, which I didn't have much interest in. But then a friend of ours was saying that he did this while he was watching movies, like he would have it mirror the color of the movie. And so the color we use the most is pink, which is a really-- because red, green, blue, not for me as much, but the pink is just the right sort of sexy color that is not... I don't know. It just is, to me, the perfect-- if you're going to do a color, pink is the one for me. So I hooked everything up with Alexa now, so we can turn them on all at once. The smart bulb allows all of that. But even if you don't put the smart bulb in it, it's still just a great light on its own that I have to really strongly recommend.
Sally: I'm so into optimizing lighting, I have to say that like 95% of my experiences with any source of light bulbs and lighting is just like: it's not right. It's too harsh, but it's too dim. It's never exactly right. So I'm always into a really good lamp rec. And I have to say that we also have some smart bulbs and another really fun thing about them is that you can change the lighting in the room your partner is in. So like, Andrea will turn on, she'll make the lights all pink. And then also like turn on Sonos and Barry White will start playing or something.
Rachel: Oh my god.
Sally: Yeah, you can just do amazing things and changing white light is such a game changer for your ability to read or see, or just exist when the lighting is just right. So yeah. Big, big, big fan of this whole situation.
Rachel: Yeah, okay. So I have too many recs while we're at it. So we were also poking around just looking at a lot of stuff on Etsy. And there's this website called Tradera, which is sort of like a Swedish eBay. And my girlfriend came across this lamp called the Lykta, which is also an Ikea lamp from... we can't really figure out when it's from, they don't make it anymore, but it doesn't seem so vintage, but it is a little table lamp that looks like a lamp with a shade on it, but it's all one piece of glass and it came in multiple colors. So we got one on eBay in this hot fuchsia pink, but it's really small. It's probably eight inches tall, so it's like a big pop of color, but it's not very big. And the light that it produces is so nice, because it is that pink light, but it isn't screaming when you turn it on. It looks sort of like a lava lamp mid bloop, like think of that pink inside of a lava lamp. So we got that one. So if you can find one, highly recommend it, but Ikea is making one called the Tokabo now, which is 12 bucks. I think the Lykta was around that price when it came out, and so this sort of seems like the new version of it. It feels like family with the one that we have, the quote-unquote 'vintage' one. It's inexpensive, it looks really cozy, really cute. And again, like 12 bucks, I think. I don't own this one, I've never seen it in person, but I think if you're looking for a little desk lamp or just a way to bring a little bit of a light to a dark corner, I would definitely check that one out too.
Sally: Yeah, I just Googled it and it looks really awesome. Can you say the name of the very first one you recommended again so people can hear it again?
Rachel: Yes, it is Lykta.
Sally: And this is the one that is no longer in production, that you get on like eBay.
Rachel: Yeah.
Sally: And what was the very, very first one?
Rachel: Fado.
Sally: You heard it here. Get your lamps. Yeah, these are all amazing. I'm looking at them now and they're just all beautiful pieces to have in your home.
Sally: They're really beautiful.
Sally: In addition to the light they provide.
Rachel: Yeah, absolutely. They just are sort of unassuming, they don't have a visible base, they don't have a shade, they're just this nice sort of glass ball that just looks great during the day. Highly recommend getting an orb for the winter ahead.
Sally: Yeah. I'm so absolutely into all of us, thank you for these recommendations.
Rachel: My pleasure. All right, I think that's all we've got for you today. Sally, should we do a nice thing to end on?
Sally: I would love that. So I recently observed Yom Kippur and I Zoomed into live services and I listened to, you know, there's just different talks throughout the day talking about the holiday and stuff like that. And there were a couple brief learnings that were really awesome that I made notes of and I just wanted to share them briefly because they're really nice. The one that I found really compelling was I took a Zoom class in the middle of the day about Jonah, the story of Jonah getting swallowed by the big fish. And I won't go into it, but one of the things that the Rabbi who was teaching the class talked about is how anger is a holy emotion and it powers us to make change. And she was kind of distinguishing between anger that is self-destructive. And I was getting ready to not be very into what she was going to say. I was like, "If this bitch says that I shouldn't be angry, I'm going to be so mad, I'm going to rage quit the Zoom call."
Rachel: Yeah.
Sally: But she didn't say that.
Rachel: Nice.
Sally: Yeah, she talked about how anger is a holy emotion and how it powers us to build and create change, which I loved. And then the other thing she said, which I was really into, was that if you pick up a glass of water and you hold it, you don't really notice it. You're like, oh, the glass is cold, I'm holding the water, whatever, it's no big deal. But you know, six or eight months later, if you're still holding the same glass, your arm is really tired and the glass feels really heavy. And she was using that to talk about how we feel this long into the pandemic and how we've been holding the glass for this whole time. And just sort of recognizing that if we're feeling tired, if we're feeling exhausted, if we're feeling depleted, if we're feeling sad and angry -- if you have to hold a glass of water for many, many, many, many months on end and you never get to put it down, you're going to feel really tired and really depleted, and you might also feel pretty aggravated and mad about the conditions that put you in that position. So I thought that was just a lovely analogy that really stuck with me. So that's my nice thing to end on. Rachel, what do you got?
Rachel: That is nice. All right. Mine is that tonight my girlfriend and I are doing a double date with a long distance friend that the friend is organizing, the friend and her husband. And we are going to play cards, using an app of some sort. I know very little about this, I'm just kind of going along. And we're both going to order pizza on our respective coasts and make it feel like we're together. So I haven't done anything like this in a while. We haven't done many hangouts that aren't just talking to each other, which is perfectly fine and lovely, but I am excited to try something a little bit new. And I'm glad that this friend organized this and just excited to give this a try. So I'll report back if the app or whatever it might be, I'll report back on how it goes. But regardless, I'm looking forward to that.
Sally: That is so cute and so nice. And I definitely want to hear about it and also do it if it turns out to be as great as it sounds.
Rachel: Yeah, definitely.
Sally: Okay. So that does it. Thank you for tuning in and listening to Oh I Like That. Please rate us and review us on iTunes and wherever else you listen to podcasts.
Rachel: And you can follow us on Twitter @OhILikeThatPod and email us if you've got a recommendation or a question or need a recommendation, send us an email at ohilikethatpod@gmail.com. You can also follow us on Twitter -- I'm @the_rewm and Sally is @sallyt.
Sally: Oh I Like That is produced by Rachel and Sally and edited by Lucas. Amber Seger, AKA @rocketorca on social media designed our logo.