India Oxenberg, 32, has launched a podcast called “Still Learning.”
Her podcast’s first episode premiered on August 18th, with an interview with Diane Benscoter, a former Unification Church member, a “cult deprogrammer,” and author.
Benscoter worked with India when she confronted her doubts about NXIVM and faced possible federal criminal charges for her role in DOS.
Oxenberg is among several former members of NXIVM who have or had podcasts, including Sarah Edmondson and her husband Anthony ‘Nippy’ Ames, Jessica Joan, and Mark Vicente and his wife Bonnie Piesse.
The mushroom in her logo seems related to Oxenberg’s use of psilocybin. According to one of her websites, India used it and the drug Ecstasy to combat depression.
She wrote, “I tried MDMA and psilocybin in small amounts. Trying these medicines with supervision was a game changer for me, and I was able to do them in a comfortable setting that made me feel safe to let go.”
India said psychedelics, including ketamine, helped her with C-PTSD, dyslexia, ADHD, anxiety, and depression.
On Instagram, India said her podcast is “for people who are still learning, like listening & asking questions.”
Oxenberg posted on a topic she is learning about — the passage of the 19th Amendment.
She writes, “I Love learning facts. I don’t consider myself a very politically oriented person, but I am patriotic for sure!✨🪄💭. 🕊️”
With her comments on the 19th Amendment, ratified on August 18, 1920, granting women the right to vote, India made a short video of herself in a series of poses.
Her podcast of August 18th delved into India’s efforts with Benscoter to break from NXIVM. Here is a short excerpt.
India Oxenberg:… I didn’t have any friends. I didn’t have anybody to rely on…. my family felt completely estranged to me….so the idea of going back to the cult seemed actually easy…. I didn’t even realize how strong the pull would be because of how afraid I was about the re-entry of reality.
Diane:… You needed help on a legal basis. You were scared legally. And you were scared on so many levels. And so, your mom made the proposition to you that she would help you financially with legal stuff. And if you would just talk to me, I think we agreed on 10 hours… but I still had to get you to agree to actually talk…. And one of the ways that we did that was … you would have the power to tell me what to… report back to your mother.
***
India:… I was afraid… I was very paranoid about… anybody… getting close to my mind… I was being thrown around all over the place, like being used as a pawn for NXIVM and not knowing if I could trust my mom, but really wanting to.
Diane: One of the things that any kind of a controlling group will do is polarization. … There’s us and there’s them. And your mom was not only just them but she was enemy number one.
India: Yeah, she was enemy number one of the group… I almost feel like I was just trying to catch my breath when we met… so much of what we focused on was re-engaging my critical thinking, because I would get into a thought and I would not be able to think about it any other way, but what I was programmed.
Diane: The other thing was there were so many tangled up relationships that you were concerned about. There was Allison and there was all the members of DOS… you were really concerned about the relationships with these people and what would happen to your friends…. these were the closest people that you had in your life … And so to lose them on top of your world crumbling…. I don’t know if you remember how much time we spent talking about the different people in your life and the relationships and what was going to happen…
India: I was agonizing over trying to figure out ways to help these people get out and I was barely… getting to my own senses at that time, but… I was getting to a place where I was willing to start to question things, but I was still really scared about how deeply I would question. And so for,,, those people that were still in who I considered my deepest, most… important relationships–
Diane: Like Nicki.
India: Yeah… or Michele…. And I would just cry about it with you.
Diane: Yeah, you were very upset. Yeah, those were the pieces that we had to untangle. Those were the things that were important to you and I think what happens when you realize… when you start to think… about, what if this whole thing’s a lie, …there’s a lot of loose ends to look at.
