SCARRED

The True Story of How I Escaped Nxivm, the Cult That Bound My Life

By Sarah Edmondson with Kristine Gasbarre

In 2005, Sarah Edmondson, 28, embarked on a weeklong Caribbean cruise dedicated to spirituality and cinema. Though the fledgling actress lived in a basement apartment and could barely afford the price of passage, she’d been reading a lot of self-help books — from “The Artist’s Way” to “The Celestine Prophecy” — and hoped the Deepak Chopra-endorsed voyage would help her network with film-industry influencers.

“I’d been a lost young actress searching for everything: my big break, a way to save some money, friends I could connect with and — more than anything — purpose in my life,” Edmondson writes in her memoir. Before boarding the ship, she recalls, “I set an intention to meet people who were living their purpose so I could gain some direction in finding mine.”

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Reading this setup feels like watching a horror movie. The audience knows a giant carnivorous plant lurks within the innocent-looking flower shop; everyone wants to yell, “Don’t go in there!” But it’s always the same: The protagonist steps inside and is summarily devoured.