Michael Douglas says a cult threatened to 'eliminate' him during a dinner party

Michael Douglas' basic instincts kicked in at the right time and right place.

While chatting on the "Joe Rogan Experience," Douglas, 82, recalled thwarting a near-death experience with a cult.

Douglas explained that the cult tried to "create a cathartic moment, being all together, kind of an emotional moment."

"They invited me for dinner, and then they said, 'Well, with a lady friend,' they said ... 'We've been trying to reach you,'" he recalled. 

"We got to dessert, and they said, 'We've been trying to reach you, and you just don't get it. You don't get it. So, you're going to have to be eliminated.'"

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When Rogan asked what it was that Douglas "didn't get," he explained that "they wanted … to join, to give yourself up, to be part of it."

"They were going to whack me," he said. "I remember there was a long silence, and I said, 'Well, you've done it, haven't you?' And they said, 'Yeah,' ... and a big, long pause.

"My girlfriend just started falling apart, peeing in her pants and all that."

Douglas admitted they thought they "were going to get killed," but, instead, he was allowed to simply walk away.

"Then I said, 'I'm going to leave now,' and they said, 'Yeah, you better.'"

He said there was a moment when if he made "any sudden movement," he could have easily been killed.

"It's strange," he remembered. "I've never had many experiences, but there's numbness. … Kind of this whole numbness just comes over you, or it did in my case. Just was frozen."

When asked what cult it was, Douglas claimed that it was led by Mel Lyman, noting that he alerted after the ordeal.

Douglas also talked to the podcaster about his time living in a commune in Santa Barbara during his "hippie days."

"It was called Mountain Drive, a whole community," Douglas explained. "It was organic. People lived, you know, it wasn't formal."

The Academy Award winner wrote about secret affairs; heavy cocaine and alcohol use; a "rehab or divorce" ultimatum from his first wife, Diandra; and the painful family struggles that followed him from childhood into fatherhood in his new memoir, "One Helluva Ride."

Douglas described his father, Hollywood icon Kirk Douglas, as a powerful but volatile presence.

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"Kirk Douglas was my father, a flawed man with a ferocious temper and a burning ambition," he wrote.

Douglas admitted that his fathers behavior left him and brother Joel frightened. He recalled Kirk saying, "I yell and scream because I care," and Douglas wrote that Joel endured more of the abuse.

The "Wall Street" star also described the darkest years of his son Camerons addiction.

"When he was really strung out in New York, I decided I was going to kidnap him and force him into rehab," he wrote.

Douglas said and heroin, dealt methamphetamine and carried a Glock for protection. During one incident, Cameron flashed the weapon at