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.

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

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

DANNY DEVITO EXPOSES WILD PARTY SCENE ON 1980S 'TAXI' SET: 'CRUDITÉ AND COCAINE' MICHAEL DOUGLAS' WILDEST HOLLYWOOD CONFESSIONS: FROM A-LIST ACTRESS BITE TO JULIA ROBERTS CLASH 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." He added, "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.

GET ENTERTAINMENT SCOOP DELIVERED RIGHT TO YOUR EMAIL BY CLICKING HERE "Then I said, 'I'm going to leave now,' and they said, 'Ya, you better.'" He said there was a moment where 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 the police 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.