Jul 8

The Cult of America's Next Top Model

This week, Chelsea, Amanda, and guest Sarah Hartshorne (@sarahbhartshorne) dig into the high-gloss, high-drama, and disturbingly high-control world of America’s Next Top Model. Once hailed as a launchpad for aspiring models, the long-running franchise masked emotional manipulatio ... Show More

1h 21m

Jul 1

The Cult of Elon Musk (Part 2)

What happens when a billionaire tech mogul starts to look less like a CEO and more like a modern-day messiah? This week, Chelsea, Amanda, and Reese team up with historian and authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat (@ruthbenghiat) to explore the cult of personality surrounding Elo ... Show More

1h 12m

Jun 24

The Cult of WWE

The lights dim. The murmuring crowd nibbles subpar soft pretzels anxiously. The Sounds Like a Cult theme music begins to blare at ear-splitting volumes, pyrotechnics nearly blinding an old lady caught in the front of the mob as a spandex-clad (think Barbie meets Barbarella) Reese ... Show More

1h 14m

Aug 2021

Trailer: Was I In A Cult?

Hosted by Tyler Measom and Liz Iacuzzi, Was I In A Cult? is a documentary-style podcast featuring far-out, first-hand stories of survivors who unwittingly joined, lived in, and escaped, cults. Using levity and info-tainment, the show humanizes the cultic experience and may leave ... Show More

4m 32s

Apr 2023

111: If It Sounds Like a Cult..

Two Hot Takes host, Morgan, is joined by guests Amanda Montell and Isa Medina of Sounds Like a Cult! This episode features stories that have us questioning is this a cult? Is it a green flag cult or a red flag/you need to run cult? And are you wondering if you've ever been in a c ... Show More

1h 48m

Sep 2017

Welcome Trailer!

Mystery. Manipulation. Murder. Cults are associated with all of these. But what really goes on inside a cult? More specifically, what goes on inside the minds of people who join cults and leaders who start them. Every Tuesday we take a psychological approach to analyzing a cult a ... Show More

1 m

Mar 2014

Cults (You've Never Heard Of)

What's the difference between a cult and a religion? What are some of history's strangest cults? Are there any secret cults in the modern day? Tune in to learn more. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy in ... Show More

48m 45s

Nov 2020

CLASSIC: Cults (You’ve Never Heard Of)

What's the difference between a cult and a religion? What are some of history's strangest cults? Are there any secret cults in the modern day? In this week's classic episode, Ben and Matt are (accidentally) prescient. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastn ... Show More

49m 29s

Feb 2021

Caught Up With Cults

It’s happened to more people than we think. You go to a meeting and end up devoting your life to a cult. Okay maybe not. This week the ladies discuss their thoughts on cults, experiences they’ve had that may be cultish, and explore some cults that have made an impact on society.N ... Show More

50m 42s

Jul 2021

Wait… Am I In A Cult? Ft. Amanda Montell

This week, Sara and Danny host writer, language scholar, and podcast host Amanda Montell, for a fascinating conversation about about cults and what makes them so effective at garnering our attention. They cover cult-ish groups and organizations from Scientology to SoulCycle and e ... Show More

50m 43s

Jun 2021

The Family Cult

This week, Sara and Danny are back to talk all and about The Family, an Australian doomsday cult founded by Anne Hamilton-Byrne. They breakdown everything from the cult’s beginnings in yoga studios for well-to do people to the spiritual hodgepodge that made up the cult’s belief s ... Show More

48m 46s

Mar 2018

A Digital Cult? The Strange Story of Bentinho Massaro

One person's cult is another person's inarguable truth, and over millenia many spiritual or cultural belief systems have been called cults. Typically organizations called cults have a few commonal traits, one of the chief of which is isolation. So can cults continue to exist in t ... Show More

1h 4m

Apr 2022

1: Not a Cult

American Spiritualism is a frequently invoked, rarely understood religion that hinges on speaking with spirit through mediums. In our first episode, Jamie Loftus puts your little baby brain at rest -- it's not a cult. But what is it?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informa ... Show More

49m 24s

Sounds Like A Cult - Welcome Trailer!