Time to spill some never-before-heard culty tales: This week, Amanda and Isa are reacting to shocking cult stories submitted by you listeners! Many thanks to those who wrote in to share their personal brushes with New Age scams, love-bombing strangers, elementary school rituals that seem sus in retrospect, and more. Traditional religion may be on the decline ... Show More
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 2022
Transcendental Meditation & Cult Intervention with Patrick Ryan and Joe Kelly
Want to learn how to levitate? Cult Interventionists and Founders of Cult News 101, Patrick Ryan and Joe Kelly, talk about their work with ICSA (the International Cultic Studies Association), how levitation played into their experiences with Transcendental Meditation, early cult ... Show More
1h 18m
Jan 2024
cultish, a talk with amanda montell (revisit) [video]
[video available on spotify] today i present to you, amanda montell: a writer, linguist, and fellow podcast host. amanda has written three books. one of them, the age of magical overthinking, is about to come out. today i want to zoom in on one of our many common interests. she w ... Show More
50m 58s
Jan 2024
LSD Children Cult
In the 1960’s, Elites from Australia’s Political, Medical, Psychiatric, and Academic circles, joined a Cult. They stole children and subjected them to unimaginable horrors, drugging them with LSD to create a supposed master race. The children endured a life of isolation and abuse ... Show More
1h 27m
Dec 2023
378 - Zombies, White Camps, and Murder: The Story of Lori Vallow
I know - this episode is a long one! I tried to cut as much as I could that didn't feel relevant to tell this tale. I really did! There's just so much juicy stuff. So many strange, STRANGE details. Lori evolved, over the course of her adult life, from a manipulative person who wa ... Show More
3h 13m