The “Psycho-Sexual” Sullivanians
Founded in the 1950s by a WWII veteran, the Sullivan Institute advanced ideas of free love and non-monogamy. But its leader, Saul Newton, grew tyrannical. Hannah and Suruthi discuss how he went from s...
12 Jul 202234min
Polygamy & Death in the Desert: The Church of the Lamb of God
Ervil LeBaron’s name doesn’t strike the same chord as Charles Manson’s. But maybe it should. After he was excommunicated from his church, Ervil led a religious sect where he invoked “Blood Atonement” ...
5 Jul 202237min
The Branch Davidians & The Waco Siege
David Koresh didn’t create the religious group known as the Davidians, but he did come to lead a splinter group in the ‘80s that later became infamous after a controversial and deadly raid. Hannah and...
28 Jun 202239min
Mankind United: Good vs. Evil
In the midst of the Great Depression, Arthur Bell wrote a book outlining the good and evil forces at work in the world, pitting the philanthropic “Sponsors” against a cabal of “Hidden Rulers.” It read...
21 Jun 202233min
Jonestown
What started as a church with idealistic intentions to promote racial and economic equality devolved into a cult where 909 people died in a mass casualty event. Hannah and Suruthi discuss Jim Jones an...
14 Jun 202237min
The Great Eleven
Sacrifices, suspected murders, and the hidden corpse of a teenage priestess… In the 1920s, May Otis Blackburn and her daughter Ruth led a cult based in Simi Valley, California, that promised eternal l...
7 Jun 202240min
Comrade Bala’s Workers' Institute
It started as a bookshop, grew into a commune, and evolved into an off-the-grid cult. Aravindan Balakrishnan started the Workers’ Institute after joining, then getting kicked out of, the Communist Par...
31 Mai 202238min
The Hellfire Clubs
Their president? The devil. Their customs? “Horrid impieties.” Hellfire Clubs started in the 18th century as unruly gatherings devoted to hedonism and blasphemy. Most of what we know about them comes ...
24 Mai 202230min
