RECOMMENDATIONS
9 of the best podcasts about cults
Stories about cults have become part of the Mount Rushmore of modern podcasting, along with scammers, murderers and celebs popping round each other’s houses for dinner. And that’s partly because they mix a little of all of those other genres into the pot, and add some brainwashing for good measure: there are the cults which are just a means of exploiting the lost and vulnerable for their cash; there are the cults which end in one or more adherents dying; and there are cults which feature a brief cameo from one or another of its famous supporters. Yep, a good cult story is a copper-bottomed podcast staple.
But it’s not just a case of looking for the nearest set of oddballs in robes and pointing a microphone at them. Invariably the podcasts about cults which work best, and which make the best use of podcasting as a medium, don’t really look like cult stories at all. They’re about the ways in which a whole array of difficulties can combine to lead a person to look for meaning in places where most of us never go.
Cult stories aren’t really about cults; they’re about the gaps in society which people can fall through, and where they end up when they feel they’ve nowhere left to go. Here are nine of the best podcasts about cults.
Sounds Like a Cult
If you’ve been thinking of cults purely in terms of very spindly blokes with beards and sandals promising good vibes to anyone committed enough to hand over their Monzo card, you’ve had it all wrong. Amanda Montell and Isa Medina are joined by a new guest each episode to pick apart how the mechanics of cults are at play in all sorts of places: K-pop fandom, corporate America, Coachella, Peloton, the Boy Scouts, Apple, diet culture. Honestly, you’ll be amazed if it turns out you’ve not been in a cult all this time. Listen now >>
A Very British Cult
For Jeff, Lighthouse seemed to be exactly what its name promised: a beacon of hope and guidance during a difficult time in his life. The life-coaching company said it could set him straight and put him on a path to abundance and freedom. But his sister Dawn saw that it was leaching him of his self-confidence and his cash – to the tune of £100,000. This investigation from some of the team behind The Missing Cryptoqueen is often difficult to listen to as Jeff is crushed and trapped, but it’s compulsive too. Listen now >>
Escaping NXIVM
The luridness of what used to go on at NXIVM – grooming, sexual abuse, branding rituals with hot irons – made it a huge news story in 2018, and as soon as you thought you’d hit the most bizarre revelation another would pop up. Hang on: Allison Mack from Smallville’s involved? But focusing on just those lurid aspects ignores the wreckage which NXIVM strewed through its victims’ lives. CBC’s seven-part examination came out just after the ringleaders were arrested in 2018, and is as thorough and sober a telling as you’ll find. Listen now >>
The Orgasm Cult
There’s been a libel case hanging over this one for a couple of years, as the founder and former exec of OneTaste – a “sexuality-focused wellness education” organisation – attack the BBC over its accusations of manipulation and extortionate prices for enlightenment. OneTaste offered classes in “orgasmic meditation”, which is roughly what it sounds like, but this podcast suggests it was exploiting the women who came to it hoping for answers. It’s not a pure wibbly-woo cult story; there is a hard edge here, and is as much a business investigation as anything else. Listen now >>
The New Gurus
Now that cults and how they work are fairly well-trodden ground, you’d assume that most smart, level-headed people would be able to spot the red flags and skip on by. But as Helen Lewis points out, the methods which were once used to flog mysticism and self-knowledge are still around – they’re just being wrapped up in all sorts of new guises. While not strictly about cults, Lewis shows how techno-utopians promising the earth are speaking to people anxious about what’s to come, and the scions of, say, pick-up artistry, certainly have big cult vibes. Listen now >>
Trust Me
Most cult-concerned podcasts are limited, bingeable series, but this is an always-on one dedicated to talking to survivors of cults about how their particular sect worked, how they got out, and how they managed to readjust to mainstream life afterwards. Lola Blanc and Meagan Elizabeth are the perfect hosts: both are cult survivors themselves, and can probe in a way that doesn’t feel exploitative or judgemental. Recent guests have included Crystal Hefner on the Playboy Mansion and Jenna Miscavige Hill on getting out of Scientology. Listen now >>
The Coming Storm
When the Capitol building was stormed on 6 January 2021, the world suddenly woke up to the very real danger which the QAnon conspiracy posed to sanity and democracy. To show how a niche subculture on the 4Chan imageboard gestated, warped and metastasised to take over people’s entire lives and a frightening chunk of the Republican party, BBC reporter Gabriel Gatehouse goes all the way back to the very beginning, and the discovery of a dead body in a park. Listen now >>
Filthy Ritual
Hannah Maguire and Suruthi Bala from true crime podcast RedHanded tell the story of how a North London neighbourhood became the playground of a shamanic healer who convinced her clients to hand over hundreds of thousands of pounds. Maguire and Bala are engagingly wry hosts who nonetheless get over the strange hold which Juliet d’Souza had over otherwise rational, reasonable people. Listen now >>
Plus one from our Digital Editor:
The Commune
Recommended by Francesca Turauskis
“I couldn’t let this article go out without adding my own recommendation for The Commune, which won the ‘Podcast of the Year’ at the New Zealand Podcast Awards in 2022. For New Zealanders, Centrepoint is notorious – as was it’s Founder, Herbert “Bert” Potter. Started in 1977 just outside the town of Albany, it positioned itself as an alternative lifestyle. In reality, it was abusive and psychological manipulative, with unmonitored forms of group therapy and widely reported sexual abuse, drug use, and local corruption. The Commune features interviews with previous Centrepoint residents (some of whom look back on Centrepoint fondly) and people who lived near by, and ultimately tries to figure out, how did it happen.” Listen now >>