Podcasts by Lets Talk About Sects

Interview Episode: Chabad and Zionism from 2023-12-12T13:15:18

Yaakov Aharon and Shula Kirovsky’s lives in Sydney’s famous beach suburb of Bondi were lived largely separate from mainstream society, within the Chassidic sect of Chabad. Their families’ lifest...

Interview Episode: IndoctriNation with Rachel Bernstein from 2023-11-14T13:15:56

Rachel Bernstein is an LA-based therapist who has specialized in cult intervention and re-acclimation for over 30 years. She serves on the advisory board of the International Cultic Studies...

Xenos / Dwell – Part 2 from 2023-10-12T07:16:12

Xenos was originally set up as a leaderless group that rejected the structures and trappings of mainstream churches. Springing forth from the Jesus Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, it...

Xenos / Dwell – Part 1 from 2023-10-12T07:09:11

Xenos was originally set up as a leaderless group that rejected the structures and trappings of mainstream churches. Springing forth from the Jesus Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, it...

Theatre of All Possibilities / Odyssey Study Group from 2023-09-12T14:15:16

In many ways, this theatre troupe and Fourth Way school became the most secretive this podcast has looked into yet. Most members didn’t know each other’s jobs, marital status, or even surnames. ...

International Cult Awareness Month: Andrew Pledger and BJU from 2023-08-22T14:15:34

Andrew Pledger was raised in the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement, and after completing his homeschool education, attended Bob Jones University. He is the creator of the limited podcast&...

International Cult Awareness Month: Sarah from 2023-08-15T14:15:56

Sarah is a cult survivor, domestic violence survivor, and a survivor of trafficking and modern slavery. She wouldn’t have been able to name these things as she was experiencing them, or even for...

International Cult Awareness Month: Carol Merchasin from 2023-08-08T14:15:01

Carol Merchasin spent many years as an employment lawyer. She has also been a partner in the Philadelphia office of Morgan, Lewis& Bockius and director of Morgan Lewis Resources. She ha...

International Cult Awareness Month: Lisa Kendall from 2023-08-01T14:30:24

Lisa Kendall spent the ages of 9-19 in The Move of God, Sam Fife's apocalyptic cult. Today, she devotes her time to working on policy changes that will help former cult members and children in h...

Interview Episode: When the World Didn't End with Guinevere Turner from 2023-06-13T06:13:57

Guinevere Turner grew up in The Lyman Family, a group she now understands was a cult, but at the time was the only family she knew. Guinevere has recently released her memoirListen

Interview Episode: Rosanna Overcomer from 2023-04-27T06:08:22

Gloriavale Christian Community has been in the news recently in New Zealand for court cases around labour and servitude, and there are further cases happening as well. To understand more about t...

Divine Madness from 2023-04-11T14:15:12

Divine Madness Running Club boasted some spectacular results in ultramarathons and became known for their excellent support teams and low-impact style of running. But the Boulder, Colorado based...

The Ishayas' Ascension / The Bright Path from 2023-03-14T13:15:02

Carolyn Millemon learned about a form of meditation called ‘Ascending’ at a weekend workshop in Western Australia when she was 21. A couple of years later, in North Carolina, she decided to dedi...

Interview Episode: Matthew Klein from 2023-03-07T13:15:44

Matthew Klein’s story is featured on the podcast Inside the Tribe, and Matt sat down with LTAS for a chat about what he learned from his time in the Twelve Tribes, and what he thinks society cou...

Brisbane Christian Fellowship from 2023-02-14T13:15:18

Brisbane Christian Fellowship sounds like a fairly innocuous name for a church. But the BCF and its network of organisations across Australia have been the subject of a Four Corners investigatio...

MOVE Philadelphia from 2023-01-17T13:15:39

MOVE Philadelphia made headlines in 1978, when police and MOVE members ended up in a prolonged siege and a gunfire exchange that left a police officer dead. They hit the headlines again in 1985,...

Bob Barlow's "Truth" from 2022-12-13T13:15:48

There’s a group in regional Queensland that claims to have no name. Members meet in each other’s homes on Wednesdays and Sundays. They don’t have any of their beliefs written down, though they d...

Interview Episode: Uncultured with Daniella Mestyanek Young from 2022-11-29T13:15:55

Daniella Mestyanek Young was born into the Children of God, as was her mother before her. She left as a teenager and put herself through school and university, then decided to join the military....

Interview Episode: Inside the Tribe with Tim Elliott from 2022-11-22T19:00:19

Many people around the world would have come across the food produced by the Twelve Tribes through their Common Ground market stalls and bakeries or their Yellow Deli cafes. A post from 2011 on ...

The Logos Foundation from 2022-11-15T13:15:23

The Logos Foundation was often described as ‘mysterious’ in media coverage, but became a part of the religious right that published full page newspaper advertisements encouraging the electorate ...

Interview Episode: Cult Trip with Anke Richter from 2022-11-08T13:15:13

Anke Richter is an international journalist and author based in NZ. Over time she’s found herself covering more and more cults, to the point where she recently published her first book about the...

Interview Episode: Issues in Coaching and Wellness with Kathleen Oh from 2022-11-01T13:15:01

Kathleen Oh is a rare breed: a wellness coach who is cynical about wellness and the coaching industry. She works with clients across integration and psychedelics education. Kathleen is trained i...

Interview Episode: Dr Janja Lalich from 2022-10-21T13:15:01

Dr Janja Lalich is a Professor Emerita of Sociology at California State University, Chico. She has written multiple world-renowned books on cultic studies, and is soon to launch the non-profit Listen

Interview Episode: Gloriavale with Noel Smyth&Fergus Grady from 2022-10-15T13:15:05

When widespread abuse is uncovered at a New Zealand cult, a family must turn to the legal system in an effort to save themselves and their community from the all-powerful leaders. Filmmakers Noe...

Twin Flames Universe from 2022-10-08T02:49:15

Twin Flames Universe promises devotees a path to ascension through finding their ultimate lover, and building a permanent, harmonious union. But former followers have accused the organisation of...

Interview Episode: Avi's Story from 2022-10-02T19:15:32

In January 2018, Avi started seeing a new psychologist in Melbourne, Australia. She'd experienced childhood trauma, and wanted to get some help with managing panic attacks. The registered psycho...

The New Gnostic Society from 2022-09-01T06:49:21

Samael Aun Weor claimed that he could remember his own birth, and had identified the only true path to spiritual development. Crucial to his religion was a sexual practice that involved couples ...

Interview Episode: A Little Bit Culty from 2022-07-26T14:15:29

Sarah Edmondson is an actor, voice over artist and activist who spent 12 years inNXIVM, rising from student to ...

Bonus Episode: Do As I Say, Chapter One from 2022-06-08T22:37:04

Sarah Steel's debut bookDo As I Sayis published by Pan Macmillan Australia, and out on 28 June 2022. It will be available in Listen

Interview Episode: Counter Cult Coalition from 2022-04-19T14:15:04

Lisa Kendall spent the ages of 9-19 in The Move of God, Sam Fife's Apocalyptic cult. Today, she devotes her time to working on policy changes that will help former cult members and children in h...

Interview Episode: KwaSizabantu from 2021-12-07T13:15:36

KwaSizabantu means “the place where people are helped” in Zulu. Erika Bornman spent most of her childhood years at the KwaSizabantu Mission. Her memoirMission of Maliceis about her chil...

Interview Episode: David Freeman – former child member of The Family from 2021-06-29T14:15

David Freeman was handed over to Anne Hamilton Byrne at the age of two, when he went to live with the other children at The Family’s Lake Eildon property. It took 12 years before he was rescued ...

Bonus Episode: David Freeman – former child member of The Family from 2021-06-29T14:15

David Freeman was handed over to Anne Hamilton Byrne at the age of two, when he went to live with the other children at The Family’s Lake Eildon property. It took 12 years before he was rescued ...

Introducing Smoke Screen: I Am Rama from 2021-06-22T12:00

Rama was a spiritual teacher in the 80s and 90s who inspired many of his students while helming what many of his detractors would describe as a cult. He defied society’s archetypal vision of a N...

Gloriavale – Part 2 from 2021-04-20T14:15

Gloriavale Christian Community is recognised around New Zealand for the distinctive dress of its members, especially the women, who wear headscarves to denote submission to men, and a neck-to-an...

Gloriavale – Part 1 from 2021-04-13T14:15

Gloriavale Christian Community has found itself in the New Zealand media headlines on multiple occasions. Its founder was once jailed for sexual abuse, but community members were convinced that ...

Zion Full Salvation Ministry from 2021-03-16T13:15

Violet Pryor told her followers that she was God. They gave up their money and possessions to keep her in comfort. David Ayliffe became one of her key Pillars, a right-hand man. After her d...

Master's Commission from 2021-02-16T13:15

As he was about to turn 17, Remy Attig was keen to get away from his parents’ fracturing marriage, and ready for something to give his life purpose. The Master’s Commission program seemed like j...

Exclusive Brethren – Part 2 from 2021-01-19T13:16

Lindy Jacomb was born into the Exclusive Brethren in Auckland, New Zealand, and was told there was no longer a place for her there in 2008. Her family cut off all communication with her and she ...

Exclusive Brethren – Part 1 from 2021-01-19T13:15

Lindy Jacomb was born into the Exclusive Brethren in Auckland, New Zealand, and was told there was no longer a place for her there in 2008. Her family cut off all communication with her and she ...

Fire This Time from 2020-12-15T13:15

As a disaffected youth, Shannon Bundock was drawn to progressive ideas. In her late teens she moved into the city, to a poor neighbourhood in Vancouver, Canada, where she became hyper aware of t...

The Welcomed Consensus + OneTaste – Part 2 from 2020-11-24T13:15

Natasha Tiku wrote for Gawker in 2013, “Everyone is interested in doing fun things with their bodies. But the impulse to systematize, replicate, package, sell, and build an ideology around it is...

The Welcomed Consensus + OneTaste – Part 1 from 2020-11-17T13:15

Natasha Tiku wrote for Gawker in 2013, “Everyone is interested in doing fun things with their bodies. But the impulse to systematize, replicate, package, sell, and build an ideology around it is...

Two by Twos / The Truth from 2020-10-13T13:15

Laura McConnell was born into a fundamentalist Christian sect that claims it has no name. Former member Elizabeth Coleman told Nathan Jolly for news.com.au earlier this year that, “It is of utmo...

Zendik Farm from 2020-09-15T14:15

Helen Zuman describes herself as “a tree-hugging dirt worshipper devoted to turning waste into food and the stinky guck of experience into fertile, fragrant prose.” Her memoir ‘Mating in Captivi...

Bonus Episode: Posadism – an interview with A.M. Gittlitz from 2020-07-21T14:15

Journalist A.M. Gittlitz released his book I Want to Believe: Posadism, UFOs and Apocalypse Communism earlier this year. In it, he explores the fascinating world of the Posadists – a La...

Children of God – Part 2 from 2020-04-21T14:15

The Children of God, later known as The Family, became notorious for their practise called “flirty fishing”. They believed in bringing up their children to have no inhibitions around sex, but th...

Children of God – Part 1 from 2020-04-14T14:15

The Children of God, later known as The Family, became notorious for their practise called “flirty fishing”. They believed in bringing up their children to have no inhibitions around sex, but th...

The Living Word Fellowship from 2020-03-17T13:15

John Robert Stevens wrote when he was just 14 years old: “My joy must be in doing His will, in being His slave, in the confidence that whatever comes to me, when following Him, is His doing. In ...

The New Kadampa Tradition from 2020-02-11T13:15

In 1996, journalist Madeleine Bunting wrote for The Guardian UK: “Most of the 130,000 Buddhists in this country are in the caring professions, or are academics, or are part of an ex-hippy cultur...

The Garden Ashram from 2020-01-14T13:15

Hare Krishnas are often seen as joyous, harmless people, dancing their way through the streets, chanting to bells in their colourful robes. But in one particular Australian offshoot, a young wom...

Ideal Human Environment from 2019-12-17T13:15

WANTED: families to volunteer to live for six months in the Australian outback “to advance the frontiers of social science.” Be part of a cutting edge research project to test the ideal human en...

The Move from 2019-11-12T13:15

Followers of The Move rejected mainstream society and headed into the wilderness in the 1970s, building isolated communities that were to set them up for the coming Apocalypse. Many ex-members w...

Universal Medicine from 2019-10-15T13:15

Australian esoteric healing organisation Universal Medicine teaches that entities known as The Four Lords of Form rule over 9-foot-tall spirits that are all around us, and that most people have ...

NXIVM from 2019-09-17T14:15

Edgar Bronfman Sr. of the Seagram liquor fortune once wrote a testimonial for a course he had taken through an organisation called Executive Success Programs, or ESP. He said, quote, “If everyon...

Bonus Episode: The Family Update from 2019-07-18T07:30

On the 14 June 2019, news broke in Australia that many people had been waiting on for a number of years. That news was the death of this country’s most notorious cult leader, Anne Hamilton-Byrne...

Chung Moo Quan from 2019-04-16T14:15

Chung Moo Quan positioned itself as a superior martial arts school that taught eight different practices at once. Though this may have originally struck prospective students as a bargain-and-a-h...

Order of the Solar Temple from 2019-03-12T13:15

The Order of the Solar Temple was a secret society that would go down sharing the pages of history with Jonestown, the Branch Davidians and Heaven’s Gate. But is it fair to compare the groups? W...

The Seaside Sect from 2019-02-12T13:15

A New Zealand-born man who moved to Australia in the 1970s and started a sect, telling his eventual 9 wives and 60-plus children that he was Jesus Christ, was put behind bars for 7 years in Vict...

Joy Kuo & Iphigenie Amoutzias' Story from 2019-01-15T13:15

Joy Kuo and her husband moved to Sydney from Taiwan in 2000, and the couple both began working for the University of Sydney Library the following year. They both studied for and gained their mas...

Grace J. Adams and Poia Alpha, Former Branch Davidians from 2018-12-18T13:15

Grace J. Adams and Poia Alpha are two sisters from New Zealand, who joined David Koresh’s Branch Davidians in the 1980s along with their other sister, the younger Rebecca. Poia left the sect in ...

Outreach International – Part 2 from 2018-11-20T13:15

Laura left Outreach International when she was 32 years old, having been born into the sect in the late 1970s. Hear her story as she relates the experience of being a young woman in a highly pat...

Outreach International – Part 1 from 2018-11-13T13:15

In May 2017, a sect that started in Melbourne, Australia, 50 years ago, and has been highly secretive over the last few decades, decided to change its closed-doors policy and go public with a we...

The Workers’ Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought from 2018-10-16T13:15

In October of 2013, the British organisation Freedom Charity received a call on their hotline. The woman on the other end said that her housemate had been held captive in South London for 30 yea...

Synanon from 2018-09-18T14:15

Synanon began as an addiction support group that gathered in a grimy Californian flat in the late 1950s. It would grow to become a well-funded utopian society throughout the late ’60s and early ...

Branch Davidians from 2018-04-17T14:15

2018 marks the 25-year anniversary of a 51-day siege that ended in tragedy, following a shootout between the U.S. government and members of a sect called the Branch Davidians. The gunfire exchan...

Bonus Episode: Aum Shinrikyo Update from 2018-03-21T13:15

Over recent days, several of the 13 incarcerated Aum Shinrikyo members sentenced to death have been moved to new facilities, prompting speculation that their execution is imminent.

In ...

The Order of St Charbel from 2018-03-13T13:15

William Kamm has a 10pm curfew, and is not allowed to spend time with girls under the age of 17. He is prevented from entering the Shoalhaven district of New South Wales, and his movements and c...

Koreshanity from 2018-02-13T13:15

The Koreshans believed that the earth was hollow, and that humans lived on the concave inside surface of it. They theorised that the moon and stars, and indeed the rest of the universe, was cont...

Universal Knowledge from 2018-01-16T13:15

Carli McConkey was a 21-year-old university graduate when she decided to attend the Mind Body Spirit Festival in Sydney, and came across the stand for Life Integration Programmes. The course the...

Kenja Communication from 2017-12-12T13:15

Ken Dyers passed away 10 years ago this year, but the organisation that he spearheaded with his partner Jan Hamilton lives on. In spite of a few parallels, this Australian organisation, called K...

Aum Shinrikyo from 2017-11-14T13:15

Twenty years ago this year, Japan was to become a nuclear wasteland, according to the leader of a sect who claimed that the only survivors would be his followers and 10% of the major cities. It ...

The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God from 2017-10-17T13:15

Ugandan cult The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God was one of the deadliest in world history, with the number of people who died similar to the infamous Jonestown massa...

The Family from 2017-09-19T14:15

There is a 95-year-old woman in a Melbourne nursing home who dotes on a plastic baby doll. You wouldn’t guess it to look at her, but this is a woman who amassed a multi-million dollar fortune, d...