What’s that...? You thought Led Zeppelin’s appeal was to do with Robert Plant’s soaring vocals and bodacious hair? Well. You clearly haven’t listened to their lyrics backwards. Come with us—if you dare—into the Haunted House of Rock Music [cue thunder crashes and villain laughter]. We’re piling into Marty McFly’s DeLorean time machine and traveling back to 1989 to watch Hell’s Bells: The Dangers of Rock ‘n’ Roll. It’s what’s playing in the background at a Halloween party thrown by the Satanic Panic, a new moral majority, parental advisory labels on “porn rock,” and general fears about teenagers enjoying themselves. Mike gets groovy with a Sandi Patty deep cut and a Grateful Dead jam session, while Merinda stands by the punch bowl muttering surly critiques about failures in textual analysis. What do our fears (and the ways we try to manage them) say about us? What do code-cracking and spreading conspiracy theories have in common? And what makes metaphors a trick for some and a treat for others? We have lotsa thoughts and zero jump scares. Listen and lurch!

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Production assistance from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama.

Theme music produced with Udio.

Why would Tarzan leave Manhattan for Brentwood, TN? Find out as we take a tour of the Remnant Fellowship Church by way of the HBO/Max documentary The Way Down: God, Greed, and the Cult of Gwen Shamblin. Conversational topics include but are not limited to: 1980s diet culture, patriarchy in conservative American Protestantism, gender politics and anti-fat bias, and what gets normalized when religious groups are said to warp/twist/exploit a certain text or tradition. Mike drops some personal lore about parenting workshops, Merinda explains why she doesn’t like an exceptionalism narrative, and both agree that it’s annoying when gawking at big hair stands in for critiquing capitalist tax codes. PSA: Individual experiences are always wrapped up in and reflective of structural realities, everybody. Cult favorites include the amazing Aubrey Gordon. Less explicitly, we seem also to love accidental segues and a lack of transitions! Join us and follow wherever you listen to things.

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Production assistance from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama.

Theme music produced with Udio

This week, we get a first-person account of the Buddhafield from someone who had been a member of the group for 22 years. Ballet, speedos, fruit carving, 80s-era disillusionment, and Rosemary’s Baby all make appearances. Mike questions reality, Merinda gets mad at the filmmaker’s mother, and we both think about different kinds/degrees of performance. Is confrontation a passable substitute for closure? Is “charisma” just patriarchy with a facelift? Join us as we discuss Holy Hell. And keep sending us feedback and film recs! We love hearing from you.

Links:

Christopher Breu, In Defense of Sex: Nonbinary Embodiment and Desire https://www.fordhampress.com/9781531508777/in-defense-of-sex/

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Production assistance from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama.

Theme music produced with Udio.

What can possibly make sense of a billion-year contract or a billion-page menu? We're on the case, with a conversation that ranges from Scientology’s Sea Org to The Cheesecake Factory’s dizzying array of food options. This week, we’re talking about Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief. Cameos include (but are not limited to): Rock Hudson, Majorie Cameron, John Travolta, Aleister Crowley, and (most importantly, as far as Merinda’s concerned) Kate Bornstein. When does the relationship between religion and money seem fine v. not-fine and why? What makes makeshift military pastiche different from time-honored religious rituals/garb? What makes a group appeal to people, and when do we feel compelled (or not) to explain that appeal in the first place? And does our podcast deserve a playlist?

Links:

A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The true story of a nice Jewish boy who joins the Church of Scientology and leaves twelve years later to become the lovely lady she is today

(Kate Bornstein’s memoir, 2021):

https://www.beacon.org/A-Queer-and-Pleasant-Danger-P1760.aspx

My (New) Gender Workbook (2013):

https://transreads.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/2019-03-16_5c8d897ecfb93_kate-bornstein-my-new-gender-workbook-a-stepbystep-guide-to-achieving-world-peace-through-gender-anarchy-and-sex-positivity.pdf

Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert

https://open.spotify.com/album/4OnjUMJXgFC6lG8JHOrwuu

Queen of the Villains trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL86963D0MQ

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Production assistance from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama.

Theme music produced with Udio.

This week, we go online and off the grid to The Garden, where video posts began a debate over whether the group is a commune or a cult. But who ultimately decides? What criteria do they use? And what (if anything) is gained by the question in the first place? We discuss these matters and more, learning along the way a few things about how subsistence and social formation converge/collide. So come burn a fear tower with us as we intrepid explorers trek boldly into analysis! While the dynamics of holding a community together are legion and complex, there is clarity about the following: If you’ve got a hankering to put some first-person pronouns in a research paper, Merinda’s classes have got your back...but in the event of a natural disaster and/or zombie apocalypse, Mike’s house is definitely where you should take shelter. #cultfavorite

Links:

Interviews w/ Producers

https://www.cynopsis.com/cyncity/pushed-to-the-limit-for-the-garden-commune-or-cult/

https://worldscreen.com/tvreal/the-garden-commune-or-cults-annie-taylor-naimah-holmes/

For Everyone Collective: https://foreveryonecollective.com/

Religion in Culture MA Program at University of Alabama:

https://religion.ua.edu/graduate/

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Production assistance from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama.

Theme music produced with Udio.

This week, Mike convinced Merinda to watch Secret Lives of Mormon Wives! Luckily, docu-soaps offer a neato middle ground between documentaries and reality tv. We talk genre, gender, sexuality, power, audiences, tradwives, the capital of “cute,” and Mormon media. Merinda quotes people she admires. She also describes her Very Strong Feelings about the tendency to reduce/oversimplify complex worlds inhabited by women creating media content. Inasmuch as we should #believewomen, we should also pay serious attention to pop culture by and about women, even (especially?) when it cuts against our comfort zones. We should also, it turns out, make sure to label moving boxes with some degree of nuance. Come hang and follow/subscribe wherever you listen to things. Meanwhile, know this: if you invite us to an important life event, we promise to show up for you. We will also totally tell you if we ever see toilet paper stuck to your shoe.

Links/Notes:

Sadaf Ahsan’s essay, “Inside the Real Housewives’ Feminism”: https://this.org/2021/11/02/inside-the-real-housewives-feminism/

The LDS Church’s low-key rebuke of the show: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/commentary-when-entertainment-media-distorts-faith

You’re Wrong About episode “The Tradwife Rises”: https://podcasts.apple.com/si/podcast/the-tradwife-rises-with-sarah-archer/id1380008439?i=1000657221736

How are these shows produced?: https://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/2021/05/real-housewives-produced-excerpt-from-housewives-brian-moylan/

Real Houswives lawsuit: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/10/real-housewives-bravo-reckoning

“Keeping Up with the Kardashians: Fame-Work and the Production of Entrepreneurial Sisterhood”, Alice Leppert, in Elana Levine. Cupcakes, Pinterest, and Ladyporn : Feminized Popular Culture in the Early Twenty-First Century. University of Illinois Press, 2015.

Tressie McMillan Cottom on Slate's The Wave podcast: https://slate.com/podcasts/the-waves/2023/09/bama-rush-tok-from-sorority-life-to-trad-wife-how-the-greek-system-is-really-run-by-the-white-male-gaze-with-tressie-mcmillan-cottom

Bachelor Nation: Inside the World of America's Favorite Guilty Pleasure by Amy Kaufman https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/549444/bachelor-nation-by-amy-kaufman/

Follow us on all the socials at @cultfavoritepod.

Production assistance from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama.

Theme music produced with Udio.

This week, the long and winding road to Oregon presents even more paths. We make pit stops in Germany, Australia, and India, ultimately landing on a back road in the Deep South for some boiled peanuts. Along the way, we talk about relationships and betrayals—big hopes, broken hearts, and new beginnings. In the end, the Rajneeshees lose their leader but not their cause, a few people spend some years in prison, and the townspeople of Antelope put a plaque near their post office. Perspectives abound, as do our conversational bloopers. Have a laugh and think a thought with us in Part 2 of our discussion of Wild, Wild Country.

Links:

Swami Prema Niren’s book: USA v. OSHO: A Legal History of the US Government Persecution of a Minority Religious Community, Oregon 1981-1986 https://www.bsrinusdocs.com/

Cult Favorites:

• Merinda- Laurie Anderson’s new album Amelia https://laurieanderson.bandcamp.com/album/amelia
• Mike- Boiled peanuts

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Production assistance from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama.

Theme music produced with Udio.

The Netflix documentary Wild, Wild, Country tells the story of Rajneeshpuram, a commune founded by the Indian guru Shri Bhagwan Rajneesh in Oregon in 1981. The followers turned a 60,000 acre ranch in central Oregon into their own spiritual commune. Led by Bhagwan's personal secretary, Ma Anand Sheela, the Rajneeshees eventually took over the government of nearby town of Antelope, Oregon and its population of 40 residents. As more and more Rajneeshees moved to Oregon, tensions between the spiritual seeker newcomers and the conservative locals turned dangerous. In part 1 of 2, we discuss the first three episodes of the documentary series. It's an example of when a religious minority lays claim to and tries to participate in behaviors and norms of "traditional American values," we see the mundane ways that stuff inevitably plays out: petitions, injunctions, city orders, land use, and lawsuits. There is a lot of bureaucracy to religion.

Links:

Mike's book on Hinduism in America: ⁠https://www.routledge.com/Hinduism-in-America-An-Introduction/Altman/p/book/9781138389649⁠

Merinda's Cult Favorite:

Extending Play: The Feminization of Collaborative Music Merchandise in the Early Twenty-First Century ⁠https://global.oup.com/academic/product/extending-play-9780190085643?q=extending%20play&lang=en&cc=us⁠

Mike's Cult Favorite:

The League: ⁠https://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/the-league⁠

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Production assistance from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama.

Theme music produced with Udio.