Cults

The Nitrous Mafia have been a fixture at Grateful Dead shows and other jam band concerts since the ‘90s. They deal nitrous oxide to fans who want a taste of euphoria, but critics claim the cutthroat racket is taking shows’ atmospheres from mellow… to menacing. This is the final episode in the special two-part series from Conspiracy Theories. Follow for new conspiracies every week!

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In the 1960s a counterculture revolution was upending traditional norms of life, and the Grateful Dead were providing the soundtrack… and the drugs. Of course, this put them right in the crosshairs of the FBI. But while the feds had a file on the band, did they also have a deal together? Some say the disastrous Altamont Music Festival has all the markings of sabotage… Enjoy this special two-part series from Conspiracy Theories, a Spotify Original from Parcast! 

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When teenage girls in the Order started getting pregnant in the early 2000s, Kamm claimed the babies were miraculously conceived from his “holy seed.” It was a lie, but by then, he had cemented control over every part of his followers’ lives. Now, he was selling them on his next vision: to lead the world after the apocalypse as the Father of All Nations. 

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In Australia, an Easter Sunday vision set William Karr on a God-given path to start a family and fight the anti-Christ. Two decades later, in the 1980s, he had the beginnings of a religious movement, the attention of the Catholic Church, and a secret seventeen-year-old wife. 

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As the days count down to Hale-Bopp’s arrival, 39 people prepare for ascension. They’d abandoned their old lives, embraced a new ideology, weathered the death of a beloved leader… and finally, made themselves worthy of the Next Level. Now, the comet was coming. And with it, the spaceship that would ferry them onward. In March of 1997, they left everything behind. 

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The group’s belief system had never been infallible. There had been adjustments along the way; revisions meant to keep the wheels turning whenever prophecies didn’t manifest. But then, in 1985, Bonnie Lu Nettles died. And her passing threw Heaven’s Gate’s whole world askew. 

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1976 was a turning point for Heaven’s Gate. The spaceship that was promised had not arrived. Members were defecting. Nettles and Applewhite gathered their truest believers in Wyoming and made it clear: Things were going to be different from here on out. Much different. 

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When Bonnie Lu Nettles and Marshall Applewhite meet in Houston in 1972, it’s not for the first time — at least, not according to their birth charts. They’ve known each other in a past life. And in this lifetime, they have a joint mission. They set out, amid a wave of social and political upheaval, to find it. 

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In 1986, Alice Lakawena formed the Holy Spirit Mobile Force. Their goals were utopian and their tactics were nonviolent. But going up against rival armies in Uganda with hardly any weapons eventually led to mass casualties — and Alice was all too ready to blame them on her soldiers’ lack of belief.

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On February 26, 1980, three former members of Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple were shot and killed in their California home. Many believed it was an act of revenge by their former cult, but police suspected somebody else. From Today in True Crime, a Spotify Original from Parcast.

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