Dictators

Hosts Vanessa Richardson and Lanie Hobbs explore the story of Geshe Michael Roach and Christie McNally — the so-called king and queen of Diamond Mountain who used tantric yoga to lure hundreds to their Arizona desert retreat. This episode is a collaboration between Cults and Crimes of Passion, two Spotify Originals from Parcast. Every week, Cults analyzes the minds and movements of notorious cult leaders, and Crimes of Passion follows love stories that turn into crime stories. Search and follow to catch new episodes!

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How do quests for enlightenment get so sinister? In this three-part special from Cults, a Spotify Original from Parcast, we’re looking at three stories of yoga gurus who were loved — then loathed — for their practices. We start in Romania, charting the rise of Gregorian Bivolaru: an allegedly all-powerful mystic who remixed religions for an ever-expanding cache of followers across Europe. But the price of following him was more than devotion… If you like this episode, search and follow Cults to delve into the minds of more notorious cult leaders every Tuesday.

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From the creators of Real Pirates comes Real Dictators, the show that explores the hidden lives of history's tyrants. In this episode, we're in Uganda, unpicking the regime of President Idi Amin Dada. From 1971 to 1979, Amin devastated Uganda as the nation's military dictator. He sank the economy and deported an entire ethnic class. He slaughtered, by some estimates, up to half a million of his fellow citizens. All this while cultivating a persona of 'Big Daddy', the playful joker. Let's peel back the layers of the myth and explore the life of Africa's most infamous son.

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For most of his life, Philippe Pétain was a soldier with no war to fight. Then, World War I sent Europe into chaos and the aging Pétain became the Hero of Verdun. But he wasted his newfound celebrity by aligning himself with Hitler. And when France was divided into two after the Nazis invaded, Pétain became the ruler of Vichy France... and actively participated in the Holocaust.

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Now in power, Ion Antonescu immediately saw his position challenged by the undisciplined Iron Guard. He wages war against them, while continuing to grow closer to Hitler. As the atrocities mount, the royal family decides to take matters into their own hands… for the sake of Romania’s future. 

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Antonescu was a career military man who defended Romania during WWI, despised the corruption of Romania’s monarch, and allied with Hitler during WWII. Today, we explore his complicated relationships with King Carol II and the fascist paramilitary group known as the Iron Guard.

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Now in the seat of power, Pavelić begins shifting his alliance away from Mussolini, and toward Hitler. But his actions prove he’s still nothing more than a puppet to Axis leaders. Hatred for Pavelić builds after he engineers a genocide, culminating in a brutal insurrection waged by Josip Tito and the Partisans.

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Radicalized as a student in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Ante Pavelić wanted nothing more than to see Croatia become separate and independent — even if it meant embracing terrorism, and aligning himself with Benito Mussolini. 

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Once in power, Jozef Tiso realized he had made a Faustian bargain with Adolf Hitler. Not wanting to be a total puppet, Tiso would spend his reign pushing his relationship with the Nazis to its limit, while fighting off more extremist elements in his own government. But that didn’t stop him from adopting Nazi tactics, and sending thousands of Slovak Jews to their deaths, all in the name of placating Hitler. 

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Today, we start a new season of Dictators on lesser-known WWII dictators who allied with the Axis Powers. Up first: antisemitic Catholic priest Jozef Tiso, who spent decades fighting for Slovak autonomy after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Little did Tiso know that in order to secure that autonomy, he’d find himself cozying up to Adolf Hitler. 

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