Failed Utopia

The utopia of love; weird stories about Saint Valentine, Cupid, and Charles, Duke of Orleans; fun facts about candy, venereal disease, and celebrating around the world; why I'm jealous of Juliet's mail; badly read poetry; and much more!

Connect on Facebook or at the Failed Utopia website.

Links & Resources

• An image of Charles, Duke of Orleans’ original 1415 letter at The British Library
• History’s Oldest-Known Valentine Was Written in Prison
• History of the Conversation Heart
• Cherubic Cupid Is Everywhere on Valentine’s Day. Here’s Why That Famous Embodiment of Desire Is a Child

Written and produced by Anna Roberts

Burning palm tree artwork by Perry Vasquez

Intro music by Elliot Middleton

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Did Donald Trump create a #MAGA utopia during his presidency? What’s the deal with QAnon? Is Trumpism a cult? Trigger warning: reality

Connect on Facebook or at the Failed Utopia website.

Links & Resources

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

Crisis Text Line: text HOME to 741 741

Domestic Violence Helpline: 1-800-799-7233

VictimConnect, a referral helpline for victims of crime: 1-855-484-2846

For veterans, Make The Connection

• Watch this video! It features a great breakdown of QAnon, an interview with cult expert Rick Ross, and tips on how to help someone out of QAnon or another cult.

• David Neiwert’s book Red Pill Blue Pill: How to Counteract the Conspiracy Theories That Are Killing Us
• Rick Alan Ross’ book Cults Inside Out
• Steven Hassan’s book The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control (Hassan is a former “Moonie” cult member turned cult expert)

• The ‘Shared Psychosis’ of Donald Trump and His Loyalists (Forensic psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee explains the outgoing president’s pathological appeal and how to wean people from it.)
• A former QAnon believer answers all your questions about how the cult really works
• An eye-opening interview with a former QAnon believer
• r/QAnonCasualties, a Reddit board where people tell their stories of what QAnon cost them
• The psychological needs QAnon feeds
• What makes people believe in conspiracy theories?
• Why people latch on to conspiracy theories, according to science
• An Analysis of Trump Supporters Has Identified 5 Key Traits
• A game designer’s analysis of QAnon
• Teleological Thinking
• Hyperactive Agency Detection
• The Dunning-Kruger Effect

• The people who died in the Capitol attack
• USA Today’s timeline of Capitol Hill riot

• Biden inauguration leaves QAnon believers in disarray
• The QAnon 'Storm' Never Struck. Some Supporters Are Wavering, Others Steadfast
• QAnon Supporters Think Donald Trump Will Be Sworn in as President on March 4

• Vox’s timeline of Trump encouraging hate groups and political violence
• GQ's timeline of Trump corruption scandals
• Business Insider’s list of Trump’s biggest accomplishments and failures
• It can happen here: Latin America's lessons about autocrats unpunished
• Faulty US Covid-19 response meant 130,000 to 210,000 avoidable deaths, report finds

• The Conservative Cult of Victimhood
• The Belief That Trump Is a Messiah Is Rampant and Dangerous
• There’s a Term for What Happened at the Capitol This Week: ‘Whitelash’
• Mass Delusion in America: What I heard from insurrectionists on their march to the Capitol
• The Deep Story of Trumpism: Thinking about the Republican Party like a political psychiatrist

Written and produced by Anna Roberts

Burning palm tree artwork by Perry Vasquez

Intro music by Elliot Middleton

UFOs, Jesus, meat suits, Ti and Do, Luciferians, the Human Evolutionary Level, spading under, Star Trek . . . oh, and the largest mass suicide ever to take place on American soil. It's Heaven's Gate.

Connect on Facebook or at the Failed Utopia website.

Links & Resources

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

Crisis Text Line: text HOME to 741 741

Domestic Violence Helpline: 1-800-799-7233

VictimConnect, a referral helpline for victims of crime: 1-855-484-2846

For veterans: Make The Connection

• NPR interview of Glynn Washington, Heaven’s Gate podcast creator (8-minute listen)
• Heaven’s Gate website
• Heaven’s Gate’s videos on Vimeo
• Sawyer’s Ti & Do Father & Jesus Heaven's Gate UFO Two Witnesses
• Deuteronomy 23:1 I haven’t figured out why Do and some of the other guys thought it was okay to castrate themselves when it clearly states in the bible that if something goes wrong with your testicles or if somehow your dick gets cut off, God does NOT want to see you!
• Pedestrian’s article The Heaven’s Gate Website Is Still Active & They Will Send You Video Tapes
• This article from The Escondido Grapevine is interesting because it talks, among other stuff, a little bit about how uncomfortable it is that many of Heaven’s Gate’s beliefs were similar to those in mainstream religions.
• This article is another one from The Escondido Grapevine and you’re going to want to read through to the bottom and then check out the FLAME WAR between Sawyer and somebody else in the comments!

Written and produced by Anna Roberts

Burning palm tree artwork by Perry Vasquez

Intro music by Elliot Middleton

Psychedelic music by www.bensound.com

Gloriavale is a fundamentalist Christian cult in the beautiful country of New Zealand. Not only do they observe some strange practices but they also face decades worth of accusations of brainwashing, abuse, and violence. They still operate today with about 500 members.

Connect on Facebook or at the Failed Utopia website.

Links & Resources

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

Crisis Text Line: text HOME to 741 741

Domestic Violence Helpline: 1-800-799-7233

VictimConnect, a referral helpline for victims of crime: 1-855-484-2846

Make The Connection

• Gloriavale’s website
• Lilia Tarawa’s Tedx Talk
• Lilia Tarawa’s Daughter of Gloriavale
• A three-part documentary on Amazon Prime about Gloriavale featuring interviews and footage inside the community 
• A video about an abuse case from Gloriavale that actually went to court (fair warning: disturbing first-hand account of domestic violence)
• An article about child sexual abuse at the Gloriavale school.
• A fantastic interview with Lilia Tarawa

Written and produced by Anna Roberts

Burning palm tree artwork by Perry Vasquez

Intro music by Elliot Middleton

What’s the secretive alternative community that only gets talked about once a year? Listen on to find out!

Connect on Facebook or at the Failed Utopia website.

Links & Resources

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

Crisis Text Line: text HOME to 741 741

Domestic Violence Helpline: 1-800-799-7233

VictimConnect, a referral helpline for victims of crime: 1-855-484-2846

Make The Connection

Written and produced by Anna Roberts

Get ready to hear about Naked in the Woods, an aptly titled book by Margaret Grundstein about her years spent in a utopian hippie commune in the woods in Oregon.

Connect on Facebook or at the Failed Utopia website.

Links & Resources

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

Crisis Text Line: text HOME to 741 741

Domestic Violence Helpline: 1-800-799-7233

VictimConnect, a referral helpline for victims of crime: 1-855-484-2846

Make The Connection

• Margaret Grundstein’s Naked in the Woods
• An article about how the world is getting better and another one
• An article about May Day, 1970

Written and produced by Anna Roberts

Burning palm tree artwork by Perry Vasquez

Intro music by Elliot Middleton

Psychedelic music by www.bensound.com

What do you think of when you hear “free-love commune”? If you’re an American like me, I’m guessing you’re thinking 1960s or 70s alternative communities and hippies, not devout Christians in the 1800s. Today we’re talking about the Oneida Community—the only cult that turned itself into a silverware company. 

Connect on Facebook or at the Failed Utopia website.

Links & Resources

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

Crisis Text Line: text HOME to 741 741

Domestic Violence Helpline: 1-800-799-7233

VictimConnect, a referral helpline for victims of crime: 1-855-484-2846

Make The Connection

• Hidden Brain episode “Playing Favorites” about what happens when we treat people close to us with more kindness than we show to others 
• Pierrepont Noyes’ My Father's House; An Oneida Boyhood
• Ellen Wayland-Smith’s Oneida

Written and produced by Anna Roberts

Burning palm tree artwork by Perry Vasquez

Intro music by Elliot Middleton

What does Walt Disney have to do with utopia? Is Disney World really the happiest place on Earth?

Links & Resources

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

Crisis Text Line: text HOME to 741 741

Domestic Violence Helpline: 1-800-799-7233

VictimConnect, a referral helpline for victims of crime: 1-855-484-2846

Make The Connection

• Walt Disney’s 1966 EPCOT film (EPCOT comes in at 10:25 if you’re impatient)
• Richard E. Foglesong’s Married to the Mouse
• James B. Stewart’s DisneyWar
• Forbes’ Why McDonald’s Employee Budget Has Everyone Up In Arms
• Los Angeles Magazine’s Disney Heiress Says She’s “Livid” About Disneyland Wages and Working Conditions
• NPR’s Some Disneyland Employees Struggle To Pay For Food, Shelter, Survey Finds

Written and produced by Anna Roberts

Burning palm tree artwork by Perry Vasquez

Intro music by Elliot Middleton

This is a bonus episode that builds on the previous episodes Jonestown Parts 1 and 2. This will make more sense if you finish those two episodes first. 

So much of the research I did for those episodes didn’t make it into the final cut. So today I’m giving you a little bonus content--what you could consider the silver lining: those who survived and those who tried to save the lives of others.

Connect on Facebook or at the Failed Utopia website.

Failed Utopia merch now available! www.failedutopia.com/shop

Links & Resources

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

Crisis Text Line: text HOME to 741 741

Domestic Violence Helpline: 1-800-799-7233

VictimConnect, a referral helpline for victims of crime: 1-855-484-2846

Make The Connection

• Laura Johnston Kohl’s “I Am a Cultist, Two Times Over"
• Laura Johnston Kohl’s Jonestown Survivor: An Insider's Look

Written and produced by Anna Roberts

Burning palm tree artwork by Perry Vasquez

Intro music by Elliot Middleton

In today’s episode we are going to talk about the granddaddy of utopian fails, Peoples Temple. Or, as you might know it, Jonestown. This is Part 2.

Connect on Facebook or at the Failed Utopia website.

Links & Resources

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

Crisis Text Line: text HOME to 741 741

Domestic Violence Helpline: 1-800-799-7233

VictimConnect, a referral helpline for victims of crime: 1-855-484-2846

Make The Connection

• Jeff Guinn’s The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple
• Leigh Fondakowski’s Stories from Jonestown 
• Deborah Layton’s Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor's Story of Life and Death in the Peoples Temple
• 1983 interview with Stephan Jones 
• 2018 interview with Laura Johnson Kohl 
• Truth and Lies: Jonestown, Paradise Lost—an ABC documentary 40 years after Jonestown
• The Jonestown “Death Tape” (Content warning: disturbing material!) 
• Jonestown Institute 

Written and produced by Anna Roberts

Burning palm tree artwork by Perry Vasquez

Intro music by Elliot Middleton