Corinne and Sabrina team up with Amanda Montell from Sounds Like a Cult Podcast to unpack the eerily familiar connections between cults, community, and the paranormal. From Amanda’s lifelong quest to conjure a ghost to her wild adventures uncovering cultish behaviors in everything from Trader Joe’s fandoms to evangelical hell houses, there’s no shortage of spooky, intriguing tales.

Plus, Amanda reveals her dream of encountering a ghostly admirer at twilight—an oddly romantic twist that has us wondering: what kind of haunting would you want to manifest? 👻✨

But it doesn’t stop there! We’re diving into the darker side of human behavior, the overlap between religious cults and the paranormal, and how intuition plays a critical role in connecting us to the otherworldly. Also, wait until you hear about Amanda’s Glass Onion-inspired Halloween escape room—complete with witches, werewolves, and a chilling mystery to solve. 🧛‍♀️🧙‍♂️

If you’ve ever been curious about the line between cultish communities and ghostly gatherings, or you’re just here for a few laughs about evangelical theater kids’ haunted houses, this episode will have you hooked!

🔮 PS: Stick around to learn how our community helps manifest hauntings—because ghosts don’t just appear…sometimes, you summon them. ✨

Listen to the Cult of the Reborn Dolls Episode

Have ghost stories of your own? E-mail them to us at [email protected]

Encounters episodes are released every Thursday at 9am PST/12pm EST. Corinne and Sabrina hand select a couple of paranormal encounters from our inbox to read in each episode, from demons, to cryptids, to aliens, to creepy kids... the list goes on and on. If you have a story of your own that you'd like us to share on an upcoming episode, we invite you to email them to us! 

This episode is sponsored by Hers and HexClad.

If you enjoy our show, please consider joining our Patreon, rating and reviewing on iTunes & Spotify and following us on social media! Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Discord.

Edited and produced by Jaimi Ryan, original music by Arms Akimbo!