Madness Madness!

There are cults where you skulk around the racist fringes of Southeastern Oklahoma planning terrorist attacks, and cults where the Daughter of God tells you to go out and do crimes so you can all keep staying in luxury hotel suites. Obviously the second kind of cult is way better for everyone, but whatever, we're examining both on today's show! Elohim City's most notable claim to fame is as a stepping stone for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, and it's crawling with birds of precisely his feather. Queen Shahima is basically just not into having a day job, and would like to minister to people from really nice hotel suites, and look, all I'm saying is maybe I'd be more open to ministering if I was doing it from the Lieutenant Governor's Suite at the Residence Inn, the really nice one by the highway.

We’ve only come to this conclusion 70 to 90 times on the show, but did you know that a lot of cults are basically just outlets for white Boomer men to plaster over their obvious insecurities? You did, huh? Yeah. 

Well, you’re already here, so why not learn about two more of them? Today’s white guys are Gabriel of Urantia, who has a “University” in “Arizona,” which may not even be a real state, and John “Tubby” Miller, who I guess decided he actually wanted other people to call him that. “The University of Ascension Science & the Physics of Rebellion” squares off this week against, I swear to god, “The Gentle Wind.”

Huhuh. Huhuh. Huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuh. Huhuhuh. Huhuh. Huh.

Cults! Cargo! Colonialism! John Frum is a mythical and beloved figure to many native people of the island of Tanna in Vanuatu, and could, maybe, MAYBE, be part of a vanishingly rare time when the arrival of white people from the United States was an improvement on the squatting of white people from Europe. MAYBE. Our alternative to John Frum is Love Has Won, a cult whose name makes sense if you replace "Love" with "Our Super Drunk Colloidal-Silver Fiend Karen of a Cult Leader" and "Won" with "Been Dead in the Other Room for Several Months and We Put Christmas Lights on Her to Cheer Things Up a Bit PLEASE DON'T CALL THE COPS." Join us, won't you?

Sometimes you run into cults that remind you why people start cults to begin with: An abiding love of cultural appropriation; a penchant for exploiting others for sex; and the run-of-the-mill belief among white men that we should somehow be getting even more free passes than we're already getting.* Such is definitely the case this week, when Adidam, a cult started by some schmuck from Queens who stole a mishmash of eastern religious ideas and at one point called himself "Bubba Free John," and  the Divine Madness Running Club, run by Marc Tizer, a guy with a drinking problem and a penchant for ultramarathons, forced abortions, and sexual assault. Join us, won't you?

*This show description was written by Brian, a white man. An insufficient number of white men were harmed during the production of this podcast.

Much like the rest of you here in the rapidly crumbling United States, we took some time off this week to give thanks for the people and things we still somehow have. Thus, in place of an episode, please enjoy Erin's reading of the very long poem "Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana," by Aesthetic Realism founder Eli Siegel.

Happy Cultsgiving! We're celebrating today with Aesthetic Realism, a cult based on the belief that Eli Siegel, a white guy who in 1925 wrote a very long poem that includes a lot of talk about Indians and I guess solved literally everything by doing so; and Happy Science!, which doesn't actually have an exclamation point on the end of it but I refuse to stop typing it that way, and whose leader insists he has eradicated COVID-19 among its members using a "spiritual vaccine" that can be administered online. Also they have made a significant number of anime films and they're super into Trump. Enjoy!

This week's episode is not that depressing at all! Relatively speaking! Taylor Camp was camp started by movie star Elizabeth Taylor('s brother)! He didn't really live there; it was less a traditional camp and more of a swath of undeveloped shoreline he gave to some hippies to piss off local Hawaiian authorities. It's that or a sojourn with Father Divine, a guy who was just straight-up God, according to him. (I mean why not, right?) He sure did feed and house a lot of hungry and desperate people during a time when it was needed most! Naturally he got arrested for it a lot. Join us for an episode with a legit surprise ending!

Erin and Amanda are back, and cults have not improved while they were away! Today we examine MOVE, a '70s-era group that some might describe as The Cult Philadelphia Deserved. It was certainly better than former mayor and lifelong shithead Frank Rizzo deserved, but that's not saying a lot. You'd think literally anyone going toe to toe with Rizzo would come out looking better, but cult leader John Africa ... had some problems of his own. These problems would become an entire neighborhood's problems and would fuck up everything for a lot of people for coming up on 50 years now.

Meanwhile in California, skeezy shithead Bikram Choudhury heated a room up to 104 degrees and cooked up a little project called Bikram Yoga! It's great for him because he gets to shriek at people like an infant because he thinks they're fat, and also he gets to sexually harass women and charge people a lot of money for it! Literally zero downside on this one. Join us, won’t you?

We’re putting the final touches on our bummer cults and headed back to the studio. We can’t wait to talk shit with you. 

Hello Lifestylers, 

Please accept this meager apology. We here at Madness Madness want y'all to know that we're eager to get back into the studio (living room) and delve deep into some fucked up mind control shit. 

Thank you for sticking with us. We've got some good stuff planned and can't wait to share it with you. 

Lylas*, 

Erin

*Love You Like A Sis