**Note: This episode originally aired in September 2021. Stick around til the end for a catch up interview with Daniel 4 years later.**

With rockstar aspirations, Daniel O'Brien wasn't looking for anything but a good time. But when heartbreak rocked his world, he tripped into something that lifted his spirits and rallied his hopes - the Jehovah's Witnesses. Before he knew it, Daniel had traded his guitar for a green Bible and found himself rapidly rising through the ranks of the religion. A wife, and two kids later, he was a fully indoctrinated, high ranking Elder in the church. But when Daniel realizes that he's part of a life much different than the one he originally signed up for, he knows that he must leave. The only problem is... he can't.

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When Raidah left medical school in Sydney to spend the summer at what was promise to be an Islamic utopia in Jordan, she thought she was taking a break to heal.

Instead, she found herself inside a high-control religious community led by Nuh Ha Mim Keller — an American-born Catholic convert who reinvented himself as a Sufi sheikh and built a devoted following of Muslims living in Western countries.

Through his English-language books, lectures, and retreats, Keller promised these diaspora Muslims a spiritual home — a refuge from Western chaos and Islamophobia.

But what Raidah found instead… was a cult.

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FOLLOW RAIDAH SHAH IDIL

Follow Raidah on Instagram → @raidahwrites

Check out her debut novel How to Free a Jinn — available now from Allen & Unwin (ANZ and Asia) and Simon & Schuster in the U.S

READ Storm Without a Port (PDF) — the 77-page survivor testimony compiled by former members of the Jordanian Sufi cult.

Visit In Shaykh’s Clothing — a resource for Muslim survivors of spiritual abuse.

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Today’s story isn’t about a reality TV show—though a lot of people think it starts there. In truth, it began long before the cameras, before the matching outfits and the too-perfect smiles.

You know the TLC series 19 Kids & Counting—the Duggars and their seemingly perfect world built within the IBLP.

But there was another Duggar—of sorts. Not a sibling. The cousin. Amy. Or as America came to know her, “Crazy Cousin Amy.”

Except she wasn’t crazy. Isn’t crazy. Not even close. She just wasn’t in their cult—the IBLP. What no one saw, though, was that Amy—an only child—was surviving her own hell at home.

Her new memoir, Holy Disruptor, is a story of breaking cycles, setting boundaries, and finding herself in the aftermath. Today, she joins us to talk about her journey—from the quiet terror of her childhood to life in the public eye, through the scandals that shattered her trust, and toward a life built on truth, healing, and peace… even when it means disrupting “family.”

And no, she wasn’t in the IBLP, but by the end, she may just find herself wondering… “Wait—was I in a cult?”

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Folly Amy @amyrachelleking

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Nine years. One strip-mall church. A duffel bag full of cash, a freezing pool full of goldfish, and a pastor who convinced everyone he had a direct line to God.

This week, Alisha takes us inside Church of the Harvest — a charismatic California congregation that promised purpose, purity, and a path to the pulpit… but delivered something far darker.

Hazing disguised as holiness, unpaid labor disguised as “discipleship,” and extreme control disguised as dating.

Because when your pastor asks you to “volunteer” full-time, pay tuition to do it, and maybe jump into a swamp at 3 a.m. to save metaphorical fish — you might just be in a cult.

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Rate, review, and share the pod — it’s free, legal, and no one will ask for your debit card “in faith.”

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Last week, we met Paige: a bright-eyed engineer who joined SpaceX believing she was helping to save humanity. In Part 1, we followed her through the seduction — the mission, the 80-hour weeks, the Elon slogans on the walls, the slow loss of self until the job became the identity.

This week, the mission meets the myth. Paige helps organize an open letter — a polite but radical act of collective dissent in a cult-like workplace. And almost everyone is too scared to sign it.

What begins as a measured plea for change becomes a window into just how deep the fear-mongering and punitive control at SpaceX really run.

And soon, Paige learns what every defector from a high-demand system eventually does: that questioning the leader isn’t seen as courage — it’s seen as betrayal.

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An ex–SpaceX engineer asks our favorite question: when does mission become mindset—and then eventually something more? Paige was convinced she was helping save humanity by working at SpaceX.

In Part 1, she traces the seduction: the purpose, the perks, the “Elon Algorithms” plastered on the wall, the complete devotion, the loss of individuality into one group identity, the isolation, the uncompensated labor, the belief that you are better than the rest… it all started to feel less like a workplace and more like… something else.

Today, we follow Paige’s journey into the belly of the rocket factory. And next week? The fallout. When speaking up against the culture didn’t just cost her a job… it made her a target.

———

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What if the yoga class you signed up for wasn’t yoga at all, but the doorway to something much darker?

In this episode, Angel takes us inside Body & Brain Yoga and Tai Chi — a strip-mall wellness studio that seemed harmless enough. Until it wasn’t. Instead of stretching, you’re told to march in circles, punch your stomach, chant about your mother’s failings, and spill your deepest traumas to a room full of strangers.

What Angel didn’t know was that Body & Brain isn’t just a quirky yoga chain. It’s a nationwide empire with 70+ locations, millions in revenue, luxury retreats in Sedona — and a founder who flew private while his followers drowned in debt.

And that’s just the beginning. Dig deeper and you’ll find that Body & Brain is nothing new at all… it’s the rebranded face of Dahn Yoga — one of the most notorious modern cults.

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She thought she was enrolling in a Bible college.

Instead, she was signing up to give her identity, her labor, her choice—and her fire—to a man who called himself the Holy Ghost Bartender.

At “River University,” worship looked like laughing fits and collapsing bodies. Romance was arranged. Submission wasn’t suggested—it was glorified. And your soul? That was just a tally mark on a clipboard.

For Sarah, what started as a mission from God turned into a 12-year descent through emotional control, spiritual abuse, and religious labor trafficking.

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