2023-09-28
50 分钟Today I present to you Amanda Montel, a writer, a linguist, a fellow podcast host.
We're going to podcast together so hard, it's going to be scary for all of you at home.
Two podcasters together.
Now, that's dangerous, so buckle your seatbelt.
Amanda has written three books.
One of them is about to come out.
It's called the age of magical overthinking.
Obviously, we're all going to be reading it when it comes out, but today I want to zoom in on one of our many common interests.
She wrote a book called Cultish.
She wrote an entire book about cults, the language used in cults, cult like behavior.
I'm excited to talk to her about cults as a whole, but more than anything, discuss how we participate in cult like behavior on a day to day basis without even realizing it.
And she's really investigated the line between what is a cult and what is just cult like behavior, what makes it healthy and what makes it dangerous.
And this is something I am curious to explore, because I think it's a little bit more relevant than we even realize.
What got you interested in cults?
Like, when did that become a fascination for you?
The seed was really planted by my dad.
My dad spent his teenage years against his will in a cult called Synanon.
It was an extremely exploitative, classic, seventies cult.
And it was stationed in the Bay Area when my dad was there in the late sixties and early seventies.
It started out as an alternative drug rehabilitation center that grew to accommodate so called lifestyleers, or people who were just interested in the countercultural movement of the era.