MFM Minisode 446

Speaker 1 This is exactly right.

Speaker 1 Daniel Craig returns as Benoit Blanc with an all-star ensemble cast for his most dangerous case yet.

Speaker 2 When young priest Judd Duplentisi is sent to assist charismatic firebrand Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, it's clear that not all is well in the pews.

Speaker 1 Written and directed by Ryan Johnson, critics are calling it the sharpest knives out movie yet.

Speaker 2 Watch Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery in Select Theaters November 26th and on Netflix December 12th. Goodbye.

Speaker 1 Rated PG-13. This podcast is sponsored by PayPal.

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Speaker 2 Goodbye. Goodbye.

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See App for details. Goodbye.

Speaker 2 Hello and welcome to my favorite murder, the mini soad.

Speaker 1 And this week we have a very special mini soad for for you because our newest podcast, Trust Me, is going to premiere on Wednesday, July 30th, right here on Exactly Right.

Speaker 2 If you love cult stories, you're going to love this podcast.

Speaker 2 Jules Lowe LeBlanc and Megan Elizabeth are badass cult survivors themselves, and they unpack how cults work, how people get pulled in, and how to get out.

Speaker 1 And so, in honor of the new podcast, Trust Me, this week's episode is themed. We will be doing some cult stories.

Speaker 2 Hell yeah. Turns out we have enough to do a whole mini-sode about cults.

Speaker 1 It turns out you all need to call your dad. Do you want to to go first? Sure.

Speaker 2 All right. Alamo Christian Foundation tried to recruit me.

Speaker 1 Is that the airbrush jean jacket?

Speaker 2 It is the airbrush jean jacket cult I covered.

Speaker 1 The first person. That's right.

Speaker 2 Hi, y'all. Long time listener, first time writer.
Let's get into it. In episode 482, Georgia told us the shocking story of the Alamo Christian Foundation.
I know about this cult.

Speaker 2 My sister was a member, and they tried to recruit me.

Speaker 2 In about 1973, we sadly lost my older sister. Let's call her Jane to this cult.
It sounds like she's dead, but she's not. Just spoiler alert.

Speaker 1 It's tough, though. It's like they get ripped out of the family and they cut people off.

Speaker 2 She was living near Los Angeles, and at the age of 19, struggling with the death of a close friend, possibly her boyfriend, who was killed in the Vietnam War, she must have been easy prey.

Speaker 2 For years, the only contact we had were occasional letters. I remember the envelopes were thick with pages handwritten by Jane and others in the cult.

Speaker 2 My secular parents were pretty angry, and these pages were quickly thrown out.

Speaker 2 Once I managed to peek at them, I'm 12 years younger than Jane, so at about age 10, I couldn't really understand what was written, but I remember thinking it was a lot of religious gobbledygook, even at 12.

Speaker 2 Fast forward to 1985. I was spending the summer near San Francisco and had managed to get in touch with Jane, who was still in Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 By this time, she was married to a fellow cult member and had a one-year-old son. I arranged to visit them for the weekend.

Speaker 2 Initially, the reunion was awkward, but her husband seemed kind and I enjoyed playing with my nephew.

Speaker 2 I was 19 at at the time the same age my sister was when she was recruited into the cult during the visit i stayed in a small hotel and we all ate out together in cafes so i never actually saw where they were living remember they were living they got kicked out because there were 300 of them in one house

Speaker 2 yeah in one apartment i have pictured it those apartments that are on crescent heights like right besides yeah exactly what it is yeah when i asked about their home jane brushed off my questions and said something about how there wasn't enough room for me to stay at theirs yeah literally

Speaker 2 On the Saturday, there was a big get-together where I was introduced to lots of people and everyone was very friendly. It's a Wallmark sign, right?

Speaker 1 I'd love to meet a rude cult member. Just someone that's like a withholder.

Speaker 2 No, thank you. Like they don't want my cults.

Speaker 2 Then on the Sunday, we went to a church service where the pastor gave a dramatic fire and brimstone sermon.

Speaker 2 He then invited my sister to the stage and she began telling a story of how she was brought up in a godless family who had not found Jesus. I remember feeling annoyed.

Speaker 2 Our parents had instilled in us good family values, even though we did not attend church. When she finished, she asked me to join her on the stage so that the Lord could be brought into my heart.

Speaker 2 Everyone was cheering, and I didn't know what would happen if I refused, so I politely went up to the stage. The pastor held my hand and said some prayers.

Speaker 2 Then the congregation began singing and chanting. Finally, with a lot of amens and praise the Lord, the service finished.

Speaker 2 And as we were leaving, everyone came up to me to ask how I was feeling now that I was saved.

Speaker 2 I nodded and smiled, playing along as best as I could. I don't remember much else, but you can bet I was on my flight back to San Francisco that evening.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's already like your older sister making you do something where you're like, what? She just called my name. She's making me go up there.
Totally.

Speaker 1 It's such a bad way to try to get somebody to join your cult. Yeah.
Right.

Speaker 2 I heard almost nothing from my sister for several more years, but once the cult was disbanded, the family moved to Texas and began leading relatively normal lives. I'm so grateful we are now in touch.

Speaker 2 And though we live quite far apart, we have regular video calls and I visit them all at least once a year. I'm careful never to ask anything about their experiences and nothing is ever mentioned.

Speaker 2 Fucking family.

Speaker 1 Yeah, shut it down. Secrets.
Nope, never. Memory hold that shit.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 The one-year-old is now 41 and a loving father.

Speaker 1 I'm so glad because those stories of like the abuse in that cult.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. Horrifying.
I have no idea if he was involved in making the famous jean jackets. Remember, it was all made by kids.
Child labor.

Speaker 2 But on a recent visit to my sisters, I spotted one hanging in the closet. Oh, shit.
It's worth some money. I got it.
Etsy. Stay safe.

Speaker 2 And if anyone tries to save you, make sure you get the hell out of there.

Speaker 2 Yours, E, she, her.

Speaker 1 Damn, that is a true first-person witness account.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And like a badass 19-year-old who said nope.
Cause, you know, you're susceptible at that age.

Speaker 1 Also, really smart where it's like you get forced into being saved and everyone's like, don't you love it?

Speaker 2 And you're like,

Speaker 1 just keep it real blank. Oh, my God.
Okay, well, you might remember this cult. We talked about it when we did shows in Australia.
Tour.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, so this says, hello, MFM pals. I wanted to share a story I've been told by my mana Joan.
And then a parentheses, it says, I know you guys love Nana names.

Speaker 1 That has a creepy personal connection. My Nana had seven kids in the 50s and 60s.
The youngest were my two aunts, who are twins born sometime in the late 60s.

Speaker 1 They lived in Victoria, near where the cult called the family operated. And if you didn't know, the family is known to have stolen babies from hospitals.
What?

Speaker 1 So remember they were the ones where the kids' hair was bleached blonde

Speaker 1 and it was super eerie. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So apparently they did that. Maybe I talked about it when I covered it seven years ago.

Speaker 2 I can't remember.

Speaker 1 It says they got away with this because of staff who worked in the hospitals that were connected to the family. And from my understanding, they were stolen from unwed mothers.

Speaker 2 Oh, God.

Speaker 1 So probably went to the people they knew, couldn't fight them.

Speaker 1 While ultrasounds had been recently invented and available in Australia, I guess my nana hadn't received one because she had no idea she was pregnant with twins.

Speaker 1 The story goes that on the day of her labor, she gave birth to a baby, and while the medical staff were doing what they do with a newborn, bustling about the room, she felt herself give birth to another baby.

Speaker 1 After a short while, the doctor brought her baby over to her and she said, Where's the other one?

Speaker 1 You only had one baby, they reply.

Speaker 1 I mean, you got to be fucking kidding me.

Speaker 2 What?

Speaker 1 You only had one baby. You didn't.
That experience that you just had of having a baby.

Speaker 2 I didn't get it now.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 She says, no, I gave birth twice. I had two babies.
One thing you, you wouldn't be mistaken about having a baby. No, what happened? They denied this again.

Speaker 1 It wasn't until she started screaming down the hospital walls, where is my other baby? that they relented and said, okay, here it is.

Speaker 2 Shut the fuck up.

Speaker 1 The suspicion is that since no one was expecting a second baby, the staff who were probably connected to the family had attempted to abduct the second baby.

Speaker 2 I bet they knew she was having twins. You could tell just by feel if you're a good doctor, probably, right? Yes.
And size. Yeah.
Yeah. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 You may be thinking, but probably not. Maybe she felt herself giving birth to the placenta.

Speaker 2 That's what I was thinking. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 I thought the same, but surely they would have been able to prove that that's what it was.

Speaker 1 They did bring a second baby back to her, and I do have adult twin aunts, and they do look like they both belong in our family. So, I think her suspicions about the event are probably correct.

Speaker 2 Oh my God.

Speaker 1 Also, again, I just have to say the idea that anybody is going to doubt a woman who says I had a baby.

Speaker 2 She just gave birth twice. Totally.
No, you didn't.

Speaker 1 I just passed an extra large football through my body.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. My Nana passed in 2018, so I'm not able to ask her to repeat the story.

Speaker 1 Toward the end, she had dementia and may not have been able to recall it correctly, anyways, though she did spend many of her last days being annoyed at my uncle, who she lived with, for withholding her daily square of chocolate.

Speaker 1 He always gave her a square, but she would forget and think that he hadn't and be real mad about it.

Speaker 2 Aww.

Speaker 1 Stay sexy and always demand to receive your babies and your chocolate, Laura.

Speaker 2 Don't say no to Grandma Joan.

Speaker 1 Nana Joan. Nana Joan.
Nana Joan.

Speaker 2 That's a good. Wow.
That's so fucked up.

Speaker 1 I think that's the ultimate. I mean, not the ultimate because the cult stories are so crazy, but like a baby-stealing cult is wild.

Speaker 2 That's wild

Speaker 2 and horrible and scary.

Speaker 2 Don't miss Netflix's new series, The Beast in Me.

Speaker 1 It's a riveting psychological thriller from the team that brought you homeland.

Speaker 2 The Beast in Me follows acclaimed author Aggie Wiggs, played by Claire Daines, who has withdrawn from public life after the tragic death of her young son.

Speaker 1 She's unable to write and is a ghost of her former self. But Aggie finds an unlikely subject for a new book when the house next door is bought by Niall Jarvis, played by Matthew Reese.

Speaker 2 Niall is a famed real estate mogul who was once the prime suspect in his wife's disappearance.

Speaker 1 Horrified and fascinated by this man, Aggie finds herself compulsively hunting for the truth, chasing his demons while fleeing her own.

Speaker 2 It's a game of cat and mouse that sets them on a collision course with fatal consequences.

Speaker 1 The Beast and Me now playing only on Netflix.

Speaker 2 You will not want to miss this. Goodbye.
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Speaker 2 This one's called, I can't call my dad, he's in a cult.

Speaker 2 And then they write in pig Latin. And luckily, I'm fluent.

Speaker 2 Ear day, Aaron K. Ann Orta J.
What is Ear Day? Dear. Dear.

Speaker 2 Thank you. Ear day.
Yes, dear. I thought you were fluent.
I thought I was too.

Speaker 2 The first word throws me. I'm like, I don't know that word.

Speaker 1 Well, also, who starts any of our emails dear?

Speaker 2 Right, that's true. That's true.
Hey, makes more sense. Okay.

Speaker 2 To keep a long story short, yeah, right. I am 27 years old.
I grew up with a single mom. And as a child, I had never met my father, never even seen a picture.

Speaker 2 The first and only thing I remember my mom telling me about him was that he was in a cult. I'm pretty sure I didn't even know what a cult was when she told me this.

Speaker 2 So I grew up wondering what my father was like. Was he a good man? Did he think about me? What did he look like? Would I meet him one day? Was he actually in a cult or was my mom being dramatic?

Speaker 2 You know, the usual childhood questions.

Speaker 2 When I was 15, I had some random light-colored spots on my stomach.

Speaker 2 Apparently, even though this was probably before WebMD was a thing, my mom Google diagnosed me and freaked the fuck out, thinking I had some incurable terminal disease.

Speaker 2 But she she needed to know if my father's side of the family had it, as it was hereditary, whatever she found on Google.

Speaker 2 So she then Googled my father's name, found his brother's contact information online, and contacted him to ask about this medical situation. Says she really needs to calm down with the Googling.

Speaker 1 It says that there, that's your opinion.

Speaker 2 It says that there.

Speaker 2 Turns out nobody in my father's family had any idea I existed. And they were all shocked and furious that they had missed out on my childhood and wanted to meet me immediately.

Speaker 2 However, it was agreed upon by everyone that I should meet my father first. Meanwhile, I had no idea any of this was going on.

Speaker 2 I was an awkward and pimply high school freshman who just wanted boys to pay attention to me. One day, my mom calls me out of the blue from work and tells me I have to meet my father the next day.

Speaker 2 Of course, I freaked out and eventually had to go to therapy. I did meet him the next day and met his family soon after.

Speaker 2 I think I have dissociative amnesia for some of these events as I'm missing their content in my memory. That makes sense.
Fun stuff. The point is, after I met my father, I found out that it was true.

Speaker 2 He was indeed an occult. He lives near the cult's complex in Lake County and follows a guru named Franklin Jones, who later in life was called Adi Da.

Speaker 2 You heard of this?

Speaker 2 As a teenager, I was super creeped out by this, and the most I could bear to do was to look at the cult's website and wait for my head to swim when I read the nonsense bullshit this guy was teaching slash brainwashing.

Speaker 2 The bottom line is that this guru claims he is God and immortal and his devotees worship him. I never really talked to my father about it directly, even though it's been 13 years that I've known him.

Speaker 2 In 2008, however, Adi Da slash Franklin Jones died. I thought it was funny that this dude was claiming to be immortal, just saying.

Speaker 2 I thought that surely my dad would snap out of it then. Nope, he and his wife are still followers to this day.

Speaker 2 There haven't been any murders associated with Adi Dom, but Franklin Jones has been accused of sexual assault and false imprisonment.

Speaker 2 Now that I have so much more insight into what this cult actually is, I finally felt I had to tell you ladies that I can't call my dad because he is in a cult.

Speaker 2 In truth, my dad is a decent guy, and my grandparents and uncle are the sweetest people, and they love me very much. Nice.
I guess you could call that a happy ending.

Speaker 2 Stay sexy and don't call your dad if he's in a cult, Hillary. P.S.
It turns out that the spots on my stomach were harmless, and my mom's life-altering googling actions were for nothing.

Speaker 1 Those spots were meant to be. That's why you got those spots.

Speaker 1 I like the idea that there was a family

Speaker 1 waiting to meet her.

Speaker 2 That's lovely.

Speaker 1 Okay, the subject line of this is sibling story. It says, hi, MFM team.
Love you all so much. You have been a massive part of my life for a very long time.
You bring so much joy to my life.

Speaker 1 I have no words. Let me take you back to the late 80s when evil kinivil was still making waves and everyone wanted to replicate that.
Yes.

Speaker 1 There's a hard left turn into evil.

Speaker 1 Just for context, I was born in New Zealand, but raised in Australia in a cult called the Science of Identity Foundation. Wow.

Speaker 1 It was run out of Hawaii, and yes, it's the same one Tulsi Gabbard is still involved with.

Speaker 1 I've attached a letter from the great Swami himself complaining about not getting his daily mango allotment flown in, especially from Hawaii. So you can see what we're dealing with here.

Speaker 1 In the late 80s, the founder Chris Butler decided that we children, I was 11, my siblings, who were twins were eight, should no longer attend public school. Commence chaos.

Speaker 1 There is nothing like a bunch of bored preteens sitting around a five-acre former farm with nothing to fill their time.

Speaker 1 Our sense of fun was jumping on our horses without a saddle or a bridle, just holding onto their manes and hoping not to fall off, or putting a massive blue antifreeze barrel at the top of a 45-degree slope, wearing a horse helmet and hoping we didn't die.

Speaker 2 Just rolling down a hill.

Speaker 1 So, cut to the story. We lived on my aunt and uncle's property in a caravan because they were donating every cent to Chris Butler's mangoes.

Speaker 1 So one day my brother and my cousin decided to mimic Evil Kin Evil and had a can of petrol that they poured over a log of wood.

Speaker 1 Then they set the log on fire and proceeded to jump the log and flames on their BMX bikes.

Speaker 1 In their eight-year-old wisdom, they decided the flames weren't high enough, so they poured the can of petrol directly on the flames,

Speaker 1 causing the can to ignite.

Speaker 1 I wasn't much older than 12, and I was running around frantically trying to find a way to put out the flames, fearing the can would eventually explode.

Speaker 1 My brother and cousin had the same fear so again in their eight-year-old wisdom decided the best course of action was to kick the can away which resulted in it rolling still on fire underneath the gas tank of my aunt and uncle's car which was parked in the carport next to their house's kitchen.

Speaker 2 Oh no.

Speaker 1 It all starts like fun and games.

Speaker 1 Q Utter panic mode. I ran to the garden hose.
It's important to note that we were not connected to city water, so water pressure was not a thing.

Speaker 1 Our garden water ran on gravity, and the pressure was flaccid at best, like barely a trickle.

Speaker 1 I was 12 with minimal outside experience, so I fed that flaccid hose water into the can and managed to put out the flames before they exploded the car's petrol tank and blew up half the house.

Speaker 1 The relief when the danger was over was immense. My brothers were not allowed to play Evil Kinievil again, not that that stopped any of our antics.

Speaker 1 But just a short note, I got out when I was 19, and I've been living my best life since.

Speaker 1 I do chuckle every time you say, Call my dad, I'm in a cult, because I can't call my dad because he's in a cult.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God. Two in a row.

Speaker 1 Love you all so much. Keep being you.
I appreciate you so much. L.

Speaker 2 That definitely sounds like something my brother did or would have done

Speaker 2 as a kid. Fire.
Fire.

Speaker 1 It starts as jumping, and then it's like, well, everyone can do the jumping after 20 minutes.

Speaker 2 What starts as negligence and then it ends in fire and chaos.

Speaker 1 It starts as a lack of child care after school.

Speaker 2 That's right.

Speaker 2 Don't miss Netflix's new series, The Beast in Me.

Speaker 1 It's a riveting psychological thriller from the team that brought you homeland.

Speaker 2 The Beast in Me follows acclaimed author Aggie Wiggs, played by Claire Daines, who has withdrawn from public life after the tragic death of her young son.

Speaker 1 She's unable to write and is a ghost of her former self. But Aggie finds an unlikely subject for a new book when the house next door is bought by Niall Jarvis, played by Matthew Reese.

Speaker 2 Niall is a famed real estate mogul who was once the prime suspect in his wife's disappearance.

Speaker 1 Horrified and fascinated by this man, Aggie finds herself compulsively hunting for the truth, chasing his demons while fleeing her own.

Speaker 2 It's a game of cat and mouse that sets them on a collision course with fatal consequences.

Speaker 1 The Beast and Me now playing only on Netflix.

Speaker 2 You will not want to miss this. Goodbye.
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And it was under $100.

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Goodbye.

Speaker 2 Okay, my last one. The time I cock blocked a cult, despite delicious cult cookies.

Speaker 2 Hey, friends, year one listener, third-time writer, gonna keep shooting my shot.

Speaker 2 As a very young girl, I was in awe of my older girl cousins. In my eyes, they were beautiful, accomplished, and sophisticated, especially my eldest cousin, Lucy.

Speaker 2 Lucy was a gorgeous, witty brunette, easy to laugh with a great personality. She was my cousin from my mother's side and hailed from a large family of 10 kids.
Lucy was also in a cult. Oh.

Speaker 2 Lucy and her family lived in Southern California. However, when I was a kid, think 10 years old, I learned that she had relocated to the Bay Area where my family resided.

Speaker 2 I was so excited at the prospect of having Lucy so nearby. However, overhearing phone conversations not meant for me, I came to learn that her family was desperate to bring her home.

Speaker 2 They even hired an investigator to track down her whereabouts.

Speaker 1 Can I just paint a picture really quick?

Speaker 1 It's like a little kid in the front room watching TV, but then that certain tone in their mother's voice on the phone is like, wait a second, I need to listen to what she's doing.

Speaker 2 Turn the TV down. Oh, my God.
What I did not know as a kid was that Lucy had joined a cult, commonly known as the Moonies.

Speaker 2 Oh. Huge.
She left home and was now living in a co-ed commune in Berkeley with other young people. The one time my sister visited, she dragged me along.

Speaker 2 My memory is somewhat hazy, but I recall arriving at the house my cousin shared with her friends and noting that they seemed very cheery and smiley. Too much so, again.

Speaker 2 We ate, played games, they held sing-alongs as we spent the afternoon with Lucy and her friends. As the evening set in, my sister said we had to get back home.
They insisted we stay.

Speaker 2 But my sister lamented that she needed to get me, the snotty younger sibling, back home.

Speaker 2 After persisting, they relented, but not before urging us to come back soon and packing us a goodie bag for the road. We made our way back to the BART station.

Speaker 2 There, I tucked into the thick, soft, and gooey, still warm chocolate chip cookies they had gifted us. My favorite.
I could have easily devoured all of the cookies as we waited for a train.

Speaker 2 We made it home, never to return. I tried to bribe them with cookies.
Never to return. Sometime later, Lucy left or was, quote, taken back to her family.

Speaker 2 Today, Lucy is long married with a family of her own. Her ordeal is never talked about.
This is like a theme, you guys. That's all I would talk about at family gatherings.

Speaker 1 Do you think the main person is like so either embarrassed or feels like bad and othered in a way?

Speaker 2 Cousin Nancy, tell us again about how you fucking got. I want to know everything.

Speaker 1 Yes, were you on drugs and they offered you a spaghetti dinner the way I know the Moonies used to do it and Santa Cisco is like, oh, that's right. Yes.
Tell us. Spaghetti dinner.

Speaker 2 Tell us, cousin, whatever, cousin Lucy. And no mention of those delicious cult cookies.

Speaker 1 Can we get the recipe?

Speaker 2 Anyway, stay sexy and don't join a cult, even if there are mouthwatering mouthwatering cult cookies involved. M-C-She, her.

Speaker 1 I don't know if I'm strong enough.

Speaker 2 I know.

Speaker 1 Because a good chocolate chip cookie is rare.

Speaker 2 It's still warm. Oh.

Speaker 1 Can you imagine? You're just like, well, wait a second. Yeah.
Don't eat the cookies. Okay, this is my last one.
It says, hometown story, you're in a cult. Call my gran.
Okay. Hello, lovely people.

Speaker 1 I have a two-for-one badass grandma and cult story for you today. My gran's name was Anne.
That was my grandma's name.

Speaker 1 Well, actually, her name was Elizabeth, but she did the old folks thing of insisting on being called anything but her legal name. And was an absolute badass.

Speaker 1 My mom recalls her walking outside in the middle of the night to stop thieves on her property in her dressing gown with a lit smoke and a softball bat. Hell yeah.
Yes.

Speaker 1 She lived with us most of my childhood, and every time I hear a new wild story about her, I wish I had even longer to hear them from her directly.

Speaker 1 I wanted to write in to share a particular story about my grand's cult-busting fruitcake. Long before I was born, my uncle was in a cult.

Speaker 1 Well, technically, two of my uncles were in two different cults, but this story is just about one of them. So, this uncle, let's call him John, was a member of the Moonies.
Oh. That cult was gigantic.

Speaker 1 It was huge. And I think in the 70s.
70s, 80s, yeah. It's also known as the Unification Church.

Speaker 1 While my gran was still able to send letters and the odd gift, she had to be really careful about not criticizing the cult or calling the cult a cult.

Speaker 1 Something we know about cults now is that they often control and limit the amount and types of food that members can eat. Limiting overall food and protein makes it hard for our brain to do stuff.

Speaker 1 Much harder to come to terms with the fact you're in a cult when you're running on almost empty.

Speaker 2 Totally.

Speaker 1 It's so creepy how they know that. It's like torture.
Wake them up in the middle of the night, feed them Kool-Aid, run them in a circle. Okay, so this is where the fruit cake comes in.

Speaker 1 From my childhood memory, Gran's fruitcake was the size of someone's head and loaded with enough nuts to break a window.

Speaker 1 Gran used to send this cake to my uncle in the cult and he said it became a bit infamous.

Speaker 1 Whenever a parcel from Gran arrived, all the protein-starved cultists would gather around to enjoy a fat slice of her cake.

Speaker 1 I always used to joke that the protein from the nuts was what gave my uncle the brainpower to eventually get himself out of the cult and reunite with my Gran, my mom, and the rest of the family.

Speaker 1 It turns out, however, that the magic ingredient was not the macadamias, it was the whiskey.

Speaker 1 The way my mom describes it, when Gran prepared a cake for my uncle, she would, with a glint in her eye, hold the whiskey bottle upside down into the cake mix.

Speaker 1 After adding approximately three solid cups of whiskey,

Speaker 1 she would mix in the fruit, which of course had been soaked in your

Speaker 1 whiskey, and bake the cake. Fresh from the oven, she would then poke holes all over the cake and you guessed it, pour more alcohol in.

Speaker 2 Oh my god.

Speaker 1 It seems the magic allure of Grant's fruit cake was not the dawning realization that you're in a cult, but the clarity that comes from a slice of cake that hits like a straight shot.

Speaker 1 Stay sexy and escape cults with alcoholic cake, Hannah.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God. They got that dopamine hit real quick.
And they're like, oh, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 They're like, maybe they got some sleep that night.

Speaker 2 Yep, sleep. And they got a little protein as well.
And they're like, fuck this shit.

Speaker 1 What are we doing? It's not that bad out there.

Speaker 1 We can get our own spaghetti and alcohol and whatever.

Speaker 2 Wow, that was fun. Thank you.
Thank you guys for listening to our cult stories. One more thing before we go, follow the show on Instagram at Trust Me Podcast and on TikTok at Trust Me Cult Podcast.

Speaker 2 Please, please, please.

Speaker 1 And if you missed it, you can go back and listen to Trust Me hosts Lill LeBlanc and Megan Elizabeth because they joined us on MFM episode 490.

Speaker 1 So get to know them and then listen to the podcast when it comes out.

Speaker 2 Yay.

Speaker 1 And also stay sexy.

Speaker 2 Don't get murdered. Good day.
Elvis, do you want a cookie?

Speaker 1 This has been an exactly right production.

Speaker 2 Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.

Speaker 1 Our editor is Aristotle Aceveda.

Speaker 2 This episode was mixed by Liana Squolaci.

Speaker 1 Email your hometowns to myfavorite murder at gmail.com and follow the show on Instagram at myfavorite murder.

Speaker 1 Listen to MyFavavite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 And now you can watch us on Exactly Right's YouTube page. And while you're there, please like and subscribe.
Goodbye. Bye-bye.

Speaker 1 No one brings out your inner monster like a bad neighbor.

Speaker 2 Claire Danes and Matthew Reese find that out for themselves in The Beast in Me, a new eight-episode drama from the team that brought you homeland. Daines plays Aggie Wiggs, a grieving writer.

Speaker 2 Reese plays Niall Jarvis, her new neighbor and possible murderer.

Speaker 1 But who's the monster and who's the bad neighbor? That's another story.

Speaker 2 It's a game of cat and mouse that sets them on a collision course with fatal consequences.

Speaker 1 The Beast in Me, now playing only on Netflix.

Speaker 2 You will not want to miss this. Goodbye.
Goodbye. Your pet is your best friend, your therapist, and your unpaid intern.

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Speaker 2 Science does more. Find the right food at hillspet.com/slash/iHeart.
Goodbye.

Speaker 1 Amazon Five-Star Theater presents real customer reviews performed by a real serious improv podcaster.

Speaker 2 Tonight's review, Furby.

Speaker 1 I bought a Furby as a nostalgic joke.

Speaker 2 Joke's on me. Day one, adorable.
Giggles, wiggles its ears, says, me love you. Day three, woke me up at 3 a.m.
whispering in Furbish.

Speaker 1 I think it summoned something.

Speaker 2 Day five, I'm starting to ask it for life advice. Day seven, it blinked at me like it knew.
I blinked back.

Speaker 1 We've reached an understanding.

Speaker 2 I fear it. I love it.
it. Five stars, Aaron M.

Speaker 1 Find your perfect gift this holiday on Amazon.