Talking today about the Dugger family, but also about so much more, the large

fundamentalist family led by Jim Bob Dugger was first marketed to the world as

an oasis of wholesomeness in a world of filth with their debut cable special in 2004.

Jim Bob and his wife Michelle and their many, many kids came across as a sort of real life Flanders family from the Simpsons.

For many they represented some good old days. as a sort of real life Flanders family from the Simpsons.

For many they represented some good old days, traditional family values, a wonderfully

humble and virtuous family leading such righteous happy lives, but was everything as it appeared.

Or was all that wholesomeness a facade for some really dark shit hiding beneath the surface?

There's a good chance you're familiar with the duggers, but what do you really know about their connection to the

Institute and Basic Life Principles? A radical organization described by many,

including numerous other Christian organizations, as a dangerous cult. If you watch the recent Amazon Prime

docu series and it was great about the rise and fall of the dugers, shiny happy people,

you might know quite a bit. Lindsey and I watched it and her mind was blown. Like she was disgusted. Me?

less so due to all my research into the dark and strange here over the years, but I was

surprised to see the dugers attached to this particular organization.

I shouldn't have been, but I guess I wasn't really paying attention to them.

The IBELP is scary to me that most of the cults we have covered because far more people in this country either adhere

to its beliefs or at least don't see them as very problematic.

And I don't consider this a cult episode, by the way.

I don't know what category.

I will put today's episode in. Pop culture maybe?

Related to the R Kelly episode, perhaps more than anything else. I wanted to learn about the

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