Claire Hoffman - The Rise and Vanishing of Evangelist Megastar Aimee Semple McPherson

Trust Me: Cults, Extreme Belief, and Manipulation

Exactly Right and iHeartPodcasts

True Crime, Talk Radio, Comedy, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 27 August 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Journalist Claire Hoffman joins us again, this time to discuss her new book Sister, Sinner: the unbelievable true story of Aimee Semple McPherson, a glamorous Pentecostal preacher who pioneered entertainment evangelism. McPherson was so famous in the 1920s she could have been a Kardashian.
Claire talks about how the early televangelist used theatrics and mass media to build an empire around her preaching–only to mysteriously disappear in 1926, leading to one of the most notorious court cases of the time. The girls unpack early 20th century fame, faith, scandal, and the dangers of worshipping cultural icons.

SOURCES:
Sister, Sinner

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is exactly right.
0:07.7	Trust me. Do you trust me? Would I ever lead you astray?
0:12.4	Trust me. This is the truth. The only truth. If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't.
0:19.6	Welcome to Trust Me, the podcast about cults,
0:22.4	Extreme Belief and Manipulation,
0:24.2	from two very famous celebrities
0:25.7	who've actually experienced it.
0:27.4	I'm famous celebrity Lo LaBlanc.
0:29.7	And I'm famous celebrity, Megan Elizabeth.
0:32.6	And if you haven't heard of us,
0:34.5	that's your problem.
0:36.1	Today is part two with Claire Hoffman,
0:39.0	former member of a transcendental meditation community and author of two books we are discussing.
0:44.2	One, we talked about last week called Utopia Park, about her childhood in TM. And the second,
0:49.3	which we will talk about today, is called Sister Sinner, The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Amy Semple
0:56.2	McPherson. Claire is going to tell us who Amy Semple McPherson was. She was a Pentecostal evangelist
1:02.8	and media celebrity in the 1920s and 30s, how McPherson first decided to create a church
1:07.6	and how she pioneered the use of theatrics and mass media using radio to
1:12.5	build an audience and make a whole lot of money. Claire is going to explain how McPherson skyrocketed
1:17.2	to fame and became a mega-famous public figure like us. And then she'll tell us the story of
1:22.2	McPherson's mysterious disappearance from the beach in Santa Monica and the ensuing court case that gripped the nation,
1:29.2	basically the O.J. Simpson trial of the 1920s, which is so crazy because I'd never heard of it
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Exactly Right and iHeartPodcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Exactly Right and iHeartPodcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.