S6 Ep113: Cultish
Michigan Monsters
Jenn Carpenter
4.9 • 656 Ratings
🗓️ 1 March 2026
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The 1970s saw a surge in the prominence of religious cults with groups like the Manson Family, Peoples Temple, and Heaven's Gate making headlines around the world. But smaller cults began popping up in rural communities all over the country, including right here in Michigan. In this episodes, we'll talk about two such cults- the House of Judah and the Theocratic Commune Natural Health Service- who committed unspeakable acts against their most vulnerable members, their own children.
Cases: House of Judah, Theocratic Commune Natural Health Service
Audio production by Bill Bee.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Not all monsters are myths. |
| 0:04.0 | This is Michigan Monsters. |
| 0:09.0 | A true crime Gothic. |
| 0:14.0 | Hey there, welcome to Michigan, where the lakes are salt-free, |
| 0:19.0 | the monsters are human, and the cults are plentiful. |
| 0:24.2 | I'm Jen Carpenter, and today we're going to be talking about one of my least favorite topics, |
| 0:29.8 | cults. For not loving talking about cults, I sure find myself doing it a lot for some reason. |
| 0:36.6 | I've done episodes on the House of David cult from |
| 0:39.2 | Benton Harbor, the Mormon pirate cult from Beaver Island, the Children of the Thunder |
| 0:44.6 | cult from California, which was founded by two brothers from Lansing. And I feel like there have been |
| 0:50.3 | others, but those are just the ones that are kind of top of mind. And what do all of these |
| 0:56.5 | cults have in common? White men. These white men are dangerous. Much like when we conjure up images |
| 1:04.2 | of a serial killer, a very particular type of dude comes to mind when we think of a cult leader, |
| 1:10.5 | a scraggly, unwashed white |
| 1:12.6 | dude trying to fashion himself after what he thinks Jesus looked like. Spoiler alert, Jesus was not |
| 1:19.7 | white, so you already done fucked up, right out the gate, right? But not all cults fit that |
| 1:26.3 | stereotypical dirty Jesus mold, |
| 1:29.0 | and we're going to talk about two such cults today. |
| 1:33.4 | One you might have heard of depending on where you get your news, |
| 1:37.5 | and one that you definitely have not. |
| 1:40.9 | And of course, let's start with that one. |
| 1:43.6 | A cult is defined by the Google as a relatively small group of people having beliefs or practices, |
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