The views expressed on this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable fact. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. They are training these quote unquote dancers out of their compound in upstate New York. If you want to say sounds like a cult, there's nothing more culty

than the words compound and upstate New York. The group very much manipulates recruits into

doing free labor. You have that many billboards for a show that not a lot of people are going to

see. There's going to be some questions. They were really early boosters of Trump. They were in

with the QAnon people. They were like really tied into this

like extreme right ecosystem and seemingly had limitless money.

This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm your host

of Amanda Montel, author of the books cultishish and The Age of Magical Overtinking.

Every week on the show, you're going to hear an analysis and some little jokes about a different cult-seeming group from the modern-day Zetgeist.

From Mormon mom talkers to people who might just be a little bit too obsessed with Costco.

This week, we're finally discussing the cult

of Shen Yun to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult, but is it really?

And if so, how bad is it? Which of our three cult categories does it fall into?

A live your life, a watch your back, or a get the fuck out.

Because the thing is, these days cultish influence can be found in all kinds of everyday places.

Like say, you're driving down the street or you're strolling through the mall, and you notice a billboard or a nice little booth, a little table, maybe in the food court, next to a jamba juice, where a bunch of very pleasant but maybe traumatized-looking people seem to really want you to accept a purple pamphlet, a little brochure with like a beautiful ballerina on it, and even

perhaps buy a ticket or five or fifty to one of the flouncy dance shows that they're promoting.

If this description rings any bells to you, then you have likely brushed up against the

international sensation that is Shen Yun, a heavily marketed Chinese dance and music group

that puts on hundreds of performances every single year

all over the world, including at ritzie,

mainstream venues like New York City's Lincoln Center.

...