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Subversive Science: Isabella Constantino on NXIVM’s Tourettes Study (Part 1)

NXIVM’s timeline unfolds like a (horror) film with its own subplots. One of the cult’s best known smaller mythologies was its ability to cure Tourette's Syndrome, which is a condition in the nervous system that causes tics like sudden and uncontrollable movements or vocal outbursts. It should be noted that while there are certainly various treatments for managing TS, there is still no known cure.

This explains why today’s guest, Isabella Constantino, was attracted to NXIVM and the extraordinary results they were boasting about with their TS study. Ultimately, Constantino wound up postponing her last semester of college and moving to Albany in order to engrain herself in the study and to pursue personal growth, both of which she did for a total of three years before finally escaping. Now, she’s spent half a decade recovering her “sense of self” and navigating life post-NXIVM.

But how did NXIVM actually approach this “scientific” study, and what abusive methods did they apply from their typical conditioning in order to combat Tourette’s? Lastly, did any of their techniques actually help with TS, and if so, at what cost?

Episode available since June 26, 2023

Esoterica

UFO Bombshell: U.S. Intelligence Whistleblower Says Feds Have 'Intact' Craft

A whistleblower who served in the U.S. military and in several intelligence roles says the federal government has multiple craft of “non-human” origin ― and has been working overtime to cover it up.

“These are retrieving non-human origin technical vehicles, call it spacecraft if you will, non-human exotic origin vehicles that have either landed or crashed,” David Grusch told NewsNation on Monday evening.

In some cases, agents found more than just vehicles.

“Well, naturally, when you recover something that’s either landed or crashed, sometimes you encounter dead pilots and, believe it or not, as fantastical as that sounds, it’s true,” he said.

Earlier in the day, The Debrief reported that Grusch has told both Congress and the U.S. Inspector General that this information was illegally withheld from lawmakers, who have recently held hearings on UFO activity.

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Shiny Happy Wife: Tia Levings On Christian Fundamentalism (Part 2)

If you didn’t listen to part 1 of this double whammy—stop, drop, and scroll down (or up, depending) because you’ll be lost without the context.

On this continuation, we hear more from author Tia Levings about her experiences with Christian Fundamentalism, and more specifically how she got out of a situation that was “a little bit culty,” to say the least. We also dip back into the Duggar family and the recent documentary uncovering the less-than-perfect reality hidden by a shiny, happy front. The story is, unfortunately, far more common than you might think.

You can learn more about Tia’s own story in her forthcoming memoir, ‘A Well-Trained Wife,’ which will be released in August of 2024.

Episode available since June 19, 2023

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Shiny Happy Wife: Tia Levings on Christian Fundamentalism (Part 1)

Just as roses have thorns, so too do pristine, seemingly blemish-free families have their own dark sides. For example, we have the Duggar family and their show 19 and Counting, which broadcasted the daily lives of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and their army of children between 2008 and 2015 to millions of viewers around the world. Now, a new documentary on the family called Shiny Happy People, according to TIME, “includes testimonies from daughter Jill (Duggar) Dillard, her husband Derick Dillard, niece Amy (Duggar) King, as well as several former IBLP members, reveals that the family and larger religious group was dealing with allegations of sex abuse, child abuse and financial mistreatment.”

Our guest today, author Tia Levings, spoke in this documentary based on her experiences as a thought leader on abuse within Christian Fundamentalism, but also a survivor of such abuse herself. Having grown up in a Southern Baptist Megachurch, Levings gets into how she slowly but surely slipped into a high-control group (read: cult) wherein men are considered accountable for their wives before God, and therefore must lead and discipline them.

Her memoir, A Well-Trained Wife, will be released in August of 2024.

Episode available since June 12, 2023

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I Was a Child Bride: Dr. Tamara MC on the Language of Manipulation (Part 2)

In part two of our conversation with Dr. Tamara MC, we get into everything that happened after she was married in a secret wedding ceremony, including attending the 8th grade (she was only 12-years-old) and keeping her religious life a secret from the rest of the world.

As a reminder (and don’t forget to listen to part one if you haven’t), Dr. Tamara MC’s father introduced her to a highly abusive religious cult in which, above all else, men controlled every aspect of womens’ lives, including their bodies. They were mercilessly overworked, underfed, and treated as second class citizens to…peacocks.

Now, Tamara has earned a Ph. D. in Applied Linguistics, specifically studying how language can be used to manipulate vulnerable populations. She advocates against gender-based violence and has written prolifically about the nightmarish experiences that punctuated her youth, d0ing as much as she humanly can to prevent this from happening as frequently in the future.

Episode available since June 05, 2023

Esoterica

When Satan Club went to school: What’s behind the group that created controversy in Chesapeake

The Satanic Temple was ready to pick a fight — lots of fights, actually, and it got them — in Illinois, in Pennsylvania and in Chesapeake.

. . .

Eventually, after the ACLU of Virginia took on the issue, the club held its first meeting in February and has continued to gather monthly since.

. . .

“Because of their actions, people who normally talk about the importance of religious freedom, some of them have said, ‘Actually, I don’t like religious freedom, if religious freedom means satanists can do this kind of stuff.’”

“This small group has kind of been able to punch above its weight in forcing these kinds of questions on people.”

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I Was a Child Bride: Dr. Tamara MC on the Language of Manipulation (Part 1)

When she was only 12-years-old, Dr. Tamara MC had a secret wedding ceremony in the middle of the night. Shrouded in pitch black and with no one present but her new husband, a much older man who could supposedly guide her to the kingdoms of knowledge and heaven, this night further cemented Tamara’s place in a highly abusive religious cult. Above all else, men wielding black leather whips forced females to surrender their “nafs”—the Arabic word for “self.” As she put it in an article for Mother Well Mag, the girls in that cult “didn’t know where [their] bodies stopped and the perpetrators' bodies began.”

Now, Tamara has earned a Ph. D. in Applied Linguistics, specifically studying how language can be used to manipulate vulnerable populations. She advocates against gender-based violence and has written prolifically about the nightmarish experiences that punctuated her youth, d0ing as much as she humanly can to prevent this from happening as frequently in the future.

Episode available since May 29, 2023

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The Lumerian Sisters: Jennings Brown on Liana Shanti

Another day, another wellness guru preaching enlightenment on social media. Total snooze, right?! Unless said guru begins telling her followers to cut ties with their “family cults'' in order to save their children from a ruling class of evil reptilian creatures, the likes of which are responsible for creating the COVID-19 “scandemic” as a Luciferian tool to harvest innocent souls…that might spice things up a bit. Or a shit ton.

Such has been the case with Liana Shanti, a nymph-like online persona who’s amassed thousands of predominantly female followers on Instagram, a platform she uses to share beliefs such as the one where the US government is going to put unvaccinated children into concentration camps, or that Florida is the only safe space and thus all her followers should move there.

Suffice to say, Shanti’s story is…truly a wild one. And luckily for us, we get to hear about it from none other than Jennings Brown, an investigative journalist and podcast/documentary producer who previously joined us to discuss The Teal Swan. This time, he’s on ALBC to explain the woman hiding behind Shanti’s online persona, her recent legal woes, and just how damaging her teachings have been to numerous families that now stand divided.

Episode available since May 22, 2023

Esoterica

Lori Vallow: US doomsday cult mum guilty of murdering children, rival

[I]n 2017, family and friends said Vallow's demeanour changed as she began reading the books by Chad Daybell, a religious author whose fictional books focused on the apocalypse were loosely drawn from the beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The two eventually met sometime in 2018 and began recording a religious podcast together.

At the time, both were married. But together, Vallow and Mr Daybell's views veered towards the extreme, the prosecutor said.

The two deemed people either "light" or "dark" spirits and called those who had been taken over by evil spirits "zombies".

The only way to free someone's soul from the darkness, the couple said, was to kill them.

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Murder, Faith & End Times: Leah Sottile on Lori Vallow & Chad Daybell

f you still manage to read the news, good job. You’ve then no doubt heard that “Doomsday Mom” Lori Vallow was just convicted of murdering her 16-year-old daughter Tylee and seven-year-old son J.J. This judgment will be an end to this harrowing yet enthralling story, which turned 49-year-old mom and Mormon, Lori Vallow into an international media fixture, seemingly entangled in a web of infanticide, zombies, escapes to Hawaii, and a trail of mysterious deaths that remain suspicious as hell.

On today’s episode, we’re joined by freelance journalist and author Leah Sottile, whose book When the Moon Turns to Blood: Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and a Story of Murder, Faith, and End Times, illuminates the story of the former beauty queen and her grave-digger turned doomsday novelist slash extremist douchebag husband, Chad. Take a listen to learn more as Sottile breaks the case down, explaining how Vallow’s tale is just symptomatic of something larger.

Episode available since May 15, 2023

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‘Uncultured:’ Daniella Mestyanek Young on COG and the US Military (Pt. 2)

Today’s episode is Sponsored by BetterHelp. We’re back for part 2 of our interview with Daniella Mestyanek Young, the badass author of Uncultured: a Memoir. In her book, Young gets into the nitty gritty of growing up in the Children of God cult, now known as “The Family International,” with their horrifying pedophilic practice called “Law of Love.” In part 2, we dive deeper into Young’s time as a Captain in the US Army—a role that threw Young back into the trenches of misogynist and coercive abuse resembling the neglect she survived in her childhood.

How did military personnel respond to Young’s whistleblowing? What did she endure during her hazing as a new soldier? And why did another captain tell her she’d “probably get raped” on a certain military deployment?

Episode available since May 08, 2023