Épisodes

  • Who Gets to be Believed? The Navy Surgeon Who Wasn't, The Forgotten Fossil Hunter, and The Man Who Discovered Hand-Washing

    Who Gets to be Believed? The Navy Surgeon Who Wasn't, The Forgotten Fossil Hunter, and The Man Who Discovered Hand-Washing
    Jun 19 2026

    Who gets to be believed?

    A fake doctor performs surgery without a medical degree. A fossil hunter makes discoveries that reshape science but struggles to be taken seriously. A physician uncovers a lifesaving medical practice, only to be ignored by much of the medical establishment.

    This week, we explore the strange and often uncomfortable gap between expertise and credibility. Why do some people earn trust they haven't earned, while others struggle to be heard despite being right? From impostors and overlooked experts to the psychology of authority itself, this episode examines how humans decide who deserves to be believed.

    Attribution Notes:

    • Every effort was made to cross-check primary sources and modern research. Where paraphrasing is used, it’s drawn from the texts below with narrative license for clarity and flow.
    • If you spot an error or have a source to suggest, DM @thisagainshow

    Follow This, Again on Instagram: @thisagainshow

    This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust.

    Semmelweis, Ignaz. The Etiology, Concept, and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever. Translated by K. Codell Carter. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983 (original publication 1861).

    Carter, K. Codell. Childbed Fever: A Scientific Biography of Ignaz Semmelweis. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1995.

    Nuland, Sherwin B. The Doctors' Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignác Semmelweis. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003.

    Semmelweis, Ignaz. The Etiology, Concept, and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever. Translated by K. Codell Carter. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983.

    Best, M., and D. Neuhauser. "Ignaz Semmelweis and the Birth of Infection Control." Quality and Safety in Health Care 13, no. 3 (2004): 233–234.

    https://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/13/3/233

    Nuland, Sherwin B. The Doctors' Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignác Semmelweis. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003.

    Carter, K. Codell. Childbed Fever: A Scientific Biography of Ignnaz Semmelweis. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1995.

    Gillispie, Charles Coulston, ed. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 12. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1975. Entry: "Semmelweis, Ignaz Philipp."

    Emling, Shelley. The Fossil Hunter: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

    Torrens, Hugh. Mary Anning of Lyme Regis: Fossilist. Bournemouth: British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1995.

    Goodhue, Thomas W. Fossil Hunter: The Life and Times of Mary Anning (1799–1847). Bethesda, MD: Academica Press, 2004.

    Crichton, Robert. The Great Impostor. New York: Random House, 1959.
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    31 min
  • Assassinations and Accessibility: Mckinley, JFK, Reagan, & Shinzo Abe

    Assassinations and Accessibility: Mckinley, JFK, Reagan, & Shinzo Abe
    Jun 10 2026
    After every assassination, the same questions seem to follow. How did this happen? Why wasn't it prevented? What warning signs did people miss? From William McKinley in 1901 to John F. Kennedy in 1963, Ronald Reagan in 1981, and Shinzo Abe in 2022, each attack exposed vulnerabilities that suddenly seemed obvious in hindsight. Security systems changed. Procedures evolved. New lessons were learned. But what if the deeper story isn't about the attacks themselves? In this episode, we explore how societies learn from catastrophe, why institutions often become experts at preventing the last disaster, and what psychologists call the availability heuristic: our tendency to focus on the risks we can easily imagine while overlooking the ones we can't. Because the future rarely arrives in the form we expect. And sometimes the most important blind spots are hiding inside assumptions that feel perfectly reasonable today. Attribution Notes: Every effort was made to cross-check primary sources and modern research. Where paraphrasing is used, it’s drawn from the texts below with narrative license for clarity and flow.If you spot an error or have a source to suggest, DM @thisagainshow Follow This, Again on Instagram: @thisagainshow This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust. Sources and Further Reading: William McKinley Merry, Robert W. President McKinley: Architect of the American Century. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017. Library of Congress – William McKinley Papers https://www.loc.gov/collections/william-mckinley-papers/about-this-collection/ Miller, Scott. The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century. New York: Random House, 2011. John F. Kennedy Blaine, Gerald, and Lisa McCubbin. The Kennedy Detail: JFK's Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence. New York: Gallery Books, 2010. President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964. National Archives: https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report Ronald Reagan Wilber, Del Quentin. Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan. New York: Henry Holt, 2011. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum https://www.reaganlibrary.gov Shinzo Abe BBC News – Shinzo Abe assassination coverage https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-62089486 https://www.bbc.com/news/62095447 National Police Agency of Japan https://www.npa.go.jp/english/ Psychology, Risk & Organizational Learning Availability Heuristic Tversky, Amos, and Daniel Kahneman. "Availability: A Heuristic for Judging Frequency and Probability." Cognitive Psychology 5, no. 2 (1973): 207–232. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(73)90033-9 High Reliability Organizations Weick, Karl E., and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe. Managing the Unexpected: Sustained Performance in a Complex World. 3rd ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2015. Publisher: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781119175834?msockid=205e866215186a7d34b4951214346b54 Normal Accident Theory Perrow, Charles. Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7srgf Organizational Failure & Challenger Vaughan, Diane. The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo22781921.html Horizon Scanning & Future Risk National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Enhancing Horizon Scanning and Foresight Capacity of the Federal Government. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2020. Free Full Report: https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/25729/enhancing-horizon-scanning-and-foresight-capacity-of-the-federal-government Black Swan Events Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. 2nd ed. New York: Random House, 2010. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/176226/the-black-swan-by-nassim-nicholas-taleb/
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    29 min
  • Pocahontas, Galileo, and Isaac Newton: Why We Change the Stories (1600s)

    Pocahontas, Galileo, and Isaac Newton: Why We Change the Stories (1600s)
    May 21 2026
    This week on This, Again, we look at three figures from the 1600s whose stories became cleaner, simpler, and easier to pass down over time: Galileo GalileiPocahontasIsaac Newton Galileo becomes the ultimate symbol of science versus religion, even though the reality was tangled up in politics, ego, public pressure, and institutional instability. Pocahontas becomes a romantic bridge between worlds, despite the fact that much of her life survives only through English interpretation, political messaging, and a story later generations softened into something easier to emotionally live with. Newton becomes the image of effortless genius, reduced to an apple falling from a tree, while the obsessive, competitive, deeply complicated person underneath that myth slowly fades into the background. But this episode isn’t really about “debunking” history. It’s about asking why stories evolve this way in the first place. Do we simplify history because we’re trying to manipulate people? Or because human beings naturally remember stories better when they feel emotionally organized and easy to carry forward? And at what point does simplification stop being an introduction… and quietly become the final version? This episode explores historiography, memory, narrative psychology, and the uncomfortable reality that most of us were probably taught the first layer of history… without ever being brought back for the second one. Attribution Notes: Every effort was made to cross-check primary sources and modern research. Where paraphrasing is used, it’s drawn from the texts below with narrative license for clarity and flow.If you spot an error or have a source to suggest, DM @thisagainshow Follow This, Again on Instagram: @thisagainshow This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust. Galileo Galileo Galilei. Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. Translated by Stillman Drake. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967. https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft1t1nb0d5&chunk.id=d0e180&brand=ucpressGalileo Galilei. The Essential Galileo. Edited and translated by Maurice A. Finocchiaro. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2008. https://hackettpublishing.com/the-essential-galileoFinocchiaro, Maurice A. Retrying Galileo, 1633–1992. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. https://www.ucpress.edu/books/retrying-galileo/paper Heilbron, J. L. Galileo. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Galileo - John L. Heilbron - Oxford University PressVatican Observatory. “The Galileo Affair.” https://www.vaticanobservatory.org/education/the-galileo-affair/ Pocahontas John Smith. The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (1624). https://archive.org/details/generallhistorie00smit Camilla Townsend. Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma. New York: Hill and Wang, 2004. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780809077380/pocahontasandthepowhatandilemmaNational Park Service. “Pocahontas.” Jamestown Colonial National Historical Park. https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/pocahontas-her-life-and-legend.htmEncyclopaedia Britannica. “Pocahontas.” https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pocahontas-Powhatan-woman Helen C. Rountree. Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005. https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/2782/William Apess. A Son of the Forest and Other Writings. Edited by Barry O’Connell. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997. https://www.umasspress.com/9781558491076/a-son-of-the-forest-and-other-writings/ Newton Isaac Newton. The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Translated by I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520088177/the-principia Richard S. Westfall. Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/never-at-rest/45515EFB2D1A3B1D8764A3558D3A4E4B Patricia Fara. Newton: The Making of Genius. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. https://cup.columbia.edu/book/newton/9780231128063The Royal Society. “Newton and Leibniz: The Calculus Controversy.” https://royalsociety.org/blog/2015/02/newton-leibniz-calculus-dispute/ Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. New York: Pantheon Books, 2003. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/295742/isaac-newton-by-james-gleick/ Historiography / Philosophy / Historical Memory E. H. Carr. What Is History? New York: Vintage Books, 1961. https://archive.org/details/whatishistory00ehca Hayden White. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973. https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/metahistory Michel Foucault. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings. New York: Pantheon Books, 1980. https://monoskop.org/images/5/5d/...
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    38 min
  • Going Undercover: The People Who Entered and Exposed the Psychiatric System

    Going Undercover: The People Who Entered and Exposed the Psychiatric System
    May 7 2026

    What would it take to be labeled insane?

    In 1887, Nellie Bly checked herself into a New York asylum to find out. She got in with surprising ease. Getting out was something else entirely.

    Nearly a century later, David Rosenhan ran an experiment to see if anything had changed. Healthy people walked into psychiatric hospitals, claimed to hear a single voice, and were admitted. Once inside, they acted completely normal. It didn’t matter.

    This episode follows both investigations from the inside and looks at what they revealed about how systems make decisions and why those decisions are so difficult to reverse.

    Attribution Notes:

    • Every effort was made to cross-check primary sources and modern research. Where paraphrasing is used, it’s drawn from the texts below with narrative license for clarity and flow.
    • If you spot an error or have a source to suggest, DM @thisagainshow

    Follow This, Again on Instagram: @thisagainshow

    This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust.

    Bly, Nellie. Ten Days in a Mad-House. New York: Ian L. Munro, 1887. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59899

    Rosenhan, D. L. “On Being Sane in Insane Places.” Science 179, no. 4070 (1973): 250–258. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1735662

    Grob, Gerald N. The Mad Among Us: A History of the Care of America’s Mentally Ill. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.

    Scull, Andrew. Madness in Civilization: A Cultural History of Insanity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.

    Spitzer, Robert L. “On Pseudoscience in Science, Logic in Remission, and Psychiatric Diagnosis: A Critique of Rosenhan’s ‘On Being Sane in Insane Places.’” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 84, no. 5 (1975): 442–452. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1976-00177-001

    Zimbardo, Philip G. The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. New York: Random House, 2007.

    Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1906. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/140

    Griffin, John Howard. Black Like Me. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961.
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    33 min
  • Mass Hysteria Through History: Laughter Epidemic, Dancing Plague, and Tik Tok Tics

    Mass Hysteria Through History: Laughter Epidemic, Dancing Plague, and Tik Tok Tics
    Apr 23 2026
    In 1962, a group of schoolgirls in Tanganyika began laughing and could not stop. The episode spread to multiple schools, eventually forcing closures and affecting hundreds of students. More than four centuries earlier, in 1518, residents of Strasbourg took to the streets and danced for days at a time. Contemporary accounts describe exhaustion, collapse, and a response from local authorities shaped by the medical beliefs of the time. During the industrial era in Europe and the United States, physicians documented similar patterns in factories and schools. Groups of workers developed symptoms such as fainting, tremors, and nausea without a clear environmental or biological cause. In that same year, 1962, a U.S. textile factory experienced what became known as the June Bug Epidemic. Workers reported being bitten by an unseen insect. Investigations found no physical cause, but the symptoms spread through proximity and shared interpretation. More recently, clinicians have documented a rise in rapid-onset tic-like behaviors in adolescents, many of whom were exposed to similar content online. This episode looks at these cases side by side, not as isolated events, but as examples of a recurring pattern. Under certain conditions, behavior, emotion, and even physical symptoms can move through groups in ways that feel personal, but are not entirely individual. Attribution Notes: Every effort was made to cross-check primary sources and modern research. Where paraphrasing is used, it’s drawn from the texts below with narrative license for clarity and flow.If you spot an error or have a source to suggest, DM @thisagainshow Follow This, Again on Instagram: @thisagainshow This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust. Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic (1962) Rankin, A. M., and P. J. Philip. “An Epidemic of Laughing in the Bukoba District of Tanganyika.” Central African Journal of Medicine, 1963. https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/AJA00089176_6171 Hempelmann, Christian F. “The Laughter Epidemic of 1962: A Study of Collective Behavior.” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 2007. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/HUMOR.2007.003/html Dancing Plague of Strasbourg (1518) A Time to Dance, a Time to Die Waller, John. A Time to Dance, a Time to Die: The Extraordinary Story of the Dancing Plague of 1518. Icon Books, 2008. Waller, John. “A Forgotten Plague: Making Sense of Dancing Mania.” The Lancet, 2009. A forgotten plague: making sense of dancing mania - The Lancet Backman, E. Louis. Religious Dances in the Christian Church and in Popular Medicine. Routledge, 1952. Religious dances : in the Christian church and in popular medicine : Backman, E. Louis (Eugène Louis), 1883-1965, author : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive Industrial Era / Factory & School Outbreaks Bartholomew, Robert E., and Simon Wessely. “Protean Nature of Mass Sociogenic Illness: From Possession to Mass Hysteria.” British Journal of Psychiatry, 2002. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/protean-nature-of-mass-sociogenic-illness/ Micale, Mark S. Approaching Hysteria: Disease and Its Interpretations. Princeton University Press, 1995. Robinson, Harriet Hanson. Loom and Spindle: Or Life Among the Early Mill Girls. 1898. Loom and Spindle : Harriet H. Robinson : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive June Bug Epidemic (1962, United States) Kerckhoff, Alan C., and Kurt W. Back. “The June Bug Epidemic: A Study of Hysterical Contagion.” Journal of Social Psychology, 1968. (Accessible summary of case) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3588562/ Modern Case: Functional Tic-Like Behaviors (COVID Era) Pringsheim, Tamara, et al. “Rapid Onset Functional Tic-Like Behaviors in Young Females During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Movement Disorders, 2021. https://movementdisorders.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mds.28778 Müller-Vahl, Kirsten R., et al. “Increase of Functional Tic-Like Behaviors During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” European Journal of Neurology, 2022. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ene.15263 Paulus, Walter, et al. “Functional Movement Disorders: Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Journal of Neurology, 2021. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00415-021-10578-7 Tourette Association of America. “Rising Incidence of Functional Tic-Like Behaviors.” https://tourette.org/rising-incidence-of-functional-tic-like-behaviors/ Psychology & Mechanism (Supporting Framework) Hatfield, Elaine, John T. Cacioppo, and Richard L. Rapson. Emotional Contagion. Cambridge University Press, 1994. Engert, Veronika, et al. “Stress Contagion in Humans: Empathic Stress Induction.” The Contagiousness of Stress: How It Affects Our Brains and Bodies - ScienceDirect Rizzolatti, Giacomo, and Laila Craighero. “The Mirror-Neuron System.” Annual Review of Neuroscience, 2004. https://...
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    26 min
  • Anne Boleyn, Robert Oppenheimer, and the Price of Proximity to Power

    Anne Boleyn, Robert Oppenheimer, and the Price of Proximity to Power
    Apr 13 2026
    In May 1536, Anne Boleyn was still Queen of England. Seventeen days later, she was executed. This episode looks at how that kind of collapse is even possible. Anne’s rise wasn’t just personal. Her marriage to Henry VIII forced England to break with the Catholic Church, reshaped the law, and required oaths of loyalty across the country. By the mid-1530s, she had become tied to the most disruptive political and religious changes of the era. When pressure built around succession, legitimacy, and reform, the system didn’t slow down or reassess. It moved quickly. Charges were brought. Trials were held. Executions followed. This episode examines that moment not just as a Tudor story, but as a pattern. What happens when someone stands at the center of power and becomes the most visible part of a system under strain? To answer that, we follow the same pattern beyond Tudor England. The downfall of Thomas Cromwell shows how proximity did not protect even the people building the system. The 1954 security hearing of Robert Oppenheimer shows how removal can shift from execution to loss of access while serving a similar function. And modern corporate examples show how leadership removal can signal control even when deeper issues remain unresolved. This is not a story about whether Anne Boleyn was guilty. It is a story about how systems respond under pressure, and why the person closest to power can become the fastest way to prove that something has been done. Attribution Notes: Every effort was made to cross-check primary sources and modern research. Where paraphrasing is used, it’s drawn from the texts below with narrative license for clarity and flow.If you spot an error or have a source to suggest, DM @thisagainshow Follow This, Again on Instagram: @thisagainshow This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust. Ives, Eric. The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. https://archive.org/details/lifedeathofanneb00ivesBernard, G. W. Anne Boleyn: Fatal Attractions. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300162455/anne-boleyn/Weir, Alison. The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn. New York: Ballantine Books, 2009. https://groveatlantic.com/book/the-six-wives-of-henry-viii/“Trial of Anne Boleyn (1536).” English History in Primary Sources. https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/anneboleyntrial.asp“Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII.” British History Online. https://www.british-history.ac.uk/search/series/letters-papers-hen8 (Search “Anne Boleyn 1536” within this: these are actual state papers) “Eustace Chapuys Correspondence.” British History Online. https://www.british-history.ac.uk/search/series/cal-state-papers-spanish“Act in Restraint of Appeals.” https://www.british-history.ac.uk/statutes-realm/vol3/pp427-429“Act of Supremacy.” https://www.british-history.ac.uk/statutes-realm/vol3/pp492-496MacCulloch, Diarmaid. Thomas Cromwell: A Life. New York: Viking, 2018. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/295438/thomas-cromwell-by-diarmaid-macculloch/MacCulloch, Diarmaid. The Reformation: A History. New York: Penguin, 2005. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/292946/the-reformation-by-diarmaid-macculloch/Guy, John. Thomas More. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/thomas-more-9780192854063Bellamy, J. G. The Tudor Law of Treason. London: Routledge, 1979. https://www.routledge.com/The-Tudor-Law-of-Treason/Bellamy/p/book/9780719007804U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer (1954) https://www.osti.gov/opennet/hearing.jspBird, Kai, and Martin J. Sherwin. American Prometheus. New York: Knopf, 2005. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/67852/american-prometheus-by-kai-bird-and-martin-j-sherwin/
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    46 min
  • Inside the Minds of Cult Leaders and Followers: Pt. 2 (The Digital Era)

    Inside the Minds of Cult Leaders and Followers: Pt. 2 (The Digital Era)
    Mar 12 2026
    In the second episode of this two-part series on cults, we look at what happens when cult psychology collides with the digital world. The online relationship movement known as Twin Flames Universe promised followers that a single destined partner existed for each person and that spiritual coaching could reunite them with that soulmate. Behind the scenes, former members describe a system that pressured followers to pursue relationships that had already ended and invest thousands of dollars in coaching programs. We also examine the strange and disturbing story of Love Has Won, a livestreamed spiritual movement built around a woman who claimed she was guiding humanity through a cosmic transformation. For years, followers broadcast their lives online while building a belief system around the figure they called Mother God. These modern movements raise an unsettling question. Are we witnessing the emergence of a new age of cults driven by digital platforms and online communities? Or are the same psychological patterns that fueled earlier cults simply finding new ways to organize and spread? Drawing on research from psychologists and sociologists who study high control groups and digital culture, this episode explores how belief, belonging, and identity operate in the networked world. Because while the technology surrounding these movements may look new, the forces shaping them may be far older. Attribution Notes: Every effort was made to cross-check primary sources and modern research. Where paraphrasing is used, it’s drawn from the texts below with narrative license for clarity and flow.If you spot an error or have a source to suggest, DM @thisagainshow Follow This, Again on Instagram: @thisagainshow This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust. Sources and Further Reading Hines, Alice. “Inside the Twin Flames Universe and Its Always Online, All-Consuming World.” Vanity Fair, December 3, 2020. https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/12/inside-the-all-consuming-world-of-twin-flames-universe Associated Press. “Michigan Attorney General Says She Is Investigating a Company Promoting ‘Twin Flame’ Romance.” Associated Press, March 5, 2025. https://apnews.com/article/a03d0734e11b6ebde2e5f7331818b1d8 Netflix. Escaping Twin Flames. Accessed March 12, 2026. https://www.netflix.com/title/81615919 Borden, Jane. “Mother God, Robin Williams, and Alcohol as Medicine: Inside Love Has Won.” Vanity Fair, November 14, 2023. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/11/love-has-won-mother-god-cult-amy-carlson Buchanan, Kyle. “The True Story Behind HBO’s Love Has Won.” Time, November 14, 2023. https://time.com/6333436/love-has-won-true-story-hbo/ Lifton, Robert Jay. Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of ‘Brainwashing’ in China. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. https://uncpress.org/book/9780807842539/thought-reform-and-the-psychology-of-totalism/ Hassan, Steven. Combating Cult Mind Control. Freedom of Mind Press. https://freedomofmind.com/combating-cult-mind-control/ Tufekci, Zeynep. Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest. Yale University Press, 2017. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300231212/twitter-and-tear-gas/ Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Bowling-Alone/Robert-D-Putnam/9780743203043 Cialdini, Robert. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Harper Business, 2006. https://www.harpercollins.com/products/influence-new-and-expanded-robert-b-cialdini Lalich, Janja, and Madeleine Tobias. Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships. Bay Tree Publishing, 2006. https://www.janjalalich.com/books/
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    30 min
  • Inside the Minds of Cult Leaders and Followers: Pt. 1 (1960s-1990s)

    Inside the Minds of Cult Leaders and Followers: Pt. 1 (1960s-1990s)
    Feb 26 2026
    In this episode of This, Again, we trace the evolution of cults from the obvious monsters of the 1960s and 70s, the Manson Family, Jonestown, and Heaven’s Gate, to the respectable reinventions of the 1980s and 90s like NXIVM, Scientology, and multi-level marketing empires. What do these groups share beneath the costumes, the jargon, and the business cards? The same psychological mechanics: obedience, conformity, charisma, sunk cost fallacy, and the intoxicating promise of belonging. Drawing on scholars like Robert Lifton, Margaret Singer, Janja Lalich, Steven Hassan, and Philip Zimbardo, I explore how cult leaders weaponize trust and how ordinary people, people like us, become devoted enough to give up their freedom, their money, even their lives. And by the end, we land on a harder question. If the robes and UFOs were easy to spot, what happens when cult dynamics put on a suit and walk into the boardroom? This is Part 1 of a two-part series. In Part 2, we move into the modern era, where cult dynamics no longer stand out at all, but blend into our feeds, our fandoms, and our politics. Attribution Notes: Every effort was made to cross-check primary sources and modern research. Where paraphrasing is used, it’s drawn from the texts below with narrative license for clarity and flow.If you spot an error or have a source to suggest, DM @thisagainshow Follow This, Again on Instagram: @thisagainshow This, Again is written, produced, and hosted by Mallory Faust. Books and Major Works Cited Cialdini, Robert B. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. New York: Harper Business, 1984. https://www.harpercollins.com/products/influence-robert-b-cialdini.Hassan, Steven. Combating Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best-Selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults. Freedom of Mind Press, 2015. https://freedomofmind.com/product/combating-cult-mind-control/.Lalich, Janja, and Madeleine Tobias. Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships. Berkeley: Bay Tree Publishing, 2006. https://baytreepublishing.com/take-back-your-life/.Lifton, Robert Jay. Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of Brainwashing in China. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961. https://uncpress.org/book/9780807845045/thought-reform-and-the-psychology-of-totalism/.Singer, Margaret Thaler, and Janja Lalich. Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995. https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Cults+in+Our+Midst%3A+The+Continuing+Fight+Against+Their+Hidden+Menace%2C+2nd+Edition-p-9780787953729.Swann, William B., Jr., and Colleagues. Identity Fusion: The Interplay of Personal and Social Identity in Extreme Group Behavior. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. (Foundational research summary). https://global.oup.com/academic/product/identity-fusion-9780199604481. Historical and Case Sources Bugliosi, Vincent. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders. New York: Norton, 1974. https://wwnorton.com/books/Helter-Skelter/. Layton, Deborah. Seductive Poison: A Jonestown Survivor’s Story of Life and Death in the People’s Temple. New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2006. Seductive Poison by Deborah Layton: 9780385489843 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books Academic Studies and Classic Social Psychology Festinger, Leon. “A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance.” Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1957. A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance | Stanford University PressJanis, Irving L. Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972. Victims Of GROUPTHINK Irving L. JanisMilgram, Stanley. “Behavioral Study of Obedience.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67, no. 4 (1963): Behavioral Study of Obedience / by Stanley Milgram. - University of Texas at AustinZimbardo, Philip G. “The Stanford Prison Experiment: A Simulation Study of the Psychology of Imprisonment.” Naval Research Reviews 30, no. 9 (1973): 4-17. Stanford Prison Experiment Authoritative Summaries and Reporting on Cults “Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple.” PBS. Watch Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple | American Experience | Official Site | PBS“Heaven’s Gate Cult: Members Found Dead.” History.com. Heaven's Gate cult members found dead | March 26, 1997 | HISTORY“Scientology: What It Is, Facts and History.” BBC News.“Multi-Level Marketing Schemes and How They Work.” Federal Trade Commission. Multi-Level Marketing Businesses and Pyramid Schemes | Consumer Advice Psychology Theory Summaries Swann, William B., Jamie L. Jetten, and Colleagues. “Identity Fusion: The Role of Shared Identity in Extreme Group Behavior.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 18, no. 1 (2009): 38-42. Identity Fusion on JSTORFestinger, Leon, Henry W. Riecken, and Stanley Schachter. When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the ...
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    29 min