August 27, 2025 • 54 mins
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.
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Sister, Sinner
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Trust me?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Do you trust me? All right?
Speaker 3 (00:04):
Everly?
Speaker 4 (00:05):
And you astray to us.
Speaker 5 (00:07):
This is the truth, the only truth.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't
welcome to trust me. The podcast about cult's extreme belief
and manipulation from two very famous celebrities who've actually experienced it.
I'm famous celebrity low lablanc and I'm famous celebrity Megan Elizabeth.
And if you haven't heard of us, that's your problem.
(00:30):
Today is part two with Claire Hoffman, former member of
a transcendental meditation community and author of two books. We
are discussing one we talked about last week, called Utopia Park,
about her childhood in TM, and the second, which we
will talk about today, is called Sister Sinner. The Miraculous
Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Amy Semple McPherson. Claire is
(00:51):
going to tell us who Amy Simple McPherson was. She
was a Pentecostal evangelist and media celebrity in the nineteen
twenties and thirties. How McPherson first decided to create a church,
and how she pioneered the use of theatrics and mass
media using radio to build an audience and make a
whole lot of money.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Claire is going to explain how McPherson skyrocketed to fame
and became a mega famous public figure like us, and
then she'll tell us the story of McPherson's mysterious disappearance
from the beach in Santa Monica and the ensuing court
case that gripped the nation, basically the OJ Simpson trial
of the nineteen twenties, which is so crazy because I'd
never heard of it before. It just shows you how
(01:30):
much happens that we don't even know about it.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, I know, and this is American history, Like, yeah,
we should know.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
But like if a.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Nineteen twenty eight time traveler can, they'd be like, what
do you think about it?
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Amy simple, she was like, we don't know her.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
It would be like us being like, you don't know
Kim Kardashian in one hundred years, because it just it
was just wild to not know the story at all.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Indeed, and before we talk about this story with Claire, Megan,
please share your cultiest thing.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Of this week. I mean, the thought on the tip
of my head is fine, the tip of your head, wow, fascinating.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Listen, The point is smart the way I say it,
the point on the tip of your head.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Mine nice is fame.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
It's a cult and it feels so real while you're
in it. You're like, I'm famous.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Because that's how you feel right now because you're super
famous famous, as we know in the intro.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
But it's it is CULTI and it totally is.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah, we worship the strangers and it destroys them and.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Does destroy them. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Like there's always this trajectory of like, wait, they're so good. Wait,
wait wait, I love them, I'm oss tested with them,
and then once we like them too much, we're like devalue,
fuck that person. I hate them. I'm so sick of them.
Jennifer Lawrence is annoying. Actually, you know, yeah, I don't know.
That was just the forefront for me. I had a
couple of videos go viral ish recently online and it.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Doesn't feel good.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
It feels bad because then I'm like, well, how do
I do it again?
Speaker 6 (03:21):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (03:21):
No, how do I make What do I do for
the next one? Right? How do I get this again?
And keep this going? Like?
Speaker 3 (03:28):
It?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
It's like interesting?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
How it really isn't like you have to keep churning
stuff out.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Right, you're not.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
You never reach the pinnacle or the point. It's just
an ever moving goalpost like cults and.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
The most successful people I know like absolutely do not
feel like they have achieved, like that they've gotten there
and like, Okay, now I can rest. Like, no, that's
not an ever shout out to my song Everybody, whose
lyric is when everybody loves me, then I'll finally be happy,
Then I'll finally rest. Go stream it now, ooh we
should play it at the end of this episode. So
(04:00):
relevant to this Relly, Yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
What about you? What's your cultiest thing of the week?
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Okay, so this week, well, like two days ago, I
was in the grocery store. I was in I think
it was John's, okay, and a young woman I would
say probably she looked twenty five walked up to me.
I was like, excuse me, can I can I have
a moment of your time? And I was like sure.
(04:27):
A young woman and she was accompanied by an older
woman and I was like, okay, this is about to
be some like Christian shit, and she was like, is
it okay?
Speaker 1 (04:39):
If I read you a Bible verse?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
This is a part of this thing we're doing where
I'm supposed to reach out to people and to read
them a Bible verse. And I was like, sure, read
me your Bible verse. And I was so curious what
she was going to read me. She reads me this
verse from Genesis one twenty six, and I'll be curious
if you know where this is going or what church
this is? Okay, Genesis one twenty six states then God said,
(05:03):
let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness,
so that they may rule over the fish of the
sea and the birds.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Of the sky. Blah blah blah. And she was like,
who is our There's God. He's a man.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
But there was also Eve, and he also made Eve,
and he said, let us make mankind in our image.
So that means there must be a woman, a woman
who's there with God. And I was like, this is
actually such an interesting that's.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
A great point. I would have joined. H I have
no idea who it is. Don't even tell me I'm joining.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
She's like talking about a female God and I'm like, yeah,
if I were into the God thing, this would.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Get me for sure. Who was it? What are they?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
So I it took it took me a minute to
get out of her where she was from, because she
just wanted to exchange phone numbers so that she could
talk to me, and I was like, I'm not doing that, sweetie,
but I took her phone number down, and so she
said it's the Church of God, and I was like,
the Church of God and she was like, well, it's
actually the World Mission Society Church of God.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
What the fuck is what?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
So I looked it up and spoiler alert, there are
people who believe it is a cult.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Uh oh.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
It is a South Korean based church that essentially believes
that the woman in Korea, this elderly woman, is God.
She is God the Mother, She's the female image of God.
They believe that there are two images of God, God
the Father got the Mother, and this old woman in Korea.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Is one of them. I'm joining.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
They cite other passages that say like our mother in
Galatians Galicians, yeah, Galatians, and the Spirit and the Bride
in Revelation. So they're like finding these passages that sort
of impliese Jesus.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
One of the things she said was like, we think Jesus,
but there's a mother there. So you're telling me I
can go to South Korea. Get plastic surgery all day
long and talk to people who think God is also
a woman.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah. I mean, I don't think you have to go
to Korea. I think you can go to those felis.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I'm close.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
But reading their Wikipedia is really interesting because they're have
been cult accusations, but there also was a what appears
to be a panic wave about them.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Okay, that was not founded.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
So it's one of these complicated things where it's like,
are there problems with this group?
Speaker 1 (07:40):
There do seem to be. Yes.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Former members say that it exercises excessive control over its members,
enforces family separation, exploits its members, you know, all the
cult things. However, there was apparently like a social media
panic about human trafficking being linked to the church, and
all of the police and destigations turned up nothing. They
(08:01):
were like, this is nothing and there was there was
no evidence, no criminal activity, but the rumor just kept
spreading through like various colleges. I guess because interestingly, they
target a lot of young women. What was also so
interesting because I did read that they have been known
to kind of like maybe target people who are vulnerable,
but particularly women. I was like literally on the phone
(08:23):
with my mom, like talking about my breakup, like sounding upset,
and I hang up the phone and one minute later
there next to me, it was like she's.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Just like holeing out by the pop tarts, waiting for
a woman, vulnerable woman to come. But like she clearly
is a vulnerable woman, Like she's so young, Like she
clearly believed what she was saying, you know what I mean,
Like she's being watched by an older person.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, but the human trafficking allegations, there's no there there.
So I think those distinctions are important to make lest
we become culty in our thinking as well. That's all
I will say about that. So, yeah, I got culted, culted.
I was gonna say flirtyfish, but not really, that's not
what that is. When you call that you got culted.
I just got culted. Congratulations. Finally, no one ever knows
(09:08):
that to me anyway. Speaking of women leaders of churches,
oh my gosh, this one's a doozy.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Let's jump into it all rights.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
This next book that you've written, which is a biography,
is called Sister Center. The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance
of Amy Semple McPherson. So can you just tell us
what stuck out to you about this woman, this subject
and made you decide to write this book.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
Yeah, I mean just kind of as a bridge, you know.
I decided in my twenties, I moved to New York
and I was like working as a freelance journalist, and
I went to journalism school, and then I ended up
getting into this program at the U University of Chicago
Divinity School that was like a master's just for religious
studies for people who want to do other things. So
I wanted to be a journalist and write about religion.
(10:11):
And I learned about Amy Simple McPherson there and I
just I was sort of like struck by her, you know.
I mean, I feel like everybody in America knows who
Billy Graham is, and she seemed almost more important and earlier.
But she was just this little paragraph for so in
a history of American religion book, and you know, yeah,
(10:33):
I read that she was this pioneer of Pentecostalism and
this pioneer of Christian entertainment and started the first megachurch,
had had one of the first Christian radio stations, and
that was it. That was all I read, and I
just was, yeah, I just kind of figured, like, oh,
that makes sense that she would be forgotten because patriarchy.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Can you kind of like give us a thought of
who she would be reminiscent of today as she kind
of like it because as we get into the story,
I mean, she's kind of like almost a Kim Kardashian
of religion or something.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
Yeah, it's like if Kim Kardashian and Joel Oustine but
also like Gwyneth and Oprah got all mixed together. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you got it. Something.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
This woman was famous, like yeah, and I've never heard
of her in my life until your book, but she
at the time had a giant church, bringing in thousands
of people, like using Hollywood. The church was in Hollywood,
using it as almost like it like she's using the
costume designers and bringing in animals and like putting on
a show.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
So how did she begin in the first place? And
what was the cultural context for this, because there was
this big Pentecostal shift happening in American religion, Like tell
us about that.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
Yeah, I mean they sort of, like all things Pentecostalism
came from a bunch of different places, but the sort
of defining moment is considered the Azuza Street revivals in
downtown Los Angeles. Azuza Street is like a little almost
like an alley if you're in little Tokyo, just because
you guys are there worth checking out. Wow, it so
(12:14):
speaks to like the history of la Like literally a
quarter of the world's Christians are now Pentecostal and charismatic,
and Azusa Street is kind of basically an alley with
like a bunch of trash bins and a little gold
plaque that says like here marks the site.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Where the street like.
Speaker 5 (12:35):
The site of a global religion. You're like, this is
our Jerusalem, you guys.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Wow, I had no idea. It's like a bigger sign
for Walt Disney on Gelson. Yeah, oh yeah, like Walt
Disney used to be here.
Speaker 5 (12:49):
It's just what it's what LA value is true.
Speaker 7 (12:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
She was living in Canada. She was a teenager, she
was seventeen. It was nineteen oh seven, and she went
into this church one night to basically make fun of
the people there with her father. She had heard that
there were Holy rulers there, which was sort of what
they were calling these early Pentecostals, and the movement had
(13:26):
spread from downtown Los Angeles where these revivals were happening
for months on end, and people came and learned about
the doctrine and brought it out into the world. And
one of those people was this young irishman who was
living in Chicago working as a shoe salesman. He became
a Pentecostal preacher and he made his way north into
(13:48):
northern Canada, into Ontario, and he went to this little
town and he was preaching there that night, and apparently
he was super hot.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
And I was just going to say, having started because
he saw the description, is like I was like, yeah, yeah,
you're like, I'm attracted to the description, and I know why.
Amy was like, you know what, I don't care about
school and games anymore.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
I like religion. I have been, I've been touched by
the Holy always do.
Speaker 5 (14:14):
It is actually those so important. Like it's funny, but
it's also like you just feel this like I mean
to use like a new age term, but like she
really felt like a heart opening, right, like an unlock,
you know, where She's just like, ah.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
It's not the fact that an Irish man with bright
blue eyes is like.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
Yeah, yeah, super tall with like a little Cala.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
Yeah, and he was like five years older than her,
and she was like, I'm in everything he said is true,
but she I think that I just paused there because
like for her, that like romantic feeling seemed to always
be part of her ministry, you know, like she always
kind of spoke in this romantic, rhapsodic way about religion,
(15:02):
you know, and about Jesus, Like it was just very
sort of a lot of love language. So anyway, I
will just speed up and say that she goes through
a couple of husbands and becomes an itinerant preacher and
sort of tries to be a normal person and it
doesn't work out, and she ends up traveling across the
(15:23):
southern and eastern United States as a lady evangelist and
people are really interested, Like it was pretty unusual then,
it's pretty unusual now and people would kind of like
come in for the freak show of seeing a woman preach,
but apparently like her charisma really drew people in. And
she I mean, this is why I sort of bring
(15:43):
up the Oprah aspect, Like it was very positive, Like
she wasn't a negative hell fire and brimstone pature. She
was really Yeah, it was very aspirational and loving, was
a very intimate relationship with Jesus. Pentecostalism I think just
by its nature has this thing where you're really connected
(16:05):
one on one, on a physical level with the Holy Spirit.
I say all this as like, I'm not a Christian
and you guys know more about this than I do.
But this is like my academic understanding of it.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
I don't know about this particular, like it's my favorite
kind of Christianism. Christianism, that's my favorite kind because I mean,
even reading the book, I was like, I can feel
this warm and like, you know, I think, yeah, it
sounds like, I mean a more feminine style of pet
you're a direct conduit.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
I like that.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I mean I'm curious about like what was religion before,
Like how was it evolving?
Speaker 1 (16:44):
What was the change that was happening.
Speaker 5 (16:46):
Yeah, I mean it was. I mean that's a big question. Actually.
I mean I like I just felt like, oh, well,
that's actually there's so much that was happening. But I
think in general, I would say in America at that moment,
at the turn of the century, you know, there's just
a lot of change, and I think that's why It's
such an interesting moment to read about right now, because
I think people were really scared about the future and
(17:09):
technology and like the role of humanity and how people
would live and how people would work, and I mean
huge amounts of migration into cities and kind of the
fracturing of community and family life, and so I think
Amy My sense from reading a gazillion sermons of hers
(17:31):
is like she really connected to this sort of individuality
and a sense of agency, Like you could do things,
you had power, you had the ability to connect to
the divine, you were important. There was also kind of
this like, yeah, like really sensuous feeling of being in
the world, which I imagine at the same time everybody is
(17:52):
scared that they're going to become cogs in a factory machine,
probably felt like restorative.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Right reading her book, I was like, I needed her.
Can we have a new new Yeah? I mean I
think there are thousands of hers on TikTok so Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
The confidence that that woman must have had to decide
that she's going to be a preacher in the nineteen
fucking twenties is so wild.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
It's incredible. She had this mother who just instilled in
her a sense of purpose and saw her as divinely
prophecied and yeah, who just believed in her in this
way that gave Amy a sense of purpose and confidence.
That's that's incredible.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Her mom is like a religious stage mom.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
Oh yeah, I always use Chris Jenner as a well.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Her mom is such a religious Christianner.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
It's like homish christ Jennerish to have.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
A Christianner no matter what subject you're entering. And yeah,
you know, a stage mom, You have to have a
christ Jenner. Everybody needs a stage mom. Sure be your
own stage in.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Her stage mom.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
But you know, yeah, I look at people who succeed
and I think your mom's kind of into it.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, note not everyone, and some people are defining their yes.
So she was kind of a pioneer in that. She's
like explained to me how that what that was.
Speaker 5 (19:25):
The pioneer part? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean she so
she kind of criss crosses the country. She's unusual for
being a woman. Oh. She also part of Pentecostalism is
defined healings. So people start to come see her and
there's the accounts of her performing these miraculous healings, and
so this draws ever larger crowds. Her mother Mini would
(19:48):
sign people up for subscriptions to their magazine along the
way and take checks. So it is, you know, there
was like a little business being built behind her. And
they come to Los Angeles in nineteen eighteen. You know,
there's like supposedly some of the first women to drive
alone across the Wow New highways. Yeah, they're really I mean,
she's a cool character and that she like really was
(20:11):
this kind of like pioneer or cowgirl type in a
lot of ways, and she really played that up. But
they got there and she just really connects with Los
Angeles and sees it as like the place that she
wants to like build stability. And she begins fundraising for
(20:32):
what will become the Angelus Temple, which locals called the
million Dollar Temple because it costs so much money. And
she did it love offering. By love offering, she had
people become chareholders, kind of capitalizing on the stock mania
of the time, so people would tie a certain amount
and get their name on a chair. And she built
it like a bit by bit, and it was built
(20:54):
by the Angels. Temple was built by the same builder
as the people who did Grauman so it was like
very movie palace.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah, of a grand theater in yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:06):
Yeah. And so just to answer your end of that,
she would by the time it was built, and then
she started a radio station next year, she would perform
these big, illustrated sermons. And this was like really unusual
where she was using entertainment to spread the gospel, which
hadn't quite been a thing the way that she made
it a thing, you know, I mean she would just
(21:27):
you mentioned this earlier, but yeah, like she would have
animals and props and a giant, like huge orchestra and
choir and.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Wow, just all this.
Speaker 5 (21:35):
So, I mean it fit fifty three hundred people seated,
but apparently it was often closer to six thousand inside,
and then they would set up loudspeakers outside and on Sundays,
I think they would get over fifteen thousand people because
they would do three services a day.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
So it was just my by gain, how did it
even get so much money? How did it get that big?
Like how did people find out?
Speaker 5 (21:57):
It was word of mouth? And this became an issue
because like a lot of rival pastors were like mad
because people would leave their churches to go to that one,
which you're like a you could just sit there and
listen to like some guy drone on about hell, or
you could go watch like Tigers and Fire and right,
you know, this kind of gorgeous lady, you know, talking
(22:20):
about Jesus.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Yeah, I know who I would choose.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, I'm all giving you a sense of like more
agency and like, yeah you matter to of course you're
going to choose that.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
Don't you think that Amy Lee from The Righteous Jumpstones
is named after her?
Speaker 5 (22:37):
Maybe? Probably? I love The Righteous Jumpsy too.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
That just kid to me anyway.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Yeah, I mean it sounds like she just was the
first influencer almost, like yeah, or at least in that
religious Yeah.
Speaker 5 (22:50):
Yeah, I mean that's sort of you know, looking towards
the rest of her life. What became challenging, I would say,
without saying too much, is that she used herself as
the product, so to speak. And I mean, of course
that's something everybody does now, but it was kind of
an unusual approach at the time, you know. I mean,
(23:12):
this is like celebrities is sort of being invented at
that moment. And you know, her most famous sermon was
the story of my Life, and everybody knew who her
mother was. They knew who her kids were, like she
talked about she used her life to preach the gospel,
and she interwove herself into everything, you know, and her
(23:34):
picture was often on the front page of her magazine
like Oprah, you know what I mean. So it was
just like you really connected to who she was. But
I think that can have problems, do you think.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
That, like looking back on it now, like was there
ever any element of control of her followers or was
it really more like influencer style where it's more about
just having a following.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
I didn't see control, so to speak. But I mean,
everybody's dead, so it's hard to know. I mean, you
know what I mean. There are like I mean, there
was a to flash forward. In the late nineteen twenties,
one of her assistant pastors wrote this book about her
(24:21):
called Amy the Gospel gold Digger, and it was it
was mostly just about the performance of her and the
like you know, like that she would get a huge
thing of roses every night and be like, oh, thank
you, you guys love me so much, thank you. But she
was having them sent to herself. Oh my god. And
he was like, she's a fraud. You know what.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
This woman is so extronic. Yeah, yeah, she is wild.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yeah yeah, she is extra So can you explain the
feeding one point five million people thing?
Speaker 5 (24:56):
Sure? I mean, essentially as far as I can tell.
You know, she started the suit kitchen right away in
right after the stock market fell apart in twenty nine,
and the city was like, I mean, the city was
like not so powerful of a city yet, and so
the firemen and the police and the women's auxiliary, they
(25:19):
would all come down and work through her soup kitchen
and her services to do outreach. So they became kind
of like the conduit for outreach to the poor. I mean,
does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's pretty sick. That's pretty awesome.
Speaker 5 (25:38):
Yeah yeah, No, I mean's she's like, this is why
I love hers, because she's like a riddle, you know.
I mean, she's she did a lot of amazing things,
and I think, you know, my sense of her is
that she was such a true believer, especially in the
first half of her life. I do think she was
a true believer throughout. But you get a sense of
like almost kind of shamanic style beginning where she's traveling
(26:01):
around just like like following the voice of God. Yeah,
so you know, she's nineteen twenty six. You know, her
church has been open for three years. Her radio is
radio station goes up and down the West coast. She's
become like more politically involved, so she's taking a stand
on local issues. She's fighting corruption in city hall at
(26:23):
the la Underworld, and there's signs of stream, you know,
like there's starting to be little cracks in the scene.
People in our congregation sent her on a vacation to Palestine,
as that's where you've vacationed in nineteen twenty six. Yeah,
but there starts to be like also like whispers of
an affair, maybe with an employee who quits around this time,
(26:47):
her radio operator who was very key part of the
functioning of the temple. And to kind of blow off steam,
she begins to go down to Venice Beach in the
afternoons to swim in the ocean and work on her sermons.
And so on May eighteenth, nineteen twenty six, she goes
(27:08):
down with her assistant. They sit on their beach towels
and they she starts working on a sermon about light
and darkness, and she sends her assistant off to make
a phone call her assistant sees her walk into the
ocean and she disappears.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Woo yeah, I mean literally she's gone. Yeah, she's gone.
So what she's gone? What what did her sister to do?
What was the reaction?
Speaker 5 (27:36):
Her assistant freaked out, and you know, starts walking up
and down the beach, you know, asking lifeguards to look
for her.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
She literally lost Oprah.
Speaker 5 (27:45):
She lost Oprah.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, you had one job.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
You have to be like, she's missing that that would
be my god. Yeah yeah yeah, So she's freaking out.
Yeah yeah, And.
Speaker 5 (27:58):
It's also like Oprah, but maybe like in Santa Barbara,
you know what I mean, because it's not like Ellie's
not that big yet, so it's just kind of unfathomable.
And she is worried that she's drowned. So lifeguards start
looking for her. They notify the owner of the hotel
where they had rented the beach blankets and the umbrella from,
(28:19):
and you know, around four thirty that afternoon, they called
the temple to tell her mother, like, hey, like she's missing,
we're looking for her, and her mother was like, she's dead,
she's dead. Just bring the car back, get herself. Yeah.
It's a crazy reaction. Yeah, that I'm still like maybe
kind of parsing.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Honestly, if that was my mom's reaction, i'd be pissed. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (28:45):
Yeah, she's gone, She's got to get her stuff.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
There's a religious detachment that happens though, when when you
are that religious, or she didn't really believe that she
was dead, yeah, or yeah, but like I have seen
in the two by people be like they're with Jesus
now they're dad.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Because they're like I'm going to see them and liked them.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was some of that, and I
think there was right away. Just for you guys, I
would say like she I think right away there was
a sense almost from her mom or like the language
that was used was as if she'd been raptured.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Oh you know, so yeah, that is why she's not even.
Speaker 5 (29:22):
Yeah, like she's vanished. She didn't drown, she vanished.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Because she's so righteous and virtuous.
Speaker 7 (29:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:30):
There's a funny thing with the district attorney at one
point where he's like I don't understand what you mean,
and like, what do you mean she went to the Lord?
I mean she died, you know, And you're like, oh,
he's she's talking about the rapture and then doesn't want
to explain it, right, funny, but yeah, yeah, so they
it becomes just this city wide news story, right, So
(29:52):
tens of thousands of people come down to the beach.
I think within days there's forty thousand people gathered on
the beach holding a vigil looking for her. There scraping
the bottom of the ocean. There's planes and boats and divers.
One diver dies looking for her. Another devotee like jumps
in the water to be with her and die. So
(30:12):
two people die. They're printing news stories every day of
like the family and the mother, but also like the
radio operator, you know, like there's just like it's just
a big cauldron, crazy kind of pre reality TV. Yeah, scandal.
And about a month in they hold a memorial service
where they raise half a million dollars in today's money
(30:35):
for her. And thirty six days after she disappears, she
walks in from the deserts of Mexico, six hundred miles away,
into somebody's backyard and asks for a telephone and they
take her to a hospital, and in the hospital she
tells them that she was kidnapped into what she called
(30:56):
white slavery, by the underworld and she had been held
a prison, she'd been tortured, and she had been being
punished for her virtuous acts. And right away there's questions.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
So she just called she calls la and she's like,
I've been in white slavery and they're like, yes, sounds good.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
And like yeah, I mean it's worth noting that she
had been somebody had tried to kidnap her before. Yes,
kind of Jennifer Anison thing where she's like, like she
had stalkers. Jennifer Anison just got a stalker or I said, yeah,
so like she she's had she has stalker, she has
people trying to kidnap her.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
So it's not out of the realm. So it's not
completely out of left field, right.
Speaker 5 (31:35):
Yes, exactly. Oh, thank you not reader, good reader.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
I'm just like trying to put it because some people
did believe her.
Speaker 5 (31:43):
Yeah, I think at first everybody believed her.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Of course, this happens to very famous people, so that's
not crazy.
Speaker 5 (31:48):
Yeah, right, it wasn't It wasn't so crazy. I think
the issue was right away that the questions came because
when she walked into the desert. Out from the desert,
she was wearing all white. She was wearing a corset,
a white dress and kind of like whitef okay ballet slippers.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, aesthetics.
Speaker 5 (32:04):
And they're like, oh, you're so clean, like that was
the guy in Mexico. Founder this guy was like this.
You know, sometimes there's like drunk women who wander through
the desert, but this lady was very clean, and she
wasn't sunburned, like she didn't have like, you know, plants
on her. But she had said she had run for
I think it was twenty miles some crazy amount, you know,
(32:26):
and made her way through the desert. And so they
right away, you know, are looking for the kidnappers. They
don't find any evidence of the shack where she said
she was escaped from, and the law you know men,
it's in Mexico, and like the Mexican government's kind of
annoyed about it because they're like, we know this land,
there's no shack, like you couldn't hold somebody like this
(32:48):
isn't like nowhere, it's somewhere, you know.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
She started so much drama. It's like one o'clock in
the morning. This guy's just trying to go to bed.
Nobody's like nobody can understand her. They have to go
find somebody, and she's like, she's just a pot star.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
I mean by that finanic, I mean, this is in
the book. But Dorothy Parker called her our Lady of
the loud Speaker, and the whole thing was just like
shut up.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
You know, she was loud.
Speaker 5 (33:14):
She was loud. But you know, they don't find any
evidence of the shack and she comes back to Los
Angeles and there's a grand jury hearing to sort of
ostensibly to look for the kidnappers, but really quickly the
sort of questions and the witnesses start to more be
about Amy's life and her business practices and her romantic
(33:37):
life and who she is and how she's conducted herself.
And you know, my sense is, yeah, I mean this
is kind of the heart of the book. So they
end up dismissing the grand jury without calling for charges
against the kidnappers. And she could have at that moment
sort of let it go, you know, like they it
(33:58):
would have just been dropped, but she she sort of
railed against the law enforcement for not finding them, and
within a couple of weeks, if even that much, there
is starts to be witnesses who come out who say
that actually she was in northern California, in Carmel by
the sea in a love shack with a rented cottage
(34:23):
with the radio operator.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Oh scandalous, and two people have died looking for you. Yes, yeah,
I mean, like, do you have theories on her motivation?
Speaker 5 (34:37):
I mean sure, yeah. I mean I tried to make
the book, and I've gotten like a little bit of
blowbouck for this. I tried to really stick with the
facts for the book, just I mean, partially just being
a journalist, but also I mean, it's a hundred years
and there's never been a clear answer on what happened.
From the moment she walked in from the desert of
Mexico till the day she died. Told pretty much the
(35:00):
same story about what happened, kind of verbatim, right, And
there are just a bunch of witnesses who say that
she was in Carmel with this guy. And this guy
definitely wasn't Carmel. He ended up confessing to it. He
was a married man who had left his wife, who
was an Australian ice cream maress. I mean, the great
(35:21):
thing about this story, yeah, is that, like I mean,
I feel like I can say anything that happened because
the story itself, like there's so many crazy characters. Los
Angeles at this time was just like bananas.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
You know.
Speaker 5 (35:34):
There's like the only person who she could find who
said that they had actually seen the kidnappers was this
blind lawyer from the Port of Long Beach who's the
soul I Winness, who like worked for gangsters and was
a distant cousin of President McKinley, who I won't be
(35:56):
giving anything away to say, dies during the investigation by
drowning in a ditch with one feet of water.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Oh dude, it's yeah this I want to watch the show.
I do too. I mean, how did she get how
did she get out of the ocean?
Speaker 5 (36:14):
Well, so, her version of events is that when she
had swum some laps, she was walking out and a
couple comes up to her on the beach like near
the water line, and they're like, hey, you know, our
kids really sick in the car, like will you come
heal the baby? Like we heard you were here, And
she's like, how did you know I was here? And
(36:35):
they say, oh, we went to the temple downtown, but
your mother said that you were here, So just please
come now, like the baby's going to die. And Amy
was like kind of used to being treated like that,
like oh, like an emergency service, like oh, yes, I
need to heal this person immediately, So that wasn't so unusual.
And so she says like, oh, let me just go
grab my clothes, and they're like no, no, come now.
(36:56):
They throw like a coat over her shoulders and they
walk her up to the street where there's a car waiting,
and she they opened the back seat to show where
the baby. She sees somebody sitting back there, and they
slam her in the car and put chemicals over her
mouth and she passes out and they drive her away.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
But Megan, you don't think it's feasible. She just walked
to a different part of the beach. No, I do,
I do, I do I do.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
I'm just curious she did not go into the ocean
and then a boat.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
No, it's so odd that nobody saw this happen, you know, Like, yeah,
I mean.
Speaker 5 (37:31):
It's an interesting thing, like there are you know that
I believe I'm saying this from memory that the head
of the Culver City Police Department said he saw her
driving away from the beach with a man.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Well that sounds more maybe accurate than the blind Yeah.
Speaker 5 (37:49):
Yeah, like yeah, I mean this is the thing. And
then you know, I mean right away, even when she's
coming back to La from Arizona, she's on this train
and the train is stopping at these different towns and
somebody gets on the train. She's stopping and giving like
radio preaching, like they set up microphones at each stop
(38:11):
so she can preach to people and people can hear her.
And you know, this is like forty eight hours after
she's coming from the desert, and there's a guy who
comes in I believe it was from Tulsa and he's
like a city official there and he's like, I saw
you like three days ago walking around Tulsa.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Oh with a man.
Speaker 5 (38:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Just like initially hearing the story, my thought was, oh, well,
she just like wanted the attention that it would give her,
because you know, sometimes people fake having cancer, they fake.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
She had a little munch munch housing first kidnapped a
thing that's happened.
Speaker 4 (38:50):
I feel like when I was like twelve, I would
have done something like that.
Speaker 5 (38:55):
She did have a child.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
Like expirit yeah, you know, and you're like I'm run
away and I was kidnapped.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Yeah, yeah, give me attention and oops, I raised five
hundred thousand dollars, right. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
But the fact that she was just like seemingly having
like a sordid love affair, it makes it more interesting
because you're like, is she just looking to like be
with this guy and she can't really like do it
in la and so she devised an elaborate scheme just
to like get away with it. But of course the
birth of money, she knew the money was going to happen. Yeah,
she's a complex character.
Speaker 5 (39:28):
It's complex. Yeah, I mean I kind of want people
to draw their own conclusions. She did in the years
after her trial, suffer a lot of mental breakdowns, as
she called them. So I think there was, you know,
a lot going on for her, I would say. I
think also on the sort of empathetic front, she'd lived
in this tiny two veteran apartment attached the church, and
(39:52):
she was incredibly famous and thirty six, and you know it,
had been married when she was seventeen and lost that
husband to typhoid, and then had the second husband, who
seemed to be a bit of a disappointment for her,
who she left. And so you're kind of like, well,
she's thirty six, she's incredibly famous, she's in her prime,
and she can have no privacy and no yeah, like
(40:16):
no sex life, no romantic life, and she's not really
allowed to be something else. And I feel like giving
her like a little bit of grace or empathy, you
can kind of imagine that for whatever the reason was
she decided to do this thing, and for whatever the
reason was that she decided to come back, she convinced
(40:39):
herself of its reality. That's I mean, if you're asking
me what I think, that's that's sort of my analysis
of it. But I I mean, my hope is some
people will read it and be like falsely accused.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Absolutely. I think everybody's going to have their own conclusion.
Speaker 4 (40:55):
And I go back and forth to be honest, So
mission accomplished.
Speaker 5 (40:59):
Yeah, there's no Oh, there's no smoking gun. There's nothing
that's like definitive. You know, they never found any like
truly solid. I mean there's well, there's a lot of
evidence which you could read.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
Well, the book is fantastic, and I think it just
brings up so many amazing parallels to what.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
We talk about a lot. And yeah, yeah, I mean, what's.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Your takeaway in terms of like just like how we
view religious figures and famous people and how we sort
of hold them up either in adoration and idealization or
in hatred before them being you know, evil and harmful.
Like how do these stories kind of shape your perspective
on those things?
Speaker 5 (41:41):
Yeah, I mean I think to go back to when
we were talking about my own experience, I feel like
that was one of my takeaways from doing the TM
book is like I probably went in starting them memore
pretty like negative on TM and Mari she and by
the end I had this like just more ambiguity, I
would say, which is like a place that feels more
(42:02):
true to me these days. And I think with Amy,
you just see like this idea of what was good
and bad, you know, what was right and wrong, being
so binary, and that she wasn't really allowed to be
complex and so yeah, I see this was like sort
(42:24):
of a punch out into crazy, right, like that was
the choice. And you know, I mean the last chapters
of the book deal with the cost or her which
was enormous. I mean she lived for I believe seventeen
eighteen more years after the trial, but that fame and
(42:46):
that criticism just kind of ate her from the inside,
you know, and there was bad behavior, continued bad behavior.
There were a lot of lawsuits. She ended up a
strange from her family. So I think in terms of fame,
you just see the cost of projecting like a single
(43:07):
version of yourself and committing to it, you know, and
being like this is who I am such a good
way I'm saying, yeah, but you know what I mean,
Like I would never want to do that. I want
to be like, oh, you're not You're different than you
were in twenty seventeen. Who even remembers two thousand and seventy,
you know. Yeah, But when you turn that self into
(43:29):
a commodity and you're selling it and people are worshiping it,
you know, like that just it gets really complex. And
so I think deviance can happen, right Like that's I mean,
for want of a more nuanced word, But I think
you see that in a lot of church leadership. I
think you see it in a lot of celebrities, right
like where they're like, Okay, this is going to be
(43:49):
what I'm selling, this version of myself, but I'm going
to rebel in all these other ways, you know.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
I just think of priests or like religious figures in general,
who are meant to be completely repressed and so frequently
aren't behind closed doors or they're they're acting out in
rejection of that repression.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Yeah, it's just really fast Britney shaving her head I mean, right.
Speaker 5 (44:12):
Right, I mean the original cover of this book was
a different photo that I kept being like, please don't
put that on there. That's like when Britney shaved her head.
Like that's the Britney shaving her head home movement, Like
you want you want this picture, you know, like you
don't want this sad? You know, there was a point.
I mean, she had a bad facelift and she was
(44:33):
strange from her family.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
And it's they had facelifts back then.
Speaker 5 (44:36):
Yeah, in nineteen thirty she had a facelift with her
mother and then they got in a fistfight.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
You read this in the book.
Speaker 5 (44:43):
It's crazy, it's crazy. And then for the full Britney thing,
you know, she ended up in a conservatorship.
Speaker 4 (44:49):
Wow, So are people just not meant to be famous?
Speaker 1 (44:52):
It's famly so yeah.
Speaker 5 (44:54):
I think it is.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
I think it's a prison.
Speaker 5 (44:56):
It seems like the worst.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Yeah, yeah, and making kids do it is extre me.
Speaker 5 (45:02):
Yeah. I think anytime we elevate somebody else above us
and like attribute special powers to them and kind of
worship them in whatever way for it, and decide like
they're different than me, and they get to act a
different way and behave a different way, and are going
to be treated a different way. It's just like it's
(45:24):
like a psychological experiment, you know, like it immediately seems
to go wrong.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Great point.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Yeah, but then we just so naturally gravitate, like hierarchy
just naturally forms.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
And how do you what do you? What do you
do about it?
Speaker 4 (45:36):
Stay alone in your room, you don't look at anyone, yes, yes,
and you don't form relationships.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
And perfect sounds like a have you life. That's the
way I cannot make hierarchies.
Speaker 5 (45:52):
I'm so glad we're on the same Yeah.
Speaker 4 (45:54):
Well, the book is absolutely amazing. Tell us where they
can find you, tell us all breathing.
Speaker 5 (46:01):
Yeah, I mean, I've been traveling around. I'm sort of
on the tail end of It'll be in New York
next week, but and I have a couple stops over
the next few months. But the book is for sale
everywhere the books are sold.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
And tell us the name one more time.
Speaker 5 (46:15):
It is Sister Sinner. The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance
of Amy Simple McPherson.
Speaker 4 (46:21):
Amazing original Kim Kardashian disappearance story for in the Ages.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Get in it.
Speaker 4 (46:28):
It is a page turner. Thank you, thanks so much
for talking to us.
Speaker 5 (46:33):
Thanks you, guys, this was amazing.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Wowie wow wow wow.
Speaker 4 (46:37):
Couldn't have said it better myself. Damn, can't believe it.
Never heard of this woman.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Yeah, I would really love to see the biopic.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Yeah, I can't even lie.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Do you think, Megan, that you would join Amy Simple
McPherson's church yesterday?
Speaker 4 (46:54):
Sign me up, yesterday, take me on the time machine,
bring me back, sign me up?
Speaker 1 (46:59):
I love.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
I want to be in her church. Oh, I want
to watch the show. Oh and I even want to
work for her. What because she was like putting on
basically carnival shows for the Sunday things. Like she was
just ahead of her time. She was fun she was funny.
Like I mean, it really sucks that two people died
(47:21):
looking for her.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
But yeah, if you were her follower at that time,
I'm like, what would disillusion you?
Speaker 1 (47:26):
It'd be the lie?
Speaker 2 (47:27):
I guess mainly right, the lie people do protect her,
and I'd go, hey, you guys we pushed her into.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
That, I'd double down on it.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
But then like also she wanted to go, Yeah, the
inner workings of a human mind, you just never know
what the true motivation is. And this is why the
biopic will explore these questions.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
Hire me to direct it. Yep.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
I think I'd be fascinated by her. I watched the Kardashians,
you know what I mean, Like, I'm fascinated by women
icons in culture, even if I don't always like what
they're doing, I find it very fascinating and I still
always just like love watching women content. So like, I
think I think i'd be like into it even if
(48:15):
I was like this bitch is yeah, and I just
love the Carnival Yeah, selling snake oil, Yeah, totally. I
mean I guess that's not true though, because there are
televangelists now who are women, right, and I do not
want to watch that.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
No, I mean she was ahead of her time. That's
the whole point.
Speaker 4 (48:31):
Like it's been done, Tammy Faye Baker, Like that was
still kind of an iconic moment. She was kind of major,
but after that, like we're over.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
It the language you've used in that sense to us,
it's so funny, kind of major iconic. We're over it,
like yeah, we've seen it. No we haven't seen it.
Yeah yeah, yeah maybe that's why.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
Maybe at the time I'd be like, wow, groundbreaking, thanks
for listening to us, guys. I'm gonna plug my own
song here and like relevant topically. Also, I directed a
music video for you guys, and I uh take my
own heart out on stage. So if you want to
watch that, google everybody Lola Blanc music video or some
(49:15):
version of that. You don't have to google it in
that exact order, just google it. It's on my YouTube.
So we're gonna play. We're gonna go out on my
song everybody.
Speaker 6 (49:31):
When I get ahead of the editions started thinking zeros
and wounds, I'll becoming not a Matician counting up the trophy.
Speaker 1 (49:41):
I'm going for gratification.
Speaker 3 (49:43):
But I don't have a problem swear.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
It's nothing like a fixation.
Speaker 3 (49:48):
Swell it.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
I'm coming undone.
Speaker 5 (49:52):
Fill the hole.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
With the follow.
Speaker 3 (49:57):
My sole.
Speaker 7 (50:00):
Hollie.
Speaker 6 (50:00):
It is for everybody, everybody.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
When everybody's me, then of finally be happy, then the
finally race and when everyone around me says that I
am a standing when the finally the bast.
Speaker 7 (50:41):
Something's coming up. Oh don't look now, that's a no.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
No take jo pause and a swallow.
Speaker 6 (50:52):
Struck in the pursuit of perfection. Then my body twisted
around late at night, look on the obsession. I do
not let anyone down, and jold if ivery standing ovation
after they give me the ground, still alone with on
my ambitions coming out.
Speaker 5 (51:12):
Everybody everybody, when.
Speaker 3 (51:23):
Everybody deals men be happy, really waste And when everyone leading.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
Around miss m a.
Speaker 3 (51:37):
S down a way finally the best fine.
Speaker 7 (51:44):
Cure?
Speaker 3 (51:47):
Do you ever do about it?
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Can you really live without it?
Speaker 7 (51:52):
Mother?
Speaker 6 (51:53):
Ever started down?
Speaker 1 (51:54):
And can you really without it?
Speaker 3 (51:57):
I care?
Speaker 7 (52:02):
I can't.
Speaker 6 (52:07):
When everybody loves me a finally be happy a.
Speaker 8 (52:14):
Final erast, And when everyone knowround me says I'm astounding
when I am the best everybody died, everybody died, When
(52:39):
everybody loves me them a finally be there finally erast.
Speaker 3 (52:48):
And when everyone knows around me says that you stounding
where finly the best? A little fat, cute, cute, lonely man.
Speaker 4 (53:25):
Megan take it away, all righty, thank you for spending
another week with us. As always, remember to follow your gut,
watch out for red flags.
Speaker 1 (53:33):
And never ever trust me. Bye Bye me.
Speaker 2 (53:38):
This has been an exactly right production hosted by Me
Lola Blanc and.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Me Megan Elizabeth. Our senior producer is Gee Holley. This
episode was mixed by John Bradley. Our associate producer is
Christina Chamberlain, and our.
Speaker 4 (53:50):
Guest booker is Patrick Kuttner.
Speaker 1 (53:52):
Our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.
Speaker 4 (53:54):
Trust Me as executive produced by Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hardstark
and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
You can find us on Instagram at trust Me podcast
or on TikTok at trust.
Speaker 1 (54:03):
Me Cult podcast.
Speaker 4 (54:05):
Cut your own story about cults, extreme belief, our manipulation.
Shoot us an email at trustmepodat gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (54:11):
Listen to trust Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts
Trust me?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Do you trust me? All right?
Speaker 3 (00:04):
Everly?
Speaker 4 (00:05):
And you astray to us.
Speaker 5 (00:07):
This is the truth, the only truth.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't
welcome to trust me. The podcast about cult's extreme belief
and manipulation from two very famous celebrities who've actually experienced it.
I'm famous celebrity low lablanc and I'm famous celebrity Megan Elizabeth.
And if you haven't heard of us, that's your problem.
(00:30):
Today is part two with Claire Hoffman, former member of
a transcendental meditation community and author of two books. We
are discussing one we talked about last week, called Utopia Park,
about her childhood in TM, and the second, which we
will talk about today, is called Sister Sinner. The Miraculous
Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Amy Semple McPherson. Claire is
(00:51):
going to tell us who Amy Simple McPherson was. She
was a Pentecostal evangelist and media celebrity in the nineteen
twenties and thirties. How McPherson first decided to create a church,
and how she pioneered the use of theatrics and mass
media using radio to build an audience and make a
whole lot of money.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Claire is going to explain how McPherson skyrocketed to fame
and became a mega famous public figure like us, and
then she'll tell us the story of McPherson's mysterious disappearance
from the beach in Santa Monica and the ensuing court
case that gripped the nation, basically the OJ Simpson trial
of the nineteen twenties, which is so crazy because I'd
never heard of it before. It just shows you how
(01:30):
much happens that we don't even know about it.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, I know, and this is American history, Like, yeah,
we should know.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
But like if a.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Nineteen twenty eight time traveler can, they'd be like, what
do you think about it?
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Amy simple, she was like, we don't know her.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
It would be like us being like, you don't know
Kim Kardashian in one hundred years, because it just it
was just wild to not know the story at all.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Indeed, and before we talk about this story with Claire, Megan,
please share your cultiest thing.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Of this week. I mean, the thought on the tip
of my head is fine, the tip of your head, wow, fascinating.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Listen, The point is smart the way I say it,
the point on the tip of your head.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Mine nice is fame.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
It's a cult and it feels so real while you're
in it. You're like, I'm famous.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Because that's how you feel right now because you're super
famous famous, as we know in the intro.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
But it's it is CULTI and it totally is.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yeah, we worship the strangers and it destroys them and.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Does destroy them. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Like there's always this trajectory of like, wait, they're so good. Wait,
wait wait, I love them, I'm oss tested with them,
and then once we like them too much, we're like devalue,
fuck that person. I hate them. I'm so sick of them.
Jennifer Lawrence is annoying. Actually, you know, yeah, I don't know.
That was just the forefront for me. I had a
couple of videos go viral ish recently online and it.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Doesn't feel good.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
It feels bad because then I'm like, well, how do
I do it again?
Speaker 6 (03:21):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (03:21):
No, how do I make What do I do for
the next one? Right? How do I get this again?
And keep this going? Like?
Speaker 3 (03:28):
It?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
It's like interesting?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
How it really isn't like you have to keep churning
stuff out.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Right, you're not.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
You never reach the pinnacle or the point. It's just
an ever moving goalpost like cults and.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
The most successful people I know like absolutely do not
feel like they have achieved, like that they've gotten there
and like, Okay, now I can rest. Like, no, that's
not an ever shout out to my song Everybody, whose
lyric is when everybody loves me, then I'll finally be happy,
Then I'll finally rest. Go stream it now, ooh we
should play it at the end of this episode. So
(04:00):
relevant to this Relly, Yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
What about you? What's your cultiest thing of the week?
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Okay, so this week, well, like two days ago, I
was in the grocery store. I was in I think
it was John's, okay, and a young woman I would
say probably she looked twenty five walked up to me.
I was like, excuse me, can I can I have
a moment of your time? And I was like sure.
(04:27):
A young woman and she was accompanied by an older
woman and I was like, okay, this is about to
be some like Christian shit, and she was like, is
it okay?
Speaker 1 (04:39):
If I read you a Bible verse?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
This is a part of this thing we're doing where
I'm supposed to reach out to people and to read
them a Bible verse. And I was like, sure, read
me your Bible verse. And I was so curious what
she was going to read me. She reads me this
verse from Genesis one twenty six, and I'll be curious
if you know where this is going or what church
this is? Okay, Genesis one twenty six states then God said,
(05:03):
let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness,
so that they may rule over the fish of the
sea and the birds.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Of the sky. Blah blah blah. And she was like,
who is our There's God. He's a man.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
But there was also Eve, and he also made Eve,
and he said, let us make mankind in our image.
So that means there must be a woman, a woman
who's there with God. And I was like, this is
actually such an interesting that's.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
A great point. I would have joined. H I have
no idea who it is. Don't even tell me I'm joining.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
She's like talking about a female God and I'm like, yeah,
if I were into the God thing, this would.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Get me for sure. Who was it? What are they?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
So I it took it took me a minute to
get out of her where she was from, because she
just wanted to exchange phone numbers so that she could
talk to me, and I was like, I'm not doing that, sweetie,
but I took her phone number down, and so she
said it's the Church of God, and I was like,
the Church of God and she was like, well, it's
actually the World Mission Society Church of God.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
What the fuck is what?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
So I looked it up and spoiler alert, there are
people who believe it is a cult.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Uh oh.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
It is a South Korean based church that essentially believes
that the woman in Korea, this elderly woman, is God.
She is God the Mother, She's the female image of God.
They believe that there are two images of God, God
the Father got the Mother, and this old woman in Korea.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Is one of them. I'm joining.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
They cite other passages that say like our mother in
Galatians Galicians, yeah, Galatians, and the Spirit and the Bride
in Revelation. So they're like finding these passages that sort
of impliese Jesus.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
One of the things she said was like, we think Jesus,
but there's a mother there. So you're telling me I
can go to South Korea. Get plastic surgery all day
long and talk to people who think God is also
a woman.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah. I mean, I don't think you have to go
to Korea. I think you can go to those felis.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I'm close.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
But reading their Wikipedia is really interesting because they're have
been cult accusations, but there also was a what appears
to be a panic wave about them.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Okay, that was not founded.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
So it's one of these complicated things where it's like,
are there problems with this group?
Speaker 1 (07:40):
There do seem to be. Yes.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Former members say that it exercises excessive control over its members,
enforces family separation, exploits its members, you know, all the
cult things. However, there was apparently like a social media
panic about human trafficking being linked to the church, and
all of the police and destigations turned up nothing. They
(08:01):
were like, this is nothing and there was there was
no evidence, no criminal activity, but the rumor just kept
spreading through like various colleges. I guess because interestingly, they
target a lot of young women. What was also so
interesting because I did read that they have been known
to kind of like maybe target people who are vulnerable,
but particularly women. I was like literally on the phone
(08:23):
with my mom, like talking about my breakup, like sounding upset,
and I hang up the phone and one minute later
there next to me, it was like she's.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Just like holeing out by the pop tarts, waiting for
a woman, vulnerable woman to come. But like she clearly
is a vulnerable woman, Like she's so young, Like she
clearly believed what she was saying, you know what I mean,
Like she's being watched by an older person.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, but the human trafficking allegations, there's no there there.
So I think those distinctions are important to make lest
we become culty in our thinking as well. That's all
I will say about that. So, yeah, I got culted, culted.
I was gonna say flirtyfish, but not really, that's not
what that is. When you call that you got culted.
I just got culted. Congratulations. Finally, no one ever knows
(09:08):
that to me anyway. Speaking of women leaders of churches,
oh my gosh, this one's a doozy.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Let's jump into it all rights.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
This next book that you've written, which is a biography,
is called Sister Center. The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance
of Amy Semple McPherson. So can you just tell us
what stuck out to you about this woman, this subject
and made you decide to write this book.
Speaker 5 (09:48):
Yeah, I mean just kind of as a bridge, you know.
I decided in my twenties, I moved to New York
and I was like working as a freelance journalist, and
I went to journalism school, and then I ended up
getting into this program at the U University of Chicago
Divinity School that was like a master's just for religious
studies for people who want to do other things. So
I wanted to be a journalist and write about religion.
(10:11):
And I learned about Amy Simple McPherson there and I
just I was sort of like struck by her, you know.
I mean, I feel like everybody in America knows who
Billy Graham is, and she seemed almost more important and earlier.
But she was just this little paragraph for so in
a history of American religion book, and you know, yeah,
(10:33):
I read that she was this pioneer of Pentecostalism and
this pioneer of Christian entertainment and started the first megachurch,
had had one of the first Christian radio stations, and
that was it. That was all I read, and I
just was, yeah, I just kind of figured, like, oh,
that makes sense that she would be forgotten because patriarchy.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Can you kind of like give us a thought of
who she would be reminiscent of today as she kind
of like it because as we get into the story,
I mean, she's kind of like almost a Kim Kardashian
of religion or something.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
Yeah, it's like if Kim Kardashian and Joel Oustine but
also like Gwyneth and Oprah got all mixed together. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you got it. Something.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
This woman was famous, like yeah, and I've never heard
of her in my life until your book, but she
at the time had a giant church, bringing in thousands
of people, like using Hollywood. The church was in Hollywood,
using it as almost like it like she's using the
costume designers and bringing in animals and like putting on
a show.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
So how did she begin in the first place? And
what was the cultural context for this, because there was
this big Pentecostal shift happening in American religion, Like tell
us about that.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
Yeah, I mean they sort of, like all things Pentecostalism
came from a bunch of different places, but the sort
of defining moment is considered the Azuza Street revivals in
downtown Los Angeles. Azuza Street is like a little almost
like an alley if you're in little Tokyo, just because
you guys are there worth checking out. Wow, it so
(12:14):
speaks to like the history of la Like literally a
quarter of the world's Christians are now Pentecostal and charismatic,
and Azusa Street is kind of basically an alley with
like a bunch of trash bins and a little gold
plaque that says like here marks the site.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Where the street like.
Speaker 5 (12:35):
The site of a global religion. You're like, this is
our Jerusalem, you guys.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Wow, I had no idea. It's like a bigger sign
for Walt Disney on Gelson. Yeah, oh yeah, like Walt
Disney used to be here.
Speaker 5 (12:49):
It's just what it's what LA value is true.
Speaker 7 (12:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
She was living in Canada. She was a teenager, she
was seventeen. It was nineteen oh seven, and she went
into this church one night to basically make fun of
the people there with her father. She had heard that
there were Holy rulers there, which was sort of what
they were calling these early Pentecostals, and the movement had
(13:26):
spread from downtown Los Angeles where these revivals were happening
for months on end, and people came and learned about
the doctrine and brought it out into the world. And
one of those people was this young irishman who was
living in Chicago working as a shoe salesman. He became
a Pentecostal preacher and he made his way north into
(13:48):
northern Canada, into Ontario, and he went to this little
town and he was preaching there that night, and apparently
he was super hot.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
And I was just going to say, having started because
he saw the description, is like I was like, yeah, yeah,
you're like, I'm attracted to the description, and I know why.
Amy was like, you know what, I don't care about
school and games anymore.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
I like religion. I have been, I've been touched by
the Holy always do.
Speaker 5 (14:14):
It is actually those so important. Like it's funny, but
it's also like you just feel this like I mean
to use like a new age term, but like she
really felt like a heart opening, right, like an unlock,
you know, where She's just like, ah.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
It's not the fact that an Irish man with bright
blue eyes is like.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
Yeah, yeah, super tall with like a little Cala.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
Yeah, and he was like five years older than her,
and she was like, I'm in everything he said is true,
but she I think that I just paused there because
like for her, that like romantic feeling seemed to always
be part of her ministry, you know, like she always
kind of spoke in this romantic, rhapsodic way about religion,
(15:02):
you know, and about Jesus, Like it was just very
sort of a lot of love language. So anyway, I
will just speed up and say that she goes through
a couple of husbands and becomes an itinerant preacher and
sort of tries to be a normal person and it
doesn't work out, and she ends up traveling across the
(15:23):
southern and eastern United States as a lady evangelist and
people are really interested, Like it was pretty unusual then,
it's pretty unusual now and people would kind of like
come in for the freak show of seeing a woman preach,
but apparently like her charisma really drew people in. And
she I mean, this is why I sort of bring
(15:43):
up the Oprah aspect, Like it was very positive, Like
she wasn't a negative hell fire and brimstone pature. She
was really Yeah, it was very aspirational and loving, was
a very intimate relationship with Jesus. Pentecostalism I think just
by its nature has this thing where you're really connected
(16:05):
one on one, on a physical level with the Holy Spirit.
I say all this as like, I'm not a Christian
and you guys know more about this than I do.
But this is like my academic understanding of it.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
I don't know about this particular, like it's my favorite
kind of Christianism. Christianism, that's my favorite kind because I mean,
even reading the book, I was like, I can feel
this warm and like, you know, I think, yeah, it
sounds like, I mean a more feminine style of pet
you're a direct conduit.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
I like that.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
I mean I'm curious about like what was religion before,
Like how was it evolving?
Speaker 1 (16:44):
What was the change that was happening.
Speaker 5 (16:46):
Yeah, I mean it was. I mean that's a big question. Actually.
I mean I like I just felt like, oh, well,
that's actually there's so much that was happening. But I
think in general, I would say in America at that moment,
at the turn of the century, you know, there's just
a lot of change, and I think that's why It's
such an interesting moment to read about right now, because
I think people were really scared about the future and
(17:09):
technology and like the role of humanity and how people
would live and how people would work, and I mean
huge amounts of migration into cities and kind of the
fracturing of community and family life, and so I think
Amy My sense from reading a gazillion sermons of hers
(17:31):
is like she really connected to this sort of individuality
and a sense of agency, Like you could do things,
you had power, you had the ability to connect to
the divine, you were important. There was also kind of
this like, yeah, like really sensuous feeling of being in
the world, which I imagine at the same time everybody is
(17:52):
scared that they're going to become cogs in a factory machine,
probably felt like restorative.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Right reading her book, I was like, I needed her.
Can we have a new new Yeah? I mean I
think there are thousands of hers on TikTok so Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
The confidence that that woman must have had to decide
that she's going to be a preacher in the nineteen
fucking twenties is so wild.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
It's incredible. She had this mother who just instilled in
her a sense of purpose and saw her as divinely
prophecied and yeah, who just believed in her in this
way that gave Amy a sense of purpose and confidence.
That's that's incredible.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Her mom is like a religious stage mom.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
Oh yeah, I always use Chris Jenner as a well.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Her mom is such a religious Christianner.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
It's like homish christ Jennerish to have.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
A Christianner no matter what subject you're entering. And yeah,
you know, a stage mom, You have to have a
christ Jenner. Everybody needs a stage mom. Sure be your
own stage in.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Her stage mom.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
But you know, yeah, I look at people who succeed
and I think your mom's kind of into it.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, note not everyone, and some people are defining their yes.
So she was kind of a pioneer in that. She's
like explained to me how that what that was.
Speaker 5 (19:25):
The pioneer part? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean she so
she kind of criss crosses the country. She's unusual for
being a woman. Oh. She also part of Pentecostalism is
defined healings. So people start to come see her and
there's the accounts of her performing these miraculous healings, and
so this draws ever larger crowds. Her mother Mini would
(19:48):
sign people up for subscriptions to their magazine along the
way and take checks. So it is, you know, there
was like a little business being built behind her. And
they come to Los Angeles in nineteen eighteen. You know,
there's like supposedly some of the first women to drive
alone across the Wow New highways. Yeah, they're really I mean,
she's a cool character and that she like really was
(20:11):
this kind of like pioneer or cowgirl type in a
lot of ways, and she really played that up. But
they got there and she just really connects with Los
Angeles and sees it as like the place that she
wants to like build stability. And she begins fundraising for
(20:32):
what will become the Angelus Temple, which locals called the
million Dollar Temple because it costs so much money. And
she did it love offering. By love offering, she had
people become chareholders, kind of capitalizing on the stock mania
of the time, so people would tie a certain amount
and get their name on a chair. And she built
it like a bit by bit, and it was built
(20:54):
by the Angels. Temple was built by the same builder
as the people who did Grauman so it was like
very movie palace.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah, of a grand theater in yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:06):
Yeah. And so just to answer your end of that,
she would by the time it was built, and then
she started a radio station next year, she would perform
these big, illustrated sermons. And this was like really unusual
where she was using entertainment to spread the gospel, which
hadn't quite been a thing the way that she made
it a thing, you know, I mean she would just
(21:27):
you mentioned this earlier, but yeah, like she would have
animals and props and a giant, like huge orchestra and
choir and.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Wow, just all this.
Speaker 5 (21:35):
So, I mean it fit fifty three hundred people seated,
but apparently it was often closer to six thousand inside,
and then they would set up loudspeakers outside and on Sundays,
I think they would get over fifteen thousand people because
they would do three services a day.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
So it was just my by gain, how did it
even get so much money? How did it get that big?
Like how did people find out?
Speaker 5 (21:57):
It was word of mouth? And this became an issue
because like a lot of rival pastors were like mad
because people would leave their churches to go to that one,
which you're like a you could just sit there and
listen to like some guy drone on about hell, or
you could go watch like Tigers and Fire and right,
you know, this kind of gorgeous lady, you know, talking
(22:20):
about Jesus.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Yeah, I know who I would choose.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, I'm all giving you a sense of like more
agency and like, yeah you matter to of course you're
going to choose that.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
Don't you think that Amy Lee from The Righteous Jumpstones
is named after her?
Speaker 5 (22:37):
Maybe? Probably? I love The Righteous Jumpsy too.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
That just kid to me anyway.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Yeah, I mean it sounds like she just was the
first influencer almost, like yeah, or at least in that
religious Yeah.
Speaker 5 (22:50):
Yeah, I mean that's sort of you know, looking towards
the rest of her life. What became challenging, I would say,
without saying too much, is that she used herself as
the product, so to speak. And I mean, of course
that's something everybody does now, but it was kind of
an unusual approach at the time, you know. I mean,
(23:12):
this is like celebrities is sort of being invented at
that moment. And you know, her most famous sermon was
the story of my Life, and everybody knew who her
mother was. They knew who her kids were, like she
talked about she used her life to preach the gospel,
and she interwove herself into everything, you know, and her
(23:34):
picture was often on the front page of her magazine
like Oprah, you know what I mean. So it was
just like you really connected to who she was. But
I think that can have problems, do you think.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
That, like looking back on it now, like was there
ever any element of control of her followers or was
it really more like influencer style where it's more about
just having a following.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
I didn't see control, so to speak. But I mean,
everybody's dead, so it's hard to know. I mean, you
know what I mean. There are like I mean, there
was a to flash forward. In the late nineteen twenties,
one of her assistant pastors wrote this book about her
(24:21):
called Amy the Gospel gold Digger, and it was it
was mostly just about the performance of her and the
like you know, like that she would get a huge
thing of roses every night and be like, oh, thank
you, you guys love me so much, thank you. But she
was having them sent to herself. Oh my god. And
he was like, she's a fraud. You know what.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
This woman is so extronic. Yeah, yeah, she is wild.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yeah yeah, she is extra So can you explain the
feeding one point five million people thing?
Speaker 5 (24:56):
Sure? I mean, essentially as far as I can tell.
You know, she started the suit kitchen right away in
right after the stock market fell apart in twenty nine,
and the city was like, I mean, the city was
like not so powerful of a city yet, and so
the firemen and the police and the women's auxiliary, they
(25:19):
would all come down and work through her soup kitchen
and her services to do outreach. So they became kind
of like the conduit for outreach to the poor. I mean,
does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's pretty sick. That's pretty awesome.
Speaker 5 (25:38):
Yeah yeah, No, I mean's she's like, this is why
I love hers, because she's like a riddle, you know.
I mean, she's she did a lot of amazing things,
and I think, you know, my sense of her is
that she was such a true believer, especially in the
first half of her life. I do think she was
a true believer throughout. But you get a sense of
like almost kind of shamanic style beginning where she's traveling
(26:01):
around just like like following the voice of God. Yeah,
so you know, she's nineteen twenty six. You know, her
church has been open for three years. Her radio is
radio station goes up and down the West coast. She's
become like more politically involved, so she's taking a stand
on local issues. She's fighting corruption in city hall at
(26:23):
the la Underworld, and there's signs of stream, you know,
like there's starting to be little cracks in the scene.
People in our congregation sent her on a vacation to Palestine,
as that's where you've vacationed in nineteen twenty six. Yeah,
but there starts to be like also like whispers of
an affair, maybe with an employee who quits around this time,
(26:47):
her radio operator who was very key part of the
functioning of the temple. And to kind of blow off steam,
she begins to go down to Venice Beach in the
afternoons to swim in the ocean and work on her sermons.
And so on May eighteenth, nineteen twenty six, she goes
(27:08):
down with her assistant. They sit on their beach towels
and they she starts working on a sermon about light
and darkness, and she sends her assistant off to make
a phone call her assistant sees her walk into the
ocean and she disappears.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Woo yeah, I mean literally she's gone. Yeah, she's gone.
So what she's gone? What what did her sister to do?
What was the reaction?
Speaker 5 (27:36):
Her assistant freaked out, and you know, starts walking up
and down the beach, you know, asking lifeguards to look
for her.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
She literally lost Oprah.
Speaker 5 (27:45):
She lost Oprah.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, you had one job.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
You have to be like, she's missing that that would
be my god. Yeah yeah yeah, So she's freaking out.
Yeah yeah, And.
Speaker 5 (27:58):
It's also like Oprah, but maybe like in Santa Barbara,
you know what I mean, because it's not like Ellie's
not that big yet, so it's just kind of unfathomable.
And she is worried that she's drowned. So lifeguards start
looking for her. They notify the owner of the hotel
where they had rented the beach blankets and the umbrella from,
(28:19):
and you know, around four thirty that afternoon, they called
the temple to tell her mother, like, hey, like she's missing,
we're looking for her, and her mother was like, she's dead,
she's dead. Just bring the car back, get herself. Yeah.
It's a crazy reaction. Yeah, that I'm still like maybe
kind of parsing.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Honestly, if that was my mom's reaction, i'd be pissed. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (28:45):
Yeah, she's gone, She's got to get her stuff.
Speaker 4 (28:48):
There's a religious detachment that happens though, when when you
are that religious, or she didn't really believe that she
was dead, yeah, or yeah, but like I have seen
in the two by people be like they're with Jesus
now they're dad.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Because they're like I'm going to see them and liked them.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was some of that, and I
think there was right away. Just for you guys, I
would say like she I think right away there was
a sense almost from her mom or like the language
that was used was as if she'd been raptured.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Oh you know, so yeah, that is why she's not even.
Speaker 5 (29:22):
Yeah, like she's vanished. She didn't drown, she vanished.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Because she's so righteous and virtuous.
Speaker 7 (29:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:30):
There's a funny thing with the district attorney at one
point where he's like I don't understand what you mean,
and like, what do you mean she went to the Lord?
I mean she died, you know, And you're like, oh,
he's she's talking about the rapture and then doesn't want
to explain it, right, funny, but yeah, yeah, so they
it becomes just this city wide news story, right, So
(29:52):
tens of thousands of people come down to the beach.
I think within days there's forty thousand people gathered on
the beach holding a vigil looking for her. There scraping
the bottom of the ocean. There's planes and boats and divers.
One diver dies looking for her. Another devotee like jumps
in the water to be with her and die. So
(30:12):
two people die. They're printing news stories every day of
like the family and the mother, but also like the
radio operator, you know, like there's just like it's just
a big cauldron, crazy kind of pre reality TV. Yeah, scandal.
And about a month in they hold a memorial service
where they raise half a million dollars in today's money
(30:35):
for her. And thirty six days after she disappears, she
walks in from the deserts of Mexico, six hundred miles away,
into somebody's backyard and asks for a telephone and they
take her to a hospital, and in the hospital she
tells them that she was kidnapped into what she called
(30:56):
white slavery, by the underworld and she had been held
a prison, she'd been tortured, and she had been being
punished for her virtuous acts. And right away there's questions.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
So she just called she calls la and she's like,
I've been in white slavery and they're like, yes, sounds good.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
And like yeah, I mean it's worth noting that she
had been somebody had tried to kidnap her before. Yes,
kind of Jennifer Anison thing where she's like, like she
had stalkers. Jennifer Anison just got a stalker or I said, yeah,
so like she she's had she has stalker, she has
people trying to kidnap her.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
So it's not out of the realm. So it's not
completely out of left field, right.
Speaker 5 (31:35):
Yes, exactly. Oh, thank you not reader, good reader.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
I'm just like trying to put it because some people
did believe her.
Speaker 5 (31:43):
Yeah, I think at first everybody believed her.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Of course, this happens to very famous people, so that's
not crazy.
Speaker 5 (31:48):
Yeah, right, it wasn't It wasn't so crazy. I think
the issue was right away that the questions came because
when she walked into the desert. Out from the desert,
she was wearing all white. She was wearing a corset,
a white dress and kind of like whitef okay ballet slippers.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, aesthetics.
Speaker 5 (32:04):
And they're like, oh, you're so clean, like that was
the guy in Mexico. Founder this guy was like this.
You know, sometimes there's like drunk women who wander through
the desert, but this lady was very clean, and she
wasn't sunburned, like she didn't have like, you know, plants
on her. But she had said she had run for
I think it was twenty miles some crazy amount, you know,
(32:26):
and made her way through the desert. And so they
right away, you know, are looking for the kidnappers. They
don't find any evidence of the shack where she said
she was escaped from, and the law you know men,
it's in Mexico, and like the Mexican government's kind of
annoyed about it because they're like, we know this land,
there's no shack, like you couldn't hold somebody like this
(32:48):
isn't like nowhere, it's somewhere, you know.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
She started so much drama. It's like one o'clock in
the morning. This guy's just trying to go to bed.
Nobody's like nobody can understand her. They have to go
find somebody, and she's like, she's just a pot star.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
I mean by that finanic, I mean, this is in
the book. But Dorothy Parker called her our Lady of
the loud Speaker, and the whole thing was just like
shut up.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
You know, she was loud.
Speaker 5 (33:14):
She was loud. But you know, they don't find any
evidence of the shack and she comes back to Los
Angeles and there's a grand jury hearing to sort of
ostensibly to look for the kidnappers, but really quickly the
sort of questions and the witnesses start to more be
about Amy's life and her business practices and her romantic
(33:37):
life and who she is and how she's conducted herself.
And you know, my sense is, yeah, I mean this
is kind of the heart of the book. So they
end up dismissing the grand jury without calling for charges
against the kidnappers. And she could have at that moment
sort of let it go, you know, like they it
(33:58):
would have just been dropped, but she she sort of
railed against the law enforcement for not finding them, and
within a couple of weeks, if even that much, there
is starts to be witnesses who come out who say
that actually she was in northern California, in Carmel by
the sea in a love shack with a rented cottage
(34:23):
with the radio operator.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Oh scandalous, and two people have died looking for you. Yes, yeah,
I mean, like, do you have theories on her motivation?
Speaker 5 (34:37):
I mean sure, yeah. I mean I tried to make
the book, and I've gotten like a little bit of
blowbouck for this. I tried to really stick with the
facts for the book, just I mean, partially just being
a journalist, but also I mean, it's a hundred years
and there's never been a clear answer on what happened.
From the moment she walked in from the desert of
Mexico till the day she died. Told pretty much the
(35:00):
same story about what happened, kind of verbatim, right, And
there are just a bunch of witnesses who say that
she was in Carmel with this guy. And this guy
definitely wasn't Carmel. He ended up confessing to it. He
was a married man who had left his wife, who
was an Australian ice cream maress. I mean, the great
(35:21):
thing about this story, yeah, is that, like I mean,
I feel like I can say anything that happened because
the story itself, like there's so many crazy characters. Los
Angeles at this time was just like bananas.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
You know.
Speaker 5 (35:34):
There's like the only person who she could find who
said that they had actually seen the kidnappers was this
blind lawyer from the Port of Long Beach who's the
soul I Winness, who like worked for gangsters and was
a distant cousin of President McKinley, who I won't be
(35:56):
giving anything away to say, dies during the investigation by
drowning in a ditch with one feet of water.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Oh dude, it's yeah this I want to watch the show.
I do too. I mean, how did she get how
did she get out of the ocean?
Speaker 5 (36:14):
Well, so, her version of events is that when she
had swum some laps, she was walking out and a
couple comes up to her on the beach like near
the water line, and they're like, hey, you know, our
kids really sick in the car, like will you come
heal the baby? Like we heard you were here, And
she's like, how did you know I was here? And
(36:35):
they say, oh, we went to the temple downtown, but
your mother said that you were here, So just please
come now, like the baby's going to die. And Amy
was like kind of used to being treated like that,
like oh, like an emergency service, like oh, yes, I
need to heal this person immediately, So that wasn't so unusual.
And so she says like, oh, let me just go
grab my clothes, and they're like no, no, come now.
(36:56):
They throw like a coat over her shoulders and they
walk her up to the street where there's a car waiting,
and she they opened the back seat to show where
the baby. She sees somebody sitting back there, and they
slam her in the car and put chemicals over her
mouth and she passes out and they drive her away.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
But Megan, you don't think it's feasible. She just walked
to a different part of the beach. No, I do,
I do, I do I do.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
I'm just curious she did not go into the ocean
and then a boat.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
No, it's so odd that nobody saw this happen, you know, Like, yeah,
I mean.
Speaker 5 (37:31):
It's an interesting thing, like there are you know that
I believe I'm saying this from memory that the head
of the Culver City Police Department said he saw her
driving away from the beach with a man.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Well that sounds more maybe accurate than the blind Yeah.
Speaker 5 (37:49):
Yeah, like yeah, I mean this is the thing. And
then you know, I mean right away, even when she's
coming back to La from Arizona, she's on this train
and the train is stopping at these different towns and
somebody gets on the train. She's stopping and giving like
radio preaching, like they set up microphones at each stop
(38:11):
so she can preach to people and people can hear her.
And you know, this is like forty eight hours after
she's coming from the desert, and there's a guy who
comes in I believe it was from Tulsa and he's
like a city official there and he's like, I saw
you like three days ago walking around Tulsa.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Oh with a man.
Speaker 5 (38:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Just like initially hearing the story, my thought was, oh, well,
she just like wanted the attention that it would give her,
because you know, sometimes people fake having cancer, they fake.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
She had a little munch munch housing first kidnapped a
thing that's happened.
Speaker 4 (38:50):
I feel like when I was like twelve, I would
have done something like that.
Speaker 5 (38:55):
She did have a child.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
Like expirit yeah, you know, and you're like I'm run
away and I was kidnapped.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Yeah, yeah, give me attention and oops, I raised five
hundred thousand dollars, right. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
But the fact that she was just like seemingly having
like a sordid love affair, it makes it more interesting
because you're like, is she just looking to like be
with this guy and she can't really like do it
in la and so she devised an elaborate scheme just
to like get away with it. But of course the
birth of money, she knew the money was going to happen. Yeah,
she's a complex character.
Speaker 5 (39:28):
It's complex. Yeah, I mean I kind of want people
to draw their own conclusions. She did in the years
after her trial, suffer a lot of mental breakdowns, as
she called them. So I think there was, you know,
a lot going on for her, I would say. I
think also on the sort of empathetic front, she'd lived
in this tiny two veteran apartment attached the church, and
(39:52):
she was incredibly famous and thirty six, and you know it,
had been married when she was seventeen and lost that
husband to typhoid, and then had the second husband, who
seemed to be a bit of a disappointment for her,
who she left. And so you're kind of like, well,
she's thirty six, she's incredibly famous, she's in her prime,
and she can have no privacy and no yeah, like
(40:16):
no sex life, no romantic life, and she's not really
allowed to be something else. And I feel like giving
her like a little bit of grace or empathy, you
can kind of imagine that for whatever the reason was
she decided to do this thing, and for whatever the
reason was that she decided to come back, she convinced
(40:39):
herself of its reality. That's I mean, if you're asking
me what I think, that's that's sort of my analysis
of it. But I I mean, my hope is some
people will read it and be like falsely accused.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Absolutely. I think everybody's going to have their own conclusion.
Speaker 4 (40:55):
And I go back and forth to be honest, So
mission accomplished.
Speaker 5 (40:59):
Yeah, there's no Oh, there's no smoking gun. There's nothing
that's like definitive. You know, they never found any like
truly solid. I mean there's well, there's a lot of
evidence which you could read.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
Well, the book is fantastic, and I think it just
brings up so many amazing parallels to what.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
We talk about a lot. And yeah, yeah, I mean, what's.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Your takeaway in terms of like just like how we
view religious figures and famous people and how we sort
of hold them up either in adoration and idealization or
in hatred before them being you know, evil and harmful.
Like how do these stories kind of shape your perspective
on those things?
Speaker 5 (41:41):
Yeah, I mean I think to go back to when
we were talking about my own experience, I feel like
that was one of my takeaways from doing the TM
book is like I probably went in starting them memore
pretty like negative on TM and Mari she and by
the end I had this like just more ambiguity, I
would say, which is like a place that feels more
(42:02):
true to me these days. And I think with Amy,
you just see like this idea of what was good
and bad, you know, what was right and wrong, being
so binary, and that she wasn't really allowed to be
complex and so yeah, I see this was like sort
(42:24):
of a punch out into crazy, right, like that was
the choice. And you know, I mean the last chapters
of the book deal with the cost or her which
was enormous. I mean she lived for I believe seventeen
eighteen more years after the trial, but that fame and
(42:46):
that criticism just kind of ate her from the inside,
you know, and there was bad behavior, continued bad behavior.
There were a lot of lawsuits. She ended up a
strange from her family. So I think in terms of fame,
you just see the cost of projecting like a single
(43:07):
version of yourself and committing to it, you know, and
being like this is who I am such a good
way I'm saying, yeah, but you know what I mean,
Like I would never want to do that. I want
to be like, oh, you're not You're different than you
were in twenty seventeen. Who even remembers two thousand and seventy,
you know. Yeah, But when you turn that self into
(43:29):
a commodity and you're selling it and people are worshiping it,
you know, like that just it gets really complex. And
so I think deviance can happen, right Like that's I mean,
for want of a more nuanced word, But I think
you see that in a lot of church leadership. I
think you see it in a lot of celebrities, right
like where they're like, Okay, this is going to be
(43:49):
what I'm selling, this version of myself, but I'm going
to rebel in all these other ways, you know.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
I just think of priests or like religious figures in general,
who are meant to be completely repressed and so frequently
aren't behind closed doors or they're they're acting out in
rejection of that repression.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Yeah, it's just really fast Britney shaving her head I mean, right.
Speaker 5 (44:12):
Right, I mean the original cover of this book was
a different photo that I kept being like, please don't
put that on there. That's like when Britney shaved her head.
Like that's the Britney shaving her head home movement, Like
you want you want this picture, you know, like you
don't want this sad? You know, there was a point.
I mean, she had a bad facelift and she was
(44:33):
strange from her family.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
And it's they had facelifts back then.
Speaker 5 (44:36):
Yeah, in nineteen thirty she had a facelift with her
mother and then they got in a fistfight.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
You read this in the book.
Speaker 5 (44:43):
It's crazy, it's crazy. And then for the full Britney thing,
you know, she ended up in a conservatorship.
Speaker 4 (44:49):
Wow, So are people just not meant to be famous?
Speaker 1 (44:52):
It's famly so yeah.
Speaker 5 (44:54):
I think it is.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
I think it's a prison.
Speaker 5 (44:56):
It seems like the worst.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Yeah, yeah, and making kids do it is extre me.
Speaker 5 (45:02):
Yeah. I think anytime we elevate somebody else above us
and like attribute special powers to them and kind of
worship them in whatever way for it, and decide like
they're different than me, and they get to act a
different way and behave a different way, and are going
to be treated a different way. It's just like it's
(45:24):
like a psychological experiment, you know, like it immediately seems
to go wrong.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Great point.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Yeah, but then we just so naturally gravitate, like hierarchy
just naturally forms.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
And how do you what do you? What do you
do about it?
Speaker 4 (45:36):
Stay alone in your room, you don't look at anyone, yes, yes,
and you don't form relationships.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
And perfect sounds like a have you life. That's the
way I cannot make hierarchies.
Speaker 5 (45:52):
I'm so glad we're on the same Yeah.
Speaker 4 (45:54):
Well, the book is absolutely amazing. Tell us where they
can find you, tell us all breathing.
Speaker 5 (46:01):
Yeah, I mean, I've been traveling around. I'm sort of
on the tail end of It'll be in New York
next week, but and I have a couple stops over
the next few months. But the book is for sale
everywhere the books are sold.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
And tell us the name one more time.
Speaker 5 (46:15):
It is Sister Sinner. The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance
of Amy Simple McPherson.
Speaker 4 (46:21):
Amazing original Kim Kardashian disappearance story for in the Ages.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Get in it.
Speaker 4 (46:28):
It is a page turner. Thank you, thanks so much
for talking to us.
Speaker 5 (46:33):
Thanks you, guys, this was amazing.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Wowie wow wow wow.
Speaker 4 (46:37):
Couldn't have said it better myself. Damn, can't believe it.
Never heard of this woman.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
Yeah, I would really love to see the biopic.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Yeah, I can't even lie.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Do you think, Megan, that you would join Amy Simple
McPherson's church yesterday?
Speaker 4 (46:54):
Sign me up, yesterday, take me on the time machine,
bring me back, sign me up?
Speaker 1 (46:59):
I love.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
I want to be in her church. Oh, I want
to watch the show. Oh and I even want to
work for her. What because she was like putting on
basically carnival shows for the Sunday things. Like she was
just ahead of her time. She was fun she was funny.
Like I mean, it really sucks that two people died
(47:21):
looking for her.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
But yeah, if you were her follower at that time,
I'm like, what would disillusion you?
Speaker 1 (47:26):
It'd be the lie?
Speaker 2 (47:27):
I guess mainly right, the lie people do protect her,
and I'd go, hey, you guys we pushed her into.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
That, I'd double down on it.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
But then like also she wanted to go, Yeah, the
inner workings of a human mind, you just never know
what the true motivation is. And this is why the
biopic will explore these questions.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
Hire me to direct it. Yep.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
I think I'd be fascinated by her. I watched the Kardashians,
you know what I mean, Like, I'm fascinated by women
icons in culture, even if I don't always like what
they're doing, I find it very fascinating and I still
always just like love watching women content. So like, I
think I think i'd be like into it even if
(48:15):
I was like this bitch is yeah, and I just
love the Carnival Yeah, selling snake oil, Yeah, totally. I
mean I guess that's not true though, because there are
televangelists now who are women, right, and I do not
want to watch that.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
No, I mean she was ahead of her time. That's
the whole point.
Speaker 4 (48:31):
Like it's been done, Tammy Faye Baker, Like that was
still kind of an iconic moment. She was kind of major,
but after that, like we're over.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
It the language you've used in that sense to us,
it's so funny, kind of major iconic. We're over it,
like yeah, we've seen it. No we haven't seen it.
Yeah yeah, yeah maybe that's why.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
Maybe at the time I'd be like, wow, groundbreaking, thanks
for listening to us, guys. I'm gonna plug my own
song here and like relevant topically. Also, I directed a
music video for you guys, and I uh take my
own heart out on stage. So if you want to
watch that, google everybody Lola Blanc music video or some
(49:15):
version of that. You don't have to google it in
that exact order, just google it. It's on my YouTube.
So we're gonna play. We're gonna go out on my
song everybody.
Speaker 6 (49:31):
When I get ahead of the editions started thinking zeros
and wounds, I'll becoming not a Matician counting up the trophy.
Speaker 1 (49:41):
I'm going for gratification.
Speaker 3 (49:43):
But I don't have a problem swear.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
It's nothing like a fixation.
Speaker 3 (49:48):
Swell it.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
I'm coming undone.
Speaker 5 (49:52):
Fill the hole.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
With the follow.
Speaker 3 (49:57):
My sole.
Speaker 7 (50:00):
Hollie.
Speaker 6 (50:00):
It is for everybody, everybody.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
When everybody's me, then of finally be happy, then the
finally race and when everyone around me says that I
am a standing when the finally the bast.
Speaker 7 (50:41):
Something's coming up. Oh don't look now, that's a no.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
No take jo pause and a swallow.
Speaker 6 (50:52):
Struck in the pursuit of perfection. Then my body twisted
around late at night, look on the obsession. I do
not let anyone down, and jold if ivery standing ovation
after they give me the ground, still alone with on
my ambitions coming out.
Speaker 5 (51:12):
Everybody everybody, when.
Speaker 3 (51:23):
Everybody deals men be happy, really waste And when everyone leading.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
Around miss m a.
Speaker 3 (51:37):
S down a way finally the best fine.
Speaker 7 (51:44):
Cure?
Speaker 3 (51:47):
Do you ever do about it?
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Can you really live without it?
Speaker 7 (51:52):
Mother?
Speaker 6 (51:53):
Ever started down?
Speaker 1 (51:54):
And can you really without it?
Speaker 3 (51:57):
I care?
Speaker 7 (52:02):
I can't.
Speaker 6 (52:07):
When everybody loves me a finally be happy a.
Speaker 8 (52:14):
Final erast, And when everyone knowround me says I'm astounding
when I am the best everybody died, everybody died, When
(52:39):
everybody loves me them a finally be there finally erast.
Speaker 3 (52:48):
And when everyone knows around me says that you stounding
where finly the best? A little fat, cute, cute, lonely man.
Speaker 4 (53:25):
Megan take it away, all righty, thank you for spending
another week with us. As always, remember to follow your gut,
watch out for red flags.
Speaker 1 (53:33):
And never ever trust me. Bye Bye me.
Speaker 2 (53:38):
This has been an exactly right production hosted by Me
Lola Blanc and.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Me Megan Elizabeth. Our senior producer is Gee Holley. This
episode was mixed by John Bradley. Our associate producer is
Christina Chamberlain, and our.
Speaker 4 (53:50):
Guest booker is Patrick Kuttner.
Speaker 1 (53:52):
Our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.
Speaker 4 (53:54):
Trust Me as executive produced by Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hardstark
and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
You can find us on Instagram at trust Me podcast
or on TikTok at trust.
Speaker 1 (54:03):
Me Cult podcast.
Speaker 4 (54:05):
Cut your own story about cults, extreme belief, our manipulation.
Shoot us an email at trustmepodat gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (54:11):
Listen to trust Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts
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