PODCAST · society
Failed State Update
by Joseph L. Flatley
Stories and conversations from the end of America.Subscribe to the newsletter: https://lennyflatley.substack.comMy book NEW AGE GRIFTER: THE TRUE STORY OF GABRIEL OF URANTIA AND HIS COSMIC FAMILY is available for preorder *now* from Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/books/new-age-grifter-the-true-story-of-gabriel-of-urantia-and-his-cosmic-family/9781627311106
Episodes
-
BONUS: The Uses of Manson
In this bonus episode of The Inner Empire, I read my recent article, “The Uses of Manson,” originally published in Failed State Update. Charles Manson has been used to explain everything from the collapse of the 1960s counterculture to the supposed workings of a CIA mind-control program. But the...
-
Introducing The Inner Empire
From Joseph L. Flatley, publisher of Failed State Update. THE INNER EMPIRE is a podcast that pulls together a lot of what I’ve spent years reporting on and thinking about: cults, the occult, conspiracy culture, and the platforms that have inserted themselves directly into our daily life. Here’s…
more -
75. The Occult Aspects of the Failed State: Livestream w/Anima Noira
The United States is failing fast, taking many of its most storied institutions with it. As a child of the former Soviet Union, occult artist @AnimaNoira has seen this all before. Watch us discuss magick and decline live tonight! Watch this episode on YouTube:...
-
74. The King of Stolen Valor and Other Weird Stories w/Oki
Oki is a Canadian documentarian with a keen eye for unusual subject matter. We spoke to him back in January when he infiltrated a cabal of conspiracy theorists who use hypnosis to "prove" that there is a secret space program operating throughout the universe. His latest doc, The King of Stolen...
-
73. Ravi, Mind Control Victim in Silicon Valley
Ravi lives in Silicon Valley, he's a former Google employee, and he’s a Targeted Individual. That is, he believes he has been the subject of high-tech surveillance and harassment. Whatever the cause of the trauma he has experienced, the trauma is very real. “I felt like committing a crime” at one...
-
72. Lucien Greaves on the Satanic Temple, fire bombing, modern day witch hunts, and more
Long-time friend of the show Lucien Greaves will be on FSU tonight. What will be talking about? The arson at the Satanic Temple's HQ? Probably. Sovereign Citizen death threats? Youbetcha. Satanic Panic? That is to be expected. Lucien Greaves on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LucienGreaves Failed...
-
71. A Failed Coup and a Failed Reality TV Show with Rocco Castoro and Emily Molli
We keep hoping that the Trump administration will become old news, but the stories of its incompetence and corruption keep coming. One of our favorites is Seven Days in January, a new podcast about Mark Burnett and Elizabeth Koch's failed attempt to turn the Presidential Inauguration into a…
more -
70. Jack Brewer's UFO Trail (livestream)
Jack Brewer is a freelance writer with a longtime interest in the UFO genre. He maintains the blog "The UFO Trail," where he posts credible info on incredible topics. Brewer is the author of "The Greys Have Been Framed: Exploitation in the UFO Community," in which he explores how public…
more -
69. Douglas P. Horne on Operation Northwoods and lies the Pentagon tells us
Douglas P. Horne is a former staffer for the Assassination Records Review Board and the author of several books, including Inside the Assassination Records Review Board. In this episode of Failed State Update, J.G. and Douglas discuss Operation Northwoods, the Pentagon's (very real) plan to down...
-
68. Gabriel of Urantia Warns of the Apocalypse… But This Time We're Afraid He Means It
In Tumacácori, Arizona, a stone’s throw from the U.S. border with Mexico, roughly 85 “destiny reservists” await their fate. They are the followers of Gabriel of Urantia. Born Anthony J. Delevin in Pittsburgh in 1946, Gabriel’s life work is a community known as the Global Community Communications...
-
66. Daniel Muessig, "real-life Saul Goodman" going to prison
Daniel Muessig is a Pittsburgh folk hero, mostly because of his over-the-top ad for his law practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_iaugcJW7Q Any day now he will go to prison for five years for conspiring to distribute 100 kilograms or more of marijuana and possession of marijuana. He was...
-
62. Wayne Madsen on Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, and the Fascist Fourth Reich
Wayne Madsen is an investigative journalist, the author of twenty-one books, and the publisher of The Wayne Madsen Report. His latest book is The Rise of the Fascist Fourth Reich: The Era of Trumpism and the New Far-Right. Stories about Wayne Madsen on Failed State Update: "Did Wayne Madsen…
more -
JG and Lenny stop by the Ochelli Communications Worldwide Studio
On February 10, Failed State Update co-hosts Joseph L. Flatley and JG Michael appeared on The Ochelli Effect live to discuss current events, conspiracy theories, JFK, Ozzy Osbourne, and more. Unfortunately, someone messed up the recording of the after-show that we did (that person being Joseph L....
-
61. the CIA, FBI, UFOs and NICAP... and Jack Brewer
What do UFOs, the CIA, the conflict in Ukraine, and the Philadelphia Experiment have in common? Tune in to find out! Jack Brewer writes "The UFO Trail", a blog dedicated to publishing credible info on incredible topics. Brewer's research interests include the UFO subculture, the intelligence...
-
60. The Finders: The Movie featuring Boys' Bible Study (the podcast) (BONUS EPISODE)
In this episode of Failed State Update, Joseph L. "Lenny" Flatley goes toe-to-toe with the hosts of the Boys' Bible Study podcast. The Bible Boys, as we like to call them, wade deep into the murky waters of the Christian pop culture industry, reviewing the weirdest and most interesting...
-
59. Spencer Sunshine on Oath Keepers, militias, and left antisemitism
You're in for a treat! For this edition of Failed State Update: The Podcast, J.G. Michael interviews author and extremism expert Spencer Sunshine on the Oath Keepers' role in January 6, the militia movement in general, and what happens when antisemites infiltrate leftist politics. Also, Joseph L....
-
58. Alfred W. McCoy: To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change
Regular listeners of Failed State Update are in for a real treat. Our guest, Alfred W. McCoy, is an American historian and educator. Currently the Fred Harvey Harrington Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he specializes in the history of the Philippines, foreign policy…
more -
57. John Zerzan: When We Are Human
Is the United States collapsing, or is all of civilization collapsing? To explore that question we bring you John Zerzan, an anarchist and primitivist author whose work has been compared to Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, of all people. His books offer an alternative vision of history that focuses on…
more -
56. Tom Mellett on Arthur Young, Pseudoscience (or not), and the Cult of UFO Twitter
Tom Mellett is a retired high school teacher of math and physics who delights in trolling UFO Twitter and Facebook because their emotional maturity is at a 9th grade level (as he puts it). He is also a cat butler in Los Angeles. We got on the phone after my story "The New Intergalactic Cold War"...
-
55. Sherry Shriner’s Deadly Anti-New World Order Online Doomsday Cult
Anthony Russo is the author of Dragged Into the Light: Truthers, Reptilians, Super Soldiers, and Death Inside an Online Cult, and for the next fifty-three minutes we'll discuss his book about Sherry Shriner, an online cult leader in rural Ohio who preached a bizarre combination of reptilian...
-
54. Havana Affair (feat. the CIA, crickets, and conspiracy theorists)
Havana Syndrome is back in the news. On the one hand, it's clearly a psychogenic illness that's being misdiagnosed as the result of commie death rays. On the other hand, by treating it as an attack by America's enemies, politicians can use it to help further their foreign policy objectives. Which...
-
53. R. Kelly Found Guilty Of Racketeering And Sex Trafficking
REPOST: After decades of accusations and a weeks-long federal trial, R. Kelly has been found guilty of charges including sexual exploitation of a child, bribery, racketeering and sex trafficking that will put him in prison from 10 years to life. I figure now is as good a time as any to repost…
more -
52. The Lyndon LaRouche Cult of Intelligence w/Marley Clements
The subject of political cults continues with Marley Clements, a writer, producer, and documentary filmmaker whose work includes Active Measures (2018) and QAnon: The Search for Q (2021). Her company Bunker Crew Media is responsible for the Kremlin File podcast. Kremlin File:...
-
48. New Age Grifter: Joshua Lilly (preview)
Joshua Lilly is a former follower of Gabriel of Urantia, the subject of my book New Age Grifter. He’s also something of a “fan favorite,” so — due to popular demand — I am giving him an (almost 2 hours long!) episode of the FAILED STATE UPDATE podcast to tell us about his life and times in (and…
more -
47. New Age Grifter: The True Story of Gabriel of Urantia
New Age Grifter is the story of Gabriel of Urantia, a self-proclaimed holy man who currently presides over a spiritual community (some call it a cult) in the desert of Southern Arizona. In a fenced-in compound, three generations of the Global Community Communications Alliance soak in Gabriel's...
-
46. The Socioeconomics of Cults and QAnon
Less than a week until my book NEW AGE GRIFTER: THE TRUE STORY OF GABRIEL OF URANTIA AND HIS COSMIC FAMILY is released, and to get you in the mood I'm sharing a conversation that I had today on, of all things, the YouTube Grassroots #YangGang Show. We discussed the book a little bit, as wells...
-
45. Buckland Museum of Witchcraft & Magick Director Steven Intermill
Raymond Buckland founded The Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick in 1966. After visiting the late Gerald Gardner and his collection on the Isle of Man, Raymond was inspired to start a collection of his own. While working for British Airways, he was able to acquire many of the artifacts in…
more -
44. Danny Casolaro and the Surveillance State
Joseph Daniel Casolaro (everyone knew him as Danny) was a journalist who died in Martinsburg, West Virginia, thirty years ago this August. He was in town working on a book tentatively titled The Octopus, which promised to tie together damn near every conspiracy theory of the decade: including the...
-
43. Lucien Greaves on multiple personalities, TikTok, and conspiracy therapists
A story crossed my desk recently: "Inside TikTok’s booming dissociative identity disorder community" (Input Magazine, July 6). The author, Jessica Lucas, looks at the unique world of social media influencers with multiple personalities. While it provides a unique look at a fascinating subculture,...
-
42. Satan Goes to the Mind Control Convention
My book Satan Goes to the Mind Control Convention: Manchurian Candidates, Recovered Memories, and the Dark Side of Conspiracy Culture is finally available as an audiobook! From the back cover blurb: Satan Goes to the Mind Control Convention looks at the role that conspiracy theories play in...
-
41. What to expect from President Biden (feat. War and Corruption)
In the first half of this episode, I speak with Branko Marcetic, a staff writer for Jacobin magazine and a 2019-2020 Leonard C. Goodman Institute for Investigative Reporting Fellow at In These Times. He is the author of Yesterday's Man: The Case Against Joe Biden. After the flip, I speak with...
-
39. Lucien Greaves on that NY Mag whitewash of dangerous pseudoscience
The notion of "repressed memories" has been widely discredited, yet it stubbornly persists—on trash TV, in poorly researched self-help books, and now on New York Magazine's website. In this episode of Failed State Update, Lucien Greaves, the co-founder of The Satanic Temple, breaks down "The…
more -
38. Mark Jacobson: QAnon, crisis cults, LSD cults, and more
The return of Mark Jacobson. We expand on our previous conversation to talk about the zeitgeist. We get into QAnon, the Ghost Dance, and of course, Bill Cooper. Mark Jacobson on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/palehorseriderbook/ Pale Horse Rider music video by William Cooper (the rapper):...
-
37. Mark Jacobson, author of Pale Horse Rider
We are living in a time of unprecedented distrust in America… Faith in the government is at an all-time low, and political groups on both sides of the aisle are able to tout preposterous conspiracy theories as gospel, without much opposition. “Fake news” is the order of the day. This book is…
more -
36. Jared Yates Sexton dissects the face of contemporary fascism (repost!)
Jared Yates Sexton has been an important voice decrying the little Hitler in the White House (for one more week) and the future, not-so-little Hitlers that are on the horizon if we don't wise up quick. His message is more important than ever, so I'm reposting two of his appearances here in case…
more -
33. Barbarians at the Capitol Gates w/William Arkin and Vincent Scotti Eirene
So, we couldn't go a week into the new year without a constitutional crisis... I'm disappointed in us, but I'm not surprised. In order to help understand what the hell exactly happened, I spoke to William Arkin, veteran national security reporter and prolific author. He's been on top of this…
more -
31. Conversation with a Targeted Individual
There is an internet community of people that call themselves Targeted Individuals. These people claim that they're being surveilled and harassed by the U.S. government or other unknown entities. Sometimes this activity is called "gangstalking" because, unlike traditional stalking, the harassment...
-
30. State of Emergence(y) w/Antero Alli
Are we living in a failed state? And if so, so what? Between the environment, pandemic, and everything else that 2020 has given us, I think it's probably high time that we look at ourselves in the mirror and decide what's really important. And if you're of a spiritual or metaprogrammatical bent,...
-
29. The Real Story Behind Oliver Stone's JFK w/Fred Litwin
If you know anything about the assassination of JFK, the odds are good that you learned it from Oliver Stone. Even if you haven't seen JFK (1993), the claims made in the film — claims made by the likes of homophobic New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison and antisemitic conspiracy theorist...
-
27. Paranoids' Game Night!
In this action-packed episode of FAILED STATE UPDATE, I break out a certain conspiracy theory-themed trivia board game ("Conspiracy Theory" by Neddy Games) and host an action-packed competition between four fascinating dudes. Come for the conspiracy questions! Stay for the learned discursions!…
more -
26. The Jeffrey Epstein corner of the conspiracyverse w/Pearse Redmond
Pearse Redmond is a podcaster, writer, and one of the leading figures of the Jeffrey Epstein research community. For years, when no one in the mainstream media cared, Pearse and his cohort were diving deep into Epstein-world, trying to figure out what the man was up to and how to get him put in…
more -
24. From Satanic Panic to QAnon, feat. Ted Gunderson and the Finders
What we have here is my first ever presentation to a conference, in which I use the story of The Finders—a small commune unfairly maligned as a "cult"—to discuss the political dimension of conspiracy theories. The talk also covers the story of Ted Gunderson, who went from being an FBI-COINTELPRO...
-
23. Suckers for Fascism w/Jared Yates Sexton
Very excited to once again have author, academic, and political commentator Jared Yates Sexton on the show to address the (failed) state of the union. He has a new book out called American Rule: How a Nation Conquered the World But Failed Its People, and it's one you're definitely going to want…
more -
22. cTom's Conspiracy Cinema w/Dylan Coleslaw
In this episode of Failed State Update I'm joined by film critic, artist, and social media provocateur Dylan Coleslaw to discuss cTom's 2011 film Song of the Blind Girl. There are underground filmmakers, and then there's cTom—or Tom Charley, as he's also known (both are pseudonyms, actually).…
more -
21. COVID-19 Brain Candy w/Alexander Zaitchik
On the latest episode of Failed State Update, journalist and author Alexander Zaitchik discusses the profound implications of capitalism-run-amok on the pharmaceutical industry and the battle against COVID-19. It's one heck of a wild ride! Alexander Zaitchik's website: https://www.zaitchik.com/...
-
20. The Phantom Patriot: A True Tale of Comic Books, QAnon, and the New World Order w/ Tea Krulos
In 2002, Richard McCaslin raided the elite Bohemian Grove campground in disguise as his alter ego, The Phantom Patriot. His plan was to prevent the kind of ritualistic child sacrifice that Alex Jones had talked about in the film Dark Secrets Inside Bohemian Grove. Luckily, there was nothing of…
more -
19. Tim Schwab on Bill Gates, the Media, the Covid, and the Public Rehabilitation of Bad Billionaires
Tim Schwab is a freelance journalist based in Washington DC and 2019 Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellow. Tonight he's visiting the Failed State to talk about his latest for Columbia Journalism Review, "Journalism’s Gates Keepers." In the post-Covid world, where Bill Gates is seen as something of…
more -
18. Failed State, Cult State w/Mark Laxer
Mark Laxer is an author and former follower of the cult leader Frederick Philip Lenz. He broke away from Lenz some time ago, only to realize recently that Trump's base is going through the same process that he went through as a member of a destructive cult. Mark has written about this in two…
more -
16. UFOs, Radical and Conservative
Has "cancel culture" hit the UFO scene? Probably not. But MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) has had a few controversies over the years, including a recent one where the State Director of Vermont and Rhode Island lost his position for some really messed up Facebook posts. To shed some light on what's...
-
15. Boy's Bible Study
NOTE: I've fixed the wonky audio 30 minutes in and updated the file. I've always been fascinated by the weird, parallel Christian media universe, so for this episode, I figure we'd consult the experts. Boys Bible Study is a podcast known for its hilarious and insightful reviews of faith-based...
We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.
No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.
No topics indexed yet for this podcast.
Loading reviews...
ABOUT THIS SHOW
Stories and conversations from the end of America.Subscribe to the newsletter: https://lennyflatley.substack.comMy book NEW AGE GRIFTER: THE TRUE STORY OF GABRIEL OF URANTIA AND HIS COSMIC FAMILY is available for preorder *now* from Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/books/new-age-grifter-the-true-story-of-gabriel-of-urantia-and-his-cosmic-family/9781627311106
HOSTED BY
Joseph L. Flatley
Loading similar podcasts...
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Failed State Update have?
Failed State Update currently has 57 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Failed State Update about?
Stories and conversations from the end of America.Subscribe to the newsletter: https://lennyflatley.substack.comMy book NEW AGE GRIFTER: THE TRUE STORY OF GABRIEL OF URANTIA AND HIS COSMIC FAMILY is available for preorder *now* from Bookshop.org:...
How often does Failed State Update release new episodes?
Failed State Update has 57 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Failed State Update?
You can listen to Failed State Update on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Failed State Update?
Failed State Update is created and hosted by Joseph L. Flatley.
URL copied to clipboard!