WFMU’s Music Of Mind Control Is The Greatest Radio Show In Cult History
By Syran Warner
Original Art by Micah Moses
Music of Mind Control is a weekly terrestrial radio show on New Jersey’s WFMU that primarily focuses on the records created by religious cults and likeminded groups. The music is authentic, diverse and about as weird you might imagine.
As that description should indicate, the show isn’t designed for the mainstream. Cult music is genre that’s escaped mass appeal for a reason. It probably goes without saying, but the playlist routinely contains songs that test the boundaries of common taste.
Still, all kinds of listeners are tuning in.
Beyond the music, what’s fascinating about this strange program is that Music of Mind Control happens to exist in one of the largest radio markets on the planet. WFMU’s signal reaches all of New York City. It’s safe to say there’s not a massive audience seeking out the music of cults, but a massive audience is only a few clicks of the dial away from this stuff every Tuesday night when the show rules the airwaves at WFMU.
The potential here is pretty special. Some of the recordings that make it to air imitate popular genre music just well enough that they could fool an unwitting listener. The show would still be brilliant and worthy of our attention if it were broadcasted on some station in Montana, but it’s delightful to imagine some executive in Manhattan tuning into the show on accident and grooving to the music of an insidious cult.
How long can anything this beautiful last?
Art by Micah Moses
It’s not crazy to wonder if an hour long program with such an underground niche is sustainable, but Music of Mind Control has been releasing collections of cult material for over a decade and the show has been on the air at WFMU for the past seven years with no signs slowing down. As it turns out, finding content hasn’t been much of an issue for the curator. New cult music shows up online regularly and there’s a hell of lot more of the stuff out there than you’d ever imagine. Micah Moses, the host of this spectacularly bizarre show, isn’t scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to outsider religious jams.
A choir singing the hymn of some mainstream cult wont make it past the gatekeeper, for example. Music of Mind Control has standards in place for what constitutes a worthy cultic recording and what kind of songs are fit for air. When we reached Micah for an interview earlier this month, he emphasized the importance of being selective.
“[The music] has to somehow tell a story. The background information has to relate something interesting. I'm not going to play songs from some Baptist Church in the middle of Missouri. There has to be a story that's interesting for me to play it on my program. The more off kilter it is, the better. That's how I see it.”
This interview contains selections from the library of Music of Mind Control curated by the host to give readers an introduction to the kind of music found on the show. To listen to full episodes from WFMU’s archive click here.
What is this music?
There are thousands of cults in the world and a few elements bind most of them together. Charismatic leader, exploitation of followers, brainwashing; these things are always present. In just about every case, there’s a soundtrack too. This might explain why Micah never runs out of material.
“Pretty much all cults have music, which may or may not be recorded. But it is essential. If you want to maintain a congregation or a following, you need to have that factor. It's something that unifies everyone on an emotional level, and it's used as a control mechanism.”
While there are standards in place for the kind of tunes Micah plays, it’s important to restate that there’s little in the way of quality control as far as craftsmanship is concerned. Musical taste doesn’t really factor into the equation. Music of Mind Control is closer to an anthropological study of cults than a “best of” collection.
“The great thing about the cult music is that it's imitative of genre material but it doesn't quite pass muster because it's either amateurish or it's pandering, or it’s just plain bad. That sets it apart as its own little microgenre. It's sort of like a parallel world to either popular music or even just professionally executed music.”
Micah’s Pick- This is from Jetsunma Ahkan Llamo’s brief stint as a rock and blues singer. Jetsunma is a self described “living tulku” and reincarnated lama from Brooklyn who started the largest Buddhist monastery in America. She’s also fond of manicures, extravagant clothes and apparently has the mouth of a sailor.
Where did this project come from?
Micah became fascinated with cults about 15 years ago when news about the inner workings of Scientology was leaking onto message boards online. After becoming obsessed with the topic, he was inspired to take on an odd creative project that eventually blended into his free-form, outsider radio gig.
“Ultimately what I did is I tried to start my own cult. It was phony cult, but I developed some media [for it.] The problem was that I really don't have the personality to maintain something like that. I'm not a competitive power-hungry megalomaniac. I didn't really have a long-term strategy for maintaining this sort of artificial construct in a way that was self-sustaining. But at the same time, I was a free form radio DJ, and I was really into all this music I was finding. The two interests’ merged, and I developed Music of Mind Control.”
Micah’s Pick- This is one of the things that rocked my world early on. Zarathustra -Song 465 in the Church Universal and Triumphant’s songbook. It’s so strange and eerie I couldn’t believe they were capable of channeling such a dreamy vibe with their music, which for the most part is pretty corny.
What music is out of bounds?
As the show developed, Micah found a strong sense for what he was looking for in the genre. Terrible music was fine, but only if it was the right kind of terrible. One obvious offender in contemporary religious music was out from the beginning.
“I tend to lean towards the more outrageous and inept. The real trick is knowing that some of what’s out there tends to be new age stuff and Christian stuff that doesn’t really work [for the show.] They use a lot of sounds that one would associate as cliche. I try to stay away from that. So that's been the real challenge. With a lot of cults, they use Christian contemporary rock and it's just awful. It's not even fun in a bad way. It's got to be fun in a bad way for me to be interested, basically.”
It was hard to resist pushing further on the subject of Evangelical music. What came to mind is that the music sounds like what an advertising company might make if tasked with rocking. Micah didn’t know if this analogy went far enough.
“It's much worse than. They use all the cliche, Christian, emotional, hyper melodic, overproduced kinds of genre music, and it's just staggeringly awful.”
Not a pick from Micah but a decent example of something he wouldn’t play that showcases how dogshit popular Christian Rock is. The video has an unbelievable number of plays on YouTube.
Culty Evangelical records aren’t the only thing that’s off limits on Music of Mind Control. As covered elsewhere on this site, R. Kelly is both a musician and a cult leader, but Micah’s policy is to skip over the popular cult-adjacent music in favor of something more rare.
“I tend to shy away from cults that are already known as musical acts. That's not really what I’m interested in. R. Kelly was an established musician. Jared Leto also has a cult, and he has a rock band that he uses in the cult, but I'm not going to play it. It's already part of popular culture.”
There are, however, occasions when something traditionally off limits might make it to broadcast. It’s just got to be weird enough. Here’s how rote new age cult music could pass the test and make it onto to the airwaves.
“The biggest challenge in doing this show is finding the gems within the oceans of chaff. A lot of the new age cults, they love crystal bowls. How much crystal bowls can one listen to? I can’t do it. It's hard unless they're doing something interesting with it, like some weird vocal intonation or some freaked out ritualistic stuff.”
Micah’s Pick- Sri Guru Dev Isa Mafu - Kundalini Color Healing Meditation. Mafu is a Ramtha clone. Her real name is Jenny Torres. At a certain point in the 80’s she started channeling an entity from ancient Pompeii named Mafu, which is such an outright imitation of JZ Knight and the Ramtha channeling, its almost uncanny.
Is there any of this music out there that people with no interest in the Backstory might appreciate?
It's not all that surprising that cults routinely make music no one outside the compound would tune into unless they were already fans of outsider art or deeply fascinated with the cult phenomenon. However, a few gems in the collection might appeal to more traditional taste.
“I come across stuff that I think is fantastic. I think a lot of the vintage Christian rock of the Jesus People from the sixties and seventies, a lot of that stuff is melodically just brilliant.”
Micah’s Pick- Karen Lafferty - Beautiful Day. One of my favorites from the first wave of Christian Contemporary Music in the 1970s. Just a sweet melodic beautiful song.
While “hits” aren’t really the point of the show, there’s also some eastern music that might intrigue someone looking for an introduction to the genre with some serious sonic quality behind it.
“I gravitate more towards unpolished sounds than actual studio proficiency, so I might be the wrong person to ask [what’s best.] But there are very talented musicians out there within the cult music genre. Definitely. The guy who was the head of Dera Sacha Sauda [is an example.] Before he was imprisoned [for murder and rape], he had a double career as a Bollywood movie and rock star and his stuff is incredible. It's just totally spastic Bollywood rock.”
Micah’s pick- Saint Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insan - Love Charger
What’s the most ridiculous cult cutting records? And what does their music sound like?
Micah knows a lot about coercive control and the factors that make cults so insidious. He often gives context and history to listeners between songs. Of course, the show naturally straddles the absurd, but it wasn’t created to be a gag at the expense of cult members. Still, the operation wouldn’t be a success without self-awareness. Ludicrous recordings come with commentary. The tenor is usually fairly dry (unless you’re listening to the show around Halloween) but there are sincerely funny moments baked into the programming.
“Sometimes what I'm playing is so absolutely horrible. It's pretty obvious that I'm not going to ignore the fact that it's terrible. The show isn’t free of criticism. My listeners know [they’ll probably hear] something horrible and yet they return week after week. I guess that's what makes it fun, trying to find the most god-awful cult music out there and still retain a level of entertainment.”
Micah’s pick- Gary Savelli- Say I Believe. This is from a Christian cult in the midwest known as Pastor Johns House. Their music is so inept and ear-piercingly bad that it becomes outright comical.
There’s one particular group the host is preoccupied with in the broad world of cults, and the music they make is icing on the cake. When we asked for an example of an organization that makes for an easy punchline, he didn’t have to think about it too hard.
“What fascinates me the most about this stuff, and also what I think is absolutely hilarious, is this power within various cults, no matter how absurd [the context.] There are these collective hallucinations or collective systems of belief that appear totally ludicrous to outsiders. My favorite story, probably my favorite cult is Eckankar.
An example is the worship of Rebazar Tarzs. He's the main Eck master who lives in astral plane and oversees the evolution of humanity in relation to the Eck. Almost everyone in Eckankar has their own personal relationship with Rebazar Tarzs in the astral realm or in their dream yoga exercises or even in physical life. Some people say they see them if they're in danger. Rebazar Tarzs comes out and saves them. Like if they're about to get hit by a truck, the idea is this cartoonish figure will come and push them out of the way. Everyone has their own [experience with the] collective illusion.”
It’s hard to disagree with Eckankar being absurd enough to be funny. But what does their music sound like?
“Most of the latest stuff is all just like sentimental, Hallmark card level muzak shit. But if you go back in time to the seventies and eighties during the Darwin Gross period, he got a lot of jazz people involved and they started cutting albums. He started releasing a lot of Eck focused jazz music and some of it’s very interesting, [as well as] singer/songwriter, private press stuff. Most of the material from the seventies and eighties is still very weird and amateurish, but also very endearing.”
In a world where punk rock has been commodified to sell the kind of lifestyle it was intended to disrupt, these cult recordings may be the last authentic form of music that remains safe from the capitalists cashing in on counter culture. It’s remains to be seen if something like the gentle jazz of Eckankar will ever be considered cool, but there’s a lot of it out there if it ever catches on.
Micah’s Pick for the best of Eckankar. Lifestream - Take the Journey Home
After discussing Eckankar we wanted to know about the sonic history of Heaven’s Gate, a more famous, sort of tragicomic spiritual cousin to Eck. Micah doesn’t think any original music from the 90’s survived, but he was quick to point that there’s still a soundtrack out there.
“Marshall Applewhite made music when he was a professor. He cut an album with his students in the late 1950s. And there's also music by Sawyer if you know who that is. [He’s] one of the last surviving members who still believes in Do and Ti. He still believes in their teachings, and he advocates for them on YouTube. Sometimes he'll do an improvisational jam based on some revelation he's received. He was actually barred from going on Haley's comet with them because Ti found him masturbating to pornography. That's why he's still alive.”
It helps to see the humor in these kinds of stories whenever it’s possible.
What makes this stuff so entertaining?
There’s nothing like a Weird Al figure in the universe of cult music for reasons that are fairly obvious. These are appeals to God made by people who are dead serious about their devotion. The music is as sincere as it gets and that might be part of the charm.
“The music kind of has to be earnest, otherwise it's a joke. We're essentially talking about spiritual music, if it's not earnest, then how can we take it seriously as this deep metaphysical concept? Usually, it's so earnest it's bad, but it takes itself seriously. That's what makes it so good.”
Micah points out that cult members with sincere motives attempting music that doesn’t come naturally often produces some of the most entertaining entries in the cannon.
“I like a lot of the Christian sort of neo-Pentecostal cults that use rap music to explain how you're going to hell if you don't accept what they have to say. And the QAnon stuff. They will just reflect a lot of the theories and ideas in many musical parables.”
Micah’s Pick for QAnon. Doc Rock -Make Yo Flow Go Hot (Follow the White Rabbit)
What’s in the dark collection?
A lot of music produced by cults has a ‘so bad, it’s good’ quality to it, and can be delightful fodder for outsiders. However, there are a few examples of productions so bleak they belong in their own category on behalf of how fucking dark they are. No, this isn’t about satanic music; it’s the songs that can’t escape their backstory’s that are the most difficult to sit through.
“Well, I think all the stuff that the Children of God did in the sixties and seventies is horrifying to listen to simply because they use children in a lot of the music. Essentially, they're doing a lot of hippie Christian folk rock with the same children that they're exploiting and abusing. There can't be anything more sinister than that.”
Micah’s Pick- Jeremy Spencer and the Children - The Prophet
There’s also a deeply unsettling, very rare cut from a cult even more notorious and devastating than Children of God.
“Something that I couldn't believe I was hearing are these recordings from Jonestown, from the in-house band, The Jonestown Express. They had a cafe, and they had their own little cabaret band. I have recordings from a few months prior to the mass homicide.
They do a cover of that song, “The Greatest Love of All” [known for the line, “I believe the children are the future,”] which would later be made famous by Whitney Houston. It’s an intense, emotional listening experience within the contextual framework of what happened because it's just so incredible and sad. It’s such an awful song but listening to it within that context takes on a whole other depth of meaning. It really sounds like they were saying, ‘it looks like our time is up, but let's try to protect the children.’”
The greatest cult radio show in history.
It’s a little inside baseball, but this cult themed magazine needed to know how the creator of Music of Mind Control explains his cult themed radio show when asked about his work. To close out the interview, we dove headfirst into the issue of managing outside expectations that’s hilariously close to the bone for editorial.
“If the topic comes up, I'll just say I'm a broadcaster. If they probe deeper, I'll tell them I do a very strange and oftentimes dark program that is not for everyone. It's about religious cults and the music they make. Whatever reaction I get, whether it's negative or positive, I will receive a dropped jaw.”
Shocking the squares aside, there’s a silver lining to having such an esoteric project. On The Body International’s Instagram, we make the bold claim that the publication is the world’s preeminent online magazine about cults. The crown is a little cheap, but the statement is accurate. We asked Micah if his show had any competition, and his answer reinforced the supremacy that binds our projects.
“There’s nothing else out there. There’s no number two.”
