Dear Franklin Jones - Podcast Rankings and reviews

This is an interesting podcast but you misrepresented the MASSACRE at Jonestown in ep 3. Those people were murdered by Jim jones. Guns were held to their heads and they were forced to drink. Their children were taken away and murdered before they were forced to drink, themselves. They were victims and it is a disservice to them and their families to refer to it as “the largest mass suicide” in history. There are several interesting documentaries about that tragedy if you are interested.

If you like learning about cults, and the psychology of how people both join and exit, I can’t recommend this enough. Seeing it through the eyes of someone who was indoctrinated from a very young age gives us a glimpse on how mainstream religions shape their young people as well, for good or for I’ll.

High quality serial. Very interesting to hear how growing up in the ‘guru’ culture affected the narrator. Thoughtful and very well produced.

Thank you for sharing your story with us! I listened to every episode in less than 24 hours and absolutely enjoyed the insight and the interviews, the objective journalism but also the personal accounts. Really great podcast.

I was very excited to listen to this podcast after learning about the author's in depth experience with the cult. However, as the shows go on 25% of the time is taken up by ad placements and then there's the > 60 second bumpers at the start and end of the episode. Overall that amounts to about 15 minutes of content. If all the author was trying to do is profit off his experience, good for you, mission accomplished. However, it doesn't do much to move forward the narrative of the Franklin Jones cult other than the beginning episodes that merely set the stage.

If there is a second season that digs into specific aspects of the story line (how his parents dealt with their assimilation back into society, the way the group changed when Jones moved to his island, etc) I might tune in. Otherwise, not really worth the time.