5 YEAR ANNIVERSARY REWIND - Psychedelic Nightmare Pt. 3 Artwork

Unpacking The Eerie

Unpacking the Eerie is a passion project that merges the intersections of our dark curiosities with our deeply held values. Each episode we’ll dig past the surface of morbid fascination, scavenging for unasked questions surrounding the stories that creep the hell out of us. We hope that when you listen, you’ll experience the feels, the enjoyment, the horror and interludes of comedic relief that we do. - 2 politicized social workers based in the PNW and in India.
Visit our website at www.unpackingtheeerie.com | Follow us on instagram @unpackingtheeerie & Facebook at Facebook.com/unpackingtheeerie.

Music Credit: Creepy Mood by Oleg Fedak

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Unpacking The Eerie

5 YEAR ANNIVERSARY REWIND - Psychedelic Nightmare Pt. 3

November 28, 2025

Welcome to our 5 year anniversary, 5-part series re-release! This month, we're bringing back Psychedelic Nightmare, a podcast series on the impact of the CIA's LSD-fueled experiments on mind control, MKUltra*, & the domino effect it (in)directly created worldwide.

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CULT: The Family/The Great White Brotherhood/Anne Hamilton Byrne
cw: sexual assault, suicide, child abuse, ritual abuse

After MKULTRA, dozens of cults emerged worldwide using LSD as a primary substance in maintaining power and control over their followers - The Family was one of the first. In Part 3 of this series, we travel to the other side of the globe to unpack Australia’s most notorious cult – “The Family” (aka The Great White Brotherhood). In mid 1960’s Australia, this doomsday cult was formed by Anne Hamilton Byrne, a yoga teacher-turned-cult leader, who believed she was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. Here, we cover how this group came to be and highlight the eerie parallels between “The Family” and the CIA’s MKULTRA experiments. We also explore yoga as a philosophy, white supremacy in wellness communities & the impacts of betrayal trauma.

References

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Theme Song Title: Creepy Mood | Artist Name: Oleg Fedak

Support the show

From October to December 2025 we will be re-releasing our favorite series' - A Lethal Location and A Psychedelic Nightmare. They will only be available for a limited time, as starting January our minisodes and 2nd part onwards of our series' will be exclusively available for our wonderful patrons.

Thank you for listening to our passion project <3 You can find us on social media here! We're a team of 2 people & have always been ad-free. If you are enjoying, please consider supporting our sustainability on Patreon or through Buzzsprout.

- your grateful hosts

P.S. We're in the process of updating our intro and making edits to our episodes. You may notice inconsistencies as we do that!