heretics.

So, we’ve tackled Judaism, Islam, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Westboro Baptist Church so far on the On the Edge with Andrew Gold podcast. That can only mean one thing. It’s finally time for the Mormons. And I’ve got none other than Dan Beecher, one half of the famous Frank and Dan who host Thank God I’m Atheist. I actually appeared as a guest on their podcast to discuss my exorcism film, and I’ve no doubt that some of our listeners cross over. Theirs is absolutely huge though – straight out of Utah, they’re a couple of ex-Mormons who discuss all things atheism. Dan also has a massive podcast show called The How-To Heretic, so both touch on atheism, cults, religions and all that stuff that you and I can’t get enough of. We discuss everything from the late British atheist and thought leader Christopher Hitchens to haters and polyamory – as opposed to the polygamy Mormonism is famous for – we discuss that too, and get to the bottom of it. Like most of these podcast interviews, we dip in and out of serious themes and lighter moments that bring levity to proceedings. You don’t want to be sad for an hour, and neither do I. But it does get quite intense, as Dan describes certain aspects of his childhood, his mind conflicted as he searched for a sign from god that wouldn’t come. This exasperation and pressure left irreversible marks on his psyche, touching everything, including his sex life. Remember to subscribe to this podcast so you don’t forget about it, and support it on patreon.com/andrewgold Huge thanks to Podcorn for sponsoring this episode. Explore sponsorship opportunities and start monetizing your podcast by signing up here: https://podcorn.com/podcasters/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lucy Edwards is a 24-year-old British journalist who holds the distinction of being BBC Radio 1’s first ever blind presenter. She’s since worked across the channel, from BBC World News to BBC Radio 4, and has run a marathon and started up an extremely successful YouTube channel – Lucy Edwards - where here make-up tutorials and videos answering questions you were too polite or timid to ask have racked up millions of views. Links Lucy: Tiktok Twitter YouTube The Blind Beauty Guide eBook Andrew: patreon.com/andrewgold Twitter Instagram Podcast website We delve into brail, language learning, Robbie Williams, Jon Ronson and inspiration porn. We talk about the details behind how Lucy lost her sight, and how she learned to cope, along with helpful sidekick, Olga. Olga’s a dog by the way. We actually spoke a couple of months ago, but timed the episode to coincide with the International Day of Disabled Persons on December 3rd. Lucy talks in the episode about how the modern BBC studios she worked in were not equipped for blind people. A lot of media attention has rightly helped redress societal imbalances across different subsections of society. However, disabled people remain totally under the radar…and nobody seems to care. Well, we should do, and we can start by hearing Lucy out – not because she’s blind, but because she has so much to say and she’s a fantastic journalist. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Links: The John Cedars YouTube Channel Lloyd Evans: The Reluctant Apostate Andrew Gold's brand new Patreon page - patreon.com/andrewgold Episode Summary Lloyd Evans is pretty much the world’s pre-eminent ex-Jehovah’s Witness and authority on the religion, its attractions and its snares. He tells some of the downright craziest and unbelievable stories of his childhood and his time in religion. So that Jehovah’s Witnesses know, I’m not just picking on them, as I’ve already done episodes on an ex-Muslim whose family are trying to kill her, an ex-Hasidic Jew who believes the community raped her and the son of the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church. You’ll find those in the backlog, by clicking the links above or by visiting my website, andrewgoldpodcast.com. This is also a special podcast because Ex-Jehovah Lloyd convinced me, as you’ll hear, of the merits of starting my own Patreon page, and he’s even started contributing himself, which is a really touching gesture from a fellow content maker. Bringing this podcast to you every week is a full-time job, it takes about 40 hours each week. Just go to patreon.com/andrewgold. Of course, if I’m going to be making money from this, I also have to up my game. I’ve been making an effort to ensure interviewees send me their audio files – so you’ll hear in this one, Lloyd’s voice is absolutely gorgeous. And I’m going to start publishing the video versions of the podcast on YouTube, with lots of flashy camera angles and high definition. Anyway, that was my announcement and I don’t want it to eat into any more Lloyd Evans ex-Jehovah’s Witness time. We’re going to be talking about everything from the community’s controversial views on blood transfusions to its purported inaction on child abuse. Lloyd talks eloquently about cognitive dissonance – the way our mind refuses to consider reasoning that runs counter to our engrained idea of how the world works. Lloyd really is an authority on the subject, and if you want to know more, I encourage you to get hold of his acclaimed book – The Reluctant Apostate – and to visit his popular YouTube page with over 70,000 subscriptions, the John Cedars channel. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ed Hudson worked as the narcotics and law enforcement officer in the Florida unit responsible for bringing down Freddie Crow. Freddie used to steal planes and fly under the radar with death-defying stunts to reach Belize, where he’d smuggle so much marijuana onto the plane that the pressure would bust open the doors. He wore camouflage and became known by the FBI only as Rambo, before they could identify him and his partner in crime Billy. His life was very much like that of Tom Cruise’s character in American Made, but it took a drastic change after he was caught and met today’s guest on On the Edge with Andrew Gold podcast: Ed Hudson. After serving time, an unlikely friendship developed between the two, before things took a tragic turn. I’ll leave it there for now. I came across Ed’s fantastic book, As The Crow Flies: The Redemption of an International Drug Smuggler, which you can find on Amazon and in selected stores. Look up his Facebook page Ed Hudson Author – there’ll be a link on my andrewgoldpodcast.com blog - for photos of him and Freddie, and Freddie’s family. Couple things to note. One, a huge part of the story is, to Ed, religious. I’m not a religious person – in fact, I’d describe myself as a proud and open atheist. But it’s impossible not to make a link between Freddie’s redemption and punishment tale and religious stories…which to me, are just that: stories. But to Ed, they’re something more, and it means he speaks with a genuine enthusiasm and passion that elevates the story both in this interview and in his book. Two, Ed has a quite marvellous way of talking. It’s a real traditional Deep South accent that we in the UK can only dream of encountering in real life, so if nothing else, I hope you enjoy listening to the musicality of his voice. As regular listeners will know, I always attempt an impression of the disparate accents on the show, so it didn’t escape notice that he says things like ‘that’s done been done’. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today’s show, I’m proud to say, I’ve got someone almost entirely unique. Rebecca Sharrock is one of 80 people in the world with HSAM, which is an ability to remember every moment of your life, stretching back as far as the womb. What would you do with such a power, or is it a curse? Rebecca will shed some light on the matter. She also has obsessive compulsive disorder and autism, but it’s her near-perfect memory that puts her in the rarest of rare groups, one that makes up just 0.000001 per cent of the world population. Given the cognitive nature of the episode, this seemed like a great idea as a follow up to last week’s podcast with cognitive scientist Dr. Lera Boroditsky, where we discussed the way languages shape thought, and how the mind works. Rebecca is a huge Harry Potter fan – something we both share, and were able to bond over. She was actually supposed to be going on a trip to the Harry Potter World at Universal Studios, but it was cancelled due to Covid. As you’ll hear, she knows the books off by heart and is able to finish any line from Harry Potter that I throw at her – you can find the video version of that clip on Twitter and Instagram on andrewgold_ok, while Rebecca is on r_sharrock on Twitter. The things she shows me are truly remarkable, and open up all sorts of questions about the human mind, memory, the subconscious and how it all links up. Also, her lovely mum Janet shows up halfway through to give some great insight about what it’s like living with somebody who remembers everything good and bad you do or say. A few warnings. One, I’m going to attempt my terrible, terrible accent. Rebecca’s not the first guest we’ve had from Queensland, Australia – I had the Coffin Confessor who reveals secrets at people’s funerals just a few episodes back. Another warning – something my girlfriend Julieta has picked up on and mocked me about – is that I’ve been mentioning a lot lately how many languages I speak. It comes up again here, so I’m going to make a concerted effort in future episodes…to keep doing it. At the end of the day, it took an extortionate amount of time and effort to learn to speak five languages – and it has very little practical use day to day – so I might as well gloat about it on this podcast. That’s what I told her anyway. I hope you enjoy this episode – if you haven’t already, make sure to subscribe – and please leave me some lovely new reviews on the Apple Podcast app – they’ve been drying up the last week or so – tell me where you’re listening to this, and any funny stories relating to the episode or your state of mind. I’ll read the latest ones out at the end. For now, I’m trying to impress Rebecca Sharrock with my best Australian accent. P.S. if you like this episode, you might also like my one with NME music journalist James McMahon, who discusses what it's like to live with crippling OCD. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, I’ve got Lera Boroditsky, Professor of Cognitive Science at UCSD on the show. She’s a really big deal in the languages and cognitive science worlds, having taught at MIT and Stanford. and you can find her Ted Talk here. Her teaching and her research focus on the way we form thought, the way we think, and the way language affects how we think. If any of you have seen the movie Arrival (trailer), you’ll know what I mean – because it’s a great example of how learning the alien language allows you to think different. I won’t spoil it, but the film and it’s original short story by Ted Chiang just blew my mind. Scientists in the real world haven’t encountered anything quite so sci-fi-like – but Dr. Boroditsky has nailed down certain characteristics in the 7,000 languages around the world that make its native speakers think in different ways. For example, she engrained herself with one community where they use cardinal points, so south, west, east and north, instead of left and right. It means they have an internal map of compass points – something we never thought humans had the ability to do. Other examples she’ll talk about include the way we see colour, the way we count and use maths, and the way gender is influenced by language. For example, the French bridge Le Pont is masculine, and they therefore tend to describe it as imposing and strong, while Germans Die Brücke is feminine, so it’s seen as elegant and fragile. While these gender stereotypes might be a little outdated, they give us an insight into the way words can have an effect on meaning. As many of you know, language is one of my biggest passions. I speak five, although I cheat by including English – the others are Spanish, French, German and Portuguese. And one of the things that has fascinated me is how I find myself taking on a new personality with each language. When I’m in a group of French people I become this low-voiced suave, philosophical guy, while in Argentine Spanish, I take on an Italian inflection, and I’m a bit more risqué, I’m singing my words, and that has to change your personality – not only in how you’re perceived by others, but in how you think while communicating in these other languages. I really feel like I become another person, and you can see me using these languages in my work in my showreel. So that’s why I’ve been absolutely fascinated by Dr. Boroditsky’s work, and by a book a recently read by Guy Deutscher, called Through the Language Glass. Dr. Boroditsky talks to me all about those things, and also touches on things like enforced language change – such as gender-neutral pronouns and other social-justice changes – and talks a little about psychopaths that she might just be one. I think she was joking, but there’s some truth in the notion that high-performing people might just be some form of sociopath. If you’re into that, check out my earlier episodes with M.E. Thomas the female Mormon psychopath, and Mary Turner Thomson, whose husband was a psychopath and a bigamist. Please make sure to share this podcast, follow me on andrewgold_ok on Twitter and Instagram – I could do with more followers! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

British comedy-horror animator David Firth is known universally for his Salad Fingers series, and has been putting up short films on his website fat-pie.com for decades. He has worked with the BBC and the likes of David Mitchell among many others. I think Lynchean – in that David Lynch manner – is the most apt word to describe his subtle blend of the creepy, eerie, nightmarish qualities of his cartoons with a very dark sense of humour. Catch him on Twitter and get yourself a Salad Fingers toy for Halloween. Before I forget – this background music is by the late Clara Rockmore on the Theremin instrument, and it ran through David’s Spoilsbury Toast Boy film, which is creepy as hell. This is like a Desert Island Discs of his stuff, as I play a bunch of clips of his best stuff, while he talks about them - all these clips belong to David Firth and the full versions can be found on fat-pie.com. Thanks David for allowing me to play these clips, and I hope it gives newcomers to his work a sense of what we’re dealing with here! I’ll put links to the full episodes of each of the clips I show in my blog on andrewgoldpodcast.com. Also check out his ambient music on Locust Toybox on Spotify – I’ll be using one of his clips for the outro. But now it’s the podcast - we talk about a lot of stuff, including where David gets his ideas, his dreams, his nightmares and his process as well as things like cancel culture and Pete Townsend. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chris Hughes is a hypnotist from Oxfordshire who once hypnotised over a million people across 130 countries at once – online. Check out SocialTrance for that on YouTube for that and type his name – Chris Hughes followed by hypnotist into Google to find his wiki page, Twitter account and official website. Chris has also showcased his modern approach to hypnosis across several BBC channels and other prominent TV stations – and what Chris specialises in is hypnotherapy, which uses hypnosis to help people tweak their subconscious. That is, he’ll cure your phobia of spiders, he’ll help you quit smoking, he’ll help you lose weight. He’s a firm believer that talking is great for talking’s sake and can make you feel better, but hypnosis is the real gem that can cut to the source and sort you out. He has an office on the reputable medical district of Harley Street, and hypnotism is often listed as a potential treatment on the National Health Service website and other dependable sources, so why not? I was also interested in speaking to him to understand a little more about what I’d experienced with exorcism. I performed an exorcism for a BBC 3 documentary a couple years ago in Argentina, and I found that all the patients, if we can call them that, seemed to be cured of their issues. That said, many of them fell back into depression, anxiety and whatever else they were suffering from. I was keen to ask Chris about that, so sent him a link – which you can find on BBC iPlayer or YouTube, just type Andrew Gold exorcism, you’ll find it. We talk about how hypnotism works, how it can help people and the ethics around hypnotists using what they’ve learned on members of the opposite sex, or on their children to get them to do their chores. I also ask what pushed him to get into hypnotism, but inexplicably left that bit until the last question. Links: Chris Hughes https://www.chrishugheshypnotherapy.co.uk/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hughes_(hypnotist) https://twitter.com/hypnotistchris?lang=en https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_j51H1UDcU&list=UUdrZDrCLA2Zsrd6EeOyCLQg&ab_channel=ChrisHughes Andrew Gold https://www.andrewgoldpodcast.com/ https://twitter.com/AndrewGold_ok https://instagram.com/AndrewGold_ok https://www.facebook.com/ontheedgewithandrewgold Exorcism BBC Film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l78hW8qVIWI See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wrestler Rhia O’Reilly is known for her signature move the Rhia-djustment. We chat about broken bones, how wrestling works and Jaffa Cakes, as well as one of the most under-reported social movements: the Speaking Out movement. It’s a bit of a subset of #MeToo, but wrestling was left behind by the media a little, which likes to pick and choose what might be relevant. I didn’t know very much about wrestling, so Rhia helped to fill me in. We also discuss whether or not wrestling is a sport - which has long been a surprisingly controversial debate! Rhiannon Stephanie Docherty was born in 1985 and is from Northern Ireland. She’s been wrestling since 2010 and she also trains other wrestlers, and is a pretty big name in the industry nowadays. Find her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/rdpixie, she’s got a big following and is very active – she’s also big on charity and works at the Big Issue, which is a great British newspaper that helps homeless people to earn an income. For the dark side of Rhia, check out her videos on YouTube. I have far few followers, so if you feel sorry for me, find me on Twitter - https://twitter.com/AndrewGold_ok - or Instagram -https://instagram.com/AndrewGold_ok - or Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ontheedgewithandrewgold - those accounts are where you'll find all the video teasers. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a really fun one. I was fortunate enough to get an interview the illustrious TV historian and presenter, Dr Tessa Dunlop, who, as it happens shares an agent with me, who shall be referred to in this episode as Hilary, because that is her name. She has a passion for all things Romanian, including her husband, who she met when he was 12 – stick around for that story, if nothing else. She often appears on TV chat shows, and she also wrote the Century Girls about 100 year-old-women and the Bletchley Girls, about the women involved in the World War II Codebreakers at Bletchley Park of course. She’s totally risqué, naughty and flirty, but also one of the kindest and funniest people I know. She’s here to discuss her new show Who Is Romania – where she delves into a fascinating history in a really fun and accessible way - you’ll find links to this free show on her Twitter account, @tessadunlop – or Instagram tessa_dunlop (if you’re going on Twitter, give me a follow on andrewgold_ok - or Instagram also andrewgold_ok, I have far fewer followers than Tessa and need your love much more). You’ll also find her series all over her Tessa Dunlop Facebook page, where the videos are getting mad crazy numbers of views, and her YouTube page, funnily enough, also called Tessa Dunlop. Among other things, we bitch about the TV industry, talk inappropriately about woke culture and dive into the nuances of the Meghan versus the Royal Family debate. We also speak abut her time hunting for ghosts in Egypt with the late psychic TV personality Derek Acorah. Next week I’m talking with female Irish professional wrestler Rhia O’Reilly – about some pretty crazy stuff that’s been going on that has been wildly under-reported in the UK and the US. More on that at the end, when I’ll conclude and read out some reviews. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices