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On this special episode, Melissa explores the phenomenon of outlier religious or alternative followings \u2013 otherwise known as cults.\xa0\xa0At the center of this fascinating discussion, Melissa focuses on the still-operating community known as\xa0 Buddhafield \u2013 currently situated in Hawaii.\xa0 The cult is the subject of the 2016 documentary \u201cHoly Hell,\u201d which was made by former cult member Will Allen, with footage taken mostly from his years as the Buddahfield\u2019s official documentarian.\xa0\xa0Started in the 1980s by an out-of-work actor named Jaime Gomez (who soon thereafter changed his name to \u201cMichel, Andreas, The Teacher or Reyji\u201d) as a sort of hybrid of Eastern and Western new age philosophies, Buddhafield attracted kindred souls in the often-vacuous and lonely landscape of West Hollywood.\xa0\xa0Gomez\u2019 followers tended to be young and beautiful \u2013 encouraged to wear as little clothing as possible (the leader himself was known for years to wear nothing but a speedo) and to remain celibate.\xa0 Which, it turns out, is a difficult thing to hold onto if you\u2019re half-naked, young and beautiful and surrounded by nothing but other half-naked young and beautiful people.\xa0 So ridiculous was the hypocrisy that cult members began to refer Buddhafield as \u201cBootiefield.\u201d\xa0\xa0But there were darker aspects to life within the cult \u2013 as his cult grew, Gomez gradually began to consider himself God incarnate.\xa0 His followers became servants \u2013 opening every door, carrying chairs on their backs so he could sit whenever he pleased.\xa0\xa0But even darker were the allegations from former members of emotional and sexual abuse by \u201cThe Teacher,\u201d allegations which were consistently denied by Gomez and remaining cult members alike.\xa0\xa0In the meantime, the lighthearted, freewheeling spirit that had attracted so many to him began to drain from the cult leader as he became more of a shadow of a person and only a shell of a man.\xa0 As she discusses the incredibly compelling history of Buddhafield, its move from California to Texas and then finally to Hawaii (where it still exists as a much smaller, but still devoted, cult), Melissa explores her own relationships with current and former members of alternative spiritual compulsions (i.e. cults) as well as age-old questions as to what attracts (almost always) educated, intelligent and creative people to the prison of cult life.