Worldwide
Season One, Worldwide: The Unchosen Church, shares first-hand accounts of growing up inside of a doomsday apocalyptic cult called The Worldwide Church of God. It's a series about the costs and rewards of high-demand religious group, dispels many of the myths about what types of people join cults, and showcases the beauty, comedy, and tragedy of life inside Herbert W. Armstrong's WCG.
Season Two of Worldwide travels to Southeast Asia to explore one of the most captivating, unsolved mysteries of the 20th century: the disappearance of Jim Thompson, the Thai silk king. Join us as we delve deep into the extraordinary life of Thompson and the fateful weekend when he vanished without a trace, leaving behind a perplexing mystery that has confounded investigators, armchair detectives, and conspiracy theorists alike. Through research, expert interviews, and compelling storytelling, we piece together the fragments of evidence to explore the most popular theories about what happened to Jim and shed light on the newest developments in the case.
Worldwide
Ep. 2.2. Peter Hurkos and The Dangers of Psychic Detectives: An Interview with D.J. Grothe (Worldwide: The Disappearance of the Thai Silk King)
When the police fail to turn up leads in missing persons cases, families sometimes get desperate and ask psychic detectives to “help.” In the case of Jim Thompson, his sister, Eleanor, hired the world’s most famous psychic celebrity at the time – Peter Hurkos – to locate her brother when the police could not. But psychic detectives are rarely helpful, and we sit down with professional skeptic and former psychic entertainer, D.J. Grothe, to discuss the dangers of psychic detectives and the tactics they employ to convince grieving people to depart with their money.
Information for this series was taken from William Warren's book, Jim Thompson: The Unsolved Mystery (1999); Joshua Kurlantzick's book, The Ideal Man: The Tragedy of Jim Thompson and the American Way of War (2012); and a variety of popular newspaper and magazine articles about the Thompson case.
Have little podcast listeners and want to discover another podcast from Thirteen Media? Check out ABC Story Sisters, a story time podcast bringing classic children's literature to life for kids, and kids at heart! Worldwide listeners will recognize a familiar voice as one of season five's special guests!
