Claim OwnershipThe Deeper Pulse with Candice Schutter
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© 2025 The Deeper Pulse with Candice Schutter
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Hi. I'm Candice Schutter. I started this podcast during the pandemic, repackaging personal stories as self-help epiphanies because old habits die hard and turning pain into profit was at the heart of what I had long bought and sold as a new-age grifter. Eventually, I began to look more critically at two decades spent in spirituality and wellness circles. Sharing about those years publicly for the first time (See Episode 33) led me into the world of cult recovery, and I soon after became a wellness cult whistleblower. The Deeper Pulse offers cultural commentary alongside in-real-time recovery as my guests and I grapple with moral injuries in the aftermath of spiritual abuse and the toxic positivity that silenced us. Finally free(ish) from the myopia of self-help 'cult'ure, the pod now focuses primarily on current events, social justice, and ongoing critiques of leadership that disrupt the hierarchical frameworks that live inside and around us.
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Kicking off a new short-form series on reinventing leadership, I sit down with Dr. Suze Wilson, an associate professor at Massey University in New Zealand. She and I discuss the history and significance of critical theory as a tool in understanding and transforming leadership dynamics to foster greater inclusivity and equity. Suze shares a bit about her background and then summarizes her doctoral work on the evolution of leadership theories from trait theory to transformational leadership. Sh...
In the words of Timothy Snyder: “Do not obey in advance.” On October 18th, millions of Americans will gather across the nation to say ‘No’ to authoritarianism. This episode opens with audio from my solo experience at the first No Kings Protest in Downtown Los Angeles back in June. I share excerpts and offer a felt-sense of peaceful resistance and love in action. Then I take a critical look at 'followership' and at how complacency can be another form of compliance. I tell on myself in this reg...
This episode is dedicated to American psychiatrist and author Robert Jay Lifton, who recently passed after decades of research into the psychology of totalism. “Doctrine over person” is one of Lifton’s eight criteria of thought reform; it’s widely considered to be a defining characteristic of the cultic headspace. But how exactly does it function? Meet T Brown. In 1997, T entered a Sufi group as a free-thinking, openly gay man. But he eventually discarded his personal eccentricities, married ...
Risk is relative, and fascism places everything in perspective. As such, this episode puts an end to ‘Org’ aliases (because, why not?) before reiterating the purpose that has been core since the 'cult'ure series inception. It was never about one specific brand or a few bad players. It's about every one of us owning up to our complicity and passive acceptance of cult-capitalistic norms. Did you know that the once-fringe Wellness Industry is now worth more than Big Pharma? So it's no surprise t...
It's time for another encore! Ep.67 (originally released September 20, 2023) — Originally from Chile, Magdalena Weinstein spent the first 17 years of her life living under the rule of an authoritarian dictatorship. In this episode, she shares her childhood experiences, family life, and what motivated her to immigrate to the US in 2004. Magdalena speaks very candidly about the challenges of being in immigrant in America, and about time spent in a series of traumatizing and controlling environm...
“My mouth is a fire escape. The words coming out don't care that they are naked. There is something burning in here.” ~ Andrea Gibson (RIP 🙏🏽💕) It's time I spoke to the 'mean girl' label. It's been tossed around a bit too liberally for my taste, so I've decided to risk the high-road backlash and tell you what I’ve really been thinking and feeling. Am I a mean girl? I'll let you decide. I kick things off with an excerpt from a recent Patreon drop on parasocial influence — the one-sided connect...
This pic you see in the episode thumbnail was taken at an LA photo shoot back in 2002. I’m sharing it now because, in today’s pod release, I include personal stories that challenge the gender binary. And if your brain is suddenly scrambling to try and figure me out, that feeling you have is the entire point of this episode. Rather than jumping to conclusions, I hope you’ll listen in. Today’s release takes a critical look at gender essentialism, the socially reinforced belief in a fixed gender...
Happy Pride month, y’all! Please help me to welcome lifelong activist and Arizona Drag Show organizer, Christopher Jay Hall, to the pod. Earlier this week, Christopher and his father were featured in a CNN article & this episode is a timely follow-up. Listen in as Christopher shares about his upbringing in rural Arizona, and how he & his dad have repaired their relationship in recent years. Despite his dad’s early-on rejection of his queerness, Christopher came out as a teen and fell ...
“Be Like Penny.” If you visit my current hometown of Cottonwood, Arizona, you’ll see these three words displayed around town. Penny Smith was a friend to many and a living example of how everyday citizens can make a meaningful difference in their local communities. She passed away in 2021, but her legacy lives on in the hearts of those who know and love her, and also through The Penny Peace Project. In this episode, I’ll introduce you to Julie Fernatt and Llama Habern, the founders of R...
Nikki G isn’t the type to say “I told you so.” Nevertheless, it was just one year ago when she was on the podcast, walking us through the evangelical vision behind Project 2025 and the looming theocratic dominionism of the far right. Now that the NAR agenda (see Ep.81) is coming to pass, she’s back to regroup. Nikki & I discuss how to maintain sanity and balance under narcissistic rule, what it means to occupy our lane in the resistance, and why an understanding of cult dynamics is such a...
Here's a preview of a bonus drop now streaming on Patreon. It's a peek behind the scenes at where we'll be heading next, with a critical examination of leadership that's likely to push some buttons. If you want to listen to the whole episode, you can access it via a 7-day free trial at patreon.com/thedeeperpulse. Sliding-scale membership starts at just $5 per month. Subscription fees keep the main feed of this pod ad-free. I'll be back here on the main feed in May. You can also find me ...
Time for another encore! Ep.80 is even more relevant now than when I recorded it one year ago. And in the newly updated intro, I share audio from Saturday's Hands Off Protest in Flagstaff, Arizona - one of over 1400 protests around the globe where over 5 million individuals said aw-hell-no to the Trump regime's patriarchal power flex. Daddy issues are alive in the zeitgeist right now and, like it or not, they are shaping our collective responses (or lack thereof). This episode takes a closer ...
I'm doing a lot of deep breathing lately, and I know I’m not alone. A helluva lot of Americans are feeling overwhelmed, discouraged, and preoccupied by a single question: What can I possibly do in response to a billionaire-funded fascist coup? Long-time friend of the pod, Susan McCulley, is here to help us find a few answers to that question. No, she's not a seasoned activist or recognizable political figure; she's an everyday citizen like me. And in November 2024, she and her friends i...
I’m just gonna leave this right here. It's an encore presentation of an episode I dropped almost two years ago. Ep.59 is ripe for a reboot because fascism has come for America, and much of what I speak to here has become an everyday norm. I’ve re-recorded the intro to reflect our current reality, and I hope you listen to the end, where I take a closer look at tone policing and why it works to silence us. (Spoiler: knowledge can help us to beat them at their own game.) Ep.59 (original release ...
I'm back. Because silence isn't an option right now. In this episode, I share how graduate study / critical inquiry into leadership and social psychology is helping me make sense of an upside-down world. Groupthink, aka hive mind, isn't just a 'culty' thing. Conformity happens everywhere along the political spectrum. I speak to how unspoken "display rules" keep us from speaking up, then make the argument that Democratic leaders in Washington desperately need to ditch cultural etiquette in ord...
Candice is back on the main feed with a final #gotv reminder and a deep-dive into this thing we call 'hope' - what is it, really? She shares about her pre-election anxiety and how she's actualizing hope in the face of so muchness. Various definitions of hope are offered, then she digs into the groundbreaking work of her late mentor, C.R. Snyder, 'the hope guy', sharing what she learned in the late '90s torturing freshmen in his research lab at The University of Kansas. What's the real-deal di...
The main feed of the pod is on hold indefinitely, but solo episodes continue rolling out over on Patreon. In this one-off drop, Candice offers a summary of recent content, sharing why she's taking sides in the upcoming U.S. general election and offering perspective re: the cognitive dissonance that reluctant-yet-resigned MAGA voters are likely experiencing in the final weeks leading up to Nov 5th. And then, politics aside, you'll hear last week's unscripted drop from over on Patreon, where s...
Right around the time Candice was puzzling over how to wrap the 'cult'ure series, regular contributor Tracy Stamper reached out to ask: Hey, Can I Q Her A? The result is the series finale where Candice responds to a long list of listener questions like: What's it been like carrying on in the face of backlash? How has this project been impactful on a personal level? Were there any unexpected surprises? And what's next? Also: Tracy offers up a somewhat surprising personal revelation. Candice sp...
Candice is proud to welcome New York Magazine's Cover Story: Power Trip producers Lily Kay Ross & David Nickles to the pod. Lily & Dave share about the behind the scenes events that led to the 2021 launch of their investigative podcast series and about the backlash they’ve experience researching and reporting on abuse in psychedelic communities. Topics touched upon in this episode include: how trauma shapes our experience of psychedelics, the way in which harm mitigation is often perc...
Welcome to the second half of a two-part exposé on the NAR movement in America. Candice continues her conversation with former insider, Nikki G, who shares more about the strategic aims of this belief system and how dominion theology has long been carving out a space in US politics. They touch a bit more on the Heritage Foundation’s presidential playbook (Project 2025), specifically its focus on unitary executive theory; in other words, the doing-away with checks and balances. Then Nikki cour...
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Candice sells herself as the queen of nuance and cult recovery, as she jumped from cult to cult, only to create her own cult of moral high ground on repeat. She condemns clichés while spitting her own, rails against capitalism and extremism while waging her own culture war with a Patreon plug. She calls it “nuance” while flattening everyone into boxes. Less podcast with different perspectives, more woke vomit monologue with the hypocrite-in-chief.