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Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
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The Joe Rogan experience.
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Join my day Joe Rogan podcast by night or day.
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So thanks for coming in, Michelle.
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Thanks, Joe, for having me.
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My pleasure.
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I love your man cave.
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Oh, thank you.
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I really do.
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It s awesome.
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Yeah, it s fun.
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So when I heard your story, I was like, this sounds completely insane.
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And just to fill people in, just explain what happened.
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Well, I was born into a cult, a high control group that I didn t know to call a cult because, you know, I was born there.
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You re a child.
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That was my whole experience.
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My grandfather started in 1931, so my mother was also born into the cult in the 1940s.
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My dad was, let s just say he was 12 when he first met my grandfather, who would later become his father-in-law, and my grandfather became his father figure.
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So my mom was married off to this man who was a follower of her father, and I am the second child of their union.
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Wow.
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Where did all this take place?
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So this took place, he originally started it near L.A.
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in Pasadena, which most people know because of the Rose Parade and other things like that.
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When he first started it, it started, my understanding is he was a Boy Scout leader, and he was an orphan, he had come from Oklahoma when he was a young man, and the Boy Scouts didn t allow him to have as much control as he wanted to have over the boys.
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Oh boy.
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Yeah, which is a lot of control.
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So he left the Boy Scouts and he took the boys with him and some of the boys from his original troop in 1931 stayed with him past his death.
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One of the first boys took over after him in the late 1980s.
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Wow.
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The early 1980s actually.
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Yeah, so he was really good at getting followers.
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What was his background?
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What did he do before he did all this?
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Nothing.
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Nothing.
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I don t think he graduated from high school.
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I don t know that for sure.
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He lied about everything.
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And he said he had a PhD from Stanford later.
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It wasn t until I got to college.
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I m not even 100% sure he knew how to read, to be quite honest.
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Really?
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He came from a family where he was the only child that lived out of his particular mother who was married to a man.
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It was a second marriage and his first wife had died and then, you know, he had a bunch of kids or whatever.
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So he had a bunch of half siblings but no full siblings.
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And apparently, now this could be lore too, they kind of excommunicated him.
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He compared himself to Joseph.
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you know, like, of the multicolored clothing and everything.
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So he was, like, put down a well, he liked to say, and he escaped and he came to L.A.
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in the height of, I don t know, the silent films, things like that.
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He said he was in silent films.
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There s no chance that is true, but he said he was, and he got some sort of, probably, church education when he got here, and he declared to everyone he was the prophet of God, he was gonna live 500 years, and he was going to lead the army of God in the second coming.
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That s your grandpa.
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That s my grandpa.
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It certainly is.
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Oh my God.
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Wow.
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Yeah.
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You can t pick your grandpa.
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No, you can t.
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No.
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But it was a male organization for a very long time.
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It was all men.
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And it wasn t until- All men?
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All men.
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It was all men.
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It was from 1931 to 1966 when my mom married my father.
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No one was allowed to get married there.
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And they were all presumably celibate.
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And it was just men.
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Oh my god.
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Presumably.
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Presumably.
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It s like prison.
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They re gay for the stay.
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Absolutely.
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So I was raised by a bunch of older men who had never been with a woman.
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Oh my god.
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You can see how well that ended.
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But he didn t want his daughter to be an old maid and she was getting older.
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She was 24 by the time he married her off to my dad.
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At that point, I think the women, like his wife said, you know, it was just their fourth child.
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They had three boys first.
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And so this was his first daughter.
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And he decided that since the world had not yet ended, that maybe he should marry her off before she either became an old maid or maybe a loose woman, who knows?
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When did he think the world was going to end?
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Well, he used to prophesy 1977.
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Want some more fire?
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Sure, I d love some fire.
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I ll keep this over here if you want.
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It s easy to use.
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Thank you.
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Where I come from, this is a grave sin, by the way.
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Oh, a woman smoking a cigar or anyone?
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Anyone smoking a cigar.
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Anyone?
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Are you allowed to drink coffee?
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Yes.
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What was the rules?
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Well, coffee s interesting because I don t know that they said out loud you could drink coffee, but I don t remember it being forbidden.
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That the body is the temple of God and that there s no marking your body with ink, no piercing your ear.
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I have a lot of ink myself, wasn t sure if I should show it off.
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No piercing the ears.
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Right, no piercing the ears.
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What about makeup?
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No makeup when I was young.
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They also unusually cut off women s hair, at least during the era that I was there.
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Cut it off like a boy s hair?
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Yes.
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My mom had the exact same haircut since she got married until she died.
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The exact same haircut.
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She died in 2022.
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Yeah, so just a lot of the femininity was considered a temptation to the boys and since it was supposed to be.
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They thought it was better to, you know, burn in hell than to lust after a woman.
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And they quoted some stuff from Paul, you know, in the Apostles and the Epistles and that basically you could get married as opposed to lust.
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And so eventually in the 1960s, they allowed their first wedding.
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Which is 35 years, think about that.
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35 years of celibacy.
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Of all, yeah, just a bunch of dudes.
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Wow.
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It is just absolutely fascinating to me how some people develop these groups, and how they do it, and what the characteristics of the leaders are.
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It s so weird.
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There s a place out here called the One World Theater, and it used to be owned by a cult that there s a documentary on called Holy Hell.
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And this guy had started a cult in Los Angeles.
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He was a yoga teacher, but he was also a gay porn star and a hypnotist.
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That s a nice combo.
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It s a great combo for a documentary.
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The documentary is incredible.
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You watch the documentary, you re like, what the hell?
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And he was running from the cult awareness network, so he changed his name.
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His original name was Jaime Gomez.
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He changed his name.
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I forget what it was.
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He had like two different names So I think one was Michelle and there was another one So and then he came out here to Austin because right after Waco they were kind of cracking down on cults and they were trying to find Yeah, so they re like we got to go So the cult awareness network was on to him because also family members were calling in a we lost our children They re with this guy
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And he s crazy and, you know, they ve got the people in the woods in L.A.
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And so he moved out to Austin and had his followers build him this theater where he could dance in front of them.
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Yeah.
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And so there s answer.
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It was like he was a very handsome guy and he was very charismatic and he was like ripped.
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He was a yoga instructor at a six pack.
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He s beautiful man.
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And I think he and he also was a kind of exotic looking.
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So he had this like guru thing going on you know.
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And then he was also a hypnotist.
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So he s like really good at manipulating people s consciousness.
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And that might be a criteria for being a cult leader by the way that charismatic.
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maybe a form of hypnotist.
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You have to be able to manipulate consciousness.
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Because if people, at least your top leaders have to be indoctrinated.
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If they are not, I mean some people call it brainwashing, you can call it what you want, but you have to have people who worship you.
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It doesn t work unless you do.
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Of course.
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I think we have a very narrow idea of what hypnotism is because of the term.
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I think the term – you lock on the term like, oh, I want to quit smoking.
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I ll go to a hypnotist and they sit here and the clock tick-tock, tick-tock.
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But I think there s like states of mind-melding that happen with people where you all get sort of locked into a state of consciousness and I think it happens in riots.
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Definitely.
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You know what I m saying?
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Like the madness of the crowds.
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There s something real about that.
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If you ve ever been in a chaotic public environment where like fights break out or something like that, there s a very strange feeling in the air that leads people to do things that they would never do before.
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People that would never pick up a shopping cart and throw it through a Starbucks window will do that now.
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It s like everybody just loses their fucking mind.
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And I think it happens in concerts when people are like jamming out together, you all get in the same like mind frequency.
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And I think a really good cult leader does that too.
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I think they get these people and they lock them into this way of thinking.
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And we re, you know, we don t want to call it hypnotism.
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But I think there s a lot of
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states that are very similar to hypnotism in that something happens where you enter into an altered state of consciousness that s probably accessible somehow or another, but you don t know how to get there.
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But then this song brings you there or this person brings you there with their talk about the impending apocalypse and we re all locked in, you know, and it gives people like a sense of belonging and purpose that you re locked into this frequency that everybody else in the room is locked into.
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It s very comforting.
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I mean, there are a lot of things about a cult that are very comforting.
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Yeah.
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I think that s the positive benefit of religion.
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Absolutely.
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It s like this thing comforts you.
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Some of them s got to be wrong.
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Some of them s got to be wrong.
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Or if you have 100 different ones, and they re all different gods and different people, somebody s got to be wrong.
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But the one common denominator that they share is that if you do believe in these things, it seems to aid you in life.
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People seem to be happier.
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They seem to have more of a sense of purpose.
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They don t feel lost.
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You know, like some of the least happy people I know are atheists.
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And I have a joke about it where I say, you re really dumb for not believing in stupid shit.
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Because if you believed in stupid shit, if you believed in dumb shit, you d be happier.
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That would be a smarter move.
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Because it s kind of true.
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And I think that s what s so fascinating to me about these cults is how they do it, how they lock people in.
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I mean, I m sure because of your experience, you ve probably seen a few of these documentaries, right?
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I definitely have.
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And, you know, when I watched the reenactment of the Waco one, which is not the documentary, but did you watch the one that came out maybe five years ago?
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No, no.
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But they showed, you know, the children and how they didn t want to leave, you know, and just how difficult.
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There was a child psychologist who worked with them afterwards, and I was very interested in that.
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it takes a long time to undo the level of, I mean, it s one thing to have a faith, right?
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Like, believing in, you can call it stupid shit, but whatever you believe in, it s one thing to have a faith, but to not have the ability to think for yourself, and that to be trained out of you.
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So I went to lunch a couple days ago with someone I hadn t seen since I was three, and he, so a lot of fellow, former FIELD members have come out of the woodwork since this book came out.
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We should tell everybody, FIELD is the name of the group.
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Yes, we call ourselves the Fields.
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And one of these former members, who I won t name, I hadn t seen, I didn t recognize him at all.
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I just hadn t seen him since I was a little kid.
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But several of them have come out who knew my parents and, of course, knew my grandfather before I was born, and then maybe knew me when I was a little teeny girl, and they have lots of stories.
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Anyway, he was on one of these things we called the trip, with a capital T. And what we did on the trip, I mean, there were different things in different years, but this one was in the early 1970s.
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And he was, you know, doing all the things you do on the trip.
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But one thing they required, which my father required of us at home too, is to run every morning.
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First thing in the morning, which you can say there s some good things about this, but you slept together in tents and then you d get up and you d run and you d have to beat your time.
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And my father used to time us as a kid.
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So like I had to beat my time every day, which is really hard to do, of course, because at some point, you re not gonna be able to beat your time, right?
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Like you can t always get better.
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But at this point, he was 19.
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And he was beating the time he said in that time was it in relation to the fastest runner.
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And so if the fastest guy was going really fast, you had to keep the same ratio of distance.
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So anyway, he didn t make his time.
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There were three guys who didn t make their time, and they had to go through the SWAT machine.
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So my grandpa often made boys go through the SWAT machine.
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And the simple version, which was done at the actual location of the field, was you d crawl through the other boys or men s legs, and every boy would spank you.
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I know, I know.
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We won t even get into all the things, you can think about that.
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But there was a different version that was only done when the boys were separated from their parents.
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And so when they would go on these trips, and my dad was the original driver, he started driving by the time he was 18, he was driving all around the country taking
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my grandfather s boys.
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So again, my father was not his son.
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He was just some dude like, you know, joined this cult.
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And my father would drive these boys around and he would time them when they ran and did all those things.
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And so in this particular case, they did SWAT machine where you have to hold on to a fence pole and you face the fence and then all the guys come and they hit you.
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So they re not just spanking you, but they re hitting you.
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And so he s getting kidney punches and all this stuff.
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And he was saying he fell to his knees and he was he was he almost died.
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He was so bruised up and and he
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He did not want anyone to know this story.
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He hasn t spoken of it because he s so shamed that potentially someone might think, why didn t you fight back?
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And of course, I said, but you were trained.
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You were trained that you deserved this.
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And then apparently one of my uncles was really worried, wanted to take him to the hospital, but couldn t or didn t because they had no insurance.
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And this young man, who s no longer a young man, said that he could never tell his parents.
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And he never to this day ever told his parents or anyone.
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He and his brother have never spoken of their time in the fields.
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It is like this big taboo.
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He got out maybe a year later, but he was
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I mean, that was only one of many, many, many stories he told me, but that one just really struck me to feel ashamed of that.
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I guess for many years, I too did not tell people where I came from because you feel like you must have done something weak to be a follower.
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And that s just not true.
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I mean, if someone gets a hold of you as a child, they can program you to think almost anything, especially if they re good at it.
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Yeah, unquestionably.
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I mean, that s why they have child suicide bombers.
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Yes.
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Yeah, I mean, you can trick children.
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It s understandable, though, that you would think somehow or another that other people would think that it s your fault.
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Or ignorant people would think, why didn t you know?
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Why didn t you leave?
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Or people that never really thought about it, never thought it through because they haven t had to.
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Right.
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The friends I went out with, I mean, I m calling them friends now, but I hadn t seen them since I was a little girl.
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They were saying, I would have, of course you would drink the Kool-Aid, and when people use that expression, I would have been first in line, I would have signed up for that.
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I mean that s, we all would have, and I mean that, and I was born there and indoctrinated, and I would have completely taken anything that my grandfather or my parents told me was going to kill me.
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I would have, you know, I would have felt that that was going to take me to heaven quicker, and everyone I knew would have done that.
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And the reason you don t hear about a lot of cults, by the way, is because they didn t end up in flames or mass suicide.
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But that doesn t mean that they didn t prey on, you know, dozens, sometimes hundreds or even thousands of people, depending on the cult.
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I was talking to Marc Andreessen and he was explaining to me that there s still many, many active cults in California.
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Absolutely.
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And I was like, what?
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Like, right now?
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Like, people know about them?
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Oh, yeah, they re successful.
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Like, there s some successful cults.
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Mm-hmm.
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Yeah, when I first- Is the field still around?
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The field s still around.
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I ve been told it is a completely different organization, and I m not going to vouch one way or the other.
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They certainly don t have a charismatic leader like my grandfather once he died, and his replacement was there.
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And then once he died, I think it s become ... It has not become secular.
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It s a very strong religious organization, but they don t have the control they used to.
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Because when we were young, we didn t have social security numbers.
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There was no way to track things.
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And now, you know.
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It s hard to get away with.
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You have to pay taxes.
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Yes, they do pay taxes.
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And there was a sexual abuse case that was actually prosecuted.
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And I think after that, which I think was 2006, I think that they had to really clean up a lot of their practices.
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When I m hearing these stories about these boys and the abuse, that s what I m thinking about.
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If there s a bunch of boys and no one s allowed to get married, that s not a good recipe.
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No, it s not.
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And the particular one that got prosecuted was a young leader who was abusing 11 and 12-year-old boys sexually.
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I say out loud, I said this to my mom, I said, Mom, isn t it curious that no one s ever prosecuted anyone for what they did to girls?
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And I was a sexual abuse victim there, and it was something I was so ashamed of for so long.
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But there s other forms of abuse that go on.
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I mean, there s obviously physical abuse, but there s a lot of psychological abuse.
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There s a lot of ways that it gets inside of you that you re worthless and that you can t trust yourself.
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And you can t even trust yourself with your own stories.
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And I have a slightly younger brother who adores you, by the way.
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Thomas, what s up?
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What s his name?
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His name s Michael.
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What s up, Michael?
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Yeah.
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He, I love him to death.
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And he was raised, you know, we were all raised collectively, but we were also raised separate from each other.
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And my biological siblings, we all had different experiences because they don t let you bond.
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They don t, they don t want my sister who s just a little bit younger.
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She and I, we loved each other deeply, but we weren t allowed to speak to each other sometimes for weeks or months at a time.
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And they were just strongly against you forming what they would call allies.
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They didn t want friendships that could turn into anything that would be a little bit,
1
SPEAKER_00
Hmm probably Coltie, but no like anything that would form a Click they used to call it right any other groups where there another person could be in control, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
Or they could discuss who s in control.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yes
2
SPEAKER_00
Or any loyalty to anyone else other than the primary leader?
2
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of ways that this that you can indoctrinate people and make them police themselves.
2
SPEAKER_01
Mm-hmm.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yeah, that s what North Korea does Yeah, North Korea gets everybody to rat on everybody else.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah, that was huge where I come from I have um, I felt like it was a huge compliment one of the former members came out of the woodworks after this and and
2
SPEAKER_00
He said, you know, I knew that you would never rat us out.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I was like, man, that s so great.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I mean, it was something we were all taught so, so, so deeply.
2
SPEAKER_01
That, yeah, you have to, no matter if this is your brother or your sister or your mom, you have to tell on them.
2
SPEAKER_00
You have to.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because you re worse.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that just keeps everybody scared all the time.
2
SPEAKER_00
You never trust anyone.
2
SPEAKER_01
God that s so it s so insidious and yet also brilliant like it s evil it s evil but it s how did he figure out how to do it that s it s crazy and how is he able to pull it off that s what s always so fascinating to me that
2
SPEAKER_01
It s not like children.
2
SPEAKER_01
With children, it just makes 100% sense.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re raised there, you think this is reality, and you think that the world outside reality is all a bunch of evil demons or whatever it is.
2
SPEAKER_01
But if you re an adult, like you re a grown adult, 34-year-old man, and you meet this dude at the auto repair shop, and he hands you a pamphlet, and the next thing you know, you re on a farm somewhere.
2
SPEAKER_01
How do those people
2
SPEAKER_00
So I can t vouch to that.
2
SPEAKER_00
I will say that the unusual thing about the field is you have to join as a child.
2
SPEAKER_00
There are no adults who join.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s kind of like a pyramid scheme.
2
SPEAKER_00
Most people join when they re five or six, and they are indoctrinated, and then they play sports.
2
SPEAKER_00
So for example, they play tackle football at age five, and so they teach everyone how to, you know,
2
SPEAKER_00
play game, but it s only the people who are really good at the game that they continue to court, I would say.
2
SPEAKER_00
You could call them groom, whatever.
2
SPEAKER_00
But there s a lot more kids there than will ever get into the inner circles.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s a little like the mob or something.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was born in the inner circle, but there are plenty of people who came out of that cult who honestly weren t harmed by it because they got out young.
2
SPEAKER_00
So as long as you get out by the age of 12, you re probably okay.
2
SPEAKER_00
But they don t keep you unless you re really fully indoctrinated.
2
SPEAKER_00
And most of the people who stay really don t have a family to go back to.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they separate you from your family.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so they do more and more separation as you become a teenager.
2
SPEAKER_00
By the time you re 18, you re signing a commitment for life form.
2
SPEAKER_01
Jesus.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I m not saying that s happening now, but that was 100% happened not just during my era, but all the decades prior to me.
2
SPEAKER_01
So it s not just a cult, but it s got a sort of a meritocracy built into it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but I think a lot of cults have that.
2
SPEAKER_01
Really?
2
SPEAKER_01
I think so.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, you have to have something to strive for.
2
SPEAKER_01
But they kick people out that don t line up enough?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so cults in general kick people out.
2
SPEAKER_00
In fact, they want you to believe that staying is hard and that you have to work hard to stay.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think the misconception is that they re trying to get you in.
2
SPEAKER_00
Sure, they re seducing you in some way.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s some sort of calling card, whether it s a pamphlet or something else, but once you re there, do I have what?
2
SPEAKER_01
I know I said yoga class.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s what that guy did.
2
SPEAKER_00
Dancing, you know.
2
SPEAKER_00
But whatever brings you in.
2
SPEAKER_00
But then after that, it s like you re the strong one.
2
SPEAKER_00
You re the special one for choosing to stay.
2
SPEAKER_00
In this particular cult, they always would say, there s 20 of you in this room.
2
SPEAKER_00
19 of you will fall away.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s only one of you who will make it into the army of God.
2
SPEAKER_01
Geez, it s like the Navy Seals of cults.
2
SPEAKER_00
It kind of is.
2
SPEAKER_00
And there is a lot of physical, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
They only want the best of the best.
2
SPEAKER_01
So if you re a child and you re in, I mean, first of all,
2
SPEAKER_01
How could anybody ever expect a child who gets indoctrinated into that to know the difference?
2
SPEAKER_01
If that s your reality and that s what you grow up with, how could you possibly know?
2
SPEAKER_01
What year are we talking about when you were like eight years old?
2
SPEAKER_00
That would have been the early, late 70s.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so nobody knows what the hell s going on.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, absolutely not.
2
SPEAKER_00
Even in the world.
2
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
2
SPEAKER_01
The whole thing s a big foggy haze.
2
SPEAKER_01
There s no internet.
2
SPEAKER_01
The world s, we have like one-tenth of access to information that we do today.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, less probably.
2
SPEAKER_01
And you re also a child and you think that this is reality.
2
SPEAKER_00
And parents were used to their kids being gone all the time.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think that that was not something unusual.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because one thing I hear for kids who went there, people say, well, how did your parents allow that?
2
SPEAKER_00
And I mean, parents like they sent them off to the sports place and then their kid got really into it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then at some point, their kid became a teenager and didn t want to come home anymore.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I mean, they re like, well, I don t think my kid s doing drugs or I don t think that they re like in prison.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it seems like they re doing pretty well.
2
SPEAKER_01
But also seems like societally there was a shift at some point in time where what was the year where more women entered the workforce and more women started getting jobs?
2
SPEAKER_00
So that happened in the 70s.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think 1973 might have been like one of those.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean obviously it was starting to happen in the 60s but there was a lot of women at home in the 60s.
2
SPEAKER_00
Around 1973 to 1979 you had a huge exodus of women out of the home.
2
SPEAKER_00
The women I come from, I mean, like my grandmother who had my father who joined this cult, she was always a working woman, minimum wage working woman.
2
SPEAKER_00
She didn t have more than eighth grade education.
2
SPEAKER_00
She worked because her father, excuse me, my dad s father, her husband, had been in World War II and got pretty severe PTSD or whatever, was an alcoholic, and beat her.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so she ran away from him.
2
SPEAKER_00
She just had one child, which was my father.
2
SPEAKER_00
She was living in a chicken coop near LA just with this one son, and she was the first woman to get hired in a factory.
2
SPEAKER_00
But this was in the 1940s.
2
SPEAKER_00
So there were always women, of course, and lots of women of color who were working, but it wasn t the middle class women who were working.
2
SPEAKER_00
But the poor women were always working.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m just thinking like latchkey kids at that point back then.
2
SPEAKER_00
70s and even 80s.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah it was totally common.
2
SPEAKER_01
All my friends we just got let out of the house and were kids.
2
SPEAKER_01
You just got on the bus went to school walked home from school rode the bus hung out with your friends.
2
SPEAKER_01
Nobody knew where you were.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right, so you could have been in a cult and your parents would have not necessarily known.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think I would have told them.
2
SPEAKER_01
But I could have got sucked into one.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s the point.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s like everybody looks at themselves as who they are today.
2
SPEAKER_01
So if you re a 35 year old man and you re listening to this today, you re like, I wouldn t get sucked into that.
2
SPEAKER_01
That you can t say that because you re not a five-year-old boy.
2
SPEAKER_01
If you re a five-year-old boy You don t know what the fuck is going on.
2
SPEAKER_01
You re a child by the time you re 18 You sort of get a you know, especially if you re a little street wise like alright, some people are shady I know what the fuck s going on.
2
SPEAKER_01
Listen to this guy s trying to rope me in I remember there was this Christian group when I was in college that was trying to indoctrinate people and they were they they were like young good-looking people and
2
SPEAKER_01
And there was this beautiful Puerto Rican girl, and she was always trying to get me to go to parties with her.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, wow, did I hit that jackpot?
2
SPEAKER_01
Eventually, I m going to get a date with this girl.
2
SPEAKER_01
This is amazing.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was probably 1920, I guess, 20, 21 maybe.
2
SPEAKER_01
One day, she invites me to go to this retreat on the weekend.
2
SPEAKER_01
They have some crazy Christian retreat.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I m like, oh my God, a retreat?
2
SPEAKER_01
She s not telling me it s a Christian retreat.
2
SPEAKER_01
She s telling me it s like this fun party and this whole thing.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I said, I can t.
2
SPEAKER_01
I have plans this weekend.
2
SPEAKER_01
I go, but if you guys ever do another one of those things, that sounds like fun.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so Monday morning or whatever the day was, I m in school and we re all in the cafeteria.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it was the day that Trump s airplane, the landing gear failed to open.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so we all sit down at the lunch table and I had just seen it on the news.
2
SPEAKER_01
I said, did you see this thing on the news about the plane?
2
SPEAKER_01
It s crazy.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like the landing gear didn t didn t go out.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so the plane just on the belly of the plane skid across the runway.
2
SPEAKER_01
And there s all these crazy sparks.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I go, but nobody died.
2
SPEAKER_01
And they go, oh, praise God.
2
SPEAKER_01
Praise God.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, what?
2
SPEAKER_01
Like, what s going on here?
2
SPEAKER_01
This super hot Puerto Rican girl s like, oh, praise God.
2
SPEAKER_01
They re all, praise God, praise God.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I m like, oh.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then it just immediately clicked.
2
SPEAKER_01
You dummy.
2
SPEAKER_01
They were trying to get you to go to their church thing.
2
SPEAKER_01
You thought she liked you.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then they started talking to me more about God.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then I was like, oh, I gotta go.
2
SPEAKER_01
I gotta go to class.
2
SPEAKER_01
I gotta get out of here.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m like, fuck.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you didn t get that date?
2
SPEAKER_01
No, no, I avoided them.
2
SPEAKER_01
They were in my Italian class.
2
SPEAKER_01
And they were learning how to speak Italian.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I avoided them.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was like, I can t.
2
SPEAKER_01
I can t be involved in this.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because they were all glossy.
2
SPEAKER_01
They were all believers.
2
SPEAKER_01
This is not saying that God s not real.
2
SPEAKER_01
This is not saying that Christianity is not true.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s not what I m saying.
2
SPEAKER_01
What I m saying is, you could have got those people with Scientology.
2
SPEAKER_01
You could have got those people with Mormonism.
2
SPEAKER_01
You could have got those people with the Moonies.
2
SPEAKER_01
Whatever.
2
SPEAKER_01
They were just looking for a thing that they could attach themselves to and then formulate their identity based around this thing.
2
SPEAKER_01
And for them, it was Christianity.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it was this, like, youthful form of Christianity where they re trying to get young people.
2
SPEAKER_01
They re making it like retreats.
2
SPEAKER_01
We re going to have, we re going to party.
2
SPEAKER_01
And they were all socially odd.
2
SPEAKER_01
They were all white.
3
SPEAKER_01
real awkward people.
3
SPEAKER_01
It was very interesting, though, to me.
3
SPEAKER_01
The person is always curious about human beings.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was like, this is wild.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m hanging around them.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, I think in high-control groups, they do tend to, obviously, cater to the young.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, they re soliciting the young.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I want to be clear, too.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m not anti-religion.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think high-control groups slash cults are a whole different experience.
3
SPEAKER_00
And yes, they use religion, but they don t teach you to have faith and to trust yourself and your faith.
3
SPEAKER_00
They teach you to follow someone else s faith.
3
SPEAKER_01
I used to have a joke about what s the difference between a cult and a religion.
3
SPEAKER_01
Where a cult is created by one guy and he knows it s bullshit.
3
SPEAKER_01
In a religion, that guy s dead.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
And all the other people, all the other people that this fucking dude 2,000 years ago convinced.
3
SPEAKER_01
But some religions are really beneficial and they might, in fact, be based on some kind of true story.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think it s a game of telephone.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s what I think.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think if you tell me a story and I tell Jamie the story and then Jamie tells someone out in the lobby a story, by the time it gets to me all the way again, it s going to be screwed up, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
Now imagine this over thousands of years of just oral tradition and then writing in lost languages like
3
SPEAKER_01
ancient Hebrew, they wrote them in Aramaic on animal skins, some of these stories like the Dead Sea Scrolls, and then they eventually translate them to Latin and to Greek and to Roman and to English and to German.
3
SPEAKER_01
What?
3
SPEAKER_01
Lost in translation.
3
SPEAKER_01
Also, what did they know?
3
SPEAKER_01
How much did they know?
3
SPEAKER_01
They had some ideas of the formation of the universe, the beginning there was light.
3
SPEAKER_01
Sounds a lot like the Big Bang.
3
SPEAKER_01
Sounds a lot like if you would tell the Big Bang to your kids and your kids would tell it to their kids, and you re going to do this for a thousand years.
3
SPEAKER_01
At the end of it, you re going to get some real... People are gross.
3
SPEAKER_01
They always like to twist things around and make things... They add their own little spice to a story.
3
SPEAKER_01
If you ever have a friend that tells a story, you re like, hey bro, that didn t happen that way.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like, you didn t say that.
3
SPEAKER_01
You fucking ran for cover.
3
SPEAKER_01
Everybody s got their own version of a story.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we all embellish.
3
SPEAKER_01
If you ve got oral traditions, 100% for sure, you re going to have a lot of that, especially when you have high control groups, like your grandfather.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you think about the translations too, like even when the monks were translating all that and like they were scribes and they were inscribing it, like all of that too, there was an agenda on a lot of that.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then when we read the King James Version of the Bible, I mean, you know, the king pronounced it to be so.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so anything that was left out, I mean, it was a lot left out, right, in what was canonized because it was perhaps dangerous to the particular regime that he was running.
3
SPEAKER_00
So not to say that there s not truth.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, imagine you get to decide.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes, I know.
3
SPEAKER_00
You get to decide.
3
SPEAKER_01
You get to decide what God meant.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think God didn t mean any of that.
3
SPEAKER_01
Take that stuff out.
3
SPEAKER_01
My problem is never with religion.
3
SPEAKER_01
My problem is purely with human nature and what we know about humans.
3
SPEAKER_01
If there was a way that you got religion through some sort of non-human source,
3
SPEAKER_01
Like if you achieved your experience through a non-human source, I would go, okay, well maybe there s a place that you can go and you could actually go meet God.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s like a portal you walk through and you meet God.
3
SPEAKER_01
But as soon as you re doing, you re letting people tell you a story, people are full of shit.
3
SPEAKER_01
They just generally, generally at least a certain percentage are full of shit.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the people that want to control people have a much higher likelihood of being full of shit.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because to really do that correctly, like if you want to be a president, like you gotta lie.
3
SPEAKER_01
You gotta lie.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like really important.
3
SPEAKER_01
So the people that are like good at that job are generally full of shit.
3
SPEAKER_01
So then you have a problem with the interpretation of the past, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean you re seeing that right now in universities like people are trying to reinterpret certain events because of the way people feel about Sociopolitical issues today.
3
SPEAKER_01
So they re trying to reinterpret history take down statues.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot of like craziness that s going on today well, that s like a microcosm of the ancient history of human beings and
3
SPEAKER_01
It s not that God s not real.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s that people are full of shit.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so there s a lot of wisdom in a lot of these ancient religious texts in particular, which is really fascinating.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like how much did they know about the human experience?
3
SPEAKER_01
How much did they know about how you need to live your life in order to be harmonious with the universe?
3
SPEAKER_01
How do you accentuate positive experiences?
3
SPEAKER_01
How do you leave the world a little bit better than it was before you got here?
3
SPEAKER_01
And that s universal.
3
SPEAKER_00
Have you read the whole Bible, by the way?
3
SPEAKER_01
I did when I was a kid.
3
SPEAKER_01
I actually had Bible class in Florida.
3
SPEAKER_01
When I moved from San Francisco to Florida, I was 11 years old.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it was a complete polar opposite experience of the country.
3
SPEAKER_01
I lived in San Francisco with two parents who were hippies in Haight-Ashbury.
3
SPEAKER_01
So we were in the middle of like we lived near Lombard Street.
3
SPEAKER_01
We were in the middle of like the hippie anti-war revolution of the 1960s.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then I moved to Gainesville, Florida.
3
SPEAKER_01
My stepdad was going to, he was becoming an architect.
3
SPEAKER_01
He was a computer programmer and then he switched careers, became an architect.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so he was going to a university of Florida at Gainesville.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so we were there.
3
SPEAKER_01
So now all of a sudden I m around alligators.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s fucking alligators everywhere.
3
SPEAKER_01
It was like, what are you, are you people retarded?
3
SPEAKER_01
Why do you have giant monsters everywhere?
3
SPEAKER_01
This is so ridiculous.
3
SPEAKER_01
So we had alligators, super weird, swampy weather, and religion.
3
SPEAKER_01
Religion was in the schools.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like, in public school, you had Bible class.
3
SPEAKER_01
And they also paddled you.
3
SPEAKER_01
It was the first time I d ever been hit by a teacher.
3
SPEAKER_01
In Florida.
3
SPEAKER_01
I got in a fist fight with this kid and they whacked us with a paddle.
3
SPEAKER_00
Can I ask you an alligator question real quick?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
So when you were in Florida in the 1970s, were you there in the late 1970s?
3
SPEAKER_01
It was, let me see, so I was in 67, I was born, so I, in 73, I was in San Francisco, so 75, 76?
3
SPEAKER_00
Okay, did you know of someone whose name was Ross Allen in Florida?
3
SPEAKER_01
I have no idea, I was 11.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, he was older.
3
SPEAKER_00
He was an alligator.
3
SPEAKER_00
He s an alligator wrestler.
3
SPEAKER_00
He had an alligator farm.
3
SPEAKER_00
Alligator wrestlers?
3
SPEAKER_01
What s the lifespan of those fellas?
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, I don t know when he died.
3
SPEAKER_01
That doesn t seem like that would work out so well.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, they probably defanged him, I don t know.
3
SPEAKER_01
Even that, they re just going to break your arms off.
3
SPEAKER_00
Speaking of which, I need more fire.
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh, sorry.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, just grab that sucker right there and pull the top back, flip it around, the other side, like this, this way, this way, this way, the other way.
3
SPEAKER_00
This way.
3
SPEAKER_01
No, the other way.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s upside down.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh.
3
SPEAKER_01
There you go.
3
SPEAKER_01
Now see the top?
3
SPEAKER_00
Uh-huh.
3
SPEAKER_01
Pull that sucker back like that, like there.
3
SPEAKER_00
And this will make fire?
3
SPEAKER_01
Pull it down.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
3
SPEAKER_00
I cannot believe how bad I am at that.
3
SPEAKER_01
Is it open?
3
SPEAKER_01
No, it s not open.
3
SPEAKER_01
You ve got to open the top.
3
SPEAKER_01
Flip that top.
3
SPEAKER_01
No, no, no.
3
SPEAKER_01
Look, see this?
3
SPEAKER_00
I m going to go with my hand.
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God.
3
SPEAKER_00
I know.
3
SPEAKER_00
There you go.
3
SPEAKER_01
You got it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
3
SPEAKER_00
See, I feel like I came here to learn this.
3
SPEAKER_01
Perfect.
3
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s a little weird because it s all black and so it kind of blends in, especially if you re like us and your eyes are probably going as time goes on.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like I can do it myself.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s not a chance in hell I could ever do one of those clasps on a Like a bracelet those little tiny bracelets like them little clasps like if my wife tried to get me to do one of those I m like I don t even know what I m saying.
3
SPEAKER_01
I have no idea what that is.
3
SPEAKER_01
I see blur.
3
SPEAKER_01
I see golden blur What the fuck that is?
3
SPEAKER_01
What were we just talking about?
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, you were talking about learning the Bible in school, but so one of the things that a lot of people who have read the Bible, or they have read a portion of the Bible, I definitely don t think I read the whole thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, yeah, that s the thing, is not very many people do, and that s why I asked, because a lot of it is kind of tedious history, and there s a lot of hebegats, and there s the whole line, you know, of Christ, all the ancestors, and the whole delineation of all that.
3
SPEAKER_00
Where I come from, we were encouraged to read a verse of the Bible, but they would always tell you what it meant.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so I kind of went against, I used this little pin light and did it late at night, but I read the whole thing cover to cover when I was eight.
3
SPEAKER_00
And if you read every single book in order, you start to find that
3
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of really beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, you know, places in the Bible, but there s a lot of stuff that s really violent.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then there s a lot of stuff that contradicts itself.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s because it was written in different time periods by different authors and different languages.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it also has a historical context.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so generally there s a lot of stuff that people leave out when they teach the Bible because it s really hard to explain.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like what stuff?
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, there s, for example, I mean, this one s taught a little bit, but David, King David, I m sure you ve heard of him, like as of David and Goliath, but then he became a powerful king.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he saw this woman who, this woman is often talked about, Bathsheba, he sees her bathing on a roof.
3
SPEAKER_00
And where we came from, we were taught, like, she shouldn t have been bathing on the roof.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now, I don t, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, he demands that she come to him.
4
SPEAKER_01
And she is the wife of a soldier of his named Uriah, a top soldier.
4
SPEAKER_01
And he commands her to lie with him, and she becomes pregnant.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then King David, who is the same guy who had the slingshot of David and Goliath,
4
SPEAKER_01
decides that he s got to figure out how to get her husband back so that her husband can go sleep with her and her husband won t do it because he s loyal to the army and he s he comes back but he sleeps like at the floor of the castle you know trying to wait a minute he s trying to get the husband to go back with the wife so that she the pregnancy will seem like it s his oh boy yeah so in the bible in the bible
4
SPEAKER_00
Dirty David.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, exactly.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it doesn t even in there.
4
SPEAKER_01
So Uriah won t do it because Uriah is loyal to David.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh boy.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so then David sends him to the front lines to have him be killed so that he can marry his wife and get away with that child s not being illegitimate.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh boy.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then God kills the child because, you know, needs to make the point that David was
4
SPEAKER_01
And think about poor Bathsheba.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, she s just been, like, wrung around.
4
SPEAKER_01
Her husband gets killed, all these things.
4
SPEAKER_01
Her kid dies because God is punishing David.
4
SPEAKER_00
And her husband got killed because he was loyal to the guy who got her pregnant.
4
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s not a story a lot of people hear.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
4
SPEAKER_01
But you can fact check that one if you d like.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, no, I believe you.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m good at that.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m good at just like, yeah, now I ll go argue it.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, there s something I talk a little bit about in the book Forager, which I encourage everyone to read.
4
SPEAKER_01
But in that book I talk about has a kid that I looked up this whole long, you know, he begat, he begat.
4
SPEAKER_01
And there s only four times that it mentions a woman who a child came out of.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like, it s all the male line.
4
SPEAKER_01
But occasionally they ll say, so-and-so, you know, Boaz through Ruth, or David s the father through Bathsheba.
4
SPEAKER_01
So Bathsheba ended up having a child who became Solomon, who we know, a lot of people know at least, of being the wisest man who ever lived.
4
SPEAKER_01
And he wrote Ecclesiastes.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so there s four women who are named.
4
SPEAKER_01
And as a child, that was really interesting to me.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I would ask, why are these four women in the line of Christ?
4
SPEAKER_01
And no one would tell me.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so I started doing the research about that.
4
SPEAKER_01
And one was a prostitute.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, here s a story you don t hear a lot.
4
SPEAKER_01
Want to hear another Bible story?
4
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
4
SPEAKER_01
There was a woman named Tamar and she had been married to one of three sons, I think there was three, and her husband died before giving her a child.
4
SPEAKER_01
So as was the custom in the time and perhaps the law, she married the brother of her dead husband and that man would not give her a child because
4
SPEAKER_01
he didn t want to have a child in his brother s name.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so they re allowed to have more than one wife, but this woman was not allowed to have a child.
4
SPEAKER_01
So he does something they call Onanism.
4
SPEAKER_01
So he like spilled his seed on the ground instead of inside of her so that she couldn t have a baby.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so God gets really mad because Onan will not impregnate her.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so Onan gets killed too.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so then her father-in-law decides not to marry her off to the youngest brother because two of the brothers are already dead, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
And he doesn t want to lose his only son.
4
SPEAKER_01
So he just banishes her and she has nothing because what does a woman have at the time?
4
SPEAKER_01
She doesn t have a husband or a child.
4
SPEAKER_01
She has no ability to make a living in the world.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so this man is, the father-in-law, is really unkind to her in a way that she decides she needs to take something into her own hands.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so she dresses up like a prostitute and goes to the side of the road and as he s traveling on the road she
4
SPEAKER_01
puts herself in front of him and offers her services, and he sleeps with her, and he does not have payment on him for some reason.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so he gives her his staff, which is a token of his word or something.
4
SPEAKER_01
So at least he s paying his prostitute.
4
SPEAKER_01
And she gets pregnant from this, and he orders her, when he finds out she s pregnant, to be stoned to death, to be killed and executed because she s not allowed to have a baby outside of wedlock.
4
SPEAKER_01
And she said, OK, but let me just return this staff to you that I got from the father of the baby.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so then he ends up protecting her and she gets to have the child and that child is in the line of Christ.
4
SPEAKER_00
Whoa.
4
SPEAKER_01
So really interesting things.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t know what you re supposed to learn from that story.
4
SPEAKER_01
When I was a kid reading this, I would ask, and of course, no one really wanted to tell me.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because she was rewarded for that.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s the interesting thing.
4
SPEAKER_00
Those stories are crazy.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s just, if you re being honest, and if you believe in God, but you also know that people are full of shit, you have to put all this stuff through a filter.
4
SPEAKER_00
You just have to.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it doesn t mean that there s no God.
4
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
4
SPEAKER_00
It doesn t mean that.
4
SPEAKER_00
It just it means there s probably something in these stories.
4
SPEAKER_00
But we have to be real careful with what that something is.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I don t profess to know.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t I don t know why.
4
SPEAKER_01
They condone slavery.
4
SPEAKER_00
The Bible condones slavery like flat out.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s in there all the time.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_00
Women are essentially second class citizens.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you know what I found out recently that there was a woman before Eve.
4
SPEAKER_01
Depending on who you ask.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
So what was that one?
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, that s not in the 66 books of the Bible that most people are taught in the Protestant tradition or the 69 or whatever in the Catholic tradition.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s part of the Apocrypha.
4
SPEAKER_01
So these are books of the Bible that didn t make it into Christianity as such that we- The editor s cut.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it was an editor s cut.
4
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
4
SPEAKER_01
So that s not considered the Word of God, what you re reading that is considered, or what you heard.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s like word on the street.
4
SPEAKER_00
Word on the street.
4
SPEAKER_00
I heard it on the internet, but yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s the street these days.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it is.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s the best street.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, which is not to say it s not true.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t know the truth.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I m a yoga teacher, among other things, and one thing that I say all the time when I m teaching, which is a really common thing as a yoga teacher to say, is,
4
SPEAKER_01
Whatever I am giving you right now is a suggestion.
4
SPEAKER_01
So listen to your body, do what s right for you.
4
SPEAKER_01
If this doesn t feel right to you, please don t do it.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then you offer modifications, etc.
4
SPEAKER_01
And what high control religion does, and I m not saying all religion, I m saying the culture religion, doesn t give you the option of listening to your body or opting out of anything.
4
SPEAKER_01
This is the interpretation of the Word of God.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the one thing I will say is, I don t know why Tamar did what she did or why Onan did what he did.
4
SPEAKER_01
You know, I don t know whether or not the stories were transcribed accurately or not, even if they were.
4
SPEAKER_01
That is a different culture, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
I wasn t there.
4
SPEAKER_00
We don t even know if OJ did it.
4
SPEAKER_01
All right, so how are you going to know what happened to David and Bathsheba?
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, we re pretty sure he did it.
4
SPEAKER_00
But I was just reading some story that OJ hired thugs.
4
SPEAKER_00
There was another thing, there was some thing that he said that he hired thugs to kill his wife and Ron Goldman.
4
SPEAKER_00
So this is really recent, is my point, and there s a bunch of versions of it, and it depends on who gets into power, whatever version gets propagated.
4
SPEAKER_00
If there was no internet and no independent journalism, and they never had to account for the fact that
4
SPEAKER_00
Iraq never really had weapons of mass destruction.
4
SPEAKER_00
If the people in charge, if we re living in 1963, how long does it take before people figure out that Iraq didn t have those weapons?
4
SPEAKER_00
How long?
4
SPEAKER_00
Do we ever find out?
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was going to say you might not ever find out.
4
SPEAKER_00
You might not ever find out.
4
SPEAKER_00
It took forever just to figure out that the Gulf of Tonkin was a false flag that got us into Vietnam.
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it took decades for that to come out.
4
SPEAKER_00
And now that s widely accepted.
4
SPEAKER_00
So our own history is sketchy as fuck.
4
SPEAKER_00
Our own history, our real, absolute history is sketchy as fuck.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s why conspiracy theories are so fun.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, of course.
4
SPEAKER_01
And in a sense, a cult is just a whole conspiracy theory.
4
SPEAKER_01
But they control the narrative, completely control the narrative.
4
SPEAKER_01
And no one s allowed to question it.
4
SPEAKER_01
And if they do, they re excommunicated.
4
SPEAKER_01
And one of the ways you know something as a cult is that they will always tell you that anyone who left, it s different than outsiders.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, outsiders are people who maybe never had access to the truth.
4
SPEAKER_01
But people who are quitters, they literally call them quitters where I come from.
4
SPEAKER_00
Quitters.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s a good name.
4
SPEAKER_01
I know, it really is.
4
SPEAKER_00
Nobody likes quitters.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right?
4
SPEAKER_01
Right.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so quitters were just anything they said was of the devil.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so you were not allowed to talk to anyone who left.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that s really common in cults.
4
SPEAKER_00
You couldn t even talk to them.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s that s a Scientology thing, too, I believe.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think it s really common in any high control group, I m sure.
4
SPEAKER_00
Hmm.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because you can t you really do need to control the narrative and you can t let other stories get in there.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
4
SPEAKER_00
God damn.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s so interesting how these patterns reoccur.
4
SPEAKER_00
all over the world.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s a guy in Australia that says he s Jesus, and he runs this whole cult in Australia, and he has this woman who he says is Mary.
4
SPEAKER_00
But the problem is there was another woman who was Mary before, and it didn t work out with the original Mary.
4
SPEAKER_00
So he tells this new lady, I was wrong about that other lady.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re Mary.
4
SPEAKER_01
Do you know that they say that the translation for Mary actually was woman?
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so that the word possibly just means, I mean, you think about it, there s so many Marys in the Bible, like when people talk about Mary Magdalene or Mary the other Jesus, or, you know, that it perhaps is just the translation for woman.
4
SPEAKER_00
Jesus as a historical figure is controversial.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s people that say that there s absolute evidence for Jesus, but then there s people that say, do you know, like how much historical record we have on people that live thousands of years before Jesus?
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, there s there s people that lived that they know what they said.
4
SPEAKER_00
They know where they ate.
5
SPEAKER_01
They know where they went.
5
SPEAKER_01
They know so much about them.
5
SPEAKER_01
But the Jesus one is kind of, there s people that say, yes, there s historical documents that show he existed.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then there s a bunch of documentaries that you can watch.
5
SPEAKER_01
They re like, boy, the evidence is kind of sketchy.
5
SPEAKER_01
It seems to be a thought, like a reoccurring thing in many religions.
5
SPEAKER_01
It seems to be like Hercules, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
It seems to be there s a bunch of these that are like real similar to that, like the child of a god.
5
SPEAKER_01
that comes down to fix everything.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of traditions where you have a virgin birth.
5
SPEAKER_00
That is true.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I am certainly not here to tell anybody what is true or not true, but the Gospels that are written about Jesus were written after, right, not during.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that was common.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, Socrates never wrote anything down.
5
SPEAKER_00
He told the stories to Plato.
5
SPEAKER_01
And how long after his death?
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, I think the first one, now I feel like I am not a historian here, but I think the first one was like 100 years.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so you have Apostle Paul who wrote, but he only saw Jesus after, like he was on the road to Damascus.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so he saw Jesus after Jesus had been crucified and risen.
5
SPEAKER_00
So what he saw was a ghost of Jesus.
5
SPEAKER_00
But the other, you know, gospels were not written by anyone who had seen Jesus in that way, even though they were the versions like of when you have Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, these are the versions that they were told.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I don t know, maybe a hundred years.
5
SPEAKER_01
So this is where belief hits for people that are listening to this right now.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because there s going to be a certain percentage of people right now that have their hackles up because someone might be insinuating that maybe all this Jesus stuff is not legit.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that s not what anybody s saying.
5
SPEAKER_01
What we re saying is these stories were written down a hundred years after he was alive.
5
SPEAKER_01
and people are full of shit.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s it.
5
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t mean that he didn t exist.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because if someone did exist, like if the early emergence of humans in the world, let s imagine what they mean by this story.
5
SPEAKER_01
If the early emergence of humans in this world
5
SPEAKER_01
were put down here to figure it out on their own like a bunch of lock key kids, like latch key kids from the 1970s.
5
SPEAKER_01
Figure it out on your own.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m going to give you ways to live your life.
5
SPEAKER_01
Tell everybody.
5
SPEAKER_01
But I m hands off.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m hands off.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m an afterlife type of guy.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m not going to come down and explain it again, pop out of the clouds and freak everybody out.
5
SPEAKER_01
I did that once.
5
SPEAKER_01
I did it once.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m done.
5
SPEAKER_01
You guys killed me.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I m just saying, live your life this way.
5
SPEAKER_01
If that was a real thing, what would be any different than the Bible?
5
SPEAKER_01
What would be any different about if a real event like that actually happened, where the Son of God came down and explained to mankind what they re doing wrong, and lived this amazing life, and taught so many people, and they spread his wisdom, and they spread his information.
5
SPEAKER_01
It wouldn t be any different than the Bible, because you re still, even if it was very clear what he was saying, and very clear what he had done, and the impact, and how they all knew he was the Son of God,
5
SPEAKER_01
By the time a hundred years go by, people talking about it, who the fuck knows?
5
SPEAKER_01
Who knows?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but you know what Jesus did really well?
5
SPEAKER_00
So Jesus didn t write anything down, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Like he was a storyteller.
5
SPEAKER_00
Jesus told a lot of parables, and those are easier to remember.
5
SPEAKER_00
So if you listen to like his Sermon on the Mount or, you know, these various things, it s possible that some of these stories, which they can be interpreted more than one way, but like, you know, to say that, have you heard the expression casting pearls to swine?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_01
What does that mean?
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, in the story of the prodigal son, there was this, and Jesus tells this story, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
So there s these two brothers and one brother stays and does everything that his father wants him to do.
5
SPEAKER_00
And the other brother says, give me, you know, the son, he says, the younger son says, give me my inheritance now.
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t want to wait till you re dead.
5
SPEAKER_00
Just give me my inheritance now.
5
SPEAKER_00
I want to go experience life.
5
SPEAKER_00
And the father gives his younger son his inheritance.
5
SPEAKER_00
And this young man who is raised well goes out and
5
SPEAKER_00
Hires prostitutes, does all the things, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
And lives this loose life and he finds that he runs out of money and he is in a pen of pigs and he is willing to eat what even the pigs won t eat, like the leftovers, and he is face down in the mud according to the story.
5
SPEAKER_00
in the pigpen and says, even if I was a servant from my father, I d be treated better than this.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so he goes back, etc.
5
SPEAKER_00
And his older brother is really upset because the father brings the son back and treats him, you know, he s just so grateful his son s returning to him.
5
SPEAKER_00
And his brother says, you know, or an expression like, you re casting pearls to swine.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, like, my brother is a pig.
5
SPEAKER_00
My brother is like, you know, from the pig pen, and you re giving him something that he doesn t deserve.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that whole story, I mean, you can interpret it any way you want, but this idea that you tell stories like this, and someone could say, God is willing to take you back, and perhaps even better if you have experienced life, and that just being obedient isn t the only way to live a life.
5
SPEAKER_00
Maybe that s the I don t know what the real interpretation is, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
But like when you read a story like that or you hear the story Jesus didn t write it down, but if you told that story then now people come to that and they think What does that mean?
5
SPEAKER_00
Does that mean when I find myself in a pigpen that I can repent and go back?
5
SPEAKER_00
What does it mean?
5
SPEAKER_01
Isn t it funny that Jesus is a storyteller?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah Storyteller is a person who stands in front of people and commands attention.
5
SPEAKER_01
I
5
SPEAKER_01
And we know how that goes, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, well, you re a storyteller.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, sort of.
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t think you re a storyteller.
5
SPEAKER_01
I talk shit on stage, so it s just jokes.
5
SPEAKER_00
But those are stories.
5
SPEAKER_01
Some of them are stories, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Some of them are just making fun of things.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s different than someone who, like, tells you stories and imparts wisdom.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like, if someone s standing in front of a group of people imparting wisdom, that s a very bizarre relationship.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s a very slippery position for the person that has the podium.
5
SPEAKER_01
Very slippery.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because you could start believing all this nonsense.
5
SPEAKER_01
You could start believing that you re different than everybody else.
5
SPEAKER_01
You could start believing that you are
5
SPEAKER_01
The son of God even if you know, I m not even talking about Jesus I m talking about someone today someone today even today in this day and age with the internet if you you started doing something like that and you re Schizophrenic you could believe it lots of people lots of people.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I ve got right now.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah 100% legit and then lots of people believe that other people are demons there s a lot of like real funky beliefs that people hold on to and if someone
5
SPEAKER_01
Like I said, if someone was a charismatic leader and they pretended to be the son of God versus someone who is actually the son of God, 100 years later, it s going to be very difficult to parse out what s what.
5
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Right.
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Which is a problem.
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Which is a real problem.
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If you want to put all your eggs in one basket, you ve got to pick a religion.
5
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Boy, if you re agnostic, which one of you guys is right?
5
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Are the Hindus right?
5
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Maybe.
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Are the Buddhas right?
5
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I don t know.
5
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You know, some people would say that the Buddha and Jesus have an awful lot in common.
5
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And if there is a right, that a lot of those beliefs are going to overlap.
5
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And it is right to live a good life is to treat other people the way that you would want to be treated, you know, and to love your neighbor.
5
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Love your neighbor.
5
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Yeah.
5
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Yeah.
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I think there s universal truth in all that stuff.
5
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I think that the source of it is fascinating.
5
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Like, what are the universal truths?
5
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But we always, we have to look at things through a filter of reality.
5
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And the filter of reality, we know human beings are full of shit.
5
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So you have to put that in there.
5
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You have to put that with everything.
5
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You can t just say they wouldn t lie about religion.
5
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Stop.
5
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That s nonsense.
5
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It doesn t mean that God s not real.
5
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It doesn t mean that Jesus didn t exist.
5
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Because look, maybe Jesus is the ultimate.
5
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It s like, this is the last word, and then we re going to let you guys figure it out on your own.
5
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And maybe if God exists, OK?
5
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Let s use it as a thought experiment.
5
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If God exists,
5
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Why would God engineer an animal to be at the top of the food chain that is so filled with greed and wants so much power that it s willing to take over enormous swaths of land with giant machines and murder anybody who gets in their way, and it s all justified in the name of nationalism?
5
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Why would God universally
5
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impart that kind of sensibility on a species.
5
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Why would God tolerate it?
5
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Why would God tolerate crime and murder and all the horrible things that we see today?
5
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Why would God want any of this stuff to go on?
5
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If God is so all-powerful that he created the universe, is this just a first draft?
5
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Did you like try like say free will right?
5
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That s the answer to it is that in the garden when Adam and Eve didn t know the difference and then they partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that like by the choice to do that brought sin into the world and once there s sin into the world then humans always
6
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have the choice to follow the light or follow the darkness.
6
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I mean, that s the party line, right?
6
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That it is human choice.
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Right.
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My point was that maybe God s ultimate plan is to make things as fucked up as possible so that it forces people to figure it out.
6
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It forces an evolution of consciousness.
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It forces us to go to the light.
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It forces us, because it s the only way we survive.
6
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It could be like a test, like the entire human species, the entire civilization, the whole thing.
6
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It s just some gigantic test to see if you get it right.
6
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Did you ever read A Wrinkle in Time when you were a kid?
6
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Whose book is that?
6
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Madeline L Engle.
6
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I ve heard of it, I don t think I read it.
6
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I don t know if it was taught in schools, but kids read it for years.
6
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I don t know when it came out in the 70s probably.
6
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But she says in an interview later that she thinks that in the end that God is waiting for every single person to choose.
6
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to believe and to choose to follow.
6
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And that the light, so in A Wrinkle in Time is a story, there s science in it and a lot of things, but that when you see the light and you re drawn to the light, that you might be tempted by the darkness, but when you really know what light is, that you ll always choose that.
6
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And so at the end of the day, that we re all gonna see the light.
6
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But even if you don t believe in religion, if you know good experiences and bad experiences in your life, and when you re happy with yourself and when you re upset with yourself in your life, you generally know there s a direction that you really want to be moving in.
6
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And the more life experience you have, the more stupid things you do, the more you learn.
6
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And so the more you get a better database to draw from to understand what each individual choice means in the greater
6
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the greater picture of your existence.
6
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And as you go further and further, you go, if you re living a harmonious life, you go almost naturally towards that direction.
6
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Trying to be nicer to people, love your neighbor, have more peace in the world, don t be murdering people.
6
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And that s generally how most religions want you to believe.
6
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The origin of it, there s some sort of a guidebook for being a human.
6
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That s the origin of it, it seems like.
6
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That they were just trying to like, you can t just let people be feral.
6
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You got to give them some guidelines.
6
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You got to, and one of the best ways is to, someone s watching all the time.
6
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There s a dude in the sky, but maybe he really is.
6
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Maybe there really is something that watches everything.
6
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It might not be watching, but it might be like integrated into the entire existence of the whole thing.
6
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Maybe that s what the prodigal son is about.
6
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Yeah, maybe you know He goes and has all these experiences find himself like making every mistake possible and then sees the light and goes back to his father Yeah, he goes back to the kingdom of right.
6
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Yeah There s wisdom in all these things and there s these people that lived and were writing things down on animal skins while they re engaging in wars with spears Fucking wild ass times
6
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and they were trying to sort it all out.
6
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Have you read Meditations, Marcus Aurelius?
6
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Yes.
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Isn t that wild stuff?
6
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Yeah.
6
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It s wild how brilliant this guy was 2,000 years ago, like his understanding of how to live a life.
6
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It s so valuable and his concept of forgiveness like forgiveness.
6
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He s a fucking Roman I mean this is like this badass soldier and He s like it s very important to forgive everybody for you even forgive your enemies like he had this incredible wisdom about logistically maintaining Your objective perspective of the world was really interesting and
6
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So we know people were smart as shit back then.
6
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And if you go back 2000 years before him, when people start writing all this stuff down,
6
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Well, people had a lot stronger ability to concentrate, obviously.
6
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Right, they weren t distracted.
6
Right.
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But even before things were written, people really had command over language and oral traditions.
6
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And their memory, they had to remember.
6
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Like, you think about where to find whatever it is when you re a forager, where to find the hunt.
6
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All of these traditions have to be passed down for humans to stay alive.
6
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I mean, we re really fragile creatures.
6
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Right.
6
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And to think that when before there was anything except for spheres, you know, like how did how did humans stay alive?
6
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They stayed alive because they could remember.
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They could remember what could kill them.
6
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Yeah.
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Just like we used to be able to remember phone numbers.
6
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Do you remember?
6
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Yeah, even back then, I know.
6
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I had so many phone numbers in my head.
6
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I still remember the phone number of the field.
6
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Wow.
6
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I do, I do, because it was the one place, right?
6
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Wow.
6
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That was my home.
6
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Wow.
6
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Yeah.
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That s wild.
6
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My mom was a survival trainer.
6
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She trained people to survive, and she trained us to survive, and one of the big things was surviving the apocalypse, but some of the survival techniques are actually really valuable, and that s the thing about forgiveness or anything else.
6
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You know, even if somebody is telling you something that is in their own best interest, doesn t mean it s not true, right?
6
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And that there s so many truths in anything.
6
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And so learning to survive, like literally off the land or in the desert or things like that was a really harsh training that I had as a kid, but it taught me to look around everywhere that I ve been ever since and to pay attention.
6
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And I mean, that s a gift.
6
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And I think about that when I think about forgiveness too, like part of forgiving people is because on some level they taught you a lesson.
6
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Well, even in cults, they can give you valuable skills.
6
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Sure.
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I mean, if someone could teach you survival techniques, how to survive, if you re really worried about the apocalypse, you need to learn how to survive the apocalypse.
6
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Sure.
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So, you know, they do it for good intentions.
6
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Yeah.
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And some of it pays off a little bit.
6
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Well, do you remember the one in Los Angeles that had billboards up and with a very specific date?
6
SPEAKER_01
Oh, what was the date?
6
SPEAKER_00
I don t remember, but I remember there was this Thai restaurant I used to go to on Ventura, this great Thai spot, and right above it was this fucking billboard that was giving you a very specific date, like repent, the end is here, and it s gonna be this time.
6
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I m like, is this the most brilliant album release?
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You know what I m saying?
6
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Like some rock band has figured out a way to make something go viral before the internet.
6
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I guess the internet was around then.
6
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It was not that long ago.
6
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I want to say like maybe eight years ago, ten years ago?
6
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Was it?
6
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Wow, that s pretty recent.
6
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Here it is.
6
2011.
6
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Judgment Day, May 21st, 2011.
6
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Cry Mighty Unto God.
6
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Monday through Friday, live open forum on FamilyRadio.com.
6
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And what happened on May 11th?
6
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Do we know?
6
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So yeah, that was only 13 years ago.
6
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Jamie, what happened on May 11th?
6
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Nothing.
6
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Fucking zero.
6
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These people were out of their mind.
6
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Like Y2K was a little like that, too.
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, also December 21st, 2012.
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That was the end of the Mayan calendar.
6
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Oh, right.
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My license plate used to be December 2012.
6
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D-E-C 12, whatever it was.
6
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But that was the end of the long count of the Mayan calendar, and all the kooks thought that was the end of the world.
6
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So we actually did an end of the world show
6
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in Los Angeles with my friends from Honey Honey Band, my friend Suzanne, Joey Diaz, Doug Stanhope.
6
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It was wild.
6
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And what did you do?
6
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Nothing happened.
6
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Nobody died.
6
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We had a good time.
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We had a good time and the world keeps going.
6
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But there s, you know, it s just a long calendar.
6
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It s a very bizarre ancient calendar that they don t really fully understand.
6
SPEAKER_00
So to say that was the end of the world seems a little silly.
6
SPEAKER_01
Well, you know, when they give these dates, like when my grandfather gave the date of 1977, they can also say anytime it doesn t happen that the calendars are wrong.
6
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Ah, how convenient.
6
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Do they have a good calendar?
6
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Can I see that calendar?
6
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Well, you know, but the point is like, oh, well, you know, with the Star of Bethlehem and all this, like maybe that was redated because Herod didn t want us to know like when Jesus was really born because he was killing all the babies and he didn t really know the date of Jesus s birth.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s why he was killing, you know, all the young boys as opposed to just that one and et cetera, et cetera.
6
SPEAKER_00
Back to the lady who was around with Eve, who was that lady?
6
SPEAKER_01
I assume you re talking about Lilith, but that s not in the tradition that I read.
6
SPEAKER_00
But Lilith was supposedly, I didn t even know Lilith existed until like two years ago, I think.
6
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Oh, wow.
6
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I was like, what?
6
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Has that changed your life in some way?
6
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Who the fuck s Lilith?
6
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Yes.
6
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It was an eye opener.
6
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I questioned everything after that.
6
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What is the Lilith story exactly?
6
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So again, I was not raised on the Lilla story at all.
6
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I don t know, Jamie, do you know the Lilla story?
6
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I ve heard some, but I feel like I d misquote it.
6
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So the Lilith story, they decided was BS, so they left it out of the big book.
6
SPEAKER_00
She s been interpreted as Satan?
6
SPEAKER_00
Oh, Satan.
6
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Well, sure.
6
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Of course, she s a lady.
6
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She made me do terrible things.
6
SPEAKER_01
Well, Eve did that, too.
6
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The original Hebrew word from which the name Lilith is taken is in the biblical Hebrew, the Book of Isaiah, though Lilith herself is not mentioned in any biblical text.
6
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In late antiquity, and how do you say that word?
6
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Mandaean?
6
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How do you say that word?
6
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Do you know?
6
SPEAKER_00
Mandaean?
6
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Mandaean and Jewish sources from 500 AD onward, Lilith appears in his
7
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Storal... Storalus?
7
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Storalus.
7
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Incantations incorporating a short mythic story in various concepts and localities that give partial descriptions of her.
7
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She is mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud, Nadah, Shabbat, Bava Batra, and the conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan as Adam s first wife.
7
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and in the Zohar Leviticus 19a as a hot, fiery female who first cohabitated with man.
7
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Wow.
7
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Many rabbinic authorities, including, boy, there s another word, Maimonides, Maimonides and Menashem, Mary reject the existence of Lilith.
7
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Interesting.
7
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So Lilith is controversial.
7
SPEAKER_00
Very controversial.
7
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Like all hot ladies.
7
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Exactly.
7
SPEAKER_01
But the fact that she was the first?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
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I mean, again, that s not the tradition that most Christians are taught.
7
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I mean, it s considered part of the apocrypha.
7
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So, I mean, I don t have any idea what the truth is, but she has been vilified even more than Eve.
7
SPEAKER_00
Although, if you think about it, Eve s pretty vilified, too.
7
SPEAKER_00
I mean, she caused the downfall of humankind.
7
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She s the reason why we re all here!
7
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
7
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Yeah.
7
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I mean, what s the root of that story?
7
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That s the real question.
7
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What was the original thing they were trying to convey?
7
SPEAKER_01
I will not take a stab on that.
7
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But at least Christianity has like an origin story.
7
SPEAKER_01
you know, an origin story for everything, for the universe, for people.
7
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And when you didn t have science and you didn t have any understanding of cosmology, you need something.
7
SPEAKER_01
We need something.
7
SPEAKER_01
Thousands of years just staring up at the stars.
7
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Anybody know what the fuck s going on up there?
7
SPEAKER_01
I know.
7
SPEAKER_01
There s Thor.
7
SPEAKER_01
He lives up there.
7
SPEAKER_01
And then there s Zeus.
7
SPEAKER_01
He s running shit.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, looking at the stars is storytelling, too.
7
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In the beginning, there was the word.
7
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Well, I think that s one of the things that s really screwed up human beings.
7
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And I don t think in any small way is light pollution.
7
SPEAKER_01
I think our inability to see that we are in this celestial, majestic cosmos, this thing, it s not just black with a few bright lights.
7
SPEAKER_01
The whole thing is lit up and it s the most magnificent thing you could ever see.
7
SPEAKER_01
But we sacrifice it almost for everyone that lives in cities.
7
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If you live in cities, you don t go anywhere and see it.
7
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you sacrifice a humbling spiritual experience of just staring at the stars and I think it s I think it s a spiritual poisoning it s like just like if you have vitamin deficiencies I think you have a spiritual deficiency just a natural universal spiritual deficiency from not seeing the stars I think it puts our puts our
7
SPEAKER_01
Place in the universe in perspective like nothing else can because it s there it s real.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s not a concept It s not something that you have to use a microscope or a telescope to see it s right in front of you and it s absolutely Spectacular on a clear night in the mountains where there s no light pollution.
7
SPEAKER_01
You see the stars you just like Wow Is that up there every night?
7
SPEAKER_00
Did you used to go to Joshua Tree when you lived around LA?
7
SPEAKER_01
No, I didn t.
7
SPEAKER_00
Oh.
7
SPEAKER_00
So Joshua Tree is still so magical for that reason, because there s no lights.
7
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I ve heard.
7
SPEAKER_01
I ve heard it s incredible out there.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s not too far from where I am.
7
SPEAKER_00
And when I feel that I need to commune with something greater than myself, you just go there and you just lay down and look at those stars.
7
SPEAKER_01
Light pollution is spiritual poisoning.
7
SPEAKER_00
Agreed.
7
SPEAKER_01
It really is.
7
SPEAKER_01
And it s a big factor, I think, in how lost we are and how we re not consistently humbled every night by the majesty of the stars.
7
SPEAKER_01
If we were consistently humbled every night, I think we d generally be like, you could tone people down a little bit.
7
SPEAKER_00
There is something really healing about looking at the stars, and there s also the ability to literally not be lost if you know how to read the stars.
7
SPEAKER_00
So that is something I was trained by my uncle, who was somewhat of an astronomer.
7
SPEAKER_00
But to look at the stars and to always know where you are.
7
SPEAKER_00
And if you know how to read the stars, you can never be lost.
7
SPEAKER_01
So you could like navigate with the stars like if you re in a boat?
7
SPEAKER_00
I don t know if I could do it very well from a boat but I could do it by because I know how to put like a stick in the ground and to see the difference in the way that the Sun goes so that you can see where you are because you got to know where the North Star is obviously
7
SPEAKER_00
But then you also have to know what time of year it is to some degree.
7
SPEAKER_00
So if you re lost for or you think you re lost for a matter of months or years, you would need to have some sort of idea where you are.
7
SPEAKER_00
And if you re in the desert, it s hard to tell seasons.
7
SPEAKER_00
But if I was on land, I could do it.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
So you d have to like add up the days.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, you don t even have to add up the days.
7
SPEAKER_00
You just have to know what season you re in.
7
SPEAKER_00
And you can tell that by the angle of the sun.
7
SPEAKER_01
Right.
7
SPEAKER_01
But if you get lost.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, sure, although you don t have to do that.
7
SPEAKER_00
And you get lost for years?
7
SPEAKER_00
You might just never know.
7
SPEAKER_01
So you guys were getting prepared to be lost for years.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
My mom used to have this phrase, I think she made it up, but it s survive fear, survive with faith.
7
SPEAKER_00
And so she taught everyone that those five letters stand for what you should do first.
7
SPEAKER_00
So the first thing, what do you think the first thing you should do if you re lost?
7
SPEAKER_00
Or you think you re lost?
7
SPEAKER_01
Get to a high space to look around.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, the first thing you should do is shelter.
7
SPEAKER_00
First thing?
7
SPEAKER_00
The first thing you should do is shelter.
7
SPEAKER_00
If you don t have shelter, you re going to lose your body heat.
7
SPEAKER_00
Depends on where you are, of course.
7
SPEAKER_00
But if you re anywhere that gets cold, and sometimes you don t know it s going to get cold.
7
SPEAKER_00
Desert doesn t seem like it gets cold.
7
SPEAKER_00
Have you been on a desert night?
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, they get cold.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s very freezing.
7
SPEAKER_00
So shelter s the first thing.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then fire, because the warmth is really important.
7
SPEAKER_00
So survive fear, so it s shelter, and then fire.
7
SPEAKER_00
And then the thing is signaling.
7
SPEAKER_00
So if you want to be found, you put up a signal.
7
SPEAKER_00
If you don t want to be found, you need to know what creates a signal for people who are looking.
7
SPEAKER_00
So for example, like if you are in the desert, you try to find dark rocks to put SOS.
7
SPEAKER_00
But if you don t want to be found, you try to never put a contrast.
7
SPEAKER_00
So you try not to have anything that would contrast with the color of the land from a plane, that a plane would see as contrast.
7
SPEAKER_01
Jesus.
7
SPEAKER_00
So there s a lot of fun stuff like that.
7
SPEAKER_01
So they were preparing you for hiding and for surviving.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
And who are you going to be hiding from?
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, so after the second coming, when everybody goes up to heaven who s good, all that s left is the demons in the world.
7
SPEAKER_00
And there s 1,000 years of terror that will rain upon the earth till the blood rises to the horse s bridles.
7
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
7
SPEAKER_01
And you guys were preparing for this when you were little kids.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
Ooh, demons.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
But if you re a good person, you re going to heaven, so you don t have to fuck with these demons.
7
SPEAKER_00
Unless, yeah, so that, you ve probably heard some of those stories, right?
7
SPEAKER_00
There s a whole books on these left behind series.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
7
SPEAKER_00
So who gets left behind?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
Didn t they do a bunch of movies?
7
SPEAKER_00
I think so.
7
SPEAKER_00
I did not see that.
7
SPEAKER_01
I think Kurt Cameron did it.
7
SPEAKER_00
Maybe.
7
SPEAKER_01
I heard they re amazing.
7
SPEAKER_00
Okay, I don t know.
7
SPEAKER_00
I can t speak to that.
7
SPEAKER_00
But yes, there s a lot of that because it s part of a lot of traditions.
7
SPEAKER_00
And the idea, though, is that some people are left behind in order to try to win the last people, like all the evil people, sort of like Noah s Ark, right?
7
SPEAKER_00
Noah s left, and he gets on this ark, and it s his job to, I mean, why didn t God just take Noah to heaven, right?
7
SPEAKER_00
But he gets this boat, and he has his family and all the animals, and he gets to stay clear from the flood.
7
SPEAKER_00
Or you have Sodom and Gomorrah, you have Lot, the only good person left, and he wants to help the people in the town, or Jonah and Nineveh, where he s told to go tell the people they re bad, and then God saves the people anyway.
7
SPEAKER_00
So there s a lot of stories of God changing his mind.
7
SPEAKER_00
And yes, I know a lot of Bible stories.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, there s definitely a lot of stories of God changing his mind.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
So if you leave some people behind who know how to lead the army of God, you can then proselytize and bring people into true faith and righteousness.
7
SPEAKER_00
It s also kind of like, I don t know, a way to keep people a little bit isolated if you re trying to teach them to do something that other people don t know how to do.
7
SPEAKER_00
And I was very ashamed of knowing that kind of thing.
7
SPEAKER_00
So it s the kind of thing I talk about in Forager is like I spent a lot of time really feeling like I couldn t acclimate to the regular world like later because I, you know, it s like if you re always looking at, I m sure Navy SEALs feel this way, but you re always waiting for disaster.
7
SPEAKER_01
Right.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
And you re always thinking preemptively, what can I do to avert this disaster?
7
SPEAKER_01
How did you get that out of your head?
7
SPEAKER_00
It s still in my head, Joe.
7
SPEAKER_01
For real?
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
Really?
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
So right now, you re preparing for the end of the world.
7
SPEAKER_00
Well, you know, I walked in your lair, and I m like, OK, there s all dudes here.
7
SPEAKER_00
Where s the exit?
7
SPEAKER_00
It s like, no.
7
SPEAKER_00
No, but I mean, to some degree, I mean, I m not actively preparing.
7
SPEAKER_00
But I feel like I, yeah, I mean, it makes it really hard to trust people when you ve been trained that the people that you think you can trust are going to betray you.
7
SPEAKER_01
Right.
7
SPEAKER_00
Right.
7
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_00
Really hard to get that out of your head.
7
SPEAKER_01
I had a friend who was a Mormon and when they left she was like in her 40s and she said she became really susceptible to any kind of like spiritual people, spirituality, like con people.
7
SPEAKER_01
She just had this trusting nature from being like a strict Mormon her whole life and then all of a sudden cut loose and didn t
8
SPEAKER_01
you know, didn t know to distrust people.
8
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
8
SPEAKER_01
It wasn t programmed in.
8
SPEAKER_00
Because if you re only around people who are homogenous and that like you re taught, which I was, that like everybody in your group is trustworthy, you don t see the signs.
8
SPEAKER_00
You don t know, I mean, you don t know the red flags as people would say.
8
SPEAKER_01
She also said she found herself to be susceptible to people telling her things.
8
SPEAKER_01
She just had this automatic inclination to not question and believe things that came from being strict religion.
8
SPEAKER_00
Why did she leave in her 40s?
8
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
8
SPEAKER_00
That s a tough time to leave.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
I don t know what the story behind it was exactly.
8
SPEAKER_01
I never got into it.
8
SPEAKER_00
Well, that s the thing about cults is it does make it really difficult to survive on the outside.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I certainly know a lot of people have taken their lives after being excommunicated from the field.
8
SPEAKER_00
I had a dear friend, the first person who ever told me that, used that word, that it s a cult.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I had been out for years and I didn t, I mean, it s not like I never heard the word, but I didn t apply it to the way we were raised.
8
SPEAKER_00
And he had written, you know, newspaper articles, he s a professor, et cetera.
8
SPEAKER_00
He took his life because it was really, really, really hard to live on the outside.
8
SPEAKER_00
And there s been many others who have done that as well.
8
SPEAKER_01
There s also people who are ashamed once they reintegrate into society.
8
SPEAKER_01
They were part of that.
8
SPEAKER_01
They got duped into this nonsense.
8
SPEAKER_00
And so you hide it.
8
SPEAKER_00
Most people, it s not like you re telling people and they re laughing at you.
8
SPEAKER_00
You re not telling anyone because you re scared they re gonna laugh at you or judge you.
8
SPEAKER_00
And so you spend your life in shame hiding this truth that honestly doesn t make you a bad person at all, and probably many people would understand, but you don t talk about it.
8
SPEAKER_00
I didn t talk about it forever.
8
SPEAKER_01
Not just that, but everybody s susceptible to it, whether you believe it or not, especially if you were a child.
8
SPEAKER_01
Everybody s susceptible.
8
SPEAKER_01
This ridiculous idea people have that, oh, I would have known better.
8
SPEAKER_01
Like, I don t think you would.
8
SPEAKER_01
I really don t.
8
SPEAKER_01
I think you would now, but you re you now.
8
SPEAKER_01
You re a 35-year-old you.
8
SPEAKER_01
You re not that you that was five years old.
8
SPEAKER_00
And if that had been consistently perpetuated onto you, you wouldn t know.
8
SPEAKER_01
Right.
8
SPEAKER_00
So there s a story we were raised with, which is a really common biblical story of Abraham and Isaac, and Abraham is told to kill his son, his only son, and he s told to, like,
8
SPEAKER_00
take him up on an altar and slaughter him, and the way that you would slaughter an animal.
8
SPEAKER_00
And Abraham, like, makes Isaac do this hike up to this mountain where he s going to kill him.
8
SPEAKER_00
And he, God has told him he must do this, and so he, like, ties his own son on this altar and brings up the knife to kill him.
8
SPEAKER_00
And, like, very dramatically, you know, at least the story, you know, comes.
8
SPEAKER_00
And as he s plunging down the knife, an angel comes and grabs his wrist and stops.
8
SPEAKER_00
And God said, I just wanted to make sure you d really do it.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
And this is the story I was raised on, and both my parents and my grandfather were very big on, like, you will kill your child if God asks you to.
8
SPEAKER_00
That s what you re supposed to do.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I said this in the book, and my brother, who, you know, we really haven t talked about these, or we have now, but at the time, we hadn t really talked about this.
8
SPEAKER_00
This was like all of a year ago.
8
SPEAKER_00
And he said, when he read it, he thought, no, it s not that our parents would have sacrificed this.
8
SPEAKER_00
They did sacrifice this because they believed that
8
SPEAKER_00
somebody else would take care of us, and we were raised very, you know, I don t know if communally is exactly the truth, because there wasn t necessarily anyone who was checking, but there was random people who, in my case, a lot of men, who just raised us because our parents had more important things that God told them to do.
8
SPEAKER_00
And so there s a lot of ways to sacrifice kids.
8
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of ways to think that, you know, God is talking to you.
8
SPEAKER_01
You could apply that to other aspects of culture.
8
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
8
SPEAKER_01
Is there like groups of people that get together that have survived cults that have an ability to like help each other through this?
8
SPEAKER_00
So apparently there are, and I didn t know about this until the last year.
8
SPEAKER_00
There s a whole huge group of people who have come out of like Hasidic Jews, like Orthodox Hasidic Jews.
8
SPEAKER_00
But there s also Steve Hassan.
8
SPEAKER_00
He s a doctor who spoke on Megyn Kelly when I was on that show too.
8
SPEAKER_00
And he has something called the Byte Method, which is just basically says that there s like these really four major ways of control that cults do.
8
SPEAKER_00
They control your behavior, your information, your thoughts, and your emotions.
8
SPEAKER_00
And so he has these deprogramming systems and counselors and people who can help you if you ve been in that kind of high control group, even if it wasn t religious in nature.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I ve talked to that dude before.
8
SPEAKER_00
Have you talked to him?
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
I think he was a Mooney, right?
8
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, the whole thing of his excommunication and how he got free of it.
8
SPEAKER_01
When you were breaking free, what age were you?
8
SPEAKER_01
17.
8
SPEAKER_01
You re 17.
8
SPEAKER_01
And what was it like trying to integrate with regular people out there in the world when you were 17?
8
SPEAKER_00
I don t think I did that very effectively at all.
8
SPEAKER_00
How could you?
8
SPEAKER_00
I just couldn t.
8
SPEAKER_01
What was the experience like of all of a sudden you go from being this incredibly controlling religious cult that thinks the end of the world is coming to regular world?
8
SPEAKER_00
So it wasn t entirely all of a sudden.
8
SPEAKER_00
I had a childhood illness, an autoimmune disease, which was probably, I mean, there s no genetic nature to these diseases, but where your body attacks itself.
8
SPEAKER_00
So it s quite probable that my body was just like, I can t take this anymore.
8
SPEAKER_00
Stress.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
8
SPEAKER_00
And also, there s a lot of deprivation, sleep deprivation, food deprivation.
8
SPEAKER_00
When you re in survival training, a lot of extreme deprivation.
8
SPEAKER_01
How long does survival training go for?
8
SPEAKER_00
Well, because I was born there and also because I was sick and because of other things, I was trained for a very long time, pretty much.
8
SPEAKER_00
We moved up there full time, up to the mountain, which I talk about in the book Forger.
8
SPEAKER_00
We moved up there when I was almost eight.
8
SPEAKER_00
And so I was up there until I left.
8
SPEAKER_01
And you were foraging?
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
I mean, there was other things going on too.
8
SPEAKER_00
But so I got sick and then I was hungry and there was a lot of other things happening.
8
SPEAKER_00
And so I found a way to start housecleaning for people.
8
SPEAKER_00
And that s how I got an application to college and stuff like that.
8
SPEAKER_00
I was a house cleaner, and so that was kind of a foray into learning about how other people lived, even though it wasn t like I was invited into their family, I was invited into their things.
8
SPEAKER_00
But you can learn a lot when you see a refrigerator that has food in it.
8
SPEAKER_01
What was it like just cleaning people s houses, just seeing how these weird people lived in the outside world?
8
SPEAKER_01
Did you ever see The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt?
8
SPEAKER_00
I did, yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
Hilarious.
8
SPEAKER_00
So many people were like, hey, they made a show about you.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s kind of you.
8
SPEAKER_00
It is.
8
SPEAKER_00
And you know what?
8
SPEAKER_00
That is very much the way that she s just confused by the smallest things.
8
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s funny the way that they depict it, but it s also kind of dark.
8
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I actually liked the dark humor in that.
8
SPEAKER_00
It s a great show.
8
SPEAKER_00
And Handmaid s Tale, too.
8
SPEAKER_00
I got a lot of calls about that one.
8
SPEAKER_00
They re like, they made another show about you.
8
SPEAKER_00
But I think that there s real truth to the things that confuse you.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I didn t have any friends.
8
SPEAKER_00
I went to college.
8
SPEAKER_00
I didn t know how to have relationships.
8
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of rules, apparently, unspoken rules about the dance of friendship.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I hadn t ever made a friend because I was born with the people I was born with.
8
SPEAKER_00
And I didn t know how to do that.
8
SPEAKER_00
I didn t know how to date.
8
SPEAKER_00
I didn t know how to be... I didn t know any of the rules.
8
SPEAKER_00
And it took me a very long time to learn them.
8
SPEAKER_01
What a crazy crash course.
8
SPEAKER_01
Were you open about your past to these people?
8
SPEAKER_00
No, absolutely not.
8
SPEAKER_00
So you kept it hidden.
8
SPEAKER_01
They just thought you were weird.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
One dude called me an ice queen.
8
SPEAKER_00
Oh boy.
8
SPEAKER_00
Because I was just really separate.
8
SPEAKER_00
I didn t know how to, and I didn t drink or smoke or do any of those things because I was so afraid of losing control.
8
SPEAKER_00
I was so afraid that if I, I also felt like I was in a huge hole that I had to dig my way out of in order to find a way to live in the outside world.
8
SPEAKER_00
And so I couldn t afford to, I didn t know who to trust and who not to trust.
8
SPEAKER_00
I mean, some of my friends now even, and my friends have become my family, and my brother s like that too.
8
SPEAKER_00
He has just the most amazing friends who are his family.
8
SPEAKER_00
And they will still call me feral.
8
SPEAKER_00
They re like, you still don t know how to, I mean, I still don t understand the point of utensils.
8
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I can do it and I know which fork to eat it from, but I don t want to, you know?
8
SPEAKER_01
You wanna eat with your fingers?
8
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I can eat with utensils, but if I m not in polite company, I m eating with my hands.
8
SPEAKER_01
Isn t it interesting that eating with your hands is thought to be gross?
8
SPEAKER_01
I don t think it is gross.
8
SPEAKER_01
But some things you have to eat with your hands.
8
SPEAKER_01
Like if you re eating ribs, how are you going to eat ribs?
8
SPEAKER_01
If you eat ribs with a fork and knife, you re a fucking asshole.
8
SPEAKER_01
If you got a big old Texas beef rib, you have to eat that thing with your face.
8
SPEAKER_01
You have to get in there.
8
SPEAKER_01
You have to use your hands.
8
SPEAKER_00
Isn t it weird?
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s interesting.
8
SPEAKER_00
And it s just cultural.
8
SPEAKER_00
But there s something we do in Western culture, because we re so in our minds instead of our bodies, we re always separating ourselves.
8
SPEAKER_00
So we need this piece of metal that keeps us from the reality that we re fucking eating an animal or whatever it is we re devouring.
8
SPEAKER_00
And somehow it s more polite if you have this piece of metal between you and it.
8
SPEAKER_01
Bizarre.
8
SPEAKER_00
It is.
8
SPEAKER_01
But it definitely keeps your hands cleaner.
8
SPEAKER_01
And it s easier to pick the food up.
8
SPEAKER_01
And you feel like, you know, look at me.
8
SPEAKER_01
I m in a restaurant.
8
SPEAKER_01
I ve got a napkin tucked in here.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
A lot of rules.
8
SPEAKER_00
You have to have that on your lap.
8
SPEAKER_01
Right.
8
SPEAKER_01
And which side is the salad fork?
8
SPEAKER_01
Which one s the regular fork?
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
Start on the outside end.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_01
Bizarre.
8
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_00
So when you are learning these things, you have to actually memorize them.
9
SPEAKER_00
No, like when you don t come from it, because you re like, there s a lot of rules.
9
SPEAKER_00
And all of them have systems, right?
9
SPEAKER_00
So I m very actually fascinated by microcosms.
9
SPEAKER_00
You know, like the microcosm cultures of like any sort of culture has a lot of rules attached to it.
9
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
9
SPEAKER_01
Well, you must be hyper aware of that.
9
SPEAKER_00
I feel like I am, yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you have to be.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
Patterns that people just take for granted.
9
SPEAKER_01
You re like, oh, interesting.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I m always watching.
9
SPEAKER_01
The thing about not knowing where the forks and knives go, to me, is one of the dumbest ones of all time.
9
SPEAKER_01
Because it s like a sign that you re a cultured person.
9
SPEAKER_01
If you know where the fork, it has to be proper.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like, what are we doing?
9
SPEAKER_01
Do you want to have a boring ass conversation with a bunch of people?
9
SPEAKER_01
Or do you want to sit down and have a meal and talk?
9
SPEAKER_01
That s the fun kind of like, what the fuck are we doing?
9
SPEAKER_01
Who are we impressing?
9
SPEAKER_01
Is the queen coming by?
9
SPEAKER_01
What is this?
9
SPEAKER_01
Why would you want this?
9
SPEAKER_00
Well, haven t you experienced though that sometimes when you get rid of all that, you just have a much more intimate conversation.
9
SPEAKER_00
I like to eat on the floor.
9
SPEAKER_00
I like to sit on the floor.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I have this beautiful rug in my house and I m like, if people will do it, I invite them to sit on the floor because it just feels more organic to me.
9
SPEAKER_00
And it just, it feels earthier and it feels just like, I don t know, it just removes all the hierarchies and I don t know.
9
SPEAKER_01
Have you ever seen those Middle Eastern guys all sitting around an enormous plate of food, and they re all just sitting cross-legged, just digging in with their hands and eating with their hands?
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
Well, if your hands are clean.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, well, the whole idea is you never shake someone s hand with your left hand.
9
SPEAKER_00
Right.
9
SPEAKER_01
Because that s the hand you use to wipe your ass.
9
SPEAKER_01
Right.
9
SPEAKER_01
So they think we re gross because we use paper, and we just smudge it all over the place.
9
SPEAKER_01
And they got a point.
9
SPEAKER_01
They got a really good point.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like, it is one of the grossest things.
9
SPEAKER_01
If you get one of those bidet toilets, you will never go back.
9
SPEAKER_01
You ll never go back.
9
SPEAKER_01
How gross is it to just smear it all over the place?
9
SPEAKER_01
You re allowed to eat with your hands.
9
SPEAKER_01
You re supposed to eat with your hands.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s just a normal thing.
9
SPEAKER_01
Most of the time, it s normal.
9
SPEAKER_01
How do you eat popcorn?
9
SPEAKER_01
Do you use a spoon?
9
SPEAKER_00
I feel so validated right now.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
How do you eat popcorn?
9
SPEAKER_01
Do you eat popcorn?
9
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_01
What do you eat with your fucking hands?
9
SPEAKER_01
And bread.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, bread.
9
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
9
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
9
SPEAKER_01
Bread.
9
SPEAKER_01
Who s cutting bread with a fork and knife?
9
SPEAKER_01
That s ridiculous.
9
SPEAKER_01
You eat with your hands.
9
SPEAKER_01
I guess it s just the messiness of it.
9
SPEAKER_01
But I think if you can get people to act proper, the conversations can stay within the lines.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_01
You know, maybe that s it.
9
SPEAKER_01
Maybe, you know, if you go to an inn and everybody s eating chicken legs and drinking beer and they re going to have crazy stories, it s going to get uncomfortable.
9
SPEAKER_01
Just keep people, make them wear their nicest clothes so they don t want to get messy and give them a fork and a knife and keep everybody proper.
9
SPEAKER_01
And everyone s trying to impress everybody else with how proper they are and how much they know about fine dining.
9
SPEAKER_01
May I see this sommelier to make a wine selection?
9
SPEAKER_01
You know, all of it.
9
SPEAKER_00
I remember the first time, you know, someone came to pour this glass of wine or whatever, and then the guy is supposed to take a sip of it to tell the guy if it s okay.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, what kind of culture is this?
9
SPEAKER_00
And what are you going to say if it s not?
9
SPEAKER_01
By the way, that is the most bullshitty, bullshitty moment you ever have in a restaurant.
9
SPEAKER_01
You swirl that thing around, take a sniff and sip.
9
SPEAKER_01
Unless you really know what you re doing, 99.9% of the people doing that have no fucking idea what they re doing.
9
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I don t know if this is a fact, but I have never had anyone offer it to me.
9
SPEAKER_00
They always offer it to the man and the man decides whether or not it s a wine good enough for the lady.
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, that s interesting.
9
SPEAKER_01
No, I ve definitely seen women get it.
9
SPEAKER_00
Really?
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, if a woman orders a bottle of wine.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s generally like whoever orders it.
9
SPEAKER_01
I ve seen that.
9
SPEAKER_00
Okay, I m going to watch that.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but I think maybe that s just modern today.
9
SPEAKER_01
Maybe that s like a new thing, you know, with women s liberation and stuff.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like people don t want to be presumptuous, so they ll offer the woman a taste.
9
SPEAKER_00
No one has ever offered me a taste.
9
SPEAKER_01
Interesting.
9
SPEAKER_01
Even if you ve ordered the bottle?
9
SPEAKER_00
Maybe I ve never ordered a bottle.
9
SPEAKER_01
Maybe that s what it is.
9
SPEAKER_01
I think it s generally the person who orders it.
9
SPEAKER_00
That may be.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
9
SPEAKER_00
But I also wouldn t have any idea if that was...
9
SPEAKER_01
Because if I m around a group of my friends and we order a bottle of wine, if I ask, they always bring it to me.
9
SPEAKER_01
But if one of my friends asks, they always bring it to them.
9
SPEAKER_01
I think it s generally the person who orders it.
9
SPEAKER_01
I think, but I don t know.
9
SPEAKER_01
I think it s probably just rules.
9
SPEAKER_01
But I would imagine that like women get offered less.
9
SPEAKER_01
I would imagine if I was like an old school Somali, I would assume the lady would not be making the choice.
9
SPEAKER_00
Do you know anything about Sikhs?
9
SPEAKER_01
Seeks the religion, not too much.
9
SPEAKER_00
Which is really more culture than a religion.
9
SPEAKER_00
But this is about wine.
9
SPEAKER_00
I didn t change the subject.
9
SPEAKER_00
So they have this, they do not drink unless the person they are with is drinking and they don t want to be rude or whatever.
9
SPEAKER_00
So they re not allowed to order wine.
9
SPEAKER_00
But if you order wine and you pour it for them, they can drink.
9
SPEAKER_00
And that s the same thing about smoking.
9
SPEAKER_00
They also never cut their hair.
9
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of things.
9
SPEAKER_00
But I have a Sikh friend.
9
SPEAKER_00
He taught me, I couldn t figure it out at the beginning because I d be like, why does he keep asking me to order?
9
SPEAKER_00
He d be like, you order.
9
SPEAKER_00
I was like, no, no, no, you order.
9
SPEAKER_00
I don t know what I want, you know, like whatever.
9
SPEAKER_00
And he d be like, no, no, you need to order the bottle of wine.
9
SPEAKER_00
And if I ordered it, even though he told me to order it and he was paying for it, then he could drink it.
9
SPEAKER_01
What a goofy rule.
9
SPEAKER_00
What a workaround.
9
SPEAKER_00
That s the thing.
9
SPEAKER_00
All these cultures have different traditions.
9
SPEAKER_01
Do you know what Sikhs do have?
9
SPEAKER_01
They have this crazy yogurt cannabis mixture.
9
SPEAKER_00
I did not know that.
9
SPEAKER_01
That s supposed to be bomb diggity.
9
SPEAKER_01
What is that stuff called, Jamie?
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, Duncan taught me about it.
9
SPEAKER_01
Have you had it?
9
SPEAKER_01
No, they have some like edible THC yogurt thing that s supposed to be insane.
9
SPEAKER_00
Well, he s given it to you.
9
SPEAKER_01
Okay.
9
SPEAKER_01
Many different ways of making bong lassi.
9
SPEAKER_01
The traditional method is to blend fresh cannabis leaves, plain yogurt, a pinch of sugar and nuts like almonds and pistachios, along with spices and ginger powder, fennel seeds, cardamom and peppercorn and water.
9
SPEAKER_00
Wow, that s a concoction.
9
SPEAKER_01
Click on that.
9
SPEAKER_01
What does it say at the top?
9
SPEAKER_01
The world s oldest cannabis treat.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I probably should try it.
9
SPEAKER_00
I think you should.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but I guess these guys take that stuff and get blasted.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s a really old and rich tradition and they are very humble and kind people.
9
SPEAKER_00
The culture, very pacifist and et cetera, et cetera, but probably that s what they ve been doing.
9
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, they re chilling.
9
SPEAKER_01
They re in a good headspace.
9
SPEAKER_01
So that s an example of a group of humans following a pattern that seems to be beneficial.
9
SPEAKER_01
It seems like they ve got a harmonious relationship with each other.
9
SPEAKER_00
They do, but their workaround, you know, we can joke about the workaround, but the thing their workaround does means that when they associate with outsiders, they don t stick to their own custom.
9
SPEAKER_00
They accept the customs of the outsider.
9
SPEAKER_01
Right.
9
SPEAKER_01
And they work around it by the other person having the order.
9
SPEAKER_00
Right, but they participate in it.
9
SPEAKER_00
And because they participate in it, they don t keep themselves as narrow-minded.
9
SPEAKER_00
I mean, coal people, they re definitely, no matter who pours you that glass of wine, you re not allowed to drink it.
9
SPEAKER_00
My dad was in the military, and he was just like, I mean, he was drafted, but he was like, you re not, no one could get me to drink a sip of alcohol, et cetera, et cetera.
9
SPEAKER_00
he was very proud of his ability to be separate.
9
SPEAKER_00
And so it s really difficult to have friendships in a cult, by the way.
9
SPEAKER_00
You think that it s so great because you re all in unison, but one of the things that people who have gotten out, and maybe they still have family members there, is that the people who are left there, they don t have any real friends because anybody would report on anybody.
9
SPEAKER_00
There s no loyalty.
9
SPEAKER_00
You can t tell a joke.
9
SPEAKER_00
You can t laugh at a joke.
9
SPEAKER_00
There s really a lot of things that are forbidden that are, I think, required for friendship.
9
SPEAKER_00
And so I had to learn that when I got on the outside and I look back and I think I was really impoverished by knowing people and moving in unison and having comfort, but not really having the experience of trust.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so how did you, how long did it take and how, what steps did you go about to sort of like
9
SPEAKER_01
create your own version of the world.
9
SPEAKER_00
I feel like there s really good ways to do this and I did not do any of them.
9
SPEAKER_00
I mean I was in college so I you know whatever I learned things academically but what I didn t learn is like in my body.
9
SPEAKER_00
I feel like I had four children really quickly, really young and then I think I raised myself with them.
9
SPEAKER_00
I used to do this thing when my babies were little where I was reading about other cultures because I didn t even know what an American culture really was and so I read about Japan, for example, which at the time they were saying basically you don t say no to a child until they re five because you want to give them a sense of autonomy and then you start putting the structure there.
9
SPEAKER_00
So anyway, I had these index cards, and I put them all over my house, and they said that they had the values that I wanted for my kids, like resiliency, humor, agency, whatever.
9
SPEAKER_00
And then on the back, I would put the techniques.
9
SPEAKER_00
So for example, I didn t put restraints, like I didn t use play pens or whatever.
9
SPEAKER_00
I just tried to create a safe environment, and then I did these things like, they should be able to find me, but I shouldn t always be present.
9
SPEAKER_00
So I would say, hi, I m gonna be working right here in this room, like to a one-year-old, right?
9
SPEAKER_00
Anytime you want me, I m right here.
9
SPEAKER_00
But then like remove myself from sight so they felt that they were in control of the relationship and just all this stuff.
9
SPEAKER_00
But I did it so cerebrally, you know, and so I think by raising them, I raised myself.
9
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
9
SPEAKER_00
But it did take me a long time to have friends, though.
9
SPEAKER_00
I don t think I had friends till my 30s, because like any genuine friends, because I didn t know how to be vulnerable.
9
SPEAKER_00
And I didn t trust
10
SPEAKER_00
anyone.
10
SPEAKER_00
Like I would be friends with somebody for like six, seven years before I d mention anything about where I came from.
10
SPEAKER_01
So how did you figure out how to open up?
10
SPEAKER_00
I m still working on it.
10
SPEAKER_00
Still working on it?
10
SPEAKER_01
I think you re doing great.
10
SPEAKER_00
I m trying it with you, Joe.
10
SPEAKER_01
Well, just the fact that the way you communicate about it, you re so open about it.
10
SPEAKER_01
And I mean, I can t imagine what that s like.
10
SPEAKER_01
I can t imagine what that life is like, what your childhood was like, being 17 and just being out in the world on your own, trying to decipher what the fuck the outside world does.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and I didn t understand parents either, like people s relationships with their parents.
10
SPEAKER_00
Like I didn t ever have, like my dad never bought me a meal in my life.
10
SPEAKER_00
Like he never, even later in life when I reconnected or whatever, it s like I would always have to pay.
10
SPEAKER_00
There was never this sense that my parents were giving us, you know, like it was always us giving to them.
10
SPEAKER_00
I felt like I didn t understand.
10
SPEAKER_00
I feel like I still have a little struggle with like, why are they taking such good care of you, you know?
10
SPEAKER_00
It s like this, I don t know, disconnect as far as what it looks like to be a family.
10
SPEAKER_00
And my definition of family is wider than biology, of course.
10
SPEAKER_01
Right, because your grandfather wasn t really your grandfather, right?
10
SPEAKER_01
He was.
10
SPEAKER_01
He was your grandfather.
10
SPEAKER_00
He actually was my biological grandfather, but the other kids that we were raised with all called him Grandpa.
10
SPEAKER_01
Right.
10
SPEAKER_00
And so I didn t know the difference, but he was my actual.
10
SPEAKER_01
So there was a lot of people that were family, but they weren t related.
10
SPEAKER_00
Right.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then, of course, once I left, I had to make new family as well, and my friendships with my family.
10
SPEAKER_01
What makes sense is it would take you into your 30s, because you have to relearn life.
10
SPEAKER_01
So you re going through 1 through 17 again.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it takes you that much more time.
10
SPEAKER_00
Did you see the movie Poor Things?
10
SPEAKER_01
No.
10
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
10
SPEAKER_00
Well, just this idea that if you put a child s brain in an adult body, that s what that story s about.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s kind of like a Frankenstein sort of thing.
10
SPEAKER_00
Who s in that movie?
10
SPEAKER_00
Emma Stone.
10
SPEAKER_01
Is that a recent movie?
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
There s a bunch of those.
10
SPEAKER_00
She did one after.
10
SPEAKER_01
Like I pay attention.
10
SPEAKER_00
But it s not about religion.
10
SPEAKER_00
Well, she does call, she calls the guy God who created her because his last name s Godwin.
10
SPEAKER_00
I think it s Godwin, right, Jamie?
10
SPEAKER_00
But it s, she calls him God.
10
SPEAKER_00
So there s like a religious parable, but it s not specifically about religion.
10
SPEAKER_00
But I think that s what I was like.
10
SPEAKER_00
I was like a, which I feel like I m still recovering from.
10
SPEAKER_01
What year is this supposed to be taking place in?
10
SPEAKER_00
It s surrealistic, so it s kind of Victorian, but it s sensationalized.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s almost like Diego Rivera crossed with, like, oh yeah, because part of it s in black and white, and then she starts singing in color.
10
SPEAKER_01
How do I not know about this?
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I don t know how you don t know about this.
10
SPEAKER_01
I m so out of the loop.
10
SPEAKER_01
There s just too many things to pay attention to.
10
SPEAKER_00
I feel like I just taught you something.
10
SPEAKER_01
You definitely did.
10
SPEAKER_01
But there s just too many things to pay attention to today.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, there are.
10
SPEAKER_00
There are too many.
10
SPEAKER_01
Too many movies, too many things.
10
SPEAKER_00
But in any case, it s an adult brain put in, I mean, sorry, a child s brain.
10
SPEAKER_00
It s actually her unborn fetus that gets put into this body.
10
SPEAKER_00
She dies, and so the baby dies, or the baby doesn t quite die, so that brain gets put into this adult woman.
10
SPEAKER_00
But in any case, that s what I felt like.
10
SPEAKER_00
I felt like I was this adult body who just had an infant brain and I think it just took me so long.
10
SPEAKER_00
So I don t come from, I feel like I don t come from an era too, kind of like the way that that movie is depicted.
10
SPEAKER_00
It felt like there was no music.
10
SPEAKER_00
I don t relate to the music of my generation because I never heard it.
10
SPEAKER_00
And so people, you know, like people are just sort of like everyone should sort of like the same kind of thing.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I don t have it never.
10
SPEAKER_00
I didn t go to concerts when I was a teenager ever and never.
10
SPEAKER_00
So I didn t have any idea what that felt like.
10
SPEAKER_00
And so I don t associate with that with youth, for example.
10
SPEAKER_01
Did you guys listen to any music?
10
SPEAKER_00
I sang a lot of hymns.
10
SPEAKER_01
Hymns.
10
SPEAKER_00
A lot of hymns.
10
SPEAKER_01
Mostly just Christian hymns, right?
10
SPEAKER_00
All Christian hymns.
10
SPEAKER_00
But John Wesley, there was a lot of, I don t know if you know who John Wesley is, but he wrote a lot of hymns.
10
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, like in the, I think 1600s, could you fact check that, Jamie?
10
SPEAKER_00
But it was, he wrote so many songs and I knew all the lyrics to those, I knew how to sing in harmony.
10
SPEAKER_01
So when you were kids, like when you guys would rock out, you d just rock out and sing hymns?
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, pretty much.
10
SPEAKER_01
But it wasn t really rocking out.
10
SPEAKER_01
When was the first time you heard another song?
10
SPEAKER_00
You know, the thing that I got ultimately kicked out for was going to a movie with a boy who was raised with me.
10
SPEAKER_00
He was a young man.
10
SPEAKER_00
He had left, and he was a college kid.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I was 17.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I went to The Color Purple, and there was music in that.
10
SPEAKER_01
Were you allowed to see movies?
10
SPEAKER_01
No.
10
SPEAKER_01
Had you seen one before?
10
SPEAKER_00
No.
10
SPEAKER_01
Color Purple was the first movie you ever saw?
10
SPEAKER_00
To my knowledge, yes.
10
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
10
SPEAKER_00
So that really changed my life.
10
SPEAKER_00
And then I started watching movies when I got to college.
10
SPEAKER_01
What was it like going to a movie at 17 for the first time?
10
SPEAKER_00
magic, like a, like a, like the most beautiful church.
10
SPEAKER_00
It was so beautiful.
10
SPEAKER_00
It was like, it was, I mean, just the darkness and then the way that the screen lit up and I just, it was so beautiful.
10
SPEAKER_01
I think we take it for granted, right?
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
It just made me cry.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, wild.
10
SPEAKER_01
And that was the first time you heard other music, too.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
And so I didn t start listening to popular music, though.
10
SPEAKER_00
It took me a while to, like, acclimate even once I got out.
10
SPEAKER_00
Like, I knew that other people were doing it.
10
SPEAKER_00
But the first time, like, I maybe bought a CD, for example, I think I was 30.
10
SPEAKER_00
Like I just didn t because I had babies young I just didn t I did all that in my early 20s I had all these little kids and I was doing you know the mom thing and trying to get myself educated so I could you know make good money and take care of everybody and
10
SPEAKER_00
It just felt like there wasn t time for that.
10
SPEAKER_00
So I didn t have a youth.
10
SPEAKER_00
And so I met a music critic when I was in my 30s.
10
SPEAKER_00
I m actually putting this in my next book, which is actually called Prodigal Daughter.
10
SPEAKER_00
And he introduced me to the songs of, it was in the early 2000s, and he introduced me to the songs of the 90s and taught me like, you know, the derivations of, you know, the beats and the lyrics.
10
SPEAKER_00
And he had come from a pastor father, so he understood, you know, religion in relation to music.
10
SPEAKER_00
And it was just this wonderful music education.
10
SPEAKER_00
So I did all that.
10
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I really think I came into understanding music in my 30s.
10
SPEAKER_01
You re almost like an alien.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yes, very much.
10
SPEAKER_01
Like an alien version of a human being that they dropped off at 17 years old.
10
SPEAKER_01
Like, what?
10
SPEAKER_01
What am I doing here?
10
SPEAKER_00
It just, it s shocking to me how long it takes to figure it out, even when you think, like, you can learn to, you know what it is, I could learn to code switch and I could learn to be presentable on the outside, like I could learn which fork to use, like really quickly, that you can learn, but you can t learn to feel the other things that other people feel.
10
SPEAKER_01
Right.
10
SPEAKER_00
And so you re always just a little bit disconnected, it s like being kind of in a bell jar or something, like there s always a distance between, or there was for just a long time between me and someone else.
10
SPEAKER_00
So, for example, my brother, who loves you, as I told you, I went to his birthday party recently, and they re like, you have a sister?
10
SPEAKER_00
He never even talked about his family.
10
SPEAKER_00
They didn t even know.
10
SPEAKER_00
And he s like, yeah, she just wrote a book.
10
SPEAKER_00
You should read it so you can figure out where I come from.
10
SPEAKER_00
Because he never told his very best friends, who he had been friends with for over 20 years.
10
SPEAKER_00
He never told them.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I think that he looks really normal, like he has, but he didn t have the ability, I think, to really maybe gauge the way that it affected him.
10
SPEAKER_01
Mm.
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_00
And we, as a family, you know, the siblings all kind of went different directions because, like, it s painful to go back and relive it.
10
SPEAKER_00
And you don t, it just feels like you re always going backwards if you try to be around where you come from.
10
SPEAKER_00
And you just want to, you just want to, like, live in the world and, you know, find a new identity.
10
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
10
SPEAKER_00
So there s long term consequences for coming out of something like this.
10
SPEAKER_01
Oh, for sure.
10
SPEAKER_01
How could there not be?
10
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
I mean, just, there s so many things that can happen to a child when they re young that will screw them up forever.
10
SPEAKER_01
But the fact that you had no understanding of the outside world, and you fully believed all this stuff that you were being told, you learn how to forage and survive in the woods, and then you get released.
10
SPEAKER_01
And then you re out in the world because you went to see The Color Purple.
10
SPEAKER_01
It s pretty crazy.
10
SPEAKER_01
It s such a crazy story.
10
SPEAKER_00
But the outside world is really complicated because there s so many different belief systems out here.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
Did you.
10
SPEAKER_01
Were you at a rush to try to find a new one.
10
SPEAKER_00
I was in a rush for everything because I didn t think I was going to live very long because it was still inside my head that I was a breaking.
10
SPEAKER_00
I mean even now like to be honest writing about this.
10
SPEAKER_00
This is what the former field people have said to me all the time is like nobody s ever talked about this publicly.
10
SPEAKER_00
We were we re trained you know like once you re in the field you re always in the field like it s like being a Marine or something like these are our brothers and sisters in arms and you
10
SPEAKER_00
I was never allowed to talk about this.
10
SPEAKER_00
So to come out with the book, it was the first time that anyone has spoken publicly about this particular cult.
10
SPEAKER_00
And I was raised, of course, to believe I d be struck dead by lightning if I ever talked about it.
10
SPEAKER_00
And so there were so many years that I think it was just so painful to even think about, I think, where I come from.
11
SPEAKER_04
I mean, I m kind of going around in a circle to answer this question, but it felt like it s been very recent that I can own that as being an essential part of my identity.
11
SPEAKER_02
Wow.
11
SPEAKER_02
How did you, do you attribute any specific, like, is it meditation?
11
SPEAKER_02
Is it yoga?
11
SPEAKER_02
Like, what is it that sort of has allowed you to kind of regain your life?
11
SPEAKER_04
Have you heard the expression or the word biophilia?
11
SPEAKER_01
No.
11
SPEAKER_04
So biophilia is the love of living things.
11
SPEAKER_04
And it s not specifically environmental.
11
SPEAKER_04
It was coined in 1973, I think, by Eric Fromm.
11
SPEAKER_04
And it is the love of living things.
11
SPEAKER_04
So it s not just humans, but it s animals, plants, whatever.
11
SPEAKER_04
And so I think that because I was raised understanding the natural environment, I really feel like when I ve been lost in the world, you know, and you think you re lost.
11
SPEAKER_04
I don t know if we can ever truly be lost.
11
SPEAKER_04
I think that we re just learning what s around us that isn t working.
11
SPEAKER_04
Like, that s always information that can, if you know what to look for, there s always information that can get you where you want to go.
11
SPEAKER_04
You just need to know where you want to go, right?
11
SPEAKER_04
So I feel like putting my feet in the dirt.
11
SPEAKER_04
So, you know, kind of like, you know, but like being in my body and being on the earth.
11
SPEAKER_04
And I think yoga helps with that, even if you re not doing it on the grass, although I do teach outside sometimes.
11
SPEAKER_04
But like, if you can find yourself, like what you re connected to, that feels solid.
11
SPEAKER_04
That feels like something you can believe in.
11
SPEAKER_04
Because it s not about an idea.
11
SPEAKER_04
It s like, I am held by gravity right now.
11
SPEAKER_04
This gravity is holding me into the earth.
11
SPEAKER_04
And this earth, it is capable of nurturing seeds.
11
SPEAKER_04
Things grow out of this earth.
11
SPEAKER_04
We forget that, I think, sometimes in our contemporary culture, that everything comes out of the earth.
11
SPEAKER_04
And so I think that one of the practices, I do meditate, I meditated before I came here today, but I think that if I can be under a tree,
11
SPEAKER_04
you know, and like on the earth in some way, then I feel like that, I guess it s that neuroplasticity thing, like I can always grow.
11
SPEAKER_04
Like there s, that there s no point at which I m separate.
11
SPEAKER_04
And I think there s that part of practice of being like, no, I m truly connected.
11
SPEAKER_04
And all the things they taught me was a way of keeping me separate, but I can always go back to the source itself.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I think when we re talking about the sky and the light pollution being a spiritual deficiency, I think we have that also from the forests.
11
SPEAKER_02
I think there s something that connects us when we re in the wilderness.
11
SPEAKER_02
There s a feeling that you get when there s a humbleness that comes about you, a humility that you have to accept, that the wilderness is so vast and powerful and amazing that
11
SPEAKER_02
It puts you in check.
11
SPEAKER_02
It gives you like this feeling of connectedness to everything.
11
SPEAKER_02
We think when we re living in cities and we re getting Ubers and we re going to restaurants, we think we re disconnected from nature because we ve kind of set it up that way.
11
SPEAKER_02
We set our own little hamster wheel up.
11
SPEAKER_02
over nature, but we re missing something by doing that.
11
SPEAKER_02
We re missing something.
11
SPEAKER_02
Because we are nature.
11
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, we are nature.
11
SPEAKER_04
We really are.
11
SPEAKER_04
We are nature.
11
SPEAKER_04
We just create our forks, right?
11
SPEAKER_04
Let s go back to that metaphor and that literal thing.
11
SPEAKER_04
But we separate ourselves from the reality that we eat straight from the earth.
11
SPEAKER_04
And most people, they eat animals that are alive on the earth.
11
SPEAKER_04
And that thing was a living creature.
11
SPEAKER_04
And you are devouring it.
11
SPEAKER_04
And that is so primal.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, life eats life.
11
SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_04
And we all come from the wilderness.
11
SPEAKER_04
We really do.
11
SPEAKER_04
Like for like hundreds of thousands of years, we were way, way, I mean, just it s astronomically like longer that we spent foraging than we did civilization.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_04
With an agriculture.
11
SPEAKER_04
I mean, agriculture is relatively new.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yep.
11
SPEAKER_04
And so we all come from that.
11
SPEAKER_04
So when we get there, I think it is something that is inside of us.
11
SPEAKER_04
And I think we would all benefit.
11
SPEAKER_04
At least I benefit.
11
SPEAKER_04
I shouldn t preach this to anyone else, but I think we benefit when we connect to it.
11
SPEAKER_02
I think all human beings share that.
11
SPEAKER_02
The only people that, you have to be like really, really neurotic and like a crazy city dweller, like, get me out of the woods.
11
SPEAKER_02
I hate it out here, it s so quiet.
11
SPEAKER_03
There are a lot of people who are like that.
11
SPEAKER_02
They re out there smoking cigarettes.
11
SPEAKER_02
Bobby, when we fucking going home?
11
SPEAKER_02
This is terrible.
11
SPEAKER_02
There s gotta be people like that.
11
SPEAKER_03
There are.
11
SPEAKER_02
People that are just like, but there s people that get acclimated to those particular cultures too, right?
11
SPEAKER_02
There s people that, maybe there s a thing that they do in their city that they can t be without.
11
SPEAKER_02
They need that thing.
11
SPEAKER_04
They think they need it.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_02
Oh, yeah, for sure.
11
SPEAKER_02
But like gambling addicts.
11
SPEAKER_02
I have a friend who s a gambling addict, lives in Vegas.
11
SPEAKER_02
I m never leaving Vegas.
11
SPEAKER_02
Because he wants to gamble all the time.
11
SPEAKER_02
If that s the place, you know, that s the place for you.
11
SPEAKER_02
You can t get that guy to live in the woods.
11
SPEAKER_02
You know, there s no card games out there.
11
SPEAKER_03
No, but there s a lot of adrenaline if you re looking for it.
11
SPEAKER_02
Oh, yeah.
11
SPEAKER_02
It s a different kind of adrenaline.
11
SPEAKER_02
But it s also, there s a lot, like I said, the humility that the woods give you.
11
SPEAKER_02
First of all, it s so hard to just get around.
11
SPEAKER_02
It s fucking hard to get around where there s no roads and shit and everything s up and down.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, your GPS doesn t work.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
11
SPEAKER_02
But you actually can get GPS out there.
11
SPEAKER_02
Not everywhere.
11
SPEAKER_02
Handheld.
11
SPEAKER_04
Not everywhere.
11
SPEAKER_04
What do you mean?
11
SPEAKER_04
Well, I suppose if you have a specific device, but your phone is not going to work in plenty of places.
11
SPEAKER_04
I d wonder.
11
SPEAKER_02
Oh, I know.
11
SPEAKER_04
I know there s places phones don t work.
11
SPEAKER_02
But the new phones, don t new phones use actual global positioning satellites so that it works even without a cell phone signal?
11
SPEAKER_02
I think iPhones do that.
11
SPEAKER_02
I think Samsung phones do that too.
11
SPEAKER_02
Not everywhere, do they?
11
SPEAKER_02
I think they do.
11
SPEAKER_02
It s very limited.
11
SPEAKER_02
Is it limited?
11
SPEAKER_00
Like you can send one, not like one, but like if you re stuck.
11
SPEAKER_02
No, no, no, you misunderstand what I m saying.
11
SPEAKER_02
No, you misunderstand what I m saying.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, there is satellite messaging, but what I m saying is GPS coordinates that your maps work.
11
SPEAKER_02
I think your maps still work even if you don t have cell phone signal.
11
SPEAKER_04
You can t put in, I can tell you this, if you re in a forest, it s not going to tell you which way to go because it hasn t been mapped in that way.
11
SPEAKER_04
It s not going to tell you turn left in 50 yards.
11
SPEAKER_02
Right, right, right.
11
SPEAKER_02
You get GPS, but you don t get directions.
11
SPEAKER_02
You won t get directions.
11
SPEAKER_02
You re going to have to trust something else.
11
SPEAKER_02
Siri, tell me how to get home.
11
SPEAKER_03
Right.
11
SPEAKER_03
You re going to have to find some other ways to identify.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, you ll have to actually look at the terrain on your GPS unit and figure out which way to go.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yes, you can do that, but you can pick a waypoint and it ll actually steer you towards a waypoint.
11
SPEAKER_02
And what if you don t have your device on you?
11
SPEAKER_02
You re fucked.
11
SPEAKER_03
No, no, you can actually, you can actually lose.
11
SPEAKER_02
Oh, no, no, no.
11
SPEAKER_02
I mean, you re fucked.
11
SPEAKER_02
I m fucked.
11
SPEAKER_02
You re not fucked.
11
SPEAKER_02
An iPhone s GPS will work fine without cell phone coverage.
11
SPEAKER_02
Your phone will know where it is, but you will not be able to see your location displayed on Apple Maps without a data connection to download the map.
11
SPEAKER_03
What does that mean?
11
SPEAKER_03
That makes it a little bit tough to get around.
11
SPEAKER_02
So it knows where you are.
11
SPEAKER_02
The GPS will work fine.
11
SPEAKER_02
But so could you just download the map of the entire country and leave it on your phone?
11
SPEAKER_02
So I know you can do that with certain apps.
11
SPEAKER_02
Like there s Onyx Hunt.
11
SPEAKER_02
It s a map app application for wilderness hunters.
11
SPEAKER_02
And you can use that and you download areas and you have them regardless of cell phone service.
11
SPEAKER_02
So you can tell where you re at.
11
SPEAKER_04
That may work, but most people on this planet have not done that.
11
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, you re fucked If you don t know where the North Star is, you don t know how to figure out what north south east and west Yeah, you re in trouble.
11
SPEAKER_02
You don t know where the Sun rises and some people don t even know.
11
SPEAKER_02
No, you re right They don t know they have no idea a lot of people live in the city Which way does the Sun set north?
11
SPEAKER_02
I don t fucking know Probably north and they just start going that they think they re going north and they re going deeper into the woods and
11
SPEAKER_04
And you know another thing about like going deeper in the woods, like humans are prone to circular movement.
11
SPEAKER_04
So if you don t know that, you will just keep walking in circles.
11
SPEAKER_04
And so you could see the north and you could keep walking like kind of towards it, but you re going to veer slightly and you re going to find yourself right back where you came from.
11
SPEAKER_04
Not good.
11
SPEAKER_04
It s not good.
11
SPEAKER_04
And you have to figure out a strategy to keep yourself from doing that because you will naturally, they ve done all sorts of studies on this and humans walk in circles.
11
SPEAKER_04
Why do they do that?
11
SPEAKER_04
That s what we do.
11
SPEAKER_04
I don t know, why do we do that?
11
SPEAKER_04
It s something in our brain.
11
SPEAKER_04
We don t really understand what it is to walk in a straight line, which you could get real prodigal son about that too, I think.
11
SPEAKER_01
Getting lost in the woods has to be one of the most terrifying experiences.
11
SPEAKER_04
You know what you should do if you get lost in the woods?
11
SPEAKER_01
What?
11
SPEAKER_04
The first thing you should do is stop moving.
11
SPEAKER_04
Stop moving.
11
SPEAKER_04
Stay put.
11
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, stay put.
11
SPEAKER_04
You really need to create a shelter and come up with a plan.
11
SPEAKER_04
You really, just walking around, you re not going to get out.
11
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, people have died.
11
SPEAKER_04
I mean, you probably heard this, but like on the Appalachian Trail and stuff, they ll like go off the trail for like 10 feet or something to pee.
11
SPEAKER_04
but it s like in a bush or whatever, and then they lose track of where the trail is, and they will die 20 feet away from the trail because they moved around and they exerted all their energy and whatever.
11
SPEAKER_04
If they had just stayed put and waited for the sunrise, you know, whatever.
11
SPEAKER_04
And then they figured out a system, like by watching the sky, or if they had your, we should all download all the maps, make sure we have GPS on our phones.
11
SPEAKER_04
But you know, people just, I mean, there s all these stories.
11
SPEAKER_04
My daughter was telling me that one of the nurses, and she s so capable, she and her sister took her daughter, so it was like the two sisters, so the aunt and the mother and the teenage daughter, and they were staying away.
11
SPEAKER_04
They were camping, and they went just on a little hike out right next to the campground, and her husband knew which campground she was at.
11
SPEAKER_04
They died just 100 yards away because they didn t have any idea how to do basic survival.
12
SPEAKER_01
Actually, the teenager lived because the mother and the aunt gave her all their clothes and they covered her and everything and she survived and they both died.
12
SPEAKER_00
Horrible stories.
12
SPEAKER_01
The things that people don t know about the wilderness, so stay put if you re not good at this.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, there s a lot of tragic stories.
12
SPEAKER_00
Jesus.
12
SPEAKER_00
It s so unforgiving out there.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
And so many people have no idea how to even navigate, and you can t, most people are out of shape, you can t even walk up hills.
12
SPEAKER_01
There s that too, but.
12
SPEAKER_00
You get stuck out there, you re fucked.
12
SPEAKER_01
But we survived as a species out there, so the thing is, it really is about knowledge, and I mean, living in a city would be impossible for prehistoric people too, like just, I mean, cars are so fast, like how do we avoid getting hit?
12
SPEAKER_01
They would get mugged so quick.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, they would definitely get mugged.
12
SPEAKER_00
If they had a car, they wouldn t lock it.
12
SPEAKER_00
They would never figure out how to drive a car, no one s gonna teach them.
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh yeah, it would be so, I mean, can you imagine moving at those speeds?
12
SPEAKER_01
But the point is, you can understand the wilderness, but people don t.
12
SPEAKER_01
And then, in a sense, they re not humble enough, right?
12
SPEAKER_01
They don t understand that there s something terrifying if you don t know what you re facing.
12
SPEAKER_00
And it s interesting that the disconnect from nature that we get with cities enables people to create things where you don t need nature anymore.
12
SPEAKER_00
where you get supermarkets, trucks, all those inventions, everything s coming out of cities, and it s all getting constructed, built, put together by a group of people living in cities.
12
SPEAKER_01
And it all comes from nature, but nobody sees that because it s so many steps removed.
12
SPEAKER_00
Right, but whatever it does, it removes you further and further from nature.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
All the things that we make remove us further and further from nature, shield us from nature.
12
SPEAKER_01
I feel like a lot of the high control group culty things is as far removed from nature as possible, too.
12
SPEAKER_01
I mean, my mom was really an exception in this way.
12
SPEAKER_01
My dad didn t learn the survival stuff, it was just my mom.
12
SPEAKER_01
But there s this idea, I think, that if we could understand our true nature, we d be a lot less susceptible to all sorts of control.
12
SPEAKER_00
Right?
12
SPEAKER_01
Because we would understand that we don t have control and that no human, you know, who professes to have the ultimate wisdom could possibly have it because we would be so attached to understand.
12
SPEAKER_01
I mean, the cycles of nature, like everything is prey and predator and like everything s part of a much larger system.
12
SPEAKER_01
And if you saw yourself as part of that, it would be really hard to fully believe any one person.
12
SPEAKER_01
could be the son of God in today s age.
12
SPEAKER_01
Like, if they profess to be the prophet or whatever, you would have a lot more cynicism, I think, if you understood nature.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, no doubt.
12
SPEAKER_00
We re just so removed from it.
12
SPEAKER_00
We re very removed from it.
12
SPEAKER_00
And that s also a problem of protecting your kids, right?
12
SPEAKER_00
Then your kids aren t going to meet a bunch of creepy people where they can recognize creepy people in the future.
12
SPEAKER_00
You know, I met a lot of fucking psychos.
12
SPEAKER_00
I know.
12
SPEAKER_00
I see him coming.
12
SPEAKER_00
I ve seen one of you before.
12
SPEAKER_00
You re out of your fucking mind.
12
SPEAKER_00
And if you don t know that and you re a 17 year old kid, it just gets released from a cult because you went to color purple.
12
SPEAKER_00
And all of a sudden, you re out there in the world.
12
SPEAKER_00
How d you figure out who to trust?
12
SPEAKER_01
Oh, it took me a long time.
12
SPEAKER_01
In fact, I ve been physically assaulted.
12
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I ve been physically assaulted by people I had no idea were dangerous.
12
SPEAKER_01
Like, you with some guy, and he s like, oh, I m having this backyard barbecue or whatever, and then there s nobody else there, and you don t know to leave.
12
SPEAKER_01
You re just like in the backyard, and he grabs you.
12
SPEAKER_01
I mean, my bones have been broken.
12
SPEAKER_01
I ve had, because I didn t understand.
12
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I could fight back to whatever degree, but I also, you can t fight against,
12
SPEAKER_01
back about somebody who s two or three times your size you know it s just really difficult but I didn t know the people were dangerous right right we re dangerous in that way right Wow so it takes God what a wild experience that would make a hell of a movie
12
SPEAKER_00
You know, because the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is really funny.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
It s more fun when it s funny.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
Well, she s hilarious.
12
SPEAKER_00
That show s hilarious.
12
SPEAKER_01
It is.
12
SPEAKER_00
I really love that show.
12
SPEAKER_00
The gay guy, the roommate.
12
SPEAKER_00
Oh, my God.
12
SPEAKER_01
What s his name again?
12
SPEAKER_01
I don t remember.
12
SPEAKER_01
It s been a while since I saw it.
12
SPEAKER_00
The fucking show is excellent.
12
SPEAKER_00
It s such a funny show.
12
SPEAKER_01
Well, I did.
12
SPEAKER_01
So after Forger came out, I was approached to do a creative shopping agreement, whatever.
12
SPEAKER_01
So I did write a screenplay for Forger that is different than the book, but it is about all of this.
12
SPEAKER_01
So we ll see what comes of it.
12
SPEAKER_00
Well, I hope they make a movie out of it because it s such an insane story.
12
SPEAKER_00
It s just kudos to you for getting through it and becoming the person who s sitting in front of me today.
12
SPEAKER_00
It s a wild ride.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s been a long journey.
12
SPEAKER_01
But it s nice to be on this side of it, I ll tell you.
12
SPEAKER_00
How many cults are active right now in the country?
12
SPEAKER_00
Do we know?
12
SPEAKER_01
No, we certainly don t know, but there is such a thing as a cult directory, which you had mentioned, too.
12
SPEAKER_01
So when I was on, I did a local television right at the beginning when the book came out, Frank Buckley, and the woman who was his producer, he was asking at the end, it s like, oh, you know, I didn t know this cult existed, how did I not know, et cetera, and she said, well, I did my fact checking before we booked her, and it s in the cult directory.
12
SPEAKER_01
And he s like, what, there s a cult directory?
12
SPEAKER_01
And the field is actually in the cult directory.
12
SPEAKER_01
And I didn t even know that, I was like,
12
SPEAKER_01
Whoa.
12
SPEAKER_01
So it s been reported.
12
SPEAKER_01
So I think a more interesting question, actually, is why are these cults not shut down?
12
SPEAKER_01
I mean, there s a bunch of them.
12
SPEAKER_01
Like you said, someone told you there s just tons of them that are active in California.
12
SPEAKER_01
And I don t know if it s the freedom of speech that we have going on.
12
SPEAKER_00
Isn t the real question, like, how do you define a cult?
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
Because Scientology has tax-exempt status in the United States, which indicates that it s a legitimate religion.
12
SPEAKER_00
Because they sued the IRS.
12
SPEAKER_01
And they won.
12
SPEAKER_01
They re smart.
12
SPEAKER_00
Thousands of dudes threatened to sue the IRS.
12
SPEAKER_00
And they filed lawsuits.
12
SPEAKER_00
And I guess the IRS caved and said, all right, we don t want to deal with all this.
12
SPEAKER_00
Which is really powerful of them.
12
SPEAKER_01
It really is.
12
SPEAKER_01
But also, if you declare yourself a religion, then you do get tax exempt status.
12
SPEAKER_01
But I think what makes a cult is, yeah, I mean, there s like the Steve Haslam thing that we talked about, but you know, this is really, really high control.
12
SPEAKER_01
But the question is, unless the abuse is reported in real time, it s really hard to find.
12
SPEAKER_01
And the people who are in the cult, A, don t recognize it s a cult, because nobody who s in a cult calls it a cult.
12
SPEAKER_01
And then B, are loyal to the cult, so they re not talking.
12
SPEAKER_01
You can t just go in and ask people, they re not going to tell you.
12
SPEAKER_00
Right.
12
SPEAKER_01
I would not have told you.
12
SPEAKER_01
I wouldn t.
12
SPEAKER_01
There s no way.
12
SPEAKER_01
When I was there, when I was 16, I would never have this conversation.
12
SPEAKER_00
Right.
12
SPEAKER_01
Not just not publicly.
12
SPEAKER_01
I wouldn t know how to privately either.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
I mean, you don t think it s a cult if it s the truth.
12
SPEAKER_00
If you think it s the truth, you think this isn t a cult.
12
SPEAKER_00
We re just the people living the right way.
12
SPEAKER_01
Right.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
But there s a lot of people who believe that, I think.
12
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_00
About themselves.
12
SPEAKER_00
They believe that about religions, too.
12
SPEAKER_00
I mean, the fact that people want to say that there s like,
12
SPEAKER_00
There s certain people that talk historically about the Christian religion, and they refer to it as a cult.
12
SPEAKER_00
Like, just historically.
12
SPEAKER_00
Like, this is the Christian cult, and this is what they did.
12
SPEAKER_00
Like, as you would say, this is the Hindu cult, this is the, this cult, that cult.
12
SPEAKER_00
They don t think of it as we have this problem like religion cult different things But it s groups of people that have very specific rules that you need to live by that s mandated by a higher power Yes, like if you just break it down to what the ingredients are like you can tell me it s a steak But it has all the ingredients of a carrot cake
12
SPEAKER_00
Think this might be a carrot cake.
12
SPEAKER_00
No, no.
12
SPEAKER_00
No, we call it a steak like but it seems like it s got carrots It seems like a carrot cake, you know, and that s religion and cult like there s this very blurry line So Scientology should win that lawsuit.
12
SPEAKER_00
So who s to say like what their Mormons aren t legit or they are legit.
12
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so they get tax-exempt status, but Scientology doesn t why and
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I don t think you can come up with a legitimate reason why.
12
SPEAKER_01
And in all these groups, Scientology and Mormonism too, there s these inner circles that are much, much more devout.
12
SPEAKER_01
So there s plenty of people who define themselves as Mormon or Scientologists who aren t living this really narrow life, but the people at the center are.
12
SPEAKER_00
But that s the question is like, how hard is it to form a religion?
12
SPEAKER_00
Is it really easy?
12
SPEAKER_00
How easy is it to get that tax exempt status?
12
SPEAKER_00
How many people do you need?
12
SPEAKER_01
I feel like I could do it.
12
SPEAKER_00
I bet you could do it.
12
SPEAKER_01
I feel like I could do it.
12
SPEAKER_00
I bet you could do it, for sure.
12
SPEAKER_00
But it s one of those things.
12
SPEAKER_00
You would imagine that everybody would be doing it.
12
SPEAKER_00
It s a great way to just trick the government.
12
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
12
SPEAKER_00
You don t have to give them any money.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
12
SPEAKER_01
I think someone did that, right?
12
SPEAKER_01
Jamie, like a spaghetti monster or something, and actually created the church of that.
12
SPEAKER_00
And they got tax exempt status for that?
12
SPEAKER_00
The Flying Spaghetti Monster.
12
SPEAKER_00
Well, it would be really hard to argue, especially when you re dealing with something like Scientology, when you have a science fiction writer who is, you know, he s the most prolific fiction writer of all time.
12
SPEAKER_00
L. Ron Hubbard, he wrote more words down and had them published than any human being that s ever lived.
12
SPEAKER_01
I think he was a Boy Scout too, actually.
12
SPEAKER_00
Was he?
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we should check that one, but I think he was.
12
SPEAKER_00
My favorite is when he s in the Sea Org and he s got this military jacket on and just gave himself a bunch of medals.
12
SPEAKER_01
He s got stacks of medals.
12
SPEAKER_01
Have you gone to the museum?
12
SPEAKER_00
Which one?
12
SPEAKER_01
I think there s more than one, but there s the one in Hollywood.
12
SPEAKER_00
No, no, I didn t.
12
SPEAKER_00
I ve met with them before.
12
SPEAKER_00
I got audited, where you hold on to the cans and they do the thing.
12
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, I did that, and I could feel the energy.
12
SPEAKER_00
I was filming a television show in San Diego, and we were near a park.
12
SPEAKER_00
And I wasn t as famous back then.
12
SPEAKER_00
I could get away with it.
12
SPEAKER_00
They didn t know how I was.
12
SPEAKER_00
And I sat down with this dude, and he went through the whole thing with me with the E-meter.
12
SPEAKER_00
And I realized somewhere along the line that he s just
13
SPEAKER_00
to do to join Scientology, and now part of his job is to go out and convert, but he s not very good at it.
13
SPEAKER_00
He didn t convert you?
13
SPEAKER_00
No, no.
13
SPEAKER_00
Well, not only that, he s not good at selling it.
13
SPEAKER_00
He was very non-enthusiastic about it, because I would have thought that all the cult members would be super pumped to get you to join, but this guy was just lost, like, I guess this is my people now, and yeah, hold on.
13
SPEAKER_00
on the meter, so it was interesting, it was like, he wasn t even, so it reshaped, in my mind, it was like, every person trying to indoctrinate you into this cult is gonna be really charismatic and really locked in.
13
SPEAKER_00
No, those are the leaders.
13
SPEAKER_00
They get the regular folks to go out to the park and annoy people and get yelled at, you fucking wackadoo.
13
SPEAKER_00
So that s the guy that I met.
13
SPEAKER_01
The people at the top don t wanna do that.
13
SPEAKER_00
It was very weird.
13
SPEAKER_01
I feel like you could be a cult leader, Joe, if you wanted to be.
13
SPEAKER_00
I don t think it s that hard.
13
SPEAKER_01
I feel like you could.
13
SPEAKER_01
I don t think it s that hard.
13
SPEAKER_01
If you decided it was one of your life goals, hit me up, and I ll give you some tips, and you ll be there in another week or two.
13
SPEAKER_01
I m not really interested.
13
SPEAKER_00
I m not interested.
13
SPEAKER_00
If it s a cult, it s a cult.
13
SPEAKER_00
You could leave any time.
13
SPEAKER_00
There s no requirements, and just say you re in, and you re in.
13
SPEAKER_00
Okay, you re not?
13
SPEAKER_00
I don t care.
13
SPEAKER_00
I don t think the apostapharians have tax-exempt status.
13
SPEAKER_00
Mmm, but but the Scientologists do if you if you read the fucking story Anybody that reads that story the story of the Thetans and the volcano and the aliens and spirits.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s really interesting.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s crazy
13
SPEAKER_00
It s crazy.
13
SPEAKER_00
If you read Lawrence Wright s Going Clear, it s a very fascinating book that sort of details the whole history of L. Ron Hubbard creating it.
13
SPEAKER_00
And he was basically a crazy person who was self-diagnosing, you know, and so he was like self-counseling.
13
SPEAKER_00
He was using all these self-help books and psychology books trying to figure out how to live a life.
13
SPEAKER_00
And that was Dianetics.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
You ve read some of that, right?
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, well, I bought it.
13
SPEAKER_00
In the 1990s, they had those infomercials where it was the volcano and the books were flying out of the volcano.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s funny.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I didn t know that it meant, like, I didn t know the whole story behind the volcano, where, like, the aliens throw the fucking frozen souls into the volcano, all that crazy shit.
13
SPEAKER_00
So I just thought it was a self-help book.
13
SPEAKER_00
And back then, I was really into self-help books.
13
SPEAKER_00
I bought, like, Anthony Robbins audio cassettes and all that shit.
13
SPEAKER_00
I was into things like that.
13
SPEAKER_00
And so I was like, oh, that seems like how to maximize your life in this commercial.
13
SPEAKER_00
I m like, oh, interesting.
13
SPEAKER_00
So I bought it online or on the phone, I think.
13
SPEAKER_00
I think back then you called.
13
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t online.
13
SPEAKER_00
And they never stopped sending me shit.
13
SPEAKER_00
They sent me shit for years, for years.
13
SPEAKER_00
It was invitations to this and invitations to that and, you know, half off of this and free that and come here and meet with us.
13
SPEAKER_00
And they just wouldn t stop.
13
SPEAKER_00
They just bombarded me with stuff.
13
SPEAKER_01
Well, you would be a good get if they could get to you.
13
SPEAKER_01
So you had all these iterations of these self-help stages of all these things through all of it, right?
13
SPEAKER_01
All the ways that you have self-helped in a sense.
13
SPEAKER_01
So what has been the most useful to you in being the kind of person you want to be?
13
SPEAKER_00
Time.
13
SPEAKER_00
Time s a big one.
13
SPEAKER_00
Learning over time.
13
SPEAKER_00
Experiences.
13
SPEAKER_00
Introspective thought.
13
SPEAKER_00
making decisions based on truth rather than thing than based on what you want to believe and just the accumulation of life experiences like a life well lived and then psychedelic drugs.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, those have been very effective.
13
SPEAKER_00
Those are the big ones those the psychedelic drug breakthroughs are the ones where you you come I always say that it s like control alt delete for your brain and Then your your brain reboots with a fresh desktop But now there s only one folder in that desktop and that folder says my old bullshit
13
SPEAKER_00
And you have a decision.
13
SPEAKER_00
Either you open up that folder and start behaving exactly how you used to because you have a pattern you re accustomed to or you try to re-engage with the world, re-interface with the world with this newfound experience as a guide.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_00
I think that s what the heart of all religious experiences are.
13
SPEAKER_00
I think there was people back then that experimented with psychedelic drugs and they had profound experiences and they might have even experienced entities.
13
SPEAKER_00
They might have even had interaction with God.
13
SPEAKER_00
It might be a real thing that you could do with the right stuff.
13
SPEAKER_00
And I think people have been talking about it and writing it on cave walls and depicting it in many religious texts and drawing images of it on the fucking ruins of Egypt.
13
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s everywhere.
13
SPEAKER_00
It was in the Eleusinian Mysteries in Greece.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s everywhere.
13
SPEAKER_00
Psychedelic drugs have been everywhere throughout human history.
13
SPEAKER_00
I think they probably shaped a lot of the way people formulated their ideas about religion.
13
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
13
SPEAKER_01
And I think that a lot of people believe that it was the foraging of those mushrooms that led to psychedelic drugs that like led the cultivation of communities that were religiously based.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_01
But that they really came from just looking for food initially.
13
SPEAKER_01
And then they would have these experiences and they could see something bigger than the life they were living.
13
SPEAKER_00
I always wondered why the Hindus don t eat cows.
13
SPEAKER_00
Like, how did that become religious?
13
SPEAKER_01
Specifically cows.
13
SPEAKER_00
Right.
13
SPEAKER_00
And does it have anything to do with the fact that they make mushrooms?
13
SPEAKER_00
Because mushrooms grow on cow shit.
13
SPEAKER_00
And if you had cows that were connecting you to God, you wouldn t want to eat them.
13
SPEAKER_01
No, they would be a form of a God.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, don t eat Betsy.
13
SPEAKER_00
Betsy s cool.
13
SPEAKER_00
She brings us the mushrooms.
13
SPEAKER_00
Because that s where the mushrooms grow.
13
SPEAKER_00
I mean, is it a coincidence that mushrooms grow on cow shit?
13
SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
13
SPEAKER_00
I mean, what is the original origin of why Hindus don t eat cows?
13
SPEAKER_00
Because I really don t know.
13
SPEAKER_00
But I know that there have been cultures that were cattle worshiping cultures that also had mushroom iconography.
13
SPEAKER_00
There s, there s some... I forget the name of the culture.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s a weird like Choctaw or something like that.
13
SPEAKER_00
But it s a culture that had all their iconography was like cattle and mushrooms.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
13
SPEAKER_00
Or some of their iconography, I shouldn t say that, like some of their writings, what s left.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s like so many cultures that show evidence that they ve been doing stuff with psychedelic drugs forever.
13
SPEAKER_00
They probably formulated so many of their
13
SPEAKER_00
you know, like their shamanistic practices, and how they organize their culture and their communities.
13
SPEAKER_00
They ll probably all do rituals together to connect to each other, you know, and stare at the stars.
13
SPEAKER_01
But the thing about psychedelics, though, that is so beautiful compared to cults, and cults don t do these, because they tap you into yourself, and you have your own unique, or somewhat unique, but you know, you have your own individual experience of what it means to you, and cults can t allow you to have that.
13
SPEAKER_00
That s true, but there are a lot of instances of guys who are shaman, even in the rainforest, that do creepy shit.
13
SPEAKER_00
Oh, well, they re human.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but they re not just human.
13
SPEAKER_00
It s like they do start running things like a cult, even though they re shamans and they re giving people ayahuasca.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, well certain of them Certain some of them might have gravitated towards that with that intention in mind, right?
13
SPEAKER_00
Like they might not have been born true of the shamanistic spirit They might have entered into it at a point in life like as a con artist you know, which does happen it does happen like people infiltrate certain kind of groups of people if they feel like
13
SPEAKER_00
It s a bunch of vulnerable people in those groups and a bunch of easily influenced and open to interpretation.
13
SPEAKER_00
You can just tell them that you re connected to God in a very unique way and also you re a guru.
13
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of those guys too.
13
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that was the wild, wild country guy.
13
SPEAKER_00
You know?
13
SPEAKER_00
He was like a legit guru, said some Osho, said some brilliant things, but also was fucking crazy.
13
SPEAKER_00
Out of his mind.
13
SPEAKER_00
He s a freak.
13
SPEAKER_01
So I feel like we need to be skeptical of anyone who tells us that they know the Word of God, that they are connected to God and you re not.
13
SPEAKER_01
So if you tell me this is my experience and I ask you questions, I can choose to follow you or not follow you, right, based on whether or not I like the results of your experience, et cetera.
13
SPEAKER_01
But somebody who says, no, God told me this and this is the only way.
13
SPEAKER_00
But imagine if God really did tell you and nobody wanted to believe you.
13
SPEAKER_01
Well, I m sure a lot of people.
13
SPEAKER_00
Imagine like, I really am a prophet.
13
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, well that was my grandpa.
13
SPEAKER_00
Guys, I know this is crazy, I know this sounds crazy, but I just got back from the mountain and God gave me a series of rules and I gotta give it to you.
13
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, nobody would believe you which is really ironic about today like Christians really want Jesus to return but like what amount of convincing Would you have to do to get people to believe you were really Jesus?
13
SPEAKER_00
You d have to do so much work and how many people would be convinced that it s Satan pretending to be Jesus So then they d be that battle the same people to think Michelle Obama has a dick
13
SPEAKER_00
There s gonna be people that think, they re gonna think the nuttiest of things.
13
SPEAKER_00
And then Jesus is gonna be like, guys, guys, guys, I am not Satan.
13
SPEAKER_00
I m actually Jesus.
13
SPEAKER_00
Nobody believed him.
13
SPEAKER_00
We would fucking crucify him again.
13
SPEAKER_00
And then people realize, God damn it, we did it again.
13
SPEAKER_00
We did it again.
13
SPEAKER_00
We could have kept him around and learned from him.
14
SPEAKER_01
And now they re going to have to rewrite Christianity.
14
SPEAKER_01
Every few thousand years he comes back and they fucking kill him again.
14
SPEAKER_01
That cycle of life.
14
SPEAKER_01
Well that would be that s the really scary thing to think that if if the son of God really did return if that is a real true thing.
14
SPEAKER_01
How the fuck would we ever believe that.
14
SPEAKER_01
We don t believe anything anymore.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_00
I mean, the tradition, right, is the trumpet is going to sound and you think the trumpet in the sky.
14
SPEAKER_01
But we would be convinced that s the government.
14
SPEAKER_01
That s air horns.
14
SPEAKER_01
They re tricking us.
14
SPEAKER_01
This is the ultimate false flag.
14
SPEAKER_01
The Jesus returns false flag.
14
SPEAKER_01
I mean, that s what a lot of people think is going on with the UFO reports.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
They think it s bullshit.
14
SPEAKER_01
They think it s the government.
14
SPEAKER_01
And the government s lying to us about that they re from another planet, you know, which is, you know.
14
SPEAKER_01
They lie about everything.
14
SPEAKER_01
Like, if they re telling you something, these are off-world crafts, I m like, oh, when did we make these?
14
SPEAKER_01
Like, shut the fuck up.
14
SPEAKER_01
When did we make these?
14
SPEAKER_01
You re saying they re from another planet?
14
SPEAKER_01
For real?
14
SPEAKER_01
I don t believe you.
14
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it could be a case of crying wolf.
14
SPEAKER_01
Like, maybe they re telling the truth, but boy, it seems a little suspicious.
14
SPEAKER_01
And that would be the same thing with the Jesus thing.
14
SPEAKER_01
Like, if Jesus really did come back and there were some fundamentalist Christians that were in government,
14
SPEAKER_01
that wanted the world to know, so they had a press conference, and we have definitive proof that Jesus has returned, and we need to listen to him.
14
SPEAKER_01
Everybody would be like, get the fuck out of here.
14
SPEAKER_01
No one would believe it.
14
SPEAKER_01
That s what s crazy about today.
14
SPEAKER_01
If Jesus came back today, and the world was in the middle of chaos, if we re in the middle of World War III, and Jesus returns, there s a real likelihood that they would crucify him again, or something similar.
14
SPEAKER_01
Real likelihood.
14
SPEAKER_00
Can t disagree with you.
14
SPEAKER_01
If he falls in the wrong group of people, the modern day version of the Romans,
14
SPEAKER_01
Right?
14
SPEAKER_01
You could fall into the wrong group of people.
14
SPEAKER_01
And like, if Jesus like accidentally landed in ISIS country.
14
SPEAKER_00
Could you imagine?
14
SPEAKER_00
I don t know if it would be an accident, but okay.
14
SPEAKER_01
Right.
14
SPEAKER_01
Probably not an accident.
14
SPEAKER_01
But maybe, you know, Jesus is just like, let me just go down there.
14
SPEAKER_01
And it wasn t specific enough.
14
SPEAKER_01
And God didn t say like, where do you want to go?
14
SPEAKER_01
Like, send me to Manhattan?
14
SPEAKER_01
No.
14
SPEAKER_01
He said, just bring me to earth.
14
SPEAKER_01
And he just dropped him off right in ISIS camp.
14
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, that d be very dangerous.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
And then the whole thing starts all over again.
14
SPEAKER_01
And then we have to tell the story about the guy who came from God, he was God s son, and ISIS killed him.
14
SPEAKER_00
I don t think we ve changed that much since the Pharisees and Sadducees and all that.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
I mean, we ve changed a little, but I think so much of our change is- But none of human nature changes.
14
SPEAKER_01
Right.
14
SPEAKER_01
That s what s going to- so much of our change is technological.
14
SPEAKER_01
So much of our change is society and wooden buildings and concrete structures and roads and- Metal forks.
14
SPEAKER_01
Phones and metal forks.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
That s what s changed.
14
SPEAKER_01
But the actual tissue is real similar.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s real similar to people that live 10,000 years ago.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so if Yeah, we ve got the the human nature like more suppressed now than it s ever been before But like we were talking about earlier if you re in a crowd situation when things go chaos, then you go Oh, we re still this thing.
14
SPEAKER_01
We re still a program for war.
14
SPEAKER_01
We re still programmed for chaos.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s all in us.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and mob mentality, all of that.
14
SPEAKER_00
It s real.
14
SPEAKER_00
People change.
14
SPEAKER_00
They absolutely change when they re in a group.
14
SPEAKER_00
Group dynamics are always different.
14
SPEAKER_01
I think you see it online, too.
14
SPEAKER_01
I think mob mentality exists not even just in a physical space, but I think it exists in a digital space, too.
14
SPEAKER_01
I think when people gang up on people online, on Twitter and those kind of things, I think that s the same thing.
14
SPEAKER_01
I think it s the same kind of mob mentality.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s the same sort of energy that
14
SPEAKER_01
is in us.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s very creepy.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s very creepy, and it s one of those things where you re like, how do we ever get that out?
14
SPEAKER_01
How do we ever get these ancient primate inclinations out of the modern human organism?
14
SPEAKER_00
I think if we had an answer for that, that we would be very, very, very wealthy.
14
SPEAKER_01
Maybe, or the government would kill you.
14
SPEAKER_00
It would be hard to control people if you had the answer to that.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think for individuals, the most important thing is exercise.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s one of the most important things, I should say.
14
SPEAKER_01
Because you can induce enough stress voluntarily that the regular stress of the outside world is mitigated.
14
SPEAKER_01
Because you ve already experienced a higher level of difficulty in your day by choice.
14
SPEAKER_01
then the world can impose upon you.
14
SPEAKER_01
So if you have rigorous workout schedules, if you like to run, if you want to lift weights, if you want to do yoga, like you want to do something with jujitsu, do something that s physically taxing.
14
SPEAKER_01
That s what you should do.
14
SPEAKER_01
Do something like that.
14
SPEAKER_01
And this the physical act of forcing yourself to do something extremely difficult that makes you uncomfortable for a short period of time, but makes the rest of the day much easier.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
That s what it is.
14
SPEAKER_01
You got to just feed the monkey inside of you.
14
SPEAKER_01
You got to like don t deny its existence.
14
SPEAKER_01
Just do something to that thing to calm it down.
14
SPEAKER_01
Give it food.
14
SPEAKER_01
You know.
14
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_00
I wonder, statistically, those of us who exercise, if we are less inclined to get online and terrorize other people in mob mentality.
14
SPEAKER_00
I would guess that may be true.
14
SPEAKER_01
I would bet that s true.
14
SPEAKER_01
A lot of the people that I know that terrorize people in mob mentality, they re extremely unhealthy.
14
SPEAKER_01
They look terrible.
14
SPEAKER_01
They get addicted to it.
14
SPEAKER_01
And they get addicted to interacting online on Twitter all the time and gauging
14
SPEAKER_01
you know, the temperature socially of how people think about them based on this like verbose bullshit they just typed on Facebook.
14
SPEAKER_01
But it s like it becomes this integral part of the way they engage with other human beings.
14
SPEAKER_01
And it s very non-human.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s very recent.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s very non-human.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s too limited in
14
SPEAKER_01
the way you interact with it.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s just that you can get good information online and you can get interesting discussions on Twitter, but you could also get like, you re dealing with legitimately mentally ill people.
14
SPEAKER_01
And I don t use that term lightly, okay?
14
SPEAKER_01
I m not saying schizophrenic, I m not saying manic depressive, but if you are a person that has a gambling addiction, if you re a person that has an addiction to betting on the horses, you re mentally ill.
14
SPEAKER_01
You have this thing you re sick with.
14
SPEAKER_01
If you can t stop smoking cigarettes, you re mentally ill.
14
SPEAKER_01
You have this thing that you can t stop.
14
SPEAKER_01
You re physically attracted to it, you re physically addicted to it, but you re also mentally ill because you don t recognize that you should stop before you get fucking lung cancer.
14
SPEAKER_01
That s the same thing with everything, I think.
14
SPEAKER_01
I think these are just like normal patterns, and I think people that are addicted to arguing with people on Twitter, they re mentally ill.
14
SPEAKER_01
This is serving the same thing as online poker.
14
SPEAKER_01
This is serving the same thing as fill-in-the-blanks, whatever you like to do that you probably shouldn t be doing, scratch tickets, lottery, whatever it is that you just can t get out of your head, because you got locked into it.
14
SPEAKER_01
You re mentally ill.
14
SPEAKER_01
You re mentally ill.
14
SPEAKER_01
Just like when you have a cough, you re physically ill.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, when you re online 12 hours a day arguing with people you re mentally ill and maybe you re mentally ill and Having good discussions.
14
SPEAKER_01
Maybe you re mentally ill and engaging in sometimes productive conversations, but you re also You re heightening your levels of anxiety and this bizarre non-natural way of interfacing with other human beings and you re living in that most of the time so you re
14
SPEAKER_01
you re going to suffer in the way you interact with people on a regular basis.
14
SPEAKER_01
And you see that bleed out too, right?
14
SPEAKER_01
You see people like act like they re on Twitter and to people in real life.
14
SPEAKER_01
And if you re like, what the fuck is wrong with you?
14
SPEAKER_01
Like, why are you acting like this?
14
SPEAKER_01
Because they re so used to communicating like that on Twitter and on Facebook and Instagram that they think it s normal to just be completely rude to people.
14
SPEAKER_00
You can t do that in the wilderness.
14
SPEAKER_00
There s not enough cell reception to do that in the wilderness.
14
SPEAKER_01
Right.
14
SPEAKER_01
And you can t do that face-to-face because it feels weird.
14
SPEAKER_01
If you talk to people face-to-face the way people talk to people just constantly on Twitter, you d have fistfights everywhere.
14
SPEAKER_01
People would be just fighting.
14
SPEAKER_01
They d be pushing each other and hitting each other.
14
SPEAKER_01
You d have murders.
14
SPEAKER_01
Like, it s just a shitty way to talk.
14
SPEAKER_01
So if you re doing that, you re mentally ill.
14
SPEAKER_01
So if you have gangs of mentally ill people that are just constantly engaging with other gangs of mentally ill people online all day long, arguing over everything cultural, everything environmental, fill in the blanks, climate change, fill in the blank, Ukraine, whatever it is, Palestine, free Palestine, fuck you.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s all day long.
14
SPEAKER_01
Mentally ill people.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
14
SPEAKER_01
And I think China s laughing at us.
14
SPEAKER_00
Oh, they said that.
14
SPEAKER_00
They, yes.
14
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I don t know if they said it all out, but they have infiltrated it.
14
SPEAKER_01
They have done a wonderful job.
14
SPEAKER_01
China, I say, way to go.
14
SPEAKER_01
That TikTok thing is fucking genius.
14
SPEAKER_01
What you ve done is genius.
14
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean, they ve definitely infiltrated universities.
14
SPEAKER_01
They definitely, the grants and funds, they put money into things, they donate to things.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s, what they ve done is wild.
14
SPEAKER_01
It s wild.
14
SPEAKER_00
And I would say that the same, I guess, impulses that make people do everything you re describing are really the same things that keep people in cults.
14
SPEAKER_00
Like there was a lot of the similar traits of people who become mentally ill because they are constantly
15
SPEAKER_00
constantly only focusing on one person s definition of anything.
15
SPEAKER_00
And so if cults were online doing that to each other, that s what they would sound like.
15
SPEAKER_01
Most certainly.
15
SPEAKER_01
Marc Andreessen again talked about that as well.
15
SPEAKER_01
He said they have, if you look at the woke people online, they have all the characteristics of a cult.
15
SPEAKER_01
They have excommunications, they ll savagely attack former members.
15
SPEAKER_01
They have rules, and there s things that you, there s a suspension of disbelief that you have to use in order to adopt certain things.
15
SPEAKER_01
You have to be willing to say things you know aren t really true, and they all get you to do it.
15
SPEAKER_01
You know?
15
SPEAKER_00
Well, because it s part of the in-group, right?
15
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
15
SPEAKER_00
Like, that s how you get status.
15
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but it s just fascinating to see how far that stuff goes up.
15
SPEAKER_01
Even with people that run universities, they believe it.
15
SPEAKER_01
People that are in Congress, they believe it.
15
SPEAKER_01
It s like, Jesus, this is, we re all in a cult.
15
SPEAKER_01
Cult thinking is not, I think people have this thing in their head that cults are small groups of people that are gullible.
15
SPEAKER_00
No.
15
SPEAKER_01
And I don t think that s true.
15
SPEAKER_01
I think you could have a cult of 150 million people easy.
15
SPEAKER_00
If you have someone controlling your behavior, your information, your thoughts, and your emotions, then... Yeah.
15
SPEAKER_01
And if you have a good system set up where everybody polices everybody else, like woke people on Twitter, and then you have a good system of the person who s in charge and the underlings and all the other people, and people are benefited from it in a good way, yeah.
15
SPEAKER_01
You can get a bunch of businesses going.
15
SPEAKER_01
You could infiltrate corporations with this nonsense.
15
SPEAKER_01
You could get in the Supreme Court.
15
SPEAKER_01
You could do wild things with it.
15
SPEAKER_01
You just need to have a strong structure of support from the other members online.
15
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you just need to get people to police each other and police themselves.
15
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s the big one, right?
15
SPEAKER_01
That s the North Korean model.
15
SPEAKER_01
Get people to police themselves.
15
SPEAKER_01
Get people to rat on each other.
15
SPEAKER_01
Whoo.
15
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
15
SPEAKER_00
I think we just came full circle on that.
15
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
15
SPEAKER_01
I think your story is very important for people to hear, and I m really happy that you had the courage to say it, because I would imagine it would be very, very hard to tell that story, very hard to explain the vulnerabilities that you experienced and what it was like to be this 17-year-old kid who s still a kid, who s just becoming a woman out there in the world,
15
SPEAKER_01
and you just escaped from a cult where you couldn t even see movies and all you sung was hymns and you thought the end was near and then you re out there in the world just interacting with all these people that went to like normal schools and had normal childhood American experiences and you have to kind of relearn everything.
15
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and there s a lot of excommunication that still goes on in terms of, it s my family of origin.
15
SPEAKER_00
It s all, every single cousin I had was raised there.
15
SPEAKER_00
I did not have any cousins on the other side.
15
SPEAKER_00
100% of my relatives were raised in there.
15
SPEAKER_00
And so, yeah, you have to be willing to, in a sense, step away from the acceptance that you get, which I think had to relate to many, many, many, many people who have nothing to do with religion.
15
SPEAKER_00
But yeah, all the different types of cults in the world.
15
SPEAKER_00
It s like being willing to stand back and say, wait, I don t believe this.
15
SPEAKER_01
I think this story, your story, is really important, too, for people that may be vulnerable.
15
SPEAKER_01
Maybe they don t have the tools to discern.
15
SPEAKER_01
Maybe they re being courted by a group.
15
SPEAKER_01
They don t have the tools to discern.
15
SPEAKER_01
Just fundamentally, if someone s telling you that they have secret information that only they have, and it comes from a mystical source, either it comes from aliens or it comes from God,
15
SPEAKER_01
Probably not.
15
SPEAKER_01
Probably not.
15
SPEAKER_01
It s probably not.
15
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it might be Jesus.
15
SPEAKER_01
Again, if Jesus came back, who s going to believe him?
15
SPEAKER_01
But most likely, you re dealing with someone who s full of shit.
15
SPEAKER_01
So at least today, we know that.
15
SPEAKER_01
You know, in 1930, when your grandpa first started, I mean, he was just...
15
SPEAKER_01
running wild, like there s no Wikipedia.
15
SPEAKER_01
You could say anything.
15
SPEAKER_01
You could just go, or Joseph Smith, who created the Book of Mormon, you know, like that fucking guy.
15
SPEAKER_01
He was like 14 years old.
15
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
15
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
15
SPEAKER_01
Said he found golden tablets that contained the lost work of Jesus, but only he could read it because he had a magic rock.
15
SPEAKER_01
And everybody s like, okay.
15
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s the kind of thing my grandfather said too, and people believed it.
15
SPEAKER_01
There was a lot of those guys back then.
15
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you get away with a lot back then.
15
SPEAKER_01
What do you think is the motivation?
15
SPEAKER_01
Like, what is it about human beings and almost always men?
15
SPEAKER_01
There s only a few women that have been successful cult leaders.
15
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s pretty rare.
15
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that one that was on the HBO documentary.
15
SPEAKER_01
I haven t seen it yet, but everybody raves about it.
15
SPEAKER_01
You know what I m talking about?
15
SPEAKER_00
I do, but I haven t seen it.
15
SPEAKER_01
The way the lady became anorexic.
15
SPEAKER_01
What is it?
15
SPEAKER_01
Love?
15
SPEAKER_01
What was that one, Jamie?
15
SPEAKER_01
What s it called?
15
SPEAKER_01
It s supposed to be amazing, but I haven t seen it.
15
SPEAKER_01
But what is it that seems to be a recurring pattern?
15
SPEAKER_00
So I ve always found it really fascinating to say that anyone could be a cult member.
15
SPEAKER_00
Anyone could fall for that, especially if you re young.
15
SPEAKER_00
But it s who would become a cult leader?
15
SPEAKER_00
That s the bigger question.
15
SPEAKER_00
Who s Jim Jones?
15
SPEAKER_00
Right.
15
SPEAKER_00
I feel like there s no simple answer for that.
15
SPEAKER_00
But in my grandfather s case and in many other of these young men cases, they were outsiders in some way and they had some bone to pick and they wanted
15
SPEAKER_00
I think they maybe started out of wanting belonging, but then they got really drunk on the power so quickly.
15
SPEAKER_00
Like Manson.
15
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
15
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
15
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
15
SPEAKER_00
So I ve been teaching in prisons, by the way.
15
SPEAKER_00
It s been part of my career.
15
SPEAKER_00
And I worked with Lessa Van Houten.
15
SPEAKER_00
She s been released now, but she was the tutor in the program I was working in.
15
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, she was like, what, 19 when she committed these, participated in, but she followed Manson as if he was a cult leader.
15
SPEAKER_00
It s very similar.
15
SPEAKER_00
And I m not like talking about the politics of all that or like, I m just saying that, I mean, I m very grateful that nobody asked me to kill anybody.
15
SPEAKER_00
You know, I m not, I would like to think I wouldn t, but I don t think any of us know.
15
SPEAKER_01
Right, if you were 12 years old and your whole life you d lived in that cult and you were told to kill some man because he s a demon.
15
SPEAKER_00
Right.
15
SPEAKER_01
And if you killed them and they were like hugging you, you did it.
15
SPEAKER_01
You saved us.
15
SPEAKER_01
You saved us from the demon.
15
SPEAKER_00
You d be pumped.
15
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I think it would be.
15
SPEAKER_01
Of course, children like that, especially if you get them.
15
SPEAKER_00
They re trained in armies at that age.
15
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
15
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
15
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
15
SPEAKER_01
And I mean, that s also why people like people joining the army when they re young, not just because they re strong.
15
SPEAKER_01
But also because they re mentally unaware of the conflicts of the world.
15
SPEAKER_01
It s really difficult to get a 60 year old man to go to war Based on you know, we found weapons of mass destruction.
15
SPEAKER_01
Okay, they ll put on his reading glasses Let me see this shit.
15
SPEAKER_01
What do you got?
15
SPEAKER_01
I m gonna fly to Afghanistan.
15
SPEAKER_01
Show me what you have.
15
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
15
SPEAKER_01
Yes, you need him.
15
SPEAKER_01
Yes, sir.
15
SPEAKER_01
We re gonna go kill the bad guy, sir
15
SPEAKER_01
That s what you need.
15
SPEAKER_00
But the cult leaders have something that they really feel like they need, like they need people s respect, because I don t think they could get it in other ways, and so they create this whole world.
15
SPEAKER_00
And honestly, once people start believing you, it s probably a pretty big high.
15
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I had David Holthaus on the podcast the other day and he did that documentary series that s on Peacock about the Hare Krishnas and about this one guy that created this sect of the Hare Krishnas and it was all child molestation and murder.
15
SPEAKER_01
They re killing people and it s just, it s a crazy, it s a really good doc, he s a really good director.
15
SPEAKER_01
And the documentary series is really interesting, but it s just like, goddamn, that pattern just repeats itself over and over.
15
SPEAKER_01
Waco, holy hell, up there, wild, wild country.
15
SPEAKER_01
It s like everywhere, the same sort of pattern repeats itself and it always, almost always at least, falls apart.
15
SPEAKER_00
It s hard to keep that stuff going because... But you re a crazy person.
15
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and you have to keep upping the ante.
15
SPEAKER_01
Right.
15
SPEAKER_01
It s not like Warren Buffett.
15
SPEAKER_01
He s not out there starting cults.
15
SPEAKER_01
It s not like people are good at organizing businesses.
15
SPEAKER_01
It s like crazy people, like wild, crazy people.
15
SPEAKER_01
But there s this inclination to get people to follow you and to tell them what to do and to tell them how to live life and to make them worship you.
15
SPEAKER_01
It s fucking strange that that s...
15
SPEAKER_01
just some sort of weird evolutionary response.
15
SPEAKER_01
Because in tribal cultures, there was always a leader, and that leader was generally the wisest person who had the most life experience, who could tell you, hey, this is a plant you can t eat.
15
SPEAKER_01
Don t go over there, they ll kill you.
15
SPEAKER_01
This thing runs faster than you, get away from it, that snake s poisonous.
15
SPEAKER_01
You had to know how to make an arrow.
15
SPEAKER_01
This guy knew, so that was your leader.
15
SPEAKER_01
And if you listen to him, you re gonna stay alive.
15
SPEAKER_01
And if you don t listen to him, you re going to watch people die right next to you and you go, oh, they didn t listen.
15
SPEAKER_01
And you re going to experience that at a young age where people die because they used to die all the fucking time.
15
SPEAKER_01
Of course.
15
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
15
SPEAKER_01
Just infant mortality was like 50 percent back then.
15
SPEAKER_01
And then you re like, what are the odds you re going to live to 30?
15
SPEAKER_01
Not so good, bro.
15
SPEAKER_01
This Jaguars in the fucking trees like you re fucked.
15
SPEAKER_01
You re in trouble.
15
SPEAKER_01
And that s why we had tribal leaders.
15
SPEAKER_01
And then as we expanded,
15
SPEAKER_01
into these societies and cities and large groups of human beings, we still have the desire to have one individual.
16
SPEAKER_00
leader because we have this primate genetic imprint in us of the alpha who runs the people.
16
SPEAKER_00
to the point where we ll pretend that someone s alpha.
16
SPEAKER_00
We ll pretend Joe Biden is really running the country.
16
SPEAKER_00
We ll pretend.
16
SPEAKER_00
And so many Democrats are all in on it.
16
SPEAKER_00
The most culty of cult members, the wokest of woke, are the ones who are the most likely to try to fucking gaslight you that he s fine, and he s doing great, and he s the best president ever, and just look at the economics, and look at the economy s doing better.
16
SPEAKER_00
He s on top.
16
SPEAKER_00
He s never been sharper.
16
SPEAKER_00
Shut up.
16
SPEAKER_00
You re in a cult.
16
SPEAKER_00
You re in a cult, just like if you were in the Moonies, just like if you were in the Holy Hell cult.
16
SPEAKER_00
It s the same thing.
16
SPEAKER_00
It s just patterns of belief, and we all have them, and we re susceptible to them because life is a massive mystery.
16
SPEAKER_00
It s a massive, scary, weird mystery with a lifespan.
16
SPEAKER_00
It s got a finite lifespan.
16
SPEAKER_00
You have a certain amount of time here, and you never think like you have enough time, and you never think you did enough, and it always feels weird, and you never even know what the fuck is going on while you re driving your car or sitting on the bus.
16
SPEAKER_00
The whole time, you re like, what is this?
16
SPEAKER_00
What is this all about?
16
SPEAKER_00
So anytime you can get some relief from that, someone comes along and they go, I ve got the answers.
16
SPEAKER_00
Come with me, Michelle.
16
SPEAKER_01
Okay, so that s not happening anymore.
16
SPEAKER_00
No, of course not.
16
SPEAKER_01
But you know, when you said that too, I was thinking like, it is, it s the belief that there s answers instead of what I think, I think you and I believe is that it s always more questions.
16
SPEAKER_01
Like we don t have the answers and we will, there will be continuing, there ll be questions that we never answer in our lifetime.
16
SPEAKER_00
Well, also, we exist in a certain frequency in reality.
16
SPEAKER_00
But there s subatomic reality that s so damn confusing that somehow another a part of us that we can study.
16
SPEAKER_00
Like what s all that magic?
16
SPEAKER_00
What s all that magic going on?
16
SPEAKER_00
Where you got particles that are both moving and still, they exist and reappear, they disappear, we don t know where the fuck they re going.
16
SPEAKER_00
What s happening there?
16
SPEAKER_01
What is that stuff?
16
SPEAKER_00
What s all that stuff?
16
SPEAKER_00
There s so much that we don t know.
16
SPEAKER_00
There s so there s so much weirdness just in the observable universe That it s uh, the whole thing is a crazy mystery and to not approach it that way And to approach it with some bizarre confidence that you have the answers Like you re not doing anybody any good because you re full of shit You re you re you re full of shit with yourself.
16
SPEAKER_00
You re full of shit.
16
SPEAKER_00
If you believe it you re full of shit with yourself You re definitely full of shit with other people if you re telling them you believe it
16
SPEAKER_00
You can t know.
16
SPEAKER_00
We have guidelines, and there s ways that we can live that are gonna be better for everybody, and we should definitely go that way.
16
SPEAKER_00
Definitely don t try to harm people.
16
SPEAKER_00
Definitely try to be nice as much as possible.
16
SPEAKER_00
Try to be cool to your friends.
16
SPEAKER_00
Try to enjoy your time here.
16
SPEAKER_00
Try to leave people with a smile.
16
SPEAKER_00
Try to do your best.
16
SPEAKER_00
Do all that stuff.
16
SPEAKER_00
If we do all that stuff, we re good.
16
SPEAKER_00
But as soon as someone comes along and tells you, no, you have to do this because this is the word of God,
16
SPEAKER_00
Be suspicious.
16
SPEAKER_00
Because it s been around before.
16
SPEAKER_00
It s not like this is a unique thing.
16
SPEAKER_01
I feel like be suspicious is some good advice.
16
SPEAKER_00
Be suspicious.
16
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
16
SPEAKER_00
Be suspicious of anybody that s trying to get you to do things.
16
SPEAKER_00
Like they re trying to tell you to do a thing.
16
SPEAKER_00
And that if you don t do a thing, you re a bad person.
16
SPEAKER_00
And the people that are engaging in other things other than what they re telling you are all going to hell.
16
SPEAKER_00
Like, OK.
16
SPEAKER_00
Let me put my reading glass on.
16
SPEAKER_00
Let me see this hell.
16
SPEAKER_00
You got a fucking YouTube video I can watch?
16
SPEAKER_00
How much do you know?
16
SPEAKER_01
Are you sure?
16
SPEAKER_01
Do you have the GPS coordinates of that?
16
SPEAKER_00
Do you have the onyx maps of hell?
16
SPEAKER_00
I don t think you know what you re talking about.
16
SPEAKER_00
And if you don t say that, if you don t have the humility to say that this is at the very least a massive mystery.
16
SPEAKER_00
We know so much.
16
SPEAKER_00
I mean, we know so much more than we ve ever known before.
16
SPEAKER_00
And thank God there s people out there that are trying to figure the world out.
16
SPEAKER_00
Thank God there s people out there that are doing the work and doing the fucking theoretical physicists and all the quantum mechanics people and all the people that are trying to make rocket ships.
16
SPEAKER_00
Thank God you re out there.
16
SPEAKER_00
At the end of the day, this is a crazy mystery, that you go to bed every night, you close your eyes, and you disappear.
16
SPEAKER_00
Hopefully for eight hours, if you re getting your eight hours, Michelle.
16
SPEAKER_00
And then that alarm clock goes off, and then you re-engage with reality and assume that this is the exact same world that you went to bed eight hours ago for.
16
SPEAKER_00
You assume.
16
SPEAKER_00
But you just re-engage with reality.
16
SPEAKER_00
We look forward to it.
16
SPEAKER_00
Everyone s scared to die, but no one s scared to sleep And we do it every night.
16
SPEAKER_00
No one s scared.
16
SPEAKER_00
I don t want to shut the lights out.
16
SPEAKER_00
I don t want to go to sleep No one s scared to go to sleep.
16
SPEAKER_00
Everybody s like, oh my god.
16
SPEAKER_00
I can t wait to sleep Can t wait to sleep and be recovered and then you get up you have to do it.
16
SPEAKER_00
It s a requirement You have to go out you have to stop if you don t you ll die the universe requires you to stop interfacing with it for long stretches of time
16
SPEAKER_00
ideally eight hours.
16
SPEAKER_01
So I hear.
16
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
16
SPEAKER_00
Full 30 a day.
16
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
16
SPEAKER_00
It s a wild thing.
16
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
16
SPEAKER_00
Full 30 a day.
16
SPEAKER_00
You reboot.
16
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
16
SPEAKER_01
We process in our dreams in ways that we don t understand.
16
SPEAKER_00
It s very strange.
16
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
16
SPEAKER_00
It s very strange.
16
SPEAKER_00
Just that alone is very strange.
16
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but that alone is a strange strange one that we ve just accepted because if that didn t exist and all of a sudden everybody said listen We have found a new thing instead of just being awake all the time If you can just go to sleep
16
SPEAKER_00
You ll live longer and you ll be better.
16
SPEAKER_00
Like, what are you talking about?
16
SPEAKER_00
Like, you re just gonna shut off for eight hours.
16
SPEAKER_00
And then what happens to me?
16
SPEAKER_00
Like, can I see?
16
SPEAKER_00
No.
16
SPEAKER_00
What if someone breaks into my house?
16
SPEAKER_00
Well, you re asleep.
16
SPEAKER_00
Fuck that.
16
SPEAKER_00
No one would wanna do that.
16
SPEAKER_00
But it s normal, so we just do it.
16
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s a mystery.
16
SPEAKER_00
This is a crazy ass mystery.
16
SPEAKER_00
And what happens in your dreams?
16
SPEAKER_00
Like, why are those damn things so realistic?
16
SPEAKER_01
What the fuck?
16
SPEAKER_00
What the fuck is going on in dreams?
16
SPEAKER_00
One thing happens if you smoke pot.
16
SPEAKER_00
Your dreams kind of dull a little bit sometimes.
16
SPEAKER_00
But if you take long breaks off, like we do Sober October, and during Sober October we don t do anything.
16
SPEAKER_00
And when you take long breaks off, you get wild dreams.
16
SPEAKER_00
Wild.
16
SPEAKER_00
And here s a little pro tip.
16
SPEAKER_00
If you want to have the wildest dreams, take nootropics before you go to bed.
16
SPEAKER_00
Take like alpha brain before you go to bed.
16
SPEAKER_01
Because you want to have these dreams?
16
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
16
SPEAKER_00
Let s go.
16
SPEAKER_00
Okay.
16
SPEAKER_00
Even when I was a little kid, I used to love nightmares.
16
SPEAKER_00
When I was a little kid, I would look forward to a nightmare.
16
SPEAKER_00
I would try to make me have one.
16
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
16
SPEAKER_00
Because I like horror movies.
16
SPEAKER_00
So I was like, let s have a, let s get some monsters in here.
16
SPEAKER_00
I would literally like go to bed.
16
SPEAKER_00
I was like, God, I hope I get the fuck scared out of me.
16
SPEAKER_00
I look forward to like having a nightmare dream.
16
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
16
SPEAKER_00
I had a bunch of crazy ones too that I remember.
16
SPEAKER_00
I even wrote a bunch of them down because they were so nuts.
16
SPEAKER_00
Like plot of movies, they were so crazy.
16
SPEAKER_00
But it just was a thing where I thought of it as like an adventure ride.
16
SPEAKER_00
I would thought of like nightmares as an adventure ride.
16
SPEAKER_00
Like I knew I kept waking up.
16
SPEAKER_00
So, okay.
16
SPEAKER_00
All right.
16
SPEAKER_00
After I was like four or five, I m like, yeah, I m waking up.
16
SPEAKER_00
So I know they re not real, but it is pretty fun if they re scary, if I can just relax.
16
SPEAKER_00
So I was thinking that I remember thinking that as a little kid thinking like, I think there s a way to just make yourself have nightmares and just do it for fun.
16
SPEAKER_00
Just like watching a scary movie.
16
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
16
SPEAKER_01
Is any of that lucid dreaming?
16
SPEAKER_00
I ve only done lucid dreaming accidentally a couple of times.
16
SPEAKER_00
And every time I ve done it, I ve recognized that, uh, I m dreaming and then I wake up because I recognize it.
16
SPEAKER_00
That s the problem.
16
SPEAKER_00
I don t know how to chill.
16
SPEAKER_01
Do you remember most of your dreams?
16
SPEAKER_00
No.
16
SPEAKER_00
I remember a lot of them though.
16
SPEAKER_00
I don t remember most of them.
16
SPEAKER_00
I would say I remember a small fraction of them, but I remember them for a long time.
16
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
16
SPEAKER_00
What about you?
16
SPEAKER_01
I do.
16
SPEAKER_01
I remember a lot of dreams.
16
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I could never, nobody would know if you remember all of them for one.
16
SPEAKER_00
How would you know?
16
SPEAKER_01
But yeah, I still dream about the field.
16
SPEAKER_00
Really?
16
SPEAKER_00
That makes sense.
16
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
16
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
16
SPEAKER_01
Because it s in your subconscious and you re just like, I m still processing.
16
SPEAKER_00
I didn t have a bad time in high school.
16
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t the worst.
16
SPEAKER_00
I had a pretty good time in high school, but I would have nightmares that I had to go back to high school.
16
SPEAKER_00
Like legitimate nightmares that like I didn t get enough credits, so I didn t graduate, so I had to go back.
16
SPEAKER_00
Nightmares.
16
SPEAKER_00
And high school was not that bad.
16
SPEAKER_00
Now, I can t imagine
16
SPEAKER_00
how much that would be multiplied, leaving a cult at 17.
16
SPEAKER_01
They re very formative years, those years.
16
SPEAKER_01
All of them.
16
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, they re very formative.
16
SPEAKER_01
And your prefrontal cortex is not completely formed, and so we probably all go back to whatever degree to that part of us.
16
SPEAKER_00
But those nightmares must be very vivid for you, though, and must be very extreme.
16
SPEAKER_00
Because like I said, I would get nightmares from high school, which was nothing.
16
SPEAKER_00
It was no big deal.
16
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t bad at all.
16
SPEAKER_00
I didn t have a bad time in high school, you know, but it was just the idea of being trapped in that fucking school another year was scary.
16
SPEAKER_00
And that s nothing.
16
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s the being trapped.
16
SPEAKER_01
I have a lot of dreams like that.
16
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
16
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
16
SPEAKER_00
Did they subside?
17
SPEAKER_00
time?
17
SPEAKER_01
They ve gotten better.
17
SPEAKER_01
You know, just two days ago, I met this guy who I hadn t seen since I was a kid.
17
SPEAKER_01
So for me, I kind of met him for the first time, you know, in the sense of I don t remember him.
17
SPEAKER_01
But he said that reading Forager, and he really said this, and he said he had nightmares.
17
SPEAKER_01
He s always had nightmares.
17
SPEAKER_01
This man is late 60s, probably, maybe even 70, I don t know.
17
SPEAKER_01
And he said that reading it stopped his nightmares because he thinks because somebody validated, so he didn t feel like it was trapped in his head anymore, someone validated and named his experience because he wasn t talking about it.
17
SPEAKER_01
Not even to his own family, like his whole life he s never talked about it.
17
SPEAKER_01
And so having, just seeing it in a book made him say like, I m not crazy, you know?
17
SPEAKER_01
And so I just wonder sometimes if our nightmares are also things, I mean, it s great that you were like causing ones on purpose, but the kinds that are like really deeply disturb us.
17
SPEAKER_01
I just wonder if there are parts of us that we haven t fully come to terms with.
17
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
17
SPEAKER_00
I wonder, but some of mine is like Godzilla chasing me when I m on a skateboard.
17
SPEAKER_00
They don t make any sense.
17
SPEAKER_00
That doesn t sound that scary.
17
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I don t try to have nightmares now.
17
SPEAKER_00
I really only did that a few times when I was a kid.
17
SPEAKER_00
But the nightmares that I do have, almost all of them are really primal ones.
17
SPEAKER_00
I ve had a lot of nightmares about wolves, like a lot over the years, like running from wolves.
17
SPEAKER_00
There s something about wolves, because they re intelligent, and they operate in packs, and they have some sort of non-verbal communication where they understand each other in some very weird way.
17
SPEAKER_00
They re similar to us in a lot of ways.
17
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
17
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
17
SPEAKER_00
They freak me out.
17
SPEAKER_00
They really do.
17
SPEAKER_01
You know, they re not that different from dogs.
17
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, they re a lot different from dogs.
17
SPEAKER_00
They re a lot different from dogs.
17
SPEAKER_00
Well, they are because they re wild, but... I have a golden retriever.
17
SPEAKER_01
Okay, they re way different than a golden retriever.
17
SPEAKER_00
They re way different.
17
SPEAKER_01
I have a strange shepherd, and they re not that different.
17
SPEAKER_00
My dog is a love sponge.
17
SPEAKER_00
He loves everybody.
17
SPEAKER_00
If he came in here, he would be... But you re part of his pack.
17
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, no doubt.
17
SPEAKER_00
But he s not a wolf.
17
SPEAKER_00
There s a big difference.
17
SPEAKER_00
I mean he used to be a wolf if you go back 20,000 years ago or whatever it was when they started taking these bitch ass wolves who were willing to come by the forest fire or by the campfire rather.
17
SPEAKER_00
But the the wolves that live and operate in the wild are these ruthless majestic creatures who are intelligent.
17
SPEAKER_01
Right, but the reason that you love your dog is the same reason that wolves love each other.
17
SPEAKER_01
Because they re part of a pack and because they understand relationships, and I think the wolves with each other, you re just not in a relationship with the wolf, but I mean, of course they re scary, but because they re so good at what they do.
17
SPEAKER_00
Right, but that s why we re scared of deer.
17
SPEAKER_01
Well, yeah.
17
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
17
SPEAKER_00
If you re in the woods with a rifle, deer should be fucking scared.
17
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and that s why they jump, and that s why they re running away real quick.
17
SPEAKER_00
And that s the thing with wolves and human beings.
17
SPEAKER_00
We ve been food for them for a long time.
17
SPEAKER_00
That s what Little Red Riding Hood s all about.
17
SPEAKER_00
That s really, that s what the Big Bad Wolf is all about.
17
SPEAKER_00
That s the whole story.
17
SPEAKER_00
The story is about wolves that will eat your kids, because that s what they did.
17
SPEAKER_00
They eat people.
17
SPEAKER_00
World War I had to be, they had a ceasefire between the Germans and the Russians because too many of them were getting eaten by wolves.
17
SPEAKER_01
That s why they had a ceasefire?
17
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, they had a ceasefire.
17
SPEAKER_00
And they killed the wolves and then went back to killing each other.
17
SPEAKER_01
They couldn t have just like taken a break and said like, oh, maybe we should be on the same side.
17
SPEAKER_00
No, they were losing so many people to wolves that they had these packs of wolves in Russia, and this was trench warfare.
17
SPEAKER_00
So they had horrific wounds.
17
SPEAKER_00
These people would be lying in the trenches with a bullet hole, and then you d hear wolves tearing these people apart, and they d be screaming.
17
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, they would send people out on patrol and just find a boot with a foot in it.
17
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God.
17
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
17
SPEAKER_01
You should be scared of wolves.
17
SPEAKER_00
You should be scared of wolves.
17
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I mean they re reintroducing wolves now to Colorado.
17
SPEAKER_00
They just did and they just had the first wolf depredation where a wolf killed a calf at a ranch.
17
SPEAKER_00
And that s just the beginning.
17
SPEAKER_00
There s a reason why they killed those things.
17
SPEAKER_00
I don t think they should have.
17
SPEAKER_00
I don t think they should have made wolves extinct in the Western United States like they did.
17
SPEAKER_00
I think it was horrible.
17
SPEAKER_00
They put strychnine in horses and they left them out there and the wolves would eat it and die.
17
SPEAKER_00
They did horrible, terrible things.
17
SPEAKER_00
But you don t want wolves.
17
SPEAKER_00
You don t want them around.
17
SPEAKER_00
You don t want a lot of them, especially with these bitch-ass people today.
17
SPEAKER_00
You re gonna fucking lose a lot of folks if those things get to high numbers.
17
SPEAKER_00
You re gonna lose a lot of folks.
17
SPEAKER_00
A lot of people are gonna be camping and they re gonna get surrounded.
17
SPEAKER_00
Just needs certain numbers.
17
SPEAKER_00
Needs numbers where they think they can get away with stuff like that.
17
SPEAKER_00
You know, numbers where there s not enough people with guns.
17
SPEAKER_00
They find out that they think people are just hikers.
17
SPEAKER_00
They don t seem to have any weapons.
17
SPEAKER_00
They know what a weapon is.
17
SPEAKER_00
They figure that out.
17
SPEAKER_00
Over time, like wolves see enough rifles, they know what a rifle is.
17
SPEAKER_00
They re not stupid.
17
SPEAKER_01
They re not stupid.
17
SPEAKER_00
They re scary animals.
17
SPEAKER_00
But they re also amazing.
17
SPEAKER_00
but you gotta keep an eye on them.
17
SPEAKER_00
People that live in cities don t think that.
17
SPEAKER_00
It goes back to be suspicious, our theme for today, be suspicious.
17
SPEAKER_00
Well, be suspicious of systems, right?
17
SPEAKER_00
Because that is a system of predator and prey.
17
SPEAKER_00
And if you re having a hard time walking up that hill, guess what?
17
SPEAKER_00
Guess what side you re on.
17
SPEAKER_00
Guess what side you re on.
17
SPEAKER_00
You think you re the predator?
17
SPEAKER_00
Well, you re not.
17
SPEAKER_00
You re not, you can t even get up the hill.
17
SPEAKER_00
Wolves run up a hill like it s nothing.
17
SPEAKER_00
They just fucking go over that hill like it ain t shit.
17
SPEAKER_00
They can run 45 miles an hour and chase you down and eat you, stupid.
17
SPEAKER_01
Be suspicious.
17
SPEAKER_00
Be suspicious.
17
SPEAKER_00
Did they teach you guys when you were doing the survival training how to do everything, like get water, hunt for food?
17
SPEAKER_00
Make your own fire out of nothing.
17
SPEAKER_01
I know how to distill water in a pit from plants and how to distill urine and all that great stuff.
17
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
17
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
17
SPEAKER_01
It s not really a very practical skill, though.
17
SPEAKER_01
You don t really have to do that on a daily basis.
17
SPEAKER_00
But if you know how to distill water, it s pretty wise.
17
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean, you can do a lot with dew, just like by putting, but you do need a piece of plastic.
17
SPEAKER_01
You can use like a rain jacket or like a windbreaker or whatever, but you put it, you dig a pit and you put all the vegetation and like whatever you can get, even in the desert, like if you can get, you know, yucca or whatever, and you put it in the pit and then the condensation, you know, when it rises, you need to collect it and then you can collect the dew and survive.
17
SPEAKER_00
So you get it off the bottom surface of the plastic?
17
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but you make a little like pool of it and yeah.
17
SPEAKER_01
Damn.
17
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and you can survive off of that.
17
SPEAKER_00
Wow, how much water can you get out of do?
17
SPEAKER_01
Well, it depends on how you ideally you have more than one pit of this But you are going to at some point move on a little in forage where there s more plants But you can live and you also of course want to know what plants can give you water, right?
17
SPEAKER_01
Until you can find a source the good ones Like which good plants?
17
SPEAKER_00
So what s the good ones that ll get you water?
17
SPEAKER_01
Well, any really the darker green and the you know, the bigger the leaf but in the desert I mean generally if you have the things that give you a lot of water are already at water sources.
17
SPEAKER_01
Mm-hmm, right because that s their water rich So it s in the desert where you need it and anything that has I mean cactus can give you water But this and you re not gonna get as much do as you do off of let s say sagebrush.
17
SPEAKER_00
Mm-hmm Yeah, so sage bushes
17
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you can get some dew off of that.
17
SPEAKER_00
So what do you do?
17
SPEAKER_00
You take them out of the dirt, and you bury them?
17
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
17
SPEAKER_01
You dig a pit.
17
SPEAKER_01
You don t bury them like they would grow.
17
SPEAKER_01
You leave them like lush.
17
SPEAKER_01
So you dig this pit so you can use it over and over.
17
SPEAKER_01
And you take the brush, and you put it in the pit.
17
SPEAKER_01
And then you cover it with whatever sort of plastic you have.
17
SPEAKER_01
If you have a tarp, that s great.
17
SPEAKER_01
I just don t know why you d have a tarp.
17
SPEAKER_00
Are you planting it, or are you just leaving it there?
17
SPEAKER_01
You re not planting it, because you don t need the roots or whatever.
17
SPEAKER_00
And so it s just sucking the water out of that.
17
SPEAKER_00
Plant as it dehydrates in the heat with the plastic over it, but it s overnight.
17
SPEAKER_01
So it s not really the heat I mean, it s yeah, so it ll like you ve seen condensation like even on your car, right?
17
SPEAKER_01
And so you re just collecting that that s just a source of collecting it and you put more of it in one place So you can collect more how much can you get?
17
SPEAKER_01
I mean, if you get a quarter cup, you re pretty lucky.
17
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
17
SPEAKER_01
But, you know, you just can t move around a lot if you don t want to dehydrate.
17
SPEAKER_01
But if you do that enough, you can live.
17
SPEAKER_01
You ll survive for a while.
17
SPEAKER_01
Water s really important, way more important than food.
17
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
17
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
17
SPEAKER_01
I mean, you know that.
17
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
17
SPEAKER_00
You can survive a long time without food.
17
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
17
SPEAKER_00
We talked about this dude that was really fat, and he went on a fasting diet with IV vitamins, and he did it for 300 and something days.
17
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so you could do a whole year if you re heavy enough.
17
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
17
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
17
SPEAKER_01
But most people could go a month pretty easily.
17
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
17
SPEAKER_00
Like even if you re not fat.
17
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you d look like shit at the end.
17
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, of course.
17
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
17
SPEAKER_00
But you could live.
17
SPEAKER_00
You can t do that with water.
17
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
17
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
17
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
17
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
17
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
17
SPEAKER_00
I m sure you hope you don t ever have to use those skills.
17
SPEAKER_01
I do hope that, and I am sure my skills are not as good as they used to be.
17
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but just what you ve told so far, if the shit hits the fan, I m calling you.
17
SPEAKER_00
You should, you should Joe.
17
SPEAKER_00
I bet I should.
17
SPEAKER_00
I mean, how many years did you have to learn that stuff?
17
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I learned them for a lot of years.
17
SPEAKER_01
And it gets inside of you, and I think that s the thing about muscle memory, right?
17
SPEAKER_01
And I believe in exercise, by the way, too.
17
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I was trained like that, so I can t not exercise.
17
SPEAKER_01
And I think that just like exercise, I m sure you feel like shit if you don t exercise, and as do I. But I also feel like when it gets inside of you, what survival is, you feel, I think, without doing some of those things, that you re not really fully human.
17
SPEAKER_01
At least I feel that way.
17
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
18
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I like to eat off the earth even now.
18
SPEAKER_00
Like when I can, you know, I still forage.
18
SPEAKER_01
I mean, that s what picnic s about, aren t they?
18
SPEAKER_00
No, I meant like actually picking things out of the ground that I didn t plant.
18
SPEAKER_00
I don t mean gardening.
18
SPEAKER_00
I mean, you know, like foraging off the land.
18
SPEAKER_00
If you know what to eat, it s still really great to have something that grew there naturally, like indigenous plants.
18
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s rewarding.
18
SPEAKER_01
If you can find a blueberry bush and pick blueberries, it s rewarding.
18
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, or elderberries.
18
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think it s a part of our past, too.
18
SPEAKER_01
Like, in our DNA, you get excited.
18
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
18
SPEAKER_00
You find fruit in the wild.
18
SPEAKER_00
Every chapter of my book has, like, these descriptions of something you can eat in the Angeles National Forest.
18
SPEAKER_01
Oh, really?
18
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
18
SPEAKER_00
I mean, not to say that, you know, somebody would need a little bit of training.
18
SPEAKER_00
Like, I m not advocating that you just go out there and, like, you know.
18
SPEAKER_00
But, I mean, if you know what you re doing, yeah.
18
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you always hear that with mushrooms, like people fuck up and they eat the wrong mushrooms and wind up dying.
18
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
18
SPEAKER_01
Mushrooms are scary.
18
SPEAKER_00
They are.
18
SPEAKER_01
There s a lot of them that ll kill you.
18
SPEAKER_00
Yes, and then there s a lot of them that ll keep you alive.
18
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
18
SPEAKER_00
So if you re going to survive, you should know the difference.
18
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
18
SPEAKER_01
See this argaricon that Paul Stamath gave me?
18
SPEAKER_01
This is a giant mushroom.
18
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
18
SPEAKER_00
That s a real mushroom?
18
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
18
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
18
SPEAKER_01
It s huge.
18
SPEAKER_00
Let me see.
18
SPEAKER_01
Check it out.
18
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
18
SPEAKER_01
Came off old growth forest.
18
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
18
SPEAKER_01
That s a real mushroom.
18
SPEAKER_00
That s incredible.
18
SPEAKER_01
Isn t that nuts?
18
SPEAKER_00
Don t eat it.
18
SPEAKER_01
No, you don t eat that one.
18
SPEAKER_01
That one s staying on the table.
18
SPEAKER_00
I m just giving some advice.
18
SPEAKER_00
No, no.
18
SPEAKER_01
But he sells them in pills.
18
SPEAKER_01
He actually, yeah, his company is called Host Defense.
18
SPEAKER_01
You get it in pill form.
18
SPEAKER_01
It s good for your immune system.
18
SPEAKER_01
All right.
18
SPEAKER_00
So it s foraging, I think.
18
SPEAKER_01
I think so, too.
18
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
18
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I m sure.
18
SPEAKER_01
I m sure even just getting dirt on you and being in the wild, that s what we re supposed to do, right?
18
SPEAKER_01
Like being in sterile environments is probably the worst thing for your immune system.
18
SPEAKER_00
It s like atrophy.
18
SPEAKER_00
That s actually been studied, yes.
18
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, like just sort of like exercise, right?
18
SPEAKER_01
Like if you don t exercise, you re atrophy.
18
SPEAKER_01
If you don t experience some other organisms, we re a host of organisms.
18
SPEAKER_00
We re all interconnected.
18
SPEAKER_01
Yes, we re all interconnected.
18
SPEAKER_01
Listen, I really enjoyed this conversation.
18
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
18
SPEAKER_01
I think your journey is remarkable.
18
SPEAKER_01
It s very unusual.
18
SPEAKER_01
And I think you came out of on the other end a very interesting person.
18
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
18
SPEAKER_01
And I really appreciate being here.
18
SPEAKER_00
Thanks for having me on.
18
SPEAKER_00
It s been wonderful hanging out with you.
18
SPEAKER_01
I enjoyed it very much.
18
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
18
SPEAKER_01
So tell everybody how to get your book.
18
SPEAKER_00
Oh, right, so Forger, Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult.
18
SPEAKER_00
It s available anywhere books are sold.
18
SPEAKER_00
So you can get it online and, yeah.
18
SPEAKER_00
Do you have social media?
18
SPEAKER_01
Do you have Instagram or any of that?
18
SPEAKER_00
I do, I have Instagram.
18
SPEAKER_00
I m on Substack.
18
SPEAKER_00
I am on Twitter, but not a whole lot.
18
SPEAKER_00
And yeah, you can find me on social media.
18
SPEAKER_01
What is your Instagram?
18
SPEAKER_01
Michelle Dowd Z. Michelle Dowd Z?
18
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, this is the at the end.
18
SPEAKER_00
Okay, got it.
18
SPEAKER_01
All right, beautiful.
18
SPEAKER_01
All right.
18
SPEAKER_00
I wasn t the first Michelle Dowd on Instagram, unfortunately.
18
SPEAKER_01
Well, thank you very much.
18
SPEAKER_01
I really enjoyed it.
18
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
18
SPEAKER_00
Thank you, Jeff.
18
SPEAKER_00
All right, bye everybody.
18
SPEAKER_00
Bye.