WEBVTT - Part One: The Holy Rollers Sex Cult 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:05.400 Also media. 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:07.600 Ah. 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:11.560 Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast about the 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:15.200 worst people in all of history that also hosts the eternal, 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:19.040 unending battle between a man and his producer who wants 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:21.319 him to send in the scripts of the episodes that 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:24.560 they're reading. As usual, I'm winning this battle, and to 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:31.720 celebrate the script, not the latest script, to celebrate my triumph, Matt. 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:37.080 Leeb Northrop Grumman got me Northrop come in. 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:39.960 That's right in my faith? What's up? 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:43.400 That's right? That's right. We are advertising for drone delivered 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:48.120 sex toys. Yeah, the same technology that takes out school 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:52.519 buses and Yemen can make you say, yeah, man, what do. 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:53.760 You have your soundboard? Matt? 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:57.080 Do I have my soundboard? I think you know the 0:00:57.160 --> 0:00:59.720 answer to that. Yeah, I do. 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:06.240 This week my soundboard is all just different weird noises 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:07.919 that Snoop makes on the wire. 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:09.920 Perfect. 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:11.920 I feel so much joy. 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:20.400 Speaking of joy, we have a special Oregon themed Behind 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:24.920 the Bastards for you. As you're probably aware, my adopted 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:29.560 home state is one of the USA's great cultural hubs 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:32.440 for cult activity, and we are talking about an Oregon 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:36.000 a classic Oregon cult today and part of what we're 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:38.320 doing here is we are raising money for the Portland 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:42.840 Children's Museum. Yeah yeah, there used to be like a 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:46.199 Portland children's museum with like in a building and stuff. 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:48.400 That had to close down in twenty twenty one. I 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:51.280 think it was a pandemic casualty. But a group of 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:56.240 parents in the metropolitan area have created a traveling children's museum, 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:59.880 the FLIP Museum, which stands for Fun, Learning, Inspiration Play. 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:03.200 It's a nonprofit. It goes around to different communities in 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:06.600 the Portland area and provides kids there with like a 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:10.760 you know, head visits them sort of children's museum experience. 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:13.520 So we are helping them fund that this week. If 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:15.440 you want to donate, they've set it up so that 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:18.800 you can just text bastards to five oh one five five. 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:21.839 So if you text bastards to five oh one five five, 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:24.600 you'll get the information you need to donate to help 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:27.680 the FLIP Portland's children Museum. So that's pretty cool. 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:31.400 I also love that in order to donate, you have 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:34.880 to write the word bastards to the Children's museum. 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:38.520 It is it would be it is funny. It is funny. 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:41.760 Although no one no one still uses the term bastard 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:43.200 today bastards. 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:44.639 I love children. 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:47.000 You want to help some literal bastards. 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:48.600 These little bastards get. 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:51.320 Extras to five oh one five five. 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:55.000 Living in sin. 0:02:58.480 --> 0:02:59.640 Yeah fuck wedlock. 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:03.320 That's right now, Matt. 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:07.200 How do you feel about sex cults? 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:11.320 Oh? Love them pro I've always wanted to be in one. 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:13.520 I got really close to being in that one in 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:20.200 San Francisco. Ohe the one Taste thing. It was like 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:23.639 the Gasmik meditation one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I love 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:25.280 yeah man. 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:26.440 I was so close. 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.080 I had a meeting with the like one of the 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:33.640 ladies who like was recruiting, and I just spent the 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:36.080 whole meeting being like, I don't have any money, but 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:41.160 can I just go and watch yeah? Yeah, And they 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:45.240 said no. She started asking me to have She's like 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:47.560 it was like one hundred dollars too. It really was 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:49.960 not that much money, but I was very poor at 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:52.240 the time, and I was like, I don't have one 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:55.600 hundred dollars. They're like, can you? She like emailed me later, 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:58.320 how about this, ask your friends and family for one 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:00.520 hundred dollars. I was like, Lady, I used to do 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:03.560 a lot of heroin. If I start asking for one 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:06.600 hundred dollars. They're gonna think I'm back on this stuff. 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:07.560 Now I can't. 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:10.040 It's for a sex cult, all right, would you consider 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:15.400 getting back on the heroin then yeah. 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:15.880 But yeah, I've always wanted to be in a sex cult. 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:17.920 I just said I never you know, it was too 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:19.599 much of a coward, Matt. 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:22.720 I have. I believe in you. I just want to 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:25.000 state that here, and I believe that all of us 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:28.599 can benefit from the story of Oregon's first great sex 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:32.400 cult leader, Edmund Creffield. Now I'm gonna guess you haven't 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:33.320 heard of Edmund Kraff. 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:36.039 No, but I love that. That's a great name. That's 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:37.120 a guy who fucks. 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:39.159 Name that, that is a guy who focks names. And 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:41.640 that's also a guy who declares himself the second Coming 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:42.080 of Christ. 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:44.040 Name. Well yeah, I mean, oh yeah. 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:47.039 This is one of those stories making yourself Jesus fucking 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:47.760 a lot of people. 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:51.039 Oh so great. What a what a grift. 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:55.360 It's the most relatable grift too, Like I get it, 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:58.839 like you do what you gotta do to get that piece. 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:02.560 Mm hmmm, especially if it means declaring yourself the son 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:05.600 of God. Which there's that great documentary series on Netflix 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:08.440 about the Twin Flame Cult, which is like this mix 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:13.520 of like kind of young millennial older gen z, like 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:20.560 fucking pseudoscience about relationships mixed with also I this guy 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:22.560 who is the only person who can determine if you've 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:26.640 met your soulmate and Jesus, it's beautiful of it. It's 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:29.279 very much descended because that guy spent some time in Oregon. 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:32.359 From the cult we're talking about today, which is have 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:33.960 you ever heard the phrase holy Roller? 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:38.320 I have, but I don't know how this cult was. 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:40.440 The Holy Rollers. This is where the term comes from, 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:43.120 and it is a surprisingly literal term. 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:45.679 There's a really popular song called Holy Roller that's probably 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:46.560 you've heard it. 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:49.120 It may may in fact based on this, yeh, that's 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:53.240 my assumption. So if you live elsewhere in the United States, 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:57.440 Portland probably has primarily come to you in the form 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:01.760 of a mix of like riot footage in portlandyas sketches right. 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:05.320 It had this reputation from like the end of the 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:07.840 nineties to the early two thousands is like this kind 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:11.720 of hip place where young artist types and intellectuals would congregate. 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:13.840 And that's mainly because for a long time it was 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:17.320 like this cheapest city on the West coast now again 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:19.960 it's like riots and urban decay and drug use and 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:23.000 shit that like Fox News focuses on. And one of 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.600 the things that's weird when I got into studying this 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.159 guy who was like an early nineteen hundreds, nineteen to 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:31.000 three to nineteen oh six Oregon cult figure is you 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:34.599 get all these like news stories about what happens with him, 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:37.480 and they all portray Oregon the same way that like 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:40.680 Fox does today, Like this is one hundred and something years. 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:43.400 It's like this is the center of anarchy and violence 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:47.560 and like these people are savage, feral monsters, which I 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:48.799 guess is something to be proud. 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:49.359 I love it. 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:52.800 I love that Portland has never changed. Yeah, shaped the 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:54.120 national media. 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:58.480 It's always been the same place, like nineteen fucking thirteen 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:01.080 and someone that everyone thinks you're so fucking cool with 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:03.880 their beards topping down trees. 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:09.000 Yeah, it is funny. So we'll be talking about that today. So, yeah, 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:12.680 we are chatting about a sex cult leader who declared 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:18.840 himself Jesus Christ Edmund Creffield. His actual name probably was 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.680 Franz Edmund Crefield. He is, yet again Matt a German. 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:26.360 Hey, hey, I love it. I come on for the 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.120 German episodes. Oh yeah, you love a German? 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:32.480 No, we picked I picked a cult episode for you 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:35.000 because I was like, we've done a lot of a 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:37.640 lot of real horrible genocide guys in a war. I 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:40.320 want something lighter, right, a little bit more fun. And 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:42.400 then bam, he turns out to be a German. You 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:44.760 just can't you can't miss him, You can't miss him. 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:48.640 Finally, a German who doesn't kill people. He just likes 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:51.640 to do sucky fucking yeah he is. 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:54.000 This guy's really going to rehabilitate their image. 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:55.120 Yeah. Yeah. 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:57.560 This is one of those cases where we have basically 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:01.280 nothing about this guy's early life. He was probably born 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:04.160 in Germany. I think it's possible he was born like Austria, 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:08.440 like somewhere around Germany, but like kind of unclear. We 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:11.600 really don't know exactly when he was born. He was 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:14.800 in probably in his thirties by the time the story starts, 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:16.920 which would put his date of birth somewhere around the 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:20.240 creation of Germany as a state eighteen seventy seventy one, 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:23.240 But we don't really know. All we can tell for 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:26.200 sure is that he immigrated to the United States, likely 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:28.800 at some point in the eighteen eighties, probably as a 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:32.480 teenager or a young adult. Some of his biographers postulate 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:35.120 that he may have moved to the US to avoid 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.400 serving in the Kaiser's army, because, like everyone had to write, 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:40.240 like you had to do your compulsory service in the 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:43.040 Kaiser's army. He may have like bounced to here because 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:43.920 he didn't want to do that. 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:45.520 I'm a lover, not a fighter. 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:50.400 I guess he really was. It's also possible that, like 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:53.880 his family was rich. Some biographers will suggest that given 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:56.440 that he seems to have had a degree of education 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:58.840 that would have been unlikely for him to have attained 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:01.480 if he had grown up sort of like poor. But 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:03.880 all of that sort of speculation. What we know for 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:07.760 sure is that by eighteen ninety nine, he has made 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:10.320 his way from wherever he landed in the US, probably 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:13.400 somewhere on the East coast, to Portland, Oregon. 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:15.080 Yeah. 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:20.920 Yeah, this is the mecca of every German immigrant who 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:24.559 wants to meet a nice hippie girl. 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:31.000 Yeah, every weirdo. Yeah. From him to eventually Stalin's granddaughter, Yeah, 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:32.240 to Portland calls. 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:33.000 Yeah. 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:35.320 I just found that out recently, and I followed her 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:37.240 on Instagram. I'm like dash, she's cool. 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:40.360 She's like, yeah, she's like a LARPer. It's kind of neat. Yeah, 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:41.800 she seems fun. 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:42.600 Yeah. 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:44.720 So I don't mean LARPer in the sense we usually 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:46.240 use it on the show. I mean, like literally, I 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:48.199 think she does like live action role playing stuff. 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:49.360 Yeah. 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:52.880 So we know that Crefield was a deeply religious man. 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:56.320 He felt called to witness for the Lord, and like 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:59.640 many similar young men in his position, he found himself 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:02.680 drawn on to the Salvation Army. Now do you know 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:05.200 a whole lot, Matt, about the actual history of the 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:06.120 Salvation Army. 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:06.720 I don't. 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:09.480 I've only ever been to a brick and mortar place 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:13.439 called the Salvation Army. And I bought some wooden golf clubs. 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:16.040 Oh good, I didn't call you for a golf guy. 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:18.880 Yeah, well no I wasn't. I just was like there 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:20.600 and I was like, oh, look at all this cheap stuff. 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:22.840 It's like Goodwill but worse. And then there were some 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:25.080 golf clubs and I bought them, and I was like, 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:28.520 why did I do this? But yeah, I don't know 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:31.840 anything about the Salvation Army. I've always just assumed that 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:34.760 they were like a charitable organization of. 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:37.280 Some sort of Yes, they are. They are Probably most 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:40.240 people's primary contact with them is that during the holiday 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:42.400 season they'll be out in front of shops and stuff 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:44.040 with these like red buckets, you know. 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:49.080 Yeah, last they'll have a Santa there, sometimes. 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:50.680 Off on a Santa yeah, and people will point out it, 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.319 like if you're on social media, usually about this time 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:54.959 of year, people will be like, don't donate to the 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:57.520 Salvation Army. They're problematic. There's a bunch of reasons for that. 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:00.280 I'm not advocating for the Salvation Army, but we are 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:03.160 talking about their early history, which is not entirely the 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:05.440 same as the organization as it exists today. 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:07.080 Are you about to tell me that they are an 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:09.120 actual army and they got guns and stuff. 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:12.520 They don't have guns. They are organized exactly like an army. 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:16.240 Like that part they took very literally, so a lot 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:17.199 of soap beatings. 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:17.839 Yeah, But. 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:24.920 The Salvation Army was founded not long before Creffield's probable birth. 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:26.840 It was formed in eighteen sixty five, right as the 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:30.720 US Civil War is ending, by a pawnbroker who became 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:35.559 a minister named William booth Over and over in England. Now, 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:39.959 pawnbroker does not seem like a good person job to me, right. 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:42.400 Yeah, I don't actually know what a pawnbroker is. A 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:43.559 guy who owns a pawn shop. 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:46.000 Yeah, it's a guy who takes your stuff if you're poor, 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:48.560 and gives you some money for it and maybe you 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:49.480 get it back later. 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:51.000 But like, yeah, yeah, I don't know. 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:53.800 You're not inherently bad, I guess, but it definitely like 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:56.720 usually shady people wind up pawnbrokers. 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:58.840 Yeah, it doesn't seem like a nice thing to do, 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:01.800 but I could see its usefulness. 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.240 Yeah, I've known like a nice pond guy, but I 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:08.760 don't know. Maybe maybe we should be just shit talking pawnbrokers. 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:11.400 But now I think nowadays because of how much like 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:14.360 paid a loan, shit, it's gotten sketchy, right, So maybe 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:17.120 it wasn't back then. Anyway, Booth actually does not seem 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:21.280 to have been wildly sketchy. He was, however, super Christian, 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:23.880 and his life ambition he wanted to like turn the 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:28.400 poor of London, particularly like prostitutes and alcoholics and criminals 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:32.720 into good Christians. Now, there's a lot of predatory religious 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:34.800 figures in the last century and today you have a 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:37.960 similar ambition. And what made Booth notable was his under 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:39.880 he had this like thing he would say where he 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:42.280 was like, no one ever became a Christian when they 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:45.240 were starving, Right, So his attitude is, if you're going 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:46.960 to try to convert people, the best way to do 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:50.520 that is like doing nice things for them, right yeah, 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:53.840 which is like not the worst way to be an evangelist, right. 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:57.320 No, yeah, yeah, that works. I'm down for that, you know, yeah, 0:12:57.480 --> 0:12:58.680 like at least on the surface. 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:01.280 Yeah, yeah, I didn't to a deep dive on Booth, 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:02.840 but I haven't found any evidence that he was like 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:07.000 within sort of the charitable figures of his day anything, 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:11.080 but like a pretty reasonable example. So his focus was 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:13.319 he wanted to spread the gospel by improving the lives 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:15.720 of poor and suffering people. Now, at first he limited 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:17.840 this to giving food and clothing and other kind of 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:21.240 help to converts. But in eighteen seventy eight, like this 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:24.120 is at least the organization's sort of story. Who knows 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:25.920 if this is literally true, but the story goes that 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:28.319 in eighteen seventy eight, he's sitting down and he's talking 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:31.080 with his secretary and he uses the phrase as he's 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:34.679 like dictating a piece of you know, propaganda. Basically, the 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:37.520 Christian mission is a volunteer army. This was like what 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:39.720 he wanted to use as their slogan. And his son 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:41.839 heard him, and he's like, I'm not a volunteer. I'm 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:45.200 a regular or nothing. Right, Like, I'm not a volunteer soldier, 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:48.040 I'm like a career soldier in this Christian Army. And 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:51.319 that convinces Booth to change the name of his nascent 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:55.480 charitable organization to the Salvation Army and to adopt a 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:59.959 military style structure with like military style uniforms and shit, 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.080 and ranks. Like officers in the Salvation Army are called 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:06.800 like lieutenant captain. Booth is the general, right, Like that's 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:10.599 how they discuss talk about themselves. Now, that's like, I 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:13.439 don't know whatever, that's not particularly problematic. What is problematic 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:16.240 is that new converts are called captives, which I do 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:17.760 consider a little concerning. 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:19.440 That's captive is a weird thing. 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:20.360 That's odd. 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:23.520 I mean, it's I guess it's like maybe it's a 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:27.480 critique of militarism where it's like, yeah, privates. 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:32.360 Well, yeah, it's it's odd. There is definitely a degree 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:36.640 of like colonizer brain that is present within the Salvation 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:41.680 but this is a this is England in the late eighteens, 0:14:41.920 --> 0:14:46.040 where the coolest people you could be the Salvation Army. Again, 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:48.360 there's a lot of ugly things about the organization today 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:50.640 that this is not. This episode is not about that 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:52.720 at the time it's founding, though again it seems to 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.400 have mostly been about like, yeah, making providing meals to 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:58.880 like people in London slums and shit. In a history 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:02.560 of the organization, Pam Mila Walker wrote, quote The Mission, however, 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:05.640 differed from other home missions. The authority it granted women, 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:09.720 its emphasis on holiness, theology and revivalist methods, it's growing independence, 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:12.920 and its strict hierarchical structure were all features that sharply 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:16.400 distinguished it from its contemporaries. The Christian Mission was created 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:18.800 in the midst of the working class communities it aimed 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.400 to transform, so there are some ways in which it's 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:24.120 kind of less problematic with some of its peers. It 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:26.440 gives a lot more sort of like power to women 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:29.560 that are in the organization. It's generally comes out of 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:32.880 communities as opposed to being imposed on them. That said, 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:35.720 it is again colored by some problematic aspects of the time, 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:39.040 including colonialism. In eighteen ninety booth In some of his 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:43.520 colleagues wrote a manifesto, a book titled in Darkest England 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:46.160 and the Way Out, And as you may have guessed 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:48.840 from that title, they're basically just comparing living conditions of 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:53.440 the urban poor and like Western cities like London to Africa. Quote, 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:56.400 as there is a darkest Africa, is that not also 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:59.960 a darkest England? Civilization which can breed its own Barbara, 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:03.320 does it not also breed its own pigmies? May we 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:06.080 not find a parallel on our own doors and discover 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:09.680 within a stone's throw of our cathedrals and palaces similar 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:12.680 horrors to those which Stanley has found existing in the 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:14.120 Great Equatorial Forest. 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:17.120 Hello, Chimney sweeps, She's all. 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:22.520 That is basically this guy's belief system. And when he 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:26.280 references Stanley, he's talking about Bastard's pod alumni, Henry Morton Stanley, 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:30.240 who again machine gun natives in Africa repeatedly not a 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:33.160 cool guy, but also very like popular. He writes a 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.280 lot of books about his exploration and shit that are 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:40.400 viral in this time. So you know, aspects of Boots 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.960 writing do kind of flirt with class politics. There's he's 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:46.440 he's got a lot of focus on inequality, but he 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:49.720 doesn't see the root of inequality as like the structural 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:53.480 factors inherent to the system that governs the British Empire. 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:56.240 She seeds the root of inequality as like the fact 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:58.560 that the poor don't have enough religion and discipline. 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:01.160 Right, Yeah, they need they they need Jesus and they 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:03.280 need Jesus. Yeah, that's all they needed. 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:06.560 Yeah. The primary thing that like elevates him because that's 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.720 not an uncommon view among Christian charitable types. 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:11.240 In this period today. 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:13.800 Yeah, even today. What does kind of elevate him is 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:15.679 that there is this consistent focus on like and the 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:18.040 way that you make them disciplined is by making sure 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:20.479 they're not starving, first of all, which is like, no 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:23.639 matter what else you're doing, not a bad thing that works. 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:24.640 People do, in. 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:28.080 Fact need food. The organization the Salvation Army spreads to 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:30.480 the US in the late eighteen hundreds and they hold 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:33.280 their first kettle fundraising drives. That's the start of them, 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:35.680 like ringing bells outside of shops and shit. That all 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:39.159 begins in San Francisco, and by eighteen ninety seven the 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:41.760 Salvation Army is providing Christmas meals to more than one 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.919 hundred thousand people in the United States. So that's about 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:48.360 when Crefield joins. He's kind of important by eighteen ninety nine, 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:50.240 we know is what the army then, So like right 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:53.679 as it's sort of coming into prominence in the United 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:55.560 States is when he gets involved, when it's sort of 0:17:55.880 --> 0:18:02.000 really snowballing as an organization. Now, whatever existed in Crefield's background, 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:05.320 he was charismatic and self confident as an adult. He's 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:07.800 really good at speaking, he's good at preaching, and his 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:10.840 superiors in the Salvation Army decide this is a guy 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:13.360 who might you know, be able to hold some rank here, 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:16.320 and they send him to their officer candidate school. Once 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:19.560 he's there and he's like under some scrutiny from leaders, 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:21.520 they are like, oh my god, this man is out 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:22.359 of his fucking mind. 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:22.720 Right. 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:25.679 He cannot work with other people. He is incapable of 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:28.000 listening to anyone else. He has his own ideas about 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:31.080 the Bible, and if yours clashed with them, all he'll 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:33.879 do is talk over you. He cannot have a conversation 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:36.040 like yeah. 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:38.240 Just like the worst type of guy to be in 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:38.960 a school with. 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:42.400 Yeah, yeah, sounds fucking awful, truly terrible. 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:46.399 God wants you to fuck He fruitful, he says. 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:49.480 And when he gets out, you know, on the street 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:51.480 working for the army. One of the things they are 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:55.280 also find is that like anywhere he's stationed, donations will 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:58.919 drop because he loves ranting about his ideas, but he 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:02.000 hates money. He doesn't like asking for it. And he 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:04.920 started to believe that like the Salvation Army has been 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:08.480 corrupted by this focus on donations, Like it's too money 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:12.120 focused as opposed to being focused on spreading the gospel, 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:16.359 specifically his very idiosyncratic ideas about the gospel, which, like 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:19.040 he's not wrong. One of the valid, very valid criticisms 0:19:19.040 --> 0:19:21.520 of the Salvation Army is that, like it is really 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:25.000 much about the money, you know, about getting in those donations. 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:28.760 So he's not alone in finding that frustrating. But he's like, 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:31.359 it's frustrating because what they should be doing is telling 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:33.000 everyone what I believe about the bibe. 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:37.040 Yeah, yeah, and have we found have we found out 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:40.760 what he believes that's different from what they believe. 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:43.880 Now, not yet we are about he's kind of forming 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:47.480 those ideas right now, right definitely, one of his beliefs 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:50.480