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Speaker 1: We return, fellow ridiculous historians with a classic episode for

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Speaker 1: this week, and this is one for all the baseball

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Speaker 1: fans in the crowd. Looking at our super producer, mister

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Speaker 1: Max Williams, No, what do we know about Alfred Lawson.

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Speaker 2: Well, he was the father of the modern airline, of

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Speaker 2: a modern flight as we know it, at least in

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Speaker 2: a commercial sense. Well, he had nothing to do with

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Speaker 2: the invention of it. He was early to the game

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Speaker 2: in terms of his awareness of the Wright Brothers, which

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Speaker 2: gave him one of those quintessential light bulb over the

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Speaker 2: head animation moments.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And the reason we're saying this is good for

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Speaker 1: the baseball heads in the body shaitemy, but fans of

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Speaker 1: baseball in the audience is that Alfred Lawson starts out

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Speaker 1: as sort of a middle of the road baseball player,

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Speaker 1: and as you said, he gets this light bulb moment

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Speaker 1: when he realizes that aviation may be the next big thing,

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Speaker 1: and so he leads the charge to popularize this in

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Speaker 1: the zeitgeist of the day. We're talking publishing trade magazines,

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Speaker 1: getting ads out to the public, even designing the first

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Speaker 1: modern airline.

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Speaker 2: Oh but he did more than that, Ben, He was

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Speaker 2: a bit of a renaissance man and pivoted into economic

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Speaker 2: theory after revolutionizing Yes, yes, after revolutionizing the world of travel,

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Speaker 2: and eventually took those theories and fashioned them into something.

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Speaker 1: Of a religion. Yes, his own religion. This is the

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Speaker 1: story of los Auonomy. Get it because his last name

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Speaker 1: is laws It clever, ridiculous. History is a production of

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Speaker 1: iheartradiore oh man, this is okay. This is going to

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Speaker 1: be a weird one. And I think I have I

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Speaker 1: think I have an interesting way for us to begin

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Speaker 1: today's show.

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Speaker 2: Hi everyone, I'm Ben, hey Ben, and everyone I'm knowing,

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Speaker 2: and I cannot wait to hear what you've got up

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Speaker 2: your sleeve.

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Speaker 1: Well, let's see, let's see if this impresses you. Super

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Speaker 1: producer Casey Pegram canys plain.

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Speaker 2: Out re quickly. We're in a different studio today and

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Speaker 2: we keep banging our knees on the on the table. Yes,

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Speaker 2: what's happening?

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Speaker 1: How other people do this? We are so spoiled because

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Speaker 1: we endeavor to book a lot of our time in

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Speaker 1: the newer studio. And this I like it. It's smaller,

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Speaker 1: It's it's got a cozy little closet, like little clauset

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Speaker 1: it's got a cozy vibe because we have this paper

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Speaker 1: lamp on the table. You know.

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Speaker 2: It's a little yeah, but it's it's the trade off

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Speaker 2: of the ambiance to the knee banging. Not not worth it.

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Speaker 2: But Ben hit us with her. Yea fascinating intro.

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Speaker 1: Check this out. I don't know, fascinating, but it's weird

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Speaker 1: to me. So you remember Terrence Howard, the actor who

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Speaker 1: has played a number of commended roles Empire, Hustle, and

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Speaker 1: flows so on. Sure, Yeah, he has invented a philosophy

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Speaker 1: or science that helped that he believes explains the universe

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Speaker 1: and fundamentally changes the way that we understand reality.

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Speaker 2: Terrence Howard did this.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's called Terryology. Wow and that Okay, this is

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Speaker 1: a true story. This is great, Ben, I've gotta I've

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Speaker 1: got to send you this. So Terrence Howard, again lauded actor,

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Speaker 1: believes that he has created a secret system called Terryology,

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Speaker 1: inspired by his realization in his mind that one times

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Speaker 1: one equals two instead of one times one equally one.

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Speaker 1: And you can read explanations of this. He's had an

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Speaker 1: interview with Rolling Stone wherein he talked about this and

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Speaker 1: says that lately he's been spending up to seventeen hours

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Speaker 1: a day working on this system of logic, oddly enough,

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Speaker 1: what he calls it. And he believes that his discovery,

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Speaker 1: which is what he calls it, will change the way

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Speaker 1: that mathematics is taught for generations to come, and that

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Speaker 1: we're Pythagoras around to see this discovery. Who lose his mind?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he says, this is the last century that our

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Speaker 2: children will have to be taught that one times one

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Speaker 2: is one. Finally, for the first time ever, you heard

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Speaker 2: Harris Howard has solved it. Man Ben, I wouldn't be

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Speaker 2: surprised if he wasn't a fan of the subject of

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Speaker 2: today's episode, mister Alfred Lawson.

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Speaker 1: Yes, oh boy, that's what I so. I was looking

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Speaker 1: up other luminaries, right, and I was trying to find people

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Speaker 1: who had insisted on creating their own understanding of the

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Speaker 1: world or their own I guess we'll call it philosophical entrepreneurship.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, well, Will Smith's kids did it? That's

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Speaker 1: true that this true nold they did. Alfred Lawson perhaps

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Speaker 1: is an inspiration to some of these people in the

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Speaker 1: more modern age. He was born way back in eighteen

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Speaker 1: sixty nine on March twenty fourth. And he's a man

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Speaker 1: of many interests, you know what I mean. Love him

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Speaker 1: or hate him, he's definitely a renaissance dude.

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Speaker 2: Oh he did some stuff. Yeah, yeah, he started off

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Speaker 2: as one of the first professional baseball players when that

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Speaker 2: was very, very, very much in his early days. I

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Speaker 2: believe he played for the Boston bean Eaters. Yes, did

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Speaker 2: I make that up? No, he's correct, And I think

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Speaker 2: that that actual team went on to become the Atlanta Braves,

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Speaker 2: and in some form or fashion.

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Speaker 1: Yes they did. You're absolutely right.

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Speaker 2: And by all accounts, Lawson wasn't particularly great at baseball,

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Speaker 2: but somehow, maybe in those early days you didn't have

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Speaker 2: to be because it was so new. Not quite sure

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Speaker 2: how he inched his way into that world, but apparently

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Speaker 2: it turned him off because there was too much tobacco, alcohol,

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Speaker 2: and just you know, womanizing. He was a little bit

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Speaker 2: more of a measured kind of intellectual type, and he

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Speaker 2: didn't like, you know, consorting with all these ruffians.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was immoral to him. His minor league career,

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Speaker 1: I think went from eighteen eighty eight to around nineteen

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Speaker 1: oh seven, and he was playing in the minor leagues.

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Speaker 1: He also played for the Pittsburgh Alleghanies, and he went

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Speaker 1: on after that career to start his own baseball league.

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Speaker 2: It had a pretty pretty clunky name that we learned

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Speaker 2: from an article from our buddies at Mental Floss eleven

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Speaker 2: notes on Alfred W. Lawson, founder of the weirdest university ever, which,

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Speaker 2: mind you, we're going to get to. But yeah, he

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Speaker 2: founded this league called the Union Leagues of Professional bas

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Speaker 2: space Ball Clubs of America. So at this point baseball

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Speaker 2: wasn't even a single word yet. It was a brave

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Speaker 2: new world of this crazy sport.

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Speaker 1: Imaginea ball and also a base.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, from the combination of the two, what should we

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Speaker 2: call it? He moved on pretty quickly after that did

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Speaker 2: not work out. He then decided he wanted to be

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Speaker 2: a part of what he saw as a pretty important

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Speaker 2: technological movement innovation, which was aviation.

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Speaker 1: It is true he was inspired. This comes from mentals article,

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Speaker 1: but also from a couple of excellent documentaries we saw.

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Speaker 1: He was inspired by the story of the Right Brothers.

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Speaker 1: He recognized, to his credit, you recognize the profound change

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Speaker 1: that aviation would mean for human civilization at large, and

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Speaker 1: he wanted to be part of it. More and more.

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Speaker 1: As we explore this guy's life, we'll see one phrase

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Speaker 1: that I think applies to him directly, and that his

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Speaker 1: early adopter. He had no experience in publishing, He had

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Speaker 1: no experience in aviation, so he decided to publish a

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Speaker 1: magazine about aviation.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but it was all based on just like his

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Speaker 2: gut is gut instinct that this was going to be

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Speaker 2: a big deal. And he even had notions of a

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Speaker 2: future society where everyone lived on aircraft of some kind.

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Speaker 1: Right as superior people, which I feel like we have

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Speaker 1: to hold odds that we let lets let's get there.

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Speaker 1: We'll get there, we'll get there. Well, we're going to

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Speaker 1: earn this one, folks. So Lawson starts an aviation magazine.

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Speaker 1: He starts two one is called fly and one is

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Speaker 1: called Aircraft. And when he starts these, very few people

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Speaker 1: have actually flown, like you could count them on one hand.

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Speaker 2: And these weren't meant to be like trade papers because

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Speaker 2: there really was no industry to speak of this point.

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Speaker 2: It was more for like novice enthusiasts that might want

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Speaker 2: to find out more about this new, brave, new world

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Speaker 2: of flight. Right.

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Speaker 1: It was almost like science fiction or cutting edge tech mature. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: exactly like Wired, which made a really great article about this. Actually,

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Speaker 1: Matt Simon of Wired called fantastically wrong. I'm not going

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Speaker 1: to do the whole subtype because it might spoil a

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Speaker 1: little bit of where we're heading. But this is a

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Speaker 1: story of innovation.

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Speaker 2: This guy is very much an early adopter, like you said,

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Speaker 2: but it all kind of goes off the rails pretty quickly.

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Speaker 2: But before that happens, he does a little thing where

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Speaker 2: he kind of invents basically the modern passenger plane.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he invented the airliner, or to be more specific,

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Speaker 1: the idea of it. He also did not have technical knowledge,

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Speaker 1: so he thought he thought planes are amazing. What's the

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Speaker 1: next step. Let's make them like buses for the sky.

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Speaker 1: Let me hire some people who can build this in

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Speaker 1: a way that will actually work. We should also say

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Speaker 1: one thing this guy never suffered from was a lack

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Speaker 1: of confidence. One of my favorite quotes from him comes

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Speaker 1: from his own description of his birth. He saw that

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Speaker 1: right where he describes his birth in eighteen sixty nine

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Speaker 1: as quote, the most momentous occurrence since the birth of mankind,

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Speaker 1: and he is able to apply this confidence in a

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Speaker 1: contagious way, people buy into his idea. He convinced these

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Speaker 1: designers and these engineers to build this aircraft and it

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Speaker 1: actually works. Low and behold him, We'll walk. In nineteen twenty,

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Speaker 1: he unveils the airliner to the world. At this time,

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Speaker 1: it's the largest non military plane in the entirety of

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Speaker 1: the US, and it seats about sixteen to twenty six people,

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Speaker 1: depending on how you position the seats, and he launches

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Speaker 1: Lost in Airlines.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and there was a European company that successfully flew

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Speaker 2: what you could kind of lump into this as an airliner,

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Speaker 2: but I think it only held four, which to me

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Speaker 2: just sounds more like a plane, like a small plane,

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Speaker 2: you know, because I guess typically in those days a

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Speaker 2: plane would hold two. So it's just you had two

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Speaker 2: more passers. Not really a commercially you know, lucrative proposition there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and for a time, Lost in Airlines was doing

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Speaker 1: okay for a short time because they were bringing newer

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Speaker 1: and more impressive innovations to this concept of commercial flight, which, folks,

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Speaker 1: we cannot emphasize enough. We cannot exaggerate this enough. Commercial

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Speaker 1: flight is a brand new idea. It's wild It's like

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Speaker 1: if somebody said, let's build pet shops on the moon,

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Speaker 1: you know, so that moon dogs and cats can have

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Speaker 1: their supplies of toys. People really didn't know whether this

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Speaker 1: would work. And Lawson, despite premiering this, what I think Noel,

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Speaker 1: you and I would both agree is the first real airliner.

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Speaker 1: Lawson becomes a cautionary tale in nineteen twenty one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but just before that, in nineteen nineteen, he did

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Speaker 2: actually create an airliner that could see eighteen people, like

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Speaker 2: we said, and had a system in place where he

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Speaker 2: could successfully fly people from New York to San Francisco

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Speaker 2: in I believe thirty six hours.

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Speaker 1: He was also getting some lucrative contracts from the government.

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Speaker 1: He was in the running, rather he was the clear

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Speaker 1: front runner to get some postal delivery contracts. So things

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Speaker 1: are going well as we said. But what happens in

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Speaker 1: the eighteen twenty.

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Speaker 2: One Well, a problem that he had was he instead

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Speaker 2: of making more of the I learned this from a

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Speaker 2: documentary called Man Life, which is really really great. I

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Speaker 2: recommend it's on Amazon. You can stream that, and it's

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Speaker 2: about it's about lost in in his life and his legacy,

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Speaker 2: but also like his like kind of lone follower that

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Speaker 2: still you know, in Merle Hayden, it's really really kind

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Speaker 2: of touching, beautiful filmy, very sad, but also fascinating, and

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Speaker 2: in it the filmmaker makes a point that or one

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Speaker 2: of the historians of the interview that he should have

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Speaker 2: just built more of the one that seated eighteen or

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Speaker 2: like improved upon that, but instead he kept wanting to

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Speaker 2: go bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and eventually, yeah,

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Speaker 2: nineteen twenty one, he made one that was I think

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Speaker 2: supposed to see like one hundred, and it did. It

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Speaker 2: crashed and burned. It was it was you know, too unwieldy,

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Speaker 2: and it just didn't work. And his backers were like, Okay,

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Speaker 2: we're done, because they were already kind of like he

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Speaker 2: had been taking too long to come out with this

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Speaker 2: new aircraft and they were losing confidence in him, and

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Speaker 2: this was it. This was they were done.

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Speaker 1: It kept becoming more extravagant, so this was the loss

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Speaker 1: in L four. It was the last in his series

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Speaker 1: of airliners that he had designed and built. It was

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Speaker 1: completely in nineteen twenty but when it flew, it crashed

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Speaker 1: on its initial takeoff. And there's a similar risk whenever

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Speaker 1: we're talking about transit technology to put on my car

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Speaker 1: stuff hat for a second. We're in a similar situation

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Speaker 1: with autonomous vehicles right now. If there is a particularly

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Speaker 1: tragic accident or event that occurs within autonomous vehicle, it

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Speaker 1: may well change the laws and we might not be

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Speaker 1: able to have them. It's a very sensitive time and

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Speaker 1: technological history. However, this guy is nothing if not determined

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Speaker 1: and tenacious. So when he has these government contracts and

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Speaker 1: despite the L four crashing, he says he's gonna keep

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Speaker 1: carrying on. But unfortunately in nineteen twenty there was a recession,

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Speaker 1: so he could not secure the cash reserves he needed

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Speaker 1: for those US contracts. And despite some of his commercial failures,

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Speaker 1: he was widely considered to be one of the leading

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Speaker 1: thinkers in the world of commercial aviation.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he actually won the Winged America Award and a

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Speaker 2: magazine called Scientific Age in nineteen twenty seven called him

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Speaker 2: the world's leading passenger airplane builder. And this is coming

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Speaker 2: from a great article in on Milwaukee dot Com. We

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Speaker 2: should also mention there was a strong Wisconsin connection here

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Speaker 2: because his airline was actually headquartered in Milwaukee, and he

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Speaker 2: had designs to turn this city into the Detroit of

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Speaker 2: the aeronautics industry.

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Speaker 1: He wanted Milwaukee to be the aviation's Detroit once was

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Speaker 1: for automobiles. And when the company collapses, laws in soldiers

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Speaker 1: on and he his area of focus. At first, he

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Speaker 1: starts promoting various health practices that he had always himself

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Speaker 1: engaged in, such as vegetarianism and abstaining from tobacco and

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Speaker 1: alcohol and so on. He also around this time claimed

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Speaker 1: that he had discovered a surefire way for people to

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Speaker 1: live to the age of two hundred, which as far

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Speaker 1: as we know, no one has ever done. And he

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Speaker 1: starts rethinking a childhood experiment. I guess a better way

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Speaker 1: to say it is a childhood moment and observation, an

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Speaker 1: observation perfect that stayed with him into his adulthood, and

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Speaker 1: he contemplates it in increasingly intense ways. And the observation is this,

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Speaker 1: as a child, he sees dust in the air, and

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Speaker 1: he realizes that he can move the dust toward him

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Speaker 1: by in air and move it away from him by

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Speaker 1: expelling air. Suction and pressure.

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Speaker 2: That's right, Ben, suction and pressure. We're just going to

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Speaker 2: leave that there for right now, but we will return

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Speaker 2: my words.

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Speaker 1: Yes, but first we have to go back to the

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Speaker 1: time period. You see, the recession in the US that

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Speaker 1: occurred in nineteen twenties was seen as a correction of

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Speaker 1: market forces. Unfortunately, it turns out that this correction was

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Speaker 1: either wrong or not enough to repair the situation, because

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Speaker 1: then we lead into nineteen twenty nine, a very bleak

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Speaker 1: period in US history.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the aforementioned Great Depression, the big one where you know,

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Speaker 2: so many Americans lost their jobs and couldn't afford to

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Speaker 2: feed their families. And I think there was just a

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Speaker 2: real need, a desperation to find answers and to find

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Speaker 2: some kind of relief. And one source of that could

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Speaker 2: be in say, some kind of ideology that is pushed

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Speaker 2: forward by a certain eccentric former aviation.

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Speaker 1: Entrepreneur, Award winning Noel aviation entrepreneur. Yeah, yeah, is Bona Fides,

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Speaker 1: And he developed his own philosophy that originally started as

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Speaker 1: an economic theory, just a straight economic theory. And what

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Speaker 1: he told larger, larger crowds at various conferences, functions, and

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Speaker 1: rallies was that the Great Depression had a single discernible cause.

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Speaker 1: And this single discernible cause was the role of international

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Speaker 1: financias banks essentially privately owned banks, and he said that

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Speaker 1: they were creating the economic crisis which had engulfed the

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Speaker 1: US and the world by this point. And he said

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Speaker 1: that these are the oppressors of the working force, they're

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Speaker 1: the oppressors of the capital in a country's economy, and

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Speaker 1: that there was, thank god, a way that he had

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Speaker 1: come up with to fix it, to get rid of

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Speaker 1: money and replace it with something else called direct credit.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, direct credit. And it's it's not entirely clear, uh

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Speaker 2: what he meant by that, based on the things that

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Speaker 2: I've read, like is it I think it's sort of

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Speaker 2: like the idea that money only has value based on

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Speaker 2: the goods and services themselves, and like and and the

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Speaker 2: idea that you could get a loan directly from the

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Speaker 2: government or with the government acting as like a steward

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Speaker 2: of the loan, but that he wanted to abolish interest

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Speaker 2: because in his mind interest. We've talked about this before

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Speaker 2: on other shows, the idea that it was very unpopular

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Speaker 2: and considered it's usurists, you know, like with the Kchlaie

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Speaker 2: ghost story or whatever. Right, Yeah, you know, there's a

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Speaker 2: little truth to that. It's interesting. The idea of you know,

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Speaker 2: selling people money. It's a little bit of a weird one,

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Speaker 2: but we've kind of come to accept it, and it's

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Speaker 2: like sort of the basis of our economy.

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Speaker 1: And so weird how quickly things become normal. His idea

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Speaker 1: to replace money in the economic system was summed up

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Speaker 1: by the issuance of direct credit. Direct credit for everybody

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Speaker 1: was one of the slogans they caught on with the

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Speaker 1: Direct Credit Society, and Noel, you nailed it. I was

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Speaker 1: looking for the primary differences, and there are three differences

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Speaker 1: I could find between direct credit and the economic system

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Speaker 1: we have today. The first, the most important, is the

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Speaker 1: abolition of interest clear and in other societies, interests in

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Speaker 1: the way we understand it isn't really a thing either,

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Speaker 1: especially in some Muslim countries. So it's possible to have

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Speaker 1: an alternative system. He was not speaking of religion at

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Speaker 1: this point. Very important to say. So those three differences

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Speaker 1: abolished interest, remove control of money from private banking systems,

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Speaker 1: you know, as he saw them, and put it in

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Speaker 1: the hands of the government. This is after nineteen thirteen

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Speaker 1: in the establishment of the federal reserve system, by the way,

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Speaker 1: So the third difference is more of a consequence of this.

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Speaker 1: It centralizes control of the economy instead of agglomeration of

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Speaker 1: different banks with different interests on multiple levels. There's this

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Speaker 1: single source Uncle Sam who's giving people interest free money.

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Speaker 1: It's just called direct credit for land ownership, for goods,

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Speaker 1: and services for various things. To a lot of people

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Speaker 1: during the depression, this seems like a great idea.

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Speaker 2: Well yeah, I mean, thousands of people got behind it,

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Speaker 2: and he actually had kind of codified all this in

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Speaker 2: a I guess, I mean it was a book, you

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Speaker 2: could call it a manifesto. Really is when you really

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Speaker 2: start to getting into these kind of more high minded

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Speaker 2: philosophical ideas. Because the thing about Direct Credits for Everybody,

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Speaker 2: which was the name of his book, is that it

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Speaker 2: wasn't only about economics. It incorporated his particular flavor and

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Speaker 2: understanding of physics and the way the universe works, and

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Speaker 2: those ideas of suction and pressure that we talked about earlier.

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Speaker 2: These are key points to this direct credit idea. So

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Speaker 2: not only is it some kind of you know, treat

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Speaker 2: us on how we can improve the economy and save

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Speaker 2: us from you know, the depression and make things more fair.

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Speaker 2: Built into that is kind of a philosophy of life

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Speaker 2: that incorporates everything from personal health and wellness to money

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Speaker 2: and equates the two, right.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, So the book Direct Credits for Everybody is

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Speaker 1: sort of this utopian manifesto. I think manifesto is the

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Speaker 1: correct word. And it just describes not only direct credits,

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Speaker 1: but it describes, as you said, his other concepts and

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Speaker 1: to loss in these concepts are chained together. You can't

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Speaker 1: understand his economic claim unless you understand his claims about

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Speaker 1: physics to laws in these are inseparable. And so imagine

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Speaker 1: that you are a new member of the Direct Credit Society,

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Speaker 1: the depression is in full swing. You like this idea

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Speaker 1: of getting the bankers out. To Lawson's defense, he was never,

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Speaker 1: at least as far as we can find, he was

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Speaker 1: never openly like an anti semit.

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Speaker 2: No, no, it wasn't. And there was another guy, Toglin, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: that's right, who was much more of a big, blustery

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Speaker 2: speaker who kind of like had some of these same ideas.

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Speaker 2: Because it was you know, people were in revolt. I

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Speaker 2: mean basically they'd been screwed over by the economy and

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Speaker 2: people were mad as hell, right, and so this was

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Speaker 2: a popular movement or type of movement, the idea of

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Speaker 2: get rid of like the money lenders or the bankers.

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Speaker 2: You know that they were like the same with like

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Speaker 2: our recession that we had where all of a sudden,

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Speaker 2: you know, you've got these like bear Stearns in your

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Speaker 2: Goldman Sachs, you know, getting these golden parachutes and stuff,

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Speaker 2: and your average working you know, folks who lost their

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Speaker 2: houses are not happy about it at all. And yeah,

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Speaker 2: we see that same pattern happening today that we saw

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Speaker 2: back then. But this guy, Charles Coglin, or Father Coglin,

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Speaker 2: he had some of these same ideas. He was a

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Speaker 2: Roman Catholic priest from Canada. Actually I think he immigrated

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Speaker 2: from Canada, but he used much more charged language that

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Speaker 2: was much more on the anti Semitic side and equating

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Speaker 2: the money lenders and the idea of people of the

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Speaker 2: Jewish faith being the ones that directly caused the depression.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, with what we would call now a lot of

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Speaker 1: dog whistles, dog whistle stuff.

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Speaker 2: But whereas Lawson was much more like he didn't necessarily

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Speaker 2: blame people. He blamed the system.

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Speaker 1: Right, He blamed the system in and you couldn't understand

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Speaker 1: his perspective. Again, this is something a lot of self

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Speaker 1: appointed gurus do unless you read his understanding of other things.

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Speaker 1: Let's get into his own version of physics, which he

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Speaker 1: called This is why we talked about Terrence Howard at

404
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Speaker 1: the beginning. He called his greater understanding losnomy losnomy like

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Speaker 1: loss in Onymy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and a lot of this was already in that

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Speaker 2: first book the direct credit for everyone, right, but he

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Speaker 2: took it even further. And let's do a little reading

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Speaker 2: from chapter one of Losonymy, Volume one, just to give

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Speaker 2: you a sense of where we're coming from here. Chapter one, Losonymy.

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Speaker 2: This is what losonomy is and what it isn't. Lousnomy

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Speaker 2: is the knowledge of life and everything pertaining there too.

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Speaker 2: Losonomy is based upon life as it is, and not

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Speaker 2: upon a theory of what it ought to be. Theory

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Speaker 2: as espoused by so called wise men or self styled scholars,

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Speaker 2: has no place in losonomy. Everything must be provable or

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Speaker 2: reasonable or it is not Losonymy. Losonomy treats of things

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Speaker 2: as they are, not as they are pretended to be.

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Speaker 2: Facts not fancies, truth not falsity, knowledge not notions is

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Speaker 2: the foundation of losonomy. So to me, I'm reading this

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Speaker 2: as truth good false bad.

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Speaker 1: Because notice he doesn't ever actually explain that. Now that

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Speaker 1: is the introduction. He goes on for quite some time

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Speaker 1: about falsity versus truth. I believe you can, by the way,

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Speaker 1: read Lossonomy for free online if you.

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Speaker 2: Want Atlasonomy dot org. It's the whole thing, every chapter.

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Speaker 1: And I'm glad to post it. He's a prolific author.

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Speaker 1: He goes into his own version of physics. We mentioned

429
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Speaker 1: suction and pressure, right. He believes that these are the

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Speaker 1: two prime movers of the world, the universe, reality and everything,

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Speaker 1: and that substances are things affected by suction pressure. This

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Speaker 1: includes solids, its gases. Mentality is also susceptible.

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Speaker 2: He's kind of got his zone vernacular there. And he

434
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:11,439
Speaker 2: also is big beef with science. Yes, was that he

435
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:12,719
Speaker 2: doesn't believe in energy.

436
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:15,320
Speaker 1: Yes, we have the quote there is no greater load

437
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:18,159
Speaker 1: of misconception that science has ever had to shoulder than

438
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:22,280
Speaker 1: the unprovable theory that's somewhere, somehow and in some shape,

439
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:26,080
Speaker 1: there exists a substance called energy that causes movements. No

440
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:30,680
Speaker 1: such thing exists anywhere, and science should expunge the fallacy

441
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:31,840
Speaker 1: without delay.

442
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, and The funny thing is he refers to constantly

443
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 2: in this work about how he can't stand it when

444
00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:41,879
Speaker 2: things are unprovable, and yet continuously puts forth all of

445
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:46,159
Speaker 2: these absurdly unprovable and just flying in the face of

446
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:51,239
Speaker 2: much more provable scientific research. Yeah, so what are some

447
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:52,120
Speaker 2: of those ben.

448
00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:56,320
Speaker 1: Some of his I guess we say lars andomic beliefs. Well,

449
00:27:56,480 --> 00:28:03,240
Speaker 1: Lasonomy argues for a couple of different substances or states

450
00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:06,600
Speaker 1: that do not exist in other forms of accepted science.

451
00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:10,879
Speaker 1: There's something called less ether less ether l E S

452
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:12,399
Speaker 1: E T H E R.

453
00:28:12,840 --> 00:28:15,240
Speaker 2: Is that the stuff that's in space. No, that's the

454
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:16,200
Speaker 2: stuff that's on the Earth.

455
00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:18,480
Speaker 1: It's from the Sun, but it's on Earth.

456
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 2: It's the stuff that the Earth is made of because

457
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:24,480
Speaker 2: it's less dense than ether, which is what space is

458
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:26,680
Speaker 2: made of, right, less ether less ether.

459
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then there's there's something interesting here. His father

460
00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:36,440
Speaker 1: had attempted for some time to build a perpetual motion machine.

461
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:40,200
Speaker 1: That's right, right, and we mentioned, which is what a

462
00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:47,200
Speaker 1: machine that is able to, once started, function without losing energy.

463
00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:49,960
Speaker 1: It's able to perform work without losing energy and without

464
00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:51,200
Speaker 1: taking in new energy.

465
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:53,440
Speaker 2: Like a more extreme version of that thing you'd have

466
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 2: on your desk with the balls where they hit each

467
00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:57,160
Speaker 2: other and go click click click click. Eventually those do

468
00:28:57,400 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 2: run themselves out.

469
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:00,800
Speaker 1: Something like that that just goes on for a wheel

470
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:04,360
Speaker 1: that always spins, and many many people have claimed to

471
00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 1: invent pret.

472
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:06,880
Speaker 2: That's a fallacy, though it's not. It's sort of like

473
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 2: cold fusion or something right right.

474
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:10,720
Speaker 1: Now, as far as we know, it is not possible.

475
00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 1: It violates the laws of known physics. But he has

476
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 1: lost and has his own kind of perpetual motion machine.

477
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 1: It's a state. He calls, help me out with pronouncing this.

478
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:31,640
Speaker 2: Exuavar pois exit equaverois, quaver poise, equaver poisse, equaver poise. Yeah,

479
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 2: And so he says, there are four separate forces that

480
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:37,560
Speaker 2: have to equalize in order that a formation can balance

481
00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 2: and live, and these are them in order. Internal section

482
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 2: that draws in from without, internal pressure that pushes out

483
00:29:44,640 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 2: from within, external section that draws out from within, external

484
00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:52,240
Speaker 2: pressure that pushes in from without, and x squavar poise

485
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 2: is a level that's sought by substances of varying density

486
00:29:56,760 --> 00:30:00,560
Speaker 2: that causes perpetual movement of matter. So that's like the

487
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 2: stuff of the universe, right, It's like what causes the

488
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:07,560
Speaker 2: universe to be in harmony?

489
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:12,040
Speaker 1: Yep, suction and pressure. Don't buy all those lies about energy, folks.

490
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:18,640
Speaker 1: And as people are breeding this material, encountering Lawson's beliefs

491
00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:22,719
Speaker 1: and hearing him speak, most of the large crowds are

492
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 1: people in the Upper Midwest who want to hear about

493
00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:31,520
Speaker 1: direct credit. When the Great Depression draws to a close

494
00:30:32,320 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 1: later in the thirties, a lot of these people who

495
00:30:35,040 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 1: are part of this big direct credit society movement leave.

496
00:30:39,320 --> 00:30:44,440
Speaker 1: They no longer need this alternative economic perspective, and they

497
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 1: never really cared too much about his concepts of losonomy

498
00:30:49,120 --> 00:30:52,080
Speaker 1: and pressure and section and lesse there and all that stuff.

499
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 1: So the crowds start to dwindle, and what he has

500
00:30:55,800 --> 00:30:59,480
Speaker 1: left is a group of followers who are hook line

501
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:04,360
Speaker 1: and sinker into the concepts the philosophy that he has espoused.

502
00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:08,160
Speaker 1: Beyond just the idea of direct credit. They want to

503
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:13,680
Speaker 1: study his concepts of the brain of the universe, the

504
00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:19,880
Speaker 1: idea of the male and female dichotomy of suction and pressure,

505
00:31:20,280 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 1: the concept of men orgs. We didn't even talk about

506
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:24,080
Speaker 1: men orgs.

507
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 2: Too much. Man too much.

508
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:32,520
Speaker 1: Men orgs short for mental organizers a portmanteau if you will,

509
00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:36,200
Speaker 1: and or a portmanteau if you wish.

510
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:38,640
Speaker 2: No, we do not wish anymore.

511
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:45,240
Speaker 1: And mental organizers are these tiny, tiny creatures that are

512
00:31:45,360 --> 00:31:49,719
Speaker 1: inside your brain, the cells of your mental system, and

513
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 1: help your body function in a focused way, help your cognition.

514
00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: And then there are the disorgs. They're the bad guys,

515
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:04,240
Speaker 1: the disorganizers, michroscopic vermin that attempt to destroy for some reason,

516
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:08,680
Speaker 1: the mental instruments constructed and operated by the menorcs. So

517
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 1: his actual followers post direct credit society like this. They

518
00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:15,440
Speaker 1: want to learn more, right.

519
00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:17,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, they do. So, Yeah, he actually starts at college

520
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:22,120
Speaker 2: and he's able to purchase an abandoned university campus in

521
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:23,680
Speaker 2: des Moines, isn't that right?

522
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 1: Yeah? In des Moines.

523
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:27,160
Speaker 2: And he I'm sorry des Moines. I said des Moines,

524
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 2: and I got roasted for that before. Let me make

525
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:30,680
Speaker 2: sure I say right, des Moines.

526
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 1: So he, yeah, he buys this university and wants it

527
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:40,120
Speaker 1: to become a center of learning, the University of Lisonomy

528
00:32:40,760 --> 00:32:45,880
Speaker 1: and his followers join him. But the rules of this

529
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:51,560
Speaker 1: university differ from those of other universities. Cough cough, hint,

530
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 1: hint accredited cough cough hinted.

531
00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:58,000
Speaker 2: University cough cough hinted scientology cough cough you really you

532
00:32:58,040 --> 00:33:00,720
Speaker 2: need a cough then, Even of those off buttons, you

533
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:03,200
Speaker 2: only have those in real, real radio setups.

534
00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:07,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, we used to have peak behind the scenes here, Casey,

535
00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:10,080
Speaker 1: you remember this too. We used to have a sound maker.

536
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:12,440
Speaker 1: There's one, but it doesn't have any batteries, does it.

537
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:14,239
Speaker 2: No, I mean a button that you push so that

538
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:17,320
Speaker 2: it mutes your mic so that you can't Oh yeah, yeah,

539
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:18,160
Speaker 2: that's pro stuff, right.

540
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:21,880
Speaker 1: Our friends who work for MPR, they have those exactly.

541
00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:24,239
Speaker 1: I checked out their setup. I just wanted to use

542
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:28,560
Speaker 1: it just to feel power. Yeah. Oh, it does have batteries.

543
00:33:32,880 --> 00:33:37,520
Speaker 1: That's a good one. And it's appropriate because Lawson thought

544
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:43,080
Speaker 1: he was dropping a bomb on the scientific consensus of

545
00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:48,320
Speaker 1: the time, and students at the University of Lausonomy, although

546
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:52,800
Speaker 1: they were not getting an Orthodox education, they were getting

547
00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 1: a rigorous one.

548
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:56,440
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the thing too, is like he outlawed or

549
00:33:56,440 --> 00:33:58,040
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's the right word, but definitely

550
00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:01,760
Speaker 2: forbade any books to be on campus that were not

551
00:34:01,800 --> 00:34:04,440
Speaker 2: written by he himself. And I mean he kept writing

552
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 2: these things so that library probably wasn't massive, but you know,

553
00:34:08,640 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 2: there was definitely enough material to go around. And a

554
00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:15,840
Speaker 2: big part of like testing in this university system was

555
00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:20,040
Speaker 2: just wrote memorization of Lawson's own texts, which is terrible.

556
00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 1: You would have these different exams and you had to recite,

557
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:26,000
Speaker 1: as you said, Noel, you had to recite from the

558
00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:31,000
Speaker 1: books verbatim. And in man Life with Merle Hayden you

559
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:35,080
Speaker 1: can see that he actually experienced this because he is

560
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:39,759
Speaker 1: verbatim quoting from these different books and they had to

561
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:45,000
Speaker 1: do this for a cartoonishly long amount of time. After

562
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:49,799
Speaker 1: about ten to what twenty years of memorization, you would

563
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:53,640
Speaker 1: have an interim exam, and then after thirty years you

564
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:56,759
Speaker 1: have a comprehensive exam and if you passed, if you

565
00:34:56,880 --> 00:35:00,880
Speaker 1: memorized enough of this guy's work, I would receive the

566
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:04,080
Speaker 1: degree of knowledge.

567
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:05,480
Speaker 2: In Yeah, I'm gonna say nollegian.

568
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:07,160
Speaker 1: Nolegian sounds classier.

569
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:12,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think until he passed away, no one

570
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:15,839
Speaker 2: held that distinction except laws in himself.

571
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:18,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is a little culty obviously.

572
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 2: Oh, and not to mention that this was also a

573
00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 2: communal living situation on a kind of a compound type situation.

574
00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:29,920
Speaker 2: So you know it was it definitely had that culty

575
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:30,400
Speaker 2: vibe to it.

576
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:33,160
Speaker 1: The people of Des Moines were getting creeped out for sure.

577
00:35:33,719 --> 00:35:37,080
Speaker 1: And the big catch here is that only knowledge ins

578
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:41,760
Speaker 1: could bestow the degree of knowledge and to another person.

579
00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:45,399
Speaker 1: So if Lawson is the only one who has this

580
00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:50,200
Speaker 1: ability and he passes away or something, then there are

581
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 1: technically no more people with this degree. But the university

582
00:35:57,160 --> 00:35:59,959
Speaker 1: bends the rules a little bit to get some people

583
00:36:00,800 --> 00:36:10,319
Speaker 1: appointed were to you know, have acquired this degree. At

584
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 1: this time, this thing that started as an economic theory

585
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:20,320
Speaker 1: and later became a kind of philosophy is getting closer

586
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:23,880
Speaker 1: and closer to something that we might call like mysticism

587
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:28,880
Speaker 1: or spirituality. But it's also garnering attention from the federal government.

588
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:32,640
Speaker 2: That's right, because it had been around for about ten

589
00:36:32,760 --> 00:36:36,359
Speaker 2: years before there were there were some issues in the

590
00:36:36,400 --> 00:36:40,879
Speaker 2: Senate Small Business Committee caught wind of the fact that

591
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 2: they had bought these machine tools from like war surplus,

592
00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:51,359
Speaker 2: and they actually resold them or at least a large

593
00:36:51,400 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 2: number of them, and made a decent amount of money

594
00:36:54,160 --> 00:36:56,640
Speaker 2: doing that. And this is coming from that Wired article

595
00:36:56,640 --> 00:37:00,040
Speaker 2: that we talked about earlier, and he appeared before this

596
00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:05,240
Speaker 2: committee and tried to explain to them what loaust nomy

597
00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:08,560
Speaker 2: was fact, the fact that it was based on physics,

598
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:11,080
Speaker 2: and then they needed the machine to help, you know,

599
00:37:11,239 --> 00:37:13,640
Speaker 2: ply their their craft or whatever, or like, you know,

600
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:18,000
Speaker 2: follow their religion or their philosophy. And he was very

601
00:37:18,080 --> 00:37:22,759
Speaker 2: upset when they kind of, you know, didn't understand what

602
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:25,880
Speaker 2: he was getting at. And Lawson commented that this whole

603
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:28,239
Speaker 2: thing was quote, the damnst thing I've ever heard of

604
00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:32,360
Speaker 2: in all my life. And then one of the senators said, quote,

605
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:35,399
Speaker 2: I don't know whether we're talking about the same thing,

606
00:37:35,560 --> 00:37:37,440
Speaker 2: but I'm inclined to agree with you.

607
00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:43,160
Speaker 1: Yeah. They seemed mutually befuddled and irritated at their inability

608
00:37:43,239 --> 00:37:46,480
Speaker 1: to communicate. And there's a great Times article about it

609
00:37:46,520 --> 00:37:50,760
Speaker 1: called zigzag and swirl, which is another principle. Yeah, loss

610
00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:53,279
Speaker 1: to which loss in the hears And I'm sure he

611
00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:55,720
Speaker 1: tried to explain that to the senators, Yes.

612
00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:57,719
Speaker 2: Talking about some zigzag and swirl.

613
00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:02,560
Speaker 1: And I don't that's a very lighthearted moment because I

614
00:38:02,600 --> 00:38:07,280
Speaker 1: love the idea of both of these guys ardently trying

615
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:12,400
Speaker 1: to explain this stuff. And investigations continue, but for the

616
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:17,640
Speaker 1: time being, the University of Lausonomy soldiers on. After people

617
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 1: graduate the university, their story or their journey with Lausonomy

618
00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:30,319
Speaker 1: doesn't end. They are offered option for postgraduate work. It's

619
00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:34,360
Speaker 1: called Lisonian religion and it is made to provide students

620
00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 1: with the highest quote grade of consciousness. Remember when we

621
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:41,279
Speaker 1: talked about the people who would be different and superior

622
00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:44,600
Speaker 1: to us land lubbers and they would live in the sky.

623
00:38:44,640 --> 00:38:47,960
Speaker 1: This is the way to become that person, according to Lawson.

624
00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:51,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, we shouldn't forget too that this

625
00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:56,160
Speaker 2: was all happening while Lawson was still alive during kind

626
00:38:56,160 --> 00:38:59,480
Speaker 2: of the rise of Nazism and laws and spoke out

627
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:03,000
Speaker 2: against it pretty regularly. But because of the kind of

628
00:39:03,560 --> 00:39:08,400
Speaker 2: militaristic esque qualities of his organization, much like the kind

629
00:39:08,440 --> 00:39:11,720
Speaker 2: of things we see with like the sea org in scientology,

630
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:15,200
Speaker 2: right it people it was not a good look. People

631
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:18,520
Speaker 2: were kind of like a little bit alienated by them,

632
00:39:18,719 --> 00:39:20,480
Speaker 2: you know, and it was just kind of like a

633
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:21,959
Speaker 2: little bit weirded people out.

634
00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 1: Where they felt maybe it was somewhat hypocritical because these

635
00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:29,360
Speaker 1: people at the time also would have been familiar with

636
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:33,319
Speaker 1: Lawson's earlier work. The Direct Credit Society was a very

637
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:37,360
Speaker 1: populist movement, you know, when they did have uniforms and

638
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:41,880
Speaker 1: dress codes, and the university was not so different. Also,

639
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:46,839
Speaker 1: Lawson was seen as somewhat of a I don't want

640
00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:48,680
Speaker 1: to say a Tony Stark figure, but it was an

641
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:52,200
Speaker 1: aviation expert. We didn't even talk about the circulation numbers

642
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:55,200
Speaker 1: of his paper The Benefactor. Under his time with the

643
00:39:55,520 --> 00:39:59,120
Speaker 1: Direct Credit Society, people were aware of who this guy is,

644
00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:03,000
Speaker 1: and they saw how his positions evolved would be the

645
00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:05,200
Speaker 1: nice way to say it changed, would be another way

646
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:07,320
Speaker 1: to say it. Over time, they saw how they evolved

647
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 1: and changed over time. Increasingly his beliefs were becoming difficult

648
00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:18,319
Speaker 1: to parse or obtuse, such that in the modern day

649
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:24,200
Speaker 1: now Casey and Nola and I are not psychologists or therapist,

650
00:40:24,280 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 1: but in the modern day the kind of language he's

651
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:29,960
Speaker 1: using seems to be increasingly what we would call like

652
00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:36,560
Speaker 1: word salad or disassociative yep. And there's a marked acceleration

653
00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:42,960
Speaker 1: in this tendency as he ages. There were hints of

654
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:46,120
Speaker 1: this all along in his concepts with the Direct Credit

655
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:48,839
Speaker 1: Society and the layer of astronomy, but as he goes

656
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:52,080
Speaker 1: into out and out religion, as it goes from an

657
00:40:52,120 --> 00:40:56,680
Speaker 1: economic theory to a philosophy to a religion. Is all

658
00:40:56,719 --> 00:41:00,320
Speaker 1: the stops are gone. He's just saying insane stuff.

659
00:41:00,760 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, like what go to you? Gouts should launch your

660
00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 2: list a few, We can.

661
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:06,400
Speaker 1: Launch your list a few. Yeah, yeah, you went around Robinett.

662
00:41:06,480 --> 00:41:07,400
Speaker 2: Let's do it, okay.

663
00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:11,440
Speaker 1: God wanted a supervising agent to manage the earth and

664
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:14,319
Speaker 1: all that it contains therein, and so he directed the

665
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 1: men Orgs remember them, to design and build a super

666
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:21,000
Speaker 1: conscious being upon humane principles that would be capable of

667
00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:24,640
Speaker 1: executing such orders and performing such duties as he would

668
00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:27,880
Speaker 1: from time to time prescribe. It was a very crude

669
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:31,319
Speaker 1: thing that the Menorgs first produced, which was designated as Man.

670
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:33,520
Speaker 1: But they continue to improve him with the view of

671
00:41:33,760 --> 00:41:38,200
Speaker 1: constantly increasing his intelligence and enlarging his consciousness until eventually

672
00:41:38,280 --> 00:41:40,399
Speaker 1: he will become acceptable in the sight of God.

673
00:41:40,520 --> 00:41:42,279
Speaker 2: I like, how I even heard you get bored with

674
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:45,520
Speaker 2: reading that? Right, It's just like what what?

675
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:49,280
Speaker 1: Well? I tone it down there toward the end, because

676
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:52,000
Speaker 1: I feel like that's how a lot of people took

677
00:41:52,040 --> 00:41:55,040
Speaker 1: it when they were reading something that ostensibly was going

678
00:41:55,120 --> 00:42:01,320
Speaker 1: to be about physics or science or economic theory.

679
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:03,760
Speaker 2: That's the thing, Like all of his stuff is this weird,

680
00:42:03,800 --> 00:42:08,160
Speaker 2: garbled mishmash of different ideas with no real substance there

681
00:42:08,239 --> 00:42:11,520
Speaker 2: and nothing that's it's all just a kind of agglomeration

682
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:15,759
Speaker 2: of like pseudoscientific ideas and kind of like bluster. And Hey,

683
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:18,719
Speaker 2: if there's any Lossonians out there that are offended by this,

684
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:22,880
Speaker 2: I'm more than happy to hear your side of the

685
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:24,759
Speaker 2: you know, but I don't know that there are any

686
00:42:24,800 --> 00:42:28,120
Speaker 2: that remain because that film we talked about man Life,

687
00:42:28,120 --> 00:42:30,240
Speaker 2: which by the way, was the name of a magazine

688
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:35,680
Speaker 2: that lost and published, not Man's Life, Man Life, one word.

689
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:38,480
Speaker 2: The guy that was the subject of that film is

690
00:42:38,560 --> 00:42:41,960
Speaker 2: like ninety three years old during the making of the film,

691
00:42:42,200 --> 00:42:46,000
Speaker 2: and he kind of like sticks around as an archivist

692
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:50,839
Speaker 2: and he goes to this like air shows in Oshkosh, Wisconsin,

693
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:55,399
Speaker 2: where he tries to recruit young people into the Blasonian

694
00:42:55,680 --> 00:42:59,120
Speaker 2: faith with very little success, it seems like. But his

695
00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:02,399
Speaker 2: story is beautiful and he's you know, he he does

696
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:05,279
Speaker 2: live to be you know, close to one hundred, and

697
00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:08,600
Speaker 2: he follows all of the tenants of loss and he

698
00:43:08,640 --> 00:43:11,040
Speaker 2: eats raw food and you know, he's got like he

699
00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:14,000
Speaker 2: really you know, lives his life by this code, which

700
00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:17,520
Speaker 2: is really interesting to see. But there's there's a little

701
00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:20,719
Speaker 2: bit more of the story. Lawson's legal troubles do not

702
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:23,759
Speaker 2: end at the whole affair with the you know, the

703
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 2: machines or whatever. He actually they get their nonprofit status

704
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:31,520
Speaker 2: revoked and I think he owes in the neighborhood of

705
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:34,600
Speaker 2: a decade's worth of back taxes because it was retroactive,

706
00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:38,440
Speaker 2: right right, So that pretty much bankrupted the organization or

707
00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:41,640
Speaker 2: they had to sell off the university campus they had

708
00:43:42,120 --> 00:43:47,520
Speaker 2: and they moved to another kind of farm type campus

709
00:43:47,560 --> 00:43:50,400
Speaker 2: in Where was it ben It was somewhere in Minnesota

710
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:54,960
Speaker 2: in Racine County, Racine County, which is on Interstate ninety four,

711
00:43:55,000 --> 00:43:59,520
Speaker 2: a very very well traveled stretch of interstate between like

712
00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:04,160
Speaker 2: Chicago and Milwaukee. Yeah, you can read, uh, you can

713
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:06,959
Speaker 2: read a chool article about it on Milwaukee dot com,

714
00:44:07,000 --> 00:44:10,080
Speaker 2: which is where we bye by Greg Hoffman, which is

715
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:15,040
Speaker 2: where we found uh the description of the university after

716
00:44:15,080 --> 00:44:18,200
Speaker 2: it moved. And one of the features of one of

717
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:22,280
Speaker 2: those buildings was a big gray barn that says study

718
00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:25,560
Speaker 2: natural law on the outside of it. And I believe

719
00:44:25,560 --> 00:44:27,840
Speaker 2: the campus is still there today. You can. There's a

720
00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:29,839
Speaker 2: video on this Wired article where a guy just kind

721
00:44:29,840 --> 00:44:32,480
Speaker 2: of wanders around and it looks like everything's locked and

722
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:35,759
Speaker 2: I think it's owned by a trust that still is

723
00:44:35,800 --> 00:44:39,560
Speaker 2: tied to the idea of Blossonians. But it. Yeah, and

724
00:44:39,640 --> 00:44:44,359
Speaker 2: he himself lost in passed away two years after they

725
00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:48,080
Speaker 2: got this new campus, and after he kind of was shamed,

726
00:44:48,160 --> 00:44:50,480
Speaker 2: you know, for being a bit of a tax fraud.

727
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:53,799
Speaker 2: And you know, over after his def to repassed, the

728
00:44:53,880 --> 00:44:56,560
Speaker 2: numbers just dwindled. They were never like that massive. To

729
00:44:56,600 --> 00:45:00,000
Speaker 2: begin with, the direct credit movement was much more successful

730
00:45:00,200 --> 00:45:03,400
Speaker 2: than the Lawsonian movement because of its tie to the

731
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 2: Great Depression, and then you know, it sort of dwindled

732
00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:09,520
Speaker 2: from thousands of members to maybe just a couple hundred,

733
00:45:09,800 --> 00:45:10,839
Speaker 2: and then you know.

734
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:16,640
Speaker 1: Eventually eventually to Now there are some other people involved.

735
00:45:16,719 --> 00:45:18,800
Speaker 1: We'll get to them in just a second, But yes,

736
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:22,080
Speaker 1: it is true. Alfred Lawson died on November twenty ninth,

737
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:26,759
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four, meaning that one reason or another, he

738
00:45:26,840 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 1: did die before he was two hundred years old. And

739
00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:34,920
Speaker 1: you're right that it did quickly diminish. The following that

740
00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:39,600
Speaker 1: was already much smaller than Direct Credit However, there are

741
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:47,759
Speaker 1: reports of one last Lasonomic institution out in Kansas. Did

742
00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:48,600
Speaker 1: you read about now?

743
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:49,720
Speaker 2: I did not so.

744
00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:53,560
Speaker 1: In the Journal Times there is a report from two

745
00:45:53,560 --> 00:45:59,640
Speaker 1: thousand and one of a church of Austonomy, and this

746
00:45:59,760 --> 00:46:04,799
Speaker 1: church still remains there in Kansas and Mount Pleasant. The

747
00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:11,080
Speaker 1: officiator and one of the Lowsonians who still live in

748
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:17,319
Speaker 1: the area say that they find this personally meaningful. It

749
00:46:17,360 --> 00:46:21,160
Speaker 1: has five buildings, including a church, a farmhouse, and a dormitory,

750
00:46:21,560 --> 00:46:25,279
Speaker 1: but only the two story dormitory is used today. Only

751
00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:28,239
Speaker 1: one guy lives on campus, is the caretaker. His name's

752
00:46:28,280 --> 00:46:31,720
Speaker 1: Gary Turner. All these people are pretty elderly at this point,

753
00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:37,320
Speaker 1: and they have a dilapidated headquarters with tons of books

754
00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:40,960
Speaker 1: and collections of literature. And one of the big things

755
00:46:41,040 --> 00:46:46,239
Speaker 1: is that people the remaining Lawsonians want younger people to

756
00:46:46,360 --> 00:46:50,000
Speaker 1: join the movement or religion, but just like Merle Hayden,

757
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:54,640
Speaker 1: they are not reaching many people. They're not convincing anyone.

758
00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:59,919
Speaker 1: So if this religion dies, and I tried to find

759
00:47:00,160 --> 00:47:04,600
Speaker 1: more about this, if this religion does die, then unless

760
00:47:04,600 --> 00:47:07,920
Speaker 1: some company buys the property, it is going to be

761
00:47:08,520 --> 00:47:11,560
Speaker 1: the property of Kansas. The very last update I found

762
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:15,680
Speaker 1: was also by The Journal Times. Ricardo Torres rights that

763
00:47:15,760 --> 00:47:19,920
Speaker 1: Fox Cohn just bought an unusual piece of Wisconsin history.

764
00:47:20,320 --> 00:47:23,520
Speaker 1: So as far as we could see, the company, Fox

765
00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:28,200
Speaker 1: con Technology Group bought the land the Mount Pleasant owned

766
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:32,960
Speaker 1: for over nine hundred thousand dollars. So these people may

767
00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:35,799
Speaker 1: be aging, the group may be aging, but financially they're

768
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:36,719
Speaker 1: not hurting anymore.

769
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:39,439
Speaker 2: Interesting. Yeah, I didn't hear about that. That's cool.

770
00:47:39,520 --> 00:47:42,120
Speaker 1: So we don't know what happens the story continues.

771
00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:43,960
Speaker 2: Maybe this is a weird one man, and this is

772
00:47:44,280 --> 00:47:46,080
Speaker 2: a tough one to get through. And then there's a

773
00:47:46,120 --> 00:47:47,880
Speaker 2: lot of stuff we've had to leave out. But I

774
00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:51,160
Speaker 2: can't recommend highly enough this documentary. It's called Man Life

775
00:47:51,239 --> 00:47:52,880
Speaker 2: The Last of the Losonians.

776
00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:57,120
Speaker 1: You can also find some cool audio stuff on YouTube

777
00:47:57,200 --> 00:48:01,280
Speaker 1: about this. But again i'll post this on our page

778
00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:04,880
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians. You can read these books, a lot of

779
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:08,120
Speaker 1: them in full online as far as I can find.

780
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:11,600
Speaker 1: Most of them are out of print in a physical edition,

781
00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:13,799
Speaker 1: so it might be tougher to get there, but you

782
00:48:13,840 --> 00:48:17,040
Speaker 1: can read PDFs and I don't know, I encourage check

783
00:48:17,080 --> 00:48:20,239
Speaker 1: it out and if you if you have an understanding

784
00:48:20,360 --> 00:48:23,799
Speaker 1: of what exactly they're talking about, especially when it gets

785
00:48:23,880 --> 00:48:27,919
Speaker 1: the physics and the nature of interaction of elements and substances.

786
00:48:29,080 --> 00:48:30,920
Speaker 1: Feel free to write us an email and break it down,

787
00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:33,399
Speaker 1: because I'm gonna be honest. I read it. I don't

788
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:36,040
Speaker 1: get it, don't They don't quite understand.

789
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:38,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it's it's it's a tough one. It's a

790
00:48:38,520 --> 00:48:40,040
Speaker 2: bit of a it's been hard to swallow.

791
00:48:39,760 --> 00:48:43,640
Speaker 1: A bit of terriology precursor. Maybe we should do that.

792
00:48:43,680 --> 00:48:47,320
Speaker 1: Maybe we should make up our you, me and everybody listening.

793
00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:50,200
Speaker 1: Maybe we should make up our own personal philosophies. Why not,

794
00:48:50,520 --> 00:48:52,280
Speaker 1: and we name them after themselves.

795
00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:54,640
Speaker 2: Just call it, you know, a code that you live

796
00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:57,200
Speaker 2: by yourself. We don't have to make other people do it.

797
00:48:57,640 --> 00:48:59,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing that seems a little bit imperial

798
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:02,440
Speaker 1: stick about it, you know what I mean. And also

799
00:49:03,040 --> 00:49:05,520
Speaker 1: I believe that people should have self confidence. But it

800
00:49:05,560 --> 00:49:09,440
Speaker 1: feels weird to name things like that after yourself. You

801
00:49:09,440 --> 00:49:09,920
Speaker 1: know what I mean?

802
00:49:10,040 --> 00:49:11,520
Speaker 2: Oh, I do know what you mean. And I do

803
00:49:11,560 --> 00:49:14,759
Speaker 2: want to end with with one last quote from laws

804
00:49:14,840 --> 00:49:17,400
Speaker 2: in himself that sums this whole thing up. Go for

805
00:49:17,480 --> 00:49:19,720
Speaker 2: it to try to write a sketch of the life

806
00:49:19,719 --> 00:49:22,720
Speaker 2: and works of Alfred W. Lawson in a few pages

807
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:25,600
Speaker 2: is like trying to restrict space itself.

808
00:49:26,120 --> 00:49:28,200
Speaker 1: Oh my god, we didn't even talk about how he

809
00:49:28,239 --> 00:49:31,040
Speaker 1: writes the third person under assumed names yeah.

810
00:49:31,160 --> 00:49:35,520
Speaker 2: Zy q fonts. All right, well again, maybe we'll have

811
00:49:35,560 --> 00:49:38,239
Speaker 2: to revisit this one. This I've had a good time.

812
00:49:38,320 --> 00:49:40,319
Speaker 1: I did too. This also reminds me a little bit

813
00:49:40,320 --> 00:49:44,359
Speaker 1: of time cube, of a less angry version of time cube.

814
00:49:44,360 --> 00:49:44,960
Speaker 1: You know what that is?

815
00:49:45,040 --> 00:49:45,640
Speaker 2: Right? I do not?

816
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:48,920
Speaker 1: Are you serious, man? Okay, time cube? This? I know this.

817
00:49:48,960 --> 00:49:51,319
Speaker 1: We're being such a one more thing is a guy

818
00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:54,920
Speaker 1: who believes that the Earth encounters You will hear me

819
00:49:55,040 --> 00:49:57,359
Speaker 1: turning my computer around to show this to knowl who

820
00:49:57,400 --> 00:50:01,680
Speaker 1: believes that the Earth encounters for simultaneous and that it's

821
00:50:01,719 --> 00:50:05,239
Speaker 1: moving through a cube of space and time. And his

822
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:09,600
Speaker 1: entire website is just this. I can post it. He

823
00:50:09,640 --> 00:50:12,400
Speaker 1: made an appearance at Georgia Tech, one of our local

824
00:50:12,480 --> 00:50:15,400
Speaker 1: learning centers, a while back, and I felt really bad.

825
00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:19,799
Speaker 1: I think he's unwell. He has a very unique and

826
00:50:19,800 --> 00:50:23,879
Speaker 1: distinct understanding of the nature of reality. And there are

827
00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:26,040
Speaker 1: more and more people like this, and you ay, sometimes

828
00:50:26,040 --> 00:50:29,080
Speaker 1: we call them eccentric, sometimes we call them visionaries. Don't

829
00:50:29,080 --> 00:50:31,600
Speaker 1: know what the difference is, but we would like to

830
00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:34,560
Speaker 1: hear from you. Thank you so much for checking out

831
00:50:34,560 --> 00:50:39,280
Speaker 1: the show. Thanks to Casey Pegram, our super producer, and Noel.

832
00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:47,960
Speaker 1: Thanks to you.

833
00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:47,640
Speaker 2: Welcome then thanks also to Alex Williams, who composed our theme,

834
00:50:47,719 --> 00:50:50,480
Speaker 2: and to our amazing researcher, Eve's Jeffcoats, who worked on

835
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:51,560
Speaker 2: this episode.

836
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:56,320
Speaker 1: Be sure to join us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter

837
00:50:56,760 --> 00:51:00,720
Speaker 1: you can see all sorts of shenaniganry. There cannot highly

838
00:51:00,840 --> 00:51:05,959
Speaker 1: enough recommend our community page, Ridiculous Historians. If you want

839
00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:10,320
Speaker 1: to read about hosotomy, then I've got you. I'll post

840
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:13,560
Speaker 1: up some PDFs on the page and I would love

841
00:51:13,600 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 1: to hear what you think. If this somehow makes sense

842
00:51:17,160 --> 00:51:20,800
Speaker 1: to someone, let us know. Because we were adrift and

843
00:51:20,880 --> 00:51:24,399
Speaker 1: some very high minded concepts today, but luckily we made

844
00:51:24,440 --> 00:51:27,320
Speaker 1: it back to Earth and that is the strange story

845
00:51:27,320 --> 00:51:28,719
Speaker 1: of the inventor of the airline.

846
00:51:29,400 --> 00:51:30,120
Speaker 2: We'll see you next time.

847
00:51:30,160 --> 00:51:30,440
Speaker 1: Books.

848
00:51:39,239 --> 00:51:43,080
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

849
00:51:43,120 --> 00:51:45,280
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.