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Speaker 1: Trust me.

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Speaker 2: Trust me.

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Speaker 3: I'm like a swat person.

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Speaker 4: I've never lived to you, do you.

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Speaker 2: Think that one person has all the answers? Don't welcome

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Speaker 2: to trust Me? The podcast about cult, extreme belief and

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Speaker 2: the abuse of power from two students of life who've

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Speaker 2: actually experienced it.

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Speaker 4: I am Lola Blanc and I'm Megan Elizabeth.

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Speaker 2: Today we are going to talk to doctor you've all Llower,

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Speaker 2: a behavioral and cultural scientist who studies evolutionary biology, religion,

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Speaker 2: and the sociology of religion.

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Speaker 1: This is a fascinating episode.

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Speaker 2: He's going to talk to us about heightened spiritual states

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Speaker 2: called AWE experiences, how attachment to a belief system is

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Speaker 2: similar to attachment to a parent or a lover and

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Speaker 2: goes through similar phases, and the various manipulative emotional tactics

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Speaker 2: that cult leaders use to generate fervor and bond their

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Speaker 2: followers to that.

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Speaker 3: We're also going to talk about tempero love, epilepsy, and

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Speaker 3: hyper religiosity, and how certain kinds of seizure can make

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Speaker 3: people truly believe they're in touch with God.

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Speaker 2: Ooh, I think we've all been mispronouncing temporal this whole time.

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Speaker 4: That's so cool. That's so awesome. We're such scientists.

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Speaker 1: Temporal temporal who fucking cares?

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Speaker 4: No one cares. So, Lola, what's the cultiest thing that

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Speaker 4: happened to you this week?

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Speaker 1: Well, so.

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Speaker 2: I'm having some conflict within myself about the degree to

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Speaker 2: which I adhere to my own cult of skepticism. Ah,

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Speaker 2: so okay, So this week I got into a conversation

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Speaker 2: with a girlfriend who's super smart. You know, she's very

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Speaker 2: good at critical thinking. I would say of my friends,

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Speaker 2: she's one of the best. And she showed me a

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Speaker 2: woman that she likes, who does a lot of YouTube videos,

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Speaker 2: who talks about attachment theory. And actually, it's funny because

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Speaker 2: we talk a lot about attachment theory in this episode

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Speaker 2: Attachment theory. We will describe more later on, but it's

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Speaker 2: it's been helpful for me. It's been helpful for her

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Speaker 2: in sort of categorizing what went wrong with some of

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Speaker 2: our past relationships that fucking confused us and made us

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Speaker 2: feel like we were crazy. Right, So she shows me

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Speaker 2: this woman, and this woman does YouTube video every day,

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Speaker 2: she wears lots of makeup. But I go in thinking, oh,

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Speaker 2: she's a psychologist. That's interesting. She specialized as an attachment theory.

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Speaker 2: Maybe I'll look her up. So my friend is showing me.

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Speaker 2: We're in a pod together, so we see each other

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Speaker 2: in person. She shows me her video, and I start

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Speaker 2: looking the woman up while she's talking because some of

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Speaker 2: what she's saying, I'm like, this sounds like some broad

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Speaker 2: generalizations here. And I start googling this woman and her

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Speaker 2: website says that she's an m and she's a PhD candidate,

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Speaker 2: but it doesn't say what school, and so I start

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Speaker 2: googling trying to find what school she goes to, and

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Speaker 2: I cannot find a school anywhere. And then I googled

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Speaker 2: the type of psychology that it says she studies, and

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Speaker 2: it's a type of psychology that is spiritual and not

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Speaker 2: actually a thing, like it's.

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Speaker 1: Not studied at any schools.

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Speaker 2: So I start saying this to my friend, and she

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Speaker 2: understandably got defensive because she was showing me someone who's

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Speaker 2: been really helpful for her, right, And I was like

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Speaker 2: kind of just immediately shitting all.

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Speaker 4: Over it, right, right.

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Speaker 2: And so that's just a debate that I've been having

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Speaker 2: a lot within myself, which is like, yeah, this woman

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Speaker 2: is like kind of passing herself off as an actual psychologist. However,

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Speaker 2: she is talking about things, she's reading books that have

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Speaker 2: good information, and she's not so far that we're aware

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Speaker 2: of passing along any like terrible information. Right for me,

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Speaker 2: it's just inherently a red flag when someone's not being

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Speaker 2: transparent about what their credentials are. Yeah, yeah, that as

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Speaker 2: soon as I see that, if I can't figure out

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Speaker 2: what school you went to, or I see that you're

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Speaker 2: fudging something, that's immediately my red flags are like no.

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Speaker 1: No, no, no no.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And then I dug a little deeper and I saw

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Speaker 2: that some of her early YouTube videos are very spiritually

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Speaker 2: focused and one of them even features my faceavorite cult

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Speaker 2: leader on Instagram, Benton Helma Sorrow, who was like not

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Speaker 2: even remotely like he's just a complete and utter bullshitter.

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Speaker 2: So I we had this sort of light conflict and

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Speaker 2: we talked about it and we resolved it and nice, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: it was like it went okay, But where is the line?

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Speaker 2: Because I do find that I, you know, I have

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Speaker 2: a really hard time like just letting people have something

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Speaker 2: that's good for them and that works for them if

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Speaker 2: it's not like if I have any reflags, But does

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Speaker 2: it matter, Like why does it fucking matter? You know,

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Speaker 2: it would be different if she were spending a bunch

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Speaker 2: of money on this program, then I would feel the

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Speaker 2: need to intervene.

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Speaker 1: But she's not. She's just watching YouTube videos right right.

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Speaker 4: Is it something just in you that's super protective? It is?

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Speaker 4: It is?

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Speaker 2: It comes from, you know, my childhood with my mom

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Speaker 2: and feeling like, don't line of scam you you know completely,

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Speaker 2: but it's not helpful. I was talking to my mom

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Speaker 2: about it because she knows that this is something that

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Speaker 2: I do because I do it with her where I

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Speaker 2: get very protective of her about, you know, whether she's

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Speaker 2: trusting so someone prematurely or whether she looked into someone.

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Speaker 2: You know, I'm very vigilant about it. And I was like, Mom,

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Speaker 2: what's the solution? Like, I don't I have this instinct

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Speaker 2: and I have a really hard time. I am really

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Speaker 2: really bad at faking my feelings, Like I'm really bad

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Speaker 2: at it. So her suggestion was like, give the person

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Speaker 2: a beat to just be supportive of what is making

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Speaker 2: them happy. Like you don't have to do it right

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Speaker 2: in that moment and come back and revisit it later.

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Speaker 2: But like when they're telling you something that they're excited

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Speaker 2: about you don't have to take the wind out of

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Speaker 2: their sales right in that moment, like a goddamn bitch.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, so count to two then do it.

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Speaker 2: Anyway, I wish I had the book on you right now.

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Speaker 2: I can't find it, and I'm really pissed about it.

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Speaker 2: But actually, one of the books I talked about in

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Speaker 2: this episode is Abraham Maslow's Religion, Values and Peak Experiences,

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Speaker 2: and he talks about like how skeptics they dig their

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Speaker 2: heels in so deep into skepticism that that isn't any

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Speaker 2: better than religion, of course, and I do believe that,

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Speaker 2: and that's the cult that I find myself kind of

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Speaker 2: getting stuck it. Yeah, but it does genuinely come from

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Speaker 2: a protective place.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Ooh, I'm excited to see how this unfolds for you.

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Speaker 2: Ah, thanks, man, I don't know. I'm just doing I'm

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Speaker 2: doing my best as a person. This is a flaw

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Speaker 2: that I have trying to be better.

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Speaker 4: Exciting.

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Speaker 1: Thanks. Anyway, what was the cultiest thing for you?

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Speaker 3: I mean, I guess I'm trying to quit caffeine, which

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Speaker 3: I am in the cult of caffeine, and I've gone

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Speaker 3: two days without it, so wish me luck because today

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Speaker 3: I'm going to be doing a lot of running around.

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Speaker 2: Are you feeling irritable and angry and grumpy?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's all the time, so I don't know

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Speaker 3: how much of that is from the caffeine.

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Speaker 4: I just feel really.

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Speaker 3: Sluggish, sloggish, sluggish, sluggish. Yeah, I feel really sluggish, and

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Speaker 3: yeah I feel angry. So I'm going to give it

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Speaker 3: a few more days and then hopefully it'll be out

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Speaker 3: of my system because I'm just sleeping like shit and

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Speaker 3: I want to join the Cult of Sleep.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's a good ass cult right there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the Dope's leader, the dream Man, Sandman Sandman.

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Speaker 1: I follow the Sandman religiously.

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Speaker 4: Well, this episode is great.

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Speaker 2: How about let's get into yavall now, Yeah, let's do it.

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Speaker 2: Welcome you've all la orl.

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Speaker 5: The way you said it was fun.

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Speaker 1: Okay, great, Thank you so much for coming on.

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Speaker 5: Thank you for having me.

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Speaker 2: So today we're going to talk about awe and fervor

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Speaker 2: and experiences and how they get people sucked into cults

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Speaker 2: and keep them in there. Can you just tell us

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Speaker 2: about your background and how you got into the subject

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Speaker 2: in the first place.

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Speaker 5: So my background, I dropped out of graduate school and physics,

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Speaker 5: and then I joined graduate school and the humanities. And

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Speaker 5: my advisor for Sir A via Blanca, who is incredible.

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Speaker 5: She is an evolutionary theorist, but she reads a book

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Speaker 5: a day and knows a lot about everything. When I

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Speaker 5: learned evolution from her, had the hobby, developed the hobby

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Speaker 5: of following scientology and some other cults, so I knew

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Speaker 5: basic things about scientology and about the type of manipulation

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Speaker 5: and devotion. And as part of her class, you know,

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Speaker 5: I wrote the final project. And my final project I

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Speaker 5: wanted to read about evolution of religiosity theories, and when

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Speaker 5: I read books in the cognitive science of religion where

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Speaker 5: religiosity is described in the context of the way ideas spread,

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Speaker 5: and they say that ideas that have counterfactual elements are

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Speaker 5: remembered more. Therefore religion, the end experiences and things like

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Speaker 5: that are neglected. So you know, I took that class

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Speaker 5: close to twenty years ago. I've been working on this

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Speaker 5: for many, many years. But I wrote up first the

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Speaker 5: masters and then a PhD on the subject. The problems

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Speaker 5: with some of the academic discussion about evolution. That and

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Speaker 5: having read a lot about scientology, and also the certain

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Speaker 5: book called The Evolution of Consciousness and the Breakdown of

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Speaker 5: the by Camera Mind by Julian James from seventy six

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Speaker 5: light Rehea and I read that book before my class,

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Speaker 5: and I think it was a Tuesday. I went to

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Speaker 5: Professor Ya Blanca. I asked her if you read this book,

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Speaker 5: it's about evolution, and I gave it to her on Tuesday.

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Speaker 5: She gave it back to me on Thursday saying it

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Speaker 5: was very good, but he doesn't understand theory of mind.

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Speaker 5: All those things led me more and more towards trying

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Speaker 5: to come up with an evolutionary theory. Now this is evolution, evodiva,

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Speaker 5: evolutionary developmental theory, so this is not what it was

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Speaker 5: good for. And the Savannah it's none of that. So

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Speaker 5: that's how I got to the subject. I've never been

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Speaker 5: a cult member. I was a nationalist when I was

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Speaker 5: a child, but I'm not that anymore at all. And

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Speaker 5: I feel like I'm writing a book about tennis but

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Speaker 5: having never played tennis. Ex members or people who are

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Speaker 5: phenomenal tennis players, but they don't know what they're doing.

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Speaker 5: They don't know how to describe what they're doing. You know,

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Speaker 5: they just know that they hold the racket, and they

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Speaker 5: like I can describe the technical things that need to

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Speaker 5: be done, but I don't know how it's done. You know.

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Speaker 5: I would come up with different aspects of my theory,

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Speaker 5: and when we discuss it with ex cult members, they

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Speaker 5: would tell me that I am onto something that you know,

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Speaker 5: I would really value that.

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Speaker 1: Can you explain to us what belief attachment is?

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Speaker 5: Okay? Well, belief attachment is the current working name that

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Speaker 5: I've been giving to a construct. It's another type of

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Speaker 5: attachment or another type of love, but it is one

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Speaker 5: that attaches a person, not to another person or a

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Speaker 5: baby or a parent, but too. I call it a

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Speaker 5: package of beliefs, so it's sort of a set of ideas.

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Speaker 2: I just want to clarify to anyone who's not from

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Speaker 2: with what attachment means. It's just the way a baby

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Speaker 2: becomes attached to their parents.

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Speaker 5: And the parent is attached to the baby.

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Speaker 1: So it's right.

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Speaker 5: It's a way to talk about love without having to

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Speaker 5: get with it all the baggage that the word love might.

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Speaker 2: Might come with, right, I personally am a big fan

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Speaker 2: of attachment theory. I apply it to all of my relationships.

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Speaker 2: But it's a different thing. But I think a lot

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Speaker 2: of people who listen, maybe will that will be their

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Speaker 2: framework for what attachment is.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, but attachment theory by Boalby and Than Ainsworth, I

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Speaker 5: think it depends too much on an assumption that we

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Speaker 5: are similar to chimpanzees, especially in Bolby, and we are

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Speaker 5: very different in our family relationships and chimpanzees. A chimpanzee

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Speaker 5: mothers never let anybody take care of the baby, so

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Speaker 5: there's no grandparents in the baby's life, no fathers, no aunts.

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Speaker 5: So humans are actually raised children much more like marmoset

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Speaker 5: them like chimpanzees. But of course there is a lot

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Speaker 5: of great insights and Bulby is incredible.

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Speaker 1: Of course, no idea what that means.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think just the very basic, like the basic

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Speaker 2: bitch version of attachment theory, which is just like he's

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Speaker 2: an avoidant. I'm anxious, But obviously belief attachment is a

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Speaker 2: different thing. But I just wanted to explain just generally

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Speaker 2: what that is for people. What were you gonna say?

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Speaker 3: Again, I literally was going to make a joke about

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Speaker 3: attachment theory and it's gone now, so.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I'm good.

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Speaker 2: So how does this kind of attachment exhibit itself when

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Speaker 2: someone is joining a new group, is or is in

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Speaker 2: a group already.

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Speaker 5: Okay, so I talked about attachments. Attachments are the relationship,

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Speaker 5: but they're also a commitment and they're also tied to

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Speaker 5: a state of emotions or psychological events that can happen.

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Speaker 5: So if we look at parental love or mother to

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Speaker 5: child love, you know it's common to all mammals, right,

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Speaker 5: Romantic love is in between five and ten percent of mammals.

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Speaker 5: We see that there's a certain emotion or set of

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Speaker 5: emotions that we call love, and they also have an

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Speaker 5: event that establishes them. Right, So you can have a

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Speaker 5: falling in love event, which is a very sudden thing.

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Speaker 5: For example, if someone put a baby on your doorstep

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Speaker 5: and you open the door and there's a baby there,

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Speaker 5: your life might radically change in a day or two, right,

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Speaker 5: And I think that that event is the sudden conversion,

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Speaker 5: the same way that you can fall in love with

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Speaker 5: a baby and it changes your life, and it changes

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Speaker 5: how you think of yourself and what you do and

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Speaker 5: your sense of meaning. The equivalent to sudden falling in

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Speaker 5: love is sudden conversion, where too, you can change your

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Speaker 5: life you can change your habit. You can have people

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Speaker 5: who whatever the pope says, or whatever a political leader says,

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Speaker 5: or whatever you know their cult leader says, they are

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Speaker 5: committed to that being true even before that person said it. Right.

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Speaker 5: And you can be committed to the contents of a

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Speaker 5: book that you can believe with all your heart that

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Speaker 5: whatever is in that book is true, but you don't

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Speaker 5: know what's in the book, but you're still committed to

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Speaker 5: the truth value of a set of ideas that you

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Speaker 5: yourself are not aware of.

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Speaker 2: Right, And what do you think seals someone to this

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Speaker 2: strong belief?

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Speaker 5: So if you're asking what establishes an attachment to belief

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Speaker 5: with high fervor right so further, it's like the trait

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Speaker 5: of being in love, where you can like someone more

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Speaker 5: and more and more, but once you like them enough,

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Speaker 5: then you can switch into an infatuated situation. I think

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Speaker 5: that a similar thing happens also in parental love, but

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Speaker 5: also and attachment to ideas, where you can your belief

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Speaker 5: can get stronger and stronger, but there is a point

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Speaker 5: where the belief gets a little stronger and you get

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Speaker 5: into the state of further where things are a lot

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Speaker 5: more intense. You have intrusive thoughts, and it really determines

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Speaker 5: your priorities. What do you think is important.

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Speaker 2: So it's like it's you're infatuated with l Ron Hubbard

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Speaker 2: or you're infatuated with whoever your leader is.

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Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, and it can be quite complicated. Now you

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Speaker 5: ask what establishes this? Right, how does this come about?

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Speaker 5: So I think that it is a strong AWE experience

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Speaker 5: combined with the right expectations, assumptions, and contents.

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Speaker 2: Okay, this is the juicy stuff, and this is what

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Speaker 2: I'm excited to talk to you about.

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Speaker 1: So, yeah, what is awe?

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Speaker 5: If we're talking about the similarity between parental love, romantic love,

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Speaker 5: and attachment to beliefs, then all experience is play the

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Speaker 5: role that love experiences do. So normally, what triggers all

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Speaker 5: experiences are things that are sufficiently anomalous. Okay, Now, what

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Speaker 5: is sufficiently anomalous depends on what you think is normal.

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Speaker 5: So that can be things that you consider to be miraculous.

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Speaker 5: For example, it can be seeing something that's very vast,

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Speaker 5: a vast view of asked building, or thinking about the

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Speaker 5: size of the galaxy or things like that. Right, you

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Speaker 5: can get it from celebrities right, So when you see

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Speaker 5: a celebrity you live in la that you can get

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Speaker 5: awe and all experience. And it depends if there's a crowd, right,

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Speaker 5: So if you're part of a crowd or if you're

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Speaker 5: in front of a crowd, that's more likely to trigger

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Speaker 5: awe because it's what you judge to be anomalous. It

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Speaker 5: can be almost anything. And what can happen is that

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Speaker 5: if a sufficiently strong experience is combined with the right

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Speaker 5: expectations and assumptions and context, then that experience can function

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Speaker 5: as a proof of things that are not related. An

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Speaker 5: example that I take from a previous podcast episode is

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Speaker 5: Lola's mother who dreamt. In the podcast, she described that

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Speaker 5: she dreamt about someone and then she saw someone that

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Speaker 5: matches the person that she dreamt of. Now, she judged

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Speaker 5: that to be sufficiently anomalous for her to have an

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Speaker 5: awe experience. For her, that experience function as a proof

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Speaker 5: that this person was the right person for her and

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Speaker 5: to believe him when he tells her this or that right.

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Speaker 5: So we see that the experience without being conscious of it,

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Speaker 5: without her really noticing, the strong experience, proved something that's

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Speaker 5: completely unrelated to the experience. Right, dreaming about someone and

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Speaker 5: then seeing them could be a proof that Buddhism is correct,

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Speaker 5: that Hinduism is correct, Shintoism is correct, that Christianity is correct,

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Speaker 5: or in her case, that fundamental Mormonism was correct, right right.

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Speaker 5: And we see that again and again when it comes

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Speaker 5: to examples of miracles. For example, even in the Bible,

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Speaker 5: we have the example of Jesus walking on the water,

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Speaker 5: and in the Biblical story, people say, oh, ghosts exist,

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Speaker 5: he is a ghost, But then he gets to the

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Speaker 5: boat and he tells him no. This miracle doesn't prove

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Speaker 5: the unrelated conclusion that ghosts exist. It proves that I

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Speaker 5: am Jesus. But that is the only miracle in the

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Speaker 5: Bible that I know where people mistake what the miracle means,

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Speaker 5: because you know, seeing the Red Sea part, people saw

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Speaker 5: that and concluded, all right, I guess we do need

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Speaker 5: to cut our penises right under ghost circumcisions.

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Speaker 2: I mean, that's the natural conclusion, the conclusion I draw

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Speaker 2: from most things.

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Speaker 5: So you need to ask what determines what the experience

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Speaker 5: will prove, right, Because if the same experience could prove

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Speaker 5: one hundred different religions are true. And now you see

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Speaker 5: things as they really are and you feel that it's

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Speaker 5: really real. Then you can ask, well, what determines which

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Speaker 5: one was proven? And I think that to answer that,

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Speaker 5: we can think of three atheists that have the exact

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Speaker 5: same beliefs, and one of them, if she sees a miracle,

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Speaker 5: that would prove to her that Catholicism is correct. In

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Speaker 5: person B, if he sees a miracle, that would prove

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Speaker 5: to him that she Islam is correct. And the third person,

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Speaker 5: if they sees a miracle, maybe they would not know, right.

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Speaker 5: They might think that something is out there, but they

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Speaker 5: don't know what it is, and then ten years later

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Speaker 5: they'll join a faith, become religion and they'll think, oh,

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Speaker 5: that's what that miracle meant. We can see that each

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Speaker 5: one of them has a different what I would call

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Speaker 5: a faith candidate. Right, so I'm not a believer, but

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Speaker 5: if I see a miracle, that's what the miracle will

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Speaker 5: prove to me. Now, the faith candidate, which you don't

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Speaker 5: believe in right before the experience, that's actually a lot

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Speaker 5: easier to change. So you can have a person that

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Speaker 5: shows up at an ashram, right and for that person

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Speaker 5: normally every day if they walk down the street and

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Speaker 5: they see something that they judge to be miraculous or

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Speaker 5: sufficiently anomalous, it would prove to them that, let's say

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Speaker 5: Catholicism is correct. But you know, they came to the ashram,

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Speaker 5: they're on a trip, they're in India. Everybody in the

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Speaker 5: ashram tells them that they believe that the Guru is God.

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Speaker 5: So temporarily, for this settings they might not even notice,

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Speaker 5: but what their faith candidate is changed. So normally if

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Speaker 5: they saw a miracle, they would think Catholicism was proven.

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Speaker 5: Now because they're in this different setting, if they are

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Speaker 5: made to experience what they judged to be miraculous, then

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Speaker 5: they would prove to them that the local guru Dashrm

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Speaker 5: is God. So once you accepted the faith candidate, and

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Speaker 5: then you said, all right, so let's do a retreat

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Speaker 5: and meditate for five hours, get a blank wall right now.

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Speaker 5: A person that doesn't know that meditating for long hours

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Speaker 5: without a visual input will hallucinate. That will cause hallucinations.

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Speaker 5: So someone who's not aware that that would happen would

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Speaker 5: judge the hallucinations when they show up as being sufficiently

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Speaker 5: anomalous right because they're unexpected and as such, they can

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Speaker 5: trigger an awe experience which will prove to them that

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Speaker 5: you know, an experience is not an argument, but for humans,

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Speaker 5: the right kind of experience can be the ultimate argument. Right,

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Speaker 5: and so what can happen is that person, right, they meditate,

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Speaker 5: they hallucinate, they interpret that as being connected to the guru. Right,

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Speaker 5: the guru might do you know a magic trick or

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Speaker 5: they might know something about them that they couldn't have known,

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Speaker 5: which is hot reading for that person that can change

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Speaker 5: their life for decades or for the rest of their lives.

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Speaker 5: They can be establish a commitment that is extremely strong

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Speaker 5: and just like the baby placed on your doorstep, it

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Speaker 5: can hijack your life. This attachment. Now, when it comes

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Speaker 5: to the baby, you develop a parent to child attachment,

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Speaker 5: which is a very specific type. I think that many

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Speaker 5: people when they join a cult, their attachment to beliefs

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Speaker 5: causes them to create a child to parent attachment with

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Speaker 5: a cult leader, but also a parent to child attachment with.

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Speaker 4: The group with the cult.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, the type of giving that cult members give to

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Speaker 5: their cults is much more similar to the giving that

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Speaker 5: parents give to children, rather than children give to parents. Right.

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Speaker 3: But they go into it thinking that the cult might

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Speaker 3: take care of them more.

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Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, that's the dependence dream. It's called by Deckman where.

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Speaker 4: Oh wow, I have that for sure.

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Speaker 5: Where Yeah, where he describes how you think that you'll

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Speaker 5: join For example, I'll join Scientology and I'll be able

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Speaker 5: to depend Yeah. Right, we have l Ron Hubbard. He's

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Speaker 5: an amazing superhuman that will take care of us, and

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Speaker 5: and I'll be able to be dependent. Now, once you

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Speaker 5: join Scientology, you find out that.

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Speaker 4: Psych the faith, the faith of all.

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Speaker 5: Of the infinite future of countless billions of people, depends

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Speaker 5: on what you will do. Right, So you think that

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Speaker 5: you'll be able to depend on the cult. But then

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Speaker 5: once you get in, you find out that not just

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Speaker 5: the cult depends on you to help it, but all

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Speaker 5: of humanity or all of the universe depends on you

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Speaker 5: giving everything you got to the cause. Right, That's why.

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Speaker 5: And some of you might have heard me describe this

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Speaker 5: in other places, But I think that cult members are

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Speaker 5: in some ways similar to parents of evil demonic children. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 5: or Rosemary's baby, or some they just.

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Speaker 4: Like are blind, right, they can't see.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, So it's a parent Charles Manson's parents, or Hitler's parents,

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Speaker 5: or some you know, evil person's parents. We find out

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Speaker 5: that they are devastated when their child died, and that

436
00:24:09,760 --> 00:24:13,359
Speaker 5: they refuse to accept the how horrible their child was,

437
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:16,679
Speaker 5: and that they broke the law to help the child,

438
00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:20,160
Speaker 5: and that they helped the child conceal their crimes, we

439
00:24:20,640 --> 00:24:24,000
Speaker 5: excuse them. And if we find out that the child

440
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:27,480
Speaker 5: also abused them horribly and that they gave all their

441
00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:30,520
Speaker 5: money to the child and the child took advantage of them,

442
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:34,600
Speaker 5: we still forgive them. And then they're devastated when when

443
00:24:34,600 --> 00:24:35,760
Speaker 5: the child passes away.

444
00:24:35,960 --> 00:24:40,320
Speaker 4: That so sad. We don't do it with cult members, yes.

445
00:24:40,119 --> 00:24:43,520
Speaker 5: But I do think that if we understand cult members

446
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:48,880
Speaker 5: as being manipulated by a similar mechanism to the mechanism

447
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:52,680
Speaker 5: that what we call a baby manipulate us. Of course,

448
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:56,000
Speaker 5: a baby is not manipulating us. It's our mind that manipulates.

449
00:24:56,000 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 5: But this mechanism that allows the creation of a super

450
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 5: super strong commitment, right, And it comes with blind spots,

451
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:06,440
Speaker 5: It comes with rose colored glasses that you don't see

452
00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:10,480
Speaker 5: the faults in your baby. Right, all those reality distortions,

453
00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:14,719
Speaker 5: you develop an extreme sensitivity to criticism as a parent. Right,

454
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:20,440
Speaker 5: try to criticize, insulve the someone's baby and cell which

455
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:23,920
Speaker 5: is why parents whose child joins a cult, when they

456
00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:26,800
Speaker 5: insult that cult and they speak badly of it, it

457
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:30,920
Speaker 5: can do a lot of damage because it's people will

458
00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:34,280
Speaker 5: not continue listening. If you want someone to insult the

459
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:37,359
Speaker 5: cult as a parent, don't do it yourself. You're the

460
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:40,199
Speaker 5: one that needs to be the lifeline out once the

461
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 5: fervor comes down. And I'll talk about that. You can

462
00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:46,439
Speaker 5: ask other people to tell the kid that there's a

463
00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 5: problem with the cult, but as a parent or as

464
00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:51,560
Speaker 5: a family member, you cannot do that, right.

465
00:25:51,640 --> 00:25:54,560
Speaker 2: I feel like that's an important thing, and Steve hasn't

466
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:57,200
Speaker 2: talked a little bit about that too. It's just when

467
00:25:57,240 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 2: you directly criticize the group that the person and is in,

468
00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 2: that's when they close off to you. That's when they

469
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:06,720
Speaker 2: shut down. And this is such an interesting explanation for that,

470
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 2: Like if they really do have an attachment to this

471
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:11,800
Speaker 2: group and feel like it's their jobtor protect it, that

472
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:15,679
Speaker 2: makes total sense. They're operating very logically within the framework

473
00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:16,240
Speaker 2: that they have.

474
00:26:16,760 --> 00:26:22,399
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it is based on experiences for many people.

475
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:26,760
Speaker 5: The certainty, the sense of certainty that those experiences can create.

476
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:30,199
Speaker 5: People can be stuck with that even after leaving the

477
00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 5: groups decades after leaving the groups, because you know, seeing

478
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:38,080
Speaker 5: is believing right right, And people say, I, I how

479
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:42,280
Speaker 5: else could you explain right right? This or that? Yeah,

480
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:44,560
Speaker 5: there's a lot of things that you can't explain. You know,

481
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 5: watch a magic show, you'll see things. But the strength

482
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:52,480
Speaker 5: of the experience and the commitment that it creates to

483
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:57,160
Speaker 5: a set of beliefs can outlast the involvement with everything.

484
00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:00,879
Speaker 5: And I think that if people understand the potential power

485
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:05,360
Speaker 5: that such experiences have on us and to identify them,

486
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:08,720
Speaker 5: I think that it can help people break away from

487
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 5: the spell of those experiences.

488
00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:12,360
Speaker 3: So kind of just being conscious of it is all

489
00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:14,840
Speaker 3: you can do once you realize that you have these

490
00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 3: lingering Well.

491
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 5: So if, for example, you left scientology, but when you

492
00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:24,879
Speaker 5: had an out of body experience when you stared at

493
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:28,639
Speaker 5: someone else for five hours straight, and that proved to

494
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:32,440
Speaker 5: you that Hubbard something he said was correct. Now, normally

495
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:35,960
Speaker 5: when you were in scientology, that experience proved that everything

496
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:39,720
Speaker 5: he ever said was correct. Right, But now that you left,

497
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:42,359
Speaker 5: you say, all right, so when he lied and manipulated me,

498
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:45,600
Speaker 5: maybe that was wrong. But something was going there. Maybe

499
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:48,880
Speaker 5: I was leaving my body. I felt it myself. There's

500
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 5: nothing your lips, your mouth can say for me to

501
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:55,400
Speaker 5: not know what I experienced with my own senses. I

502
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 5: had an out of body experience or whatever it is

503
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:02,800
Speaker 5: that experience. Now, if you understand the power of those experiences,

504
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:06,399
Speaker 5: why those experiences can happen to you, and if you

505
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:10,160
Speaker 5: understand how they feel. So, for example, our experiences many

506
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:16,119
Speaker 5: times have a vestibular component, right to find it. So

507
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:20,520
Speaker 5: the vestibular is a sense one of our sensory inputs

508
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:24,040
Speaker 5: and their sense of balance and motion. So when we

509
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:29,200
Speaker 5: feel that we're floating, that would be a vestibular sensation.

510
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 5: When we feel like we're heavy, that we're sinking, that

511
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:38,480
Speaker 5: we're flying, that we're lighter or heavier. Right, So people

512
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:42,400
Speaker 5: will have an our experience, sometimes they would lose balance. Right,

513
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:45,160
Speaker 5: you see people shaking on the ground the floor of

514
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:50,480
Speaker 5: the church because they are so overwhelmed by the experience,

515
00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 5: and that our experience has that vestibular aspect that they

516
00:28:54,280 --> 00:28:56,920
Speaker 5: need to sit down otherwise you know, they'll lose their

517
00:28:56,960 --> 00:28:59,800
Speaker 5: balance and people can fall. And we know that a

518
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:03,920
Speaker 5: lot of spiritual things are described using vestibular language. Right,

519
00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:08,320
Speaker 5: it's a seventh heaven, or I was high or I

520
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:13,280
Speaker 5: felt uplifted. Another aspect of an experience many times is

521
00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 5: a vastness. You can sit at a concert listen to

522
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:22,080
Speaker 5: Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, have an experience because of the auditory,

523
00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:25,240
Speaker 5: because of the music, but feel like you're connecting with

524
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:28,320
Speaker 5: the universe, like you're connecting with the galaxy. You have

525
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 5: a sensation that has a vastness.

526
00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:32,440
Speaker 2: Component too, right, I just want to pause for a

527
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:37,200
Speaker 2: second and talk about what some of those experiences can

528
00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:39,320
Speaker 2: look like and what they have looked like for us,

529
00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:44,520
Speaker 2: because for me, I think doing mushrooms, doing psychedelics is

530
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:47,240
Speaker 2: one of them. Of course I do them by myself.

531
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:50,680
Speaker 2: I'm able to recognize that it's just like the mushroom

532
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:54,000
Speaker 2: doing a thing in my brain. But I liken that

533
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 2: to what someone's spiritual experience might feel like, a connectedness,

534
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 2: a feeling that you one with everything you know. I'm

535
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:08,520
Speaker 2: reading Religion Values in Peak Experiences by Abraham Maslow. There's

536
00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 2: a quote in there that I really like. This is

537
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:13,760
Speaker 2: actually kind of segueing a little bit off here, but

538
00:30:13,840 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say it anyway. Here's the quote. Okay, and

539
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:19,160
Speaker 2: this goes back to whatever your frame of reference is

540
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:22,479
Speaker 2: when you do have an awe experience, small wonder. It

541
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:25,880
Speaker 2: is then that the mystic trying to describe his experience

542
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:29,760
Speaker 2: can do it only in a local, culture bound, ignorance bound,

543
00:30:30,040 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 2: language bound way, confusing his description of the experience with

544
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 2: whatever explanation of it and phrasing of it is most

545
00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 2: readily available to him in his time, in his place.

546
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:41,960
Speaker 2: And then he also writes still another way of understanding

547
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:44,520
Speaker 2: this phenomenon is to liken the peak experiences to raw

548
00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 2: materials which can be used for different styles of structures,

549
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 2: as the same bricks and mortar and lumber would be

550
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 2: built into different kinds of houses by a Frenchman, a

551
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 2: Japanese person, or a Tahitian person.

552
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:55,840
Speaker 1: And I really like that.

553
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 2: And I think one great example that I personally see

554
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 2: all the time time is sleep paralysis, because I see

555
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 2: a lot of people who don't realize there's a name

556
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:08,720
Speaker 2: for it. It's a thing that happens in your brain

557
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 2: when you're like stuck in between sleep and awakeness.

558
00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:13,360
Speaker 1: And so many.

559
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 2: People describe their their sleep paralysis experience to me as

560
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:20,640
Speaker 2: a ghost experience, right, alien abduction?

561
00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:22,720
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, classic, right.

562
00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:25,360
Speaker 2: So they don't have the like framework of you know,

563
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 2: science to with which to look at.

564
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:29,800
Speaker 3: I mean, even people who do know that they're having

565
00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 3: sleep paralysis will sometimes be like, but also it has

566
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:35,200
Speaker 3: to be this thing because.

567
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 4: It's just so big and scary. Honestly, mm hmmm. Yeah.

568
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 2: I've had sleep paralysis, and luckily, while in the sleep paralysis,

569
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:45,480
Speaker 2: I'm like, all right, this is just sleep proalysis. Nice,

570
00:31:45,760 --> 00:31:48,040
Speaker 2: This evil feeling in the room is just in my brain.

571
00:31:48,120 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 2: It's not but it's still terrifying.

572
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:54,880
Speaker 5: And this will pass right and right and it doesn't

573
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:58,000
Speaker 5: mean anything. I think that when it comes to the

574
00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:01,720
Speaker 5: mushrooms experience that that you describe, and also the sleep analysis,

575
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:05,840
Speaker 5: if you would compare your experience on mushrooms to someone

576
00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:09,280
Speaker 5: who doesn't know that mushrooms exist, right, don't know that

577
00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 5: they consume this, don't know that someone put it in

578
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:15,560
Speaker 5: their their you know, in their food, and they have

579
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:17,920
Speaker 5: the same experience as you do, but it would be

580
00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 5: drastically different.

581
00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 1: My gosh, yes, totally similarly.

582
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 5: You know, I can go to a scientology thing, stare

583
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 5: at someone else for three hours, have hallucinations, maybe have

584
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 5: an out of body experience, and be yeah, that's what

585
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:35,400
Speaker 5: I would expect to do when no it wouldn't prove

586
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 5: to me anything. It would be like you doing the mushrooms,

587
00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:41,560
Speaker 5: They'll be all right. Okay, So I stared until I hallucinated.

588
00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 5: But now what someone else who who doesn't know that

589
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:48,120
Speaker 5: it will happen for them? That can prove things that

590
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 5: are completely unrelated.

591
00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 2: Another one of our guests, Will Allen, was talking about

592
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:56,360
Speaker 2: how they were having drug like experiences without drugs, but

593
00:32:56,440 --> 00:33:00,959
Speaker 2: they were meditating all day long, and he was like,

594
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:03,240
Speaker 2: we were ready, we were ready to have experiences.

595
00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: It wasn't like actual magic was happening, you know.

596
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:11,000
Speaker 5: Yeah, and what you expect also affects the experience. So yeah,

597
00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:15,520
Speaker 5: if you expect God to touch you when you're hallucinating,

598
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 5: then you will interpret any anomalous sensation you have as that.

599
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:26,240
Speaker 5: So it's experiences, but experiences are not without context.

600
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:30,920
Speaker 2: So what are some other examples of ways that someone

601
00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:33,680
Speaker 2: This is like one on one of how to be

602
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:38,600
Speaker 2: a cult leader right now, but someone might manipulate and

603
00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:44,320
Speaker 2: create all experiences for someone. What the manufacturer was the

604
00:33:44,320 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 2: word I was looking for.

605
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 5: So because our experiences are as I said, anything that

606
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:54,160
Speaker 5: you judged to be sufficiently anomalous, And some people see

607
00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 5: a double rainbow, and for them that would be sufficiently anomalous.

608
00:33:57,600 --> 00:34:01,920
Speaker 5: Other people know that all rainbows are double rainbows. And

609
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:04,640
Speaker 5: you see that in cult leaders that they would tailor

610
00:34:04,840 --> 00:34:08,640
Speaker 5: what would cause the experience to the person. But for example,

611
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:11,520
Speaker 5: any type of magic trick, right, I could do some,

612
00:34:11,640 --> 00:34:17,040
Speaker 5: but we were not recording video. See though, there's hot reading, right,

613
00:34:17,080 --> 00:34:20,080
Speaker 5: So suddenly the cult leader knows something about you that

614
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 5: they had no way of knowing.

615
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:23,240
Speaker 1: Is that different from cold reading?

616
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:27,319
Speaker 5: Hot reading is when people actually did research, or you

617
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:30,399
Speaker 5: came to the event and someone else that you think

618
00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:33,719
Speaker 5: came to the event talks to you and you don't

619
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:37,760
Speaker 5: know that they're actually an informant for the cult. Many times,

620
00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:41,239
Speaker 5: because we know how to interpret the experience because of

621
00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:44,000
Speaker 5: the people around us, we see that many cults would

622
00:34:44,080 --> 00:34:46,759
Speaker 5: use that. For example the Moonies. If you go to

623
00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:51,120
Speaker 5: a weekend intensive of the Moonies, right, it's three days

624
00:34:51,440 --> 00:34:54,240
Speaker 5: and you're told that you'll get eight hours to sleep,

625
00:34:54,800 --> 00:34:57,840
Speaker 5: and it's fine, and fifty people showed up. What you

626
00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:00,840
Speaker 5: don't know is that actually there's fifty the cult members,

627
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:04,920
Speaker 5: forty five cult members pretending to be recruits, and you

628
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:08,200
Speaker 5: and four other recruits. So you get a lot of

629
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:10,799
Speaker 5: you know, do all the whatever you do during the day,

630
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:12,600
Speaker 5: and then when it comes to go to sleep, you

631
00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:16,840
Speaker 5: are in a room with you know, three other potential

632
00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:19,920
Speaker 5: recruits that you don't know are actually cult members, and

633
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:22,759
Speaker 5: you get to the room and they involve you in

634
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:25,959
Speaker 5: a discussion about how great everything was. Right, you don't

635
00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:28,720
Speaker 5: know that it's the cult that is keeping you from sleeping.

636
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:31,880
Speaker 5: They don't know that it's the cult that is having

637
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 5: people that you judge to be honest actors telling you

638
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:40,400
Speaker 5: what they thought. There are those kind of insidious methods.

639
00:35:40,440 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 5: And then also the sleep deprivation would affect the next day, right,

640
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:47,400
Speaker 5: So anything that would change, a change in scenery, a

641
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:52,040
Speaker 5: change in diet, change in sleep patterns. And we also know,

642
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 5: for example, our experiences are more likely to happen in

643
00:35:57,160 --> 00:36:01,279
Speaker 5: the small hours of the morning. They're more likely to

644
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:04,080
Speaker 5: happen when you're a teenager or a young young adult,

645
00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 5: or when you're very elderly. There's certain people, for example,

646
00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:11,040
Speaker 5: people who fly in their dreams that are more likely

647
00:36:11,120 --> 00:36:14,800
Speaker 5: to have all experiences. So you could do miracles. I

648
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:18,560
Speaker 5: think miracles are pretty reliable. You can bring celebrities right,

649
00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:21,520
Speaker 5: and the celebrity right. God could be a celebrity, right,

650
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:23,880
Speaker 5: God being the ultimate celebrity.

651
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:27,240
Speaker 1: I just love the praise. Miracles can be reliable, yeah.

652
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:30,600
Speaker 5: A reliable way to create awe. And there are gurus

653
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:34,320
Speaker 5: that actually do up close magic, right. But other things

654
00:36:34,360 --> 00:36:39,040
Speaker 5: that you know, trauma can can induce awe. Right, So

655
00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:44,920
Speaker 5: telling you stories, traumatic stories, you know, physical exhaustion. You know,

656
00:36:45,080 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 5: in the military, they would exhaust you and then at

657
00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:49,920
Speaker 5: a vast view and you take an oath.

658
00:36:50,400 --> 00:36:53,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, in nexium, they would work them to the point

659
00:36:53,440 --> 00:36:56,080
Speaker 2: of exhaustion and they would deprive them of sleep until

660
00:36:56,120 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 2: they were kind of in like a zombie like state.

661
00:36:58,400 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess that's a classic tax.

662
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:05,040
Speaker 5: Yeah. So that could be to cause stronge experiences, right,

663
00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:07,799
Speaker 5: So that would be something to get people in. It

664
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:11,400
Speaker 5: could also be to get people to have regular experiences

665
00:37:11,440 --> 00:37:15,480
Speaker 5: which will maintain your faith, right, or maintain you in

666
00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:18,400
Speaker 5: a state of high fervor. In general, the state of

667
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:21,839
Speaker 5: fervor is it's passing, it's you can think of it

668
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:25,600
Speaker 5: as similar to the state of infatuated romantic love sometimes

669
00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:30,919
Speaker 5: called limerens, where you have blindness, but it doesn't last forever. Right,

670
00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:34,400
Speaker 5: after a while, it goes away and it changes to

671
00:37:34,880 --> 00:37:39,600
Speaker 5: hopefully to actual love, not infatuated love, because in the

672
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:42,719
Speaker 5: infatuated state, you're in love with what you think of

673
00:37:42,760 --> 00:37:46,120
Speaker 5: the other person. Right, So that's why there's the rose

674
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:49,080
Speaker 5: colored glasses that can happen. There's the joke why is

675
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:50,360
Speaker 5: divorce so expensive?

676
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:53,080
Speaker 2: Why because it's worth the money?

677
00:37:53,120 --> 00:37:55,880
Speaker 4: Ah, a romance.

678
00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:05,160
Speaker 5: When people are infatuated, they can make mistakes that astonish them.

679
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:08,040
Speaker 5: How bad they their judgment was.

680
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:10,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, I been there, and.

681
00:38:11,239 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 5: I don't want to, you know, speak badly of love,

682
00:38:14,600 --> 00:38:15,800
Speaker 5: but it is dangerous.

683
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:19,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, your guard is down, Yeah.

684
00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:22,359
Speaker 5: Your guard is down, and you have you have reality distortions.

685
00:38:22,440 --> 00:38:25,840
Speaker 5: You actually you know you can you cannot see things

686
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 5: that everybody else does see, right, so when you get converted,

687
00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:33,520
Speaker 5: you might find yourself in the state of fervor with

688
00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:39,000
Speaker 5: extra certainty, extra commitment, extra reality distortions. Right, so you

689
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:40,799
Speaker 5: don't see the problems with the group. But that can

690
00:38:40,920 --> 00:38:42,800
Speaker 5: last for a year two years.

691
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:45,880
Speaker 3: You said that after fervor wears off, you need like

692
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:49,920
Speaker 3: love and terror and isolation and engulfment and all of

693
00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:52,279
Speaker 3: this stuff that's really interesting.

694
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:53,799
Speaker 4: So I would love for you to touch on that.

695
00:38:54,120 --> 00:38:57,719
Speaker 5: Yes, do you know Alexandra stayin No, She wrote a

696
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:01,239
Speaker 5: very good book called a Love Terror and Brainwall, and

697
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:06,200
Speaker 5: she describes there how cultic relationships are in many ways

698
00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:10,960
Speaker 5: similar to it's an attachment. It's a type of attachment.

699
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:12,239
Speaker 5: It's the bad one.

700
00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:20,240
Speaker 2: No, no, no, it's like disorganized or something disorganized.

701
00:39:20,360 --> 00:39:24,799
Speaker 5: There you go disorganized, so disorganized attachment happens. And this

702
00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:28,680
Speaker 5: in the context of babies to parents or toddlers to parents.

703
00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:32,399
Speaker 5: When a toddler, the parent is their safe haven, right,

704
00:39:32,680 --> 00:39:35,840
Speaker 5: they're secure space. If a baby gets scared, they go

705
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:37,839
Speaker 5: to their mother and then the mother comes in down.

706
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:41,719
Speaker 5: But when the mother is what scares or when the

707
00:39:41,760 --> 00:39:45,320
Speaker 5: parent functions both is what scares the child but also

708
00:39:45,480 --> 00:39:49,120
Speaker 5: what the child goes to to alleviate distress, then you

709
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:52,600
Speaker 5: can have a situation where the worst abuse still the

710
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:55,440
Speaker 5: harder it is for the person to leave. When you

711
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:59,480
Speaker 5: get disorganized attachment in adults, which you can see in

712
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:02,600
Speaker 5: a b use of romantic relationships for example, or in

713
00:40:02,680 --> 00:40:06,399
Speaker 5: cultic situations, there are many situations where you'd say if

714
00:40:06,560 --> 00:40:10,320
Speaker 5: the partner or the cult wouldn't abuse them as bad,

715
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 5: then there's more likely that they would leave. Normally think

716
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:16,960
Speaker 5: that the worst abuse, the more likely the person to

717
00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:19,560
Speaker 5: say fuck this abuse, I'm out of here. But when

718
00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:22,759
Speaker 5: it comes to disorganized attachment, you get the opposite effect,

719
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 5: where because of the intensity of the abuse and the stress,

720
00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:32,399
Speaker 5: the person is always needing the source of relief, which

721
00:40:32,440 --> 00:40:33,919
Speaker 5: is also the source of.

722
00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:36,480
Speaker 1: What scares them, right, and that's trauma bonding too.

723
00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:41,080
Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, exactly. So what she describes is a person

724
00:40:41,239 --> 00:40:44,239
Speaker 5: in a cult is in this situation. But for this

725
00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:48,560
Speaker 5: to be maintained, the cult needs to isolate those people

726
00:40:48,680 --> 00:40:51,919
Speaker 5: and engulf them. Because if the cult doesn't isolate them,

727
00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:54,960
Speaker 5: then there's a chance that they will find an alternative

728
00:40:54,960 --> 00:41:00,480
Speaker 5: attachment figure, right, a friend, their actual family, and actual

729
00:41:00,560 --> 00:41:03,440
Speaker 5: person that they remember from before, an actual person that

730
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:06,319
Speaker 5: they can relate to that maybe they can go to

731
00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:10,520
Speaker 5: that person to get relief. The abuser or the cult

732
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:14,480
Speaker 5: needs to isolate the person and to engulf them. Now,

733
00:41:14,640 --> 00:41:17,359
Speaker 5: what I would like to add to this, I think

734
00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:22,720
Speaker 5: you know, very insightful description is that the psychological state

735
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:26,120
Speaker 5: of fervor does that job for the cult or for

736
00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:30,920
Speaker 5: the abuser for the initial period. So a person falls

737
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:34,920
Speaker 5: in love with someone who's abusive, but because they're infatuated,

738
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 5: romantically infatuated, that romantic infatuation makes them not see the

739
00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:43,120
Speaker 5: abuse makes them have wishful thinking that the abuse will

740
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:48,560
Speaker 5: get better. And once the infatuated love drops, the infatuation drops,

741
00:41:49,239 --> 00:41:52,840
Speaker 5: then they can in many cases see things more clearly

742
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:55,920
Speaker 5: and get out of the situation. And I think that

743
00:41:55,960 --> 00:41:59,920
Speaker 5: many cult members that join then leave two three years later.

744
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:04,320
Speaker 5: Many times this is what happens, but because the fervor

745
00:42:04,560 --> 00:42:07,880
Speaker 5: did its job. But once the fervor went down, then

746
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:11,600
Speaker 5: people can see things more clearly. But if the cult

747
00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:16,040
Speaker 5: or the abusive partner uses those initial months or a

748
00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:20,800
Speaker 5: few years to actually isolate and actually engulf the person.

749
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:24,319
Speaker 5: So you join the cult, your fervor keeps you from

750
00:42:24,320 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 5: seeing it's a bad situation for the first year. But

751
00:42:26,760 --> 00:42:29,160
Speaker 5: if at the end of that you find yourself in

752
00:42:29,200 --> 00:42:32,320
Speaker 5: a different country without a passport, not knowing anybody outside

753
00:42:32,320 --> 00:42:35,760
Speaker 5: the cult, burned all your bridges with your previous family,

754
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:39,040
Speaker 5: then you might be stuck in the cult. Even when

755
00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:40,440
Speaker 5: your fervor goes the right.

756
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:45,239
Speaker 2: And a skilled manipulator instinctively probably knows that they have

757
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:47,800
Speaker 2: to continue to manufacture experiences.

758
00:42:48,320 --> 00:42:50,960
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's the other option. The other option is

759
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:54,919
Speaker 5: to keep the person in the state of fervor right,

760
00:42:55,040 --> 00:42:58,720
Speaker 5: So there's continuous threats. Right. We are on the verge

761
00:42:58,800 --> 00:43:00,879
Speaker 5: of the end of the world at any moment, right,

762
00:43:00,920 --> 00:43:04,160
Speaker 5: so it can be sort of all experiences that are

763
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:07,920
Speaker 5: triggered by traumatizing the person. So those are the two options.

764
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:11,600
Speaker 5: Colts can either keep you in high stata fervor or

765
00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 5: they can isolate you and engulf you and usually both.

766
00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:15,239
Speaker 1: Right, both.

767
00:43:15,320 --> 00:43:18,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think of Jim Jones, who would

768
00:43:18,560 --> 00:43:21,279
Speaker 2: he would stage these healings where people would appear to

769
00:43:21,320 --> 00:43:23,759
Speaker 2: be healed out of their wheelchair, which of course it

770
00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:27,520
Speaker 2: was fake, and also move them all to another country.

771
00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:29,239
Speaker 1: He's really hitting all the marks.

772
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:30,680
Speaker 5: There, Yeah, and went slowly.

773
00:43:30,920 --> 00:43:32,640
Speaker 1: Of course it was over time, right.

774
00:43:32,640 --> 00:43:37,319
Speaker 5: The gradual deterioration. Yeah, But there is another reason for

775
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:41,760
Speaker 5: the high stress that colts might inflict on people, especially

776
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:45,759
Speaker 5: in intensives. There was recently a very good PhD dissertation

777
00:43:45,880 --> 00:43:49,479
Speaker 5: written by a person called Hunter from South Africa. He

778
00:43:49,560 --> 00:43:54,440
Speaker 5: suffers from bipolar disorder, so he has manic episodes and

779
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:58,480
Speaker 5: he had him before and he went to an LGAT

780
00:43:58,719 --> 00:44:03,320
Speaker 5: right large group awareness training like the forum Landmark Forum,

781
00:44:03,560 --> 00:44:06,839
Speaker 5: and he says that, you know, he was surrounded by

782
00:44:06,840 --> 00:44:10,200
Speaker 5: people that were stressed very much for a few days,

783
00:44:10,239 --> 00:44:15,200
Speaker 5: and then there was sudden stress removal, and that everybody

784
00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:21,120
Speaker 5: had hypomanic symptoms. Now he noticed them, he knows what

785
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:23,799
Speaker 5: those are. Now this is not actual hypomania, because by

786
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:28,920
Speaker 5: definition that's part of bipolar disorder, but hypomanic symptoms, which

787
00:44:28,960 --> 00:44:31,920
Speaker 5: is what he clearly recognized in himself and in the

788
00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:37,200
Speaker 5: people around them, where you're very optimistic, euphoric, it's hypomania.

789
00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 5: You don't need to sleep that much. You speak very rapidly,

790
00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:44,840
Speaker 5: you make long term plans right, you are very careless

791
00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:48,520
Speaker 5: with your money. I think that many cults, as part

792
00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:52,320
Speaker 5: of the recruitment also used that. So it's high stress,

793
00:44:52,480 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 5: and then a sudden stress removal can create hypomania, which

794
00:44:57,920 --> 00:45:02,759
Speaker 5: is euphoric, very positive, very optimistic, very ecstatic, you don't

795
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:04,520
Speaker 5: need to sleep right as much.

796
00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:07,279
Speaker 2: I think of this is probably a dumb reference, but

797
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:09,320
Speaker 2: I used to love the show Homeland.

798
00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:11,600
Speaker 4: Oh, I love Homelands so much.

799
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:15,920
Speaker 2: In season one, I feel like they illustrated so well

800
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:18,560
Speaker 2: because I was so right there with him when they

801
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:21,200
Speaker 2: kept him like I probably am not going to remember

802
00:45:21,239 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 2: the details very well, but they kept him like imprisoned

803
00:45:24,239 --> 00:45:27,319
Speaker 2: in darkness and were torturing him for days and days

804
00:45:27,320 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 2: and days and days, and finally when the like leader

805
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 2: of the terrorist group comes and like offers him kindness

806
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:38,360
Speaker 2: and care and tenderness, it's such a relief that he

807
00:45:38,400 --> 00:45:41,160
Speaker 2: becomes like bonded to that person, even though he's technically

808
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:42,720
Speaker 2: the one holding him captive.

809
00:45:42,760 --> 00:45:44,120
Speaker 1: And I just had never.

810
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:46,319
Speaker 2: Really seen that depicted in a way that was so

811
00:45:46,440 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 2: relatable and so understandable. So that's where my brain goes

812
00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 2: when I think, when I think of that. But yeah,

813
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:54,680
Speaker 2: removing a horrible stimulus and replacing it with a positive

814
00:45:54,680 --> 00:45:55,719
Speaker 2: one makes sense.

815
00:45:55,960 --> 00:46:00,359
Speaker 5: Yeah, And it could be that a person and that suuation,

816
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:04,560
Speaker 5: the kindness that they get and the sudden break and

817
00:46:04,680 --> 00:46:08,359
Speaker 5: the torture can function as a sufficiently anomalous experience and

818
00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:11,440
Speaker 5: create a strong owe experience, right, or create a commitment.

819
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:14,800
Speaker 5: I do think that it is likely to also create

820
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:18,600
Speaker 5: hypomanic symptoms at the same time, So you could say

821
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:22,399
Speaker 5: that in some cases hypomania is what gets you into

822
00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:24,440
Speaker 5: the state of fervor, and the state of fervor what

823
00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:29,880
Speaker 5: gets you into the cult. But now, when it comes

824
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 5: to torture victims, I mean, I know someone who's a

825
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:37,000
Speaker 5: real torture victim, not a fictional one.

826
00:46:37,520 --> 00:46:42,560
Speaker 2: He's a you probably know better than my stupid example, thought.

827
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:46,359
Speaker 5: What's interesting about his example? So he's a Palestinian who

828
00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:49,080
Speaker 5: was horribly tortured for a couple of months by the

829
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:53,400
Speaker 5: Israeli military. And normally, and I won't traumatize you with

830
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:57,319
Speaker 5: the details because it's quite horrific, but normally he would

831
00:46:57,360 --> 00:47:00,000
Speaker 5: be part of his sleep deprivation would be a repetitive

832
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:04,000
Speaker 5: of electronic music. But every once in a while, someone

833
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:06,960
Speaker 5: that was guarding him would put on Israeli musician that

834
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:11,240
Speaker 5: sings in Arabic style. Right, he loves that artist. Today

835
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:15,000
Speaker 5: he can sing along with him in the language he

836
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:20,680
Speaker 5: doesn't understand, right, But having that even partial relief created

837
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:24,680
Speaker 5: a bond between him and that stimulus that is fascinating

838
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:25,800
Speaker 5: until today. Yeah.

839
00:47:25,960 --> 00:47:29,759
Speaker 2: Right, So, while we're talking about different mental states, I

840
00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:34,920
Speaker 2: would love to touch on temporal lobe epilepsy. So can

841
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:36,320
Speaker 2: you just tell us about that please?

842
00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:40,480
Speaker 5: Sure? So, you know, we've been discussing all experiences and

843
00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:44,640
Speaker 5: the state of fervor and you know, conversion experiences, and

844
00:47:44,800 --> 00:47:49,280
Speaker 5: it turns out there is a neurological condition that causes

845
00:47:49,320 --> 00:47:53,960
Speaker 5: people to have those experiences quite frequently, and that condition

846
00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:57,160
Speaker 5: is called temporal lob epilepsy. Temporal lob bipilepsy is not

847
00:47:57,200 --> 00:48:00,840
Speaker 5: part of the DSM, right, The diagnostis sense theistical manual

848
00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:04,040
Speaker 5: of psychiatric conditions, because even though if you look at

849
00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:06,400
Speaker 5: a person with that condition, they look like they have

850
00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:11,400
Speaker 5: a mental illness, the way you diagnose epilepsy is with

851
00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:14,520
Speaker 5: an EEG or with a you know, with a brain scan,

852
00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:18,360
Speaker 5: and so that's not part of the diagnostic and statistical manual.

853
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:21,880
Speaker 5: That is something you diagnose with hardware. And part of

854
00:48:21,920 --> 00:48:24,680
Speaker 5: the symptoms of temporolo epilepsy is that you will get

855
00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:30,680
Speaker 5: a diagnostic as being schizophrenic or being bipolar, but you're not.

856
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:32,680
Speaker 5: You do not have a mental illness, you have a

857
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:37,480
Speaker 5: neurological illness. Right, the split between psychiatry and neurology. Right,

858
00:48:37,520 --> 00:48:40,520
Speaker 5: there's are two doctors who treat the same organ, but

859
00:48:40,800 --> 00:48:44,960
Speaker 5: it's different disciplines. Now, temparolo b epileptics, you know many

860
00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:48,799
Speaker 5: of them in This condition was first proposed in the seventies,

861
00:48:49,040 --> 00:48:53,120
Speaker 5: late seventies and eighties. It is completely fascinating because it

862
00:48:53,239 --> 00:48:57,560
Speaker 5: causes people to have a lot of awe experiences and

863
00:48:57,800 --> 00:49:02,600
Speaker 5: they see things they feel to have been proven. Many times,

864
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:06,480
Speaker 5: they feel like they were chosen. Many called leaders might

865
00:49:06,560 --> 00:49:10,319
Speaker 5: have it. Many times they have very strong emotional experiences.

866
00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:13,480
Speaker 5: They are both positive and negative, but they're very sincere

867
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:17,680
Speaker 5: about them right. They feel like they understand things. Many

868
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:20,719
Speaker 5: times they have things called ideas of reference, where they

869
00:49:20,719 --> 00:49:24,120
Speaker 5: think the way I arrange my room affects the news

870
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:27,520
Speaker 5: or the weather, or they think that the reason that

871
00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:30,200
Speaker 5: earthquake happened across the world was because I didn't drink

872
00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:33,200
Speaker 5: that glass of water. Right, So they have a lot

873
00:49:33,239 --> 00:49:37,120
Speaker 5: of connection of things that are not connected. Many of

874
00:49:37,160 --> 00:49:40,680
Speaker 5: them develop or they display a thing called graphomania where

875
00:49:40,719 --> 00:49:42,640
Speaker 5: they write a whole hell of a lot of text.

876
00:49:42,840 --> 00:49:45,279
Speaker 5: It depends on which side of the brain the epilepsy

877
00:49:45,360 --> 00:49:48,720
Speaker 5: is on. In other cases they just speak a lot

878
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:52,440
Speaker 5: or they draw a lot, like Vincent van Goch is

879
00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:55,440
Speaker 5: said to have had a lot of writers. Fyodor Dostoevski.

880
00:49:55,680 --> 00:49:59,840
Speaker 5: It used to be called Dostuevsky's epilepsy because he describes

881
00:49:59,880 --> 00:50:02,600
Speaker 5: the symptoms in the book The Idiot. There's a character

882
00:50:02,680 --> 00:50:05,640
Speaker 5: that has the symptoms, and neurologists discovered this in the

883
00:50:05,719 --> 00:50:08,759
Speaker 5: seventies and eighties. But look, and he's describing all those

884
00:50:08,800 --> 00:50:10,560
Speaker 5: symptoms in the nineteenth century.

885
00:50:10,760 --> 00:50:12,960
Speaker 2: I just want to read a quick example from a

886
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:15,600
Speaker 2: study that I was reading about earlier, just to give

887
00:50:15,600 --> 00:50:17,680
Speaker 2: people kind of a sense of what can happen.

888
00:50:18,200 --> 00:50:18,919
Speaker 1: So here's a quote.

889
00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:20,600
Speaker 2: It's talking about a patient who was admitted to the

890
00:50:20,600 --> 00:50:23,680
Speaker 2: hospital because he was behaving very erratically. So after the

891
00:50:23,719 --> 00:50:28,200
Speaker 2: generalized seizure, he started having increased religious thoughts. The wife

892
00:50:28,239 --> 00:50:30,920
Speaker 2: called an ambulance because she was frightened by his excessive

893
00:50:30,960 --> 00:50:33,520
Speaker 2: religious speech. She reported that he had a history of

894
00:50:33,560 --> 00:50:36,479
Speaker 2: epilepsy since the age of twenty. He mostly just had

895
00:50:36,600 --> 00:50:39,160
Speaker 2: the regular shaking kind of seizures, but occasionally he would

896
00:50:39,200 --> 00:50:43,680
Speaker 2: have episodes of hyper religiosity with secondarily generalized events. These

897
00:50:43,719 --> 00:50:46,879
Speaker 2: similar episodes of hyper religiosity in the past occurred when

898
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:49,640
Speaker 2: he did not take his anti epileptic medications. He did

899
00:50:49,719 --> 00:50:53,319
Speaker 2: not have a history of psychiatric disease. That is so fascinating.

900
00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:57,319
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean in general the concept of hyper religiosity, right,

901
00:50:58,360 --> 00:51:02,440
Speaker 5: which is the term that just talk about. I can

902
00:51:02,520 --> 00:51:05,759
Speaker 5: recommend a couple of books, one called Seized by eve

903
00:51:05,880 --> 00:51:07,120
Speaker 5: La plant Nice.

904
00:51:07,200 --> 00:51:08,239
Speaker 4: That's such a good name.

905
00:51:08,480 --> 00:51:11,879
Speaker 5: Another one is The Neurological Basis of God Beliefs by

906
00:51:11,920 --> 00:51:16,320
Speaker 5: a neurologists called Persinger from eighty seven this hyper religiosity.

907
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:21,000
Speaker 5: They many times, even if they're atheists, it would be

908
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:21,680
Speaker 5: high fervor.

909
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:22,200
Speaker 2: Right.

910
00:51:22,320 --> 00:51:25,839
Speaker 5: So, even if it's not religiosity the way we call it,

911
00:51:25,840 --> 00:51:29,279
Speaker 5: it can be an infatuation with communism or something like

912
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:32,439
Speaker 5: that that's not strictly a religion. Now, the thing about

913
00:51:32,440 --> 00:51:35,640
Speaker 5: tempolob epileptics is that there's a lot of a lot

914
00:51:35,680 --> 00:51:38,920
Speaker 5: we can learn about our experiences just by looking at

915
00:51:38,920 --> 00:51:42,160
Speaker 5: the functions that the temporolobe does. So, for example, the

916
00:51:42,200 --> 00:51:45,680
Speaker 5: temparolobe is associated with the vestibular sense I mentioned earlier,

917
00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:49,720
Speaker 5: but also with hearing, with smelling, with memories, with dreaming,

918
00:51:49,800 --> 00:51:54,239
Speaker 5: with language, with literacy. So hearing voices, people are much

919
00:51:54,239 --> 00:51:57,000
Speaker 5: more likely to think that they're authoritative than when they

920
00:51:57,080 --> 00:52:00,719
Speaker 5: see visions. Right in the Bible, the prophet almost all

921
00:52:00,760 --> 00:52:03,839
Speaker 5: of them hear God, but they don't see God. When

922
00:52:03,840 --> 00:52:07,640
Speaker 5: you see visions, you know you're hallucinating. When you're hearing voices,

923
00:52:07,719 --> 00:52:09,920
Speaker 5: you think that you need to do what the voices

924
00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:13,920
Speaker 5: tell you sometimes, and that's because the feelings of knowing

925
00:52:14,239 --> 00:52:17,160
Speaker 5: the certainty they seem to be related to the temprolo

926
00:52:17,680 --> 00:52:20,640
Speaker 5: and you have all sorts of strange effects. People with

927
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:24,200
Speaker 5: the tempolo epilepsy. For example, they have things that are

928
00:52:24,239 --> 00:52:29,279
Speaker 5: described their called circumstantiality and viscosity, and those are things

929
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:33,000
Speaker 5: that are typical of cult members. So the viscosity, they

930
00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:38,120
Speaker 5: describe it as people that don't get conversational nuances. I

931
00:52:38,160 --> 00:52:41,440
Speaker 5: think they call that stickiness. So if you walk downtown

932
00:52:41,600 --> 00:52:43,600
Speaker 5: and someone from a cult tries to talk to you,

933
00:52:43,640 --> 00:52:46,080
Speaker 5: will many people don't want to talk to them because

934
00:52:46,080 --> 00:52:47,600
Speaker 5: they think they won't be able to get rid of

935
00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:53,000
Speaker 5: that person. Right. Temparolo bypileptics have this thing where they

936
00:52:53,160 --> 00:52:55,759
Speaker 5: they don't get cues that you want to change the

937
00:52:55,800 --> 00:52:59,440
Speaker 5: subject that you want to ah, they have black and

938
00:52:59,440 --> 00:53:03,480
Speaker 5: white things, right, so things are either entirely good or

939
00:53:03,640 --> 00:53:06,760
Speaker 5: entirely bad, which is also typical of cults and cult members.

940
00:53:07,080 --> 00:53:12,240
Speaker 5: There's repetitiveness, there's paranoia. So there's a number of theories

941
00:53:12,280 --> 00:53:15,520
Speaker 5: as to why cult members and temporal o bipileptics would

942
00:53:15,560 --> 00:53:19,920
Speaker 5: share those traits. Temporolo bipileptics think that they were chosen,

943
00:53:20,080 --> 00:53:23,480
Speaker 5: while cult members many times believed that they were collectively

944
00:53:23,600 --> 00:53:27,320
Speaker 5: chosen as a group. Right, and they might not have graphomania,

945
00:53:27,680 --> 00:53:32,319
Speaker 5: And there's lowered sexuality or altered sexuality. But one of

946
00:53:32,360 --> 00:53:36,560
Speaker 5: the things that comes is those strong awe experiences that

947
00:53:36,600 --> 00:53:39,680
Speaker 5: include the feelings of knowing right you see things as

948
00:53:39,719 --> 00:53:43,640
Speaker 5: they really are, or you feel like you understand Now.

949
00:53:44,239 --> 00:53:47,799
Speaker 5: What sometimes happened is that people would talk to a

950
00:53:47,840 --> 00:53:52,080
Speaker 5: cult leader or someone who is a temporal bipileptic, and

951
00:53:52,760 --> 00:53:55,399
Speaker 5: they would say, when l Ron Hubbard, when that cult

952
00:53:55,480 --> 00:53:58,520
Speaker 5: leader looked into my eyes, I felt that they understand

953
00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:01,560
Speaker 5: my soul. Now they could look at a goldfish and

954
00:54:01,600 --> 00:54:05,400
Speaker 5: they would feel like they understand the goldfish's soul. Right now,

955
00:54:05,960 --> 00:54:08,520
Speaker 5: you're in front of a person. That person is having

956
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:11,880
Speaker 5: a temparolobe event, right, call it a seizure or something,

957
00:54:11,920 --> 00:54:14,440
Speaker 5: but as a person is looking at them, you can

958
00:54:14,480 --> 00:54:17,919
Speaker 5: either catch it from them through emotional contagion or through

959
00:54:17,960 --> 00:54:20,920
Speaker 5: mirror neurons. Right. So they look at you and you

960
00:54:21,160 --> 00:54:24,399
Speaker 5: feel that they understand you because they have that look

961
00:54:24,400 --> 00:54:27,279
Speaker 5: in their eyes and there's sincerity. And now the thing

962
00:54:27,360 --> 00:54:31,480
Speaker 5: is that it's caused by epileptic looks, but some people

963
00:54:31,719 --> 00:54:36,200
Speaker 5: can be so impacted. When that guru gazed into my soul,

964
00:54:36,400 --> 00:54:38,960
Speaker 5: I understood that he understood my soul in a way

965
00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:42,400
Speaker 5: that nobody understood me or something like that that could

966
00:54:42,480 --> 00:54:46,200
Speaker 5: function as the trigger that is judged to be sufficiently

967
00:54:46,239 --> 00:54:49,239
Speaker 5: anomalous to bring about a strong experience to make you

968
00:54:49,280 --> 00:54:52,120
Speaker 5: feel like you see things as they really are. And

969
00:54:52,200 --> 00:54:56,080
Speaker 5: all those claims of the gurus are proven correct, even

970
00:54:56,160 --> 00:54:59,839
Speaker 5: though they're not at all related to I felt understood

971
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:01,399
Speaker 5: and they looked at me right.

972
00:55:01,760 --> 00:55:03,759
Speaker 2: One of the questions that comes up for me in

973
00:55:03,800 --> 00:55:08,000
Speaker 2: conversation a lot is whether or not I think cult

974
00:55:08,080 --> 00:55:11,879
Speaker 2: leaders believe that they truly are in touch with God

975
00:55:11,960 --> 00:55:14,840
Speaker 2: or whatever. And I think the answer is it depends

976
00:55:14,880 --> 00:55:17,520
Speaker 2: on the person. I think with my guy, he absolutely

977
00:55:17,960 --> 00:55:20,239
Speaker 2: was not, but he is a megalomaniac, so he thought,

978
00:55:20,320 --> 00:55:22,719
Speaker 2: you know, he has no moral system. But it is

979
00:55:22,800 --> 00:55:25,480
Speaker 2: fascinating to imagine that there are a number of these

980
00:55:25,520 --> 00:55:29,200
Speaker 2: people who truly truly believe it, and not only believe it,

981
00:55:29,239 --> 00:55:31,399
Speaker 2: but like know it.

982
00:55:31,719 --> 00:55:33,120
Speaker 1: You believe that they know it.

983
00:55:33,239 --> 00:55:35,800
Speaker 5: Yeah, and there are people who It doesn't just depend

984
00:55:35,880 --> 00:55:38,680
Speaker 5: on the person. It many times also depends on the episode.

985
00:55:38,719 --> 00:55:41,719
Speaker 5: So there could be a cult leader that thinks that

986
00:55:41,719 --> 00:55:44,600
Speaker 5: they're a scam for the first year, but then they

987
00:55:44,640 --> 00:55:48,600
Speaker 5: start to believe it's true themselves, or you know, or

988
00:55:48,640 --> 00:55:50,520
Speaker 5: that they go back and forth.

989
00:55:50,360 --> 00:55:53,799
Speaker 4: They put them own selves in an aye. Yeah, that's yeah.

990
00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:56,120
Speaker 5: And for them the cult, the fact that people are

991
00:55:56,160 --> 00:55:59,520
Speaker 5: following them can function as the miracle the truth.

992
00:56:00,000 --> 00:56:00,759
Speaker 4: Oh yes.

993
00:56:01,040 --> 00:56:04,200
Speaker 5: So you can have people that start out thinking that

994
00:56:04,200 --> 00:56:07,440
Speaker 5: they're scamming people and then they're super surprised that they

995
00:56:07,480 --> 00:56:09,759
Speaker 5: thought they were lying, but now they see that it

996
00:56:09,880 --> 00:56:11,680
Speaker 5: really really was.

997
00:56:13,400 --> 00:56:13,640
Speaker 2: Right.

998
00:56:13,840 --> 00:56:16,840
Speaker 5: So, you know, it could be that there are periods,

999
00:56:17,400 --> 00:56:22,600
Speaker 5: especially with people who suffer from epilepsy or other mental situations,

1000
00:56:22,640 --> 00:56:24,680
Speaker 5: people who take a lot of different types of drugs.

1001
00:56:25,120 --> 00:56:27,560
Speaker 5: I can imagine that there are also many gurus that

1002
00:56:27,760 --> 00:56:31,000
Speaker 5: oscillate back and forth being believers in that.

1003
00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:33,760
Speaker 1: That's really interesting, really interesting point.

1004
00:56:33,840 --> 00:56:36,239
Speaker 2: I think that actually, now that I think about it,

1005
00:56:36,239 --> 00:56:38,120
Speaker 2: in the case of my cult leader, he has gone

1006
00:56:38,160 --> 00:56:40,839
Speaker 2: back and forth and has said that it was all

1007
00:56:40,960 --> 00:56:44,319
Speaker 2: fraud and then said just kidding. He actually is, you know,

1008
00:56:44,400 --> 00:56:46,920
Speaker 2: and who knows how much of it is true at

1009
00:56:46,920 --> 00:56:49,120
Speaker 2: what points. But I do think it's totally possible that

1010
00:56:49,160 --> 00:56:51,040
Speaker 2: he vacillates and he goes back and forth.

1011
00:56:52,000 --> 00:56:55,080
Speaker 5: A possible symptom for a temporal of epilepsy is something

1012
00:56:55,120 --> 00:56:58,479
Speaker 5: called the Cathard syndrome, and the Cathard syndrome is people

1013
00:56:58,520 --> 00:57:01,920
Speaker 5: who think that they're dead. Oh so, Burton describes talking

1014
00:57:02,000 --> 00:57:04,680
Speaker 5: to a patient who is certain that she is dead,

1015
00:57:05,239 --> 00:57:07,600
Speaker 5: and he asks her, can you feel your pulse? Can

1016
00:57:07,640 --> 00:57:09,399
Speaker 5: you do it right now? And she said, all right,

1017
00:57:09,440 --> 00:57:11,160
Speaker 5: I feel a pulse. And it says, well, what does

1018
00:57:11,160 --> 00:57:13,200
Speaker 5: that prove to you? It proves to me that that

1019
00:57:13,280 --> 00:57:18,680
Speaker 5: people can have a pulse because the feelings of knowing

1020
00:57:18,960 --> 00:57:20,720
Speaker 5: are stronger than our logic.

1021
00:57:21,040 --> 00:57:22,360
Speaker 4: You know, absolutely right.

1022
00:57:22,320 --> 00:57:26,320
Speaker 5: And we will try to rationalize something that we have

1023
00:57:26,360 --> 00:57:29,080
Speaker 5: a feeling of knowing to so they say, man is

1024
00:57:29,080 --> 00:57:32,040
Speaker 5: not a rational animal, and man is a rationalizing animal.

1025
00:57:34,880 --> 00:57:37,120
Speaker 1: That girl sounds goth as hell, though not gonna lie.

1026
00:57:39,520 --> 00:57:43,320
Speaker 2: What would you say to someone who has had some

1027
00:57:43,440 --> 00:57:47,760
Speaker 2: kind of anomaloust experience or awe experience or peak experience

1028
00:57:48,120 --> 00:57:51,160
Speaker 2: where there's a conclusion that they might potentially want to

1029
00:57:51,160 --> 00:57:53,000
Speaker 2: come to because but what would you say to that person?

1030
00:57:53,160 --> 00:57:56,920
Speaker 5: Well, first of all, it depends on the situation, on

1031
00:57:57,040 --> 00:58:00,280
Speaker 5: the rapport, on whether or not the conclusion that they

1032
00:58:00,320 --> 00:58:02,800
Speaker 5: come to from the experience is good or bad. Right,

1033
00:58:02,800 --> 00:58:06,640
Speaker 5: If it's benign, it's fine. Right. Further, is not inherently bad?

1034
00:58:06,680 --> 00:58:10,120
Speaker 5: It depends what the fervor is towards. But if it

1035
00:58:10,200 --> 00:58:12,640
Speaker 5: is a disaster, right that they have an experience that

1036
00:58:12,760 --> 00:58:15,240
Speaker 5: proved to them that they need to join a shitty cult,

1037
00:58:16,800 --> 00:58:21,080
Speaker 5: it's difficult. So if I am very close to that person,

1038
00:58:21,160 --> 00:58:23,640
Speaker 5: or if I'm a direct relative, I would have someone

1039
00:58:23,680 --> 00:58:27,440
Speaker 5: else have this discussion, because your job is to be

1040
00:58:27,800 --> 00:58:30,720
Speaker 5: the bridge that they get out of the cult. Right,

1041
00:58:30,800 --> 00:58:33,960
Speaker 5: So when the fervor goes down, you want to be

1042
00:58:34,080 --> 00:58:38,240
Speaker 5: the potential alternative attachment figure that they would go towards.

1043
00:58:39,000 --> 00:58:42,439
Speaker 5: So that's your job. But if I'm not in that role,

1044
00:58:42,800 --> 00:58:46,160
Speaker 5: first of all, you can discuss other cults, right, That's

1045
00:58:46,200 --> 00:58:49,320
Speaker 5: what Steve hassan Asink mentioned that, And that is a

1046
00:58:49,360 --> 00:58:54,520
Speaker 5: way to talk about the situation that doesn't trigger their defenses, right,

1047
00:58:55,040 --> 00:58:59,480
Speaker 5: because both scientologists and me both agree that the Moonies

1048
00:58:59,520 --> 00:59:02,920
Speaker 5: are bad, So we can discuss the movies. But this

1049
00:59:03,000 --> 00:59:06,480
Speaker 5: discussion might not have direct effect. It might lead that

1050
00:59:06,520 --> 00:59:08,640
Speaker 5: person to leave the cult a year from now or

1051
00:59:08,720 --> 00:59:12,600
Speaker 5: when their fervor goes down, but discussing the experiences and

1052
00:59:12,720 --> 00:59:16,040
Speaker 5: not necessarily the experiences that they had, right. So, for example,

1053
00:59:16,360 --> 00:59:19,080
Speaker 5: this dynamic of how a miracle can prove things that

1054
00:59:19,160 --> 00:59:21,680
Speaker 5: are not related to the miracle and how that can

1055
00:59:21,720 --> 00:59:25,480
Speaker 5: function is proofs In other groups scientologists, they do this

1056
00:59:25,560 --> 00:59:27,640
Speaker 5: and that, and then they have an experience that proves

1057
00:59:27,640 --> 00:59:30,800
Speaker 5: to them that Hubbard is correct. But it's actually just

1058
00:59:31,000 --> 00:59:34,400
Speaker 5: an all experience. If I turn water into wine, that

1059
00:59:34,440 --> 00:59:37,320
Speaker 5: could prove that Islam is correct, that Buddhism is correct.

1060
00:59:37,560 --> 00:59:41,160
Speaker 5: There is no connection. Discussing this lack of connection and

1061
00:59:41,200 --> 00:59:43,919
Speaker 5: how an experience can function is a proof of things

1062
00:59:43,960 --> 00:59:47,400
Speaker 5: that are not related. I think that that has a

1063
00:59:47,560 --> 00:59:51,840
Speaker 5: chance of going around the defenses because it's not directly

1064
00:59:51,880 --> 00:59:54,960
Speaker 5: attacking what their beliefs or their group, or their behaviors

1065
00:59:55,040 --> 00:59:59,360
Speaker 5: or anything. But getting people to try to maybe have

1066
00:59:59,640 --> 01:00:03,320
Speaker 5: a potential doubt and experiences that they've had has the

1067
01:00:03,400 --> 01:00:08,320
Speaker 5: possibility of helping the person. Disunderstanding is important for a

1068
01:00:08,360 --> 01:00:12,200
Speaker 5: person that when they do leave, they're leaving would be

1069
01:00:12,240 --> 01:00:15,600
Speaker 5: more more healthy. If you leave and you still believe

1070
01:00:15,600 --> 01:00:19,080
Speaker 5: the experiences you've had, you might say, all right, there's

1071
01:00:19,120 --> 01:00:22,800
Speaker 5: a whole lot of corruption, but there is truth in there,

1072
01:00:23,400 --> 01:00:26,000
Speaker 5: so you're open. If the leadership would change and stop

1073
01:00:26,040 --> 01:00:29,800
Speaker 5: being such horrible, vindictive assholes, then I would come back.

1074
01:00:29,960 --> 01:00:30,160
Speaker 4: Right.

1075
01:00:30,720 --> 01:00:33,880
Speaker 2: I'm just going to say in conclusion here an awe

1076
01:00:33,920 --> 01:00:38,640
Speaker 2: experience is evidence that you had an awe experience, right.

1077
01:00:39,120 --> 01:00:42,680
Speaker 5: Sometimes they are you know, you can have an experience

1078
01:00:42,720 --> 01:00:45,680
Speaker 5: that shows you something which actually was true but not

1079
01:00:45,720 --> 01:00:47,600
Speaker 5: necessarily right.

1080
01:00:47,480 --> 01:00:49,640
Speaker 2: And it's up to us to not make connections that

1081
01:00:49,680 --> 01:00:50,560
Speaker 2: aren't actually there.

1082
01:00:50,680 --> 01:00:54,000
Speaker 5: Yeah, or even if they do, to realize that those

1083
01:00:54,160 --> 01:00:56,040
Speaker 5: were possibly fallible.

1084
01:00:56,320 --> 01:00:59,480
Speaker 1: Totally. Well, thank you so much for talking to us.

1085
01:00:59,520 --> 01:01:00,360
Speaker 1: This has been amazing.

1086
01:01:00,400 --> 01:01:00,640
Speaker 2: Thanks.

1087
01:01:01,120 --> 01:01:03,080
Speaker 4: Where do we find you on social media?

1088
01:01:03,160 --> 01:01:05,840
Speaker 5: Emailing me is better and my email is my first

1089
01:01:05,920 --> 01:01:08,600
Speaker 5: name and my last name at gmail dot com.

1090
01:01:08,640 --> 01:01:09,160
Speaker 4: Amazing.

1091
01:01:09,480 --> 01:01:11,240
Speaker 1: Thanks again, thank you, thank you.

1092
01:01:12,240 --> 01:01:12,520
Speaker 4: Well.

1093
01:01:12,640 --> 01:01:16,440
Speaker 1: That was intriguing. No, I'm sick of the word intriguing

1094
01:01:16,440 --> 01:01:19,640
Speaker 1: now too. That was fascinating, transfixing.

1095
01:01:20,080 --> 01:01:22,200
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously there's not a specific cult that we're

1096
01:01:22,200 --> 01:01:25,000
Speaker 2: talking about this week, but I actually was curious, Megan,

1097
01:01:25,160 --> 01:01:28,320
Speaker 2: what if any I'm sure there's been some What all

1098
01:01:28,400 --> 01:01:29,600
Speaker 2: experiences have you had?

1099
01:01:29,840 --> 01:01:32,040
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, I mean so many.

1100
01:01:32,440 --> 01:01:34,480
Speaker 3: There was a moment in my life where I was

1101
01:01:34,560 --> 01:01:38,640
Speaker 3: listening to this song Drimber, Oh brother, where art thou?

1102
01:01:38,960 --> 01:01:39,520
Speaker 4: That movie?

1103
01:01:39,640 --> 01:01:40,520
Speaker 1: Yes, love that movie.

1104
01:01:40,520 --> 01:01:43,240
Speaker 4: That song Go down to the River to Pray is

1105
01:01:43,440 --> 01:01:44,240
Speaker 4: so beautiful.

1106
01:01:44,320 --> 01:01:45,800
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I love that song.

1107
01:01:45,840 --> 01:01:48,800
Speaker 3: Oh it's so beautiful, and I was listening to it

1108
01:01:48,960 --> 01:01:51,840
Speaker 3: un repeat when I was like twenty seven years old,

1109
01:01:52,000 --> 01:01:54,080
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, it felt like I was

1110
01:01:54,120 --> 01:01:59,200
Speaker 3: being wrapped up and string so tightly, and my brain

1111
01:01:59,240 --> 01:02:02,280
Speaker 3: would comple deletely blank, like I couldn't think of a

1112
01:02:02,320 --> 01:02:05,360
Speaker 3: single thought. I couldn't remember who I was kind of thing.

1113
01:02:05,480 --> 01:02:09,320
Speaker 3: It was like whow, completely different planet. I wasn't on drugs.

1114
01:02:09,680 --> 01:02:12,240
Speaker 3: It was just so weird. And then I got really

1115
01:02:12,280 --> 01:02:15,680
Speaker 3: scared and I started picking up my cat and running

1116
01:02:15,680 --> 01:02:19,080
Speaker 3: around my apartment screaming, just kidding, just kidding, I'm not ready.

1117
01:02:19,360 --> 01:02:23,320
Speaker 3: And then I watched and then I watched Drill Housewives

1118
01:02:23,440 --> 01:02:26,160
Speaker 3: of Miami. This is that your houses in Miami was

1119
01:02:26,160 --> 01:02:28,000
Speaker 3: a thing, and uh went to sleep.

1120
01:02:28,160 --> 01:02:29,560
Speaker 1: That is insane.

1121
01:02:29,840 --> 01:02:32,560
Speaker 2: Okay, hang on, so what are you doing while you're

1122
01:02:32,560 --> 01:02:33,480
Speaker 2: just sitting while it's hacked.

1123
01:02:33,600 --> 01:02:35,480
Speaker 3: I was just like sitting there and listening to that

1124
01:02:35,600 --> 01:02:38,440
Speaker 3: song and like crying because it's so beautiful and everybody's

1125
01:02:38,560 --> 01:02:43,080
Speaker 3: voices all blend together so beautifully. And I wasn't thinking

1126
01:02:43,080 --> 01:02:45,440
Speaker 3: about religion or anything. I was just thinking about all

1127
01:02:45,440 --> 01:02:49,120
Speaker 3: these people coming together. So I don't know, and it

1128
01:02:49,160 --> 01:02:52,080
Speaker 3: was like that lobe of my brain just started getting

1129
01:02:52,440 --> 01:02:55,360
Speaker 3: turned on because it wasn't all about me. I was

1130
01:02:55,520 --> 01:03:00,320
Speaker 3: fucking flying away, not on this planet at all.

1131
01:03:01,160 --> 01:03:04,360
Speaker 2: My favorite part is that you ran around saying I'm

1132
01:03:04,400 --> 01:03:05,120
Speaker 2: not ready.

1133
01:03:05,240 --> 01:03:08,080
Speaker 3: Yeah with my cat, my poor cat who hates being

1134
01:03:08,160 --> 01:03:10,919
Speaker 3: held in general, but as like holding on for dear

1135
01:03:11,040 --> 01:03:14,160
Speaker 3: life as I'm like, no, Ben, we're not ready.

1136
01:03:14,600 --> 01:03:16,840
Speaker 1: What did you think was happening? You were being taken though?

1137
01:03:17,240 --> 01:03:19,040
Speaker 3: I thought that maybe I was going to have some

1138
01:03:19,120 --> 01:03:24,400
Speaker 3: like Eghart Toole experience of my ego collapsing, which I

1139
01:03:24,400 --> 01:03:26,840
Speaker 3: think is possible, not even in a spiritual way, just

1140
01:03:27,080 --> 01:03:29,760
Speaker 3: in a normal I think that's something that can happen.

1141
01:03:30,080 --> 01:03:32,120
Speaker 3: And I thought that that's what was going about to happen,

1142
01:03:32,160 --> 01:03:34,400
Speaker 3: and I just didn't know if I was ready for that.

1143
01:03:34,640 --> 01:03:36,960
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that sounds cool. It was cool.

1144
01:03:37,160 --> 01:03:38,960
Speaker 3: It was really cool. It was really scary. I was

1145
01:03:39,000 --> 01:03:41,280
Speaker 3: shaking for like a day, but it was really cool.

1146
01:03:41,600 --> 01:03:44,040
Speaker 4: As A went down to the movie, oh my god,

1147
01:03:44,080 --> 01:03:44,920
Speaker 4: it's happening again.

1148
01:03:48,920 --> 01:03:50,600
Speaker 1: She's not ready, She's not ready.

1149
01:03:52,760 --> 01:03:54,040
Speaker 4: Do you have any like.

1150
01:03:53,920 --> 01:03:55,600
Speaker 1: We talked about on mushrooms?

1151
01:03:55,680 --> 01:03:58,240
Speaker 2: Yes, right, but I'm trying to think of what other

1152
01:03:58,640 --> 01:04:01,680
Speaker 2: I mean, definitely as a kid when I was religious,

1153
01:04:02,200 --> 01:04:05,560
Speaker 2: there were definitely moments that I.

1154
01:04:04,840 --> 01:04:07,040
Speaker 1: Categorized as feeling the spirit.

1155
01:04:07,920 --> 01:04:11,600
Speaker 2: Post religion, I think it really has been more just

1156
01:04:11,640 --> 01:04:15,960
Speaker 2: like feeling really connected, similarly to like a song or

1157
01:04:16,000 --> 01:04:18,160
Speaker 2: a piece of art, or just feeling really really moved

1158
01:04:18,200 --> 01:04:21,440
Speaker 2: by something a sunset. It's not I want a more

1159
01:04:21,440 --> 01:04:24,240
Speaker 2: exciting one. I want one I feel like give me

1160
01:04:24,240 --> 01:04:25,160
Speaker 2: in our experience.

1161
01:04:25,400 --> 01:04:27,400
Speaker 3: I feel like you've probably had way more than that.

1162
01:04:27,520 --> 01:04:30,280
Speaker 3: But maybe your skepticism is just in the way of

1163
01:04:30,320 --> 01:04:31,080
Speaker 3: you even seeing it.

1164
01:04:31,160 --> 01:04:32,640
Speaker 2: I think I just don't think of them as all

1165
01:04:32,640 --> 01:04:35,840
Speaker 2: experiences because I frequently have moments where I'm like, I

1166
01:04:35,840 --> 01:04:37,720
Speaker 2: feel connected to the world right now, where I feel

1167
01:04:37,720 --> 01:04:40,560
Speaker 2: really connected to myself or this art. I don't see

1168
01:04:40,560 --> 01:04:43,760
Speaker 2: it as like God is moving me or although still

1169
01:04:43,760 --> 01:04:47,160
Speaker 2: sometimes I do have moments where I'm like, h, the universe.

1170
01:04:46,800 --> 01:04:48,560
Speaker 4: I mean, duh, how could you not?

1171
01:04:48,720 --> 01:04:51,640
Speaker 2: But it's much easier to do on drugs. Yeah, for sure,

1172
01:04:51,720 --> 01:04:56,120
Speaker 2: so do drugs. Is the conclusion of this story? Well,

1173
01:04:56,280 --> 01:04:59,240
Speaker 2: hey trustees, ehh.

1174
01:04:58,920 --> 01:05:05,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, hey Christine, that's a great week, and remember to

1175
01:05:05,320 --> 01:05:08,919
Speaker 3: follow your gut, watch out for a flag, and never

1176
01:05:09,520 --> 01:05:12,200
Speaker 3: ever trust me.

1177
01:05:12,680 --> 01:05:12,919
Speaker 4: Later