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Speaker 1: Trust me. Trust trust me.

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Speaker 2: I'm like a swat person.

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Speaker 3: I've never lived.

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Speaker 2: To you.

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Speaker 3: If you think that one person has all the answers, don't.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to trust me. The podcast about cults, extreme belief

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Speaker 1: and the abusive power from two folks, From two folks

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Speaker 1: who've actually experienced it. I am Lola.

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Speaker 3: Blanc and I'm Megan Elizabeth.

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Speaker 1: Today, our guest is Amanda Montale, linguist and author of

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Speaker 1: upcoming book Cultish The Language of Fanaticism, which is about

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Speaker 1: the social science and language of cult influence. She's gonna

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Speaker 1: tell us what loaded languages give us everyday, examples of

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Speaker 1: thought terminating cliches and cultish phrases, and what to look

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Speaker 1: out for, and tells us the surprising characteristic people who

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Speaker 1: join cults tend to have in common.

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Speaker 3: She's so cool, she's so smart.

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Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with this episode, and I'm obsessed with Amanda. Sorry,

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Speaker 1: Amanda obsessed with you. Ope, that's cool. We'll talk to

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Speaker 1: her shortly, but before we do and get all of

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Speaker 1: her word wisdom. Megan. Yes, So, what's the cultiest thing

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Speaker 1: that happened to you this week?

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Speaker 3: Oh? My god, Lola, I mean my birthday. It's my

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Speaker 3: birthday today. And you know, here's what's cultia about it

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Speaker 3: for me is that it comes with so much baggage.

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Speaker 3: You know, getting older.

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Speaker 1: Did you celebrate birthdays growing up?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Oh you did, but just not holidays.

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Speaker 3: Right, not like religious holidays, gotcha, Ironically I could celebrate

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Speaker 3: Halloween or.

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Speaker 1: Oh how funny Easter?

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Speaker 3: Christmas? No, at least you got the candy exactly exactly.

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Speaker 3: So it comes with so much baggage. It comes with

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Speaker 3: so much fear. And then also it comes with so

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Speaker 3: many expectations, and you know, I feel like everyone's always

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Speaker 3: disappointed on their birthday.

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Speaker 1: I know you want people to be your followers, for yes,

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Speaker 1: just one day of the year. Everyone's supposed to bow

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Speaker 1: fucking before you and celebrate your existence and say I

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Speaker 1: follow the leader. Yes, But then they don't because they're

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Speaker 1: normal human.

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Speaker 3: Beings, right, and then you have to imprison them, and

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Speaker 3: you know, then it gets illegal. But that's what I'm

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Speaker 3: facing today is just my birthday and all the shit,

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Speaker 3: good and bad that comes with that.

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Speaker 1: Well, happy birthday, thank you yo. It's been like an

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Speaker 1: actual thing in my circle of friends with my expectations

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Speaker 1: are too high of my friends on my birthday. You

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Speaker 1: know what it is. I was the only girl of

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Speaker 1: three brothers, and I was the only girl, and birthdays

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Speaker 1: were like a fucking thing. Yeah, and I didn't get

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Speaker 1: a lot of things throughout the year, and the birthday

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Speaker 1: was like Birthday and Christmas the same week was the

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Speaker 1: one time I would be spoiled. So this created this

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Speaker 1: expectation growing up that I'm the princess. It's my birthday. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you must submit.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I've asked for the stupidest shit already to I'm like,

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Speaker 3: it's my birthday. Well you turn off the lamp.

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Speaker 1: What I worship you today, Megan, thank I follow thee.

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Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you. You're the only one doing it right.

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Speaker 3: What about you?

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Speaker 1: Well, I finished a class. It was technically last week,

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Speaker 1: but I finished a class that I've been going to

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Speaker 1: all fall, and I'm sad because I was hoping it

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Speaker 1: would be more culty. So I during the pandemic, I

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Speaker 1: decided I was gonna enrich my brain and take some

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Speaker 1: community college classes. So I took a philosophy class, took

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Speaker 1: a psychology class, and then I took a class called

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Speaker 1: group dynamics. Basically the class is I didn't realize this

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Speaker 1: when I signed up it is on one very specific

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Speaker 1: track to transfer to a cal State school, on the

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Speaker 1: psych track. And I was the only one who's like

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Speaker 1: not actually trying to become a psychologist. I mean maybe

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Speaker 1: at some point I would like to one day. And

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Speaker 1: I was like, hell, yes, like I'm going to learn

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Speaker 1: all this shit about how groups work. I'm gonna get

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Speaker 1: all the good information that I can use on the podcast.

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Speaker 1: Turns out, no textbook, no reading whatsoever. The entire class

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Speaker 1: is literally just being in a group. And I learned

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Speaker 1: absolutely nothing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you're like, I've done this before.

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Speaker 1: I don't. I don't need be in a group. I mean,

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Speaker 1: so we met on Zoom once a week and then

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Speaker 1: we would do like we had basically a class forum

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Speaker 1: where we would give each other updates on each other's lives,

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Speaker 1: and we had to respond to each other and we

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Speaker 1: have to answer questions, so we got really personal. We

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Speaker 1: shared some really intimate shit. I learned about some very

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Speaker 1: gnarly experiences some of these people have been through. Okay,

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Speaker 1: God it wasn't culty. But one thing I did learn

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Speaker 1: was that because my background is my mom struggled when

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Speaker 1: I was growing up. There were periods where we electricity

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Speaker 1: getting shut off having to leave our home, you know,

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Speaker 1: out period where we didn't have somewhere to stay. So

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Speaker 1: I kind of forget that right now, I'm actually doing

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Speaker 1: pretty fine, right, and being in this particular class, everyone's

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Speaker 1: problems are so much worse than mine. Yeah, I sort

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Speaker 1: of assume that I remember what it's like, but it's

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Speaker 1: crazy how quickly you become disconnected.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm super humbling. Mm hmm.

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Speaker 1: There are people who are like living with their whole

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Speaker 1: ass families and tiny apartments and like their mom is

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Speaker 1: dying of cancer and they're like trying to support their family,

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Speaker 1: buy them shells, shit like that, where I'm like, all right,

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Speaker 1: you're fine.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And it was only three two, three years ago that

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Speaker 1: I was like completely fucked up because I was so

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Speaker 1: broke and I thought I was gonna have to leave

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Speaker 1: my apartment and was like vaguely mildly suicidal.

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Speaker 3: Oh I love a good vaguely suicidal.

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Speaker 1: I'm like, I wasn't gonna do it, but like I

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Speaker 1: was thinking about it. Yeah, there anyway, and now I'm fine.

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Speaker 1: I had a random stroke of luck a couple of

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Speaker 1: years ago, and I, you know, I've been fortunate enough

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Speaker 1: to not be in a financial panic during the pandemic,

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Speaker 1: and who knows, the entertainment industry is obviously very up

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Speaker 1: and down, so I am not counting on that remaining

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Speaker 1: the case. But in conclusion, the class was not culty,

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Speaker 1: but at least got a reminder to stay empathetic to

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Speaker 1: what other people are going through, even if I'm not

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Speaker 1: currently going through it.

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Speaker 3: Oh that's beautiful. I love that.

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Speaker 1: I hope that wasn't too straying from our topic today.

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Speaker 3: I don't think so. I don't think so.

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Speaker 1: All right, Well, anyway, let's get into some language shit.

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Speaker 3: All right, let's do it.

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Speaker 1: Here we go, Amanda Montel. Welcome, Amanda, thanks for having me.

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Speaker 1: I cannot wait to talk to you. So you are

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Speaker 1: into words. You might even say you're a word slut.

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Speaker 1: The name of her last book is word Slut. Give

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Speaker 1: us some background on you and what got you into

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Speaker 1: linguistics and what got you into the language of cults specifically.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so my background is in linguistics. That's what my

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Speaker 2: undergraduate degree is in. As a kid, I was always

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Speaker 2: just obsessed with words. I was a chatty child and

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Speaker 2: kind of kind of bombastic. I was like always toning

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Speaker 2: around my little thesaurus checking, like testing out new words

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Speaker 2: on people, not always getting it right. But I was

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Speaker 2: always obsessed with foreign languages and dialects, and with the

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Speaker 2: relationship between a way a person talks and the way

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Speaker 2: they moved through the world, the way that they're perceived.

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Speaker 2: This field that I would later learned out was sociolinguistics,

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Speaker 2: the intersection of sociology and language with the science of language.

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Speaker 2: But it wasn't until I got to college that I

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Speaker 2: came to understand what linguistics was, and that's what it is.

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Speaker 2: It's the science of language, and there are so many

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Speaker 2: different sub fields, but socio linguistics was what really got

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Speaker 2: me excited, and particularly my classes in gender and language

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Speaker 2: and the relationship between gender and words and gender in

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Speaker 2: the way that a person speaks, in the way that

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Speaker 2: they're seen, and their experiences of life. It's just this

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Speaker 2: totally under explored subject, at least in popular media, but

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Speaker 2: that was absolutely fascinating to me. So that was the

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Speaker 2: subject matter of my first book. But a fascination that

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Speaker 2: I had that was even older and even more deeply

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Speaker 2: rooted than that, was a fascination with cults. And I

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Speaker 2: always use the word cult in scare quotes, and I'll

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Speaker 2: explain a little bit more about that momentarily. But my

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Speaker 2: book is called Cultish, The Language of Fanaticism, and it's

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Speaker 2: kind of a double entendre because not only is the

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Speaker 2: wide spectrum of groups that I talk about in book,

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Speaker 2: not only could they be described as cultish, because I'm

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Speaker 2: not just talking about Jonestown and the Mansons and Waco

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Speaker 2: and Nexium and groups like that that you would sort

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Speaker 2: of quote unquote classically think of as cults. I'm using

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Speaker 2: the word cult in a slightly more fluid sense, and

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Speaker 2: that's reflective of how the word cult is really used

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Speaker 2: in contemporary culture. You know, we no longer use it

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Speaker 2: only to describe, you know, Satanic underground cabals. We use

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Speaker 2: it to describe soul cycle, we use it to describe

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Speaker 2: cult followed brands. You know. It's It's a word that

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Speaker 2: most of the new religion scholars and sociologists that I

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Speaker 2: spoke to for the book don't even use formally because

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Speaker 2: it's become so subjective and can really mean anything based

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Speaker 2: on the context of the conversation and attitudes of the speakers.

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Speaker 2: So I prefer to use words like cultish. But also

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Speaker 2: cultish is kind of the name of this language that

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Speaker 2: I describe in the book, sort of like Swedish or

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Speaker 2: Spanish or English. It's Cultish, the language of fanaticism. And really,

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Speaker 2: what what I discovered writing the book is that, you know,

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Speaker 2: when we think about cult influence, why do people join

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Speaker 2: and stay in extreme groups with zealous ideologies. The you know,

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Speaker 2: general wisdom is that, oh, they're brainwashed, they're mind controlled.

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Speaker 2: But really, what I discovered talking to so many experts

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Speaker 2: is that brainwashing is sort of this myth, this pseudoscientific concept,

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Speaker 2: and brainwashing doesn't really exist, and there are all these

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Speaker 2: different reasons for that, you know, But brainwashing essentially is

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Speaker 2: a metaphor, and when you call a person brainwashed, the

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Speaker 2: conversation really ends there, leaving no room to explore what's

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Speaker 2: actually motivating their behavior. And as it turns out, that

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Speaker 2: question is much more interesting, and the answer has to

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Speaker 2: do with all of these different techniques of cult influence,

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Speaker 2: the most powerful of which have everything to do with language.

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Speaker 2: And so my obsession with cults, I mean, it's not unique.

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Speaker 2: We're all obsessed with cults, so many of us are anyway,

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Speaker 2: But my obsession with cults developed when I was a kid,

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Speaker 2: because my dad spent his teenage years in a cult

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Speaker 2: called Synanon against his will, his his card carrying communist

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Speaker 2: absentee father and stepmother and their like replacement children wanted

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Speaker 2: in on. Well I suppose that children didn't have any say,

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Speaker 2: but the parents wanted in on the sort of like

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Speaker 2: countercultural movement of the late sixties. So they moved my dad,

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Speaker 2: who was fourteen, and his two toddler age half sisters

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Speaker 2: onto this Bay area quote unquote socialist utopia called Sinnanon

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Speaker 2: that was really fucked up and oppressive and ended up

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Speaker 2: being quite violent. But my dad had grown up until

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Speaker 2: that point in New York City, so he was pretty

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Speaker 2: street wise, and he's just overall, you know, a pretty

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Speaker 2: incredulous skeptical person, and so he just sort of like

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Speaker 2: laid low and exp and you know, privately criticized the

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Speaker 2: whole thing and then defected as soon as he could

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Speaker 2: when he was eighteen. But I grew up on those stories,

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Speaker 2: and I grew up in a household where my parents

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Speaker 2: are both research scientists. They're both skeptics by nature and

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Speaker 2: by profession. And you know, I didn't grow up religious.

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Speaker 2: I mean, we were Jewish, but like super reform. But

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Speaker 2: I was always like fascinated by cultish belief and because

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Speaker 2: language is the lens through which I see the world.

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Speaker 2: After I finished writing word Slut, I had a conversation

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Speaker 2: with my best friend who had recently started going to AA.

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Speaker 2: And of course I never defined cult in my mind

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Speaker 2: as just jonestown or just you know, it's so subjective.

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Speaker 2: It's like, what is a cult? What is a religion?

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Speaker 2: A cult is really just a religion that we don't

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Speaker 2: like or a group of people that we don't like.

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Speaker 2: You know, there really is no hard and fast definition.

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Speaker 2: So I sort of always had an awareness of that.

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Speaker 2: I'm like, cult, Like, everything's a cult if you look

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Speaker 2: at it to the side, you know. And my friend

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Speaker 2: had just started going to AA and she was she

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Speaker 2: was talking to me about it, and she was using

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Speaker 2: I don't know if you're familiar with AA jargon, but

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Speaker 2: she was using all of the like very culty AA jargon,

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Speaker 2: and I was like, holy shit, I should totally write

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Speaker 2: a book about the language of cults. So that's my

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Speaker 2: long ass answer, but that's how it all came together.

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Speaker 3: What were the kind of words that she was using

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Speaker 3: that you were like, oh, fuck.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, she was using a ton of sort

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Speaker 2: of like insidery acronyms like I don't know if you're

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Speaker 2: familiar with halt, like oh, I'm totally halting right now,

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Speaker 2: which means like hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. They have

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Speaker 2: all these like buzzwords like it works if you work it,

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Speaker 2: you know, stuff like that, stuff that I could just

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Speaker 2: tell on instinct was there to build a culture, instill ideology.

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Speaker 2: Obviously the intentions were very positive and the impact by

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Speaker 2: and Larges is quite positive. And you know, that's the

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Speaker 2: other thing about cults is that the word cult and

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Speaker 2: in the first part of the book, I dive into

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Speaker 2: the history and the etymology of that word, because the

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Speaker 2: word cult, especially since the seventies, has had these really

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Speaker 2: negative undertones. But it didn't always. But now again, because

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Speaker 2: there's no hard and fast definition of what a cult is,

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Speaker 2: there's no like academic definition of what a cult is,

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Speaker 2: we can really like throw it around to describe any

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Speaker 2: group that we think is weird or creepy. But there

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Speaker 2: are plenty of groups that could be or have been

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Speaker 2: described as cults that are actually quite positive. And because

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Speaker 2: there is you know, maybe a charismatic leader and a

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Speaker 2: tight knit group, power could be abused, and maybe is

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Speaker 2: in some small ways, but not every group that could

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Speaker 2: be called a cult or has been called a cult,

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Speaker 2: is you know, full blown jonestown level evil and nefarious.

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Speaker 1: Of course, of course.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I was just like listening to that language, and

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Speaker 2: I was like, Wow, you're like totally in this fringe

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Speaker 2: culture that I'm not a part of. And I can

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Speaker 2: totally tell that this language is has been used as

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Speaker 2: a bonding tool and a tool to like instill ideology.

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Speaker 2: And I was just wondering, like what else can language do?

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Speaker 2: And and you know, when it's in the wrong hands, obviously,

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Speaker 2: like how far can it go?

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Speaker 3: Right?

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Speaker 1: I mean you see that even with like I mean

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Speaker 1: really any movement, any activist group that I've joined, there's

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Speaker 1: always like very specific language that they use. You kind

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Speaker 1: of do need it, right, You need to have that

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Speaker 1: like language with each other, a shorthand to describe your

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Speaker 1: common goal that you're all working toward.

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Speaker 2: Totally like the difference between you know, my parents are scientists.

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Speaker 2: They have tons of specialized jargon. I could not understand

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Speaker 2: their dinner table conversations when I was a kid. But

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Speaker 2: there is a difference between like specialized workplace jargon and

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Speaker 2: cultish jargon and specialized workplace jargon. Like you said, that's

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Speaker 2: there as a sort of shorthand exists to make community

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Speaker 2: cation easier and more precise and more specific and clearer.

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Speaker 2: But coldish jargon does the exact opposite. It's there to

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Speaker 2: sort of obscure meanings, and it has these these intentions

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Speaker 2: that don't really have to do with objective communication and

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Speaker 2: have everything to do with manipulating people's emotions or suppressing

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Speaker 2: people's individual thought. And I totally got whiffs of this

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Speaker 2: when I worked in digital media at like a creative

295
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Speaker 2: corporate office, like start up bullshit jargon, some startup jargon. Again,

296
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Speaker 2: it's it's there so that you can understand what everybody's

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Speaker 2: talking about. When we're talking about I don't know, oh,

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Speaker 2: we're gonna start using a sign up tomorrow. Here's a

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Speaker 2: new software that everybody needs to know what it's called.

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Speaker 2: But then there are like euphemisms and emotionally loaded buzzwords

301
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Speaker 2: that I was just like totally allergic to when I

302
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Speaker 2: worked in a corporate office, I really was not for

303
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Speaker 2: me where it was just like this is totally there

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Speaker 2: to create an us them dichotomy. It's totally there as

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Speaker 2: a sort of shibbleth to determine like who's cool, who's

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Speaker 2: on the inside, who can't be trusted? If it's and

307
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Speaker 2: it's there as you know, a means of conformism. If

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Speaker 2: you're not using this bullshit jargon, it's a sign that

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Speaker 2: maybe you could be some sort of whistleblower or some

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Speaker 2: sort of rebel. And yeah, needless to say, I did

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Speaker 2: not thrive in a.

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Speaker 1: Corporate That's a really interesting distinction because yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: I do think about I'm trying to think of another example,

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Speaker 1: but my brain just goes to like various like social

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Speaker 1: justice groups that I've been in.

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Speaker 2: They can get really culty.

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Speaker 1: It is useful to an extent certainly, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of them don't have this problem, but sometimes past a

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Speaker 1: certain point, it's like, why don't I know that term?

320
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Speaker 1: What's wrong with me that I don't know that exactly?

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Speaker 3: You know, it.

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Speaker 2: Creates this sense of like we're elite, we're better than

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Speaker 2: everyone else because we have this access to the secret code,

324
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Speaker 2: and secret codes are really fun, you know, Like language

325
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Speaker 2: is such a brilliant tactic to get people on board

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Speaker 2: with what might end up being a really shady situation

327
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Speaker 2: because like everybody loves a secret language. You know, we

328
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Speaker 2: all love learning Gibberish when we're kids, or pig Latin

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Speaker 2: when we're kids, and language. You know, when you first

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Speaker 2: start learning a secret code or special language, it's seemingly harmless,

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Speaker 2: like it's a non committal way to show that you're

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Speaker 2: a part of something. It's it's not even as committal

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Speaker 2: as getting a new outfit or a new uniform or

334
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Speaker 2: certainly shaving your head or doing any sort of you know,

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Speaker 2: quote unquote real world material action. It's like, oh, I'm

336
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Speaker 2: just using a word, but it's so much more than that.

337
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Speaker 2: And language is really a tool of power and violence

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Speaker 2: in really real ways.

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Speaker 3: Do you have any like tips or advice? So, Lola

340
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Speaker 3: and I were both raised in cults, and I everybody

341
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Speaker 3: we've talked to still has a lot of residual No

342
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Speaker 3: matter how stupid you find your cult in retrospect, there's

343
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Speaker 3: still a part of you that it's really locked into it.

344
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Speaker 3: And I'm just wondering if there's a way that you

345
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Speaker 3: found with words to kind of free yourself from those situations.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I spoke to so many former cult members

347
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Speaker 2: survivors of Maybe this is a question for you, like

348
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Speaker 2: what's terminology that you prefer when talking about like your

349
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Speaker 2: status as someone who grew up in a cult. I mean,

350
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Speaker 2: do you say like cult survivor, ex cult member, Like

351
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Speaker 2: what do you say?

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Speaker 1: I feel like it's it depends on the person, because

353
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Speaker 1: like I feel weird saying that I'm a survivor, But

354
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Speaker 1: my mom is a survivor because she actually underwent violence

355
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Speaker 1: and like extreme control, you know what I mean. Yeah,

356
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Speaker 1: it doesn't always feel appropriate for me, but I still

357
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Speaker 1: have occasionally said it about myself, so yeah, I don't.

358
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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean that generally seems like across the

359
00:19:49,560 --> 00:19:52,960
Speaker 2: board a good practice just to you know, ask and

360
00:19:53,040 --> 00:19:55,479
Speaker 2: be specific, like I would probably call my dad like

361
00:19:56,040 --> 00:19:59,760
Speaker 2: a cult escapee or like a defector.

362
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Speaker 3: Like that one.

363
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Speaker 2: But I guess. I mean. I spoke to X followers

364
00:20:04,960 --> 00:20:09,760
Speaker 2: of so many groups scientology three h o's that the

365
00:20:09,800 --> 00:20:14,040
Speaker 2: Happy Healthy Holy Organization. Wow, oh my goodness. That was

366
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Speaker 2: one of the early interviews I did for the book.

367
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Speaker 2: It's this Kundalini yoga cultish group, really really spooky stuff.

368
00:20:22,040 --> 00:20:25,399
Speaker 2: But anyway, I yeah, I and and of course I

369
00:20:25,720 --> 00:20:29,040
Speaker 2: talked to psychologists like Stephen Hassan, you know, he's like

370
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Speaker 2: one of yeah, and he's an interesting dude. But I mean,

371
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Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's different from everyone. I mean,

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Speaker 2: I think like words can be really triggering obviously, and

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Speaker 2: words can sort of unearth old trauma. And I remember

374
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Speaker 2: one of the former members of this Kundalini Yoga cultish group,

375
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Speaker 2: this woman named Tanya. She had a lot of words.

376
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Speaker 2: And this is something that all cultish leaders do. They

377
00:20:54,119 --> 00:20:57,400
Speaker 2: they do this thing with language. They they create what's

378
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Speaker 2: called loaded language, where they take a word that outside

379
00:21:02,720 --> 00:21:06,400
Speaker 2: of the cultish group has a certain meaning that isn't

380
00:21:06,520 --> 00:21:09,560
Speaker 2: very emotional, or isn't very triggering, or doesn't have like

381
00:21:10,240 --> 00:21:15,080
Speaker 2: super deep implications, and they'll charge it with emotion and

382
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Speaker 2: with weight so that they can weaponize it and use

383
00:21:19,040 --> 00:21:23,080
Speaker 2: it almost as a threat or as anything, just to

384
00:21:23,440 --> 00:21:27,760
Speaker 2: manipulate behavior, just with words. And for Tanya, I remember,

385
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Speaker 2: one of these words was old soul. Now, for a

386
00:21:30,560 --> 00:21:33,720
Speaker 2: person outside of three Ho, old soul is a compliment.

387
00:21:33,840 --> 00:21:36,320
Speaker 2: You know, you're someone who's maybe wise beyond your years.

388
00:21:36,560 --> 00:21:41,840
Speaker 2: But in Threeho, slowly and deliberately, higher ups would twist

389
00:21:42,040 --> 00:21:45,600
Speaker 2: the meaning of this once positive phrase to mean someone

390
00:21:45,680 --> 00:21:50,000
Speaker 2: who had reincarnated life after life after life after life

391
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Speaker 2: and could never get it right. And the last thing

392
00:21:52,840 --> 00:21:55,800
Speaker 2: you wanted to be was an old soul. And so

393
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Speaker 2: Tanya told me that even now, like she shudders whenever

394
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Speaker 2: she hears the word because it's so loaded even now

395
00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:07,639
Speaker 2: for her, you know, like you could use it to

396
00:22:08,240 --> 00:22:10,560
Speaker 2: steer her behavior. Back in the day, like they had

397
00:22:10,600 --> 00:22:13,080
Speaker 2: all these rules, and cult rules are so arbitrary, they're

398
00:22:13,119 --> 00:22:15,720
Speaker 2: just a means of control. But you know, she a

399
00:22:15,720 --> 00:22:17,960
Speaker 2: lot of the rules in three h O were typical

400
00:22:18,080 --> 00:22:19,600
Speaker 2: to what you've seen in a lot of cultist groups.

401
00:22:19,640 --> 00:22:21,560
Speaker 2: You know, you couldn't eat meat, and you had to

402
00:22:21,560 --> 00:22:24,080
Speaker 2: wake up super early and dedicate a certain amount of

403
00:22:24,119 --> 00:22:27,800
Speaker 2: times reading scripture and YadA YadA, and and the way

404
00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:29,560
Speaker 2: that this loaded language was used is that you know,

405
00:22:29,600 --> 00:22:31,960
Speaker 2: if you didn't do those things, well, you're gonna be

406
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:34,320
Speaker 2: an old soul. You're gonna be on a lower vibration.

407
00:22:34,920 --> 00:22:37,440
Speaker 2: You know, you're gonna there were all all of these

408
00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:40,800
Speaker 2: super triggering terms, and so I think, you know, just

409
00:22:40,880 --> 00:22:43,760
Speaker 2: having like an open space to like talk to people

410
00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:47,200
Speaker 2: maybe about some of these words and what they once

411
00:22:47,320 --> 00:22:49,000
Speaker 2: meant to you. I mean, I don't know. I'm not

412
00:22:49,080 --> 00:22:52,280
Speaker 2: a mental health expert, but I think like from just

413
00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:55,320
Speaker 2: the ex members that I talked to, just being able

414
00:22:55,359 --> 00:22:58,399
Speaker 2: to have a conversation about the language, I think felt

415
00:22:58,480 --> 00:23:01,879
Speaker 2: quite liberating to them. And then I remember I talked

416
00:23:01,880 --> 00:23:07,320
Speaker 2: to an ex scientologist who whenever she encounters a scientologist

417
00:23:07,320 --> 00:23:10,760
Speaker 2: in the wild, and obviously in LA they're everywhere, but

418
00:23:10,960 --> 00:23:13,680
Speaker 2: you can clock a scientologist in the wild not by

419
00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:15,719
Speaker 2: how they look or how they dress or anything, but

420
00:23:15,760 --> 00:23:18,760
Speaker 2: how they speak, because scientology does some of the most

421
00:23:18,800 --> 00:23:21,120
Speaker 2: fucked up things with language that you can possibly do.

422
00:23:21,320 --> 00:23:25,800
Speaker 2: Oh my god. And there's so much scientology terminology because l.

423
00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:29,840
Speaker 2: Ron Hubbard was like a language geek, literally like J. R. R.

424
00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:34,520
Speaker 2: Tolkien level language geek, and created huge dictionaries full of

425
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:37,080
Speaker 2: new terminology and all kinds of fucked up things with

426
00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:39,040
Speaker 2: language that I go into in the book, Oh my God.

427
00:23:39,320 --> 00:23:45,320
Speaker 2: But whenever this ex scientologist hears a scientology term in

428
00:23:45,359 --> 00:23:48,040
Speaker 2: the wild, like I remember, oh my god, she described

429
00:23:48,119 --> 00:23:50,239
Speaker 2: so many of them to me, like things that make

430
00:23:50,320 --> 00:23:52,840
Speaker 2: no sense. And if you overhear a conversation between two

431
00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:55,359
Speaker 2: high level scientologists, you won't be able to understand what

432
00:23:55,359 --> 00:23:58,040
Speaker 2: they're saying. It is a completely different language. But she

433
00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:00,679
Speaker 2: was saying, how like, if she encounters someone using scientology

434
00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:03,480
Speaker 2: terminology in the wild, she'll be like, can you please

435
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:05,880
Speaker 2: not can you please not use that terminology when we're

436
00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:09,000
Speaker 2: working together, because she's an actor and obviously scientology the

437
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:11,800
Speaker 2: scientology world, in the world of actors, that ven diagram

438
00:24:11,840 --> 00:24:14,520
Speaker 2: has some pretty intense overlap. But she'll say, like, can

439
00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:17,280
Speaker 2: you not talk that way when we're working together, because

440
00:24:17,320 --> 00:24:21,359
Speaker 2: it's really upsetting to me. So, but yeah, I don't know.

441
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:23,520
Speaker 2: I think having like an open forum to just be

442
00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:26,320
Speaker 2: able to talk about the power of language because we

443
00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:28,159
Speaker 2: all have this mythology in our culture. You know, sticks

444
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:30,239
Speaker 2: and stones can break your bones, but words can ever

445
00:24:30,320 --> 00:24:32,040
Speaker 2: hurt you, and that's just so untrue.

446
00:24:32,280 --> 00:24:35,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think in general, interrogating the words

447
00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:38,000
Speaker 1: that we use without thinking about it is something that

448
00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:41,880
Speaker 1: is helpful for deprogramming anything within us, whether it's our own.

449
00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 1: And you get into this in words slut just based

450
00:24:43,760 --> 00:24:47,280
Speaker 1: on the description that I read words like slut and

451
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:50,760
Speaker 1: words like bitch, and you know, the just saying you

452
00:24:50,760 --> 00:24:53,800
Speaker 1: guys instead of you people? Are you friends? You know?

453
00:24:53,840 --> 00:24:55,880
Speaker 1: Why do we say those things? And I still say

454
00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:59,679
Speaker 1: you guys, but interrogating the culturally programmed things within us

455
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:02,359
Speaker 1: the top of mind, gender related versions of it. I

456
00:25:02,359 --> 00:25:04,800
Speaker 1: think there are probably a lot of better examples when

457
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:06,879
Speaker 1: it comes to the religion or group you grew up

458
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:09,359
Speaker 1: in or spent time and just language that is so

459
00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:11,680
Speaker 1: deeply encouraged in your body that you haven't even really

460
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:14,400
Speaker 1: thought about it or questioned it yet. Maybe that's one

461
00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:15,640
Speaker 1: of the ways we can begin.

462
00:25:15,880 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 2: For sure. I mean, when it comes to cultish language.

463
00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:20,679
Speaker 2: Like one of my favorite things that I mean that

464
00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:24,800
Speaker 2: was me talking about the sort of scientology like Waco

465
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:28,120
Speaker 2: level really fucked up level of cults and the language

466
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:32,000
Speaker 2: that goes on there, which is obviously obviously very extreme,

467
00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:35,800
Speaker 2: but cultish language pervades our everyday lives and sort of

468
00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 2: like to your point, we can all examine why we

469
00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:41,280
Speaker 2: say the things that we say. And something that I

470
00:25:41,359 --> 00:25:44,159
Speaker 2: go into in the book quite a bit is the

471
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:48,720
Speaker 2: language of MLMs, the cult of multi level marketing, and

472
00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:55,800
Speaker 2: how that language overlaps quite considerably with the American workplace

473
00:25:56,040 --> 00:26:02,280
Speaker 2: mentality in general and our quite toxic views of meritocracy

474
00:26:02,560 --> 00:26:08,480
Speaker 2: and bootstrapping and toxic positivity. And there's there's a lot

475
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:11,240
Speaker 2: of language that I didn't even realize before I started

476
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 2: researching this book is really damaging for me to use.

477
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:19,920
Speaker 2: Like I remember once I looked up in my kitchen

478
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 2: at our collection of coffee mugs, and all of these

479
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:27,400
Speaker 2: coffee mugs were basically just perpetuating like toxic capitalist propaganda,

480
00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:31,239
Speaker 2: like a yawn is a silent scream for coffee, like

481
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 2: I'll sleep when I'm dead, shit like that. And it's like, oh,

482
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:38,879
Speaker 2: my god, is leisure and rest so demonized in this

483
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:42,239
Speaker 2: culture that like it's adorable to print I'll sleep when

484
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:44,719
Speaker 2: I'm dead, work hard, play hard, whatever on a coffee

485
00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:46,919
Speaker 2: mug like Jesus Christ. But one of the elements of

486
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:50,000
Speaker 2: Cultish language that was most fun for me to learn

487
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:55,439
Speaker 2: about writing this book is something called the thought terminating cliche.

488
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 2: And once I describe this to you, you're not gonna

489
00:26:57,280 --> 00:26:59,760
Speaker 2: hear them everywhere, but maybe you've heard of it before.

490
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:02,439
Speaker 2: But basically, it's this phenomenon that was first described in

491
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:06,040
Speaker 2: the fifties by the psychologist named Robert Jay Liften. Maybe

492
00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 2: you're familiar with you guys, yeah, And he described a

493
00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:14,400
Speaker 2: ton of elements of cultish influence, but thought terminating cliches

494
00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 2: really fascinated me in part because they're an element of language,

495
00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:21,520
Speaker 2: but also because they are fucking everywhere. So a thought

496
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:26,639
Speaker 2: terminating in cliche is like a catchy stock phrase, super zingy,

497
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:31,920
Speaker 2: super memorable that's used to shut down independent thinking and

498
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:36,920
Speaker 2: further analysis and thought. So a thought terminating cliche that

499
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:40,440
Speaker 2: would be used in you know, Heaven's Gate, for example,

500
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:44,359
Speaker 2: or a cult that's you know, really really destructive and

501
00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:47,919
Speaker 2: extreme like that would be something like any other religion

502
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:50,000
Speaker 2: is less than the truth. Like if someone has a

503
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 2: question or a criticism, you just use this rote stock

504
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:56,920
Speaker 2: phrase to be like, we're not continuing any more analysis

505
00:27:56,920 --> 00:27:59,440
Speaker 2: in conversation. Any other religion is less than the truth.

506
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:04,480
Speaker 2: Or in jonestown, someone might have a criticism or or

507
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:07,359
Speaker 2: something they read in the media that contradicts something that

508
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 2: Jim Jones had said, and he might be like, the

509
00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 2: media is a lie. You can't trust the media, And

510
00:28:13,119 --> 00:28:15,240
Speaker 2: that's just like a stock phrase that he could say

511
00:28:15,280 --> 00:28:18,840
Speaker 2: to shut down independent thinking. But thought terminating cliches pervade

512
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:21,399
Speaker 2: our everyday lives. You know, when we hear things like

513
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:24,679
Speaker 2: everything happens for a reason, or boys will be boys,

514
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:28,320
Speaker 2: or it's all God's plan. Those are ways to kind

515
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 2: of you know, deal with cognitive dissonance, or the you know,

516
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:35,400
Speaker 2: unsettling feeling that you have when you have two conflicting

517
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:37,719
Speaker 2: ideas in your mind at the same time, when you

518
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:41,360
Speaker 2: feel cognitive dissonance because you have a question about something,

519
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:44,560
Speaker 2: but your beliefs contradict that question and you don't know

520
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:46,880
Speaker 2: what to do about it. If someone says a thought

521
00:28:46,920 --> 00:28:50,479
Speaker 2: terminating cliche like well, everything happens for a reason, then

522
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 2: you don't have to think about it anymore. And thought

523
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:56,080
Speaker 2: terminating cliches are all over the vernacular of like queuing

524
00:28:56,240 --> 00:29:01,080
Speaker 2: on and the like toxic wellness community that's now overlapped

525
00:29:01,080 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 2: with QAnon. You can clock a cultish thought terminating cliche

526
00:29:07,040 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 2: that that sounds like a piece of wellness wisdom when

527
00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:15,400
Speaker 2: you hear something like truth is a construct or none

528
00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:18,600
Speaker 2: of this matters on a cosmic level, or I hold

529
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 2: space for multiple realities, or dismissing legitimate fears or doubts

530
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:28,959
Speaker 2: as limiting beliefs like these sound like pieces of really

531
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:34,960
Speaker 2: sincere holistic wellness advice, but really they're thought terminating cliches,

532
00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 2: and when you hear them, you can just have that

533
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:41,360
Speaker 2: little twinkle in the back of your brain that's like,

534
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 2: maybe this guru does not have my best intentions at heart.

535
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the obvious example that a lot

536
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 1: of our listeners will probably be able to connect with

537
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:56,760
Speaker 1: in an easy way is fake news. Oh yeah, you know,

538
00:29:57,360 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 1: but those examples are more into to me because yeah,

539
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:03,640
Speaker 1: fake news. We know now we hear someone say fake news,

540
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 1: we know their thoughts stopping, right. But when it's somebody

541
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:12,480
Speaker 1: in a like an ostensibly positive wellness based environment, where like,

542
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: well that the intentions are good, you know that's true. Yeah,

543
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 1: there are multiple realities for.

544
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:20,000
Speaker 2: Sure, because you know, the thing is it's work to

545
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 2: think we are in the age of information, which people

546
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:26,520
Speaker 2: say like, oh, we're in the age of information, there's

547
00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:29,440
Speaker 2: no reason ever to get anything wrong. But like our

548
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 2: literal physiology, our human brains are not ready to handle

549
00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:39,720
Speaker 2: the amount of information that we're tasked with fielding every

550
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:43,560
Speaker 2: single day, and so cognitive dissonance is now like a

551
00:30:43,680 --> 00:30:47,120
Speaker 2: part of us at the Age of information because we're

552
00:30:47,160 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 2: just encountering too much information and it's really hard to

553
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 2: decide what's factual and what's trustworthy and what's not. In

554
00:30:54,920 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 2: the book, I go into the social science of gullibility

555
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 2: a little bit and system one versus system too thought processes.

556
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:03,320
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've talked about that at.

557
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 1: All on this show.

558
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:05,360
Speaker 3: What is that?

559
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 2: I talk about that a little bit in my MLM's

560
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:11,920
Speaker 2: Multi Level Marketing chapter when I talk about you know,

561
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 2: why do phrases like this is a once in a

562
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:17,760
Speaker 2: lifetime opportunity, you know, or in a full time income

563
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 2: with part time work, be the girl boss you were

564
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:22,680
Speaker 2: always meant to be? Why does that sound really scammy

565
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 2: for some people and sound like a fantastic idea to

566
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:29,280
Speaker 2: other people? A lot of that well, there was a

567
00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:31,800
Speaker 2: really complicated answer to that, But part of that has

568
00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 2: to do with the difference between system one and system

569
00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:39,000
Speaker 2: two thought processes, and to describe that in short, this

570
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 2: is like behaviorally economics, a system one thought process is

571
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:46,920
Speaker 2: like this really really old way of decision making left

572
00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 2: over from our ancient human ancestors, when it was really

573
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:54,520
Speaker 2: easy to determine whether something was true or false because

574
00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:56,880
Speaker 2: the only people that you ever interacted with in your

575
00:31:56,920 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 2: daily life for people you'd known forever, so like you know,

576
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 2: your literal tribe, like your family, your close neighbors. No

577
00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:07,479
Speaker 2: one was ever trying to dupe you or mislead you,

578
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:09,240
Speaker 2: or at least not in a sort of fake news

579
00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 2: type way, because you know, you knew them, and you

580
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:15,280
Speaker 2: could tell that they were lying if they were lying,

581
00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 2: based on face to face interaction, and so you were

582
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:22,640
Speaker 2: able to make really instinctive decisions about what was true

583
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:27,080
Speaker 2: and what wasn't. We still have those instincts left over

584
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 2: from our early ancestors when we were making decisions based

585
00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:33,600
Speaker 2: on lifelong face to face relationships. And so you know,

586
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:35,400
Speaker 2: when I hear like this is a once in a

587
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:38,120
Speaker 2: lifetime opportunity, I have like a system one response, and

588
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 2: I'm like, instinctively, that is a scam based on my

589
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:46,520
Speaker 2: background and my education and whatever. Nature versus nurture personalities

590
00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:49,840
Speaker 2: are complicated. But then there's a system too, thought process,

591
00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 2: which is a much newer development that's become quite useful

592
00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:59,560
Speaker 2: in the age of information and the Internet and people

593
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:03,720
Speaker 2: having anonymous communications about a million different things all the time,

594
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:07,040
Speaker 2: and a system too. Thought process is much more deliberative

595
00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:09,560
Speaker 2: and slow, and it allows you to, like, you know,

596
00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:11,360
Speaker 2: sit down and make a pros and cons list or

597
00:33:11,360 --> 00:33:15,240
Speaker 2: whatever you need to do. A thought terminating cliche will

598
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:19,320
Speaker 2: basically halt that system to thinking from moving forward.

599
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:22,600
Speaker 3: There is room for those things though too. Rite you know,

600
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:25,720
Speaker 3: at four am, when your mind just keeps going, isn't

601
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:28,800
Speaker 3: it sometimes okay to give yourself a thought ending like

602
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:30,560
Speaker 3: what will be?

603
00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:31,040
Speaker 1: Will be?

604
00:33:31,320 --> 00:33:34,080
Speaker 2: Oh, my God, of course. And you know, one of

605
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:36,480
Speaker 2: my favorite conversations that I had for the whole book

606
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 2: was with a jonestown survivor who, in a very self

607
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:43,320
Speaker 2: aware way, was like, yeah, I believe in brainwashing, but

608
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 2: I do my own brainwashing. I have to. She was like,

609
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:49,680
Speaker 2: I have to in order to get through hard things.

610
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:52,840
Speaker 2: She was like, you know, the news is terrible, I

611
00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:57,160
Speaker 2: have cancer. Like things suck, and you have to like

612
00:33:57,640 --> 00:34:00,440
Speaker 2: tell yourself things like everything is going to be okay

613
00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:03,000
Speaker 2: or everything happens for a reason in order to get

614
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:06,479
Speaker 2: through life. And there's nothing wrong with that, but you know,

615
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:09,560
Speaker 2: having that awareness and having a balance, like, here's my

616
00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:12,960
Speaker 2: whole thing, it's it's not I don't want people to

617
00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:17,160
Speaker 2: move through the world like paranoid and overly skeptical and cynical,

618
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 2: because I don't think I moved through the world that way.

619
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:23,360
Speaker 2: And what I try to communicate is that it's important

620
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:27,160
Speaker 2: to have this balance between skepticism and optimism, and that's

621
00:34:27,200 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 2: what some of the smartest thinkers on the planet have,

622
00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:33,800
Speaker 2: Like I read the work of this science writer named

623
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:38,680
Speaker 2: Michael Schrmer, who described how some of our brightest minds

624
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:42,560
Speaker 2: in history, like Carl Sagan, the renowned astronomer, when they

625
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:46,040
Speaker 2: take personality tests, they score off the charts in both

626
00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:52,600
Speaker 2: conscientiousness and openness. So they're at once not going to

627
00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:56,640
Speaker 2: believe every wild idea that crosses their desk or every

628
00:34:56,680 --> 00:35:00,239
Speaker 2: seemingly irrational idea that comes their way, but at the

629
00:35:00,239 --> 00:35:04,000
Speaker 2: same time they are open minded and curious and optimistic

630
00:35:04,120 --> 00:35:09,560
Speaker 2: enough to be open to the one off, kooky idea

631
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:12,120
Speaker 2: that might end up being true. So like Carl Sagan

632
00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:14,640
Speaker 2: back in the seventies was open to the idea of

633
00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 2: extraterrestrial life when that was a very like weird, kooky

634
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:21,840
Speaker 2: thing to believe, but he wasn't so credulous that he

635
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:24,520
Speaker 2: would entertain the idea of like UFO landings on Earth.

636
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:28,960
Speaker 2: So like it's important to maintain that balance between skepticism

637
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 2: and optimism. And something that I discovered in the book

638
00:35:31,719 --> 00:35:34,120
Speaker 2: is that like, oddly we have this myth, you know,

639
00:35:34,160 --> 00:35:36,440
Speaker 2: like prevailing wisdom will tell you that people who join

640
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:39,320
Speaker 2: cults and stay in cults are like desperate and naive

641
00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:41,839
Speaker 2: and stupid or like mentally ill or something like that.

642
00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:44,520
Speaker 2: But really, and I'm sure you know this. What almost

643
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:47,920
Speaker 2: every person that I talked to who not just joined,

644
00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:50,520
Speaker 2: but like stayed in what ended up being a dangerous

645
00:35:50,520 --> 00:35:52,359
Speaker 2: culture s group for a long time. But they all

646
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:56,400
Speaker 2: have in common is optimism, like an over abundance of idealism,

647
00:35:56,760 --> 00:36:01,800
Speaker 2: like the faith that these impossible promises could really be true.

648
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:04,359
Speaker 2: And as much as that optimism sort of hurt them,

649
00:36:04,719 --> 00:36:07,680
Speaker 2: it also allowed them to like move forward in their

650
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:11,680
Speaker 2: life after that horrible experience with like hope, you know,

651
00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:14,560
Speaker 2: And like that's how my dad is. Like my dad

652
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:18,080
Speaker 2: spent his teenage years in this awful situation, super oppressive

653
00:36:18,120 --> 00:36:21,959
Speaker 2: cultish group, and he was skeptical of it. He wasn't

654
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:24,680
Speaker 2: gonna let it take him. But at the same time,

655
00:36:24,719 --> 00:36:27,280
Speaker 2: he was optimistic for his future. He was like, Okay,

656
00:36:27,719 --> 00:36:30,799
Speaker 2: this is terrible, this is not ideal, but I'm going

657
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:32,279
Speaker 2: to get out of it, and I'm going to move

658
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:33,960
Speaker 2: past it, and I'm going to go to college and

659
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:36,320
Speaker 2: I'm going to figure out like how to make this work.

660
00:36:36,640 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, I think it's completely healthy to

661
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:44,359
Speaker 2: do your own quote unquote brainwashing. What's less healthy is

662
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:48,000
Speaker 2: when someone else is manipulating you without you know, you

663
00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:53,239
Speaker 2: understanding what's going on, without your consent, and without them

664
00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:55,200
Speaker 2: having your best interests in mind.

665
00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:59,439
Speaker 1: Right, And we are being manipulated all the time, which

666
00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:03,560
Speaker 1: obviously there's social media, obviously there's advertising, when we're being

667
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:06,600
Speaker 1: marketed products, and we're being marketed gurus, and we're being

668
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:09,560
Speaker 1: marketed yoga teachers, and we're you know, and then suddenly

669
00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:13,600
Speaker 1: we're at Teal Swan's workshop somewhere in South America. Oh

670
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:14,000
Speaker 1: my god.

671
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 2: I talk about I analyze Teal Swan a little bit

672
00:37:17,239 --> 00:37:20,440
Speaker 2: in the second part of my book because her use

673
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:25,719
Speaker 2: of language and her voice in particular is quite fascinating.

674
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:28,319
Speaker 2: That's a whole other thing. But a book about all

675
00:37:28,400 --> 00:37:31,600
Speaker 2: of the manipulative language that we encounter every single day

676
00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:35,680
Speaker 2: would be a million pages long. But this book just

677
00:37:35,719 --> 00:37:39,400
Speaker 2: sort of breaks down these like essential qualities of cultish

678
00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:43,680
Speaker 2: language that all cultish leaders from Jim Jones two Peloton

679
00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:48,040
Speaker 2: instructors have in common, and what to listen for and

680
00:37:48,080 --> 00:37:51,680
Speaker 2: like how to use this knowledge to determine how far

681
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:54,000
Speaker 2: you want your cultish membership to go, you know, like

682
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:55,959
Speaker 2: I don't want to live in the in a world

683
00:37:56,040 --> 00:38:00,160
Speaker 2: where we're all too afraid or paranoid or cynical to

684
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 2: take leaps of faith or to join groups to help

685
00:38:04,680 --> 00:38:08,040
Speaker 2: but our lives feel meaningful. Like we in the United

686
00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:11,440
Speaker 2: States are sorely lacking community. And that's part of the

687
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 2: reason why cultish groups are so you know, manifold here,

688
00:38:14,760 --> 00:38:19,800
Speaker 2: is because we don't have institutional community support, and so

689
00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:23,080
Speaker 2: you know, we reject mainstream government and healthcare and everything else,

690
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:26,239
Speaker 2: and we find these alternative groups that of some of

691
00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:28,040
Speaker 2: which are really healthy and some of which end up

692
00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:30,200
Speaker 2: being quite destructive. But I don't want to live in

693
00:38:30,239 --> 00:38:33,959
Speaker 2: a world where we can't seek out community on our own,

694
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:37,719
Speaker 2: or we can't find ourselves in unexpected places. But it's

695
00:38:37,800 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 2: just always about having that skeptical twinkle in the back

696
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:43,920
Speaker 2: of your brain that's like, Okay, there's like some level

697
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:46,319
Speaker 2: of make believe here. I want to go into this

698
00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:50,839
Speaker 2: with clear eyes, knowing that my identity just does not

699
00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:55,120
Speaker 2: come singularly from this guru, this belief system, this group,

700
00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:59,319
Speaker 2: but instead from the vast amalgam of experiences and group

701
00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:02,000
Speaker 2: affiliations that make up who I am. You know, I

702
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:04,120
Speaker 2: kind of think I sort of determined, like at the

703
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:06,839
Speaker 2: very very end of writing this book that like maybe

704
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:10,320
Speaker 2: the answer to avoiding a super fucked up cultish scenario

705
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:14,080
Speaker 2: is just to be a part of several cultish groups,

706
00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:16,160
Speaker 2: you know, like if that's your thing, if you're a

707
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:20,319
Speaker 2: communal person. And this Jones sound survivor that I described before,

708
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:23,279
Speaker 2: who said she did her own brainwashing, she Oh my god.

709
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:26,280
Speaker 2: The wild thing about her is that she survived Jonestown

710
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:29,080
Speaker 2: because she was in Georgetown that day. She like wasn't

711
00:39:29,120 --> 00:39:32,279
Speaker 2: in Jonestown the day of the massacre, so she like

712
00:39:32,840 --> 00:39:37,040
Speaker 2: narrowly escaped. And you'd think, like, oh, here's a second

713
00:39:37,120 --> 00:39:40,080
Speaker 2: chance at life. She'll probably never join another quote unquote

714
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:43,359
Speaker 2: socialist utopia ever again. But then immediately after she went

715
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:46,920
Speaker 2: and joined synanon, the very group that my dad was in.

716
00:39:47,320 --> 00:39:49,880
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I see that all the time people need

717
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 1: one group to join another. It's fascinating.

718
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:54,520
Speaker 2: I mean, it's like toxic relationships, right, It's like out

719
00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:56,560
Speaker 2: of the fire or out of the out of the

720
00:39:56,560 --> 00:39:58,200
Speaker 2: firing pan into the fryer.

721
00:39:58,239 --> 00:40:00,359
Speaker 1: What the fuck is how right?

722
00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:03,440
Speaker 2: That's out of the frying pan and into the fire.

723
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:06,560
Speaker 2: But yeah, but she was like, I'm a communalist, like,

724
00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:11,200
Speaker 2: I want so badly for it to be possible to

725
00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:16,120
Speaker 2: live in a place that's like what Jonestown was originally promised,

726
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 2: you know, this utopia outside of racism and classism and ableism.

727
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:22,400
Speaker 2: You know, I want that to exist. But it doesn't.

728
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:25,320
Speaker 2: So instead she was like, okay, after Sinnanaan, I was

729
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:29,480
Speaker 2: like fuck this. So instead she became a Quaker and

730
00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:33,759
Speaker 2: became involved in several social justice groups, different ones. You know,

731
00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:37,760
Speaker 2: she became an immigrants rights activist, she became an atheist.

732
00:40:37,760 --> 00:40:40,080
Speaker 2: That's not a group, but yeah, but anyway, her solution

733
00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:43,600
Speaker 2: was to join a bunch of different groups, all of which,

734
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:47,719
Speaker 2: you know, or each of which offered something that that

735
00:40:47,960 --> 00:40:51,840
Speaker 2: or those are those groups promised to offer you know, holistically.

736
00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:54,719
Speaker 2: And so I think maybe that's a solution. And that's

737
00:40:54,719 --> 00:40:56,760
Speaker 2: what a lot of people are doing, you know, as

738
00:40:56,960 --> 00:41:01,160
Speaker 2: as Americans, Like we're all creating our own religions now,

739
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:02,920
Speaker 2: like we're not just like, oh I'm a Catholic, I

740
00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:05,840
Speaker 2: go to mass blah blah blah. It's like everybody's religion.

741
00:41:06,480 --> 00:41:09,440
Speaker 2: And this is something that the writer Tara Isabella Burton

742
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:12,800
Speaker 2: has described. She has her new book out, Strange Rights,

743
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:15,279
Speaker 2: New religions for a godless world or something like that.

744
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:18,719
Speaker 2: But she talks about this group of contemporary seekers that

745
00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:23,279
Speaker 2: she calls the remixed, where they're not like less spiritual,

746
00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:27,359
Speaker 2: it's just they're less institutional about their spirituality. And so like,

747
00:41:27,640 --> 00:41:30,600
Speaker 2: we're now in a phase when spiritually minded people are

748
00:41:30,640 --> 00:41:33,239
Speaker 2: creating their own version of a religion where maybe you

749
00:41:33,320 --> 00:41:36,880
Speaker 2: like take a meditation class in the morning and do

750
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:39,799
Speaker 2: like a moon circle at night, and then go to

751
00:41:39,880 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 2: like ultra reform witchy Shabbat with your friends, you know,

752
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:47,040
Speaker 2: and like that's that's religion for pole now. And I

753
00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:49,279
Speaker 2: think that there's something healthy about that. But I think

754
00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:52,759
Speaker 2: it's when you start to like place way too much

755
00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:56,760
Speaker 2: faith into one group or one grew that shit gets shady.

756
00:41:57,480 --> 00:41:57,960
Speaker 3: Totally.

757
00:41:58,040 --> 00:42:00,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all about diversifying your So I was.

758
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 3: Just gonna ask, what's the most surprising thing you learned?

759
00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:06,400
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I was like shooketh by everything I learned,

760
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:09,279
Speaker 2: because the difference between writing words lut and writing this

761
00:42:09,360 --> 00:42:12,400
Speaker 2: book was that my first book was the topic I

762
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:15,360
Speaker 2: had studied in college. So when I was researching and

763
00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:18,319
Speaker 2: writing that book, it was mostly you know, refreshers on

764
00:42:18,400 --> 00:42:20,879
Speaker 2: things that I already knew, but this book was really

765
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:22,800
Speaker 2: fun and that I was just like, oh, I'm curious

766
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:25,279
Speaker 2: about this topic. I'm just gonna dive in and learn

767
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 2: everything I can. So like everything shocked me. I mean

768
00:42:28,440 --> 00:42:32,879
Speaker 2: I think that okay, I already talked about the optimism thing,

769
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:35,440
Speaker 2: like that threw me for a loop. I was like, whoa,

770
00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:37,800
Speaker 2: people who join and stay in cultish groups aren't desperate

771
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:41,400
Speaker 2: and naive and stupid, They're just too idealistic. That's nuts,

772
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:44,320
Speaker 2: Like oh no, I mean I was quite humbled because

773
00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:46,840
Speaker 2: I always thought like, oh, I'm such a skeptical person,

774
00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:49,880
Speaker 2: like I would never end up in, you know, a

775
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 2: dangerous cultish group. But it's like, oh, but I have

776
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:57,800
Speaker 2: been in toxic one on one relationships which are very similar,

777
00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:02,160
Speaker 2: just on a smaller scale. And my optimism as a

778
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:05,800
Speaker 2: person that you know, all the all those human reasoning

779
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:08,920
Speaker 2: flaws that we have, like confirmation bias and sunk cost fallacy,

780
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:12,120
Speaker 2: like all of those things that contribute to keeping people

781
00:43:12,120 --> 00:43:15,480
Speaker 2: in cultish groups totally kept me in a toxic relationship

782
00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:16,200
Speaker 2: for a long time.

783
00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:17,680
Speaker 1: So I am girl.

784
00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:20,800
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean I was humbled by that knowledge.

785
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:24,319
Speaker 2: But the other thing that I was humbled by was

786
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:27,640
Speaker 2: reading the work of this guy, Michael Schermer, this science writer,

787
00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:31,680
Speaker 2: atheist dude, who was talking about how, you know, we

788
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:35,880
Speaker 2: have this culture wide idea that people who are less

789
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:39,680
Speaker 2: educated or you know, less smart are more likely to

790
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:45,719
Speaker 2: believe in weird, cultish, superstitious ideas. But what scholars and

791
00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:49,720
Speaker 2: researchers into this topic have found is that smart people

792
00:43:49,800 --> 00:43:53,399
Speaker 2: are not less likely to believe in weird ideas. It's

793
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:56,320
Speaker 2: just that the type of weird ideas that they gravitate

794
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:58,960
Speaker 2: towards are a little bit different. So while people with

795
00:43:59,320 --> 00:44:02,520
Speaker 2: lower education levels or lower abilities with cognitive reasoning or

796
00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:04,680
Speaker 2: whatever it is, might be more likely to believe in

797
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:09,520
Speaker 2: things like UFO landings or satanic possession or ghost hauntings,

798
00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:12,640
Speaker 2: people with the highest levels of education are more likely

799
00:44:12,680 --> 00:44:15,360
Speaker 2: than anyone else to believe in New age ideas like

800
00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:18,880
Speaker 2: the power of the mind to heal your cancer or

801
00:44:18,880 --> 00:44:21,120
Speaker 2: something like that, which is no less weird and no

802
00:44:21,239 --> 00:44:24,600
Speaker 2: less superstitious. It's just that it's a belief system that's

803
00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:28,880
Speaker 2: attributed to this more educated group of people. And he

804
00:44:28,960 --> 00:44:31,759
Speaker 2: also said that it's not that smart people are less

805
00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:34,880
Speaker 2: likely to believe in weird ideas, it's that they're better

806
00:44:34,960 --> 00:44:37,919
Speaker 2: at defending their weird ideas that they arrived at for

807
00:44:38,239 --> 00:44:39,920
Speaker 2: non smart reasons.

808
00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:43,359
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, I mean everybody on earth is living a

809
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 3: very weird idea right now.

810
00:44:45,640 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 2: Oh my god, literally, like because beliefs aren't nobody like

811
00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:51,520
Speaker 2: sits down and creates a pros and cons list for

812
00:44:51,640 --> 00:44:53,640
Speaker 2: every single belief that they hold. And I'm not just

813
00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:56,360
Speaker 2: talking about superstitious beliefs. I'm talking about beliefs as simple

814
00:44:56,400 --> 00:44:59,399
Speaker 2: as like the best way to clean a colander. By

815
00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:02,160
Speaker 2: the way, you have any tips on how.

816
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:03,800
Speaker 1: To clean up girl, I have zero.

817
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:06,360
Speaker 2: But I'm just saying, like, you know, we have beliefs

818
00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:11,239
Speaker 2: about everything, like beliefs about romantic relationships, beliefs about like

819
00:45:11,280 --> 00:45:13,480
Speaker 2: the best way to pursue a career. Like we have

820
00:45:13,840 --> 00:45:19,640
Speaker 2: beliefs based on bullshit and not reason about everything, and

821
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 2: smart people have really cuckoo beliefs about all kinds of things.

822
00:45:24,680 --> 00:45:27,520
Speaker 3: Well, I have one more question. Okay, so do you

823
00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:31,080
Speaker 3: think people on the left need to be finding information

824
00:45:31,239 --> 00:45:35,160
Speaker 3: from the right to also just be absorbing every day?

825
00:45:35,360 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 2: Oh my god, of course, like, if for no other reason,

826
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:41,319
Speaker 2: just to see what other people think, because and I

827
00:45:41,440 --> 00:45:45,560
Speaker 2: do this like in incognito mode whenever whenever a current

828
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:48,640
Speaker 2: event or political event happens, my instinct is to go

829
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:51,440
Speaker 2: to incognito mode and see what Fox News is saying.

830
00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:56,439
Speaker 2: Not because that's my news source of choice, but because, like, okay,

831
00:45:56,480 --> 00:46:00,960
Speaker 2: confirmation bias is so powerful, and no one can avoid

832
00:46:01,080 --> 00:46:04,279
Speaker 2: confirmation bias. Like not even scientists can avoid the power

833
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:08,279
Speaker 2: of confirmation bias, or the propensity to look for and

834
00:46:08,640 --> 00:46:12,800
Speaker 2: believe and remember information that validates what you already believe

835
00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:18,440
Speaker 2: in disregard information that doesn't. But I think, like algorithms,

836
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:23,880
Speaker 2: internet algorithms, and social media algorithms, the ultimate cult leaders

837
00:46:24,880 --> 00:46:27,960
Speaker 2: thrive on the power of confirmation bias to keep people

838
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:31,160
Speaker 2: using their apps or whatever the fuck. Like the reason

839
00:46:31,200 --> 00:46:35,120
Speaker 2: why people go into QAnon rabbit holes is because, like

840
00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:38,560
Speaker 2: the algorithms are like, ooh, this person is interested in this,

841
00:46:38,719 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 2: Let me feed them an even more extreme thing. Let

842
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:45,640
Speaker 2: me feed them like an even more like fascinating quack

843
00:46:45,840 --> 00:46:48,799
Speaker 2: fucked up video that will like peak their interest and

844
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:51,480
Speaker 2: keep them using this app for thirty minutes longer, whatever

845
00:46:51,480 --> 00:46:54,359
Speaker 2: the fuck. So I think, like, if you go down

846
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:57,640
Speaker 2: a rabbit hole of things that you want to believe

847
00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:02,319
Speaker 2: too deep, then you're gonna find yourself in a cultish hole,

848
00:47:02,600 --> 00:47:06,080
Speaker 2: and I think the antidote to that is like diversifying

849
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:09,520
Speaker 2: your resources and just being aware that, like, people believe

850
00:47:09,560 --> 00:47:12,320
Speaker 2: a lot of different shit, and if you let yourself

851
00:47:12,520 --> 00:47:14,720
Speaker 2: be in like this bubble or be in this rabbit

852
00:47:14,760 --> 00:47:17,440
Speaker 2: hole or whatever, like, you're only going to become a

853
00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:19,200
Speaker 2: more extremist version of yourself.

854
00:47:19,560 --> 00:47:23,560
Speaker 1: Right, No one is exempt, even slash maybe especially when

855
00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:27,319
Speaker 1: our intentions are positive. I think if we assume that

856
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:31,280
Speaker 1: because we're our intentions are good, that means our sources

857
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:31,719
Speaker 1: are right.

858
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:36,000
Speaker 2: Oh, nobody's intention Nobody feels that their intentions are purer

859
00:47:36,040 --> 00:47:38,480
Speaker 2: than QAnon people. I mean they literally think that they

860
00:47:38,520 --> 00:47:44,319
Speaker 2: are undoing a satanic ring of pedophiles. Like, right, that's

861
00:47:44,360 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 2: like the noblest thing theoretically, right, But it's just garbage

862
00:47:49,719 --> 00:47:55,080
Speaker 2: and a lie, like so much of religion. But okay, anyways,

863
00:47:55,120 --> 00:47:58,480
Speaker 2: but yeah, Like, I mean, you're when your intentions are

864
00:47:58,520 --> 00:48:02,840
Speaker 2: really passionate and I really believe that what you're doing

865
00:48:03,080 --> 00:48:06,040
Speaker 2: is the only way to do something, and that the

866
00:48:06,120 --> 00:48:09,200
Speaker 2: guru above you has all the answers that nobody else has,

867
00:48:09,640 --> 00:48:12,000
Speaker 2: even if your intentions are positive, even and especially if

868
00:48:12,000 --> 00:48:16,320
Speaker 2: your intentions are positive, that's a recipe for fanatical, zealous

869
00:48:16,440 --> 00:48:17,960
Speaker 2: extremist disaster.

870
00:48:18,719 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 1: Totally, totally I see. I mean, you see it so

871
00:48:21,160 --> 00:48:25,240
Speaker 1: much on Twitter, obviously, but like a sensational news story,

872
00:48:25,239 --> 00:48:27,680
Speaker 1: a sensational tweet, and you're like, well, these people are

873
00:48:27,719 --> 00:48:30,080
Speaker 1: the good people, so they would never mislead me. But

874
00:48:30,120 --> 00:48:32,680
Speaker 1: then when you actually go look at it, sometimes the

875
00:48:32,680 --> 00:48:35,239
Speaker 1: truth is a little bit more complicated. I feel like

876
00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:37,840
Speaker 1: it's just so important to be aware of the truth.

877
00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:40,319
Speaker 2: Is always complicated, Like we don't want to think that,

878
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:44,200
Speaker 2: And that's why conspiracy theories are so become so popular

879
00:48:44,360 --> 00:48:48,360
Speaker 2: and are so manifold. Is because conspira well, there are

880
00:48:48,360 --> 00:48:51,840
Speaker 2: a lot of reasons, but conspiracy theories offer simple answers

881
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:55,719
Speaker 2: to really complex questions. And we love simple answers. I mean,

882
00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:58,160
Speaker 2: not to fund to put her on blast, but my

883
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:02,400
Speaker 2: boyfriend's mom literally says is that every medical ailment that

884
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:05,799
Speaker 2: he has is because of stress. Like how simple would

885
00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:09,799
Speaker 2: that be if you could cure all your random, complex,

886
00:49:10,160 --> 00:49:13,279
Speaker 2: annoying medical ailments by just becoming less stressed, you know

887
00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:16,759
Speaker 2: what I mean. Like, we don't like complex answers, but

888
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:21,480
Speaker 2: unfortunately answers are normally complex. The good news is that

889
00:49:21,560 --> 00:49:25,000
Speaker 2: it's not all of our jobs to answer the all

890
00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:27,400
Speaker 2: of the complex questions in the world. You know, we

891
00:49:27,520 --> 00:49:29,440
Speaker 2: just need to be fucking nice to each other and

892
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:30,360
Speaker 2: like live our lives.

893
00:49:30,760 --> 00:49:31,479
Speaker 1: That would be nice.

894
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:34,200
Speaker 3: Oh that's interesting, Amanda. Yeah.

895
00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:37,520
Speaker 1: I want to just real quick go back to Robert

896
00:49:37,560 --> 00:49:41,040
Speaker 1: Lifton because he has because we were talking about that,

897
00:49:41,520 --> 00:49:43,920
Speaker 1: you know how there isn't really a checklist for what

898
00:49:43,960 --> 00:49:46,319
Speaker 1: makes a cult and what doesn't. He technically does have

899
00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:49,439
Speaker 1: a checklist. Yeah, so I just want to like touch

900
00:49:49,480 --> 00:49:51,920
Speaker 1: on that real quick. There he has his eight criteria

901
00:49:52,120 --> 00:49:53,320
Speaker 1: for thought reform.

902
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:55,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my god. So many people have come up

903
00:49:55,880 --> 00:49:59,719
Speaker 2: with checklists. But I think it's it's, you know, just

904
00:49:59,760 --> 00:50:02,080
Speaker 2: a other piece of evidence that there really is no

905
00:50:02,719 --> 00:50:05,759
Speaker 2: hard and fast scientific way to define a cult. That

906
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:09,440
Speaker 2: everybody has different criteria. That's not to say that some

907
00:50:09,640 --> 00:50:14,520
Speaker 2: groups aren't super destructive and use you know, different systematic

908
00:50:14,600 --> 00:50:18,319
Speaker 2: techniques to make that destruction possible, totally. I just think

909
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:21,840
Speaker 2: that labeling these groups a cult is like not the

910
00:50:21,880 --> 00:50:25,480
Speaker 2: most specific or effective way to describe their danger.

911
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:26,759
Speaker 1: Right right right?

912
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:27,040
Speaker 3: Yeah.

913
00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 1: I think for me, yes, the checklists or frameworks have

914
00:50:30,600 --> 00:50:33,799
Speaker 1: been historically subjective, and they very slightly but I just

915
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:35,479
Speaker 1: want to shout out there. Actually is a new study

916
00:50:35,520 --> 00:50:38,080
Speaker 1: that Steve has done that analyzes them all and measures

917
00:50:38,120 --> 00:50:44,080
Speaker 1: the most prominent overlapping characteristics of authoritarian control, specifically, which

918
00:50:44,120 --> 00:50:45,840
Speaker 1: is when a group that may or may not be

919
00:50:45,880 --> 00:50:48,120
Speaker 1: called a cult actually you know, takes the turn into

920
00:50:48,120 --> 00:50:51,319
Speaker 1: harmful obviously, but I think there's a distinction for me

921
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:55,320
Speaker 1: between a group that maybe has some language and a

922
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:59,160
Speaker 1: group that actively has a leader abusing their power. And

923
00:50:59,200 --> 00:51:01,600
Speaker 1: I think that's where the line. And for something like

924
00:51:01,640 --> 00:51:05,719
Speaker 1: AA too, obviously, I'm sure it's totally experienced dependent, but

925
00:51:05,760 --> 00:51:08,600
Speaker 1: because there isn't one single leader at the top who's

926
00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:12,000
Speaker 1: controlling the lives of the people, it helps me get

927
00:51:12,040 --> 00:51:14,359
Speaker 1: more of a benevolent organization for sure.

928
00:51:14,400 --> 00:51:18,160
Speaker 2: And I mean, like Stephen Hassan has his influence continuum,

929
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:20,319
Speaker 2: and I think that's an important thing to keep in mind.

930
00:51:20,360 --> 00:51:22,960
Speaker 2: It's like everything in life is a spectrum. That's like

931
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:27,160
Speaker 2: the Big the Big Awakening of twenty twenty or whatever.

932
00:51:27,239 --> 00:51:30,160
Speaker 2: The twenty first century is that everything from gender to

933
00:51:30,200 --> 00:51:33,960
Speaker 2: cult is a fucking spectrum. And I'm actually developing my

934
00:51:34,080 --> 00:51:38,719
Speaker 2: own Culty podcast right now, and it's it's it's more

935
00:51:38,760 --> 00:51:42,520
Speaker 2: like pop culture cult. We're exploring the the end of

936
00:51:42,560 --> 00:51:46,680
Speaker 2: the influence continuum. That's not like the nexium jonestown level,

937
00:51:46,760 --> 00:51:49,680
Speaker 2: but the sort of pop culture cult side of things

938
00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:53,240
Speaker 2: or the Instagram cult side of things, like what really

939
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:55,080
Speaker 2: is a cult? Or like we're all in a cult?

940
00:51:55,080 --> 00:51:59,200
Speaker 2: How bad is yours? And we've come up with our

941
00:51:59,239 --> 00:52:03,239
Speaker 2: own little way of describing the cult spectrum. So we

942
00:52:03,320 --> 00:52:06,359
Speaker 2: have these three categories, and there are different criteria that

943
00:52:06,480 --> 00:52:09,279
Speaker 2: might put a cult in one category versus the other.

944
00:52:09,360 --> 00:52:11,840
Speaker 2: So there's like a live your life category where it's like,

945
00:52:11,920 --> 00:52:15,080
Speaker 2: yeah it's culte. Maybe there's you know, this quality in

946
00:52:15,120 --> 00:52:17,360
Speaker 2: that quality, but it doesn't meet all six criteria. So

947
00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:19,279
Speaker 2: really like it's a live your life level, and then

948
00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:21,280
Speaker 2: there's a watch your back level, which is in the middle,

949
00:52:21,400 --> 00:52:23,279
Speaker 2: and then there's a get the fuck out level, which

950
00:52:23,320 --> 00:52:25,000
Speaker 2: is like the most extreme and you have to eat

951
00:52:25,040 --> 00:52:26,480
Speaker 2: all six criteria or whatever.

952
00:52:26,719 --> 00:52:29,719
Speaker 1: Love it so cool, So Amanda, tell us where we

953
00:52:29,760 --> 00:52:30,640
Speaker 1: can find your book.

954
00:52:30,760 --> 00:52:34,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, so my first book, Wordslut is now available wherever

955
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:37,840
Speaker 2: books are is old and hardback, paperback, audiobook, ebook, whatever.

956
00:52:38,480 --> 00:52:41,680
Speaker 2: Cult Ish The Language of Fanaticism is coming out not

957
00:52:41,800 --> 00:52:45,480
Speaker 2: until June fifteenth, twenty twenty one. It is technically available

958
00:52:45,480 --> 00:52:47,920
Speaker 2: now for pre order at Barnes and Noble and the

959
00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:52,839
Speaker 2: bad site Amazon, But I would suggest, I mean, if

960
00:52:52,920 --> 00:52:56,680
Speaker 2: you preordered it Amazon, I won't tell. But if you

961
00:52:56,719 --> 00:52:59,120
Speaker 2: want to wait so that you can preorder it at

962
00:52:59,280 --> 00:53:02,400
Speaker 2: from your local indie or from bookshop dot org, that

963
00:53:02,440 --> 00:53:05,760
Speaker 2: would be great. But in the meantime, you can follow

964
00:53:05,800 --> 00:53:09,440
Speaker 2: along as I post fun languagey culty things on my

965
00:53:09,600 --> 00:53:13,839
Speaker 2: Instagram at Amanda Underscore Montel and then my podcast, which

966
00:53:13,880 --> 00:53:16,959
Speaker 2: is called Sounds Like a Cult coming from Pushkin, will

967
00:53:17,040 --> 00:53:19,120
Speaker 2: hopefully be premiering early next year.

968
00:53:19,239 --> 00:53:21,880
Speaker 1: Cannot wait for all of that. Thanks so much for

969
00:53:21,960 --> 00:53:26,200
Speaker 1: coming on, Thanks for having me. Well, that was informative,

970
00:53:26,480 --> 00:53:29,319
Speaker 1: very informative. It's so much stuff I've never even thought

971
00:53:29,320 --> 00:53:32,560
Speaker 1: of before. And I'm a writer, so I probably should

972
00:53:32,600 --> 00:53:35,520
Speaker 1: be a little bit more conscious of words, you know, Yahma,

973
00:53:36,320 --> 00:53:41,520
Speaker 1: I mean same. I want to get better at identifying

974
00:53:41,800 --> 00:53:46,799
Speaker 1: the sort of underlying message behind words and the subtext

975
00:53:46,840 --> 00:53:49,600
Speaker 1: behind the words. Yeah, I mean, I do have a

976
00:53:49,640 --> 00:53:52,800
Speaker 1: short film that is literally about subtexts and the things

977
00:53:52,840 --> 00:53:55,640
Speaker 1: that we don't say when we are speaking to each other.

978
00:53:55,880 --> 00:53:59,760
Speaker 1: But I think there's a way to sharpen the skill

979
00:53:59,840 --> 00:54:04,439
Speaker 1: of identifying intention. Yes, that's something that I really want

980
00:54:04,440 --> 00:54:06,719
Speaker 1: to do, and even just as a skill in relationships

981
00:54:06,760 --> 00:54:09,000
Speaker 1: and so forth. I mean, I feel like I tend

982
00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:12,359
Speaker 1: to get stuck on the words themselves, and like, even

983
00:54:12,400 --> 00:54:14,600
Speaker 1: though I sense that there's some kind of other emotional

984
00:54:14,760 --> 00:54:18,920
Speaker 1: dynamic happening, it's only later where I'm like, oh, the

985
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:22,680
Speaker 1: words weren't the point. It was this other thing.

986
00:54:22,880 --> 00:54:25,400
Speaker 3: Yep, no dynamics left unturned.

987
00:54:26,480 --> 00:54:28,839
Speaker 1: So because there's not a specific group to talk about

988
00:54:28,840 --> 00:54:33,560
Speaker 1: this week, I found a passage right on a website

989
00:54:34,120 --> 00:54:37,799
Speaker 1: from a man named I don't know if I'm gonna

990
00:54:37,800 --> 00:54:41,480
Speaker 1: say it right, huh, Benton Hoe Masorrow Okay, who is

991
00:54:41,680 --> 00:54:49,600
Speaker 1: an Instagram spiritual leader, and he is fucking fascinating. He

992
00:54:49,640 --> 00:54:54,399
Speaker 1: does these videos where he just stares into camera for

993
00:54:54,600 --> 00:54:58,279
Speaker 1: like a long time because he's trying. It's like he's

994
00:54:58,280 --> 00:55:01,120
Speaker 1: like trying to connect with you, and it's this weird

995
00:55:01,760 --> 00:55:04,520
Speaker 1: hypnosis shit or something. But he has all of these

996
00:55:04,560 --> 00:55:07,920
Speaker 1: followers anyway. So here's the quote. This is like a

997
00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:10,560
Speaker 1: selling point on his website. This is like an in

998
00:55:10,600 --> 00:55:14,759
Speaker 1: an infographic about him. If people can't hear you are

999
00:55:14,840 --> 00:55:19,200
Speaker 1: that one, infinite, absolute, formless perfection beyond all experience. I

1000
00:55:19,280 --> 00:55:22,240
Speaker 1: move on to you are pure awareness. If they cannot

1001
00:55:22,239 --> 00:55:24,920
Speaker 1: hear that, I suggest they focus on being present beyond

1002
00:55:24,920 --> 00:55:28,040
Speaker 1: their ordinary thoughts. If they cannot hear that, I suggest

1003
00:55:28,040 --> 00:55:31,319
Speaker 1: they discover their calling slash purpose and align everything to it.

1004
00:55:31,719 --> 00:55:34,240
Speaker 1: If they cannot hear that, I say they can create

1005
00:55:34,280 --> 00:55:37,680
Speaker 1: whatever they want. If they cannot hear that, I am

1006
00:55:37,760 --> 00:55:40,560
Speaker 1: forced by their free will to hand what feels like

1007
00:55:40,640 --> 00:55:44,719
Speaker 1: my children back to the sinister hypnotists who have curated

1008
00:55:44,880 --> 00:55:48,480
Speaker 1: mass ignorance for millennia. I release them with a blessing,

1009
00:55:49,160 --> 00:55:51,760
Speaker 1: an armor of love and light, and a new seed

1010
00:55:51,800 --> 00:55:54,600
Speaker 1: planted in their being to awaken them over time.

1011
00:55:55,760 --> 00:55:59,840
Speaker 3: Okay, so I am assuming your question is going to

1012
00:55:59,840 --> 00:56:02,839
Speaker 3: be does this resonate with me.

1013
00:56:07,880 --> 00:56:11,600
Speaker 1: Based on what you now know about cultist language?

1014
00:56:11,800 --> 00:56:12,000
Speaker 2: Right?

1015
00:56:13,160 --> 00:56:16,960
Speaker 3: I will say, Okay, It's one interesting thing about birthdays

1016
00:56:17,000 --> 00:56:19,879
Speaker 3: and getting older is that you start to notice that

1017
00:56:19,960 --> 00:56:24,000
Speaker 3: cliches are super fucking true. You know, things that sound

1018
00:56:24,160 --> 00:56:28,319
Speaker 3: so dumb, like giving is better than receiving, and you're

1019
00:56:28,360 --> 00:56:30,839
Speaker 3: like okay, and then you get a little older and

1020
00:56:30,840 --> 00:56:32,880
Speaker 3: you're like, oh fuck, that's what that meant, you know?

1021
00:56:33,360 --> 00:56:34,319
Speaker 1: So right, right?

1022
00:56:34,520 --> 00:56:39,720
Speaker 3: I do understand some cliches as being like fundamental truths.

1023
00:56:39,719 --> 00:56:42,600
Speaker 3: That you just have to live a little bit to understand.

1024
00:56:43,520 --> 00:56:46,360
Speaker 3: He had me there for a moment, but then towards

1025
00:56:46,400 --> 00:56:50,480
Speaker 3: the end he just he's definitely, in my opinion, stuck

1026
00:56:50,480 --> 00:56:54,400
Speaker 3: in his ego. And that last part was super fucking weird.

1027
00:56:54,640 --> 00:56:54,880
Speaker 3: I know.

1028
00:56:54,960 --> 00:56:59,359
Speaker 1: So it goes from you are pure awareness, okay, sure, yeah, fine, right,

1029
00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:03,320
Speaker 1: then being present behind your beyond your ordinary thoughts, sure okay,

1030
00:57:03,520 --> 00:57:07,320
Speaker 1: cool meditation, whatever, discover their calling slash purpose and align

1031
00:57:07,320 --> 00:57:09,600
Speaker 1: everything to it. That starts to get weird for me

1032
00:57:09,640 --> 00:57:11,800
Speaker 1: because I'm like calling, I don't. I don't like the

1033
00:57:11,800 --> 00:57:17,520
Speaker 1: word calling that implies a predestined Yeah, I don't that

1034
00:57:17,520 --> 00:57:19,400
Speaker 1: that bugs me. But then if they cannot hear that,

1035
00:57:19,440 --> 00:57:21,640
Speaker 1: I say, they can create whatever they want. I don't

1036
00:57:21,640 --> 00:57:24,680
Speaker 1: know what that means, no one, That's a generic, meaningless sentence.

1037
00:57:25,080 --> 00:57:30,120
Speaker 1: But okay, but then I am forced by their free

1038
00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:34,600
Speaker 1: will to hand what feels like my children back to

1039
00:57:34,680 --> 00:57:38,320
Speaker 1: these sinister hypnotists, all right, who have curated mass ignorance

1040
00:57:38,320 --> 00:57:42,480
Speaker 1: for millennia. Sinister hypnotists. You lost me there, man, Yeah,

1041
00:57:42,600 --> 00:57:43,040
Speaker 1: lost me?

1042
00:57:43,600 --> 00:57:45,160
Speaker 3: What the fuck?

1043
00:57:45,440 --> 00:57:49,560
Speaker 1: So that what that is saying? Sinister hypnotists? Yeah, who

1044
00:57:49,600 --> 00:57:52,320
Speaker 1: have curated mass ignorance for millennia. In other words, if

1045
00:57:52,360 --> 00:57:55,600
Speaker 1: you will not follow what I am saying, yeah, you

1046
00:57:55,640 --> 00:57:59,520
Speaker 1: are following sinister hypnotists AKA I am the only one

1047
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:02,880
Speaker 1: who has the answer. AKA, those people are bad. I

1048
00:58:02,880 --> 00:58:06,720
Speaker 1: am good. Follow me only uh huh. I release them

1049
00:58:06,720 --> 00:58:08,840
Speaker 1: with a blessing and armor of love and light. I

1050
00:58:08,920 --> 00:58:11,480
Speaker 1: release them as though you have the power to release.

1051
00:58:11,240 --> 00:58:14,440
Speaker 3: Them, my brother, oh man, oh man, just my.

1052
00:58:14,520 --> 00:58:17,840
Speaker 1: Personal opinion, but this is extremely culty agreed.

1053
00:58:18,160 --> 00:58:19,479
Speaker 3: I would not join his cult.

1054
00:58:19,640 --> 00:58:22,240
Speaker 1: But if you only heard those first three sentences though.

1055
00:58:22,200 --> 00:58:24,080
Speaker 3: I mean, if I only heard those first three sentences,

1056
00:58:24,080 --> 00:58:27,880
Speaker 3: I'd be like, Yeah, that's truth to me, awareness behind

1057
00:58:27,920 --> 00:58:29,280
Speaker 3: your thoughts. Duh.

1058
00:58:29,360 --> 00:58:31,800
Speaker 1: I feel like he would be someone you would maybe

1059
00:58:32,280 --> 00:58:34,280
Speaker 1: at first glance, be into.

1060
00:58:34,400 --> 00:58:35,040
Speaker 3: Yeah for sure.

1061
00:58:35,360 --> 00:58:38,200
Speaker 1: Anyway, that's the guy. All Right, we did it.

1062
00:58:38,240 --> 00:58:40,160
Speaker 3: Whoh this episode is amazing.

1063
00:58:40,640 --> 00:58:41,200
Speaker 1: I love it.

1064
00:58:41,280 --> 00:58:41,760
Speaker 3: I love it.

1065
00:58:42,400 --> 00:58:44,800
Speaker 1: Hey, Happy new Year in two days.

1066
00:58:45,000 --> 00:58:48,840
Speaker 3: Absolutely cannot believe it's already the new year. Happy new year, everybody.

1067
00:58:48,920 --> 00:58:52,000
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for listening to us in twenty twenty.

1068
00:58:52,240 --> 00:58:56,840
Speaker 1: Here's to twenty twenty one. Yes, ma'am, should we name,

1069
00:58:57,280 --> 00:58:58,760
Speaker 1: like do we have you to get a name for

1070
00:58:58,840 --> 00:58:59,480
Speaker 1: our listeners.

1071
00:59:00,360 --> 00:59:04,280
Speaker 3: That's a great point. Any suggestions would be much appreciated,

1072
00:59:04,640 --> 00:59:08,200
Speaker 3: and as always remember to follow your gut, watch out

1073
00:59:08,240 --> 00:59:13,560
Speaker 3: for red flag, and never ever trusty B