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Speaker 1: Please be aware this episode contains scenes of gore and mutilation.

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Speaker 1: Parental discretion is advised. For many, the idea of joining

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Speaker 1: a cult might seem almost as remote as the prospect

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Speaker 1: of going to space. Nonetheless, there is something undeniably magnetic

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Speaker 1: about the notion of cults. A testament to our fascination

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Speaker 1: with them can be seen in the popularity of cult

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Speaker 1: related documentaries and news stories, which we devour with the

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Speaker 1: same dark enthusiasm we have for serial killers and true crime.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps we feel drawn to them like the way some

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Speaker 1: people who, despite being afraid of heights, find themselves drawn

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Speaker 1: to the edge of cliffs, not because they fear they

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Speaker 1: will fall, but because they fear they might jump. In French,

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Speaker 1: they call it lapel d vide, the call of the void.

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Speaker 1: I would never join a cult, we might think, congratulating

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Speaker 1: ourselves on our own relative lack of gullibility. I would

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Speaker 1: never be caught under the spell of a megalomaniac like

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Speaker 1: Jim Jones or David Koresh, we casually reassure ourselves. But

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Speaker 1: what if submitting to cultish behavior was about more than

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Speaker 1: simply following a charismatic leader. What if all it took

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Speaker 1: for someone to be considered a member of a cult

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Speaker 1: was to unthinkingly submit themselves to prevailing orthodoxy, to something

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Speaker 1: we might otherwise take for granted as normal. In Shirley

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Speaker 1: Jackson's classic nineteen forty eight horo novella The Lottery, residents

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Speaker 1: from an unnamed fictional village in New England practice and

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Speaker 1: annual ritual. Despite all other aspects of their existence. Appearing

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Speaker 1: friendly and mundane, the ritual betrays a sinister adherence to

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Speaker 1: group think at the heart of society. I won't spoil

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Speaker 1: the story for anyone who hasn't read it, but needless

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Speaker 1: to say it is well worth the read. James Demonico's

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Speaker 1: twenty thirteen dystopian thriller The Purge deals with a similar concept,

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Speaker 1: as does Robert Hardy's nineteen seventy three folk horror masterpiece

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Speaker 1: The wicker Man. What makes the artistic representations of cult

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Speaker 1: like behavior such as these so terrifying isn't that we're

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Speaker 1: forced to imagine a world in which their scenarios are

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Speaker 1: alien or outlandish. On the contrary, each story heightens the

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Speaker 1: normalcy of everyday life to emphasize how plausible our collective

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Speaker 1: descent into violence actually is, how the maintenance of our

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Speaker 1: liberal way of life in the Western world might ultimately

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Speaker 1: require it, and how each of us is complicit in

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Speaker 1: turning a blind eye to its prevalence. In her twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty one book Cultish, The Language of Fanaticism, American linguist

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Speaker 1: Amanda Montell describes the twenty first century utilization of cult

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Speaker 1: like language to inspire consumer devotion to everything from multi

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Speaker 1: level marketing schemes like Amwaycore, Avon, and Neutralite to fitness

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Speaker 1: societies like Soul Cycle, CrossFit, and Peloton. She suggests that

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Speaker 1: the prevalence of online communities has facilitated the spread of

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Speaker 1: fringe ideas and conspiracy theories like QAnon. What all these

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Speaker 1: groups seem to have in common is the promise of

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Speaker 1: individual betterment through adherence to an ideology, while frequently perpetrating

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Speaker 1: financial manipula on its members at the same time. Ultimately,

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Speaker 1: Montell's thesis is that we shouldn't be so quick to

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Speaker 1: judge when we hear stories about people's involvement with cults.

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Speaker 1: Many of us already adhere to cult like behavior without

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Speaker 1: even realizing it, and have the potential to be swindled

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Speaker 1: just as comprehensively as anyone else. More alarming is the

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Speaker 1: fact that once we've already drunk the cool aid, as

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Speaker 1: they say, Montell shows that escalation can lead seamlessly to

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Speaker 1: acts of self sabotage, the committing of crimes, and even murder.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes the cult has insinuated itself so completely into the

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Speaker 1: life of its subject that it isn't immediately clear whether

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Speaker 1: a crime has been committed at all. The line between

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Speaker 1: what's acceptable and what constitutes strange or abnormal behavior becomes

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Speaker 1: so blurred that the perarameters of reality itself seemed to

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Speaker 1: shift and upbraid. For one South Korean man in twenty eleven,

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Speaker 1: this lack of clarity appears to have led to one

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Speaker 1: of the most baffling acts of self mutilation in recent history.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard McLean Smith. By

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Speaker 1: all accounts, Kim John Bong was a quiet, unassuming man,

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Speaker 1: someone who shied away from the trappings of the modern world.

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Speaker 1: He worked hard and cared for his family, but always

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Speaker 1: seemed to be yearning for something more, as though he

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Speaker 1: were waiting for something meaningful to save him from the

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Speaker 1: unrelenting grind of life. Something cosmic and world shaking something

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Speaker 1: that might write him into history, he hoped. Many Koreans

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Speaker 1: of the fifty eight year olds generation, Kim's upbringing was

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Speaker 1: marred by political strife and civil unrest. Kim himself was

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Speaker 1: born in nineteen fifty three, in the immediate aftermath of

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Speaker 1: the Korean War, when the division of the country into

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Speaker 1: North and South produced a psychosocial sense of displacement that

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Speaker 1: would take years to rectify. Against this backdrop, Kim's childhood

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Speaker 1: and early adulthood would have played out under the shadow

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Speaker 1: of military coups, presidential assassinations, popular uprisings, and government crackdowns.

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Speaker 1: His parentage and schooling would have struggled to cut through

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Speaker 1: against all the uncertainty of the future. With so much

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Speaker 1: of Korean society up for grabs, the young man's identity

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Speaker 1: was ripe for molding by the first source of promise

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Speaker 1: to offer him salvation, a clear sighted path out of sad.

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Speaker 1: The chaos following the division of the country in nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty three, South Korea was a powder cake waiting to

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Speaker 1: ignite with the formation of the rigidly totalitarian state to

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Speaker 1: the north with its atheistic doctrine, and the more capitalists

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Speaker 1: right leaning state to the south, many conservative Christian movements

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Speaker 1: fired for influence and control among those who felt confused

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Speaker 1: by it all. Out of this turmoil, in nineteen fifty four,

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Speaker 1: the Unification Church was established. Its followers became known as

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Speaker 1: Mooney's after its founder Sun May Young Moon. Despite its

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Speaker 1: somewhat traditional Christian leanings, the church is often referred to

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Speaker 1: as being cult like in nature, with between one hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty and three hundred thousand members in South Korea today,

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Speaker 1: the Moonies are known for their leader's radical claim to

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Speaker 1: be the embodiment of the Second Coming of Jesus, as

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Speaker 1: well as for their mass wedding ceremonies for him and

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Speaker 1: opposition to left leaning ideology, and significant influence over Korean

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Speaker 1: business and politics. Kim Junbong would have been a teenager

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Speaker 1: during the Mooney's aggressive global expansion in the mid nineteen seventies.

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Speaker 1: From what little we know about him, it seems that

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Speaker 1: it was during this period in his life that he

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Speaker 1: became an active member of the wider Christian community. As

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Speaker 1: Kim grew older, married, and settled down, he became involved

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Speaker 1: with a number of fringed religious sects. Kim's family became

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Speaker 1: deeply concerned about the people he was associating with. One

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Speaker 1: such example was sole based Master Jarrok Lee, founder of

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Speaker 1: Careers man Mint Central Church. In twenty eighteen, Lee was

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Speaker 1: convicted on multiple accounts of sexual assault and rape against

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Speaker 1: several members of his own congregation. Like the Moonies, the

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Speaker 1: man Min Central Church became notable for its founder's claim

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Speaker 1: that he was sinless and exempt from dying. As Kim's

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Speaker 1: devotion to this extremist sect deepened, so too did his

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Speaker 1: suspicions of any idea to the contrary. Working under the

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Speaker 1: apprehension that he was now part of a beleagued minority

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Speaker 1: subject to persecution and ridicule, Kim began fervently promoting the faith.

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Speaker 1: He started to leave home, sometimes for days or weeks

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Speaker 1: on end, supposedly to undertake missionary work, the details of

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Speaker 1: which were never made entirely clear to his family. Over time,

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Speaker 1: Kimjin Bond's wife and children started to notice that their

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Speaker 1: address in Mungjong had become a target for crank phone

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Speaker 1: calls and mysterious visitors. When word of their father's involvement

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Speaker 1: with the man Min's Central Church spread throughout the community,

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Speaker 1: Kim's children were ostracized by their peers at school, but

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Speaker 1: all this seemed only to harden Kim's devotion to his

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Speaker 1: church and justify his commitment to the cause. Worryingly, what

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Speaker 1: Kim's family were not aware of was that their father

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Speaker 1: was now regularly volunteering himself for some of the church's

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Speaker 1: most extreme missions. Members within the church were hardened to

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Speaker 1: have found in Kim a devotee who was so committed

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Speaker 1: to their cause that he started to neglect all other

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Speaker 1: facets of his life. He seemed uninterested in developing himself professionally.

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Speaker 1: He spent days away from home and stop looking. After

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Speaker 1: his appearance, his hair grew matted and his beard unkempt,

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Speaker 1: and in what his colleagues regarded as his utter abjection

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Speaker 1: and self humiliation, he reminded them of a modern day

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Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. And then in May twenty eleven, Kim Junpong disappeared.

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Speaker 1: It's a clear sunny day in early May twenty eleven.

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Speaker 1: Three men are hiking in the mountains near Mugong in

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Speaker 1: southern Korea. They're on the hunt for the perfect spot

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Speaker 1: to establish a b colony. As they step further and

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Speaker 1: further away from the city, the men revel in the

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Speaker 1: serenity of the landscape that morning. Something about the Saobak

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Speaker 1: Mountains seems to exude an extra note of tranquility. Perhaps

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Speaker 1: it's simply the lack of traffic noise, one of the

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Speaker 1: men observes. Or perhaps it's the fact that there seems

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Speaker 1: to be so little noise of any kind, neither insect

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Speaker 1: nor animal, which was odd given the vast array of

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Speaker 1: vegetation surrounding them. The men trudge on and soon arrive

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Speaker 1: at the edge of an abandoned granite quarry. One of

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Speaker 1: the men has brought a flask of coffee and suggests

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Speaker 1: they stop for a break before continuing on their journey.

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Speaker 1: They head down a steep pathway for a short while

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Speaker 1: until they spot the perfect outcrop of rocks to set

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Speaker 1: down their packs. One of the men talks excitedly about

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Speaker 1: the recent trip he took with his church group to Japan.

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Speaker 1: Then he suddenly notices that the other two aren't listening

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Speaker 1: to him. Both have stopped dead in their tracks. Aren't

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Speaker 1: you coming, he says, not stopping for coffee, The man's

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Speaker 1: companions say nothing. Transfixed by something in the middle distance,

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Speaker 1: he follows their gaze toward the outcrop, where he then

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Speaker 1: seeks what appears to be three large crucifixes that have

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Speaker 1: been erected on a rocky plinth. Drawing closer, he pushes

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Speaker 1: aside the branches of a laurel tree to get a

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Speaker 1: closer look. Given the remote location and mountainous to Reign,

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Speaker 1: he couldn't help thinking that the Bazaarre scene before him

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Speaker 1: reminded him of Christ's final resting place at Calvary. Remembering

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Speaker 1: that he has brought his small leather bound copy of

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Speaker 1: the King James Bible, he flips it to Matthew chapter

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Speaker 1: twenty seven, verse forty five. Then he reads it aloud,

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Speaker 1: and about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a

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Speaker 1: loud voice, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

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Speaker 1: Then one of the other men points toward the cross

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Speaker 1: in the middle. Only then did the first man appear

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Speaker 1: to notice the strange effigy that had been placed on it.

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Speaker 1: As the three men draw closer to the middle cross,

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Speaker 1: they hear the sound of buzzing. The place is teeming

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Speaker 1: with flies because it isn't an effigy that has been

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Speaker 1: placed on the cross, it's the body of a man

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Speaker 1: that appears to have been crucified. The smell hits them first,

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Speaker 1: the warm, putrid meat stench of death and day's old

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Speaker 1: human waste. One of the men recoils and vomits on

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Speaker 1: the ground. Another, all color drained from his cheeks, begins

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Speaker 1: to babble incoherently to himself. He points meekly toward one

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Speaker 1: of the figures hands. It's been bound with rope and

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Speaker 1: nailed through the wood. There's blood, he manages, almost in

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Speaker 1: a whisper. Up close, they can now see the dark

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Speaker 1: brown streak caked into the grain of the crucifix's crossbeam,

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Speaker 1: and the crown of thorns on the dead man's head

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Speaker 1: that dig into the flesh. At the top of his skull,

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Speaker 1: A thick black puddle of congealed blood as formed around

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Speaker 1: the cross's base. Strikingly, the man is dressed modestly as

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Speaker 1: Jesus had been, in a makeshift loincloth, with his hands

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Speaker 1: and feet bound tightly to the wood. One large casing

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Speaker 1: nail has been driven through both feet, and there was

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Speaker 1: a nail driven through the palm of both hands. As

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Speaker 1: he looks upon the terrible scene, the Christian among the

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Speaker 1: men can't help remembering how the chapter from Matthew finished

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Speaker 1: when it became clear to all who were present that

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Speaker 1: the life of their Lord Jesus had finally expired. He

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Speaker 1: recites it out loud, so when the centurion and those

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Speaker 1: with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and

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Speaker 1: the things that had happened, they feared greatly, saying, truly,

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Speaker 1: this was the son of God. When police arrive later,

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Speaker 1: more details come to light. The full bulk of the

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Speaker 1: dead man's weight is held in place by two crudely

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Speaker 1: fastened pieces of plywood, while the tools that were used

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Speaker 1: to construct the crucifix and crucify the man have been

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Speaker 1: left at the base of the pedestal. The man's car

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Speaker 1: is found in a layby leading up to the site.

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Speaker 1: The police trace it back to its owner, and from

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Speaker 1: there the dead man's identify is confirmed. It was, of course,

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Speaker 1: Kim Jun Bong. After an extensive investigation, the police concluded

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Speaker 1: incredibly that Kim Jen Bong had apparently acted alone, much

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Speaker 1: to the astonishment of his family and anyone else. Following

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Speaker 1: the story on the news, many voiced their concern that

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Speaker 1: it would have been simply impossible for Kim to carry

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Speaker 1: out the operation by himself. The logistics alone were enough

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Speaker 1: to confuse anyone. Questions began to be asked about how

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Speaker 1: someone could physically withstand the pain of such a procedure,

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Speaker 1: but also how had he been able to nail one

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Speaker 1: hand at the crossbeam before nailing the other without a

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Speaker 1: hand to hold. Then, in order to nail both feet

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Speaker 1: to the cross, Kim would have needed to hammer the

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Speaker 1: nail through the bones of both feet without passing out.

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Speaker 1: There was little to no evidence of painkillers in his system,

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Speaker 1: and the rapid advancement of blood loss from his wounds

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Speaker 1: would have meant that Kim would likely have needed to

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Speaker 1: complete the act while simultaneously losing consciousness. Either way, if

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Speaker 1: Kim had managed to crucify himself, it would have required

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Speaker 1: superhuman levels of strength and endurance. Then something new came

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Speaker 1: to light. Kim had been in communication with one of

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Speaker 1: his church's senior clerics in the days and weeks leading

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Speaker 1: up to his death. He outlined a desire to emulate

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Speaker 1: his Lord and savior, Jesus Christ by making the ultimate sacrifice.

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Speaker 1: He seemed to suggest also that a real life crucifixion

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Speaker 1: would send a message that would be hard for society

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Speaker 1: to ignore and that if that was what it would take,

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Speaker 1: he could be the man to do it. But the

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Speaker 1: question remains did he do it alone? Not only did

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Speaker 1: the senior cleric that Kim jn Bong had been in

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Speaker 1: contact with not to do anything to prevent him from

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Speaker 1: carrying out his ambition, something was about to emerge that

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Speaker 1: turns the entire case on its head, because, as it happens,

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Speaker 1: this senior cleric was one of the three men that

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Speaker 1: discovered the body, the one with all those Matthew quotes

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Speaker 1: readily to hand. Perhaps he had genuinely been stunned to

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Speaker 1: come across the body, or perhaps he had smiled radiantly

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Speaker 1: at the thought thought of his disciples ultimate sacrifice and

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Speaker 1: the tacit power of his own guiding hand that had

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Speaker 1: led him to that shocking end. We will likely never know. Surprisingly,

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Speaker 1: Kimjn Bond's gruesome act didn't remotely discourage his compatriots. In fact,

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Speaker 1: he came to be regarded as a martyr within his sect.

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Speaker 1: His example inspired others in the group to continue his

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Speaker 1: faith spreading mission and served for them as just further

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Speaker 1: evidence of their own persecution. His death was viewed as

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Speaker 1: a necessary, albeit extreme method of spreading Christ's teachings, and

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Speaker 1: the attention it drew to their cause likely served as

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Speaker 1: encouragement to inspire new recruits. Since Kim's death, there have

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Speaker 1: been a number of commemorations and memorials established by devotees

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Speaker 1: of his faith, including staffatues, plaques, and annual events. Like

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Speaker 1: other modern day Christian martyrs Ireland's Matt Talbot in nineteen

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Speaker 1: twenty five Matthew Iaiga in twenty fifteen, his asceticism serves

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Speaker 1: as a stark counterpoint to the frivolities of modern life,

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Speaker 1: offering an alternative vision of what it means to give

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Speaker 1: oneself wholly to a faith, regardless of what society at

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Speaker 1: large dictates. The opportunity to somehow escape or better yet,

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Speaker 1: transcend modern life are essential to the appeal of the cult.

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Speaker 1: The rejection of modernity in favor of so called traditional

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Speaker 1: values like self sacrifice and humility are often used to

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Speaker 1: justify the cult's existence. This, in turn, must be safeguarded

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Speaker 1: from outside corrupt, meaning members are encouraged to gradually shut

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Speaker 1: themselves off from anything that threatens these ideals, from family

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Speaker 1: and friends to the concept of their social standing and

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Speaker 1: even their entire sense of self. The growth of mass

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Speaker 1: media appears to play a significant role in modern day cults,

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Speaker 1: first the newspaper, then radio and television, and now the Internet.

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Speaker 1: It is perhaps no accident that with the further atomisation

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Speaker 1: of the so called civilized world, many people have started

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Speaker 1: to seek more radical alternatives to the pressures of information

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Speaker 1: overloadd and personal attainment. And with atomisation comes alienation. Though

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Speaker 1: you may well have found your tribe, for many, modern

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Speaker 1: life is an unceasing grind, in which we are continually

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Speaker 1: surrounded by people, be they are colleagues, fellow mutas, or

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Speaker 1: the hundreds of people that might read your socials on

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Speaker 1: any given day. And yet how many of these people

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Speaker 1: do we actually have a meaningful connection to. It is

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Speaker 1: little wonder that movements like Heaven's Gate, the People's Temple,

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Speaker 1: Agricultural Project better known as Jonestown, or even the Islamic

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Speaker 1: State of Iraq and the Levant or Isilfa short have

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Speaker 1: proliferated the way they have. Why they often fall apart, however,

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Speaker 1: is because more often than not, they center around one

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Speaker 1: singular figure, as earth bound and human as anyone else,

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Speaker 1: and often not quite as without ego as they might

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Speaker 1: like you to believe. One example of this would be

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Speaker 1: Charles Manson, of course, whose so called family committed murder

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Speaker 1: during the late nineteen sixties, but the Asia Pacific region

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Speaker 1: is not without its parallels. The twentieth of March nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety five, a group known as I Am Shinyiko or

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Speaker 1: ALEF for short, committed the worst act of Japanese domestic

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Speaker 1: terrorism in the country's history when they killed fourteen people

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Speaker 1: and injured over one thousand others on the Tokyo Subway.

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Speaker 1: The incident became known as the Saren gas attack after

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Speaker 1: members from the group dropped two newspaper packages laced with

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Speaker 1: the deadly nerve agent on the busy Chioda line of

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Speaker 1: the city's underground. Their hope was that it would start

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Speaker 1: a war, from which they believed armageddon would come, and

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Speaker 1: with that a cleansing of the entire world to start

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Speaker 1: anew als. Leaders were caught and eventually brought to justice,

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Speaker 1: but much like Kim Jin Bong, their example inspired as

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Speaker 1: much as it horrified. Numerous copycat incidents have been foiled

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Speaker 1: by police in the years since, and the group's core

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Speaker 1: message continues to spread in the darker corners of the Internet.

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Speaker 1: It's tempting to dismiss Aleph's acolytes as deluded drones, or

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Speaker 1: the members of Heaven's Gate as gullible fools for truly

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Speaker 1: believing as they did that an alien spaceship hiding behind

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Speaker 1: the hail Bob Comet would take their souls to a

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Speaker 1: better place as long as they ended their own lives first.

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Speaker 1: We might look upon these and other examples of cults

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Speaker 1: as warnings about the danger of Messiah figures who seemed

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Speaker 1: to offer easy solutions to all the travails and complexities

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Speaker 1: of the modern world. But perhaps more than anything, what

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Speaker 1: the success of these cults demonstrate is simply the power

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Speaker 1: of a good story. So if we don't like the

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Speaker 1: stories that others telling, and we're tired of watching people

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Speaker 1: for for them, perhaps the only real solution is to

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Speaker 1: come up with a better one. This episode was written

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Speaker 1: by James Connor Patterson and Richard McLain Smith. James as

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Speaker 1: a brilliant writer and poet. His debut collection of poems

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Speaker 1: titled Bandit Country, Exploring the hinterland between the North of

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Speaker 1: Ireland and Republic, was shortlisted for the twenty twenty two T. S.

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Speaker 1: Eliot Prize and is out now to buy. Do check

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Speaker 1: it out. Thank you as ever for listening to the show.

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Speaker 1: Please subscribe and rate it if you haven't already done so.

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Speaker 1: You can also now find us on TikTok at TikTok

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Speaker 1: dot com. Forward Slash at Unexplained Podcast. Unexplained as an

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Speaker 1: Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard McClain Smith. All

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Speaker 1: other elements of the podcast, including the music, were also

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Speaker 1: produced by me Richard McLean Smith. Unexplained. The book and

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Speaker 1: audiobook is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase

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Speaker 1: subscribe to and rate the show wherever you get your podcasts,

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Speaker 1: and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts

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Speaker 1: or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like

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Speaker 1: to share. You can find out more at Unexplained podcast

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Speaker 1: Podcast