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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of I Heart Brady. Hello, welcome back to the show.

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Speaker 1: My name is Matt, my name is Nold. Nick called

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Speaker 1: me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer

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Speaker 1: Paul mission controlled decans. Most importantly, you are you, You

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Speaker 1: are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want

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Speaker 1: you to know. We started a weird but very human

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Speaker 1: direction here. Who hasn't amongst us in the audience today

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Speaker 1: felt lost at one point or another. Think about it,

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Speaker 1: washing the dishes, you're working, maybe on a repetitive job,

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Speaker 1: or you're stuck in traffic, heard the same song three times,

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Speaker 1: You're walking up the street, the same path you always taken.

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Speaker 1: It hits you all the suddenly. What does it all mean?

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Speaker 1: Why are we even here? What's the point? Is existence?

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Speaker 1: Just like a check mark participation grade? All of those? Okay, great,

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Speaker 1: me too? Bleak? Oh no, you haven't hit that yet?

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Speaker 1: Oh god, yes, are you kidding me? I think I

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Speaker 1: use my GPS when I go down the street to

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Speaker 1: the store. I mean, okay, that's a different kind of lass,

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Speaker 1: but absolutely, of course, I think we've all been there,

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Speaker 1: and this existential crisis is one of the great unifiers,

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Speaker 1: I would argue of the human species. It draws a

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Speaker 1: lot of people to structure belief systems, religions of any time,

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Speaker 1: humanitarian work, you know, secular stuff too, even self improvement

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Speaker 1: on a small scale, like hey, I'm gonna exercise more,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna take up meditation, I might get a new hobby. Heck,

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Speaker 1: I'll take that improv class. These are all answers to,

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Speaker 1: you know, the scary questions of more reality and meaning.

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Speaker 1: And there is no shortage of individuals or organizations that

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Speaker 1: are more than willing to give the lost and the

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Speaker 1: troubled a feeling of serenity, fulfillment, and purpose. This brings

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Speaker 1: us to today's episode, the winding mysterious and at times

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Speaker 1: troubling story of something known as the Following Gong In English,

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Speaker 1: this literal translation would be something like law wheel practice.

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Speaker 1: But but it's a tricky thing to translate into English,

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Speaker 1: So for now we're just gonna say following Gong, So

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Speaker 1: breathe deep. Here are the facts. So Following Gong is

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Speaker 1: also known as following data, and if you look at

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Speaker 1: some of the official websites you will see following data

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Speaker 1: a lot. It describes itself as a spiritual practice as

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Speaker 1: many has been just described earlier. It's rooted in Buddhist tradition,

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Speaker 1: and it consists of two primary components that feel pretty good.

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Speaker 1: The first one is self improvement through the study of teachings,

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Speaker 1: and like many organizations, UH, Fallen Gong or Fallendofa has

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Speaker 1: its own set of books and writings and teachings, and

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Speaker 1: these are mainly about the qualities of the universe, the

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Speaker 1: underlying stuff, the stuff that is that makes up existence,

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Speaker 1: you and me, in the connection to everything, Truth, compassion,

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Speaker 1: and forbearance. If you go on their website, it says

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Speaker 1: very specifically truth, compassion, forbearance. The second component is going

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Speaker 1: to be pretty uh, I would say pretty familiar to

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Speaker 1: a lot of us, and that is gentle exercise and meditation.

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Speaker 1: By gentle exercise we mean what is sometimes called low

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Speaker 1: impact exercise. So this is not cross fit push yourself

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Speaker 1: past your limits stuff. This is this is stretchy, this

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Speaker 1: is slow, This is meditative. Uh. This is not meant

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Speaker 1: to break your bones. According to all the sources, you

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Speaker 1: can look at, including official Following Gong sources. It was

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Speaker 1: developed by a guy named Lie Hong Shi Uh. He

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Speaker 1: says that he was the recipient of teachings from more

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Speaker 1: than twenty masters, Buddhism and Chee Gong, from which Following

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Speaker 1: Gong is descended. Uh he tested this. According to him,

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Speaker 1: he tested this practice this system out with several followers

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Speaker 1: a K disciples first and then eventually brought it public

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Speaker 1: in May of two. So this is already we know.

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Speaker 1: This is a very new religion, even if the claims

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Speaker 1: about its ancient roots are true. Uh, Chee Gong is.

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Speaker 1: We we talked about this earlier, I think in an

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Speaker 1: episode called what is Cheap? But Chee Gong Is is

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Speaker 1: primarily composed of these frankly amazing breathing exercises. But but

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Speaker 1: Lee added something else to the mix. He added stories

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Speaker 1: in here, accounts, anecdotes, a world full of fantastical things,

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Speaker 1: and a world with hints of a forthcoming apocalypse, and

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Speaker 1: his books became best sellers. I don't want to I

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Speaker 1: don't want to poison the well here, but some of

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Speaker 1: this path has you know, not for nothing have outside

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Speaker 1: observers said this bears some similarities with other leaders of

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Speaker 1: movements like l Ron Hubbard, who also also wrote extensively.

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Speaker 1: But this was accepted by the government of China. It

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Speaker 1: was accepted by the Chee Gong bodies, right, because there

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Speaker 1: are many Cheegong movements, so the Chinese National Chee Gong

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Speaker 1: Scientific Research Association in that same time period of nineteen two,

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Speaker 1: they also said, Okay, yeah, we dig it. Following all

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean, full speed ahead, Ben, Ben,

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Speaker 1: Can we just really quickly hit on those two books? Yeah, totally. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The first two were Schwan Falon and Falon Gong. Uh.

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Speaker 1: These are kind of primers to the philosophy. Here is

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Speaker 1: what we're doing based on what I learned. Here is

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Speaker 1: the goal of what we're doing, you know what I mean?

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Speaker 1: Filled with again, filled with stories that did not ordinarily

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Speaker 1: occur in previous previous traditions of this sort. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I just want to go back to your l

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Speaker 1: Ron Hubbard comparison here. It's interesting because in in l

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Speaker 1: Aron's writings, he kind of held off on the aliens

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Speaker 1: and the stuff that went beyond some of the self.

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Speaker 1: Heally that when you paid your way in far enough, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But but in these books it's just right there in

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Speaker 1: front of you as soon as you start getting into

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Speaker 1: the materials. I'm just I found to be interesting. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's I guess you would say a little more transparency

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Speaker 1: in that regard. But whatever you feel about those things,

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Speaker 1: we want to be very clear here, we ourselves are

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Speaker 1: not following going practitioners. Uh, although I think all of

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Speaker 1: us have done things like meditation and mindful breathing in yoga. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This this is a different thing. And no matter how

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Speaker 1: you feel about the claims that Lee makes, no matter

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Speaker 1: how you feel about the practices of the organization, in

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Speaker 1: terms of that exercise and philosophy, there's no arguing this.

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Speaker 1: Those books were instant bestsellers, and people across the country

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Speaker 1: of China loved this idea, loved this concept, and Lee

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Speaker 1: started making public demonstrations of his um of his perceived abilities,

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Speaker 1: which also ties in a little bit to our episodes

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Speaker 1: on faith healing and laying on of hands. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: back to the timeline. In December, Lee Hans did his

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Speaker 1: very first public demonstration of his abilities UH at Oriental

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Speaker 1: Health Expo in Beijing. Apparently, he caused a paralyzed and

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Speaker 1: wheelchair bound man to walk, destroyed gall and kidney stones

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Speaker 1: within another individual, and cured difficult quote difficult and complex

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Speaker 1: illnesses of all kinds. So needless just say he made

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Speaker 1: quite a splash. And the director of the fair declared,

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Speaker 1: it's like you you won the fair. Uh declared that

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Speaker 1: Fallon Gong was the star cultivation system. Wow, what does

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Speaker 1: that even mean? Like cultivating like the stars from the

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Speaker 1: unit from the Galaxy. I took it as a best

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Speaker 1: in show, best in show, but still that's I love

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Speaker 1: the turn of phrase. Let's leave it there. And to me,

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Speaker 1: it really is like you're, you know, the brightest shining

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Speaker 1: boy in the room. Well, as Ben said, they're the

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Speaker 1: laying on of hands episode that we did. I think

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Speaker 1: everyone can hear the similarities there. And you know we

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Speaker 1: we weren't there in nineteen ninety two. We can't tell

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Speaker 1: you exactly what happened, you know, or if if there

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Speaker 1: were any plants in the audience, But if those things

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Speaker 1: were true, they would be miracles. Well I was you know,

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Speaker 1: you guys know my schedule. I was busy. I didn't

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Speaker 1: get over there, but I heard good things. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: was I was nine, I think, and uh doing something

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Speaker 1: with a Nintendo pretty sure. I don't think I should

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Speaker 1: say where I was. In December of at this at Xpo,

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Speaker 1: uh Lee was given to awards and this is, you know,

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Speaker 1: the second iteration of his appearance there. He got the

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Speaker 1: award for Advancing Boundary Science and the Chee Goong Master

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Speaker 1: most Acclaimed by the masses. So that's like the no,

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Speaker 1: and I am not just missing this at all, just

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Speaker 1: for uh an analog or in comparison, this is a

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Speaker 1: lot like saying, uh, you got the Audience Appreciation Award. Yes,

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean. People like you the most.

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Speaker 1: So he started giving classes all over the country in

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Speaker 1: the ways of this philosophy throughout the early to mid nineties,

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Speaker 1: and for a while, as we mentioned, this enjoyed a

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Speaker 1: great deal of domestic fame as well as what appeared

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Speaker 1: to be somewhere between the open support of the Chinese

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Speaker 1: government to the tacit support to with the very least

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Speaker 1: toleration of it. Right, like, they're not hurting anyone, they're

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Speaker 1: not violating our our unwritten law, don't mess with the money.

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Speaker 1: Let him go stretch in the park exactly, And in

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Speaker 1: a way it's kind of a nice little cultural at

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Speaker 1: least information export right, it's an interesting thing. It's a

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Speaker 1: it's a cool little piece that we can share and wow,

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Speaker 1: we've got this. Uh, I don't know. I want to

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Speaker 1: say miracle worker, but who We've got someone with essentially

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Speaker 1: supernatural powers, fit practices in China, cool, enjoy, be healthy? Okay? Yeah, uh,

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Speaker 1: this goes this goes international soon after. Like when you

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Speaker 1: think about the spread of this movement, you have to

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Speaker 1: see it's it's impressive. You know a few decades later

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Speaker 1: people would call this kind of growth viral instead of exponential. Uh. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: By nineteen or so, Leah spreading his message past the

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Speaker 1: borders of China. He's lecturing in Paris and Stockholm. He's

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Speaker 1: lecturing in Sydney, in Houston, Texas, which seemed a weird draw.

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Speaker 1: But these are the facts, and New York City in

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Speaker 1: But while he's out speaking abroad and spending less and

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Speaker 1: less time in China, Uh, things aren't going so well

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Speaker 1: on the home front, are they. No, the tide was

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Speaker 1: turning inside of China while he was gone, because the

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Speaker 1: organization fell in Gong left. The one that had it

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Speaker 1: had originally joined the Key Goong Scientific Research Association, which

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Speaker 1: you know could or could not be a big deal.

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Speaker 1: But it does mean they're going independent, right, means they're

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Speaker 1: they're gaining power in some way. And the Chinese government

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Speaker 1: started to see them as essentially a threat. And it's

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Speaker 1: really because they were growing so exponentially and so quickly,

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Speaker 1: and the some of the spiritual beliefs, the religious teachings

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Speaker 1: that were in those books, they were going a little

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Speaker 1: bit against what would be considered traditional or at least

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Speaker 1: the party line of what the party wanted its citizens

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Speaker 1: to be thinking about believing in. And ultimately they feared

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Speaker 1: that this thing would grow so big it would be

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Speaker 1: a threat because it was independent of a lot of

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Speaker 1: those internal institutions. Yeah, and you know this doesn't come

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Speaker 1: from nowhere are necessarily uninformed paranoia. There is a long

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Speaker 1: history in this area of the world, going back to

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Speaker 1: the dynasty days in China, of the governing bodies having

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Speaker 1: to actively and aggressively work against the possibility of domestic

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Speaker 1: descent the in a way. In a way, the government

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Speaker 1: at the time was reacting to what they saw the

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Speaker 1: precedent as the precedent set by earlier domestic unrest. What

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Speaker 1: is it you think about this religion and this movement

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Speaker 1: that caused it to catch on so much. It's just

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Speaker 1: very appealing. I think if you look on the face

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Speaker 1: of it, it's extremely appealing. You don't have to work

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Speaker 1: too hard. It's mostly meditative, and it seems to have

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Speaker 1: a kindness on the front. And we're gonna talk a

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Speaker 1: little bit more about some of the ways, some of

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Speaker 1: the ways the ideas are spread and why they seem,

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Speaker 1: especially when you bring in the persecution angle that we're

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Speaker 1: going to get to, why it seems like something you'd

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Speaker 1: want to join to fight for. And the majority of

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Speaker 1: from what we understand, the majority of Following Going members

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Speaker 1: are recruited by members of their biological families. So there

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Speaker 1: is a furthering and a deepening of the sense of

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Speaker 1: community in in this endeavor, and community, from what I understand,

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Speaker 1: is the thing that people like. It's true, people dig it.

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Speaker 1: So as as you said, the tides turning, the tides

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Speaker 1: turning against the practitioners of Following Gong because it's seen

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Speaker 1: as a threat to the status quo. We know that

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Speaker 1: sometime in this somewhere in this time period, UH members

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Speaker 1: of Following Gong started becoming active online. There were early

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Speaker 1: adopters of the Internet, but it's difficult to know exactly what.

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Speaker 1: And this occurred because like the ratars in Neil Stevenson's

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Speaker 1: and athem, they spend a lot of time changing the

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Speaker 1: past or they A more diplomatic way would be to say,

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Speaker 1: and I mean both the Chinese government and some factions

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Speaker 1: of following Going they carefully edit and curate old material

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Speaker 1: from their websites, so it's tough to know some of

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Speaker 1: the specifics of timelines here. But they didn't take this

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Speaker 1: line down. They got mad, and the practitioners started protesting

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Speaker 1: outside of various media outlets in China that they if

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Speaker 1: they felt those outlets were misrepresenting the goals of following

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Speaker 1: Gong and the lives and aims of the practitioners. Basically say,

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Speaker 1: you know, stop being evil. That's it that that's not

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Speaker 1: like on the face of it, that's that's a cool thing.

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Speaker 1: Not to be be evil. Google once did that, um

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Speaker 1: and longer does I remember those days. It's no longer

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Speaker 1: their motto, right, But also, don't be evil's way different

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Speaker 1: from be good? Very we thought that was a weird one.

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Speaker 1: Was it like sort of like a guiding principle, sort

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Speaker 1: of a reminder to themselves to like, do a good

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Speaker 1: job with the power that you've been you've given yourselves.

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Speaker 1: That's a weird one. I always thought that was very strange.

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Speaker 1: So this is we've led it up to, right, that's

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Speaker 1: when they're doing the protesting. Then the next year, as

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Speaker 1: pressure is mounting from the party within China, Lee he

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Speaker 1: ends up getting out of China. And where does he head?

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Speaker 1: New York City? Okay, yeah, because it wasn't he wasn't.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't he beginning to be branded as a dissident already. Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I was. He gonna says, you know, just

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Speaker 1: picture Lee somewhere. He's been to New York before at

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Speaker 1: this point, and he says, hey kid, you can make

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Speaker 1: it here, you can bake it anywhere. And then he

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Speaker 1: has that whole sitcom moment. Uh yeah, he does. He

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Speaker 1: does go to New York. You know, something's in the wind,

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Speaker 1: I would imagine. And let's pause here. We've got one.

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Speaker 1: We're waiting for the other shoe to drop. So let's

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Speaker 1: let's hear from our sponsors who may not be fell

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Speaker 1: Hong Kong today. Um, maybe we don't know it's it's

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Speaker 1: probably not Fellong, but it is. Uh. Spoilers we'll be

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Speaker 1: back to watch the hammer fall. Fast forward. There is

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Speaker 1: a massive protest against the government of China on the

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Speaker 1: part of the Bottom Kong. Shortly after that protest, the

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Speaker 1: PRC begins a nationwide crackdown and they go ham there's

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Speaker 1: this huge propaganda push. They're a is to eradicate the

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Speaker 1: following Gong. How serious are they about this? Well, they

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Speaker 1: make a new security agency whose entire job is to

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Speaker 1: eliminate Following Gong. It's called the six ten Office started

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Speaker 1: in June of uh to to describe some of the

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Speaker 1: stuff that the government was doing against this organization, they

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Speaker 1: like they were bulldozing educational tapes, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 1: They were pulling all this stuff they could off the

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Speaker 1: internet if possible. Uh. They were publicly denouncing any members

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Speaker 1: if it got to the point where like, depending on

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Speaker 1: your job, it might be dangerous for your first year

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Speaker 1: employment status to UH to be a member of Folloon Gong,

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Speaker 1: and then soon after it may be dangerous for your

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Speaker 1: personal freedom. They also blocked, Oh, they didn't just block

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Speaker 1: following going websites, they blocked websites from other places. And

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Speaker 1: there were a few other countries that mentioned Foulongong. They're like, sorry,

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Speaker 1: I know your blog is mainly about your backpacking travels

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Speaker 1: through Southeast Asia, but you mentioned the wrong organization. So

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Speaker 1: now your whole website is shut down from one point

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Speaker 1: three billion people. Wow. So imagine you started an exercise

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Speaker 1: group and the next thing you know, you're in a

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Speaker 1: full on information war with one of the world's most

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Speaker 1: powerful countries, a country that's also becoming one of the

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Speaker 1: world's leaders in this kind of asymmetrical warfare gets David

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Speaker 1: and Goliath pretty quickly. If the story so far is true,

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Speaker 1: and this is a good time to bring this up.

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Speaker 1: Maybe been in our research for this episode. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: then you pointed this out and I also noticed it,

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Speaker 1: and I'm no, I'm sure you did too. Really, what

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Speaker 1: you find on the internet, save for a few mostly

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Speaker 1: objective writers, is information that is extremely profile Andong or

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Speaker 1: extremely anti Folagong. Right. Well, even the American media for

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Speaker 1: quite some time was very pro Folloonong, it would seem,

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Speaker 1: because they sort of acted as this like buffer against

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Speaker 1: like the you know, the distrustfulness that is pretty common

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Speaker 1: around like Chinese information control, and they sort of represented

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Speaker 1: almost this like you know, example of the heavy handedness

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Speaker 1: of the Chinese government. In fact, there's an interview with

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Speaker 1: the founder of Follongong in Time magazine. In so I mean,

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Speaker 1: in general, the American press was pretty pretty kind to

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Speaker 1: them as an organization. The US would enter this information

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Speaker 1: war later for motivations of its own. I suspect motivations

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Speaker 1: of its own, but maybe it's being a jerk. So

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Speaker 1: back in same year as that Time interview, following Gong

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Speaker 1: becomes illegal in China. However, the horse of dissidents has

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Speaker 1: left the proverbial bar. The followers are widespread and another

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Speaker 1: a thing that maybe the PRC didn't count on. These

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Speaker 1: followers are tremendously media savvy. Remember I said they were

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Speaker 1: earlier adopters of things like the Internet and emergent technology.

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Speaker 1: So in the years since being declared quote heretical organization

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Speaker 1: that threatens social stability, they have dispatched thousands upon thousands

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Speaker 1: of press releases, these staged live events and protests, things

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Speaker 1: that are purposefully and beautifully designed to gather headlines to

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Speaker 1: get international eyes on the story. UH. They've also kept

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Speaker 1: a very strong Internet presence. You can check out some

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Speaker 1: of their official UH official territories online now UH They

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Speaker 1: also became increasingly litigious, and they would slap people with

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Speaker 1: a defamation lawsuit if they published something saying um, saying

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Speaker 1: stuff that to us might even seem monocuous. You know,

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Speaker 1: there was still there was still try to bring the

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Speaker 1: hammer down the way that the Chinese government was bringing

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Speaker 1: the hammer down on them. And like we like we

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Speaker 1: alluded to just a few minutes ago, Following Gong adherents

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Speaker 1: for a very long time, we're treated um in an

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Speaker 1: extraordinarily kind way by the Western press. They love this

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Speaker 1: David and Goliath story. They also sometimes supported the groups

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Speaker 1: religious or political agendas. As you can imagine, Following Gong

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Speaker 1: becomes very strongly anti Chinese government. And when it broke

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Speaker 1: in the West, when the US and the in Europe

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Speaker 1: started entering this, you would see a lot of reports

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Speaker 1: from politicians and journalists who are ridiculing the Chinese government

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Speaker 1: and they were saying, Wow, these communists leaders are so

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Speaker 1: paranoid a k A. They know their ideas are so

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Speaker 1: bad that they're going to treat this group of quote

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Speaker 1: exercising Granny's like counter arrist And they all had a

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Speaker 1: good laugh about that right in the in the news

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Speaker 1: cycle of the time, and they got some facts wrong

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Speaker 1: while they were doing it. They got like they got

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Speaker 1: one big fact very much wrong. That's right. Um. Western

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Speaker 1: sources originally had claimed that the PRC was reacting to

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Speaker 1: popularity alone. UH. They argued that the Communist Party had

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Speaker 1: sixty seventy million members, but Fellonong had a hundred million

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Speaker 1: UH and this did not seem to be the case.

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Speaker 1: Multiple scholars agreed that the Fellonong only had about two

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Speaker 1: to ten million practitioners at that time. Also, why weren't

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Speaker 1: other Remember this is all a product of a larger movement,

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Speaker 1: the Key Goong movement. Why weren't other practitioners of of

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Speaker 1: those UH techniques band right? There? Again, there are multiple

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Speaker 1: There are multiple groups that are that are descended from

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Speaker 1: this ancient tradition of mindfulness and exercise and metatation. And

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Speaker 1: they seem to be just fine. Nothing wrong with those folks. Sadly,

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Speaker 1: as any long time listener this show knows, it is

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Speaker 1: the opposite of unusual for world governments to repress movements

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Speaker 1: they see is dangerous to the status quo at so

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Speaker 1: many levels. There there there there's an abundance, a plethora

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Speaker 1: using the work correctly of ridiculous examples of this. But

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Speaker 1: if you, if you dive into this, upon closer examination,

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Speaker 1: we see the Fune Gong looks a lot different from

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Speaker 1: the casual Chi Gong group or even like a cross

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Speaker 1: fit club. And while we were prepping for this, folks,

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Speaker 1: it became increasingly difficult for us not to continually ask

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Speaker 1: ourselves about cross fit, which got out of hand for

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Speaker 1: a second. There, I think we can agree cross we

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Speaker 1: got a little out of hand. Yeah, oh it did.

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Speaker 1: And I for one promise that I will hunt down

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Speaker 1: the cross fit demons and aliens that exist in the

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Speaker 1: originating book somewhere that I've just never seen more writ Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I did cross fit for a little while years ago.

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Speaker 1: I had like a like a trainer situation. I can

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Speaker 1: tell you from firsthand experience, the demons and aliens live

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Speaker 1: in those T ninety X stretchy bands. That's where that's where,

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Speaker 1: that's where that comes from. Nine Glemado, clamado. But it

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Speaker 1: was they do sneak the Christian stuff in very subtly,

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Speaker 1: right when you're getting the most swollen, and then all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden they sort of whisper some scripture in

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Speaker 1: wait wait, wait, wait, wait, maybe I just have no idea.

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Speaker 1: Is CrossFit like a religious organization or are? Yeah? Maybe

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Speaker 1: it depends on the trainer too. I've always heard that

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Speaker 1: cross Fit has sort of some kind of religious undertones.

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Speaker 1: I was being completely I was joking about hunting that down,

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Speaker 1: but now I'm serious. Maybe I'm overthinking it too. There

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Speaker 1: are definitely Christian us fits uh organizations, and like, here's

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Speaker 1: an article here how turning cross Fit into a religion

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Speaker 1: made its atheist founder Greg Glassman rich. Oh interesting, Okay,

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00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:15,200
Speaker 1: huh So cross Fit itself is the religion not necessarily

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00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 1: a front for religion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when we

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Speaker 1: go back to che Gong and following Gong, what we

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00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:28,440
Speaker 1: see is that it isn't the same in many, many,

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Speaker 1: many ways. And this is something that practitioners a following

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Speaker 1: Gong would agree with. There is a web of conspiracy here.

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Speaker 1: It's tough to suss out the strings of truth right

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Speaker 1: in this morass. Uh. There are allegations of everything from

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Speaker 1: Oregon harvesting to colts to even front groups for intelligence agencies.

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00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:56,480
Speaker 1: So let's dive in deep breath. Here's where it gets crazy. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: China's state run media outlet Shenha had a completely different

398
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:05,120
Speaker 1: take on why Folon Goong was being banned. They claimed

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Speaker 1: that the West was attempting to make China look bad.

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00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:14,440
Speaker 1: They believed and argued accordingly, that the Chinese government banned

401
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:18,840
Speaker 1: Follonong because Lee had broken numerous laws, was responsible for

402
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:23,760
Speaker 1: over a thousand deaths, mainly from essentially coercing members into

403
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 1: committing suicide or by not seeking medical treatment, which is

404
00:27:27,359 --> 00:27:29,920
Speaker 1: a part of this whole you know, belief system that

405
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:34,159
Speaker 1: we'll get into, was threatening public safety. Um. And because

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00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:38,480
Speaker 1: members had infiltrated the Communist Party in order to overthrow

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00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:42,600
Speaker 1: the government. Uh, that's a lot and it sounds, you know,

408
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:45,959
Speaker 1: like the kind of high level conspiracies. That's like we

409
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:49,520
Speaker 1: live for things like operations snow White. Uh sounds a

410
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:53,679
Speaker 1: lot less like you know, just doing uh tai chi

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Speaker 1: in the park on a Sunday afternoon. Right, And and

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Speaker 1: anyone listening may remember operations Snow White wherein the Church

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Speaker 1: of Scientology or members a few members of the Church

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Speaker 1: of Scientology attempted some infiltration. All right, So now I

415
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:13,920
Speaker 1: can feel the shadow of our legal team. Okay, so

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00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:17,399
Speaker 1: let me look, how did it's very careful with the

417
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Speaker 1: writing on that one The official position of the Church

418
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:26,879
Speaker 1: of Scientology is that Operations Snow White was not sanctioned

419
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:31,159
Speaker 1: by their organization as a way to massively infiltrate the

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00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:33,960
Speaker 1: I R S and then blackmail the government in a

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00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:40,720
Speaker 1: crazy financial scheme. Several people disagree with that official position,

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Speaker 1: including the U S. Supreme Court. That right, like, that's

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Speaker 1: what we could say. We said that earlier. Right, there

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Speaker 1: are people who disagree. Uh so we have Mike Renderon.

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00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 1: I mean, our ship is sailed in that regard. But

426
00:28:57,760 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 1: but there is one thing, you know that that they said,

427
00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:04,760
Speaker 1: it's really interesting here and all the idea of infiltration

428
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:09,440
Speaker 1: of the government that was true. The Chinese government was

429
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:13,360
Speaker 1: telling the truth about this when following Gong was all

430
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 1: up in the state's military and the security apparatus and

431
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 1: the media educational establishments as much as possible. It's explicitly

432
00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 1: mentioned in one of Lee's books Following Gong. He talks

433
00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:33,880
Speaker 1: about putting focus on getting support from state government leaders

434
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:38,800
Speaker 1: like from these officials, And interestingly enough, if you read

435
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:43,760
Speaker 1: the English and French translations of these books, those specific

436
00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:48,720
Speaker 1: mentions have been cut from the text. The past is changing,

437
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:52,880
Speaker 1: but in all fairness to lead all fairness to the

438
00:29:52,920 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 1: practitioners of following Gong, we have to point out seeking

439
00:29:56,920 --> 00:30:00,560
Speaker 1: powerful friends is not the same thing as plan a coup.

440
00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 1: You want to get like a member of the high

441
00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:09,320
Speaker 1: ranking member of the Communist Party on board with Falong Gong, Well,

442
00:30:09,360 --> 00:30:12,280
Speaker 1: then maybe first it's because you think it's good for them,

443
00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:15,480
Speaker 1: you know, on a on a purely physical level. And

444
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:18,200
Speaker 1: then maybe secondly you're like, hey, this person could help

445
00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 1: us out with a jam, especially if we're being misrepresented.

446
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:23,680
Speaker 1: We have a someone on our side who can say

447
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 1: here's the truth, and this is not propaganda. So it's

448
00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:29,560
Speaker 1: not the same thing as it sounds a lot like

449
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:33,880
Speaker 1: the family to me. Another episode we covered We're Evangelical

450
00:30:34,080 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 1: Christianity was at least making those friends right in high

451
00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:45,600
Speaker 1: places and actively working to increase just influence within those realms,

452
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 1: not necessarily causing a coup. Is that the episode where

453
00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 1: we got a little bit lost trying to figure out

454
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:56,040
Speaker 1: what the menu for the prayer breakfast was. I was

455
00:30:56,080 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 1: just thinking, I was like, well, I don't know why

456
00:30:57,320 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 1: am I thinking about eggs right now? That's right. There

457
00:30:59,920 --> 00:31:02,840
Speaker 1: was that massive prayer breakfast that was such a like

458
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:07,920
Speaker 1: an influencer kind of closed door situation that they essentially started. Correct,

459
00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:13,280
Speaker 1: it's always pancakes, guys. Yeah, I just I don't like

460
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:18,040
Speaker 1: all right. I I feel like a pancake breakfast is

461
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:20,960
Speaker 1: of something that's cooler as a phrase than actual thing,

462
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 1: Like what what makes it a pancake breakfast instead of

463
00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:26,840
Speaker 1: just like pancakes and o J is there? Baby? Maybe

464
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:29,200
Speaker 1: eat two pancakes, you know what I mean? Like I

465
00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 1: I need a variety. I want like some sausage and

466
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 1: some bacon, and I'm not a huge pancakes. It feels

467
00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:38,120
Speaker 1: so much like dessert to me. Look very heavy. You guys,

468
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:42,000
Speaker 1: when you're a tax exempt organization, you gotta keep costs

469
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:45,719
Speaker 1: super low, and pancake batter is the way to go.

470
00:31:46,120 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 1: It's true. It is the people's the people's food. You're

471
00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:55,040
Speaker 1: gonna call it the people's cake. Also te uh yeah yeah,

472
00:31:55,120 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 1: pancake opinions aside. I just think I don't know. Also

473
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:00,760
Speaker 1: portions in the US or so cartoon large if you

474
00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:03,120
Speaker 1: go eat somewhere. I mean, I'm with you, guys in

475
00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:05,720
Speaker 1: two or three silver dollar pancakes, like I have some

476
00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:09,280
Speaker 1: other stuff going on in the plate. Uh. But this

477
00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:12,640
Speaker 1: is not this is not something that Sina or the

478
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 1: PRC was I astart of talking about too much. Uh,

479
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:20,280
Speaker 1: they were, they were concerned, you know, and they thought

480
00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:25,600
Speaker 1: Western media was in Western governments were being complicit in

481
00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 1: supporting what they saw as an increasingly subversive and perhaps

482
00:32:29,160 --> 00:32:34,840
Speaker 1: even separatist organization. Today, the members of Following Kong or

483
00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 1: the practitioners of I think I think the members of

484
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 1: the organization prefer the term practitioners. The practitioners are often

485
00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 1: overtly political and overtly anti China. They want the demise,

486
00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:49,680
Speaker 1: if not of the government of China, they want the

487
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:53,040
Speaker 1: demise of the Communist Party. And if we're being completely

488
00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:56,840
Speaker 1: objective here, you can see a couple of different reasons

489
00:32:56,880 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 1: for this. The Chinese government may argue that they're political

490
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:05,160
Speaker 1: beliefs are the reason this movement was banned. But we

491
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:07,840
Speaker 1: also have to ask, if we're being fair, are the

492
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 1: people who are being overtly political here are they just

493
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:17,920
Speaker 1: reacting in an entirely reasonable way to some extreme state

494
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:22,960
Speaker 1: level persecution? You know? Is this an exercise group or

495
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:26,240
Speaker 1: a cult. That's a question that we're going to try

496
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:35,040
Speaker 1: to explore together. After a word from our sponsor and

497
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: we're back, okay, So before the break, we posed the

498
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:40,880
Speaker 1: question what really is this? Is a lot of divisive

499
00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:43,800
Speaker 1: talk surrounding the Fallon Gong, So what is it is?

500
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 1: It is a kind of a nocuous mindfulness meditative exercise group,

501
00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:54,600
Speaker 1: or some sort of nefarious cult, or perhaps something in between. Um.

502
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:59,800
Speaker 1: While the again state sponsored Chinese media calls Falangog occult,

503
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:04,840
Speaker 1: Western media seemed very hesitant to do so. In fact, really,

504
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:08,520
Speaker 1: like we talked about that time interview, did give them

505
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:12,759
Speaker 1: a platform and treated them almost with a lot of deference,

506
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:16,560
Speaker 1: and we got to ask ourselves why. Uh. Some scholars

507
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:19,360
Speaker 1: argue that it was because of pressure from Folloing Goong itself,

508
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:22,560
Speaker 1: perhaps that lititiousness we talked about. Um. Still, there are

509
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:25,840
Speaker 1: some accounts and evidence showing recruitment tactics that could be

510
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: described as pretty sketchy at the very least, cult like

511
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 1: at the most, as Heather Caven rights in Fallonong and

512
00:34:35,239 --> 00:34:39,320
Speaker 1: the media, what can we believe? The exercises quickly begin

513
00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:46,400
Speaker 1: to take a back seat to larger ideologically driven belief systems. UM.

514
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 1: Here's a quote on newcomers second or third visits, they

515
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:54,920
Speaker 1: are given scriptures showing Lee's rejection of those who simply

516
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:59,360
Speaker 1: do the exercise part and not you know, the the

517
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:02,840
Speaker 1: other stuff which we'll get into. Um. When six months

518
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:05,680
Speaker 1: into the field work, remember told me that Fallon Goong

519
00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 1: was not about doing the exercises at all. And I

520
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 1: was not surprised. Yeah. So, uh, Heather Kavan wrote this

521
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:19,480
Speaker 1: awesome paper where did this ethnographics study? I believe in

522
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:22,960
Speaker 1: New Zealand? And she was she was meeting up with

523
00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:25,800
Speaker 1: members of Following Calling every day for a time and

524
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:30,560
Speaker 1: doing these exercises in the morning. Uh. And she got

525
00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:34,680
Speaker 1: they were very welcoming, and she got an increasingly intimate

526
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:39,239
Speaker 1: perspective of the day to day actions of practitioners as

527
00:35:39,280 --> 00:35:43,280
Speaker 1: well as you know, some of the larger things that

528
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:47,160
Speaker 1: they believed to be true. And this got into ideas

529
00:35:47,360 --> 00:35:51,360
Speaker 1: of like having visions visions are very big, and following

530
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:56,840
Speaker 1: Gong having clairvoyance moments or moments by location. Uh. And

531
00:35:56,880 --> 00:35:59,960
Speaker 1: then also there were sketchy things where she would add

532
00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:04,200
Speaker 1: like she did this for pretty more than a year

533
00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:07,359
Speaker 1: I think, And there was somebody she was meeting every

534
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:09,839
Speaker 1: day and she said, hey, what do I call that

535
00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:12,440
Speaker 1: woman that had been meeting with every day? And somebody

536
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:14,600
Speaker 1: just looked at her and was like just call her

537
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:18,000
Speaker 1: the woman, which is kind of a sketchy thing to say.

538
00:36:18,120 --> 00:36:20,279
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know. I'm an outsider, but

539
00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:24,799
Speaker 1: this told her that there was a maybe to your point,

540
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:26,640
Speaker 1: in a little bit of bait and switch, kind of

541
00:36:26,760 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 1: like you're come for the exercises, stay for the truth

542
00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:32,520
Speaker 1: about the universe. And I'm not being dismissive. I mean

543
00:36:32,560 --> 00:36:35,399
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of the process. And those for people

544
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:38,439
Speaker 1: who continue deeper into the belief system X fallon Gong

545
00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:43,960
Speaker 1: practitioners say that the the beliefs and values are what

546
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:49,360
Speaker 1: might be called surprisingly conservative, the forbidding of interracial marriage,

547
00:36:49,600 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 1: the condemnation of homosexuality, and to our earlier point, discouraging

548
00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:57,960
Speaker 1: the use of modern medicine. For their part, Following Going

549
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:02,799
Speaker 1: officially denies that this is true. So again we're in

550
00:37:03,800 --> 00:37:07,080
Speaker 1: one side said this, one side said that situation. But

551
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:10,600
Speaker 1: if this is if we were to define this as

552
00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:14,040
Speaker 1: a cult, which Following Gong emphatically says it is not,

553
00:37:14,800 --> 00:37:19,680
Speaker 1: then we would naturally find ourselves with a couple of

554
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:22,880
Speaker 1: questions off the bat. The first is this this observation

555
00:37:22,960 --> 00:37:26,920
Speaker 1: cults need leaders, So people are critics of this organization.

556
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 1: Those who accuse follon Gong of being a cult. Say,

557
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:32,720
Speaker 1: they do have a leader in that role is played

558
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:36,799
Speaker 1: by the founder, Lee Hong Shi. So weird thing about

559
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:42,960
Speaker 1: Lee Honks is that we have conflicting stories about him,

560
00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:47,200
Speaker 1: his life, his current beliefs, his aims for the organization

561
00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:50,080
Speaker 1: or aims for the movement. And the even weirder thing

562
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:53,960
Speaker 1: about this is to Matt's earlier point about information war, Uh,

563
00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:56,560
Speaker 1: some of these reports are coming from people who would

564
00:37:56,560 --> 00:37:59,520
Speaker 1: be totally happy if he never existed a k. The

565
00:37:59,680 --> 00:38:04,040
Speaker 1: Chinese government. Some of these reports are coming from his disciples,

566
00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:09,040
Speaker 1: and then some of his conflicting reports are coming straight

567
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:12,480
Speaker 1: from him at different times when he's talking to different people,

568
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 1: like he's he's not a Western audience, right, he say like,

569
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:17,160
Speaker 1: I'm not a god, don't try to make me a god.

570
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:19,680
Speaker 1: And then he's talking to a domestic audience and he's say,

571
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:23,160
Speaker 1: my true spiritual form is so huge that if I

572
00:38:23,239 --> 00:38:26,080
Speaker 1: came down here, you know, in my true form, you

573
00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:28,720
Speaker 1: would be standing like standing trying to gaze up past

574
00:38:28,760 --> 00:38:34,759
Speaker 1: my big toe. Totally a god a K. Yeah. Interesting,

575
00:38:36,560 --> 00:38:39,160
Speaker 1: It's it's very weird, I mean, and and he in

576
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:42,680
Speaker 1: the past hasn't Lee said that he's like of Jesus

577
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:46,680
Speaker 1: or a savior or the person who is going to yeah,

578
00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:52,759
Speaker 1: save humanity. Yeah, he said that. Um, he's compared himself

579
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 1: at times in speeches to the biblical Jesus Christ, where

580
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:03,239
Speaker 1: he said that, you know lines like, uh, Christ has

581
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:07,520
Speaker 1: a sixteen carrot gold path. I have a twenty four

582
00:39:07,640 --> 00:39:10,680
Speaker 1: or twenty something carrot gold path. Uh. You know, we

583
00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 1: have to admit maybe we're maybe we're losing some context

584
00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 1: in translation, but these like there's a repeated pattern of

585
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 1: this stuff. He also says things will be familiar to

586
00:39:23,600 --> 00:39:27,840
Speaker 1: people who have had experience with exclusionary organizations. Says that

587
00:39:27,840 --> 00:39:31,680
Speaker 1: if you're a member of Following Going, you're superior to

588
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:36,280
Speaker 1: ordinary people, and this might be familiar to longtime listeners.

589
00:39:36,560 --> 00:39:41,239
Speaker 1: Also says you need to relinquish affection for kinsfolk, love

590
00:39:41,360 --> 00:39:44,480
Speaker 1: between a man and a woman, and affection for parents,

591
00:39:44,719 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 1: feelings and friendship. You need to focus on the path. Uh.

592
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:54,080
Speaker 1: What was that guy we did episode on Benhit though,

593
00:39:56,800 --> 00:39:59,120
Speaker 1: Wasn't he like in like Sedona or something like that.

594
00:40:00,040 --> 00:40:02,600
Speaker 1: He was in somewhere somewhere in like New Mexico and

595
00:40:02,640 --> 00:40:05,839
Speaker 1: he had this whole like kind of sweat lodge tech

596
00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:14,600
Speaker 1: bro cult situation. Careful, Yeah, I I still get his newsletters.

597
00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 1: Oh boy, interesting, Well, no, you're right, Ben, and and

598
00:40:20,400 --> 00:40:23,279
Speaker 1: and and it gets weirder like and he's he'sn't he's

599
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:26,520
Speaker 1: not shy about this, and it's it's even a little inconsistent,

600
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:29,879
Speaker 1: right like when he's gonna go big and talk about

601
00:40:29,920 --> 00:40:33,799
Speaker 1: the big toe, you know, god situation or downplay and say,

602
00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:36,799
Speaker 1: oh no, no, I'm just a but a humble meditation instructor.

603
00:40:37,640 --> 00:40:40,560
Speaker 1: I'm I'm exaggerating a little bit. But in that Time

604
00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:44,760
Speaker 1: article he talks a lot about being able to teach

605
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:48,200
Speaker 1: people to levitate off of the ground. Um, And then

606
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:53,120
Speaker 1: also he talks about how you shouldn't ever show these

607
00:40:53,160 --> 00:40:56,279
Speaker 1: abilities to outsiders. The Time Reporters is in your book

608
00:40:56,920 --> 00:40:59,640
Speaker 1: Zon Faloon, you talk about people levitating off the ground,

609
00:40:59,680 --> 00:41:02,160
Speaker 1: but you say that they should not show other people.

610
00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:04,960
Speaker 1: Why is that? And he Lee says it is the

611
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:07,759
Speaker 1: same principle that Western gods in paradise should not be

612
00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:11,440
Speaker 1: seen by ordinary mortals because they cannot understand its meaning.

613
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:14,920
Speaker 1: And then Time asks have you seen human beings levitate

614
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:17,479
Speaker 1: off the ground? And he responds, I have known too many.

615
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:19,919
Speaker 1: Can you describe any that you have known, to which

616
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:23,919
Speaker 1: Lee responds, David Copperfield, he can levitate, and he did

617
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:27,480
Speaker 1: it during the performances. Uh. I'm not trying to rag

618
00:41:27,520 --> 00:41:30,640
Speaker 1: on the guy too hard, but very mixed messages here

619
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:34,360
Speaker 1: he's saying, you know you, I can teach people to

620
00:41:34,440 --> 00:41:38,120
Speaker 1: do it. Uh, It's something that's inherent in this belief system. Also,

621
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:40,799
Speaker 1: I don't like the idea of them showing anybody but

622
00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:44,880
Speaker 1: the one he cites as an American illusionist where everyone

623
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:48,560
Speaker 1: knows that he's not really levitating, very unusual. They have

624
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:52,400
Speaker 1: just been a joke, you know, some a form of

625
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:55,640
Speaker 1: a joke. Who knows. Yeah. Maybe. And then also this

626
00:41:55,760 --> 00:41:59,880
Speaker 1: is this is interesting because again we go back to

627
00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:02,960
Speaker 1: the question of not just context, but the question of

628
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:07,799
Speaker 1: motivation of the sources. Like the thing about there's an

629
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:11,279
Speaker 1: interesting example. So we talked a little bit about, um,

630
00:42:11,400 --> 00:42:14,919
Speaker 1: how there might have been pressure from following Gong that

631
00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:19,840
Speaker 1: influenced Western media's portrayal of the group Originally. It reminds

632
00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:24,000
Speaker 1: me a lot of Reverend Moon and the Washington Times,

633
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:28,800
Speaker 1: when when the Mooney's owned that there were clear conflicts

634
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 1: of interest that would come up over time, just like

635
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:35,400
Speaker 1: obviously see has conflicts of interest because it's state media,

636
00:42:36,040 --> 00:42:40,600
Speaker 1: just like multiple organizations do. It's more unusual to be

637
00:42:40,719 --> 00:42:45,320
Speaker 1: like a pro publica without as much of an editorial bias.

638
00:42:45,360 --> 00:42:48,400
Speaker 1: So we I think we've built an okay case to

639
00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:51,480
Speaker 1: to show that. First off, a lot of statements from

640
00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:55,040
Speaker 1: this guy have been conflicting over time with earlier statements

641
00:42:55,040 --> 00:42:57,360
Speaker 1: he's made, or with statements he goes on to make afterwards.

642
00:42:57,800 --> 00:43:01,560
Speaker 1: A Secondly, there are some claim Chief's made that seemed

643
00:43:01,560 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 1: pretty extraordinary and that don't seem all two out of

644
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:09,439
Speaker 1: the realm of cult leader. But we're we're just we're

645
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:13,680
Speaker 1: telling you why. Some people have argued that the other

646
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:16,680
Speaker 1: thing that keeps us so we're kind of pingponging back

647
00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:19,960
Speaker 1: and forth across what's happening here. Here's another thing that's happening.

648
00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:24,560
Speaker 1: Following Gong practitioners have for years and years and years

649
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 1: alleged that since uh gosh Win in two decades now,

650
00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:33,680
Speaker 1: that since maybe even a little before, they were being

651
00:43:33,719 --> 00:43:38,480
Speaker 1: persecuted and are being persecuted by the Chinese government. That

652
00:43:38,719 --> 00:43:41,680
Speaker 1: is true. That's the thing. That's no one they're not

653
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:45,400
Speaker 1: making that up. After the band, tens of thousands of

654
00:43:45,440 --> 00:43:48,479
Speaker 1: people were arrested, they were sent to labor camps without

655
00:43:48,520 --> 00:43:53,200
Speaker 1: a trial, and many of these people who have survived,

656
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:57,440
Speaker 1: who came out of these said that they were tortured. Again,

657
00:43:57,480 --> 00:44:00,560
Speaker 1: the numbers may be exaggerated. It's tough to get transparent

658
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:04,360
Speaker 1: numbers and incarceration from the Chinese government, and it's tough

659
00:44:04,440 --> 00:44:09,279
Speaker 1: to really UM and this is not adeing on them,

660
00:44:09,320 --> 00:44:13,200
Speaker 1: it's it's tough to understand the credibility of numbers offered

661
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:17,240
Speaker 1: by an organization like this on its own membership rates

662
00:44:17,560 --> 00:44:20,719
Speaker 1: on on who have what happened to whom and when,

663
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:24,720
Speaker 1: just because they might not. I'm not saying there's any

664
00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:28,239
Speaker 1: necessarily an ulterior motive here. They may not have the

665
00:44:28,280 --> 00:44:32,120
Speaker 1: capacity to to keep that kind of accounting, but the

666
00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:35,040
Speaker 1: detainment was definitely real. Yeah. So in the Wall Street

667
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:40,000
Speaker 1: Journal UM, a journalist named Ian Johnson documented his investigation

668
00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:45,040
Speaker 1: into the repression that we're talking about and a series

669
00:44:45,120 --> 00:44:48,000
Speaker 1: that he wrote which he received a Pulitzer price for

670
00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:51,080
Speaker 1: part of UM. And there's definitely something strange going on

671
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:56,040
Speaker 1: sinoa UM and pretty stark, if not very surprising, as

672
00:44:56,040 --> 00:45:00,719
Speaker 1: we discussed. Contrast depicted the prisoners as be being happy

673
00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:03,560
Speaker 1: playing basketball. We're talked about this in the past episodes

674
00:45:03,600 --> 00:45:08,279
Speaker 1: as well, eating amazing you know, platters of food and

675
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:11,720
Speaker 1: all of that, with local police stations acting as UM

676
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:15,680
Speaker 1: centers for them to receive counseling to help these poor,

677
00:45:15,719 --> 00:45:20,920
Speaker 1: you know, brainwashed souls essentially get an education and become

678
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:28,080
Speaker 1: I guess more acclimated or reintroduced into traditional civilized Chinese society.

679
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:30,600
Speaker 1: UM in this, you know, really support of the narrative

680
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:33,799
Speaker 1: of the government was pushing of this being a dangerous

681
00:45:33,920 --> 00:45:41,160
Speaker 1: separatist cult. However, practitioners of Follonong described members being treated

682
00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:45,799
Speaker 1: much much differently, described them being hung by their ankles

683
00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 1: upside down for long periods of time, hit with like

684
00:45:49,760 --> 00:45:55,320
Speaker 1: cattle prod type implements or stunned guns UH actually cuts

685
00:45:55,480 --> 00:45:59,200
Speaker 1: or pierced with bamboo sticks, beaten and raped, and kept

686
00:45:59,200 --> 00:46:01,880
Speaker 1: in tiny, tiny spaces where they can't even move for

687
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:04,880
Speaker 1: days at a time. UM prohibited from using the restroom

688
00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:10,720
Speaker 1: facilities for long periods of time, UH showing brutal imagery

689
00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:15,160
Speaker 1: displayed throughout these facilities, things like police brutality, and often

690
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:17,799
Speaker 1: in some of these public demonstrations that they would do,

691
00:46:18,239 --> 00:46:23,680
Speaker 1: they would re enact historical torture scenes UH in alarming

692
00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:28,520
Speaker 1: and disturbing ways. Theater as a weapon. Right, it's a

693
00:46:28,719 --> 00:46:30,239
Speaker 1: it's a it's a real thing, and it can be

694
00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:38,280
Speaker 1: a powerful thing. There's an interesting and somewhat troubling interpretation

695
00:46:38,360 --> 00:46:44,800
Speaker 1: of this persecution. This persecution is to a degree um aspirational,

696
00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:48,200
Speaker 1: as much as I hate to say it. Within the movement,

697
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:51,880
Speaker 1: there's this one speech where Lee talks about stepping forward.

698
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:57,960
Speaker 1: Stepping forward is a euphemism referring to a series of

699
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:02,600
Speaker 1: tests that practitioners must asks to gain entry into his

700
00:47:02,960 --> 00:47:07,480
Speaker 1: version or his realization of heaven or paradise or enlightenment.

701
00:47:08,120 --> 00:47:12,800
Speaker 1: Going up the ladder, crossing the bridge, stepping forward. Okay,

702
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:17,200
Speaker 1: do you want to get a seed? Uh simens reference

703
00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:20,719
Speaker 1: so so yeah. That Here's how he explained it. He

704
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 1: said he had only planned enlightenment for a limited number

705
00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:28,080
Speaker 1: of following glowing members, but with the increasing amount of

706
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:31,839
Speaker 1: practitioners again, they might be inflating the numbers here, and

707
00:47:32,280 --> 00:47:35,279
Speaker 1: with of course the eminent end of the world, he

708
00:47:35,320 --> 00:47:37,839
Speaker 1: had to start weeding people out quick fast and in

709
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:41,759
Speaker 1: a hurry. And so he said that if you defend

710
00:47:42,239 --> 00:47:45,759
Speaker 1: the following long to the point where you are imprisoned,

711
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:50,200
Speaker 1: you are detained, you are tortured, then your bad karma

712
00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:54,719
Speaker 1: is burned off, and this assures you a space in paradise.

713
00:47:55,080 --> 00:47:59,960
Speaker 1: Practitioners must not recant their faith, even if their retract

714
00:48:00,080 --> 00:48:03,480
Speaker 1: chin is insincere, even if, like we proved in earlier

715
00:48:03,560 --> 00:48:06,480
Speaker 1: episodes on torture, you're just saying whatever you think people

716
00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:08,520
Speaker 1: want to hear, so that I will stop pulling out

717
00:48:08,520 --> 00:48:12,640
Speaker 1: your fingernails or shocking your testicles or what have you. Uh.

718
00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:16,439
Speaker 1: He says, Look, even if you fake recanting, foul them gong,

719
00:48:17,400 --> 00:48:20,600
Speaker 1: you're a terrible person. And then he goes on, think

720
00:48:20,640 --> 00:48:24,080
Speaker 1: about this, he goes one step further and and heavily

721
00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:29,480
Speaker 1: implies that he purposefully orchestrated the torture, that it was

722
00:48:29,520 --> 00:48:32,240
Speaker 1: all under his control the whole time, because he needed

723
00:48:32,239 --> 00:48:35,880
Speaker 1: to expose these weak willed folks. And he refers to

724
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:39,920
Speaker 1: these folks who were can't under torture as quote malignant tumors.

725
00:48:41,560 --> 00:48:44,560
Speaker 1: The torture is real, but the interpretation of it and

726
00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:46,640
Speaker 1: the degree to which it's real is still up for

727
00:48:46,719 --> 00:48:50,600
Speaker 1: debate because there's just not a unbiased source here, really,

728
00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:54,600
Speaker 1: um and and it's tough, you know, like these are

729
00:48:54,719 --> 00:48:57,319
Speaker 1: Wall Street journal these are top notch journalists. And they're

730
00:48:57,360 --> 00:49:00,920
Speaker 1: having they're having a tough time get cutting through the

731
00:49:00,960 --> 00:49:07,759
Speaker 1: propaganda and cutting through the purposeful, the purposely deceptive tactics

732
00:49:07,800 --> 00:49:10,319
Speaker 1: of the government. And we have to go to one

733
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:13,359
Speaker 1: other thing, which is probably the thing people a lot

734
00:49:13,360 --> 00:49:15,759
Speaker 1: of people in the West probably first heard of Follongong

735
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:19,880
Speaker 1: because of this, and we've covered it in both video

736
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:24,920
Speaker 1: and audio in the past. Organ harvesting, the quote unquote

737
00:49:24,920 --> 00:49:27,600
Speaker 1: red market. Yeah, and this is again, as you said, Ben,

738
00:49:27,640 --> 00:49:29,440
Speaker 1: this is one of the things that brings a lot

739
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:32,560
Speaker 1: of people into the conversation because it's such a sensational

740
00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 1: concept that the Chinese government is somehow or for some

741
00:49:37,520 --> 00:49:43,160
Speaker 1: reason harvesting organs directly from Falloon Goong practitioners. Um. And

742
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:46,920
Speaker 1: this is this is something that is alleged um And

743
00:49:46,960 --> 00:49:50,400
Speaker 1: it's it's usually it's usually organs being taken from detainees,

744
00:49:50,640 --> 00:49:53,640
Speaker 1: people who are already detained by the government. At least

745
00:49:53,680 --> 00:49:57,400
Speaker 1: that's what's said in an expert panel of independent researchers

746
00:49:57,400 --> 00:50:00,920
Speaker 1: said they heard clear evidence that organ harvesting had taken

747
00:50:00,960 --> 00:50:08,160
Speaker 1: place over at least twenty years um wow, directly tied

748
00:50:09,960 --> 00:50:13,359
Speaker 1: when they were declared illegal. If you look at the timeline, Uh,

749
00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:19,360
Speaker 1: questions about the bias of this tribunal, the China Tribunal.

750
00:50:20,880 --> 00:50:23,680
Speaker 1: He was set up by a group called the International

751
00:50:23,719 --> 00:50:28,160
Speaker 1: Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China. So it definitely

752
00:50:28,400 --> 00:50:31,360
Speaker 1: starts from assuming it's this is happening and they just

753
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:34,319
Speaker 1: want to prove it's there. H This panel said it

754
00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:38,040
Speaker 1: was beyond a doubt a fact that there had been

755
00:50:38,120 --> 00:50:42,719
Speaker 1: forced our organ harvesting, not just because of one like

756
00:50:42,840 --> 00:50:46,600
Speaker 1: crooked doctor or one crooked warden, which this is very important,

757
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:50,120
Speaker 1: but they said it was happening on a systemic scale.

758
00:50:50,440 --> 00:50:55,520
Speaker 1: States supported. And here's the worst part. Beijing has repeatedly

759
00:50:55,600 --> 00:50:58,640
Speaker 1: denied these accusations. They did not start with following gold.

760
00:50:58,880 --> 00:51:01,480
Speaker 1: To be very clear, as we talked about earlier, this

761
00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:04,280
Speaker 1: is an ongoing thing, uh or this was an ongoing

762
00:51:04,600 --> 00:51:08,040
Speaker 1: thing at the time. But I wouldn't draw a special

763
00:51:08,080 --> 00:51:13,600
Speaker 1: attention to their reasoning here, their support of their their

764
00:51:13,640 --> 00:51:16,839
Speaker 1: claim that they didn't do this. They you guys, they

765
00:51:16,960 --> 00:51:24,120
Speaker 1: literally said no, we don't forcibly take organs from people

766
00:51:24,360 --> 00:51:27,000
Speaker 1: as a bunch of Western propaganda, you know, I mean,

767
00:51:27,280 --> 00:51:32,520
Speaker 1: for Pete's sake, fellow humans, we stopped taking organs from

768
00:51:32,640 --> 00:51:36,920
Speaker 1: executed prisoners way back in and that was like four

769
00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:41,719
Speaker 1: years ago. You guys are living in the past. Come on,

770
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:46,680
Speaker 1: that's just like okay, Like imagine, I'm not gonna say

771
00:51:46,719 --> 00:51:51,680
Speaker 1: somebody burned a barn, but but imagine like I was

772
00:51:51,800 --> 00:51:54,719
Speaker 1: standing right next to just like the old Aminem song,

773
00:51:55,040 --> 00:51:59,040
Speaker 1: I'm standing right next to uh burning barn in this instance,

774
00:51:59,080 --> 00:52:01,560
Speaker 1: and I've got a got a handful of matches he

775
00:52:01,760 --> 00:52:06,040
Speaker 1: carefully gas. People are like, hey, dude, did you burn

776
00:52:06,080 --> 00:52:09,600
Speaker 1: this barn? I'm like, what, that's crazy. I haven't burned

777
00:52:09,680 --> 00:52:15,520
Speaker 1: barns for funds since you guys are wild and that's unfair.

778
00:52:16,320 --> 00:52:19,560
Speaker 1: But like you see what I'm saying. I'm saying it's

779
00:52:19,600 --> 00:52:21,799
Speaker 1: right to be suspicious. It is right to be suspicious.

780
00:52:21,960 --> 00:52:24,560
Speaker 1: And it's also just something to point out here. We

781
00:52:24,640 --> 00:52:28,160
Speaker 1: talked about the demonstrations the felon going practitioners have done

782
00:52:28,200 --> 00:52:30,880
Speaker 1: with showing the police brutality of the torture. One of

783
00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:33,320
Speaker 1: the things that they harp on, or at least have

784
00:52:33,440 --> 00:52:38,080
Speaker 1: in the past is this bread market and like they

785
00:52:38,120 --> 00:52:41,440
Speaker 1: will go through the motions of having a detainee like

786
00:52:41,960 --> 00:52:45,440
Speaker 1: not really but having their organs ripped out in a

787
00:52:45,520 --> 00:52:48,600
Speaker 1: very gory fashion in a demonstration in front of a building,

788
00:52:48,640 --> 00:52:52,719
Speaker 1: a government building or something. And then this leads us

789
00:52:52,760 --> 00:52:55,840
Speaker 1: to maybe one of the biggest things we need to

790
00:52:55,880 --> 00:53:00,560
Speaker 1: note here. The information war that started in the nineties continues.

791
00:53:00,640 --> 00:53:04,000
Speaker 1: It's been going on for decades. Uh, there's something we

792
00:53:04,080 --> 00:53:06,920
Speaker 1: mentioned a little earlier. We've talked a lot about this

793
00:53:07,000 --> 00:53:10,480
Speaker 1: office preparation for this episode. In the US, there's this

794
00:53:10,600 --> 00:53:16,520
Speaker 1: amazing traveling show called Shan Yutt. We talked. We talked

795
00:53:16,560 --> 00:53:19,040
Speaker 1: about this, I think last week or so, like we

796
00:53:19,080 --> 00:53:21,880
Speaker 1: always wanted to go. I definitely always wanted to go.

797
00:53:22,040 --> 00:53:24,600
Speaker 1: Felt the tickets were a little pricey, but it is

798
00:53:24,640 --> 00:53:29,279
Speaker 1: in fact associated with and backed by Fallingong. Visually, it's

799
00:53:29,280 --> 00:53:32,200
Speaker 1: a stunning show. It's the kind of thing too where

800
00:53:32,239 --> 00:53:35,520
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't know where this budget is coming from.

801
00:53:35,520 --> 00:53:38,520
Speaker 1: With the marketing blitz behind this show is out of control.

802
00:53:38,800 --> 00:53:40,400
Speaker 1: A lot of it's just kind of like street team

803
00:53:40,400 --> 00:53:42,920
Speaker 1: type situations where you'll see, you know, fires for it

804
00:53:43,000 --> 00:53:46,640
Speaker 1: at every restaurant and coffee shop and you know, juice

805
00:53:46,960 --> 00:53:51,040
Speaker 1: juice bar in town, but they have billboards everywhere, and

806
00:53:51,080 --> 00:53:53,600
Speaker 1: like in New York City especially, a friend of mine

807
00:53:53,719 --> 00:53:56,400
Speaker 1: UM was saying how he ended up in a cab

808
00:53:56,640 --> 00:53:59,239
Speaker 1: or a lift or something that was driven by very

809
00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:04,360
Speaker 1: clearly foulonong uh, you know, kind of hardliner um. And

810
00:54:04,600 --> 00:54:08,000
Speaker 1: there were even shen Yuan advertisements within the cab, and

811
00:54:08,080 --> 00:54:11,120
Speaker 1: he had like stacks of Fallonang pamphlets as well. It's

812
00:54:11,120 --> 00:54:14,160
Speaker 1: almost like a modern day Harry Christna thing. Remember how

813
00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:16,720
Speaker 1: he used to see the Harri Krishnas at the airport

814
00:54:16,800 --> 00:54:19,440
Speaker 1: passing out their pamphlets and stuff. This is sort of

815
00:54:19,480 --> 00:54:22,680
Speaker 1: like that to me. Oh yeah, it makes itself known.

816
00:54:22,719 --> 00:54:25,279
Speaker 1: So let's talk about exactly what we're seeing here in

817
00:54:25,320 --> 00:54:31,759
Speaker 1: this beautifully chore choreographed dance, interpretive dance and cultural exchange

818
00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:35,080
Speaker 1: at shen Yun. What do you see? Yeah, so you

819
00:54:35,120 --> 00:54:40,480
Speaker 1: see it's it's heavily rooted in traditional Chinese culture. So

820
00:54:40,680 --> 00:54:45,120
Speaker 1: we'll see you'll see songs, You'll see intricate choreography and

821
00:54:45,280 --> 00:54:50,880
Speaker 1: dance numbers. You'll also see a admittedly transparent narrative and

822
00:54:51,120 --> 00:54:56,120
Speaker 1: overall message which includes the reenactment of some of those uh.

823
00:54:56,280 --> 00:55:01,600
Speaker 1: Some of those acts of persecution also include duds, you know,

824
00:55:01,840 --> 00:55:06,799
Speaker 1: very pro Follongong, pro shen Yon message. Uh. And it

825
00:55:06,880 --> 00:55:10,359
Speaker 1: talks about the evils of persecution like it's clearly it's

826
00:55:10,360 --> 00:55:15,000
Speaker 1: clearly a show with something to say beyond witness Uh

827
00:55:15,320 --> 00:55:19,480
Speaker 1: this ancient tradition of Chinese dance. Uh. And you can

828
00:55:19,520 --> 00:55:22,240
Speaker 1: read a lot about shen Yun. One thing you can

829
00:55:22,840 --> 00:55:24,960
Speaker 1: you can hear about at least is the Upstate New

830
00:55:25,040 --> 00:55:30,040
Speaker 1: York training facility where shen Yun I guess pelone going

831
00:55:30,080 --> 00:55:34,400
Speaker 1: practitioners or just shen Yun dancers and performers go and

832
00:55:34,480 --> 00:55:39,160
Speaker 1: learn really interesting stuff. And I mean to me, it's

833
00:55:39,160 --> 00:55:42,359
Speaker 1: it's like it has to have a massive base of operations, right,

834
00:55:42,600 --> 00:55:44,600
Speaker 1: because I mean it's got to be hundreds and hundreds

835
00:55:44,600 --> 00:55:48,360
Speaker 1: of of individuals that are performing in these various iterations

836
00:55:48,400 --> 00:55:50,759
Speaker 1: of this show, right, I mean like and like that's

837
00:55:50,760 --> 00:55:54,279
Speaker 1: what you're saying. There's a training facility almost like you

838
00:55:54,360 --> 00:55:59,040
Speaker 1: think of for circl. Yeah, it's it is called the

839
00:55:59,080 --> 00:56:04,200
Speaker 1: Phacian Academy, and it's in Middleton or Middletown, New York.

840
00:56:04,920 --> 00:56:08,840
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, post pandemic, if you depend on

841
00:56:08,880 --> 00:56:11,759
Speaker 1: where you live, it's pretty easy for you to see

842
00:56:11,760 --> 00:56:15,600
Speaker 1: this show when it comes into town because it's you know, uh,

843
00:56:16,360 --> 00:56:19,040
Speaker 1: it used to travel a lot before before COVID locked

844
00:56:19,080 --> 00:56:21,480
Speaker 1: us down. One thing I noticed is it seemed like

845
00:56:21,560 --> 00:56:25,400
Speaker 1: any young show was always on the way, just left.

846
00:56:25,520 --> 00:56:28,120
Speaker 1: It's definitely a business and just quick shout out to

847
00:56:28,680 --> 00:56:32,480
Speaker 1: The New Yorker and Gia Tolentino, I think that's her name.

848
00:56:33,880 --> 00:56:36,719
Speaker 1: Article you can read called stepping into the Uncanny, unsettling

849
00:56:36,719 --> 00:56:39,600
Speaker 1: world of shen yuon just it's it describes to you

850
00:56:39,960 --> 00:56:43,040
Speaker 1: exactly what you see. And let's stick with the New

851
00:56:43,160 --> 00:56:47,000
Speaker 1: York Times. Let's also stick with allegations of front companies,

852
00:56:47,680 --> 00:56:51,880
Speaker 1: because Follongong has a success story that may be familiar

853
00:56:51,920 --> 00:56:53,319
Speaker 1: to a lot of people in the US, though you

854
00:56:53,400 --> 00:56:57,160
Speaker 1: may not know the full story. It's a big conspiratorial

855
00:56:57,840 --> 00:57:01,200
Speaker 1: great journalists over at New York Times named Kevin Rose

856
00:57:02,000 --> 00:57:05,760
Speaker 1: had wrote this piece on a newspaper called The Epoch

857
00:57:05,920 --> 00:57:10,640
Speaker 1: Times E. P O. C H. That sounds so familiar, Okay, alright,

858
00:57:10,719 --> 00:57:14,560
Speaker 1: So for years the Epoch Times was a kind of small,

859
00:57:14,760 --> 00:57:19,080
Speaker 1: low budget newspaper that was against the government of China.

860
00:57:19,240 --> 00:57:23,000
Speaker 1: And you would if you're walking around the corners of

861
00:57:23,040 --> 00:57:26,560
Speaker 1: some New York neighborhoods, you would you would have this

862
00:57:26,720 --> 00:57:29,760
Speaker 1: thing handed out for free to you. People like free stuff.

863
00:57:29,760 --> 00:57:34,760
Speaker 1: It's a smart strategy. But in around or so the

864
00:57:34,800 --> 00:57:38,240
Speaker 1: paper made a couple of changes that turned it into

865
00:57:38,360 --> 00:57:42,720
Speaker 1: one of the country's most powerful digital platforms, most powerful

866
00:57:42,720 --> 00:57:46,640
Speaker 1: digital publishers. I should say they became a world class

867
00:57:46,680 --> 00:57:51,880
Speaker 1: source of right wing information by betting the farm on Facebook.

868
00:57:52,160 --> 00:57:55,280
Speaker 1: I don't know why I have so many farm analogies today, guys, sorry,

869
00:57:55,800 --> 00:58:00,600
Speaker 1: but so they like when when um, the Donald Trump

870
00:58:00,600 --> 00:58:04,320
Speaker 1: came forward to to become president, to become a presidential candidate,

871
00:58:04,360 --> 00:58:07,720
Speaker 1: all this stuff, they got super on board and they

872
00:58:07,800 --> 00:58:12,600
Speaker 1: embraced the Trump presidency most likely, if you had to guess,

873
00:58:12,720 --> 00:58:15,400
Speaker 1: because of his strong anti China stance at the time.

874
00:58:15,480 --> 00:58:18,480
Speaker 1: More than anything else. It was just like an enemy

875
00:58:18,520 --> 00:58:21,880
Speaker 1: of my enemy kind of thing. Um, I guess, how

876
00:58:21,920 --> 00:58:26,920
Speaker 1: of my pigament, chicken whatever. So the the coverage that

877
00:58:27,000 --> 00:58:30,280
Speaker 1: they had of US politics beforehand, it was very much

878
00:58:30,320 --> 00:58:34,160
Speaker 1: like neutral. Also ran straight up reporting right like this

879
00:58:34,200 --> 00:58:37,040
Speaker 1: bill passes, this bill doesn't pass. This person is blah

880
00:58:37,040 --> 00:58:40,560
Speaker 1: blah blah of New York. But then it became superpartisan

881
00:58:40,840 --> 00:58:46,240
Speaker 1: and in This article was written in November. Rose reports

882
00:58:46,280 --> 00:58:49,280
Speaker 1: that the Epic Times and its affiliates are a force

883
00:58:49,360 --> 00:58:52,440
Speaker 1: and right wing media, with tens of millions of social

884
00:58:52,440 --> 00:58:56,120
Speaker 1: media followers spread across dozens of pages, and they have

885
00:58:56,160 --> 00:58:59,600
Speaker 1: an online audience that rivals the audiences of The Daily

886
00:58:59,640 --> 00:59:05,800
Speaker 1: Call and Breitbart. Uh. Since two thousand and seventeen, they

887
00:59:05,840 --> 00:59:11,440
Speaker 1: had been running some pretty interesting experiments. And you can

888
00:59:11,480 --> 00:59:13,680
Speaker 1: also get a taste of the kind of stuff they cover.

889
00:59:14,240 --> 00:59:17,920
Speaker 1: They cover real world events, they cover um international news

890
00:59:18,000 --> 00:59:21,040
Speaker 1: with an anti China slant. But then they also you know,

891
00:59:21,080 --> 00:59:25,000
Speaker 1: when they're on social media, which a very adept at uh.

892
00:59:25,200 --> 00:59:28,920
Speaker 1: According to Rose, they're posting stuff about like anti vaccine

893
00:59:29,040 --> 00:59:34,919
Speaker 1: screen screeds. Uh. Where where did the coronavirus really come from?

894
00:59:34,960 --> 00:59:36,920
Speaker 1: And why doesn't the PRC want you to know? It

895
00:59:37,000 --> 00:59:39,440
Speaker 1: was made to lab on purpose by them? Because they're evil?

896
00:59:40,080 --> 00:59:44,120
Speaker 1: That's the whole headline. Why is Bill Gates directing the pandemic?

897
00:59:44,720 --> 00:59:47,560
Speaker 1: What's up with this Jewish mob that controls the world? Like,

898
00:59:47,640 --> 00:59:49,880
Speaker 1: that's the kind of stuff they're writing, And if you

899
00:59:49,960 --> 00:59:52,240
Speaker 1: listen to those headlines and those topics, it sounds very

900
00:59:52,240 --> 00:59:55,600
Speaker 1: similar to the stuff you've probably seen floating around on Facebook.

901
00:59:55,920 --> 00:59:58,040
Speaker 1: And I think this is an important thing. It's it's

902
00:59:58,080 --> 01:00:02,480
Speaker 1: a very strange turn of events. This has started as

903
01:00:02,480 --> 01:00:05,360
Speaker 1: like a spiritual movement or an exercise group. How did

904
01:00:05,400 --> 01:00:09,760
Speaker 1: it become a media powerhouse. How did it become, you know,

905
01:00:10,200 --> 01:00:13,680
Speaker 1: associated with this, with this traveling show that we want

906
01:00:13,720 --> 01:00:18,760
Speaker 1: to see that almost weaponizes theater. What what's the true

907
01:00:18,800 --> 01:00:23,280
Speaker 1: story of Lie Hong Xi? And at the very end

908
01:00:23,320 --> 01:00:25,840
Speaker 1: of the day show we have to advanced the even

909
01:00:25,840 --> 01:00:28,240
Speaker 1: crazier stuff. I'm sure I can't be the only person

910
01:00:28,280 --> 01:00:32,400
Speaker 1: wondering is following along an asset of a foreign intelligence agency.

911
01:00:32,760 --> 01:00:35,360
Speaker 1: It's not out of the question. It's a that's the

912
01:00:35,400 --> 01:00:38,600
Speaker 1: thing that no hard proof of this has come to light.

913
01:00:38,680 --> 01:00:41,360
Speaker 1: Please send us some if you have some. But of

914
01:00:41,400 --> 01:00:45,280
Speaker 1: course people are wondering, is the CIA involved? Because this

915
01:00:45,360 --> 01:00:47,800
Speaker 1: is this is like textbook c I A. You get

916
01:00:47,800 --> 01:00:51,000
Speaker 1: a you get a dissident group that may be disruptive

917
01:00:51,040 --> 01:00:54,080
Speaker 1: to the status quo, and boom, you got some independent

918
01:00:54,080 --> 01:00:56,439
Speaker 1: freedom fighters. You got a bunch of college students who

919
01:00:56,480 --> 01:01:00,560
Speaker 1: just happened to to overthrow a government because they believe

920
01:01:00,600 --> 01:01:04,600
Speaker 1: in for U, in these very US friendly ideals, and

921
01:01:04,720 --> 01:01:09,280
Speaker 1: they just somehow got some guns. Like that's that's the thing. Uh,

922
01:01:09,320 --> 01:01:11,760
Speaker 1: that's why people are asking this and following Gong has

923
01:01:11,800 --> 01:01:15,600
Speaker 1: not done like some kind of armed attack on a

924
01:01:15,720 --> 01:01:19,440
Speaker 1: Chinese building at this point. But but people are asking

925
01:01:19,480 --> 01:01:23,360
Speaker 1: these questions primarily because the West has such a terrible

926
01:01:23,360 --> 01:01:27,400
Speaker 1: track record and terrible precedent for interfering interfering fares this way.

927
01:01:27,680 --> 01:01:30,240
Speaker 1: And also these are human beings, Polone Gong people are

928
01:01:30,360 --> 01:01:32,840
Speaker 1: human beings. Um. I hope it's not a hot take

929
01:01:32,880 --> 01:01:36,360
Speaker 1: that human beings shouldn't be tortured and kidnapped. Nope, that

930
01:01:36,560 --> 01:01:42,760
Speaker 1: is a very cool take. Great thanks man, cool takes. Come.

931
01:01:42,920 --> 01:01:45,040
Speaker 1: Come for the hot ones, stay for the cool and stuff.

932
01:01:45,040 --> 01:01:47,320
Speaker 1: I want you to know. But there's one there's another point.

933
01:01:47,480 --> 01:01:50,680
Speaker 1: I think one of us mentioned this earlier. There's another

934
01:01:50,720 --> 01:01:54,760
Speaker 1: big mystery. Where is all the money coming from that's

935
01:01:54,800 --> 01:01:58,400
Speaker 1: powering these initiatives? Is this really all coming from like

936
01:01:58,480 --> 01:02:03,440
Speaker 1: subscriptions to things owned the up Up Media Group or SES.

937
01:02:04,720 --> 01:02:08,040
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know. This is this is big. Um.

938
01:02:08,360 --> 01:02:10,439
Speaker 1: We wanna we wanna know what you guys think. Yeah,

939
01:02:10,480 --> 01:02:13,280
Speaker 1: if you have any information on the tithing process or

940
01:02:13,320 --> 01:02:17,440
Speaker 1: like donation process or membership that you know, whatever it

941
01:02:17,480 --> 01:02:21,080
Speaker 1: takes to stay within the organization, If you have info

942
01:02:21,200 --> 01:02:23,200
Speaker 1: on that, we'd love to hear it, because it's difficult

943
01:02:23,240 --> 01:02:27,000
Speaker 1: to find anything transparent coming out of the organization or

944
01:02:27,040 --> 01:02:31,880
Speaker 1: anything that you could believe coming out of an opposition writer. Um,

945
01:02:31,960 --> 01:02:34,680
Speaker 1: so yeah, please write to us about that. Yeah, I

946
01:02:34,760 --> 01:02:38,160
Speaker 1: just keep like a matching. You're you're trying to decide

947
01:02:38,200 --> 01:02:40,640
Speaker 1: if you should eat a sandwich, and there's one person

948
01:02:41,280 --> 01:02:44,160
Speaker 1: left saying this is the best sandwich ever. If you

949
01:02:44,200 --> 01:02:47,000
Speaker 1: don't eat it, you're going to die. And then then

950
01:02:47,040 --> 01:02:48,880
Speaker 1: there's a person on the other side of table saying

951
01:02:49,160 --> 01:02:51,640
Speaker 1: this is the worst. It doesn't even qualify as food.

952
01:02:51,680 --> 01:02:53,800
Speaker 1: If you do eat it, you'll die in a slow,

953
01:02:53,840 --> 01:02:56,760
Speaker 1: agonizing way in a Chinese prison like this is very

954
01:02:56,800 --> 01:02:59,320
Speaker 1: intense and it's it's tough to figure out the truth.

955
01:03:00,000 --> 01:03:02,680
Speaker 1: And I think there's I'm gonna say, I think there's

956
01:03:02,720 --> 01:03:06,240
Speaker 1: some sketchy stuff going on. No matter how you slice it,

957
01:03:06,360 --> 01:03:11,600
Speaker 1: there's something there. There's something they don't want you to know. Uh,

958
01:03:11,960 --> 01:03:15,680
Speaker 1: multiple instances of it. Please let us know if you

959
01:03:15,680 --> 01:03:19,160
Speaker 1: have experience, Please let us know what you think the

960
01:03:19,160 --> 01:03:22,959
Speaker 1: future of this organization or these kinds of organizations will

961
01:03:23,000 --> 01:03:26,960
Speaker 1: be and what it can tell us about the world today.

962
01:03:27,040 --> 01:03:29,080
Speaker 1: We try to be easy to find on the internet. Yeah,

963
01:03:29,160 --> 01:03:31,200
Speaker 1: you can find us on Facebook and Twitter. We are

964
01:03:31,240 --> 01:03:34,880
Speaker 1: conspiracy stuff on Instagram or conspiracy stuff show if you

965
01:03:34,920 --> 01:03:37,320
Speaker 1: do use Facebook, head on over to Here's where it

966
01:03:37,360 --> 01:03:40,120
Speaker 1: gets Crazy. That is the page where you can hang

967
01:03:40,120 --> 01:03:43,120
Speaker 1: out with all the other conspiracy realists who are listening

968
01:03:43,200 --> 01:03:45,760
Speaker 1: right now who want to talk with you and comment

969
01:03:45,840 --> 01:03:47,919
Speaker 1: and be nice, and they will be nice, and they'll

970
01:03:47,960 --> 01:03:50,720
Speaker 1: be cool or else are awesome. Mods will take care

971
01:03:50,760 --> 01:03:54,120
Speaker 1: of them. You can also find us all over the

972
01:03:54,160 --> 01:03:57,600
Speaker 1: internet in other places if the usual Facebook spots where

973
01:03:57,600 --> 01:04:01,440
Speaker 1: we're conspiracy stuff or conspiracy stuff show on Instagram. Uh.

974
01:04:01,600 --> 01:04:04,760
Speaker 1: You can also give us a telephone call at one

975
01:04:05,560 --> 01:04:07,600
Speaker 1: S td W I t K. Once you hear the

976
01:04:07,640 --> 01:04:12,360
Speaker 1: sound of Ben's chime like vocal intonations, leave a voicemail.

977
01:04:12,560 --> 01:04:15,000
Speaker 1: Try to keep it three minutes. They cut off at three.

978
01:04:15,400 --> 01:04:17,680
Speaker 1: Do us a solid don't like spam us with like

979
01:04:17,800 --> 01:04:21,040
Speaker 1: three or six messages. Try to, like, you know, practice brevity.

980
01:04:21,200 --> 01:04:23,120
Speaker 1: Get your story in in one and you might hear

981
01:04:23,160 --> 01:04:25,640
Speaker 1: yourself featuring on one of our weekly listener mail episodes.

982
01:04:25,680 --> 01:04:27,800
Speaker 1: But please do let us know if it's okay to

983
01:04:27,880 --> 01:04:29,800
Speaker 1: use your voice, why you'd like us to call your

984
01:04:29,840 --> 01:04:32,720
Speaker 1: if you'd prefer to remain anonymous, and feel free to

985
01:04:32,720 --> 01:04:34,760
Speaker 1: give us a rating on your pod scraper of choice.

986
01:04:34,880 --> 01:04:39,280
Speaker 1: Should the spirit move you. So, if none of that

987
01:04:39,520 --> 01:04:42,680
Speaker 1: white gives you the truth, compassion, and forbearance you are

988
01:04:42,800 --> 01:04:45,360
Speaker 1: looking for, there's one other way to reach out to us.

989
01:04:45,560 --> 01:04:48,600
Speaker 1: You can email us directly where we are conspiracy at

990
01:04:48,640 --> 01:05:09,520
Speaker 1: i heart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you

991
01:05:09,560 --> 01:05:12,200
Speaker 1: to know is a production of I heart Radio. For

992
01:05:12,240 --> 01:05:14,640
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart

993
01:05:14,680 --> 01:05:17,480
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

994
01:05:17,480 --> 01:05:18,200
Speaker 1: favorite shows.