Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Jim Willis's biography is going to sound a little familiar
Speaker 2: like myself. Jim is ordained in this case. Jim is
Speaker 2: ordained after having gone to andover Newton Theological Seminary, which
Speaker 2: is now part of Yale Divinity School, and he is
Speaker 2: the author of many books involving the intersection of I
Speaker 2: would say, faith and disaster in some cases. In this
Speaker 2: case it's American cults, cabal's corruption, and charismatic leaders.
Speaker 3: Thank you Jim for giving us time.
Speaker 4: Oh thank you Ian Before we start, man, I don't
Speaker 4: want to bury the lead. I have been kind of
Speaker 4: offline for the last couple of days, as I do
Speaker 4: from time to time, and I didn't know anything about
Speaker 4: what you just talked about. Kenya, could you get me up.
Speaker 3: You will be hearing about it then, along with everybody else.
Speaker 2: Let me just say before I do that, now, that
Speaker 2: Andover and Newton has become subsumed by Yale Divinity School.
Speaker 2: If you pretended to have lost your diploma and you
Speaker 2: write and wait, wait, and you write, and you say
Speaker 2: had like a new andover Newton, they'll probably send you
Speaker 2: one that says yale on it because that happened to
Speaker 2: a friend of mine. You get an upgrade if the
Speaker 2: school has been taken over by another school.
Speaker 4: I'm telling you, I've been out here in the woods
Speaker 4: now for fifteen years and I haven't even looked at my.
Speaker 3: All the more reason to say I lost it.
Speaker 2: So Jim lives in the woods of South Carolina, where
Speaker 2: he went in pursuit of a natural faith, which I
Speaker 2: really enjoyed reading about, if only in part. So we'll
Speaker 2: return to your biography, but just to bring you up
Speaker 2: to Dayton, so I don't tease people along too far.
Speaker 2: We're talking about a new and this is not new
Speaker 2: in terms of the themes of it or even the events,
Speaker 2: but it just happened. Kenya police, according to the BBC,
Speaker 2: are investigating the deaths of four people suspected to have
Speaker 2: starved to death on the orders of the leader of
Speaker 2: a controversial cult, pastor Mackenzie and Thingay, is alleged to
Speaker 2: have told his followers in the coastal area of Khalifi
Speaker 2: to starve themselves in the hope of getting to heaven
Speaker 2: more quickly.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, that'll do it.
Speaker 2: Following a tip off, police found fifteen seriously ill people
Speaker 2: on Thursday. Only eleven made it to the hospital alive.
Speaker 2: And then the reports are, and these are verifiable reports,
Speaker 2: that there is a mass grave somewhere in this jungle
Speaker 2: where the people who didn't even make it this far
Speaker 2: were buried by those who survived it up until yesterday. Wow,
Speaker 2: but doesn't that have a very familiar ring to it
Speaker 2: to a Milliner cult where the leader positions themselves as
Speaker 2: some sort of arbiter of salvation but would rather see
Speaker 2: his own followers or her followers, in very rare cases
Speaker 2: die than to have them see that he never had
Speaker 2: the power, never had the pipeline to God that he
Speaker 2: claimed he did.
Speaker 4: Talk about Jim Jones.
Speaker 3: Huh, well, yeah, exactly. I mean Jim Jones. Coming from
Speaker 3: a long line of Jim Jones's.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was there was a time back
Speaker 4: in the seventies eighties. I guess it was when Jim
Speaker 4: Baker was having his trouble and Jim Jones was having
Speaker 4: his trouble, and Jimmy Swaggert was having his trouble, and
Speaker 4: I began to wonder about all these ministers called Jim.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, likely true. And when you think about it.
Speaker 2: Although Jim Jones is certainly the most notorious of that group,
Speaker 2: they all kind of follow a similar pattern of starting
Speaker 2: to believe their own publicity and that.
Speaker 4: That is the case, you know, And the fact that
Speaker 4: this happened recently in Kenya brings out, you know something
Speaker 4: that's just when I started out to write this book,
Speaker 4: I was expecting to talk about all kinds of cults
Speaker 4: from all over the world, and it just got so big,
Speaker 4: I know, I couldn't do it, so I had to
Speaker 4: limit it at the request of the publisher, to American cults.
Speaker 4: But what's happening here is, you know, just because they
Speaker 4: are American cults doesn't mean it's not going on other
Speaker 4: places obviously.
Speaker 2: So well, that's the long tradition of European cults. These
Speaker 2: we call the millenarian cults, cults that are trying to
Speaker 2: bring about the millennium for people who don't know. And
Speaker 2: and you know, there are many like that in the
Speaker 2: United States, but there were just literally hundreds of them
Speaker 2: in the Middle Ages, in every language, in every country,
Speaker 2: and many of the first founders that came to the
Speaker 2: United States came out of that same cult mentality, you.
Speaker 4: Know, It's hard for us to think about in these
Speaker 4: terms because most of us have grown up in traditional
Speaker 4: classrooms and they take us back to the Pilgrims, for instance,
Speaker 4: and we talk about the Pilgrims and the history books,
Speaker 4: I'll talk about these fire seeing people who were looking
Speaker 4: to build a city on a hill and all this
Speaker 4: kind of thing. What we forget, though, is that where
Speaker 4: the Pilgrims came from, they were called separatists or the Puritans. Rather,
Speaker 4: they were called separatists. And when they came here, they
Speaker 4: were not coming here just to build their mythical city
Speaker 4: on a hill. But they were coming here because they
Speaker 4: were leaving a persecution in the old country, and it
Speaker 4: was because they were called a cult. And when they
Speaker 4: came here. We would love to say they had a
Speaker 4: happy ending and everything was good, But the story of
Speaker 4: the Puritanism in New England, it seems as soon as
Speaker 4: they got here and got settled down and started forming
Speaker 4: some big cities, they turned into a cult themselves. It
Speaker 4: was either our way of the highway. They drove out
Speaker 4: the Quakers, for instance, after you know, beating them and
Speaker 4: whipping them and driving him out of town on a rail.
Speaker 4: They basically arrested a lot of the women who are
Speaker 4: living different kinds of lives and called them witches. And
Speaker 4: the Salem Witch Trials took place, and Cotton Mother, who
Speaker 4: was a you know, one of the foremost preachers of
Speaker 4: his day, one of the leaders of this exclusive cult
Speaker 4: called Puritanism, he went to the Salem Witch Trials and
Speaker 4: just sat there and watched and didn't open his mouth. Now,
Speaker 4: they didn't stay that way. I mean, I belonged to
Speaker 4: a denomination which has its roots partially in New England Congregationalism,
Speaker 4: and it's called you know, I mean that it's a
Speaker 4: relatively liberal denomination now, but back then it was a
Speaker 4: perfectly good reason for calling the Purisans a cult. They
Speaker 4: acted like it, They imposed their own will, they drove
Speaker 4: out people who didn't believe as they did, and it
Speaker 4: kind of at our American DNA ever said well and
Speaker 4: they killed people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I mean, let's I mean, let's just let's
Speaker 3: got it was. That was not an anomaly.
Speaker 2: And we've done enough shows on the Salem Witch Trials
Speaker 2: on coast to coast am over the years to just
Speaker 2: kind of always remind people this was not this was
Speaker 2: not an offshoot. This wasn't a faction. This was the
Speaker 2: This is when the main stream theology of the Puritans
Speaker 2: became so twisted that it eventually began to eat its
Speaker 2: own tail.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is basically which is what happened.
Speaker 2: And so whether it's in Salem or Salem Town and
Speaker 2: you know, the all sorts of I mean to take
Speaker 2: the tour up there is.
Speaker 3: Illuminating.
Speaker 2: But the idea who qualified as a wedge and then
Speaker 2: what they what that liberated them to do to that person,
Speaker 2: That's kind of the scariest thing. And and it's sort
Speaker 2: of part of what we still see carried through in
Speaker 2: the story of American cults here still.
Speaker 3: To this day.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. And the part that was so strange about
Speaker 4: that is is here was this this group that had
Speaker 4: the Spanish Inquisition, uh, and the the the you know,
Speaker 4: fresh in their minds. It was going on in Europe
Speaker 4: at the same time, and it carried on here when
Speaker 4: when the Conquistadors came into Mexico and later into into
Speaker 4: you know, Central American and all that. Here here they
Speaker 4: were a group claiming absolute power and just destroying people,
Speaker 4: destroying the books that didn't agree with them. The Mayan
Speaker 4: texts were destroyed, people were killed and everything else. So
Speaker 4: here we.
Speaker 2: Slaved, and mean they enslaved people who did not agree
Speaker 2: with them, which again is something we see common in
Speaker 2: a lot of cults, that idea of captivity, and we
Speaker 2: might say today we might refer to it almost as
Speaker 2: the kind of Stockholm syndrome. They deny them, protein keep
Speaker 2: them locked up until they agree to become one of us,
Speaker 2: and then that's okay. Then they start to enjoy privileges again.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, And that's absolute cultic behavior.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: That's why I tend to try to not label organization's
Speaker 4: cults as a whole right because you know, let's face it,
Speaker 4: there were there were some really far seeing and and
Speaker 4: good puritan stock, you know, even though they were living
Speaker 4: in a culture that was opposed to what they did.
Speaker 4: And there were some fine people, some of the Friars
Speaker 4: who were in in may own country and everything else.
Speaker 4: They you know, you just can't label them all accoult.
Speaker 4: But when a group begins to use what I like
Speaker 4: to call cultic methodologies, and when it begins to revolve
Speaker 4: around and kind of oh form around us, the centric
Speaker 4: the central methods of what cults do, and the methods
Speaker 4: that they use. Then you've got to say, you know, well,
Speaker 4: let's call it what it is, you know, and it's
Speaker 4: it's a dangerous it's a dangerous thing that is so
Speaker 4: common in American history.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we see it played out again as you're
Speaker 2: pointing out all over the world and again for this
Speaker 2: particular story. This comes from Kenya, which is which sees
Speaker 2: a lot of these and there's sort of semi Christian
Speaker 2: or you know, they adopt aspects of Christianity, particularly apocalyptic thinking,
Speaker 2: as sort of the capstone that gives them the right
Speaker 2: to determine who lives, who dies, who stays, who goes,
Speaker 2: and people seem willing to hand over their own fate,
Speaker 2: their own future. The concept and we hold a deer,
Speaker 2: a kind of rugged American individualism for some reason goes
Speaker 2: out the window if we feel a little bit of
Speaker 2: a threat. Let me let me pause for one second though,
Speaker 2: to say again, we're talking with Jim Willis, who is
Speaker 2: author or dean minister and the man behind American cults, cobbles,
Speaker 2: corruption and charismatic leaders.
Speaker 3: Here's what I want to avoid.
Speaker 2: I don't want to avoid getting into the weeds of
Speaker 2: politics because and I know you'll you'll understand this.
Speaker 3: You know this.
Speaker 2: It's too soon for some people to get and it
Speaker 2: could be democratic, it could be liberal, there could be
Speaker 2: conservative issues. We're just not Let's let's avoid that so
Speaker 2: that I'm not answering those calls for the rest of
Speaker 2: the night. And uh and instead, I mean the broader brush,
Speaker 2: these bigger themes are are enough for us to tackle
Speaker 2: in the in the time that we'll have on the air.
Speaker 3: Yes, what defines the.
Speaker 4: Themes are the important thing, because you you will find
Speaker 4: them in religious organizations. But as you say, you'll also
Speaker 4: find them the same kind of ideas or methodology sometimes
Speaker 4: in politics.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: I found them in academia. God, yes, professor, there were
Speaker 4: certain cults and certain things that had to be believed.
Speaker 4: I found them in in science.
Speaker 3: When it's a really good point.
Speaker 4: My book Hidden History, I talked a lot about scientists
Speaker 4: who were just basically kicked out of the club because
Speaker 4: you know, they didn't agree with the proper notion at
Speaker 4: the time, They.
Speaker 3: Didn't please the gatekeepers.
Speaker 2: They didn't the gatekeepers in science are just as egotistical
Speaker 2: as the gatekeepers in any other profession.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you just said the right word. I think
Speaker 4: that egotistical. One of the clear things that reveal what
Speaker 4: a cult is is, generally speaking, they either begin or
Speaker 4: still have as a founder a very charismatic leader who
Speaker 4: is very egotistical. It's not at all uncommon to find
Speaker 4: narcissists who feel entitled or are grandiose, and they are
Speaker 4: at the center not only at their own story, but
Speaker 4: everyone else is. And you know, they usually lack any
Speaker 4: real empathy, and they display an unmistakable arrogance, and they're
Speaker 4: surprisingly normally in search of validation. But they might feel
Speaker 4: at least a small sense of shame when they do,
Speaker 4: because it's because they got caught and it undermines their
Speaker 4: self esteem. But how easy it is for a narcissist
Speaker 4: cult leader to go farther and actually become a psychopath.
Speaker 4: And the difference in terms of psychology between those two
Speaker 4: is that psychopaths normally don't feel any shame. And that's
Speaker 4: most people don't realize it, but that's why psychopaths can
Speaker 4: all generally pass light detector tests. They honestly feel they
Speaker 4: can do no wrong, they're doing the right thing, and
Speaker 4: the reason they feel that way is because they're the
Speaker 4: ones performing the deeds, and if they do something, it's
Speaker 4: obviously justified because they're the ones doing it. It's a
Speaker 4: it's a terrible path to come down, and people listening
Speaker 4: may have been associated with this same kind of people
Speaker 4: on a much smaller scale. You know, the friends who say, oh,
Speaker 4: I'm only saying this for your good right as if
Speaker 4: they're telling me or you always act this way, or
Speaker 4: if your integrity is questioned by means of oh, passive
Speaker 4: aggressive doc This is manipulation, and cult leaders do this instinctively.
Speaker 4: They are master manipulators and use their ability to their advantage.
Speaker 4: But what we don't usually fall into is it's just
Speaker 4: not a manipulator. A manipulator has someone has to have
Speaker 4: someone to manipulate. And there are a lot of people
Speaker 4: who don't want to be leaders. They're confused, they may
Speaker 4: feel like they're not sure what the answers are, and
Speaker 4: so they will say to the cult leader, make it
Speaker 4: easy for me, put you know, tell me what to do.
Speaker 4: Put it on a bumper sticker, so it's easy to understand.
Speaker 4: It's easier for me just to not worry about it.
Speaker 4: I'll do whatever you say, I'll follow along. And that's
Speaker 4: how cults are born.
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Speaker 4: Now there