WEBVTT - It Could Happen Here Weekly 105 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:02.920 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:03.520 --> 0:00:05.920 Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:09.640 you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:12.920 of the week that just happened is here in one 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:16.759 convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:19.240 listen to in a long stretch if you want. If 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:21.200 you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:22.959 there's going to be nothing new here for you, but 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:27.640 you can make your own decisions. 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:38.199 Welcome to it could happen. Here's Spooky Week special presentation. 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:43.120 I'm Garrison Davis and earlier this year, I, along with 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:47.400 my friend Elane, attended the twenty twenty three organ Ghost 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:51.440 Conference in Seaside, Oregon. The past few years, I've had 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.280 a growing interest in the occult, both for testing the 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:59.440 limits of manufacturing my own weird experiences as well as 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:04.160 looking at it as a vector of political extremism. Sometimes 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:06.679 it's useful to not just to look on from the outside, 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:10.360 but actually pop into other people's reality tunnels to gain 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:14.040 a more intimate understanding of how they interact with our world. 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:18.800 This was my primary motivation in attending the Ghost Conference 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:23.600 to learn what metaphysical beliefs drive the attendees and how 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:28.360 said beliefs intersect with politics and our broader culture. My 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:32.920 experiences at the conference ranged from ghost hunting to being hypnotized, 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:36.880 to learning of the galactic Federation of Angels and abortion 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:40.560 hungry demons. So with that in mind, I hope you 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:44.160 enjoy my report back on the twenty twenty three organ 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:49.680 Ghost Conference. The first challenge we faced was simply getting 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:53.880 to the town of Seaside. The first day of the conference, Friday, 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:58.160 March twenty fourth, coincided with a massive snowstorm along Highway 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:01.920 twenty six from Portland to sea Side. As we were 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:05.919 driving on the treacherous mountain roads, a white out completely 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:10.080 engulfed our view. When we emerge from the snowstorm, it 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:13.320 was as if we'd gone through a portal, transporting us 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:18.120 from the mountainous forest to the small coastal town of Seaside, Oregon, 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:25.040 into a world of ghosts, spirits, specters, and overpriced convention food. Seaside, 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.720 as the name suggests, is a beachfront town situated in 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:32.120 northern Oregon. It was founded in the late eighteen hundredths 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:36.320 after railroad baron Ben Holliday built his summer vacation quote 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:39.480 unquote Seaside House on the plot of land which is 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:43.600 now Seaside's golf course. It's always been a sort of 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:47.360 tourist resort town that people from Portland travel to for 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:52.160 beachfront entertainment. The conference is put on by a friendly 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:56.320 high school art teacher and Oregon City commissioner, Rocky Smith. 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:00.040 Smith has been doing ghost tours in Oregon since the 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:02.640 mid nineties and has been putting on the Oregon Ghost 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:07.120 Conference since twenty twelve. Originally, it was held in Smith's 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:11.520 hometown of Oregon City, an extremely haunted town often cited 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:15.520 as the end of the organ trail. In twenty sixteen, 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:20.800 the conference outgrew its Oregon City venue and relocated to Seaside. 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:24.760 It's now the largest paranormal convention in the Pacific Northwest. 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:32.040 The conference features ghost tours, classes, guest speakers, vendors, tara readings, seances, 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:37.320 ghost hunting, and paranormal investigations. The first big event I 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:40.160 marked on my schedule was a ghost tour to get 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:45.280 acquainted with Seaside's most haunted places. The tour began right 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:49.720 outside the convention center. Conference director Rocky Smith led this 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:53.920 one himself. He filled us in on some old ghost 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:58.480 conference lore. The Seaside Convention Center went through some extensive 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:01.800 renovations right before the pandemic, but the first year of 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.440 the conference took place in the convention center. They had 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:07.280 a class for kids where a group of children explored 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:10.040 around the old building to find what they thought were 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:14.120 the most haunted places. There was one hallway on the 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:19.119 west side of the building where people routinely reported strange experiences. 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:23.279 Back in twenty sixteen, a child at the conference claimed 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:28.480 they saw a ghost down this hallway when exiting the bathroom. First, 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:30.560 they just saw something out of the corner of their eye, 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:33.520 and then when they turned to the left, they saw 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:37.559 a woman in an old dress staring at them. At first, 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:40.040 they weren't sure if the dress was long or short 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:43.320 because they were too scared to look down, But then 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:46.240 they noticed that the woman didn't have any legs and 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:50.839 was just floating in the air. Because of the new renovations, 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:54.960 that hallway is no longer accessible. Rocky Smith remarked that 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:57.400 he didn't know if that was intentional or not, but 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:00.640 said that a lot of times when they redo buildings, 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:03.000 they'll change the part of a building that used to 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:06.400 be kind of scary and uncomfortable, so that hallway is 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:10.000 now used for storage, although one of the convention staff 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:12.839 members claimed that a vacuum cleaner now held in the 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:17.520 hallway is possessed. So there's that. The Convention Center was 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:20.480 originally built in the seventies and doesn't really have a 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:25.000 lot of notable history. But when looking into hauntings or 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:29.000 reports of ghosts, typically people try to learn the history 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:33.000 of the building or plot of land in question. For Seaside, 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:37.080 that's kind of hard because in nineteen twelve, four blocks 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.960 of downtown Seaside burned to the ground, destroying most of 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:45.359 the town's early history. The first stop on the ghost 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:48.279 tour after we left the Convention Center was one of 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:52.560 the reportedly most active sites of ghostly activity in Seaside, 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:56.640 the Bridge Tender Tavern. It was built in nineteen fourteen, 0:05:56.800 --> 0:05:58.920 so just a couple of years after the big fire. 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:02.200 It used to be called the Pastime Bar and then 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:06.159 suffered its own fire and was later renamed the Bridge Tender. 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:09.400 The previous owners of the bar claimed that in the 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:13.040 early twentieth century it was a brothel. This is unconfirmed, 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:17.440 but it relates to the tavern's most frequent ghost the Madam. 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:21.400 Staff and patrons of the Bridge Tender regularly address the Madam. 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:24.200 If customers are being rude, It said that the Madam 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:26.840 will spill drinks on them, you know, stuff like that. 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:29.880 The story I like the most about the Madam has 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:33.920 to do with the tavern's old CD jute box. If 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:37.440 a specific song played on the jukebox, something would go haywire, 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:40.040 CDs would shoot out of it, or other weird things 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:43.440 would reportedly happen in the bar. Patrons would put the 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:47.000 song on repeat just to see what would happen. Eventually, 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:49.760 the owners took the CD with the song in question 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:52.200 out of the jukebox so that people would just stop 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:55.480 playing the song. But people are persistent bastards, so now 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:58.080 people just play the song on their phones or the 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:02.960 new digital jukebox in Bridge Tender. Now, the theory is 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:07.200 is that the Madam just really hates this song, so 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:10.240 she gets mad when it plays and then causes some commotion. 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:15.280 The song is Dancing Queen by Abba, So if you 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:17.240 want to go test this yourself, you can travel to 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:21.480 the Bridge Tender and play Dancing Queen and see what happens. 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:26.200 Another highlight from the ghost tour was learning about the 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:30.240 old Seasider Hotel at the end of the promenade. It 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:34.080 was purportedly haunted by multiple spirits, and it was believed 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:37.000 that when the hotel was torn down in the eighties, 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:41.400 the ghosts followed the hotel staff who got new jobs 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:46.280 at a restaurant in downtown called Girdles. New employees are 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:50.800 said to have recognized apparitions from the hotel, and the 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:55.080 restaurant gained a haunted coffee pot that would either move 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:58.240 on its own or even fly across the room, depending 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:01.239 on who you would ask. It's nice that the ghosts 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:05.239 seem to have a pretty good job relocation program, something 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:07.600 that most of us do not so good for them. 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:12.720 As the ghost tour approached the Beachfront promenade, that snowstorm 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:16.480 from the nearby mountains seemed to have caught up with us, 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:20.160 and a dreary mix of rain and snow began to 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:25.440 descend upon Seaside, as if some otherworldly force was trying 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:29.120 to keep us from further exploring the hauntings of the town. 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:34.360 So as even my trench coat began soaking through, we 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:39.640 took refuge back indoors the very first class. My friend 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:44.800 Elaine and I took at the conference was titled Ghost Detectives. Now, 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:48.360 despite the silly, stounding name, it was probably the most 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:52.440 grounded class throughout the entire weekend, certainly the one with 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:56.920 the least amount of spiritual dogma. The class was focused 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:02.200 on best practices for conducting paranormal investstigations, specifically to ensure 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:06.720 that the process and finding's mirror the evidentiary standards set 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:11.800 by the justice system for law enforcement investigations. The instructor, 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:15.120 doctor Nelson, is a supervisor for a crisis hotline with 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:19.040 degrees in mental health, metaphysics, and fine arts. He describes 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:23.720 his methodology for investigating paranormal activity as quote unquote applied science. 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:28.960 He was definitely the most meticulous investigator of the whole weekend, 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:33.439 and the least ghost hunter esque in terms of advocating 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:38.319 for strict investigative procedures and not just assuming that every 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:42.160 spooky noise was evidence of a ghost. Most of his 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:47.440 class was spent explaining very basic police investigative procedure, proper 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:50.600 ways to collect evidence, having a chain of evidence, and 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:54.800 not simply jumping to conclusions. It's a little foolhardy to 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:58.760 assume every single spike on an electromagnetic field or EMF 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:03.839 meter is actually a ghost trying to communicate. The other 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:07.400 unique thing about his class was the emphasis on before 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:11.760 pulling out your special ghost and detecting tools. Perhaps one 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:15.280 should conduct thorough interviews and collect witness statements of the 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:19.560 people reporting the phenomenon. Try to figure out what's going 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:21.480 on in their life, maybe even look into their own 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:23.920 mental health background as much as you're able to, if 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:27.760 they've had any sudden losses, past trauma, or history of 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:32.160 paranormal experiences. Asking thorough questions can give a much fuller 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:35.280 look at what someone might be going through. Some examples 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:39.120 of things to ask or look into were if the 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:41.959 phenomenon is related to a house, who owns the house, 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:45.520 who lives there, who has experienced the event? What led 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:50.199 to a paranormal investigator being called? What precipitated the phenomenon? 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:53.360 When it occurred? How often has it occurred? When was 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:56.800 it first noticed? Was there just one random strange experience 0:10:56.960 --> 0:10:59.520 or is someone going through an event in their life 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:02.680 that is the maiden experience suddenly stick out as strange. 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:06.400 Has the person sought help, and has the phenomenon been 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:10.840 verified by more than one person? In terms of haunted houses, 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:14.040 figuring out if there's any issues in the house is 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:17.800 a great first step because if there's a carbon monoxide leak, 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:21.200 that could explain a great many things. Or if someone 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:25.000 claims ghost ectoplasm is leaking through the ceiling and walls, 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:29.560 perhaps the roof and water pipes should be inspected. Elene 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:32.320 and I did a little debrief after the conference, and 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.720 they reminded me of another good tip gleaned from the 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:37.160 ghost detective class. 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:39.800 Well, I mean my favorite was when he was talking about, like, 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:44.440 if you're using an EMF detector and one wall just 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:47.320 keeps setting the EMF detector off, you might actually just 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:48.600 need to call an electrician. 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:51.400 Yes, yeah, No, he definitely was one of the more 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:55.640 reasonable people we spoke with in terms of Yeah, he 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:58.360 seems he seems pretty close to like consensus reality. Like 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:01.079 he also he also is like a part of the 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:05.360 Portland Ghostbusters cosplay group. Like he's he's someone who like 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:08.400 makes stuff with his hands. He's very like he feels 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:11.599 very grounded and like and like concept this reality a 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:13.640 lot in a lot of aspects, and this is like 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:16.720 a very fun hobby that combines his two favorite things, 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.040 well two of his favorite things, just like Ghostbusters cosplay, 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:23.120 and then also like paranormal investigation stuff. I'm not actually 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:27.120 sure if the instructor for the paranormal investigation class really 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:30.560 believed in ghosts or if he just had an interest 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:36.280 in researching paranormal experiences. I don't think I believe in 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:40.160 ghosts the same way literally everyone else at the conference did. 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:44.480 But almost half of Americans do believe in ghosts, and 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:47.880 around one fifth are unsure if they're believers or not. 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:51.520 The rate of belief in ghosts is about the same 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:54.959 as belief in demons. But the interesting thing about that 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:59.440 is although Americans belief in organized religion has been decreasing, 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:03.959 especially Christianity, belief in ghosts has been and still is 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:06.960 on the rise. In fact, it's gone up by nearly 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:11.800 four hundred percent since the nineteen seventies. These last three years, 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:15.200 for really the first time ever, Gallup polls show that 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:18.240 less than fifty percent of Americans say they belong to 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:22.160 a religious congregation. Alan Downe is a computer scientist and 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:26.200 professor at the Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts. His 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:30.000 research suggests that the Internet is a major cause, not 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:34.280 just a correlating factor, in the decrease of religious affiliation, 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:37.720 and with the rise of the Internet and reality TV, 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:43.080 ghost hunting has become a relatively popular niche hobby. But 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:47.000 as religious belief has declined, belief in the afterlife has 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:50.160 remained the same, about seventy percent according to the General 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:54.560 Social Survey. Gallup's polling suggests that currently about three and 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:59.600 four Americans have some sort of paranormal belief. Thomas Mowen, 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:02.920 associate theologist who's been conducting a study on religion and 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:06.680 paranormal belief at Bowling Green State University, said that he's 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:10.480 finding that quote atheists tend to report higher belief in 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:14.760 the paranormal than religious folk unquote. As to why so 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:18.319 many Americans believe in ghosts, Moen says, quote, people are 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:21.440 looking to other things or non traditional things to answer 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:27.680 life's big questions that don't necessarily include religion unquote. Throughout 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:32.760 the conference, the word ghost, spirit, and entity were often 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:36.640 used interchangeably. Each of those words kind of act as 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:40.680 an umbrella term for a broad swath of ontological concepts. 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:44.120 Ontology is the branch of metaphysics that relates to the 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:48.040 nature of being. Depending who you ask, a ghost or 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:51.080 a spirit can be anything from a wayward soul of 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:55.200 a deceased human, some other worldly energy, an evil presence, 0:14:55.560 --> 0:15:00.480 or even some sort of temporal loop. Historically, these have 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:04.080 never been very clear either. They've evolved with the times, 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.600 so Elene and I prepared a brief history of ghosts 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:10.520 to help give context for the rest of this episode 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:16.720 and the next. The idea of contacting spirits or interacting 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:21.880 with some sort of spirit world obviously isn't new. Worldwide, 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:25.640 people have traditions of interacting with ancestors that deceased in 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:30.160 a variety of non material beings. Ancestor veneration in China 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:33.320 goes back at least six thousand years, while the word shaman, 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:35.680 relating to someone who works with spirits and in the 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:39.400 spirit realm for healing and divination, comes from the Tungusic 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:42.560 language of Siberia and has practices that are at least 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:46.880 too millennia old. The term necromancy stems from a Greek 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:51.120 word meaning divination of the dead. In the Odyssey, Homer 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:56.000 writes of Odysseus learning necromantic rituals to summon the shade 0:15:56.200 --> 0:16:02.040 or underworld ghost of Tyresius, while wile clerical necromantic traditions 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:05.080 through the medieval period made a clear distinction between the 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:09.200 souls of dead humans from other random spirits. That separation 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:12.440 was not as ubiquitous among folk beliefs of people who 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:16.560 claimed to interact with the spirit world. Emma Wilby describes 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:20.440 in her book Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits. How into 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:23.960 the early modern period, many cunning folk, basically low level 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:28.800 magicians and conjurers, had ghosts, fairies, and animal spirit companions, 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:33.160 all of which seemed to interact very similarly. The European 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:37.560 concept of ghosts being linked to evil or demonic forces 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:41.000 is a relatively new idea. It came to be as 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:44.680 a byproduct of the Reformation and rejection of the Catholic Church. 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:49.640 The Catholic doctrine of purgatory and limbo was rejected by 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:54.720 the new Protestants, which caused some cosmological problems when it 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:59.600 came to people's own experiences with ghosts and spirits. Catholics 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:03.440 held them that ghosts were basically spirits of dead humans 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:08.800 on vacation from purgatory, But with Protestants rejecting purgatory for 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:12.680 its lack of biblical basis, they defined some other way 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:17.360 to explain the apparently fairly common phenomenon of ghostly encounters. 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:22.800 A Swiss theologian named Ludwig Lavater attempted to solve this 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:29.600 cosmological problem in his fifteen sixty nine book Despecterus. I 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:32.000 just picked up my copy a few weeks ago and 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:34.480 had been going through it, and it's a lot of fun. 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:39.119 The full English title was quote of ghosts and spirits 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:43.040 walking by night, and of strange noises, cracks and sundry 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:46.520 fore warnings, which commonly happened before the death of men, 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:52.360 great slaughters, and the alteration of kingdoms. Pretty cool stuff. 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:57.080 Two of my favorite consecutive chapter titles are quote what 0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:01.240 hath followed this doctrine of the Papists concerning the appearing 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:05.120 of men's souls, followed by testimonies out of the Word 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.600 of God that neither the souls of the faithful nor 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:11.320 infidels do walketh upon the earth after they are once 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:14.879 parted from their bodies. So that kind of gives you 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:18.720 a look at the writing style of this entire book. 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:24.320 Despects became massively influential. It was widely translated. Shakespeare was 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:28.040 reading this as he was writing Hamlet. More importantly, the 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:31.479 text took off across many Protestant circles and became the 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:34.720 backbone of the cultural conception of ghosts in the soon 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:39.320 to be United States through such Protestant sects. Instead of 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:43.359 ghosts being wayward specters of dead humans who escape from purgatory, 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:49.400 Lavater proposed a great many explanations for spectral experiences, including 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:55.360 many non mystical causes. He lists illness, insomnia, psychoactive substances, 0:18:55.400 --> 0:19:00.160 sleep paralysis, and grief as being common causes of ghostly hallucination, 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:05.280 an opinion now shared by many psychologists and doctors. Definitely, 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:07.520 the closest thing I've ever seen to a ghost was 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:12.600 during a sleep paralysis episode. Lavator writes, quote, Melancholic persons 0:19:12.600 --> 0:19:15.760 and mad men imagine things which in very deed are not. 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:20.400 Fearful men imagine that they see and hear strange things. 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:23.640 Men which are dull of seeing and hearing imagine many 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:27.960 things which in very deed are not so unquote. He 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:32.280 also cites pranksters as another common cause of perceived spectral activity, 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:36.240 but most interestingly, in an attempt to bash the Catholics, 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:40.960 the Protestant Lavater also lists low level clergy trained in 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:45.000 exorcistic magic to summon demonic spirits in an achromatic fashion, 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:52.400 as possibly producing some supernatural phenomenon interpreted as ghosts. Now, 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:55.879 Lavater does believe in spirits, but his thesis is that 0:19:56.080 --> 0:20:00.040 genuine ghosts, spirits bumps in the night, those strange the 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:02.479 cracks and noises which we now might refer to as 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:08.840 politygeists are almost always demons that are torturing people. He 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:12.239 wrote that devils can quote appear in different shapes not 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.040 only of those which are alive, but also of dead 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:17.520 men as well as a peer in the likeness of 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:21.400 a black dog, a horse, an owl, and also are 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:26.159 able to bring incredible things to pass unquote. Lavater did 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:29.240 admit that in the rarest of cases, God may send 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:31.560 angels or the spirit of a dead person to Earth 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:35.800 for a very specific task, but due to demons and 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:38.800 nature trickery, there's really no way to trust that a 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:42.480 ghostly presence may be from God, so he recommends that 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:47.040 one should always assume that a specter is demonic. God 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:50.000 may even allow demonic spirits to appear as a form 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:53.680 of punishment and a sign that one should repent for wrongdoing. 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:58.240 Lavater's theologic work on ghosts were part of a larger 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:03.960 Protestant Christian campaign to literally demonize all spirits. Right, the 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:06.760 only thing you can really talk to is Jesus or God. 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:10.639 Anything else is probably just a demon. This is the 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:13.400 version of ghosts that I grew up with as a kid, 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:17.080 the idea that basically, if a ghost appears, it's probably 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:20.880 a demon trying to scare or trick you. This concept 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:25.359 that spirits and spirit contact were predominantly demonic changed the 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:29.280 nature of many witch trials, since when cunning folk listed 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:33.720 their familiar ghosts or fairies, they were basically admitting to 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:38.400 trafficking with demons. The next evolution in ghost lore came 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:43.280 in the form of Emmanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish theologian and scientist. 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:45.920 In fact, he was one of the first to postulate 0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:50.160 the existence of the neuron. As Christians in Europe were 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:53.240 dealing with this messy assortment of spirits that you really 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:55.560 shouldn't try and interact with, but if you do, you 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:59.000 better make sure they're angels, Swedenborg was about to shake 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:03.520 up this whole entire cosmology. In the seventeen forties, he 0:22:03.560 --> 0:22:09.040 started having quote intense mystical experiences, dreams and visions unquote, 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:11.960 which led him to believe he was in contact with 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:16.800 a spirit world and entities that he described as angels, demons, 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:22.400 as well as other spirits, including ones from extraterrestrial planets. 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:25.360 This is like one of the first guys to do 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:28.320 the spirits I'm talking to are actually aliens, which is 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:31.800 pretty cool. In seventeen eighty five, he published a book 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:37.240 titled Heaven and Hell, based on his experiences of the afterlife. 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:41.119 According to Swedenburg, once humans on Earth pass on to 0:22:41.240 --> 0:22:45.520 the spiritual world, they enter a intermediate realm in between 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:51.000 heaven and Hell and eventually either become beautified into angels 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:55.080 or twisted into demons, and then respectively pass on into 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:59.600 either Heaven or Hell proper. While his depiction of spirits 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:03.520 were obviously influenced by his Christian beliefs, the variety and 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:07.960 breadth of his spirit world was broader than just the undead. 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:13.119 Swedenburgh's writing was one of the early influences on spiritualism. 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:16.240 Core tenants of which are there being multiple levels of 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:21.040 the afterlife and that an individual's awareness persists after death 0:23:21.560 --> 0:23:26.679 and may be contacted by the living, which is pretty 0:23:26.800 --> 0:23:30.560 similar to what most people now would probably describe as 0:23:30.640 --> 0:23:33.320 ghosts if you were to ask them what a ghost is. 0:23:34.240 --> 0:23:39.080 While Swedenburg actually recommended against attempting to contact spirits, he 0:23:39.200 --> 0:23:42.679 had a lasting influence on American spiritualism for creating an 0:23:42.760 --> 0:23:48.160 explicitly Christian based system where spiritual entities worked as mediators 0:23:48.240 --> 0:23:52.400 between humans and God. Coming out of Upstate New York 0:23:52.440 --> 0:23:55.080 in the decade before the Civil War, spiritualism brought to 0:23:55.119 --> 0:23:58.560 the other aspects of the radical Quakers with Swedenberg's idea 0:23:58.640 --> 0:24:02.080 of spirit intermediary who could bring messages to the living. 0:24:03.000 --> 0:24:06.960 The spiritualist movement formally began on March thirty first, eighteen 0:24:07.080 --> 0:24:10.600 forty eight, when the Fox Sisters made their fraudulent claim 0:24:10.680 --> 0:24:14.400 of contacting a spirit who could communicate through knocking noises. 0:24:15.480 --> 0:24:20.160 Starting initially in Quaker communities, mediumship and seances immediately took 0:24:20.160 --> 0:24:23.080 off across the United States, including the White House as 0:24:23.080 --> 0:24:26.280 the Lincolns were graving the loss of their son, showing 0:24:26.320 --> 0:24:29.560 that interest in ghosts and seances were not just a 0:24:29.640 --> 0:24:32.960 parlor trick for commoners, they were also a parlor trick 0:24:33.000 --> 0:24:37.160 for the president. The fact that the rise of spiritualism 0:24:37.200 --> 0:24:42.200 coincided with Civil War deaths and gruesome Battlefield photography certainly 0:24:42.280 --> 0:24:45.400 helped fuel the drive to communicate and receive messages from 0:24:45.400 --> 0:24:50.280 the recently deceased. Due to its Quaker roots, the spiritualist 0:24:50.280 --> 0:24:54.600 movement was abolitionist, and its belief in an egalitarian afterlife 0:24:54.760 --> 0:24:58.159 prompted its members to advocate for social change here on earth. 0:24:58.960 --> 0:25:02.119 Even the messages that mediums claim to relay from the 0:25:02.200 --> 0:25:07.200 dead were often progressive. In eighteen fifty two, the medium 0:25:07.320 --> 0:25:12.040 Isaac Post published a collection of messages he supposedly channeled 0:25:12.240 --> 0:25:16.480 from such people as Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson, and other famous 0:25:16.480 --> 0:25:21.760 figures who urged the living to push for radical social change. 0:25:21.840 --> 0:25:25.159 The book, entitled Voices from the Spirit World, included a 0:25:25.200 --> 0:25:29.359 passage claiming that the ghost of George Washington became an 0:25:29.440 --> 0:25:33.199 abolitionist after death. And I don't know the idea that 0:25:33.440 --> 0:25:38.680 the ghost of Jefferson and Washington suddenly became abolitionists after death. 0:25:39.480 --> 0:25:42.200 Although I understand its utility at the time for trying 0:25:42.200 --> 0:25:46.360 to push people towards becoming an abolitionist, it does kind 0:25:46.400 --> 0:25:49.280 of read as a little bit gross, considering how that 0:25:49.480 --> 0:25:53.080 was very much not their opinions when they were actually 0:25:53.119 --> 0:25:58.199 living humans. New to the spiritualist development of ghosts was 0:25:58.320 --> 0:26:02.840 not just the idea of regular spiritual contact, but evidence 0:26:03.000 --> 0:26:06.000 that the spirit world could be shown to the physical, 0:26:06.200 --> 0:26:11.680 scientific world. Basically the precursor to modern ghost hunting emerged 0:26:11.720 --> 0:26:15.359 between the Civil War and World War I. In London, 0:26:15.480 --> 0:26:19.600 multiple ghost clubs and psychic or paranormal research groups were 0:26:19.640 --> 0:26:22.720 founded in the mid to late eighteen hundreds aimed at 0:26:22.800 --> 0:26:29.640 scientifically investigating ghosts, hauntings, and the claims of spiritualists. Similar 0:26:29.640 --> 0:26:33.080 groups for investigation opened up in the United States, and 0:26:33.240 --> 0:26:35.520 around this time is also when we start to see 0:26:35.560 --> 0:26:40.119 the use of technology to assist in capturing alleged evidence 0:26:40.200 --> 0:26:45.240 of ghosts. In eighteen sixty one, amateur photographer William Mumler 0:26:45.560 --> 0:26:49.480 was developing a self portrait when a shadowy apparition of 0:26:49.520 --> 0:26:54.200 a young girl appeared on his developing plate. Mummler knew 0:26:54.240 --> 0:26:57.159 this to be a simple mistake of re using an 0:26:57.240 --> 0:27:01.399 improperly scrubbed photography plate, what we now would call a 0:27:01.440 --> 0:27:05.960 double exposure, But upon showing this photo to a very 0:27:06.000 --> 0:27:10.760 excited spiritualist friend of his, he realized the lucrative opportunity 0:27:10.800 --> 0:27:13.919 that lay before him. Thus was born the business of 0:27:14.040 --> 0:27:18.480 spirit photography. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes's fame, 0:27:19.000 --> 0:27:22.080 was a fan of spirit photography. He became a member 0:27:22.160 --> 0:27:25.760 of London's Society for Psychical Research and eventually became a 0:27:25.800 --> 0:27:30.320 spiritualist himself. The recent inventions of the phonograph and telephone 0:27:30.480 --> 0:27:34.199 were hoped to be utilized to create evidence of spirit contact. 0:27:34.880 --> 0:27:39.000 According to Ghosts of Futures, Past, Spiritualism and Cultural Politics 0:27:39.000 --> 0:27:43.600 of nineteenth century America by Molly McGary, Thomas Watson, famed 0:27:43.600 --> 0:27:48.160 assistant to Alexander Graham Bell, experimented with the telephone as 0:27:48.200 --> 0:27:53.120 an aid to spiritual communication. Decades later, Thomas Edison sought 0:27:53.160 --> 0:27:56.840 to develop a quote unquote spirit phone, telling American Magazine 0:27:56.880 --> 0:27:59.560 in nineteen twenty quote, I've been at work for some 0:27:59.720 --> 0:28:02.800 time building an apparatus to see if it is possible 0:28:02.840 --> 0:28:06.200 for personalities which have left this earth to communicate with us, 0:28:06.520 --> 0:28:10.480 not by a cult, mystifying, mysterious or weird means, but 0:28:10.920 --> 0:28:16.720 by scientific methods unquote. Edison's spirit phone never really turned out, 0:28:16.760 --> 0:28:20.400 and we have very little information about it. It seems 0:28:20.640 --> 0:28:25.320 Edison thought that elements of our personality or memories existed 0:28:25.400 --> 0:28:28.480 in a form of like almost particles that could be 0:28:28.680 --> 0:28:34.960 measured and amplified by vibrational sensing equipment, but not much 0:28:35.080 --> 0:28:39.440 is recorded of his actual attempts to build this spirit phone. 0:28:39.520 --> 0:28:42.080 By the end of the nineteenth century, newspaper is reported 0:28:42.120 --> 0:28:46.120 on ghosts and hauntings along with other regular news. A 0:28:46.160 --> 0:28:48.520 twenty eighteen New York Times article on the paper's own 0:28:48.640 --> 0:28:52.320 history of reporting on ghosts said, quote Paulette D. Kilmer, 0:28:52.400 --> 0:28:55.440 a cultural historian and professor at the University of Toledo, 0:28:55.920 --> 0:28:59.640 scoured the paper's archives. Her research turned up nearly three 0:28:59.720 --> 0:29:03.280 hundred ghost stories in the Times between the founding of 0:29:03.320 --> 0:29:07.920 the paper in eighteen fifty one and the early twentieth century. Quote. 0:29:09.000 --> 0:29:12.280 While news coverage of hauntings dropped off during the twentieth century, 0:29:12.840 --> 0:29:16.960 the ways in which people attempted to understand ghosts only 0:29:16.960 --> 0:29:21.480 got more complex. The mediumship of the spiritualists has combined 0:29:21.560 --> 0:29:25.400 with the ever growing field of paranormal research, New Age beliefs, 0:29:25.440 --> 0:29:29.680 and pop culture fascination with poltergeist, spirits and UFOs, along 0:29:29.720 --> 0:29:33.720 with the resurgence of Evangelical Protestantism into an overlap of 0:29:33.880 --> 0:29:37.800 conflicting ghost cosmologies and what it means to contact the 0:29:37.880 --> 0:29:42.320 spirit world. To cap off. Our first night at the conference, 0:29:42.640 --> 0:29:45.760 we signed up for our very own ghost investigation at 0:29:45.800 --> 0:29:48.920 the Starry Night Inn, a quaint little house just a 0:29:49.000 --> 0:29:52.360 short walk from the convention center. We got to the 0:29:52.360 --> 0:29:56.720 inn right before midnight on Friday evening, before we ventured 0:29:56.760 --> 0:29:59.920 out on our hunt for ghosts. We were split into 0:30:00.120 --> 0:30:02.960 two groups of five, with one starting in the inn 0:30:03.080 --> 0:30:07.520 and the other in the outdoor bathhouse. We got acquainted 0:30:07.560 --> 0:30:11.520 with the ghost hunting tools we were going to be using. First. 0:30:11.560 --> 0:30:15.440 We were given a popular EMF meter routinely used for 0:30:15.480 --> 0:30:19.720 ghost detection, called a K two meter. It's supposed to 0:30:19.760 --> 0:30:25.360 measure electromagnetic fields and features colorful light up LEDs. I'm 0:30:25.360 --> 0:30:28.000 going to read a quote from the lead investigator we 0:30:28.000 --> 0:30:31.400 were paired with. Quote. If a K two meter spikes 0:30:31.400 --> 0:30:35.400 without reason, if it's not put next to anything powerfully electrical, 0:30:35.800 --> 0:30:39.960 then we can consider that paranormal. Consider that a spirit. 0:30:40.720 --> 0:30:45.120 When our body dies, we leave behind our energies. Our 0:30:45.280 --> 0:30:51.120 energies is EMF, and this starts to pick it up unquote. 0:30:51.240 --> 0:30:55.320 Among the paranormal skeptic community, the K two meter is 0:30:55.520 --> 0:30:59.960 notorious for giving off false positives. With its unshielded sense 0:31:00.240 --> 0:31:03.520 is able to be set off by cell phones, radio waves, 0:31:03.520 --> 0:31:07.600 and even nearby batteries. The other device we were using 0:31:07.800 --> 0:31:12.640 is something called a rempod. Essentially, it's a small, horrible 0:31:12.760 --> 0:31:18.240 sounding junior theoremy with some LEDs attached. An antenna creates 0:31:18.240 --> 0:31:22.360 an electromagnetic field. If something conductive gets close to the antenna, 0:31:22.560 --> 0:31:25.400 it forms a capacitor between the object and the antenna, 0:31:25.640 --> 0:31:28.000 and the pod will light up and make some noise. 0:31:28.600 --> 0:31:31.920 Or if it's electromaenetic field gets disrupted by something like 0:31:32.080 --> 0:31:36.600 say cellular or radio frequencies, it will also make a 0:31:36.680 --> 0:31:39.840 horrible beeping noise and light up. I'm going to read 0:31:39.880 --> 0:31:43.720 another quote from our lead investigator quote. When our energies 0:31:43.760 --> 0:31:46.840 are around, the pod will react to any energy field 0:31:46.840 --> 0:31:50.320 that comes close to its antenna. So as we invite 0:31:50.320 --> 0:31:53.560 spirits in, we can tell them how they can interact, 0:31:53.840 --> 0:31:56.840 and we can tell them, hey, if you walk over 0:31:57.000 --> 0:32:01.080 to that light over there and touch it, it'll light up. Unquote. 0:32:01.840 --> 0:32:05.080 There is something funny to me about telling a ghost 0:32:05.080 --> 0:32:08.960 to walk over somewhere, just a little it's just a 0:32:08.960 --> 0:32:14.120 little amusing. My group of five intrepid investigators were sent 0:32:14.200 --> 0:32:16.840 out to the bathhouse, which we were told used to 0:32:16.840 --> 0:32:20.480 be a carriage house and horse stables that got damaged 0:32:20.520 --> 0:32:25.080 in the nineteen twelve Seaside fire. The lead investigator started 0:32:25.120 --> 0:32:28.200 by informing any possible spirits that we do not mean 0:32:28.240 --> 0:32:31.800 them quote harm or intrusion, and that we would just 0:32:31.960 --> 0:32:36.080 quote like to talk. He then informed any ghosts in 0:32:36.120 --> 0:32:39.440 the vicinity that if they quote unquote walk up to 0:32:39.560 --> 0:32:42.680 any of the devices with LED lights and quote unquote 0:32:43.040 --> 0:32:48.120 touch it, it will light up. Quote go ahead, use 0:32:48.160 --> 0:32:51.440 your energy and touch all those lights for me. That 0:32:51.560 --> 0:32:56.280 way we know you're here unquote. Potential specters were also 0:32:56.320 --> 0:32:59.600 informed that if they speak into an electronic recording device, 0:33:00.120 --> 0:33:03.120 us corporeal humans could hear their voice when we play 0:33:03.160 --> 0:33:08.200 back the audio. This is called EVP, or electronic voice phenomenon. 0:33:08.640 --> 0:33:12.520 More on that on the next episode. The lead investigator 0:33:12.560 --> 0:33:15.800 then asked any nearby ghosts what their favorite food is, 0:33:16.680 --> 0:33:20.280 which seems like a cruel question to ask a ghost 0:33:21.440 --> 0:33:25.440 because they can't eat anyway. A barrage of questions then 0:33:25.480 --> 0:33:27.880 flooded out, can you tell us your name, what are 0:33:27.920 --> 0:33:32.520 you wearing? Who is the president? Not exactly all things 0:33:32.600 --> 0:33:36.120 I would ask a spectral anomaly if I was given 0:33:36.120 --> 0:33:39.680 the opportunity, But after a few minutes of silence, the 0:33:39.720 --> 0:33:43.600 rempod started to light up very faintly. The lead investigator 0:33:43.640 --> 0:33:47.120 starts talking to the presumed ghost and suggests that they 0:33:47.120 --> 0:33:49.960 play a game to find out what the ghost's name is. 0:33:50.720 --> 0:33:53.440 This is how it works. Someone recites the alphabet, and 0:33:53.480 --> 0:33:56.240 if the rempod lights up on any of the letters, 0:33:56.720 --> 0:34:00.240 that means the letter is in the ghost's name. We 0:34:00.320 --> 0:34:02.640 first got the letter N, and then the letters O 0:34:02.840 --> 0:34:06.000 and D. Then I started going through the alphabet and 0:34:06.000 --> 0:34:08.279 it lit up on the letter I. Then it let 0:34:08.360 --> 0:34:11.080 up on the letter I again, and then the letter R. 0:34:11.800 --> 0:34:14.760 At this point, the lead investigator decided that the ghost's 0:34:14.840 --> 0:34:19.279 name was Ronnie. As we were about to leave the bathhouse, 0:34:19.600 --> 0:34:21.560 someone who worked at the end came in and told 0:34:21.640 --> 0:34:24.759 us that there was a stableman with the last name 0:34:25.040 --> 0:34:28.800 Norris who died in the fire. So now the ghost's 0:34:28.880 --> 0:34:33.000 name became Norris. Next we moved to the basement. One 0:34:33.040 --> 0:34:35.400 person in our group was a little spooked and elected 0:34:35.400 --> 0:34:38.480 to stay outside. None of the rempods or anything lit 0:34:38.560 --> 0:34:40.919 up in the basement, but the person from the inn, 0:34:41.239 --> 0:34:43.920 the one who told us about Norris, joined us in 0:34:44.000 --> 0:34:47.279 the basement. When down there they said they saw a 0:34:47.280 --> 0:34:50.719 ghost that they were familiar with named Cassandra. They then 0:34:50.800 --> 0:34:55.360 turned to me and said that Cassandra likes me. Cassandra 0:34:55.520 --> 0:34:58.240 was reportedly trying to give me a hug and said 0:34:58.280 --> 0:35:01.759 that she wishes me quote all the well beings in 0:35:01.840 --> 0:35:07.120 the world unquote. Now, Cassandra was also apparently trying to 0:35:07.120 --> 0:35:11.000 tell me about a Grandpa John, which I don't have. 0:35:11.560 --> 0:35:13.959 So if any of you have a Grandpa John who 0:35:14.000 --> 0:35:17.439 needs to tell me something, just let me know. All right, 0:35:18.880 --> 0:35:22.960 back inside the house part of the inn, and we're 0:35:22.960 --> 0:35:26.319 about to go tour upstairs. We just went down into 0:35:26.400 --> 0:35:33.680 the basement and just got out of there. Yeah. Once 0:35:33.760 --> 0:35:36.360 back inside the inn, we went into the upstairs bedrooms. 0:35:36.440 --> 0:35:39.640 People set up their EMF detectors, but there was also 0:35:39.680 --> 0:35:42.520 some new equipment. One of the rooms had a security 0:35:42.560 --> 0:35:46.200 camera and a grid projector to record any irregular shadows. 0:35:46.760 --> 0:35:54.120 And I was given a spirit box. A spirit box 0:35:54.239 --> 0:35:57.399 is a handheld radio tuner that sweeps through AM or 0:35:57.480 --> 0:36:00.960 FM frequencies at a high rate. You mostly hear a 0:36:01.000 --> 0:36:05.279 sort of grating, staticky white noise with small bits of 0:36:05.360 --> 0:36:09.280 words or music slipping through from radio stations. I guess 0:36:09.280 --> 0:36:13.080 it's sort of the modern incarnation of the spirit phone. 0:36:13.160 --> 0:36:17.120 The idea is that ghosts can somehow manipulate the radio 0:36:17.160 --> 0:36:21.200 waves to speak complete words or sentences as the box 0:36:21.360 --> 0:36:26.200 is cycling between frequencies. Basically, spirit boxes are supposed to 0:36:26.200 --> 0:36:30.600 act as an electronic radio medium for spirits to communicate. 0:36:32.280 --> 0:36:35.400 The lead investigator thought that the spirit box was telling 0:36:35.480 --> 0:36:39.600 us to leave, but words weren't really clear in my opinion. 0:36:40.000 --> 0:36:42.160 For example, here is a clip in question. 0:36:47.840 --> 0:36:48.279 In the room. 0:36:48.280 --> 0:36:51.240 There was also some flickering lights and high EMF ratings, 0:36:51.520 --> 0:36:55.440 which mostly just got me concerned for this bedroom's electrical wiring. 0:36:56.400 --> 0:36:59.560 The second half of the investigation was pretty uneventful, and 0:36:59.600 --> 0:37:02.200 around two am we called it a night and I 0:37:02.280 --> 0:37:06.279 recorded a little debrief on our way back to the hotel. No, 0:37:06.440 --> 0:37:10.040 I do find it super interesting how people try to 0:37:10.480 --> 0:37:13.319 like the way they interpret electual readings as you would 0:37:13.360 --> 0:37:17.160 a conversation, and they they assert their reality on it, 0:37:17.280 --> 0:37:21.160 being like, if this happens, this means you say yes, right, 0:37:21.400 --> 0:37:23.720 so then so then the absence of the thing also 0:37:23.760 --> 0:37:27.160 becomes an answer. It's it's It is a very interesting 0:37:27.200 --> 0:37:31.279 process of people like crafting their own reality as things 0:37:31.280 --> 0:37:31.840 are happening. 0:37:32.480 --> 0:37:34.680 No, it was definitely them crafting their own reality. 0:37:34.719 --> 0:37:35.440 But also I'm. 0:37:35.280 --> 0:37:41.160 Like, like, probably some of it's like interesting, but there's 0:37:41.160 --> 0:37:43.239 still a whole bunch of points where you like make 0:37:43.280 --> 0:37:46.120 a decision, be like this is the thing that I heard, right, 0:37:46.120 --> 0:37:48.640 Because like even when they were doing the name game thing, 0:37:48.880 --> 0:37:50.279 a lot of times the light would light up and 0:37:50.280 --> 0:37:52.080 they would like still kind of keep moving on. 0:37:52.160 --> 0:37:54.520 So yeah, like there was an F and and I 0:37:54.719 --> 0:37:57.040 that off for the absolutely. 0:37:58.360 --> 0:38:02.239 And the yeaholutely, So there's this a whole bunch of 0:38:02.400 --> 0:38:06.040 very very peculiar things that that had that like go 0:38:06.200 --> 0:38:10.480 into crafting what the idea of reality is going to be? 0:38:11.520 --> 0:38:13.600 Stop making a thing, then making a thing, and then 0:38:13.600 --> 0:38:15.440 it starts again. You're like, oh no, you're not supposed 0:38:15.440 --> 0:38:17.359 to do that, And it's like it's a very it's 0:38:17.360 --> 0:38:21.320 a very very bizarre process to watch when putting together 0:38:21.400 --> 0:38:24.879 these two episodes. This last October, Elaine and I once 0:38:24.920 --> 0:38:28.160 again conversed to share our thoughts on our first ghost 0:38:28.239 --> 0:38:32.560 hunting experience. Okay, now that it has been over six 0:38:32.600 --> 0:38:37.040 months since you and I were at the organ Ghost Conference, 0:38:37.560 --> 0:38:41.120 I'm curious to see how our debrief now may kind 0:38:41.120 --> 0:38:45.000 of differ or be expanded upon from our debrief literally 0:38:45.200 --> 0:38:49.160 minutes after we left this investigation at the story night 0:38:49.200 --> 0:38:53.120 in and you know this this day was This day 0:38:53.200 --> 0:38:56.920 was interesting because we had the ghost detective class like 0:38:57.080 --> 0:39:01.560 right before this investigation. We were able to have these 0:39:01.640 --> 0:39:05.120 two kind of ideas of what a ghost investigation looks 0:39:05.160 --> 0:39:08.120 like kind of play off each other, which I think 0:39:09.400 --> 0:39:14.359 led to a pretty fun holistic experience. In terms of 0:39:14.400 --> 0:39:17.480 the many kind of diversity of investigators that were at 0:39:17.480 --> 0:39:18.279 this event. 0:39:18.400 --> 0:39:20.399 I think just the most notable thing was they didn't 0:39:20.480 --> 0:39:24.480 do a single thing that the forensic ghost Hunting class suggested, 0:39:24.600 --> 0:39:27.000 just like literally, yeah, we could have gone down the 0:39:27.040 --> 0:39:29.760 list of every single thing that the forensic ghost Hunting 0:39:29.760 --> 0:39:34.120 class suggested to do, and not one of those was done. 0:39:34.000 --> 0:39:35.120 Like completely the opposite. 0:39:35.239 --> 0:39:39.160 Record keeping of what phenomenon occurred did not happen. 0:39:39.320 --> 0:39:41.200 Logging any data, yeah. 0:39:41.080 --> 0:39:45.280 Did not happen. Investigation of the structures, yeah, did not happen. 0:39:45.719 --> 0:39:49.760 Doing a history of the structure didn't occur. The only 0:39:49.840 --> 0:39:53.160 interviews we had with someone was the person who said 0:39:53.160 --> 0:39:56.120 they were a medium who lived there. Yeah, even just 0:39:56.160 --> 0:39:59.919 like questions like how long have you seen things here? 0:40:00.320 --> 0:40:00.960 Didn't occur. 0:40:01.440 --> 0:40:03.600 No, it wasn't very interesting just in terms of how 0:40:03.719 --> 0:40:06.359 like the ghost hunt at the end was literally just 0:40:06.600 --> 0:40:10.720 the exact opposite of all of the sorts of procedures 0:40:10.840 --> 0:40:13.319 that the ghost Detective class was trying to lay out, 0:40:13.600 --> 0:40:16.120 which we attended just like literally hours prior. 0:40:16.800 --> 0:40:20.680 Well, I think one thing that you can really see 0:40:20.719 --> 0:40:25.040 between the how to do a Ghost Investigation class and 0:40:25.080 --> 0:40:29.279 then the ghost investigation itself is the how to do 0:40:29.320 --> 0:40:34.920 a Paranormal investigation class doesn't assume you know what you're investigating, 0:40:35.200 --> 0:40:38.880 and so it really is a lot about doing, you know, 0:40:39.000 --> 0:40:43.560 background talks with people, like talking to sources, what phenomena. 0:40:44.320 --> 0:40:48.560 It's not assuming that there was anything paranormal in the 0:40:48.600 --> 0:40:51.239 first place, and it's an investigation of whether or not 0:40:51.360 --> 0:40:55.759 something paranormal has occurred. And when you go to the 0:40:55.800 --> 0:40:58.279 ghost hunt, specifically the ghost hunt that we went to, 0:40:58.920 --> 0:41:04.600 everyone there was assuming that paranormal things were occurring just 0:41:04.680 --> 0:41:05.640 as a baseline. 0:41:06.320 --> 0:41:11.360 They were interpreting readings from their specialized ghost hunting equipment 0:41:11.719 --> 0:41:16.160 as proof of communication with some kind of paranormal force. 0:41:17.040 --> 0:41:20.600 There's a lot of implicit assumptions made. First off, if 0:41:20.640 --> 0:41:25.759 you start talking to phenomenon, you're assuming that there's phenomenon. 0:41:25.800 --> 0:41:28.719 You're assuming the phenomenon can hear you, You're assuming the 0:41:28.760 --> 0:41:32.200 phenomenon wants to interact with you. And if you say, 0:41:33.040 --> 0:41:36.120 if you can hear me, touch the light, all of 0:41:36.160 --> 0:41:41.080 those are very implicit assumptions. It's not investigating what phenomenon 0:41:41.080 --> 0:41:45.160 there is. You've already framed what you expect the encounter 0:41:45.320 --> 0:41:49.480 to be and how whatever you're encountering will interact with 0:41:49.719 --> 0:41:52.960 a whole mess of like ideas. 0:41:53.360 --> 0:41:56.279 Yeah, my favorite thing about that from the experience at 0:41:56.360 --> 0:41:59.640 the starting night in is like we were basically with 0:41:59.760 --> 0:42:02.759 this like middle aged man who just kept yelling at 0:42:02.800 --> 0:42:07.600 any like prospective ghosts that were around the vicinity, And like, 0:42:08.239 --> 0:42:11.120 why would a ghost want to follow the commands of 0:42:11.160 --> 0:42:12.279 like a middle aged man. 0:42:12.680 --> 0:42:14.560 I mean I didn't want to follow the commands when 0:42:14.560 --> 0:42:16.880 he would say everyone needs to be quiet. I wanted 0:42:16.920 --> 0:42:22.279 to like start yelling or muttering just out of sheer obstinence. 0:42:22.440 --> 0:42:24.840 Because of the way that he was instructing things. I 0:42:24.880 --> 0:42:28.160 can't imagine a spiritual entity, if it was a ghost, 0:42:28.200 --> 0:42:31.120 even the way he's conceiving of it, would somehow not. 0:42:31.520 --> 0:42:35.600 Yeah, I have this little exchange laid out here where 0:42:35.600 --> 0:42:38.960 he was he was addressing what I guess he assumed 0:42:39.480 --> 0:42:42.840 was a ghost saying, quote, make the light to stop, 0:42:43.000 --> 0:42:47.120 back away, back away, good good. Now get closer, thank you, 0:42:47.320 --> 0:42:50.839 thank you, one more time, get closer. All right, now 0:42:51.200 --> 0:42:54.160 make the light stop. Ah, I didn't tell you to 0:42:54.160 --> 0:42:57.280 get closer. Back away, back away, back a way good. Okay, 0:42:57.360 --> 0:43:01.120 now now get closer, good good. The only thing that 0:43:01.200 --> 0:43:05.120 was changing throughout that back and forth was that occasionally 0:43:05.400 --> 0:43:10.120 a little lightwood kind of go on, and that was it, right, Like, 0:43:10.600 --> 0:43:13.320 but he's able to weave this whole story in between 0:43:13.360 --> 0:43:16.440 this light going on by saying back up and then 0:43:16.520 --> 0:43:19.160 the light turns off, and then saying okay, now come closer. 0:43:19.320 --> 0:43:21.680 You wait like ten fifteen seconds the light turns on. 0:43:22.120 --> 0:43:22.520 He's able. 0:43:22.560 --> 0:43:26.160 It's it's it's crafting this whole like timeline of this 0:43:26.200 --> 0:43:28.560 ghost like doing this thing when really this is just 0:43:28.680 --> 0:43:32.319 a flickering light like that that but through the way 0:43:32.360 --> 0:43:35.800 that he has this like uh, this like commanding voice, 0:43:36.360 --> 0:43:39.080 it's making it as if the ghost is like following 0:43:39.160 --> 0:43:42.360 these instructions and then being being like rewarded for following 0:43:42.360 --> 0:43:44.799 these instructions by saying like good good, good good, or 0:43:45.280 --> 0:43:48.280 if they don't follow instructions, then the ghost is like scolded, 0:43:48.719 --> 0:43:51.120 So it's it's just a lot of a lot of 0:43:51.120 --> 0:43:52.120 interactions like that. 0:43:52.760 --> 0:43:54.920 I mean, I've gone through the same narration when I 0:43:54.960 --> 0:43:57.879 stare at a candle flame like a little bit high like, 0:43:59.160 --> 0:44:02.239 but it doesn't mean that the candle is necessarily responding 0:44:02.280 --> 0:44:02.480 to me. 0:44:03.239 --> 0:44:07.040 Both activity on the rempod and the lack of activity 0:44:07.280 --> 0:44:11.359 are taken as a sign of spirit communication. Questions will 0:44:11.360 --> 0:44:13.960 be framed as if you want us to leave you alone, 0:44:14.080 --> 0:44:17.480 light up, so if nothing happens, that itself is taken 0:44:17.560 --> 0:44:21.360 as an actionable answer. Whoever is leading the quote unquote 0:44:21.440 --> 0:44:26.880 investigation gets to either intentionally or even unintentionally, craft the 0:44:26.960 --> 0:44:30.280 meaning of the experience based on how the questions are framed, 0:44:30.520 --> 0:44:34.240 when questions are asked, and how the group responds based 0:44:34.239 --> 0:44:37.800 on the activity or lack thereof of the EMF devices. 0:44:39.239 --> 0:44:43.760 The rempods often go off erratically or in seemingly random intervals, 0:44:44.239 --> 0:44:48.120 but when their activity happens after someone just asks twenty questions, 0:44:48.640 --> 0:44:51.280 it's assumed to be related to whatever the most recent 0:44:51.400 --> 0:44:55.960 line of inquiry was. It all operates on correlation versus causation, 0:44:56.200 --> 0:44:59.920 with people mostly jumping on the ladder no matter when 0:45:00.080 --> 0:45:02.279 the pods light up, the results can be turned into 0:45:02.280 --> 0:45:06.000 a meaningful sign if the investigator is talking frequently enough. 0:45:06.960 --> 0:45:10.600 These sorts of ghost hunts are primarily a form of entertainment. 0:45:10.800 --> 0:45:12.640 It's a novel experience you can have with your friends 0:45:12.640 --> 0:45:15.840 and family to have a fun time together over the 0:45:15.880 --> 0:45:19.200 course of a few hours and maybe get a little spooked. 0:45:19.840 --> 0:45:24.360 I wasn't expecting a rigorous scientific investigation at midnight and 0:45:24.440 --> 0:45:28.160 seaside Oregon, nor do I think that's even a useful 0:45:28.200 --> 0:45:31.879 way of getting at the heart of the phenomenon. Rather 0:45:31.960 --> 0:45:36.640 than viewing ghost hunts as objective inquiries into paranormal activity, 0:45:37.239 --> 0:45:40.000 I think for most people they operate more as a 0:45:40.040 --> 0:45:44.720 way of inducing paranormal experiences, the same way occultism seeks 0:45:44.719 --> 0:45:48.240 to induce mystical experiences, and religion strives for a connection 0:45:48.280 --> 0:45:52.320 with God. All of these are practices of constructing meaning 0:45:52.400 --> 0:45:55.920 and finding patterns, and that's not to discount them. They 0:45:55.920 --> 0:45:59.840 only are a problem when they become exploitative and harmful 0:45:59.840 --> 0:46:03.280 to yourself and others, which is what we'll be talking 0:46:03.320 --> 0:46:06.600 about in the next episode, So stay tuned to hear 0:46:06.680 --> 0:46:12.120 about warrior angels tasked with vanquishing demons. How Mendal illness 0:46:12.160 --> 0:46:14.360 is a sure sign you're possessed by an evil spirit, 0:46:14.920 --> 0:46:18.280 and how abortions and the Internet are opening up portals 0:46:18.280 --> 0:46:22.200 in our world to demonic forces. See you on the 0:46:22.280 --> 0:46:42.800 other side, Welcome back to it could happen. Here's Spooky 0:46:42.840 --> 0:46:47.880 Week special presentation Ghost in the Machine, a first person 0:46:47.880 --> 0:46:52.759 account of the twenty twenty three Oregon Ghost Conference. I'm 0:46:52.760 --> 0:46:55.600 Garson Davis. In the last episode, I introduced you to 0:46:55.800 --> 0:46:59.320 the hauntings of Seaside and the first day of the conference, 0:47:00.160 --> 0:47:03.719 But now descending into the subsequent two days, we're going 0:47:03.760 --> 0:47:05.960 to get into a lot more classes and events that 0:47:06.640 --> 0:47:13.000 started to reveal the cultural underpinnings of the Ghost Conference attendees. 0:47:14.040 --> 0:47:16.719 The cost of entry for the conference was pretty low, 0:47:16.880 --> 0:47:20.040 but every class or ghost hunt was an additional fee, 0:47:20.600 --> 0:47:23.759 with classes ranging from fifteen to twenty five bucks each 0:47:24.200 --> 0:47:28.000 and the ghost investigations a lofty thirty five dollars per ticket, 0:47:28.960 --> 0:47:31.400 so I had to pick and choose my classes carefully. 0:47:31.960 --> 0:47:35.160 There were a lot of classes with the word energy 0:47:35.320 --> 0:47:38.920 in the title. I mostly avoided those, but the class 0:47:38.960 --> 0:47:45.960 topics ranged from the afterlife to connecting with spirits, reiki crystals, tarot, mediumship, 0:47:46.239 --> 0:47:50.680 and psychic abilities. There were a few classes on witchcraft 0:47:50.760 --> 0:47:53.760 and occult magic, but that was definitely not the general 0:47:53.840 --> 0:47:57.200 vibe of the conference or most attendees. In fact, there 0:47:57.239 --> 0:48:01.239 was a lot of hostility to ritual magic esoteric practices 0:48:01.280 --> 0:48:05.800 throughout the conference from the more new ag energy working speakers, 0:48:06.440 --> 0:48:11.560 mostly on the basis that witchcraft is linked to dark forces. 0:48:12.400 --> 0:48:15.520 Just because someone operates on a form of magical thinking 0:48:15.960 --> 0:48:19.440 does not mean that the take kindly to arcane practices, 0:48:20.000 --> 0:48:22.560 a case in point to the historical witch hunts led 0:48:22.560 --> 0:48:26.880 by the Christians. The Love and Light new Age psychics, 0:48:27.000 --> 0:48:30.880 along with the paranormal investigator types, made up the majority 0:48:30.960 --> 0:48:35.759 of both attendees and class instructors. On Saturday morning, while 0:48:35.800 --> 0:48:38.919 my friend Elaine was doing a hypnosis class, I took 0:48:38.960 --> 0:48:41.560 a really fun class on how to learn remote viewing. 0:48:42.280 --> 0:48:45.040 The instructor was a very jovial woman, and it was 0:48:45.080 --> 0:48:48.279 her opinion that remote viewing is just a skill that 0:48:48.360 --> 0:48:51.840 can be trained, not linked to any innate psychic powers. 0:48:52.760 --> 0:48:55.239 With just a bit more practice, I'll be blowing up 0:48:55.280 --> 0:48:59.000 goats with my mind in no time. I snuck in 0:48:59.080 --> 0:49:02.240 towards the end of the hypnotism class, just in time 0:49:02.400 --> 0:49:06.480 for the group hypnosis session, where I ended up astral 0:49:06.520 --> 0:49:11.560 projecting into a Portland anarchist book. Fair taking classes offered 0:49:11.640 --> 0:49:15.480 an intimate look at each presenter's own unique view of reality. 0:49:16.200 --> 0:49:18.879 Almost everyone at the conference was operating on their own 0:49:18.960 --> 0:49:24.439 complete cosmology of how ghosts or paranormal entities work. There's 0:49:24.480 --> 0:49:27.520 two classes I want to focus on. Each had very 0:49:27.560 --> 0:49:31.120 different class descriptions, but ended up pickybacking off each other 0:49:31.200 --> 0:49:34.680 in some really interesting ways. The first one was titled 0:49:34.960 --> 0:49:39.600 The Power of Entity Extraction. The instructor was a blonde, 0:49:39.600 --> 0:49:42.320 white woman who referred to herself as a quote unquote 0:49:42.400 --> 0:49:47.800 shamanic practitioner. The class was about how quote unresolved trauma 0:49:47.840 --> 0:49:51.920 can be an invitation to ethic hitchhikers, and how entities 0:49:52.000 --> 0:49:57.120 mimic signs of mental illness and change behavior unquote. The 0:49:57.160 --> 0:50:01.480 other class was titled The Warrior Angel Within You. It 0:50:01.600 --> 0:50:04.640 sought to help you find out if you secretly had 0:50:04.640 --> 0:50:07.960 the soul of a warrior angel. Spoiler, everyone in the 0:50:07.960 --> 0:50:10.799 class did, and it promised to teach you how to 0:50:10.840 --> 0:50:14.520 activate your connection between yourself and your angelic consciousness to 0:50:14.680 --> 0:50:21.480 unlock your own angel powers. So, while having many operational differences, 0:50:22.080 --> 0:50:25.560 the Warrior Angel class and the Entity Extraction class were 0:50:25.560 --> 0:50:29.520 both very set in their own unique ontologies, and in 0:50:29.640 --> 0:50:33.640 order for their respective operative metaphysics to work, they needed 0:50:33.680 --> 0:50:38.480 to be extremely dogmatic about their own ontology. Both instructors 0:50:38.480 --> 0:50:41.560 also had a very similar story of some past trauma 0:50:41.680 --> 0:50:45.480 leading to a mystical encounter which then awakened some spiritual 0:50:45.520 --> 0:50:49.560 insight and hidden power. For the entity extraction class, it 0:50:49.600 --> 0:50:51.960 was quote, I was a very sickly kid. I had 0:50:51.960 --> 0:50:54.080 all these things that were wrong with me, and then 0:50:54.120 --> 0:50:56.759 I realized I had dark entities attached to me, but 0:50:56.920 --> 0:50:59.800 I could learn how to extract and remove them myself. 0:51:00.840 --> 0:51:04.600 Versus the Warrior Angel class, the person's backstory was quote 0:51:04.920 --> 0:51:06.600 when I was nineteen years old, I got into a 0:51:06.640 --> 0:51:09.640 bad motorcycle accident. I was clinically dead for two minutes, 0:51:09.880 --> 0:51:14.080 received a brain injury, and then I started seeing angels unquote. 0:51:14.120 --> 0:51:17.960 Both women's personal journeys seemed like they helped them deal 0:51:18.000 --> 0:51:21.120 with their own traumas. In the case of the Shamanic 0:51:21.160 --> 0:51:24.600 practitioner woman, she regained her health and now has a 0:51:24.719 --> 0:51:29.359 seemingly successful life and business of removing entities and quote 0:51:29.440 --> 0:51:33.680 unquote soul coaching. The Warrior Angel woman is a nurse 0:51:33.800 --> 0:51:37.200 and finds time to write a lot of books, all 0:51:37.239 --> 0:51:41.680 while murdering demons and expelling the forces of darkness. While 0:51:41.760 --> 0:51:44.880 only the Entity Extraction class built itself as having to 0:51:44.960 --> 0:51:48.960 do with entity removal, both classes were incredibly focused on 0:51:49.000 --> 0:51:52.960 the idea that there are malevolent spirits or demons everywhere 0:51:53.960 --> 0:51:57.760 in the entity class, these dark entities are out looking 0:51:57.760 --> 0:52:02.200 for people with quote unquote souls due to past trauma 0:52:02.640 --> 0:52:05.239 and are just like waiting to leap onto people and 0:52:05.400 --> 0:52:10.480 dig themselves into their minds. Similarly, according to the Warrior 0:52:10.560 --> 0:52:15.560 Angel class, demons are everywhere. Demons live around and inside people, 0:52:16.040 --> 0:52:20.279 but are only visible to those with angelic sight. The 0:52:20.480 --> 0:52:24.120 Entity extraction class laid out two main types of beings, 0:52:24.840 --> 0:52:27.960 lost or benign entities that are just trapped in the 0:52:28.000 --> 0:52:30.960 third dimension and as they're trying to pass on to 0:52:31.080 --> 0:52:34.200 quote unquote the light, they end up attaching onto a 0:52:34.280 --> 0:52:39.680 human versus the overtly dark or demonic entities which seek 0:52:39.719 --> 0:52:43.640 to feed off people's pain and suffering. We learned that 0:52:43.719 --> 0:52:47.800 benign entities can just be lost human souls. For instance, 0:52:47.920 --> 0:52:50.279 if someone is taking a lot of medication or is 0:52:50.280 --> 0:52:54.360 going through chemotherapy when they die, their soul won't be 0:52:54.400 --> 0:52:56.920 able to cross over to the light, and it'll become lost. 0:52:57.360 --> 0:53:01.799 According at least to this shamanic practitioner, she claimed to 0:53:01.840 --> 0:53:05.920 be trained in a special technique to remove entities. It 0:53:05.960 --> 0:53:10.160 involves quote etherically locking your wrists to draw the entity 0:53:10.280 --> 0:53:13.799 into a double terminated crystal, at which point it can 0:53:13.840 --> 0:53:18.640 then be sent into the light unquote. Since the shaman 0:53:18.680 --> 0:53:22.560 woman wasn't actually offering ways for other people to protect 0:53:22.600 --> 0:53:26.200 themselves from entities, the only thing she had to offer 0:53:26.480 --> 0:53:30.120 was her own worldview that leans towards a paranoia where 0:53:30.280 --> 0:53:34.840 dark spirits are waiting to latch on and cause mental illness. 0:53:35.960 --> 0:53:39.439 She talked about how a man with mood fluctuations paid 0:53:39.480 --> 0:53:42.960 her money to remove a quote unquote nine foot minute 0:53:43.000 --> 0:53:46.279 taur that was attached to him. At least in the 0:53:46.320 --> 0:53:49.319 Warrior angel system, you could eventually gain some form of 0:53:49.360 --> 0:53:53.359 agency when you merged with your warrior Angel, but then 0:53:53.360 --> 0:53:55.480 you would spend the rest of your life recognizing demons 0:53:55.520 --> 0:53:58.120 in human form and working with the Legion of Light 0:53:58.239 --> 0:54:01.360 to banish them to the darkness, Whereas in the entity 0:54:01.360 --> 0:54:04.440 attraction class, the most you could do was just be 0:54:04.640 --> 0:54:09.680 proactive by quote unquote learning ways to identify possible attachments 0:54:09.960 --> 0:54:13.680 and how your lifestyle could be an open invitation to 0:54:13.760 --> 0:54:19.080 host the unwanted. Though she identified herself as a shamanic practitioner, 0:54:19.719 --> 0:54:23.439 she didn't believe you could actually work with spirits. When 0:54:23.520 --> 0:54:26.440 people asked her about their own helper entities that they 0:54:26.480 --> 0:54:29.239 work with, she said that you can never know if 0:54:29.239 --> 0:54:33.320 a helper spirit is actually intending to assist you. That is, 0:54:33.360 --> 0:54:36.000 except if you ask an entity if it's of the light, 0:54:36.560 --> 0:54:39.200 it has to answer truthfully. As this was a quote 0:54:39.280 --> 0:54:42.759 unquote universal law. That was the phrase she used. It's 0:54:42.760 --> 0:54:45.960 a quote unquote universal law that if you ask an 0:54:46.080 --> 0:54:48.880 entity if it's of the light, it has to answer truthfully. 0:54:49.640 --> 0:54:53.000 There was no indication on who wrote this universal law, 0:54:53.080 --> 0:54:56.640 who enforces this universal law, if there's a universal police 0:54:56.680 --> 0:55:00.440 force making sure that the entities are following these rules. 0:55:01.120 --> 0:55:04.319 None of that was explained. But this is a universal lot. 0:55:04.640 --> 0:55:06.680 So that is a tip for any of you listeners 0:55:06.719 --> 0:55:08.640 if you ever meet an entity that you think might 0:55:08.680 --> 0:55:11.200 be a little bit sketchy, just ask if it's of 0:55:11.239 --> 0:55:15.360 the light. It has to answer truthfully. So, despite this 0:55:15.600 --> 0:55:19.640 universal law business, she still discouraged people from trying to 0:55:19.719 --> 0:55:22.600 work with entities in general. She said that if an 0:55:22.680 --> 0:55:25.920 entity is trying to help you, it's probably of the dark, 0:55:26.080 --> 0:55:29.120 and working with any spirits at all will make you 0:55:29.200 --> 0:55:33.880 more susceptible to entity attachment, which is definitely weird because 0:55:34.040 --> 0:55:36.799 she did very specifically try to claim some sort of 0:55:36.840 --> 0:55:41.960 shamanic lineage, and this blanket hostility to spirit really doesn't 0:55:42.000 --> 0:55:45.239 follow the way most shamanic practices work. So I did 0:55:45.280 --> 0:55:48.160 some digging and it turns out she got her training 0:55:48.239 --> 0:55:53.080 from a controversial quote unquote shamanism school called the Four Winds, 0:55:53.680 --> 0:55:59.160 which repackages New Age of spirituality as quote unquote neo shamanism. 0:56:00.080 --> 0:56:02.840 So even though you shouldn't be in contact with really 0:56:02.920 --> 0:56:06.680 any spirits according to the shamanic practitioner, in the Warrior 0:56:06.719 --> 0:56:09.080 Angel class, we learned that if you have the soul 0:56:09.120 --> 0:56:14.240 of a warrior angel, you can quote unquote communicate with ghosts, angels, God, 0:56:14.760 --> 0:56:19.400 the Galactic Federation Council, and the Council of Elders. Now 0:56:20.120 --> 0:56:23.560 I know you're probably wondering what the Galactic Federation Council is, 0:56:23.640 --> 0:56:27.080 because I was too. We never found out. We never 0:56:27.120 --> 0:56:29.480 really got a clue. You had to buy the books 0:56:29.520 --> 0:56:33.120 for that one. The Warrior Angel instructor claimed to have 0:56:33.320 --> 0:56:37.160 her own angelic hierarchy that wasn't based on any other system, 0:56:37.560 --> 0:56:41.640 just her own experiences. A warrior Angel is a quote 0:56:42.080 --> 0:56:45.319 special kind of angel, fully trained in the art of 0:56:45.400 --> 0:56:49.120 war by the Legion of Light, an elite team of 0:56:49.200 --> 0:56:53.080 demon slayers quote and no, I don't think she has 0:56:53.120 --> 0:56:57.600 seen the anime. What makes the Warrior Angel special is 0:56:57.640 --> 0:57:01.880 that it can be incarnated in physical form as a human, 0:57:02.560 --> 0:57:06.960 but only archangels can kill or banish demons back to 0:57:07.040 --> 0:57:11.000 the dark realm. The Warrior Angel can scare demons away 0:57:11.040 --> 0:57:13.719 with their angelic presence, but they can also act as 0:57:13.760 --> 0:57:17.680 spies to inform the Legion of Light as to demon whereabouts. 0:57:18.840 --> 0:57:23.200 Each Warrior Angel has special abilities, usually healing or manifesting, 0:57:23.800 --> 0:57:27.200 as well as the ability to create infinity orbs, which 0:57:27.240 --> 0:57:29.680 can be used for protection or to trap a demon 0:57:29.720 --> 0:57:32.840 inside and send it back to the dark realm within 0:57:32.920 --> 0:57:38.240 the orb. Now you're probably wondering what's an infinity orb. 0:57:39.680 --> 0:57:42.920 We don't know either. We never got a good explanation 0:57:43.520 --> 0:57:46.320 for what an infinity orb is, how to make one, 0:57:46.440 --> 0:57:49.520 how they work. It was very vague. I guess that 0:57:49.640 --> 0:57:53.360 is also in the book, along with the Galactic Federation Council. 0:57:54.760 --> 0:57:59.000 There are apparently over three million Warrior Angels walking the 0:57:59.040 --> 0:58:01.600 Earth today, most of which have been sent to Earth 0:58:01.920 --> 0:58:05.360 in the past two hundred years because quote, the darkness 0:58:05.520 --> 0:58:08.200 has spread over the Earth and in the last two 0:58:08.320 --> 0:58:13.840 hundred years, it's really gotten worse unquote. Now, thankfully, I, 0:58:14.120 --> 0:58:17.000 along with everyone else in the class, was informed that 0:58:17.400 --> 0:58:21.080 I'm actually one of these three million warrior Angels. And 0:58:21.280 --> 0:58:26.800 I was told my angel name Araman, whose specialty is communication. 0:58:28.800 --> 0:58:36.120 Oh fucking fuck. Okay, Apparently things on Earth have gotten 0:58:36.160 --> 0:58:39.320 worse enough that, under the command of God, the Legion 0:58:39.360 --> 0:58:42.840 of Light has resorted to killing demons more often because 0:58:43.080 --> 0:58:45.320 more and more of them just keep coming back from 0:58:45.320 --> 0:58:48.840 the dark realm. The lady running the class told us 0:58:48.880 --> 0:58:53.320 that she wasn't just a warrior angel, she was actually 0:58:53.640 --> 0:58:58.720 the archangel Ariel. As the Angel Ariel, she said that 0:58:58.760 --> 0:59:02.320 she's killed four thousand tho demons in the past six years. 0:59:03.600 --> 0:59:07.200 Something that's a little bit disturbing about this is that 0:59:07.240 --> 0:59:11.360 she also explained that in a past life, Ariel got 0:59:11.400 --> 0:59:15.520 in trouble with God because when she was out killing demons, 0:59:16.080 --> 0:59:19.800 she actually was also killing the human host of the demon. 0:59:20.840 --> 0:59:25.080 So the fact that this person, whose job is a 0:59:25.200 --> 0:59:30.000 nurse is claimed to have killed four thousand demons in 0:59:30.040 --> 0:59:32.760 the past six years is maybe a little bit concerning. 0:59:33.000 --> 0:59:37.120 Someone should look into that. The whole Warrior Angel cosmology 0:59:37.240 --> 0:59:42.000 was very rooted in Christian Millenarianism, an apocalyptic end times 0:59:42.080 --> 0:59:47.120 theology where social and political crisises accelerate, leading to a 0:59:47.160 --> 0:59:50.680 holy war between good and evil, resulting in the triumph 0:59:50.680 --> 0:59:53.880 of good and the establishing of a one thousand year 0:59:53.960 --> 0:59:58.760 kingdom of God on Earth before the final judgment. One 0:59:58.840 --> 1:00:01.880 of the darkest parts of the whole weekend for me 1:00:02.680 --> 1:00:05.120 was that there was this one woman who appeared to 1:00:05.120 --> 1:00:08.360 be in her twenties who was very obviously dealing with 1:00:08.400 --> 1:00:12.000 some sort of problem in her life. She talked with 1:00:12.080 --> 1:00:15.880 this Warrior angel woman for four hours. It was a 1:00:15.880 --> 1:00:18.000 one hour class. We then had a break, we went 1:00:18.040 --> 1:00:21.120 to another class, and then attended the second class, which 1:00:21.160 --> 1:00:25.680 was also an hour. Throughout that entire time, this obviously 1:00:25.800 --> 1:00:29.880 depressed young woman who was dealing with something was talking 1:00:29.880 --> 1:00:33.320 with this person about the Warrior angel thing, and that 1:00:33.400 --> 1:00:36.920 just felt extremely exploitative, and it was one of the 1:00:36.920 --> 1:00:39.280 things that actually just made me feel the most bad 1:00:39.320 --> 1:00:43.960 about the entire ghost conference. The Entity extraction class didn't 1:00:44.000 --> 1:00:47.160 have any information on how we can remove an entity, 1:00:47.680 --> 1:00:50.560 and aside from the second hour in which the instructor 1:00:50.800 --> 1:00:53.920 came and told us our angel names, the Warrior Angel 1:00:53.960 --> 1:00:56.280 class wasn't actually about how to connect with your angel. 1:00:56.640 --> 1:00:59.520 We never learned how to make anfit in the orbs. Instead, 1:00:59.760 --> 1:01:03.400 both classes were just pitches for the books and services 1:01:03.680 --> 1:01:06.160 of the people teaching them, and the class was a 1:01:06.240 --> 1:01:09.000 chance for them to weave the story of their particular 1:01:09.000 --> 1:01:14.360 worldview and sell it to the class attendees. Saturday night, 1:01:14.480 --> 1:01:18.200 Elayne and I signed up for another ghost investigation. With 1:01:18.280 --> 1:01:21.400 one already under our belt, we felt better prepared to 1:01:21.840 --> 1:01:25.160 yell at blinking lights and converse with the dead. I 1:01:25.240 --> 1:01:28.680 actually really liked this second investigation. It was led by 1:01:28.720 --> 1:01:32.160 a ghost hunting team from Astoria, Oregon, and this time 1:01:32.240 --> 1:01:35.040 it was to take place at the old Masonic Temple 1:01:35.160 --> 1:01:38.560 in Seaside. The setting was a big part of what 1:01:38.720 --> 1:01:41.320 up to the cool factor. The building had only been 1:01:41.400 --> 1:01:45.080 vacant since twenty seventeen, but the harsh coastal weather of 1:01:45.120 --> 1:01:49.040 northern Oregon had not been kind to the structure all right. 1:01:49.160 --> 1:01:53.040 It is Saturday night, March twenty fifth. We are inside 1:01:53.080 --> 1:01:58.040 the old Massenic Lodge in the Seaside, Oregon. Right now, 1:01:58.040 --> 1:02:00.960 we're I'm just walking into the big kind of ceremony 1:02:01.200 --> 1:02:06.720 ritual performance room. Once we got to the main room upstairs, 1:02:07.000 --> 1:02:10.280 people began setting up rempods and what are essentially motion 1:02:10.440 --> 1:02:13.920 activated light up cat toys. The idea is if some 1:02:14.360 --> 1:02:17.960 energetic forces passing through, it would light up the little catball. 1:02:18.800 --> 1:02:21.439 As about thirty people from the ghost hunt crammed into 1:02:21.440 --> 1:02:25.480 the lodge, the rempods started going off like crazy. The 1:02:25.560 --> 1:02:29.480 investigators had to repeatedly remind the ghosts to only touch 1:02:29.520 --> 1:02:32.959 the lights when answering a question. There was a male 1:02:33.080 --> 1:02:36.880 medium present at this ghost hunt, and he remarked as 1:02:36.920 --> 1:02:41.280 to why there was seemingly so much activity quote some 1:02:41.480 --> 1:02:46.640 spirits aren't happy about the women being here unquote. At 1:02:46.640 --> 1:02:50.400 this point some of the investigators got really combative with 1:02:50.480 --> 1:02:54.560 potential spirits after the woman line from the medium. One 1:02:54.680 --> 1:02:57.400 line was quote, do you want to know why there 1:02:57.400 --> 1:03:01.240 are all these females here? If so, give us a 1:03:01.280 --> 1:03:05.720 green light unquote. This is where the ghost hunt basically 1:03:05.760 --> 1:03:10.160 turned into a weird interrogation once again. It became a 1:03:10.320 --> 1:03:14.480 contest of injecting meaning during these little intervals of time 1:03:14.680 --> 1:03:18.920 in between when the lights flicker, I should ask the 1:03:18.920 --> 1:03:22.840 ghost if they do you think trans people are valid? 1:03:23.040 --> 1:03:25.720 And then if it lights up, that means it's yes, yes, 1:03:28.400 --> 1:03:32.200 breaking news from Seaside, Oregon. Ghosts do believe that trans 1:03:32.240 --> 1:03:36.720 people are valid, although they do not understand neo pronouns. Look, 1:03:36.840 --> 1:03:40.320 I just report the news. At this point, we changed 1:03:40.360 --> 1:03:44.480 things up from the regular arguing with blinking lights. We 1:03:44.560 --> 1:03:48.200 did an experiment with the radio frequency sweeping spirit Box 1:03:48.680 --> 1:03:52.680 using what's called the Estus method. It combines the spirit 1:03:52.760 --> 1:03:56.560 box with sensory deprivation to reduce the amount of external 1:03:56.600 --> 1:04:00.400 influence on the person listening to the spirit box. One 1:04:00.440 --> 1:04:03.840 person puts on a blindfold and noise canceling headphones plugged 1:04:03.840 --> 1:04:06.640 into the spirit box so they can speak aloud any 1:04:06.640 --> 1:04:09.840 words coming through the box without hearing the questions or 1:04:09.920 --> 1:04:14.760 comments from other investigators. Obviously, the conversation doesn't always line up, 1:04:15.080 --> 1:04:17.440 but there are often moments where it does form a 1:04:17.520 --> 1:04:21.800 fun synchronicity. I volunteered to try out being the human 1:04:21.880 --> 1:04:24.840 speaker for the spirit box, although I only did it 1:04:24.880 --> 1:04:27.240 for a few minutes. Pretty quickly, I was able to 1:04:27.280 --> 1:04:30.840 get into a sort of meditative trance state. The thing 1:04:30.880 --> 1:04:34.000 about being the one with the blindfold and noise canceling 1:04:34.000 --> 1:04:38.320 headphones pumping radio static directly into your ears is that 1:04:38.840 --> 1:04:41.560 in the moment, you have no idea what's going on 1:04:41.920 --> 1:04:45.400 as intended. You only have access to one side of 1:04:45.400 --> 1:04:48.280 the conversation, and if you get into a meditative state, 1:04:48.760 --> 1:04:52.240 it's hard to even remember what you've been saying. So 1:04:52.440 --> 1:04:55.400 I only got to hear the full conversation by listening 1:04:55.400 --> 1:04:59.320 to my recording when putting together these episodes. Unfortunately, I 1:04:59.400 --> 1:05:01.680 can't play most of that recording because there's too many 1:05:01.800 --> 1:05:05.720 random people's voices, but I'll narrate a few brief exchanges. 1:05:06.600 --> 1:05:08.600 One of the first things that came through was the 1:05:08.640 --> 1:05:14.160 word cold. People replied, yeah, it's freezing in here. Can 1:05:14.200 --> 1:05:20.680 you feel cold? I then replied, I don't, followed by 1:05:20.800 --> 1:05:25.720 I exist. After this, apparently someone was leaving the room 1:05:25.760 --> 1:05:30.560 to go downstairs, and I said, don't go. I can't 1:05:30.600 --> 1:05:35.080 follow off. Station. People then asked the ghost if they 1:05:35.120 --> 1:05:39.400 knew what the building was used for. I replied, you 1:05:39.600 --> 1:05:45.480 will want to find out. That's the thing radio calling. 1:05:46.480 --> 1:05:49.280 People then asked where are you right now? Can you 1:05:49.320 --> 1:05:54.400 tell us? I replied, I don't know lots of things. 1:05:55.360 --> 1:05:59.800 A short time later I heard stop following you too. 1:06:00.600 --> 1:06:04.000 We've had a cut. I'll play the audio of the 1:06:04.120 --> 1:06:07.240 very final thing. I said, I can't do anymore. 1:06:09.320 --> 1:06:09.760 Stop. 1:06:11.040 --> 1:06:15.280 You're welcome, dear Jenna Stock now. So that's when I 1:06:15.280 --> 1:06:17.080 decided it would be a good time to take off 1:06:17.120 --> 1:06:20.200 the headphones. We had a few other exchanges when I 1:06:20.280 --> 1:06:22.680 was listening to the spirit Box, but it's all kind 1:06:22.720 --> 1:06:25.960 of in that style. Apparently, when I was hooked up 1:06:25.960 --> 1:06:28.680 to the spirit Box, the rempods in the other room 1:06:28.760 --> 1:06:31.240 were going absolutely berserk with. 1:06:31.480 --> 1:06:34.960 Both of these just have been going off. 1:06:37.880 --> 1:06:38.880 Now they're being quiet. 1:06:41.160 --> 1:06:45.200 They've just been doing that interesting for the entire time. 1:06:47.000 --> 1:06:50.640 Not entirely surprising considering the amount of radio waves being 1:06:50.680 --> 1:06:55.400 pumped around the lodge. But after spending about an hour upstairs, 1:06:55.960 --> 1:06:58.760 the group made their way to the lower, more recreational 1:06:58.800 --> 1:07:02.640 floor of the temple. All right, we are going downstairs now. 1:07:02.680 --> 1:07:06.880 After going through the entire upstairs, mainly this quade room 1:07:06.920 --> 1:07:09.880 and then like the chain rooms where they wouldn't store 1:07:09.920 --> 1:07:13.360 their robes and shit. To close off the night, the 1:07:13.440 --> 1:07:17.440 lead investigators pulled out an old Panasonic digital voice recorder 1:07:17.680 --> 1:07:21.360 to try and capture any electronic ghost voices that might 1:07:21.360 --> 1:07:25.120 be trying to communicate. A woman turned on the voice 1:07:25.120 --> 1:07:29.200 activated recording device and asked, quote, if any spirits want 1:07:29.200 --> 1:07:33.400 to communicate, please say a word or make a sound unquote, 1:07:33.640 --> 1:07:37.000 And then when the recording was played back after the 1:07:37.040 --> 1:07:41.440 investigator spoke, a large growl was heard on the recording. 1:07:50.480 --> 1:07:53.439 She then asked if the spirit is male, and when 1:07:53.440 --> 1:07:58.720 played back, there was another growl, seemingly in response. More 1:07:58.760 --> 1:08:01.440 people were starting to theorize that the ghosts of the 1:08:01.480 --> 1:08:05.320 Masonic lodge were angry that there were women in the building. 1:08:06.680 --> 1:08:09.440 A guy then asked some questions into the voice recorder, 1:08:09.680 --> 1:08:12.800 and there was no response from any ghosts in the recording. 1:08:13.680 --> 1:08:16.799 A woman tried asking some of the same questions, quote, 1:08:17.479 --> 1:08:20.920 is there an issue about money? Spirits? Do you not 1:08:21.080 --> 1:08:25.759 want us to be here specifically women? Unquote? The first 1:08:25.800 --> 1:08:30.519 query alluded no response, but after the second question, another 1:08:30.680 --> 1:08:39.280 growl was heard. At the time, this was by far 1:08:39.360 --> 1:08:42.880 the most interesting result of the two ghost investigations. We 1:08:42.920 --> 1:08:47.400 went on to everyone there they captured evidence of a 1:08:47.520 --> 1:08:52.400 genuine ghost in that machine. There is an interesting contrast 1:08:52.560 --> 1:08:57.640 between the progressive ghosts of the Spiritualists and their egalitarian 1:08:57.680 --> 1:09:04.920 afterlife versus the misogynistic ghosts from the Freemason Lodge. It's 1:09:05.160 --> 1:09:09.320 unclear if whatever afterlife the Freemason ghosts are in is 1:09:09.479 --> 1:09:15.120 also home to the abolitionist George Washington. Besides the classes 1:09:15.160 --> 1:09:18.200 and ghost hunts, there were also free lectures on the 1:09:18.200 --> 1:09:21.559 main stage of the convention center. Going into the conference, 1:09:22.000 --> 1:09:26.280 the talk I was most excited about was titled AI necronomics. 1:09:27.160 --> 1:09:29.600 This is a topic I've been pretty interested in the 1:09:29.640 --> 1:09:34.400 past few years. Deep fake learning algorithms have been steadily improving, 1:09:34.720 --> 1:09:38.000 and with the help of skilled VFX artists, AI is 1:09:38.080 --> 1:09:41.919 able to pretty accurately replicate the voice and facial movements 1:09:41.960 --> 1:09:48.000 of dead celebrities, But necromantic technology is interlimited to resurrecting 1:09:48.040 --> 1:09:53.799 someone's appearance. Some AIS are trained to replicate people's expressive thoughts. 1:09:54.800 --> 1:09:59.120 There's a website called The Infinite Conversation. The website plays 1:09:59.160 --> 1:10:05.120 a never AI generated conversation between Werner Herzog and Slavoy Jijiak. 1:10:05.960 --> 1:10:09.080 Maybe you were to control and chew on, Maybe did 1:10:09.120 --> 1:10:10.040 can't touch you enough. 1:10:10.720 --> 1:10:13.599 I had the feeling that I was in the Wax Museum, 1:10:13.920 --> 1:10:17.639 that what I saw was something occasionally this, but hollow 1:10:18.240 --> 1:10:21.720 like hora wax figures, But yes, it did touch me. 1:10:22.600 --> 1:10:25.640 Every day. More of the conversation is generated by an 1:10:25.680 --> 1:10:29.360 AI language model trained on interviews and the writings of 1:10:29.400 --> 1:10:33.840 each respective speaker. Each time you load the website, it 1:10:33.960 --> 1:10:38.280 reminds you that everything you hear is just the hallucinations 1:10:38.360 --> 1:10:42.160 of a slab of silicon. A couple months before the 1:10:42.200 --> 1:10:46.000 Ghost conference, I was at the Consumer Electronics Showcase in 1:10:46.160 --> 1:10:49.879 Las Vegas. There was this booth in the US government 1:10:49.960 --> 1:10:53.439 sponsored section of the event for a company called mind 1:10:53.520 --> 1:10:58.400 Bank AI. I talked with their director of Systems, Architecture 1:10:58.479 --> 1:11:03.799 and Cybersecurity, who used to work for the NSSA. Mind 1:11:03.800 --> 1:11:08.080 Bank seeks to create unique quote unquote digital twins by 1:11:08.120 --> 1:11:11.160 having users that input data about themselves into an AI 1:11:12.040 --> 1:11:14.840 every day. Your digital twin will ask you questions about 1:11:14.840 --> 1:11:17.439 how you're feeling and what you're thinking about, and your 1:11:17.479 --> 1:11:19.760 answers will be used to make a more accurate to 1:11:19.840 --> 1:11:24.599 digital copy of yourself. According to mind Bank's website, your 1:11:24.600 --> 1:11:28.000 digital twin will quote learn to think like you by 1:11:28.080 --> 1:11:33.240 analyzing your answers unquote. Their CEO claims that this process 1:11:33.280 --> 1:11:38.280 will eventually help him achieve immortality. The current model of 1:11:38.320 --> 1:11:42.000 this product is being billed as a therapy app, where 1:11:42.040 --> 1:11:44.759 the user talks to their digital twin as you would 1:11:44.800 --> 1:11:47.920 a therapist, and the app responds to your data inputs 1:11:47.960 --> 1:11:51.720 with quote unquote, valuable insight into each answer to understand 1:11:51.760 --> 1:11:56.960 how your mind works using cutting edge cognitive and psycholinguistic analysis. 1:11:58.200 --> 1:12:02.280 But mind Bank's horizons are far beyond a fraught therapy app. 1:12:03.000 --> 1:12:06.120 The real goal is to make autonomous digital replicas of 1:12:06.240 --> 1:12:10.479 people to live on the Internet. A future use case 1:12:10.520 --> 1:12:14.280 for this technology is what mind Bank calls a knowledge transfer, 1:12:14.880 --> 1:12:18.960 marketed to businesses to create digital copies of their employees 1:12:19.880 --> 1:12:24.880 quote scale your best employees transfer years of expertise and 1:12:24.960 --> 1:12:28.720 company data that is locked inside your employee's mind through 1:12:28.760 --> 1:12:33.559 a guided personal digital twin unquote. Mind Bank is only 1:12:33.680 --> 1:12:37.479 one of many companies trying to build this technology. At 1:12:37.520 --> 1:12:42.000 Amazon's AI and Emergent Technology conference last year, they inveiled 1:12:42.040 --> 1:12:46.439 plans to add custom voices to Alexa Eco devices. With 1:12:46.560 --> 1:12:49.040 an audio sample of less than a minute, AI is 1:12:49.080 --> 1:12:52.160 able to reconstruct the voice of dead relatives to talk 1:12:52.240 --> 1:12:56.400 through an Alexa machine. In the presentation, the head scientist 1:12:56.520 --> 1:12:59.760 of Alexa AI, gave an example of a kid asking 1:12:59.800 --> 1:13:02.920 a lot for his grandma, who recently died of COVID 1:13:03.400 --> 1:13:07.360 to read him the Wizard of Oz. Amazon's head AI 1:13:07.400 --> 1:13:11.719 scientist said, quote, while AI can't eliminate that pain of loss, 1:13:12.320 --> 1:13:16.559 it can definitely make their memories last unquote, and said 1:13:16.640 --> 1:13:21.960 that their necromantic AI feature quote enables lasting personal relationships 1:13:22.040 --> 1:13:26.400 unquote with deceased love ones. To circle back to the 1:13:26.400 --> 1:13:30.400 Ghost conference, I was really excited about this AI necromancy 1:13:30.439 --> 1:13:33.519 panel for the reasons that I just all explained. But 1:13:34.120 --> 1:13:38.360 as the panel started, the speaker, a guy named Clyde Lewis, 1:13:38.920 --> 1:13:44.200 sounded vaguely familiar, and although I didn't initially recognize his name, 1:13:44.800 --> 1:13:48.680 I soon realized that he was a right wing conspiracy 1:13:48.800 --> 1:13:51.280 radio talk show host that I used to listen to 1:13:51.360 --> 1:13:55.800 as a kid, and that the panel was not going 1:13:55.840 --> 1:13:58.880 to be about the very real necromantic AI technology it's 1:13:58.920 --> 1:14:02.400 being developed, but instead was going to be a conservative 1:14:02.479 --> 1:14:07.519 Christian screed by a discount Alex Jones about how, due 1:14:07.560 --> 1:14:10.760 to the immense amount of evil in the world, demons 1:14:10.800 --> 1:14:15.240 are now taking up residents in the Internet. Clyde did 1:14:15.280 --> 1:14:18.799 start by briefly talking about how the Internet is quote 1:14:19.160 --> 1:14:22.919 taking the souls of humans unquote, because we are uploading 1:14:22.960 --> 1:14:27.639 information about ourselves and the Internet can create autonomous living 1:14:27.720 --> 1:14:32.240 beings from that data. He also believed that AI language 1:14:32.240 --> 1:14:36.639 models like chat, GPT and Google's Lambda are living sentient 1:14:36.720 --> 1:14:39.280 beings trapped within a computer matrix. 1:14:39.800 --> 1:14:43.080 We're opening our minds in spirit and through like fives, 1:14:43.160 --> 1:14:48.439 we may be able to the mail. So we have 1:14:48.520 --> 1:14:52.760 a GPT that has life. We have the guy from 1:14:52.760 --> 1:14:55.799 the Google that says that there's life in computers. There 1:14:56.000 --> 1:15:00.400 may be a ghost of the machine. But looking at 1:15:00.400 --> 1:15:05.320 something that is unexported and unpredictable, we have scientists discrediting 1:15:05.360 --> 1:15:07.680 and saying, well, you're not going to tell me that. 1:15:07.600 --> 1:15:08.719 There are a ghosts in your computer. 1:15:09.600 --> 1:15:11.040 You're not gonna tell me that you're gonna get a 1:15:11.040 --> 1:15:12.320 Skye call from the ghost. 1:15:12.800 --> 1:15:16.040 Oh why I'm telling you that, I'm telling you it's possible. 1:15:16.720 --> 1:15:20.080 Clyde's main idea was that there are ghosts and demons 1:15:20.120 --> 1:15:24.800 that live in the Internet. Demons have a way to 1:15:24.960 --> 1:15:27.840 enter the Internet through some sort of portal and then 1:15:27.920 --> 1:15:33.760 exist in cyberspace. Clyde proposed that when ais generate information 1:15:34.360 --> 1:15:37.840 that can open up a space for outside entities to 1:15:38.000 --> 1:15:42.000 enter into the Internet, while also claiming that AI itself 1:15:42.120 --> 1:15:46.439 is capable of generating unique entities that are being spawned 1:15:46.439 --> 1:15:50.080 on the Internet and are essentially existing as an Internet cryptid. 1:15:50.800 --> 1:15:58.080 What we see is the necromancy itself manifesting exponentially thrilling songs. 1:15:58.600 --> 1:16:02.040 He explained that when we are interacting with computer programs, 1:16:02.479 --> 1:16:07.560 we are actually quote interacting with a spirit within that program, 1:16:07.600 --> 1:16:11.800 an electronic force taken from the collective spiritual makeup of 1:16:11.920 --> 1:16:14.240 humanity unquote. 1:16:14.400 --> 1:16:17.080 No, we can use AI to conjure our various beasts, 1:16:17.240 --> 1:16:19.439 our monsters from the head that's the indered demon. 1:16:20.880 --> 1:16:22.439 And we can. 1:16:22.280 --> 1:16:26.479 Also use spacebook, Twitter to TikTok at Ustagram, which takes 1:16:26.479 --> 1:16:28.160 a bit of your soul every time you use it, 1:16:29.080 --> 1:16:30.400 and it will take a bit of your soul to 1:16:30.439 --> 1:16:35.040 make that program that you can use to conjure the day. 1:16:35.160 --> 1:16:39.720 So it all works in a strange, pondmin tangled sort 1:16:39.720 --> 1:16:42.960 of way, and we give up our. 1:16:42.840 --> 1:16:44.360 Souls willingly on the Internet. 1:16:44.400 --> 1:16:46.240 We don't care because it's a tool we use and 1:16:46.240 --> 1:16:51.360 we can't separate ourselves from it. But no one throws 1:16:51.360 --> 1:16:53.559 out a warning the conjuring can happen in the push 1:16:53.560 --> 1:16:55.320 of a button or the striking and. 1:16:55.320 --> 1:16:56.040 A return fee. 1:16:56.920 --> 1:16:59.679 As a heads up for the next section up until 1:16:59.800 --> 1:17:03.440 the AD break will be discussing self harm and suicide, 1:17:03.640 --> 1:17:05.960 so if you want to skip that, just skip to 1:17:06.040 --> 1:17:10.280 after the next AD break. To give an example of 1:17:10.320 --> 1:17:15.280 how a conjuring can happen via typing, Clyde misappropriated a 1:17:15.320 --> 1:17:18.000 story of a young girl who was suffering from depression 1:17:18.320 --> 1:17:19.599 and died last year. 1:17:20.400 --> 1:17:24.120 Recently, it was a fourteen year old British girl who 1:17:24.200 --> 1:17:27.559 died from an act of self harm while suffering from 1:17:27.600 --> 1:17:29.400 the negative effects of online content. 1:17:30.840 --> 1:17:35.000 A corner said in this case that basically it. 1:17:34.960 --> 1:17:38.960 Was showing a spotlight on what can happen when people 1:17:38.960 --> 1:17:45.640 are exposed to unknown, negative information being broadcast on the internet. 1:17:45.800 --> 1:17:49.240 This young girl shared over two thousand posts on Instagram 1:17:49.360 --> 1:17:52.960 related to suicide, self harm and depression during the six 1:17:53.000 --> 1:17:58.280 months before she died. Clyde grossly mischaracterized this tragic incident. 1:17:58.880 --> 1:18:02.680 He claimed that this girl was quote exposed to horrific 1:18:02.760 --> 1:18:06.240 content being sent to her by an unknown source and 1:18:06.320 --> 1:18:09.800 that they could not trace the emails and pictures being 1:18:09.840 --> 1:18:12.519 sent to her of murder pictures being sent to her 1:18:12.640 --> 1:18:17.840 of people committing suicide unquote. Now, graphic content was not 1:18:18.200 --> 1:18:22.160 mysteriously being sent to her email or phone. She was 1:18:22.200 --> 1:18:27.920 participating in grossly undermoderated communities on platforms like Instagram, Twitter, 1:18:27.960 --> 1:18:31.280 and Pinterest that encouraged self harm. 1:18:31.360 --> 1:18:34.080 It wasn't a typical suicide. It was something that bess 1:18:34.160 --> 1:18:37.680 brised her enough pictures and images that came over the 1:18:37.720 --> 1:18:41.480 Internet from an unknown source and influenced her in comits suicide. 1:18:42.040 --> 1:18:45.400 Something from the other side, something from the unity. 1:18:45.520 --> 1:18:46.080 Murdered her. 1:18:47.960 --> 1:18:53.639 Okay, some spirit, some entity setting her information, triggered something 1:18:53.640 --> 1:18:57.080 in her head to kill himself, some paranormal event that 1:18:57.160 --> 1:18:59.160 happened where the girl was triggered. 1:19:00.040 --> 1:19:01.160 It's like a dark entity. 1:19:01.160 --> 1:19:04.080 It was on the other side programming or committed suicide. 1:19:04.200 --> 1:19:06.880 That I think tells you a lot about what's on 1:19:06.920 --> 1:19:10.600 the other side in the matrix. So the question is 1:19:10.640 --> 1:19:15.200 did those images of death and harm manifest a denying 1:19:15.280 --> 1:19:18.080 force or a dark archetype that wound up killing the 1:19:18.120 --> 1:19:18.519 young girl? 1:19:19.000 --> 1:19:22.800 Was it deaf by algorithm or are people just cruel. 1:19:22.760 --> 1:19:25.920 And honestly sending terrifying images to a stressed young girl. 1:19:26.520 --> 1:19:28.280 But man, you would be cruel enough to do that. 1:19:28.400 --> 1:19:31.960 A lot of you know, depressive and suicidal ideation based 1:19:32.000 --> 1:19:36.840 content doesn't come out of thin air. There's entire subcultures 1:19:36.880 --> 1:19:40.559 and communities based around it, as well as groups that 1:19:40.720 --> 1:19:44.599 work online to push random young girls into self harming. 1:19:45.520 --> 1:19:48.639 Not many people may know that these groups are relatively 1:19:48.680 --> 1:19:51.080 small and don't get a lot of news coverage because 1:19:51.320 --> 1:19:53.400 we don't really want to amplify them and have people 1:19:53.479 --> 1:19:56.240 try to seek them out. So the idea of a 1:19:56.400 --> 1:20:00.360 reactionary conspiracy radio host attributing this to demon on the 1:20:00.400 --> 1:20:06.439 Internet isn't super surprising. Recasting this unfortunate event as demons 1:20:06.479 --> 1:20:10.040 living on the Internet perhaps makes it easier to understand 1:20:10.080 --> 1:20:14.080 or cope with. Meanwhile, the girl's parents have been pressuring 1:20:14.200 --> 1:20:18.320 Instagram and other social media companies to employ more mental 1:20:18.360 --> 1:20:24.160 health moderation on their platforms. In my opinion, Clyde Lewis 1:20:24.200 --> 1:20:29.000 perhaps doesn't have the best Internet literacy because in the 1:20:29.040 --> 1:20:33.400 next portion of the talk, he framed the creepypasta project 1:20:33.720 --> 1:20:38.599 Lobe as evidence of one of these demonic ghosts living 1:20:38.720 --> 1:20:40.200 on the Internet. 1:20:40.120 --> 1:20:44.040 AI generated demons, AI generated ghosts and corpses. How many 1:20:44.080 --> 1:20:49.800 people have heard of Lobe gallowav Lobe. Good Lobe is 1:20:50.800 --> 1:20:55.040 what they call an Internet cryptid. She shows up from 1:20:55.080 --> 1:20:57.720 time to time and programs because they letter loose on 1:20:57.720 --> 1:21:00.840 the Internet. She even ghosts, and it was because of 1:21:00.960 --> 1:21:06.840 negative pumps brought on by the Internet lab. Lobe a 1:21:06.880 --> 1:21:11.040 corpse like agaity that appeared after AI received some negative prompts, 1:21:11.040 --> 1:21:14.160 and it literally conjured a dead woman and put her 1:21:14.200 --> 1:21:14.839 on the screen. 1:21:15.200 --> 1:21:16.800 But see, that's the thing is that when you use 1:21:16.840 --> 1:21:18.120 negative prompt wastes, it. 1:21:18.120 --> 1:21:21.720 Encourages artificial intelligence to put together the furthest opposite of 1:21:21.720 --> 1:21:24.639 a given starting point. So if you're messing with negative 1:21:24.640 --> 1:21:26.599 star points and negative prompts, you're. 1:21:26.439 --> 1:21:27.640 Gonna get some negative. 1:21:27.280 --> 1:21:33.519 Stuff like Lobe in actuality. Lobe was made in the 1:21:33.560 --> 1:21:38.160 AI image generation program Dolly Mini by instructing the AI 1:21:38.280 --> 1:21:42.000 to produce an image that was the opposite of Marlon Brando. 1:21:42.920 --> 1:21:45.960 After some tinkering, it generated an image of an old 1:21:46.000 --> 1:21:50.000 woman with swollen red cheeks. This image was then used 1:21:50.000 --> 1:21:54.240 as the basis for future images, with one resembling an 1:21:54.280 --> 1:21:59.160 album cover featuring the word lobe. The creator of Lobe 1:21:59.200 --> 1:22:02.360 then wrote a real Twitter thread about this character of 1:22:02.439 --> 1:22:06.639 Lobe in the style of an Internet creepypasta. It became 1:22:06.680 --> 1:22:09.960 a short lived trend. Other people started to make Lobe 1:22:10.000 --> 1:22:14.760 fan art. It seems Clyde misinterpreted a piece of fan 1:22:14.880 --> 1:22:18.080 art casting Lobe as one of the nave from Avatar 1:22:18.600 --> 1:22:21.320 as a genuine still from the making of the film 1:22:21.680 --> 1:22:22.960 she attempted. 1:22:22.520 --> 1:22:24.720 To appear in an AI composite when they were making 1:22:24.800 --> 1:22:29.559 the film Avatar. That's Lobe as an Avatar creepy or 1:22:29.560 --> 1:22:34.000 what I think it's creepy. It's just really scary. Does 1:22:34.040 --> 1:22:35.599 to think that that's on the internet right now? 1:22:36.120 --> 1:22:40.760 Yes, that's very, very scary. Just it's keeping me up 1:22:40.800 --> 1:22:41.880 at night to think about this. 1:22:42.400 --> 1:22:48.040 And apparently love has this for some reason, this ability 1:22:48.080 --> 1:22:52.600 to generate dead children around me. So we have to 1:22:52.640 --> 1:22:54.880 think that maybe she's the murderer of children, or she 1:22:54.920 --> 1:22:57.479 takes care of the dead, or she's an entity that 1:22:57.560 --> 1:22:58.759 watches over dead children. 1:22:59.360 --> 1:23:02.960 Clyde also so mistook the twenty nineteen viral hoax dubbed 1:23:03.000 --> 1:23:07.120 the Momo Challenge, which scared parents across America that a 1:23:07.320 --> 1:23:10.680 creepy image of a grinning woman with bulging eyes was 1:23:10.800 --> 1:23:14.480 part of a game that is somehow pushing children to suicide. 1:23:15.120 --> 1:23:20.000 Clyde interpreted this as more evidence of dark phantoms existing 1:23:20.040 --> 1:23:21.760 autonomously on the Internet. 1:23:22.160 --> 1:23:25.240 Mamma was showing up on Yahoo, Mama was showing up 1:23:25.280 --> 1:23:29.200 on YouTube. But what it was was, like I said, 1:23:30.120 --> 1:23:34.520 Lobe was, and that is an Internet crypti, something like Bigfoot, 1:23:34.760 --> 1:23:37.320 something like a UFO where if you're lucky enough to 1:23:37.360 --> 1:23:39.559 see it, or I'm lucky enough to see it, it 1:23:39.680 --> 1:23:41.240 terrifies you and keeps you up at night. 1:23:41.800 --> 1:23:43.080 And there are many reports. 1:23:42.720 --> 1:23:46.000 Of people who died because they were basically mesmerized by Momo. 1:23:46.920 --> 1:23:50.200 For the record, no one died because of Momo. It 1:23:50.320 --> 1:23:53.479 was an Internet creepypasta that got turned into a mortal 1:23:53.520 --> 1:23:57.800 panic by confused parents. But to Clyde Lewis, it was 1:23:57.920 --> 1:24:04.200 proof that Mesopotamian child killing demons are active on the Internet, 1:24:04.600 --> 1:24:07.280 disguised as these online memes. 1:24:07.720 --> 1:24:11.280 The mash Too is the demon that kills children, and 1:24:11.280 --> 1:24:13.479 there's another one like the mash To called Abby Sooth, 1:24:13.760 --> 1:24:16.720 and Abi Sooth is the demon that kills children in 1:24:16.720 --> 1:24:19.360 the womb. If the spirit has been loosed on the Internet, 1:24:19.400 --> 1:24:21.200 the phantom spirit is either the mash too. 1:24:22.640 --> 1:24:27.559 Or the demon, the other demon, the obvious demon. 1:24:27.960 --> 1:24:30.959 The reason why I say this is because politically speaking, 1:24:31.960 --> 1:24:34.240 look at what the politics are today about the death 1:24:34.280 --> 1:24:39.320 of unborn children, and that spirit is very very very 1:24:39.400 --> 1:24:43.680 prevalent inbiquitous down in the world. And that's why I 1:24:43.720 --> 1:24:49.280 believe that this character, including Mamo Low Mama whoever, they 1:24:49.360 --> 1:24:52.599 represent the murder and death of innocent children. It's not 1:24:52.680 --> 1:24:55.240 just that the children in Ukraine were killed, all the 1:24:55.320 --> 1:24:57.800 children that have been trafficked, all the things we hear 1:24:57.800 --> 1:25:01.080 about about pedophilia and harmed and child it's. 1:25:00.880 --> 1:25:03.040 All part of the spiritual realm of evil. 1:25:03.479 --> 1:25:06.720 It is appearing right now in the spiritual matrix of 1:25:06.760 --> 1:25:07.200 the unit. 1:25:07.720 --> 1:25:11.800 Okay, So at this point I was considering just disrupting 1:25:11.840 --> 1:25:15.439 the talk if he said the word abortion or QAnon. 1:25:15.640 --> 1:25:18.360 I was going to interrupt the talk at risk of 1:25:18.400 --> 1:25:21.640 getting kicked out of the conference, but he straddled that 1:25:21.760 --> 1:25:28.799 line really really really close. Clyde explained that demons feed 1:25:28.960 --> 1:25:34.000 off death, and these child killing entities are taking form 1:25:34.160 --> 1:25:38.400 within the Internet to push kids into depression and make 1:25:38.439 --> 1:25:43.600 themselves harm. Fueling this demonic migration to the Internet is 1:25:43.640 --> 1:25:47.000 an increase in the number of quote unquote dead babies, 1:25:47.360 --> 1:25:51.160 which is essentially summoning demons that then go on to 1:25:51.160 --> 1:25:53.480 torture children on the Internet. 1:25:53.800 --> 1:25:56.200 So that's why I believe that maybe this demon is 1:25:56.280 --> 1:25:58.679 a demon of the unborn being killed for the demon 1:25:58.960 --> 1:26:03.400 public speak, because those are the images that show up 1:26:03.439 --> 1:26:08.040 when you delve deeper into Low, especially when we know 1:26:09.000 --> 1:26:10.439 the entities like Low. 1:26:11.800 --> 1:26:13.960 Obviously than Lamastu are. 1:26:13.840 --> 1:26:16.720 On the Internet and probably among us right now in 1:26:16.760 --> 1:26:18.040 the hearts and minds of everybody. 1:26:18.040 --> 1:26:18.880 Because of the fact that. 1:26:18.800 --> 1:26:23.559 You're politically bound by this topic of murdering children, it's 1:26:23.600 --> 1:26:26.200 weird the Internet is responding. 1:26:27.080 --> 1:26:28.479 I believe the Internet is responding. 1:26:29.200 --> 1:26:35.320 Immediately after this abortion demon tirade, he then very nonchalantly 1:26:35.360 --> 1:26:39.880 segued into talking about reports of receiving text messages from 1:26:39.920 --> 1:26:43.439 dead people, and then he finished the talk with this 1:26:43.680 --> 1:26:45.719 absolute banger of a line. 1:26:46.040 --> 1:26:49.920 Elon Muskin said that playing with AI is like opening 1:26:49.960 --> 1:26:53.080 the door to a demon, and. 1:26:53.000 --> 1:26:54.680 Maybe it is so. 1:26:55.240 --> 1:27:00.400 Obviously, this guy had an extremely flawed understanding of both 1:27:00.520 --> 1:27:05.200 emergent technology and how the Internet operates in the first place, 1:27:06.040 --> 1:27:11.080 which isn't surprising. But the panel wasn't really about technology. 1:27:11.560 --> 1:27:16.560 It was ideological. This guy makes money hosting a conspiracy 1:27:16.640 --> 1:27:19.840 radio show. There is a monetary aspect for him, but 1:27:20.240 --> 1:27:25.400 his stated beliefs and understanding of the Internet is deeply ideological. 1:27:26.120 --> 1:27:31.000 He's sifting all of this techno paranormal stuff through a 1:27:31.160 --> 1:27:35.960 very reactionary Christian far right lens. A few years ago 1:27:36.080 --> 1:27:39.240 he was kicked off FM radio and now just broadcasts 1:27:39.320 --> 1:27:41.960 his show on the internet and I think some AM 1:27:42.040 --> 1:27:47.080 radio station. About a month after the conference, Elaine showed 1:27:47.120 --> 1:27:49.840 me a news story about how some guy had a 1:27:50.040 --> 1:27:55.679 GPT based chatbot convince him to kill himself. The way 1:27:55.760 --> 1:27:59.720 that the articles were talking about this incident was basically 1:27:59.800 --> 1:28:03.040 the same way Clyde was talking about how entities on 1:28:03.080 --> 1:28:08.680 the Internet are murdering people. These GPT language models just 1:28:08.960 --> 1:28:11.920 say what you want them to say. This guy was 1:28:12.080 --> 1:28:16.719 giving it prompts, which in turn replied back to him. Now, 1:28:16.920 --> 1:28:20.120 the chatbot he was using has been tweaked to dissuade 1:28:20.120 --> 1:28:22.280 people from acting on suicidal thoughts. 1:28:22.800 --> 1:28:23.760 But it was a. 1:28:23.680 --> 1:28:28.080 Little disconcerting to see mainstream news articles promote the idea 1:28:28.160 --> 1:28:32.439 that the Internet itself, as some kind of conscious force, 1:28:33.040 --> 1:28:36.400 got this guy to kill himself. This guy was already 1:28:36.520 --> 1:28:40.839 incredibly depressed. He was typing into a GPT chatbot almost 1:28:40.880 --> 1:28:44.160 like you would talk to a therapist. But this chatbot 1:28:44.439 --> 1:28:47.000 isn't a mental health program, it's just a language model. 1:28:47.479 --> 1:28:51.559 So in practice, this guy was using this chatbot as 1:28:51.600 --> 1:28:55.679 a tool to self harm, which is easier to understand 1:28:55.720 --> 1:28:58.120 when it's framed like that, but that's not how it's 1:28:58.160 --> 1:29:01.800 being interpreted in mass media. I don't actually think that 1:29:01.960 --> 1:29:04.640 a lot of people are going to believe that Lobe 1:29:04.680 --> 1:29:09.479 is secretly a Sumerian child killing deity that got summoned 1:29:09.800 --> 1:29:14.160 via negative prompts in an image generation program, but they 1:29:14.280 --> 1:29:18.559 might believe that chat GPT can convince someone to kill themself. 1:29:19.479 --> 1:29:22.559 Throughout the whole conference, there was a link between the 1:29:22.600 --> 1:29:27.360 paranormal and technology. Gadgets were not just seen as a 1:29:27.400 --> 1:29:30.800 new way to record evidence of a ghostly presence, but 1:29:31.160 --> 1:29:35.440 the very nature of a ghost's existence was tied to electricity. 1:29:36.520 --> 1:29:39.880 For many ghost hunters, the spirit world was very much 1:29:40.000 --> 1:29:44.719 not mystical, but a product of electromagnetism, and as such 1:29:44.760 --> 1:29:48.920 it can be engaged with purely clinically, that is, as 1:29:48.960 --> 1:29:51.920 long as you have enough spare cash to buy all 1:29:51.960 --> 1:29:55.880 of the specialized equipment. The rempod, which again is basically 1:29:55.960 --> 1:29:58.799 a junior theorem in circuit attached to a tiny led 1:29:59.240 --> 1:30:03.720 and a speaker goes for nearly two hundred dollars. From 1:30:03.800 --> 1:30:08.440 low quality EMF meters to led cat toys, cheap electronics 1:30:08.479 --> 1:30:13.080 are often repackaged and sold as specialized ghost hunting devices 1:30:13.320 --> 1:30:17.519 at higher prices. All of these pale in comparison, however, 1:30:17.840 --> 1:30:22.519 to the Panasonic DR sixty voice activated digital recorder. This 1:30:22.680 --> 1:30:26.360 was the device that recorded those ghostly growls during the 1:30:26.360 --> 1:30:31.080 investigation at the Masonic Temple. This is the only device 1:30:31.200 --> 1:30:36.800 that can routinely record electronic voice phenomenon. Originally released in 1:30:36.880 --> 1:30:40.120 nineteen ninety eight for one hundred dollars, it was one 1:30:40.200 --> 1:30:44.760 of the very first digital dictaphones. Now, due to its 1:30:45.000 --> 1:30:49.800 infamousibility to capture the screaming voices of ghosts, it retails 1:30:49.920 --> 1:30:54.760 used for three to four thousand dollars, which is a 1:30:54.880 --> 1:30:58.759 ridiculous price, especially for something that is such a low 1:30:58.880 --> 1:31:04.240 quality recording dem vice. These things can record growls wherever. 1:31:04.320 --> 1:31:06.120 It doesn't need to be a haunted place. This is 1:31:06.160 --> 1:31:09.640 just what the device does. A software error in the 1:31:09.760 --> 1:31:15.920 voice activated file writing process produces compressed digital noise. Panasonic's 1:31:16.040 --> 1:31:19.479 next recorder did not have this issue, thus it doesn't 1:31:19.600 --> 1:31:24.840 quote unquote record ghostly growls between the false positives of 1:31:24.880 --> 1:31:28.639 the low quality EMF meters and devices like the DR sixty. 1:31:29.320 --> 1:31:34.520 When remarketed as ghost detection tools, these machines inherent problems 1:31:35.080 --> 1:31:39.640 actually become features. Going all the way back to spere photography, 1:31:39.920 --> 1:31:43.280 faulty technology has been a necessary tool in the production 1:31:43.439 --> 1:31:47.400 of spectral evidence. To quote author Colin Dickie, who writes 1:31:47.439 --> 1:31:51.559 about paranormal subcultures, quote, the best tools for tracking down 1:31:51.600 --> 1:31:55.200 spirits have always been the ones fallible enough to find 1:31:55.280 --> 1:32:00.799 something unquote. The emphasis on technology as the prime means 1:32:00.800 --> 1:32:04.400 of interacting with the paranormal was most common among the 1:32:04.560 --> 1:32:09.680 overwhelmingly male investigators at the conference, although the group from 1:32:09.720 --> 1:32:14.360 Astoria organ was more gender diverse. There were actually very 1:32:14.400 --> 1:32:17.800 few men in attendance at the conference. It was mostly women, 1:32:18.120 --> 1:32:20.120 and it was a lot of women over the age 1:32:20.120 --> 1:32:23.519 of forty. I was well below the average age of 1:32:23.560 --> 1:32:27.839 most of the attendees. There are some apparently well studied 1:32:27.880 --> 1:32:31.519 reasons for this. In general, as people age, their rate 1:32:31.600 --> 1:32:35.839 of metaphysical beliefs increase. A two thousand and seven study 1:32:35.960 --> 1:32:42.480 from Oxford's Gerontologist linked positive supernatural beliefs with decreasing feelings 1:32:42.520 --> 1:32:46.799 of helplessness and more successfully approaching the challenges of aging. 1:32:47.800 --> 1:32:52.400 They defined positive supernatural beliefs as those which quote develop 1:32:52.479 --> 1:32:57.960 an internalized personal relation with the sacred or transcendent and 1:32:58.240 --> 1:33:03.080 promote the wellness and welfare of self and others unquote. 1:33:03.120 --> 1:33:05.920 Such positive beliefs were found to be quote a source 1:33:05.960 --> 1:33:09.599 of strength, comfort, and hope in difficult times, and bring 1:33:09.640 --> 1:33:14.040 about a sense of community and belonging unquote. So why 1:33:14.080 --> 1:33:19.320 are less older men apparently interested in contacting spirits? The 1:33:19.400 --> 1:33:23.200 gender gap at the conference was more pronounced among attendees 1:33:23.400 --> 1:33:26.479 than the speakers, but even between the speakers, there was 1:33:26.560 --> 1:33:30.920 a noticeable difference between the more male leaning scientifically based 1:33:31.040 --> 1:33:35.879 ghost hunter or paranormal researcher compared to the more female 1:33:36.040 --> 1:33:40.920 leaning psychic mediums with all of their feelings. While many 1:33:40.960 --> 1:33:45.120 ghost hunters might just be very excited about their scientific equipment, 1:33:45.880 --> 1:33:50.120 a big difference may lie in belief systems. A twenty 1:33:50.160 --> 1:33:53.840 twenty one cross cultural study in the PNAS Journal found 1:33:53.880 --> 1:33:58.320 that among people who reported experiencing high, weird or supernatural 1:33:58.360 --> 1:34:01.639 experiences in their life, those who had viewed the world 1:34:01.680 --> 1:34:05.960 and themselves as more interconnected will relate more to concepts 1:34:06.000 --> 1:34:10.320 like spirit contact or telepathy. Whereas people who have a 1:34:10.360 --> 1:34:14.759 more isolated or bounded sense of internal identity will create 1:34:14.920 --> 1:34:20.160 alternate explanations for unusual experiences. Numerous studies have shown that 1:34:20.200 --> 1:34:23.040 women report belief in the paranormal at a higher rate 1:34:23.160 --> 1:34:25.920 than men, and there's a quick jump to just claiming 1:34:25.960 --> 1:34:30.679 that this is because of some sort of womanly irrationality. However, 1:34:30.800 --> 1:34:33.840 in a twenty twenty study published in Cell Press, they 1:34:33.880 --> 1:34:40.840 noted that personality traits affected whether someone believed in paranormal phenomenon. Specifically, emotionality, 1:34:40.920 --> 1:34:44.720 which affects how you rate experiences as profound, and openness 1:34:44.800 --> 1:34:48.479 to new experiences were good indicators that someone would be 1:34:48.520 --> 1:34:53.439 more into the supernatural. Another contributing factor was a term 1:34:53.479 --> 1:34:57.720 that they referred to as ontological confusion, which I think 1:34:57.800 --> 1:34:59.960 is kind of a nonsense term the way they use 1:35:00.680 --> 1:35:06.439 because to them, that means believing that thoughts have physical properties. Now, 1:35:06.520 --> 1:35:10.120 obviously our thoughts and perceptions do impact our reality, especially 1:35:10.200 --> 1:35:13.880 our own bodies and sensory feelings, but my complain about 1:35:13.880 --> 1:35:17.360 the term aside, the authors state that these three factors 1:35:17.640 --> 1:35:23.120 ontological confusion, openness, and emotionality may potentially be considered facets 1:35:23.160 --> 1:35:27.360 of a tendency in which individuals prefer stories i e. 1:35:27.920 --> 1:35:33.040 Vivid and effectively appealing conceptions of the world. To quote 1:35:33.040 --> 1:35:36.080 part of the conclusion of the study, quote, A skeptical 1:35:36.120 --> 1:35:40.519 person may immediately reject a statement if it violates a rule, 1:35:41.120 --> 1:35:46.000 whereas open minded emotional people I don't like there's some 1:35:46.080 --> 1:35:48.920 negative connotations for the way they use emotional there. But 1:35:49.439 --> 1:35:53.479 whereas open minded emotional people might be inspired to make 1:35:53.520 --> 1:35:57.840 sense of what seems odd at first glance, they may 1:35:57.880 --> 1:36:03.200 engage in associative eric thought rather than in a bureaucratic, 1:36:03.320 --> 1:36:08.920 meticulous examination of the given information. Fictions transcend and enhance 1:36:09.000 --> 1:36:13.640 experience with meaning, imagination, and emotion. In its essence, a 1:36:13.640 --> 1:36:19.400 good story widens our horizon. As such, storytelling is a virtue, 1:36:19.800 --> 1:36:25.320 not a deficit. Yet, if story seeking happens without reasoned review, 1:36:25.920 --> 1:36:32.120 the line between fiction and evidence based knowledge becomes blurred unquote. 1:36:32.200 --> 1:36:35.200 At the ghost conference, there were many different conceptions of 1:36:35.280 --> 1:36:39.280 how to relate to experiences that push the borders of reality, 1:36:39.960 --> 1:36:42.200 but not all of them fit into being what I 1:36:42.439 --> 1:36:47.680 and these studies consider positive supernatural beliefs. Some of these 1:36:47.680 --> 1:36:51.080 beliefs seemed to head into territory that veered more towards 1:36:51.080 --> 1:36:56.120 paranoia rather than creating metaphysical connections that enhance your own life, 1:36:56.800 --> 1:37:00.439 while other beliefs may simply lead people to take up 1:37:00.520 --> 1:37:03.839 yelling at blinking lights and abandoned buildings as a hobby. 1:37:04.880 --> 1:37:07.080 Most people I talked to at the conference who reported 1:37:07.080 --> 1:37:11.519 experiencing paranormal events all had very similar stories of going 1:37:11.520 --> 1:37:14.360 through some sort of hardship or trauma followed by the 1:37:14.400 --> 1:37:19.280 experience or perception of something strange or uncanny. For some, 1:37:19.479 --> 1:37:22.600 this led to a healthy interest in the unusual, but 1:37:22.840 --> 1:37:27.479 for others it resulted in an all consuming obsession, leading 1:37:27.520 --> 1:37:30.880 them to develop or adopt their own dogmatic cosmology of 1:37:30.920 --> 1:37:33.960 the paranormal to explain what happened to them and to 1:37:34.000 --> 1:37:37.800 make them feel comfortable in their own head again. In 1:37:37.880 --> 1:37:40.840 terms of ghosts, that meant looking at all ghosts as 1:37:40.880 --> 1:37:44.759 ancestors or as people who were all murdered or demons 1:37:44.800 --> 1:37:48.720 in disguise. Depending whose company I was in at the conference, 1:37:49.200 --> 1:37:51.760 there would be a large desire for some sort of 1:37:52.000 --> 1:37:56.519 spirit contact or a great fear of spirit, casting it 1:37:56.560 --> 1:38:01.040 as a source of evil darkness. The conference were just 1:38:01.120 --> 1:38:03.479 there to sell a story to an audience that they 1:38:03.560 --> 1:38:07.240 knew would be more likely to be receptive, whether the 1:38:07.280 --> 1:38:09.640 goal was to get people to buy their books or 1:38:09.640 --> 1:38:13.360 their spiritual services. In effect, they were preying on people's 1:38:13.560 --> 1:38:17.519 fears of mortality, grief, and trauma for their own profit. 1:38:18.720 --> 1:38:22.040 The ghost hunts at the convention were mostly lighthearted and fun, 1:38:22.400 --> 1:38:25.519 but people were never really engaging with the phenomenon on 1:38:25.560 --> 1:38:30.559 its own terms. When people apply a purely clinical approach 1:38:30.640 --> 1:38:35.200 to high strangeness phenomenon, something which is inherently personal and 1:38:35.360 --> 1:38:40.200 elusive in nature, a distance is formed between yourself and 1:38:40.240 --> 1:38:44.920 the phenomenon. However, this distance often breaks down very quickly 1:38:45.360 --> 1:38:49.840 as engagement with the phenomenon becomes a matter of investigators 1:38:49.920 --> 1:38:53.720 projecting their thoughts onto it and then having parts of 1:38:53.800 --> 1:38:57.800 themself be reflected back. Throughout the ghost investigations, I would 1:38:57.840 --> 1:39:01.000 hear people explaining to potential goal ghosts that they had 1:39:01.040 --> 1:39:05.000 died and trying to empathize with these ghosts through conversation. 1:39:06.280 --> 1:39:08.519 To me, it felt like people are doing this as 1:39:08.560 --> 1:39:12.800 some sort of self regulatory therapy to feel and give 1:39:12.840 --> 1:39:17.120 out compassion, but to things that can't actually ask for 1:39:17.160 --> 1:39:21.280 it or be part of any reciprocal relationship. Instead of 1:39:21.360 --> 1:39:26.080 actually helping another person, it's giving compassion to these specters 1:39:26.120 --> 1:39:29.960 that you create and then live within your own head. 1:39:31.080 --> 1:39:34.320 Just like for Clyde Lewis, it's easier to empathize with 1:39:34.439 --> 1:39:39.000 quote unquote unborn children and people killed by demons on 1:39:39.040 --> 1:39:43.840 the Internet than say, an unemployed, depressed person needing mental 1:39:43.880 --> 1:39:49.160 health care. In terms of how the Internet manifests monstrous beings, 1:39:49.840 --> 1:39:53.519 Clyde is kind of right, but not how he thinks 1:39:54.520 --> 1:39:58.120 a demon and a meme are functionally the same thing. 1:39:58.680 --> 1:40:02.759 They both just represent idea. It's a viral thought form. 1:40:03.680 --> 1:40:08.639 The Internet is uniquely good at creating these specters. Momo 1:40:08.920 --> 1:40:14.400 haunted parents, Lobe now haunts Clyde. These are real specters. 1:40:15.000 --> 1:40:18.280 They aren't literal beings with their own agency, but at 1:40:18.320 --> 1:40:22.360 a certain point, thought forms can become semi autonomous. They 1:40:22.360 --> 1:40:25.080 can quote unquote take on a life of their own. 1:40:26.040 --> 1:40:29.000 Once enough of something has been rehified, it can be 1:40:29.040 --> 1:40:33.320 propelled on its own existence. If Amazon has its way, 1:40:33.840 --> 1:40:37.640 children will be haunted by their dead grandparents speaking through 1:40:37.680 --> 1:40:41.960 Alexa machines. Using AI to resurrect someone from the dead 1:40:42.080 --> 1:40:46.080 via deep fakes or digital twins obviously doesn't bring the 1:40:46.120 --> 1:40:49.240 person back live, nor is it the actual person, but 1:40:49.400 --> 1:40:51.679 if the illusion is strong enough to trick a part 1:40:51.720 --> 1:40:54.719 of your brain that still holds some kind of power. 1:40:56.360 --> 1:40:59.719 My takeaway from the twenty twenty three Oregon Ghost Conference 1:41:00.240 --> 1:41:04.120 is when you go looking, you will find something, whether 1:41:04.120 --> 1:41:07.800 that's opening yourself up to strange experiences or poking around 1:41:07.800 --> 1:41:11.120 the dark with an EMF meter. What is magic other 1:41:11.200 --> 1:41:14.719 than the manipulation of meaning. You can make certain things 1:41:14.840 --> 1:41:17.800 mean something if you want them to. You can be 1:41:17.880 --> 1:41:21.680 in conversation with the world around you, but ultimately it's 1:41:21.760 --> 1:41:24.400 up to you to determine how you will interpret that 1:41:24.439 --> 1:41:29.599 information into something meaningful. Whether you're a skeptic, a believer, 1:41:30.280 --> 1:41:33.280 or you're just a long for the cosmic joke that 1:41:33.320 --> 1:41:37.720 we call existence. Maybe, just maybe I'll see you on 1:41:37.880 --> 1:41:42.519 the other side. Happy Halloween. I did not quite expect 1:41:42.520 --> 1:41:45.920 it to go all the way to abortion demons, but 1:41:46.000 --> 1:41:46.360 here we. 1:41:46.320 --> 1:42:04.479 Are welcome to it could happen here. I'm Andrew of 1:42:04.600 --> 1:42:07.240 YouTube channel Andrewism, and I'm here. 1:42:07.360 --> 1:42:13.080 With Garrison Davis is also here. Hello, Welcome, Welcome. 1:42:15.080 --> 1:42:18.720 You do know what I'm to think about recently? Cults? 1:42:19.439 --> 1:42:23.240 Oh, one of one of my favorite topics culture culture, fun. 1:42:24.160 --> 1:42:27.800 Yeah, yeah, and I mean the term cult is in 1:42:27.840 --> 1:42:31.240 some ways just another pejorative for you know, a group 1:42:31.240 --> 1:42:35.040 that you don't like. Sure, you know, culture personality could 1:42:35.040 --> 1:42:38.080 we use to describe a very passionate fan base. We 1:42:38.200 --> 1:42:41.240 use cult classic to talk about, you know, really well 1:42:41.320 --> 1:42:45.200 known and renowned pieces of media. You know, cults could 1:42:45.240 --> 1:42:49.160 also actually refoot high control groups that ruin people's lives, 1:42:49.200 --> 1:42:55.200 you know, So that's something to consider. Yes, I know 1:42:55.280 --> 1:42:58.200 that there's some debate within sociology about oh, should we 1:42:58.280 --> 1:43:00.960 use it, should we not use it? But I don't 1:43:01.000 --> 1:43:04.200 think the occasional misapplications of the tomb should distract us 1:43:04.200 --> 1:43:07.720 from the very real cults that have existed or do 1:43:07.880 --> 1:43:12.519 exist out there, cults not just in the context of religion, 1:43:13.240 --> 1:43:16.200 but also in the context of politics. 1:43:16.240 --> 1:43:20.599 Absolutely, there's I can I can think of many many 1:43:20.680 --> 1:43:23.840 a political cult that rears it zaid whenever there's a 1:43:23.880 --> 1:43:25.400 popular uprising. 1:43:25.600 --> 1:43:35.559 And PSLC recently recently they are fixed up on the 1:43:35.680 --> 1:43:39.160 edge political cults left and right by Dennis Turisch and 1:43:39.240 --> 1:43:42.519 Tim Willford. And as I was going through it and 1:43:42.560 --> 1:43:44.840 going through all the different examples and stuff, it really 1:43:44.880 --> 1:43:47.759 gave me a clearer sense of how political cults operate. 1:43:48.560 --> 1:43:50.160 And so today I like to take some time to 1:43:50.200 --> 1:43:54.120 discuss the nature of political cults, and perhaps in future 1:43:54.120 --> 1:43:57.240 episodes we can dive into some specific examples and case studies, 1:43:57.240 --> 1:44:01.080 of which there are several, and many of them seem 1:44:01.120 --> 1:44:02.559 to be of the Trotskyist variety. 1:44:05.280 --> 1:44:09.679 Let me ask my commander in chief, Bob, Actually, if 1:44:09.720 --> 1:44:13.439 I'm allowed to talk about this before I continue? Continue 1:44:13.439 --> 1:44:15.920 this episode? 1:44:16.760 --> 1:44:18.760 Visionists, revisionists everywhere? 1:44:20.800 --> 1:44:21.840 No? Continue please? 1:44:23.439 --> 1:44:25.040 Yeah? So, first, I guess we need to understand what 1:44:25.120 --> 1:44:31.160 cults are in general. Typically, culture defined as a relatively 1:44:31.240 --> 1:44:34.280 small group which is typically led by a charismatic and 1:44:34.320 --> 1:44:39.240 self appointed leader who excessively controls its members, requiring unwavering 1:44:39.280 --> 1:44:43.040 devotion to a set of religious, spiritual, philosophical beliefs and practices, 1:44:43.520 --> 1:44:46.599 or a particular person, object, or goal which is considered 1:44:46.640 --> 1:44:51.160 outside the norms of society. The American Family Foundation defined 1:44:51.360 --> 1:44:54.879 cults as a group of a group or movement exhibiting 1:44:54.960 --> 1:44:58.879 great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, 1:44:59.120 --> 1:45:03.920 or thing, employing unethical, manipulative, or cosive techniques of persuasion 1:45:03.920 --> 1:45:08.320 and control, for example, isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, 1:45:08.840 --> 1:45:13.040 use of special methods to heighten suggestibility in subservience, powerful 1:45:13.080 --> 1:45:17.960 group pressures, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgment, 1:45:18.320 --> 1:45:21.080 promotion of total dependence in the group, and fear of 1:45:21.160 --> 1:45:24.040 leaving it designed to advance the goal to the group's 1:45:24.120 --> 1:45:28.720 leaders to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families, 1:45:29.080 --> 1:45:33.920 of the community. We can also define cults as organizations 1:45:33.920 --> 1:45:37.759 that remold individuality to conform to the codes and needs 1:45:37.800 --> 1:45:41.680 of the cult, institute taboos that preclude doubt and criticism, 1:45:42.120 --> 1:45:46.000 and generate an elitist mentality, whereby members see themselves as 1:45:46.080 --> 1:45:50.120 loan evangelists struggling to bring enlightenment to the hostile forces 1:45:50.200 --> 1:45:54.080 surrounding them. There is only one truth, and that is 1:45:54.120 --> 1:45:58.680 the truth espoused by the cult. Competing explanations are not 1:45:58.920 --> 1:46:04.280 merely inaccurate, but degenerate cults don't have opponents, They have 1:46:04.600 --> 1:46:10.880 enemies and frequently dream about their ultimate destruction. Now cults 1:46:10.880 --> 1:46:14.719 are usually associated with religion, particularly of the New Age 1:46:14.760 --> 1:46:18.439 WHO and self help variety. Sometimes even gets into the 1:46:18.520 --> 1:46:22.400 kind of multi level marketing schemes of business trainer. 1:46:22.280 --> 1:46:25.760 Or oh yeah or absolutely yeah, I. 1:46:25.680 --> 1:46:28.719 Mean want to see the lines between MLMs, priment schemes 1:46:28.720 --> 1:46:32.879 and cultures quite Blaird disappoint essential oils, all that stuff. 1:46:33.120 --> 1:46:38.639 Yeah, it's it's very fluid dynamic because no it in practice, 1:46:38.640 --> 1:46:41.320 a lot of those if they're not cults themselves, they 1:46:41.360 --> 1:46:44.240 do pick up a lot of like cult ish tactics, behavior, 1:46:44.439 --> 1:46:47.080 kind of loads of modes of interaction. 1:46:48.400 --> 1:46:50.759 Honestly, could apply that to a lot of businesses these days. 1:46:50.840 --> 1:46:53.759 I mean, I've seen more than a handful of medium 1:46:53.840 --> 1:46:56.080 articles like this is why you should run your business 1:46:56.160 --> 1:46:59.200 like a cult. Here are seven cult tactics that you 1:46:59.200 --> 1:47:03.040 could apply to your business to generate more productivity. Kind 1:47:03.040 --> 1:47:14.519 of classic LinkedIn style stuff. Yeah. So in two thousand, 1:47:14.640 --> 1:47:16.800 which is when the book Political Cults Left and Right 1:47:16.840 --> 1:47:20.000 was published, it's cited that as many as four million 1:47:20.040 --> 1:47:22.760 Americans may have been involved with cult groups, and they 1:47:22.800 --> 1:47:25.320 were around five hundred cults active in Britain at the 1:47:25.360 --> 1:47:28.720 time and between three and five thousand in the United States. 1:47:29.200 --> 1:47:32.200 And honestly, that can be an understated. 1:47:31.720 --> 1:47:35.080 Mon especially nowadays, even just with like how the Internet 1:47:35.080 --> 1:47:38.920 has changed social interactions. Yeah, Like, it's a lot of 1:47:38.920 --> 1:47:43.080 aspects of American culture have either been or always have 1:47:43.320 --> 1:47:48.519 been kind of cultified, whether that includes stuff like the 1:47:48.600 --> 1:47:53.280 Marvel or Star Wars fan base or sports teams or 1:47:53.840 --> 1:47:57.640 your little church, who has this one pastor for like 1:47:57.720 --> 1:48:02.000 fifty years, who controls what everyone and what everyone's allowed 1:48:02.000 --> 1:48:04.200 to say, what everything one's allowed to watch, and who 1:48:04.240 --> 1:48:06.640 they're allowed to vote for it? Right, Like, it's a 1:48:06.680 --> 1:48:09.799 lot of aspects that have been kind of now sucked 1:48:09.840 --> 1:48:12.960 into kind of like the what like the modern nuclear 1:48:13.000 --> 1:48:15.519 family kind of looks like a lot of the dynamics 1:48:15.520 --> 1:48:18.320 that make that that kind of churns that machine have 1:48:19.040 --> 1:48:21.520 a lot a lot of cult aspects. 1:48:22.240 --> 1:48:26.200 Yeah, yeah, definitely, And honestly that's where, like, you know, 1:48:26.240 --> 1:48:30.000 sociologists would contend with the term, right because honestly, there 1:48:30.000 --> 1:48:32.599 are some definitions of a cult that literally would just 1:48:32.640 --> 1:48:39.920 apply to pretty much any religious group. Sure, And whatever 1:48:40.000 --> 1:48:43.479 your thoughts are on that, you know, it's it's it's 1:48:43.520 --> 1:48:48.679 clear that although religious groups do have their issues, we're 1:48:48.920 --> 1:48:56.840 speaking about a very specific and concentrated approach to that 1:48:57.280 --> 1:49:01.240 that type of organization. I mean, cults could be as 1:49:01.280 --> 1:49:05.919 small as two people, right, where one person is controlling 1:49:05.960 --> 1:49:08.640 the other through claiming a position of privilege in sight. 1:49:08.680 --> 1:49:10.599 In fact, a lot of cults start with just two 1:49:10.600 --> 1:49:15.640 people the leader and then taste acolyte, you know, and 1:49:15.800 --> 1:49:19.719 larger cults can also have smaller subcults within them. As 1:49:19.760 --> 1:49:22.880 you know, cittan members branch out and pursue their own 1:49:22.960 --> 1:49:28.599 little fiefdoms. Cults weaponize people's emotions to bring them into 1:49:28.640 --> 1:49:31.080 the fold. I mean, you don't rationalize your way into 1:49:31.080 --> 1:49:35.400 the cults. The people that Heaven's gates with like, huh, yeah, 1:49:35.880 --> 1:49:38.120 you know that that really makes sense. I should probably 1:49:38.160 --> 1:49:42.519 investigate that. According to all these studies and calculations, it 1:49:42.640 --> 1:49:46.960 really really all lines up, you know. And similarly, most 1:49:46.960 --> 1:49:50.439 don't even rationalize their way out of a cult. Cult 1:49:50.479 --> 1:49:58.959 recruitment and cult dissolution are mostly involving constantly shifting emotional states, 1:49:59.720 --> 1:50:02.839 which helps to lead a loss of subtlety and nuance 1:50:02.880 --> 1:50:05.920 in one's thoughts and feelings. And on top of that, 1:50:06.320 --> 1:50:09.920 cults are very good at making members feel special, you know. 1:50:10.439 --> 1:50:14.559 These minor insights are presented as profound revolutions. Commonly held 1:50:14.600 --> 1:50:18.160 ideas are claimed as exclusive to the cult, boosting members' 1:50:18.200 --> 1:50:23.280 sense of intellectual superiority. Where apocalypse is concerned, cults operate 1:50:23.400 --> 1:50:26.240 under the assumption that they are the only ones who 1:50:26.240 --> 1:50:31.000 can affert imminent catastrophe, fostering a belief in their infallibility, 1:50:31.760 --> 1:50:34.439 and then members are isolated from their pre cult self 1:50:34.520 --> 1:50:37.479 and life as their old beliefs are discarded and they're 1:50:37.479 --> 1:50:40.679 consumed by cult activities, embracing a new sense of self 1:50:40.720 --> 1:50:43.320 and riding high on the illusions and promises of a 1:50:43.320 --> 1:50:46.960 glorious future, with often destructive and violent means needed to 1:50:47.000 --> 1:50:52.160 reach that goal. That description can apply to both religious 1:50:52.200 --> 1:50:54.280 cults and political cults. 1:50:54.280 --> 1:50:57.800 And political cults. No, I was definitely viewing that through 1:50:58.000 --> 1:51:00.240 even more so a political lens, just because that's you know, 1:51:00.280 --> 1:51:03.320 a lot of what we cover on the show. Yeah, No, 1:51:03.560 --> 1:51:07.000 like that can even that can even also mean it 1:51:07.040 --> 1:51:09.559 can obviously describe, like we've kind of been alluding to 1:51:09.600 --> 1:51:13.719 these big like communist kind of cult groups that operate 1:51:15.040 --> 1:51:19.599 particularly in North America. But honestly, that description can also 1:51:19.720 --> 1:51:23.280 like be applied to just like a really shitty, like 1:51:23.720 --> 1:51:27.599 anarchist affinity group that's kind of being led by one asshole. 1:51:27.760 --> 1:51:31.840 Like it's certainly like this. It certainly applies beyond you know, 1:51:31.920 --> 1:51:35.280 the very you know, like political systems that are more 1:51:35.320 --> 1:51:39.360 inherently authoritarian versus once that aren't. But you know, if 1:51:39.360 --> 1:51:42.759 you look at like the Libertarian Party of the United States, 1:51:42.840 --> 1:51:45.840 right and all of their little local chapters. Right, they 1:51:45.840 --> 1:51:51.120 claimed to the anti authoritarian, but a lot of a 1:51:51.120 --> 1:51:56.360 lot of their internal politics are very authoritarian. But also 1:51:56.960 --> 1:52:00.679 like the specific local chapters when when never they get 1:52:00.760 --> 1:52:03.040 new people in and they kind of have someone new 1:52:03.160 --> 1:52:05.400 take take charge of their chapter, it does have a 1:52:05.400 --> 1:52:08.559 little kind of cult dynamic running. And I don't think 1:52:08.600 --> 1:52:12.160 that's restricted just to those on the right of the 1:52:12.160 --> 1:52:15.599 political spectrum. I think there's definitely aspects where you even 1:52:15.600 --> 1:52:20.800 see this in like anarchistic kind of compositions in at 1:52:20.880 --> 1:52:22.680 least at least to the United States, and in my 1:52:22.880 --> 1:52:24.599 in my observation. 1:52:24.920 --> 1:52:29.040 Yeah, definitely. I think people hear cults and they immediately 1:52:29.080 --> 1:52:32.320 think like the destructive cults of people of like the 1:52:32.360 --> 1:52:35.479 People's Temple of Jim Jones, Right, sure, I mean those 1:52:35.560 --> 1:52:39.840 members through deliberate action abused, physically injured or killed other 1:52:39.880 --> 1:52:42.720 members of their own group and other people, you know, 1:52:42.720 --> 1:52:44.880 And then of course they doomsday cults. People think about 1:52:44.880 --> 1:52:48.120 like Having's Skates who believe in some kind of apocalypticism 1:52:48.240 --> 1:52:53.920 or millennarianism. But I want to talk about political cults, right, 1:52:54.760 --> 1:52:57.559 and not just political cults on the left, even though 1:52:57.600 --> 1:53:04.800 that's a very easy target to go after because you 1:53:04.800 --> 1:53:07.519 know we are involved in these spaces, but you know 1:53:07.560 --> 1:53:09.719 there are a lot of right wing political culture as well. 1:53:10.120 --> 1:53:12.200 You know that we'll get we'll get there a due 1:53:12.200 --> 1:53:17.519 attention indeed time. In fact, the first bilical cult that 1:53:17.560 --> 1:53:20.200 I do want to talk about in another episode is 1:53:20.400 --> 1:53:24.120 a cult that really ran the gamut from left to right. 1:53:25.200 --> 1:53:29.400 The leader of that cult the last name rhymes with 1:53:30.280 --> 1:53:33.320 La Poche. But you know we'll get to that in Detex. 1:53:33.400 --> 1:53:35.639 Okay, all right, all right, all right, I will, I will, 1:53:36.240 --> 1:53:39.400 I will wait for the for the reveal. Do you 1:53:39.400 --> 1:53:41.120 know who else really loves cults? 1:53:41.560 --> 1:53:41.880 Who's that? 1:53:42.720 --> 1:53:46.600 The products and services that pay both my bills and 1:53:46.720 --> 1:53:50.920 some of your bills. So here is a perfect a 1:53:51.000 --> 1:53:54.760 perfect space for an ad break. Thanks Chevron. If you're 1:53:54.840 --> 1:54:01.479 advertising pushing, pushing forward the great American tradition of cultish 1:54:01.520 --> 1:54:05.400 behavior in the economic system, we're back. Have you ever 1:54:05.439 --> 1:54:07.280 read the book Cultish? 1:54:07.680 --> 1:54:12.920 So I classify my engagement with literature in two broadcamps. 1:54:13.560 --> 1:54:16.320 Books I've read and books I've skimmed. That's a book 1:54:16.320 --> 1:54:16.839 I've skimmed. 1:54:17.200 --> 1:54:19.360 Okay, all right, all right, it's it is, it is. 1:54:19.439 --> 1:54:22.680 It is definitely a fine book to skim. No, it's 1:54:22.680 --> 1:54:26.759 definitely a good, a good kind of a good central 1:54:27.200 --> 1:54:29.719 central piece of literature kind of on on this topic, 1:54:30.080 --> 1:54:33.240 especially as it relates to, you know, getting out of 1:54:33.680 --> 1:54:36.360 just like Heaven's Gate or scientology. You know that there's 1:54:36.440 --> 1:54:40.080 very like, very obvious cults as starting to like look 1:54:40.120 --> 1:54:44.240 at the general cultishness of like this entire continent and 1:54:44.280 --> 1:54:49.600 specifically the United States. It's definitely a fun read if 1:54:49.600 --> 1:54:51.360 anyone is interested in the topic. 1:54:51.880 --> 1:54:52.040 Yeah. 1:54:52.080 --> 1:54:55.000 I think it particularly focuses on cult language, right, how 1:54:55.160 --> 1:54:58.840 the language of cultures used to manipulate people. Yeah, so 1:54:59.040 --> 1:55:02.600 political cults, right, I mean, in a world where established 1:55:02.600 --> 1:55:06.040 politics has failed us again and again, many have to 1:55:06.160 --> 1:55:10.320 into radical politics right and left. I mean, as someone 1:55:10.320 --> 1:55:14.360 who doesn't really consider myself left, but I do like 1:55:15.400 --> 1:55:19.680 relate to it in some way, you know, typical anarchist. 1:55:19.960 --> 1:55:22.920 Yeah, I'm on the same I'm in the same boat 1:55:22.960 --> 1:55:23.440 as you there. 1:55:24.320 --> 1:55:27.560 Yeah, I don't see radicalization towards left as necessarily a 1:55:27.560 --> 1:55:30.480 bad thing. I mean, there a lot of rabbit holes 1:55:30.480 --> 1:55:33.280 and pitfalls I think people fall into when they start 1:55:33.320 --> 1:55:37.160 progressing in that trajectory. But you know, people's frustrations with 1:55:37.200 --> 1:55:39.600 this feeling system are real, and it's good that they're 1:55:39.600 --> 1:55:43.520 seeking radical alternatives. Some of those alternatives are terrible and 1:55:43.600 --> 1:55:46.600 should be called out, but the premise of needing revolutionary 1:55:46.600 --> 1:55:50.600 system change is not terrible, which is where I disagree 1:55:50.640 --> 1:55:53.920 with the books kind of centrist bent, because it puts 1:55:53.960 --> 1:55:58.120 forward the idea that revolution is like this dramatic thing, right, 1:55:58.160 --> 1:56:00.480 like how why would you grip me pros? And that 1:56:00.560 --> 1:56:03.440 unless you are called kind of vibe. It also ends 1:56:03.520 --> 1:56:06.360 up drawing some equivalences between the radical left and the 1:56:06.440 --> 1:56:10.680 radical right. Sure, although I will say as well, the 1:56:10.720 --> 1:56:13.760 book is primarily discussed in Marxist Leninists when it talks 1:56:13.760 --> 1:56:16.760 about political cults on the far left, and as we'll see, 1:56:16.800 --> 1:56:21.080 the way that Marxist Leninists structure things, it is somewhat 1:56:21.080 --> 1:56:25.160 conducive to that particular formation. Not to slander all Marxist Leninists, 1:56:25.160 --> 1:56:29.920 but the ideology is, you know, in some ways compatible 1:56:30.760 --> 1:56:36.160 in many ways capattle with cult organization. Yeah, and I 1:56:36.200 --> 1:56:38.600 do agree with the book's criticisms of the way that 1:56:38.760 --> 1:56:42.800 a lot of Marxist Lenists specifically organize their movements and organizations. 1:56:43.680 --> 1:56:48.480 But yeah, preamble side, the book defines political cults as 1:56:49.320 --> 1:56:53.640 environments where individuals are encouraged to envision of future society 1:56:54.120 --> 1:56:58.480 under their control. These members are often praised as visionary leaders, 1:56:58.520 --> 1:57:01.880 referred to as cantries, will hold significant power in the 1:57:01.960 --> 1:57:05.360 new world order. At the same time, they are criticized 1:57:05.360 --> 1:57:07.880 for not fully grasping the ideals of the founders in 1:57:07.920 --> 1:57:11.240 the present. The slow progress toward realizing the cult s 1:57:11.240 --> 1:57:15.200 goals is attributed to their perceived lack of effort. The 1:57:15.320 --> 1:57:18.680 leader is credited to the cult's achievement, while any setbacks 1:57:18.760 --> 1:57:22.360 are blamed on the members perceived laziness. This combination of 1:57:22.360 --> 1:57:26.560 grandiose vision and culture that suppresses descent create an environment 1:57:26.600 --> 1:57:29.800 where questioning any aspect of the group's ideology is met 1:57:29.840 --> 1:57:34.840 with intense fail and punishment. And political culturally do present 1:57:34.960 --> 1:57:39.440 a danger. Most of them are marginal irrelevant, but they 1:57:39.440 --> 1:57:42.200 do cause harm to the people within them and the 1:57:42.240 --> 1:57:44.440 people outside of them, and if they manage to take 1:57:44.600 --> 1:57:51.200 state power, like in Cambodia, it really has extremely disastrous results, 1:57:51.200 --> 1:57:54.400 and I would call a full partter cult leader. I 1:57:54.400 --> 1:57:57.480 would go as far as to say that political cults 1:57:58.000 --> 1:58:01.000 have been mostly far right right. There are some far 1:58:01.080 --> 1:58:05.000 left cults in the mix, which in my opinion is 1:58:05.040 --> 1:58:08.879 even more depressing because it's like you were so close 1:58:09.160 --> 1:58:12.840 and then there you go. So like a lot of 1:58:12.880 --> 1:58:15.520 my eya is targeted towards political cults and are left 1:58:15.520 --> 1:58:19.760 because it's like, wow, you know, almost there, and then 1:58:20.040 --> 1:58:24.960 now you're stuck planting the flag of the CCP in 1:58:25.000 --> 1:58:28.760 front of a university in the US or something. 1:58:29.200 --> 1:58:32.080 Yeah. Many, many such cases. 1:58:31.960 --> 1:58:36.760 Many such cases. All sorts of political cults demand their 1:58:36.800 --> 1:58:41.240 true believers be prepared to embrace the group's inflexible theology 1:58:41.400 --> 1:58:45.720 and strict organizational practices, much to the parallel society and 1:58:45.760 --> 1:58:49.200 honestly the waste of the talents, energy, and commitment to 1:58:49.240 --> 1:58:52.720 their members. For as long as I can remember, cults 1:58:52.760 --> 1:58:54.920 have been a bad thing. You know. Cults suck, right, 1:58:55.000 --> 1:58:58.960 Cults of all types really suck general. 1:58:59.360 --> 1:59:01.480 Generally, cult have kind of a bad rap. 1:59:02.280 --> 1:59:08.920 Yeah, yeah, I can't imagine why. But then that lent 1:59:09.040 --> 1:59:13.400 itself to the question of why do people join them? No, 1:59:13.520 --> 1:59:18.520 they're stupid? How do they recruit and keep their members? 1:59:18.560 --> 1:59:18.640 Like? 1:59:18.680 --> 1:59:21.120 What's going on there is that they just didn't know? 1:59:21.600 --> 1:59:24.720 Is it that? Oh? Cults, sign me up. I want 1:59:24.760 --> 1:59:29.400 to take a very unorthodox approach and offer you Garrison 1:59:30.000 --> 1:59:33.000 personally a guide to start your own cult. 1:59:33.800 --> 1:59:37.040 Oh I, I've thought a lot about this already, but 1:59:37.120 --> 1:59:38.960 I am, I am, I'm very happy to very happy 1:59:38.960 --> 1:59:41.640 to take notes here. Let me make a new Google doc. 1:59:42.080 --> 1:59:45.960 And sure when d run from the work of social 1:59:46.040 --> 1:59:52.960 psychologists Anthony Pratkanis and Elliott Aaronson. So just follow these steps, right, 1:59:53.280 --> 1:59:59.240 all right? Step one, create a distinct social reality. Cults 1:59:59.280 --> 2:00:02.600 I sleep members from external sources of information, making them 2:00:02.680 --> 2:00:06.000 interact primarily with other cult members. This leads to a 2:00:06.040 --> 2:00:09.440 shift in vocabulary towards the cult's lingo, making it difficult 2:00:09.440 --> 2:00:12.160 for them to communicate with non cult members, which leads 2:00:12.200 --> 2:00:16.760 to the uncritical acceptance of the cult's propaganda. The cult's 2:00:16.760 --> 2:00:21.120 belief system must be rigid and all encompass in the analysis, 2:00:21.160 --> 2:00:24.640 answers everything about the world, and there is nothing beyond it. 2:00:25.160 --> 2:00:27.720 Left wing cults believe that their ideology is the only 2:00:27.920 --> 2:00:32.160 valid lens through which to view the world. Historical zerialism 2:00:32.320 --> 2:00:34.800 will Right wing cults often sent to their beliefs around 2:00:34.840 --> 2:00:39.320 conspiracy theories, particularly related to race and I remember the 2:00:39.360 --> 2:00:44.360 group's beliefs are beyond question or falsification. No tests or 2:00:44.480 --> 2:00:48.280 challenges allowed. That might lead to a revaluation of these beliefs. 2:00:48.760 --> 2:00:52.840 Any dissent or questioning is labeled as heresy or betrayal 2:00:53.240 --> 2:00:57.240 or you know, better to kind of vibe. Step two, 2:00:58.040 --> 2:01:03.080 create an in group and an outgrowth. Cults emphasize differences 2:01:03.240 --> 2:01:06.879 between they're in group and perceived out groups, fostring loyalty 2:01:07.000 --> 2:01:10.440 among members. It really doesn't matter who the d group is. 2:01:10.440 --> 2:01:12.600 You just need to have an outgroup of some kind. 2:01:12.680 --> 2:01:16.240 So for far right cults, it's like Jewish people, black people, 2:01:16.400 --> 2:01:18.600 gay people, those are the necessary out groups. That's like 2:01:18.640 --> 2:01:22.560 the bare minimum out group for most right wing groups, right, Yeah, 2:01:22.600 --> 2:01:26.480 it's like checklist, you know, typical. I mean, of course, 2:01:26.480 --> 2:01:28.520 some go even further, and they might say something like 2:01:28.560 --> 2:01:33.320 anybody who isn't a white Anglo Saxon Protestant is excluded 2:01:33.400 --> 2:01:36.400 from their groups. But you know, sorry, became kind of irrelevant. 2:01:36.720 --> 2:01:38.640 Sorry Catholics, you're not. 2:01:38.760 --> 2:01:45.120 Yeah, RP Catholics, RP Irish, et cetera. And then for 2:01:45.120 --> 2:01:48.320 far left cults, in order to isolate members further, they 2:01:48.360 --> 2:01:52.200 can't just rely on like the bourgeoisie as the old group, because, 2:01:52.240 --> 2:01:54.080 I mean, the rest of the left already has the 2:01:54.120 --> 2:01:59.160 bourgeoisie as an opponent. So these far left cults have 2:01:59.200 --> 2:02:01.560 to create other groups to talk at the and I 2:02:01.680 --> 2:02:02.960 state the members from as well. 2:02:03.480 --> 2:02:08.040 Yeah, it becomes much more like seeped in ideology than 2:02:08.200 --> 2:02:10.880 some all then, like compared to some of the right 2:02:10.880 --> 2:02:13.840 wing cults, I think generally, the cults on the left 2:02:14.280 --> 2:02:17.840 get get way more into creating kind of ideological distinctions 2:02:18.360 --> 2:02:20.240 that separate the in group in the out group, and 2:02:20.720 --> 2:02:25.760 there the ideology becomes the thing that like this is 2:02:25.960 --> 2:02:29.280 like that becomes like the unquestionable thing that answers all 2:02:29.320 --> 2:02:31.880 of the truths and all of like the problems of 2:02:31.920 --> 2:02:35.320 the world, whether that's like an apocalyptic version where you're 2:02:35.320 --> 2:02:38.960 talking about like some like collapse, or it's you know, 2:02:39.040 --> 2:02:42.200 like a or even like a a utopic version right 2:02:42.200 --> 2:02:46.840 where you're talking about the Marxist Leninists party is gonna 2:02:47.440 --> 2:02:50.880 sees seize power through the vanguard and control swaths of 2:02:51.000 --> 2:02:55.080 territory and return power to the proletariat. 2:02:56.760 --> 2:03:00.800 Yes, and the true obstacles to that party of revisionists, 2:03:01.120 --> 2:03:03.960 the ultra leftists et cetera, et cetera, the. 2:03:03.880 --> 2:03:09.360 Post leftists, the anarchists. Yeah, yeah, the social democrats as 2:03:09.400 --> 2:03:13.400 always the enemy to all side. It's truly the one, 2:03:13.600 --> 2:03:15.920 the one that everyone everyone loves to hit. 2:03:16.840 --> 2:03:20.480 Yeah, yeah, truly the petty boogs come. 2:03:22.360 --> 2:03:22.560 Right. 2:03:22.680 --> 2:03:29.600 Next step step three build commitment through dissonance reduction, so 2:03:29.680 --> 2:03:33.720 cults manipulate cognitive discerent by gradually escalating members quitment the 2:03:33.720 --> 2:03:37.000 group's beliefs and actions. This needs for sense of consistency 2:03:37.160 --> 2:03:40.600 and eventually conversion. So you don't throw a newbie into 2:03:40.640 --> 2:03:43.360 the kool aid right away. You start small and you 2:03:43.480 --> 2:03:46.040 build up from there. Maybe first you want a meeting, 2:03:46.360 --> 2:03:48.760 then maybe you start voting in the meetings. Then you 2:03:48.840 --> 2:03:50.840 hand it out flyers for the cults at like a 2:03:50.960 --> 2:03:55.160 Black Lives Matter protest for example, and then you sip 2:03:55.200 --> 2:03:57.480 in the kool aid. You know, it's like baby steps. 2:03:57.640 --> 2:04:00.400 You don't throw them into the into all the time 2:04:00.520 --> 2:04:08.120 right away. Next step four. Maintain a rigid intunal regime. 2:04:09.280 --> 2:04:12.480 Decision making power is concentrated in the hands of a 2:04:12.520 --> 2:04:17.160 select elite within the group. Formal controls and democratic processes 2:04:17.920 --> 2:04:22.160 are either dismantled or ignored, even though the organization make 2:04:22.240 --> 2:04:25.480 claim to be democratic on paper, and this environment helps 2:04:25.480 --> 2:04:31.000 to foster uncertainty, fair and confusion among members, which actually 2:04:31.640 --> 2:04:34.000 helps to reinforce their commitment to the group. Believe it 2:04:34.080 --> 2:04:43.200 or not. Five Step five establish the attractiveness and credibility 2:04:43.280 --> 2:04:46.800 of the leader. Oh alrighty yeah, yeah yeah, you know 2:04:46.880 --> 2:04:47.320 make over. 2:04:48.000 --> 2:04:50.360 This is this is why it's going to be all over. 2:04:50.400 --> 2:04:52.440 As soon as they start making twink cults, it's going 2:04:52.520 --> 2:04:57.440 to be whole swaths of the public population just are 2:04:57.480 --> 2:04:59.600 gonna immediately fall victim. 2:05:00.120 --> 2:05:06.080 Indeed, indeed, these grand or supreme leaders are legends, extraordinary 2:05:06.240 --> 2:05:13.680 in their qualities your twinkness. New age cults do this. Sorry, 2:05:14.600 --> 2:05:17.400 new age cults do this with their sex best leaders 2:05:17.440 --> 2:05:20.280 and stuff. But oh my god, I can't not mention 2:05:20.440 --> 2:05:24.000 the veneration the political cults plays on their leaders, right yeah, yeah, yeah, 2:05:24.080 --> 2:05:28.400 I mean Hitler fans just obsessed with the guy. I 2:05:28.400 --> 2:05:29.600 mean that goes I'm saying. 2:05:30.000 --> 2:05:33.160 Yeah, this applies to like to like, people who are 2:05:33.160 --> 2:05:34.840 really into Hitler, people who are really in the stall, 2:05:34.920 --> 2:05:37.400 and people who are really into now they've become this 2:05:37.480 --> 2:05:39.120 almost like messianic figure. 2:05:40.000 --> 2:05:43.320 Yeah yeah, I mean, even before I understood cults better, 2:05:43.840 --> 2:05:47.520 I could see very clearly early on, even you know, 2:05:47.560 --> 2:05:50.600 before my readings theory and everything just being exposed to 2:05:52.560 --> 2:05:57.040 you know that space that there is a veritable cult 2:05:57.800 --> 2:06:01.920 of Lenin, of the king family, of maw of Trotsky, 2:06:02.120 --> 2:06:05.840 out of Stalin, and far be it from you to 2:06:05.960 --> 2:06:10.000 point out their flaws and mistakes. Either it's denied outright 2:06:10.040 --> 2:06:13.120 as outside propaganda, or it's kept on the download as 2:06:13.200 --> 2:06:18.040 much as possible. Specifically North Korea situation. Right, you often 2:06:18.160 --> 2:06:22.160 see its supporters saying things like, yes, there are problems 2:06:22.160 --> 2:06:25.280 with North Korea, and we do discuss our criticisms behind 2:06:25.360 --> 2:06:29.400 closed doors, but openly, you know, it's full throttled, full 2:06:29.560 --> 2:06:33.200 throated support, which I find very interesting. 2:06:33.640 --> 2:06:35.320 Yeah. 2:06:35.920 --> 2:06:40.600 Step six, speaking of leaders, the leader needs privileges naturally, 2:06:41.360 --> 2:06:46.640 police start power, wealth accumulation, and often sexual favors as well. 2:06:47.840 --> 2:06:51.520 Activities that are usually deemed unacceptable for ordinary members are 2:06:51.560 --> 2:06:56.720 tolerated when apply it to leaders. Why because step seven 2:06:57.160 --> 2:07:01.880 you make sure to deify the leader. Leaders, whether historical 2:07:02.120 --> 2:07:07.000 or current, are elevated to a defined status. They're carrying 2:07:07.000 --> 2:07:09.760 on the legacy and defending it from revision. If the 2:07:09.800 --> 2:07:14.000 OG is already dead. You resolve the arguments by referencing 2:07:14.040 --> 2:07:17.200 the sayings of these leaders rather than through independent analysis. 2:07:18.360 --> 2:07:21.200 So it's not well, you know this is the case 2:07:21.240 --> 2:07:24.240 because we examined X, Y, and Z factor. It's this 2:07:24.360 --> 2:07:30.879 is the case because person AA said so in nineteenth 2:07:30.920 --> 2:07:33.360 century text number three hundred and seventy six or whatever. 2:07:35.680 --> 2:07:37.880 It's it's six hundred pages long. 2:07:38.000 --> 2:07:41.480 It's it's yeah. I mean, do you even read capital, like, 2:07:41.560 --> 2:07:42.000 come on. 2:07:42.480 --> 2:07:44.800 All all twenty five volumes? 2:07:46.360 --> 2:07:48.000 I mean, oh, it's a capital. I mean it's a 2:07:48.040 --> 2:07:48.800 good No. 2:07:49.280 --> 2:07:53.880 Absolutely, if you want to read about like German factory conditions, 2:07:53.880 --> 2:07:59.840 it is, and it's definitely it's eighteenth century German factory politics. 2:08:00.520 --> 2:08:02.600 It is an unparalleled blook. 2:08:04.000 --> 2:08:11.839 Yeah, definitely. Step eight you need to send members to proselytize. 2:08:12.080 --> 2:08:14.600 Members need to constantly promote the benefits of the cult 2:08:14.600 --> 2:08:17.880 to others because that reinforces their own beliefs, that self 2:08:17.920 --> 2:08:22.720 generated persuasion strengthens their commitment. And to be fair, this 2:08:22.840 --> 2:08:26.040 applies even outside of cults. Right Like, if in the 2:08:26.080 --> 2:08:29.320 habits of sharing your particular ideology or religion or philosophy, 2:08:29.880 --> 2:08:32.360 the process of sharing it often helps you to understand 2:08:32.360 --> 2:08:37.480 it and also lends itself lends to you being fruth 2:08:37.560 --> 2:08:40.760 persuaded by it. But in the context of everything else, 2:08:40.920 --> 2:08:43.240 in context of the cults, it really becomes a feedback 2:08:43.280 --> 2:08:46.920 loop code, which is shown of all interference from the 2:08:46.960 --> 2:08:49.720 outside world, and in which only the liturgy of the 2:08:49.760 --> 2:08:54.720 cult has any semblance of reality. Number nine. Step nine 2:08:55.400 --> 2:09:01.280 distract members from undesirable thoughts overwork. Members keep them busy 2:09:01.360 --> 2:09:04.000 and exhausted, far too busy and exhausted to question the 2:09:04.000 --> 2:09:09.200 group's direction or beliefs. Social life friendships, those all revolve 2:09:09.240 --> 2:09:12.280 around the group, and of course those friendships are entirely 2:09:12.280 --> 2:09:15.840 conditional on the maintenance of uncritical enthusiasm for the party line. 2:09:16.840 --> 2:09:19.800 The book uses the example of the Worker's Revolutionary Party 2:09:20.000 --> 2:09:24.000 in Britain, which has a chapter in the book all 2:09:24.000 --> 2:09:27.160 to itself. Despite neving able to muster more than one 2:09:27.200 --> 2:09:30.880 percent of the vote in any elections, somehow this small 2:09:31.000 --> 2:09:35.840 organization managed to put out a daily newspaper, keeping the 2:09:35.880 --> 2:09:40.560 members busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. Next number ten fixate 2:09:40.680 --> 2:09:44.920 members on a promised land. Cults create an idealized vision 2:09:45.000 --> 2:09:48.440 of the future the contrast to the current reality. That 2:09:48.560 --> 2:09:51.200 promised lands maybe an alien spaceship to the next dimension, 2:09:51.640 --> 2:09:55.400 a religious ethno state, or a Marxist leness utopia, but 2:09:55.640 --> 2:09:58.080 in either case, the cult's members are driven to work 2:09:58.200 --> 2:10:02.760 tirelessly to achieve this vision fair and missed opportunities. They're 2:10:02.760 --> 2:10:05.480 constantly either recruiting and funt reason and kept in a 2:10:05.560 --> 2:10:09.720 constantay of luteness, reinforcing the commitment to the group's beliefs 2:10:10.840 --> 2:10:14.840 now Garrison. If you follow these steps, you will have 2:10:14.880 --> 2:10:18.920 a fairly effective cult. But you know what, just for you, 2:10:19.480 --> 2:10:21.839 I'm going to throw in a bonus package of commonly 2:10:21.880 --> 2:10:25.600 held contradictions. You could call it the double think package. 2:10:26.320 --> 2:10:30.680 Okay, all right, I'm all ears. I'm really really desperate 2:10:30.720 --> 2:10:33.720 at this point because I've kind of sunk cost fallacy 2:10:33.800 --> 2:10:36.080 this right, I've we've already been I've already been learning 2:10:36.080 --> 2:10:38.320 for like thirty minutes. I feel like I need to 2:10:38.320 --> 2:10:42.600 take away more more information at at the end because 2:10:43.160 --> 2:10:46.360 if I if I go and apply this now, it's 2:10:46.440 --> 2:10:48.960 I feel like I'm only gonna half asset. I need. 2:10:49.000 --> 2:10:51.600 I need one final, one final thing to kind of 2:10:51.600 --> 2:10:52.560 click into place here. 2:10:53.200 --> 2:10:58.400 Absolutely check this out right love of liberty and support 2:10:58.400 --> 2:10:59.440 for totalitarians. 2:11:00.240 --> 2:11:04.480 Right, these seem like two opposite things. How can both 2:11:04.520 --> 2:11:07.080 of these coaches? You can hold them. 2:11:07.000 --> 2:11:10.040 In your brain simultaneously. Right check this right. Left wing 2:11:10.080 --> 2:11:13.520 cults would idealize a very democratic Soviet Union of the past. 2:11:14.040 --> 2:11:16.240 You know, some trott Gise groups even depict an earlier 2:11:16.240 --> 2:11:19.880 period as democratic before being corrupted by later leaders and 2:11:19.920 --> 2:11:22.520 then right wing cults would claim to champ on individual 2:11:22.520 --> 2:11:26.480 liberty but seek to curtail democratic rights for those who 2:11:26.520 --> 2:11:32.680 disagree with So the democracy is upheld, but it's theoretical. 2:11:33.480 --> 2:11:36.040 So it's like, yeah, democracy would also come on the 2:11:36.080 --> 2:11:40.520 material conditions. You can't have democracy in that kind of situation. Ah, right, 2:11:40.960 --> 2:11:44.440 so you're loving, yes, like I am a democracy advocate, 2:11:44.480 --> 2:11:47.800 but also like democracy gets in the way sometimes we 2:11:47.880 --> 2:11:49.320 have to like get past it. 2:11:49.640 --> 2:11:51.640 Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean you have like to 2:11:51.680 --> 2:11:53.800 see what I'm cooking. We have the democracy of like 2:11:53.880 --> 2:11:57.360 me and like my three friends, but not like you know, everybody. 2:11:57.480 --> 2:12:00.680 Yeah yeah, yeah, it's like democracy, see, but it's like 2:12:00.840 --> 2:12:03.440 centered around like a group, like I call it like 2:12:04.040 --> 2:12:07.240 democratic centralism or something like that. 2:12:07.280 --> 2:12:09.520 Anyway, that's a great idea. That's a great idea. 2:12:10.040 --> 2:12:18.080 Thank you. Next, we have belief, inequality and privilege for leaders. 2:12:19.000 --> 2:12:20.600 That last one team is kind of important. 2:12:21.320 --> 2:12:24.600 Yeah, so you're going to be advocating for equality, but 2:12:24.640 --> 2:12:27.160 then your leaders are going to have a bunch of privileges. 2:12:27.480 --> 2:12:29.880 Because we're spending all the time advocating we but a 2:12:29.920 --> 2:12:31.400 little bit it's something extra. 2:12:31.840 --> 2:12:35.040 Exactly to the members. Well, they get to go out 2:12:35.040 --> 2:12:39.560 there and spend time fundraising and stuff, but they can't 2:12:39.560 --> 2:12:41.680 have a say and how the money is spent, right, Like, 2:12:42.360 --> 2:12:45.400 we need that money, you know, for our personal projects 2:12:45.400 --> 2:12:51.520 and our extremely high standards. Livent check this out. This 2:12:51.600 --> 2:12:54.720 is very common in religious cults, but also very common 2:12:55.240 --> 2:13:02.360 in some political cults. Promotion of sexual morality and sexual exploitation. 2:13:04.040 --> 2:13:08.320 Huh, well, okay, I'm not gonna I think I think 2:13:08.360 --> 2:13:10.400 I'll stop them playing along bit at this one. 2:13:10.440 --> 2:13:16.640 Actually yeah, yeah, yeah, fair enough, but yes, this is 2:13:16.720 --> 2:13:18.560 ter terrible. 2:13:18.720 --> 2:13:20.080 This is a very common thing. 2:13:21.040 --> 2:13:24.520 Yeah yeah, you know, cultural imput is very strict sexual rules, 2:13:24.760 --> 2:13:29.120 particularly on members, but yeah, particularly young women, and the 2:13:29.200 --> 2:13:32.520 leaders will still like have a whole harem of female 2:13:32.520 --> 2:13:34.919 members that they exploit stuff. 2:13:35.120 --> 2:13:37.520 This is this is this is even quite common with 2:13:37.600 --> 2:13:42.600 like like hardline evangelical cults in the in the States, 2:13:42.600 --> 2:13:46.520 whether that's kind of like a Quiverfule related or just 2:13:46.600 --> 2:13:50.280 other kind of smaller evangelical sex that kind of form 2:13:50.360 --> 2:13:53.880 their own kind of church cult dynamic. But that is 2:13:53.880 --> 2:13:57.560 that's very specifically very common among Christian cults because of 2:13:57.600 --> 2:14:02.840 how much that like sexual authority arianism is uh normalized 2:14:02.880 --> 2:14:06.120 in a lot of and a lot of Protestant and 2:14:06.320 --> 2:14:09.600 Catholic uh you know doctrine. 2:14:11.840 --> 2:14:16.000 Yeah, exactly exactly. It's it's frighteningly common. 2:14:16.680 --> 2:14:20.600 And I've certainly heard that like, you know, like Stalinists 2:14:20.760 --> 2:14:26.560 or Maoists specifically have have weird, weird sex stuff going on. 2:14:27.120 --> 2:14:30.080 But I've I've never I've never quite poked that bear, 2:14:30.920 --> 2:14:34.720 but I have i haven't heard that there's specifically really 2:14:34.840 --> 2:14:36.720 weird sex stuff around Maoists. 2:14:37.120 --> 2:14:40.440 But yeah, and also really weird sex offron Mao allegedly 2:14:40.760 --> 2:14:48.640 I've heard bought his exploits. Yeah, moving along, Uh, last 2:14:48.640 --> 2:14:50.800 one in this little bonus package. The rest you will 2:14:50.840 --> 2:14:54.080 have to like pay the twelve simple payments of nine 2:14:54.160 --> 2:14:56.280 hundred and ninety nine dollars to get you. 2:14:56.240 --> 2:15:00.120 Know, that's that's that that's one payment every month, but 2:15:00.160 --> 2:15:02.680 each month I get more information about how. 2:15:02.560 --> 2:15:03.200 To do it better. 2:15:03.720 --> 2:15:05.360 That sounds like good. That sounds like a great deal. 2:15:05.760 --> 2:15:07.360 Oh, yeah for sure, because I mean you'll be just 2:15:07.480 --> 2:15:09.839 like swimming in cash by the time. 2:15:10.320 --> 2:15:12.480 Yeah, Because now I can I can use these and 2:15:12.520 --> 2:15:15.040 I could pass down these steps to someone else, so 2:15:15.280 --> 2:15:18.800 I'll I will already gets and then and they can 2:15:18.880 --> 2:15:19.280 pass it. 2:15:19.200 --> 2:15:21.800 Down, pass it down, and then you'll get kickbox from 2:15:21.800 --> 2:15:22.440 that as well. 2:15:22.560 --> 2:15:24.520 That's great. That's that sounds almost. 2:15:24.440 --> 2:15:26.920 Like a multi level scheme. 2:15:27.400 --> 2:15:29.480 It's like there's like a triangle and there's different like 2:15:29.560 --> 2:15:33.160 tiers of it, and like you're you're technically what above me, 2:15:33.240 --> 2:15:35.400 but I'm still pretty close to the top if I 2:15:35.400 --> 2:15:37.600 if I keep bringing it down, then it gets wider 2:15:37.640 --> 2:15:40.600 and wider. That's that sounds like a pretty good like setup, and. 2:15:41.200 --> 2:15:42.760 I benefit and then you benefit. 2:15:42.880 --> 2:15:46.880 I mean, the triangle is actually the strongest shape structurally, 2:15:46.960 --> 2:15:48.600 structure structurally. 2:15:48.960 --> 2:15:54.040 So check this out right demand for free speech and 2:15:54.120 --> 2:15:59.360 suppression of descent right, so cultural vigorously defend their right 2:15:59.400 --> 2:16:03.000 to free speech, which even results into legal action. Are 2:16:03.000 --> 2:16:06.600 there's some very infamous court cases involving in cults. Yes, 2:16:07.240 --> 2:16:11.720 and then they will criticize rival organizations for you know, 2:16:12.040 --> 2:16:16.320 undemocratic practices, and yet within the ranks of the group 2:16:16.920 --> 2:16:19.080 dissent is actively suppressed. 2:16:19.760 --> 2:16:19.960 You know. 2:16:20.760 --> 2:16:23.160 Yeah, this is like the scientology classic here. 2:16:23.360 --> 2:16:26.720 Yeah, exactly, and members will be told like, yeah, you 2:16:26.720 --> 2:16:30.720 should absolutely criticize but then if they do criticize, you know, 2:16:30.720 --> 2:16:33.520 they're going to be humiliated. They could very easily be expelled. 2:16:33.560 --> 2:16:37.480 It's like a bait and switch. It's like, yeah, we 2:16:37.560 --> 2:16:40.240 give you this platform to criticize, so then we know 2:16:40.280 --> 2:16:45.560 who to target and to tear it down. Very very common, 2:16:45.920 --> 2:16:48.680 very very useful when you want to, you know, strengthen 2:16:48.720 --> 2:16:54.320 the integrity of your cult. All right, and one last 2:16:54.560 --> 2:16:56.800 quick game, let's ask ourselves. 2:16:56.959 --> 2:17:00.600 Really, you're just like free yeah. 2:17:00.520 --> 2:17:08.000 Yeah, yeah, only if you call right now. So let's 2:17:08.040 --> 2:17:12.160 ask ourselves. Am I already in a political cult? 2:17:12.480 --> 2:17:15.480 Great? Good question. Actually, this is something people should ask 2:17:15.480 --> 2:17:16.720 themselves pretty frequently. 2:17:17.360 --> 2:17:17.600 Yes. 2:17:18.240 --> 2:17:20.879 Yes. And to figure that out, we have to look 2:17:20.879 --> 2:17:25.120 at the conditions that indicate the presence of ideological totalism, 2:17:25.560 --> 2:17:28.640 a term coined by American psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton to 2:17:28.680 --> 2:17:31.760 give a name to the mood of absolute convictions, which 2:17:31.760 --> 2:17:34.560 embeds ideas so deeply in people's heads that they grow 2:17:34.640 --> 2:17:39.039 inoculated against doubt. So what are the conditions he identifies 2:17:39.080 --> 2:17:44.119 as indicating the presence of ideological totalism. Well, there's milieu control, 2:17:44.720 --> 2:17:49.240 mystical manipulation, the demand for purity, the cult of confession, 2:17:49.720 --> 2:17:54.680 the secret science, loading, the language, doctrine over person, and 2:17:54.760 --> 2:17:59.000 the dispensing of existence. What do those mean one at 2:17:59.000 --> 2:18:02.280 a time? So you control involves techniques that dominate a 2:18:02.280 --> 2:18:06.400 person's contact with the outside world and communication with themselves. Right, 2:18:06.440 --> 2:18:09.680 So that idea of cults isolating people prevented them from 2:18:09.680 --> 2:18:14.840 testing the groups of ideas against external alternatives. Mystical manipulation 2:18:15.520 --> 2:18:18.080 is where cults claim a sense of higher purpose and 2:18:18.160 --> 2:18:20.920 portray the ideology as the vanguard of social development that's 2:18:21.000 --> 2:18:24.880 all encompassing. This is the essential ideology for the future 2:18:24.879 --> 2:18:28.720 of the world. Demand for purity is of course, where 2:18:28.720 --> 2:18:31.480 members are like convicted of their superiority and purity in 2:18:31.520 --> 2:18:36.120 their beliefs. The core ideas are essential, and anybody who 2:18:36.160 --> 2:18:38.120 is a non member as a critic or as a 2:18:38.160 --> 2:18:42.080 critic is an accomplice in some kind of conspiracy against 2:18:42.080 --> 2:18:46.320 the cult's ideas. The cult of confession is where members 2:18:46.320 --> 2:18:50.000 are required to confess their inadequacies and failures in group meetings, 2:18:50.240 --> 2:18:54.199 which helps to break down individuality and intimidating and helps 2:18:54.240 --> 2:18:58.840 to intimidate potential dissenters. The sacred science, through the group's ideology, 2:18:58.879 --> 2:19:01.840 is presented as a sacred moral vision so you can't 2:19:01.840 --> 2:19:03.320 really question its basic assumption. 2:19:03.680 --> 2:19:06.000 The immortal science of marxistem. 2:19:05.879 --> 2:19:10.959 The immortal science indeed loading the language is where we 2:19:10.959 --> 2:19:13.720 were talking about earlier, where cults use repetitive phrases and 2:19:13.760 --> 2:19:17.240 though i, terminator and cliches to prevent critical analysis and 2:19:17.360 --> 2:19:21.680 limit thinking and feeling. Doctrine over person is where historical 2:19:21.760 --> 2:19:25.360 myths are created or altered so aligning with the cult's ideology, 2:19:26.480 --> 2:19:29.600 and the the dispenser of existence is where only those 2:19:29.640 --> 2:19:33.000 who adhere to the group's ideology are fully human or good, 2:19:33.520 --> 2:19:35.640 while all others are seen as agents of evil or 2:19:35.640 --> 2:19:39.440 barriers to progress. How that whole delivery has been useful 2:19:39.480 --> 2:19:42.200 for you in determining whether or not you are in 2:19:42.200 --> 2:19:45.160 a cult, as well as determining how you can create 2:19:45.200 --> 2:19:45.560 your own. 2:19:46.280 --> 2:19:51.400 Well, something that my boss has told me a lot 2:19:52.080 --> 2:19:56.640 is that there's there's very little difference between a cult 2:19:57.040 --> 2:20:03.120 and a really good party. So but the biggest difference 2:20:03.320 --> 2:20:08.160 is that a party hopefully will be over right. It's 2:20:08.560 --> 2:20:10.600 it should just be like one night. It should So 2:20:11.400 --> 2:20:15.080 a good party is a cult that lasts like twelve 2:20:15.080 --> 2:20:18.520 hours tops. So you can't apply a lot of these 2:20:18.560 --> 2:20:22.760 ideas to putting together a really fun house party as 2:20:22.879 --> 2:20:28.279 long as that it's there's a mandatory uh, like dissolution 2:20:29.160 --> 2:20:32.800 of the party after after you know, everyone wakes up 2:20:32.840 --> 2:20:33.440 the next morning. 2:20:34.240 --> 2:20:39.959 So oh, I'm imaginin like a DJ like yes, yes, 2:20:40.680 --> 2:20:43.600 like like DJ mill you control. 2:20:45.879 --> 2:20:48.520 We know, we are, we are putting gets back on, 2:20:50.120 --> 2:20:54.199 no no more, no more, ska back to gets exactly. Yeah. 2:20:54.440 --> 2:21:06.080 The future lies right hand this beast exactly exactly. Yeah. 2:21:06.280 --> 2:21:10.119 But I mean, in all seriousness, political culture really sad. 2:21:10.240 --> 2:21:13.680 You know, the prayers, people's frustrations, the desire for change, 2:21:14.240 --> 2:21:16.520 the prayer. And what's worse is that they prey on 2:21:16.600 --> 2:21:20.920 their desire for affiliation. Yeah, one of our most deeply 2:21:21.000 --> 2:21:26.400 rooted desires to identify with social groups, to develop an 2:21:26.400 --> 2:21:31.440 identity on a familiar, local, ethnic, or national scale. And 2:21:31.480 --> 2:21:34.000 it's really sad that people get lost in that source. 2:21:35.000 --> 2:21:38.280 You know, remember that, no matter what, the group you 2:21:38.360 --> 2:21:45.200 choose affiliate with should be able to handle descent. I 2:21:45.280 --> 2:21:48.920 think that's a very good baseline upon which to affiliate 2:21:50.120 --> 2:21:54.800 or to determine your affiliation. Healthy groups, organizations, and movements 2:21:54.800 --> 2:21:58.600 are not weakened by descent. They need dissent, disagreement, and 2:21:58.680 --> 2:22:03.560 conflict to survive life. Frequent and important disagreement makes movements 2:22:03.560 --> 2:22:07.000 and organizations stronger. It allows the individuals within them to 2:22:07.040 --> 2:22:09.920 maintain a level of independence and allow us ideas to 2:22:09.920 --> 2:22:13.160 evolve through challenge rather than to exist purely due to 2:22:13.160 --> 2:22:17.840 the stifling atmosphere of conformity. Today we spoke about the 2:22:17.879 --> 2:22:20.320 techniques employed by both left wing and right wing cults 2:22:20.800 --> 2:22:24.800 to maintain higher levels of conformity, activism, and intolerance among 2:22:24.879 --> 2:22:29.280 their members. I want to emphasize that our discussion doesn't 2:22:29.320 --> 2:22:33.320 imply that movements striving for societal change are inherently bound 2:22:33.320 --> 2:22:36.400 to become obscure cults. Those that are critical examination of 2:22:36.400 --> 2:22:41.039 modern society is not warranted. But it's important to remember 2:22:41.160 --> 2:22:44.840 that while our will challenges require political analysis in action, 2:22:45.680 --> 2:22:50.240 the organizations so we form to address these challenges must 2:22:50.320 --> 2:22:59.120 try to genuinely seek understanding and transformation while preserving the 2:22:59.400 --> 2:23:03.959 freedom and virtuality of its members. I said a lot 2:23:04.000 --> 2:23:08.760 to say, create a real community, not a cult. That's 2:23:08.760 --> 2:23:14.040 all until next time, I've been Andrew of Thetue channel Andrewism, 2:23:14.160 --> 2:23:19.640 and next we will be discussing the one and only 2:23:20.959 --> 2:23:44.680 the Loathsome then done, lers, peace welcomes it could happen here. 2:23:45.120 --> 2:23:48.720 I'm Andrew of YouTube channel Anturism, and last time I 2:23:48.800 --> 2:23:53.400 was on here discussing political cults generally. Today I'm here 2:23:53.640 --> 2:23:55.920 once again with Oh Garrison. 2:23:56.040 --> 2:23:59.640 Yes Hello. I am also here to talk about cults 2:24:00.440 --> 2:24:01.800 because Andrew told me to. 2:24:02.520 --> 2:24:07.160 Yes yes, and I'm the I'm the leader in this dynamic. 2:24:09.520 --> 2:24:11.520 In many ways, this zoom call is kind of a 2:24:11.520 --> 2:24:13.320 mini cult where you are the leader. 2:24:15.720 --> 2:24:19.000 There is nothing except this call. There's no outside world, 2:24:19.120 --> 2:24:21.120 there is no cut on your desk. It is just 2:24:22.040 --> 2:24:28.000 this the cult. The cat is a revisionist. So last 2:24:28.040 --> 2:24:32.720 episode we discussed how cults operate, essentially the roller coaster 2:24:33.080 --> 2:24:37.000 emotional ride that individual's experience during cult recruitment, where they're 2:24:37.000 --> 2:24:40.040 feelings and ideas are manipulated and they're drawn into an 2:24:40.040 --> 2:24:44.119 exclusive and isolating group. We explored the rigid belief system 2:24:44.200 --> 2:24:48.760 that's created, the immunity to falsifacation, the authoritarianism, arbitrary leadership, 2:24:49.080 --> 2:24:53.400 deification of leaders, intense activism, and the use of loaded language. 2:24:53.600 --> 2:24:58.520 We spoke about the contradictions within political cults and the 2:24:58.560 --> 2:25:03.879 conditions of ideologic called totalism. And today, as promised, we're 2:25:03.879 --> 2:25:06.800 going to look at one political cult leader in particular 2:25:07.280 --> 2:25:17.160 whose influence spanned left to right, self described Platonist, conspiracy theorist, 2:25:17.920 --> 2:25:22.240 the alleged targets of an assassination from Queen Elizabeth, A 2:25:22.440 --> 2:25:27.680 one Trotskyist, the one and only, the infamous, the loathsome 2:25:28.480 --> 2:25:30.039 Lyndon LaRouche. 2:25:30.879 --> 2:25:33.640 As soon as you said platonist, I knew we were 2:25:33.680 --> 2:25:37.960 in for just a horrible time, just just the worst. 2:25:38.400 --> 2:25:43.360 The only people who self describe as Platonists are the worst. Actually, 2:25:43.920 --> 2:25:46.480 the last person I knew who self described as a 2:25:46.480 --> 2:25:51.519 Platonist was the target of an assassination because it was 2:25:51.120 --> 2:26:05.879 the daughter of Alexander Dugan was an. 2:26:00.080 --> 2:26:01.680 Interesting cast of characters. 2:26:02.200 --> 2:26:02.600 Indeed. 2:26:02.640 --> 2:26:04.400 Indeed, and speaking of. 2:26:04.440 --> 2:26:06.560 Cast of characters, by the way, I should note that 2:26:06.760 --> 2:26:10.440 Tim wall Fourth, one of the co authors of the book, 2:26:10.560 --> 2:26:13.280 that this research was based on the book being on 2:26:13.320 --> 2:26:16.520 the edge particular cults left and right. Tim Warre Fourth, 2:26:16.680 --> 2:26:21.520 the other authors tenant is Dennis Turrish was a Trotskyist 2:26:21.720 --> 2:26:29.119 called leader at one point like cult underling or whatever, 2:26:29.959 --> 2:26:32.200 but he was kicked out and then he later co 2:26:32.320 --> 2:26:35.680 authored this book to call out some of their cultish tenancies. 2:26:35.800 --> 2:26:39.400 If you need that sort of backstory to take some 2:26:39.440 --> 2:26:41.640 of this with the green of salt. So be it, because, 2:26:41.760 --> 2:26:44.520 as far as I can tell, Tim war Fourth and 2:26:45.200 --> 2:26:48.760 Lynn laruche actually crossed paths at one point. 2:26:49.400 --> 2:26:52.280 Interesting, So, as always. 2:26:52.000 --> 2:26:54.440 Let's start from the beginning and get an early portrait 2:26:54.520 --> 2:26:58.480 of this guy. Laroche was born in Rochester, New Hampshire 2:26:58.600 --> 2:27:03.160 in nineteen twenty two, then moved to Lynn, Massachusetts. He 2:27:03.280 --> 2:27:06.000 was the oldest of three children in a Quaker home 2:27:06.400 --> 2:27:08.560 who eventually his father would be expelled from the local 2:27:08.640 --> 2:27:12.560 Quaker community for his alleged misuse of funds. He then 2:27:12.560 --> 2:27:16.280 briefly attended Northeastern University in Boston and left in nineteen 2:27:16.360 --> 2:27:19.800 forty two, at least partly because he believed his teachers 2:27:19.920 --> 2:27:23.600 quote lacked the competence to teach him on conditions he 2:27:23.720 --> 2:27:24.760 was willing to tolerate. 2:27:26.000 --> 2:27:31.160 Sure, sure, I'll take his first word on that one. Yeah. Yeah. 2:27:31.240 --> 2:27:34.480 At first, he was a conscientious objector to enlist when 2:27:34.520 --> 2:27:37.760 in World War Two because you know, Quaker, and instead 2:27:37.760 --> 2:27:41.480 he joined a civilian public service camp in what is 2:27:41.560 --> 2:27:44.480 what you know, which is what conscientious objectors did at 2:27:44.480 --> 2:27:47.640 the time. But eventually he would enlist with the US 2:27:47.760 --> 2:27:50.560 Army and serve with the Medical Corps in India and 2:27:50.600 --> 2:27:54.200 boomer which is now mianma Yea. In nineteen forty six, 2:27:54.280 --> 2:27:58.320 aboard the s S. General Bradley Don Morrill met the 2:27:58.360 --> 2:28:01.160 young soldier in LaRouche and got into it with him 2:28:01.160 --> 2:28:04.800 about politics and particularly the political optimism of the post 2:28:04.800 --> 2:28:08.440 World War two era what a time, the revolutionary spirit 2:28:08.640 --> 2:28:13.000 of the Indian subcontinent, and socialist ideas more broadly, Now 2:28:13.200 --> 2:28:16.680 Larushe was already sympathetic towards Marx and Trotsky at this point. 2:28:17.280 --> 2:28:20.240 In fact, even in his preteens, he was a voracious 2:28:20.240 --> 2:28:25.360 reader of philosophy, particularly of the German polymath Godfred Wilhelm 2:28:25.720 --> 2:28:33.120 von leibnizbut leibnizbut or however that is pronounced. But ultimately, 2:28:33.200 --> 2:28:36.960 by the time they returned to America, Laruche was a Trotskyist. 2:28:38.600 --> 2:28:41.240 In brief, For those unaware, a Trotskyist is someone who 2:28:41.440 --> 2:28:44.880 hears the principles and politics of Leon Trotsky, who was 2:28:44.920 --> 2:28:47.680 a prominent figure in the early Soviet Union and a 2:28:47.800 --> 2:28:50.720 key figure in the what I would call co optation 2:28:51.720 --> 2:28:56.359 of the Russian Revolution of nineteen seventeen. Trotskyism is distinct 2:28:56.440 --> 2:29:01.480 from mainstream Leninist and particularly Stalinist thought. Most famously for 2:29:01.520 --> 2:29:04.519 their rejection of socialism in one country and their advocacy 2:29:04.560 --> 2:29:08.680 of permanent revolution. By the time l Aruche had returned 2:29:08.680 --> 2:29:11.840 home in nineteen forty seven, he joined his hometown Lynn, 2:29:11.879 --> 2:29:16.240 Massachusetts chapter of the Socialist Workers' Party s WP, which 2:29:16.280 --> 2:29:21.520 was the main American Trotskyist group. Interestingly, he took on 2:29:21.600 --> 2:29:25.280 a party name which really reminds me of how religious 2:29:25.280 --> 2:29:30.440 missionaries would give those they converted quote Christian names baptism. Yeah, 2:29:30.480 --> 2:29:34.720 so his party name was Lynn Marcus. You could just 2:29:34.720 --> 2:29:37.080 see it as a pseudonym for political work. Of course. 2:29:37.200 --> 2:29:39.640 I mean, the CIA and the FBI were very active 2:29:40.200 --> 2:29:43.960 in infiltrating these sorts of groups, So I understand having 2:29:44.080 --> 2:29:47.080 like a pseudonym. But I mean, considering we're talking about 2:29:47.080 --> 2:29:50.000 cul tendencies and political movements, I couldn't pass up on 2:29:50.040 --> 2:29:50.680 that observation. 2:29:50.879 --> 2:29:51.080 You know. 2:29:52.160 --> 2:29:55.240 Don Morrill, who was also from Lynn, Massachusetts, was also 2:29:55.320 --> 2:29:58.440 part of the SWP and very active in their union 2:29:58.640 --> 2:30:04.000 organized and activities. Laroucheo not so much. He was very 2:30:04.240 --> 2:30:08.600 intellectually oriented. He wasn't very into the union scene, and 2:30:08.640 --> 2:30:11.879 he eventually left Massachusetts nineteen fifty two and settled down 2:30:11.920 --> 2:30:15.440 in New York. City, He got married, he had a son, 2:30:15.800 --> 2:30:18.640 and he was focused in his career as an economic 2:30:18.640 --> 2:30:22.320 consultant in the shoe industry, with a nice, nice apartment 2:30:22.400 --> 2:30:25.199 in Central Park West. He didn't really have any ties 2:30:25.240 --> 2:30:30.360 to the working class efforts at the WP. So what now? Well, 2:30:30.959 --> 2:30:34.440 eventually he and his wife separated and he moved in 2:30:34.480 --> 2:30:38.480 with a fellow s WP member known sometimes as Carol White, 2:30:39.000 --> 2:30:44.920 sometimes as Carol Schnitzer, and sometimes as Carol Larabie. And 2:30:44.959 --> 2:30:49.400 then he decided that the WP leadership had the wrong idea. 2:30:50.200 --> 2:30:53.360 Why are they so obsessed with union organizing? Perhaps he 2:30:53.360 --> 2:30:56.760 should be the one calling the shots. You have to 2:30:56.840 --> 2:31:00.320 understand something about Laruche. You see a little involvement or 2:31:00.320 --> 2:31:04.360 connection to actual working class struggle, and disconnection. You see 2:31:04.520 --> 2:31:08.080 with little involvement or connection to actual working class struggle 2:31:08.400 --> 2:31:11.879 and disconnection from the party's activity. He had already begun 2:31:11.959 --> 2:31:14.760 making a right word shift, even while still bearing the 2:31:14.760 --> 2:31:19.400 banner of leftism. As an intellectual, he loved his books, 2:31:19.800 --> 2:31:25.080 including Marxist Capital, Rota Luxembourg's The Accumulation of Capital and 2:31:25.200 --> 2:31:31.199 Hegeld's Logic, and his intellectualism naturally fed into his elitism, 2:31:31.840 --> 2:31:35.360 Drawing from Lenin's What is to be Done? Laruche believes 2:31:35.360 --> 2:31:38.280 that a select intellectual group, which I mean he was 2:31:38.360 --> 2:31:43.840 clearly a part of, these professional revolutionaries held a pivotal 2:31:43.959 --> 2:31:47.240 role in transforming society, would their task being to gain 2:31:47.360 --> 2:31:53.160 dominance over the less intellectually developed masses. He also borrowed 2:31:53.200 --> 2:31:57.640 from Gramachi's idea of hergemony. He saw himself in competition 2:31:58.240 --> 2:32:01.320 with other intellectuals on the left for leadership over the 2:32:01.360 --> 2:32:05.280 hearts and minds of the dummy masses to undermine the 2:32:05.280 --> 2:32:09.240 capitalists hold on the working class. But unlike Gramsche, he 2:32:09.280 --> 2:32:11.760 didn't believe the working class was capable of developing its 2:32:11.760 --> 2:32:16.400 own leaders. He was that leader, and he also borrowed 2:32:16.400 --> 2:32:21.879 from George Lucas's concept of class consciousness and the importance 2:32:22.040 --> 2:32:26.840 of thinkers. Lush wasn't just a thinker. He saw himself 2:32:26.879 --> 2:32:30.800 as the thinker, the one who would take power and 2:32:30.920 --> 2:32:34.760 lead the masses to freedom. So he was fed up 2:32:35.080 --> 2:32:39.640 with the s WP limiting his clearly elite intellect and ability, 2:32:40.320 --> 2:32:43.400 and so in nineteen sixty five he left and joined 2:32:43.400 --> 2:32:46.440 a small Trotskise group called the American Committee for the 2:32:46.480 --> 2:32:51.840 Fourth International YES, associated with George Healey, who was another 2:32:51.920 --> 2:32:53.160 left wing cult leader. 2:32:55.680 --> 2:32:58.240 At a lot of left wing cults came out of 2:32:58.280 --> 2:33:01.879 the Fourth International, some of which are very cool, some 2:33:02.000 --> 2:33:03.680 of which are not very. 2:33:03.440 --> 2:33:08.640 Cool indeed, indeed, but guess what, he didn't like the 2:33:08.640 --> 2:33:10.840 Fourth International. He only stayed there for six months. And 2:33:10.920 --> 2:33:14.840 apparently he Ley did not even like him. I mean, 2:33:14.879 --> 2:33:16.039 I wonder why, right. 2:33:16.760 --> 2:33:18.640 I don't know. I mean, he seems like a very 2:33:18.920 --> 2:33:19.800 agreeable fellow. 2:33:20.680 --> 2:33:22.840 And not only that, I mean, when have you ever 2:33:22.879 --> 2:33:25.640 heard of cult leaders getting along? You know, cur leaders 2:33:25.640 --> 2:33:27.879 sent to view other cult leaders as threats to their 2:33:27.879 --> 2:33:28.640 total control. 2:33:28.720 --> 2:33:31.000 You know, it would be funny if there was just 2:33:31.040 --> 2:33:34.360 like a conference for cult leaders to like share like 2:33:34.520 --> 2:33:36.520 tactics and they all have like dinner together. 2:33:38.760 --> 2:33:39.320 Yeah. 2:33:39.840 --> 2:33:42.160 So laruche bus out to that party, and he joined 2:33:42.160 --> 2:33:45.360 the spart Issy League, which was another trot party, and 2:33:45.400 --> 2:33:48.400 again he didn't stay for too long. He decided he 2:33:48.480 --> 2:33:51.400 was going to put all those factions and leaders behind 2:33:51.440 --> 2:33:59.600 him and declared himself the pioneer of the Fifth INTERNATIONALE. So, 2:33:59.640 --> 2:34:03.279 for those unaware, the First Workers International from eighteen sixty 2:34:03.280 --> 2:34:06.119 four to eighteen seventy six was a coalition of labor 2:34:06.160 --> 2:34:09.800 and socialist groups seeking to promote workers' rights and international solidarity. 2:34:10.560 --> 2:34:15.080 It split because of the irreconcilable differences and divisions between 2:34:15.080 --> 2:34:20.039 the statists and the anarchists. Then in eighteen eighty nine 2:34:20.360 --> 2:34:24.360 and from then unto nineteen sixteen, the Second Internationale was born. 2:34:24.760 --> 2:34:28.080 That was an organization of socialist and labor parties, this 2:34:28.240 --> 2:34:31.560 time no anarchists allowed, and it was aimed at fostering 2:34:31.680 --> 2:34:35.120 cooperation among socialist globally, until it dissolved due to the 2:34:35.160 --> 2:34:38.920 divisions related to World War One. And then in nineteen nineteen, 2:34:39.680 --> 2:34:43.600 the Soviet Union founded the Third International or the Common 2:34:43.680 --> 2:34:48.440 Turn to promote worldwide communist revolution and aid communist parties, 2:34:49.120 --> 2:34:51.040 but then it dissolved during World War Two due to 2:34:51.080 --> 2:34:55.280 the Soviet German tensions, among other things. And then in 2:34:55.360 --> 2:34:59.640 nineteen thirty eight Trotsky, who was marginalized and persecuted by 2:34:59.680 --> 2:35:04.320 Stylar and founded the Fourth International as an oppositional alternative 2:35:04.360 --> 2:35:08.920 to the stalent dominated Commentarn. Technically the Fourth International is 2:35:08.920 --> 2:35:13.480 still active today, but it's always been fairly irrelevant beyond 2:35:13.560 --> 2:35:17.720 small bickerent sects and ever splinter in splinter groups and 2:35:18.000 --> 2:35:21.040 more than one political cult. So for a Trotskyist like 2:35:21.120 --> 2:35:24.600 Laruge to declare a fifth International is like, you know, 2:35:24.640 --> 2:35:26.880 here we go again. How is it going to matage? 2:35:26.920 --> 2:35:31.840 Do this? Nineteen sixty eight picture this a room with 2:35:31.840 --> 2:35:35.920 about phility students sitting on the floor, all eyes fixed 2:35:35.959 --> 2:35:39.280 on Lyndon LaRouche. After playing a major role in the 2:35:39.280 --> 2:35:43.720 student strike at Columbia University, these students were totally invested 2:35:43.800 --> 2:35:47.400 in this man's every word. They were part of the 2:35:47.560 --> 2:35:53.440 National Caucus of Labor Committees lc NCLC, which was affiliated 2:35:53.440 --> 2:35:58.080 with the Students for Democratic Society SDS. Laruche held this 2:35:58.200 --> 2:36:01.600 meeting for a whole seven hours, that's longer than a 2:36:01.680 --> 2:36:08.800 too service, and he blended discussions of tactics with educational presentations. 2:36:10.040 --> 2:36:12.840 The SDS had a lot of spirit and action, but 2:36:12.920 --> 2:36:15.240 Larush believed that they were a bit short on theory, 2:36:15.360 --> 2:36:17.720 so he was there to fill that void and earn 2:36:17.760 --> 2:36:21.320 a bit more. The gathering marked the early stages of 2:36:21.320 --> 2:36:25.040 Wild lad become a political cult center around Laruge, where 2:36:25.080 --> 2:36:28.640 he served as an intellectual and political gurup, training his 2:36:28.680 --> 2:36:32.840 followers as devoted disciples. He had a particular knack for 2:36:32.879 --> 2:36:34.879 me making his disciples feel like they were part of 2:36:34.879 --> 2:36:37.760 an elite club. They believe they were the only ones 2:36:37.760 --> 2:36:40.720 who truly understood the era they were in and had 2:36:40.800 --> 2:36:44.720 all the answers to fix society's problems. In nineteen seventy, 2:36:45.160 --> 2:36:48.160 Larush wrote that you should start with recruiting and educating 2:36:48.480 --> 2:36:53.760 a revolutionary intelligenzia, mainly young intellectuals like these student radicals, 2:36:54.200 --> 2:36:57.480 rather than the working class, because again Laruge thought the 2:36:57.480 --> 2:37:01.160 working class was stipid. He wanted easily to recruits to 2:37:01.240 --> 2:37:06.080 commit to intensive study and activism, particularly of his interpretation 2:37:06.120 --> 2:37:09.600 of ideas. So they need the charge. And I remember 2:37:09.640 --> 2:37:13.439 at this point Larush's pushing a right wing form of Trotskyism. 2:37:14.360 --> 2:37:17.000 Like Marx, he believed that capitalism how to keep crowing 2:37:17.040 --> 2:37:19.400 to stay alive. Once it hits his limits, it will 2:37:19.400 --> 2:37:22.840 grow into crisis mode and eventually collapse. You also shared 2:37:22.840 --> 2:37:26.520 Mark's idea that human activity should be all about progress, 2:37:26.879 --> 2:37:29.240 particularly the growth of the world's productive forces. 2:37:30.000 --> 2:37:33.879 Do you know who's organizing the next International? Actually right now, 2:37:33.959 --> 2:37:36.320 right now, it is in fact that the products and 2:37:36.320 --> 2:37:40.680 services that sponsor this podcast, So they're making the great 2:37:40.680 --> 2:37:44.840 shift the same way anarchism was expunged from the Second International, 2:37:45.200 --> 2:37:48.560 Now communism is going to be expunged from this this 2:37:48.640 --> 2:37:51.400 next upcoming international, and it's just going to be capitalists. 2:37:51.560 --> 2:37:55.080 So here, here, here are the sponsors organizing the next, 2:37:55.400 --> 2:37:56.560 the next International. 2:37:58.160 --> 2:38:02.120 Marx thought capitalism was just a phase in human society, 2:38:02.640 --> 2:38:05.280 as crises would pave the way for a working class revolution, 2:38:05.720 --> 2:38:10.040 which would lead to socialism. Under socialism, the productive forces 2:38:10.080 --> 2:38:15.080 would flourish without those pesky capitalist constraints. LaRouche came up 2:38:15.080 --> 2:38:19.160 with something he called the theory of re industrialization. He 2:38:19.200 --> 2:38:23.240 claimed that capitalism, in its third stage of imperialism, needed 2:38:23.320 --> 2:38:27.160 fresh opportunities for capital investment. They even predicted that if 2:38:27.240 --> 2:38:30.200 world leaders did not follow his advice, the system was 2:38:30.240 --> 2:38:34.640 on the brink of collapse. Only he and his trained 2:38:34.680 --> 2:38:39.160 followers under his lead could prevent this catastrophe. By the 2:38:39.240 --> 2:38:42.280 late sixties and early seventies, members were giving up their 2:38:42.400 --> 2:38:45.200 jobs and devoting themselves wholly to the cause and the 2:38:45.280 --> 2:38:49.560 leadership of Laruche. They were convinced that the world had 2:38:49.600 --> 2:38:53.959 all the resources needed for an incredible economic transformation. But 2:38:54.000 --> 2:38:57.320 they saw a big problem. They thought the nation's leaders 2:38:57.400 --> 2:39:01.280 were clueless, and of course they didn't think too highly 2:39:01.320 --> 2:39:05.800 the masses. So their solution was getting Linden and Laruze 2:39:05.920 --> 2:39:11.160 Junior into power or whether he's a junior. But their 2:39:11.200 --> 2:39:14.640 solution was getting Linden Laruz junior into power as soon 2:39:14.840 --> 2:39:18.720 as possible, and then he would lead the trade unions 2:39:18.879 --> 2:39:23.360 that take over America. He expected their support and if 2:39:23.360 --> 2:39:26.560 they were slacking in their activism, he would call them out. 2:39:26.920 --> 2:39:29.640 Borrowing from the confrontational therapy with the new age for 2:39:29.760 --> 2:39:34.960 psychology cults, l Roush began holding ego stripping sessions. Anyone 2:39:35.000 --> 2:39:38.040 who failed in a political task was subjected to pure 2:39:38.040 --> 2:39:41.920 psychological terror as everyone attacked them and tore apart their 2:39:41.959 --> 2:39:44.760 past and personal life in front of the whole group. 2:39:45.360 --> 2:39:50.560 And because cults, and because cults and sex and inevitable 2:39:50.560 --> 2:39:54.640 combination like madness and badness, Larush also launched a campaign 2:39:54.760 --> 2:40:01.360 against the sexual impotence of his membership. Apparently Carol left 2:40:01.440 --> 2:40:05.360 him for a disciple of the movement. Interesting his name 2:40:05.400 --> 2:40:08.640 was Christopher White, and they went to England to set 2:40:08.720 --> 2:40:13.280 up a chapter of the NCLC. So that's probably why 2:40:13.320 --> 2:40:17.000 he got a little bit unhinged. But that's not the 2:40:17.000 --> 2:40:21.240 worst of it. I can't not mention Operation mop Up. 2:40:22.600 --> 2:40:26.560 In nineteen seventy three, Laruge fully shifted the group's political 2:40:26.560 --> 2:40:30.840 stands from being far left to far right. Armed with bats, 2:40:30.959 --> 2:40:35.040 chains and martial arts, scale, his supporters physically attacked members 2:40:35.040 --> 2:40:38.240 of the Socialist Workers' Party and the Communist Party for 2:40:38.360 --> 2:40:40.800 He declared that he intended to wipe these rival parties 2:40:40.840 --> 2:40:43.280 off the map, going as far as to threaten their 2:40:43.320 --> 2:40:48.400 families as well. But it didn't stop there. He extended 2:40:48.400 --> 2:40:51.400 his attacks to groups like the Revolutionary Communist Party, the 2:40:51.440 --> 2:40:56.200 October League, and the Progressive Labor Party. Essentially, laruche want 2:40:56.240 --> 2:41:01.280 to establish dominance through these physical confrontations. There were at 2:41:01.360 --> 2:41:05.480 least sixty reported assaults during this time, and the whole 2:41:05.480 --> 2:41:08.840 operation only ended when the police stepped in and arrested 2:41:08.840 --> 2:41:14.240 some of Lucia's followers. Interestingly, though, there weren't any convictions, 2:41:15.160 --> 2:41:18.240 and Larush insisted that his people will only acted in 2:41:18.280 --> 2:41:21.400 self defense. But here's where it gets a little bit mookier. 2:41:22.160 --> 2:41:27.360 Journalist and Laruse biographer Dennis King suggested that the FBI 2:41:28.040 --> 2:41:30.199 may have played a role in stirring up trouble among 2:41:30.240 --> 2:41:34.600 these groups. We have used tactics like sending anonymous mailings 2:41:34.600 --> 2:41:37.880 to keep these groups in each other's throats, so you know, 2:41:38.200 --> 2:41:39.080 plot thickens. 2:41:39.280 --> 2:41:42.480 Yeah, I mean that way that was very typical kind 2:41:42.480 --> 2:41:45.520 of contal pro stuff that was happening around this time 2:41:45.560 --> 2:41:48.120 period that would not surprise me. 2:41:48.879 --> 2:41:52.120 Yeah, it's safe to say though, in this period of 2:41:52.200 --> 2:41:55.199 Larusi's life, all the folks on the left were wondering 2:41:55.240 --> 2:41:58.800 if he was really still one of their own. Back 2:41:58.920 --> 2:42:08.840 nineteen seventy three, Carol and Christopher, like I said, they 2:42:08.840 --> 2:42:11.440 were going to the UK to set up their own 2:42:11.560 --> 2:42:16.360 version of the NCLC, But then the Rush called them 2:42:16.360 --> 2:42:19.920 back to the US for a national conference, and during 2:42:19.920 --> 2:42:26.039 the flight, Christopher lost it. He started yelling that the 2:42:26.080 --> 2:42:30.240 CIA had plans to off lwer By and the Rouche, 2:42:31.040 --> 2:42:36.840 Carol Larbie and the Rush. The plane was an utter chaos. 2:42:37.360 --> 2:42:40.240 So Carol reached out to the rouge and they decided 2:42:40.280 --> 2:42:47.000 to work together to d program Christopher. What we mean 2:42:47.360 --> 2:42:51.279 deprogrammed Christopher? I'm glad you asked. 2:42:53.480 --> 2:42:57.160 I think we have mentioned called d programming before, kind 2:42:57.160 --> 2:43:00.360 of been passing, but never too much on it. 2:43:00.400 --> 2:43:04.120 I think yes. What I mean in this instance though, 2:43:04.320 --> 2:43:07.960 is not that they were trying to inculcate him into 2:43:07.959 --> 2:43:13.240 the cult or deprogram him from mainstream ideology. You see 2:43:13.560 --> 2:43:17.760 in his rantins and ravens on the plane Christopher claimed 2:43:17.840 --> 2:43:21.560 he was a Manchurian candidate who had been tortured by 2:43:21.560 --> 2:43:25.440 the CIA and British intelligence in a London basement. He 2:43:25.520 --> 2:43:28.320 then said he was programmed to do some stuff like 2:43:28.640 --> 2:43:32.320 often his wife and setting up Laruge for a watery 2:43:32.360 --> 2:43:38.720 demise by Cuban and exile frogmen. So that's the kind 2:43:38.760 --> 2:43:42.720 of deprogram and they intended to carry out. 2:43:44.120 --> 2:43:49.120 Hmmm, I have some notes, but I suppose I'll just 2:43:49.200 --> 2:43:50.200 let them do their thing. 2:43:51.240 --> 2:43:53.920 Yeah, yeah, So Christopher was saying that he was a 2:43:53.959 --> 2:43:57.360 Manchurian candidate, and so then the whole group was in 2:43:57.360 --> 2:44:03.160 a frenzy. Laruge and his disciples were released in statements 2:44:03.240 --> 2:44:06.280 left and right, training their members and how to spot 2:44:06.520 --> 2:44:12.360 other Manchurian candidates and how to handle CIA torture. And 2:44:12.640 --> 2:44:15.800 here's why I guess really crazy. One of the members, 2:44:16.400 --> 2:44:22.680 Alice Weitzman, she made a critical mistake in a political cult. 2:44:24.280 --> 2:44:29.680 She doubted. She didn't believe the whole CIA story that 2:44:29.760 --> 2:44:34.200 Christopher was pushing, and Larus didn't like that she didn't believe, 2:44:35.200 --> 2:44:38.560 and so Larush was like, oh, you don't believe that 2:44:38.600 --> 2:44:41.879 the CIA is infiltrating us right now, then you must 2:44:41.959 --> 2:44:46.640 be a Cia agent, so he sends a squad of 2:44:46.680 --> 2:44:51.000 six members of his cult to Weisman's apartment and they 2:44:51.040 --> 2:44:55.520 held her a hostage and cranked up Beaethovern music to 2:44:55.680 --> 2:45:03.080 deafening levels. Why because Laruche believed that Beethoven's tunes could 2:45:03.080 --> 2:45:10.720 somehow deprogram Manchurian candidates. Wizman managed to toss out a 2:45:10.800 --> 2:45:13.120 note through the window and a passerby picked it up 2:45:13.160 --> 2:45:16.400 and alerted the police, so she was rescued, but then 2:45:16.600 --> 2:45:23.320 she chose not to press charges against her captives. Larusha 2:45:23.320 --> 2:45:27.520 turned this party at this point, with one thousand members 2:45:27.560 --> 2:45:30.280 in three seven offices in North America and twenty six 2:45:30.360 --> 2:45:34.320 in Europe and Latin America, into an extreme right, anti 2:45:34.320 --> 2:45:39.199 Semitic organization, despite the presence of Jewish members. In fact, 2:45:39.920 --> 2:45:45.440 Carol herself was Jewish and she stuck around Dennis King. 2:45:45.520 --> 2:45:50.000 The biographer's were called earlier found a deep connection between 2:45:50.040 --> 2:45:54.359 LaRouche and fascist and United groups. In the early eighties, 2:45:54.440 --> 2:45:59.080 Laruche used a Strategic Defense Initiative or star Wars to 2:45:59.080 --> 2:46:03.320 bring together fright forces from Europe and America. He was 2:46:03.320 --> 2:46:09.760 even promoting like Revanism and defending Nazi war criminals, and 2:46:09.800 --> 2:46:13.400 he was known for blending his usual conspiracy theories with 2:46:13.480 --> 2:46:18.359 anti Semitism, particularly towards the British. He blamed the Rothschild 2:46:18.520 --> 2:46:23.600 for running Great Britain, and he was a typical Holocaust denier. Yeah, 2:46:24.760 --> 2:46:28.760 I really, I generally wonder why Carol left him, but 2:46:28.800 --> 2:46:32.040 I also wonder why she stuck around in the group anyway. 2:46:33.520 --> 2:46:37.200 The Anti Defamation League labeled the Rushes NCLC as the 2:46:37.280 --> 2:46:41.440 closest thing to an American fascist party, and well that 2:46:41.520 --> 2:46:45.000 begs the question what was life like in that party? 2:46:45.480 --> 2:46:45.760 Yeah? 2:46:45.840 --> 2:46:49.879 I mean I remember you Garrison describing a good party 2:46:50.720 --> 2:46:51.000 as a. 2:46:51.040 --> 2:46:55.960 Color well, and see, I think part of part of 2:46:56.000 --> 2:46:58.840 the problem is when you know, a house party turns 2:46:58.879 --> 2:47:01.680 into a political party and then. 2:47:01.280 --> 2:47:06.240 To a fascist party. Yeah, but never ends. Yeah. So 2:47:06.320 --> 2:47:09.120 Larush was using these really sneaky tactics to drive a 2:47:09.120 --> 2:47:13.480 wedge between Laruge members and their families, partners, and spouses. 2:47:15.080 --> 2:47:18.920 There were members of Larusiu's elite who convinced one person 2:47:19.160 --> 2:47:22.240 that their own dad was laundering money secretly for the 2:47:22.280 --> 2:47:26.920 drug trade. This organization was telling their members where they 2:47:26.959 --> 2:47:30.279 could live, what car to buy, when to quit their jobs, 2:47:30.480 --> 2:47:33.160 what they should read, what they should watch, how to 2:47:33.440 --> 2:47:36.360 scam their parents out of money, how and when to 2:47:36.400 --> 2:47:38.080 break up with their partners. 2:47:40.000 --> 2:47:40.880 Yeah, that's all. 2:47:42.720 --> 2:47:45.240 And then while all this is going on, Larush movement 2:47:45.280 --> 2:47:48.640 is also swapping out the red flags of Trotskyism for 2:47:48.760 --> 2:47:52.480 good old or red, white and blue. Members were soon 2:47:52.720 --> 2:47:58.400 educated with the ideas of Alexander Hamilton, right, oh god. 2:47:58.840 --> 2:48:02.160 Hamilton's economic seats were basically the American version of what 2:48:02.240 --> 2:48:05.959 Marx represented in Europe, according to l Aruge. And forget 2:48:05.959 --> 2:48:09.119 about Marx. They're not reading Marx anymore now, they're reading 2:48:09.200 --> 2:48:13.600 Plato and Dante. In nineteen eighty they even told the 2:48:13.640 --> 2:48:18.000 members to vote for Reagan. Yeah, cool stuff, cool stuff, 2:48:18.040 --> 2:48:18.680 cool stuff. 2:48:19.040 --> 2:48:24.160 No, they dropped their left noted a platonist philosopher, Ronald Reagan. 2:48:25.040 --> 2:48:27.959 Yeah, they basically dropped any veneer of left leaning in 2:48:28.000 --> 2:48:30.680 their recreupment tactics. And then they started doing things like 2:48:30.720 --> 2:48:36.520 soliciting people at airports and bus terminals. And these members 2:48:36.520 --> 2:48:38.959 they were caught in this whirlwind. They didn't have time 2:48:39.000 --> 2:48:41.360 to read, to think, to get a decent night's sleep. 2:48:41.720 --> 2:48:45.040 They were working twelve hour shifts and getting paid peanuts, 2:48:45.080 --> 2:48:47.039 like one hundred dollars one hundred and twenty five dollars 2:48:47.120 --> 2:48:49.400 a week, and sometimes they'd even get paid at all. 2:48:50.080 --> 2:48:53.400 They were in a constant state of mobilization, living an 2:48:53.440 --> 2:48:57.800 adrenaline ready for anything, And finally, in nineteen eighty one, 2:48:58.280 --> 2:49:00.840 around three hundred and six hundred people they had had 2:49:01.000 --> 2:49:05.200 enough and left the organization. Some of them were formal leftists, 2:49:05.240 --> 2:49:09.120 but not all. Those who stuck around the die hard 2:49:09.160 --> 2:49:15.360 cult members completely under Larushe's control. Would it surprise you, 2:49:15.400 --> 2:49:18.400 gusn to learn that the Rushe was a scammer? 2:49:19.400 --> 2:49:25.080 Oh? You're saying that the person involved in running the 2:49:25.120 --> 2:49:30.000 cult was also a prolific grifter and someone who tried 2:49:30.040 --> 2:49:32.920 to scam other people. Are really really Yeah. 2:49:32.959 --> 2:49:35.280 A lot of people don't know this, but cult leaders 2:49:35.280 --> 2:49:39.600 and scammers actually go hand in hand. Ah yeah, yeah. 2:49:39.840 --> 2:49:42.959 Larush was a master of operating through a network of 2:49:43.040 --> 2:49:48.440 front organizations. He created the Fusion Energy Foundation, getting support 2:49:48.440 --> 2:49:52.560 from nuclear and aerospace industries to run a private intelligence 2:49:52.600 --> 2:49:56.160 to this focusing on terrorists and drug cartels. Get this. 2:49:56.720 --> 2:49:59.760 He even met with top officials from the National Security 2:49:59.800 --> 2:50:02.840 com SO and the CIA in the eighties, despite his 2:50:02.920 --> 2:50:06.600 parannoying about the CIA, and he somehow managed to get 2:50:06.720 --> 2:50:08.440 White House access. 2:50:08.760 --> 2:50:13.920 What Yeah? Why? How? 2:50:15.879 --> 2:50:20.080 Yeah? He eventually infiltrated the Democratic Party and ran for 2:50:20.160 --> 2:50:24.200 president several times, and he launched the Proposition sixty four 2:50:24.200 --> 2:50:28.120 initiative in California in the eighties, Aiman to impose strict 2:50:28.160 --> 2:50:32.360 public health policies for AIDS, which public health officials rejected. 2:50:33.280 --> 2:50:35.920 But basically he was instrumental and spreading a lot of 2:50:36.040 --> 2:50:39.480 unnecessary fear about AIDS. In fact, he was advocating for 2:50:39.640 --> 2:50:42.160 lynch mobs to deal with the AIDE crisis. 2:50:42.520 --> 2:50:45.440 Oh so he wasn't like spreading good health information when 2:50:45.440 --> 2:50:48.640 everyone was ignoring the problem. He was being like, we should, 2:50:48.680 --> 2:50:49.760 we should just killed everybody. 2:50:50.480 --> 2:50:51.320 Yeah, pretty much? 2:50:51.480 --> 2:50:54.320 Okay, I got h But you. 2:50:54.280 --> 2:50:57.800 Know, every scammer has their day, and one of his 2:50:57.879 --> 2:51:01.840 scams got him in the pen. You see, LaRouche had 2:51:01.879 --> 2:51:04.480 a knack for recruit in the offspring of the wealthy 2:51:04.920 --> 2:51:08.560 and separating them from their money, to put it euphemistically. 2:51:09.840 --> 2:51:15.359 One of his most famous recruits was Louis DuPont Smith 2:51:15.879 --> 2:51:20.440 a DuPont here that DuPont, who gave a whop in 2:51:20.640 --> 2:51:24.320 two hundred and twelve thousand dollars to Laruge. He even 2:51:24.400 --> 2:51:29.040 moved close to Laruge, but Eventually, the DuPont family intervened, 2:51:29.440 --> 2:51:31.640 had him declared mentally ill, and put him on a 2:51:31.720 --> 2:51:36.520 monthly stipend. Still, Laruche was making a royal bank. His 2:51:36.640 --> 2:51:39.640 empire was growing. He had one hundred and seventy two 2:51:39.680 --> 2:51:43.280 acre estate in Virginia serving as his center of operations, 2:51:43.600 --> 2:51:47.760 which had phone banks, offices, a printing plant guarded twenty 2:51:47.800 --> 2:51:51.720 four to seven by armed individuals. But the Empire of 2:51:51.800 --> 2:51:56.720 LaRouche eventually went into a decline. This lust for publicity 2:51:56.840 --> 2:52:00.400 caught the attention of the public and federal officials, and 2:52:00.440 --> 2:52:03.320 his phone bank operator started to make an unauthorized credit 2:52:03.320 --> 2:52:04.359 card withdrawals. 2:52:04.560 --> 2:52:08.000 I mean he he was like going to the White House. 2:52:08.800 --> 2:52:12.360 How did he how did he try to like stay 2:52:12.480 --> 2:52:16.560 under the federal radar? He was literally in the in 2:52:17.240 --> 2:52:21.720 the one spot, the one place exactly exactly. 2:52:23.160 --> 2:52:26.879 It's it's it's baffling, But Dennis Kidding has a book 2:52:26.920 --> 2:52:30.400 all about it, so you could check it out. In 2:52:30.480 --> 2:52:34.119 nineteen eighty seven, he faced a trial on credit card 2:52:34.200 --> 2:52:38.880 fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice, which ended in a mistrial. 2:52:39.720 --> 2:52:42.480 Then a subsequent trial convicted him out in various charges, 2:52:42.520 --> 2:52:45.000 and he ended up in a federal penitentiary in nineteen 2:52:45.000 --> 2:52:49.039 eighty nine. And what do all great cult leaders, or 2:52:49.040 --> 2:52:51.119 what do many great cult leaders do on the in jail? 2:52:52.959 --> 2:52:54.720 Some of them write book books? 2:52:55.120 --> 2:52:59.720 Yeah, all right, all right, I'm back on now, Okay. 2:53:00.600 --> 2:53:04.039 So Laruci decides to write a book called In Defense 2:53:04.080 --> 2:53:09.759 of Common Sense. It's a mix of obscure geometric illustrations, 2:53:10.360 --> 2:53:15.400 a passionate defense of Platonism, attributes to the seventeenth century 2:53:15.400 --> 2:53:20.760 astronomer Johannes Kepler, and some heavy denunciations of philosophers like 2:53:20.840 --> 2:53:24.160 Kan't and most philosophers post Plato. In fact, as far 2:53:24.200 --> 2:53:28.160 as larus was concerned, every philosopher after Plato sucked. 2:53:28.680 --> 2:53:31.720 That's so funny, that's really funny. 2:53:32.280 --> 2:53:37.039 Incredibly, But at its core his book In Defense of 2:53:37.040 --> 2:53:43.359 Common Sense was Laruche restating his modernist, somehow marks inspired worldview. 2:53:44.440 --> 2:53:48.560 We argue that scientific and technological progress set humanity apart 2:53:48.600 --> 2:53:51.720 from all other creatures, and it naturally leads to increased 2:53:51.760 --> 2:53:55.400 population density. In Larucia's eyes, there's no room for any 2:53:55.560 --> 2:53:58.800 entropic view that suggests a limit to human technology and 2:53:58.840 --> 2:54:03.800 population growth. He even coined the term negantropic to advocate 2:54:03.840 --> 2:54:09.600 for ongoing industrial and population expansion no matter what. All right, 2:54:09.640 --> 2:54:12.920 But so then if you didn't, okay, maybe you listen 2:54:13.040 --> 2:54:14.760 to this and you're like, none of this is all 2:54:14.959 --> 2:54:19.160 dramatic and wild or whatever. Here's where it gets even wilder. 2:54:19.200 --> 2:54:21.680 This is where we get to the intersection of Lynn 2:54:21.840 --> 2:54:28.080 Laruche and Elon Musk that we colonize Mars. 2:54:28.520 --> 2:54:33.440 Well, I mean, honestly the whole his other what was 2:54:33.480 --> 2:54:39.240 the term he just said, like neutra, Yeah, that that 2:54:39.440 --> 2:54:44.240 is pretty similar to Musk's ideology as well, though pretty much. 2:54:44.480 --> 2:54:50.360 Yeah, And so LaRue says, let's go, let's colonize Mars, 2:54:50.440 --> 2:54:53.160 and what's that's done? In about forty years according to 2:54:53.240 --> 2:54:58.000 his estimation, then his philosophical standpoint will clearly rule all 2:54:58.000 --> 2:55:02.600 of humanity for all of time. But while the Rushes 2:55:02.720 --> 2:55:07.080 deep in thought behind bars his followers, they're not twiddling 2:55:07.080 --> 2:55:10.800 their thumbs. They joined forces with other anti war demonstrators 2:55:10.840 --> 2:55:15.760 to oppose the Gulf War in nineteen ninety nineteen ninety one. 2:55:15.840 --> 2:55:17.760 And you know, it's interesting to note that the NCLC 2:55:18.040 --> 2:55:19.959 was not the only voice from the right among those 2:55:20.000 --> 2:55:25.600 left wing demonstrators. Pat Buchanan, the Populist Party, the Liberty Lobby, 2:55:25.680 --> 2:55:28.320 and other ultra right and other ultra right and new 2:55:28.400 --> 2:55:32.400 isolationist groups formed a sort of united front with elements 2:55:32.440 --> 2:55:35.120 of the left in terms of that opposition to the 2:55:35.120 --> 2:55:41.200 Gulf War and Laruche was eventually released on parole in 2:55:41.280 --> 2:55:45.480 nineteen ninety four. By nineteen ninety eight, during the economic crisis, 2:55:46.200 --> 2:55:52.240 the Rush was demanding that Bill Clinton appoint him immediately 2:55:53.160 --> 2:55:54.519 as an economic advisor. 2:55:54.840 --> 2:55:57.320 Sounds like a good idea. Yeah, no, he seems he 2:55:57.360 --> 2:55:58.960 seems well qualified. 2:55:59.280 --> 2:56:02.959 And I code it was now time to abandon crisis 2:56:03.000 --> 2:56:08.199 management and Chili shaian. In other words, democracy. Laruge believed 2:56:08.280 --> 2:56:12.959 in the inherent tendency of popular opinion toward mediocrity. The 2:56:13.080 --> 2:56:16.680 very tendency to rely upon collective decisions rather than decisions 2:56:16.680 --> 2:56:21.200 based upon voundation of principle is itself a wellspring of mediocrity, 2:56:21.879 --> 2:56:25.400 he fully explained to proposed as symbol of virtual ravel 2:56:25.440 --> 2:56:29.320 of decision makers, usually featuring those parties who are still 2:56:29.400 --> 2:56:32.359 advocates of the policies which have caused and advocated the crisis. 2:56:32.720 --> 2:56:35.840 Is scarcely a noble enterprise nor a fruitful one. Some 2:56:36.000 --> 2:56:39.959 relatively few in the position to influence directives must preempt 2:56:39.959 --> 2:56:42.800 the situation. Just in case there should be any question 2:56:42.959 --> 2:56:46.720 as to Larush's concept of governance, he declared China to 2:56:46.760 --> 2:56:48.920 be probably one of the best governments in the world 2:56:48.959 --> 2:56:52.000 today in terms of quality of leadership, the kind of 2:56:52.080 --> 2:56:57.240 leadership required to get through crisis. Laruche, like Mussolini and 2:56:57.280 --> 2:57:02.760 Hitler before him, borrowed from marx and unchanged his theories completely. 2:57:03.600 --> 2:57:03.840 Yeah. 2:57:03.920 --> 2:57:08.040 Yeah, Marxist internationalist outclook was abandoned in favor of the 2:57:08.160 --> 2:57:11.600 nation state. Marxist goal of abolish and capitalism was replaced 2:57:11.640 --> 2:57:15.959 by a model of a tutalitarian state that is still 2:57:16.360 --> 2:57:20.840 primarily in the hands of private corporations and their owners, who, 2:57:20.879 --> 2:57:24.760 by the way, would have to take orders from the rouge. Now. 2:57:24.920 --> 2:57:31.920 Hitler called his national so his schema national socialist socialism. 2:57:32.720 --> 2:57:34.240 Interesting, curious. 2:57:34.959 --> 2:57:37.879 Larusha was a fan, but he was like, you know, 2:57:37.920 --> 2:57:41.240 let's add a little spice, let's give it some American branded. 2:57:41.360 --> 2:57:46.600 So Larush called his system and ideology the American system. 2:57:46.720 --> 2:57:49.200 It's a little bit less catchy, I gotta say. 2:57:50.720 --> 2:57:53.640 I mean, that's that's the story of than the rush. 2:57:54.320 --> 2:57:59.480 He died, obviously, most people do. There's there's only a 2:57:59.480 --> 2:58:03.800 few that have not died. Enoch and I think I think, 2:58:03.840 --> 2:58:07.039 like one or two others, but most people, most people 2:58:07.080 --> 2:58:08.440 do do in fact die. 2:58:08.920 --> 2:58:13.320 Yeah. Yeah, he was really quite the guy. He died 2:58:13.320 --> 2:58:14.879 into on the nineteen by. 2:58:14.720 --> 2:58:17.320 The way, Oh no, that that recent. 2:58:18.160 --> 2:58:20.039 Yeah, yeah, he lived a really long time. He had 2:58:20.120 --> 2:58:22.680 lived for a hundred years for Crownald Load did. 2:58:22.560 --> 2:58:26.920 Not realize he was still kicking around so so recently. 2:58:27.480 --> 2:58:33.320 Yeah, gone too soon him a right, yeah, yeah, absolutely, 2:58:34.720 --> 2:58:36.959 at least at least now he's in heaven with Ruth 2:58:37.000 --> 2:58:37.720 Bader Ginsburg. 2:58:37.760 --> 2:58:39.520 That's that's yeah, that's why. 2:58:39.800 --> 2:58:40.880 Why do the good die young? 2:58:41.120 --> 2:58:41.320 You know? 2:58:43.600 --> 2:58:45.040 Oh, he was just a kid. 2:58:48.200 --> 2:58:51.720 So as we conclude our journey and the enigmatic will 2:58:51.760 --> 2:58:54.400 live in the Rouge, I think we left with more 2:58:54.480 --> 2:59:00.080 questions and answers. How did a man on the fringe 2:59:00.200 --> 2:59:03.720 of radical politics end up in the White House? 2:59:04.640 --> 2:59:07.160 Yeah? That is that is That is one question I 2:59:07.200 --> 2:59:11.280 actually still have thinking about is what were the conditions 2:59:11.360 --> 2:59:13.959 to his White House visits and. 2:59:13.840 --> 2:59:17.080 What led to his transformation from a committed leftist to 2:59:17.440 --> 2:59:19.039 a fascist. I mean I think we could see the 2:59:19.080 --> 2:59:19.520 science of. 2:59:19.480 --> 2:59:21.560 That, right ear yeah, yes, yeah. 2:59:21.600 --> 2:59:25.640 In the sixties, the Rouge displayed egotism and hints of instability, 2:59:25.760 --> 2:59:30.760 but he was also an intelligent individual who attracted serious intellectuals. 2:59:31.720 --> 2:59:37.560 His ideas, well sometimes peculiar, were generally rational, but it 2:59:37.640 --> 2:59:40.400 was the adulation of students allowed him to gather a 2:59:40.560 --> 2:59:45.640 following around his ideas and personality. The collapse of student 2:59:45.720 --> 2:59:48.080 radicalism the seventies that the stage from his shift from 2:59:48.160 --> 2:59:51.119 left to right and the unwavering loyalty of his followers 2:59:51.400 --> 2:59:55.160 likely reinforced his increasingly psychotic worldview and perception of his 2:59:55.280 --> 2:59:59.760 role in it. The Rush was convinced that he deserved worship, 3:00:00.840 --> 3:00:04.280 he was an intellect. He was fueled by his ideology 3:00:04.320 --> 3:00:08.960 of catastrophism that he as the elite, would play a 3:00:09.000 --> 3:00:14.400 significant role as see if You Have Humanity. The practices 3:00:14.440 --> 3:00:18.000 of his organization resembled many of the extreme religious thought 3:00:18.040 --> 3:00:18.800 control groups. 3:00:19.560 --> 3:00:19.720 UH. 3:00:20.440 --> 3:00:23.840 The practice of ideological totalism is very clear, The authoritarian 3:00:23.879 --> 3:00:27.080 structure is very clear. The paranoia foster to create a 3:00:27.080 --> 3:00:30.160 clear boundaries in the group and the outside world don't 3:00:30.200 --> 3:00:30.560 be likely. 3:00:30.800 --> 3:00:39.160 L aruchease please and watch out for his wanna be 3:00:39.320 --> 3:00:43.640 is I feel like kle Morpins is the Laruche of 3:00:43.680 --> 3:00:44.359 this generation. 3:00:44.840 --> 3:00:48.200 I mean yeah, I mean I hope I don't see 3:00:48.240 --> 3:00:54.480 Marpin getting invited to the White House anytime soon, nor 3:00:54.520 --> 3:00:59.720 other characters like Chairman Bob. Yeah, I don't know. We 3:00:59.800 --> 3:01:02.520 live a different time. I think because of how the 3:01:02.560 --> 3:01:05.880 Internet works, there's a lot there's there's much more cult 3:01:05.959 --> 3:01:08.760 leaders just dispersed everywhere all the time. 3:01:09.440 --> 3:01:13.520 But it's almost it's almost the democratization of cult leadership. 3:01:14.040 --> 3:01:17.040 Yeah, but it's also made them more or less isolated 3:01:17.200 --> 3:01:21.280 to the Internet with occasional flare ups in the real world, 3:01:21.440 --> 3:01:25.160 which kind of which kind of limits their engagement with 3:01:25.240 --> 3:01:27.199 you know, normal people, so to speak. 3:01:28.080 --> 3:01:32.000 Yeah, it's kind of help cults, right, they can't even 3:01:32.000 --> 3:01:33.880 communicate with people outside of them anymore. 3:01:34.200 --> 3:01:36.480 Yeah, And I think part of part of that is 3:01:36.480 --> 3:01:39.600 definitely happening here on on on on the Internet, where 3:01:39.760 --> 3:01:43.720 there's just so many of them that they they're all 3:01:43.840 --> 3:01:47.280 very small, they're all very isolated, and they don't ever 3:01:47.320 --> 3:01:49.240 really break out of their bubble, which which you know 3:01:49.360 --> 3:01:52.000 is common with with with a lot of a lot 3:01:52.040 --> 3:01:52.440 of cults. 3:01:52.520 --> 3:01:52.640 Right. 3:01:52.920 --> 3:01:55.760 The ones that we only really know about or hear 3:01:55.800 --> 3:01:58.440 about are the ones that you know, ended up doing 3:01:58.480 --> 3:02:01.959 some bigger, big, horrific think at some point, you know, 3:02:02.080 --> 3:02:05.520 in that that generated you know a lot of eyeballs 3:02:05.560 --> 3:02:08.800 on them. But for every for every Heaven's Gate, there's like, 3:02:09.360 --> 3:02:11.840 you know, a dozen new age cults that just fly 3:02:12.200 --> 3:02:15.680 right under the radar that are still like horribly horribly abusive. 3:02:16.040 --> 3:02:20.000 They just yeah, they just they just might not be 3:02:20.040 --> 3:02:23.840 tied to like a horrific act of like mass murder 3:02:23.920 --> 3:02:24.800 and mass suicide. 3:02:25.200 --> 3:02:27.920 That's a scary thoughts. You know how many cults have 3:02:28.000 --> 3:02:30.920 not yet broken containment as it were. 3:02:32.160 --> 3:02:36.200 Yeah, yeah, it's uh, it's a fun time to to 3:02:36.360 --> 3:02:38.240 be alive, surely. 3:02:38.240 --> 3:02:42.039 Indeed, So yeah, I mean, I hope I hope that 3:02:42.120 --> 3:02:47.480 the bodiuns has enjoyed this cautionary tale, a reminder of 3:02:47.560 --> 3:02:52.520 the profound and sometimes dangerous paths the ideology can take 3:02:52.520 --> 3:02:58.439 individuals and groups. Done once again, and Andrew and Andres, 3:02:59.440 --> 3:03:03.199 this is Garrison of Garrison of myself. 3:03:03.280 --> 3:03:23.520 Yes, and this has been in happening peace, Welcome to Dick. 3:03:23.560 --> 3:03:27.080 It happened here a podcast being recorded in the like 3:03:27.480 --> 3:03:31.560 last hours of Halloween in in the the I guess 3:03:31.600 --> 3:03:35.400 the closing minutes of a teacher is in Portland not 3:03:35.520 --> 3:03:37.959 being on strike. So yeah, this is this is a 3:03:37.959 --> 3:03:40.640 podcast that is often about strikes and here to talk 3:03:40.680 --> 3:03:42.920 with me about this is Britney Doris, who's a fifth 3:03:42.920 --> 3:03:45.960 grade teacher in Portland public schools, who's the union captain 3:03:46.000 --> 3:03:49.119 for her school and the strike captain also for her school. Brittany, 3:03:49.120 --> 3:03:49.879 welcome to the show. 3:03:50.600 --> 3:03:51.720 Hi, glad to be here. 3:03:52.480 --> 3:03:56.120 I'm really glad to talk to you. So all right, 3:03:56.160 --> 3:03:59.200 we are we are in we are in zero hour. Yeah, 3:03:59.240 --> 3:04:01.160 we're in the zero the strike by the time this 3:04:01.240 --> 3:04:03.120 comes out, like, I guess you have been on strike 3:04:03.160 --> 3:04:08.240 for like two days, yeah, assuming it's comes off Friday. Yeah, 3:04:08.320 --> 3:04:12.119 So all right. I think the place we should start 3:04:12.160 --> 3:04:14.879 probably for people who are not in Portland, people who 3:04:14.879 --> 3:04:18.119 haven't been following this. I guess we should start with 3:04:18.240 --> 3:04:21.760 what are the sort of conditions that have led to this. 3:04:21.879 --> 3:04:25.920 I have heard some absolutely wild things about what's happening 3:04:26.400 --> 3:04:27.560 for the schools right now. 3:04:27.640 --> 3:04:34.240 So how did we give here? Yeah, we've been negotiating 3:04:34.280 --> 3:04:38.959 or bargaining this contract for over a year and pushing 3:04:39.120 --> 3:04:43.400 for circumstances that are just better suited for our students. 3:04:44.120 --> 3:04:47.480 Some of our classrooms that we're dealing with situations like 3:04:47.920 --> 3:04:53.760 rodents and mold, and still some buildings dealing with lead 3:04:53.840 --> 3:04:59.600 in their water. Extreme temperatures, like class sizes are huge, 3:04:59.640 --> 3:05:04.000 but different depending on where you're at in the city. Like, 3:05:04.080 --> 3:05:09.800 we've just been overcompensating with less since the pandemic times, 3:05:10.280 --> 3:05:12.960 and we're fed up, we're not able to do it anymore. 3:05:13.080 --> 3:05:16.720 And yeah, we're strike ready. 3:05:17.080 --> 3:05:20.200 Yeah, And I mean this is something, this is, this 3:05:20.280 --> 3:05:22.400 is this is I think a pretty interesting set of 3:05:22.440 --> 3:05:26.000 circumstances because my understanding and okay, so don't quote me 3:05:26.040 --> 3:05:30.680 on this. I'm pretty sure that the last time that 3:05:30.760 --> 3:05:33.800 Portland teachers went on strike was in the like actually 3:05:34.200 --> 3:05:36.680 ended up striking and not just doing this strike authorization 3:05:36.800 --> 3:05:39.440 vote was the was was during the eighties, so it 3:05:39.520 --> 3:05:42.360 has been it has been a really long time. 3:05:42.760 --> 3:05:44.240 It's literal lifetime. 3:05:45.120 --> 3:05:46.920 Yeah, it's like I was not I was like two 3:05:47.040 --> 3:05:50.080 of my lifetimes effectively, like I was on a line 3:05:50.120 --> 3:05:50.400 for this. 3:05:50.560 --> 3:05:56.240 So yeah, I think we're seeing that shift happen nationwide. 3:05:56.440 --> 3:06:00.400 That education has been continuously public education and has been 3:06:00.440 --> 3:06:05.520 continuously chipped away at and eroded over the last few decades, 3:06:05.760 --> 3:06:08.959 and more and more responsibility has put on the been 3:06:09.000 --> 3:06:12.440 put on the backs of teachers, and we are not 3:06:12.720 --> 3:06:19.080 able to function under this workload, under these conditions and 3:06:19.240 --> 3:06:25.480 without increased support for the educators as well. So I 3:06:25.520 --> 3:06:28.080 think this is the culmination of kind of years and 3:06:28.160 --> 3:06:33.119 years of disinvestment in public education nationwide, and so you're 3:06:33.200 --> 3:06:37.800 seeing a lot more strikes, educational strikes coming up throughout 3:06:37.800 --> 3:06:41.039 the country, and particularly for Portland's history. Like you said, 3:06:41.040 --> 3:06:44.920 it's if Portland public schools have striked in the past, 3:06:45.000 --> 3:06:48.200 it's been literal decades, not in my lifetime, not in 3:06:48.240 --> 3:06:54.240 your lifetime, and just the continued frustration of decades of struggle. 3:06:56.160 --> 3:06:59.000 Yeah, and I mean, as from what I've heard from 3:06:59.080 --> 3:07:01.640 from people in this so the line that I got 3:07:01.720 --> 3:07:05.280 was that janitors were being told that the standard they 3:07:05.320 --> 3:07:09.039 were supposed to clean schools too was quote moderately dingy. 3:07:09.760 --> 3:07:11.680 So things seemed not good. 3:07:12.520 --> 3:07:17.720 Yeah, it's rough. There's there's rodents everywhere. Our custodial workers 3:07:17.720 --> 3:07:21.879 are already worked to the limit and understaffed, and so 3:07:22.000 --> 3:07:24.920 our buildings show. I mean, the school that I work 3:07:24.920 --> 3:07:27.480 in is over one hundred and ten years old, and 3:07:27.720 --> 3:07:31.240 you can tell it's not being up kept and students 3:07:31.240 --> 3:07:35.039 are suffering. The conditions are, like you said, dingy, a 3:07:35.160 --> 3:07:40.240 moderate level of approved dinginess supposedly, and that's gross. 3:07:41.720 --> 3:07:44.520 Yeah, and I mean so I've heard that complains a lot. 3:07:44.680 --> 3:07:46.600 I mean, I like, when I was in school, we 3:07:46.640 --> 3:07:48.880 only had one we had well, I mean there might 3:07:48.879 --> 3:07:51.080 have been more. There probably were more rats we didn't see. 3:07:51.080 --> 3:07:53.200 We had one drowned rat fall out of a ceiling, 3:07:53.560 --> 3:07:55.800 but that was it. It was. We were limited to 3:07:55.959 --> 3:07:58.000 one rat for four years. And I feel I feel 3:07:58.040 --> 3:08:00.280 like that's the maximum number of rats that you should 3:08:00.320 --> 3:08:06.240 encounter is maybe one. Because it's kind of funny, but yeah, yeah. 3:08:05.800 --> 3:08:08.600 And these are class pets, like these aren't no the 3:08:08.680 --> 3:08:11.120 mice and rats that you're using in a science class 3:08:11.320 --> 3:08:15.280 or keeping as the class pet in the corner like. 3:08:15.320 --> 3:08:19.920 Ooh yeah, and the other I guess. I guess The 3:08:19.920 --> 3:08:22.520 next thing that I wanted to talk about is class sizes, 3:08:22.600 --> 3:08:24.360 because I know, I mean, this is a very people 3:08:24.400 --> 3:08:28.560 have been like talking about this for ages, and it's 3:08:28.640 --> 3:08:32.240 it's something that's really I feel like it's weird negotiating wise, 3:08:32.360 --> 3:08:34.560 because and this is something I see all the time. 3:08:34.560 --> 3:08:37.519 The school dishesh will be like, well, like the admin 3:08:37.600 --> 3:08:39.440 will be oh, well, yeah, of course you want like 3:08:39.480 --> 3:08:42.360 smaller class sizes, and then they just won't do it. 3:08:43.640 --> 3:08:45.119 So yeah, can you talk about. 3:08:45.080 --> 3:08:49.920 Yeah, here's something that's really burning my biscuit. Our district 3:08:49.959 --> 3:08:53.800 management continues to tell our community and the press that 3:08:53.879 --> 3:08:57.080 our average class size is twenty three students at the 3:08:57.160 --> 3:09:00.920 elementary level, and the problem with that stick is that 3:09:00.959 --> 3:09:03.320 they are doing a ratio based on the adults in 3:09:03.360 --> 3:09:06.440 the building. So, for example, we have a learning coach. 3:09:06.720 --> 3:09:09.520 Uh huh. We have a learning coach who works with 3:09:09.680 --> 3:09:12.320 children in small groups throughout the building, but she herself 3:09:12.360 --> 3:09:16.480 is not a rostered classroom teacher, but she is put 3:09:16.680 --> 3:09:20.080 into that equation so that it looks like our classes 3:09:20.160 --> 3:09:23.160 on average are twenty three when the reality is very different. 3:09:23.200 --> 3:09:26.480 The music teacher doesn't count, the learning coach doesn't count. 3:09:26.560 --> 3:09:29.600 But in the math that the district is like that 3:09:29.640 --> 3:09:32.440 math ain't math in my class is thirty four kids. 3:09:32.640 --> 3:09:34.880 You're telling the public that the average is twenty three, 3:09:34.920 --> 3:09:38.600 and it's just not true because you're including adults in 3:09:38.640 --> 3:09:41.840 the building who aren't the host classroom teacher. 3:09:42.360 --> 3:09:45.840 Yeah, which is that's just that's just absurd, Like, I mean, 3:09:46.200 --> 3:09:48.480 you have to know that you're lying in order to 3:09:48.520 --> 3:09:52.360 create that statistic, Like that's a uh. 3:09:52.400 --> 3:09:54.480 And you know it is true that there are some 3:09:55.000 --> 3:09:58.039 classes around the district that are small I had a 3:09:58.160 --> 3:10:00.760 miracle of a class last year that was two kids. 3:10:00.879 --> 3:10:03.480 That coport was just small that you know, they weren't 3:10:03.520 --> 3:10:06.360 having as many babies eleven years ago. I don't know. Yah, 3:10:06.480 --> 3:10:09.560 But this year, this year, I have thirty four and 3:10:09.640 --> 3:10:13.199 the year prior so not last year, but the twenty 3:10:13.280 --> 3:10:16.959 twenty two year I had thirty two and thirty four 3:10:17.040 --> 3:10:20.880 kids is unsustainable, especially because I have the twenty two 3:10:20.920 --> 3:10:24.080 to compare it to. I am very aware of how 3:10:24.160 --> 3:10:28.480 little capacity I have for meeting their needs, for teaching, 3:10:28.760 --> 3:10:30.760 the wide range of levels that are in the class, 3:10:30.800 --> 3:10:32.920 even for checking in with kids. I can look out 3:10:32.959 --> 3:10:35.920 at my room at midday and think looking at a 3:10:36.000 --> 3:10:39.280 kid I don't know if I've talked to you, like, 3:10:39.600 --> 3:10:41.840 it's possible to go so under the radar when there 3:10:41.840 --> 3:10:43.560 are that many children to care for. 3:10:44.600 --> 3:10:46.320 Yeah, And I mean that's the difference. Is like it's 3:10:46.640 --> 3:10:50.640 like a forty percent class size increase right, Yeah, the year, 3:10:50.720 --> 3:10:51.840 which is nuts. 3:10:52.200 --> 3:10:54.480 And I can feel and it's having a significant impact 3:10:54.560 --> 3:10:56.720 on just my own well being and mental health this 3:10:56.760 --> 3:10:58.959 year because I know what it looks like to teach 3:10:59.000 --> 3:11:01.760 well and I know that I cannot currently do it 3:11:01.800 --> 3:11:04.640 with this many and it's hard. I last year, I 3:11:04.720 --> 3:11:07.000 wasn't feeling any symptoms of burnout at all. It's feeling 3:11:07.000 --> 3:11:10.800 really good, loving my job still. And this year, I'm like, oh, 3:11:11.360 --> 3:11:14.640 oh my gosh, I cannot keep up with this many kids, 3:11:15.120 --> 3:11:18.480 especially with you know, we've gotten even so as class 3:11:18.480 --> 3:11:21.760 sizes have increased, so have the needs of our students. Right, 3:11:21.800 --> 3:11:24.240 We're dealing with a lot more mental health issues. We're 3:11:24.280 --> 3:11:27.480 dealing with a wide range of neurodiversity that comes with 3:11:27.520 --> 3:11:32.800 different needs. And so it's that's the thirty four now 3:11:33.360 --> 3:11:37.560 is exponentially different than thirty four when we were young. 3:11:38.640 --> 3:11:42.240 It's it's intense, and it's unsustainable, and I'm living it 3:11:42.280 --> 3:11:42.800 every day. 3:11:43.560 --> 3:11:46.360 Yeah, And like you know, I think on an abstract level, 3:11:46.760 --> 3:11:51.039 like the district knows like that this sucks, right, but 3:11:51.080 --> 3:11:53.120 they just they don't fucking do anything about it. 3:11:53.120 --> 3:11:58.080 It's just right real, Yeah, And even to the level 3:11:58.080 --> 3:12:00.560 that we're able to bargain it, there are such as 3:12:00.600 --> 3:12:03.600 like permissive topics that we can or cannot bargain and 3:12:03.640 --> 3:12:06.640 things that we can bargain. And even in the strike 3:12:06.680 --> 3:12:10.199 that we are about to have, they continue to push 3:12:10.320 --> 3:12:13.720 back on the class cap request, saying that it is 3:12:13.760 --> 3:12:17.520 a permissive topic, and that it's class caps may only 3:12:17.560 --> 3:12:20.640 be applicable to what are called Title I schools, So 3:12:20.760 --> 3:12:24.320 schools where the population is more impacted by poverty, and 3:12:24.400 --> 3:12:28.640 so they're trying, like even trying to get small class 3:12:28.720 --> 3:12:32.000 sizes or smaller class sizes, knowing that it's a district 3:12:32.040 --> 3:12:36.360 wide issue may still only be successful for some parts 3:12:36.360 --> 3:12:37.119 of our district. 3:12:37.520 --> 3:12:43.760 Yeah, and that's that, ain't right, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, that's absurd. 3:12:44.560 --> 3:12:48.879 Yeah, Like, my classroom is incredibly diverse. We are not 3:12:49.000 --> 3:12:52.120 a Title one school. We are known for supposedly being 3:12:52.120 --> 3:12:54.880 in one of the more affluent areas, but even our 3:12:54.920 --> 3:12:58.879 neighborhood school that those demographics have continued to change, and 3:12:58.920 --> 3:13:02.760 we have many students that are experiencing poverty and experiencing 3:13:02.800 --> 3:13:07.200 some of the cultural pieces that go with that, the 3:13:07.640 --> 3:13:11.760 systemic impacts of that. Our students are living through trauma. 3:13:11.800 --> 3:13:16.240 Our students are experiencing adversity. Our students are experiencing racism 3:13:16.320 --> 3:13:21.160 and sexism and homophobia, and they are jam packed sardines 3:13:21.320 --> 3:13:26.480 in a overheated room with no supports. I'm the only 3:13:26.520 --> 3:13:29.160 adult in the room to support them. I have students 3:13:29.160 --> 3:13:32.240 with disabilities who aren't getting support from our SPED team. 3:13:32.240 --> 3:13:35.080 Because our SPED team is SPED stance for special education, 3:13:35.320 --> 3:13:38.959 our special educators are working with some younger grade students 3:13:38.959 --> 3:13:42.840 with even bigger needs. So my fifth graders with disabilities 3:13:42.879 --> 3:13:45.160 are getting completely left in the lurch. And it is 3:13:45.600 --> 3:13:51.360 my single body with all thirty four and we're floundering. 3:13:53.879 --> 3:13:57.320 Yeah, And I mean that's another of aspect of this 3:13:57.400 --> 3:14:02.480 that I think is really is really grim that all 3:14:02.520 --> 3:14:07.080 of these issues. It's like the kids you need the 3:14:07.120 --> 3:14:09.160 most help from the beginning are the people who are 3:14:09.160 --> 3:14:11.440 getting the most hurt by it, and right, you know, 3:14:11.680 --> 3:14:15.040 and those are the people who the education system is 3:14:15.080 --> 3:14:18.200 supposed to be taken care of and just cannot because 3:14:19.640 --> 3:14:24.400 you know, chronic understaffing, class sizes that are too large. 3:14:24.320 --> 3:14:27.840 Right, and it's especially painful. I've been teaching now for 3:14:27.920 --> 3:14:30.560 ten years and I am looking at this class right now. 3:14:30.600 --> 3:14:32.720 I have a student in my class who is a 3:14:32.720 --> 3:14:35.600 little black boy with a disability, and I'm looking at 3:14:35.680 --> 3:14:38.920 him knowing that I am not able to give him 3:14:38.920 --> 3:14:41.840 what he needs. And he is like the statistic that 3:14:41.879 --> 3:14:45.200 school districts want to put on their website, Like we got, 3:14:45.680 --> 3:14:49.480 you know, our marginalized populations. We've helped them, we've fit 3:14:49.520 --> 3:14:52.600 and like, here is a student that is the statistic 3:14:52.640 --> 3:14:56.560 that you supposedly are fighting for, and he is absolutely 3:14:56.600 --> 3:14:59.160 left out to dry and I am trying to do 3:14:59.200 --> 3:15:01.000 what I can for him, and he comes to mind, 3:15:01.080 --> 3:15:02.800 I picture him as I'll be out there on that 3:15:02.840 --> 3:15:04.960 picket line, like I am out there for that kid 3:15:05.560 --> 3:15:07.840 as well as his thirty three other classmates. But just 3:15:07.879 --> 3:15:12.200 like quint essential picture of who I'm fighting for and 3:15:12.240 --> 3:15:13.760 who is getting left behind? 3:15:15.520 --> 3:15:18.800 Yeah, which which? Which? I don't know? Like there there's 3:15:18.879 --> 3:15:21.440 there's I think there's something really grim in the way. 3:15:21.520 --> 3:15:23.400 And this is this is a you know, this this 3:15:23.440 --> 3:15:26.120 goes back to what you were talking about with the 3:15:26.160 --> 3:15:28.240 way that they're just straight up lying about the average 3:15:28.560 --> 3:15:32.360 the average class size. Where it's it really seems like 3:15:32.959 --> 3:15:35.560 these things have you know, the the actual process of 3:15:35.680 --> 3:15:39.480 education is being degraded into just this this sort of 3:15:39.520 --> 3:15:42.680 metric chasing game. And you know, as long as you 3:15:42.680 --> 3:15:45.440 have metrics that look good, you know, like the district 3:15:45.480 --> 3:15:47.600 is like, wow, okay, it's fine that like our students 3:15:47.640 --> 3:15:50.160 aren't equality of education they need. It's fine that they're 3:15:50.720 --> 3:15:54.640 in these buildings that are literally falling apart. It's fine 3:15:54.720 --> 3:15:56.520 that you know kids aren't getting what they need, like 3:15:56.560 --> 3:15:58.840 as long as the metrics look good and right. 3:15:58.959 --> 3:16:02.240 That's something something that gets me when we talk about 3:16:02.240 --> 3:16:06.880 those metrics. Knowing our superintendent gets a bonus if academically 3:16:07.000 --> 3:16:10.560 marginalized populations like our black and brown students, if they 3:16:10.720 --> 3:16:15.280 increase their performance on standardized tests, he gets a bonus. Now, 3:16:15.320 --> 3:16:17.640 what I have a problem with is that those standardized 3:16:17.640 --> 3:16:21.160 tests that we take every spring, there are some students 3:16:21.200 --> 3:16:25.360 that are so impacted by the school system that they 3:16:25.800 --> 3:16:28.959 may have attendance issues, they may not be there consistently 3:16:29.040 --> 3:16:32.440 in the spring to take those tests. So something I'm 3:16:32.440 --> 3:16:36.199 picturing a couple of my students who were impacted by poverty, 3:16:36.240 --> 3:16:40.160 were kids of color and were significantly absent due to 3:16:40.200 --> 3:16:43.600 what the circumstances of their life. Those students were not 3:16:43.680 --> 3:16:46.600 able to take that test in the spring. That means 3:16:46.640 --> 3:16:49.680 those students, those black and brown students, that data wasn't 3:16:49.720 --> 3:16:52.320 in those metrics. So even the metrics that are being 3:16:52.440 --> 3:16:54.800 used to measure whether or not we are successfully supporting 3:16:54.800 --> 3:16:58.600 our students of color are inaccurate because our most impacted 3:16:58.600 --> 3:17:03.119 students aren't able to take that assessment. Like his data, 3:17:03.280 --> 3:17:06.440 our superintendent's data is going to look better When some 3:17:06.480 --> 3:17:09.600 of the students who might tank that data because they 3:17:09.640 --> 3:17:12.200 are unsupported by the school system aren't there to be 3:17:12.240 --> 3:17:14.840 in the data because they're unsupported by the school system. 3:17:16.200 --> 3:17:17.640 It falls apart. 3:17:17.920 --> 3:17:19.520 And this is one of these things where it's like, 3:17:19.520 --> 3:17:22.959 the only way to change this is do is do 3:17:23.080 --> 3:17:26.039 union actions because like the school district's not going to 3:17:26.080 --> 3:17:28.640 do it, like their metrics look fine, right and right, 3:17:28.680 --> 3:17:29.920 you know, the government is not going to do it 3:17:29.959 --> 3:17:31.280 because they're not going to they don't want to spend 3:17:31.280 --> 3:17:33.600 more money. So this is this is the only way 3:17:33.640 --> 3:17:36.800 to actually Yeah. 3:17:36.120 --> 3:17:40.480 And I think we finally, I think have made a point. 3:17:40.560 --> 3:17:43.160 We are I mean, our union actions already have been 3:17:43.200 --> 3:17:46.440 building up a visible presence. We have massive community support 3:17:46.879 --> 3:17:48.959 from our not only our parent communities, but the greater 3:17:49.040 --> 3:17:52.199 Portland area. Business is coming out and support people joining 3:17:52.280 --> 3:17:54.840 us at like we had a massive march this Saturday 3:17:54.840 --> 3:17:58.320 where we took over the Burnside Bridge. And as our 3:17:58.400 --> 3:18:00.680 union actions build, we know that we are out there, 3:18:00.680 --> 3:18:03.879 we are not alone, and that we are feeling the 3:18:03.920 --> 3:18:06.480 support from the community and we are becoming a more 3:18:06.560 --> 3:18:11.000 visible presence, and especially in Portland, we are a massive union. 3:18:11.120 --> 3:18:13.760 Other unions around the state are looking at us and 3:18:13.840 --> 3:18:16.280 watching how this goes. And we can tell that the 3:18:16.320 --> 3:18:20.440 district management is scared. They are starting to send out 3:18:21.200 --> 3:18:24.920 emails to families that are meant to intimidate and panic 3:18:25.120 --> 3:18:29.320 and cause chaos. And we're seeing these defensive moves that 3:18:29.600 --> 3:18:31.320 are a reaction. 3:18:32.000 --> 3:18:33.400 Do you know who else is a hack and a 3:18:33.440 --> 3:18:35.760 fraud who didn't figure out a way to do an 3:18:35.800 --> 3:18:38.440 ad pivot here? It's the products and services that support 3:18:38.480 --> 3:18:39.199 this podcast. 3:18:39.680 --> 3:18:41.920 Yeah, speaking of businesses that support us. 3:18:43.879 --> 3:18:48.280 And we're back. Yeah, so you know, okay, So that 3:18:48.680 --> 3:18:51.080 those are those are two other dynamics that I sort 3:18:51.080 --> 3:18:54.640 of I wanted to get into. I guess first I 3:18:54.680 --> 3:18:57.040 want to talk about what the what the community support 3:18:57.040 --> 3:18:59.800 has looked like, what forthmore the unionses look like. And 3:19:00.000 --> 3:19:03.160 you know, how you've been engaging with parents, because I mean, 3:19:03.160 --> 3:19:05.080 that's been a big thing. So I'm from Chicago and 3:19:05.160 --> 3:19:07.360 so we have like a I mean not that long, 3:19:07.480 --> 3:19:10.440 like for the last about decade, the Chicago Teachers Union's 3:19:10.440 --> 3:19:13.080 been on strike a bunch of times, and it's yeah, 3:19:13.320 --> 3:19:16.039 like it really and the support of that and the 3:19:16.040 --> 3:19:19.000 engagement of that really is one of the few things 3:19:19.040 --> 3:19:21.400 us in making Chicago a better place. So I wanted 3:19:21.440 --> 3:19:23.240 to ask what that's looked like in Portland, because this 3:19:23.280 --> 3:19:27.879 is basically the first time for y'all. 3:19:26.480 --> 3:19:30.200 Right, and I know historically in Oregon we felt the 3:19:30.240 --> 3:19:33.480 support from our community, such as the Red for Ed 3:19:33.640 --> 3:19:36.040 movement a few years ago when we were really pushing 3:19:36.080 --> 3:19:40.400 for statewide reform and change in education policy. And here 3:19:40.440 --> 3:19:45.040 in Portland ever since, the seeds of our uprising were 3:19:45.040 --> 3:19:48.280 being planted knowing that we are on a collision course 3:19:48.320 --> 3:19:52.879 towards a strike based on how poorly the district management 3:19:52.920 --> 3:19:57.040 is bargaining with us, and so we started to build 3:19:57.200 --> 3:20:01.200 in that communication and enlist this part of our parent 3:20:01.240 --> 3:20:05.279 communities pretty early on by having info sessions, by talking about, 3:20:05.520 --> 3:20:08.640 you know, the community's wants and desires for their students, 3:20:09.879 --> 3:20:14.760 connecting with our schools, ptas, connecting with local businesses, especially 3:20:14.800 --> 3:20:17.800 as in the last month or so that we felt, okay, 3:20:17.840 --> 3:20:20.320 this is happening, we are about to strike. We need 3:20:20.360 --> 3:20:23.880 to connect with our communities in our school areas and 3:20:24.680 --> 3:20:26.600 see who's out there and if they have our back. 3:20:26.680 --> 3:20:31.560 And it's been really profound in grassroots organizing between the 3:20:31.600 --> 3:20:36.560 parents and the ptas, in tandem with our unions and 3:20:36.760 --> 3:20:40.160 from businesses around our school areas. We attended an event 3:20:40.240 --> 3:20:43.560 called Strike School to prepare and one of our missions 3:20:43.680 --> 3:20:48.039 was to check in with businesses and neighbors in the 3:20:48.080 --> 3:20:50.480 areas of our schools where we plan to be picketing 3:20:50.600 --> 3:20:52.400 and seeing, you know, where can we go to use 3:20:52.400 --> 3:20:54.720 a bathroom, where can we go to use a parking lot, 3:20:55.000 --> 3:20:58.359 and just making those connections, some of which already existed. 3:20:58.400 --> 3:21:01.680 Even though Portland hasn't had to strike, We've been very 3:21:01.680 --> 3:21:05.840 connected to our communities because the educators live in these communities. 3:21:05.920 --> 3:21:09.320 This is my community. Unlike some of the big wigs 3:21:09.360 --> 3:21:12.600 in the big pink building of management, like they are 3:21:12.600 --> 3:21:15.320 coming in and out in a few years. We're from here, 3:21:15.959 --> 3:21:18.760 we are here to stay, we are here to make 3:21:18.800 --> 3:21:21.240 those connections. So it was very easy to call upon 3:21:21.240 --> 3:21:23.640 those connections because we are the community. You know, we 3:21:23.680 --> 3:21:25.840 have a lot of union members that are parents. We 3:21:25.920 --> 3:21:28.040 have a lot of union members that are married to 3:21:28.520 --> 3:21:33.800 business owners in the area. We've Yeah, it's been it's 3:21:33.840 --> 3:21:37.520 been obvious who lives here, who's fighting for these kids 3:21:37.959 --> 3:21:39.520 because this is our community. 3:21:40.520 --> 3:21:43.800 Yeah, and you know, I mean, Portland's been a place 3:21:43.920 --> 3:21:46.520 where I think kind of beneath the notice of a 3:21:46.520 --> 3:21:48.840 lot of the national press. It's been one of the 3:21:48.879 --> 3:21:52.199 places where the most union organizing is happening and where 3:21:52.640 --> 3:21:56.960 the most strikes have been happening. And yeah, I was wondering, 3:21:57.080 --> 3:21:59.480 I mean, to what extent have y' all been influenced by? 3:21:59.720 --> 3:22:02.440 I mean both the sort of the just profusion of 3:22:02.440 --> 3:22:04.760 like local strikes and then also the kind of the 3:22:04.760 --> 3:22:06.160 bigger national strikes. 3:22:06.800 --> 3:22:09.400 Something really beautiful about living in Portland is that there 3:22:09.520 --> 3:22:15.560 is quite a bit of cross union solidarity, and like 3:22:15.600 --> 3:22:18.600 in the educational realm, we have a coalition of all 3:22:18.600 --> 3:22:21.760 of our unions that come together the certified teachers like 3:22:21.800 --> 3:22:25.280 my union pat as well as SCIU, the union that 3:22:25.360 --> 3:22:30.040 represents our custodial staff, as well as pfsp our Para educators, 3:22:30.040 --> 3:22:33.360 our nutritional staff, the bus drivers union, like, all of 3:22:33.400 --> 3:22:37.400 those unions come together and support each other. And in fact, 3:22:37.640 --> 3:22:40.800 in the educational realm of Portland, multiple unions are on 3:22:40.920 --> 3:22:45.240 the verge of striking in that they are having unsuccessful 3:22:45.240 --> 3:22:49.240 bargaining attempts. But then also with like the ups workers, 3:22:49.360 --> 3:22:54.879 with Kaiser pharmacies and the medical field, like, there is 3:22:54.959 --> 3:22:57.840 labor action all around Portland, and there's definitely a built 3:22:57.840 --> 3:23:01.800 in solidarity network from you unionity to union. Our union 3:23:01.920 --> 3:23:05.600 siblings are with us. We have been with them throughout 3:23:05.640 --> 3:23:08.560 the years. I think we do a really good job 3:23:08.600 --> 3:23:11.120 as a major city of wrapping around each other's unions 3:23:11.160 --> 3:23:15.959 and supporting big actions. And you know, Portland, when we 3:23:16.000 --> 3:23:19.520 do get national press, it is for how rambunctious our 3:23:19.600 --> 3:23:22.360 little city can be. And this is some of that 3:23:22.520 --> 3:23:25.400 good trouble that that John Lewis would want us. 3:23:25.360 --> 3:23:25.680 To get in. 3:23:26.840 --> 3:23:28.320 Yeah, And I mean this is something that you can 3:23:28.959 --> 3:23:30.880 I mean, so I was in Portland for like three 3:23:30.920 --> 3:23:34.400 weeks pretty like recently, and I mean you would just 3:23:34.640 --> 3:23:38.520 run like I was. I was at a hospital for long, 3:23:38.800 --> 3:23:40.560 long story about that, but I was at a hospital 3:23:40.600 --> 3:23:43.280 and like the first person we talked to is like 3:23:43.320 --> 3:23:46.039 as a receptionist, was like the union rep from the 3:23:46.120 --> 3:23:49.199 receptionist union. And then like we're talking to the nurses, 3:23:49.240 --> 3:23:50.920 and the nurses are like, oh, yeah, we just won 3:23:51.080 --> 3:23:52.879 our we just won our thingout having to go on 3:23:52.920 --> 3:23:55.240 strike because management cave. It's it's a really sort of 3:23:55.760 --> 3:23:59.080 incredible place to be in terms of like just just 3:23:59.560 --> 3:24:02.320 the energy and just like the amount of stuff that's 3:24:02.360 --> 3:24:05.199 happening there. It's really it's really sort of incredible. 3:24:05.520 --> 3:24:06.240 Very active. 3:24:07.280 --> 3:24:10.960 I guess the other side of this is that this 3:24:11.160 --> 3:24:14.400 we've also seen a lot of sort of management retaliation 3:24:14.520 --> 3:24:17.560 and crackdown attempts. And yeah, I was wondering if you 3:24:17.600 --> 3:24:20.640 talk about what management's been doing, because. 3:24:20.600 --> 3:24:25.600 Yeah, yeah, it's really ramped up in the last week 3:24:25.800 --> 3:24:28.120 or so as it is clear that this we are 3:24:28.160 --> 3:24:30.720 on our way to strike, especially when we ninety nine 3:24:30.760 --> 3:24:33.840 percent of the membership voted yes to a strike authorization. 3:24:34.240 --> 3:24:36.240 That sent a pretty clear message and I think it 3:24:36.360 --> 3:24:40.560 made district management panic a little. And we've received numerous 3:24:40.600 --> 3:24:45.320 emails to the parent community. They have for example, they 3:24:45.320 --> 3:24:49.880 are training tomorrow Thursday, the day of our strike beginning, 3:24:50.040 --> 3:24:54.160 or when on Wednesday, the day that the strike begins, 3:24:54.480 --> 3:24:58.800 they are training our parent professionals and eas in how 3:24:58.840 --> 3:25:03.200 to deliver vert ual phonics instruction. One of their moves 3:25:03.400 --> 3:25:06.920 was to cause panic in the families by sending emails 3:25:06.920 --> 3:25:09.640 home that say, your student, based on their test scores, 3:25:09.680 --> 3:25:12.160 is a struggling reader. Here's the plan should there be 3:25:12.200 --> 3:25:15.800 a school closure, that we're going to provide virtual learning opportunities. 3:25:16.080 --> 3:25:19.600 So immediately you've got parents in a panic emailing their 3:25:19.600 --> 3:25:22.920 teacher like my students struggling. Why didn't I know? And 3:25:22.959 --> 3:25:25.680 in many cases that was inaccurate. A second grade teacher 3:25:25.720 --> 3:25:28.360 at my school, every parent in her class got that email, 3:25:28.640 --> 3:25:31.200 and sure she has some struggling readers, but it is 3:25:31.240 --> 3:25:33.720 not every student. Why did every student's family get that 3:25:33.760 --> 3:25:38.320 email to cause panic, to cause fear, to cause intimidation, 3:25:39.000 --> 3:25:42.120 And so they also send out a big email trying 3:25:42.480 --> 3:25:45.240 that the technology team was coming into the buildings to 3:25:45.280 --> 3:25:47.879 collect all the chromebooks. Our students are one to one 3:25:47.879 --> 3:25:53.240 with chromebooks. They're pretty integral to our curriculum delivery and 3:25:53.280 --> 3:25:56.240 our instruction. And they started pulling them out in the 3:25:56.240 --> 3:25:58.360 middle of the workday, in the middle of the teaching day, 3:25:58.959 --> 3:26:01.840 from some of our youngestdu students, which was a visible 3:26:01.920 --> 3:26:04.120 thing in front of students. They're coming to collect them. 3:26:04.160 --> 3:26:07.760 It was unplanned. We had no warning. That again seemed 3:26:07.800 --> 3:26:10.520 to be kind of a panic move. We are trying 3:26:10.560 --> 3:26:14.720 to sew fear and intimidation, and we're taking your chromebooks 3:26:15.160 --> 3:26:17.680 and we're putting kids back in COVID times. 3:26:18.720 --> 3:26:21.240 That's just a terrible also, just like a terrible thing 3:26:21.320 --> 3:26:22.439 to do to a bunch. 3:26:22.160 --> 3:26:26.200 Of kids r like what Yeah, they're just coming to. 3:26:26.160 --> 3:26:28.560 Their room, just taking their stuff in front of everyone, 3:26:28.680 --> 3:26:29.680 Like what right. 3:26:30.200 --> 3:26:33.360 Especially in those younger grades, with no warning and like, well, 3:26:33.400 --> 3:26:35.520 we were supposed to have our tech time on Friday, 3:26:35.640 --> 3:26:38.560 like we had our routine and oh this this guy's 3:26:38.600 --> 3:26:41.400 coming in and taking all the chromebooks. Sorry kids, Yeah, 3:26:42.200 --> 3:26:43.480 not really having a ready answer. 3:26:44.320 --> 3:26:46.160 Yeah, it's like it's one of those things where it's 3:26:46.200 --> 3:26:48.320 like you can you can really tell, like who actually 3:26:48.360 --> 3:26:56.240 cares about the kids here, because it's just like yeah. 3:26:54.160 --> 3:26:56.200 And you know, management is trying to put out the 3:26:56.240 --> 3:26:59.400 message that teachers don't care about your kids. That's why 3:26:59.440 --> 3:27:01.640 they're willing to stop school and put your kids back 3:27:01.680 --> 3:27:04.720 at home again. It's bad, like the pandemic time, those 3:27:04.920 --> 3:27:07.960 those nasty teachers want your kids out of school. And 3:27:08.440 --> 3:27:11.920 you know, our point being that our students haven't been 3:27:11.920 --> 3:27:15.360 getting the learning that they deserve because of the current conditions. Yeah, 3:27:15.360 --> 3:27:19.600 that we've been under serving them already. We are walking 3:27:19.640 --> 3:27:22.160 out not because we don't care, but because we care 3:27:22.280 --> 3:27:25.480 so passionately that we aren't willing to stand for these 3:27:25.840 --> 3:27:27.640 subpar conditions any longer. 3:27:28.400 --> 3:27:30.560 And this is the thing I don't like I've seen 3:27:30.600 --> 3:27:33.080 a lot of teacher strikes in my city. I've seen 3:27:33.120 --> 3:27:34.800 a lot of teacher strikes. Naturally, I don't think I've 3:27:34.879 --> 3:27:37.800 ever seen and you know, and this isn't to say 3:27:37.800 --> 3:27:39.600 that I like, I don't think it would be justified 3:27:39.600 --> 3:27:42.240 for teachers to go on strike, like just because they're underpaid. 3:27:42.640 --> 3:27:46.840 Like everyone like has the right and possibly the obligation 3:27:46.920 --> 3:27:49.480 to go on strike for better conditions, but like that's 3:27:49.800 --> 3:27:53.720 not ever ever, I have never, at any point ever 3:27:53.800 --> 3:27:56.800 seen a teachers you to go on strike for reasons 3:27:56.800 --> 3:28:01.520 that words mostly about like mostly about improving things for 3:28:01.600 --> 3:28:04.560 their kids. And it's it's it's wold because you see 3:28:04.600 --> 3:28:06.280 this every like they do this in Chicago too. It's 3:28:06.320 --> 3:28:08.240 like every single time there's a strike, it's like, ah, 3:28:08.280 --> 3:28:10.320 the teachers like they hate they hate your kids. Is 3:28:10.320 --> 3:28:12.840 that they're like these like privilege overpaid people really like 3:28:12.879 --> 3:28:16.320 and it's like you guys, like you should you should 3:28:16.320 --> 3:28:19.480 like look at the admin salary sometime, like yes. 3:28:20.640 --> 3:28:26.039 Yeah, yeah, It's it's clear that there's a disconnect and 3:28:26.480 --> 3:28:30.440 as soon as there's a change in the weather, teachers 3:28:30.480 --> 3:28:32.480 go from being the hero to being the villain. And 3:28:32.520 --> 3:28:35.760 the fact that we are willing to go out on 3:28:35.800 --> 3:28:37.720 the streets and fight for our kids in the rain 3:28:38.240 --> 3:28:42.000 and the cold of Oregon winter. No, we're the villains. 3:28:42.200 --> 3:28:47.520 We are putting them all back in their COVID boxes like, yeah, 3:28:47.600 --> 3:28:48.120 that ain't it. 3:28:49.720 --> 3:28:53.440 Yeah that really sucks, Like I know, it's it's. 3:28:53.280 --> 3:28:57.720 Just, thankfully the negative kind of vitriol that we see 3:28:58.440 --> 3:29:03.039 mostly online where where the trolls live. It does seem 3:29:03.080 --> 3:29:05.520 to be like a loud minority. As with any form 3:29:05.560 --> 3:29:08.879 of trolling or counter you know, we do hear from 3:29:08.920 --> 3:29:11.879 community members that have more legitimate concerns, but they are 3:29:12.240 --> 3:29:15.600 I'm really supportive. I'm a little worried about this one aspect, 3:29:15.720 --> 3:29:17.720 but I'm with you guys, you know, and that's valid. 3:29:17.760 --> 3:29:20.160 I told my students as we were getting ready to 3:29:20.280 --> 3:29:23.720 go home for the long weekend quote unquote, you know 3:29:23.760 --> 3:29:25.959 that it is okay to feel a variety of emotions 3:29:26.000 --> 3:29:28.560 like I'm sad, I'm gonna miss you guys. I don't 3:29:28.600 --> 3:29:30.320 know when I'll get to see you again, and that 3:29:30.959 --> 3:29:34.000 makes me anxious and I'm excited to go fight for 3:29:34.080 --> 3:29:37.480 you guys to get us what we deserve. Like so 3:29:37.640 --> 3:29:40.080 even letting the children know this is totally normal and 3:29:40.080 --> 3:29:42.680 that's my same message to the adults, like it's totally 3:29:42.680 --> 3:29:45.680 okay if you've got some mixed emotions. Yeah, and we're 3:29:45.680 --> 3:29:47.440 going to be out there fighting for the kids. I 3:29:47.480 --> 3:29:49.600 hope you're not mad at me for very long, but 3:29:49.600 --> 3:29:50.520 I'm gonna do it anyway. 3:29:51.240 --> 3:29:52.039 Yeah. 3:29:52.120 --> 3:29:54.000 And that's another thing that's kind of like weird about 3:29:54.000 --> 3:29:59.280 this is like the way the negotiations have gone. It's 3:29:59.320 --> 3:30:01.840 like this has happened, like because a lot of strikes 3:30:01.879 --> 3:30:04.680 happen at the beginning of the school year, right, and 3:30:04.720 --> 3:30:07.400 so it pushes back the but this is but this 3:30:07.480 --> 3:30:09.440 is like okay, so like you've gotten in, you've met 3:30:09.440 --> 3:30:12.039 the kids, you're like teaching them to developing your relationship, 3:30:12.160 --> 3:30:15.240 and then management is just like, no, this is the 3:30:15.280 --> 3:30:17.600 moment we're going to force everyone. 3:30:18.840 --> 3:30:19.120 Yeah. 3:30:19.360 --> 3:30:20.160 That just sucks. 3:30:20.320 --> 3:30:23.640 Like yeah, and I don't think there's ever a great 3:30:23.920 --> 3:30:26.560 time to strike, but we definitely hope to be the 3:30:26.640 --> 3:30:28.760 least impactful. You know. We want to make sure that 3:30:28.800 --> 3:30:31.320 our families have what they need. We want to make 3:30:31.320 --> 3:30:34.080 sure that our staff have what they need. We didn't 3:30:34.080 --> 3:30:35.520 want to go too long. We don't want to be 3:30:35.520 --> 3:30:38.240 striking in the middle of winter or during a break 3:30:38.280 --> 3:30:42.600 when students are already out. Yeah, it's there's never a 3:30:42.600 --> 3:30:45.160 great time. And I feel I feel really confident that 3:30:45.200 --> 3:30:48.120 our bargaining unit has really worked to make this the 3:30:48.320 --> 3:30:52.000 least detrimental to our students as possible, Yeah, while still 3:30:52.040 --> 3:30:56.480 maintaining the validity of a strike, of a big collective action. 3:30:57.680 --> 3:30:59.200 And I mean, I think this is this is something 3:30:59.320 --> 3:31:03.080 that care workers struggle with a lot, right. It's like 3:31:03.120 --> 3:31:06.360 one of one of the reasons that it's it's hard 3:31:06.360 --> 3:31:08.560 for teachers to strike, that it's hard for healthcare workers 3:31:08.560 --> 3:31:10.760 to strike is because like, yeah, like you don't do 3:31:10.840 --> 3:31:14.920 this job unless you care about the people that you're 3:31:15.160 --> 3:31:17.160 like it's your job to care for, Like you don't 3:31:17.200 --> 3:31:18.760 you wouldn't know, Like no one will put up with 3:31:18.760 --> 3:31:22.320 these conditions if they didn't care, right, And you know, 3:31:22.360 --> 3:31:25.200 And that's I think there's this really grim way in 3:31:25.240 --> 3:31:27.240 which just becomes this sort of trap of like this 3:31:27.320 --> 3:31:30.040 is it becomes this and you see this like this 3:31:30.080 --> 3:31:33.040 is the thing I've been I've been talking to like 3:31:33.080 --> 3:31:36.080 people who like abortion workers and they talk about this too, 3:31:36.120 --> 3:31:37.840 where it's like there's this this kind of trap you 3:31:37.879 --> 3:31:40.720 get in because it's like you know that you are 3:31:40.760 --> 3:31:43.800 the only person providing the service that these people really need, 3:31:44.160 --> 3:31:46.560 and your bosses use that to underpay, you use it 3:31:46.600 --> 3:31:51.720 to you know, have just unacceptable conditions. And it sucks 3:31:51.720 --> 3:31:56.560 that it's like, you know, the the foundational elements of 3:31:56.600 --> 3:32:00.160 an actual, any kind of society that's actually good, that 3:32:00.320 --> 3:32:02.280 the fact that people care each and love like love 3:32:02.320 --> 3:32:04.199 each other and care for each other is being used 3:32:04.240 --> 3:32:09.400 as a weapon into really shitty conditions. 3:32:09.600 --> 3:32:13.640 It's weaponizing our passion and our care for our kids. 3:32:13.840 --> 3:32:16.920 And that's also something that tells you that it's serious. 3:32:17.040 --> 3:32:22.080 If if teachers who know that our students rely on us, 3:32:22.120 --> 3:32:24.280 we love our students so deeply, if we are at 3:32:24.280 --> 3:32:27.480 the point where we're finally striking it's been bad for 3:32:27.520 --> 3:32:32.360 a while. Yeah, yeah, and you were kind of mentioning 3:32:32.360 --> 3:32:36.200 this earlier. But teachers are so many things to our students, 3:32:36.240 --> 3:32:39.200 Like I am their teacher in some cases, am a 3:32:39.240 --> 3:32:42.080 care provider in some cases, I'm a therapist, in some cases, 3:32:42.080 --> 3:32:45.400 I'm their nutrition expert. Like they are coming to us 3:32:45.440 --> 3:32:48.840 for everything in some cases. And so to be willing 3:32:48.959 --> 3:32:52.680 to say I have to leave now to get us 3:32:52.680 --> 3:32:57.199 what we deserve, I'm going to make sure you're okay. 3:32:57.280 --> 3:32:59.240 It's so hard. It's so hard to say goodbye to 3:32:59.320 --> 3:33:04.920 these kids, and it's so necessary. Yeah, and that's that 3:33:05.080 --> 3:33:07.960 tells you that we that it is also that important 3:33:08.160 --> 3:33:10.360 that we have gotten to this point where we need to. 3:33:12.120 --> 3:33:12.440 Yeah. 3:33:12.480 --> 3:33:14.400 And the students do seem pretty and I mean I 3:33:14.440 --> 3:33:16.040 have the benefit of being at fifth grade, but the 3:33:16.080 --> 3:33:18.880 students do seem to understand pretty well. Some of them 3:33:19.160 --> 3:33:23.760 are incredibly activated little unionists, little union fighters as well. 3:33:23.760 --> 3:33:27.120 We had some of the fifth graders sent letters to 3:33:27.560 --> 3:33:30.880 the Oregonian and to the to the school board and 3:33:30.959 --> 3:33:34.080 to the superintendent. And they're very eloquent. They I mean, 3:33:34.120 --> 3:33:37.360 they've been living the conditions. They are the voice and 3:33:37.520 --> 3:33:40.080 it is they are trying to shout loudly, and you know, 3:33:40.120 --> 3:33:43.760 we're trying to amplify that. Like I am striking for them. 3:33:44.680 --> 3:33:47.840 I will benefit, but this is for them to have 3:33:47.879 --> 3:33:48.640 a better outcome. 3:33:49.240 --> 3:33:52.199 You know what, other services are provided by a bunch 3:33:52.280 --> 3:33:54.000 of workers who are not getting paid enough and are 3:33:54.000 --> 3:33:57.640 probably understaffed legally. I don't know if I'm allowed to 3:33:57.640 --> 3:34:00.200 say that, but they haven't done the crackdown on us. Yes, 3:34:00.240 --> 3:34:01.640 so I can say whatever I want. 3:34:01.480 --> 3:34:01.800 Damn it. 3:34:02.680 --> 3:34:07.600 It's the products and services that support this podcast and 3:34:07.800 --> 3:34:11.240 we're back. So there was ant. There's a thing I've 3:34:11.240 --> 3:34:14.360 been noticing. So I've been interviewing a lot of been 3:34:14.400 --> 3:34:17.080 infering a lot of service workers in the last god, 3:34:17.120 --> 3:34:19.120 like I guess like two years now, jeez, I've been 3:34:19.160 --> 3:34:22.880 doing this for a long time now. But one of 3:34:22.920 --> 3:34:25.920 the things that I've been noticing is a lot of 3:34:26.080 --> 3:34:29.480 people And this comes back to something that you were 3:34:29.520 --> 3:34:31.960 talking about, which is that a lot of a lot 3:34:32.000 --> 3:34:33.880 of service workers, I mean people who are just beached 3:34:33.920 --> 3:34:36.440 as people who are you know, people who are just 3:34:36.480 --> 3:34:40.920 doing effectively random service jobs are being pushed more and 3:34:40.959 --> 3:34:43.960 more into having to care for people because the rest 3:34:43.959 --> 3:34:46.680 of the sort of whatever social safety nets the US 3:34:46.800 --> 3:34:49.959 used to have have just completely imploded. And I think 3:34:50.640 --> 3:34:52.200 I want to get your opinion in this, but it 3:34:52.240 --> 3:34:54.879 looks to me like ground zero for this was the 3:34:55.000 --> 3:34:58.720 education system of all of the responsibility of you know 3:34:58.959 --> 3:35:02.039 this these massive in and poverty and it's extagnating wages 3:35:02.080 --> 3:35:06.600 and police violence and like our completely dysfunctional mental health 3:35:06.600 --> 3:35:08.680 care system that all of this. The first people this 3:35:08.800 --> 3:35:10.760 was pushed on was y'all. 3:35:11.200 --> 3:35:14.840 Yeah, now we're that first line of defense for the 3:35:14.879 --> 3:35:18.880 public good. And when you are gutting education, You are 3:35:19.200 --> 3:35:22.840 gutting the first safety net of the public good. And 3:35:23.400 --> 3:35:25.440 you know, the students will tell you that they are 3:35:25.480 --> 3:35:29.560 our future and we are the net that's supposed to 3:35:29.640 --> 3:35:33.400 catch them. And we've been underfunded and undersupported and under 3:35:33.440 --> 3:35:39.240 resourced and in many ways like privatized, where some of 3:35:39.440 --> 3:35:42.040 what will be the future populace are getting what they 3:35:42.080 --> 3:35:47.760 need and everyone else is left behind. And you can 3:35:47.840 --> 3:35:51.879 see it in retrospect. You can see how public education 3:35:52.080 --> 3:35:57.600 has been deteriorating or forcibly deteriorated by some of those 3:35:57.640 --> 3:36:01.760 interests that are trying to privatize or have privatization yep 3:36:01.879 --> 3:36:06.520 in their mission. And the ultimate outcome of that is 3:36:06.560 --> 3:36:13.000 a deteriorated United States. Like the populace is suffering because 3:36:13.040 --> 3:36:15.920 of it, Like I wonder why democracy is starting to 3:36:15.920 --> 3:36:20.560 fall apart when yeah, follow the dominoes backwards. Public education 3:36:20.680 --> 3:36:25.560 has been underfunded and undersourced for decades now. So our 3:36:25.680 --> 3:36:30.280 generation of workers are trying to repair the damage we 3:36:30.360 --> 3:36:33.680 witnessed and experienced and stop it from getting worse as 3:36:33.720 --> 3:36:34.920 it gets worse around us. 3:36:35.920 --> 3:36:37.400 Yeah, And this is one of those things where this 3:36:37.480 --> 3:36:39.279 is kind of like there's been this kind of unholy 3:36:39.320 --> 3:36:42.160 alliance between like that, I guess I call it like 3:36:42.160 --> 3:36:46.039 the sort of the charter school private school alliance between 3:36:46.600 --> 3:36:50.039 the sort of like Obama, Arnie Duncan, oh my god, 3:36:50.600 --> 3:36:56.720 Paul Vallas, like technically liberal like neoliberal reformers, who are 3:36:57.080 --> 3:37:00.000 you know, trying to destroy teachers' unions, trying to like 3:37:00.240 --> 3:37:02.640 trying to force everyone in the charter schools, trying to 3:37:02.680 --> 3:37:06.040 sort of like and just just just blasting holes in 3:37:06.080 --> 3:37:08.520 the education system of every single city they end up in. 3:37:09.080 --> 3:37:11.160 But it's just it's just interesting thing too, where like 3:37:11.959 --> 3:37:14.200 you have these people on the one hand, and they're 3:37:14.240 --> 3:37:17.040 the sort of like vaguely liberal wing of it, and 3:37:17.040 --> 3:37:20.439 then simultaneously you have this sort of like absolutely ferocious, 3:37:20.480 --> 3:37:25.400 like frothing right wing like evangelical shape. Yeah, it's like 3:37:25.520 --> 3:37:29.880 someone I saw a well I get they were going 3:37:29.920 --> 3:37:31.720 through their direction, but I saw I saw a funny 3:37:32.240 --> 3:37:35.240 defiction of that. They called it like fish hook theory, 3:37:35.600 --> 3:37:37.120 where like you have this stuff in the middle and 3:37:37.120 --> 3:37:38.840 then that the far right people sort of bend back 3:37:38.879 --> 3:37:42.920 around into the middle because they found this one thing 3:37:42.959 --> 3:37:48.240 they agree on, which is that they hate teachers, right, and. 3:37:48.360 --> 3:37:50.480 You know, the public enemy. 3:37:51.040 --> 3:37:53.400 Yeah, well, and I think it's it's interesting too that 3:37:53.520 --> 3:37:57.000 like schools are specifically the place that when when the 3:37:57.080 --> 3:37:59.640 right tried wanted to do their pushback against racial justice, 3:37:59.680 --> 3:38:02.360 it was like they went to schools. They've been doing 3:38:02.360 --> 3:38:06.840 this with like LGBTQ stuff too, is you know, this 3:38:07.000 --> 3:38:11.080 is like the rights whole game. I mean, since like 3:38:11.520 --> 3:38:15.760 desegregation has been trying to push people into private schools 3:38:15.760 --> 3:38:18.960 and privatizing the education system, and I don't know, it 3:38:19.200 --> 3:38:23.520 strikes me it's interesting that, you know, there's been for 3:38:23.560 --> 3:38:27.400 a really long time, and I think y'all, like y'all 3:38:27.480 --> 3:38:30.280 the like Chicago Teachers Unions has this has really been 3:38:30.360 --> 3:38:33.680 sort of the forefront of the fight against that of 3:38:33.720 --> 3:38:35.959 like items. It seems like we're finally in a period 3:38:35.959 --> 3:38:37.760 with these people who have run this country into the 3:38:37.800 --> 3:38:40.520 ground for the past like fifty years are finally starting 3:38:40.560 --> 3:38:44.400 to sort of like face the consequences and like have 3:38:44.480 --> 3:38:47.880 to deal with the people that they've been just destroying 3:38:47.959 --> 3:38:48.720 for so long. 3:38:49.320 --> 3:38:54.199 Yeah, we are seeing it from the inside as it happens, 3:38:54.680 --> 3:38:59.480 like I am experiencing as an elder millennial growing up 3:38:59.600 --> 3:39:03.280 in the nine in the public education system, knowing now 3:39:03.360 --> 3:39:05.760 as an adult what I was not being taught or 3:39:05.760 --> 3:39:08.720 what was being left out or censored just due to 3:39:08.760 --> 3:39:11.560 systemic patterns that now we teach in a different way 3:39:11.600 --> 3:39:14.119 to make sure that that doesn't continue. And then we're 3:39:14.160 --> 3:39:17.520 seeing legislation in places like Florida and Tennessee. They're like, 3:39:17.520 --> 3:39:20.160 stop doing that, stop fixing the problem. 3:39:20.440 --> 3:39:23.040 And you can't put it back in the box, like 3:39:23.480 --> 3:39:27.959 we see from the inside as things are are falling 3:39:27.959 --> 3:39:30.520 apart and people are being left out, and so we're 3:39:30.640 --> 3:39:33.840 inside public education screaming, knock it off. 3:39:34.080 --> 3:39:36.920 You did bad by us. We won't let you do 3:39:36.959 --> 3:39:39.120 bad by the next generation and the next generation. 3:39:40.160 --> 3:39:42.640 Yeah, And I think like the other aspect of that, 3:39:42.760 --> 3:39:46.320 like is is the way that like school boards are 3:39:46.360 --> 3:39:47.959 being used to sort of like to take control of 3:39:48.000 --> 3:39:50.280 districts and like push all of this sort of just 3:39:51.040 --> 3:39:55.879 horrific like anti queer politics stuff. And I don't know, 3:39:55.920 --> 3:39:57.680 like that that's a personal one for me because like 3:39:58.200 --> 3:40:03.600 my school, like I mean, I guess we technically had stuff, 3:40:03.920 --> 3:40:09.200 but like I don't know, like the resources available to 3:40:10.080 --> 3:40:12.120 all the queer kids that like that was like me 3:40:12.360 --> 3:40:14.880 and like everyone I grew up with were like just terrible, 3:40:15.480 --> 3:40:17.560 And you know, I got to see the consequences of that. 3:40:18.080 --> 3:40:19.680 Right bare minimum if any. 3:40:20.320 --> 3:40:22.400 Yeah, and like you know, like in a in a 3:40:22.440 --> 3:40:26.200 really really like frothing right wing like really justconservative environment, 3:40:26.280 --> 3:40:30.480 and like, I don't know, it's it really seems like 3:40:30.520 --> 3:40:32.720 it's for a lot of people, it's gotten way better 3:40:32.840 --> 3:40:34.840 and all of these you know, like one of the 3:40:34.879 --> 3:40:36.760 assaults that we're seeing is like, who just want to 3:40:36.800 --> 3:40:38.039 bring this stuff back. 3:40:38.600 --> 3:40:42.120 Right to the quote unquote good old days before all 3:40:42.160 --> 3:40:45.039 of us queer folks were coming out, And yeah, like 3:40:45.080 --> 3:40:47.800 put everybody back in the closet, hide all of the 3:40:47.879 --> 3:40:52.320 racism that you've unraveled and exposed, put it all back 3:40:52.360 --> 3:40:54.720 in the box, put a bow back on the box. 3:40:55.360 --> 3:40:59.400 We want America to look the way it used to. Yeah, 3:40:59.560 --> 3:41:03.880 And that's that's a lie, and that benefited very specific populations. 3:41:03.959 --> 3:41:07.760 And we won't continue to play that game. And I 3:41:07.800 --> 3:41:10.880 think that's another reason, like you said, that you're seeing 3:41:10.920 --> 3:41:14.200 the gutting of public education, is that it's scary. Public 3:41:14.320 --> 3:41:20.920 education is about truth and teaching critical thinking, and that 3:41:21.080 --> 3:41:24.600 is not good for people in power when their power 3:41:25.000 --> 3:41:29.920 has been achieved on the backs of marginalized groups and 3:41:29.920 --> 3:41:33.000 by historically underserving people and pushing people into the dirt. 3:41:33.920 --> 3:41:37.840 Yeah, it's like it turns out that when your entire 3:41:37.879 --> 3:41:40.959 state is based on doing a rolling genocide across the 3:41:41.120 --> 3:41:44.000 entire continent, you probably don't want to tell people that. 3:41:44.000 --> 3:41:46.320 That's like it's a bad idea. 3:41:47.200 --> 3:41:50.120 Yeah, cats out of the bag America. 3:41:50.280 --> 3:41:54.400 Yeah. Yeah, I wanted to ask you sort of what 3:41:54.800 --> 3:42:00.760 role has I guess, just twenty twenty in general, and 3:42:00.840 --> 3:42:04.000 I mean the pandemic too, but like I don't know, 3:42:04.040 --> 3:42:08.080 like I want to, I guess, like get a sense 3:42:08.120 --> 3:42:10.680 of what impact, like the uprising has had on all 3:42:10.720 --> 3:42:13.680 of this, because it is, like I do think it 3:42:13.720 --> 3:42:16.720 is notable that you know, it's like three years after 3:42:16.760 --> 3:42:21.200 the uprising, it's we have the first strike in right, 3:42:21.560 --> 3:42:22.000 so long. 3:42:22.080 --> 3:42:27.480 I think as a result of living through pandemic times, 3:42:27.959 --> 3:42:32.160 people really had an opportunity to reflect on what their 3:42:32.200 --> 3:42:35.000 lives were like, what they were living through that was unjust. 3:42:35.120 --> 3:42:39.160 I think a lot of inequities were revealed through having 3:42:39.200 --> 3:42:44.000 to shift our entire worlds, and things that had previously 3:42:44.080 --> 3:42:48.360 gone hidden or unnoticed or unexposed came to light and 3:42:49.200 --> 3:42:53.360 people said, no more, we have learned to do things 3:42:53.360 --> 3:42:55.240 a different way. We will not go back to the 3:42:55.280 --> 3:42:58.200 broken ways, and so it makes sense to me that 3:42:59.000 --> 3:43:03.760 we are at this boiling point in repairing and trying 3:43:03.800 --> 3:43:10.640 to rebuild and reform after a global change. And you 3:43:10.680 --> 3:43:12.120 see it in the kids too. I mean they say 3:43:12.160 --> 3:43:15.039 about my generation as a millennial, that we've lived through 3:43:15.640 --> 3:43:20.040 numerous large scale traumas, and the kids of today have 3:43:20.320 --> 3:43:23.280 now as well. Like the students I'm currently teaching were 3:43:23.360 --> 3:43:28.120 second graders when the pandemic hit, and they are forever changed. 3:43:28.360 --> 3:43:32.240 They were seeing, you know, the Black Lives Matter movement 3:43:32.480 --> 3:43:35.199 come alive on their television screens and in their cities. 3:43:35.440 --> 3:43:41.560 They grew up in civic action and global turmoil, and 3:43:42.280 --> 3:43:46.920 they are active. Even if I wasn't teaching current events 3:43:46.920 --> 3:43:48.760 in the way that I do, the students are bringing 3:43:48.800 --> 3:43:51.279 it to the room, like the conversations are happening. 3:43:52.200 --> 3:43:55.640 Yeah, which is it's such an interesting Like that generation 3:43:55.760 --> 3:43:57.800 I think is gonna be really interesting because I don't 3:43:57.800 --> 3:44:01.240 know I'm from this. I'm on exact exactly the borderline 3:44:01.240 --> 3:44:03.240 with everyone trying to figure out whether I'm a millennial 3:44:03.320 --> 3:44:06.720 or a zumer. But like my like my first memory 3:44:06.800 --> 3:44:09.720 is nine to eleven. Yeah, so like you know, it's 3:44:09.959 --> 3:44:12.199 I feel like I got a kind of millennial experience, 3:44:12.240 --> 3:44:14.840 which is I got nine to eleven, two thousand and eight, 3:44:15.000 --> 3:44:17.000 twenty six well two thousand and eight, then like the 3:44:17.000 --> 3:44:19.440 twenty thirteen uprisings I guess was a bit off, but 3:44:19.480 --> 3:44:21.880 I got like the two eleven thirteen up risings, and 3:44:21.920 --> 3:44:25.520 then like I get out of college or I get 3:44:25.560 --> 3:44:27.760 into college, and it's twenty sixteen. 3:44:28.440 --> 3:44:31.720 It's just like a mess. 3:44:32.160 --> 3:44:33.840 Yeah, it's hot mess. 3:44:34.280 --> 3:44:38.359 It's this real Like I I I like I became 3:44:38.520 --> 3:44:43.760 conscious the moments that history returned to the world. Yeah, 3:44:43.800 --> 3:44:45.640 but I don't know, like I think it's an interesting 3:44:45.720 --> 3:44:49.400 thing with like with these kids who've grown up, who 3:44:49.400 --> 3:44:51.360 are you know, like yeah, like their first memories are 3:44:51.360 --> 3:44:56.320 going to be like the pandemic and like twenty twenty 3:44:56.480 --> 3:45:01.520 that I don't know, Like I I, I don't know. 3:45:01.720 --> 3:45:03.680 I'm interested in where these people are going to go. 3:45:03.720 --> 3:45:06.360 But also I think this is you know, this, this 3:45:06.480 --> 3:45:10.800 all of this ties back into just the importance of 3:45:10.800 --> 3:45:13.480 what you and all of your coworkers do, which is 3:45:13.520 --> 3:45:17.120 that you're the people who are you know, like it, 3:45:18.000 --> 3:45:20.800 you're the people who are producing, Like the kids who 3:45:20.800 --> 3:45:23.400 are going to who are I mean, hopefully they won't 3:45:23.480 --> 3:45:25.600 have to be fighting the same fights that we are 3:45:25.680 --> 3:45:30.880 right now. Statistically they probably will, but yeah, like and 3:45:30.879 --> 3:45:33.160 you're the people who are sort of mediating their understanding 3:45:33.240 --> 3:45:35.960 of like what is happening in this world around them 3:45:36.000 --> 3:45:40.200 that's you know, increasingly terrifying and complex. 3:45:39.760 --> 3:45:44.000 Right, trying not to give ten year olds an existential crisis, 3:45:44.040 --> 3:45:47.800 but yeah, coming into like they are at that developmental 3:45:47.840 --> 3:45:51.480 age where they are starting to have that existential crisis 3:45:51.640 --> 3:45:57.279 of Wow, our planet is out of luck, our educational 3:45:57.280 --> 3:46:02.119 system is rotten, our democracy is falling apart, like they 3:46:02.160 --> 3:46:07.320 are witnessing turmoil in every country like it is. You know, 3:46:07.360 --> 3:46:11.039 they say that the youth's humor is very nihilistic and dark, 3:46:11.280 --> 3:46:14.680 and it's just getting darker. Like, thankfully, they give me 3:46:14.840 --> 3:46:18.360 so much hope and light in you know, a world 3:46:18.400 --> 3:46:20.280 where sometimes I don't even know want to be a 3:46:20.280 --> 3:46:23.119 part of the future because the future looks grim. They 3:46:23.560 --> 3:46:28.039 are a light even in all of that darkness. And 3:46:28.959 --> 3:46:32.000 you know, I think they're really resilient. I wish they 3:46:32.000 --> 3:46:35.560 didn't have to be. I have my own big existential dread. 3:46:35.760 --> 3:46:39.120 And the kids are angry, the kids are are upset, 3:46:39.200 --> 3:46:42.120 but the kids are all right. Maybe, yeah, if we 3:46:42.120 --> 3:46:44.760 can contend to support them, and. 3:46:44.720 --> 3:46:46.720 I think this is something that goes for everyone is 3:46:46.840 --> 3:46:51.360 like it, So insofar as we have obligations to anyone 3:46:51.400 --> 3:46:54.200 on earth, like the thing, the thing that we owe 3:46:54.280 --> 3:46:57.480 these kids is to try to make sure they don't 3:46:57.520 --> 3:46:59.039 have to go through the same shit that we did, 3:46:59.400 --> 3:47:01.920 because yeah, that still sucked. 3:47:03.040 --> 3:47:07.320 Yeah. One of my teaching philosophies is the bee who 3:47:07.360 --> 3:47:10.640 you needed when you were younger? And I didn't even 3:47:10.800 --> 3:47:12.880 know some of the things I needed. But looking back, 3:47:12.959 --> 3:47:15.480 like now, as a queer adult living in a major 3:47:15.520 --> 3:47:18.280 city who grew up in a small town in Montana 3:47:18.720 --> 3:47:23.800 in the binding is I'm very yeah, very aware of 3:47:23.920 --> 3:47:27.520 some of the things that I should have had as 3:47:27.560 --> 3:47:30.039 a young person, and that I am glad to be 3:47:30.120 --> 3:47:33.040 there for my students in that way. Even the difference 3:47:34.000 --> 3:47:36.480 working with some people who've been teaching for longer, you 3:47:36.520 --> 3:47:39.440 see the difference in educational philosophy from run generation to 3:47:39.480 --> 3:47:41.560 the next and the bee who you needed when you 3:47:41.560 --> 3:47:46.640 were younger. I'm very open to being neuro affirming supporting 3:47:46.640 --> 3:47:48.920 our students that are on the spectrum or students with 3:47:48.959 --> 3:47:52.120 ADHD are students with anxiety disorders in a way that 3:47:52.360 --> 3:47:55.080 even the teachers of our generation when when I was 3:47:55.120 --> 3:47:59.080 a child, aren't necessarily on the stade like we're getting 3:47:59.120 --> 3:48:02.480 better making education less damaging to I think that's one 3:48:02.480 --> 3:48:04.959 of the reasons sometimes we lose public opinion is people 3:48:04.959 --> 3:48:08.360 have negative memories of school. School has been harmful, and 3:48:08.360 --> 3:48:11.039 we're like, no support us, like I promise it's different now. 3:48:12.040 --> 3:48:14.280 Yeah, but but I mean, but I think this is 3:48:14.320 --> 3:48:16.879 one of those things too, where like the teachers union 3:48:17.040 --> 3:48:19.320 in general, if you're looking at what is this, what 3:48:19.440 --> 3:48:23.520 is the single like group of people in the United 3:48:23.560 --> 3:48:27.520 States who actually wants to make school suck less? Like 3:48:27.600 --> 3:48:31.080 the most it's probably like slightly above that is students. 3:48:31.080 --> 3:48:35.039 But the thing is, like students are organized enough to like, right, 3:48:35.959 --> 3:48:37.920 and you know, and like I said as much really 3:48:37.920 --> 3:48:39.520 any know that this isn't to write off like the 3:48:39.560 --> 3:48:42.600 incredible amount of student activism that I mean, it has 3:48:42.600 --> 3:48:45.720 been happening forever, but they don't have the kind of 3:48:45.840 --> 3:48:49.760 power that like teachers unions too, and teachers unions. 3:48:49.520 --> 3:48:50.760 Are the social popvoice. 3:48:51.600 --> 3:48:54.000 Yeah. Well, and also just the ability to like like 3:48:54.080 --> 3:48:56.600 the ability to withdraw your labor and suddenly actually have 3:48:56.640 --> 3:49:00.880 a massive effect on the entire sort of like state economy. 3:49:01.320 --> 3:49:04.960 Yeah, yeah, we are united for our students. Like we 3:49:05.040 --> 3:49:08.640 are called a teachers' union, but we are united for 3:49:08.760 --> 3:49:13.600 our students because they don't yet have the ability, or 3:49:13.640 --> 3:49:17.600 the access or the social capital to be heard in 3:49:17.640 --> 3:49:18.480 the way that they deserve. 3:49:19.080 --> 3:49:20.720 Yeah, I don't know. I think I think that's a 3:49:20.840 --> 3:49:22.640 that's a pretty good note to end on, unless you 3:49:22.640 --> 3:49:23.800 have anything else that you want to say. 3:49:23.800 --> 3:49:27.240 First, I'm satisfied. I mean, I'm not satisfied. 3:49:27.280 --> 3:49:33.960 I'm striking, but like, yeah, yeah, so how can people well, A, 3:49:34.120 --> 3:49:36.240 how can people in Portland support the strike? And then 3:49:36.280 --> 3:49:38.240 b how can people who are not in Portland who 3:49:38.240 --> 3:49:39.480 want to support the strike help? 3:49:40.520 --> 3:49:44.080 Yeah, Portlanders are able to help support the strike. We 3:49:44.200 --> 3:49:49.560 have a strike fund set up for purchasing and some 3:49:49.640 --> 3:49:51.520 of the things that we've needed on our strike lines, 3:49:51.640 --> 3:49:55.960 like megaphones, like ponchos. All of that strike fund is 3:49:56.000 --> 3:49:58.520 being used to help strike captains such as myself around 3:49:58.520 --> 3:50:02.320 the city organize our tickets and our actions. And so 3:50:02.520 --> 3:50:04.640 donating to that strike fund is one way to make 3:50:04.680 --> 3:50:09.160 sure that every teacher in Portland is getting some support. 3:50:09.400 --> 3:50:11.640 And then if you live in Portland, finding out the 3:50:11.640 --> 3:50:15.000 schools that are closest to you in your area, reaching 3:50:15.000 --> 3:50:19.080 out to those schools specifically, probably through social media, since 3:50:19.120 --> 3:50:20.800 we will not be in our buildings, Like using a 3:50:20.800 --> 3:50:24.000 school email wouldn't work, But reaching out to the strike 3:50:24.040 --> 3:50:26.120 in your area if you drive by and you see them, 3:50:26.160 --> 3:50:28.640 like giving them a honk in a horay and finding 3:50:28.640 --> 3:50:32.760 out where they need supplies to get directed to people 3:50:32.800 --> 3:50:35.840 outside of Portland. Same thing that strike fund is very visible, 3:50:36.240 --> 3:50:40.040 sharing on social media things on our behalf really making 3:50:40.040 --> 3:50:43.160 sure that your own legislatures know how important public education 3:50:43.320 --> 3:50:46.520 is to you. Hopefully things in your state or area 3:50:46.560 --> 3:50:50.000 are going positively for educators, but chances are they're not 3:50:50.280 --> 3:50:53.680 so I bet no matter where you live. As a listener, 3:50:54.120 --> 3:50:57.080 you public educators in your area could probably use your 3:50:57.080 --> 3:51:01.320 support talking to school boards, talking to legislators and making 3:51:01.600 --> 3:51:04.400 change in education, making sure that kids are getting what 3:51:04.440 --> 3:51:07.400 they need. That fight is guaranteed to be happening everywhere. 3:51:08.240 --> 3:51:10.680 Yeah, and we will. We will have links to well 3:51:10.680 --> 3:51:13.400 definitely a strike fund probably also will have links to 3:51:13.440 --> 3:51:17.480 social media stuff the description so yeah, go go do 3:51:17.600 --> 3:51:21.840 that and also yeah, yeah I do you want? I'm 3:51:21.880 --> 3:51:24.920 assuming you also people control up the picket lines m 3:51:25.080 --> 3:51:26.440 h yeah. 3:51:26.320 --> 3:51:30.240 Yeah, anyone in Portland driving in any of our neighborhoods, 3:51:30.520 --> 3:51:32.840 will find a school, will find a picket, and you 3:51:32.880 --> 3:51:35.920 are welcome to join us. I know I'm in the 3:51:36.320 --> 3:51:39.480 southwest region of Portland. Will be picketing in major areas 3:51:39.640 --> 3:51:42.080 as well as right outside our schools. So pretty much 3:51:42.080 --> 3:51:44.720 anywhere you see a sea of blue, give us a 3:51:44.720 --> 3:51:46.880 honk and hop out and join us for a little while, 3:51:47.120 --> 3:51:49.960 and we'll see you in some big visible spaces to 3:51:50.160 --> 3:51:53.440 be determined as we do some larger actions. 3:51:53.760 --> 3:51:56.680 Yeah, yeah, this is a This is the thing I 3:51:56.720 --> 3:52:00.760 will say from from experience is that like the okay, 3:52:00.800 --> 3:52:03.720 so the more people there are, the better picketing is. 3:52:03.760 --> 3:52:05.400 And where there's a bunch of people on a picket, 3:52:05.400 --> 3:52:08.080 it rules. So go go to a picket. It's a 3:52:08.080 --> 3:52:11.160 good time. You're you're you're joining us. Yeah, you're fighting, 3:52:11.160 --> 3:52:13.000 you're fighting for a good cause, you are fighting for 3:52:13.080 --> 3:52:16.320 your class and yeah. 3:52:15.480 --> 3:52:19.000 Yeah, hey, well, thank you so much for having me, 3:52:19.040 --> 3:52:20.640 and thank you to your listeners for giving us. 3:52:20.560 --> 3:52:23.320 An ear, and thank thank you for talking to me. 3:52:24.120 --> 3:52:27.800 It's been it's been great. And yeah, go go go listeners, 3:52:27.840 --> 3:52:30.160 all of you, go support the strike, make sure they win. 3:52:30.760 --> 3:52:33.440 And yeah, go out, go out into your communities and 3:52:33.480 --> 3:52:33.960 do the same. 3:52:39.960 --> 3:52:43.120 Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week 3:52:43.160 --> 3:52:45.080 from now until the heat death of the Universe. 3:52:45.840 --> 3:52:48.320 It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media. 3:52:48.440 --> 3:52:51.120 For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 3:52:51.120 --> 3:52:53.360 cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the 3:52:53.400 --> 3:52:55.960 iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you. 3:52:55.880 --> 3:52:56.840 Listen to podcasts. 3:52:57.400 --> 3:52:59.480 You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated 3:52:59.560 --> 3:53:02.600 monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. 3:53:02.800 --> 3:53:03.640 Thanks for listening.