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

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

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

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Speaker 2: A production of.

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Speaker 3: IHEARTRADI Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,

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Speaker 3: my name is Nol.

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Speaker 2: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our

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Speaker 2: super producer Paul Mission control deck, and most importantly you

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Speaker 2: are here. And that makes this the stuff they don't

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Speaker 2: want you to know. We've got to give a big

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Speaker 2: shout out to a good friend of ours, superproducer, the

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Speaker 2: Heartbreaker of Knoxville, Dylan Fagan, for coming through and the clutch.

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Speaker 2: All three of us went through some shyamalans to get

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Speaker 2: to this recording today. Companies started by Colts Part two.

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Speaker 2: You know, a while back, guys, we did we explored

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Speaker 2: following Gong because I think we all wanted to go

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Speaker 2: to the shen Yun Festival.

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Speaker 4: For a while. I certainly did. It's fairly a delightful show.

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Speaker 4: It is a delightful show.

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Speaker 2: I here, and when we were doing that, this sort

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Speaker 2: of triggered this other exploration about conspiracies. In company origin stories,

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Speaker 2: we talked a lot about companies that appear to have

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Speaker 2: been started or at the very least heavily influenced by

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Speaker 2: associated with what we would call cults. And we knew

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Speaker 2: we would find a few, but I think we're all

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Speaker 2: surprised by just how many very successful businesses, and weirdly

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Speaker 2: enough a ton of restaurants are in fact run by

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Speaker 2: new religious movements the PC term. And we knew there

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Speaker 2: would have to be a second chapter to this, as

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Speaker 2: we'll see at the end of this evening's episode, there

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Speaker 2: may need to be a third chapter. Anyway, Here are

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Speaker 2: the facts. We're not going to waste too much time

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Speaker 2: on the setup check out part one, because we've got

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Speaker 2: a lot of crazy stuff to get to. You know,

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Speaker 2: you never know who really owns something, right unless you

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Speaker 2: dig into it.

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Speaker 4: Can you own a song? Can you own the wind?

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Speaker 4: It's possible if you want to ask Disney. They own

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Speaker 4: a lot of stuff, as it turns out, But in

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Speaker 4: a lot of situations, it is, to your point, been

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Speaker 4: difficult to trace exactly where an organization begins. Perhaps you

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Speaker 4: know who the parent company truly is. And it is

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Speaker 4: true that a lot of companies are owned by some

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Speaker 4: pretty bizarre groups, entities, organizations. The most immediate examples of

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Speaker 4: this that we can think of are in the world

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Speaker 4: of corporations, where single massive entities own an entire sector,

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Speaker 4: you know, of the economy. Perhaps great example, Luxotica brands,

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Speaker 4: for all intents and purposes, a monopoly on overpriced sunglasses.

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Speaker 4: I'm a big jerk and own several pairs because they

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Speaker 4: also somehow make you feel like you got to own

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Speaker 4: them or else you're not really wearing Are you really

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Speaker 4: wearing sunglasses if they're not ray Ban or something that

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Speaker 4: Luxotica owns. I think they even own Sunglass Hut. It's

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Speaker 4: like they own the means of production and the means

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Speaker 4: of distribution. Weird.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well yeah, I mean there are so many huge

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Speaker 3: brands like that that that if you look at the

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Speaker 3: branching brands that you think of or buy on a

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Speaker 3: regular basis, you'd be astounded. I mean, that's everything from

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Speaker 3: Mars and Coca Cola, Nesley, what, Kellogg's, General Mills, PepsiCo.

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Speaker 2: Or Unilever owns everything.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, even Danin remember the yogurt brand Dan. But there's

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Speaker 3: like what, that's hundreds of the things underneath there.

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Speaker 4: And then you have like Procter and Gamble, for example,

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Speaker 4: you know, they're like a giant chemical company essentially that

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Speaker 4: owns all of these brands that are essentially fancy packaging

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Speaker 4: of chemicals that you put in your body or on

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Speaker 4: your face.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and any if if you look at almost any

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Speaker 2: food product, right, genre of food product, and what you'll

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Speaker 2: see is there is a remarkably small number of players

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Speaker 2: who are actually in the game. And that's because this

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Speaker 2: is very good business for them.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 2: Why would you want to own one team in the

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Speaker 2: sport when you could own the sport itself, right, then

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Speaker 2: you make money no matter who loses. So we looked

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Speaker 2: at this and we see this reflected or related to

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Speaker 2: some of the other stuff we explore with companies in

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Speaker 2: part one of this series. We looked at companies that, honestly,

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Speaker 2: I think we all assumed we're somewhat innocuous. Celestial Seasonings,

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Speaker 2: Sleepy Time Tea, sell Us Academy, Onita Silverware. I think

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Speaker 2: we all knew about going in. Some of us have

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Speaker 2: personal experience with the Yellow Deli. Narking On is run

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Speaker 2: by Scientology. Narcing On is Scientology adjacent. According to everyone

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Speaker 2: except for Scientology, including the US government. Narcing On is

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Speaker 2: run by Scientology.

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Speaker 4: I mean speaking of innocuous and in the Sleepy Time tea,

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Speaker 4: you got that lazy little bear. What could be wrong?

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Speaker 4: He looks so lovely, you know, Celestial Seasonings all their branding,

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Speaker 4: these companies and there they're forward facing. You know. Imagery

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Speaker 4: and branding are designed to make you not question it, right, yeah, man.

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Speaker 2: And while the particulars of each story may vary from

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Speaker 2: case to case, you know, like Washington Times and the

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Speaker 2: Moonies versus Narkana and Scientology and so on, they all

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Speaker 2: have this one commonality. They internally share some sort of unifying,

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Speaker 2: ideological or spiritual association. In some cases, these associations are

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Speaker 2: hidden from the average consumer, and in some other cases

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Speaker 2: they are openly presented to the consumer in the interest

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Speaker 2: of proselytization. You know, we can maybe gather some new recruits.

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Speaker 2: When you walk in to get a sandwich from Chick

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Speaker 2: fil A. This might be your road to Damascus moment,

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Speaker 2: you know.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, even like in and out Burger and

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Speaker 4: cook out for example, as to like kind of you know,

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Speaker 4: regional burger chains, they have scripture printed kind of in

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Speaker 4: fine print on some of their cups, and you know,

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Speaker 4: paper kind.

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Speaker 3: Of wares well and then others like one we're gonna

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Speaker 3: talk about today. I guys, I happened to go to

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Speaker 3: a store that sold some vegan food and I was

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Speaker 3: excited about eating that vegan food, and I walked in,

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Speaker 3: made my order, then kind of looked around near the

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Speaker 3: front and just saw, huh, those are those are different

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Speaker 3: magazines than I've ever seen they.

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Speaker 2: Did they have the TV channel?

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Speaker 3: I did not see a TV channel in the place.

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Speaker 3: We're gonna talk.

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Speaker 4: About We're gonna play a clip of it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and then we've got other and look, it's weird

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Speaker 2: that there are a lot of restaurants doing this, but also,

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Speaker 2: to be very clear, a lot of restaurants that just

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Speaker 2: reflect the the owner's spiritual beliefs. That doesn't make them

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Speaker 2: sinister at all. You know, I live up the street

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Speaker 2: from a place called Sole Vegetarian. I go there pretty

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Speaker 2: frequently because their food slaps.

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Speaker 4: You, guys. I went to this pumpkin patch the other

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Speaker 4: day called Bert's Pumpkin Farm or whatever that's called in

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Speaker 4: North Georgia, and I went on my first hay ride

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Speaker 4: and through a certain point on this hay ride you

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Speaker 4: passed these like creepy animatronic pumpkins that like give you

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Speaker 4: a little lesson in the lord. Oh like tribulation subversively.

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Speaker 4: We're rather you know, in a subdued kind of comedic fashion,

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Speaker 4: but you're almost like double take, Like wait a minute,

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Speaker 4: they're trying to doctrinate me a little bit, or at

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Speaker 4: the very least slip that message on in.

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Speaker 3: I love that mentioned Ben. The hell houses are strong

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Speaker 3: right now?

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Speaker 2: Oh man, we should go well, I loved I loved those,

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Speaker 2: that little slice of suburbia. You know, maybe we can

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Speaker 2: go to one. Yeah, see, let's find one with a

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Speaker 2: really big weird budget, you know, like the guys who

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Speaker 2: get the car just to burn it.

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Speaker 4: There was one in my hometown where they had like

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Speaker 4: a wrecked car outside of the church like as and

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Speaker 4: it was like featured in it where I guess somebody

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Speaker 4: drunk drove and you know, killed all their friends and

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Speaker 4: then the devil came and took them right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and then oh man, the only thing is at

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Speaker 2: the end they make you stop and listen to the

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Speaker 2: you know, the moral of the story. Okay, so we

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Speaker 2: always snuck off in the woods and did mischievous things,

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Speaker 2: mischievous things. But the point of this that we're making.

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Speaker 2: This is a very common thing. And when you look

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Speaker 2: at the idea of companies quote unquote owned by cults,

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Speaker 2: what we have to realize is that a cultic organization

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Speaker 2: never calls itself a cult. Like, for instance, Delta, which

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Speaker 2: is a huge airline here in the US. Well it's

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Speaker 2: global airline, but it's based in Atlanta. Delta jokes about

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Speaker 2: being called a cult because they have a very strong

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Speaker 2: internal corporate culture. But they're not isolating people from their

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Speaker 2: friends and family. They're not forcing people to buy stuff,

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Speaker 2: you know, or give away all their worldly possessions.

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Speaker 3: That's the big one.

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Speaker 4: Can I just double back real quick and make sure

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Speaker 4: it's clear that I was not implying that Christianity as

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Speaker 4: a cult per se. I was just saying that there

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Speaker 4: are ways that are analogous to the ways that these

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Speaker 4: kind of messages can be slipped in through innocuous means,

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Speaker 4: like a pumpkin ride or you know, a haunted house.

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Speaker 2: Yea, or veggie tails or whatever it's called, like the

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Speaker 2: or you know Narnia, right, that whole book series. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I think you're absolutely right, and well, none of us

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Speaker 2: are calling these things a cult. There are offshoots, there

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Speaker 2: will always be sects that are considered heretical by the

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Speaker 2: mainstream of a particular religion. But when we're talking about cults,

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Speaker 2: we're really talking about tactics. And that's why some of

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Speaker 2: these things, some of these entities will say, no, we're

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Speaker 2: absolutely not a cult. Don't tell you what to believe, right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we just listened to the Supreme Master and all

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Speaker 3: that she says at all times.

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Speaker 2: And do whatever they say, and you know, we buy

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Speaker 2: her sacred bathwater true story. So what we're telling is this,

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Speaker 2: it's alarmingly common for these products and entities to have

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Speaker 2: their true ownership kind of played to the left. And

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Speaker 2: a lot of these companies are everywhere in the West.

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Speaker 2: You will run across them, or you can run across

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Speaker 2: them in any major city. And we still wonder how

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Speaker 2: many cases are out there, how many companies are run

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Speaker 2: by cults. Here's where it gets crazy. Well, it turns

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Speaker 2: out there are a lot of cases out there. There

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Speaker 2: are a ton, not a literal ton, configurative ton, much

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Speaker 2: bigger than a real literal ton, well.

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Speaker 4: Enough to warrant a part two and a potential part three.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I mean each of these companies just to

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Speaker 2: be completely fair. We're going to give you some of

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Speaker 2: the accusations against them or criticisms, and then we're going

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Speaker 2: to give you their side as well, and we can't

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Speaker 2: wait to hear if you have firsthand experience. But please

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Speaker 2: be aware they may not be outright owned by a

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Speaker 2: cult or a religious sect, new religious movement if you prefer,

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Speaker 2: but they're associated with these groups through either their founders

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Speaker 2: or their current key influencers.

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Speaker 4: And also, we know the C word can be a

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Speaker 4: hot but an issue, especially to folks that participate in

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Speaker 4: some of this stuff. I think I've mentioned my experience

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Speaker 4: with the Bahai Faith in the past where I had

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Speaker 4: some friends that remember of that, and there are certain

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Speaker 4: folks who study this stuff who would classify that group

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Speaker 4: as a cult. I found them to be very nice

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Speaker 4: people until after the fact, didn't really realize how kind

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Speaker 4: of culty it was, but you know they are. There

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Speaker 4: are lovely people that participate in some of these things,

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Speaker 4: and they're not all inherently insidious, right And a cult.

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Speaker 2: You know, cults have it's got a bad connotation these days,

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Speaker 2: but really there are two main definitions. A cult is

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Speaker 2: a group that or a system that venerates or doors

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Speaker 2: a particular figure or an object, right, and then the

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Speaker 2: cult and the bad sense is a relatively small group

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Speaker 2: of people who have insular beliefs and practices that the

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Speaker 2: rest of the world thinks are kind of off. But

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Speaker 2: in neither case is it necessarily bad. It's not like

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Speaker 2: equated to being terrorist or something. Well.

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Speaker 4: And it's also interesting how sometimes the size of the

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Speaker 4: organization and the adherents, you know, in terms of you know,

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Speaker 4: the general population can dictate whether something is considered a cult,

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Speaker 4: because no one would ever say that Christianity or Catholicism

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Speaker 4: or a cult, but they certainly worship one person, and

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Speaker 4: there's a lot of cultic type things and knowledge and

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Speaker 4: secrets that go along with it. But because it's so

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Speaker 4: highly adopted, no one would ever call it that. I mean,

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Speaker 4: some people might, you know, backhandedly, but I think a

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Speaker 4: big hallmark of a lot of these things at their

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Speaker 4: niche and kind of smaller and maybe off the radar.

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Speaker 2: If there was one person there's just like one guy

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Speaker 2: who practiced Buddhism, people would say he is weird. He's

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Speaker 2: very chill, he's very cool, but he's he's weird. There

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Speaker 2: are millions of Buddhists in the world. It is not

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Speaker 2: treated as something eccentric. So you're right, there's a there's

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Speaker 2: a measure of scope and size that affects the way

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Speaker 2: the world regards these systems. Let's cut to Amway here

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Speaker 2: we go. I was thinking about this. We did an

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Speaker 2: episode on MLM's right, multi level marketing.

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Speaker 3: We have Yeah, and didn't we talk about Amway in

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Speaker 3: that a little bit, just like the origins of it without.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's the it's the biggest in the game, UH.

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Speaker 2: And the critics of Amway call it the worst of

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Speaker 2: all multi level marketing UH organizations. It's a former direct selling,

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Speaker 2: where the idea is that everybody works for the thing

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Speaker 2: is not really an employee. You are kind of like

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Speaker 2: a contractor. You don't get a salary, you don't get

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Speaker 2: a wage. And when MLMs go bad, when direct selling

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Speaker 2: goes wrong, what happens is the emphasis becomes not on

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Speaker 2: selling these products, but on recruiting people to sell stuff

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Speaker 2: for you. And that is where that's where you get

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Speaker 2: into all the tricky stuff of like distributors and down

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Speaker 2: line and upline. That nomenclature can sound you know, kind

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Speaker 2: of culty.

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Speaker 3: Well, it's it's definitely, uh, proprietary to that thing, right,

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Speaker 3: not necessarily that specific MLM, but to MLMs in particular. Right,

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Speaker 3: this it's using terminology that makes it when you've got

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Speaker 3: somebody else who's also a part of that group, is

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Speaker 3: super insular.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like reading internal conversations between people in scientology, right,

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Speaker 2: or or internal conversations honestly in branches of government, lots

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Speaker 2: of acronyms as get this or our emails sometimes.

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Speaker 3: Man, you know, I was gonna say, yeah, like the

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Speaker 3: radio slash podcast business right, all the all the terminology.

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Speaker 3: Other people would just be like, what are you talking about?

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Speaker 2: Ill?

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I almost apologize to you guys because we were running

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Speaker 2: pretty quickly for the past few weeks and I realized

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Speaker 2: I had shot off some email where it was like

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Speaker 2: if you are a message. I can't remember what it was,

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Speaker 2: but it was like one or two lines, and if

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Speaker 2: you read it, it would sound like a weird code

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Speaker 2: or a bunch of typos, like hey, are we okay

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Speaker 2: with eod on stwytk native ad recopy it's a sixty second?

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Speaker 3: Did we change that CTA or is it aoka?

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Speaker 2: Yes, they're a drop to beat. So yeah, so you're right,

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Speaker 2: that's a very important point. This is a common thing.

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Speaker 4: Amway.

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Speaker 2: Quick background, AMWAY is short for American Way Association, founded

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Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty nine by two grade school friends, j

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Speaker 2: Van Andel and Richard DeVos. And just like Google in alphabet,

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Speaker 2: Amway eventually created a parent company called Altacore to run

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Speaker 2: all of its stuff.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and I wasn't sure, but I did just do

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Speaker 4: a little googling myself and confirm that Richard DeVos is

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Speaker 4: the father of Richard Marvin de Vos Junior, who is

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Speaker 4: the husband of Betsy de Vos, who was the kind

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Speaker 4: of weird Secretary of Education under Trump who seemed to

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Speaker 4: have no real experience and did some kind of wacky stuff.

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Speaker 2: So this tried to destroy the American education system.

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Speaker 4: More or less you said it. But this is a line,

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Speaker 4: you know, This is like essentially what you might call

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Speaker 4: ben like American Royalty, you know, in terms of its

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Speaker 4: control over business and policy. Right, because you can't just

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Speaker 4: shove a you know, non experienced person into a role

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Speaker 4: like that, a post like that without having some serious pull.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, dude, And this company, this corporation, does have a

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Speaker 2: lot of pool. It's sales top eight point nine billion

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Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen alone, like this total for ultimately yeah, right,

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Speaker 2: and this they sell health and charity home products.

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Speaker 4: Is it tied to charity though in some way or

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Speaker 4: is it like the American Way Association, I mean, and

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Speaker 4: that meant to like help people.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, if you go to their website, you'll see a

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Speaker 2: lot of stuff about like the American spirit and working hard.

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Speaker 4: Kind of like the Hoover damn video exactly.

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Speaker 2: It's a little it's a little hooverish they do.

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Speaker 4: I just assume that because of the name the American

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Speaker 4: Way Association and Amway and all that it sounds to

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Speaker 4: me like the proceeds would go to helping you know,

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Speaker 4: refugees or something, but that is not the case.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the Refugee is like a top one percent distributor

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Speaker 2: for Amway. Then yeah, they'll get a lot of money.

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Speaker 2: It's it's weird. So, yes, they do have grants and

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Speaker 2: I'm sure they have a lot of charitable activity. They

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Speaker 2: have been investigated multiple times in multiple countries by a

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Speaker 2: monopoly of organizations. They have never been found guilty of

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Speaker 2: running an alleged pyramid scheme, which is you know, which

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Speaker 2: is what people say about MLS so why.

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Speaker 3: Are we talking about them? But they're not an MLM

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Speaker 3: pyramid scheme. They're an MLM that's a regular.

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Speaker 2: One direct sales, right, they're empowering you.

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Speaker 4: They're an RLM regular level of marketing. Yeah, the scheme

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Speaker 4: is implied. I think those controlling these types of things

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Speaker 4: would take issue with using the word scheme.

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Speaker 3: By the way, but Ben, you said they've never been

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Speaker 3: found guilty. No, does that mean they've been found not guilty.

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Speaker 2: They have been found guilty of some things, but not

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Speaker 2: specifically being a pyramid scheme, and they have paid tens

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Speaker 2: of millions of dollars repeatedly in out of court settlements.

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Speaker 2: Oh squashed something so accused but never convicted. In nineteen

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Speaker 2: seventy nine, the Federal Trade Commission here in the States said, okay,

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Speaker 2: m wait, you're not a pyramid scheme, but you are

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Speaker 2: very guilty of exaggerating income claims and you're also clearly

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Speaker 2: fixing prices on products. So here's what we're going to do.

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Speaker 2: Of course, no one gets in trouble because you're a corporate,

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Speaker 2: but we want you to stop airing misleading commercials and

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Speaker 2: advertisements and things like that, because you're making people who

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Speaker 2: may be in desperate in desperate times, you're making them

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Speaker 2: believe that they can instantly become millionaires when the truth

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Speaker 2: is that the majority of people in your organization end

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Speaker 2: up losing money over time.

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Speaker 4: And this kind of smack of prosperity theology a little

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Speaker 4: very much prosperity theology, yes, you know, but it's like

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Speaker 4: really masquerading as something else because it doesn't come off

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Speaker 4: as inherently religious like the seven hundred Club or whatever.

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Speaker 4: Like you know a lot of these folks that have

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Speaker 4: these infomercials selling buckets of you know, doomsday prep goods.

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Speaker 4: But still, if you dig deep enough, wich is our

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Speaker 4: whole point here, I think you know, from the intro

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Speaker 4: you'll find that it very much employs sort of I

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Speaker 4: don't know, like Jesus cult kind of tactics. I guess right.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's going to get really weird in a second.

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Speaker 2: So okay, if you're a typical member of Amway, they

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Speaker 2: will call you an ibo independent business owner, right because

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Speaker 2: you will have the power we are empowering you. There's

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Speaker 2: a book called Amway The Cult of Free Enterprise, which

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Speaker 2: you can read online for free. It looks a little

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Speaker 2: bit hokey. I'm gonna be honest, but it was a

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Speaker 2: different time and the author, Stephen Butterfield, has a lot

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Speaker 2: of information about how, in his perspective, Amway as an organization,

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Speaker 2: these different groups of distributors they use cult like tactics

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Speaker 2: to attract members and retain control over them. So there's

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Speaker 2: intense paran you can click by all like the classic

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Speaker 2: slow jazz of how to make a working cult. There's

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Speaker 2: paranoia toward anyone critical of the organization, internal or external.

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Speaker 2: Matt you pointed out the specificity of jargon and nomenclature

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Speaker 2: to make it increasingly its own language. To your point, Noal,

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Speaker 2: a lot of the meetings and seminars apparently per this

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Speaker 2: guy and other critics, they look more like religious revival meetings.

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Speaker 2: And then even though most people appear to lose money,

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Speaker 2: this idea, of this aspirational idea is enough to keep

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Speaker 2: them leveraged and going into the organization. Like you'll read

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Speaker 2: stories where they have to sell a certain number of

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Speaker 2: things per month, and to not be a pyramid scheme,

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Speaker 2: they can't just buy their own stuff. They have to

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Speaker 2: sell it to like some percentage of it has to

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Speaker 2: be sold to an actual customer is not them, and

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Speaker 2: they get so desperate that they will This is true.

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Speaker 2: They will order stuff to like a neighbor's address, to

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Speaker 2: make it look like that neighbor bought it, and then

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Speaker 2: they'll just sneak over and take it before you know,

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Speaker 2: the Joneses find out.

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Speaker 4: Are they worried about like getting you know, being on

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Speaker 4: the hook for products or is it literally just about

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Speaker 4: the being terrified of losing their membership in this what

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Speaker 4: they consider prestigious organization that they feel very strongly about.

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Speaker 3: I don't know, but I would just say in going

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Speaker 3: to the website right now, to Amway dot com, you

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Speaker 3: can shop there on the website for products, and those

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Speaker 3: appear to be direct sell products, like at least on

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Speaker 3: this from this end, it looks like you are buying

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Speaker 3: products from Amway, and I'm assuming as one of what

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Speaker 3: did you call ben IBOs, I'm assuming as one of

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Speaker 3: those individuals and operating your individual business, you would then

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Speaker 3: resell the product you purchase. Is that correct?

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Speaker 2: You know, I'm not sure how the system works. I

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Speaker 2: understand you would get wholesale products, and they've gone through

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Speaker 2: a couple of different iterations. They had something that kickster

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Speaker 2: or quick Ster or something that came out to focus

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Speaker 2: entirely on online sales instead of in person sales. But

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Speaker 2: it's it's the same thing, so there have been some

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Speaker 2: evolution different iterations.

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Speaker 4: It is interesting too because they have all these like

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Speaker 4: exclusive brands, you know, like neutral Light for you know,

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Speaker 4: plant based supplements, Artistry for skincare, and makeup Excess for energy,

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Speaker 4: drinks and shakes, and then like a home kind of

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Speaker 4: cleaning products and safer and gentler for all you know.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and you get points, You get am Perk points

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Speaker 3: every time you make a purchase. It's interesting stuff, guys.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And you can find statements from a lot of

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Speaker 2: the criticism comes from disgruntled former associates of Amway Right

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Speaker 2: and different government organizations. So there was one bredditor and

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Speaker 2: you can find the statement online who alleged that at

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Speaker 2: its core, Amway is, in their mind a prosperity Jesus cult. Well,

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Speaker 2: I say, once you're in the patina of fake professionalism

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Speaker 2: sort of goes away and you're taught a kind of

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Speaker 2: non denominational spirituality of a like a what was that

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Speaker 2: thing Oprah Winfrey really loved, like manifesting the secret you're

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Speaker 2: taught kind of a secret. Yeah, like words and thoughts

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Speaker 2: have power. You can speak your dreams into existence if

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Speaker 2: you quote have enough faith. If you don't succeed, if

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Speaker 2: something doesn't work out up to an including like a

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Speaker 2: non unpredictable medical condition, then it's kind of on you

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Speaker 2: because you didn't have enough faith. You spoke negative things

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Speaker 2: into existence. And then there's one thing that really stood out.

433
00:24:30,160 --> 00:24:33,440
Speaker 2: This person says, I remember stories where they would literally

434
00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:35,800
Speaker 2: tell doctors to keep their mouth shut if the doctor

435
00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:38,879
Speaker 2: found a terminal illness and not say anything. I think

436
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:40,879
Speaker 2: they would still take medicine and so on, but they

437
00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:43,680
Speaker 2: would literally tell the doctor not to speak the words,

438
00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:47,000
Speaker 2: as if the doctor's words had magical powers that could

439
00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:51,080
Speaker 2: cause the illness to take a foothold. So that's crazy,

440
00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:54,239
Speaker 2: that's just scratching the surface. That's just one example. There

441
00:24:54,240 --> 00:24:58,120
Speaker 2: are more examples of companies that are alleged to have

442
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:01,920
Speaker 2: these controversial tactics at the core of their being. We're

443
00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:05,160
Speaker 2: gonna pause, take a word from our sponsor, who knows

444
00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:07,640
Speaker 2: who it will be, uh, and then we'll be back

445
00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:10,679
Speaker 2: with a We'll be back with another example that's a

446
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:12,600
Speaker 2: little more true crime actually.

447
00:25:19,119 --> 00:25:24,840
Speaker 4: And we're back moving on to company number two of

448
00:25:24,880 --> 00:25:29,639
Speaker 4: today's episode, True Value Out of Utah. What does Utah

449
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:38,480
Speaker 4: make you think of? New Caps, salt candy or the mountains? Both? Okay,

450
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:42,760
Speaker 4: salt flats, No caps salt flats. That should be a

451
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:46,040
Speaker 4: rap song comes next to something about cooking something up

452
00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:49,320
Speaker 4: in the something that no get there you go the

453
00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:52,639
Speaker 4: Kingston Clan. Tell us about the Kingston Clan that you

454
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:54,320
Speaker 4: taught to me makes me think of the Church of

455
00:25:54,640 --> 00:25:56,439
Speaker 4: Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.

456
00:25:56,640 --> 00:26:01,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's the big one right. So to our

457
00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:05,560
Speaker 2: earlier conversation about sex and breakaway groups, the Kingston Clan

458
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:11,240
Speaker 2: is a insular, secretive breakaway group from the Church of

459
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:15,760
Speaker 2: Latter Day Saints, and internally it's called the Order with

460
00:26:15,840 --> 00:26:20,359
Speaker 2: a capital O. They have several doctrinal disagreements with the

461
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:23,960
Speaker 2: mainstream LDS Church. They're very tight knit. They are a

462
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 2: polygamous community. They have been practicing for decades and decades

463
00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:33,400
Speaker 2: arranged marriages, often between underage girls and sometimes much older men,

464
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 2: and not infrequently these folks are related to each other.

465
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 2: I don't know to what degree. It's more like a

466
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:42,879
Speaker 2: cousin thing than I think a sibling thing.

467
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:46,400
Speaker 4: And They're again not to beat a dead horse here,

468
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:49,879
Speaker 4: but there are lots of good, lovely, law abiding folks

469
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:52,760
Speaker 4: that practice this faith and do not do any of

470
00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:56,040
Speaker 4: those things, and in fact look at those behaviors as

471
00:26:56,600 --> 00:26:59,400
Speaker 4: a black mark on their faith. You know, if you've

472
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:03,439
Speaker 4: ever seen the show Big Love on HBO, there's it

473
00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:07,120
Speaker 4: kind of shows those two sides, and it's a very

474
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:09,720
Speaker 4: interesting world. So, I mean, I'm sure we have listeners

475
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:12,760
Speaker 4: that maybe grew up in the church and have thoughts

476
00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 4: about this. I just want to make sure we're being

477
00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:17,240
Speaker 4: real clear that this is not everybody that's involved with

478
00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:19,119
Speaker 4: LDS one hundred percent.

479
00:27:19,800 --> 00:27:21,320
Speaker 3: Is it called True Value?

480
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:24,879
Speaker 2: True Value is one of the stores they own, And

481
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:27,960
Speaker 2: you would never know this because the Kingston Clan owns

482
00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:32,119
Speaker 2: a ton of different businesses. True Value is like a

483
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:36,160
Speaker 2: franchise hardware store thing. They're based up north. They don't

484
00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:39,440
Speaker 2: the Kingston Clan doesn't own the entirety of True Value.

485
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 2: But that that was sort of how I began to

486
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:45,359
Speaker 2: find out about them. They also own We'll get to

487
00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:47,440
Speaker 2: what they earn in a second. Let's talk more about

488
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 2: their fundamentalist beliefs.

489
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:51,840
Speaker 3: Gotcha, I'm sorry, I was really confused because in my head,

490
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:54,719
Speaker 3: I saw a bunch of products called true Value, but

491
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 3: it was actually just the Walmart brand great value I

492
00:27:57,960 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 3: think products. I's so sorry about that.

493
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:03,320
Speaker 2: Oh well, I mean, are the Waltons at this level?

494
00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 2: Are they engaging in cult like activity?

495
00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:06,080
Speaker 4: Unclear?

496
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 2: Nor I don't Mark, So Walmart can move in and

497
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:14,119
Speaker 2: just break a town. It's we've seen. Everybody in the

498
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:16,720
Speaker 2: United States has seen that happen or knows about it.

499
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:20,639
Speaker 2: So anyway, if you look at members of the Kingston Clan,

500
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:24,960
Speaker 2: you will see that they don't appear anachronistic. They don't

501
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 2: really stick out. They wear modern clothing. Female members of

502
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:32,720
Speaker 2: the Order are encouraged to get new last names for

503
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 2: themselves and their progeny to downplay that existence of plural marriage,

504
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:41,320
Speaker 2: which is just another word for polygamy. And wives in

505
00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:44,719
Speaker 2: the Order are also expected to work and pay their

506
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:47,400
Speaker 2: own bills. So it sounds a little bit feminist in

507
00:28:47,400 --> 00:28:50,880
Speaker 2: that regard, But then you learn that this group, the

508
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 2: Kingston Clan, preaches women or the property of their husbands

509
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:57,000
Speaker 2: and fathers. You got to follow the Dude's Order in

510
00:28:57,040 --> 00:28:59,920
Speaker 2: every area of your life, including when you get married,

511
00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:03,239
Speaker 2: whom you marry, when you get pregnant, whether or not

512
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:06,400
Speaker 2: you can go to school. And these are you know,

513
00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 2: typical and very dangerous fundamental beliefs.

514
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:10,960
Speaker 4: This is a lot of the stuff that's depicted in

515
00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:14,560
Speaker 4: Big Love in terms of the compounds kind of out

516
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:17,960
Speaker 4: in the you know, the farther reaches of the country,

517
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 4: I guess parts of Utah, not within the cities where

518
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 4: they kind of have a law into themselves. And there's

519
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:26,360
Speaker 4: a prophet in the show named Roman who's sort of

520
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:28,760
Speaker 4: like this, the head of this and it is they

521
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:30,400
Speaker 4: don't they go out of there. You know, they don't

522
00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:32,680
Speaker 4: make any bones about it. It's depicted as a cult

523
00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:33,800
Speaker 4: in him as a cult leader.

524
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:38,960
Speaker 2: And with all that stuff which is important, which can

525
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 2: be heartbreaking and of course dangerous sometimes fatal. With all

526
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:45,360
Speaker 2: that stuff put to one side, there's another thing that

527
00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:49,760
Speaker 2: the Kingston Clan does. They're very very or they were

528
00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:53,720
Speaker 2: very very good at business and they have a unique

529
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:58,600
Speaker 2: banking arrangement or system within the community. I mean, we

530
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:00,880
Speaker 2: talk a little bit about the Kingston Bank.

531
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:04,600
Speaker 3: It's weird. I don't know how you could ever convince

532
00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 3: me to do this. I don't know that you could. Maybe,

533
00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 3: but each member when you when you are working you

534
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:15,360
Speaker 3: have an income, your money doesn't go into Bank of

535
00:30:15,360 --> 00:30:18,640
Speaker 3: America or Wells Fargo or one of these places. Your

536
00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:23,560
Speaker 3: money goes into the organization's bank, the organization's bank that

537
00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:27,800
Speaker 3: is controlled by what the high few in charge.

538
00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 4: So when you say the organization's bank, we're not saying

539
00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 4: the giant bank that they bank with. We're saying a

540
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:39,600
Speaker 4: bank founded and operated by the organization.

541
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 2: Right Kingston Bank. Yeah, you have to give all your

542
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 2: money to the bank if you're in the community, and

543
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:48,760
Speaker 2: if you want to withdraw money, then that you have

544
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:51,680
Speaker 2: to go to the bank. And imagine walking up to

545
00:30:51,720 --> 00:30:54,720
Speaker 2: the teller at whatever, you know, your bank maybe or

546
00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:59,240
Speaker 2: your credit union and saying I'd like to withdraw you know,

547
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:01,480
Speaker 2: five hundred dollars and then having to tell her to

548
00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 2: sort of cross their arms and go all right, why what.

549
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 4: Are you gonna do?

550
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 3: Or basically asking you for a pitch document, Well, what's

551
00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:11,680
Speaker 3: your pitch? Why what do you want that money? What

552
00:31:11,680 --> 00:31:12,479
Speaker 3: are you gonna use it for?

553
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:16,880
Speaker 2: Exactly? And if it's consensual and it's above board, that

554
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 2: arrangement is totally legal. You know, the problem is what's consent.

555
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:25,200
Speaker 4: It's like when Britney Spears was under that protectorship or

556
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:28,960
Speaker 4: conservatorship or whatever, and had to like justify any expense

557
00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:31,440
Speaker 4: that she, you know, wanted to go to Starbucks or

558
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:33,240
Speaker 4: take the kids out or something. She had to like

559
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:34,239
Speaker 4: explain it.

560
00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 3: Well, I think about like a co op or a

561
00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 3: trust of some sort, where we've got several of those

562
00:31:40,280 --> 00:31:44,520
Speaker 3: in Atlanta, like land trust, land co ops and those

563
00:31:44,600 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 3: kinds of things where everybody puts in right.

564
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:49,880
Speaker 4: Those are usually good though. Right they give first time

565
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:53,280
Speaker 4: homeowners the ability to buy a house, and there's positive

566
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:55,040
Speaker 4: things about them. But I see what you're saying.

567
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:56,800
Speaker 3: And then if you've got ideas to use some of

568
00:31:56,840 --> 00:31:59,160
Speaker 3: those funds, you get together and you pitch an idea

569
00:31:59,160 --> 00:32:02,280
Speaker 3: of why you're gonna use it. To me, I don't know,

570
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:05,280
Speaker 3: maybe it is the same as that. Maybe it just

571
00:32:05,400 --> 00:32:06,760
Speaker 3: feels different to me.

572
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:10,280
Speaker 4: Because we're on the outside, you know. I mean, I

573
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:13,160
Speaker 4: guess the question becomes one of consent, like are these

574
00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:16,360
Speaker 4: people coerced into participating in this system or do they

575
00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:20,040
Speaker 4: think that the leaders have their best interest at heart

576
00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:22,080
Speaker 4: and they're happy to participate in this system.

577
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:26,520
Speaker 2: And also the question of boundaries. So I know a

578
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:30,120
Speaker 2: lot of people in co ops right their relationship with

579
00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:34,160
Speaker 2: the co op is quite is quite well defined.

580
00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:34,719
Speaker 3: You know.

581
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:40,120
Speaker 2: The difference I would posit here, Matt, is that in

582
00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 2: most co ops, the kind that we're thinking about, you know,

583
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:45,920
Speaker 2: like the hippie grocery store or whatever. Shout out to

584
00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:50,080
Speaker 2: Sevenanda in little five points, that's a co op. And

585
00:32:50,560 --> 00:32:54,880
Speaker 2: they're not telling people. They're not arranging marriages, right, they're

586
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:59,120
Speaker 2: not forcing child labor. They're saying, is this the best

587
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 2: place for us to get avocados from? You know what

588
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:02,200
Speaker 2: I mean?

589
00:33:03,760 --> 00:33:06,400
Speaker 4: They voted on that, Yeah, where they exact where they

590
00:33:06,440 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 4: source things from? Do they feel like these are organizations

591
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:12,440
Speaker 4: that uphold their values stuff like that? Right?

592
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:17,400
Speaker 2: And nobody knows how much money the Kingston Bank actually has.

593
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:18,560
Speaker 4: Nobody knows people.

594
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:22,480
Speaker 2: Well, I'm sure like there are eight dudes too, no people,

595
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 2: But I mean this is not something that is i

596
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:26,480
Speaker 2: mean publicly available in any way, shape or form.

597
00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:28,479
Speaker 4: I did not know that. That's very interesting. How are

598
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:31,400
Speaker 4: they allowed to exist without reporting to the irs and

599
00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:34,760
Speaker 4: without like with this much small through there?

600
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:38,360
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, yeah, they found out, they have to found out.

601
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:39,800
Speaker 4: Yeah, it takes time that sometimes.

602
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 2: In twenty sixteen, the FBI rated multiple businesses owned by

603
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:49,320
Speaker 2: the Kingston Group during an investigation into allegations of tax fraud,

604
00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:54,520
Speaker 2: high level tax fraud. It all orbits around this energy

605
00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:59,720
Speaker 2: company that they controlled, and various reports that you could

606
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:03,840
Speaker 2: find publicly or in various public statements said altogether the

607
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:07,240
Speaker 2: Kingston Clan the Order has about one hundred and fifty

608
00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 2: to one hundred and seventy million dollars. However, if you

609
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:13,719
Speaker 2: got insiders to speak, and you can find them speaking anonymously,

610
00:34:14,080 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 2: they would say that figure is laughably low. Because the

611
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:23,200
Speaker 2: Order's empire spans six different states. They have all sorts

612
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:30,080
Speaker 2: of seemingly unrelated businesses with very innocuous names, and we

613
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:33,680
Speaker 2: know what's up with innocuous names. Standard Restaurant Equipment Co,

614
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:38,480
Speaker 2: Fidelity Funding, Core, Fountain of Youth, Health and Athletic Club

615
00:34:38,600 --> 00:34:43,040
Speaker 2: east Side Market. They get a coin machine distributor, Digital Systems,

616
00:34:43,120 --> 00:34:46,239
Speaker 2: Family Stores True Value. They also have a mine that

617
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:48,359
Speaker 2: for a while was making a million a month. They

618
00:34:48,400 --> 00:34:53,680
Speaker 2: have casino and tons of farms. And then the thing

619
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 2: that got them in trouble was the Washshaiki Renewable Energy

620
00:34:57,680 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 2: Company or the wr Group, because what they were doing

621
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:06,280
Speaker 2: is getting grants and government money for a biofuel project

622
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:10,520
Speaker 2: or subsidy, and they were cleaning up because they didn't

623
00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:16,040
Speaker 2: spend any money actually making biofuel are making. They were

624
00:35:16,080 --> 00:35:18,759
Speaker 2: making nine and ten year old children show up at

625
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:22,000
Speaker 2: the office and help forge documents like bills of lading

626
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:24,360
Speaker 2: and invoicing. They're super big on child labor.

627
00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:28,320
Speaker 3: I thought that was the Montssori school, the Montessori school,

628
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:29,680
Speaker 3: the hand tasks.

629
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:33,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the Little Red Schoolhouse Montassori.

630
00:35:33,719 --> 00:35:36,040
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, the kid did Montessori for a while. It

631
00:35:36,080 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 4: was weird, but it seemed really cool at the time,

632
00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:40,040
Speaker 4: but then it was like, this is too much.

633
00:35:40,520 --> 00:35:46,240
Speaker 2: So the Kingston Group has created this business empire without

634
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:49,799
Speaker 2: clear connections to them by design, they kind of want

635
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:51,960
Speaker 2: to stay out of the spotlight. They want to pursue

636
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:55,080
Speaker 2: their own belief system, and they were pretty good at it.

637
00:35:55,160 --> 00:35:58,000
Speaker 2: You could walk through Salt Lake City and never know

638
00:35:58,200 --> 00:36:01,080
Speaker 2: just how many things they actually oh, they can be

639
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:04,120
Speaker 2: traced back to them, But that seems to be changing.

640
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:09,279
Speaker 2: Just this year. In April, five Kingston associated individuals were

641
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:12,799
Speaker 2: sentenced to prison for what Uncle Sam calls a one

642
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:17,200
Speaker 2: billion dollar biofuel tax conspiracy. So they actually some of

643
00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:19,720
Speaker 2: them did actually go to jail.

644
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:24,960
Speaker 4: It's pretty rare in these types of corporate cases. You know,

645
00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 4: it's usually there's a fall person or you know, somebody

646
00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:30,520
Speaker 4: further down the line that gets sent to jail, or

647
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:33,360
Speaker 4: it's just a fine that is sort of laughable. So that,

648
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 4: you know, I guess that's good, mm hmm.

649
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:40,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that it's troubling too because you can read

650
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:43,920
Speaker 2: statements of people who have escaped the cult or excuse me,

651
00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:50,000
Speaker 2: the order, some of whom escaped because women are treated

652
00:36:50,120 --> 00:36:54,320
Speaker 2: like things in the organization, some of whom were booted

653
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:59,520
Speaker 2: out forcibly because of their sexual orientation. And you can

654
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:02,560
Speaker 2: there's some great work on advice about this. You can read,

655
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:05,800
Speaker 2: and can read any number of stories from an outfit

656
00:37:05,880 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 2: called the Cult Education Institute that talks about a lot

657
00:37:09,160 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 2: of this. Just gird yourself and be ready because some

658
00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:16,960
Speaker 2: of it is quite disturbing stuff, especially when you get

659
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 2: into the alleged and proven sexual crimes of some of

660
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:26,360
Speaker 2: the leadership of the sect and they're still doing business,

661
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:30,080
Speaker 2: they're still making money and over fist, I propose we

662
00:37:30,200 --> 00:37:35,560
Speaker 2: go to a ad break and we were thinking about this, guys.

663
00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:39,280
Speaker 2: We wanted to end on something that was not as

664
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:46,759
Speaker 2: horrible ostensibly as you know, a religious sect of child abusers,

665
00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 2: which is what the Kingston plan is. We're going to

666
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:53,080
Speaker 2: go to something that has a creepy name in my opinion,

667
00:37:53,400 --> 00:38:00,560
Speaker 2: but it's according to some people, it's pretty nice word

668
00:38:00,560 --> 00:38:04,719
Speaker 2: from our sponsor. And then we'll enter the Loving Hut.

669
00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:12,920
Speaker 2: We're back. We're in the Loving Hut.

670
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:16,560
Speaker 4: What is that You're in the Loving Hut? Matt tell

671
00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:18,600
Speaker 4: us about.

672
00:38:17,080 --> 00:38:24,280
Speaker 3: It's honestly purveyor of delicious vegan food. It was awesome.

673
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:27,040
Speaker 3: I really really enjoyed it when I went there, and

674
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:31,080
Speaker 3: I didn't really understand any of the stuff going on

675
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 3: around it. But you know, look, this is my experience.

676
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:34,919
Speaker 4: Guys.

677
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:37,680
Speaker 3: I walked in, look at the menu, order some food,

678
00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:41,080
Speaker 3: walk outside. When I walk back in, notice the magazines

679
00:38:41,200 --> 00:38:43,560
Speaker 3: take my food, hang out with the magazines a little

680
00:38:43,600 --> 00:38:46,800
Speaker 3: bit longer, and then realize, oh, there's something going on here.

681
00:38:46,920 --> 00:38:49,400
Speaker 3: There's somebody they keep referring to as Supreme Master.

682
00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:53,359
Speaker 4: There's a quote on their website from him, and it's

683
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:58,520
Speaker 4: just attributed to smc h. I'm guessing sm stands for

684
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:01,440
Speaker 4: Supreme Master, but so the quote sounds nice. We have

685
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:04,080
Speaker 4: to be compassionate again, we have to look into our

686
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:06,920
Speaker 4: heart to live the noble way that Heaven all caps

687
00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:09,759
Speaker 4: or to all caps first letter caps intended us to live.

688
00:39:10,160 --> 00:39:11,919
Speaker 4: I think you miss Ben's question. What was your order?

689
00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:13,279
Speaker 4: That's what everyone wants to know.

690
00:39:13,600 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 3: Oh man, I don't know that I could tell you

691
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:21,120
Speaker 3: it was. It was probably something with Soy. I'm sure

692
00:39:21,160 --> 00:39:24,640
Speaker 3: Soy was involved, Like it was probably Tofu and Soy

693
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:26,680
Speaker 3: something cool.

694
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:29,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't want to out us, but I think

695
00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:31,880
Speaker 2: no one and I both pulled up the menu. You

696
00:39:32,040 --> 00:39:36,360
Speaker 2: definitely we're reading it. Yeah, take out the Singapore and noodles.

697
00:39:36,440 --> 00:39:40,560
Speaker 2: But yeah, Loving Hut. It's a chain of vegan restaurants

698
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:43,600
Speaker 2: all across the planet. I think for a while it's

699
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 2: been the fastest growing vegan franchise in the world. And

700
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:52,799
Speaker 2: SMH is Supreme Master. Chinghai a seventy three year old

701
00:39:52,880 --> 00:39:59,160
Speaker 2: Vietnamese born British business woman and she's got a restaurant empire.

702
00:39:59,560 --> 00:40:04,840
Speaker 2: Time magazine once called her the Buddhist Martha Stewart. She's

703
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:08,080
Speaker 2: the she created a jewelry line, a clothing line. She

704
00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:11,560
Speaker 2: has something called the Kuan Yin method or Kwanyin method,

705
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 2: which is that's kind of what they're talking about in

706
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:19,680
Speaker 2: those magazines. That's kind of what the statement about compassion

707
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:25,080
Speaker 2: refers to she might have five hundred thousand followers. Nobody's

708
00:40:25,120 --> 00:40:28,680
Speaker 2: really sure, because this is what is called a cyber sect,

709
00:40:28,880 --> 00:40:32,480
Speaker 2: meaning a new religious movement that exists in spreads primarily

710
00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:37,439
Speaker 2: online and unlike Oh oh and you can check out

711
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:41,239
Speaker 2: Supreme Master Television right now SMTV.

712
00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:45,000
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, yeah, like the acroam. I think Matt did

713
00:40:45,040 --> 00:40:47,080
Speaker 4: say off Mike to us that they did not appear

714
00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:49,759
Speaker 4: to have this network running twenty four to seven, but

715
00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:50,839
Speaker 4: you might have just missed it.

716
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:54,200
Speaker 3: Again, maybe they did, and I just was completely oblivious

717
00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:55,920
Speaker 3: to it, and I was like, oh, that that seems

718
00:40:55,960 --> 00:40:56,880
Speaker 3: like a nice program.

719
00:40:57,719 --> 00:41:02,200
Speaker 2: Oh and I okay, we went through again some plot

720
00:41:02,200 --> 00:41:04,319
Speaker 2: twists through record today, So we're not going to play

721
00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:08,120
Speaker 2: a clip, but do look up Supreme Master Television. It's

722
00:41:08,160 --> 00:41:11,520
Speaker 2: worth it. It's got the captions on the bottom of

723
00:41:11,560 --> 00:41:15,799
Speaker 2: the screen are in like fourteen languages.

724
00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:17,440
Speaker 4: They are serious.

725
00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:19,880
Speaker 2: About going global. The little caption thing is like the

726
00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:23,240
Speaker 2: bottom half of the screen, and it's all about how

727
00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:25,840
Speaker 2: you should need animals, how you should have how you

728
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:30,160
Speaker 2: should practice a dedication to a vegan lifestyle, which is

729
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:31,640
Speaker 2: a thing a lot of people can agree with.

730
00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:36,080
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, it's a live stream that we can, like,

731
00:41:36,200 --> 00:41:37,560
Speaker 3: I can turn it on right now?

732
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:43,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, click, can you watch it? See right now?

733
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:46,560
Speaker 2: We're are you seeing the one about the dog with.

734
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 3: The icon, But did you see the person speaking?

735
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:52,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a very strange look, isn't it.

736
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:56,759
Speaker 4: I was now gonna just seeing beauty shots of fields

737
00:41:56,800 --> 00:42:01,400
Speaker 4: of trees and mountains with mists and the beautiful boats

738
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:02,600
Speaker 4: on on the seashore.

739
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:05,960
Speaker 2: The thing is, when we're saying this not as a

740
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:08,800
Speaker 2: ding because we are new to this world. The person

741
00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:13,799
Speaker 2: who is the host of the like the news anchor person, oh,

742
00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 2: looks as though they were wearing acoustu yeah and being

743
00:42:18,239 --> 00:42:19,680
Speaker 2: very diplomatic.

744
00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:24,360
Speaker 3: But like full body, fake beard, fake mustache, even fake

745
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:27,319
Speaker 3: hair looking thing. And yeah, it's very strange.

746
00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:30,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's one of the more off putting things

747
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 2: to me.

748
00:42:31,120 --> 00:42:33,040
Speaker 4: There a bomb that haven't gotten to a shot of

749
00:42:33,080 --> 00:42:35,120
Speaker 4: the anchor yet. I just see kitty cats right now?

750
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:38,680
Speaker 4: Any bunny rabbits and daisies?

751
00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:43,840
Speaker 3: Wow, what's about animal husbandry laws? About it? From twenty eighteen,

752
00:42:44,560 --> 00:42:47,520
Speaker 3: I've been you weren't joking about the uh the cap

753
00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:48,239
Speaker 3: titles here?

754
00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:49,000
Speaker 4: Yeah?

755
00:42:49,040 --> 00:42:51,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, good language tool, right.

756
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:54,600
Speaker 4: And if you're asking yourself. How could you possibly fit

757
00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:56,759
Speaker 4: all of that in in one screen? Is because they're

758
00:42:56,800 --> 00:42:59,480
Speaker 4: popping it up like three words at a time, and

759
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:02,800
Speaker 4: there's like ten different translations. They're just a zooming past.

760
00:43:03,239 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 3: Let's let's read, let's read thems really quickly, be vegan,

761
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:08,319
Speaker 3: make peace, so be it.

762
00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:12,360
Speaker 2: They've got other They've got other really weird, weird things

763
00:43:12,360 --> 00:43:13,360
Speaker 2: that they get into with this.

764
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:15,560
Speaker 4: I feel like, are we seeing the same thing? Guys?

765
00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:17,960
Speaker 4: This is honesty. It might not be honestly. Yeah, it's

766
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 4: a little cartoon right now. That was there was a

767
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:20,520
Speaker 4: joke of today.

768
00:43:21,280 --> 00:43:24,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, okay, I'm gonna be a little behind, but yeah,

769
00:43:24,320 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 2: so it's it's continual. You can always check it out

770
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:31,720
Speaker 2: if you are interested. And look, you can say, maybe

771
00:43:32,200 --> 00:43:36,920
Speaker 2: Chinghai seems like a cult leader, but also seems less

772
00:43:36,960 --> 00:43:42,960
Speaker 2: outright dangerous than some other cult leaders. The emphasis on veganism, kindness, sustainability,

773
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:46,920
Speaker 2: so on. Those are all cool aspirational things. And every

774
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:50,080
Speaker 2: loving Hut has a lot of agencies. So like if

775
00:43:50,200 --> 00:43:52,759
Speaker 2: the next time we're on the road, if we go

776
00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:55,799
Speaker 2: to a loving Hut in California, it's gonna be completely

777
00:43:55,840 --> 00:43:58,759
Speaker 2: different from the Loving Hut in Sandy Springs, which is

778
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:01,680
Speaker 2: a suburb a little bit north of Atlanta here. And

779
00:44:01,719 --> 00:44:04,759
Speaker 2: that's because the franchises, as long as they follow the

780
00:44:04,840 --> 00:44:09,400
Speaker 2: rules about veganism and as long as they are down

781
00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:13,960
Speaker 2: with talking about the Supreme Master, they can put whatever

782
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:15,920
Speaker 2: they want on the menu. It's just like, how do

783
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:17,400
Speaker 2: you vibe? What do you feel like cooking?

784
00:44:17,719 --> 00:44:18,360
Speaker 3: That's cool?

785
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:20,799
Speaker 4: Kind of similar to the Yellow Deli. Didn't they have it?

786
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:22,759
Speaker 4: Like there are some of those who were different, as

787
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:24,600
Speaker 4: long as they sort of like adhere to the main

788
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:26,640
Speaker 4: tenets of the whole philosophy.

789
00:44:27,080 --> 00:44:30,279
Speaker 2: M Yeah, I think you're right. And that's in neither

790
00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:34,080
Speaker 2: case is that typical cult stuff? Also, in the in

791
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:39,400
Speaker 2: Chinghai's defense, she hasn't been implicated in like mass suicides

792
00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:43,240
Speaker 2: or sexual abuse, or kidnapping people and holding them hostage,

793
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:46,680
Speaker 2: all the other cult stuff that Netflix documentaries love. But

794
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:49,200
Speaker 2: she has been banned. Her organization has been banned in

795
00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:52,360
Speaker 2: China and Vietnam, and she gets a lot of scrutiny

796
00:44:52,520 --> 00:44:59,000
Speaker 2: and a lot of criticism because the idea is it's

797
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 2: very much a cult personality. It's very centered on following

798
00:45:03,719 --> 00:45:07,160
Speaker 2: her meditating, chanting your name for two and a half

799
00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:13,160
Speaker 2: hours a day is recommended you want to purify yourself

800
00:45:13,200 --> 00:45:16,160
Speaker 2: by drinking her spiritually imbued bath water.

801
00:45:17,040 --> 00:45:17,600
Speaker 4: Oh oh boy?

802
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:21,520
Speaker 3: Wait yeah yeah, yeah, like she takes a bath in it.

803
00:45:22,239 --> 00:45:26,160
Speaker 2: I believe something like that. Yeah, it's very b girl. Yeah.

804
00:45:26,200 --> 00:45:29,560
Speaker 2: And then they also tell you do things that will

805
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:33,040
Speaker 2: help you have a better physical lifestyle. Don't eat animal flesh,

806
00:45:33,120 --> 00:45:36,520
Speaker 2: avoid dairy, don't drink booze, don't do a lot of

807
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:39,680
Speaker 2: mind altering, well any mind altering drugs, and then avoid

808
00:45:39,719 --> 00:45:42,680
Speaker 2: something called sexual misconduct, which is kind of vague. I

809
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:46,920
Speaker 2: haven't seen anybody explain what that means, Like, does that

810
00:45:47,040 --> 00:45:51,400
Speaker 2: mean is it an anti lgbt Q thing or is

811
00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:55,680
Speaker 2: it just like I only have consensual sex.

812
00:45:56,280 --> 00:45:59,040
Speaker 4: This reminds me a lot of the United House of

813
00:45:59,120 --> 00:46:01,759
Speaker 4: Prayer for All People. I think we talked about that

814
00:46:01,800 --> 00:46:04,360
Speaker 4: in the past, that there was a chapter of it.

815
00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:06,160
Speaker 4: I guess in my hometown, and they have a really

816
00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:09,319
Speaker 4: dope soul food restaurant and that's kind of how they

817
00:46:09,360 --> 00:46:11,879
Speaker 4: get outsiders to come, you know, pass through. But then

818
00:46:11,920 --> 00:46:14,040
Speaker 4: if you look in the restaurant part, there's a giant

819
00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:19,920
Speaker 4: painting portrait of this guy named Bishop Charles Manuel Sweet

820
00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:26,359
Speaker 4: Daddy Grace, and apparently he sells the water that's used

821
00:46:26,400 --> 00:46:31,040
Speaker 4: to wash his feet to people in a similar fashion

822
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:33,960
Speaker 4: that I just remember hearing that, and it was very

823
00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:36,840
Speaker 4: off putting. I think I just said not to go

824
00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:38,840
Speaker 4: eat there anymore after that. But it was sure good.

825
00:46:39,040 --> 00:46:41,440
Speaker 4: And forgive me if I'm getting that wrong. But this

826
00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:44,160
Speaker 4: is a common thing, this idea of this is something

827
00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:47,480
Speaker 4: from the leader directly. This is a substance, you know,

828
00:46:47,560 --> 00:46:50,120
Speaker 4: from the body of the leader that you can now

829
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:51,480
Speaker 4: own a piece of, you know.

830
00:46:52,480 --> 00:46:56,359
Speaker 2: And this the spiritual beliefs of Chinghai have not been

831
00:46:56,480 --> 00:47:00,239
Speaker 2: without controversy by any means. You know, they're there are

832
00:47:00,320 --> 00:47:05,360
Speaker 2: certain potentially harmful practices that the leader has advocated before,

833
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:09,960
Speaker 2: one of which being breath arianism. Will remember that one.

834
00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:13,799
Speaker 2: It's the idea that if you get spiritually right and

835
00:47:13,800 --> 00:47:17,440
Speaker 2: you're buttoned up, then you can cut food out of

836
00:47:17,440 --> 00:47:23,040
Speaker 2: your diet. Then you can just live by breathing. Yeah,

837
00:47:23,120 --> 00:47:25,360
Speaker 2: it doesn't It doesn't work out for most people. Just

838
00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:28,040
Speaker 2: to be super clear, we're not doctors, but it doesn't

839
00:47:28,040 --> 00:47:29,040
Speaker 2: work out for most people.

840
00:47:29,200 --> 00:47:30,280
Speaker 3: Well it works for a while.

841
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:33,919
Speaker 2: Wait, well, yeah, sure, anything works for a while. Jay,

842
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:35,160
Speaker 2: how long is that?

843
00:47:35,239 --> 00:47:35,520
Speaker 4: While?

844
00:47:35,680 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also there's a little bit of prosperity theology,

845
00:47:40,920 --> 00:47:45,400
Speaker 2: because the Supreme Master tells her followers that you shouldn't

846
00:47:45,440 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 2: be ashamed about making money. She said specifically, people make

847
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:52,640
Speaker 2: you feel guilty about making money dot it's none of

848
00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:55,960
Speaker 2: their business. And that brings us to maybe the biggest controversies,

849
00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 2: which are all financial. She donated six one hundred and

850
00:47:59,600 --> 00:48:04,959
Speaker 2: forty thousand dollars to the Bill Clinton Whitewater Defense Fund

851
00:48:05,040 --> 00:48:07,399
Speaker 2: when he was in trouble for that thing, and they

852
00:48:07,440 --> 00:48:11,120
Speaker 2: returned it because you know, it looks like you're taking

853
00:48:11,120 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 2: Colt money and they're already in a pr crisis.

854
00:48:14,239 --> 00:48:16,560
Speaker 3: That's a lot of money for a defense fund for

855
00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:19,640
Speaker 3: the to defend against the Whitewater scandal.

856
00:48:19,880 --> 00:48:26,640
Speaker 2: She was very a very outspoken supporter of former President Clinton.

857
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:30,160
Speaker 2: And also when she got she got a lot of

858
00:48:30,160 --> 00:48:32,480
Speaker 2: this money from some of her followers in New York

859
00:48:33,000 --> 00:48:36,560
Speaker 2: and they said, she just asked for donations to quote

860
00:48:36,640 --> 00:48:39,080
Speaker 2: help someone in need, and they didn't know who it

861
00:48:39,239 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 2: was until it hit the news and they're like, oh,

862
00:48:42,880 --> 00:48:47,319
Speaker 2: the the guy from the White House. And the Taiwanese

863
00:48:47,400 --> 00:48:53,360
Speaker 2: authorities have also targeted her businesses under suspicion of illegally

864
00:48:53,640 --> 00:48:56,000
Speaker 2: moving money in and out of the country in some

865
00:48:56,040 --> 00:49:00,839
Speaker 2: sketchy ways. She wanted to donate to. UNICEF turned down

866
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:04,200
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand dollars donation from her in two thousand

867
00:49:04,239 --> 00:49:08,880
Speaker 2: and one after they investigated her organization, including Loving Hut.

868
00:49:09,640 --> 00:49:11,880
Speaker 2: Apparently they've been in trouble. One of the reasons they

869
00:49:11,880 --> 00:49:14,920
Speaker 2: were banned in China is because they used an electronics

870
00:49:14,920 --> 00:49:18,440
Speaker 2: company as what the Chinese government is calling a front

871
00:49:19,239 --> 00:49:23,920
Speaker 2: to recruit new members into this religion or this movement.

872
00:49:24,520 --> 00:49:27,840
Speaker 2: But on a positive note, she doesn't ask people to

873
00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:31,000
Speaker 2: cut ties with their loved ones, she doesn't ask them

874
00:49:31,040 --> 00:49:34,240
Speaker 2: to hand over all their stuff. Her lectures are free.

875
00:49:34,480 --> 00:49:38,840
Speaker 2: Followers are apparently allowed to leave at any time, So, honestly,

876
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:43,640
Speaker 2: as cults go, not bad. I mean, there are accusations

877
00:49:43,719 --> 00:49:50,240
Speaker 2: of Loving Hut franchises using unpaid or underpaid or child labor,

878
00:49:51,480 --> 00:49:54,279
Speaker 2: but in comparison to the stuff we explored earlier, I

879
00:49:54,360 --> 00:49:57,359
Speaker 2: don't know, man, I it's just one thing we can

880
00:49:57,400 --> 00:49:59,640
Speaker 2: say for sure. We're all going to a Loving Hut

881
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:02,319
Speaker 2: together at some point. You're invited. If you're hearing this

882
00:50:02,640 --> 00:50:04,040
Speaker 2: and yeah and.

883
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:06,560
Speaker 4: Then bang banging menu, I mean, it really doesn't mean well,

884
00:50:06,600 --> 00:50:07,080
Speaker 4: and they've.

885
00:50:06,920 --> 00:50:09,200
Speaker 3: Got free TV that never stops.

886
00:50:09,640 --> 00:50:12,720
Speaker 2: Yes, that's the main features.

887
00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:15,000
Speaker 4: We can't wait to hear what you think of that

888
00:50:15,120 --> 00:50:15,840
Speaker 4: TV channel.

889
00:50:15,920 --> 00:50:19,680
Speaker 2: I used to have this series of websites or hubs

890
00:50:19,680 --> 00:50:21,880
Speaker 2: that would go to where you could watch live television

891
00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:25,360
Speaker 2: from around the world. And I gotta tell you it,

892
00:50:25,520 --> 00:50:29,080
Speaker 2: GE's interesting. It's a good idea. Think it's interesting, you know.

893
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:32,680
Speaker 2: But but we know one thing for sure. There may

894
00:50:32,719 --> 00:50:36,880
Speaker 2: be a part three company of this series. Companies started

895
00:50:36,880 --> 00:50:39,719
Speaker 2: by cults. Just like last time, we ran into more

896
00:50:39,719 --> 00:50:42,759
Speaker 2: and more companies. We didn't get to them today, places

897
00:50:42,800 --> 00:50:46,160
Speaker 2: like Exjet, for instance, And oh, I thought it would

898
00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:48,239
Speaker 2: be this is a cool one. Maybe we can end

899
00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:52,439
Speaker 2: on an honorable mention. I was not aware. You guys

900
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:54,719
Speaker 2: might have known this before I did. But did you

901
00:50:54,800 --> 00:50:58,759
Speaker 2: know that the Moonies run sushi in the US. They

902
00:50:58,840 --> 00:50:59,960
Speaker 2: run the sushi game.

903
00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:07,000
Speaker 4: The whole game, a lot of it. Can you elaborate then?

904
00:51:08,200 --> 00:51:12,040
Speaker 2: Okay, So this is props to Daniel Frumson at The

905
00:51:12,040 --> 00:51:15,239
Speaker 2: New York Times. There's a great article and actually really

906
00:51:15,280 --> 00:51:18,760
Speaker 2: well designed article to read online. It's very visual, graphic.

907
00:51:18,840 --> 00:51:25,200
Speaker 2: Novely and the Mooney's Reverend Sun Young Moon. He when

908
00:51:25,320 --> 00:51:28,560
Speaker 2: he came to the United States he had already made

909
00:51:28,640 --> 00:51:32,240
Speaker 2: a lot of money selling various things, and he plowed

910
00:51:32,440 --> 00:51:37,080
Speaker 2: tens of millions of dollars into buying boats and processing

911
00:51:37,120 --> 00:51:41,120
Speaker 2: plants because he wanted his church to get into the

912
00:51:41,360 --> 00:51:47,080
Speaker 2: fish distribution business. The company is called True World Foods.

913
00:51:47,120 --> 00:51:51,480
Speaker 2: And if you look at the measurements now, you'll see

914
00:51:51,520 --> 00:51:57,160
Speaker 2: that True World Foods still supplies quote most good quality

915
00:51:57,239 --> 00:52:01,239
Speaker 2: American sushi restaurants with more than a million kilos of

916
00:52:01,320 --> 00:52:05,440
Speaker 2: fresh fish a year and there, wait for it, reeling

917
00:52:05,680 --> 00:52:08,360
Speaker 2: in annual revenues of five hundred billion.

918
00:52:09,640 --> 00:52:15,239
Speaker 4: Okay, has sushi? So how do you It's okay? So

919
00:52:15,239 --> 00:52:17,800
Speaker 4: they're like up the supply chain then, I guess is

920
00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:20,440
Speaker 4: the thing. So it's not like they're directly involved with

921
00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:24,239
Speaker 4: our neighborhood sushi joint, but they are. They control the

922
00:52:24,560 --> 00:52:28,200
Speaker 4: flow of sushi. Wow, that's crazy.

923
00:52:28,960 --> 00:52:31,640
Speaker 3: And this is the unification church that we're talking about, right.

924
00:52:31,800 --> 00:52:35,000
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, the big I think one of the things

925
00:52:35,000 --> 00:52:37,760
Speaker 2: that are most famous for is those huge mass marriages.

926
00:52:39,360 --> 00:52:42,640
Speaker 4: Wow yeah yeah. Ok.

927
00:52:43,280 --> 00:52:48,600
Speaker 2: And during the COVID nineteen pandemic, True World Foods launched

928
00:52:48,719 --> 00:52:51,640
Speaker 2: home delivery sushi kits to make up for lack of

929
00:52:51,719 --> 00:52:55,719
Speaker 2: restaurant sales, so you could go check that website out.

930
00:52:56,160 --> 00:53:01,200
Speaker 2: Do tune in to Supreme Master Television. Tell us what

931
00:53:01,800 --> 00:53:05,040
Speaker 2: is at your local loving Hut. Tell us what you

932
00:53:05,120 --> 00:53:09,439
Speaker 2: think about these organizations. Do you have personal experience with any?

933
00:53:10,080 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 2: Are there some that you think more people should know about,

934
00:53:13,400 --> 00:53:15,879
Speaker 2: maybe in your neck of the global woods. We can't

935
00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:18,000
Speaker 2: wait to hear from you. We look forward to it,

936
00:53:18,600 --> 00:53:22,040
Speaker 2: and we try to be easy to find on the internet.

937
00:53:22,640 --> 00:53:25,040
Speaker 4: We do. Indeed, you can find us at the handle

938
00:53:25,080 --> 00:53:33,279
Speaker 4: Conspiracy Stuff on x FKA, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Conspiracy Stuff

939
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:34,920
Speaker 4: show on Instagram and TikTok.

940
00:53:35,080 --> 00:53:39,919
Speaker 3: A call one eight three three std wytk to leave

941
00:53:39,960 --> 00:53:42,879
Speaker 3: a voicemail that we'll hear when you call in. You've

942
00:53:42,920 --> 00:53:45,040
Speaker 3: got three minutes, give yourself a cool nickname and let

943
00:53:45,120 --> 00:53:47,040
Speaker 3: us know if we can use your voice and message

944
00:53:47,239 --> 00:53:49,200
Speaker 3: on the air. If you've got more to say they

945
00:53:49,239 --> 00:53:51,400
Speaker 3: can fit in that message. Why not instead send us

946
00:53:51,400 --> 00:53:52,600
Speaker 3: a good old fashioned email.

947
00:53:52,800 --> 00:54:14,319
Speaker 2: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

948
00:54:14,440 --> 00:54:16,520
Speaker 3: Stuff they don't want you to know is a production

949
00:54:16,600 --> 00:54:21,160
Speaker 3: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

950
00:54:21,239 --> 00:54:24,080
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.