Speaker 1: Balls Mahoney. This is Behind the Bastards, the podcast where
Speaker 1: every week we celebrate famed wrestler Balls Mahoney, who whose
Speaker 1: careers started in the late eighties and ran through the
Speaker 1: nineties before his tragic death at age forty four of
Speaker 1: a heart attack. Here to talk about Balls Mahoney, Margaret Killjoy,
Speaker 1: Garrison Davis. How are y'all doing? How are we feeling
Speaker 1: about about Balls? Balls Mahoney? This show has really changed
Speaker 1: in the scope since last time I've been on. Huh,
Speaker 1: I am. I am very excited about this person that
Speaker 1: I totally believe is a real person. Oh it is.
Speaker 1: It is because all of our faces were like, because
Speaker 1: y'all aren't y'all aren't pilled on Balls Mahoney. I honestly,
Speaker 1: I know very little about him other than that he's
Speaker 1: a wrestler, he died very young, and he has one
Speaker 1: of the funniest names I've ever heard. But the only
Speaker 1: photo of him he is bleeding from the forehead and
Speaker 1: both of his wrists have been duck covered in duck tape.
Speaker 1: It's incredible. Um. Anyway, that was that was a little
Speaker 1: bit of fun for all of our wrestling fan listeners.
Speaker 1: You know, I've often said professional wrestling and ska are
Speaker 1: the only remaining forms of art in the world. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're they're they're actually there, actually is there is an
Speaker 1: argument for that that It's an argument I'll make. Ah,
Speaker 1: this is Behind the Bastards. It's a podcast about bad
Speaker 1: people and also balls. Mahoney, um, and about lying to
Speaker 1: the audience. At the start of the introduction, Garrison, Margaret,
Speaker 1: how are you doing today? You know? I, um, I'm
Speaker 1: all right. I spent all morning plumbing and I haven't
Speaker 1: destroyed anything yet. That's good. I guess it's my turn
Speaker 1: to talk. Yeah, that's generally how it works in a conversation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm doing great. I have my I have my oat
Speaker 1: milk coffee and ready ready to learn about some some
Speaker 1: fascinating historical figures coffee. Yeah. I just don't know if
Speaker 1: we could have moved on if we didn't know what
Speaker 1: kind of milk you were using. Yeah, the wokest, so
Speaker 1: we would be judging you for any other milk. So
Speaker 1: how do y'all what do y'all What do y'all know
Speaker 1: about the Bavarian Illuminati. Oh, that's that's something I've mean,
Speaker 1: that's something I've heard been screamed about at like fascist
Speaker 1: rallies before. That is most most of the time I've
Speaker 1: most of the time that I've heard the words the
Speaker 1: Bavarian Illuminati, it's coming from some unhinged woman who has
Speaker 1: choice opinions of the Jewish people. Um, yeah, yeah, generally
Speaker 1: people generally, the folks who feel strongest about the Bavarian
Speaker 1: Illuminati also have opinions about like the root races. Um.
Speaker 1: That's not positive. No, no, um, Margaret, do you know
Speaker 1: much about the Bavarian Illuminati or just because I distinct
Speaker 1: for the regular Illuminati or is this uh it's the
Speaker 1: illuminate unless ilie. Yeah. I once read a book about
Speaker 1: the origins of the Illuminati as influencing the anarchist movement
Speaker 1: called the Occult Origins of Aim or something great book. Yeah,
Speaker 1: some of my knowledge is the book. Someone said that
Speaker 1: there's a through line. There is there is a through line.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be talking about that today. This is going
Speaker 1: to be a bit of a weird one. I've been
Speaker 1: wanting to do this an episode on this matter kind
Speaker 1: of ever since we started the podcast. Last year, we
Speaker 1: did a live show that touched on the Discordians and
Speaker 1: Operation mind funk, which is kind of the endpoint of
Speaker 1: this story. But telling it all really properly requires Um well,
Speaker 1: it took me about sixteen thousand words. Um, so so
Speaker 1: dig right in. No, this will be a little more
Speaker 1: than a two parter. But I think it's important, not
Speaker 1: because just by the way, in case you're listening here wondering,
Speaker 1: like has Robert gone crazy? Is it going to start
Speaker 1: telling us about how the Illuminati have put machines in
Speaker 1: our teeth that talk to us when we sleep. Um,
Speaker 1: obviously that's been done. We all have those machines in
Speaker 1: our teeth, but it has nothing to do with the Illuminati. Now,
Speaker 1: the Illuminati, the original Illuminati, are not particularly bad guys.
Speaker 1: They are They are people who made some some choices
Speaker 1: that have wound up carrying down through the ages in
Speaker 1: an unexpected way, and a lot of that's been negative.
Speaker 1: We're getting behind the bastards in this one in that,
Speaker 1: like what we're all talking about today, the story that
Speaker 1: begins in Europe, and like the seventeen hundreds leads directly
Speaker 1: to Q and on right, it leads directly to every
Speaker 1: aspect of modern conspiracy culture. Because the Illuminati are what
Speaker 1: create the first like uber conspiracy, you know, the first
Speaker 1: conspiracy that loops in all of the other conspiracies. The
Speaker 1: way that it all works now, right, where if you
Speaker 1: believe that, like if you believe that, like the government
Speaker 1: is trying to keep you from drinking raw milk or
Speaker 1: force vaccines on you to poison you, or if you
Speaker 1: believe that there are lizards at the center of the world,
Speaker 1: or if you believe that, uh, you know, the the
Speaker 1: the the elite are drinking the blood of children, you
Speaker 1: can all of those can become part of the same
Speaker 1: conspiracy and in fact generally are because of the way
Speaker 1: that how the syncretic nature of modern like uber conspiracies.
Speaker 1: And this all starts with the Illuminati. Um, they don't
Speaker 1: do it on purpose, but they do kind of cause
Speaker 1: it by recklessness. And so we're gonna start by talking
Speaker 1: about the Illuminati, but actually we're gonna start a long
Speaker 1: as time earlier than that, Margaret uh and Garrison, because
Speaker 1: how long how long would you guess, like secret societies
Speaker 1: have been a major factor in like human civilization since
Speaker 1: before civilization. I mean that is for a long, long,
Speaker 1: long time, Like, yeah, I was surprised looking at this
Speaker 1: how far back the research on this goes um because
Speaker 1: it's it's it's as Margaret said, it's it's pre civilization
Speaker 1: and in fact, a good example of like one of
Speaker 1: the first secret societies we have any kind of decent
Speaker 1: evidence of comes from the Chumash people who have lived
Speaker 1: on the California coast and around that area for about
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand years or so. Obviously you're never gonna get
Speaker 1: an exact date on there, but at least like fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand years UM and starting it around six thousand BC,
Speaker 1: give or take a couple of centuries, they started making
Speaker 1: really good canoes, which came to be known as tumils,
Speaker 1: and these craft they like, you know, they got better
Speaker 1: and better at making canoes over time and kind of
Speaker 1: reached their most advanced, perfected form at around years ago.
Speaker 1: And this was a really involved process. They have all
Speaker 1: of these different pieces that allow them to be like
Speaker 1: tumuls are generally considered to be maybe the best canoes
Speaker 1: that existed before like really modern materials, UM. And they're
Speaker 1: ingenious devices and obviously they took a lot of experimentation
Speaker 1: and development in order for people to like figure out
Speaker 1: how to make them the best way. They're made out
Speaker 1: of redwoods. They're glued together with tar. They used shark
Speaker 1: skin as sand paper, which I didn't realize you could
Speaker 1: do but but but kind of makes but makes sense. Um.
Speaker 1: And because these were so good, the task of making
Speaker 1: one took about five days if you were like a
Speaker 1: skilled manufacturer, and it required specialized knowledge that's kind of
Speaker 1: like about on the level of what it would take
Speaker 1: to be like a good auto mechanic. So that knowledge
Speaker 1: was valuable because as the people on the coast started
Speaker 1: making these tumuls and getting better at them, it became
Speaker 1: like hugely advantageous to have one, both in military terms,
Speaker 1: because they could allow you to raid your enemies really effectively,
Speaker 1: and they could allow you to fish into trade a
Speaker 1: lot better. There was a lot of of you know,
Speaker 1: money or resources at least locked up and having access
Speaker 1: to these things, and the people who made them realize, like,
Speaker 1: we have this knowledge that's not widespread, and if we
Speaker 1: keep it secret just amongst ourselves, then we can build
Speaker 1: a lot of power and wealth for ourselves and our families. Um.
Speaker 1: The term that yeah, exactly. The brotherhood of them of
Speaker 1: Tamal held a pretty more or less a monopoly over
Speaker 1: the creation and piloting of these craft for we I mean,
Speaker 1: we'll never know exactly how long, but for an extremely
Speaker 1: long time. Um And this allowed them to become quite
Speaker 1: comfortable themselves. A passage from the book First People's Populating
Speaker 1: the Planet charts out how things went from there. A
Speaker 1: bear skin cape worn only by the elite of canoe
Speaker 1: owners and village chiefs marked the beginnings of class distinctions.
Speaker 1: Adds did burials, which were far more elaborate for the
Speaker 1: wealthy and their children than for commoners. Members of the
Speaker 1: Brotherhood of Tumul were often buried with parts of their canoes.
Speaker 1: Perhaps most offensive to the egalitarian an independent Johuans, who
Speaker 1: were neighbors to the Chumash, would have been the emergence
Speaker 1: of a permanent and hereditary political elite among the Chumash.
Speaker 1: High ranking Chumash chiefs, who inherited their positions through the
Speaker 1: mail line, exercised control over number of communities, but each
Speaker 1: village also had its own chief, some of whom were women.
Speaker 1: These political leaders, all of whom were also canoe owners,
Speaker 1: lead their people in war, presided over religious rituals, and
Speaker 1: regulated the flourishing trade that followed the invention of the
Speaker 1: tumul And I find that fascinating the idea that among
Speaker 1: this this society, class distinctions emerged as a result of
Speaker 1: the creation of this and and the kind of the
Speaker 1: sequestering of this knowledge among an elite chunk of the population. Um.
Speaker 1: I hadn't really thought about it occurring that way, but
Speaker 1: it makes sense. Yeah, as as as as soon as
Speaker 1: you mentioned that that they that they specifically kept the
Speaker 1: information about how to make them secluded. I'm like, but
Speaker 1: on on one hand, like undeniably secret societies are kind
Speaker 1: of cool, like everybody wants to be in the in group,
Speaker 1: everyone wants to have access to secret knowledge. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, just the existence of that will buy it
Speaker 1: self create like conditions of inequality and goes against like
Speaker 1: ideals of like open access to information should and how
Speaker 1: everyone should have the opportunity to learn anything that they can.
Speaker 1: And yeah, but that does create a very interesting, interesting dynamic.
Speaker 1: And but yeah, I also use the same thing to
Speaker 1: keep information going that would otherwise be lost, especially people
Speaker 1: who don't don't have writing systems or have different types
Speaker 1: of writing systems like oral tradition stuff, being able to
Speaker 1: preserve information in it because because of your because of
Speaker 1: how sacred it is. Yeah. Yeah, I mean not just
Speaker 1: gate keeping, it's also preservation. Yeah yeah, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to be preserved. I'm not like saying the brothers
Speaker 1: of Them is the first bass. Yeah, it's all obviously,
Speaker 1: this is all we're taking. These are these This is
Speaker 1: like a complicated thing, and it had positive and negative impacts.
Speaker 1: It's just it. It's fascinating to me, and it's gonna
Speaker 1: be interesting how many things from as far back as
Speaker 1: the existence of the Brotherhood of the Tumul carry through
Speaker 1: to like modern day secret societies and in weirdly specific ways.
Speaker 1: But I it's one of those things I kind of wonder.
Speaker 1: Obviously we don't have a lot of written records from
Speaker 1: the people the Chumash people in like five thousand BC
Speaker 1: or whatever, four thousand, three thousand BC, But I kind
Speaker 1: of wonder, like where their conspiracy theories about the Canoe
Speaker 1: people in their secret society running things, like because that's
Speaker 1: the thing people do you know? It's interesting and what
Speaker 1: because it's kind of like you could almost imagine people
Speaker 1: talking about this like people today talk about like the
Speaker 1: free energy suppression conspiracy theory, Like Donald Trump knows that
Speaker 1: like the someone's keeping free energy from American people for
Speaker 1: the like. Yeah, it's uh, I wanted to and we
Speaker 1: spend something, but with magnets, more more energy comes out
Speaker 1: that goes in. That's right, that's right. That's why I
Speaker 1: throw magnets on the side of my car. Improved the
Speaker 1: gas mileage. One of these days it's going to work.
Speaker 1: So secret society people know how they work. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: are the secret gatekeepers of all of all knowledge. They're
Speaker 1: the brotherhood of the tumal of the modern era. Um. So.
Speaker 1: One of the things as I was reading about these
Speaker 1: guys that I found out that I hadn't realized is
Speaker 1: that there's actually like a really strong vein of research
Speaker 1: by anthropologists into the existence of secret societies across all
Speaker 1: of Neolithic humanity. This is a thing we do everywhere
Speaker 1: there are people, um and it's it's a thing that
Speaker 1: occurs in societies when they hit what's often described as
Speaker 1: kind of a middle level of development between wandering bands
Speaker 1: of hunter gatherers and like we're talking bands here, not
Speaker 1: like large moving like tribes of people um and then
Speaker 1: like what we broadly call ancient like pre civilization, where
Speaker 1: you have some settled communities maybe but you at least
Speaker 1: have much larger groups of people moving and interact, even
Speaker 1: even if they're still kind of nomadic um. And it's
Speaker 1: kind of in that that interstial period between sort of
Speaker 1: like groups of I don't know, ten people wandering around
Speaker 1: the wilderness to actually starting to make towns and cities
Speaker 1: that you see the development of of of ancient secrets societies.
Speaker 1: In a lot of cases, like the American Pacific Northwest
Speaker 1: what is today the American Pacific Northwest, it was common
Speaker 1: for adults to pick societies based on their talents uh
Speaker 1: and most common vocation. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: this did is society's existed off in across tribal and
Speaker 1: family lines. So in addition for being a way for
Speaker 1: people to kind of gate keep knowledge and and sort
Speaker 1: of build wealth between within communities and along like lines
Speaker 1: of family descent, they provided a backdoor method of diplomacy
Speaker 1: and allowed for different tribes that might have often been
Speaker 1: in conflict over stuff like hunting grounds and other resources
Speaker 1: to also have a way in times of disaster to
Speaker 1: cooperate on something that sort of approached the level that
Speaker 1: a nation state could do it because you have, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe sometimes one tribe is fighting the other, but all
Speaker 1: of the people who know how to make this important
Speaker 1: thing have some sort of like occasionally will meet and
Speaker 1: engage in these secret religious observances together and talk shop
Speaker 1: and talk trade, and when a disaster hits, they're able
Speaker 1: to communicate with each other because they have this kind
Speaker 1: of this kind of brotherhood. UM. Now, when anthropologists use
Speaker 1: the term secret to refer to these these secret societies,
Speaker 1: which are often called like guilds and groups, uh, that's
Speaker 1: because all of these societies tended to enforce the isolation
Speaker 1: of their members for periods of time. That's what they
Speaker 1: mean by secret. It's not that like no one knew
Speaker 1: the Brotherhood of Tamal existed. It's that part of the
Speaker 1: way it worked is members would sequester themselves away from
Speaker 1: everyone else and have conversations and engage in rituals that
Speaker 1: other people were not allowed to see. Um. Some of
Speaker 1: these rituals would have been mystical, some of them would
Speaker 1: have been doggedly mechanical, like instruction on the best way
Speaker 1: to make canoes, but all of them were secret. Many
Speaker 1: Neolithic people's also practiced matrilineal descent UM. So one way
Speaker 1: in which one very prominent way in which secret societies
Speaker 1: developed was because it was traditional for men to move
Speaker 1: in with the family of their partner um, which was
Speaker 1: not just an emotionally complex experience but also lad presumably
Speaker 1: to a lot of like frustration on behalf of some
Speaker 1: of these men um. And so secret societies were often
Speaker 1: very male dominated and just like yeah, it's yeah, exactly exactly,
Speaker 1: so ever there to blow off steam, right, No, but
Speaker 1: in a pretty literal way, right, where like fraternal fraternal
Speaker 1: societies that became thoughts come out of all of this,
Speaker 1: and actually like mutual aid organizations and yeah, we are
Speaker 1: out of all of this, we will be building to that.
Speaker 1: It's just interesting to me, how deep? Yeah about it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why I want to do on this. So I
Speaker 1: want to quote read a quote now from an American
Speaker 1: anthropologist named Walter Goldschmidt. There was always a magical religious
Speaker 1: aspect to such groups. They are characterized by ritual induction
Speaker 1: or initiations, by secret rights and ceremonies, and by a
Speaker 1: system of mythological justification. Often they also have a power
Speaker 1: function uniting the senior men the adults are some especially
Speaker 1: selected group as against the women and children or all outsiders.
Speaker 1: Occasionally there are counter veiling women's organization, and that's that's
Speaker 1: also it's interesting to be how deep, like you can
Speaker 1: see shades of this and like some of the weird
Speaker 1: in cell communities online and like fucking Andrew takes Little clubhouse.
Speaker 1: It's so weird to me how far back this ship goes.
Speaker 1: What is this perceived lack of power? Don't they're saying, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: interesting huh. So many ancient societies were either made of
Speaker 1: high status individuals or became that over time as their
Speaker 1: coordination allowed them to martial resources more effectively than other
Speaker 1: segments of society. And so secret societies they drove stratification
Speaker 1: and created it, but they also kind of resulted from stratification.
Speaker 1: It's it's obviously it's this is a very complex topic.
Speaker 1: So it's not just one or the other. Secret religious
Speaker 1: societies or cults were ubiquitous during the late period of
Speaker 1: the Roman Empire as well and the Early Empire. In
Speaker 1: this case, they offered places for the elite to socialize
Speaker 1: and organize out of public view. And in fact, our
Speaker 1: modern term for cult was initially applied two different like
Speaker 1: religious sects. Right, a cult was not you've you've fallen
Speaker 1: in with some weird charismatic guy. It's like, yeah, we
Speaker 1: decided to worship this goddess from Egypt who it became
Speaker 1: suddenly hip like in Rome to worship this goddess, you know,
Speaker 1: she's foreign in different so like all the cool kids
Speaker 1: are in this cult now and it's like just the
Speaker 1: thing that we did together. Wow, they're just like me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you would have you would have gotten on quite well. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting debate. In the long history of European secret societies,
Speaker 1: the most infamous before the Illuminati was probably the Order
Speaker 1: of the Temple of Solomon that are known today as
Speaker 1: the Knights Templar. Initially founded by veterans of the First Crusade,
Speaker 1: this was an organization of lay people who took monastic
Speaker 1: vows and like the first thing that they did was
Speaker 1: basically act to protect, as kind of in a policing manner,
Speaker 1: pilgrim routes of the Levant. Right, So you've got these
Speaker 1: pilgrims heading forward to the newly reconquered Holy Land during
Speaker 1: the brief period that it was reconquered, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's bandits and ships. So the Knights Templar kind of
Speaker 1: volunteering to UM to aid the transit of pilgrims by
Speaker 1: by helping to protect them UM. They also had a
Speaker 1: regular army and would fight in battle at periods of
Speaker 1: time as a regular army. Over time and that way
Speaker 1: that you do, the Crusades went less well. There was
Speaker 1: much less call for Templars out in the Holy Land,
Speaker 1: and so they got into banking and became deeply woven
Speaker 1: into life across much of Europe. This disturbed traditional elites
Speaker 1: like king French King Philip the Fourth, and in thirteen
Speaker 1: o seven the order was purged in a you know,
Speaker 1: you'd call it an orgy of violence. It was a
Speaker 1: pretty pretty solid violence orgy um. And it was like
Speaker 1: about calling them Satanists or something because they, yeah, they're
Speaker 1: always saying for demons come from or something like that
Speaker 1: or something. There's I think that's a part of it.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things happening at once that kind
Speaker 1: of feed into it. But yeah, that the Templars get
Speaker 1: accused of devil worship and accused of plotting for the
Speaker 1: overthrow of governments and try aing to like make themselves
Speaker 1: the you know, the like overthrow kind of the settled
Speaker 1: power in Europe UM, because there's not really any evidence
Speaker 1: of Yeah, yeah, they're really just they're really just like
Speaker 1: the ancient Bank of America, maybe more like an ancient
Speaker 1: credit union, UM, but yeah, ISU credit union with like
Speaker 1: a military. Yeah, they primarily anax like racist violence. I mean,
Speaker 1: modern banks, everyone, everyone, every everyone with a military primarily
Speaker 1: enax racist violence. In this period of time. They're not
Speaker 1: really different from the French in that regard. So during
Speaker 1: the mid sixteen hundreds, Europe experienced a rather sudden burst
Speaker 1: of religious creativity. The overwhelming control of the Catholic Church splintered,
Speaker 1: and suddenly you get your Lutherans and your Calvinists and
Speaker 1: all these all these Protestants start popping up all over
Speaker 1: the place. This coincided with what's called the Age of Enlightenment,
Speaker 1: which by the seventeen hundreds is in full swing, bringing
Speaker 1: a newfound understanding of the scientific method and the value
Speaker 1: of rationality over dogma. Obviously, broad terms like the Age
Speaker 1: of Enlightenment exists to describe complex periods and very simple
Speaker 1: and very broad terms. The so called Enlightenment was not
Speaker 1: evenly distributed, and it arrived I think a little later
Speaker 1: in Bavaria because Bavaria stays extremely Catholic, which is in
Speaker 1: contrast to much of the rest of what we now
Speaker 1: call Germany. But when it did hit the term that
Speaker 1: gets used in the area is auf kleung Um, which
Speaker 1: I think just means age of Enlightenment, but in in
Speaker 1: that silly language people speak in Bavaria, Southern Germany, I believe. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's like the most conservative and the most
Speaker 1: catholic part of Germany. Um, which is the part of
Speaker 1: south because I think it, Yeah, it borders Austria, because
Speaker 1: that's where Hitler finds when he leads his home in Austria. Yeah,
Speaker 1: east ends. I mean it is east a lot of
Speaker 1: South too, trying to position myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's like borders. So yeah, it's it borders like Liechtenstein
Speaker 1: in Austria, all that good ship. Um yeah, and um,
Speaker 1: it's a it's an interesting, interesting part of Germany for that,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be a lot more conservative than
Speaker 1: than the rest of the area. So the Enlightenments going
Speaker 1: to hit it in kind of a more controversial way.
Speaker 1: And I want to quote now from an Italian sociologist
Speaker 1: named Massimo introvin the Bavaria of the second half of
Speaker 1: the eighteenth century, a Catholic duchy, the duke's elector would
Speaker 1: take the title of kings only in eighteen o five,
Speaker 1: and a predominantly Protestant Germany was where in Europe the
Speaker 1: spirit of the Catholic Reformation and the Baroque Age was
Speaker 1: best preserved. Education and culture were dominated by the Society
Speaker 1: of Jesus, and the former Jesuits remained influential even after
Speaker 1: the papal suppression of their order in seventeen seventy three.
Speaker 1: The Dukes resisted the reforms initiated in the neighboring Austria,
Speaker 1: although the latter was also Catholic and the influence of
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church remained pervasive. Trying to reserve this situation,
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church erected a barrier against the Enlightenment. Many
Speaker 1: books by Enlightenment philosophers, which circulated freely in the rest
Speaker 1: of Germany, were banned. In Bavaria, the Protestant against the
Speaker 1: Catholic Church and the Dukes happened. The protest against the
Speaker 1: Catholic Church and the Dukes happened mostly in the universities,
Speaker 1: where a number of professors were sensitive to Enlightenment ideas.
Speaker 1: In turn, students off and kept in contact, particularly through
Speaker 1: the college fraternities that at this time began to gain
Speaker 1: importance with their colleagues in the Protestant German states. So
Speaker 1: Bavarious kind of Florida, right, like they're very much horrifying
Speaker 1: centence thinking of the Florida Illuinati being like the next
Speaker 1: like like like fift years this conspiracy, this conspiracy, the
Speaker 1: Florida Illuinati terrifying. Yeah, and the Florida Illuminati is like
Speaker 1: two guys with a single history textbook. Um, but that's
Speaker 1: that is very much kind of what's happening here, right
Speaker 1: There's this there's this progressive you know, left wing and
Speaker 1: right wing, those terms I think kind of useless when
Speaker 1: we're talking about the situation in Europe in this period
Speaker 1: of time. But it's certainly like a very progressive and
Speaker 1: secular waves sweeping a lot of the rest of Germany.
Speaker 1: But Bavaria is like rebelling against it. And one of
Speaker 1: the ways they do it is by banning books and
Speaker 1: cracking down. And one of the ways in which educated
Speaker 1: elites fight back and push Enlightenment values is through these
Speaker 1: little fraternities, these secret societies. Now it is kind of
Speaker 1: worth noting because we've just talked about how it's sort
Speaker 1: of the Florida of Europe. Bavaria does produce some of
Speaker 1: the most creative thinkers of the whole Enlightenment, including Adam Leibnitz,
Speaker 1: who independently discovered calculus alongside Isaac Newton Um and then
Speaker 1: they had they had a little bit of a falling
Speaker 1: out with each other. He's also a wizard, which is cool,
Speaker 1: but so is everybody who does anything. So is Isaac.
Speaker 1: They're both wizards. They're wizards who used to be friends
Speaker 1: and then fell out over calculus. It happens all the time.
Speaker 1: On February six, thirty two years after Leibnitz's discovery of calculus,
Speaker 1: a baby boy named Adam Weischop is born or comes
Speaker 1: into the world. Um, now, his parents, it's not actually
Speaker 1: come into the world. What do you Okay, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Well, I mean, Garrison probably, Yeah, when
Speaker 1: two cabbages love each other very much. Yeah, I drew
Speaker 1: a diagram for you about this the other day. Um. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can, you can, you can, Garrison, you can. You
Speaker 1: can refer to that book of worm, impregnation, fetish pornography.
Speaker 1: I said you last night. That's that's most of the basics.
Speaker 1: Twitter can help you out with the rest. Got it
Speaker 1: all right, we'll do. Um. So Adam Weischop comes into
Speaker 1: the world, Um is born ever uh and yeah, a
Speaker 1: little babe in his it's he's in an interesting situation.
Speaker 1: He comes from kind of the upper class. His family
Speaker 1: has a decent amount of money. His parents were had
Speaker 1: been born and raised as Orthodox Jews, um, but they
Speaker 1: had decided to convert to capitalists or to a Catholic Catholicism.
Speaker 1: It was a little bit of a slip of the
Speaker 1: tongue there. Um. They become Catholics because like it's a
Speaker 1: lot easier to be Catholic in Bavaria than it is
Speaker 1: to be an Orthodox Jew. Right that that should not
Speaker 1: surprise anybody. Uh. And because they're kind of like we
Speaker 1: should probably make his clean a break from our past
Speaker 1: as possible. Adams and parents enrolled him in a school
Speaker 1: that was held like run by a monastery as soon
Speaker 1: as he could walk, so he's taught by monks. Now
Speaker 1: he has a childhood that's I don't think that it's
Speaker 1: not an abnormal amount of turbulent for a kid in
Speaker 1: the mid seventeen hundreds. His dad dies when he's just five,
Speaker 1: and since single moms, that's not an encouraged thing, especially
Speaker 1: if you have any kind of like money in this
Speaker 1: period of time. His dad's co worker at the University
Speaker 1: of Ingolstadt where he was born moves Adam into his
Speaker 1: household and takes him out of the monastery school and
Speaker 1: sends him to one run by Jesuits. And um, boy,
Speaker 1: howdy talking about Jesuits. That's gonna take a second, So
Speaker 1: why don't we first talk about some products and services.
Speaker 1: The Jesuit Society would like to appreciate you for listening
Speaker 1: to this podcast, and if you would like to join us,
Speaker 1: then you can find us at that's the Jesuit ad.
Speaker 1: The Jesuit had Stop and then the first thing that
Speaker 1: comes up is gets your gold. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1: We're back and we're we're thinking about the Jesuits. Now.
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, there was a Jesuit school
Speaker 1: called Jesuit right next to my school, and it was
Speaker 1: where the rich kids went to school, or at least
Speaker 1: the rich kids who were Catholic old Jesuit it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's called Jesuit. The big one in Portland is also
Speaker 1: just called and it was I don't know if this
Speaker 1: is very that's very Jesuit and concept. Yes, now, I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's the same in other with other
Speaker 1: Jesuit schools. But in the Dallas area, those were the
Speaker 1: kids you bought drugs from, right because they got they
Speaker 1: got the cash. Their parents are too busy to really
Speaker 1: pay any attention. The Jesuit boys were. You know, that's
Speaker 1: where you get your weed. It's where you get your acid,
Speaker 1: you know when you're when you're young. Um, it's probably
Speaker 1: where you get your fentnel. Today you gen z kids
Speaker 1: and your fentnel. Um. Anyway, at this point in time,
Speaker 1: I don't know if the Jesuits have access too much fentanyl.
Speaker 1: But they are something of a secret society and they've
Speaker 1: been like there are all of these Jesuits are like
Speaker 1: kind of members of an order that's been banned. So
Speaker 1: they're technically officially not Jesuits anymore. Because it is cooler.
Speaker 1: There's a there's so many conspiracy theories out the fucking Jesuits.
Speaker 1: But like I think the best way to describe them
Speaker 1: as nerdy catholics. Like their job like the thing they're
Speaker 1: supposed to do is make more people Catholics and also
Speaker 1: learn and teach. Um. So there's a lot of Jesuit schools.
Speaker 1: They are historically pretty good schools, um and yeah anyway,
Speaker 1: and they're also again at the center of quite a
Speaker 1: few conspiracy theories. So because he's got the benefit of
Speaker 1: this Jesuit education, Adam is going to learn at a
Speaker 1: level that's kind of a lot beyond what most boys
Speaker 1: in that place in time could expect. And he takes
Speaker 1: to it like a duck too, you know the thing
Speaker 1: that ducks do. Um um no, no, no, much worse
Speaker 1: than that. Anyway. By the time, yes, exactly, Garrison, by
Speaker 1: the time he was an adolescent, he spoke German, Czech,
Speaker 1: and Hebrew fluently, and he quickly thereafter. Yeah, but he's yeah,
Speaker 1: he learns ancient Greek, Latin and Italian. Next yeah, he
Speaker 1: is in for um. He gets admitted to age to
Speaker 1: university at age fifteen, which is yeah, yeah, he's one
Speaker 1: of those kids pushed down the stairs a lot. I
Speaker 1: should have been school at age fifteen, but I don't
Speaker 1: go around bragging about it on podcasts. Yeah, you don't
Speaker 1: speak in Greek either, Garrison. Yeah, I've learned. I'm trying
Speaker 1: because I need I need to get a lot better
Speaker 1: with my Greek for the Greek magical papyri stuff. And
Speaker 1: it's hard because all of the all of the all,
Speaker 1: like the consonants sound weird. But anyway, yes, they say,
Speaker 1: was how to say spanna copita hot td that's good
Speaker 1: Spana copita without cheese. That was all I needed to
Speaker 1: get buy in Greece or vegan span. Now here's a
Speaker 1: question for you, Garrison. You're getting You're getting your PhD
Speaker 1: in magic ship right now from that from that online
Speaker 1: school that I have paid for among other magic things
Speaker 1: that Yet, sure, how close are you to that PhD? Buddy,
Speaker 1: I'll get it within the year. You get it within
Speaker 1: a year. Well, that's honest. I've I've I've had I've
Speaker 1: had other developments in my magical study that is slightly
Speaker 1: more impressive and reputable than that school. So we'll see,
Speaker 1: we'll see. Yeah, Well, if you don't finish it within
Speaker 1: the next few months, Garrison, then you'll get your pH
Speaker 1: d much later than Adam y shopped because he gets
Speaker 1: his doctorate five years later at age twenty. So I
Speaker 1: can still get it by age twenty, I can, I
Speaker 1: can do it. Yeah, well you bet. You better move fast.
Speaker 1: So he spends his teenage years buried in books at
Speaker 1: the University of English dots massive library, which has forty
Speaker 1: two d books. Now, for a bit of perspective, I have,
Speaker 1: that's more than all of Florida. Well it is, it
Speaker 1: is now after they banned all the books. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's what. Yeah, that's a lot of books for Florida.
Speaker 1: I just I find it interesting, like the difference in
Speaker 1: what a lot of books was in you know, this
Speaker 1: period of time, the late seventeen hundreds, kind of the
Speaker 1: start of the print era, and like, like, for example,
Speaker 1: today the Internet archive has two million modern books and
Speaker 1: more than thirty six million books and texts. Um. It's
Speaker 1: just that's kind of neat. That's a neat achievement. Although
Speaker 1: a lot of those books are trash, so, but they
Speaker 1: were trash back then, probably too a lot of the time. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Adams a big reader, very smart kid. He becomes enthralled
Speaker 1: with a lot of Enlightenment ideas and a lot of
Speaker 1: Enlightenment philosophies as much as he can access while it's
Speaker 1: sort of banned in his area. Now he does very
Speaker 1: well at the school. He gets promoted as soon as
Speaker 1: he graduates, basically to assistant instructor to the Chair of
Speaker 1: canon Law. Um. And while I don't really know what
Speaker 1: that job would entail and I don't care to learn,
Speaker 1: Adam was the first non Jesuit to hold it in
Speaker 1: a century. Um, this does not go over well with
Speaker 1: the Jesuits. They're not thrilled about this. And I'm gonna
Speaker 1: quote next from a book by the Charles River editors.
Speaker 1: This prompted a stir of furrowing browse with a the
Speaker 1: Jesuit community. Still, Adam's hot streak was anything but over.
Speaker 1: In seventy five, when the seven year old was main
Speaker 1: dean of the Faculty of Law, the Jesuits sputtered their
Speaker 1: drinks and slammed their fists on their tables. The Jesuits
Speaker 1: had had enough. They barged into the university boardroom and
Speaker 1: demanded Adam's paycheck be withheld until he complied with the
Speaker 1: university's principles. So you know that's uh not gonna go
Speaker 1: well for them, um, Adam. They accused him of basically
Speaker 1: promoting off cloruing the the Enlightenment and teaching banned topics
Speaker 1: that like different light enlightened philosopher exactly. Yeah, he's talking
Speaker 1: about secularism, the idea that maybe the Catholic Church shouldn't
Speaker 1: run everything they don't like this um and this pisces
Speaker 1: off Adam right, the fact that he's he's having to
Speaker 1: fight against these kind of regressive Jesuits and their attitudes
Speaker 1: towards religion, it really pisces him off. And whenever he
Speaker 1: would come across a bump on the road, across like
Speaker 1: some sort of stumbling block that was put up by
Speaker 1: these these old timey monk type assholes, he would think
Speaker 1: back to the words of one of his favorite philosophers,
Speaker 1: Jean Jacques Rousseau. Um. One quote in particular stood out
Speaker 1: to him. The only practice that went not to teach
Speaker 1: children is that they said never should never submit, which
Speaker 1: is you know that's base. Yeah, yeah, you Adam by shock,
Speaker 1: says youth liberation baith based based youth liberationist. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: should hear this guy's attitude on bedtime discourse. Boy. Some
Speaker 1: of Adam's colleagues who were too frightened to stand up
Speaker 1: for him against the Jesuits, but who were sympathetic to
Speaker 1: his Aims reached out to tell him like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I know you're dealing with this secret society who are
Speaker 1: being real assholes. There's another secret society you might want
Speaker 1: to join because they can give you some some support
Speaker 1: in your fight against the Jesuits. And that secret society
Speaker 1: was the Freemasons. Now, people talk a lot about the Freemasons,
Speaker 1: um they share to they were they will never stop.
Speaker 1: At its core, the Masons are exactly like the secret societies.
Speaker 1: We started this episode talking about these kind of neolithic organizations,
Speaker 1: like it's like a guild. Yeah, yeah, it's a guilt
Speaker 1: right down to the fact that a big part one
Speaker 1: of the big things about the Brotherhood of the Tumul
Speaker 1: is that you you get these very nice, elaborate funerals.
Speaker 1: A big thing that the Mason's provided was like life
Speaker 1: insurance that came with burial benefits for Mason's, Like that
Speaker 1: was a major reason to join the Masons. There's also
Speaker 1: it was a big part of it is for all
Speaker 1: that like people talk about the rituals and and the
Speaker 1: magic stuff. A huge part of it is like their
Speaker 1: members are mostly middle class and like upper middle class professionals,
Speaker 1: and if you're a Mason. You get like a ten
Speaker 1: percent discount at all Mason affiliated stores. So it's like
Speaker 1: it's just like, yeah, it's it's like it's a lot
Speaker 1: like Triple A. It's like Triple A and kind of
Speaker 1: like us A A where it's like you get discounted
Speaker 1: life insurance. That's a lot harder for people who aren't
Speaker 1: in this organization to get. Um, it's very must. Triple
Speaker 1: are really cool too, Yes, they are. They are. I
Speaker 1: had to actually sacrifice a goat to get them to
Speaker 1: jump my car the other week. Um. Yeah, in five
Speaker 1: hundred years, this conspiracy is about Triple A group that's
Speaker 1: that's running the AI Dystophia in a hundred years will
Speaker 1: have forgotten the secret of electricity, so their ability to
Speaker 1: jump cars, which just seem like magic, your esoteric knowledge. Somebody,
Speaker 1: somebody finds like an old Triple A car that has
Speaker 1: like the fucking maintenance handbook for a Toyota Corolla. Start
Speaker 1: to worship at the secrets, and once you passed down
Speaker 1: through the lineages, you rise to the order of unlock
Speaker 1: new passages of the manual. Just a thousand people sitting
Speaker 1: in front of an old Toyota and you do that
Speaker 1: thing where you like turn the key slightly and open
Speaker 1: the door so it starts making sound and they all
Speaker 1: just help. That's the home of the future, meditates to
Speaker 1: the sound of the car back then they can figure
Speaker 1: how to navigate the bureaucracy from when they move from
Speaker 1: one region to another to join a different sect of
Speaker 1: the Triple A. So the Freemasons were not an old
Speaker 1: organization at the time Adam was advised to join them.
Speaker 1: They had started in kind of and that we don't
Speaker 1: know exactly when they start because there's actually not ever
Speaker 1: going to be an exact date for when they started,
Speaker 1: because they emerge out of a bunch of different kind
Speaker 1: of independent groups that are all sort of similar. In
Speaker 1: the early seventeen hundreds and by the very organic it
Speaker 1: wasn't yes, yes, yes, there's all these independent groups doing
Speaker 1: the same thing. And I think in seventeen fifteen, and
Speaker 1: like I believe it was Scotland is the first time
Speaker 1: like a bunch of them all kind of merged together
Speaker 1: and say like, hey, we're going to be the Freemasons.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's a it's a very as you said,
Speaker 1: it's a very organic process. Um And by the late
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds, they'd spread from the Aisles down to Bavaria,
Speaker 1: and Adam decides, Okay, I'll dip my toes in masonry.
Speaker 1: I would like some back up against these weirdo jesuit
Speaker 1: fox um. And he he does a little bit of
Speaker 1: Mason stuff, but he's kind of turned off by all
Speaker 1: the all their weirdo occult rituals. He is like, I
Speaker 1: want to share in trade in band knowledge, and you
Speaker 1: guys are like dressing like Sultan's and tapping each other
Speaker 1: with toy swords on the shoulder. Um. Like a lot
Speaker 1: of Mason rituals are like racist costumes and silly little plates. Um.
Speaker 1: You can go to music, you can go to Mason museums.
Speaker 1: There's one in Los Angeles that's really interesting, and you
Speaker 1: can see they're silly little outfits. It's like high school
Speaker 1: theater grade level of construction. And I assume it was
Speaker 1: not much different back at the seventeen hundreds. Try to
Speaker 1: buy old swords. Some of the only swords from the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century that are available are some of the Mason swords,
Speaker 1: and they look like fucking runfair garbage. Yeah, they look
Speaker 1: like shit, terrible swords from the fucking Mason's for all
Speaker 1: this Mason slander. If any since they're out there, feel
Speaker 1: free to hit me up. Yes, I will join. Oh
Speaker 1: I could have joined at one point. My grandpa was
Speaker 1: a Mazon, but it seemed like a complete waste of time.
Speaker 1: Um I don't know. Yeah, hit us up, Mason's. Um,
Speaker 1: hit us up. Grand Masonic Conspiracy. Have swords and we
Speaker 1: can talk. Yeah. I'm already a member of multiple secret societies.
Speaker 1: I will be happy to add another one to the roster. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um great. So these rituals, in addition to being cringe e,
Speaker 1: existed to provide the men there with a sense that
Speaker 1: what they were doing was hidden and separate from the
Speaker 1: regular world. And I want to read a quote from
Speaker 1: an anthropologist Janet Burke describing them. There is no question
Speaker 1: that the adoption lodge initiation rituals were designed to heighten
Speaker 1: dramatically the sense of friendship based on virtue among members.
Speaker 1: They contained all the consciousness changing elements of traditional rites
Speaker 1: of passage found in many cultures throughout history. Each ceremony
Speaker 1: began with seclusion of the candidate in a reflection chamber.
Speaker 1: The main part of the initialation revolved around the imparting
Speaker 1: of knowledge, and it closed with integration into the larger
Speaker 1: group as a full fledged member. Knowledgeable leaders imparted secrets,
Speaker 1: extracted oaths, and demanded humility. They employed strong symbol laden
Speaker 1: words and instruments and authority from a distant past. Candidates
Speaker 1: were required to pass through a series of degrees and
Speaker 1: master each before moving on towards the font of final knowledge,
Speaker 1: the perfection promised by the organization, which was again a
Speaker 1: ten percent discount at certain restaurants. It's amazing, It is
Speaker 1: really funny. It's like when I go to the Army's
Speaker 1: gonna flash my basin car. This is this is what
Speaker 1: the elite ofment is really for. If you want free meals,
Speaker 1: wear a circle A and then go to where go
Speaker 1: to one of those towns where every service class working
Speaker 1: person is an anarchist and I have I have joined
Speaker 1: a secret society that rules the world and as the result,
Speaker 1: every fifth trip that I take to the Sizzler is free.
Speaker 1: So funny. Now, if you want to get free trips
Speaker 1: to the Sizzler, maybe that's what is being advertised next
Speaker 1: on our podcast. You don't know, it might be listen
Speaker 1: in Sizzler Heads Garrison. Have you ever been to the Sizzler.
Speaker 1: No second question related. What's the most shrimp you've ever
Speaker 1: vomited up? Probably not much, maybe like maybe five or
Speaker 1: six shrimps. Okay, Sophie, we're taking a work trip to
Speaker 1: the Sizzler. Gotta gotta pill Garrison on eating rancid shrimp
Speaker 1: at the Sizzler buffet. Oh boy, all right, the rest
Speaker 1: of you pill yourself on these ads. Ah, we're back.
Speaker 1: We're talking about times that we and our loved ones
Speaker 1: have all vomited at the Sizzler. Nothing like a Sizzler
Speaker 1: parking lot for puking in front of like some family
Speaker 1: four and like having these little kids just watch you hurl,
Speaker 1: and it's it's such a good time. There's nothing I
Speaker 1: love more than stranger's children seeing the vomit out in public.
Speaker 1: It's it's a beautiful experience. See, I'm surprised you didn't
Speaker 1: go for the outback with this bit. Oh. I vomited
Speaker 1: in many an outback parking lot. You see. Puking is
Speaker 1: kind of my magic, and I'm very much exoteric with
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. A vomit mate, Uh, good stuff,
Speaker 1: I am. I am not invited you to you cannot
Speaker 1: afford the cleaning bill. That is a constant problem with
Speaker 1: secret societies. So Adam goes through this initiation ritual and
Speaker 1: he thinks it's kind of stupid. Um, I have no
Speaker 1: idea what he's gonna wind up doing. But his his
Speaker 1: issues are like number one, he's like, these fucking Freemasons
Speaker 1: are too new. They pretend to be an ancient society,
Speaker 1: but they're not even a hundred years old, like, and
Speaker 1: it's there's making me spend a bunch of money on
Speaker 1: stupid costumes for this like bullshit. The other problem he
Speaker 1: has is that it feels like it's too accessible to
Speaker 1: the public. A lot of like regular people are Masons,
Speaker 1: like normal, you know, not like super poor generally, but
Speaker 1: like pretty normal dudes. And he's like, I want to
Speaker 1: try again, I want to trade and like forbidden knowledge.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't want to be hanging out with
Speaker 1: the butcher that lives like four doors down. That's not
Speaker 1: a good secret society. So he starts sketching out what
Speaker 1: he wants to do, and he makes a plan to
Speaker 1: create a better secret society, a perfect secret society. And
Speaker 1: his plan is basically he wants to make an invisible
Speaker 1: web of what he calls wisdom schools that will promote
Speaker 1: the molding of morals, scientific and human progress, and like this, uh,
Speaker 1: this belief he's come He's come to that the sort
Speaker 1: of acceptance of the scientific method over religious dogma is
Speaker 1: the path to happiness for the human race. That's that's
Speaker 1: what he wants to spread, and he wants to spread
Speaker 1: it through this like network of secret wisdom schools. So
Speaker 1: on May one, seventeen seventy six, twenty eight year old
Speaker 1: Adam White Shop founded the Covenant of Perfectability. And again
Speaker 1: he's he's calling it that because the idea is we're
Speaker 1: going to perfect the human race through knowledge. There's some
Speaker 1: time happened in seventeen seventy six. Yeah, yeah, that's that.
Speaker 1: That's it's famously the year where nothing occurred. Um. By
Speaker 1: the fact that this happens in seventeen seventy six is
Speaker 1: going to become the core of about a million stupid conspiracy.
Speaker 1: What what horrible, horrible timing, Adam, motherfucker pick a different year. Um.
Speaker 1: So he decides, after a brief period of time that
Speaker 1: the Covenant of perfect Ability kind of a dogshit name.
Speaker 1: Stupid stupid name. So he renames the society the Order
Speaker 1: Illuminati Bavarians or in English, the Order of the Bavarian Illuminati. Yeah,
Speaker 1: much better name. You gotta give it to him. This
Speaker 1: is why we do a b testing doesn't Doesn't the
Speaker 1: Illuminati mean like the enlightened ones are something we are? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're talking about what we'll talk about that kind of
Speaker 1: There's a couple of debates, so Adams specifically picks it
Speaker 1: because of there was a Spanish organization called the illumbrados Um,
Speaker 1: which also means illuminated ones um. He also likes the
Speaker 1: French term illuminaise. There had been a number of little
Speaker 1: secret societies that had versions of that in their name,
Speaker 1: but the Latin his was Latin, and part of why
Speaker 1: they're all using variants of illuminate of illuminated is that
Speaker 1: kind of in the Latin it means more like spiritual
Speaker 1: and mental than it does like literally illuminating a space
Speaker 1: with light. Um. Yeah um. And he he wants his
Speaker 1: his interest here is not to create an mystic society.
Speaker 1: He is not super into like the weirdo ritual stuff.
Speaker 1: But he comes to the conclusion just based on his
Speaker 1: low opinion of the people around him. That quote of
Speaker 1: all the means I know to lead men, the most
Speaker 1: effectual is a concealed mystery. So he decides he's going
Speaker 1: to wrap this network of schools and like a skin
Speaker 1: of the skin of a mystic organization, because he thinks
Speaker 1: that will draw in more people and people who can
Speaker 1: fund what he's doing. From the beginning, he recognized that
Speaker 1: mostly men want a way to feel like they're special,
Speaker 1: somehow separate from the rest of their peers in the
Speaker 1: greater mass of humanity. Secret societies have always offered versions
Speaker 1: of this, but in the new modern age that was
Speaker 1: being built, a sense of connection to the mystic was
Speaker 1: more valued than ever. Adam's goal was to free society
Speaker 1: from the domination of cults like the Jesuits. But to
Speaker 1: do it, he was going to have to create a
Speaker 1: cult himself. The only way to stop a bad cult
Speaker 1: with a weird religio political hierarchy as a good cult. Um, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna work great. So Adam starts talking with
Speaker 1: his colleagues at the University of ingles Dot about his plans,
Speaker 1: and they all are on board, because again, not much
Speaker 1: is happening in the late seventeen hundreds, The first one
Speaker 1: of the first people who kind of buys into his
Speaker 1: idea is an eighteen year old student named Anton von Massenhausen,
Speaker 1: and Anton suggests that he modeled the structure of his
Speaker 1: secret society off of college fraternities. Now, these are not
Speaker 1: the frats of the modern era entirely, which are based
Speaker 1: more around partying than other things. Um, but fraternity is
Speaker 1: kind of an Enlightenment concept. It actually means something very
Speaker 1: important in this period of time. It's a codification effectively
Speaker 1: of the systems of mutual aid that had existed within
Speaker 1: secret societies forever. Like this concept of fraternity is like
Speaker 1: a buzzword that's going around at the time. Um, and
Speaker 1: it kind of goes beyond just like simple concepts of
Speaker 1: community mutual aid. Famed sociology just E J. Hobbs Bomb
Speaker 1: noted that society is like the Mason's elicited a sense
Speaker 1: of fraternity in part due to the heightened alternate reality
Speaker 1: of secret religious ceremonies that they carried out. So basically,
Speaker 1: some of the there's this sense of fraternity, and part
Speaker 1: of how you inculcate that is by making people feel
Speaker 1: like they're they're privy to a like secret understanding of
Speaker 1: the world that everyone else doesn't have. The first totally
Speaker 1: not how radical politics work. It's totally. It's separate than
Speaker 1: when someone comes an anarchist or a communist or different
Speaker 1: or a fascist for that matter, not the same thing.
Speaker 1: Oh maybe fascists do it, but definitely not the left. Yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely not no one else, no one else. Um. This
Speaker 1: is not effectively the same thought process that has made
Speaker 1: Twitter so fucking insufferable. Um, completely different. So the first
Speaker 1: official meeting of the Illuminati consisted of Adam Bishop and
Speaker 1: four other dudes, all young students of law that Bishop
Speaker 1: had either tutored or just to say, did, were good
Speaker 1: kids that he could kind of manipulate. Their first order
Speaker 1: of business was to create their own special symbol, a
Speaker 1: wreathed medallion featuring a wide eyed owl. By the way,
Speaker 1: this is why there's a big owl at uh the
Speaker 1: fucking the what is it that gathering in the woods
Speaker 1: in northern California that all the rich people go to? Um?
Speaker 1: Burning met No way, that's no, no, no, oh, the
Speaker 1: one that I don't actually know much about because I'm yeah,
Speaker 1: you could not call burning Man a secret society, um,
Speaker 1: although there's elements of this here. No, the fucking um.
Speaker 1: I think I learned about it from your podcast. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I can't believe I've forgotten. Yeah, Bohemian growth, Bohemian grove. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but Bohemia is not that far away from Bavaria. No, Um,
Speaker 1: it sure isn't. It's very far away from California, not
Speaker 1: not Yeah, probably so. Yeah, it's so. One of the
Speaker 1: things that they do at the end of every Bohemian Grove,
Speaker 1: which is like all of the rich people, rich and
Speaker 1: powerful people go and party with Henry Kissinger for like
Speaker 1: a week and they stage ridiculous little plays and they
Speaker 1: carry out a ritual and kind of the crowning moment
Speaker 1: of it all is the cremation of care where they
Speaker 1: burn a forty ft tall owl um. Anyway, interesting, how
Speaker 1: how how and again this is part of where the
Speaker 1: conspiracies come from, is that like a lot of this
Speaker 1: ship gets passed down for whatever reason, this kind of
Speaker 1: image of an owl um becomes, you know, as iconic
Speaker 1: as the Mason's eye, uh glyphs that they would put
Speaker 1: in ship that like winds up on the US dollar
Speaker 1: and stuff. Um. Now, in that first meeting, the at
Speaker 1: this point five member Illuminati listed their objectives as to
Speaker 1: stimulate a human and sociable vision, support virtue where it
Speaker 1: may be threatened or oppressed by vice, to promote the
Speaker 1: progress of all people, and foster and benefit those deprived
Speaker 1: of education. Now that sounds pretty nice. That's not a
Speaker 1: bad not a bad list of things to do. Um.
Speaker 1: Adam additionally promised that he would protect his followers from
Speaker 1: persecution or oppression, and that he would tie the hands
Speaker 1: of any kind of despotism UM by building a society
Speaker 1: that was capable of working between national lines. Yeah, his
Speaker 1: goal is to get as many intelligent and influential people
Speaker 1: to secretly join his Illuminati as possible so that they
Speaker 1: can kind of take over and manipulate the levers of
Speaker 1: power in Europe. UM. At the time he starts the Illuminati,
Speaker 1: Adam has moved beyond his simple desire to like support
Speaker 1: these Enlightenment attitudes that were pro science and pro religion,
Speaker 1: and he's gotten increasingly radical. He started toying with deism
Speaker 1: and he kind of gets pilled on atheism and starts
Speaker 1: to believe that, like, not only is atheism a more
Speaker 1: rational way to look at the world, but we should
Speaker 1: we should push people in power in Europe who are
Speaker 1: atheists to kind of take more power away from the Church.
Speaker 1: And you know what, it actually seems like this whole
Speaker 1: monarchy thing that we're doing across Europe is a bad
Speaker 1: idea and maybe everything should be a republic. So he
Speaker 1: this is when I talk about like he's trying to
Speaker 1: push these secret values. What he's trying to push is
Speaker 1: like secularism and the idea that people get to vote. Um.
Speaker 1: Now this is it is some seventy seventeen seventies six
Speaker 1: shiit um. So obviously it's illegal for him to talk
Speaker 1: about this where he is living. Other parts of you know,
Speaker 1: what becomes Germany, you can talk about this, but he
Speaker 1: cannot in Bavaria. So he borrows from the Masons and
Speaker 1: he creates a strictly tiered ranking system for the Illuminati.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote from Massimo introviing here again. Although it
Speaker 1: counted only five members, the Order was already divided into
Speaker 1: an areopagus consisting of Vai Shopped Massenhausen and another student,
Speaker 1: Max Mers, whose members knew the Order was a brand
Speaker 1: new creation, and a circle of novices who were left
Speaker 1: to believe that the Illuminati had instead centuries of history
Speaker 1: existed outside of Ingolstadt and had mysterious leaders above the
Speaker 1: Professor of law. So well, the first decision he makes is,
Speaker 1: we have to pretend we're like a thousand years old
Speaker 1: and across the world and secretly rule the world. That
Speaker 1: is where it starts, Like the Illuminati creates the Illuminati
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory so people won't think they're silly. That's a
Speaker 1: good way to improve that you're not silly. This is
Speaker 1: where it all begins. Vaishaft felt a need to hide
Speaker 1: the truth from his followers, which eventually extended to pretending
Speaker 1: the Lawyer was much larger than it needed to be.
Speaker 1: Um Now, this was justified by the needs of secrecy,
Speaker 1: but mainly by the fact that what Adams trying to
Speaker 1: push is extremely boring. The actual center levels of the Illuminati.
Speaker 1: When you like get through all of the not all
Speaker 1: of the initiations and gain all of the rank, there's
Speaker 1: no more rituals. He just hands you a couple of
Speaker 1: illegal books about like maybe it would be cool if
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church didn't run things like that's the center
Speaker 1: of You get to the center of it, and it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, would be neat voting like that that's literally
Speaker 1: the core of the Illuminatis teaching. Yeah, but it's like
Speaker 1: it's like it's like build it's like building this onion
Speaker 1: of protection exactly, secrecy around that because it actually is illegal. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And I feel like people might actually take a few
Speaker 1: notes here as not only more information gets made illegal,
Speaker 1: like certain books or not being allowed to be shared
Speaker 1: in schools, but also stuff like HRT and stuff like
Speaker 1: uh like access access to abortion stuff. Right, as all
Speaker 1: these things get more and more legal, these types of
Speaker 1: secret society tactics get used again because they've been stuff
Speaker 1: that they've they've been things that we've been doing for
Speaker 1: a long long time, depending on the circumstances, although in
Speaker 1: this case you might want to learn from some mistakes
Speaker 1: that they're about to make. Roma. So um, lower level
Speaker 1: members members are promised that all of these rituals they're doing,
Speaker 1: all of this magic has this like central explanation that's
Speaker 1: revealed the higher level, higher level members. But Adam has
Speaker 1: no no like prep plans of actually letting most people
Speaker 1: in on us, because again it's really risky. Um. So
Speaker 1: most of the plan is to kind of keep people,
Speaker 1: string them along doing the silly rituals and hoping that
Speaker 1: that keeps enough of them happy that like the cream
Speaker 1: will rise to the top, so to speak. I love
Speaker 1: the hypocrisy of that is sending enlightenment and teaching people,
Speaker 1: so we have to lie to these guys. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: it's also one of the reasons why they do this,
Speaker 1: which is very practical and and smart, but extremely funny,
Speaker 1: is um. I'm actually just gonna quote again from Introphing. Here,
Speaker 1: the order counted on Bavarian provincial notables, indispensable for the
Speaker 1: dues they paid, but who had affiliated themselves thinking of
Speaker 1: joining a kind of freemasonry in small towns where either
Speaker 1: there was no Masonic lodge or they did not know
Speaker 1: where to find them. They had vaguely heard of alchemy
Speaker 1: and secret rights and hoped that they would be revealed
Speaker 1: to them. While they would not be particularly interested and
Speaker 1: bear into old whole box anti religious philosophy, even if
Speaker 1: it were revealed to them, which had of prudence, it
Speaker 1: was not by shops quasi Masonic imitations were pedantic and uninspired.
Speaker 1: The answer he invariably gave to the disappointed was that,
Speaker 1: as in Freemasonry and the Illuminati, the first three degrees
Speaker 1: were preparatory to further initiations where the true ritual mysteries
Speaker 1: would be revealed. So a big part of this is
Speaker 1: I need rich people's money, and they want to pretend that.
Speaker 1: They want to feel like they're alchemists, so I've gotta like,
Speaker 1: I've gotta fake that so we can fund the illegal
Speaker 1: book trade. Like he's conning rich people out of money
Speaker 1: by convincing them they've become wizards in order to buy
Speaker 1: illegal books and trade them around Europe. I mean, alright, alright,
Speaker 1: that sounds all right. That is also that's kind of cool.
Speaker 1: That's also been a cork component of wizardry for a
Speaker 1: long time. A big part of being a wizard is
Speaker 1: lying about alchemy and taking rich people's money. It's that
Speaker 1: and that's the real magic. It's it's that that also
Speaker 1: getting sick and dying off of metal fumes being being
Speaker 1: boiled in like an eventilated room. Those are the those
Speaker 1: the two main comple doing alchemy at least witchcraft. They
Speaker 1: just sell us crystals. H See. I want to go
Speaker 1: back to my favorite meme, the two guys from Predators
Speaker 1: shaking hands and have it be wizards rednecks in the
Speaker 1: South with a backyard workshop inhaling metal fumes and getting
Speaker 1: a metal flume fever, Margaret, you got anything to plug? Yes,
Speaker 1: if you inhale books illegal books, that only the secret.
Speaker 1: If you can find where to purchase Escape from Insul Island,
Speaker 1: then you're on the in crowd. And I'll give you
Speaker 1: a hint. There's a code Tangled Wilderness dot org or
Speaker 1: wherever you purchase books. That's my most recent book. You
Speaker 1: can get it there. Or you can actually listen to
Speaker 1: several of us um enact Escape from Insul Island. If
Speaker 1: you listen to the strangers in the Tangled Wilderness podcast,
Speaker 1: there's a live play of a role playing game based
Speaker 1: on UM based on my book Escape from Insul Island.
Speaker 1: That's what I got. We all played it. It was
Speaker 1: really good. You also have a podcast on this very network,
Speaker 1: oh ship I do if you like cool people who
Speaker 1: did cool stuff, and then you can find where to
Speaker 1: It's called Cool People Did Cool Stuff. It's on cool
Speaker 1: Zonne Media. It comes out every Monday and Wednesday. It's
Speaker 1: sort of the inverse behind the Bastards. Not that I
Speaker 1: would ever do anything on original or derivative. Now, if
Speaker 1: you really want to be a cool person, who does
Speaker 1: cool stuff. What you should do is weld galvanized steel
Speaker 1: without wearing any kind of mask or respirator. Cool. Yes,
Speaker 1: like the wizards to Yeah, zinc is really positive. M Well,
Speaker 1: you know I I see it at the grocery store,
Speaker 1: zinc pills. So clearly the most effective way to get
Speaker 1: zinc is a Welsh calvinized steel without a mass. When
Speaker 1: I used to be like really anxious and I was
Speaker 1: doing jewelry work, I would like start freaking out and
Speaker 1: calling like my doctor friend as soon as I, like,
Speaker 1: I like soldered something that had some galvanized on it,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I'm about to die. Um. But
Speaker 1: then had one of my metalworker friends did almost die
Speaker 1: from accident galvanized so and that means he's in the
Speaker 1: coolest secret society of all the ancient order of nearly
Speaker 1: killed my lungs by welding galvinized steel. Yeah, mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Gare do you have anything you'd like to plug? Yeah? Sure.
Speaker 1: I recently wrapped up a four part series on the
Speaker 1: Defend the Atlanta Forest and Stop Cops City movement in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 1: I could be that can be found on the It
Speaker 1: could happen here. Podcast feed. Um yeah, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: four episodes at this point, could probably rely binge all
Speaker 1: of them all in a row. Uh yeah. It covered
Speaker 1: is a lot of the stuff from the past, the
Speaker 1: past few months and the recent killing of a of
Speaker 1: a of a force defender by the Georgia State Patrol.
Speaker 1: So it's a kind of some kind of some heavy stuff,
Speaker 1: but also talking about I think things that are important
Speaker 1: you get to hear from people that are on the
Speaker 1: ground throughout the series. That is the that is the
Speaker 1: most recent kind of large project that I have that
Speaker 1: I've finished. Hell yeah, very cool, almost as cool as
Speaker 1: inhaling metal fumes. So I will say, um, near like
Speaker 1: a few blocks away from the Anarchist Community Center inside
Speaker 1: inside Atlanta, there is a free miess In building just
Speaker 1: like right right down the streets. So there is one
Speaker 1: of the front for the other possibly possibly almost certainly.
Speaker 1: All right, everybody, come back next time when we will
Speaker 1: hear the exciting conclusion of the story of the Bavarian Illuminati.
Speaker 1: Uh and eventually all of the other illuminaties that that
Speaker 1: come after it, leading to Q and on and the
Speaker 1: probable destruction of Western civilization. Anyway, have a good, have
Speaker 1: a nice day. Behind the Bastards is a production of
Speaker 1: cool zone Media. For more from cool zone Media, visit
Speaker 1: our website cool zone media dot com, or check us
Speaker 1: out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.