1
00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:03,480
Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

2
00:00:03,560 --> 00:00:07,160
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio, and we are back with Mitch Horowitz. Mitch

3
00:00:07,280 --> 00:00:10,119
Speaker 1: is a writer in residence at his New York Public Library,

4
00:00:10,240 --> 00:00:13,520
Speaker 1: lecturer and residence at the University of Philosophical Research in

5
00:00:13,680 --> 00:00:16,720
Speaker 1: LA and the Penn Award winning author of a number

6
00:00:16,760 --> 00:00:19,440
Speaker 1: of books. Mitch has written on everything from War on

7
00:00:19,520 --> 00:00:22,680
Speaker 1: witches the Secret life of Ronald Reagan for The New

8
00:00:22,760 --> 00:00:25,520
Speaker 1: York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and

9
00:00:25,600 --> 00:00:28,880
Speaker 1: so many others. He's a regular contributing guest here on

10
00:00:28,960 --> 00:00:31,960
Speaker 1: Coast to Coast with his latest work, The Secret History

11
00:00:31,960 --> 00:00:35,479
Speaker 1: of America. Mitch, welcome back. Thank you so much, George.

12
00:00:35,600 --> 00:00:37,640
Speaker 1: Great to be here. I'm in Saint Louis, but I

13
00:00:37,680 --> 00:00:40,520
Speaker 1: understand you're going to be in LA coming up this week.

14
00:00:40,800 --> 00:00:43,159
Speaker 1: Oh yes, sir, I'll be there Friday and Saturday. I'm

15
00:00:43,159 --> 00:00:46,159
Speaker 1: giving a couple of lectures at Manly P. Hall's campus

16
00:00:46,200 --> 00:00:48,639
Speaker 1: in Griffith Park, and I'm very excited to be there.

17
00:00:48,800 --> 00:00:51,920
Speaker 1: Love the City of Angels. Speaking of Manly P. Hall,

18
00:00:52,120 --> 00:00:55,240
Speaker 1: here's a guy who was born in Canada died in

19
00:00:55,360 --> 00:01:00,480
Speaker 1: Los Angeles in nineteen ninety but he was an author lecturer, astrologer.

20
00:01:00,600 --> 00:01:03,040
Speaker 1: He was a mystic, but he affected you a lot,

21
00:01:03,080 --> 00:01:06,000
Speaker 1: didn't He tremendously. The path I'm on today is thanks

22
00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:08,679
Speaker 1: to Manly P. Hall. I never met him because, as

23
00:01:08,680 --> 00:01:10,640
Speaker 1: you said, he died in nineteen ninety and I wasn't

24
00:01:10,640 --> 00:01:13,040
Speaker 1: on my path at that time. But Many was the

25
00:01:13,080 --> 00:01:15,119
Speaker 1: first person who gave me the idea that you could

26
00:01:15,120 --> 00:01:18,400
Speaker 1: study the occult, the esoteric as a real scholar, as

27
00:01:18,440 --> 00:01:21,399
Speaker 1: a real historian, and everything that I'm doing today, I

28
00:01:21,440 --> 00:01:24,800
Speaker 1: really owe to him. What's he in occultists or anything

29
00:01:24,840 --> 00:01:27,840
Speaker 1: like that? He really was George. You know, he was

30
00:01:27,959 --> 00:01:33,480
Speaker 1: very interested in Tarot, ancient Egyptian philosophy, astrology as you mentioned,

31
00:01:33,840 --> 00:01:37,080
Speaker 1: and the esoteric dimensions of our own history in America.

32
00:01:37,160 --> 00:01:39,800
Speaker 1: You know, there was no question that Manly wasn't willing

33
00:01:39,840 --> 00:01:42,560
Speaker 1: to pursue, and he pursued it with great vigor. He

34
00:01:42,680 --> 00:01:45,480
Speaker 1: was a very strange guy in that he thought America

35
00:01:45,640 --> 00:01:49,160
Speaker 1: was part of a secret plan, didn't he? Yes, he did.

36
00:01:49,240 --> 00:01:52,600
Speaker 1: That that was really central to his ideals, and that's

37
00:01:52,600 --> 00:01:55,520
Speaker 1: the centerpiece of the secret history of America. Manly believed

38
00:01:55,880 --> 00:01:59,000
Speaker 1: that ancient philosopher is dating back to the Foronic age

39
00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:02,600
Speaker 1: in Egypt up through the Freemasons and the Rosicrucians and

40
00:02:02,680 --> 00:02:07,440
Speaker 1: other secret societies, had preserved the ideal of founding a

41
00:02:07,600 --> 00:02:12,280
Speaker 1: kind of society that protected the individual search for meaning,

42
00:02:12,280 --> 00:02:18,240
Speaker 1: a society that encouraged individuals to look in all places

43
00:02:18,280 --> 00:02:22,560
Speaker 1: without any limits, without any walls, without any doctrines. And

44
00:02:22,639 --> 00:02:24,880
Speaker 1: he felt that the founding fathers, many of whom were

45
00:02:24,880 --> 00:02:29,320
Speaker 1: Freemasons themselves, had founded that ideal society, at least in

46
00:02:29,360 --> 00:02:34,000
Speaker 1: its embryonic form in America. And that was Manley's analysis

47
00:02:34,160 --> 00:02:38,120
Speaker 1: of America's secret destiny. Was he a respected person metch

48
00:02:38,240 --> 00:02:41,760
Speaker 1: during his time? He was unknown in many ways, George.

49
00:02:41,800 --> 00:02:45,200
Speaker 1: You know, he wasn't recognized in academia, although he did

50
00:02:45,600 --> 00:02:49,880
Speaker 1: privately inspire many academics. He wasn't well known within politics,

51
00:02:49,880 --> 00:02:52,400
Speaker 1: although there was a very famous president we'll talk about

52
00:02:52,720 --> 00:02:55,640
Speaker 1: who was close friends with Manly not too long ago.

53
00:02:55,720 --> 00:02:58,639
Speaker 1: We either learned in the mainstream and yeah, I keep

54
00:02:58,680 --> 00:03:01,600
Speaker 1: thinking when I hear the name Alister Crowley, I keep

55
00:03:01,639 --> 00:03:04,880
Speaker 1: thinking of someone like Manly P. Hall. But those were

56
00:03:04,880 --> 00:03:08,399
Speaker 1: two different, distinctive people in terms of what they did right,

57
00:03:09,040 --> 00:03:12,359
Speaker 1: very different. You know, Manly didn't really approve of Alister Crowley,

58
00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:16,239
Speaker 1: because I think he considered Crowley a kind of destructive figure,

59
00:03:16,280 --> 00:03:18,800
Speaker 1: and he was very wary of the fact that many

60
00:03:18,800 --> 00:03:22,720
Speaker 1: people around Crowley had met with difficult ends. And for

61
00:03:22,840 --> 00:03:25,600
Speaker 1: Manly the search had to be ethical first and foremost.

62
00:03:25,680 --> 00:03:29,320
Speaker 1: His values were really the values of Ralph Waldo Emerson

63
00:03:29,440 --> 00:03:34,160
Speaker 1: in essays like Self Reliance and the Oversoul. You know,

64
00:03:34,200 --> 00:03:36,920
Speaker 1: he believed that there was a transcendent purpose to life,

65
00:03:37,240 --> 00:03:41,400
Speaker 1: but that that purpose had to involve treating others well.

66
00:03:41,480 --> 00:03:44,120
Speaker 1: In a sense, Manly's whole career was based on an

67
00:03:44,280 --> 00:03:47,400
Speaker 1: esoteric reading of the Golden Rule. So we understand you're

68
00:03:47,400 --> 00:03:50,160
Speaker 1: going to break an exclusive on the program tonight about

69
00:03:50,360 --> 00:03:53,680
Speaker 1: Manly P. Hall and his involvement relationship with the President.

70
00:03:54,040 --> 00:03:56,840
Speaker 1: That's right. I read about this in the introduction to

71
00:03:56,920 --> 00:04:01,160
Speaker 1: Secret History of America. It's an absolute fact that Manly

72
00:04:01,320 --> 00:04:04,640
Speaker 1: and Ronald Reagan were good friends, and that Reagan met

73
00:04:04,680 --> 00:04:08,480
Speaker 1: with him several times when he was governor of California.

74
00:04:08,560 --> 00:04:10,920
Speaker 1: And I first began to get on this centrail back

75
00:04:10,920 --> 00:04:15,520
Speaker 1: in twenty ten when I realized that there were certain

76
00:04:15,560 --> 00:04:19,839
Speaker 1: ideas and actual phrases showing up in Reagan's speeches that

77
00:04:19,960 --> 00:04:23,279
Speaker 1: were clipped and pasted directly from Manley P. Hall's ideas.

78
00:04:23,720 --> 00:04:25,960
Speaker 1: And I did some interviews with some of the folks

79
00:04:25,960 --> 00:04:29,360
Speaker 1: who were still around, and I named them in the introduction,

80
00:04:29,360 --> 00:04:32,440
Speaker 1: and they absolutely confirmed to me that Reagan, when he

81
00:04:32,480 --> 00:04:35,440
Speaker 1: was governor of California, met several times with Manly P. Hall,

82
00:04:35,880 --> 00:04:39,480
Speaker 1: and some of Manley's ideas are echoed in Reagan's speeches

83
00:04:39,880 --> 00:04:42,440
Speaker 1: from the earliest days of his political career back in

84
00:04:42,480 --> 00:04:47,000
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties up through his presidency. Nancy Reagan was

85
00:04:47,040 --> 00:04:49,440
Speaker 1: big into astrology as well. Do you think she knew

86
00:04:49,520 --> 00:04:53,520
Speaker 1: him too? Oh? Absolutely, There's no question about it. It's

87
00:04:53,600 --> 00:04:56,520
Speaker 1: widely known that Nancy was into astrology, and she used

88
00:04:56,560 --> 00:05:01,360
Speaker 1: astrology to set her husband's appointment islander to determine who

89
00:05:01,360 --> 00:05:06,080
Speaker 1: he would meet with him when. And Reagan actually spoke

90
00:05:06,120 --> 00:05:09,320
Speaker 1: glowingly in private of Manly P. Hall. Given how close

91
00:05:09,360 --> 00:05:11,200
Speaker 1: he was to his wife and how much he shared

92
00:05:11,240 --> 00:05:13,800
Speaker 1: with her, there's no question that he would have disclosed

93
00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:17,279
Speaker 1: this connection to his wife. What did Madly think about

94
00:05:17,360 --> 00:05:21,440
Speaker 1: America and what the whole plan was the mission he believed.

95
00:05:21,520 --> 00:05:24,480
Speaker 1: Manly believed that America was a kind of holy Grail

96
00:05:24,640 --> 00:05:28,400
Speaker 1: among nations and that the true inner purpose of America

97
00:05:28,480 --> 00:05:32,600
Speaker 1: from its earliest days was to spread ideals of liberty,

98
00:05:32,960 --> 00:05:37,800
Speaker 1: self governance, democracy, and above all, a protection of the

99
00:05:37,880 --> 00:05:42,160
Speaker 1: individual search for meaning. And that really resonated with Reagan,

100
00:05:42,560 --> 00:05:45,719
Speaker 1: who actually not only repeated many of these themes in

101
00:05:45,760 --> 00:05:49,600
Speaker 1: his speeches, but repeated them in Manly's own language, including

102
00:05:49,680 --> 00:05:53,559
Speaker 1: the centenary celebration of the Statue of Liberty, where Reagan

103
00:05:53,640 --> 00:05:58,320
Speaker 1: told stories and spoke in front of television cameras, echoing

104
00:05:58,360 --> 00:06:01,680
Speaker 1: ideas that had appeared in Manly's own books. Well, and

105
00:06:01,760 --> 00:06:06,640
Speaker 1: it seems that Manly echoes the work of our forefathers

106
00:06:06,640 --> 00:06:12,160
Speaker 1: who established this country put together the Declaration of Independence.

107
00:06:13,040 --> 00:06:16,240
Speaker 1: It sounds like he was really echoing what they were doing. Yes,

108
00:06:16,640 --> 00:06:19,799
Speaker 1: Manly was very aware that many of the founders, including

109
00:06:19,839 --> 00:06:25,560
Speaker 1: George Washington, Ben Franklin, Paul Revere, John Hancock, and many

110
00:06:25,560 --> 00:06:29,440
Speaker 1: of the signers and framers of the Constitution, Declaration of

111
00:06:29,480 --> 00:06:34,120
Speaker 1: Independence were Freemasons. And this is not accidental, it's not fantasy.

112
00:06:34,480 --> 00:06:39,159
Speaker 1: Manly believed that Freemasonry, among other secret societies, including the Rosicrucians,

113
00:06:39,640 --> 00:06:46,480
Speaker 1: had embodied certain primeval ancient esoteric ideals, particularly involving the

114
00:06:46,560 --> 00:06:49,280
Speaker 1: right of the individual to embark on his or her

115
00:06:49,320 --> 00:06:54,040
Speaker 1: own spiritual search. And he believed, and he argued very persuasively,

116
00:06:54,560 --> 00:06:58,679
Speaker 1: that freemasonry played a vital, vital role in that regard

117
00:06:59,120 --> 00:07:02,000
Speaker 1: in the founding of our country. Would you consider him

118
00:07:02,279 --> 00:07:06,799
Speaker 1: a good person or an evil person? Oh? I would

119
00:07:06,800 --> 00:07:09,560
Speaker 1: definitely consider him a good person, you know. Manly was

120
00:07:09,640 --> 00:07:14,880
Speaker 1: absolutely adamant that the mystical search, the occult search, had

121
00:07:14,960 --> 00:07:19,440
Speaker 1: to be conducted along the lines of a really solid

122
00:07:19,560 --> 00:07:23,680
Speaker 1: ethical base and ethical foundation, And he encouraged people again

123
00:07:23,680 --> 00:07:28,000
Speaker 1: and again who were studying the occult or studying esoteric philosophies,

124
00:07:28,360 --> 00:07:31,400
Speaker 1: that they had to have some ancient ethical teaching at

125
00:07:31,400 --> 00:07:33,720
Speaker 1: their back so they wouldn't get lost, whether it was

126
00:07:33,760 --> 00:07:37,040
Speaker 1: the Bagavatgita or the doubt a Ching, or the sayings

127
00:07:37,040 --> 00:07:40,840
Speaker 1: of Buddha or the Beatitudes. But Manly was absolutely adamant

128
00:07:40,840 --> 00:07:44,400
Speaker 1: that without ethics, the spiritual search would just lead you

129
00:07:44,440 --> 00:07:48,040
Speaker 1: into a dark corner. He wrote about George Washington's vision

130
00:07:48,080 --> 00:07:50,400
Speaker 1: at the Valley Forge. Wasn't that where he had some

131
00:07:50,480 --> 00:07:55,440
Speaker 1: kind of angelic situation? George Washington did right. Manly wrote

132
00:07:55,440 --> 00:08:00,040
Speaker 1: that one of Washington's contemporaries at Valley Forge report that

133
00:08:00,320 --> 00:08:04,600
Speaker 1: Washington told him that he had some kind of angelic visitation,

134
00:08:05,160 --> 00:08:10,840
Speaker 1: and this visitation foresaw the victory of colonial forces over

135
00:08:11,120 --> 00:08:16,520
Speaker 1: the British Empire, foresaw the Civil War and America's successful

136
00:08:16,520 --> 00:08:20,160
Speaker 1: emergence from the Civil War, foresaw World War One and

137
00:08:20,320 --> 00:08:24,000
Speaker 1: World War Two, and assured Washington that the nation would

138
00:08:24,040 --> 00:08:27,360
Speaker 1: survive all these crises. And was there a World War

139
00:08:27,440 --> 00:08:30,400
Speaker 1: three involved here at all? Not a World War three?

140
00:08:30,440 --> 00:08:34,880
Speaker 1: But the angelic vision that Washington received did show periods

141
00:08:34,920 --> 00:08:43,120
Speaker 1: of deep unrest, fissure, argument, and things that would set

142
00:08:43,960 --> 00:08:47,720
Speaker 1: citizen against citizen in American history, and one could even

143
00:08:47,720 --> 00:08:50,120
Speaker 1: surmise that we're living through such a period right now.

144
00:08:50,440 --> 00:08:54,760
Speaker 1: But this visitation also assured Washington that each time the

145
00:08:54,840 --> 00:09:00,360
Speaker 1: nation would emerge from it successfully. Was Manly the type

146
00:09:00,360 --> 00:09:03,040
Speaker 1: of person to really look into the future. I mean,

147
00:09:03,240 --> 00:09:05,920
Speaker 1: he was an astrologer, but that he was he into

148
00:09:05,920 --> 00:09:09,000
Speaker 1: prophecy at all. Oh, he definitely was into prophecy. He

149
00:09:09,040 --> 00:09:13,800
Speaker 1: wrote with veneration about the prophecies of Nostradamus. He believed

150
00:09:13,960 --> 00:09:17,720
Speaker 1: very strongly that precognition was a very real and very

151
00:09:17,720 --> 00:09:22,600
Speaker 1: concrete possibility, and Manly believed in a philosophy that basically

152
00:09:23,480 --> 00:09:27,560
Speaker 1: outlined the idea that linear time is an illusion and

153
00:09:27,600 --> 00:09:30,880
Speaker 1: that everything that we experience is part of an infinite

154
00:09:30,880 --> 00:09:34,240
Speaker 1: continuum of time. Everything is going on at once, and

155
00:09:34,320 --> 00:09:39,280
Speaker 1: that highly sensitive individuals could glean events that might seem

156
00:09:39,280 --> 00:09:42,800
Speaker 1: like they're from the future, but they're just basically things

157
00:09:42,800 --> 00:09:46,000
Speaker 1: that are in superposition. They're in infinite position right now,

158
00:09:46,040 --> 00:09:48,240
Speaker 1: that are sort of going on at once that the

159
00:09:48,280 --> 00:09:51,480
Speaker 1: rest of us will eventually come to experience. In the

160
00:09:51,520 --> 00:09:57,520
Speaker 1: sixteen hundred, some monks settled in on the Philadelphia manly

161
00:09:57,600 --> 00:10:00,200
Speaker 1: writes about that. Tell me the significance of that. He

162
00:10:00,240 --> 00:10:02,280
Speaker 1: writes about that it's one of the least known and

163
00:10:02,360 --> 00:10:06,240
Speaker 1: most important events in our history. In sixteen ninety four,

164
00:10:07,080 --> 00:10:10,920
Speaker 1: a group of mystical monks from Central Europe who were

165
00:10:10,920 --> 00:10:15,240
Speaker 1: experiencing religious persecution, traveled across the Atlantic. They were led

166
00:10:15,280 --> 00:10:18,880
Speaker 1: by a young man named Johannes Kelpius, and they settled

167
00:10:18,960 --> 00:10:23,240
Speaker 1: on the banks of the Wissahickon Creek in Philadelphia. And

168
00:10:23,440 --> 00:10:26,240
Speaker 1: I visited this area, and it's possibility that some of

169
00:10:26,280 --> 00:10:30,120
Speaker 1: the structures they created still exist there. And they were

170
00:10:30,160 --> 00:10:33,760
Speaker 1: so significant because they were the first kind of free

171
00:10:33,760 --> 00:10:38,520
Speaker 1: flowing religious commune in American life. And they solidified the

172
00:10:38,600 --> 00:10:44,320
Speaker 1: idea that religious experimentation was possible in America. This was

173
00:10:44,400 --> 00:10:48,800
Speaker 1: one hundred years before the framing of the Constitution, and

174
00:10:48,960 --> 00:10:52,360
Speaker 1: word trickled back across the Atlantic to Europe, and lots

175
00:10:52,360 --> 00:10:56,599
Speaker 1: of people who were religious radicals, heretics, people experiencing persecution

176
00:10:57,200 --> 00:11:00,400
Speaker 1: started to come to America, and it began with this

177
00:11:00,480 --> 00:11:03,800
Speaker 1: little cluster of mystical monks who lived on the banks

178
00:11:03,800 --> 00:11:09,440
Speaker 1: of the Weisshaecken. It's amazing how did he uncover these stories?

179
00:11:10,120 --> 00:11:13,960
Speaker 1: You know? Manly read very very deeply into esoteric history

180
00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:16,440
Speaker 1: and occult lore, and there were things that he wrote

181
00:11:16,440 --> 00:11:20,600
Speaker 1: about actually that have been validated by time. Manly's description

182
00:11:20,800 --> 00:11:23,600
Speaker 1: of the Oracle of Delphi, for example, in ancient Greece

183
00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:26,839
Speaker 1: at one time was considered fanciful, this notion that a

184
00:11:27,360 --> 00:11:31,840
Speaker 1: female oracle was seceedd on a tripod and imbibing fumes

185
00:11:31,880 --> 00:11:35,640
Speaker 1: and foretelling the future. And Manly wrote about this very earnestly,

186
00:11:35,640 --> 00:11:38,960
Speaker 1: and most archaeologists considered it to just be fantasy. But

187
00:11:39,240 --> 00:11:44,400
Speaker 1: archaeological findings shortly after Manly's death actually bore out the

188
00:11:44,520 --> 00:11:47,319
Speaker 1: legitimacy of what he describes. So some of the things

189
00:11:47,360 --> 00:11:51,240
Speaker 1: that Manly described that we're considered fanciful have actually been

190
00:11:51,320 --> 00:11:56,439
Speaker 1: validated by time. Mitch tell us about the medium Andrew

191
00:11:56,559 --> 00:12:00,000
Speaker 1: Jackson Davis that Manly writes about so much. Oh yeah,

192
00:12:00,040 --> 00:12:01,640
Speaker 1: this is one of my favorite parts of the book.

193
00:12:01,960 --> 00:12:04,640
Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson Davis was a young man who lived in

194
00:12:04,640 --> 00:12:07,640
Speaker 1: the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, up in the Hudson

195
00:12:07,720 --> 00:12:12,000
Speaker 1: Valley in the mid nineteenth century. And Davis reported going

196
00:12:12,040 --> 00:12:14,440
Speaker 1: into trans states and coming out with all kinds of

197
00:12:14,520 --> 00:12:17,959
Speaker 1: visions of other worlds and other dimensions. And in the

198
00:12:18,040 --> 00:12:23,040
Speaker 1: year eighteen fifty four, Andrew Jackson Davis was the first

199
00:12:23,480 --> 00:12:26,520
Speaker 1: person who came up with the term and concept of

200
00:12:26,559 --> 00:12:29,960
Speaker 1: the law of attraction. That's where this idea comes from,

201
00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:33,400
Speaker 1: which is so popular today, And it appeared in Davis's

202
00:12:33,400 --> 00:12:37,520
Speaker 1: writings based on his trans meditations, and he published this

203
00:12:37,600 --> 00:12:41,080
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty four. So anybody who uses the term

204
00:12:41,160 --> 00:12:44,840
Speaker 1: law of attraction owes a great debt to Andrew Jackson Davis,

205
00:12:44,880 --> 00:12:47,960
Speaker 1: because he was a spirit medium living in upstate New York,

206
00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:51,160
Speaker 1: grew up on a farm, and through his transmeditations he

207
00:12:51,200 --> 00:12:54,000
Speaker 1: came up with the idea of there being a law

208
00:12:54,120 --> 00:12:58,160
Speaker 1: of attraction and Manly writes about him in really venerated

209
00:12:58,280 --> 00:13:01,640
Speaker 1: terms in Secret History of America. Would you say Manly

210
00:13:01,720 --> 00:13:05,079
Speaker 1: might have been one of the first writers and authors

211
00:13:05,200 --> 00:13:08,520
Speaker 1: to deal with this subject matter. Well, he was certainly

212
00:13:08,559 --> 00:13:11,520
Speaker 1: one of the most influential. You know, Manly when he

213
00:13:11,559 --> 00:13:15,080
Speaker 1: began his writing career in the nineteen twenties, he felt

214
00:13:15,120 --> 00:13:20,439
Speaker 1: that occult philosophy, esoteric philosophy, was being forgotten about. Materialism

215
00:13:20,520 --> 00:13:24,080
Speaker 1: was all the rage, and the idea was that seances

216
00:13:24,120 --> 00:13:27,080
Speaker 1: and prophecies and the writings of Nostradamus and these other

217
00:13:27,120 --> 00:13:30,640
Speaker 1: things all belonged to an irrelevant past. But Manly, who

218
00:13:30,679 --> 00:13:34,400
Speaker 1: was so serious and so scholarly, said wait a minute,

219
00:13:34,400 --> 00:13:36,400
Speaker 1: we have to take a second look at this material.

220
00:13:36,520 --> 00:13:40,680
Speaker 1: And he returned the attention of modern people to these

221
00:13:40,720 --> 00:13:43,600
Speaker 1: ancient ideas. And there's no telling how many of us

222
00:13:43,640 --> 00:13:46,400
Speaker 1: he's influenced. What would he be saying today, Mitch, about

223
00:13:46,440 --> 00:13:49,360
Speaker 1: the state of America. There's no question in my mind

224
00:13:49,400 --> 00:13:51,360
Speaker 1: that Manly would be saying that, in terms of the

225
00:13:51,400 --> 00:13:54,960
Speaker 1: state of America today, we need to behave with greater

226
00:13:55,120 --> 00:13:59,040
Speaker 1: civic ideals toward one another. Manly would have been absolutely

227
00:13:59,080 --> 00:14:05,080
Speaker 1: aghast at the tone of sarcasm and invective that runs

228
00:14:05,200 --> 00:14:09,560
Speaker 1: rife today left right would have driven him crazy. I bet, oh,

229
00:14:09,600 --> 00:14:12,520
Speaker 1: you know, he just he felt that we owed it

230
00:14:12,559 --> 00:14:14,640
Speaker 1: to one another and it was the first fundamental of

231
00:14:14,640 --> 00:14:19,280
Speaker 1: the spiritual search to treat thy neighbor with some degree

232
00:14:19,280 --> 00:14:22,720
Speaker 1: of decency. And he would have been very, very troubled

233
00:14:22,720 --> 00:14:26,600
Speaker 1: by the tone of cynicism and hostility that appears online today.

234
00:14:26,760 --> 00:14:30,080
Speaker 1: It's the worst I've ever seen. It's nothing like I've

235
00:14:30,120 --> 00:14:33,120
Speaker 1: ever seen. You know. It's funny. Every generation thinks they

236
00:14:33,160 --> 00:14:36,440
Speaker 1: live on some sort of a precipice. Every generation thinks

237
00:14:36,480 --> 00:14:39,480
Speaker 1: that things are worse than they've ever been. But our

238
00:14:39,560 --> 00:14:42,960
Speaker 1: generation is seeing a degree of invective, particularly online, that

239
00:14:43,480 --> 00:14:46,280
Speaker 1: I've never seen before. And we've got to get beyond it.

240
00:14:46,280 --> 00:14:48,560
Speaker 1: We've got to get beyond it, and I think his

241
00:14:48,680 --> 00:14:51,040
Speaker 1: writings can help us do that well. One of the

242
00:14:51,240 --> 00:14:53,280
Speaker 1: one of the problems Mitch, I think with some of

243
00:14:53,280 --> 00:14:56,040
Speaker 1: these online things, these haters, as I would call him,

244
00:14:56,200 --> 00:15:00,280
Speaker 1: is because they are anonymous. Yes, they just say these

245
00:15:00,320 --> 00:15:06,280
Speaker 1: horrid things. I mean, these people could be business people, mothers, fathers,

246
00:15:06,880 --> 00:15:10,480
Speaker 1: raising families, having kids, but you put them behind a

247
00:15:10,600 --> 00:15:17,120
Speaker 1: computer anonymously, they become evil, absolutely there's a real problem

248
00:15:17,120 --> 00:15:20,360
Speaker 1: with anonymity online today. You know, it often occurs to

249
00:15:20,360 --> 00:15:24,440
Speaker 1: me that human nature has not changed. Human nature is constant.

250
00:15:24,800 --> 00:15:28,360
Speaker 1: But what online culture has done is it's disinhibited us,

251
00:15:28,360 --> 00:15:31,760
Speaker 1: and it's brought out the absolute worst traits in human nature.

252
00:15:31,800 --> 00:15:34,440
Speaker 1: And look, it says in scripture that everyone has a

253
00:15:34,520 --> 00:15:36,720
Speaker 1: right to know who's bearing witness against them. And I

254
00:15:36,760 --> 00:15:40,400
Speaker 1: really feel very strongly that if you make a comment online,

255
00:15:40,520 --> 00:15:42,560
Speaker 1: you should use your real name, and you should never

256
00:15:42,600 --> 00:15:45,160
Speaker 1: say anything that you wouldn't be able to say to

257
00:15:45,240 --> 00:15:49,040
Speaker 1: a person's face. This anonymity online has brought out the

258
00:15:49,040 --> 00:15:51,840
Speaker 1: worst traits of human nature. Yeah, no, it really has,

259
00:15:51,880 --> 00:15:55,760
Speaker 1: and it's festered, it's gotten worse, and it continues to,

260
00:15:56,040 --> 00:15:59,120
Speaker 1: I think, grow and grow and grow, absolutely, And I

261
00:15:59,160 --> 00:16:01,600
Speaker 1: often challenge people that if they want to make a

262
00:16:01,680 --> 00:16:05,880
Speaker 1: concrete improvement of their lives, listen, every one of your

263
00:16:05,880 --> 00:16:10,560
Speaker 1: listeners can attempt this experiment. Desist from it for twenty

264
00:16:10,600 --> 00:16:14,800
Speaker 1: four hours. Spend twenty four hours refusing to participate in

265
00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:19,280
Speaker 1: or listen to gossip or cynicism or hostility. Doesn't mean

266
00:16:19,320 --> 00:16:21,720
Speaker 1: you have to unplug, but you just don't engage in

267
00:16:21,800 --> 00:16:23,480
Speaker 1: any of that stuff. And if you can do that

268
00:16:23,560 --> 00:16:26,880
Speaker 1: for twenty four hours, you will stand more fully erect,

269
00:16:26,920 --> 00:16:29,840
Speaker 1: You will feel better about yourself. You'll have better self respect.

270
00:16:30,200 --> 00:16:32,080
Speaker 1: It's not only doing a favor for the other person,

271
00:16:32,120 --> 00:16:35,520
Speaker 1: it's doing a favor for yourself. There's a magical property

272
00:16:36,000 --> 00:16:40,320
Speaker 1: in desisting from gossip and hate speech, and it will

273
00:16:40,360 --> 00:16:42,560
Speaker 1: help you feel better about yourself. You'll be a more

274
00:16:42,560 --> 00:16:46,120
Speaker 1: effective person. Listen to more Coast to Coast am every

275
00:16:46,160 --> 00:16:49,360
Speaker 1: weeknight at one am Eastern, and go to Coast to

276
00:16:49,400 --> 00:16:51,120
Speaker 1: Coast am dot com for more