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Speaker 1: Trust me? Do you trust me?

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Speaker 2: Right?

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Speaker 3: Everly?

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Speaker 1: And you astrid to us? This is the truth, the

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Speaker 1: only truth.

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Speaker 2: If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't

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Speaker 2: welcome to trust me. The podcast about cults, extreme belief

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Speaker 2: and manipulation from two former cult members who've actually experienced it.

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Speaker 2: I am Lo Lablanc and I'm Megan Elizabeth. And today

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Speaker 2: our guest is Jane Borden, author of Cults Like Us

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Speaker 2: Why Doomsday Thinking drives America. Today, Jame's going to talk

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Speaker 2: to us about why the Puritans were actually a high

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Speaker 2: control group, how the ethos that working was a sign

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Speaker 2: of righteousness informs our current American belief that having a

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Speaker 2: lot of money is a sign of goodness, and how

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Speaker 2: pro natalism and the idea that the correct people should

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Speaker 2: be having more babies is not only incredibly dangerous but

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Speaker 2: also another form of doomsdayism.

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Speaker 3: We'll talk about the American monometh and why it makes

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Speaker 3: us interested in authoritarian style leadership, How the Book of

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Speaker 3: Revelation is not quite what we think it is, how

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Speaker 3: all this black and white thinking is just a way

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Speaker 3: to make sense of the chaos, and how self help

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Speaker 3: and marketing are their own forms of cultic thinking.

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Speaker 2: Before we get to our guest, Megan, what is the

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Speaker 2: cultiest thing of the week for you?

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Speaker 1: My cultiest thing of the week is just learning more

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Speaker 1: about Lauri Bellow. Do you remember her? Yes, of the

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Speaker 1: Chad day Bell case. Yes, exactly.

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Speaker 3: She's a woman who is accused of murdering her two

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Speaker 3: children with her husband, Chad day Bell, who they're also

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Speaker 3: accused of killing a whole slew of other people. He

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Speaker 3: wrote like doomsday almost romance novels in my opinion, that

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Speaker 3: she got super obsessed with. And who knows if he

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Speaker 3: believed it, but I do think she believed that they

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Speaker 3: were coming true, kind of bringing in this new heralding

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Speaker 3: in this kind of revelation into being. They ended up

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Speaker 3: killing their two children. They found the bodies anyway, Chad

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Speaker 3: day Bell has been sentenced to the death penalty.

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Speaker 1: Okay, And I read that Laurie is defending herself and court.

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Speaker 1: No she's not, Yes, she is. Wow. She is very good.

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Speaker 3: I mean, don't get me wrong, She's going to be

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Speaker 3: found guilty, but she's very good at like flirting.

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Speaker 1: Are you watching the trial?

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Speaker 3: No, but I watched the documentary and like she gets

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Speaker 3: pulled over and and she's just like, oh my gosh,

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Speaker 3: my lipstick.

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Speaker 1: I can't find it. Oh my god, where is it?

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Speaker 1: And and like you let her go. She's very flirtatious and.

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Speaker 2: She's very out of things. So uh yeah, that's mine.

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Speaker 2: What a fascinating person. Whenever somebody decides to represent themselves

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Speaker 2: in court, I automatically assume that they are mentally very

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Speaker 2: mentally unwell, because why would you do that unless you're

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Speaker 2: like the sickest lawyer of all time, And even then

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Speaker 2: you would know you want a team like she.

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Speaker 3: And she's not a lawyer, and she's like, I've been

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Speaker 3: reading books. Good for you, Lorie.

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Speaker 2: You will end up in jail and you should and

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Speaker 2: you should and you should.

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Speaker 3: This is the part where we go to your cultiest

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Speaker 3: thing of the week, because we both do one. What's

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Speaker 3: your cultiest thing of the week.

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Speaker 2: My cultiest thing of the week is something I actually

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Speaker 2: I'm gonna say I don't think is a cult, but

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Speaker 2: there are there are just like elements of group gatherings that.

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Speaker 1: That can feel cult eat to be. Okay, So I started.

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Speaker 2: Going to alan on And for those of you who

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Speaker 2: don't know what allan on is, because I've learned in

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Speaker 2: the past few weeks that everybody thinks that allan On.

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Speaker 1: Is just AA which it's not.

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Speaker 2: AA is for people who are alcoholics or addicts. Alan

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Speaker 2: On is for people who have been affected by people

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Speaker 2: who are alcoholics or addicts. So it's you know, your

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Speaker 2: mom's an alcoholic, if your loved one is an addict.

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Speaker 2: That's the program that you go to. And it's also

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Speaker 2: a twelve step program. It's just a slightly different program.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot of like, you know, people like me

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Speaker 2: who have who are extremely Type A and want to

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Speaker 2: fix everything and make everything better, which is, yeah, are

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Speaker 2: you going.

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Speaker 3: To alan On because you're host is an alcoholic? Oh

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Speaker 3: my god, I can't believe it took me this long.

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Speaker 1: I'm in the program too, guys. It's fine. The AA

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Speaker 1: one Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 2: My brother is an addict, and people who you know,

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Speaker 2: have listened to some of our old episodes will know

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Speaker 2: that that's been an ongoing thing. He did overdose and

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Speaker 2: he has a brain injury now. But I actually went

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Speaker 2: because of a breakup that happened and just kind of

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Speaker 2: some realizations I'd had about some of my own patterns.

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Speaker 4: And.

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Speaker 1: It's my first twelve step program.

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Speaker 2: I mean I've gone to like a couple to support people,

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Speaker 2: you know, but it's the first one I'm going to

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Speaker 2: for myself, so I'm getting the most like clear window

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Speaker 2: into how it works.

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Speaker 1: It's really interesting.

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Speaker 2: Like what I love about it and what I think

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Speaker 2: prevents it from a being a cult is that there's

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Speaker 2: no central leadership. Responsibilities change hands all the time, so

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Speaker 2: there really isn't room for someone to be like this

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Speaker 2: is the way to do it, or at least there's

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Speaker 2: there are safeguards against that, yep. But of course some

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Speaker 2: of the other things that will happen in any kind

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Speaker 2: of support group were recurring gathering I think are like

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Speaker 2: the language. There's like language that everybody uses. There's like

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Speaker 2: catchphrases and slogans, and I'm like, I don't why are

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Speaker 2: you all saying the same thing?

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Speaker 1: I don't. Yeah, I don't know what that means.

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Speaker 2: You know your secret language, Yeah you have, there is

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Speaker 2: a secret language. And obviously this is not what everybody does.

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Speaker 2: But like some people will get up and talk and

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Speaker 2: I'll notice they're applying the alan On principles to everything

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Speaker 2: in their life as opposed to just the things that

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Speaker 2: applies to which also you know, as we know, like

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Speaker 2: when you think one thing is the answer to all

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Speaker 2: things in your life, that can be maybe making it

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Speaker 2: too important totally.

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Speaker 1: But like it's great.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great, and I think it's really helpful. And

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Speaker 2: if anyone actually does have an addict in their life

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Speaker 2: like me, I recommend going, even though I'm so uncomfortable

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Speaker 2: when I'm there because I'm like this, I'd be vulnerable

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Speaker 2: in front of people and not like in the podcast

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Speaker 2: way where I'm like just talk, but like I have to, like, actually,

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Speaker 2: you know, it's different, and if anybody has an addict

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Speaker 2: and their brain like me, go take care of it.

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Speaker 1: The only thing I don't like is when they refer

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Speaker 1: to it as a family. Ooh yeah, yeah, I was like, no,

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Speaker 1: we're not. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes the higher power talk bothers me, but as an atheist,

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Speaker 2: but I have been to meetings where they're very good

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Speaker 2: about not overusing like God language and more just saying

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Speaker 2: higher power.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, it's what an interesting new thing in my life.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely shocking. Honestly, I'm very proud of you, but it

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Speaker 3: can thank you. Yeah, but sometimes we need that. I

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Speaker 3: had no idea that the Puritans were one of the

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Speaker 3: most impactful cults in American history, and they just came

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Speaker 3: in hot from the beginning.

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Speaker 2: And to provide some context for this episode, because we

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Speaker 2: were a little hazy on some of this history, and

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Speaker 2: maybe some of y'all are too, here's just a little

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Speaker 2: little overview to set us up.

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Speaker 1: Okay.

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Speaker 2: The Puritans left England because they wanted to create their own, improved,

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Speaker 2: more extreme, purified version of the Church of England, which

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Speaker 2: they thought hadn't gone far enough in its reforms after

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Speaker 2: breaking away from the Catholic Church. They didn't know that, yeah, same,

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Speaker 2: the Church of England was trying to establish itself as

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Speaker 2: like a mandatory religion, and the Puritans believed that they

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Speaker 2: should be able to do the religion however they wanted

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Speaker 2: without like a leader or a state head or whatever

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Speaker 2: telling them how to do it and running the show.

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Speaker 2: But they didn't actually want religious pluralism. They just wanted

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Speaker 2: to create a society where they could do religion their

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Speaker 2: way and make everyone else also do it that way,

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Speaker 2: which is the same thing, ironically. And then they settled

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Speaker 2: in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in sixteen thirty and within

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Speaker 2: ten years they were the colony's majority group. So it

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Speaker 2: informed so much of what America became after that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and they didn't even expect to be there for

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Speaker 3: ten years. They thought the apocalypse was high noon arriving.

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Speaker 1: Which is what Jane Morden is going to tell us

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Speaker 1: all about. Let's do it.

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Speaker 2: Welcome Jane Borden to trust me. Thank you so much

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Speaker 2: for joining us, Thank you for having me. I'm excited

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Speaker 2: to be here. You're here with us today because you

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Speaker 2: wrote a book called Cults Like Us Why Doomsday Thinking

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Speaker 2: Drives America? Which seems somewhat relevant right now to our culture.

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Speaker 1: What inspired you to write this book? First of all

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Speaker 1: to answer those questions? What's going on? How did we

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Speaker 1: get here? Why is this happening?

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Speaker 4: I had become very preoccupied with the division in the

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Speaker 4: nation after Trump's first election. How can people who are

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Speaker 4: really mostly the same be so divided or see themselves

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Speaker 4: as so divided? Where's that coming from? And so I

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Speaker 4: had all that rolling around in my brain while I

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Speaker 4: was also doing some cult.

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Speaker 1: Reporting for Vanity Fair.

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Speaker 4: And I was a religious studies major in college, and

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Speaker 4: I've sort of always been interested in belief, and so

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Speaker 4: in this sort of muck of things rolling around in

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Speaker 4: my brain, it dawned on me one day that the

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Speaker 4: Puritans were kind of a could I mean, if people

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Speaker 4: today look back at them, we would call them a cold.

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Speaker 1: Can you tell us why that is?

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Speaker 2: Because I really my knowledge of Puritans is like from

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Speaker 2: some third grade class where what picture book like maybe

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Speaker 2: had a turkey or something like you.

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Speaker 3: Were like, yeah, tracing your hand, and that's the extent

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Speaker 3: of it. I was reading this like it was a

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Speaker 3: fairy tale, like had I had no idea any of

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Speaker 3: it was real.

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Speaker 4: Well, we don't learn those parts because they're a little

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Speaker 4: inconvenient or unflattering at least, Right, But the Puritans, first

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Speaker 4: of all, they were a doomsday group, so they believe

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Speaker 4: the end was very near, and they hoped they were

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Speaker 4: among the chosen. And they were fleeing England because they

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Speaker 4: thought that armageddon was coming to England. They thought God

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Speaker 4: was first going to punish England before.

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Speaker 1: The rest of the world.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, And they thought England's crime was that it had

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Speaker 4: not purified the Church of England enough, it had not

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Speaker 4: made it distinct enough from the Catholic Church.

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Speaker 2: Right, I did not realize that they were just more

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Speaker 2: extreme than the Church that they were fleeing. Like in

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Speaker 2: my head, I was like, Oh, they just wanted to

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Speaker 2: practice religious freedom. But it sounds like they were like,

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Speaker 2: you guys, aren't letting us be extreme enough and you

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Speaker 2: aren't like going hard enough in your religion.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and they were derided.

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Speaker 4: I mean they were called hot Protestants, which I love ye,

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Speaker 4: and you know they got executed.

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Speaker 1: They were spit on.

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Speaker 4: They were not popular, these people, and you can kind

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Speaker 4: of understand why.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, they didn't dance.

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Speaker 4: There was no you weren't even allowed to like love

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Speaker 4: your kids or your spouse very much, because if you

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Speaker 4: loved anything more than.

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Speaker 1: God, that was bad.

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Speaker 3: They were kind of boring to a degree, like if

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Speaker 3: they were at a dinner party, you'd be like leave, right.

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Speaker 1: Do you must we sit on people for being boring?

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I don't know if this is the

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Speaker 3: quite the right moment for it, but that leads to

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Speaker 3: a big persecution complex, right exactly. Everyone hates me, everyone

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Speaker 3: hates us. We're gonna but guess what, God loves us. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: and you're gonna pay, and you're gonna pay. Yeah, that's right.

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Speaker 2: So can you tell us a little bit about how

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Speaker 2: the Puritans were in fact a high control group when

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Speaker 2: they got here and how that kind of evolved.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know, high control group means belief was controlled,

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Speaker 4: behavior was controlled, information intake controlled. They did this by

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Speaker 4: pushing conformity. It was a culture of punishment, so everything

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Speaker 4: you could be punished for. I mean it was kind

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Speaker 4: of I don't know how they lived their lives in

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Speaker 4: constant fears how they live their lives, which is motivating,

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Speaker 4: you know, to conform. But for example, swearing was illegal, flirting, gossiping,

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Speaker 4: You couldn't disagree with the minister. A woman got turned

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Speaker 4: in by her survey because the servant overheard her expressing

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Speaker 4: a disagreement with the minister. It was illegal to skip church.

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Speaker 4: The servant people were turned into informants, and so you

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Speaker 4: were walking on eggshells all the time. They made it

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Speaker 4: very difficult to get into the church. So there was

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Speaker 4: this thing that you desperately wanted that was always just

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Speaker 4: out of reach. And so the idea was that no

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Speaker 4: one knows who is or isn't going to be saved

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Speaker 4: on Doomsday because only God knows that and also He's

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Speaker 4: chosen it, you know, before you were born. But they

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Speaker 4: were still like, we're pretty sure we know, and we're

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Speaker 4: pretty sure we are sure. And so the way they

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Speaker 4: determined that or proved it was just by looking within,

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Speaker 4: you know, just kind of sit with yourself and look

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Speaker 4: for signs of grace, and if you feel like you

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Speaker 4: find it, then you're probably among the chosen, and therefore

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Speaker 4: you can gain jury into the church. But the longer

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Speaker 4: the Puritan settlement was around in Boston, the harder they

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Speaker 4: made entry into the church to get This was very

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Speaker 4: much because the magistrates wanted to hold onto power. They

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Speaker 4: were corrupted by power, and the more people who could

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Speaker 4: get into the church, the less power they had. And

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Speaker 4: so they started telling people, you know, are you sure,

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Speaker 4: are you sure you found grace? Maybe you should go

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Speaker 4: look again. There's probably wickedness in there somewhere. And so

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Speaker 4: church numbers shrank, and this all led to a variety

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Speaker 4: of crises because they were a theocracy, and how do

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Speaker 4: you govern at any rate? And so there's all these

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Speaker 4: stories about in the second and third generations about people

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Speaker 4: who get power holding on to it and not letting go.

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Speaker 4: And sometimes they would change the rules rather than seed power,

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Speaker 4: which is something we always see in high control groups

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Speaker 4: and cults.

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Speaker 1: So really what we're talking about is power.

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Speaker 2: Always well What are the origins of this sort of

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Speaker 2: doomsday thinking or has this just always been around like

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Speaker 2: in every religion or is this a uniquely American thing.

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Speaker 4: I think it's especially American, but it's certainly not unique.

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Speaker 4: Apocalyptic thinking in general, which just means thinking that the

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Speaker 4: world is going to end, that instead of everything being

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Speaker 4: a circle, it's a line with a destination. That is

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Speaker 4: a relatively new development. It pretty much came about with Monotheism,

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Speaker 4: with the development of Monotheism, so it started with the Zoroastrians,

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Speaker 4: and from there it very much influenced Judaism and from there,

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Speaker 4: you know, the Christianity, the Jesus Cult, as some called it,

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Speaker 4: was an apocalyptic group. Christianity is an apocalyptic religion in

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Speaker 4: many ways, and we've moved away from that modern Christianity has,

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Speaker 4: but it's there at the roots. And then it flared

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Speaker 4: hugely around following the Reformation, and the Puritans brought it

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Speaker 4: to America. Can you say a little bit about Roger Williams. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: so he was a radical among the radicals. He showed

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Speaker 4: up shortly after the Puritans setup shop in Boston and

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Speaker 4: began criticizing the Church magistrates. He thought that the Church

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Speaker 4: in Boston had not gone far enough to purify itself

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Speaker 4: of the evils of the Satanic pope.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 4: He basically thought we should be worshiping the way Jesus

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Speaker 4: and his apostles did. So no structure, no church. He

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Speaker 4: would only pray with his wife. In later years he

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Speaker 4: only prayed alone, and so he wanted He kind of

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Speaker 4: wanted to burn it all down, and the church was

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Speaker 4: not happy about this. They tried to kick him out.

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Speaker 4: He caught wind of it, fled south and essentially found

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Speaker 4: at Rhode Island. And what's fascinating to me about him

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Speaker 4: is that he's become the grandfather of the separation of

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Speaker 4: church and state. Like the Establishment Clause the First Amendment

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Speaker 4: came from his ideas. But ultimately he was just trying

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Speaker 4: to bring Jesus back.

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Speaker 1: He just wanted more church.

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Speaker 4: He thought, Jesus isn't going to come back unless you

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Speaker 4: get rid of church structure. And I want Jesus to

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Speaker 4: come back. Everybody wants the world to end, so everybody

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Speaker 4: wants they want they want to see it, and.

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Speaker 3: They want to see everybody go to hell more than

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Speaker 3: they even want to go to Heaven. They want to

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Speaker 3: see their enemies go to hell punished. That's right, it's

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Speaker 3: freaking weird.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: I write about this poem, The Day of Doom, which

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Speaker 4: was is considered America's first bestseller. It's hugely popular in

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Speaker 4: Puritan New England, and it's the story of doomsday. It's

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Speaker 4: a long form poem and I think two hundred and

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Speaker 4: twenty some standas are dedicated to people getting it right,

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Speaker 4: like wailing and begging for mercy and being denied and

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Speaker 4: thrown into the lake.

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Speaker 1: Affair, gnashing of teeth and gnashing of teath duck in

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Speaker 1: my brain.

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Speaker 4: But before any of that happens, the saints, the elect,

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Speaker 4: the chosen are pulled up to heaven so they can

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Speaker 4: help and watch.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's their first reward. My goodness, loved ones and

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Speaker 1: they're friends God. Yeah, anything to feel special. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: You wrote about how there are values of like hard

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Speaker 2: work and how this was virtuous to be like kind

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Speaker 2: of constantly working because that meant you were righteous somehow

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Speaker 2: because you weren't distracted. How did that like stick in

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Speaker 2: American culture and how does it relate to kind of

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Speaker 2: what we see today in evangelical.

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Speaker 1: Culture why we worship billionaires.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, this one's interesting because the Puritans were very clear

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Speaker 4: on the boat on the way over, you know, they said,

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Speaker 4: you will give to your neighbor if your neighbor needs it,

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Speaker 4: even if you think you're not going to get that

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Speaker 4: money back.

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Speaker 1: That's just how we roll. Get on board or go

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Speaker 1: back to England, you know.

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Speaker 4: But over time this shifted because of their idea that

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Speaker 4: the way you worshiped God was by having a calling

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Speaker 4: by working. They thought that God only created us because

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Speaker 4: he wanted to be worshiped, and that the way we

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Speaker 4: did it was by working hard. So the harder you worked,

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Speaker 4: the more you loved God. So what that meant is

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Speaker 4: that if you're working really hard, you're going to start

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Speaker 4: accruing wealth.

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Speaker 1: It's inevitable.

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Speaker 4: And so is wealth then really bad or is it

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Speaker 4: just a sign of how much you love God and

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Speaker 4: a sign that maybe He loves you in turn if

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Speaker 4: he's rewarding you, right, yes, So then eventually, over time

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Speaker 4: it became okay to acquire money. Acquisitiveness stopped being this

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Speaker 4: evil sin and started being something good and righteous.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, because also if you have grace, then you would

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Speaker 3: get wealth. So it's this kind of circular thinking that

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Speaker 3: begins too.

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Speaker 4: And therefore, if you have wealth, you must have grace. Yes,

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Speaker 4: and so John Rockefeller famously said that he got his

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Speaker 4: money from God.

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Speaker 2: But of course, the people who believe this are generally

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Speaker 2: people who are buying into an unscientific shall we say, reality,

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Speaker 2: because we know that having wealth is what enables you

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Speaker 2: to create more wealth, the bootstraps. Can you talk a

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Speaker 2: little bit about the bootstraps myth of America?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it is a myth.

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Speaker 4: I believe that people who follow this doctrine that the

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Speaker 4: wealthy are that the number in your bank account represent

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Speaker 4: your moral character, right, because the inverse of the wealthy

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Speaker 4: being among the chosen is that the impoverished are sinners.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Right.

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Speaker 4: The idea is, if you're poor, well, surely that God

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Speaker 4: wants you to be poor. You know, God assessed you

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Speaker 4: and decided you weren't worthy, and so why should we

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Speaker 4: help the poor?

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Speaker 1: Sin should be punished?

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Speaker 4: Right, And so we see this this bootstrapping ethic preached

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Speaker 4: to the poor, when in fact there are constraints set

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Speaker 4: in place that keep them from ever becoming rich. Because

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Speaker 4: when you have money, you don't want to give it away,

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Speaker 4: and so this doctrine becomes a very handy justification to

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Speaker 4: not just hold your wealth, but as I argue in

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Speaker 4: the book, actually mine the lower classes of their wealth,

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Speaker 4: because again, if you see them as sinners, you see

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Speaker 4: them as just another part of the natural world, which,

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Speaker 4: according to the Puritan ethos, we're supposed to be mining

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Speaker 4: and extracting from and using for our own benefit.

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Speaker 1: Oh god, it's baked in there, it's really it.

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Speaker 2: Really it reminds me of the law of attraction that like,

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Speaker 2: you just aren't thinking, you're not doing it right if

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Speaker 2: you're not attracting enough like wealth and success into your life.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: What I took away from this in a bigger way

402
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Speaker 3: was like luck is so scary for Americans to wrap

403
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Speaker 3: their head around.

404
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Speaker 1: And probably you know, many cultures.

405
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Speaker 3: Like randomness, the randomness, the fear of the unknown, so

406
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Speaker 3: that everything must have a reason and a reward or

407
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Speaker 3: a punishment.

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Speaker 1: Yes, the world is just.

409
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Speaker 2: It's the just world hypothesis, right, which is that cognitive

410
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Speaker 2: bias where we are prone to believing that things are

411
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Speaker 2: the way they are because they're supposed to be that

412
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Speaker 2: way and because the world is just. So if somebody

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Speaker 2: is really wealthy, they must be wealthy because they did

414
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Speaker 2: good things and they are correct and righteous and if

415
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Speaker 2: they're poor, it must be their fault.

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Speaker 4: That makes things easier to accept than the chaos. Yeah,

417
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Speaker 4: the chaos. We talk about the chaos a lot. It

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Speaker 4: is really difficult to accept the chaos. Yeah, and that's

419
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Speaker 4: what feels coolt like thinking, right, trying to create order

420
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Speaker 4: out of chaos.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

422
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Speaker 2: So I want to hear a bit about the American

423
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Speaker 2: mono myth. Where does that come from and.

424
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Speaker 1: What is it?

425
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Speaker 4: So in the nineteen seventies, a couple of scholars named

426
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Speaker 4: John Shelton Lawrence and Robert Jewett started chatting about the

427
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Speaker 4: Vietnam War and how it was possible that Americans could

428
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Speaker 4: be stomaching so much violence right, And over time and

429
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Speaker 4: over time they realized they started to see this pattern

430
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Speaker 4: in pop culture and they eventually named it the American

431
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Speaker 4: mono myth. And it's it's a troupe that you see

432
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Speaker 4: in film and comic books, westerns, and the basic storyline

433
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Speaker 4: is that there's a small Edenic like community that's under

434
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Speaker 4: threat and the government and the police force are ill equipped.

435
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Speaker 1: They can't stop it. What's everyone going to do? Oh?

436
00:22:22,800 --> 00:22:26,600
Speaker 4: Wow, here comes this hero, this outsider who literally appears

437
00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:28,880
Speaker 4: out of nowhere. Or they're within the community, but they're

438
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Speaker 4: like a loner in the community, right, and they kill

439
00:22:33,480 --> 00:22:39,000
Speaker 4: all the bad guys essentially with scalpel precision, and then

440
00:22:39,040 --> 00:22:42,320
Speaker 4: they disappear from whence they came. And so the solution

441
00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:46,000
Speaker 4: is always violence, and like I said, it's precise, so

442
00:22:47,119 --> 00:22:50,840
Speaker 4: there are never innocent casualties, only the bad guys die.

443
00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:55,240
Speaker 4: Therefore it's like a cleansing violence, it's a righteous violence.

444
00:22:56,040 --> 00:23:01,679
Speaker 4: And Jewet and Lawrence trace this to something called Indian

445
00:23:01,720 --> 00:23:05,439
Speaker 4: captivity narratives, which came out of the Puritan era, and

446
00:23:05,520 --> 00:23:09,200
Speaker 4: these were true life stories written by people who had

447
00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:14,440
Speaker 4: been captured and then rescued from you know, native communities,

448
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:18,520
Speaker 4: and it was always a violent rescue and then the

449
00:23:18,560 --> 00:23:21,679
Speaker 4: wilderness was cleansed and then became safe again for the

450
00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:23,160
Speaker 4: white settlers afterward.

451
00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:23,800
Speaker 1: Was the idea.

452
00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:27,679
Speaker 4: And so this genre really exploded in the twenties and

453
00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:31,120
Speaker 4: thirties with the development of westerns and superhero comics.

454
00:23:31,640 --> 00:23:32,600
Speaker 1: But it's in everything.

455
00:23:32,760 --> 00:23:36,199
Speaker 4: I mean, there were three movies out last month that

456
00:23:36,280 --> 00:23:39,800
Speaker 4: follow this trope, which ones The Accountant.

457
00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:41,560
Speaker 1: Okay, haven't I mean, I probably haven't seen any of them,

458
00:23:41,560 --> 00:23:42,320
Speaker 1: but go on.

459
00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:47,640
Speaker 4: What's the one with romy Malik where he goes out

460
00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:50,920
Speaker 4: on a vigilante killing spray for everyone who killed his wife.

461
00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:54,000
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know, I for guessing. Yeah, he I'm

462
00:23:54,040 --> 00:23:57,440
Speaker 2: real behind on movies. You know, they're vigilanting like Death Wish.

463
00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:02,480
Speaker 4: Yeah, is an American model, with Star Wars even Jaws.

464
00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:05,080
Speaker 4: I mean, you really start to see it everywhere if

465
00:24:05,119 --> 00:24:09,479
Speaker 4: you're looking. But so where I really see the origin

466
00:24:09,560 --> 00:24:11,600
Speaker 4: of this, You know, if you want to go back

467
00:24:11,800 --> 00:24:14,120
Speaker 4: farther than the Indian captivity nerves is in the Book

468
00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:14,640
Speaker 4: of Revelation.

469
00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:19,120
Speaker 3: Please tell us about this. Yes, is so fascinating. What

470
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:22,040
Speaker 3: is the Book of Revelation and how did we get

471
00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:22,400
Speaker 3: it wrong?

472
00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:24,160
Speaker 1: Oh? My gosh.

473
00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:28,600
Speaker 4: So the Book of Revelation was written around ninety CE,

474
00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:33,960
Speaker 4: and it's a work of anti Roman propaganda. It was

475
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:39,760
Speaker 4: written by one of Jesus, an early follower, this guy

476
00:24:39,920 --> 00:24:43,480
Speaker 4: John of Patmos is what he's called, and he was

477
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:47,320
Speaker 4: a Jew, right, and it was written in response to

478
00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:51,640
Speaker 4: the Roman occupation. So I believe it was sixty six

479
00:24:52,160 --> 00:24:56,880
Speaker 4: Rome just destroyed Jerusalem. The Jews had tried to fight

480
00:24:56,920 --> 00:25:03,159
Speaker 4: back and it was horrific, and so their thinking was okay,

481
00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:05,600
Speaker 4: but Jesus is coming back any day now, he said,

482
00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:07,080
Speaker 4: he was going to be back in our light in

483
00:25:07,119 --> 00:25:10,760
Speaker 4: a generation, in our lifetime. It had been sixty years

484
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 4: and he still hadn't come back. And so basically, this

485
00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:18,480
Speaker 4: guy John of Patmos delivered the rescue narrative that the

486
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:21,960
Speaker 4: community needed. Interesting and so it's a story of divine

487
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:26,879
Speaker 4: retribution and it's very much coded. Scholars can tell that

488
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:31,439
Speaker 4: it's written about Rome. So the various headed beasts, you know,

489
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:34,800
Speaker 4: one heads for each of the Roman emperors. The six

490
00:25:34,960 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 4: six six is a reference to Nero. People think that

491
00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:42,840
Speaker 4: the mark of the beast referenced Roman coins because a

492
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 4: lot of Jews at the time didn't want to carry

493
00:25:45,560 --> 00:25:49,960
Speaker 4: around Roman money because you know their God, Ask God

494
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:51,240
Speaker 4: on the money.

495
00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:52,480
Speaker 1: Ask God on the money exactly.

496
00:25:53,160 --> 00:25:56,840
Speaker 4: So in the Story of Revelation, there is again this

497
00:25:57,160 --> 00:25:59,359
Speaker 4: outsider who kind of shows up out of nowhere to

498
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:03,520
Speaker 4: kick off the retribution, and it's Jesus in this case.

499
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:07,320
Speaker 4: He appears as a slaughtered lamb, as the innocent slaughtered

500
00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:10,639
Speaker 4: lamb whose hand is sort of pushed, as the one

501
00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:13,960
Speaker 4: who's chosen to begin opening all these scrolls, which rains

502
00:26:14,080 --> 00:26:20,360
Speaker 4: terror on the earth. Incredibly violent, ecstatically violent. The Book

503
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:24,359
Speaker 4: of Revelation at one point an angel collects all of

504
00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:25,639
Speaker 4: the wicked on the earth.

505
00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:28,000
Speaker 1: This is the grapes of wrath. Reference.

506
00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 4: He collects all the grapes of the earth, which is

507
00:26:31,320 --> 00:26:33,680
Speaker 4: the wicked, and puts them in a giant wine press

508
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:39,959
Speaker 4: and smushes them and so much blood comes out that,

509
00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:43,000
Speaker 4: oh my god, that it creates a river as high

510
00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:46,000
Speaker 4: as a horse's bridle that flows for two hundred miles.

511
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 1: Okay, it's really creative, though. You have to hand it too.

512
00:26:48,920 --> 00:26:51,080
Speaker 3: And I know, and I just want to state for

513
00:26:51,119 --> 00:26:53,719
Speaker 3: the record, growing up and the cult that I did,

514
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:58,080
Speaker 3: we read this as completely literal. I would get tucked

515
00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:00,920
Speaker 3: into my little bed every night and think about revelations

516
00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:05,680
Speaker 3: and just be like, I'm scared. And whenever we would

517
00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:09,320
Speaker 3: leave to go anywhere by two parents would go. Is

518
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:11,320
Speaker 3: that what you want to be wearing when Jesus comes

519
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:12,960
Speaker 3: back to the earth. Is this where you want to

520
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:14,400
Speaker 3: be going when Jesus.

521
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:15,960
Speaker 2: Comes back to the earth, Because you are, you'll be

522
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:16,919
Speaker 2: squished like you'll.

523
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:19,479
Speaker 1: Like a grape. I just wanted to go to the

524
00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:22,800
Speaker 1: mall and I'd be like, God, get zooks or heaven, I.

525
00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:26,280
Speaker 2: Don't know, Oh my god, I love get zukes over.

526
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:29,520
Speaker 2: I like forgot about it for the last twenty years.

527
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:33,879
Speaker 2: You mentioned how like this is just like a completely

528
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:39,640
Speaker 2: different Jesus from the Old Testament or from the previous Jesus, that.

529
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:44,919
Speaker 1: It's like an actual genus.

530
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:48,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you were writing this character in a screenplay,

531
00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:52,120
Speaker 2: you'd be like, why does he suddenly completely change everything

532
00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:55,479
Speaker 2: about his motivation and his behavior? And I would be like,

533
00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:58,359
Speaker 2: this character doesn't make any sense, please rewrite it.

534
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:02,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like miss understood who wrote this chapter? Right?

535
00:28:02,680 --> 00:28:07,160
Speaker 4: Yeah, So the reason Revelation got canonized is in part

536
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:11,359
Speaker 4: because people thought John was like John the Apostle, the

537
00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:13,480
Speaker 4: guy who wrote the Gospel of John, although that's also

538
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:15,320
Speaker 4: up for debate, but that John they thought was that John.

539
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:17,679
Speaker 4: So they thought, well, anything this guy wrote needs to

540
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:20,480
Speaker 4: be in the Bible. But in fact it was written

541
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:22,960
Speaker 4: by another John, which was a bit of an oopsie

542
00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:27,280
Speaker 4: but so wild. Yeah, and there were you know, there

543
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:30,399
Speaker 4: were some people at the time who who saw the

544
00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 4: distinction and kind of raised their hands, but they didn't

545
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:36,280
Speaker 4: they didn't win the day. And there were also people

546
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:38,160
Speaker 4: at the time when I say at the time, I

547
00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:41,640
Speaker 4: mean when the New Testament was canonized, who were like,

548
00:28:41,760 --> 00:28:47,040
Speaker 4: this is insane, you know. Yeah, it's it's it feels

549
00:28:47,080 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 4: a little insane.

550
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:52,760
Speaker 2: It's interesting how much that influenced so much of the

551
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:55,720
Speaker 2: rest of history and like you know, used as a

552
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 2: justification for so much violence.

553
00:28:58,440 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 1: This guy was just journaling.

554
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 3: He was just family fantasy, little vision board fantasy.

555
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:09,560
Speaker 1: And now my whole childhood was right. Yeah, well it's

556
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 1: all about a number of other things.

557
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:16,160
Speaker 3: I mean, like the planet was. It's just like forever

558
00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 3: fucked because he had a little fantasy.

559
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 1: We had a vision.

560
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:21,320
Speaker 4: He was and he was in the spirit, right, which

561
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:23,280
Speaker 4: is what you did back then before you So there

562
00:29:23,280 --> 00:29:25,240
Speaker 4: were lots of revelations at the time. His wasn't the

563
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:27,080
Speaker 4: only one. It's just the one that stood the test

564
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 4: of time. But but you would get in the spirit.

565
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:32,560
Speaker 4: So whether that means they were taking mind altering substances

566
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:35,720
Speaker 4: or like spinning around in circles until they got dizzy,

567
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:36,120
Speaker 4: you know.

568
00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:40,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to quote you, oh because I wrote

569
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:44,080
Speaker 2: a quote about the American monomoth. Okay, the American monomth

570
00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:48,720
Speaker 2: undermines our nations founding ideology democracy. It subconsciously encourages the

571
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:52,400
Speaker 2: public to forego the messy, laborious, and painstaking process of

572
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:56,480
Speaker 2: cooperation and compromise by instead waiting for a superhero and

573
00:29:56,520 --> 00:30:00,280
Speaker 2: then granting that figure unlimited and unchecked power. It's a

574
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 2: passive public desiring a totalitarian leader. This is so interesting

575
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:09,880
Speaker 2: to me because I don't feel drawn to these stories.

576
00:30:09,960 --> 00:30:11,360
Speaker 2: I don't know if you feel drawn to these stories,

577
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:13,600
Speaker 2: but certainly every man I've ever dated has been drawn

578
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:14,360
Speaker 2: to these stories.

579
00:30:14,720 --> 00:30:17,480
Speaker 1: It feels like such a masculine thing.

580
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:19,480
Speaker 4: Do you.

581
00:30:21,120 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 2: Find that, like there is more of a craving for

582
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:29,200
Speaker 2: that authoritarian style leadership in particular periods, or like right

583
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:32,200
Speaker 2: now in particular, like what makes us crave that, or

584
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:33,520
Speaker 2: at least what makes men crave that?

585
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:39,160
Speaker 4: Well, indoctrination into it as we all have been in America,

586
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:41,440
Speaker 4: and not least because of these narratives showing up in

587
00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:46,880
Speaker 4: every film, especially today, it feels like but also you know,

588
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:50,680
Speaker 4: as you know, cult like thinking increases during times of crisis,

589
00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:54,520
Speaker 4: So whether that's people joining cults, like the number of

590
00:30:54,520 --> 00:30:56,959
Speaker 4: the proliferation of cults, or whether that's just increases at

591
00:30:57,000 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 4: the society level in the kind of cult like thinking.

592
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:01,320
Speaker 1: I explore the book, and so.

593
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 4: We're experiencing a time of extreme crisis right now. Sociologists

594
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:12,000
Speaker 4: point specifically to technological revolution. Social media has completely changed

595
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 4: the way we communicate with one another.

596
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 1: The algorithms have changed the way we live AI.

597
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:21,719
Speaker 4: Of course, we don't even know yet how that's going

598
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 4: to reshape society.

599
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:25,760
Speaker 1: Global warming doing us no favors.

600
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 4: Global warming being the biggest crisis humanity has yet faced

601
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 4: social upheaval, so me too. The quote unquote woke movement

602
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:38,200
Speaker 4: America is going to be minority majority soon. These are

603
00:31:38,280 --> 00:31:40,680
Speaker 4: leading people to freak out. This is leading to a

604
00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:43,120
Speaker 4: political backlash, which we've seen. It's also leading to huge

605
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 4: increases in quote like thinking. And the most pressing crisis,

606
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 4: in my opinion, facing Americans right now is income inequality.

607
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:53,800
Speaker 4: Majority of Americans are chronically under resourced. And there's nothing

608
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:59,040
Speaker 4: that causes your world to wobble more again that chaos, right,

609
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 4: and being unresourced. And so we're seeing huge increases in

610
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:07,800
Speaker 4: cult like thinking right now. And I think it's swept

611
00:32:07,880 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 4: Donald Trump into the White House. Yeah, because we want

612
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:18,920
Speaker 4: an autocrat. We are currently flirting with autocracy.

613
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 1: To say the least.

614
00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 2: Yes, Yeah, it's like when we are in survival mode,

615
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:26,600
Speaker 2: all we want is some hope for relief and for

616
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:28,840
Speaker 2: somebody to fix it and make it better. And when

617
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:31,120
Speaker 2: someone comes in with easy answers and black and white

618
00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:32,680
Speaker 2: thinking and says I will fix it, I will make

619
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:34,880
Speaker 2: it better, of course we're going to be drawn to that,

620
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:38,480
Speaker 2: and especially in times of great division, where we are

621
00:32:38,520 --> 00:32:40,560
Speaker 2: being told by media over and over again, the people

622
00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:42,960
Speaker 2: who disagree with us are bad and evil and wrong and.

623
00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:45,760
Speaker 1: We should be against them.

624
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 2: Like, we're just so primed right now for the situation

625
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:53,440
Speaker 2: that we're currently in with leadership that is not interested

626
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:57,040
Speaker 2: in checks on its power at all, which is how

627
00:32:57,160 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 2: cults operate. The inability to critique, the ability to question,

628
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:05,800
Speaker 2: to dissent in any way like that is authoritarianism, and

629
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:07,560
Speaker 2: that is exactly the same as cults.

630
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:10,760
Speaker 4: And we saw that happening with the Puritans after the

631
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:16,120
Speaker 4: Antinomian controversy, which was basically just a time when this

632
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:18,640
Speaker 4: woman Ann Hutchinson was like, hey, I disagree with you,

633
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:20,320
Speaker 4: and they were like shut it down.

634
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:23,920
Speaker 1: And Anna Hutchinson sounded so cool. She sounds cool, right, yeah, yeah,

635
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 1: I mean I don't know.

636
00:33:24,760 --> 00:33:29,840
Speaker 4: These people were all a little crazy, right right right.

637
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:31,800
Speaker 4: We like them because we feel like they were fighting

638
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 4: the enemy, but we might not want to hang out

639
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:37,160
Speaker 4: with them at dinner hard to say, hard to say, yeah,

640
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 4: but yeah, So they quashed descent. They did away with

641
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:43,280
Speaker 4: the practice of question and answers after sermons because it

642
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 4: was too vexing, which is like what we see happening

643
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 4: right now with Trump shutting down universities. They banished Hutchinson

644
00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:56,239
Speaker 4: and a bunch of other people who fled to the

645
00:33:56,280 --> 00:33:58,680
Speaker 4: new colony of Rhode Island where all the radicals went.

646
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 4: That was around the time they founded Harvard. And there

647
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:04,440
Speaker 4: were lots of reasons behind Harvard's founding, but one of

648
00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 4: them was to indoctrinate youth. I mean, they really brought

649
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:11,800
Speaker 4: down the hammer in response to critique. Fascinating considering Harvard

650
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 4: is the one school that is standing up to Trump

651
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:19,319
Speaker 4: right now. You drew a connection between doomsdaism and this

652
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:23,360
Speaker 4: panic right now about declining birth rates, and I just

653
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:26,280
Speaker 4: would love to hear more about how some of these

654
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 4: ideas are just another form of doomsday thinking.

655
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:30,680
Speaker 1: Yeah.

656
00:34:31,320 --> 00:34:35,760
Speaker 4: So, people who ascribe to pronatalists thinking have a variety

657
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:37,760
Speaker 4: of beliefs, So I don't want to loop everyone under

658
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:41,440
Speaker 4: one umbrella. But some of the people in that movement

659
00:34:41,920 --> 00:34:47,520
Speaker 4: believe that if elites in America, specifically stop having kids,

660
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:50,160
Speaker 4: that that's going to be the end of civilization. So

661
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 4: inherent in that already is the assumption that America and

662
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:58,359
Speaker 4: Western civilization is civilization right right, which is the chosen nation,

663
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:02,520
Speaker 4: chosen people thing, which is very puritan.

664
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:05,120
Speaker 2: And very rooted in white supremacy, yep, the myth of

665
00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:07,120
Speaker 2: the Anglo Saxon and all that.

666
00:35:08,239 --> 00:35:14,520
Speaker 4: So the idea behind pronatalism that is shared by the

667
00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:18,640
Speaker 4: eugenics movement is that only really certain people should be

668
00:35:18,680 --> 00:35:23,319
Speaker 4: having more kids, right, And so we hear some in

669
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:28,200
Speaker 4: the pronatalist movement saying, you know, let's give child tax

670
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:32,680
Speaker 4: credits and you know, money for universal pre K and

671
00:35:32,719 --> 00:35:35,680
Speaker 4: that sort of thing. But we also hear people like well,

672
00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:40,759
Speaker 4: for example, Elon Musk was quoted by an anonymous friends

673
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:43,600
Speaker 4: as like encouraging all his rich friends to have kids.

674
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:49,760
Speaker 4: So it's it's whose genes do we want right to spread?

675
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 2: Right?

676
00:35:50,560 --> 00:35:54,000
Speaker 4: And ultimately I believe this is all just a way

677
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:56,520
Speaker 4: for people with power to replicate their own power. That's

678
00:35:56,520 --> 00:35:59,000
Speaker 4: what's happening in the eugenics movement, and I think that's

679
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:02,239
Speaker 4: what's happening now, and that's what cult leaders do. I mean,

680
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:05,640
Speaker 4: Elon Musk has had thirteen kids, I think at this

681
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:10,560
Speaker 4: point that we know of Warren Jeff's had sixty, Malachi

682
00:36:10,640 --> 00:36:14,480
Speaker 4: Yorck had three hundred. Jeffrey Epstein had plans to seed

683
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:18,160
Speaker 4: the earth by impregnating up to twenty women at a time. Oh,

684
00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:22,520
Speaker 4: my god, until I don't know. And so this is

685
00:36:22,600 --> 00:36:26,760
Speaker 4: power replicating itself, and this is people behaving like gods,

686
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:31,280
Speaker 4: trying to literally reshape society in their own image.

687
00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:33,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm saying, we have a lot of money, so

688
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:37,320
Speaker 3: we're inherently good. We're virtuous and virtuous and chosen by God,

689
00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:40,200
Speaker 3: and so we'll just replicate it. There was an interesting

690
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:44,520
Speaker 3: part of your book about sterilization and how back in

691
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:46,840
Speaker 3: the day people would be like, you, guys shouldn't have kids,

692
00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:49,520
Speaker 3: and we choose who should have more and who shouldn't

693
00:36:49,560 --> 00:36:49,959
Speaker 3: have any.

694
00:36:50,520 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 4: There were mass sterilizations, and this was at the beginning

695
00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 4: of the twentieth century. Between sixty and seventy thousand Americans

696
00:36:57,600 --> 00:37:02,280
Speaker 4: were sterilized a lot, most out here in California. Yeah,

697
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:05,320
Speaker 4: and the Supreme Court ruling, the Buck v. Bell ruling

698
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:09,080
Speaker 4: that said it was legal to do that is still

699
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:13,600
Speaker 4: in the books. Well, but so the justification for I

700
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:16,719
Speaker 4: get to choose who does and doesn't pro create, and

701
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:19,760
Speaker 4: I'm going to base it on you replicating the power

702
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:24,279
Speaker 4: of rich white people. The justification for that is the

703
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:29,000
Speaker 4: search for perfectionism, the pursuit of perfectionism, which is a

704
00:37:29,120 --> 00:37:31,480
Speaker 4: cult like thinking which comes from the Puritans. So the

705
00:37:31,520 --> 00:37:35,040
Speaker 4: idea is like, maybe we don't have to wait for

706
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:38,880
Speaker 4: God to deliver New Jerusalem as he does at the

707
00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:42,080
Speaker 4: end of the Book of Revelation. Maybe we can reach

708
00:37:42,239 --> 00:37:46,960
Speaker 4: New Jerusalem ourselves. If we perfect society, if we perfect

709
00:37:47,120 --> 00:37:53,480
Speaker 4: human civilization, then we will create heaven for ourselves. And

710
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:57,760
Speaker 4: that's what we saw happening before and during the eugenics movement.

711
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 2: Real quick, y'all to give some content for the landscape

712
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:03,880
Speaker 2: of pro natalism today and how it relates to eugenics

713
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 2: and racism. At natal con the pro natalist convention in

714
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:10,040
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, a far right businessman presented on the

715
00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:13,440
Speaker 2: importance of men only spaces and said the Civil Rights

716
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:16,440
Speaker 2: Act of nineteen sixty four and its progeny are probably

717
00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:19,480
Speaker 2: the single most destructive set of laws in American history,

718
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:22,160
Speaker 2: and all should be wiped forever from the history of

719
00:38:22,200 --> 00:38:24,920
Speaker 2: this nation. You can see why this is a problem.

720
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 2: The organizer of natal Khan has promoted people like discredited

721
00:38:29,239 --> 00:38:32,600
Speaker 2: race science advocate Charles Murray, who thinks poor women have

722
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:35,440
Speaker 2: low IQs because of their inferiority and therefore should not

723
00:38:35,520 --> 00:38:38,760
Speaker 2: have children, and has described love between men and women

724
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:43,359
Speaker 2: as a relationship between superior and inferior. Obviously, there are

725
00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:46,839
Speaker 2: a ton of extremely dangerous ideas in this movement. We

726
00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:49,200
Speaker 2: will do a full episode on that kind of thinking

727
00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:51,799
Speaker 2: very soon to dive deeper into some of those beliefs.

728
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:54,319
Speaker 3: It reminds me of the Human Potential movement, which is

729
00:38:54,400 --> 00:38:57,759
Speaker 3: kind of this very American idea that we all have

730
00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:01,440
Speaker 3: within us, this almost Jesus like potential to be perfect.

731
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:04,040
Speaker 3: It's been going on for forever. Think and grow rich.

732
00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:08,880
Speaker 3: All of these books are like, you're thinking is the

733
00:39:08,960 --> 00:39:12,040
Speaker 3: root of the problems, and Heaven is here in your brain.

734
00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:14,560
Speaker 3: There's a part of Christ in you that's totally pure,

735
00:39:14,680 --> 00:39:17,799
Speaker 3: and just fix your brain and you'll get there. And

736
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:21,279
Speaker 3: if you don't get better, then you haven't fixed your brain, right,

737
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:25,439
Speaker 3: And so you should keep paying for my course courses. Yeah, Yeah,

738
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:28,400
Speaker 3: I'm really susceptible to self help and.

739
00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:28,880
Speaker 1: We all are.

740
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:33,320
Speaker 4: Yeah, And there's nothing wrong with self help. The problem

741
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:36,120
Speaker 4: is that we get exploited by people who are trying

742
00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:40,040
Speaker 4: to take our money. Yes, and they do it via

743
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:41,200
Speaker 4: our latent indoctrination.

744
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:42,120
Speaker 1: Yeah.

745
00:39:42,320 --> 00:39:45,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, and just the never ending pursuit of more and

746
00:39:45,520 --> 00:39:48,520
Speaker 3: better and heaven and perfect Yeah.

747
00:39:48,560 --> 00:39:52,239
Speaker 4: And the study suggests that the more we engage in

748
00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:56,759
Speaker 4: self reflection, constantly looking inward and trying to improve ourselves,

749
00:39:56,760 --> 00:39:59,080
Speaker 4: it makes us sick. It doesn't make us happier, it

750
00:39:59,120 --> 00:40:01,400
Speaker 4: doesn't make us better. I was so this was so

751
00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:02,319
Speaker 4: interesting to me.

752
00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:07,080
Speaker 2: You mentioned Rena Raphael's book I love her how she

753
00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:12,040
Speaker 2: describes the modern spiritual consumer as creating individualized, bespoke practices

754
00:40:12,239 --> 00:40:16,799
Speaker 2: and belief systems by basically picking and choosing, you know, spirituality.

755
00:40:17,280 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 2: But then you talked about this twenty eighteen study. I

756
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:23,839
Speaker 2: thought this study was so interesting. So I'm just going

757
00:40:23,880 --> 00:40:26,360
Speaker 2: to read an excerpt of your writing from your book

758
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:30,319
Speaker 2: for our listeners. A twenty eighteen study identified among its

759
00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:34,359
Speaker 2: participants two basic strategies for seeking happiness, one social and

760
00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:37,560
Speaker 2: one individual. The study determined that people with the goals

761
00:40:37,640 --> 00:40:40,560
Speaker 2: of seeing friends and family more, joining a nonprofit, or

762
00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:44,240
Speaker 2: helping people in need reported increased life satisfaction a year later.

763
00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:47,440
Speaker 2: Those who focused on goals such as staying healthy, finding

764
00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:50,360
Speaker 2: a better job, or quitting smoking reported no increase in

765
00:40:50,400 --> 00:40:54,000
Speaker 2: life satisfaction. In fact, the self focused road to happiness

766
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:56,919
Speaker 2: was even less effective than having no plans for action

767
00:40:57,000 --> 00:41:03,200
Speaker 2: at all. That is so interesting, period, Exactly Why is

768
00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:05,799
Speaker 2: it just because we're like looping on like almost this

769
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:07,279
Speaker 2: obsessive like am I happy yet?

770
00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:08,800
Speaker 1: Am I happy yet? Am I happy yet?

771
00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:11,719
Speaker 4: Like? I think so, yeah, yeah, I mean I think

772
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:13,239
Speaker 4: that's part of it. I think the other part of

773
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:16,879
Speaker 4: is that actual sources of happiness come from community, come

774
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:18,080
Speaker 4: from mutual aid.

775
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:20,680
Speaker 1: Which is also what cults give people, which is the problem.

776
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:23,200
Speaker 1: You know, that's so tricky. It's so tricky.

777
00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:27,799
Speaker 3: I think it's like it's such a delicate little framework.

778
00:41:27,920 --> 00:41:33,400
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but community is what ultimately seems to raise

779
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:35,160
Speaker 1: people's lived experience.

780
00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:37,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it just like hammers home for me that

781
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:41,240
Speaker 2: the self help which you wrote about, the self help

782
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:44,239
Speaker 2: culture is sort of a never ending like it's a

783
00:41:44,239 --> 00:41:48,440
Speaker 2: bottomless the goal will never really be achieved because it

784
00:41:48,480 --> 00:41:50,880
Speaker 2: does become this endless cycle of we need to purchase

785
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:55,759
Speaker 2: more courses, more books, more seminars, And that's by design, right,

786
00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 2: Like if the answer was actually achievable. They would stop

787
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:01,880
Speaker 2: making money, it right, it would cease to be a customer.

788
00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:06,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're just creating more courses for you. So I

789
00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:10,280
Speaker 3: went to the Tony Robbins conference where we walked across

790
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:13,799
Speaker 3: hot coals chanting like I think it was like.

791
00:42:14,600 --> 00:42:16,040
Speaker 1: I believe in me or something.

792
00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:20,640
Speaker 3: Anyway, then afterwards you're like, oh my god, yay, I've

793
00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:24,040
Speaker 3: overcome this huge fear. And then he's like, and here's

794
00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:26,879
Speaker 3: a bundle for the next part. And I remember being

795
00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:29,400
Speaker 3: really young and being like, well, this is fucking crazy.

796
00:42:29,800 --> 00:42:33,800
Speaker 3: A bundle, A bundle like a wellness bundle, like classes and.

797
00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:35,840
Speaker 1: More for you to buy, more for you to buy.

798
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:39,520
Speaker 1: You thought you'd reach the dusky. I thought i'd reach Nirvana.

799
00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:44,719
Speaker 3: I was a firewalker, right, and no, there was lots

800
00:42:44,760 --> 00:42:47,160
Speaker 3: more to do, and it was very sad and I

801
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:49,520
Speaker 3: didn't do it, but a lot of people did. And

802
00:42:49,680 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 3: I can see why. If I had the money, I

803
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:55,200
Speaker 3: probably would have. But yeah, kind of creating this breaking

804
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:58,080
Speaker 3: down is what he did. Sorry, Tony, if you're listening

805
00:42:58,160 --> 00:43:01,160
Speaker 3: to this, just these groups kind of break you down

806
00:43:01,160 --> 00:43:03,680
Speaker 3: in the beginning part and I'm like, you're nothing, and

807
00:43:03,719 --> 00:43:07,480
Speaker 3: then build you back up and then you're kind of hooked.

808
00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:11,840
Speaker 4: And that's what colts do, the exactly down and rebuild

809
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:13,120
Speaker 4: you in their own image.

810
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:16,160
Speaker 2: Well, and as you pointed out in the book, that's

811
00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:20,080
Speaker 2: also what advertising and marketing do. And can you talk

812
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:24,000
Speaker 2: a little about Edward Burne's Yeah, the Father of spin

813
00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:28,080
Speaker 2: he which is a great book I relied on quite

814
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:33,360
Speaker 2: a bit. He considered himself to have invented more or

815
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:34,560
Speaker 2: less public relations.

816
00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 4: That's not exactly true, but being a spin master, he

817
00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:41,720
Speaker 4: wrote his own narrative. He was the nephew of Sigmund Freud,

818
00:43:42,680 --> 00:43:46,560
Speaker 4: and so he began his career baby but okay, yeah,

819
00:43:46,560 --> 00:43:51,239
Speaker 4: a little bit. He began his career working in you

820
00:43:51,280 --> 00:43:54,600
Speaker 4: know what would later be known as pr and he

821
00:43:54,640 --> 00:43:58,239
Speaker 4: went to visit his uncle and came back to New

822
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:01,400
Speaker 4: York just full of beans about this idea of what

823
00:44:01,520 --> 00:44:05,759
Speaker 4: if I take my uncle's ideas about the subconscious and

824
00:44:05,880 --> 00:44:09,080
Speaker 4: desire and apply it to advertising?

825
00:44:09,400 --> 00:44:10,400
Speaker 1: What a perfect storm?

826
00:44:10,440 --> 00:44:10,640
Speaker 2: Wow?

827
00:44:10,719 --> 00:44:16,960
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and became incredibly successful, revolutionized the industry and

828
00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:21,360
Speaker 4: changed the way we purchase. So before then, before Burnese

829
00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:29,000
Speaker 4: bb basically advertising was needs based, like, hey, we have

830
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:30,040
Speaker 4: this product, you might need it.

831
00:44:30,120 --> 00:44:31,480
Speaker 1: Do you need it? It's pretty cool if you do.

832
00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:35,400
Speaker 4: And that's oversimplifying things a little bit, but after Burne's

833
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:40,640
Speaker 4: it's this advertisement is going to create in you a

834
00:44:40,760 --> 00:44:44,040
Speaker 4: need that did not previously exist, and we're going to

835
00:44:44,120 --> 00:44:49,160
Speaker 4: do that by tickling your latent desires and your latent indoctrination,

836
00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:51,520
Speaker 4: and then you're going to see this as the cure

837
00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:52,360
Speaker 4: for what ails you.

838
00:44:54,560 --> 00:44:58,279
Speaker 2: It's so smart, it's so brilliant, it's so Friday, and

839
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:01,359
Speaker 2: he was able to like incorporate symbolism and just cut

840
00:45:01,520 --> 00:45:03,560
Speaker 2: straight to your unconscious ping. I mean, it's like a

841
00:45:03,600 --> 00:45:06,480
Speaker 2: mini little cull if like break creating a need and

842
00:45:06,520 --> 00:45:09,799
Speaker 2: then filling it Like it's genius if what you want

843
00:45:09,800 --> 00:45:12,319
Speaker 2: to do is make a lot of money. Yes, But

844
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:15,040
Speaker 2: then didn't political figures in America sort of take notice

845
00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:16,719
Speaker 2: and become interested.

846
00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:17,399
Speaker 1: Yes.

847
00:45:17,680 --> 00:45:22,279
Speaker 4: So, at the time, America was overproducing and there was

848
00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 4: a glut. There was too much stuff headed into the marketplace,

849
00:45:25,520 --> 00:45:28,839
Speaker 4: and so the problem was do we scale back these

850
00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:31,400
Speaker 4: engines of production, which could be bad for the economy,

851
00:45:32,040 --> 00:45:35,440
Speaker 4: or do we find another way? And so they heard

852
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 4: about what Brenees was doing and were like, hey, can

853
00:45:38,680 --> 00:45:41,520
Speaker 4: you find a way to convince people to buy all

854
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:45,560
Speaker 4: these things that they don't need and sure can, sure can.

855
00:45:46,239 --> 00:45:49,319
Speaker 4: And that's really when the American economy became addicted to

856
00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:52,080
Speaker 4: the consumer marketplace as a driver.

857
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:55,400
Speaker 1: What a lovely thing that happened.

858
00:45:55,840 --> 00:45:58,960
Speaker 2: It's been really good for all of us.

859
00:46:00,040 --> 00:46:04,440
Speaker 4: Yeah. Bernez was a fascinating character, and you can tell

860
00:46:04,480 --> 00:46:07,200
Speaker 4: that he maybe did question a little bit of his

861
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:11,800
Speaker 4: motives because he would espouse ideas publicly that we're a

862
00:46:11,840 --> 00:46:15,600
Speaker 4: little counter to what he believed. But he certainly didn't

863
00:46:15,600 --> 00:46:17,359
Speaker 4: have a lot of compunction about doing what he did.

864
00:46:17,800 --> 00:46:23,880
Speaker 4: And a reporter during the Nazi regime found a copy

865
00:46:24,120 --> 00:46:28,120
Speaker 4: of Burne's book in Grobbel's office on his shelves.

866
00:46:28,520 --> 00:46:28,920
Speaker 1: Wow.

867
00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:32,200
Speaker 2: I mean, it makes sense because you do have to manipulate.

868
00:46:32,320 --> 00:46:36,000
Speaker 2: You have to exploit people's inner desires in order to

869
00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:40,200
Speaker 2: convince them that you of anything, but especially you really

870
00:46:40,239 --> 00:46:43,920
Speaker 2: need to convince them that an entire group of people

871
00:46:44,040 --> 00:46:46,719
Speaker 2: is so horrible that they all deserve to die. I mean,

872
00:46:46,760 --> 00:46:51,040
Speaker 2: like the different forms that manipulation takes, and how much

873
00:46:51,080 --> 00:46:55,680
Speaker 2: we are all manipulatable, and how much that is exploited

874
00:46:55,719 --> 00:46:58,080
Speaker 2: by people in power, It just never ceases to amaze me.

875
00:46:58,440 --> 00:46:59,680
Speaker 1: It is also connected.

876
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:03,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's easy to feel super hopeless about all

877
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:04,000
Speaker 3: of it.

878
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:05,440
Speaker 1: Yeah.

879
00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:07,840
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that was a concern for me when I

880
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:11,680
Speaker 4: started researching and writing the book, But I ultimately found

881
00:47:11,680 --> 00:47:14,719
Speaker 4: a lot of hope because when we see the magic trick,

882
00:47:14,760 --> 00:47:18,279
Speaker 4: we stopped falling for it. And I think when we

883
00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:24,520
Speaker 4: don't recognize that these beliefs are driving us, then we're

884
00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:27,160
Speaker 4: going to be exploited again and again. But when we

885
00:47:27,239 --> 00:47:31,200
Speaker 4: can see, oh, this is not the way life is

886
00:47:31,440 --> 00:47:35,120
Speaker 4: or the way I think. This is one driving idea

887
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 4: among many, and I can take it or leave it,

888
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:41,839
Speaker 4: then we're less likely to be exploited. And so I

889
00:47:41,880 --> 00:47:46,920
Speaker 4: think when we can recognize and then acknowledge and articulate

890
00:47:47,719 --> 00:47:53,319
Speaker 4: the ways Puritan doomsday ideology is still driving America, the

891
00:47:53,400 --> 00:47:55,080
Speaker 4: less likely we are to fall prey to it.

892
00:47:55,160 --> 00:47:56,719
Speaker 1: Can you give us an example of that?

893
00:47:56,760 --> 00:47:59,440
Speaker 3: Can you take that from like the unconscious to the

894
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:04,000
Speaker 3: conscious so to speak? And tell I'm curious of what

895
00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:05,759
Speaker 3: it would look like in myself of like I have

896
00:48:05,800 --> 00:48:08,640
Speaker 3: a thought and then I undo it?

897
00:48:08,920 --> 00:48:13,520
Speaker 1: How correct question? Yeah?

898
00:48:13,560 --> 00:48:16,960
Speaker 4: Well, I think you know, I think you experienced it

899
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:20,200
Speaker 4: at the end of that Tony Robbins thing, right, you know, Oh,

900
00:48:20,280 --> 00:48:21,520
Speaker 4: this is the end I reached Nirvana.

901
00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:23,120
Speaker 1: Oh no, wait, you're telling me there's more.

902
00:48:23,960 --> 00:48:26,359
Speaker 4: You know, you very easily could have said, oh yeah, no,

903
00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:30,960
Speaker 4: I'm not there yet, right right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

904
00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:34,240
Speaker 2: For me, it's like I think, especially just given social

905
00:48:34,360 --> 00:48:39,680
Speaker 2: media and we know how quickly oversimplified information spreads because

906
00:48:39,680 --> 00:48:41,640
Speaker 2: it's just easier to process in our brains.

907
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:45,120
Speaker 1: But like, if we can get better at.

908
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:48,640
Speaker 2: Noticing the underlying narrative, Like, is a group of people

909
00:48:48,640 --> 00:48:49,400
Speaker 2: being demonized?

910
00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:52,520
Speaker 1: Here? Am I being encouraged to think in black and white? Here?

911
00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:55,360
Speaker 2: Am I being told that there's one group that is

912
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:59,960
Speaker 2: the reason for all of my problems? My like big

913
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:03,080
Speaker 2: guest hope with this podcast is to like foster that

914
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:06,319
Speaker 2: kind of thinking in people, just literally pausing and being like,

915
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:10,480
Speaker 2: what am I being told to believe about others? Am

916
00:49:10,480 --> 00:49:16,200
Speaker 2: I being sold an easy solution that maybe is oversimplified,

917
00:49:16,719 --> 00:49:21,320
Speaker 2: Like you know, Daniel Kahman talks about just like literally

918
00:49:21,400 --> 00:49:25,440
Speaker 2: pausing to examine our biases instead of just being on

919
00:49:25,520 --> 00:49:29,160
Speaker 2: autopilot alone can do so much work for us.

920
00:49:29,080 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 1: Right yeah, yeah, No, I mean it's the pause, it's

921
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:35,480
Speaker 1: the pause, but it's hard to pause.

922
00:49:35,560 --> 00:49:38,359
Speaker 2: It's hard to pause in such a fast paced world

923
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:40,640
Speaker 2: when we're on social media all the time, and we're

924
00:49:40,719 --> 00:49:41,560
Speaker 2: being told.

925
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:43,000
Speaker 3: You know, and you just want to sometimes you just

926
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:45,320
Speaker 3: want to go shopping and it's like kind of bad,

927
00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:51,080
Speaker 3: you know, and it's like, but that's how I stay.

928
00:49:51,480 --> 00:49:54,880
Speaker 4: It's just the whole system is just so Yeah, and

929
00:49:54,920 --> 00:49:57,919
Speaker 4: it's hard to pause when you're in crisis. Yes, And

930
00:49:58,239 --> 00:50:01,799
Speaker 4: people who wish to men pipulate us want to keep

931
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:05,520
Speaker 4: us in crisis. Yes, and that's why because you can't pause.

932
00:50:05,520 --> 00:50:09,240
Speaker 4: And that's what thought terminating cliches are, right, they mitigate

933
00:50:09,280 --> 00:50:12,480
Speaker 4: the pause. And you know, I talk about the cult

934
00:50:12,520 --> 00:50:15,959
Speaker 4: watch where it's always striking now o'clock, like the time

935
00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:17,960
Speaker 4: is now, you have to act now.

936
00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:20,480
Speaker 1: Which is we also see an advertising totally.

937
00:50:22,120 --> 00:50:25,200
Speaker 4: Michael Flynn had some big post on X Today about

938
00:50:25,440 --> 00:50:27,640
Speaker 4: you know, the dangers and the evils and we have

939
00:50:27,680 --> 00:50:29,400
Speaker 4: to fight and we have to fight now and the

940
00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:31,920
Speaker 4: time is it's almost too late, and you know it's

941
00:50:31,960 --> 00:50:32,960
Speaker 4: a rallying cry.

942
00:50:33,719 --> 00:50:34,239
Speaker 1: Okay.

943
00:50:34,080 --> 00:50:38,640
Speaker 2: My one question about that is because like you're absolutely right, Also,

944
00:50:39,200 --> 00:50:43,680
Speaker 2: there are genuine systemic oppressions that occur that actually do

945
00:50:43,840 --> 00:50:48,520
Speaker 2: need to be fought. You know, when people are deprived

946
00:50:48,600 --> 00:50:52,960
Speaker 2: of doe process, when civilians are harmed who should not

947
00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:54,960
Speaker 2: be in it when there we're about to actually end

948
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:58,600
Speaker 2: from global warming, when warm science is destroyed. You know, Like, so,

949
00:50:59,200 --> 00:51:02,600
Speaker 2: how do you do you think that we can differentiate

950
00:51:02,640 --> 00:51:07,840
Speaker 2: between like panic fear mongering that's meant to demonize people

951
00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:12,600
Speaker 2: and genuine fighting of injustice.

952
00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:17,640
Speaker 4: Well, it's interested that you say due process just going

953
00:51:17,719 --> 00:51:20,719
Speaker 4: to pull this pause threat a little more. But that's

954
00:51:20,760 --> 00:51:24,359
Speaker 4: what due process is is a pause. Right, You're not

955
00:51:24,400 --> 00:51:26,680
Speaker 4: going to just execute a person. They're going to have

956
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:30,160
Speaker 4: a trial, et cetera, et cetera. That's what checks and

957
00:51:30,200 --> 00:51:32,560
Speaker 4: balances are. Their pause so you don't actually get to

958
00:51:32,600 --> 00:51:36,920
Speaker 4: make this decision. You know, executive branch, we're going to

959
00:51:36,960 --> 00:51:39,040
Speaker 4: have a say, and it's going to be this process

960
00:51:39,080 --> 00:51:40,960
Speaker 4: and everything takes forever, and there's a lot of red

961
00:51:41,000 --> 00:51:46,120
Speaker 4: tape and bureaucracy gets demonized by autocratic factions. I think

962
00:51:46,160 --> 00:51:50,080
Speaker 4: because they're trying to mitigate the pause. I don't know

963
00:51:50,080 --> 00:51:52,120
Speaker 4: if that answer your question, but what kind of like

964
00:51:52,640 --> 00:51:53,000
Speaker 4: if we.

965
00:51:52,960 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 2: Are genuinely interested in truth, then investigation should be encouraged,

966
00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:01,560
Speaker 2: and it is discouraged when it is a party that

967
00:52:01,640 --> 00:52:05,520
Speaker 2: is only seeking power. And I think for folks who

968
00:52:05,640 --> 00:52:11,879
Speaker 2: are interested in upholding justice and fighting oppression authentically. Like

969
00:52:12,640 --> 00:52:17,000
Speaker 2: seeking truth and seeking it from multiple sources and not

970
00:52:17,080 --> 00:52:20,640
Speaker 2: just one is the goal because truth is how you

971
00:52:21,400 --> 00:52:24,160
Speaker 2: understand what happened and how to not recreate that.

972
00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:27,200
Speaker 1: Does this make any sense? I'm lost, but I think

973
00:52:27,239 --> 00:52:32,399
Speaker 1: you're not. Well.

974
00:52:32,400 --> 00:52:36,560
Speaker 4: It just gets so complicated because then that exact advice

975
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:39,479
Speaker 4: gets co opted. I mean, think about QAnon talking about

976
00:52:39,480 --> 00:52:40,160
Speaker 4: do the research.

977
00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:43,480
Speaker 2: Well, sure, but they want you to do the research

978
00:52:43,520 --> 00:52:47,760
Speaker 2: from their one guy with a blog, which is different

979
00:52:47,760 --> 00:52:52,200
Speaker 2: from myriad external reliable sources. But that is a whole

980
00:52:52,239 --> 00:52:56,000
Speaker 2: other conversation because the meaning of a reliable source has

981
00:52:56,080 --> 00:52:58,279
Speaker 2: become completely meaningless, right.

982
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:00,200
Speaker 1: But there is such a thing.

983
00:53:00,320 --> 00:53:03,080
Speaker 2: And like one of the things we talk about a

984
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:06,840
Speaker 2: lot as well is just the importance of having a

985
00:53:06,880 --> 00:53:09,360
Speaker 2: variety of sources. And like, even if you have a

986
00:53:09,440 --> 00:53:11,440
Speaker 2: variety of sources, it's still possible for them to all

987
00:53:11,480 --> 00:53:13,440
Speaker 2: becoming kind of from the same place and from the

988
00:53:13,440 --> 00:53:18,839
Speaker 2: same thinking patterns. So the idea is to diversify not

989
00:53:18,920 --> 00:53:22,520
Speaker 2: just in your community, but beyond your community. But it's

990
00:53:22,560 --> 00:53:25,399
Speaker 2: easier said than done in the algorithms that we are

991
00:53:25,440 --> 00:53:27,239
Speaker 2: currently locked into.

992
00:53:27,280 --> 00:53:29,279
Speaker 1: Algorithms are part of the problem for sure.

993
00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:34,960
Speaker 4: Yeah, I describe the algorithms as cult leaders, yes, y yeah,

994
00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:38,480
Speaker 4: because they the goal is to entrap us, right. They

995
00:53:38,520 --> 00:53:40,920
Speaker 4: do that by isolating us from our real life communities,

996
00:53:42,200 --> 00:53:44,640
Speaker 4: which they achieve by feeding us extreme content because it

997
00:53:44,680 --> 00:53:48,239
Speaker 4: has higher chances of engagement, and by love bombing us

998
00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:53,120
Speaker 4: with likes and bells and notifications and things. They spread disinformation,

999
00:53:53,520 --> 00:53:56,200
Speaker 4: which literally mitigates our ability to control what we do

1000
00:53:56,239 --> 00:54:01,160
Speaker 4: and don't believe. And the whole point is to extract money,

1001
00:54:01,239 --> 00:54:03,959
Speaker 4: to make money off of us, right, right, by taking

1002
00:54:04,000 --> 00:54:07,280
Speaker 4: our attention for their advertisers and our data. Of course,

1003
00:54:07,600 --> 00:54:09,799
Speaker 4: I think they're the most successful cult leaders ever.

1004
00:54:09,880 --> 00:54:11,360
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that is so true.

1005
00:54:11,560 --> 00:54:15,200
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, we've said it a million times, so sorry

1006
00:54:15,200 --> 00:54:18,719
Speaker 2: for repeating ourselves all the time, old listeners. But like,

1007
00:54:20,440 --> 00:54:22,320
Speaker 2: I think some people have this idea that the information

1008
00:54:22,400 --> 00:54:24,120
Speaker 2: is out there, so of course you can just find it.

1009
00:54:24,160 --> 00:54:27,200
Speaker 2: But the reality is we are I'm in such a

1010
00:54:27,239 --> 00:54:29,680
Speaker 2: different bubble of social media than some of my friends, Like,

1011
00:54:29,760 --> 00:54:34,120
Speaker 2: we are seeing completely different realities and that is not

1012
00:54:34,520 --> 00:54:37,640
Speaker 2: our faults. That is the faults of corporations that are

1013
00:54:37,680 --> 00:54:39,040
Speaker 2: trying to extract money from us.

1014
00:54:39,560 --> 00:54:43,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, control your environments another commonality.

1015
00:54:43,239 --> 00:54:48,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, let's le on something hopeful. Okay, where's the hope?

1016
00:54:50,840 --> 00:54:53,480
Speaker 3: So, yes, you mentioned there's some hope in this, and

1017
00:54:53,680 --> 00:54:56,440
Speaker 3: we'd love to we'd love to get hooked in it.

1018
00:54:56,440 --> 00:54:59,200
Speaker 1: Feed it to us, yes, soon, feed that to all

1019
00:54:59,239 --> 00:54:59,560
Speaker 1: of us.

1020
00:55:01,080 --> 00:55:04,120
Speaker 4: I think the most radical thing we can do in

1021
00:55:04,160 --> 00:55:07,279
Speaker 4: our current environment is to care for one another. It

1022
00:55:07,360 --> 00:55:11,320
Speaker 4: sounds so cliche and and hackneyed, but community and mutual aid.

1023
00:55:11,840 --> 00:55:15,560
Speaker 4: I think we have to bridge divides because cult like

1024
00:55:15,600 --> 00:55:18,760
Speaker 4: thinking feeds off of division. Cults feed off of division,

1025
00:55:19,400 --> 00:55:23,160
Speaker 4: and we are separated now from people who we think

1026
00:55:23,719 --> 00:55:26,520
Speaker 4: are so different from us, and as you said, reading

1027
00:55:26,560 --> 00:55:29,719
Speaker 4: multiple news sources, talking to people who have different ideas,

1028
00:55:30,360 --> 00:55:32,160
Speaker 4: we have to find ways to bridge the divide, and

1029
00:55:32,200 --> 00:55:34,000
Speaker 4: I think that happens a lot via.

1030
00:55:33,880 --> 00:55:35,759
Speaker 1: Community and mutual aid.

1031
00:55:36,200 --> 00:55:39,239
Speaker 4: I think we need to bridge the divisions within ourselves,

1032
00:55:40,000 --> 00:55:45,759
Speaker 4: the so called human spirit divide. As you know, cult

1033
00:55:45,840 --> 00:55:48,560
Speaker 4: leaders profit off of a divide itself. That's how they

1034
00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:52,880
Speaker 4: conquer you, right, So I think ultimately bridging divides and

1035
00:55:52,920 --> 00:55:54,640
Speaker 4: turning toward one another.

1036
00:55:54,719 --> 00:55:56,840
Speaker 2: And that's very hard to do on the internet currently.

1037
00:55:57,320 --> 00:55:59,560
Speaker 2: So this is my new thing is let's get the

1038
00:55:59,560 --> 00:56:03,960
Speaker 2: fuck off line and try to forge community where we

1039
00:56:04,040 --> 00:56:07,520
Speaker 2: live and with people that in the past ten years

1040
00:56:07,520 --> 00:56:10,040
Speaker 2: maybe we wouldn't talk to because we'd be so online.

1041
00:56:10,120 --> 00:56:12,719
Speaker 2: I feel like learning how to engage with each other

1042
00:56:13,200 --> 00:56:15,759
Speaker 2: in real life is maybe the most important thing we

1043
00:56:15,800 --> 00:56:18,359
Speaker 2: have right now, and you just have to make sure

1044
00:56:18,400 --> 00:56:19,960
Speaker 2: you don't make another cult happen.

1045
00:56:20,400 --> 00:56:24,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have one last question for you, because I

1046
00:56:24,360 --> 00:56:26,680
Speaker 3: genuinely want to know the answer, because I want to

1047
00:56:26,680 --> 00:56:30,239
Speaker 3: do it. When you say kind of like fix the

1048
00:56:30,280 --> 00:56:34,000
Speaker 3: gap in yourself, what does that look like?

1049
00:56:34,040 --> 00:56:37,000
Speaker 1: How do I do that? How do we do that?

1050
00:56:38,760 --> 00:56:41,520
Speaker 4: A friend of mine once we were at a party and

1051
00:56:41,640 --> 00:56:45,000
Speaker 4: he said he feels like his body is a wheelchair

1052
00:56:45,040 --> 00:56:48,360
Speaker 4: that carries his brain around. And I think about that

1053
00:56:48,480 --> 00:56:51,279
Speaker 4: all the time because I feel a little bit the

1054
00:56:51,320 --> 00:56:54,560
Speaker 4: same way. I think I've created a hierarchy within myself

1055
00:56:54,600 --> 00:56:56,840
Speaker 4: of my brain is at the top and my body's

1056
00:56:56,840 --> 00:57:00,000
Speaker 4: at the bottom. Yeah, And of course that's not true.

1057
00:57:00,160 --> 00:57:01,680
Speaker 4: And even though I know it's not true, I can't

1058
00:57:01,680 --> 00:57:04,479
Speaker 4: help but feel that way. And I think the more

1059
00:57:04,600 --> 00:57:08,399
Speaker 4: I find personally that I can bridge that gap when

1060
00:57:08,440 --> 00:57:14,800
Speaker 4: I get into my body, which I do through dancing, swimming,

1061
00:57:15,840 --> 00:57:18,040
Speaker 4: you know, hiking.

1062
00:57:18,400 --> 00:57:21,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, it sounds like kill a million birds with one

1063
00:57:21,120 --> 00:57:23,120
Speaker 3: stone and go for a walk with your friends.

1064
00:57:23,600 --> 00:57:27,320
Speaker 4: Yeah, go for a walk with someone ideologically opposed to you.

1065
00:57:31,520 --> 00:57:32,040
Speaker 1: It's hard.

1066
00:57:33,520 --> 00:57:36,240
Speaker 4: Yeah, Okay, cool, thank you for complaining that. I also

1067
00:57:36,240 --> 00:57:37,800
Speaker 4: want to add to this list of hope. By the way,

1068
00:57:37,840 --> 00:57:41,280
Speaker 4: based on our conversation, is the pause. Yeah, I love that.

1069
00:57:41,800 --> 00:57:44,120
Speaker 4: Lean into the pause, Lean into the pause.

1070
00:57:44,400 --> 00:57:47,840
Speaker 2: And the pause for me, like often I'll have sort

1071
00:57:47,840 --> 00:57:52,400
Speaker 2: of conflicting ideas inside myself, Like even if I'm feeling

1072
00:57:52,440 --> 00:57:54,280
Speaker 2: connected to my body, there might be like a thought

1073
00:57:54,320 --> 00:57:58,120
Speaker 2: that I'm fighting or like that's something that's subconscious that

1074
00:57:58,120 --> 00:58:00,840
Speaker 2: I haven't yet brought to the contra And the pause

1075
00:58:00,880 --> 00:58:06,360
Speaker 2: can help me name and identify what that inner battle is.

1076
00:58:06,440 --> 00:58:08,440
Speaker 2: And like, once I bring to the surface, it is

1077
00:58:08,480 --> 00:58:09,720
Speaker 2: so much less powerful.

1078
00:58:10,040 --> 00:58:11,400
Speaker 1: But that's for me. That's what makes me.

1079
00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:13,920
Speaker 2: Feel divided is when I have like two you know,

1080
00:58:14,040 --> 00:58:14,800
Speaker 2: cognitive disiness.

1081
00:58:15,200 --> 00:58:17,040
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1082
00:58:17,080 --> 00:58:19,560
Speaker 3: Well, this is a fascinating book, and this has been

1083
00:58:19,600 --> 00:58:22,120
Speaker 3: a really great conversation that I've learned a lot from.

1084
00:58:22,480 --> 00:58:24,080
Speaker 1: Tell us the name of your book again, and where

1085
00:58:24,080 --> 00:58:24,960
Speaker 1: people can find it.

1086
00:58:24,960 --> 00:58:28,640
Speaker 4: It's called cults like us Why doomsday thinking drives America?

1087
00:58:29,440 --> 00:58:32,720
Speaker 4: And you can find it. I think anywhere. At this point,

1088
00:58:32,760 --> 00:58:36,919
Speaker 4: it's still available everywhere, and I do hope people will

1089
00:58:36,920 --> 00:58:39,480
Speaker 4: be interested in it because I really want to spread awareness,

1090
00:58:40,520 --> 00:58:42,520
Speaker 4: you know, as cult leaders say, I'm trying to make

1091
00:58:42,520 --> 00:58:43,480
Speaker 4: the world a better place.

1092
00:58:46,680 --> 00:58:50,800
Speaker 2: Amazing, Thank you, thank you so much, Thanks guys. Okay,

1093
00:58:51,240 --> 00:58:54,680
Speaker 2: that concludes our interview with the amazing Jane Borden.

1094
00:58:55,000 --> 00:58:57,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think it's worth noting that the last

1095
00:58:57,320 --> 00:59:00,640
Speaker 3: chapter of this book is about love has won a Carlson,

1096
00:59:00,680 --> 00:59:03,120
Speaker 3: and we did do an interview with her daughter, Mattie Stroud,

1097
00:59:03,240 --> 00:59:03,760
Speaker 3: So give that.

1098
00:59:03,720 --> 00:59:04,640
Speaker 1: One a listen for sure.

1099
00:59:05,080 --> 00:59:07,920
Speaker 2: And now is the part of the episode where I

1100
00:59:08,160 --> 00:59:11,920
Speaker 2: ask Megan if she would join this cult.

1101
00:59:12,000 --> 00:59:15,800
Speaker 3: Megan, would you join this cult of the Puritans? Absolutely not,

1102
00:59:16,360 --> 00:59:19,360
Speaker 3: there is no way. Number one, I'm not sailing across

1103
00:59:19,400 --> 00:59:19,960
Speaker 3: the ocean.

1104
00:59:20,280 --> 00:59:20,440
Speaker 4: No.

1105
00:59:20,800 --> 00:59:23,680
Speaker 1: Number two. In general, you're just you know, in general.

1106
00:59:23,800 --> 00:59:26,880
Speaker 3: Now, sure, if it's like a great cruise ship or something, Okay,

1107
00:59:26,880 --> 00:59:27,280
Speaker 3: I mean.

1108
00:59:27,520 --> 00:59:31,120
Speaker 1: Cruise trips are fun as well, just letting you know

1109
00:59:31,480 --> 00:59:33,400
Speaker 1: I'm not on the Mayflower. Do you get it?

1110
00:59:33,640 --> 00:59:33,760
Speaker 3: Like?

1111
00:59:33,920 --> 00:59:37,960
Speaker 1: No? Oh, I think I would have been like adventure.

1112
00:59:38,240 --> 00:59:39,920
Speaker 3: No. And I don't think I would have left the

1113
00:59:39,920 --> 00:59:42,320
Speaker 3: Catholic Church like they had pageantry.

1114
00:59:42,480 --> 00:59:47,200
Speaker 1: They had ritual beautiful iconograph. Yeah, just like weren't there

1115
00:59:47,240 --> 00:59:50,360
Speaker 1: even wigs at some point? Like I'm not leaving that.

1116
00:59:50,560 --> 00:59:52,560
Speaker 1: I don't know if that was a Catholic thing ro

1117
00:59:52,800 --> 00:59:55,640
Speaker 1: which is an air thing? Ok? Cool? Sure?

1118
00:59:56,960 --> 00:59:59,400
Speaker 3: And then you want me to wear like wooden shoes

1119
00:59:59,520 --> 01:00:01,680
Speaker 3: and massive choose its No.

1120
01:00:02,160 --> 01:00:06,160
Speaker 1: Okay, she's a no on Puritans. Absolutely not. Yeah. I

1121
01:00:06,200 --> 01:00:08,360
Speaker 1: think it's a tough it's a tough one to swallow.

1122
01:00:08,840 --> 01:00:11,120
Speaker 1: It's a tough one. I don't think. I don't think

1123
01:00:11,160 --> 01:00:11,880
Speaker 1: I'm becoming a.

1124
01:00:11,840 --> 01:00:17,000
Speaker 2: Puritan, no, no, yeah, yeah, but you know it is.

1125
01:00:17,120 --> 01:00:20,000
Speaker 2: It is really interesting to think about the roots of

1126
01:00:20,120 --> 01:00:23,320
Speaker 2: America and how we became what we are today and

1127
01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:25,760
Speaker 2: how it's evolved. And there's so many more episodes I

1128
01:00:25,760 --> 01:00:28,080
Speaker 2: want to do on this like kind of stuff. Even

1129
01:00:28,240 --> 01:00:30,680
Speaker 2: just thinking about manifest destiny, Like do you remember learning

1130
01:00:30,680 --> 01:00:33,040
Speaker 2: about manifest destiny? Again, these are concepts I haven't thought

1131
01:00:33,040 --> 01:00:34,320
Speaker 2: about since I was a child.

1132
01:00:35,560 --> 01:00:38,439
Speaker 1: But it's like, you know, the belief.

1133
01:00:38,160 --> 01:00:42,200
Speaker 2: That like we're chosen and special and we deserve to

1134
01:00:42,480 --> 01:00:44,880
Speaker 2: have this land and those other people are evil, Like.

1135
01:00:44,880 --> 01:00:49,160
Speaker 3: It's all very culty. Yeah from the beginning. Yeah, so

1136
01:00:49,400 --> 01:00:52,000
Speaker 3: I wouldn't join the Puritans. But there's so many groups

1137
01:00:52,040 --> 01:00:53,880
Speaker 3: that I would join, and we're going to get into

1138
01:00:54,080 --> 01:00:56,640
Speaker 3: a lot of them with our conversations together.

1139
01:00:56,840 --> 01:01:00,360
Speaker 1: So uh. On that note, stay tuned, stay two owned,

1140
01:01:00,520 --> 01:01:03,080
Speaker 1: write us five stars, do whatever you want, and remember

1141
01:01:03,120 --> 01:01:06,160
Speaker 1: to follow your gut, watch out for d flats, and

1142
01:01:06,320 --> 01:01:10,120
Speaker 1: never ever trust me. Bye.

1143
01:01:11,600 --> 01:01:14,200
Speaker 2: This has been an exactly right production hosted by.

1144
01:01:14,040 --> 01:01:17,720
Speaker 3: Me Lola Blanc and Me Megan Elizabeth. Our senior producer

1145
01:01:17,840 --> 01:01:18,040
Speaker 3: is g.

1146
01:01:18,200 --> 01:01:20,640
Speaker 1: Holly. This episode was mixed by John Bradley.

1147
01:01:20,800 --> 01:01:24,120
Speaker 3: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain, and our guest booker

1148
01:01:24,240 --> 01:01:25,280
Speaker 3: is Patrick Kottner.

1149
01:01:25,600 --> 01:01:27,919
Speaker 1: Our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.

1150
01:01:28,240 --> 01:01:32,280
Speaker 3: Trust Me as executive produced by Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hardstark

1151
01:01:32,360 --> 01:01:33,320
Speaker 3: and Danielle Kramer.

1152
01:01:33,520 --> 01:01:35,800
Speaker 2: You can find us on Instagram at trust Me podcast

1153
01:01:35,960 --> 01:01:38,120
Speaker 2: or on TikTok at trust Me coult podcast.

1154
01:01:38,440 --> 01:01:41,520
Speaker 3: Got your own story about cults, extreme belief, our manipulation,

1155
01:01:41,880 --> 01:01:44,880
Speaker 3: Shoot us an email at trustmepod at gmail dot com.

1156
01:01:44,920 --> 01:01:47,840
Speaker 2: Listen to trust Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1157
01:01:47,960 --> 01:01:49,520
Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts