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Speaker 1: All right, can we are we ready?

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Speaker 2: Yes? Boss?

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Speaker 1: That was to me because you that was to you?

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Speaker 2: Huh, you could never be in charge? Yes, employee.

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Speaker 1: Wow? Wow, what's the president of this podcast? My Robert Sophie.

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Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, you admitted it.

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Speaker 2: Who is who is the dictator overlord of this podcast? Myself?

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna be I'm gonna have Daniel cut that little

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Speaker 1: bit out where you where you introduced me as boss,

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Speaker 1: and then I'm gonna play that like.

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Speaker 2: A I am introduced you as boss. I introduced myself

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Speaker 2: as boss.

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Speaker 1: No, I'm going to get a little two little buttons,

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Speaker 1: one of them, one of them has you introducing me

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Speaker 1: as boss, and one of them has Garrison calling Reuter's routers.

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Speaker 1: And that's funny. That's gonna be all I need.

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Speaker 2: That's very funny. One of one of the weird things

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Speaker 2: about being associated with iHeartRadio is that I have an

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Speaker 2: org chart that literally shows you as my as my employee.

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Speaker 1: So wow, this is I have to ask Sophie of

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Speaker 1: a minute and a half ago, who's in charge? Because

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Speaker 1: I seem to recall what she said.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 1: Anyway, this is Behind the Bastards, a podcast of Vicious

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Speaker 1: power struggles, where we occasionally talk about some of the

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Speaker 1: worst people in all of history. Our guest this week,

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Speaker 1: Alex stead of You are good the podcast and the

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Speaker 1: general concept.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, both, and thanks for having me.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Alex. Alex pointed out that the one time we

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Speaker 2: met in person was at Jamie Loft. This is thirtieth

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Speaker 2: birthday at medieval times, where we were both extremely intoxicated,

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Speaker 2: and I've never felt more endeared to a guest in my.

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Speaker 1: Life now, Alex. Yes, how do you feel about colts?

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Speaker 3: Oh, colts? I find them fascinating. They're part of our

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Speaker 3: They're part of our national history.

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Speaker 1: How do you, on a similar topic, feel about the

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Speaker 1: largest wildfire in Colorado State history?

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Speaker 3: I have no feelings or knowledge, no feelings towards your

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Speaker 3: knowledge about pro wildfires.

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Speaker 1: Got it. I'm just taking notes too, you. Okay. So

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Speaker 1: we're going to be talking today about a cult that

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna guess most people. I had not really heard

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Speaker 1: of these guys until I started digging into them. But

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Speaker 1: it's it's a fascinating, real, real fascinating cult leader, real

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Speaker 1: terrible journey. We're just gonna hear a lot of awful

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Speaker 1: things this week, just deeply unpleasant. So are you are

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Speaker 1: you ready? Are you strapped in to just have a

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Speaker 1: very bad time?

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Speaker 3: You know, I've listened to the show before. I know

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Speaker 3: we're in for and I'm eager for the journey.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, this one's it's been a while since we've

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Speaker 1: had a good cult episode. You know. That's our bread

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Speaker 1: and butter. So yeah, get ready for some bread and butter.

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Speaker 1: Get ready for like the carb equivalent of sorrow. I

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Speaker 1: don't know what that would be.

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Speaker 2: I'm sorry, el.

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Speaker 1: Existential depression maybe.

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Speaker 2: So.

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Speaker 1: On December thirtieth, twenty twenty one, embers from an approved

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Speaker 1: trash fire caught dry vegetation on fire in the suburbs

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Speaker 1: between Denver and Boulder, and inferno followed, tearing through desiccated

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Speaker 1: grassland in the Rocky Mountain foothills. One hundred mile an

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Speaker 1: hour winds meant that for quite some time there was

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Speaker 1: no feasible manner of fighting what became known as the

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Speaker 1: Marshall Fire. It killed two people and did around two

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Speaker 1: billion dollars in damage. It is to date, the most

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Speaker 1: devastating wildfire in Colorado history, although give Colorado some time,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure they'll break that record very soon. The way

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Speaker 1: things are going for everybody ari fires. So after eighteen

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Speaker 1: months of investigation, state authorities concluded that the blaze had started,

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Speaker 1: likely due to smoldering embers from the aforementioned trash fire,

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Speaker 1: and it was like wood trash that was being burned.

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Speaker 1: The fire had started on the communal living property owned

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Speaker 1: by a little known colt called the Twelve Tribes. This

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Speaker 1: sparked renewed interest in the group and the investigations that

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Speaker 1: followed what inspired these episodes. I should note here that

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Speaker 1: Colorado authorities opted not to charge the cult or its

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Speaker 1: members with the blaze. This may seem unjust, but the

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Speaker 1: logic's actually pretty solid, Like this was a trash burn,

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Speaker 1: the authority showed up, the fire department gave them the

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Speaker 1: go ahead. It just was the driest it's ever been.

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Speaker 1: So I'm going to say the horrible fire this cult

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Speaker 1: caused probably chalked down more to climate change than the cult,

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Speaker 1: But we have to start there because it's kind of

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Speaker 1: the biggest recent touchstone with this cult. It is weird.

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Speaker 3: If you're a cult, you don't want to remind people

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Speaker 3: that you exist.

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Speaker 1: No, No, you really want to not start the largest

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Speaker 1: wildfire in state history because it might start a Denver

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Speaker 1: Post investigation. Indeed, it's pretty good, quite good. As a

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Speaker 1: basically fair man, I think it's important to acknowledge, even

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Speaker 1: as we dig into how the authorities have ignored decades

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Speaker 1: of allegations of child abuse committed by this cult, that

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Speaker 1: the fire that they got famous for probably not their fault. Today,

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Speaker 1: the twelve Tribes number about three thousand members somewhere around there,

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Speaker 1: although we have no insight into their actual numbers because

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Speaker 1: they are a very shady cult. We do know they

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Speaker 1: own about thirty six million dollars in real estate in

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Speaker 1: the United States, and they operate communes in twenty two states,

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Speaker 1: so there's a lot of these communities. And they also

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Speaker 1: operate a lot of businesses, which we'll be talking about later,

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Speaker 1: mostly like little cafes and restaurants and enormous construction companies.

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Speaker 1: So one thing that interested me right away with this

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Speaker 1: cult is that while it's got a charismatic founder who

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Speaker 1: goes mad with power, it may have functioned in most

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Speaker 1: of its history is in a less like centralized manner,

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Speaker 1: right where the cult leader was kind of potentially usurped

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Speaker 1: at some point by his equally sketchy wife. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of hard to say exactly because the life of the

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Speaker 1: cult founder Eugene Spriggs is a little bit obscure. But

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Speaker 1: we're going to do our best here to pull back

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Speaker 1: the veil about this guy and what happens to him. So,

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Speaker 1: Elbert Eugene Spriggs Junior gets born on May eighteenth, nineteen

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Speaker 1: thirty seven to a devout Methodist family in East Ridge, Tennessee.

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Speaker 1: His childhood is mostly a mystery to us. I can

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Speaker 1: tell you his dad was named Elbert Senior, which is ridiculous,

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Speaker 1: and his mother wasn't Mabel, So he's like very thirties kid, right,

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Speaker 1: Mabel and Albert, Like that's like you can only be grandparents,

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Speaker 1: Like while you're I think you get like skipped over

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Speaker 1: straight to their grandparents stage. If you've got old people

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Speaker 1: names like that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and they're out of they're out of Tennessee. This

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Speaker 3: is like a scene from Pearl Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Try and also just like try to imagine an eighteen

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Speaker 1: year old Albert, Like it's impossible, you can't do it.

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Speaker 1: It can't like cannot be done.

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Speaker 3: To Benjamin Button suation, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I do. I want to. I'm never gonna have a kid,

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Speaker 1: but I want to, like try and start a movement

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Speaker 1: of like gen Z kids to bring back some of

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Speaker 1: these ridiculous old timey names like I want a bunch

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Speaker 1: of gin Alpha Mabels, like a lot of little baby

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Speaker 1: Mabel and Ethel's. Like wandering around.

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Speaker 2: I did meet a very nice dog named Mabel once.

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Speaker 1: She was we Yeah, but dog. She was a called

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Speaker 1: dog's anything.

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Speaker 2: She was a Corgie. She was just doing she was sniffing,

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Speaker 2: and her name was Mabel and it worked so good.

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Speaker 2: Can we have a dog exception?

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Speaker 1: There's always a dog exception.

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Speaker 3: I know I knew a Mabel named after Maybel Carter

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Speaker 3: as a dog. So yeah, I guess that's a that's

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Speaker 3: a two of them.

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Speaker 1: That's a popular dog, that's very popul Yeah, seems like

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Speaker 1: Mabel's the hot new dog name. Everybody's everybody's going with.

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Speaker 1: Why not name your kid Mabel? You know what, bring

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Speaker 1: it back. That's how we get back some of those

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Speaker 1: good thirties values, like smoking lots of cigarettes.

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Speaker 3: And putting kids to work.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because like Elbert's a cigarette name, Like Elbert's fucking

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Speaker 1: like smoking the way people just can't smoke today. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's what you know about him. So very religious family

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Speaker 1: like again, Hella Methodist. They went to church three times

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Speaker 1: a week on a pretty regular basis. Just a nightmare life.

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Speaker 1: One bio I found notes that Eugene Spriggs was a

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Speaker 1: football stand out at Central High School, so we can

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Speaker 1: assume a handful of childhood head injuries. He graduated and

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Speaker 1: moved to Chattanooga to attend the University of Tennessee, where

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Speaker 1: he got a degree in psychology. Now. A paper I

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Speaker 1: found on the Virginia Commonwealth University website describes his young

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Speaker 1: life as unsettled in a number of ways, as he

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Speaker 1: held a succession of jobs pretty wide variety, everything from

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Speaker 1: like labor jobs and stuff to he was a high

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Speaker 1: school guidance counselor. For a spell, he was the tour

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Speaker 1: director of a travel agency. He did a stint in

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Speaker 1: the army, and he seemed to have unusual difficulties staying

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Speaker 1: in relationships. This is a at this point fifties guy

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Speaker 1: who gets divorced three times. Oh yeah, you don't run

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Speaker 1: into that a lot. That means you're really running through

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Speaker 1: like you got to be absolutely And it seems like

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Speaker 1: he is leaving them right like he has one kid

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Speaker 1: and wife takes it. I don't know it's a little

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Speaker 1: unclear to me what happened in each relationship. But that's

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Speaker 1: not a common story in this period of time.

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Speaker 3: No, not, Although it feels like a common story with

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Speaker 3: male cult leaders. It does at this at this time

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Speaker 3: that there's like a couple wives before you find one

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Speaker 3: who's like, let's I like your zany ideas, let's.

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Speaker 1: Move on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and he does you

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Speaker 1: actually have predicted where this goes because wife number four

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Speaker 1: is going to be down to clown.

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Speaker 3: This already sounds a lot like I forget the name

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Speaker 3: of the cult. But then Tony Alamo, Yeah, who makes

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Speaker 3: the like beaded jackets. This is almost exactly his story.

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Speaker 1: Art well, it's also I mean it's not l Ron Hubbard,

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Speaker 1: like he did everything extra panache, but he gets is

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Speaker 1: divorced basically two or three times before he finds the

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Speaker 1: lady who's going to go to prison for him for

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Speaker 1: infiltrating the FBI.

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Speaker 3: It's a high standard really to be like, will you

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Speaker 3: go to jail if it comes to it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So anyway, listeners, what you should take from this

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Speaker 1: is that if you're looking to start your own cult,

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Speaker 1: get divorced a lot. I mean, I mean, because honestly,

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Speaker 1: unless you're able to, unless you've got real experience abandoning fan,

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Speaker 1: then you're not going to have the kind of emotional

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Speaker 1: distance that it takes to be a good cult leader.

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Speaker 1: It's just basic sense.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: You can you can learn more about this in my

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Speaker 1: in my forty two hundred dollars weekend course Divorce Your

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Speaker 1: Way to Leadership Skills.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I think Robert has a free PDF about this.

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Speaker 2: Of course.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, Sophie, you're you're my dealer basically. So

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Speaker 1: by age yeah, by age thirty two, Spriggs is super divorce,

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Speaker 1: the most divorced man in the nineteen sixties and working

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Speaker 1: as a carnie in Chattanouga, which is so funny, like

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Speaker 1: he is living the most depressing divorced skill.

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Speaker 3: Like if you were doing that today.

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Speaker 1: It would be word oh yeah, yeah. So he's he's

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Speaker 1: a divorced Carney doing divorced Carni shit in fucking Chattanouga,

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Speaker 1: which is a rough place to be a divorced Carti.

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Speaker 1: And then he hears the voice of God ask him

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Speaker 1: a question, is this what I created you for? Hell?

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Speaker 1: Normally that's like you should go to the doctor. Experience, right,

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Speaker 1: Spriggs does not do that. In fairness, doctors didn't really

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Speaker 1: exist back then, so he would later claim that his

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Speaker 1: time as a carney had given him an intimate look

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Speaker 1: into the most sinful and debauched aspects of life. This

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Speaker 1: is the only thing he says that I think is

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Speaker 1: probably true, because I've known some carnies and they all

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Speaker 1: report that love them. So he decides this is not

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Speaker 1: what God has in mind for him, and so he

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Speaker 1: follows a large percentage of his generation and fucks off

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Speaker 1: to California. Now, the late sixties early seventies are famous

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Speaker 1: in this country for having been the age of the

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Speaker 1: Hippie movement and its disillusionment and collapse into what eventually

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Speaker 1: became the soulless corporatism of the Reagan era. Now, I

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Speaker 1: think the fact that the hippie movement gets so much

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Speaker 1: play in media in part because like the kind of

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Speaker 1: people who made movies and shit were likely to be

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Speaker 1: as kids, the kind of people who were into that

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Speaker 1: social movement. There's this like belief among people that it

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Speaker 1: was the generation that spawned that movement was much more

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Speaker 1: radical than they were. The Boomers were always a very

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Speaker 1: conservative generation.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the whole like hippies were the way people are.

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Speaker 3: Thing drives me nuts.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was not. I mean, hippies weren't the way

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Speaker 1: hippies are, like you talk to people like. For one thing,

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Speaker 1: it was still a very homophobic, very like most people

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Speaker 1: who were who would have called themselves hippies held to

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Speaker 1: some what we would call very traditional values about sexuality

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Speaker 1: and gender still. And it was also just like most

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Speaker 1: people like that, like the fringe, who were super progressive

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Speaker 1: anti war, hippies were not anything close to a majority.

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Speaker 1: And one of the things that kind of makes this

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Speaker 1: point is that at the same time that the hippie movement,

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Speaker 1: you know, is kind of winding down, another major cultural

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Speaker 1: trend is happening that tends to get left out of

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Speaker 1: popular histories of the era. Have you heard of the

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Speaker 1: Jesus Movement?

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Speaker 3: No?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So these are kind of a mirror of the

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Speaker 1: hippies in that, like most of the Gjesis movement, people

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Speaker 1: who get swept up in this, they're like they've got

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Speaker 1: long hair, they're kind of unkemped. Most many of them

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Speaker 1: have dropped out of society. It is a lot of

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Speaker 1: the same kind of you know, living in buses, traveling

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Speaker 1: around doing like handcrafts. A lot of them people are

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Speaker 1: like pooling resources to you know, start farms and stuff together,

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Speaker 1: back to the land. And the thing that kind of

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Speaker 1: separates them from the hippies is that the Jesus Movement

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Speaker 1: sees Christ as a counter culture hero, so they are

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Speaker 1: kind of Jesus. Yeah, yeah, hippie. There is like a

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Speaker 1: bit of that going on, but it's still it is,

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Speaker 1: as we'll talk about, still quite conservative. Now.

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Speaker 3: When I went to church as a kid, like this

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Speaker 3: is how they sold me on Jesus. Yeah, it was

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Speaker 3: like there were it was clearly people who got into

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Speaker 3: Jesus in one way or another from because I grew

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Speaker 3: up in Maine. There were a couple of different kinds

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Speaker 3: of back to the Landers. There were like the hippie hippies,

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Speaker 3: and there were religious hippies, and those were the ones

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Speaker 3: who sold Jesus as like a social justice figure.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is because you get the Jesus Movement,

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Speaker 1: some of the what splinters out of it is going

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Speaker 1: to be kind of more progressive. Jesus, you know, was

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Speaker 1: fighting against these injustices that are still present with us today.

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Speaker 1: But a lot of it's going to lead to the

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Speaker 1: religious right, like it feeds directly because you have kind

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Speaker 1: of Jesus movement is sort of late sixties through parts

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Speaker 1: of the seventies and kind of that's also right around

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Speaker 1: when you know, in the late seventies you get Jerry

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Speaker 1: Folwell start to emerge, you get the religious right welded

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Speaker 1: into this political coalition for the first time. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: the people who get swept up in this generally called

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Speaker 1: either Jesus people or Jesus freaks. That is where the

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Speaker 1: term Jesus freak comes from. And yeah, it's a charismatic movement.

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Speaker 1: It's cross denominational, So there are Catholics who like sects

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Speaker 1: of Catholics who are part of this Jesus movement. There's

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Speaker 1: Protestants in it, and it's like a lot of different organizations,

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Speaker 1: lots of different churches that you can just kind of

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Speaker 1: like broadly call part of the Jesus movement, not because

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Speaker 1: they're part of the same thing with each other, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: if you have this sort of hardcore Protestant, you know church,

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Speaker 1: that's Jesus movement, they're not the same thing as Catholics

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Speaker 1: who might also be swept up in it, but the

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Speaker 1: similarity they have is that like they're all adopting this

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Speaker 1: really like charismatic kind of countercultural attitude towards their religious worship.

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Speaker 1: Followers would often speak in tongues. That's a big part

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Speaker 1: of like when that gets more popular in the United States,

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Speaker 1: and there's generally a big focus on what's called the

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Speaker 1: gifts of the Spirit, which is like restoring this kind

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Speaker 1: of sense of a direct connection personal connection to God

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Speaker 1: usually an a static connection, right, So this is part

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Speaker 1: of why you get these like big tint revival worship ceremonies.

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Speaker 1: A really good documentary to watch if you want to

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Speaker 1: understand the texture of this movement in time is Marjo

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Speaker 1: M A. R. Joe. It's about this kid, Marjo Gortner,

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Speaker 1: who was like the youngest priest in the country. It

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Speaker 1: was kind of a carnival sideshow grift run by his parents,

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Speaker 1: but he went back as an adult to film behind

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Speaker 1: the scenes and it shows a lot of this period

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Speaker 1: you can get Are you.

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Speaker 3: Aware of where this was happening, Like did it all

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Speaker 3: over spring out of one geopiece?

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Speaker 2: No?

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Speaker 1: So okay, all I think it does start in the

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Speaker 1: West Coast, Like I think that's where you sat, like California,

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Speaker 1: but it spreads everywhere. As we'll talk about these guys

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Speaker 1: are very much a Jesus movement. Story, Eugene Spriggs is

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Speaker 1: going to be a Jesus movement, like that's when he

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Speaker 1: kind of starts becoming a religious leader. And they do

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Speaker 1: embody to an extent a big wing of it. And again,

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Speaker 1: when we talk about the Jesus movement, it's not like

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Speaker 1: a cult. It's not like a one thing, right, It's

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Speaker 1: like a bunch of different in some cases, very much

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Speaker 1: like opposed different sort of religious organizations, traditions, communities. They're

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Speaker 1: just kind of bound together by certain similarities as a

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Speaker 1: result of this cultural moment. Yeah, and it's also worth

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Speaker 1: noting that, like a lot of people who get pulled

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Speaker 1: into the Jesus movement, there's a big focus on this

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Speaker 1: idea of like returning to the lifestyles of early Christians,

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Speaker 1: which is part of what convinces them of Like why

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Speaker 1: a lot of them do sort of the back to

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Speaker 1: the land shit, right, Like that's a big thing for them.

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Speaker 1: This helps them kind of blend in with the hippies, right,

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Speaker 1: And often Jesus freaks are people who had been hippies

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Speaker 1: a few years earlier.

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Speaker 3: Yea.

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Speaker 1: Their lives in a lot of cases collapse, they get

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Speaker 1: criminal chargers or something, or they have you know, they

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Speaker 1: burn out, you know, as a result of drug use

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Speaker 1: or whatever. And then there's this kind of movement that

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Speaker 1: has some aspects of values that are similar to the

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Speaker 1: thing that had brought them in that they can you

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Speaker 1: know that they wound up getting swept up in not

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Speaker 1: an uncommon story.

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Speaker 3: Yes, it's super common. I mean I did a podcast

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Speaker 3: series a couple of years ago on Tony Alamo and

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Speaker 3: the in his religious cult, and this is it's almost

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Speaker 3: exactly beat for beat. Like they started in like sixty

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Speaker 3: nine in Hollywood, and they were attracting just burned like

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Speaker 3: hippies who are burned out on being hippies into Jesus.

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Speaker 1: Yeah this makes sense. Yeah, yeah, and yeah, a lot

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Speaker 1: of Jesus freaks wound up living in communes practicing versions

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Speaker 1: of religious aestheticism. We see echoes of like modern trad

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Speaker 1: culture in this. A lot of it is this sort

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Speaker 1: of reaction to especially like feminism and stuff. There's this

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Speaker 1: attitude of like the necessity of returning to traditional roles

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Speaker 1: were changing in the wrong direction. Some of this is

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Speaker 1: tied to the Cold War as well, particularly fears of

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Speaker 1: nuclear war and how that merges with Christian apocalyptic prophecy.

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Speaker 1: One of the key books of the Jesus movement is

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Speaker 1: how Lindsay's The Late Great Planet Earth. And if you

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Speaker 1: if you grew up as an evangelical kid, you probably

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Speaker 1: heard about that book. It is hugely influential to these people.

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Speaker 1: We can't actually know if Spriggs had the vision he

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Speaker 1: claims he had in nineteen sixty nine. I kind of

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Speaker 1: think he may have falsified that because it's an auspicious

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Speaker 1: year for the counterculture. You know, if you're gonna talk

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Speaker 1: about like, that's the year you do it. Part of

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Speaker 1: why I suspect this is because some versions of the

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Speaker 1: Spriggs story say that, you know, God came to him

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Speaker 1: during his Carnie days in nineteen seventy, you know, a

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Speaker 1: year later, whatever the case. After the late sixties, you know,

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Speaker 1: as the nineteen seventies start, he does become very quickly

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Speaker 1: like a player. In the newly energized Christian fringe, write

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Speaker 1: up by The Times Free Press notes, while in California,

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Speaker 1: he devoted his life to creating a ministry. According to

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Speaker 1: reporting at the time by the Chattanooga News Free Press.

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Speaker 1: Spriggs said he wanted to reach young people who were

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Speaker 1: not going to church, particularly those turned off of faith

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Speaker 1: from their parents. That's interesting to me, like he's very

389
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Speaker 1: much focusing on young people who especially this kind of

390
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Speaker 1: very staid, stolid Protestantism that's really turn of the century,

391
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Speaker 1: these very quiet, austere churches that still have kind of

392
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Speaker 1: some of these Victorian attitudes and worship is very much

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Speaker 1: like channeled through the pastor. A big part of what

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Speaker 1: he's doing is like, no, we want like personal, astatic connections,

395
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Speaker 1: and that's what will bring these young people back who

396
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Speaker 1: kind of got burnt out of these very authoritarian churches

397
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Speaker 1: of their youths. This is going to be ironic considering

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Speaker 1: where Spriggs ends up.

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Speaker 3: It often is, isn't it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. In nineteen seventy two, he gets hitched

401
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Speaker 1: for the fourth time and what will be the final time,

402
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Speaker 1: to a woman named Marcia and Duval. By all accounts,

403
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Speaker 1: Marsia shares his spiritual obsession. The two move away from

404
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Speaker 1: these in full California coast and back to Chattanooga, where

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Speaker 1: they found a Bible study group for young people that

406
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Speaker 1: they call the Vine Christian community church named after their home,

407
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Speaker 1: the Vine House, and they bring some California people with them.

408
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Speaker 1: The Jesus movement is appealing to disillusioned dropouts, to former

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Speaker 1: war protesters and stuff like that, and Jean realizes early

410
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Speaker 1: on that these people are the easiest converts to his

411
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Speaker 1: church because like dropouts people with criminal records, they tend

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Speaker 1: to be desperate, and so he offers them what they

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Speaker 1: need if they'll attend his services, and he starts opening

414
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Speaker 1: his house to worshippers right, being like, if you're coming

415
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Speaker 1: to church here, you can live with me, you know,

416
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Speaker 1: like your food and whatnot will be taken care of.

417
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Speaker 1: And so by nineteen seventy four there are between fifty

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Speaker 1: and sixty people living with the Sprigses in their house,

419
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Speaker 1: which must have smelled fascinating. That's too many people for

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Speaker 1: one house. Perhaps because of this, they start asking their

421
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Speaker 1: followers to pool their resources, and this is a limited

422
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Speaker 1: affair at first. They're kind of just asking for donations, right,

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Speaker 1: you know, if you do have money, if you've got

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Speaker 1: family money or something, or you have savings when you

425
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Speaker 1: come here, maybe give us some of it so we

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Speaker 1: can pay for these other people who who have nothing.

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Speaker 2: And this.

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Speaker 1: They do well enough at this they're able to accrue

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Speaker 1: a decent amount of money, and they purchase three additional

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Speaker 1: homes in Chattanooga, and they buy a restaurant which they

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Speaker 1: call the Yellow Deli. This becomes known as a place

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Speaker 1: in town where if you're a runaway or a hitchhiker

433
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Speaker 1: you can get a free meal. So a lot of

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Speaker 1: people show up because, like, you know, they're starving. Yeah,

435
00:21:30,200 --> 00:21:33,080
Speaker 1: and when they're starving, that's a really good way to

436
00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:36,280
Speaker 1: just kind of pull people into what is becoming a cult, right,

437
00:21:36,680 --> 00:21:38,400
Speaker 1: you know, that's your little fishing lure.

438
00:21:38,400 --> 00:21:40,760
Speaker 3: Any move like that. That's the tricky thing, is like

439
00:21:40,800 --> 00:21:45,119
Speaker 3: any movement usually starts with taking disillusion to people and

440
00:21:45,160 --> 00:21:47,679
Speaker 3: giving them a reason and giving them some resources or

441
00:21:47,720 --> 00:21:50,800
Speaker 3: making available some resources. But it gets it's usually just

442
00:21:50,840 --> 00:21:54,320
Speaker 3: like what happens after that step where you determine is

443
00:21:54,320 --> 00:21:55,879
Speaker 3: this going to be a cult or is this going

444
00:21:55,920 --> 00:21:57,679
Speaker 3: to be a social movement or is it going to

445
00:21:57,680 --> 00:21:58,360
Speaker 3: be a little of both?

446
00:21:58,840 --> 00:22:01,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is that is exactly the kind of situation here,

447
00:22:01,520 --> 00:22:04,560
Speaker 1: and it's got to lean cult. Uh spoilers, because this

448
00:22:04,640 --> 00:22:05,520
Speaker 1: is the show that it is.

449
00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:08,360
Speaker 3: Well, it's like, if you think about just the commonalities

450
00:22:08,359 --> 00:22:10,600
Speaker 3: of this and again Alamo and then just like Elijah

451
00:22:10,680 --> 00:22:14,679
Speaker 3: Muhammett was sending people five dollars bills in prison, like

452
00:22:14,760 --> 00:22:17,879
Speaker 3: it's it's a it's a great way to endear people

453
00:22:17,880 --> 00:22:18,040
Speaker 3: to you.

454
00:22:18,480 --> 00:22:20,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's this. It's this thing that the uh the

455
00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:24,760
Speaker 1: wind friends and influence people like influencer grindset talk about

456
00:22:24,800 --> 00:22:26,600
Speaker 1: a lot, but it is a real factor, like the

457
00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:29,840
Speaker 1: reciprocity effect, right, where like if somebody gives you something,

458
00:22:30,400 --> 00:22:34,879
Speaker 1: you feel like a psychological need to give them something

459
00:22:34,920 --> 00:22:35,840
Speaker 1: to return the favor.

460
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:36,200
Speaker 2: Right.

461
00:22:36,280 --> 00:22:38,400
Speaker 3: It's just the fact that just the fact that Manson

462
00:22:38,520 --> 00:22:41,679
Speaker 3: loved that book and in Dianetics just like makes all

463
00:22:41,680 --> 00:22:43,320
Speaker 3: this and that just explains it all for you.

464
00:22:43,560 --> 00:22:46,600
Speaker 1: It is. It is like exactly the books. Like at

465
00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:48,840
Speaker 1: some point somebody is gonna feed those books to an

466
00:22:48,880 --> 00:22:50,800
Speaker 1: ai and we're gonna have a real fucking problem on

467
00:22:50,840 --> 00:22:53,840
Speaker 1: our heads because, like you, they're just going to create

468
00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:57,800
Speaker 1: l Ron Hubbard the fucking chat bot. Very much.

469
00:22:57,840 --> 00:23:01,760
Speaker 2: Looking forward, that's such a good idea. Can I have

470
00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:02,399
Speaker 2: ten percent?

471
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:06,320
Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely I do. I am. I I am looking

472
00:23:06,359 --> 00:23:10,960
Speaker 1: forward to when a bunch of like weirdo online influencer

473
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:13,960
Speaker 1: freaks like feed the right combination of books to a

474
00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:16,480
Speaker 1: chatbot and convince themselves they've created a god.

475
00:23:16,840 --> 00:23:21,560
Speaker 2: But also, why has it scientology made an l Ron Hubbard?

476
00:23:21,600 --> 00:23:25,520
Speaker 2: AI like that, Oh they will, they will the lrih box,

477
00:23:25,560 --> 00:23:26,800
Speaker 2: Like why haven't they done that?

478
00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:29,159
Speaker 1: Because I would you know what, I would pay them

479
00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:31,119
Speaker 1: money for that. I want that on my phone. I

480
00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:33,320
Speaker 1: want to run all of my life decisions by the

481
00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:34,040
Speaker 1: l Ron Hubbard.

482
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:36,399
Speaker 2: Why haven't But I mean, obviously it's because they even

483
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:38,840
Speaker 2: miscatches wouldn't have power, But like, why haven't they done

484
00:23:38,880 --> 00:23:40,720
Speaker 2: that in a strategic way? It doesn't make sense, like

485
00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:43,040
Speaker 2: you're still putting the clothes out, Like why why haven't

486
00:23:43,040 --> 00:23:43,479
Speaker 2: you done that?

487
00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:46,560
Speaker 1: Well, I think they're probably don't.

488
00:23:46,359 --> 00:23:49,440
Speaker 2: Take no scientologists, you're despicable, But.

489
00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:53,639
Speaker 1: I feel like you gotta know, like what I would

490
00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:55,760
Speaker 1: like is a robot in my pocket that when I'm

491
00:23:55,800 --> 00:23:58,320
Speaker 1: like what should I do in this situation? Says you

492
00:23:58,359 --> 00:24:01,280
Speaker 1: should kidnap your own daughter and to Cuba because I've

493
00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:03,280
Speaker 1: been looking for an excuse to go have a nice

494
00:24:03,359 --> 00:24:05,439
Speaker 1: vacation there. You know, I've always wanted to see Cuba,

495
00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:07,359
Speaker 1: and I feel like this could make it easier for me.

496
00:24:07,400 --> 00:24:12,439
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'll kidnap somebody's daughter. Look, kids, you know

497
00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:15,840
Speaker 1: it's there. They're small. Yeah, there's all all sorts of

498
00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:19,320
Speaker 1: kids all around, so it's easy to find one. Anyway.

499
00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:22,600
Speaker 3: It's not your fault if the scientology AI told you

500
00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:22,960
Speaker 3: to do.

501
00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:26,160
Speaker 1: It exactly, That's exactly what I'm going to say in court.

502
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:31,000
Speaker 1: And you know who else loves abduction?

503
00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:32,960
Speaker 2: Where are you going with this?

504
00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:35,720
Speaker 1: It's it's time for ads, So okay.

505
00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:38,800
Speaker 2: But where are you going with this? Uh?

506
00:24:39,119 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 1: To Cuba hopefully. Oh. We are just having a great

507
00:24:49,520 --> 00:24:53,520
Speaker 1: time here talking about the beautiful birth of what's going

508
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:56,720
Speaker 1: to become quite a cult. So in one local news

509
00:24:56,800 --> 00:24:59,920
Speaker 1: article about the Yellow Darties, if you will, the spark, yeah,

510
00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:03,240
Speaker 1: and really the start of the like the little campfire

511
00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:06,320
Speaker 1: from which they're going to burn down all of Colorado

512
00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:09,960
Speaker 1: is the Yellow Deli. And one local news article about

513
00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:13,360
Speaker 1: the deli's opening, Spriggs said, when people ask us who

514
00:25:13,400 --> 00:25:15,720
Speaker 1: our interior designer is, we tell them we have the

515
00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:19,520
Speaker 1: same one Noah had, which is an interesting like basically

516
00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:22,639
Speaker 1: saying like God helped us design the interior, which I

517
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:25,879
Speaker 1: think means they probably did not have fire escapes. Seems

518
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:28,800
Speaker 1: like I thing God would miss. Spriggs was not at

519
00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:31,600
Speaker 1: this point, openly describing what he was doing as separate

520
00:25:31,640 --> 00:25:34,800
Speaker 1: from mainstream Christianity. In fact, he and his followers were

521
00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:38,879
Speaker 1: careful to maintain regular attendance at a local church, First Presbyterian,

522
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:41,439
Speaker 1: because it's you know, like, even if you're doing an

523
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:44,200
Speaker 1: ostensibly Christian movement, there's nobody who's going to get pissed

524
00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:48,680
Speaker 1: at you faster than like old conservative church goers. Right.

525
00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:51,560
Speaker 1: So if you're doing this weird thing, if you're living

526
00:25:51,600 --> 00:25:54,320
Speaker 1: with dozens of people and like convincing all the dropouts

527
00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:56,080
Speaker 1: and hippies to move in with you and buying up

528
00:25:56,200 --> 00:25:58,879
Speaker 1: large amounts of real estate, you really want to allay

529
00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:02,800
Speaker 1: their suspicions. When he is asked by a journalist during

530
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:04,800
Speaker 1: this period of time about his plans for the future,

531
00:26:04,880 --> 00:26:07,719
Speaker 1: Spriggs says, this, can you imagine what a wonderful thing

532
00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 1: it would be to have Yellow Delis all over America,

533
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:12,560
Speaker 1: a restaurant with good food for everyone in the community.

534
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:14,200
Speaker 1: But it would be a place to reach all the

535
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:16,680
Speaker 1: runaways who are passing through, or all the young people

536
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:18,919
Speaker 1: who are tired and mixed up. These people are not

537
00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:21,520
Speaker 1: going to church. Sometimes they stop at shelters and guidance.

538
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:23,879
Speaker 1: People beat around the Bush. They don't tell it simple

539
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:26,119
Speaker 1: like it is, Jesus loves you. You can be happy.

540
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:28,720
Speaker 1: Let God run your life, you know.

541
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:31,639
Speaker 2: With God helping them build that. I really hope they

542
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:32,879
Speaker 2: got flood insurance.

543
00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:36,960
Speaker 1: Oh no, God does not believe in flood insurance. That's

544
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:38,640
Speaker 1: not having enough faith in him, right.

545
00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, Heaven is the insurance, I guess.

546
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:42,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, Heaven is your flood insurance.

547
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:46,800
Speaker 3: It's wild because this is the same time. I mean,

548
00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 3: I know, I know how much is happening at this time,

549
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:51,120
Speaker 3: but I never really think about all of the individual

550
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 3: pinpointed moments. Is this is also the same time that

551
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 3: they're opening the Source Family restaurant in La Is sixty nine,

552
00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:02,480
Speaker 3: and they're like that's their gateway into their cult. So yeah,

553
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:06,719
Speaker 3: having like a branded hangout cafe spot was like the

554
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:07,919
Speaker 3: way to go, you know.

555
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 1: So Reading California, where I used to live off and

556
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:15,119
Speaker 1: on for years, is run by a cult. Like there's

557
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:18,360
Speaker 1: a big church in town that absolutely runs everything. The police,

558
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:22,160
Speaker 1: politics like it and are increasingly like an iron grip

559
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:24,160
Speaker 1: on it. And I used to I used to work

560
00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:26,880
Speaker 1: because like we had no internet for a long time

561
00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:28,919
Speaker 1: in the trailer in the mountains that we lived in

562
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:30,960
Speaker 1: I used to have to go drive every day to

563
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 1: this play I thing was called It's absolutely a part

564
00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:37,080
Speaker 1: of this like fucking church thing all very like a

565
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:41,439
Speaker 1: lot of people having like evangelical conversations, like you know,

566
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 1: pulling in someone from off the street, some trimmer or

567
00:27:43,800 --> 00:27:46,440
Speaker 1: whatever and having very earnest talks with them about Jesus.

568
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:48,919
Speaker 1: It was that's where I wrote a lot of what

569
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 1: became the first season of It Could happen here. It's

570
00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:53,199
Speaker 1: like sitting in this cafe with all of these like

571
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:58,639
Speaker 1: hardcore Christian right fanatics who were very very carefully trying

572
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:01,160
Speaker 1: to expand their little king them quite successfully.

573
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:03,200
Speaker 3: You're like, in fact, it's happening right before.

574
00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:09,120
Speaker 1: It is in fact happening right here. Yeah, fun town, Uh,

575
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:15,040
Speaker 1: don't go there unarmed reading, So we're gonna have like

576
00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:17,000
Speaker 1: three reading listeners laughing a lot of times.

577
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:19,920
Speaker 3: Actually, my brother's college roommates from Reading, so I look

578
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:21,639
Speaker 3: forward to asking him some follow up questions.

579
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:24,520
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we may be covering them more

580
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:26,520
Speaker 1: in the future since I don't have to go back

581
00:28:26,560 --> 00:28:30,199
Speaker 1: to that fucking town anymore. So the stuff that Spriggs

582
00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:31,760
Speaker 1: is saying about, like yeah, we want to use these

583
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:33,960
Speaker 1: cafes to find these young people who are tired and

584
00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:35,520
Speaker 1: mixed up. You know, this is the seventies. This is

585
00:28:35,560 --> 00:28:38,480
Speaker 1: the fucking easy writer era, right these Like the fact

586
00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:40,520
Speaker 1: that there's all these young people have kind of dropped

587
00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:43,520
Speaker 1: out is a major like kind it's not really a

588
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 1: culture war touchstone, but it's like a major concern, particularly

589
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 1: for like older, more conservative Americans, And so this line

590
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 1: plays well with them, you know, particularly well with people

591
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 1: who might have been put off by the fact that

592
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:56,880
Speaker 1: he's kind of created a commune in their town. But

593
00:28:56,920 --> 00:28:59,280
Speaker 1: there are some signs from the beginning that Spriggs was

594
00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:02,640
Speaker 1: heading in an settling direction. In that same interview, he

595
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:05,000
Speaker 1: expressed that another one of his goals was to reach

596
00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 1: people who had dropped out of Christianity because they didn't

597
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 1: like the faith that their parents had expressed. And this

598
00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:14,000
Speaker 1: line from him is really interesting. You can't fool a

599
00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:16,600
Speaker 1: dog or a child can see the hypocrisy and the

600
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:20,880
Speaker 1: phoniness in their parents' lives. Their parents take alcohol, tranquilizers, cigarettes,

601
00:29:20,960 --> 00:29:23,560
Speaker 1: or they disobey speed laws, yet they want their children

602
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: to stay off drugs and obey all laws. Which is

603
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:30,840
Speaker 1: not an inherently bad point, right that, like there's this

604
00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 1: very like conservative backlash era happening in the particularly in

605
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:39,640
Speaker 1: the seventies, but it's being kind of perpetrated by these

606
00:29:39,680 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 1: people who are on what we now call some of

607
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:44,120
Speaker 1: the most dangerous benzos in the world. Right.

608
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:47,880
Speaker 3: He also, that's also like a very like cool youth

609
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 3: pastor thing to say. Yeah, and then you're like, you

610
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 3: know who else disobeyed laws?

611
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:57,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly? Jesus. Well, I actually think Jesus would have

612
00:29:57,280 --> 00:30:00,360
Speaker 1: been a fucking well. Anyway, we can talk about what

613
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 1: drugs I think I may have bought from Jesus Christ,

614
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:06,040
Speaker 1: but that's that's a separate story for another day. This

615
00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 1: was such a suit. Yeah, this was such a success

616
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:13,440
Speaker 1: that they next opened a coffeehouse and started ministering the

617
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:17,200
Speaker 1: local kids who were disillusioned with mainstream society. Sometimes the

618
00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:19,600
Speaker 1: cults sent members out into the world to find new

619
00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:22,440
Speaker 1: members in places where they thought people struggling on the

620
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:25,680
Speaker 1: fringe would congregate. This culminated in them for years. They

621
00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:28,000
Speaker 1: would send a bus to follow the Grateful Dead on

622
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:31,440
Speaker 1: concert tours, and hand picked members would offer first aid

623
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:33,560
Speaker 1: and food to fans coming up or down on the

624
00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:37,920
Speaker 1: various substances. Yeah, I do kind of I have this

625
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:40,920
Speaker 1: this beautiful image in my head of like the this

626
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:44,960
Speaker 1: cult bust crashing into the nitrous mafia's bus. I don't

627
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:48,520
Speaker 1: know who would have won that fight. So Jeene Spriggs

628
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:51,239
Speaker 1: promises all of his recruits, you know that if they

629
00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 1: work hard, he'll take care of them. You know, they

630
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:57,360
Speaker 1: won't have any unmet physical needs. All he needs is

631
00:30:57,400 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 1: their yeah, their their labor, and their unyielding religious evoce.

632
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:03,880
Speaker 1: And he also promises you'll never be lonely again. Everyone

633
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:07,040
Speaker 1: lives communally in the cult, and they work communally too.

634
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 1: They start to call themselves the Light Brigade in this

635
00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:10,920
Speaker 1: period of time. They're not going to stick with that

636
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 1: name very long because it's a dog shit name and

637
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:17,200
Speaker 1: it's one of those things. You don't have any autonomy

638
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 1: when you're in the Light Brigade. But you also you're

639
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:23,240
Speaker 1: not exposed to capitalism, right, and that like you don't

640
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:25,200
Speaker 1: have to worry about winding up on the street, you

641
00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about starving like that is a

642
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:31,160
Speaker 1: huge part of the appeal right especially again, this is

643
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 1: a lot of these people are folks who had been

644
00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 1: swept up in the big social movements of the sixties.

645
00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:38,080
Speaker 1: And now they're kind of dealing with how a lot

646
00:31:38,120 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 1: of that failed, how chaotic and scary the world seems

647
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:44,040
Speaker 1: in the seventies, the promise that like you can forget

648
00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:47,120
Speaker 1: all of that and forget interfacing with a confusing and

649
00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 1: chaotic world. Like that's appealing, right, that is objectively, that

650
00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:54,400
Speaker 1: is appealing, Like a lot of people. Why it's why,

651
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:57,720
Speaker 1: Like folks in our generation idolize this this kind of

652
00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:00,560
Speaker 1: mythical idea of like living on a farm with your friends.

653
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:03,200
Speaker 3: God, yeah, and then you live on a fucking farm.

654
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:06,040
Speaker 3: Yeah that's the downside.

655
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:08,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I live on a farm kind of it's

656
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:11,720
Speaker 1: a small one, but we don't like there's no attempt

657
00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:14,479
Speaker 1: to like make a lifting or survive purely by that,

658
00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:16,680
Speaker 1: because that's like a huge amount of work.

659
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:19,640
Speaker 3: Exactly. You get blake and no one eats for a year.

660
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:21,000
Speaker 3: It's bad. It's a bad time.

661
00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 1: No, I think.

662
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:25,560
Speaker 3: I do think that like the real sign of maturity,

663
00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 3: the eventual real sign of maturity is just like accepting

664
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:31,800
Speaker 3: no orientation or situation is gonna be good and they're

665
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:33,000
Speaker 3: all gonna suck a lot.

666
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, there's there's like dog shit that you have

667
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:36,840
Speaker 1: to deal with no matter what.

668
00:32:36,720 --> 00:32:40,520
Speaker 3: You do, You're you're gonna eat shit somewhere somewhere on

669
00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 3: the journey.

670
00:32:41,360 --> 00:32:44,360
Speaker 1: The I think the appeal to something like that, it's

671
00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 1: the it's the inherent appeal of dropping out right, of

672
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:50,880
Speaker 1: like realizing how complex the problems are, and like, well,

673
00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:52,880
Speaker 1: I just want an option that means I don't have

674
00:32:52,920 --> 00:32:54,959
Speaker 1: to think about them, because then I can pretend it's

675
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:57,480
Speaker 1: not happening. You know, maybe I can escape, maybe I

676
00:32:57,560 --> 00:33:00,240
Speaker 1: will be safe. And obviously the fact that all of

677
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:02,600
Speaker 1: Canada burned down this year as evidence that no, you

678
00:33:02,640 --> 00:33:05,480
Speaker 1: can't be But we don't need to harp on that.

679
00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 1: Everyone is aware of that, right, We're preaching to a

680
00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 1: large choir here, so.

681
00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:11,959
Speaker 3: And everyone has the vibe of people who know.

682
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 1: Yeah. I wanted to provide some context from one of

683
00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 1: the desperate young people lured in by Jean's cult, and

684
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 1: I found it. This is a later account from two

685
00:33:21,120 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 1: thousand and six, but I think it holds up. It's

686
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:27,120
Speaker 1: from an issue of the local Chattanoogan paper, The Chattanoogan

687
00:33:27,760 --> 00:33:31,520
Speaker 1: titled I Escaped from the Yellow Deli quote. You would

688
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 1: have to understand my situation at the time to understand

689
00:33:33,880 --> 00:33:36,120
Speaker 1: how I was influenced by these people. I was twenty

690
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 1: one years old and just got out of a three

691
00:33:37,720 --> 00:33:40,200
Speaker 1: year abusive relationship, renting a room in a house in

692
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:42,840
Speaker 1: Saint Elmo, no direction and no family to turn to.

693
00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:45,240
Speaker 1: They told me what I needed to hear. They loved me,

694
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:47,360
Speaker 1: and God loved me, and I could come live with them.

695
00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 1: When I became convinced, two members moved me out of

696
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 1: my little room at three am. I was driven to

697
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:55,040
Speaker 1: their commune in Dalton, Georgia, and like, yeah, I think

698
00:33:55,040 --> 00:33:57,960
Speaker 1: that gets across, Like, yeah, it was in an abusive relationship.

699
00:33:58,000 --> 00:33:59,720
Speaker 1: I got out. I've got no family, I've got this

700
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:03,040
Speaker 1: apart I can't afford it solves. They offer to solve

701
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 1: all your problems as long as you want the Jesus.

702
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:09,399
Speaker 1: At first, the Light Brigade and the Weinhaus Church were

703
00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 1: augments to the local Christian culture, not a wild new

704
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:16,000
Speaker 1: vision of worship. This changes in nineteen seventy five when

705
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:19,440
Speaker 1: First Presbyterian makes the decision to cancel a Sunday worship

706
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:23,160
Speaker 1: session so that their pastor can go watch the Super Bowl. Right,

707
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: He's like, you know it, don't come in Sunday, Like

708
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:26,839
Speaker 1: we're all going to go to the game anyway. Right,

709
00:34:27,200 --> 00:34:30,279
Speaker 1: this is kind of a cool thing to do if

710
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:33,720
Speaker 1: you're a seventies preacher. But this is like Gene finds

711
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:36,280
Speaker 1: this offensive. Right, you don't skip worship for any reason,

712
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:40,720
Speaker 1: especially not this like profane worldly game. So he uses

713
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:42,920
Speaker 1: this as an excuse to break his flock away from

714
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:46,480
Speaker 1: the church entirely and start hosting Sunday services in a

715
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:50,640
Speaker 1: local park instead. This increases his hold over his flock,

716
00:34:50,680 --> 00:34:53,920
Speaker 1: who now become They had been part of the community before. Right,

717
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:56,239
Speaker 1: you're going to church with everybody, you're somewhat tied to

718
00:34:56,280 --> 00:34:59,520
Speaker 1: it from this point now they're only socializing and working

719
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:02,640
Speaker 1: with each other. Right, This is kind of he severed

720
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:05,840
Speaker 1: this like cord that they had to everyone else. This

721
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:09,799
Speaker 1: also brings Spriggs his first real opposition, because once the

722
00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:12,920
Speaker 1: cult kind of steps away from this church, locals start

723
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:15,800
Speaker 1: to be like, this does kind of seem like a problem,

724
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 1: like this cult. So from seventy five to seventy eight,

725
00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:22,720
Speaker 1: local churches register protests against the Light Brigade. When Spriggs

726
00:35:22,719 --> 00:35:26,799
Speaker 1: is spotted performing public baptisms, local papers start running the

727
00:35:26,840 --> 00:35:30,240
Speaker 1: first articles accusing them of being a cult. Two local

728
00:35:30,239 --> 00:35:32,800
Speaker 1: colleges ban their students from eating at the Yellow Deli

729
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:35,320
Speaker 1: after enough former students had dropped out to join the

730
00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:38,719
Speaker 1: Spriggs cult, Like it's becomes such a problem of them

731
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:41,640
Speaker 1: like poaching college students. I'm guessing they're kids who were

732
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:44,359
Speaker 1: you know, you're in college, you find that you don't

733
00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:45,880
Speaker 1: like your major as much as you thought, or you

734
00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 1: get stressed out during exams. You're poor, so you go

735
00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:51,359
Speaker 1: to the Yellow Deli for a free meal, and they're

736
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:53,640
Speaker 1: like boys, seems like college isn't making you happy. You

737
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:55,120
Speaker 1: know it'll make you happy.

738
00:35:55,200 --> 00:35:57,480
Speaker 3: The difference in your where your life turns out could

739
00:35:57,560 --> 00:35:58,880
Speaker 3: just be like one free sandwich.

740
00:35:58,960 --> 00:35:59,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.

741
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:02,279
Speaker 3: Just there's so many times in my life where if

742
00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:04,160
Speaker 3: I got the free sandwich from the wrong place, I

743
00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:04,920
Speaker 3: would have been screwed.

744
00:36:04,960 --> 00:36:05,400
Speaker 2: Yeah.

745
00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:07,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I know a lot of like former

746
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:10,600
Speaker 1: punk kids who are anarchists because the food not bombs

747
00:36:10,640 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 1: people showed up and gave them sandwiches and.

748
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:15,640
Speaker 3: Bombs is how I same. It's how I turned from

749
00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 3: a libertarian kid to a anarchist punk kid.

750
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:22,799
Speaker 1: Yeah. And this is always the case with colts, right

751
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:25,080
Speaker 1: where like the things that let colts, I'm not going

752
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:27,040
Speaker 1: food not bombs a cult. I'm saying that, like the

753
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:29,680
Speaker 1: thing that colts use is something that also has a

754
00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 1: good site. It's good to give people things, it's good

755
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:34,520
Speaker 1: to take care of people who are desperate. If you're

756
00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:36,879
Speaker 1: doing that because you like people and you want them

757
00:36:36,960 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 1: to have an easier time, that's good. If you're doing

758
00:36:40,160 --> 00:36:42,040
Speaker 1: it because you want them to like feel a sense

759
00:36:42,040 --> 00:36:43,960
Speaker 1: of obligation to you so that you can rope them

760
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:49,279
Speaker 1: into your your cult, that's bad, right, Yeah, real estate scheme. Yeah,

761
00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:51,759
Speaker 1: the key a big part of it. Whenever somebody is

762
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:55,560
Speaker 1: like showing up and handing out free food, is like, yeah,

763
00:36:55,560 --> 00:36:57,800
Speaker 1: who's behind this. Is it just a bunch of people

764
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:00,239
Speaker 1: coming together to help out the community, or is they're

765
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 1: a guy. Is there like a dude and this is

766
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:06,280
Speaker 1: his thing, you know, then then maybe it's a cult.

767
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:08,319
Speaker 1: Then maybe you should get your cult mace out.

768
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:09,720
Speaker 3: So, oh my god.

769
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:12,840
Speaker 1: I found one story from a student, actually the student

770
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:15,000
Speaker 1: who was the author of that article in the Chattanooga

771
00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:17,840
Speaker 1: I quote earlier, who talks about like the process of

772
00:37:17,880 --> 00:37:20,800
Speaker 1: being like recruited and forced to drop out of college

773
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 1: by these people. Quote they believe that anything in the

774
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 1: outside world was evil, And they drove me to Chattanooga

775
00:37:26,120 --> 00:37:28,360
Speaker 1: State where I was attending to withdraw me. When I

776
00:37:28,400 --> 00:37:30,280
Speaker 1: told my counselor what I was doing, he just shook

777
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:32,200
Speaker 1: his head. I told him I found Jesus and these

778
00:37:32,200 --> 00:37:34,000
Speaker 1: people loved me and were going to take care of me.

779
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:37,320
Speaker 1: So they have they build over the years, like a

780
00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:42,279
Speaker 1: pretty steady process for like disenrolling kids from college when

781
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 1: they when they convert them, like it's enough of a

782
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:46,960
Speaker 1: thing that like not only dose schools try to ban

783
00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:49,680
Speaker 1: their students from going to this cafe, but like everyone

784
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:51,960
Speaker 1: who works their nose, like, oh shit, we lost another

785
00:37:51,960 --> 00:37:52,960
Speaker 1: one to the fucking cult.

786
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 2: Yeah.

787
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:57,239
Speaker 1: So in nineteen seventy eight things come to a head,

788
00:37:57,280 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 1: because that's the Jonestown year, right, Congress, when Leo Ryan

789
00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:03,280
Speaker 1: and several other people are gunned down in the jungle

790
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:06,120
Speaker 1: by a cult. The cult then commits mass suicide. This

791
00:38:06,239 --> 00:38:09,480
Speaker 1: makes a lot of people very unhappy, really freaks out

792
00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:09,960
Speaker 1: the country.

793
00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was the golden era to have a cult was,

794
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:16,439
Speaker 3: you know, was like sixty seven to seventy eight.

795
00:38:16,800 --> 00:38:18,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly with.

796
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:20,520
Speaker 3: The little bit Yeah the Manson blit, but you could

797
00:38:20,520 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 3: still get away with a lot.

798
00:38:21,440 --> 00:38:24,239
Speaker 1: In this effen Yeah. Yeah, this puts an end to that, right,

799
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:28,239
Speaker 1: This launches what Spriggs would later call anti cult hysteria

800
00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:31,080
Speaker 1: in the United States. He says that, like it's a

801
00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 1: bad thing. Yeah, I don't feel like it's hysteria. This

802
00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:38,280
Speaker 1: is like clear evidence, you know, Jonestown was clear evidence

803
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:45,160
Speaker 1: of a problem. Yeah. So by this point, Jeans Spring Yeah, yeah, yeah,

804
00:38:45,200 --> 00:38:48,000
Speaker 1: I like one hundred and seventy was like a lot

805
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:50,960
Speaker 1: of people are dead now, a little more than a scare.

806
00:38:51,280 --> 00:38:54,920
Speaker 1: They shot a congressman. That's so wild. I imagine if

807
00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:55,840
Speaker 1: that happened today.

808
00:38:56,320 --> 00:38:59,439
Speaker 3: Yeah, they like ran, oh my god, helicopters, there was action.

809
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:04,560
Speaker 3: It's yeah, like I cannot believe that that happened. Still, yeah,

810
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:09,359
Speaker 3: I can, obviously, but it's yeah, it's it's so specific

811
00:39:09,520 --> 00:39:13,040
Speaker 3: and in a lot of ways, Jill's like destined to

812
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:15,359
Speaker 3: be born of this country, even though it didn't happen here.

813
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:17,799
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, the most unbelievable thing about it is

814
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:22,880
Speaker 1: that a congress person actually did something right, like heroically, Yeah,

815
00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:27,040
Speaker 1: pretty heroically. Yeah. So, by this point, Jean Spriggs had

816
00:39:27,040 --> 00:39:30,080
Speaker 1: developed a new name for his cult, the Twelve Tribes,

817
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:32,160
Speaker 1: so named in honor of the fact that he was

818
00:39:32,200 --> 00:39:34,600
Speaker 1: one of the first guys in the Christian fringe to

819
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:38,160
Speaker 1: start incorporating Judaism into his Christian cult right, and this

820
00:39:38,280 --> 00:39:40,359
Speaker 1: is a very common thing. Now you might not think

821
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:41,600
Speaker 1: about it that way, but if you've ever seen, if

822
00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:43,759
Speaker 1: you've been to one of these far right gatherings where

823
00:39:43,760 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 1: there's like a lot of religious right people and someone

824
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:49,799
Speaker 1: will bring like a show far which is like a

825
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:52,279
Speaker 1: horn made out of like an animal horn that you

826
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:57,279
Speaker 1: blow into that's like comes from Jewish religious observances, right,

827
00:39:57,360 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 1: that like some Christians have reincorporated back into Evangelicalism, I

828
00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:07,520
Speaker 1: think because a chofar looks cool and they want But yeah,

829
00:40:07,600 --> 00:40:09,719
Speaker 1: he's like kind of the first guy to do this

830
00:40:09,920 --> 00:40:13,120
Speaker 1: in a big way in the Christian right. And he's

831
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:15,480
Speaker 1: more extensive than this. He brings the show far in.

832
00:40:15,520 --> 00:40:17,680
Speaker 1: He also brings back bar mitzvahs, like kids in his

833
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:20,839
Speaker 1: cults celebrate have their bar mitzvahs and bot mitzvahs, And this,

834
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:23,520
Speaker 1: you know, is interesting. It's certainly going to play into

835
00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:26,600
Speaker 1: ways in which other far right like religious cults are

836
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:28,560
Speaker 1: going to move in the future. But it makes them

837
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:31,399
Speaker 1: seem more alien to the normies of Chattanooga, who by

838
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:33,240
Speaker 1: this point are in kind of a full blown panic

839
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:36,440
Speaker 1: that the next jonestown might be in their backyard. Another

840
00:40:36,480 --> 00:40:38,400
Speaker 1: thing that makes them seem ainly into the normies is

841
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:41,719
Speaker 1: that by the late seventies, Spriggs had decided that separation

842
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:44,600
Speaker 1: was the critical precondition for his cult to reach the

843
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:46,920
Speaker 1: potential that God had set for them. And I'm going

844
00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:49,840
Speaker 1: to quote from that write up by vcu here. Twelve

845
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:52,640
Speaker 1: Tribes has concluded that adherence to a natural law standard

846
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:54,799
Speaker 1: will not be sufficient to create the conditions for the

847
00:40:54,800 --> 00:40:57,960
Speaker 1: return of the Messiah. Separation is critical for the Twelve

848
00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:00,759
Speaker 1: Tribes because the absolute values of natural law are being

849
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:04,359
Speaker 1: lost in contemporary society. The Twelve Tribes opposed the rise

850
00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:07,960
Speaker 1: of a multicultural global social order a single world government

851
00:41:07,960 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 1: in world religion. The former revitalizes values. The latter undermines

852
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:14,400
Speaker 1: and compromises the values of natural law and promotes rampant

853
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:19,080
Speaker 1: materialism and acquisitiveness, feminism, the devise of the traditional patriarchal family,

854
00:41:19,239 --> 00:41:21,920
Speaker 1: and the legitimation of gay marriage. The return of the

855
00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:24,960
Speaker 1: Messiah is contingent on the gathering of a faithful remnant

856
00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:27,640
Speaker 1: and the Church being restored in its original form. To

857
00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:30,000
Speaker 1: pave the way for the millennium, the movement must expand

858
00:41:30,040 --> 00:41:32,640
Speaker 1: from its present nine to twelve Tribes each of which

859
00:41:32,719 --> 00:41:35,360
Speaker 1: must grow to at least twelve hundred members, thus creating

860
00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:37,640
Speaker 1: one hundred and forty four thousand faithful who will be

861
00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:41,600
Speaker 1: included in God's millennial kingdom. Now, a lot of that's

862
00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:45,440
Speaker 1: very modern. Gene as a trailblazer in some of this stuff.

863
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:49,520
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I've seen it claim that Gene's particular eschatology,

864
00:41:49,719 --> 00:41:51,680
Speaker 1: he didn't just need one hundred and forty four thousand

865
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:54,400
Speaker 1: faithful to prepare for the way of the Messiah, but

866
00:41:54,480 --> 00:41:56,080
Speaker 1: he had to build an army of one hundred and

867
00:41:56,120 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 1: forty four thousand male virgins and tall order, yeah, tall,

868
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:05,440
Speaker 1: tall order. It is at this point I should also

869
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:08,000
Speaker 1: note that, according to the Church, Gene was a scout

870
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:10,200
Speaker 1: master at one point. They brag about this a lot.

871
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:12,680
Speaker 1: So you hear about a scout master trying to get

872
00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:15,520
Speaker 1: one hundred and forty four thousand male virgins together. That's

873
00:42:15,520 --> 00:42:18,800
Speaker 1: not a happy story, right now, that's going to end bad.

874
00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:24,279
Speaker 1: That is rough. Yeah. Yeah, Also too many male virgins,

875
00:42:24,719 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 1: like nothing good can happen with all that, all that pentemic.

876
00:42:28,120 --> 00:42:30,400
Speaker 3: Then you need like one hundred and forty four thousand

877
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:33,239
Speaker 3: male non virgins order to have.

878
00:42:33,280 --> 00:42:37,960
Speaker 1: To counteract it. Yeah, So to stop it from exploding. Yeah,

879
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:41,000
Speaker 1: so Jane decided it was probably wise if his cult

880
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:43,800
Speaker 1: branched out and started picking up property and members in

881
00:42:43,840 --> 00:42:46,160
Speaker 1: another state where they might be more welcome. Right, this

882
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:48,960
Speaker 1: is fine cult logic. It's the kind of savvy maneuvering

883
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:52,600
Speaker 1: that made scientology great. But Spriggs underestimated the degree to

884
00:42:52,600 --> 00:42:55,800
Speaker 1: which small towns Americans get scared based on news stories

885
00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:58,080
Speaker 1: that they kind of skimmed. He also made the mistake

886
00:42:58,120 --> 00:42:59,840
Speaker 1: of having the mission to Vermont led by one of

887
00:42:59,840 --> 00:43:04,040
Speaker 1: his longest serving members, a guy named David Jones. David

888
00:43:04,080 --> 00:43:06,719
Speaker 1: had joined the Twelve Tribes back in nineteen seventy three

889
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:10,000
Speaker 1: as a traumatized Vietnam veteran fresh from the war. He'd

890
00:43:10,040 --> 00:43:13,680
Speaker 1: become one of Jane's most trusted lieutenants. Unfortunately, his last

891
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:17,240
Speaker 1: name was Jones, and the provincial residence of Island Pond, Vermont,

892
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 1: started like as soon as they hear a guy named

893
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:22,520
Speaker 1: Jones has moved here with his like weird religious congregation,

894
00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:24,840
Speaker 1: They're like, he has to be related to Jim Jones.

895
00:43:24,920 --> 00:43:28,280
Speaker 3: You can't google it. Yeah, it's like there's no You're

896
00:43:28,400 --> 00:43:30,719
Speaker 3: just gonna take it on. Take it on. Toys value

897
00:43:30,719 --> 00:43:31,160
Speaker 3: that he's not.

898
00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:34,520
Speaker 1: It's like it is funny, Like it would be one

899
00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:37,600
Speaker 1: thing if he had like some very complicated, rare last name,

900
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:40,480
Speaker 1: but being like they're both Joneses. Yeah, there's probably fucking

901
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:43,200
Speaker 1: forty Joneses in town. What are you talking about, you

902
00:43:43,280 --> 00:43:46,680
Speaker 1: fucking small town maniacs. Like they're right to be concerned

903
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:50,759
Speaker 1: about this people, but they're still there's still dummies. So

904
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:54,240
Speaker 1: from the beginning, the Twelve Tribes attracted eyeballs in Vermont.

905
00:43:54,680 --> 00:43:57,600
Speaker 1: Now the reason for this is dumb obviously, like that

906
00:43:57,680 --> 00:44:00,239
Speaker 1: they think this guy is related to Jim Jones. But

907
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:02,880
Speaker 1: they ought to be watching these people because there are

908
00:44:02,960 --> 00:44:05,719
Speaker 1: absolutely good reasons to be monitoring the Twelve Tribes. They

909
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 1: just have nothing to do with Jonestown.

910
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:10,560
Speaker 3: That's another just classic American story where it's like, you

911
00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:13,160
Speaker 3: have good reason to be concerned about this, and it

912
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:15,480
Speaker 3: just so happens that the reason you are concerned is

913
00:44:15,520 --> 00:44:16,120
Speaker 3: not the right one.

914
00:44:16,239 --> 00:44:19,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, you picked the wrong one. And the good reason

915
00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:22,120
Speaker 1: to do this is the fact that by the late seventies,

916
00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:26,279
Speaker 1: Jeane had built his entire religious philosophy. Philosophy this is

917
00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:28,719
Speaker 1: like the core of what he actually is teaching in

918
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:31,800
Speaker 1: the Twelve Tribes now around beating the shit out of kids.

919
00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:35,000
Speaker 1: Like right, This starts off as sort of this, you know,

920
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:37,640
Speaker 1: we're going back to the original Christianity, and over the

921
00:44:37,640 --> 00:44:40,240
Speaker 1: first decade or so it exists, he kind of builds

922
00:44:40,360 --> 00:44:44,560
Speaker 1: this religious philosophy where he decides the chief problems of

923
00:44:44,560 --> 00:44:47,839
Speaker 1: the world are all caused by disobedience to God's law,

924
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:50,440
Speaker 1: and so the only way to correct that is to

925
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:54,160
Speaker 1: raise up a new generation of kids by absolutely beating

926
00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:56,360
Speaker 1: the piss out of them. And that is going to

927
00:44:56,440 --> 00:44:58,600
Speaker 1: be That is the Twelve Tribes, right. It is the

928
00:44:58,760 --> 00:45:02,239
Speaker 1: let's hit the shit out of kids cult. Terrible way

929
00:45:02,280 --> 00:45:10,759
Speaker 1: to go to ads, but here they are. We're back now.

930
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:13,920
Speaker 1: By this point in the story, Gene has also taken

931
00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:15,919
Speaker 1: a new name for himself and the tradition of most

932
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:21,280
Speaker 1: great cult leaders, Yonick, which Hebrew comes from the Bible.

933
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:25,759
Speaker 1: His followers called him an apostle, and there's debate from

934
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:27,719
Speaker 1: former members as to whether or not yon Neck was

935
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:30,880
Speaker 1: all powerful or just a major source of charismatic authority,

936
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:33,960
Speaker 1: but he certainly was not the only source of prophetic

937
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:36,440
Speaker 1: revelations for the group. It does seem fair, though, to

938
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:38,440
Speaker 1: say that Yonick set the tone and focus for the

939
00:45:38,520 --> 00:45:42,080
Speaker 1: church and that his primary concern was children. In the

940
00:45:42,160 --> 00:45:44,759
Speaker 1: early days, Spriggs had claimed his goal was to bring

941
00:45:44,880 --> 00:45:47,800
Speaker 1: kids on the fringe, counterculture types who had like dropped

942
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:50,799
Speaker 1: out of the Middle America Christianity of their parents back

943
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:53,719
Speaker 1: to God. But now in the mid to late seventies,

944
00:45:53,920 --> 00:45:56,400
Speaker 1: late seventies, early eighties, he starts to claim having a

945
00:45:56,400 --> 00:45:59,040
Speaker 1: different goal, which is to build a church that it

946
00:45:59,040 --> 00:46:02,359
Speaker 1: would be impossible for children to leave. Right like that

947
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:04,400
Speaker 1: is his He goes from I want to bring kids

948
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:07,640
Speaker 1: back to the church to I want to break their

949
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:10,200
Speaker 1: little minds in such a way that they never disobey

950
00:46:10,239 --> 00:46:13,000
Speaker 1: their parents, that they never leave us. You know, now,

951
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:15,880
Speaker 1: part of how he does this is isolation. He starts

952
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:18,279
Speaker 1: mandating church kids are not even allowed to be born

953
00:46:18,440 --> 00:46:20,600
Speaker 1: outside of the compounds. Right, you can't go to a

954
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:23,239
Speaker 1: hospital to have your kids. You certainly can't have them

955
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:25,880
Speaker 1: educated in public schools. They're never going to work a

956
00:46:25,960 --> 00:46:28,759
Speaker 1: job on their own. They'll be apprenticed within church businesses.

957
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:32,040
Speaker 1: We have created our own parallel society so that they

958
00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:35,520
Speaker 1: can't escape and to make any kind of deviation impossible.

959
00:46:35,840 --> 00:46:38,920
Speaker 1: Spriggs devoted his biblical knowledge to creating a protocol of

960
00:46:39,040 --> 00:46:43,200
Speaker 1: rigorous abuse described in his brochure. When the spanking stopped,

961
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:44,480
Speaker 1: all hell broke loose.

962
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:45,520
Speaker 3: Oh my god.

963
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:49,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, solid name there. Yeah.

964
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:52,120
Speaker 1: I'm going to quote a description of this pamphlet from

965
00:46:52,120 --> 00:46:56,280
Speaker 1: an excellent article in Pacific Standard magazine. It cites Proverbs

966
00:46:56,320 --> 00:46:59,279
Speaker 1: thirteen twenty four. He who spares his rod hates his son,

967
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:02,120
Speaker 1: but he who loves disciplines him promptly to make the

968
00:47:02,160 --> 00:47:05,160
Speaker 1: following argument. If you love your child, and you, if

969
00:47:05,200 --> 00:47:07,200
Speaker 1: you love your child, you will take up the rod

970
00:47:07,280 --> 00:47:10,239
Speaker 1: and discipline him when he's disobedient. It's not optional, it's

971
00:47:10,280 --> 00:47:14,560
Speaker 1: a command. The tribes argue that progressive child bearing practices

972
00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:17,239
Speaker 1: such as timeouts, are taking away treats or screen time,

973
00:47:17,440 --> 00:47:20,000
Speaker 1: have resulted in a spike in juvenile violence and crime.

974
00:47:20,239 --> 00:47:22,560
Speaker 1: The only way to reverse this trend, the tribes contends,

975
00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:25,480
Speaker 1: is by using the proverbial rod early, often, and hard

976
00:47:25,560 --> 00:47:28,280
Speaker 1: enough to leave marx. According to former and current tribes

977
00:47:28,360 --> 00:47:30,560
Speaker 1: leaders I spoke with, infants raised in the tribes are

978
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:33,319
Speaker 1: hit with balloon sticks, thin wooden rods used to keep

979
00:47:33,320 --> 00:47:36,800
Speaker 1: balloons from floating away for offenses as minor as resisting

980
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:39,759
Speaker 1: a diaper change or throwing a bottle. Older children are

981
00:47:39,800 --> 00:47:43,080
Speaker 1: whipped with bamboo canes. Children are driven by their natural

982
00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:46,160
Speaker 1: innate nature to do what is wrong. The group's teaching state,

983
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:48,239
Speaker 1: it is better to go to heaven with welts than

984
00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:51,520
Speaker 1: go to hell without weltz. That's Gene Spriggs right there.

985
00:47:52,160 --> 00:47:55,040
Speaker 3: My god, I can't yeah, like, I can't imagine how

986
00:47:55,080 --> 00:47:58,480
Speaker 3: they reconcile when kids eventually obviously leave the church, Like,

987
00:47:58,520 --> 00:48:01,240
Speaker 3: there must be there must be. I'm not mass defection,

988
00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:02,600
Speaker 3: but there must be defection.

989
00:48:03,840 --> 00:48:06,840
Speaker 1: Yeah. Later on at this stage, again, it's all first

990
00:48:06,840 --> 00:48:09,960
Speaker 1: generation converts having kids, right, and the kids can't oh

991
00:48:10,160 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 1: hieve you know, sure, sure, sure, and they're trying. This

992
00:48:13,800 --> 00:48:17,640
Speaker 1: is largely being enforced so that that first generation of

993
00:48:17,760 --> 00:48:20,279
Speaker 1: kids raised within the cult can't leave, right, That's what

994
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:24,920
Speaker 1: Springs wants to set up. Spanking is a technical endeavor

995
00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:27,960
Speaker 1: within the Twelve tribes. There is arcana around it, right,

996
00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:31,000
Speaker 1: depending on the era and the geographic region. They seem

997
00:48:31,080 --> 00:48:34,279
Speaker 1: to prefer using these balloon sticks or bamboo sticks, but

998
00:48:34,440 --> 00:48:37,800
Speaker 1: they also for certain things prescribed whipping kids with resin

999
00:48:37,840 --> 00:48:41,080
Speaker 1: tipped whips. I don't even know where you get those, like,

1000
00:48:41,320 --> 00:48:43,560
Speaker 1: probably have to get a whip and just tip it

1001
00:48:43,600 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 1: and resin yourself today. This is all described in detail

1002
00:48:48,200 --> 00:48:51,240
Speaker 1: in their three hundred and forty eight page Child Training Manual,

1003
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:53,520
Speaker 1: all of which is based on Spriggs's teachings.

1004
00:48:53,960 --> 00:48:57,319
Speaker 2: Is it straight up called Child Training Manual? Does it have.

1005
00:48:59,120 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 1: Okay, that's what it's called. You can find it online.

1006
00:49:02,560 --> 00:49:04,000
Speaker 1: You know, I've been reading a bit of it.

1007
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:06,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah.

1008
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:09,080
Speaker 1: It includes the fact that children as young as six

1009
00:49:09,120 --> 00:49:13,080
Speaker 1: months old should be spanked for deviations from proper behavior,

1010
00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:17,360
Speaker 1: particularly wilfulness. An infant wriggling during a diaper change is

1011
00:49:17,360 --> 00:49:20,760
Speaker 1: specifically listed as in need of a physical punishment. Oh

1012
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:23,959
Speaker 1: my god, you know the thing that every infant does,

1013
00:49:24,400 --> 00:49:27,480
Speaker 1: which is what he's saying. Right, Children are inherently disobedient

1014
00:49:27,520 --> 00:49:29,279
Speaker 1: and touched by Satan, and you have to beat that

1015
00:49:29,320 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 1: out of them. Right. Quote. The pain received from the

1016
00:49:32,600 --> 00:49:35,480
Speaker 1: balloon stick is more humbling than harmful. There is no

1017
00:49:35,560 --> 00:49:37,800
Speaker 1: defense against it. The only way to stop the sting

1018
00:49:37,840 --> 00:49:40,200
Speaker 1: of the rod is to submit. That is exactly what

1019
00:49:40,280 --> 00:49:42,520
Speaker 1: the child will do, Submit to his parents' will and

1020
00:49:42,680 --> 00:49:48,080
Speaker 1: end his rebellion. Now that's fucked up and bad. It

1021
00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:52,279
Speaker 1: is responsible to acknowledge that like smacking kids around is

1022
00:49:52,320 --> 00:49:54,480
Speaker 1: not all that far from normal in the seventies, right,

1023
00:49:55,080 --> 00:49:57,560
Speaker 1: we are not talking about like that, I mean, it

1024
00:49:57,640 --> 00:50:00,640
Speaker 1: still happens today. Obviously, a lot of parents some form

1025
00:50:00,640 --> 00:50:03,040
Speaker 1: of physical coercion with their kids, and it's even more

1026
00:50:03,040 --> 00:50:03,879
Speaker 1: common back then.

1027
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:10,080
Speaker 3: Well, and just like institutional corporal punishment, I mean, is

1028
00:50:10,120 --> 00:50:11,360
Speaker 3: not at all out of the norm.

1029
00:50:11,640 --> 00:50:13,880
Speaker 1: My elementary school in the nineties spanked me. You know,

1030
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:16,360
Speaker 1: public elementary school is not in like a Catholic school

1031
00:50:16,400 --> 00:50:19,600
Speaker 1: or anything. This is in fucking Idabell, Oklahoma. Yeah, so

1032
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:22,960
Speaker 1: smacking kids with rods is unfortunately yet not all that

1033
00:50:23,080 --> 00:50:26,480
Speaker 1: abnormal in this period. But the Twelve Tribes engaged in

1034
00:50:26,600 --> 00:50:29,560
Speaker 1: numerous and much more creative abuse tactics than this. He

1035
00:50:29,719 --> 00:50:33,000
Speaker 1: Spriggs spends a lot of his time thinking up new

1036
00:50:33,040 --> 00:50:37,440
Speaker 1: ways to abuse children and justify it with the Bible.

1037
00:50:38,200 --> 00:50:40,080
Speaker 1: One ex member who grew up in the church during

1038
00:50:40,120 --> 00:50:43,399
Speaker 1: the eighties were called a practice called scourging, in which

1039
00:50:43,440 --> 00:50:46,360
Speaker 1: a child is stripped, naked and beaten with a rod

1040
00:50:46,440 --> 00:50:51,080
Speaker 1: over every inch of their body. Yeah. Adults would also

1041
00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:54,719
Speaker 1: regularly withhold meals from small children as punishment. Starvation is

1042
00:50:54,719 --> 00:50:58,200
Speaker 1: a really common punishment for them. In some cases, food

1043
00:50:58,239 --> 00:51:00,839
Speaker 1: would be withheld for days at a time. Children were

1044
00:51:00,880 --> 00:51:03,440
Speaker 1: also locked alone in dark rooms for days at a

1045
00:51:03,480 --> 00:51:06,600
Speaker 1: time in response to crimes like stealing food from a refrigerator.

1046
00:51:06,920 --> 00:51:09,280
Speaker 3: And so this isn't getting out right because the kids

1047
00:51:09,320 --> 00:51:11,680
Speaker 3: are probably not in the school system, they're no longer

1048
00:51:11,680 --> 00:51:13,719
Speaker 3: in a church, so that no one knows.

1049
00:51:13,800 --> 00:51:15,799
Speaker 1: Some of it as being There are reports. There are

1050
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:18,759
Speaker 1: reports in Chattanooga and soon after in Vermont, because like

1051
00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:21,160
Speaker 1: they have neighbors, people are like people can see them

1052
00:51:21,280 --> 00:51:24,440
Speaker 1: hitting kids in public, sometimes slapping them and shit. So

1053
00:51:24,760 --> 00:51:28,600
Speaker 1: this is not like totally a black box. One member

1054
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:31,120
Speaker 1: later told the Denver Post the one time that I

1055
00:51:31,200 --> 00:51:33,320
Speaker 1: was locked in the dungeon, it wasn't a real dungeon,

1056
00:51:33,360 --> 00:51:34,680
Speaker 1: but it felt like it. I think it was for

1057
00:51:34,800 --> 00:51:37,080
Speaker 1: more than a day because we fasted every Friday, so

1058
00:51:37,120 --> 00:51:39,239
Speaker 1: I was used to starving, and it was longer than that,

1059
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:42,520
Speaker 1: which is a gives you an idea of the bleakness

1060
00:51:42,520 --> 00:51:44,719
Speaker 1: of this, Like I was pretty used to starving, Like

1061
00:51:44,760 --> 00:51:48,160
Speaker 1: this was worse than normal starving. Now, one of the

1062
00:51:48,160 --> 00:51:50,800
Speaker 1: things that's interesting to me is Spriggs never has a kid.

1063
00:51:51,160 --> 00:51:53,759
Speaker 1: He does not have a child of his own in

1064
00:51:53,840 --> 00:51:56,799
Speaker 1: the cult. Sorry, he does have one boy, with his

1065
00:51:56,840 --> 00:51:59,799
Speaker 1: first wife, but he leaves when the kid's young, which

1066
00:52:00,160 --> 00:52:02,200
Speaker 1: for the best in this case, that kid really dodged

1067
00:52:02,239 --> 00:52:06,280
Speaker 1: a bullet by not having his dad. Yeah, not always

1068
00:52:06,320 --> 00:52:08,400
Speaker 1: a win to have your dad in your life, especially

1069
00:52:08,440 --> 00:52:11,120
Speaker 1: when it's it's the how to hit children to guy.

1070
00:52:11,120 --> 00:52:14,359
Speaker 3: That makes your issues with like dad abandonment even all

1071
00:52:14,400 --> 00:52:16,560
Speaker 3: the more difficult. Were Yeah, I just want him to

1072
00:52:16,560 --> 00:52:18,440
Speaker 3: love me, but I'm glad he didn't love me. It's

1073
00:52:18,520 --> 00:52:19,200
Speaker 3: very complicated.

1074
00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:23,600
Speaker 1: I want a dad to love me, maybe not this one. Yeah, yeah,

1075
00:52:23,680 --> 00:52:27,440
Speaker 1: I think that's that's very real. So again, he has

1076
00:52:27,480 --> 00:52:30,399
Speaker 1: no child in the cult. And for what I can

1077
00:52:30,480 --> 00:52:34,280
Speaker 1: tell Spriggs is he seems to have kept some contact

1078
00:52:34,320 --> 00:52:36,600
Speaker 1: with his family and his old friends through like the

1079
00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:39,560
Speaker 1: late seventies, but by the close of the decade even

1080
00:52:39,560 --> 00:52:43,600
Speaker 1: his close relatives had started to grow increasingly like concerned

1081
00:52:43,640 --> 00:52:46,200
Speaker 1: with the violent tone that his faith had taken. His

1082
00:52:46,320 --> 00:52:49,000
Speaker 1: sister Joyce talked to the press and reported that, like

1083
00:52:49,360 --> 00:52:51,840
Speaker 1: you know, in the when he in the early seventies,

1084
00:52:51,880 --> 00:52:54,160
Speaker 1: when he starts ministering, when he starts like speaking to

1085
00:52:54,160 --> 00:52:56,640
Speaker 1: people doing these church services, I thought, well, maybe he

1086
00:52:56,719 --> 00:52:59,239
Speaker 1: started to figure his life out. This is like, you know,

1087
00:52:59,360 --> 00:53:02,120
Speaker 1: good for him, probably a positive turn. But by the

1088
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:04,640
Speaker 1: end of the seventies, December of seventy nine, she was like,

1089
00:53:04,680 --> 00:53:07,839
Speaker 1: I think he's gotten very negative. And she mentions this

1090
00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:09,719
Speaker 1: to him. She like goes to Eugene, She's like, I

1091
00:53:09,719 --> 00:53:12,239
Speaker 1: think the stuff you're talking about is like really aggressive

1092
00:53:12,680 --> 00:53:15,719
Speaker 1: and it's kind of scaring me. And he just says,

1093
00:53:15,760 --> 00:53:18,200
Speaker 1: you know, all I'm doing is following the scripture, right, Like,

1094
00:53:18,239 --> 00:53:20,000
Speaker 1: you can't argue with this. You can't argue with me

1095
00:53:20,040 --> 00:53:22,720
Speaker 1: because this is all the Bible. Now. We will talk

1096
00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:25,000
Speaker 1: more about this in part two, but it's worth noting

1097
00:53:25,080 --> 00:53:28,400
Speaker 1: that while the Twelve Tribes's attitude on child abuse is extreme,

1098
00:53:28,920 --> 00:53:32,200
Speaker 1: it does not grow up in isolation. The Jesus Movement

1099
00:53:32,280 --> 00:53:35,399
Speaker 1: started out with serious countercultural elements, but it also fed

1100
00:53:35,440 --> 00:53:37,839
Speaker 1: directly into the birth of the religious right, which helped

1101
00:53:37,880 --> 00:53:40,680
Speaker 1: to unseat Jimmy Carter and became a major engine behind

1102
00:53:40,719 --> 00:53:44,840
Speaker 1: Reaganism and the revived cultural conservatism that followed. When I

1103
00:53:44,920 --> 00:53:47,640
Speaker 1: read about Spriggs's teachings here, I think about a book

1104
00:53:47,719 --> 00:53:50,600
Speaker 1: called To Train Up a Child, which is a nineteen

1105
00:53:50,719 --> 00:53:53,800
Speaker 1: ninety four parenting advice book self published by Mike and

1106
00:53:53,880 --> 00:53:57,160
Speaker 1: Debbie Pearl. If you recall our episodes on the Duggers

1107
00:53:57,200 --> 00:53:59,959
Speaker 1: and the organization behind them. The Institute of Basic Life

1108
00:54:00,080 --> 00:54:03,799
Speaker 1: Principles the IBLP endorses this book. Right to Train Up

1109
00:54:03,800 --> 00:54:08,000
Speaker 1: a Child is common among homeschooling families. It was for

1110
00:54:08,239 --> 00:54:13,680
Speaker 1: years the standard book in the Christian far right about

1111
00:54:13,719 --> 00:54:16,839
Speaker 1: how to raise kids. I have multiple friends who were

1112
00:54:16,880 --> 00:54:19,000
Speaker 1: raised according to its teachings. If you knew any people

1113
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:21,560
Speaker 1: who were like quiverful kids, this book was a presence

1114
00:54:21,600 --> 00:54:24,160
Speaker 1: in their house and childhood. And one of the things, like,

1115
00:54:24,400 --> 00:54:27,120
Speaker 1: among other things, the book says that like you need

1116
00:54:27,160 --> 00:54:29,840
Speaker 1: to kind of as Spriggs taught, you have to be

1117
00:54:29,920 --> 00:54:34,080
Speaker 1: constantly using some form of negative physical reinforcement on your kids.

1118
00:54:34,360 --> 00:54:37,720
Speaker 1: And it includes like sadistic shit like spanking your kids

1119
00:54:37,920 --> 00:54:40,400
Speaker 1: like long enough to break their will. Right. It's not

1120
00:54:40,520 --> 00:54:42,719
Speaker 1: just like I'm not saying this is okay. But it's

1121
00:54:42,719 --> 00:54:45,360
Speaker 1: not just saying like, okay, you know you did a

1122
00:54:45,400 --> 00:54:47,280
Speaker 1: bad thing, so I'm going to, like, you know, spank

1123
00:54:47,320 --> 00:54:49,279
Speaker 1: you five times in the butt or something. It's like

1124
00:54:49,320 --> 00:54:51,680
Speaker 1: you have to spank them until they stop being willful,

1125
00:54:51,800 --> 00:54:52,080
Speaker 1: you know.

1126
00:54:52,400 --> 00:54:54,919
Speaker 3: Right, Well, because there's I mean, it's by no means

1127
00:54:55,040 --> 00:54:56,560
Speaker 3: is this an excuse, But like I know that there

1128
00:54:56,560 --> 00:54:59,719
Speaker 3: were people who who would spank their kids because they

1129
00:54:59,719 --> 00:55:02,160
Speaker 3: thought that that's a thing that they you know, like

1130
00:55:02,160 --> 00:55:03,920
Speaker 3: like like my parents.

1131
00:55:03,600 --> 00:55:06,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty normal practice, yeah, right.

1132
00:55:06,080 --> 00:55:07,440
Speaker 3: That they had to do, but they do it in

1133
00:55:07,520 --> 00:55:09,680
Speaker 3: passing and it was like more of an esthetic and

1134
00:55:09,760 --> 00:55:13,080
Speaker 3: like scary thing. And again this is not a justification

1135
00:55:13,120 --> 00:55:15,600
Speaker 3: of those things, but this idea that you then take

1136
00:55:15,640 --> 00:55:18,359
Speaker 3: that to another level, which is like you do it

1137
00:55:18,440 --> 00:55:22,120
Speaker 3: with will and you do it to like break will

1138
00:55:22,920 --> 00:55:26,520
Speaker 3: is the first one is terrifying. But like that's just

1139
00:55:26,880 --> 00:55:29,960
Speaker 3: it's hard to even wrap fully wrap your head around.

1140
00:55:30,600 --> 00:55:31,520
Speaker 3: It's difficult.

1141
00:55:31,920 --> 00:55:34,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's we'll talk about it more one of

1142
00:55:34,600 --> 00:55:36,279
Speaker 1: these days if you want to hear what we do.

1143
00:55:36,320 --> 00:55:38,680
Speaker 1: Get into more of this in the Dugger episodes. It

1144
00:55:38,760 --> 00:55:40,640
Speaker 1: is worth noting here though. I bring this up to

1145
00:55:40,640 --> 00:55:45,360
Speaker 1: say that, like Gene Spriggs is a trailblazer in child abuse,

1146
00:55:45,640 --> 00:55:48,600
Speaker 1: but he's not a lonely one. Right ideas close to

1147
00:55:48,640 --> 00:55:51,920
Speaker 1: the ones he promulgated are absolutely the norm among the

1148
00:55:51,960 --> 00:55:55,239
Speaker 1: religious right in the United States today. His cult has

1149
00:55:55,280 --> 00:55:59,719
Speaker 1: stayed fringe, but his child beating tactics did not. Anyway,

1150
00:56:00,000 --> 00:56:02,560
Speaker 1: when you build a church around slapping, the absolute shit

1151
00:56:02,600 --> 00:56:05,480
Speaker 1: out of small kids. Eventually someone's going to spot your

1152
00:56:05,480 --> 00:56:08,400
Speaker 1: members slapping the shit out of small children. By nineteen

1153
00:56:08,480 --> 00:56:11,319
Speaker 1: seventy nine, several members had fled and taken stories to

1154
00:56:11,360 --> 00:56:14,719
Speaker 1: local Chattanooga papers. Allegations of abuse based on the fact

1155
00:56:14,719 --> 00:56:17,839
Speaker 1: that cult members absolutely were hitting kids had also gone

1156
00:56:17,880 --> 00:56:21,160
Speaker 1: the old timey equivalent of viral. This problem followed the

1157
00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:23,799
Speaker 1: branch of the church, two hundred members strong, that had

1158
00:56:23,840 --> 00:56:27,640
Speaker 1: moved to Vermont. By all accounts, Spriggs maintained tight control

1159
00:56:27,760 --> 00:56:30,360
Speaker 1: of this breakaway segment, not breakaway, but of this like

1160
00:56:31,200 --> 00:56:34,560
Speaker 1: expansion of his church, writing regular letters to David Jones

1161
00:56:34,640 --> 00:56:37,440
Speaker 1: encouraging him to ensure that children on the new properties

1162
00:56:37,600 --> 00:56:40,960
Speaker 1: were being beaten often enough. Quote, if one is overly

1163
00:56:41,000 --> 00:56:43,560
Speaker 1: concerned about his son receiving blue marks, you know that

1164
00:56:43,600 --> 00:56:46,120
Speaker 1: he hates his son and hates the word of God.

1165
00:56:47,239 --> 00:56:50,520
Speaker 1: Blue marks are Spriggs's turn for bruises, and he speaks

1166
00:56:50,520 --> 00:56:52,400
Speaker 1: of them as a positive thing. Right, Like, you're not

1167
00:56:52,520 --> 00:56:54,920
Speaker 1: being a good parent if your kids don't have blue marks.

1168
00:56:55,160 --> 00:56:57,879
Speaker 1: If you're not bruising them, you're not doing it hard enough, right,

1169
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:00,359
Speaker 1: That's what he's saying here. He's just being a little

1170
00:57:00,360 --> 00:57:03,279
Speaker 1: bit more kind of biblical whimsy about it. This is

1171
00:57:03,320 --> 00:57:06,799
Speaker 1: a frequent euphemism used by church leadership. A reporter for

1172
00:57:06,840 --> 00:57:09,799
Speaker 1: Pacific Standard magazine writes more on this topic based on

1173
00:57:09,880 --> 00:57:13,360
Speaker 1: interviews with former church members. I remember constant Weltz on

1174
00:57:13,400 --> 00:57:15,600
Speaker 1: my hands, thighs and butt. A woman who was raised

1175
00:57:15,640 --> 00:57:18,200
Speaker 1: and the tribes told me. Children are expected to obey

1176
00:57:18,240 --> 00:57:21,080
Speaker 1: on the first command without talking back or complaining. They

1177
00:57:21,080 --> 00:57:23,320
Speaker 1: are not allowed toys or bikes, and cannot engage in

1178
00:57:23,400 --> 00:57:26,360
Speaker 1: fantasy play. They read only the Bible in the group's dogma.

1179
00:57:26,560 --> 00:57:28,920
Speaker 1: The former members I spoke to claimed most children were

1180
00:57:28,920 --> 00:57:31,920
Speaker 1: beaten multiple times a day for transgressions as an ocuus

1181
00:57:31,960 --> 00:57:34,200
Speaker 1: as forgetting to raise their hands at the dinner table,

1182
00:57:34,280 --> 00:57:37,920
Speaker 1: and dissipation, the group's term for horse play. Responding to

1183
00:57:37,960 --> 00:57:41,440
Speaker 1: these descriptions, a current leader of their California communities, Wade Skinner,

1184
00:57:41,680 --> 00:57:44,680
Speaker 1: echoed the brochure I read in Blue Blinds. That wouldn't

1185
00:57:44,720 --> 00:57:46,400
Speaker 1: be how we portray our life, he said, But we

1186
00:57:46,440 --> 00:57:48,240
Speaker 1: do believe that if you love your child, you will

1187
00:57:48,280 --> 00:57:50,520
Speaker 1: be diligent to discipline them, and if you hate them,

1188
00:57:50,640 --> 00:57:55,440
Speaker 1: you will withhold the rod. Cool guys love to see it.

1189
00:57:57,080 --> 00:57:59,760
Speaker 1: The first serious trouble for the Twelve Tribes started in

1190
00:57:59,760 --> 00:58:02,520
Speaker 1: from in nineteen eighty three, when an elder named Eddie

1191
00:58:02,520 --> 00:58:06,360
Speaker 1: Wiseman whipped a child named Darlyn with a balloon stick

1192
00:58:06,360 --> 00:58:08,920
Speaker 1: from her shoulders to her ankles for kissing a boy.

1193
00:58:09,320 --> 00:58:11,960
Speaker 1: Darlin was thirteen years old, and he whips her badly

1194
00:58:12,040 --> 00:58:13,280
Speaker 1: enough that she's like bleeding.

1195
00:58:13,560 --> 00:58:15,320
Speaker 3: Do you know where in Vermont they landed?

1196
00:58:15,720 --> 00:58:15,840
Speaker 2: Oh?

1197
00:58:15,920 --> 00:58:18,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, we read the town name out a little earlier.

1198
00:58:18,600 --> 00:58:20,040
Speaker 1: I don't have it right in front of me here.

1199
00:58:20,360 --> 00:58:22,520
Speaker 3: I think it's I think it's Barton, which is like

1200
00:58:22,560 --> 00:58:25,800
Speaker 3: a wild it's like a still still, like a wild

1201
00:58:25,880 --> 00:58:27,240
Speaker 3: West town in Vermont.

1202
00:58:27,800 --> 00:58:30,120
Speaker 1: That one not Yeah, I I We've got it up there.

1203
00:58:30,120 --> 00:58:31,040
Speaker 1: We read it out earlier.

1204
00:58:31,040 --> 00:58:34,160
Speaker 2: People pond is it is it Island Pond, Vermont.

1205
00:58:34,560 --> 00:58:35,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's Island.

1206
00:58:35,640 --> 00:58:37,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's that area. Yeah, it's like a pretty

1207
00:58:37,960 --> 00:58:39,760
Speaker 3: I don't know you're familiarity. I lived.

1208
00:58:40,040 --> 00:58:41,480
Speaker 1: I know very little about Vermont.

1209
00:58:41,560 --> 00:58:44,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is like people think of Vermont like it's

1210
00:58:44,400 --> 00:58:45,920
Speaker 3: kind of like the hippies thing. It's like they think

1211
00:58:45,920 --> 00:58:48,400
Speaker 3: of it like Burlington and hippies, and it's like yeah, no,

1212
00:58:48,560 --> 00:58:51,160
Speaker 3: it's like some of it is like libertarian wasteland.

1213
00:58:51,840 --> 00:58:54,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had definitely. We'll talk about Vermont and New

1214
00:58:54,840 --> 00:58:56,920
Speaker 1: Hampshire Libertarians more in one of these days. There's some

1215
00:58:56,960 --> 00:58:58,720
Speaker 1: fun stories up there that involve bears.

1216
00:58:58,880 --> 00:59:00,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's where I'm from. So I love it, I

1217
00:59:00,880 --> 00:59:03,200
Speaker 3: know it, and I love it in yeah.

1218
00:59:03,240 --> 00:59:07,560
Speaker 1: So yeah. Her father sees Darlin bleeding from the back

1219
00:59:07,600 --> 00:59:10,320
Speaker 1: after this whipping and he's outraged, so he reports Wiseman

1220
00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:13,840
Speaker 1: to the authorities, who charge Wiseman with simple assault. But

1221
00:59:14,000 --> 00:59:19,040
Speaker 1: then something happens and her father drops the case. He claims, actually,

1222
00:59:19,040 --> 00:59:21,680
Speaker 1: it wasn't that bad. I was pressured by anti cult

1223
00:59:21,760 --> 00:59:27,240
Speaker 1: activists to exaggerate the abuse, so probably a very unpleasant

1224
00:59:27,280 --> 00:59:31,200
Speaker 1: story behind that. Authorities continue to investigate, in part because

1225
00:59:31,240 --> 00:59:35,280
Speaker 1: the Twelve Tribes had already been attracting concern for a while. Now.

1226
00:59:35,480 --> 00:59:39,040
Speaker 1: Investigating this cult is a really difficult job. The children

1227
00:59:39,040 --> 00:59:41,560
Speaker 1: who were believed to be victims were homeschooled, so they're

1228
00:59:41,560 --> 00:59:45,120
Speaker 1: not ever in front of teachers. They avoid modern medical care,

1229
00:59:45,240 --> 00:59:47,400
Speaker 1: so they're not ever in front of doctors. They very

1230
00:59:47,480 --> 00:59:50,880
Speaker 1: rarely leave cult property, which makes it pretty much impossible

1231
00:59:50,920 --> 00:59:54,000
Speaker 1: to build a case. Right. You can't get a warrant

1232
00:59:54,040 --> 00:59:56,600
Speaker 1: when you don't know the number of children or their

1233
00:59:56,720 --> 00:59:59,120
Speaker 1: names when you're just like, there's children there and we

1234
00:59:59,120 --> 01:00:01,480
Speaker 1: think they're being a Like, that's that's a tough legal

1235
01:00:01,680 --> 01:00:04,120
Speaker 1: situation to be in if you're if you're the people

1236
01:00:04,160 --> 01:00:06,360
Speaker 1: trying to like do something about this, right like they

1237
01:00:06,680 --> 01:00:09,240
Speaker 1: because you have a lot of rights obviously, especially on

1238
01:00:09,240 --> 01:00:12,320
Speaker 1: your own property. And yeah, it's it's tough, Like the

1239
01:00:12,640 --> 01:00:15,520
Speaker 1: actual like how to how to break into a situation

1240
01:00:15,640 --> 01:00:18,400
Speaker 1: like this is incredibly difficult when they have so successfully

1241
01:00:18,400 --> 01:00:22,720
Speaker 1: created an alternate world for themselves. It's it's rough.

1242
01:00:23,040 --> 01:00:25,280
Speaker 3: I never I never thought of that. That. Like one

1243
01:00:25,360 --> 01:00:30,560
Speaker 3: of the benefits quote heavy quote benefits of absolute sort

1244
01:00:30,560 --> 01:00:35,200
Speaker 3: of separatism is it makes it legally difficult to intervene

1245
01:00:36,080 --> 01:00:38,400
Speaker 3: because there's not the data that you need in order

1246
01:00:38,440 --> 01:00:39,200
Speaker 3: to create a case.

1247
01:00:39,600 --> 01:00:41,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fucked up, and it's going to be a

1248
01:00:41,520 --> 01:00:43,440
Speaker 1: real problem in this case. So what they decide to

1249
01:00:43,440 --> 01:00:45,520
Speaker 1: do with the authorities decided to do here is to

1250
01:00:45,560 --> 01:00:50,520
Speaker 1: summon seven cult leaders, including David Jones, to give basic

1251
01:00:50,560 --> 01:00:53,200
Speaker 1: information to the state on how many children live on

1252
01:00:53,240 --> 01:00:55,960
Speaker 1: the properties and what their names are. Jones and his

1253
01:00:56,000 --> 01:00:58,959
Speaker 1: family refuse to do this. They are jailed, but they're

1254
01:00:58,960 --> 01:01:02,080
Speaker 1: released in short orders three days later, though, an army

1255
01:01:02,120 --> 01:01:05,120
Speaker 1: of state troopers and social workers raids the Twelve Tribes's

1256
01:01:05,160 --> 01:01:07,920
Speaker 1: property with a mandate to do whatever is necessary to

1257
01:01:07,960 --> 01:01:10,200
Speaker 1: figure out how many kids are there and who they are.

1258
01:01:10,840 --> 01:01:14,080
Speaker 1: They find one hundred and twelve miners and they take

1259
01:01:14,120 --> 01:01:17,720
Speaker 1: them all away. It looks, you know, initially, as if

1260
01:01:17,840 --> 01:01:20,400
Speaker 1: maybe the authorities are going to do something to put

1261
01:01:20,400 --> 01:01:23,000
Speaker 1: an end to this. That is not what happened. While

1262
01:01:23,040 --> 01:01:26,120
Speaker 1: the parents of these kids wait nearby, prosecutors failed to

1263
01:01:26,160 --> 01:01:28,640
Speaker 1: get a court order to examine the children for signs

1264
01:01:28,640 --> 01:01:31,480
Speaker 1: of abuse. The district judge in this case complains that

1265
01:01:31,520 --> 01:01:34,000
Speaker 1: their warrant is too broad, in part because it does

1266
01:01:34,040 --> 01:01:36,680
Speaker 1: not name the children they want to search. All one

1267
01:01:36,760 --> 01:01:40,040
Speaker 1: hundred and twelve miners are ordered released in very short order,

1268
01:01:40,120 --> 01:01:43,120
Speaker 1: back to the waiting rods of their parents. David Jones

1269
01:01:43,160 --> 01:01:44,880
Speaker 1: gloated that this had all been the result of an

1270
01:01:44,960 --> 01:01:48,680
Speaker 1: unhinged small town mentality, claiming the furor had come to

1271
01:01:48,760 --> 01:01:51,320
Speaker 1: a head like a boil with no puss, which is

1272
01:01:51,320 --> 01:01:54,560
Speaker 1: a weird way to describe being, in his eyes, exonerated

1273
01:01:54,600 --> 01:01:56,760
Speaker 1: for child abuse. Like, yeah, we're just like one of

1274
01:01:56,800 --> 01:02:00,760
Speaker 1: those pusless boils. Yeah, Like what an odd what an

1275
01:02:00,800 --> 01:02:05,520
Speaker 1: odd turn of phrase. June twenty second the day the

1276
01:02:05,600 --> 01:02:08,200
Speaker 1: oil that you want, Yeah, yeah, where the boil you

1277
01:02:08,240 --> 01:02:10,240
Speaker 1: want to have? There's not a yeah, it's plus less.

1278
01:02:11,720 --> 01:02:14,360
Speaker 1: June twenty second is the day that the raid gets aborted,

1279
01:02:14,760 --> 01:02:17,840
Speaker 1: and this becomes the first religious holiday that the Twelfth

1280
01:02:17,880 --> 01:02:20,320
Speaker 1: tribes celebrate all to themselves. They start calling it the

1281
01:02:20,400 --> 01:02:24,280
Speaker 1: day of Deliverance. They'll do passover style meals right like

1282
01:02:24,440 --> 01:02:26,160
Speaker 1: they call it. They kind of make it into their

1283
01:02:26,200 --> 01:02:29,520
Speaker 1: passover right because it's the day that God miraculously extended

1284
01:02:29,560 --> 01:02:32,880
Speaker 1: his protection to them against the grasping hands of the state.

1285
01:02:33,520 --> 01:02:36,200
Speaker 1: Jene sprigs after this will only grow more convinced of

1286
01:02:36,240 --> 01:02:39,600
Speaker 1: the wisdom of his separation from society. Another thing that

1287
01:02:39,640 --> 01:02:41,680
Speaker 1: plays into this is what's happening at the same time

1288
01:02:41,720 --> 01:02:44,240
Speaker 1: as the AIDS crisis right is starting to kick off.

1289
01:02:44,640 --> 01:02:47,280
Speaker 1: This convinces him both that like of this kind of

1290
01:02:47,320 --> 01:02:50,320
Speaker 1: fallen nature of the modern world, that the only thing

1291
01:02:50,360 --> 01:02:52,560
Speaker 1: to do is separation, and it also convinces him that

1292
01:02:52,600 --> 01:02:56,120
Speaker 1: God's justice is being delivered against the unrighteous, even as

1293
01:02:56,160 --> 01:02:59,880
Speaker 1: his hand shields believers. He writes, at this time, when

1294
01:03:00,120 --> 01:03:02,480
Speaker 1: rental authority is rebelled against it opens the door to

1295
01:03:02,480 --> 01:03:05,880
Speaker 1: come against all constituted authority, honoring those who are over you,

1296
01:03:05,920 --> 01:03:09,280
Speaker 1: those who are honorable, especially parents. Releases a special hormone

1297
01:03:09,320 --> 01:03:12,320
Speaker 1: from your brain permeating your body that gives long life.

1298
01:03:12,560 --> 01:03:14,920
Speaker 1: If you don't do this, that hormone dries up and

1299
01:03:14,960 --> 01:03:18,200
Speaker 1: your bones dry up. The disobedient don't live long. The

1300
01:03:18,240 --> 01:03:21,160
Speaker 1: lifespan of a homosexual is about forty years. That's not

1301
01:03:21,240 --> 01:03:24,440
Speaker 1: because of aids. They die of a bad conscience, and

1302
01:03:24,520 --> 01:03:27,240
Speaker 1: like that's evil it is. I have to say, the

1303
01:03:27,320 --> 01:03:30,720
Speaker 1: idea that like obeying your parents releases a hormone that

1304
01:03:30,760 --> 01:03:33,200
Speaker 1: you die without is a pretty fun bit of pseudo

1305
01:03:33,280 --> 01:03:36,480
Speaker 1: science for a cult leader. That's a good one.

1306
01:03:36,520 --> 01:03:39,960
Speaker 3: Several people who's whose moms told them that if they like,

1307
01:03:40,120 --> 01:03:43,040
Speaker 3: if they you know, if they like cut their own

1308
01:03:43,120 --> 01:03:45,480
Speaker 3: hair or war makeup or whatever, it would like give

1309
01:03:45,520 --> 01:03:48,160
Speaker 3: them cancer leader in life. Yeah yeah, so I feel

1310
01:03:48,160 --> 01:03:51,640
Speaker 3: like that that that's a very common bit of parenting

1311
01:03:51,680 --> 01:03:54,560
Speaker 3: psychological warfare that they took to a whole other level.

1312
01:03:54,680 --> 01:04:00,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, quite a new Yeah, a fancy an impressed

1313
01:04:00,080 --> 01:04:03,880
Speaker 1: of level. Yeah. So that's going to be all of

1314
01:04:03,920 --> 01:04:06,840
Speaker 1: it for part one. Here we we how do you

1315
01:04:06,840 --> 01:04:08,120
Speaker 1: feel in here? How we do an alex.

1316
01:04:10,600 --> 01:04:16,400
Speaker 3: That's dark man, it's a yeah, it's a I feel

1317
01:04:16,640 --> 01:04:19,120
Speaker 3: I feel heavy with darkness, and I hope that things

1318
01:04:19,160 --> 01:04:21,680
Speaker 3: go awry, but I bet that they won't. It seems

1319
01:04:21,680 --> 01:04:23,520
Speaker 3: like these are people who have staying power.

1320
01:04:24,080 --> 01:04:28,440
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, speaking of staying power, you got any pluggables

1321
01:04:28,480 --> 01:04:28,880
Speaker 1: to plug?

1322
01:04:30,040 --> 01:04:32,960
Speaker 3: I would just love people to listen to. You Are Good,

1323
01:04:32,960 --> 01:04:36,400
Speaker 3: a feelings podcast about movies where we talk about uh

1324
01:04:36,880 --> 01:04:40,640
Speaker 3: feelings and therapy related things by talking about pop culture

1325
01:04:40,640 --> 01:04:42,200
Speaker 3: because it's too scary to do head on.

1326
01:04:42,960 --> 01:04:47,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, very scary. You can find me at cooler Zone

1327
01:04:47,320 --> 01:04:50,280
Speaker 1: Media where you can get this podcast without ads. So

1328
01:04:50,960 --> 01:04:54,320
Speaker 1: do that and uh go to hell. I love you

1329
01:04:55,760 --> 01:04:56,120
Speaker 1: Take it.

1330
01:05:01,400 --> 01:05:04,120
Speaker 2: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1331
01:05:04,480 --> 01:05:07,760
Speaker 2: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia

1332
01:05:07,920 --> 01:05:11,120
Speaker 2: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1333
01:05:11,200 --> 01:05:13,560
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.