Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noah.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
Speaker 3: our super producer Andrew the try Force Howard. Most importantly,
Speaker 3: you are you. You are here. That makes this the
Speaker 3: stuff they don't want you to know. Previously, on Stuff
Speaker 3: they don't want you to know, you had a bunch
Speaker 3: of leos digging into astrology. True story, folks, we just
Speaker 3: learned that our producer and one of our hosts share
Speaker 3: a birthday.
Speaker 4: What does it mean?
Speaker 3: What does it mean.
Speaker 2: That that's a really good day to be born on?
Speaker 4: Your shots are aligned?
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, we consulted our constellations. Some of our astute
Speaker 3: listeners may have predicted that we would return to the
Speaker 3: concept of astrology and government.
Speaker 4: Folks.
Speaker 3: Please check out our first episode.
Speaker 4: We had a.
Speaker 3: I think we had a pretty good exploration of the
Speaker 3: nation of Meammar, which, in a plot twist, according to
Speaker 3: the advice of soothsayers, decided to move their capital to
Speaker 3: a place that was like three hundred clicks north and
Speaker 3: hadn't been built. And we also just had a great
Speaker 3: interview about me and Mar following up on another episode we.
Speaker 2: Did by the spoiler alert if you haven't listened to
Speaker 2: the first episode yet, they moved that capital and then
Speaker 2: there was a devastating storm that rolled through right in
Speaker 2: the area a couple of years later, which is you know,
Speaker 2: it can either it can lead you towards a lot
Speaker 2: like the way a strology in general can towards believing
Speaker 2: that it had full merit right right, Yeah, we move
Speaker 2: our capital, say the generals of Memmr.
Speaker 3: We move it north to avoid a disaster in two
Speaker 3: thousand and five two thousand and eight cyclone hits. So
Speaker 3: have we predicted the future or was that statistically inevitable?
Speaker 3: Please do check out our exploration of Meammar with Denise
Speaker 3: Chan from Scam Factory. Check out our earlier episodes on
Speaker 3: astrology in the government. And by the way, we did
Speaker 3: a little bit of a cliffhanger in our last episode
Speaker 3: because we're talking about a place that a lot of
Speaker 3: people in the audience have not visited. But Noel Matt
Speaker 3: as we teased earlier in chapter one astrology, and the
Speaker 3: government gets a little bit closer to home than a
Speaker 3: lot of people would assume.
Speaker 2: Wait, you're talking about in these United States.
Speaker 5: Sixteen hundred Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: No, hey, think on that. We'll be right back after
Speaker 2: a few words from our sponsors.
Speaker 3: Here are the facts in the first chapter of our
Speaker 3: exploration regarding astrology in the government. We spent a lot
Speaker 3: of time on a brief history of astrology. Right, it's
Speaker 3: a type of divination. We did what I think is
Speaker 3: a pretty fun experiment with another type of divination, bibliomancy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's where you open a book to a random page,
Speaker 2: pick out a passage, and that passage is going to
Speaker 2: somehow apply to whatever question you asked or situation you're
Speaker 2: currently in. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it was full disclosure. It was easier for
Speaker 3: us to do that versus other forms of divination like
Speaker 3: reading introls.
Speaker 4: Or reading leaves. Yeah, yeah, tea leaves as well.
Speaker 2: Yes, we are actively scrying every time we record one
Speaker 2: of these episodes.
Speaker 4: Coffee spills, you know that'll also do it.
Speaker 6: Also the thing, yes, well, we're being silly, but we
Speaker 6: really as we've mentioned before, and not to backpedal or anything,
Speaker 6: we're not here to criticize anyone who really, you know,
Speaker 6: put sand into this stuff, and there are many folks
Speaker 6: that very much do. I look at it as another
Speaker 6: form of faith, another form of religion in many ways.
Speaker 6: So I don't think we're here to poopoo anybody's belief,
Speaker 6: make anybody feel dumb in any form or fashion.
Speaker 4: We're just being silly guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we all enjoy Gallows humor, especially here
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty five, and we were exploring some key
Speaker 3: facts about astrology overall.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: We talked about how Western astrology is likely statistically the
Speaker 3: most familiar to many of us in the audience tonight,
Speaker 3: but there are varied other forms of astrological beliefs. Mesoamerican
Speaker 3: Asiatic civilizations all created their own systems. For instance, you
Speaker 3: guys are probably if I had to guess, you're probably
Speaker 3: roosters in Chinese horoscopes.
Speaker 2: I believe I'm a rat.
Speaker 4: You're a rat, a fire rat, or a metal rat
Speaker 4: or the other.
Speaker 2: Electric Hey, I love that Hyseillo have to put the yellow.
Speaker 4: Yellow elect me nice?
Speaker 3: Noel, do you have one? Do you know your Chinese horoscope?
Speaker 4: I do not. I think you know. I think I'm
Speaker 4: a rat. I do believe that I am a rat.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, I.
Speaker 6: Could be wrong, though, I could be wrong, but I
Speaker 6: think that I am a metal rat.
Speaker 4: Tight.
Speaker 3: That's a weird response. But yes, I don't know.
Speaker 6: Metal rat sounds kind of scary, like some sort of
Speaker 6: like robo rat that comes for you.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: We also found that people leverage astrology for different reasons. Right,
Speaker 3: In most casual horoscopes you encounter today, you will see
Speaker 3: less of an emphasis on predicting the future. Instead, you'll see,
Speaker 3: like you were saying earlier, a sort of diagnostic tool
Speaker 3: for psychology. Right, tell me more about why I make decisions?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: Is this so sagittarius of me?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: Is this so virgo?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 3: It's it's not attempting to uh tell you what to
Speaker 3: do with an empire. It's attempting to teach you more
Speaker 3: about yourself.
Speaker 2: Mouser, that's the that's the name Mouser. Do you guys
Speaker 2: remember that from teenage m I was thinking there was
Speaker 2: a metal rat.
Speaker 4: He like sort of like a bizarro splinter.
Speaker 6: Isn't he sort of meant to be like the antithesis
Speaker 6: to like evil splinter?
Speaker 2: I thought they were just a little tiny.
Speaker 4: The little guys.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, under we're keeping all of chomping jaws.
Speaker 4: Don't they have chompy jaws? They have jaws? Do they
Speaker 4: got chompies? Okay, thank you for that nostalgia. Bam, Matt,
Speaker 4: I appreciate it very much.
Speaker 3: Important, important, Uh, this is why we're here together tonight. Third,
Speaker 3: we have to emphasize there is no universally accepted scientific
Speaker 3: basis supporting the claims of astrology. And that's a bummer
Speaker 3: for a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Right, Oh, yeah, pretty big bummer. But you know what else,
Speaker 2: that's why it gets into the belief system thing. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Even though modern science does not assign any quantitative truth
Speaker 3: to astrology, a lot of people practice it, right, And
Speaker 3: it is, in the opinion of this show, a matter
Speaker 3: of belief or a matter of faith. You may have
Speaker 3: read your own horoscope as you tuned in tonight. If so, congratulations,
Speaker 3: We hope it was a good one. And I think
Speaker 3: in our previous episode we talked a little bit about this,
Speaker 3: like they're not really bad news horoscopes in the West, right, No.
Speaker 4: Just like there aren't really bad news fortune cookies.
Speaker 3: Usually I got one fortune cookie true story, one time
Speaker 3: that said turn around.
Speaker 4: What was someone there?
Speaker 3: Yes, and they say boo, they actually they actually put
Speaker 3: the fortune cookie there. It was a weird situation.
Speaker 6: Oh that makes sense. That tracks Ye, I've never had
Speaker 6: a sinister fortune cookie before. But yeah, I mean, you know, again,
Speaker 6: these things are meant to be super accessible, at least
Speaker 6: the ones that are way more editorialized and like published
Speaker 6: and more universally kind of read magazines and periodicals and stuff.
Speaker 6: But as we mentioned in the last episode, if you
Speaker 6: really go out for the more specific and complex types
Speaker 6: of astrological readings, then you know you were going to get.
Speaker 6: Your results may vary, right, You're not necessarily always going
Speaker 6: to get some sort of like life affirming thumbs up.
Speaker 2: So I guys it in my world, which is highly
Speaker 2: limited right when it comes to my perspective and experience,
Speaker 2: astrology has been a lot on the fringes that maybe
Speaker 2: that has a lot to do with where I grew up,
Speaker 2: you know, who my parents were, geographically where I am
Speaker 2: in all that stuff. Astrology was like a thing that
Speaker 2: I didn't encounter very often, especially growing up. Not until
Speaker 2: I got older did I see it more. I do
Speaker 2: not encounter it a lot when it comes to maybe
Speaker 2: the people who are in charge in the systems and
Speaker 2: organizations I interact with on a regular basis, at least
Speaker 2: I don't they aren't openly talking about it, the people
Speaker 2: that run those things. Maybe it just doesn't feel like
Speaker 2: something that I associate with a boss or something like that.
Speaker 2: Do you guys have that same I don't know experience.
Speaker 6: Oh, you mean sort of like in more day to
Speaker 6: day leadership roles. Folks that put a lot of stock
Speaker 6: into this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a principal at a school or a I don't know,
Speaker 2: an owner operator of a local store, or the CEO
Speaker 2: of a company.
Speaker 6: Well, was to say, they're not into it privately, but
Speaker 6: our culture definitely, you know, in those types of roles
Speaker 6: would not be something that folks would maybe make super known, right.
Speaker 3: Especially in a increasingly secular Western civilization. You know, there
Speaker 3: are largely dismissive scientific attitudes toward belief systems of astrology.
Speaker 3: So it's easy to that point to assume our vaunted
Speaker 3: leaders of modern society, our nascent nations, would be likewise
Speaker 3: dismissive of these ideas.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: The science says hello, so we say goodbye to the religion. However,
Speaker 3: as we learn in our earlier episode and the current episode,
Speaker 3: this assumption could not be further from the truth. Here's
Speaker 3: where it gets crazy. Astrology the White House. What's your sign,
Speaker 3: mister president. Statistically, your dude, and statistically you're also an aquarius. Weird.
Speaker 3: You also have a tendency higher than average to be
Speaker 3: left handed. We're going to leave that that they are
Speaker 3: tune into ridiculous history. It is no secret that the
Speaker 3: founding fathers of the United States considered themselves learned men.
Speaker 3: They had a deep appreciation of science as they understood
Speaker 3: it at the time. Also to be objective. Beat me here, Andrew.
Speaker 3: They were super wrong about a bunch of shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you can imagine why someone who is running
Speaker 2: such an intricate and complicated system as a country, you
Speaker 2: would want to be science first, at least in some respect.
Speaker 2: You want to have an understanding of the sciences that
Speaker 2: govern a lot of the stuff, the choices you're making, Right,
Speaker 2: it does seem weird that you might consult something that
Speaker 2: is the stars to make decisions, does it though?
Speaker 3: Because the stars are constant, you can you know, we
Speaker 3: referenced fivel earlier, right, You.
Speaker 4: Can share experience for sure.
Speaker 3: Right, you can look up and you can see the
Speaker 3: same thing pauper prints alike. There is a passage predictable
Speaker 3: to the heavens well.
Speaker 6: And the beautiful part about that in terms of what
Speaker 6: a functional you know, use of the stars might be
Speaker 6: to this day, it's still a way you can find
Speaker 6: your your literal north star if you're like lost in
Speaker 6: the woods and you can get pointed in the right direction.
Speaker 6: And I think that's universally accepted as a way of
Speaker 6: using the stars for navigation purposes for example, even though
Speaker 6: of course we have you know, technology for that kind
Speaker 6: of stuff now, it's still a good go to if
Speaker 6: you don't have those things. But when you start to
Speaker 6: impart meaning beyond just geographical positioning, you know, into the stars,
Speaker 6: it does start to feel like that is maybe looked
Speaker 6: at more askance these days.
Speaker 2: I think it's because we're so programmed and primed to
Speaker 2: imagine the president of the United States as consulting God. Right,
Speaker 2: even though it is a secular nation, right, there is
Speaker 2: no one God and there's no one religion for this nation,
Speaker 2: we still watch each president who gets indocurated to put
Speaker 2: their hand on a Christian Bible. Right, we still hear
Speaker 2: them give speeches and announcements where they reference God directly,
Speaker 2: and we sing songs about the nation directly tied to
Speaker 2: g dash T. And it's just when then you imagine
Speaker 2: astrology is something othered from I don't know some of
Speaker 2: the dogmatic beliefs those religions.
Speaker 4: I don't know if I even buy that.
Speaker 6: A lot of politicians that are very forward with that
Speaker 6: kind of stuff are maybe even true believers. It seems
Speaker 6: like they're just trying to appeal to a particular voting base.
Speaker 4: Yeah, most of the time.
Speaker 6: And the and astrology maybe would be on the table
Speaker 6: too if it were practiced and accepted by a larger
Speaker 6: swath of Americans.
Speaker 4: Mhm.
Speaker 3: That's so leo of you.
Speaker 6: From a standpoint of rhetoric and like campaigning and stuff,
Speaker 6: I think any belief system that was used, then accepted
Speaker 6: and believed in widely enough would be something that would
Speaker 6: have to be addressed by politicians to make sure that
Speaker 6: they're not aliening people and they're making people feel seen,
Speaker 6: if not outright claiming that belief system for themselves.
Speaker 4: Look.
Speaker 3: Yeah, A great case study here, and I don't want
Speaker 3: to ruffle feathers, would be the LDS Church in Utah.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean that that is a case
Speaker 3: study in how a politician will attempt to move with
Speaker 3: a demographic in public democracy representative democracy. It's crucial to
Speaker 3: remember when we're talking about the Founding Fathers, their perceptions
Speaker 3: of science were very much the result of the environment
Speaker 3: and the age in which they lived. So a lot
Speaker 3: of the stuff that they super hardcore, fundamentally believed it
Speaker 3: no matter what they were saying to the public. A
Speaker 3: lot of what they can considered hard science was later
Speaker 3: proven to be partially or entirely incorrect. Some notable examples
Speaker 3: in this Hall of shame or this hall of learning opportunities,
Speaker 3: if we want to be positive, would be anything regarding
Speaker 3: eugenics or racial theory. A lot of phrenology fans amid
Speaker 3: the Founding Fathers super wrong and dumb.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a lot of members of the Free and
Speaker 2: Accepted Masons, right which have That group has their own
Speaker 2: set of symbols and in seat of beliefs and ideas
Speaker 2: and at which they.
Speaker 4: Have made it into currency.
Speaker 3: Even you know, I mean shout out my boy herme's tea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well some of them extend to the stars exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very much a great architect. All human minds, we
Speaker 3: can say, do enjoy the idea of a great creator, right,
Speaker 3: some sort of structure, some sort of guy force, because
Speaker 3: the alternative is simply damning philosophically, that no one would
Speaker 3: be at the wheel, that all of this occurred via accident.
Speaker 3: That's a scary thought. So of course people look toward pattern,
Speaker 3: people look toward meaning. With all this in mind, it
Speaker 3: should not be surprising to realize many former US politicians
Speaker 3: placed at least some amount of credence in the ancient
Speaker 3: science slash spiritual exploration of divination and astrology. You guy's
Speaker 3: true story, Our buddy, Benjamin Franklin, you remember him from earlier.
Speaker 3: Definitely not a serial killer, Yeah, most most.
Speaker 4: Likely, most likely some experience.
Speaker 3: Good note, No, not proven serial killer. He relied on
Speaker 3: astrology to select the signing date of the Declaration of Independence,
Speaker 3: which was you know, it's a piece of paper the
Speaker 3: US has and was a pretty big deal up until recently.
Speaker 2: Because now we're dependent. Oh never mind. Yeah, the the
Speaker 2: recent actions are well in a line with our actions.
Speaker 2: Did anybody see that little quotation?
Speaker 4: Every action he gets an equal and opposite reaction. Now, sure,
Speaker 4: that's us.
Speaker 2: If you don't know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3: Search shout out article five. Oh gosh, buddy, look our
Speaker 3: buddy bed Despite not being a proven serial killer, check
Speaker 3: out our earlier episode. He's a fascinating sort of weird dude.
Speaker 3: He adhered to astrology, and it might sound crazy until
Speaker 3: we realized that he published a best selling book, Poor
Speaker 3: Richard's Almanac. Remember that one. Were you guys there.
Speaker 4: There?
Speaker 6: I was there, Yeah at the first can show Sorry
Speaker 6: if I'm doing a losing my edge thing, No, but
Speaker 6: I do.
Speaker 3: I've heard Tell, heard tell, uh herd tell. Poor Richard's
Speaker 3: Almanac is this approachable sort of like Uncle John's Bathroom
Speaker 3: Guide to the Seasons of the United States, And it
Speaker 3: follows in great deal, you know, the passage of harvest
Speaker 3: and planting and fallow times, and then it also tells
Speaker 3: you a lot about the North Star and predictions of
Speaker 3: the heavens. Ben Franklin, in addition to be a pretty
Speaker 3: naughty boy and a libertine and a renaissance man, he
Speaker 3: was super into astrology. He thought it made sense, and
Speaker 3: he even disc is Isaac Newton from earlier in Poor
Speaker 3: Richard's Almanac. Can we go to Who's got a good
Speaker 3: Ben Franklin voice. I'm too close to it.
Speaker 2: No, come on, you've got to do it, you know you, No,
Speaker 2: you gotta do it.
Speaker 3: You gotta one of you guys.
Speaker 4: I refuse Maddie, you're the voice master. Come on, give it.
Speaker 4: Here we go, all right, This.
Speaker 3: Is poor Richard's almanac, Ben Franklin's defense of astrology Curt
Speaker 3: hist Rader.
Speaker 2: Astrology is one of the most ancient sciences, held in
Speaker 2: high esteem of old by the wise and great. Formerly,
Speaker 2: no prince would make war peace, nor any general fight
Speaker 2: or battle. In short, no important affair was taken without
Speaker 2: first consulting an astrology who examined the aspects and configurations
Speaker 2: of the heavenly bodies and market the lucky hour. Now
Speaker 2: the noble art machhae to the age we live in
Speaker 2: is dwindled into contempt.
Speaker 4: Perfect. Wow, that was great, well done, sir.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Now let's unpact this. What we're seeing here is
Speaker 3: a founding father Ben Franklin, presented by our brother Matt Frederick,
Speaker 3: saying essentially that he considers astrology one of the oldest
Speaker 3: actual sciences, actual fact science, as our pal Lauren would say.
Speaker 3: And he is also acknowledging that a lot of more
Speaker 3: secular people don't vibe with.
Speaker 4: It, not a bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but Manajamin Franklin, this guy is massively important. He
Speaker 2: started the CIA, just kidding. He was just a founding member.
Speaker 2: As we talked about.
Speaker 4: He was definitely there, guys.
Speaker 3: He was middle management on some operations.
Speaker 2: He was a muse for the CIA. But he didn't
Speaker 2: run the place, right, he was just he was on
Speaker 2: the sidelines whispering into people's ears.
Speaker 3: All right, all right, we're all having fun with Ben.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 3: He did a lot of stuff. And he also is
Speaker 3: clearly a fan of astrology. And he continues on if
Speaker 3: you want to read more of his work on the Almanac,
Speaker 3: he continues to talk about how he feels the sh
Speaker 3: as you would say in the modern world has lost
Speaker 3: its way when it comes to ancient science. And he
Speaker 3: factored in the passage of heavenly bodies when he was
Speaker 3: choosing times for policy to be signed up to and
Speaker 3: including the Declaration of Independence. We're not saying he's right.
Speaker 3: We're not saying he genuinely believed it. We are saying
Speaker 3: he's kind of the first internetural in America. Amazing and
Speaker 3: with this. We are are attempting to prove the case
Speaker 3: that the US government has always held a somewhat secret
Speaker 3: affinity for astrology. We hope that you will join us
Speaker 3: after the outbreak, we're diving into even weirder stuff. Shout
Speaker 3: out to Ben Franklin. I'm so scared of that guy.
Speaker 3: You know he took air baths.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, who's a bit of a newtist.
Speaker 3: Well, right back, and we've returned. Before we get to
Speaker 3: the present day, or the more present day, we're going
Speaker 3: to we're gonna share a couple stories about other founding
Speaker 3: fathers or other heads of US state who were involved
Speaker 3: with astrology, often by proxy.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Hey, let's jump to a president
Speaker 2: that everybody remembers, President Franklin Pierce. Boo, did that ring
Speaker 2: all the bells? No? No, Well, President Pierce was in
Speaker 2: office from March fourth, eighteen fifty three until March fourth,
Speaker 2: eighteen fifty seven. Very exciting time in the United States
Speaker 2: that we all remember. But the reason we're going to
Speaker 2: talking about Franklin Pierce is because when we're talking about astrology,
Speaker 2: there's a loose connection, and I say that a very
Speaker 2: loose connection to other parts of spiritualism that we've discussed
Speaker 2: on this show before, the concept that there is some
Speaker 2: kind of veil between us and the experience we have
Speaker 2: on this planet and some other worldly plane, some spiritual plane,
Speaker 2: whether that is even the heavens, because it could extend
Speaker 2: to the heavens itself, or maybe it's just between life
Speaker 2: and death and things like that. We're bringing up Franklin
Speaker 2: Pierce because he is His time in office was specifically
Speaker 2: marked by some of the beliefs and actions of his spouse,
Speaker 2: Jane Pierce, and the two of them, together while in
Speaker 2: the White House, attempted to do things like contact dead
Speaker 2: love ones, so like actually having seances inside the White
Speaker 2: House walls, which to me, guys, feels like something that
Speaker 2: just doesn't happen unless you're in some kind of you know,
Speaker 2: conspiracy movie or some movie about I don't know, I'm
Speaker 2: just it's just a seance in the White House feels
Speaker 2: so wrong to me, and I think it's because of
Speaker 2: how I've been programmed over the years. Yes, it seems
Speaker 2: like a bron thing. You don't have a seance in
Speaker 2: the White House. Yeah, it's unheard of, it's uncou and
Speaker 2: maybe it's just because it feels The White House feels
Speaker 2: like a country club to me or something where just
Speaker 2: only super wealthy people are allowed to go into. And
Speaker 2: I don't know, super No, you guys don't like anything
Speaker 2: I'm saying here.
Speaker 6: I was talking about, no no, but that's true. But
Speaker 6: also we know about a lot of these kind of
Speaker 6: clandestine gatherings and you know, secret organizations Book and Snake
Speaker 6: and all of that where the members you know, publicly
Speaker 6: are very often evangelical at the very least, like good Christian,
Speaker 6: patriotic Americans, but behind closed doors, all kinds of stuff
Speaker 6: is on the table.
Speaker 4: And I was always.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we got your back man. Also, nol Matt
Speaker 3: and I have been to the White House together. It's
Speaker 3: a very weird place.
Speaker 4: It's super weird.
Speaker 6: Washington, d C. Is super weird. I just remember the
Speaker 6: first time I went there. The people kind of some
Speaker 6: people who are you know, likely not psychologically well and
Speaker 6: are unhoused, et cetera. They have a very different vibe
Speaker 6: there than they do in another part of the country.
Speaker 6: The kinds of things that they're you know, screaming from
Speaker 6: the street corners, very conspiratorial, and there's just a certain
Speaker 6: energy there that is very different than anywhere else I've.
Speaker 2: Ever been to.
Speaker 3: And before we continue here, let's set the stage. Let's
Speaker 3: get in front of the emails. Franklin Pierce is often
Speaker 3: regarded as one of the not best US presidents, and
Speaker 3: I think enough time has passed that historians have done
Speaker 3: their bit. We can point out that folks like Teddy
Speaker 3: Roosevelt said mean things about former Potus Pierce. He said, specifically,
Speaker 3: quote Franklin Pierce is a servile tool of men, worse
Speaker 3: than himself ever ready to do any work. The oh
Speaker 3: geez slavery leaders set him. So this guy, like like
Speaker 3: you're saying, Matt, he he's not president for a very
Speaker 3: long time. He is also very much a product of
Speaker 3: his time. We're talking about the spiritualism movement, yeah, talking
Speaker 3: about the idea of science, addressing that great gnostic veil
Speaker 3: that you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: And just.
Speaker 2: Did you give a minor backstory here. Franklin Pierce and
Speaker 2: his wife Jane were on a box car. They had
Speaker 2: their eleven year old son, I think he was eleven
Speaker 2: at the time. They had their young son with them
Speaker 2: at the time. The boxcar overturned and the sun was
Speaker 2: crushed essentially horrifically. Both parents witnessed this and saw this,
Speaker 2: and they, you know, Jane, just like right before the inauguration,
Speaker 2: pretty soon before the inauguration, and then once they got
Speaker 2: to the White House, they made attempts. I mean, they're
Speaker 2: at the seat of power. If there is a way
Speaker 2: to contact your dead loved one, perhaps being in that place,
Speaker 2: maybe there's power to that right ending on your beliefs,
Speaker 2: maybe there's power to holding that position in general. There
Speaker 2: were numerous attempts made to contact this dead child, you know,
Speaker 2: through various means and methods, and I think maybe just
Speaker 2: it's not something that I imagined would have ever.
Speaker 4: Happened, Matt. Was there a sense that you got.
Speaker 6: In looking into this, that maybe this type of thing
Speaker 6: was seen as something that women would be more interested in,
Speaker 6: and that maybe, you know, the mother, this is something
Speaker 6: that she wanted, but perhaps she was maybe being kind
Speaker 6: of allowed to do it by her husband. I'm sorry,
Speaker 6: I know that there were men that were interested in
Speaker 6: this stuff too. I'm just wondering if the historical context
Speaker 6: is something to talk about, because I guess I think
Speaker 6: of many of the folks, the practitioners of seances historically
Speaker 6: being women.
Speaker 2: Well, I can't really speak to that. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: lots you could get into with you know, think about
Speaker 2: historical depictions and thoughts on witchcraft and all that stuff,
Speaker 2: getting long and show. Yeah, you just go way way.
Speaker 3: Back in society always seeks to show on women.
Speaker 2: Yeah, precisely. In this case, you're also talking about the
Speaker 2: historical context of the Fox sisters who were alive, who
Speaker 2: actually visited the White House to attempt to contact Jane's
Speaker 2: dead loved ones.
Speaker 3: So you know, to attempt to attempt to look like
Speaker 3: they were attempting to contact.
Speaker 2: I think, yes, that is correct then. But in the
Speaker 2: case of Jane, right, if you go to hint to
Speaker 2: her personal perspective, she believes that potentially they can, right.
Speaker 2: So that's all occurring, and you know you can get
Speaker 2: into other presidents and spouses as well. Mary Lincoln did
Speaker 2: the same kinds of spiritual spiritualism, things like seances to
Speaker 2: contact her dead children.
Speaker 6: And you all might comment about this being maybe something
Speaker 6: that women and we're more interested and certainly not meant
Speaker 6: to be dismissive in any way or gendering anything. It
Speaker 6: just was I think I wanted to take a minute
Speaker 6: to talk about exactly what you guys mentioned, which was
Speaker 6: the context and the maybe gender roles and politics of
Speaker 6: the time.
Speaker 3: Well, I would to that agreed. I would also call
Speaker 3: our collective attention to our previous episode on the Screaming
Speaker 3: Girls of Malaysia, right, remember that one. Look, I'm going
Speaker 3: in a million directions here. It's amazing that I've never
Speaker 3: tried adderall. Can you guys imagine how insufferable I.
Speaker 4: Would Be'd be like the Tasmanian devil, beIN jeez.
Speaker 3: To take bring it back, bring it back, taking.
Speaker 2: It back to the White House and Mary Lincoln there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because there's a specific room in the White House called
Speaker 2: the Red Room, which already freaks me out. Sounds like
Speaker 2: a place where you either get murdered or murder. It's
Speaker 2: a weird day.
Speaker 4: It's a weird day.
Speaker 2: It was the Red Room as it was red and
Speaker 2: has been designed red by various interior designers over the
Speaker 2: years and redesign and redesign. I'm gonna share an image
Speaker 2: with you guys that I found on the White House
Speaker 2: website of the Red Room of a particular time when
Speaker 2: it was redone. Uh And if you look at this
Speaker 2: image that I just said, it feels like an astrology room.
Speaker 2: It's got stars all along the ceiling. The way the
Speaker 2: red is laid out in that room, it feels as
Speaker 2: though you would go there and consult the stars. Sure,
Speaker 2: this is this was a redesign after the time of
Speaker 2: Mary Lincoln when she's in the in the white House's
Speaker 2: first Lady. After the time of Pierce, obviously, But this.
Speaker 6: Table in the middle on Matt would have been sort
Speaker 6: of where this seance would have been conducted.
Speaker 2: No, you could set the room up with the tables
Speaker 2: and chairs however you want, just because again this is
Speaker 2: this is a redesign after those seances were got it,
Speaker 2: got it, But that's just a show. The White House
Speaker 2: is a place where this kind of stuff can happen,
Speaker 2: and has happened.
Speaker 6: M but much more recently than that, right, Ben, This
Speaker 6: is the part of the episode that really blew my mind.
Speaker 6: Like this era that you're talking about, Matt, it all
Speaker 6: makes sense. This stuff was trendy even, right, and it
Speaker 6: would make sense this would be employed. But I would
Speaker 6: have thought this would have gone out the window in
Speaker 6: more modern times, not the case.
Speaker 4: Out the red room window.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, this is the one we were teasing
Speaker 3: as well, like we have built a pretty solid case
Speaker 3: that astrology divination has always existed low key as a
Speaker 3: part of US policy. Cast your memory back and not
Speaker 3: to date anyone you know too far, but some of
Speaker 3: us in the audience tonight might remember a fairly famous
Speaker 3: actor named Ronald Reagan, who is also you know, sort
Speaker 3: of famous for a couple of other things, right.
Speaker 4: A line of Western civilization.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's trickling down Horse and sparrow. Look, we can
Speaker 3: learn about dictators a world away, and we can immediately
Speaker 3: exoticize or as you guys were saying, other their actions.
Speaker 3: Surely not us, obviously, we in America have our priority.
Speaker 4: Straight.
Speaker 3: Horoscopes are fun. But science, God's our civilization. I got
Speaker 3: increasingly Texas on that one.
Speaker 2: And I'm sorry, guys, Okay, science or God and or
Speaker 2: both and or you know, it's just they're really closely linked.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: So while it is still legal for us to talk
Speaker 3: about this on air, please remember, folks, the US White
Speaker 3: House very recently was influenced by astrology. The Ronald Reagan
Speaker 3: administration had some stuff to deal with. And it gets
Speaker 3: a little confusing because one of our primary sources for
Speaker 3: this is a former chief of Staff for Ronald Reagan,
Speaker 3: and his name is Don Reagan r E g A
Speaker 3: n SO Reagan Reagan nominative determinism. I kind of think
Speaker 3: that's why I got the job.
Speaker 2: And there's a Yes, there's a series of I think three,
Speaker 2: maybe even four books. They go over everything we're going
Speaker 2: to be talking about from from this moment forward, where
Speaker 2: it's like the different perspectives of all the people involved,
Speaker 2: and I think Don has one of them. I think, okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Don has a memoir called for the Record, From Wall
Speaker 3: Street to the White House. Here's how he depicts the
Speaker 3: interaction of ESTROLA with the Reagan administration. Now, Matt, you
Speaker 3: did an excellent job with Ben Franklin. I suggest or
Speaker 3: I vote that we go to none other than Nol
Speaker 3: the Bagman Brown for a for a dramatic recreation of
Speaker 3: Don Reagan, a recreational recreation.
Speaker 4: I'm going to do my best, Ben, to do my
Speaker 4: duty and to God in my country, to impersonate Don Reagan.
Speaker 6: And this is what he writes in For the Record,
Speaker 6: his memoir. As he said, Ben, virtually every major move
Speaker 6: and decision the Reagan's made during my time as White
Speaker 6: House Chief of staff was cleared in advance with this
Speaker 6: woman in San Francisco who drew up horoscopes to make
Speaker 6: certain that the planets were in a favorable alignment for
Speaker 6: the enterprise, like the stars not the starship Enterprise, the
Speaker 6: enterprise of what the thing they were doing?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: Amazing, Andrews, Let's make sure we have applause cues.
Speaker 4: It was great.
Speaker 2: You know what I got from? Then a little New York.
Speaker 4: That's my guy. That's my guy. There's no one better
Speaker 4: to copy than the Barry. You shake your jowls with it.
Speaker 3: Man, I like how San Francisco was five very angry syllables.
Speaker 2: It was amazing.
Speaker 4: It was amazing.
Speaker 3: Also, uh, our guy Don goes on to say he
Speaker 3: is required by the President and the First Lady to
Speaker 3: keep a color coded calendar on his desk. Like if
Speaker 3: you've ever seen a desk calendar? God, I'm dating myself here.
Speaker 3: He had these little like post its, essentially and highlighter
Speaker 3: things where good days astrologically were highlighted in green and
Speaker 3: bad days were highlighted in red. If we go, If
Speaker 3: we go to Jessica Weisberg, writing an excellent, relatively short
Speaker 3: article for The Paris Review in June twenty eighteen. We
Speaker 3: can actually see the way this calendar is mapped out.
Speaker 2: From January sixteenth to the twenty third, very bad. January
Speaker 2: twentieth nothing outside the White House, possible attempt.
Speaker 3: Hey, Haye, point of order, Matt, I believe that just
Speaker 3: says nothing outside the wh could have been waffle house.
Speaker 4: Yeah, true, we just don't know. We don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but into history, stuff goes down inside the waffle
Speaker 2: house all the time, So you've got to be careful
Speaker 2: inside outside who knows of February twentieth through the twenty sixth,
Speaker 2: be careful. March seventh through the fourteenth, bad period. March
Speaker 2: tenth through fourteenth, no outside activity, March sixteenth, very bad.
Speaker 4: What is this outside activity referring to a second time?
Speaker 4: We've seen that way with nothing outside the waffle house
Speaker 4: and now no outside Actually.
Speaker 2: It's referring to President Reagan's movements. Where can he go?
Speaker 2: And because remember there was an attempt on his life, right,
Speaker 2: and that is one of the things that pushed all
Speaker 2: of this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Hinckley situation, it was real.
Speaker 4: Hankykley was real Hinkley.
Speaker 3: This is this list goes on and you will notice
Speaker 3: astute conspiracy realist that there's never any note of a
Speaker 3: positive day in this calendar. You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: You need an addabley of newspaper horoscopes. Yeah, tenth, March
Speaker 3: tenth to fourteenth, no outside activity, March sixteenth, very bad,
Speaker 3: March fifteenth the IDEs of March. By the way, why
Speaker 3: is that not a good day? Or did they just
Speaker 3: skip that part?
Speaker 2: Who knows? I do. I can't remember if there's tarot
Speaker 2: reading and other specific divination things occurring here, or if
Speaker 2: it is just an astrological chart that's being interpreted by somebody.
Speaker 4: Ah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Just I can't remember. In all the reporting, there is
Speaker 2: so much written about this, you guys that Yeah, well,
Speaker 2: at least I personally had no idea it existed out there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and in that kind of experience or surprise, our
Speaker 3: buddy Don Reagan is he's super irritated, right Like he's
Speaker 3: the chief of staff. That is a very stressful job,
Speaker 3: and he's asking himself continually, why can this one individual
Speaker 3: who has never been elected, why can they hold such
Speaker 3: influence over the day to day actions of the most
Speaker 3: dangerous human being alive? Spoiler, The most dangerous human being
Speaker 3: alive is in recent history, always going to be the
Speaker 3: US president.
Speaker 4: This is very precient. Then the question that you just asked,
Speaker 4: it seems like we're going through something a little bit
Speaker 4: similar right now.
Speaker 3: Weird ah, I mean, so, the most dangerous human being
Speaker 3: un planet Earth is not like the dictators, the generals,
Speaker 3: the Lunda runners of Myanmar. They have a rotating staff
Speaker 3: of fortune tellers. They have like a think tank of
Speaker 3: people who tell you good and bad days. Check out
Speaker 3: our earlier episode. In this case, the White House has
Speaker 3: just one astrologer, a little bit off the books, a
Speaker 3: little bit on the books. We're gonna pause for a
Speaker 3: word from our sponsor, and we're gonna tell you about
Speaker 3: this person from Nola. Can you say San Francisco again?
Speaker 4: And San Francisco.
Speaker 3: Her name is Joan Quickly. We've returned. Let's meet Joan Quickly.
Speaker 3: Joan Quickly is from no Just one more time, let's
Speaker 3: just go. I love it all right. Joe Quickly is
Speaker 3: the closest you can get to old money out west,
Speaker 3: out in San Francisco, the Quickly family. They own a
Speaker 3: lot of hotels. We're telling you this not to judge
Speaker 3: the person, just to let you know she's not hard up.
Speaker 4: For money.
Speaker 3: She is a San Franciscan socialite, and she is not
Speaker 3: directly connected to Ronald Reagan, who will later become US
Speaker 3: President for a time. Instead, she's connected to a lady
Speaker 3: named Nancy Reagan, who later becomes the First Lady. And
Speaker 3: we're gonna cut. We're gonna cut that parenthetical about our
Speaker 3: sexual exploits. Let's keep that way.
Speaker 2: Nancy's or Jones.
Speaker 4: Nancy?
Speaker 2: Okay, wait Nancy? Yeah? Oh, I really thought it was
Speaker 2: gonna be Jones.
Speaker 3: We're keeping it in all right. Fine, So do you
Speaker 3: guys remember MERV Griffin? Why do I sound so old?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I was in this episode, you were there.
Speaker 2: I'm aware of the name, and I don't know why
Speaker 2: I have salacious in my mind when I think of
Speaker 2: MERV Griffin. But maybe it was just more of a
Speaker 2: talk show in the seventies.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was very popular talk show. No, it was
Speaker 4: earlier in the seventies when he.
Speaker 3: Was around for a while.
Speaker 4: He was school there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, he he did have a talk show. He
Speaker 3: had a number of like TV hosting things, and in
Speaker 3: the early seventies nineteen seventies, he introduces Nancy Reagan and
Speaker 3: Joan quickly, and when he introduces them. Nancy Reagan and
Speaker 3: Ronald Reagan are still like very much Hollywood exploring, you know,
Speaker 3: the political scene, and quickly is a frequent guest on
Speaker 3: MERV Griffin's talk show. So she, as a Republican, volunteers
Speaker 3: to sort of lend her astrological expertise to the Reagan campaigns.
Speaker 3: He had an unsuccessful foray, as we remember in nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy six, towards the presidency. She said, Joan quickly said
Speaker 3: she knew it wouldn't work out. She saw it in
Speaker 3: the stars. And then later, of course, he becomes president
Speaker 3: and people start calling him the Gipper.
Speaker 6: Yeah, win one for the Gipper because he was in
Speaker 6: a baseball related film, the name of which is Escaping Me,
Speaker 6: and he's a spoiler alert I guess on his deathbed
Speaker 6: and someone speaking to him and he says, win one
Speaker 6: for the Gipper.
Speaker 3: That's where it comes from. That's the etymology. Oh thank
Speaker 3: you dude.
Speaker 4: When he was an actor, yes, yeah, all right.
Speaker 3: So early on, the Gipper catches some guff from political
Speaker 3: opponents and from the media because people are saying he's
Speaker 3: consulting astrologers. This is very much not nineteen eighties Republican America. Right,
Speaker 3: you're supposed to be on Wall Street. You're supposed to
Speaker 3: be like doing their type of Black Monday murders kind
Speaker 3: of divination, right, reading stocks and trades and doing a
Speaker 3: what do you call it futures.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but if you're reading those stocks and trades, there's
Speaker 2: a little section in the same publication that has your
Speaker 2: daily horoscope, and sometimes your eyes just glanced past it
Speaker 2: and you may take a thing or two in two account.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was drifted. I was drifted. I was looking
Speaker 3: at Nasdak and then I, you know, I I I
Speaker 3: saw some Taurus.
Speaker 4: I don't know if that.
Speaker 2: Were some Fords. Is that what we're talking about?
Speaker 3: Oh geez, as long as it's not a Honda Odyssey.
Speaker 6: Uh, I respectfully did not purchase out of respect for you.
Speaker 3: Ben, I appreciate that, you know, thank you for your service,
Speaker 3: and of.
Speaker 6: Course you know you're welcome out here for And by
Speaker 6: the way, the character that he's playing in that film
Speaker 6: is not youre dame football player George Gipp. He is
Speaker 6: at his deathbed speaking to uh the I think one
Speaker 6: of the main characters in the film, uh Knute Rockney.
Speaker 6: When you see he requests that he win one for
Speaker 6: the Gipper, just one.
Speaker 3: He says, can you spell Canute for the gang?
Speaker 4: K n Ute?
Speaker 6: And the film is called Knute Rockney All American from
Speaker 6: the year nineteen forty.
Speaker 3: That's the name of the film.
Speaker 4: Yep, Canute Rockney All American nineteen forty. Maybe it's the
Speaker 4: K is silent, but I like I like Canute.
Speaker 3: It was a different time.
Speaker 4: Geez.
Speaker 3: Well, as you were saying earlier, they're met in nineteen eighty,
Speaker 3: our buddy the Gipper publicly mentions that he checks out
Speaker 3: his daily horoscope. And he's not being you know, a
Speaker 3: demagogue about it. He's not telling everybody else that they
Speaker 3: have to check their horoscopes. He essentially says what you
Speaker 3: said earlier, you know, Yeah, I read the paper sometimes
Speaker 3: I passed through a column, you know, and I'm like, hey,
Speaker 3: what's up with me?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then the Federation of American Scientists shines and
Speaker 2: he goes, oh, oh, really, well, how about this.
Speaker 3: They were so pissed, they were so pissed off they
Speaker 3: wrote a letter to the White House open letter, clear
Speaker 3: pr character assassination thing, and they said.
Speaker 5: In our opinion, no person whose decisions are based even
Speaker 5: in part on such evident fantasies can be trusted to
Speaker 5: make the many serious and even life and death decisions
Speaker 5: required of American President.
Speaker 4: Deepid fingers and a silly laugh.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, they actually wrote out he he ha ha,
Speaker 3: they really did.
Speaker 2: You got to take into account the weight of that position.
Speaker 2: And you know, we've talked before about that nuclear football situation,
Speaker 2: that the president has those nukes at hand at all times.
Speaker 2: You don't want that person making decisions based on anything
Speaker 2: but the best intelligence available, right, Which.
Speaker 3: That's a great point because, Okay, as dumb as it sounds,
Speaker 3: picture this be one day away, one horoscope column away
Speaker 3: from nuclear disaster. That is the criticism and the concern
Speaker 3: levied by the Federation of American Scientists. They're saying, what
Speaker 3: if the Gipper, right, God bless in shalah, whatever, what
Speaker 3: if the Gipper picks up the wrong column of the
Speaker 3: wrong newspaper and reads something that says Russia is.
Speaker 4: Coming after you? Well, isn't that a little hyperbolic? I mean,
Speaker 4: it's super hyperbolic.
Speaker 6: Sect He was just kind of, you know, using it
Speaker 6: as a way to I don't know, man, like the
Speaker 6: way certain baseball players don't ever change their socks.
Speaker 3: You know, dude, I am so caught up on like
Speaker 3: Balder's Gate three lore and Skyrim lore that it doesn't
Speaker 3: inform my actions of the.
Speaker 4: Real world one hundred percent.
Speaker 6: But it also, like you bring it up often, it
Speaker 6: clearly is on your mind. It can't not have some
Speaker 6: effect on the way you think about the world. And
Speaker 6: I'm just using that as an example, But I don't
Speaker 6: know that to be true for you in particular. But
Speaker 6: I think, you know, much like a Bible passage or
Speaker 6: any kind of aphorism, you can glean what you want
Speaker 6: from these kind of small little pieces of writing. And
Speaker 6: if it's something that works for you and it feels
Speaker 6: like it's guiding your path in a positive.
Speaker 4: Way, then by all means right.
Speaker 6: But I certainly don't think he was going to be
Speaker 6: compelled to push the nuclear button by a horoscope again hyperbolic.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, No, we have the same page, agreed, But
Speaker 2: let's really paint the picture here. That's nineteen eighty Ronald
Speaker 2: Reagan states that publicly, we already know that his spouse
Speaker 2: has direct connections to this Joan Quickly person Now. In
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one, the attempt on Reagan's life is made.
Speaker 2: Now all of that coincides, and the first Lady reaches
Speaker 2: out directly to Joan quickly and says, Hey, we've got
Speaker 2: some stuff going on. Is there any way you can
Speaker 2: come on in some kind of you know, unofficial official
Speaker 2: capacity to help us figure things out up here and
Speaker 2: protect the president.
Speaker 3: Yeah, can we seek any potential hedge against a possible disaster?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: Specifically, and this is referenced in multiple books that don't
Speaker 3: always agree on their narratives. Specifically, the conversation goes the
Speaker 3: first Lady asked quickly, could you have told us about
Speaker 3: the assassination attempt? And Joan, quickly, by the way, with
Speaker 3: the benefit of retrospect, says yeah, I could have.
Speaker 6: But it's like, is it that much different than and
Speaker 6: you know, the Russell targ situation, or like the idea
Speaker 6: of CIA using remote viewing as a way of solving
Speaker 6: crimes or finding hostages or what have you.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's sort of.
Speaker 6: Like whatever works, you know in a pinch, right. I
Speaker 6: don't know, it just it seems very aligned with that.
Speaker 6: And I guess it's all about who's in charge as
Speaker 6: to who sanctions this kind of stuff and then gives
Speaker 6: it air.
Speaker 3: Yes, beautiful. Let us also consider. Let us also consider
Speaker 3: sort of the three card Monte of information management. Right,
Speaker 3: do we have radar?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: People just eat carrots. That is the milieu in which
Speaker 3: this story occurs. So I would also add a little
Speaker 3: bit off the books, just between just between us and
Speaker 3: everyone listening and the NSA and five eyes, I would
Speaker 3: just add that at this time big data aggregation and
Speaker 3: agnostication is already occurring. We're in the nineteen eighties. We
Speaker 3: are very very deeply invested in the idea of leveraging
Speaker 3: numbers to predict patterns. So there may be a little
Speaker 3: bit of embellishment to hide actual technology here. I don't
Speaker 3: think quickly nor the First Lady Reagan are aware of this.
Speaker 3: It does sound by all accounts, it does sound like
Speaker 3: the first Lady in particular, is quite traumatized by Hinckley
Speaker 3: almost killing her husband. Like, you know, picture the person
Speaker 3: you love most in the world. Picture that person almost dying.
Speaker 3: What would you do to make sure they don't die?
Speaker 3: It's a fair question. I'm sorry, I raised my voice.
Speaker 4: It's okay. Started.
Speaker 2: But so the situation they find themselves in, and this
Speaker 2: is again the perspective changes a little bit depending on
Speaker 2: who's memoir you're reading. You can read the memoirs of
Speaker 2: Don Reagan. You can read the same types of stories
Speaker 2: written by Nancy Reagan right her perspective from the whole thing.
Speaker 2: You can read, you know, memoirs about Ronald Reagan and
Speaker 2: what it states in there and how it's kind of
Speaker 2: downplayed a little bit. Or you can read Joan Quigley's
Speaker 2: memoir because she wrote one about her perspective too. But
Speaker 2: what we do find is that on a literal daily basis,
Speaker 2: the first Lady Nancy Reagan is in communication with Joan
Speaker 2: Quigley about the movements, the meetings, the places, the flights,
Speaker 2: everything that Ronald Reagan is going to take. But she
Speaker 2: Joan Quickly, is not in direct communication with President Reagan.
Speaker 2: It's like it's almost like it is like those advisors, Right,
Speaker 2: You've had a series of advisors. They're in the background
Speaker 2: doing all this work and planning, and then it ends
Speaker 2: up getting to the president and this is where you
Speaker 2: need to go. And sometimes even this group of advisors
Speaker 2: would make cancelations on major events and meetings that were
Speaker 2: supposed to occur because of whatever astrological reading that Joan
Speaker 2: Quickley was getting.
Speaker 3: Right, which again the president, well, depending on the narrative,
Speaker 3: the President would say at this time that they did
Speaker 3: not know right. I'm not in charge of the schedule.
Speaker 3: I got people for that. You know, it's plausible deniability, right,
Speaker 3: because you don't want to look like you are practicing magic,
Speaker 3: especially in the environment in which this occurs. And you're
Speaker 3: absolutely correct. Quickly often stresses, and her story changes back
Speaker 3: and forth, but she often stresses that she herself was
Speaker 3: not directly connected with the potus, which reminds me a
Speaker 3: little bit of a ron contra, But that's a different story. Instead,
Speaker 3: she says, you guys like how I walk down the
Speaker 3: street for that one, just to tag around contra real quick. Instead,
Speaker 3: she says, quickly says that she delved into the astrological
Speaker 3: reading of President Ronald Reagan, and then she would consult,
Speaker 3: as we mentioned, on a semi professional basis paid position
Speaker 3: with the first Lady, Nancy Reagan, and then Nancy Reagan
Speaker 3: would be the one who threw a proxy modified the
Speaker 3: schedule to function in accordance with the stars. Sounds weird,
Speaker 3: is true?
Speaker 2: It sounds super super weird. Gosh, man, I keep thinking
Speaker 2: about the quotes that I've seen from Joan. Some of
Speaker 2: it's from her memoir, some of it's from like People Magazine,
Speaker 2: some of it's from other places. You can see where
Speaker 2: she almost boasts about it in a couple of places,
Speaker 2: but then also super downplays it in other places. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, She's talking with People Magazine in the late nineteen
Speaker 3: nineties and she says, look, there are summits that are
Speaker 3: arranged by the State Department and Reagan and some of
Speaker 3: his staff. And she says, I had nothing to do
Speaker 3: with the scheduling. I think people are over emphasizing my role. However,
Speaker 3: when Don Reagan's book goes into the public eye, he
Speaker 3: calls it, let's see who do we? Oh, Noel, you
Speaker 3: did the Reagan voice earlier. Can you can't bless us
Speaker 3: with bless us with some of the invections from our
Speaker 3: buddy Don Reagan?
Speaker 6: Of course I can't. I don't know if I I'll
Speaker 6: do it the same. It's sort of a crap.
Speaker 4: She will see the most closely guarded domestic secret of
Speaker 4: the Reagan White House. Every major move and decisions the
Speaker 4: Reagan's made during my time as the White House Chief
Speaker 4: of Staff was cleared and advanced with a woman in
Speaker 4: San Francisco who drew up horoscopes to make certain that
Speaker 4: the planets were in a favorable alignment of the enterprise.
Speaker 2: And remember that quote comes from his book in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty eight. Now and the quote we just read from
Speaker 2: Joan is almost ten years later, after all this has
Speaker 2: happened in her memoir, kind of going against the stuff
Speaker 2: that Dawn originally said in his book from nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: eight came out in nineteen ninety. So it was this
Speaker 2: whole like MERV Griffin show of a series of books.
Speaker 4: The MERV Griffis Show. Am I right? That was really good? Yeah?
Speaker 4: I like that?
Speaker 3: So, yeah, you're absolutely right. Media insiders already knew well
Speaker 3: the ties between astrology and Hollywood being we're saying, Hollywood
Speaker 3: is sort of a metonymy for the US entertainment industry, right,
Speaker 3: it's big soft power to play. And way before the
Speaker 3: Gipper ever became the most dangerous human being on the planet,
Speaker 3: he and his spouse, like anybody else who was cool
Speaker 3: in Los Angeles, they openly consulted with astrologers. They probably
Speaker 3: did yoga, you know, stuff like that, like the cool
Speaker 3: celebrity thing. And they also spoke with folks like Carol
Speaker 3: ryder R, I g hte R the most famous astrologer
Speaker 3: for the stars. That's a redundant phrase to the stars, what.
Speaker 4: They would have said in old Hollywood.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, the astrologer for the stars to the stars.
Speaker 3: What a weird language. Anyway, this guy is nationally syndicated.
Speaker 3: He's the one that you're hanging out with all the time.
Speaker 3: Sort of how like people who are celebrities will go
Speaker 3: speak with our coworker Jay Shetty, right, or they'll talk
Speaker 3: with Deepak Chopra or the Dolly Laba right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, people love those guys.
Speaker 3: It was just fashionable for Hollywood celebrities to shout out
Speaker 3: their astrologers.
Speaker 6: Well and now like especially maybe definitely still in Hollywood,
Speaker 6: but it was.
Speaker 4: I thought it was very well parodied.
Speaker 6: I guess in the TV show Silicon Valley the idea
Speaker 6: of mega mega high level executives to the kind of
Speaker 6: point of this conversation, in a way, maybe things are shifting.
Speaker 6: The Gavin Belston character, who is the you know, CEO
Speaker 6: of Huli or whatever it was called. That was what
Speaker 6: it was, sort of a Google esque Facebook kind of hybrid.
Speaker 4: He had a guru that was.
Speaker 6: Always around and was giving him, you know, business advice,
Speaker 6: and I think that's parody kind of based on reality.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Spiritual advisors are a thing and have been
Speaker 2: a thing always, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Can I Matt, Matt? Can I ask or Noel
Speaker 3: and Matt?
Speaker 4: Of course?
Speaker 3: And you listening at home? Can I get a spiritual advisor?
Speaker 3: You guys know, I don't really have like, just.
Speaker 4: Go on task, grab it. You'll find somebody my task,
Speaker 4: grabb it, guru, drop the beat. This sounds like something
Speaker 4: we could rap about.
Speaker 2: But a shaman is a really popular thing right now.
Speaker 4: To have a shaman like on a retainer. Yeah, like seriously,
Speaker 4: all right.
Speaker 3: Cool, we're gonna follow up on that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. If they don't make you sit beneath a golden
Speaker 2: pyramid for a lengthy period of time, they're not worth
Speaker 2: your money.
Speaker 3: Oh you know, Derek. Yeah, So, uh, we see the
Speaker 3: narrative bifurcate right divide. We were talking about this earlier
Speaker 3: and foreshadowing it during her career, both in and out
Speaker 3: of Washington, d C. The First Lady consistently portrays her
Speaker 3: interest in astrology as sort of a harmless hobby, a
Speaker 3: matter of personal fascination, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: In fact, John quickly mayins that she preferred secrecy to
Speaker 4: be out of the public eye and as a self
Speaker 4: proclaimed patriot and a friend to the first Lady, she
Speaker 4: didn't really go out for you know, notoriety. You know,
Speaker 4: she wasn't seeking the limelight. She sort of shied away
Speaker 4: from public attention for these consultations, so show she claimed, Yeah.
Speaker 2: If you go back to the eighteen hundreds as well,
Speaker 2: this there is a tradition of spiritual advisors like this,
Speaker 2: you know who who tend towards the spiritualism side, to
Speaker 2: be led into the White House on a frequent basis
Speaker 2: to be an important part of you know, daily life
Speaker 2: and some of the decisions about scheduling. But those human beings,
Speaker 2: those individuals would often be let in through the South entrance,
Speaker 2: you know, or through the East wing or the West wing,
Speaker 2: a specific place where you can get past security and
Speaker 2: you don't have to sign the logbook in the same
Speaker 2: way if you're ushered in with somebody. It's again, it's
Speaker 2: interesting that it's been kept such a secretive thing over
Speaker 2: the course of you know, one hundred something years.
Speaker 6: Well, and Joan didn't take kindly to maybe the revisionist
Speaker 6: history of the way she was talked about after the fact,
Speaker 6: when this relationship kind of became a little more known
Speaker 6: to the public and especially to biographers, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Yeah again, she does not need money, She does not
Speaker 3: need financial support. This is a personal blow. The statements
Speaker 3: of the First Lady former First Lady at this point,
Speaker 3: they sour the relationship between Quickly and Reagan, and it
Speaker 3: sounds like she was hoping Quickly, I mean, was hoping
Speaker 3: for some sort of public.
Speaker 6: Acknowledge validation event like right again, this might mainstream something
Speaker 6: that she was very passionate about and believed in very deeply.
Speaker 3: Here's what pis Quickly off. In nineteen eighty nine, Nancy
Speaker 3: Reagan has her memoir My Turn Good Name.
Speaker 2: Honestly, Well, it's a direct response to for the record.
Speaker 3: Right from Dawn right, and that's that's why it's a
Speaker 3: good name. And so Nancy Reagan says, astrology was simply
Speaker 3: one of the ways I coped with the fear I
Speaker 3: felt after my husband almost died. Understandable, she continues my
Speaker 3: relationship with Joan, that being Joan Quickly the astrologer began
Speaker 3: as a crutch one of several ways I tried to
Speaker 3: alleviate my concern about Ronnie. It's a passing fancy, right, right,
Speaker 3: a harmless hobby. Joan quickly, you guys, is super pissed off.
Speaker 3: She is offended. She is like, imagine that you have
Speaker 3: ever encountered some sort of human interaction where you think
Speaker 3: you're deeper in a friendship than your partner does.
Speaker 6: Well, righteously indignant, perhaps because she believed that this relationship
Speaker 6: was based on a mutual admiration and respect. And she
Speaker 6: goes on in her own memoir, what does Jones say
Speaker 6: in nineteen ninety to describe just that, and how this
Speaker 6: was not just a relationship between her and the first lady,
Speaker 6: It was very much a relationship between her and the president,
Speaker 6: who would again, according to her, this is a bit
Speaker 6: of a she said, she said, he said, memoir off.
Speaker 6: But she did claim that she was very frequently consulted
Speaker 6: by the president. That's where the title comes from, because
Speaker 6: the President would, according to her, ask what does Jones
Speaker 6: say in terms of when a call would be scheduled
Speaker 6: her whether to take a meeting or not?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and that is that is President Reagan speaking
Speaker 2: to his spouse, right, That is not President Reagan calling
Speaker 2: Joan and saying, hey.
Speaker 6: No, no, but still he's putting credence in this stuff. It's
Speaker 6: almost like he believes.
Speaker 4: It more than just as much, if not maybe more
Speaker 4: than the first lady.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Quick says. This is where Quigley's story changes.
Speaker 3: She argues, despite her earlier statements downplaying her role, she
Speaker 3: argues that she did assist with mission critical trade negotiations,
Speaker 3: She made sure that public addresses went well. She helped
Speaker 3: save the president's life. That is the argument, make no mistake,
Speaker 3: and she also says that she saw the betrayal coming.
Speaker 3: In later statements, she writes, struggle has been in my charts.
Speaker 3: I expect no gratitude from the Reagans, and it's her
Speaker 3: duty as an astrologer and an American patriot to hold
Speaker 3: the course right, to stay steady. But it still doesn't
Speaker 3: lessen the pain of the betrayal. I have to ask,
Speaker 3: what do you guys think? You know, do you think
Speaker 3: an astrologer saved Reagan?
Speaker 6: I don't know, man, I just think that whenever it
Speaker 6: comes to memoir, there's there's a lot of revisionist history
Speaker 6: on all sides, you know, and the fact that that
Speaker 6: quickly sort of course corrected, you know, after the fact,
Speaker 6: and sort of just wanted to claim more credit than
Speaker 6: she ever had wanted to, you know in the first place.
Speaker 4: It just makes it not quite ring true. But I
Speaker 4: don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, can you real quick question, can you make sure
Speaker 3: to describe Matt and Matt myself as sexual dynamos?
Speaker 4: Of course I always do. Just just talk about our
Speaker 4: regular were very handsome boys, and I always say that
Speaker 4: to anyone who will who will have me, And it's
Speaker 4: definitely going in the memoir.
Speaker 2: Imagine being in that position though. There are two huge
Speaker 2: selling memoirs that come out where you are talked.
Speaker 3: About you were raw dogged like you are a drug
Speaker 3: drigging that's a word. Yeah, yeah, it is. You're you're
Speaker 3: onto something there, Matt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, getting ragged around in these old memoirs. Yeah, It's
Speaker 2: just it's a weird situation and it's very strange, and
Speaker 2: it does make me wonder just how little we know
Speaker 2: about other spiritual advisors that have held, you know, some
Speaker 2: kind of place in the upper echelons of the White
Speaker 2: House or maybe even in the Senate right where it's
Speaker 2: just who else has this elected official's ear that has
Speaker 2: a lot of influence on them that maybe coming from
Speaker 2: no matter what religion, It's just it does make me
Speaker 2: wonder like what Obama's get get at us? Who were
Speaker 2: your spiritual advisors?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, it's also I think it begs
Speaker 6: the question of just in general, like how a non
Speaker 6: elected person hanging around whispering in ears is inherently a
Speaker 6: little problematic. And I was, you know, being a little
Speaker 6: choy earlier just talking about the Elon Musk situation. He's
Speaker 6: not a side scientist, he's not an expert in his field.
Speaker 6: He's not even necessarily a programmer. I mean, he's got
Speaker 6: these this gang of young upstarts to do.
Speaker 4: All that stuff for him out big balls, big balls.
Speaker 6: But what I'm saying is like, what makes him in
Speaker 6: any different than a spiritual advisor in the capacity that
Speaker 6: he's acting right now?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Is AI or religion? Well, we certainly could get there.
Speaker 6: I just mean, can you imagine this seems like the
Speaker 6: kind of thing you'd see in a video game where
Speaker 6: it's like, you know, the cults that would emerge around worshiping,
Speaker 6: you know, artificial intelligence people.
Speaker 3: Look, I've known a lot of people not the flex
Speaker 3: they'll worship anything more than seven.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm sorry, but.
Speaker 6: I mean the idea, can you, especially with things like
Speaker 6: the what was it the basilisk experiment? Not to get
Speaker 6: too off course here, but just the idea of maybe
Speaker 6: being deferential to our fut potential future artificial intelligence slash
Speaker 6: robot overlord. I could definitely see.
Speaker 4: That kind of thing.
Speaker 3: I can't even discuss this because I feel like the
Speaker 3: term artificial intelligence is inherently philosophically.
Speaker 6: Of course, of course it is, but I'm just saying
Speaker 6: I agree with you that it could very well fill
Speaker 6: that kind of religious space.
Speaker 3: I know we are going, of course, a little bit perfect.
Speaker 4: It's very interesting. This is perfect.
Speaker 3: We don't have time to get into it tonight. But
Speaker 3: I sent us in our research for this, I sent
Speaker 3: us my unethical theory on how we could possibly prove
Speaker 3: the existence or scientific basis if such exist for astrology. Spoiler,
Speaker 3: We're not going to do it on air because it
Speaker 3: is a step by step pretty unclean thing to figuring
Speaker 3: out the answer, and I sent it to you guys.
Speaker 3: We can talk about it offline. What we're looking at
Speaker 3: now is the following. Have the these conversations with unelected
Speaker 3: astrological experts, have they reached true results, Like, how do
Speaker 3: we measure that? Is there something to the story. The
Speaker 3: choice really depends on your perspective, and like everybody else listening,
Speaker 3: we're an audience of the stars that we're here before
Speaker 3: you got here and are going to be around after
Speaker 3: you're gone. Not to be a bummer about it, but
Speaker 3: it's one of the constant things humans can look at
Speaker 3: as the attempt to glean meaning out there in the ink.
Speaker 3: So the question is there something astrology can teach the humans,
Speaker 3: and if so, what we'd love to hear from you
Speaker 3: before we get into too much trouble.
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