Latest / Sasquatch & Sourdough / Ep. 44 | Occult to Christ: Joel Thomas | Free the Rabbits Podcast |

Transcript

Ep. 44 | Occult to Christ: Joel Thomas | Free the Rabbits Podcast | · Sasquatch & Sourdough

• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, welcome back to Sasquatch and Sourdough.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Christina, and guys, tonight, I am super, super excited because I have in the studio tonight the one and only musician, Cryptid Hunter, and host of Free the Rapids Podcast, Mr.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Joel Thomas.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, Joel.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, what's going on, Christina?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: How are you doing?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited that you're here.
• 0:43
  unknown: Thanks.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: We had a nice little chat off air before we got here.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I'm excited too.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: We did.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: I tried to keep it simple because I have a very chatty culture on the show.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Very chatty.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I have a question for you, Joel.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, how are all the free range rabbits doing out there?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: How are they are they all right?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're growing.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Are they okay out there?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're actually growing.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, since the start of the show, people started getting out of the hole and getting out there and living life and not getting so consumed with the negativity in the world.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it's nice to see that people really want to do that.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it's, you know, refreshing, especially in the world that I play in where there's a lot of negativity.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: So it's something that I set out to do, and I hope that it continues to grow as the show grows, and I'm excited about it.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's an awesome, awesome show.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I first learned about guys, if you haven't been listening to Free the Rabbits, you need to go do it.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's the only conspiracy podcast I think that I'm like, I will happily endorse because I you guys know I do not like getting down into that trail.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: I say rabbit trail and I get made fun all the time.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just don't want to get stuck down there because I think sometimes it's distracting.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's a lot of just bad information.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I try not to get lost in the woods.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: But Joel's show is very well researched and it's um, it's a lot of fun to listen to.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like your music is amazing.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: You just I know you do like a like all your own production and stuff, but it's just really, really your newest, um, your your intro gets stuck in my head all the time, and then I just sing it.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Just like in I'm just in Walmart, like free the rabbits.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I love music, I've been doing music forever, and you know, that's really where the journey started for me was music, and then it spawned off into all these other things, and podcasting was really like the last thing on my list that I even thought about doing.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't even something that I really set out to do at all.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: I just kind of fell into it, and I think that music was inevitably going to be a part of that too.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, you know, I'm still working on music consistently, but yeah, I think you're right.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: The show is I try to go as deep down the rabbit hole as possible so other people don't have to, and then I can come out and show the information in a way that's palatable to people.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: One, if they don't know anything about the topic, they can come in and they'll learn about the topic.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't assume people know something when they come in and listen to a show.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I try to break away and talk about who this person is, what this thing is, because I've noticed a lot of researchers just assume that people just know all these things.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: And when you do that, then you limit your audience too, because there may be some new people that come in and they don't have a clue what's going on, and then they may just turn it off.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I also want people to know what these topics are.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: So if they hear somebody talking about it, one, if it's something that's not of God, then they won't get deceived.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then number two, they can have at least some sort of knowledge about what's being said.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: And there's several pretty hot topics out there right now, good and bad.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that they needed to be discussed.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I want people to understand what these are.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that way, you know, if it isn't good, then you have your armor up and you know how to combat it, and you're a little bit more knowledgeable in how to do that.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a lot of the goal of the show is for people to understand these things and to get into some of the weirder aspects of the Bible because it's a pretty supernatural book.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of times we forget like how crazy the Bible is, and then when we start looking at it through the lens of like the Koanite Greek and the Hebrew, and then we understand the context and the time period these people lived in, then we really start understanding what they were actually saying.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: And we can say, wow, these wild things happened, and you were just talking off-air to me about the Nephilim.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's an interesting topic, but I also think that it needs to be done the right way, where people understand where all this stuff comes from, why, where, how many times they showed up throughout the Bible.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, giants are talked about all through the Old Testament, but you wouldn't know that unless you understood what some of these Hebrew words meant and all these different things.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: And one, it's not indicative of salvation, but it does tell a story.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: The entire Bible is the story of Jesus through the Israelites.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the story that he is telling us.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, there's obviously a lot of prophecy in there that has yet to be filled.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we're waiting on some of that too.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: But it's a very interesting book that is full of the supernatural.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: And to some of the Christians out there that don't get super down with some of the wilder stuff, the Bible, the one thing that I always bring up is do you believe that there was a man who was completely God that came here on earth?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: He literally died, was buried for three days, rose again, was resurrected, and then went to heaven.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: And if you believe that, well, I just think everything else is wide open at that point because that's to me the wildest story ever told.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that like it gets me every time.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like it because when I first came to faith, that was what I had to like reconcile, like really, really quickly.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was just like I went from no belief to like, I'm gonna raise my hand, salvation time in church.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was like, okay, God, I can understand, I can get down with Jesus.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can, I can get that, I can understand that.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: But like you need to help me with all of this other stuff, like virgin birth, like what, like he died, how did he, is he a zombie?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: What happened?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then literally, I remember I was like, I didn't realize I was even praying about it, but I was praying about it.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I just, you know, I heard God say, you either believe who I am that I say that I am who I say that I am, or you don't.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, that's the end of that.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you can sit here and like question everything, but it's not really gonna help you in your walk the way that I want you to walk.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I really appreciate the way that you map out your show because it's not I think that you make it pretty clear that like going down these rabbit holes are is not for everybody, and it might not be something that you even need to entertain, you know.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think that well, for one, I was in and out of podcasting over the past four years, and I was into music first, and I guess I can get in a little bit of my story, but you know, I right around 2020, a lot of wild stuff was happening in the world, and I was making music that was pretty anti a lot of the establishment and all that.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's pretty much how I met Tony, and Tony will tell a story better than me, but just saves in the bathroom and got a DM from a producer of mine that sent him an album that I put out with a guy that I was working with at the time.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: And Tony saw it and said, I get music all the time from people.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, he's probably gonna be pretty bad.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: And he listened like the first song he said, Oh, this is great.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: So he ran out in the studio, listened to the rest of the album.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: He actually reached out to me and asked her to use my music for his show.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up flying out to Philly.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: I was actually his first in-studio guest he's ever had.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: So this is back before he lived in Tennessee.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is Philadelphia.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I went out there, met with him there, and he and I really hit it off.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I was in the transitional time of my life where I hadn't come back to the Lord yet, but I was moving that way.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of things were moving in that direction.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember Tony challenging me after I was done recording, we were just hanging out, and he basically said that there's a path laid out for me, and I just need to step up and take it, basically.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I I really started really thinking about that, but he and I became really good friends too.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: So that helped because I could talk to him a lot and ended up through that.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: A few months later, he texted me out of the blue about seven o'clock at night and said, Hey man, you want to go to hunt dog man in the Daniel Moon National Forest?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, As you do, obviously.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Yeah.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I grew up in the mountains of Georgia, right on the Appalachian Mountains, right at the end where the Appalachian is.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I grown up in the woods my whole life and said, Yeah, man, let's go.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of how we started doing the films from there.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: And we had a lot of really wild experiences on that trip.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: And all of our trips, we've had some really wild stuff happen.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: But through that, ended up just kind of falling into podcasting.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: It really wasn't something that I set out to do, it just was something that really I fell into.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: And Tony kind of proud of me too.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Man, you know, you go on these podcasts and talk, you some hunch to start your own, you know.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that was kind of the thing.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to do it the right way too.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think for me, it was I got really burnt out with a lot of the conspiracy stuff.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: And even now, it's taxing sometimes when you research a lot of stuff, and if you don't have the mind of God and you're able to work through a lot of just some of the outside influences that come with it, right?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: You've got people who don't like what you say, you got people who, you know, get really combative.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's a different world than it was when I came up when I was younger in conspiracies.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you and I talk about the soft air where you would just sit around and present ideas and nobody really got mad over ideas or whatever.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you can meet a guy that's a flat earther and you could tell him that you didn't believe in flat earth, and you guys are perfectly fine.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like nobody cared.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: He would share why he thought he did, you shared what you thought.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Oh, none of us know.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that was kind of that conversation.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like that anymore.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: People are really tribalistic now.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: But I also think that's the age of social media.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's I was just gonna say, like, do you feel because when we were saying that like off air, it's like, you know, I remember in high school, like everybody would just like sit around and like smoke pot and sit by the fire and talk about werewolves and you know, all of our stuff, like that's people just did that, you know.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do we think there's aliens?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, now it's insane because it's in the media.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's not even it's not even just like social media, it's regular media.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: And even these, like our sort of like on our side of the internet fringe space is going into like Christian media, which I think is wild, thanks to like Tony and like blow like blurry creatures.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's amazing that that's kind of infiltrating.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've got like big name Christian podcasts that are talking about like, oh, well, is this are they demons?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: What's this?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: What what about the aliens?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's crazy.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's definitely a lot different now than it was, and I don't even consider it really fringe anymore.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: The word no, it's not its luster on that because it's super mainstream now.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you you listen to my show, and one of the things I talk about a lot on my show is the conspiratorial mainstream, right?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: You got this mainstream that's within the truth or conspiratorial world that are really big ideas that if you go against those ideas with any research or logic, then you're the one that's shunned.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it's funny, this is supposed to be the community that's against that type of thing, but it's not, it's completely different.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I've watched guys, I'm even myself, and we'll talk about my background here in a minute, but just coming out of Freemasonry and all that, man, you automatically have the evil eye put on you from the get-go.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And if you disagree with one of those mainstream things, then you are now the controlled op or the Fed or you're the opposition.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: I heard that from a lot of people when I first started in this space.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I got a lot of warnings, like, you know, you have to really watch who you talk to.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just like, God, okay, but also we're the like we're the freaks.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're the ones talking about Bigfoot.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know what I mean?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like most and okay, everybody calm down because you guys know me.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: But like most normal people out there are not talking about Bigfoot.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we're arguing about Bigfoot and what Bigfoot is, and people are like, seriously, what is you're scaring the straights.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: What's happening here?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, calm down.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: But the funny thing is, like, so when I first when when you were on, like when Tony was like talking about Free the Rabbits and like really promoting your show, I would be listening and I would be like, Oh, I don't want to listen to conspiracy theory.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't want to.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then it was like, he would just keep talking and talking, talking.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I'm totally that girl from middle school that's like, don't, it's a I don't want to be a poser.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody likes it.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna listen to that.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then I so it took me forever because I was like, no, I'm not gonna don't tell me what to listen to, Tony Merkel.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then I just like I listened and I was like, oh my gosh, this is like exactly what I think.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're exactly like we're tracking, like this is people are freaking out over this stuff.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: And especially if you are a believer and follower of Jesus, if it's not like helping your walk, or especially if it's not helping his kingdom, then what are you doing?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like why?
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm such a big proponent of like what's it matter if it's you know, if dog man's really out there, you know, and you're not called to go and chase him.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, then please don't.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't know what all of these things are, and that's why I leave a lot of the speculative stuff open-ended.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I'll do deep research and present ideas, but on my show, I'll tell people, hey, I don't have the answer to this for a lot of you.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna present ideas, I'm gonna tell you what I think in a moment, but I'm subject to change on that because we don't know everything.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think when it comes to Bigfoot, Dogman, Mothman, we can get on the list of cryptids that we know exactly what they are, or if they're actually just one thing.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that's the case either, specifically when it comes to the supernatural world and what specifically demonic entities and fallen angels can manifest.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're looking at it from that perspective, you got to be very open-minded.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you just being out in the field and seeing a lot of weird stuff, it's not something that you can say, I know what that is.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: You really don't know what that is.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's impossible to know what that is.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: You could see it right in front of you, and it could just be something masquerading as something as well.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: So there's so many different avenues that we could look at when you're talking about these topics.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's definitely, and because you guys, you kind of went, I guess, in what was that?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, then like when you guys did like the Meadow project, like you guys were talking about that, like just everybody in the same area experiencing something different.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: We hear that in every account encounter, I feel like.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, because you don't know what's taking over.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, we're not really, I think sometimes we're not meant to know.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that you have to really tread carefully, not to be like, you know, a big fear monger.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: But like I know personally, I'm not meant to be out in the field looking for ghosts.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's not something like so.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that you when you guys like go out and do that, like I know, I hope that you feel called to do it for whatever reason, like, because I'm just a big baby and I'm like, no, I'm good.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't wanna, I don't want to know if dog man is near me.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'll look up all the encounters, but I just don't, you know, it's scary like to actually have that encounter.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: I would be terrified.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's definitely a calling, and it's something that we take seriously when we're out there, and you know, we're just not running around wheely-neely and you know, not with God's protection and having that mindset when you're out there because you don't know what you're gonna run into, you know.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And here's the other aspect of it too.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: You could be out there running to a literal bear or something that's totally physical too.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you gotta be very careful just in any type of situation like that, much less something that's more on the metaphysical supernatural spectrum, or just something that we don't really know how it operates.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that we do it because it is shedding a light on these things from a Christian perspective.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's something that you were just saying, how that the fringe is bleeding into the Christian world.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: I honestly feel like a lot of Christians felt this way.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: I just think it took some people that were starting podcasts in the space eight to 10 years ago that are now very large podcasts, that they took that on board and they felt called to do that.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then at the time, I know that they were really going up an uphill battle because at the time they weren't really like it is now, where it's just wide open, tons of podcasts that are doing this.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: They were kind of the only ones that were doing this type of thing, and they got a lot of flack for it early on.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas now people are way more open-minded, but they kind of had to take the hits for everybody else.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: So it opened up the road where people would be more understanding about the supernatural world around us, which I think is good because there's been so many people I've heard that have come to Christ from the weird stuff.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: So to me, you know, I had somebody recently reach out to me that said, you know, I listened to this one podcasters.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: I did not know that I was doing things that were occult-oriented.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: I had no idea that these things were attached to the occult.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: And yes.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, awesome.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it it's it's it's good to hear that.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: It good, it's good that people are taking in what you're saying and the information that you're putting out there, and you hope that you're doing humbly and you're doing it approved unto God, right?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the key that I try to do every time with the podcast, but at the same time, you know, at least exude my personality too.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I try to walk a fine line of being like who I am and then also, you know, being humble at the same time.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: No, you definitely it it definitely comes across that way.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you, I think you do a very, very good job of just it's very clear that you have journalistic integrity.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I I was like a journalism, like creative writer major in college, and at some point worked for like the Baltimore City paper.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: So like I know what fact checking used to be in the early 2000s before deal.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it just stopped.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like journalism just died.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so like fact-checking, all of that sort of stuff is really, really important.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I can tell that you do your due diligence, um, which comes across.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's why you're seeing so much success with what you're doing, is because it's honest and it's not just like, oh, well, I need to hit this target.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: So let me just find every little, you know, because it can be that I mean, you can do that that way.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: You can go through the back door and you say, oh, well, this is the conclusion that I want to draw, and I'm just gonna go ahead and cheat.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we see that, I mean, I don't we don't even have to talk about AI and all that stuff.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like we we know that that's just kind of coming down the pike.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: But it's interesting that you say that like you have people emailing and talking to you about like things that they're not, they didn't know were occult or like necessarily evil.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think what we're seeing now, at least I hope this is what we're seeing, and I'm excited for, is that God is taking people out of these like occult scenarios, uh, or he's taking people, like younger people that are just so oversaturated and exposed with this stuff that they think it's normal.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: But now you're kind of almost like again, we're kind of in this really weird situation again where it's like, no, no, we're telling you this stuff's weird because and we know it's to be weird and true because it's in the Bible, but then there's also all these people that are coming out of like a cult, Satanism, all that sort of stuff that are coming to Christ.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: So when you kind of come through it that way, it's a really, really interesting dynamic.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree with you on that.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: And to your point about having integrity, I think that that was something that was very important to me with the show because to your point, there are a lot of researchers out there who are good researchers, but they're also really good at confirmation bias and being able to prove their point, but then missing out on this whole other area over here.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the really hot topics right now is the little season theory that's.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Going around, and I felt super compelled to do this series, which by the time it's done, I think it's gonna be over 12 hours, which is absolutely insane.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like I realized that the other day I was talking about it really good though.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's really good earlier today, and they were laughing about it, and apparently he was doing BlurryCon over the weekend, and people were coming up to him and talking about the little series and series I was doing.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought it was important to do it thoroughly and do it justice because most of the people out there talking about it are one, it's a lot of confirmation bias.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then two, it tends to be very short and very compact in the sense of here, let me hit you with these hot things that sound really good, but then I'm just gonna kind of skate over anything that could go against it.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that was something I wanted to do with the series.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously, I'm using the series as an example of kind of how I do the show.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: But what I tried to do with this series too is hit the stuff that's against what I believe, the hot stuff that people use.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't want to step over those things because I think to have integrity, you have to look at, hey, I understand these characters seem controversial.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go through these people and why that you think that they're whatever.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, you know what?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: This guy probably was involved with some things that's not indicative of the whole plus, it has nothing to do with the past that you think's the past.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that that's important to do.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I try to hit both sides with everything I research.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: I try to give people an opportunity to really figure it out for themselves, but then I'm also going to tell you what I think.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm really trying to point everything back to the word of God, to what does the Bible say about this?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: What's going on here in the Bible?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's really important to do.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope to do that with all the topics.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I talk a lot about a lot of occult figures, you know, that's my background.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I came into the occult, I'd say in my late 20s, really.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: That was kind of when I really had a fascination with the occult.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: And for people that don't know my background, I was really had on a mission to become a very famous musician.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: That was my goal.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I was willing to do whatever I needed to do to get that.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I got to that desperation point where the idea of selling your soul, whatever that means, right?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really sell their soul.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's compromised.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: It can be compromised, absolutely.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you can sell your soul and you know, go through blood oaths and stuff like that.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't mean they can't be broken.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that for me, I really wanted to do that to achieve what I wanted to achieve, because it's tough when you know you're talented and you know that you can compete on a high level, but then you just keep coming up short.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that was kind of the devil's game with me was that.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, I always had a fascination with the mysteries, the mystery schools, Freemasonry, all those things because my dad, his past background, and he's a pastor now.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he just retired, but he was pastor for almost 45 years.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: But before that, he was on his way to becoming a part of the Church of Satan in Texas.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: So he had a whole background as well.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew about the occult all the time, my whole life growing up.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: I yeah, my parents talked about demonic entities, fallen angels, all that stuff, the Nephilim.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: I knew about this stuff as a kid back in the 80s.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: So what's interesting is when I got in my 20s and I believed in a good versus evil, right?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I started getting that mind state where I wasn't like you, where I didn't believe in God.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't believe God had my best interests.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt like he was holding me back from doing what I wanted to do.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, well, if I need to go to the other side to get that, then I'm willing to do that.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of the journey that I went down was looking into the inversion, right?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Is the is the is the bad really good?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you start looking at Gnosticism, you start looking at the occult, you start looking at these aspects.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: One of my good friends at the time, he was a shaman and he used to travel around all around the world.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this guy's wild, man.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: He was Mexican, and he would just disappear for months at a time.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: I remember one time he called me from Brazil, and he couldn't remember anybody's number but mine.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, Hey, I need you to get to my brothers so they can wire me some money because I just came off a mountain of up with some shamans at the top of some mountain up there for months.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he would do that and just crazy.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's really wild.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: But then he would come back and we would hang out, and then he would teach me things.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like he would show me things and he would tell me how to, you know, connect to your inner self and essentially connect to these entities, which I was specifically trying to do, which I did achieve quite a few times, and they do exist, and they're not, they don't have your best interest at heart, put it that way.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: And they play a lot of games.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because they hate you.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: They do.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: They hate you.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: They do.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they don't like you at all as much as they may masquerade as angels of light a lot of times.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: But for me, they never did that.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: There was never a version of they presented themselves to me as something good because they knew that I knew they weren't good.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: I just wanted what they could give me.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: So it became this kind of cat and mouse game between us both.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: I remember one specific instance.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: I was laying in bed and I rolled over to one side when I rolled back over.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: My grandmother, who had died, was laying in the bed next to me in a nightgown, just kind of like looking.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, I missed you, sweet boy, or something like that.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember laughing, and I said, Yeah, right.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Show yourself.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: And she looked at me and her face contorted and had like the evilest smile.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, Oh, you know.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I always know.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then it became this thing where she slid off the bed and looked up and stood at me and changed into this pretty hideous looking creature.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: And instead of being scared, I was more angry because I was yelling at the thing to like give me what I wanted.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's kind of like the position I was.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: And like you're just like God's little bratty teenager.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: It really was.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, honestly, it was.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like it was this kind of cat and mouse game because they knew what I wanted and he didn't want to give it to me that way.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: There had to be a thing that I was willing to give up that I didn't want to give up.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you can go to these entities and say, I'll give you this, I'll give you that.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: They want the thing that you don't want to give up.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I honestly believe the thing that they wanted from me specifically was my kids.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that was something that I had a crossroads.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll reel back just a minute before I get to the crossroads part.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: So what I really thought that I needed to do was join a secret society.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because at the time, in the 2008, 2009 era, there's a very big era in the music scene for the Illuminati, and all of these different musical artists were really showcasing.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they do it a lot now, obviously, more so, but we've been desensitized to it.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: But back then it was pretty new.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: You didn't see that blatantly in the open where Jay-Z would have a Baphomet head behind him while he's rapping, and then they were doing just very overt satanic things and music videos.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: So that to me was really where I went down the whole Illuminati rabbit hole and really understanding Freemasonry.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: And my roommate at the time, who's my best friend at the time, you know, he and I had talked about it one night.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: I remember looking at him, I was like, man, I'm I'm gonna sell my soul, man.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever that means.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm gonna enjoy whatever.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, I'm down, man.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever we gotta do.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I remember having that conversation with him.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: Now you're talking about smoking pot.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: We were definitely high at the time.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: So for sure.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we are gonna sell our souls and we are gonna be MM.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, it's gonna be wild.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny you're making the joke, but it seriously was like that.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's the that's the best part about it.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember waiting for that opening, and I remember at the time I was waiting tables at the time at Applebee's, I think it was.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I waited on this guy, and he was uh probably a guy in his mid-30s, late 30s.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I was in my like late 20s, and he had a shirt on and it had the square and compass on his shirt.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: He had like a polo shirt.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I saw the square and compass, I was like, oh, he's a Freemason.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so I knew what to say to them to get the introductory, introductory like the handshake or whatever invite.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the handshake, you don't get it until you go through it.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: But it's just it's just a turn of phrase, and anybody can look it up online.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's just something that if you know to say it to them, they know you're serious about wanting to get in.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's a way to break the ice without them coming to you or someone that you know that brings you in or whatever.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's generally how it happens.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know somebody that knows somebody, and it kind of works its way in.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: If you're just kind of stone cold from the outside, you kind of got to get some sort of icebreaker with somebody.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: And not to say you couldn't just walk up to them and say, Hey, what about getting in?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: Which I'm sure works in some cases too.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: But if you do this, then they kind of know, oh, you kind of know a little something.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: What do you so I remember saying that to him and he kind of smiled at me and he said, So guess you're serious?
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Yeah.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: I said, uh, my friend and I are looking to do this, and he said, Listen, you come out fellowship with us on Tuesday.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: We eat before we have our lodge meetings.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, obviously, you can't come in the lodge for that, but you can come and eat and we'll talk to you and the low down.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm in Georgia at the time, like I'm not in the mountains at this point.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm living in middle Georgia, which is about an hour below Atlanta.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I say all that to get to why this is important.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: So my friend, he's black and he's got dreads down to his shoulder, big dude.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: He's like me, works out in the gym.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we we go together.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: This is not that kind of lodge.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: These guys are old school white guys from way back, and you get there, and this is on that side of town where it was kind of rural, yeah.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like, so we walk in, it really was like a pin drop dropped.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: But the crazy enough, the guy that I met was the worstful master.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: He was literally the master of the lodge.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, crazy, yeah.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: Even crazier.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: But he's younger, and the guy that was he was friends with was also younger, and we sat down to eat with them.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: They were super nice to us.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll at least give him credit for being honest.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember at the end they said, Look, basically, I could get in, but he couldn't.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the reason why he said, Listen, if it was up to us, we wouldn't have an issue with it.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: But these guys, you know, will.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it was it was a whole thing.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_02: So ridiculous.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: It is, and and now it's changed because that was maybe 12, 13 years ago, maybe a little longer.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember exactly.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it was during a time where it was still pretty segregated down south when it came to Freemasonry.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: You had what we call mainstream Freemasons, and then they have what they call Prince Hall Freemasons.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: The Prince Hall Freemasons are built around a black man named Prince Hall, who was the first black man to become a Freemason.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, built his whole sect.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's still under the same umbrella, they still have the same people they have to talk to, just like mainstream does.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: And up north, they all interact with each other.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: They have for years and years and years, and you'll see white people in Prince Hall, you'll see black people in mainstream.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: Up north, it's just a lot different.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now, down south, it has changed now, but at the time it was still kind of segregated.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: So that was it, and I wasn't gonna do it without him, and that just that would have been pretty wrong of me.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: So time went by, it was about seven months later, and I was working at another restaurant, and I was waiting on this large table of black ladies, and again, I'll bring up race for a point because it's all gonna make sense.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah so they're having a I think it was some sort of party or bridal shower, something.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember what it was, but it was just women, and I was waiting on them, they were having a good time, and towards the end, a black guy comes walking in and pretty big dude, and he had around his neck, it was like a massive wooden like chain, and it was wooden, and right here was a giant square and compass.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it was the big square and compass.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: So he walks in and I saw it, and everything went well.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: He ended up paying for the whole thing, too.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I know his girl was there, and then he ended up taking care of everything.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: So as they're leaving, he's one of the last ones to get up because he was taking care of the chat.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then I said what I said to the last guy, and I remember him cocking his head to me, and he said, He said, talk to me.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so I told him kind of a little bit of what was going on.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Listen, here's my number, call me at this time on this date next week.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: Don't be a minute late.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, all right.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I did.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: He picks up the phone, we talk for an hour.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: He said, All right, he's like, call me at this time on another date.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd wait a whole other week.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was like jumping through the hoops.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, and he was a part of a Prince Hall Freemason.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, yeah.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I told him what happened at the other.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: He is a secret society, so they probably want you to do a little legwork.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: And this particular lodge was the toughest Prince Hall Freemason lodge to get into in Middle Georgia, like, you know, of course.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: I picked like the toughest one to go through.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I tell them my story, I tell them what happens at the other lodge, and they were very open.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: They've never had a white guy go through there, but there had been other Prince Hall Freemason lodges that had, so it wasn't like they weren't open to it at all.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: And Prince Hall's way more lenient with that kind of stuff down south anyway.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: And they I ended up meeting the worshipful master on his property later.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: They go through a lot of process of things, background checks, everything.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: They go through the whole thing with you.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: So uh ended up, my friend and I, we go to like the first meeting where they decide whether your material that can go through the process or not.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: And they accepted us into the program.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: So then it's just you got to go through the initiation process.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: So the initiation process, which obviously I won't talk about on air and stick away from it, but I do try to keep things at a certain level just because of, you know, I, you know, family and all that kind of stuff, man.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want any time.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh that makes sense.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to talk about that.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, I'm going through the process and started out with four of us, and by the end of it, it was just me.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: Even my best friend didn't make it, and there was a big thing that happened there, and that was a big rift for us that ended up, you know.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: It was tough because I mean, put it in the context of your best friend who's a white guy makes it at the Black Lodge, and you as a black man don't.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's a tough pill to swallow.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I did what I could to not make it that way as much as possible, but it really was a situation where it was, you know, I was either gonna go through or I was gonna not go through because of him.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, well, I came this far.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not I'm not a quitter.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna keep going.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I ended up going through it and became Freemason.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: And through that, I was initially interested in getting in for, you know, the classic tropes, money, power, fame, and you want to get to that, right?
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: But honestly, secretly, the real reason I wanted to get in there was for the knowledges, was for the gnosis, right?
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I think people who crave those types of things that other people don't have.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you said you came out of witchcraft.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's something to be said to have knowledge of stuff that other people don't have and being able to connect to things that other people can't connect to.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: And people have to come and they come to you for that knowledge.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's where the power is, right?
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like I say that all the time because it's pride.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's the original, original OG Sin.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's literally like nothing new under the sun.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same dressed up promise from the garden.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't did God really say that?
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: Did God really say?
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: He wants to keep stuff from you.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's just so, I don't know.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's just I always I make fun of myself on here all the time because I'm just amazed at how bamboozled, but that's pride, you know?
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I my butt gets kicked every week for pride, so it's still there.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: But the gnosis is definitely, yeah, like the hidden secrets and mysteries, and I know this stuff, and people come to me.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's alluring.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it definitely was for me.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember going through it all, and I remember them telling me like when I was done, I was one of the most prolific people that had come through there to like pick up the stuff and memorize it and understand it as well as I did.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because I was so consumed with like learning it.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like I really wanted to learn it.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember they gave me a book, probably before they should have, and I think they even told me that.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: But they said, you could take this with you while you're going through your initiations.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember going through it, and at the back end of the book, I remember there were these entities' names popping up, and I got super excited because I was like, there it is.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, that's what I've been looking for was the secret stuff that probably some of those other guys didn't even recognize was even in there.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you, there were guys that went to church, there were guys that were, I would say, Christians that are Freemasonry.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: Again, Freemasonry is not necessarily what people think from the outside.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: Really, when you're thinking about the nefarious parts of any secret society, that's generally a very small percentage of that secret society.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's more towards the top, and it's people that are have worked their way up the chain.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the people that are in there for the fraternity and the brotherhood.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's really not.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that just from being around those guys.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we did a lot for the community, you know.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's a huge population of Freemations here in my community.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:27
  unknown: Yeah.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: And the position of our lodge was in the middle of the hood.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it was designed to do that because there were so many kids that needed things.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we were giving out things to kids for school all the time for Thanksgiving.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: We were cooking turkeys, handing them out for free, all these things.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: And we weren't doing it for nefarious reasons.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: We're actually trying to help people.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: So there is a level of people who are part of these secret societies that are just in it for fraternity and brotherhood.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: They don't really even know about the more nefarious creation stories behind them.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: I did.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: And crazy enough, there were a few guys who were pretty high up that kind of recognized that I might have been in there for something else.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because they would ask me certain questions that I kind of knew that it was more of they were fishing.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember at one point they were asking, you know, how far did I want to go?
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, you know, I want to get to the top.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Well, you know, you can get to 32nd degree on your own, and you can do that pretty quickly.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to be sponsored to become a 33rd degree, and you have to get your 33rd degree rights done in Washington, D.C.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: But you have to be sponsored by another 33rd degree, which we had a couple of those in there.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, how would I get sponsors?
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: Don't worry about that.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: You'll get, we'll sponsor you.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: Just you have to get to whatever.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: So while that's going on, I'm also going through a very turbulent time in my life, too, because I had a lot going on with my kids and just some wild things that were derailing me.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the sacrifice presenting itself because I had a choice.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was either going to step up for my kids, be there for them, or I was going to chase this, and they would just fall to the wayside.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: And there was that, I remember that pretty viscerally.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I wasn't even ready to walk with God or anything at that point.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I had that crossroad in front of me, and I chose my kids.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I chose not to go down that road because it was the values that my parents had instilled in me growing up.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure there's a lot of prayer going on behind the scenes with people who are praying for me to make the right decisions.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I ended up making the right decision with my kids, which set me on a path to eventually lead me to where I am now.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes I tell people that some people have a very visceral meeting with God.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it changes them instantly.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: Some people, like myself, who came from the church life who left that, it took a lot longer, but it was steps that took me over almost a 10-year period to get me to where I am now.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: But it was good decisions that I made along the way because of values that were instilled in me.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was ready for what God was trying to reveal to me.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why I've gotten a whole lot better with grace with people, especially because of my situation.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because I can see people that I know that are Christians, but they're acting pretty awful.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it's very easy for me to get zero to 60 because I know that's the type of behavior that would have ran me off from the church back in the day.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: But then I also have to think, well, what do they come out of?
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: What are they building towards?
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: What are they, where are they at in life?
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: And when I start looking at through that lens, I get a lot softer when it comes to decisions that people make.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because at the root core, people are just people.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: And even some of the worst people in the world are still just people, man.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: And they've made just some awful decisions.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I realize that my battle's not against them.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think once we realize that, then we can make better decisions for us.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: That is also going to help the people around us too.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then those people see that, and then they see a different side of Christianity that they've seen their whole lives.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, definitely.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because you were a you were a PK, weren't you?
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: You were pastor's kid.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: Pastor's kid.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: They always say we're the worst.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's it's funny.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's a funny stroke.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: They're either the worst or the best.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of the two.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's no in between, really.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so we always joke at church because so I'm on staff and I have a kid, obviously I have a kid.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so we always joke like it's not pastors' kids, it's the staff kids that are and the production kids because they're just rolling all over, like they're just behind back of house, front of house.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like I had this, I had to tell my son, like, you can't just say, Oh, I can come, I can I can leave class because my mom works here.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Right.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, you are you are held to a higher account and a higher standard because mommy works here.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so now he's like rebellious and he's just like, why do I have to why do I have to do everything?
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh gosh, and you don't do everything at church.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: He's in this, like, he's 10.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: So he like he's in between obviously like elementary school and middle school.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: And our middle school is super awesome.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's really cool stuff in middle school.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he knows that.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so now he's just like, I don't want to go to kids' church.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: I like know everything about the Bible.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, no, pretty sure you don't.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: You do not.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because I do not.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I have well, that's why I just invite people that are cool that know more than me on my podcast.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: Cause I just don't have the time.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, there's no way.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: But like, so coming around, I I want to kind of like, I want to step back just a little bit from because that was like a wild ride that you just took us on.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's pretty incredible.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, do you think like so you said some of the guys had they kind of could tell that you um were looking for more of like the esoteric and like the hidden sort of stuff?
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: Were you besides like obviously just like the books and stuff like that?
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, were you were you yourself kind of fishing and like looking around and kind of like prying and getting questions from them and were they answering them?
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, did you feel like you had more knowledge than them at that point?
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: Or was it just kind of like they could tell that you were like you had something on you almost?
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know, what I'm getting at is like there's always an inverse.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have the gifting of obviously teaching and you know, being able to study and all that sort of stuff and then communicate what you learned.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: So were you doing that, do you think, in like the opposite spectrum?
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think there might have been some level of a couple of the guys being able to sniff something on me.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm talking about some of the older guys too.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: We're not talking about the guys that were around my age that were in there.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't believe that they were involved with anything at all or even were thinking about anything like that.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: But I do think that there was a certain level with some of the older guys, just a few questions they would ask here and there.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I wonder, like, blow it out of proportion for anybody listening either, and say, oh man, Joel, he was almost there.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: He it's it was you can tell when somebody is testing you in certain ways, and if you're answering the right stuff, or if you're saying things that's piquing their interest that seems a little different than what normal people are in there for.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I think too, because I was so able to pick up the knowledge so quickly, I think to them he might be in here for something a little different.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just in here for the camaraderie and all that, which was fine.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: It was great.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I don't look at any of those guys with any kind of like disgust or disdain or anything like that.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: Some of those guys are absolutely fantastic people, but it was just my reasoning to be in there was vastly different than the majority of what the rest of them were in there for.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I can honestly say that.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, I looked at it as a stepping stone to get what I really wanted.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: Do I think I could have got what I really wanted if I would have gone through it?
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think that there was definitely a path there, but I also needed to make that sacrifice and leave my kids to the wolves, basically, is what would have happened.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that was the big test for me.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and obviously that's just one sacrifice, right?
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: What was what would be the next sacrifice?
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: What would be the next thing that you had to do?
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: There would have been levels.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if and if you were if you were already kind of at that level where that was the first like rung, you know, that's insane.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because what would have been the next one?
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't know.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really know what would have came out of it, but I do remember we were talking about entities.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I did a show called Papa Legba.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: It was one of the early episodes that I did.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that episode was pretty wild because at the time when I knew the entity, I didn't know what the entity was until I ended up talking to this lady who was involved with voodoo and practiced voodoo.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember telling her how this entity interacted with me, and she said, Oh, that was Papa Leg, but he's a trickster because I remember looking at this entity who looked like a cartoon devil with a diaper flying over my head.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it sounds absolutely bizarre, but I was wide awake.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't in some sort of sleep trance or and I wasn't on anything either.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: So this was totally in my room.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember saying that I wanted to sell my soul, and it laughed at me and said, I already got it.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: What what else do you have to give me?
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_01: It was kind of this thing where you're already on a path to hell.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_01: There needs to be something more that you're willing to give, was kind of the game.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think at the time I really picked up on what that entity was meaning by that.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_01: But when I was talking to this lady who was involved with Voodoo, she broke it down to me and said, Well, Papa Legba likes to play a lot of games.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: He's at he's the crossroads.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: He's the one you meet at the crossroads.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: And many musicians have talked about meeting the man in black, and that's what Papa Legba is.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: He's the archetype, right?
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: He's the one that you beat, and he's the one who can broker the deal between the gods, basically.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I yeah, it's like the 27 Club.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was listening, I don't, I can't remember listening to somebody podcasts.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was listening to somebody's podcast, and they were talking about the 27 Club, and they were talking to somebody about it, like the host, and they did not, and I was like, it's a 27 club, it's Nirvana, Kirk Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, like Janice Joblin, like all of them.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, come on, you know this.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was, it was such it was such the lore of like our middle school era, was like, as soon as Kirk Cobain died, it was like, oh my gosh, like what?
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like 27.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, no, I get it.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like that it's he is kind of that entity, right?
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's like drawn at the crossroads, like right.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um different names for him too.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I just know in voodoo, that's what he's described as.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_00: And did you do I mean, how did you attract that him?
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: Did you do were you just messing around?
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like so one of the things that I would do, and I know it's super controversial, probably not for your audience, but definitely for some people, specifically in the new age fields.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I would meditate, and this was something that I learned from the guy who was training to be a shaman, and opening your chakras and opening up that third eye and in your crown chakra.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people do that to heal themselves or, you know, find the inner them, right?
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_01: Most of them don't even know they're connecting to entities.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: I did it specifically to connect to entities because my goal was to do it for that reason.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I would literally bypass the other chakras and just go to the third eye or the crown just to get to that point.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it wouldn't happen right away necessarily, but it would happen after that event, right?
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_01: It would happen at some point two, three hours later, you know, typically around 3 a.m.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: witching hours, stuff like that, where these entities would manifest in my room.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one of the things that I would do.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_01: I was big in Notaro and trying to understand, you know, my life and how it was gonna play out, all those different things.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: And while also reading a lot of occult literature from Coley and some of the other ones, and obviously going through a secret society.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_01: And you're doing all that at once.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_01: You're probably gonna tap into something at some point.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: Just one big portal.
• 54:42
  unknown: Right.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_01: Just a big old antenna.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're like a trans transmitter.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's just what you are.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's amazing.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I trust me, bro.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: I've been doing I did some stupid stuff.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like just, you know, and it's it's funny now because like, yeah, I guess I've always been really a little like a little bit more extreme into extreme like music, into extreme beliefs, whatever.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so now when I'm now that I'm here on this side of the pendulum, like my new age friends that I still hang out with are just like, you know, just you're still even so it's you're weird.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like now you're weirder with Jesus.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, yeah, because this stuff is real, and you guys are still reading your tarot cards, and yeah, it's just like, no, this stuff is and I guess my whole thing is, yeah, you might not get it, but it doesn't it's it's in your bloodline now, like it's in it's in the generation, you know.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it's challenging like to to shake that stuff for sure.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like you you really can't do it without Jesus.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um but doing all that stuff is definitely like just one big transmitter.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like in there.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know what's funny is when I learned that you could equally be a transmitter on the other end of it as well.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the fascinating thing that we learn when we follow Christ is you can become a transmitter for the Holy Spirit at that point, and it becomes like a whole different type of manifestation, which is even more fascinating.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because one of the things that I realized over the past year, year and a half, because I was doing a lot of research on downloading, and a lot of these very intellectual people who are having these downloads while they're asleep, or they're having these downloads through meditation, it's these off-roll intelligences that are giving them the answers to questions that they can't break.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_01: It might be a problem they need solved to fix this thing that could open up this part of a scientific experiment.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_01: It could be so many different things that they're looking to do, and they receive the download from off-world intelligences, and then they're able to do it.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, oh, this guy's a genius.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's really smart, but the genius part comes into play with these off-world intelligences.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: But it also works adversely.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_01: I realized with being a Christian, the Holy Spirit can give you the download that you need as well.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because there are times where I'll go to sleep and I'll pray for the answer, and you wake up with the answer.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, whoa, like that was wild because the Holy Spirit gave me that answer.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes throughout the day, I can realize if I'm walking in the spirit, like the answer comes.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it's such a fascinating thing that it works on both ends.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just on this negative end.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, we're not using it as some divination tool to hurry up, Holy Spirit.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna conjure you up to give me the answer.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't work like that.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_01: But if you are that way willing and open for the Holy Spirit to work through you, I've realized that it can actually work the same way on the other end of it, except you're not selling a part of you to do it.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it's completely different.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's a different payoff for it, and you're not selling yourself to do it.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, because it's operational, right?
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like because you're actually working on because you're on purpose at that point.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're being used for what God purposed and created you for, and you're actually doing what you're supposed to be doing, and then it's the Holy Spirit that's working through you.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like you become that, like, yeah, like we were saying, like the transmitter on the other end.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I experienced this and it's just, it's kind of, I don't know if it's like an uptick or whatever, but do you ever feel like um because of what you've come out of, like, you know, uh the occult and like Freemasonry, all that stuff, like since you've come to the Lord, do you ever feel like you're just kind of more um just not susceptible to like spiritual warfare?
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's like a hot topic too.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but more like, are you do you feel like when you are not walking on purpose and like just kind of like lazy and kind of, you know, I guess lukewarm?
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel like a really quick like rebuke from the Lord?
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel like, hey, I just feel like that more recently.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I'm I'm kind of like asking people when I talk to them, like if that's something that they're experiencing, like, hey, move your butt.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we don't have time for this.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, I think that's a that's a one way of wording it for sure.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_01: I would say for me, what I've noticed is the closer my wall gets, the more I'm aware of things going on that I need to deviate from.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_01: And if it's something that's negative that I don't need to be around or don't need to be interacting with, then I'm quicker to be able to move away from that, quicker to be able to spot some of these things out.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and not just from my background, but just sometimes where you realize, you know, I'm not really walking in the spirit.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's not something that I need to be doing.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it might even be something that somebody else would even think is bad, but it's just something for me that I know that I don't need to be interacting with because it could probably lead me down a path of something that I know that I'm very susceptible to do because like everybody has their own vices and proclivities that we all have.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we know when we come out of certain things that we try to eliminate things that would bring those things back around.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_01: And not that we're not going to make mistakes, and that's something I've gotten very comfortable with over the past four to five years is falling flat on my face and making mistakes and realizing that that's part of the journey.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it also helps you to understand how to not do it again.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I think for me, that's where I'm learning a lot and growing in Christ because I think that that's the really tough part, right?
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_01: When you come out of some of this really negative environments, that you don't spot things out as much because you've been so desensitized to everything.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's you're rewiring your brain again.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's just it's a constant rewiring, I think.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I do know that when you start walking down the path with God, that he reveals things in his timing.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that's something my pastor said on Sunday that really hit me hard.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_01: He said that quit worrying about, and he was specifically speaking to people that judge other people, but I took it differently.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_01: He was basically saying, quit worrying about what other people are doing when God needs to convict them for something, because that's his timing, you need to worry about yourself.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: But to me, I took it as, oh wow, God convicts you in his timing because you might not be ready for that conviction of that thing, because that might really just spiral you out to do worse.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_01: So he is bringing you along in his timing.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_01: There's a really good verse in the Bible that has meant a lot to me right now.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it is, I got on my wall right here, Ecclesiastes 7.13.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it says, it says to consider what the Lord has done.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_01: Man cannot straighten what he has made crooked.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_00: So oh, and that's awesome, yeah.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_01: So to me, what that verse means is that if the road was straight, then we could see all the way down the road and exactly where our end part is.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_01: But like God has created our journey to be hilly, it's you're gonna be massive mountains, it's gonna be a turn that we can see nothing around, probably wolves waiting for us, all these things, right?
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_01: But he does that so that we can trust him, and then we can learn to rely on him through faith.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then at the same time, we become stronger for it.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that was also what I took away from that sermon when he said that was man, God convicts you in his timing, he also brings you along in his timing.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas somebody else, we were just talking about it earlier, where somebody else might hit that 180 quick and then boom.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_01: I know Tony did.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_01: I remember Tony told me about his testimony and how you know he almost got a divorce and all these things he talks about on the show all the time.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_01: And he hit a 180 and it was fast.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_01: Not that he hasn't grown a ton since then, but he hit that fast 180.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas me, it was a lot, it was a slow drip to get me to where I am now.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_01: But obviously, that was timing for me.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas the 180 might have worked against what I was trying to do, because if I had tried to do a 180 on my own, I may have fallen right back on my face, and then I might have done even worse.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that our journeys are our journeys, and we can't look at other people and tell them that their journey is supposed to be like ours.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a really good point.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think sometimes, especially, I mean, you probably see it a lot too in like the conspiracy space and the space that you're in, which is where it's like you want to be like, you want to shake people and be like, don't it's so bad to do that, but you can't like I ran into this like a couple weeks ago where I was praying for something and I shared it on my show.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, um, God kept telling me to like pray against witchcraft.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I was talking to like my spiritual mom at church, and she's like, Well, what's like, what's going on?
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_00: What's on your heart?
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I was explaining the situation that I was praying against, and she's like, Christina, that's witchcraft.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, You can't, you can't pray against someone to do something that's their free will.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you can't do it.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Oh, it's me.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the witch.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's me.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, I'm still learning and I'm still doing things not right.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_00: But in your heart, you want to do things like you want to pray for people, you know, you want them to come to the Lord and and all that sort of stuff.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_00: But did you um I wanted you to kind of like back up and tell us about how you came, like after you came out of like free making that kind of crossroad decision?
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what was it that brought you back to church?
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like after being a pastor's kid, like you knew that.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like you knew, I mean, you grew up with the stuff in your heart, right?
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so how did you not so much like leave it?
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because I mean, you told the story, but how did you find Jesus again?
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, a lot of it was Tony for sure, just being around him a lot and him speaking into you.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I was very open, even when I first met him.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was already looking back that way.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized that I didn't want any part of what I had previously wanted to be a part of.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I started slowly going down that road.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember I reached out to an old counselor of mine.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_01: He used to be my youth pastor 25 years ago.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_01: And he's had a counseling service forever.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_01: And he stepped away from that part of the ministry he was in prior to getting to this part of the ministry.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I reached out to him because he was doing counseling.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_01: And at the time, my son's grown now, he's in the military, but he at the time needed a counselor to talk to.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I reached out to him on a whim and they talked, and my son needed somebody more local because he was doing over Zoom because he's still back in Georgia and I'm in Ohio.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I remember at the end of the call, I said, you know, what about talking to me?
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Yeah, he said, we can do that.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I started meeting with him on Zoom calls, and that was kind of my first really foray back into talking about God and talking about, you know, what that meant to me in my life.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when I started really, you know, down a long journey of coming back to him.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, I was probably working with my counselor for like a year before I even really considered going back to church.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't ready.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't even know if I wanted church at the time.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying that church is a necessity for people, but I do think that there is something to be said if you find a church home that you can connect to and you can be around other believers.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_01: And you also have somebody that teaches the word.
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's important if you can find it.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I know not everybody can find that where they're at.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you don't need that to be saved either.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I do think that I was ready as a person.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember I was trying out different churches, went this one church for a little bit because my friend was a music minister there.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember he hit me up one day because he'd stepped away from music ministering there and he was trying to find another church.
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_01: And he mentioned this one church that was, man, maybe five minutes from me.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yeah, we'll go try this one out.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember the service ended, and I told him, I was like, Man, this is it.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this is where I'm gonna go to.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I actually reached out to the pastor, and he and I have hung out a few times, and he's definitely interested in what I do, and he's fascinated with some of the stuff I talk about.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_01: To say the least, he's not necessarily down that like I am.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_01: He's open.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I just remember one time I told him about it was last year at some point, and we were talking about aliens and UFOs.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how it got off on that, but I mentioned that we know Congress is talking about interdimensional beings, and he said, What?
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, he said, Yeah are they?
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, dude, this is mainstream.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:09:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I said he just looked at me and said, Man, it's wild.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yeah, and it's like, I'm trying to show people how that connects to the spiritual world to the Bible.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_01: This is why I do this.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_01: Plus, he even said that he has a lot of people in his congregation that are really wrapped up in conspiracy theories.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_01: And he said it's really tough for him as a pastor to be able to handle that.
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_01: One, he's like, I don't know enough about it.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then secondly, it's the part that I told him that, you know, I'm trying to show people how to get out of this rabbit hole that it's okay to get information, especially if you feel led to do it.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_01: But if you spend your whole life doing that, and how much time are you spending the word?
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what are you what are you doing that's benefiting your spiritual life?
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Is it benefiting your spiritual life?
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I find a lot of research that I do benefits my spiritual life because I look at it through that lens, and a lot of it is biblical.
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm in the Bible a lot.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, I'll be studying something and it'll directly impact something in my life or something that I need to see.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I say, oh man, it's gonna be something great.
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_01: I can tell people when I get on the podcast or whatever.
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, for instance, I was at church maybe a month and a half ago.
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Towards the end of the service, this guy comes in, he sits in the pew next to me.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was the only person in my pew.
• 1:10:48
  SPEAKER_01: And he sits kind of next to me, but towards the other end, and he just starts like oddly clapping, and he's like, And he starts singing like really wild conspiracy stuff next to me.
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_01: This guy's not well.
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I get outside and he's screaming at the church about Freemasons running the church that we're at and all this stuff because he saw a couple guys with square and compasses on the back of their vehicles.
• 1:11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, go there, but they're not pastors or anything like that.
• 1:11:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, right, they're not in a different leadership, yeah.
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 1:11:27
  SPEAKER_01: And he's flipping out, he's talking about the you worship your king president, king president, and he's out there going crazy.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I almost walked over there because I knew that if I walked over there and just started talking about the Bilderbergs or just something pretty easy that he could catch on real quick, maybe I could calm him down and get him to get going.
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, security showed up and it got kind of wild.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_01: And he actually came back ministry opportunity.
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and I tried, but by the time that I started moving that way, he got in the vehicle and left.
• 1:12:05
  SPEAKER_01: But apparently he came back for the second service and they had to like call the police.
• 1:12:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually texted my pastor.
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Look, you know, maybe in the future, I didn't want to overstep either.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, you know, I didn't want to overstep and I don't work there.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I told him, I was like, I didn't want to overstep or anything, but you know, it's kind of my field, and I knew everything he was saying.
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_01: I knew what he was trying to convey, even though he was not well.
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the other thing, too, that I found in the conspiracy space.
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I talk about on my show a lot, and I got a lot of flack early on for it from people, but I kept going because I think it's important to talk about is the you know mental instability of people in the conspiracy and truther space.
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's a lot of people that have mental health issues, and the problem is it's so easy to hide in these spaces, at least for a little while, because people are very accepting of a lot of really wild stuff.
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you and I both know there's a lot of wild stuff in the world, the supernatural world.
• 1:13:03
  SPEAKER_01: So you want to be understanding and you want to try to believe people, but then when you see them go off the rails, oh man, like they've got mental health issues.
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's got a lot to do with a lot of the anxiety that's going on.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_01: And listen, people have mental health issues, don't need to be around conspiracy theories, it's making it worse.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that's I think that's honestly why I felt like called not to talk about it on the show.
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because to me, I mean, I like I always joke, I don't really know much about my audience except for my analytics, but you know, because nobody ever writes in.
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_00: But it's okay.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but like for me, it's I want this to be a space where like you aren't, there's enough crap going on.
• 1:13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I want this to be weirdly encouraging.
• 1:13:50
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to hear a little Jesus.
• 1:13:51
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to just kind of like chill out and relax and just have like a weird time.
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you don't, you can go, your entire feed is filled.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And mine too.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_00: I have to detox my feed all the time because, especially with Instagram, I don't know what's going on.
• 1:14:07
  SPEAKER_00: But like seriously, there's stuff where I'm like, I don't remember following this.
• 1:14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what is did I just look at it too long and now it the algorithm knows, probably.
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, it's just like, what is this?
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just kind of algorithms for a living because I I run social media sites for people.
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_01: Me too.
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can just be on a video for five to ten seconds and it knows that you watch that for five or ten seconds, and it'll dump something very similar back into the feed.
• 1:14:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it's crazy.
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:14:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's fun to watch it.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know, we talk about that all the time in church.
• 1:14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, I shouldn't have said that because now it's talking to me.
• 1:14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, obviously, just listening.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I so it's funny because you mentioned this guy at church, and I just I I don't know.
• 1:14:55
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of have this whole idea where like I think that hey, if we if what we pray for really happens, like all these weirdos come to Christ, like the churches are gonna be filled with people that have Bigfoot conspiracy theories, like all like they need ministry too, and they need people that can disciple them and that aren't like church people can't do it.
• 1:15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's kind of why, like, I started joking, like in the beginning, I kind of like switched over, you know, programming or whatever with my podcast.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I would just say, like, if the if you're a church person, this is probably not the podcast for you.
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's not a churchy, I'm not a churchy person.
• 1:15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's not gonna be like that.
• 1:15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not the girl in the prairie dresser, you know, whatever, like with scriptures everywhere.
• 1:15:41
  SPEAKER_00: But people need those spaces for sure.
• 1:15:47
  SPEAKER_01: No, absolutely, and it was funny.
• 1:15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Recently, my pastor was preaching, and he was doing a sermon about the promised land.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_01: He mentioned and started talking about giants for a bit, and he was just talking about how that you know they were involved with I believe it was Caleb and the whole instance with the 12 spies.
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember after church, I walked up to him and I said, Finally got on those giants, Dave.
• 1:16:24
  SPEAKER_01: He started laughing.
• 1:16:25
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Giants, finally.
• 1:16:28
  SPEAKER_00: But it's crazy because the more people that you talk, like, I mean, there are at least like seven people I can count on my fingers at church that are just like, oh, you have that podcast?
• 1:16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Bigfoot, oh, like what about giants?
• 1:16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, they're talking about it in Congress because that's the thing.
• 1:16:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's being talked about in Congress.
• 1:16:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's being talked about.
• 1:16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now we've got AI Atlas and whatever.
• 1:16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't even know.
• 1:16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Not I say keep saying AI.
• 1:16:51
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's wrong.
• 1:16:52
  SPEAKER_00: My husband keeps making fun of me.
• 1:16:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even care what it is.
• 1:16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Three eye, I know.
• 1:16:56
  SPEAKER_00: See, look, bunny trails, three eye atlas.
• 1:16:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know.
• 1:16:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is why I'm not a truth.
• 1:17:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a conspiracy theorist.
• 1:17:02
  SPEAKER_00: I can't even get the lingo right.
• 1:17:04
  SPEAKER_00: But like, I don't even I he my husband was just watching like the Joe Rogan thing on his show with the like the actual guy that's from Harvard with this whole thing.
• 1:17:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I don't, yeah.
• 1:17:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I don't, I don't care.
• 1:17:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Loeb, Loeb smells.
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've looked into Loeb for a long time.
• 1:17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 1:17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he is, yeah, he's bought and paid for if you've ever seen that.
• 1:17:30
  SPEAKER_00: I see that's what I think too.
• 1:17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 1:17:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's without a shadow of a doubt.
• 1:17:35
  SPEAKER_01: And just the way that he talks about extraterrestrials and the way that he talks about their impact on humanity and what that would mean.
• 1:17:48
  SPEAKER_01: He is definitely in the camp of them being a beneficial thing for us in the future.
• 1:17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 1:17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:17:56
  SPEAKER_01: So Avi's not up to anything good.
• 1:17:58
  SPEAKER_01: I can promise you that.
• 1:17:59
  SPEAKER_00: So then, yeah, see, that's why I don't even get into it.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Cause it just because to me, it just feels like gossip.
• 1:18:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's then we're just sitting around talking about these people.
• 1:18:06
  SPEAKER_00: But like, you know, is it is it fruitful?
• 1:18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Is it helpful to people?
• 1:18:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 1:18:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean, obviously, let's get our heads out of the clouds and not be looking for this stuff.
• 1:18:16
  SPEAKER_00: I do think that we can look in the conspiracy space and kind of take the temperature a little bit and realize, like, okay, well, if there's gonna be an uptick in all of this disclosure with aliens and stuff like that, like I personally think we're gonna see a big resurgence with starseed cults.
• 1:18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you're gonna see stuff like that.
• 1:18:37
  SPEAKER_00: We already are.
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_00: We are, like, but that's just kind of the nature of ridiculous.
• 1:18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can type in Starseed in Google right now.
• 1:18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:18:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's four million TikTok videos show up for Starseeds and Indigo children, which is super crazy that it came back around so hard.
• 1:18:56
  SPEAKER_00: And indigo children, I can't believe that.
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 1:19:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's really wild.
• 1:19:02
  SPEAKER_01: And but also what's happening, part of that is this whole Christ consciousness movement that's playing into the starseed movement, too.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_01: So now you've got the whole Jesus is an Arcturian movement that's really, I'm thinking a whole church around it right now.
• 1:19:17
  SPEAKER_01: I actually have the Bible that was rewritten for that, and I downloaded it.
• 1:19:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna do an episode on it at some point.
• 1:19:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's wild.
• 1:19:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's so wild.
• 1:19:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I just went through it just a little bit and I said, man, this is the wildest thing I've ever read.
• 1:19:35
  SPEAKER_01: And there are massive accounts on X and YouTube that are promoting this, and people are believing it, man.
• 1:19:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's the same thing with like the RH negative blood type.
• 1:19:47
  SPEAKER_01: You've got a whole contingent of people out there who think they have the bloodline of Jesus in them.
• 1:19:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, man, this is getting crazy that people are falling for this, and you know, they are looking for answers.
• 1:19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the problem is the church isn't giving it to them when it comes to the wilder stuff.
• 1:20:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:20:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's part of the reason why I feel called to do what I do, because I think that there needs to be people in the space who are talking to this, but from a biblical perspective, because the enemy's out there ready to give you all the info you want.
• 1:20:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I've always laughed for years that the way that it was constructed early on, the way that the church came in, and I mean the negative aspects of the church early on, yeah, they basically snuffed out the supernatural over the past 2,000 years, while simultaneously on the other side, you had the occult and the mystery schools, and you had Wicca and all these other things that were showing people, oh, here, we can get you the supernatural.
• 1:20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:20:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a twofold game that was going on at the same time.
• 1:20:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that what you're seeing now in a very good way, you are having some Christians come out who are talking about the supernatural, who are recognizing it for what it is.
• 1:21:01
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking about aliens, we're talking about Bigfoot, we're talking about things from a biblical perspective.
• 1:21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because if people don't hear it, then they're gonna go to that other side because they said, I saw this thing in the woods and it was speaking to me with its mind.
• 1:21:17
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can help that person understand what that thing is and it not be from the negative aspect over here, where they're gonna tell you to go out there and commune with whatever deities are in the woods, you know, that's the thing you don't want to see.
• 1:21:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's why you've got people in the space that are doing this.
• 1:21:35
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, we we take shrapnel bullets for it sometimes because you know, there are Christians out there that think we're we're of the devil for even considering talking about these types of subjects, but somebody's got to do it because no, nobody else is.
• 1:21:51
  SPEAKER_01: And if they would just pick up their Bible and leaf through Genesis, I mean, there's so much supernatural going on in Genesis, and I'm not even talking about Nephilim, I'm talking about just in general going on in Genesis.
• 1:22:04
  SPEAKER_01: How can you how can you just overlook all that?
• 1:22:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's what's happening in the modern Christian world.
• 1:22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know why, Joel?
• 1:22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because it there's no there's we don't have that small group in the Bible app.
• 1:22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Joyce Myers didn't make a small group devotional about Genesis six.
• 1:22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's why.
• 1:22:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's and that's just and that's nobody's, you know, that's nobody's fault, but that's just where the Christian culture, I think, kind of landed for a while.
• 1:22:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I like what you said about the supernatural.
• 1:22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like I I have a whole theory about witchcraft about that, where it's just like, I don't know, the more I dig into some things with witchcraft, I'm just like, okay, this was very, very specific.
• 1:22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like we got rid of the supernatural and superstitions and all that stuff, and it's really interesting to me.
• 1:22:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I kind of have this thing cooking, but um with the church itself, that's why I think exactly what you said.
• 1:23:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is so important and having these podcasts at like the confessionals, like blurry creatures, like what you're doing, because you have these bigger podcasts that are able to go to these other spaces.
• 1:23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like I hear podcasters all the time be like, oh, I want to be like the confessionals, I want to be like blurry creatures.
• 1:23:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I don't.
• 1:23:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have number one, I don't have the time.
• 1:23:24
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I did.
• 1:23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't want to make money off of this.
• 1:23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is not my, I'm not trying to do that.
• 1:23:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just trying to be like creative and have fun and talk about weird stuff with people.
• 1:23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:23:34
  SPEAKER_00: But you have to understand just how the body of Christ is generally, like God is using those people to go to those places so that it's kind of like it's oh it's almost like grooming the church again.
• 1:23:49
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds really weird.
• 1:23:51
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, you're kind of getting people used to hearing about that stuff again.
• 1:23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because, like I said, if we see this growth in churches where you have just that example of that weird guy, someone has to disciple him when he raises his hand for Christ and he has to talk to somebody about it.
• 1:24:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the more that it's like normalized, the more we're gonna hear those stories coming out of church.
• 1:24:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's exciting, but I think that we do have to be ready.
• 1:24:17
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I'm always just like, hey, everybody go take Bo Kennedy's, you know, devotional that he wrote and make a small group in your church, and there you go.
• 1:24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know?
• 1:24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, for sure.
• 1:24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, his book's great.
• 1:24:30
  SPEAKER_01: I had it on the show, and he I know that was a really good episode.
• 1:24:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I made sure he got on Tony's too.
• 1:24:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because I told Tony that he has a book, get him on the show.
• 1:24:40
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, no, I totally agree with you in that aspect, and that's kind of what I'm doing with my podcast, and I think I'm looking at it in that aspect as more of a ministry.
• 1:24:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I know Tony looks at his podcast is a ministry now, and he talks about it that way because he's I want people to see that all these weird things are happening, but at the end of the day, you need to be grounded and rooted in Christ, and you need to understand that, yeah, all this stuff's going on, but at the same time, if you have the right foundation, then you're gonna be okay anyway.
• 1:25:16
  SPEAKER_01: You'll be able to combat these things in a way that you're set up to do.
• 1:25:21
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:25:22
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about the armor of God and Tony's real big on spiritual warfare, and I understand that aspect as well.
• 1:25:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I think specifically you were talking about earlier coming out of the occult.
• 1:25:33
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel like that you get a little bit more eyes on you now from the enemy or you know, these entities?
• 1:25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 1:25:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think the closer you get with God, the more things get worked up.
• 1:25:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I've noticed myself go through stages where, man, I feel like I'm just beaten down this plateau.
• 1:25:55
  SPEAKER_01: I can't get to it, and man, I'm just getting beat down, and then you feel like you get through to it because you've battled through that, but that's also God showing you that these are the tools you're gonna need for later, especially like you said, when you may be trying to help someone else who's going through this.
• 1:26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
• 1:26:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I think it's it's really all about, you know, because like you were saying, there's they're gonna find information either way, you know, it's it's out there and it's even more prevalent.
• 1:26:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I it's funny, we s everyone always brings up like the Christ consciousness, but I because I went through like a whole new age phase and I loved that.
• 1:26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was in a situation on my journey where I couldn't, you couldn't say Jesus to me without me like wanting to punch you in the face.
• 1:26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so I couldn't even hear his name.
• 1:26:46
  SPEAKER_00: So Christ consciousness, like God used that to soften my heart.
• 1:26:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm kind of hoping, like when I look at that, I kind of I kind of look at that through that lens of like the star seeds and everything where I can kind of roll my eyes and be like, all right, you guys are totally a cult, but also God can use that for his glory to soften those hearts for people that just might not even know him, you know.
• 1:27:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think they have a lot less road to go.
• 1:27:13
  SPEAKER_01: I I do that.
• 1:27:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:27:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I do I do agree with you there.
• 1:27:18
  SPEAKER_01: I question the motives of some of the quote unquote prophets that run some of these organizations that deceive people for sure.
• 1:27:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I do think a lot of those people are good people at the root core.
• 1:27:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the one thing why I do think it's a little bit easier to get them where you need to go.
• 1:27:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that's something that I battle with on the show a lot too.
• 1:27:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I try to walk a fine line, and it'll probably come out funny, but a fine line between having a lot of grace and flipping the tables.
• 1:27:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it's, you know, sometimes you gotta flip the tables, and I want to do it in a right.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_01: Godly way when I do.
• 1:28:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I know I can get very passionate on the show sometimes about things, specifically when I just know people are being deceived.
• 1:28:09
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, I try to stay in the mind of God when I do it so I can reel it back in and say, I'm just admonishing you because this is what happens when you go down this road.
• 1:28:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like this is the danger of taking on board whatever I'm talking about at the time.
• 1:28:25
  SPEAKER_01: And Gnosticism is a big one for me because I feel like it's the most deceptive.
• 1:28:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because to your point, you're right.
• 1:28:33
  SPEAKER_01: It is a road that's less to get to God, but also there's that old phrase, you know, what's more dangerous, the clock that's off five minutes of the clock that's off an hour.
• 1:28:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it's one of those things, too, where being that little bit off, you're so off.
• 1:28:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one of those things that I try to help people with with the whole Christ consciousness, Gnosticism.
• 1:28:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's all rooted in the same things.
• 1:29:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I try to show how that all of those ideologies are rooted in pride because the starseed movement, in and of itself, is prideful because I'm more special than other people because I have this DNA in me that you don't have, and this is why I can do these things.
• 1:29:20
  SPEAKER_01: And they don't like hearing that, but it's exactly what it is.
• 1:29:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's just the modern movement of I need to feel special.
• 1:29:29
  SPEAKER_01: So now I'm gonna find a reason for myself to be special when Christ has already given us the reason to be special.
• 1:29:35
  SPEAKER_01: We're all special.
• 1:29:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think once we realize that and we know that only through Him can we achieve our ultimate goal, we're always just gonna be seeking the wrong answers and we're gonna keep going down the wrong paths, and we're gonna keep coming up empty.
• 1:29:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for me, that's what I found was just that feeling of always coming up empty in life.
• 1:29:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not in that place anymore.
• 1:30:01
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, everything's not exactly the way I wanted to be.
• 1:30:04
  SPEAKER_01: It never is, right?
• 1:30:05
  SPEAKER_01: You never get to that point because that's the journey, right?
• 1:30:08
  SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, you feel way more fulfilled, and you're always looking to help people where I'm in such a different mind state of wanting to give as opposed to take and always just be such a taker.
• 1:30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:30:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's so awesome, Joel.
• 1:30:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so happy that you came on the show.
• 1:30:26
  SPEAKER_00: This was a really good conversation.
• 1:30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thanks for seeing you.
• 1:30:30
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
• 1:30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, did you have any other like I don't know, weird things you want to leave us with?
• 1:30:36
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of like that you just like preach for about five minutes.
• 1:30:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna I think we would just end it there.
• 1:30:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a good place to end it.
• 1:30:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think so too.
• 1:30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 1:30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to go ahead and tell everybody uh how they can find you?
• 1:30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so if you go to Linktree slash Joel Thomas Media, you can pretty much get to everything that I do.
• 1:30:57
  SPEAKER_01: Music.
• 1:30:57
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a lot of films out right now at Merklefilms.com.
• 1:31:01
  SPEAKER_01: You can go check out where I go all over hunting down Bigfoot, Dogman, went out to Skinwalker Ranch, all these crazy places I've been.
• 1:31:10
  SPEAKER_01: We got more places that we're going to.
• 1:31:12
  SPEAKER_01: I got a crazy new series coming out next year that I shot over a month time.
• 1:31:18
  SPEAKER_01: It was 17 days.
• 1:31:20
  SPEAKER_01: I traveled to Connecticut, Upper Ohio, Michigan, and Utah.
• 1:31:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the name of the series is called Crowley's Melonheads, Children of the Beast.
• 1:31:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a crazy tie-in that I have with Alistair Crowley and the cryptids called the Melonheads.
• 1:31:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we went looking for these things, and we caught the most compelling thing we've ever caught on camera ever, which is like the wildest thing I've ever seen.
• 1:31:46
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I was out in the woods by myself again.
• 1:31:49
  SPEAKER_01: So it's pretty wild stuff.
• 1:31:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 1:31:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I look forward to that.
• 1:31:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's fun.
• 1:31:55
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're looking for the podcast, you can catch me on anything, Spotify, Apple.
• 1:31:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Free the Rabbits.
• 1:32:00
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to catch the premieres and join the nice chat groups, you can go to YouTube on Mondays at 12 p.m.
• 1:32:11
  SPEAKER_01: And we have the live chats there, and I'll be in there for a little bit at the beginning.
• 1:32:15
  SPEAKER_01: I can talk to people and we drop every Monday.
• 1:32:19
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, got a lot going on.
• 1:32:21
  SPEAKER_01: But again, you can just centrally find all the social medias and everything I do from Linktree.
• 1:32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 1:32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 1:32:31
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate it.
• 1:32:33
  SPEAKER_00: All right, guys.
• 1:32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 1:32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, all right, guys, that's gonna do it.
• 1:32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, tonight, uh, remember the truth is out there, God is with you, and everyone always ends up in the kitchen.
• 1:33:01
  SPEAKER_00: You have been listening to Sasquatch and Sourdough.
• 1:33:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Christina, and thank you so much for tuning in.
• 1:33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sasquatch and Sourdough is so much more than just a podcast.
• 1:33:11
  SPEAKER_00: We are a community of kindred spirits, united by our curiosity and fascination with the extraordinary.
• 1:33:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we want to bring you into the conversation.
• 1:33:20
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you've had a brush with the unexplainable, seen something that you can't quite wrap your head around, this is your space.
• 1:33:29
  SPEAKER_00: We invite you to join us as we break bread and break down the barriers between the known and the unknown.
• 1:33:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to share your story, you can email us at saswatch and sourdough at gmail.com or send us a DM on Instagram.
• 1:33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, remember the truth is out there.
• 1:33:46
  SPEAKER_00: God is with you, and everyone always ends up in the kitchen.