Latest / The Christian Reeve Podcast / Understanding Cults With Gavri'el HaCohen (Part 1) | The Christian Reeve Podcast #246

Transcript

Understanding Cults With Gavri'el HaCohen (Part 1) | The Christian Reeve Podcast #246 · The Christian Reeve Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to another episode of The Christian Reef
• 0:03
  Podcast. If you enjoy the show, please
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  support my efforts in terms of bringing this show to you.
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  Thank you so much and enjoy the show.
• 0:41
  Hello and welcome to another episode of the Christian Reeve
• 0:44
  Podcast. Today's guest is the Co host of
• 0:47
  the Leaving Eden Podcast and also a musician.
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  His name is Gabriel Cohen. Welcome to the show.
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  How you doing? Great.
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  It's happy to be here. I'm, it's it's 8:00 AM here in
• 1:00
  Philadelphia where I live and I'm having a good start to my
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  morning and it's it's just a lovely a lovely Wednesday.
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  I appreciate you, man. I know how ridiculously early it
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  is over there, so thank you for that.
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  Yeah. Anyway, Joe, it's funny,
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  actually. It's what It's funny how the
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  universe works sometimes because I didn't plan on having a a
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  series of episodes about cults, but like there was this show
• 1:28
  that's been planned. So for those, obviously you guys
• 1:30
  at home don't know about this. Basically we've been planning to
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  do this show for a while. We've been rescheduling back and
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  forth. Again, thank you for, for
• 1:39
  adhering to that. I appreciate you.
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  And yeah, I kind of just figured I would do a show about cults
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  and then, you know, that would be it, right?
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  But then I got this random message out of the blue from
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  someone here in the UK about some some cult thing called like
• 2:00
  twin Flames the universe. I'm sure you've heard about
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  this. We can delve into it a little
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  bit in a SEC. But like, I was like, oh OK, and
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  I start going down that rabbit hole.
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  And of course with every type of thing, when you when you when
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  you delve into it further enough, especially with cults,
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  it's just thing after thing after thing after thing.
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  And like, I'm only like maybe 75% of the way into my research
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  for that show. But like even with this, you
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  know, I throw it out to my audience, they had naturally
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  many, many questions. I have many, many questions.
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  I guess like my first question to you is like where do you even
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  start with, you know, conducting your research and investigating
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  A cult and and like kind of knowing like like what to focus
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  in on? So I can answer that question in
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  two ways. The 1st way is like how it
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  happened for me personally was just that during the pandemic my
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  friend and I decided to start a podcast and she was raised
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  within a very strict branch of Christian fundamentalism,
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  Definitely a branch of Christian fundamentalism that qualifies as
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  a cult. And during the pandemic, you
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  know, this was probably in like March or April or May of 2020
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  when everyone was either, you know, having a sourdough starter
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  or getting really into knitting or, I, I don't know, deciding
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  that they wanted to learn a new instrument.
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  We were just like, let's start a podcast, 'cause, you know, we
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  both did music. And so we both had recording
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  equipment at our respective houses and we just decided to go
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  from there. And when I started, I pretty
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  much knew nothing, but I had a friend who was raised in this.
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  And for the last three years, you know, we've been doing a
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  show pretty much every single week for three years.
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  And now I actually know quite a bit about it.
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  So it really just comes down to finding people who can talk to
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  you about it and finding information and just going down
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  the rabbit hole over and over and over and over again for a
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  very long time. I mean, when we first started
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  the show, I was completely just I I I had an idea of what I
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  thought a cult would be and what I thought Christian
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  fundamentalism would be just from growing up in the United
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  States. And that turned out to in some
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  respects be too in in some respects be true and in other
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  respects be totally way off. As far as where people who are
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  starting out should go to try and learn the information that
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  they want to learn about cults, I would recommend there's a
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  website called Freedom of mindisit.orgor.com.
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  It's it's it. Look it up.
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  Right now there is a a researcher.
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  His name is Steven Hassan and he has come up with.
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  Almost like tenets or principles of what defines A cult, maybe.
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  Yes, yes, he's he's come up with call.
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  Yeah, it's freedom of mind.com. You go to freedomofmind.com.
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  There's a researcher named Steven Hassan.
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  He's come out with what's called the BITE model.
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  And the BITE model is basically the way in which we define
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  whether or not something is a cult.
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  So BITE is an acronym for behavior control, Information
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  control, Thought control, and emotion control.
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  And a cult isn't determined by like, oh, how old is it?
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  Oh, how many members does it have?
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  Sorry, got to adjust my microphone.
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  How old is it? How many, you know, how many
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  members does it have? How, like, do they let you
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  leave? Do they not let you leave?
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  I mean, those could be aspects, especially the last one.
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  But things like authoritarian regimes can count as cults if
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  they, you know, if they enact these methods of coercive
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  control to a high enough degree. A1 on one abusive partnership
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  could count as a cult if the methods of coercive control are
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  enacted to a high enough degree. Like, let let me like some of
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  the examples of behavior control could be anything from, like if
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  you are part of a religious group that tells you how to
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  dress, that's an aspect of behavior control.
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  But that doesn't necessarily mean that any religion that
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  would tell you how to dress is a cult.
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  Because a lot of times that's just, you know, how people who
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  are members of that religion dress.
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  And that's not necessarily coercive.
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  What could be coercive is if the dress code is enforced by strict
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  rules, or is enforced by a culture of guilt or a culture of
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  shame. If you don't do this thing or
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  you know, Another example of behavior control would be
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  something like controlling who you can and who you can't have
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  sex with. Things like so you were talking
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  about the Twin Flame documentary, you know, they were
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  encouraging people to be in relationships and and
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  partnerships that are. You know the the crazy thing
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  about that documentary yeah was like I'm just I'm just sitting
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  there doing research and naturally I'm I'm seeing the
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  same things that I've seen in other like cult kind of
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  situations. But the the the the first thing
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  that came to my mind is oh this is like that Nyxium cult, like
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  this is like almost exactly like even down to the structure the
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  fact that it kind of resembles a multi level marketing scheme
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  because like that's another thing as well.
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  All of these cults, they pretty much always have that element to
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  it, to kind of draw people in, give people, you know something
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  to work towards some sort of system they can follow which
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  keeps them in in that, you know, over a longer period of time.
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  And yeah, I mean you mentioned some of those things there in in
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  when you were kind of outlaying it.
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  Like there's there's these things that keep coming up every
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  time a particular leader or you know like in the Nexium cult,
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  they everyone in that cult seemed to kind of Revere this
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  man as something special Like you know he oh, he's a really
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  talented mathematician. He's this, he's that.
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  Like when he came in the room, it was like everyone reacted in
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  a certain way, you know, and it's similar with this twin
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  flames thing where this couple, especially the man in in this
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  coupling, I mean does he, I think he referred to himself as
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  God at a certain point or he wanted his followers to refer to
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  him as like God, which that blew my mind because OK, fair enough.
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  You know it's not the first time we've ever heard of a cult doing
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  that. Like members within a cult doing
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  that. But like, it's kind of like he
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  was testing the waters every couple of years.
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  It's like, OK, I'm going to throw this at them and see how
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  they react. And of course with the whole
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  religious element to it, that particular cult didn't start as
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  a religious cult. But then they started adding
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  those elements because, you know, they were trying to avoid
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  taxes. They were trying to, you know,
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  and this is such a huge thing in the States.
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  That blows my mind, this idea that there are some
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  organisations huge, huge. I think they call them
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  evangelists or televangelists like church organisations that
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  completely avoid tax. Well, I mean any nonprofit
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  organization. Right.
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  Have to pay taxes. So like, if I started a
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  foundation to, I don't know, raise money for poverty for for,
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  for homeless people, that would be a nonprofit organization and
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  I wouldn't have to pay corporate taxes.
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  But if I was employed by that organization, I would still have
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  to pay income tax. Right.
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  So I mean that's that's how that works and it is like the tax law
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  about that, that's, I mean how many of these things are
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  motivated by money? I know that like there's a lot
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  of these Christian fundamentalist or or the
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  televangelist, especially the televangelists these days don't
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  tend to be as fundamentalist. They tend to be a bit more wide
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  reaching because they want to cast a bit of a wider net.
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  There was. There was that guy during the
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  pandemic. He'd been around for years.
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  The guy that, like, almost like, resembles the devil.
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  It's kind of scary. He was really, really, really
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  famous. Like pastor in televangelist.
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  Yeah. Was it Joel Moskin?
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  Did it say his name again? Moskin.
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  No, no, it's a different name. It was the guy during the
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  pandemic that was famous for kind of like holding his hand
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  towards the screen and being like trying to heal people of
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  COVID from like through the screen or something.
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  It was really weird. But basically, I read into his
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  particular organization, let's leave it there.
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  And he, he's like, they're billionaires.
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  He flies around in a private jet.
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  And there was a famous interview of him from a few years back
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  where the interview was saying, like, you know, do you really
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  think it's right that you have like a private jet?
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  And he's, he said something on the lines of like, oh, you know,
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  this guy made it possible for me to get a private jet.
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  And I just couldn't say no. I just couldn't say no.
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  And then there's a bit where she's really trying to push him
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  like, but not like too harsh, Like, it's quite standard for a
• 11:53
  journalist and she's making some really solid points.
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  And he's trying to flip the conversation and make it seem
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  like she's harassing him. And he gets particularly
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  aggressive when she questions his treatment of other people
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  and how he supposed, like, allegedly had referred to some
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  of his followers as being like devil worshippers, heathens,
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  stuff like that. He's like, I didn't say that.
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  I never said that. Like, he'd very, like, just
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  aggressive with it. And then kind of goes back to
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  what we were saying before about this idea of control within
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  cults. Controlling your behaviour,
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  controlling how you speak, controlling history.
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  You know, like, it's almost like revisionist history.
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  It's like, no, no, no, no, that didn't happen.
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  You just think this happened like, well, that's.
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  Kind of of. For information control, one of
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  the big aspects is you can only get information from approved
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  sources which like if you're part of the whatever their
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  version of state media is so their newsletter or from the
• 12:59
  pastor that says you know it say that there's a scandal where I
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  mean most of these place wherever you have a level of
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  coercive control, there's going to be somebody who sees that and
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  takes advantage of that and does usually will sexually abuse
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  people who are weaker than them, who tend to be people like
• 13:21
  teenage girls. Because in religious
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  fundamentalism, that's basically the bottom of the food chain as
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  far as who has power. And when people come forward,
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  you know, they're victim blamed. And it's that didn't happen.
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  The devil is attacking me. The devil is attacking this
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  congregation. And even if it did happen, it's
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  well, I stumbled into sin because you guys out here, we're
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  not holy enough. And if you guys aren't holy,
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  then you know then I'm going to be tempted into sin and there's
• 13:59
  nothing that I can do about it. There always seems to be this
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  like competition element as well.
• 14:05
  Do you know like I'm the I'm the better follower, I'm the better
• 14:08
  whatever. It's there's always that
• 14:10
  competition and they encourage that.
• 14:12
  Yeah. I mean against each other to win
• 14:18
  the approval to win the the love to win the loyalty it's I mean
• 14:22
  it's classic manipulation the what you were saying oh you were
• 14:28
  saying something earlier that made something popped to me and
• 14:32
  I'm trying to remember what it was you were talking about.
• 14:39
  Oh yeah. Prosperity gospel.
• 14:43
  So you're Are you religious? You're You're not.
• 14:48
  I would say I'm kind of like a a very open sort of spiritualist,
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  but I keep myself open to all anything and everything.
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  So I think that the the bigger issue I have is this idea that
• 15:00
  you have to kind of only believe in one thing.
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  Like you're not allowed to believe anything.
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  Like I hate anything that tells you like, no, you have to be in
• 15:09
  this box and do exactly what you're told.
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  Like, I think that human beings, you know, we should have
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  freedom. We should be able to choose what
• 15:17
  resonates with us within our belief systems and stuff, but
• 15:20
  always keep ourselves open to like possibilities and ideas.
• 15:23
  So you're not super familiar with, like, Christian theology?
• 15:28
  I have base level understanding of it, you know, like the
• 15:31
  standard stuff. You know that like the the main
• 15:35
  thing is like you're you're a Sinner and Jesus takes away your
• 15:37
  sin. That's like on the base level
• 15:40
  for Christians. There's other there's other sub
• 15:48
  levels of theology where depending on what branch,
• 15:51
  depending on what type of church you go to.
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  There's this one sort of I I would call it almost like a
• 15:56
  pseudo theology called prosperity gospel where
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  essentially they they believe like that.
• 16:09
  It it comes from a belief that God is very active in your life
• 16:14
  in the day-to-day aspects of your life.
• 16:16
  Rather than just being like kind of a you know, a a big thing
• 16:22
  that's out there and watching for like the big things but not
• 16:25
  really paying attention to the little things.
• 16:28
  There's a belief that, like every single interaction that
• 16:31
  you have and every single good thing or bad thing that happens
• 16:35
  to you is controlled by God. And so when they see people who
• 16:40
  are very wealthy or people who are very wealthy who are also
• 16:44
  very religious, might get a bit of a complex about I have this
• 16:49
  wealth, I have all of these possessions, all of I am so
• 16:55
  blessed because God has chosen to bless me.
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  And God would only choose to bless me if I were a really good
• 17:01
  person, if I were like a a really holy and a really devout
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  person. And with if you're a pastor, I
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  mean people who choose to make their livings in the ministry
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  often live in, if they're of from a fundamentalist branch of
• 17:23
  Christianity, they're often, you know, not very wealthy at all.
• 17:26
  They're often, quite often they're living in poverty with
• 17:30
  their families because they have to have a good sized family in
• 17:35
  order to show that the Lord is blessing them with children.
• 17:38
  But also, yeah, no, that's that's a belief.
• 17:43
  Especially in fundamentalism. There's this whole thing.
• 17:46
  Do you know who the Duggars are? I can't say I do.
• 17:49
  The the the 19 Kids and Counting family.
• 17:52
  That's its whole. That's that's its own whole
• 17:53
  thing that we could talk about later.
• 17:57
  That if you that having more children is a sign that God is
• 18:03
  blessing you. Because there's this verse in
• 18:04
  the Bible that says something like children are arrows and
• 18:09
  Happy is the man who hath his quiver full of them.
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  And so there's this whole set of teachings known as quiver full,
• 18:16
  where basically you have to try to have as many children as
• 18:18
  possible because that's what God is telling you to do.
• 18:22
  So and a a good number of Christian fundamentalists in the
• 18:26
  United States adhere to this belief like a lot, a lot, a lot
• 18:32
  of families. And so there will be families
• 18:35
  with many, many children. And because they have so many
• 18:37
  children and because and if they decide that they want to they're
• 18:45
  the if, if you're a minister you have to be the ones who are
• 18:49
  setting an example for everyone else.
• 18:51
  So you have to be the most devout and the way that you
• 18:57
  would get your income is basically from the tithing of
• 19:00
  all of the people in the church who are giving money to you,
• 19:03
  right? That's that's where the MLM
• 19:05
  stuff comes into play. Right.
• 19:07
  But if you're part of a church and you are, you know, a church
• 19:12
  plant in a town that only has, you know, a couple thousand
• 19:17
  people in it. Like if you're one of these
• 19:19
  small towns in America and it's A and there's no denominational
• 19:23
  oversight that's giving you the money to live off of, and you're
• 19:26
  an independent church, which a lot of these churches are
• 19:29
  independent churches, then you don't have a lot of money coming
• 19:33
  in. And so you look at your church
• 19:36
  and you say, God, please bless me and bring me a larger flock,
• 19:40
  you know, because that would allow me to do so many great
• 19:43
  things in the world and and save so many people.
• 19:47
  And then you look over at somebody who has a church that
• 19:51
  has 1000 members or 10,000 members and you could say, wow,
• 19:56
  they have all of these nice things and people are coming to
• 20:00
  their church to hear them speak. God must be blessing them in.
• 20:04
  Like in evangelical Christianity in America at least.
• 20:07
  It's a very much a culture of bigger is always better.
• 20:10
  Sure. I think that the Internet
• 20:15
  element comes into play here. Because remember when I was
• 20:19
  watching the end of that Twin Flames universe documentary on
• 20:22
  Netflix, which everybody go out of your way to check that out.
• 20:25
  It's fascinating. They mentioned and I've seen the
• 20:29
  statistics before, but it's a basically like there's about
• 20:31
  10,000 Colts, give or take, in the United States alone and
• 20:36
  there's been like an influx of them since the Pandemic.
• 20:40
  And of course, you know, just in general with the advent of the
• 20:43
  Internet over the last sort of 2025 years and it's like to your
• 20:47
  point before, you know, where you were restricted by, Oh well,
• 20:52
  our town only has this many people and maybe this percentage
• 20:56
  are Christian, etcetera. Now that doesn't matter because
• 21:00
  you've got the Internet, you can pull people in there.
• 21:03
  I mean, in that Twin Flames documentary you had people from
• 21:06
  all around the world as part of this cult and they were moving
• 21:09
  like, you know, state by state to be with their designated twin
• 21:14
  flame or you know, moving country even, you know, in order
• 21:18
  to to facilitate this. So they really had like quite a
• 21:20
  lot of power over these people through the Internet.
• 21:26
  Well, and and that sort of if you're doing it on the Internet,
• 21:29
  then that's going to even more rely on you having that
• 21:33
  personality that is big enough personality.
• 21:37
  Like I was watching the Twin Flames Doc and that couple that
• 21:42
  started it and they're just like we're the best couple.
• 21:45
  I was just like. Dude, dude, didn't you think
• 21:49
  like? I like that's The thing is that
• 21:52
  like, but they're not the only ones that do this.
• 21:54
  They're like if you do XYZ thing, you could have a
• 21:57
  relationship like us. It's like you ever look at like
• 22:00
  a a the, like influencers who are like making.
• 22:07
  Yeah, I know we're going with this.
• 22:08
  Content. And they're like if you do XYZ
• 22:11
  thing then you could have a marriage like like marriage
• 22:14
  influencers. I don't know.
• 22:15
  It's like the whole wife guy conundrum.
• 22:18
  The best part about that is that like, and yeah, I know that they
• 22:22
  would have cut this. The documentary Terians have cut
• 22:24
  this up. And you always have to be
• 22:26
  careful this when you watch the documentary guys that like it
• 22:28
  fits a certain narrative and it doesn't always mean that the
• 22:31
  documentarian is trying to push you a certain way, but a lot of
• 22:34
  the time they are. But with this, there's so much
• 22:37
  footage over the last sort of 10 years of these people and their
• 22:42
  relationship is is not good man. Like from the get go you see an
• 22:46
  old clip of them from maybe like seven or eight years ago where
• 22:49
  as you say, you know they're like we're the best couple ever
• 22:52
  and we're so in love and it's like, but they're not.
• 22:55
  You can see you can already see the red flags there in like
• 22:59
  their mannerisms or the weird eye language, you know, body
• 23:03
  language that they give off and stuff like there's something
• 23:05
  amiss. And to your point about
• 23:07
  influences is it makes this this notion of like protest too much.
• 23:14
  You're pushing this narrative like, I'm so happy, everything's
• 23:17
  great, don't you want to be like me?
• 23:19
  And it's like if you are happy, you don't need to necessarily go
• 23:22
  out and tell the world every five seconds.
• 23:24
  Like, I don't know, there's something about that that I feel
• 23:27
  is is off. That's what it is.
• 23:30
  You know, anytime you see a celebrity who's like, my
• 23:33
  marriage is perfect and that's their brand, that their marriage
• 23:35
  is amazing or that their relationship is amazing, and
• 23:38
  then they're like a guru of relationship.
• 23:40
  You're just like. Will Smith and Jada Pinkett
• 23:43
  Smith comes to mind. Or.
• 23:45
  Sorry, Jada. Is it Jada?
• 23:47
  Yeah. It's Jada.
• 23:48
  Do you remember the the try guys?
• 23:51
  The the the Ned former try guys cheating scandal.
• 23:56
  Rings a bell? I don't know.
• 23:57
  Can you can you lay it out for us real quick?
• 24:00
  There was a a YouTube channel or there still is a YouTube channel
• 24:03
  where there was basically these four guys that would try
• 24:07
  different things like they'd be like oh we're going to try
• 24:09
  really spicy food or we're going to try like it's it's a a solid
• 24:13
  YouTube channel. I actually highly recommend you
• 24:16
  go back and look at their back catalog of of videos for because
• 24:23
  they make a. They made a lot of really
• 24:24
  entertaining content and a lot of people were watching it
• 24:26
  during the pandemic. And it was actually really nice
• 24:28
  content to have during the pandemic because it was kind of
• 24:30
  like people doing nice stuff but in a low stakes sort of way.
• 24:34
  And that was kind of what we felt.
• 24:36
  But anyway like one of the guys that was part of that group and
• 24:40
  they had millions and millions and millions of people watching
• 24:42
  them. His whole thing was these, like,
• 24:45
  I'm married and my marriage is fantastic and you know, and you
• 24:49
  know, they they'd like monetize this whole brand of them being,
• 24:54
  you know, not just them making content, but also their wives
• 24:57
  making content for the the audience.
• 25:00
  Because people had, I guess, this parasocial relationship
• 25:02
  with them. Which you have to be so careful
• 25:06
  about. I've covered that on my show
• 25:07
  before. Like anyone that's creating
• 25:10
  content, or if you have a following, like even if it's
• 25:14
  small, like I have a small following online, I have to be
• 25:16
  careful with what I say, how I do do things, compose myself,
• 25:20
  etcetera, because you have a profound impact on people.
• 25:25
  Yeah, I mean, and also just for like, yeah, I mean I don't even
• 25:30
  like if I by accident say my girlfriend's name on a podcast
• 25:33
  episode, I make sure that I bleep that in the actual version
• 25:36
  that goes out because I like not even her first name.
• 25:39
  Like it's not even. I just like, you know, she's
• 25:43
  just a person who has a job who's didn't consent to being
• 25:49
  AAI mean I I have a a our show has like a modest following
• 25:54
  probably like 1015 thousand people.
• 25:57
  So it's not like, yeah. So it's not as if it's I'm like
• 26:01
  some big celebrity or anything like that, but.
• 26:04
  Here, here's me with my like 10 followers.
• 26:06
  Like, yeah, come on guys. That really is modest.
• 26:13
  I mean but still like you you have to you have to be willing
• 26:15
  to to do that and some people I mean I I this is going to bring
• 26:19
  me back to fundamentalism is there's this YouTube channel and
• 26:23
  content channel and various other things channel called girl
• 26:28
  defined are you familiar with them.
• 26:32
  So most of the the stuff that I know about is Christian
• 26:34
  fundamentalism related and there's this content channel
• 26:39
  called Girl Defined which essentially what it's it's this
• 26:44
  a woman named Bethany and her sister Kristen who are from one
• 26:50
  of these large and successful Christian fundamentalist
• 26:54
  families. Like, they're they're families
• 26:56
  that have a lot of children and they're successful and they're
• 26:59
  not like living in poverty. And if you, you know, do that
• 27:03
  and you have, you know, maybe siblings that are in a ministry
• 27:07
  and have a certain level of success, then within this
• 27:12
  subculture, you'll kind of gain a reputation as not like a holy
• 27:16
  person but like as a person who other people should model their
• 27:20
  lives after. So there's this woman named
• 27:22
  Bethany Beale, and I think she's just a couple of years older
• 27:25
  than me. I think she's like 3435,
• 27:28
  something like that. And she and her sister Kristen
• 27:30
  have been making content about here's a woman and here's how
• 27:37
  here, Here's how to be a woman in fundamentalism.
• 27:40
  Here are good things to do. And if you're growing up in her
• 27:45
  particular branch of evangelical Christianity, which is the kind
• 27:48
  of branch where they're Christian enough that, you know,
• 27:53
  the they're not into gay marriage.
• 27:56
  They're not into they like, they think all homosexuality is a
• 28:00
  sin. They're mad about the woke
• 28:02
  agenda or whatever bullshit they're mad about, but they're
• 28:05
  not so Christian that if you saw one of them out in public, you
• 28:11
  would be like, that person is dressed kind of weird.
• 28:14
  Why is that person dressed weird?
• 28:15
  Like, they're not into the whole, oh, you wear skirts only
• 28:18
  you don't wear pants, which is also very much a thing in
• 28:23
  Christian fundamentalism. So it's very much like a a
• 28:26
  middle ground between the extreme and you know how
• 28:30
  regular, you know, normal people who we think of as a Christian
• 28:33
  would live? And so their whole thing is that
• 28:36
  they're making content based on like if you do XYZ thing then
• 28:42
  your marriage can be as good as my marriage.
• 28:45
  And but like that's what people do is that people look and they
• 28:50
  see it's I mean it's the whole influencer thing is they will
• 28:52
  look at you and they will see oh this person does XYZ thing.
• 28:57
  Oh, your photos are so aesthetic.
• 28:59
  They're so cute. They're so pretty.
• 29:02
  Your family looks so nice with your little blonde children.
• 29:05
  They're so cute and they're like here's what you do.
• 29:09
  Here's how you find a Christian husband.
• 29:12
  And they'll make all of this content based on that.
• 29:17
  But they don't really have the wherewithal to, because they're
• 29:26
  stuck in this Christian fundamentalism sphere.
• 29:29
  They are also limited in that they can't take influence from
• 29:33
  outside of that. That might actually help solve
• 29:36
  some of the problems that that Christians may be having if they
• 29:39
  decide that this is the kind of life that they want to live.
• 29:42
  And so you end up, I mean, like one of the biggest ways that
• 29:47
  this plays out is with sex. Is that the way that this woman
• 29:54
  has and and has made her content?
• 29:58
  She's basically pivoted to being like from being like, oh, I do
• 30:03
  marriage advice to saying oh I do sex advice but.
• 30:07
  She's going to get more attention from the business
• 30:08
  perspective. Right.
• 30:10
  You're going to get more attention because that's one of
• 30:12
  the things that people know about, especially if you're
• 30:14
  like, I don't have sex before I get married.
• 30:17
  If you're one of the people that doesn't do that, which a lot of
• 30:21
  people don't do, not just Christians, for various reasons,
• 30:25
  and you know what? That's up to them.
• 30:26
  I don't have any problem with that.
• 30:28
  I don't, you know, you know, it's up to everybody to have sex
• 30:31
  with who they want to when they want to, and that decision is up
• 30:34
  to them as long as everybody consents to it.
• 30:38
  But that's like a huge source of anxiety from people, especially
• 30:43
  if you're a Christian and you're living in a culture where sex is
• 30:46
  kind of everywhere. And you might get kind of a
• 30:50
  complex out of like, oh, I don't do this, but other people do do
• 30:55
  this. And I feel like everyone knows
• 30:57
  everything that I do. But I've read quite a bit of the
• 31:02
  Christian sex advice content for the podcast that I Co host,
• 31:08
  'cause you know, we'll do like a Valentine's Day episode and
• 31:10
  we'll read like a Christian sex advice book, and there will be
• 31:15
  some advice in there, but then there will also just be like
• 31:18
  they'll beat around the Bush and not really.
• 31:22
  What's the strangest stuff you've heard that this is crazy?
• 31:26
  Like it's it's not even that it's crazy.
• 31:29
  It's that most of it will just be like the most vanilla kind of
• 31:34
  general speaking things, because they don't want to go in and say
• 31:38
  OK, like they they don't want to give explicit advice.
• 31:42
  What they'll say is they'll be like, make sure that you try to
• 31:45
  pleasure your partner. OK, what the fuck does that
• 31:48
  mean? If you.
• 31:49
  I'm sorry, can I swear is it OK? But yeah, but like, what does
• 31:52
  that mean if you don't know anything about sex?
• 31:56
  If you're from a culture that's like sex is very taboo to talk
• 32:00
  about and somebody gives you a book and they're like, make sure
• 32:04
  your partner is pleasured. Especially if you're a man.
• 32:07
  Make sure you pleasure your like.
• 32:09
  What does that mean? Especially if you're also in a
• 32:12
  culture that tells women that they shouldn't speak up if
• 32:14
  they're unhappy. That was one of the biggest
• 32:17
  things I saw in Sorry, I just keep going back to it because
• 32:20
  it's fresh on my mind. But the Twin Flames documentary,
• 32:23
  like there was so many things in that that that demonstrate the
• 32:28
  the worst parts of of like what a cult can be and how it
• 32:32
  manipulates its users. And a lot of it was just
• 32:35
  gaslighting people, telling them like this behaviour is wrong,
• 32:38
  this behaviour is wrong, this behaviour is wrong.
• 32:40
  Like one of the biggest stories I'll just share real quick from
• 32:43
  that was as a girl, she's 19, she's very like, you know,
• 32:48
  clearly very vulnerable and she's joined this thing looking
• 32:53
  for someone as most of the people are.
• 32:55
  Most of the people that join in this particular cult, this twin
• 32:58
  Twin flames universe cult, they tend to be women between the
• 33:03
  ages of say 1819 up to, I don't know, maybe 40s, fifties, right.
• 33:09
  And you know, they get sold on this idea and they pursue it and
• 33:15
  they go through all the ranks and like this girl did that and
• 33:19
  she was encouraged. And she what she was told that
• 33:24
  this particular random person that had commented in this
• 33:27
  Facebook group was her quote, UN quote, twin flame, some person
• 33:30
  that she felt uneasy about, she felt uncomfortable with.
• 33:35
  But she was pushed and told no, no, no, no, this is right for
• 33:38
  you. This is what you want.
• 33:39
  And so this young girl is being pushed into this relationship
• 33:44
  and she pursues it because she thinks it's the right thing.
• 33:48
  Excuse me. And you know, this guy is into
• 33:52
  drugs. This guy gets done for
• 33:54
  possession of of cannabis. He's, I believe he was on
• 33:57
  probation for like 11 months. And they still push her to be
• 34:01
  with this person. And every time something bad
• 34:04
  happens as a result of his actions, she's told to sort of
• 34:09
  just roll with it. And she moves in with this guy
• 34:11
  and she's very clearly unhappy. And she's told, like to like,
• 34:15
  love this person even though she quite clearly doesn't love him
• 34:18
  and it's just so uncomfortable to watch.
• 34:20
  Like, I really recommend everyone go check it out because
• 34:23
  it really shows you the extreme scenarios that can happen if
• 34:30
  you're part of a cult. And you're even even if you're
• 34:33
  doubtful. Like in so many of these videos
• 34:35
  you can see people were doubtful, people were
• 34:36
  questioning even in the beginning.
• 34:38
  You know maybe they've been in this cult for a few years at
• 34:40
  this point and they're still, but like everything they put in,
• 34:45
  you know it's it's a bit like being in a bad relationship and
• 34:47
  you don't want to leave because you're oh, but I, you know
• 34:49
  there's so much that we've that we've done together.
• 34:52
  Like I don't want to just drop this all now.
• 34:54
  Like you know, I don't want to give it all up now And it's like
• 34:56
  if it's bad for you give it up like.
• 34:58
  But that's the thing, isn't it? Going back to what you were
• 35:00
  saying before, they want to keep you in.
• 35:02
  They want to keep that control. They don't want you to leave
• 35:05
  because if you leave, you know they're not making money from
• 35:07
  you, they're not controlling you, you know, etcetera,
• 35:10
  etcetera. Yeah, I mean the that was an
• 35:16
  example that to me. I mean because with Twin Flames,
• 35:21
  one of the things that they were doing was they were telling
• 35:25
  people it isn't just your relationship and your happiness
• 35:30
  that depends on this. It's everybody else's.
• 35:35
  It's that if you get into this relationship, then you can
• 35:39
  radiate that twin flame energy out to everybody else and then
• 35:44
  that will help them find their person and get together with it.
• 35:47
  Like it, it raises the stakes on everything.
• 35:51
  So it isn't just your relationship that you're
• 35:53
  fighting for, it's everybody else's.
• 35:55
  But what you were saying is that I would argue, and Steven
• 36:01
  Hassan, who came up with the bike model, also believes this,
• 36:05
  is that abusive relationships, like abusive domestic
• 36:08
  partnerships, absolutely qualify as cults in the just in the same
• 36:16
  way that a group like the Branch Davidians would qualify as well.
• 36:21
  And that the techniques that are used to control a person when
• 36:24
  they're in a one-on-one domestic relationship are the same
• 36:30
  techniques that you would use to control a large group of people.
• 36:33
  So like the, the violence, the coercion, the, you know, the
• 36:36
  gaslighting, the, oh, that didn't happen.
• 36:39
  I mean like if you know, and I, I, you know, I don't know if
• 36:42
  you've ever been in a situation like this.
• 36:44
  I've never been in a situation like this.
• 36:46
  But I have many, many friends who've been in a situation like
• 36:49
  this where, you know, something bad happened where, you know,
• 36:54
  they were with a partner who was abusive, who was violent, who
• 36:56
  was cruel to them. And they would bring it up in an
• 36:59
  argument and say you did this thing to me, you you were cruel
• 37:07
  to me in this way. And they would say that didn't
• 37:09
  happen and, you know, say, oh, this didn't happen or that
• 37:13
  didn't happen the way that you think it did and really play
• 37:16
  games with your mind about. And that is a cult control
• 37:19
  technique that I've seen pastors use from the pulpit to say, oh,
• 37:25
  I didn't abuse that girl, that didn't happen.
• 37:28
  That wasn't that wasn't real. The people who are saying you
• 37:31
  that to you, the people who were telling you that are lying to
• 37:34
  you and you need to get them out of your life.
• 37:36
  And limiting who you can and can't have contact with and who
• 37:39
  you can and can't get information from is an aspect of
• 37:43
  information control, which is an aspect of cult control.
• 37:46
  When I was on the receiving end of such a relationship, when I
• 37:50
  was in it, I remember kind of thinking because I was, I was
• 37:56
  consciously aware of what was going on.
• 37:58
  But I would make excuses. I would be like, well, you know,
• 38:01
  maybe it can get better. Sometimes this person's even
• 38:04
  nice, like, you know, you gas like yourself, they gas like
• 38:07
  you, but you gas like yourself. And it's only years later that I
• 38:12
  look back and I'm like, that's crazy like that.
• 38:14
  I even thought that way. But the the key thing that I
• 38:16
  remember, which is what I tend to notice in these cults, is
• 38:20
  that you're in a desperate situation.
• 38:23
  You're scared, you're fearful. When I look back, the biggest
• 38:27
  difference between now and then is now I'm not scared if someone
• 38:30
  is toxic or whatever. I'm like, get the hell away from
• 38:32
  me. Get the fuck out of my life.
• 38:33
  Back then, I didn't have the strength to say something like
• 38:36
  that or do that. There were times when I was
• 38:38
  close and I would say what I thought and I would try and get
• 38:42
  away, but I'd always end up back in the throes of it.
• 38:44
  Why? Because I was scared to be
• 38:46
  alone. Because I didn't think I could
• 38:48
  live alone on my own by myself. Right now.
• 38:52
  These cults, they prey on that, you know as well as I did.
• 38:55
  They they they they latch onto that.
• 38:57
  And then they basically take each person, isolate all of the
• 39:01
  different things about them that they can manipulate and they
• 39:04
  zone in on that. And then when you try to, you
• 39:08
  know pick at them for that and be like, listen, this is
• 39:11
  unhealthy what you're doing, they're like, well, you know,
• 39:13
  it's it's it's you know that it's of their own volition.
• 39:17
  They're doing it of their own choice.
• 39:19
  Like that is, I just want to touch on this real quick.
• 39:22
  Like, obviously at the end of that documentary, after every
• 39:28
  episode on the Netflix one they talk about, well, they were
• 39:31
  investigated. There's no sort of crimes or
• 39:34
  federal crimes that we can see that have been committed.
• 39:38
  And from a legal standpoint, it's true.
• 39:41
  From a moral standpoint, it's it's, you know, terrible, awful
• 39:46
  what they're doing. But from the legal perspective,
• 39:48
  they've not broken any laws that I can see.
• 39:51
  I don't know, I'm, maybe I'm wrong on that, but I'm not an
• 39:53
  expert on American law. But it's like they come into
• 39:56
  these group, this group, they pay money and they join it and
• 40:01
  they, you know, they they make an income from it and so on.
• 40:03
  And I know specifically that pyramid schemes, MLMS, is a bit
• 40:08
  of a grey area, like some forms are illegal.
• 40:12
  Some you know they'll never call it that, but it will.
• 40:15
  They'll deliberately say it's not that when you know it's
• 40:17
  that, but it it's tricky to like where where's the 100% like OK,
• 40:26
  you can't do this, but you can do this line when it comes to
• 40:29
  these you know well. Good.
• 40:31
  Your lawyers are. That's kind of the the thing.
• 40:34
  I mean, I when you're talking about legal stuff, even if they
• 40:38
  do break the law, it's often very hard to get them for it.
• 40:43
  Like I So you've been watching the Twin Flames documentary.
• 40:47
  There's another cult documentary that came out called Invest on
• 40:52
  Investigation Discovery and HBO Max.
• 40:54
  I don't know if you guys have it over in the UK, have this one.
• 40:58
  It's called Let Us Pray, a Ministry of Scandals and I have
• 41:06
  several friends who were involved in the making of that
• 41:08
  documentary. In fact, the the branch of
• 41:11
  Christian fundamentalism that it's based on is the same branch
• 41:15
  of Christian fundamentalism that my podcast Co host was raised
• 41:19
  in. So yeah, that's look it up, It's
• 41:22
  called Let us Pray, a ministry of scandals.
• 41:25
  But pray is spelled PREY, not PRAY.
• 41:29
  And recently we talked to one of the women who was very heavily
• 41:34
  featured in that documentary. Her name is Rachel Peach.
• 41:40
  And she spoke about how she was sexually abused as a child, as a
• 41:45
  teenager by her youth pastor in her Christian fundamentalist
• 41:51
  church and how difficult it was to get charges against him
• 42:00
  because she didn't come out with allegations against him until
• 42:04
  years and years and years and years later.
• 42:07
  And at that point, it's basically like, well, you don't
• 42:10
  have physical evidence of this thing happening.
• 42:12
  We don't have anything to go on other than your word.
• 42:14
  And in the United States, you know, in our court system, in
• 42:18
  our jury system, that's not good enough.
• 42:21
  Especially when you have a system of abuse of like churches
• 42:25
  that will just kind of shuffle somebody from one church to
• 42:27
  another if they find out that some user, I mean, it's the same
• 42:31
  thing that, you know, that the Catholic Church got in so much
• 42:34
  trouble for doing with their priests.
• 42:35
  Christian fundamentalist churches will do that in America
• 42:38
  as well. But then they'll turn around and
• 42:40
  say, well, the Catholic churches, that's where the
• 42:42
  pedophiles are, 'cause, you know, the that's, that's sort of
• 42:47
  their other thing, the. And she was eventually able to
• 42:55
  get charges not just for herself but for other women.
• 43:01
  Because somebody came forward with allegations about the youth
• 43:05
  pastor that had abused her, somebody who wasn't her.
• 43:08
  And this dude, out of the blue, texted her and said, we need to
• 43:12
  talk right now. I know X person talked to you
• 43:15
  when this person hadn't talked to her and she was able to, you
• 43:22
  know, when she was talking with the detective, she was able to
• 43:26
  record the phone call that she had with this guy and manipulate
• 43:31
  him into confessing. And she was able to get charges
• 43:34
  for not just herself but for other people as well, using this
• 43:40
  phone call and basically getting him to admit that he did it.
• 43:44
  That's not common. Like usually, you know, sexual
• 43:49
  abuse does not go charged, does not.
• 43:52
  Or if it gets charged, there won't be enough evidence for a
• 43:56
  conviction. Because what their lawyers will
• 43:58
  do is they will try to make the situation as emotionally
• 44:04
  scarring for the accuser as possible for the possible.
• 44:09
  And so that they will drop the charges.
• 44:12
  Or so that they will be like, no, I just can't testify and
• 44:16
  then the person will get off. Or if they do get a conviction,
• 44:19
  the person will only get like two years or you or just like
• 44:25
  probation or something like that.
• 44:26
  Because I think the laws are different for crimes that
• 44:29
  happened a longer time ago. And a lot of times there's also
• 44:32
  a statute of limitations. So if it happened more than a
• 44:34
  certain number of years ago, then there won't be then the the
• 44:41
  law legally can't prosecute them, which is also kind of
• 44:43
  messed up. So that's sort of how it is and
• 44:48
  that's why people can keep getting away with it, because
• 44:51
  it's not necessarily who you know how to plan the perfect
• 44:56
  crime so that you can get away with it.
• 44:58
  It's also picking the victim as somebody who you think isn't
• 45:02
  going to be powerful enough to actually bring consequences
• 45:07
  against you for the thing that you've done.
• 45:10
  Bringing it back to Colts, I imagine that that's kind of
• 45:12
  largely how they choose their followers or you know?
• 45:17
  I mean, like with claims things, they, they picked people who
• 45:20
  were who were vulnerable, who were very like, if you're a
• 45:25
  person who, you know, maybe you consume a lot of you, you know,
• 45:30
  you grow up, you like romantic comedies or something like that
• 45:33
  or. And you know, you grow up and
• 45:35
  you watch ATV show like How I Met Your Mother for years and
• 45:38
  years and years and years. And you connect with the
• 45:39
  characters, and you connect with a character who thinks that,
• 45:43
  like, the entire purpose of his life is to get married and to
• 45:46
  have kids. Stop.
• 45:48
  Calling me out, man. Yeah.
• 45:52
  Like, I want a nice life. I just want to be happy and I
• 45:55
  just want to get married. I just want to have children.
• 45:57
  I just want to have a family and you base your whole identity
• 46:00
  around that. Then you're going to maybe let
• 46:04
  let something slide if you're just like, well, does this
• 46:09
  further this goal or does this not further this goal?
• 46:12
  Especially if you're just like, I don't know, like if.
• 46:16
  Because it's hard to find somebody who's attracted to you
• 46:19
  and who wants the same things as you.
• 46:21
  And so when you find somebody who maybe they find you
• 46:26
  attractive and they say that they want the same things as
• 46:31
  you, then you're going to overlook a bunch of other shit
• 46:33
  that is absolutely, you know, in in a a different situation, if
• 46:38
  the stakes were lower, if you weren't basing your entire
• 46:40
  identity off of you know, being like, I want to be in a
• 46:45
  relationship, I want to be married, I want to have
• 46:47
  children, then the stakes would be lower and you would just be
• 46:51
  like, now fuck this. Like I, I, I, I'm not dealing
• 46:54
  with this bullshit like and and that's one of the ways that
• 46:59
  abusers can kind of worm their way in and kind of, you know,
• 47:03
  stay in your life even if you're just like, well, I should give
• 47:06
  this another chance. I should give this another
• 47:07
  chance. I should give this another
• 47:08
  chance. And that's actually, that brings
• 47:12
  me to the third aspect of cult control, which is thought
• 47:16
  control. And one of the aspects of
• 47:19
  thought control is adopting the group's map of reality as your
• 47:23
  own and installing black and white thinking and making people
• 47:26
  choose between, you know, good versus evil, US versus them,
• 47:30
  things like that. And one of the things that you
• 47:32
  can do to do that is when it's accepting the group's reality as
• 47:36
  your own, that can also basically be, you need to look
• 47:41
  at everything in your life through the lens of one goal.
• 47:46
  And that goal could possibly be, does this further my own
• 47:50
  personal goal of getting married and having children?
• 47:56
  Or it could be like, if you're in Christian fundamentalism,
• 48:00
  does this further the goal of getting the world saved before
• 48:04
  Jesus comes back, You know? And if something doesn't further
• 48:09
  that goal, then you don't do it. And if it then you do it or then
• 48:12
  you don't do it. And if something does further
• 48:14
  that goal, then you do it. And that's the one lens through
• 48:17
  which you look at every single action that you do, and it just
• 48:22
  basically makes you turn everything into an action that's
• 48:25
  either good and in favor of this or bad or not in favor of this.
• 48:29
  And that's one of the ways that Colts can work and it can make
• 48:31
  you, you know, stay in a potentially bad situation or
• 48:36
  support even heinous acts. Because like for example, how
• 48:40
  pastors keep getting away with this with like sexual abuse and
• 48:44
  stuff is they can say this is a powerful pastor.
• 48:49
  This pastor has a big ministry and this pastor has saved a lot
• 48:52
  of people. And if you come forward with
• 48:56
  your allegations of abuse against this pastor, then that
• 49:01
  will damage this pastor's ministry and that will make it
• 49:04
  so other people don't get saved by Jesus.
• 49:07
  And when they die, if they don't get saved by Jesus, they're
• 49:09
  going to hell. If the If we can't get America
• 49:13
  saved, we need to save America by saving everybody in America.
• 49:18
  Because America has to save the world.
• 49:21
  All right, this will sound like a naive take, but I have to say
• 49:23
  it right now. And I said it on my previous
• 49:25
  show that I had with John Morris, who was quite heavily
• 49:30
  involved with religious groups and got out of it.
• 49:33
  Like the thing that just drives me nuts, like hearing this and
• 49:36
  talking about it is this idea that like, and I'm sorry to
• 49:39
  interject, but I just got to like throw this in there.
• 49:42
  Like these people explain away this stuff.
• 49:47
  And they're like we're doing this for the greater good.
• 49:49
  We're doing this to protect the reputation of this pastor, this
• 49:52
  person that has all this following.
• 49:54
  And they, they built this massive organization with so
• 49:58
  many followers, etcetera. And it's like, yeah, but
• 50:00
  fundamentally you're doing bad things.
• 50:04
  And like these few terrible things that you've done, like,
• 50:10
  it's like a contradiction of all the good stuff you've done.
• 50:13
  You can't go, Oh yeah, but like I did, we did all this good
• 50:15
  stuff. So just ignore this bad stuff is
• 50:17
  that No, no, that's not the way that it fucking works.
• 50:19
  Like, you can't just explain that away as like, oh, well, you
• 50:23
  know, that's just, that's just the silliness.
• 50:25
  That's just the little things, you know, ignore that, sweep it
• 50:27
  under the rug, like, what the hell?
• 50:29
  And I I realised there's a degree of naivety in one saying,
• 50:32
  like, I understand the way the world works.
• 50:35
  There is what we see and then there is what is and then
• 50:38
  there's. Don't get me wrong, there's many
• 50:39
  things in life that what you see is what you get.
• 50:41
  And it's true and it's real and it's beautiful, but there's a
• 50:44
  hell of a lot more stuff that is just quite frankly, bullshit
• 50:48
  marketing. You know, you're being sold a
• 50:51
  bill of goods. You're being sold something that
• 50:53
  is just not accurate, not true, not real.
• 50:56
  And I feel like a lot of the time that's the case with these
• 50:58
  cults or religious movements, you know, you're you're just
• 51:02
  being lied to. Well, it's also this.
• 51:05
  It's exactly the same thing as what authoritarian leaders will
• 51:08
  do is they will say, like if you go back and look at somebody
• 51:12
  like Hitler and if you read a book like Mein Kampf, then what
• 51:18
  he is essentially saying is that every conflict in the world,
• 51:23
  every international conflict or every interpersonal conflict,
• 51:28
  can be boiled down to a race war.
• 51:31
  Or if you look at, I mean if if you look at like what the Soviet
• 51:36
  Union or what Maoist China was doing, they were saying there is
• 51:40
  no conflict in the world. That can't be boiled down to a
• 51:44
  class war. Or if you look at a, you know, a
• 51:47
  country like the, like Iran, what are the ayatollahs saying?
• 51:51
  They're saying every conflict in the world, every conflict that
• 51:54
  we have is a holy war. So you have like there is one
• 52:00
  scope through which you can look at this thing and the, you know,
• 52:02
  the holy war thing. That's the same thing as like
• 52:05
  what the Christian fundamentalists in America will
• 52:07
  say when they want Christian nationalism.
• 52:09
  They will say we need to have religious law in the United
• 52:14
  States. So and because this will help
• 52:20
  get America saved and this will further the cause of getting the
• 52:24
  world saved so that when Jesus comes back we'll all be ready
• 52:29
  like it's it, this is, this is a very real thing.
• 52:32
  This is a very real aspect of, I mean, I've even seen this in
• 52:38
  like, you know, business motivational people, right?
• 52:40
  When they're like, you know, you'll see some guy on like a a
• 52:47
  Alpha podcast or something. Being like, I decided when I was
• 52:51
  17 years old that I wanted to be a millionaire.
• 52:53
  And I decided I would not do anything unless it furthered my
• 52:58
  goal of being a millionaire or a billionaire.
• 53:00
  And, you know, that was my one goal and that was the one thing
• 53:03
  that I want to end. You know, it's just like, Oh my
• 53:05
  God, shut up. But that's also very much a
• 53:08
  mindset that people will preach to people.
• 53:10
  It's the same thing with MLMS, where they will say, is this a
• 53:14
  positive thought or is this a negative thought?
• 53:16
  If you don't have positive thoughts coming out of your
• 53:18
  head, then how can you succeed in this business?
• 53:22
  You need to only think about positive things, and only think
• 53:26
  affirming things and never have negative thoughts.
• 53:29
  It's interesting you say that because in the Twin, I keep
• 53:31
  bringing it up, but in the Twin Flames documentary, it was the
• 53:33
  flip reverse. It's like they wanted you
• 53:35
  constantly in a negative state because if you're in a positive
• 53:38
  state, they weren't able to make money from you.
• 53:40
  But you're right, it's it's generally speaking, it's like
• 53:43
  you either think the way that we think or there's a fundamental
• 53:46
  problem with you. That's what it boils down to.
• 53:50
  Yeah, I mean that. That just bringing up the
• 53:52
  business element as well. I think that's something great.
• 53:55
  I don't think I've ever touched on that when it comes to cults
• 53:57
  like I've seen. I'm sure we both.
• 54:00
  I'm sure you've worked for companies over the years where
• 54:02
  this happens where like, you go into a room and like, maybe it's
• 54:05
  a training day or some shit. And you know what I'm going to
• 54:08
  say? Like, it's it's like, come on
• 54:10
  everybody, let's get together. Let's say a mantra or let's like
• 54:16
  dance together or something like that.
• 54:18
  And I'm like, I'm fucking doing that.
• 54:19
  What is this? They've hired some cornball to
• 54:23
  like, get in front of everything.
• 54:25
  Yeah, I've worked in for corporate America before.
• 54:29
  I think there's a lot of cult traditions in there that need to
• 54:32
  be questioned, to be honest. I would absolutely agree with
• 54:36
  you. Like you ever go on LinkedIn?
• 54:38
  You ever use LinkedIn? Oh dude, like it's called, it's.
• 54:40
  Do you know what it is? It's very cultist because as
• 54:44
  soon as you start calling bullshit on stuff, people were
• 54:46
  like, Oh well, you just don't see the vision.
• 54:49
  Oh well, you're just, you know, you're that's inappropriate.
• 54:51
  You're not, you're not, you're not seeing the bigger picture.
• 54:53
  It's like, no, this is bullshit. Like the whole the whole thing
• 54:56
  that you see on LinkedIn where it's like someone posts a story.
• 54:59
  And like some of these, some of these stories are just like fake
• 55:02
  and nonsense nonsensical hell. It's so cringe.
• 55:05
  Yeah, and it's like, don't get me wrong, I like to hear a good,
• 55:08
  like comeback story or a good rags to riches story.
• 55:12
  Like, who doesn't? But like, a lot of them are just
• 55:15
  manufactured marketing spiel designed to get likes and
• 55:19
  interaction and draw people into business.
• 55:22
  They're trying to sell you stuff guys.
• 55:25
  But like, yeah, that you see so much of that.
• 55:27
  Like there's a guy that I follow on YouTube.
• 55:29
  I've shouted him out a few times.
• 55:31
  He's really good. His name's Joshua Flake, and
• 55:35
  interestingly to our conversation, he was part of a
• 55:38
  religious cult when he was a kid.
• 55:41
  He has a controlling family who he's kind of separated himself
• 55:46
  from because of their behaviour and the Nazis.
• 55:49
  It's crazy how many on how many levels he he could next to like
• 55:53
  our conversation. But like what he does most of
• 55:56
  the time is he calls out corporate America for their
• 55:58
  bullshit and all these like terms that they bring up.
• 56:01
  Like lately there's been a lot of terms they're bringing up in
• 56:03
  in the kind of war against people working from home.
• 56:07
  So there'll be like things like quiet quitting.
• 56:08
  I'm sure you've heard that or or is it quiet hiring, like just
• 56:14
  just buzzwords that don't mean anything.
• 56:16
  It's just basic. Like it's it's just US versus
• 56:19
  the companies and vice versa. That's kind of the general
• 56:22
  ethos. And he always tries to push the
• 56:24
  narrative like, hey, you don't have to do what they tell you.
• 56:27
  Like there's options out there. Go go find your own path.
• 56:31
  Like, it's OK, like just because some company is telling you
• 56:34
  you're a lazy person because you want to work from home, that's
• 56:37
  nonsensical. But there are people saying that
• 56:41
  there are people, big heads of company, CEOs even, that are
• 56:45
  saying like, quite damaging things and bring it back to
• 56:48
  cults. Like, that's pretty powerful
• 56:51
  because they've got, you know, maybe 10s of thousands of people
• 56:55
  that work for them that will believe in that and will believe
• 56:57
  it blindly because they're so hopelessly reliant on the system
• 57:01
  that they'll defend it no matter what.
• 57:03
  Just like the Matrix. Every job that I've ever to be
• 57:09
  fair, every job that I've ever had where I worked for like a
• 57:12
  big company, it was me versus the company in that how little
• 57:18
  work could I do versus how much money could I make?
• 57:21
  Like that's that's always been it for me at least.
• 57:24
  Like, I've always just been like I am here for a paycheck.
• 57:28
  Please don't ask me to do extra because I won't if it's not like
• 57:34
  that's that's always kind of been my my.
• 57:39
  But then again, I also like, you know, I I was also not shy about
• 57:44
  that. And that's also kind of why I
• 57:46
  maybe I didn't excel in that field because I wasn't willing
• 57:49
  to, you know, kiss people's asses about that.
• 57:51
  Yeah, but that's such a big part of it, dude.
• 57:53
  Like, I I'm right there with you.
• 57:55
  I would be loud. I'd speak out and it gets you in
• 57:57
  trouble and it's like, yeah, but I'm not going to kiss your ass
• 57:59
  for a promotion. If I'm going to get a promotion,
• 58:01
  it's going to be because I even worked hard for it or because, I
• 58:04
  don't know, I impressed you with my mindset and I've got some
• 58:06
  good ideas or some shit. It's not going to be because I
• 58:08
  was. I believe in you and I believe
• 58:11
  in the business culture and like it's bollocks to be honest.
• 58:16
  A certain amount of like in the in like the 2000s, early 2010's
• 58:26
  when startup culture was not what it is now, that every time
• 58:32
  there was like a new startup, like the CEO or like the founder
• 58:36
  of that startup was like, this is the next hero that's going
• 58:40
  to, you know, that's revolutionizing, you know,
• 58:42
  whatever and changing the game. Like you saw all those articles
• 58:45
  back then. I don't know how old you are.
• 58:47
  You have your hair. I don't have my hair.
• 58:49
  I'm 30, OK? We're you're blessed.
• 58:53
  I'm not. Nah, you didn't good man.
• 58:55
  You didn't Good I. Know, I'm I'm.
• 58:56
  It's actually very nice, except for in the winter because you
• 58:59
  get cold really quickly. Yeah, I was gonna say you got
• 59:01
  you got wrap up warm, both got. My Eagles hoodie on right now
• 59:06
  and it's got the Sherpa lining. But it it was very much like.
• 59:12
  I mean we're every founder wanted to be Steve Jobs or they
• 59:18
  wanted. I mean it's like the whole thing
• 59:19
  where you know how every founder now, every like Silicon Valley
• 59:23
  founder wants to be Elon Musk. And he can kind of get away with
• 59:30
  a lot of stuff because he is who he is.
• 59:32
  He's also like the richest person in the world.
• 59:33
  But he can also portray himself as a victim because he has all
• 59:36
  of these people who are just like the system hates him.
• 59:38
  Like that's the thing. You got to portray yourself as a
• 59:40
  victim and you have to create that US versus them dynamic,
• 59:43
  which is an aspect of thought control and make yourself into
• 59:48
  the victim even when you're like the biggest, you know, I mean,
• 59:52
  even when you're like the New York Yankees or the LA Lakers or
• 59:55
  something like that. Like you make yourself into
• 59:59
  that, like underdog, even when you're absolutely not the
• 1:00:03
  underdog. That's what blows my mind the
• 1:00:05
  most. When people were like, feeling
• 1:00:06
  sorry for Elon. It's like, dude, the guy's
• 1:00:08
  worth. Like what some countries would
• 1:00:10
  hope to make in like 5 years, Do you know what I mean?
• 1:00:14
  Like what? I feel sorry for him because
• 1:00:19
  like, he has a child that doesn't love him anymore.
• 1:00:23
  So that's, I mean, but that's his fault.
• 1:00:25
  So yeah, don't dead name your children.
• 1:00:29
  It's not very cool. No, of course.
• 1:00:33
  Not man. I mean, OK, let's let's bring it
• 1:00:37
  back to some of the basics about cults, because we've kind of
• 1:00:39
  gone. We've been on.
• 1:00:41
  That we've got a lot of different directions and I want
• 1:00:43
  to just kind of fire some some basic stuff at you to kind of
• 1:00:46
  like break it down as far as like under.
• 1:00:49
  Because the topic of this will be understanding cults.
• 1:00:53
  And I was very excited to kind of explore this review because
• 1:00:56
  there's just so many different aspects to this as far as like
• 1:00:59
  the some of the things you've laid out like people control why
• 1:01:02
  people do what they do, why people join cults.
• 1:01:05
  Let's start there. Like, OK, I know the reasons,
• 1:01:07
  you know the reasons. But like bringing in an example.
• 1:01:12
  See it's with the Twin Flames thing.
• 1:01:14
  It was obvious that why people join, people join because they
• 1:01:17
  want to find love and that's a very understandable goal.
• 1:01:20
  I understand that desperation, that want, that need, we've all
• 1:01:23
  been there, right? But then you get things like
• 1:01:26
  like the Nexium coal as an example, which from what I
• 1:01:29
  understood it's been a while since I've seen it, but like
• 1:01:32
  basically and guys go check it out.
• 1:01:34
  There's a really good documentary called The Vow which
• 1:01:36
  breaks it down very well and it's made by people who were in
• 1:01:41
  the cult as well, which is even more interesting.
• 1:01:43
  So there it was about betterment, constant self
• 1:01:47
  improvement, which is something that you know is not a negative
• 1:01:52
  thing in of in of itself. But where it becomes negative is
• 1:01:56
  the obsession to kind of go through this particular
• 1:01:59
  structure that they have and pay all this money.
• 1:02:02
  And again, it always goes down to that how much money.
• 1:02:04
  And there were a lot of people joining this particular cult who
• 1:02:07
  were like broke out, like they had no money at all.
• 1:02:11
  They're like dishing out credit cards and stuff just so they can
• 1:02:14
  be part of this and it's like do.
• 1:02:17
  That that's like, that's a big MLM thing.
• 1:02:20
  Right. And it's it's it's so damaging
• 1:02:22
  when you're getting to a point where you're like joining what?
• 1:02:26
  And then this is the interesting thing about the Mixian thing is
• 1:02:29
  that a lot of people that joined that were very aware, oh, this
• 1:02:32
  is a bit weird, this is a bit coy, like they knew what they
• 1:02:35
  were getting into, but they still joined anyway.
• 1:02:39
  And this is what I want to explore with you.
• 1:02:42
  What do you think it is fundamentally that induces
• 1:02:46
  people to join cults and what are the main reasons why they
• 1:02:48
  choose to join? So what a lot of cults will do
• 1:02:54
  is they will take the questions that we all have about life.
• 1:03:02
  Like how do I be happy? What is the what is the meaning
• 1:03:06
  of life, what happens when you do things like that?
• 1:03:09
  And they will say we have all of the answers and if you well, if
• 1:03:16
  you join our group, we will give you a perfect road map.
• 1:03:21
  We will give you like for every aspect of your life.
• 1:03:24
  And you won't have to make any decisions because we know what
• 1:03:29
  the right decisions are like. Like I I'm going to bring this
• 1:03:36
  back to Christian fundamentalism because this is what I know
• 1:03:38
  about. There is this cult within
• 1:03:40
  Christian fundamentalism called the Institute for Basic Life
• 1:03:43
  Principles or the IBLP, which was founded by a guy named Bill
• 1:03:48
  Gothard back in the 20th, in, like the middle part of the 20th
• 1:03:53
  century. And he it's, it's there was like
• 1:03:58
  a homeschooling aspect and there was like a these are the
• 1:04:01
  principles that you have to live by.
• 1:04:03
  Where basically what he said that he did was he went through
• 1:04:06
  the Bible and distilled every commandment into the Bible, down
• 1:04:11
  into a certain number of principles.
• 1:04:14
  And so there was a principle where you know and and these
• 1:04:19
  principles correlated to a value.
• 1:04:21
  So there would be a value that would be like obedience is a
• 1:04:24
  good value to instill in your children or accepting who you
• 1:04:31
  are. Or the design principle was
• 1:04:33
  another one of them, so accepting that things are the
• 1:04:36
  way they are because God planned them to be that way.
• 1:04:38
  And then from all of these principles, he distilled what he
• 1:04:44
  said were laws and commandments and said, this is how you
• 1:04:49
  educate your children with this homeschooling curriculum that I
• 1:04:52
  have designed to go with these principles.
• 1:04:55
  And if you join a group like this, they will give you an
• 1:04:57
  answer for every single question in your life.
• 1:05:00
  Like what do I eat? What do I wear?
• 1:05:03
  Where should I live? When should I sleep?
• 1:05:06
  How many children should I have? How should I educate my
• 1:05:08
  children? What should I do?
• 1:05:10
  If my children aren't obedient? What should I?
• 1:05:12
  You know, in every when I'm looking for a job, what should I
• 1:05:15
  do? And it just says you can
• 1:05:17
  essentially turn your brain off and not make a decision.
• 1:05:22
  Because making decisions is difficult.
• 1:05:24
  Making life choices is really difficult.
• 1:05:27
  And what they'll do is they will promise you freedom from having
• 1:05:31
  to make those decisions because you know what the right answer
• 1:05:34
  is. That's such a solid point as
• 1:05:37
  well. Like, obviously we've heard the
• 1:05:39
  term brainwash and like when I was again watching the Twin
• 1:05:43
  Flames documentary. Guys, I promise it'll be worth
• 1:05:46
  it. Go check it out.
• 1:05:47
  I'll do a whole show with a guest who will talk about it.
• 1:05:50
  But it's just it's such a good example of like cults and how
• 1:05:55
  they work. Like of all the documentaries
• 1:05:57
  I've seen about cults over the years, I really think it's
• 1:05:59
  solid. Like, there was a point quite
• 1:06:01
  early on where one of the people that's quite high up in the
• 1:06:05
  organization was just talking about how she got out of a
• 1:06:07
  particular meeting in this cult. And she's like, she can't think
• 1:06:13
  properly, Like she can't just construct basic thoughts because
• 1:06:18
  her mind is just like just full of this crap.
• 1:06:22
  This like what she's been told, what she's been brainwashed
• 1:06:25
  with. And like you said, like you're
• 1:06:29
  given all the answers and you're told anything outside of that is
• 1:06:33
  is not the truth is you know is wrong, is bad for you, etcetera.
• 1:06:37
  Like I thought one of the most alarming parts of that
• 1:06:40
  particular documentary was the fact that, like people were
• 1:06:42
  completely isolated from their families, which is a very normal
• 1:06:45
  practice in cults, particularly religious groups.
• 1:06:48
  But, like, it's kind of terrifying because like, even if
• 1:06:52
  your family is massively supportive of you, they still
• 1:06:56
  go, Oh no, but these people, you know, they don't get it.
• 1:06:58
  They're not part of this. They're they're bad for you.
• 1:07:01
  And it's like, but how do these random strangers that you don't
• 1:07:04
  know how is how what they're saying the truth and how is it
• 1:07:09
  that they, you know, know what's best for you over your family
• 1:07:13
  who's been there for you since day one.
• 1:07:15
  Like, do you know what I'm saying?
• 1:07:16
  It's it's the. It's crazy how the manipulation
• 1:07:19
  works. Well, that's true.
• 1:07:20
  And also you know, it sometimes works the other way around in
• 1:07:23
  that a lot of families will be members of a very fundamentalist
• 1:07:28
  or a very cult like group and they will say you can't turn
• 1:07:31
  your back on your family. And that's an aspect of emotion
• 1:07:34
  control where they will essentially leverage
• 1:07:38
  relationships that you have and the love that you have for
• 1:07:41
  people and leverage that into keeping you from you know, from
• 1:07:47
  leaving or leverage that into getting you to do things that
• 1:07:50
  you wouldn't otherwise normally do.
• 1:07:52
  I mean the and and emotion control and and thought control
• 1:07:55
  are the two aspects of Steven Hassan's Bite model where you
• 1:07:58
  get into like the self brainwashing where you get into
• 1:08:00
  the I have to do this because that's a thing that you kind of
• 1:08:05
  have to do on yourself. It isn't something that other
• 1:08:08
  people can do to you. You have to kind of be willing
• 1:08:12
  to make that switch and to turn your brain off and to think
• 1:08:15
  about like I I was talking to we we just came out with an episode
• 1:08:25
  where we had a person on her name is Alora Dodd.
• 1:08:30
  She is on. She's pretty popular on on
• 1:08:33
  TikTok and Instagram. I think she's got like half a
• 1:08:35
  million on TikTok. She has an account called Online
• 1:08:38
  One Room Schoolhouse and she was raised Christian fundamentalist.
• 1:08:44
  She's also autistic. And she was talking about how
• 1:08:48
  difficult it would be or how difficult it is for people who
• 1:08:52
  have people with autism to when they get like a hyper fixation
• 1:08:58
  or they get like a special interest to, you know, be in
• 1:09:02
  Christian fundamentalism where, you know, say you're really
• 1:09:05
  interested in like a, I don't know, sharks or something like
• 1:09:11
  that. And you learn a bunch of stuff
• 1:09:12
  about sharks. And you know you absolutely love
• 1:09:14
  sharks. And you have like a shark
• 1:09:15
  stuffed animal and you're like a kid and you have a shark stuffed
• 1:09:18
  animal that you bring with you. But then you get told your
• 1:09:23
  interest in sharks is in some way demonic.
• 1:09:27
  You why are you feeling this way about sharks?
• 1:09:29
  You should be feeling this way about Jesus.
• 1:09:31
  Yeah, no, you're right. It's it's like everything I've
• 1:09:34
  ever known is a lie. I can't trust anyone.
• 1:09:37
  I can only trust this one source.
• 1:09:39
  Kind of. I mean it.
• 1:09:42
  It is, yeah. And also, you know, I mean I
• 1:09:44
  want to go and talk to like or or talk about like hills.
• 1:09:50
  Do you know anyone who's gotten out of like a Hillsong type
• 1:09:52
  church? I don't believe what is.
• 1:09:56
  What is that exactly? Song is it's an Australian
• 1:09:59
  branch of Pentecostal, Charismatic, kind of, yeah, that
• 1:10:05
  kind of church. And they're very well known for
• 1:10:07
  making Christian music. The music aspect of emotion
• 1:10:15
  control is also a very big deal in that you know that there is
• 1:10:21
  certain kinds of music that are, I mean music and art especially
• 1:10:25
  is of a deeply emotional genre. What they will do is they will
• 1:10:29
  make Christian worship music to try to get you to feel big
• 1:10:35
  feelings about Jesus. So they'll make songs that are
• 1:10:37
  intentionally very emotional sounding.
• 1:10:40
  Songs like I know for a while back there in like the the 80s,
• 1:10:47
  nineties, 2000s, like the Christian music all sounded like
• 1:10:50
  U2. And then for a while it sounded
• 1:10:53
  like it was like kind of almost like hardcore, kind of like
• 1:11:00
  metal core, That kind of thing was big for a bit.
• 1:11:02
  And then got into like the oh, now it sounds like Mumford and
• 1:11:06
  Sons. And now all Christian music kind
• 1:11:08
  of sounds like Imagine Dragons like.
• 1:11:11
  But it's the kind of genre of music that is popular with as
• 1:11:19
  many people as possible because it has like these big emotional
• 1:11:23
  swells and they'll use technique.
• 1:11:24
  You know, are are you a musician yourself?
• 1:11:27
  Yes, yeah, yeah. So they'll use techniques like
• 1:11:29
  key changes and they'll use like popular chord progressions that
• 1:11:32
  are big in popular songs that are used in a lot of popular
• 1:11:37
  like pop songs and get you to like the feelings that you feel
• 1:11:40
  when you hear your favorite song.
• 1:11:42
  They want to get you to feel those feelings about Jesus.
• 1:11:45
  I think also as well, just on a side note, it's probably by
• 1:11:48
  design because they realise if we're going to get the younger
• 1:11:51
  generations we have to update and be on top of what the trends
• 1:11:55
  are. So if the current style is
• 1:11:59
  Mumford and Sons, then that's what our particular music needs
• 1:12:02
  to sound like in order to get those generations.
• 1:12:04
  Because if we're still playing stuff that for like 50 years
• 1:12:07
  ago, we're going to be seen as that old archaic organization.
• 1:12:11
  Whereas if we're up to date, people will be like, oh, the
• 1:12:13
  church is cool, we're cool. Like we should join like, you
• 1:12:16
  know, that kind of thing. I mean, some churches do that,
• 1:12:18
  and some churches go exactly the opposite.
• 1:12:20
  Some churches are like, the world has changed.
• 1:12:23
  The world's gotten worse, you know, and this is very tied in
• 1:12:27
  in America, at least with like the with, like racism and trying
• 1:12:32
  to go back to a time when there wasn't racial equality or when,
• 1:12:37
  I mean, there isn't racial equality.
• 1:12:38
  What? But when racial equality was
• 1:12:40
  much worse in America and before women had, you know, before the
• 1:12:44
  women's Lib movement, before the LGBTQ rights movement came in.
• 1:12:50
  And they're like, we need to go back.
• 1:12:51
  The world is getting more and more sinful.
• 1:12:53
  And as the world gets more and more sinful, we need to
• 1:12:56
  distinguish ourselves from the world by showing that we are are
• 1:13:00
  holy. So that other people, when
• 1:13:02
  they're seeing us, when we're out, you know, soul winning and
• 1:13:05
  knocking on doors and asking people to come to church with
• 1:13:08
  us, they will see, oh, these people are different.
• 1:13:11
  These people are Christians, they're identifiably Christian
• 1:13:14
  when you look at them. So when they see us, they know
• 1:13:18
  that we are living the truth. And that's kind of how they do
• 1:13:23
  it, that how some churches do it, like especially the old
• 1:13:27
  school American fundamentalist branches.
• 1:13:29
  That's very much a thing for them.
• 1:13:31
  They will instill a dress code where maybe the dress code won't
• 1:13:37
  be based on something from the Bible, but it will be based on
• 1:13:39
  the idea from the Bible that Christians are a peculiar group
• 1:13:44
  of people. I think that's the verse.
• 1:13:46
  And they're distinguishable because they're different and
• 1:13:50
  because they're kind. And so you have to be out here
• 1:13:52
  distinguishing yourself from the world, from the sinful world.
• 1:13:56
  Because if people see you engaging in something that they
• 1:13:59
  think might be sinful, then they will look at you and they will
• 1:14:02
  say, Oh well, that person can't be for real, for real,
• 1:14:05
  Christian, because I saw them doing this.
• 1:14:07
  So they must not actually love Jesus that much, and it must be
• 1:14:10
  a fake. You know what's intriguing about
• 1:14:12
  that as well? What you're saying The idea of
• 1:14:14
  soul winning. And like, I've seen that in
• 1:14:17
  person that, you know, I've got friends with different
• 1:14:20
  backgrounds and a lot of my religious friends are just like
• 1:14:23
  normal, everyday people. They follow what they believe.
• 1:14:25
  They don't try and shove it down your throat.
• 1:14:27
  Great. That's how I think we should all
• 1:14:28
  be. Your beliefs, to be honest.
• 1:14:30
  They're quite a personal thing and I don't think there's
• 1:14:33
  anything wrong with sharing your beliefs, but I think if someone
• 1:14:36
  says to you, hey, sorry, I'm not interested in that, then just
• 1:14:39
  respect that, right, Very, very simple thing.
• 1:14:42
  But here's the thing, you get people out on the street and
• 1:14:45
  like, I remember this when I was a kid, like walking around with
• 1:14:47
  like my my mum. And then there'd be like some
• 1:14:50
  guy on a street corner going like you're hey dance, they're
• 1:14:54
  going to hell. And I'm thinking, but what I I'm
• 1:14:57
  done. I'm three years old what I've
• 1:14:58
  done. And that's obviously the extreme
• 1:15:01
  side of things. But here's the interesting
• 1:15:05
  element of that is you've got these people, they're constantly
• 1:15:07
  out. They're constantly trying to,
• 1:15:09
  you know, convert people, bring people over.
• 1:15:11
  And I think so long as you do that in a manner that's like not
• 1:15:16
  forceful or pushing or trying to demean people, then then you're
• 1:15:20
  OK You know, you're you should have the freedom to do that.
• 1:15:23
  But like, you get these people where it's like a a losing
• 1:15:27
  battle where they'll be walking around say, like a shop, like
• 1:15:30
  for instance, I live in Manchester in the UK, right?
• 1:15:32
  So we have a lot of different people from a lot of different
• 1:15:35
  backgrounds, races, religions, etcetera.
• 1:15:37
  We also have a long strip in the middle of the city centre where
• 1:15:40
  people, religious people, will go.
• 1:15:42
  Sometimes they'll preach, sometimes they'll just have
• 1:15:44
  music playing in the background, like whatever.
• 1:15:46
  It's quite interesting to be honest.
• 1:15:48
  And you get like Mormons going around, for example, and they
• 1:15:51
  obviously stick out like a sore thumb because they're very, you
• 1:15:54
  know, the way they dress, the way they hold themselves.
• 1:15:56
  It's very different to how the average UK person walks down the
• 1:15:59
  street and dresses. Right.
• 1:16:01
  And often the response they'll get is they'll get told to F
• 1:16:04
  off. You know, they're just, that's
• 1:16:06
  it. That's, it's quite brutal.
• 1:16:08
  But, you know, people just want to do their shopping, I guess.
• 1:16:11
  And you know, I was talking to my housemate about this and he
• 1:16:14
  was saying that like apparently a lot of the reasons why they
• 1:16:17
  get their followers sometimes to do that is it's kind of like a
• 1:16:21
  punishment complex in order to like keep them more obedient
• 1:16:27
  because they know that then probably not going to get any
• 1:16:30
  new followers by doing that. It's going to be quite an
• 1:16:33
  ineffective method. But they push them to do that in
• 1:16:36
  order to maintain that level of control and to keep them
• 1:16:39
  grounded because in the minds of those people, potentially
• 1:16:42
  they'll look at that and come back and be like, wow, there's
• 1:16:44
  so many sinners out there like, you know, we're fighting a
• 1:16:47
  losing battle. What we going to do kind of like
• 1:16:49
  mindset? That's absolutely accurate.
• 1:16:51
  I I would, I would definitely say that's accurate.
• 1:16:53
  You know my podcast Co host Sadie, she the branch of
• 1:16:58
  fundamentalism that she was in, she went to a Bible College in
• 1:17:01
  Northwest Indiana in the United States and what they would have
• 1:17:08
  her do and people who went to the Bible college.
• 1:17:12
  And this is like in a Bible college like I if you don't
• 1:17:14
  know, it's like an unaccredited school where you go it's
• 1:17:18
  basically boot camp if you want to be in the ministry in this
• 1:17:23
  particular branch of fundamentalism.
• 1:17:25
  So they would put them all on a bus and send them to the nearby
• 1:17:34
  metro area, which was the Chicago metro area.
• 1:17:37
  And she would be walking around knocking on doors in the South
• 1:17:43
  side of Chicago, in East Chicago, which is as like a 19
• 1:17:46
  year old with like a friend. She and like a friend of hers
• 1:17:49
  would be walking around knocking on doors in like East Chicago or
• 1:17:53
  South side of Chicago, which are not particularly safe places,
• 1:17:59
  and just knocking on doors and you know, asking people when
• 1:18:03
  they answered the door said hello.
• 1:18:05
  If you died today, did you? Do you know 100% one way or the
• 1:18:10
  other if you would go to heaven? I must.
• 1:18:16
  I'm just. I'm just throwing out the trash,
• 1:18:18
  man. Come on, Just give me a break.
• 1:18:22
  Out and you do that time and time and time and time and time
• 1:18:25
  again and you feel so defeated when you only get like one or
• 1:18:30
  two people to like say the prayer with you and and you know
• 1:18:32
  accept Jesus or whatever. And then you come back to this
• 1:18:35
  group of people who all have the same experience as you and they
• 1:18:39
  can all sort of Co commiserate with you and be like you know
• 1:18:43
  and maybe there's somebody who's really good at it and that
• 1:18:45
  person gets like 10 or or 15 people to say the prayer with
• 1:18:49
  them. And or might even get some
• 1:18:52
  people to agree to come to church with them, which is
• 1:18:54
  always you know, which some people can do like you know if
• 1:18:58
  you harangue people enough then they'll do that.
• 1:19:01
  But that is definitely a method of keeping people in the the
• 1:19:08
  soul winning thing is absolutely crazy to me.
• 1:19:10
  I do have another story about that that happened to me
• 1:19:14
  recently is if you know about like Christian fundamentalists,
• 1:19:19
  then you know that they're often very hardcore about their
• 1:19:23
  doctrinal beliefs about what the Bible says, what the Bible
• 1:19:27
  doesn't say, what's a commandment, what's a like their
• 1:19:29
  theology in in extremely niche ways.
• 1:19:35
  And so I live in Philadelphia, PA and in major cities in
• 1:19:44
  America. And I mean you, you saw this in
• 1:19:46
  Manchester. There are corners or or there
• 1:19:49
  there sometimes public places where people will, you know,
• 1:19:56
  have a megaphone and just be, you know, St. preaching.
• 1:20:01
  And there's a guy that does it near the subway station that's
• 1:20:04
  by my house. There will always be out there
• 1:20:10
  the other day. I was walking to the grocery
• 1:20:13
  store and there was this guy. The guy was out there with his
• 1:20:18
  megaphone. There was a different guy on the
• 1:20:21
  corner across from him with a megaphone.
• 1:20:24
  And they were yelling at each other about like really niche
• 1:20:28
  doctrinal like theologic like. And if I didn't have the
• 1:20:32
  knowledge that I have from like studying this for years, I would
• 1:20:36
  have been like, I have no idea what these guys are talking
• 1:20:39
  about. But one of these guys was like
• 1:20:42
  screaming at the other one because he what in like one of
• 1:20:47
  the Bible verses that he was saying he used a version of the
• 1:20:52
  Bible that wasn't the King James Version of the Bible.
• 1:20:56
  And if you know anything about Christian fundamentalism, a lot
• 1:20:59
  of them believe that the King James Version of the Bible is
• 1:21:02
  the only valid translation. And there's some, like, very
• 1:21:05
  weird beliefs that the translators of the King James
• 1:21:10
  Version were given special powers by God to translate it
• 1:21:15
  perfectly and make it so that it's God's word in English,
• 1:21:18
  perfectly in English. So that they can just go through
• 1:21:22
  and be as like, take things as out of context as they possibly
• 1:21:30
  can and say commandment from God.
• 1:21:33
  Because this is the words that God chose to put in this version
• 1:21:36
  of the Bible that we know is inerrant in English.
• 1:21:39
  And if you use a version of the Bible that isn't the King James
• 1:21:43
  Version of the Bible, then they believe that you're leading
• 1:21:45
  people astray from the actual word of Jesus.
• 1:21:48
  And that you know and that if I mean some of them even believe
• 1:21:53
  if you get somebody saved and you don't use a version King
• 1:21:57
  James Version of the Bible, then it's then like that person might
• 1:22:02
  not actually be saved and that person might not actually go to
• 1:22:04
  heaven. Which is kind of wild to think
• 1:22:06
  about because the King James version of the Bible was written
• 1:22:08
  in 1611 and it's crazy to think that nobody who spoke English
• 1:22:13
  before 1611 got saved to go to heaven.
• 1:22:17
  But that's like a a whole story. But like, they will get so niche
• 1:22:24
  about their theological differences with each other,
• 1:22:27
  even different fundamentalists with each other that believe
• 1:22:31
  99.99999% of the same things, that they will get into heated
• 1:22:35
  arguments about these things and they will basically like
• 1:22:38
  disfellowship each other over the most niche disagreements.
• 1:22:44
  Because you know, because, well, if you don't believe exactly
• 1:22:48
  what I believe, I can't be 100% sure that you're actually saved,
• 1:22:51
  because I know that what I believe comes from God.
• 1:22:53
  And if you believe something different than that means that
• 1:22:56
  doesn't come from God like it. It's crazy.
• 1:23:00
  Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Christian
• 1:23:03
  Reeve Podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please
• 1:23:06
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• 1:23:18
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• 1:23:36
  I'll see you in the next one.