Latest / The Philip Ryan Deal Podcast / Being raised a Jehovah’s Witness: The Gospel of Philip Deal

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Being raised a Jehovah’s Witness: The Gospel of Philip Deal · The Philip Ryan Deal Podcast

0:07
What's up my which bitches today?
0:13
I'm gonna tell you about my spiritual path.
0:16
I'm going to tell you about my spiritual journey.
0:19
So, on Tick, Tock, I got on there and I told everybody, yo,
0:25
I'm podcasting now, I'm like distributed on a whole bunch of
0:28
different platforms. This, I don't know what I'm
0:31
going to talk about. So why don't y'all give me some
0:34
ideas about stuff? You want me to talk about?
0:37
And I totally will one of the people, one of my friends out
0:41
there, said, why don't you tell us about your spiritual journey?
0:44
Why don't you tell us about your spiritual path?
0:48
And I was like, well, everybody already knows that, right?
0:53
Well, not really actually, you know, there's a lot of people
0:57
that have not had the opportunity for for me to talk
1:01
about my spiritual path, like the entire thing from beginning
1:05
to end as a story. So, I decided today was a
1:10
perfect day to do it. I just rolled out of bed.
1:14
Iíve got my vanilla chai latte, soy enema over here.
1:22
It's Friday. Thank God.
1:23
It's Friday. So who knows?
1:26
What the hell is going to happen?
1:29
So yeah, I feel the need the urge, or the desire to talk
1:34
about my spiritual path today, and tell you how I became me, or
1:39
how I arrived at, where I'm at. And it's so interesting.
1:44
There's so many people out there that say that they like
1:46
listening to my voice, that they like the sound of my voice, our,
1:50
that the sound of my voice is like comforting and some kind of
1:54
way, which is really, really crazy because growing up, I
1:57
always, oh, I hate. The sound of my voice, I would
2:01
record myself, and I would talk to myself and record myself with
2:06
like my tape recorder. And then I play it back and I
2:11
kind of had a little bit of a speech impediment when I was
2:14
young younger. And I mean, when I was a little
2:17
boy turning about eight, nine or ten, it was suggested to my
2:22
mother that she get me a tape recorder so that I could record
2:25
myself talking. So I would record myself talk.
2:29
Talking and then I play it back and I'd listen to myself and I
2:31
would work on my speech patterns or changing my speech.
2:38
And I used to hate listening to my voice.
2:40
Oh, I feel like my voice sounds squeaky and whiny, so I'm not
2:46
the kind of person that would want to sit around and listen to
2:48
myself talk, but a lot of you guys out there say, you do you
2:53
put me on in the background while you're washing your dishes
2:56
or cleaning your house or while you're driving a The drive into
2:59
work and that's just fine. That is just fine.
3:03
That makes me so happy to know that some of you guys out there
3:06
like listening to me, run my mouth.
3:08
But today I'm not going to be talking as much shit.
3:13
I will be a little bit more serious today.
3:16
This will be a little bit more of an introspective kind of post
3:21
because we're going to start out with being born and raised a
3:26
Jehovah's Witness. Yes folks, I Was born and raised
3:29
a Jehovah's Witness. And if you don't know what that
3:32
is, well, it's the people that show up at your door on Saturday
3:35
morning, while you're trying to watch cartoons, trying to teach
3:39
you about God's kingdom, get you to sit down and study the Bible
3:42
with them. The Watchtower organization
3:45
while I was born and raised in that.
3:48
And we're going to talk about that.
3:50
And hopefully this is going to be educational.
3:52
You'll learn something about religion as we go along, because
3:55
you guys know I'm an educator a spiritual Entertainer.
3:59
I try to make learning about religion and philosophy, fun.
4:03
So, I'm going to tell you about that.
4:06
Tell you about all of that as we go.
4:09
So, you know, then you'll be like, oh, okay.
4:12
I know who Jehovah's Witnesses are my friend.
4:14
And please, I want you all to consider me your friend.
4:17
I want to be everyone's friend, you be my friend.
4:20
Phillip are Ryan. A lot of people call me Ryan,
4:24
these days, and I like being called, Brian, you can call me
4:27
whatever you want, I'll Anything you call me.
4:30
How about that? You're like, my friend Ryan over
4:32
here was a Jehovah's Witness. And this is what I know about
4:36
that organization based on what he said, being born and raised
4:40
in it. So, I'll teach you a thing or
4:42
two about Jehovah's Witnesses without being disparaging.
4:47
Like, I don't want to put anyone down, but I only speak mad
4:51
facts. I only speak the truth.
4:54
And, of course, all of you can go and research all of this
4:56
stuff on your own. and then after the whole Jehovah's
5:01
Witness thing going to college learning about philosophy
5:07
religion, waking up to being a true witch bitch becoming a
5:16
magician someone who practices magic sorcery Yoga and the whole
5:23
nine, I have a really interesting spiritual path.
5:25
It's been all over the place. I've learned and studied a lot
5:29
of different things. And I'm going to tell you how I
5:32
got to where I am today. Which is basically still a witch
5:41
And an initiate into the spiritism that comes off the
5:45
island of Puerto Rico. Okay, Caribbean spiritism is
5:50
where I'm at as a psychic medium and also about how I came to the
5:55
traditions of Santeria Paulo my own Bay, the 21 divisions son,
6:00
say and my experience entering into what would be considered a
6:06
TRS are African. You know, religions.
6:12
So there's a lot. There's a lot to say here,
6:15
there's a lot to unpack, here, everybody a lot to unpack.
6:19
Some of the things I say might be very, very educational.
6:22
Some of the things might make you laugh.
6:24
Some of the stuff might offend you and if I offend you, I am
6:28
not sorry. Stop being so motherfucking
6:35
sensitive stop being offended so easily.
6:38
God God. Stop being so offended and
6:45
listen to what I have to say, till the end.
6:50
That's another motherfucking thing.
6:51
I always say on my Tick, Tock system, before you hit that
6:54
block button before you hit that report button.
6:59
Try to cancel my ass, listen to the entire video, or listen to
7:07
this entire podcast before throwing your judgments about
7:13
me. I think we should all listen to
7:16
one another and even if we're not, all right.
7:21
Emotionally, everyone should be validated for their experience.
7:26
We should all be validated for the experience that we have even
7:29
if our experience was the wrong one.
7:32
Okay. So I'm really excited.
7:35
I've got my coffee. I'm going to have my morning
7:39
shit. And then when I come back, we
7:41
are going to talk about everything that I've experienced
7:47
when it comes to the spiritual. Awakening.
7:52
All right, hang tight, y'all Okay, everybody to understand
8:07
what makes Philip deal tick. We have to go back, we have to
8:11
go back to the beginning. We have to go back to my family
8:17
and we have to go back to the way I was raised.
8:21
So I was born and raised a Jehovah's Witness third
8:25
generation on my mother's side second-generation on my father's
8:30
side. So real quickly I want to
8:33
explain to You how my mother? And my father got wrapped up in
8:39
the religion. And then we can go from there.
8:43
So Jehovah's Witnesses. Do not believe in an afterlife?
8:49
They don't believe in Hell. Okay.
8:53
So one of the core doctrines, that Jehovah's Witnesses hold is
8:57
that when somebody dies, they're dead.
9:01
Okay, this concept of an Heaven and Hell, the heaven thing a
9:06
little complicated. I might, or might not talk about
9:10
the 144,000 chosen, men and women that are bought from the
9:16
earth who have been washed and made clean in the blood of the
9:20
Lamb II. Don't know if I'm going to go
9:22
down the whole Theology of Jehovah's Witnesses Doctrine,
9:27
but I might have to explain it to you.
9:31
Anyway, the point is, is that Jehovah's, Witnesses do not
9:34
believe in Hellfire that Doctrine is something that they
9:37
rejected, okay? So my grandmother God, Rest her
9:43
soul. She was a wonderful woman.
9:46
She was saving grace for me growing up.
9:48
She died when I was 10 and it absolutely devastated me when my
9:52
grandmother died. It was.
9:57
It was a huge loss for me when I was a little boy.
10:01
Excuse me you guys have to bear with me with my own, my sinus
10:08
drainage and congestion. So my grandmother had an
10:16
illegitimate child, my mother would swear that she absolutely
10:21
never did that. She was married to the man that
10:23
she gave birth that she was married to the man, the child
10:28
she gave birth to. But my aunt said, no, that's not
10:32
true. And since my mother is such a
10:34
liar, I believe my aunt But what had happened, was my grandmother
10:43
had hooked up with this guy and she had a child and her first
10:49
child died. Now, I don't know if it was
10:52
stillborn or if it had SIDS or what, but the baby didn't make
10:57
it. See a lot of what I know about
11:01
my family history is wrapped up and illusion and smoke and
11:04
mirrors because no one is honest and my family.
11:07
So getting real answers about stuff that really happened.
11:12
II, don't think I ever got it, but it doesn't matter.
11:16
So my grandmother after losing her child and I don't even know
11:22
if it was a boy or a girl, went her Baptist preacher and asked
11:26
the Baptist preacher. Where is my child?
11:30
Now? What happened to my child?
11:32
Now that she's passed away, and the preacher said your child is
11:36
burning in Hell. Your child is In Hellfire
11:44
because you're a slut you're a whore and you had this
11:50
illegitimate child and that child is suffering because of
11:53
your sins. Well that just sent my
11:56
grandmother off like she absolutely could not handle this
12:00
response. And she was like, she stopped
12:04
going to church so years passed by she marries my grandfather,
12:11
okay? My grandfather and her, have my
12:16
mom and my aunt. So my mother and my aunt are
12:22
little girls. I think my aunt was about four
12:24
years old. My mother was about five years
12:26
old. And here comes a little old
12:28
lady. A Jehovah's Witness doing her
12:31
Ministry. Going up to doors knocking.
12:36
On doors offering Bible studies to people because the Jehovah's
12:40
Witness organization is a pyramid scheme.
12:44
Okay. The elite motherfuckers at the
12:46
very very top of the organization which is a handful
12:49
of men and only men make decisions for all of the people
12:54
who are Jehovah's Witnesses, they make the doctrinal
12:58
decisions about the theology. What is official Watchtower
13:04
teachings? The true teachings of God, since
13:06
they're the mouthpiece of God, then everybody under them Falls
13:10
in line, little old lady Jehovah's.
13:13
Witness showed up knocked on the door, offered my grandmother, a
13:16
Bible study and my grandmother said, okay, wait a minute and I
13:19
got to ask you a question here and my question is and she told
13:25
the little old lady the entire story about what had happened to
13:29
her. She said to her, where is my
13:32
daughter? And the Jehovah's Witness lady
13:37
opened up her Bible and shared passages out of the Bible that
13:41
refutes the going to Hellfire Doctrine.
13:46
You she explained that she'll was a place that people died and
13:51
that that person is unconscious until the resurrection happens
13:55
when Jesus comes back after Armageddon, everyone's going to
13:59
be Resurrected To the Earth and that's what Jehovah's Witnesses
14:01
believe. Jehovah's Witnesses, believe.
14:04
That if you are a witness, when you die, you go to sleep.
14:09
And after Jesus comes back and Armageddon happens in the world
14:13
is purged right of all wickedness than those.
14:16
People who have been dead have died will be resurrected.
14:20
The literally rise out of the ground, and they will come back
14:24
as they were when they passed away.
14:27
And, and there will be an opportunity.
14:30
To re establish God's Kingdom on Earth, God's kingdom raining in
14:33
heaven, but on Earth, people will be following these
14:36
teachings, right? So there's a there's a promise
14:38
of a paradise Earth. Not heaven, not heaven, a
14:44
physical resurrection that happens on earth and the
14:48
followers will be living on Earth, like Adam and Eve were
14:51
back in the Garden of Eden. Well, this sounded great to my
14:55
grandmother. She was like, sign me up, sign
14:59
me up, where do I? Where do I go to join this
15:01
religion? And as you know, our you might
15:05
not know that Jehovah's Witnesses.
15:08
Pretty much reject Christendom. And all other Christianity's all
15:13
other branches of Christianity. All other, faiths as being false
15:19
religion, only Jehovah's Witnesses, have the truth.
15:25
The absolute truth and secret mystical knowledge about what
15:32
God wants. And everybody else ain't shit.
15:39
And that's part of the doctrine. So, only Jehovah's, Witnesses,
15:43
are true Christians. Everybody else is a fake
15:48
Christian. Does that rhetoric sound
15:52
familiar that propaganda? So, being such that, these
15:59
people reject Christendom, they also reject the Pagan elements
16:05
that are in Christianity. And when I say Pagan elements, I
16:09
mean, all of the holidays. So Jehovah's, Jehovah's
16:12
Witnesses, don't celebrate Christmas.
16:15
They don't celebrate Easter, they recognize Christmas is
16:18
being a pagan holiday that was appropriated into Christianity
16:22
to appease, the Pagan Minds that they were trying to get into
16:25
this. Government.
16:28
And also Easter they reject that.
16:31
So my, my mother and my aunt like for the first 45 years of
16:36
their life growing up, celebrated holidays, they
16:40
celebrated their birthday Jehovah's Witnesses, don't
16:42
celebrate their birthday. Either they celebrated the
16:45
birthday, they celebrated holidays, and then my
16:51
grandmother studying this stuff. Took all of those things away
16:57
from them and explain to them. We're not celebrating holidays
17:00
anymore and this is why their Pagan, their bad, we're going to
17:03
Become Jehovah's Witnesses and my aunt, my mother and my
17:08
grandmother got baptized Because even if you're a baptized
17:13
Christian and another denomination your baptism is
17:16
invalid, it wasn't a real baptism because you weren't
17:18
following the real truth about Jesus.
17:22
So, you get re-baptized. So my grandfather, my
17:30
grandfather Born and Raised on the island of Puerto Rico was a
17:35
Catholic. You know, he was raised Catholic
17:38
and I have a very strong belief that my grandfather and I know
17:46
other people in my family in Puerto Rico and my ancestors
17:51
practiced spiritism African traditional religions are the
17:58
descendants of the tainos the Native Americans.
18:01
The first Native Americans to be colonized After Christopher
18:06
Columbus showed up lost in the Bahamas and kind of sailed up to
18:10
the shores of what we know, is the Dominican Republic today.
18:14
The first Native Americans to be contacted, were the Taino people
18:18
who are the descendants of the era wax they had been in the
18:22
islands and populating the Greater Antilles.
18:25
Well for a very very very long time.
18:29
Maybe ten to fourteen Thousand Years.
18:33
So when Columbus shows up and he meets these people, this is, you
18:38
know, we will get into that later.
18:40
We'll get into the history of the Caribbean, Maybe not today
18:45
in this podcast, but we'll get into traditional religions as
18:49
their practiced on the island, but I think my grandfather had
18:53
some kind of hand in it, because his spirits got so mad.
18:58
Oh, they got so mad. My grandfather's Spirits.
19:05
Okay, his guardian and his Spirit guides got really, really
19:09
pissed. When my grandmother started
19:12
studying this Jehovah's, Witness stuff and actually created
19:16
problems problems in the house, they said there was paranormal
19:20
activity that started after my grandmother started studying.
19:25
This witness stuff may be bringing the Watchtower
19:28
organization stuff into her home.
19:32
Brought in - and unwanted energy but for whatever reason, my
19:38
grandmother is told that she's getting resistance from Satan,
19:42
the devil and all of his demons are attacking her.
19:45
Because now she's found the truth and they're going to
19:49
increase their persecution of her.
19:52
So they played Kingdom songs and the house on the record player,
19:56
they prayed all the time. They went to the Kingdom Hall
19:59
which is what Jehovah's Witnesses, call their Church
20:02
where they meet and eventually this Paranormal Activity
20:05
stopped, my grandfather actually got so freaked out with the
20:10
Paranormal Activity. That was going on inside the
20:13
house that one day. My mom, my aunt and my
20:16
grandmother came home from going out to the grocery store.
20:19
And my grandfather was sitting outside on the steps afraid to
20:23
go inside the house. How crazy is that?
20:28
That's some crazy bullshit right there, right?
20:32
Well we got a fast forward now, to my dad, my mother, like I
20:39
said then what proceeded to be raised in the in the church.
20:44
Excuse me let me just yawn in your ear.
20:48
Oh yeah I am not a professional podcaster.
20:51
So my podcast is quite homemade. You guys will have to deal with
20:57
my yawning and everything. So, how did my dad get into all
21:03
this stuff? Well, my grandfather on my dad's
21:08
side was a real hateful, son of a bitch.
21:11
That's all I know he was a real bastard.
21:13
He was abusive, he was mean he beat everyone included my,
21:19
including my grandmother. I don't believe that he was an
21:22
alcoholic. He was just a mean, son of a
21:25
bitch and and not, they were not Witnesses.
21:30
Okay. They were not Witnesses.
21:32
I don't even know if my grandparents were ever anything.
21:38
Because I don't even think they went to church one day.
21:42
Jehovah's Witnesses, came to my dad's house when he was a
21:46
teenager. Okay, he was a teenager and they
21:48
started studying the Bible with his mother.
21:51
Now, my grandfather didn't like it, but he allowed it, but he
21:55
wouldn't let my grandmother leave the house and he wouldn't
21:58
let her go to the Kingdom Hall. She was required to stay home.
22:02
And she was not going to be joining the religion, but
22:05
someone could come around and teach the Bible to her.
22:09
Well, the the elders are the men in the congregation of Jehovah's
22:13
Witnesses. Kind of took a liking to my dad
22:19
and started mentoring him. Okay.
22:24
So my dad falls in love with Jehovah's Witnesses as an
22:28
organization. As a church, he becomes
22:32
indoctrinated into the Dogma, he finds a home with all of the
22:37
people. Who who are at the church,
22:43
especially in the men who are the Elders of the church.
22:48
And he decides, you know, this is for me, this is where I want
22:50
to be. This is my spiritual path.
22:53
So my dad really became a Jehovah's Witness based on a
22:58
like trauma bonded. You know, my dad, basically,
23:01
trauma, bonded himself to this religion into the people in the
23:04
religion and I, he really found solace on a personal emotional
23:09
level. Okay, this church satisfied, his
23:12
personal and emotional needs. He became devout to this
23:17
religion and is still About to it. so, when my mother, Was a
23:25
teenager. All of the witnesses around,
23:28
Virginia, Beach, Virginia, and Hampton Roads.
23:30
What used to be Tidewater Virginia, and then later became
23:34
Hampton Roads. They all knew each other.
23:35
They all ran with one another and my mother and my father got
23:39
married. Okay, long story, not going to
23:44
go into that either. After my mom and dad got
23:47
married, they had me and I was born into the Watchtower
23:52
organization. Now we need to go back just for
23:56
a second because this is probably going to be the first.
23:59
And last time I ever talked about jove is Witnesses on my
24:04
podcast, it's part of my history.
24:07
I want it recorded for posterity but it's not something I ever
24:11
want to like go back and talk about because it's just not
24:14
worth it. I was severely traumatized by
24:17
that religion and I suffer from religious trauma.
24:21
Being raised in that cult because it is a cult.
24:25
It's not something I like talking about but it's part of
24:28
my spiritual path and you're going to you're going to hear
24:31
about it. There was a man named Charles
24:35
Taze, Russell and Charles Taze Russell.
24:39
Is someone who found a Spiritual Awakening by reading and
24:44
studying the Bible on his own without going to theological
24:48
school, without going to Seminary, without having any
24:52
formal education and Christianity, our philosophy, or
24:56
the church and decided that after reading the Bible, he was
25:02
a prophet of God and started. The international Bible Students
25:06
Association and he started his own Ministry based.
25:09
On his own understanding of the Bible.
25:14
And he found other people that were interested in sitting
25:16
around in small groups and studying the Bible to, that's
25:19
the foundation of Jehovah's Witness organization.
25:22
Charles Taze, Russell, our Charles Taze Russell started,
25:27
the international Bible student students and later it became the
25:30
Watchtower bible and tract Society, based in Brooklyn, New
25:34
York. This gentleman as a prophet was
25:40
highly charismatic and gained a following just like Joseph Smith
25:44
gained a following for Mormonism and a lot of people confuse
25:48
Jehovah's Witnesses with Mormons because the Mormons also go out
25:52
and do their Ministry. Very very different two.
25:55
Completely separate, religions have nothing to do with one
25:58
another but that whole Joseph Smith and Charles Taze Russell.
26:02
Those figures are the people that created these These kinds
26:06
of branches. These Cults that, that deviated
26:09
from mainstream Christianity. Now, it's still Christianity,
26:15
Jehovah's Witnesses, are a Christian Church.
26:20
They believe in the, I guess you could say that the miraculous
26:26
conception of Jesus, they believe in the gospels, they
26:29
believe in the teachings of Jesus.
26:31
They believe that Jesus died for everyone's sins.
26:34
They believe that Jesus is the king of God's kingdom.
26:37
And that one day after the resurrection, going to heaven
26:40
and sitting at the right hand of God like, Most Christians, Jesus
26:44
will come back, he will bring the end of the world and after
26:47
Armageddon ends, everyone who is a Jehovah's Witness will get to
26:52
live in peace and Harmony, but you have to be a Jehovah's
26:55
Witness. You can't be any other type of
26:57
Christian, because any other type of Christian is a false
27:02
Christian because only the Watchtower Society is the
27:08
mouthpiece and channel for God's truth.
27:12
Who on Earth? And that's the teaching.
27:17
Now the teachings are very, very bizarre.
27:19
They have their own Bible. The new world translation of the
27:24
Holy scriptures is what I was born and raised on because
27:27
Jehovah's Witnesses. Make the claim that their Bible
27:31
is the only accurate translation of the Bible.
27:33
It's full of air, has a lot of the passages have been altered
27:38
to. I guess you could say kind of
27:41
Fallen harmony with the doctrine of the church.
27:46
And any biblical scholar, or anybody, who is educated in
27:50
biblical studies will tell you. This Bible is not accurate at
27:56
all. So just don't read it.
27:59
But that is what Jehovah's Witnesses have.
28:03
So let's, let's talk about me now.
28:05
Let's get around to me. It's because this podcast is all
28:08
about me. I was born into it and some of
28:13
my earliest memories, I hope daresay.
28:16
My earliest memories are around going to the Kingdom Hall I have
28:25
very clear memories as being a little boy, being held on my
28:28
father or my mother's arm or my grandmother's arm and being at
28:33
the Kingdom Hall, singing Kingdom songs because at the
28:36
beginning of church, in the middle of the service, and at
28:39
the end of this, Of us. They sing very special songs
28:42
that are written for only Jehovah's Witnesses to sing.
28:46
And I remember singing these songs and the Kingdom Hall when
28:49
I was very little I was probably like, oh no.
28:53
Five. Five or six years old. 45 years
28:58
old. I don't really have any early
29:01
early early memories as a child. And then I also remember going
29:06
to conventions because besides having congregations that
29:10
Jehovah's Witnesses attend, they also have these big events every
29:18
single year were larger. Groups of witnesses will get
29:22
together. Even convention, stadiums of
29:25
Jehovah's Witnesses will come together for very very big
29:28
conventions. Now, let me explain to you how
29:34
the congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses is set up.
29:38
Well, like I said before, there's this is a pyramid
29:42
scheme, this is a hierarchy and the men, the small group of men
29:46
who actually make the doctor null' decisions and the dogmas
29:51
for what is authentic? Watchtower teachings.
29:56
There's a trickle-down effect that starts with what they call
29:59
the governing. A and the trickle-down effect
30:02
goes down to everyone in Bethel or everyone who is in the
30:07
organization because it's you become really, really Elite.
30:11
If you get the opportunity to go and work for the organization,
30:15
you get very, very special privileges by being a part of
30:19
the creative process for making the books and the watchtowers,
30:24
and all the magazines and all of that.
30:28
Then from that group of people. It filters down to what they
30:31
call District overseers that oversee districts around the
30:35
United States and the world, very large groups of
30:38
congregations. Then there are circuit overseers
30:41
that are underneath District overseers, who look over maybe a
30:45
few congregations and then you have the elders in each
30:49
individual congregation. So when you're a Jehovah's
30:53
Witness, the people you pretty much come into contact with are
30:57
the elders and the other people in each individual.
31:00
Gation you'll come into contact with the circuit overseers that
31:04
visit, maybe once every six months you'll come into contact
31:09
with the district overseer that might show up maybe once a year.
31:13
And then you go to these large conventions, for these very,
31:17
very big events. And I'm not going to put down
31:22
individual people, that choose to be Jehovah's, Witnesses.
31:26
I'm not going to do it because I want to tell you.
31:30
You right now, there were there, I there were advantages, a few
31:37
advantage of advantages of being born and raised in this church
31:42
in this organization that was that was helpful for me in life.
31:48
So I'm not going to, I'm not going to tell you that my
31:51
experience was all bad, okay? Because let's take holidays for
31:55
an example. Yes, Jehovah's Witnesses.
31:58
Don't celebrate holidays. But I was never raised
32:02
celebrating a holiday, so I don't, I don't know what it's
32:06
like to to have been celebrating my birthday and then stop
32:12
celebrating my birthday. I never had anything taken away
32:15
from me because it was never given to begin with.
32:18
I didn't celebrate my first birthday until I was 22 years
32:21
old. I did not celebrate my first
32:24
Christmas and my first Halloween until I was 22 years old way
32:27
after I left the organization. After they kicked me out.
32:31
Our disfellowshipped me, excommunicated me for sucking
32:35
dick. We're getting there.
32:37
Everybody were getting there. So, hold on a second.
32:39
Hold on. Hold your horses.
32:44
My parents. Were all about appearances and
32:49
it was very, very important that the people of the congregation
32:52
viewed, our family as being highly, spiritual and very very
32:56
devout to this church. My father from because he got
33:03
into it so young and he was such a protege of the older men that
33:07
he was raised around. He became an elder when he was
33:10
young and served as an elder in the congregation, which is a
33:14
great privilege for anyone for a very, very, very long time.
33:20
My dad had his privileges taken away at certain points in time
33:24
because of fuck ups that I don't know about.
33:29
Became an elder. Again, had his status taken away
33:31
again after I got disfellowshipped because my
33:34
disfellowshipping was very, very bad for him in the church.
33:38
And I believe that he's an elder again now.
33:41
But I don't know, because we don't have anything to do with
33:43
one another. We don't have anything to do
33:46
with one another because if you leave the church or they
33:52
disfellowship you are you stop going Jehovah's Witnesses will
33:58
shun you, they might not shun people who just become
34:02
irregular, or what they say is weak weak in faith because
34:06
they're not coming to the meetings anymore.
34:08
But if you choose to consciously walk away, and write a letter
34:11
that says, I no longer want to be part of your organization,
34:14
are you get disfellowshipped? And you get kicked out of this
34:16
organization. Then the people can't talk to
34:23
you anymore, they completely shun you.
34:25
So, And and the interesting thing and I was I was at my I
34:32
have a Coven of male witches. Yes, it is.
34:35
My coven and it's based in Manchester New Hampshire and we
34:39
get together. And we perform ceremonies every
34:41
full moon on the solstices and the equinoxes, and special
34:47
events. If there's some kind of ritual
34:50
ceremony that we want to perform, So I basically went
34:54
from being a Jehovah's witness to a witch, okay, you couldn't
34:58
get farther from each other and I know it sounds extreme, but
35:02
there's actually a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses that left
35:05
the church that became witches. That's weird.
35:07
Phenomena. I don't know why that is but I
35:11
was talking to my cousin last night about like the structure
35:14
of the Jehovah's Witness organization and the elders in
35:17
the congregation and this is like a really big fundamental
35:20
flaw. And in the church the way it's
35:24
raised are the are the way it's ran.
35:28
Excuse me. So in order to become an elder
35:34
or a spiritual leader within the congregation You have to.
35:41
Prove your loyalty to the organization, you must prove
35:49
your loyalty to the organization.
35:51
The more loyal, you are to this organization to higher up in the
35:56
ranks. You will rise.
35:59
So it is a lei lead Ministry and it is a lay LED Church, meaning
36:04
that the men and only men are allowed to be elders There are
36:09
the only people who are allowed to take any kind of leadership
36:12
position. They are completely uneducated.
36:17
They did not go to Seminary, they did not go to theology.
36:21
They went to a training on how to become an elder but they're
36:25
they don't understand philosophy.
36:27
They don't understand comparative religion, they don't
36:29
understand history, they don't know anything.
36:32
They're not taught anything about other religions other than
36:35
their false religions and we have the True Religion so you
36:39
have to be 100% lost in the sauce.
36:42
You have to have drank the Kool-Aid and you have to have
36:45
dedicated your life to This organization and basically,
36:49
given up all of your time to do, all the activities that this
36:52
organization requires everybody to do to become an elder.
36:58
So, the problem with this is any Yahoo that walks into the
37:03
church, who becomes really super fanatical and radicalized by
37:08
this cult, has the opportunity to be in a leadership position
37:12
and that's very bad. That's really, really bad.
37:17
You know, the invention of the printing press changed our
37:23
world, the invention of the printing, press change,
37:28
Everything about our world changed everything and the
37:32
biggest mistake in history. When it comes to religion is
37:37
printing off a motherfucking Bible and allowing any Yahoo on
37:43
the street to be able to hold one.
37:44
That means if you're some guy or some gal, you know, that sneaks
37:49
into a hotel room and steals the Bible.
37:53
That's beside the bed, you can go outside.
37:56
You can stand on a soapbox. Soapbox, you can become a
37:59
prophet of Jesus Christ. And anybody can claim
38:02
Christianity and being a prophet of Jesus.
38:06
And this this whole, this whole everything about the Protestant
38:10
Reformation, and all of the different branches of
38:13
Christianity. You see today, come from that
38:16
level of arrogance and ignorance because they Orthodox Church,
38:23
the Catholic Church who has a priesthood that Stands up in
38:28
front of the congregants on Sundays and tells everybody to
38:31
love one another and forgive one another and and teaches the
38:36
teachings that come out of the Bible and perform the Eucharist.
38:39
You know, there's a reason why there was a priesthood that
38:42
manage the Affairs of the mysteries of Christianity
38:45
because they were considered sacred.
38:47
And not, everyone was allowed to have these teachings, because
38:51
Jesus said don't cast your Pearls Before Swine.
38:54
So to a certain at for a big Big for a very long time.
39:01
People who were priests in Orthodoxy and Priests and
39:05
Catholicism were responsible for disseminating the the teachings
39:10
of Christ to the congregants. And that obviously backfired it
39:19
because all religions backfire in the end because their
39:22
religions their structures and organizations, they're not based
39:26
on. They're, they're not technically
39:27
based on an individual person spirituality or apotheosis
39:32
Enlightenment. Okay, at least within the
39:34
Christian tradition for the most part.
39:38
So the printing, press came along it pushed the Protestant
39:41
Reformation forward Which and which eventually spawned all of
39:45
these other sects of Christianity, which eventually
39:49
created Jehovah's Witnesses. Which eventually ruined the
39:53
first 22 years or 21 years of my motherfucking life.
39:58
So this idea that everyone should have a Bible and everyone
40:02
should be able to read it and everyone should be able to
40:04
interpret it for themselves. Oh, that's a really bad fucking
40:08
idea, but that's what's happened in the world.
40:11
And that is how How we have the fuckery that we have with
40:16
Christianity in this country and everywhere else that Christians
40:20
travel to force people to believe this government.
40:24
This, this political organization that they consider
40:27
to be spiritual I think we've had this conversation before and
40:31
we'll talk about Christianity. Again, you can go back and
40:35
listen to my previous episode. Donald Trump is Jesus Christ to
40:38
get my views on Christianity. What it really is and how
40:42
Christianity was rise to power, okay?
40:46
And the world. But getting back to Jehovah's
40:51
Witnesses, the elders in the congregation or the people that
40:56
run the congregation and anything that happens that's
40:58
negative and Person's life is actually mediated and worked
41:02
with by the Elder. So we have people who don't know
41:04
anything about psychology, they don't know anything about
41:07
therapy. They don't know anything about
41:10
interactions and working with people yet.
41:12
They act as guides spiritually and counselors for people's
41:16
marriages, they tip to they tell people what kind of sex they can
41:21
and cannot have within the context of someone's marriage
41:26
and they rule and govern over people to the point that a lot
41:31
of the problems that happen in people's family lives are, I
41:36
guess, you could say handled in-house, because anything, that
41:39
brings any kind of reproach on the church.
41:42
Let's say you're a rapist or you're a pedophile or you've
41:46
sexually molested your children or your a drunk, you beat your
41:50
wife, you put her in the hospital.
41:52
All of these horrible domestic things that happen in people's
41:55
lives, incest, all of these things that happen in people's
41:58
lives that ruin. Lives.
42:00
They're handled in the church. They discourage people from
42:03
going to the authorities, they discourage people from going to
42:06
the police they discourage. From people, for people talking
42:10
openly about the problems inside the church because anything that
42:13
brings reproach on the Watchtower organization is
42:17
irreprehensible. It's even a reason to discipline
42:21
someone. Even disfellowshipped them if
42:24
they bring reproach on God's organization, there's an
42:28
organization out there called Silent lambs and it's an
42:31
organization organization, full of men and women all over the
42:35
world who were who suffered at the hands of pedophiles and
42:40
sexual abuse within the organization that got swept
42:44
under the rug. And so the idea that Elders were
42:49
taught by the Watchtower organization is before anyone
42:52
goes to the police about any kind of matters, you handle that
42:57
shit yourself, you bring it under, control, you bring
43:01
everybody back under control, snap them back in line.
43:04
Let everybody get over the trauma and continue moving
43:07
forward at all cost. So that's the mentality within
43:13
the organization. I know that's not unique to
43:16
Jehovah's Witnesses because that happens in a lot of different
43:19
religions where they want everything handled in-house, the
43:23
come a couple of other things that are really, really
43:24
devastating is that they don't believe in blood transfusions,
43:29
they don't believe in blood transfusions and a lot of people
43:31
have died. A lot of people have died
43:34
because they've been in hospitals.
43:36
They've needed a blood transfusion to live and they
43:38
died because Jehovah's Witness Say you can't have a blood
43:41
transfusion. That's based on the scripture
43:45
that says, do not consume blood. Another thing.
43:53
Besides the blood thing. Oh, shit.
43:55
I just forgot what I was saying. There's a, there's another
43:59
doctrine that is very, very damaging for people.
44:02
So let's talk about the blood thing for a second.
44:06
You know, I knew a man, his name was brother, Longmire, brother.
44:10
Longmire was young. He was in his 30s early 30s.
44:14
He had a wife, a beautiful wife, who was also 30 They were
44:18
beautiful, beautiful couple, they were very exuberant.
44:21
He was very charismatic as an individual, everybody loved him
44:27
and he was, he had was lost in the sauce with this whole
44:30
Jehovah's Witness organization and him.
44:33
And his wife were expecting a child.
44:38
Well, what happened was in, this is an absolute tragic story.
44:42
Is that his wife went into labor and they went down to the
44:45
hospital and after she gave birth, she then stop bleeding.
44:50
She hemorrhaged And my brother Longmire in an absolute in a
44:58
point of confusion. And and I guess you could say in
45:01
a crisis of faith. The doctors were telling him if
45:05
we don't give your, if we don't give your wife a blood
45:07
transfusion, she will die. Well, they called up my father,
45:12
they called up my dad, my father went down to the hospital and
45:17
basically held this man's hand as he weeped as he was
45:21
hysterical as he cried, while he watched his life, his wife bleed
45:27
out and die in front of him. Because my dad told this man
45:34
that if he allowed her to accept a blood transfusion that she
45:38
might not have the hope of a resurrection and that it could
45:43
even cost him his ability to see his wife on the other side of
45:49
Armageddon. So my dad basically is
45:54
responsible for the death of a woman who needed a blood
46:00
transfusion to live based on these motherfucking people that
46:04
said that you can't have a blood transfusion.
46:09
I think that was wrong. I believe that was wrong.
46:15
I think that my dad has a hand in that woman's death.
46:19
He absolutely does. Has a responsibility when it
46:23
comes to that woman's death. So what happened to poor brother
46:27
Longmire? Well, poor brother Longmire.
46:30
After his wife died, had a beautiful beautiful baby, and
46:34
continue to come to the Kingdom Hall for.
46:36
I think about a year for about a year.
46:39
The man showed up at the meetings, with a glazed.
46:43
Look over his eyes over his face.
46:46
With an inability to function with an inability to smile and
46:50
interact with people but still came anyway because he was
46:53
having this crisis of Faith, all of the sisters in the
46:56
congregation was taking care of him, going to his house, taking
47:01
him food, taking care of the child for him.
47:04
Well, about a year and a half later, he did meet another woman
47:08
who was a Jehovah's Witness and he got married to her and they
47:12
were around for about six months and then they wrote their
47:15
letters to Associate themselves from the Jehovah's Witness
47:18
organization and walked away. He, I guess came to eventually
47:25
and realize that this organization, there are some
47:28
really evil aspects of this organization.
47:32
He walked away from it, and, of course, everybody was stunned,
47:36
right? Everybody was stunned that he
47:38
walked away. But that's what happened folks
47:43
and and that that's the way that Jehovah's Witnesses Roy and
47:46
lives. Now, I'm trying to pull my phone
47:48
up over here because if you really want to learn more about
47:53
the internal process and hypocrisy of this particular
47:58
organization because I'm getting onto 40, fucking minutes,
48:01
talking about Talking about this organization.
48:09
The book crisis of conscience. Is a book that I think that you
48:16
should look at crisis of conscience is a book that was
48:21
written by a man named Raymond Franz.
48:26
Raymond Franz. He was actually one of those men
48:31
that sat at the top of the pyramid.
48:34
Okay, as on the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses and he
48:39
was disfellowshipped excommunicated out of the
48:42
church. For apostasy the absolute worst.
48:45
Possible thing you could be disfellowshipped for was
48:48
apostasy that means speaking against the Watchtower society,
48:52
which means speaking against God, and Jesus Christ themselves
48:56
because he Differed from them, dr.
49:01
Natalie and he actually had to take a stance that was actually
49:07
an authentic Christian teaching that Jehovah's Witnesses had
49:09
gotten rid of, which is that everyone should partake of the
49:12
Eucharist once a year. Jehovah's Witnesses will come
49:15
together at the memorial of Christ's death.
49:17
It's their big event, it's the only holiday they celebrate.
49:21
Nisan 14 Passover. When Jesus, excuse me.
49:28
I'm dying over here. Give me.
49:29
Hold on. Let me get some.
49:29
Let me get some coffee over here.
49:35
Matt talking about Jehovah's Witnesses, just makes my asshole
49:38
clenched, you know, it's just just sucks right up, you know
49:41
that asshole just clenches. I started having pain up my
49:45
rectum and my lower back thinking about these
49:47
motherfuckers. So getting to the point, What
49:53
the Bible teaches? Is that the Eucharist, which is
49:59
the ritual ceremony or act in which Christians partake in
50:03
Jesus death and Resurrection, by eating the wafer and having the
50:08
sip of wine, you know? This means my blood, this means
50:11
my body keep doing this in remembrance of me until I come
50:14
back. What makes a Christian?
50:16
A Christian okay. What makes a Christian or
50:19
traditionally has made a Christian?
50:21
A Christian is getting, baptized and reborn with the Holy Spirit.
50:26
Partaking of the Eucharist on a regular basis, like Catholics.
50:29
Do like other Orthodox, churches, do, as remembrance of,
50:35
Christ's sacrifice and sharing in.
50:37
Christ's sufferings. That means sharing in his death,
50:42
his resurrection, and the the perspective, the hope the faith
50:48
that when you die, you're going to be with Jesus in heaven in
50:51
his kingdom. That's the purpose of all of
50:54
this. That's the purpose of
50:55
Christianity. It's a cult of the Dead when you
50:59
die, if you have lived a faithful life, you will go to
51:04
heaven and be allowed entry into the kingdom of God, right?
51:10
That's the idea but see, Jehovah's Witnesses, teach that
51:13
because people don't go to heaven.
51:17
That anyone who is not anointed by Holy Spirit or part of the
51:22
hundred and forty four thousand individuals mentioned of in the
51:26
Book of Revelation, you do not partake of the Eucharist because
51:29
that's not for you. You have hope of being
51:34
resurrected or are being on a paradise Earth.
51:37
You don't get the privilege of taking the Eucharist.
51:39
That's a Jehovah's Witness teaching.
51:41
So at the, when people go to the memorial, to celebrate the
51:45
institution of the New Covenant of Jesus Christ, they pass the
51:50
bread, nobody partakes of it, they pass the wine, nobody
51:55
partakes of it. Isn't that interesting?
52:00
I think that's really interesting.
52:02
Is that not a denial of the Eucharist?
52:06
Well, it is. It's a denial of the Eucharist.
52:11
So the only people that partake of the Eucharist, our people are
52:15
the emblems because Jehovah's Witnesses have special language
52:19
that they use, that differentiates them from other
52:22
churches. And so that's a whole cult
52:24
Behavior. Their cult mentality cult
52:26
Behavior, says our group of people knows Mysteries that
52:30
nobody else knows and they use special language in coded
52:34
language. That only people who are
52:36
initiates of that church. Well, understand.
52:40
So instead of the Eucharist, they call it the emblems instead
52:43
of the Fateful of the faithful and discreet servant.
52:48
It's the faithful and discreet slave.
52:51
And all of these crazy fucked-up non-traditional non-orthodox
52:56
teachings about Jesus. In the Bible that Jehovah's
52:59
Witnesses, believe, there's all kinds of language and jargon
53:02
that you have to, you have to understand in order for all of
53:05
the stuff to make sense, which it's why it's difficult to
53:08
explain. Lane Theology of Jehovah's
53:10
Witnesses to another person because it's just so jar.
53:14
Bold, with all of this jargon that is unique to Jehovah's
53:18
Witnesses only instead of calling their place of worship a
53:22
church. It's a Kingdom Hall and yada
53:24
yada yada. It goes on and on, and on.
53:28
But anyway, this guy named Raymond Franz.
53:31
There were people that came to him and said, you know, Ray
53:35
There's nowhere in the Bible that says that people who have a
53:40
hope of Earthly life are not supposed to take.
53:43
The Eucharist are not supposed to partake in the Lord's evening
53:46
meal or per take of the emblems. There's no, there's no Biblical
53:51
scripture to justify. The watchtowers organization
53:57
that all Christians do not partake of the Eucharist, even
54:01
if they have the hope of a Heavenly life or a hope of an
54:04
Earthly life. Ray friends, actually being
54:09
really, really devout. Now that he was a really devout
54:12
Christian, he was dedicated to the organization but after being
54:15
on the governing body for a very, very long time, he started
54:19
to wise up and realize, wow, these people are more interested
54:22
in running a money-making organization, and keeping
54:25
control of a bunch of people rather than actually following
54:28
Bible teachings and how it comes down.
54:31
And this is how it comes down. Is that the Watchtower dogma?
54:35
And the Watchtower theology will always Trump.
54:41
The Bible's teachings. Period.
54:46
So Ray Franz said to these people, you, I can't tell you
54:49
not to partake of the Lord's evening meal, you're right,
54:53
you're right. That is a Dogma a doctrine of
54:57
Jehovah's Witnesses of this organization and I cannot in
55:01
good conscience. See crisis of conscience.
55:05
I can't in good conscience. Tell you guys.
55:10
That you can't partake of the Eucharist, so there were
55:13
Jehovah's Witnesses that were going to the Lord's evening
55:15
meal. They were sitting there, there
55:17
are passing the Bread and Wine, they were not partaking of it.
55:21
And then after they left, the Kingdom Hall from that
55:24
Gathering, they would go home are go together in small groups
55:28
at home. And they would perform the
55:30
Eucharist by themselves based on their faith and what they
55:36
learned in the Bible. Well, this created a massive
55:40
problem. Everyone who was doing this
55:43
practice, got kicked out for apostasy Raymond Franz got
55:48
kicked out for apostasy after spending his entire life.
55:53
As a missionary around the world being on the governing body for
55:58
apostasy. And so he wrote this book crisis
56:00
of conscience. Which oh my God was a tell-all
56:03
book about all of the hypocrisy that goes on inside the church
56:08
which I'm encouraging you. If if what I've been talking
56:11
about today is interesting to you in any kind of way and you
56:15
like learning about all this kind of stuff, you got to read
56:18
this book because you will get disfellowshipped if you're even
56:22
caught. Holding this book.
56:25
If you're a Jehovah's Witness and anybody finds out because
56:30
the members of the church spy on each other, you know they turn
56:34
each other in all the time. If they feel like somebody is
56:37
doing something that's not right.
56:39
If someone even finds you with this book that's almost like an
56:42
immediate disfellowshipping for apostasy because Jehovah's
56:48
Witnesses as a group are desperately afraid of being
56:52
called out. For their teachings and they
56:54
refused to acknowledge any other teachings.
56:57
They won't even study it besides having watched our and
57:03
Publications in your house and a Bible and maybe you can have a
57:07
King James Bible or some other translation of the Bible.
57:10
You're not supposed to read or study anything about any other
57:13
spirituality Buddhism yoga. You can't have anything to do
57:17
with any other religions. You have to reject everybody
57:19
else's Viewpoint in favor of the Watchtower.
57:23
Ization to be a witness, that's just the way it is.
57:29
So, I was raised in this and at one point in time I was gung-ho,
57:34
I was not serious about it when I was a kid.
57:36
I wasn't serious about it in my early teenage years.
57:39
I avoided it. There was just something about
57:42
it. That was just not right to me.
57:44
There was something about it that just wasn't right.
57:47
I love the people. I love that Jehovah's Witnesses.
57:50
As individuals are very, very kind.
57:53
And people. They're very, very loving
57:55
people. They're sweet people.
57:56
They're just so indoctrinated and what they believe they
57:59
can't, they're there. They could become emotionally
58:02
and physically and spiritually, and trapped in this, this cult,
58:07
they don't have the ability to get out of it, but that doesn't
58:10
mean that they don't have faith in it.
58:11
And that doesn't mean that they're not trying to live their
58:13
lives as good Christians. Now, it's funny because in the
58:17
South, a lot of people think that Jehovah's Witnesses is a
58:21
black church, Because most Jehovah's Witnesses in the South
58:25
are, are African American or black people.
58:30
A lot of black people Become Jehovah's Witnesses in the
58:33
north. You know, like in the northern
58:35
lie parts of the United States and California, and, and in New
58:39
England and farther north, you get a lot of white people that
58:43
are practicing the, the religion.
58:47
But I was born in Southern Virginia on the border of North
58:50
Carolina. And I was the, oh, my family.
58:53
I was the only white family in an all-black congregation for
58:56
most of my entire childhood and the and most of my life.
59:01
My dad was assigned to the Norview.
59:04
Norfolk congregation because they needed Elders there.
59:08
They needed to diversify the elders there.
59:11
So they sent my father there to be an elder.
59:13
And so he was, you know, very prominent in the congregation
59:17
with a couple of other elders. But it was a black congregation.
59:22
And so, all of my spiritual mentors growing up were black
59:25
men. All of them.
59:28
All of the men that I looked up to as spiritual pillars people,
59:32
who are faithful, people who are good Christians, men, that I
59:36
hung on and clung to every single word that they said,
59:38
preaching the Bible and at the Kingdom were black men.
59:42
And one hears that let's get to it, okay?
59:45
Because this is the crucially important part of me being
59:48
raised a Jehovah's Witness and why I'm not mad about it.
59:52
And I can't be mad about it because everybody suffers from
59:55
religious trauma. Okay?
59:57
But to be a Jehovah's Witness means that you absolutely cannot
1:00:01
be racist racism. I got to move now, because,
1:00:05
obviously, they have decided to do what they did in my other
1:00:09
podcast, which is come around and start.
1:00:16
Mowing the lawn while I'm in the middle of making a podcast.
1:00:20
So the point is we're going to take a break in a minute but
1:00:23
growing up a Jehovah's Witness. You absolutely cannot be a
1:00:26
racist and be a witness racism is considered to be an absolute
1:00:31
Abomination to God. Because all men and women,
1:00:35
regardless of your ethnicity regardless of your race are
1:00:39
God's chosen people if you become baptized and you become a
1:00:42
witness. So so the Captive as a white
1:00:48
boy. Growing up in my household,
1:00:54
anything that was racist. Anything that was considered
1:00:57
racist, or anything. That was disparaging about
1:00:59
people of other ethnicities, very specifically between black
1:01:03
and white. People was absolutely not
1:01:06
tolerated and I was taught from a from birth that racism was bad
1:01:12
and racism was evil. And like I said, all of my
1:01:16
friends were black growing up. I was home-schooled.
1:01:20
I did not. Variants are babe.
1:01:22
I was not able to see the racism that non witness kids exhibited
1:01:28
towards my black friends. I didn't have that experience so
1:01:33
my experience as a white boy is very very different than the
1:01:38
experience of pretty much all white boys that I know of.
1:01:44
Because I was at home, I was home-schooled.
1:01:49
I went to the congregation that being a Jehovah's Witness and
1:01:52
being a part of that. And going to the meetings was
1:01:54
the most crucial part of being a witness and being faithful.
1:01:58
And all of my friends were black.
1:02:00
All of my mama's that I looked up to that took care of me, wear
1:02:04
black. All of the men that I looked up
1:02:06
to, as being spiritual pillars and my spiritual guides and
1:02:11
mentors were black. And they were all the Until I
1:02:14
was about 21 years old until I got kicked out of the
1:02:17
organization. So, I did not have the same
1:02:21
experience that other white boys had growing up.
1:02:24
When it comes to interacting with people of color or people
1:02:28
of other, ethnicities are black people, So I'm basically the
1:02:36
jerk, right? Ha ha.
1:02:38
If you've never seen the jerk, and if you've never seen Steve
1:02:40
Martin, Steve Martin's movie The Jerk, you need to watch that
1:02:44
because that's kind of like little story about my life and
1:02:49
so my black friend, my best friend Donny.
1:02:54
He says you're not Blatt, he says you're not white, you're
1:02:57
not white. My friend says you have a black
1:03:01
soul. So anyway, I think that's cute.
1:03:04
I think that's interesting but and I'm by no means do, I think
1:03:09
I'm black in any kind of way. I don't have the black
1:03:11
experience, I'll never understand it, but I do know
1:03:15
that growing up. I was very fortunate to be
1:03:18
raised and environment that didn't tolerate racism, which is
1:03:22
why it always breaks my heart and it feels like someone is
1:03:24
stabbing me and my heart, whenever someone comes at me on
1:03:28
social media, calling me or someone who's racist, it's
1:03:31
devastating. To me because it's not true.
1:03:37
It is not true that I am a racist, or, or prejudiced in any
1:03:42
kind of way towards people of color.
1:03:44
Are two black people. And so I had a very interesting
1:03:48
experience growing up as a witness.
1:03:51
So we're going to take a break and when we come back, we're
1:03:54
going to talk about me getting disfellowshipped out of the
1:03:57
organization. And where I went from there, In
1:04:01
my spiritual journey. All right, welcome back,
1:04:10
everybody. I'm going to make a mental note
1:04:13
right now that every Monday, wait a minute.
1:04:16
No, it's not Monday, it's Friday every Friday morning.
1:04:22
The people come around to do the lawn.
1:04:24
I will remember that. So I will not get interrupted
1:04:29
ever, again by a lawn mower when I'm in the middle of my podcast.
1:04:36
Okay, so let's rewind after taking a little break and having
1:04:40
a little bit of food drink and some more of my My latte and
1:04:45
Emma. I need to go back.
1:04:49
And we need to talk about my Spiritual Awakening.
1:04:54
My Spiritual Awakening happened when I was 17 years old.
1:04:59
And I had accepted my first job as a professional dancer.
1:05:04
Now, I have to be honest with you, one day, we're going to
1:05:07
talk about my dance career and I had pretty much been dancing
1:05:11
professionally. Training professionally from the
1:05:16
age of 10, like, like in New York City at Broadway, Dance
1:05:21
Center Center under dance Masters?
1:05:24
Not just in my dance studio locally in Virginia.
1:05:27
I had my dance that I did in Virginia, my competition team,
1:05:32
but I took professional training when I was 10.
1:05:35
And then by the age of 13 14, I was nationally touring with the
1:05:40
kirov ballet. So it's like basically
1:05:43
professionally but we weren't paid as students but traveling
1:05:48
the country performing The Nutcracker in a professional
1:05:51
way. So when I was 17, I took my
1:05:57
first job as a soloist at the commis Opera in Berlin.
1:06:05
So I went to Berlin Germany We'll get to how I ended up in
1:06:11
Germany and how I ended up taking that job in another
1:06:14
podcast. But while I was there, I was
1:06:18
very troubled. I was deeply troubled.
1:06:21
When I was in Germany, I was depressed and manic because I'm
1:06:26
bipolar manic-depressive. Untreated Medicaid, I was
1:06:29
untreated. For the first 21 years of my
1:06:34
life because Jehovah's Witnesses have a poopoo on Psychiatry and
1:06:38
therapy because they know if a motherfucker goes to a therapist
1:06:42
and tells them about all of their problems and tells him
1:06:45
that they were Jehovah's Witness that, that therapist going to be
1:06:47
like your religion is your fucking problem.
1:06:49
You need to get out of that religion it's a cult.
1:06:52
So Jehovah's Witnesses, really don't want their members getting
1:06:55
therapy and you understand why? so I had no therapy growing up,
1:07:02
I had no medication growing up to treat my behavioral and
1:07:06
mental health problems and it was a living hell really was a
1:07:09
living hell I suffered I even told my parents multiple times
1:07:14
when I was a child and even as a teenager that I wasn't well that
1:07:18
I didn't feel well emotionally and they still didn't do
1:07:20
anything about it. They told me I needed to pray
1:07:23
and read my Bible and rely on Jehovah.
1:07:28
So anyway, I'm in Berlin, Germany.
1:07:30
My health is failing me. I'm not eating.
1:07:33
I can't eat anything. I'm vomiting up everything I
1:07:35
eat. I'm very upset.
1:07:37
I hated Germany. I hated Berlin.
1:07:39
I'm sorry if you live in Germany and I'm If you live in Berlin,
1:07:43
my experience there was bad. I know it's my experience and I
1:07:47
was in a really bad place but I, when I didn't, I didn't hate
1:07:51
Germany and Berlin. I hated being in Germany and
1:07:55
Berlin and feeling stuck there. So I was there for a while and
1:08:00
then one day I had this break down.
1:08:02
There were two books that I read that changed and revolutionized
1:08:06
the way I was going to approach my life starting at the age of
1:08:08
17, the first one is by Anthony Robbins.
1:08:11
It's called unlimited power. It's a self-help book for some
1:08:16
reason. The Jehovah's Witnesses, yes,
1:08:18
witnesses. That I was living with in Berlin
1:08:20
while I was working had a copy of unlimited power.
1:08:25
So I started reading unlimited power, I got that's a really
1:08:28
great book. I don't know if I read it all
1:08:30
the way to the end are halfway, but the amount of the book that
1:08:33
I actually read, really motivated me to change my life.
1:08:38
So then I said, well, how am I going to change my life?
1:08:41
And Princess Diana had just died in the car accident.
1:08:45
I remember one of the big world events that happened while I was
1:08:49
in Berlin. Is princess died.
1:08:51
Got killed. I woke up.
1:08:53
One morning, turned on the TV, and there was princess died who
1:08:58
had gotten killed in her car accident.
1:09:01
Devastating, Absolutely devastating.
1:09:05
So, I decided that I was going to pick up the Bible and I was
1:09:12
going to read the Bible. I said, you know what, if
1:09:15
anybody has an answer to Life's problems?
1:09:17
It's got to be Jesus. It's got to be Jesus.
1:09:21
Jesus has the answer to my problems.
1:09:24
So I turned the Bible open to the Book of Matthew and I
1:09:27
started reading the gospel, starting with Matthew and after
1:09:31
getting through The Sermon on the Mount, I said to myself This
1:09:37
is it. I am a Christian that is my
1:09:41
calling. I want to be a Christian Lord
1:09:45
make me a Christian. I want to go home, I want to go
1:09:48
back home to Virginia and I want to study this Bible and I want
1:09:51
to take my religion seriously and it was from that moment on
1:09:55
that, I started taking the Jehovah's Witness organization
1:09:58
and the church and studying the Bible.
1:10:00
Seriously, I quit my job In Berlin jumped on.
1:10:05
The next plane came home crashed out for about a year because I
1:10:09
was exhausted. I came back home from years and
1:10:15
years and years of professional dancing and I crashed out But
1:10:22
while I crashed out, I basically read every single book I could
1:10:26
get a, hold on, a hold of that, the Watchtower organization
1:10:30
published. And I read the Bible from cover
1:10:33
to cover twice. Because I just sat down started
1:10:39
reading, the Bible turned on the audiotapes of the brother who
1:10:44
read the New World Translation and I started reading the Bible
1:10:49
and I just didn't start reading the Bible.
1:10:50
I started doing the references and I started doing the
1:10:53
concordance and I started referencing different scriptures
1:10:56
in the Bible that related to one another and I even bought more
1:10:59
Bibles I bought an American Standard.
1:11:01
I bought a King James about. NIV, I bought English
1:11:04
translation to Catholic Bible. I bought Several different
1:11:06
versions of the Bible and I read them all simultaneously.
1:11:09
Comparing them. So I became boober Christian.
1:11:15
And one thing that I found very interesting was my dad had
1:11:19
recognized that I was seriously studying all of this stuff and
1:11:23
he said to me, I said to him while I'm reading the Bible, you
1:11:26
know, I'm reading it all the time and studying it.
1:11:28
He said, well, what do you what? What watched our Publications
1:11:31
are, you studying? I said I'm studying the Bible
1:11:33
I'm not reading the Publications because I want to know what the
1:11:36
Bible has to say. And my dad said well you should
1:11:38
really be studying the Publications.
1:11:43
You should be studying the teachings of the Watchtower
1:11:45
because it's impossible to understand what is being taught
1:11:48
in the Bible without the Revelation knowledge that came
1:11:52
from the organization. Guess what happened?
1:11:56
I didn't take his advice and I kept studying the Bible and that
1:12:01
actually created problems for me.
1:12:05
Because the more I read about the Bible or the more of the
1:12:08
Bible, I read the more things inside the Jehovah's Witness
1:12:14
organization, started to be a little fishy to me and the reach
1:12:22
that you have to make for some of these dogmas.
1:12:25
In the tradition. Is really far, you know, almost
1:12:30
unreachable. So, I came into conflict, there
1:12:32
was a couple of cracks in the glasses in the theology that I
1:12:35
did not understand as an example of one.
1:12:38
And this is the only one I'm going to give you.
1:12:40
I also came to the same conclusion.
1:12:42
That other Jehovah's Witnesses did that every witness should
1:12:45
partake of the Eucharist. And that the original calling to
1:12:49
the original Christians was to be with Christ in heaven.
1:12:52
Not to live on a paradise Earth. I felt very strongly that going
1:12:57
Heaven. Going to heaven was my calling.
1:13:00
And I was very, very, very discouraged.
1:13:02
Not only by my father, but other brothers in the congregation
1:13:05
even from the circuit overseer that I became close to about
1:13:09
partaking of the Eucharist, which was very, very damaging to
1:13:13
me that really damaged me the first time I went to the
1:13:16
memorial and Partake of the emblems.
1:13:20
I felt that I had failed as a Christian in some kind of way in
1:13:23
the back of my mind and that I had denied Jesus.
1:13:28
Yeah, I had some really, really deep deep deep issue and
1:13:33
problems going on spiritually back then as a young man I'm
1:13:37
talking about like 18, 19 years old.
1:13:41
Well I became Uber involved in the church.
1:13:43
I became a Pioneer which is someone who full-time goes out
1:13:46
into the ministry. I would wake up every morning.
1:13:48
I'd put on three piece suit, go down to the Kingdom Hall for the
1:13:52
morning meeting before. Everybody went out to Field
1:13:55
Services what they call it and I would go out and I would preach
1:13:57
the Bible every single day and man was iodine and I'm a diet.
1:14:01
Dynamo, I was absolutely over-the-top radicalized by the
1:14:08
teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses and You wouldn't have liked me
1:14:12
very much. Well, you know what, a lot of
1:14:13
people don't like me very much now you really wouldn't have
1:14:16
liked me back when I was a Christian.
1:14:20
I was, you know, I've always been prone to extremes.
1:14:25
I've always been prone to black and white thinking.
1:14:28
This is good, this is bad. There's nothing in between.
1:14:30
And one of the things that I've learned over the past 42 years
1:14:33
of my life, is that I have to guard against becoming a
1:14:40
religious extremist. I have a tendency to be
1:14:44
religious And I have a tendency to have black and white
1:14:50
thinking. This is good, this is bad.
1:14:52
I can only do this, I can't do this.
1:14:54
That that, that mental behavioral.
1:14:59
Issue psychologically, stuck with me long after Jehovah's,
1:15:04
Witnesses were gone out of my life.
1:15:06
And that's something that I have to guard against even today.
1:15:09
That's a big Revelation I had on my spiritual path because it's
1:15:14
very easy for someone to be a devout Christian or a devout
1:15:19
Catholic or something like that. Realize that the church is
1:15:23
bullshit leave and then go become a Buddhist or Hindu or go
1:15:30
become a witch and literally become just as blind just as
1:15:36
arrogant just as ignorant and just as fanatical about the new
1:15:40
religion that they've embraced Other than Christianity.
1:15:45
And what they've done is they've taken all of their problems that
1:15:48
they had in Christianity. All the stuff that they didn't
1:15:51
deal with internally. And now they have transposed it
1:15:55
on to another religion. So if you are an asshole with,
1:15:59
when you are a Catholic now, you became scratched and Paulo my
1:16:02
own Bay or you joined aoife religion.
1:16:05
Now, you've got the same mental disposition that you had as a
1:16:09
Christian, you're just practicing African religion.
1:16:11
Now, You see what I'm saying? So, real spirituality happens,
1:16:17
when there is an internal change in internal shift, in an
1:16:22
individual. Oh, we're going to go into it.
1:16:26
We're going to go deep into it, not today.
1:16:28
Can't do it today. Don't got it in me to go into
1:16:31
all of that. Deep psychological philosophical
1:16:33
stuff, about the transformation of the psyche, and the
1:16:35
transformation of the person and individuals, the
1:16:38
spiritualization alchemical process not going to go there.
1:16:44
So for, I met my first partner named Joshua in the church and I
1:16:51
think you remember, I said, I got disfellowshipped or
1:16:54
excommunicated out of the church for sucking dick, and that's not
1:16:57
a lie. So what had happened was I came
1:17:02
back from Germany, I studied the Bible.
1:17:04
I became very, very, very entrenched in the Jehovah's
1:17:08
Witness organization with issue. Because on one hand, I wanted to
1:17:13
be a Christian, a true Christian.
1:17:16
The Christianity that I felt inside was not matching, the
1:17:19
doctrines and the dogmas that were being fed to me by the
1:17:22
Watchtower organization. There was a lot of internal
1:17:26
conflict over it. And then, on top of that, I'm
1:17:29
queer. And I just say, queer, I'm queer
1:17:34
II. Don't really feel like I have a
1:17:36
sexual orientation. I like everything.
1:17:40
I like everything. I'm kind of like, I'm into a
1:17:42
little bit of everything. All right.
1:17:45
So I don't really, I can't really say I'm gay, or bisexual,
1:17:49
or straight, or heteroflexible, or whatever.
1:17:53
I'm just whatever I am. I'll just kind of, like, screw
1:17:55
around with who I want to screw around with, and I met Joshua.
1:18:01
While I was out in my field Ministry while he was out with
1:18:05
his congregation in the field Ministry and I fell in love with
1:18:09
this guy named Josh. We're not going to talk about
1:18:13
him today, but what happened was we moved in with one another and
1:18:16
everybody thought for about a year and a half.
1:18:18
Almost two years that me and Josh were good.
1:18:22
Christian boy is living with one another sharing, an apartment
1:18:25
and going out. Teaching the good news about
1:18:27
God's Kingdom. While we were bow chicka, wow,
1:18:32
wow. Bow chicka, wow.
1:18:35
Well, every night Well I ended up cheating on Josh with another
1:18:44
guy who was also a Jehovah's Witness.
1:18:47
Oh my God. What a shit show.
1:18:49
When I think about when I it's difficult for me, I've been
1:18:53
through so much crazy bullshit in my life, that when I actually
1:18:58
sit down and try to reflect on my actions and behavior, The
1:19:04
things I actually did. Whew, that's a tough one.
1:19:11
It's a real tough pill to swallow when I think about all
1:19:13
the stuff because it's just a lot.
1:19:17
I ended up cheating on Josh with another brother.
1:19:20
Another witness who went back to his congregation and feeling
1:19:24
guilty about screwing around with me confessed and that
1:19:28
congregation Elders. Contacted my congregation
1:19:31
Elders. I got pulled before the
1:19:34
committee and not only did I confess to Having sexual
1:19:38
interactions with this other guy named Jeff, but I also confessed
1:19:43
that me and Josh were in a relationship.
1:19:47
And it's funny because Josh pretty much being the selfish
1:19:50
asshole that he was would have, let me get disfellowshipped and
1:19:53
he would have stayed in that shit.
1:19:55
But they called him in. Also put him through The
1:20:00
Crucible, put him through the Witch Hunt and when he confessed
1:20:05
that he was, yes, he was homosexual and he was in a
1:20:07
relationship with me. Well, they kicked us both out,
1:20:11
but not before reading that scripture in the Book of
1:20:13
Revelation to him. Telling him that he was a dog.
1:20:17
And he was filth. Oh man man sit being said being
1:20:23
told that you're filth that you're disgusting that you're
1:20:26
like a dog returning to its own vomit that you are worthy of
1:20:29
nothing less than Destruction for.
1:20:32
All time to be obliterated out of time and history and out of
1:20:37
God's mind forever. Man that really does something
1:20:40
to you. Yeah.
1:20:41
Really. Fucks you up, it kind of gives
1:20:42
you a bad taste in your mouth when it comes to Christianity in
1:20:46
general. So my falling out with
1:20:48
Christianity was severe because once we got disfellowshipped,
1:20:51
everybody knew, everyone knew everybody found out and
1:20:57
everybody knew why it was obvious.
1:21:00
And in that moment, I lost my family.
1:21:03
And I remember I remember driving to my parents house
1:21:07
after being told by the elders that they were going to be
1:21:11
disfellowshipping me, and I remember driving to my parents
1:21:14
house to tell them that I was going to be disfellowshipped so
1:21:16
that New. And my father, my mother was
1:21:21
like, what do you mean? What do you mean?
1:21:23
I don't understand. I don't understand.
1:21:25
No, I don't understand. I don't understand.
1:21:27
She's mentally ill. She didn't have the ability to
1:21:29
comprehend it. Even though I feel like it was
1:21:32
quite obvious to everybody around me and Josh that we were
1:21:35
in some kind of romantic relationship.
1:21:37
I don't know how they couldn't have seen that.
1:21:40
My father looked at me and he said, I always knew this would
1:21:45
happen because I think he called me a rebel, or he called me sick
1:21:53
or twisted or perverted or some other kind of choice words, that
1:21:57
let me know that my dad absolutely hated my guts.
1:22:01
Um, for doing that to him and he lost his ability to be an elder
1:22:06
based on my behavior which is stupid.
1:22:08
It's not like he's sucked a dick, you know what I mean?
1:22:11
But they got they remove my dad as an elder because obviously he
1:22:16
was a bad father and didn't do his job raising a boy that
1:22:19
turned out to be I guess cisgendered, home heterosexual
1:22:24
and and they kicked us out And boy.
1:22:32
That was a big turning point in my life.
1:22:36
When I lost my family, I lost my friends.
1:22:40
I lost a reason to live. I lost a reason to get up in the
1:22:42
morning, I got up every single morning for years and went out
1:22:45
and field service as a very faithful and dedicated.
1:22:49
Jehovah's, Witness, I went to the Kingdom Hall.
1:22:51
I went to all the meetings, all five meetings a week.
1:22:54
I spent, I spent you know, 42-6 60 hours a week of my life
1:22:58
involved in the Jehovah's Witness organization because man
1:23:01
do they keep you busy. See, they keep you busy.
1:23:03
They want to keep you. So busy that you don't have time
1:23:05
to think about anything else. Well, when I lost all of that, I
1:23:11
lost everything. And I decided that I was going
1:23:15
to stick with Josh, best decision I ever made.
1:23:19
I could have put my tail between my legs.
1:23:22
I could have moved in with my parents, I could have gone to
1:23:25
the Kingdom Hall and sat in the back corner for years.
1:23:29
Being shunned by everyone until they finally allowed me to come
1:23:32
back into the organization, I could come, I could have gone
1:23:35
back to the organization. And had a miserable existence
1:23:40
being known as the homosexual. Or I could have stayed with Josh
1:23:47
and find out and try to find out what happened next.
1:23:51
And I decided I wanted to find out what was next at least
1:23:57
temporarily. And maybe if I wanted to go back
1:24:00
to being a witness, I always could.
1:24:02
Okay. So that was in the back of my
1:24:03
mind. Well, if I want to go back, I
1:24:04
can always leave Josh. I can always go back.
1:24:08
I can always apologize, I can always confess.
1:24:10
I can always say I was wrong. There was this idea in the back
1:24:14
of my head that, you know, I had a back-up plan, right?
1:24:17
My backup plan was, I could go back with my dick between my
1:24:20
legs, to my parents house. Go back to the Kingdom Hall and
1:24:23
be a witness again if that's what I chose, but Maya, but I
1:24:26
laid in bed for six months and me and Josh is apartment and I
1:24:30
developed just pain excruciating pain all over my body.
1:24:35
Like fibromyalgia it I it was Painful for me to open my eyes
1:24:41
in the morning. It was painful to sit up in bed,
1:24:46
my feet, the bottoms of my feet hurt, standing up, getting out
1:24:51
of bed, I felt like my body was deteriorating.
1:24:55
I felt shook to my core. The core of my being was shaken
1:25:02
was shook. From this experience of losing
1:25:08
my faith and walking away from what I had known to be true for
1:25:12
the first 21 years of my life. And one day Josh came home, he
1:25:19
was a sign language interpreter. And at the time he interpreted
1:25:23
for colleges and he said you know I'm interpreting a class
1:25:27
right now for this man named Kenneth Bryant who is a
1:25:31
professor at Tidewater Community College who is teaching a class
1:25:36
on comparative religion, the religions of the world and I
1:25:39
really think that you should take this because you don't know
1:25:43
jack shit about anything. Outside of Jehovah's Witnesses
1:25:47
and I think if you take this, if you take this class, go sign up,
1:25:50
go to college, go take this class, you might learn a thing
1:25:54
and you might understand something about the world.
1:25:56
And I thought to myself, you know what?
1:25:58
He's not wrong. I really don't know anything
1:26:02
about the world except what Jehovah's Witnesses taught me.
1:26:05
So, I went down, I applied. I got into Tidewater Community
1:26:08
College. I signed up for philosophy.
1:26:11
Western philosophy, 101 and the world's religions a comparative
1:26:15
Ian's class. Those are the first two
1:26:16
college-level classes. I took and I remember picking up
1:26:20
a copy of Houston, Smith's the world's religions going to that
1:26:24
class and sitting down, and receiving my celibacy opening up
1:26:29
and cracking that book and starting to learn about what
1:26:33
Hinduism Hinduism was the first religion that I came into
1:26:38
contact with outside of being born and raised a Jehovah's
1:26:42
Witness, And man was that like, well, let's go ahead and put it
1:26:49
in gear and go 100 miles an hour with this and I studied Hinduism
1:26:55
and I studied Buddhism and I study taoism and then I studied
1:27:00
Christianity, and esoteric, Christianity and Gnostic,
1:27:03
Christianity, and Judaism Kabbalah.
1:27:07
I started learning about Islam. I learned about Sufism.
1:27:10
I learned about Islamic mysticism.
1:27:13
I started just absolutely going crazy on knowledge about
1:27:18
learning about religion, and I was so mad.
1:27:25
Oh, I was mad. Boy, was I mad?
1:27:30
At Jehovah's Witnesses for what they had done to me and what
1:27:33
they had done to my family. That they were so responsible
1:27:37
for destroying and devastating my family and Ike.
1:27:40
I'm a kind of like came around to the conclusion that I was
1:27:43
born to break an ancestral curse and alleviate.
1:27:48
My family line from being involved in that garbage.
1:27:51
Cult religion, So I read crisis of conscience and reading crisis
1:28:00
of conscience by Raymond, Franz kind of like was the nail in the
1:28:03
coffin. For me that said, wow, you know
1:28:06
what this really is bullshit. I don't have any reason to ever
1:28:09
go back. And you know what's interesting?
1:28:12
I was thinking about it downstairs while I was having my
1:28:15
meal. There's a lot of men and women
1:28:18
who were born and raised Jehovah's Witnesses, they grow
1:28:20
up. They have some kind of
1:28:22
altercation with the organization they get
1:28:25
disfellowshipped or maybe they leave for a while.
1:28:28
They go out, they live their life.
1:28:29
They do drugs, they become alcoholics.
1:28:32
They get involved in gangs or violence.
1:28:34
They get into bad relationships, you know, abusive relationships
1:28:37
blah, blah blah blah blah, life happens and then they go back.
1:28:41
To the organization with their dicks between their legs and say
1:28:44
I'm sorry, please. Let me back in and they go back
1:28:47
to being Witnesses. There's a very high percentage
1:28:50
of people that are raised in that organization, that will go
1:28:54
back to that organization later on in life.
1:28:57
Unless, and my opinion, they become educated.
1:29:01
And the thing is, is Jehovah's Witnesses.
1:29:03
Is such a fear, based religion. You're so afraid of everything,
1:29:07
you're so afraid of the world. You're so afraid of everything.
1:29:10
They make. You afraid of everything.
1:29:14
You know, every day tomorrow is Jesus.
1:29:16
Come to. Jesus is coming back, Armageddon
1:29:18
is going to happen, you better have not fucked up, you better
1:29:20
have stuck to all these rules and regulations and not varied
1:29:23
at all or else, you know? It's it's it's quite ins for you
1:29:26
quite ins So going to college and studying the world's
1:29:32
religions and starting to study philosophy, the Greeks, Socrates
1:29:38
Plato Aristotle, heraclitus studying the stoics and starting
1:29:45
to study Greek, philosophy, philosophy and Hinduism.
1:29:47
At the same time. Revolutionized who I was?
1:29:51
It changed me? It opened me up.
1:29:54
So I had two spiritual Awakenings by the age of 25.
1:29:58
My first Spiritual Awakening was.
1:30:00
And so here's what how I feel about spiritual Awakenings.
1:30:04
You don't just get one Spiritual Awakening.
1:30:07
Okay? The spiritual path is an
1:30:14
unfurling. It's an unraveling, it is a
1:30:19
journey because at each stage of your journey, when you progress
1:30:24
on your spiritual journey as you mature in spirit, you will hit
1:30:29
plateaus. In your spirituality, you will
1:30:33
continue to grow and you will get stuck in certain paradigms.
1:30:38
And then when you realize that, that Paradigm is just well,
1:30:42
basically a system maybe not a system of control, but a system
1:30:47
of religion you break out of that.
1:30:49
You keep moving forward. Then you start looking towards.
1:30:52
I want, what's more spiritual I want?
1:30:54
What's more authentic? I want, I want what's real?
1:30:57
I don't want. What's fake?
1:30:59
I want to know what's real. I want to What I can put Faith
1:31:02
in and I want to know myself. Self-knowledge people.
1:31:08
It's all about knowing yourself. Like I said, you can be in any
1:31:13
religion, you want, you can change religions.
1:31:18
But just because you change, religions doesn't mean that, you
1:31:21
know, your self. So, I studied Hinduism, and I
1:31:28
went took my first yoga class, ever because I wanted to study
1:31:33
yoga, I eventually became a yoga instructor.
1:31:35
Myself will do another whole podcast on being a yoga
1:31:38
instructor and the fuckery that's going on in America with
1:31:42
yoga instruction. And stupid ass Americans in
1:31:47
general, but I became a yoga instructor and I remember the
1:31:51
first time I went to a yoga class at the very end of a yoga
1:31:55
class Hatha, Yoga class, you will lay down on the ground on
1:31:59
your back. This is a very common practice
1:32:02
and you will go into what we call shavasana, which is dead
1:32:04
man's pose. And you'll go into like a
1:32:06
meditation laying on your back, that's the time in which all the
1:32:08
people who are out of shape, fall asleep, fart, and snore,
1:32:12
and at the end of yoga class, okay?
1:32:14
I never let people lay on their back at the end of my yoga
1:32:16
class, but we'll talk about that later.
1:32:20
I remember laying on my back with my jaw, clenched holding
1:32:25
fists with my eyes closed and furrowed.
1:32:30
Afraid. I was afraid that I was going to
1:32:34
get possessed by demons. I was afraid I was going to I
1:32:41
was afraid that being in this yoga class was going to create
1:32:45
some kind of problem for me, spiritually.
1:32:48
I was that indoctrinated in the the whole spiritism is bad.
1:32:53
It's evil, it's wrong. Anything that has to do with
1:32:56
tarot cards, anything that has to do with oracle's anything
1:32:59
that has to do with meditation or Aura.
1:33:01
Anything a cult Anything metaphysical?
1:33:03
Anything, yoga all of this stuff, evil bad, horrible bad
1:33:07
Wicked evil satanic part of Satan's world.
1:33:11
You know, you're opening yourself up to Demons, you know.
1:33:14
And I remember that I had to overcome that fear.
1:33:21
So because I had to overcome that fear to reach towards
1:33:28
knowing the truth. And that's what I said to
1:33:30
myself. I said I want to know the truth.
1:33:36
I want to know the truth. I don't care how bad that truth
1:33:41
is. I don't care how evil that truth
1:33:44
might be. I don't, I don't, I want to know
1:33:47
what's real. Give me what's real even if what
1:33:50
I find at the end of the road is not good.
1:33:54
I still want to know the truth and that desire to know the
1:34:03
truth, the ultimate truth is what Has.
1:34:08
And what continues to drive me on my spiritual path.
1:34:15
I want to know the truth, whatever that truth is.
1:34:19
And I like using that word truth because Jehovah's Witnesses,
1:34:23
raised me believing that what I had was the truth.
1:34:26
Jehovah's Witnesses. Raised me to believe that what I
1:34:30
had was the absolute truth in that cult.
1:34:35
And then when I left that cult or was kicked out and came to
1:34:42
realize that all of the things that I had held to be
1:34:44
absolutely, 100%. True was not.
1:34:49
True are the truth. The absolute truth about God
1:34:54
wasn't actually the truth. It set me off on this path to
1:35:00
Discovery to find out what is the truth and I'm going to go
1:35:06
ahead and tell you right now everybody and this is a
1:35:08
practice, I do every morning and it's a practice, I've really
1:35:11
feel that you should pick up yourself when I wake up in the
1:35:14
morning and I roll over and I set up in bed.
1:35:17
The first thing I remind myself, when I wake up in the morning is
1:35:22
that whatever I think are. However, I think this world
1:35:27
Works this universe works, spirituality God, religion, the
1:35:33
spiritual world, the occult, whatever it is, that whatever it
1:35:37
is, that makes all of this stuff work.
1:35:39
I have absolutely no idea how it works.
1:35:42
And I have to go ahead and assume that my assumptions are
1:35:48
wrong. Whatever.
1:35:50
I see assumed to be the truth about the universe more than
1:35:54
likely is not accurate. And so I remind myself every
1:35:59
single day don't get stuck. Don't get trapped don't get
1:36:07
hooked into believing in something.
1:36:12
Just because you want to believe it to be true.
1:36:16
Don't believe in something based on.
1:36:19
Just your emotions, a lot of people practice, religion based
1:36:23
on emotions only not rational, not logical.
1:36:29
Because it's what they were raised with because it's what
1:36:32
their mama told them was the truth.
1:36:35
But a lot of people in this world they never have a
1:36:37
spiritual awakening. And a lot of people have
1:36:39
absolutely no desire to pursue spirituality and philosophy and
1:36:43
religion as a lifestyle and a life path at the study of it
1:36:48
because her pretty satisfied with what they have, what they
1:36:51
get. Well, I'm never satisfied, like
1:36:56
Mick Jagger said I Can't Get No Satisfaction and so I continued
1:37:02
on this spiritual journey of mine.
1:37:06
But after going off on that little tangent that desire to
1:37:12
learn about the truth about religions, is, what's Driven me
1:37:16
for all of these years, at least, for the past, You know,
1:37:20
22 years. So I've been on the spiritual
1:37:23
path for about. Let's see, hold on. 25 years
1:37:30
I've been on the I've been seriously on a spiritual path
1:37:32
for about 25 years now and and I'm very proud of myself.
1:37:38
I'm very proud and happy about the choices that I've made to
1:37:43
pursue wisdom and knowledge above all other things,
1:37:48
including love, you know, a lot of if you ask people, you know,
1:37:52
what's the most important thing in life?
1:37:54
What do you think is the most important thing in life that
1:37:57
people should pursue? Well there's here's what the two
1:38:00
biggest ones people will say. The first one people will say is
1:38:04
happiness. Oh I want to be happy.
1:38:08
I want to pursue happiness. You know I want to be a happy
1:38:10
person. That's the most important thing
1:38:12
is just be happy. The second one is love.
1:38:16
I want to be loved. I want to show love.
1:38:19
I want the world to be full of love.
1:38:22
Love is the highest pursuit of the human spirit and I say no
1:38:26
thanks to both of them. I say knowledge, I say wisdom is
1:38:33
the highest ideal that you any human being can reach for in
1:38:38
life? Because love is tricky.
1:38:42
You know, love and hate is pretty much the same emotion
1:38:47
just on opposite ends of the spectrum.
1:38:49
I might love somebody today and I could hate them tomorrow or I
1:38:53
could hate somebody today and I can love them tomorrow.
1:38:57
My feelings inside. In my opinions, about an
1:39:01
individual, or a religion, or anything can change on the turn
1:39:06
of a dime. If I'm basing, the ultimate
1:39:08
ideal of The Human Condition on love.
1:39:12
That can be very dangerous. Okay, so why I reject
1:39:15
Christianity? I don't think love is the most
1:39:17
important thing people should pursue.
1:39:20
Happiness also is relative, you could be happy today, you could
1:39:24
be happy tomorrow but knowledge wisdom, understanding not only
1:39:32
about yourself but about the universe and especially about
1:39:37
spirituality, those things last for ever.
1:39:43
The wisdom that your spirit that your soul, whatever it is, you
1:39:48
want to call it the up, my your Jiva.
1:39:50
Whatever it is. You want to call it, your
1:39:51
spirit, the knowledge, and wisdom that you accumulate and
1:39:56
life from experience, and also from studying and reading and
1:40:00
learning, no one can take that away from you.
1:40:04
They could take everything else away from you.
1:40:06
They can take your life, but the soul never forgets.
1:40:11
And it's really I believe in reincarnation.
1:40:14
I believe in reincarnation because it makes sense.
1:40:17
It just seemed reincarnation just kind of makes sense because
1:40:21
you know, it pretty much we live in a universe.
1:40:23
You look at it. The universe is pretty cyclical.
1:40:26
Universe is pretty cyclical. Everything happens in Cycles in
1:40:30
the natural world, the seasons life on Earth animals,
1:40:36
reproduction plants, you know, when you look at the heavenly
1:40:40
bodies and the rotation of you know the planets our solar
1:40:44
system and everything seems to be going around in circles you
1:40:47
know everything comes back even even the 80s came back and so I
1:40:53
love the 80s I really really do. I love the 80s.
1:40:57
I'm all About That 80s music man, but reincarnation makes
1:41:01
sense because Consciousness, like energy is not something
1:41:05
that can be created or destroyed.
1:41:07
And that's Faith III have to say that.
1:41:10
At the end of the day, there are three beliefs that I hold to be
1:41:14
true and they're based on faith. The first one that I have is
1:41:20
that God is real God exists, whatever that is The second one
1:41:28
is, I believe in reincarnation. I believe that this life is not
1:41:33
the only life you get to live, it would be to me.
1:41:38
It's kind of really depressing short-sighted and not, a very
1:41:45
positive Healthy Outlook to look at the world to look at the
1:41:49
universe and not believe that you get more than one chance to
1:41:51
be able to do this thing. Those are two beliefs that I
1:41:55
hold to be dear. And the third one already
1:42:01
forgot, see that? That That's how little of
1:42:03
importance I put on belief systems because belief systems
1:42:06
change. You know, they said the big
1:42:09
bang, you know, scientists have said for a long time.
1:42:11
The Big Bang, everything started with the big bang, but now with
1:42:15
the James Webb Telescope out there, and all of these
1:42:18
miraculous images that were getting were seeing more about
1:42:22
the universe and we've ever seen before.
1:42:24
And in and out into space and now they say well God damn the
1:42:31
Big Bang might have never happened or if it happened.
1:42:35
It didn't happen the way we thought it did.
1:42:37
So I think that human beings are absolutely arrogant.
1:42:42
I think that human beings are absolutely ignorant and
1:42:48
extremely short-sighted and very prone to going any kind of
1:42:53
Direction based on. How they feel and their emotions
1:42:56
and what they feel to be true. And even to take assumptions
1:43:00
that they know the truth about the universe just because they
1:43:02
can make an experiment and replicate a science experiment.
1:43:07
Now science, I do believe in science.
1:43:12
I believe in science. Because science is measurable.
1:43:18
And I pray, I take an approach to my witchcraft in my magic, in
1:43:21
my meditation and my spirituality the same way the
1:43:24
scientific approach. I do this.
1:43:29
What kind of results do I get? If I do this many many times,
1:43:34
how many times do I get the same result?
1:43:35
Opposed to no result my spirituality.
1:43:39
If I practice this kind of spirituality, how does it make
1:43:42
me feel? How does it affect my life?
1:43:43
Does it make my behavior better? Does it make my mental and
1:43:46
Behavioral Health better? Do I feel more at peace?
1:43:49
Do I feel happy? Do I feel a unified with the
1:43:52
universe? If I practice these
1:43:53
spiritualities or do this? How does that make me feel?
1:43:57
You see? So I take my spiritual and
1:44:00
religious life and I make it scientific because I want to
1:44:04
test out every single thing that I possibly can.
1:44:07
And I want to push myself to the limits, I want to understand how
1:44:11
I feel and that and my spiritual, my spirituality is
1:44:15
based on what is reasonable? What is logical.
1:44:20
Okay. What I can perceive to be true
1:44:26
through my senses. And also how I feel about it and
1:44:32
when I say how it makes me feel, I mean, what are the effects on
1:44:36
me from doing any particular thing?
1:44:39
So if I chant Sanskrit mantras and Sanskrit mantras, make me
1:44:44
feel better and they make me feel healthier and they Empower
1:44:49
me and they don't harm other people.
1:44:52
And it's based on Spiritual Development, I will do Sanskrit
1:44:55
mantras based on the understanding that if I chant
1:44:58
this mantra I get this result that science, that's a spiritual
1:45:01
science. I do a, I do be I get see as a
1:45:06
result. And that's the way I approach
1:45:08
spirituality 100 percent. And the reason why I approach it
1:45:15
that way is because of how badly I was deceived by Jehovah's
1:45:20
Witnesses, that doubt that I have that.
1:45:25
It's not pessimism and it's not nihilism.
1:45:28
But it's that healthy almost hyper-vigilant.
1:45:34
Attitude. I have towards buying into
1:45:38
anyone's cult, buying into any particular religion buying into
1:45:42
anyone's house or coven or are following any particular
1:45:46
religious leader. I am highly skeptical and
1:45:50
discriminating about every single thing I do because I
1:45:54
never want to be in a situation where I am controlled by a
1:46:00
religion ever again. Been there, done.
1:46:04
That got the T-shirt had the Hat not interested in going back to
1:46:09
living a life that's being ruled by a religion made up by men and
1:46:15
there you go. You got to remember something,
1:46:20
okay? You're going to hear me say this
1:46:23
again because I say this a lot. It's one of my messages that I
1:46:27
give, one of my spiritual messages, I felt like I was
1:46:29
commissioned to give the world, which is the first thing.
1:46:33
Your spiritual path is your life.
1:46:36
Your life is your spiritual path when you wake up in the morning
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when you have your cup of coffee, when you take your
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morning shit, when you kiss your kids, goodbye and you send them
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to school when you go to work, when you interact with people on
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the street, when you come home, when you smoke a joint and you
1:46:55
watch Netflix and you have sex with your husband, or your
1:46:59
boyfriend, or your girlfriend or whatever, Your Fleshlight are
1:47:03
your dildo. These are all things that are
1:47:06
part of the spiritual life because the spiritual life and
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the material world are intimately connected with one
1:47:13
another. They are intimately connected.
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They are completely intertwined like Yin and young existence and
1:47:20
non-existence. What is real?
1:47:22
What is not real? What is spiritual?
1:47:25
What is physical? What is mental, emotional,
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physical spiritual, all of these things are completely
1:47:31
intertwined. one another and in order to practice what I would
1:47:34
say healthy spirituality is What?
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To be practicing? A spirituality that is holistic.
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It's holistic, it approaches spirituality on all levels of
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existence and spirituality isn't just when you walk into yoga
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class and get on your yoga mat, it's not just when you sit in
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front of your shrines or your altars and talk to your spirits
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or your ancestors, it's not just when you go to church or Temple.
1:48:06
Pray to God with the congregation speak in tongues or
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get the Holy Spirit or whatever it is that you do, meditate with
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other Buddhist, those things are spiritual, but they're not
1:48:20
ultimately spiritual. There are things that are tools
1:48:24
their devices to help us learn how to be more spiritual, but at
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the end of the day, it's not about any religion.
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It's not about any particular belief system.
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It is about your understanding of yourself.
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How you treat yourself, first, how you treat others?
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And understanding that the spiritual and the material world
1:48:50
are running parallel with one another.
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You know, in Hinduism the Supreme reality is called
1:48:59
Brahman. Okay, and I love Hinduism and I
1:49:03
love yoga and I specifically love vedanta, non-dual vedanta
1:49:08
advaita vedanta, which are the non-dualistic teachings that
1:49:12
come from The Vedas, some of the oldest writings and oldest
1:49:15
teachings and hymns written on religion in the world.
1:49:21
And what non-dualistic vedanta teaches is that all things are
1:49:25
Brahmin. Since we are talking about
1:49:28
Hinduism earlier and there's a prayer that ask ask the Divine
1:49:34
to lead us from the unreal to the real, and I'd like to unpack
1:49:38
that for a second, I'd like to unpack that concept of what is
1:49:43
unreal, and what is real? Well, at least in Hinduism.
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What would be considered to be? The real would be that which is
1:49:54
Which is permanent that never changes.
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That is constant. That is, is residing in its own
1:50:02
nature. That doesn't change.
1:50:04
What is real is that which does not change, which is permanent
1:50:07
and eternal and that which changes would be the illusion
1:50:14
that we see, which is the material world, everything that
1:50:18
can be created, everything that involves everything that dies
1:50:22
gets destroyed that decays, The the constant creation and
1:50:26
destruction of all of the universe's.
1:50:29
The black holes, our little lives, our birth are deaf the
1:50:35
lives of our children are animals.
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All of these things are considered in vedanta to be
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unreal, because they change. Not because they're not real
1:50:46
like they don't exist, but not real because these things are
1:50:49
constantly changing so there's that which does not change.
1:50:55
And there is that which changes and it's the combination of
1:50:58
these two things that makes everything work.
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And that's why religions belief systems change, society changes,
1:51:09
people's morals, and ethics change.
1:51:12
So to me anything that is changeable.
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Is illusory in the sense that it is in permanent impermanent.
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And is ultimately going to change or go away opposed to
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being connected to that, which is real, which is, is this deep
1:51:33
spiritual connection to the self, okay?
1:51:37
We're going to talk more about Hinduism and stuff later in
1:51:40
another podcast, but just think about that, you know, meditate
1:51:44
on these things. What I have found to be true.
1:51:49
Is that Jehovah's? Witnesses taught me.
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Not to be a racist. They taught me to love and
1:51:55
embrace all people of all ethnicities and all colors, as
1:51:58
my brothers and my sisters. And so that was a very good
1:52:03
thing. Not like I don't get irritated
1:52:05
with black people. I sure the fuck do I do.
1:52:07
Get irritated with them. I'm going to be straight up
1:52:11
honest about it. There are things that irritate
1:52:13
me about other people and cultures, but they're not
1:52:17
prejudiced, and they're not racist, they're just
1:52:19
irritations. If you can understand where I'm
1:52:23
coming from with that. But, you know, that was a good
1:52:25
thing about being raised, a witness that was very important.
1:52:31
And then the other thing that helped me on my spiritual path,
1:52:34
was the deception that I encountered with Jehovah's
1:52:38
Witnesses. Really helped me to not be
1:52:40
deceived by other things and there have been times.
1:52:44
I've been caught up in religions wanted to practice, different
1:52:47
religions thought. Oh, this religion is the right
1:52:50
religion. That religion is the right
1:52:51
religion. Oh, it's Hinduism today.
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It might be Buddhism tomorrow. It's witchcraft today, it's
1:52:57
voodoo tomorrow. My spirituality really
1:53:01
transcends, ethnic groups. Dogmas.
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You know, the idea that you have to do something in order to be
1:53:15
spiritual. So anyway, I'll probably say
1:53:20
some things about Jehovah's Witnesses in the future, I'll
1:53:23
talk about my family in the future you know.
1:53:24
I'm not going to lie, there was one time that I almost went back
1:53:27
to being a witness, but we're not going to talk about it today
1:53:30
because I've given you two whole hours of talking about my life
1:53:34
as a witness, and we're going to leave it at that.
1:53:37
And the next time I do a podcast on spirituality, T.
1:53:40
We will talk about my path as a vich, okay?
1:53:46
So I hope you enjoyed my podcast today.
1:53:50
If I said something that was offensive, I am not sorry about
1:53:53
it. If you don't like it, you don't
1:53:56
like it. You can be mad about it.
1:53:59
You can go die. Mad about it.
1:54:01
Y'all have a good day now.