Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / SMNTY Classics: Women Cult Leaders (Part 2)

Transcript

SMNTY Classics: Women Cult Leaders (Part 2) · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stephone
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Never Told You production of iHeart Radio. And we're back
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: with part two of our two partner on women cult leaders.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: We have been through no real.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Design, been talking a lot about cults lately and a.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Part of natural conversation Annie, who doesn't talk about cults.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Of course, obviously we do.
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: We add enough for a two parter, and I think
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: we could come back and revisit it at a third,
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: but in the meantime, please enjoy this classic episode.
• 0:54
  Speaker 5: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: I welcome to Stephan Never Told Your production of iHeartRadio.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: How often do we do two parts? Is it an
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: often thing?
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: It is less often as of recent m I think
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: the last big two parter was Women who Loved Serial Killers?
• 1:18
  Speaker 6: Did that?
• 1:19
  Speaker 5: Was that a two parter?
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I know that one wasn't, but the Women's Serial Killers was?
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: For sure?
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: There's something else we did not too long ago. Oh,
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: Women Who Organized? That was a two parter?
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: I think yeah?
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: And then Star Wars obviously obviously those were those two
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: were two partners.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I used to be really hesitant about two partners, and
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I would try really hard to condense but there's a
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: certain point. I believe it was yesterday where I contacted
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: you and I think, I think this women, so it's
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: gonna have to be a two parter.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: Right, I think we both like there's moments that we
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: think it's not going to be big.
• 1:51
  Speaker 5: And then we're like, oh, oh okay.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: Because the women who organized I did not anticipate doing,
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: but it felt so sad to cut it off, right,
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: so we wanted to add as much as we could,
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: and sometimes it it means two parters.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Yay, Yes, And here is a second part of a
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: two part series we had on women leading cults. So
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: highly recommend you go listen to part one first because
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: we do a lot of baseline what are cults? What
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: are all the arguments about cults? Which is really key
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: to this conversation. There is so much we could unpack
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: in all of this, right, all of it. So if
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: that's something that you listeners would like to hear, please
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: let us know. But just we're kind of doing I
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: won't say superficial, but we're not going into the depths
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: we could on all of these cults and all of
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: these women and whether or not there cults.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: We're talking more about examples rather than the psyche and
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: or trauma behind it, so that might be later though.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know why I got so weirdly excited, but
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: it's just that site aspect is interesting.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: When you always look deeper about the why, it's always
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: more fascinating to know.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: It is it is.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: So before we get into these examples, quick trigger warning,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: there will be discussion of suicide, sexual abuse, violence, death, murder,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: general abuse. We're not going to go too deep into
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: any of that, but when you're talking about cults, it
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: can get pretty grisly and disturbing. And yes, as we
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: said in part one, there's a lot of argument going
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: on in debate around what constitutes a cult, and there
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: are lots of layers of sexism, racism, and anti any
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: religion that's not Christianity involved in these discussions. But yeah,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: just to acknowledge that that's going on, and with the
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: women we're talking about and the organizations we're talking about,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: not everyone agree these women were cult leaders, and I
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: think those conversations are well worth having. Some of these
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: organizations might not be considered cults at all points in history,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: but with the right person, they can become cults or
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: at the very least run by someone who fits the
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: cult leader stereotype. Who yeah, we talked about that in
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: part one as well, but like charismatic is one of
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: the very key things there, and controlling and like just
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: demanding all this adoration and complete submission. That being said,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: these are some of the women that frequently come up
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: when you're digging around the internet for women cult leaders.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: And another disclaimer, the histories of these can be a
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: bit murkier fantastical. As we said in our serial Killers episode,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: it just can get a little real difficult because even
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: reputable newspaper sources sometimes like to really lean into that morbid,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: ghastly side of all of this. So it's hard to
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: say for sure, right right, definitely level of shock factor
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: for sure. And speaking of let's start this one with
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: a Clementine Barnabette, sometimes called the first black female serial
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: killer in the United States, and in nineteen eleven, a
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Louisiana police department got a frantic call about a suspected incident.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Sure enough, when police arrived on the scene, they discovered
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: the bodies of a man, woman, and child with their
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: skulls split open. A bloody axe at the head of
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: the bed, a bucket of blood in the corner, bloody
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: footprints throughout the room. They deduced the killer must have
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: come through the windows since the doors were locked at
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: the time. A local newspaper called it quote the most
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: brutal murder in the history of this section. It was
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: not the only acts murder to take place in nearby
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: areas of Louisiana and Texas. These murders were believed to
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: be the work of a cult by the name of
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: the Church of Sacrifice that required human sacrifices for their
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: religious rights, rumored to be led by a voodoo priestess.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Even so, all of the initial suspects were men. One
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: source described the murders as rained with acts, and after
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: other similar murders took place, usually of families, the authorities
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: began to suspect that they were quote the work of
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: the same terrible monster. Sources indicate most, if not all,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: of these families were black families.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: So the police eventually turned their sights on a sharecropper
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: on the wrong side of town named Raymond Barnabet. Both
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: his children, Zephyr and Clementine, testified against them, claiming they
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: were scared for their lives, he was abusive to his
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: whole family. According to records. However, more murders took place
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: while Raymond was in jail. Both of the children were arrested,
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: in part because their neighbors described them as degenerous, and
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: in part because Clementine had blood from one of the
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: murders on her shirt. A local newspaper reported in nineteen
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: eleven that when the police searched the Barnabut household, they
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: found a complete set of women's clothes in her room,
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: saturated with blood and covered with human brains. With no alibi,
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: Clementine went to jail. The murders did not let up.
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: Three families were murdered in January of nineteen twelve. The
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: dead's hands were splayed apart with wood, and messages like
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: this one were left on the walls. When he make
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: a the inquisition for blood, he forgeteth not the cry
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: of the humble A bit of a twist on a
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: Bible verse, by the way. These messages were written by
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: hand and signed Human five. And the press began attributing
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: these murders to the Human five gang, and they really
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: went all in on this voodoo aspect. Justice more and
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: more people were talking about Clementine's possible connection to the
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: mysterious Church of Sacrifice. Reverend King Harris was sought to
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: be the leader of this church, but upon questioning police
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: dismissed them as a suspect.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Lementine confessed to killing seventeen people in April of nineteen twelve.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: She further explained that she wore a voodoo charm for
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: protection while she killed. In her words, it was gifted
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: to her by a voodoo priest, a man who did
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: not claim himself as a voodoo priest when question so
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: it was somebody that they followed up with and he
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: was like, whoa what?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: And straws were.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Drawn, according to her, between her and her accomplices to
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: see who would commit the murders. She went on to
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: say she dressed as a man to be left relatively
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: alone and unnoticed. On night she was planning on killing someone,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: and a local paper reported that she said she killed
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: the kids so as not to leave them an orphan
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: in this world. She said that she would quote caress
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: the corpses, and one district attorney called her a moral
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: pervert because of what she said in her testimony against
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: her father. People were still confused about the veracity of
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: her claims. When she gave the names of her accomplices,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: all that was turned up. They were all dead ends.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: She said she believed that sacrifices were the way to
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: achieve immortality. A nineteen twelve article headline read.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: The X man is a woman. What's the exclamation point?
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: So later examination found there was no charge of sacrifice,
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: and that perhaps it was confused with Harris's sanctified church,
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: especially with the swirling rumors of voodoo. And none of
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: this was held by the fact that during her time
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: in jail, Clementine constantly modified her story and ended up
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: confessing to thirty five.
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: Murders who her.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: Attorneys argued that she was insane, but this did not
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: prevent a judge from sansing her two lives at nineteen
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: years old. She tried and fell to escape early on,
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: but other than that didn't really cause much trouble. In fact,
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: one report about her imprisonment claim that a procedure returned
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: to her normal condition and she was released on good
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: behavior after a decade had passed.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: So that's all pretty murky.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: People who have delved into this belief that Clementine did
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: commit some of the murders, but maybe not all of them. However,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: they think someone in that household was the primary murderer.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Over at True Crime Daily, James Horror wrote, she scandalized
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the press, stirring up a gumbo of moral panic in
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: a state where civil war and slavery remained a living memory.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Everything about Clementine Barnabet represented a collision, even a perversion
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: of cultures in the eyes of white Louisiana, from her
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: mangled Creole French to her mangled beliefs, a tabloid baiting
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: blend of voodoo itself, a blend of Catholicism and West
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: African tribal rights and Evangelical Christianity. So I want to
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: include that because for this one, like her name came
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: up a lot, but there's just clearly to me, like
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: even in the language of the newspapers like degenerates, the
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: wrong side of town and this whole like voodoo thing
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: that the press was really pushing that there's just like
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: a layer of racism over the whole thing. And it
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: doesn't feel because this was kind of debunked right that
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: they found no proof of this church's sacrifice, but it's still.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: She comes up as a woman leading a cult. Yeah yeah.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: So.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: In nineteen eighty nine, in an Amazonian town in Brazil,
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: there were several reports of missing children. The authorities looked
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: into it but couldn't find any leaves, and the cases
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: jumped to nineteen missing children between the ages of eight
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: and thirteen. Five other children had been found dead castrated
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: with signs of torture. Officials believe that the murders and
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: disappearance were related to a medical guild due to precise
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: nature of castrations. These bodies were identified as homeless boys,
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: but the boys who had been reported missing had been
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: done so by their families, and depending on the source,
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: one or two boys managed to escape after castration and
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: found some officials. Whatever the case, only one ended up testifying,
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: and the story he told was horrific torture, rape, mutilate
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: like eyes, gouged out, and castration. He testified that other
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: children were stabbed and killed, their organs sold on the
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: black market or they ate them, but again this has
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: not been confirmed, and in his testimony he named a
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: handful of people doctor it's a police officer, wealthy businessman
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: and Valentina de Andrade, the leader of the religious cult.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: The cult question was called Superior Universal Alignment, a UFO
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: cult led by Valentina whose members believe the world was
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: ending and the only way to be saved was by
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: following the commands of their leader. She claimed she'd been
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: contacted by extraterrestrial beings and that they claimed the apocalypse
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: was nigh, but that if she passed along the message,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: they would send a ship to collect her and other
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: believers to spare them. She believed that God wasn't real
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: and that Jesus was an alien. Perhaps the most shocking
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: thing she said, though, was that boys born after nineteen
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: eighty one, which is when she claimed to have received
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: her message, were evil and needed to be killed, both
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: because they were evil but also to serve as payment
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: to their extraterrestrial saviors. Five children were never found of
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: the nineteen reported missing, and four of the perpetrators were captured. However,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Valentina managed to escape the country and evaded capture for
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: several years. Even when authorities did locate her, she provided
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: an alibi for the murders and was released. Apparently she
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: fainted at this verdict. Yeah, so we have some more
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: examples for you, But first we have a quick break
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: for word from our sponsor, Eric Beck, Thank you sponsor.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: Along with Marshall Applewhite, Bonnie Lou Needles co founded the
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: UFO cult Heaven's Gate in the nineteen seventies, and she
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: believed herself to have a divine purpose. She was known
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: as Tea. She also went by Peep while he went
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: by Bo, and the two of them went by the
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: two went together. She was a registered nurse and raised
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: in Texas. She got married, had four children, but then
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: reportedly started doing seances in the early nineteen seventies. According
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: to some sources, she thought a monk nate brother Francis
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: from the nineteenth century was communicating with her and giving
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: her instructions. She was big into astrology and the occult,
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: and she visited several fortune tellers, at least one of
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: whom told her she was soon meet someone matching apple
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: White's description, and the stories of how they met very
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: from inside hospital to a theater after an accident something
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: like that. Allegedly, Nettles was asked to perform a reading
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: on apple White and agreed.
• 13:41
  Speaker 6: She determined they were spiritual matches. Apple White was gay,
• 13:45
  Speaker 6: though he did marry and have two children. His family
• 13:48
  Speaker 6: was very religious and conservative, and despite his best efforts,
• 13:50
  Speaker 6: he did engage in a few homosexual relationships.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Nettles and apple White had a non sexual relationship. He
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: later wrote of it, quote, the only relationship they shared,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: certainly having no physical attraction toward each other, was the
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: compulsion to discover what had brought them together. James Lewis,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: author on a book of UFFO cults and a professor
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: at the Institute for the Study of American Religion, said quote,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: apple White was so alienated from his homosexuality that he
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: was teaching people not to have sex. He would put
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: people of opposite sexes together and force them to learn
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: to become neutral, non sexual. Apparently apple White had himself castrated,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: and that perhaps others in the group were castrated as well.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: And in nineteen seventy three, Nettles told her daughter and
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: son she was leaving and that was the last they
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: ever saw of her with apple White. She said that
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: God was leading them in a certain, big direction. She
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: said a cryptic religious message to her daughter several months later,
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: claiming that she and apple White were witnesses. Members were
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: required to dress alike and cut their hair, which I
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: think people know about. Together, they formed Heaven's gates. Nettles
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: said she'd communicated with aliens about the next level, and
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: apple White to Deca Claire she was higher rank than
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: him in nineteen seventy six. Her eye had to be
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: removed in nineteen eighty three due to cancer spreading throughout
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: her body, and according to her daughter, the letters changed
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: in the eighties and that she got a sense her
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: mother wanted out, but there wasn't a graceful way to leave,
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: as she said.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Yes. So.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Nettles died of cancer twelve years before apple White and
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: thirty eight others killed themselves in a mass suicide event,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: believing that it would allow them to access a UFO
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: following in the wake of the Hailey Bop commet, believing
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: that it would grant them passage to the quote yes
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: next Kingdom or Right before this event was carried out,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: the website was updated with a message that they were
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: happy to leave this world and join quote tease Crew.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Experts believe her death was a significant touchstone in terms
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: of beliefs around the body being quote just a vehicle,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: which is what apple White said about Nettle's making space
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: for the tragic event that was about to occur. Nettle's
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: daughter tried to contact her to get her out, but
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: was told her messages wouldn't be passed along unless she
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: told them what she planned to say. When the daughter
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: said it's personal, they hung up so sad.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: So next, we want to talk about Amy Simple macpherson,
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: who was a faith healer, evangelist and a founder of
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: Four Square Gospel Church and builder of the Angelust Temple.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: She was born into a religious family in eighteen ninety,
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: but she soon had questions about their faith, and at
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: the same time she was a vocal opponent of evolution.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: At eighteen, she married and got pregnant, and on their honeymoon,
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: her husband died. When she returned to the US, she
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: remarried and had another child, but soon grew restless and
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: absconded with both the children, leaving her husband for a
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: religious calling.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: She traveled the country in a touring car, the gospel
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: car that had the message Jesus is coming soon and
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: get ready, stopping to speak at churches along the way,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: and she really knew her way around a crowd. She
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: would speak in tongue. She would perform faith healing demonstrations
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: in which she appeared to have cured people. She was
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: breaking attendance records to other evangelical leaders. As a woman,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: she was a rarity in that space. At a San
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Diego event, over thirty thousand people showed up to see her,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: and the Marines had to be called.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: It was described as the best show in town.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: And just for example, she would ride motorcycles into these events.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Sometimes they had lights and special effects.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: She was one of the first women in the US
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: to travel across the country in a car without a
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: male chaperone, and she frequently argued, who says the woman
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: can't preach gospel? Charlie Chaplin was a secret friend of
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: hers and helped her with her sermons.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: Wow, I can't believe I've never heard of her before this,
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: because yeah, it's so rare to see traveling preachers and
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: halos that aren't men.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: I shocked I hadn't heard of her either, because it
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: sounds like she had a pretty big pull during.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: Her thirty thousand That was a huge number for sure.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: So eventually she decided to retire from the crowds and travel,
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: settling in la where she raised fund for the Angelius
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: Church one point five million Wow, where she gave sermons
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: seven days a week. In nineteen twenty four, she launched
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: her own radio station called KFQG four Square Gospel, and
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: she also hosted successful radio broadcast, making her one of
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: the first women to receive a broadcast license in the US.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: Around this time, she formed her own church for Square
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: and the name comes from four facets of Jesus, Transformative Salvation,
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: divine healing, Baptism, and the return of Christ. Mini male
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: leaders in the space were vocal opponents, which not surprised.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Nope, not at all.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty six, she disappeared on a swim, an
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: event that captured national headlines, attention, and rampant speculation about
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: what happened to Sister Amy, as she was called a believer,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: literally drowned themselves, it was said in sorrow, But I
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: believe they were just trying to swim out and help
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: with the effort. Members through dynamite in the water, hoping
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: to surface. Her Rumors spread like wildfire, that she disappeared
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: to have an abortion, that she had had an affair,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: that she'd gotten plastic surgery, that maybe there'd be a
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: ransom or foul play was involved. The police received a
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: ransom note demanding five hundred thousand dollars for her release,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: and it was signed by the Avengers. Oh I know,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: getting up to no good. Amy showed up in Mexico
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: a month later. Her identity was proven by her knowledge
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: of her childhood pet pigeons name which I love, and
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: at the location of one of her scars. Amy claimed
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: she'd been kidnapped by three Americans who demanded a ransom,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: but she was able to escape, by her account, sawing
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: out of the rope restraining her and walking twenty miles.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: After a reporter questioned if this was possible, Amy said,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: many have said that a woman could not have built
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Angelus Temple and do these other seemingly impossible things, But
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: I did.
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: She sure did so.
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: When she returned home, over fifty thousand cheering spectators met
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: her at the train station with a parade. However, her
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: return was not without so expion, and officials looked into
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: her kidnapping. She voluntarily showed up at a grain jury
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: and the rumors swirling, particularly around an engineer of a
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: radio station owned by McPherson's church, who disappeared at the
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: same time she did. However, there wasn't enough evidence to
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: back this claim, so the judge dropped the case against her.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: McPherson wrote a book about it in nineteen twenty seven
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: called In the Service of the King, The Story of
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: My Life. She died in nineteen forty four of what
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: was deemed as probable accidental overdose or Over forty five
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: thousand people came to see her lying in state, and
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: when she died, the four Square Church was worth nine
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: million dollars. In these days there are over nine million members.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: There are over seventeen hundred Four Square churches in the
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: US and over sixty six thousand meeting places worldwide. She's
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: been credited with bringing modern air conservatism into the era
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: of modern media. It's a lot of money.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So she's been coming up a lot.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: When we were talking about the kind of these personality
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: based shows that do you know the opinion shows, especially
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: when it comes to conservatism and how religion often plays
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: into that. And this one too is when I've never
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: heard of this church, but I know that you could
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: foreshore argue whether or not qualifies as a cult. Right,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: there's nothing outright that screams to meet cult about it, right?
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: It does come up on several lists, But I'm wondering
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: if that's more about her more of a cult of personality,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: like she was just so charismatic and people have really
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: really adored her and would do anything for her.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: And again, like we could go, we could.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Do deep dives of all of these and maybe there's
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: just something I don't know about it about this church.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: But right, that was just kind of my take on
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: it where I was sort of surprised is kept popping
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: up on other lists about and cult leaders.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, and again, yeah, there's a conversation of how
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: she's getting this money, where she's getting this money, which
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: also is kind of that political turning and conversation of
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: that as well. But it is also unprecedented that a
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: woman started a church and it still exists today to
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: the popularity that it's saying. I will say I've not
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: heard of the church either before this episode, but it
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: is interesting to see how it continues to pop up.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: And again, yeah, you're right, cult it seems a little
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: more dark than what this is presenting. But we do
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: also know like when it comes to followings and especially
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: of the hell Fibrimstone era that she grew up in
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: with the traveling preachers, which has now formed into different
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: religions in itself. It also can be seemingly cultish, yeah,
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: because of the supernatural element to it.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's another which we keep saying.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: But I just know that this is such a fine
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: line of some people would call this a cult and
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: other people wouldn't. And sometimes that line for some people
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: can be oh, that looks so different and weird in
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: heavy growths compared to what I am used.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: To, Right, so it must be a cult. It makes
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: me nervous.
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: It makes me nervous. And again, this is also based
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: on old religion. And when I say old religion, you
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: don't see the practicing of tongues the healing in general.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: I mean, don't get me wrong, I've seen it. I've
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: seen that it still exists, but you just don't see
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: it as much, and especially in popularity.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess maybe that's maybe that's one of the
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: reasons it is classified as a cult to some people.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Is that kind of whole faith healing speaking in tongues aspects,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: which you know, can be a lot of religions can
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: have people like that who are just like really bombastic
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: and entertaining or in that way, and not to dismiss
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: at all, like people's beliefs. But I'm just saying like
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: as part of somebody who can gather that sort of
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: passion and excitement, and that can be almost like an
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: entertainment or a role that you're right, people excited about
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: this thing.
• 24:01
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: And again though if we look at what she did
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: compared to some religions today, there's not that much difference,
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: So you have to question that.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, now, probably after this I'll look it up and
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: something super dark involved, but I feel I think that
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: would be on the top of like.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: Right information, and you're right, like, we don't see that.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: It's just more of her accomplishments that we see more
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: so than what the religion or the practice did.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and definitely, like you said, kind of a big
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: impact of like having this first radio station as a
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: woman like license and being in this space and then
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: providing a jumping off platform for conservatism and modern media today.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: And it could be also the language back then if
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: competing I guess church or belief system, you learn to
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: call it something insidious and so therefore cult maybe the
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: automatic name given just because you don't like it, and
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: it is again done by someone who's not given according
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: to them authority which is a woman, right, which is
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: a whole different conversation.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: But once again, yeah, no that I I had that
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: top thought too. I don't feel I have enough knowledge
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: of this particular event, but I do wonder if there
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: was a layer, if there's a woman doing this thing
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: that's seen as a man's face.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Cult, it's weird.
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: Yes, these are just yes, these are like you and
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: I just hypoanalyzing.
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: Yes, what this is happening.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Yes, I mean I think certainly there's at least a
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: layer of that, and most of these there's a layer
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: of racism. And this isn't Christianity like I see it
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: in the United States specifically.
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: And some of these are hanas too though just.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I don't want to dismiss.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: Yes, both of those things exist in these two episodes.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, absolutely good point to make this. We do
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: have one more woman cult leader we want to share
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: with you, but first we have one more quick break
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: or work from a response there.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: And we're back. Thank you sponsor.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: We thought we would finish out this two part series
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: about women leading cults with Anne Hamilton Burne, the charismatic
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: leader of the Australian Doomsday cult. The Family Hamilton Burne
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: was a woman of many talents. She could sing and
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: play the harp. She was put together, as they say,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: with style, blonde hair and pearls and Chanel perfume. One
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: of her ex followers said of her, in ancient times
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: we hear about enchantresses who could enslave people with one glance.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: She had eyes that looked through your soul. After her
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: mother set her hair on fire, she was diagnosed with
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: paranoid schizophrenia and ended up spending twenty seven years in
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: a psychiatric asylum before she died. Anne spent some time
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: in orphanages, and her first husband died in a car
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: accident when she was twenty. She'd given birth to one daughter,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: and as rumors go, had suffered many miscarriages by.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: Then, and in the nineteen sixties Hamilton Barne found the
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: family and claimed that she was Jesus reborn as a woman.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: She was reportedly inspired by a Russian born medium by
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: the name of Helena Bolovotsky, who founded the Theosophical Society
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: in New York in eighteen seventy five. Bolovotsky introduced many
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: to Hinduism and Buddhism. When Hamilton Byrne took up yoga
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: in the nineteen fifties as a bomb to her grief.
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: She pretty quickly.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: Fell in love with the ideas of Eastern mysticism. She
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: started teaching it in the nineteen sixties and by all accounts,
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: was a pretty good teacher. She was really good at
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: getting a read on people's vulnerabilities. She allowed gay men
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: in the face of the anti homosexuality laws in plays
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: in Australia at the time. She also managed to recruit
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: a physicist and a master at Queen's College at Melbourne University,
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: doctor Rayner Johnson. He was approaching retirement and curious to
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: explore new quote weird areas, and interest amongst the scientific
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: community about spiritualism was on the rise, and he just
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: became completely by Hamilton Byurne, even naming her the next Messiah.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: For what he declared to be purely academic purposes. He
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: experimented with LSC and took notes about it, including this quote,
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: Her face became divinely beautiful, with sublime authority, unquestionably the wisest,
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: the serenest, and most gracious and generous soul I've ever met.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: He and his wife bought a home near Hamilton Burne,
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: and together they birth the family.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: The family lived in obscurity in Melbourne and their motto
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: was Unseen, Unknown, Unheard. Hamilton Byurne targeted well off professionals,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: telling them that she had quote been waiting for them
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: and that they were special. Doctor Johnson lent a scientific
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: and legitimate heir to her claims. Her teachings were a
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: combination of Christianity, Eastern mysticism, and a sort of apocalypticism,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: and the initiation allegedly involved all members, even children, to
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: indulge in a potentially deadly amount of LSD and hallucinogens
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: for a.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: Lengthy amount of time.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: After that, she controlled practically all aspects of their lives,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: and one survivor's words quote, there was only one rule.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Do absolutely everything she said. That included what to think,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: what to wear, what to eat, who to marry, who
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: not to marry, total obedience. She gave sermons or discourses
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: as they were called, from a purple throne and a
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: lodge funded by members money. Many members of the cult
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: tried to take their own lives, either during their time
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: there or after, and a few did upsettingly. To keep
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: members in line, she'd beat them, sometimes with the stiletto shoe,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: but she often left this test to the anties, who
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: were middle aged women afraid of their own punishment if
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: they didn't enact it on others. She would starve members, emotionally,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: abuse and manipulate them. The children might also get a
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: daily dose of valium or mogdon to keep them from
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: fighting back or to just kind of keep them calm.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: At age fourteen, this switched over to huge continuous doses
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: of LSD, and for many this was the z as,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: resulting in du pressia, trauma, nightmares, social withdrawal, and personality changes.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: So after two children escaped in nineteen eighty seven, police
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: raided the family. Over the past few decades, Hamilton Burne
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: had a mass of twenty eight children. The first had
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: arrived in the nineteen seventies, and some of them as
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: gifts and some of them sham adoptions. At the time,
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: Australia's regulation around adoptions were lacking, and the stigma around
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: unmarried motherhood was.
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: Pretty quite powerful.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: According to a detective that tried to bring charges against
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: Hamilton Burne, quote, you had babies born in a cult hospitals,
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: delivered by cult midwives handed over to cult social workers,
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: hamilton Burn bleached the hair of all of them and
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: adorned them in matching clothes, telling them she was their
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: birth mother. She also told them she was royalty and
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: owned castles. She kept the children separate from the main
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: compound at a wooden lodge two hours away, where they
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: were homeschooled. She desired to be the perfect mother, but
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: had no real interest in actually putting any effort into that,
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: and thanks to property donations from followers in Land, hamilton
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: Burn collected one hundred and fifty million Australian dollars and
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: she was arrested for minor fraud charges in.
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: Nineteen ninety three.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: She and our ex husband, who one follower described as
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: a handsome, rich, compliant handbag, got off with only five
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: thousand AU and fines, absolutely no jail time, and one
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: of the rescue teenagers after the nineteen eighty seven raid explained,
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: it's hard to say how devoted we are to her,
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: how we hung off her every look and every thought
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: she had about us. We wanted so much for her
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: to love us, but I don't think she ever really did.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Julian Massange, a founder of Wiki Leaks, admitted his mother's
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: boyfriend had been a member of this cult. Assange called
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: him a sinister presence and claimed that they ran from him.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Hamilton Byurne spent over a decade in a nursing home,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: where she eventually died. The Family. If you want to
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: know more, there is a documentary on it, we said,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: this podcast, documentary is Gilora and almost all of these,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: so the information is out there for you. Yes, there's
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: a documentary and book called The Family by documentary filmmaker
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Rosie Jones and journalist Chris Johnston. The creators were unable
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: to interview her due to her dementia and lack of
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: ability to consent, or they weren't able to film it
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: or write it down, but they did get to sit
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: down with her, and they described the power of their experience.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I just feel like there's so many themes
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: we could unpack here because we've really run the gamut
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: of like, yes, sexism and racism and homophobia, and this
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: idea of the mother did come up a lot, and
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: just so much like misogyny and.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Toxic masculinity.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we could really come back and dig into that.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: And I'm sure each of the podcasts and the documentaries
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: talk about the childhood and the background of the trauma
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: that kind of birthed these people to be who they are,
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: and that loosely because you never know, not to give
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: any excuse, there's not an excuse, but there's always a beginning, right,
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: And I think that's that's an interesting way to look
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: at how these are created and again with different personalities
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: that can bring about these perfectly placed disasters and or
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: perfectly placed timeframes. I guess that's the best way to say,
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: because we don't know the depth of what has happened
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: truly outside of those who were inside of it. So
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of things the question and to look at,
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: but yeah, just to see the background of what is happening,
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: because again we see so much of a sensationalization of
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: what has happened, because we know, you know Jonestown, we
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: know Waco, we know the big details, but we don't
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: know the small details of course, the aftermath for the.
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: Members what has happened.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: I know there's been a lot more documentation, documentaries, conversations
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: from survivors because they do want to tell their stories
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: and important for them to tell these stories that we
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: have to pay attention to that. And yet these are
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: not just incidents, and though we are giving off, you know,
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: details of what may have happened of or it's just
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: a small picture of what may have happened.
• 34:11
  Speaker 5: Rather these were people's lives that were affected.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: And we do see the lingering effects for different people
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: who have been affected by what we would call it
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: consider a cult that still exists that's not being recognized
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: because of people's opinions and or maybe politics that we
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: again as you talked about, they have some of these
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: cults had political figureheads behind them.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: Yep, yeah, Pip, yep.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: And that's one of the things for me, this whole
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: this is all very complicated, right because there is a
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: lot of trauma, and you don't want to absolve ever
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: anybody of blame, but there is that, there's trauma, and
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: there's brainwashing. So if that's complicated, but then you would
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: see like for example, when you're talking about Betty Lunette's
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: and I just noticed like people were really into, oh,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: she did the seances and she did she was involved
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: in they cult.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: There's nothing like inherently wrong with any of that, right,
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: And I know what they were getting at.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: They were saying, she was looking for quote heavy quote
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: alternative like enlightenment enlightenment, and she was interested in those things.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: But I do think that things like that can be
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: problematic when we're having these conversations because that doesn't necessarily
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: mean cult. I know, we keep coming back to that,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: but I just think that it's really really important.
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: Right, So she us a prime example of someone who
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: looked at alternative what would be classified as New Waged
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: ideas during that time. And yeah, because it's abnormal, and
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: because we are in a country that is so inundated
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: into Western Christianity and I have to specify that as
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: a Western Christianity, and this very idea of notion that
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: almost takes to the point that, you know, the idea
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: that Jesus is white, you know, that kind of level
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: of what Christianity what is right and wrong. So there,
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: for that is cult and that is super, very super
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: dangerous when we talk about that, because we know, again
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: the New Age ideas and reading poems or you lo
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: can through tarot cards does not equate cult in the story.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: You know, just because you look at astrology or you
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: trust in astrology does not again quit cult. But there's
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: this whole underlying, dark, sinister idea behind it. When you
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: raised up in again Western Christianity ideas and beliefs, which
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: again is dangerous, absolutely for sure, and the same idea
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: because I think me for me growing up, which is
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: why I was so fascinated by Eastern religion, is because
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: it was told me that it is forbidden in itself, you.
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: Know what I mean?
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: And then learning about it, I'm like, no, this makes sense,
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: and I'm not a religious person, but the ideas behind it,
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: some of the beautiful sentiment behind understanding Eastern religion, which
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: has existed longer than again Western Christianity, right.
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: Like in itself is a.
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: Whole different conversation we could dig into because yeah, that
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: also is fear mongering in itself. And now again the
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: atrocities that we talked about, they are for real. We
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: need to talk about what has happened, how it has
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: traumatized others, and why we need to talk about it.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: But yeah, there's definitely the balance of we have to
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: remember the biases that could be placed into these reports
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: as well.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly, Yeah, because it's not.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: That we're seeing these aren't cults or that the terrible,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: terrible things happened within them, because for a lot of them,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: they did but I think it's just the language I
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: picked up on in it that I was kind of
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: it kind of made me a little anxious, like I
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: get that's true, and I get it, and this did
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: end up being bad, but that doesn't mean it always is.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oo, very complex, a lot of nuances.
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: So many things.
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: Glad we got into it, and I hope we Yeah, we'll
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: definitely look at the overall ideas of women and cults
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: in general, just the help being a member, because we
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: do see a lot of times it's heavily women.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're definitely going to return to that. And uh,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: I'm both excited and nervous.
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: But I don't like anything.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: Yes, as most episodes on here.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in the meantime, listeners, if you would like to
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: contact us, you can or email Stuff Medium mom Stuff
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us on Instagram
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: at Stuff I've Never Told You or on Twitter at
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks as always to our super producer Christina,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Thank you, and thanks to you for listening Stuff I've
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Never Told You his production of iHeartRadio. For more podcast
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, it is a diheart radio app, Apple Podcasts
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,