Camp Gagnon - How WWII Accidentally Created a New Cult Religion

Episode Date: January 1, 2026

Today, we dive deep into the history of the WWII Cargo Cults. We’ll talk about the existing spiritual beliefs on Tanna island, the arrival of John ‘Frum’ America, how the massive presence of U.S. troops and their overwhelming 'cargo' fundamentally changed their world, the ensuing "Cargo Cult War," their expansion across the islands, the modern-day Cult of Prince Philip, and the lasting legacy of these fascinating cultures... WELCOME TO CAMP! 🏕️Shoutout to our sponsors: BlueChew👕🧢 GET YOUR CAMP DRIP HERE: http://camp-rd.com🎟️ 🎫 Comedy Tour Tickets Here: https://markgagnonlive.com🎩👽 Daily Dose Of History Here: https://www.dailytodayinhistory.comTimestamps:0:00 Ai Hates Christos1:16 Spiritual Belief of Tanna4:25 John ‘Frum’ America7:46 U.S. Troops Land on Island12:26 Creation of Cargo Cults14:51 Cargo Cult War19:08 Expansion of Cargo Cults21:21 The Cult of Prince Philip24:33 Cargo Cults Today26:52 Cargo Cult Inventions#foryou #podcast #history #mystery #horror #interview #crime #knowledge #comedy #ww2 #war #religion

Most religions take centuries to form, but this one appeared almost overnight. When World War II began, a small island in the Pacific was exposed to the modern world for the first time, and what started as wooden huts and stone tools somehow ended with U.S. soldiers being worshipped like gods. They weren't missionaries, they weren't prophets, they were just young Americans with radios, guns, planes, chocolate, and cigarettes, things that the locals had never seen. But most importantly, they believed they saw rituals. falling from the sky, cargo being delivered on command. Tribesmen took notes on the soldiers and tried to summon the same cargo that the Americans received.

Because to them, these supplies weren't coming from factories. They were gifts from God. So, if you were interested in World War II history and how religions are formed, this is a fascinating episode, and I hope you guys enjoyed. So without further ado, sit back, relax, and welcome to camp. What's up, people, and welcome back to camp. My name is Mark Gaggon, and thank you for joining me in my tent where every single week we explore the most interesting, fascinating controversial stores from around the world from all time forever. Yes, we go through everything here from CIA stuff, World War II stuff, occult stuff, and everything in between. I want to say thank you to everyone for watching at home. The show's not possible without your support. And maybe in certain ways, more importantly, it's not possible without my dear friend, sitting over here under a tree laying in a hammock. My good pal, Christos, how are you, friend? Doing great. All right, Christos. Look, I need to ask you a question.

Do you know anything about cargo Colts? I don't. Well, I'm going to put you on game today. I also want to share with you a really funny thing. We got AI feedback from YouTube. That's great. YouTube is now giving like AI summaries of the channel, and this is on history camp. It was like people really love the content, really engaged in like intelligent fan base,

requests for historical topics. Mix feedback on co-host Christos. Well, they called me a co-host. That's good for you in a way. It is funny to me that it's like notable portion of the comments provide feedback regarding Christos saying that his presence or commentary is disruptive. So look, it's not me. I would love it if you chimed in more. But look, it's really just AI.

And we got to give in to the overlords, all right? That's true. So let's just dive in to the cargo cults. This is a fascinating little ripple in World War II history that I don't know if a ton of people know about it. I feel like people have heard the term cargo cults, but what actually is it? And I'll be honest, it's pretty wild. It's pretty crazy. I just had a bubble in my throat.

my bad guys. It's pretty crazy. Okay, it's basically the story of how the United States accidentally created one of these strangest religions, belief systems of the 20th century, like a full religious movement built around the arrival of American troops during World War II. And basically these people living on this island that was, you know, relatively uncontacted, watched the modern world appear overnight. Like they saw wealth and just things beyond what they could have ever imagined. They tried to make sense of it, just like, you know, how anyone would, but they were doing it through their existing worldview and their existing spiritual systems and what they could observe with their own eyes. So where does this all start? Let's go to a little place called Tana, and this is an island in Vanuatu.

And it was, and still is to this day, one of the most culturally traditional places in the entirety of the Pacific. Okay. So in the early 1900s, most people lived in the same way that their ancestors had lived for centuries, right? People farmed taro and yams. They would fish on the reefs, and they would hold sense. ceremonies that blended every part of life with the spiritual world. It was very similar to what you would think most sort of tribal religions would be. Now, there was no electricity, no engines, no radios, and most of their tools were, you know, spears and fishing rods and, you know, wood, stones, shells, things like that because metal was so rare. Maybe if it drifted in, they could use it, but they weren't actually like forging, you know, iron and stuff like that. But they did have one

thing, a spiritual system, something that they called castom. Now, Pastom centered on ancestors and nature spirits and the idea that the world was full of these invisible forces that responded to rituals and dances and communal behavior. And, you know, everything had a meaning, had a spiritual force like storms and illnesses and a good harvest and a bad harvest and a drought. All of these things were connected to the divine. And one of these things that they talked about within their religion is the notion of unexpected visitors. So every event could be seen as a sign from God. Now, in this region, there's a place called Mount Yasur, which is not really a mount. It's actually a volcano on the island that erupts every single day.

So to outsiders, it is a natural hazard. You know what I mean? This is like an extremely active live volcano. But to the people of Tana, Yasur is just an ancestor. That is one of the spiritual forces that exist in their everyday lives. And they know sort of how to operate with it. They know when it's going to go off. So for generations, villagers have gone to this crater.

and they would ask questions and, you know, watch the sparks and the smokes for meanings, and they would have shamans that would sort of interpret it. And the chiefs would describe it as a place that the ancestors would speak to the people that were still there. And, you know, some communities believe that it's also the resting place of John From. Now, we'll explain who John From is in a little bit. But this is basically the spirit behind the cargo cult movement.

We'll get into him and who exactly he is. So when people later said that they heard visions or warnings or promises from this, figure named John Frum, they don't mean that he, you know, floated down from the clouds. They meant that his voice was moving through the explosions and the volcanic eruptions of this Mount Yassur. Now, during the 19th century, before anyone on this island of Tana ever saw an American uniform or a cargo plane, the island was already under a lot of pressure, okay? Christian missionaries had spent decades trying to reshape life there, everything from clothing to ceremonies to how people handle disputes. So colonial officers were enforcing some new rules.

and they were collecting taxes and, you know, push people to abandon this custom, this spiritual system. So by the 1930s, many villagers felt that their old world was slipping away from them. And this is when the first whispers of John from began to appear. Some elders later said that the earliest messages came through trance rituals or ceremonies involving Kava. People described hearing a voice saying that he was John from America or John from Tana. But his core message was simple, he said, return to Kavana. have stum stop listening to these missionaries you don't need christianity and he promised that if they did this the ancestors would reward them if they stayed faithful now remember that line john from america

that's literally where this term john from comes from it's kind of funny john from is not the last name it's actually what is from is that a participle i don't know but that's basically john from america so there were these rumors of an actual man possibly a traitor possibly not even named john who would visit villages in the late 1930s and he would stir conversations about rejecting colonial control. But even colonial officers admitted that they never could locate this John or prove that he existed and every time they investigated, they found different descriptions of who he was supposed to be. Some versions said that he had red hair. Some said that he was a local guy who was darker skinned. Others said that he was a soldier in a white uniform, even though no American soldiers had ever been

to Tana or were wearing this type of uniform. But by the 1940s, the colonial government was worried. entire villages were stopping plantation work and they were giving up these Christian practices and they were rebelling against this occupational force and they were preparing for some kind of promise change. But even then, John Frum wasn't seen as a Messiah or like a savior figure the way he would become later. He was more like a messenger, like a prophet,

someone saying that the world was about to shift and that people needed to hold on to their identity. So throughout the early 1900s, the French and the British sort of created this bizarre, Franco-Anglo kind of colonial system where they both jointly claimed this island of Tana. So they created sort of the undergirding or the backing for what was going to create this cargo cult phenomena. But ultimately, World War II is what lit the fuse. World War II pushed this colonial system into complete chaos. Supplies stopped coming. Officers were just leaving. People saw

the colonial administration weakened for the first time in many of their lifetimes, right? This is the first time in decades that the colonial force is actually going away. And at the same time, the older predictions about wealth coming from across the sea started circulating more often amongst the local people. Some elders recalled that right before the war reached the Pacific, John Frum's followers were saying, soon there will be a great change. The ancestors will send signs. But still, no one could have predicted what was about to happen. So, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Pacific became one of the most important places of the war. The United States needed bases, you know, all across the region, basically scattered

across the ocean to block the Japanese from expanding. So in early 1942, U.S. forces moved into New Hebrides, which is modern-day Venuatu, and began constructing these military bases on some of the islands, mostly EFATE and Espiritu Santo. So men from Tana were then hired to work at these new bases, and they had never seen anything like this. They watched huge, massive steel ships. anchor offshore and planes were landing and they were taking off. There was trucks and engines and lights running without fire. And they were watching these foreign soldiers eating like canned meat that never goes bad and medicine that would heal infections.

And a lot of illnesses that would have potentially killed the locals, they were getting better in a couple of days. And they were handing out foods with these flavors that they had never tasted before. And for the people of Tana, this was the largest arrival of outsiders that they had ever seen in their entire life. you know, a little colonial general here or some Christian missionaries there were nothing in comparison to the entirety of the U.S. military basically setting up camp on, you know, an island right nearby. So within months, tens of thousands of American troops were passing through the region

and started to build runways and supply depots and, you know, hospitals and docks, everything that a military would need. So to the islanders, this wasn't just some military operation. It was a complete shock to their worldview and their understanding of reality, right? The concept is like these factories and global supply chains were pretty much unknown to them, right? They had their own understanding of the world and geography and who they were and how they were situated on this planet. They didn't understand the totality of industrialization as it has been happening, you know, in the world for the last like 150 years. So the people in Tana, they didn't have this mental sort of model for how all this stuff worked. They just saw cargo,

arrive, but they never saw where it was made. But they also saw something else, American rituals. They saw, you know, marching and saluting and flag raising and, you know, trumpets and radios. And immediately afterward, cargo would show up. So to them, the connection made sense, right? They have their own rituals that brings upon rain and good harvest. And these people have rituals that brings in all this new cargo. So now the U.S. military wasn't actually doing rituals, obviously, right? They're just information, doing their jobs, doing the pageantry of of what the military was doing at that time. But to the islanders, they just saw a ritual and outcome,

and for them and their worldview, it made complete sense. So the workers were seeing these soldiers, you know, lighting signal fires and building these runways with precise shapes that would bring in these just immaculate-looking, you know, ships that would drop off food. And most importantly, these planes, right, from the outside of perspectives, it just proved that these rituals were working, right? If a group of men in uniform march in formation and a plane showed up, I mean, that's a sign, right?

if they raised a flag and a ship arrives, if they spoke into a walkie-talkie, then all of a sudden just a giant box of, you know, gear and essential, you know, like life-saving medicine just drops out of the sky. It just fits into their existing idea of how the world functions. That rituals bring rewards from this invisible world, right?

This is castom in motion. So the Americans also would give things to them, right? Like food and clothing and, you know, medicine and tools to the workers. But these were gifts that the islanders had never seen or really used. And this caused a lot of, lot of them to believe that the Americans had a higher connection to the spiritual world. But remember when I mentioned John From, right? This is this alleged colonial guy that was talking about,

you know, getting rid of the colonial oppression and, you know, they would be given gifts from, you know, people from far away. This message started to make sense. Here were men from across the sea, bringing all the cargo and the opportunity that they were promised, basically. So the idea that John From had predicted this all of a sudden began to spread. So some people, villagers said that Americans were messengers of John Frum. While others believed that they were ancestors in a new form that were returning with gifts, local leaders then tried to piece dealer what they had seen and they basically came up with this. They believed that the ancestors owned limitless cargo in the spirit world and that they had sent it through the Americans

and the goods themselves in their mind were meant to be for the islanders. And the Americans had simply intercepted them because they knew the right rituals. It wasn't a misunderstanding of who the Americans were. It was a reinterpretation of what the world meant. So in 1945, the war ends. And almost overnight, all the Americans leave. The planes, they stop showing up. The ships stop arriving. The bases are empty. The warehouses are basically just left abandoned or, you know, burned and the generators are turned off and the runways are abandoned. But for the islanders, all of the remnants of this, you know, bizarre sort of, you know, ritual group are still there. The runways are still there and, you know, the docks are still there.

So to the islanders, the rituals maybe had ended and so had the cargo. But the sudden arrival and the disappearance of all that industrial wealth was really impossible to ignore. So a new idea started to form, basically, amongst the local people. The ancestors had stopped sending gifts because the Americans had stopped doing their rituals. So what is this logical solution to this? someone has to do the rituals. So after the war, men from Tana, who had worked at the military bases, returned home with these crazy stories. They're telling everyone on the island that they saw these drills and these marches and flags and cargo getting dropped in.

So then local communities decided to replicate the parts that they understood. They built runways by cutting through the bush to mimic these American airstrips. And they lit torches in the same way that the Americans would light up, you know, their runway with lights. they would craft these wooden rifles and they would march in lines and they made these bamboo control towers and, you know, mock headphones from coconut shells and fake radios and they even raised American flags. Just picture that. They were literally making American flags and raising them believing that they were essential for the arrival of cargo from their ancestors from the spirit world. And they're not just messing around, right? They truly believe that this would

work because why wouldn't it? It worked for the Americans. So this is the moment that the cargo cult movement, as it's called, took shape. The rituals didn't look like, you know, ancient, you know, Tana-Nese customs. They began to look like this blend of American military pageantry with local spirituality. So when the Americans left Tana after the war, the island was slowly falling back into the rhythm of this original John from movement, but now completely reinvigorated. The leaders at Tana kept things steady and kept their approach rooted in traditional. custom, right? They didn't claim to know the exact hour that John Frum would return, and they didn't promise anything dramatic. They just kept the ceremonies alive and tried to

rebuild their communities after the war. But not everyone was satisfied with that. And that is where a man named Fred steps into this crazy story. So Fred was this guy from the southwest side of the island that they call Greenpoint. And unlike the older leaders, he wasn't patient at all. He had never worked directly with the Americans, but he had watched everything. He saw the trucks and the signals and the rituals and they saw the cargo. He saw everything. And after the war, when nothing happened and the movement settled into kind of routine, he started telling people that they're doing it wrong, that John Frum hadn't abandoned them and that he had basically just chosen a new messenger. And that messenger, according to

Fred, was him. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because you know what time it is. It's time to level up and Blu just dropped something wild. Okay? Blue Choo's been rocking with us from the beginning. So of course, we have to rock, pun intended, with them. All right? And what they've just done is changing the game. All right, this is next level, gold metal energy. This is blue chew gold. If you never heard of it, this is the newest innovation from the number one chewable E.D brand. brand, all right, this isn't the little blue pill that your grandpa used. This is the four and one beast that is setting the gold standard for performance. We're talking two ingredients to keep the good times rolling, okay, mixed with apomorphine and oxytocin that are going to

turn up the arousal and the connections in your brain, as well as the ingredients to keep the blood flow to keep everything pumping, okay? Blue shoe gold dissolves into your tongue and works in as little as 15 minutes, and that means you're going to be rocking quicker and staying in the game longer. Let me just say, that's how we put this tent up every single episode. We give Christos a blue chew, and you know what? We have this tent rocking all year round, okay? That's what it takes. Now, I recommend this in a, you know, a married Christian relationship, but you know what, you guys can do whatever you want. Blue Chew is the ultimate service to get you these chewables to your door in a discreet way to keep the bedroom on fire. We have a special deal for the listeners

of this program. You're going to get 10% off your first month of Blue Chew Gold. If you use the code Gagnon, Gagg, N-O-N. That's promo code Gagnon, Gagg, N-O-N. You can visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. And thank you so much to Blue Choo for keeping the lights on and making this show possible. Now, let's get back to it. What's up, people? We're going to take a break real quick because this episode is sponsored by me. Yes, Camp R&D. That is the merch. That is the threads that we'd be wearing around here at the campsite. And we got all sorts of cool stuff. My buddy Zach just cooked up a sick UFO collection. You can go check it out there at Camp R&D. I really appreciate you guys. We have so many people that came through for the holidays and picked up their threads. It's awesome. We got hats, hoodies, all that. And if you're still listening to this and you didn't skip through, congrats. You got a promo code, all right? What do we do, Chris? Chris, it's 5%. More? How much? five more 10% 10% final offer you won't go higher

you tell me what do we give them 12% all right we're doing 12% off should we go more hey it's your world I'm just living in it let's round up 10% no 15% if you use a promo code

camp 15 you're gonna be getting 15% off yes I think we should also do camp 10 just if someone doesn't want to take too much Camp 10 or Camp 15. Those are the only two that are available. And then maybe we send a little something extra to the ones that do 10.

If you do Camp 10, maybe there's something extra, no promises, but it's an interesting experiment. I just am curious to see what you guys do. Camp 10 or Camp 15 at Camp R&D when you check out, you're going to be getting those discounts. Thank you so much for rocking with us and wearing the threads. It keeps the lights on. It keeps the fire burning. So Fred claimed that John Frum appeared to him in dreams and told him that, you know, basically all the secrets and the things that the other leaves,

leaders didn't know. He said that the ceremonies were too slow and too cautious and claimed that the leaders there had lost the original power of the message and that the ancestors just weren't paying attention. The biggest claim he made was that the cargo wouldn't come from the sky like most people believed that it would return by sea on a huge ship loaded with goods manned by Americans coming directly toward Greenpoint. And the ship, he said, would only appear to his followers, not for the villages that stayed local to Isaac Wan, the leader of John Frum, and the John Frum Colt in Sulphur Bay on the southeast side of the island.

So now there's a movement that is split in half. And in 1957, Fred led this breakaway group that moved away from Sulphur Bay and set up their own ceremonial grounds. They cleared new meeting areas and carved their own bamboo rifles and raised a flagpole that matched the one that Fred had seen during the war.

And they built their own version of a U.S. military hut and they would take turns watching the shoreline at night for signs of this ship that Fred had promised. Visitors arriving on foot would see torches burning near the beaches and men asleep in these woven mats beside a flagpole, keeping watch just like the Marines had done before. Now, just imagine this. On this one island, you have these two separate religious factions that are

awaiting the returning cargo from these Americans. But this split is not quiet. There are massive public debates between Fred and Isaac where each accused the other of misunderstanding John Frum's message and Isaac told Fred that he was moving too far from Castom while Fred told Isaac that he was blocking the arrival of the ship by you know not doing things the right way and although the arguments didn't escalate into violence it did divide villages brothers ended up on different sides of the dispute and different camps and families were split apart and the movement is changing drastically there was even a night in 1958 that showed just how tense things had become so basically fred's followers started beating this, you know, big drum near Greenpoint in the middle of the night,

convinced that a ship had actually finally appeared offshore. So they lit all the torches on the beach and everyone's all excited. They're forming into lines and they're signaling out towards the water the same way that the American runway crews had signaled, you know, to planes with paddles like this, right? However, the people over in Sulphur Bay hearing the drums thought Fred's group was gearing up for like a battle. So they marched towards Greenpoint carrying their bamboo rifles until colonial patrol officers intervened and stopped it. Nothing happened, fortunately, but it was the closest that the John Frum movement ever came to actually fighting itself. Now, the colonial government in charge didn't help the situation at all. They saw Fred as a more

unpredictable, almost like, you know, spiritual guru type figure and really tried to isolate him. And so they pressured traders to just avoid his camp and don't go near him and they threaten to arrest him for, you know, false prophecy. But instead of weakening him, he's, you know, him. This only convinced him and his followers that he was the one true prophet. Every bit of resistance he faced just proved in their eyes that the foreign authorities were afraid of the real message and that the truth was going to get out. But Fred had a problem. The ship that he promised never showed up. He predicted its arrival more than once, and when nothing happened, he would just push the date farther and farther back. Ah, we weren't ready. We didn't do it right. We didn't do it the ritual. He would

just say more and more things. And every time it failed, a few people would leave his village and return to Isaac's community. And by the early 1960s, Fred had some followers, but nothing like the movement that he'd had at the start. Meanwhile, the original John Frum community was experiencing a massive shift. Nambas, one of the movement's most respected elders, announced that he had a dream in which John Frum had promised to return on February 15th, and it's still celebrated to this day, and it's known as John From Day. Today in America, we don't celebrate this day, but in Tana, hundreds of people still gather for ceremonies. And they perform the same drills with these rifles

and groups are dressed in homemade uniforms and they raise the American flag. And the villages actually will sing songs about the coming of John From. Now, it's interesting because anthropologists have actually started to investigate this. And they've visited the island and they said that they felt a mix of, you know,

quiet confidence in this practical sort of ritual culture. And people didn't expect miracles right away. They believe that doing these rituals just showed respect for the ancestors. would prepare them in due time for the cargo that they believed was coming. Now, as for Fred, the movement didn't disappear entirely. A handful of families in this, you know, Western area known as Greenpoint. They kept his vision of prophecy alive, believing that the cargo would return not, you know,

not by sky, but by sea, and that the ship was still coming one day, ultimately to Greenpoint. But the main branch of the movement absorbed almost everyone else. And Fred eventually faded from leadership and became, more of just kind of like a story than a threat. Now, we can see that John Frum belief didn't stay isolated to one village, right? It spread across Western and Southern Tana, where communities adapted in their own ways. Some places had more emphasis on the ancestors, while others saw John Frum as this prophetic figure, and some saw the Americans as this temporary link with spiritual wealth, while others just believe that Americans would return personally with more cargo. But as you can imagine, with any

type of religious movement that's gaining power, the political tensions are also going to grow. So pretty quickly, the colonial administrators started to have an issue. The officials were worried that, you know, it encouraged resistance to European rule. And the missionaries disliked just how openly this John Frum movement rejected mainstream Christianity. There were multiple attempts to suppress this movement, but every attempt to shut it down only convince people more and more that something meaningful had actually happened here. The growth eventually led to another cargo cult that's now just 15 miles away, deeper into the jungle, and this is known as the cult of Prince Philip. In 1957, a British naval vessel toured the South Pacific, and on board was this

guy named Prince Philip. He was the Duke of Edinburgh. He wasn't there on a mission for Tana, and there was, you know, no dramatic announcement, but his presence in the region caught a lot of people's attention. Word spread between the islands, and eventually it reached villages near a place that we know as Ya'anan. this point, the John Frum movement had been active for like 20 years, and many followers believed that powerful figures from overseas were part of this island and their spiritual story. So when they heard about a tall, pale-skinned guy from far away who had married a queen, a lot of people just made the connection. He wasn't a replacement for John Frum, but he was a

companion of this guy, a brother, or even like a spiritual figure who had traveled from abroad to fulfill some type of bigger purpose. And of course, these stories and the rumors spread all to the islands. This belief grew quietly for decades, but eventually the colonial officials caught on and told Prince Philip, but he didn't laugh it off or ignore it. He sent the villagers a signed portrait of himself. And when they received it, they treated it like an honored gift. Like this was some type of validation that there was actually some type of far away people that were going to give them things. And it actually happened. Now they later sent him a traditional now-mow, which is like this war club that's used in a lot of their ceremonies.

You can see actually on the screen an image of the locals holding pictures of Prince Philip. This very simple exchange from, you know, one of these, you know, guys on a ship with, you know, the name Prince that's married to royalty, this created a relationship that lasted for literally decades. From the 1970s all the way through basically till today, villagers held ceremonies in his honor and hung his portraits and ceremonial houses as if they were like, as if he was like a family member or something. Journalists who visited the island photographed them and it actually helped the story spread. And in 2007, a group of men from the tribe actually traveled all the way from the UK to meet the Prince Philip. The meeting was pretty private and short, but they exchanged gifts and they paid respect and

they returned home with new photos that became a part of this movement's history. Now, Prince Philip was different from John From because no one believed Philip would bring cargo or wealth. He wasn't this supernatural sort of spiritual savior. He was just a symbolic figure of one of these men from overseas. So when Prince Philip died in 2021, villagers held days of morning. Chiefs actually gathered and Kava was shared and rituals were done in his honor. Some said that his spirit would return to the island while others said that he had simply completed his journey and joined with their ancestors. But everyone agreed on one thing that that relationship meant something. What it meant exactly? they can't necessarily say, but it just mattered.

It meant that they existed in this broader landscape. And this belief didn't replace the older John from traditions. It just added another layer, almost like a different sect of this sort of cargo cult religion. So today, we often describe cargo cults as misunderstandings or

mistakes, and most people think that a cargo cult believes that, you know, like a plane is a deity, and it's a big metal bird and that white people are gods, but it's not that simple. It's really not that at all. These interpretations made sense within their worldview, right? The islanders simply combined a very traditional belief that ancestors are going to bring them wealth, and they observed the fact that Americans received immense

wealth after they performed, you know, these rituals. So nothing about this is irrational in the context, right? The difference was that they just lacked information about how the modern world actually functioned because, duh, they're on an island. They didn't know that cargo came from factories, and they didn't know that ships and planes were made thousands of miles away also in factories and that the ships would bring the stuff from the factories to an island. And the John Front movement still exists in Tana, and villagers continue to gather every February 15th on John From Day, and they raise the American flag and they marched with rifles. And they talk about the coming age of abundance. But to many people, it's not a literal expectation that planes are

going to land tomorrow, right? It is sort of a symbolic or it's really like a cultural identity and a connection to tradition. And the movement is less about, you know, expecting that, oh, we're going to get saved. It's not like they, like, need food tomorrow, right? Like, they have a functioning island and they have the ability to, you know, take care of themselves. But it's more symbolic and more spiritual than that. It's remembering a time when their world changed fundamentally and they interpreted that change on their own terms. So the people of Tana don't see themselves as confused. They just see themselves as, you know, practitioners of this sort of tradition. So in the end, despite how crazy it might sound, a small island was thrown to the middle of a global war by a technologically advanced nation who appeared from the sky with unimaginable wealth and resources and performed these structured rituals every single day and then vanished in the middle of the night without really telling anyone.

Americans didn't try to create a cargo cult, but in the chaos of a global war and in the sudden appearance of modern technology on an ancient island, a new belief system was formed by... taking in the world they saw, combining it with their ancient system of spirituality, and what's wild is that it still exists to this day. And that is the story of Tana's John from Cargo Cult. I mean, pretty wild. It's like a fascinating, it's a fascinating look at like how spirituality can actually form. Like, you know, I consider myself a religious person. I, you know, I like Jesus. Shout out to the most high.

But it is an interesting thing that, you know, given enough time, these people are still sort of doing these rituals and they hear stories from their ancestors and their grandparents and their great grandparents and they're like, yeah, this is what we do. We march around, we have these things. And they don't really just like look around and be like, hey, this is crazy.

They just go, yeah, this is our tradition. This is what we do. This is what makes us feel good. This is the people that we pray to. And this is how our religion is. And it starts to make you think like, oh, is this every religion? Now I'm not saying every religion

is just some guy, you know, misinterpreting or, you know, adding their own cultural lens to some type of crazy event. But it does make you think, you know? Did you pull up some of the images of these cargo cult artifacts? These are the most interesting parts to me. Like actually seeing the things that they crafted. Because when I first heard about this, I was like, all right, well, I doubt that they're actually making radios

and they don't actually think that these guns are doing something. But if you look at the images, it's like, yeah, dude, they were building planes. Now, they weren't functional planes, of course. They were made out of bamboo. But they were actually creating these things. And can you scroll to some of these other images? Like they would create like goggles and radios and like look at this little bros got goggles on. Like that's crazy.

Like they were literally like, yeah, we are American soldiers. And they didn't understand what America was. They probably didn't understand like what an American soldier was. But it's really fascinating that these people with their limited context would be like, yeah, this is how you summon a bunch of wealth and food and abundance is through these rituals, just like we were doing. We get rain. They get, you know, guns.

That's what it is. I don't know. It's pretty fascinating. Christos, did you take any tidbits away from this episode? The Prince Philip thing is wild to me, at least. That's what I actually should have spent more time researching. I didn't get into. Is like, these guys go to visit Prince Philip. They go to Edinburgh.

How do you think they were received? Oh, probably they were stoked. Dude, are you kidding me? How do you think the people that received them felt about them being there? Yeah, the people were like, oh, this is a lot. awesome. Like these people legit worship Prince Philip. I mean, not worship, but like they really revere and respect Prince Philip.

How sick is that? Right? Like, could you imagine being Prince Philip just like posted up on your boat and like your first mate comes over? Like, by the way, that island, like they have like a cult kind of like about you. You'd be like, what? Like this is like a rapper finding out that he has fans in Japan. He's like, wait a second. You're telling me people in

Tana or effing with the boy like that. You know what I mean? Like that's wild. So I don't know. What I want to know was like, how did these guys go to Edinburgh? They travel to the UK, right? Like, they go to Scotland or whatever, and they check it out. And then they come back and they're still like, yeah, this is what we do. Like, I guess at that point it just becomes so ingrained at the tradition that it's like, yeah, this is, you know.

Like, I guess it sounds crazy as Americans, but it's like, we pretend to do Santa. Right? And it's like, that was just a guy. And then there was a whole story added on to the guy. and we know it's not real, but we kind of do it because it symbolizes something beautiful, right? Like, it symbolizes, like, the, you know, giving and, you know, charity and the, like, good feelings and family and camaraderie, like, all that stuff.

Every tradition we do, more or less, like, we know that the Easter Bunny is not real, right? Like, I think there's so many things that Americans do all the time that we're like, yeah, I guess, like, what is the Macy's Day parade? Like, all these, like, if you explain that to someone in a thousand years, they'd be like, yes, these people, they would gather around and they would take these large effigies that they would fill with helium and they would fly across the sky

and they would worship it. Also, if you're seven years old, Santa Israel, as is the Easter bunny. Sure. And if you're a kid, you're probably like, yeah, John Frome is an actual... And then you get older and you're like, all right, I can't understand what's going on here.

And I'm not saying, again, I don't know. I haven't talked to a tenation. I haven't been to Tana. I haven't been to Vanuatu. I don't know how they actually feel about on like a personal basis. but from what I've read, it's like, yeah, they do these traditions, they go along with it. Like, I feel like calling it a cult is maybe unfair.

It's, I don't know if it's a cult. Like, it's hard to really, like, what is a cult, right? Like, to me, a cult is, like, a religious philosophy that if you leave, you get ostracized or excommunicated or killed. Like, that to me is how it characterize a cult. You know what I mean? Like, Christianity's not a cult because you can just kind of, like, leave and it's fine. Does seem a little racist to call it a cult. Right?

It's like, all right, I don't know if it's a cult. Like, it is them. interpreting the world blended with their spiritual tradition that they still carry on today that they know is like yeah we're not going to get this immediately so i wouldn't call it a cult i feel like tradition a cargo tradition maybe that's a better term maybe that should be the takeaway but i don't know i don't know how big this podcast is over in vana watu but if you're over there and you know about this you know some of the people that actually have participated in john from day every february 15th which we will be celebrating on this podcast for the record please let me know

drop a comment i'd love to know what you think i read all the comments on YouTube, Spotify, all that. So if there's anything I missed, if you're an expert in this field, please feel free to educate me. I am by no means a scholar. I'm just a guy that's curious and has an internet connection.

So please remind me, refresh me. If you don't know anything about this, what did you learn? Is there something you took away from this? That you're like, oh, yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense. It's really interesting. Please drop a comment.

Let me know. I would love to know what you guys think. And if you like this channel, please subscribe. It means the world. It really helps us a lot. And if you like history in history deep dives.

We have a bunch of episodes of World War II. You can check that out at history camp and if you like religious deep dives, you're going to love religion camp in this episode and a little bit of both for everybody.

Now, thank you guys for tuning in. You can catch me on the road. Mark Jagnon Live. I'm going to be there. And all these bunch of cities, that wasn't that good. I'm going to be in a bunch of cities doing stand-up.

And it'll be much more eloquent than what I just did. And then also you can check out the merch over at Camp R&D. Pick up some hoodies, T-shirts, beans. We got jackets. We've got the UFO collection

just dropped. It is absolutely Fuego. And yeah, I just really appreciate you guys being a part of this and just being campers and, you know, being a part of this awesome community that we're building, it truly means the world. And we do episodes every single week. And I'll see you at the next one. Peace. What's up, people? We're going to take a break really quick because I have amazing news. I'm coming on the road. That's right, my very first headlining tour where I'm going to every city that will possibly allow me to go there. I'm going to Salt Lake City. I'm going to Washington, D.C., and Charlotte, North Carolina in February.

Those tickets will be announced soon. You can get all the tickets at Mark Gagnon Live, and I'll see you guys there.