Chilluminati Podcast - Episode 110 - The Uganda Cult Tragedy | "Uganda Jonestown"

Episode Date: July 19, 2021

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Dear traction, Toyota's got 20 vehicles with available all-wheel drive and four-wheel drive to grip every twist and every turn. Come rain, slick, sleet or snow, leaves, mud, gravel or sharp turns. Tackle the trails in the nimble RAV4. Drive steady in the classy Camry all-wheel drive or turn up the traction in the beefed-up Tundra. Because Toyota's got an iron grip on driving excitement. Find those wheels at Toyota.com. Toyota, let's go places. Music Hello everybody and welcome back to the Chilluminati Podcast. Episode 110 as always I am one of your hosts Mike Martin.

I'm joined by my other two wonderful hosts Alex Fosyana and Jesse Cox. Yeah, Merlo. Hello, gentlemen. Hello. Merlo. I hope you're doing well. We had a nice little Merlo. Oh, Merlo.

A little Merlo? I'd like some Merlo, honestly. Do you have a favorite? Are you a white wine or a red wine guy, boys? Or is it depending on the food that you're eating? Like, all connoisseurs. I'm completely up my own ass when it comes to wine. I'm fully in it.

I'm getting natural wines of all different types. You're like that scotch guy but with wine? It totally comes down to what food I'm eating. He is. He is that guy who knows way too much about wines but like in a great way to be his friend. That's what I mean. He's like, I got a wine. You're like, yeah.

All right. That's good. What about you, Jesse? Do you have a wine preference? Like, do you have a... There's still... Being so up your own ass about wine, Alex, do you have like a favorite wine? And if you were just to any day of the week, go into a store and you feel like any occasion,

this is what I would drink. What would that be? Yeah. I like the D'Amende Tempée Bendeau. That's a good one. The red one. Not the white one. It's a red one.

Okay, cool. I'm about to throw a wrench in this whole thing and say, I like a nice ice wine. Okay. Okay. All right. A little tiny like a Sipsit boy. You know what I mean? Yeah, I like that.

Oh, nice. I like a solid bottle of barefoot at a nice price of $8. You know what I'm saying? You go shopping at 7-Eleven for that one? Exactly. You get that 7-Eleven wine, that $1 salmon that they have in their freezer section. I'll tell you that up with some butter. Yeah, you're like four bachelor.

Continental life. Yeah, like a college student. You're doing great. Yeah, exactly. Speaking of college student, I bought a huge bag of bit of honeys and I'm so excited to just tear through that shit in like a night. It's enormous. It's like a fucking value-sized bag.

So wonderful. Anyway, back to the episode. We've been in the world of the weird for a few weeks now. So today's episode is going to go back to true crime, but before we do that, I almost forgot to hand it off to Alex. Hold on. Is this true? Is this true crime?

Who knows if it's true. At this point, I don't believe anything anyone says on this show. I don't believe anything. It's all like, and then Voldemort murdered her. I still can't believe anything. You're just lucky that nothing went wrong because if it had, we would all be in the pocket of a dark sorceress. You know what I mean?

That's true. I do not know. No one knows what you're talking about. But you know what is true is that if you head over to patreon.com. You can do with a little, you can go a long way toward supporting our podcast. You get all sorts of great benefits becoming a patron from pre-sale stuff to custom art to just the greatest little feeling in your heart that you've somehow helped some artists make something beautiful.

It's always fucking cool. Yeah. And everything is always great. And you get mini-sodes. We're going to record one right after this. There's an entire library of them. How many are there? So we released a hundred, three hundred.

We're in like the fifties. So we released a mini-sode compilation last week, but that was five months ago. That was the ones we released. So you got five months of mini-sodes to catch up on if you only have had the compilations. The mind fucking boggles. Okay. So head over to patreon.com. So that's shillman pod.

There's something for everybody. It might be the greatest website ever made. See you guys there. See you there. I know Jesse shit all over, you know, saying he didn't believe the green rock story, but we crossed a threshold. One of our goals. So can we force Jesse to believe?

Oh, you mean that green rock story? Oh, yeah. No, that's totally real. Exactly. That one. Oh, yeah. No, that one's very real. I found it on a YouTube video.

Yeah. So this is the most real. Exactly. Oh, yeah. And that is, I believe it. Oh, we still don't have an answer for what was going on that house, but it doesn't matter because I'll one day, one day, you know, there will be one. And that's the beauty.

That's the beauty of it. I'm excited for that day that that 10 years from now, we finally get that third episode to finish the trilogy. Yeah. I'm excited. I'm going to sneak it in. I'm going to sneak it up on you guys. All right.

I'm into it. But today is no weird. So you could take off your weird vest. You could take off your weird hat or going into the world of true crime again. And to give you an idea, this is a cult that I guarantee the two of you probably have never heard of, but with its death toll will surprise you because it's one of, if not the most lethal cult to have ever existed and perhaps one that nobody really truly knows about. To give you an idea before we go into this, it's really crazy to think about how much

death was within one of the most well-known cult massacres of all time. I'm talking, of course, about Jonestown. On that horrible day, 909 people lost their lives to the whims and machinations of a man all too obsessed with power and control and all too talented at manipulating the vulnerable and the desperate. But what if I told you there's another cult out there that surpasses even Jonestown and its death toll, yet are never spoken of or discussed when the subject of cults is brought up? A cult that by its end in the year 2000 killed 924 people.

What? There's many reasons. Yeah, 924 people died at the hands of this cult that we're about to dive into. Is this going to be like Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop or something? Yes, it was Goop that took them all out in the early 2000s. One night, everybody put Goop on their body and they were dead by morning. Oh, it's not on your body. Oh, it's inside.

It's not on your body. It's another type of green stone that you don't want to mess with. And there's a reason for it too. This cult is infuriatingly interesting and fascinating all at once because we know with this cult just enough to piece the story together to figure out what happened and why they all died. But unlike something with Jonestown and the People's Temple, we truly don't have an inner understanding of how they worked beyond a few people who survived early in the cult's

life before they left. There's many reasons this cult is lesser known, but the biggest is that while it failed catastrophically at its end, it was one of the very few cults whose details and inner machinations were to themselves. What we know is from what investigations were able to ascertain from discovered bodies and those few who were able to escape and interact with the cult. But I believe it's one that should be looked at more often. This episode is all about the cult named the movement for the restoration of the Ten Commandments,

also known as, to those who have researched it, the Ugandan cult tragedy. And like all cults, these people needed a charismatic leader and that's where our story begins. You know what? This is like real cynical, but the minute you said the Ugandan cult tragedy, I was like, Oh, that's why Americans have never heard of it. Yeah. There is. They're like, that's terrible, but that's absolutely the truth.

It's like a whole African thing. Yeah. No, we don't know much about that. Literally, you know, as I was looking for cults to do, because one day I'd love to do like Jonestown and stuff, but that's like a project for years from now when I have more resources at my fingertips. But I wanted something that was going to be a good introduction to cults for people who may not know them, but also one that may not have been heard of.

And so the resources that we use for this, other than a few newspaper articles and a few news sources from early 2000s, a book simply titled the Ugandan cult tragedy, a private investigation by Bernard Atuhair. Now, this book for fair warning for the Wachilluminati people who like to read along in the quote unquote book club, this thing is a dry ass read. It is literally presented like a profligate investigation in the facts that were found and interviews that were there. There's no sugar.

There's no story. There's nothing. It is a boring fucking read, but it's interesting in that this cult is so rarely known and there's only a single book about it. So if you want to check it out again, it's called the Ugandan cult tragedy, a private investigation by Bernard Atuhair. So our story begins with the eventual leader of this group by a man with the man by the name of Joseph Kibwater.

And much like the cult he would form and unlike many of the cult leaders from more well known cults like the aforementioned Jonestown, very little is known of the life and supposed death of Joseph. But here's what we do know. While we don't know what year he was born, we do know he grew up in Uganda and likely the forties and the fifties. That time in Uganda was especially politically and more importantly for the story religiously volatile, specifically within the Roman Catholic Church over there of which Joseph was raised

as. During this time in Uganda, movements of Catholics were preaching and emphasizing the works of miracles that were happening in their lands and multiple Marian apparitions. Do either of you know what a Marian apparition is? It's pretty self-described. I mean, the Virgin Mary, right? Yes. It's got to be exactly what we were talking about with the Alien Come episode.

Exactly. Exactly what we were talking about. It was like the lady of whatever and there was like thousands of witnesses and it's just like this crazy come that landed on people's faces and the webby to stuff that was around there. It was like after that. It was like, you know, it's it's it's not, you know, we don't know. We don't know what we don't know.

It was the jury. Right. Right. Well, hi listening. Listen, Marian, Marian apparitions more specifically are sightings of the Virgin Mary, but there's a specific criteria they have to fall under in order for it to count as a Marian apparition. Usually it has to be physical somewhere within the world. They dreams, visions, future sights do not count and it also cannot be a naturally occurring

structure that can be interpreted as a Marian apparition. So a rock that looks like Mary does not count as a Marian apparition. Also interestingly, bleeding statues, which is a typical kind of miracle that that happens a lot in the Catholic Church, supposedly is also not considered a Marian apparition, the Mary statues that cry tears of blood. And if you hear her voice, that also doesn't count as a Marian apparition. That's something separate called interior locution. It's got to be this.

It's got to be. It has to be visual and it has to be in front. That's going to matter. Like when the guerrillas played at the MTV movie awards. Yes. I've never I've never seen the best holograms I've ever seen. That's all right. Cool.

Cool. So in the future, he would eventually run for office in Uganda in 1980 and donated enough of his own land, which is a large way that wealth is measured in Uganda at that time. So that a Catholic school could be built where he would be co-founder. Now, I try to do some research as to how much or how old you have to be to run for office in Uganda. So I could try and like piece together like his minimum age at that time, because again, we don't have a specific date, but all I could find was much like in the US, you have

to be 35 to run for like or stand. They call it stand for president over in Uganda, but I, he wasn't running for president. He was running for another political office and I'm not sure if the age restrictions were the same there, but my guess is he was probably in his 30s at this point in time. The Catholic school that would be built and founded by him, we know he apparently also taught at and it was an Orthodox Catholic school and Joseph himself had an overall positive image and reputation within his small community while certainly very religious for all intents and purposes from what we know prior to 1984, he was a good man.

But in 1984, Joseph claimed he started having multiple sightings of the Virgin Mary, true Mary in apparitions. We don't know really what most of them were, where they were, only that he started to have these things throughout his life. Normally, is this something that there's like accounts of like from the time or is this like something that he said later? This is their accounts from at the time and all of this is going to build essentially to the formation of the cult, which we're kind of walking toward here.

We don't know, like I said, we don't know really what they were, where they were for the most part. Now, normally, I imagine this would send up a lot of red flags, but this was still at a very religious time in Uganda and you have to keep in mind, this was not, I want to say rare, but it wasn't necessarily, it wasn't uncommon for these kinds of sightings to be happening around this time. This was a big fervor of Roman Catholic Church, kind of preaching miracles and sightings often. But this was, like I said, it was just at a religious time and not as uncommon as the

US. And in 1989, five years after his visions began, his life would take its first steps toward its darker future when he met his undoubtable number two that would essentially lead the cult, a woman by the name of Credonia Merwende. Weddings, college graduations, your stepmom placing third in a dog rooming competition. We've all got reasons to gift this summer, so give them something they'll love, drinks, and get them all from Drizly, the go-to app for alcohol delivery. With Drizly, you can shop local stores and compare prices on beer, wine, spirits, then

get them delivered in time for your summer celebrations. All good cult leaders need a number two, a partner, co-founder, and Joseph would find that in Credonia, or should I say Credonia found that in Joseph. Unlike Joseph, we know a little bit more about Credonia as a person and her history prior to the cult, but what we still know is relatively painfully lacking. Prior to becoming the high priestess of the movement, Credonia was a shopkeeper, banana beer brewer, and a sex worker. She was also very religious and dedicated herself to a group of people that devoted themselves

to the Virgin Mary. In 1989, she would claim that she too had a vision, that the Virgin Mary in her dreams appeared to her, telling her of her new life mission, that she was destined to seek out a man by the name of Joseph Kibbutere, sorry, I'm going to butcher that last name a lot, and ask him to take her and two of her followers in, that once together, Credonia and Joseph were destined for great things and were chosen to be saved and to try and save as many others as they could. The two others she foresaw in her vision to bring with her were two others she had been

palling around with already as part of her religious habits, a man by the name of Dominic Cattari Babo and another named Paul Ikazire. Dominic was an excommunicated priest for reasons unknown. We don't know why he was kicked out of the church, but Paul would eventually return back to the church and when he was interviewed and discussed the early days of the cult as it formed, since he left so early, he said that Credonia often was the one who was truly in charge. So he left the cult and became a member of the Catholic Church?

Yes, correct. And Joseph? He went, Paul wasn't clergy, he just returned back and rejoined the Roman Catholic Church as a member. I see. Dominic was only one that was a ranking member in the church. He was excommunicated. We don't have the information as to why.

That's never a good detail. Yeah, yeah, unknown excommunicated for an unknown reason. That's just it takes a lot to get kicked out of the Catholic Church, as we know, too. So, you know, you never know, it really does. Usually just kind of get shifted away to a different town somewhere across the country. So Joseph, though, he was just a teacher. He wasn't clergy. This guy has no idea who these people are and isn't having visions of these people.

They he's not the Virgin Mary that when he's seeing or isn't telling her about, you know, these people coming, it's just these people. So Credonia allegedly had a vision before she met him. So telling her to seek out a stranger. Yes, to seek out a stranger she's never heard of by this name. OK, so shortly after her first vision, she would have yet another. But this time in her waking life while she was near her home. See, near Credonia's home was a small cave.

And one day while she walked by, she turned to see a figure within the cave. Intrigued, she moved closer. Maybe it was someone who had gotten lost or needed some help. But as Credonia walked closer, she realized it was not one but two people in this cave. And you may not expect who the second person is. The first person. The first person was Abedon Costello. The first person wasn't a person at all, but in fact, an image of a person within the stone itself.

And we're not talking a drawing. We're not talking an etching or a carving like a like an actual like real to life person, but within the stone like those things that when you have when you like it's like you try and relax and you like put it on your face and you can like what? No, no, no, it was 2D. It was a two. He's thinking of the pin toy. You know, the pin toy like put your hand through.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, yes. Yeah. No, not figure out what you were talking about like a rock, like a rock, like a TV, like a rock, but it's a TV. You could see that kind of like person. So the rock was transparent. Yeah, kind of like Zack Snyder's Justice League when he's talking to Desad. But there was a person who wasn't part of the rock as well.

But we'll get to that in a second. So she moved closer in the first person. It wasn't at all. But it was none other. The image in the stone was none other than the Virgin Mary herself. Her back was actually turned so she couldn't see her face. And in representing, representing her turn or basically representing she turned her back on the world's sinful state, according to Credonia,

that the the Virgin Mary she saw was turned representing that Mary herself had turned her back on the back of Mary. Yes, the back of Mary. Question, how did you know was Mary by only seeing the back of her because of the second person who was in the cave? None other than Jesus himself. So Jesus was like Jesus was there. Jesus, the real dude was there.

The real Jesus was there. We got CG rock imagery of the back of the Virgin Mary. That's not what I would have expected at all. I would have thought clearly the reverse, but like this, this checks out. Jesus was out in the cave. He was in the cave and he had a message, of course, to in Mary, had a message as well. It's dangerous to go alone.

Take this, but we'll get to that message in a minute. Because shortly after that, Credonia set out to find Joseph Kibbuter. At this point, some of you might be thinking yourself, well, that's fucking incredible. She had a supposed vision of a dream and was told to find a specific person who she eventually did. If otherwise, we wouldn't have the story. That's crazy. And you're right, it would be.

But there's one last thing that we actually do know about Joseph that would unravel the entire supernatural direction that Credonia received. You see, Joseph, back in 1960, got married. And through some digging, it was discovered that Credonia knew of and maybe actually knew the wife's sister as she and another traveled through Uganda, spreading the word of the Virgin Mary. And if Joseph, and this next part is all conjecture on my end. And if Joseph truly believed he was having visions, which I believe is the case.

I think he thought or at least lied to himself and like convinced himself he was also having these miraculous things that was happening around his country. Then it wouldn't be too much of a jump to expect him to have told his wife that he was having these visions. And if he told his wife, then his wife may have told his sister, which eventually would have maybe leaked its way out to Credonia as she was coming through doing her preaching, because we know that they had at least an interaction and maybe knew of one another.

And Credonia may have seen an opportunity, perhaps, to change her life or just seek power and money in a way that would require less work. But how much influence did he already have at that point? Very little. But we do know Joseph had at least an ounce of wealth to him because he was able to drop land, donate land to build a school, a be a founding member of member of. And she was coming from a very poor kind of background.

So maybe this was her. She saw this as an opportunity to try and like cut that life. We again, it's all speculation on our part as to why exactly she chose Joseph. But my guess is because he had money and hearing that he was having visions, it was really easy to just weasel your way in and say, you have you had a vision that you were supposed to find this man. So she got there probably and then decided like, I'm going to ride this this horse. As far as I fully believe she did not have these visions

and made it up as soon as she heard of Joseph and his supposed visions of Mary. What a wild plan to have worked out. And visions would become a cornerstone of the building of the movement. The visions themselves seemed to only matter and exist in the formation of the movement movement, because once the movement was established, the visions kind of slowed down and even ceased to exist by the end of it. From 1981 to 1989, the founders and the first members of the movement all had varying visions of different types, as they aren't as big a part

of the story moving forward after the creation of the movement. I'm going to go through the small handful of them that we do know of in chronological order to give you an idea of what these visions were. So Crodonia alleges to have had her first vision on the 10th of March in 1981, a personal affair where the Blessed Mother Mary and Our Lord Jesus told her to repent. On April 25th, 1981, we know Joseph Kibbuter received his vision of from the same parties to repent, reject sin, pray more, mortify himself. His visions were much more common, just like you have to do better.

You have to be better. Stop. Nothing like start a start up. Yeah, correct. Correct. He believes that he personally was on a mission to restore the Ten Commandments in some way. But again, that wasn't like a direct thing. It was how he interpreted his visions. On the 4th of June in 1989, Crodonia was taken by a vision

that takes her to the world we now know, where she was brought over to over here to find a Joseph. And then on the 25th, 1989, Ursula Komohangi, which was a early member, a friend of the two of them, he received a vision directed to young people that breaking the Sixth Commandment, do not commit adultery, led to breaking the rest of the commandments, especially the 4th and 5th, honor your father and mother and thou shalt not kill, respectively, which I don't really know how committing adultery leads to murder. But hey, that's just what his vision apparently told them.

And then finally, Paul Icazar had a vision. We don't know when the date was that directed directed toward priests specifically, that it was unholy to do Holy Communion in any other way than from a priest's clean hands directly into the mouth of the person receiving the sacrament. And that's all we really know of the visions. What are the other ways it's done? Yeah, I'm trying to think like that.

There's just somewhere like a priest is just like, now I must stick them in dirt and I must get my dirty hands. Well, I used to when I was when I was in Catholic school, when we received communion, they placed it in our palm. We we went up with an open hand and they put it in our hand and then we'd put it in our mouth. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, we never had that. Yeah. Oh, I don't know. And it feels like minor, but whatever.

Right. And they even poured the wine right in. Oh, we never picked up the wine because I was worried about germs. So they put the wine in their mouth and then swish it around and then just let it fall out of their mouth. And you would gurgle it to make sure you get a full taste down your tongue. As the Lord intended. Exactly. I was a swallower. As the Lord intended.

Oh, God, too many jokes. I don't want to get in trouble. In 1989, Cardonia and her two followers found an approach. Joseph, claiming her desire to repent for her sins. She told him of her vision to find him and to ask of him to take them in and help them repent, startled by the similarity of their visions that someone claims that the Virgin Mary herself, the very being supposedly that Joseph was seeing and maybe even happy that it was finding evidence

that his visions were in fact real. Joseph agreed to take in Cardonia and her two followers and the movement at this point is officially born. The movement would be born, grow and collapse in on itself all within 10 years. To give you an idea, it took the People's Temple, which is the Jonestown cult over 20 years before it grew to that size and then ended up killing that many people in less than half the time. The movement killed more than Jonestown ever did.

They got a thousand body count. Oh, nine hundred and twenty four. So yeah, real damn close. Now, at a quick glance, the idea of or thrusting motivation behind the movement lie in its name. It's as though someone saw the Ten Commandments and thought to themselves, this would be a great rule book for a cult. It kind of feels lazy, but the Ten Commandments were warped and twisted

to be the all encompassing rules that cult would live by. And we'll talk about that as we get to the day to day life of the cult members later. But before we get to that, was what was it that the movement was trying to do and save its people from? Well, this is the details of Cardonia's vision, as will be most of the theme of this cult. It feels lazy and obvious, but it's the end of the world. They all have to worry about.

You see, Cardonia's vision of Mary's back turned to the world was unsurprisingly a sign of what was what was to come. The world itself was full of sin, way too much sin, so much so that God saw the earth itself as taken by Satan. Initially, God wanted to simply wipe everybody out in one big go and send us all to hell where we belonged and start fresh with a new generation. But Mary and Jesus were being real bros for us and stepped in and stopped God speaking on behalf of the humans for us.

But again, in the Catholic belief, Jesus is also God, so it's kind of I don't know how that works. It's just a wild like interpretation of like what's going on between the characters in the story. I just love the idea of like knocking on God's office door and Mary and Jesus like, God, he's like, what? I'm busy. Oh, I'm sorry. I know you got a busy day ahead of you planning out the wiping out of humanity. But can we just talk to you for a couple of minutes?

We really think that a few of the humans may not be that bad. Fine. Just because you guys hit me with that wafer gun earlier. But isn't this literally just like already the flood like the flood story where it's like, you know, I'm going to kill everyone like, whoa, God, like what if we I hear there's this guy? He's pretty good. What if he just builds his boat? His family gets on there and they put all the animals on.

That's a good idea. You know what? Not everyone. Not everyone. The same story, same story. It is like I said, this cult in particular seemed very lazy with its message. And I don't think this cult would have succeeded were it not for the very religious kind of hot pot that Uganda was at the time that this thing kind of came about.

It's just like a small group that just got too big, too quick. So Mary and Jesus stepped in, like I said, on a human's behalf. So Mary and Jesus stepped in. What a crazy thing to say. So Mary and Jesus stepped in. It did mean they like humanity, man. They don't think all of us are terrible. Anakin and Schmi Skywalker stepped in.

I Alex is right. I like to imagine God is like forming a new planet. He's like, I'm busy here. I'm doing other things besides earth. OK, or everything about earth, earth, this or like, guys, come on. This is so small. So it's significant, fucking responsibility, guys. I'm making it dark matter over here.

Like, what are you doing? Well, Jesus and Mary stepped in, talked to God and convinced him that not all of us were lost, that if they only had a little time, they could save those worth saving. And then God could do what he wanted to do and purge the rest. They could save those worth saving. What a dark message that is. Those worth saving.

It's crazy, man. God relented and Mary and Jesus high fived and went on their way to mission, went on their mission of producing vague visions to create the movement. Once collected and the movement formed, the apocalypse was set. The first of which would be January 1st, 1992, only three years away from the initial formation of the church or of the cult. Now, I know we all live through the first really big apocalypse, but in case you can't remember, here's what was supposed to happen

for this cult on January 1st, 1992. If the generation did not repent, then it would be obliterated and a new devout generation would come to be. The first generation would be destroyed in a series of chastisements, including famine, demons, animals becoming demons, giant animals running rampant. I was a way you read it was so perfect. Animals, demons, animals becoming demons. Boys becoming men, men becoming wolves.

Well, there's three more. Giant animals running rampant, snakes and countries will. It's its own category. It's its own category. Snakes are its own thing like World War Z, but just snakes, man. World War S.S.S.S.S.S.S. And finally, and this one's my favorite because of how specific it isn't. Countries will have specific punishments.

What were those punishments? Hmm, just countries will have specific ones. That's the definition of specific. That's all it says. That's all the words were how specific. Following there will be three days of darkness and the Virgin Mary will reveal certain shelters around the world. Those inside the shelters will not be allowed to open the doors

to anyone after darkness falls. Those outside will be turned into demons and returned to and returned to hell after the second darkness recedes. So everybody who didn't get inside, we all become demons and then hell kind of shlurps us down to the ground. And then the new generation is born. Nice. That's basically like the story already, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Literally, we'll get to that in literally two seconds. I'm ready to get shlurped. I'm really excited. After the darkness phage and the people are allowed out to become the new generation of repentant devout Christians, Uganda would become the new Israel. The similarities and chastisements in the biblical apocalypse cannot be denied,

especially Matthew 24, 29 to 31. There's just again, like you said, kind of like in your in your in your comparison of the flood, Jesse, it's the same. They're just they're just pulling shit into the Bible, changing a few words, retooling it and then shipping it as a new product. This is like when the emperor was like, what if I make a second death star? It's the exact same thing.

Aim exact thing. Yeah, he's like, fuck water. This time we're doing like a hell thing. Like fuck waters out. We're cleaning it up. You guys gave me the idea because it's good shit. I'm going to fucking shlurp everybody's shit off. Like, you know, it's just like the same shit, though.

It's exactly the same shit. And it's still like even even though I know there was a lot of religious shit happening, it's still crazy how many people pulled in. And we'll talk about that. With a doom date set, the tortures of the earth explained in a gusto to find new members recruiting officially began. Colts, usually, and when we talk about more cults in the future, which we will, you'll realize that cults thrive on a very certain subset of people.

And as I kind of said earlier, they're the vulnerable and the desperate. And I don't mean the desperate in like a derogatory term, just people who are at just rock bottom looking for anything to give them a hand and help them. I heard people even get suckered into like, I don't want to say suckered in, but like people get really into a religion that's not necessarily a cult or is like a very extremely, what would you call it, like aggressive version of a religion just because they're just looking for

like a rope to like climb out of their life on, basically. It's exactly that. I just want to be clear, like I don't mean vulnerable and desperate just in a negative context. It's not like you're weak, so you fell for the cult. Yeah, it's just cults thrive on those kinds of people because they pretend that they can provide answers and closure. However, the movement was slightly unique.

I say slightly because it's not the cult. It's not the only cult that's accomplished this. But yes, while it's it had its fair share of vulnerable and desperate people. It was also made up of exploited poor, extremely rich, as well as well off Ugandan politicians. So this cult had a giant smorgasbord of people across the spectrum. Another many people. Are we talking?

We don't have specific numbers, but in the early days, somewhere around 50, 50, 60, probably 50 to 60. And they got a thousand kills, 10 years from this point on. Yes, like we were just in the early, early days of the cult at this point. Moreover, they are particularly targeted, those beset by AIDS and by the movement with a promise that was almost too good for them to ignore. If you had AIDS and joined the movement, then you were made two promises.

One, guess what? God's going to fucking heal you. Congratulations, you are going to be healed of AIDS. But two, if you joined and had AIDS, repented, but died anyway. Well, don't worry that God didn't get around to healing you because since you joined and you repented, you get a ticket that goes right to heaven. No purgatory or judgment or any of that nonsense. God forgot to heal you.

So off to heaven you go. It's part of the package for the movement. This was kind of a diabolically genius move. Oh, it's a diabolical is correct. That is correct. Because as it fills seats and gets more bodies, you got to remember that this was at a time where coming forward about having AIDS was heavily looked down upon and very harshly judged.

So if you thought you even might have AIDS, but were turned too nervous or ashamed to see a medical professional joining the movement for some was the next best thing. If you thought you hadn't, but didn't and joined the movement just in case and you lived, God saved you. God healed you. And that was evidence. And if you did have AIDS and joined and died, at least you know,

you get to go right to heaven. It was evil as shit. And by all accounts, the movement was excellent at recruiting, if a little aggressive, using every single tool available to them at that time. The first people brought in were who else but initial members, friends and family from there, face to face preaching was a favorite tactic as well as pamphlets that were mailed through the post. Tape recorded messages left for people was another favorite

way they got their message out there. It should also be noted just how aggressive these recruiters ended up being more often than not bordering on harassment of those that they that they targeted for recruitment, going so far that if you were denied, they would threaten chastisements upon you endlessly. And if they were able to recruit your family, but not you, then you would likely never hear from your family again as you were immediately labeled a demon. Ready to celebrate Juneteenth, discover amazing black owned brands to enjoy

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Download the Drizly app or go to Drizly.com. That's D R I Z L Y dot com today. With the recruits happening and the occult life officially starting training needed to happen as one joins the cult, the tool that all cult leaders have is control, brainwashing, reprogramming and living to a strict schedule. Once you were recruited, you would be moved to the movement's initial headquarters and would be abandoning your own family land house. This implied that you could sell your own property.

And most of the time, the movement was the one that ended up gaining the proceeds. However, there were occasions when the movement preached Jesus's new test testament, teaching of abandoning everything and follow me, which implied that if things went poorly, then you could return to the land of your ancestors. So simply of you give up everything. If you lose it all at the very least, you have salvation. Like it was just a way to convince people to stay. I absolutely hate cons like this.

It makes me so upset because these are people like at their lowest. And they're like, I need anything to get out of where I am. Like emotionally and physically and spiritually. And these people are like, come give us everything and we'll solve that. I hate that stuff. Those are the worst people, the worst people. They are. They are the dregs. It's it's awful.

Plus, it's like the time when that when the Catholic Church, who I guess probably most of these people were Catholic, right? Yes. Oh, they all were. Like it was probably a time just based on what else was going on in the Catholic Church that time where like there was tons of fracture groups at that time, kind of roaming, like just spreading their words. And I mean, if you think about the Robert Irwin, remember when we covered Robert Irwin, his father was a fiery preacher.

Yeah. Similar idea. Remember, we had a ton of like that kind of splintered Catholic like fervor happened in the US. We just didn't have it turned anything like this until Jonestown kind of came around. Yeah, same idea. But this one just kind of got out of hand fast. Now, like most cults, technically selling your land wasn't quote unquote with mega quote quotes required, but most would do it.

Those who wouldn't usually had family members still living in the home, who are not followers of the movement. But if that wasn't the case, almost always the land was either sold and the money was given to the movement or the land was given to the movement itself for them to do with what they wanted. Now, this is also a little confusing, too, as when asked about this particular doctrine, when we when when others who kind of survived the cults were found, the answer was that the movement was huge and not all members stayed in their

properties and would only come home, only come for the courses and then end up returning back to their home. But those members still lived in their own home. So again, driving the point that not everybody gave up everything. It was just a majority of just the people who absolutely needed. Like yes, they would have if they could have, I bet. And basically, the movement just kind of had adopted this like while they tried to get people to give up their belongings, if people pushed to keep it,

they essentially just adopted of whatever is best for the situation policy. So they would not fully like kick them out of the church, because I mean, the money is too important to them for them at this point. And that's just when you join. Once you join the movement, you go you go through a training regimen to ensure that you fully understand the message of Jesus and the Virgin Mary and all the visions that all these people had that led to this one group that would be saved at the end of it all.

The movement put together the messages from the visions of the Virgin Mary and Jesus on our accorded tapes. But as the messages expanded, they changed to transcripts. New recruits would have to listen to the messages in their totality six times. The visions would usually amount to the following narrative. Since humanity had rejected the Ten Commandments and turned to Satan, and so God had decided to exterminate the world. However, the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ intervened and spoke on

humanity's behalf, and God decided to give humanity another chance after Jesus's first failed attempt, technically. However, humanity went too far by continuously breaking the Six Commandments. So God sent the AIDS crisis. Those who repented would be healed and those who repented and still succumbed to the condition would go immediately to heaven. We kind of talked about why there that was in the loopholes that kind of were built into that.

Since we continue to issue the Ten Commandments, God would send upon the world chastisements that would affect various countries such that only one fourth of the population would survive. This period would be known as the siege, the sieve, and would culminate in three days of darkness. Those who helped to restore the Ten Commandments would be spared and become the new generation. Literally exactly what happened with QAnon.

Like, yes, it's it's wild. It's almost like history just repeats itself endlessly. The days of darkness and stuff. It's like exactly the same shit. New converts, learners and students would have to attend a course on Mondays and Fridays, though this could be extended to Wednesdays and Sundays, depending on the converts availability. Now, going through lessons isn't enough to break somebody down,

but cults break you down slowly. And the rigid schedule was built to do such a thing. These courses would run from eight a.m. to four p.m., which would constitute one session. The minimum requirement covered 20 sessions for five consecutive weeks. Oh, my God. The course mainly was going over messages from the visions. So you are just stuck in these classrooms fucking every day

for five weeks over 20 sessions from eight a.m. to four p.m. Just being told the same visions over and over. Indoctrination, yeah. Over. Yep. You're just sitting there being indoctrinated. Now, the instructor was supposed to keep strict attendance and have one of the higher members pray over the graduates.

The students would kneel down in front of the higher member after they've made it through the courses who would speak words to the demons that they believe to be possessing the students. Because remember, these people have to repent first. They still have demons in them. They're like you and me. Speaking in a high voice, the leader would demand the demons leave their recruits

and return to hell for at least half of an hour. What he would take? He would do. I worded that weird. He would take a break, guys. Take a break. Only 30 minutes. It's a it's a 30. It took 30 minutes to do the ritual. Oh, I thought you meant at least I've expelled the demon for 30 minutes.

Yeah, I was another payment of twenty nine ninety nine. I can make it. We can get rid of you. Now, we don't know the exact specific actions that were taken taken during these rituals, but students would also we do know that students were also regularly beaten during this ritual. But the teaching specifies that the beating isn't at the student. But of who else?

The demon possessing them. Sorry, it's just the only way we could hit the demon is by hitting you. So I'm sorry. It's going to take a while and they would just get fucking beat. That's fucking crazy. So these people were like, yes, please hit me, hit the demon. You went. Yeah. So you were there for five weeks consecutive

eight a.m. to four p.m. Mondays, Fridays, Wednesdays and Sundays, if you could manage it all. And then at the end of graduation, you have a half an hour exorcism that involved punching, beating, slapping the shit out of you. Jesus. Wild. It's wild. Once the stage was passed, all the newly initiated would be subject to a screening exercise.

So you weren't even guaranteed in right away. Trainees would then be expected to turn in all of their possessions over to the movement as donations to ensure that nothing was possessed by the number six, six, six and therefore possessed by the devil. So then you turn, you donated everything and they basically quote unquote, quote unquote combed through it, looking for six, six, six. How do you fail the screening process? Good question. I have no fucking idea.

They're like, you kept your yo-yo, you got to go. I feel like it's less about I honestly, it's for the higher ups. I don't think it's about looking for six, six, six. It's the final step to ensure that these people are all in. This is the last of what they got. They donated to the movement for quote, quote, expect, you know, shit. And and yeah, sure. The cult member still has free will to leave at any time,

but now they have nothing. They have no no place to go home to all their possessions are donated. Whatever money they made, got donated. And they just we went through one month and one week of mind numbingly torturous indoctrination. Is that where the deaths started coming from? It's like people who didn't make it in or what's the deal? We'll talk about that when we get there.

Because again, it's one of those things where we have just enough details to know what they were doing, but not enough to really know how it all went down. Once the higher ups received word from the heavens as to whether an item was possessed that to answer your question prior. The item, if it was possessed, would be destroyed. In all cases, only water would be sprinkled over all the donations to cleanse them and things were rarely ever actually destroyed. So I'm sure they had a few like, you know, any good actor in Prover.

You know, they had to get a couple that were quote, quote, possessed to really sell it. But for the most part, all that shit was way too valuable. So they weren't going to destroy any of it. They just they needed to keep it. They were all donated. So now, boys, after all of that, you are officially now part of the movement for the restoration of the Ten Commandments.

How are you feeling? Feeling good? Feeling like you're ready to be saved by Jesus and Mary? It's like secretly already like completely out on it at this point, I would guess. Except now I'm like fucking terrified and I have no possessions. So what the fuck am I going to do? There, you know what? That's a fair point. So as the cult grew, they ended up having a total of five centers. I'm going to try and say the names, but I'll give you the location.

Centaurs. Centers, centers, centers, like home base, a center. It's your mind. Sorry, my bad. Yeah, no problem. I heard you say that and I was like, where did they come from? When did they become part of the Lord? Centaurs, Jesse would leave. He would put his phone down.

If you said that Centaurs, I'd be like, all right, thanks, I need to know what's going on over there. Pixar kept them in the labyrinth with the Minotaur and the Cyclops. Yeah, as they grew, as the cult grew over the years, they would have to end up with five centers, five places. Centaurs. Centaurs. So they would just as those are like indoctrination centers, basically. Doctrination centers where they would worship, where they would pray,

where they would gather and do group activities, where some people lived. Because remember, they gave up their lands and stuff. It each one was varying size. And they just put them back to work on their land or whatever for. Yeah, we're going to get into the day to day after we talk about the centers just to talk about the name, the centers themselves. So the first was Igabiro Ria Maria, which which was meant Mary's Place of Giving.

And this was at Rugazi Banyaru Guru. I am I am so sorry. I am so white. The second one was Isha Yiriro Ria Maria, which meant Mary's Place of Surrender and Confession. And that was in Canunga Itakiro Ria Maria, which was Mary's Place of Rescue near Mituma. There was in Bumbrio Ria Maria, Mary's Place of Molding, M-O-U-L-D-I-N-G.

This was specifically Joseph Kibwerte's home. And then the fifth, but this one took a while and was a later, the latest one of the later ones, Igabiro Ria Maria became the main center. Rather, this was later in their timeline. The very first one that we talked about, it became the main center for the whole cult as the years went on. Why it became the main center, we don't really know. Reasons are varied.

The movement we know at the time of its changing, it was having financial distresses. The residence was a modern building with crops and fields, as well as a nearby tract of land, which was also valuable for people who getting all the people to live there. And this residence was also the home of Credonia, which may be the main reason that it became the main center. Now, the day-to-day life of a member of the movement of the restoration

of the Ten Commandments was very rigid, we'll say. We'll start with their daily activities. One, Joseph Kibwerte received a vision explaining how the members of the movements should divide their days. So at this point, Joseph's bought in. It did not take him long after Credonia kind of joined him for him to be all in. And then soon he was having visions about how the cult should be ran. And so he, through his visions, was able to dictate their days.

Four sevenths, four sevenths of the day should be devoted to prayer. Four sevenths of the day. Yes, which is roughly 13.7 hours of every day should be devoted to prayer. How many waking hours is like, do they have in a day? That's crazy. Dude, this is again, this keeps a cult hired, unable to resist mentally and emotionally. If you're so strict and so rigid, you don't have the energy to push back.

Even if you realize at some point, the kind of shit that you're in, because it's all you know, it's all you have, the cult becomes your family. One seventh of the day should be devoted to rest, roughly 3.42 hours. That's all you get for rest, three and a half fucking hours a day. All you get, that's like me. And the other two seventh of the day should be devoted to other activities like work, which is the rest of the day, 6.84 hours. If you've been doing the math daily life in daily life for these members

as they lived in the movement, speaking was entirely discouraged, except for prayer, settling disputes or their very, very rare visitor. This was due to the potential according to the laws and the rules of the cult. This was due to the potential of breaching the eighth commandment. Thou shalt not tell lies. If you speak, then you are more readily able to speak lies. Therefore, speaking should only be done when necessary. What the hell?

Yeah, man, it's fucking wild. I can't and people I can't imagine like it's like like we're saying it's not about blaming the people who got caught up in this because that's just not the way to think about it. But like it's just amazing to me to imagine being in this belief system. You know what I mean? Like it's just so wild to imagine that I hear those rules and I'm like, yeah, I'll follow those rules.

It's not. And again, it's what's frustrating, too, is like normally we have even more details than this and something like Jonestown. But because of how effectively they kept their secrets and their day to day locked and how very rare they let anybody outside of the cult ever come into their into their headquarters and compounds, we just don't know. And they fucking killed everybody who did. Speaking was discouraged, as I said, and this was due to the eighth commandment. Speaking was replaced instead by a sort of form of sign language

for daily communications and writing for permanent documentation. Visitors were rarely accepted, either turned away immediately with an excuse that the member that they wished to speak with was entirely unavailable or that the visitor would have to complete the training themselves if they wanted to speak with anyone, which, of course, was a five week investment that nobody outside of those who were already bought into the cult were going to do. It just basically no one on the outside ever got in.

As might be expected, prayer was a big part of the movement. Prayer was done in two sessions throughout the day from 3 a.m. to 8 a.m. And then from 1800 to 2200, which my military math is off 16. I don't know what's 1800 into 2200 hours. 2200 hours is 10 p.m. So 10 9 8 7 6 6 p.m. So 6 to 10.

So 3 a.m. to 8 a.m. 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Was your daily prayer sessions within the daily life of the movement every single day without exception. Prayer was also done excruciatingly slowly word by word and even some cases, according to some, syllable by syllable because the movement wanted to restore respect for the prayer. And so apparently this is how they did it by going over it super fucking slowly.

Did they do it too? Yeah, they were they led it. They led the whole thing every day. Every day there was a higher up a high priest or a high priestess, not necessarily Joseph or Crandonia. They had way too many important other things to do. But there were high priestesses and high priests that were that exist. There was a sort of ranking order.

Again, though, we unlike Joe's town, we have like actual recorded like like sermon sessions and sermons of that cult. Tons of them. We have zero of this one zero. So we don't know what it was like. It just sounds it sounds insane. In the final days of the cult, members were not even allowed to refer to each other by name.

All unmarried women became known as sisters. Unmarried men became known as brothers. Married women were aunts and married men were uncles. Old women were grandmother and old men or grandfather. That is all you were able to refer to anyone on as the as the time progressed. In the times between prayers, members would do the manual work required around the compounds to keep them up and running.

This was reserved for the newly initiated and the young sparing old members, the manual labor, at least, and allowing them more time to pray. So young people would go out and start doing work, but old people would continue to pray. It's not like you've got to go back to your residence and kick back and get extra hours of rest as an old person. You were still required to be doing dictated work by the cult, be it just prayer. Ready to celebrate Juneteenth?

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And to keep everybody isolated, the movement cultivated its own food and relied very little on food from the outside world. We know their staple foods included bananas, sweet and Irish potatoes, pumpkins, beans and corn. Additionally, pineapples and sugarcane were grown as a source of income for them. The planting of perennial crops was entirely forbidden and members were advised to plant crops that could be planted within two to five months as the generation was coming to an end and perennial plants serve no purpose.

So keep in mind, though, end of the world is still coming. So we can't do plants that are going to last too long. We got to get plants that are going to get eaten. Right, because that would make no sense. Yeah, you can. It would be great. You only need to feed your body for enough time to last. It's so fucking frustrating how close this is to like an actual

humanitarian effort, you know, like being like buy into this cooperative, like commune, do this work. You know, much about like Jonestown prior to its like massacre. It's the same thing. The People's Temple early in its years was a community focused like group of people that eventually just became worse and worse and worse. It's like the communism thing of like you write it down. It sounds great.

And then slowly, you know, humanity corrupts, power corrupts. Nuts. They also, on top of their food, manufactured their own bricks to expand housing and chops firewood for their own use and for additional income and to garner even more income for the movement. They set up a chain of groceries in some trading centers in the region. These sold products cultivated by members of the movement and included tomatoes, avocados, pineapples, sugarcane, a popular local vegetable known as the doodoo and handicrafts such as baskets, floor mats and table mats.

Due to constant pressure from non-member family members, the movement opened a school within the compound itself. So as they got bigger because kids were popping up, they ended up opening a school within their own compound. The school, of course, followed a similar structure to other schools in the area, so they could be seen as legitimate with subjects such as mathematics, English, science and social studies with a special attention paid to the 10 commandments. There were repeated allegations, however, but we don't know.

I mean, I'm going to assume it actually happened. But there were repeated allegations of abuse at the school, such as a report that Crodonia punished disobedient children by repeatedly kicking them until they were obedient. So just get them on the ground and just boot into stomach, rib, legs. Just kick them, kick them, kick them, kick them. On paper, though on paper, the school actually closed in 1998, two years before the cult met its doom.

There were actually reports of it operating well into 1999. Of course, with any cult through the day to day tortures and pressures, this is where the abuse comes in. There was physical mental abuse throughout the cult. But again, what we have to work with is kind of post evidence after the cult kind of fell apart. There were other rumors of incidents of pregnancies and births and that babies born in the centers did not live long.

But the cause of the infant's deaths remain a mystery to those who were even there don't even know. We do know, however, that babies and having children was heavily, heavily, heavily frowned upon and having any sort of relationship like that with somebody else would would cause weakness within the cult. Marriages were also not allowed to hammer home that point. And those who were married prior to joining the movement were not permitted to have sex.

They were told to wait until the formation of the new world to engage in intimate relationships for fear of bringing in painted generation. What was the date for the apocalypse? The first one was 1992. The next one would be 98. I have it written down later. And then the final one was the year 2000. They had three separate doom dates that ended up happening over the course of time.

That is how do you forget? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is again, like Alex was saying, I don't know that you could ever get like the whole point of most of religion is like, hey, if you join, here's all the awesome things you can get. And in the end, you're going to heaven, baby. And this is like, don't do anything. The world's going to end.

And then you like, that's it. It's very, it's very like medieval religion. It's like medieval. Your life sucks. And we know your life sucks. And here's the thing. Sure, you're a surf and you may live to 25. But when you die, let me tell you, there's a better place, friend.

Now, ignore that the lords and ladies of the land live in that castle over there. And they are literally living off of your hard work. You know that because in the end, let me tell you. Heaven awaits, buddy. You need to tie up and get back out there. I'm going to do the cult of a guy from from Monty Python in the Holy Grail. That guy who's like, I didn't vote for you. Like, I like that guy needs to get it.

Everybody needs to internalize that guy completely. I agree. I agree. I would join that cult. But I also get, I understand how if you are in a part of the world, that the rest of the world purposely ignores, you are suffering from, you know, a disease that during that time period, especially that part of the world, no one's trying to solve. I would be willing to reject that reality.

Yeah. Yeah. Like I can understand how you'd be like, oh, my God, this may this will help me. And it gives you some comfort that even in, if I'm not cured now, at least I'm going to heaven. It's the exact same thing. It's like, sure, I get up every day. And sure, I've had eight kids and six have died. And sure, like my job is I literally farm a field for a guy

who treats me like a pack animal. And I can understand that it's very similar to sort of medieval ages and why religion blew up during that time period. Because honestly, life for the vast majority of people sucked ass. Yes, I did. I understand. But again, the people in charge, people running this thing. I know that at some point, I'm going to say 1991 or whatever the first like fake ass end of the world thing.

At that point, they were like, oh, no, oh, we need to keep this going. Yes. And at that point, even if they believed in the beginning, even if they truly believed, I'm going to give them the credit of that. You know, they truly believed from that point on, they were just scamming at that credit. I don't think she didn't have them people. Oh, it's upsetting. I hate it. And it's it's insane.

And it's frustrating, like again, it's I've never been more blue balled by wanting to know more about how our cult operated as well and not knowing enough, but knowing just enough that we can like tell its story. Well, like Alex was saying, look at QAnon stuff. Yes, people desperately in need of answers that don't line up like the world doesn't line up to their view. Things they're seeing are confusing. They don't get it.

And then if you can come at them with answers that are simple and make sense to what they see the world as. And it's like, oh, well, the reason why all these things are happening is because like those people drink blood and they like have sex with babies. And you're like, that's that's because they're evil. I knew it. It's like they never have they never have to actually encounter those people. It's like the same thing that a lot of the racist rhetoric. You know, I can't speak on other countries, but, you know, in America,

a lot of the racist rhetoric that like drives a lot of the people that are feeling marginalized for their racism, quote unquote, or whatever, you know, who are these people that turn to these crazy ideas to as like the true new way, right? Like, yeah, because they are like living out in the middle of fucking nowhere, they have no money, they have nothing, you know, and somebody tells you, oh, those guys over there are the problem. You know what I mean? Like it's so much easier for you to be like, ah, that is the that is the thing that I'm doing wrong is like I'm I didn't

know about that, you know, if it doesn't matter if it actually changes your shit at all because you're already in the shit. So you're looking you're looking for answers again, like literally looking for salvation. One of the biggest cons ever played in, say, America, for example, is, you know, rich people like forcing poor white and poor black people against each other, like they're both equally screwed. And it's like, yeah, yeah, but at least you're not black. And they're like, yeah, yeah, exactly. That's insane.

If like it's the same thing in all major like culty things or like people trying they are so downtrodden. There's like, I'll take any answer, you know, going back to racism. It's like, oh, well, that's because they're these other dirty people that are ruining my country. And that's why I don't have my mansion. And it's like, yeah, exactly. That ain't the reason, my dog.

Like that's the and it's, you know, and you can take that to anywhere. Religion is a great example. Religion for generations, for centuries has been a place where certainly there are people who have religious beliefs and they are not like their their objective is not trying to like screw you over. But it's also the bastion of where people can sneak in and be like, it's the bad. It's the bad faith populism demagoguery that is like so close to good-natured stuff.

Like that's why it's so hard. That's why it's so hard to differentiate for people. You know, like America is so good at convincing like the government of America or certain people are really good at convincing America Americans that we're just future millionaires with one obstacle stopping us. That's the promise of capitalism. Yeah, yeah, it really is. Anyway, and you know, good to go back to the Ugandan cult tragedy

here with the movement. There's so many similarities to the to the Jones to Jonestown. It's it's like it varies. It almost to me is like the Ugandan Jonestown tragedy. There's a million. So there's a million cult cults like this is the weird thing. Oh, yes. Right. There's absolutely. You know, it's similar to Jonestown, but it's also similar to, you know, the the one that they made the documentary about recently in Portland.

The guy goes up there and he the Solar Temple one as well, which is another big one. I mean, there's recently the people in the track suits recently. Boy, am I old, but, you know, like, you know, I'm on the fight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like it's it's crazy to see how easy it is to sway someone if you bring their faith and religion and offer them something a better way out. Because again, sometimes life sucks for a lot of people, and many people find their answer in like drugs or alcohol or like all sorts of other things.

But for many, they feel like the way out is is through like religious faith. And for many people, that's very helpful. But it depends on who is, you know, delivering that service to you. And the problem is, is a lot of the time it's very easy for someone to be like, I am a religious person and to trick people because it's like, well, I have. Why would someone lie about this? They would go to hell if they lied about this. And it's like, yeah, they don't they don't believe that they don't care.

They're just trying to make some money. Yep. And that blows people's minds when they're like, but that goes against everything I believe. It's like, yes, yeah, that is correct. Yes, you got it. You got it. And they are and it for themselves. You know, if anybody if anybody who's ever trying to convince you of something is also trying to cut off your access to like the consensus

of what's true and what's false, that's that's a problem. Yeah, under. So as we as marriages were not allowed, sex not allowed. If you came into the cult or with a child or were one of the ones that had a child while within the cult and it somehow survived all those infant deaths, children would still end up being separated from their parents who were usually off working or preaching for the cult.

In fact, at the end of the day, familiar familial affection or any behavior that alluded to what they called earthly relationships was entirely forbidden. But like only as in only the aforementioned higher ups, higher up titles like high priestesses and stuff were allowed to do that. Well, of course, because that's how you control. But like more importantly, I'm not sure what the the normal day to day African access to sort of like just the Bible in general.

But even like, hmm, I'd be like point of order question. Wasn't Jesus's whole thing love? So like what we can't even like love our kids. That seems a little backwards to me. No, no, no, no, I would be a guy that kicked out. It's going to shlurp us right to hell in like two days. Get ready. You can't. But like that's it's like, wait, so OK.

So from 1991 to 1998, that's seven year period. I'm not allowed to be like, hey, sport, good job at the old soccer game today. Like I'm not allowed to do that. You can't. It's all those all belong to Satan right now. The idea is to remain as pure as possible until the end of the world happens. And then I shit. That is so your wife. Star Wars, like you're not allowed to show affection. That is exactly that's how you get Darth Vader, dog.

No, that's no shit. Garbage. I hate that. I hate all of that. Being so secluded and so to themselves, one might wonder what their attitudes toward modern medicine may have been when somebody inevitably got injured, sick or just needed. Please don't say this. I was feeling I know how it's already going to go. Please don't say this. And I don't need any more like actually they weren't a fan of vaccines.

I'm going to don't do this to me. The movement believed that the traditional medicinal practices of the area were considered satanic witchcraft and were not allowed. However, the movement claimed that they were developing an herbal remedy that could heal literally any illness that existed. Oh, OK. As long as the patient had been prayed over in the second phase of the training exercise. So the medicine did not work unless you had been prayed over

during phase two of training. Phase three is when Thanos shows up and blasts like raid mechanics. So there's no medicine like scientific health medicine. No, no, no, it was just herbal medicine that they were making. I never get anybody, dude. Where did that ever get anybody? Doctors, where did that get anybody? Yeah, no, no, where doctors are fake, fake news. There was talk of developing this this herbal remedy also into a tablet form.

But this never came to fruition, likely due to the departure of the father, Icazire, the doctor that's around the time he left and rejoined the church and like fell away and rejoined. Unlike other fringe religious beliefs, the movement was not opposed to using modern medicine, but it is unknown if members of all ranks were actually given this luxury. Did they have access to that shit? They're fucking growing their own food.

They're living on the same land they're working on. They pray 13 hours a day. The high priestesses and basically the founders of the cult, they got access to modern medicine. Well, of course they did. But everybody else, no, sir. It's just like Fox News. It's like all those fucking things.

I swear to God, the amount of people are like, don't get vaccinated, who have been vaccinated is insane. It's crazy. Yeah, it's if there's somebody on TV telling you, by the way, if you listen to Luminati and you listen to those and there's somebody on TV telling you not to get vaccinated, I put money that they have been vaccinated. It's been vaccinated, you assholes.

Yep. Tucker's been vaccinated. He has, but don't get vaccinated because then they don't have that power over you anymore. So anyway, back to talking about a cult and not Fox News. Beyond that. So different itself. I know, it's such a different thing. Illness was seen as a divine punishment

and the afflicted were to have holy water sprinkled on everything that they ate, drank and interacted with as something was clearly possessed by the devil and that was was making them ill. I'm already like my PS4 made me super sick when Beelzebub took it over. I just I just can't. Like, I don't know about the quality of water there, but I'm going to let you know if you like came to LA

and we're like, look, we can cure you. I'm going to get some water on your tap. I'm going to pray over the water and throw the water on your wound. I would be like, no, please, please, I will die. It's not that bad. It's just a little can. It's not a big deal. If you put it into a clear glass, it's tan, but it drinks OK.

Yeah. So you might the last thing you might be wondering is all these people who are in the cult, they must be absolved then, right? No, you actually still had to go through a small process to like make it fully absolved of your of your sins. What like make it through the slurping? You make it through all that stuff, but you're still not absolved until you do this at one point or another.

Every member of the movement was absolutely required to write down every single sin they ever committed in their entire life. To be absolved of these sins, you may subject you may be subject to extra prayers, long terms of fasting, or even financial fines for each line written. So basically, they like extort you at the end to 100 percent. You made various Scientology in that way. They just like blackmail you because of my ass kicked out of this thing.

So like, Jesse, your page is blank. Like, oh, yeah, I couldn't think of anything. That's crazy. Like you could think of two lines. No, I mean, like I thought about it for a while. I like, I got nothing. Looks like I'm good, right? They'd be like, you need to go.

It's so wild, dude. And literally, you got charged for each line like insane. So outside of the movement, was there any pushback? Did we see anybody try and stop them? What did it look like on the outside? And as is often the case with fringe religions, the movement fund that funded them found themselves at odds with the local churches of the area,

though it never seemed to bother members of the movement. There was also fierce opposition from non-movement family members as they were often worried for the relatives, especially for the miners that were brought in. As to be expected, the movement also received opposition from those who had already deserted the movement in its early days. Despite the various groups who opposed the movement, though, nothing was ultimately able to be done to prevent the eventual tragedy

as they were fragmented and unorganized. So there was just not enough organized pushback. To do anything about this place. And at this point, where they have hundreds of members, multiple centers that people were going to. And those who didn't oppose it usually found themselves indifferent about it. As the movement never stepped out of line enough to merit intervention because they were smart and always kept to themselves,

the government and ruling bodies remained unconcerned with what was just another seemingly harmless fringe religious sect of Roman Catholicism. That right there is the power of journalism, you know what I mean? Like if you could just if you could just automatically make a movie that like went into everybody's brains about this at the time, it would have been like people would have been against like up in arms against it. Yeah, absolutely.

Frustratingly, we don't know what the details of the final days or even years of the movement looked like. Why it fell apart for Joseph and Credonia beyond a couple of things that were obvious and were sticking out. The movement ultimately fell into a trap that literally every fucking cult in existence falls into the dude's time of this episode. Yeah, they started boning each other. And at the time of this episode, we're still alive on the earth.

The world is still here. If you haven't noticed the first end of the world date was 1992. The second after that one didn't occur and got pushed back was in 1995. And after that didn't come to fruition, a third and what would ultimately be the final date for this cult was the 31st of December in 1999. And then as 2000 was supposed to be dawning in the next day, a new year one would begin with a pure devout new generation of people. But as the apocalypse came and went,

faith began to crack and dwindle at the foundations of the movement with constant pushback of that apocalyptic date. And on the 17th of March in the year 2000, Credonia and Joseph realized that they were losing everything. Oh, God, I'm trying again. They were losing everything. People were leaving. People were demanding their money and property back.

And Credonia and Joseph didn't have it to give it back to them. Well, of course. Yeah, of course. It was spent and gone. And Credonia and Joseph didn't know what to do. Should these people get out and go to the authorities, they would surely end up in prison or worse. And so on March 17th in the year 2000, they made a decision. They made one final gathering at the congregation of Isha

Isha Yuri Ria Maria. That's the Mary's place of surrender and confession in Cananga. And they gathered all believers in the church. As the congregants believe this was one of the Virgin Mary's safe zones for repentance and believers to weather out the three days of darkness. They thought nothing of the higher ups nailing the doors shut. You wouldn't be allowed to open them anyway, because the end of the world was finally here.

The church was then, as everybody locked inside, set on fire. What, dude? Oh, were they in there? Credonia and Joseph set it on fire. They were initially, we'll talk about that in a second. In that church, five hundred and twenty nine people, including dozens of children, were burned alive and not a single one of them survived.

They racked up half their body count in one event, one event. The one doubtedly tragic. If it hadn't been for this dramatic conflagration of the church, the other tragedies that we never knew about would never have been brought to light. Now the investigators are now that people knew that this cult was obviously bad and a ton of people were fucking dead a little too late. An actual investigation was put into place and each of the centers

was heavily, heavily investigated. The movement, other movement properties were investigated by authorities and they found six additional bodies buried in the latrine of the Conflagration Church's compound. These specific corpses had marks of strangulation, stab wounds and hanging. What the fuck? At the Bureau Maria, one hundred and fifty five more bodies

were discovered in a mass grave with similar wounds and in descriptions. In the location in Bahunga, one hundred and fifty three bodies were discovered in another grave site. And from there, eighty one more bodies would be discovered at the farm of one of the high leaders, bringing the known death toll to nine hundred and twenty four people. That's so messed up. So that was each of the like probably each of the rebellions, basically.

Rebellions, people that may have died, children, kids, like anything that stepped out of line punishment would be my guess. Much like Jonestown Day and other other cults always do. Umsham Nurekio is another one, like just violent murder and punishment. Now, you might think, well, at least the leaders are dead. And initial reports assumed that the leaders had died in the fires. However, authorities now believe that Kibbuter and Credonia may still be alive and international warrants are out for both of their arrest.

No, as of 2014, the authorities received information that someone matching Joseph Kibbuter's description has been hiding in Malawi. However, we do not know if he lived or died, but it is heavily suspected they both left. But that's all the details we truly know. That is the restoration of the Ten Commandments, also known as the Ugandan cult tragedy, a cult that. Has so little known about it, but just enough to kill every one of their followers

and got away. Yes, sir. Dude, remember early on for your first two years, people got out. That's how we get some of the day to day and how we kind of learned of the day to day. But those people who survived didn't see any of the extreme punishments that happened. Nobody knows how those people died beyond the postmortem wounds that were found with the stabbings and strangulation and hangings. I mean, if they were hanging people, like that's insane. What the fuck was going on?

That's so crazy and we don't know. And I urge anybody out there who's interested and has ways of investigating this thing. Man, feel free. Like I would love to know more of the details of what fucking went down in this cult, because what we know is bananas all in just under 10 years. This all happened, the formation, the rise and fall. But that's where I got to leave you, boys. Fuck.

On this true crime-flavored episode and your very first cult episode on the Chilluminati will have so many more. Don't worry, I can't wait. I imagine I imagine the two of you had never heard of this cult before. So how did you like it? And would you would you would you step away thinking about it? Just another cult that kind of fits the mold of all. I mean, we've been kind of talking about it a little bit all the way throughout,

but I cannot cannot escape how much this reminds me of what's going on in our current political situation on a massive scale. Thanks to like media, like online media. And it's just, you know, obviously it's not as as, you know, grass roots where people are like fucking murdering each other so that they can get away cleanly just yet. But like, man, like humans are a suggestible. They have suggestible brains and it's scary.

And, you know, I just think it's important that we as rationally minded people, as wild as the things that we get into on the show sometimes are, you know, it's important to take a second and, you know, understand the impact of fucking peer reviewed facts and fucking experts and people who actually had no shit and why they know it and how they know it. And what's, you know, whether or not what you're angry about is based on fact, you know, that's that's all I can think about right now. I never need to justify my skepticism again.

Alex did it for me. I'm over here all smiles. Because really, I'm not trying to take all your fucking belongings and then murder you with a fucking banana leaf. I'm just saying you're making my job. I'm just taking a clip of you saying that every time Mathis is like, and then the aliens landed on to be like press play. Like human beings are susceptible.

I'll be like, yes, yes, go on. Look, there's there's there's bad faith and there's good faith. And if it's good faith, it's worth listening to. If it's bad faith, trash can't. Who knows, man? Maybe Mary and Jesus convinced God to save us all. Mary's back. Mary's back and Jesus is right.

Mary's CG rock graphics back. So fucking stupid. Thank you, everybody, so much for listening. We've got to go take care of a patreon minisode. But before we go to things, make sure you swing over to the eddie.com slash Luminati collection slash Luminati and get yourself a new poster T shirt. Dude, they're so sick. The posters are sick.

We ran out of Mothman posters, but pre-orders are back up. So you can get them again. We've got a new T shirt coming in the next week or two. We haven't gotten a certain day yet. It is done and ready. We're simply waiting on a pin to finish up on those. We'll be launching as a duo bundle. So take a look at that.

And we've also got something going on in October, Jesse. Don't we? Hey, if you are super hype for a spooky time in Los Angeles, California at the end of October, hello, hello, hello to Luminati pod.com and click the link there. And you can see the tickets on sale for our show, our live show. We would love it if you would come and hang out with us. That would be amazing.

And yeah, get ready. It's going to be crazy. Who knows what's going to happen. Hate the show. Pizza and alcohol. Yeah. And cool merch. Fun merch will be there. Oh, yes. And so stuff you won't find anywhere else.

It'll be worth your time for sure. Yeah. Every time we've done a show, the one time we did a live show was great. Everyone who was there loved it and I would love to do more. And so, you know, what if you like came out and hung out with us? It's like, it's October. What are you going to do with that so far away? What are you going to do? I promise I'll tweet out season.

I promise I'll tweet out some good places to go eat around the city. Yeah. LA is a great city to visit. A food wizard. As is Jesse, you both are food wizards. No, I just I'm a good food hanger. Honor Alex will be like this place is great. I'm like, OK, and I will go.

That is my that is the extent of my foodiness. I'm like, all right. Yeah, that looks I'm not usually wrong. Here's the he's not wrong. Yeah. Well, that's what will be in October 26. Go to shilluminatipod.com. You can get your tickets right there. A little link, click on it. We're off to take care of the mini so we'll see all you patrons on the other side.

Thank you guys so much for listening. We love you. And you're on dot com. So shilluminatipod. Bye bye. Anyway, me and my wife were sitting outside indulging on our porch one night, enjoying ourselves. I needed to go to the bathroom, so I stepped back inside.

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