Chilluminati Podcast - Episode 71 - Robert Irwin: Sins of the Father - Part 1

Episode Date: October 12, 2020

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Capella University is rethinking higher education. With their game-changing flex-path format, you can earn your degree on your schedule, so you can fit education seamlessly into your life. Imagine your future differently at capella.edu. Hello, hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Chilluminati Podcast, Episode 71. As always, I am one of your hosts, Mike Martin, joining my two friends and co-hosts, Alex Fasciani.

And Jesse Cox. Yo. Yo, how's it going, boyos? I mean... I can't see your face today, Jesse. It's throwing me off, dude. Well, I'm not where I normally am, but next week you'll see me and we'll be fine.

I'm here. It's not like I'm not here. That's true. You are here, dude. Um, maybe. Oh, my gosh. But your mind is not new. I can see Alex.

No, I'm the same. Yeah, you know what they say? Episode 71 is a heavenly one, get it? Most likely Episode 70 fun. Oh, it's going to be a blast. I promise, you gentlemen. And speaking of having a blast, if you're having a blast, I'll go and listen to this.

Why don't you head over to patreon.com slash chilluminati pod? Support us on Patreon. And if you do that, not only do we get to keep making the show that you love already, but also charitable chilluminats that we are. We have produced a 15 minute episode for every episode that we've done since episode like 40 or something. I don't know how many it's been a lot of episodes and it's 15 minutes to like maybe an hour.

Like sometimes it just goes and that's all they're waiting for you. We eventually put them out to everyone, of course, but you can go get them early. You can listen to as much little chilluminati extras as you want. And depending on what level you go, there's art, there's a discord. There's all kinds of great stuff. So head over to patreon.com slash chilluminati pod. I'm getting up to my 10 minutes and that's all the time I have.

So thank you guys for listening to me. All right, thank you so much. I appreciate it. That was an excellently done. And I think that particular person will be pleased by your time. That one dude is living rent free in your brain and I love it. What, dude? Well, today it is in October at the time of this recording

at the time of this going up. It is spooky season and, you know, we haven't done a true spooky true crime episode in a long time. So we're we're stepping away from the world of the weird for a couple of episodes here as we're going to be doing a two-parter because today, gentlemen, we are going to be covering the killer known as Benjamin. Oh, no. Oh, sorry, I'm sorry.

Known as Robert Irving, rather, Robert Irving was a killer from the 1930s, who was a fantastically talented artist who, honestly, we'll talk a little bit about it, but he's incredibly unique. Because I have to say, this is probably one of the few like killer esque histories that has like a cinematic quality to it. There is just the people involved in our killers. If you're going to be dramatic about it, right? Tommy Patera had that mafia flavor to him, where this guy has that

kind of tortured and sane artist flavor to him. It's it's a crazy, crazy story. And I'm excited to just dive into it with you guys. That's spicy. Or like, how would you? Or is it more like a tongue feel thing? Like, what's the flavor there? It might be a tongue feel thing.

I think you should try it. Try it that way. I don't intend to know. Well, you should for those who want to kind of read along, our main source for this episode is in a book by the by Harold Schechter called The Mad Sculptor. It's a great history and breakdown of who these people were. And honestly, there's more info than you'll ever need in this book

when it comes to this guy. So read along with it. We have a book club over the discord as well. If you want to read along over there. So let's dive in without further ado, gentlemen, on August 5th, 1907, the man that would become known by many a moniker, including the Beekman Hill maniac, the Easter Sunday Slayer and the Mad Sculptor, a man by the name of Robert Irwin was born.

He was birthed in a gospel tent during a massive religious camp meeting held in a Royal Seco Park with no doctor there to assist whatsoever. This small boy would eventually be the cause of three gruesome killings. All the while believing that eventually he would become so enlightened that he would be able to traverse both time and space at will. While simultaneously projecting his very thoughts into tangible matter before his very eyes, simply by the power of visualization. This guy smoked the same pot as the dude from last episode.

I thought you said this wasn't going to be weird. I am a number. That's what he said. And he murdered three people. I mean, yeah, it's, you know, it's it's not weird in that it's not like ghosts, you know, this guy actually existed. And he truly believed at least to some degree. Wait a minute.

Did you just make ghosts on exist, Mathis? I have, I admit that I have not seen any evidence that they exist. I'm saying, as you said, I'm like, ghost, this guy existed. Jesse, we got him, everybody. No, we can't take. No, we got to take it back. We got him. And before we continue with Jesse trying to make fun of me

and trying to prove that I don't believe in ghosts, which Jesse, I do. Thank you very much. We have to stop for a moment and say this episode is sponsored by Blue Chew. It is my greatest fear to finally have that encounter with aliens where they abduct me. I'm in the woods. They get slurped up into the sky and they want me for their hybrid breeding program and they're going to go ahead and take my very precious

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Be ready. Well, let me ask you this, Jesse, does Superman exist or not? Superman exists in the hearts of all small children looking for heroes. Just so and so too, two ghosts. All right. Great. Too shy. But but before we talk about Dear Robert Irving's atrocities and his

ultimate killings, it's more interesting to dive into how he became the monster he handed up. Is this man's name? Robert Irving or Robert Irwin Irving Irving Irving Irwin. Sorry. I don't know why I'm saying Irving. It's Irwin. I wrote Irwin too.

I don't be looking this stuff up and they're like, what is he talking about? Robert Irwin. I don't know why I want to say Irving so badly. Um, unsurprisingly, though, his childhood was wrought with bizarre upbringings and borderline abuse of parents to certain degrees. And this is also the name really quick. I'm sorry, Robert Irwin. I'm just I just got to throw it out there.

It's also the name of Steve Irwin's son. Oh, damn. So if you want to the same Irwin, maybe you want to imagine a cute little tow headed Australian Zoo Boy doing this instead of this crazy artist. You can. Wow, man. Right. Jesus Christ.

Robert Irwin was the middle child of three boys. His oldest brother, Vindalyn Bothrost Irwin, was a close religious. I was a rather time out. Would you like his name again? Family? His name was Robert, but his name was Robert Irwin. Right. But his older brother, Vindalyn Bothrost Irwin.

That dude lucked out. That's the best name that guy. No wonder Robert was a killer. He's a Harry Potter. What's the name from the world of Harry Potter? I am Vindalyn Irwin. Vindalyn is a great name. Sounds like a spicy curry.

Vindalyn was actually relatively close with his father for a while and was a religious zealot who remained close to their cult like religious father through his youth. His youngest brother, Hember Irwin. What was that? Also be Hember. Hember. P-E-M-B-E-R. Hember.

So Robert was just a muggle and everyone else was a wizard. He was a squib, so he got a he got a normal name. His dad had a boring name. We're going to talk about him in a minute, though. But yeah, his youngest brother, Pember Irwin also became an evangelist of sorts as well as as well as an author of books, including but not limited to the Antichrist Babylon and the coming of the kingdom.

OK, the great prophecies of the centuries concerning Israel and the Gentiles, as well as mystery Babylon, the great. That last one just seems like three words that he just put together. I don't know what. Yeah, he's a little low effort on the end books there. Over on on his predictions coming true was. I don't know. Because I didn't read those books.

So I could not tell you for anyone out there who wants to go look this up. I'm going to wage your zero. Yeah, I'm going to go with zero as well. I mean, you know what? Just because we're talking about, you know, like whether or not ghosts exist, I'm going to go like three percent. How about that? OK, all right, I'm into it.

We'll go with three percent. I'm going to go with zero still. That's fine. Um, however, as religiously zealous as both of his brothers were, they would both end up rotating in and out of prison in their entire lives for various felonies. None of them, however, would reach the level of serious crimes as Robert would. But most of the time when we speak about a serial killer or a murderer growing up,

we focus on their childhood and almost exclusively their childhood. And we will. But what drew me to him so much and what makes him so unique is that his father's life leading up to the birth of Robert speaks volumes as to how he was going to be raised. And in another era in another world, maybe maybe another 50 years of this man existed, I truly believe that his father may have been a rather successful cult leader. But we'll talk about that as we talk about him,

because today's episode is actually going to be very focused on the father. Their father, Benjamin Irwin, led a rather extensive and full life prior to having his three children with their mother, Mary Lee Jordan. Benjamin Irwin was born in 1854 in Missouri, and he had a normal life up until the ripe old age of nine. At nine years old, his entire family uprooted and traveled via covered wagon to the then only Nebraska territories, eventually settling down near the town of Tecumseh.

Sometimes in the year following, Ben got tired of tending cattle for his father and decided to run away from the family farm, eventually finding work at a nearby stone quarry, where he then saw what would become a very lifelong love of what he said is, quote, the power of dynamite to blow things up. The power of dynamite to blow things up. Yes. During his work at the quarry.

Maybe he's got it wrong. During his work at the quarry. It sounds like something like the guy that you're that kid who's like, I like turtles. I like the power of dynamite to blow things up. It really does. And again, this is like a 10 year old kid, 11 year old kid who ran away and then just, you know, became a quarry child. And what is that a quarry child?

It's like water. This is like 18 boy who digs up treasures. This is like 1865, 1866 at this point. I mean, not long ago, you just said Australian Zoo boy. So I feel like it's roughly the same thing. He's a boy from an Australian zoo. He dresses like a little safari man. That's really what he's like. It's a great job from a quarry.

He likes dynamite. He likes dynamite to blow shit up. He's very destructive. It's like a sapper from Warcraft. Oh my God. Oh, we're moving forward, boys. Yes, he had a great love of the power of dynamite to blow things up. He worked on the quarry for some time before moving onward.

And he was largely self-educated young man who would go on to teach in school. He eventually dabbled in local politics before moving into town proper and becoming a lawyer for eight years before eventually meeting a woman who would become his first wife, where he would have his first and only child with her. So this nine and 10 year old leaves his family farm, works on a quarry, self-educates and then becomes a teacher, a politician and then a lawyer. Man, this is all a life. This is the late 1800s.

So I imagine the bar to do any of those is excruciatingly low. But still, it's like fucking time traveling. That's like you start like my like I was talking. My grandma used to talk about living in like a tin house and like the man she lived next to got like shot through the job. By a guy who like came through and knocked on the door and he had to have his jaw wired shut like my God. And I'm like, and then and then this guy like, yeah,

this guy started working in a quarry at age 10. And then by like, and then he got to be a lawyer somehow. It's crazy wild. I would love to have watched his life like a fly on the wall. Like because it's bizarre. His life is so weird and only gets weirder. So however, however, his life being on the upswing had to eventually obviously tumble downward and by 1879.

So again, he was born in 1854. Let's do the math. He's only 25. He's by the time he's 25, he's a lawyer. That is like, look, I think how fast he had to move fast forward. So by 1879, Benjamin Irwin had sunk into a very deep depression, hating himself to such a degree that he described himself as, quote, the most wicked man in the community, end quote.

He claimed himself to be nothing more than a blackhearted sinner who lied to friends, cheated clients, quarreled constantly with neighbors and beat his wife and child in a drunken rage regularly. So just an average person in 2020. Yeah, yes. Whoa. And all this was unfortunately true. So again, all by the time he was 25, he had been a lawyer for around eight years.

What do you mean he'd been a lawyer for eight years when he was 25? That's that's what I'm saying. He was a politician in like by like 19. None of this checks out. 25 minus eight. OK, really quick. You're telling me he was a politician at. That's listen, 17 years old in 1854. And by 1879, I did do the math wrong.

No, you did not. That's that's I'm just going off the research. Well, let's let's not pretend that, you know, make it to 25 in the late 1800s is like I'm doing pretty good. I'm just blown away by this man's trajectory of his life. I'm just saying it gets weirder, which is why I was like, I need to talk about this father because it is life. Well, the way he let his life is he ended up.

What was that? Oh, I was just like, can we get some clarity because I feel like when you say he dabbled in politics, did he was he like a campaign worker? Like he posted signs maybe as far as we as far as. I was able to ascertain he was never like a congressman or anything. It came down to between him and Abe Lincoln for the presidency. Yeah, when he didn't win, he just went back and he went back to being a fucking cowboy movie villain from what it seems like.

It was just minor, like local politic garbage, like literally just said he dabbled in local politics. All right. So he probably showed up and was like, I can post signs for you, mister. Yeah, it could have been something as simple as being like that. I refuse to believe that he was like, I'm a I'm a councilman at 17. And they're like, well, what's your spirit?

So I was like, well, for the last seven years, I've been working in a quarry. And I've witnessed with my very own eyes the power of dynamite to blow things up. Have you seen dynamite? Have you seen how I can blow stuff up? Vote for me. Well, man, I'm so smart. He's got my vote.

Jesus, that black hearted man is so charming. He has my vote. So behind the scenes, all of this was true, by the way. He did get drunk regularly. He beat his child and his wife regularly. And it's lucky that there's really not much known about his first child. They didn't become a regular criminal. They didn't seem to murder anybody.

This is not right. Right. This is not Robert. This is the first wife with the only child. So do they leave or? Yes, they leave in the in the upcoming events that are about to happen. So in his deep depression and in his self loathing and desperation to save himself from himself, he did what many were doing at this time. And he threw himself full heartedly into religion.

Now, this was at a point where like religion was spreading across the country like a wildfire and different types of Christianity were like, you know, weak. Like every few months, there was a new type of Christianity that was dominating a small town or what have you. They were very kind of cult like in themselves. And it was at a meeting at the local Mount Zion Baptist Church where his soul was converted to Christ. Here, Benjamin learned of the two separate phases of experience for the believer.

First, conversion or justification phase. It was, quote, the penitent was forgiven for actual sins of commission, becoming a Christian, but retaining a residue of sin within, end quote. This is like original sin, but like sort of like after a while, like just accumulated. Like, yeah, it's like you. The first phase, like you get over to like all you got like buffing out the rest of yourself, you know, you get all that extra sin off of you. Got that. But there was a second phase or experience.

And this was known as entire sanctification, where through divine grace, quote, purified believers of this remaining inbred sin. And it gave a person perfect love of God and humanity. So it was like the full purge of all sin. You became like a perfect being on the inside. And then he blew them up with the power of God. He's not doing this yet. He just discovered this and he he found his salvation in this.

Or at least he believed he did. This is what he thought would help him not be a piece of shit. These preachers were taking the teachings of John Wesley, who was the founder of Methodism and perverting them and essentially cultifying them and Ben went in hook, line and sinker. And on Saturday, May 16th, 1891, at 11 o'clock p.m., while in his home and in his bed with his wife, Benjamin experienced the first or rather the second

of the two phases of the believer. The first was experienced when he was on Mount Zion. And God was like, bro, you're good. Oh, here's what he experienced and in detail. Why do we know this? Why do we know this? He wrote a lot of this down. Really, he wrote a lot of it down while gripped with the agony

of realization of this experience and coming to stark face to face realizations with his, quote, turpitude and vileness, as well as his, quote, inherent depravity. He began to pray so loudly that his neighbors were woken up from their slumber. He continued later, saying, quote, the floodgates of heaven were opened wide and there came into my soul a successive waves of mighty inundation of light and joy and love and father and power and glory and loyalty to God. And, quote, his wife must have been like, go to bed.

Oh, he's like 11 p.m. at night next to my wife. She's probably like this asshole. He's like, she he's praying so loud as neighbors are waking up. I just don't that. That just seems so crazy to me. This is from his. This is from his diary. Yes.

He was probably like, and then I started praying so loud that the windows burst forth and light shown from my eyeballs and everyone in 300 miles woke up from my love of the Lord. You're not necessarily all that wrong. He then goes on to claim that he, quote, melted into a flood of tears. OK, realized, quote, the Holy Ghost in his fullness had come into my soul and I was sanctified. And, quote, I'm going to just I'm going to just put this out there.

If anyone ever of a religious nature is like, I am pure and sanctified. They have lost their mind. I think the whole point of religion is like, you never will be. That's why you keep trying like, God, look out for me, please. I feel like the whole point, like the whole objective is like, by the end, you're doing pretty all right. And hopefully the good outweighs the bad. But like to live your life and be like, I am that, I believe, is also a sin.

So just put it out there. Now, it comes to knowledge later and we will talk about it a little bit later. But what's not known at this point is how in debt this man actually is. And so it's my personal belief at this point, he decided to go all in on religion because he saw a way to make money out of it. What year is this? Twenty twenty. Where?

Twenty twenty eighteen ninety one. It's all the same. Really? Yeah, twenty sixteen. Twenty twelve. You know, we can keep going back. Exactly. We can keep doing this. Is there a year you actually can stop people that label themselves as vile sinners? Are also the same people?

No, no, check it out, though. You know what? You know what year it's not going to be? Twenty twenty one. Yeah, that's the year. That's the year when everyone everyone finally stops abusing religion to make money. That's it. It's over, baby. Tomorrow. Jesus Christ, man.

Literally, honestly, though, think about it. You're in super debt, 1890s, you're poor, and you go to this thing and you're watching the preachers stand in front of hundreds of people and they people are giving their money in times like that's a huge part. I can't imagine not being like, how do I get in on this? So he has this epiphany in the middle of the night. He lets his whole neighborhood know. And from there on, he melts into a pile of tears.

And from there on, he himself became a revivalist creature. This is literally kind of like the plot of this last season of Perry Mason and HBO. Yeah, I never watched it. Yo, you should. It's great. Perry Mason. All right. So from there on, he himself became a revivalist preacher, conducting meetings all through Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma and Colorado.

In his followers words, Benjamin was seen as, quote, magnetic in personality, charismatic in delivery, able in mind, handsome in build and articulate and tongue. Through this time, he has a sort of had ascended to a sort of fame. He's an influencer. That's what you're saying, huh? He's an influencer. He is. He's become a religious influencer.

He's become a religious influencer. The truth of the matter, however, was that behind it all, he was as sinful as he was before, but his new stature now allowed him power. And that power gave him access to even more sinful things. Oh, influencers. Yes. Yes. Let me hear. Like what?

And he truly did love to indulge, as we'll continue to learn. It's crazy. There's nothing new under the sun. Everyone is still doing the same scams. This is like a hundred and the same things. A hundred years, thirty four years later. How do you say the DMs in 1895? Well, we'll get into that. This is how you really?

We will. Yeah, it's not real. There's no DMs, but like he's slept a lot of people, like all influencers slash semi cult leaders. The the he had to he had to eventually up his ante. His second experience was now years in his past and he needed something new to excite the people around him and continue to stoke the fire in which they believed. In his words, he wanted, quote, even more intimate

acquaintance with the living God, end quote. And so his soul possessed a quote or rather he possessed a quote, unspeakable soul hunger, which to me kind of sounds like a weird like final fantasy move from a boss that like soul. Yeah, it reduces all your HP to one. Some magic card. Yeah, unspeakable soul hunger. But in his search to find something to intensify not only his beliefs,

but the beliefs of his followers. He happened upon the writings of Methodist theologian, John Fletcher, who spoke of spiritual experience beyond the total sanctification, which he described as, quote, having sex with followers. Oh, no, OK, sorry. No, he actually from all accounts, it does not seem like he slept with his followers for what it's worth. But he may have.

He would have lost that if he did like he would have been like. He basically. Yeah. But whores, many. There you go. Oh. He basically beyond total sanctification, this new experience was described as, quote, the baptism of burning love.

Never mind. He's definitely banging his followers. Never mind. He's definitely in there. And on October 23rd, 1895, he experienced this third burning and wrote the following about his experience. Quote, I was in the room above me, a cross of pure, transparent fire. It was all fire.

I have been able to see that cross in the same place above me every moment from that time to this, no fire that was ever kindled in earth was half as pure, so beautiful, so divinely transparent as that in a few moments, the whole room where we were lying seemed to be all luminous with a seven fold light. And a little later, still, the very heavens were all aglow with transparent flame. The very walls of the room seemed to be on fire. Thinking that was the third experience. Dude, what?

This guy is like given this some poetic license. Yeah, he's really going ham with his experiences. For whatever reason, though, that was not enough. That wasn't enough to be his third awakening. Instead, two days later, on a train ride home, he was hit by that second wave of this third experience, writing, and this one's my favorite quote. All at once, I became conscious that I was literally on fire. This expression may seem strange on on first glance,

but I cannot express it any other way. Everything about me seemed to be on fire, actually burning, blazing, glowing. Yes, Alex, can I help you? I just just he's on a train ride home. Remember, right? He's on a train. Right. And he's literally on fire, according to him. According to him, nobody's noticing apparently. Just I find it very funny that this guy who is a preacher who's like one with the Lord,

all of his visions are him burning eternally. And I'm just like my dude, I feel like you are a way off base. And then God appeared to me and I said, Lord, is it you? And he showed me his hooven legs and his big red body. And I said, God, and he said, gotcha, bitch. And he said, yes. And he set my body on fire and the train burned down. And I melted into a puddle of tears.

Also, another another crazy question. Just while we're on this, I've been thinking about this the entire time, because every time you're like, and then the translucent cross of fire. I, you know what? Question to just everyone out there, just putting this out there. When you have visions and you see across a burning fire, one would assume that's like a heavenly sign, but wasn't the original symbol of Jesus like a fish.

So my question is, could they at some point workshop that? Like, was God like, all right, look, I want to do a fish, Jesus. This shit, it looks like some granola hippie shit. We've got to clean this up and make it across, guys. But sir, it was always a fish. No, no, times have changed. It's a cross now. Do you think they killed my son on?

OK, why don't you just get your shit together and start getting this thing going? The fish thing is stupid. It's dull, dude. It looks like a frickin kids drawing, dude. All right, what about a glass of wine? Dude, what are you trying to say, bro? What are you fucking trying to say about me? You say my son's drunk or drunk.

Is that what you're saying? Oh, my God. I don't know, man. Burning cross. He just wanted to be on fire. I think it's just a thing that he enjoyed when he discovered dynamite. I feel like it's like I was the stick of dynamite. Dude, I'm so just just wait.

It gets better. Great. So everything about me seemed to be on fire, actually burning, blazing and glowing. I felt that I was in the midst of a fiery presence. At no time in my life have I ever known or felt such unutterable bliss for five hours. I felt that I should certainly be consumed. And there I entered into an infinitely deeper and more wonderful rest than I have ever known before. This is him just like explaining that time he had sex behind like the Applebee's.

Seriously, listen to this. Oh, my God. This is what a preacher would say. I was witness to an Applebee's proposal once when I worked at Applebee's. I thought you're about to say I saw people having sex at Applebee's. I was like, was the dude on fire who proposed? Was he literally in the parking lot after dinner? Oh, man. Can you imagine? We watched him through the front window.

So he thought he was on fire for five hours. For five hours. So he got off that train like he's on fire. No, because because during that five hours at some point, he, quote, entered into an infinitely deeper and more wonderful rest than I have ever known before. I'm still heading home while he was on fire. So he was on fire on the train and then he just passed out.

He was just chilling on fire. He was vibing on the train is what he was doing. On fire. He was coming down. OK. All you see is that stuntman in my head. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Oh, my God. After this third experience, unsurprisingly,

Benjamin began to preach this in holiness, periodicals, self-published pamphlets. What? Wait. Preach what? The fire gospel? This new experience, this experience. It is so chill to be on fire, bros. Because he read about this experience, like the burning kind of like inner burning. But he took it to a level that was like literal to an extent that wasn't. And so he took this experience and then he began to preach about his experience

in holiness, periodicals, self-published pamphlets. Holiness, periodicals. That wasn't, dude. Advertise like a shameless whore. That right, Jesse. Holiness, periodicals. I love holiness, periodicals. I honestly, in the 1890s, that was popular. Like, you know, like, yeah, this is some hustle.

And of course, he had loud pen meetings that were attractions to huge throngs of believers desperate to experience this supposed blessed fire baptism. And soon, many began to claim that they truly have felt that blessed fire baptism. Here are some of the claims, quote. Some said they felt fire burning in their souls, but others claimed it as a burning in their bodies also. It was felt in their tongue, fingers, palm of the hand, feet in the side, in the arms.

The church would seem to be lighted with fire. The trees of the wood would appear as flames of fire. The landscape would seem to be baptized in the glory of fire. Why? This is so weird. This is the villain. The world burning. You're like, God, God, I love this. I'm so chill. These are the villains.

These are the villains in any Conan movie. The cold of fire. You know, the dog that's chilling in the house and he thinks it's fine. Oh, yeah, that's this guy. Yeah, yeah, that's it. And Benjamin Irwin would also continue to push to whip these people into a frenzy, getting them to eventually speak in tongues, feel this burning, see fire around them and even some of them getting, quote, the jerks.

What are those? Those are when you start twitching around on the ground because you're so on fire because you're so overwhelmed with the Holy Spirit. OK, all right. I mean, this is like LA history, too. Like, I know he's not in LA, for sure. But like they go to LA, they're in LA later on. Literally is the plot to Perry Mason.

It's like speaking in like speaking in tongues thing like sort of came to a head in LA like in the in that time. Oh, yeah, that's right. Like, yeah, I get that. I don't understand why somebody who follows Christianity or is is religious before this would ever like switch to this and be like, truly, this is the real version of what I've been. Because as I've read is just like there are there are lines in the Bible about

speaking in tongues and how God gifted everybody the ability to speak in tongues. And they think that's what's happening to them. But speaking in tongues is 100 percent not simple. But like every time I see some speaking tongues, I'm like, you this is stupid. You know, what about the freaking the snake church, too? That's a whole other thing. Here's the thing.

I kind of love the snake church. I like that's I kind of into the fire church. That's what I'm saying. It's not a great church. At least they're like, the snake will bite me, but not poison me. This they're like invisible fire is all around you. Like, um, jail me up, put on a couple of layers of clothes and we'll all walk out of church like fucking like don't like it doesn't draw me.

But if we get that drawing drawing of Alex in an astronaut suit walking out of the church, no one can see this, but he keeps doing the slow motion. Yeah, it's hilarious. OK, it's like on his arms. Dude, well, up to this point, though, but back on topic for a moment here, you can see kind of like the rise of a cult leader, right? Constantly up in the ante, building his follower base, making whipping them into a frenzy.

And it's at this point he makes another intelligent cult leader move that cult needs enemies, and now he's starting to get them. As his message begins to spread like any good cult leader, he eventually built enemies within Christianity, and they began to throw insults his way. And the one that stuck around the most was, quote, he was a mystical renegade. That's sick. I would say that's sick tomorrow. I'm going to name myself like I'm going to name myself like if I make a comic

book imprint, it's going to be mystical renegade comics. Right? Like, that's so cool. And I was like, man, that's the best insult you had. You called him a mystical renegade. That's like the same energy as that dude who's like, I'm going to say it. I don't care that you broke your elbow. It's the same energy. And through all of this, with enemies, he could point to them and claim that,

see, they're trying to stop the truth from coming out like any good conspiracy. And then enemies help sell to the most gullible. And through all of this opposition, he earned a new nickname. Benjamin Irwin was then adorned, adorned, quote, the Apostle of Fire. This is 100 percent sick. He ended his life as a fucking Dark Souls boss. He's sweet. I'm I'm signing up for the church again.

And this is he is now 31 up to the point we're about to step in. This happened over six years. The ripe old age of still younger than me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because because then starting in 1896, he began a two-yeared crusade of preaching, upping his auntie and bolstering his follower count the whole while, decrying all things tobacco, the use of slang language, wearing prideful male adornments like neckties as sins.

The use of slang language, the slang language and the adornment of neckties, prideful male adornments like neckties. Actually, his quote about neckties is, I would rather have a rattlesnake around my neck than a tie. You know, I agree with him on that statement. As well, he then continued to ban other things such as cigars, coca-cola and more. Coca-cola. Yeah, he cut out coca-cola.

That shit barely got invented and he's already banning that shit. He's banned it right up the way. That was when there was cocaine. I was going to say at the time there was actually coconut. I feel like that's a plus like if I'm in the 1800s. Yeah, but not if you're trying to convince people that they're on fire, but not like actually on fire. Are you sure?

Well, let's talk about that right now. Because at the end of that two year crusade by 1899, he had fully amped up his fiery rhetoric and introduced a brand new form of experience in baptism. He held the baptisms of dynamite, lidite, selenite and acidite, what the hell guaranteed to, quote, utterly demolish the strongholds of Satan and, quote, blast into atoms his deepest aid in most systemic plots and plans and, quote, shred your baby's body into drinkable paste and simply, quote, blow sin back to hell.

Fuck the baby's body apart with a bomb. Imagine being like, all right, children, it's Sunday. Today we're making the trip to go see the Apostle of Fire. So we can go blow sin right back to hell. I mean, at the time, isn't that a sick field trip though? And again, this does sound like a League of Legends character in these irritabilities. Yeah. Right. Can we riot?

You want to talk to us? Let's talk about this. Dynamite baptism. Blow sin back to hell with your. He truly brought the love he discovered at nine years old. And he brought it into his early 30s life. You know what? He had been a lawyer. Like men are just older boys. That's true.

I love there's a part of me that like love, like is jealous of this man's life. What a wild time to live in the late 1890s. Mathis, we still have time. We have a podcast and internationally recognized podcast. And all we need to do is have you be like the Chaluma Master. And we're in. We're in the Chaluma Master. Chaluma Master.

If we can't do Chaluma Nauts, if we can't do better than Chaluma Master, we got a master. We got a star. We got a we got a we got a we got a workshop master. We got to we got to take it to the same guy who changed the fish to the cross. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cross it up. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, a true religious marketing genius.

However, at this point, having clearly become somewhat of a danger, those within the religions begin to danger. I will blast the sin off your body with dynamite. The insults ramped up, some suggesting that the only blessing Erwin lacked was the quote blessing of common sense to him. Sick burn. I can feel it from here.

One priest was heard calling him a smelly nerdlinger. Well, unfortunately for a dear Benjamin, his rise in his rise in role as a semi cult leader was about to come to an end. In 1900, marked the year Erwin's large character and charismatic leadership tumbled to the ground. In the spring of 1900s, his followers were rocked to their very core when news broke that Erwin had been seen in Omaha drunk and smoking an enormous cigar. Literally like in a bar, chomping on a monstrous like

stoking, drinking like crazy. And that's what sinks him. Remember the good old days when people would go down for doing the exact opposite of what they said that they were all about? Right. Remember that? That would that was a wild times, almost fantasy, like in a lot of ways. Now, not only were the enemy religions getting in, but preachers within his same belief started getting in and they dubbed him,

quote, the whiskey baptized preacher and quote, still cool. That's not as cool as a mystical renegade. But I'm into the whiskey. The whiskey, it's nuts. And like he rose and fell all in under 10 years, like his rise and fall as a cult leader, all in about like eight years. And then on his 11th birthday, he had a change. And unfortunately, once the dam sprung a leak, all sorts of truths poured forth.

He was bereft of money and all of the money he was taking in from his followers could no longer be accounted for further discovering, quote, Erwin's life for many years, alternated between the pulpit and the harlot house. He would go from pulpit to wallow with harlots the rest of the night every time. And, quote, to basically collect their money and then go below it all. Instantly, go get laid, go get drunk and then go buy all kinds of shit. Um, having been dragged out in public for what he was, Benjamin would eventually confess to a life of, quote, open and gross sin.

He dropped his titles and then disappeared from the public eye for years. Now, it's during this time that I'd rather know where I'm going to quickly just kind of go over the Pentecostal movement. I don't really need to go into crazy. But basically, they saw that all of his followers were now no longer had a leader. And so what they ended up doing, basically, was coming in over the course of six years and recruiting all of his followers. And really, all they changed was the baptism of fire experience.

And they changed that to instead a baptism of speaking tongues. So no longer did it was a third experience you needing to like see fire everywhere. Instead, if you began to speak tongues and whatnot, that was that was now the new third experience. And a lot of his followers very easily converted over because there was very little difference in the two religions that he was preaching and the one that ended

up taking over. This is important for a few reasons. But six years later, after all of his followers were converted simply by changing that that new experience, Erwin then resurfaced, completely taken with this brand new version of the religion. On Christmas Day in 1906, he renounced his former beliefs in the spiritual pyrotechnics and began speaking tongues, writing the following, quote, I felt my lips and tongue and jaw being used as they had never been used before.

My vocal organs were in the hands in control of another. And the other was the divine paraclete within me. I think that's how you say that. He was beginning to speak through me in other tongues. He caused me to use words which I had never never heard or conceived of before. I was unable to speak with greater fluency than I had ever spoken in my native English. Since that time, I have been used of God in speaking many times in Chinese, Hindustani, Bengali, Arabic, and other languages unknown to me.

End quote. So that's what happened. He popped up. He was like, all right, fire's gone. I'll speak. And here's all the language I now can speak. How could you get behind this guy again? He's like, oh, no, no, the fire. That was bad. Guys, come on.

Obviously, you know, I was sinning because the fire was bullshit. But this tongue shit, dude, I'm talking, I'm talking Chinese, baby. Not only did he resurface, get rebaptized and become accepted within the religion, but he would then go on to become an Azusa Street missionary leading Pentecostal services from California to Oakland. However, the type of man and father he was underneath never truly changed. And in that six year period, not much is known of what his life was like when he disappeared and resurfaced.

However, when he reemerged, his first wife was gone and he had gotten remarried to Mary Lee Jordan and had three boys, all of whom would become criminals and one of whom would murder multiple times. Shortly after, Mary would discover that he had never divorced his first wife in secret and claimed and he then claimed to be, quote, a slave to his passions. He ran off with a younger woman, abandoning Robert Irwin and his siblings and very religious mother to raise them on her own, but not without traumatizing them a little bit first.

What? He beat them regularly, as was known. And he once again leaned on the bottle. Dude, is that a scumbag? Wow. And even after he left, he made occasional returns and on one took young Robert Irwin at no more than 10 years old to the local whorehouse to introduce him to some nice ladies, where he was left alone in a room while he and two other women went away for two hours. It wouldn't be until later on in his life that Robert understood what was

going on, but that's the kind of father Benjamin was. Jesus Christ. And from there, dear Robert was raised alone. His brothers would both be in and out of prison, but he stuck to his mother for a long time, but his mother was a slave to religion, ignoring them, keeping he once called his home nothing more than a shelter,

not truly anything else. And one of the boys always had to rotate who slept on the porch that night, as it was not big enough for them all to sleep. She gave all of her money to the church and they survived on what they could beg from from the local bakeries over the years as they grew up. Robbery, stealing and a little mugging was something that the oldest boy, Vindolin, was very used to doing. And Pember would jump in and do that in his later life as well.

Vindolin and Pember use scallywags. Use scallywags, you. But that's what we're going to leave the story for now. When we return next week, we'll explore all of Robert Irwin's life, the tragedy of what was like to be raised in a cult similar, and the brief moment he had an opportunity to leave a normal life in the moment we can see where he almost got out of it all. But instead, the zealot passions rushed through him and he believed he could

teleport and God was speaking directly to him. This is absolutely wild. Next time. Absolutely wild so far. Woo. And I am so excited to be doing another true crime episode. I hope you boys enjoyed that first episode. Absolutely insane. I can't wait to find out what the hell happens next.

You're addressing. I'm just speechless. That was I mean, I knew, of course, that was what was going to happen. Yeah, but like that man lived. A truly awful but utterly incredible life. It's very rare that a murderer or serial killer has a parent who lived that kind of bizarre life first. It's so nuts.

It's crazy. For those who like true crime, I thank you for waiting. Honestly, after Ted Bundy, I just didn't want to do any more true crime. For a while, Ted Bundy is that kind of like exhausted now of the evil, exhausting, not entertaining. This is much more flamboyant. It's also like 134 years ago and the world was different and yet still the same in a lot of ways as we've learned.

But we will continue this next week. Thank you guys so much for listening. Is there anything? Oh, thank you guys for selling out of shlorp pins. And I don't get it. And the sign posters got sold out as well. That's nuts. Thank you guys. We've got another round of pins being made.

Get your t-shirts while you can. They're not going to be they're not going to be permanent. We're going to be taking those sheet t-shirts down soon, though you will see the art in a different form. And we have a new kind of a collectible comic book cover cryptid t-shirt being developed right now. So so sick while you can. So sick. Yeah, I had no idea we sold out of all that stuff.

That's awesome. Yeah, we sold out like in a couple of weeks. So definitely, you know, grab what you can when you can. The shlorp pins will be back. And on the Patreon, this upcoming month's digital art is but based on the Nome episode. So if you love the Nome episode, if you may want to see what the three of us plus Dodger look like as gnomes jumping is a $20 tier at digital art every single every single month, and you can grab the other posters that have already

been released out there for you. We love you guys very much. Thank you guys so much for the port. We're going to go record a mini-soad and we'll be back next week. Bye, everybody. Stay fly. Files. 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. And after a few moments, I hear my wife go, Holy shit, get out here. So I quickly dash back outside. She's looking up at the sky and I look up too. And there's a perfect line of dozen lights traveling across the sky. Yeah. Dear roads, trails and rivers, you ready for some SUV action?

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