Citation Needed - Aimee Semple McPherson

Episode Date: February 1, 2023

Aimee Elizabeth Semple McPherson (née Kennedy; October 9, 1890 – September 27, 1944), also known as Sister Aimee or Sister, was a Canadian Pentecostal evangelist and media celebrity in the 1920s and 1930s, famous for founding the Foursquare Church. McPherson pioneered the use of broadcast mass media for wider dissemination of both religious services and appeals for donations, using radio to draw in both additional audience and revenue with the growing appeal of popular entertainment and incorporating stage techniques into her weekly sermons at Angelus Temple, an early megachurch. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

So the wizard's name is Shazam. Right, but that's just a coincidence, right? So Shazam stands for Solomon Hercules, Atlas Zeus Achilles and Mercury, but he's named Shazam. I don't know what to tell you. Tell me why he's named Shazam. Okay, you're overthinking this.

Hard right pivot is the obvious way to go. Boring. Plus, I'm tates the short money, man. I'm telling you, I got to find Jesus. Hey, guys, guys, what are you arguing? No, okay. Thank you. Just the man we need. All right, usually when people say that something needs to be smoked. Am I smoking something? No, no, no. We were inspired by your essay this week about Amy Semple McPherson, and we got to thinking, hey, if getting rich is that easy, why don't we all just do it? Yeah, right. But the thing is, we can't decide between finding Jesus or just taking a hard-turn right politically.

Okay, first of all, hard-right and find Jesus are basically synonyms. Second of all, if you just find Jesus, there's pretty much no groupies. So, are you expecting a lot of groupies there, Mr. Klan? All right, I'd like to not rule them out, as long as I'm saying. Really hoping season liberally takes off and have to speak to any of you again. I mean treasure maps, treasure, treasure maps. We could try treasure maps. Yeah, treasure maps sounds great.

You're the godfather of my sons. Well, God's not real, Tom. Yeah. Hello and welcome, the Citation Needed podcast where we choose a subject for you to single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we are experts. Because this is the internet and that's how it works now. I'm Heath and I'll be the bunny of this made-up kidnapping and I'm joined by the dude Walter the Jesus and Brand no, what Tom sees for the life? That's just like you're a pain man. I Heath I've been called a lot of things, but never a good man.

Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Oh, shit. Nailed it. Nailed it. Oh, Jesus. Because of Jesus, exactly.

Cheers. Cheers. Ely, you're here too. What would you like to say? Philip, see more. Hoffman. There it is. Great. Great.

Wow. I hadn't considered that a long ago. All right, no, let's just get right into it. What person-place-thing concept phenomenon or event? Are we going to be talking about today? Amy Simple McPherson. Excellent. And where did you find the story of Amy Simple McPherson?

Well, so, okay. So one of the weird consequences of doing a show like the Sk atheist or cognitive dissonance is to end up knowing way more about evangelical Christianity's pantheon of historical douchebags than you ever really wanted to know. That's true. Right? Yeah.

They say, one day you're just happily living your life and the next day you're interjecting in your conversations to say, well, actually, it was Jerry Falwell, senior that freaked out about Tinky Winky being gay. That wasn't Billy Graham, right? And such is the case here. I was actually reading the memoir of our Mutual X Pastor friend Dave Warnock, and he's got this little throwaway lie where he's talking about his influences on like the style of evangelism that he liked at the time.

And he said something along the lines of, and I also really admired the work of Amy Semple McPherson, even though she staged her own kidnapping. Huh? Only evangelical Christians can not let a little thing like Fologus fraud get in the way of a shout out. I like it. No, it was reading something and he was just like, what? Pinn and that. That's like, that's like the name of our show basically. Yep. Pinn and that. Exactly. As I read, I keep a little list right next to me in case one of those moments should

arise. So immediately I wrote Amy Semple McPherson on my little list. And the more I looked into it, the more fascinated I became by her story because she's, she's fucking awful, right? She's, she's a terrible person. She did a terrible shit for a living. She faked her story because she's fucking awful. She's a terrible person. She did terrible shit for a living. She faked her own kidnapping. Then she did more terrible shit than she died.

But she was also a pioneer that broke through a lot of terrible shit glass ceilings. So it's like, you know how sometimes you'll read about a serial killer or a mass murderer and you find out that the perpetrator is a woman and some small part of you is like Good for her Right sure. Yeah, this is absolutely. This is weirdly the closest I've ever felt I don't like Yeah, I don't exactly like my line so Read about her is kind of like that because she's this thrice-married single woman radically transforming American Protestantism during the era of women's suffrage

But but she's transforming it into like what it is sure So who was Amy simple McPherson starters at the beginning Well originally she was Amy Elizabeth Kennedy born in the year 1890 in Ontario, Canada Amy Elizabeth Kennedy born in the year 1890 and Ontario, Canada. Her dad was a devout Methodist, but her mom was an active member of the Salvation Army, which was much more unapologetically churchy back then. And apparently Amy's future as a preacher was marked out early. According to the Wiki, which I should point out on front, occasionally strays into outright hagiography.

Not to be confused with hagiography, which is the study of how to say hello to Snoop Dogg. That's hey Great actually Did you have a joke to go with or do you want to yes, Andy? You got a neither I did you have a joke to go with it? Do you want to yes, Andy? You got a nether, netherless, what? What? Nether?

Netherless. Holland? What? The Hague is in the Hague. Oh, Jesus. The Hague is city. Oh, Jesus. The Hague is city.

Sure is. Yep. Okay. There you go. What's the alternative to yes and shit? Shit. It's like, or this. Or this.

So, Andy, so anyway, according to the Hague, alternative to yes and shit. It's like, or this. So anyway, according to the haggie and graphical wiki, McVerson would quote, play salvation army with classmates and preach sermons to dolls and quote, I accept the dolls never put any money into a little kettle. They were a bunch of brats. So you're brats with a Z. God, y'all work good on paper. So Aby's first brush with Bame came when she was still a kid in high school. She was

taught about the theory of evolution. And that didn't set right with her Christian upbringing because Christianity isn't true and evolution is and they like are therefore in conflict. but she didn't see it that way. She wrote a letter to a Canadian newspaper castigating the government for using taxpayer dollars to spread the heretical theory of Darwinism, the letter gained national traction and kicked off what would be a lifelong campaign against the teaching of evolution. Okay, admittedly discovering a lifelong battle against things that are true Really opens up the board You rewrite all kind of shit so she first you know that's in the No, That's interesting. Did you? Yeah. So fun fact.

So, okay. So she first married at the ripe old age of 17 to one Robert James Semple. He was a Pentecostal missionary from Ireland. She converted to Pentecostalism when she married him. And you have to keep in mind that Pentecostalism is at this point younger than she is. Like at its earliest Pentecostalism started in 1901, which was six years before she signed on, but really it started in like 1906. So she was an early adopter.

And for those of you who don't keep up with all the various flavors of American Christianity, I should point out that the main thing that distinguishes Pentecostalism from other forms of Protestantism is that they speak in tongues and they ride the round on the ground and they fall down and they do healing

and all that kind of shit. If weird Christians are looking at other Christians and saying, well, that's some weird shit. Odds are they're looking at Pentecostals, right, or some outgrowth of Pentecostals. Dumb for Protestants, yes. Yeah. Do you guys know if they sell you on getting the wiggles right away or is that like a reveal after you become a platinum member?

Do you guys know? It is, it is the latter actually. It is. Either way, you end up handling a cobra and writhing around on the floor. I feel like that's having a new way. Just like Jesus Christ did. No, he, you're thinking of being an alter boy. Yeah.

An alter boy. Oh, yeah. Snake handling means a very different thing between Protestants and Catholics, but they both do it. Yeah. So anyway, so, Aby and Robert tie the knot. They had to China to spread the good word of Jesus to the heathens there. Both of them like immediately get malaria and then Robert dies of dysentery. Okay.

See, that's the, that's why you clock the wagon and forward the bridge. Eventually you're gonna have to wait forever. Yeah. Diculous. So she was pregnant at his death and on the boat home from Hong Kong, she gives birth to her daughter, Roberta Starsempel. While she's convoressing in New York, she meets this account named Harold Stewart MacPherson. His name's a dead giveaway that she's then going to marry that guy that happens in 1912. Your later, she has a second

kid, a son that they burdened with the Muppet Test Comoniker of walls. It's time for Dissentary. It's time to shit all night. It's time to birth the Muppet on the Muppet Show tonight. Oh, I don't know how you lost that running job. See, so you were pretty close. Trashly. So, McPherson, she tries out the life of a housewife for a couple of years. She doesn't like it.

So she decides to try her hand at preaching. Oh, sorry, nobody ever just decides to try their hand at preaching. Let me give her origin story, Justice Hira, one day while recovering from a near fatal appendicitis surgery, a mysterious voice spoke to her and told her to go and preach the word of Christ. And once the voice departed, she could suddenly roll over in her bed without pain. And she knew the Lord had gifted her the power of healing. That's it. The rolling over. Seriously, that did it for her.

You know when you're in bed and you're a little uncomfortable, but you're back. I know it hurts if you roll. Yeah, God sent me to cure humanity of that skirt. It's your fucking love. That's so weird. Sorry, so Bobby, I also readjust the tongue of your shoe when it droops a little bit.

It's from God. You know, only way. Yeah. All right. But so Bobby comes home with a, she's gone. Kids are gone. Presumably there's a note that says like, you know, Jesus gave me backkilling pains, dinners in the oven.

Couple weeks later, she sends him a letter inviting him to join her on the road, which he does reportedly with the intent of dragging her back home 19 teen style, but when he sees her preaching, he's like, wow, she's really good at this. And for a time, he joins her on the road. The couple sell their house, move into their car with two kids about age four and two and head off to Griff. I mean preach. You mean Griff? I do mean Griff. You mean, Griff, I do mean Griff. Yes, it was like a nuclear. So all preaching is grifting if you ask me, but even if you're inclined to view Christianity

a bit more charitably than me, what Amy was doing was grifting. Okay, and she was, right, right, I'm talking to a potential listener, not anyone on the record here. So she was one of the early modern and faithealers, right? She pioneered a lot of the bullshit tactics that faithealers still use.

So like, you know, all the like someone in this audience whose knee was just healed and the like, you know, so what invisible and externally and measurable melody to use stuff from all that. Should you see today? I wish it was phrased that way. Right. Yeah, no kidding.

But she was doing all that shit before it was cool. She also specialized, I love this detail. So God damn much. She also specialized in interpreting glossolalia. That is that is telling people who were speaking in tongues what they just said. That's so powerful. Yeah. I don't think she could, she could fucking hear it. That's fucking outstanding. Well. Amazing. I don't think she could fucking hear it.

That's fucking outstanding. Well, you speak in tongues while I can hear in ears and I'll tell you. I will admit, I've always wondered about that part. Like, you know, speaking in tongues were real, which it most assuredly is not. Like, I do kind of hope it's just angels muttering like grocery lists and remember song lyrics and shem. Just nothing. It's just, it's the best. They've actually studied this. Everybody does the same thing and they run out of like fake noises after like seven and then they're just like, the long humming, not humming, not humming. Yeah, exactly. It's hilarious. It's, it always just devolves it at the start of bad romance by Lady Gaga.

So, okay. So for the first few years of her ministry, she's doing, uh, tent revivals, which were all the rage back then. Uh, and even though it was still really unusual for a woman to preach at the time, she was a natural performer. And by all accounts, even early on, she knew how to work an audience. One of her big innovations was to realize that all the speaking and tongues and ecstatic seizures shit that was associated with penicostalism, freaked normal people to the fuck out. So she did, she followed Cecil's advice

basically made it a platinum member thing, right? And try to keep it out of her trend revivals to the point of having like a special tent for people to go to if they wanted to go full. What? That's amazing. You never go. Oh my God.

And the extra tent have like water bottles and like orange sights. Probably, maybe anti venom. That would be good. Yeah, you do. That's a good idea. So so her husband stuck around for a bit of this. He couldn't handle standing her shadow for long.

So he went back home, filed for a divorce on the grounds of abandonment and the two were legally separated in 1918. In the same year, her traveling road show reaches Los Angeles. Now LA is a much different city 100 some odd years ago, right? But it was already a popular vacation destination, and Hollywood was already synonymous with the movies. And so generally, the tent revival type preaching has to keep moving because it's not sustainable. Like pretty soon people get bored with it, or your miraculous healing powers are called into question because they don't really work or the city's authorities just

push you out or whatever. But all of that changes when you're catering to tourists. All the people at your services are going to be gone soon anyway. So McPherson decides to settle down. Yeah, it's like laying down and opening up your mouth at the end of the grift conveyor belt and they just fall right in. Exactly. Yeah. Well, even more so than that.

So by 1923, she formally dedicates her church, the Angeles Temple, aka the Four Square Church. During its construction, she becomes one of the first preachers to make heavy use of mass media and becomes a mainstay on radio. So by the time the church opens, she's already a national celebrity. According to the wiki, within the first seven years of its operation, no idea why they measured the first seven years. But over the first seven years of its operation, the church was named over 40 million

visitors. Wow, that's a lot. It's like an endless stream of gullible religious nuts to shitting money into bad ideas. There must have been a big tent indeed, likely illuminated by a thousand points of life. Move it. Move it. Move it. Wasn't she in that temple with William Jennings Bryant and she like helped be an activist for the Scopes trial too.

Oh yes, absolutely team. Oh yes, absolutely. The worst. Yeah. So by all accounts, her sermons were bizarrely theatrical and over the top. And also she had a knack for turning potential scandals into good PR. I have a great example that demonstrates both. She gets pulled over for speeding at some point and it goes so badly for her that she gets arrested. Rich white lady pulled over for speeding. She's gonna

just get herself arrested, which strongly suggests that there was way more to it than just speeding. So, so anyway, so this makes the news presumably because she's a woman driving a car and nobody ever even heard such a thing. But give it to her status as a moral icon and literal worker of healing miracles from Jesus. This was seen as quite scandalous, but she incorporates it into her next sermon rather than run away. She titles her next sermon arrested for speeding and she starts it off by driving onto stage on a fucking motorcycle, dressed as a cop, and then holding up her hands, and her opening line is like,

stop, you're speeding to hell. I love that. Jerry Fowell, Jr. should do his next sermon, dressed as a shattered pain of glass, and be you like we don't risk your eternal soul. Now MacPherson's services were crazy popular and she was doing damn there two dozen of them a week each one with multiple placings of the collection plate. Of course. Now people came from all of the country to hear her sermons. She was basically a televangelist before there was television last passings of the collection plate, of course. Now, people came from all over the country to hear our sermons. She was basically a televangelist before there was television and this pissed off other church leaders in LA

who were outraged that she would resort to cheap theatrics to monetize the name of God slash was cutting into their take. So yeah, they also didn't like the idea of some Harlett divorcee with two kids by two different men Representing the city's Christians Right Sexism if she were a man she could have had five kids and three wives become president and the evangelical still So yeah, so these other Christian leaders were probably secretly

elated in May of 1926 when she disappeared at the beach and was presumed dead. And then they were much less secretly elated when she turned up at a Mexican border town five weeks later with a damned unlikely story to tell. All right. Well, it sounds like she's going to have a really cool sermon about eating the fuck out of Christopher walkin and almost saving Natalie Wood. I'm just gonna say Jesus Christ, but wow.

Quick break for some operaossalalia interpretation. Ah, some what? Well, y'all speak in tongues, don't you? Oh, we sure do. Mm-hmm. Hell yeah, hell yeah, we do. All right, well, the Lord has given me the gift of understanding those tongues. So let them ring out and I shall tell you what the Lord lets me hear.

Oh, I can hear it all. I can just hear it all. So you, sir, right there. Yes. You said, may the angel of the Lord protect my children. Oh, I did. You sure did. Well, how will you, and you, sir, in the overalls holding the pitchfork, are you a farmer? Well, how did you know? Well, when you spoke in tongues, you said, Are you a farmer? Well, how did you know? Well, when you spoke in tongues, you said, I am a farmer. Lord bless my crops.

Well, howdy. And of course, you good sir, kind sir. You said that you would give me $100. I did. Yep. You sure did. You said it clear as a bell. You said, Lord, I am about to give this lady $100.

Okay. I mean, are you sure about that? I said that. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Heard it. Plain as day. The Lord gave me the power to hear your tongues. Just as sure as he gave you the power to speak to them. Okay. So here's the thing about. Well, surely you don't doubt your ability to speak in tongue. Uh, no, I, no, I guess, no.

Surely you're not implying that a bunch of full grown adults are just standing around at a tax-free building yelling nonsense words in a desperate and pathetic hope that it'll stave off the knowledge that all living creatures have that from the void we come into the void and we must return. Are you? Come on Larry! Well, here's a hundred dollars. Hallelujah.

I hate McGase Sun. I hate him too. Thank you. Whoever that was. And we're back. When we left off, Amy was at the Mexican border about to start a grand old bigot tradition of telling us who's doing the raping. What happened next?

Okay. So here's what we know. On May 18th of 1926, Amy went to Venice Beach for a swim with her secretary. Soon after arriving, she was nowhere to be found. That's the normal thing to do. What was it? I guess for her, let's go swimming right that down and you're going to come with me and rat everything.

It's Cal. That's probably a California thing. Anyway, so she disappears. She's nowhere to be found. On June 23rd, five weeks later, she stumbles out of the Mexican desert across the border from Douglas, Arizona and collapses on some random couples porch. What happened to the intervening five weeks has been a mystery ever since, and everybody who knew the truth took it to their graves. So all we can do here is speculate. We might need a break. You guys gonna have to change his pants after that last line there. No, come on man. Interesting. So thank you Tom. Sorry, I was sorry. Wow, I was not there when I was the queue. Thank you.

So, Tom, so we'll start with the least likely story, which is the one that Amy told until the day she died. And incidentally, the one that motivates every goddamn breath of the Wikipedia editor who has dedicated themselves wholly and entirely and unfailingly, declaring her name by stating really questionable self-published sources to discredit anybody who would dare cast aspersions on Amy Simple McPherson's holy memory. Just because I'm on the other side of the battlefield doesn't mean I can't admire your tenacity, bro.

And you showed me citation needed tags that I had never seen before. So according to McPherson's account, she was approached by a couple on the beach who asked her to pray over their sick child. She followed them to their car where they attacked her, put a chloroform soaked cloth over her face and stuffed her in the car. She woke up sometime later, drugged and tied up in a mining shack somewhere in Mexico. A couple named Stephen Rose held her there for weeks and then she escaped.

One day, she knew it was chloroform. Did they say it? After it. They would have to say beforehand, right? You'll chloroform. You'll have chloroform. You actually, for whatever. If you ask, they have to tell you.

It's like, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. She looked, as she was passing out, she looked at the guy, solid snake. That's how she looks. He's just holding the bottle and has three X's on it. She's like, yeah, wait a minute. So she skates with both of the captors leave. And while they're away, she saws through the ropes around her ankles and wrists on the

lid of a half open can. She climbs through a window and she heads north into the desert. She walks for between 11 and 17 hours, covers a distance between 17 and 20 miles before she reaches Agua Prieta around 1 a.m. See, this is why women are such better liars than men. No dude could resist overpowering his kidnappers with his sweet karate skills, right? We would all. And I just blasted through the ropes. I flexed my dick, just threw it for over so many. At that point, that established dominance over the kidnappers,

obviously. It was really easy because of the dominance that I had established. I know a lot of different martial arts too, exactly. Yeah, I also 17 miles and 17 hours, if I were making up a story, I'd have invented better mile time than one mile an hour. Was she crawling the whole line? How do you even, it's impossible there. Hands and knees, you can't go that slow

if you're going straight up. So okay, but even beyond the romance novel silliness of the story and the extremely low pace, there were all kinds of problems with her bullshit story. Keep in mind, we're talking about June in Mexico in the desert, right? Her story is that she escaped in the morning. So she walked through the

desert in 120 degree heat. That's fucking that's 49 communist degrees for our European researchers. All day, no water. Okay. Now that that's possible, I guess, even if you're in a weakened state from being bound and underfed for over a fucking month, but like your clothes would at least all be torn up, but your shoes would be ruined. And you'd be sunburned as all fuck. She was none of those things. She comes walking out of the hood.

I speak in tongues. I hear in ears and I walk in feet. So none of that stuff affects me. None of it. Wikipedia editor somehow comments on our podcast. He's not even mentioning that her hair was messed up. Tag bias. Yes.

So much smudge on those shoes. So there was also a suspicious lack of ransom demands while she was gone. Right. This was a five week period. No, to be clear, there was a ransom note. There were actually several ransom notes, but her disappearance and the mystery surrounding it was a media sensation. And there was nothing that the cops deemed credible, right? There certainly wasn't anything like the increasingly desperate communications you would expect if somebody was going to all the risk and expensive holding her in Mexico for weeks on end.

And also, and I love this detail so fucking much. She still had her watch. But get the like the I feel kind of weird being the pedantic one at the moment, but if you're wearing a watch, how are you unsure about whether you walked 11 or 17 hours? Wearing it in your ass time. We got it. We're getting paid attention. Yeah. Now, like I said, her disappearance was already a media sensation. So you can only imagine

what her reappearance was like. The newspapers went fucking nuts, which she returned to L.A. She was greeted by a crowd of 30 to 50,000, which according to Wikipedia is, quote, a greater turnout than president Woodrow Wilson's 19 19 visit to Los Angeles. End quote. But according to Wilson, they quote, put down white boards for my crowds. It's hard to tell what my crowd was actually. But but soon after her return, the tales of her harrowing escape gave way to news stories about how unlikely, basically every detail of it was, and those gave way to stories about where she might have been and what she might have been doing instead of being kidnapped. Now, during her disappearance, there were sightings everywhere from Mexico to Canada, so the

papers could find some evidence to back up pretty much any claim. But most of the theories revolved around a guy named Kenneth Ormiston. So Ormiston was a former employee of McPherson's, and one of the many guys that the gossip columnists had romantically linked to her. And let me just say that based on what we know, Ormiston was either with McPherson through the bulk of her supposed kidnapping or with McPherson through the bulk of her kidnapping on the other side of the or okay, she was definitely and very clearly with this dude through the bulk of her supposed

kidnapping. And the lengths you have to go through as a Pena costume to get laid does not seem worth it. And what a f**k. That's because you haven't felt glossolale on your butthole, Cecil. Once you go there, yes. That's when you know. So at the same time, as McPherson was disappearing, the married Ormiston was renting a beach house for three months in Carmel by the sea for him and a woman that was not his wife

He stayed there with said woman for about a week But then when the Macberson story blew up the cops started looking for me turns himself in because you know I'm fucking person of interest in a missing person's case is super duper close to murder suspect But he turns himself in answers a bunch of questions after that He bounces around the country and stays in a bunch of undisclosed locations, hides from the media by his own fucking admission, and then pops back into the public eye around the time McPherson shows back up.

Brilliant. Yeah, right. Now for his part. Interesting. Yeah, that's the light. Now for his part, Ormiston insists that he was just cheating on his wife with a different lady, who has an identical twin for some reason, by the way. or mist and insist that he was just cheating on his wife with a different lady.

Who has an identical twin for some reason, by the way. Fuck you. Yes, in case somebody saw the way. So anyway, but he, but the point being he had nothing to do with big fearsons, disappear. Yeah. Is it twin and amnesia story? These are the days of their lives. Why is he making up extra lives for no reason?

He's just like, also, I can do a backflip. Watch. Ow! Oh, God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God, that hurt. Yeah, but by the way, that twin, Albert Einstein. No, that doesn't hurt.

Fuck, really hurt myself. So, now, and I should be clear that it wasn't just gossip columnists that were asking these questions. The city spent a lot of money looking for her and investigating her kidnapping. Guys, we gotta find that McPherson kidnapper or we got to find the guy who killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Yeah, but like during the search, like two people died while they were searching the nearby ocean for her bot. Oh, I found what? Nope. That is

Steve. Okay. So anyway, in addition to the news reporters, LA District Attorney Asa Keys had empaneled a grand jury to look into her story within days of her return, because even by then, the story was starting to fall apart. Wow, man. You lose people to drowning searching for someone who supposedly drowned. That is total sunk cost fallacy. Yeah. It is. So now what that grand jury found was was pretty damning. First of all, there was no structure within 20 miles of where she was found that fit her description of where she was being kept. And she would have been there for five weeks. So there would have been like, at least like a whole full of shit somewhere, right? The local police found tracks and footprints matching her shoes that suggested that someone drove her about two hours away from that little town after dark and let her walk in from

there. The cops she spoke to said that she was evasive when asked to describe the kidnappers in any real detail. They even found a lady who said that McPherson's people paid her to pretend to be the lady with the twin that Ormiston was fucking that whole time. Oh, so based on all of that, they charged McPherson with fraud. Kidnappers watching the news, I knew having bluish greenish brownish eyes would pay off someday. Nice.

And I cut off my toe. It's the thing. Yeah. But alas, the bear who's the fucking pedagoccal around? Yes. But alas, the witness had once spent more than zero days in a mental institution and didn't have a penis.

So the powers to be decided she wasn't credible enough and all the charges against McPherson were dropped. But in the court of public opinion she'd already been convicted A once-friendly media that routinely referred to her as the miracle worker turned against her and pretty much Everyone concluded that the entire ordeal was a combination between a trist and a publicity stunt The fact that her daughter and mother later basically disowned her over a messy fight for control of the church And a short live marriage to an actor slash musician did not help her public image. Now truth be told to me the idea that this was all a publicity stunt is almost as hard to believe as the kidnapping story, but among the many accounts from people who claim to have seen her during

her absence, there's one that I think might shed light on what really happened, okay? So a whole fuck ton of people claim to have seen her, or at least a woman who matched her basic size and shape, but was always wearing a wide hat and goggles at the house. What? Yeah, goggles. Everyone just tried that as her driving kind.

Okay, these are absurd ski goggles in my head. Okay, they're so good. Yeah, like she would look like an old school aviator or so. Yeah, like World War One aviator, yes. Yes. Right. So she's wearing swim goggles just because it's sillier with the like straps hanging down by her shoes.

Sure, yeah. Yeah. Wait, too tight. Yeah. So it's normal keeps smacking her in the face that she's moving around, kicking her in the hand. It's supposed to even burn her. I don't know why I wanted the flippers to. Why is this?

It's just, it's just, it's stupid. It's gonna burn me. You can breathe where you want. It makes sense. Stupid. You don't have to be in water. So I walked one mile an hour. These flippers are so bad.

I'm like, it's sad on them. So, but they see this woman, like, who's obviously disguising her identity at the place that Ormister rented in Carmel. And among the people who saw there was a grocery delivery boy who told the newspapers that as he was coming up to the cottage, he saw three physicians leaving. So based on his description, a lot of people suspected that the real reason she disappeared was to have an abortion. But it actually, it fits the facts really well, right?

Cause she's not gonna risk her whole fucking career to bone an ex employee, right? Very un-evangelical of her. Well, actually, yeah, now that you mentioned. Right. So, yeah. But if she was gonna fake a kidnapping, like she went into it intending to do that,

you'd think they would have put a little more effort into it Now it was it was widely reported that her appendicitis operation had rendered her infertile I'm not an expert, but I think that surgeon needs to retake anatomy Like I think there's like a big infection or whatever that came after or something I hope so He said whoopsie really loud during the operation time. So sometimes,

you swallow a camera and it goes through your appendix. Here is a serious, you're uterus from there. Is it a good sign when the patient's nose lights up that, you know, red, but okay. So, but the point is is that she could have easily like, had her from a doctor that like, the, you know, she was infer she could have easily like had her, her from a doctor that like the, you know, she was infertile and it was an almost all the time situation that she mistook for iron clad.

She gets unexpectedly pregnant. She knows that that's going to end her fucking career, right? And she ran just to have the abortion. Now, she's assured at the time she's only going to need to disappear for a day or two, but it's all back then, back then. So this shit is sloppy and back alley is all hell. Something goes wrong. She needs to hide out for weeks while she convoleses.

Then her and Ormiston desperately can cock this kidnapping story after the fact. Honey, I know you're in terrible pain from your botched back alley apportion. But you gotta admit, this is kind of funny, right? Good. You're, you know what we'll talk about it later, but you, you're screaming just so you know.

No, no, we'll pay some other lady to cut off her toe. Sorry. Sorry, you're dealing with it. So anyway, now that's how I see it. Why are we in the toe thing? It doesn't matter. So anyway, so that's how I see it, but we don't actually know the truth.

That being said, the valiant Wikipedia crusader does know the truth, dammit. And if the only way to lead readers there is by including hit pieces on the DA and assistant deputy DA that led the investigation against her in the Wikipedia article, they tried to tarnish their credibility by pointing out among other things that they drank alcohol during prohibition. then by God, that's what they're gonna do. And even though I don't agree with it, I support your mission anyway. Shining you crazy dots. Good for her, absolutely. And if you had to summarize what you've learned in one sentence, what would it be? Modern American evangelism is a fucking fractal of bullshit.

Bullshit all the way up and down. Absolutely. Are you ready for the quiz? I believe I am, sir. All right, no, I have a question for you. What's the worst part about planning your abortion kidnapping at sea? Hey, hiding from the pro lifeguard. Bees.

I'm wondering if it's a boy or a girl. It's a boy is a thing in the water. I see whether to row versus Wade. Amazing. Amazing. I think that's see whether to row versus Wade. Correct. I think we'd see whether the Rovers is weighed. Correct. All right, Noah. Amy's revivals can sure make a guy hungry. What's a favorite snack for the revival tent? A. Peter popovers. B. Billy Graham crackers. Or C. A third evangelical food pun.

crackers or see a third evangelical food pun. That's the best one. Not come up. Tom's easing is way back into the show after missing last week. You know, well, you didn't go for Peter popcorn, which streets, which strikes me as odd. So I think it's probably see a third food pun to be filled in later would distract you by not writing a third one. I did not. Two smart guys. I got it. Still got it.

All right. No, inquiring minds want to know what is the secret identity of the Wikipedia editor? You spent this essay and battled against a shmimi shmempel Schmick Pearson. B, a Mexican abortionist who was just having an off day, okay? Or C, some Pena Kostlenut bag who probably does this, so God, I'll forgive him for touching his weiner, I don't know. Oh, see his tempting, but I got, I, I'm gonna go out on the limb here. I'm gonna go with B, a Mexican abortion, just having a lot to do. No, it's C actually, it is. Yeah, I should've, sometimes it's gotta be the average.

Really? Yeah, yeah. So close, Eli, you stumped him. Good work, you're good. All right, I would like a citation needed, SA from Heath, next week. All right, I'm on the docket. All right, well for Tom, Noah, Cecil, and Eli, I'm Heath. Thank you for hanging out with us today.

We'll be back next week, and I will be an expert on something else. To me now and then, you can hear Tom and Cecil on cognitive distance. And you can hear Eli knowing myself on God Alpha Movies, Skating Atheist, Skeptocrat, and D&D Minus. And if you'd like to pass the money you owe us for never

bringing weed to the circle this whole time, you can make a per-up-soderation at patreon.com slash citation pod. You know who you are, it's most people. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, listen to past episodes, connect with us on social media, or take a look at the show notes, check out citation pod.com. I Looks dry definitely wouldn't make this one Brutal post it Hey guys, have you seen my what what you doing at the computer there guys

pornography pornography Yep, okay, well, I've told you guys you you got to lock the door, okay? It's gross. Yuck. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Flag his brown butter bars as child porn?

On it, yes.