Citation Needed - The Oneida Community

Episode Date: July 31, 2019

The Oneida Community was a perfectionist religious communal society founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848 in Oneida, New York. The community believed that Jesus had already returned in AD 70, making it possible for them to bring about Jesus's millennial kingdom themselves, and be free of sin and perfect in this world, not just in Heaven (a belief called perfectionism). The Oneida Community practiced communalism (in the sense of communal property and possessions), complex marriage, male sexual continence, and mutual criticism. There were smaller Noyesian communities in Wallingford, Connecticut; Newark, New Jersey; Putney and Cambridge, Vermont.[1] The community's original 87 members grew to 172 by February 1850, 208 by 1852, and 306 by 1878. The branches were closed in 1854 except for the Wallingford branch, which operated until devastated by a tornado in 1878. The Oneida Community dissolved in 1881, and eventually became the giant silverware company Oneida Limited.[2]

I can't believe I agreed to this. I mean, it's not, it's not his worst idea. Oh, I, that's the standard now. I guess that you're right. All right, everybody quiet, quiet. So as we discuss this week's episode is the O'Night a Silverware Company, which is run by a polyamorous fuck called So in that spirit

and to get us that sweet sweet podcast controversy money will be having our first ever Cytasia needed key party I can't Well, it sounds great. So you know actually super eager Anyway, grab this paper with a name on it. I put them all in the bowl here and that is who you will be going home to tonight. Wait, sorry Eli this doesn't work because Heath doesn't have a wife. Tatlltael, it just doesn't matter. It's okay it's okay take a piece of paper arrangements have been made.

Oh okay wait one two we have two do we have to do for you? You were out voted Cecil grab a paper. Okay and then okay one for me. Okay Tom who'd you get? I'm sorry Ela, I think you made the paper wrong because I also got heaths mom me too. I got heathsmum. I also have heathsmum. Well rules are rules. Am I right? We all said we're wrong. No that's fair. They are rules for the team. We should do. I just want to Citation Needed. The podcast where you choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts.

Because this is the internet. And that's how it works. I'm Tom and this will be a very weird dinner party. But joining me are two men whose last meal request would cause a stay of execution just to avoid the hassle of making the meal Eli and Noah. I'm sorry, but if you can't make an almond milk soy latte at 110 degrees Why do you even work in a jail? Well my backup plan is just to make them suicidal when I bitch at him for bringing the entrees too close to the appetizers. Yeah.

All right, and also joining us tonight. Two men whose sex calls very rudely had all the best toys on the top shelf. No thanks. He and Cecil. Okay. Well, apparently Tom would rather have it set up like a serial aisle with fun stuff to attract kids down low at their eye level.

And if you'd like to get top shelf sex toys, oh wait, wrong show. Sorry guys, sorry, sorry. I mean, not entirely. Yeah. All right, well, we're about to begin the show and that's good because that's why you're here. But we're only here because sometimes some of you pay us And without the generous support of our patrons he's wouldn't have been able to get those antibiotics he needed

That he needs he still needs those actually basically Guys, he's sick is gonna ride off if you don't become a patron So if you like he's sick stick around to the end of the show with that out of the way tell us Cecil What person place thing concept phenomenon or event What will we be talking about the show with that out of the way. Tell us Cecil, what person-place thing, concept, phenomenon, or event. What will we be talking about today? And we're out of money. We're out of money. Well, assuming Noah doesn't have a surprise real topic,

he's gonna unveil after this sentence. We're gonna be talking about the O'Nightest Silverware Company. Oh, for fuck's sake. And Noah, you're clear just talking about Forks, or whatever to piss me off again, and I what did I do to you? Okay, I get that Tom. I deserve that normally your instincts would be spot on I would do that, but It turns out that O'Night a silverware limited still a major player in US silverware sales started as a bizarre utopian sex cult

Okay, I'm intrigued carry on. I'm good. I'll see how that's bizarre, but go ahead It's better than a dystopopian sex cult. Okay, and Drake. Carry on, I'm good. All right, see how that's bizarre, but go ahead. It's better than a dystopian sex cult. Oh, that's... That's... Those didn't tend to last quite as long. Dystopian sex cult, you have black mirrors all of your wall. Just so you can... I'm just feeling it, you're betrothed.

Yes. All right, so before I get into the story, big shout out to patron Alice Ashton for turning the onto this subject and Being a cool chick this probably deserving of his shout out on her own Hi Alice. Hi Alice good work. Hi Alice. Don't you say hi to her? Alice is our listener get your own listener. Hi Alice guys We're on the same show. I don't know. Okay. I don't Alright, so at the risk of doing that to a backstory thing that I do every time I write an essay every time we should start off by taking The time of the program of the district. Oh my god. No, not everyone wipes every time they poop let it go

Oh my god, that's what do that super good day? Jesus Go to a hospital every time is a problem for you. All right, so one of the many things that made the United States unique upon its founding was the government's relationship with religion. And virtually every other country in the world at the time, there was either an official or de facto state religion and the exceptions tend to be like, you know,

somewhat pluralistic societies that essentially had a list of like four or five religions that you could legally belong to. Yeah, we have that here too. They're just denominations of Christianity. Right, yeah. They are. And this is real. One of those denominations of Christianity is called black. Yeah.

We have Baptists and black Baptists. It's separate but equal. And religions are made seem to think that's like woke because of the black. When they started doing it, I guess it was. All right. So in America though, we really did start off with sort of an anything goes proposition. Yes, it ended up landing on just denominations of Christianity. But for the first half century or so after America's founding, this had sort of the desired effect of minimizing religions influence on the state. When you don't give religion any special dispensation, it kind of withered on the vine, but another

inevitable result of this attitude is that religion is suddenly subject to market forces. Finally. Right, yeah. Well, religion eventually realizes, hey, we're going to have to compete to win the decreasing pool of commerce, and since religion is just Telling people shit. You can tell them whatever you want, right? 10% no way not here not now not a crazy Larry's discount Jesus. That's right here at crazy Larry's We're putting the nail in high-tiving

Here paying 10% to heaven not a discount Larry's crazy Jesus or whatever I just called it percent to heaven, not at discount Larry's crazy Jesus or whatever I just called it. You don't have to pay 10% not 9% not even 8% that's right. Here at Larry's crazy Jesus discount your soul is the only thing you'll save. So head on over to Jesus discount Larry crazy. It'll be insane. Almost exactly actually. Now the first time this comes in force is a period we refer to as the second great awakening minimum 20 minutes after the first. Yeah, in this case a little more right, but so that's actually a weird name for the first time something happened. So I should explain the first great awakening happened in the 1730s, mostly in Britain, and it actually kind of was the thing where religion started realizing that reorganizing a bit to keep up with modern morals and sensibilities,

but that was happening in Britain and British colonies, so it was being heavily limited by the state. Guys, these assholes are learning to read like a motherfucker. Do we keep the talking talking? Everybody likes the talking donkey, you're being weird. So I had another idea. I was thinking we could like repackage the racism, you know what I mean? I mean, it's 1730. I think we need to pivot with the market, keep up with the times. So slavery, right? Who's the man?

Again, almost exactly. Okay, but the second time around, there really was this was a lot of it was happening in America or almost all of it And there was nobody to come in and say okay guys that's too far. That's no longer a religion So folks start realizing hey, I can just walk out and tell him square and say I'm a prophet of God and you can join my religion today But don't answer yet. So religious evolution gets kicked into overdrive Religious evolution. It's so effective. You can't teach it anyway the ligious evolution, it's so effective, you can't teach it anyway. Folks, just walking around saying they're God, they're a prophet of God.

You know, you could argue that's literally how every religion started after that is just marked it. I'm just how you marked it for the rest of it. I'm going to argue it weekly on a different podcast. Yeah. Anyway, the key is that in the early 19th century, this should happen in all over America to one degree or another, but the epicenter is in Western New York so much so that all the fires of religious revival left the area within nickname, the burned over district.

This is the general time and place, by the way, that gives us wacky American religions like Mormonism, Seventh-Aid Ventism, and the Jehovah's Witnesses. And a far less known, fuck-tastic utopian cult called the O'Nighter community. Wait, and they end up making forks? Did someone misspeak? No. All right, so this community forking is the joke for

for was the brainchild of one John Humphrey Noyes, who, among other accomplishments, coined the terms complex marriage and free love. So I think we can all see where this is going. Oh, a very public Facebook breakup. Ha ha! Him getting me, too.

A Janice Chaplin concert. Um, happiness? I don't know how to say it. I'm not the Janice Lang. It's so sweet. All right, so Neues was was according to his Wikipedia bio a radical religious philosopher and utopian socialist That was born in 1811 and Brattleboro, Vermont as father was a minister of businessman and even served in the House of Representatives I'm not naturally dad

Hope just son would follow in his footsteps of any useful profession or failing that a minister, but none of that really did it for young Neu as whose life was ultimately guided by the desire to fuck every young woman he ever laid eyes on for the rest of his life. So, he said about creating his own religion. You hear that, Heath? You were supposed to create a religion of religion. It's not. The age doesn't matter.

And no, Heath humming to yourself in the dark for six hours It's not meditation or praying. It's just being creepy. Yeah, I almost reached it. I almost did Now I want to be super clear here because it's impossible to tell this story honestly without making noyas out to be an a Febophilic villain on a kind of him being on a febophilic villain but there's also kind of a lot to admire about the guy when he's not statutory raping though he sounds like Jeffrey Epstein's lawyers can I tell you? I know I know that's so uncomfortable they're right. Your honor you know who didn't fuck tweens? Guy named Adolf Hitler. Mark Twins, guy named Adolf Hitler. That's right.

A socialist. All right, so he helped to annoy us, helped us found one of America's first anti-slavery societies. His interpretation of Christianity was borderline humanist. He was wildly progressive on the issue of women's rights by the standards of his times, but he was also the leader of a sex call in the fountains daughter so complex character at the very least i i i hate to be pedantic character genuinely hate it

uh... in eighteen eighty about seventy years after this the data shows that the average agent consent in the united states was and what the one very very progressive state going as early as seven where very much. So statutory by modern standards is kind of what I want to see. It also sounds like Jeffrey Epstein's lawyers now.

Blackmailed is what you said. Yeah, see, so no, I actually I knew that I just given some of the shit I already have to say in this. I didn't want to be bad distinction but thank you. The patent didn't me get it. All right. So here's noise as general philosophy. According to him, Jesus had already done that whole second coming thing in a young girl.

Probably. Oh, we're talking something. We're honest. It happened back in 70 CE and apparently nobody thought to write it down or anything, but regardless, all this time Christians were spending that waiting for Jesus to come back and fix all the problems was misguided according to him. According to Noia's, Jesus already gave them all the tools they needed and from then on it was up to them to fix all the shit our species fucked up.

So not only was it possible for Christians to create heaven on earth, it was incumbent upon them. Okay, yeah, but I think it's direct what was, ooh, baby, do you know what it's worth? There. Alright, so people generally like this message, and even if they didn't, it would get stuck in your head after you heard it a few times. But by all accounts, no, yes, was a good orator and a charismatic guy. So before long, he gets an opportunity to put his philosophy into practice with what

he called the O'Nighta community. The community that self existed on a 33-acre property in upstate New York. Everyone's dead, making up lies 20 years later. You know, I fucked Janice Choplin's great, great, great, great, grandma. That happened. I end of the year. I remember. I murdered a cop with my mind. True.

All right, so the community was organized around communist principles. They all owned communal property. Everybody worked according to their abilities. And while there were a few specialized jobs that like one person might have over the entire duration of the place, like, you know, the financial advisor, whatever. Most of the jobs were unscilled and members of the community drifted in and out of them depending on, you know, wherever there was need and whatever took their fancy. Children were raised together and if the community felt like a parent and their biological child were getting too close to one another, they'd enforce

a period of separation. What are they, migrants? Oh, come on. one another, they'd enforce a period of separation. What are they, migrants? Oh, come on. It's... Oh, hey Phil, we've been meaning to ask you about your kid. Oh, yeah, he's great, isn't he? I mean, nice, a kid, so no, but I mean, really, you guys seem awfully close.

We are. He's like, little best friend. He loves all the things I tell him to like, and no matter what, he can't leave me because he'll starve and die if he does. Okay, yeah, we can go ahead and take him for a little while, kind of put some space between you. No, little season, no!

Alright, so all of this is great and everything, but mostly the O'Nighter community fucked. Noya's was a big believer that exclusive sexual relationships were detrimental to human happiness. So rule number one of the United Community was that no relationship got to be sexually exclusive. There were marriages and there were couples

that generally stayed together and lived together and everything, but sexual jealousy and exclusivity was strongly discouraged. And I'm sure he had some fancy words for I get to still fuck all the women though, because he managed to talk at least 87 people into coming along in the first year. Wait, he got 87 people to come in the first year.

No wonder people were lining up at the door. So, I'm gonna have to. Peter Popov sells water that can supposedly get you out of debt. This does not sound like a difficult sell at all Yeah, that water is not gonna help sell your house in Jersey All right, so now complex marriage wasn't the only thing that set these guys apart sex wise They also believe that kids should start fucking pretty early They had to practice a sexual mentoring whereby younger men as

young as 14 from what I can tell would be paired up with older women who are either post-menopausal or otherwise very unlikely to conceive the older women would then mentor the young boys and teach them how to fuck which seems like a great idea to me kind of I know I'm a new utilitarian but like it's horrible. It's disgusting. I should be appalled by it. I probably those terrible jam damage to the emotional

of the young boys. I agree with Noah's second thing too. Yep. If you asked a group of 14 year old boys, hey, you guys want to go fuck some middle aged women and I'll teach you how to do it. I feel like you get a lot of volunteers. You boost that bad boy up by four years.

And again, I'm 100% in. Right right because that's what we're legally allowed to say I don't know but maybe I'm the only one here but at 14 I wasn't daydreaming about a bunch of postmen apostle ladies it's just me it's just me but by the time you get to you want to fuck my hand is up I'll tell you one takes a village I work to fuck my hand. Yeah. I'll tell you one. Takes a village. I work. I work my to give the child a race. I worked myself raw to the golden girl. So that was a kid.

Thank you very much. Well, to Blanch was. Blanch was on. Be Arthur. What are you guys talking about? Good to fuck, God. I don't get no wind blanch with an on screen. You had to do, you know, to make it look in.

You go with Betty White, obviously. I got it. I got it. They're right right now. That is choice to yes Yeah, Arthur there is a correct it's like it's like running over cats and dogs. There is a correct answer I bet be Arthur's got skill though. I bet she's good at it Seems like she's I think you're right. She's lanky. You know, she probably bendy too. You know what I mean? She's doing all that all the person yoga Osteoporosis does that to bones. Alright, so now there's a darker side to all this kid fucking because young girls apparently also needed sexual mentoring from older men, okay?

But like with the older women, like there's kind of a biological excuse at least, right? Like if you want people to be able to fucking, you don't want to shit ton of unwanted pregnancies this is an option. I'm not saying it's a good option but at least you can present this as your biological excuse but when it comes to guys our age fucking 15-year-old girls way fucking order to justify Eli plus I get the impression that my theoretical group of teens getting the opportunity to fuck 40-year-olds gets way fewer raised hands when I do the gender swap. I'm just guessing he fewer hands.

Can we not? Hands. Can we? I feel like you're just trying to like throw it on to me. This is about you. Just a running bit about you. Wait, you are going to be fair, Eli. Only one person demanded we run the experiment.

Okay, and it was not he. I feel like Epstein is waving his hand, jumping up and down like horse shack from welcome. Oh, you know, this whole thing is the most uncomfortable I've ever been recording this shit. We're okay. We're spinning the heart. Sorry, let me check stuff off my bucket list.

Yeah. So there's another weird wrinkle in their sexual practices that i kind of have to talk about um they actually were pretty concerned about unwanted pregnancies because noia's was a firm believer that women couldn't achieve happiness if they couldn't choose when to get pregnant uh now apart from disqualifying him from the modern day supreme court that old shabby was presented with a problem of trying to figure out how to fuck everybody constantly without getting

impregnated. Oh, I know, I know this one. Yeah, this is a problem with at least two solutions. I can think of more than that, yeah. Is one of them about how, you know, if it's a legitimate statutory, the female body shuts it down. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Todd Aiken was way too conservative for 1847. Yeah, so you're right, actually, you're right. I thank you for giving one that's actually worse than the answer.

Put some context in there, Todd Aiken said that, not me. He's a recent, actual congressperson. But, all right, so this is where we can learn about male continents or coitus, reservitus. It sounds like a weird Harry Potter spell. I'm not sure what you mean, it's Harry Potter spell. All right, but basically it's having sex most of the way for guys, right? Oh, that's not. So that's not.

Expelling therrors. That's not. Or don't, yeah, actually. Okay, so the practice in the community, or at least the idea, anyway, was that men and women would have intercourse, but demand would refrain from ejaculating, because that's everybody's good, right? Oh, yeah. But, but apparently, Noia has suffered from the common delusion that ejaculation weakened the body and made it more susceptible to disease.

So not only were you not supposed to finish inside of her, you just weren't supposed to finish at all. Everyone was saying what? Everyone is called murder each other after the first week, right? That's what happened. Well, not quite, but I loved the way that the wiki closes this section on male continents, so I'm going to read it to you for a bit. I'm going to read it to you for a bit.

Sociologist Lawrence Foster sees hints in Noya's letters indicating masturbation and anti-social withdrawal from community life may have been issues. No way. No way. Wait, it gets better. O'Nayda's practice of male continents did not lead to impudence. And no matter what your boyfriend told you a young woman. All right well I suppose since we're on the subject of not finishing we should take a quick break for a little apropos.

Come in um Reverend Noyes uh can we speak to you? Peter Gemini of course come on come in come in. Fucking don't have fuck. Just twist it turn. I got it okay. Okay Jesus you got it. Uh boy um how could I help. Yeah sorry about that um so it's about our religion Well, he came to the right person. Yes, uh-huh. Well, I mean it's so great here on the compound

It's great. I love it. We don't have to work too much So all the all the children are taken care of and of course our society is I was talking I was talking we're doing a thing where our society is really great. Oh, yeah Okay, so what seems to be problem? Can I go can I is it okay if I go go? Thank you my turn. Yeah, so it's the It's the open marriage stuff How boys I know it's natural to get jealous but over time no no no sorry about that I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry okay then what is it it's the

it's the not finishing part yes well gentlemen I'm sorry I believe a woman must choose when she bears a child and the Bible says that Oh, okay, so now we're concerned with what the Bible says now we're concerned Sorry, I'm sorry take it easy. Okay, so it's just the the finishing You know, that's like it's like the best part My favorite part. Yes, by like a lot a lot Well, I'm sorry gentlemen. I just have to stay in firm. Yeah, us too, apparently.

Okay, well, I guess. Oh, sorry, I'm sorry, well I've got you. I ordered a microwave and a hundred bananas for the community. Those come in. Nope. Nope, haven't seen them. Okay. No. All right. See you later. Lost in the mail All right, and since fucking a banana is so far the only morally not reprehensible thing in this essay, tell us no, what are the sex craze blueball call do next?

That's well, to be clear, fucking a consenting banana. Alright, so obviously I focused on the sex stuff on the first side of the break because I desperately needed to justify spending an entire episode on a fork company, but there was a lot more to the United community than just weird fuck stuff. They were also about weird non-fuck stuff, for example. They had a practice called mutual criticism, which was where a bunch of higher ups in the community would get together and tell you why you suck. This entire cult is basically like a middle school lunch table.

Right. Yes, we're like pre-Twitter Twitter. Yeah. We're middle school lunch tables. Can I give you that? That's a good word. Sure. Yes.

Yeah, same ones I had though. No, it was meant to use social pressure to eliminate undesirable traits, but since psychological abuse doesn't have a lot of up shots, it's very unlikely that it has the desired effects. Do they try starting a podcast together? No, I should say also technically, by the way, everyone in the community was subjected to this mutual criticism, but there's a lot of indication that when it was John Neuys' turn, the criticism was mostly like, you might be too smart and seriously,

it's a little too big. Yeah, the tradition continues that Donald Trump's cabinet of sick offense too. Yeah, exactly. Also, they were eugenicists, but not in a bad way. I'm sorry, not in that bad way, but still a bad way. Apparently, they had a selective breeding program where potential parents could sign up and go before committees

that would then decide who they were going to fuck all the way to the finish on to shop. Lottery, yeah. Yeah, exactly. In all, 53 women participated in the program along with 38 men, 58 children were born of these organized unions, but there was no word on how much better they were than normal kids. Yeah, I'm guessing nurture also fuck the normal out of these kids too.

Yeah, I'm probably. Good old Uncle nurture. Everyone's doing it. Okay, and look, I know this is a hard sell after I tell you about their weird, you should fuck everybody, policies and stuff, but I want to reemphasize that in a lot of ways the United Community was more than a century ahead of the wider society in terms of women's rights. Keep in mind, this isn't time where the rest of the nation was just coming around to the

idea of women-owning property which was first legalized in the u.s. in eighteen forty four and even then just in the one state uh... the united community already allowed them an equal vote in all the community assemblies and i mean sure they were like all you know if i could vote i would vote for you to be able to come and then it was all

single issue voters yeah good good slogan there are you wetter off then you were four years ago that was a Reagan slogan are you better yeah exactly are you getting off then you were four years ago all right so the Wikipedia article describes a night as quote one of the most radical and institutional efforts to change women's roles in a proof female status in 19th century America End quote women were freed from the obligations of motherhood by the communal child rearing. They were encouraged to get pregnant When and if they wanted not when their husbands wanted how though if everyone's turning and no one's making the butter when their husbands wanted. How though if everyone's churning

and no one's making the butter, I don't know that. I don't know that. Also, they, you know, they weren't considered the property of their spouses. Okay, quick point of clarification, then whose property were they? That's the kind of thing.

Oh, so legally, they probably had to define that. And again, I know that most of this doesn't sound very impressive by today's standards, but it's still a big deal. They were allowed to wear pants, women were. Hell, they could even wear their hair sort if they wanted to. But they still got paid way less to play soccer.

I'm quite certain of that. Right. And they were way better than the men, yeah. Yeah, yeah, by any of them, I have a great measure. Now, I should point out that most of what we now consider domestic work still fell to the women. Right, they still did a wildly disproportionate amount of the cooking and the cleaning and stuff, but they were also allowed to do basically any job they wanted, including holding all

possible positions in the community religious hierarchy. When the next religion gets there, I'll let you know. Plus, the community encouraged women to seek sexual satisfaction, which again, the rest of the culture wouldn't catch on to for over a hundred years How I think three fifths of this podcast still isn't there? Um, I'm gonna say which three fifths though. Um, and it's I gotta imagine the only place in human history where female orgasms were more common than male ones Woo! Infinity to one! Go dudes! Do-do- do. Most women can't have those, it's sad. Most women can't, it's true.

No, I've been told a bunch like a bunch of them, they can't have them, it's sad. It's true. It's cool, man. Okay, so he created a society of short haired pants wearing socially liberated women who all get to come whenever they want, while the dudes have to hold it in until they burst like seamen filled water balloons. This guy just invented a lesbian filter for his life. That's

all these things. Yep. Alright, so needless to say, their Christian neighbors didn't think much of them. But from everything I can find, they almost always hated them for entirely the wrong reasons, right? Like the criticisms were way less likely to follow in the lines of, wow, there's a bunch of 40-year-old men in their rape and 15-year-old girls, and way more likely to be about the sinfulness of bloomers. But once in a while, they did hit upon some pretty valid concerns. Turns out, Christians still don't like women and orgasms in the same sentence. No, no. That's... They don't like women and sentences in the same sentence. Alright, so that brings us to the story of Trifina Hubbard.

So Trifina was a young woman who took to the teachings of Noya's early and became the first local resident to convert to his religious movement and join the O'Nighter community. As you can imagine, that scared the hell out of the community, right? It's one thing when the weird sex cult moves in across town and keeps to themselves it's another thing when suddenly your kid might join them. Yeah that's terrifying for bigots in upstate New York. Right, yes. It's like black people moving in but your kid can actually like become black so it's

even scared. I don't think this is a very tough sell for her. It's like um Would you like to hear the good news? Is it about Jesus? Nope, it's about your clip. I mean All right, so Trayfina's dad freaks the fuck out and he has the most bullshit old time You're just making this shit up, maybe you can imagine his name was Noah Dayam. I mean, so ridiculous, that spell check is certain, I'm just fucking with it. Or spell check, like the rest of us thinks you're doing a terrible job of covering up

that this is your origin story. I can't really do it. Elish, right, I'm 185 years old, I look good for this days. Now, you can, you can't really piece all this together from 170 years later, obviously, but the way that looks is trifina went into this thing with a mental illness. But her parents would argue to the court successfully that she was turned insane by the cult on account of all their weird fucking and whatnot.

And to be fair, there's probably some truth to that. Yeah. Fuck the brains out. She came like crazy. Oh, she's... Wait, look, if nothing else, though, the coast practices that was exacerbated her illness and all indications are that the way that they discouraged her for expressing sound illness was by her husband physically

abusing her. Right? So yeah, right. No. So a couple years later, she, after she had joined the cult, she was shown unmistakable signs of mental illness She's crying all night. She's speaking in coherently. She's wandering absolutely. Okay. Maybe she had just been watching Fox and friends Yeah, like I said, it's hard to piece together We're just responding to our husband's Cecil's abuse right but but her parents hear about this and go to see her and apparently they're appalled by the violence of her husband. No attia, sorry, I shouldn't laugh because of the story, but it's still no attia. No attia lodges the salt and battery charges on behalf of his daughter and not only does her husband get indicted, but the entire fucking community

get served arrest warrants as accessories to his crimes. Good. Man, if only we could do this with all religion-nabled violence. Yes, sure, man. But I'm pretty sure this cult would be protected by Riffra right now in 2019. Yeah. And what actually, yep. So this is known out of PR nightmare for the cult, among a lot of other things, and they

never regain the goodwill of the nearby community. The population had swelled to some 300 from the original 87 but it stopped growing about this time and that trend would never reverse. But the real death nela of the community was sounded when John Humphrey Neuas tried to pass leadership down to his son Theodore. Theo was nowhere near the charismatic leader that his dad was plus he was an agnostic, made a material fit for a religious leader. On top of that, there was another dude who had his eyes on the throne, so the community was divided before its founder could even finish stepping down. Yeah, if I know anything about upstate New York, when the coach's shitty son is about to take the pitcher's mound,

that coach is about to get beat up by a mob. That's happening. Yeah, that's fair. But that left kind of a weird situation. See, because, look, in order to make this community self-sufficient and viable, they'd had to start a few companies. So over the years, they'd started companies making leather travel bags, weaving palm-front hats, making game traps, and, of course, making cutlery.

Now, some of those businesses had dissolved due to lack of profitability or the fact that they were weaving palm-front hats for living. In fact, they actually had more work than they could manage with just their 300 residents, so somewhere along the road, they became one of the area's largest employers. Employees with benefits. Hot, that's hot. Now you sound like Harvey Weinstein's lawyers. Yeah, that's hot. You know how employees with benefits?

Adolf Hitler, fuck, hold on. That switched around from. All right, it's good. Different point. So now, once Noia stepped down and leadership became fragmented, all the remaining members of the cult end up sitting down together and having a conversation where they realized that none of them are into this Right they're all like hey, I'm the man. Can we stop doing the thing where everybody is to fuck my wife and I don't get to come? That lasted a lot longer than I thought it would in more ways than one actually it lasted a lot longer. And at the same time we've got like you know hey I'm the women sure that but also can

we stop I don't like the part where everybody gets to fuck your way either. Can we stop the thing too where I'm not allowed to parent my kid even though the person doing it has to move their lips to read. He's shorter than they become a weird sex cult without the weird sex or the cult. So they became a farmer's market? How do you get used to farmers markets right? Everybody say what you do at a farmer's market. You guys go for it.

Fox over with it. Okay. All right. fuck silverware okay alright alright so uh... at this point they all communally owned these remaining businesses so eventually they formed a joint stock company to administer all of them they should offer close most of the businesses by nineteen fifteen but the silverware division reorganized as onite a silverware limited would continue

to manufacture in the US for 124 more years. They shut down their last factory in 2005, but they still design and market products that are made overseas. So you can still gotten by this shit. All right, and if you had to summarize what you've learned in one sentence,

I really wanna know what that sentence would be right now. No. Then I would have no issues with Mormons if they just made spoons or something. That's entirely fair. All right, no, are you ready then for the quiz? I have never been more ready, which is just as likely as a no, but this time it is a yes. All right, I'm going to go first. Noah, what would have been a much better name for the O'Nighta community? A. A lot of right answers. A lot of right answers. Here's a few.

A. The Blue Balls Oyster Cult. B. The Cult of Really Good Personality. Or C. Cultus Interruptus. Like those. All right, I'm sure the right answer will come to me Or maybe not you know what I'm just Funniest there they're all equally amazingly funny, but yes a is the correct answer All right Noah so women's rights short hair and girls and pants are cool

But what else did the oh night a community event a Spooning I'm sorry. We've done okay. Well you weren't adorable into this enough to finish the assignment and Jesus Christ You came before B I Go away see this is why you need some coitus interruptus or whatever I have a All right no with all the kitty didlin going on at the sonata community what was the favorite children's book Yeah, here we go here we go hey good night Be by curious George Hey good night. Poon B Bicarious George

Harold and the purple strap on Diary of a limpy kid Obviously, I'm in a commission the artwork on all of the he's that you get to midrids to and to check out you glad that i associate with you with this uh... but i'm going to start with i'm going to go with c uh... herald in the purple strap on because it's the first one i'm going to get drawn

and that's what i have no sadly it's the uh... he found right story dire of a little bit uh... No, sadly, it's the Heathenwright story, dire of Olympic kids. Oh, okay, alright. I don't think it would be good if I said I was gonna get that wrong, and not just because of the format. Not ever since I went to ThorHymns.com slash citation. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha and after we're done, we're gonna make hoon-joke WING! So winner announces Tom as the essayist, so that's what we're gonna do. Alright, well for Cecil, Noah, Eli, and Heath, I'm Tom, thank you for hanging out with us today, we'll be back next week, and by then I will be an expert on something else. Between now and then you can check out all our other great projects by heading over to citationpod.com

And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a perhaps so donation at patreon.com slash citation pod. Or leave us a five star review everywhere you can. Seriously, rate the show, please somewhere, do that. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media, or check the show notes, be sure to check out citationpod.com. And remember, if you're not a patron, it's because you don't like he stick.

Wait, is that? I'm trying to do the math on that. Is that good for me or bad for me? It's not clear. Hi, uh, mom? Yeah. Yeah, hey, it's Heath. Um, well, yeah, of course I'm upset. That's what I'm calling about

What what do you mean this has nothing to do with me? This is high school all over again you