Decoding the Gurus - Keith Raniere: The Serpent and the Cognitive Fog

Episode Date: October 26, 2025

Kicking off cult season, Chris and Matt take a dip into the manipulative world of NXIVM founder and self-proclaimed 200-IQ “Vanguard,” Keith Raniere, as he talks with his then-disciple and ex-Hollywood actress, Allison Mack. Through a haze of pseudo-profound musings and decorative scholarship, Raniere sermonises on creativity, authenticity, and the human spirit, all while orchestrating a coercive sex cult built on obedience, sleep deprivation, and... volleyball.Matt and Chris lament how his wordy self-help cosmology mirrors the rhetorical habits of secular gurus: the cultivation of parasocial intimacy, the disdain for anything mainstream, and the promise of “revolutionary” insights that will reveal your true self (for a fee). From the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to “authentic soulfulness”, it’s a masterclass in generating pseudo-profound semantic fog, where love and pain blur into one transcendent teaching.By the end, you may find yourself sharing Raniere’s final revelation about what it truly means to feel… nauseated.SourcesYouTube: Keith Raniere, Ringleader of NXIVM Sex Slave Cult, Interviewed by Allison Mack, Top Cult Member

Hello and welcome to the Gooding the Gurus, the podcast, we're an anthropologist, the podcast, the psychologist, listen to some of the supposed greatest minds the world has to offer, and we try to understand what they're talking about, if they're talking about anything at all, Chris. You are, Chris, as I just said. I'm Matt Brown. That was the intro. Welcome to the show.

Was that it? Did you mention that we're like, you didn't mention our credentials at all? No, no, I didn't mention the credentials. I didn't mention the elite university you studied at. nor my H index. Did you mention my working class background at least? Everyone knows you come from the school of Hard Knocks. They can hear it in your voice, Chris.

Well, in case there's new listeners, I'm going to tell them. I'm going to tell them that you are from the school of psychology. And I have mastered dance school psychology and several older disciplines as well, including anthropology. Anthropology, sociology. You're currently in the process of mastering statistics. It's a lot from me from time to time. I've already mastered that. It's all done.

You've mastered tea tests. Yeah, that's it. So that's it. What else is there to know, Matt? No. It's all regressions all the way darn, okay? It's all regressions. My brother was a primary school teacher and it was telling me about this kind of a sad but sweet

story about this little girl who was really struggling to learn the numbers up to like one to 100. you know all of the numbers and they were sort of encouraging you know almost there you know we're almost at 100 and then we're kind of done and then after she'd got there she basically was told that there's there's an infinite amount of numbers beyond 100 and apparently the lick of betrayal on her face because now that's how I feel about you say you've must thinking that you've mastered all the statistics after planning you've you've started the journey shall we say look my I have a degree from an elite university that includes statistic courses, okay?

What's that people who are? That's very little to be out of the same. Chris, I'm an Australian. The UK has been not sending its best for a couple of hundred years. You are in a fine tradition. That's right. That's right. So I see that you're lumping me and move to the British Empire there, Matt.

But that's to be expected from someone like you. So I'll accept. that as it goes. And to be fair, I am technically within the UK, you know, whatever you think about the history there. That's the facts, Matt. That's the facts. And you know, you normally do a little thing where you say the Barney Rubble to my Fred Flintstone, the Robin to my Batman, the something to my something. I've got one for you today, Matt. How about the vector to my vanguard that you get? Maybe you don't know the deep lower, but yeah. I do know. I do know. I do know. some of the laws.

So you're a profound bullshit, Chris. There'll be, the garrometer will be glowing hot. It will. Yeah. So Kiefer in here was the vanguard. And I believe one of us second in command was Vector. So there you go.

You can be vanguard. I'll let you be vanguard. No, it's okay. You can be vanguard. No, you'd be the vector. I'll be the matrix. How about that?

Okay. Okay. That's reasonable. That's pretty good. Now, Matt, just to start, this is part of our new season. You know, we sometimes do seasons. We had tech season. We had streamers and academics season.

We had a whole bunch of seasons, right? And this season is spooky cult leader season with a new theme. So listen to this. Girls are the reason for the season. So don't listen to the leader. Come with us and fire up your ear on the turn. It's time for cold season. Get out your COVID rings.

This is cold season on the season. It's time for cold season It's time for decoding This is Cold season Chris and Matt On the DTG So

Okay, all right, well good, exciting Yeah I didn't even know we had seasons, I've forgotten But that's good We're in a season. We're in a season. Well, to be fair, to be fair, to pull back the curtain a little bit, I wanted to cover this cult leader,

and there was a couple of other cultish people like Stefan Malnew, and you wanted to do El Ron Hubbard a while back. And then I was talking with the patrons, and they said, oh, is this a new cult season? And I was like, yeah, I guess it is. So Andy was commissioned to make the theme, and now we're in a new season, okay? And it's dramatically connected

because it's Halloween. So it's all part of the, you know, unfolding mysteries of the universe. We manifested the season. Everyone's getting some insight into the very strategic deliberations that go into our programming. Yeah, that's it. But we are going to look at cult leaders

because I think this will be interesting. And part of the reason that this particular case, We're looking at Keith Reneery, who was the leader of a self-improvement cult in America called Nixium, right? And there's been a lot of documentaries about it. We're going to talk a bit and introduce it. But I mention it because I think, again, it was on the Patreon. Somebody shared the video of Alison Mack interviewing Keith Reneery. And this is when she was a kind of high-ranking member in Nixium, right?

So this is, in essence, a cult follower interviewing the cult leader before the townful of the cult, because now there is a timeful of the cult. But I recognized a lot of techniques, rhetorical styles from the sense-making content that we had just covered and various things that I've heard Eric Weinstein in all of doing. And it did interest me because the other cult leader that we've previously covered, Reverend Moon, maxed out the grometer. So it made me think that it's worth looking at, you know, most of the features that we cover in the grometer, they are negatively veiled, especially when they come together as a pattern of behavior, right?

And most of the figures that we're covering, they haven't gone on to find their own compounds and develop their own cult movements. But I do think there's a lot of parallels in what's going on. And so maybe it might be that a lot of the rhetorical stuff that we're covering, if you add additional elements, it easily veers into cultic behavior. So, yeah. Yeah, and I think the caveat that should be made in finding these points of similarity between what is really an abuse of cult and their styles of communication and our gurus is not to say. that everyone we cover who talks and sounds like this or uses the same tricks is in the process of making a cult or is necessarily setting out to abuse people like Ranieri did. But what you can't say is that there are certain common denominators, certain points of similarity,

points of overlap that do not necessarily exist with other types of discourse. Scientific discourse, for instance. So, yeah, it's good to look at it. So, now look, this Nixium cult, Chris, I was one of the people who, like, I'd heard about it. I had a vague understanding of it, but I really didn't know that much about it. So what was the cult all about? Just give us a potted history. Yeah, so it was essentially a kind of self-improvement cult.

I mean, it obviously didn't market itself as a cult, right? and it was revolved around this charismatic founder, Kiefer Neri. Kiefer Neri previously had a history in multi-level marketing and also had been involved with Scientology and so on. And investigations were built also to have a penchant for underage girls in relationships, right? So he was someone that had a kind of long history of exploitative systems and targeting vulnerable people. And then he developed with the help of another person that he met

who was a therapist and had some experience in other techniques. He developed various courses. I believe they were originally called Executive Success Programs and then they went on to rebrand under Nixim, but executive success programs were still one of the kind of courses that were being run. But there was a whole bunch of courses that came in. And like a number of cult movements, they recruited some people that had higher profiles or success. He recruited to Harris's with a lot of money who bankrolled him to the tune of hundreds of millions,

including funding his court cases and allowing him to lose lots of money on like stock market, stock market investments and a Hollywood actress Alison Mack who is the other person in this video and there were various exposies that came out over the year but eventually there was one in New York Times that revealed branding rituals for a particular group within Nixium of devoted female members where they were going through branding ceremonies and they were entering master or slave relationships. And yeah, and it was all extremely exploitative. He fled to Brazil, was arrested, and extradited back.

And when he was arrested, he was in the middle of a group orgy. He hid in the cupboard and there was a captured, taken back and has, I think, sentenced to 120 years for various crimes, including financial exploitation and fraud. but also, like, you know, all of the stuff around, like, abuse and manipulation of members. And Alison Mack is now she was also sentenced, but only into a couple of years, because she was involved in organizing the abuse of some of the women. But she was a member, so a victim and an abuser. Yeah. And the process took years.

It should be. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, when you hear about these cultures, you know, when you hear about these cults, you think, why would anybody do this? Why are they allowed themselves to be branded or whatever? Surely no one just says yes to that kind of thing. And of course, they don't at first. At first, it's all executive success and it starts off very mild and it's all very much therapeutic talk and high-minded philosophy and ethical frameworks. And like the interview we're

going to hear, this kind of stuff, it all sounds good. And then step by step, though, you get drawn further in more and more is asked of you. It becomes more totalising and then you end up in a place where basically people are being actively abused. So by the end in that inner sort of circle of women who were victims of this, they were coerceded to providing explicit photographs and damaging confessions to provide collateral, basically blackmail material. As you said, they were branded with Reneerie's own initials, I think... And Alice and Max, yes. And Alice and Max, yep, with a quarterizing pen without anesthesia.

I think you said it took hours or in a filmed kind of ceremony. They were systematically starved, subject to sleep deprivation, and also manipulated, of course, into sex with Rennieri. All of this was presented under the guise of kind of self-help, self-improvement. overcoming their limiting beliefs. Some women were confined for months. And, yeah, the collateral they'd given was used to threaten them with public humiliation, illegal consequences. And they were, of course, routinely humiliated as part of this process of indoctrination and control. So it's pretty dark stuff. Yeah. And there is also, as is often the case with, like, cult, so you mentioned

collateral and like the same with Scientology and other movements like that, basically where you disclose like private information, insecurities, not just things like, you know, going through painful initiation ceremonies or that kind of thing, but just giving up private and personal details, like that that serves to, you know, essentially give you a sunk cost into the group, right, that you can be harmed by leaving it. But also, So like most of those kind of movements, there were efforts to appear legitimate. So they sought out people that were successful and had, you know, resources. They also sort out endorsement from figures like the Dalai Lama, which they received,

which is actually quite common. There's another group in Japan that I researched before called Wagonchu. They also got an endorsement from the Dalai Lama. and Omshin Riccio had some involvement with it. So Dalai Lama tends to be like someone that various cult movements seek out, right? And it's basically interaction with mainstream religious authorities that are recognized, gives them validation.

And Kiprenneri, just to link in with some of the other stuff that we've covered in recent guru figures, did claim to have an IQ of over 200. And it was temporarily in the Guinness Book of Records. I think, in 1989 or somewhere there right. So this is an alert, high IQ individual, although his school records said that he had a GPA of like 2.2. Like that.

So, you know, this familiar pattern. Familiar pattern. Yes, we'll see a lot of residences in this episode. One thing I came across Chris is a psychologist had looked at this using Lifton's eight criteria for thought reform, right, which is basically something that, this psychiatrist developed, this framework of criteria from studying actually Chinese brainwashing of POWs during the Korean War.

Dreamwashing, Matt, not a term that us people that are interested in cult studies enjoy so much. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's the right language, I suppose. So anyway, but I won't go through them all, but there's stuff like controlling the environment, mystical manipulations, you know, demand for purity, cult of confession, secret science, sacred science, claims of absolute truth,

yeah, confessions and total psychological exposure. You know, a lot of interesting and very dark manipulative practices. And Nixium seemed to just hit all a criteria out of the ballpark, not surprisingly. So I guess you could say it is a class. classic archetypal cult in terms of exploitive cult, yes. Exploitive cult in terms of achieving total psychological control over its victims. Yes, and I think Lifton's features are useful like warning signs, right?

Where they're present, uh-oh, be careful when there's lots of them, just like when the garrometer things, right? And we'll see as we have a look at it. So one point to note in this is a conversation that was produced by Nixim, I believe, to kind of promote their approach. I can't remember if this was intended for members or non-members, but it is clear that it's presented in a public-facing way. This is like, it's a member of the group, a high-ranking member of the group asking the leader questions, right? And you can hear this from the first framing.

It was funny when I sat down yesterday to write out my questions, I was like, wow, I have a lot of questions for you. Even though I've been your student for years and I get to spend all this time with you, I feel like there's always such a wealth that I can... But when you have the opportunity to put a bright light on me and just questions. Yeah, exactly. I have to take advantage. Chris, a quick question about the timing of this interview. I don't know if you know, but how far had the cult progressed at the time of this recording, do you know?

I'm just curious as to whether or not all of the dark things we mentioned earlier were already transpiring at the time of this recording or whether they happened shortly afterwards. Oh, I don't know in exact relation to the worst practices, but I mean, right from the beginning, it was, there was a lot of exploitation going on. So whether the branding had taken place yet or not, I don't know. But I would imagine calorie control and all that kind of business was already going because that was like a long-term practice. And we also should mention, probably should mention at the very start, but there's a bunch of documentaries on this that go in some detail. The Voi is an in notably popular one with two seasons.

But if you go on Netflix or YouTube, you can find tons of documentaries or varying quality. but this is a well-documented cult movement, right? So, yes, if you find this interesting, there's an entire universe of information for you to look into. Cults are something that Netflix tends to like exploring. So there's a lot of documentary about cults. So I don't know exactly, but there definitely was a lot of abuse going on at this time period. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. So this is the introduction to it. She's got a chance to interrogate him and he's going to give some of his wisdom to everybody. Yes, and you'll hear it more in other clips, but the sense of genuine enthusiasm and admiration from Alison Mack towards Reneery is very palpable. It's almost uncomfortable to watch because it looks like someone who's really in love with the other person. and, you know, just hanging on her every word. So she looks very, very invested in him.

Like, if you didn't know the relationship, you would think, like, she's coming upon to him extremely strongly. Yeah, it's the body language is really obvious. Yeah. So the first topic that they start to touch on is on the issue of creativity. Because she is an actress, right? So this is a topic close to her heart. I can say a bunch of things that are just not creating creativity.

Creating creativity. Is it a creative that? Or is it like a muscle that you can build? Or a scientific act? Yeah. I normally speak of science and creativity as sort of being somewhat opposite, but they're not real. I mean, inherent in science is this notion that we can have free will. And there's even in science, things like the Heisenberg uncertainty principle that talks about our limits and how we can observe things and stuff like that. But a point is, if we have something that we can predict, it becomes not creative at all. It has no free will, and it's science. And if it seems to have free will, we see it as things, parts of it that are not predictable

and thereby creative. It creates. The thing that comes from it is not, a function of that which comes before in any way that we can predict it's as if this thing birthed something totally anew and unpredictable if it's predictable not creative so of course we as humans feel we have free will and that's sort of interesting but doesn't mean we do just means we can't see our own programming enough to say that we're just robots you know if it ever comes

about that we find that we are truly just robots, automata of sorts. I think all creativity is out the window then. Totally, because that's just pre-programmed into you. Yeah, so that which makes us not a scientific, predictable thing is creativity. Okay. It's in a very innocuous conversation, isn't it? Like there's now all of that dark stuff we talked about, you won't be hearing any of that specifically here.

You might get some echoes at some point, but we're just talking about creativity, Chris. It's just that essence. It's just that thing that is not predictable. It's what's the meaning of it, of creativity? A lot of big thoughts, Matt. So basically there, he pairs creativity with science and says science is the kind of rigorous application of, you know, knowledge, but it's kind of reductive. The creativity is more about the human spirit. You got to invoke the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Good to get that in there. And automaton, Matt, comitons, robots, if you will. So I do think it's worth noticing there is throughout this whole conversation, and this is the first response. There's a sprinkling of references to physicists,

artists, philosophers. It's the way that Eric Weinstein and others do the scholarship, which is decoratively. Is it important to mention the Heisenberg uncertainty principle? And there it's being used in the popular way, right, that science doesn't know everything because the uncertainty principle proves that it's about observation, which we've discussed before, Matt, is something that people like Dr. Kaye like to read as to say, you know, that there's issues, right, when you apply science. But broadly speaking, it's just a fairly standard, pseudo-profine discussion about creativity versus reductive science thinking. Yeah. And the topic of it is very sense like what's the definition of X? What does X mean to you? How is it different from some other

concepts that we might have? Yeah, yeah. So it continues. I hear it's a little bit more of that. Creativity in itself has a more rigorous or I would say pure aspect. And then as with many things and we as humans love to do this, use it as an excuse. You know, I, I, There's a saying that talent, it's by Schopenhauer, talent hits the target, no one else can see. I mean, no one else can hit. And genius hits the target, no one else can see. So whenever I hit my volleyball, I serve my volleyball off of the court completely, it's just genius. That's using something as an excuse. Yes. Would you call the Schopenhauer quote, decorative scholarship too, Chris? How dare you? Yeah, quite possibly. One of the things that he

Benchisa, which is a unique characteristic specific to him, is like he had a fascination with volleyball. And he implemented this as part of Nixium that like part of the thing was coming to late night volleyball practices with him that would go all through the night. And yes, it was part of leading to sleep deprivation for members, but it also demonstrated like he was up all hours of the night practicing volleyball. And then as it turned out, like he was actually sleeping and lying around most of the day. But, you know, to all their followers, it gives the impression that he's operating on very limited sleep.

But just the obsession of volleyball is a very specific, unique aspect that I've never seen in any other leader. But they all have their things. Yeah. I didn't know it was possible to be obsessed about volleyball. There you go. That's probably the least of his crimes, but still odd. Yes.

And you did hear, you know, know, a self-deprecating note there, Matt, when he misses in volleyball, that's just genius, because that's the, yeah. So he can laugh at himself, right? But that was, but he said that up with, oh, but sometimes genius is an excuse. And then, that was just a setup for his little joke. I forget whether or not he was making some point that. Yeah, well, his point was that talent is a target, but genius hits the target that no one

can see. Yeah. So that's the joke. It's just a little joke, Matt. It's a job, yeah. I see. Yeah, okay. You got it.

Okay. So creativity, Matt, there's more about it that you need to think. You need to think a little bit more deeper about it. Creativity is an expression of the human spirit. If we see ourselves as not robots and we have this somehow innate animus, this portion of us, this, what you might say metaphysical, this soul, creativity has that as its source. Now some people might say,

well, all right, creativity comes through. Well, maybe it comes through that. Maybe it's the window. But all the other predictable parts of the universe operate much like a machine. And then you have this creative animus. It is true that people are sort of an intersection between what you might call it.

the explainable science and the never-explainable mysticism. The whole notion of qualia, the fact that I see something that has redness, but redness is something that's unexplainable, really unmeasurable. We can measure red. Both of us consistently see something as red. We can create a machine that detects red. But the redness in red is something that as of now is very personal to us. Our whole experience of the universe, whether it's Beethoven or the stars or redness is personal to us and right now stands behind an impenetrable veil and is thereby a type of mysticism. Yeah, so there, Chris, I feel like we had a certain form of thought terminating cliché is happening throughout that. I mean, if you say creativity

is an expression of the human spirit that we have an innate animus, that portion of us that is metaphysical, then creativity has that as its source. Then I think a couple of things are happening. One, there's just this kind of vague truism and allusions to the ineffable. And also it's kind of like it's it's cognitively difficult to pass what is actually being said. So I think for me analyzing the structure of this kind of language, you know, they're dropping in qualia then and a bit of light philosophical speculation to go along with it. But do you feel like anything is being said there? Because for me, it's just pairing up some thought-terminating clichés

with the kind of pseudo-profound, you know, ineffable profundity that sort of washes over you. Your mind is trying to figure out what's being said rather than actually get a chance to respond to it critically. Well, I definitely agree with you. that there's sort of profound bullshit throughout, just in general, the whole delivery of everything is, you know, it's all sort of profound. And there is the drop-in references to scientific terms and philosophical terms. And there, for example, you've got Beethoven. I just dropped in.

Like, you could pick any music, but Beethoven. Why not, right? Just to illustrate your level of sophistication. But he manages to do it in one sentence. Our whole experience of the universe, whether it's Beethoven, or the stars or redness is personal to us. I think that's both thought-terminating cliche and cosmic pseudo-profound profundity. But here's the bit where I can disagree about it being a thought-terminating cliché because to me, I agree with you that this is just like ineffable, you know, mysticism mixed with science terminology and so on.

But like to me, this has the very clear echoes of the conversations that sense makers and Jordan Peterson have where they believe that the world is comprised of the material universe and the mystical reality, a metaphysical, spiritual realm. So you regard that as nonsense. But for lots of people, that's a very important, insightful thing

that they believe exists and needs to be taken account of. So when he's making appeals to that, I think it just is in that genre of like making reference to the fact that we are not, you know, just these material bags of meat. We're kind of made of more stuff and we need, if you only consider science from the perspective of science and reductive materialism, you're missing, you know, the rather unique aspect of the important metaphysics of humans. And Jordan Peterson, the sense makers, all say the same kind of thing. Yeah, you know, I agree with you there. There is a theme that is common across all of those speakers,

which is, yeah, I believe in a spiritual realm. But they use different words for it. Like, you know, Keith Reneer might be talking about the spiritual animus and Peugeot might be referring to it as, I don't know, some bullshit. What you were going to wrap out of Peugeotian? I can't. I can't do it. My mind rejects them. But, yeah, like the common denominator is a kind of.

of Gnostic rumination on our eternal spirit and these sorts of notions. I think the references to philosophy and science and stuff, it's all very decorative, and it gives it a bit of academic weight. Oh, yes, yes. And just to illustrate, Matt, this came up almost immediately after that section. Now, of course, we like to think of creative, creativity in a functional sense. Creativity as applied to the arts. But one could say that the essence of creativity's biopoises,

which is the creation of life. Here we have this inanimate planet. We have all these different chemicals sort of things going on, this environment, maybe even creating things like amino acids. And then somewhere along the line there's this spark, a flash, whatever it was. And now there's this thing that we call. life that we can't quite explain except it has certain characteristics. It holds itself out against physics.

You know, life maintains itself in a certain way, that non-life doesn't. Yeah, well, there you go, Ma. It's not just, you know, Kevin Mitchell. He's got similar insights, you know, the important things around agency. It's, it sounds like, Keith here, knows a lot about the early formation of life and science, wouldn't you say? Yeah. Yeah, again, another perfect example.

I mean, ultimately, he's not saying anything. There's nothing wrong there, really, right? No, but there's nothing very interesting either. Like, he's taking some basic things that are, I don't know, interesting things in science, like, you know, defining life versus non-life, maybe where life came from, the origin of evolution. But sort of framing it in terms of partitioning this sort of spirit of life, that it's a deep mystery that separates it from non-life. It's got a certain spark. And it's, he sort of segued here from creativity, right? It starts off in creativity, the very Jordan Peterson-esque kind of way. And then moving on to amino acids and life holding itself out against physics. Yeah, so I think what it's doing is, and we're going to see heaps of examples of this, is creating this like semantic fog. where I think you spend most of your time

just figuring out what he's saying and what it means. So there's not much cognitive resources left to kind of notice whether or not it's interesting or not. See, the bit that strikes me is a little bit different here than you in my reaction to this kind of material is I often have very little trouble

following the argument. Maybe I've just spent more time with religious style materials, right, and thinkers. But for me, it's not having difficulty following what's being said or what fundamental point is being said. It's much more the first point that you made that it is very vapid. You know, insofar as it is true, it is banal. And insofar as it's novel, it is highly speculative, very spiritually infused

and relies on, like, accepting all of the framing. But I don't know that the level of complexity is that high. Oh, perhaps you're misunderstanding me because I agree. Just perhaps. Right tails. Maybe being uncharitable. But, no, I mean, if you look at how long it takes for him to say the vapid, inane thing, right?

If you look at the language that is being used, the illusions that are being made, it may not take much cognitive work for you, Chris, but we know how exceptional you are. But I think for me and for most people, just just waiting through that and just to pass, okay, what's the point? Actually take some cognitive work, and I think that acts as a smoke screen. Okay, I see what you're saying. I agree on that point that basically, like a lot of the gurus that we cover, they don't mind going on extended tangents and diverting off into stories or other areas

like Eric Weinstein's response to things, right, often take the same characteristics. So I agree in that respect that actually answering the question often takes a long time for them. So yes, in that regard, it does require some cognitive load to trace it all back. But I guess my point is just like, I think for people, that find this kind of material stimulating. They like people to go on extended tangents and stories and link it into other topics. So going across all the different areas that they know

and linking science and religion, that's something that people find appealing. Not us, Matt, but other people do. And probably a clip that will support your interpretation of our buying. this is a little bit more pseudo-profondity on creativity. So creativity seems to sprout out up out of nowhere. Because if it sprouted from somewhere, if we could write an equation where it came from,

then it would be definable. So you might have to say that creativity thereby sort of pervades the universe, it goes through it and is there inherent somehow in it. So you might say that between, chaos and structure between science and creativity, we have this structure that we experience as the universe. And when we are being creative, hopefully we tap into that force, unexplainable by science, as opposed to being in the force that's very explainable by science, inertia,

and just calling that our creativity because we're lazy. Yeah. How about that? That's... That's really something. Yeah, a lot of big thoughts there, a lot of big. I do think that kind of clip. Those, as I say, lend credibility to your position. Yeah, I mean, let me develop my position because I think this is another good example of it.

For me, again, I think I'm suffering from a semantic fog trying to wade through that and pass what he's saying. But what he is saying, first of all, he claims that if you can explain where something comes from, then it, you know, has to be definable and therefore it can't be creative. It can't be surprising or interesting. And first of all, that's not really true because we have all kinds of emergent systems, emergent properties. We can write down all the equations for large language models. They're not unexplainable. We know how they work, but they can surprise us in all kinds of ways. So anyway, it rests on the claim, which is really

quite weak if you think about it. But then he jumps from that to say that it sort of perfades the universe and therefore creativity is inherent somewhere in it. And then he waxes lyrical about chaos and structure and science and creativity and the universe in general. So, you know, again, as you say, I mean, I agree with you. You often set it up as if we're disagreeing with each other. But are you? No, I want to hand it to you. I want to hand it to you. Just let me hand it to you and then you can criticize me. I want to hand it to you and that I think the point that you often make is that they're not saying nothing in the sense that there is a golden thread through all of these sensemakery, gnostic style gurus that we cover, which is that they really love this sort of vitalism and the ineffable nature of the universe, you know, basically a magical view of the world.

this is what they like and in various different ways they're sort of talking towards that. Yes, yes. So all I'm saying, Ma, is I know we broadly agree. But whenever you say that we don't follow what they're saying, I think there are a bunch of people that hear that kind of conversation go, no, it's very clear. He's just talking about, you know, the difference between creativity and the scientific approach, right? Like, I feel that there are people that are more versed in that kind of poetic language who don't find the thread hard to follow

that like Jordan Peterson is weaving even as he roams all over the place. That's the kind of point. So I agree that like for you and me, it doesn't appeal and sometimes we get bored and like check out of what they're what they're talking about.

But I think that a lot of Peterson type followers, they'll often be like well people that don't appreciate Peterson they don't really get it. Right? they can't understand how he's connecting all these different ideas. To them, it just sounds like jargon nonsense. And I just want to make the point. No, I understand and can hear what he's connecting. It's just often not valid. It sounds like he's making very important connections. But if you stop at a break it down, you have the reaction which you often do,

which is what is actually being said there, right? Like it's nothing. Yeah, I mean, I get it. I get it. at a poetic level if you take it as allegorical poetry, but you know I get it too Chris I'm not stupid I get it I get it no but you say I don't understand what they're saying

and I don't know what they're talking and that's the bit more of like no you do understand no but in this case I'm not saying that I don't understand I'm just saying that the way it's being said is contrived so as to

both be pseudo profound but also to create pretty high cognitive load if you chose to try to deal with it analytically, right? Oh, yes. And so that's almost an impossible ask, especially when they're talking for hours. So the only way to take it is at this poetic kind of level. But it sounds very, like it also steals some of the language of science and philosophy and academia, this sort of analytic mode.

Yes, yes. And actually, I think a good point there, and it might be related to, you know, this discussion map we're having. This exchange of polite opinions of the topic that like with all of these groups, there often is a very dense semantic network and references and like a whole analytical system and framework attached to it, which is what I think sometimes people miss. You know, the same thing with conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories can often be very dense and like involve a huge amount of time and effort to learn all of the individual details that connect them together. And so I think in that respect like there is often a demand put on the follower that, you know, you need to make sense of this kind of dense subjects that I'm referencing to. Well, this is almost how I'd frame it. There is there is a kind of discourse like this. that isn't really meant to be clearly understood at a basic level, because rather it is more of an induction,

like an induction of the listener into an entire cosmology, an entire worldview. It's something you accept or not. It's not something you actually understand and then can make a rejoinder to a critique of. So I think that it just differs in a very fundamental. way from the kind of language that you would see in good academic contexts, where actually the language is very simple, right? It's quite straightforward. It's very easy. I mean, it might be... That's not what academia is noted for, though, is it simple forward exchange of ideas?

I know. I mean, it can be bad, let's face it. But, you know, the good academic writing has short sentences, is very concrete. Yeah, it's as technical as it needs to be. Exactly. Exactly. So it shouldn't be hard to understand what's being said. It might be describing something that is quite complicated. There's a lot of details and so on. But they're all very concrete. And at the end, you can basically make a rejoinder to it. Some of the claims could be wrong. There could be flaws in some of the reasoning. Yada, yada, yada. This is different, right? This is the kind of language which is hermetically sealed, right? You take it on. It's designed to be accepted holos bolers. right and well we'll see as it goes on that like it's kind of presented that not accepting this would mean that you're flawed in some way right or you're not understanding things correctly and like this is as you say it is a conversation which is designed around transmitting the authority of kefrennery that's what it's about right that's right and this is called epistemic closure right this is where if you don't accept it there's something wrong with you and that most of these

things have been said about us Chris we're being too literal when not operating at the correct meta level. Or we're stuck in propositional thinking. Yeah. Or you haven't done the work by listening to, you know, 50 hours of stuff. Exactly. It's transformative. So it is a thing that you, you're in a position to accept as is or not. Exactly. And, you know, even if you go to the baller and listen to the whole 50 hours of it, which I might do, you're then just a bad fee if operator anyway. So there's no way to, There's no way to consume the content and disagree with it and be a good faith operator, right? That is the way the gurus operate.

That is the way Keith Reneery operates. And there's actually, you can hear a little bit more of this dynamic in the interaction here, still on creativity. If I know it's coming and I completely know it's coming, then it's not creative, it's scientific, therefore it's no fun. Interesting. But I don't necessarily agree with the. cultural tints and slants on creativity. Right. So I think...

Interesting. What is the basis of actually what you're asking? So it's almost like... Now I'm seeing it more as the difference between something that's like entertaining versus something that's just original. Or surprising. Or surprising. But surprising even leads to just entertaining.

Yeah, yeah. So, interesting. I mean, it kind of leads me to my next question, which has to do with authenticity. because then it seems more like the creativity comes from a place of just originality or like soulful mess if you're looking at it in the positive light.

You know, authenticity and creativity are an interesting match. This was part of the echo of sense speaking to Vima where, okay, you've raised another word. You brought an alert concept to the table. Let me link that together. But here I just notice, we're going to hear more clear examples of this, but see Alison Mac responding with saying, interesting, you know, the pregnant pauses that Kieferrini

inserts, and then he turns the tables just here a little bit, but he'll do it much more later where he says, what is the basis of actually what you're trying to ask me about creativity, right? And that's like, you know, you tell me, like, what is the, what are you trying to get at here, right? Then it's that flipping round to, okay, you ask me. a bunch of questions, but have you really asked me anything yet, you know, and he's not, I mean, he's not doing that in a confrontational way yet, but I just want to note that dynamic of white words. It's the student talking to the master, right? So the master can over say, but you haven't quite got this yet, right? Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it is interesting.

This is this conversational judo that Dr. Kay is very good at. And, you know, there are different reasons for asking questions. You can ask a question because you generally want information about something, or it can be used as a rhetorical ploy or as a manipulative technique or as a launching pad for yourself. And yeah, we'll see quite a few examples of that through this. Yes, we will. And you know what? Some term that we often love, we love this. This is just, you know, it jives with us so much is whenever people talk about their authentic sounds. and uncovering their authentic selves, doing the work to, you know, discover what is authentic within them. So let's hear a little bit about that, what that process involves.

We don't like to think of ourselves as robots. And if you are coming off as robotic, most people say that's somehow inauthentic. There has to be an inauthenticity to that because we're not robots. So what does it mean to be authentic? When someone's authentic, you feel them. You have this feeling of a soul there. Not a robot, not some pre-programmed, contrived face or something along those lines. It just seems to come naturally

from their experience of existing on this planet. From the time they are conceived and they become a child and grow and all of this thing, they gather this unique impression of existence. And authenticity somehow is a manifestation of all of that. And it also relates to wisdom. I always say, wisdom is taking your life experience and being able to apply it in a decision. It's a global way of acting as opposed to a narrow way where, oh, I feel like doing this.

I'm not thinking of anything that ever happened to me. No lessons have ever been learned and I'm just going to go and do this thing. Likewise, authenticity has no additional layers of artifice, no trying to be something that you think you should be. It's just a pure state of being. So one would say authenticity is being as you are and expressing as you are, at least to some degree. Big ideas there, Matt. Are you an authentic self? I just have to say that trying to be my ultimate authentic self, Matt, is something I would never do.

It is so far away from my personal philosophy. You think you big robot. You're such a pre-programmed robot. Yeah. Now, like, okay, so a few things here. First of all, this is the perennial sense making. Here's another word. Let's talk about what it means and how it's defined and so on.

Sure. He threw him wisdom, though, in the middle. Yeah, we got wisdom, authenticity, and creativity. Big thoughts, big concepts. Big words. Yeah. I mean, and look, I am somewhat poisoned by the fact where I know, I know where all this goes, right? I mean, they're listening to too.

We all do, right? But I think there's a general rule there. Like, this kind of language about becoming your pure self, a pure, authentic, real, natural person, right? You know, seekers want this. It sounds liberating, right? Being free of artifact, not trying to be who you think you should be dropping all the artifices, right? I mean, there can be a trap there, right? Because this kind of true authenticity can mean having no protective layers, no boundaries, and no filters. So if you're feeling like you're hesitant, you know, any acts of self-protection, you're being inauthentic, right? You're being opposite.

positional. Like, again, I want to emphasize, I'm certainly not accusing any of the other gurus we've covered of being on the same level. But the same techniques can be used by all kinds of people. And I remember Dr. K using similar kinds of language, where any time he gets an answer that doesn't like, or any time he wants to, I guess, force people towards a direction, he can use this kind of language. What are you hiding there? What are you afraid to come from? Yeah, what did you mean by that question? Why did you mean it? Yeah. What did you make a joke just then? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, you know, so the thing for me here, Matt, this is a little bit too on the nose for me. In terms of if you want to be a cult leader and you're referencing people being robotic pre-programmed and that you will help them to discover their true inner selves, I feel like this is pretty boilerplate, manipulative technique 101. And we do see it in a lot of the guru content that we cover. We saw it most recently in the Matthew McConaughey seminar.

That whole thing was the same thing. It was just, do you feel like, you know, there's times where you're not really expressing yourself, right? You feel like you're adapting yourself to society and what it expects. And sometimes you're just frustrated that you haven't lived up to your potential. You know you're meant for more. And that's exactly here, right? It's like there's within everyone this perfect crystal, perfect flower that, that just hasn't been given the chance to bloom.

And if you just stop, you know, if you put these techniques and the techniques can be whatever the people want to suggest, it will be beneficial to you. And I think it does echo how often we hear the gurus talking about this kind of self-help plava as well. Like, you know, Jordan Peterson didn't rise to prominence on the back of his political takes.

He rose to prominence because of his self-help content. And a lot of his self-content is talking about people not, you know, behaving in accordance with their true values, their true self and, you know, so it's like a Cartesian split, right? There's the person you are right now and you're broken, right? You're in a state of deficit. You're not being. And then there is this true spiritual being that is inside you. And I'm going to help you get out. I mean, this is why the sense makers love to talk about the meaning crisis all the time. They want their. to be a meaning crisis. I mean, I'm not having a meaning crisis. I have my vegetable garden in the backyard. I have some whiskey in the cupboard. I'm fine.

I don't have a meeting crisis. If there's no meaning crisis, the sense maker is a order of a job. So that's something to bear in mind. But here, Matt, here's us being hard-nosed cynical decoders. There is another response to this kind of talk. And you mentioned about people who are seeker predisposed, right?

Let's just hear how Alison Mack responds to him talking about authentic selves and creativity and so on. And as you are, is of course the sum of your whole past. So when someone's being authentic, you get the feeling that not only that there's a person there in the moment, but somehow you reach into their very essence and you meet a unique individual. I don't know why that makes me want to cry. It's beautiful. I think these are all things that we strive for. You know, we strive as individuals, we strive to break through a type of existential isolation.

We want to touch someone. We want to know that other people have souls. We want to experience this. We want to experience connection, things like what we call love and compassion. and even something like, as I said, connection or rapport. Some people call it an energy or whatever. But now we're not talking to a machine. We're talking to another human.

Chris, I think I read that Rainier is currently in jail. I think he's been sent us to 150 years. 125 years. Hopefully we'll spend the rest of his life there. And when I listen to this, that makes me so glad. that fucker should rot in there because knowing

where all of this leads and using this kind of language like we talked about you know putting people into a state of deficit you know using these lovely language about compassion and love and authenticity

yeah and holding out this promise that by by listening to me and accepting what I tell you and doing what I tell you that I am going to help you experience connection you're going to be able

achieve life love, you know, know what it's like to feel, true compassion, and real connection between other people. I mean, like, weaponizing people's, I guess, desires, like, yeah, yeah, there is, it is just such a horrible thing, isn't it? Yeah, and, you know, there, Alison Mark, I know, she was exploiting other people, behaving very cruelly and so on as well, but here she is the victim, right? And you can hear from her response that, like, to me, I listen to him waffled on there.

And I'm like, you're a bullshit artist. To her, that spoke very powerfully to her emotion, right? She cries. If you see the video, she's very touched by it. And then he moves on, like you said, to explicitly talking about the need for connection, the energy you feel when you, you know, encounter a true self, right? And he's looking very intently at her as he's talking about all this. And this is the point that immediately follows all of that talk about authenticity.

So there's the kind of the notion that, you know, people who desire to be seen and who feel, you know, that they've been not seen their whole life or they're, you know, they're looking for connection. And then you have a figure, a charismatic individual like Kipreniri, who will come along and say, I see you and like I can give you a system to, you know, be your true self and to recognize your worth, but actually behind that is an exploitative cult that will lead to you giving the money, your body in the case of this particular cult and so on. So it is, it is very predatory, but I think it's worth notice that there are a particular

so, you know, people sometimes say anybody can fall into a cult and it's true, you know, anybody can be vulnerable at particular times. But I think people who have a little bit of a seeker mindset about them, who are very invested in this notion that they're not living their authentic true self, that they are more vulnerable than others. So it's just something to watch out for if you are somebody that feels that tendency within them. Yeah, and I think it's worth remembering that the women that were indoctrinated into this cult, weren't we're not um they were successful people you know hardworking you know they had a lot of

stuff going for them like you said they may well have had more of a seeker type of approach they were looking to excel looking for excellence all of that stuff and it's taking advantage of of actually those strengths and redirect in them gradually right remember it takes years to get them there so yeah I mean, like you said, to me, when I hear this stuff, I just go, well, this is just vague platitudes. Like saying that we are as individuals the sum of our whole past is just to, okay, that's an empty, that is clearly an empty deepity. And then when you talk about, you know, if someone's being authentic that you're seeing into their very essence and, you know, recognizing that there's another unique individual there, that's just poetic, you know, not very good poetry, but it's just blather. But to her, like you said, it really speaks to her on some level. Well, immediately after that, this is what happens that follows it up, this interaction.

I think it's worth listening to. So, you know, after she expresses that kind of vulnerability, then they go down this week. And even if that human is a machine, somehow we imbue it with, we even ask the question, is this thing alive? Is this thing thinking? Yeah. Okay. So.

But why do you think that's... So emotional for me? Yes. I don't know. I think because it seems like it's something that I just, I feel like I want it. Authenticity and I think... What do you want about authenticity? I think that there's a relaxed kind of exchange that happens between people when there's no pretense.

And it seems like to me those are like the most moving, most meaningful, most important moments in life. Not disagreeing with you, but why? Yeah, it's funny. I mean, it feels like in a silly way, it's like that's where love is. Like that's where like two, I guess it's the existential thing. Like it feels like two souls can like come together without any sort of barrier or boundary. And somehow there's completion or not aloneness or transcendence. some way that feels like it's the root of my motivation and a lot of all the things that

I do in life. And I guess that's probably part of the reason why I have such an obsession with art and creativity and things like that because it feels like the sole purpose of those things is to generate that kind of an experience for people. So for me, it's like, the most important thing for an artist to understand how to do is tap into authenticity and then share with the world that experience. Yeah, quite excruciating really to listen to her, isn't it? Yeah, like, because there's a clear sincerity there in the way that Alison is responding, right? I mean, she's been in Nixon for a long time here, so she's fully bought in

and she's probably regurgitating some of the insights, you know, that he is. of it expressed. But I think the yearning for connection and to feel authentic is very clearly something that she genuinely wants and needs, right? And you hear Keith Reneery basically pose probing questions. Well, why do you think you reacted like that? And what does that mean? And why do you feel that? And it's, it's always in that way of like, go a bit deeper, reveal a bit more about yourself and why you're insecure. Yeah, it's the, it's a therapeutic power dynamic, right? Yes.

And Dr. Kay is a master of this too, like continually, I guess putting them on the spot and getting them to explain themselves and justify themselves. So, you know, when you give like a natural human thing, like, oh, you know, I've just always wanted to have deeper and more authentic relationships to people. Why? Why would you want such a thing? Explain that to me. And so it's just that continued kind of pressure that is actually more like a grid. Like a normal thing to do when someone's getting emotional and saying, I think that's why I'd just love to create art because it felt really genuine and authentic.

You might say, that's really nice. What kind of art do you like to do? And he's like, why? Justify this feeling. Explain yourself to me. So, you know, I mean, this is why I really, really hate. We had some pushback for our attacking this sort of therapeutic language. with the Dr. K episode. And I apologize for nothing. I can't stand it. I think I think it is

absolutely terrible and it gets used. Yeah, it doesn't always get used for a cultish reason, but it's on a spectrum. And I don't think it's healthy. Yes. Well, why don't I just play a couple more clips specifically on that questioning methodology, right? So this is a little bit later in the conversation, but I think you see a similar dynamic here. Interesting. So it's like looking at insecurity in terms of unpredictability as opposed to like the self-loathing way that I look at insecurity. What do you think of what do you think of his insecurity? Well, I think of insecurity as in like the root of like stage fright or like the reason why I feel nervous. What's the root of stage fright?

It's like a fear of a fear of rejection, a fear of. Well, tell me more about that. I mean, that was one of my questions because I said like after 30 years of acting, I still get so nervous sometimes when I'm about. about to do something that I can't. They say that about the, you know, I believe the best actors and athletes and ethicists or whatever it is have a strong degree of weight and insecurity going into something. Now they say Barbara Streisand has extreme stage right. I think George Soros, the investor, said if he thinks he understands an investment completely,

completely and doesn't see a way that it would fail. He feels very insecure indeed. He has to see the uncertainty to feel good about it. It's interesting that you say that because I definitely find that insecurity keeps me sharp, like keeping a room a little cold. It's like it keeps you awake. But there's a difference between that kind of insecurity that drives focus and then the kind of insecurity that paralyzes expression.

Well, I think you're confusing insecurity with the infected. of insecurity? Like, do you know what I'm going to say right now? No. You're insecure about that. Is that scary for you? No. Why not? Because I trust that what you're going to say is going to be good. And in the end, you're going to be okay. I think an interesting maneuver during that was his redefinition of insecurity from meaning self-doubt and fear, right, which is the more normal too. any kind of uncertainty or unpredictability about what's going to happen next. Yeah, and also that asking, I mean, the whole part of getting there was like questioning

her more, you know, well, tell me more about your insecurity. You know, why do you, why do you feel insecure about stage fright or, you know, whatever? And then, well, I guess it's about rejection. What is it about rejection? Right. Like, it's not probing. of vulnerabilities that I think makes, it makes people vulnerable, right? And then when you step in as the master and say, well, look, what you're misunderstanding there about insecurity or fear is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you can put anything in, but one of the things that Sanskrit workers like to do is say, well, this word that you've defined this way is actually better defined in this idiosyncratic way

that I have and that makes it more deep. Yeah. Yeah, like it does come across as continually cutting the ground out. I mean, this is kind of, like, it's about stage right now, right? So it's not exactly necessarily a highly potentious topic. But it seems like the pattern there is like continually cutting the ground out from underneath her in terms of whatever she thinks about it is kind of wrong and not quite right. And, you know, she can't really be trusted, you can't really trust herself to even interpret like her own sort of responses to things. things and feelings about stuff and also it does feel like this has already kind of been trained

with certain kinds of responses like saying like it's not scary to be uncertain about what he's going to do next because she trusts him and what it because whatever he does will be good and she'll be fine um yeah no matter what happens yeah yeah don't like not it's hard it's hard not to read sinister things and everything so I realize I realize there's some stuff there but you know, that is the kind of structure of the conversation. And it's, at the same time, it's so mundane and trivial, at this kind of dissecting what it means to have stage fright. I know. I think with these things, the process is the point. So the topic doesn't matter. Could be stage fright, could be some other random thing. What matters is kind of that undercutting

and destabilization and sort of putting, creating ambiguity and, you know, creating space for him to lay down an interpretive framework. Yes, well, there's a bit later, Matt, where she's talking about, they get into this longer discussion, as you know, about like gender roles and women and, you know, how to be a wise woman is what she's talking about. And mostly in that Keith Reneery is putting on a good front throughout it. But there was this one exchange, just a part in that,

where he kind of chastises her. And I think it, again, highlights the dynamic. Whether you think this is a fair parallel or not, but it reminded me of Eric chastising McWest for the feeling in his body that he didn't like. So listen to this. We have like the elections happening with Hillary. Clinton is being a candidate and all this. And everybody's like, women need to take more leadership roles and things like that.

And I was just wondering, like, what your take was on that, given that your perspective is more humanist. I'm going to give you a short thing. Yeah. you're using a lot of male language and male, male things to describe this, and that's disrespectful to women. We wouldn't want to be disrespectful to women, would be Chris. No, no, so, you know, direct challenge there, like the same thing that you hear a lot of people do whenever they are presenting themselves as the boss of the conversation. You've mentioned Dr. Kay a couple of times, right?

and he has the same tendency whenever, like whenever he gets properly annoyed when he was talking to his wife, for example, he corrects them. Yeah, he corrects them. I was particularly egregious in this case, of course, given Renier's criminal behavior against women. But the other thing, too, is that maybe I'm reading too much of this, Chris.

But the way that Max sets that up is with skepticism, right? women should be taking on leadership roles, whatever, but you're setting him up to be skeptical, right? I think clearly that, I don't know, I'm just detecting the subtext here, that they are clearly against this idea of feminine empowerment. And maybe I'm, again, infected by knowing where this all leads, but it does sound like this is an elaborate way

to be against it without sounding, like you're against it. I can provide a bit more context for people that haven't heard that section. So this is how that topic is real. I just was curious, what do you see as the greatest limitation between men and women in their quest to relate in a loving and compassionate way? I can be a little smart-ass. Yeah.

Well, the biggest limitation that women have is that they're women. And the biggest limitation that men have is that they're men. Now, that is, of course, a, not only, you know, an intentional, wise-ass oversimplification. Culturally, we form certain images about gender and about things like that in both men and women. and that in some ways lays the groundwork for the interaction. So that's introducing, you know, about men and women and potential gender roles, limiting gender roles if you want. And, you know, he starts off there with a little joke about, you know,

the biggest problem for men and women is that they're men and women. Right, like it's, that's it. But if I want to hear a little bit more, Because this is talking in particular, they've got a bunch, Nixium and Kifriniri developed a bunch of different programs, right, for different groups. There was like a program focused on acting, which was the source program, which we'll talk about. Then there was Junice, which was for women, specifically a women's group. There was SOP, which was a man's group, and so on and so forth. And reverence, right?

There's all other programs. They've got a lot of different programs focused on different things. So, but one of the other points to note is that Reneery was supposed to be not involved with the women's groups, right? It was an independent women empowerment group, but actually he was involved in, was getting all the information like fed back to him behind the scenes, right? And ends up in some rather high level abuse whenever you get to like the DOS group and stuff, right?

But listen a little bit more, Matt, to how he approaches. this topic as a man giving advice to women about women's issue. You know, he's not really qualified. So what does he do? So I look and I try to find out who is, you know, who are top, you know, feminist or female representative authors. And then I found a woman that got together like 30 of them and they all picked, all these women who are authors, who are published and things like that, picked the like top five poems that every woman should read that represent that. So I felt pretty good using their authority. And when you compare that to the male poems, it's striking.

And it's striking what these poems educate us to do. And by looking at literature, looking at our culture, looking at this stuff that we all produce for each other, what are these things saying? What are the messages that our children get in language, in video games, in TV shows, in movies, in anything? What are they? Good question. Yeah. Is this waiting somewhere?

Well, yes, I mean, it is. We know that it does lead somewhere. But I also think it's interesting just to note that this kind of description is perfectly normal that you hear in like, you know, media studies or in general, actually, in progressive circles about, you know, the kind of stereotypes around women and it's, and it's, it is legitimate because there are gender stereotypes and stuff. So I'm just, you know, pointing out that if you're talking about why would people find that this might be, you know, relevant or interesting, this kind of material so far, largely unobjectionable, you know, just noting that there are stereotypes around men and women

and that media and literature tend to reflect them, right? Yeah, there are whole departments of gender studies, so yes. Yes, so now let's go on a little bit more about the Ginesse program and what it's a bite. But we have so many subtle poisons that make males a certain way as they go to men and females a certain way as they go to women and to become aware of them is striking and startling and both sexes humiliating when men find out really how

how awful we are it is it's humbling it is scary it is we don't know what to do and when women find out out similar things, their counterpart, and I've just heard from women, and I know you've gone through it, I hear that it's embarrassing. You have top female authors saying things that are so much lock and key into the problem. And what you come to realize with Janesse is the

dance that we all do. And ideally, people start to divest themselves from that dance. But you have to see the dance before you can divest yourself from it. Yeah, this is classic, classic stuff, isn't it? So, as you said, being interested in gender culture and gender roles, all that stuff is perennial. And in some ways, there's all of this talk about masculinity and feminine it's part of the pantheon of abstract concepts that all gurus like to explore, along with morality and creativity and conscience and you name it. Yes. What is a woman, Matt?

Do you know? What is a woman? That's a topic for a three-hour conversation, isn't it? Or a very simple one. Or is it depending on your position. Take your pick. How much time you've got. But the other thing, too, is that it's also part of the,

the self-help and guru sphere, whereas something is deeply wrong, right? Like, femininity and masculinity is deeply corrupt. Once you actually take a good, hard look at yourself, you realize that you are deeply embarrassing, it's shameful, everything that you do. So, hence, you need to enter a program. Or you maybe just listen to a lot of podcasts in the case of a different character to fix the things that are broken within you. Exactly. And, you know, of course, men have their problems. It's humiliating to find out what men are really like. And he's heard. He doesn't know, but, you know, he's heard that women have the same experience. It's not like he's been fed to reports from those divulgence of secrets or those kinds of collateral things or anything like that. He wouldn't, he wouldn't know directly, but he's just heard. You know, maybe you've had similar experiences. But,

But there is the empathetic, you know, look, we're all fallen. We're all down here in the dirt and we need to, you know, we need a little help, right? And so Alison Mack is, as we've noted, a bit of a seeker. And here again, you can hear that come out in her approach to this program and also her desire for Reneery to tell her what it's all about. Before I met you, somebody had asked me in an interview what I wanted to do in my career. Like if I could do one thing, what would I do? And I said I wanted to change the way that young women thought and felt about themselves. And so when I came and I found out about Janice, the curriculum for women that you had developed,

I felt very relieved because I felt like I knew what I didn't want to be, but I didn't know what to supplant that with. So it was like I had this opportunity to kind of be this for a period of time. time, you know, when I was on television more regularly, like I had this opportunity to be sort of this example or this idea of something different, something new. But I didn't know, like, what that was. Like, I was like, what is that? Like, you know, and I think it feels like fumbly a little bit. And that process still feels fumbley a little bit. And I was just wondering if you had any thoughts or ideas on what a more wise woman or a more, a more, a more, evolved woman would look like, or is that a hot topic to ask?

Well, so she is very, very keen to get Greniery's instruction on how to become a better woman. Yes, yes. And now, well, here, Renieri's response, but I just want to note there at one thing that she mentioned, like, you know, there was a time when I was on television and had a bunch of regular roles and was being seen as a role model, right? And then I didn't know exactly what I want to tell people to be. That's notable because earlier in the conversation, there's a section where they're talking about Hollywood and the media industry and

the messages it promotes. And she talks about turning down roles or not being involved or like, let me just play it and you'll see what I'm getting at. So when you go into the movie industry, you have a problem because you see, especially someone like yourself now, who's thought about these things quite a bit, and you were expressing to me earlier about a, you know, I think it's a TV opportunity, is it? Or something along those lines? And when you examine it, you see that it actually supports something that you find not so good in society,

innocent in itself, but supporting something that's not good. Right. And your ethical consideration is, you know, what will it do if I contribute to it? And what will it do if I don't contribute to it? What will it do for society? What will it do for me? All of these different things, back and forth it goes. That sort of consideration is very important.

Unfortunately, if more and more actors did that, there would be more and more poorer actors. a lot of actors would not stomach what they were actually doing. So what do you read into that, Chris? Well, again, this might be transplanting knowledge that I have. But basically, she had a prominent role in Smallville, and she was like a regular, you know, relatively popular TV actress and then became involved in Nixium and then basically ended up stopping working in Hollywood and getting any more roles right.

And via the court case, it turned out that she was, like, basically broke and financially dependent on Nixium and Reneery. Right. So here, he's mentioning a television opportunity and then saying, you know, you mentioned that if you took part in that, you'd be potentially contributing to values that you don't support. So actually, it's, you know, it's a better thing to turn down roles, right? And we need more of that. It's deeply ironic, isn't it? Like this, these courses are purportedly meant to help. Empowerment.

Yeah. And, you know, aspiring or established actors to become better, actors, more successful ones, more effective. But instead, it actually, in the case of Mac anyway, it cut her off from her career, isolated her from other sources of whatever, support, power, and made her completely dependent on him. So it's just the, the way it's the. everything is the opposite of what is being claimed is kind of upsetting I know I know so I mean again you know I think if you heard this in in context you wouldn't pick up on on that detail you know I mean like if you heard it in the original context that would just be

aside about some role you didn't think yeah that's interesting yeah I didn't pick it up actually because I was just reading into that kind of the standard cultish thing which is is that the broader society is corrupt. We are the cleansing, you know, pure thing. And, you know, by even acting, you know what I mean? You're contributing to this corrupt culture. So, yeah, it's all about isolation and making a hermetically sealed social group. Yes.

So in any case, let's hear a little bit more about, you know, the enlightened man and women. He was asked, what would more evolve the wiser woman be like? And he does have answers. I have my own definitional basis of stages going from boy to man, to a leader man, to a wise man, you know, from girl to a woman. And there are other stages to centered woman to wise woman. But the ultimate state, ultimate experiential operating state. that both males and females reach is one where they can see all of these things and they also have a deep understanding and compassion for all people in all areas of them

and whatever stage they're at with it they get it and they have a deep moral sense of what their experience in life has brought them to understand understand as good and bad, the right, the morality of being human. Nice sentiments, though, Matt. Yes, lofty, lofty. Lofty sentiments. So you, like, you know, in isolation, apart from the fact that it's rather vapid and, and. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. It's like this is, this is the public facing version of this, right? And we talked about getting into a cult as like a, you know, being a frog in, in water. that's slowly heating up. It's not boiling straight away. And it's perfectly on one level innocuous. And, you know, I'll, I've been drawing a lot of comparisons with all of the other gurus we cover because I think they are very real because at this level, it's essentially the same thing, right?

Yeah. It's not to say that it all leads to the kinds of extreme abuse that we see with Nixium. But I think what's undeniable is that it is structurally. the same and in content it's also the same as what a dr k or what a jordan peterson would be talking about and it encourages the same response from the listeners which is not like okay here here's what i'm claiming here's the evidence and why i think for it now you can evaluate it it's it's the opposite kind of modality where you need to like be continually working to adopt this way of seeing and you never actually get to the point where you get to evaluate the claims and decide whether

or not it's true and whether you agree or disagree or whatever. It's a process of continual engagement where you never get to the end. And it's, I feel that it's kind of an induction process to something that is, you know, never really going to end. Yes, and now Rini is good at also throwing up the kind of smoke screen that is a progressive male who's you know recognizes societal limitations based on women and he himself is a you know a victim of these kind of perspectives and he doesn't want to speak for

women and understanding whether it's a wise woman or wise men they're where their wisdom comes from and the fallibility that they have in that our experience is limited you know all right so here I write this curriculum for women I know well that I don't have the authority to speak to any woman, not a single woman on many, many different issues.

I could speak to them about human issues. I can speak to them about my male observation of them as women. I could speak to them about what is in literature from the male perspective of women. And a whole bunch of things like that. But can I tell a woman what it is to be a woman? I don't have that authority at all. yeah that's slightly woke mantle it's a very easy one to put on isn't it you can oh yes it's very easy

there's a there's a segment in it as well where he he talks about transgender issues right and he he says all the correct things about non-binary people and and whatnot but however that was not the general attitude promoted, you know, in Nixium on the courses. But in this content, these, you know, well, maybe it's too restrictive to have like male and female gender roles and they're all, you know, people that fall outside this and so on. But that's not the case of what was being actually taught on those things, except that's like a superficial thing. So if you want to hear a little bit more, Matt, about the, you know, soaring levels of rhetoric that appear in the segment.

Here's this. Should women be in leadership roles? I think women are in certain types of leadership roles. Unfortunately, it is controlled a lot by men. Can women rise to be fuller in the world and in the principles that they experience and bringing that wisdom, their unique upbringing, and even the cultural poison that they have

to transform the world? Absolutely. world absolutely they have to become aware of it and they have to have that desire and they have to struggle it's going to be a big struggle and it's a type of struggle about against the type of oppression a type of box that they've been placed in by men if you will and you know it's it's not just men now it's men that were formed by literature that were formed by men that was formed by literature that was formed by men that's formed by the jungle and sort of that and uh you know men need to change in a different way but both sexes have to become more self-aware and understand

outside of gender outside of sex there's human right and there are things that are transcendent as human yeah can we all agree okay yeah we all just humans and transcendent Humanity. Again, unmalange of lofty sentiments. And a very confusing and ambiguous answer to the question, can women rise to take on leadership positions? Because I would simply say yes. He doesn't quite say yes. He doesn't quite see yes, though he does imply that essentially it's going to be much harder for women because they have to struggle against the oppressive structures that are there by men in society and so on. there is at least the implication that he is saying it would be better if that wasn't there, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think the implication was there. But I also note that in his framing, it's very complicated. It's a very complicated process. And that sort of leaves a lot of room for it to be turned on its head, which, as we know, it was in Nixium. The other thing, too, is that did you notice a slight logical incongruity there, which is previously,

and he references this, he takes the position that basically male and female gender norms are essentially poison, right? It's cultural poison, right? We need to abandon that and kind of embrace our shared humanity, which is a, you know, it's a logically sound position. But at the same time there, he also wants to sort of make the idea that to the extent that women should or can become lea, then they're doing it in a feminine way. You know, they're sort of growing their presence in the world or something like that. And he sort of acknowledges the incongruity there by saying, oh, but that is kind of the poison as well.

The unique feminine poison would be brought into the world. So I think there's just a contradiction there. He's sort of wanting to have it both ways where he goes, yes, women can become leaders, but they're going to do it in their own unique feminine way. And that contradicts his other stance. Yes, yes. So there's like the universal human experience, but it's women and men have very, you know, different characteristics and strengths and weaknesses that they need to play into and... Yeah, and he references the evolutionary basis to it, like in this...

In the jungle. In the jungle. And I think they've got another clip where he talks quite a bit about how men and women are different. Yeah, well, there's an analogy or like a thought experiment that he gives at the end, which he's. I think is roller telling. So this is where this segment kind of ends off. I didn't come up with this. I thought I did maybe, but who knows? I don't believe in equality.

Equivalence maybe, but not equality. It would be awful to say that men or women are equal. They're not. And, you know, sometimes I've had friends that were pretty, you might say, would call radical feminists, almost as radical as I am, no, just teasing, but you ask them, you know, you ask them the following question,

and it's a trap, it's a structural question. You know, you have 100 male cats, and you have 100 female cats, and you want to stop the problem of overpopulation. And I say, you know, something, don't even sterilize the male cats, sterilize all the female cats. You say it like that.

They say, how dare you, you know, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And then you point out, It's a trap question. It's a structural question. You know why? Why should you sterilize all the female cats and ignore the sterilizing the male cats? The males can't reproduce without their females. And the males can produce many, many, many, many cats and the females can produce. Right. In essence, I think a shorter way of saying what you're saying is that, you know, you can sterilize, you have 100 female cats

and 100 male cats. Sterilize 99 of the male cats. How many litters do you have? You Yeah, 100s. Of course. Yeah, yeah. At the beginning there, before we forget, Chris, there was the very sense-makery distinction between equality and equivalence. It's very important.

Equality is bad. Anyway, so that's a kind of... I've heard that, Steve, though, quite a lot in, like, you know, the kind of heterodox space. They want to... You know, it's kind of similar to the things whenever people are complaining about equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes. Equity versus equality, this thing.

So Jordan Peterson would say similar things where he recognizes that, you know, that there is a feminine and a masculine, and they're both important, but they are not the same and they should never be conflated together. So, but it does ring to me a bit like Stefan Molyneux whenever there's this kind of statement where, like, can you not believe that men and women are different and there are, you know, like different characteristics associated with biology and that we deserve equality? Like, yeah, right? Like, why would that be a contradiction? Exactly. This is why I think it's trite and trivial because everyone knows that when you say equality, what you mean is that people should have equal rights and are of equal worth. You're not saying that they are identical in every single respect. Yeah, some of them are ginger. Yeah, some of them are cats.

But, yeah, so it's this trivial wordplay that, again, very sense-makery, or treat that sort of meaningless distinctions and misreadings of words as some sort of fine intellectual argument. And the other thing, too, is that with this big, long example about sterilizing cats, he's basically leaning into the evolutionary psychology part of it, right? Which is that the, you know, men and women are sort of fundamentally different because of the asymmetrical measure of reproduction. Right, yes. And here's a little bit on the nose, I feel, because essentially,

the sterilizing the cats and the analogy is women. Right. Women need to be sterilized in order to prevent the horniness from men. of, you know, destroying society or, like, but this is what happened in the case of Nixium, right? Women's sexuality and independence and stuff was all controlled and the program strongly implied that women were the cause for men, you know,

like mistreating them and stuff, right? Yeah, it's exactly. It's like the underlying point supposedly is that one about asymmetrical reproduction and therefore being the basis for biological differences, right, in PAPS and psychological makeup. But he chooses a kind of creepy

and, as you said, it's hard not to be aware of where there's leads. Like, he's the one, he's the one male cat in this scenario, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He had a bit of a hang-up about producing offspring, but be that as it may, he could have went the other way.

He could have been a cult leader that followed hundreds of children, right? So that's interesting the day to hang up about having offspring because again, like these examples, they're kind of telling on, like, unless you know what went on, then you're not going to read anything sinister into this necessarily. But there's so many sort of signposts sort of concealed within this public facing conversation.

Yes, I agreed. And, well, one of the thing is he presented himself as a celibate into which he was not, right? So that's part of the consideration. But that's what a lot of cult leaders do, right? They are having sex with followers and members, and it's known within the group to a certain extent. But they often at the stage of recruitment or whatnot will be presented as like beyond material or, you know, and if they are having sex it's not for the normal reasons

yeah exactly that's what I was going to say it's presented as a ritual thing some sort of therapeutic process an honor it's an honor yeah yeah that's it now Mike you you brought up

the point about like the fixation on words right and this is something that we consistently heart on with like the gurus and the sense speakers in particular and this example I think is classic plastic sense making. So here you go.

The hope is that over time we will evolve beyond it, which I believe so. You know, it's a, I had learned, you know, like distinctions in language, once you learn the distinction, like you learn the difference between good and well, it's very hard to use them incorrectly again, or nauseous and nauseated, you know, someone says I'm nauseous. once you understand that distinction, it's very funny. To say I'm nauseous, you know, if I'm saying I'm nauseous, it means I am making other people nauseated. The feeling of nausea is something that is very uncomfortable for us,

and if we have that feeling, we are nauseated. If we are nauseous, we give other people that feeling. We induce nausea. Yeah, so I'm nauseous. Everyone in the room feels nauseated. So it's sort of this funny thing. Now, are you going to be able, next time you go, as many people don't say, oh, I'm nausea, you say, no, nauseated.

Yeah, totally. Because you see it. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's very important, Matt. Very important. I know. Like, there's so many levels of these types of conversations.

And on one level, it is just so trivial and dull, isn't it? Somebody hopping on about the difference between these words. anyway it's like it's almost like you know somebody says you use the past tense there but do you realize by using ed you make things into a previous setting right it's the same word right but you've changed the stem of the word so it's like it's actually referring to a different time period which completely changes the cognition of the person they're talking they need to reflect on something that happened in the past and you're like well that's all true Well, that's just the nature of past tense.

Yep, yeah. And it does invoke a me, Matt, you know, the sense makers, whatever, they're like, what do you mean by conscience or like, that's, oh, that's very interesting, right? And good and well, that's an important distinction. Like, are you good and are you well? These are, some people treat them the same up, but when you think about it, They're actually very different. So, Chris, the interesting thing is that many, many people don't have the response that you and I have right there.

Many, many people, read the YouTube comments, will find those times of discussions absolutely riveting. Mac, in this interview, as we talked about, is just enthralled by this conversation. And I don't necessarily think it is because there's something wrong with. them, idiots. But, you know, I think, so there's something about this kind of language and wordplay that is very effective at gaining people's attention and giving them the feeling that something profound is being talked about. Yes, and I think it connects into that point that we made earlier about authenticity, right? The kind of promise of authenticity. So listen to there a little bit more. I have one or two more clips that highlight that. So this is him talking about

authenticity and naturalness and so on. And it's not to say that scientific things can't be awesome, but what you might say true, true beauty, or what you might call authentic beauty, unencumbered by structure. And authenticity has a type of structure to it, or I should say a lack thereof, whereas inauthenticity is a structure. Inauthenticity is a type of blocking. It's a type of calculated or structured block. And the essence of authenticity is what you might call pure naturalness. And although naturalness is sort of enrobed in structure often, when you get to something that's authentic, you experience this type of. of creativity, this soul. And a soul, it's not necessarily the soul of the human. It's a soul of

a living thing, you know. This is Deepak Chopra level pseudo-profundity, isn't it? Yeah. But it's always contrasting the kind of materialist, scientific approach with like a deeper mystical understanding where there's like a soul and authenticity and art and creativity and and beauty and love, you know, you can't quantify that math and telling people that like approaching these topics. So the thing that Reneery keeps doing is trying to give the impression that he's very knowledgeable about science, right? He knows physicists, he knows, but he also knows art and literature and so on. So he's a Renaissance man. That's right. He can clearly see the deficiencies in this kind of propositional scientist.

concrete materialist kind of language. It forgets about the essence of the soul, Chris. It's not helping people, you know, become pure and authentic and natural. And in fact, you know, we've had conversations with sense makers quite recently where they make exactly the same points that you and I are these reductive literal materialists and incredibly limited. And this is a key aspect of this Gnostic sort of spiritualist philosophy, right, where it creates this setup where if you find what they're saying confusing, if you're finding it circular, if you're finding it just mundane and pointless, then you lack sophistication. If it seems circular and empty, it's because you haven't reached a deeper level of understanding. So what it does is if you,

it treats skepticism as just evidence of your own limitations. Exactly. I mean, and so this makes me incredibly angry. Yeah. Well, I have an illustration that will highlight some of these points for people because you'll hear in this references to science, you'll hear references to zan co-ons, and you will also hear the kind of appeals to authenticity and uniqueness, right, versus

artificiality. If you were hooked to the laws of physics without having any sort of a separation, then your performance would determine your performance, which would determine your performance, which would determine your performance. And just like a snowball rolling downhill, you really wouldn't be able to change the course of events. but the beauty of our possible delusion that we have free will is that we can change the course of our events which is so much what the source is looks at and focus on i mean at least the foundational

curriculum it also i hope brings you to a point where you have that that wonderful sense of invincible summer the kammu quote you know in the depth of winter i finally found in me there was Invincible Summer, to find your invincible summer, to find that not only the core, that invincible summer, but then what arises from that core is every moment that you've lived in your life has crafted an experience of you and your life and how you've been in itself, and that is unique.

And you can bring that uniqueness off authentically to anything. And you can explore all the different facets of yourself and use yourself as the best tool you can. So the source is designed from a behavior perspective to allow you to bring, one, expand yourself because people don't realize there's so many parts of themselves that they lock away in a dungeon.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, again, reminds me of so many people, Reminds me of Dr. Kay with this therapeutic, evocative, metaphorical approach to self-improvement. Reminds me of Curtis Yavin with the decorative quotes. Like, these characters are very good. Like, I see no evidence of any of them that they have, like, a genuine, deep understanding of any discipline. But what they're very good at is picking up good quotes, good little nuggets from, like a bird picking up shiny objects, from all these different disciplines.

Dr. Kay has, to be fair, I mean, I know we're not focusing on him, but he has like some expertise in psychiatry and, you know, that kind of thing. But he still engages in the decorative scholarship when it comes to referencing physics or referencing psychology or that kind of thing, right? Like, you know, we've seen that in his discussion

of the Myers-Brids test. So it's not that they can't have expertise in specific topics because some of them do. Keep in theory likely doesn't. in anything. It's true. I was thinking of people like Curtis Yalb. And, you know, Jordan Peterson, he's got a, he's got training in psychology.

He's very bad at actually applying it, in my opinion. But, anyway. No, I agreed. Agreed. And I've just got one last clip that highlights this point about the scientific cosplay that they sometimes engage in. So this is up your street, Matt. This is about cognition and developmental research, which is not so much up your street.

but nonetheless. I'm sure I'll love it then, Chris. I'm sure I'll love his take. You might learn something. You know, different children have their brains that myelinate at different rates. When a part of the neurons of the functioning of the brain, if you will, it's not like all children are born and their brains are at the exact same state and they can do the exact same things at the exact same time.

And it's not even in the exact same order. Now, if you watch linguistic development, you can have some children, that just are so far behind in language development. They can barely speak a word. Then the next month they're speaking in sentences. So how these things fit together is by our science right now pretty unpredictable and pretty miraculous, but really what counts is where they are and what their next step is to help them go forward.

And wherever they end up is the best that they can end up. You don't want to want enlightenment for every child. That's one step worse than you're wanting it for yourself. It's like forced enlightenment. Yes, exactly. I want you to be enlightened. I had a dream about that. Yeah, so the reference to myelination at the beginning is purely decorative,

has no connection to... It's very important, Matt. Sometimes you have to use it technical. I don't know if you know. I mean, children's brains develop a different. Really? Really? Children develop at the different developmental stages and they don't

proceed at the same rate. I don't think it's, you know, there's always the invocation that science barely understands everything, right? It's mostly a mystery, right? It's a mystery, yeah. Yeah. But I actually do think linguistic development. This is something that people have studied quite a lot.

And, you know, he makes claim to some children, they don't speak anything. In the next month, they're speaking in complete full sentences. It's miraculous. We don't know. We don't know anything about that. It's just a miracle. Yeah. Well, and also, I would say that's a very art layer case where, like, a nonverbal child

becomes, like, proficient in this piece of a bun as well. I was allowing for hyperbole there, but sure. But, yeah, so there you go. He's familiar with linguistics as well there. And Matt, again, the action point that he's making in that little segment that we're playing, he is making a reasonable point here, which is saying, you know, children develop at different speeds and you shouldn't have pressure on them to behave. You should appreciate, you know, so the message is not bad, right?

Well, you describe the message as not bad, but I described it as just incredibly mundane. And so this is, again, why it fits our format perfectly, because I see the go-to tactic of the prototypical guru to be saying stuff that is either it could be silly, but it's often just mundane, but they express themselves in such a way

to give that feeling of profundity. And this is a perfect example of that. Yes, that's true. Now, the other thing I wanted to highlight as a connection is, so like I mentioned, there's a bunch of courses that are discussed, right? This discussion starts off with the talk about creativity and authenticity.

And then it goes to a course, the source. This is the name of the course that they're promoting. It's particularly a course oriented towards actors. So what is the source about, Matt? What is the source of bike? Let's hear. And a lot of the questions that they ask is like, well, how is it different than Meisner? How is it different than Stella Adler or whatever?

And a lot of what the answers that I've given have been like, well, it's sort of, it's a partnership with that because it gives you the foundation underneath all of the technical skills and all of the kind of traditional approaches to acting that we've had throughout time. Like it really gets to the core of the actor so that you can work on the raw material and then everything else that they produce is affected by that. But I don't know, like, I'm curious to know what your perception is of the curriculum that you created and where it came from. Well, it comes from a mix of human behavior and philosophy and also really technical communication. You know, acting is all about a type of communication and being not only more aware, but more congruent in your communication. So you want people to, if you will, and I'm going to be a bit common in what I say, you want people to buy your character. Right.

And the way they buy it is they find it congruent and authentic. I mean, if someone could be totally congruent in a character and express authentically through that character, so they could do any sort of a scene or whatever, certainly that actor could do anything. Yes, just going to like an acting coach or voice coach or someone who specializes in this kind of thing. That's so old school, isn't it?

You know, what you want to do is you want to go to someone that is truly polymathic in their abilities that really draws upon all of these different fields, human behavior, philosophy, linguistics, and can put that all together. Because really this is something that could be applied to anything and can turn your acting into, you know, take it to that next level. This is who you need.

You need someone like Reneering. I think galaxy bring us, thing. Okay, there we go. But what about the fact that, you know, Keith Reneery is not an actor. He's not an expert who specializes in this. Like, surely that's a limitation. You know, you mentioned that he draws from different fields. You, some people say Jordan Peterson is not an atmospheric scientist.

But, you know, once you have these general thinking skills, like general abilities like sense makers have, then you can understand anything. It's a framework for understanding anything in the world, Chris. Oh, you're invoking first principles thinking, Matt. I wonder if Renneri brings that up. So the question is, how do you achieve that? How do you achieve congruence? How do you achieve authenticity?

And I think there are many roads to do this. The thing that I think makes the source. source a bit unique is I come from a non-acting background. You could say, I don't know what I'm talking about. That's good and bad. The good aspect is it comes from a behaviorist, humanist sort of practical and philosophical background, dealing with communication, dealing with all sorts of things relating to the psychodynamics of people and humans without being tainted by the current pedagogy of acting. And there's both a good and a bad. The good is when you have something that comes in like that fresh, it provides a tool that goes outside of the box of all the

normal tool sets. Any actor that wants to create a methodology of acting, especially if they know those other methodologies, they're influenced in a certain way. And that can be very, very good. But at times, it's also good to have something that is not influenced in the normal way by that, as if coming from another planet. So to some degree, the source is not just created for actors. It's created for human communication. It's something that can be used in arbitration. It's something that can be used in negotiation. It's something that can be used in parenting. It's something that could be used in a love relationship. And it comes from that perspective, but does have a strong application to what you would call that authentic, congruent expression.

And it's not tainted by the other schools that are all extraordinary. It's not at all that they're not great. It's that this is different. Yes. You might say revolutionary. Yes, because it's everything. It's everything, Chris. All of these other, the specialist knowledge and expertise is, you know, it's fundamentally limited. When you have true systems thinking and are operating from first principles and you understand that everything is created by humans interacting with the world, then you understand that like one unifying framework can be applied to understand everything. Actually, at times like this here reminds me of so many people, but it reminds me of Jordan Hall in this particular

instance. This is kind of how Jordan Hall turns to speak. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I love the double speak towards, it's not to say any of these other methods are bad. They're all extraordinary. But he does describe that his is untainted by the current category or all the approaches. Untainted by any expertise whatsoever. Yeah. And so you've got, oh, I'm not saying no bad, but you did describe it as like tating. And similarly, he often invokes, you know, they're good and bad. And this was a beautiful type.

They might do this myself. He said, you know, there's good and bad aspects from me coming outside with a fresh, you perspective, as if for Mars. And then he only says the good bits, and then he changes the topic. So he never gets to the part of, like, really the bad parts of that. Well, this is kind of the kind of vaguely woke right on type of language he's used elsewhere, right, which is it's someone like this is a very sophisticated operator. And they steer away from being obviously inappropriate and doing things like saying

that are better than women or being self-aggrandizing in an obvious way, oh, yeah, this is a great thing, it'll fix everything, it's much better than the other approaches. They're not so unsophisticated as to do that. They use this double language reflexively, I think, always. Yes, and, you know, one thing about it, Matt, I mean, this was very obvious in Matthew McConaughey's self-help seminar, but we have it on the grometer for a reason. This claim that your new theory or your approach will completely revolutionize, not just one field, potentially all of human interactions, if it was applied properly, right? People would finally understand what the Bible and Jesus and everybody was trying to say. And in that context, but listen to this.

So one of the things you can say about the source truly, because the way it was created had not much to do with acting, had to do with the human psychodynamic, has to do with a whole psychodynamic model of not only human behavior, but human moral, ethical action. So understanding that, understanding the way that functions within the body, within the emotions, within the thoughts, and how thoughts interrelate with all of those things, and emotions interrelated, how they all are together as a system, is it a body of knowledge that was grown specifically apart from the major schools, not only of acting, but of psychology and philosophy. And it's unique. And in its uniqueness is its power. And that's one of the,

I think, an important thing about it. Some people have said that my acting course, having no actual knowledge or expertise in acting is a limitation. I say. It's great. So, yeah. But yeah, again, this is sense making, isn't it? It's like you don't want to be tainted by the little particularities of things. You want to step back.

No, you want to be limited to one paradigm. That's right. You've got to be mixing together, philosophy and psychology. and thoughts and emotions and human behavior and morality and ethics. Psychodynamics, he likes fraudinisms apparently. But it's all mixed in together. It's all mixed in together to create this new, unique thing that is applicable to everything. This should be a red flag to people when people are doing this.

Yes, and what this all leads to, what you're... able to do if you follow source, if you follow these kind of things, it inevitably leads you to become a more rounded, more authentic, fully realized, human, not a robotic pre-programmed not like you and me. Not like you and me. Just literal, kind of little robots dealing with the material world. No, you'll be on a higher plane. Yes, so here you go. This is what it leads to you know it's worse than a person that isn't authentic a person that is authentically not whole because there's a whole part of them that is blind to being authentic if you have the person that's inauthentic that sort of presupposes it's a trick question but sort of presupposes

that there is an authenticity right but when you've taken part of yourself and distorted it or locked it away it's impossible to be authentic because your representation of yourself to yourself is inauthentic. So you become authentically and authentic, but in worse, you become authentically incomplete. And although incompletion is an important thing to be able to reveal, you have to see it. You have to know. Otherwise, you mistake completion for incompletion. So you have to see it.

you have to see the parts of you that you've shaved off. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, at least in the least see that you, that there is a wall there. Right. And at best, be able to to re-welcome those parts into your repertoire. So, Chris, I've complained before that about how difficult it is to pass what it is He's been saying, you know, how it creates a high cognitive load, that it gives a feeling of being wallowing around in a semantic fog.

You claim, oh, it's very straightforward. I know what they're saying. So, you're the, you're the understanderer? Does that perfectly clear to you? Yeah. Express, expressed clear. Yeah, yeah. I go, right?

So what he's saying is, like, if you're, you're unaware that you're an inauthentic person, that's bad. But what's worse than that is if. you're somebody that is authentically inauthent you are aware and you accept that kind of situation so you know that you are not like performing all right i've already fallen at the first hurdle because i don't know what being authentically inauthentic means so like okay i'll have got like i yeah so look it's like the difference between you're an ignorant duphus that hasn't got the first inkling that you are behaving inauthentically because you don't have a concept of it.

That is, that person is better off than somebody that may be aware of their inauthenticity, but that is an expression of their character. They're like embracing their inauthenticity as part. They've accepted that that's a limitation, right? So the difference between unawareness and awareness and tolerance for not being an authentic person. So it's like you've woke up to the problem, but you choose not to fix it. That's worse than not knowing that there's even a problem there, right? Okay.

That's what he's saying. I mean, it's one of the things he's saying. And so, you know, so if you were able to recognize this feeling of this satisfaction, this feeling that there is, you know, a better you out there. But you're not taking the steps to rectify that to, like, develop towards it to unlocking at this beautiful, beautiful butterfly. If you're not prepared to do the work, do the work. It's not for the courses, do everything that he says.

Yeah. That's what he's, that's what he's getting at. But it's the bit of amazes me about all of this kind of stuff. And it happens with Peterson as well. You know, they have all these different initiatives that they put all their heart and soul in. And Peterson Academy, it's going to completely revolutionize the world or their essay writing system or, you know, the new book that they're putting out, this is going to change things completely. And then they, inevitably it doesn't, right? Like, it just makes them money or, and they

then introduce their next course. And like just to highlight this in this conversation, they do this. So they've been talking about the source, why the source is unlocking it. It's the only thing you need. This is the final answer. Yeah, except not quite. So have you considered reverence, my reverence. And you mentioned reverence, which is the curriculum that you developed that is sort of, we call it like the emotional gym. And I find them to be very inseparable, the source and reverence. Like you, you were saying like, okay, so the source opens up this kind of cavern of experience that you've shoved away for a long time. But it's like if you open the door to this thing and you don't know what to do with it or how to interface with it or you don't have the strength

to withstand the experience that comes back with that. So, you know, source unlocks you, Matt, to these potentials. It makes you discover them. Now, he did say it did a whole bunch of other stuff, right? But never mind, forget that. Now it just makes you aware of your true nature, right? But the problem is you haven't got the tools now to channel it. Like you're not authentic enough by just doing source.

So, but maybe if you combine source and reverence, you like you're at least getting closer I mean listen to this whereas in the source it's hard for a person to be deeply authentic if they're inauthentic with themselves

and people who are inauthentic with themselves the nature of being inauthentic with yourself is that you're blind to it otherwise you'd be authentic with yourself and then you'd be sort of conning yourself on top of it but true self inauthenticity is blindness Yes, it's an incompletion.

But with understanding this philosophically and opening these areas up, then what are the practices, what are the actual practical tools that allow you to, if you will, it's almost custom design. You might call it designer emotional states, designer emotional capacity,

designer emotional transitions. Not only how do you design them, but how do you practice them? Now, the work is never done, is it, Chris, this is why, you know, it's a constant journey of self-exploration, finding new caverns within yourself and digging deep within them. Would you agree? This is like, this is an important point, right? That it's the process. The self-work can never end. And I've got to say another thing real quick, which is I know it's going to seem like a long boat of draw. But I see a connection here too between the like anti-racist gurus we've covered, Robert DeM. Angelo and Abraham X. Kendi, because they both have a very similar kind of thing. There's a constant process of self-exploration that has to continue. They are going to guide you through it. And again, the work is never done. And it has the same kind of self-justifying rationale, which is if you agree with them, good. If you accept the message, 100%. That's good. If you're

skeptical, right? You need to do more work. Yeah, you're showing fragility, you're showing whatever, some unrecognized racism that you've got. So there's this common structural elements to all of this stuff. Ah, the arguments. About arguments. Yes, and I note there as well at the end, Matt, the kind of invocation of like a capitalist consumerist approach. They're talking about designer emotional capacity, designer emotional stress. And usually when they're invoking that kind of things, they're decrying.

right like consumer and materialist focus but he are it's a desirable thing no it's it's bespoke it's it's very rarefied you know this is this is an elite good and you know they target they target elite people right they target people they don't target the law orders for one of a better phrase um so yeah i mean again and this reminds me too of the the health and wellness gurus right who who always have these very exclusive very bespoke very complicated treatment regimes and programs that are not available to the masses. And it is hyper-capitalist, right? It is like it is hyper-monetized and sold as exclusive products.

Yeah, and like the bit that gets me about this is, you know, capitalist society and a marketing in general already a long time ago worked out that the way to sell things is to present it as like a product that fulfills something that's like, It's not just like a new pair of shoes. It's a new way of life, right? Oh, yeah. But also creating a problem in order to solve it. Like, isn't the class example, bad breath, halitosis?

Maybe it's an urban myth. But wasn't that like a term that was invented to sell like breath freshening things. Same with deodorant and so on. Not saying these are not legitimate problems, but they will work very hard to create a market for the thing they are selling. I mean, same thing with Father's Day and Mother's Day, right? Yeah. Well, I mean, you can also take it for things that, like, objectively don't work, like power bracelets that are designed to ionize you and, like, deflect electromagnetic radiation or whatever. Like, they can't work, but they're, they are solving a problem, which doesn't actually exist, right? That, you know, electromagnetic waves are damaging your cells. So you got to buy a bracelet. The connection with gurus and Ranieri in particular, right, is that they do, they spend a lot of time.

waxing lyrical on creating the problem, right? The problem is you're corrupt, you're inauthentic, you're not fully integrated, and you're not fully connected to the people around you. There's a problem. Fortunately, fortunately, there's a series of courses or a podcast that you can listen to that could help.

And Matt, you know, the problem is that you're going by the pre-programmed scripts of the mainstream media and education. and, you know, the health authorities and so on, you know, that's the problem with society. People aren't listening to these brief, you know, outside the box thinkers. The problem right now with society is society doesn't, is not self-reflective. Because we don't have a strong community structure, a strong national structure, and down to the strong family structure and individual structure, these things are not reflective of really a specific type of morality.

You question most people, and in some of our educational programs, one of the modules is good and bad. A lot of people say, oh, this is good, this is bad, but they don't have a real definition for it. And when they're put to the task, suddenly they realize, well, the reason why I think it's good is because I thought it was good, and because I thought it was good, I thought it was good, and I was told it was good, and I thought it was good.

But is it good? I'm not sure it's good. And if I had heard that from someone else, I might have been told it was bad and thought it was bad and believed it was bad. And we find that we have this programming and has nothing much to do with our experience in life other than it has been dictated to us. So at the beginning there, he again reiterates how society is corrupt, the country is corrupt, the family values, Matt, communities. structures. Yeah. Who have we heard that?

It's all fucked, isn't it? And so I've got a question for you. Like, have we covered like any bad guru who has not claimed that the entire world, everything is corrupt? Because that I've just realized there's an extremely consistent theme, isn't it? Yeah. Although it is a very popular theme, you know, in a lot of areas to be fair. Like, I mean, if you go in the progressive media, you will hear that.

If you go in the right-wing media, you'll hear about the clap. So it is, fair to say, it's a very popular line of thought. You know, Stephen Pinker is vehemently hated. Yeah, it's vehemently hated for saying that things are okay and getting better. That's not, nobody wants to hear that. Yeah, the only person that was allowed to say that, there was a degree even then that they weren't in favor. was Hans Rosling, the guy that gave the nice TED talks with the visualizations,

right? Yeah, he got away with it. Not totally. Some people still accused him of being Polyanish, but less of them were pinker. So yeah, there is that, and it's all, you know, there, I mean, we don't hear this much echoes of this, to be fair in this content,

but there is often in the sense maker content, in the guru's face, this kind of harking. back to the pre-industrial society or at least the 1950s when community structures were strong and people knew their roles and they had purpose and we weren't in this existential meaning crisis and you know their family structures are beginning to crumble you know national identification has has fallen by the wayside so yeah yeah it's it's an easy thing to see how this kind of rhetoric fits with like a kind of maga populism

or really any thing which says we will restore the, you know, society to a utopian framework. And this is the thing with a lot of cults where you've had like, you know, the Omshin Rikio or oral or violent cults where they've either ended up in mass suicides or on attacks on external society, whatever. They often frame it that they are acting to restore like society, right, to the, you know, Utopia of Future. The problem is it's not that they hear people. It's not that they want to cause harm. It's that, you know, they need to take action because of the corrupt society around them. Well, this is connected to the final addition to the grometer, which is the moral grandstanding. And, you know, having a divine mission with a high moral purpose. And it's usually something around curing the world. The first step, of course, is to help individuals navigate, you know, keep themselves pure and fully integrated within this collapsing and corrupt system of broken families, weak nations and terrible world generally. And then the people within the group, you know, the next level goal is to, you know, fix the world. My, I was telling my wife about this episode and she, she gave me like three examples of Japanese cults, which

are all very similar. They have similar missions to fix the world and they all involved a male cult leader having sex with a lot of participants. It's very important. It's a part of

it seems to be. Probably the majority of them have also been endorsed by the Dalai Lama. I feel like he should be more deserted if I think he should he needs to be a little bit less prolific it is endorsements, I think.

Yes. And, well, the last clip around Alison Mack, right, this is the last clip I just want to play about her. And she's talking about her first meeting and also like her background, right, with him. It's just incredible because I think when we first met and I first started studying the work that you produce and just became a student of all the different exercises

that you've developed and processes to, build myself. I felt like I was in university for my soul. You know what I mean? Like it wasn't, I've always loved education, but I've never really had a lot of formalized education. I think we kind of share in that. But this felt like education in terms of like nothing intellectually firm. It was more like I was educating like my inner light or my spirit or whatever. I don't know what to call it. So two things that struck me. me there was one, I know this is not always the case. There's plenty of cults that have preyed on highly educated people, you know, who feel disenfranchised or disenchanted with life

as well. But when she references the kind of yearning for education and that she didn't have much, you know, because she went in there acting, I think that is a connective tissue where a lot of people, and we've seen a lot of the audience of guru types as well, they're being sold the message that, you know, the mainstream institutions, academia or schooling, it kind of failed you and it didn't, you know, recognize that you actually were somebody hungering for knowledge. And now I'm going to let you in on like an education, which is better than the university, right? Like, it's more deep than these, like the crepit old systems. And, you know, she describes it as a university for the soul here, which is a little bit on the,

on the nose. But, but that's a very recurrent thing, right? The feeling that the, the mainstream educational system, for whatever reason, either the person, you know, didn't attend or didn't jive with them, and they've, they've been left with like a feeling that they have the interest, but they haven't had the opportunity. And cult leaders and secular gurus, that's one of the things that they constantly pray on is like the elites are looking down at you and these eggheads in the ivory towers right like they're feeling society um so i just noted that as a recurrent like motifs yeah yeah yeah and i there was also much you know one thing it doesn't relate immediately to this point but i went on a meditation retreat when i was like in my

20s in Canada, right, like a, you know, a Vipassna silent retreat, right? And as part of it, there were like sessions where people would come in and talk about their experiences meditating, right? And I remember vividly that there was somebody who hadn't had much experience meditating and they went to this like semi-intensive retreat, right? And they broke down in tears during the session where they were relating their experiences. And they were basically explaining, they hadn't noticed before how much their self-talk was negatively inflected towards all the people towards themselves. So when they were forced to sit and just focus on their thoughts or trying not to, you know, think about those kind of

things, it shocked them the extent to which they, they were judging other people or judging themselves. And they found it like incredibly emotional, transformative, right? They were in tears in front of a whole bunch of people that they didn't meet it. And I remember, remember feeling like, I didn't have that reaction. Like I had similar experiences where you're trying to meditate and you find out, oh, my brain is

constantly trying to, you know, ruminate on different things or future events or past events and so on. But for some people, I think there is like a very deep emotional response to finding out new insights

about themselves, right? And like I think that that can speak to the kind of person who might be a little more likely to, you know, get caught up in self-improvement movements or that kind of thing because I don't know. I don't, I'm not even saying that it's necessarily like a gullible aspect. It's more like they're just more fragile or more emotionally affected by these kind of insights. So yeah, I don't know if it's relevant, but it struck me as well of them. Yeah, I know what you mean.

Like the null hypothesis here is that basically, you know, everyone is temperamentally, equally vulnerable. And, you know, it's just if you're in a particular situation and the right circumstances, you can for this kind of thing. But I suspect as well that there is certain sort of preconditions that kind of need to be met. Like you need to be, you need to have a kind of a yearning. You need to have, feel like something's missing will be,

hoping for something more so that there has to be that sort of motivation coming in and i think that kind of sensitivity where you know somebody looking at you deeply in the eyes and paying attention to you and reflecting things back to you encouraging you to whatever explore some in a crevice of yourself i think you have to be someone like you said who finds that kind of thing at least potentially very very meaningful and engaging and um yeah so i i suspect that is some temperamental preconditions, but they're probably reasonably broad. I don't think I'm one of those people I flatter myself, but I don't think it's a fault. You know what I mean? No, it's just the distribution of personality types is what I is. And I mean, it could correlate with, for example,

emotional openness, right? Yes. Like something like that. So in all the aspects, it would be a limiting factor, right? Because you might come across as too cold or, you know, clinical or analytical or whatever about so yeah I guess my point is that I do think there are like personality factors or maybe life experience factors that just make you potentially more vulnerable vulnerable to this kind of rhetoric yeah I think that's a good way to think about it I wouldn't I think the wrong way to think about it is to think that the people who are vulnerable have some kind of deficit that they're not smart enough to see through it or whatever but I think it's more correct to say that there's you know personality doesn't have a good bad valence

right and there's probably some personality types including openness to experience which is typically if any trait was a good trait that that would be the one that I think would make you more vulnerable yes now the last thing I've got to play here and it's a it's a sorry note the end on but I think it deserved one so there's a little discussion about love you know we already learned from McCona Hay and and code that love is selling selling is actually love when you think about it you wouldn't want to give something way for free if it was valuable. We've heard from Jordan Peterson. I love and the fundamental nature of humanity is his sacrifice, right? It's verticality, vertical sacrifices. That's

what does it. So let's hear what Reneery has to say about love and pain. And pain is considered bad, but it's not the pain that's bad. It's the suffering that's bad. Pain is actually a very important thing and if we look at something like love and most people say oh they desire love or in the end they either act from love or hate or desire and as humans is to be loved or to experience love love has been unfortunately the word the concept has been tarnished love is something that in the most developed human sense the sperm and the egg an egg does not have love a sperm does not have love

embryo in the womb does not have love a newborn baby does not have love but an old wise person has an exquisitely developed sense of love potentially somewhere in between being born and being old and wise love happens some people think love happens at puberty because they

are getting all sorts of tingly feelings and now things feel alive. They feel like you want to consume in them and they call that love. The nature of love or what I might call the most developed aspect of human love is not about just happiness, is not about feeling good. you know and I had said the other day I came up with a sort of a concept that love disfigures happiness people who are seekers of happiness are actually going the opposite direction of love and why do I say this it's not that love doesn't contain moments of happiness or moments of joy but the way we have a weight to

our love or understand love itself or the magnitude of love love is through pain. When we most feel love, we feel pain. And the depth of pain that we feel measures that love. And the depth of pain that we feel in the sacrifices that we make for love. Danger, Will Robinson, danger, danger, danger. Yeah, yeah. You know, there's a, there's a way to read this that is not sinister. But yeah, when you're talking about love, pain, sacrifice, and as we know, he was very effective in creating a dominance hierarchy there. There is a sinister aspect to it. Yeah, I mean, like this is to me very reminiscent of when we've heard Jordan Peterson discussed love, for example, as well. And like you said,

there's a, there's a reading of it, which is just saying, look, you know, love often involves sacrifice. It involves being non-selfish. You love your children, but you don't always, you know, enjoy parenting. It's sometimes difficult, sleepless nights, kids being assholes. You know, there's various moments, but overall the experiences, you know, love. But in that case, yes, sure, fine. But when you say something like love is going the opposite direction from, happiness right yeah like well like love usually does also include things like affection and happiness as well right so like if somebody is in a loving experience and all they're experiencing is consistent peeing and no affection and and hurt right in what veneery is saying some people who

aren't enlightened might regard that as an abusive situation about exploitation, but actually, Matt, that is the deepest presentation of love. And we know from Nixium that this is part of their ideology, right? Like, basically, you have to sacrifice yourself. You have to become someone's slave and give up, devote yourself to them. And that demonstrates your kind of spiritual commitment and, like, level of... Very convenient, isn't it? Yeah.

I mean, like you said, there's a few, like at a very mundane level, there's a couple of points that are valid. A lot of times there's going to be some kind of sacrifice involved. You know, even trivial sacrifices in terms of your free time and your energy. That's right. And you don't want to be orienting yourself towards avoiding all discomfort and have that as your primary thing because that's going to limit you in important ways. But what he builds on that is this classic guru, psychobabble bullshit. Like you said, the claim that happiness and love are opposites on opposite sides of the spectrum,

it's a false dichotomy, and it's nonsense. There's no reason why love can't involve joy a lot of the time and other times you make little sacrifices. In fact, that's obviously far more plausible. And, you know, it's hard not to be tainted by the knowledge of what this philosophy is used for, but it's obviously dangerous,

even if you didn't know anything about Nixium and you were just looking at this on the face of it, it's dangerous. because it romanticizes suffering and putting up with all kinds of toxic behavior. And then it's just wrong in point of fact, you know, and playing around with, like, saying that love only happens from adolescence where you start getting, you know, sexual type that's based on that. Like, that's a, that's a week. Well, after that. He's saying after, it comes after that. That's not love might.

Yeah. So, again, however you want to define it. There's lots of ways. Lots of definitions, I think, that it could involve younger people. Children love lots of stuff. My kid was in love with Ruchima. Yeah, but also, you know, affection and love towards parents and all that kind of thing. So, yeah. But I think this kind of psychobabble is a good example of why the gurus in general and these kinds of conversations in general are just so empty.

because it's very fundamentally weak, like the logic. So, like, what this is doing here with the false economy, but also it's confusing, like, any kind of correlation with, like, the true essence of the thing. So to say that, okay, sometimes sacrifice happens as a part of, you know, a loving relationship, fine. And then for what they build on that is that actually the suffering or the sacrifice is the true essence. Is the love. Yeah, is the love. That doesn't follow, not at all.

No. Yeah, and they're making reference to like, you know, in literature and whatnot that some of the most famous expressions of unconditional love are somebody willing to sacrifice themselves or their happiness so that someone else would be happy or survive, right? But in that case, the notable thing is that the person sacrificed themselves for someone else to be happy, right? And in the relationships that Nixon ended up creating, the sacrifice was from you towards the leader or the other person. But even if it's not a cult, you could be in a toxic relationship with someone who's narcissistic, who is basically operating along the same principles, is wanting you to be always the one giving and sacrificing, and it's never reciprocated. So, like, you know, this kind of toxic thinking manifests itself in lots of less extreme ways than the foreblown cult, right? There's a whole spectrum.

Yeah, and all of that is kind of embodied in this last clip map, which is him talking a bit more about that. More reflections on how sacrifice and enduring of pain is actually what love is abide. But we say love is beyond all that. And when we say that someone loves someone, even when they speak of love in the Bible, love is beyond all those things. How do you know someone loves someone? Is it at the good times? No. No, it's through the hardest times. It's when there's the most sacrifice, when someone maybe is even willing to sacrifice their life for the love of their partner. and we then see and when we see that in a movie or a play or in real life and we let ourselves go there we feel this deep pathos we feel this this sense of love and love comes not from the receiving it comes from the giving it comes not from the satiation or the comfort it comes from the sacrifice and the pain that's how we know it That isn't to say it doesn't exist in joy and in happiness,

but we know it through our pain. And if you have a fear of pain, you have a fear of knowing your own love. It's not pain that is the problem. It's the suffering that's the problem. So all of these things that we are scared of in our personality, that we hold away because we're scared of the pain they might bring, is a way we also limit our capacity to experience. experience our love. He's very malicious. And if you get with the flow, maybe it sounds good

and you are distracted from the fact that a slightly skeptical look at this would reveal that, no, you can know love through other things other than sacrifice and pain. You can notice it through acts of kindness. People, you know, being consistent and reliable and supportive. There are other ways to recognize it. But they sort of slip in these propositions, these unsupported propositions as part of this malicious flow. And this is why I'm so opposed to this entire style talking. I mean, he sounds very much like Jordan Peterson there. And, you know, I really, I want to emphasize that, like, to some extent, what we know about Nixium is a distraction here. In one sense, it's useful to us, Chris, because of course, like, we don't need to make the case of this is a bad guy

and this is manipulative language. It's been demonstrated in the courts. And by the testimonies of hundreds of people, we don't have to convince people of this. But I think it can also be a distraction because you're always thinking, well, you know, reading it through that lens. But I think even if Nixium never happened,

maybe all he did was do some bland, self-helpie courses, charge people a few hundred bucks for it. And it was a bit of a waste of time, but nothing more sinister happened. Then I think all of the critiques that we've got of this type of, discourse would totally hold it would still be at best a waste of time yeah yeah and i mean

that is true you should be wary of this and you know wherever you encounter it even you know interpersonal settings or whatever but i i do think that whenever the implication of the logic is that the more that the person hurts you the more that they are potentially demonstrating their love, that there should be something which is like, you know, the red flag is raised across circumstances, and explicitly more so when you're paying someone for the pleasure of completing their courses or being in their presence and that they're at the head of a pyramid ship organization, right? It is true that somebody using this rhetoric in an interpersonal situation as well is also potentially, you know, like being abusive. But I think when you have the

called Caesarea Rodet. It's particularly a worrying thing to hear that the logic is, the more you suffer, the more that you demonstrate your pain, the more that that is proof of your love. Like, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, it's dangerous stuff. Yeah, I mean, if you hear it coming from a political leader, demanding more sacrifices, more pain and suffering from the people, and anyone who's not willing to do that is not a legitimate, you know, member of the society.

You know, it's coming from any source. It's a potentially dangerous message. So, Chris, what are your final thoughts? Well, I mean, I really like them. I thought we've covered a lot of people, you know. Nice guy. Yeah, this guy, actually, one of the rare ones, it gets it all right. No, no, the main thoughts for me is just like that there are a lot of.

parallels with the stuff that we cover in other less, you know, extreme content, right? You heard the echoes of the sense maker focusing on definitions of words. You heard the decorative scholarships. You heard revolutionary theories being presented, the notion that he's employing first principles thinking and the denigrating of mainstream institutions and people being pre-programmed robots, you know, adhering to their script. And the other bit that, like, really flagged up for me is just the amount of talk dedicated to uncovering your true self, becoming your authentic person and recognizing, you know, the elements that are hidden deep within you that here to four have gone unnoticed. And that kind of rhetoric, it really, it really rubs me the wrong way, but it clearly doesn't rub a whole lot of people the wrong way, or some set of people.

It's very appealing. And this is part of the reason where I think when we are highlighting this as something that can be weaponized, we're not always saying it is weaponized, right? Like, there's plenty of people that we've covered who talk a little bit similarly, like Brene Brown, for example, about dealing with trauma and, you know, becoming more authentic or whatever. But it's, I think you just got to have your antenna up when you hear people. invoking that because it does rely on this notion that your current self, you know, you're not

where you want to be. Don't you have things that could be better? Don't you think people like don't give you enough respect or you feel dissatisfied with yourself, right? You could be better and like in some ways it feels like it's very much brain on the frailties of the human condition. And we always invoke this. But the fact that we're a social primates and we're anxious about our status and anxious about life and so on. You'll never find a person that doesn't have some of that, right? Yeah, yeah. I think people should just not, not try to do this kind of self-actualization thing.

You know, just get a hobby. Self-actualized through that. Yeah, like, the fun, I mean, the kind of unfortunate thing is that in this case, this person that's talking, in a way they were self-actualizing through their career. year. They were developing their profile as an actor. They would have got all their roles. They would have had a public profile and been able to have resources to invest time in things that they wanted to pursue. Like maybe they give up being an actor, but they've earned enough money that they become a horse trainer or something like that. But instead, their life is basically

ruined. Despite the amount of time that they devoted to thinking about how they could improve themselves. And it's all based on these lofty motives to be a better person. to become more spiritually evolved and a better woman and you know all these kind of things and I think that's the bit where often with the gurus people say you know but look they are trying to do something that's good you know they have good motives and like in all cases I'm like almost everyone has good motives right like everyone everyone everyone says they have good motives is what you mean to yeah yeah but but even I think just people are very capable of justifying whatever they're doing. Like I think Hitler's a very bad guy. I think he probably viewed his agenda as being

good for at least the German people, if not the world, right? And yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I agree with all that. I won't repeat your takes. I'm going to focus on a slightly different thing because I wasn't, I confess, I wasn't really thinking about Reneer and Nixia most of the time when I was listened to this because, you know, we know it's a cult. We know what it did. That's all settled. So I was more interested in the sort of the structure of the conversation, the structure of his language, and he's very multifilous, very good at talking. Like most of our gurus, most of the things he's saying are pretty mundane or very flawed if you actually put your sceptical hat on for the moment.

But the key thing is that I think the vast majority of listeners don't. And that is because every part of the discourse is designed. to prevent you from actually evaluating the claims critically. So what you would normally have, I think in healthy communication, somebody would make a claim, provide some evidence or some reasoning for it, and then invite you to potentially challenge it or respond to it, deal with it critically. But the guru mode is to say,

you need to adopt this way of thinking and person. receiving before you can even, you need to do so much work to understand it. And you could be doing cognitive work, the cognitive load in the actual discourse is the thing. But obviously, you have to do a lot of other work too. You've got to watch hundreds of hours of videos or you've got to enroll in all of these courses. It can take years, right? So there's lots of ways in which you have to invest all of this energy simply to understand what it is they're claiming. So you never actually get to the point where you're even allowed to evaluate it critically. So because you're spending all your time trying to get it, rather than asking, wait, hang on, is this actually true? And because

they present themselves as such an authoritative figure, who is absolutely certain and very clear about all of this, and you need to do the work to be able to get a small percentage of their perception of the world, it creates this hierarchy, right? Like we see it with all of the gurus. There's this kind of, you know, master, sense, a student relationship that is set up both in the conversation, but also often in the organization as well. And if you're someone who says or resists, like as some people do in these cults, go, oh, no, I don't want to sleep with you actually, or that sounds bad or I'd like to get out of it, right? Then that skepticism is dealt with very harshly. It, you know, it can happen in a conversation or it can happen physically. If it, if you

say, oh, this seems empty or circular to me, then really, that's because you haven't reached a deeper level. That's it. You've got to go further in before you're really going to get it. Do you remember the rewatch, was it called The Master? You remember the film where Seymour Hoffman, Philip Seymour Hoffman? And the one thing that I think was very accurate in that was, for those who haven't seen the movie, it's about a kind of like fictional version of Scientology, right, the Elrone Hubbard type character. But there's a scene in it where the guru is expounding at a dinner party and there's a skeptic there, right? And then he challenges some of the things that he's saying as sort of profound. And, you know, Philips Zimmer

Hoffman explodes, right, in a rage, right? And like, curses at him very violently. And I thought that was true to life, not necessarily that, you know, the guru would actually, you know, react in exactly the same way, but just a lot of the time they've, a lot of the time they're more calculated, Right? They'll tend to adopt a conciliatory tone, but actually their intent is to cut the criticism down as quickly as possible. Exactly. So I think that lurking underneath is that that kind of anger at being challenged. And like in the interactions that you hear here, you have a very clear dynamic, right? That one is the teacher, one is the seeker. And I think it's just worth noting some of the tactics that people can use to join your back foot, things like asking you questions, which make you vulnerable, like, why did you react like

that? How do you, what do you mean by that? Is that really a good question to ask me? Right. And like, of course in this case, it's like sinister, but just notice when people do that, that that is a flipping of like power dynamics and all that kind of thing. So we'll carry on map. Maybe we'll hear similar things in later cultivator content. I think I'm developing an interest in linguistics because, you know, we are dealing with all of this spoken language. And it's really highlighted to me that it serves so many different purposes, right? Like it can be used to actually convey information, convey ideas, and to actually exchange ideas, or it can be used to control and manipulate and to do a whole bunch of other

things. And the final thing I want to say is that I just want to reiterate my opposition, not just to Nixium or this guy, and not even to the guru specifically. Like I said, I think there's a lot of people that are less toxic who are just a bit fuddled in their thinking who kind of took like this and like this kind of thing. In those cases, it's often just a waste of time as opposed to being pernicious. But it is something that I'm just genuinely against. If you think this kind of conversation is meaningful and profound and in any way useful, then I think you're wrong. I think this type of conversation. Yeah, I mean, it's not designed. It's not designed. designed to actually contain much information at all.

It's really just a melange of poetic expression that is doing something else. It could be doing something innocuous or it could be trying to reorient you to a particular kind of worldview, make you dependent on the guru and get you to be continually engaging with them and like a passive receptacle for their. ideas. Maybe they're not exploiting you, maybe they're not grifting off you or whatever, but, you know, I think the outcome is almost never good. Yeah, no, I will just note that I do think in general, Robin Dunbar has worked on this if people are interested, but human language in general, that is what it's primarily for, is spreading social information, gossip, and so that it is

being used for that purposes is a part of its function. Well, it's normal. Okay, let me interrupt. It is normal and ubiquitous, yes. But I guess the issue is when it's pretending to be something else, right? It's not all of it. Some of it is meant to be talking about whatever, philosophy, ethics, science, understanding society, right?

And it's purported to be the other kind of communication, not social signaling. Yes, yes. And I totally agree. So there is that. I just, you know, I'm just, just highlighting Matt

before we get the emails that we are aware that conversation is not simply for exchanging information packets about where the best hunting grounds are. So we know, we know.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. You're defending me against, against Reddit. It sounds like I'm critiquing you, but I've actually, you're helping me.

Yeah. I'm not sure. Yes, that's right. You're like Gandalf. Remember my criticism is as an expression of love. Actually is in this case, I think. Hey, one more red flag, which is that continuous work, that continuous engagement that, you know, was encouraged by this, this Reneeri guy.

That is something we see, you know, across many of the gurus. And to contrast it, I think early on we sort of unveiled our Gorometer, right? We haven't added much to it, right? You could have stopped there, and you've pretty much got what anything that you and me have got to say on this, right? Right? You don't need to listen to everything. If you're listening, it's hopefully just because it's enjoyable and a bit of, you know, interesting. But you see from most of the guru characters that you need to engage really deeply.

You've got to continue doing the work. You've got to keep signing up for courses. You've got to keep watching YouTube videos. it's going to take you years to get it. In fact, the process of getting it will never, ever end, and also the way in which they are self-inoculating against criticism. We see it from the anti-racist gurus. We see it in the sense makers,

who label us or other people as being like systems A thinking or concrete, reductive materialists. And we see it with this guy too. they're self-inoculating against skepticism. So that's the final red flag. If you see those, then just stop, leave. Yeah, I think we'll probably talk about this in the next supplementary material, but there was a three or 47 minutes long video of three people who were part of the Peterson

Academy, there were students and they were expelled for various reasons. but they're reflecting on their experiences there. And they are what you would regard, Matt, as the very highly motivated minority of students. You know, the types that are using all the tools to create their own essays and essay marking clubs and all this kind of thing and, you know, discussing and finding community.

And it's actually very instructive to listen to them discuss it because they've got such clear affection for, you know, Jordan Peterson and a lot of things that were happening there and they got a lot of value at the things in the course. But they're also like disenchanted because they kind of recognize that a lot of the decisions being made were business-oriented and they were being treated more as, you know, like paying customers as opposed to community members, right?

But just that whole conversation, a lot of similar motifs come up about people not really jelling with formal education, feeling that, you know, they were being looked down upon and wanting to have a, you know, an alternative system, believing in Jordan Peterson's mission and also talking about themselves and their character and the self-work that they've done and the thing that they've recognized for engaging with Peterson's work

and so on. And it is in a similar way, I would say, that they are very much seekers. And they're not bad people at all. They're not non-critical, but it does highlight how these dynamics apply. Like, in that case, they just lost, you know,

some money in some time, right? Yeah, they got off pretty lightly. Jordan Peterson, for all his faults, is obviously, you know, far as dangerous. He's too busy. I think he's too busy to be a cult leader, but I think, you know,

circumstances, you know, good well when I don't have heard well I got to say briefly that I know a few Jordan Peterson fans in real life just not closely but I know of them

and they fit exactly the description you gave there Chris which is that they're they're kind of smart cookies you know what I mean but they but they for one reason or another you know feel a bit

disenfranchised feel a bit like left out And they really like the idea that what they've been left out of sucks and that the Jordan Peterson type community is an alternative one in which people of worth like them are valued. Yeah, yeah. So, well, maybe I might play a couple of clips. So we'll talk about it in the next supplementary material. But that will be thematically connected to cult season, which will continue.

We're not going to just cover. Let's be clear, though. It's like a periodic thing, right? Like we don't have to only do cult leaders now until the end of the season. Thank God. We run this podcast, Matt. It doesn't run us. Yeah, I couldn't handle doing like this level of toxic cult every week because

I mean, because this guy is a snake and it is painful to watch this. It's bad enough listening to it. But if you watch it and you can see the body language. expression of the lady combined with just the snake-like essence of that guy, almost sort of hypnotic way. It is deeply ugly. Yeah. This is, we're at 100% head rate for when people invoke their high IQ that feared not to be trusted. So that's worth noting. But people you can trust, Matt, are patrons. Our features. And by the way, everyone, in case you're not a Patreon, you know, you can be one.

You can be one. You know, this podcast, we disdain the kind of testimonial type product placement, advertising. There's so many other podcasts succumb to. But, you know, now our patron tiers have 30% more parosocial connections. If you sign up, you can join our very exciting community. where I will post photos of my urban vegetable garden

in the backyard. You can post your photos. You can post photos of your food and I will like that shit. These are the kinds of benefits you can get

by signing out. And no other podcast has that. That's true. Nobody else. You can't get that anywhere else. There is all our bonus content. There's Decoded Academia

and there's occasional early releases of material and there's book view clubs and various things. But yeah, so if you're interested in the book, you can go check it out. And we promise not to demand that you display your love via providing compromising material or like, no, no. We actively discourage any displays of love, actually, on the Patreon.

Yeah, that's forbidden. At least, at least your words. No, no, in general, in general. But nonetheless, I did, you can't say it's a fitting episode to do this on. I did want to give a shout out to the long-term patrons, the people that have been, you know, around supporting us for quite a lot. Through thick and thin. Yeah, the highs and the lows of this forecast. And so first, conspiracy hypothesizers that I would like to mention.

I would like to mention Timor. Anonymous Ephesus, not a serial killer at all, just asking questions. Gaddy Epstein, Chris Clark, Paul Taylor, Himmofi Nuren, Potato Wire, Brian Schmaryin, Malhamud, Gretchen Coff, Kevin O'Rourke, Christopher McLaughlin, Joe Percy, KMD, Alisa Wilson, Amur Patel, Peter Astrum, Ison Justad, Jim Murray, Roscoe 112, Greg Bander, V-O-V, Sam Hurd photography, Gavin Boydor, Ben Mitchell, and Trenton Knorr. I just chose a random point to stop, but I wanted to give them a shout at it. Your sacrifice is appreciated.

That's right. So they are conspiracy hypothesizers. I feel like there was a conference that none of us were invited to that came to some very strong conclusions. and they've all circulated this list of correct answers. I wasn't at this conference. This kind of shit makes me think, man. It's almost like someone is being paid. Like when you hear these George Soros stories,

he's trying to destroy the country from within. We are not going to advance conspiracy theories. We will advance conspiracy hypotheses. Now, if you wanted to make a bigger sacrifice to prove your love to us, How would you do it, Chris? You would just pay more. That's the only option you have. That was an easy layout.

That was a layout and you ruined it. I don't. I'm not great at this, you know, as it happens. But in any case, you could be a revolutionary genius. That would give you access to me. You're quoting academia content. There's like 40 episodes or something like that. of additional multi-hour content on academic type topics.

Each one better than the last. That's true. It's objectively true. They're just getting better over time. Now, in that category, Mark, we have people like Paul Hahn, David Love, Diane Morrison, Kim Youngton, Frasier, Alex A, Samuel, Rivers, Patrick Dunlap, Adrian Barrett, Bullshito Media Foundation, Old Frosty, Brendan Hitch, Joel H. Dinuit, Juhah Vitamaki, Mike Nelson, Tom Allison, Daniel Reed Miller,

Ayukal U.Nu, Dexter King Williams, Louise Price, and Rebecca L. Shanawani. They are all revolutionary geniuses. They are. I'm usually running, I don't know, 70 or 90 distinct paradigms simultaneously all the time. And the idea is not to try to collapse them down to a single master paradigm. I'm someone who's a true polymath. I'm all over the place. But my main claim to fame, if you'd like, in academia, is that I founded the field of evolutionary consumption.

Now, that's just a guess. And it could easily be wrong. But it also could not be wrong. The fact that it's even plausible is stunning. Now, Chris, let's say a listener wanted to join the inner circle. If they wanted to wear the golden sash, become fully integrated, to really fully experience what love can be. How would they do it?

I don't like this framing. They could, I guess what you want me to say is that they could become, galaxy brain gurus, and in that case, they would have the chance, Matt. They made the obligation to talk to us once a month on the live hangout, if they wanted to. That would be up to them. We don't promise any pearls of wisdom, mostly just conversation about nuts and bouldering. But nonetheless, that option is there. Some people have chosen it. Some people that you may know, Matt. So there we have. Chris Spanos, the alpha and omega of the coding the gurus.

Chris Panas. He's the best lawyer in Australia. If you ever got any legal problems, go to Chris. He's the best. That's right. That's true. He tries harder. He's not more talented than the other lawyers.

He just tries that much harder. Does he? Yeah. Well, he was there before us. He will be there after we die. And there's Chris. Right. Then you have coach, Max Plan,

Josh Stutman, Nazar Zubra, Garif Lee, Leslie, David Jones, Madhav, J, Benjamin Ashcraft, David Small, Alexanderson, Stephen Donnelly, Steve Donnelly, The Soil Will Save Us, Dan Lev 151, Tom Yasko, Hustletron, 9,000, Bradley G. Wall, Rob Leslie Jr., Kyle Wilson, Janet Yutter, Loki, the God of Deception,

Tim Rosseter, Jav Jones, Jesta, Chris, Adam Session, Maytree, Adam Taylor, and Amadeus Lyshecki. Oh, I'm Jenny. It's true. I do know most of those people. Some of them have hung out with me, stayed at my brother's house and gone for a swim. What? And gotten wasted together. Not even I've done that.

Well, I've got wasted. These are the kind of perks you get. at the platinum tier, no way, there's not connection. Wow, I should join her. I'm messy now, but yeah, I'm going to go bouldering with some people on this when they come to Japan. Again, this isn't a perk that I... It's not a perk.

It's just a correlation, non-caucation, that's right. This is right, this is right. You can, like Kieferi, but you can only come bouldering with me in the middle of the night. We have to talk for hours about gurus. Yeah. So, DeJor, Dijer, be careful. And then the next day, when you're so tired and your guard is down, Chris will have his way with,

but we shouldn't, we shouldn't, we shouldn't, yeah. Are you a fan think, are you really your most authentic self right now? Yes, well, hopefully none of that. If you hear any of that, call it out. Yeah. Funtability, Matt. Cool Chris out. Here we go.

For them, for those long-term Galaxy Supreme Gurus, genuinely appreciate it. Thank you very much chaps and chapettes. Hello there, you awakening wonders, you may not be aware that your entire reality is being manipulated, become part of our community or free speakers, where you're still allowed to say stuff like this. Science is failing. It's failing right in front of our eyes, and no one's doing anything about it. I'm a shell for no one. More than that, I just simply refuse to be caught in any one single echo chamber. In the end, like many of us must, I walk alone. that is such a good super cut oh my god they suck so much they suck so much just just listen

in all those clubs we played how much of it rings you know a similar tune to what you heard with Keith for Nerey exactly is this ask yourself is this authentic is this real is these people are playing

straight with you it just it makes me so sad Chris that they're so popular. No, it's just so wrong. The world is broken. The society is corrupt, Matt. The world is all in the world.

It's all in order to see it. You can't say anything anymore. They won't let you. They won't. All right. Well, we'll be back, you know, soon enough. You know it. We can't stop us.

We'll keep coming back. We're like boomerangs. That's it. Yeah. It's right. Don't turn that dial. stay tuned good good wealthy reference there bye-bye man

Thank you.