Hidden True Crime - DUGGAR FAMILY -Shiny Happy People-Dr John takes us inside what's really going on inside the documentary

Episode Date: September 2, 2023

Hosts Dr John Matthias and Lauren Matthias take listeners inside the Shiny Happy People documentary about the Josh Duggar family, IBLP and Bill Gothard. DR. JOHN MATTHIAS is a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist with 30 years’ experience in both clinical and forensic work. He serves as an expert witness for the federal government and has consulted on numerous high-profile cases for District Attorney’s offices and defense attorneys in several states. In the forensic area, Dr. Matthias has developed expertise in personality assessments, hidden behavioral motivations, complex trauma and criminal psychology. In the clinical realm, he has worked with numerous victims. He received his Master’s degree in Marriage, Family and Child counseling, as well his doctorate degree, from the University of Southern California.  Dr. Matthias graduated with honors in philosophy from Princeton University, and he won the prestigious McCosh Thesis prize while there. In high school he graduated valedictorian from a large public high school in Chicago where he was chosen to participate in a ground-breaking valedictory study that continues to this day.  Dr. Matthias is an adjunct assistant professor in the University of Nevada Las Vegas clinical psychology doctoral program. He supervises UNLV doctoral students on forensic assessments, clinical case formulation, and various therapeutic approaches to clinical work. LAUREN MATTHIAS worked as an anchor and reporter for ABC, NBC, and FOX News in Boise, Idaho Salt Lake City, Utah. She spent a decade reporting on a diverse range of topics from high profile crimes and criminals to Presidential visits. Most recently, she reported for Salt Lake City’s ABC affiliate News4Utah and in 2015 she received the Idaho State Broadcaster’s Association Best Reporter award and has been reporting with News Nation throughout the trial. She is the producer and editor of the Hidden True Crime Podcast along with her husband Dr. John Matthias, a forensic psychologist. Contact them at [e-mail] WEBSITE: https://hiddentruecrime.com/ TO SUPPORT: https://www.patreon.com/hiddentruecrime https://paypal.me/hiddentruecrime https://cash.app/$hiddenTruecrime. #joshduggar #shinyhappypeople Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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dot com just use code hidden true crime to save 20% off plus if you subscribe you'll get an additional 20% off discover your true age today hidden a true crime podcast a forensic psychologist and a journalist explore the hidden motives behind unthinkable crimes while examining our deepest fears along the way hi everyone thank you for being here tonight we know that not everyone has seen or has been able to even watch shiny, happy people. It's the latest, most popular documentary on Amazon Prime. I've heard, I don't know if it's true, but some of our overseas listeners or in Australia, they're not able to watch it.

Never Fear. I think that this is going to be a great conversation among friends, whether you've seen the documentary or not. It is essentially the story of the Dugger family, Josh Dugger was convicted, of, Looking at S-A material, child essay material, if everyone understands that, abuse material. He has seven children of his own. He was in politics.

He was on a TLC for years and years with his family, the Duggers, Jim Bob and Michelle, and their Christian ideals and the well-behaved 19 kids and counting. Why don't we start with the title, Shiny Happy People, which is, I think, I take this to be a nod to the R-E-M song, which, you know, I haven't heard it in a long time, but I played it like an hour before our show to just kind of revisit the song. And the song is shiny, happy people. The reason why I think it's relevant to this documentary, there's a lot of reasons why it's relevant. But in the documentary, there's a lot of talk about a guy named Bill Gothard, who started the Institute in Basic Life Principles or I-B-L-P.

is what it's called. And Bill Gothard wrote a series of books called The Wisdom Booklets, which he dispensed widely to homeschools or for homeschooling, which espoused Christian principles based on his interpretation of the Bible. And in one of the wisdom booklets, Bill Gothard says that rock music and rock and roll music corrupts. And in fact, he goes so far as to say that rock music is satanic. and demonic. And so I couldn't help but laugh at the irony of a show about Bill Gothard, essentially, with one of the most popular pop songs of all time, which happens to be a rock song by REM, which apparently is satanic, but that didn't stop the producers from using it. So there's a couple

lines in that in that song, by the way, Hiney, shiny, happy people by REM that I think are relevant to this show in the documentary. One of the first lines, lines in the song is meet me in the crowd, people, people, throw your love around, love me, love me. And when I listen to the song again and I heard those lyrics, I thought exactly that this is about a crowd of people seeking love, essentially. And I think this whole thing, like many human issues are about love or finding love or keeping love or getting people to obey other people so they love them or I think in a way that's sort of the theme here is that this is a really dysfunctional way for a group of people to try to find love and to try to feel loved and to try to

feel like they belong to something so in that sense maybe that's what colts do is they seek in their own way some type of love or sense of belonging and purpose and it makes them feel loved it makes them feel special and so the ram song again I think is completely relevant because the first lines in the REM song are exactly about what this documentary is about. I don't know that the directors intended that, but anyway, I wanted to mention that because I think it's a good lead into tonight. So meet me in the crowd. People, people, people, throw your love around, love me, love me. I mean, that says it all in terms of, I think, what this is about. There's another line in the R&M song, and it goes like this, quote, there's no time to cry.

happy, happy. I think that's also another line that's completely relevant in the sense that we'll hear from one of the Duggers. We'll hear from Jill Dugger speaks out a lot about the family in this documentary. And Jill Dugger says that when she was a part of the Dugger family and a part of Bill Gothard's Institute, let's call it. I don't, you know, I guess I'd call it a cult, but some people may not. But Jill Dugger says there was no voice to say no. and I was told how to think and feel. So I think, again, getting back to the REM quote that I just mentioned, there's no time to cry, happy, happy.

That shiny happy people don't cry, they don't show emotions, they don't express their thoughts, they don't have independent thinking, they don't express their feelings, they can't say no, they're supposed to be meek, they're supposed to be smiling, they're supposed to be happy. And that's what people keep saying about the Duggers in the documentary and in the show, the show was released by TLC in 2008, one of the comments was, oh, these kids are so well-behaved.

These kids are so meek and so submissive and so well-behaved. But one of the things you'll notice, if you look at this family is that may be true, but they don't smile a whole lot. There's actually a part of the documentary where there's cues. They learned cues to smile during the show because it wasn't their natural state. They weren't naturally happy or smiling. So they had to have them smile on certain cues. And so that reminds me of that REM quote.

I just did, there's no time to cry. You just have to be happy, happy. And so again, I feel like the REM song really captures something essential about this documentary, which is if you want to cry or you want to be afraid or you want to express sorrow, just hold it in, smile and be happy and everything will be fine. Because that's the perception that we're, that's the facade we're trying to convey to the world. or that the duggers are trying to convey to the world. But this documentary is really about digging below the surface a little bit

and examining this idea of shiny happy people and who these people really are and what they believe and how in some ways those beliefs can become dangerous. And dangerous they were according to the... Yeah, right. No. So since we've talked so much about Daybell over the years, let's maybe talk about some comparisons between Daybell and Bill Gothard.

And I think it's important to note that for the people who haven't seen this, this documentary is ostensibly about the Duggers and Josh Dugger in particular and his abuse towards some of the family members. But really it paints a bigger picture. It's not, it's really not about the Duggers. It's more about this guy Bill Gothard and his institute in basic living principles and how that's kind of infiltrated the Southern Baptist Church and the evangelical community and just the tremendous influence Gothard has had.

So in some ways, this is really about Gothard and Gothard's vision. And so I think let's take a moment and talk about Bill Gothard and Chad Daybell, to presume, let's, I don't know, I think both Chad Dayball and Bill Gothard would dispute the notion that they're cult leaders. Classic cult leader dispute. Yeah. For our purposes, you know, there's no clearly defined notion of what a cult is, by the way. So I think that gets a little complicated.

I mean, some people think like Luluman is a cult. And some people think, so it really, I don't know, you know, it's a little, it's a point of contention. Let's say that. But let's talk about the differences because I think there are some, it's a good way into this discussion. I think. I think so, too. What is a cult, right? at what point does a cult become a cult?

Yeah, I mean, you know, one good clue that we're dealing with a cult here is the fact that the goal of this group or the goal of Gothard's homeschooling curriculum is really to produce kind of these mindless automaton that'll go out into the world and espouse his ideas and perpetuate his ideas. And as they say, as some of the, some of the ex-members of IBLP say that the goal, Gothard's goal, in the end is world domination. His goal is to place people in positions of power, including the highest level of governments, the Senate, the Supreme Court. His goal ultimately is to take over the world with his vision. And he has, I don't know if he still does, but he has branches in India, he has branches all over the world. Okay. So he is teaching or was, he's not a member, he's not doing it now. He was sort of excommunicated. in 2018 when a number of allegations came out about sexual abuse.

But the goal ultimately for Gothard, and this is, so let's make a distinction here between Gothard and Daibel, in the sense that Daybell's vision really was another worldly vision. Daybell's vision was that he and Lori would run the New Jerusalem, which was post-apocalypse, whereas I think Bill Gothard is much more concerned about the world now and having an influence in the world now or at least when he's alive.

And so, Gothard's vision is much more about power. I mean, they're both interested in power, but Gothard's is much more of a political vision, let's call it that. Whereas I think Daibel really didn't care about politics. Daibault was really more interested in creating this vision of the afterlife or he was in charge and having these visions seen beyond the veil and having these visions of how things would be and how he and Lori would essentially be running that world. So Debeau was willing to make sacrifices or even commit murder to perpetuate that vision

or to show the truthfulness of that vision, whereas Bill Gothard really wants to see his vision take shape now. He really wants to place people in positions of power. He wants to have a group of children homeschooled with his wisdom. booklets and he wants this knowledge to show up, especially in America, I think, but throughout the world. And so I think there's a difference in terms of, you know, that the Gothard's vision is much more political than Daveau.

But in the end, you know, I mean, the thing that Gothard is the most obsessed with is this idea of authority. that Gothard is absolutely his whole training curriculum, and his whole vision is based on the idea of obedience to authority. So the idea of obedience and authority are absolutely at the center of his vision. And it's by getting compliance among all the members and getting them to believe in his vision and getting them to believe him and the curriculum.

And it's all of that. it's this compliance that kind of creates these puppets that you know that these I don't know these automatom these robots that just perpetuate his thought without any reflection or critical thinking or challenging so it's in that sense I think and that would be similar to Dave Lowe in some ways there's there's absolutely no challenging there's no attempt here to question the beliefs right that that these things just get perpetuated mindlessly across generations. And which, by the way, is when I watch, I mean, one of the most disturbing things about this documentary is that you see a lot of the victims come forward and they're talking about

their experiences in IBPL. And they all say something similar, which is that when they realized that there were problems and they were getting out, that none of them knew who they were. one of the victims said, I felt completely empty inside. And I think that's, that was one of the more disturbing elements of this documentary to me. It was just watching the way in which these human beings in some ways have no free will. You're stifling any chance they have of developing some sense of self or some sense of independence or autonomy. That in many ways, everything they believe and everything they do is a functional.

of things they're told, and it's a function of things external to them. So there's really no element of these people kind of developing a normal self through normal channels, which would be that over time we start questioning what we're taught, or we start questioning things external to us, and we start finding, we start challenging things, and we start internalizing things that make more sense to us or feel right. to us. And so this normal process, I think, of adult development and adult autonomy is really missing here. And it's very disturbing in a way because it's almost like if you wanted to take a human being and negate any sense of self and you wanted to create a human being that really was

just kind of this mindless robot, this is a good way of doing it. Bill Gothard really developed a system to kind of negate what I would call kind of a human sense of self. And so you get, you know, you just, you get these, again, this idea of shiny, happy people. You get, you sort of get these people that look empty and they're not, they're not happy at all. You know, they're just going through the motions. They're doing what they're told. And early on, it's interesting because Gothard talks about, they show some early videos of Gothard and he talks about how he has the answer.

He uses terms like, I have the answers. He makes it very clear that he has the keys and that if you have doubts about your life or if you have questions about how to live your life, he's going to give you the answers because he knows that. He says, in one of the videos, he says, we have the answers. We know how to help you make sense of life. We have the answers on how to conquer any habit you have. So, you know, I think there's a similarity there with Daybell as well, right, in the sense that

Daybell thinks that his vision is the vision. It's the guiding vision for humanity that's going to be true. And if you don't follow his vision, somehow you're going to become a demon or a zombie or you'll find yourself in hell. So I think you have a similar dynamic with Gothard. It's interesting, too, that they didn't talk a lot about. about Gothers' upbringing, but what we do know about Bill Gothard is that his father was a minister. He was the head of a group called the Gideons, who were responsible for distributing the Bible

widely. I'm not sure where exactly. I need to do a little more research on that. But one of the reasons that Bill Gothard founded this institute and this home study curriculum was because, and this is a quote from the documentary, he was concerned about the bad decisions that his classmates were making, right? That's interesting to me. Because, you know, when I was in high school, I could care less about the decisions

my classmates were raking. It was their decision. I didn't, you know, if they were making bad decisions, that was on them. But I think there's something interesting in that quote. It gives us a little tidbit about Bill Gothard,

but one of the elements of that quote I find interesting is, number one, that he cared about his peers. he cared about the decisions they were making and he saw those decisions as being poor. So I think there's a sense here in which Bill Gothard feels like an outsider. He wants to fit in, he wants his peers to respect him

for making better decisions than them or at least for having the capacity to know more than them. There's sort of a moral element here or a self-righteous element that Bill Gothard thinks that he probably feels like a little bit of an outsider in high school. He probably is a bit of an outsider. outsider. I don't know for sure, but it seems that way. And he wants the respect of his classmates.

So these are, I think, this little quote here is giving us some of the seeds that are going to later lead to this IBLP institute or this curriculum that will have such an influence on so many Christian fundamentalists later on. Bill Gothard's vision. is more explicitly political in the sense that he wants to infiltrate government, whereas Chad Daybell isn't interested in infiltrating government. He's interested in the world to come. He's interested in the post-apocalyptic world. That makes sense.

In other words, Bill Gothard's playing the long game. They actually mentioned that. Several of the victims who left IBLP mentioned that that's exactly what he's doing. He's nurturing or schooling people in his vision and an attempt to, they don't hesitate to say world domination, to take over the world to really have a major influence on not just politics, but every element of life in America. Oh man, Michael and Debbie Pearl, that was an incredible part of the documentary. We can talk about that too. Our friend, Shelley, who interview I shared a couple weeks ago on here, she actually did. read Michael and Debbie Pearl's books on marriage. And it's just incredible what they taught. How sad.

Isn't it true, though, that that's sort of what all cult leaders want is this blind obedience. Like every cult leader wants that, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's part of what makes it a cult. Sure. And I think it's not just the blind obedient. But I think that there may be not as vocal about it. You know, Bill Gothard is he'll he'll talk endlessly about the importance of obedience. You know, it's one thing to have a cult where you're trying to obtain that. It's another where you're like really open and vocal about it. I mean, it almost to the point where it sounds absurd.

You know, like if I came on here every week and said, I want our hidden gems to be obedient to my authority, you know, I mean, there's nothing subtle about it. It's so in your face that it's so in your face that it's almost laughable in the sense that when somebody does that, I think there's a kind of a natural human tendency to question it or challenge it and want to push back. But this group doesn't do that at all. They're like, okay, yeah, we're obedient. We love it. Yeah. Right.

Obedience, that little girl saying, what did she say? Something like, she didn't say blind obedience. It was another adjective. Yeah, obedient. She's like two years old. Yeah, she's like three. I think she's like three, maybe four. She basically gives like this little speech about how obedience is good and obedience is great.

That was one part of the documentary where they actually at a seminar with Bill Gothard's teachings invited a young boy up to show an example of him of how a father should hit him and then give him a hug. And then when the child did not hug him with enough, he said, oh, you're going to be spanked again and showed the action without actually, I mean, he was spanking his bottom, but without doing it hard on stage, showing how it should be done. Okay, that wasn't a very good hug. Let me spank you again. And now hug me better this time.

That was really disturbing. I mean, I think one of the things that's really disturbing about this documentary is that The level of violence that's going on is barely shown. When he was spanking that child, he was holding back to such a large degree. He was like barely touching the child because he was in public. But you know behind closed doors that the level of violence is going to be much greater. In fact, I have the feeling that the level of spanking and slapping or whatever they're doing, which by the way, they point out later in the documentary

that the spanking isn't just for children. The spanking goes on into adulthood and that husbands can spank or hit their wives with impunity because that's part of their beliefs and that's part of their system. So this level of violence, this physical punishment component, you know, I think at first I thought, oh, this is how they're disciplining their kids.

No, it's how they're disciplining their wives. It's how they're disciplining adult children. So they can use this violence indiscriminately with family members, whether their children are adults. So this is used basically well into adulthood. I don't know how long, but well into adulthood. And it's perfectly permissible and acceptable. It blew my mind.

You know, I have said this to John. We've been together about eight years now, right? Almost married for seven years. We're almost, almost. I said to him like seven years. And then I said, seven year itch. No, no itch. But the blanket training, so years ago, I said to John, we were talking about the Duggers

and how it was a little off from what our normal is. This is before Josh Dugger's most recent charges. And I said, you know, I said, if one person should have a lot of kids, isn't it Michelle Dugger because she's so soft spoken and seems so patient. And then we come to find out that she's teaching that she has this sweet submissive voice because she's been trained to have this. Someone said, look, she was a cheerleader, guys. Come on.

She knows how to yell. But she has a sweet submissive soft voice and the children are all obedient. But then you see her discussing blanket training in a book that we do this blanket training. And then we learn blanket training. I've heard a couple different descriptions on what blanket training is. In the documentary, blanket training is hitting an infant as young as six months old, putting them on a blanket and giving them something that they want right outside of reach. And then when they go for it, hitting them. In the documentary, they say it involves actual physical contact.

Yeah, they do. That's what they say in the documentary. Right. And so on the Michelle Dugger issue, by the way, really quickly, remember, I think this show began as, 15 and counting. And then she kept having children and she got up to 19 and counting and before the show was finally canceled because of Josh's criminal behaviors. But I think one of the things, another disturbing element of this documentary is that the reason they're having children after 14 or 15 is because they're making money on it. It's quite clear that there is this notion in the advanced training, Institute, which is also the same as IBLP. I mean, these things that Gothard has all these terms, ATI's Advanced Training Institute.

It's the same thing as Institute and Basic Living Principles. Anyway, there's this idea that you want to have as many children as possible. It's called the Quirvifil Movement. You want to have as many children as possible, essentially to perpetuate the beliefs of the group. or as they put it to perpetuate the word of Christ or the ideas of Christ. I mean, it's essentially having children. It's treating children like widgets.

It's treating children like objects to carry on a vision. And with Michelle Dugger, this idea of having kids endlessly isn't just, it's part of the quiverful movement. But I think it's also quite clear that they're trying to ring the cash register here. that they know that the more kids they have, which gets higher ratings, by the way, they pointed out that most reality shows that have, that show weddings or bursts are the highest rated shows.

So the doggers know, and Jim Bob knows in particular that if they have more children, that the show won't get canceled, and he'll keep ringing the cash register. So I think that's shameful too. You know, I think that's despicable. Like you get to a point where, I don't know what that point is,

but I think you get to a point where when you keep having children, you can't possibly give those children the time and attention they need to feel loved and nurtured. So essentially, that's another thing they say, is that the older children end up raising all the younger children. The children have very little contact, direct contact with their parents, simply because there isn't time for that. Right. So given that context, given the fact that when you have 19 children,

you almost certainly can't give every child the nurturance and the time and attention they need in order to get compliance, these groups resort to physical punishment. And so part of that physical punishment is blanket training. And when I saw this blanket training stuff, first of all, I didn't know what it was. So I was curious. But then when I learned what it was, I was completely horrified. I think blanket training should be immediately considered a felony in every state. and here's why because well number one if you're hitting a six month old or let's say a six month to a two year old with what are they using like a wooden stick or something do you know what they what do you know what i'd heard a wooden spoon but i'm not quite sure because i heard that from somebody who understood blanket training for in a different area not the documentary they mentioned a wooden spoon well let's let's say for the sake of argument it's a wooden spoon you know they didn't really spend a

a lot of time on blanket training in the documentary, by the way. But let's talk about it. So if you hit a child that's six months old with a wooden spoon, obviously that's physical abuse. That's a felony. But let's talk about what blanket training does. So if a child moves and tries to express some independence, you hit them with the spoon to force them back into the blanket to force compliance. If the child moves again, you do the same thing. So I guess the goal is, and occasionally they explain that you would put an object outside of the blanket to try to actually spark the child's curiosity about the object and the child would reach for the object and then you would hit the child so that they would not reach for the object. So essentially what you're

doing to the child is you're creating a sense of learned helplessness. This is an idea that is quite famous in psychology. It's an experiment that Martin Zelligman did many years ago, I think in the 70s, where he showed essentially that you could create this complete sense of helplessness in an animal. I think he was actually using dogs. By shocking them randomly, sometimes the shock would go on, sometimes it wouldn't. But what happened was that the animal, learned that when they were shocked,

that they didn't want, they stayed in the corner, they didn't want to move. And so this is a version of learned helplessness. It's instilling fear and helplessness in babies, in infants, in toddlers. It's the very opposite. As a parent, my job is to create a child with a sense of security. safety, love, right? My goal, it's the opposite of creating a sense of fear and helplessness,

and that's what blanket training is doing. So I guess you could say that this indoctrination process, this process of creating complete obedience, it begins as early as six months by hitting children with spoons so that they don't have any curiosity about objects outside of their perimeter or of their blanket. So literally what you're doing is you're impeding the child's curiosity about the world around them.

And if you want to, and by the way, it also reminded me, I don't know, for those of you know Anthony Burgess in his book Clockwork Orange, there was a movie called Clockwork Orange that came out later, but I think the book is actually more interesting and more in depth. I think the book came out in like 1962 or something, but it's an amazing book. about this process, something similar, that you have a criminal, and this book you have a criminal, his name is Alex,

and he commits all these crimes because he can. He's just kind of this psychopath, this runaway psychopath. And then he gets incarcerated. And the state uses essentially what we call classical conditioning, which is basically a version of Pavlov's dog. they create the sense of nausea and Alex when he's watching violent movies and they play classical music which Alex loves. And so what they're doing is they are when classical music is played,

that Alex starts becoming nauseous, in the same way that Pavlov's dog starts salivating when the bell is rung, the bell is a neutral stimulus, but they pair it with food, which creates salivation in the dog, so that when you ring the bell, the dog will salivate even though there's no food. That's what they're doing with Alex and Clockwork Orange.

And it's a version of that that they're doing with blanket training. In the sense that you are taking a neutral stimulus, which is the spoon, and you're using that to incite, you're using that as a form of violence. You're creating pain in the child. So the pain is associating that spoon and maybe some noises the parents make,

maybe commands, I'm not sure what the parents are doing exactly, but you're essentially, anytime the child reaches outside of the blanket or has curiosity about the environment or maybe hears the sound of the wooden spoon, that child is associating that with, fear and helplessness. So if that child,

let's say that child is five years old and I want compliance and I've done enough blank in training, all I need is a wooden spoon. If I slap that wooden spoon on my hand and make a noise that's similar to the noise that when that child was six months old, that child will instantly experience anxiety,

fear, helplessness, they were cower, right? That's what they're doing. Troublemaker, Troublemaker Baker said it's the opposite of attachment parenting. Right, right. Yeah, this is, exactly. If the goal of attachment is to develop a sense of safety and security

so that the child can venture out and explore the environment, then that's, this is the antithesis of that. This is they're creating a situation where the child will not venture out and explore the environment. They're creating a situation where the child will be, afraid of the environment. And more than that, let's go back to the wooden spoon example. If you, if you, and again, this is called classical conditioning, there's some elements of what we call operant conditioning in here too, but I don't want to, that's more complex than our discussion.

Operate conditioning is, is a method of learning developed by the famous psychologist B.F. Skinner. that would be beyond our discussion today. But essentially, you could take this child at age five or 10 or maybe 15, depending on how much you reinforce these stimuli. If you took that wooden spoon and you slapped it in your hand or you slapped it on your thigh or anywhere, you could almost instantaneously create the same thing that you're creating in Pavlov's dog, which is you ring the bell, the dog salivates,

you hit the spoon on your hand, the child instantly experiences anxiety, fear, helplessness, and becomes completely compliant. That's what Blanket training is doing. So the idea in Clockwork Orange, by the way, the philosophical idea was about free will. Even though Alex is this thug, this criminal that creates all these horrible crimes,

does the state have the right to essentially create a human being who is incapable of free will or incapable of inciting violence whenever he sees violence or experiences the urge to be violent. Right? So that's basically what this group is doing to children. They're using a method that is in many ways taking away free will from six-year-old children,

I would suggest that this type of behavior, and I don't know how you get compliance here, you'd have to have people reporting it, obviously, but you'd have to have some people that know about this and report it. But this should be a felony, because this is ruining human beings. But that's how seriously it is ruining them, right?

Well, it's, you know, as one of the, the victim said in the documentary, she felt completely empty inside. And that's how they all feel. Well, yeah, she felt empty inside because she wasn't given choices about how to live her life. She wasn't given choices about what to value. She wasn't given choices about what mattered to her. She was given blanket training and she was physically punished whenever she acted out. And she was physically punished whenever she disobeyed. And she was physically punished whenever she disobeyed. and she was physically punished when she had a different viewpoint, right? And so, you know, you're literally creating these human beings that are a shell and empty.

A child that's still there. A child that's subjected to blanket training in six months. At the age of 21, like Paula Marie, the impact is still so prevalent that she is passing out merely because her ex is chasing her with a wooden spoon, right? I mean, it's horrific because obviously the ex knows what the meaning of the wooden spoon is. But, I mean, that's a great example of how an adult still suffers the repercussions from blanket training as early as six months. That's precisely the point I'm trying to make. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, there are some things that the Duggers did wrong. but there are a lot of things that they did right. The children are well behaved. The children are, you know, they did things right because look how well the children are behaved. And that was actually a big part of the documentary that I'd like to bring out. Because someone said a lot of the public saw well-behaved children. Other people saw a broken spirit.

People saw children that had likely been almost abused into submission. While the world, including me, saw. just really well-behaved children and a soft-spoken mother. And so I just wanted to bring that up, too, that one thing we talk about, when we talk about perpetrators and criminals, and they're never what they seem, they always have defenders. People defended Chad Daybell until children were found in his yard. That recent Justin, the father who was arrested on a carnival cruise.

recently. He was traveling from May 25th to 29th. The crew departed from Miami and made stops in the Bahama and he was arrested for touching younger females, private parts, doing

it in public. After he was arrested, there are two videos of it because a passenger took a video and the cruise ship checked their camera and got the video. And when the child denied it in an interview, they still arrested him because of the clear evidence.

After he was arrested, people, he also worked for the sheriff's office. People put up a go-fund me, and within 24 hours before the go-fund me could take it down, realizing what it was, 80 people had donated, and almost $9,000 was raised because he was a pillar of the community and a good Christian man. I'm just trying to bring in some parallels of like, oh, what we see is these well-behaved children, and Michelle and Jim Bogg have done some. something's right and I do believe to a point they probably did what they thought they were supposed to do you know but but uh all of these I think what is really important to show is that these people that

end up being criminals can also be hiding and plain sight and at one point in the documentary there's a quote monsters are created and so I just don't think we can ever judge a book by its cover I guess is what I want to kind of drive home. Just because the children look well behaved doesn't mean that their lives are happy. Yeah, and I think that's one of the points of calling this documentary, shiny, happy people. Yes. Because one of the appeals of the documentary, and they talked about this, not the documentary, but the show, one of the appeals of the 19 and counting show, which featured the Duggers,

was the fact that people saw this as kind of the perfect family, well-behaved, obedient, you know, but I guess it depends on how you see healthy families, you know, and actually the research on healthy families is quite different than that. Healthy families tend to clash a lot. They tend to have different opinions. The children have a voice.

and they express themselves. And ultimately, in the healthiest families, the parents will listen to the children and make the decisions, but the children have a voice. And so one of the analogies that was used to describe some of the absolutely healthiest families, like the top 1% of families, is that it's a little bit like a three ring circus

in the sense that there's kind of controlled chaos. There's a lot going on. People have different opinions. They express those opinions. They listen to each other. but it's not a picture of a family that is perfectly compliant. It's not a picture of a family. You make me feel better.

Right. It's not a picture of a family that, like in this documentary, they showed the Duggers playing each one of them. I don't remember how many there were at this point. Let's say 15. They were all playing instruments in perfect sync. And the interesting thing about the shot was the shot was not taken for the show. It was taken by a different camera.

so you could see the cameras in the background. And I was fascinated by that shot because none of the kids playing those instruments had a smile. They looked miserable like they had to play these instruments for the show and they were practicing. And so they were caught off guard. But you know when the cameras were rolling for the show that they all put on a smile. And they all looked like they were, you know, they were all completely, and perfectly happy to be playing instruments and working together as a family. And right.

So, yeah, don't let the facade fool you. Thank you. Well-behaved doesn't equate to good or healthy. Right. Maybe it equates to good. Well-behaved equates to good to some people,

but it doesn't equal healthy and the most healthy adults. Yeah. And I think everyone take note. John just said the healthiest families are three-ring circuses. So I'm taking that to heart. Today, my son was yelling at me. I was mad at him. John was like, I'm getting out of here.

So, yes. Yeah, it's right. It's always a little bit of, we don't, I mean, I can't even imagine if we had 19 kids, but I don't think it would be a three-ring circus. I don't know what it would be, like a, you know,

a 15 ring circus or something. But, but yeah, healthy families, they give their children a voice. It's more democratic. There's nothing democratic about the Dugger family. Someone wrote, and I think you wanted to bring this up a little bit about Jim Bob. Deb wrote, it's interesting to her that Jim Bob is poor, yet driven by money at the expense of his children. Do you see it that way?

Well, I think the reference is that he grew up poor. And I, there is, I mean, again, we don't, the documentary, I wish the documentary had spent a little more time talking about Jim Bob's upbringing and his past. But we know that he grew up poor and. One sister, only one sister. One sister. But the poverty affected him immensely. I think he probably felt a bit inferior. And he talks about it.

he said, Jim Bob actually says in the documentary that his dad, quote, had no spiritual focus, and that created later problems. So in other words, Jim Bob's interpretation of his father is that because his father lacks spiritual focus, that that led to the poverty and that led to his lack of success. So that's interesting. So, right, in some ways, Jim Bob, because he sees his father as being, lacking spiritual focus, that he wants to have spiritual focus.

Because now he can overcome that poverty that his father experienced, right? And I think there's definitely kind of a bit of a one-upsmanship with his dad. And I agree that he's, once he starts making money, that becomes his motivating focus or his drive. Lemise is asking, oh, it was actually someone else. It was Tracy Phillips just asked, can we talk about the financial abuse, implying that not only did he start to make money,

he took, does it have to do with the umbrella system? Or does this have to do with greed? Or does it have to do with entitlement? I think it has to do with all the above. But I think clearly that in this, in this gothord system, that males are considered superior and that men, I'm sure, control the money and control the resources. So Jim Bob probably felt that the money was his.

He was the head of the household in his view. He was the man. He was entitled to it. There's probably some element of greed because he grew up in poverty and he enjoyed having some wealth. They were making roughly a million dollars a season. And they were on for many years. They were on for 2008 to 2015-16-ish.

So they were on almost a decade at a million bucks a year or more. In some cases, I'm sure they wrote books. There were royalties. I don't know what their worth is now, but if you do the math, that's well over $10 million. So for somebody who was poor, that's a lot of money. Aurora just said it was heartbreaking to hear that Jill Dugger had to have cameras in her face during the birth of her child because her dad agreed to it.

Right. And so you also have this element of dehumanization that Jim Bob sees his children as objects and they're there to satisfy him. They're there for him. He leads this family. He's entitled to the money. He is, I'm sure there's some greed. He has these children to meet his needs. He's not there to help his kids. He's not there to help his kids meet their needs. He's there for himself. And so my guess is that that's part of it too, that there's this real objectification of children in this movement. Children, you're not having children to acknowledge their individuality and to help them become healthy adults and autonomous adults. You're having children to perpetuate the movement. And in the Dugger family, you're having children to ring the cash

register. So it's even more complicated. And so, you know, Jim Bob, right, Jim Bob doesn't kill with, if Jill is a victim of abuse, and he knows it. He's noted since 2002. And yet he does nothing to acknowledge it. He does nothing to help his daughters that were victimized. In fact, it's even worse because he exploits them, not caring. And when the show is canceled, because Josh's crimes become public, he tells Jill, you have no choice. You have to continue with the show because that's what you do as a child. As my child, this is what you do. You do this for the family. Another really heartbreaking part for me watching the documentary. And I watched it in Miami after I came home for the hospital one night. I said, John, you've got to watch this. But I watched it

again with him last night. And this part just, it just ripped my heart out the second time I watched it. It was traumatic the first time, but the second time I was like, I can't believe this. To see Jill, who was a child victim and her sister,

Jessa, as well, the world finds out about their abuse, which she never wanted the world to find out about her abuse as a child by her brother, Josh. but the world has uncovered it. And so rather than everyone jumped to protect the victims, Jill fills the obligation to now give a national interview with Megan Kelly for Fox News,

saying that it wasn't so bad. Here she has a child. She wasn't so bad. It wasn't so bad. And everyone's overreacting. And she has to do this for the family system, essentially. and lies. She even lies because we hear from her cousin after that says she wasn't asleep during the abuse.

She hit him. But she says to Megan Kelly, oh, this isn't such a big deal. I didn't even know what happened until my parents told me. What did you think watching that? What was your takeaway? Was it as traumatic as I thought it was? Well, first of all, I mean, first of all, I found it a little disturbing that that Megan Kelly, who was with Fox News at the time,

was willing to do an interview with minors. You know, clearly she got the consent of the parents, but it felt really exploitative. Like, you know, I don't think minors that are abused really quite understand, especially at that point in time, I don't think they've had chance to process it. I don't think they really understand what's happened. I think that in this family, because it's so amashed,

and there's nobody in this family that has their own unique identity, that of course she's going to support the family. Of course she's going to tow the family line. She's a minor. Her father is pressuring her to continue the show, to ring the cash register for him. I mean, I think it's,

I don't think that interview should have ever occurred. I think there should have been enough sense on the part of the media to recognize that you're exploiting kids here. And not only that, not only you're exploiting kids, but your, essentially trying to normalize an abusive situation so that a show, a reality show that

promotes conservative values can continue on. And I mean, it doesn't have to be conservative, it could be liberal, whatever. The point is like there's abuse in this family. This show should clearly be canceled. You're taking these kids, you're putting them up on stage, you're exploiting them in a sense and you're doing it largely with the hopes of having this show continue. Someone is mentioning that Jill wasn't a minor at the time. She was an adult. Both girls were in their 20s on Kelly. I thought she was still. I thought she was too, but I'm listening to Steph here. So if that's the case and we misinterpreted that. All right. Well, that changes it. But still, you know, It still raises control of them.

It still raises the question of this family's still amassed. It still rages the question of abuse in a family that's been absolutely minimized or negated at some level. And everybody knows it. Yeah. So you're trying to sweep this abuse under the rug and pretend it didn't happen so that the show can continue. Yeah.

I don't know. I mean, I'm glad the show was canceled. I'm glad that TLC in the end understood the ramifications of what was going on. Yeah, and it looks like, yeah. And actually, that makes sense because after they canceled the show, then they said, well, we'll focus on Jessa and Jill, who were adult, I guess, at the time I'm married. Yeah.

And that's when Jim Bob signed for them, even though they were independent. Yeah, I'd have to look at the timelines. I thought that show was several years later. but yeah, that would make sense. That would make sense. Yeah. But still, just the fact that, and she said that she had regrets of doing the interview.

She felt she didn't have a choice that she had to do this for the family, you know, the family system and how hard and difficult it was to the point that she couldn't even, she was willing to talk on this documentary and even when it got to that point about the abuse, she said to the documentary film likeers,

I can't talk about it. I never wanted the world to know. It was supposed to be a secret my whole life and that I regret the documentary and she wouldn't even talk about it with the documentary filmmakers yet she did it years earlier because she felt she didn't have a choice. Michael Pearl

was recorded saying you need to treat and raise children and women like animals. It's no different training and I guess when it comes to blind obedience, maybe that is true. Children, you know, as I said, children are objectified. They're treated is widgets on an assembly line who are going to kind of perpetuate this gothards vision

or they're going to perpetuate the worldview here. And they're not, you know, seen necessarily. I mean, of course there's going to be exceptions to this, but in general, they're seen as foot soldiers that will carry this vision forward and that will infiltrate the highest level of governments and change the world, essentially. So, I mean, in a way, the goal, I think, here is Theocracy. They didn't use that term, but I think the goal for this type of movement is government

run by religious leaders, Theocracy. That's sort of, I think, what's going on here, and that's Gothard's vision. And by the way, like this is another common element with Dave Allen Gothard is that this whole thing is predicated on the idea. that Bill Gothard has a direct line to God and that God is telling him how to raise children and families and how marriage is to work. That's what his whole, all his wisdom booklets are based upon his...

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Start your free trial today atora.com slash remove. Protect yourself now atora.com slash remove. Conversations or interactions with God, right? And with Chad Daybell, same thing, that Chad Daybell could see beyond the veil, which is in some ways prophetic or it was commuting with God at some level, he could see the future. And it was his job to bring those visions back to us mere mortals and let us know what God was thinking.

That's what Bill Gothard is saying too, by the way. So this whole system is predicated on the views of one human being, Bill Gothard, his interactions with God and his interpretations of what God is telling him. and that one relationship is affecting millions and millions of lives, including blanket training, physical punishment. I could go on and on. But part of Gothard's system is that women are inferior, that wives need to be submissive,

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And now back to the show. And this is pure speculation, but there's certainly, implication that Bill Gothard had an interest in underage girls. Yes. And I could go so far as to argue that this entire culture and organization that Bill Cothard set up was his way of creating an environment where he could, in some ways, satisfy his sexual impulses towards potentially, allegedly, underage girls.

Right? And so with Chad Debo, you know, with Chad Debo, for example, well, there's a lot of evidence that Chad Debo was a sexual predator. And he was praying on a number of women prior to Lori in an attempt to satisfy his sexual urges. I think with Gothard, you know, you get a lot of talk about suppressing sexual urges and, you know, purity and, you know, parity culture and all this stuff from Gothard. But in some ways, you know, this is this is Gothard's own struggle with his own sexuality and his own sexual urges, right?

And I think in the name of God, right, we've seen this with the, in the name of God, you get this very, sexually repressive environment that in some ways becomes an expression of the creator's own sexual perversions or proclivities. And the basis of all that, by the way, is this fear of his own sexual impulses. It's this, right? I don't know, I wish I knew more about his background,

but it certainly seems like that Gothard's... Agree. I agree with everything you're saying. Yeah. Gothard's interest in younger girls is not only troubling, but it seems to be an integral part of this whole system that he's perpetuating. And particularly when they talk about the, towards the end of the documentary,

they talked about there's a component of called Journey to the Heart. There's a component of the Gothard system where young girls, many of them underage, under 18, will go to Chicago and spend time specifically with Bill Gothard and he will pray with them and enter into individual sessions, prayer sessions with these underage girls. So according to him,

to enhance their spirituality. But obviously, they talk to several victims in this documentary that indicated that Gothard would grope them, fondle them, touched them, and appropriately, one woman claimed that he raped her. There was another woman in the documentary, a victim who gothard took up to his office, believing that his office was empty, she was quite sure that he was going to rape her. There happened to be another student in the office, so she was able to escape. But I don't know, right?

it's it's there's always sort of this i think in some of these types of cults you oftentimes you you have this denial of sexuality or sexual impulses that gets transformed into something that can be really insidious and i think you have some elements of that here i don't want to make these generalizations but it does seem like in this culture there's definitely some appeal to sexual predators because women don't have a voice and men are given all the power. Here's the quote from one of the victims.

This institute raises little predators. The predators being male, obviously. So you have a culture here that, yeah, that's really conducive to a lot of potential problems. In fact, to get more specific, I mean, again, I don't, just based on what I've seen in this documentary, It seems to me that, and I don't know, this is speculation, but it seems to me there's a specific sexual interest that's called heaphylia, H-E-E-B-E-P-H-I-A-HB-E-H-E-E-P-HB-HB-HB-HB-HB-HB-E-E-E-FULia. Usually between the ages of 11 and 14-ish.

Pedophiles are primarily attracted to prepubescent girls. Habophilia is, can be kind of a combination. typically girls that are just on the verge of puberty, it seems to me that Gothard fits kind of the hebaphilia category. I don't know that he's particularly attracted to really young girls. So I'm using the term girls here because I'm talking about minors and he doesn't seem to have. These are specific terms that you have to use in evaluations as well. Yeah, he doesn't seem to have an interest in males or young boys.

So it seems to me that we're talking about a fairly narrow range. And I should also mention, by the way, so the homeschooling that's occurring here is through a curriculum called the Wisdom Booklets that Bill Gothard developed. And I don't know. I don't have familiarity with these booklets. So I can't really comment specifically. I only know what I saw in the documentary.

So it's entirely possible that some of these booklets are fine, that they have some valid knowledge. I don't know. I mean, the ones that the documentary pointed out obviously were extreme. And that was for a reason. That was to make a point that these booklets tend to be a bit skewed. And they're from a masculine perspective and they're clearly Christian. And so all dinosaur bones were created in the same week dinosaur fossils by one giant flood.

Yes. Right. Evolution is unscientific. it's a myth. But that's not to say that all of these booklets are like that. I don't know for sure. Some of them might have some valid points or some valid knowledge or they might be based on facts. Who know?

I don't know for sure. Yes. The one thing I was going to point out that I never got to was there was one moment when one of Gothard's victims, alleged victims, said that she was getting her power back and she realized she didn't want to be in control of this. And, you know, that she wanted to take back some of her control. and she was in praying with Gothard.

He said, let's close our eyes and pray. And all of a sudden, she had this moment of, wait a minute, why am I closing my eyes during this prayer with Gothard? I should open them. That would give me some power back. And she opened her eyes and he was staring right at her. So there was this moment of realizing that this is what he did when praying with these young girls was, close your eyes, let's pray, but he wouldn't.

He would be looking at them. which is quite a creepy. And that moment, I should comment a little more on that, that moment occurred after Gothard had left the Institute for Basic Principles of Living. And so this was like, she went back. She actually went back because she wanted to see him. And she wanted to see if he had changed. And because she had left the Institute as well.

And so she said that that moment was the moment she realized he's just, he's just a human being. He's not a guru. He doesn't have any special knowledge. He just made this whole thing up based on his understanding of the Bible. And he's just as human as everyone else. And you know, I'm that point. I think in many ways, whatever Bill Gothard's sexual proclivities are, I think there's a real denial of any sexual. I think part of the problem here is that for Gothard to acknowledge his sexual impulses

is in some ways an acknowledgement that he's human, that he's not godlike. And I think a lot of this system of thought revolves around the fact that this is someone who can't come to terms with some of the most basic elements of being human, which means our mortality, our sexual impulses, are vulnerabilities, right? I think that moment to me was a really important moment in the documentary because I think it was just she sees through him. She recognizes that all this stuff is built.

It's a house of cards, right? It's built on the vision of one person who's extremely fallible, and he's just human, but he won't acknowledge that. And that kind of that overlaps with Daybell as well. But I think a lot of the whole Dave Al saga is based on the notion that Daibel thinks that he's a deity, that he's somehow, you know, transcendent. He's not, he's above human beings.

And he can't relate to the human world. And I think that's true of Bill Gothard in a way, too. I think he struggles to relate to human beings. He's not married. He never was married, never had kids. All the things he talked. about he never did those things. Like you could say at the very least he's a hypocrite, but I think it goes beyond that. I think it goes to the fact that Bill Gothard is not comfortable

around human beings unless he has power. And he's not comfortable being on in equal or reciprocal relationship with other human beings. I think this is a guy who fundamentally doesn't have a lot of social skills and doesn't know how to relate to other people. And so this is how expresses it. Shelly, the woman, our friend of the program, a dear friend of ours, as well as someone that interviewed with us. Hey, Shally, you asked if anybody had discussed why people are drawn to this system and we have not discussed that.

Do you have any thoughts on that? Well, I mean, I can only speak for myself. I was younger. I mean, I was very young when I was exposed to it. it, but I, it wasn't just something my mom, uh, drew me to. I didn't just go because she wanted me to. I was very drawn to the illusion of studying. Um, I liked digging into something real when people or what I would appear to be real at the time in comparison to a lot of the silliness I experienced with kids my own age. Um,

there was this illusion of hard work and this illusion of learning something when if you weren't in my situation I came from a very, you know, like a, my mother was really well educated. She came from a well educated family, but we were in a lower income bracket. So I wasn't really around. I didn't have a lot of learning opportunities. And that was the most, you know, there was a lot of studying. the Bible, where it came from, different, it's, it, there was the illusion of intellectualism. And I know that that sounds really weird to people because, you know, there's a lot of people

talk about how ignorant it is and stuff like that. But when you're not exposed to a whole lot of other things, it feels smarter than, you know, television shows where people are hitting themselves in the face and laughing. You know what I mean? It feels smart at the time because you feel like you're doing something worthy. and you feel like you're making yourself a better person. You're keeping yourself from giving, you know, the idea of self-discipline and having different values.

It wasn't just discussions on, and I'm not defending any of it. I mean, I know how completely toxic it was, but I know that there are a lot of people that are drawn to the contrast of what appears to be clean living. It's an illusion, you know, because there is so much repression and real things aren't discussed and it has a lot to do with what John has talked about with the Murdoch trial and the family keeping family secrets and stuff like that. It's all the same things. It's not just religiosity, but people are drawn to the idea of wholesomeness.

They're drawn to the idea of something that doesn't really exist, but they're hoping. for it. They're trying to find that. So I know for me, it was that. I didn't want to be like everybody else. I wanted to be better. I wanted to be, you know, I wanted to have self-discipline. And that was more appealing to me than permissiveness, if that makes any sense. Does it? Yeah, no, that does make sense. That does make sense. And so you talked to me about reading Debbie Pearl's book. What was the book called? It needed to be as helped me. it was that book yeah um that book is that sort of goes along with what you're saying is why i'm bringing it up like about discipline over yeah it was self-discipline you know that book was all about being

a good wife and a lot of the churches that were really strict on gotther teachings would use this book as like a prep for young women before they got married and The reason why I read it, I also hated it, but I felt like it was something I was supposed to do. Like there were things like if you're just ridiculous stuff. I look at it now and I'm just like, oh my goodness, it's horrible. But it was stuff like if your husband, if he asks you to do something and your hands are full of a whole bunch of other things, if you're dealing with other things and they ask you to do something, even if you can't do it right then, answer in a cheerful voice. sure and then try to do it when you can so that he feels validated that he has been heard just stuff like that i mean it was it's ridiculous and um and just very centered on on the man's

pleasure in every area of life but the thing i did like about that was it would not anymore but at the time i liked the idea of trying to be better to do something that was hard. I wanted to do something that was hard and it felt like it was sacrificial and, you know, that love should be sacrificial. That's the whole thing that in this culture, it was love isn't love unless you're putting yourself down to do it. So you felt like you were being more loving if you put your needs below, if you put your

needs below another person. And so it's the idea of love. And, you know, if you want to be this loving person and that's what's being presented to you as love, then it feels like you want to strive to be that person. Okay. Wow. No, that makes a lot of sense. Shelly, I know that, you know, we played a year old interview. I want to tell people, too, this interview that I did with Shelly a year ago at Josh Duggers, it was conviction. You were sick, Shelly. And I said, just jump on really fast. You had a fever. You were so great. And then I did ask you before I replayed it again, would this be okay to revisit this? You said, yeah, but was there anything you wanted to share post that interview? Played it a couple weeks ago and anyone can go and watch

it. We talked about IBLP. We talked about all of the things that shiny, happy people discuss, which is why I replayed it. Anything you want to say post that interview? Well, I just think one of the, I mean, there were there were a couple of things. that were just more personal in nature. Like I was not trying to, in that conversation, I was probably way more loose lip that I would have liked to be because I was sick. But I was by no means trying to condemn Anna. I don't think I'm any better than anyone else.

Anna Dugger. Anna Dugger. Yeah. Yeah, I was simply pointing out that I think that it is that you just have to put those things aside, whatever your beliefs are when it comes to protecting your children, you just protect your children. That was, I feel very, very, very, very passionately about that. My kids are all adopted. I am very much an advocate for children. And it just, I feel very passionately about speaking up for them and speaking up for the people who can't defend themselves.

And so, you know, I was very, very passionate about that. But I was not, people are complicated and they they have paths that lead them to who they are and I was by no means saying she was you know just this terrible terrible person I think she was making terrible terrible decisions and I grieve for the past that led her to making those decisions the brainwashing that led her to that you know just like I just spoke about I think it's really easy when you all you're exposed to is a certain like what love is supposed to look like and what goodness and truth and all of that is supposed to look like is is only given to you on in one way then you think you're doing it so I completely know that and that and I did not mean to sound

cruel cruelly judgmental to her in any way so I just I want to say I was I was proud of what you said about Anna let me let me refresh everyone for just a second. Anna Dugger is staying by Josh Dugger's side. He has been accused and convicted of the worst of the worst when it comes to child

S.A. material out there. And it could be worse, in other words. And she's staying by him and a lot of people explain, well, how could she leave? It's confusing to us. I think Shelley's point is spot on, which is the point that

you can be understanding until a point when it comes to the risk of your children. She wouldn't allow her children to be interviewed. Then we have a problem. You know, Lori Daybell believed allegedly that her kids were zombies. There is no excuse for harming, putting your children in harm's way ever. And that's what Shelley was staying. And I stand by what Shelley said.

You're right, Shelly. Kids don't have any choice in the matter. And you, you know, your job is to protect them, whether you believe something or not, you err on the side of the kids being safe and protecting them and that's just all there is that's just all there is to it so i you know i still don't like to come off as cruel or that that i think i'm better than anyone else because i don't in any way shape or form and i also told some personal stuff about my experiences that i think made some people feel like i was being disrespectful to to my mother who put me in a lot of really bad situations truth is truth i was put in some

really bad situations, but people are complicated and my relationship with my family was complicated, just like most peoples are. And so, yeah, I just wanted to clarify those things, but really, I know that there's a lot of people who really are drawn to these belief systems, to these extreme belief systems as a reaction to what they perceive to be the opposite, to be too permissive. And there's just so little balance out there. And I just wanted to bring that up because I do think that that's what draws a lot of people into these communities is it's a reactivity to a society that they see has gone too far the other direction. And that's what people are looking at. You know, they think it's better to sit and study the Bible or to just to just kind of.

of to say those things were to try to look at nature and how it how it reflects um creation and things like that rather than the things that they consider to be silly or frivolous which everything has its place you know so i'm not saying it's frivolous in nature but i think that there's a lot of people who do who do see that and that's what their goal is that you know um and that's what happens and that's what draws them in. That and the very, very close community and the idea of feeling like you have, that you have something going on that the rest of society doesn't. People get very, very drawn to that.

And it sometimes will create a sense of kind of self-righteousness, but it comes out as like a false humility thing. But I think that people get very addicted to that feeling. Like, oh, I'm not doing that. You know, there's that kind of self-righteousness. that people get addicted to that. It's like a dopamine rush. Yeah.

John, is there anything you want to ask, Shelly or Shelly, anything you want to ask John or any final things you want to say, Shelly, or thoughts? I just think I want to know why John thinks that people, I know what drew me and I know, you know, I've had conversations with other people who've kind of left these communities as to why they want to. But I'd like to know John's thoughts on it.

What is it? What is there? a certain type of person that's drawn into the more stringent communities that like this? Or is there anything in particular that usually draws people? You know, I would, I'm going to run with one of your comments, which is you said one of the things that drew you in was the ideal of wholesomeness. and I think that's a really important idea. There's actually a classic book.

I haven't talked about a lot, but it's important. It's by Mary Douglas. It's called parity and danger. And she talks a lot about the notion that this idea of contamination or this idea of chaos or kind of a lack of control,

it drives people. It's exactly what you, you said, Shelley. I think it kind of drives people towards this notion of wholesomeness and purity and self-righteousness, right? That it becomes a reaction that when people see society as being disordered and dangerous and in some ways contaminated, especially when there's a virus that's rampaging through the population, people really want to cleanse themselves quite literally and figuratively. And I think so like this idea of wholesomeness that you brought up, I think is really important. And it does drive some of this, it does drive some of this behavior

and some of this need to somehow cleanse oneself of all the dangers of society. You know, I mentioned the book. There's a classic book by Mary Douglas called Parity and Danger. And it really, really kind of lays out some of that idea you talked about, about wholesome this, that in many ways when people feel that society is out of control and it's contaminated and it's chaotic, that they want, they're reacting with something the opposite, that they want to feel pure and wholesome and cleansed. So I think that was, I think Shelley identified a really important component of some of the draw to these types of groups. So it's basically both people who, so it's too extremes then.

What I'm hearing you say is that it's those, it draws people who like to control and those people who are needing a sense of it. Right? Is that sort of? It's definitely going to attract people that, like Jim Bob Doug are people that are looking for a worldview that gives him some sense of power and control and some sense of purpose. And it's simple and it makes sense to him.

you know, it's a patriarchy, right? It allows him to run everything and to feel really powerful. So, you know, there's a lot of components, I think. Yeah. So. Yeah. Thank you, Shelly. I do want to bring up something that somebody mentioned while Shelly was talking,

which is victims are actually those that should be called survivors. Victims are no longer with us and anyone else that survives a crime is a survivor. I do want to point out that John and I have actually had this discussion in depth. And it depends on the victim or survivor, what they prefer some. And they are victims of crimes. And they survived a crime. But there's also a process that John would teach sometimes with victims. And so it depends on what they are most comfortable with.

Some don't feel like they're surviving. Yeah, right. It really, I think it's an individual perspective. And some victims like to be called victims. Some like to be called survivors. some even like to be called thrivers. So that's another category of victims. So, you know, it's hard to know what people are comfortable with.

I think people that are victimized excessively in many ways, they feel like victims, and they're not, they don't have a problem with that label. So it really, you know, it really varies. We're just, we're trying to be respectful to everyone. And I think calling people victims acknowledges at some level that they are victims and that they suffered immensely. and they went through a lot of pain. And if a victim wants to only be called a survivor,

we will respect that and call them that. So I want to end with a couple of thoughts. My first thought is early on when we were watching the documentary, you heard the line that we both heard the line that monsters are created. And so we're the hidden podcast. Part of our job is to identify some hidden motives and try to figure out what makes you criminal, right? And so if we think about how monsters are created and how they're specifically created within this type of culture, I think I have some thoughts on that.

So let's revisit that a little bit. How would you create a monster in the IBPL culture? Institute and basic living principle. IBLP. So these are some thoughts I had about some of the driving elements that would create criminals within this culture. The first is entitlement. You know, there's a there's a huge sense of entitlement. specifically male entitlement that the men in this culture feel superior, they feel like they can

objectify children, they own the women, to some extent, the women are there to serve them. So that's one. Also, you have a culture of extreme obedience to authority. You have a culture that's largely a patriarchy. So again, reinforcing this idea that men are superior, men are privileged. You have a culture of fear where physical abuse is common in physical abuse well into adulthood and physical abuse that's completely permissible so husbands can beat their wives with impunity well into adulthood, and that's perfectly acceptable and expected in this culture. So you have a culture of fear that's driven by physical abuse. You also have a sense in which victims take on a sense of meekness,

and you have a sense of inferiority among many victims. So even if they're being abused or physically punished, they, as Shelley just said, in some ways they feel that this is a culture where they're supposed to sacrifice. So you have a culture here that's sacrificial and it demeans victims and it allows victims, you know, in some ways, victims feel the sense of inferiority and they feel like that's what this is expected of them.

So that's a part of this culture of creating a criminal. You have a culture that's extremely rigid that the worldview here doesn't allow for any dissent, it doesn't allow for any deviation, it doesn't allow for any challenges. So you have a worldview here that simply doesn't accept alternative viewpoints, and that's always a problem. You have a culture here that lacks empathy. You have a culture here that objectifies children. It's a culture that lacks any type of self-awareness or self-reflection. And then finally, and this is the piece probably that leads to a lot of sexual exploitation, is you have a culture

here of extreme sexual repression. So I think if you put all those elements together, that's how you create a Josh Dugger. That's how you create a sexual abuser who, by some accounts, was raping people. He had access to sexual exploitative material with minors. He clearly had no problems with infidelity. he was sexually abusing his sisters clearly.

So that's how you do it. Those are the elements of a culture that would really create problems and potentially lead to the development and creation of someone like Josh Jugger. I have to end with one thing, though. Please. At the very end of the documentary, for those who haven't watched it, I'm going to paraphrase this a little bit, but this was a quote that really, this is a quote that really,

hit home to me. It was spoken by one of the male victims or survivors, depending on, I'm not sure how he would perceive himself, but he was featured in this documentary quite a bit. He actually sought out a lot of therapy, and it's clear that he's changed his life quite a bit. So I'm glad he's done that. But he has one of the last lines in the documentary, and he says, I'm paraphrasing this, it's going to be close, but not exact. He says, they wanted to control us, but we had this power. We were what they feared the most, and all we had to do was talk. All he had to do, all they had to do was talk.

All they had to do was tell the truth, right? All they had to do was to comment, to discuss, to be open, to be transparent, right? And I mean, easier said than done. In a repressive culture, it's very hard to tell the truth. But a lot of the victims in this documentary, that's what they've been doing. And they were featured. A lot of them were featured in the show. And I think that's such a great, that's such a great quote.

Because ultimately, the followers in these types of cults have the power. They just have to realize it. And they have to take a stand if they can, if they're being abused. And so critically, if they can find their voices and talk, then things can change. And that's exactly what happened here. And so I think that's a really, really important point. And speaking to talk, you know, that's what we do. And we're so grateful to our community that we can talk about these difficult topics.

And that we hopefully we really appreciate all your voices and being able to talk with you in our community. And so thank you for letting me. us talk. Thank you for expressing yourselves. And thank you for joining us. Thank you. Thank you. Good night, everyone. All right. Good night. Hello, Hidden Jems. It's Lauren with Hidden a True Crime podcast. As a TV reporter, I learned the art of visual storytelling. So if you're like me, you enjoy listening, but also viewing. You can actually head to our YouTube channel, Hidden True Crime, to watch these interviews. Hit the subscribe button for surprise lives and breaking news. And for exclusive content, things Dr. John and I

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