Last Podcast On The Left - Best of: Cults

Episode Date: July 30, 2021

In this Best Of, we've compiled some of the most grisly and hilarious moments from our favorite(?) cults throughout Last Podcast on the Left history. So, light a massive hog's leg and kiss the feet of your makeshift messiah.Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

There's no place to escape to. This is the last time on the left That's when the cannibalism started Hey there guys, it's just me It's only me Henry Zabrowski, how did I get here? Alone in a tube. I'm in a tube of sound But now this tube Spill it out all over your your lap in the car. Oh I bet you're on a long drive, too

But now your the front of your pants is all damp With my sounds. Hello Yeah, it's a best of episode. I hope you like it. It's honestly. It's a subject Near and dear to all of our hearts Colts some of our biggest series are featured here We got chunks from Omshin Rikio the children of God series heavens gate Charles Manson Jim Jones and Sweet sweet pungent Raymond L. Wood Lord Rael himself. Do you remember him?

Do you remember what he did to Joplin? Do you think he's the one who's spiking all the COVID cases as well in Joplin? I think so, but I think it's just him personally Breathing on people. Um, but guys take a look at this best of episode We're gonna be back next week with so much more content. You're gonna be mad at us You're literally gonna be like, why did you make this much content? Who hurt you Henry Marcus and Ben? Who hurt you? Why do you have to make so much furious? intense powerful content and I tell you why it's because you deserve it as a Listener, but this week you get a best of episode, but we'll be back

So take a look at this go get yourself a bowl cut Chop off that set of balls of yours if you got them Because you're not gonna need them and prepare to jump from a squat You're gonna want to drop a tab of acid or something wait 45 minutes Reload the episode and then you're really gonna see what it's like to be in the brain space. You need to be in Let's go ahead give up your will and enjoy our best of cults So by the end of 1987 Ohm Shinrikyo boasted a membership of over 1500 members spread across every major Japanese city and recruiters were told to believe any and all

Supernatural stories in that a prospective member might tell them like they would ask them like has anything spiritual or paranormal ever happened to you And when someone would tell them any sort of bullshit story the recruiters would say You were most likely a trainee in a previous life You are innately at a higher level and if you were to just come and train with the Ohm Shinrikyo Organization your supernatural powers will increase and all of your dreams will come true. That's also a Scientology trick as well Yeah, I mean what else did they have going on? I would I would I'm in Japan is it's the 1980s I got nothing happening. Why wouldn't I go join this cult? I don't know. I mean It seems like a hell of a time. Yeah, do you have a minimum amount of seven hundred dollars?

I can't do it this week. You know what isn't that? I was thinking about it But I'll wait to levitate next year also one of his head trainers was a boy that basically grew up within Ohm Shinrikyo his name is Yoshi hero Inoue and he was 18 by the time it came to he became a trainer became one of the Inner circles very very quickly and they said that he had this ability that he'd walk in rooms and light bulbs would explode and like But like like lights who go all this weird shit and he was known as like the the boy that was like the poster child of being like You too can be like me as you see I sit above this chair Oh, no, no, no certainly not sitting on toothpicks. I am I am Levitating as you walked into a room and threw a bunch of pennies at the ceiling and popped all the lights out

Now like I said the minimum amount to join the cult was 700 bucks with larger donations coming with gifts such as personal photo sessions with Asahara or private lessons from their leading disciples the highest level set at $2,000 got members two gallons of Shoko Asahara's dirty bathwater Oh, if you just I want you to right now to stop the podcast and look up a look up a picture of Shoko Asahara Yeah, this man's feet in the water. Oh that you are gonna be sucking down and you have to go. Oh, thank you. Thank you Oh Strands of his long dank hair and you could do whatever you wanted with you didn't have to drink it You had to drink it. That's what he said and the end. That's what they insinuated

They're like, oh, you could just keep this round But if you drink it sometimes it gives you a boner. Oh, I gotta give them credit for just having that the the ego to be like They will buy my bathwater and they did a two grand. I'm gonna start collecting the shower water that drips from my stomach Oh Kissle there's no limit to the money. I'd spend for just the thimble full of your belly drippings. You're gonna get it Of course the entrance fees were only the beginning the early moneymaker for the cult came in the form of so-called initiations the first of which was called the blood Initiation all of which came with a bump to the initiates quote-unquote

Spiritual level which is good. It's appealing to nerds. It's points. Yeah, so for $7,000 as many as 30 people at a time would participate in a mass ritual in which they would all drink Three spoonfuls of what was supposedly Shoko Asahara's blood from a wine glass and that blood was supposed to give them quote-unquote Magical properties you can throw up at any time Yeah, they never actually said what the magical properties were of course that that's how you do these things that you stay vague with all of it We saw a TV appearance. I sent it to you on YouTube of Shoko Asahara explaining how he can transfer energy into a woman and how it gives you Spiritual powers and how spiritual powers are the meaning of life He would say sentences like that that make no sense like all the time

Yeah, and so what he did was is a woman laid down on the ground He's on the news and he was just like I'll show you what I can do He took his thumb put on her forehead and she just went Like in a porno jiggled her bits a little bit and they didn't blur any of it out Which thankfully I didn't feel like a pervert after watching it as I feel every time I watch an Asian porno And she kind of just flipped around on the ground and then popped up and the TV announcer was like so how do you feel? And she's like I feel good. Yeah, it was just like the laying of hands like you've ever been to a Foursquare or Pentecostal church or anything Okay, it's just like when they lay hands on people and they start crying and talking speaking in tongues. Yeah, it's all the same bullshit

And the Catholic Church has got too large to use real blood at there for Communion So they had to switch it up to wine doesn't travel well and this blood initiation It was only the first of the 20 initiations the cult offered the holy hair initiation involved drinking tea brewed with Asahara's hair and Miracle pond was again Asahara's used bathwater and that was sold for up to $800 a court. I gotta give this guy credit. He is his own business. Yeah, he's just farming his body Yes, he takes his hair. He uses his bath. No collateral. No No overhead here. He's not making anything

What's really interesting too is that one of his initiations would so we would do again in order to get to this inner circle You had to have you the only way you could get true enlightenment was one-on-one with the guru Yeah, and so you could spend something like $8,000 So you don't hang with him and you have this this like what you did not know was an LSD Initiation where you would sit and share a cup of tea with Shoko and he would hand you a cup of tea And he's just like I'm gonna take you on a trip. You've never even imagined. She's like what he begins to play Steppenwolf But like yeah, but literally the tea was with LSD. They had no idea what they were drinking They took it and all of a sudden like one guy was saying about how my hands turn into rubber balls

I became incredibly confused But I was filled with the guru's energy because the guru was just sitting there a little being like yeah, man Don't worry man. Let your anxiety go, bro. No, no way man. I did row with it ride with it, dude. Yeah, all colors have reasons Yeah, and he'd put his hands on their face and he would stare directly into their eyes Which is that still same like cult technique where you know that world view is narrowing You're tripping balls and you're staring at this chubby man for an hour two hours. That's how I got Natalie So what a Sahara's sex enlightenment path was It's a little involved. Yeah, it's a little involved, but let's get into it first

masturbate daily for 10 days check but do not ejaculate what never ejaculate I'm just saying that's not masturbation Yeah, it's stroking. It's stroking. I just don't think it's masturbation. You'll be stroking That's what it is. That's what you should have called the book. You got to be stroking. You got to be stroking Yeah, and then after you do that for 10 days start masturbating twice a day Never ejaculate what do that for a week then do it four times a day For a week then five and then on the sixth week when you are masturbating six times a day without Blowing a load. That's when it's time to find a hot day. Now. What does he mean? Do you come but don't come?

You know, you just hit it a couple of times you call it a masturbation and you end the process Cuz I can get hard just by like literally touching it with my index finger. No, no, no, it's called your edge Yeah, what I think was when you run your teeth over the head No, no, no, no edging is when you like bring yourself to the almost to the point of ejaculation like you know You're like, I'm coming right before you say I'm coming. That's what you stop But I always say that's why you got to put a pizza in the oven put the oven timer for seven minutes and then Pizza's ready or just just always be waiting for a package from UPS Cuz pretty much as soon as I'm at that point fully nude from the waist down

That's when the package decides to come you leave your shirt on. Yeah, no, I take I get it fully new I Can't even wear socks I feel dirty No, I leave my full clothes on sometimes to just pull out the penis through the pants Oh, no, no, see if I have a shirt. I feel like a dad. I gotta be ready to go Just in case there's a fire in the kitchen. I put a suit jacket on You treat yourself extra nice. Yeah, it's like you take yourself out on a date So you've been masturbating six times a day for a week after doing it five four three two one

That's when it's time to find your hot date Once you've convinced a woman to have sex with you which goes at this point semen is literally dripping out of your nose Yeah, I mean, it's not good Once you can have convinced a woman to have sex with you Insert yourself into the woman as deep as possible I normally try to do that but do not pull out until you have performed 81 Moorabandas, which is a kind of penile tensing technique. Oh, I could find no information That's just clenching your buttholes. That's male kagels

Yeah, do that 81 times that's not that that's not that much. I'll tell you woman that you do not know very well I'll just let her know what you're up to just tell her be like, hey, I'm about to do a thing I'm trying to get superpowers to shut up It doesn't matter. He didn't say the woman couldn't talk even though you've been touching yourself six times a day daily Not coming and you've put in you and if you somehow managed to not immediately Ejaculate by upon sticking your penis inside this woman think about baseball. Oh, I just go far faster because of those butts If you just take the butts out of the take it away from the dude's head. They're nice butts

Strangest thing to yell when you ejaculate Henry so after the 81 Moorabandas you pump in and out nine times Exactly nine times then you do another 81 Moorabandas Then you do 18 thrusts then the Moorabandas then 27 thrusts and so on and so forth and at some point an out-of-body experience happens and one Supernatural power is increased. I think he's just passed out. Yeah, I think the only out-of-body is the chick just leaving Yeah, yeah, he's just like I don't know what you're doing and I think your superpower is the shotgun blast Of calm that comes out of you that you spackle your walls with like you're a dirty version of spider-man Yes, and you shoot back

Shot in a Western like an UHF when he's like fire But back at the compound a few years later Osahara's view on his followers sex life changed Dramatically members caught having sex were made to wear dog collars and forced to walk around on their hands and feet eating only The leftovers of other followers masturbation was out earning offenders up to a week in Solitary confinement, but none of this applied to the great guru Shoko Osahara who like any good cult leader worth his salt Slept with as many followers as he possibly could that was actually one of the intimacy rituals

He had a thing called an intimacy ritual where he would take the newest female member into his room did not like no And he would force himself on them and they would do it because I'm you're becoming one with me and a part of the Way that you were gonna become one with me is that I'm gonna do an icing mustache on your upper lip And that was the weird thing is I wish he didn't do it dirty Sanchez every single time But he said that's a part of the ritual But no he in truth what he was trying to do is that I'm trying to create as many direct Progeny as possible and it's a part of the it's not something that he wants to do It's something he has to do dog meat. Yeah, I know too real pretty and that is too real. It's too real to be denied

And speaking of what a good cult is supposed to do What's an intensely sexed-up monster without a steady diet of illicit harmful and mind-bending drugs? It's like a Robert Downey junior without a steady diet of illicit harmful mind-bending drugs Now almost without fail Outwardly destructive cult leaders as the cult gets bigger and the ideas get crazier. These guys eventually develop crazy bad drug habits See cult leaders are like a battery that powers the entire cult and eventually that battery Runs low and the only thing that can replace the manic energy that a person needs to run the day-to-day of an apocalyptic death cult is a Steady diet of very

Powerful speed is fucked drugs. Well, that's like being the lead singer of Motley-Crew yeah need all of that But what one thing that is interesting too about him is that he literally was the center of the whole thing Yeah, the whole cult was supposed to be an offshoot of his whole of his whole personality But what I find interesting is I don't think there is much of it It's not so much that the drugs fuel the paranoia and the theories as that the theory to the paranoia may just be fueled by the Drugs now while Jim Jones liked his speedballs Shoko Asahara's drug of choice was

LSD and Asahara said that his first trip was so strong. He wet his pants and Became high like the highest ever Became high perhaps the highest ever yeah, which is what I said when I was 17 when I smoke weed for the first time behind a Dumpster literally the same way. I'm like hi. Yeah, it's like the highest Yeah, dude like listening to track four on fucking rage against the machine evil Empire it's like We listened to Queens ever another one bites the dust yeah I remember calling my mom and telling my mom three times of my butt I was hanging out with my buddy Ian and they keep saying you keep saying you're hanging out with Ian

Hey Ian you're listed to the show you remember that night. We went to Walmart. We play with Hulk gloves But the one thing that is interesting too, but the LSD initiations This is the first time I've ever heard this the people in the LSD initiations were taking so much LSD He would make them wear diapers. Yeah, because they were on so much LSD. They were pissing their pants I've been on a lot of acid. Yeah, but I've never been on shit your pants That's why you never see an outhouse that a pink Floyd concert But he also said a part of what's interesting about the diaper is that they would keep the diapers Because he wanted to make sure if they didn't throw out the diapers if the police came looking through the dumpsters

This is one of his speed ideas that if they went looking through the dumpsters and found the diapers They would see the drug content in their piss and shit. I think you wore him as little hats Now soon Ohm's chemical team with the help of a book called recreational drugs written by an American named dr. Buzz Begin manufacturing their own acid eventually making enough for five million hit doctor buzz I'm so glad that you saw me so quick. I mean like I think I threw my back out at the gym, and I Think you're big brahmins, bro. I say you're not fucking groovy enough And it wasn't long before every member of Ohm's supreme truth was walking around every day with a scalp full of electrodes and a Brain full of acid. This is the good time

Yeah, the heady times. Yeah, this is like 1967 and this combined with very little sleep and very little food Translated to a lot of industrial accidents and a lot of bodies because they're also dealing with chemical weapons and baby stages Yeah, they're literally having a gigantic weapons factory next to all of this mayhem lots of in the middle of it or all it's happening around it with all these bodies around and since Ohm was trying as hard as They could to escape the attention of the authorities. They disposed of the bodies themselves by cremating them and unceremoniously Scattering the ashes among the Mount Fuji foothills could be said that shoko a Sahara had kind of a thing for Incinerators he actually invented one himself called the final cleaner

Which was a device that blasted hot air through a floor of red hot Sand that could reduce a human to ashes in half an hour That sounds like a product Billy Mays is literally just like and you would not believe the sheer power of the final Cleaner and I gotta say you put a piece of cloth in there It's like it never had wine stain on it because the cloth is also gone. Oh my god Who turned it on my goddamn hands? And even though that sounds like a lot of fun the incinerator that Ohm would settle on would be a Refrigerator size device known simply as the microwave a body would be again stuffed into a metal barrel

Which would then be placed inside the microwave after a short period the body would cook Crumple and Mushify as mushify your term mushify is a term that I used yeah, and then after it would mushify it would Crust on the sides of the barrel. Oh kind of like a quiche kind of like a quiche Yeah, it's like you know when you put a microwave chicken pot pie Yeah, when you put it in for way too long and it kind of sticks to it Oh, yeah, that's just in flip-flops. You're not wearing any clothes. You've been drinking for three days And you have slept in to your apartment. Yeah, I know it. They did that with a body

Yeah, and what they would do is they would take the metal barrel out scrape off What was left of this human being off the sides drop the chunks in a solution of nitric acid and flush them down the toilet? They should have put it in nitrous oxide and shown the kids how cold it can be and you break it The only thing they taught the kids was to admire Hitler and by the way Hitler was still alive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no No, no, that's what in this in this can in this world Argentina He might have been still in the Omsh and Riccio cartoon super villain world Hitler was still hanging out somewhere But he was like a funny uncle. Oh, I see And by the way, there are no videos of Lord Rael, I mean to to give you a very very quick you can't capture him on camera

Yeah, it's like yeah on camera Capturing if you've ever seen the if you've ever seen the original VHS It's the third the third short where you just can't see the guy in cameras all squiggle marks and digital That's him looking things. That's right. I'll move it around. Yeah, right dumps in public Right. Oh, there are only two pictures of him one is him looking majestic in front of the sea He's got a goatee a horrible goatee. It's photoshopped It's not a picture is smeared photoshop. It just looks like it's like who just used it with the smudge button All over his face for about 15 minutes and he's got long gray hair beautiful

And he claims to be Lord Rael. He's actually a felon from Chicago named Raymond Raymond Elwood Howard Lear. I also heard is that That the Raymond Elwood is actually a fake name that he used to Fashion Rael out of because he said that Rael is some ancient Hebrew form of the word of God Well, we'll get into Actually true in the Torah codes later on which is a big part of Rael's claims to the throne Mm-hmm. He is a man. That's how you that's how you become God, but you claim it. Yeah It's like that. No, he has demanded it

Well, we better give it to him then Yeah, this guy grew up in Chicago. He was part of the Guardian Angels back in the 70s and 80s That's right. Yeah, he ran for he unsuccessfully ran for mayor and I don't know how I mean He only put out that seven minute campaign video of him just like showing Blug of like Blugavoyevich, whatever that guy's name is like you just him like showing it over and over again him being like My name is Raymond Lear. I was born in a Chicago suburb and it's like little like pictures of his history in between Blugavoyevich bullshit. It's like this is horrible. Yeah, I mean, I just I mean, it'd be nice to have a mayor that has a bone room Yeah, that's true. We got a fun. So Lord Rael came about in

2011 he announced himself to the world on May 21st 2011 announced himself through where else would Jesus Christ announce his return YouTube Truly, that's what he said. It also was that the way that He twisted some of the Bible verses like talking about how like the Torah would talk about there would be a web all over the world During revelations. Yeah, and he's like, that's the Internet think about it. Of course Jesus. Yeah, YouTube. Yeah Mm-hmm. Yeah, I also use Etsy and boys. He's struggling for Twitter followers He's got like he's got like 5,000. Okay, which is pretty good. Not new Jesus. Not good for God though I think the Pope's got like 30 million and he's been on Twitter for a couple of years now

He's doing a lot. Does he not know that you have to live tweet like main events So you have to live to eat the Oscars go live with it. Yeah, the apocalypse. Yeah, you know, let us know All right, how do you eat for breakfast Jesus? I want you to take Instagram pictures of your abs while you're working out That's right. He's a bit of a tubby. Mm-hmm. How many YouTube hits does he have? 48,000 on his address on his address to the world comedy central is gonna give him a sitcom Yeah, that's good. Well, Jesus Christ returns to the world and 48,000 people see I well I'm not saying 48,000 because I've watched this video about five times myself. Yeah, I've been watching it for a week So like 22 total people have seen this video just before we can do Henry tell us how

We came upon Lord, okay, so I will we hear his address to the world Henry was sad looking for answers didn't know who to turn So I bought a hot dog and I met him while he was selling the hot dog Was listening to coast-to-coast and it was an episode where they were talking to this priest who had Excited like he had exercised up to 150,000 ghosts, which is fake And so we I was listening to it and at the call-in section at the end some guy calls up and he's like But did like you know ants. He's like so do you know George Norris is like so do you have a question for the father? And he's just like Does our father know the truth?

Does the father know the truth and he's like what truth? What truth? And he's like does he know that Jesus has already come back the Jesus is back here on earth And he's like what what are you talking about? He's like go to www dot r a dash el dot or gray l dot Or go to rail dot or and you will know the truth and then hang up the phone Oh, I was like don't they normally screen these people so I was just gonna screen for Ray L type people I do not go to just plain Ray L dot or because that is an alien sight Yes, it's already different guy do an alien research and alien are a dash el dot or yeah If you go to r a el dot org, that's a whole different way. You're not gonna find the truth there. No, that's nonsense

So this guy so I went and I just looked it up and as soon as it popped up. I was just like oh, holy shit Wow, he wasn't oh my god and then upon relistening to the episode and listening to his trans like his speech You were about to listen to it was him. Yeah He called into coast to coast and plugged his own website and it's you know in George Norris It's like it's strange how you can do it to some people have different ideas of the truth You know George Norris just every they're like I rolls with anything doesn't he he's amazing. He's an entertainer I love George Norris. I was like talk someone. Oh, I knew I someone I know was talking shit about George Norris And I like got his face and I was like George Norris been entertaining millions of people for years

He knows exactly what he's doing. He's a lot of only walk away from the fat scary man slowly make out Do not break our contact with him. And I would you know Jesus is nothing if not a self-promoter. Yeah, you know I went to the Lord Ryle Facebook page, which by the way, I am a member of the congregation You made it. Hey, oh, that's great. I love your release Oh, I got a I asked to join the group last night and today I woke up to the confirmation that I am officially a member of the congregation How many members of the Facebook page are there 1,299 including me 1300 I was almost 1300 you look very nice welcome from I got a

a personal message from priest RJ Davidson a Welcome video, which is just kind of an old man. He's sending you a picture of his nut lift No, no, no not yet and things. He seems like a very sweet old man. Sure. He's you want to see my Oscar the grouch That is gross they actually seem really happy which is kind of a bizarre sort of and he's dressed in a priest outfit And he's obviously in a really shitty apartment. That's right next to the highway Mm-hmm. You can hear cars going by constantly, and he's just kind of he keeps stumbling over his words And you can tell it's like his Jesus is looking for a new apartment next to a park Somewhere for a good school for my future children and I got like four welcome messages

You know priest RJ Davidson said welcome another guy said welcome Marcus Park smiley face Oh, that's another one said welcome Exclamation pours okay, and another one said welcome Marcus Park smiley face namaste Would you take a bunch of pictures of my naked tits and put them all over the way? No, no, no intruder alert intruder alert big breasts hairy The founder of the children of God David Berg was just another and a long line of people who either belong to or were leaders of Fringe Christian sex Berg's earliest ancestors in America were a trio of Jews who converted to a Mennonite sect known as the Dunkers so named because they preferred to nearly drown their congregants during baptism also not to not to completely interrupt

But if you've ever had an apple cider donut made by the Amish community only good thing they do and furniture as well furniture as well and quilts. Oh I have to say I just had a terrible flashback Of course, I grew up in evangelical. We know that I got dipped in I believe it was Iverson or Jordan Park And I was so fat I wore the white shirt cuz I was like they're never gonna see my boobs now And I got dumped by pastor Matt. I come out of the water. They laughed at me Yeah, they laughed at my boobs and you know when you wear the shirt your belly button becomes larger than it actually is It looks like you can go spelunking in it and they laughed at me. Oh, yeah, all the fat kids tried that we call that the swimming pool fallacy

Oh fallacy, I did that throughout my whole I told that story before about how I used to wear the shirt in the pool And then they used to make fun of me relentlessly and then they pulled me in the shower and stripped me nude and all made fun of my penis And that's how Henry Zabrowski knew he wanted to be president But it's also David Berg's grandparents when they so they chose the hard way from the very beginning He said his grandfather was known as like a fighter that they would literally go as these Jewish guys now Mennonites You from from Jewish to Amish now they're living in America and they're literally just going places and fighting people in the street And he said that they had no idea what they were doing like religiously But they made a shit ton of money and David Berg put it because his grandfather was a Jew all the way to the end

David Berg is a great man. You guys are really gonna love David Berg as we go through these episodes Yeah, and Berg's grandfather John Lincoln Brandt was a campalite Which was a movement that looked to return the church to a purer time before established church doctrine avoiding what they called quote Churchianity, huh? That's an interesting term. I kind of like it. Yeah, churchianity meaning That they are more beholden to the church than they are to the word of God Yeah, they're big fancy church talk where they don't have sex with their children and don't have sex with their sisters and brothers Interesting. I mean I sort of took it the other way I thought they would be against the institution, but pro only the biblical word. Yeah, that's exactly what that is what it is

Yeah, they're doing the flip reverse of biblical words so deep that even Jesus Christ is just like I'm gonna kill myself again I'm gonna come back just to kill myself again Just so that you guys can get a bit of a redo because there's some kind of you guys are going off the fucking campus here But then when you actually do read the Bible everything you can pick out some very creepy passages And I would think Jesus must have a quite a few Steven Urkel moments We're like, why are you having sex with your knees right here, sir? He says you can He's just in heaven right now fucking the hole in his hand over and over again Berg's mother Virginia Brandt was a radio evangelist and traveling preacher who made her name during the Pentecostal revival

That took hold during the early part of the 20th century, which was big on fire and brimstone speaking in tongues laying of hands They called old-time religion, but it's interesting because this was like a new fangled at the time This is like the hip quote-unquote hipster Religion where they were she putting a lot of passion and intensity into Christianity and also ladles and ladles of horseship Right Virginia's hook came from an accident. She supposedly had in which she was thrown from a horse and buggy Broke her back and was bedridden for five years in one day Miraculously and without explanation She rose from her bed cured and was then sporth known as the miracle woman telling her tale of divine healing

She took her story which she called from deathbed to pulpit and became one of America's first female evangelists and Hosted a fairly popular radio show that she called Meditation moments. I mean she definitely made the best out of a terrible situation Why couldn't James Kahn do the same thing from the film misery? You know he was just lying there like a whiny ass. Well, the only problem was that was all bullshit None of that happened. Yeah, none of it happened years later One of David Berg's daughters revealed that during the time she was supposedly bedridden She was actually down in Fort Worth attending Texas Christian University, which is actually a more inspiring story

She was in college getting her master's degree But the problem was that she was having a child at the time that went on to disown them because she didn't she grew up like Basically immediately became an atheist like some kids do and saw through all of their horseship was like what are you guys talking about? And they kind of exercised her from the family So she used that story to cover up that whole birth of a child Yeah, well, she didn't just use it that you I mean David Burke I mean in other words justifying a lie in order to get people to believe in Jesus's word that was in Berg's DNA I mean these people are no different from Bigfoot hunters who fake dead Bigfoot bodies because they know in their hearts that Bigfoot is real

They absolutely know the Bigfoot is real But they don't have any real proof so they make some shit up to get people halfway there and if the ends justify the means It's all okay. Exactly. Now David Berg's father. His name was Hjelmer Berg. What was that? Hjelmer Berg Hjelmer Berg? Hjelmer Berg. His first name is Hjelmer. Last name Berg. Is he a talking couch from Peewee's Playhouse? It does sound like it. Hjelmer Berg. He does sound like a piece of furniture from Ikea that has come to life. He was a poor Swedish immigrant who before coming to America made extra money during the Swedish summers Performing musical numbers and acrobatic routines in a wandering minstrel show. Now this isn't going to be one of your racist minstrel shows. These shows going to be lots of kicking and dancing and jumping and oof

It seems my trousers have fallen around my ankles. Oof. Is there a child who's giving it to Cirky Cirk? No. No, Hjelmer. I slapped my own hand. Slapped my hand must not be shit, Hjelmer. And that is if Charles Inge was born a Swedish man. I don't know how to do a Swedish accent. I love it. Now that we're in the world of just Sweden, I'm allowed to do it. I don't wish Swedish bullshit connected to it. It is Jorn if Jorn and Hjelmer, stand and tall and blonde who said to have a beautiful tenor singing voice Did nothing to stop anyone from hurting anyone. See now we talk a lot here about the perfect serial killer soup

For example, Henry Lee Lucas was created by a terrible childhood with an abusive mother and already broken mind made worse by exposure to Brain rotting chemicals and the ease of passage of a drifter lifestyle. Now you're really settling it Marcus, and I actually want that. At this point in time I want that. Better than split pee, I'll tell you that. So when you combine David Byrd's Ancestry with the first 50 years of his life as a failed charismatic preacher and add in the naivete of the hippie movement David Byrd was the product of a perfect cult leader soup. It's very interesting how we see that that's true that there are a certain number of factors that completely work out for a cult leader

And a part of it's having a period of time with a lot of this shit going on And now what we know is that it was in the 1920s in America, the 1960s in America, and then also with the 70s 80s in Japan, right? The perfect fertile time for people that have lost themselves. They're a part of a new generation They're looking for somebody to talk to and all of these weird side religions are getting mixed together And that's where someone like David Byrd who's not necessarily great on detail work, but great on broad strokes Is good at taking a bunch of religions and smashing them together and have you allow you to have sex with your children It is unbelievable. I mean my parents they turned today's star. That was their Christian cult They were all over the place and the irony is it was the children. This was their rebellion against their evangelical or Baptist

Whatever parents. Oh, yeah, we'll definitely get into the whole rebellion part of it now as far as David Byrd himself goes He was born in Oakland, California on February 18th 1919 in a letter to a friend of hers Virginia said about baby David at first He was a fat and robust little fellow, but I overfed him I had such a quantity of milk and he developed bowel trouble Mrs. Mrs. Zabrowski. No, I told you my thing I couldn't suck a lot of my mother's tit because I had weak cheek muscles Like a little piggy

My mom had a milk herself into a cup and I'd have to drink it out of a straw They thought I was gonna die of malnourishment Oh, I if I was a doctor out and said mr.. Browsky, you just have the world's fanciest boy Only out of a cup will do I'll have it in the highball glass. Thank you, and don't be slow about it. We'll spank for you Here's a dollar. I found it in my diaper Now the reason for writing the bowel trouble letter was that Virginia was claiming that a faith healing had taken place here She said a local healer had come to see the constipated baby done his work in the very next morning

David had his first natural bowel movement since his breast milk induced sickness began Nothing would please me more to go back to childhood where I'd be praised for taking shits again Oh my god, it was so nice. Is there a chance this person just accidentally sat on David and then he shat He's like he's been cured just rolled him back and forth on top of like a pizza tray Look like we made a tootsie roll Congratulations David No, it wasn't until after David was born that his family threw in with the Pentecostals Which in the 20s was just starting to gain steam a Pentecostals for those of you who don't know are the snake handlers the faith healers

The tongue speakers these are the people that really really get into it and have either one of you guys ever been like a Pentecostal or four square church or anything like that I got kicked out of Christian school in third grade because I couldn't speak in tongues and that was an early indication about how I wouldn't be able to improvise and It really made me, you know Not do well at the People's Improv Theater during those classes. It was horrific. I mean speaking in tongues All you have to do is like the the all right. Try. Oh, you hit a couple of triple B's in there, too Man, you are good

You should hear me in traffic I feel like when I'm driving in LA and I'm alone. I go I have driven in traffic in LA with Henry many times for many hours and the things that I heard could end his career Well out of all the cults that made headlines in the late 20th century Perhaps the most misunderstood is the one that came to popularly be known as Heaven's Gate The story goes that 1997 on March 19th and 20th 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult committed mass ritual suicide dressed in Identical uniforms and covered in purple shrouds doing so under the direct orders of their castrated leader

Marshall Appelwight. Do you guys have to mention castrated every time you mention my name? literally the first fact We can't talk about my beautiful blue eyes or my wonderful taste in Nike decades, which are actually kind of fresh No, those are pretty cool shoes there, buddy, but you know, you don't got a dick, right? I Have a flappy, but I don't have the bing-bong Okay, okay, just check it. No, they're misunderstood But under like it's not their fault that they're a misunderstood almost because they really tried to explain themselves Afterwards with a dump of information that came out after they had committed suicide. Yeah, and they were okay with messaging

And well in fact like you know speaking of being misunderstood you've already put a Misunderstanding out there by saying that Marshall Appelwight demanded that they castrate themselves when in fact you did not demand that they castrate themselves And only six of them actually castrated themselves There's a lot of misinformation when it comes to Heaven's Gate. My hands are on my hips shaking my head Mr. Zabroski, and you know what I'm doing? I'm shaving the carrot. You are wrists deep into your love handles But I will say I'm not gonna say he demanded but he hinted he hinted no key hinted. He said you can do this You I'm gonna do wanted to I'm gonna do this you can if you want to but Marshall Appelwight never demanded anything of anyone Suggestions

It was said that the point of this mass suicide was to hitch a ride on a spacecraft Flying in tandem with the hail-bop comet that was passing by Earth But in order to do so they had to leave behind their human vehicles So you're like Subaru and your Toyota your rap force when I look at myself. I call myself more of like a Hyundai grunt Now this is definitely a Subaru outback crowd if you know what I mean, of course a little granola Yeah, well soon after the bodies were found it was discovered that this cult had laid out their entire belief structure on a website Heavensgate.com and thus they were dubbed the first internet cult or

That's the way the story has been portrayed While that summation is close the story of Heavensgate is far more complicated Than what it was boiled down to be and CNN soundbites and snarky late-night monologues Hold on a second Are you telling me a castrated cult that wants to hail bop in order to go to heaven on the orders of mr. White the head whatever white side white white apple absorbed a single single white White nipple whatever his name is is complicated It's true Jay Leno is not going to understand a lot of the complexities of the inner workings of this group

We're gonna find especially if you even attempt to watch any of what they call their exit materials I'm in about three hours deep into the Beyond Human class right now And I got to say number one if you have a hard time falling asleep It is great What I know or that I'm a little bit concerned about studying another cult because as we know Marcus Henry is slowly slipping down the cult train Cult the cult slide and every cult seems to reaffirm your love for what you now call LRA You literally said yesterday you're like LR L run Hubbard was like a lot better than Apple This is like you're ranking them now, and it's really scary. You already were you're teeing me up

Because my number two was never have I been a more of almost an adherent to the teaching Styling of LRH and the fact that if you listen to his tapes and that is true if you listen to the audio of him He throws some jokes in there. He's super funny, right? He's kind of he zips happens up, and there's some presentation He's got a good uniform on a apple white throws some jokes in there, too All right, he may not be a snappy and he may not be as polished as your LRH, but apple white has his points as well He looks and acts like if Jeff Sessions worked at Michael's Well, he knows what's in every aisle. He is a quilting group sense of humor So to nip a potential insurrection in the bud

Apple white and nettles clarified that all of the information from the next level from heaven was channeled through a quote chain of mind Information flowed from the next level to nettles first Then it flowed from nettles to Apple white and then it went from Apple white to everybody else Oh, yeah, you never knew it's a key where I got on me. I got a grilled chicken sandwich Stuck inside my belly button. Oh, I guess it must be God's will then for young I'll eat it miss nettle Bonnie sidebar. We should talk about some of these messages you receive We meet with the class So after Apple white and nettles put everyone in their place the real purpose for the Wyoming rendezvous was revealed

It was finally time to begin preparations for life in space In order to prepare Tien Doe instituted a wildly strict program of self-denial and discipline Which they called the process and the foundation of this program was abstention from so-called vices and human attachments Naturally, there was no drug use no beer drinking no cigarette smoking But members also had to give up material possessions relationships with family and friends and especially sex so it's a no fun call to this point No, I mean it depends on what your definition of fun is sir. None of those things I

But one of the things I find interesting about the abstention rules is that all though most of the things Apple white and nettles band Lied firmly in the sinful sphere. They never to the best of my knowledge Actually used the word sin, huh? Apple white nettles were not guilt-tripping their adherents Instead all of this was framed as a choice if you wanted to be a part of the group that went to heaven on a spaceship, right? Abstention was necessary. If not, you could take your chances on earth with the Luciferians My question is though, right? Like this is the vessel every to the point now where the full body Goes into the spacecraft or so we're still in the full body totally, okay?

Because otherwise this is a rental and what do you do with rentals you like them on fire? Shit in it. Rub a hamburger all over the seats Whatever you want to do absolutely because I when I'm in a rental the way I find parking is that I just nudge Bumpers of cars until I get to the spot But you say that they were not guilt-tripping their adherents, right? And but as well, I'll talk a little bit more as I watched a lot of footage of martial apple white speaking and and Guilt-tripping it's it's weird that their punishment system was more inherent in their their very the very bottom of their entire

bulge if scenario where It's this idea of yeah, sure. Yeah, reject the ultimate truth if that's what you want sure Yeah, I'm in touch with the ultimate truth and it leads to pure bliss and Anybody that doesn't believe us is a part of the problem that is driving the earth and to be which will eventually You know it will be spated over and right now. It's all cute and I'm not saying what I what I'm I really mean Which is I do believe that like a race of robots will unleash a field of death on this world When we all after we all depart, but I'm not gonna say that but you I mean sure leave Yeah, you wait a second one. Yeah, you know man the rest of your life. Yo, dude. You said all of that out loud

And that was what did you say about these cue cards? I gotta stop reading these cue cards. Yeah Well for Heaven's Gate earth was actually a cosmic classroom where living beings had to prove themselves worthy of the next level By avoiding and overcoming the temptations laid out by the Luciferians Hmm, but the Luciferians weren't trying to tempt you in order to lure you into the flames of hell Because we're already in hell. Oh hell. Well, it's hell or purgatory Depending on how well you live your life you can get to purgatory if you're lucky But the point of temptation is to keep us here. That's why we have chicken nuggets Yeah, because they try they chicken nuggets are supposed to keep us here wallowing in this purgatory of

beer and seeing my wife's beautiful breasts and and Going on vacation and playing video games and laughing with my friends all this disgusting Shit that I have to deal with all the time, but those are fun things to do. That's hell my friend That's hell. Yeah, that's hell. That's not hell was like living like Albert Fish, but without the erection No Absolute hell does that sit just every day life is hell or purgatory Okay, so the best we can do is break even best we can do is break even that's why I like gambling Actually, the best we can do is to reach the next evolutionary level above human

That's the best you can do, but that's no fun. Yep. Yep. Okay, you got to give it up all the good thing about happy You'll be kissal. I won't be happy Can you I can just see seeing kissal standing amongst the the ascended masters and see What kind of bumble around me like you guys see the Packers game. I'm sorry. I was an attachment You guys see that wrestling match and I think that Cherokee man he hit the grave man with the with the chair Oh, well, that's an attachment. Oh That's a 1992 reference to Titanka and the undertaker but good that was that's an a for effort my friend It is a forever

But according to heavens gate earth was not a place in which to get comfortable or to stay Earth was a test to see if you are worthy of heaven in other words all this bullshit Every part of heavens gate is just Christianity dressed up in aliens clothing. It's all the same rules It's all the set you get all the way you get to the same place eventually, but it's just you know Aliens, okay, and then it makes it more exciting. It's a good twist Yeah, so see if you attempt to read the book by Sawyer by the title by which that will not be named because we already devoted three minutes to that title last episode if you look at it it has over 800 pages of the script oral passages all the scripture shit that they used as

literal Examples of why they everything they said was correct So they used the Bible as an entire source book It was the only it was the only thing that they were allowed essentially to read especially by the end where they were using it Mining for reasons why everything that they said was right. Hmm See the whole point of abstaining and resisting the Luciferians was to emulate those on the next level because after all that was the Evolutionary level above human and human attachments kept you from reaching that level As such members who planned on coming to the Wyoming camp in

1976 were told in advance to be prepared for a Spartan existence the invite letter said quote If you are ready to go you will need a car a tent a warm sleeping bag a stove At least two changes of winter clothing and two for warmer weather eating and cooking utensils and And whatever money you can bring that is literally the exact thing that everyone plans for to go to Bonnaroo That is what that's what every friend is like you better bring all of that stuff Yeah, because Lady Gaga's performing at midnight, but she'll be late So we need to make sure we take the drugs right at 1155 it takes 25 minutes for them to kick in by the time She starts singing. I don't even know a famous Lady Gaga song

poker face poker face will be blue This is from 1999 All right, so we're gonna start this episode with something happy we're gonna start with the birth We're gonna start with the happy Was the birth in a bus by any chance because then it's not a happy birth birth was in a condemned house in Topanga Canyon It was Charlie Manson's second child a little boy named Valentine Michael Nicknamed Pooh bear That's actually the exact name of somebody that was just born in Park slope

That's Gwyneth Paltrow's seventh child. Yes, and it said that Charlie bit the umbilical cord himself I'm sure that he did we're a doctor It sounds like a maniac thing, but it's him just going like With a knife Oh, we lost all the scissors and this is a party we had that No, where's it? I'm just going to use God's scissors my old teeth Mary. I need you to just bear with me for a second That's not so bad though a lot of people eat the umbilical cord. It's good. It's got some good vitamins in there Yeah, it's mostly dookie. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of juices in various things around it

It's shit to your mouth. It is a shit. Yeah, it's definitely a shit. So it's around this time that the Manson family They finally find their home in Spawn Ranch Man, and here's a little song that Charlie sang about there. I can feel my bush hair getting longer This is Charlie Manson's music, by the way You were just born Play as play as other songs satellite this sounds just like Dave Matthews band It does I was gonna say the lyrics are reminiscent to a Gavin Rosdale's bush

And that they make no I'm gonna go on record here And I'm gonna say that there are a lot of Charlie Manson songs that I like Marcus has been listening to the album for the last two Yeah, lie the love and terror cult I've listened to it no less than seven times over the last I don't know week or so. He's got a good voice He's got a real good voice some of the songs are you know pretty catchy It's not a whole lot different than what you're gonna find in California in 1968 No

I mean if you're tripping nuts on acid you got this little wiry weird dude singing that song around a campfire talking about death and Murder every time he stops playing guitar. I mean, that's a hell of a night Yeah, I'm gonna start thinking about that all the time and just be like, you know what Charlie He's like the only musician that you want to hear speak as opposed to actually play the music I know I think about all the years I spent doing mushrooms heavily enough dog shit music I was into and I was playing tambourines around just being like they don't mean like we're gonna change the world tonight You know just imagine that over nine months. Yeah, and then eventually start killing pregnant women Sure, you can even argue that the Manson family were in reality just super fans

Yes, they loved Manson not only were they super fans, but they were also a part of his musical journey Which we'll get into here in just a little bit but before we get to that We have to talk about spawn ranch a little bit now spawn ranch was the main base of operations for the Manson family Sandra Good aka sandy blue knew a mechanic at spawn ranch and the mechanic put them in Contact with 80 year old George spawn Now spawn ranch it was mostly used as a movie set for Old Westerns They used it in episodes of bonanza the lone ranger Zorro and exchange for simple labor So just taking care of the horses cleaning George's house cooking and having squeaky fuck them every once in a while

Absolutely in the way he presented like them even getting the spawn ranch is that two Manson showed up with two of the two of his front street girls Right, and he you know me you made sure you know like leave the bras at home girls Yeah, and they walk over there and they like they basically showed up George spawn supposed to be blind and like Charles Manson's like Sorry, I heard that man was blind, but he was reaching out shaking hands like he had fun fashion Faggot he's like but then later on when I watched him tripped over a rock I knew then that he wasn't fat blind He was like talking about George spawn would come up and like grip their shoulders and stuff and like play with their women's arms

And he's like I can tell you that he's going for a little squeezy sport right there So I sent him to my fine young redhead and she gave him a tug of rub and guess next thing I know We got a sweet spot. Oh, well spot. I haven't gone around That's not bad. This guy was 80 years old 80 years old. He was still getting hard, huh? Yes, they'll get hard still before the GMO has been putting our goddamn food Manson said that he never made squeaky fuck George He said that the reason why squeaky fuck George was so she could have the comforts of living in the main ranch house instead of in

In the I guess they were called the outlaw cabins honestly And if you think about the the the main group is literally sleeping on top of each other a bunch of rugs They're covered in chiggers never didn't talk about no when like when someone person got the clap They don't know who gave each other the clap and then they all have the clap. Yeah, I think squeaky made the right choice Yeah, I just have to suck a no 80 year old man's dick so you can get a bedroom Right 80 year old farmer though. He's probably in good shape harvesting the land his whole I don't know He's a movie farmer. Yeah, this is not he's not a real farmer. This is a movie set. It's spawn rain I mean spawn ranch does sound like the kind of place you have to like gurgled come just to enter

They got horses in oh, well, no one had sex with the horses, right? By the way, if you guys want to see the most adorable thing that you've ever seen in your life Look for a picture of Charles Manson on a horse. He's so adorable. He's tiny He's five four, but he was a tiny tiny little man. He looks like a child at a birthday party He must have been so scared on top of that horse Keep it together if I fall off this horse, they're never gonna trust me as their lord and savior This horse is it's covered in butter You know who did it man? It was the man

Coming down on me covered all my horses in slick olive oil, so I fall right off of them. Oh my goodness So us here through our research what we found But I do think that he probably told someone to butter the horse the night before Why Charlie why don't ask me why The next morning your breakfast what happened all the butter. I don't know I'm going on the horse It better be good and grippy because I'm gonna be riding it all over the canyon That's where the butter was I got a write down my commands that I give after one o'clock in the morning

I gotta ride him down. I'm gonna give him a squeaky. I'm gonna say squeaky you hold on to this until 6 a.m And then it's everything I agreed to the night before 6 a.m. We're gonna decide whether it's a good idea or not. Honestly Manson in his own words has given me a great deal I am now in Marcus's team. I have a great deal of sympathy for Charles Manson I just think the man was a stupid criminal. The man is basically Damon Wayans character from Moe Money It means like he said like character of just like he's just like Moe money It's just all about like he thinks he's this slick criminal But actually he's an idiot and next thing you know

He has this gaggle of drug crazed freaks all around him Well with Manson we can take it back to Gary Ridgway Gary Ridgway as we discussed was adult He was an idiot, you know as far as you know normal society went, but he was really fucking good at one thing Yes, really good at killing prostitutes. Charles Manson is really good at eating pussy And I will also probably put in record that Charles Manson is the only serial killer that knew where the clitoris was But Charles Manson what he was good at was manipulating people Yes, because as we said in the last episode he spent from the years of 12 to 19 in prison and then he spent from 21 to 26 in Prison as well. So Charles Manson little guy

The only way this guy is gonna survive in these horrific environments is if he learns how to talk crazier and faster And then everybody else. He's gotta he's gotta play a big game. Yeah, and so now we're gonna watch We're gonna watch a game escalate. Yeah, it gets even bigger when he meets Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. No, I love the two different sides of this story. Yeah Yeah, there's two days Dennis Wilson. He was the drummer of the Beach Boys He was a Brian Wilson's brother, of course Brian Wilson the genius behind pet sound smile all that type of stuff Wilson was the least talented member of the Wilson family far the least talented member of the I mean He was the fuck up. He was the party guy. He was the guy that liked to fuck all the time. Yeah, Brian Wilson's insane, right?

Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, Brian Wilson's absolutely. I'm sure the Beach Boys management were like we already got one Wilson That's hard to deal with but he's a fucking genius. We can't deal with this other one So they would just basically let Dennis Wilson disappear for months while they were making pet sounds. Yeah, exactly So Dennis Wilson courts like to fuck a lot He's driving down the highway one day and he sees a couple of mildly attractive women walking down the road It's an attractive man. Yeah, Manson attractive women. Yeah, and one of the women Yeah, then one of the women has she drifted away from the family soon afterwards But one of the others was big Patty Patricia Crenwick. Oh, yeah, this is perfect for Dennis Wilson

Yeah, they don't let me record no music anymore, but big Patty you understand what I'm talking about They call him a quarter pounder at the ranch So so there are two different versions of the story one is that Dennis Wilson met these two girls They bring them back to his house. They started fucking they're like you gotta meet God You gotta meet Jesus. You got to meet our friend Charlie. He's just like yeah, I bring Charlie over And so they bring Charles Manson the whole gaggle over to Dennis Wilson while Dennis Wilson is recording Yeah, he leaves the house and he comes back at 3 a.m. And so he comes but this is Dennis Wilson's side of the story Manson his whole corduaries show up at the mansion and take over the whole fucking thing and basically

Uses money hang out they all fucking they have drug they do drugs and enjoy the stuff but basically they are a massive leech But then if you listen to Manson in his own words Manson's like that's cool cat named Dennis Wilson at a freak out party We we did it. They always say the term we did a joint Yeah, we did a joint at each other and then next you know, we were rapping about music and We were on the same trip man me and him just like we knew it's just like yeah, he was a beach boy with me man I'm coming up. I'm a wizard from the desert. He's just like y'all did Charlie. You were real wizard of the desert I was like you know what Dennis Wilson? You've always been right You've always been my friend and then it's like Dennis Wilson

Invited me to his home and I went over there and yes We spend all his money and yes, we ate all his food and yes, we gave the dogs of the house body chiggers from from Sadie All right, but he never asked us to leave Until he asked us to leave you gotta go for sure when Dennis asked you to go you gotta go But Dennis was still he was a little bit enamored with him him and Charlie actually became fairly good friends because it could I mean again You're just getting your blow and drugs. There's so much. There's so much drugs. There's so much sex happening You get it kind of like rolled into it and then all of a sudden you realize I've got 20 Homeless people living in my mansion right right right well the Manson family if you've ever been involved in music in any way

Like been a part of a scene if you've ever been really been into any particular kind of music where there's always people coming in and out There's always this one weird group of people usually cross punks Mm-hmm that sidle into the scene they come in and out. They've always got girls. They've always got drugs and there's always one weird charismatic guy at the front of it all and Usually they just kind of come in you fuck a couple of the girls they go out. They give you some acid It's fine and that one weird guy a little unpredictable. You just kind of put off with them That's what Charles Manson was to everyone in the music scene He was just this weird little guy with all of the chicks and all of the drugs just showing up and having a good time

Every once in a while. He'll pull out a knife Sure Part of what it is that's a part of what his mystique is yeah Right that he's and everyone knows that he's a criminal and everyone knows that he's been in prison most of his life But he's sort of comical. Yeah, but he's sort of yeah What this guy gonna do cuz he's going like Haha, I wrote a spider here today. It's just like what are you fucking like you're a little put So when we last left Jim Jones

He had just founded People's Temple giving a name to an organization whose membership would fluctuate from dozens to thousands over its 23-year existence But in 1955 Jones Town was still a long ways away It would take years for Jim Jones to build it but as we talked about last episode he'd already figured out the basics by 1955 he just needed to take it to the next level remember this when you start your cult The big thing is patience, right? You have to drop seeds early. Yeah, it takes a long time You got to build in generations. These are the people these are why things last a long time This is like tying Scientology still going on is because it's deep-seated. It takes it

So just give it that mmm. Give it that slow cook and remember time keeps on ticking into the future Fast you might expect so don't I almost forgot about I know I know you did you almost forgot those sage words from Steve Miller band Absolutely, but don't make your doomsday date too early. That's what I'm Shin Rikio made the mistake of 92 was right around the corner Yeah, they should have pushed that to like 2025 push it into the future build it up and say Oh, there's gonna be a lot of shit Well, that was actually one of the genius things of Jim Jones is he never actually put a doomsday date on his own cult He put doomsday dates around him, but he never put one on the cult itself with him As we'll see if you follow Jim Jones, you avoid the doomsday date

Now one thing that's important to know is a large part of the people's temple membership always was and always would be Elderly women. He's rolling in it. Do you think Jim Jones like looked out of the crowd was just like I've done it Finally look at all of this crepe paper skin. I love looking at every single human being here whose arms I could break if I flick their wrists with the strength of flicking a sugar package You just reminded me of that story of my friend who worked in the nursing home The patients would get their skin snagged on like random like I don't know why they're nails hanging out I'm just peel right off their body like yeah, just as you said paper machine So many congressmen and senators are in their 70s right now. Yeah, it's so easy to just take them out in the White House by just by

Getting a Zamboni and just driving through Congress and just sweeping them up with the sweepers They fall apart. They literally would they would turn into like pulled pork That would be a good scene from Scream Queens Well all of this this all owed to the way that Jim Jones was able to ingratiate himself with old people and so one of the People's Temple's first altruistic projects was taken elderly congregants into the personal home of Jim and Marceline and eventually That endeavor grew to several nursing home facilities in corporation size. It was and they were good They were good nursing homes. They worked really hard at making them super high quality Yeah, they were quality nursing homes and this is like what nursing homes is to

Jim Jones is what nursing what magic Johnson wants to car washes. That's what I wanted to say you franchise Also a very convenient aspect of the nursing home angles of what he would do with these old people is that he would get them to Give them the leases to their homes and then he would take their homes and absorb all their assets So it's it's a really fast way to get money. Is it just to adopt an old woman, especially like 95 to 97 She's not gonna be around for that long. She's not even gonna know you're not wiping her ass anymore You leave her up in the closet until she's gone and then you get all her stuff Oh, that's not good. Did you learn nothing from Billy Madison? That's Ben Stiller's approach. Happy. Happy. Happy Gilmore. I'm sorry. Oh my goodness

Well, that's one of the ways that this whole nursing home thing worked for Jim Jones The other ways is that they took care of the elderly and so they gained the community's trust Three it gave members of the people's temple jobs Together these three things the money the jobs and the community care would be integral to the development of people's temple both in Indianapolis and beyond Jim also founded a soup kitchen type cafe called the free restaurant which served about 2,800 people every week. Wow. He organized clothing drives and he put together youth programs that kept kids off the streets Huh, he was doing good work, and it was a lot of hard work, and he realizes and so that's where these games start playing out

Right where it's in the end again. This looks totally kosher. This looks great Right, so that he's trying to help humankind and he is helping humankind and a lot of it is genuine But the promise it's so small It's just just small amount of people he's reaching and this is still just shitty indie You know what I mean? He needs to figure out. I don't think that that's the official slogan of Indianapolis Not for me. We had a great time in Indianapolis. We loved the city. We loved Indianapolis. We were to crime-con there. It was wonderful It was actually surprisingly beautiful. It was a beautiful town But you know yes positive all as all this was it's Henry said like this was all small fries Jim actually won

Political influence right and the person to help them there was Marceline So you're telling me the way to get political power in this country is not embracing older African-American women That's not that's not the road to the White House in this country. It doesn't seem like it. Yes serving free soup Doesn't get you there except for Bernie Sanders who just ate a lot of free soup. Oh, yeah a lot of it And it is now by the way look at Alabama. We won't go into it See at first Jim Jones didn't necessarily have a talent for civics. He was a little chorus He didn't necessarily know how to move in those social circles But luckily for him his wife had grown up in a politically active family

That's right. She was sent as a scout to various civic meetings across Indianapolis Taking notes on policy to quorum and who the local movers and shakers work Well, I honestly believe that he specifically chose Marceline as his wife because of this fact right back in the day It seemed more like oh, they were in love. She was kind of the hot nurse He was the the the fun nurse that made sponge basses fun And it was like but I it's she he saw those qualities I think and knew that she came from a civic background and as all these things kind of came together He was like, ah, yes, the your purpose has been revealed to me

And then she just fit right in because she was I think she was excited to be a part of the entire movement She liked him all of the volunteering. She loved the nursing home. She took a shoe Personally was in charge of a lot of this like June and Johnny Cash Establishment Johnny the rebel, but who did the audience relate to mr. Cash So after Marceline went to all these meetings She'd report back to Jones and then when Jim Jones himself showed up to the next meeting days or weeks later He knew what to say how to say it and who to say it to instantly giving him credibility But politics wasn't the only place where Jim Jones had his attention in the mid to late fifties

That's when he discovered father divine aka the messenger aka Reverend major jealous divine Yeah, you know cuz you have to be to name yourself jealous divine to be very very confident Love it. Yeah, I mean his his logic for calling himself jealous was I am a jealous God Oh, and so he said that that God's name is jealous And so God's name if God's name is jealous then my name is jealous. You call me Reverend major jealous divine Why do I have a feeling this guy has an assistant solely to rub butter on his feet?

I feel like this is gonna come rub butter on my feet. You know, I call them loaves for a reason So hard at that how I punish these big Cracked feet by jamming them into these shoes. How does this get me closer to God again? Mr. Jail is rub the feet and you'll see my friend Jim Jones pretty much stole father divine's entire act and repackaged it sort of like what Elvis did with black R&B stars Okay, with what a lot of white people did with a lot of black people stuff that is true And what Orion did to Elvis? Remember Orion very famous alright Orion was great, but Orion it was different. It was different. Yes, it was different

I really think it's true where Jim Jones sort of was I mean Jim Jones obviously is the garage rock of Cold leaders. He has taken all of these things. I was a bad thing or a good thing. He took it's a good thing He went for for cold leaders So it's a bad for the rest, but he was a guy that he Invented a lot of the stuff that we're gonna see became the trope of the cold leader But what we're actually gonna see is that most of those turns the classic cult leader turns he stole from father divine I like father divine was doing this since the 20s And he figured out a long time ago how to manipulate a group of people into doing things that they didn't want to do

He's taking it to the next level though, perhaps. Oh, yeah, Jim Jones is the Elvis of cult leaders This guy took it worldwide everyone knows who Jim Jones is. Yeah, just like everyone knows who Elvis is. I heard that very good Marcus So yeah since 1919 father divine He'd run the kind of figurehead centric black and white integrated kind of cult that Jim Jones was aspiring to Divine he ran a tight ship on his compound He had successfully convinced his followers that he was God on earth and he had his pick of female followers nice Divine had such a hold on his congregation that when his wife Pinenaya called wait, what was that? Pinenaya? Pinenaya? Pinenaya is a cool name. You gotta go to the doctor

I've never heard that name before I think it's Pinenaya. It's either Pinenaya or Pinenia Okay, I was Pinenia Pinenia could be Pinenia But they called her mother divine and when she died in 1942 father divine replaced her with the 21-year-old Canadian named Edna Richings saying that his wife had jumped bodies from an elderly black woman to a supple young white one and nobody said Anything you have to be pretty good at talking Yeah, do that Especially talking to that Edna girl who's just like so I'm who now you're my wife

Well, it's like the spirit jumped into you and now you're my wife. You know I'm saying no I don't but I'm just happy to be someplace. It's not backwards-ass Canada It's like the movie little Nikki Jumping bodies was she was his personal secretary. Oh, and so I think that they possibly had a relationship going on before mother divine died And then when mother divine died, that's when she jumped bodies over to this other girl Edna And Edna got the name of sweet angel divine. Cool I'm just gonna say I hope that Travis understands that one day when Marcus leans over After maybe maybe the sometime in the past and you were like, you know Travis, I had a dream last night that Carolina

Jumped into you. I don't really understand the sleeping with your secretary Yes Travis, of course the longtime producer here at the last podcast network. This show is made possible by listeners like you Thanks to our ad sponsors You can support our shows by supporting them for more shows like the one you just listened to go to last podcast network.com