Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Exposing The Cult Of Mormonism | Cult to Consciousness

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Exposing The Cult Of Mormonism | Cult to Consciousness

For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for $5.5 plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. Most people don't know, and also Mormons don't know this either, that he was a treasure-digging con man before he became a prophet. Like, there's literal proof. It's right there that he just made something up and turned it into scripture. I'm starting to feel like you think he was a charlatan. He absolutely was.

What are some of the stories? Like, what are some of the more egregious stories? I mean, we can go dark. It's pretty dark. I mean, I don't want to get demonetized. Okay, I'll try to use. I'd like to still make some money on this video. I was born and raised in Utah, so in the middle of all of the Mormons.

Pretty much in the middle of nowhere. I wasn't even in Salt Lake. I was further north closer to Idaho. So it was a very, very small town, is a small town. And I would say, at least from what I gathered, context clues, 80% Mormon. So everyone just kind of lived it. No one asked any questions. And I didn't really question my faith that much until I moved out of Utah.

And everyone started asking me all these crazy questions. And I didn't have the answers to it. So that's when I really started discovering that it had some history that was very questionable. And for a while, I was like, you know what, I'm still not ready to process this because it was so dark. I mean, the thing that I learned was about a temple ceremony that they had taken out, but my mom could have practiced it if she went to the temple a little bit earlier, which is like the super secret society thing. You can't just go if you're Mormon, where they would pretend to slip their throat and cut out their bowels if they were to reveal the secrets of the temple, which is all

based in freemasonry. The guy who started the Mormon church, Joseph Smith, became a mason, a free mason, and basically just plagiarized all of their rituals and secret handshakes and signs and symbols and made it into the Mormon temple ceremony. So when I learned that, it was a little too traumatic for me to completely disregard my faith or to dive into it even more, because I was also only 17, about to go to college. So, I mean, the shelf is getting heavier and heavier, as we would say is exportments. Just put it on the shelf and just, you know, just keep putting those things that don't make sense over there. And then eventually you have to deal with it when the shelf breaks. So that's kind of what happened to me. Okay. So, I mean, where were you when you left where you were in

college? Yeah. So I was in Vegas. I went to school in Vegas for fashion design. And I would say the super cringy things like, well, do you know, there's more Mormons in Vegas than in Utah because they have to balance out the sin and it was like really cringy and embarrassing when in reality Mormons just settled Utah before the mafia came in and took over so there was actually a pretty big population of LDS people there and LDS short for Latter-day Saints and I had a good time in the singles ward I mean they purposely they split up those who are between 18 and 30 who are single and put them in church together to try and get them to marry each other. So it's a very, it's kind of awkward, but it's fun because you're finally allowed to date

and before it was very taboo or completely shut off your sexuality or your romanticism. But as soon as you graduate, it's like it's go time, you need to find your eternal companion. So there was a lot of fun things, but also confusing things around that time. Right. Well, I mean, I think lots of roles. religions kind of do that. They like for you to, you know, you obviously, there's less issues or friction in a marriage if you both have certain things in common. You know, religion is one of them. So, you know, I can see like being Catholic, you know, there were these group, lots of group activities with the boys and the girls where, you know, they're trying to kind

of pair you up. Yeah. And then you have marriage in Catholicism, like to get married in the Catholic Church, you have to go to marriage counseling. So you have a whole series of classes you have to take and pass before they'll allow you to be married, which, of course, one of the things is both of you have to be Catholic or one of you needs to convert to Catholicism. So it's similar in Mormonism. They don't say you have to be Mormon. Like they're not going to deny you getting married, but they will deny you getting married in the temple because even if you're both Mormon, there's a chance that you won't be worthy enough to get married in the temple. and that's the highest of high goals because you can only get to the top level of heaven.

I don't know if you're familiar with the levels of heaven in Mormonism, but there's lots of them. Okay. So there's a celestial kingdom, which is the top one, and then the Trestral and then the T-Lestral kingdom, and they all have varying rules. And like they say that Hitler and the murderers and horomongers and liars go to the bottom one. and then the middle one is for people who are maybe they were Mormon and they just didn't fall all the rules or maybe they were great people and they just never heard of the gospel and they'll have a chance to accept it when they die and then the celestial kingdom those are like

the top tier Mormons the ones who followed all the rules made sure they paid their tithing in full 10% of their income or going to the temple doing temple ordinances they got married in the temple or sealed in the temple to their families it's very ritualistic i would say and and then within the celestial kingdom there's three levels within that then i don't even know all the rules past that point because there's just too many to keep track of so if you want to go to the highest level you have to get married in the temple which is basically you have to pay to play like you have to pay your tithing you have to go to church every sunday you have to go to the activities you have to usually you hold a calling which is kind of an assignment a volunteer position that is given to you where you have to i don't know

lead the songs in in church or you have to keep track of the finances or you're teaching a class or whatever it is they give you jobs to get you to come on sunday and lots of different rules and then also if your kids leave your salvation could be at risk i mean it's it's pretty dicey but there's a lot of things you have to follow so basically the goal is to get to the temple so that's why you want to marry a Mormon and why you need to find someone who is righteous in air quotes and worthy to go so there's a lot of guilt and shame involved because if you do anything outside of these rules like let's say you slip up and you have premarital sex or you even do something less lesser than that which was my case oral sex and they're like no you can't

do that you're you can't go to the temple for a year and they punish you and you can't take the sacrament which is like communion in church every Sunday. So people look, if you're in a singles word and someone's not taking the bread and the water, it is water, not wine, because they don't drink, then they know that you've sinned. And it's really embarrassing because everyone is like, oh, she probably had sex or she probably messed around with their boyfriend. So it's this public shaming element to it that makes the singles word even more icky and cringy to be in.

okay so i know the i mean i know the basic story of um john smith right joseph smith sorry like he found he found like some tablets and what's the what is the what's the basic story right like weren't these tablets that were given to him by by jesus or god or something and only he could read them they were bold or something they were plate you're on to it yeah you're pretty much there. So the story goes that when he was 14, there were all these religions popping up, which was true back in those days, like 1830s or something, maybe 1820 something. And he's in upstate New York. And he's like, I don't know which religion to join. I'm so conflicted because he's reading his Bible and trying to be a good Christian kid or whatever. So he goes into the forest

and he prays and he's like, which religion do I join? And apparently God and Jesus descended from the sky, and they were like, hey, none of them are true. It's your job to restore the real truth upon the earth. And he was like, wow, cool. How do I do that? A lot for a 14-year-old. Yeah. So the funny thing about that, though, and maybe I'll just like stop throughout the story because there's some things that they don't tell you when you're Mormon because it doesn't make them look good. So when people are looking from the outside in at Mormons going, you guys are idiots, how could you believe that? Just know that they only have part of the story and they think that anything additional or any other information is anti-Mormon rhetoric or just

ex-Mormon BS. So the story, that story, was actually written down multiple times. I think there's like, I'm going to get the number wrong. It's between like eight and 12 different versions of the first vision. And the first vision is an integral part of the church. So, the thing is, there's so many different versions of it and they don't even use the first or the last, they just pick one in the middle and call it a day. And so that's one of the things that I found out when I was leaving. I was like, wait a second. He totally made that up. If there's all these versions, some of them have God and Jesus. Some of them is just one. Some of it's an angel. It's just, it's so messy. And so anyways, first vision. Then there's an angel who comes to him and says

there's a testament of Jesus. It's buried in the hillside. And when you're ready, I'm going to tell you where to find it. And this goes on for years, where he waits and then angel comes back and is like, we're not ready yet. And then so by the time he gets the plates, he's older, I want to say in his 20s, maybe even 30s or something. I should know all these dates by now, but I try to forget. And so he goes and gets these plates that are supposed to be made of solid gold. which another thing they don't tell you is that it's pretty much virtually impossible. And if it were an actual ancient record of people in the Americas in ancient times, it never would have been etched in gold. It would have been way too heavy to carry. Like there's all these things that don't match up,

but they don't really talk about that stuff. So he gets these plates. Apparently there are witnesses as written in the book of Mormon, which is what the plates are translated into. And the The witnesses, though, most of them were either excommunicated. One of them disavowed Joseph Smith and followed a new prophet. Some of them said, well, I didn't actually see it with my eyes. I saw it with my spiritual eyes. So no one really actually saw the plates except Joseph. So most people think now, well, he probably just put something together like tin and had it

under a blanket and people just assumed that they were under there and they were so sacred that no one else could look at them, but Joseph. And that's how he supposedly translated it into the Book of Mormon by putting his head into a hat with a sear stone. It sounds so wild. Every time I talk about this story, I'm like, gosh, it's embarrassing that I just thought this was true. But I was born into it. So yeah, I was going to say. And I don't know that it's any more unreasonable than, you know, other religious stories or Moodyism or even Catholicism, like, you know, hey, we nailed this guy to a cross and he rose again three days later.

And, you know, like he turned water into wine and he's got a basket that the bread just won't stop coming. He's walking on water. I mean, there's lots of things that you just, especially when you're raised in it, you just take it for granted. Well, of course that's true. My parents believe it's true. Everybody I know it believes it's true. That's obviously you don't question that. And that's part of it too.

when you look around to the congregation and you see really intelligent people like doctors and lawyers and they're standing up and they're bearing their testimony about how this is the one true church and they know jose smith was a true prophet you go oh well i must be the problem with i don't feel that it's right right so he translates this this um document with a rock in a hat and that's another thing they don't tell you when you're Mormon um they've recently come out and we're like okay i guess we have to tell him now that it's on the internet and the prophet was like the current prophet was putting his head into a hat and he's like it's like a cell phone you know it's hard to see it when it's daytime but if you put it in a dark place it lights up and it's just really cringy so

anyway that's how he supposedly translated the book of Mormon and another shelf breaking item for me that I found when I finally started looking into it was the book of Abraham So back in the day, there was a traveling mummy show coming through, and Joseph, having taken everyone's money, basically bankrupting people or telling them to take out loans and give it to him, he purchased a mummy, and in the sarcophagus was a script. And he was like, wow, this is amazing. And it was Egyptian, obviously. And he goes, by the power of God, I will translate this.

So he does his best. and that turns into the book of Abraham and since we have that that's like an actual thing that we have which by the way they tell Mormons that the plates were taken back to heaven conveniently no one can look at them now and like hey let's cross-reference this now that we know about languages

they're nowhere to be found but this is a tangible thing that they still had and once they cracked Egyptian Egyptologist the church was like oh my gosh this is going to prove that Joseph was a true prophet it so they retranslate it has nothing to do it's so completely opposite it's just like well it's it's a funerary text it's like something that they always buried with these mummies it was very normal nothing awesome about it it was just very basic and so when i found that out i was thinking okay

well if he made that up he definitely made the rest up because you can't like there's literal proof it's right there that he just made something up and turned it into scripture. I'm starting to feel like you think he was a charlatan. He absolutely was. I'm getting that impression. Absolutely. Well, that's the funny thing. Most people don't know.

And also, Mormons don't know this either, that he was a treasure digging con man before he became a prophet. He would take that little rock that I told you about and put his eye to it or like, I don't know, meditate on it and be like, wow, guys, there's treasure over there and if you pay me i'll tell you where it is and these farmers these poor farmers who didn't have a lot of money were like oh yeah that would really help me out if i had some treasure to sell and so he would take him to this place and at some point he even did animal sacrifices over this ground there's a story of him actually sacrificing a dog it's really dark and sad and they would do all these rituals it's very occult like and people would be digging and digging and digging and then they would get pretty far down and they're like joe where's the

treasure and he would be like oh you know what the guardian of the treasure has taken it further into the earth because you are not righteous enough or worthy enough to get it and they'd be like oh bummer let's try again tomorrow and he was actually conning people like no they were just yeah i mean eventually he was running from the law because it caught up to him and people were upset clearly and that's why he had to move so many times. And that's another thing most Mormons don't know is that they weren't just so persecuted, right? It's something that we were taught as, oh, we were pushed out from place to place to place because we were so persecuted and we were living the truth and Satan, the adversary,

was just trying to get rid of Mormonism. No, he was breaking the law all over the place and trying to steal guys' young daughters and wives. and people were upset, and that's why they had to settle Utah where no one was. Well, the Native Americans were there. They wiped out a bunch of them, took some of them as slaves, too. It's like, it's so messy, the Mormon history that when you really look into it, it's shocking. So, but, I mean, eventually the church is founded and he's got followers. I mean, it's not like, you know, obviously at some point he might.

must have, you know, step back and said, hey, I've got a following here. I need to stop being a knucklehead. And I've got, you know, no, all the way till the day died. He tried to run for president of the United States of America. I didn't know that. He was not giving up. He, yeah, he even had his own militia, which I believe, if the sources are correct, at one point, was larger than the actual U.S. Army. He had people willing to fight and go to work. for him. He was very charismatic. He had won over the hearts of many, many people, and he wasn't going to stop. The only reason he stopped was because he got killed. He was put in jail because he burned a printing press to the ground because they were printing things about his polygamy and all

of the stuff he was doing. And they're like, hey, we need to warn the town what you're up to. He sent people to go burn it down, gets thrown in prison. A mob comes and he gets shot and he dies. So now he's a martyr and then the next guy who took over brigham young was way worse than jose smith and he's the one that took everyone to utah okay but i mean the church is clearly it's doing it's doing well like it they've got a following it's so i mean i guess define well because on July 18th get excited this is big for the summer's biggest adventure i think i just smurf my pants that's a little too excited sorry smurfs only date is July 18th there were so many religions it survived it's survived it's outlasted many other religions and the only reason for that is

because they isolated themselves in Utah they were practicing polygamy having 10 12 children per woman and they just they just built the church by having lots of kids I mean really that's the only reason it survived. It's the only reason to survive is because they moved to where no one could tell them what to do until eventually the government did come in. And they're like, yeah, this is the United States. You can't practice polygamy. You're going to not be a state anymore. I mean, Brigham Young tried to say that he was the king of his own country. Like, he tried to make himself a monarch. And the government was like, no, bro, this is the United States. You don't own this land. And so they're the ones that made them stop practicing polygamy. They claimed it

was divine revelation. And that's why you have so many breakoffs because at that time, Joseph Smith had said, this is the law and you have to practice polygamy to get into the highest level of heaven. It's a requirement. And so when they stopped practicing, a lot of people said, no, this is not what Joseph Smith intended. I mean, it wasn't that long ago that he was running the church. the Mormon church is not that old. It's like less than 200 years old. And so they're all thinking, well, if we're going to follow Mormonism, we need to follow the fundamentalist principles, which is where you get the breakoffs of the fundamentalist LDS, the FLDS, the Warren Jeffs, the Keep Sweet Prayer and Obey group, where that leader got put into prison because of child sexual assault.

So you have all these breakoffs of polygamy now that are extremely problematic. You have one group who actually practice blood atonement, something that Brigham Young put into place. Have you heard of blood atonement? No. Okay. So this is probably the worst teaching, in my opinion, because they're literally murdering people. So the doctrine goes that if someone doesn't repent for their sins and you want that person to go to heaven, the only way to ensure they get to heaven is to slit their throat and spill their blood on the ground to atone for their sins so they're straight up offing people all over the place it was a really really bad time in brigham young's era and then people got a hold of this doctrine because they started researching into the early prophets of the church and they started

doing this again in the 70s so there's a documentary that just came out daughters of the cult that's about the LeBaron group, the ones who found this doctrine and said, this is what God wants is us to kill for him and make sure they get to heaven. And they're killing women, children, just innocent people for really no reason. And also, if you've seen Under the Banner of Heaven on Netflix, I believe, great, great, great TV show. It's scripted, but it's all based on a true story, the same type of story. Yeah, that seems like a bad idea. The polygamy thing, I'm, you know, questionable.

No. I'm glad my wife. No, no. She would, what? Say that again. Say it. Uh-huh. But did you ever see?

There was a series called Big Love. Right. About a polygamous family. I never watched it. So I think most of those shows came out and sister wives around the time that I was living in Vegas. And I was so, I was trying to be blissfully ignorant. I was like, they're not Mormon. They claim they're Mormon, but they're really not. We don't practice polygamy. I just wasn't aware that they were following the fundamentals of the origin of the church so closely that

they were more Mormon than I was. And so I never watched them. I was like, I refuse. But I do know that they exist. Yeah, it was a good show. But, you know, it was also, you know, you know, Hollywood. It was entertainment. So, um, so at what point do you kind of go this, you know, you're saying, you know, the, as these things were coming out and you were starting to go, this doesn't really make sense. And if he made up this, then, then that doesn't, then he's probably made up this too. You know, you know, you'm saying. Let's face it, once you start lying, like, you know, it all starts to unravel. So I mean, at what point do you separate yourself and say, hey, you know what? I'm probably going to need to.

to get out of here step out of this and how does that happen and what do you say to your parents because i'm assuming your parents are are devout so it really all just came down to feeling extremely worthless and lowest that i could possibly it was rock bottom for me so i was one of those people in the singles ward i was 19 i had been dating another Mormon for a year i was convinced we were going to get married. I was ready to do the Mormon housewife thing. I mean, I had my goals and dreams. I wanted to come to L.A., which made it. And I wanted to be an actor and do all these things. And at the same time, I was dealing with, well, you need to get married young and you need to have lots of kids because that's how they groom you. That's how they raise you when

you're in the Mormon church. That is your purpose as a woman. And so I found this worthy Mormon guy, and we had this whole thing going and i was like okay this is my future husband and it was still a virgin but he was like come on let's mess around a little bit and convinces me to give him a blowjob and i was like are you sure because this is a serious thing you know that's very against the rules you're not even supposed to lay down and kiss in Mormonism before marriage and so he's like it's fine it's fine it's fine so we do it immediately after there's a loophole yeah i mean it's really not but Kind of, yes, I thought it was. You'll see in a second it wasn't. So afterwards, he's like, you know, we should really go talk to the bishop about this. And I was so upset. I was like, eye roll. Are you kidding? Really? Like, I wouldn't have done it if you were, if I knew you were going to make me go and sit in the bishop's office and talk to him about this because that is a very, very prevalent thing in Mormonism. You start talking to the bishop from eight years old till you die. It's part of it is you have to go in and confess your sins with a grown man alone in a room you have to tell them all of your sexual stories it's

really uh awful and gross this intrusive yeah and exposing and unnecessary and i would argue child abuse when you have these young girls talking to adult men about how they touch themselves it's really wrong anyway so obviously i didn't want to do it but if he goes in and he outs me then i have to go in. So when I did, I mean, I walk in, my head held really low and just, you know, I'm sorry, Bishop, I did this thing. And, and he's nice about it at first. And then he was like, okay, Shalise, well, that's going to be, let's do a year without going to the temple. And let's do a few months of not taking the sacrament. And I was like, what? I was so upset because I knew from other people in previous stories that the punishment for having sex was a year out of the

temple. And this is a big deal also because your salvation is at stake. Because if I can't go to the temple, if I can't be in good graces, I'm no longer the A plus Mormon student that I thought I was. I could end up in the middle kingdom and not see my family ever again. So I was very upset. And I'm like, what do you mean? I thought that that was the punishment for actual sex. And he was like, oh, no, Shalese, oral sex is sex. And I was like, it's not though. Pretty sure it's not. Pretty sure I would have had a way better time if I had done the real thing. And maybe I should have. If the punishment's going to be the same, I was like, I'm still a virgin. That should count for something. And he just looked at me and kind of like, I'm not impressed. And I was so upset. And I questioned

his authority and I was like, aren't you supposed to pray about it? Because we were taught that bishops, the head of the congregation, they, which by the way, they're not trained clergyman or anything. They're just random dudes who are in the church who get called to this position of power. They could be a dentist. They could be a plumber. They could be anybody. And now they are in charge of your salvation and giving you these punishments for God. And so we're taught that even though they're just regular people that they have a direct connection to god and so when you mess up you go and tell them and then they pray for you and they say okay god thinks that you should do x y and z so i told him that i was like what what happened to the whole praying about it thing and he did not

like that at all he was like are you questioning my authority yeah kind of because i don't think that that's a fair punishment and then he lays into how oral sex is unnatural how it's nowhere in the Bible, which I found out later it is, how it's just wrong and gross and dirty. And I was like, it's just kissing on another part of the body. And he's like, absolutely not. So it's much more serious. And if you know anything about the Mormon rules, some of the prophets have said that sex, premarital sex, is a sin next to murder. So now he's basically saying that I'm just one step below a murderer.

and I'm just this 19-year-old who loves her boyfriend and wants to marry him and is getting punished for this, something that's so normal. And so eventually I just caved and I was like, okay, and he's like, maybe you just need to do a little better. Maybe you need to work on your spirituality. I don't think you're spiritual enough. I think you should break up with your boyfriend because you're a bad influence. Just blame, blame, blame, all on me. I know you work on Sundays, which is against the rules.

you should look for a new job starts attacking my character and so i just felt like well what am i even doing i thought i was being a good mormon i still had to drink alcohol never tried weed or cigarettes never drank coffee or tea those are rules too um the only rules i was breaking was was wearing tank tops and shorts which in Vegas i mean come on it's so hot but that was immodest like this shirt is even immodest because you know it's too low but i was following all the rules and here he is telling me that i'm a horrible person so i just broke down in tears called my mom she was so upset and she was just like are you kidding me i can't believe he said that to you and i think because of her support i started thinking wait maybe the problem isn't me maybe it's the church and that's the first

time i ever allowed myself to think that and that's when i started diving into google with an open mind willing to find information because I'm like, wait, my friend back in Oregon who had an intervention with me in her car telling me I'm going to hell if I don't follow her version of Christianity, maybe she was on to something. Maybe I should check into this. Maybe I should really do some Googling and find out if there's any truth to this because maybe there's a chance that I don't have to feel like a horrible person because I didn't believe that I was deep down. But I have this old dude being like, you're horrible and you need to repent and whatever. So I probably spent eight hours on my computer all through the night until the sun came up,

printing out things, highlighting things. And I did take it to one of the higher councilmen. So there's a guy under the bishop, first counselor. I wasn't going back to the bishop because hated that guy. But I did take it to him. And I was like, hey, what about all this stuff? What do I do with this information? That probably didn't work out well.

You know what? This guy, so he was a lawyer, incredible human being. We all loved him. He was so kind. He was one of those that fit in to the kid. Like he was cool with the youth, but he didn't have to try to be cool. Everyone just liked him.

And that's why I went to him because I'm like, okay, he's going to tell it to me straight. And he honestly was just like, yeah, those are all really great questions, but we just don't have the answers. And the way he said it, though, made me think that he knew all of that already, but he just didn't want to be the one to tell me about it. Like, it made me think that maybe he also had an issue with all of that, but he wasn't ready

to leave the church, or he didn't really believe it anymore, but he was just going to stick it out because he wanted to be there for the kids, you know, like, he's just a good guy. And so, and I say kids, but we're like, we're adults. So anyway, I take all that to my mom, and I'm like, mom, what are, what are all these answers like have you heard about the book of abraham translation have you heard about the multiple first vision accounts have you heard about joseph smith having 14 year old wives and marrying mother-daughter combos and sister combos and like have you heard about any of this and she's like no she was completely in the dark because she also grew up in utah and her parents were mormon and their parents were mormon we like our lineage goes back to literally the first mormons and so and so

she took those questions to her bishop and then the guy above him and the guy she couldn't get any answers and so i unknowingly set her on a path to deconstruction so we're kind of figuring it out on our own and it's at one point she calls me on the phone and she's like hey chelisa i want to let you know is her and my dad together i want to let you know that we haven't really been going to the church or going to church and we took off our garments those they call people who are non-mormon call them magic underwear you've probably seen them they're like clothes you have to wear under your clothes if you go to the temple and it's a really big deal to take them off so she's like we we took off our garments and just want to let you know what's going on but if you want to get married in the temple

we'll do whatever it takes to be there i found out later like a few weeks ago that she meant she would just lie to get a temple recommend so she could go to my wedding because if she wasn't worthy she wouldn't have been able to go to my wedding right and i was like oh no no it's fine i'm i'm actually out of the church or like, I don't believe it anymore. And she was so relieved. She's like, oh my gosh, I'm so happy because she was worried that I was going to disown her because that happens. Families are torn apart when someone says they no longer believe it because they teach you to ostracize them or or love them enough to bring them back to the Lord. So she was really happy. So I thankfully didn't have to deal with getting cut off from any of my immediate family.

Right. Kind of like the Aaron thing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know his story, right? Yeah, I've interviewed him before on our channel. Yeah, yeah. They put pressure, you know, on his family to basically say, can't have anything to do it. But, I mean, it was overboard.

It's, yeah. It's, it's, I don't, I don't get, I don't get alienating yourself from, from people that, you know, aren't a member of the church. Like, I don't think that does the church any good at all. And like not just that, like him, his wife, like their child, their grandchildren, like, what are you, what are you doing? Like it's, it's too much. It's overkill. Yeah, it's really sad. Super controlling, too.

But so your parents were no longer, they were still going to church? So my parents were not going to church because they had started to dig into everything that I was telling them and they realized, oh, wow. yeah, it's all made up and we shouldn't be doing this. And this is not what we want to be doing anymore. And so they were distancing themselves. But I think to their family, they still had to pretend like they were Mormon, put on their garments or wear clothes that wouldn't show they weren't wearing their garments around them. Right.

Because getting ostracize is a real thing. And I've known people personally who their parents say, you're dead to us. we don't want anything to do with you. It's really sad. Do, um, you know, if 80% of the town is Mormon, like do the Mormon, does the Mormon church kind of put out like a notice like, hey, this, you know, these people work here or they own this business. Like don't, you know, you let's say your dad owns a carpet cleaning business. Like don't have him, don't work with him anymore. Don't have him clean your carpets. Don't have him. Does that happen or no. They just shrug it off like oh lost a couple it's tricky because it really just depends on where you are

and it depends on the members some members are very very strict in their beliefs and they it's like very black and white and i don't think the church itself would send out a notice saying don't interact with these people i could be wrong it maybe it's happened before but it's a lot more subtle it's more gossipy so once the word gets around it may just happen naturally where you lose part of your business. So I did have on a couple who they were speaking out about child sex abuse in their ward. Apparently, the church was protecting the predator and not notifying anyone else in the church that he was going to church with them and their children and being around their children. And so they spoke out and they were like, why aren't you doing anything about

this? Why aren't you telling people what's going on? And they ended up losing a lot of their clients because I don't it really makes no sense it's so backwards but if you speak out and the church punishes you in any sort of visible way like taking away your calling or not allowing you to take the sacripe. Colgate Total is more than just your favorite toothpaste. It's dedicated to advancing oral health. The new Colgate Total Active Prevention System features a reformulated toothpaste, innovative toothbrush, and a refreshing antibacterial mouthwash, all designed to work together to fight the root cause

of common oral health issues, such as gingivitis, plaque, and tartar. Use the full routine twice daily and be dentist ready. Shop the Colgate Total Active Prevention System now at walmart.ca. Man are disfellowshiping you, which means you can't give prayers in any sort of church capacity or hold callings. Then the members will start to distance themselves. Maybe the church doesn't say, hey, don't do business with them, but the members is just no, like, I should probably stay away.

I don't want to get infected with their sins. So people just kind of do it naturally. Okay. So what happened with the boyfriend? Well, he did break up with me for a hot second. I think we'd go back together, maybe a month later. And then we were following these stupid, cringy rules. And he came home with a sheet of paper, and he was like, okay, this is what Bishop gave me.

This is what we're supposed to do. or not supposed to do and it was a list of things like don't be with each other after midnight or don't allow anyone of the opposite sex to go into your bedroom or don't lay down and kiss and all these and I'm like dude we've been dating for a year and you're going to tell me not to do this stuff now this is so pedestrian like are we in middle school what is this and I was really petty about it I remember he was doing laundry and he walks into his room and I stop at the door and he's like, what are you doing? I was like, I can't come in your bedroom. And then that night, we were watching a movie and I looked at the clock and I just got up and was about to leave. And he's like,

don't you want to finish the movie? He was like, absolutely. I would love to finish the movie. But it's midnight and I got to go home. And so that was teenage me being a brat about it. And then eventually we broke up. I mean, it wasn't meant to be. And I'm so glad that I didn't go down that path because my life would have been so different. He literally admitted to me later that he's like, yeah, I know you had plans to go to L.A. and be an actress and all of this stuff, but I was just planning on marrying you and making you a housewife. Right. I mean, he had an agenda. You know, you had an agenda? He had an agenda. He had a warm, an agenda. And that's what he was taught. But you're in L.A. now. I am. So I did move to L.A. I did become an actor. I

I did get married just recently, about a year ago, and just now pregnant with my first child, and I could not be happier that I waited this long. This was definitely the right move for me. And you run a podcast. Is it a YouTube podcast? It is. Yeah. So we have a YouTube channel.

My husband and I will do it together where I interview survivors of Colts. We talk about their stories, platform, everything that's going on with. these different cults that people don't realize. So we do talk to Scientologists. We talk to Amish people. I would say the Amish stories are probably some of the most shocking because you would not expect it. And we really just allow people to tell their stories and get exposure on these groups. So it's called Colts to Consciousness. So what what are some of the stories? Like what are some of the more egregious stories? Oh man. I mean, we can go dark. It's pretty dark. I don't want to get demonetized.

Okay, I'll try to use. I'd like to still make some money on this video. Yeah, we have to struggle with that all the time. So let's just say that the more strict any religious group is, it seems the more abuse follows because it creates a predator's paradise where the predators are slapped on the wrist. Don't do it again. Oh, everyone forgives them. If you talk about it, then you're in sin.

So with the Amish, for example, let's say someone, let's say an older man abuses his own daughter. And they find out about it. And the victim is usually punished worse than the perpetrator. And the punishment would be they call it the shunning or put in the bond or the ban, depending on who you talk to. where they can't eat with their families. They can't even eat out of the same bowl as their family. So they're really isolated for about six weeks if you're the predator. And sometimes the ban can last years if you're the victim.

And a lot of times it's because they think it's the victim's fault. So what was she doing? Was she walking improperly? So they teach you how to walk so you don't draw attention to yourself. You're sure the 12 or 13-year-old girl that seduced a 45-year-old man. Really? No, honestly, even younger than that. So, no, I mean, I've heard, listen, listen, I was, I was, I don't know if you know anything about my, my story.

I was, I was in prison for 13 years. Yeah. And 40, about, let's say, between 30 to 50% of the people at one of the prisons I was at were convicted, you know, sex offenders. And mentally, their minds are so warped. that if you have a conversation about them, they will tell you like, like, well, you know, she was, she seduced me. You know, she knew she's 12. Like, what are you talking about? You're a grown man. I don't care what she said or what she did, assuming that you're selling the truth. I don't care what she said. You're a 45 year old man. What are you thinking? Yeah. Yeah. And it's happened so much in the Amish

communities where you're not even allowed to have your hair down or wet hair is too sexy. they don't even tell in some cases because i will say this is not a blanket statement on all amish communities they do have their own individual rules and some are more strict than others so in one of them we were speaking to someone who it's like the old order omish very very strict he wasn't even allowed to know what pregnancy was but they're having 10 12 kids and so when his mom would get pregnant he would say hey why is mom's belly swelling up and his dad would say she has the sickness and then one day there would be baby brother and he's like oh we have a baby where that come from we were we were blessed with a baby they literally don't even know where babies come from

and they're not allowed to know to that extent how reproduction works and then within all of that because it's so intense the purity culture and so demonized even just the female body they're telling these men we read it in one of these booklets on one of my interviews they're telling boys Well, don't look into your sister's room at night because she may tempt you while she's asleep. And so it's putting these thoughts into these kids' heads like, oh, am I supposed to be attracted to my sister? And that happens. This incest happens where they are being assaulted by their own siblings and they were doing nothing but sleeping. Or maybe they weren't wearing their full gown that they were supposed to be wearing.

Maybe their hair was draped over the side of the bed. And so they're blamed for it, and they were sleeping. So it's just, it's so clear to me that the more strict the purity culture is in any given religion or any given group, the more distortion, the more perversion, the more abuse happens. Right. Yeah, I can, I can definitely see that. I can see that, you know, it's, and there are certain, you know, well, I mean, that's a lot of groups, though. you know, like in the, you know, with Catholic priests, I'm not saying all Catholic priests are, you know, have an issue. But, but it, you will end up getting people that think, hey,

this is a good environment for me. I'm in a position of power and trust. And then if something happens, then they just move me to another congregation, you know, like, like you've got people looking out for you. So it's, so it just, you become more and more emboldened by it. Like, hey, this happened. They found out about it. Nothing really happened with me. I had to go to counseling for a few months. And then I went to another parish, it's worth it. Right. Exactly.

And that's what I meant to bring up before and then I got sidetracked. Within the Amish specifically, once the ban is over, they go up in front of the church and they say their apologies. And then everyone has to say whether they believe that they are repentant or not. But I've asked the women, I'm like, what if you don't think that they've repented or that they're actually sorry? And they're like, it doesn't matter, you have to agree. if you disagree, then you're going to be punished in some way. So the congregation says,

yes, we agree. He is sorry, and he's not going to do it again. So anyone who talks about the offense afterward, the victim, maybe it's the mother of the victim, anyone who brings it up to say, hey, my kid's not okay, they get punished because they're supposed to forgive the person. And then the predator just does it again. And then they put him in the ban again. And then he goes up and says he's sorry and they have to forgive him and it's just this ongoing cycle because there really isn't a punishment that is great enough to get them to stop what so mostly you're saying it's mostly the you're saying the omish or some of the worst some of the worst as far as the abuse goes and the secretive like everything behind closed doors i mean they're having sex with

animals it's it's really it gets really dark and aside from that i would say children of god where they were openly having sex with kids because they said, it's God's love and we have to share God's love. And it was the opposite of purity culture in a very, very destructive way. So we've had people from Children of God come on and tell their stories and those really good. What is children of God? It's just a religion. Right. I mean, is it a large religion? Is it 50 people or is it 500? No, thousands.

Oh, okay. So this happened. I think it was the late 60s, early 70s, where, this guy, I think he was actually part of the Mooney's at one point. I could be wrong. But he eventually was like, you know what? I want to be a prophet. Instead of shaming everyone for sex, it was during the free love movement. Let's talk about how God loves sex and that it's society who's been demonizing it this whole time and sex is beautiful, which I can agree. Sex is beautiful. It can be. but he said we need to share God's love and God's love is sex and so he would bring people in under this impression of you know we're teaching God's word God's true word and then the sex stuff

started slowly getting worse and worse and worse now they're offending children and now they they literally wrote a book of how to do it and it was with one of his own sons the leader the cult leader's son was being abused from infancy and they have photos of it and they're like this is how you sexually liberate children and they had to stop eventually because they were getting rated so often eventually people were finding out sending people into the compounds they're being rated but even so it was still it was forced polyamory within the adults so they said okay we can't have sex kids anymore we have to wait till they're like 14 once they hit that age it's like okay well at 14 to 18 they can have sex with each other but just not the adults once they're 18 then it's or 16 i

think it depended on the the rules of the country or the state that you were in but once that limit was hit then they were expected to go share their love with poor brother so-and-so who's feeling sad today and he needs someone to lift his spirit so why don't you go share god's love wow i've never heard that one that's out there um and you've had people on your on the podcast yeah so we did one with daniela messanek young she's written a whole book about it highly recommend it i think it's called uncultured and she talks about her time growing up in brazil because they basically scattered outside of the states because they knew they couldn't get away with it in the states so they went to asia they were in places in china in russia brazil south america

and they would just track people around so if you did something wrong they could just send your kids away or send you away and not allow you to speak to them so she was raised in brazil she talks about how i mean she has her own traumatic stories that she puts in the book and then comes to the U.S., fights her way through school, tries to get an education, because they're also not educating the kids, and makes it through college, joins the army, and then realizes, oh, my gosh, this is also like a cult, but I can do this because I'm a pro handling high control groups and how that affected her. So we've had her on, we've had another guy on who was from, I can't remember somewhere in Europe. And he talks about what it was like being a boy in this group.

group and how he tried to escape many times, ended up homeless for like 20 years, trying to just make it through life because of what he went through. There's a lot of really inspirational stories that we've found come out of this horrific group. Yeah, I was going to say, if you're not educating these kids, then I don't know how they can, where can they go to, you know, to survive, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's not like they're going to go, like if you can't fill out a job application, And you're not getting a job at Walmart or Pizza Hut or, you know, any, any entry level position even, like you're, you're really not capable of getting at finding a house and saving money, opening a bank count, you know, assuming you can get a driver's license if you're leaving and you don't have a birth certificate or so.

Right. A lot of them don't. A lot of them don't have documentation. A lot of people in the Amish don't have birth certificates, don't have a social security card. They have religious exemption from all of that. And so they. aren't required to have it so when they leave there they don't exist according to the government and so even just trying to get that is a huge step right or even if they disappeared nobody's looking there's never been a social number of birth certificate who you're looking for jimmy met him twice at 7-11 he didn't come in anymore well i don't know who jimmy is so um i was going to say there i remember there was some there was a thing uh camera call where I don't know if it was David Koresh was doing it where they called it bleeding the beast where do you know I'm talking about where they would go and they would women would apply for

food stamps and they would apply for all these government subsidies and they would just hand over all the money so you're not contributing to you know the government you're not abiding by you know the laws but you're bleeding the but you're bleeding them of everything they can give you for the And then these women aren't even getting the subsidies that they're getting the food stamps. They're not getting the money. They're not getting housing. Anything that's coming in. It's all going to the cult leaders.

Yep. That's exactly right. I've seen that in many cases, many of the stories that people will come on and tell. What was it I had heard about? And actually, I never did mention this to Aaron. I should have mentioned this to him, where I had heard that in Scientology, that they would have have these guys run up their credit cards, you know, like they would, so let's say you're getting older, you're retiring, but you have perfect credit. And they would just have them run up, you know,

their credit cards to pay for all kinds of different things, knowing you can't pay it. But it doesn't matter anyway. You're close to the end of your life. You own your house. You don't need any of these things. So why not run up $100,000 with a debt, hand it over to, and stop paying, claim bankruptcy, collect social security. You know, you're in a position. to do that but yeah there was just all these ways that they had like these these scams that were semi legal almost you know it was like it's it's an issue yeah or how about the doomsday religions we were kind of talking about it earlier like jehovah's witnesses i've interviewed people who their parents were like well first of all college is pointless and you shouldn't go but second of all

the world's going to end anyway any day so there's literally no point and so you So talking to a while, it's been a while, talking to, yeah, talking to people who were saying, yeah, I didn't plan for my future. I didn't have any savings. I didn't even pick an occupation because I was planning on the world ending because they told me it was about to end. So what's the point? That's also a very bleak place to be in. Yeah, there's always, there's always those those fringe cult groups that like the Haley's common is coming and you know it's it's behind in the tail there's a you know whatever um you know it's

going to hit there's going to be an asteroid or there's this or there's that or you know because of these planets are aligning and that's going to destroy the earth and it's amazing like what happens when those things don't happen the heaven gate thing is yeah oh over the top bizarre to me the let's go get nikes and and matching jumpsuits right and drink like poison cool or whatever they drank. It's so crazy. Did you ever meet any convicted cult leaders or people who did outrageous things in the name of their cults when you were in prison? No, but I remember there was one guy that everybody was saying was going to prison.

He had some kind of a cult thing where he was making these massive sweat lodges. And like somebody ended up dying. Like one of these guys got super, you know, hot and had a stroke and ended up. up dying and so he and this had happened a few times they usually had paramedics that could bring them back but like somebody one or two people died or something and so he went to trial like that the government brought him to trial and he was like no this is part of our my religion and they were like listen this has been happening you knew this was an issue you're putting these people in danger and so he lost and he was supposed to go to prison he never showed up where i was but i was

wonder like how interesting that would be for this guy to show up like was he going to be in here trying to convince people to start a yeah to follow him in there yeah because i also wonder we've seen a lot of the cult leaders who are convicted or even die or whatever it seems like they all have these narcissistic tendencies and these personalities where they just completely lack empathy don't care about anyone but themselves and power so i was wondering if you'd run into you guys like that in prison who were just like we're like yeah it's no big deal but they're con men they're they're not like they're not religious con men they're not trying to do some kind of religion they're they're just con men in general you know they just they see everybody as a

as a mark yeah there's tons of those guys you know there'd be guys that would sell um there was a real estate guy I don't mention his name because I think he does watch my channel sometimes I'd love to get him on my channel because he was funny He was interesting, but he would, he was a black guy, you know, educated, smart. He was in real estate. He had done some real estate scams. And so all the, but so everybody, all the black guys looked up to him. Because he's in there.

He's not in there for selling, you know, drugs, which most of, most of the black guys are in there for, let's say 80% of black guys, maybe 90% if not fraud. He was there for, I mean, it was millions and millions of dollars. Like he had some real knowledge. but he started they would come to him and give him business ideas and he'd go you know what you need is a business plan and he'd say look if you know for 200 bucks I'll write one up for you and he would write up these but they were all basically identical like he's literally swapping out four or five paragraphs yeah with what they're saying but well written and he had somebody on the street that would get like data or whatever area they were in

And he'd say, yeah, listen, you know, a carpet cleaning business in your area, you know, based on what the medium house prices and how much. And he had, somebody would look some stuff up. Like there was maybe four or five hours, but $200 in prison is a lot of money. So these guys are, they're getting two and, you know, they're paying two and $300 for a five page business plan that took no more than a few hours to put together. If that. Yeah. That's that's that's, that's, that's, that's on. No, it was, you know, they were happy to, they were happy to pay and, you know, none of these guys like, people would ask me about it. You know, hey, would you write me up? I'm like, bro, you know, no, not doing that. Well, well, you know, this guy's charging this much and I go talk to. Are you really charging? He's like, can you believe it? They're paying it too. And I'd say, God, I mean, you know, this guy's not going to open a carpet cleaning business. This guy's not going to do this. This guy's not. You know, but it didn't matter. That's how he did his time. That's how he got money. And, but he he was very charismatic yeah and there were tons there was lots of those guys there you would talk to him and i mean you're sitting there knowing this guy stole like 40 million dollars from his investors and yet he's very credible i'm ready to if i had some money i'd invest him like i'm ready to hand over money he's not good huh i know you're you know you're like i you know these guys are going to get out and make money yeah they can't they can't not make You can't hold these guys down.

And it's funny because guys, when I would sit there in prison before I got out and I would sit there and be like, I don't know how I'm going to make a living. They go, oh, bro, you're going to do great. You're going to make tons of money. I mean, you're a guy like you's always going to make money. I was thinking to myself, yeah, by committing fraud. You guys think that because I had millions of dollars, like they're like, yeah, you've run a bunch of businesses. They were all based on fraud. Like the judge was very clear that I couldn't do that anymore.

Yeah. So I can't do that. So now you're saying, oh, yeah, but you could do it legally. If I could have done it legally, I wouldn't have committed fraud, you know, and I probably could have made a decent, a semi-decent living, you know, but it would have been way too hard. And at that time of my life, I was fundamentally lazy. Why would I work hard to make a semi-decent living when I can be lazy and make millions doing virtually nothing? That's just silly.

That's the way to go. And that's what I thought, because I also thought, they're never going to catch me. Why? Because I'm just that good. Because that's what arrogant narcissists think. They think, well, I'm just that good. You're not going to catch me. Do you get yourself a narcissist?

I'm on the scale. Okay. I'm definitely on the scale. But the difference between me and most narcissists is that I'm okay admitting that and I can see myself doing it now where I start to manipulate someone and I'll tend to stop myself and go, are you saying that because you know that ultimately he's going to have to come back to you? Are you making this recommendation because you know this guy's going to go off, find

out he can't do it himself and have to come back to you? Because trust me, I'm extremely calculating. Like, I'll give you a plan and then send you off knowing he won't pull it off. He can't pull that off by himself. He's got to come back. And then sure enough, two weeks later, man, I was wondering if I could just pay you to, oh, well, I wasn't really thinking along those lines. But I guess you could, you know, let me think about this. Yeah.

Here's my, here's my, here's the payment schedule. um you know like so yeah i mean i i definitely see that but i i think that 95% of the con men that are i've met in prison are in prison working on their next scam whether they know it or not and a lot of them don't even the worst kind or the guys that don't even know it like you're talking to them and you're like you don't even realize you're a con man see that's a thing so that's what's going to say and i want you to continue but i just was going to point out that the fact that you can you have narcissistic tendencies makes you not necessarily a narcissist to the extreme because they have zero self-awareness. They just don't have any idea what they're doing is wrong.

Right. Okay. I think there are two things that happen that kind of, well, maybe three things. One, I wrote a memoir, which is super difficult to do because you don't see you how you really are. Like, you don't see you the way other people see you. And two, I remember at some point, point, and this was really while I was reading books on how to write memoirs, and it just kind of dawned on me. Like, you know, the person was trying to explain how to kind of step back out of yourself. And they didn't say it like this. This is my interpretation. They said, basically they were like, if 50 people say you're an asshole, you're probably an asshole. They're not all wrong. So if 50 people say this is how you behave. And you can come up with an argument for every. single one of those, there's 50 of them. They're right and you're wrong. So you need to start realizing you need to accept the fact that you're wrong. If you can accept the fact that they're right and you're wrong, you take a huge step toward seeing yourself the way you really are and not the way you perceive yourself. So that was that was like kind of open my eyes. And then a friend of

of mine named Pete Rossini told me, and I've said this on 10 different episodes, and his thing was, you cannot, you cannot go to prison and behave the same way you did that led you to prison and expect to get out of prison and not come back. Like you have an opportunity here. You were given a bunch of time. you can look at it two ways oh this is horrible you can bitch and moan the whole time you're there and everybody will hate you and you'll leave learning nothing or you can decide i've been given a gift of time and i can do something with it and i can change you know how much i've

changed is i'm sure up for debate but in some ways i've definitely changed i remember i was talking to my ex-wife one time and um i talked to her on the phone and so we're talking you know i was in prison i was like so it's like so what's going on with you know what's going on with you know so and so she's like oh he's doing this i was like okay well what's going on with nick she's like her new husband oh he see this happened and this and this like oh okay i go whatever happened you know you told me about your sister like is she's still doing such and she goes what the hell's going on and i go what she goes you never ask me about oh wow about myself what is happening right now she's you've been doing this you've been

getting weird the last few times we talked and she's like what's your motive yeah she was like something's going on i was like i was just wondering because i was thinking i knew i was supposed to call you today or you sent me you know and i was wondering if everything was okay with so and so and she's like no i'm just checking on you like okay well i was just wondering she's like you don't wonder about anybody but you what's happening i don't know what's happening i've been reading this book and you know i start having those guys then she'd come see me and we'd talk and i'd ask her question she'd be like this is the weirdest thing i've ever ever um so yeah so you know you start to realize that that if you make those subtle changes and people react like that you do kind of start to realize

like wow what an asshole like that's so interesting being in a relationship with me is so one-sided at least at that point in my life it was up till prison and five years into prison probably five years into prison every relationship i ever had was 100% one-sided i didn't know who you were i didn't know anything about you i didn't care anything about you it was what can you do to help me on accomplish my agenda And look, I'm going to pay you. Like, I'll give you some money. If you need something, well, what do you want for this?

Okay, well, I'll pay you for it. I don't have a problem with that, you know, like when you have stolen money, like you're, I'm a big shot with Bank of America's money. Yeah. And Bank of America's money or SunTrust money or, you know, I'm, woo. You know, like, but yeah, so I mean, it's not like you're not going to get paid, but, you know, it's not because I'm not, we're not friends. I really didn't have any friends.

Even the people that were friends of mine, they weren't friends of mine. They were people that were pretending to be friends. of mine because they were making money and then you go to prison and when you have nothing to contribute to them you realize wow you guys were never friends i didn't have any friends and it's not their fault you know at first you blame them and then you kind of step back and go oh no that's my fault i think you grow a lot when you start realizing that pretty much everything is your fault you know this is so interesting because it brings up a really good point and i want your perspective on this because it seems like you can't actually change someone who has narcissistic

tendencies into someone who is more empathetic which i didn't even think was possible especially hearing all these stories of these cult leaders so i'm wondering if these cult leaders were to be imprisoned you think it's possible that they can completely change their ways or at least partially and come out a better person i think they would have to admit that um i think they'd that like i said it depends on how high up the scale they are and it depends on whether or not they want to admit that they've that they're there for a reason you have to understand almost every guy that every con man that i've met in prison doesn't believe that they're there because of them it's always someone else's fault and it's so funny because i you know you start talking to somebody

about their case and it's not their fault it's not this and it's not that and then six months to a year later, it starts to come out. Well, I was using a fake name. Well, I did buy a shelf company that was 15 years old so that it appeared that the company had been around for 15 years and it wasn't a brand new company. Well, I did do this. Well, I did do that. Well, I did have them sign this. And I did have them sign that. And I did it. It's like, my God, within a year, you're like, you're such a scumbag, bro. And they're like, I know, I thought it would be fine. And you know, then you break them down. But even still, I don't think most of them ever get to a point where they want to change. And I just didn't want to come back to prison. Like I just thought, you know, and I think

that part of that, I think that's writing a book. That really is writing, writing a book. It was about me. Is that, you know, and you, it's funny, too, because you realize when you write books about other people, because I've written a bunch of true crime books about other people, you start to realize they don't see themselves the way they are either, you know, and it's, it's, you know, I remember the first time I read an article about me and they, they describe me as a con man. I was so offended. I, I was like, I mean, wanted to call up the reporter. Who do you think you are? I'm not, but, you know, then when I went to prison, I read those articles again. I was like, why was I offended? I just ripped off the banks for $11.5 million on this one scam. You're a con man, bro.

Yeah. You fake identities and synthetic identities and fake this and fake pay subs and W-2s and fake appraise. Like, what do you think? You're lucky they just called you. You know, they didn't call you a scumb bag. I mean, and you were offended that they said con man. What an idiot. Like how talk about that's how. How does. How do you? How do you? delusional is that that that's like you know a woman who's charging men to have sex with her and getting offended when someone refers to her as a prostitute right that's a polite way to say it like what are you doing in sitting there you don't know me you don't have any pretty simple but that's really where i was and and that's how these guys are and they don't

want to change and they're they're thinking they'll i had discussions where guys are talking about changing their name because i'd legally change someone's name one time one time i stole someone's identity and then i went and legally had his name changed don't don't judge me don't oh my god i just wanted to see how to do it um and go through the process it was it was it was like 1500 bucks it took a it took a few weeks so um but i so keep buys would be like man i heard you had your had someone's name changed once and i go right and they go how does that work and so So I, you know, I talked to him about it. And then I, they go, I said, why?

Well, you know, because man, there's all these artists, all this stuff in the internet. I was thinking if I could change my name, you know. And it's like, oh, you're just, you're just setting yourself up for another scam. Like even if they said, you know, just rechanged my life and, you know, get a regular job. And, and maybe, you know, it's like, stop, bro. Like I don't, you know, I was the only person, only guy in prison that I knew. that told everybody that if I was going to lean into it, I said, I said, yeah, I'm not going to hide from it. I said, if, if it comes up in a conversation, I'm going to let everybody know I just got

out of prison. I was in prison. Here's what I was in prison for. Here's what happened. I said, and they were like, yeah, but then people will walk away from you. They won't want to deal with you. And I was like, well, look, then there will be two kinds of people in my life. Those that are 100% acceptant of the person I am and the things that I've done in the past. And the those people that can go fuck themselves. I said, that's it. And there's plenty of people. So I'm going to be okay with the left with the ones that are okay with it.

I said, because I'm not going to, I'm not going to, I'm not going to continue to lie the rest of my life, which, because that's the same behavior that got me into prison. Mm. You know, and I think that's really, that's part of what kind of made me go, I'm not doing this anymore. It's no good. I would be better off living in someone's spare room. you know like making no money and living in someone's spare room but just being like honest that's a better life than the life i had before prison well it's really admirable that you're willing to take that level of accountability because i think that's part of it like you said you have to admit

to who you are and what you've done in order to live authentically and be yourself and not hide from it that's that's a huge deal yeah yeah yeah i don't know i'm just trying to stay out of prison I always like people that tell me like, I admire what you're doing and you're an inspiration. It's like, I'm just trying to stay out of prison, bro. Like, I'm not trying to inspire anyone. I just don't want to go back to prison. So I don't want to behave in a way that leads me back there. Yeah.

You know, and this is, you know, and it's not like people will say, you know, so you don't have those urges anymore to commit fraud or do, are you all the time I have those urges. Like that didn't go away. I just think, I just, I'm too old to go back. to prison and life is so good out here. People take things for granted. They really like life is so good. You have you have YouTube, you have Netflix, you have like, you know, it's just not a horrible place out here. You know, people, I hear people bitch and moan about stuff. It's like, are you serious? Like you have a car and a nice house and, and you have clothes and you can go eat whatever you want, whenever you want, you can watch TV and you can go on vacation and, you know,

like this is life is amazing yeah so it's a big perspective shift and you interview people all the time who have been in similar situations or been in prison and or conmen themselves do you find that they also have the same big perspective shifts or does not everybody feel that way you know what I think I think the people that come on my program do yeah for the most part there's some guys that are still like they'll blame up somebody else they'll blame like the guy that told on him. It's like, okay, well, you were robbing banks. Yeah. It's like you were robbing banks, bro. Yeah, but he didn't. Yeah, but maybe, maybe you shouldn't have given him the ammunition because maybe you shouldn't have been robbing banks. Like, you know, oh, but it's his fault.

How's it his fault? You were robbing the bank. Well, yeah, but he told on me, like, you're an idiot. You know, if that's your argument, you haven't learned anything. So I'd say 90, 95% of the people that I interview have had a shift, especially if they're willing to come on and talk. about it yeah you're willing to come on and talk about it and lay yourself bare in front of the world you've something's fundamentally changed in your thought process i think because it's not like i'm paying anybody you know there's no real benefit but sometimes they've written books and maybe they maybe they have some kind of an agenda but if it's hard to write a book and not really kind of come to terms with who you are also yeah well i think it's

really encouraging to see that at least for you the prison system did create some sort of shift and it was beneficial or would you say it was beneficial no oh yeah and look and like i like i needed to go to prison like i was like i you'd meet somebody every once in a while where you'd hear their case and i'd research it and i'd kind of think like i i have about two people that i researched their case as well and really it was like like maybe i think you broke their law but you probably should have gotten three years but because you went to trial you got 17 or somebody else who it's like you didn't break the law at all but you're an asshole you were you were an asshole to the DEA and to the prosecutors and you were a greedy prick but you shouldn't have to go to prison for

that just because you're a jerk doesn't mean you go to prison you know maybe you don't have good good communication skills maybe you you you know you have poor interpersonal relationships like that those that's his own that's his own set of problems but there it's not illegal what you did wasn't illegal you just went about it the wrong way you got a bad prosecutor who also offered you a couple of years in prison you didn't take it you got 19 years because that's what happens a lot is like you'll be offered three or four years and you go no and it's like they're offering me three or four years and I didn't really do anything. I'm going to go to trial and win. You understand that if you lose, you're not getting three or four years. If you lose, they're going to put everything on you

and you're going to do 15 or 20. And then they never think that. They never think, well, no, I didn't really do anything wrong. It doesn't. Look, if you're, if you're guilty, you've got a 100% chance of being found guilty. If you're innocent, you got about a 50% chance of being found guilty. So if you're questionably innocent and you go to trial it's a problem that's a that's a mistake so i've met those guys and i've always thought i always it's funny i've always walked away from those kind of research projects or guys i've written stories about or and looked in their cases and i've always been like thankful that i deserve to be there could you imagine you didn't really do anything yeah you know like i mean i've seen that like you didn't really do any

thing like I knew a guy that gave somebody money to open up um a pain clinic a pain clinic he didn't run the pain clinic by the way this was a friend of his brothers that knew he had made some money came to him said could you invest I'll give you 50% if you'll put up 50 grand and he said sure so he gave him the 50 grand no big deal guy opened and it wasn't even initially for a pain clinic it was for a thin clinic for people to lose weight This was, there was a product called FinFIN. Well, it became illegal after about two years. And so they're halfway done with the clinic.

You're not getting your money back and we can't open the clinic. But you know what? We've got a couple doctors that have already signed up to be doctors here. Let's go ahead and just do pain management. And the doctors were suggesting, hey, well, let's do pain management, which there was no such thing as pill mills at that time. This is in the very beginning. So he's like, yeah, sure, this guy lives in L.A. the clinic was in was in louisiana new orleans they open one up it does very well they open a second

one up it does very well this guy's calling every once while going hey how much did you guys bring in uh um send me uh well send me three thousand dollars we'll see you know he's being a he's a jerk he's a constant pain in the ass right and there were other things that he did that were just you know stupid things but not illegal um anyway as a result he ended up when they eventually got busted and he's he's never been there like he didn't even you know they ended up in dining him the name the the pill the mills are in his name he ends up going to trial because he says I didn't do anything I gave somebody 50 grand and wow he goes to trial his name almost never comes up almost never they're talking about the doctors the other guy

the partner, this guy, this doctor, this nurse, this person. And all they would say is, yeah, yeah, his name is Dennis Corona. They go, Coroni, well, he'd call like every two or three days and scream at us to send him some money. You know, he is absolutely a maniac. And they'd send him money and they'd say, they'd ask him questions. He'd be like, I don't care, do whatever you got to do to keep the money coming in. Like, that's the kind of stupid stuff that he would say. Right.

Not thinking it's illegal. And so he ends up going to trial. I think it's 19 years. Oh, wow. They offered him like three or four years. He said, no, I'm not going to take three or four years. I didn't do anything wrong. I've never even been to the clinic.

I didn't make any decision. Now, of course, they put off several of the decisions on him. While we asked him about it, he told us to do this. He told, he's like, they didn't tell me to do anything, bro. I'm a maniac. I don't have any clue how to advertise for a clinic. I'm not a doctor. I'm not the manager.

You know, I just know that they owed me money. They were constantly kind of, he felt they were screwing him out of money. So he's constantly yelling. I want to see the books. I want to see this. Send me how many patients did you see? How many? You know, so they're like, this guy every time he calls, he's screaming at us and yelling at us.

And so they hated him. So it wasn't hard for the people that have been indicted to turn against them. Yeah. Could have taken three or four years. Oh, my gosh. You know, like I said, at least when I interviewed someone like that, it was like, at least I was supposed to be there. You know, and it was just, to me, it was just like, how do I not come back? Because I do. I think about committing fraud all the time. How do I get out of here and not commit

fraud anymore? Because every time my bank balance drops below, you know, 100 or 200 bucks, my first thought is, okay, I could do this and I can do this and I'm going to do this. Two, three weeks, I could have about $200,000. Then I could do this. Then I could do that. Then I could immediately. You know, it starts. So how do you cope with that? That's, yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that perspective. It's really interesting hearing from your side of things because we talk about people who are or should be sent to away these cult leaders and would it really work or would there be any sort of transformation or reformation? And so it's really interesting to hear how it worked for you and your perspective. I think it's it's a long shot. The biggest thing is they'd have to realize that most people's these guys just don't want to they don't want to they don't want to they don't want to admit that they're wrong in any way. Yeah. That's like that's very narcissistic. It's like, oh, no, I didn't do anything wrong. I won't apologize and I didn't do anything wrong. It's like, Oh, bro, like that's what you understand. That is fundamentally your problem.

And most of the time that has been detrimental to their lives. But they don't want to admit it. It's always somebody else's problem. Somebody else's left. Yeah, they're just completely out of touch. Have you watched the documentary Keep Sweet, Pray, and Obey on Netflix? No. Okay, so, yeah.

I'll write this down. Hold on. Keep Sweet, pray, and obey. It follows the FLDS. the fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was I never said that in the interview by the way that's the full name of the Mormon church they don't like to be called Mormon anymore so anyways if all is the FLDS Warren Jeff's was the leader the prophet he married like 80-something girls we had on one of his wives actually on the show

it was he tall and thin yes I think so he went to prison he went to prison because They actually have tapes of him assaulting these young girls in what he would call heavenly sessions in the temple disgusting. And there was actually a point, and they show it, where he's on a phone call with some of his followers on the other side. And he's like, I made it all up, and I'm not really a prophet. And I just want to let you know. And they were like, oh, no, of course you're the prophet. you're just having a weak moment but there was a time where he fully admitted he was like sorry guys my bad and then two days later a couple days later he was like you're right i just i was being

led by the adversary and i just had a moment of weakness but yes i'm a prophet and here's what god said but he there was a window like a breathing moment where he admitted to it yeah he must have definitely been yeah that must have definitely been a a an epiphany that he talked himself out of, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. That's because I don't think most of them get to that point. Mm-hmm.

Has he gotten out of prison or do they give him just a ton of time? No. He's going to die in prison. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Listen, you'd be shocked how many guys go to prison, pick up a Bible, and they're walking around preaching the Bible the whole time. And, um, and literally put the Bible down and walk out the front gates. like they just put it down and walk away like it's like what they do it's like they that's they

thought like oh that's how he does his time what do you mean you know he'll come and he'll read like it's comforting for them while they're in prison to read the Bible and preach and learn about it and then they get out and they just go right they revert right back to who they were yeah I think it is a comfort for a lot of people and people who aren't in prison they find it comforting to I don't but but if if that's your thing then that's great that makes you happy i remember um there was a bible laying like next to a garbage can one time or it's actually sitting and they was one they had like a plat like a platform around the garbage and they was sitting right by the hole and somebody goes oh somebody throw out a bible and somebody else goes

one of the christians must have left and i mean i was just started laughing like oh my god it's true though you ever noticed that and we were i was like oh that's horrible but well listen I'll look. I do think I've seen this, the Keep Sweet and Obey. I do think I've seen this. But I'll look at it. My wife watch it with me. Okay. Well, I mean, anything else you want to cover? Are you good? How do you feel? Yeah, I feel pretty good. I think we covered a lot of ground. A lot of the crazy Mormon history, a bit of my story. I was interested to hear about your story and some of the things that you've experienced. So we've covered a lot, I think. Well, what what how long ago did you start your channel? It's been a little over a year and a half. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. That's good. And what, I mean, what are you doing now? Is this other than being pregnant? Other than, yeah, I could give birth at any time. Yeah, I've just been working on the channel. So before I started the channel, I was doing wardrobe costuming for television shows and commercials here in L.A.

in LA as well as doing the acting thing commercially. So when the strike happened, which was last year, last April-ish, I actually got married in April. So I took some time off. And then there was no work. And I was like, let's just double down on the channel. So we started putting out two, three videos a week instead of just one. Everything blew up. There was just so much success with it. We were really surprised. And it was great. People wanted to hear more. And so we've just been doing that full time ever since. And now that I'm pregnant and I could go into labor any time once baby comes, we'll just take a month or so off. But we've been front-loading a whole bunch of videos so that the channel can continue on without us while we take a little break. Well, I was going to say

Aaron's channel is massive, right? Like, he does great. Yeah, he's doing really well. Do you do lives? We do. Aaron is like the king of lives. We go live. We go live. not every day like Aaron does but he actually gave us some really good tips in the beginning I think we had him on the channel when we were around 8,000 subscribers or something and I mean now we're I think it around 173,000 so we've definitely grown quite a bit pretty fast but yeah Aaron we've loved watching his channel grow he passed the 200 you just hit 200 right so congrats on that yeah yeah to actually woke up this morning it was too little over this morning yay

Yeah, it takes a lot of work. And so I can definitely appreciate from a fellow creator's perspective how much effort it takes to do that. So congrats. Thank you. It was funny is when we passed like 100,000 and like got the plaque, when I would hear people say, oh, bro, you got to get your plaque. You got to get your plaque.

Then this was before I kind of even, I just started the channel. I just remember thinking, that's just so silly. Like I'm going to care about. And then I got the plaque and I was like, you know, I earned this. like it's pretty cool right ours is back there oh you can't see it because the screen is cut off but it is back there it is it is so you know i do so many things now that at that four three or four years ago i just shrugged off and thought we're ridiculous and silly and now you know like i like now the same things that these other guys i know that have channels worry about and i would just think what do you that's

silly now i i'm constantly checking the comments and checking this and checking analytics and doing this and it's like can't believe i'm doing this tell my my i tell my wife i'm like hey you know that video got like 20 000 views in the first 24 hours like that's really good and she's like yeah okay that's great and then she just you know shrugs it off she could care less at this point so yeah well it does take a lot of work and i imagine because you are an intelligent guy and you can figure out how to cheat the system just figure out how to cheat the cheat the YouTube algorithm no I listen I know people that like pay for subscribers pay for subscribers oh really yeah I think the YouTube hour I think that

it's too sophisticated to to play that game yeah you know I think that people that do that I think ultimate I think it catches up with you eventually yeah I mean like it's gonna know suddenly you paid and you got you pumped out you know 50,000 views in 24 hours and it's like stop it and it knows where they've come from these are bots or these are made up accounts and i think youtube will figure that out and be like you know what we're going to we're going to ban this guy's channel or we're going to well i'm too scared i think i i misspoke what i meant to say was learn all of the trade secrets and do it the right way as in learning all this the secrets to boost your

channel and do it in a way that doesn't technically cheat youtube yeah i yeah listen this is the easiest job this is you know i was interviewed by lex Friedman. Oh, great. About whatever, a month ago. Like, no, not maybe two, three weeks ago. And it's funny because in the, he cut this out of the interview. We were talking about like, what are you doing now and stuff? I remember at one point, I said, listen, bro, I said, honestly, I go, I know we make this sound like it's like a real job. And he goes, right? And I said, this is a fucking joke, though, right? Like, all I do is talk to people. Yeah. Like I have to do that on a regular basis anyway. I just hit the record button. I go, I mean, what a joke is this? This is. And he

goes, it is, it is a joke. It is a joke. Cut it out of it. He cut it out. I remember thinking, that would be pretty cool if he put that in there. No, he was like, click, click. Yeah, that's funny. I check myself all the time because, you know, it is tiring. Well, especially with the work that we do specifically, we're having heavy conversations with people. It's not just regular everyday stuff. We're hearing traumatic things. So it can be a little heavy and the editing takes time. But at the end of the day, I'm like, this is great. I just have conversations and people enjoy it and now i can make a living making more than i did doing union wardrobe in hollywood so it's great i'm really thankful that i'm able to do it that i'm able to have a platform to prop

people up and have them tell their stories and change lives it's you know making a difference and that's extremely rewarding even more than the money well and periodically i'm sure you still pick up acting gigs or yeah yeah what's great is it's not like you can't like i have to ask my boss for the day off. Exactly. And I'm talking about Tuesday. Yeah, I can be there. I work for myself.

I'll be there Tuesday. No problem. Yes. So nice. Well, listen, I appreciate you talking with me and telling me your story. Telling me what you're doing now and chit chatting. The name of the channel is cults to consciousness. It's on YouTube.

Is it also on Spotify and all the other platforms? Yeah. We don't put them up. as soon as they release because I'm a little bit lazy on the podcast side, but yes, we do post it on all of the podcasting sites as well. Okay. Well, cool. Well, you know, I don't know if you know this, but you know Spotify, you can upload the

videos now. Oh, interesting. I mean, we do have separate bumpers that we put for our audio, but I don't know. We're looking to change all of that. So maybe I'll look into that. That would be a good option. Hey, I appreciate you guys watching the video. Do me a favor.

you liked it please subscribe please hit the bell so you get notified of videos just like this share the video if you liked it and you think anybody can benefit from it also please please check out the youtube channel from cults to consciousness and we're going to leave the link in the description box so you can just go to the link go to the description box and click it and it'll bring you right there thank you very much you guys i appreciate it see you