Stuff You Should Know - Cults: Who is this "The Leader?"

Episode Date: March 9, 2011

Cults are conventionally understood to be unestablished, non-mainstream religious groups that follow a single leader. So what does it take to be the leader? Tune in as Josh and Chuck take a closer look at cults. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always is brother Chuck Bryant. Brother Chuck, how are you doing today?

Josh Odie, I'm doing just fine. So you know what I was going to leave with, huh? I just had Josh Odie ready at the ready. Okay. So you'll understand everybody in a second, right? Chuck, I guess. Chuck Odie. I know you know this, but let's go back to the night of March 23rd, 1997. Do you know what happened in Rancho Santa Fe, a suburb of San Diego that night?

I do. Okay. Well, I'm going to tell you anyway. 39 people, well, beginning that night, over three days beginning that night, 39 people gave up their lives and they were collectively known as Heaven's Gate. They were the members of the Heaven's Gate cult. Yes. Famously wore those Black Nikes. And beginning on March 23rd, which was the spring solstice, the vernal equinox,

a comet was coming by. Hailbop. The Hailbop comet. And what the Heaven's Gate members believed was that flying, using the comet as cover, was a spaceship that they could go rendezvous with the pilots and basically be picked up as spirits and attached to the pilots of this spaceship because the world was coming to an end here and they needed to get out of here, but they had to commit ritualistic suicide. So on the first night, about a third of them took a combination of applesauce and pharmaceuticals

and I think Jack Daniels or something and died and for good measure put bags over their heads. And then once they were dead, the other members cleaned them up and so on. And this happened for three nights in a row until 39 people were dead and found in this mansion. Two didn't make it. They weren't there or something. And they went and got a hotel room and killed themselves in the desert like a month later. Interesting. But what's interesting about Heaven's Gate is that they, all of these were suicides.

There was no murder and you go back and look at what are called like their exit videos. There's about 10 hours of tape of the members talking and they seem very excited about what they're going to do. They seem very at peace. Disturbing to watch now, but they seem very relaxed, very at peace and very much like they know what they're doing. Yeah, so aside from even though these were, these weren't forced, they were suicides. And because it ended in an apocalyptic mass suicide pact, Heaven's Gate would be what's

called a destructive cult, although it's titled How Cults Work. This episode is actually about destructive cults. Yeah, the ones that get all the press. One reason why we need to make that differentiation is because in a lot of cases, the only difference between a cult and a religion is whether or not it's mainstream, right? Careful. But it's true. Well, there's a few differences.

Mainstream is one. Usually a mainstream religion will have a hierarchy, whereas a cult will have the single leader and the hierarchy in theory keeps one another in check. Right. And the cults usually demand absolute commitment. Right. Like you live there. Yeah.

And whereas a mainstream religion generally does not require that. You can have your own home. Okay. So we're not saying that it's the same thing as religion. No, but if you are a sociologist, a psychologist, and you really, there's going to be very little distinction between the two. True. True. So that's not the case, though, with destructive or totalist cults.

Right. Yeah, they're very different. Right. They are. You can make the case that a religion or a non-destructive cult helps its members get over their vulnerabilities, I think is how it's put in this article, through spiritual guidance, support. It's a good place of growth is what it's intended to be.

Yes. Yes. A destructive cult is basically run by a person with the intent of absolute control over the members in a complete surrender of their will. I have a question, and this is a good time to put it in there. I wonder sometimes, because we're going to talk about cult leaders specifically in a bit, but I wonder if the cult leader, and I think it varies, actually believes, like when I see Marshall Applewhite, I think he really believed this stuff. He seemed to.

When I see Jim Jones, he seems like a huckster. Well, he was on a lot of drugs. On drugs, having sex with multiple women. Yeah, Marshall Applewhite was not having sex with multiple women. He wasn't unique. And not into women. Yeah, sure. But my point is, the cult leader, I guess, varies.

Sometimes they really actually believe that. Sometimes they're manipulators who are power hungry and maybe after money or what have you. Right. And I think that there's probably a transition that any cult leader would undergo as the power and loyalty grows. And even if you are a huckster, you're eventually going to start buying into your own hype just because it's so appealing. Yeah, good point.

But yeah, I think that is a great point to put in there, Chuck, that there are cult leaders out there who believe in what they're saying. Sure. So we've said basically the primary characteristic of a destructive cult is that there's absolute control over the members. Yes. A surrender of will to the group and ultimately to the leader, right? Who is this the leader?

Is that time? Yeah. Okay. We mentioned the Simpsons, the movementarians. Yeah. Remember the great episode. The Flying Bikes, the Hover Bikes with the comb in the wax paper. So Simpsons fans, hold your emails.

Yes, we did it. We mentioned it. Covered, right? But so let's talk about I guess this authoritarian leadership structure you might call it. What are the hallmarks of it? Well, it's one of the hallmarks is like we said, it's typically just one dude. And we say dude because it's usually a man. Although there are some instances that's not sure we'll get to those in a minute.

That's right. And that's one of the problems because power, we've seen it time and time again, can corrupt even the most the pure at heart. Yes. And a lot of these aren't pure at heart to begin with. And then another problem here is that they operate outside the mainstream. So in the case of Jim Jones, which I know we're going to get to in detail, they were in Ghana. Giana. Oh, Ghana's a different place, right?

Yeah. They're in Giana. So they were way outside the mainstream. So they didn't have people checking up on them. And it's the isolation factor is huge. Yes. If the religious group that you subscribe to lives on a ranch together, it may be a cult. Right in the woods or in Giana.

Right. There's some other, I guess, kind of giveaways that become less and less apparent, the more immersed you become. And that would be deception and recruiting, right? Thought reform techniques, which although very controversial, are believed to be real and can have an effect on a person's outlook. Yeah. Right. We'll get into that as well in much more detail. And we've got into it big time in brainwashing.

We did. And that's a lot of those are very similar. You brainwash me. I did remember. I do. You were no longer a hipster. That's right. But I still have the goatee.

Good outside is bad. Whoever's on the inside is good. That's a huge hallmark. There's like a real us and them, a clear divide between us and them. Yeah, very much. Which can lead to a lot of feelings of persecution, paranoia, and generally an idea that, or that's, I guess, generally supported by the idea that since most destructive cults are religious in nature, that the in group, the cult is saved and everybody outside,

the bad people are all damned to hell. Right. So let's talk about the leader himself. The leader? Yeah. Well, they're usually very charismatic. Yeah, very charming. Can turn on the world with a smile, or at least their cult with a smile.

Sure. Which gets people very much readily able to follow them without question. They're very devoted. They don't question the leader. They don't question what the leader tells them to do. You know, this is once you're in. Not, you know, initially there may be questions, but after the thought reform takes place, you're in.

The reason for thought reform is to get rid of those questions, right? Yeah. They are typically either say they're God and considered God or the Messiah, or that they are the only path to God. Right. They're prophets, essentially. Yeah, they have some sort of religious designation. Yeah.

Right. Singular religious designation that no one else in the cult has but them. Sure. Which means? That's why they're the leader. Yeah. And you can't really topple the leader unless you too, or a prophet, which I imagine that's got to be a surprising day for everybody in the

cult when, you know, maybe a number two or three in command goes, you know what, I just found out that I am a prophet as well. Right. And the leaders like, um, yeah, trouble brewing. Yeah. The other important thing here, too, I thought was interesting that typically cult members are devoted to the leader and not even the leaders ideas. Yeah, that's a good point, too.

Like, you know, Jim Jones, they worship Jim Jones. Right. But not his Christian ideals. Right. Because, as pointed out, Jim Jones and David Koresh, who is the leader of the branch of Davidians, both started out in what we would consider mainstream religious groups. Right. Jim Jones was a pastor, Christian pastor.

He was. The disciples of Christ was his original Christian group. And David Koresh's was, um, he was originally in this, a seventh day Adventist. Oh, was he? Yeah. And one of the ways that cult leaders become cult leaders is that they are often overly enthusiastic, maybe in their mainstream religious groups. Yeah.

They freak their mainstream religious groups out. Pretty much. And they're like, you need to get out of here. But their ideas or their charisma or whatever, there's something about them that makes other members of the church go, I'm going with this guy. Yeah. Splinter off, create your own cult. Yeah.

No longer mainstream, so you're a cult. Yep. And in the case of Koresh, he was, um, showed some instability and some of the things that he was influencing some of the youth in the church. They said, no, I don't like what you're telling the kids, so you need to get out of here. Yeah. And we don't like that you're touching the kids, so you need to get out of here. I'm going out.

I'm taking the kids with me. Yeah. Apparently also, not Jim Jones, but the prophet Moe, who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart, apparently he and David Koresh, and I was reading this, I only saw it in one place, but I didn't get a chance to really cross reference it, that both of them had their first sexual experiences with far, far older women. Like Koresh's first encounter with a woman was with a 76 year old. And you laugh, but I mean, like how old was he?

I think he was a teenager. But, um, what's strange is both of them went the opposite way after that. Like Koresh's second wife was 14. Right. The prophet Moe kidnapped Elizabeth Smart, and I think she was like 14 as well. So, um, there's interesting. I think that's something for a deeper study, don't you think? Like if you're a sexual encounter, so the very old person.

And you become a cult leader, that's probably a pretty good predictor. You're going to take very young wives, and the FBI's going to come set your compound on fire. At the very least, it shows you might be unstable. Sure. I don't know if they would just see that and say, hey, variety is the spice of life. Or, I mean, surely you've seen Harold and Maude. Oh yeah. So it can go really well.

So, uh, you're right, Josh, a lot of times the cult leaders are former religious, mainstream religious leaders or members. Right. Not always, in the case of like a Charlie Manson. Right, who personifies the huckster you're talking about. Yeah, he wasn't a religious dude at all. He was, um, psychotic and emotionally disturbed from the time that he was a young kid. And a thief and a vandal and eventually rapist and pimp and fraud.

Just a pretty big jerk in general. Pretty big jerk, yeah. So, he was let out of prison, um, as everyone knows, at one point in the late 60s, uh, went to San Francisco, all the hippies were very susceptible to his charms. Yeah. His little short midget redneck charms. Right, because when you're on acid, Charlie Manson makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

You know? You know, I never heard him talk until later in life and when I did, I had no idea he was such a redneck. Oh yeah. I heard his accent and I was like, you gotta be kidding me. Yeah. He, this is the guy that got people to murder all these folks. And that, that forced like labored stare, like look at my eyes and it's just laughable.

Yeah, it is. Sorry, Charlie. But it worked in his case and the Manson family famously killed, um, how many people? Seven people. Including Roman Planski's wife. Most of them at the, at Sharon Tate's house. Yeah. Sharon Tate, yeah.

And he didn't do it himself, which is, you know, one of the traits of a good cult leaders. You can get people to do things for you. Yeah, but, um, the, the, uh, US prosecutor still, or the California prosecutor still managed to get him put away for life, even though he didn't kill anybody, just the ordering of these murders. They got him pretty good. I think the state of California was more than willing to keep Charlie Manson locked up forever though.

That's, well, he's pretty notorious for in his parole hearings, just saying really crazy things still where they're like, okay, you clearly don't have any interest. I remember being a kid and like, I never understood that when I, when I came to understand there was a Charlie Manson and like he did say this stuff and at parole hearings, like, why would you do that? And my dad told me like, if he gets out of prison, he's dead. Yeah. And now I don't think that's necessarily true, although he probably would still believe that.

Um, but he's probably so institutionalized, he wouldn't know what to do. Yeah. Cause he was in jail for years off and on, you know, from his teenage years on. Sure. He has a cell phone. They called him on the cell phone recently. Really? In jail.

Where is Colin? I don't know. What me? Are you sure? I'm positive. So, uh, Manson referred to himself as God and Satan both. Well, his followers did. Yeah, sure.

Yeah. Um, Squeaky Frome. Yeah. Apparently after Charlie was locked up, um, Squeaky Frome decided that his plight was losing media attention. Oh, that Charlie's plight. Charlie's plight. Um, and so she, uh, tried to shoot Gerald Ford and it definitely got attention again.

I think that that, if anything, if, if the murders didn't cement the Manson family, into the American psyche forever, Squeaky Frome managed to, to finally put the glue in the bone as it were. With the attempted presidential assassination. Yeah. Yeah. And she also carved an X in her forehead on the courthouse steps. Yes.

And Manson still has the swastika on his forehead. It's tough to get rid of. Yeah. Just ask, uh, the Inglourious Bastards. Right, yeah. So, Josh. Yes. Uh, let's talk about recruitment.

Yeah. What kind of a person would fall for this? Clearly a raving lunatic is the only person who could become a full, uh, a cult member. Right? Wrong. What? And scene. We, uh, a lot, a lot of times you think of them as mentally ill, but they've done studies and

apparently there's only a slightly higher incidence of mental instability in cult members than you and me. Well, mental illness at least. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the, uh, then in the, the regular population, what they have found that most people in the

normal population don't have that cult members usually have in common is that when they were recruited, it was during a particularly stressful period in their life. Yeah. You know, that scale of stressful life events like death of a spouse, divorce, um, death of a child. Adolescence. Yeah. That's, that's up there really far, isn't it?

Sure. Um, any of those make you, while you're going through them, uh, better cult recruit than you would normally be. You've been stressed out lately. Oh, I just joined up. Are you, are you right for the picking? Are my robes in my bag? That's not true because you're not any of these other things, uh, like gullible.

Well, you don't think I am? No, of course not. Gullibility is a trait, you know, you got to believe what's going on here pretty easily. Um, usually you're unassertive. Yeah. Uh, you're disillusioned with what's going on around you and you're looking for some answers. Right. Uh, you're a little naive.

That's true. And, uh, you're looking for some spiritual meaning in your life. Right. And I'm utterly and totally dependent. You are? Well, that's, yeah. Well, that's on the list at least. Yeah, that's true.

Um, and there are actually places where people who fit these bills are going through a period in time in their life that's rough tend to hang out more than say the average bar or whatever. That would be a self-help group, uh, grief support group, um, basically any group at where people sit around in a circle and there's crying, right? That's a pretty good place. You, you want to be on the lookout for a cult recruiter there. Yeah. And, uh, one of the, you're probably not going to exit the, um, conference room in the local

community center after your grief support group and, you know, see some guy in a robe handing you a flower. It would be, it'll be much less obvious than that. Yeah. It'll probably be someone who's a member of the group. Yeah, that's one of the ways, if you say I would never fall for that, think about if someone you knew personally, um, invited you to a meeting where you were going to talk about better ways to, uh, help the community, raise some money for a new boys club.

Right. And you happen to be at church and you're, you know, one of the deacons vouched for the person who was talking. You wouldn't even question them, right? Yeah. That's how it happened sometimes. Or if you were at a grief support group and somebody said, Hey, you know, this is peanuts compared to this other grief support group.

This, this group of people have, um, all been through this tragedy and they are, um, really great at getting people past the stages of grief. So you should come and hang out. You should try this other one too. Um, there's a lot of deception associated with cult recruitment. As a matter of fact, it's pretty much the hallmark of it, right? Yeah. Initially they don't tell you what in the world you're in for, uh, because you probably wouldn't go.

With though, right, uh, they isolate you, uh, from the get go with, um, their meetings. Usually they'll hold meetings at times where you may normally be with your family dinner, dinner time. Uh, they might hold it at a place like a retreat, get you away for the weekend. So you're hearing nothing but the cult ideas and views for a weekend, which makes it seem during that 48 hours, a lot less weird. Yeah. And you've got no feedback.

Right. You've got no feedback from the real world. Yes. Because once you go back out in there and you haven't fully joined up, so you're still going to and from your house to these meetings, which are, remember grief support meetings? Yeah. That have a lot to do with, you know, religion that you hadn't noticed before, but it's cool. Um, you're asked when you go back home, not to talk about the group until you understand it more.

Yeah. Until you know more about it. You know, they don't, you don't want to hear anyone pooping it just yet because they won't get it. Yeah, they won't get it. And so you don't, and like you said, your feedback structure is narrowed. So you don't have anything but self doubt. Your doubts that would normally be of the group are now doubts about yourself because

why, why, why do you always have so such a tendency to just criticize everything? I mean, look at all these people. They're all happy and smiling. And they, they seem fine. Yeah. Why can't you just get on board? And then you're suddenly a lot more susceptible to joining up. Yeah. Well, and at that point that's when they can hit you with the proper mind control techniques.

Brainwashing 101. Should we go over it? Yeah. I'm sure there's plenty of people who are hearing this that didn't listen to brainwashing, but you know what? If you have it, you should go back and listen to it. Sure. Twice.

Three times in a place in the woods where we'll meet you. It's, if you play it backwards, the location will be revealed. We're laughing, but nothing about this is funny, except the things that we're saying. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table.

Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm a prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty.

Cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. That you call civil asset for. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. For the daily show and move on to the next person. Now we're doing it differently.

I'm finally diving into some of the most incredible conspiracy theories that have been pitched to me at Trump rallies. Like, did you know that Osama bin Laden is a guy named Tim? Yeah, we're doing a whole episode on that one. JFK Jr., coming back from the dead, that's an episode. The deep state, that too. We're going way down the rabbit hole. Listen to Jordan Klepper fingers the conspiracy on the iHeart radio app,

Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Thought reform, brainwashing, coercive persuasion. It is, this is the key here. It is the systematic breakdown of your sense of self. And it's similar to what you do in, let's say, Guantanamo Bay maybe when you're interrogating a prisoner. Sure. Similar techniques.

You can also make a pretty strong case that it's similar to what happens to you in boot camp. Yeah. And the article goes out of its way to defend boot camp by saying there's three huge differences. One, the military is accountable for its actions. Yeah. Destructive cults tend not to be until like, you know, the government's at your door. Recruits who join up are making an informed decision. They know that they're going to be going in to be broken down and built up as a soldier.

Yeah. I'm going to look and dress like the other people and eat the same meals and all that kind of thing. And then there's a set period of time. Yeah. It's not for the rest of your life or until you eat the applesauce. It's fill the GI bill and you're done. Right. So Chuck, let's talk about the techniques.

Well, they're going to deceive you. They're going to trick you. They're going to hide all signs of you. It's not a really paranoid. They're going to hide all signs of anything illegal or immoral at first. So you're buying into it. You know, you're also not going to get the full picture of what the cults about. Like we said, that grief support group is not really what it is.

Sometimes they might even, you know, alter your consciousness a bit with like meditation or drugs or chanting that kind of thing. Make you vulnerable. Yeah. We already talked about isolation. That's one of the biggest parts of it. And it doesn't necessarily have to be physical isolation. Although it can be Patty Hearst famously when she was kidnapped by the Symbionnes Liberation Army.

She was apparently put into a closet for like weeks. Yeah. And she was berated and yelled at. And like her, her family's capitalist trappings were criticized. And she came out like, let's go rob a bank. I wonder that the late 60s and 70s people were probably, I mean, that's when Johnstown, the SLA Manson family, the Mooneys were huge then. Yeah.

They're still around, but they're, they were really big in the 70s. Oh, yeah. Um, it makes you wonder, I don't, I don't think we have any idea yet about what part of that period of history made it so readily available for cults to pop up. Because it happened in the 19th century too. There were a lot of cults that came about for some reason just out of the blue. I wonder what it was. I bet the internet helps nowadays, just access to information.

Right. But can think about it, like you don't think of cults being like pervasive these days, like they were in the 70s, do you? Yeah. No, not at all. So I mean, like what was it about the late 60s and the throughout the 70s that made them so. No, I meant the lack of internet back then. Oh, gotcha.

Just the lack of information. Gotcha. There were way more in the dark about things. And, and of course in Manson's case, he had a bunch of, you know, acid-head hippies that were like, yeah, man, you seem pretty cool. You're into the Beatles. Yeah. Post Pac-Man fever head and hit, yeah.

Yeah, that's true. So isolation, like we said, is huge. It's one of the biggest hallmarks of thought reform because when you don't have anyone around you, except for people that are doing the same thing you're doing, seems completely normal. Sure. There's also a complete and utter dependency that's created in the member, right? Yeah, that's the big part too.

If you can basically, if you can get somebody inspired to idolize the leader, then the leader's message that, hey, you belong to this group and here's what we do is paramount, right? Yeah. It creates a sense of dependency, especially when the leader says, by the way, this group is your family now. Right. Don't talk to anybody else.

You don't need to interact with the outside world. We grow our own food here or we do our own things. We educate our own children. The cult becomes your life and everybody needs a life and especially if you're already predisposed to a real sense of belonging or a need for a sense of belonging, you're going to buy into this a lot more easily and this dependency will be induced even more readily. Yeah. Well, and what they do is they hit you with the one-two punch.

They show you lots of love, but they also offer lots of guilt and shame if you are dancing around talking to your family or things like that. Yeah. They shame you. They guilt you. And then when you say, God, you know what? You're right. It's about the leader.

Then they reap the love back onto your head. Right. And you know, you're like, wow, these people, this is where it's at. They really, really care about me. Right. Because again, if you have a need to belong and all of a sudden the members of the group are turning their back on you, not really talking to you, just kind of treating you coolly, that's going to have an enormous impact on your psyche.

And you're going to go ahead and abandon any doubts or whatever it was that made them turn their backs on you so you can get their approval again and be loved. Yeah. You're striving for acceptance, basically. That's pretty deep dependence. Huge. The other thing is that the time clock is very controlled. It's not like, oh, the branch of the Indians just live in this compound and you just wake

up every day and do what you want. It's breakfast is it from 8 to 8.30. Right. A Bible study is from 9.30 to 9.45. You have free time for 30 minutes. Then we have lunch. Then, you know, every minute is accounted for. Right.

Very, very structured. Even during free time, you're still like talking about the leader's teachings. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. And it's not like, did you watch American Idol last night? Right. The meals are all, you know, ready.

You don't have to, a lot of people, this appeals to a lot of people because it's, the decision making is taken away from you and you're all of a sudden leading a very peaceful lifestyle, sort of. Right. I don't have to think about anything. Takes the guesswork out of living. Yeah. A lot of people are into that.

Some are, yeah. And they make really good cult members, it turns out. They're actually, at the very least, the least damaged of the cult members that are damaged by cults. Right. Right. Chuck, there's also a sense of dread, right? Yeah.

One more thing I wanted to mention though, and this is interesting to me, is that if you have a talent, a special talent that you're good at, they're going to devalue that and strip it away. They're going to take your guitar at the door and basically what made you special before in the outside world is no longer applicable. Right. Because you're, you're, you live for the leader. That's all.

That's, there's something unusual about Heaven's Gate in the dependency part where all members dressed exactly like, gender was removed, like everyone was supposed to be basically asexual and genderless. There were, of course, the famous, like, Black Nikes that everybody wore. Yeah. But they very much interacted with the outside world. They had that higher source web service. Yeah.

And they dealt with clients and, you know, apparently their clients are like, these are straight shooters. They were weird, obviously, but they were not, like, bad people. I'm sure Apple White in a business meeting seems like a real affable kind of work. Yeah, right. Yeah. He was very pleasant. Sure.

But you look into those eyes, man. So there was that level of control where, like, if you had a meeting with the higher source people, they were all dressed exactly alike and you couldn't really tell who was the dude and who is the chick, right? Yeah. Yeah. And, but at the same time, you were in a meeting with the higher source people. Right.

That's very daring of, of a leader to allow that level of access. Yeah, that's true. To the outside world or at the very least, that's a lot of trust to show in your followers. Yeah, it's pretty unusual. Yeah. All right. So Dredd is where I interrupted you, I think. It's okay.

So tell me about Dredd. Well, Dredd is a very, very unusual sensation in that you can experience Dredd on some sort of background level at all times. Right. You can care, even when you're happy, you can still have a sense of Dredd because Dredd basically is the idea that you have no idea what's coming around the corner and it's really possible that it's going to be bad. As a matter of fact, it's likely that what happens to you sooner than later is going

to be very bad, right? Right. And is the idea that the sense of Dredd is in the outside world and that's why you don't want to go out there? Yes. Either that or there's also a constant Dredd or anxiety that you're going to offend the leader, upset the group and you're constantly striving to maintain great, good relations with the group and yourself and among the group.

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, a sense of Dredd is just, it's very unusual, like it can haunt you and that is apparently one of the hallmarks of a cult. I don't know if it's purposefully instilled, but apparently it's at the very least a huge byproduct among most people, especially, and you talked about ones who are just fine living the cult life. Right. They couldn't possibly understand this.

But if you enter a cult in a stressful period in your life and you eventually come out of that stressful period, but now you're in the cult, your former personality and your new personality are going to conflict. Yeah. That creates a sense of Dredd and that's why destructive cults can be so harmful to people, not just mentally but physically as well because you're not supposed to walk around stressed out all the time. Right, right.

It's bad for you. So the old you, that's the old you in the outside world. But you're not supposed to be thinking about the old you. Right. And you, by God, you better not talk about the old you or wonder what's going on in the outside world. So you're constantly pressing down natural thoughts in order to conform to the group. And there's just psychological havoc being wreaked on you constantly.

You don't know which way is up. Confusion creates a parallelization a lot of times for these people because some of them it said later in the article that it said some people work for years to get out of a cult, but they're just paralyzed with fear, uncertainty, confusion, Dredd. Sure. And I think also probably the cult members already were predisposed to this kind of personality like don't like to make choices like even small ones. It's not very confident that kind of thing.

But I would imagine like those problems are just exacerbated even further in a cult. I would think so. So Josh, let's say you're in a cult. Not all cults are the same, but there are a few commonalities for sure. You talk to people that, you know, there's always interviews with people that get out of cults because you can get a lot of insight there, obviously. And plus they're just sexy press. It's very sexy press.

They usually talk about anxiety, fear. Did I not say that being cut off from their family and friends. And basically a ceasing of psychological growth. Yeah. No questioning, no thinking on your own at all. And they don't realize this, of course, until they get out. But it's, well, it's not too late because they're out, but it's too late for Heaven's Gate. Although I made the point before when we talked about Heaven's Gate.

They're the only ones who know whether or not they managed to escape these vessels. They may be partying on the other side of the hell, Bob. Yeah. You never know. Yeah. Let's talk about money. We mentioned that Heaven's Gate had a successful web design business. Some of them, because they need money, you can't operate.

I mean, it's sort of like a business. You can't operate a cult without dough. Or tea. Or tea. Some of them are fraudulent tax evaders, stuff like that. Manson, I think they were just cheap and hippies and stole things. And, but for the most part, when you enter a cult, you're basically surrendering your finances. And if you're a wealthy person, you're a very desirable cult member.

Yeah. Sometimes you have to donate a large sum. Or all of it. Yeah. And you don't need it anyways. Just go ahead and sell your house and come live with us. What do you need the house for? Earthly desires.

You can leave those behind. Exactly. So that's... Give them to me though, and we'll take care of it. Right, exactly. I'm the signatory on your account now. I think that's probably the most common way that cults finance themselves is through the members. Right?

Yeah. So let's say the stress has gotten to you. You're like, you know, I kind of got over adolescence. I'm 54 now, and I just don't feel right. I haven't felt right for 32 years. Right. I think I'm going to leave this cult. There's the door, buddy.

Okay, so is it that easy? Because as you saw in the Movementarian episode of The Simpsons, there was that whole, like, Doctor Who bubble. Mole Man was, like, you know, setting the dogs loose on Marge. It was just... It was very dangerous. Like, anybody can leave at any time, but you really can't. So can you? Well, you can sometimes.

Sometimes there are no locked doors and barbed wire, and they will just shame you and say, you know what, if you walk out that door, you're never coming back in. You're cut off from your family, your new family. So they will shame you into staying longer, but the door's open. In the case of the Davidians, I had never heard of them. They preceded the Branch Davidians, evidently. Yeah. And they had a leader that said, the end of the world is coming on this date,

and that date came and went, and a few people were like, I think I'm out of here. They said, no, no, no, it's a new date. And then that date came and went. And then more people were like, that kind of stinks. That dude died, I think, and his wife took over and said, I have a new date. That date came and went, and by that time, there were just a handful of people, and they were like, we're out of here. Yeah.

No, whatever. No, it's about it. So you can leave in the case of the Davidians, but sometimes there are locked doors, and they don't let you out. Sometimes there are also bullets, too, in the case of Jonestown and Guiana. Not Guiana. A fascinating part of that story that a lot of people don't know about. Yeah, the shootout.

What was his name? Congressman Leo Ryan, I think? Yes. He came and led a delegation to Jonestown to find out what was going on, because some of his constituents were like, our family just moved to Guiana with the people's temple, and a guy named Jim Jones. It's a little weird. Kind of concerned.

So he went to Guiana and apparently met with the people's temple members, and 16 of them were like, I'm coming back to California with you, and some other members of the people's temple followed them to the airport and opened fire on them and wounded 11 and killed Congressman Ryan. Yeah, killed three reporters, one member, and Congressman Ryan. I thought it was just Congressman Ryan, really. Yeah, killed five people total. Wow.

And that's pretty much what triggered Jim Jones was like, it's hitting the fan. Yeah, it's time for us all to go. Let's get the flavorade ready. Yes, and I'm glad you said that. Yeah, we got killed in the brainwashing. We did. I will never, ever forget it. Kool-Aid was not what they drank.

Apparently, flavorade is a British knockoff of Kool-Aid, and they drank grape flavorade and filled it with valium, finnigan, and cyanide. And that did the trick. Yeah. You know, I'll tell the audience here what I told everybody to email them and said, it's flavorade. It's like, you know what, dude, it doesn't matter what it really was. The expression is, don't drink the Kool-Aid.

And that's just, it's revisionist history, but no one says don't drink the flavorade. You want the Brits to get all the attention? Say don't drink the flavorade sometime in public and see what someone says. Yeah. Like, don't you mean Kool-Aid? Tell them that they're the high man on the totem pole. Right. Well, actually, boy, you just told them, Chuck.

Yeah, thanks. We're growing bitter in our old age. So, all right, let's say it's not as easy to leave as just getting up and walking out. I would say it's probably somewhere between Jonestown and just getting up and walking out. In certain cases, there's something called deprogramming, that you can pay a lot of money to a service to go in and kidnap your son or daughter. What you are doing is wrong.

You love your family. In the middle of the night, they'll drag them out of this wherever they are compound. Like, it's a kidnapping. Yeah. Like they are kidnapped. And there have been lawsuits because that's one reason it doesn't happen a whole lot anymore. It's like a repo man, but for people. Yeah, they're repoing your son or daughter.

Right. All right, it's not always a son or daughter. I guess it could be a friend or relative. Otherwise, you know, not a kid. Right. But you typically think of like a rich dad sending in someone to kidnap his little teenage daughter. Yeah. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs.

America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff.

Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. Cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call

a jack move or being robbed. They call civil asset for it. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jordan Klepper, Daily Show contributor, Trump rally pass holder, and as of today, my most daring title yet, podcast host. This is Jordan Klepper Fingers The Conspiracy, an all new limited series podcast from the Daily Show.

Now, normally when I hear Trump supporters bring up these, let's just call them what they are. 100% unverified banana gram conspiracy theories. We grab the sound bites, pack them in the segment for the Daily Show, and move on to the next person. I feel like cult is such a native word. We are not a cult. If you go online, there's a whole list of pedophile symbols. Really?

Yes. What's on your back? Uh, Q flag. Q and non. One of those crazy people. Now, we're doing it differently. I'm finally diving into some of the most incredible conspiracy theories that have been pitched to me at Trump rallies.

Like, did you know that Osama bin Laden is a guy named Tim? Yeah, we're doing a whole episode on that one. JFK Jr., coming back from the dead, that's an episode. The Deep State, that too. We're going way down the rabbit hole. Listen to Jordan Klepper Fingers The Conspiracy on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, uh, they will do that.

They will drag them out, and then they will begin a process of deprogramming. Basically, by using ethical psychological techniques to combat the unethical ones that were used. Well, what they do often is give the, um, deprogramme a crash course in thought reform. Yeah, like, this is what's happened to you. Right, or this is how cults brainwash people. Right.

Does any of this sound familiar? Do you remember this like years ago when you first went in? Right. That's supposed to kind of start to unlock this, um, this desire to not think any longer. Yeah. And then that's followed by critical thinking questions, right? Yeah, you want to, do you want to encourage them to be independent with their thinking

and praise them a lot when they start having their own original thoughts. Right. Because they haven't had them for so long. Yeah. And then maybe even dance out the little teddy bear. Or the hover bike. From their bedroom. Yeah.

Say, look at this. You remember a little bun bun that you grew up with in, in, uh, Sheboygan? Wouldn't you like to go back with bun bun? Is that what you would do? Yeah, they'll parade out some things from your past maybe that might trigger, uh, thoughts of your former life that you might have loved even. Right. At one point.

And then all of a sudden you're like, bing, bang, boom. I'm not a cult member anymore. Well, that's deprogramming. That's the hardcore version. Well, yeah. And at the end of it, you're like, okay, I'm good. But there's also exit counseling, which is a little more common. It's pretty much deprogramming without the kidnapping.

Yeah. It's, I would imagine it's much more common these days, but it's got to be way harder because you have to make contact with the person. And if they're isolated, then that gets to convince them to come out. Sure. And you, I would imagine have very brief periods of, of time where you have the opportunity to talk to them alone and have even a chance to, to get them to come out on their own. Yeah.

Then you kidnap. Well, you made a joke a second ago, Josh, when you said, bing, bang, boom, they're out. We're all good. Yeah. That's not the case. No. It's just like any traumatic experience.

Many times it will suffer psychologically for years with depression, anxiety, paranoia, guilt, rage. One psychologist, a psychologist. It's a new line. Psychologist said that he calls it floating when you get out. Yeah. Kind of alternating between the former mind and the current mind. Yeah.

It's very uncertain time. It's sad. Very sad. It's sad. Imagine spending 10 years in a cult and then ultimately coming to feel like you just wasted and lost 10 years of your life. Yeah. Because if that, what was it?

Psychological where you just stop growing psychologically. Yeah. Like that's, that means that you just spent 10 years like not doing anything. Yeah, not growing. It's 10 wasted years. That's terrible. It is. And then all the years after, however long it takes afterward.

Right. If ever. If ever. So as you can see, cults are frequently destructive. I want to say, and I'm sure you'll agree with me, not all cults are destructive. You said before, like even in a destructive cult, some people are like, this is exactly what I need. Right. Tell me what shoes to wear.

Tell me exactly how much gruel to eat every day. When is breakfast? Exactly. I want to go pick some lima beans, right? Right. But for the most part, you, I guess you can understand why a cult or destructive cult is called destructive cult. Now, even if they don't end in the mass suicide of 900 members. Yeah.

You know? True. You want to talk about some notable cult incidents? So we fit Heaven's Gate. We fit, well, the Branch Davidians, as most people know, ended in a hail of gunfire and fire. Fire. They remember that image of that tank just shooting flames out of it? Yeah, man, we should do a podcast sometime on Ruby Ridge and the Branch Davidians.

You got it. Two very dark spots of the Clinton administration. Oh, yeah. And there was a common thread. An FBI guy was involved in both of them that apparently was a little trigger happy. Really? Yeah. I saw a great documentary on it.

Well, let's do it. All right. Let's do it right now. Okay. Hey, did I mention you, the guy, the Russian psycho, an eco-psychologist who was called out to Waco because he had some sound recording. I told you about him, right? And that was supposed to drive them out?

Yeah. But if it went wrong, the FBI asked what would happen if it went wrong. He said they'll end up slitting each other's throats. He was at Waco, too. Did they do it? They used it? No, once he told them that. Oh.

Go back to Russia. Leave the killin' to us. Yeah. Yeah. What else? We talked about the SLA, Manson Family. Did we leave anything big out? We did, man. We didn't talk about the order of the solar temple.

I don't know much about them. School me. The order of the solar temple, you've heard of the Knights Templar? Oh, boy, have we. So they were like a modern sect based on them in Switzerland and in Canada. And I think 53 members between the two countries were found dead, set on fire, like 680 years to the day after the last Templar was burned at the stake. Was it the sun?

Did the sun set him on fire? It wasn't. They thought it was a mass suicide, but when autopsies were done, they found out that some of the people had up to eight bullet holes in their head. Some died from suffocation. Some died from overdose on narcotics. So it was murder, suicide. Some were suicides, but murder, suicide, burning.

Gotcha. That's a big tragedy. All right. There's also the Raylians. Have you heard of them? No. They are still around. They're UFO cult.

They're doomsday cult, but they're not destructive. Like they're never going to kill themselves. It's just not in their doctrine, but they follow a... Until they get a new doctrine. Well, they follow a leader named Rayl who is actually a French race car driver. Really? And almost all of the Raylians are beautiful Frenchies, French and French Canadian people. They have an outpost pretty close by in Alabama.

They have an amusement park or a theme park, a UFO theme park. And what their whole thing is, the day is coming very soon, where we are going to be visited by these other life forms who are benevolent. And we need to build an international space station to greet them. It has to have a dining table this long. They have specks like the indoor swimming pool has to be this big up in space, right? And they're having a lot of trouble getting funding for this, you can imagine. But they're kind of like a good time cult, not a death cult.

Attractive French people. And they made headlines. You've heard of them for this. They made headlines years ago because they claimed to be the first to clone a human baby for a Kentucky senator. Do you remember that? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was them.

It turned out it was a fraud. Yeah. Really? But no, I mean, remember it was like holy cow. Yeah, yeah. The language they used in the press release made people think like, oh, wow, this is really something. But well, Josh, let's just finish with saying that we've said he a lot in regards to cult leaders. Most of them have been men.

But oddly enough, many, many years ago, there were some female cult leaders. I heard Joanna Southcott was a 19th century British Christian sect. The South Codians were who followed her. And she had a vision that she was going to give birth to a Messiah. She died in 1814 and they waited for days by her dead body for her to give birth. Yeah. Finally, she started stinking and they said, let's cut her open. See what's in there.

There was nothing in there. So they said, so the kid must have been born in heaven spiritually. And some people believe that Shiloh, who was to be this child, is actually Prince William. Really? I always expected there's a little something extra to him. That was someone named Anna Lee from Manchester. She was a female cult leader. She was a Quaker who rejected sex and started the shakers.

Not the furniture movement, but some people don't say they're a cult. No, the shakers are responsible for the furniture as well. Oh, they are? Mm-hmm. Oh, OK. Yeah. Well, they did a heck of a job then. Yeah.

I love shaker stuff. The shakers, they were an offshoot of Quakers. They're big problem is, and it's mentioned here, that they looked down on sex. Like it's pretty much prohibited. Yeah, yeah. How do you keep a cult going or any group going if you can't repopulate it? That's a good point. So the shakers are on very shaky ground as far as membership goes because you have to recruit outside members.

Yeah, there's very, very few of them now. And then Margaret Peter was in Germany in 1823. And her cult was sort of just her extended family, but they were all kind of nuts. And she was convinced the devil lived in her loft and the devil needed a sacrifice. One of her sisters immediately hit herself on the head with a mallet and then the rest of the family beat her to death. The devil was still there. So Margaret said, hey, why don't you crucify me and I'll be resurrected. So they said, sure, well, they crucified her, beat her to death.

Beat her to death and she was not resurrected in three days, Josh. No. And the police came and arrested them all. That's exactly right. And I think that was the end of that cult. So ladies, we always like to give you your due. Yeah, that was Chuck, by the way. Chuck was like, what about female cult members and did some research?

So way to go, Chuckers. There are some excellent stuff at the end of the article. Some actually great information in places you can go. So if you're, if you have been in a cult, you are in a cult or you have loved ones in a cult and you should go visit some of those sites. One is called refocus and I won't read them all, but there are some places you can go to get help, kidnap that kid. Nice. If you want to learn more about cults, you can type that in. There's a very comprehensive article on the site.

Just type in C-U-L-T-S in the handy search bar at howstuffworks.com and since I said that, it means it's time for what? Listener mail, right? As always. As ever. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What? Quick announcement. Okay.

We are coming to South by Southwest, Josh. I know. And did you know? Yeah. And the fourth largest state of the union. That's right. Austin, Texas. That's not right, but we're going to do a live podcast and to attend you need an interactive

badge. It's going to be the Driscoll Hotel at 11 a.m. on Monday, March 14th. Yeah. And if you don't know how to spell Driscoll, D-R-I-S-K-I-L-L. Yeah. It looks better with an E, but... It's like old West spelling of Driscoll. So we encourage you, if you have a badge, to come on down and see us and there'll be a great podcast,

or at least a mediocre podcast, followed by some Q&A. And really, you're not going to be out any money. You might be out an hour of your life. That's about it. Yeah. Yeah. And there may be sandwiches. We're not going to be providing, but there may be somebody with an extra sandwich there.

So that alone should get you down there. That's right. If you're at Southwest by Southwest, come check us out, right? Okay. Okay. Back to it. This is from Tim. Tim has a neat little thing that is not the cult as far as I know.

Hi, guys. I'm obsessed with making things and giving them to people. Nice. I draw daily, though I think making art is kind of pointless in a day and age when people are hungry and living on the streets. Feeding people is more important than making paintings, amongst many other things. But I still find myself wanting to draw, so I'm constantly trying to make excuses for why it is socially acceptable to make art instead of helping people.

But that is another tale. I decided to start a little project in which I would encourage people to give their sketchbooks away to other people who they don't know, with the incentive being that I would make them a drawing and send it to them. Unfortunately, despite making flyers and internet distribution, my heart got crushed when not a single person responded. He didn't get me a feedback on this. So we're going to help him out.

Oh, OK. I want to create a different kind of currency, but it seems like no one cares. Everyone just wants money and it really stinks. So he started this thing, Tim did. It's www.sendmeanything.wordpress.com. And I think the deal is if you say I am an artist and I will give away my sketchbook to a stranger, then Tim will send you an original drawing. That is very awesome.

All for free. So he's doing kind of a cool thing here. And he says the pen is mightier than the sword and the tongue is mightier than the blade. Tim L. So Tim, good luck at www.sendmeanything.wordpress.com. I hope you get some people swapping art soon. Seriously, that is a great idea. And we want to hear your good ideas for projects that will help make humanity even slightly better.

We definitely want to hear those ideas. Yeah, or if you were in a cult and got out, that's good stuff. I want to hear that. Okay, either one of those. Or if your cult had a good idea to make humanity even better, we want to hear that too. If you're still in a cult, say hi. Correct us big time too. This is definitely an outsider's view because neither Chuck nor I have been in a cult as far as we know.

So if you are an ex-cult member, if you have an idea for a project that will better humanity, or you're still in a cult and you want to correct us, send us an email to stuffpodcastathowstuffworks.com. Are you? The War on Drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging?

They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid for it. Be sure to listen to The War on Drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. The podcast, and that's what you really missed, brings you back to the choir room for a gloriously gleeky rewatch of all six masterfully musical seasons of Glee. Join cast members Kevin McHale and Jenna Uskowitz for never before heard stories from the cast, crew, celebrities, and you, the fans.

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