Talking Shit with a Yank & a Brit - 13. Cults: Practice Safe Sects

Episode Date: June 22, 2023

This week we talk a lot of sh*t about Cults; including the dirty Dugger family, Scientology, Lighthouse and what makes a good old cult! All sprinkled with your weekly dose of lighthearted chat about dating, work email mishaps and an Am I The ArseholeFollow us on Instagram @tsybpod & Twitter @TSWAYAAB and get in touch with your stories, questions and dilemmas at [e-mail] give us a cheeky rating and review if you fancy and remember to subscribe!

hello there hi hello and welcome back to talking shit. With a yank. And a Brit. Sorry, I got stage fright. Seamless intro there. Totally. It's the first time. First time we've done that. So, this podcast is where Gemma and I talk some shit about different things. Sometimes it's related to, you know, just being women

or, you know, millennials in this world. Sometimes it's about the differences between our countries. Sometimes it's about just something that really grinds our gears, like the gender pay gap or periods. And hey, guys, don't switch off. It's not all about periods, okay? We also talk about funny things sometimes. I mean, most of the time we're really funny. So yes, don't switch off because it's not about periods today, but maybe one day. How are you?

I'm good. Very good. Just, you know, maxing, relaxing, acting all cool. What's the rest of that lyric? Shooting some people outside of school. Outside of school. Yep. I didn't watch that show a ton, really, but I do know that theme song.

I loved that, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. So that's so interesting because that's very pure Americana and I have very little to do with it. Well, I think the thing for us was, obviously, when we were younger, there was only four channels. And it was one of the shows that was on after school. So I watched it every day. Fair. What were your thoughts on, like, Sabrina the Teenage Witch? I really liked Sabrina the Teenage Witch as well.

I wasn't allowed to watch it. You were so... I know, I got screwed. Coc were so cocooned. Yes. I have since, I mean, I saw a lot of it. You've since binged it. Yes. Yeah, I broke the rules. yeah, I feel

like I really missed out on that one because Talking Cat and fun, cool, teenage girl. Yeah. Did you ever watch The Craft? you know talking cat and fun cool teenage girl yeah did you watch the craft i didn't that's a really good like teen film with witchcraft in it but it's actually quite dark and pretty fucked up so you probably definitely weren't allowed to watch that as a kid no i also didn't really like scary movies as a kid because literally everything terrified me i was terrified of everything really yes yeah i uh was kind to all of my toys and like would apologize to them if i dropped one or

perceived like i because you know i didn't even watch the Chucky franchise, but I was like aware of it to think that like there's a small possibility that my dolls are actually sentient and I need to be kind to them. See, I was thinking more Toy Story. You went straight to Chucky. Yes. I mean, for weirdly enough, Toy Story didn't give me that same like creepy vibe i i don't know no it doesn't give a creepy vibe but it just gives that like oh my toys are alive yeah it didn't give for whatever reason that didn't like reinforce that concern for me i don't know why just the chucky yeah maybe because like animated versus really poorly done cgi or like special effects but

yeah real life quote unquote but uh yes yeah so we can uh everyone knows my weakness about being scared of everything some of that's still true no so boo why are you so scary okay cool so when you come over we're having a scary movie marathon oh god okay can it be like the old ones though that are just cheesy now because

I feel like scary movies these days are legit scary I don't know I quite liked scary films so it takes quite a lot to scare me what were you into i was quite into like zombie films i do actually kind of enjoy zombie movies because i can be like well this is like kind of not reality i think the scariest ones are where you don't know what's happening like if there's like monsters or like a killer yeah it's not as scary but like the paranormal activity films freaked me the fuck out also when i was a kid one of the first scary movies i watched was jeepers

creepers and that i have seen that that fucking scared the shit out of me i had nightmares about that for months yeah and even the song now jeepers nothing like taking something that's kind of innocent like a song like that and just putting this creepy edge to it yeah you know like you hear a little music box playing in a scary movie it's like marry him yeah that might be i mean we won't be there over halloween but we can make it like a halloween themed yeah we can do early halloween yeah hallows eve so i suppose for all the listeners out there there will be some point in the near future that jemma and i will be in the same country and there are talks about a live episode with a special audience um maybe some multiple

guests or some or a celebrity or maybe even a band maybe we'll get harry styles on who knows yeah i think that he isn't he performing in london today yeah yeah he's in london at the moment i'll hit him up yeah just give him a call okay well talking of scary things i've got a question for you yeah have you ever sent an email or something like that to the wrong person at work made a big boo-boo well you you know about my text messaging issues oh yes we all know there has been some instances instances of a reply all situation or not paying attention to who's actually on the emails i have done that thankfully not to any like great scandal or detriment but there have been a few times where i was like would have preferred not to send that to that person yep oh gosh why do you ask well I had a similar thing when I first started out working where uh we basically had this annoying client that always wanted really urgent things done all the time and so I slagged them off in an email and meant to forward it to my

boss at the time and accidentally sent it to the client it was well apparently i just went sheet white immediately because the person sitting opposite me was like what have you done what have you done and i was like how do i recall an email how do i recall an email oh my god he was like well you can't really once it's sent it's sent like it will just give them a message saying that you want to recall it yeah so i had to go into the big big boss man's office and i was like i've done something and uh they were both in at the time came over and i was like oh my god i'm gonna get fired i've just lost my job and luckily they both just laughed and thought it was hilarious.

Yeah, it was fucking terrifying. Like on a scale of one to ten, how bad was your slag off of the client? It wasn't too bad. And what did the client do? He replied like the week later and was like regarding something else. And then just said said by the way you need to double check who you send your emails to that is actually incredibly gracious gracious i feel like it was really wasn't it oh i just am racking my brain about like i i know that it was

like cringe worthy enough but not enough to be like, I fucked up so bad, but just like, oh God, okay. I mean, it's simple stuff. Like, you know, there's like an email that goes out from one of our kind of like people who do the calendar to be like, give me your days off for this month. And you'll get the joke of someone accidentally hitting reply all being like, I'm going to take, you know, this day off and this day off. And then it's kind of like, ha ha, thanks for letting us all know, you know, know stuff like that but I think there was an instance where hmm like maybe it could have been a client parent situation and I accidentally like included the other parent or like you know just some or their attorney or something on that

and was like yeah like this is not something I can help you with I've told you that you know just something like that it's like damn it but that is that is like a level of fear that is really only felt by when you're in a job yeah yeah any other situation you're kind of like oh well but well. But in a job, it's the worst thing ever. Yeah. And on that note, there's something I found this week, which is fucking brilliant. Someone tweeted that a few days ago, a HBO intern accidentally sent a blank mass email

with the subject line integration test email number one to thousands of subscribers. And then HBO came out and said we mistakenly sent out an empty test email to a portion of our hbo max mailing list this evening we apologize for the inconvenience and as the jokes pile in yes it was the intern no really and we're helping them through it so then twitter lost their minds as it does as it does and people started sending in their own ones so here's number one and they all start with dear intern dear intern when i was 25 i made a pdf assigning each employee to the muppet they reminded me of the most

i meant to send it to my work friend but i accidentally sent it to the entire company my supervisor beaker wanted to fire me but the owners burt and ernie intervened oh god oh i like i'm trying to think if i if i got that if there, if there's a Muppet that would offend me greatly. I mean, I guess I'd be annoyed if I got Miss Piggy, but I feel like that'd probably be the one I'd get. What's the rubbish one? The one that lives in the trash can? Oscar the Grouch? Yeah, I'd be very pissed with him.

I would be happy with that i'd be like yeah fuck everybody i'm pissed all the time everybody here is stupid and i want to live in a i would rather live in a trash can okay dear intern i was using my desktop calendar to make a monthly note of when i started my menstrual period but after several months i realized I was making that note on a calendar I shared with all of my colleagues company-wide. I was 37 years old. Oh my god, so what it was like Sally's monthlies. Sally's many's. Oh yeah, we have a shared calendar scenario, so that's why I'm like very careful about making things private. I mean, it's not so much shared, but more like people can see my calendar, you know, rather than having it like pop up on everyone's. So yeah.

The lesson I learned quite young was double check everything before you send or save. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, dear intern, as a young lawyer i proofread a legal brief and filed it with the court i caught a typo and blindly used the global find and replace function pro tip don't do that my brief argued for the rights of the panties not the parties all 50 pages of it oh no oh that like hits me right in a place that i can really relate to because i feel like that could have been me yeah the panties refuse to to resolve via alternative dispute resolution the panties are quite unreasonable

bad dear intern two weeks into my new job i had to send a mass email regarding our company shirts. I was petrified. Within seconds of sending, my inbox was lighting up with lols and I could hear the laughter. My subject line read, T shits. This is how I met everyone who kept me for 12 years. Oh, that's kind of cute. I mean, embarrassing, but kind of cute. So, yeah, if you fancy a laugh, search Dear Intern.

Oh, no, I want to hear more. Give me more. Give me one more. One more, at least. Dear Intern, I decided to surf porn on my company laptop because I was too lazy to open my personal one. I closed the website later, but I saw no reason to clear my internet history fucking rookie error mate the next day at work i connected the laptop to the projector in the conference room when i reopened the browser the home page

proudly displayed the porn hub logo at the front of recently visited section for all to see. The audience of 25 were all customer service executives on their first day on the job and I was their trainer. Oh no! This was at a major Indian company. I had no

idea what had happened. I proceeded with the day's training as usual, wondering why all the execs were whispering among themselves and giving me funny looks the execs were all highly highly amused although the management when they found out were not i just want to go like i want to turtle into myself with that i just oh my god okay okay that's so bad I don't know what he was training on and I guess since or I'm gonna assume it's a man because it probably was um if depending on what he was training and if he had realized it it'd be like and this is what not to do when you're on your computer and presenting sounds like you didn't even realize no what an Okay, there's another thing I saw as well,

which is nicknames that people have come up for their co-workers, come up with for their co-workers. Kit Kat, because they're always having a break. Yeah, okay. Okay. Justin, just enough not to get fired. Get one of those, I think. But a knife.

Not the sharpest tool in the box. Have you... I mean, even if you haven't told anyone, but do you have kind of like nicknames and shit about people that you work with or just like kind of characterizations of them? Yeah, there have been. Me too. And I'm not going to talk about them because I think I have some colleagues who might listen.

But when I first started like in describing some of them to my friends back home, I was like, this person is like this and this person looks like this and this person looks like this and this person reminds me of this. And then if they, for whatever reason, like they met my friends, I'd be like, that's that, that's so-and-so, that's the one that reminds me of so-and-so. None of them were super mean or anything, but not things that I would want them to know. No. Okay. Motion light. were super mean or anything but not things that i would want them to know okay motion light only works when someone walks past i don't get it explain what am i missing so you know like when you have those motion lights that go on and off when someone walks yeah so they only work when someone walks past like a little motion light i'll cut that one out no everyone can know how dumb i am and not getting this is it because like they couldn't they're not working what yeah Yeah, so they only work when someone who's passed in the office. Oh!

I fully give you permission to keep that one in. I'm not even ashamed. I honestly, like, I deserve it. Please shame me, everyone. That took me it. Longer than a minute. Longer than a minute, maybe. Thank you for walking me through that. Okay, see if we can

get through these other ones okay et they just want to go home just angry and ready for the day to be end over yeah uh lantern very bright. Has to be carried. Oh, burn. Pun intended. Birthday cake. Because everybody got a piece. Oh, this bicycle. Birthday cake is much nicer, I feel like and finally blister always shows up when the work's

done this office sounds like a whole lot of people who don't do anything who is doing the work around here come on Apparently the person coming up with nicknames. The Lord's work there. You know, that poor intern at HBO, it could be worse, though. Like, it was nothing. Yeah, it was just a blank email. Yeah. So, I mean, it could be.

Right to your client slagging them off. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, who does that? What a stupid mistake. Yep. Way to go. Well, that was enjoyable. Made the end of my kind of nothing work week that still

for whatever reason infuriated me a little bit nicer. Oh, good. That's what I'm here for, Kate. Just to brighten your week. I mean, that's the only reason we do this just to stop the self-loathing yep self-loathing and staring off into the abyss like what is my life why am I here well so sort of unrelated but similarly lighthearted. Are you up for a funny dating story? Yes, I am.

So we got a story from a listener. I'll just read it to you. Just read it to you, okay? Okay. Hello. I wanted to share a story about a friend of a friend which i found hilarious given some of the discussions about dating i thought it might fit the well on the pod so my friend of a friend who i will refer to as olivia has been fully immersing herself in the dating scene using

both apps and meeting people in person for a love connection sexy barxy baritone voice, which I didn't do a very good job of. Whatever. Well, to be fair, she is not looking for anything serious, but has decided to lean into the single life and simply enjoy casual flings, meeting new people, and maybe not having to pay for a meal out once in a while. Good for her, really. I agree. Get out that girl. I know, like, to take advantage, right? I've enjoyed being regaled of some of her dating adventures through my friend as I have not had the same opportunity to experience this form of dating really given the timing of my singledom between getting cuffed up again long term. I know the pain. Or joy.

I know the joy. Anyway, by now, Olivia has gone out with a few men a few times and has generally been able to balance her work and other life obligations easily. But she has been averaging a date or meet up multiple nights a week. Damn. Recently. I know, slut. I'm just kidding. Just sounds like a lot of effort.

Yeah. Well, I agree. Like, do you nap? Definitely not a slut. I'm actually pretty proud of this person. Okay. Recently, Olivia took things to the next step with a guy we will call Todd, who happens to be someone she was friendly with for a while, but never moved beyond the friend zone until recently. Todd stayed the night one evening, which went great.

recently. Todd stayed the night one evening, which went great. The next morning, however, Todd really wanted to linger despite Olivia's indirect, subtle, and then not so subtle clues that she needed him to bounce. Like, I don't... Get out! Do you know what stuff to do, ma'am? Though she didn't tell Todd this, Olivia had a lunch date planned with another fellow who we will just call Jimothy. In a mere few hours, Olivia had to get ready. Olivia really did not want Todd or Jimothy to cross paths because awkward. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You know what? Actually, maybe not. Maybe like assert your dominance there olivia yeah okay also given society's penchant to slut shame who could blame her sorry sorry olivia finally it is neither of their damned business that she has multiple dates lined up needless to state again, Todd needed to get the fuck out. Olivia, being the bright girl she is, told Todd she had errands to run, such as going to the grocery store and a few other things she did not elaborate on. This eventually got Todd

moving and they walked out together into their respective cars. Olivia intended to simply wait for Todd to drive off before simply returning to her home as she did not actually have errands to run, dear Gemma and Kate, but she needed to say something that would motivate todd to go home or wherever he goes when he's not in olivia's direct line of sight disappear into the ether until she beckons him sure that's fine he can literally go anywhere the dumpster behind her house for example uh when olivia thought it was safe to get out of her car, she double-checked and noticed Todd had not, in fact, pulled out of the spot behind her.

So, she started her car, hoping that would trigger some action by this guy. And it did. However, in Olivia's mind, it would now be very weird if she didn't at least drive off, and she figured that she could do a loop around the block before going in to get ready for lunch day with Jiminy... Jimothy. What's that? Jiminy jiminy cricket

i feel like this is all gonna end in tears well just wait however this was not in the cards what ended up happening was olivia pulled out of her spot after todd drove by and every turn he made ended up being the turn she needed to execute in order to make a full circle back home. So she was directly behind Todd at each turn and to her horror, realized that he would likely notice if she turned back onto our block. And to avoid any unnecessary questioning later, Olivia ended up continuing on following Todd to the exact same grocery store. Oh, no. Apparently, Todd needed to do some shopping, too.

They exchanged waves before doing their shop, and Olivia apparently bought the bag. Oh, she actually went shopping. Yeah, she went shopping. They kind of, like, saw each other, maybe had to walk in together. Oh, no. Don't know. She bought the barest minimum of things

in order to seem like she legitimately needed to be there before hightailing at home with enough time to get ready and get picked up at her house by Jimothy. Oh, Olivia. Yeah. Well, sounds like she pulled it off. Okay. Lunch with Jimothy was fine.

Nice even. I guess Olivia has seen him a few times as well and managed to have another nice meal paid for, courtesy of chivalry and old gender norms. This is not the end of the story, though, no. As our lovely Olivia had a third date lined up for the evening with Stavros. Ooh, exotic. She and Stavros enjoyed a nice dinner and evening at his home where Olivia, gasp, stayed the night. Apparently my friend made her share her location with her so as to ensure any foul play or mysterious disappearance

could be easily investigated. Clever. I'm told that no such thing occurred and Olivia lives for another date. Great. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the story. I can't imagine Olivia is the only girl who found herself in such a predicament but might be the only one who had to feign a shop in order to avoid an awkward encounter between

two gentlemen callers coming and going from her home. Oh, that's great. That's wonderful. That's so good. Thank you for sharing that. Anything like that in your dating history? No. Don't think so.

I've never had to drive to a shop to avoid that. Me neither. No, don't think so. I've never had to drive to a shop to avoid that. Me neither. The closest example I could think of is I had a boyfriend, we broke up, he had some regrets, I moved on. And I was sitting outside of my apartment building with a guy I had kind of, it was casual, but like we were hanging out and stuff and my ex-boyfriend walked by and just goes whore and I'm like you broke up with me what a twat yeah we lived pretty close together and I was just like okay the other guy's like I was like my ex and he's like oh that guy yeah douche I've had a few occasions where guys have broke up with me and then like if someone breaks up with me i'm kind of i'm done yeah that's it i'm like yeah no going back he broke up with me but they always come back for more baby of course they do and they go a little

bit cray-cray too i've had a few occasions where they've yeah lost their mind slightly and gone a bit weird and i'm like i'm definitely not going back now i'm addicted to gemma gemma i love you i'm sorry take me back gemma that's exactly what it's like yeah well maybe that's part of what olivia's concern was i guess we don't know i can get like I get not wanting to just have to be like this is my second suitor for the day but also maybe she was just like I just don't need that kind of potential conflict in my life yeah I mean she could have played it as like said to this Todd I'm meeting a friend for lunch yeah because there is always that awkward thing when you're on dating apps because everyone it's like an unwritten rule that everyone's kind of multi-dating because that's what you do yeah

yeah but i feel bad saying specifically say i'm looking for something serious right exactly yeah so if someone asks you out on a specific day and you're already going on a date, you know, I just say, oh, I'm going out to dinner with a friend or something like that, you know. So as to not hurt their feelings. Yep, I guess we need to be sensitive because boys are sensitive. Yeah, they have feelings too, okay? I know they do, okay? I'm not trying to say they don't but they get crazy it's not just bitches who be cray okay correct well speaking of crazy bitches well men who get crazy i actually have kind of an interesting

story it's story just i think a thing for us to discuss. Are you up for it? I'm up for it. Cool. I know I talked to you a little bit. I don't know whenever it was about this documentary I had watched called shiny, happy people. Yes.

I believe named after the REM song. Shiny, happy people. Hold it. Shiny, happy people holding heads. Shiny happy people. Yeah, that. This documentary is not, I don't know if that song's like fun, but.

Yeah, it makes it sound like there's lots of shiny happy people having fun. Yeah, it's not that. So have you ever heard of the Duggar family? No. Okay. Say more. I will. Buckle up.

Okay. So the Duggar family is this family headed by, I believe, Jim Bob Duggar and Michelle Duggar. Jim Bob Duggar? Do they speak like that? You know, you would think so. There's like a bug in my room and I'm scared. Sorry. I can't quite remember where they're located because I just want to emphasize to you and all of our listeners that I did the barest minimum of research and only like probably 85% paid attention to the documentary. Cool. But I got the gist. So I'm pretty sure it's kind of like in the part of America where Jim Bob is a name you would expect someone to be named.

Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. Fetch my shotgun. Yes, exactly. Well, perhaps a step or two above that. Okay. Okay. Cool.

Okay. No shotguns. they came to fame by having a show on a network called tlc which is the learning channel and we'll dive into that more later does it stand for tender loving care well it should be but i'm pretty sure it's the learning channel and i just like the fact that they gave this family a platform really fucks me off. Because the Learning Channel you'd think would be stuff that's supposed to be like. Educational? Yeah.

Objective. Helpful. But no. Started in 2008. And I was a, depending on what time of year, a junior or a senior in college. I don't know what that is, but okay. I will tell you. It means I was 21.

I was probably 21. Or 20 or 21. So basically, this family got famous because they had 17 fucking children at the time. Whoa. That's a lot of children. Yes. And the show is called 17 Kids and Counting. Oh, I've heard of that.

Yes. Yeah. So you know a little bit now of what I'm talking about. But they also continued to have more children. So they had to change the name of the show to 18 kids and counting and 19 kids and counting. And all of their children were named a name that began with the letter J. No. Yeah. It was on for seven years. So they all had the initials JD. Yeah. JD1, JD2, JD3.

jd yeah jd1 jd2 jd3 yep wow um like i said michelle and jim bob are the parents they are devout independent baptists and uh the show focused on their wholesome lifestyles and faith in god doing quotes for those who can't see me they were homeschooled very conservative in their parenting life like how they raised their children, what they had access to. They couldn't go to movies. They didn't have TV. Like I said, they're homeschooled, probably very like modest dated clothing. Like their dating actually was called like basically chaperoned courtship. chaperoned courtship and they their faith and like the church that they kind of operated under was like the quiver for movement which was also a part of i think the advanced training institute

and the institute of basic life principles that's like the organization um and so this documentary shiny happy people kind of started as if it were about the duggars but it actually expanded more into those organizations and kind of the shit that happened and just so you know the quiverful movement is basically kind of an ideology of promoting strict family values uh where male hierarchy and subservient roles for the female. So men on top, women on bottom or below. So by the time they had 19 children, the show was suspended in 2015

because it was revealed that their eldest son, Josh, molested five girls and three of them were his sisters. Maybe two of them. Yeah. And he was basically, it came out, public apology. He was around 14 or 15 at the time it happened. And so they canceled the show because of that. But then they made a spinoff where some of the older children,

I think, but not Josh, had their own show. So like the older girls who had since been married and had their own children, like started to become kind of like the primary focus of the show. And two of the sisters who were molested, went on to a kind of a conservative talk show with Meg and Kelly to basically be like, it's fine, we forgave our brother. It's not that big of a deal. Like, it's okay. We liked it. Oh, my God. Yeah. Really to minimize it. And so there was a little bit of focus on that, too, because there's like people either extended relatives of the family who are not kind of of the same conservative ideology of them.

And then like the parents of the woman who ultimately married Josh. And they're like, they basically used her daughter as a carrot to like distract him from continuing to molest people and then they told us after they were married oh my god yeah and just by the way uh josh was just recently uh arrested and then ultimately convicted of child pornography in the past two years wow yeah really really graphic child pornography, too. Like snuff stuff involving. Oh, my God. Bad. It's bad. So. I mean, once a rapist, always a rapist.

Yeah. And, you know, it's just interesting when we think about conservative family values and chaperoned courtship. And yet it's always seems to be like those ideologies that always reveal all of the perpetrators you know so i think the other the more interest this was of interest obviously but like the focus on the duggar's family was really just a vehicle to talk about bill gothard who founded the institute of basic life principles and advanced training institute because he too was involved in a scandal or several scandals ultimately sued like investigations about him actually being a sexual predator as well it's always the fucking religious ones yeah and there's this like weird aspect of so with the

homeschooling right like homeschooling i'm not going to comment on generally but their brand of homeschooling was very focused on religious ideology and also breaking your children. Like that's like you need to actually break the will and rebellious streak out of your child by literal physical abuse. Wow. Break it in like a horse. Yes, exactly. force yes exactly actually there was something called blanket training where they would put like babies on a blanket and put things that would intrigue the babies outside of the blanket and if the baby reached room they would hit them they would hit oh my god yeah and they'd call it

encouragement do you need some encouragement is what it was called i'm a baby. Right. I'm curious. I'm learning things. Oh, my God. Women are basically raised to be wives and mothers. Obviously. And they're goods. And men are basically the authority superior. There is not to be any resistance to your husband's physical affection. And the booklets used in homeschooling actually had sections on what women can do to not basically attract sexual assault by men. And they called them eye traps.

Dickheads. So, like, choose the eye traps on this woman's outfit. And wear a smile because the smile is what, like, brings you into the light. And pick makeup that complements your skin tone and lower plunging necklines and shirts and blouses with several buttons open and bare midriffs those are all eye traps that will put lust in a man's heart and then you will be helping him through adultery fuck off christ a lot of. I want to throw up. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's kind of the gist of it. And I think what I wanted to just.

I hate them already. Yeah. Yeah, it's bad. I hate them all. I just want. Like. Apart from the girls. Is this a cult?

Well, I guess I will add. So, like, the one of the daughters who was, I believe, sexually assaulted by her brother went on the news show. She's like since kind of broken away from the family and like actually was like, you know what? And she talked about how her dad tricked her into signing contracts and forcing her to go on that news show and just like really being under his thumb and being like forced to do things. And just like she eventually was like, enough, I'm not doing this. And now doesn't have any contact with her family and i just probably one of them's done that though yeah well i'm trying to think if there are any other siblings who maybe spoke in a way that was considered like again i don't think

so but she i think she actually had to go through a lot of shit, you know, like being one of the ones who got sexually assaulted, having to go on and basically be an apologist for her brother, having being forced to continue with the filming. Like he made them continue with the TLC filming once their show got canceled so they can continue to get money and they didn't get paid at all. Wow. Yeah. Man, that sounds like a whole fucked up situation yeah start to finish a lot of the people who were not related to the Duggars but on like involved in Bill Gothard's organization talked about the sexual assault and and basically being in a cult and that's what I wanted to maybe approach with you under the guise of religion this very this seems very

cult-like and actually really abusive and manipulative um but I don't know I guess what are your thoughts yeah I think any organization that has rules that you have to follow especially ones that are oppressive to people and stop them expressing who they naturally are and brainwashes people is a cult basically it's you know there's set rule not rules but there's characteristic can't speak characteristics of cults and this ticks quite a lot of boxes well this is what uh wikipedia says okay cult sometimes considered pejorative is a term for a relatively small group which is led by typically led by a charismatic and self-appointed leader who excessively controls its members requires unwavering yeah that requires unwavering devotion to a set of beliefs and practices which are considered deviant and i think there's

this whole debate about you know could religions arguably be considered a cult under that definition or other definitions because a previous sense of the word was a set of religious devotional practices that is conventional within its culture you know yeah so i i mean i think that uh the iblp ali or ati or whatever it was so are there other members in this yeah organization as well it's still going on yeah wow america's really funny with cults though isn't it because it's your was it your freedom to yeah practice religion or something that's how scientology get away with fucking everything they do. I was going to say, I mean, Scientology, I feel like that's a cult. Oh, 100%.

I did a huge deep dive into Scientology last year. Watched a documentary on it. Did you know that Leah Remini? Yeah. The actress that was on everybody loves raymond yeah queen or something um oh was she actually the king of queens was that her yeah i think my bad so she was like brought up in scientology and then defected as they say not many years ago and she's since been speaking out about it.

She did a documentary with other Scientology leaders. And man, it is fucked up. The shit they get up to and the shit they get away with because they've got a fuck ton of money. And influential people.

And influential people such as Tom Cruise. He's number two now apparently he's like the vice president of scientology yeah jesus okay yep and there's like loads of weird shit that's happened so the leader of scientology currently david muscavige his wife went missing like eight years we just don't know where she is yeah no one knows where she is but like all the people that have left have come out and said they've basically got like it's almost like concentration camps like if you do something wrong you get taken to one of these camps you have to sleep on the floor you get like starved and have to do all this manual

work and shit and so like your what until your will's broken or is that just where you have to be until you die yeah and just till you're like fully devoted again and like we'll do everything they say and they have all these weird like brainwashing techniques and it's fucked up like i got i got really fucking deep into it listen to loads of podcasts watch loads of documentaries oh yeah because and there's actually a the h HQ of Scientology is not far from where I live in a place called East Grinstead. We should go there when you come over. You can drive past it and it's like this crazy, like gated big place. The last time I drove past it, I was following this coach.

I didn't realize was going there. But the coach is like flanked by two black cars like front and back as well and then when we got up to the gates they obviously started turning in and i was like oh my god it's full of Scientologists um should have went in all just like literally just like staring out the window like gormless like fucking brain please help us whoa it's just like they just weren't even in the same space like it's crazy it's a really freaky place and there's also one in crowborough that you can pretty much like walk through because it is a public footpath and you you'll often get people come out and be like you can't be here you need to leave like you're not allowed to take pictures and public footpath so yeah it's freaky shit oh yeah we definitely have to because i feel like there's

been a few times we've kind of driven in the general area and either you or nigel or someone is like oh that's the psychology building yeah uh i think i think what interests me about cults though is that you watch stuff you hear about stuff that, and it's so easy to be like, how do people... How did you fall for that? Yeah, how do people end up in that? And I was reading an article just about, like, there's some characteristics that make certain people just really vulnerable to cults. people just really vulnerable to cults. But tooting our own horns in that we're, according to the very legitimate quiz we took, less likely to fall or like find ourselves in cults. So there's that. We have that. We can walk through and probably be okay, I think is the point here.

But some of the things I read, it was like kind of being alone or isolated, not having a lot of support system, low self-esteem, being a people pleaser, you know, naive, gullible, that sort of thing. Those are characteristics of people who I think are very – and I think just being like young and probably people – transient children who leave abusive situations are really at risk you know running away and homeless so but funnily enough i listened to a podcast a few weeks ago about quite a new like british cult and they had experts on that that were also saying you think people that get pulled into cults would be stupid and naive but actually it's often very intelligent you know switched on people that as you say have something missing in their lives or need a hole to fill or they're you know looking to find themselves or to have a spiritual awakening and that's how they get pulled into these cults. And this one in

particular, it wasn't initially based around religion. They pulled people in by giving them life coaching. I was just gonna say, I imagine you just target something that actually seems very innocuous, right? And how popular is that at the moment exactly like it appeals to a sense of something rational and logical right and so for example you hope you host a event based on like you want to start a new career you're looking to start your own business like come here and network and then it's all of a sudden we got life coaches to help you with this and then like what you know and how often do we hear about businesses that are kind of cult-like right and they're multi-level marketing i think there's elements of that to it too

what's this cult called in england this new one that's on the watch so it's called the play the cult was called lighthouse but it essentially got sort of found out and a few people that had got out took them to court because they were registered as i think it was like registered as a not-for-profit and so super was for profit yeah and they were taking like hundreds of thousands of pounds off people saying that, you know, you're making an investment. This is going to help you find your dream. And we're going to connect you with all these people that can help you start your business. And it never did.

And these people, right, this was all as well like remote. So they didn't even meet up in real life. It was all like video calls. Oh, because it was tied to pandemic maybe when it started, right? Yeah, I guess so. When people are lonely, right? Yeah, I guess so. Like around that time. When people are lonely, right? Yeah. But there was this, the main guy that speaks on the podcast, he had like a wife or a girlfriend. His family were really supportive.

He was just looking for like his next step in life, if you know what I mean. He'd done all these incredible things like sailed the Atlantic and done all these amazing things and wanted to start up like a boat company or something. Was his name Jeff? i don't know i just pulled up an article and it's like a guy on a boat so i'm wondering if that might be him yeah i can't remember what the podcast called now a very british cult yes that's what it's called. But yeah, he was saying that they ended up with the point where it got really bad. Like everyone involved in this cult would sit on Zoom calls for like nine hours a day where the cult leader would be like talking and spewing all this shit. And they literally had to sit there and write notes. And it was crazy i was like how have people got time for this i would just log off because i can barely tolerate a meeting that's longer than two hours for my actual job that i get paid for but the problem is what cults do is they get collateral yep so yeah you're hooked in somehow they give you like a therapy session you tell them all your

worst secrets all the terrible things that have happened to you you know something some cases even get like you know pictures and things that would be terrible if that came out and things like that and then so they've always got that over you so if you leave then we're going to release this shit and your life's going to be over so you can never leave they're sneaky little fuckers okay so this is like the guardians it's a very british cult review okay and it basically says first we meet people who are willing to go on camera to talk about their experiences there's jeff who's full of ambition but lacking direction when he crossed paths during a self-improvement webinar with a man called Jay. Jay Singh, who was with Lighthouse and offered him personal mentorship.

Singh told Jeff that he was very open, very teachable, and had a great work ethic. And under his guidance, Jeff did learn to speak and write better than before. It only seems sensible to sign up for the 10,000-pound discipline program for a year or more of intense mentoring mentorship and to invest twenty five thousand pounds after that to become an associate member like i guess that's probably enough collateral i spent thirty five thousand it's like the sunk cost fallacy i'm already this deep in i'll just continue yeah god and then jeff's girlfriend don another form i mean it's just it's so interesting how they are able to pick people who probably could look at other examples and be like yeah that's fucking cult yeah it's i'd really recommend listening to it it's so interesting because he

tells the whole story of how we got drawn in and then the experts tell you sort of how that happened and i will great and then a very bit of a showdown at the end yeah does someone die no no one no one dies as far as i'm aware we pretend someone dies and in the end someone where someone dies. Okay. Well, so I think the other thing that is interesting to me about like this whole cult, like the Manson family is a cult, right? But also it's like a dude and a bunch of people that he just like got these people to go kill people, you know? And then like the, was it was it david koresh i can't remember if he was like waco or the jim jeffries i think was the guy in the kool-aid in

the country right like the people who drink all the kool-aid and died like getting people to do some really fucked up things it's one thing to like get them trapped where they feel like they have to kind of they have to stay in it but like then getting them to do fucked up things is a whole nother level to me you know yeah they just get them to a point though where they're so they believe wholeheartedly in what this person is saying and the beliefs that they're brainwashing them with like as like how could you like mass suicide like unless you're a fanatic that's yeah it's crazy I find it so fascinating do you remember this was in America and I think it was like I was pretty young it was like 10 so you were a little bit younger. But Heaven's Gate, do you remember that?

Yeah, I think I've watched something called this. So it was just, like, they were just a bunch of people were found dead in a room. They all were wearing, like, they were on bunk beds wearing, like, Air Jordans covered. And it was, like, because of the coming of this comet. I don't even remember which one it was. Or, like, a meteor or something, and they, Hale-Bopp,

it was Hale-Bopp. Yeah. And they all killed themselves because they were in this cult for the coming of Hale-Bopp, and like this is what they're supposed to do in order to like transcend, I guess.

And that, I remember watching about that at 10 years old and being like, what the fuck? People do that? Why are they doing these things? Yeah. Yeah.

That's like my earliest recollection about anything even remotely close to this. So, and as it happened, you know, because like I read about the Manson family and stuff in college and in Waco and stuff like that but that was like during my lifetime a thing that happened with a cult yeah it's mad it's funny as well how a lot of them seem to start out quite innocently and we'll just be like this you know spiritual community where we're just bringing together loads of people for some meditation you know love and hippies and all that and then at some point the leader seems to take a shift a shift yeah and then that's when shit gets dark and it's a bit scary because like i'm into like meditation and stuff

and i'm looking to go on like a yoga retreat and we'd love to visit one of these little communes where people live out in the wilderness but i'm like shit am i joining a cult well correct me if i'm wrong wasn't there like wasn't it the guy who started Bikram? That ended up being very cult, manipulative, sexual abuse. Yeah, that was like Osho. The Osho guy, wasn't it? Yeah. So be careful.

I will. I do my research. And as you know, I did a quiz earlier. And I'm very unlikely to join a cult. But they appeal to your logical sense and sensible interests. So like if they're going to get you through yoga, that's how they're going to get you. Fuck. Like I'm going to be the type of person who just is like, do you want to come see my cats in the van?

And I'd be like, yeah, okay. I get a box of kittens. Yeah, exactly. Yes, I will come to your van. Yes, I'm coming now. Nothing seems inappropriate about this right now or dangerous ralph legum sitting on a bus going i'm in danger i love kittens oh boy well if you do go on a meditation retreat i need your location on

contact information. Maybe I'll just go with you and I'll just be the one sitting there being like, I'm not participating. I'm just here to observe. I'm just here to protect my friend from being indoctrinated in a cult. I won't like be disruptive unless I need to be. Then I will. We'll just have a code word anytime it's starting to approach cult likeness.

I'll be like potatoes banana peaches peaches peaches now peaches one million peaches jemma oh gosh well so i will listen to this cult podcast or documentary you have to watch shiny happy people if you can yes where is it what's it on i think it's on prime but you could probably watch it on youtube too if you don't prime i got prime cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool cool well so i have a related ish am i the asshole am i the ass you know you are baby yeah okay my turn to read sorry everyone am i the asshole if i tell my wife for 12 years. She has always been interested in spiritual and occult things. Astrology, tarot cards, sage cleansing, pagan practices, spell rituals, etc.

But nothing negative like hexes or ghosts. Okay. I guess I'm just... You know what? I will refrain. Most importantly, she has never been hardcore about it. She has a full-time job and is well-adjusted socially. She says she is in the broom closet and has lots of books on the topic, but she hides them when either of our parents come over. Her closest friends know. I don't believe in any of it, but it can be fun and doesn't really bother me i'll let her read my palm or cards but don't take it seriously she uses it to channel her energy and improve herself and luckily isn't into the death skulls bones goth ankle

judgy he's very judgy he likes the tarot cards but doesn't like the skulls i guess we have a 10 year old daughter who my wife is slowly starting to introduce to this world and i think my wife is getting more into it now that she has someone to play with okay so we're already really judging this guy they sage cleansed our new apartment they burn incense and do yoga and buy crystals they never shut up about halloween and watch tim burton but blow off christmas when my daughter is upset she will burn incense and use crystals my daughter so many people i know i say like i staged my house not too long ago to get the bad vibes out yeah i mean he's just an artist let him make art dude

my daughter started telling friends at school she's a pagan slash a witch and they reject her and think she's weird. Note, my wife doesn't define herself as a witch. Yeah, 10-year-olds are mean to each other too. My wife wants to take her to a pagan festival, which I won't attend, but I'm sure is full of weirdos.

Again, my wife is not pushing the depressed goth angle, but I'm worried my daughter is going to grow up pigeonholed in this weird dark spiritual realm and unequipped to deal with issues in the real world how do i tell my wife to chill on this stuff until she's older or never even introduce it to her at all am i the asshole for asking my wife to chill with astrology tarot cards sage cleansing palm reading etc around her daughter hmm a bit half and half really i think i agree with him that maybe leave it till she's a bit older so she can make her own more informed decisions

say more um but equally there's a there's a a little hippie part of me that's like, let her connect with this shit, man, while she's young. And then she won't lose her like, you know, fucking stuck in this corporate world, eyes closed, everything. Like, just let her go with the flow and learn about all this shit and connect with it, man. Well, and I guess I'm, I don't, I feel like at 10, it's possible that she maybe did make her own decision to be involved because maybe like she had, it's her mom. She probably was aware of some event and probably asked if like she could know more, right? Like I imagine it was probably hard to hide. Yeah.

I was okay with it until my daughter, being a 10-year-old, who doesn't have really the brain development to read social cues and know that maybe she's going to get teased about it at school if she behaves a certain way. Now I'm not cool with it. Or pulled into a cult. I suppose because, as we were saying, it could be argued that maybe certain sex or something could also involve cult-like things with Wiccan and paganism whatever yeah so I can see what you mean in terms of kind of 50 50 I get a I feel like there could have been more of a concerted parenting collaboration discussion here about this too that may need to communicate a little bit more you know yeah like did she not say you know our daughter approached me about wanting to know more what are your thoughts do you think we should wait any concerns do you think maybe we start small and if he saw that this was happening why didn't

he like he said she's starting to slowly introduce and i think you know they've done some things why wouldn't he be like are you sure we want to do this right now so there's some poor like parenting going on here maybe or like co-parenting i guess yeah but some comments are you're the asshole your wife's spiritual beliefs are as valid as any other religion or form why shouldn't she share it with her daughter who is clearly willing and interested? And then the response is, parenting is a joint effort. If they haven't previously discussed how to tackle introducing religion,

spirituality to the child, then mom is the asshole. He's had 10 years to talk to his wife about this. Fair. He has been married to her for 12 years. Why is she responsible for making sure he brings up his own concerns? Someone said, I doubt they ever had a discussion if only because he clearly doesn't see her

religion spirituality as an actual valid religious or even spiritual belief he literally put the word Wiccan in quotation marks so yeah I mean that's fair too and then other people are saying, you know, if it was Judaism, if it was Methodism, you know, like, would you be as worried about this? So, I don't know. I guess I think the consensus is he's the asshole because that's like the flag on here. But it seems like some people are kind of like, why don't you guys talk about this more? like some people are kind of like why don't you guys talk about this more yeah i think that's the overriding problem here is that they need to talk about how they're going to raise their daughter oh actually on that point you're afraid that your daughter is going to grow up to be

like your wife is the question many of the things you mentioned are wiccan peg in any ways yoga incense and sage cleansing are quite mainstream things to do in Indian culture and in white female America too. Yeah. You sound like a judgmental twat. The world is full of weirdos, not just at pagan festivals. Yeah. Like churches where they molest children. Tough one though. You guys need to talk more. Yeah yeah that's what we've all learned don't have children

another valid reason to not have children unless you know who you're going to be having children with oh it's been quite a spooky episode this one one, hasn't it? We just blew our load in June and not October. Oops. Oopsie. I think we can come up with more content by then. Yeah. Come up with a spooky episode. Spooky podcasting.

Send us your ideas, y'all. Yeah. Yeah. Let us know how spooky you want the Halloween episode to be. We could tell each other ghost stories. We could, like, try to scare the crap out of people. Oh, yeah. Let's tell each other ghost stories.

Okay. I love slash hate ghost stories. Do you know what I mean? Me too. I love them and then absolutely fucking hate it once i've heard it and then i'm like oh god i'm not gonna sleep oh yeah that's like that's just never sleep again how about that that's our goal the goal is to never sleep again just podcast 24 7 uh yep sure yep okay well on note, I think it's time to say goodbye for today.

Oh, goodbye, Catherine. So long. Farewell. Do do do do do do. Do do do do do do. Okay, well, it's been awesome chatting shit with you, my friend. You as well. Well, I think that if I join a cult, I hope you're with me. Me too. And if either of us do join a cult, let's get the other one out.

Okay, deal. Okay, deal. All right, don't join a cult. You neither. You neither. All right, like, rate, subscribe, follow, send us emails with your ideas comments responses to all the things we discussed that you think is interesting your response if you get the weird i sent an email to everyone sort of story we want to hear it and yeah we love you also update from last week um i changed the instagram name so it's wrong on last week's episode it's now

tsyb pod not twice up up up oh so we just kind of like took out some of the extraneous oh okay i guess i'll do that too for consistency's sake i feel like you could have run those by me. Yes. I didn't even tell you. Just kidding. It's fine. You know, we do what we want here. Yeah, do what the fuck we want. No consistency. We just fucking throw things around and hope that it sticks.

Don't even know if anything I told you was accurate today. Just words. Yeah, probably wasn't. Probably wasn't. All just words coming out of my mouth. I don't know what it is all right well you have a good rest of the day and week and i'll see you next time yeah see you next time. you