The Confessionals - 702: Surviving A Doomsday Cult

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

In episode 702: Surviving A Doomsday Cult, Jon, from The 21CD Podcast, and his brother AJ revisit a haunting chapter of their past; a childhood on remote land under the influence of a mystifying figure who seemed determined to shape their family’s beliefs. Isolated from the outside world, they found themselves woven into strange rituals and kept under strict rules that made their lives feel increasingly unreal. Now, they reveal what it was like to grow up in a hidden cult and share stories that have never been told before. The experience changed them, but their search for answers didn’t end there.Years later, a journey to Iceland brought them face-to-face with something that was so shocking, they couldn't believe it. During a late-night hike through an ancient landscape, shadowy figures moved on the cliffs above them, blending folklore with bone-chilling reality. In this episode, they share their tales of life on the edge of two worlds, the real and the supernatural.The 21CD PodcastInstagram: @21cdpodcastYouTube: @21CDpodcastPodcast: Apple | SpotifyHurricane Helene Relief Efforts List: https://www.theconfessionalspodcast.com/helene-reliefSasquatch and The Missing Man: merkelfilms.comMerkel Media Apparel: merkmerch.comThe Confessionals Members App:Apple Store: https://apple.co/3UxhPrhGoogle Play: https://bit.ly/43mk8kZBecome a member for AD FREE listening and EXTRA shows: theconfessionalspodcast.com/joinAFFILIATESGo Silent with SLNT Faraday Bags: https://alnk.to/clXuRY5EMP Shield: empshield.com Coupon Code: "tony" for $50 off every item you purchase!SPONSORSSIMPLISAFE TODAY: simplisafe.com/confessionalsUNCOMMON GOODS: uncommongoods.com/tonyCONNECT WITH USWebsite: www.theconfessionalspodcast.comEmail: [e-mail] to the Newsletter: https://www.theconfessionalspodcast.com/the-newsletterMAILING ADDRESS:Merkel Media257 N. Calderwood St., #301Alcoa, TN 37701SOCIAL MEDIASubscribe to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/2TlREaIReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/theconfessionals/Discord: https://discord.gg/KDn4D2uw7hShow Instagram: theconfessionalspodcastTony's Instagram: tonymerkelofficialFacebook: www.facebook.com/TheConfessionalsPodcasTwitter: @TConfessionalsTony's Twitter: @tony_merkelProduced by: @jack_theproducerOUTRO MUSICJoel Thomas - Free The RabbitsYouTube | Apple Music | Spotify

Merkel Media This was all circulating around the base that a giant had to kill but no one was supposed to talk about it I saw three long, bony fingers reach up underneath the door curl up to grab it and then disappear

When he came over to me Dude he slithered over to me And this giant comes out of the cave And they're all frozen And he starts running and firing at this giant. Well, the giant moves. He's got a spear in one hand, and he's running really fast. And spears, Dan, holds him up like this. Somebody else, shoot him in the face, shoot him in the face. They basically decapitated. And I look over, and there are two small, gray and the teeth.

Surely, I'm getting pulled off the best bush, and it couldn't move because I know I'm seeing a monster. Welcome to the show, everybody, listening to the Confessionals podcast. I'm your host, Tony Merkel. Thanks for being here. If you've a crazy wild experience you want to share with me on the show, go ahead and shoot me an email. My email address is contact at theconfessionalspodcast.com. That's contact at the confessionalspodcast.com. Or go to the website, theconfessionalspodcast.com, hit the contact section, and you can reach me that way as well. Either way works for me, just get a hold of me. If you want more shows on a weekly basis, we got you covered, right there at the confessionalspodcast.com slash join. Become a member. Get access to extra episodes every week. and if you don't want to do it on the website,

there's always YouTube that you can have as an option. It's the same content, just two different locations. YouTube and the website will give you access to extra content. Also, friends, go ahead and check out Merkmerch.com. That's Merkmerch.com for all your Merkel Media apparel needs. We got a new t-shirt in town, Alien Tactical. It's right there on the front page. You guys will absolutely love it.

Go ahead and check it out at Mercmurch.com. Also, Merkelfilms.com is where you can get your on-demand streaming needs, taken care of. All our documentaries are there. Much more to come in the future. So stay tuned for that. Merkelfilms.com. Now, friends, I was at BlurieCon this past week for two days and I was talking and talking and talking. It is now Monday morning waiting to the last minute to record the intro and outro for Tuesday show and my voice is still not back. And in about 45 minutes, I got somebody coming in studio to do an interview. So my voice is pretty much shot. So I apologize for that and the interview I'm about to conduct. But today we have John and AJ on the show. They are brothers. And John is the host of 21 CD podcast on YouTube, Apple, Spotify. This is a fantastic podcast. I highly encourage you guys to check it out. But they come in studio today to talk about how they were both raised in a cult on their family property. People were going in and out on the property. A lot of weird things were happening. And they come today to share everything. So let's get to John and AJ right now.

Give me about 10 seconds and we'll come in with an introduction. Or no, we're not doing introductions. Let's just jump into it. You're good, Jack? Okay. I'm ready. It's so weird. I'm supposed to be like, welcome to the show.

And then I'm turning. So, how are you guys? Doing great. Here we go. I don't know how to open my own show. Air it. Launch. Oh, man.

Before we second guys, that's a TikTok. I guess this is how we start to show these days. Today we got AJ and John, John, John, and AJ. How are you guys doing? I'm so good. Doing great, man. Doing great. So, John, you're a returning guest, AJ. You're new, your brothers, John, 21 CD podcast. Hey, guys, I'm John from the 21 CD podcast. This is my brother, AJ. Hello, welcome back to me. They both sound the same. So if you're listening on audio,

good luck. Yep. But here's the thing. John, when you started your show, you talking on your show is the same way you actually talk. And I just wanted to let the whole world know that. Because the way you told the stories on the first time you were on the show, I was listening to you tell the stories. And then like my interactions with you off, off air, you talk with the same thoughtful cadence. Just I'm going to talk and tell you this story. And it's just like, man, it's awesome. I mean, yeah, I can only talk one way. It's the only way I know. Born to podcast, man. Born to podcast.

I don't know about that, but yeah, I definitely try to be. I mean, that's always been something that you just kind of been, though. Like, people listen when you talk. You have a really interesting way of saying things. Well, thanks, guys. Absolutely. I feel so welcome to be here. So before we jump into the topics of the day, tell people about your podcast, where they can find

it and what it's all about. Sure. So the 21 CD podcast, you can basically just Google it. pretty much everywhere. We also have 21CD Studios.com and that's where all the links are in one spot and I also sell merch there and yeah, that's honestly going to be your mother ship for 21 CD. And I do three episodes a week right now by the way, which is a lot for one one little person. So tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. We'll talk about weird stuff. Weird stuff. What kind of weird stuff we talk about? We're talking about like

the Clintons, are we talking about Nephlam? Are we talking about UFO? What are we talking about? Right now, I am heavy on hidden people. I am also, of course, deep into Nephlim and portals. You know that. I'm really into interdimensional stuff. That's some of my favorite stuff to talk about. And actually, funny thing, right now I'm actually investigating an Indian burial mound, which is great because it's relating to the first time I was here. Oh, we're going to get into it. Yeah. We're going to get into it. There's all sorts of stuff that I'm into right now, but we got something for everybody. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a fantastic show. I loved it from day one. And I know people

have checked it out and stuff, but if you haven't checked it out, you got to check it out. If you haven't checked it out a while, go back. Because I know you had stopped for a little bit because of moving and everything. So listen, I'm telling you right now, 21 CD podcast, get on it. And what's your subscription base right now on YouTube, roughly? What do you mean? How many people do you have subscribed to it right now? Oh. On YouTube? Yeah.

On YouTube, just 3,000. Just 3,000. Yeah. Just a measly 3,000. A measly 300 souls. Yeah. Measily 3,000 people. You know, like most, most mega churches don't even have 3,000 people going on a Sunday, you know?

I'm in the presence of Tony Merkel, so 3,000. I stumbled my way there. So listen, after people hear today's show, go back and Jack will look it up and let us know when he gets available, unless you know. Do you remember what episode number you were? No. No. So it was Wendigo Woods. Jack will let us know what the episode title or number was.

But after you listen to this episode, go back and listen to that episode and then go and check out the YouTube channel, hit subscribe and just trust me, just enjoy. It's really good. So speaking of when to go woods, we have an update. I just want to let people know where we're going today. All right. So we're going to talk about when to go woods and the update from that because there's more that has developed. We're going to talk about Iceland and the elves because I always want to say trolls, but my kids like the trolls cartoon.

So I always get too confused. So we're going to talk about Iceland because we talked about it last time, but AJ was with you. Yeah. And he experienced it as well. So we're going to talk about that through the eyes of AJ and talk about those things. And you guys are going back. You're going back? I'm going back next week.

I unfortunately can't make it back. Why not? I know. I should just cancel everything in my life and go. Probably. Right now. Like, listen, dude. Yeah, I've got my own demons to kill here.

I got you. But I'm just saying, like, I mean, you saw elves. He's going back. I mean, it was a pretty spur of the moment, to be honest. Even on the drive up here, we were just. just talking about it. And it's like, can't you be sick or something?

Reliving some of those moments is still kind of weird. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. It's interesting. So we're going to talk about that. And then what we're going to hit on probably a little bit harder is going to be, let's just put it this way,

cult stuff. Yeah. How would you define it just to tell people that direction? A million foot overview. Here, let me just define it real quick. We grew up in a cult. So there's going to be not a lot. a lot of people know this. And honestly, I think that some of my followers are going to be like,

what the heck? Why haven't you told us about this on the show yet? And it's because it has to be on a bigger show. It has to be on a show that I have prepared for because we've never talked about it. We haven't been, we've been highly discouraged not to talk about it. And there's real world consequences for talking about it in the wrong way. So we've been very cautious most of our lives. and now I'm at the point where sometimes people find out accidentally. So I'm just going to come out and we're going to tell the story. I flew here to Nashville, well, I flew to Nashville and came here and on the way, you know, we were talking about it. We really feel like this is just the right time and the right place.

So it's also like it's reached a point in its maturity where now you can kind of look at things maybe a little more objectively. And as a child, you just kind of experienced life. and whatever it is, you make reasons for and you rationalize and you just keep going. But then when you kind of look back at certain moments or years of your life, you can kind of actually look at why and whether or not I was just ignorant to what was going on or if it was like something a little bit more to actually talk about. And in our case, after doing research upon, you know, maturing and becoming older and stuff and looking back on our past and just being like,

did that stuff really happen, or was that a figment of a child's imagination, growing up in the wild and stuff like that? Did that actually happen? And then you start doing research and find out, holy cow, this actually happened, and you can read about it online. So, like, that brings an element of realness to it.

And I just feel like, I think we both feel like it's just time to sort of flesh it out a little bit. Why not? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, let's get into some of the, these conversations, because I definitely want to hit the cult stuff, obviously. This is something you

told me about briefly last time you were here. And I was like, you want to talk about it? I don't know. I can talk about it. But let's talk about when to go woods. Now, this is the experience, AJ, you went through as well, right? Yeah. So at any point in time, feel free to chime in with your own perspectives on this. But I know, John, you've been doing some digging and you found some new developments on the property, right? Yeah. And he actually did some digging with me. So he can, he can very that this is true and I'm not just making it up for likes. But yeah, so we both had this experience on my parents' land, this Wendigo, which now I'm not sure. I never was sure if it was a Wendigo. That's such a hard cryptid to sort of nail down. It made a good title, though. It does make a great title. And it might have been, you know, like we live in Wisconsin where the Algonquin speaking tribes were and, you know, the Menominee natives. They were the ones who were in our area and all that kind of stuff. And then we've also got, um, You know, skin walkers and the area that we live in, which I'm not going to name, tons of people want me to name where I live, but I'm just not going to do it.

Wise. Right. And even we have rumors in our local town of cryptid sightings and whatnot as well. So it's not just this one thing that happened on my parents' land. And basically, I've been walking, and we've been traipsing around these woods for a very, very long time, many years at this point. Like, how long have you been running around in those woods? seven, eight years. Yeah, right. So, like, we've been doing this for a while and we had this

experience where we saw this thing and our other brother was with us as well and one of our friends and it sort of stalked us in the woods. And obviously, if you guys want to hear when to go woods, go listen to it. But since then, you know, I moved away. I moved here. That's when we did the first interview. And then I moved back to the same exact town because that's home. So that's where I moved back to when I left here. And started just going over the old stomping grounds again. And there's this, there's this place about a mile away. So it's not on my, my parents' land, but it's about a mile away. And it's all wooded, very dark forest. And if you go into those woods, there's a snowmobile trail. Okay. And the snowmobile trail will cut all

the way through the forest because it's honestly it's probably somebody's hunting land it runs right next to the river and the river just kind of goes in towards the middle of nowhere countryside Wisconsin and so there's this little trail that goes all the way along the river just through this woods back there and the hold on a second yeah yeah before we go any further it just hit me we did an overtime last time and we're talking about the building in milwaukee right yeah john were you with him? Or AJ, would we remember John? Yeah, dude. Full circle. I was just like, wait a second.

AJ was John with the portal building. He's been with me for most of my. Most of them. Where were you last time? I know, man, I know. Man, okay. Secret missions. All right.

I was like, holy crap. He was there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wild stuff. Yeah. So that is a crazy story too. I guess it's on the extended edition of that when it go woods. But so anyway, we, the city kind of maintains this trail because they,

they know that snowmobilers are going to be on it and they don't want people getting hurt. But in a weird way, it feels like the city can't do anything with the land. Right. And so they just put something there because they can, but they can't build there. It's all pretty hilly. The ground is really soft. It would be hard to actually do anything with that space. Yeah. And there's no sign to it. It's not like a state park that you drive up to and park and now you're in this park. I've never seen anybody else in the woods ever. And long story short, we've been walking this trail for a long time. I walk my dog there all the time, have for years.

And I've never noticed this one feature until maybe about three months ago. And I was going through the woods and off to my left as I had been walking for maybe about 45 minutes or so, there is this mound that is just right there. And it's clear as day you in such a way that I can't believe I had never noticed it before. And I don't know if it's because all of the research I've done since becoming a podcaster. Now I have different eyes to see different things or what the case is. But I noticed it, captured my attention, and I've started investigating. And I am under pretty, I'm pretty positive. that it is an Indian burial mound because I've verified that other Indian burial mounds are in the area that the Menominee and other tribes built mounds in the area. Wisconsin used to be,

or is, I guess, the Indian burial mound capital of the United States. There are at one point of 4,000 burial mounds there until the Smithsonian started paying farmers to destroy them so that the alternative narrative doesn't become uncovered because they actually began on earthing giants in Wisconsin. And so in Delavan, Wisconsin, which is not far from where we live, they actually unearthed 18 giant skeletons between the heights of 9 and 14 feet. And I started doing some more digging and realizing that all sorts of giant bones, if you follow the newspaper articles from the Times, the 1800s, the early 1900s, all that kind of stuff, they are finding giants in Wisconsin left and right. And it's crazy. And so I started looking.

looking at this Indian burial mound with those kinds of eyes. Like, is this what this could be? And I would say you went there that, how tall would you say that thing is like 20 feet, 30 feet? Yeah, probably right in between there. He came and told me about it and he was like, you know, those woods that we would go down in? You got to go check this out because I'm pretty sure there's something there. And you didn't end up coming with me when I went down to look at it. But I drove down there and I went on a little hike and I, I mean, he was like, it's going to be on your left side. and it was noticeable when I saw it. And so I've seen a lot of Indian burial mounds.

And when you look at like the way this one is structured, it's got no old trees on it. And so the trees haven't been there long enough to actually grow like large root systems to bury like through the mound. It's got a little bit of a sink pit in the middle, which gives you the idea that it's probably hollow. There's probably space or air at one point that was inside this mound that is now collapsed on itself. And it also seems like the trees that are there are old enough to be from a longer time ago, but they're not like ancient. And so there's no huge trees there. The trees that are growing out of it, probably 50 to 100 years old. Okay.

But not like the massive 300-year-old oak. So you're saying that, say 50 to 100 years, I mean, that's relatively a new mound then. Well, no, it's just relatively new that trees are growing out of it. Ah, yeah, okay. You know? Because there are trees around it. are much older. The thing is, and my first question was, is this just a pile of dirt from a construction project or something like that? And they needed a place to put all this topsoil,

so they just dumped it here. But what I started noticing was if that was the case, then they would have had to put this here probably in the ballpark of 50 to 100 years ago. Right. And there's a lot of old growth trees around the mound. So the ability for people to get tractors and all that kind of stuff in the woods through this down these wet hills and into this swampish type. Right. Right. Because it is also in a swamp. Like the forest has a swamp element to the whole side that you would bring tractors through if you were building this mound.

But it does go deeper. Like I said, the thing is about 30 feet tall and does have a bowl. in the top where there is a tree growing out of it, by the way. And if I stand in the bowl, the bowl is about six feet deep. So it is considerably massive. And it does show that the inside is collapsing in some way. And it also, I would say, is about 50 to 60 feet long. So it is a very, it's not just a pile of dirt. It is a long structure, I believe, subterranean structure of some sort and it has been used probably for quite some time in my opinion. I did some metal detecting on it. I'm getting pings, but I'm hesitant to dig because I don't know anything about it and I don't

want to disturb anything at all. But I am getting pings of metallic object, usually gold and silver, a little bit of bronze. So I don't know what it is, okay, but I'm actively investigating it. I'm not on here saying that I have the secret location of an Indian burial mound. Or Nathland barrier. But I do have the secret location of an Indian burial mountain and maybe a nephalum. It's also interesting because the river is older than the dirt, you know, and that's where it's just like this is a natural highway. And it's been here for hundreds and hundreds of years. And so like as colonists came to the area and started building little towns and villages on the side of this river, that forced the other life that was. there to move. And so the ground that the houses and the homes and the buildings are built on is

young, but the waterway is ancient. And so if this waterway has been right here for 2,000 years, and you've got Native American tribes who have been through here, you've got animals, you've got life that walks this path. And so this mound being right off the river is not likely just a random pile of dirt. Right. And an important thing, a lot of my followers love to know that this is on the Fox River. And the Fox River goes to the ocean. So if you follow it all the way to the lake, Green Bay, Green Bay, Lake Michigan, you can get to the ocean from my house. So it's anybody could have gotten there. And it would have been fairly easy for them to do so. So that's your update. How does that connect to when to go woods? There's just stuff going on.

in the area that I think is much deeper than just some isolated cryptid. I think there is some ancient history here and I think it is worth investigating and I'm 100% on board with it. There is another interesting tidbit that I wasn't really going to mention but I am now deciding to and there's a structure that's built right next to the Indian burial mound and it's made out of sticks and logs. It doesn't look like it's thousands of years old. I would say it's not. I would say it's relatively young, maybe a year old, right? But it's built on the border of where the mound ends, which is at the tree line, and this swamp field of just everything being dead. There's just nothing alive there. It's this wasteland expanse. And this little hut is built right there on the precipice of it.

and I am a I think about what people what makes people do things you know I'm a sociologist I went to college for it and so I'm instantly always very attracted to society and how people's brain works in certain situations and similar to our Iceland tale when we found the elves we saw the elves seeing that in a place like this tells me that I'm not alone in feeling what I feel when I'm here Somebody else felt something here and slept here. And I don't live in the city or near the city. Nobody homeless is coming out to sleep in these woods. They will die out there.

So it's not like this is something like that. So I just feel like this real calling that this place is something. We're going to investigate it. And I'm really excited for the future of that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we also found stick structures after we saw our encounter with our Wendigo, which, you know, this looked definitely a little bit more human-made, this little stick structure,

but that was also a weird, a weird finding after that situation. So I don't know if there's ever going to be a time anytime soon that I'm talking when to go on the show because it's very rare. I mean, I would welcome more stories on Wendigos, but it's just rare. So I'm going to take this opportunity to bring this up. Have either one of you watched the Watchers, the movie? By night Shyamalan? I just watched it the other day. I can't remember if I've seen that.

It's a newer movie. It came out in like June or July this year. No, I didn't see it. Tell me what you think about it. I think there's a lot of symbolism in it. I think they knew exactly what they were making. Yeah. I think they're trying to tell us stuff.

I was literally counting fingers. When I was watching, I was like, show me six fingers. We got the six fingers. We got the six fingers. I was watching it with some people and they were like, what the heck is going on? Touchdown! And it's called the Watchers, bro.

Are you serious? Dude, Shianelan does that, though. He has symbols in his movies. And so when I saw that, I was like, this is nuts, dude. Oh, my gosh. And then even though it, don't die. And then even the way that they portrayed it, where it was. was like the people being watched are in prisons.

You know, it's like us on Earth. And they're just observing as the Nephilim destroy everything around them. Like, I thought that movie was great, dude. What a great movie. If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend watching it because if I, like, I'm not good at doing the spoiler alert stuff. Yeah. I probably spoiled some stuff just now, but I'm telling you right now in the future,

I'm not even going to think about telling you I'm going to spoil things. I'm just going to spoil it for you. So if you're listening to this right now, don't ever tune into my show again. to watch it. But what a movie. Like I thought for sure I'd be severely let down because I love M. Night Shyamala movies in the sense that like he's a local producer

or director from where I'm at. Like he's actually used several towns that I've lived in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, Royersford, Pennsylvania. He uses a lot of different towns in the Philadelphia area. That's cool. And, but like movies that he does

get me juiced up. And then they let me down. And like me and Joel differ on this, our perspective of this one. But the village, he loves how that ended. And I was like, I freaking hated it. It took me out of the magic of the moment. I know. But he loved that aspect.

But this movie, I totally expected to have a similar thing. And I was like, this is a freak. I was like, at the end when, all right, listen, guys, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, at the end when the thing person, character. They all die. Just kidding. Which is not true. So when the true identity was revealed

of the thing and the stuff, like I was looking at it and I was like, huh? Like there are so many things running through my mind. I have to watch it again. I'll tell they actually write notes down. Anyways, I brought it up because at one point in the woods,

when you start seeing the, which is in the trailer, so I'm not spilling anything. The bone structures of like the angel looking things and stuff. What maybe, I was thinking when it goes. That just made me think of Wendigo's. But what a movie that is.

I highly recommend it. Anyways, back to the show, everybody. You know what I liked about that movie, too, and I know this isn't a movie review podcast, but it is now. It is kind of interesting. I loved how she named her Canary Darwin, because her Canary was leading her to somewhere else that was against the narrative. And I thought that was a really interesting twist.

I thought that was an interesting detail, I should say, because that just goes to show that Shyamon still got it. He still got these messages. He's still got this narrative that he's trying to tell us. And whether he knows he's trying to tell us or not is a question we might always ask. But because I believe messages can come from very unexpected places. But I thought that was a really interesting aspect of that movie. Yeah.

So you said that, but I mean, his daughter is the one who put it out. Do you think he had a big influence on it? Or do you think she just learned a lot from him? I bet he did. Didn't you like write, produce and direct it? No, it's her movie. Are you serious? Yeah.

What is his role? Dad? Dad? I don't know. I was pretty, like, I know it's her movie. She, but, but I mean. It definitely has Shy Amalant Trades. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just makes you wonder, like, I mean, the whole family, right? Let's just put it that way. The whole family, what do they know? How do they know it? Yeah. They know stuff. In fact, like, I wouldn't be surprised if they tune into this kind of content just because they're,

they're actually genuinely interested in it. Well, I mean, I know this isn't what the episode's about, but there's the whole idea that even Tolkien, who wrote Lord of the Rings, new stuff. And that's why his Lord of the Rings trilogy or however many books there are now, but they might be more telling a real story. Yes.

Loosely based on truth. Yes. And, yeah, so I would be surprised. So Tolkien, C.S. Lewis is another one. And the guys who directed Stranger Things. Oh, yeah. very much, very, very much. Stranger things.

And I just got a confirmation on that again this past week with an interview I did, which will come out probably sometime in October. But here's the thing. They have to know. They have to know. Because if they don't know, they can't indoctrinate us. They can't prepare us for the inevitable future, which is going to become this world,

probably within the next 10 to 15 years, where everything is, mythical. Everything that you think doesn't exist, here it is. It's in your face and you have no choice but to accept it. Yes. You also can't even discern what's real then. Right. Yes. Yeah. And they tried to do it with the alien disclosure, the UFO disclosure and all that kind of stuff. The mall in Florida or wherever the heck. Miami Mall monster. Miami Mall thing. All that, dude, that's not just like, oh, some crazy story that popped up on the news. That's very intense. That's the U.S. government giving you UFO disclosure.

Yeah. And just being like, I don't know, make your own call. Yeah, okay. Well, when one flies over my house, now I'm not going to be as scared. Yeah. Because I knew this was real. Yeah. Just wait.

I'm right there with you. Yeah. I'm right there with you. Listen, I'm waiting for Nephilim monsters to be walking down the road and being like, okay, it's part time. Hey, we know the Israelites could kill them. So. Right.

We're going to be blessing these bullets. Getting out the 50 cows. We're going to be sending those nephilums some freedom, I swear. Get me the freedom cigars out of my special box. This calls for a special occasion. I need my special words. Ben, get the special key, the daddy's special box. Oh, man.

I'm excited for it. I'm building an AR 10 right now. I love it. I'm still secretly designing a Nephilim Blaster 2000. Like I'm going to, when this hits, I'm going to plot this thing. Nobody's ever going to see it before. And they'll be like, what is that? You'll find out.

Or I'll find out it doesn't work. This is my Nephilim rifle. I only take it Nephilim hunting. Goes to Washington, D.C. Oh, my gosh. Oh, man. I love this. Probably shouldn't have said that on.

No, it's cool. It's cool. It's all good. I'll let you know. I'll give you the special wink if you're going too far. You haven't even touched the surface yet. I know. You guys have had some pretty... I'm just at the point

where I just don't care anymore. I'm just gonna... I just... There's certain things I'll skirt around in the sense of like in the name of just preserving YouTube as long as I can. I'm pretty convinced that one day, even what I do won't be acceptable for YouTube and they'll take me down. But I

tried to play by the game and stuff. But as far as what we're talking about, I just don't care. Like, I'm going to say what I want. I'm going to have my guests talk about what they want. As long as I enjoy the conversation, the world's going to hear it as long as the overlords let it happen. I'm just going to see, we're going to go with it that way. So weird how that's how it is, though. Right? Like you can just get on a podcast and say anything you want, and now the world has it. Yeah. And what's crazy is that like, you know, the regulation, right? And it's coming, but like the FDA has not cracked down on what we do, which is bizarre to me.

that we had and I do think it's a large portion of it is because we still have old guys running the FDA. Yeah. There's nobody young that understands the impact of, it's the same reason why TV shows aren't tapping into podcasts as much as they should be. They are, but they're not as much as they should be. And speakers at these, like in my world and stuff, the conferences and stuff. Yeah. They're not tapping into the podcast audience the way they should be. If they were smart, they'd be doing conferences where it's heavy on.

speakers that are podcasters because, you know, they can speak, they know the topics, and they have huge followings that are much more closely knit to that person than a TV audiences. Any TV audiences like, oh, it's a guy from TV. Let me go get his book and have him sign it. With podcasts, it's like, ah, I listen to this guy every week. I got to be there, you know? But it's the same, it's the same thing. I think we're probably about five, ten, maybe 15 years away from that transition happening with the FDA. I think we're going to start seeing that crackdown. It's going to be like, oh, dang it. I can't say that. But even that is so weird because Americans just have the freedom of speech.

Did I say FTA? I'm at FCC. Either way. Yeah, the freedom of speech thing is... Like we just have that as a basically a right. Everybody can just say what they want to say. But I feel like that's really only because they already know what we want to say. And until they like start like really not liking what we're saying, they already know we've said it.

And so now they can just hold it against us. Yeah. You know. Yeah. It's like, keep going. You know. And by the way, they will take you down if they don't like what you say. Of course. They did that to me. So, I mean, like, after I talked about something I wasn't supposed to talk about, I lost the ability to make money online. Really? So, like, I still can't make money off of my podcast right now. What, it's demonetized? Yeah. Really?

Completely. And I can't get permission to get it back until, like, six months from now. So, like, they do give you a bit of spanking. No, I don't know. To wrap the Lexer off. I don't tell you about it, but yeah. And then YouTube actually brought me to like YouTube. Court? YouTube court.

YouTube HR. Yeah. YouTube was the judge, executioner, and jury, all that. Like, they basically gave me this document to sign that said that I would never do this kind of stuff again. Really? And they gave me this test. And the test was basically taking lines from my video that they took down and then asking me, like, verbatim. So this was very specific towards you.

Yeah, 100%. It was, yeah, it was catered to me based on what I said and they had clearly listened to or like transcribed what I said and put it into this test. So like there was one instance where I talked about HC and they were like, when somebody says HC did blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Do you think that's really an appropriate thing to say or is that inciting violence? You went to a re-education camp. I did go. Wow. No, I was sciopt. And, uh, I answered them because I care about my, I, you know, I'm, I'm a strong proponent of live to die another day. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I mean?

Pick your battles. Pick your battles. Not every single one is worth winning. Yeah. Because you can lose. Here's the thing, right? So here, let me, you don't have to explain this. I'll do it for you.

Yeah. You have 3,000 subscribers. Mm-hmm. Do your 3,000 subscribers want to hear from you again? 100%. So you have to have that in mind. Yeah. There's 3,000 people that follow you on YouTube.

Yeah. And they would prefer to hear from you again. if you can use wisdom in the moment so they can hear from you tomorrow, do that. It just makes sense. Yep. Yep. Wow.

You went to a re-education camp, dude. And then I had to sign and, you know. Wow. I know. He's a changed man. I am. Are you a changed man? I'm educated.

I thought you were a little different when he came in. We're in sunglasses now. Oh, man. Shoot, dude. That's wild stuff. I know. Might I take this moment to recommend to everybody listening right now? The Confessionals has a Rumble channel.

you might want to go ahead and subscribe to that just in case I disappear off YouTube so there you go. I do too actually. That's the only place that I could keep my band video up is rumble. So if you guys, John.bantvideo.com. Yeah, if you guys want to hear it, it's pretty crazy. Wild stuff. Okay. So let's get into Iceland. Now you're going next week. Yep. And AJ's going to be going next week too. He just doesn't know it yet. Right. So are you going back for the elves or is it just an opportunity that you're taking?

You're like elves are a side business here. No, I'm going for the elves. Yeah. Our experience was insane. I don't care what anybody says. It was probably one of the most horrifying moments of my life. Not only that, but it was also a turning point for me where I started to realize, I always sort of believed in stuff, right? but it was a point where I believed that this, they can be so real at times where you can't even

imagine an alternative where they aren't. And it was that turning point for me, and I think for AJ as well. And so when I made the decision to travel back to Iceland, I made it with the intent to film. And so I'm bringing all my gear. I'm going to one-man army it. Wow. What you're doing to him, man. I know. Yeah, I've been gradually building my rig so that I have something worth actually shooting on in the wild. And I'm going to go out there and I'm going to lay in the fields for hours and just wait until I see something. And I've got these locations mapped out that I'm going to go to.

But, and they're all over Iceland. So there's some in the north, south, some next to Reykavik and in the volcanic fields and the elf towers. and in Iceland, they believe in this stuff. They plot their building projects based on where elves and trolls. You'll see some trolls in my video for sure because I know some verified locations of petrified trolls, so I will also be showing those. And we actually climbed a petrified troll.

Yeah. You climbed, how big is huge? It's a pretty large rock structure on the side of the ocean. Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, like, it was, I don't know, 40 feet tall. Yeah, it was huge. It was massive.

And it's on the ocean, too. So, like, on the one side, here's the thing about trolls. They're Nephilim. They are Nephilim. But they get petrified in the sunlight, right? That's one of the traits that is generally persisted since the medieval ages and beyond, that trolls have this aversion of sunlight and they become petrified in it. and the tale is, according to Icelandic lore, that these elves were, there's two stories.

One, either they were committing suicide. And they just realized this was the end, that Christians had arrived in Iceland. The last of the trolls were retreating into the earth. The hidden were becoming hidden. And Christianity was purging the land of Asatru and the Norse beliefs. And so they committed suicide on the ocean. they just waited, they watched the sunrise, and they petrified. And the other story is that they were actually fleeing and trying to get into the earth and they didn't make it in time because they were

out at the bottom of the ocean. Well, and Iceland is a series of volcanoes that just sticks up out of the ocean. And so there's all of those fault lines and all of those plate lines underneath the country that go hundreds of miles down into the earth. So could be coming from underground. So we saw this and we had to climb it. We sat on its head and we looked at the ocean. Sat on a troll. It's crazy. That's crazy.

That's wild. Another day at the office. So you sat on a troll. There was a, there's a Netflix movie that came out. I don't remember how long ago. I believe it was one. I've mentioned this on the show before. A lot of times, I don't know why,

but when I do decide I'm going to sit there and watch something on Netflix, I, if I see something that I'm like, oh, that looks interesting, and then I realize it's, it's dubbed, I'm even more interested in it. Oh, you're talking about troll hunters. Is that what it's called? Yeah. It was dubbed, though, right? Yeah.

Because it's Norwegian. Yeah, and it was like these giant troll that they woke up and everything, and that's what made me think of it. Like, on some down and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. Check that movie out. That's great for all of you guys who are listening.

I started watching those overdubbed movies and stuff when, when Lindsay had just had my son, he wasn't sleeping well, so I was sleeping on the couch for months because I had to get up to drive truck. And I didn't want to wake him and her up when the alarm was going off. So I'd stay up late watching Netflix.

And it developed two habits. One was watching movies and docu-series and series, episodic series, that were dubbed for whatever reason. Like the one with Thor was another one. It was like, I forget what it was. I forget what it was called. But like, it was the story of Thor, but it's overdub, right?

Yeah. And I don't do the ones where you have to read the captions, because I don't read that fast. But then the other thing I developed was sitting there and watching just the trailer play on Netflix and never actually watching anything. Yeah. For like an hour, just sit there and watch the trailers. It's like window shopping. I'm terrible with it. Like, I resemble a guy who spent like 10 years in prison and didn't have to, you put him out on the street in front of a vending machine.

And it's like, okay, make a decision. I can't. I can't. Well, I mean, that's all part of the plot. The plot that is to oversaturate you with brain rock content. Success. Mission successful. So I'll tell you, but anyways, trolls.

Yeah, so we did that. So those will pop up in my footage for sure. And if you guys want to see some trolls, I'm definitely going to be capturing that. But there was this point where we were reaching the end of our first trip. And we really talked about. this on your podcast last time? I think it was an overtime. Okay. Well, we're going to tell it. So all of you guys who pay for overtime, I guess he got ripped off. No, no, no. But AJ's here for his perspective too. Yeah, exactly. So I really want to get into this,

but it's, it's one of my favorite stories to tell. All right, let's take a second to talk about our sponsor today. Spark something uncommon this holiday with just the right gift from uncommon goods. I've been talking about uncommon goods for quite some time now. I think last two, three years during the holiday season, I talk about uncommon goods, because Because if you're like me, you're looking around for gifts for people, but you just can't find anything that doesn't break the bank, and that's a little unique. I mean, we don't need to have everybody giving the same gift at the holiday. And that's where Uncommon Goods comes in with their high quality, unique, and often handmade

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I think everybody should believe in elves, but I think they shouldn't believe in them as if they're elves. So, elves, according to many folk traditions, are actually more like angelic beings. And some people actually believe they are angels. And they came to Earth, just like we know the angels have done and did. And some were unintentionally placed here. And another thing to realize is that we don't actually know how many angels they are. And we don't actually know what types of angels there are. What types of spiritual beings are out there?

Because just like you and me and AJ and Jack, we're the main characters right now. But there's still a bunch of stuff happening on all around us, animals, cats, cats, dogs, birds, running around. Those are all different beings, too. We don't see them as cryptids because they're everywhere in our lives. But those are just regular beings. And in the spirit world, I believe it's the same way. I believe there is a whole realm, a new animal kingdom, if you want to call it that.

And elves could be some of those beings, hidden folks, trolls. They might not, they might be completely just neutral beings that just exist. And no, they're not on the side of God or the side of Satan. They're just creatures, you know? just like the whole skywheel phenomenon, these spirit beings that are in the sky or these biological beings that we can't see. I think it's stuff like that, you know. And so when I talk about elves or trolls or hidden people, I'm not talking about Lord of the Rings. I'm talking about things that people have been talking about since the dawn of time. And somehow that oral history, because a lot of

that was oral, has persisted for a reason. And now we see it as entertainment. But in a lot of places around the world, it's not just entertainment. That's a Western idea that this stuff doesn't exist. But if you go to these other countries and you tell an Icelander, elves aren't real, they're going to be like, they're going to think you're stupid. That's how strongly they believe in it. And at a minimum, you don't respect our culture. And so we're, our experience there was very open-minded. And when we went there, we had a deep understanding of Norse-Col. culture, we understood all that kind of stuff. And at the same time, we were very level-headed because we hadn't really had many shared

crypted experiences prior to that, right? If any. Not a lot. I think we had some strange moments in Milwaukee before we went to Iceland. Like the portal thing? Yeah. And we had a lot of weird experiences like growing up, but that the Iceland trip did end up kind of being a catalyst for what I think is real.

Because that's when I, like, actually felt, like, a change from what I knew. And that's when it, like, started to kind of hit me, like, I don't think the full story is the full story. I think there's a lot of stuff out there that we don't actually know. Yeah. And, like, he and I are pretty adventurous people and pretty capable individuals. And so, like, I'm not scared of a lot of things. spiders make me uncomfortable.

I don't like the idea of my family dying. That scares me. But there is a general comfort that I have with the uncomfortable. And in Iceland, at the end of our trip, we were there for like eight days. We both found ourselves in a place where it was just like, we are in uncharted territory. This is something that is above us. Yeah. And I'm really glad that he's here because,

Another thing about AJ, when you compare him to me, AJ doesn't just believe everything he sees or hears. So I'm definitely a skeptic. Yeah. So if I go out and I say, dude, I saw Bigfoot in the woods, he's going to probably not believe me. Where? Right. Like, let's get to the bottom of it. And then we'll decide if it's Bigfoot.

And one of the moments or one of the reasons that I give such stock to this encounter with these elves or these hidden people, as I like, like to call them. I don't even like to call them elves anymore because after all the research I've been doing, I think they're actually a race of hidden people who can shift in between dimensions. And that exists in Iceland as well. And they're actually seen as part of the population in some instances where they must be, their land must be respected. We must build them this little house here or allow them to cultivate this land and we can't trespass on that, right? And so when we experienced this and I saw him change, that's when I knew it was real. Like, this isn't just me hallucinating or whatever.

And the way it came about was very strange too. So in Iceland, obviously five-ish years ago, I think, when we went, right? Yeah, probably about five. It was a hot topic. The show Vikings had just come out and was really rampaging across the land. everybody was really into Ragnar and Lagatha and all of... Iceland was doing special flights and you could get there pretty cheap and so... The show was filmed there.

So it was a tourist hotspot. And when we went to this park, it was filled with people, right? Yeah, there's this national park there where basically the history of Christianity in Iceland started. And it was this small village. and there's a river that runs through the village, and there's these massive volcanic rock columns on both sides of the river, and it was a place to go.

There's a lot of history there. There's a lot of tourism there. And the pool, there's a river that flows right alongside this cliff, and this cliff is up here, and the river's flowing beneath it. If you jump off the cliff, you're going to land in the water, like that kind of thing, and the cliff is pretty tall. You know, it's, it's not insanely tall, but it's pretty tall.

And there's all sorts of rock structures jutting out of the top of it, which I've come to realize are called Elf Towers in Iceland. And, you know, we're taking in the, it's the middle of the day, we're taking in the environment. It's beautiful. Wow, but there's so many people out here taking pictures and stuff. So we've got to come back when it's nighttime. And we're walking around. We know we're going to camp here, so we're kind of plotting stuff out. And we get to these pools in the river.

where the river kind of widens a little bit and the water gets insanely deep. You can't see the bottom. And we realized that we've arrived at what the Icelanders call the killing pools, which is where they would drag the witches and those who weren't willing to convert to Christianity to their depths into the, they would basically chain them on one side, drag them across until they were dead. And they would also throw them off the cliffs here. They would behead them and hang them here.

they would do all sorts of terrible things to the people who didn't want to convert to Christianity. And so now these pools are charged with blood, in my opinion. Well, like, you know how if you go to a place and people tell you there's a ghost there and you go and you stay in that space for a while and you just kind of like feel it, you can kind of, in a sense,

feel whether or not there is a ghost there. Like sometimes a place just has a feeling. Sometimes it doesn't. And this place in the day, doesn't really seem to have that feeling, but you also know, like, this is a very historic place where literal clashes of angels and demons has happened. And so, like, it is a place where there's, yeah, the, the soil is bloody. And you can get that feeling, but because of all the tourism and all of that, it just didn't really, like, hit us the way we were maybe expecting

it too, which is why we were like, I wonder what it's like when it's quiet. We saw a state park at the time at night that was anything but just a state park. And so as we're looking at these pools, we notice that they are filled with gold and silver and jewelry, like coin. Every kind of money you can imagine from all over the world. Yep. All over the world. It had to be thousands of dollars worth of coins. And all you would have to do is take two steps. down there and you could have all that money. But people weren't doing that. And so instead, despite the signs that said don't throw coins into the killing pools, people were doing it. Thousands of people were doing it. And so this resonates with me, similar to the structure by the

mound resonates with me. And it's for the same reason. People feel an urge to do something here. There's something about this place that convinces many people to act in a certain way. In this case, throw their worldly treasures into the killing pools. The thing is, in Icelandic and Norse stories, most of their cryptids are incredibly drawn to treasure. You've got the dragons, you've got the trolls, you've got the elves, you've got the hidden people, you've got the dwarves, the goblins. These are all very prominent Norse ideas. And I mean, the Celts had them too, but like... So much so that a lot of their history and a lot of their like remarkable figures are somewhat remarkable for throwing away their wealth.

Really? There's a very famous story that underneath Deddy Foss, which is in Iceland, but it's actually considered the largest waterfall in Europe. There is a lost treasure of a guy, a dwarf who hid his treasure beneath this waterfall. And it is believed you can go there and they have signs about it saying like, Many have died attempting to retrieve this treasure that's in the bottom that was allegedly put here by a troll or a dwarf. And so when I see all this gold here and I know these Norse tales, and I don't believe in Norse mythology for the record. I don't think it's real. I just think all of those things from Norse mythology are spiritual beings that do exist. But I'm not, I don't believe in Asatru or pray to Odin or any of that kind of stuff.

But what I feel when I see all that treasure and I know all that stuff, there could be a curse on this land. There could be something here that is actually these beings are convincing you, your powerless self, you don't even know what's happening, to give them treasure. And that's their treasure. So anyway, that's a little side-sides detail. But we go, we set up camp. It's probably like maybe five, six o'clock when we get setting up our camp. The sun is still going down. So the whole scene turns to that pink purple sky as the sun dips underneath the ocean.

The calm for the chaos. You're out here and like the tourism kind of starts bleeding out. And then it gets really quiet. And then the clouds roll in. And we've got our camp set up. And we, I think we had a little bit of dinner. But we kind of both knew like we're not done exploring. We're still on some sort of quest out here.

And so everything's all set up and it gets really dark, really dark. And the moon's not out. The clouds are over the whole sky. And it's just like, you know, we were probably like three, four miles away from where it was. Yeah. But for some reason, it still feels close. And so we're like, let's just go for a walk. Let's go for a walk and see what that place is like when there's not a thousand people there.

and when it's back to its more natural state. Not a star or moon in the sky. It was a pitch black night. Yeah. And you tell this part of the story way better than I ever could, but tell us, especially from your perspective, because you weren't here last time, how it was to make that walk.

Because I remember it being very stressful. Yeah, we were just kind of on edge for some reason. Again, like not typical of us when we're exploring in a different country and we're just trying to like get the feelings of the place that we're in. So we were already kind of on edge, which was strange, but, you know, maybe we felt like we were trespassing in some way because we know it is a historical marker and we know it's an important land. And so like we want to respect that, but we also want to feel the way that this place is. And so we started our trip towards the pools of water next to the cliff and where the river

runs and we just kind of started walking and we were walking on like this gravel path that went up towards the pools and before we get there we run into some of the only trees that we found in Iceland we drove all the way around the whole island and this was like the only area where we actually found large solid trees and so this grove had been there for a while and it was basically a black curtain. Like you see all of these tall trees, but you can't see past literally the first line of trees. And so... This is important. Why? Because the Vikings cut down all the trees in Iceland. So when you see trees, they are very intentionally preserved. Yeah, they're important. And so we get to this wall of trees and we're trying to figure out like, it feels like finding Nemo.

We're like, do we go right through it or do we go around? And so... So, like, part of us was kind of like, well, if we go through it, we know we're invisible, which is, you know. And we just keep swimming. Yeah, and then you just keep swimming. Or we go around it. And so we kind of started to go into it, but it became very clear that this is pretty much impassable. The root systems of these trees are all on top of these weird rocks. And it's this whole spider web octopus nest of weird roots and stuff to trip on.

And it's pitch black. Sounds like somebody's breaking an ankle. Yeah. And you've also got all these. sticks and twigs poking out and everything. And so you can't see anything. So you don't know if you're going to get poked in the eye or if you're going to break an ankle.

So we're just like, all right, we're going to go around the trees. And we're scared. And we're still just like, yeah, nervous. Yeah, nervousness is the better answer. And as we kind of start walking around the trees, we've got this wall of absolute dark on our right side. And that's when it just starts feeling like you're not alone. And it feels like there's something that knows you're there.

And we know at this point we're the only ones in the park. The park's closed. All the tourism is gone. And so unless there's some other weirdos out here walking around in the dark. It's late in the season, though. We had already camped through an Icelandic hurricane on that trip, which is also nuts. Yeah, a polar hurricane. Destroyed our camp.

But we, so no, but tourists at night, they're usually staying in hostels or hotels. They're not camping. And we're roughing it because that's what we do. And so we're out here camping, camping. Everybody's gone. There's nobody else in the park. We know we're alone, but it feels like we're being launched. And so we keep going around the trees and we get to the opposite side.

And that's when the trail kind of picks up up this hill where the original gravel was. But we kind of went around the trees, then went back up and met up with the original trail. And so we're going up this hill. and as we're walking up this gravel path, now your brain starts playing tricks on you or you actually are hearing something because now it sounds like there's something behind us. And so there's two people walking.

Why does it sound like there's three people walking? And we'd stop and you just sit and you look behind you and you can't see anything because it's so dark. And we played the game too. Like let's walk three steps and then stop. Yeah. Let's do two. Stop.

Yeah. Okay, five steps. It was enough of that feeling to make us change the way we're just going for our walk. And so, like, it's already, like, kind of building in us where it's like, okay, it felt like we were being watched. Now I'm actually hearing something behind me in my head, potentially, but sounds pretty real to me. And then we get up to the main trail, and that's when the water starts.

And you can just hear the water off in the distance. And so we know that we're getting close-ish, and that water kind of drowns out whatever sounds we were hearing behind us. And so we almost feel like this false sense of security because we know like, well, the water runs this way and that way. So we're not lost. We know where we are, even though it's blackout. And we just kind of start heading towards the sound of the water. And as we're approaching the water, that's when the cliffs starts. So you kind of like find your way into this large ravine essentially. And you're walking down the trail. And like there is just the most, you feel almost as if somebody's holding the back of your shirt as you're

walking forward. And so it's like, they're not stopping you, but they're just holding on the back of your shirt as you're walking. It's like, it's harder and harder to move forward in this direction. It felt like we were literally pushing through dense atmosphere. Yeah. Like, it was just, and this is something that I don't, I don't know, it could, you could credit it with, you could credit fear with that. You could just say, well, you guys were just scared. You didn't want to keep going. But it actually just felt harder and harder to keep going. And on top of that, yeah, we were scared because we were fairly convinced that something was behind us. We didn't know where it was or what it was or what. Initially, we were like, there must be a security guard out here or something. But why would a security guard sneak up on you? They would be like with a flashlight, hey, what are you guys doing here? Not sneaking up. on you. And eventually, we reached the bridge, right? Is that where we kind of like... The bridge is like what stopped us in our tracks. And so the pools are maybe 15, 20 feet ahead of us. And the river kind of splits off and runs down the ravine. And it also continues forward.

And there's this little bridge that goes over the split. And so over the split, another 20, 30 feet, the pools are right there off the side of the cliffs. And so we get onto the bridge. And so we get onto the bridge and the water is kind of loud and without even communicating about it we both just stop on the bridge and we're both you know side by side and we're just like looking forward and then like as you stand there you start to feel vulnerable and so we're like looking around trying to figure out why is my sixth sense flaring up right now and as we just kind of look up at these large dark next to us, it's not sitting still. The cliffs are moving. And so in that feeling of trying to rationalize what you're seeing, we're just like kind of frozen because now I know I'm not alone.

And whatever it is definitely knows I'm here. And so almost appears to be like preparing an ambush. Like that's the way it felt for me. It felt like if you were to just stumble upon a gorilla in the jungle where it's like, I'm not moving. I'm not running. Yeah. Yeah. That's actually great. I'm stuck here until this situation changes.

And so, except it wouldn't be one gorilla. It'd be more like a troop of like 20, 40 baboons or something. But it was the whole tops of the cliffs just started moving. And I'm seeing real like. humanoid shapes. It's not just rocks and the clouds in the sky. It's something that is bouncing from like elf tower to elf tower rock outcropping to rock outcropping. Is this like moonlight that you're seeing it with or what? We're just seeing it in the dark. So it's like your eyes are well adjusted. Yeah. The night vision going with your eyes. We've been out for a while. People hate this about us,

but we never go anywhere with flashlights. They hate that we don't. No, it's wise. I mean, yeah, it makes sense. I mean, the sky is just one. tint blue. You know, like, it's just got that absolute space color to it, whereas the cliffs are like the starkest black you can see. And so up on the cliffs, you just see tiny little silhouettes, little differences in color. And it would assume, like, it would appear as if there were several people up on the top of the cliff that were not wanting to be seen.

You know, all those Western movies where you'll see, like, Native Americans popping up. Yeah. Like, that's what it felt like. Mm-hmm. And so we're standing on that bridge just, like, basically frozen. And we just kind of, again, without really communicating, we just kind of turn around, start walking the other direction. Yeah. So, and when we saw these things, like, this is one of the things that, to me, makes this encounter just,

so bizarre in my life. Other people may have experienced stuff like this, but I hadn't up until this point, and I haven't since, is how many there were. So, like, when there's, like, one thing and you just sort of see it out of the corner of your eye, and you're like, ah, I just had a dog man encounter

or something like that. It's kind of like, you're always going to maybe have that hint in the back of your head that, was it a dog man? Was it something else? You know, my mind playing trace on me. But in this situation, we stood there and watched,

for probably a couple minutes trying to verify that this was actually real, that we were actually both seeing the same thing. And we were kind of like communicating without communicating in a way. Like we were very close. We could feel each other trembling and that kind of stuff. And we were just looking and seeing them bob their heads out from behind rocks or sometimes jump to a whole other rock entirely.

We were seeing full bodies, figures in the dark. And when we did eventually turn, and we were so scared, you know, we were horrified at this. I was, I don't know. And we turned, we walked, we started slowly walking out of this little area. But once we got to the old grove, we ran for the next two or three miles, whatever it was. And we did not stop. We didn't look behind us. We didn't do anything.

We got to our camp. Didn't say a word about it. It went to bed. So that was our elf experience, our hidden people experience. And how are you going to get it on camera now? I don't know. I mean, I might not, right? Well, you know, I feel like what you guys described, just for the audience sake

or for your sake, I feel like I've heard that story before because last time you were hearing. So your stories are lining up. But hearing the story again, it makes me feel like it was more like you stumbled into their routine more than they. woke up because of you. And so, like, I feel like if you have

just the solid game plan going in, you might have a good chance to get something on film. I sure hope so, man. Dude, I think you're right about that. I do too. We stumbled into whatever it is that,

yeah, because that feels more like, like, I didn't feel like we were necessarily being stalked other than like the sounds behind us. Could have been a sent, some kind, you know, just like a look. out something that's just on duty. When we got there, it very much did feel like, again, we were somewhere where we are not supposed to be. It felt like, yeah, we were just in the, in their space.

And that's when I think we just both kind of stopped on the bridge is when we knew like we just somehow crossed a border. Like the way you, which one was it? Which one were you, one of you guys was talking about how it felt like you were pushing through. Maybe both, you were both, you were both talking about it, but that makes me, it reminds me of episode 512. I had a guy on James who had this wild story. I called it the Desert Portal Death Cold. Everybody knows. Oh yeah. It's a wild one. Wild one, right? But when he's running out of that area, he says that he was literally, it felt like he was physically pushing through an invisible force trying to get out of that, that whole area. And we've already established on that show how he had, I hate saying this because it,

Without the context, it sounds goofy, but he had gone into a porta potty. And when he came back out, there was significantly more people there. It was like there was a switch that happened. And so we've already established in the conversation that he had already relocated somewhere upside down-ish, where it was here, but it wasn't here. I call it affectionately the portal bridge. And so he's trying to run off that proverbial portal bridge. And the way you guys described it made me feel like it was the opposite.

you were pushing through into the bridge where the realm of these things operate and were. Yeah. Now when you guys left, did you feel that sense? When we left, it felt like a rubber band, like snapping.

Like it felt like a slingshot, right? Like where you were just like, okay, and then we're outing. Yeah. Right. And like then the adrenaline of running and getting away from the area, you wake up a little bit.

All of a sudden, like, all of your instincts are heightened. you're waiting for something to happen now. Because we were just there. They saw us. Now we're gone. They're going to come find us. There is still kind of like that anxiety,

but not nearly as much as being in their space. And we were, again, probably three, four miles from where that was. And so it wasn't like terribly far. You could still see the cliffs. So pretty strange. But there definitely was like a pressure that was good. gone once we left that area. Yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, when I go back there, I'm obviously going to go back to that spot. I have this thing about me. I periodically still go to that place where we had the portal experience just to see what's. The building? Yeah. You go in the building? No, I don't go in it.

Oh, but I'll never go in. I'll never go in it again. And actually, a bunch of my followers have sent me pictures of Milwaukee. And they have said, is this the building? Is this the building? Is this the building? And whether the building was or was not the building that was sent to me, I always say no. That's not it. I got you. Yeah. I got you. And, uh, because you don't want to wish that on anybody. Well, not just that, but not everybody who goes to the same place is going to have the same experience. That's true. So you, not you, but somebody else might walk up in there and just be like, John's a total hack because I didn't experience any portal. And I just don't need that kind of negativity. It's not. anymore, bro. Yeah, it might not be there, dude. I'm telling you, first of all, portal, like, like, I've said this a few times on the show, and I'll take this opportunity to say it again. As far as I'm concerned, portals, the portal itself is not special outside of, you've found a

doorway. Good job. You know what I mean? But those doorways, they move. Yeah. They're not, they're not fixed. And I've really, really come to understand that through some people's stories. that the doorway is not a fixed, it's not fixed to a geographical location. And they do move. And it's like, you have to find the proper pattern for the doorway to even show itself. There's, there's certain things that have to happen that certain knobs need to turn the right way. Yeah. And, like a Chinese puzzle box. Yeah. Yeah. It's like you, you, you have to actually have like a few different steps in order to make it through that door. It's not just turning the handle. And like when you said we were almost like pushing through it, like, I feel like there's a lot of people that would pause and not push through it.

And they'd turn around before they even get through that veil because, I mean, it was terrifying. But it's like getting through that veil is you're not in the same place anymore. And once you're in there, it's not your space. It's not your world. It's a different. I think it's something in the blue. I think that there is some kind of, this is one of those crazy things that I'm too afraid to say on my own podcast. Just sit here.

This is the zone for crazy. I think that I think there's a lot of human-like beings like you and me who look like us, talk like us, but they're not us. And they are something else. and there is some sort of generational, I guess, transmission of something. Nephilim blood, perhaps. I don't know. But I think there is something that some people can see stuff. Some people can't.

And it depends on whether you have this blood or not. And I think if you're closer to a more, oh man, this is, this gets really dicey, okay? And I know what, right. This isn't like what happened in World War II, guys. That's not what I'm saying. But I do think that there is a group of people who are more sensitive than others because of something that happened thousands of years ago. That's what I'm trying to say. It's not that everybody's not created equal and all that kind of stuff.

But it is that some of you aren't real humans. And I'll say that straight to the camera. Some of you guys aren't real. Like, you're just not. And you know it. Yeah. You know it. You know it.

You know it. I know it. Everybody knows it. Just admit it. But yeah. So that's, I mean, that goes into my. MPC theory a little bit. It's all that kind of stuff.

Well, anybody who's interested in the portal story, you know, episode, I just looked it up. Dang and I forgot again. That's what I was looking it up. 582. Was it? 582? Yes. Episode 582 is the overtime.

You go into the portal. Basically, long story, detail short. You guys find yourself at one point. You guys go urban exploring into a building. and at one point you look, one of you look out a window and you're looking at the building you went into

and you never left the building. Right. And at that point, I'll leave it there. So, I mean, we lost about, we lost time. We did have a stalker. There was somebody actively following us, which makes me think that

what we experienced might have been some kind of project and not necessarily a... Because the electronics that were involved. Yeah. Yep. The deep-trap doors. Crazy stuff.

Yeah. So I'm not going to come out and tell everybody in the world that I think I experienced some insane spiritual thing. You might have experienced a manufactured thing. Right. Yeah. Which is crazy. Almost more terrifying. Yeah, it's crazy.

That means there are people in that area who are experimenting with that stuff. And I found out that building is privately owned. It is not owned by any government or city complex or anything like that. It is privately owned by the CCP. By one alleged individual. who wants to turn it into apartment buildings or something like that, but it's been sitting there with no progress for over a decade. So you tell me if this is ever going to become apartments.

I don't know. Could just be this guy's little joyland, right? I would love to just play in that building one day just to see if anything happens to me. Anyways, let's move into a cultish conversation. I was aware I'm getting kind of sweaty all of a sudden they're straightening and they're clammy

I was made aware about this situation when you and I first met and you I think I even said something about like well you want to talk about on the show? You know? And you're like, eh, I'm not ready for that yet. Yeah.

And we were talking and you decided hey, I want to talk about it. And so I want to just kind of start this off with just letting the audience know that there are certain things that will be omitted for protection. And you can elaborate as far as you want on that. And if I ask a question that is hairy, just say so. Because with me, I just sometimes will just say things. And so if you're like, can't talk about it, just say it. Just tell me you can't talk about it. I know you know that, but AJ, I'm just meaning you just, just, just

be honest. I can't talk about it. It's very okay. So at this point, I want to hand over to you guys. I hear you were raised in a cult. Yeah. All right. So, yeah, like you just said,

we're not going to be using any real names. We're not going to be using any real names of places or people. This stuff is still ongoing. So this cult is still out there. And it has taken on a couple different forms. There were

several offshoots of the cult that we grew up and that now still currently exist. They split off when it dissolved on where we lived and they became their own things. But these people are dangerous and they do have a very long history of criminal activity as well as mass manipulation. So these are things that we're not, I don't want to get too deep into that kind of stuff. So if you guys don't recognize the name of a place or something like that, it's because I can't tell you. So we were young, we were kids, obviously, and we were growing up in the Midwest, in the middle of nowhere. Okay. And when I say the middle of nowhere, I mean, imagine you're dropped in the smoky mountains somewhere.

And you're just like, okay, there you go. There's a town maybe two hours away. Good luck. you know, just a small town, maybe 300 people or less, just really small place. And this move in of itself was bizarre because our dad was a millionaire. And he threw everything away in just an instant. It was a sudden shift that he had. And so our lives of living in Victorian mansions and the private school and the, you know, the church that's one block.

a way that we attend, all that kind of stuff, gone in an instant, packed up the U-Haul, and shipped it out to the middle of nowhere in the Midwest. And he bought this land of somewhere around 100 acres of land. Yeah, completely unfarmable, unusable land. So a bunch of trees, a couple ponds, so much space that you could get lost on it. and two mile long driveway, you know, you're out there. And even the smallest town nearby is, yeah, like an hour and a half, two hours. So there's nobody out there other than your very direct neighbors who are still a couple miles away and definitely weird.

Yeah, like these are like hillbillies or whatever you want to call rednecks, I guess is what you'd call them where we were from. What do you call them here? I call them rednecks, but I'm not a native. Okay. So I don't know. So, yeah, so it was very much. It was very much. It was very, much that and we ended up moving into this trailer it was a trailer home and it was not a nice one it was like a dumpy one that you know like we went inside when we went and did that project out in the mountains and uh we lived in that while our house was being built and once that house was built almost immediately after that house was built because my dad was had a company that was building it from the ground up so it was a brand new house It was a big house. And you can tell that my dad was kind of putting the last of his stuff into this land. So he had all this, whatever money he had left, he spent on this land and this house. The craziest thing about that is immediately after the house was built, he gave it away to this other family that came in after we had finished building the house.

So this other family, we'll just call them the Smiths, okay? they move in and the Smith's the Smith father is a lawyer in the nearest town which is kind of weird because why are their lawyers all the way out here? Sorry, but why are their lawyers all the way out here? That's kind of weird. And he was the only lawyer.

And he had a son who was in school to become a lawyer and he had a daughter who was older, like in her 20s, and then three younger kids. And those three younger kids became my close friends. Because when he gave them this house, which is very weird, we just walked through the woods and bought a different house that was on the other side of our land. So my dad gave them 50 acres and this house and then we took 50 acres and some other house. Just a walk through the woods. It's a weird house.

The person had died in it, right? Yeah. She died in it, old lady. and my dad got it from next to nothing. And then we started, we had this small community now. And it's my dad and my family, our family in this house. And then we affectionately coined the term Doey's House. And we'll do that for this episode as well because that's sort of a coded name for it.

Yeah, it works. And then there was the Smith's House. Okay. And so now we had this community. we were sharing the same land. We were coming and going with each other as we please. And we're in the middle of this area that is just surrounded by wild lands. So even once our lands end, there's still wild lands everywhere.

And we basically go about this country life now where we are living off the land and we're being very, we're extremely removed from society. There's all of a sudden we can't wear certain colors. we can't eat certain foods, we can't say certain things, we can't watch any movies, we can't listen to any music, and we can't,

what are some of the other crazy stuff? I mean, we didn't have like a lot of friends, so we didn't have any friends hardly. We didn't, yeah, have any gaming devices, not a Game Boy or DS or no internet, no cell phones, of course not.

We couldn't wear symbols, any kinds of symbols, numbers, names, nothing on our clothes. And we became these very like, it felt like I was living in a cult, man. Like, that's what it felt like. And these people who took our old house, the Smiths,

they were the same way. And they were very of the earth. And you could tell, and it became obvious to me, that they were pagans. And they were pagan Christians, is what they were. And so these were the people who believed in the old gods, worshipped the old gods, did witchcraft, did believe that the land was a breathing entity and everything should be worshipped, did believe in sacrifices, all that kind of stuff. But Dad Smith, Father Smith,

he believed in Christ as well, in some kind of capacity. So trying to cover all bases. Yeah. It was a very strange family. And I became, of course, close friends with these kids. And so I was off galvanting in the woods with these people all the time and we were really close and and we shared a lot of experiences together and everything and uh and my dad i didn't know it at the time was slowly building this small community with the father smith so it's us and them and then out of nowhere as if a single day changed everything this guy shows up and Let's call him Harry. He shows up and just starts calling the shots.

And it's really kind of a strange thing because he moves into our house with us. He takes my bedroom. I move into the bedroom with AJ and our other brother. And this guy doesn't have a job. He has a criminal record. He's very elusive and very poor. And all I know about him is he writes books. and he is a Christian.

And my dad starts giving this guy everything. And he doesn't have to get a job. My dad will feed him. My dad will take care of him. This is very cult leader stuff. This is the guy who believes he doesn't have to conform to the rules of society. But everybody else should so that I can be supported. And at this point, I'm like five, six years old.

How old are you, John? How old are you now? You probably would have been like 12, 13. ish. Yeah. Yeah. And so like, I had almost no idea what was even going on, you know, like, again, you still have that, that blanket of innocence where you just go throughout the day. And as long as you eat once or twice and get to play outside, it was a good day. So, like, we didn't really even know what was going on, but now we just had like this new uncle. Yeah. It was just here. Does you guys have to call him an uncle? I don't think I ever did. But we were highly encouraged to

think of him as family. Yeah, some type of uncle type figure. Yeah. Um, but like the guy's kind of creepy looking, so I never liked hanging out with him. I never like being in the same space as him. And like, again, those are things that children are very susceptible to is they know a good dog from a bad dog. And like that was just the way I always kind of felt about him was like, I just don't know if this is a good dog. So I kept my space from for the most part. But, uh, he was friendly. He was charismatic. He would, you know, make pancakes in the morning and make everybody laugh. Love to those pumpkin pancakes.

Yeah. Disgusting. Horrible. But, yeah, he just kind of became part of the family. And a lot of what we learned during this time was not because our parents told us, but because we were sneaking about. Because when we were removed from society and brought into this middle of nowhere, my dad was my dad still had a job so he still had to drive like two hours to get to work and so he was

gone a lot and we didn't see much of him at all unless until unless he was home you know but usually when he was home we were sleeping so it wasn't really a lot of time with dad and mom who is a super mom was doing just super mom stuff and caring for Harry and doing all of that kind of stuff so that he has a comfortable place to live. He has food. He has his laundry done. He has all this kind of stuff. And then also trying to balance all her kids and make sure that they have everything they need.

Because we also have how many more siblings at this point? We would have had, we would have been with. Like three more siblings. Yeah. Yeah. It would have been four of us there. Yeah. Well, our youngest sister was actually born in that house.

Yeah, that's right. So, yeah, we had three other siblings too that were younger at this time as well. So my dad had, we had a big family. So like, there was, there's a lot going on in mom's world. And all this to say that we were let loose and we were frequently with zero supervision running around in the woods. Even him at his young age, my parents just kind of let us go. They didn't really believe that anything could befall us out here. And so we were building our immune system and just traipsing all around the countryside at all times. And, during one of these times, let me just go into the side story of Zach and David real quick, because I feel like it's a beneficial pillar to build off of. During this time, I had met these two people named Zach and David, and they were my age, they were kids who went to public school. And they, if I went to the end of the driveway and I rode my bike like five miles down the dirt road and took this pass and that pass, I would end up at this area where Zach lived and David lived.

And these two families, I didn't know when I first met them, but they were in a blood feud with each other. And they were actually killing each other's livestock. And at one point, while I was there, they were killing each other's dogs. And like, he witnessed it? Yeah. So we have Zach over here and we have David over here. And they're both my age. And they both like me.

And so I'm trying to have this relationship with both, but I can never hang out with one and the other at the same time. It's always one or the other. And if they find out, they all get fights and everything. And it's just this weird situation where there's violence between these two backwoods families and they're killing each other's animals. And there was one time where David's dog ran across the street. And on site, as soon as he crossed the property, Zach's dad just shot it dead right there in the yard.

Because this is the kind of people who sit on their front porch with their shotgun. Like they're just sitting on their front porch waiting for something to happen. there's 12 cans of PBR next to him. Like, that's the kind of world this is. And at one point, Zach's dad actually shot at David himself, too. And that's kind of when I was taken out of that friend group. I didn't ever tell my parents about that. If my family listens to this episode, they'll probably be like, why didn't you never tell us that story?

And that is just a story. But in the... How are you taken out then? They escorted you out or did you decide to leave? No, I just never went and hung out again. That was so scary. So it scared you enough. Yeah, because what ended up happening was he shot out him with the 22 and it actually

hit the back of his bike as we were riding away. It hit his bike seat. And I was riding my bike with them with David at the time. So I was just, yeah, that was on those back, those backwoods past Zach and David's house. And so I was just kind of like, yeah, I'm just not, I'm not going to do this. But that's not really the major point. What ended up happening is on one of these journeys.

with one of them. I can't remember which. We came to this round around, uh, this turn in the road. And there was a, it was overgrown, but there was clearly a driveway there. And if you just got off your bike and you kind of like looked through the leaves, you could see that there was a dilapidated house back there. And, but at the same time, no cars. And obviously nobody's coming or going from here with a vehicle. And, uh, there's a mailbox that's fallen over. Uh, nobody cares. The law doesn't matter around here. And, and, um, And Zach tells me, I think it was Zach, he tells me, you know, don't go back there, dude. That's where the witches are.

And I'm like, what do you mean the witches, dude? Like, I have no concept of media. Like, I don't know stories about witches. I don't know Cinderella. I don't know Snow White or the Wicked Witch. I don't know what any of that kind of stuff is. So I'm just kind of like, what do you mean witches? Like, I know what a witch is, but I don't know what that means.

and he tells me this story about how there's a coven back there of witches. And once in a while, if you watch long enough, they'll come out of the house and you know it's one of them because they're always smoking black cigarettes. And that's it as far as the witches go. Okay, like that is, that's the whole story of the witches. I never saw them. I never pursued them or anything like that. It was creepy and it was just a thing that I experienced.

But when Harry showed up, and this is why this is important, he starts talking about how there is a battle for this land. The land we're on. And he says there is a spiritual war going on on this land and it extends all the way to the town. And he actually believes that there were spiritual beings fighting war on this land. And he says, I had to become Satan to realize this. And we are told and educated on this yarn of how Harry in his, before he became the man that he is now, had to become the embodiment of Satan and live as Satan for a small amount of time and go to this land and walk around the land so that he can learn where all the evil is. And then he will revert back to his righteous self, which is what he eventually believed he was, and be able to effectively wage war on these demonic forces. And I didn't learn this until much later, but he was an apocalyptic cult leader. And he believed the whole essence of the cult, which is what I realized after doing research like a couple years ago, because I haven't been digging into this.

And at the time, obviously, I didn't know about that, that kind of stuff. I was a child. After I realized that, everything kind of made sense. because this apocalyptic vision of the end of the world is what this cult was all about. They believed that they were here to bring about the apocalypse so that the second coming of Christ could happen. That was the mission. And so when people tell me in my family, because I do get this frequently when I talk about it, you weren't raised in a cult, you were never in a cult because my family members will occasionally say that to me.

But if you look at this stuff, Dad, I'm sorry, we were in a cult. And he didn't realize it until a little bit later. But thankfully, it wasn't too late when he did. Yeah, and I mean, people kept coming. Like, it got bigger and bigger and bigger. And more strangers would just show up and stay and live in the house for a week. And more strangers would come.

And we'd have meetings out in the woods. And it's like looking back at it as like, again, a kid, it's so strange, but now, like, yeah, when you, when you do the research and you look at it, it's very, very culty. And there was, there was some weird stuff that was going on at the same time. So one of the, one of the weirdest, one of the weirdest parts of this whole thing was, was the actions that they would perform under the guise of Christianity. So, like, there were these rituals that were just very bizarre.

There were instances where they would spend great amounts of times in the, woods speaking in tongues and wandering around and at a couple times we actually like in the middle of the night we would wake up and find out that there was nobody in the house except us and it's the middle of the night we would sneak out to the woods and we would find various members of this cult and they would just be around a fire sort of chanting or talking about god sometimes sometimes talking about pagan ordeals like it was this this weird conglomeration of people who all had these sort of this like new age Christian apocalyptic idea

of the current times and what is to come as well and there was one specific ritual that I find incredibly bizarre to this day and I only found this out through research as well and it's this idea that

the firmament above the earth is a living being essentially and this ritual was called the sky tapping ritual. And essentially what would happen is they would take these poles. And they were about, I don't know how big they were, but they were taller than my dad. My dad's about six feet tall. So they would have these poles and they would take them out to the field and they would do like this motion with them. They would raise them up to the sky and then pound them down on the

ground. And they came to find out this was called sky tapping. And what it was was basically them acknowledging the firmament as a being. And by respecting the firmament, God would then understand that it's somehow time to return. Stuff like that is stuff that we experience regularly. And that's just furthers my idea that this was a cult. There was also the emphasis on dreams, which was a huge key focal point because they believed dreams were prophecies. So if you had a dream, especially as a child, that dream was valuable. And they would take you and they would make you tell the whole congregation your dream. And then the congregation would dissect your dream.

And they would basically try to find key points that they think are relevant to whatever they believe is going to happen at the end of the world or whatever's happening now. And that would become sort of like, I don't know what they did with the dreams. You're almost like special though if you told them the dreams. They really like it when you tell them what your dreams were and they all sit down and talk about it with you and everything. It's like a vision. They consider it like a vision. Yeah. I had this dream one time of a fleet of bombers that was flying over America and destroying America.

And it was just bombing everything and whatever. And yeah, me and my family and some other people who were in the cult were in it. and and I remember getting a vision of the tail fin of the airplanes and it had a symbol and for years they would look at this symbol as some kind of mark of what's to come like when we see this symbol we know it's it's close and like stuff like that and it's just like so bizarre to me that some of those dreams were as valid as they thought they were so I got a sense of delusion from them from that and my brother our other younger brother and AJ and I all started having these recurring dreams of witches

at this time and you're going to have to tell that story you told me on the way here with dad but yeah we started all getting these dreams about these witches that were attempting to steal us and or convince us to go into their cabins and stuff like that and he never saw the witch house. My brother Jonah never saw the witch house. But with the emphasis on these dreams, we started noticing our dreams more and more. And this recurring theme of the witches is something that we had. We didn't even really notice it at the time. It's something that we've noticed later, but he had some dreams about witches in that house. I had a very strong reoccurring dream that would wake me up every night about this witch. And our little brother also had a dream about

a witch for a long time. And I can't remember exactly when, but I remember talking to my dad about like faith in general. And we were talking about why I believe what I believe, why you believe what you believe. And we just were having a conversation about faith and religion. And at one point, he tells me about a story where he went on a mission trip to Africa. And the mission was to figure out why this village was falling apart. And the village was crumbling. The people were getting sick. They didn't have enough food to eat, no clean water. And so they were going to save these people literally and in their spirit. And that was the goal. And my dad talks about getting off the plane and driving out to the village and it's in the middle of basically the African countryside.

There's nothing out there and they get to the village and they don't even know where to start. And so they're just kind of like looking around at the people. They're trying to figure out where they're staying. And at one point he says, we were standing in front of like the main buildings of the village. And this woman steps out of the building. and dad tells me he heard a voice in his head that said she is your target. And come to find out later after their mission, she was a witch doctor and she was poisoning the people. And she basically was destroying her little village at the cost of her people.

And the mission trip wasn't really successful. They never got a chance to really help those people. But so like there's that like interesting people. from an era in which I don't even exist. And then like years, years and years, years later, I'm having this dream about this witch that is waking me up. And do you want to talk about your dream or do you want me up? Well, my dream is very similar too because it's a cabin. And the cabin I can see up on the hill.

It's through the forest and I can see it kind of elevated on a little hill. and there's a one light on in the cabin and I hear this voice saying, come in. And so I go. And it keeps telling me, come in, come in, come in. So I keep going. And I get closer and closer to the cabin and the voice starts to change. And it's like, you know, come in. Come in. Come in. Come in. And then it's yelling. Come in. And then I turn around and run away. And our other brother, his dreams are very the witch is tearing me to pieces bit by bit. And when you come, obviously, you know, we're just guys living our lives and trying to figure out what everything means. But when you bring that back to this emphasis on dreams and this cult, this coven of witches over here, this guy who's embodying Satan and walking through the woods and attempting to convince everybody that he's going to bring back Christ and all that kind of stuff. Oh, and also these three little boys who haven't talked about it, they're all having the same dream. Yeah. And then you start seeing these parallel dreams and stuff. I don't know. It just really makes you wonder, right?

Yeah. So that's the gist of the dream thing. There's a ton of other weird stuff, too, just with those woods and the pagans themselves. That they eventually got to the point where my dad was like, we need to kind of get out of this cult. Because these people... Is he calling it a cult at this point? No. He'll never call it a cult.

Yeah. Really? Yeah. Honestly, I don't think he wants to admit that it could be a cult. I mean, like, he was fooled. Yeah. He was tricked. He was tricked, and he fully acknowledges that he was tricked.

So it's a loss. And Harry, he eventually was kicked off the land after more and more people started coming and they started becoming really kind of, I don't want to say violent, but it was clear that they had violent intentions. Towards who? The world. Like what was to come? They were a combative sort of people.

They were all men, for instance. They were all men who had no wives and no daughters with them. They were just men. There were no other real women in the cult. Or kids. No other kids either. Except the Smith kids. Except the Smith.

It was just men. And I think my dad started to realize, this is kind of weird. And Harry started teaching these teachings where women are not the enemy, but very literal to biblical Old Testament type stuff, where it's like, the woman should not speak. The woman should not have an opinion. The woman should not get an education. This is the kind of stuff that he was preaching. And at this point, the woman is my mom. Yeah. And so this is happening. And my mom's kind of like, what the heck? Like, I'm a person. Why is he here? My mom never liked him. And so we're learning all this.

and then the men are coming, and my dad's kind of eating it all up because he believes he's got this community thing going on, and the Smiths there are living on half of his land and all that kind of stuff. So, like, at this point, to uproot all of this is going to be difficult, and the consequences are going to persist for many years to come, and they're persisting to this day. But that's precisely what my dad did. As these men were coming, some of them started to bring weapons. We had guys with AR-15s that would walk around on the land. We had guys who were trying to teach me at my age how to knife fight. Stuff like that was going on in this area at this time. And so my dad at one point, he was like, enough's enough. He started kicking some of these people

out, and especially the ones who were like convicts or prior cons or whatever, those guys began to leave. And Harry began to get really, really restless. And very controlling. And very controlling. Because now I think he realized that my dad was in control along, not him. And my dad was in control because all of this was taking place on my dad's land. So they would have had to take him out to really have any kind of control. And my dad's incredibly smart.

And he shouldn't be judged by this one thing. But he saw the writing on the walls, started the eradication. Harry was the last to leave. and when he inevitably did leave, he brought, he went to Africa. And that's where his second call is currently. And only women are allowed this time. Really? Yep.

This time, only women. They're only allowed to wear white. I can tell you off air what the cult is called. I'm not going to say it on air because it will lead directly to my family. If you ask Chat GPT about this guy, it talks about his experience on my dad's land. So, like, I can't... Wow. Can't really disclose it.

So he's there. He has many wives. I mean, that's where I thought at some point it was going to be going with your mom. Yeah. Because when you first started talking about it, there's a cold leader moving into your house and your mom taking care of him. Like, when does he request her to be handed over? Right. I'm glad I didn't get to that point.

Holy crap. No, and we basically moved overnight. Yeah, we pieced out of there. So did your dad sell the properties? He still own it? Sold it. And sold it. But it, I mean.

No market, though. Sold that no market. Yeah, he'll say over and over, like, I never made any money off of any of that land. And it was getting increasingly difficult with the Smiths as well because they began, when all of this started falling apart, they started bringing the law into it. And they were saying that my dad was manipulating us. And so what he was going to end up, what Mr. Smith was going to end up doing was using the law. And he was telling us children this. Hey, whenever you guys want to get out from under that oppressive family, we will take you.

And we have legal ways. We'll become your legal guardians. We can prove that he is not suited to be your father. All that kind of stuff they were saying. And so my dad told me, you cannot hang out. out with them anymore. And then there was this weird time where we would find our dogs, back to the dogs, dead just in our yards. And at one point we had a dog, because we had tons of dogs at this time, we had a dog that we had to let them take care of before the falling out. And it just died during the

three days that we let them take care of it. And when we came to get the dog, they had already buried it. So now we're starting to get these ideas. I'm starting to get these ideas. These people are probably sacrificing these dogs or these, or for some reason, I don't know what it is, but they're sacrificing the dogs or they're killing the dogs. And I'm hearing all of this and I'm, I'm obviously confused. Like, we're running around in the woods and in this back country, trying to figure out what's going on. And then before we know it, we moved out. And then the next chapter of life really started. Yeah, it was just a weird blink of time. I don't even think it was... It's almost like I blacked out that. I don't even think it was like two years. It was

pretty quick, but it all ended up happening and dissolving. And like, we just didn't know what every day looked like. We never knew where we were going and what we were doing. We never knew who was coming over. I remember sneaking outside one time. they were doing whatever they do in the woods. And again, like, I'm five or six years old. And I was so familiar with the woods at that point that I wasn't really, like, nervous, but you know you're doing something you're not supposed to. And so, like, you're worried you're going to get caught.

And I remember just, like, watching from the trees as they murmur and home and do weird things. Do their little thing. I never saw my dad there though. I never saw him with them. He was always, he was always unseen. I never saw him outside. I always saw all the other guys in Harry, but I never actually saw dad out with them.

Every time I remember dad with them, he was not, he was not participating in the same way. Yeah. Like, my dad is a very spiritual person. So I would often see him in the woods praying and stuff like that. And that's usually the role that I saw him in when I witnessed him in this group as well. And that's still the way he is.

I remember thinking it was weird when Harry would basically demand that he prayed instead of dad. Yeah. Because dad was always the spiritual figurehead. And so like he would pray and he would teach us and all of that. And I always remember being like, I don't care what this guy says. I don't care what whoever this guy says is true because it's just not my dad. words and so it says a lot for five people to say that too well i was i was pretty involved with just what i believed because again we we were like kind of we picked up and left and we left our old

community and our church and everything and so like i knew already that like we're changing we're doing something different and it's because there's a mission here there's a new there's a new chapter that's unfolded here and so like i knew right away that whoever this guy was was not really like, he certainly wasn't my father figure. And whatever his words were, were either right because they sounded like my dad's words or they were wrong because they didn't sound like my dad's words. And the thing is, too, like we didn't have any distractions, like media, TV, internet, any of that kind of stuff. So our interactions were people were the greatest forms of entertainment, if you want to call it, that we were getting. So if a new

person was moving into our house, we're going to become very, very, very, very important. We're going to become very attuned to what type of person this is. And, you know, that was the case with him. So your dad, and I know what your dad did before you had told me before, we're not going to say that now, but very successful career. And you said on here, your dad, legit millionaire, overnight kind of thing, just changes. Is it because he met Harry? I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think so.

I don't think so. I think that was something... Was it like a perfect storm then that the dad was going through something? Life changes and all of a sudden he meets Harry and Harry kind of amplifies? That's how I... Probably on like a back forum somewhere because my dad is always into that. My dad's a writer too. So he writes all sorts of biblical concepts and all that kind of stuff.

And he's in these forums and these groups. My guess is he probably found Harry in there. You know how when you're like looking at... for something, you might find it. If you're not looking for it, you'll never see it. But if you're looking for something, you might find it. And then, like, when you do, you've got to pursue it. If you don't, then it's just a voice in the back of your head telling you missed out. And so, like, that's the way of I've kind of grown into perceiving it, where it's like, you know, uh, we're in crazy times now, but crazy times are every time, you know, like there's just,

you can go back in history and look at all the different crazy times. And there's, there's, they shape us. All of these pinnacle moments, they shape us. And so when you maybe do think, like, you know, this can't go on forever, surely this is going to end at some point. And then you find a community that agrees with that or really, like, tells you, like, no,

it's not going to go on forever. And it's actually going to be sooner than you think it is. Interesting. Why? And then, like, one thing leads to another. All of a sudden, they got you in the wormhole. and it all makes sense. And my dad was going through, we were children,

but my dad, his belief was very childlike at that time too because we were going to a Southern Baptist church and the teachings of this group were very not Southern Baptist. They were very much something else. And they had a couple key points that my dad agreed with

that he wasn't finding in the church. So one of those things is that have you ever heard of restorationism? So it's this idea that Christ is going to restore all mankind, not just the ones who believe in him. Oh, 100% Right. Eventually, there's going to be 100% redemption for all humans. And that was a very hard thing to find, it was very hard to find people who believed that back in the day. But my dad did, and so did Harry. And so with that, he saw a friend in sort of a bizarre place and believed in the end of the world,

believed it was happening very soon and he wanted a community in those times that shared some of the same beliefs he shared. He didn't realize that this was an apocalyptic cult that believes all this crazy stuff at the time. And I think once he really, and I think that was

I think that is the single greatest testament to my dad's intuition and intelligence is the fact that he was able to navigate that with a full family and say no at the end when it matters. mattered. A lot of people don't...

There's so much... Your dad went from way up here, financially, business, all that, and made a decision to go down here, met Harry, and in my opinion, and probably yours, went down even further, and in that low, had the strength to call the correct shots and move out of that situation, which means lost financially again. You know?

And it's just like, that's got to be tough because, I mean, like, I'm trying to put myself in your dad's shoes of just like making some bad decisions. And then in order to get out of your bad decisions, hurt yourself again. Yeah. On the financial end, you know, but it's like, but you're looking at it. And you're like, the long-term health and best move for my family is to take the hit and get the freak out, you know? Yeah.

That reminds me the time I was in Amway. Oh, man. That's a great correlation. Oh, that's a cult. It's like a business cult, but, you know. They did, they convinced me to, I had gotten a nice SUV, and they convinced me that it was a bad mood, and I had to sell it and take the money that I got from the sale of that

to put it into my Amway business. And, I've been there. Oh, man. So, yeah, man. I mean, you can interpret that the way you will. I really wish we could give more details because I feel like it would feel much realer. No, that felt very real to me, man.

You had me on the edge of my seat. It's very rare that I want to do in this. I was listening intently. All right. So your dad gets you guys out of it and clearly you guys rebound. You know, I think I'm sure I'm creating the scars now with my kids. I mean, I think every time you have kids as a parent, you will do things that create scars. And so, you know, as adults, looking back at our childhoods, I think we all can agree that there have been scars placed by our parents.

And I think almost everybody that listens to this can agree to that. But you guys, if you wouldn't have told me, I wouldn't have been like, I bet you they were raising a cold or something. Like, you don't strike me as cult kids. I think that's a good thing. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I think that you guys rebounded well and give credit to your dad for that, moving you guys. Well, honestly, after that, he was even more intense about, like, making sure we are directed the right way and making sure that we knew righteousness from wrongness. And that was, like, pretty instilled after we got out of that situation, moved pretty far away.

But it, it's, yeah, it's not something that I'm not something that I. really think about very often. So, like, you know, everybody has their quote-unquote trauma. But I think trauma is just different parts of life. And so, like, the more you just accept your path, the more it's not really something that impacts you necessarily. And there's still, like, space to, like, hash things out. And, like, if you've got something that, like, really does mess with your brain and, like, hurts your day, makes you sad, stuff like that. Like, Yeah, it's good to talk about. But for me, I was so young to even really get it, and it was just weird.

But I was traditionally kind of shut down when I asked about it. And I still asked my dad about this before I came out here, not today, but like last week. And I was just kind of like, what did I say to him? I said, that time when we moved out to that house, that was just a really weird time, wasn't it? Like, just opening up the conversation for him. and I lost him for a second and he went into this literal zone and he was like

he was like yeah I don't know why I did half the stuff I did back then and he told me a little bit more about Harry and all that kind of stuff and I was like so you don't think that that was a cult and he was like well I don't know if I'd call it a cult

so that's the idea you know what I mean like it's like he's not totally stupid to it but and he has he's still in these forums and stuff and you can still find them. I actually mentioned, like, maybe he should come on your podcast and he... Your dad? Yeah. And he was like, no, maybe.

Bring him down, man. There's another chair right here for him. Bring all three in. That's great. He's just still, I mean, he lost a job recently because of this kind of stuff. Really? Still, like, it has plagued him ever since. How does it plague him now?

I mean, so, like, how is it that he is, he spent two years of this problem. He gets out of it and it's still haunting him. Like, Amway doesn't haunt me. It's blackmail. What is blackmailing? Harry? Various members are blackmailing him. That were on the property?

Yeah. Why and how? I don't know. I don't know all the details. But this is what I've been told and this is what I've seen happen twice in the past 10-ish years. They find out because another thing about us, we move. constantly growing up. I think the longest we ever stayed in a house was maybe two years.

And we were on to the next one over and over and over. There was a couple times we lived in abandoned houses. And we had to go to go find the owner because my dad didn't have any money. And we would have to find the owner of this house, usually by just asking the neighbors who owns this house. And he would then buy those abandoned houses. I'm serious when I say abandoned too, like rats, like holes in the windows, like that kind of abandoned. And he would then fix it up just good enough for his family to live in. And then we'd leave again.

And this happened. Because he's on the run from the cold? He was on the run. Over and over and over, this happened. And when we finally got to where he is now, he found a certain amount of peace for about a decade, maybe a little less. But then they found him again. And it was actually not even that long ago that he lost another job. Why can't they leave him alone?

I don't know. They hate him. They hate him. He destroyed something sacred to them and they hate him for it. And it's just, I don't know how involved Harry is anymore because he's got his own thing going on. He's got his chicks crossed upon. Yeah, exactly. I got to show you that after.

But he's, I don't think it's him. I think it's other people who were there because there were a couple very unsavory characters that came in here. And even Harry with some of them, because these people, weren't friends of Harry, you know, like these people were randoms who found the forums and then came to our land and implanted themselves in our community. And I think those are the culprits. You think that they're dangerous to your dad? Yeah, 100%. If they find your dad, do you think they'd kill them? I don't know. I know what they would do, and it has caused my family great harm. So, like, I know what they're capable of already. So I don't know what lengths they'd go to. I mean,

Think about it, like, if they're looking for your dad, they find your dad, they're blackmailing, getting him, you know, fired. If they actually got to be in his presence, what would they do? I really don't know. I wish I could answer, but I don't know who they are. How old's your dad now? Somewhere between 60 and 70. Jeez. Yeah.

So losing a job is a pretty big deal. Yeah. Especially in the field that he's in. Yeah. your dad's a highly intelligent person. Wow. I've done a couple cult shows in the past. This one, wow.

I appreciate you guys sharing it with me. And I think that Harry's a piece of work. These people are pieces of work. I'm glad your dad got you guys out of it. And Merkel might have to open up a security branch. going into security. I know some people that I could probably do something like that

and start a whole other business. Merkel securities and it's not your funding. We're securing. Wow. Guys, I appreciate you coming out. Thanks so much for having me. Talking about all this stuff again, AJ is great hearing from you

about Iceland and your perspective of the Colt. Once again, this is John and AJ. John runs 21 CD podcast. That's two, CD podcast. Correct. Stans for 21st century dystopian,

because we're all just dystopians in this wasteland that we're inhabiting. That's why I like you so much. That's why I like you. When I was driving truck, I haven't done it in a long time, but when I was driving truck, I had a lot more time to listen to things,

and I listened to a lot of Clyde Lewis. And Clyde Lewis is a big motivating thing for me where it just started making me think different. And my gears started turning in different directions they never turned before. And I started calling myself a dystopian futurist because I didn't know how else to describe myself. There you go. But when I met you and started listening to your stuff, I was like, I like John.

I like John. We get each other. So yeah, everybody needs to check it out on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, everywhere, 21 CD podcast. Let's get them to 5,000, 6,000. That'd be amazing. What did you call it? How'd you say before? Only 3,000.

Only 3,000. A humble 3,000. but it's not that many it is a lot like people like it's listen listen I get it when you look at like Rogan like like like Jack

what are we at right now like we're at 114 115 15 115000 subscribers on YouTube right and I'm in the same boat as you like I look at it I'm like man like I saw how we got there I'm like man I look around I'm like

they got 500,000. Right. I'd like to have a 500,000, you know? And so like, it's the same thing, right? But I remember when I started, I actually, this is my second YouTube channel. I actually, the confessionals had a first YouTube channel and I deleted it or something to happen. I can't remember exactly what happened, but it got canceled or something. I don't think they canceled it, though.

But I remember the rebuilding of it and rebuilding is very loose because I wasn't trying with it. But I remember seeing it hit like the 5,000 mark. And I was like, wow. Yeah. That's crazy. but then I looked over and, you know, so-and-so has, like, I'm not going to say that the podcast name, but, like, there was another podcaster that had, you know, 20,000 subs. I was like, man.

I was like, holy crap, you know? And then, and now that podcaster was 25,000, and we're at 115,000. And it just puts things in perspective. So I'm just saying, like, 3,000 is like a mega church, bro. Oh, yeah. You know, so, like, you can start your own coal. No. And I share a lot of followers with you, as you know.

So, like, to those, I call them my OGs. I love it because they are my OGs, my original gangsters that came over from our interview. When to go Woods. Which, by the way, to your credit, you only had like 58,000 followers when we did our first interview. Bang. So you're killing it. Bang. Dude, like I remember when we linked up, I think when we recorded it, it was in August last year when it aired, it was in November or October, whatever was.

But I remember when we linked up, that was right around the time I went to a media conference. that totally changed my perspective on YouTube. I did not care about YouTube going into the month of August last year. It was just, I'm a podcast or I do audio. I'm not worried about video. I'll do video when I feel like it. And the first thing they said in the conference was YouTube is the sun that the social media universe revolves around. And I was like, I looked at the gentleman, like, you ever hear that before?

I'm like, what are these people talking about? Totally changed my perspective. and the things I learned in that conference in August, we finally got in the, I'd say, like, 100% full swing in October of last year, and just cruising. And so, like, I'm gunning for a million. I'm just being honest. I'm gunning for a million.

I don't know if it's ever going to happen, but I'm trying. It's going to happen, dude. I'll tell you one thing. Right in time for our next interviews. It's going to happen. Better be happy fast thing, because I don't want to wait, I don't want to wait five years, dude. but no it's just like my my motivation with youtube is on a different level these days and it's because what they said really rung true to me i was like they said social media universe right and i was like

i never looked at youtube as social media and then when i looked at it last year we had like 50,000 plus subscribers on youtube i'm like youtube is my biggest social media platform and i neglect it yeah right and that's when i was like oh oh let me let me readjust my wiring here yeah and um and we just started start trying and it's gotten better since we've started trying and we're still changing things. Like before we started recording, I told you what I'm going to be doing in here. And just trying new things and trying to do things that not everybody else is doing and just, you know, offer something unique, but also quality, you know? So anyways, I don't want to talk about me.

Thanks for sharing your cult story. Guys, I appreciate you coming out. All right. Let's get out of here.