Part One: A Complete History of the Illuminati

Robert sits down with Garrison Davis and Margaret Killjoy to talk about the birth of the Illuminati, the Secret Society behind every modern conspiracy theory.

(6 Part Series)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Balls Mahoney. This is Behind the Bastards, the podcast where
every week we celebrate famed wrestler Balls Mahoney, who whose
careers started in the late eighties and ran through the
nineties before his tragic death at age forty four of
a heart attack. Here to talk about Balls Mahoney, Margaret Killjoy,

(00:24):
Garrison Davis. How are y'all doing? How are we feeling
about about Balls? Balls Mahoney? This show has really changed
in the scope since last time I've been on. Huh,
I am. I am very excited about this person that
I totally believe is a real person. Oh it is.
It is because all of our faces were like, because
y'all aren't y'all aren't pilled on Balls Mahoney. I honestly,

(00:48):
I know very little about him other than that he's
a wrestler, he died very young, and he has one
of the funniest names I've ever heard. But the only
photo of him he is bleeding from the forehead and
both of his wrists have been duck covered in duck tape.
It's incredible. Um. Anyway, that was that was a little
bit of fun for all of our wrestling fan listeners.
You know, I've often said professional wrestling and ska are

(01:11):
the only remaining forms of art in the world. I mean,
they're they're they're actually there, actually is there is an
argument for that that It's an argument I'll make. Ah,
this is Behind the Bastards. It's a podcast about bad
people and also balls. Mahoney, um, and about lying to
the audience. At the start of the introduction, Garrison, Margaret,

(01:33):
how are you doing today? You know? I, um, I'm
all right. I spent all morning plumbing and I haven't
destroyed anything yet. That's good. I guess it's my turn
to talk. Yeah, that's generally how it works in a conversation. Yeah,
I'm doing great. I have my I have my oat

(01:54):
milk coffee and ready ready to learn about some some
fascinating historical figures coffee. Yeah. I just don't know if
we could have moved on if we didn't know what
kind of milk you were using. Yeah, the wokest, so
we would be judging you for any other milk. So
how do y'all what do y'all What do y'all know

(02:16):
about the Bavarian Illuminati. Oh, that's that's something I've mean,
that's something I've heard been screamed about at like fascist
rallies before. That is most most of the time I've
most of the time that I've heard the words the
Bavarian Illuminati, it's coming from some unhinged woman who has

(02:37):
choice opinions of the Jewish people. Um, yeah, yeah, generally
people generally, the folks who feel strongest about the Bavarian
Illuminati also have opinions about like the root races. Um.
That's not positive. No, no, um, Margaret, do you know
much about the Bavarian Illuminati or just because I distinct

(03:00):
for the regular Illuminati or is this uh it's the
illuminate unless ilie. Yeah. I once read a book about
the origins of the Illuminati as influencing the anarchist movement
called the Occult Origins of Aim or something great book. Yeah,
some of my knowledge is the book. Someone said that

(03:24):
there's a through line. There is there is a through line.
We're gonna be talking about that today. This is going
to be a bit of a weird one. I've been
wanting to do this an episode on this matter kind
of ever since we started the podcast. Last year, we
did a live show that touched on the Discordians and
Operation mind funk, which is kind of the endpoint of
this story. But telling it all really properly requires Um well,

(03:48):
it took me about sixteen thousand words. Um, so so
dig right in. No, this will be a little more
than a two parter. But I think it's important, not
because just by the way, in case you're listening here wondering,
like has Robert gone crazy? Is it going to start
telling us about how the Illuminati have put machines in
our teeth that talk to us when we sleep. Um,

(04:11):
obviously that's been done. We all have those machines in
our teeth, but it has nothing to do with the Illuminati. Now,
the Illuminati, the original Illuminati, are not particularly bad guys.
They are They are people who made some some choices
that have wound up carrying down through the ages in
an unexpected way, and a lot of that's been negative.

(04:32):
We're getting behind the bastards in this one in that,
like what we're all talking about today, the story that
begins in Europe, and like the seventeen hundreds leads directly
to Q and on right, it leads directly to every
aspect of modern conspiracy culture. Because the Illuminati are what
create the first like uber conspiracy, you know, the first
conspiracy that loops in all of the other conspiracies. The

(04:55):
way that it all works now, right, where if you
believe that, like if you believe that, like the government
is trying to keep you from drinking raw milk or
force vaccines on you to poison you, or if you
believe that there are lizards at the center of the world,
or if you believe that, uh, you know, the the
the the elite are drinking the blood of children, you
can all of those can become part of the same

(05:16):
conspiracy and in fact generally are because of the way
that how the syncretic nature of modern like uber conspiracies.
And this all starts with the Illuminati. Um, they don't
do it on purpose, but they do kind of cause
it by recklessness. And so we're gonna start by talking
about the Illuminati, but actually we're gonna start a long

(05:37):
as time earlier than that, Margaret uh and Garrison, because
how long how long would you guess, like secret societies
have been a major factor in like human civilization since
before civilization. I mean that is for a long, long,
long time, Like, yeah, I was surprised looking at this

(05:59):
how far back the research on this goes um because
it's it's it's as Margaret said, it's it's pre civilization
and in fact, a good example of like one of
the first secret societies we have any kind of decent
evidence of comes from the Chumash people who have lived
on the California coast and around that area for about
fifteen thousand years or so. Obviously you're never gonna get

(06:21):
an exact date on there, but at least like fifteen
thousand years UM and starting it around six thousand BC,
give or take a couple of centuries, they started making
really good canoes, which came to be known as tumils,
and these craft they like, you know, they got better
and better at making canoes over time and kind of
reached their most advanced, perfected form at around years ago.

(06:44):
And this was a really involved process. They have all
of these different pieces that allow them to be like
tumuls are generally considered to be maybe the best canoes
that existed before like really modern materials, UM. And they're
ingenious devices and obviously they took a lot of experimentation
and development in order for people to like figure out
how to make them the best way. They're made out

(07:05):
of redwoods. They're glued together with tar. They used shark
skin as sand paper, which I didn't realize you could
do but but but kind of makes but makes sense. Um.
And because these were so good, the task of making
one took about five days if you were like a
skilled manufacturer, and it required specialized knowledge that's kind of
like about on the level of what it would take

(07:27):
to be like a good auto mechanic. So that knowledge
was valuable because as the people on the coast started
making these tumuls and getting better at them, it became
like hugely advantageous to have one, both in military terms,
because they could allow you to raid your enemies really effectively,
and they could allow you to fish into trade a

(07:47):
lot better. There was a lot of of you know,
money or resources at least locked up and having access
to these things, and the people who made them realize, like,
we have this knowledge that's not widespread, and if we
keep it secret just amongst ourselves, then we can build
a lot of power and wealth for ourselves and our families. Um.
The term that yeah, exactly. The brotherhood of them of

(08:11):
Tamal held a pretty more or less a monopoly over
the creation and piloting of these craft for we I mean,
we'll never know exactly how long, but for an extremely
long time. Um And this allowed them to become quite
comfortable themselves. A passage from the book First People's Populating
the Planet charts out how things went from there. A
bear skin cape worn only by the elite of canoe

(08:32):
owners and village chiefs marked the beginnings of class distinctions.
Adds did burials, which were far more elaborate for the
wealthy and their children than for commoners. Members of the
Brotherhood of Tumul were often buried with parts of their canoes.
Perhaps most offensive to the egalitarian an independent Johuans, who
were neighbors to the Chumash, would have been the emergence
of a permanent and hereditary political elite among the Chumash.

(08:55):
High ranking Chumash chiefs, who inherited their positions through the
mail line, exercised control over number of communities, but each
village also had its own chief, some of whom were women.
These political leaders, all of whom were also canoe owners,
lead their people in war, presided over religious rituals, and
regulated the flourishing trade that followed the invention of the
tumul And I find that fascinating the idea that among

(09:15):
this this society, class distinctions emerged as a result of
the creation of this and and the kind of the
sequestering of this knowledge among an elite chunk of the population. Um.
I hadn't really thought about it occurring that way, but
it makes sense. Yeah, as as as as soon as
you mentioned that that they that they specifically kept the

(09:37):
information about how to make them secluded. I'm like, but
on on one hand, like undeniably secret societies are kind
of cool, like everybody wants to be in the in group,
everyone wants to have access to secret knowledge. On the
other hand, just the existence of that will buy it
self create like conditions of inequality and goes against like

(09:57):
ideals of like open access to information should and how
everyone should have the opportunity to learn anything that they can.
And yeah, but that does create a very interesting, interesting dynamic.
And but yeah, I also use the same thing to
keep information going that would otherwise be lost, especially people
who don't don't have writing systems or have different types

(10:17):
of writing systems like oral tradition stuff, being able to
preserve information in it because because of your because of
how sacred it is. Yeah. Yeah, I mean not just
gate keeping, it's also preservation. Yeah yeah, and I don't
want to be preserved. I'm not like saying the brothers
of Them is the first bass. Yeah, it's all obviously,
this is all we're taking. These are these This is

(10:39):
like a complicated thing, and it had positive and negative impacts.
It's just it. It's fascinating to me, and it's gonna
be interesting how many things from as far back as
the existence of the Brotherhood of the Tumul carry through
to like modern day secret societies and in weirdly specific ways.
But I it's one of those things I kind of wonder.
Obviously we don't have a lot of written records from

(11:00):
the people the Chumash people in like five thousand BC
or whatever, four thousand, three thousand BC, But I kind
of wonder, like where their conspiracy theories about the Canoe
people in their secret society running things, like because that's
the thing people do you know? It's interesting and what
because it's kind of like you could almost imagine people
talking about this like people today talk about like the

(11:21):
free energy suppression conspiracy theory, Like Donald Trump knows that
like the someone's keeping free energy from American people for
the like. Yeah, it's uh, I wanted to and we
spend something, but with magnets, more more energy comes out
that goes in. That's right, that's right. That's why I
throw magnets on the side of my car. Improved the

(11:43):
gas mileage. One of these days it's going to work.
So secret society people know how they work. Yeah, they
are the secret gatekeepers of all of all knowledge. They're
the brotherhood of the tumal of the modern era. Um. So.
One of the things as I was reading about these
guys that I found out that I hadn't realized is
that there's actually like a really strong vein of research

(12:07):
by anthropologists into the existence of secret societies across all
of Neolithic humanity. This is a thing we do everywhere
there are people, um and it's it's a thing that
occurs in societies when they hit what's often described as
kind of a middle level of development between wandering bands
of hunter gatherers and like we're talking bands here, not

(12:27):
like large moving like tribes of people um and then
like what we broadly call ancient like pre civilization, where
you have some settled communities maybe but you at least
have much larger groups of people moving and interact, even
even if they're still kind of nomadic um. And it's
kind of in that that interstial period between sort of

(12:48):
like groups of I don't know, ten people wandering around
the wilderness to actually starting to make towns and cities
that you see the development of of of ancient secrets societies.
In a lot of cases, like the American Pacific Northwest
what is today the American Pacific Northwest, it was common
for adults to pick societies based on their talents uh

(13:10):
and most common vocation. And one of the things that
this did is society's existed off in across tribal and
family lines. So in addition for being a way for
people to kind of gate keep knowledge and and sort
of build wealth between within communities and along like lines
of family descent, they provided a backdoor method of diplomacy
and allowed for different tribes that might have often been

(13:32):
in conflict over stuff like hunting grounds and other resources
to also have a way in times of disaster to
cooperate on something that sort of approached the level that
a nation state could do it because you have, you know,
maybe sometimes one tribe is fighting the other, but all
of the people who know how to make this important
thing have some sort of like occasionally will meet and

(13:53):
engage in these secret religious observances together and talk shop
and talk trade, and when a disaster hits, they're able
to communicate with each other because they have this kind
of this kind of brotherhood. UM. Now, when anthropologists use
the term secret to refer to these these secret societies,
which are often called like guilds and groups, uh, that's

(14:14):
because all of these societies tended to enforce the isolation
of their members for periods of time. That's what they
mean by secret. It's not that like no one knew
the Brotherhood of Tamal existed. It's that part of the
way it worked is members would sequester themselves away from
everyone else and have conversations and engage in rituals that
other people were not allowed to see. Um. Some of

(14:35):
these rituals would have been mystical, some of them would
have been doggedly mechanical, like instruction on the best way
to make canoes, but all of them were secret. Many
Neolithic people's also practiced matrilineal descent UM. So one way
in which one very prominent way in which secret societies
developed was because it was traditional for men to move
in with the family of their partner um, which was

(14:57):
not just an emotionally complex experience but also lad presumably
to a lot of like frustration on behalf of some
of these men um. And so secret societies were often
very male dominated and just like yeah, it's yeah, exactly exactly,
so ever there to blow off steam, right, No, but
in a pretty literal way, right, where like fraternal fraternal

(15:17):
societies that became thoughts come out of all of this,
and actually like mutual aid organizations and yeah, we are
out of all of this, we will be building to that.
It's just interesting to me, how deep? Yeah about it? Yeah,
that's why I want to do on this. So I
want to quote read a quote now from an American
anthropologist named Walter Goldschmidt. There was always a magical religious

(15:40):
aspect to such groups. They are characterized by ritual induction
or initiations, by secret rights and ceremonies, and by a
system of mythological justification. Often they also have a power
function uniting the senior men the adults are some especially
selected group as against the women and children or all outsiders.
Occasionally there are counter veiling women's organization, and that's that's

(16:01):
also it's interesting to be how deep, like you can
see shades of this and like some of the weird
in cell communities online and like fucking Andrew takes Little clubhouse.
It's so weird to me how far back this ship goes.
What is this perceived lack of power? Don't they're saying, yeah, yeah,

(16:23):
interesting huh. So many ancient societies were either made of
high status individuals or became that over time as their
coordination allowed them to martial resources more effectively than other
segments of society. And so secret societies they drove stratification
and created it, but they also kind of resulted from stratification.
It's it's obviously it's this is a very complex topic.

(16:43):
So it's not just one or the other. Secret religious
societies or cults were ubiquitous during the late period of
the Roman Empire as well and the Early Empire. In
this case, they offered places for the elite to socialize
and organize out of public view. And in fact, our
modern term for cult was initially applied two different like
religious sects. Right, a cult was not you've you've fallen

(17:05):
in with some weird charismatic guy. It's like, yeah, we
decided to worship this goddess from Egypt who it became
suddenly hip like in Rome to worship this goddess, you know,
she's foreign in different so like all the cool kids
are in this cult now and it's like just the
thing that we did together. Wow, they're just like me. Yeah,
you would have you would have gotten on quite well. Um. Yeah,

(17:29):
it's interesting debate. In the long history of European secret societies,
the most infamous before the Illuminati was probably the Order
of the Temple of Solomon that are known today as
the Knights Templar. Initially founded by veterans of the First Crusade,
this was an organization of lay people who took monastic
vows and like the first thing that they did was
basically act to protect, as kind of in a policing manner,

(17:52):
pilgrim routes of the Levant. Right, So you've got these
pilgrims heading forward to the newly reconquered Holy Land during
the brief period that it was reconquered, and you know,
there's bandits and ships. So the Knights Templar kind of
volunteering to UM to aid the transit of pilgrims by
by helping to protect them UM. They also had a
regular army and would fight in battle at periods of

(18:13):
time as a regular army. Over time and that way
that you do, the Crusades went less well. There was
much less call for Templars out in the Holy Land,
and so they got into banking and became deeply woven
into life across much of Europe. This disturbed traditional elites
like king French King Philip the Fourth, and in thirteen
o seven the order was purged in a you know,

(18:35):
you'd call it an orgy of violence. It was a
pretty pretty solid violence orgy um. And it was like
about calling them Satanists or something because they, yeah, they're
always saying for demons come from or something like that
or something. There's I think that's a part of it.
There's a lot of things happening at once that kind
of feed into it. But yeah, that the Templars get
accused of devil worship and accused of plotting for the

(18:58):
overthrow of governments and try aing to like make themselves
the you know, the like overthrow kind of the settled
power in Europe UM, because there's not really any evidence
of Yeah, yeah, they're really just they're really just like
the ancient Bank of America, maybe more like an ancient
credit union, UM, but yeah, ISU credit union with like

(19:20):
a military. Yeah, they primarily anax like racist violence. I mean,
modern banks, everyone, everyone, every everyone with a military primarily
enax racist violence. In this period of time. They're not
really different from the French in that regard. So during

(19:41):
the mid sixteen hundreds, Europe experienced a rather sudden burst
of religious creativity. The overwhelming control of the Catholic Church splintered,
and suddenly you get your Lutherans and your Calvinists and
all these all these Protestants start popping up all over
the place. This coincided with what's called the Age of Enlightenment,
which by the seventeen hundreds is in full swing, bringing

(20:02):
a newfound understanding of the scientific method and the value
of rationality over dogma. Obviously, broad terms like the Age
of Enlightenment exists to describe complex periods and very simple
and very broad terms. The so called Enlightenment was not
evenly distributed, and it arrived I think a little later
in Bavaria because Bavaria stays extremely Catholic, which is in

(20:24):
contrast to much of the rest of what we now
call Germany. But when it did hit the term that
gets used in the area is auf kleung Um, which
I think just means age of Enlightenment, but in in
that silly language people speak in Bavaria, Southern Germany, I believe. So, yeah,
it's a it's like the most conservative and the most
catholic part of Germany. Um, which is the part of

(20:48):
south because I think it, Yeah, it borders Austria, because
that's where Hitler finds when he leads his home in Austria. Yeah,
east ends. I mean it is east a lot of
South too, trying to position myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's
it's like borders. So yeah, it's it borders like Liechtenstein
in Austria, all that good ship. Um yeah, and um,

(21:13):
it's a it's an interesting, interesting part of Germany for that,
and it's going to be a lot more conservative than
than the rest of the area. So the Enlightenments going
to hit it in kind of a more controversial way.
And I want to quote now from an Italian sociologist
named Massimo introvin the Bavaria of the second half of
the eighteenth century, a Catholic duchy, the duke's elector would

(21:33):
take the title of kings only in eighteen o five,
and a predominantly Protestant Germany was where in Europe the
spirit of the Catholic Reformation and the Baroque Age was
best preserved. Education and culture were dominated by the Society
of Jesus, and the former Jesuits remained influential even after
the papal suppression of their order in seventeen seventy three.
The Dukes resisted the reforms initiated in the neighboring Austria,

(21:55):
although the latter was also Catholic and the influence of
the Catholic Church remained pervasive. Trying to reserve this situation,
the Catholic Church erected a barrier against the Enlightenment. Many
books by Enlightenment philosophers, which circulated freely in the rest
of Germany, were banned. In Bavaria, the Protestant against the
Catholic Church and the Dukes happened. The protest against the
Catholic Church and the Dukes happened mostly in the universities,

(22:15):
where a number of professors were sensitive to Enlightenment ideas.
In turn, students off and kept in contact, particularly through
the college fraternities that at this time began to gain
importance with their colleagues in the Protestant German states. So
Bavarious kind of Florida, right, like they're very much horrifying

(22:36):
centence thinking of the Florida Illuinati being like the next
like like like fift years this conspiracy, this conspiracy, the
Florida Illuinati terrifying. Yeah, and the Florida Illuminati is like
two guys with a single history textbook. Um, but that's
that is very much kind of what's happening here, right

(22:57):
There's this there's this progressive you know, left wing and
right wing, those terms I think kind of useless when
we're talking about the situation in Europe in this period
of time. But it's certainly like a very progressive and
secular waves sweeping a lot of the rest of Germany.
But Bavaria is like rebelling against it. And one of
the ways they do it is by banning books and
cracking down. And one of the ways in which educated

(23:19):
elites fight back and push Enlightenment values is through these
little fraternities, these secret societies. Now it is kind of
worth noting because we've just talked about how it's sort
of the Florida of Europe. Bavaria does produce some of
the most creative thinkers of the whole Enlightenment, including Adam Leibnitz,
who independently discovered calculus alongside Isaac Newton Um and then

(23:42):
they had they had a little bit of a falling
out with each other. He's also a wizard, which is cool,
but so is everybody who does anything. So is Isaac.
They're both wizards. They're wizards who used to be friends
and then fell out over calculus. It happens all the time.

(24:03):
On February six, thirty two years after Leibnitz's discovery of calculus,
a baby boy named Adam Weischop is born or comes
into the world. Um, now, his parents, it's not actually
come into the world. What do you Okay, you know
what I mean? Well, I mean, Garrison probably, Yeah, when

(24:28):
two cabbages love each other very much. Yeah, I drew
a diagram for you about this the other day. Um. Okay, yeah,
you can, you can, you can, Garrison, you can. You
can refer to that book of worm, impregnation, fetish pornography.
I said you last night. That's that's most of the basics.

(24:50):
Twitter can help you out with the rest. Got it
all right, we'll do. Um. So Adam Weischop comes into
the world, Um is born ever uh and yeah, a
little babe in his it's he's in an interesting situation.
He comes from kind of the upper class. His family
has a decent amount of money. His parents were had
been born and raised as Orthodox Jews, um, but they

(25:13):
had decided to convert to capitalists or to a Catholic Catholicism.
It was a little bit of a slip of the
tongue there. Um. They become Catholics because like it's a
lot easier to be Catholic in Bavaria than it is
to be an Orthodox Jew. Right that that should not
surprise anybody. Uh. And because they're kind of like we

(25:33):
should probably make his clean a break from our past
as possible. Adams and parents enrolled him in a school
that was held like run by a monastery as soon
as he could walk, so he's taught by monks. Now
he has a childhood that's I don't think that it's
not an abnormal amount of turbulent for a kid in
the mid seventeen hundreds. His dad dies when he's just five,
and since single moms, that's not an encouraged thing, especially

(25:57):
if you have any kind of like money in this
period of time. His dad's co worker at the University
of Ingolstadt where he was born moves Adam into his
household and takes him out of the monastery school and
sends him to one run by Jesuits. And um, boy,
howdy talking about Jesuits. That's gonna take a second, So
why don't we first talk about some products and services.

(26:21):
The Jesuit Society would like to appreciate you for listening
to this podcast, and if you would like to join us,
then you can find us at that's the Jesuit ad.
The Jesuit had Stop and then the first thing that
comes up is gets your gold. Yeah, there you go.

(26:45):
We're back and we're we're thinking about the Jesuits. Now.
When I was a kid, there was a Jesuit school
called Jesuit right next to my school, and it was
where the rich kids went to school, or at least
the rich kids who were Catholic old Jesuit it. Yeah,
it's called Jesuit. The big one in Portland is also
just called and it was I don't know if this

(27:06):
is very that's very Jesuit and concept. Yes, now, I
don't know if it's the same in other with other
Jesuit schools. But in the Dallas area, those were the
kids you bought drugs from, right because they got they
got the cash. Their parents are too busy to really
pay any attention. The Jesuit boys were. You know, that's
where you get your weed. It's where you get your acid,

(27:28):
you know when you're when you're young. Um, it's probably
where you get your fentnel. Today you gen z kids
and your fentnel. Um. Anyway, at this point in time,
I don't know if the Jesuits have access too much fentanyl.
But they are something of a secret society and they've
been like there are all of these Jesuits are like
kind of members of an order that's been banned. So

(27:50):
they're technically officially not Jesuits anymore. Because it is cooler.
There's a there's so many conspiracy theories out the fucking Jesuits.
But like I think the best way to describe them
as nerdy catholics. Like their job like the thing they're
supposed to do is make more people Catholics and also
learn and teach. Um. So there's a lot of Jesuit schools.

(28:13):
They are historically pretty good schools, um and yeah anyway,
and they're also again at the center of quite a
few conspiracy theories. So because he's got the benefit of
this Jesuit education, Adam is going to learn at a
level that's kind of a lot beyond what most boys
in that place in time could expect. And he takes

(28:34):
to it like a duck too, you know the thing
that ducks do. Um um no, no, no, much worse
than that. Anyway. By the time, yes, exactly, Garrison, by
the time he was an adolescent, he spoke German, Czech,
and Hebrew fluently, and he quickly thereafter. Yeah, but he's yeah,

(28:55):
he learns ancient Greek, Latin and Italian. Next yeah, he
is in for um. He gets admitted to age to
university at age fifteen, which is yeah, yeah, he's one
of those kids pushed down the stairs a lot. I
should have been school at age fifteen, but I don't
go around bragging about it on podcasts. Yeah, you don't

(29:16):
speak in Greek either, Garrison. Yeah, I've learned. I'm trying
because I need I need to get a lot better
with my Greek for the Greek magical papyri stuff. And
it's hard because all of the all of the all,
like the consonants sound weird. But anyway, yes, they say,
was how to say spanna copita hot td that's good

(29:36):
Spana copita without cheese. That was all I needed to
get buy in Greece or vegan span. Now here's a
question for you, Garrison. You're getting You're getting your PhD
in magic ship right now from that from that online
school that I have paid for among other magic things
that Yet, sure, how close are you to that PhD? Buddy,

(29:57):
I'll get it within the year. You get it within
a year. Well, that's honest. I've I've I've had I've
had other developments in my magical study that is slightly
more impressive and reputable than that school. So we'll see,
we'll see. Yeah, Well, if you don't finish it within
the next few months, Garrison, then you'll get your pH
d much later than Adam y shopped because he gets

(30:20):
his doctorate five years later at age twenty. So I
can still get it by age twenty, I can, I
can do it. Yeah, well you bet. You better move fast.
So he spends his teenage years buried in books at
the University of English dots massive library, which has forty

(30:40):
two d books. Now, for a bit of perspective, I have,
that's more than all of Florida. Well it is, it
is now after they banned all the books. Yes, yeah,
that's that's what. Yeah, that's a lot of books for Florida.
I just I find it interesting, like the difference in
what a lot of books was in you know, this
period of time, the late seventeen hundreds, kind of the

(31:02):
start of the print era, and like, like, for example,
today the Internet archive has two million modern books and
more than thirty six million books and texts. Um. It's
just that's kind of neat. That's a neat achievement. Although
a lot of those books are trash, so, but they
were trash back then, probably too a lot of the time. Anyway,
Adams a big reader, very smart kid. He becomes enthralled

(31:25):
with a lot of Enlightenment ideas and a lot of
Enlightenment philosophies as much as he can access while it's
sort of banned in his area. Now he does very
well at the school. He gets promoted as soon as
he graduates, basically to assistant instructor to the Chair of
canon Law. Um. And while I don't really know what
that job would entail and I don't care to learn,
Adam was the first non Jesuit to hold it in

(31:48):
a century. Um, this does not go over well with
the Jesuits. They're not thrilled about this. And I'm gonna
quote next from a book by the Charles River editors.
This prompted a stir of furrowing browse with a the
Jesuit community. Still, Adam's hot streak was anything but over.
In seventy five, when the seven year old was main
dean of the Faculty of Law, the Jesuits sputtered their

(32:08):
drinks and slammed their fists on their tables. The Jesuits
had had enough. They barged into the university boardroom and
demanded Adam's paycheck be withheld until he complied with the
university's principles. So you know that's uh not gonna go
well for them, um, Adam. They accused him of basically
promoting off cloruing the the Enlightenment and teaching banned topics

(32:33):
that like different light enlightened philosopher exactly. Yeah, he's talking
about secularism, the idea that maybe the Catholic Church shouldn't
run everything they don't like this um and this pisces
off Adam right, the fact that he's he's having to
fight against these kind of regressive Jesuits and their attitudes
towards religion, it really pisces him off. And whenever he

(32:54):
would come across a bump on the road, across like
some sort of stumbling block that was put up by
these these old timey monk type assholes, he would think
back to the words of one of his favorite philosophers,
Jean Jacques Rousseau. Um. One quote in particular stood out
to him. The only practice that went not to teach
children is that they said never should never submit, which

(33:16):
is you know that's base. Yeah, yeah, you Adam by shock,
says youth liberation baith based based youth liberationist. Yeah, you
should hear this guy's attitude on bedtime discourse. Boy. Some

(33:37):
of Adam's colleagues who were too frightened to stand up
for him against the Jesuits, but who were sympathetic to
his Aims reached out to tell him like, hey, man,
I know you're dealing with this secret society who are
being real assholes. There's another secret society you might want
to join because they can give you some some support
in your fight against the Jesuits. And that secret society
was the Freemasons. Now, people talk a lot about the Freemasons,

(34:02):
um they share to they were they will never stop.
At its core, the Masons are exactly like the secret societies.
We started this episode talking about these kind of neolithic organizations,
like it's like a guild. Yeah, yeah, it's a guilt
right down to the fact that a big part one
of the big things about the Brotherhood of the Tumul
is that you you get these very nice, elaborate funerals.

(34:24):
A big thing that the Mason's provided was like life
insurance that came with burial benefits for Mason's, Like that
was a major reason to join the Masons. There's also
it was a big part of it is for all
that like people talk about the rituals and and the
magic stuff. A huge part of it is like their
members are mostly middle class and like upper middle class professionals,
and if you're a Mason. You get like a ten

(34:45):
percent discount at all Mason affiliated stores. So it's like
it's just like, yeah, it's it's like it's a lot
like Triple A. It's like Triple A and kind of
like us A A where it's like you get discounted
life insurance. That's a lot harder for people who aren't
in this organization to get. Um, it's very must. Triple
are really cool too, Yes, they are. They are. I

(35:07):
had to actually sacrifice a goat to get them to
jump my car the other week. Um. Yeah, in five
hundred years, this conspiracy is about Triple A group that's
that's running the AI Dystophia in a hundred years will
have forgotten the secret of electricity, so their ability to

(35:27):
jump cars, which just seem like magic, your esoteric knowledge. Somebody,
somebody finds like an old Triple A car that has
like the fucking maintenance handbook for a Toyota Corolla. Start
to worship at the secrets, and once you passed down
through the lineages, you rise to the order of unlock

(35:50):
new passages of the manual. Just a thousand people sitting
in front of an old Toyota and you do that
thing where you like turn the key slightly and open
the door so it starts making sound and they all
just help. That's the home of the future, meditates to
the sound of the car back then they can figure
how to navigate the bureaucracy from when they move from

(36:10):
one region to another to join a different sect of
the Triple A. So the Freemasons were not an old
organization at the time Adam was advised to join them.
They had started in kind of and that we don't
know exactly when they start because there's actually not ever
going to be an exact date for when they started,
because they emerge out of a bunch of different kind

(36:32):
of independent groups that are all sort of similar. In
the early seventeen hundreds and by the very organic it
wasn't yes, yes, yes, there's all these independent groups doing
the same thing. And I think in seventeen fifteen, and
like I believe it was Scotland is the first time
like a bunch of them all kind of merged together
and say like, hey, we're going to be the Freemasons.

(36:53):
But yeah, it's a it's a very as you said,
it's a very organic process. Um And by the late
seventeen hundreds, they'd spread from the Aisles down to Bavaria,
and Adam decides, Okay, I'll dip my toes in masonry.
I would like some back up against these weirdo jesuit
fox um. And he he does a little bit of
Mason stuff, but he's kind of turned off by all
the all their weirdo occult rituals. He is like, I

(37:15):
want to share in trade in band knowledge, and you
guys are like dressing like Sultan's and tapping each other
with toy swords on the shoulder. Um. Like a lot
of Mason rituals are like racist costumes and silly little plates. Um.
You can go to music, you can go to Mason museums.
There's one in Los Angeles that's really interesting, and you

(37:36):
can see they're silly little outfits. It's like high school
theater grade level of construction. And I assume it was
not much different back at the seventeen hundreds. Try to
buy old swords. Some of the only swords from the
nineteenth century that are available are some of the Mason swords,
and they look like fucking runfair garbage. Yeah, they look
like shit, terrible swords from the fucking Mason's for all

(37:58):
this Mason slander. If any since they're out there, feel
free to hit me up. Yes, I will join. Oh
I could have joined at one point. My grandpa was
a Mazon, but it seemed like a complete waste of time.
Um I don't know. Yeah, hit us up, Mason's. Um,
hit us up. Grand Masonic Conspiracy. Have swords and we
can talk. Yeah. I'm already a member of multiple secret societies.

(38:21):
I will be happy to add another one to the roster. Yeah.
Um great. So these rituals, in addition to being cringe e,
existed to provide the men there with a sense that
what they were doing was hidden and separate from the
regular world. And I want to read a quote from
an anthropologist Janet Burke describing them. There is no question

(38:42):
that the adoption lodge initiation rituals were designed to heighten
dramatically the sense of friendship based on virtue among members.
They contained all the consciousness changing elements of traditional rites
of passage found in many cultures throughout history. Each ceremony
began with seclusion of the candidate in a reflection chamber.
The main part of the initialation revolved around the imparting
of knowledge, and it closed with integration into the larger

(39:04):
group as a full fledged member. Knowledgeable leaders imparted secrets,
extracted oaths, and demanded humility. They employed strong symbol laden
words and instruments and authority from a distant past. Candidates
were required to pass through a series of degrees and
master each before moving on towards the font of final knowledge,
the perfection promised by the organization, which was again a
ten percent discount at certain restaurants. It's amazing, It is

(39:31):
really funny. It's like when I go to the Army's
gonna flash my basin car. This is this is what
the elite ofment is really for. If you want free meals,
wear a circle A and then go to where go
to one of those towns where every service class working
person is an anarchist and I have I have joined

(39:51):
a secret society that rules the world and as the result,
every fifth trip that I take to the Sizzler is free.
So funny. Now, if you want to get free trips
to the Sizzler, maybe that's what is being advertised next
on our podcast. You don't know, it might be listen
in Sizzler Heads Garrison. Have you ever been to the Sizzler.

(40:15):
No second question related. What's the most shrimp you've ever
vomited up? Probably not much, maybe like maybe five or
six shrimps. Okay, Sophie, we're taking a work trip to
the Sizzler. Gotta gotta pill Garrison on eating rancid shrimp

(40:37):
at the Sizzler buffet. Oh boy, all right, the rest
of you pill yourself on these ads. Ah, we're back.
We're talking about times that we and our loved ones
have all vomited at the Sizzler. Nothing like a Sizzler
parking lot for puking in front of like some family

(41:00):
four and like having these little kids just watch you hurl,
and it's it's such a good time. There's nothing I
love more than stranger's children seeing the vomit out in public.
It's it's a beautiful experience. See, I'm surprised you didn't
go for the outback with this bit. Oh. I vomited
in many an outback parking lot. You see. Puking is
kind of my magic, and I'm very much exoteric with

(41:23):
that sort of thing. A vomit mate, Uh, good stuff,
I am. I am not invited you to you cannot
afford the cleaning bill. That is a constant problem with

(41:47):
secret societies. So Adam goes through this initiation ritual and
he thinks it's kind of stupid. Um, I have no
idea what he's gonna wind up doing. But his his
issues are like number one, he's like, these fucking Freemasons
are too new. They pretend to be an ancient society,

(42:08):
but they're not even a hundred years old, like, and
it's there's making me spend a bunch of money on
stupid costumes for this like bullshit. The other problem he
has is that it feels like it's too accessible to
the public. A lot of like regular people are Masons,
like normal, you know, not like super poor generally, but
like pretty normal dudes. And he's like, I want to
try again, I want to trade and like forbidden knowledge.

(42:31):
I don't. I don't want to be hanging out with
the butcher that lives like four doors down. That's not
a good secret society. So he starts sketching out what
he wants to do, and he makes a plan to
create a better secret society, a perfect secret society. And
his plan is basically he wants to make an invisible
web of what he calls wisdom schools that will promote

(42:53):
the molding of morals, scientific and human progress, and like this, uh,
this belief he's come He's come to that the sort
of acceptance of the scientific method over religious dogma is
the path to happiness for the human race. That's that's
what he wants to spread, and he wants to spread
it through this like network of secret wisdom schools. So

(43:13):
on May one, seventeen seventy six, twenty eight year old
Adam White Shop founded the Covenant of Perfectability. And again
he's he's calling it that because the idea is we're
going to perfect the human race through knowledge. There's some
time happened in seventeen seventy six. Yeah, yeah, that's that.
That's it's famously the year where nothing occurred. Um. By

(43:34):
the fact that this happens in seventeen seventy six is
going to become the core of about a million stupid conspiracy.
What what horrible, horrible timing, Adam, motherfucker pick a different year. Um.
So he decides, after a brief period of time that
the Covenant of perfect Ability kind of a dogshit name.

(43:55):
Stupid stupid name. So he renames the society the Order
Illuminati Bavarians or in English, the Order of the Bavarian Illuminati. Yeah,
much better name. You gotta give it to him. This
is why we do a b testing doesn't Doesn't the
Illuminati mean like the enlightened ones are something we are? Yeah,

(44:15):
we're talking about what we'll talk about that kind of
There's a couple of debates, so Adams specifically picks it
because of there was a Spanish organization called the illumbrados Um,
which also means illuminated ones um. He also likes the
French term illuminaise. There had been a number of little
secret societies that had versions of that in their name,

(44:37):
but the Latin his was Latin, and part of why
they're all using variants of illuminate of illuminated is that
kind of in the Latin it means more like spiritual
and mental than it does like literally illuminating a space
with light. Um. Yeah um. And he he wants his

(44:57):
his interest here is not to create an mystic society.
He is not super into like the weirdo ritual stuff.
But he comes to the conclusion just based on his
low opinion of the people around him. That quote of
all the means I know to lead men, the most
effectual is a concealed mystery. So he decides he's going
to wrap this network of schools and like a skin

(45:19):
of the skin of a mystic organization, because he thinks
that will draw in more people and people who can
fund what he's doing. From the beginning, he recognized that
mostly men want a way to feel like they're special,
somehow separate from the rest of their peers in the
greater mass of humanity. Secret societies have always offered versions
of this, but in the new modern age that was

(45:40):
being built, a sense of connection to the mystic was
more valued than ever. Adam's goal was to free society
from the domination of cults like the Jesuits. But to
do it, he was going to have to create a
cult himself. The only way to stop a bad cult
with a weird religio political hierarchy as a good cult. Um, Yeah,

(46:03):
it's not gonna work great. So Adam starts talking with
his colleagues at the University of ingles Dot about his plans,
and they all are on board, because again, not much
is happening in the late seventeen hundreds, The first one
of the first people who kind of buys into his
idea is an eighteen year old student named Anton von Massenhausen,
and Anton suggests that he modeled the structure of his

(46:24):
secret society off of college fraternities. Now, these are not
the frats of the modern era entirely, which are based
more around partying than other things. Um, but fraternity is
kind of an Enlightenment concept. It actually means something very
important in this period of time. It's a codification effectively
of the systems of mutual aid that had existed within

(46:46):
secret societies forever. Like this concept of fraternity is like
a buzzword that's going around at the time. Um, and
it kind of goes beyond just like simple concepts of
community mutual aid. Famed sociology just E J. Hobbs Bomb
noted that society is like the Mason's elicited a sense
of fraternity in part due to the heightened alternate reality

(47:07):
of secret religious ceremonies that they carried out. So basically,
some of the there's this sense of fraternity, and part
of how you inculcate that is by making people feel
like they're they're privy to a like secret understanding of
the world that everyone else doesn't have. The first totally
not how radical politics work. It's totally. It's separate than

(47:27):
when someone comes an anarchist or a communist or different
or a fascist for that matter, not the same thing.
Oh maybe fascists do it, but definitely not the left. Yeah,
definitely not no one else, no one else. Um. This
is not effectively the same thought process that has made
Twitter so fucking insufferable. Um, completely different. So the first

(47:51):
official meeting of the Illuminati consisted of Adam Bishop and
four other dudes, all young students of law that Bishop
had either tutored or just to say, did, were good
kids that he could kind of manipulate. Their first order
of business was to create their own special symbol, a
wreathed medallion featuring a wide eyed owl. By the way,
this is why there's a big owl at uh the

(48:13):
fucking the what is it that gathering in the woods
in northern California that all the rich people go to? Um?
Burning met No way, that's no, no, no, oh, the
one that I don't actually know much about because I'm yeah,
you could not call burning Man a secret society, um,
although there's elements of this here. No, the fucking um.

(48:35):
I think I learned about it from your podcast. Honestly,
I can't believe I've forgotten. Yeah, Bohemian growth, Bohemian grove. Yeah,
but Bohemia is not that far away from Bavaria. No, Um,
it sure isn't. It's very far away from California, not

(48:56):
not Yeah, probably so. Yeah, it's so. One of the
things that they do at the end of every Bohemian Grove,
which is like all of the rich people, rich and
powerful people go and party with Henry Kissinger for like
a week and they stage ridiculous little plays and they
carry out a ritual and kind of the crowning moment
of it all is the cremation of care where they
burn a forty ft tall owl um. Anyway, interesting, how

(49:20):
how how and again this is part of where the
conspiracies come from, is that like a lot of this
ship gets passed down for whatever reason, this kind of
image of an owl um becomes, you know, as iconic
as the Mason's eye, uh glyphs that they would put
in ship that like winds up on the US dollar
and stuff. Um. Now, in that first meeting, the at

(49:43):
this point five member Illuminati listed their objectives as to
stimulate a human and sociable vision, support virtue where it
may be threatened or oppressed by vice, to promote the
progress of all people, and foster and benefit those deprived
of education. Now that sounds pretty nice. That's not a
bad not a bad list of things to do. Um.
Adam additionally promised that he would protect his followers from

(50:06):
persecution or oppression, and that he would tie the hands
of any kind of despotism UM by building a society
that was capable of working between national lines. Yeah, his
goal is to get as many intelligent and influential people
to secretly join his Illuminati as possible so that they
can kind of take over and manipulate the levers of
power in Europe. UM. At the time he starts the Illuminati,

(50:29):
Adam has moved beyond his simple desire to like support
these Enlightenment attitudes that were pro science and pro religion,
and he's gotten increasingly radical. He started toying with deism
and he kind of gets pilled on atheism and starts
to believe that, like, not only is atheism a more
rational way to look at the world, but we should
we should push people in power in Europe who are

(50:53):
atheists to kind of take more power away from the Church.
And you know what, it actually seems like this whole
monarchy thing that we're doing across Europe is a bad
idea and maybe everything should be a republic. So he
this is when I talk about like he's trying to
push these secret values. What he's trying to push is
like secularism and the idea that people get to vote. Um.

(51:13):
Now this is it is some seventy seventeen seventies six
shiit um. So obviously it's illegal for him to talk
about this where he is living. Other parts of you know,
what becomes Germany, you can talk about this, but he
cannot in Bavaria. So he borrows from the Masons and
he creates a strictly tiered ranking system for the Illuminati.

(51:34):
I'm gonna quote from Massimo introviing here again. Although it
counted only five members, the Order was already divided into
an areopagus consisting of Vai Shopped Massenhausen and another student,
Max Mers, whose members knew the Order was a brand
new creation, and a circle of novices who were left
to believe that the Illuminati had instead centuries of history
existed outside of Ingolstadt and had mysterious leaders above the

(51:57):
Professor of law. So well, the first decision he makes is,
we have to pretend we're like a thousand years old
and across the world and secretly rule the world. That
is where it starts, Like the Illuminati creates the Illuminati
conspiracy theory so people won't think they're silly. That's a
good way to improve that you're not silly. This is

(52:21):
where it all begins. Vaishaft felt a need to hide
the truth from his followers, which eventually extended to pretending
the Lawyer was much larger than it needed to be.
Um Now, this was justified by the needs of secrecy,
but mainly by the fact that what Adams trying to
push is extremely boring. The actual center levels of the Illuminati.
When you like get through all of the not all

(52:42):
of the initiations and gain all of the rank, there's
no more rituals. He just hands you a couple of
illegal books about like maybe it would be cool if
the Catholic Church didn't run things like that's the center
of You get to the center of it, and it's like,
you know, would be neat voting like that that's literally
the core of the Illuminatis teaching. Yeah, but it's like
it's like it's like build it's like building this onion

(53:02):
of protection exactly, secrecy around that because it actually is illegal. Yeah, exactly.
And I feel like people might actually take a few
notes here as not only more information gets made illegal,
like certain books or not being allowed to be shared
in schools, but also stuff like HRT and stuff like
uh like access access to abortion stuff. Right, as all

(53:25):
these things get more and more legal, these types of
secret society tactics get used again because they've been stuff
that they've they've been things that we've been doing for
a long long time, depending on the circumstances, although in
this case you might want to learn from some mistakes
that they're about to make. Roma. So um, lower level

(53:46):
members members are promised that all of these rituals they're doing,
all of this magic has this like central explanation that's
revealed the higher level, higher level members. But Adam has
no no like prep plans of actually letting most people
in on us, because again it's really risky. Um. So
most of the plan is to kind of keep people,

(54:06):
string them along doing the silly rituals and hoping that
that keeps enough of them happy that like the cream
will rise to the top, so to speak. I love
the hypocrisy of that is sending enlightenment and teaching people,
so we have to lie to these guys. Yeah. Um,
it's also one of the reasons why they do this,
which is very practical and and smart, but extremely funny,

(54:29):
is um. I'm actually just gonna quote again from Introphing. Here,
the order counted on Bavarian provincial notables, indispensable for the
dues they paid, but who had affiliated themselves thinking of
joining a kind of freemasonry in small towns where either
there was no Masonic lodge or they did not know
where to find them. They had vaguely heard of alchemy
and secret rights and hoped that they would be revealed

(54:50):
to them. While they would not be particularly interested and
bear into old whole box anti religious philosophy, even if
it were revealed to them, which had of prudence, it
was not by shops quasi Masonic imitations were pedantic and uninspired.
The answer he invariably gave to the disappointed was that,
as in Freemasonry and the Illuminati, the first three degrees
were preparatory to further initiations where the true ritual mysteries

(55:12):
would be revealed. So a big part of this is
I need rich people's money, and they want to pretend that.
They want to feel like they're alchemists, so I've gotta like,
I've gotta fake that so we can fund the illegal
book trade. Like he's conning rich people out of money
by convincing them they've become wizards in order to buy
illegal books and trade them around Europe. I mean, alright, alright,

(55:34):
that sounds all right. That is also that's kind of cool.
That's also been a cork component of wizardry for a
long time. A big part of being a wizard is
lying about alchemy and taking rich people's money. It's that
and that's the real magic. It's it's that that also
getting sick and dying off of metal fumes being being

(55:56):
boiled in like an eventilated room. Those are the those
the two main comple doing alchemy at least witchcraft. They
just sell us crystals. H See. I want to go
back to my favorite meme, the two guys from Predators
shaking hands and have it be wizards rednecks in the
South with a backyard workshop inhaling metal fumes and getting

(56:18):
a metal flume fever, Margaret, you got anything to plug? Yes,
if you inhale books illegal books, that only the secret.
If you can find where to purchase Escape from Insul Island,

(56:42):
then you're on the in crowd. And I'll give you
a hint. There's a code Tangled Wilderness dot org or
wherever you purchase books. That's my most recent book. You
can get it there. Or you can actually listen to
several of us um enact Escape from Insul Island. If
you listen to the strangers in the Tangled Wilderness podcast,

(57:03):
there's a live play of a role playing game based
on UM based on my book Escape from Insul Island.
That's what I got. We all played it. It was
really good. You also have a podcast on this very network,
oh ship I do if you like cool people who
did cool stuff, and then you can find where to

(57:27):
It's called Cool People Did Cool Stuff. It's on cool
Zonne Media. It comes out every Monday and Wednesday. It's
sort of the inverse behind the Bastards. Not that I
would ever do anything on original or derivative. Now, if
you really want to be a cool person, who does
cool stuff. What you should do is weld galvanized steel
without wearing any kind of mask or respirator. Cool. Yes,
like the wizards to Yeah, zinc is really positive. M Well,

(57:53):
you know I I see it at the grocery store,
zinc pills. So clearly the most effective way to get
zinc is a Welsh calvinized steel without a mass. When
I used to be like really anxious and I was
doing jewelry work, I would like start freaking out and
calling like my doctor friend as soon as I, like,
I like soldered something that had some galvanized on it,
and I was like, I'm about to die. Um. But

(58:15):
then had one of my metalworker friends did almost die
from accident galvanized so and that means he's in the
coolest secret society of all the ancient order of nearly
killed my lungs by welding galvinized steel. Yeah, mm hmm.
Gare do you have anything you'd like to plug? Yeah? Sure.

(58:38):
I recently wrapped up a four part series on the
Defend the Atlanta Forest and Stop Cops City movement in Atlanta, Georgia.
I could be that can be found on the It
could happen here. Podcast feed. Um yeah, it's it's it's
four episodes at this point, could probably rely binge all
of them all in a row. Uh yeah. It covered

(59:00):
is a lot of the stuff from the past, the
past few months and the recent killing of a of
a of a force defender by the Georgia State Patrol.
So it's a kind of some kind of some heavy stuff,
but also talking about I think things that are important
you get to hear from people that are on the
ground throughout the series. That is the that is the
most recent kind of large project that I have that

(59:21):
I've finished. Hell yeah, very cool, almost as cool as
inhaling metal fumes. So I will say, um, near like
a few blocks away from the Anarchist Community Center inside
inside Atlanta, there is a free miess In building just
like right right down the streets. So there is one

(59:46):
of the front for the other possibly possibly almost certainly.
All right, everybody, come back next time when we will
hear the exciting conclusion of the story of the Bavarian Illuminati.
Uh and eventually all of the other illuminaties that that
come after it, leading to Q and on and the

(01:00:06):
probable destruction of Western civilization. Anyway, have a good, have
a nice day. Behind the Bastards is a production of
cool zone Media. For more from cool zone Media, visit
our website cool zone media dot com, or check us
out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

(01:00:27):
wherever you get your podcasts.