Part One: The Holy Rollers Sex Cult

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Ah.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast about the
worst people in all of history that also hosts the eternal,
unending battle between a man and his producer who wants
him to send in the scripts of the episodes that
they're reading. As usual, I'm winning this battle, and to
celebrate the script, not the latest script, to celebrate my triumph, Matt.

Speaker 4 (00:31):
Leeb Northrop Grumman got me Northrop come in.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
That's right in my faith? What's up?

Speaker 3 (00:40):
That's right? That's right. We are advertising for drone delivered
sex toys. Yeah, the same technology that takes out school
buses and Yemen can make you say, yeah, man, what do.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
You have your soundboard? Matt?

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Do I have my soundboard? I think you know the
answer to that. Yeah, I do.

Speaker 4 (01:01):
This week my soundboard is all just different weird noises
that Snoop makes on the wire.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Perfect.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
I feel so much joy.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Speaking of joy, we have a special Oregon themed Behind
the Bastards for you. As you're probably aware, my adopted
home state is one of the USA's great cultural hubs
for cult activity, and we are talking about an Oregon
a classic Oregon cult today and part of what we're

(01:36):
doing here is we are raising money for the Portland
Children's Museum. Yeah yeah, there used to be like a
Portland children's museum with like in a building and stuff.
That had to close down in twenty twenty one. I
think it was a pandemic casualty. But a group of
parents in the metropolitan area have created a traveling children's museum,

(01:56):
the FLIP Museum, which stands for Fun, Learning, Inspiration Play.
It's a nonprofit. It goes around to different communities in
the Portland area and provides kids there with like a
you know, head visits them sort of children's museum experience.
So we are helping them fund that this week. If
you want to donate, they've set it up so that
you can just text bastards to five oh one five five.

(02:19):
So if you text bastards to five oh one five five,
you'll get the information you need to donate to help
the FLIP Portland's children Museum. So that's pretty cool.

Speaker 4 (02:28):
I also love that in order to donate, you have
to write the word bastards to the Children's museum.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
It is it would be it is funny. It is funny.
Although no one no one still uses the term bastard
today bastards.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
I love children.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
You want to help some literal bastards.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
These little bastards get.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Extras to five oh one five five.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Living in sin.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Yeah fuck wedlock.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
That's right now, Matt.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
How do you feel about sex cults?

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Oh? Love them pro I've always wanted to be in one.

Speaker 4 (03:11):
I got really close to being in that one in
San Francisco. Ohe the one Taste thing. It was like
the Gasmik meditation one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I love
yeah man.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
I was so close.

Speaker 4 (03:26):
I had a meeting with the like one of the
ladies who like was recruiting, and I just spent the
whole meeting being like, I don't have any money, but
can I just go and watch yeah? Yeah, And they
said no. She started asking me to have She's like
it was like one hundred dollars too. It really was

(03:47):
not that much money, but I was very poor at
the time, and I was like, I don't have one
hundred dollars. They're like, can you? She like emailed me later,
how about this, ask your friends and family for one
hundred dollars. I was like, Lady, I used to do
a lot of heroin. If I start asking for one
hundred dollars. They're gonna think I'm back on this stuff.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Now I can't.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
It's for a sex cult, all right, would you consider
getting back on the heroin then yeah.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
But yeah, I've always wanted to be in a sex cult.
I just said I never you know, it was too
much of a coward, Matt.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
I have. I believe in you. I just want to
state that here, and I believe that all of us
can benefit from the story of Oregon's first great sex
cult leader, Edmund Creffield. Now I'm gonna guess you haven't
heard of Edmund Kraff.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
No, but I love that. That's a great name. That's
a guy who fucks.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Name that, that is a guy who focks names. And
that's also a guy who declares himself the second Coming
of Christ.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Name. Well yeah, I mean, oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
This is one of those stories making yourself Jesus fucking
a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
Oh so great. What a what a grift.

Speaker 4 (04:51):
It's the most relatable grift too, Like I get it,
like you do what you gotta do to get that piece.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
Mm hmmm, especially if it means declaring yourself the son
of God. Which there's that great documentary series on Netflix
about the Twin Flame Cult, which is like this mix
of like kind of young millennial older gen z, like
fucking pseudoscience about relationships mixed with also I this guy

(05:20):
who is the only person who can determine if you've
met your soulmate and Jesus, it's beautiful of it. It's
very much descended because that guy spent some time in Oregon.
From the cult we're talking about today, which is have
you ever heard the phrase holy Roller?

Speaker 2 (05:34):
I have, but I don't know how this cult was.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
The Holy Rollers. This is where the term comes from,
and it is a surprisingly literal term.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
There's a really popular song called Holy Roller that's probably
you've heard it.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
It may may in fact based on this, yeh, that's
my assumption. So if you live elsewhere in the United States,
Portland probably has primarily come to you in the form
of a mix of like riot footage in portlandyas sketches right.
It had this reputation from like the end of the
nineties to the early two thousands is like this kind

(06:07):
of hip place where young artist types and intellectuals would congregate.
And that's mainly because for a long time it was
like this cheapest city on the West coast now again
it's like riots and urban decay and drug use and
shit that like Fox News focuses on. And one of
the things that's weird when I got into studying this
guy who was like an early nineteen hundreds, nineteen to

(06:28):
three to nineteen oh six Oregon cult figure is you
get all these like news stories about what happens with him,
and they all portray Oregon the same way that like
Fox does today, Like this is one hundred and something years.
It's like this is the center of anarchy and violence
and like these people are savage, feral monsters, which I
guess is something to be proud.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
I love it.

Speaker 4 (06:49):
I love that Portland has never changed. Yeah, shaped the
national media.

Speaker 5 (06:53):
It's always been the same place, like nineteen fucking thirteen
and someone that everyone thinks you're so fucking cool with
their beards topping down trees.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
Yeah, it is funny. So we'll be talking about that today. So, yeah,
we are chatting about a sex cult leader who declared
himself Jesus Christ Edmund Creffield. His actual name probably was
Franz Edmund Crefield. He is, yet again Matt a German.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Hey, hey, I love it. I come on for the
German episodes. Oh yeah, you love a German?

Speaker 3 (07:30):
No, we picked I picked a cult episode for you
because I was like, we've done a lot of a
lot of real horrible genocide guys in a war. I
want something lighter, right, a little bit more fun. And
then bam, he turns out to be a German. You
just can't you can't miss him, You can't miss him.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
Finally, a German who doesn't kill people. He just likes
to do sucky fucking yeah he is.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
This guy's really going to rehabilitate their image.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
This is one of those cases where we have basically
nothing about this guy's early life. He was probably born
in Germany. I think it's possible he was born like Austria,
like somewhere around Germany, but like kind of unclear. We
really don't know exactly when he was born. He was
in probably in his thirties by the time the story starts,
which would put his date of birth somewhere around the

(08:16):
creation of Germany as a state eighteen seventy seventy one,
But we don't really know. All we can tell for
sure is that he immigrated to the United States, likely
at some point in the eighteen eighties, probably as a
teenager or a young adult. Some of his biographers postulate
that he may have moved to the US to avoid
serving in the Kaiser's army, because, like everyone had to write,

(08:38):
like you had to do your compulsory service in the
Kaiser's army. He may have like bounced to here because
he didn't want to do that.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
I'm a lover, not a fighter.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
I guess he really was. It's also possible that, like
his family was rich. Some biographers will suggest that given
that he seems to have had a degree of education
that would have been unlikely for him to have attained
if he had grown up sort of like poor. But
all of that sort of speculation. What we know for
sure is that by eighteen ninety nine, he has made

(09:07):
his way from wherever he landed in the US, probably
somewhere on the East coast, to Portland, Oregon.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (09:15):
Yeah, this is the mecca of every German immigrant who
wants to meet a nice hippie girl.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yeah, every weirdo. Yeah. From him to eventually Stalin's granddaughter, Yeah,
to Portland calls.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (09:33):
I just found that out recently, and I followed her
on Instagram. I'm like dash, she's cool.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
She's like, yeah, she's like a LARPer. It's kind of neat. Yeah,
she seems fun.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
So I don't mean LARPer in the sense we usually
use it on the show. I mean, like literally, I
think she does like live action role playing stuff.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
So we know that Crefield was a deeply religious man.
He felt called to witness for the Lord, and like
many similar young men in his position, he found himself
drawn on to the Salvation Army. Now do you know
a whole lot, Matt, about the actual history of the
Salvation Army.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
I don't.

Speaker 4 (10:06):
I've only ever been to a brick and mortar place
called the Salvation Army. And I bought some wooden golf clubs.

Speaker 3 (10:13):
Oh good, I didn't call you for a golf guy.

Speaker 4 (10:16):
Yeah, well no I wasn't. I just was like there
and I was like, oh, look at all this cheap stuff.
It's like Goodwill but worse. And then there were some
golf clubs and I bought them, and I was like,
why did I do this? But yeah, I don't know
anything about the Salvation Army. I've always just assumed that
they were like a charitable organization of.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Some sort of Yes, they are. They are Probably most
people's primary contact with them is that during the holiday
season they'll be out in front of shops and stuff
with these like red buckets, you know.

Speaker 4 (10:44):
Yeah, last they'll have a Santa there, sometimes.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
Off on a Santa yeah, and people will point out it,
like if you're on social media, usually about this time
of year, people will be like, don't donate to the
Salvation Army. They're problematic. There's a bunch of reasons for that.
I'm not advocating for the Salvation Army, but we are
talking about their early history, which is not entirely the
same as the organization as it exists today.

Speaker 4 (11:05):
Are you about to tell me that they are an
actual army and they got guns and stuff.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
They don't have guns. They are organized exactly like an army.
Like that part they took very literally, so a lot
of soap beatings.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah, But.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
The Salvation Army was founded not long before Creffield's probable birth.
It was formed in eighteen sixty five, right as the
US Civil War is ending, by a pawnbroker who became
a minister named William booth Over and over in England. Now,
pawnbroker does not seem like a good person job to me, right.

Speaker 4 (11:40):
Yeah, I don't actually know what a pawnbroker is. A
guy who owns a pawn shop.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
Yeah, it's a guy who takes your stuff if you're poor,
and gives you some money for it and maybe you
get it back later.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
But like, yeah, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
You're not inherently bad, I guess, but it definitely like
usually shady people wind up pawnbrokers.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, it doesn't seem like a nice thing to do,
but I could see its usefulness.

Speaker 3 (12:02):
Yeah, I've known like a nice pond guy, but I
don't know. Maybe maybe we should be just shit talking pawnbrokers.
But now I think nowadays because of how much like
paid a loan, shit, it's gotten sketchy, right, So maybe
it wasn't back then. Anyway, Booth actually does not seem
to have been wildly sketchy. He was, however, super Christian,
and his life ambition he wanted to like turn the

(12:23):
poor of London, particularly like prostitutes and alcoholics and criminals
into good Christians. Now, there's a lot of predatory religious
figures in the last century and today you have a
similar ambition. And what made Booth notable was his under
he had this like thing he would say where he
was like, no one ever became a Christian when they
were starving, Right, So his attitude is, if you're going

(12:45):
to try to convert people, the best way to do
that is like doing nice things for them, right yeah,
which is like not the worst way to be an evangelist, right.

Speaker 4 (12:53):
No, yeah, yeah, that works. I'm down for that, you know, yeah,
like at least on the surface.

Speaker 3 (12:59):
Yeah, yeah, I didn't to a deep dive on Booth,
but I haven't found any evidence that he was like
within sort of the charitable figures of his day anything,
but like a pretty reasonable example. So his focus was
he wanted to spread the gospel by improving the lives
of poor and suffering people. Now, at first he limited
this to giving food and clothing and other kind of
help to converts. But in eighteen seventy eight, like this

(13:21):
is at least the organization's sort of story. Who knows
if this is literally true, but the story goes that
in eighteen seventy eight, he's sitting down and he's talking
with his secretary and he uses the phrase as he's
like dictating a piece of you know, propaganda. Basically, the
Christian mission is a volunteer army. This was like what
he wanted to use as their slogan. And his son
heard him, and he's like, I'm not a volunteer. I'm

(13:41):
a regular or nothing. Right, Like, I'm not a volunteer soldier,
I'm like a career soldier in this Christian Army. And
that convinces Booth to change the name of his nascent
charitable organization to the Salvation Army and to adopt a
military style structure with like military style uniforms and shit,
and ranks. Like officers in the Salvation Army are called

(14:03):
like lieutenant captain. Booth is the general, right, Like that's
how they discuss talk about themselves. Now, that's like, I
don't know whatever, that's not particularly problematic. What is problematic
is that new converts are called captives, which I do
consider a little concerning.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
That's captive is a weird thing.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
That's odd.

Speaker 4 (14:20):
I mean, it's I guess it's like maybe it's a
critique of militarism where it's like, yeah, privates.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
Well, yeah, it's it's odd. There is definitely a degree
of like colonizer brain that is present within the Salvation
but this is a this is England in the late eighteens,
where the coolest people you could be the Salvation Army. Again,
there's a lot of ugly things about the organization today

(14:48):
that this is not. This episode is not about that
at the time it's founding, though again it seems to
have mostly been about like, yeah, making providing meals to
like people in London slums and shit. In a history
of the organization, Pam Mila Walker wrote, quote The Mission, however,
differed from other home missions. The authority it granted women,
its emphasis on holiness, theology and revivalist methods, it's growing independence,

(15:09):
and its strict hierarchical structure were all features that sharply
distinguished it from its contemporaries. The Christian Mission was created
in the midst of the working class communities it aimed
to transform, so there are some ways in which it's
kind of less problematic with some of its peers. It
gives a lot more sort of like power to women
that are in the organization. It's generally comes out of
communities as opposed to being imposed on them. That said,

(15:32):
it is again colored by some problematic aspects of the time,
including colonialism. In eighteen ninety booth In some of his
colleagues wrote a manifesto, a book titled in Darkest England
and the Way Out, And as you may have guessed
from that title, they're basically just comparing living conditions of
the urban poor and like Western cities like London to Africa. Quote,

(15:53):
as there is a darkest Africa, is that not also
a darkest England? Civilization which can breed its own Barbara,
does it not also breed its own pigmies? May we
not find a parallel on our own doors and discover
within a stone's throw of our cathedrals and palaces similar
horrors to those which Stanley has found existing in the
Great Equatorial Forest.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
Hello, Chimney sweeps, She's all.

Speaker 3 (16:19):
That is basically this guy's belief system. And when he
references Stanley, he's talking about Bastard's pod alumni, Henry Morton Stanley,
who again machine gun natives in Africa repeatedly not a
cool guy, but also very like popular. He writes a
lot of books about his exploration and shit that are
viral in this time. So you know, aspects of Boots

(16:40):
writing do kind of flirt with class politics. There's he's
he's got a lot of focus on inequality, but he
doesn't see the root of inequality as like the structural
factors inherent to the system that governs the British Empire.
She seeds the root of inequality as like the fact
that the poor don't have enough religion and discipline.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Right, Yeah, they need they they need Jesus and they
need Jesus. Yeah, that's all they needed.

Speaker 3 (17:03):
Yeah. The primary thing that like elevates him because that's
not an uncommon view among Christian charitable types.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
In this period today.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
Yeah, even today. What does kind of elevate him is
that there is this consistent focus on like and the
way that you make them disciplined is by making sure
they're not starving, first of all, which is like, no
matter what else you're doing, not a bad thing that works.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
People do, in.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
Fact need food. The organization the Salvation Army spreads to
the US in the late eighteen hundreds and they hold
their first kettle fundraising drives. That's the start of them,
like ringing bells outside of shops and shit. That all
begins in San Francisco, and by eighteen ninety seven the
Salvation Army is providing Christmas meals to more than one
hundred thousand people in the United States. So that's about

(17:44):
when Crefield joins. He's kind of important by eighteen ninety nine,
we know is what the army then, So like right
as it's sort of coming into prominence in the United
States is when he gets involved, when it's sort of
really snowballing as an organization. Now, whatever existed in Crefield's background,
he was charismatic and self confident as an adult. He's

(18:05):
really good at speaking, he's good at preaching, and his
superiors in the Salvation Army decide this is a guy
who might you know, be able to hold some rank here,
and they send him to their officer candidate school. Once
he's there and he's like under some scrutiny from leaders,
they are like, oh my god, this man is out
of his fucking mind.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
Right.

Speaker 3 (18:22):
He cannot work with other people. He is incapable of
listening to anyone else. He has his own ideas about
the Bible, and if yours clashed with them, all he'll
do is talk over you. He cannot have a conversation
like yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
Just like the worst type of guy to be in
a school with.

Speaker 3 (18:39):
Yeah, yeah, sounds fucking awful, truly terrible.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
God wants you to fuck He fruitful, he says.

Speaker 3 (18:47):
And when he gets out, you know, on the street
working for the army. One of the things they are
also find is that like anywhere he's stationed, donations will
drop because he loves ranting about his ideas, but he
hates money. He doesn't like asking for it. And he
started to believe that like the Salvation Army has been
corrupted by this focus on donations, Like it's too money

(19:08):
focused as opposed to being focused on spreading the gospel,
specifically his very idiosyncratic ideas about the gospel, which, like
he's not wrong. One of the valid, very valid criticisms
of the Salvation Army is that, like it is really
much about the money, you know, about getting in those donations.
So he's not alone in finding that frustrating. But he's like,

(19:29):
it's frustrating because what they should be doing is telling
everyone what I believe about the bibe.

Speaker 4 (19:33):
Yeah, yeah, and have we found have we found out
what he believes that's different from what they believe.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
Now, not yet we are about he's kind of forming
those ideas right now, right definitely, one of his beliefs
at this time is that like Christianity has been corrupted
by modernity. Right, He's not a doesn't like electric lights,
doesn't like all the fancy new clothes people are wearing,
doesn't like you.

Speaker 4 (19:57):
Know, the bicycles with the big wheel in the bicycle
at the bottom.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
Really not a bicycle fella. That is going to be
a factor in the story, Matt, you've you've predicted it
so well.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
It's a story about Portland, Oregon.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
Of course, the bicycles. So Creffield gets moved from Portland
to the Dows, which is Oregon's second city with a
name that sounds kind of like Dallas.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (20:22):
And then he gets the other one being Dallas, Oregon.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
And then he has moved to McMinnville to Hepner and
everywhere he goes donations just plummet. He is a horrible
person to have on your team if you're a Salvation
Army guy. Some sources I've read suggests he also has
like a moral issue with taking money, but a big
part of it seems to be that he knows the
money is going not just he's it's going to feeding people.
And when the Salvation Army like does these big like

(20:48):
feeding people drives or whatever. When they have these big events,
they're kind of secular, right, We wouldn't consider them secular.
But Craffield considers them secular, right, right, And he says
this in an interview with a reporter sometime after leaving
the Salvation Army. Quote. While in the Salvation Army, I
had the light, but I did not have the power.
I was teaching his works, but was still in the darkness.

(21:10):
I did not experience the fullness of His power until
I had tarried long before God in prayer. Then the
light came. The Holy Ghost told me that I should
live a life of pure faith. I was to do
everything by faith. I could no longer work for the
Army because it's people are not entirely of God. I
couldn't I take part in soliciting for funds. I was
directed by the Holy ghosts not to solicit for money.
It is not right to hold ice cream socials and

(21:30):
other social gatherings where money is taken.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Just knocking ice cream out of homeless people's hands. I
need Yeah, No, God doesn't want it. He sounds fun, man,
he sounds like it's gonna work out good for him.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
You know what God does want though, Matt Leeb, what
does he want? He wants you to buy the products
and services that support this podcast.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
Oh that's what I thought God wanted. Good thing. I'm
gonna buy them.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
Yeah, check it out. Give God, you know, like thirty bucks.
He needs it. God is hard up Now is it
possible that God just wants to buy some molly and
needs some cash?

Speaker 2 (22:09):
Sure? You know, I would say, but who are we
to judge?

Speaker 3 (22:11):
Got he works hard? Why should he take molly this weekend?

Speaker 4 (22:15):
I have always said, God, you work hard, you gotta
play hard. Yeah, get some Mollie, massage your friends, Suck
on one of those pacifiers.

Speaker 3 (22:24):
Yeah yeah, go see V and V nation. God loves
V being a being ancient and born before time itself.
He's a big v V nation man. Here's ads. Ah,

(22:46):
we're back. This is behind the Bastards and again we
are this episode raising money for the Portland Children's Museum
to donate text Bastards to five oh one five five
and we're back to the store. Back to the tale.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
So let's get back into it talking about.

Speaker 3 (23:03):
God, talking about the g Man, not Gordon Liddy, but God.
So Creffield gets tired of working for the Salvation Army
and the Savation. Salvation Army. By the way, very tired
of Edmund Craffield.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, I've had about enough of his shit.

Speaker 4 (23:19):
Anyways, He's not even good at the job, which is
like literally just being guy with bell getting out the money.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
Can't do it, can't shut up long enough to do it.
So he bounces and he joins the Pentecostal Mission and
Training School in Salem, Oregon. This is the project of
a guy named Martin Ryan, and it's it's basically it's
a fundamentalist Christian like school, right like that, that's a
way to look at it. In their book Holy Rollers,

(23:44):
Teama Cracken and Robert Blodgett described the school this way.
Ryan's group was part of a holiness movement that taught
the Bible in its entirety from the first word of
Genesis to the last word of Revelation. And if any
man shall take away from the words of the Book
of this Prophecy, God shall take away his part out
of the Book of Life, which is Revelations twenty two nineteen. Basically,
if you edit the Bible at all, or don't take

(24:06):
it all literally, that's how they interpret it. If you
don't take every word of the Bible literally, God will
light you on fire, and shit, God, damn, it's so
boring though it is, it's super boring. It's such it's.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
A long, boring book with too many fucking words.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
Oh my god, so many words more than there needed
to be.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
And I don't care who begat who Just get to
the fucking.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna be gat my fist in your
fucking face. If you don't get along with the good
parts of this shit.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
I'm going to take out my big gat and just wow, nice, nice,
I'm as good.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
So during his time with Ryan, Crefield becomes aware of
a new doctrine, which is like a new sort of
like set of religious teachings, and as a part of that,
he becomes aware of the fact that God has chosen
him specifically, he is the Lord's elect, his new prophet
on earth. Now that's a great thing to learn about yourself.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
That's a real quick, real quick turnaround on this guy.

Speaker 4 (25:03):
I mean, I knew he was, like, you know, a
little bit pedantic and maybe uh, confrontational, but now he's
immediately like, you.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
Know what I am God prophet?

Speaker 3 (25:14):
Yeah? Okay, yeah, So you know, speaking of being God,
the prophet I am. I don't know, Sophie. Are we
allowed to keep doing the Jesus Christ of podcasting bits
or did we get weird messages over those? No?

Speaker 1 (25:28):
But I hate it?

Speaker 3 (25:29):
Okay, well then we'll keep doing it.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
I don't know what it is, let's do it. You
are the Jesus Christ of I.

Speaker 3 (25:35):
Am the Lord and Savior of podcasting. That's that's obviously.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
Well, I'm your dad, bitch, And that's where.

Speaker 3 (25:44):
I know, Sophie. I feel like you are the Holy
Spirit because you're mysterious. Uh. And if there, if there
is a father God, the father of podcasting, unfortunately it's
Joe Rogan.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah, of course. You know what's.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
Gnostic about this. Joe Rogan is like the evil fake God.
And yeah, that's that's right.

Speaker 4 (26:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're the You're the real
demmy urge god. And again, I'm Mary Magdalen. I'm prostitute
and I just want to rub oil on your feet.
I'm more of a feat guy in the Bible. Yeah,
so I'm just gonna if I could just do that.

Speaker 3 (26:24):
Yeah, absolutely, Robert speaking of feet, Nope, not speaking of feet, guys.
So we're talking about Edmund Creffield, sorry, who has just
had it revealed to him that he is God's elect
And I found an interesting article by Sophie co submitted
to the Young Historians twenty seventeen conference hosted by Portland

(26:46):
State University that describes his next movements in this period.
After separating from the Salvation Army, Crefield moved around to
different cities preaching his radical take on Christianity, most of
which were places he had previously worked as a soldier
and had connections to people from cities like the Dows
in McMinnville dismissed Craffield for being too extreme, leading to
his eventual arrival in Corvallis in nineteen oh three. Although

(27:09):
the population was fairly poor, the community was close knit
and dominantly religious. These characteristics, as well as any connections
he gained in the Salvation Army, likely prompted Creffield's faith
in the people of Corvallis. Now, do you know anything
about Corvallis.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
Matt Leeb Literally nothing, nobody.

Speaker 3 (27:25):
Does, Nobody fucking does. It is like one of the
most boring towns in this whole state. This is the
only thing that ever happened there. Very pretty it's in
the western part of Oregon. It's kind of right in
between Portland and Eugene. Yeah, and in this period. Today,
I think Corvallis is like, you know, like many sort

(27:45):
of less dense chunks of Oregon. But back then it
is dirt poor. Right, everyone who lives there, almost everyone
who lives there are these like subsistence farmers who lead
very lean lives, full of hard work. Right, is a
tight knit community. There are two newspapers, and since they are,
it really lets you know, like the how much how

(28:07):
similar newspapers were to like tweeting and TikTok in the
era before those things. Because the newspapers in Corvallis they
report absolutely everything that happens there. And I am talking
about the most pedestrian shit imagine. Oh yeah, Blodgett McCracken
ride quote. Everything was reported. Everything go out of town.
It was reported a swift journey on a bicycle was

(28:27):
made Saturday by Frank Hurt. He went from Corvallis to
Oregon City in six hours. It is not likely that
the trip was ever made by wheel in so short
a time. That's from the Times. In nineteen oh one,
a man rode a bicycle.

Speaker 4 (28:42):
I just love the journalism in a small town is
just the most nosy neighbor.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Yeah, and he has a printing press.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
I do want to do like a like a modern
day like with like the same like Woodward and Bernstein level,
like a skullduggery and like drama that you get from
like Watergate era journalism movies, but about stuff like this,
Like a guy gets a call in the night from
like a shadowy figure. Man rode his bicycle from Corvallis

(29:09):
to Oregon City today, pull the other thread. He gets
car bombed trying to report on it.

Speaker 4 (29:19):
To meet with someone in an underground garage. He gives
them a file and the file is just someone like.

Speaker 3 (29:26):
A grainy picture of a man on the giant bicycle.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
I think he's visiting family.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
Oh, I love so the problem you know, Crayfield picks
Corvallis because it's the small town. Everyone's very religious. He's like,
it's kind of isolated. You obviously want that as a
cult leader, and like these people will believe anything, so
like these are these are my ideal sort of provincial
rubes to join the cult that I'm going to get.
They'll buy what I'm saying about being the new prophet

(29:57):
of Jesus Christ. The downside of this place for him,
which he doesn't seem to realize at the time, is that, like,
because it's such a titan at town, Corvalis is the
kind of place where people are open to burying bodies
for their neighbors, right, which presents a danger for coultreats. Right, Like,
that's not necessarily the best place to start fucking around.
You get kind of lost in a city, like you

(30:18):
can't in Corvallis.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (30:20):
Yeah, the idea that like this small town, literally everyone
knows where the bodies are buried except for you.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
Yeah, not necessarily your safest bet.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
Yeah, that's kind of bad.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
So, like a lot of the other cult leaders we've studied,
the Twelve Tribes, which we did earlier this year, comes
to mind. Crefield starts out when he first moves to Corvallis,
he's not giving the whole span of like what his
beliefs have become. He starts preaching relatively popular Christian doctrine,
and he's still he's identifying himself as a prophet, but
he's basically saying, like I'm a messenger who's and God

(30:54):
talked directly to me. But he's still he's like giving,
he's respectful of like the local churches. He's not trying
to get in their way. He's not trying to like
out himself as somebody who's like running against all of
the existing kind of religious infrastructure in the town.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
Right.

Speaker 3 (31:10):
More of what he's saying is that, like, hey, I
have this close connection to God, and if you listen
to what I'm saying, I can help guide you to
spiritual perfection. That's the term he uses a lot, And
this is kind of his key innovation, right, which is
that he's not just saying I am speaking with God,
but I can teach you how to receive direct messages
from God, right, Oh, which God, Yeah, it gives people

(31:35):
a little bit more to aspire to rather than just
listening to you, Like they get to get messages from God.
And what it's also going to mean is that, like
if Crefield's not around to talk to them, like if
he's in prison and stuff, the cult can perpetuate because
these people are also talking to God themselves.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Right.

Speaker 3 (31:50):
So it's a smart it's a smart way to set
this shit up. He begins to claim, you know, once
he's got people following him, showing up every week to
listen to him preach that once everyone's ready, like, once
people have been following his guidance enough, they'll be added
to a holy roll in heaven where God lists all
of his best friends.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
Right, and this is oh, that's what the role is.

Speaker 3 (32:12):
One theory as to where that came from.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
Right.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
The other theory is that it has something to do
with the specific nature of how they are worshiping when
he's holding these big preaching sessions. And I'm going to
quit from Blodget McCracken again. For hours, Craffield kept his
flock in a state of frenzied excitement. He had them rolling, praying, rolling, wailing, rolling, groaning, rolling, singing, rolling, clapping, rolling, stomping, rolling, tumbling,

(32:37):
rolling and rolling and rolling for hours on end. He
had them rolling twelve hours if it was a short service,
twenty four hours if it was a typical service. All
heads were spinning because they were glorying in heaven and.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
So what the fuck?

Speaker 3 (32:50):
Yeah, He's literally got them rolling around on the ground
for twenty four hours at a stretch.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
And part of what's power? I get that, Yeah, I
kind of want that.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
Who wouldn't want that?

Speaker 4 (33:00):
I would love to just make a bunch of piggies
roll in front of me, Is that right?

Speaker 3 (33:04):
Yeah? Oh for god, I have to feel Yeah, that's
probably what was going on in like Andy Kaufman's head
when he made that audience like walk with him to
get ice cream, where he's like, I could take this
much further.

Speaker 5 (33:15):
Yeah, it's unlimited power, just takes it.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
Yeah, they occupy a police data.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
Yeah, I think also what's going on here? You know,
like little little little kids when they find out if
they can like spin around, they get kind of dizzy.
They yeah, a lot. It's like getting high at the
first way.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Totally is exactly what I was thinking, is like, is
he getting these high rolling.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
Because like, yeah, they're They're like especially if you're not eating,
you're starving yourself and rolling around a bunch, Yeah, you're
gonna feel weird.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
You know, you're gonna become susceptible.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
Yeah. Yeah, and this kind of like some of this
is classic cold shit, right, the whole starving people for
periods of time. A lot of colts do this because
it makes you worse a decision making. I haven't heard
of anyone having people like roll around on the ground
hours to get them all buzz. That's kind of.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
Cool, that's mk roltra.

Speaker 4 (34:04):
Yeah, yeah, that's how we're gonna get you to fucking
give us the goods.

Speaker 3 (34:11):
That's kind of a credible theory as to where the
name Holy rollers comes from, too, is like, oh, yeah,
I get why you would call about that. They're literally
worshiping by rolling around on the ground.

Speaker 2 (34:22):
Yeah makes sense.

Speaker 3 (34:23):
Yeah, Now, this kind of all consuming worship is consistent
with what Crefield was starting to claim about his God
inspired take on Christianity. He believed, and he would argue,
God had told him that true Christians should not have
time for anything else in their lives but worship. Right,
anything else you're doing farming, raising your kids, literally, anything
but worship is a waste of time and of the devil. Right,

(34:47):
So if you're you know, the upside of that is
that it keeps everyone focused on him the whole time.
The downside is that spending a full day or more
rolling on the ground is not conducive to like growing
the food you need to survive.

Speaker 4 (34:58):
Right right, Yeah, Subsistence farmers like they can only roll
for a little bit and then they're Gonta get back
to the farming.

Speaker 3 (35:04):
They don't have a lot of rolling time. But it's
also the other thing we just noted, how starving yourself
and rolling around a bunch gets you kind of in
this altered state that makes you more suggestible. That's not
the only thing going on. It's also fun, right his worship.
They're not just rolling around. They're like rolling and dancing
and like flinging their bodies around and like shrieking screaming.

(35:26):
They are expressing themselves and their feelings both through like
vocalization and through physical movements. And these are people not
only are these all subsistence farmers, which is a difficult
and often brutal way to exist, especially in nineteen oh three.
This is a super strict Victorian prudish society that is
anti women expressing themselves. That's anti many different facets of

(35:47):
self expression we consider like normal today, and he's giving
them an outlet like that's it's fun. People like being
in Crefield's cult a lot better than they likely dying
on a farm in rural lord Agon.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
You know, like yeah, this is like uh, you know,
peloton classes or typo or something.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
There's a definite element of peloton type like that, that
kind of ship here. And most of the people joining
his cult are women, right, Yeah, some of them are poor,
but all of them feel like they're missing something like
in part what you get from all these people like
they seem bored with their lives because their life fucking sucky.

Speaker 4 (36:29):
Seventeen Yeah, guy shows up, hot fucking German guy shows up,
is like, hey, we're rolling this week.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
Yeah, and they're going to be like sure, yeah, I
don't want.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
To go back. Yeah. This is a time when like
a game was like having a wheel and a stick.

Speaker 3 (36:48):
Yeah, you know, closing your eyes and pretending your brother
didn't die of consumption, you know, like that's a fun
parlor game for us.

Speaker 4 (36:54):
Yeah, or reading one of two newspapers that are keeping
tabs on your neighbors.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
You hear about this bi called shit.

Speaker 2 (37:04):
So uh.

Speaker 3 (37:04):
Prefield preached a sense of separation from the profane world,
but he also utilized the tactics that he'd learned out
in it, and chief among them was hypnotism. Right, we
don't have as much to tail about this as I'd like,
but it is theorized that he took classes in hypnotism.
He's basically certain that he did because he's using a
lot of like at the time, hypnotism is like a

(37:27):
viral meme spreading through society. It's super hip, and a
lot of what he's doing in his speeches is like
kind of borders on hypnotism, right, Like, he seems to
be very familiar with that and utilizing that as well,
which helps is part of why he's got this popularity
early on.

Speaker 4 (37:43):
Yeah, so them roll around, I mean that shit is
fucking you know that. Yeah, feels kind of hypnotic. Instead
of a watch swinging back and forth, it's your head.

Speaker 3 (37:53):
Yeah, and so you know this, Dozens and dozens flock
to his banner, but you know, dozens hundreds more of
people in Corvallis are angry.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
Right.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
He's described in newspaper editorials as a hypnotist. They write
that his followers are quote dead to all human sympathies.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
Now, yeah, I mean they're doing what I would if
I saw this in the wild, I a modern person
would say they're witches. Yeah, yes, so I could see
like the rest.

Speaker 4 (38:22):
Of the town or the neighboring towns being like, what
the fuck is happening here?

Speaker 3 (38:27):
Yeah? Yeah, this disturbs a lot of people. Sure, and
it's also like the idea.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
You know.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
Part of why I'm not sure exactly how solid the
hypnotism claims are is that the journalists at the time
use this a lot, and a large reason why they
describe him as a hypnotist is because they have to
explain how all of these young women are drawn to
him while in their opinion, he's ugly, right.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
He's not even that hot, and they all are all out.

Speaker 3 (38:57):
I'm going to quote from Sophie Coe's right up here quote.
Edmund Craffield was described as being physically unattractive and homely,
but very persuasive and attractive for other reasons. His personality
was said to be magnetic. Many claimed that he had
power overwhere others, especially women, that put them under a spell.
Now those other reasons we will get into a little

(39:18):
bit later, but not quite yet for now. The final
piece of the Craffield puzzle, and the real bit of
genius in his cult, was that he doesn't just promise
conversations with God. He added a ticking clock. Right, you
can connect directly with God. He can talk to you personally.
But there's only so many names that we have space
for on the holy role. Right, God's like one of

(39:40):
those cell phone plans in the ninety NINETI where you
got to like pick your five friends to text with
for free. Like that's that's how speaking with God works.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
Yeah, God doesn't do roaming data like God. You have
to be in the plan.

Speaker 4 (39:56):
God's plan is a very very cheap cell phone plays.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
Yeah, I love.

Speaker 3 (40:03):
And you know who else offers cheap cell phone plans
all the products and services at one of them? Yeah, definitely,
at least one of them does in fact.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
Uh oh good.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
Yeah, so at least one, at least one, sometimes two,
sometimes multiple.

Speaker 4 (40:20):
Cell phone services fighting in the cell phone Yeah.

Speaker 6 (40:24):
Anyway, ah, we're back.

Speaker 3 (40:35):
Hey, we're talking about Eddie C. So many of the
first members of Crefield's cult are Salvation Army volunteers who
saw his personal and astatic relationship with God as much
preferable to acting as foot soldiers for donations. Now, initially,
he would allow you to kind of be in his
flock and also stay a member of the Salvation Army

(40:55):
or stay a member of one of the other churches
that are in town in Corvallis. But soon he starts
to warn his growing flock that other Christians are not trustworthy, right,
and they have to start isolating themselves. He preached, quote,
when you get him the Holy Ghost, you'll bring consternation
wherever you go. Peace ceases when you make your appearance.
The so called Christians of the modern churches of today

(41:15):
rise up in arms against you and call you a
disturber of the peace, charging you with the grime of
breaking up their churches. And he absolutely went deliberately about
breaking up churches.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
Right.

Speaker 3 (41:28):
First, he uses his familiarity with the organization to pull
in Salvation Army volunteers, and then he would like preach
to people outside of churches when they were in the
mood to receive God, and once they start getting interested
in his idea of this direct converse connection with God.
He introduced a question, right, if your old church, or
if the Salvation Army was really holy, wouldn't you already

(41:48):
be talking with God? Right, you've already accepted that this
is the goal, and you're not, which means these must
be false churches.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
Right. Yeah, he makes a great point.

Speaker 3 (41:57):
He makes a solid point.

Speaker 4 (41:58):
Yeah, people got to go to church every sum They
don't talk to God once, or God at least doesn't
talk Now BacT.

Speaker 3 (42:03):
No, but you take mushrooms. Boom, you're right there, baby.

Speaker 4 (42:07):
Take mushrooms. Talk to the trees, dog bill, give you
some life advice.

Speaker 3 (42:11):
Yeah yeah, So perhaps it says more about how boring
Corvalis is than anything. But this pitch worked on quite
a few people. The Gazette, a local paper, wrote this
in December of nineteen oh two. The Salvation Armies people
were not entirely of God, or so Crefield, God's elect
had told them. So all of God's annointed deserted the army.

(42:31):
The big drum of the Salvation Army is no longer
in evidence about eight o'clock each evening, and tambourines are
very cheap. The army has gone to its religious waterloo.
It had met a body of divine healers, the Army
of Holiness or something, and went over to the enemy.
True religion of a respectable character, a religion that is reasonable,
that commands at least the respect of the greatest thinkers
and a better class of people, is the last thing

(42:52):
on earth that should be treated in a contemptuous manner.
But a holy show that is a burlesque on religion
is a bad thing for any community, as it has
not taken seria and consequently lays the foundation for the
youth of the land to scoff at religion of any form.
There should be reason and moderation in all things. There
may be efficacy in prayer. Who can say there is not,
But it must be the prayer of a sane mind
and a reasonable being. The prayer of a religious fanatic

(43:14):
cannot avail much. Sho you suck? Just that is by way.
This story is not a story of like the good
people of Corvallis and this evil cult leader. Everyone sucks
in this story, right, Everyone is like, they're all pieces
of shit. So is this reporter right being like our
Victorian churches that teach you to hate your penis, you know,
like that.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
They don't even punch their balls in that church.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
Yeah, yeah, they're not locking themselves inside a chastity belt.
Listen to this not telling them that you can have fun?

Speaker 4 (43:46):
Yeah no, this is like it reminds me of what
was that wild wild country where you like learn about
the Rajniche and then they do interviews with the townsfolk and.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
I was like, I don't know if I like them either.

Speaker 3 (43:58):
Yes, I would have poisoned them too.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
Fuck.

Speaker 4 (44:00):
Yeah, yeah, I would have did some ground beavers in
their water supply as well.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
Yeah, why not? Why not? I do that anyway just
for fun.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
Yeah, it's hilarious to those people don't get a life
beavers in their water A beaver.

Speaker 3 (44:13):
Yeah, scientists recommend at least you drink three beavers per year.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
So right, yeah, that's a good science. Move on.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
So one of Craffield's first converts was a young woman
named Maud Hurt, which is kind of a kind of
a cool name, like if you were doing like a
fucking Warren Ellis comic about like a badass female preacher
who was like killing I don't know, gangsters in nineteen
oh four, probably want to Hurt. Yeah, cool name, good stuff. Yeah.

(44:41):
So one of her friends told a journalist later that
from an early age, Maud's chief aim had been quote
to become nearly as perfect as a Christian could be,
And for a time she practiced this by like she
was always the person if like you were sick, she'd
go over to your house, she'd watch you, she'd take
care of your kids, if you had like a harvest
and stuff. She's just a very nice, giving person.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Now that's beginner level. Shit, yeah, let's get to the
real Christian ship.

Speaker 3 (45:07):
Well, when she's fourteen, she decides to do that. She
joins the Salvation Army, where she meets Creffield, and very
soon thereafter is like, I'm out. You know, the Salvation
Army is too focused on money. I want to meet
this guy who is is kind of yeah, yeah, I
like it. I'm getting in there.

Speaker 4 (45:28):
I'm picturing Willem Dafoe, but based on the way they're
writing about him.

Speaker 3 (45:32):
Is just like for another reason too, Yes, he would
be the thing. He'd be the right guy to play this,
or at least Willem Dafoe like circa Boondock Saints, we
have a great guy to play this. So you do
get similar stories from other converts, as this passage from
the Holy Rulers makes clear. One of Creffield's most ardent
followers was Samson Levins. Samson, thirty five, the second youngest

(45:53):
of nine children, had been a private in the Spanish
American War and was now a logger. He had a
deep interest in the Methodist Church, he said, but when
it failed to meet his heart's desire, he joined Crefield's church.
Some people think ours is a strange doctrine. But John
Wesley was attacked by mobs when he founded the Methodist Church,
Samson said, adding, of course the church now is not
as he John Wesley left it, So he's like, I

(46:15):
was already a part of this kind of fringe movement
that was founded by a nut. And you know the
fact that Crefield's is weird is just makes him seem
more legitimate to me. Right, Yeah, well, the Methodist Church
has gotten too normal. Now it's time to get weird again.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
Now we see this same pattern over and over again.
A man or a woman of belief joins the church,
but they don't feel spiritually sated. Right, Maud doesn't feel
sated by the Salvation Army. This fucking dude Levins doesn't
feel sated from the Methodist Church, and so they leave
to find something more radical. And it's not just radical,
but it's interesting. I cannot overemphasize how much the appeal

(46:51):
of being in Crefield's cult is based on the fact
that life is boring as shit outside of it.

Speaker 4 (46:56):
Right, you have to reckon with the fact with how
much this place fucking fucked.

Speaker 3 (47:03):
Yes, that is a big sh So in mid nineteen
o three, the city of Corvallis, officially forbade Criffield and
the Holy Rollers from hosting meetings in Corvallis. Exiled, Edmund
found an island a few miles outside of town. Oh yeah, man,
we're doing it. We're doing it. We're getting doing island as.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
We get on the water. That's what gets weird.

Speaker 3 (47:25):
Yeah, that's how you That's when colts get good.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
That's when colts really find themselves.

Speaker 3 (47:30):
Folks.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
There is an island in a place where to leave
means to drown.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
There is an island right in the middle of Portland, Oregon.
You know, it's right in the Willamette. If we buy
that island, folks, if we raise money together and buy
me that island, I promise I'll make this guy look
like a fucking chump. Like, first off, going to get
a lot of you killed, Like let's just be oh yeah,
but it'll be a good Netflix documentary into.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
Well it's blood and blood out.

Speaker 4 (47:57):
But also you know where you're gonna learn about how
to do like knive throwing, You're gonna learn how to
time not You're gonna learn, you know, how to wash feet.

Speaker 3 (48:07):
Once they kill us. Taylor Lautner is gonna play me.
It's gonna be great. Oh, it's gonna be so oh
my god, thank you, thank you. You guys have a
similar why why why because that, Sophie, Because.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
You didn't know I know, no, you did not get
that the Taylor Lottner hat I wore like two months ago.
You didn't get the reference, and that hurt my face.

Speaker 3 (48:28):
I have hat blindness, Sophie.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
Thank you for I read it out.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
I read it out loud to you, and then I.

Speaker 3 (48:33):
May see your blindness too.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
Yeah, well listeners, Robert nor any member of the schools
on media team. Not a single one of them knew
my where the hell have you been? Loka hat? Not
a single one of them. And then I made them
all watch the clip twice on a team.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
Meeting, because is that Twilight?

Speaker 1 (48:51):
That's what? Thank you, Matt, Thank you Matt.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
Yeah, why yes, it is. Well, it's because it's Taylor
Ltner is either that or Spy Kids.

Speaker 3 (48:59):
Spike Kids is my.

Speaker 4 (49:00):
He wasn't in Spy Kids, he wasn't Shark Boy.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Yeah. Oh gosh, same have.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
Shark Boy slash Spy Kids blindness too, so you know, yeah,
it happens. You can't make fun of me. For it anyway.
In mid nineteen oh that's who's gonna play you. In
mid nineteen oh three, the city of Corvallis officially forbade
Creffield and the Holy Rollers from hosting meetings in town.
So he decides we're going to move to this island,

(49:27):
Robinson's Island, and he described to his followers, He's like,
this is literally the Garden of Eden. So biblical scholars
out there if you're curious. The Garden of Eden, it
turns out, was based right on the outskirts of Corvallis.

Speaker 2 (49:40):
Yeah, you could take a ferry to it.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
Yeah, you could take a ferry there. So again, and
it's you know, if you've been to a lot of
these islands in Western Oregon, they are very pretty places.
Like it's not a big stretch to be like this
is paradise. Especially this is kind of like midsummer or
so late summer, which is like, it's incredible and it's
easy to see how you would enjoy living out in

(50:03):
one of these islands. And like midsummer in Western Oregon.

Speaker 4 (50:06):
Yeah, there's none of those snitch journalists out there, and
now you can roll around on the ground rate time.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
No one's going to yell.

Speaker 3 (50:13):
At you are popping out because he's letting people know.
At this point, you know, what's what is godly is
not wearing these fancy, new fangled clothes.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
You know, that's the whole point of the Garden of Eden.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
Dog absolutely eve ate that.

Speaker 4 (50:25):
Apple like an idiot. Everyone just had their titties and
it is pretty fun.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
Yeah, they're doing a lot of rolling around. They're shrieking
for hours or days at a time. They're not wearing
much in the way of clothing. They don't have a
lot of food, but there's a peach orchard nearby, so
every day they just gorge themselves on stolen peaches and
then they return to worshiping, which is not the worst
life you can live in this period of time.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
Everything.

Speaker 4 (50:49):
Yes, you're describing what my sex cult fancy is. It's
just like fucking gorging myself on peaches, roll around screaming too.

Speaker 3 (50:58):
What's what's not to like?

Speaker 2 (51:01):
I'm married and have a baby, but I could still.

Speaker 3 (51:04):
Jam That all does sound fun, But if you're keeping
track on your cult bingo card Craffield has at this
point convinced his followers to sever themselves from their friends
and their community and work them into a state of
constant exhaustion and starvation. And if you if you know
your cults, you know what comes next. It's time to
start fucking them right like that is that is what
follows naturally, seeing nacturally the next step. So one fine day,

(51:29):
Edmund Crefield gets up in front of his flock and
he tells them that he and God have just gotten
off the phone. And God, you just got off the
horn with God. He's doing good.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
Yeah, and he says, Mike, com is holy.

Speaker 3 (51:43):
That is where this ends. He first says, God has
told me I need to rename myself Joshua. Right, So
now Edmond Craffield is Joshua Greffield. And it gets better
because God has also told him that all of his
female followers are now eligible to become brides of Christ. Right,
and one of these brides of Christ is going to

(52:04):
be chosen by God to give birth to the second Coming. Right,
one of you is going to be the new Mary.
But obviously God can't just pick one of you. We
got to test you out. And guess who's testing you out?
I got to audition you for God.

Speaker 4 (52:26):
Yeah, listen, God has not told me, he says, he
needs to feel through my penis which holy vessel your
pussy should receive the seed of the Lord or something.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
Yeah, but that is basically almost exactly how this goes, Matt. Now,
Joshua's male followers had a purpose too, of course, and
their purpose was to provide him with the resources he
needed to build his flock. Now, this is all he
wants them doing, right. Early on, there were number of
like couples who joined the Holy Rollers. Mad the Salvation
Army veteran I mentioned earlier. She joined with her fiance,

(53:06):
a guy named James Berry, who is like a local
businessman and I think kind of the wealthiest guy in town.
And so early on he's cool with this in part
because he needs Barry's money, right, and Barry gives a
couple of loans to the cult, but it's never quite enough.
So one day when they're out on the island, James Berry,
who's kind of like in and out right, he's not
fully committed, but he's giving him money because his fiance

(53:29):
is in it and he loves her. He arrives on
the island to like check in on Maud and he
finds the Holy Rollers even more excited than usual and
He's like, why you guys also fucking amped up, and
they're like, we're excited because God's going to build us
a tabernacle. Right, He's going to start construction immediately. We're
going to get our you know, we're living outside falls,
getting closer. We really need a place. He's going to

(53:51):
build it for us. And James is like, well, tabernacles
ain't cheap. Where you guys getting the money to build it?
And they're like, oh, you you're giving us the money.
And it turns out Joshua had started preaching.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
Damn it, Joshua, I gotta get a second job. I
gotta work for both newspapers.

Speaker 3 (54:07):
Now, what's really funny about this to me? So Joshua
is like, we need even more money from James Berry
to build a temple. Right, we need to get like
all of his money as opposed to these loans he's
given us. And what's the best way to do this?
Should I like reach out to him, talk to him privately,
be like, hey man, we need more money than you've
been given us. We got to build this temple. He's
like no, no, no, that he could say.

Speaker 2 (54:28):
No.

Speaker 3 (54:29):
The best thing to do is I'm gonna tell everyone
that he's already agreed and then trust that that will
like shame him into doing it right. Yes, this does
not go over well. James like confronts the prophet and
he's like, dude, I've already loaned you guys money and
it's due, right, the loan is past due. And Crifield
is like, I came here to pick it up. No, no, no,
easy mistake to make, but it's not due. I just

(54:51):
got off the phone with God. He said he canceled
the debts, So actually, would you do me a favor
in write a receipt letting me know that we don't
have a debt anymore, because because God says it's canceled.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
I mean, like, this is pure pimps. This is like,
this is such pimps. It's crazy.

Speaker 4 (55:11):
This guy is like, no, actually, you owe me money
and I'm gonna fuck your fiance.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
Oh that is exactly where this is headed. Of course,
to talk about what comes next, I'm gonna quote again
from Holy Rollers. God was now telling Craffield that James
should quit work, sell his valuables, including his new automobile,
and give the money to Craffield and devote himself to
the church. The automobile, one of the first in Corvallis,
was obviously something received from carnal hands. Either God or

(55:38):
Creffield made a mistake. James said, telling God's anointed that
he wasn't going to give Creffield another cent. God was
mad now, or so said Craffield, who said that God
would smite James for this, so he was not done.
Craffield's not done with Barry. At the smiting, he decides
that if this rich guy is going to stay devoted
to his carnal possessions, then he certainly doesn't deserve to
be married to a woman as godly as Maud, who,

(56:00):
by coincidence, Crefield wants to have sex with.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
So he yeah, I mean he's known her since she
was fourteen, I get.

Speaker 3 (56:06):
It, he tells, He tells, yeah, he tells Maud, the
Lord told me that you have to break off your engagement,
and she does. She does this immediately. So after this,
he kind of gets high off of this, the fact
that like this, he says, hey, leave your fiance. This
one does it. And so he starts preaching hardcore about
personal purity.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
Right.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
He starts like discussing how he's got this this hatred
of like the carnal He tells his followers flee fornication.
Every sin that a man doeth is without the body.
But he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.
Are you still in bondage to your carnal nature? Is
the old man still living in your heart? Have you
still this man fearing spirit, this something which hinders you

(56:46):
from becoming a visitor at all times? Do not be discouraged.
God wants to use you to cleanse you, to purge
you from your inbred sin, baptize you with fire, and
enable you to come up to His commandments to live
a holy life. Claim the promise, stand firm upon it,
and the witness of the Spirit will come and will
baptize you with his love and make you a holy man,
Make you victorious over the world, the flesh and the devil.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
Hey, are you trying to funk my Why? I feel
like guys, he's trying to.

Speaker 3 (57:17):
Fuck our why?

Speaker 2 (57:20):
Okay, yeah, you can do it.

Speaker 3 (57:22):
That's what that is. That is how a lot of
the men in his cult react at this point. This
is when a lot of them start to Of course.

Speaker 4 (57:27):
They do, because every any man can see where this
is exactly.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
Yeah, any man is going, I know what you're doing, dude.
You're trying to fuck my wife.

Speaker 3 (57:39):
Now, that is happening. At the same time, what a
lot of these women are doing is like, well, my
husband's terrible at sex and Bet Crayfield fucks.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:50):
That is the other half of this story, right, So yeah,
the fact that this works so well seems to kind
of have surprised Joshua, and so he immediately decides to
double down. He tells another couple in his flock, Sophie
Hartley and Lee Campbell, Hey, God wants you to end
your engagement declaring, and he and he declares. He gives
a speech where he's like, the relation of man to

(58:10):
wife is unholy, and as support for this, he cites
one Corinthians seven to one quote now concerning the things,
whereof you wrote, unto me, it is good for a
man not to touch a woman. And again he means
the other men in his flock right.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
Right right now, different standards for him, bro.

Speaker 3 (58:29):
And the actual quote like context of that verse is
basically from the point of the Bible where this is said,
is like sexual immorality is any sex at all? But
since it's inevitable men and women should get married and
fulfill their marital duty right, which is not a great
message either in my opinion, but it's not exactly how
Graffield is portraying it. But Crayfield's theological argument is that

(58:54):
his follower is going to get closer to God and
be holy your people by issuing all sex except for
the sex that he has to have in order to
find the bride of Christ.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
Right.

Speaker 3 (59:04):
Unfortunately, the new Joshua isn't able to get this commandment
out fast enough to stop all of his followers from
getting married. Molly Sandal and Frank Hurt wed the night
before God gets on the heavenly phone line with Joshua
and luckily for them God, you know, because they're really
concerned when they get married. And then he has this
revelation like, oh my God, are we out of step

(59:24):
with what God wants? And Joshua's like, don't worry. God
told me a way that you can still receive the
grace of love. Right, we just have to perform a
I just have to perform a private ceremony with your
wife to endower with the grace of love. So well, yeah,
exactly what's happening about here. Yeah, it's not one hundred

(59:45):
percent clear, but it's described and holy rollers is like
they retire to his intent and engage in a long
church service, right, and we know that afterwards he like
kisses all of the women that he does this with, right,
So you can put to in two together, right as
to like what this service is. There are a few
couples and a few people who refuse this new change

(01:00:08):
for the cult, and he denounces them all as cardinal
and of the devil. He makes his followers cut off
contact with them normal cult leadership.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:00:16):
So there's also you know, if you kind of fall
out of favor of Joshua and do something he calls cardinal,
you don't have to leave. There is a way that
you can atone and that is by letting him whip you.
Right now, he does this to men and women, although
I think he does it more to men than women.
There's a local and contemporary news report that describes when

(01:00:38):
one of Joshua's followers ed sharp like sneaks into the
prophet's tint when he's like whipping another man, and he
like sees the two of them, and they mistake him
for the devil. Is what's written in the news article
and beat the shit out.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
Of him with the man also, and they both beat the.

Speaker 3 (01:00:56):
Shit out of him, and then D's like, fuck this,
I'm leaving the cult.

Speaker 4 (01:01:03):
Sorry, bro, we thought you were the devil. You snuck
up on us while common mistake. I was whipping him
and he was enjoying us.

Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
To all of us. So ed is fairly representative of
a large number of male followers of Crefield, who increasingly
leave the flock as time goes on and it grows
clear that the primary goal of the prophet's teaching is
to let him have sex with every woman in town.
When some of his most stalwart male followers bulk, Crefield
declares that all of the men in the camp save

(01:01:29):
his three lieutenants are fake Christians and now have to
be shunned by not like all non believers. Families are
split up as a result of this. And if it's
hard to believe that people would do this, you have
to remember everyone's spending every waking hour it's been months
now praying that the entire time they're awake, often for
twenty four hours in a row. The only food they
have is peaches, and now the only approved dick is Craffield.

(01:01:51):
So like people are not in the most rational place, right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
And this is the point in which the outside world, right,
which includes the town of Corvallis, starts to get really concerned.
The Salvation Army, concerned by declining donations and all these defections,
sends one of their best soldiers out after the problem, Captain.

Speaker 4 (01:02:11):
Oh yeah, this island's about to be invaded by the Salvation.

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
They send him, Captain Charles Brooks, who has been he's
been a Christian soldier for eleven years. He's recently met
General Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, to like talk
this over, and so he.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
Like, this guy's got a tactical bell that he's.

Speaker 3 (01:02:29):
Gonna be like Mason of the Salvation Army, except as
soon as he arrives something happens. Right within days of
getting there. He like claims in a letter that he
was as soon as he gets to the island, the
devil approaches him. Who's and the Devil's covered in snakes,
and he like sends a bunch of hideous reptiles that
like swarm and cover Brooks and quote as a means

(01:02:51):
of placating his devilish majesty Brooks tears off his Salvation
Army uniform and throws it into the fire and then
announce that he's also a prophet and joins Creffield's flock.

Speaker 4 (01:03:03):
Oh hell, yeah, this guy saw what was going on
and he said like, oh, I'm down for this.

Speaker 3 (01:03:11):
Entirely possible. He's just like, this seems like more fun
than the Salvation Army.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
Yes, he shows up at Titty Church and he's like,
I prefer.

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
Another theory too. So western Northwest Oregon is where like
one of the densest places in the world for like
the natural growth of magic mushrooms. You get a ship,
I have a bunch of friends. People pick them all
over the place here, and it's been known for a
while that we have hallucinogenic mushrooms. I wouldn't be surprised

(01:03:41):
if they were like the Salvation Army guys here. Let's
let's give him some tea, you know, Yeah, I wouldn't
be shocked if that were a factor in this. Oh yes,
he also could have picked some accidentally and just made
himself tripped. Not impossible. Who hated a lizard man? Thing

(01:04:01):
makes me wonder, like.

Speaker 4 (01:04:02):
Yeah, this hallucinated a lizard man and now I'm also
talking to God that does say.

Speaker 3 (01:04:08):
Sounds a little bit like mushrooms. Yeah, So you know,
it's important to note that everything we've been talking about
here so far has occurred over the course of the
summer of nineteen oh three. And if you haven't been here,
Oregon has really mild, pleasant summers famously, right, that's something
that we are infamous for, especially like western Oregon. But
in the fall, it gets very wet, very fast, and

(01:04:30):
also quite cold, right, and so living alone outside naked
in an island not going to be a great call
like come you know, September October, It's going to get
markedly less pleasant, very quickly. So Maud this is able
to thankfully invite her prophet and eighteen of his most
devoted followers into her family home to like wade out

(01:04:53):
the winter. So at this point, Crefield is now back
in corballis and he has taken a significant chunk of
the young men in town into his colt. He's broken
up a bunch of marriages, and he has moved what
resembles a harem into a family house in town. This
is not popular, right, This is going to piss off
a number of people, and I'm going to quote now

(01:05:15):
from offbeat Oregon history author Finn JD.

Speaker 2 (01:05:18):
John.

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
Their simple clothing consisted of a plain cloth wrapper, which
one source recounts was similar to a bathrobe. The outsiders
felt was inadequate to protect female modesty, and in any case,
looked entirely too easy to take off. By itself. The
communal living arrangement would have been bad enough, but Creffield's
followers combine it with a mania for secrecy that all
but invited other community members to fear the worst. Members

(01:05:39):
vanished from their families lives into a locked house with
barred windows, supervised only by the cult leader and his cronies.
So you know, there's a lot of things small town
Oregonians are willing to overlook in neighbors, but not stealing
their sisters and wives, and to.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
Be entire yeah, and making them dress all slowly, to.

Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
Be entirely fair to Craffield. That's how these guys viewed it.
The men in court Vallas, it's not clear to me
that he's stealing anybody. Right. Most times when we talk
about a sex cult, they're pretty profoundly abusive. But the
culture is also very abusive to women in this period,
and it's it seems like, based on the information we have,
the women who join this cult much prefer it to

(01:06:18):
their lives outside of the cult.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
And yeah, I gotta say from my you know, time
visiting or like like Portland, not much as.

Speaker 3 (01:06:26):
Not much as yeah, you know, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
The women there, they still like to be free. You know,
I've had brunch at multiple.

Speaker 3 (01:06:34):
Strip clubs there and and you know, I do think
a lot of like the portrayal of like this cult
is like him being this, he stole all these women,
he's ruining the women in town is based on the
fact that this is a deeply misogynistic society, and like,
I think a lot of these women are making, potentially,
I think it would be reasonable, to say, a perfectly
rational decision to live a much more pleasant life with

(01:06:56):
this guy than with their shitty.

Speaker 4 (01:06:58):
The guy talks good, he's hot, he's got a big hog,
and he's like, yeah, do whatever you want.

Speaker 2 (01:07:03):
I mean, he's like, he's like he's manipulating them.

Speaker 3 (01:07:06):
He's absolutely abusive. It's just it's not clear to me
that he is more abusive than the men in town.

Speaker 4 (01:07:14):
Right right, Yeah, it's it's the it's an abnormal type
of abusive.

Speaker 3 (01:07:19):
But maybe it's just different, maybe not even lesser, But
like I think it's not. It's not clear to me
that these women are not making the most kind of
informed decision they can be making, that this is better
than their lives in town. Which doesn't mean he's not
also abusive. It's just a bad time, right. So yeah,
we're gonna talk about all of that and much more

(01:07:41):
in part two. But before we get into part two,
Matt leeb, you exist on the internet in a variety
of places.

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
I am on the Internet. If you like me and
you like watching.

Speaker 4 (01:07:54):
Television shows like The Sopranos or The Wire, you can
listen to pod your self a Gun, which is a
Sopranos and the Wire rewatch podcast, and then once the
Wires over, we'll watch another show. So check that out
wherever you get your podcasts. And you know, even if
you don't watch it or listen to the show, give

(01:08:16):
us five stars in a review. Say hey, Matt Lee,
that Matt Leave sure is great. I'm gonna listen to
it at some point, but you.

Speaker 7 (01:08:23):
Don't even have but you should, Yeah, but you should
absolutely listen to it, you know, move on to an
island with Matt Leeb you know, do it recently.

Speaker 2 (01:08:34):
Dude, move to an island, bring your wife whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:08:37):
Yeah, we'll have yeah. And uh, if you are in
the donating mood, the Portland Children's Museum could use your
help to provide kids all throughout the Portland metropolitan area
with educational resources and uh yeah, all sorts of fun stuff.
So please text bastards to five oh one to five
five if you're in the mood to donate, that's bastards

(01:08:57):
to fine.

Speaker 4 (01:09:00):
And if you I don't know when this episode's going
to come out, so I don't know if the tickets.

Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
Oh, next week, no, no, no, no, no no. The next
week is Thanksgiving, so we're not We're not.

Speaker 3 (01:09:11):
Fuck next week. The hell with next week?

Speaker 1 (01:09:13):
Next week fire the last week of the last week
of November.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
Yeah, okay, well the tickets won't necessarily be on sale,
but I might as well just say March seventeenth, Sunday
Punchline and Sacramento, myself and my wife Quarantine will.

Speaker 3 (01:09:30):
Be I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that at all.

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
No, I always do it.

Speaker 4 (01:09:36):
We are going to be headlining the Punchline in Sacramento.
That Sacramento, California, seven pm, Sunday.

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
March seventeenth.

Speaker 4 (01:09:44):
If you can't get your tickets, then you know, just
keep that date in mind and eventually the tickets will
go on.

Speaker 3 (01:09:52):
Say yeah, so go to Hell. I Love you.

Speaker 1 (01:10:01):
Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia
dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Behind the Bastards News

Follow Us On

Host

Robert Evans

Show Links

Popular Podcasts

Cold Case Files: Miami

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Part One: The Holy Rollers Sex Cult