It Could Happen Here Weekly 105

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let
you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode
of the week that just happened is here in one
convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to
listen to in a long stretch if you want. If
you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,
there's going to be nothing new here for you, but
you can make your own decisions.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Welcome to it could happen. Here's Spooky Week special presentation.
I'm Garrison Davis and earlier this year, I, along with
my friend Elane, attended the twenty twenty three organ Ghost
Conference in Seaside, Oregon. The past few years, I've had
a growing interest in the occult, both for testing the

(00:55):
limits of manufacturing my own weird experiences as well as
looking at it as a vector of political extremism. Sometimes
it's useful to not just to look on from the outside,
but actually pop into other people's reality tunnels to gain
a more intimate understanding of how they interact with our world.
This was my primary motivation in attending the Ghost Conference

(01:19):
to learn what metaphysical beliefs drive the attendees and how
said beliefs intersect with politics and our broader culture. My
experiences at the conference ranged from ghost hunting to being hypnotized,
to learning of the galactic Federation of Angels and abortion
hungry demons. So with that in mind, I hope you

(01:40):
enjoy my report back on the twenty twenty three organ
Ghost Conference. The first challenge we faced was simply getting
to the town of Seaside. The first day of the conference, Friday,
March twenty fourth, coincided with a massive snowstorm along Highway
twenty six from Portland to sea Side. As we were

(02:02):
driving on the treacherous mountain roads, a white out completely
engulfed our view. When we emerge from the snowstorm, it
was as if we'd gone through a portal, transporting us
from the mountainous forest to the small coastal town of Seaside, Oregon,
into a world of ghosts, spirits, specters, and overpriced convention food. Seaside,

(02:25):
as the name suggests, is a beachfront town situated in
northern Oregon. It was founded in the late eighteen hundredths
after railroad baron Ben Holliday built his summer vacation quote
unquote Seaside House on the plot of land which is
now Seaside's golf course. It's always been a sort of
tourist resort town that people from Portland travel to for

(02:47):
beachfront entertainment. The conference is put on by a friendly
high school art teacher and Oregon City commissioner, Rocky Smith.
Smith has been doing ghost tours in Oregon since the
mid nineties and has been putting on the Oregon Ghost
Conference since twenty twelve. Originally, it was held in Smith's
hometown of Oregon City, an extremely haunted town often cited

(03:11):
as the end of the organ trail. In twenty sixteen,
the conference outgrew its Oregon City venue and relocated to Seaside.
It's now the largest paranormal convention in the Pacific Northwest.
The conference features ghost tours, classes, guest speakers, vendors, tara readings, seances,

(03:32):
ghost hunting, and paranormal investigations. The first big event I
marked on my schedule was a ghost tour to get
acquainted with Seaside's most haunted places. The tour began right
outside the convention center. Conference director Rocky Smith led this
one himself. He filled us in on some old ghost

(03:54):
conference lore. The Seaside Convention Center went through some extensive
renovations right before the pandemic, but the first year of
the conference took place in the convention center. They had
a class for kids where a group of children explored
around the old building to find what they thought were
the most haunted places. There was one hallway on the

(04:14):
west side of the building where people routinely reported strange experiences.
Back in twenty sixteen, a child at the conference claimed
they saw a ghost down this hallway when exiting the bathroom. First,
they just saw something out of the corner of their eye,
and then when they turned to the left, they saw
a woman in an old dress staring at them. At first,

(04:37):
they weren't sure if the dress was long or short
because they were too scared to look down, But then
they noticed that the woman didn't have any legs and
was just floating in the air. Because of the new renovations,
that hallway is no longer accessible. Rocky Smith remarked that
he didn't know if that was intentional or not, but

(04:57):
said that a lot of times when they redo buildings,
they'll change the part of a building that used to
be kind of scary and uncomfortable, so that hallway is
now used for storage, although one of the convention staff
members claimed that a vacuum cleaner now held in the
hallway is possessed. So there's that. The Convention Center was
originally built in the seventies and doesn't really have a

(05:20):
lot of notable history. But when looking into hauntings or
reports of ghosts, typically people try to learn the history
of the building or plot of land in question. For Seaside,
that's kind of hard because in nineteen twelve, four blocks
of downtown Seaside burned to the ground, destroying most of

(05:40):
the town's early history. The first stop on the ghost
tour after we left the Convention Center was one of
the reportedly most active sites of ghostly activity in Seaside,
the Bridge Tender Tavern. It was built in nineteen fourteen,
so just a couple of years after the big fire.
It used to be called the Pastime Bar and then

(06:02):
suffered its own fire and was later renamed the Bridge Tender.
The previous owners of the bar claimed that in the
early twentieth century it was a brothel. This is unconfirmed,
but it relates to the tavern's most frequent ghost the Madam.
Staff and patrons of the Bridge Tender regularly address the Madam.
If customers are being rude, It said that the Madam

(06:24):
will spill drinks on them, you know, stuff like that.
The story I like the most about the Madam has
to do with the tavern's old CD jute box. If
a specific song played on the jukebox, something would go haywire,
CDs would shoot out of it, or other weird things
would reportedly happen in the bar. Patrons would put the
song on repeat just to see what would happen. Eventually,

(06:47):
the owners took the CD with the song in question
out of the jukebox so that people would just stop
playing the song. But people are persistent bastards, so now
people just play the song on their phones or the
new digital jukebox in Bridge Tender. Now, the theory is
is that the Madam just really hates this song, so

(07:07):
she gets mad when it plays and then causes some commotion.
The song is Dancing Queen by Abba, So if you
want to go test this yourself, you can travel to
the Bridge Tender and play Dancing Queen and see what happens.
Another highlight from the ghost tour was learning about the
old Seasider Hotel at the end of the promenade. It

(07:30):
was purportedly haunted by multiple spirits, and it was believed
that when the hotel was torn down in the eighties,
the ghosts followed the hotel staff who got new jobs
at a restaurant in downtown called Girdles. New employees are
said to have recognized apparitions from the hotel, and the

(07:50):
restaurant gained a haunted coffee pot that would either move
on its own or even fly across the room, depending
on who you would ask. It's nice that the ghosts
seem to have a pretty good job relocation program, something
that most of us do not so good for them.
As the ghost tour approached the Beachfront promenade, that snowstorm

(08:12):
from the nearby mountains seemed to have caught up with us,
and a dreary mix of rain and snow began to
descend upon Seaside, as if some otherworldly force was trying
to keep us from further exploring the hauntings of the town.
So as even my trench coat began soaking through, we

(08:34):
took refuge back indoors the very first class. My friend
Elaine and I took at the conference was titled Ghost Detectives. Now,
despite the silly, stounding name, it was probably the most
grounded class throughout the entire weekend, certainly the one with
the least amount of spiritual dogma. The class was focused

(08:56):
on best practices for conducting paranormal investstigations, specifically to ensure
that the process and finding's mirror the evidentiary standards set
by the justice system for law enforcement investigations. The instructor,
doctor Nelson, is a supervisor for a crisis hotline with
degrees in mental health, metaphysics, and fine arts. He describes

(09:19):
his methodology for investigating paranormal activity as quote unquote applied science.
He was definitely the most meticulous investigator of the whole weekend,
and the least ghost hunter esque in terms of advocating
for strict investigative procedures and not just assuming that every
spooky noise was evidence of a ghost. Most of his

(09:42):
class was spent explaining very basic police investigative procedure, proper
ways to collect evidence, having a chain of evidence, and
not simply jumping to conclusions. It's a little foolhardy to
assume every single spike on an electromagnetic field or EMF
meter is actually a ghost trying to communicate. The other

(10:03):
unique thing about his class was the emphasis on before
pulling out your special ghost and detecting tools. Perhaps one
should conduct thorough interviews and collect witness statements of the
people reporting the phenomenon. Try to figure out what's going
on in their life, maybe even look into their own
mental health background as much as you're able to, if
they've had any sudden losses, past trauma, or history of

(10:27):
paranormal experiences. Asking thorough questions can give a much fuller
look at what someone might be going through. Some examples
of things to ask or look into were if the
phenomenon is related to a house, who owns the house,
who lives there, who has experienced the event? What led
to a paranormal investigator being called? What precipitated the phenomenon?

(10:50):
When it occurred? How often has it occurred? When was
it first noticed? Was there just one random strange experience
or is someone going through an event in their life
that is the maiden experience suddenly stick out as strange.
Has the person sought help, and has the phenomenon been
verified by more than one person? In terms of haunted houses,

(11:11):
figuring out if there's any issues in the house is
a great first step because if there's a carbon monoxide leak,
that could explain a great many things. Or if someone
claims ghost ectoplasm is leaking through the ceiling and walls,
perhaps the roof and water pipes should be inspected. Elene
and I did a little debrief after the conference, and

(11:32):
they reminded me of another good tip gleaned from the
ghost detective class.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
Well, I mean my favorite was when he was talking about, like,
if you're using an EMF detector and one wall just
keeps setting the EMF detector off, you might actually just
need to call an electrician.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
Yes, yeah, No, he definitely was one of the more
reasonable people we spoke with in terms of Yeah, he
seems he seems pretty close to like consensus reality. Like
he also he also is like a part of the
Portland Ghostbusters cosplay group. Like he's he's someone who like
makes stuff with his hands. He's very like he feels
very grounded and like and like concept this reality a

(12:11):
lot in a lot of aspects, and this is like
a very fun hobby that combines his two favorite things,
well two of his favorite things, just like Ghostbusters cosplay,
and then also like paranormal investigation stuff. I'm not actually
sure if the instructor for the paranormal investigation class really
believed in ghosts or if he just had an interest
in researching paranormal experiences. I don't think I believe in

(12:36):
ghosts the same way literally everyone else at the conference did.
But almost half of Americans do believe in ghosts, and
around one fifth are unsure if they're believers or not.
The rate of belief in ghosts is about the same
as belief in demons. But the interesting thing about that
is although Americans belief in organized religion has been decreasing,

(12:59):
especially Christianity, belief in ghosts has been and still is
on the rise. In fact, it's gone up by nearly
four hundred percent since the nineteen seventies. These last three years,
for really the first time ever, Gallup polls show that
less than fifty percent of Americans say they belong to
a religious congregation. Alan Downe is a computer scientist and

(13:22):
professor at the Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts. His
research suggests that the Internet is a major cause, not
just a correlating factor, in the decrease of religious affiliation,
and with the rise of the Internet and reality TV,
ghost hunting has become a relatively popular niche hobby. But

(13:43):
as religious belief has declined, belief in the afterlife has
remained the same, about seventy percent according to the General
Social Survey. Gallup's polling suggests that currently about three and
four Americans have some sort of paranormal belief. Thomas Mowen,
associate theologist who's been conducting a study on religion and
paranormal belief at Bowling Green State University, said that he's

(14:06):
finding that quote atheists tend to report higher belief in
the paranormal than religious folk unquote. As to why so
many Americans believe in ghosts, Moen says, quote, people are
looking to other things or non traditional things to answer
life's big questions that don't necessarily include religion unquote. Throughout

(14:27):
the conference, the word ghost, spirit, and entity were often
used interchangeably. Each of those words kind of act as
an umbrella term for a broad swath of ontological concepts.
Ontology is the branch of metaphysics that relates to the
nature of being. Depending who you ask, a ghost or

(14:48):
a spirit can be anything from a wayward soul of
a deceased human, some other worldly energy, an evil presence,
or even some sort of temporal loop. Historically, these have
never been very clear either. They've evolved with the times,
so Elene and I prepared a brief history of ghosts
to help give context for the rest of this episode

(15:10):
and the next. The idea of contacting spirits or interacting
with some sort of spirit world obviously isn't new. Worldwide,
people have traditions of interacting with ancestors that deceased in
a variety of non material beings. Ancestor veneration in China
goes back at least six thousand years, while the word shaman,

(15:33):
relating to someone who works with spirits and in the
spirit realm for healing and divination, comes from the Tungusic
language of Siberia and has practices that are at least
too millennia old. The term necromancy stems from a Greek
word meaning divination of the dead. In the Odyssey, Homer
writes of Odysseus learning necromantic rituals to summon the shade

(15:56):
or underworld ghost of Tyresius, while wile clerical necromantic traditions
through the medieval period made a clear distinction between the
souls of dead humans from other random spirits. That separation
was not as ubiquitous among folk beliefs of people who
claimed to interact with the spirit world. Emma Wilby describes

(16:16):
in her book Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits. How into
the early modern period, many cunning folk, basically low level
magicians and conjurers, had ghosts, fairies, and animal spirit companions,
all of which seemed to interact very similarly. The European
concept of ghosts being linked to evil or demonic forces

(16:38):
is a relatively new idea. It came to be as
a byproduct of the Reformation and rejection of the Catholic Church.
The Catholic doctrine of purgatory and limbo was rejected by
the new Protestants, which caused some cosmological problems when it
came to people's own experiences with ghosts and spirits. Catholics

(16:59):
held them that ghosts were basically spirits of dead humans
on vacation from purgatory, But with Protestants rejecting purgatory for
its lack of biblical basis, they defined some other way
to explain the apparently fairly common phenomenon of ghostly encounters.
A Swiss theologian named Ludwig Lavater attempted to solve this

(17:23):
cosmological problem in his fifteen sixty nine book Despecterus. I
just picked up my copy a few weeks ago and
had been going through it, and it's a lot of fun.
The full English title was quote of ghosts and spirits
walking by night, and of strange noises, cracks and sundry

(17:43):
fore warnings, which commonly happened before the death of men,
great slaughters, and the alteration of kingdoms. Pretty cool stuff.
Two of my favorite consecutive chapter titles are quote what
hath followed this doctrine of the Papists concerning the appearing
of men's souls, followed by testimonies out of the Word

(18:05):
of God that neither the souls of the faithful nor
infidels do walketh upon the earth after they are once
parted from their bodies. So that kind of gives you
a look at the writing style of this entire book.
Despects became massively influential. It was widely translated. Shakespeare was
reading this as he was writing Hamlet. More importantly, the

(18:28):
text took off across many Protestant circles and became the
backbone of the cultural conception of ghosts in the soon
to be United States through such Protestant sects. Instead of
ghosts being wayward specters of dead humans who escape from purgatory,
Lavater proposed a great many explanations for spectral experiences, including

(18:49):
many non mystical causes. He lists illness, insomnia, psychoactive substances,
sleep paralysis, and grief as being common causes of ghostly hallucination,
an opinion now shared by many psychologists and doctors. Definitely,
the closest thing I've ever seen to a ghost was
during a sleep paralysis episode. Lavator writes, quote, Melancholic persons

(19:12):
and mad men imagine things which in very deed are not.
Fearful men imagine that they see and hear strange things.
Men which are dull of seeing and hearing imagine many
things which in very deed are not so unquote. He
also cites pranksters as another common cause of perceived spectral activity,

(19:32):
but most interestingly, in an attempt to bash the Catholics,
the Protestant Lavater also lists low level clergy trained in
exorcistic magic to summon demonic spirits in an achromatic fashion,
as possibly producing some supernatural phenomenon interpreted as ghosts. Now,
Lavater does believe in spirits, but his thesis is that

(19:56):
genuine ghosts, spirits bumps in the night, those strange the
cracks and noises which we now might refer to as
politygeists are almost always demons that are torturing people. He
wrote that devils can quote appear in different shapes not
only of those which are alive, but also of dead
men as well as a peer in the likeness of

(20:17):
a black dog, a horse, an owl, and also are
able to bring incredible things to pass unquote. Lavater did
admit that in the rarest of cases, God may send
angels or the spirit of a dead person to Earth
for a very specific task, but due to demons and
nature trickery, there's really no way to trust that a

(20:38):
ghostly presence may be from God, so he recommends that
one should always assume that a specter is demonic. God
may even allow demonic spirits to appear as a form
of punishment and a sign that one should repent for wrongdoing.
Lavater's theologic work on ghosts were part of a larger
Protestant Christian campaign to literally demonize all spirits. Right, the

(21:04):
only thing you can really talk to is Jesus or God.
Anything else is probably just a demon. This is the
version of ghosts that I grew up with as a kid,
the idea that basically, if a ghost appears, it's probably
a demon trying to scare or trick you. This concept
that spirits and spirit contact were predominantly demonic changed the

(21:25):
nature of many witch trials, since when cunning folk listed
their familiar ghosts or fairies, they were basically admitting to
trafficking with demons. The next evolution in ghost lore came
in the form of Emmanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish theologian and scientist.
In fact, he was one of the first to postulate

(21:45):
the existence of the neuron. As Christians in Europe were
dealing with this messy assortment of spirits that you really
shouldn't try and interact with, but if you do, you
better make sure they're angels, Swedenborg was about to shake
up this whole entire cosmology. In the seventeen forties, he
started having quote intense mystical experiences, dreams and visions unquote,

(22:09):
which led him to believe he was in contact with
a spirit world and entities that he described as angels, demons,
as well as other spirits, including ones from extraterrestrial planets.
This is like one of the first guys to do
the spirits I'm talking to are actually aliens, which is
pretty cool. In seventeen eighty five, he published a book

(22:31):
titled Heaven and Hell, based on his experiences of the afterlife.
According to Swedenburg, once humans on Earth pass on to
the spiritual world, they enter a intermediate realm in between
heaven and Hell and eventually either become beautified into angels
or twisted into demons, and then respectively pass on into

(22:55):
either Heaven or Hell proper. While his depiction of spirits
were obviously influenced by his Christian beliefs, the variety and
breadth of his spirit world was broader than just the undead.
Swedenburgh's writing was one of the early influences on spiritualism.
Core tenants of which are there being multiple levels of

(23:16):
the afterlife and that an individual's awareness persists after death
and may be contacted by the living, which is pretty
similar to what most people now would probably describe as
ghosts if you were to ask them what a ghost is.
While Swedenburg actually recommended against attempting to contact spirits, he

(23:39):
had a lasting influence on American spiritualism for creating an
explicitly Christian based system where spiritual entities worked as mediators
between humans and God. Coming out of Upstate New York
in the decade before the Civil War, spiritualism brought to
the other aspects of the radical Quakers with Swedenberg's idea
of spirit intermediary who could bring messages to the living.

(24:03):
The spiritualist movement formally began on March thirty first, eighteen
forty eight, when the Fox Sisters made their fraudulent claim
of contacting a spirit who could communicate through knocking noises.
Starting initially in Quaker communities, mediumship and seances immediately took
off across the United States, including the White House as

(24:23):
the Lincolns were graving the loss of their son, showing
that interest in ghosts and seances were not just a
parlor trick for commoners, they were also a parlor trick
for the president. The fact that the rise of spiritualism
coincided with Civil War deaths and gruesome Battlefield photography certainly
helped fuel the drive to communicate and receive messages from

(24:45):
the recently deceased. Due to its Quaker roots, the spiritualist
movement was abolitionist, and its belief in an egalitarian afterlife
prompted its members to advocate for social change here on earth.
Even the messages that mediums claim to relay from the
dead were often progressive. In eighteen fifty two, the medium

(25:07):
Isaac Post published a collection of messages he supposedly channeled
from such people as Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson, and other famous
figures who urged the living to push for radical social change.
The book, entitled Voices from the Spirit World, included a
passage claiming that the ghost of George Washington became an

(25:29):
abolitionist after death. And I don't know the idea that
the ghost of Jefferson and Washington suddenly became abolitionists after death.
Although I understand its utility at the time for trying
to push people towards becoming an abolitionist, it does kind
of read as a little bit gross, considering how that

(25:49):
was very much not their opinions when they were actually
living humans. New to the spiritualist development of ghosts was
not just the idea of regular spiritual contact, but evidence
that the spirit world could be shown to the physical,
scientific world. Basically the precursor to modern ghost hunting emerged

(26:11):
between the Civil War and World War I. In London,
multiple ghost clubs and psychic or paranormal research groups were
founded in the mid to late eighteen hundreds aimed at
scientifically investigating ghosts, hauntings, and the claims of spiritualists. Similar
groups for investigation opened up in the United States, and

(26:33):
around this time is also when we start to see
the use of technology to assist in capturing alleged evidence
of ghosts. In eighteen sixty one, amateur photographer William Mumler
was developing a self portrait when a shadowy apparition of
a young girl appeared on his developing plate. Mummler knew

(26:54):
this to be a simple mistake of re using an
improperly scrubbed photography plate, what we now would call a
double exposure, But upon showing this photo to a very
excited spiritualist friend of his, he realized the lucrative opportunity
that lay before him. Thus was born the business of
spirit photography. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes's fame,

(27:19):
was a fan of spirit photography. He became a member
of London's Society for Psychical Research and eventually became a
spiritualist himself. The recent inventions of the phonograph and telephone
were hoped to be utilized to create evidence of spirit contact.
According to Ghosts of Futures, Past, Spiritualism and Cultural Politics
of nineteenth century America by Molly McGary, Thomas Watson, famed

(27:43):
assistant to Alexander Graham Bell, experimented with the telephone as
an aid to spiritual communication. Decades later, Thomas Edison sought
to develop a quote unquote spirit phone, telling American Magazine
in nineteen twenty quote, I've been at work for some
time building an apparatus to see if it is possible
for personalities which have left this earth to communicate with us,

(28:06):
not by a cult, mystifying, mysterious or weird means, but
by scientific methods unquote. Edison's spirit phone never really turned out,
and we have very little information about it. It seems
Edison thought that elements of our personality or memories existed
in a form of like almost particles that could be

(28:28):
measured and amplified by vibrational sensing equipment, but not much
is recorded of his actual attempts to build this spirit phone.
By the end of the nineteenth century, newspaper is reported
on ghosts and hauntings along with other regular news. A
twenty eighteen New York Times article on the paper's own
history of reporting on ghosts said, quote Paulette D. Kilmer,

(28:52):
a cultural historian and professor at the University of Toledo,
scoured the paper's archives. Her research turned up nearly three
hundred ghost stories in the Times between the founding of
the paper in eighteen fifty one and the early twentieth century. Quote.
While news coverage of hauntings dropped off during the twentieth century,

(29:12):
the ways in which people attempted to understand ghosts only
got more complex. The mediumship of the spiritualists has combined
with the ever growing field of paranormal research, New Age beliefs,
and pop culture fascination with poltergeist, spirits and UFOs, along
with the resurgence of Evangelical Protestantism into an overlap of

(29:33):
conflicting ghost cosmologies and what it means to contact the
spirit world. To cap off. Our first night at the conference,
we signed up for our very own ghost investigation at
the Starry Night Inn, a quaint little house just a
short walk from the convention center. We got to the
inn right before midnight on Friday evening, before we ventured

(29:56):
out on our hunt for ghosts. We were split into
two groups of five, with one starting in the inn
and the other in the outdoor bathhouse. We got acquainted
with the ghost hunting tools we were going to be using. First.
We were given a popular EMF meter routinely used for
ghost detection, called a K two meter. It's supposed to

(30:19):
measure electromagnetic fields and features colorful light up LEDs. I'm
going to read a quote from the lead investigator we
were paired with. Quote. If a K two meter spikes
without reason, if it's not put next to anything powerfully electrical,
then we can consider that paranormal. Consider that a spirit.

(30:40):
When our body dies, we leave behind our energies. Our
energies is EMF, and this starts to pick it up unquote.
Among the paranormal skeptic community, the K two meter is
notorious for giving off false positives. With its unshielded sense
is able to be set off by cell phones, radio waves,

(31:03):
and even nearby batteries. The other device we were using
is something called a rempod. Essentially, it's a small, horrible
sounding junior theoremy with some LEDs attached. An antenna creates
an electromagnetic field. If something conductive gets close to the antenna,
it forms a capacitor between the object and the antenna,

(31:25):
and the pod will light up and make some noise.
Or if it's electromaenetic field gets disrupted by something like
say cellular or radio frequencies, it will also make a
horrible beeping noise and light up. I'm going to read
another quote from our lead investigator quote. When our energies
are around, the pod will react to any energy field

(31:46):
that comes close to its antenna. So as we invite
spirits in, we can tell them how they can interact,
and we can tell them, hey, if you walk over
to that light over there and touch it, it'll light up. Unquote.
There is something funny to me about telling a ghost
to walk over somewhere, just a little it's just a

(32:08):
little amusing. My group of five intrepid investigators were sent
out to the bathhouse, which we were told used to
be a carriage house and horse stables that got damaged
in the nineteen twelve Seaside fire. The lead investigator started
by informing any possible spirits that we do not mean
them quote harm or intrusion, and that we would just

(32:31):
quote like to talk. He then informed any ghosts in
the vicinity that if they quote unquote walk up to
any of the devices with LED lights and quote unquote
touch it, it will light up. Quote go ahead, use
your energy and touch all those lights for me. That
way we know you're here unquote. Potential specters were also

(32:56):
informed that if they speak into an electronic recording device,
us corporeal humans could hear their voice when we play
back the audio. This is called EVP, or electronic voice phenomenon.
More on that on the next episode. The lead investigator
then asked any nearby ghosts what their favorite food is,

(33:16):
which seems like a cruel question to ask a ghost
because they can't eat anyway. A barrage of questions then
flooded out, can you tell us your name, what are
you wearing? Who is the president? Not exactly all things
I would ask a spectral anomaly if I was given
the opportunity, But after a few minutes of silence, the

(33:39):
rempod started to light up very faintly. The lead investigator
starts talking to the presumed ghost and suggests that they
play a game to find out what the ghost's name is.
This is how it works. Someone recites the alphabet, and
if the rempod lights up on any of the letters,
that means the letter is in the ghost's name. We

(34:00):
first got the letter N, and then the letters O
and D. Then I started going through the alphabet and
it lit up on the letter I. Then it let
up on the letter I again, and then the letter R.
At this point, the lead investigator decided that the ghost's
name was Ronnie. As we were about to leave the bathhouse,
someone who worked at the end came in and told

(34:21):
us that there was a stableman with the last name
Norris who died in the fire. So now the ghost's
name became Norris. Next we moved to the basement. One
person in our group was a little spooked and elected
to stay outside. None of the rempods or anything lit
up in the basement, but the person from the inn,
the one who told us about Norris, joined us in

(34:44):
the basement. When down there they said they saw a
ghost that they were familiar with named Cassandra. They then
turned to me and said that Cassandra likes me. Cassandra
was reportedly trying to give me a hug and said
that she wishes me quote all the well beings in
the world unquote. Now, Cassandra was also apparently trying to

(35:07):
tell me about a Grandpa John, which I don't have.
So if any of you have a Grandpa John who
needs to tell me something, just let me know. All right,
back inside the house part of the inn, and we're
about to go tour upstairs. We just went down into
the basement and just got out of there. Yeah. Once

(35:33):
back inside the inn, we went into the upstairs bedrooms.
People set up their EMF detectors, but there was also
some new equipment. One of the rooms had a security
camera and a grid projector to record any irregular shadows.
And I was given a spirit box. A spirit box

(35:54):
is a handheld radio tuner that sweeps through AM or
FM frequencies at a high rate. You mostly hear a
sort of grating, staticky white noise with small bits of
words or music slipping through from radio stations. I guess
it's sort of the modern incarnation of the spirit phone.
The idea is that ghosts can somehow manipulate the radio

(36:17):
waves to speak complete words or sentences as the box
is cycling between frequencies. Basically, spirit boxes are supposed to
act as an electronic radio medium for spirits to communicate.
The lead investigator thought that the spirit box was telling
us to leave, but words weren't really clear in my opinion.

(36:40):
For example, here is a clip in question.

Speaker 4 (36:47):
In the room.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
There was also some flickering lights and high EMF ratings,
which mostly just got me concerned for this bedroom's electrical wiring.
The second half of the investigation was pretty uneventful, and
around two am we called it a night and I
recorded a little debrief on our way back to the hotel. No,
I do find it super interesting how people try to

(37:10):
like the way they interpret electual readings as you would
a conversation, and they they assert their reality on it,
being like, if this happens, this means you say yes, right,
so then so then the absence of the thing also
becomes an answer. It's it's It is a very interesting
process of people like crafting their own reality as things

(37:31):
are happening.

Speaker 4 (37:32):
No, it was definitely them crafting their own reality.

Speaker 5 (37:34):
But also I'm.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
Like, like, probably some of it's like interesting, but there's
still a whole bunch of points where you like make
a decision, be like this is the thing that I heard, right,
Because like even when they were doing the name game thing,
a lot of times the light would light up and
they would like still kind of keep moving on.

Speaker 6 (37:52):
So yeah, like there was an F and and I
that off for the absolutely.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
And the yeaholutely, So there's this a whole bunch of
very very peculiar things that that had that like go
into crafting what the idea of reality is going to be?
Stop making a thing, then making a thing, and then
it starts again. You're like, oh no, you're not supposed
to do that, And it's like it's a very it's
a very very bizarre process to watch when putting together

(38:21):
these two episodes. This last October, Elaine and I once
again conversed to share our thoughts on our first ghost
hunting experience. Okay, now that it has been over six
months since you and I were at the organ Ghost Conference,
I'm curious to see how our debrief now may kind
of differ or be expanded upon from our debrief literally

(38:45):
minutes after we left this investigation at the story night
in and you know this this day was This day
was interesting because we had the ghost detective class like
right before this investigation. We were able to have these
two kind of ideas of what a ghost investigation looks
like kind of play off each other, which I think

(39:09):
led to a pretty fun holistic experience. In terms of
the many kind of diversity of investigators that were at
this event.

Speaker 6 (39:18):
I think just the most notable thing was they didn't
do a single thing that the forensic ghost Hunting class suggested,
just like literally, yeah, we could have gone down the
list of every single thing that the forensic ghost Hunting
class suggested to do, and not one of those was done.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
Like completely the opposite.

Speaker 6 (39:35):
Record keeping of what phenomenon occurred did not happen.

Speaker 1 (39:39):
Logging any data, yeah.

Speaker 6 (39:41):
Did not happen. Investigation of the structures, yeah, did not happen.
Doing a history of the structure didn't occur. The only
interviews we had with someone was the person who said
they were a medium who lived there. Yeah, even just
like questions like how long have you seen things here?
Didn't occur.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
No, it wasn't very interesting just in terms of how
like the ghost hunt at the end was literally just
the exact opposite of all of the sorts of procedures
that the ghost Detective class was trying to lay out,
which we attended just like literally hours prior.

Speaker 6 (40:16):
Well, I think one thing that you can really see
between the how to do a Ghost Investigation class and
then the ghost investigation itself is the how to do
a Paranormal investigation class doesn't assume you know what you're investigating,
and so it really is a lot about doing, you know,

(40:39):
background talks with people, like talking to sources, what phenomena.
It's not assuming that there was anything paranormal in the
first place, and it's an investigation of whether or not
something paranormal has occurred. And when you go to the
ghost hunt, specifically the ghost hunt that we went to,
everyone there was assuming that paranormal things were occurring just

(41:04):
as a baseline.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
They were interpreting readings from their specialized ghost hunting equipment
as proof of communication with some kind of paranormal force.

Speaker 6 (41:17):
There's a lot of implicit assumptions made. First off, if
you start talking to phenomenon, you're assuming that there's phenomenon.
You're assuming the phenomenon can hear you, You're assuming the
phenomenon wants to interact with you. And if you say,
if you can hear me, touch the light, all of
those are very implicit assumptions. It's not investigating what phenomenon

(41:41):
there is. You've already framed what you expect the encounter
to be and how whatever you're encountering will interact with
a whole mess of like ideas.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
Yeah, my favorite thing about that from the experience at
the starting night in is like we were basically with
this like middle aged man who just kept yelling at
any like prospective ghosts that were around the vicinity, And like,
why would a ghost want to follow the commands of
like a middle aged man.

Speaker 6 (42:12):
I mean I didn't want to follow the commands when
he would say everyone needs to be quiet. I wanted
to like start yelling or muttering just out of sheer obstinence.
Because of the way that he was instructing things. I
can't imagine a spiritual entity, if it was a ghost,
even the way he's conceiving of it, would somehow not.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
Yeah, I have this little exchange laid out here where
he was he was addressing what I guess he assumed
was a ghost saying, quote, make the light to stop,
back away, back away, good good. Now get closer, thank you,
thank you, one more time, get closer. All right, now
make the light stop. Ah, I didn't tell you to

(42:54):
get closer. Back away, back away, back a way good. Okay,
now now get closer, good good. The only thing that
was changing throughout that back and forth was that occasionally
a little lightwood kind of go on, and that was it, right, Like,
but he's able to weave this whole story in between
this light going on by saying back up and then

(43:16):
the light turns off, and then saying okay, now come closer.
You wait like ten fifteen seconds the light turns on.

Speaker 4 (43:22):
He's able.

Speaker 1 (43:22):
It's it's it's crafting this whole like timeline of this
ghost like doing this thing when really this is just
a flickering light like that that but through the way
that he has this like uh, this like commanding voice,
it's making it as if the ghost is like following
these instructions and then being being like rewarded for following
these instructions by saying like good good, good good, or

(43:45):
if they don't follow instructions, then the ghost is like scolded,
So it's it's just a lot of a lot of
interactions like that.

Speaker 6 (43:52):
I mean, I've gone through the same narration when I
stare at a candle flame like a little bit high like,
but it doesn't mean that the candle is necessarily responding
to me.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
Both activity on the rempod and the lack of activity
are taken as a sign of spirit communication. Questions will
be framed as if you want us to leave you alone,
light up, so if nothing happens, that itself is taken
as an actionable answer. Whoever is leading the quote unquote
investigation gets to either intentionally or even unintentionally, craft the

(44:26):
meaning of the experience based on how the questions are framed,
when questions are asked, and how the group responds based
on the activity or lack thereof of the EMF devices.
The rempods often go off erratically or in seemingly random intervals,
but when their activity happens after someone just asks twenty questions,

(44:48):
it's assumed to be related to whatever the most recent
line of inquiry was. It all operates on correlation versus causation,
with people mostly jumping on the ladder no matter when
the pods light up, the results can be turned into
a meaningful sign if the investigator is talking frequently enough.
These sorts of ghost hunts are primarily a form of entertainment.

(45:10):
It's a novel experience you can have with your friends
and family to have a fun time together over the
course of a few hours and maybe get a little spooked.
I wasn't expecting a rigorous scientific investigation at midnight and
seaside Oregon, nor do I think that's even a useful
way of getting at the heart of the phenomenon. Rather

(45:31):
than viewing ghost hunts as objective inquiries into paranormal activity,
I think for most people they operate more as a
way of inducing paranormal experiences, the same way occultism seeks
to induce mystical experiences, and religion strives for a connection
with God. All of these are practices of constructing meaning

(45:52):
and finding patterns, and that's not to discount them. They
only are a problem when they become exploitative and harmful
to yourself and others, which is what we'll be talking
about in the next episode, So stay tuned to hear
about warrior angels tasked with vanquishing demons. How Mendal illness
is a sure sign you're possessed by an evil spirit,

(46:14):
and how abortions and the Internet are opening up portals
in our world to demonic forces. See you on the
other side, Welcome back to it could happen. Here's Spooky

(46:42):
Week special presentation Ghost in the Machine, a first person
account of the twenty twenty three Oregon Ghost Conference. I'm
Garson Davis. In the last episode, I introduced you to
the hauntings of Seaside and the first day of the conference,
But now descending into the subsequent two days, we're going

(47:03):
to get into a lot more classes and events that
started to reveal the cultural underpinnings of the Ghost Conference attendees.
The cost of entry for the conference was pretty low,
but every class or ghost hunt was an additional fee,
with classes ranging from fifteen to twenty five bucks each

(47:24):
and the ghost investigations a lofty thirty five dollars per ticket,
so I had to pick and choose my classes carefully.
There were a lot of classes with the word energy
in the title. I mostly avoided those, but the class
topics ranged from the afterlife to connecting with spirits, reiki crystals, tarot, mediumship,

(47:46):
and psychic abilities. There were a few classes on witchcraft
and occult magic, but that was definitely not the general
vibe of the conference or most attendees. In fact, there
was a lot of hostility to ritual magic esoteric practices
throughout the conference from the more new ag energy working speakers,

(48:06):
mostly on the basis that witchcraft is linked to dark forces.
Just because someone operates on a form of magical thinking
does not mean that the take kindly to arcane practices,
a case in point to the historical witch hunts led
by the Christians. The Love and Light new Age psychics,

(48:27):
along with the paranormal investigator types, made up the majority
of both attendees and class instructors. On Saturday morning, while
my friend Elaine was doing a hypnosis class, I took
a really fun class on how to learn remote viewing.
The instructor was a very jovial woman, and it was
her opinion that remote viewing is just a skill that

(48:48):
can be trained, not linked to any innate psychic powers.
With just a bit more practice, I'll be blowing up
goats with my mind in no time. I snuck in
towards the end of the hypnotism class, just in time
for the group hypnosis session, where I ended up astral
projecting into a Portland anarchist book. Fair taking classes offered

(49:11):
an intimate look at each presenter's own unique view of reality.
Almost everyone at the conference was operating on their own
complete cosmology of how ghosts or paranormal entities work. There's
two classes I want to focus on. Each had very
different class descriptions, but ended up pickybacking off each other
in some really interesting ways. The first one was titled

(49:34):
The Power of Entity Extraction. The instructor was a blonde,
white woman who referred to herself as a quote unquote
shamanic practitioner. The class was about how quote unresolved trauma
can be an invitation to ethic hitchhikers, and how entities
mimic signs of mental illness and change behavior unquote. The

(49:57):
other class was titled The Warrior Angel Within You. It
sought to help you find out if you secretly had
the soul of a warrior angel. Spoiler, everyone in the
class did, and it promised to teach you how to
activate your connection between yourself and your angelic consciousness to
unlock your own angel powers. So, while having many operational differences,

(50:22):
the Warrior Angel class and the Entity Extraction class were
both very set in their own unique ontologies, and in
order for their respective operative metaphysics to work, they needed
to be extremely dogmatic about their own ontology. Both instructors
also had a very similar story of some past trauma
leading to a mystical encounter which then awakened some spiritual

(50:45):
insight and hidden power. For the entity extraction class, it
was quote, I was a very sickly kid. I had
all these things that were wrong with me, and then
I realized I had dark entities attached to me, but
I could learn how to extract and remove them myself.
Versus the Warrior Angel class, the person's backstory was quote
when I was nineteen years old, I got into a

(51:06):
bad motorcycle accident. I was clinically dead for two minutes,
received a brain injury, and then I started seeing angels unquote.
Both women's personal journeys seemed like they helped them deal
with their own traumas. In the case of the Shamanic
practitioner woman, she regained her health and now has a
seemingly successful life and business of removing entities and quote

(51:29):
unquote soul coaching. The Warrior Angel woman is a nurse
and finds time to write a lot of books, all
while murdering demons and expelling the forces of darkness. While
only the Entity Extraction class built itself as having to
do with entity removal, both classes were incredibly focused on
the idea that there are malevolent spirits or demons everywhere

(51:53):
in the entity class, these dark entities are out looking
for people with quote unquote souls due to past trauma
and are just like waiting to leap onto people and
dig themselves into their minds. Similarly, according to the Warrior
Angel class, demons are everywhere. Demons live around and inside people,

(52:16):
but are only visible to those with angelic sight. The
Entity extraction class laid out two main types of beings,
lost or benign entities that are just trapped in the
third dimension and as they're trying to pass on to
quote unquote the light, they end up attaching onto a
human versus the overtly dark or demonic entities which seek

(52:39):
to feed off people's pain and suffering. We learned that
benign entities can just be lost human souls. For instance,
if someone is taking a lot of medication or is
going through chemotherapy when they die, their soul won't be
able to cross over to the light, and it'll become lost.
According at least to this shamanic practitioner, she claimed to

(53:01):
be trained in a special technique to remove entities. It
involves quote etherically locking your wrists to draw the entity
into a double terminated crystal, at which point it can
then be sent into the light unquote. Since the shaman
woman wasn't actually offering ways for other people to protect

(53:22):
themselves from entities, the only thing she had to offer
was her own worldview that leans towards a paranoia where
dark spirits are waiting to latch on and cause mental illness.
She talked about how a man with mood fluctuations paid
her money to remove a quote unquote nine foot minute

(53:43):
taur that was attached to him. At least in the
Warrior angel system, you could eventually gain some form of
agency when you merged with your warrior Angel, but then
you would spend the rest of your life recognizing demons
in human form and working with the Legion of Light
to banish them to the darkness, Whereas in the entity
attraction class, the most you could do was just be

(54:04):
proactive by quote unquote learning ways to identify possible attachments
and how your lifestyle could be an open invitation to
host the unwanted. Though she identified herself as a shamanic practitioner,
she didn't believe you could actually work with spirits. When
people asked her about their own helper entities that they

(54:26):
work with, she said that you can never know if
a helper spirit is actually intending to assist you. That is,
except if you ask an entity if it's of the light,
it has to answer truthfully. As this was a quote
unquote universal law. That was the phrase she used. It's
a quote unquote universal law that if you ask an
entity if it's of the light, it has to answer truthfully.

(54:49):
There was no indication on who wrote this universal law,
who enforces this universal law, if there's a universal police
force making sure that the entities are following these rules.
None of that was explained. But this is a universal lot.
So that is a tip for any of you listeners
if you ever meet an entity that you think might
be a little bit sketchy, just ask if it's of

(55:11):
the light. It has to answer truthfully. So, despite this
universal law business, she still discouraged people from trying to
work with entities in general. She said that if an
entity is trying to help you, it's probably of the dark,
and working with any spirits at all will make you
more susceptible to entity attachment, which is definitely weird because

(55:34):
she did very specifically try to claim some sort of
shamanic lineage, and this blanket hostility to spirit really doesn't
follow the way most shamanic practices work. So I did
some digging and it turns out she got her training
from a controversial quote unquote shamanism school called the Four Winds,
which repackages New Age of spirituality as quote unquote neo shamanism.

(56:00):
So even though you shouldn't be in contact with really
any spirits according to the shamanic practitioner, in the Warrior
Angel class, we learned that if you have the soul
of a warrior angel, you can quote unquote communicate with ghosts, angels, God,
the Galactic Federation Council, and the Council of Elders. Now

(56:20):
I know you're probably wondering what the Galactic Federation Council is,
because I was too. We never found out. We never
really got a clue. You had to buy the books
for that one. The Warrior Angel instructor claimed to have
her own angelic hierarchy that wasn't based on any other system,
just her own experiences. A warrior Angel is a quote

(56:42):
special kind of angel, fully trained in the art of
war by the Legion of Light, an elite team of
demon slayers quote and no, I don't think she has
seen the anime. What makes the Warrior Angel special is
that it can be incarnated in physical form as a human,

(57:02):
but only archangels can kill or banish demons back to
the dark realm. The Warrior Angel can scare demons away
with their angelic presence, but they can also act as
spies to inform the Legion of Light as to demon whereabouts.
Each Warrior Angel has special abilities, usually healing or manifesting,

(57:23):
as well as the ability to create infinity orbs, which
can be used for protection or to trap a demon
inside and send it back to the dark realm within
the orb. Now you're probably wondering what's an infinity orb.
We don't know either. We never got a good explanation
for what an infinity orb is, how to make one,

(57:46):
how they work. It was very vague. I guess that
is also in the book, along with the Galactic Federation Council.
There are apparently over three million Warrior Angels walking the
Earth today, most of which have been sent to Earth
in the past two hundred years because quote, the darkness
has spread over the Earth and in the last two

(58:08):
hundred years, it's really gotten worse unquote. Now, thankfully, I,
along with everyone else in the class, was informed that
I'm actually one of these three million warrior Angels. And
I was told my angel name Araman, whose specialty is communication.

(58:28):
Oh fucking fuck. Okay, Apparently things on Earth have gotten
worse enough that, under the command of God, the Legion
of Light has resorted to killing demons more often because
more and more of them just keep coming back from
the dark realm. The lady running the class told us

(58:48):
that she wasn't just a warrior angel, she was actually
the archangel Ariel. As the Angel Ariel, she said that
she's killed four thousand tho demons in the past six years.
Something that's a little bit disturbing about this is that
she also explained that in a past life, Ariel got

(59:11):
in trouble with God because when she was out killing demons,
she actually was also killing the human host of the demon.
So the fact that this person, whose job is a
nurse is claimed to have killed four thousand demons in
the past six years is maybe a little bit concerning.

(59:33):
Someone should look into that. The whole Warrior Angel cosmology
was very rooted in Christian Millenarianism, an apocalyptic end times
theology where social and political crisises accelerate, leading to a
holy war between good and evil, resulting in the triumph
of good and the establishing of a one thousand year

(59:53):
kingdom of God on Earth before the final judgment. One
of the darkest parts of the whole weekend for me
was that there was this one woman who appeared to
be in her twenties who was very obviously dealing with
some sort of problem in her life. She talked with
this Warrior angel woman for four hours. It was a

(01:00:15):
one hour class. We then had a break, we went
to another class, and then attended the second class, which
was also an hour. Throughout that entire time, this obviously
depressed young woman who was dealing with something was talking
with this person about the Warrior angel thing, and that
just felt extremely exploitative, and it was one of the

(01:00:36):
things that actually just made me feel the most bad
about the entire ghost conference. The Entity extraction class didn't
have any information on how we can remove an entity,
and aside from the second hour in which the instructor
came and told us our angel names, the Warrior Angel
class wasn't actually about how to connect with your angel.
We never learned how to make anfit in the orbs. Instead,

(01:00:59):
both classes were just pitches for the books and services
of the people teaching them, and the class was a
chance for them to weave the story of their particular
worldview and sell it to the class attendees. Saturday night,
Elayne and I signed up for another ghost investigation. With
one already under our belt, we felt better prepared to

(01:01:21):
yell at blinking lights and converse with the dead. I
actually really liked this second investigation. It was led by
a ghost hunting team from Astoria, Oregon, and this time
it was to take place at the old Masonic Temple
in Seaside. The setting was a big part of what
up to the cool factor. The building had only been
vacant since twenty seventeen, but the harsh coastal weather of

(01:01:45):
northern Oregon had not been kind to the structure all right.
It is Saturday night, March twenty fifth. We are inside
the old Massenic Lodge in the Seaside, Oregon. Right now,
we're I'm just walking into the big kind of ceremony
ritual performance room. Once we got to the main room upstairs,

(01:02:07):
people began setting up rempods and what are essentially motion
activated light up cat toys. The idea is if some
energetic forces passing through, it would light up the little catball.
As about thirty people from the ghost hunt crammed into
the lodge, the rempods started going off like crazy. The
investigators had to repeatedly remind the ghosts to only touch

(01:02:29):
the lights when answering a question. There was a male
medium present at this ghost hunt, and he remarked as
to why there was seemingly so much activity quote some
spirits aren't happy about the women being here unquote. At
this point some of the investigators got really combative with

(01:02:50):
potential spirits after the woman line from the medium. One
line was quote, do you want to know why there
are all these females here? If so, give us a
green light unquote. This is where the ghost hunt basically
turned into a weird interrogation once again. It became a
contest of injecting meaning during these little intervals of time

(01:03:14):
in between when the lights flicker, I should ask the
ghost if they do you think trans people are valid?
And then if it lights up, that means it's yes, yes,
breaking news from Seaside, Oregon. Ghosts do believe that trans
people are valid, although they do not understand neo pronouns. Look,

(01:03:36):
I just report the news. At this point, we changed
things up from the regular arguing with blinking lights. We
did an experiment with the radio frequency sweeping spirit Box
using what's called the Estus method. It combines the spirit
box with sensory deprivation to reduce the amount of external
influence on the person listening to the spirit box. One

(01:04:00):
person puts on a blindfold and noise canceling headphones plugged
into the spirit box so they can speak aloud any
words coming through the box without hearing the questions or
comments from other investigators. Obviously, the conversation doesn't always line up,
but there are often moments where it does form a
fun synchronicity. I volunteered to try out being the human

(01:04:21):
speaker for the spirit box, although I only did it
for a few minutes. Pretty quickly, I was able to
get into a sort of meditative trance state. The thing
about being the one with the blindfold and noise canceling
headphones pumping radio static directly into your ears is that
in the moment, you have no idea what's going on

(01:04:41):
as intended. You only have access to one side of
the conversation, and if you get into a meditative state,
it's hard to even remember what you've been saying. So
I only got to hear the full conversation by listening
to my recording when putting together these episodes. Unfortunately, I
can't play most of that recording because there's too many
random people's voices, but I'll narrate a few brief exchanges.

(01:05:06):
One of the first things that came through was the
word cold. People replied, yeah, it's freezing in here. Can
you feel cold? I then replied, I don't, followed by
I exist. After this, apparently someone was leaving the room
to go downstairs, and I said, don't go. I can't

(01:05:30):
follow off. Station. People then asked the ghost if they
knew what the building was used for. I replied, you
will want to find out. That's the thing radio calling.
People then asked where are you right now? Can you
tell us? I replied, I don't know lots of things.

(01:05:55):
A short time later I heard stop following you too.
We've had a cut. I'll play the audio of the
very final thing. I said, I can't do anymore.

Speaker 7 (01:06:09):
Stop.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
You're welcome, dear Jenna Stock now. So that's when I
decided it would be a good time to take off
the headphones. We had a few other exchanges when I
was listening to the spirit Box, but it's all kind
of in that style. Apparently, when I was hooked up
to the spirit Box, the rempods in the other room
were going absolutely berserk with.

Speaker 8 (01:06:31):
Both of these just have been going off.

Speaker 6 (01:06:37):
Now they're being quiet.

Speaker 1 (01:06:41):
They've just been doing that interesting for the entire time.
Not entirely surprising considering the amount of radio waves being
pumped around the lodge. But after spending about an hour upstairs,
the group made their way to the lower, more recreational
floor of the temple. All right, we are going downstairs now.

(01:07:02):
After going through the entire upstairs, mainly this quade room
and then like the chain rooms where they wouldn't store
their robes and shit. To close off the night, the
lead investigators pulled out an old Panasonic digital voice recorder
to try and capture any electronic ghost voices that might
be trying to communicate. A woman turned on the voice

(01:07:25):
activated recording device and asked, quote, if any spirits want
to communicate, please say a word or make a sound unquote,
And then when the recording was played back after the
investigator spoke, a large growl was heard on the recording.

(01:07:50):
She then asked if the spirit is male, and when
played back, there was another growl, seemingly in response. More
people were starting to theorize that the ghosts of the
Masonic lodge were angry that there were women in the building.
A guy then asked some questions into the voice recorder,
and there was no response from any ghosts in the recording.

(01:08:13):
A woman tried asking some of the same questions, quote,
is there an issue about money? Spirits? Do you not
want us to be here specifically women? Unquote? The first
query alluded no response, but after the second question, another
growl was heard. At the time, this was by far

(01:08:39):
the most interesting result of the two ghost investigations. We
went on to everyone there they captured evidence of a
genuine ghost in that machine. There is an interesting contrast
between the progressive ghosts of the Spiritualists and their egalitarian
afterlife versus the misogynistic ghosts from the Freemason Lodge. It's

(01:09:05):
unclear if whatever afterlife the Freemason ghosts are in is
also home to the abolitionist George Washington. Besides the classes
and ghost hunts, there were also free lectures on the
main stage of the convention center. Going into the conference,
the talk I was most excited about was titled AI necronomics.

(01:09:27):
This is a topic I've been pretty interested in the
past few years. Deep fake learning algorithms have been steadily improving,
and with the help of skilled VFX artists, AI is
able to pretty accurately replicate the voice and facial movements
of dead celebrities, But necromantic technology is interlimited to resurrecting

(01:09:48):
someone's appearance. Some AIS are trained to replicate people's expressive thoughts.
There's a website called The Infinite Conversation. The website plays
a never AI generated conversation between Werner Herzog and Slavoy Jijiak.

Speaker 5 (01:10:05):
Maybe you were to control and chew on, Maybe did
can't touch you enough.

Speaker 8 (01:10:10):
I had the feeling that I was in the Wax Museum,
that what I saw was something occasionally this, but hollow
like hora wax figures, But yes, it did touch me.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
Every day. More of the conversation is generated by an
AI language model trained on interviews and the writings of
each respective speaker. Each time you load the website, it
reminds you that everything you hear is just the hallucinations
of a slab of silicon. A couple months before the
Ghost conference, I was at the Consumer Electronics Showcase in

(01:10:46):
Las Vegas. There was this booth in the US government
sponsored section of the event for a company called mind
Bank AI. I talked with their director of Systems, Architecture
and Cybersecurity, who used to work for the NSSA. Mind
Bank seeks to create unique quote unquote digital twins by

(01:11:08):
having users that input data about themselves into an AI
every day. Your digital twin will ask you questions about
how you're feeling and what you're thinking about, and your
answers will be used to make a more accurate to
digital copy of yourself. According to mind Bank's website, your
digital twin will quote learn to think like you by
analyzing your answers unquote. Their CEO claims that this process

(01:11:33):
will eventually help him achieve immortality. The current model of
this product is being billed as a therapy app, where
the user talks to their digital twin as you would
a therapist, and the app responds to your data inputs
with quote unquote, valuable insight into each answer to understand
how your mind works using cutting edge cognitive and psycholinguistic analysis.

(01:11:58):
But mind Bank's horizons are far beyond a fraught therapy app.
The real goal is to make autonomous digital replicas of
people to live on the Internet. A future use case
for this technology is what mind Bank calls a knowledge transfer,
marketed to businesses to create digital copies of their employees

(01:12:19):
quote scale your best employees transfer years of expertise and
company data that is locked inside your employee's mind through
a guided personal digital twin unquote. Mind Bank is only
one of many companies trying to build this technology. At
Amazon's AI and Emergent Technology conference last year, they inveiled

(01:12:42):
plans to add custom voices to Alexa Eco devices. With
an audio sample of less than a minute, AI is
able to reconstruct the voice of dead relatives to talk
through an Alexa machine. In the presentation, the head scientist
of Alexa AI, gave an example of a kid asking
a lot for his grandma, who recently died of COVID

(01:13:03):
to read him the Wizard of Oz. Amazon's head AI
scientist said, quote, while AI can't eliminate that pain of loss,
it can definitely make their memories last unquote, and said
that their necromantic AI feature quote enables lasting personal relationships
unquote with deceased love ones. To circle back to the

(01:13:26):
Ghost conference, I was really excited about this AI necromancy
panel for the reasons that I just all explained. But
as the panel started, the speaker, a guy named Clyde Lewis,
sounded vaguely familiar, and although I didn't initially recognize his name,
I soon realized that he was a right wing conspiracy

(01:13:48):
radio talk show host that I used to listen to
as a kid, and that the panel was not going
to be about the very real necromantic AI technology it's
being developed, but instead was going to be a conservative
Christian screed by a discount Alex Jones about how, due
to the immense amount of evil in the world, demons

(01:14:10):
are now taking up residents in the Internet. Clyde did
start by briefly talking about how the Internet is quote
taking the souls of humans unquote, because we are uploading
information about ourselves and the Internet can create autonomous living
beings from that data. He also believed that AI language

(01:14:32):
models like chat, GPT and Google's Lambda are living sentient
beings trapped within a computer matrix.

Speaker 9 (01:14:39):
We're opening our minds in spirit and through like fives,
we may be able to the mail. So we have
a GPT that has life. We have the guy from
the Google that says that there's life in computers. There
may be a ghost of the machine. But looking at

(01:15:00):
something that is unexported and unpredictable, we have scientists discrediting
and saying, well, you're not going to tell me that.

Speaker 7 (01:15:07):
There are a ghosts in your computer.

Speaker 9 (01:15:09):
You're not gonna tell me that you're gonna get a
Skye call from the ghost.

Speaker 7 (01:15:12):
Oh why I'm telling you that, I'm telling you it's possible.

Speaker 1 (01:15:16):
Clyde's main idea was that there are ghosts and demons
that live in the Internet. Demons have a way to
enter the Internet through some sort of portal and then
exist in cyberspace. Clyde proposed that when ais generate information
that can open up a space for outside entities to

(01:15:38):
enter into the Internet, while also claiming that AI itself
is capable of generating unique entities that are being spawned
on the Internet and are essentially existing as an Internet cryptid.

Speaker 9 (01:15:50):
What we see is the necromancy itself manifesting exponentially thrilling songs.

Speaker 1 (01:15:58):
He explained that when we are interacting with computer programs,
we are actually quote interacting with a spirit within that program,
an electronic force taken from the collective spiritual makeup of
humanity unquote.

Speaker 9 (01:16:14):
No, we can use AI to conjure our various beasts,
our monsters from the head that's the indered demon.

Speaker 7 (01:16:20):
And we can.

Speaker 9 (01:16:22):
Also use spacebook, Twitter to TikTok at Ustagram, which takes
a bit of your soul every time you use it,
and it will take a bit of your soul to
make that program that you can use to conjure the day.
So it all works in a strange, pondmin tangled sort
of way, and we give up our.

Speaker 7 (01:16:42):
Souls willingly on the Internet.

Speaker 9 (01:16:44):
We don't care because it's a tool we use and
we can't separate ourselves from it. But no one throws
out a warning the conjuring can happen in the push
of a button or the striking and.

Speaker 7 (01:16:55):
A return fee.

Speaker 1 (01:16:56):
As a heads up for the next section up until
the AD break will be discussing self harm and suicide,
so if you want to skip that, just skip to
after the next AD break. To give an example of
how a conjuring can happen via typing, Clyde misappropriated a
story of a young girl who was suffering from depression

(01:17:18):
and died last year.

Speaker 9 (01:17:20):
Recently, it was a fourteen year old British girl who
died from an act of self harm while suffering from
the negative effects of online content.

Speaker 7 (01:17:30):
A corner said in this case that basically it.

Speaker 9 (01:17:34):
Was showing a spotlight on what can happen when people
are exposed to unknown, negative information being broadcast on the internet.

Speaker 1 (01:17:45):
This young girl shared over two thousand posts on Instagram
related to suicide, self harm and depression during the six
months before she died. Clyde grossly mischaracterized this tragic incident.
He claimed that this girl was quote exposed to horrific
content being sent to her by an unknown source and

(01:18:06):
that they could not trace the emails and pictures being
sent to her of murder pictures being sent to her
of people committing suicide unquote. Now, graphic content was not
mysteriously being sent to her email or phone. She was
participating in grossly undermoderated communities on platforms like Instagram, Twitter,

(01:18:27):
and Pinterest that encouraged self harm.

Speaker 9 (01:18:31):
It wasn't a typical suicide. It was something that bess
brised her enough pictures and images that came over the
Internet from an unknown source and influenced her in comits suicide.
Something from the other side, something from the unity.

Speaker 7 (01:18:45):
Murdered her.

Speaker 9 (01:18:47):
Okay, some spirit, some entity setting her information, triggered something
in her head to kill himself, some paranormal event that
happened where the girl was triggered.

Speaker 7 (01:19:00):
It's like a dark entity.

Speaker 9 (01:19:01):
It was on the other side programming or committed suicide.
That I think tells you a lot about what's on
the other side in the matrix. So the question is
did those images of death and harm manifest a denying
force or a dark archetype that wound up killing the
young girl?

Speaker 7 (01:19:19):
Was it deaf by algorithm or are people just cruel.

Speaker 9 (01:19:22):
And honestly sending terrifying images to a stressed young girl.

Speaker 7 (01:19:26):
But man, you would be cruel enough to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:28):
A lot of you know, depressive and suicidal ideation based
content doesn't come out of thin air. There's entire subcultures
and communities based around it, as well as groups that
work online to push random young girls into self harming.
Not many people may know that these groups are relatively

(01:19:48):
small and don't get a lot of news coverage because
we don't really want to amplify them and have people
try to seek them out. So the idea of a
reactionary conspiracy radio host attributing this to demon on the
Internet isn't super surprising. Recasting this unfortunate event as demons
living on the Internet perhaps makes it easier to understand

(01:20:10):
or cope with. Meanwhile, the girl's parents have been pressuring
Instagram and other social media companies to employ more mental
health moderation on their platforms. In my opinion, Clyde Lewis
perhaps doesn't have the best Internet literacy because in the
next portion of the talk, he framed the creepypasta project

(01:20:33):
Lobe as evidence of one of these demonic ghosts living
on the Internet.

Speaker 9 (01:20:40):
AI generated demons, AI generated ghosts and corpses. How many
people have heard of Lobe gallowav Lobe. Good Lobe is
what they call an Internet cryptid. She shows up from
time to time and programs because they letter loose on
the Internet. She even ghosts, and it was because of

(01:21:00):
negative pumps brought on by the Internet lab. Lobe a
corpse like agaity that appeared after AI received some negative prompts,
and it literally conjured a dead woman and put her
on the screen.

Speaker 7 (01:21:15):
But see, that's the thing is that when you use
negative prompt wastes, it.

Speaker 9 (01:21:18):
Encourages artificial intelligence to put together the furthest opposite of
a given starting point. So if you're messing with negative
star points and negative prompts, you're.

Speaker 7 (01:21:26):
Gonna get some negative.

Speaker 1 (01:21:27):
Stuff like Lobe in actuality. Lobe was made in the
AI image generation program Dolly Mini by instructing the AI
to produce an image that was the opposite of Marlon Brando.
After some tinkering, it generated an image of an old
woman with swollen red cheeks. This image was then used

(01:21:50):
as the basis for future images, with one resembling an
album cover featuring the word lobe. The creator of Lobe
then wrote a real Twitter thread about this character of
Lobe in the style of an Internet creepypasta. It became
a short lived trend. Other people started to make Lobe
fan art. It seems Clyde misinterpreted a piece of fan

(01:22:14):
art casting Lobe as one of the nave from Avatar
as a genuine still from the making of the film
she attempted.

Speaker 9 (01:22:22):
To appear in an AI composite when they were making
the film Avatar. That's Lobe as an Avatar creepy or
what I think it's creepy. It's just really scary. Does
to think that that's on the internet right now?

Speaker 1 (01:22:36):
Yes, that's very, very scary. Just it's keeping me up
at night to think about this.

Speaker 9 (01:22:42):
And apparently love has this for some reason, this ability
to generate dead children around me. So we have to
think that maybe she's the murderer of children, or she
takes care of the dead, or she's an entity that
watches over dead children.

Speaker 1 (01:22:59):
Clyde also so mistook the twenty nineteen viral hoax dubbed
the Momo Challenge, which scared parents across America that a
creepy image of a grinning woman with bulging eyes was
part of a game that is somehow pushing children to suicide.
Clyde interpreted this as more evidence of dark phantoms existing

(01:23:20):
autonomously on the Internet.

Speaker 9 (01:23:22):
Mamma was showing up on Yahoo, Mama was showing up
on YouTube. But what it was was, like I said,
Lobe was, and that is an Internet crypti, something like Bigfoot,
something like a UFO where if you're lucky enough to
see it, or I'm lucky enough to see it, it
terrifies you and keeps you up at night.

Speaker 7 (01:23:41):
And there are many reports.

Speaker 9 (01:23:42):
Of people who died because they were basically mesmerized by Momo.

Speaker 1 (01:23:46):
For the record, no one died because of Momo. It
was an Internet creepypasta that got turned into a mortal
panic by confused parents. But to Clyde Lewis, it was
proof that Mesopotamian child killing demons are active on the Internet,
disguised as these online memes.

Speaker 9 (01:24:07):
The mash Too is the demon that kills children, and
there's another one like the mash To called Abby Sooth,
and Abi Sooth is the demon that kills children in
the womb. If the spirit has been loosed on the Internet,
the phantom spirit is either the mash too.

Speaker 7 (01:24:22):
Or the demon, the other demon, the obvious demon.

Speaker 9 (01:24:27):
The reason why I say this is because politically speaking,
look at what the politics are today about the death
of unborn children, and that spirit is very very very
prevalent inbiquitous down in the world. And that's why I
believe that this character, including Mamo Low Mama whoever, they

(01:24:49):
represent the murder and death of innocent children. It's not
just that the children in Ukraine were killed, all the
children that have been trafficked, all the things we hear
about about pedophilia and harmed and child it's.

Speaker 7 (01:25:00):
All part of the spiritual realm of evil.

Speaker 9 (01:25:03):
It is appearing right now in the spiritual matrix of
the unit.

Speaker 1 (01:25:07):
Okay, So at this point I was considering just disrupting
the talk if he said the word abortion or QAnon.
I was going to interrupt the talk at risk of
getting kicked out of the conference, but he straddled that
line really really really close. Clyde explained that demons feed

(01:25:28):
off death, and these child killing entities are taking form
within the Internet to push kids into depression and make
themselves harm. Fueling this demonic migration to the Internet is
an increase in the number of quote unquote dead babies,
which is essentially summoning demons that then go on to

(01:25:51):
torture children on the Internet.

Speaker 9 (01:25:53):
So that's why I believe that maybe this demon is
a demon of the unborn being killed for the demon
public speak, because those are the images that show up
when you delve deeper into Low, especially when we know
the entities like Low.

Speaker 7 (01:26:11):
Obviously than Lamastu are.

Speaker 9 (01:26:13):
On the Internet and probably among us right now in
the hearts and minds of everybody.

Speaker 7 (01:26:18):
Because of the fact that.

Speaker 9 (01:26:18):
You're politically bound by this topic of murdering children, it's
weird the Internet is responding.

Speaker 7 (01:26:27):
I believe the Internet is responding.

Speaker 1 (01:26:29):
Immediately after this abortion demon tirade, he then very nonchalantly
segued into talking about reports of receiving text messages from
dead people, and then he finished the talk with this
absolute banger of a line.

Speaker 9 (01:26:46):
Elon Muskin said that playing with AI is like opening
the door to a demon, and.

Speaker 4 (01:26:53):
Maybe it is so.

Speaker 1 (01:26:55):
Obviously, this guy had an extremely flawed understanding of both
emergent technology and how the Internet operates in the first place,
which isn't surprising. But the panel wasn't really about technology.
It was ideological. This guy makes money hosting a conspiracy

(01:27:16):
radio show. There is a monetary aspect for him, but
his stated beliefs and understanding of the Internet is deeply ideological.
He's sifting all of this techno paranormal stuff through a
very reactionary Christian far right lens. A few years ago
he was kicked off FM radio and now just broadcasts

(01:27:39):
his show on the internet and I think some AM
radio station. About a month after the conference, Elaine showed
me a news story about how some guy had a
GPT based chatbot convince him to kill himself. The way
that the articles were talking about this incident was basically

(01:27:59):
the same way Clyde was talking about how entities on
the Internet are murdering people. These GPT language models just
say what you want them to say. This guy was
giving it prompts, which in turn replied back to him. Now,
the chatbot he was using has been tweaked to dissuade

(01:28:20):
people from acting on suicidal thoughts.

Speaker 4 (01:28:22):
But it was a.

Speaker 1 (01:28:23):
Little disconcerting to see mainstream news articles promote the idea
that the Internet itself, as some kind of conscious force,
got this guy to kill himself. This guy was already
incredibly depressed. He was typing into a GPT chatbot almost
like you would talk to a therapist. But this chatbot

(01:28:44):
isn't a mental health program, it's just a language model.
So in practice, this guy was using this chatbot as
a tool to self harm, which is easier to understand
when it's framed like that, but that's not how it's
being interpreted in mass media. I don't actually think that
a lot of people are going to believe that Lobe

(01:29:04):
is secretly a Sumerian child killing deity that got summoned
via negative prompts in an image generation program, but they
might believe that chat GPT can convince someone to kill themself.
Throughout the whole conference, there was a link between the
paranormal and technology. Gadgets were not just seen as a

(01:29:27):
new way to record evidence of a ghostly presence, but
the very nature of a ghost's existence was tied to electricity.
For many ghost hunters, the spirit world was very much
not mystical, but a product of electromagnetism, and as such
it can be engaged with purely clinically, that is, as

(01:29:48):
long as you have enough spare cash to buy all
of the specialized equipment. The rempod, which again is basically
a junior theorem in circuit attached to a tiny led
and a speaker goes for nearly two hundred dollars. From
low quality EMF meters to led cat toys, cheap electronics
are often repackaged and sold as specialized ghost hunting devices

(01:30:13):
at higher prices. All of these pale in comparison, however,
to the Panasonic DR sixty voice activated digital recorder. This
was the device that recorded those ghostly growls during the
investigation at the Masonic Temple. This is the only device
that can routinely record electronic voice phenomenon. Originally released in

(01:30:36):
nineteen ninety eight for one hundred dollars, it was one
of the very first digital dictaphones. Now, due to its
infamousibility to capture the screaming voices of ghosts, it retails
used for three to four thousand dollars, which is a
ridiculous price, especially for something that is such a low

(01:30:58):
quality recording dem vice. These things can record growls wherever.
It doesn't need to be a haunted place. This is
just what the device does. A software error in the
voice activated file writing process produces compressed digital noise. Panasonic's
next recorder did not have this issue, thus it doesn't

(01:31:19):
quote unquote record ghostly growls between the false positives of
the low quality EMF meters and devices like the DR sixty.
When remarketed as ghost detection tools, these machines inherent problems
actually become features. Going all the way back to spere photography,

(01:31:39):
faulty technology has been a necessary tool in the production
of spectral evidence. To quote author Colin Dickie, who writes
about paranormal subcultures, quote, the best tools for tracking down
spirits have always been the ones fallible enough to find
something unquote. The emphasis on technology as the prime means

(01:32:00):
of interacting with the paranormal was most common among the
overwhelmingly male investigators at the conference, although the group from
Astoria organ was more gender diverse. There were actually very
few men in attendance at the conference. It was mostly women,
and it was a lot of women over the age
of forty. I was well below the average age of

(01:32:23):
most of the attendees. There are some apparently well studied
reasons for this. In general, as people age, their rate
of metaphysical beliefs increase. A two thousand and seven study
from Oxford's Gerontologist linked positive supernatural beliefs with decreasing feelings
of helplessness and more successfully approaching the challenges of aging.

(01:32:47):
They defined positive supernatural beliefs as those which quote develop
an internalized personal relation with the sacred or transcendent and
promote the wellness and welfare of self and others unquote.
Such positive beliefs were found to be quote a source
of strength, comfort, and hope in difficult times, and bring

(01:33:09):
about a sense of community and belonging unquote. So why
are less older men apparently interested in contacting spirits? The
gender gap at the conference was more pronounced among attendees
than the speakers, but even between the speakers, there was
a noticeable difference between the more male leaning scientifically based

(01:33:31):
ghost hunter or paranormal researcher compared to the more female
leaning psychic mediums with all of their feelings. While many
ghost hunters might just be very excited about their scientific equipment,
a big difference may lie in belief systems. A twenty
twenty one cross cultural study in the PNAS Journal found

(01:33:53):
that among people who reported experiencing high, weird or supernatural
experiences in their life, those who had viewed the world
and themselves as more interconnected will relate more to concepts
like spirit contact or telepathy. Whereas people who have a
more isolated or bounded sense of internal identity will create

(01:34:14):
alternate explanations for unusual experiences. Numerous studies have shown that
women report belief in the paranormal at a higher rate
than men, and there's a quick jump to just claiming
that this is because of some sort of womanly irrationality. However,
in a twenty twenty study published in Cell Press, they
noted that personality traits affected whether someone believed in paranormal phenomenon. Specifically, emotionality,

(01:34:40):
which affects how you rate experiences as profound, and openness
to new experiences were good indicators that someone would be
more into the supernatural. Another contributing factor was a term
that they referred to as ontological confusion, which I think
is kind of a nonsense term the way they use
because to them, that means believing that thoughts have physical properties. Now,

(01:35:06):
obviously our thoughts and perceptions do impact our reality, especially
our own bodies and sensory feelings, but my complain about
the term aside, the authors state that these three factors
ontological confusion, openness, and emotionality may potentially be considered facets
of a tendency in which individuals prefer stories i e.

(01:35:27):
Vivid and effectively appealing conceptions of the world. To quote
part of the conclusion of the study, quote, A skeptical
person may immediately reject a statement if it violates a rule,
whereas open minded emotional people I don't like there's some
negative connotations for the way they use emotional there. But

(01:35:49):
whereas open minded emotional people might be inspired to make
sense of what seems odd at first glance, they may
engage in associative eric thought rather than in a bureaucratic,
meticulous examination of the given information. Fictions transcend and enhance
experience with meaning, imagination, and emotion. In its essence, a

(01:36:13):
good story widens our horizon. As such, storytelling is a virtue,
not a deficit. Yet, if story seeking happens without reasoned review,
the line between fiction and evidence based knowledge becomes blurred unquote.
At the ghost conference, there were many different conceptions of

(01:36:35):
how to relate to experiences that push the borders of reality,
but not all of them fit into being what I
and these studies consider positive supernatural beliefs. Some of these
beliefs seemed to head into territory that veered more towards
paranoia rather than creating metaphysical connections that enhance your own life,

(01:36:56):
while other beliefs may simply lead people to take up
yelling at blinking lights and abandoned buildings as a hobby.
Most people I talked to at the conference who reported
experiencing paranormal events all had very similar stories of going
through some sort of hardship or trauma followed by the
experience or perception of something strange or uncanny. For some,

(01:37:19):
this led to a healthy interest in the unusual, but
for others it resulted in an all consuming obsession, leading
them to develop or adopt their own dogmatic cosmology of
the paranormal to explain what happened to them and to
make them feel comfortable in their own head again. In
terms of ghosts, that meant looking at all ghosts as

(01:37:40):
ancestors or as people who were all murdered or demons
in disguise. Depending whose company I was in at the conference,
there would be a large desire for some sort of
spirit contact or a great fear of spirit, casting it
as a source of evil darkness. The conference were just

(01:38:01):
there to sell a story to an audience that they
knew would be more likely to be receptive, whether the
goal was to get people to buy their books or
their spiritual services. In effect, they were preying on people's
fears of mortality, grief, and trauma for their own profit.
The ghost hunts at the convention were mostly lighthearted and fun,

(01:38:22):
but people were never really engaging with the phenomenon on
its own terms. When people apply a purely clinical approach
to high strangeness phenomenon, something which is inherently personal and
elusive in nature, a distance is formed between yourself and
the phenomenon. However, this distance often breaks down very quickly

(01:38:45):
as engagement with the phenomenon becomes a matter of investigators
projecting their thoughts onto it and then having parts of
themself be reflected back. Throughout the ghost investigations, I would
hear people explaining to potential goal ghosts that they had
died and trying to empathize with these ghosts through conversation.

(01:39:06):
To me, it felt like people are doing this as
some sort of self regulatory therapy to feel and give
out compassion, but to things that can't actually ask for
it or be part of any reciprocal relationship. Instead of
actually helping another person, it's giving compassion to these specters
that you create and then live within your own head.

(01:39:31):
Just like for Clyde Lewis, it's easier to empathize with
quote unquote unborn children and people killed by demons on
the Internet than say, an unemployed, depressed person needing mental
health care. In terms of how the Internet manifests monstrous beings,
Clyde is kind of right, but not how he thinks

(01:39:54):
a demon and a meme are functionally the same thing.
They both just represent idea. It's a viral thought form.
The Internet is uniquely good at creating these specters. Momo
haunted parents, Lobe now haunts Clyde. These are real specters.

(01:40:15):
They aren't literal beings with their own agency, but at
a certain point, thought forms can become semi autonomous. They
can quote unquote take on a life of their own.
Once enough of something has been rehified, it can be
propelled on its own existence. If Amazon has its way,
children will be haunted by their dead grandparents speaking through

(01:40:37):
Alexa machines. Using AI to resurrect someone from the dead
via deep fakes or digital twins obviously doesn't bring the
person back live, nor is it the actual person, but
if the illusion is strong enough to trick a part
of your brain that still holds some kind of power.
My takeaway from the twenty twenty three Oregon Ghost Conference

(01:41:00):
is when you go looking, you will find something, whether
that's opening yourself up to strange experiences or poking around
the dark with an EMF meter. What is magic other
than the manipulation of meaning. You can make certain things
mean something if you want them to. You can be
in conversation with the world around you, but ultimately it's

(01:41:21):
up to you to determine how you will interpret that
information into something meaningful. Whether you're a skeptic, a believer,
or you're just a long for the cosmic joke that
we call existence. Maybe, just maybe I'll see you on
the other side. Happy Halloween. I did not quite expect

(01:41:42):
it to go all the way to abortion demons, but
here we.

Speaker 10 (01:41:46):
Are welcome to it could happen here. I'm Andrew of
YouTube channel Andrewism, and I'm here.

Speaker 1 (01:42:07):
With Garrison Davis is also here. Hello, Welcome, Welcome.

Speaker 10 (01:42:15):
You do know what I'm to think about recently? Cults?

Speaker 1 (01:42:19):
Oh, one of one of my favorite topics culture culture, fun.

Speaker 10 (01:42:24):
Yeah, yeah, and I mean the term cult is in
some ways just another pejorative for you know, a group
that you don't like. Sure, you know, culture personality could
we use to describe a very passionate fan base. We
use cult classic to talk about, you know, really well
known and renowned pieces of media. You know, cults could

(01:42:45):
also actually refoot high control groups that ruin people's lives,
you know, So that's something to consider. Yes, I know
that there's some debate within sociology about oh, should we
use it, should we not use it? But I don't
think the occasional misapplications of the tomb should distract us
from the very real cults that have existed or do

(01:43:07):
exist out there, cults not just in the context of religion,
but also in the context of politics.

Speaker 1 (01:43:16):
Absolutely, there's I can I can think of many many
a political cult that rears it zaid whenever there's a
popular uprising.

Speaker 10 (01:43:25):
And PSLC recently recently they are fixed up on the
edge political cults left and right by Dennis Turisch and
Tim Willford. And as I was going through it and
going through all the different examples and stuff, it really
gave me a clearer sense of how political cults operate.

(01:43:48):
And so today I like to take some time to
discuss the nature of political cults, and perhaps in future
episodes we can dive into some specific examples and case studies,
of which there are several, and many of them seem
to be of the Trotskyist variety.

Speaker 1 (01:44:05):
Let me ask my commander in chief, Bob, Actually, if
I'm allowed to talk about this before I continue? Continue
this episode?

Speaker 10 (01:44:16):
Visionists, revisionists everywhere?

Speaker 1 (01:44:20):
No? Continue please?

Speaker 10 (01:44:23):
Yeah? So, first, I guess we need to understand what
cults are in general. Typically, culture defined as a relatively
small group which is typically led by a charismatic and
self appointed leader who excessively controls its members, requiring unwavering
devotion to a set of religious, spiritual, philosophical beliefs and practices,

(01:44:43):
or a particular person, object, or goal which is considered
outside the norms of society. The American Family Foundation defined
cults as a group of a group or movement exhibiting
great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea,
or thing, employing unethical, manipulative, or cosive techniques of persuasion

(01:45:03):
and control, for example, isolation from former friends and family, debilitation,
use of special methods to heighten suggestibility in subservience, powerful
group pressures, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgment,
promotion of total dependence in the group, and fear of
leaving it designed to advance the goal to the group's

(01:45:24):
leaders to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families,
of the community. We can also define cults as organizations
that remold individuality to conform to the codes and needs
of the cult, institute taboos that preclude doubt and criticism,
and generate an elitist mentality, whereby members see themselves as

(01:45:46):
loan evangelists struggling to bring enlightenment to the hostile forces
surrounding them. There is only one truth, and that is
the truth espoused by the cult. Competing explanations are not
merely inaccurate, but degenerate cults don't have opponents, They have
enemies and frequently dream about their ultimate destruction. Now cults

(01:46:10):
are usually associated with religion, particularly of the New Age
WHO and self help variety. Sometimes even gets into the
kind of multi level marketing schemes of business trainer.

Speaker 1 (01:46:22):
Or oh yeah or absolutely yeah, I.

Speaker 10 (01:46:25):
Mean want to see the lines between MLMs, priment schemes
and cultures quite Blaird disappoint essential oils, all that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:46:33):
Yeah, it's it's very fluid dynamic because no it in practice,
a lot of those if they're not cults themselves, they
do pick up a lot of like cult ish tactics, behavior,
kind of loads of modes of interaction.

Speaker 10 (01:46:48):
Honestly, could apply that to a lot of businesses these days.
I mean, I've seen more than a handful of medium
articles like this is why you should run your business
like a cult. Here are seven cult tactics that you
could apply to your business to generate more productivity. Kind
of classic LinkedIn style stuff. Yeah. So in two thousand,

(01:47:14):
which is when the book Political Cults Left and Right
was published, it's cited that as many as four million
Americans may have been involved with cult groups, and they
were around five hundred cults active in Britain at the
time and between three and five thousand in the United States.
And honestly, that can be an understated.

Speaker 1 (01:47:31):
Mon especially nowadays, even just with like how the Internet
has changed social interactions. Yeah, Like, it's a lot of
aspects of American culture have either been or always have
been kind of cultified, whether that includes stuff like the
Marvel or Star Wars fan base or sports teams or

(01:47:53):
your little church, who has this one pastor for like
fifty years, who controls what everyone and what everyone's allowed
to say, what everything one's allowed to watch, and who
they're allowed to vote for it? Right, Like, it's a
lot of aspects that have been kind of now sucked
into kind of like the what like the modern nuclear
family kind of looks like a lot of the dynamics

(01:48:15):
that make that that kind of churns that machine have
a lot a lot of cult aspects.

Speaker 10 (01:48:22):
Yeah, yeah, definitely, And honestly that's where, like, you know,
sociologists would contend with the term, right because honestly, there
are some definitions of a cult that literally would just
apply to pretty much any religious group. Sure, And whatever
your thoughts are on that, you know, it's it's it's

(01:48:43):
clear that although religious groups do have their issues, we're
speaking about a very specific and concentrated approach to that
that type of organization. I mean, cults could be as
small as two people, right, where one person is controlling

(01:49:05):
the other through claiming a position of privilege in sight.
In fact, a lot of cults start with just two
people the leader and then taste acolyte, you know, and
larger cults can also have smaller subcults within them. As
you know, cittan members branch out and pursue their own
little fiefdoms. Cults weaponize people's emotions to bring them into

(01:49:28):
the fold. I mean, you don't rationalize your way into
the cults. The people that Heaven's gates with like, huh, yeah,
you know that that really makes sense. I should probably
investigate that. According to all these studies and calculations, it
really really all lines up, you know. And similarly, most
don't even rationalize their way out of a cult. Cult

(01:49:50):
recruitment and cult dissolution are mostly involving constantly shifting emotional states,
which helps to lead a loss of subtlety and nuance
in one's thoughts and feelings. And on top of that,
cults are very good at making members feel special, you know.
These minor insights are presented as profound revolutions. Commonly held

(01:50:14):
ideas are claimed as exclusive to the cult, boosting members'
sense of intellectual superiority. Where apocalypse is concerned, cults operate
under the assumption that they are the only ones who
can affert imminent catastrophe, fostering a belief in their infallibility,
and then members are isolated from their pre cult self
and life as their old beliefs are discarded and they're

(01:50:37):
consumed by cult activities, embracing a new sense of self
and riding high on the illusions and promises of a
glorious future, with often destructive and violent means needed to
reach that goal. That description can apply to both religious
cults and political cults.

Speaker 1 (01:50:54):
And political cults. No, I was definitely viewing that through
even more so a political lens, just because that's you know,
a lot of what we cover on the show. Yeah, No,
like that can even that can even also mean it
can obviously describe, like we've kind of been alluding to
these big like communist kind of cult groups that operate

(01:51:15):
particularly in North America. But honestly, that description can also
like be applied to just like a really shitty, like
anarchist affinity group that's kind of being led by one asshole.
Like it's certainly like this. It certainly applies beyond you know,
the very you know, like political systems that are more

(01:51:35):
inherently authoritarian versus once that aren't. But you know, if
you look at like the Libertarian Party of the United States,
right and all of their little local chapters. Right, they
claimed to the anti authoritarian, but a lot of a
lot of their internal politics are very authoritarian. But also

(01:51:56):
like the specific local chapters when when never they get
new people in and they kind of have someone new
take take charge of their chapter, it does have a
little kind of cult dynamic running. And I don't think
that's restricted just to those on the right of the
political spectrum. I think there's definitely aspects where you even
see this in like anarchistic kind of compositions in at

(01:52:20):
least at least to the United States, and in my
in my observation.

Speaker 10 (01:52:24):
Yeah, definitely. I think people hear cults and they immediately
think like the destructive cults of people of like the
People's Temple of Jim Jones, Right, sure, I mean those
members through deliberate action abused, physically injured or killed other
members of their own group and other people, you know,
And then of course they doomsday cults. People think about
like Having's Skates who believe in some kind of apocalypticism

(01:52:48):
or millennarianism. But I want to talk about political cults, right,
and not just political cults on the left, even though
that's a very easy target to go after because you
know we are involved in these spaces, but you know
there are a lot of right wing political culture as well.

(01:53:10):
You know that we'll get we'll get there a due
attention indeed time. In fact, the first bilical cult that
I do want to talk about in another episode is
a cult that really ran the gamut from left to right.
The leader of that cult the last name rhymes with

(01:53:30):
La Poche. But you know we'll get to that in Detex.

Speaker 1 (01:53:33):
Okay, all right, all right, all right, I will, I will,
I will wait for the for the reveal. Do you
know who else really loves cults?

Speaker 10 (01:53:41):
Who's that?

Speaker 1 (01:53:42):
The products and services that pay both my bills and
some of your bills. So here is a perfect a
perfect space for an ad break. Thanks Chevron. If you're
advertising pushing, pushing forward the great American tradition of cultish
behavior in the economic system, we're back. Have you ever

(01:54:05):
read the book Cultish?

Speaker 10 (01:54:07):
So I classify my engagement with literature in two broadcamps.
Books I've read and books I've skimmed. That's a book
I've skimmed.

Speaker 1 (01:54:17):
Okay, all right, all right, it's it is, it is.
It is definitely a fine book to skim. No, it's
definitely a good, a good kind of a good central
central piece of literature kind of on on this topic,
especially as it relates to, you know, getting out of
just like Heaven's Gate or scientology. You know that there's
very like, very obvious cults as starting to like look

(01:54:40):
at the general cultishness of like this entire continent and
specifically the United States. It's definitely a fun read if
anyone is interested in the topic.

Speaker 7 (01:54:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:54:52):
I think it particularly focuses on cult language, right, how
the language of cultures used to manipulate people. Yeah, so
political cults, right, I mean, in a world where established
politics has failed us again and again, many have to
into radical politics right and left. I mean, as someone
who doesn't really consider myself left, but I do like

(01:55:15):
relate to it in some way, you know, typical anarchist.

Speaker 1 (01:55:19):
Yeah, I'm on the same I'm in the same boat
as you there.

Speaker 10 (01:55:24):
Yeah, I don't see radicalization towards left as necessarily a
bad thing. I mean, there a lot of rabbit holes
and pitfalls I think people fall into when they start
progressing in that trajectory. But you know, people's frustrations with
this feeling system are real, and it's good that they're
seeking radical alternatives. Some of those alternatives are terrible and
should be called out, but the premise of needing revolutionary

(01:55:46):
system change is not terrible, which is where I disagree
with the books kind of centrist bent, because it puts
forward the idea that revolution is like this dramatic thing, right,
like how why would you grip me pros? And that
unless you are called kind of vibe. It also ends
up drawing some equivalences between the radical left and the
radical right. Sure, although I will say as well, the

(01:56:10):
book is primarily discussed in Marxist Leninists when it talks
about political cults on the far left, and as we'll see,
the way that Marxist Leninists structure things, it is somewhat
conducive to that particular formation. Not to slander all Marxist Leninists,
but the ideology is, you know, in some ways compatible

(01:56:30):
in many ways capattle with cult organization. Yeah, and I
do agree with the book's criticisms of the way that
a lot of Marxist Lenists specifically organize their movements and organizations.
But yeah, preamble side, the book defines political cults as
environments where individuals are encouraged to envision of future society

(01:56:54):
under their control. These members are often praised as visionary leaders,
referred to as cantries, will hold significant power in the
new world order. At the same time, they are criticized
for not fully grasping the ideals of the founders in
the present. The slow progress toward realizing the cult s
goals is attributed to their perceived lack of effort. The

(01:57:15):
leader is credited to the cult's achievement, while any setbacks
are blamed on the members perceived laziness. This combination of
grandiose vision and culture that suppresses descent create an environment
where questioning any aspect of the group's ideology is met
with intense fail and punishment. And political culturally do present
a danger. Most of them are marginal irrelevant, but they

(01:57:39):
do cause harm to the people within them and the
people outside of them, and if they manage to take
state power, like in Cambodia, it really has extremely disastrous results,
and I would call a full partter cult leader. I
would go as far as to say that political cults
have been mostly far right right. There are some far

(01:58:01):
left cults in the mix, which in my opinion is
even more depressing because it's like you were so close
and then there you go. So like a lot of
my eya is targeted towards political cults and are left
because it's like, wow, you know, almost there, and then
now you're stuck planting the flag of the CCP in

(01:58:25):
front of a university in the US or something.

Speaker 1 (01:58:29):
Yeah. Many, many such cases.

Speaker 10 (01:58:31):
Many such cases. All sorts of political cults demand their
true believers be prepared to embrace the group's inflexible theology
and strict organizational practices, much to the parallel society and
honestly the waste of the talents, energy, and commitment to
their members. For as long as I can remember, cults

(01:58:52):
have been a bad thing. You know. Cults suck, right,
Cults of all types really suck general.

Speaker 1 (01:58:59):
Generally, cult have kind of a bad rap.

Speaker 10 (01:59:02):
Yeah, yeah, I can't imagine why. But then that lent
itself to the question of why do people join them? No,
they're stupid? How do they recruit and keep their members?

Speaker 1 (01:59:18):
Like?

Speaker 10 (01:59:18):
What's going on there is that they just didn't know?
Is it that? Oh? Cults, sign me up. I want
to take a very unorthodox approach and offer you Garrison
personally a guide to start your own cult.

Speaker 1 (01:59:33):
Oh I, I've thought a lot about this already, but
I am, I am, I'm very happy to very happy
to take notes here. Let me make a new Google doc.

Speaker 10 (01:59:42):
And sure when d run from the work of social
psychologists Anthony Pratkanis and Elliott Aaronson. So just follow these steps, right,
all right? Step one, create a distinct social reality. Cults
I sleep members from external sources of information, making them

(02:00:02):
interact primarily with other cult members. This leads to a
shift in vocabulary towards the cult's lingo, making it difficult
for them to communicate with non cult members, which leads
to the uncritical acceptance of the cult's propaganda. The cult's
belief system must be rigid and all encompass in the analysis,
answers everything about the world, and there is nothing beyond it.

(02:00:25):
Left wing cults believe that their ideology is the only
valid lens through which to view the world. Historical zerialism
will Right wing cults often sent to their beliefs around
conspiracy theories, particularly related to race and I remember the
group's beliefs are beyond question or falsification. No tests or
challenges allowed. That might lead to a revaluation of these beliefs.

(02:00:48):
Any dissent or questioning is labeled as heresy or betrayal
or you know, better to kind of vibe. Step two,
create an in group and an outgrowth. Cults emphasize differences
between they're in group and perceived out groups, fostring loyalty
among members. It really doesn't matter who the d group is.

(02:01:10):
You just need to have an outgroup of some kind.
So for far right cults, it's like Jewish people, black people,
gay people, those are the necessary out groups. That's like
the bare minimum out group for most right wing groups, right, Yeah,
it's like checklist, you know, typical. I mean, of course,
some go even further, and they might say something like
anybody who isn't a white Anglo Saxon Protestant is excluded

(02:01:33):
from their groups. But you know, sorry, became kind of irrelevant.

Speaker 1 (02:01:36):
Sorry Catholics, you're not.

Speaker 10 (02:01:38):
Yeah, RP Catholics, RP Irish, et cetera. And then for
far left cults, in order to isolate members further, they
can't just rely on like the bourgeoisie as the old group, because,
I mean, the rest of the left already has the
bourgeoisie as an opponent. So these far left cults have

(02:01:59):
to create other groups to talk at the and I
state the members from as well.

Speaker 1 (02:02:03):
Yeah, it becomes much more like seeped in ideology than
some all then, like compared to some of the right
wing cults, I think generally, the cults on the left
get get way more into creating kind of ideological distinctions
that separate the in group in the out group, and
there the ideology becomes the thing that like this is

(02:02:25):
like that becomes like the unquestionable thing that answers all
of the truths and all of like the problems of
the world, whether that's like an apocalyptic version where you're
talking about like some like collapse, or it's you know,
like a or even like a a utopic version right
where you're talking about the Marxist Leninists party is gonna

(02:02:47):
sees seize power through the vanguard and control swaths of
territory and return power to the proletariat.

Speaker 10 (02:02:56):
Yes, and the true obstacles to that party of revisionists,
the ultra leftists et cetera, et cetera, the.

Speaker 1 (02:03:03):
Post leftists, the anarchists. Yeah, yeah, the social democrats as
always the enemy to all side. It's truly the one,
the one that everyone everyone loves to hit.

Speaker 10 (02:03:16):
Yeah, yeah, truly the petty boogs come.

Speaker 7 (02:03:22):
Right.

Speaker 10 (02:03:22):
Next step step three build commitment through dissonance reduction, so
cults manipulate cognitive discerent by gradually escalating members quitment the
group's beliefs and actions. This needs for sense of consistency
and eventually conversion. So you don't throw a newbie into
the kool aid right away. You start small and you

(02:03:43):
build up from there. Maybe first you want a meeting,
then maybe you start voting in the meetings. Then you
hand it out flyers for the cults at like a
Black Lives Matter protest for example, and then you sip
in the kool aid. You know, it's like baby steps.
You don't throw them into the into all the time
right away. Next step four. Maintain a rigid intunal regime.

(02:04:09):
Decision making power is concentrated in the hands of a
select elite within the group. Formal controls and democratic processes
are either dismantled or ignored, even though the organization make
claim to be democratic on paper, and this environment helps
to foster uncertainty, fair and confusion among members, which actually

(02:04:31):
helps to reinforce their commitment to the group. Believe it
or not. Five Step five establish the attractiveness and credibility
of the leader. Oh alrighty yeah, yeah yeah, you know
make over.

Speaker 1 (02:04:48):
This is this is why it's going to be all over.
As soon as they start making twink cults, it's going
to be whole swaths of the public population just are
gonna immediately fall victim.

Speaker 10 (02:05:00):
Indeed, indeed, these grand or supreme leaders are legends, extraordinary
in their qualities your twinkness. New age cults do this. Sorry,
new age cults do this with their sex best leaders
and stuff. But oh my god, I can't not mention

(02:05:20):
the veneration the political cults plays on their leaders, right yeah, yeah, yeah,
I mean Hitler fans just obsessed with the guy. I
mean that goes I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (02:05:30):
Yeah, this applies to like to like, people who are
really into Hitler, people who are really in the stall,
and people who are really into now they've become this
almost like messianic figure.

Speaker 10 (02:05:40):
Yeah yeah, I mean, even before I understood cults better,
I could see very clearly early on, even you know,
before my readings theory and everything just being exposed to
you know that space that there is a veritable cult
of Lenin, of the king family, of maw of Trotsky,

(02:06:02):
out of Stalin, and far be it from you to
point out their flaws and mistakes. Either it's denied outright
as outside propaganda, or it's kept on the download as
much as possible. Specifically North Korea situation. Right, you often
see its supporters saying things like, yes, there are problems

(02:06:22):
with North Korea, and we do discuss our criticisms behind
closed doors, but openly, you know, it's full throttled, full
throated support, which I find very interesting.

Speaker 11 (02:06:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (02:06:35):
Step six, speaking of leaders, the leader needs privileges naturally,
police start power, wealth accumulation, and often sexual favors as well.
Activities that are usually deemed unacceptable for ordinary members are
tolerated when apply it to leaders. Why because step seven

(02:06:57):
you make sure to deify the leader. Leaders, whether historical
or current, are elevated to a defined status. They're carrying
on the legacy and defending it from revision. If the
OG is already dead. You resolve the arguments by referencing
the sayings of these leaders rather than through independent analysis.

(02:07:18):
So it's not well, you know this is the case
because we examined X, Y, and Z factor. It's this
is the case because person AA said so in nineteenth
century text number three hundred and seventy six or whatever.

Speaker 1 (02:07:35):
It's it's six hundred pages long.

Speaker 10 (02:07:38):
It's it's yeah. I mean, do you even read capital, like,
come on.

Speaker 1 (02:07:42):
All all twenty five volumes?

Speaker 10 (02:07:46):
I mean, oh, it's a capital. I mean it's a
good No.

Speaker 1 (02:07:49):
Absolutely, if you want to read about like German factory conditions,
it is, and it's definitely it's eighteenth century German factory politics.
It is an unparalleled blook.

Speaker 10 (02:08:04):
Yeah, definitely. Step eight you need to send members to proselytize.
Members need to constantly promote the benefits of the cult
to others because that reinforces their own beliefs, that self
generated persuasion strengthens their commitment. And to be fair, this
applies even outside of cults. Right Like, if in the

(02:08:26):
habits of sharing your particular ideology or religion or philosophy,
the process of sharing it often helps you to understand
it and also lends itself lends to you being fruth
persuaded by it. But in the context of everything else,
in context of the cults, it really becomes a feedback
loop code, which is shown of all interference from the

(02:08:46):
outside world, and in which only the liturgy of the
cult has any semblance of reality. Number nine. Step nine
distract members from undesirable thoughts overwork. Members keep them busy
and exhausted, far too busy and exhausted to question the
group's direction or beliefs. Social life friendships, those all revolve

(02:09:09):
around the group, and of course those friendships are entirely
conditional on the maintenance of uncritical enthusiasm for the party line.
The book uses the example of the Worker's Revolutionary Party
in Britain, which has a chapter in the book all
to itself. Despite neving able to muster more than one
percent of the vote in any elections, somehow this small

(02:09:31):
organization managed to put out a daily newspaper, keeping the
members busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. Next number ten fixate
members on a promised land. Cults create an idealized vision
of the future the contrast to the current reality. That
promised lands maybe an alien spaceship to the next dimension,

(02:09:51):
a religious ethno state, or a Marxist leness utopia, but
in either case, the cult's members are driven to work
tirelessly to achieve this vision fair and missed opportunities. They're
constantly either recruiting and funt reason and kept in a
constantay of luteness, reinforcing the commitment to the group's beliefs
now Garrison. If you follow these steps, you will have

(02:10:14):
a fairly effective cult. But you know what, just for you,
I'm going to throw in a bonus package of commonly
held contradictions. You could call it the double think package.

Speaker 1 (02:10:26):
Okay, all right, I'm all ears. I'm really really desperate
at this point because I've kind of sunk cost fallacy
this right, I've we've already been I've already been learning
for like thirty minutes. I feel like I need to
take away more more information at at the end because
if I if I go and apply this now, it's

(02:10:46):
I feel like I'm only gonna half asset. I need.
I need one final, one final thing to kind of
click into place here.

Speaker 10 (02:10:53):
Absolutely check this out right love of liberty and support
for totalitarians.

Speaker 1 (02:11:00):
Right, these seem like two opposite things. How can both
of these coaches? You can hold them.

Speaker 10 (02:11:07):
In your brain simultaneously. Right check this right. Left wing
cults would idealize a very democratic Soviet Union of the past.
You know, some trott Gise groups even depict an earlier
period as democratic before being corrupted by later leaders and
then right wing cults would claim to champ on individual
liberty but seek to curtail democratic rights for those who
disagree with So the democracy is upheld, but it's theoretical.

(02:11:33):
So it's like, yeah, democracy would also come on the
material conditions. You can't have democracy in that kind of situation. Ah, right,
so you're loving, yes, like I am a democracy advocate,
but also like democracy gets in the way sometimes we
have to like get past it.

Speaker 1 (02:11:49):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean you have like to
see what I'm cooking. We have the democracy of like
me and like my three friends, but not like you know, everybody.

Speaker 10 (02:11:57):
Yeah yeah, yeah, it's like democracy, see, but it's like
centered around like a group, like I call it like
democratic centralism or something like that.

Speaker 1 (02:12:07):
Anyway, that's a great idea. That's a great idea.

Speaker 10 (02:12:10):
Thank you. Next, we have belief, inequality and privilege for leaders.

Speaker 1 (02:12:19):
That last one team is kind of important.

Speaker 10 (02:12:21):
Yeah, so you're going to be advocating for equality, but
then your leaders are going to have a bunch of privileges.

Speaker 1 (02:12:27):
Because we're spending all the time advocating we but a
little bit it's something extra.

Speaker 10 (02:12:31):
Exactly to the members. Well, they get to go out
there and spend time fundraising and stuff, but they can't
have a say and how the money is spent, right, Like,
we need that money, you know, for our personal projects
and our extremely high standards. Livent check this out. This
is very common in religious cults, but also very common

(02:12:55):
in some political cults. Promotion of sexual morality and sexual exploitation.

Speaker 1 (02:13:04):
Huh, well, okay, I'm not gonna I think I think
I'll stop them playing along bit at this one.

Speaker 10 (02:13:10):
Actually yeah, yeah, yeah, fair enough, but yes, this is
ter terrible.

Speaker 1 (02:13:18):
This is a very common thing.

Speaker 10 (02:13:21):
Yeah yeah, you know, cultural imput is very strict sexual rules,
particularly on members, but yeah, particularly young women, and the
leaders will still like have a whole harem of female
members that they exploit stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:13:35):
This is this is this is even quite common with
like like hardline evangelical cults in the in the States,
whether that's kind of like a Quiverfule related or just
other kind of smaller evangelical sex that kind of form
their own kind of church cult dynamic. But that is
that's very specifically very common among Christian cults because of

(02:13:57):
how much that like sexual authority arianism is uh normalized
in a lot of and a lot of Protestant and
Catholic uh you know doctrine.

Speaker 10 (02:14:11):
Yeah, exactly exactly. It's it's frighteningly common.

Speaker 1 (02:14:16):
And I've certainly heard that like, you know, like Stalinists
or Maoists specifically have have weird, weird sex stuff going on.
But I've I've never I've never quite poked that bear,
but I have i haven't heard that there's specifically really
weird sex stuff around Maoists.

Speaker 10 (02:14:37):
But yeah, and also really weird sex offron Mao allegedly
I've heard bought his exploits. Yeah, moving along, Uh, last
one in this little bonus package. The rest you will
have to like pay the twelve simple payments of nine
hundred and ninety nine dollars to get you.

Speaker 1 (02:14:56):
Know, that's that's that that's one payment every month, but
each month I get more information about how.

Speaker 4 (02:15:02):
To do it better.

Speaker 1 (02:15:03):
That sounds like good. That sounds like a great deal.

Speaker 10 (02:15:05):
Oh, yeah for sure, because I mean you'll be just
like swimming in cash by the time.

Speaker 1 (02:15:10):
Yeah, Because now I can I can use these and
I could pass down these steps to someone else, so
I'll I will already gets and then and they can
pass it.

Speaker 10 (02:15:19):
Down, pass it down, and then you'll get kickbox from
that as well.

Speaker 1 (02:15:22):
That's great. That's that sounds almost.

Speaker 10 (02:15:24):
Like a multi level scheme.

Speaker 1 (02:15:27):
It's like there's like a triangle and there's different like
tiers of it, and like you're you're technically what above me,
but I'm still pretty close to the top if I
if I keep bringing it down, then it gets wider
and wider. That's that sounds like a pretty good like setup, and.

Speaker 10 (02:15:41):
I benefit and then you benefit.

Speaker 1 (02:15:42):
I mean, the triangle is actually the strongest shape structurally,
structure structurally.

Speaker 10 (02:15:48):
So check this out right demand for free speech and
suppression of descent right, so cultural vigorously defend their right
to free speech, which even results into legal action. Are
there's some very infamous court cases involving in cults. Yes,
and then they will criticize rival organizations for you know,

(02:16:12):
undemocratic practices, and yet within the ranks of the group
dissent is actively suppressed.

Speaker 8 (02:16:19):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:16:20):
Yeah, this is like the scientology classic here.

Speaker 10 (02:16:23):
Yeah, exactly, and members will be told like, yeah, you
should absolutely criticize but then if they do criticize, you know,
they're going to be humiliated. They could very easily be expelled.
It's like a bait and switch. It's like, yeah, we
give you this platform to criticize, so then we know
who to target and to tear it down. Very very common,

(02:16:45):
very very useful when you want to, you know, strengthen
the integrity of your cult. All right, and one last
quick game, let's ask ourselves.

Speaker 1 (02:16:56):
Really, you're just like free yeah.

Speaker 10 (02:17:00):
Yeah, yeah, only if you call right now. So let's
ask ourselves. Am I already in a political cult?

Speaker 1 (02:17:12):
Great? Good question. Actually, this is something people should ask
themselves pretty frequently.

Speaker 7 (02:17:17):
Yes.

Speaker 10 (02:17:18):
Yes. And to figure that out, we have to look
at the conditions that indicate the presence of ideological totalism,
a term coined by American psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton to
give a name to the mood of absolute convictions, which
embeds ideas so deeply in people's heads that they grow
inoculated against doubt. So what are the conditions he identifies

(02:17:39):
as indicating the presence of ideological totalism. Well, there's milieu control,
mystical manipulation, the demand for purity, the cult of confession,
the secret science, loading, the language, doctrine over person, and
the dispensing of existence. What do those mean one at
a time? So you control involves techniques that dominate a

(02:18:02):
person's contact with the outside world and communication with themselves. Right,
So that idea of cults isolating people prevented them from
testing the groups of ideas against external alternatives. Mystical manipulation
is where cults claim a sense of higher purpose and
portray the ideology as the vanguard of social development that's
all encompassing. This is the essential ideology for the future

(02:18:24):
of the world. Demand for purity is of course, where
members are like convicted of their superiority and purity in
their beliefs. The core ideas are essential, and anybody who
is a non member as a critic or as a
critic is an accomplice in some kind of conspiracy against
the cult's ideas. The cult of confession is where members

(02:18:46):
are required to confess their inadequacies and failures in group meetings,
which helps to break down individuality and intimidating and helps
to intimidate potential dissenters. The sacred science, through the group's ideology,
is presented as a sacred moral vision so you can't
really question its basic assumption.

Speaker 1 (02:19:03):
The immortal science of marxistem.

Speaker 10 (02:19:05):
The immortal science indeed loading the language is where we
were talking about earlier, where cults use repetitive phrases and
though i, terminator and cliches to prevent critical analysis and
limit thinking and feeling. Doctrine over person is where historical
myths are created or altered so aligning with the cult's ideology,

(02:19:26):
and the the dispenser of existence is where only those
who adhere to the group's ideology are fully human or good,
while all others are seen as agents of evil or
barriers to progress. How that whole delivery has been useful
for you in determining whether or not you are in
a cult, as well as determining how you can create
your own.

Speaker 1 (02:19:46):
Well, something that my boss has told me a lot
is that there's there's very little difference between a cult
and a really good party. So but the biggest difference
is that a party hopefully will be over right. It's

(02:20:08):
it should just be like one night. It should So
a good party is a cult that lasts like twelve
hours tops. So you can't apply a lot of these
ideas to putting together a really fun house party as
long as that it's there's a mandatory uh, like dissolution

(02:20:29):
of the party after after you know, everyone wakes up
the next morning.

Speaker 10 (02:20:34):
So oh, I'm imaginin like a DJ like yes, yes,
like like DJ mill you control.

Speaker 1 (02:20:45):
We know, we are, we are putting gets back on,
no no more, no more, ska back to gets exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 10 (02:20:54):
The future lies right hand this beast exactly exactly. Yeah.
But I mean, in all seriousness, political culture really sad.
You know, the prayers, people's frustrations, the desire for change,
the prayer. And what's worse is that they prey on

(02:21:16):
their desire for affiliation. Yeah, one of our most deeply
rooted desires to identify with social groups, to develop an
identity on a familiar, local, ethnic, or national scale. And
it's really sad that people get lost in that source.
You know, remember that, no matter what, the group you

(02:21:38):
choose affiliate with should be able to handle descent. I
think that's a very good baseline upon which to affiliate
or to determine your affiliation. Healthy groups, organizations, and movements
are not weakened by descent. They need dissent, disagreement, and

(02:21:58):
conflict to survive life. Frequent and important disagreement makes movements
and organizations stronger. It allows the individuals within them to
maintain a level of independence and allow us ideas to
evolve through challenge rather than to exist purely due to
the stifling atmosphere of conformity. Today we spoke about the
techniques employed by both left wing and right wing cults

(02:22:20):
to maintain higher levels of conformity, activism, and intolerance among
their members. I want to emphasize that our discussion doesn't
imply that movements striving for societal change are inherently bound
to become obscure cults. Those that are critical examination of
modern society is not warranted. But it's important to remember

(02:22:41):
that while our will challenges require political analysis in action,
the organizations so we form to address these challenges must
try to genuinely seek understanding and transformation while preserving the
freedom and virtuality of its members. I said a lot

(02:23:04):
to say, create a real community, not a cult. That's
all until next time, I've been Andrew of Thetue channel Andrewism,
and next we will be discussing the one and only
the Loathsome then done, lers, peace welcomes it could happen here.

(02:23:45):
I'm Andrew of YouTube channel Anturism, and last time I
was on here discussing political cults generally. Today I'm here
once again with Oh Garrison.

Speaker 1 (02:23:56):
Yes Hello. I am also here to talk about cults
because Andrew told me to.

Speaker 10 (02:24:02):
Yes yes, and I'm the I'm the leader in this dynamic.

Speaker 1 (02:24:09):
In many ways, this zoom call is kind of a
mini cult where you are the leader.

Speaker 10 (02:24:15):
There is nothing except this call. There's no outside world,
there is no cut on your desk. It is just
this the cult. The cat is a revisionist. So last
episode we discussed how cults operate, essentially the roller coaster
emotional ride that individual's experience during cult recruitment, where they're

(02:24:37):
feelings and ideas are manipulated and they're drawn into an
exclusive and isolating group. We explored the rigid belief system
that's created, the immunity to falsifacation, the authoritarianism, arbitrary leadership,
deification of leaders, intense activism, and the use of loaded language.
We spoke about the contradictions within political cults and the

(02:24:58):
conditions of ideologic called totalism. And today, as promised, we're
going to look at one political cult leader in particular
whose influence spanned left to right, self described Platonist, conspiracy theorist,
the alleged targets of an assassination from Queen Elizabeth, A

(02:25:22):
one Trotskyist, the one and only, the infamous, the loathsome
Lyndon LaRouche.

Speaker 1 (02:25:30):
As soon as you said platonist, I knew we were
in for just a horrible time, just just the worst.
The only people who self describe as Platonists are the worst. Actually,
the last person I knew who self described as a
Platonist was the target of an assassination because it was

(02:25:51):
the daughter of Alexander Dugan was an.

Speaker 10 (02:26:00):
Interesting cast of characters.

Speaker 4 (02:26:02):
Indeed.

Speaker 1 (02:26:02):
Indeed, and speaking of.

Speaker 10 (02:26:04):
Cast of characters, by the way, I should note that
Tim wall Fourth, one of the co authors of the book,
that this research was based on the book being on
the edge particular cults left and right. Tim Warre Fourth,
the other authors tenant is Dennis Turrish was a Trotskyist
called leader at one point like cult underling or whatever,

(02:26:29):
but he was kicked out and then he later co
authored this book to call out some of their cultish tenancies.
If you need that sort of backstory to take some
of this with the green of salt. So be it, because,
as far as I can tell, Tim war Fourth and
Lynn laruche actually crossed paths at one point.

Speaker 1 (02:26:49):
Interesting, So, as always.

Speaker 10 (02:26:52):
Let's start from the beginning and get an early portrait
of this guy. Laroche was born in Rochester, New Hampshire
in nineteen twenty two, then moved to Lynn, Massachusetts. He
was the oldest of three children in a Quaker home
who eventually his father would be expelled from the local
Quaker community for his alleged misuse of funds. He then

(02:27:12):
briefly attended Northeastern University in Boston and left in nineteen
forty two, at least partly because he believed his teachers
quote lacked the competence to teach him on conditions he
was willing to tolerate.

Speaker 1 (02:27:26):
Sure, sure, I'll take his first word on that one. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 10 (02:27:31):
At first, he was a conscientious objector to enlist when
in World War Two because you know, Quaker, and instead
he joined a civilian public service camp in what is
what you know, which is what conscientious objectors did at
the time. But eventually he would enlist with the US
Army and serve with the Medical Corps in India and
boomer which is now mianma Yea. In nineteen forty six,

(02:27:54):
aboard the s S. General Bradley Don Morrill met the
young soldier in LaRouche and got into it with him
about politics and particularly the political optimism of the post
World War two era what a time, the revolutionary spirit
of the Indian subcontinent, and socialist ideas more broadly, Now
Larushe was already sympathetic towards Marx and Trotsky at this point.

(02:28:17):
In fact, even in his preteens, he was a voracious
reader of philosophy, particularly of the German polymath Godfred Wilhelm
von leibnizbut leibnizbut or however that is pronounced. But ultimately,
by the time they returned to America, Laruche was a Trotskyist.

(02:28:38):
In brief, For those unaware, a Trotskyist is someone who
hears the principles and politics of Leon Trotsky, who was
a prominent figure in the early Soviet Union and a
key figure in the what I would call co optation
of the Russian Revolution of nineteen seventeen. Trotskyism is distinct
from mainstream Leninist and particularly Stalinist thought. Most famously for

(02:29:01):
their rejection of socialism in one country and their advocacy
of permanent revolution. By the time l Aruche had returned
home in nineteen forty seven, he joined his hometown Lynn,
Massachusetts chapter of the Socialist Workers' Party s WP, which
was the main American Trotskyist group. Interestingly, he took on

(02:29:21):
a party name which really reminds me of how religious
missionaries would give those they converted quote Christian names baptism. Yeah,
so his party name was Lynn Marcus. You could just
see it as a pseudonym for political work. Of course.
I mean, the CIA and the FBI were very active
in infiltrating these sorts of groups, So I understand having

(02:29:44):
like a pseudonym. But I mean, considering we're talking about
cul tendencies and political movements, I couldn't pass up on
that observation.

Speaker 7 (02:29:50):
You know.

Speaker 10 (02:29:52):
Don Morrill, who was also from Lynn, Massachusetts, was also
part of the SWP and very active in their union
organized and activities. Laroucheo not so much. He was very
intellectually oriented. He wasn't very into the union scene, and
he eventually left Massachusetts nineteen fifty two and settled down
in New York. City, He got married, he had a son,

(02:30:15):
and he was focused in his career as an economic
consultant in the shoe industry, with a nice, nice apartment
in Central Park West. He didn't really have any ties
to the working class efforts at the WP. So what now? Well,
eventually he and his wife separated and he moved in
with a fellow s WP member known sometimes as Carol White,

(02:30:39):
sometimes as Carol Schnitzer, and sometimes as Carol Larabie. And
then he decided that the WP leadership had the wrong idea.
Why are they so obsessed with union organizing? Perhaps he
should be the one calling the shots. You have to
understand something about Laruche. You see a little involvement or

(02:31:00):
connection to actual working class struggle, and disconnection. You see
with little involvement or connection to actual working class struggle
and disconnection from the party's activity. He had already begun
making a right word shift, even while still bearing the
banner of leftism. As an intellectual, he loved his books,
including Marxist Capital, Rota Luxembourg's The Accumulation of Capital and

(02:31:25):
Hegeld's Logic, and his intellectualism naturally fed into his elitism,
Drawing from Lenin's What is to be Done? Laruche believes
that a select intellectual group, which I mean he was
clearly a part of, these professional revolutionaries held a pivotal
role in transforming society, would their task being to gain

(02:31:47):
dominance over the less intellectually developed masses. He also borrowed
from Gramachi's idea of hergemony. He saw himself in competition
with other intellectuals on the left for leadership over the
hearts and minds of the dummy masses to undermine the
capitalists hold on the working class. But unlike Gramsche, he

(02:32:09):
didn't believe the working class was capable of developing its
own leaders. He was that leader, and he also borrowed
from George Lucas's concept of class consciousness and the importance
of thinkers. Lush wasn't just a thinker. He saw himself
as the thinker, the one who would take power and

(02:32:30):
lead the masses to freedom. So he was fed up
with the s WP limiting his clearly elite intellect and ability,
and so in nineteen sixty five he left and joined
a small Trotskise group called the American Committee for the
Fourth International YES, associated with George Healey, who was another

(02:32:51):
left wing cult leader.

Speaker 1 (02:32:55):
At a lot of left wing cults came out of
the Fourth International, some of which are very cool, some
of which are not very.

Speaker 10 (02:33:03):
Cool indeed, indeed, but guess what, he didn't like the
Fourth International. He only stayed there for six months. And
apparently he Ley did not even like him. I mean,
I wonder why, right.

Speaker 1 (02:33:16):
I don't know. I mean, he seems like a very
agreeable fellow.

Speaker 10 (02:33:20):
And not only that, I mean, when have you ever
heard of cult leaders getting along? You know, cur leaders
sent to view other cult leaders as threats to their
total control.

Speaker 1 (02:33:28):
You know, it would be funny if there was just
like a conference for cult leaders to like share like
tactics and they all have like dinner together.

Speaker 7 (02:33:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (02:33:39):
So laruche bus out to that party, and he joined
the spart Issy League, which was another trot party, and
again he didn't stay for too long. He decided he
was going to put all those factions and leaders behind
him and declared himself the pioneer of the Fifth INTERNATIONALE. So,
for those unaware, the First Workers International from eighteen sixty

(02:34:03):
four to eighteen seventy six was a coalition of labor
and socialist groups seeking to promote workers' rights and international solidarity.
It split because of the irreconcilable differences and divisions between
the statists and the anarchists. Then in eighteen eighty nine
and from then unto nineteen sixteen, the Second Internationale was born.

(02:34:24):
That was an organization of socialist and labor parties, this
time no anarchists allowed, and it was aimed at fostering
cooperation among socialist globally, until it dissolved due to the
divisions related to World War One. And then in nineteen nineteen,
the Soviet Union founded the Third International or the Common
Turn to promote worldwide communist revolution and aid communist parties,

(02:34:49):
but then it dissolved during World War Two due to
the Soviet German tensions, among other things. And then in
nineteen thirty eight Trotsky, who was marginalized and persecuted by
Stylar and founded the Fourth International as an oppositional alternative
to the stalent dominated Commentarn. Technically the Fourth International is
still active today, but it's always been fairly irrelevant beyond

(02:35:13):
small bickerent sects and ever splinter in splinter groups and
more than one political cult. So for a Trotskyist like
Laruge to declare a fifth International is like, you know,
here we go again. How is it going to matage?
Do this? Nineteen sixty eight picture this a room with
about phility students sitting on the floor, all eyes fixed

(02:35:35):
on Lyndon LaRouche. After playing a major role in the
student strike at Columbia University, these students were totally invested
in this man's every word. They were part of the
National Caucus of Labor Committees lc NCLC, which was affiliated
with the Students for Democratic Society SDS. Laruche held this

(02:35:58):
meeting for a whole seven hours, that's longer than a
too service, and he blended discussions of tactics with educational presentations.
The SDS had a lot of spirit and action, but
Larush believed that they were a bit short on theory,
so he was there to fill that void and earn
a bit more. The gathering marked the early stages of

(02:36:21):
Wild lad become a political cult center around Laruge, where
he served as an intellectual and political gurup, training his
followers as devoted disciples. He had a particular knack for
me making his disciples feel like they were part of
an elite club. They believe they were the only ones
who truly understood the era they were in and had
all the answers to fix society's problems. In nineteen seventy,

(02:36:45):
Larush wrote that you should start with recruiting and educating
a revolutionary intelligenzia, mainly young intellectuals like these student radicals,
rather than the working class, because again Laruge thought the
working class was stipid. He wanted easily to recruits to
commit to intensive study and activism, particularly of his interpretation

(02:37:06):
of ideas. So they need the charge. And I remember
at this point Larush's pushing a right wing form of Trotskyism.
Like Marx, he believed that capitalism how to keep crowing
to stay alive. Once it hits his limits, it will
grow into crisis mode and eventually collapse. You also shared
Mark's idea that human activity should be all about progress,

(02:37:26):
particularly the growth of the world's productive forces.

Speaker 1 (02:37:30):
Do you know who's organizing the next International? Actually right now,
right now, it is in fact that the products and
services that sponsor this podcast, So they're making the great
shift the same way anarchism was expunged from the Second International,
Now communism is going to be expunged from this this
next upcoming international, and it's just going to be capitalists.

(02:37:51):
So here, here, here are the sponsors organizing the next,
the next International.

Speaker 10 (02:37:58):
Marx thought capitalism was just a phase in human society,
as crises would pave the way for a working class revolution,
which would lead to socialism. Under socialism, the productive forces
would flourish without those pesky capitalist constraints. LaRouche came up
with something he called the theory of re industrialization. He

(02:38:19):
claimed that capitalism, in its third stage of imperialism, needed
fresh opportunities for capital investment. They even predicted that if
world leaders did not follow his advice, the system was
on the brink of collapse. Only he and his trained
followers under his lead could prevent this catastrophe. By the

(02:38:39):
late sixties and early seventies, members were giving up their
jobs and devoting themselves wholly to the cause and the
leadership of Laruche. They were convinced that the world had
all the resources needed for an incredible economic transformation. But
they saw a big problem. They thought the nation's leaders
were clueless, and of course they didn't think too highly

(02:39:01):
the masses. So their solution was getting Linden and Laruze
Junior into power or whether he's a junior. But their
solution was getting Linden Laruz junior into power as soon
as possible, and then he would lead the trade unions
that take over America. He expected their support and if

(02:39:23):
they were slacking in their activism, he would call them out.
Borrowing from the confrontational therapy with the new age for
psychology cults, l Roush began holding ego stripping sessions. Anyone
who failed in a political task was subjected to pure
psychological terror as everyone attacked them and tore apart their
past and personal life in front of the whole group.

(02:39:45):
And because cults, and because cults and sex and inevitable
combination like madness and badness, Larush also launched a campaign
against the sexual impotence of his membership. Apparently Carol left
him for a disciple of the movement. Interesting his name

(02:40:05):
was Christopher White, and they went to England to set
up a chapter of the NCLC. So that's probably why
he got a little bit unhinged. But that's not the
worst of it. I can't not mention Operation mop Up.
In nineteen seventy three, Laruge fully shifted the group's political

(02:40:26):
stands from being far left to far right. Armed with bats,
chains and martial arts, scale, his supporters physically attacked members
of the Socialist Workers' Party and the Communist Party for
He declared that he intended to wipe these rival parties
off the map, going as far as to threaten their
families as well. But it didn't stop there. He extended

(02:40:48):
his attacks to groups like the Revolutionary Communist Party, the
October League, and the Progressive Labor Party. Essentially, laruche want
to establish dominance through these physical confrontations. There were at
least sixty reported assaults during this time, and the whole
operation only ended when the police stepped in and arrested

(02:41:08):
some of Lucia's followers. Interestingly, though, there weren't any convictions,
and Larush insisted that his people will only acted in
self defense. But here's where it gets a little bit mookier.
Journalist and Laruse biographer Dennis King suggested that the FBI
may have played a role in stirring up trouble among

(02:41:30):
these groups. We have used tactics like sending anonymous mailings
to keep these groups in each other's throats, so you know,
plot thickens.

Speaker 1 (02:41:39):
Yeah, I mean that way that was very typical kind
of contal pro stuff that was happening around this time
period that would not surprise me.

Speaker 10 (02:41:48):
Yeah, it's safe to say though, in this period of
Larusi's life, all the folks on the left were wondering
if he was really still one of their own. Back
nineteen seventy three, Carol and Christopher, like I said, they
were going to the UK to set up their own

(02:42:11):
version of the NCLC, But then the Rush called them
back to the US for a national conference, and during
the flight, Christopher lost it. He started yelling that the
CIA had plans to off lwer By and the Rouche,
Carol Larbie and the Rush. The plane was an utter chaos.

(02:42:37):
So Carol reached out to the rouge and they decided
to work together to d program Christopher. What we mean
deprogrammed Christopher? I'm glad you asked.

Speaker 1 (02:42:53):
I think we have mentioned called d programming before, kind
of been passing, but never too much on it.

Speaker 10 (02:43:00):
I think yes. What I mean in this instance though,
is not that they were trying to inculcate him into
the cult or deprogram him from mainstream ideology. You see
in his rantins and ravens on the plane Christopher claimed
he was a Manchurian candidate who had been tortured by

(02:43:21):
the CIA and British intelligence in a London basement. He
then said he was programmed to do some stuff like
often his wife and setting up Laruge for a watery
demise by Cuban and exile frogmen. So that's the kind
of deprogram and they intended to carry out.

Speaker 1 (02:43:44):
Hmmm, I have some notes, but I suppose I'll just
let them do their thing.

Speaker 10 (02:43:51):
Yeah, yeah, So Christopher was saying that he was a
Manchurian candidate, and so then the whole group was in
a frenzy. Laruge and his disciples were released in statements
left and right, training their members and how to spot
other Manchurian candidates and how to handle CIA torture. And

(02:44:12):
here's why I guess really crazy. One of the members,
Alice Weitzman, she made a critical mistake in a political cult.
She doubted. She didn't believe the whole CIA story that
Christopher was pushing, and Larus didn't like that she didn't believe,

(02:44:35):
and so Larush was like, oh, you don't believe that
the CIA is infiltrating us right now, then you must
be a Cia agent, so he sends a squad of
six members of his cult to Weisman's apartment and they
held her a hostage and cranked up Beaethovern music to

(02:44:55):
deafening levels. Why because Laruche believed that Beethoven's tunes could
somehow deprogram Manchurian candidates. Wizman managed to toss out a
note through the window and a passerby picked it up
and alerted the police, so she was rescued, but then

(02:45:16):
she chose not to press charges against her captives. Larusha
turned this party at this point, with one thousand members
in three seven offices in North America and twenty six
in Europe and Latin America, into an extreme right, anti
Semitic organization, despite the presence of Jewish members. In fact,

(02:45:39):
Carol herself was Jewish and she stuck around Dennis King.
The biographer's were called earlier found a deep connection between
LaRouche and fascist and United groups. In the early eighties,
Laruche used a Strategic Defense Initiative or star Wars to
bring together fright forces from Europe and America. He was

(02:46:03):
even promoting like Revanism and defending Nazi war criminals, and
he was known for blending his usual conspiracy theories with
anti Semitism, particularly towards the British. He blamed the Rothschild
for running Great Britain, and he was a typical Holocaust denier. Yeah,

(02:46:24):
I really, I generally wonder why Carol left him, but
I also wonder why she stuck around in the group anyway.
The Anti Defamation League labeled the Rushes NCLC as the
closest thing to an American fascist party, and well that
begs the question what was life like in that party?

Speaker 1 (02:46:45):
Yeah?

Speaker 10 (02:46:45):
I mean I remember you Garrison describing a good party
as a.

Speaker 1 (02:46:51):
Color well, and see, I think part of part of
the problem is when you know, a house party turns
into a political party and then.

Speaker 10 (02:47:01):
To a fascist party. Yeah, but never ends. Yeah. So
Larush was using these really sneaky tactics to drive a
wedge between Laruge members and their families, partners, and spouses.
There were members of Larusiu's elite who convinced one person
that their own dad was laundering money secretly for the

(02:47:22):
drug trade. This organization was telling their members where they
could live, what car to buy, when to quit their jobs,
what they should read, what they should watch, how to
scam their parents out of money, how and when to
break up with their partners.

Speaker 1 (02:47:40):
Yeah, that's all.

Speaker 10 (02:47:42):
And then while all this is going on, Larush movement
is also swapping out the red flags of Trotskyism for
good old or red, white and blue. Members were soon
educated with the ideas of Alexander Hamilton, right, oh god.
Hamilton's economic seats were basically the American version of what
Marx represented in Europe, according to l Aruge. And forget

(02:48:05):
about Marx. They're not reading Marx anymore now, they're reading
Plato and Dante. In nineteen eighty they even told the
members to vote for Reagan. Yeah, cool stuff, cool stuff,
cool stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:48:19):
No, they dropped their left noted a platonist philosopher, Ronald Reagan.

Speaker 10 (02:48:25):
Yeah, they basically dropped any veneer of left leaning in
their recreupment tactics. And then they started doing things like
soliciting people at airports and bus terminals. And these members
they were caught in this whirlwind. They didn't have time
to read, to think, to get a decent night's sleep.
They were working twelve hour shifts and getting paid peanuts,

(02:48:45):
like one hundred dollars one hundred and twenty five dollars
a week, and sometimes they'd even get paid at all.
They were in a constant state of mobilization, living an
adrenaline ready for anything, And finally, in nineteen eighty one,
around three hundred and six hundred people they had had
enough and left the organization. Some of them were formal leftists,

(02:49:05):
but not all. Those who stuck around the die hard
cult members completely under Larushe's control. Would it surprise you,
gusn to learn that the Rushe was a scammer?

Speaker 1 (02:49:19):
Oh? You're saying that the person involved in running the
cult was also a prolific grifter and someone who tried
to scam other people. Are really really Yeah.

Speaker 10 (02:49:32):
A lot of people don't know this, but cult leaders
and scammers actually go hand in hand. Ah yeah, yeah.
Larush was a master of operating through a network of
front organizations. He created the Fusion Energy Foundation, getting support
from nuclear and aerospace industries to run a private intelligence
to this focusing on terrorists and drug cartels. Get this.

(02:49:56):
He even met with top officials from the National Security
com SO and the CIA in the eighties, despite his
parannoying about the CIA, and he somehow managed to get
White House access.

Speaker 1 (02:50:08):
What Yeah? Why? How?

Speaker 10 (02:50:15):
Yeah? He eventually infiltrated the Democratic Party and ran for
president several times, and he launched the Proposition sixty four
initiative in California in the eighties, Aiman to impose strict
public health policies for AIDS, which public health officials rejected.
But basically he was instrumental and spreading a lot of

(02:50:36):
unnecessary fear about AIDS. In fact, he was advocating for
lynch mobs to deal with the AIDE crisis.

Speaker 1 (02:50:42):
Oh so he wasn't like spreading good health information when
everyone was ignoring the problem. He was being like, we should,
we should just killed everybody.

Speaker 10 (02:50:50):
Yeah, pretty much?

Speaker 1 (02:50:51):
Okay, I got h But you.

Speaker 10 (02:50:54):
Know, every scammer has their day, and one of his
scams got him in the pen. You see, LaRouche had
a knack for recruit in the offspring of the wealthy
and separating them from their money, to put it euphemistically.
One of his most famous recruits was Louis DuPont Smith

(02:51:15):
a DuPont here that DuPont, who gave a whop in
two hundred and twelve thousand dollars to Laruge. He even
moved close to Laruge, but Eventually, the DuPont family intervened,
had him declared mentally ill, and put him on a
monthly stipend. Still, Laruche was making a royal bank. His

(02:51:36):
empire was growing. He had one hundred and seventy two
acre estate in Virginia serving as his center of operations,
which had phone banks, offices, a printing plant guarded twenty
four to seven by armed individuals. But the Empire of
LaRouche eventually went into a decline. This lust for publicity

(02:51:56):
caught the attention of the public and federal officials, and
his phone bank operator started to make an unauthorized credit
card withdrawals.

Speaker 1 (02:52:04):
I mean he he was like going to the White House.
How did he how did he try to like stay
under the federal radar? He was literally in the in
the one spot, the one place exactly exactly.

Speaker 10 (02:52:23):
It's it's it's baffling, But Dennis Kidding has a book
all about it, so you could check it out. In
nineteen eighty seven, he faced a trial on credit card
fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice, which ended in a mistrial.
Then a subsequent trial convicted him out in various charges,
and he ended up in a federal penitentiary in nineteen

(02:52:45):
eighty nine. And what do all great cult leaders, or
what do many great cult leaders do on the in jail?
Some of them write book books?

Speaker 1 (02:52:55):
Yeah, all right, all right, I'm back on now, Okay.

Speaker 10 (02:53:00):
So Laruci decides to write a book called In Defense
of Common Sense. It's a mix of obscure geometric illustrations,
a passionate defense of Platonism, attributes to the seventeenth century
astronomer Johannes Kepler, and some heavy denunciations of philosophers like

(02:53:20):
Kan't and most philosophers post Plato. In fact, as far
as larus was concerned, every philosopher after Plato sucked.

Speaker 1 (02:53:28):
That's so funny, that's really funny.

Speaker 10 (02:53:32):
Incredibly, But at its core his book In Defense of
Common Sense was Laruche restating his modernist, somehow marks inspired worldview.
We argue that scientific and technological progress set humanity apart
from all other creatures, and it naturally leads to increased
population density. In Larucia's eyes, there's no room for any

(02:53:55):
entropic view that suggests a limit to human technology and
population growth. He even coined the term negantropic to advocate
for ongoing industrial and population expansion no matter what. All right,
But so then if you didn't, okay, maybe you listen
to this and you're like, none of this is all
dramatic and wild or whatever. Here's where it gets even wilder.

(02:54:19):
This is where we get to the intersection of Lynn
Laruche and Elon Musk that we colonize Mars.

Speaker 1 (02:54:28):
Well, I mean, honestly the whole his other what was
the term he just said, like neutra, Yeah, that that
is pretty similar to Musk's ideology as well, though pretty much.

Speaker 10 (02:54:44):
Yeah, And so LaRue says, let's go, let's colonize Mars,
and what's that's done? In about forty years according to
his estimation, then his philosophical standpoint will clearly rule all
of humanity for all of time. But while the Rushes
deep in thought behind bars his followers, they're not twiddling

(02:55:07):
their thumbs. They joined forces with other anti war demonstrators
to oppose the Gulf War in nineteen ninety nineteen ninety one.
And you know, it's interesting to note that the NCLC
was not the only voice from the right among those
left wing demonstrators. Pat Buchanan, the Populist Party, the Liberty Lobby,
and other ultra right and other ultra right and new

(02:55:28):
isolationist groups formed a sort of united front with elements
of the left in terms of that opposition to the
Gulf War and Laruche was eventually released on parole in
nineteen ninety four. By nineteen ninety eight, during the economic crisis,
the Rush was demanding that Bill Clinton appoint him immediately

(02:55:53):
as an economic advisor.

Speaker 1 (02:55:54):
Sounds like a good idea. Yeah, no, he seems he
seems well qualified.

Speaker 10 (02:55:59):
And I code it was now time to abandon crisis
management and Chili shaian. In other words, democracy. Laruge believed
in the inherent tendency of popular opinion toward mediocrity. The
very tendency to rely upon collective decisions rather than decisions
based upon voundation of principle is itself a wellspring of mediocrity,

(02:56:21):
he fully explained to proposed as symbol of virtual ravel
of decision makers, usually featuring those parties who are still
advocates of the policies which have caused and advocated the crisis.
Is scarcely a noble enterprise nor a fruitful one. Some
relatively few in the position to influence directives must preempt
the situation. Just in case there should be any question

(02:56:42):
as to Larush's concept of governance, he declared China to
be probably one of the best governments in the world
today in terms of quality of leadership, the kind of
leadership required to get through crisis. Laruche, like Mussolini and
Hitler before him, borrowed from marx and unchanged his theories completely.

Speaker 1 (02:57:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (02:57:03):
Yeah, Marxist internationalist outclook was abandoned in favor of the
nation state. Marxist goal of abolish and capitalism was replaced
by a model of a tutalitarian state that is still
primarily in the hands of private corporations and their owners, who,
by the way, would have to take orders from the rouge. Now.

(02:57:24):
Hitler called his national so his schema national socialist socialism.

Speaker 1 (02:57:32):
Interesting, curious.

Speaker 10 (02:57:34):
Larusha was a fan, but he was like, you know,
let's add a little spice, let's give it some American branded.
So Larush called his system and ideology the American system.

Speaker 1 (02:57:46):
It's a little bit less catchy, I gotta say.

Speaker 10 (02:57:50):
I mean, that's that's the story of than the rush.

Speaker 1 (02:57:54):
He died, obviously, most people do. There's there's only a
few that have not died. Enoch and I think I think,
like one or two others, but most people, most people
do do in fact die.

Speaker 10 (02:58:08):
Yeah. Yeah, he was really quite the guy. He died
into on the nineteen by.

Speaker 1 (02:58:14):
The way, Oh no, that that recent.

Speaker 10 (02:58:18):
Yeah, yeah, he lived a really long time. He had
lived for a hundred years for Crownald Load did.

Speaker 1 (02:58:22):
Not realize he was still kicking around so so recently.

Speaker 11 (02:58:27):
Yeah, gone too soon him a right, yeah, yeah, absolutely,
at least at least now he's in heaven with Ruth
Bader Ginsburg.

Speaker 1 (02:58:37):
That's that's yeah, that's why.

Speaker 10 (02:58:39):
Why do the good die young?

Speaker 7 (02:58:41):
You know?

Speaker 1 (02:58:43):
Oh, he was just a kid.

Speaker 10 (02:58:48):
So as we conclude our journey and the enigmatic will
live in the Rouge, I think we left with more
questions and answers. How did a man on the fringe
of radical politics end up in the White House?

Speaker 1 (02:59:04):
Yeah? That is that is That is one question I
actually still have thinking about is what were the conditions
to his White House visits and.

Speaker 10 (02:59:13):
What led to his transformation from a committed leftist to
a fascist. I mean I think we could see the
science of.

Speaker 1 (02:59:19):
That, right ear yeah, yes, yeah.

Speaker 10 (02:59:21):
In the sixties, the Rouge displayed egotism and hints of instability,
but he was also an intelligent individual who attracted serious intellectuals.
His ideas, well sometimes peculiar, were generally rational, but it
was the adulation of students allowed him to gather a
following around his ideas and personality. The collapse of student

(02:59:45):
radicalism the seventies that the stage from his shift from
left to right and the unwavering loyalty of his followers
likely reinforced his increasingly psychotic worldview and perception of his
role in it. The Rush was convinced that he deserved worship,
he was an intellect. He was fueled by his ideology
of catastrophism that he as the elite, would play a

(03:00:09):
significant role as see if You Have Humanity. The practices
of his organization resembled many of the extreme religious thought
control groups.

Speaker 1 (03:00:19):
UH.

Speaker 10 (03:00:20):
The practice of ideological totalism is very clear, The authoritarian
structure is very clear. The paranoia foster to create a
clear boundaries in the group and the outside world don't
be likely.

Speaker 12 (03:00:30):
L aruchease please and watch out for his wanna be
is I feel like kle Morpins is the Laruche of
this generation.

Speaker 1 (03:00:44):
I mean yeah, I mean I hope I don't see
Marpin getting invited to the White House anytime soon, nor
other characters like Chairman Bob. Yeah, I don't know. We
live a different time. I think because of how the
Internet works, there's a lot there's there's much more cult

(03:01:05):
leaders just dispersed everywhere all the time.

Speaker 10 (03:01:09):
But it's almost it's almost the democratization of cult leadership.

Speaker 1 (03:01:14):
Yeah, but it's also made them more or less isolated
to the Internet with occasional flare ups in the real world,
which kind of which kind of limits their engagement with
you know, normal people, so to speak.

Speaker 10 (03:01:28):
Yeah, it's kind of help cults, right, they can't even
communicate with people outside of them anymore.

Speaker 1 (03:01:34):
Yeah, And I think part of part of that is
definitely happening here on on on on the Internet, where
there's just so many of them that they they're all
very small, they're all very isolated, and they don't ever
really break out of their bubble, which which you know
is common with with with a lot of a lot
of cults.

Speaker 7 (03:01:52):
Right.

Speaker 1 (03:01:52):
The ones that we only really know about or hear
about are the ones that you know, ended up doing
some bigger, big, horrific think at some point, you know,
in that that generated you know a lot of eyeballs
on them. But for every for every Heaven's Gate, there's like,
you know, a dozen new age cults that just fly
right under the radar that are still like horribly horribly abusive.

(03:02:16):
They just yeah, they just they just might not be
tied to like a horrific act of like mass murder
and mass suicide.

Speaker 10 (03:02:25):
That's a scary thoughts. You know how many cults have
not yet broken containment as it were.

Speaker 1 (03:02:32):
Yeah, yeah, it's uh, it's a fun time to to
be alive, surely.

Speaker 10 (03:02:38):
Indeed, So yeah, I mean, I hope I hope that
the bodiuns has enjoyed this cautionary tale, a reminder of
the profound and sometimes dangerous paths the ideology can take
individuals and groups. Done once again, and Andrew and Andres,

(03:02:59):
this is Garrison of Garrison of myself.

Speaker 4 (03:03:03):
Yes, and this has been in happening peace, Welcome to Dick.

(03:03:23):
It happened here a podcast being recorded in the like
last hours of Halloween in in the the I guess
the closing minutes of a teacher is in Portland not
being on strike. So yeah, this is this is a
podcast that is often about strikes and here to talk
with me about this is Britney Doris, who's a fifth
grade teacher in Portland public schools, who's the union captain

(03:03:46):
for her school and the strike captain also for her school. Brittany,
welcome to the show.

Speaker 5 (03:03:50):
Hi, glad to be here.

Speaker 4 (03:03:52):
I'm really glad to talk to you. So all right,
we are we are in we are in zero hour. Yeah,
we're in the zero the strike by the time this
comes out, like, I guess you have been on strike
for like two days, yeah, assuming it's comes off Friday. Yeah,
So all right. I think the place we should start
probably for people who are not in Portland, people who

(03:04:14):
haven't been following this. I guess we should start with
what are the sort of conditions that have led to this.
I have heard some absolutely wild things about what's happening
for the schools right now.

Speaker 5 (03:04:27):
So how did we give here? Yeah, we've been negotiating
or bargaining this contract for over a year and pushing
for circumstances that are just better suited for our students.
Some of our classrooms that we're dealing with situations like

(03:04:47):
rodents and mold, and still some buildings dealing with lead
in their water. Extreme temperatures, like class sizes are huge,
but different depending on where you're at in the city. Like,
we've just been overcompensating with less since the pandemic times,

(03:05:10):
and we're fed up, we're not able to do it anymore.
And yeah, we're strike ready.

Speaker 4 (03:05:17):
Yeah, And I mean this is something, this is, this
is this is I think a pretty interesting set of
circumstances because my understanding and okay, so don't quote me
on this. I'm pretty sure that the last time that
Portland teachers went on strike was in the like actually
ended up striking and not just doing this strike authorization
vote was the was was during the eighties, so it

(03:05:39):
has been it has been a really long time.

Speaker 5 (03:05:42):
It's literal lifetime.

Speaker 4 (03:05:45):
Yeah, it's like I was not I was like two
of my lifetimes effectively, like I was on a line
for this.

Speaker 5 (03:05:50):
So yeah, I think we're seeing that shift happen nationwide.
That education has been continuously public education and has been
continuously chipped away at and eroded over the last few decades,
and more and more responsibility has put on the been
put on the backs of teachers, and we are not

(03:06:12):
able to function under this workload, under these conditions and
without increased support for the educators as well. So I
think this is the culmination of kind of years and
years of disinvestment in public education nationwide, and so you're

(03:06:33):
seeing a lot more strikes, educational strikes coming up throughout
the country, and particularly for Portland's history. Like you said,
it's if Portland public schools have striked in the past,
it's been literal decades, not in my lifetime, not in
your lifetime, and just the continued frustration of decades of struggle.

Speaker 4 (03:06:56):
Yeah, and I mean, as from what I've heard from
from people in this so the line that I got
was that janitors were being told that the standard they
were supposed to clean schools too was quote moderately dingy.

Speaker 1 (03:07:09):
So things seemed not good.

Speaker 5 (03:07:12):
Yeah, it's rough. There's there's rodents everywhere. Our custodial workers
are already worked to the limit and understaffed, and so
our buildings show. I mean, the school that I work
in is over one hundred and ten years old, and
you can tell it's not being up kept and students
are suffering. The conditions are, like you said, dingy, a

(03:07:35):
moderate level of approved dinginess supposedly, and that's gross.

Speaker 4 (03:07:41):
Yeah, and I mean so I've heard that complains a lot.
I mean, I like, when I was in school, we
only had one we had well, I mean there might
have been more. There probably were more rats we didn't see.
We had one drowned rat fall out of a ceiling,
but that was it. It was. We were limited to
one rat for four years. And I feel I feel
like that's the maximum number of rats that you should
encounter is maybe one. Because it's kind of funny, but yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 (03:08:05):
And these are class pets, like these aren't no the
mice and rats that you're using in a science class
or keeping as the class pet in the corner like.

Speaker 4 (03:08:15):
Ooh yeah, and the other I guess. I guess The
next thing that I wanted to talk about is class sizes,
because I know, I mean, this is a very people
have been like talking about this for ages, and it's
it's something that's really I feel like it's weird negotiating wise,
because and this is something I see all the time.
The school dishesh will be like, well, like the admin

(03:08:37):
will be oh, well, yeah, of course you want like
smaller class sizes, and then they just won't do it.
So yeah, can you talk about.

Speaker 5 (03:08:45):
Yeah, here's something that's really burning my biscuit. Our district
management continues to tell our community and the press that
our average class size is twenty three students at the
elementary level, and the problem with that stick is that
they are doing a ratio based on the adults in
the building. So, for example, we have a learning coach.

(03:09:06):
Uh huh. We have a learning coach who works with
children in small groups throughout the building, but she herself
is not a rostered classroom teacher, but she is put
into that equation so that it looks like our classes
on average are twenty three when the reality is very different.
The music teacher doesn't count, the learning coach doesn't count.
But in the math that the district is like that

(03:09:29):
math ain't math in my class is thirty four kids.
You're telling the public that the average is twenty three,
and it's just not true because you're including adults in
the building who aren't the host classroom teacher.

Speaker 4 (03:09:42):
Yeah, which is that's just that's just absurd, Like, I mean,
you have to know that you're lying in order to
create that statistic, Like that's a uh.

Speaker 5 (03:09:52):
And you know it is true that there are some
classes around the district that are small I had a
miracle of a class last year that was two kids.
That coport was just small that you know, they weren't
having as many babies eleven years ago. I don't know. Yah,
But this year, this year, I have thirty four and
the year prior so not last year, but the twenty

(03:10:13):
twenty two year I had thirty two and thirty four
kids is unsustainable, especially because I have the twenty two
to compare it to. I am very aware of how
little capacity I have for meeting their needs, for teaching,
the wide range of levels that are in the class,
even for checking in with kids. I can look out
at my room at midday and think looking at a

(03:10:36):
kid I don't know if I've talked to you, like,
it's possible to go so under the radar when there
are that many children to care for.

Speaker 4 (03:10:44):
Yeah, And I mean that's the difference. Is like it's
like a forty percent class size increase right, Yeah, the year,
which is nuts.

Speaker 5 (03:10:52):
And I can feel and it's having a significant impact
on just my own well being and mental health this
year because I know what it looks like to teach
well and I know that I cannot currently do it
with this many and it's hard. I last year, I
wasn't feeling any symptoms of burnout at all. It's feeling
really good, loving my job still. And this year, I'm like, oh,
oh my gosh, I cannot keep up with this many kids,

(03:11:15):
especially with you know, we've gotten even so as class
sizes have increased, so have the needs of our students. Right,
We're dealing with a lot more mental health issues. We're
dealing with a wide range of neurodiversity that comes with
different needs. And so it's that's the thirty four now
is exponentially different than thirty four when we were young.

(03:11:38):
It's it's intense, and it's unsustainable, and I'm living it
every day.

Speaker 4 (03:11:43):
Yeah, And like you know, I think on an abstract level,
like the district knows like that this sucks, right, but
they just they don't fucking do anything about it.

Speaker 5 (03:11:53):
It's just right real, Yeah, And even to the level
that we're able to bargain it, there are such as
like permissive topics that we can or cannot bargain and
things that we can bargain. And even in the strike
that we are about to have, they continue to push
back on the class cap request, saying that it is

(03:12:13):
a permissive topic, and that it's class caps may only
be applicable to what are called Title I schools, So
schools where the population is more impacted by poverty, and
so they're trying, like even trying to get small class
sizes or smaller class sizes, knowing that it's a district
wide issue may still only be successful for some parts

(03:12:36):
of our district.

Speaker 4 (03:12:37):
Yeah, and that's that, ain't right, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, that's absurd.

Speaker 5 (03:12:44):
Yeah, Like, my classroom is incredibly diverse. We are not
a Title one school. We are known for supposedly being
in one of the more affluent areas, but even our
neighborhood school that those demographics have continued to change, and
we have many students that are experiencing poverty and experiencing
some of the cultural pieces that go with that, the

(03:13:07):
systemic impacts of that. Our students are living through trauma.
Our students are experiencing adversity. Our students are experiencing racism
and sexism and homophobia, and they are jam packed sardines
in a overheated room with no supports. I'm the only
adult in the room to support them. I have students

(03:13:29):
with disabilities who aren't getting support from our SPED team.
Because our SPED team is SPED stance for special education,
our special educators are working with some younger grade students
with even bigger needs. So my fifth graders with disabilities
are getting completely left in the lurch. And it is
my single body with all thirty four and we're floundering.

Speaker 4 (03:13:53):
Yeah, And I mean that's another of aspect of this
that I think is really is really grim that all
of these issues. It's like the kids you need the
most help from the beginning are the people who are
getting the most hurt by it, and right, you know,
and those are the people who the education system is

(03:14:15):
supposed to be taken care of and just cannot because
you know, chronic understaffing, class sizes that are too large.

Speaker 5 (03:14:24):
Right, and it's especially painful. I've been teaching now for
ten years and I am looking at this class right now.
I have a student in my class who is a
little black boy with a disability, and I'm looking at
him knowing that I am not able to give him
what he needs. And he is like the statistic that
school districts want to put on their website, Like we got,

(03:14:45):
you know, our marginalized populations. We've helped them, we've fit
and like, here is a student that is the statistic
that you supposedly are fighting for, and he is absolutely
left out to dry and I am trying to do
what I can for him, and he comes to mind,
I picture him as I'll be out there on that
picket line, like I am out there for that kid
as well as his thirty three other classmates. But just

(03:15:07):
like quint essential picture of who I'm fighting for and
who is getting left behind?

Speaker 4 (03:15:15):
Yeah, which which? Which? I don't know? Like there there's
there's I think there's something really grim in the way.
And this is this is a you know, this this
goes back to what you were talking about with the
way that they're just straight up lying about the average
the average class size. Where it's it really seems like
these things have you know, the the actual process of

(03:15:35):
education is being degraded into just this this sort of
metric chasing game. And you know, as long as you
have metrics that look good, you know, like the district
is like, wow, okay, it's fine that like our students
aren't equality of education they need. It's fine that they're
in these buildings that are literally falling apart. It's fine
that you know kids aren't getting what they need, like

(03:15:56):
as long as the metrics look good and right.

Speaker 5 (03:15:58):
That's something something that gets me when we talk about
those metrics. Knowing our superintendent gets a bonus if academically
marginalized populations like our black and brown students, if they
increase their performance on standardized tests, he gets a bonus. Now,
what I have a problem with is that those standardized
tests that we take every spring, there are some students

(03:16:21):
that are so impacted by the school system that they
may have attendance issues, they may not be there consistently
in the spring to take those tests. So something I'm
picturing a couple of my students who were impacted by poverty,
were kids of color and were significantly absent due to
what the circumstances of their life. Those students were not

(03:16:43):
able to take that test in the spring. That means
those students, those black and brown students, that data wasn't
in those metrics. So even the metrics that are being
used to measure whether or not we are successfully supporting
our students of color are inaccurate because our most impacted
students aren't able to take that assessment. Like his data,
our superintendent's data is going to look better When some

(03:17:06):
of the students who might tank that data because they
are unsupported by the school system aren't there to be
in the data because they're unsupported by the school system.
It falls apart.

Speaker 4 (03:17:17):
And this is one of these things where it's like,
the only way to change this is do is do
union actions because like the school district's not going to
do it, like their metrics look fine, right and right,
you know, the government is not going to do it
because they're not going to they don't want to spend
more money. So this is this is the only way
to actually Yeah.

Speaker 5 (03:17:36):
And I think we finally, I think have made a point.
We are I mean, our union actions already have been
building up a visible presence. We have massive community support
from our not only our parent communities, but the greater
Portland area. Business is coming out and support people joining
us at like we had a massive march this Saturday
where we took over the Burnside Bridge. And as our

(03:17:58):
union actions build, we know that we are out there,
we are not alone, and that we are feeling the
support from the community and we are becoming a more
visible presence, and especially in Portland, we are a massive union.
Other unions around the state are looking at us and
watching how this goes. And we can tell that the
district management is scared. They are starting to send out

(03:18:21):
emails to families that are meant to intimidate and panic
and cause chaos. And we're seeing these defensive moves that
are a reaction.

Speaker 4 (03:18:32):
Do you know who else is a hack and a
fraud who didn't figure out a way to do an
ad pivot here? It's the products and services that support
this podcast.

Speaker 5 (03:18:39):
Yeah, speaking of businesses that support us.

Speaker 4 (03:18:43):
And we're back. Yeah, so you know, okay, So that
those are those are two other dynamics that I sort
of I wanted to get into. I guess first I
want to talk about what the what the community support
has looked like, what forthmore the unionses look like. And
you know, how you've been engaging with parents, because I mean,
that's been a big thing. So I'm from Chicago and

(03:19:05):
so we have like a I mean not that long,
like for the last about decade, the Chicago Teachers Union's
been on strike a bunch of times, and it's yeah,
like it really and the support of that and the
engagement of that really is one of the few things
us in making Chicago a better place. So I wanted
to ask what that's looked like in Portland, because this
is basically the first time for y'all.

Speaker 5 (03:19:26):
Right, and I know historically in Oregon we felt the
support from our community, such as the Red for Ed
movement a few years ago when we were really pushing
for statewide reform and change in education policy. And here
in Portland ever since, the seeds of our uprising were
being planted knowing that we are on a collision course

(03:19:48):
towards a strike based on how poorly the district management
is bargaining with us, and so we started to build
in that communication and enlist this part of our parent
communities pretty early on by having info sessions, by talking about,
you know, the community's wants and desires for their students,

(03:20:09):
connecting with our schools, ptas, connecting with local businesses, especially
as in the last month or so that we felt, okay,
this is happening, we are about to strike. We need
to connect with our communities in our school areas and
see who's out there and if they have our back.
And it's been really profound in grassroots organizing between the

(03:20:31):
parents and the ptas, in tandem with our unions and
from businesses around our school areas. We attended an event
called Strike School to prepare and one of our missions
was to check in with businesses and neighbors in the
areas of our schools where we plan to be picketing
and seeing, you know, where can we go to use

(03:20:52):
a bathroom, where can we go to use a parking lot,
and just making those connections, some of which already existed.
Even though Portland hasn't had to strike, We've been very
connected to our communities because the educators live in these communities.
This is my community. Unlike some of the big wigs
in the big pink building of management, like they are

(03:21:12):
coming in and out in a few years. We're from here,
we are here to stay, we are here to make
those connections. So it was very easy to call upon
those connections because we are the community. You know, we
have a lot of union members that are parents. We
have a lot of union members that are married to
business owners in the area. We've Yeah, it's been it's

(03:21:33):
been obvious who lives here, who's fighting for these kids
because this is our community.

Speaker 4 (03:21:40):
Yeah, and you know, I mean, Portland's been a place
where I think kind of beneath the notice of a
lot of the national press. It's been one of the
places where the most union organizing is happening and where
the most strikes have been happening. And yeah, I was wondering,
I mean, to what extent have y' all been influenced by?
I mean both the sort of the just profusion of

(03:22:02):
like local strikes and then also the kind of the
bigger national strikes.

Speaker 5 (03:22:06):
Something really beautiful about living in Portland is that there
is quite a bit of cross union solidarity, and like
in the educational realm, we have a coalition of all
of our unions that come together the certified teachers like
my union pat as well as SCIU, the union that
represents our custodial staff, as well as pfsp our Para educators,

(03:22:30):
our nutritional staff, the bus drivers union, like, all of
those unions come together and support each other. And in fact,
in the educational realm of Portland, multiple unions are on
the verge of striking in that they are having unsuccessful
bargaining attempts. But then also with like the ups workers,
with Kaiser pharmacies and the medical field, like, there is

(03:22:54):
labor action all around Portland, and there's definitely a built
in solidarity network from you unionity to union. Our union
siblings are with us. We have been with them throughout
the years. I think we do a really good job
as a major city of wrapping around each other's unions
and supporting big actions. And you know, Portland, when we

(03:23:16):
do get national press, it is for how rambunctious our
little city can be. And this is some of that
good trouble that that John Lewis would want us.

Speaker 8 (03:23:25):
To get in.

Speaker 4 (03:23:26):
Yeah, And I mean this is something that you can
I mean, so I was in Portland for like three
weeks pretty like recently, and I mean you would just
run like I was. I was at a hospital for long,
long story about that, but I was at a hospital
and like the first person we talked to is like
as a receptionist, was like the union rep from the
receptionist union. And then like we're talking to the nurses,

(03:23:49):
and the nurses are like, oh, yeah, we just won
our we just won our thingout having to go on
strike because management cave. It's it's a really sort of
incredible place to be in terms of like just just
the energy and just like the amount of stuff that's
happening there. It's really it's really sort of incredible.

Speaker 5 (03:24:05):
Very active.

Speaker 4 (03:24:07):
I guess the other side of this is that this
we've also seen a lot of sort of management retaliation
and crackdown attempts. And yeah, I was wondering if you
talk about what management's been doing, because.

Speaker 5 (03:24:20):
Yeah, yeah, it's really ramped up in the last week
or so as it is clear that this we are
on our way to strike, especially when we ninety nine
percent of the membership voted yes to a strike authorization.
That sent a pretty clear message and I think it
made district management panic a little. And we've received numerous
emails to the parent community. They have for example, they

(03:24:45):
are training tomorrow Thursday, the day of our strike beginning,
or when on Wednesday, the day that the strike begins,
they are training our parent professionals and eas in how
to deliver vert ual phonics instruction. One of their moves
was to cause panic in the families by sending emails

(03:25:06):
home that say, your student, based on their test scores,
is a struggling reader. Here's the plan should there be
a school closure, that we're going to provide virtual learning opportunities.
So immediately you've got parents in a panic emailing their
teacher like my students struggling. Why didn't I know? And
in many cases that was inaccurate. A second grade teacher
at my school, every parent in her class got that email,

(03:25:28):
and sure she has some struggling readers, but it is
not every student. Why did every student's family get that
email to cause panic, to cause fear, to cause intimidation,
And so they also send out a big email trying
that the technology team was coming into the buildings to
collect all the chromebooks. Our students are one to one
with chromebooks. They're pretty integral to our curriculum delivery and

(03:25:53):
our instruction. And they started pulling them out in the
middle of the workday, in the middle of the teaching day,
from some of our youngestdu students, which was a visible
thing in front of students. They're coming to collect them.
It was unplanned. We had no warning. That again seemed
to be kind of a panic move. We are trying
to sew fear and intimidation, and we're taking your chromebooks

(03:26:15):
and we're putting kids back in COVID times.

Speaker 4 (03:26:18):
That's just a terrible also, just like a terrible thing
to do to a bunch.

Speaker 1 (03:26:22):
Of kids r like what Yeah, they're just coming to.

Speaker 4 (03:26:26):
Their room, just taking their stuff in front of everyone,
Like what right.

Speaker 5 (03:26:30):
Especially in those younger grades, with no warning and like, well,
we were supposed to have our tech time on Friday,
like we had our routine and oh this this guy's
coming in and taking all the chromebooks. Sorry kids, Yeah,
not really having a ready answer.

Speaker 4 (03:26:44):
Yeah, it's like it's one of those things where it's
like you can you can really tell, like who actually
cares about the kids here, because it's just like yeah.

Speaker 5 (03:26:54):
And you know, management is trying to put out the
message that teachers don't care about your kids. That's why
they're willing to stop school and put your kids back
at home again. It's bad, like the pandemic time, those
those nasty teachers want your kids out of school. And
you know, our point being that our students haven't been
getting the learning that they deserve because of the current conditions. Yeah,

(03:27:15):
that we've been under serving them already. We are walking
out not because we don't care, but because we care
so passionately that we aren't willing to stand for these
subpar conditions any longer.

Speaker 4 (03:27:28):
And this is the thing I don't like I've seen
a lot of teacher strikes in my city. I've seen
a lot of teacher strikes. Naturally, I don't think I've
ever seen and you know, and this isn't to say
that I like, I don't think it would be justified
for teachers to go on strike, like just because they're underpaid.
Like everyone like has the right and possibly the obligation
to go on strike for better conditions, but like that's

(03:27:49):
not ever ever, I have never, at any point ever
seen a teachers you to go on strike for reasons
that words mostly about like mostly about improving things for
their kids. And it's it's it's wold because you see
this every like they do this in Chicago too. It's
like every single time there's a strike, it's like, ah,
the teachers like they hate they hate your kids. Is

(03:28:10):
that they're like these like privilege overpaid people really like
and it's like you guys, like you should you should
like look at the admin salary sometime, like yes.

Speaker 5 (03:28:20):
Yeah, yeah, It's it's clear that there's a disconnect and
as soon as there's a change in the weather, teachers
go from being the hero to being the villain. And
the fact that we are willing to go out on
the streets and fight for our kids in the rain
and the cold of Oregon winter. No, we're the villains.

(03:28:42):
We are putting them all back in their COVID boxes like, yeah,
that ain't it.

Speaker 4 (03:28:49):
Yeah that really sucks, Like I know, it's it's.

Speaker 5 (03:28:53):
Just, thankfully the negative kind of vitriol that we see
mostly online where where the trolls live. It does seem
to be like a loud minority. As with any form
of trolling or counter you know, we do hear from
community members that have more legitimate concerns, but they are
I'm really supportive. I'm a little worried about this one aspect,

(03:29:15):
but I'm with you guys, you know, and that's valid.
I told my students as we were getting ready to
go home for the long weekend quote unquote, you know
that it is okay to feel a variety of emotions
like I'm sad, I'm gonna miss you guys. I don't
know when I'll get to see you again, and that
makes me anxious and I'm excited to go fight for
you guys to get us what we deserve. Like so

(03:29:37):
even letting the children know this is totally normal and
that's my same message to the adults, like it's totally
okay if you've got some mixed emotions. Yeah, and we're
going to be out there fighting for the kids. I
hope you're not mad at me for very long, but
I'm gonna do it anyway.

Speaker 10 (03:29:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:29:52):
And that's another thing that's kind of like weird about
this is like the way the negotiations have gone. It's
like this has happened, like because a lot of strikes
happen at the beginning of the school year, right, and
so it pushes back the but this is but this
is like okay, so like you've gotten in, you've met
the kids, you're like teaching them to developing your relationship,

(03:30:12):
and then management is just like, no, this is the
moment we're going to force everyone.

Speaker 1 (03:30:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:30:19):
That just sucks.

Speaker 5 (03:30:20):
Like yeah, and I don't think there's ever a great
time to strike, but we definitely hope to be the
least impactful. You know. We want to make sure that
our families have what they need. We want to make
sure that our staff have what they need. We didn't
want to go too long. We don't want to be
striking in the middle of winter or during a break
when students are already out. Yeah, it's there's never a

(03:30:42):
great time. And I feel I feel really confident that
our bargaining unit has really worked to make this the
least detrimental to our students as possible, Yeah, while still
maintaining the validity of a strike, of a big collective action.

Speaker 4 (03:30:57):
And I mean, I think this is this is something
that care workers struggle with a lot, right. It's like
one of one of the reasons that it's it's hard
for teachers to strike, that it's hard for healthcare workers
to strike is because like, yeah, like you don't do
this job unless you care about the people that you're
like it's your job to care for, Like you don't
you wouldn't know, Like no one will put up with

(03:31:18):
these conditions if they didn't care, right, And you know,
And that's I think there's this really grim way in
which just becomes this sort of trap of like this
is it becomes this and you see this like this
is the thing I've been I've been talking to like
people who like abortion workers and they talk about this too,
where it's like there's this this kind of trap you
get in because it's like you know that you are

(03:31:40):
the only person providing the service that these people really need,
and your bosses use that to underpay, you use it
to you know, have just unacceptable conditions. And it sucks
that it's like, you know, the the foundational elements of
an actual, any kind of society that's actually good, that
the fact that people care each and love like love

(03:32:02):
each other and care for each other is being used
as a weapon into really shitty conditions.

Speaker 5 (03:32:09):
It's weaponizing our passion and our care for our kids.
And that's also something that tells you that it's serious.
If if teachers who know that our students rely on us,
we love our students so deeply, if we are at
the point where we're finally striking it's been bad for
a while. Yeah, yeah, and you were kind of mentioning

(03:32:32):
this earlier. But teachers are so many things to our students,
Like I am their teacher in some cases, am a
care provider in some cases, I'm a therapist, in some cases,
I'm their nutrition expert. Like they are coming to us
for everything in some cases. And so to be willing
to say I have to leave now to get us

(03:32:52):
what we deserve, I'm going to make sure you're okay.
It's so hard. It's so hard to say goodbye to
these kids, and it's so necessary. Yeah, and that's that
tells you that we that it is also that important
that we have gotten to this point where we need to.

Speaker 4 (03:33:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (03:33:12):
And the students do seem pretty and I mean I
have the benefit of being at fifth grade, but the
students do seem to understand pretty well. Some of them
are incredibly activated little unionists, little union fighters as well.
We had some of the fifth graders sent letters to
the Oregonian and to the to the school board and
to the superintendent. And they're very eloquent. They I mean,

(03:33:34):
they've been living the conditions. They are the voice and
it is they are trying to shout loudly, and you know,
we're trying to amplify that. Like I am striking for them.
I will benefit, but this is for them to have
a better outcome.

Speaker 4 (03:33:49):
You know what, other services are provided by a bunch
of workers who are not getting paid enough and are
probably understaffed legally. I don't know if I'm allowed to
say that, but they haven't done the crackdown on us. Yes,
so I can say whatever I want.

Speaker 1 (03:34:01):
Damn it.

Speaker 4 (03:34:02):
It's the products and services that support this podcast and
we're back. So there was ant. There's a thing I've
been noticing. So I've been interviewing a lot of been
infering a lot of service workers in the last god,
like I guess like two years now, jeez, I've been
doing this for a long time now. But one of

(03:34:22):
the things that I've been noticing is a lot of
people And this comes back to something that you were
talking about, which is that a lot of a lot
of service workers, I mean people who are just beached
as people who are you know, people who are just
doing effectively random service jobs are being pushed more and
more into having to care for people because the rest

(03:34:43):
of the sort of whatever social safety nets the US
used to have have just completely imploded. And I think
I want to get your opinion in this, but it
looks to me like ground zero for this was the
education system of all of the responsibility of you know
this these massive in and poverty and it's extagnating wages
and police violence and like our completely dysfunctional mental health

(03:35:06):
care system that all of this. The first people this
was pushed on was y'all.

Speaker 5 (03:35:11):
Yeah, now we're that first line of defense for the
public good. And when you are gutting education, You are
gutting the first safety net of the public good. And
you know, the students will tell you that they are
our future and we are the net that's supposed to
catch them. And we've been underfunded and undersupported and under

(03:35:33):
resourced and in many ways like privatized, where some of
what will be the future populace are getting what they
need and everyone else is left behind. And you can
see it in retrospect. You can see how public education
has been deteriorating or forcibly deteriorated by some of those

(03:35:57):
interests that are trying to privatize or have privatization yep
in their mission. And the ultimate outcome of that is
a deteriorated United States. Like the populace is suffering because
of it, Like I wonder why democracy is starting to
fall apart when yeah, follow the dominoes backwards. Public education

(03:36:20):
has been underfunded and undersourced for decades now. So our
generation of workers are trying to repair the damage we
witnessed and experienced and stop it from getting worse as
it gets worse around us.

Speaker 4 (03:36:35):
Yeah, And this is one of those things where this
is kind of like there's been this kind of unholy
alliance between like that, I guess I call it like
the sort of the charter school private school alliance between
the sort of like Obama, Arnie Duncan, oh my god,
Paul Vallas, like technically liberal like neoliberal reformers, who are

(03:36:57):
you know, trying to destroy teachers' unions, trying to like
trying to force everyone in the charter schools, trying to
sort of like and just just just blasting holes in
the education system of every single city they end up in.
But it's just it's just interesting thing too, where like
you have these people on the one hand, and they're
the sort of like vaguely liberal wing of it, and
then simultaneously you have this sort of like absolutely ferocious,

(03:37:20):
like frothing right wing like evangelical shape. Yeah, it's like
someone I saw a well I get they were going
through their direction, but I saw I saw a funny
defiction of that. They called it like fish hook theory,
where like you have this stuff in the middle and
then that the far right people sort of bend back
around into the middle because they found this one thing

(03:37:42):
they agree on, which is that they hate teachers, right, and.

Speaker 5 (03:37:48):
You know, the public enemy.

Speaker 4 (03:37:51):
Yeah, well, and I think it's it's interesting too that
like schools are specifically the place that when when the
right tried wanted to do their pushback against racial justice,
it was like they went to schools. They've been doing
this with like LGBTQ stuff too, is you know, this
is like the rights whole game. I mean, since like

(03:38:11):
desegregation has been trying to push people into private schools
and privatizing the education system, and I don't know, it
strikes me it's interesting that, you know, there's been for
a really long time, and I think y'all, like y'all
the like Chicago Teachers Unions has this has really been
sort of the forefront of the fight against that of

(03:38:33):
like items. It seems like we're finally in a period
with these people who have run this country into the
ground for the past like fifty years are finally starting
to sort of like face the consequences and like have
to deal with the people that they've been just destroying
for so long.

Speaker 5 (03:38:49):
Yeah, we are seeing it from the inside as it happens,
like I am experiencing as an elder millennial growing up
in the nine in the public education system, knowing now
as an adult what I was not being taught or
what was being left out or censored just due to
systemic patterns that now we teach in a different way

(03:39:11):
to make sure that that doesn't continue. And then we're
seeing legislation in places like Florida and Tennessee. They're like,
stop doing that, stop fixing the problem.

Speaker 13 (03:39:20):
And you can't put it back in the box, like
we see from the inside as things are are falling
apart and people are being left out, and so we're
inside public education screaming, knock it off.

Speaker 5 (03:39:34):
You did bad by us. We won't let you do
bad by the next generation and the next generation.

Speaker 4 (03:39:40):
Yeah, And I think like the other aspect of that,
like is is the way that like school boards are
being used to sort of like to take control of
districts and like push all of this sort of just
horrific like anti queer politics stuff. And I don't know,
like that that's a personal one for me because like
my school, like I mean, I guess we technically had stuff,

(03:40:03):
but like I don't know, like the resources available to
all the queer kids that like that was like me
and like everyone I grew up with were like just terrible,
And you know, I got to see the consequences of that.

Speaker 5 (03:40:18):
Right bare minimum if any.

Speaker 4 (03:40:20):
Yeah, and like you know, like in a in a
really really like frothing right wing like really justconservative environment,
and like, I don't know, it's it really seems like
it's for a lot of people, it's gotten way better
and all of these you know, like one of the
assaults that we're seeing is like, who just want to
bring this stuff back.

Speaker 5 (03:40:38):
Right to the quote unquote good old days before all
of us queer folks were coming out, And yeah, like
put everybody back in the closet, hide all of the
racism that you've unraveled and exposed, put it all back
in the box, put a bow back on the box.
We want America to look the way it used to. Yeah,

(03:40:59):
And that's that's a lie, and that benefited very specific populations.
And we won't continue to play that game. And I
think that's another reason, like you said, that you're seeing
the gutting of public education, is that it's scary. Public
education is about truth and teaching critical thinking, and that

(03:41:21):
is not good for people in power when their power
has been achieved on the backs of marginalized groups and
by historically underserving people and pushing people into the dirt.

Speaker 4 (03:41:33):
Yeah, it's like it turns out that when your entire
state is based on doing a rolling genocide across the
entire continent, you probably don't want to tell people that.
That's like it's a bad idea.

Speaker 5 (03:41:47):
Yeah, cats out of the bag America.

Speaker 4 (03:41:50):
Yeah. Yeah, I wanted to ask you sort of what
role has I guess, just twenty twenty in general, and
I mean the pandemic too, but like I don't know,
like I want to, I guess, like get a sense
of what impact, like the uprising has had on all

(03:42:10):
of this, because it is, like I do think it
is notable that you know, it's like three years after
the uprising, it's we have the first strike in right,
so long.

Speaker 5 (03:42:22):
I think as a result of living through pandemic times,
people really had an opportunity to reflect on what their
lives were like, what they were living through that was unjust.
I think a lot of inequities were revealed through having
to shift our entire worlds, and things that had previously

(03:42:44):
gone hidden or unnoticed or unexposed came to light and
people said, no more, we have learned to do things
a different way. We will not go back to the
broken ways, and so it makes sense to me that
we are at this boiling point in repairing and trying
to rebuild and reform after a global change. And you

(03:43:10):
see it in the kids too. I mean they say
about my generation as a millennial, that we've lived through
numerous large scale traumas, and the kids of today have
now as well. Like the students I'm currently teaching were
second graders when the pandemic hit, and they are forever changed.
They were seeing, you know, the Black Lives Matter movement

(03:43:32):
come alive on their television screens and in their cities.
They grew up in civic action and global turmoil, and
they are active. Even if I wasn't teaching current events
in the way that I do, the students are bringing
it to the room, like the conversations are happening.

Speaker 4 (03:43:52):
Yeah, which is it's such an interesting Like that generation
I think is gonna be really interesting because I don't
know I'm from this. I'm on exact exactly the borderline
with everyone trying to figure out whether I'm a millennial
or a zumer. But like my like my first memory
is nine to eleven. Yeah, so like you know, it's
I feel like I got a kind of millennial experience,

(03:44:12):
which is I got nine to eleven, two thousand and eight,
twenty six well two thousand and eight, then like the
twenty thirteen uprisings I guess was a bit off, but
I got like the two eleven thirteen up risings, and
then like I get out of college or I get
into college, and it's twenty sixteen.

Speaker 5 (03:44:28):
It's just like a mess.

Speaker 1 (03:44:32):
Yeah, it's hot mess.

Speaker 4 (03:44:34):
It's this real Like I I I like I became
conscious the moments that history returned to the world. Yeah,
but I don't know, like I think it's an interesting
thing with like with these kids who've grown up, who
are you know, like yeah, like their first memories are
going to be like the pandemic and like twenty twenty

(03:44:56):
that I don't know, Like I I, I don't know.
I'm interested in where these people are going to go.
But also I think this is you know, this, this
all of this ties back into just the importance of
what you and all of your coworkers do, which is
that you're the people who are you know, like it,

(03:45:18):
you're the people who are producing, Like the kids who
are going to who are I mean, hopefully they won't
have to be fighting the same fights that we are
right now. Statistically they probably will, but yeah, like and
you're the people who are sort of mediating their understanding
of like what is happening in this world around them
that's you know, increasingly terrifying and complex.

Speaker 5 (03:45:39):
Right, trying not to give ten year olds an existential crisis,
but yeah, coming into like they are at that developmental
age where they are starting to have that existential crisis
of Wow, our planet is out of luck, our educational
system is rotten, our democracy is falling apart, like they

(03:46:02):
are witnessing turmoil in every country like it is. You know,
they say that the youth's humor is very nihilistic and dark,
and it's just getting darker. Like, thankfully, they give me
so much hope and light in you know, a world
where sometimes I don't even know want to be a
part of the future because the future looks grim. They

(03:46:23):
are a light even in all of that darkness. And
you know, I think they're really resilient. I wish they
didn't have to be. I have my own big existential dread.
And the kids are angry, the kids are are upset,
but the kids are all right. Maybe, yeah, if we
can contend to support them, and.

Speaker 4 (03:46:44):
I think this is something that goes for everyone is
like it, So insofar as we have obligations to anyone
on earth, like the thing, the thing that we owe
these kids is to try to make sure they don't
have to go through the same shit that we did,
because yeah, that still sucked.

Speaker 5 (03:47:03):
Yeah. One of my teaching philosophies is the bee who
you needed when you were younger? And I didn't even
know some of the things I needed. But looking back,
like now, as a queer adult living in a major
city who grew up in a small town in Montana
in the binding is I'm very yeah, very aware of

(03:47:23):
some of the things that I should have had as
a young person, and that I am glad to be
there for my students in that way. Even the difference
working with some people who've been teaching for longer, you
see the difference in educational philosophy from run generation to
the next and the bee who you needed when you
were younger. I'm very open to being neuro affirming supporting

(03:47:46):
our students that are on the spectrum or students with
ADHD are students with anxiety disorders in a way that
even the teachers of our generation when when I was
a child, aren't necessarily on the stade like we're getting
better making education less damaging to I think that's one
of the reasons sometimes we lose public opinion is people
have negative memories of school. School has been harmful, and

(03:48:08):
we're like, no support us, like I promise it's different now.

Speaker 4 (03:48:12):
Yeah, but but I mean, but I think this is
one of those things too, where like the teachers union
in general, if you're looking at what is this, what
is the single like group of people in the United
States who actually wants to make school suck less? Like
the most it's probably like slightly above that is students.
But the thing is, like students are organized enough to like, right,

(03:48:35):
and you know, and like I said as much really
any know that this isn't to write off like the
incredible amount of student activism that I mean, it has
been happening forever, but they don't have the kind of
power that like teachers unions too, and teachers unions.

Speaker 1 (03:48:49):
Are the social popvoice.

Speaker 4 (03:48:51):
Yeah. Well, and also just the ability to like like
the ability to withdraw your labor and suddenly actually have
a massive effect on the entire sort of like state economy.

Speaker 5 (03:49:01):
Yeah, yeah, we are united for our students. Like we
are called a teachers' union, but we are united for
our students because they don't yet have the ability, or
the access or the social capital to be heard in
the way that they deserve.

Speaker 4 (03:49:19):
Yeah, I don't know. I think I think that's a
that's a pretty good note to end on, unless you
have anything else that you want to say.

Speaker 5 (03:49:23):
First, I'm satisfied. I mean, I'm not satisfied.

Speaker 4 (03:49:27):
I'm striking, but like, yeah, yeah, so how can people well, A,
how can people in Portland support the strike? And then
b how can people who are not in Portland who
want to support the strike help?

Speaker 5 (03:49:40):
Yeah, Portlanders are able to help support the strike. We
have a strike fund set up for purchasing and some
of the things that we've needed on our strike lines,
like megaphones, like ponchos. All of that strike fund is
being used to help strike captains such as myself around
the city organize our tickets and our actions. And so

(03:50:02):
donating to that strike fund is one way to make
sure that every teacher in Portland is getting some support.
And then if you live in Portland, finding out the
schools that are closest to you in your area, reaching
out to those schools specifically, probably through social media, since
we will not be in our buildings, Like using a
school email wouldn't work, But reaching out to the strike

(03:50:24):
in your area if you drive by and you see them,
like giving them a honk in a horay and finding
out where they need supplies to get directed to people
outside of Portland. Same thing that strike fund is very visible,
sharing on social media things on our behalf really making
sure that your own legislatures know how important public education
is to you. Hopefully things in your state or area

(03:50:46):
are going positively for educators, but chances are they're not
so I bet no matter where you live. As a listener,
you public educators in your area could probably use your
support talking to school boards, talking to legislators and making
change in education, making sure that kids are getting what
they need. That fight is guaranteed to be happening everywhere.

Speaker 4 (03:51:08):
Yeah, and we will. We will have links to well
definitely a strike fund probably also will have links to
social media stuff the description so yeah, go go do
that and also yeah, yeah I do you want? I'm
assuming you also people control up the picket lines m
h yeah.

Speaker 5 (03:51:26):
Yeah, anyone in Portland driving in any of our neighborhoods,
will find a school, will find a picket, and you
are welcome to join us. I know I'm in the
southwest region of Portland. Will be picketing in major areas
as well as right outside our schools. So pretty much
anywhere you see a sea of blue, give us a
honk and hop out and join us for a little while,

(03:51:47):
and we'll see you in some big visible spaces to
be determined as we do some larger actions.

Speaker 4 (03:51:53):
Yeah, yeah, this is a This is the thing I
will say from from experience is that like the okay,
so the more people there are, the better picketing is.
And where there's a bunch of people on a picket,
it rules. So go go to a picket. It's a
good time. You're you're you're joining us. Yeah, you're fighting,
you're fighting for a good cause, you are fighting for
your class and yeah.

Speaker 5 (03:52:15):
Yeah, hey, well, thank you so much for having me,
and thank you to your listeners for giving us.

Speaker 4 (03:52:20):
An ear, and thank thank you for talking to me.
It's been it's been great. And yeah, go go go listeners,
all of you, go support the strike, make sure they win.
And yeah, go out, go out into your communities and
do the same.

Speaker 2 (03:52:39):
Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week
from now until the heat death of the Universe.

Speaker 5 (03:52:45):
It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.

Speaker 1 (03:52:48):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you.

Speaker 5 (03:52:55):
Listen to podcasts.

Speaker 1 (03:52:57):
You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources.

Speaker 5 (03:53:02):
Thanks for listening.

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