April 11, 2019 • 36 mins
When the schoolteacher who would come to be called Hong Xiuquan first heard of the Christian religion, he wasn't particularly bowled over. However, when he had a nervous breakdown after failing his scholarly exams, he experienced a series of visions that he later believed revealed his true destiny: He was the younger brother of Jesus Christ, and he was meant to lead his followers to earthly and spiritual freedom. Tune in to learn how Hong Xiuquan's visions sparked one of the bloodiest rebellions in Chinese history.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Y. Hi, everyone,
(00:27):
welcome to the show. In a previous episode, you may
have noticed that I took I took great pride in
dropping the C word cult. Cult itself can be a
dicey phrase, right. Most people who are participated in a
religious organization do not care for their organization to be
(00:52):
referred to as a cult. The one's one man's religion.
There's another man's culture, man or woman or whatever have you. Um,
it's a it's a very divisive term because it's the
thrown around as a term of abuse. But there certainly
are criteria when you check the boxes that that tend
to line up more with cult than than religion. Right. Yeah,
way back in the day, my pal Matt and I
(01:14):
are mutual pal Matt Frederick. We made a great video
about how to tell whether or not you are in
a cult. Please do check it out on YouTube or
wherever you watch videos. Stuff. They want you to know
how to start a cult. I can't remember. And you know,
we all like the idea right of starting a cult?
(01:34):
Do well, I just assume you don't like that idea,
you know, it's go to I feel like it's a
natural tendency. I feel like in another life, I I've
probably started several cults. But if you think about it,
if you take away the glamour, it's a very tedious life.
It's a lot of work. Whether you're just a follower
of a cult or you're the leader of a cult,
(01:55):
you're you're basically on call all the time. You don't
really get vacation. You probably you don't make a lot
of money. We always hear about these famous violent cults,
but what about those cult leaders who are out there,
you know, just grinding every day. They got like fifteen
people with him? And what about the cult leaders at
the time forgot Ben? What about them? What of them?
I am glad you asked noel uh and we oh,
(02:16):
we've also got an alert our super producer Casey Pegram Casey.
This is gonna be a weird one. I'm absolutely in
the cult of Casey. By the way, yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
The CEOC are you do you subscribe to the newsletter?
I subscribe to the newsletter. I get the Spotify playlists,
all about it? I do. I like to wait for
(02:36):
his yearly donation period because if you put in fifty
bucks you get the tope bag, but if you put
in seventy five bucks, you get the toe bag and
the water bottle. The c I s is like the
NPR of cults. It really is, it really is. I
appreciate those pledge drives, Casey. And speaking of cult leaders,
today's story takes us to China in the early eight hundreds.
(03:01):
There is a guy named Hong s Quan, and we're
we're mispronouncing this name. I'm gonna mispronouncing worse than you.
So you're doing a fine job. Oh not really. Uh So,
this this guy, Hong sure yeah, is born on January one,
(03:21):
eighteen fourteen. He's a New Year's baby, and he is
the third and youngest son of a poor Hawka family.
His story gets propagandized pretty heavily as it goes on.
So now his origins are a little bit the sources
are a little bit contradictory. Some people say it was poor,
(03:43):
some people say his family was well to do. But
you know, one man's palace is another man's stumpster, right,
This kind of the idea of success is relative. But
let's let's learn a little bit more about Hong Hong
x as you call him. Nol. What do we know
about this guy? Well, we know that he had the
dream in his heart, the twinkle in his eye. He
(04:05):
wanted to grow up and be a scholar. In order
to do that, it's sort of like um studying for
the bar. Right to be a scholar in in this
period in Chinese history, you had to take this test.
You had to memorize these Confucian texts and take these
things called the Imperial Exams. It was the equivalent of
(04:26):
going to college or you know, getting your s A
T S or whatever. So all of that kind of
combined into this life or death test more like the bar,
because it was like it was such a big deal.
You'd study for it so much that if you failed it,
it was a really crushing blow. And nobody wants to
take the bar twice. Thusly, no one wanted to take
the Imperial Exams twice. Unfortunately, Oh by the way, less
(04:47):
than one percent of the people who took the test pass,
and Hong was among those that did not. Yes, yeah,
the Imperial Exams are a big, big, big deal, and
that attrition rate is nasty. It is not something to
mess with. Hong, however, does not give up. He decides
(05:09):
he will retake the exams. He travels to a city
in the south, Guangdreu, and he decides he's going to
take the exams again in eighteen thirty six. This city
is amazing at this time. It's a port. It's a
center of culture for the Qing dynasty. But with all
(05:30):
this culture and with all this population and all this trade,
there comes a dark side. You see, a lot of
the trade that goes through this port city comes from
the West, and the West at this time has one big,
big product that they are pushing into Chinese markets. It's right.
The British were a huge part of this culture and
(05:53):
they were bringing in lots of opium that they were
growing in India, where they also held in aerial rule essentially,
and they were you know, they didn't have they didn't
hold sway over China per se, but there was a
pretty serious foothold that they had in the Chinese Empire
and the Chin dynasty. Correct man, Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right.
So the problem here is that the country of China
(06:18):
is producing all this really cool stuff that the British
forces want. Tea and te find China. They literally called
the porcelain fine China and silk, of course, and the
British don't really have a lot of stuff that China wants,
so there's a trade deficit. They do, however, have that
(06:39):
opium growing in India, and they doubled out on this.
They're flooding the markets with opium to the point that
it is destabilizing Chinese society. But you see, not every
import is a tangible thing. Ideas are just as valuable
(06:59):
and indeed just as dangerous as opium, silk, fine China,
or what have you. So Hang is walking through the
streets of this city thinking about his exam when he
hears a missionary from the far flung shores of North
America proselytizing, which means, you know, attempting to convert people
(07:23):
to his religion, to Christianity. And this guy doesn't speak Chinese,
he doesn't speak Cantonese, Normandarin, but he has an interpreter
with him. So picture if you will. You're a kid,
you're hung extra walking through these crowded, bustling streets, and
you see a guy probably standing on an apple box
(07:44):
or crate, you know, just yelling out in English, save yourselves,
learn the truth. So and so, and then there's an
interpreter who has to listen, so there's a little bit
of a lag. And I don't know whether the interpreter
is just calm remarking on the things this guy is
yelling about, but I hope he's yelling too at a
slight time delay. I too would like to believe that. Ben.
(08:07):
So what happens hanging hears him, right, he hears him, uh,
And he doesn't think too much of it at the time,
but he at least you know, he's gonna he's not
gonna be rude. He takes the pamphlet. You gotta you
gotta take the pamphlet. So he takes the pamphlet, folds
it up, saves it for later. And it turns out
that it will end up having a massive impact on Hong,
but not until after this next phase of the story,
(08:28):
where and he fails the exam again and then proceeds
to have something of what you might call a psychotic breakdown,
right yet a complete and utter meltdown, nervous breakdown. He
fails the exam twice, and then he takes it a
third time a year later, and he fails the third time,
and this, yeah, this pushes him to the edge. He
(08:51):
goes home. He says, I feel sick, and he lays
down and he has a fever dream or a vision,
series of visions and feversion and he really seems sick,
like he seems physically ill. His complexion is all pallid.
He is sweating, he is feverish. His parents are very
(09:15):
very concerned about him. Um. So he in his let's let'
let's someone's walk through this. Yeah, walk through the vision
or the hallucinations. Yea, so he um, this is amazing.
It's just amazing. It's just like I like this should
be a movie. Um. So, he hallucinates that he takes
a trip, a sojourn to some sort of paradise um
(09:37):
heavenly land in the east, and then his father reveals
to him that there are demons that are destroying humanity.
All right, yeah, I mean I get it, you're on board. Yeah, okay.
Uh So, then of course he has to have a
special magical sword. He gets a magical sword that's bestowed
upon him by his father. Uh and then with help
(10:00):
of his brother, they fight the demons and what he
refers to as the King of Hell. Yes. After the battle,
he doesn't wake up after the battle. He stays in heaven.
He gets a wife and they have a child together.
Eventually he returns to Earth, burying his new title Heavenly King,
(10:21):
Lord of the Kingly Waya. His family is not on
board with this, well know, because from where they stand,
he's just been tossing and turning around in bed for days.
I mean there's no not exactly a specific timeline, but
I can't imagine this. This was happened over a period
of time, um, and he just seems like he's losing it.
(10:46):
And he, you know, he goes from being fully asleep
to turning around in bed and screaming you know, nonsense syllables,
to jerking upright and assuming a fighting stance and then
going back to bed. I mean, just you know, really
really not well. And he finally wakes up and he
explains to his parents the dream and he had written
(11:08):
like this in the form of poetry that he kind
of like dream journaled when he woke up. It's pretty impressive. Oh,
and he also came back with the name Hong SiO
Kuan because his original name was Hong Ho Shu. But
that father figure he meets in the hallucination tells him
that his given name violates taboos and has to be changed.
So not only is he waking up it's very, very
(11:31):
fantastic story, he's also waking up with a different name.
Everybody in the village thinks this guy's bonkers. If this
guy were a breakfast, he would be nuts and bananas.
It's true, is that a breakfast? Well yeah, you could
beat like nuts and banana people do that all the time,
really like together, like mixed up with what with oats?
(11:51):
Maybe sure, oates? Probably yogurt people. Yogurt people are crazy, man.
They'll put anything in yogurt. Okay from now, And I
think when we say something is insane, we should refer
to it as yogurt. You know what. Let's give it
a spin. Let's take it around the bloss we can
make that. Let's can make that that catch on and
we might have enemies with big yogurt. But but yeah,
(12:12):
so Hong has gone full yogurt and he uh is
looked upon askance by the people of the village. But
he's able, He's able to put it behind him. Yeah,
he gets better, quickly bounces back. He decides to take
the exam a fourth time because of what worked and
what happens. Uh, he fails, He fails again, He fails
a fourth time. Again. It's a very very difficult exam.
(12:33):
There's a lot of corruption involved. Only one percent of
the people who take it will will succeed the one
percent of the one percent of the one percent kind
of and it seems like a bit of a classist
kind of thing where well, yeah, I mean you have
to every what isn't classes. But what I'm saying is
it doesn't seem to be entirely merit based, maybe like
(12:54):
certain people have a leg up in passing the exams.
Absolutely absolutely so. He is. He's still in his twenties
at this time, and he has failed this exam, but
thankfully not once, not twice, three four times, and he
still has a certain pamphlet. He has that pamphlet. He
(13:14):
finds it neatly folded in his pristinely pressed tunic. Right,
I don't know about that. I'm I'm editorializing here, but
he definitely finds it somewhere, and he starts to make
some connections, doesn't he. Because the tract actually portrayed China
as this kind of post apocalyptic wasteland which wasn't terribly
(13:34):
far off from the truth. I mean, there was certainly
some hyperbole here, but this, these opium wars and the
opium addictions that ravaged China really destabilized the country from
eighteen thirty nine to eighteen forty two. And finally it
ended with the Treaty of Nanjing, which really gave Britain
the upper hand and allowed them to be much more
(13:54):
of a colonizer, you know of of China, right right,
absolutely is ultimately the reason that so many Christian missionaries
were able to make it into the country and stay there.
As Hong is reading this pamphlet, he's noticing a stunning
(14:19):
similarity between the story of Christianity and his personal vision,
the one he had thought and he had you know,
gotten over he encounters the words of Jesus Christ and
he becomes convinced. Hong becomes convinced that that father figure
(14:40):
in his series of visions was the Christian God like
the God of Abraham, and that the older brother because
remember you mentioned that older brother. No, the older brother
was Jesus Christ himself. And the quote king of Hell
was the serpent in the garden of Eden. And Long
is putting everything together, Like the very end of Usual
(15:04):
Suspects when spoiler alert three to one, when the investigator
starts looking at the bulletin board and notices that Kaiser
SoSE has just been making up stories based on what
he reads around the room. I did spoiler countdown and
plus it's way past the statue think so yeah, I
(15:25):
mean it's fine. Also, where do spoilers stop? Man? Is
it a spoiler to say that a Lincoln passes away
or the Titanic sinks or the Yeah yeah, we're gonna
get some angry emails about that because I didn't spoiler
alert is and it is a movie. It is in fact,
I'm moving, It's true. So hall Is Halling is having
(15:46):
this Usual Suspect moment as he's reading through this pamphlet,
and he's like, wait, the father in my dream is God?
The older brother in my dream? That's Jesus, the king
of Hell? Is this serpent from this story Holy smoked?
Put two and two together. I am the Son of God.
It's like Darren Aronovski trying to describe the plot of
(16:07):
one of his movies, right right, So he doesn't take
this revelation as a personal thing. He doesn't hold it
close to his heart and use it as a way
to keep his divine chin up. Instead, he tells his
relatives about his dream, and his message begins to spread.
He gets followers. He must have been very persuasive. Well,
(16:30):
he clearly was tenacious. He kept taking you know, he
let us like a little little bit of psychotic break
stop him from trying to take those those exams. Um.
So he clearly had drive. And yeah, he had to
have been very charismatic um. And his his message started
spreading like wildfire call style. Right. Right, he gathers followers.
(16:54):
They go on the road to evangelize. Right. They're selling
ink and brushes to fund their travels, and Hong begins
writing his own religious works. He writes exportations to worship
the One True God, and this helps him win more converts.
He goes back home to work on more religious writing,
(17:15):
but his disciples continue to travel and they form a
group known as the God Worshiping Society. There's an interesting
sociological aspect here because a lot of his original followers
are Hakka people, the ethnic group Hacca, just like he is,
and they have a relatively lower position in Chinese society.
(17:38):
So this is this is a message that paints a
picture of an alternate way to live, a world in
which you do not have to be on the bottom
just because of your ethnicity. Which is interesting because sort
of in the same way that l. Ron Hubbard found
that a religion based on constantly being rejected by science
fiction you know, publishers and things like that spoiler alert
(18:02):
out of well that's fair, but out of kind of
this bitterness and this it shaped his whole worldview, and
Hong was very similar. He rejected those the Confucianist family
ideals and the idea of having to be in that
one percent of the one percent of society and past
those tests and he built an entirely new, uh philosophy
(18:23):
that was it wasn't Christianity exactly. It was sort of
a twist on Christianity, right yeah, yeah, yeah, it's you know,
if you think about it, it's a Pruto version of communism.
His stresses sharing property. He has religious ideas and laws
based on the Ten Commandments of Christianity. Importantly, he promises
(18:49):
free land to all of his followers, and that's when
thousands and thousands more people start joining up with Hong
and the god worship society, and they really start to
openly reject the Ching norms of that time. They chop
(19:09):
off their their braids. They have this hairstyle called a
que where you've probably seen it in Um in films,
where their head is shaved, except they have like one
big long ponytail that's in the back. They cut those off. Um.
He they start wearing these red turbans as a symbol
of their undying allegiance to hang Um, and he even
(19:31):
starts preaching this notion that the man Chou were the
very demons that he fought in his battle with the
King of Hell. Yeah. Yes, so this is during the
Qing dynasty, right, and the Ching dynasty was founded by
the man Chew people, and they are still regarded as
foreigners at this time, you know what I mean, And
(19:53):
the Hakka, with valid reason, don't care very much for
the man Chu. Did we mention that the Hakka work
d of already a bit of a disenfranchised community. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's that's that's key because he was able to capitalize
on those feelings of rejection and isolation and not being
part of the same cast system that he was rejected from.
(20:13):
And then when he has the revelation that the demons
in his vision are the Manchu. You know, he begins,
as you said, pushing people to violence, and this marks
the beginning of one of the bloodiest civil wars in
Chinese history. Within two years, Hong and the God worshiping
(20:36):
society have captured the city of Nanjing. There is a
rebellion taking place, folks. Hundreds of thousands of people are
overthrowing the social status quo. Yeah, here's the thing too.
Um Hong really starts doubling down with his um speaking
(20:57):
with God kind of uh ang where he believes that
he has been sent by God as the son of
God because he is a son of God. He's not Jesus,
he's his other son. He's the younger He's the younger
brother of Jesus. Uh and he is here to change
the very course and nature of Chinese society based on
(21:20):
the word of God and what he wants. So Um,
all of in his society, all of these little kind
of sub offshoot society, all of the beliefs of the Chinese,
all of the Confucian texts are burned, all those beliefs
are scattered and rejected. Um got rid of every single
um idol or effigy or you know, any anything that
(21:43):
represented the old way right, and even the outlawed opium,
because that had been a problem one that was probably
the one one of his good moves. Um and heavily
segregated men and women officially official, but not for him, No,
not for him. He had something of a harem in
(22:03):
his in his abode. Very very common with cult leaders,
you know what I mean. From l Ron Hubbard and
the Sea Org to David Koresh. Usually cult leaders have
a do as I say, not as I do, sort
of approach to their beliefs and laws. Doesn't he also
(22:24):
change the calendar? He does? He changes the calendar. Dude.
That's such a power moves. I love. I love that.
It's like, all right, I'm in charge. Now April is done.
Now we're calling it um Uh hey, Casey, I knew
you were going to call me. Then I have nothing.
I have nothing to offer on this. Oh sorry, I don't. Okay,
(22:47):
you'd rather be on the case than on the spot, right, Okay, Okay.
Uh so we'll say instead of instead of April, we're
gonna call it Lowell, right, the month of loll Yeah?
Or how about grea April. Yeah, April aprist like that.
I like that, so okay, yeah, I don't mean to
also casey on the case, thank you. I don't mean
(23:10):
to diminish the suffering that Hall is becoming responsible for.
What we see happening now is that the Qing dynasty notices, Yeah,
that society is quickly crumbling. Dude, in the city of Nanjang.
He has amassed an army and in addition to all
(23:33):
of his followers, but a real legitimate army that can
expand this kingdom that he's creating all over southern China.
Uh and ends up with more than thirty million people
living inside his little sub kingdom called the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom,
which is what they referred to their their new territory as.
(23:55):
And this is a real threat to the powers that be.
I mean, this is huge and will not let this stand. Right. Absolutely.
We should also mention though he did segregate the sexes
for his followers, he took some steps to try to
make women more socially equal to men. So it wasn't
(24:15):
all terrible stuff. But yes, war was very much on
the horizon. The Qing emperor says, I have to raise troops.
This may become an existential conflict, and it does. It
becomes one of the most deadly conflicts in history. So
by eighteen sixty hangs people that Taiping were at the
(24:38):
height of their power. They were smashing ching armies that
were besieging Nanjing, and they were capturing other southern cities Hanju, Suju.
In eighteen sixty one, the same year that the US
Civil War starts, the Taiping attack Shanghai. But Shanghai has
been this Internet national hub, right and is where the
(25:01):
Western powers go and they send their boots and they
trade their stuff. And that means that the British and
French empires are not happy to see this fall to
a cult movement and the Europeans begin to bring in
their own forces to protect the city. Got a question
for you man, that distinction between religion and cult or
(25:23):
movements and cult. I think thirty million, it sort of
kicks it out of cult territory and it becomes more
like a new norm. But again, talking population wise in
this in the country, just just for a rough ballpark perspective,
UH calculations estimates put the population of China and the
(25:45):
Qing Empire at this time around just under three million,
got it, so no, no small potatoes, thirty million, right,
but still certainly not taking hold in a widespread way.
I don't know, man, that's that's it's definitely dangerous and
they're all hold up or a bunch of them are
(26:06):
holed up in this one area and are kicking ass. Yeah,
and the European troops arrived to help out there. I
don't know, buddies, their relationship is probably a little strain,
but it's more to defend their ports, right, absolutely, Uh,
the opium must flown, you know. The Europeans come with
(26:29):
the latest word, the bleeding edge of military technology, and
they use cannon fire to just tear through the Typing rebels.
The Ching launches a major counter attack and this this
occurs at the same time. This shatters the Typing army
(26:50):
and they retreat from the city. They are forced onto
the defensive, and now the Ching dynasty is receiving support
from the West. They begin pushing the borders of the
Heavenly Kingdom back to Nanjing and they're fighting. Think of
it this way. They're fighting what's called a total war
(27:11):
in one of the most densely populated areas of the
planet around this time. The country of China alone is
like thirty percent of the world's population. It's a crowded place,
and a total war means that everything is up for
grabs and everything that can be destroyed probably will. Yeah,
(27:32):
And there's no real rules of engagement or anything like that.
I mean, civilians are at risk, utterly at risk, not
not not just being in harm's way, but resources plundering
of villages from the opposition. When they sack a town
or whatever, they just take what they want and food
becomes scarce. People actually begin to starve to death in
(27:54):
the streets. So I think we're talking um millions of
people that that died. Brute. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, The violence
combined with the famine led to millions of deaths. If
this were a film, let's cut two. Hong Hong is
becoming increasingly yogurt. He has withdrawn from running his kingdom
(28:20):
during the day to day affairs, directing the armies, rallying
the troops. Instead, he hangs out in his palace with
his harem, with his concubines. His generals begin to fill
the vacuum of power, and this leads to a lot
of internal conflict and fracturing of the kingdom, Hong begins
(28:44):
to you know, suspect members of his inner circle of
being traitors, and he has very valid reasons for this.
By eighteen sixty four, the Chain armies are at the
gates of the city and Hongs General, a guy named
Leashu Cheng, demands that Hong g t f O right,
(29:04):
get get out of the city. And now they are
who they have been, you know, forced into retreat and
they're hold up behind walls. They've running the food as well.
So what is Hong do you he? He says, Uh,
We're just gonna drink tears from heaven, you know, eat
mana from heaven. When mana like that's like magical energy juice,
like from the Final Fantasy Games, I think, But no,
(29:25):
he says. And what he was referring to were like
he basically said that that God will nourish us with
whatever we put into our bodies. It's so crazy, it
almost seems made up, but it's the craziest. So he
plucks this what is he plux a weed from the
ground and eats it as a sign. They like, see,
I'm on board with you, you know, like I'm just
(29:46):
like you guys and it's turns out to be deadly
poison and he dies Yeah, yeah, just on a fluke totally,
you know, good God. And then his teenage son kind
of steps sinner places him, but it's too late that
the chamber at the gates, like we said, they eventually
kicked down the doors. Blood bath ensues night night, Kingdom
(30:11):
of Heaven, and the Taiping Rebellion is put down. Estimates
vary widely depending on which historical sources you encounter. You
will see the estimate of the death toll here ringing
in it anywhere between twenty to seventy million people. That
makes it one of the deadliest conflicts in human history,
(30:31):
and its shaped China and therefore the world in ways
that carry over even today in twenty nineteen, all because
one guy had a vision. You know, what if he
had passed his exams. You always have to wonder. It's
kind of like what if Hitler got accepted into art school. Yeah,
(30:52):
I don't know, man, that's true. I mean, it's I
think it's the with the repeated rejection that really caused
him to break. But you gotta wonder too, something was
off in this guy, so he would have done some
weird stuff the other way, and you have to wonder
about the country as well. If not him, would some
other kind of event have occurred, you know what I mean? Yeah,
it's true because the history of China is largely a
(31:14):
series of peasant uprisings, as of the case for many histories,
like the French Revolution, the American Remoli. It's all about
rising up against the oppressor, perceived or otherwise. Um and these.
The dynasty system was so entrenched culturally that it was immovable,
and so it makes sense that like, but what's so funny,
(31:34):
ban though, is what's that happening is you replace you
you you knocked down a dynasty, and then you replace
it with your own dynasty, and you become the same
thing that you hated and we're fighting against in the
first place. Absolutely happens every time. Maybe one time it
will be different. Probably not, Okay, probably, do not not look
forward to it. I'm not holding my breath. So history
tells us that the world is rife, the world is overflowing.
(32:00):
If um would be Messiah's We are lousy with people
who suspect that they have divine right to one thing
or another. And the modern age is no different It's
easy for us to say, Wow, that sounds crazy, what
the heck was going on in the eighteen hundreds, But
you have to realize in there are plenty of groups
(32:22):
in the United States, in your home country and your
neck of the global woods. I guarantee you there's someone
right now who believes that they are either God or
the avatar of God, or the younger brother of a
divine figure, first cousin. Whatever. Yeah, why not, man, somebody's
(32:44):
got to be um. More power to you, just trying to,
you know, foment any bloody uprisings. Yeah, do your best,
do your best, do your do your best, be a
good citizen. This was such a crazy story. It's a
story that a lot of Westerners are not familiar with it.
And how how how insane is it that a story
involving the death of twenty to seventy million human beings
(33:07):
that took place over fifteen years at the hands of
a psychotic Christian death call leader not really a death call,
but certainly, I mean, I stand by, we stand by
the whole cult thing. How crazy is that we don't
know about that and they don't teach that in in
history class. I don't know it's it's it's interesting. It
sounds weird because we do host a history show, but
a lot of stuff happened. Yeah, I don't know, Casey.
(33:30):
I'm not gonna put it in spite here. I just
want to know, have you ever heard of this story? No,
this is like all completely new to me, and my
mind is thoroughly blown, absolutely bonkers. And how has there
not been a film of this as well? It seems
very good film fodder when you Yeah, when you first
mentioned it, I was thinking of Scorsese is Silence, which
is also concerns Christianity in Japan. Um and and it's
(33:51):
kind of somebody also having maybe a little bit of
a savior complex or something, but different era, different country,
different culture, very different. But you know it kind of
brought that to mind. Yeah, very much. So um well,
I don't know, I don't I think, uh, I think
the story speaks for itself. I think we've said it all,
so I think it's time to wrap it up. And
what do you say? I know I never want a
(34:12):
cult story to end, but yeah, I guess, I guess
I got it. All good cult things must come to
an end. Band, I know, I know, and you know
when you've started as many as I have, eventually you
wanted to feel fresh. Said that was in another life.
Totally so. Thanks to Christopher hasci Otis, Thanks to our
super producer, Casey Pegrom, Thanks to research associate and pal
(34:35):
Gabe Loucier, Thanks to Alex Williams who composed our Thanks
to you knowld. Thanks to you listeners for giving this
episode a spin. If the spirit so moves you, why
not dropped by your podcast platform of choice and toss
us a rating or review. Yeah, we really appreciate it.
You can also join us on our Facebook fan page
(34:56):
or community page whatever you wanna call it, which is
ridiculous historians. Um. We are on the usual platforms, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.
You can also follow me personally on Instagram at Embryonic Insider,
and you can find me on Instagram as well. I
am at ben Bowland. So let us let us know
about the local movements, communes, or dare we say, cults
(35:21):
in your neck of the Global woods. Do you think
these groups are innocuous? Do you think they are malevolent?
If so, why or why not? And I'm especially interested
to hear stories of local cults that most people outside
of the area don't know about, like Zendig Farms. Yeah, hey,
(35:43):
Zendig Farms. There are a ton of Florida just to
the south of us. Very strange ones too, but yeah,
let us know. We'll see you next time. Books. For
more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Y. Hi, everyone,
(00:27):
welcome to the show. In a previous episode, you may
have noticed that I took I took great pride in
dropping the C word cult. Cult itself can be a
dicey phrase, right. Most people who are participated in a
religious organization do not care for their organization to be
(00:52):
referred to as a cult. The one's one man's religion.
There's another man's culture, man or woman or whatever have you. Um,
it's a it's a very divisive term because it's the
thrown around as a term of abuse. But there certainly
are criteria when you check the boxes that that tend
to line up more with cult than than religion. Right. Yeah,
way back in the day, my pal Matt and I
(01:14):
are mutual pal Matt Frederick. We made a great video
about how to tell whether or not you are in
a cult. Please do check it out on YouTube or
wherever you watch videos. Stuff. They want you to know
how to start a cult. I can't remember. And you know,
we all like the idea right of starting a cult?
(01:34):
Do well, I just assume you don't like that idea,
you know, it's go to I feel like it's a
natural tendency. I feel like in another life, I I've
probably started several cults. But if you think about it,
if you take away the glamour, it's a very tedious life.
It's a lot of work. Whether you're just a follower
of a cult or you're the leader of a cult,
(01:55):
you're you're basically on call all the time. You don't
really get vacation. You probably you don't make a lot
of money. We always hear about these famous violent cults,
but what about those cult leaders who are out there,
you know, just grinding every day. They got like fifteen
people with him? And what about the cult leaders at
the time forgot Ben? What about them? What of them?
I am glad you asked noel uh and we oh,
(02:16):
we've also got an alert our super producer Casey Pegram Casey.
This is gonna be a weird one. I'm absolutely in
the cult of Casey. By the way, yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
The CEOC are you do you subscribe to the newsletter?
I subscribe to the newsletter. I get the Spotify playlists,
all about it? I do. I like to wait for
(02:36):
his yearly donation period because if you put in fifty
bucks you get the tope bag, but if you put
in seventy five bucks, you get the toe bag and
the water bottle. The c I s is like the
NPR of cults. It really is, it really is. I
appreciate those pledge drives, Casey. And speaking of cult leaders,
today's story takes us to China in the early eight hundreds.
(03:01):
There is a guy named Hong s Quan, and we're
we're mispronouncing this name. I'm gonna mispronouncing worse than you.
So you're doing a fine job. Oh not really. Uh So,
this this guy, Hong sure yeah, is born on January one,
(03:21):
eighteen fourteen. He's a New Year's baby, and he is
the third and youngest son of a poor Hawka family.
His story gets propagandized pretty heavily as it goes on.
So now his origins are a little bit the sources
are a little bit contradictory. Some people say it was poor,
(03:43):
some people say his family was well to do. But
you know, one man's palace is another man's stumpster, right,
This kind of the idea of success is relative. But
let's let's learn a little bit more about Hong Hong
x as you call him. Nol. What do we know
about this guy? Well, we know that he had the
dream in his heart, the twinkle in his eye. He
(04:05):
wanted to grow up and be a scholar. In order
to do that, it's sort of like um studying for
the bar. Right to be a scholar in in this
period in Chinese history, you had to take this test.
You had to memorize these Confucian texts and take these
things called the Imperial Exams. It was the equivalent of
(04:26):
going to college or you know, getting your s A
T S or whatever. So all of that kind of
combined into this life or death test more like the bar,
because it was like it was such a big deal.
You'd study for it so much that if you failed it,
it was a really crushing blow. And nobody wants to
take the bar twice. Thusly, no one wanted to take
the Imperial Exams twice. Unfortunately, Oh by the way, less
(04:47):
than one percent of the people who took the test pass,
and Hong was among those that did not. Yes, yeah,
the Imperial Exams are a big, big, big deal, and
that attrition rate is nasty. It is not something to
mess with. Hong, however, does not give up. He decides
(05:09):
he will retake the exams. He travels to a city
in the south, Guangdreu, and he decides he's going to
take the exams again in eighteen thirty six. This city
is amazing at this time. It's a port. It's a
center of culture for the Qing dynasty. But with all
(05:30):
this culture and with all this population and all this trade,
there comes a dark side. You see, a lot of
the trade that goes through this port city comes from
the West, and the West at this time has one big,
big product that they are pushing into Chinese markets. It's right.
The British were a huge part of this culture and
(05:53):
they were bringing in lots of opium that they were
growing in India, where they also held in aerial rule essentially,
and they were you know, they didn't have they didn't
hold sway over China per se, but there was a
pretty serious foothold that they had in the Chinese Empire
and the Chin dynasty. Correct man, Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right.
So the problem here is that the country of China
(06:18):
is producing all this really cool stuff that the British
forces want. Tea and te find China. They literally called
the porcelain fine China and silk, of course, and the
British don't really have a lot of stuff that China wants,
so there's a trade deficit. They do, however, have that
(06:39):
opium growing in India, and they doubled out on this.
They're flooding the markets with opium to the point that
it is destabilizing Chinese society. But you see, not every
import is a tangible thing. Ideas are just as valuable
(06:59):
and indeed just as dangerous as opium, silk, fine China,
or what have you. So Hang is walking through the
streets of this city thinking about his exam when he
hears a missionary from the far flung shores of North
America proselytizing, which means, you know, attempting to convert people
(07:23):
to his religion, to Christianity. And this guy doesn't speak Chinese,
he doesn't speak Cantonese, Normandarin, but he has an interpreter
with him. So picture if you will. You're a kid,
you're hung extra walking through these crowded, bustling streets, and
you see a guy probably standing on an apple box
(07:44):
or crate, you know, just yelling out in English, save yourselves,
learn the truth. So and so, and then there's an
interpreter who has to listen, so there's a little bit
of a lag. And I don't know whether the interpreter
is just calm remarking on the things this guy is
yelling about, but I hope he's yelling too at a
slight time delay. I too would like to believe that. Ben.
(08:07):
So what happens hanging hears him, right, he hears him, uh,
And he doesn't think too much of it at the time,
but he at least you know, he's gonna he's not
gonna be rude. He takes the pamphlet. You gotta you
gotta take the pamphlet. So he takes the pamphlet, folds
it up, saves it for later. And it turns out
that it will end up having a massive impact on Hong,
but not until after this next phase of the story,
(08:28):
where and he fails the exam again and then proceeds
to have something of what you might call a psychotic breakdown,
right yet a complete and utter meltdown, nervous breakdown. He
fails the exam twice, and then he takes it a
third time a year later, and he fails the third time,
and this, yeah, this pushes him to the edge. He
(08:51):
goes home. He says, I feel sick, and he lays
down and he has a fever dream or a vision,
series of visions and feversion and he really seems sick,
like he seems physically ill. His complexion is all pallid.
He is sweating, he is feverish. His parents are very
(09:15):
very concerned about him. Um. So he in his let's let'
let's someone's walk through this. Yeah, walk through the vision
or the hallucinations. Yea, so he um, this is amazing.
It's just amazing. It's just like I like this should
be a movie. Um. So, he hallucinates that he takes
a trip, a sojourn to some sort of paradise um
(09:37):
heavenly land in the east, and then his father reveals
to him that there are demons that are destroying humanity.
All right, yeah, I mean I get it, you're on board. Yeah, okay.
Uh So, then of course he has to have a
special magical sword. He gets a magical sword that's bestowed
upon him by his father. Uh and then with help
(10:00):
of his brother, they fight the demons and what he
refers to as the King of Hell. Yes. After the battle,
he doesn't wake up after the battle. He stays in heaven.
He gets a wife and they have a child together.
Eventually he returns to Earth, burying his new title Heavenly King,
(10:21):
Lord of the Kingly Waya. His family is not on
board with this, well know, because from where they stand,
he's just been tossing and turning around in bed for days.
I mean there's no not exactly a specific timeline, but
I can't imagine this. This was happened over a period
of time, um, and he just seems like he's losing it.
(10:46):
And he, you know, he goes from being fully asleep
to turning around in bed and screaming you know, nonsense syllables,
to jerking upright and assuming a fighting stance and then
going back to bed. I mean, just you know, really
really not well. And he finally wakes up and he
explains to his parents the dream and he had written
(11:08):
like this in the form of poetry that he kind
of like dream journaled when he woke up. It's pretty impressive. Oh,
and he also came back with the name Hong SiO
Kuan because his original name was Hong Ho Shu. But
that father figure he meets in the hallucination tells him
that his given name violates taboos and has to be changed.
So not only is he waking up it's very, very
(11:31):
fantastic story, he's also waking up with a different name.
Everybody in the village thinks this guy's bonkers. If this
guy were a breakfast, he would be nuts and bananas.
It's true, is that a breakfast? Well yeah, you could
beat like nuts and banana people do that all the time,
really like together, like mixed up with what with oats?
(11:51):
Maybe sure, oates? Probably yogurt people. Yogurt people are crazy, man.
They'll put anything in yogurt. Okay from now, And I
think when we say something is insane, we should refer
to it as yogurt. You know what. Let's give it
a spin. Let's take it around the bloss we can
make that. Let's can make that that catch on and
we might have enemies with big yogurt. But but yeah,
(12:12):
so Hong has gone full yogurt and he uh is
looked upon askance by the people of the village. But
he's able, He's able to put it behind him. Yeah,
he gets better, quickly bounces back. He decides to take
the exam a fourth time because of what worked and
what happens. Uh, he fails, He fails again, He fails
a fourth time. Again. It's a very very difficult exam.
(12:33):
There's a lot of corruption involved. Only one percent of
the people who take it will will succeed the one
percent of the one percent of the one percent kind
of and it seems like a bit of a classist
kind of thing where well, yeah, I mean you have
to every what isn't classes. But what I'm saying is
it doesn't seem to be entirely merit based, maybe like
(12:54):
certain people have a leg up in passing the exams.
Absolutely absolutely so. He is. He's still in his twenties
at this time, and he has failed this exam, but
thankfully not once, not twice, three four times, and he
still has a certain pamphlet. He has that pamphlet. He
(13:14):
finds it neatly folded in his pristinely pressed tunic. Right,
I don't know about that. I'm I'm editorializing here, but
he definitely finds it somewhere, and he starts to make
some connections, doesn't he. Because the tract actually portrayed China
as this kind of post apocalyptic wasteland which wasn't terribly
(13:34):
far off from the truth. I mean, there was certainly
some hyperbole here, but this, these opium wars and the
opium addictions that ravaged China really destabilized the country from
eighteen thirty nine to eighteen forty two. And finally it
ended with the Treaty of Nanjing, which really gave Britain
the upper hand and allowed them to be much more
(13:54):
of a colonizer, you know of of China, right right,
absolutely is ultimately the reason that so many Christian missionaries
were able to make it into the country and stay there.
As Hong is reading this pamphlet, he's noticing a stunning
(14:19):
similarity between the story of Christianity and his personal vision,
the one he had thought and he had you know,
gotten over he encounters the words of Jesus Christ and
he becomes convinced. Hong becomes convinced that that father figure
(14:40):
in his series of visions was the Christian God like
the God of Abraham, and that the older brother because
remember you mentioned that older brother. No, the older brother
was Jesus Christ himself. And the quote king of Hell
was the serpent in the garden of Eden. And Long
is putting everything together, Like the very end of Usual
(15:04):
Suspects when spoiler alert three to one, when the investigator
starts looking at the bulletin board and notices that Kaiser
SoSE has just been making up stories based on what
he reads around the room. I did spoiler countdown and
plus it's way past the statue think so yeah, I
(15:25):
mean it's fine. Also, where do spoilers stop? Man? Is
it a spoiler to say that a Lincoln passes away
or the Titanic sinks or the Yeah yeah, we're gonna
get some angry emails about that because I didn't spoiler
alert is and it is a movie. It is in fact,
I'm moving, It's true. So hall Is Halling is having
(15:46):
this Usual Suspect moment as he's reading through this pamphlet,
and he's like, wait, the father in my dream is God?
The older brother in my dream? That's Jesus, the king
of Hell? Is this serpent from this story Holy smoked?
Put two and two together. I am the Son of God.
It's like Darren Aronovski trying to describe the plot of
(16:07):
one of his movies, right right, So he doesn't take
this revelation as a personal thing. He doesn't hold it
close to his heart and use it as a way
to keep his divine chin up. Instead, he tells his
relatives about his dream, and his message begins to spread.
He gets followers. He must have been very persuasive. Well,
(16:30):
he clearly was tenacious. He kept taking you know, he
let us like a little little bit of psychotic break
stop him from trying to take those those exams. Um.
So he clearly had drive. And yeah, he had to
have been very charismatic um. And his his message started
spreading like wildfire call style. Right. Right, he gathers followers.
(16:54):
They go on the road to evangelize. Right. They're selling
ink and brushes to fund their travels, and Hong begins
writing his own religious works. He writes exportations to worship
the One True God, and this helps him win more converts.
He goes back home to work on more religious writing,
(17:15):
but his disciples continue to travel and they form a
group known as the God Worshiping Society. There's an interesting
sociological aspect here because a lot of his original followers
are Hakka people, the ethnic group Hacca, just like he is,
and they have a relatively lower position in Chinese society.
(17:38):
So this is this is a message that paints a
picture of an alternate way to live, a world in
which you do not have to be on the bottom
just because of your ethnicity. Which is interesting because sort
of in the same way that l. Ron Hubbard found
that a religion based on constantly being rejected by science
fiction you know, publishers and things like that spoiler alert
(18:02):
out of well that's fair, but out of kind of
this bitterness and this it shaped his whole worldview, and
Hong was very similar. He rejected those the Confucianist family
ideals and the idea of having to be in that
one percent of the one percent of society and past
those tests and he built an entirely new, uh philosophy
(18:23):
that was it wasn't Christianity exactly. It was sort of
a twist on Christianity, right yeah, yeah, yeah, it's you know,
if you think about it, it's a Pruto version of communism.
His stresses sharing property. He has religious ideas and laws
based on the Ten Commandments of Christianity. Importantly, he promises
(18:49):
free land to all of his followers, and that's when
thousands and thousands more people start joining up with Hong
and the god worship society, and they really start to
openly reject the Ching norms of that time. They chop
(19:09):
off their their braids. They have this hairstyle called a
que where you've probably seen it in Um in films,
where their head is shaved, except they have like one
big long ponytail that's in the back. They cut those off. Um.
He they start wearing these red turbans as a symbol
of their undying allegiance to hang Um, and he even
(19:31):
starts preaching this notion that the man Chou were the
very demons that he fought in his battle with the
King of Hell. Yeah. Yes, so this is during the
Qing dynasty, right, and the Ching dynasty was founded by
the man Chew people, and they are still regarded as
foreigners at this time, you know what I mean, And
(19:53):
the Hakka, with valid reason, don't care very much for
the man Chu. Did we mention that the Hakka work
d of already a bit of a disenfranchised community. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's that's that's key because he was able to capitalize
on those feelings of rejection and isolation and not being
part of the same cast system that he was rejected from.
(20:13):
And then when he has the revelation that the demons
in his vision are the Manchu. You know, he begins,
as you said, pushing people to violence, and this marks
the beginning of one of the bloodiest civil wars in
Chinese history. Within two years, Hong and the God worshiping
(20:36):
society have captured the city of Nanjing. There is a
rebellion taking place, folks. Hundreds of thousands of people are
overthrowing the social status quo. Yeah, here's the thing too.
Um Hong really starts doubling down with his um speaking
(20:57):
with God kind of uh ang where he believes that
he has been sent by God as the son of
God because he is a son of God. He's not Jesus,
he's his other son. He's the younger He's the younger
brother of Jesus. Uh and he is here to change
the very course and nature of Chinese society based on
(21:20):
the word of God and what he wants. So Um,
all of in his society, all of these little kind
of sub offshoot society, all of the beliefs of the Chinese,
all of the Confucian texts are burned, all those beliefs
are scattered and rejected. Um got rid of every single
um idol or effigy or you know, any anything that
(21:43):
represented the old way right, and even the outlawed opium,
because that had been a problem one that was probably
the one one of his good moves. Um and heavily
segregated men and women officially official, but not for him, No,
not for him. He had something of a harem in
(22:03):
his in his abode. Very very common with cult leaders,
you know what I mean. From l Ron Hubbard and
the Sea Org to David Koresh. Usually cult leaders have
a do as I say, not as I do, sort
of approach to their beliefs and laws. Doesn't he also
(22:24):
change the calendar? He does? He changes the calendar. Dude.
That's such a power moves. I love. I love that.
It's like, all right, I'm in charge. Now April is done.
Now we're calling it um Uh hey, Casey, I knew
you were going to call me. Then I have nothing.
I have nothing to offer on this. Oh sorry, I don't. Okay,
(22:47):
you'd rather be on the case than on the spot, right, Okay, Okay.
Uh so we'll say instead of instead of April, we're
gonna call it Lowell, right, the month of loll Yeah?
Or how about grea April. Yeah, April aprist like that.
I like that, so okay, yeah, I don't mean to
also casey on the case, thank you. I don't mean
(23:10):
to diminish the suffering that Hall is becoming responsible for.
What we see happening now is that the Qing dynasty notices, Yeah,
that society is quickly crumbling. Dude, in the city of Nanjang.
He has amassed an army and in addition to all
(23:33):
of his followers, but a real legitimate army that can
expand this kingdom that he's creating all over southern China.
Uh and ends up with more than thirty million people
living inside his little sub kingdom called the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom,
which is what they referred to their their new territory as.
(23:55):
And this is a real threat to the powers that be.
I mean, this is huge and will not let this stand. Right. Absolutely.
We should also mention though he did segregate the sexes
for his followers, he took some steps to try to
make women more socially equal to men. So it wasn't
(24:15):
all terrible stuff. But yes, war was very much on
the horizon. The Qing emperor says, I have to raise troops.
This may become an existential conflict, and it does. It
becomes one of the most deadly conflicts in history. So
by eighteen sixty hangs people that Taiping were at the
(24:38):
height of their power. They were smashing ching armies that
were besieging Nanjing, and they were capturing other southern cities Hanju, Suju.
In eighteen sixty one, the same year that the US
Civil War starts, the Taiping attack Shanghai. But Shanghai has
been this Internet national hub, right and is where the
(25:01):
Western powers go and they send their boots and they
trade their stuff. And that means that the British and
French empires are not happy to see this fall to
a cult movement and the Europeans begin to bring in
their own forces to protect the city. Got a question
for you man, that distinction between religion and cult or
(25:23):
movements and cult. I think thirty million, it sort of
kicks it out of cult territory and it becomes more
like a new norm. But again, talking population wise in
this in the country, just just for a rough ballpark perspective,
UH calculations estimates put the population of China and the
(25:45):
Qing Empire at this time around just under three million,
got it, so no, no small potatoes, thirty million, right,
but still certainly not taking hold in a widespread way.
I don't know, man, that's that's it's definitely dangerous and
they're all hold up or a bunch of them are
(26:06):
holed up in this one area and are kicking ass. Yeah,
and the European troops arrived to help out there. I
don't know, buddies, their relationship is probably a little strain,
but it's more to defend their ports, right, absolutely, Uh,
the opium must flown, you know. The Europeans come with
(26:29):
the latest word, the bleeding edge of military technology, and
they use cannon fire to just tear through the Typing rebels.
The Ching launches a major counter attack and this this
occurs at the same time. This shatters the Typing army
(26:50):
and they retreat from the city. They are forced onto
the defensive, and now the Ching dynasty is receiving support
from the West. They begin pushing the borders of the
Heavenly Kingdom back to Nanjing and they're fighting. Think of
it this way. They're fighting what's called a total war
(27:11):
in one of the most densely populated areas of the
planet around this time. The country of China alone is
like thirty percent of the world's population. It's a crowded place,
and a total war means that everything is up for
grabs and everything that can be destroyed probably will. Yeah,
(27:32):
And there's no real rules of engagement or anything like that.
I mean, civilians are at risk, utterly at risk, not
not not just being in harm's way, but resources plundering
of villages from the opposition. When they sack a town
or whatever, they just take what they want and food
becomes scarce. People actually begin to starve to death in
(27:54):
the streets. So I think we're talking um millions of
people that that died. Brute. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, The violence
combined with the famine led to millions of deaths. If
this were a film, let's cut two. Hong Hong is
becoming increasingly yogurt. He has withdrawn from running his kingdom
(28:20):
during the day to day affairs, directing the armies, rallying
the troops. Instead, he hangs out in his palace with
his harem, with his concubines. His generals begin to fill
the vacuum of power, and this leads to a lot
of internal conflict and fracturing of the kingdom, Hong begins
(28:44):
to you know, suspect members of his inner circle of
being traitors, and he has very valid reasons for this.
By eighteen sixty four, the Chain armies are at the
gates of the city and Hongs General, a guy named
Leashu Cheng, demands that Hong g t f O right,
(29:04):
get get out of the city. And now they are
who they have been, you know, forced into retreat and
they're hold up behind walls. They've running the food as well.
So what is Hong do you he? He says, Uh,
We're just gonna drink tears from heaven, you know, eat
mana from heaven. When mana like that's like magical energy juice,
like from the Final Fantasy Games, I think, But no,
(29:25):
he says. And what he was referring to were like
he basically said that that God will nourish us with
whatever we put into our bodies. It's so crazy, it
almost seems made up, but it's the craziest. So he
plucks this what is he plux a weed from the
ground and eats it as a sign. They like, see,
I'm on board with you, you know, like I'm just
(29:46):
like you guys and it's turns out to be deadly
poison and he dies Yeah, yeah, just on a fluke totally,
you know, good God. And then his teenage son kind
of steps sinner places him, but it's too late that
the chamber at the gates, like we said, they eventually
kicked down the doors. Blood bath ensues night night, Kingdom
(30:11):
of Heaven, and the Taiping Rebellion is put down. Estimates
vary widely depending on which historical sources you encounter. You
will see the estimate of the death toll here ringing
in it anywhere between twenty to seventy million people. That
makes it one of the deadliest conflicts in human history,
(30:31):
and its shaped China and therefore the world in ways
that carry over even today in twenty nineteen, all because
one guy had a vision. You know, what if he
had passed his exams. You always have to wonder. It's
kind of like what if Hitler got accepted into art school. Yeah,
(30:52):
I don't know, man, that's true. I mean, it's I
think it's the with the repeated rejection that really caused
him to break. But you gotta wonder too, something was
off in this guy, so he would have done some
weird stuff the other way, and you have to wonder
about the country as well. If not him, would some
other kind of event have occurred, you know what I mean? Yeah,
it's true because the history of China is largely a
(31:14):
series of peasant uprisings, as of the case for many histories,
like the French Revolution, the American Remoli. It's all about
rising up against the oppressor, perceived or otherwise. Um and these.
The dynasty system was so entrenched culturally that it was immovable,
and so it makes sense that like, but what's so funny,
(31:34):
ban though, is what's that happening is you replace you
you you knocked down a dynasty, and then you replace
it with your own dynasty, and you become the same
thing that you hated and we're fighting against in the
first place. Absolutely happens every time. Maybe one time it
will be different. Probably not, Okay, probably, do not not look
forward to it. I'm not holding my breath. So history
tells us that the world is rife, the world is overflowing.
(32:00):
If um would be Messiah's We are lousy with people
who suspect that they have divine right to one thing
or another. And the modern age is no different It's
easy for us to say, Wow, that sounds crazy, what
the heck was going on in the eighteen hundreds, But
you have to realize in there are plenty of groups
(32:22):
in the United States, in your home country and your
neck of the global woods. I guarantee you there's someone
right now who believes that they are either God or
the avatar of God, or the younger brother of a
divine figure, first cousin. Whatever. Yeah, why not, man, somebody's
(32:44):
got to be um. More power to you, just trying to,
you know, foment any bloody uprisings. Yeah, do your best,
do your best, do your do your best, be a
good citizen. This was such a crazy story. It's a
story that a lot of Westerners are not familiar with it.
And how how how insane is it that a story
involving the death of twenty to seventy million human beings
(33:07):
that took place over fifteen years at the hands of
a psychotic Christian death call leader not really a death call,
but certainly, I mean, I stand by, we stand by
the whole cult thing. How crazy is that we don't
know about that and they don't teach that in in
history class. I don't know it's it's it's interesting. It
sounds weird because we do host a history show, but
a lot of stuff happened. Yeah, I don't know, Casey.
(33:30):
I'm not gonna put it in spite here. I just
want to know, have you ever heard of this story? No,
this is like all completely new to me, and my
mind is thoroughly blown, absolutely bonkers. And how has there
not been a film of this as well? It seems
very good film fodder when you Yeah, when you first
mentioned it, I was thinking of Scorsese is Silence, which
is also concerns Christianity in Japan. Um and and it's
(33:51):
kind of somebody also having maybe a little bit of
a savior complex or something, but different era, different country,
different culture, very different. But you know it kind of
brought that to mind. Yeah, very much. So um well,
I don't know, I don't I think, uh, I think
the story speaks for itself. I think we've said it all,
so I think it's time to wrap it up. And
what do you say? I know I never want a
(34:12):
cult story to end, but yeah, I guess, I guess
I got it. All good cult things must come to
an end. Band, I know, I know, and you know
when you've started as many as I have, eventually you
wanted to feel fresh. Said that was in another life.
Totally so. Thanks to Christopher hasci Otis, Thanks to our
super producer, Casey Pegrom, Thanks to research associate and pal
(34:35):
Gabe Loucier, Thanks to Alex Williams who composed our Thanks
to you knowld. Thanks to you listeners for giving this
episode a spin. If the spirit so moves you, why
not dropped by your podcast platform of choice and toss
us a rating or review. Yeah, we really appreciate it.
You can also join us on our Facebook fan page
(34:56):
or community page whatever you wanna call it, which is
ridiculous historians. Um. We are on the usual platforms, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.
You can also follow me personally on Instagram at Embryonic Insider,
and you can find me on Instagram as well. I
am at ben Bowland. So let us let us know
about the local movements, communes, or dare we say, cults
(35:21):
in your neck of the Global woods. Do you think
these groups are innocuous? Do you think they are malevolent?
If so, why or why not? And I'm especially interested
to hear stories of local cults that most people outside
of the area don't know about, like Zendig Farms. Yeah, hey,
(35:43):
Zendig Farms. There are a ton of Florida just to
the south of us. Very strange ones too, but yeah,
let us know. We'll see you next time. Books. For
more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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