May 25, 2021 • 33 mins
Sure, cults are weird. The doomsday prophecies, claims of superpowers and tendency toward brainwashing are all strange, but what if the situation got even weirder? What if intelligence agencies were secretly involved with everything from the Manson family.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh, I've been waiting for this one. This would do
intelligence agencies running cults. Oh man, We we learned so
much in the years following this classic episode that, like,
if we went back in time and talk to each
other now about this or the future versions of uh
Been Matt Noel went and talked to the past versions
of Noel, Matt and Ben, we would sound like crazy people. Yeah,
(00:24):
it's true. I mean we already do a little bit sometimes,
but this would just exacerbate that experience for sure. And
in this case, we're discussing whether or not there's any
kind of strategy to having control of occult, Like, is
there a reason that an intelligence agency could make use
of a group of like minded people that follow a
(00:45):
single leader or maybe a group of people? Why would
you want that? And has it happened? Let's stick around.
You might just find out from UFOs two Ghosts and
government cover ups. History is riddled with unexplained events. You
can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't
want you to now, Wall wall, wall long, Welcome back
(01:14):
to the show, everyone. This is stuff they don't want
you to know. I'm Matt and I'm Ben. Welcome back,
guys today it's getting exciting. You know, listeners can't see
this right now, Matt, but you have a you have
a weird grin on an air of mischief about And
(01:36):
perhaps it's just the most wonderful time of the year,
which is what you want to call Halloween on this show.
Or maybe you got something up your sleeves there. Maybe
every time salmon comes around. I feel a little bit
that way. Yes, the correct pronunciation, which we learned the
hard way. Yes. Uh, listeners out there who also watch
(02:00):
our videos, you know that Ben and I have tried
our hand at starting one of those what do you
call them? Cults? Um, it went pretty well, it did.
You can actually see some of the results in a
video series that we did. One episode in particular wherein Matt,
you as the cult leader, have sent me out to
proselytize our coworkers. Well, I will say that I was
(02:24):
not self appointed. Well, you know, sometimes the Godhead just
finds you right. Right, So we we do have a
video where we take a satirical look at some of
the some of the operations that cults. You some of
the techniques would be a better work, right, How occult
begins right, and how a cult grows, and how it
(02:47):
maintains loyalty ideology and pushes people into increasingly unusual decisions.
Right sure, And uh, you know if if you work
in the law or if you work with logistics, then
you're well aware of decision trees and how with a
little bit of forethought and with some careful puppet stringing,
(03:10):
you can place people, uh, very easily into a situation
that they would have never ever in a million years
thought they would do. And which brings us to our
next side of the story here. And what's that meant? Well,
we're asking an interesting question here today. Do intelligence agencies
(03:32):
run cults? Uh? What an interesting question yet fascinating even
now in the United States. When we say intelligence agencies,
we're talking specifically in this sense about things like the
FBI and the CIA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central
Intelligence Agency. And we know that these alphabet agencies, specifically
(03:54):
those two and also the n s A and several
other of them, they are actively monitoring groups, all kinds
of individuals that they consider to be let's say, possible
threats to the national security. Can you guys hear the
finger quotations we just put around that the air quotes.
That's because national security is often vaguely defined and increasingly so.
(04:18):
So just for examples. Uh, what what's something that these
agencies would monitor. One that you are probably aware of
is the occupy movement that happened several years ago and
is still ongoing today. Um. You can look there's um
a Guardian article that we looked at about how the
FBI coordinated the entire crackdown, well not the entire but
(04:41):
a large portion of the crackdown on the occupy movement. Um,
and that's by Naomi Wolf. You can check that out. Yeah,
we've got a quotation here. Part of this that we
pulled from this article for you guys to hear is uh.
In this article in the Guardian, Naomi Wolf talks about
the documents that emerged showing how closely the alphabet agencies
(05:03):
and private sector entities cooperated, sometimes merging into a single
entity known as the Domestic Security Alliance Counsel. Here's a
quote and reveals this merged entity to have one centrally planned,
locally executed mission. The documents and short show the cops
and Department of Homeland Security working for and with banks
(05:24):
to target, arrest and politically disabled peaceful American citizens. That
really happened. Yeah, yeah, yep, And we know that that's
not the first time it happens. We know that throughout
US history, other groups have been civilian groups, mind you,
have been monitored by the FBI in particular, but also
(05:46):
other government agencies, and the FBI in particular because it's
within the United States, that's why they're the agency looking
at it. And we've looked at this before with Coentel pro.
When you look at the way that they handled the
FBI handled MLK Martin Luther King Jr. And how like
how they monitored his phone calls, they watched all of it,
(06:09):
like all kinds of just spying on this guy, went
through his mail, yeah, manipulating, sending him threats. Very interesting
and scary. Then you've also got the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, right, Yeah,
the s c LC as well as m OKA and
other members affiliated. Both individuals and groups affiliated with the
(06:30):
civil rights movement were aggressively monitored and targeted, but they
weren't the only ones. There was also what would be
called the New Left, where people pushing for Irish independence,
an exile group called Cuban Power UH and people fighting
for Puerto ricandependence and so on. It even gets a
little bit crazier than that. We're talking about monitoring, right, Yeah,
(06:51):
groups that you would not think would be monitored and
try me really okay. Vegetarians, Oh the isis of restaurants. Huh.
They're dangerous, man, more dangerous than you could ever know.
Also environmentalists, And I can see the angle with environmentalists
because there is the uh I don't I forget the
(07:13):
term for it. Eco terrorism? Yeah, um, I mean that
does exist, that is a real thing. But vegetarians, I'm
trying to think if maybe there's an angle for on
Santo to get involved. I wonder that's not a bad question.
We have a we have an interesting story to point
you toward. Check out the story of an informant named Anna.
(07:35):
And Anna was asked to infiltrate things like vegan potlucks,
looking for eco terrorists, people who would be a threat
to h quote unquote national security. Right. I watched recently
a movie on HBO. I believe it was called The East.
I think that's what it's called. How about eco terrorists
(07:59):
and this other are independent agency that sends people to
infiltrate them and I wonder where some of maybe the
story of Anna comes into play. Yeah, now, from what
we understand, the informant Anna is came forward because this
person may or may not be female, but clearly I
think it's female. Uh, this person is disillusioned with the
(08:25):
strategies used by domestic intelligence agencies. If you haven't checked
it out yet, checked out our video about whether the
whether these guys are on the up and up and
obeying the law when they do the monetary and they
certainly were not doing it during co and Telpro, which
is why Congress changed some of the laws. But how
(08:48):
many of those laws got changed back a little tidbit
here in two thousand and two under the Bush administration,
some of those laws were rescinded in the interest of
wait for it, National Secure a d We better not
make that a drinking game, because somebody's going to get
alcohol poisoning. Um. And you know this. We also know
(09:08):
that if we're just talking about monitoring a lot of
socialist leaning religious groups that were anti war pacifist groups
have been targeted. In short, Matt, they could target pretty
much anyone they wanted, But did they actually infiltrate these groups? Well,
we're gonna find out really soon. After a quick word
(09:31):
from one of our sponsors, and we're back and we
can answer this question. In the previous part of the podcast,
we talked about monitoring groups illegally, but now it's time
to talking about something else. Right, Infiltration, Now that's another
(09:53):
thing that we've talked about several times video, But for
this we're talking about civilian groups and relig just groups
and how the FBI has infiltrated them before. Right, Yes,
infiltrated them, but not just to infiltrate and surveil, not
just infiltrate as an informant. There's a line that they crossed.
So if our question is to intelligence agencies run cults,
(10:17):
we know that they have certainly influenced religions, and you
and I know, of course, and listeners you know if
you watched for video on cults, that the division between
a religion and occult is a little bit gray. Just
as one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter, one
person's religion is another person's cult. So we know that
(10:37):
the FBI CIA have used informants to enter into Weather Underground,
which was a group active a few decades before our time. Listeners,
some of you may remember the days of Weather Underground.
We know that more recently and controversially, uh, the FBI
has placed informants in mosques in the United States. Uh.
(11:00):
We covered this in our video. Is the FBI manufacturing terrorists?
Why do we use that title? Man, Well, it's because
it has to do with entrapment in one way, and
then also sending informants in to try and rile up
a group. So in this guy's case, Craig Montel, he
went into a mosque and while he was doing surveillance
(11:23):
on most of the people in one of these mosques,
she was also he was also talking to them about
jihad and trying to rile everybody up. And what they
did is they contacted Well, first of all, they put
a restraining order, so they said, don't come back here anymore.
This is not what Islam is about. Yeah, we are
(11:45):
not the people you're looking for. And then they also
called the FBI. Yeah, and they said, look, there's this
crazy guy who is trying to bomb places and trying
to get members of our mosque in there, and he's
harassing people and the FBI. You know, I can't imagine
the phone call that happened between there when someone said
(12:06):
someone said, yeah, there's this guy who is uh, we
got a report that there may be terrorist activity at
this mosque, and who reported it the mosque and then
go okay, well, thank you for the call. They put
the phone down, heavy sigh. They pick it up and
they ring and they go, Craig, the jig is up,
get out of there. I mean, but that that has
to be that that is such an important question though,
(12:29):
and that goes to the question of infiltration versus running
or influencing occult because the the idea here that critics
of this would would site is just as you said,
matt entrapment, you know exactly. And so let's let's look
at another place that they've infiltrated. Another topic that we've
(12:49):
covered heavily owned video recently are NGOs, non government organizations
and the c i A. We we mentioned that they
send assets in two look at groups such as oh,
I don't know, Peace Corps US aid right, yeah, there
are a lot of them, and it is sometimes with
(13:12):
the organization's understanding that they'll be sending in an informant
or an asset, and sometimes it's without that understanding. It's
just what who knew that John Doe wasn't really from
every town Kansas. It's so weird to me. It happens,
you know, it happens, and uh it's also part of
the reason why we hear such a stink. When people
(13:35):
who are working for Western n GEO are detained in uh,
non Western country, often there's this implication, whether true or not,
and I think you have to go case by case
basis whether true or not, there's this implication from the
capturing country that these people were not you know, kids
(13:56):
work college kids, working for the Peace Corps. They were uh,
plants from the CIA or some other intelligence agency. I
can't imagine being in that position, finding someone from an
n g O who's doing something extremely suspicious and they go, oh, man, okay,
uh this could be a CIA agent. Uh gotta handle
(14:18):
this carefully. Yeah, oh man, I see, Yeah, that's a
really weird phone call to get to. And then they
call the They call the CIA. The guy goes, oh,
what really, and he hangs up. He says thank you,
hangs up the phone, He lets out along sigh. He
picks it up, dials the number, and says, Craig beautiful
(14:39):
back as far as we know, ladies and gentlemen, that
did not actually happen. But what does happen on a
regular basis is that foreign intelligence assets are also put
in State Department in bussies. Right. We also know that
there's very compelling evidence of CIA and FBI front companies
and were dummy organizations, which you and I covered in
(15:00):
some of our Gary web stuff. Right. So these we
airline companies with names that are just so vague and
boring like Premier Executive Transportation Services. I fell asleep just
reading that out loud, uh, and inter Mountain Aviation. We
also know that financial organizations also operate in foreign countries,
you know, a shell company for the purpose of funneling money.
(15:23):
So what does this all tell us? Well, to me,
it says that our initial question at the top perhaps
isn't all that crazy. Maybe a government agency or a
project really could involve some kind of front cult or
a dummy cult. Okay, So then let's go over some
(15:43):
of the illegal things, straight up illegal that the c I, A,
n FBI and or FBI have done proven. Yes, oh okay,
all right, um, let's see where does start. There's a
good one that I can go. Okay, hit me with
your best shot. Almost started singing, mk ultra, that's nothing
(16:08):
to sing about, mk ultra. We've also done some videos
on that. Mk Ultra, as you know, is a blanket
term for a series of related experiments which involved everything
from trying to create a real life Manchurian candidate that
would be brainwashed assassin on command two, uh, seeing if
(16:29):
LSD was a truth serum, and just looking at how
humans interact when they're on hallucinogens that way. And I
still think that one guy was assassinated. I don't think
he Yeah, I don't think he just did acid and
jumped out of a window. Yeah. Again, that's my personal opinion, folks.
(16:52):
That is not that is not in any way proven
the official stories that he committed suicide. Yeah, and he wouldn't.
He wouldn't be the first or last person to jump
from a high building on some kind of you know drug. However, Uh,
I have to a lot of force to propel yourself
through glass. Right, All right, well, okay, what uh what
(17:13):
about the Tuskegee experiment right where a group of people,
I forget what state it was in, but they were
not given they were okay, they had syphilis, but they
were not treated, uh, to cure the syphilis. They were
just studied, right and given placebo medications. Uh. These were
(17:35):
African American men in a tremendously racist time in the
US past. I know a few of our listeners will say, well,
it's tremendously racist today, but that it was very, very
openly institutionalized racism to the point where it made it
okay from a governmental standpoint to experiment on these black men.
(17:57):
And Uh. While the us IS official position is that
the U S admits this incident occurred over a very
long period of time, but they say that these guys
started out with syphilis and simply were not treated. However,
other people, anecdotal reports of people who were involved at
(18:18):
the times, say that they were given syphilis. Right. But
we did we did a correction when we first did
that episode, and we came back and we said, um
that according to the official government standpoint, which I think
is how we phrased it. Uh, these people were not
given syphilis. They had it already and they were not treated,
(18:39):
which is just as insidious and unethical in my opinion. Wow.
Oh yeah, and then there's domestic chemical exposures. Speaking of that,
that's proven as well. So government agencies would just go
to the rooftops of some poor neighborhoods and they did
this more than once. And uh, and chemicals, you know,
(19:02):
to see what happened to stimulate a widespread chemical exposure. Yeah,
and just you know, go to the local hospital and
find out, well, who came in with what, how many?
How did it manifest? Man? Oh yeah, excuse me, listeners,
I'm meant to say simulate, not stimulate. I believe I
misspoke there. Um. And of course we know that warrantless
(19:24):
snooping hand or surveillance is I would say de facto illegal,
but other people would say it's the facto illegal, being
that some of the interpretations of the law remains secret
because of national security. Oh man, please don't be drunk
(19:46):
right now. Yeah. Uh. And then of course, how could
we go without mentioning uh, side ops such as impersonating
someone's identity, anonymous harassment, smear campaigns, and all that other stuff. Uh,
this would be stuff like you mentioned earlier, Matt. What
would they do with Martin Luther King's mail? Oh, well,
(20:06):
all kinds of one things with his mail? Um, they
would intercept the mail, check it out, see what's in there.
If there's anything juicy, make copies of things, then put
it back in the mail. They would send him threats
and things like that in the mail. Um, they'd impersonate people.
That's what it is. They would impersonate, like let's say
(20:28):
a letter from one of his close contacts that was
just seething and mad at him or um. I think
there was one instance where they tried to initiate some
kind of affair. Oh yeah, I had heard. I have
heard that story, but I haven't looked it up myself.
I don't mean to give out false information. I hope
(20:49):
that I'm not, but it's in my in the back
of my head somewhere. Well, we do know they am okay,
did have affairs, so it's not out of the realm
of possibility unfortunately. Uh what Speaking of the mail, it's
time for a break and we'll be back afterwards. Much
sponsored And we're back so so far for a quick recap.
(21:13):
We have looked at We've looked at illegal things the
government agencies have done in the past. We have looked
at things that they're monitoring activities. We've looked at infiltration activities,
and now it's time to get to the real Here's
where it gets crazy part. Did a government agency ever
run occult? So here are some of the alleged examples. Ben.
(21:38):
The first one is Jones Town. Now, some people believe
that Jim Jones will we know that Jim Jones was
running a cult, the People's Temple, the People's Temple that
moved from several places. I can't remember the initial starting place,
but I know it moved to California, then to Guiana.
And the theory is that he was running a psychological
(22:02):
experiment of mind control on these people, on behalf of
the CIA, or at least possibly related somehow to the CIA.
I see. And that's that's an interesting idea, which we
do explore in that video you mentioned earlier, because the
People's Temple at the time was a bit unusual in
(22:23):
that it actively encouraged acceptance of all creeds, and it
was a little bit left leaning, which would be otherwise
the kind of thing that the US government would have
closely monitored at that time for possible descent or a
threat to national security. Well, it's strange to me that
(22:46):
that it would still be. I guess the reason why
it was under CIA or why it's thought to be
under CIA is because they moved outside of the country
to Guiana, which was a country in the U S
sphere of influence or but I guess not officially inside
the US so it wouldn't be FBI, right, Yeah. But
(23:07):
also you know, in the evolution of occult, they may
have just moved to a more isolated place to further
cement the leader's grip on people. They had guards, armed guards,
increasingly militarized. Uh, there were people who wanted to escape.
There are some huge unanswered questions to this day which
(23:29):
you and I deal with in the videos about how
stuff went down, how the congressman was killed, how the
people were killed, who committed suicide, reports of additional people
or assets, even working to UH sanitize the operation and
then later painting it as a suicide when it may
(23:52):
have been instead as as the theorist would advance a
massacre UH of a psychop on wrong psy op rather,
I think I think that's fascinating at this point, the
evidence that you and I could find in there, while tantalizing,
was far from certain sure, And but there wasn't a
(24:14):
CIA agent who was working with Leo or was it
is his name, Leo Ryan, the congressman. Congressman Leo Ryan.
And then there is Dwire And you can hear on
the recording right that Jim Jones are out of here.
Get Dwire out of here. Yeah, that is true. Um,
but at this point that while that is one of
(24:35):
the most popular theories for an intelligence a du T
running a cult, it is ultimately at this point it
doesn't have solid proof yet. Sure, it just has troubling
unanswered questions. Um. Can I tell you about one of
my favorites. Oh, I love this one, all right. Uh.
This is the idea that scientology and we're not calling
(24:56):
scientology occult, so lawyers, please don't get mad. This is
a theory that Matt and I did not make up,
that the Church of Scientology is somehow run by an
intelligence agency. And this is this is actually a theory
that is kind of more well known in the x
(25:18):
scientologist community than it is in the mainstream. Um never
been a scientologist part of the world. Uh. And the
the idea here is that the current head of Scientology,
David Miskevig, is working for the FBI or the CIA,
that he is an asset. And you'll see ex scientologists
(25:38):
who say that they left the organization because miss Kevig
somehow changed it, And um, you and I of course
are not scientologist, nor have we ever been. We have
read about Scientology, but we've also always read about it
from the outside endure, Uh little background. You hooked us
(25:58):
up with an excellent book that uh you lent to
me earlier, right, yes, going clear, and I already forgot
the author. But it's fantastic. It looks at it from
an investigative reporter angle. Um, on all these different angles,
and the uh, the author allowed Scientology to go in
and make footnotes and comment on the entire book. Right. Yeah,
(26:21):
The book itself is on the up and up. It's
a great piece of journalism. It does not address this theory.
It's more about the evolution of society. But it does
show the change of the Church in Scientology when David
ms Kevie took over, right yeah. It just makes no
claims about this being anything other than a change in leadership. Right.
(26:43):
So it's it's a popular theory in a in a
small segment of the global population, but it's it's a
fascinating one, especially when we consider that the Church of
scientology and the United States government had historically uh versarial relationships. Yes,
again detailed in that book quite beautifully. You can also
(27:06):
check out our video operations snow White. We've got got
one other. Of course, we've got to save this guy,
good old Charlie Manson. Yep, maybe nothing good about him,
but he is certainly old. The idea is that Manson
was groomed by aspects are assets of the CIA to
perform mind control experiments in the field. Yes, that would
(27:29):
be a good place to do some and of course
in this point, at this point, apparently uh, Matt and
I believe that these the CIA scientists are evil Germans. Yeah,
I didn't want to do a uncent Oh no, no, no,
that would probably that would probably get us in some
hot water. But we'll see what We'll see what comes
(27:50):
out of our cartoonish Indiana Jones German accents the the
The idea here, though, is fascinating because this is one
of those strings that when you pull it unravels more
and more and more stuff. So we know that Charles
Manson had some uh encounters with dianetics, which was a
(28:11):
precursor to scientology, during some of his time in prison,
and during some of his time in the hippie counterculture,
when he also encountered a group called Uh was it
is it four? Pie? Or Pie? Is the alleged Ah,
yeah it's Pie not P two. That's there, Okay, yes, yes,
that's the one that David Berkowitz talked about the Son
(28:33):
of Sam killer and then got his throat cut in
prison and used to speak again. Right, and there's uh,
there's some I you know, I hate to say it.
I hate to say it, but there is some really
compelling evidence that the Son of Sam did not act alone. Matt,
(28:55):
that detective who never gave up. I think he's right. Yeah,
And uh, this this argument here, uh, this goes into
the idea that there was we first found out about
it with Son of Sam and Charles Manson, but it
ultimately expands into this idea that there is some sort
of serial killer cult or some sort of um tacit
(29:17):
agreement to turn a blind eye to certain unethical experiments
or criminal homicidal behavior. Now, of course, in most cases,
logically it doesn't make sense to think that so many
people could keep that kind of secret, you know what
I mean. That's that's a big one ordinary claim yeah,
(29:41):
but fascinating. Right, But Ben, is this conspiracy theory or
is it conspiracy fact? Ah? Yes, Okay, Well here's the thing.
It's unlikely that an intelligence group, at least the ones
we're talking about again in the United States, would manifest
acture an entire cult. Yeah. I'm trying to come up
(30:05):
with any idea of why you would manufacture an entire cult.
To what end would you do this? I'm I'm honestly
not sure unless you you know, unless you wanted a
whole colony of mansuring candidates you just keep in tiny,
darkened rooms. But you know which I could understand. But
(30:26):
it would be so much easier to uh influence an
infiltrated cult than it would be you know what I mean. Right,
It's it's a lot more plausible that that would happen.
Because you, again, if we take the standpoint of one
of these groups c I, R FBI infiltrating them and
keeping tabs on them, that makes perfect sense to me.
(30:49):
Um controlling one, Ah, rising up the ranks and then
controlling one, Now that is interesting. That's the angle that
you and I would take, uh, not that we have
considered that, but but we hope that you guys have
enjoyed this episode, and we hope that we have provided
enough fascinating things to to get you going in different directions.
(31:12):
And we want to hear back from you when you
come out of the rabbit hole, especially Matt. I'd like
to hear about this sort of idea in other cultures
and countries, like we know that China has an adversarial
relationship with the Fallongong culture, which I'm probably mispronouncing. We
know that UM, the church and the state in many
(31:34):
cases often clash and in some cases they start to
become synchronous. UM. We also know that UM some quasi
religious groups have been involved heavily in government, like P two,
which we earlier UM. I mentioned it in the wrong spot,
but P two in Italy deserves a mention right, which
(31:56):
would be a Freemason associated group, associated lodge that has
a lot of things, had a lot of fingers and
a lot of Italian pies. I guess they were running.
You know, they had an undue influence, is what I'm saying.
I get you, man, So what do you think? Is
(32:17):
there any one of these topics that you've watched our videos?
Maybe you want us to go deeper into any of this.
Do you have any opinions about you know, whether or
not you think a cult is being infiltrated and then
perhaps is now run by the icy cold hands of
the c I nice, nice imagery. I'm trying to go
more Halloween here and I'm not sure if it's being
(32:39):
effective or not, but you keep going with it. But
right to us, guys, Yeah, yeah. You can find us
on Facebook. You can find us on Twitter. We have
a website called stuff they don't want you to know
where you can see let's see all of our videos,
all of our podcast Uh. You occasionally put a blog
up there. Uh, so check us out there. And if
(32:59):
you want to play magic with me, I'm on mt
g O and I go by conspiracy Stuff. Check it out.
Play a game with me. Come on and uh, ladies
and gentlemen, my co host here is serious about that.
He will play magic the Gathering with you. And that's
the end of this classic episode. If you have any
thoughts or questions about this episode, you can get into
(33:20):
contact with us in a number of different ways. One
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Oh, I've been waiting for this one. This would do
intelligence agencies running cults. Oh man, We we learned so
much in the years following this classic episode that, like,
if we went back in time and talk to each
other now about this or the future versions of uh
Been Matt Noel went and talked to the past versions
of Noel, Matt and Ben, we would sound like crazy people. Yeah,
(00:24):
it's true. I mean we already do a little bit sometimes,
but this would just exacerbate that experience for sure. And
in this case, we're discussing whether or not there's any
kind of strategy to having control of occult, Like, is
there a reason that an intelligence agency could make use
of a group of like minded people that follow a
(00:45):
single leader or maybe a group of people? Why would
you want that? And has it happened? Let's stick around.
You might just find out from UFOs two Ghosts and
government cover ups. History is riddled with unexplained events. You
can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't
want you to now, Wall wall, wall long, Welcome back
(01:14):
to the show, everyone. This is stuff they don't want
you to know. I'm Matt and I'm Ben. Welcome back,
guys today it's getting exciting. You know, listeners can't see
this right now, Matt, but you have a you have
a weird grin on an air of mischief about And
(01:36):
perhaps it's just the most wonderful time of the year,
which is what you want to call Halloween on this show.
Or maybe you got something up your sleeves there. Maybe
every time salmon comes around. I feel a little bit
that way. Yes, the correct pronunciation, which we learned the
hard way. Yes. Uh, listeners out there who also watch
(02:00):
our videos, you know that Ben and I have tried
our hand at starting one of those what do you
call them? Cults? Um, it went pretty well, it did.
You can actually see some of the results in a
video series that we did. One episode in particular wherein Matt,
you as the cult leader, have sent me out to
proselytize our coworkers. Well, I will say that I was
(02:24):
not self appointed. Well, you know, sometimes the Godhead just
finds you right. Right, So we we do have a
video where we take a satirical look at some of
the some of the operations that cults. You some of
the techniques would be a better work, right, How occult
begins right, and how a cult grows, and how it
(02:47):
maintains loyalty ideology and pushes people into increasingly unusual decisions.
Right sure, And uh, you know if if you work
in the law or if you work with logistics, then
you're well aware of decision trees and how with a
little bit of forethought and with some careful puppet stringing,
(03:10):
you can place people, uh, very easily into a situation
that they would have never ever in a million years
thought they would do. And which brings us to our
next side of the story here. And what's that meant? Well,
we're asking an interesting question here today. Do intelligence agencies
(03:32):
run cults? Uh? What an interesting question yet fascinating even
now in the United States. When we say intelligence agencies,
we're talking specifically in this sense about things like the
FBI and the CIA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central
Intelligence Agency. And we know that these alphabet agencies, specifically
(03:54):
those two and also the n s A and several
other of them, they are actively monitoring groups, all kinds
of individuals that they consider to be let's say, possible
threats to the national security. Can you guys hear the
finger quotations we just put around that the air quotes.
That's because national security is often vaguely defined and increasingly so.
(04:18):
So just for examples. Uh, what what's something that these
agencies would monitor. One that you are probably aware of
is the occupy movement that happened several years ago and
is still ongoing today. Um. You can look there's um
a Guardian article that we looked at about how the
FBI coordinated the entire crackdown, well not the entire but
(04:41):
a large portion of the crackdown on the occupy movement. Um,
and that's by Naomi Wolf. You can check that out. Yeah,
we've got a quotation here. Part of this that we
pulled from this article for you guys to hear is uh.
In this article in the Guardian, Naomi Wolf talks about
the documents that emerged showing how closely the alphabet agencies
(05:03):
and private sector entities cooperated, sometimes merging into a single
entity known as the Domestic Security Alliance Counsel. Here's a
quote and reveals this merged entity to have one centrally planned,
locally executed mission. The documents and short show the cops
and Department of Homeland Security working for and with banks
(05:24):
to target, arrest and politically disabled peaceful American citizens. That
really happened. Yeah, yeah, yep, And we know that that's
not the first time it happens. We know that throughout
US history, other groups have been civilian groups, mind you,
have been monitored by the FBI in particular, but also
(05:46):
other government agencies, and the FBI in particular because it's
within the United States, that's why they're the agency looking
at it. And we've looked at this before with Coentel pro.
When you look at the way that they handled the
FBI handled MLK Martin Luther King Jr. And how like
how they monitored his phone calls, they watched all of it,
(06:09):
like all kinds of just spying on this guy, went
through his mail, yeah, manipulating, sending him threats. Very interesting
and scary. Then you've also got the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, right, Yeah,
the s c LC as well as m OKA and
other members affiliated. Both individuals and groups affiliated with the
(06:30):
civil rights movement were aggressively monitored and targeted, but they
weren't the only ones. There was also what would be
called the New Left, where people pushing for Irish independence,
an exile group called Cuban Power UH and people fighting
for Puerto ricandependence and so on. It even gets a
little bit crazier than that. We're talking about monitoring, right, Yeah,
(06:51):
groups that you would not think would be monitored and
try me really okay. Vegetarians, Oh the isis of restaurants. Huh.
They're dangerous, man, more dangerous than you could ever know.
Also environmentalists, And I can see the angle with environmentalists
because there is the uh I don't I forget the
(07:13):
term for it. Eco terrorism? Yeah, um, I mean that
does exist, that is a real thing. But vegetarians, I'm
trying to think if maybe there's an angle for on
Santo to get involved. I wonder that's not a bad question.
We have a we have an interesting story to point
you toward. Check out the story of an informant named Anna.
(07:35):
And Anna was asked to infiltrate things like vegan potlucks,
looking for eco terrorists, people who would be a threat
to h quote unquote national security. Right. I watched recently
a movie on HBO. I believe it was called The East.
I think that's what it's called. How about eco terrorists
(07:59):
and this other are independent agency that sends people to
infiltrate them and I wonder where some of maybe the
story of Anna comes into play. Yeah, now, from what
we understand, the informant Anna is came forward because this
person may or may not be female, but clearly I
think it's female. Uh, this person is disillusioned with the
(08:25):
strategies used by domestic intelligence agencies. If you haven't checked
it out yet, checked out our video about whether the
whether these guys are on the up and up and
obeying the law when they do the monetary and they
certainly were not doing it during co and Telpro, which
is why Congress changed some of the laws. But how
(08:48):
many of those laws got changed back a little tidbit
here in two thousand and two under the Bush administration,
some of those laws were rescinded in the interest of
wait for it, National Secure a d We better not
make that a drinking game, because somebody's going to get
alcohol poisoning. Um. And you know this. We also know
(09:08):
that if we're just talking about monitoring a lot of
socialist leaning religious groups that were anti war pacifist groups
have been targeted. In short, Matt, they could target pretty
much anyone they wanted, But did they actually infiltrate these groups? Well,
we're gonna find out really soon. After a quick word
(09:31):
from one of our sponsors, and we're back and we
can answer this question. In the previous part of the podcast,
we talked about monitoring groups illegally, but now it's time
to talking about something else. Right, Infiltration, Now that's another
(09:53):
thing that we've talked about several times video, But for
this we're talking about civilian groups and relig just groups
and how the FBI has infiltrated them before. Right, Yes,
infiltrated them, but not just to infiltrate and surveil, not
just infiltrate as an informant. There's a line that they crossed.
So if our question is to intelligence agencies run cults,
(10:17):
we know that they have certainly influenced religions, and you
and I know, of course, and listeners you know if
you watched for video on cults, that the division between
a religion and occult is a little bit gray. Just
as one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter, one
person's religion is another person's cult. So we know that
(10:37):
the FBI CIA have used informants to enter into Weather Underground,
which was a group active a few decades before our time. Listeners,
some of you may remember the days of Weather Underground.
We know that more recently and controversially, uh, the FBI
has placed informants in mosques in the United States. Uh.
(11:00):
We covered this in our video. Is the FBI manufacturing terrorists?
Why do we use that title? Man, Well, it's because
it has to do with entrapment in one way, and
then also sending informants in to try and rile up
a group. So in this guy's case, Craig Montel, he
went into a mosque and while he was doing surveillance
(11:23):
on most of the people in one of these mosques,
she was also he was also talking to them about
jihad and trying to rile everybody up. And what they
did is they contacted Well, first of all, they put
a restraining order, so they said, don't come back here anymore.
This is not what Islam is about. Yeah, we are
(11:45):
not the people you're looking for. And then they also
called the FBI. Yeah, and they said, look, there's this
crazy guy who is trying to bomb places and trying
to get members of our mosque in there, and he's
harassing people and the FBI. You know, I can't imagine
the phone call that happened between there when someone said
(12:06):
someone said, yeah, there's this guy who is uh, we
got a report that there may be terrorist activity at
this mosque, and who reported it the mosque and then
go okay, well, thank you for the call. They put
the phone down, heavy sigh. They pick it up and
they ring and they go, Craig, the jig is up,
get out of there. I mean, but that that has
to be that that is such an important question though,
(12:29):
and that goes to the question of infiltration versus running
or influencing occult because the the idea here that critics
of this would would site is just as you said,
matt entrapment, you know exactly. And so let's let's look
at another place that they've infiltrated. Another topic that we've
(12:49):
covered heavily owned video recently are NGOs, non government organizations
and the c i A. We we mentioned that they
send assets in two look at groups such as oh,
I don't know, Peace Corps US aid right, yeah, there
are a lot of them, and it is sometimes with
(13:12):
the organization's understanding that they'll be sending in an informant
or an asset, and sometimes it's without that understanding. It's
just what who knew that John Doe wasn't really from
every town Kansas. It's so weird to me. It happens,
you know, it happens, and uh it's also part of
the reason why we hear such a stink. When people
(13:35):
who are working for Western n GEO are detained in uh,
non Western country, often there's this implication, whether true or not,
and I think you have to go case by case
basis whether true or not, there's this implication from the
capturing country that these people were not you know, kids
(13:56):
work college kids, working for the Peace Corps. They were uh,
plants from the CIA or some other intelligence agency. I
can't imagine being in that position, finding someone from an
n g O who's doing something extremely suspicious and they go, oh, man, okay,
uh this could be a CIA agent. Uh gotta handle
(14:18):
this carefully. Yeah, oh man, I see, Yeah, that's a
really weird phone call to get to. And then they
call the They call the CIA. The guy goes, oh,
what really, and he hangs up. He says thank you,
hangs up the phone, He lets out along sigh. He
picks it up, dials the number, and says, Craig beautiful
(14:39):
back as far as we know, ladies and gentlemen, that
did not actually happen. But what does happen on a
regular basis is that foreign intelligence assets are also put
in State Department in bussies. Right. We also know that
there's very compelling evidence of CIA and FBI front companies
and were dummy organizations, which you and I covered in
(15:00):
some of our Gary web stuff. Right. So these we
airline companies with names that are just so vague and
boring like Premier Executive Transportation Services. I fell asleep just
reading that out loud, uh, and inter Mountain Aviation. We
also know that financial organizations also operate in foreign countries,
you know, a shell company for the purpose of funneling money.
(15:23):
So what does this all tell us? Well, to me,
it says that our initial question at the top perhaps
isn't all that crazy. Maybe a government agency or a
project really could involve some kind of front cult or
a dummy cult. Okay, So then let's go over some
(15:43):
of the illegal things, straight up illegal that the c I, A,
n FBI and or FBI have done proven. Yes, oh okay,
all right, um, let's see where does start. There's a
good one that I can go. Okay, hit me with
your best shot. Almost started singing, mk ultra, that's nothing
(16:08):
to sing about, mk ultra. We've also done some videos
on that. Mk Ultra, as you know, is a blanket
term for a series of related experiments which involved everything
from trying to create a real life Manchurian candidate that
would be brainwashed assassin on command two, uh, seeing if
(16:29):
LSD was a truth serum, and just looking at how
humans interact when they're on hallucinogens that way. And I
still think that one guy was assassinated. I don't think
he Yeah, I don't think he just did acid and
jumped out of a window. Yeah. Again, that's my personal opinion, folks.
(16:52):
That is not that is not in any way proven
the official stories that he committed suicide. Yeah, and he wouldn't.
He wouldn't be the first or last person to jump
from a high building on some kind of you know drug. However, Uh,
I have to a lot of force to propel yourself
through glass. Right, All right, well, okay, what uh what
(17:13):
about the Tuskegee experiment right where a group of people,
I forget what state it was in, but they were
not given they were okay, they had syphilis, but they
were not treated, uh, to cure the syphilis. They were
just studied, right and given placebo medications. Uh. These were
(17:35):
African American men in a tremendously racist time in the
US past. I know a few of our listeners will say, well,
it's tremendously racist today, but that it was very, very
openly institutionalized racism to the point where it made it
okay from a governmental standpoint to experiment on these black men.
(17:57):
And Uh. While the us IS official position is that
the U S admits this incident occurred over a very
long period of time, but they say that these guys
started out with syphilis and simply were not treated. However,
other people, anecdotal reports of people who were involved at
(18:18):
the times, say that they were given syphilis. Right. But
we did we did a correction when we first did
that episode, and we came back and we said, um
that according to the official government standpoint, which I think
is how we phrased it. Uh, these people were not
given syphilis. They had it already and they were not treated,
(18:39):
which is just as insidious and unethical in my opinion. Wow.
Oh yeah, and then there's domestic chemical exposures. Speaking of that,
that's proven as well. So government agencies would just go
to the rooftops of some poor neighborhoods and they did
this more than once. And uh, and chemicals, you know,
(19:02):
to see what happened to stimulate a widespread chemical exposure. Yeah,
and just you know, go to the local hospital and
find out, well, who came in with what, how many?
How did it manifest? Man? Oh yeah, excuse me, listeners,
I'm meant to say simulate, not stimulate. I believe I
misspoke there. Um. And of course we know that warrantless
(19:24):
snooping hand or surveillance is I would say de facto illegal,
but other people would say it's the facto illegal, being
that some of the interpretations of the law remains secret
because of national security. Oh man, please don't be drunk
(19:46):
right now. Yeah. Uh. And then of course, how could
we go without mentioning uh, side ops such as impersonating
someone's identity, anonymous harassment, smear campaigns, and all that other stuff. Uh,
this would be stuff like you mentioned earlier, Matt. What
would they do with Martin Luther King's mail? Oh, well,
(20:06):
all kinds of one things with his mail? Um, they
would intercept the mail, check it out, see what's in there.
If there's anything juicy, make copies of things, then put
it back in the mail. They would send him threats
and things like that in the mail. Um, they'd impersonate people.
That's what it is. They would impersonate, like let's say
(20:28):
a letter from one of his close contacts that was
just seething and mad at him or um. I think
there was one instance where they tried to initiate some
kind of affair. Oh yeah, I had heard. I have
heard that story, but I haven't looked it up myself.
I don't mean to give out false information. I hope
(20:49):
that I'm not, but it's in my in the back
of my head somewhere. Well, we do know they am okay,
did have affairs, so it's not out of the realm
of possibility unfortunately. Uh what Speaking of the mail, it's
time for a break and we'll be back afterwards. Much
sponsored And we're back so so far for a quick recap.
(21:13):
We have looked at We've looked at illegal things the
government agencies have done in the past. We have looked
at things that they're monitoring activities. We've looked at infiltration activities,
and now it's time to get to the real Here's
where it gets crazy part. Did a government agency ever
run occult? So here are some of the alleged examples. Ben.
(21:38):
The first one is Jones Town. Now, some people believe
that Jim Jones will we know that Jim Jones was
running a cult, the People's Temple, the People's Temple that
moved from several places. I can't remember the initial starting place,
but I know it moved to California, then to Guiana.
And the theory is that he was running a psychological
(22:02):
experiment of mind control on these people, on behalf of
the CIA, or at least possibly related somehow to the CIA.
I see. And that's that's an interesting idea, which we
do explore in that video you mentioned earlier, because the
People's Temple at the time was a bit unusual in
(22:23):
that it actively encouraged acceptance of all creeds, and it
was a little bit left leaning, which would be otherwise
the kind of thing that the US government would have
closely monitored at that time for possible descent or a
threat to national security. Well, it's strange to me that
(22:46):
that it would still be. I guess the reason why
it was under CIA or why it's thought to be
under CIA is because they moved outside of the country
to Guiana, which was a country in the U S
sphere of influence or but I guess not officially inside
the US so it wouldn't be FBI, right, Yeah. But
(23:07):
also you know, in the evolution of occult, they may
have just moved to a more isolated place to further
cement the leader's grip on people. They had guards, armed guards,
increasingly militarized. Uh, there were people who wanted to escape.
There are some huge unanswered questions to this day which
(23:29):
you and I deal with in the videos about how
stuff went down, how the congressman was killed, how the
people were killed, who committed suicide, reports of additional people
or assets, even working to UH sanitize the operation and
then later painting it as a suicide when it may
(23:52):
have been instead as as the theorist would advance a
massacre UH of a psychop on wrong psy op rather,
I think I think that's fascinating at this point, the
evidence that you and I could find in there, while tantalizing,
was far from certain sure, And but there wasn't a
(24:14):
CIA agent who was working with Leo or was it
is his name, Leo Ryan, the congressman. Congressman Leo Ryan.
And then there is Dwire And you can hear on
the recording right that Jim Jones are out of here.
Get Dwire out of here. Yeah, that is true. Um,
but at this point that while that is one of
(24:35):
the most popular theories for an intelligence a du T
running a cult, it is ultimately at this point it
doesn't have solid proof yet. Sure, it just has troubling
unanswered questions. Um. Can I tell you about one of
my favorites. Oh, I love this one, all right. Uh.
This is the idea that scientology and we're not calling
(24:56):
scientology occult, so lawyers, please don't get mad. This is
a theory that Matt and I did not make up,
that the Church of Scientology is somehow run by an
intelligence agency. And this is this is actually a theory
that is kind of more well known in the x
(25:18):
scientologist community than it is in the mainstream. Um never
been a scientologist part of the world. Uh. And the
the idea here is that the current head of Scientology,
David Miskevig, is working for the FBI or the CIA,
that he is an asset. And you'll see ex scientologists
(25:38):
who say that they left the organization because miss Kevig
somehow changed it, And um, you and I of course
are not scientologist, nor have we ever been. We have
read about Scientology, but we've also always read about it
from the outside endure, Uh little background. You hooked us
(25:58):
up with an excellent book that uh you lent to
me earlier, right, yes, going clear, and I already forgot
the author. But it's fantastic. It looks at it from
an investigative reporter angle. Um, on all these different angles,
and the uh, the author allowed Scientology to go in
and make footnotes and comment on the entire book. Right. Yeah,
(26:21):
The book itself is on the up and up. It's
a great piece of journalism. It does not address this theory.
It's more about the evolution of society. But it does
show the change of the Church in Scientology when David
ms Kevie took over, right yeah. It just makes no
claims about this being anything other than a change in leadership. Right.
(26:43):
So it's it's a popular theory in a in a
small segment of the global population, but it's it's a
fascinating one, especially when we consider that the Church of
scientology and the United States government had historically uh versarial relationships. Yes,
again detailed in that book quite beautifully. You can also
(27:06):
check out our video operations snow White. We've got got
one other. Of course, we've got to save this guy,
good old Charlie Manson. Yep, maybe nothing good about him,
but he is certainly old. The idea is that Manson
was groomed by aspects are assets of the CIA to
perform mind control experiments in the field. Yes, that would
(27:29):
be a good place to do some and of course
in this point, at this point, apparently uh, Matt and
I believe that these the CIA scientists are evil Germans. Yeah,
I didn't want to do a uncent Oh no, no, no,
that would probably that would probably get us in some
hot water. But we'll see what We'll see what comes
(27:50):
out of our cartoonish Indiana Jones German accents the the
The idea here, though, is fascinating because this is one
of those strings that when you pull it unravels more
and more and more stuff. So we know that Charles
Manson had some uh encounters with dianetics, which was a
(28:11):
precursor to scientology, during some of his time in prison,
and during some of his time in the hippie counterculture,
when he also encountered a group called Uh was it
is it four? Pie? Or Pie? Is the alleged Ah,
yeah it's Pie not P two. That's there, Okay, yes, yes,
that's the one that David Berkowitz talked about the Son
(28:33):
of Sam killer and then got his throat cut in
prison and used to speak again. Right, and there's uh,
there's some I you know, I hate to say it.
I hate to say it, but there is some really
compelling evidence that the Son of Sam did not act alone. Matt,
(28:55):
that detective who never gave up. I think he's right. Yeah,
And uh, this this argument here, uh, this goes into
the idea that there was we first found out about
it with Son of Sam and Charles Manson, but it
ultimately expands into this idea that there is some sort
of serial killer cult or some sort of um tacit
(29:17):
agreement to turn a blind eye to certain unethical experiments
or criminal homicidal behavior. Now, of course, in most cases,
logically it doesn't make sense to think that so many
people could keep that kind of secret, you know what
I mean. That's that's a big one ordinary claim yeah,
(29:41):
but fascinating. Right, But Ben, is this conspiracy theory or
is it conspiracy fact? Ah? Yes, Okay, Well here's the thing.
It's unlikely that an intelligence group, at least the ones
we're talking about again in the United States, would manifest
acture an entire cult. Yeah. I'm trying to come up
(30:05):
with any idea of why you would manufacture an entire cult.
To what end would you do this? I'm I'm honestly
not sure unless you you know, unless you wanted a
whole colony of mansuring candidates you just keep in tiny,
darkened rooms. But you know which I could understand. But
(30:26):
it would be so much easier to uh influence an
infiltrated cult than it would be you know what I mean. Right,
It's it's a lot more plausible that that would happen.
Because you, again, if we take the standpoint of one
of these groups c I, R FBI infiltrating them and
keeping tabs on them, that makes perfect sense to me.
(30:49):
Um controlling one, Ah, rising up the ranks and then
controlling one, Now that is interesting. That's the angle that
you and I would take, uh, not that we have
considered that, but but we hope that you guys have
enjoyed this episode, and we hope that we have provided
enough fascinating things to to get you going in different directions.
(31:12):
And we want to hear back from you when you
come out of the rabbit hole, especially Matt. I'd like
to hear about this sort of idea in other cultures
and countries, like we know that China has an adversarial
relationship with the Fallongong culture, which I'm probably mispronouncing. We
know that UM, the church and the state in many
(31:34):
cases often clash and in some cases they start to
become synchronous. UM. We also know that UM some quasi
religious groups have been involved heavily in government, like P two,
which we earlier UM. I mentioned it in the wrong spot,
but P two in Italy deserves a mention right, which
(31:56):
would be a Freemason associated group, associated lodge that has
a lot of things, had a lot of fingers and
a lot of Italian pies. I guess they were running.
You know, they had an undue influence, is what I'm saying.
I get you, man, So what do you think? Is
(32:17):
there any one of these topics that you've watched our videos?
Maybe you want us to go deeper into any of this.
Do you have any opinions about you know, whether or
not you think a cult is being infiltrated and then
perhaps is now run by the icy cold hands of
the c I nice, nice imagery. I'm trying to go
more Halloween here and I'm not sure if it's being
(32:39):
effective or not, but you keep going with it. But
right to us, guys, Yeah, yeah. You can find us
on Facebook. You can find us on Twitter. We have
a website called stuff they don't want you to know
where you can see let's see all of our videos,
all of our podcast Uh. You occasionally put a blog
up there. Uh, so check us out there. And if
(32:59):
you want to play magic with me, I'm on mt
g O and I go by conspiracy Stuff. Check it out.
Play a game with me. Come on and uh, ladies
and gentlemen, my co host here is serious about that.
He will play magic the Gathering with you. And that's
the end of this classic episode. If you have any
thoughts or questions about this episode, you can get into
(33:20):
contact with us in a number of different ways. One
of the best is to give us a call. Our
number is one eight three three st d w y
t K If you don't want to do that, you
can send us a good old fashioned email. We are
conspiracy at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff they don't
want you to know is a production of I heart Radio.
(33:40):
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United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.