Holy Watermelon

You don't get many holidays that are more Christian than Christmas, right? The celebration of the birth of Jesus on December 25th is second only to Easter as far as Christian holidays go. But what if we told you that a lot of what we do is borrowed?

Did you know that many of the Christmas traditions we know and love have roots in other cultures and "pagan" traditions? In this episode, Katie and Preston chat about some of the most beloved Christmas customs like Christmas trees, caroling, mistletoe, yule logs, Santa Claus himself, and more!

Many of these practices come from the short days, and unreasonably cold weather that most of the Northern hemisphere experiences this time of year. 

With all of these pagan beliefs, it's no surprise that Christmas has been banned before. Oh wait, it was banned in the 1600s by Christian Puritans because of all the material excess.

Ancient Egyptian, Norse, Roman, Siberian and more! We dive into the different cultures, deities and beliefs that influence this modern-day Christian celebration. 

Here's a link to Vivian Bricker's terrible dissertation.

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Deism may sound a lot like theism, and while they’re etymologically the same, the belief systems are more nuanced. 

In this episode, we deep dive into Deist belief and its rise to popularity in the 17th and 18th centuries. We explain the core belief of the initial creator, but he’s not around anymore—kind of like the dad that left for a pack of smokes. 

The Enlightenment made deism a popular belief system as people looked to logic, reason, science, and observation to explain the world around them, rather than revelation. Deist philosophers believe in a God that created the universe, but they also believe in science to explain how things work. 

If you’re an American history buff, we also talk about the founding fathers and their religious beliefs. While we don’t have great records for all of them, it’s clear that some were Deists, most notably Thomas Jefferson and his book The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, aka The Jefferson Bible.

That’s right, Deism is a spectrum, and we talk about the different deism types and how they overlap with other faith groups.

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[00:00:11] Preston Meyer: Banana phone.

[00:00:14] Katie Dooley: Wrong! Watermelon phone.

[00:00:16] Preston Meyer: I've got this feeling. It's so appealing.

[00:00:20] Katie Dooley: You've got a good voice, Preston.

[00:00:20] Preston Meyer: Really?

[00:00:25] Katie Dooley: Not properly. Even that wasn't really proper. Well, here we are. Back again. I'm. I'm Katie.

[00:00:37] Preston Meyer: I'm Preston.

[00:00:38] Katie Dooley: And this is.

[00:00:39] Both Speakers: The Holy Watermelon podcast.

[00:00:42] Katie Dooley: We're getting more theoretical again for a little bit.

[00:00:46] Preston Meyer: A little bit, yeah. Today we're going to get back into a really nebulous category of ideas, I guess.

[00:00:54] Katie Dooley: You know it's rough when I text Preston to be like, I don't know what to research right now, and I definitely did for this. So, uh, today we are talking about deism. Not to be confused with theism, which we will get to.

[00:01:08] Preston Meyer: Yeah,

[00:01:09] Katie Dooley: The big D. Deism. Sorry.

[00:01:12] Preston Meyer: The frustrating thing we'll get right into it. My words saying deism and theism are etymologically identical. If you break down the parts of the words, there's no difference in their meaning. It's a little frustrating.

[00:01:25] Katie Dooley: It means there is a god.

[00:01:27] Preston Meyer: Well, it's. Yeah, the belief in a god of some kind and the belief that he exists and does things and whatever. Generally, there's the belief that he's the creator. It's usually a he. Yeah. The two words weren't differentiated in English until the 1600s. The oldest instance of the word in English literature, with its current meaning is in Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy, published in 1621.

[00:01:56] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So Deism already. So deism was a popular movement in the 17th and 18th centuries that it. And of course, it's a spectrum. We'll say that a couple times, uh, generally, except that there's an initial mover or creator that has either picked up and left like a dad going for a pack of smokes or one that just watches and doesn't get involved.

[00:02:21] Preston Meyer: It's like when you seal off your little terrarium forever, and maybe you'll open that cork one more time to add just a tiny little bit more water. That's it.

[00:02:30] Katie Dooley: Like Lisa Simpson in The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror, I think it was a Treehouse of Horror and she created a real world.

[00:02:38] Preston Meyer: That sounds about right.

[00:02:39] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:02:40] Preston Meyer: I... I haven't watched all of The Simpsons yet. Amanda and I are about halfway through watching all of it.

[00:02:47] Katie Dooley: I like that the it's on Disney Plus because I love watching Treehouse of Horror and it's almost never mind spooky was over. It's December.

[00:02:58] Preston Meyer: Yep. Oh, well.

[00:03:04] Katie Dooley: Deism is in a category similar to agnosticism, so to deist believe in logic, reason, and scientific observation. So they believe in the existence of God based on reason. It would be irrational to have an initial mover for all this cool stuff we have, but not necessarily in any sort of divine revelation or prophecy.

[00:03:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah, of course it's a spectrum.

[00:03:28] Katie Dooley: We actually, I found a really great chart online, and it breaks down all types of modern day agnosticism. My goodness, all.

[00:03:36] Preston Meyer: Deism?

[00:03:36] Katie Dooley: Modern day deism. And uh, there's like 15 different kinds. And I didn't know it could get that specific, but it do.

[00:03:45] Preston Meyer: We'll post that on our Discord for everybody to look at. So the ideas of deism in some form or another have actually been around for longer than recorded history. We've been talking about gods for a long, long time. And for pretty much that same amount of time. There's always been somebody going. Sure, there is a God, but is he actually going to get involved?

[00:04:08] Katie Dooley: Maybe if we rain dance. I'm shimmying to the microphone.

[00:04:12] Preston Meyer: Yeah, but it's it. The existence of deism as a movement is only about a few hundred years old, dating back to the, well, the early 1600s.

[00:04:25] Katie Dooley: The Enlightenment.

[00:04:26] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:04:26] Katie Dooley: Along with the invention of the printing press and the popularity of reading, brought a bunch of splinter groups and novel philosophies branching out from the militantly dogmatic Church of Rome. Interesting how ideas start to change once knowledge is available.

[00:04:42] Preston Meyer: Right? Yeah. Of course, around this time, the Church of Rome is, you know, burning people for trying to get their hands on a printed copy of the Bible, the publication or translation of the Bible in any language other than Latin would really ruin your life. Yay!

[00:04:59] Katie Dooley: Yay! Can't wait for Martin Luther.

[00:05:03] Preston Meyer: Uh, yeah. So rationalism brought a new way of looking at God as unnecessary for the day to day operation of the natural world. Instead of having people saying, oh, yeah, God send the thunder and the lightning every time it shows up. So, you know, it's just a natural phenomenon that all of this was set in motion, the creation of the world. And now it just happens.

[00:05:24] Katie Dooley: I have a few friends who think that for, uh, like evolution versus creationism, but why not both? Kind of a deist idea. You put everything here, and then we evolved.

[00:05:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that fits pretty solidly into this framework.

[00:05:39] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:05:40] Preston Meyer: The cosmos are very often compared to a watch that can operate without the attention of its maker. It's just solid enough. That's the the basis of this entire philosophical principle.

[00:05:56] Katie Dooley: I didn't look into it at the time, which now I'm regretting, but it was almost answers the question of, you know, things, bad things that happen, you know? How can there be a God if we had a holocaust?

[00:06:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:06:11] Katie Dooley: Right.

[00:06:12] Preston Meyer: Absolutely.

[00:06:12] Katie Dooley: Um, I mean, I can kind of get behind this.

[00:06:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah. In fact, a lot of deistic thinkers, especially pantheistic thinkers, write a lot on this very subject.

[00:06:22] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:06:23] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:06:24] Katie Dooley: Interesting. So someone has got there.

[00:06:26] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

[00:06:28] Katie Dooley: This isn't a unique idea, Preston. No, no, there goes my master thesis.

[00:06:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And, of course, considering the corruption in the Vatican and the troubles of the Dark Ages, it was pretty easy for people to believe that God had abandoned the world.

[00:06:43] Katie Dooley: The plague...

[00:06:44] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So deism became relatively quite popular in Europe, especially England, in France, where For all of the great thinkers and writers were thinking about this particular thing at that time.

[00:06:58] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Cool. I'm having other thoughts. I'm...

[00:07:01] Preston Meyer: Well. What's our podcast about, if not our thoughts?

[00:07:05] Katie Dooley: Um. What do these actually believe? If they believe there's a God that doesn't hang around to do anything?

[00:07:15] Preston Meyer: I mean, that's that's what they believe.

[00:07:18] Katie Dooley: Can we. Wow. Okay, podcast is over guys. Nine minutes. Hope you liked it.

[00:07:26] Preston Meyer: So it depends on who you ask. Uh, one of the first big writers in deism in England was Lord Herbert of Cherbury. Uh, he's known as the father of English deism because he managed to get a little bit written to get things really moving. Of course, later on people are like, no, Herbert, your ideas are terrible. But for a little while, these were the things.

[00:07:49] Katie Dooley: And, well, I actually found him reading the list of Modern Deist beliefs. A handful of them still follow these five.

[00:07:55] Preston Meyer: Yes. But of course, nothing's monolithic.

[00:07:58] Katie Dooley: No.

[00:07:59] Preston Meyer: All right. So his principles included a belief in the existence of a deity coming from a Christian community. Makes perfect sense. This is the thing you cannot walk away from. Next, we have the obligation to Revere such a power. If you want to keep your popularity in a Christian nation, definitely keep worshiping God.

[00:08:20] Katie Dooley: Yep.

[00:08:22] Preston Meyer: And of course, there's some reverence that makes sense to afford to your creator if you expect there to be one. We have the identification of worship with practical morality, which is kind of an interesting thing. The idea that there's there is a best way to live, even though you deny that God is telling people what to do and how to live.

[00:08:45] Katie Dooley: I mean, it comes back to the story of the good atheist.

[00:08:48] Preston Meyer: Right? There's, you know, all of this is based on reason. If you can see the behavior does harm to the community, avoid that behavior.

[00:08:58] Katie Dooley: Wow, logic!

[00:08:59] Preston Meyer: Practical morality.

[00:09:00] Katie Dooley: I like that. Practical morality.

[00:09:02] Preston Meyer: Next on this list, we have the obligation to repent of sin and to abandon it, which has to rely on this idea of practical morality. Because you've got no other basis on how to judge what counts as sin. When you deny that God reveals what behavior he wants.

[00:09:18] Katie Dooley: Right.

[00:09:19] Preston Meyer: But there's if there is sin, there is not only the need to abandon it, but also this idea that there is punishment for sin in the afterlife. Which of course, not all deists believe there is an afterlife. It's a mixed bag.

[00:09:36] Katie Dooley: Wow. Like Skittles!

[00:09:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah, sure. And Divine Recompense not only offers rewards of a negative kind for sin, but also great rewards for good behavior, which of course pretty subjective.

[00:09:55] Katie Dooley: Yes. And, uh, of course, we're going to go into other schools of thought for deism, but this actually feels like very like regular theistic to me.

[00:10:07] Preston Meyer: It does.

[00:10:08] Katie Dooley: And I can see why it's not as popular.

[00:10:11] Preston Meyer: Remember, putting a line between deism and theism is pretty tricky.

[00:10:17] Katie Dooley: It's like wiggly and dashed and try to keep everything that you want. Yeah.

[00:10:23] Preston Meyer: I mean, it doesn't help that the words do literally mean the same thing etymologically, and it's just the way we use them that makes the difference and how people label themselves. It's a little frustrating from a scholarly perspective.

[00:10:38] Katie Dooley: Yeah. There are two other key beliefs or assertions in deism. Number one is that reason, along with the natural world, is a valid source of religious knowledge. And number two, that revelation is not a valid source of religious knowledge.

[00:10:55] Preston Meyer: Yeah, this is offensive to people who belong to revelation related religions. It's a lot of Rs, but I pulled it off without stumbling through it, and I feel good about that. I mean, you can't talk about revelation academically without acknowledging that people just make stuff up all of the time. We've got one of the Ten Commandments is don't pretend God told you things so that you can get people to do what you want so...

[00:11:22] Katie Dooley: Please see our episode on prophets.

[00:11:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:11:26] Katie Dooley: Because there's no way to know.

[00:11:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So instead of trying to suss out which of these prophets are good and which of them are just making stuff up, don't worry about it. Treat them all like they're making it up. Rely on the natural world to explain whatever it is you're your after and some science is really solid and easy to recognize. Oh yeah, this can shape my worldview and other things aren't answered by science. And so deism is like, let's not worry about it.

[00:12:01] Katie Dooley: Not answered by science... Yet.

[00:12:03] Preston Meyer: Right? But for example, let's say the question of why am I here? What is my purpose in life? You're not going to get something terribly useful that inspires you to continue living from science.

[00:12:21] Katie Dooley: Fair. Theists philosophers generally agreed with the common enlightenment concept that God exists and created the universe, and God gave humans the ability to reason.

[00:12:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that ability to reason is super important. That's the great thesis of the entire library of philosophy we got out of the enlightenment is... You can think for yourself and screw the church who tells you not to.

[00:12:51] Katie Dooley: That's how the Scopes Monkey trial was won.

[00:12:54] Preston Meyer: The what now?

[00:12:54] Katie Dooley: The Scopes monkey trial about teaching creationism in schools.

[00:12:58] Preston Meyer: I don't know about this particular trial.

[00:13:00] Katie Dooley: I made a whole movie about it it's a very old trial.

[00:13:02] Preston Meyer: Okay, yeah. Tell me more.

[00:13:04] Katie Dooley: I forget what the movie is called. Inherit the Wind. It's actually really good. Maybe we'll make it a movie night, but it is like a old black and white movie, and it's whatever this guy versus the state. On whether we should teach creationism in schools. And his argument is, uh, God, give us a brain. Why aren't we using it?

[00:13:21] Preston Meyer: I like it.

[00:13:22] Katie Dooley: Yeah, but it's actually pretty. I mean, I've never been an old movie fan, so I should say it's actually a pretty good movie. So deist philosophers believe, to recap, God created the universe and exists, and God gave humans the ability to reason but Preston, what do they reject?

[00:13:41] Preston Meyer: They reject most of the big important ideas of Christianity. They rejected the Bible contains divine revelation. They reject the incomprehensible notion of the Trinity and pretty much any other mystery. If there's something that's gate kept to just any sort of elite, obviously it's ridiculous. All that kind of fun stuff. They also reject the ideas of miracles and prophecy. Not that the God in question couldn't offer revelation or get involved in... Mess around with things, but that he just he wouldn't do so frequently because that would defy the whole absentee father motif that they're building on.

[00:14:23] Katie Dooley: And actually, that was the point I was trying to think of earlier is, you know, you read the Bible and there's all these miracles and God's intervening, and now it's what are the 16, 1700s? And you're like.

[00:14:35] Preston Meyer: Why hasn't he fixed this?

[00:14:36] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Why is it so hard for us to get a hold of him? Did he did he change his phone number? So I can kind of see how that develops. Right if miracles happen for one group of people, why are they not continuing to happen? Or if God's intervening for one generation, how come not another?

[00:14:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah

[00:14:52] Katie Dooley: I mean, if you talk to some Christians, I would disagree with that statement. But, uh, I think generally there are no zombies walking around.

[00:15:03] Preston Meyer: Right. That depends on how you define zombie.

[00:15:10] Katie Dooley: Lazarus.

[00:15:10] Preston Meyer: I don't know if Lazarus was a zombie. I mean, raised from the dead. Yeah, so halfway there, but. Uh depends how you define zombie.

[00:15:19] Katie Dooley: Okay, so conversation for our Discord

[00:15:22] Preston Meyer: Maybe most deists believe that there was a perfect true religion at some point, but that people screwed everything up, as you know, people do.

[00:15:33] Katie Dooley: Also, literally how every religion starts.

[00:15:35] Preston Meyer: Right? For the deists who believe in Jesus, most will claim that he was a deist. Which feels a little weird saying that he wasn't a Jew.

[00:15:52] Katie Dooley: Maybe he was a Jewish deist.

[00:15:54] Preston Meyer: That's a solid way to modify the claim, and I'm okay with its assertion.

[00:16:05] Katie Dooley: No.

[00:16:06] Preston Meyer: Most people reject supernatural superstitions of all sorts. Like throwing salt over your shoulder. Hokum.

[00:16:15] Katie Dooley: A good word.

[00:16:17] Preston Meyer: Many hope that there is a spirit that survives death, but there's an awful lot of difference of opinion on what that could look like, or if it is even a thing. Because deism is not one giant rock, it's a whole bunch of things.

[00:16:35] Katie Dooley: I actually found this great quote from the PBS Faith book. And I am citing that because I didn't change the quote at all. Some days I believe that God never intervenes in human affairs, while other days believe, as George Washington did, that God does intervene through Providence, but that providence is inscrutable. Likewise, some disbelieve in an afterlife, while others do not, etc. so.

[00:17:02] Preston Meyer: It's a spectrum.

[00:17:03] Katie Dooley: Yay, spectrum! So sort of to the point of religion being rational or logical or natural. As an atheist, that's where it thought to me. But we did speak in one of our very I think it was our second episode about why religion exists and why humans are religious. Um, and so in that episode, we talk about how it made sense for tribal and nomadic tribes to have an all powerful being, to keep people in mind, because there's nothing else structuring society at this time.

[00:17:36] Preston Meyer: Mhm.

[00:17:36] Katie Dooley: There isn't even really a society. Like small groups of people.

[00:17:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I don't know. Does it take more than three people to make a society?

[00:17:48] Katie Dooley: That's a very philosophical episode. I don't know.

[00:17:52] Preston Meyer: Deism is a pretty philosophy heavy topic. The idea of that, that practical morality, it's a of all the different ways to try and keep a society in line, it's pretty solid. Pretty hard to find issue with it. Anyway, deism got relatively popular in England, France, 1700s, like we mentioned, and then of course spread its influence over North America. Then we get to see a variety of expressions of it here. Many of the American Founding Fathers were deists, but not all of them. In fact, there's definitely some that are commonly thought to be deists who probably weren't. It's some tricky business.

[00:18:41] Katie Dooley: Well, I think that's where deism is interesting and so hard to describe is because if you look at the spectrum of deism, it will overlap with atheism and it will overlap with theism.

[00:18:52] Preston Meyer: Well, okay. I'm okay with that. Second half overlap. Overlapping with theism is fine. You'll loads of Christian deists, but it can't overlap with atheism. That doesn't work.

[00:19:03] Katie Dooley: I mean, I think. The logic and the reason piece though.

[00:19:07] Preston Meyer: Okay. And that's, that's an overlap of values, but certainly not a religious overlap.

[00:19:13] Katie Dooley: How you think the universe works?

[00:19:15] Preston Meyer: Well, atheists don't talk about it being created by God.

[00:19:19] Katie Dooley: But I still think the universe works on science.

[00:19:23] Preston Meyer: Yeah it does.

[00:19:25] Katie Dooley: And we've talked about atheism being a religion.

[00:19:30] Preston Meyer: We have. But deists will deny atheism more than they'll deny any other religion.

[00:19:38] Katie Dooley: Well, their tips just touch maybe then.

[00:19:40] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:19:41] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:19:41] Preston Meyer: They share a wall. I'm okay with that. But nobody's trying to put a hole through this wall.

[00:19:54] Katie Dooley: Sorry. Back to America's founding father.

[00:19:57] Preston Meyer: Well, so we start out with a short list of the founding fathers who were deists. And I decided we need to explore this a little bit more. So Thomas Jefferson was raised Anglican, but did give up on Jesus completely later in life. Well, not completely completely. Almost completely. Denied that he was at all divine. Denied that he was the Son of God, but did appreciate him as a moral teacher.

[00:20:25] Katie Dooley: A historical Jesus.

[00:20:26] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Later in life, Thomas Jefferson described himself as a Unitarian. But I mean, Unitarians adopted a lot of deist beliefs, too. So it's not entirely separate. We'll talk more about Thomas Jefferson in a couple of minutes because he produced an interesting book.

[00:20:43] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:20:45] Preston Meyer: John Adams was a Unitarian rationalist, much like Jefferson, and also is fairly described as a deist, even though it's a little fuzzy on those lines there. James Monroe grew up in the Church of England, attended an Episcopalian church regularly as an adult, but he never talked much about religious matters in public or in written correspondence. Lots of scholars think he was probably a deist, but it is hard to be sure. Benjamin Franklin. He's an interesting fella.

[00:21:16] Katie Dooley: He really is.

[00:21:17] Preston Meyer: He was one of the presidents of Pennsylvania, I think. He was. He's considered the president of the United States who never got to be president of the United States. 

[00:21:26] Katie Dooley: Often.

[00:21:27] Preston Meyer: So often. 

[00:21:29] Katie Dooley: For actually being a president.

[00:21:30] Preston Meyer: Because he's on money. Yeah. You in America, you got to spend your money.

[00:21:34] Katie Dooley: So Alexander Hamilton, he was never president.

[00:21:37] Preston Meyer: What money is he on?

[00:21:38] Katie Dooley: $10. Founding father without a father.

[00:21:42] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:21:42] Katie Dooley: Got a lot farther, about working a lot harder by being a lot smarter. So that's two people that... They only have five bills!

[00:21:50] Preston Meyer: Yeah. There's a lot of people who think Alexander Hamilton might have been a deist, too, but hard to say for sure there, too. Benjamin Franklin's parents were English Puritans, but weirdly enough, they belonged to the most liberal of the Puritan churches in Boston. So they were like Puritan, but not like hardcore Puritan.

[00:22:09] Katie Dooley: Like you can't have alcohol unless you mix it with your coke.

[00:22:14] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:22:15] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:22:16] Preston Meyer: It's more like you don't don't uncover your ankles, but it's okay if your collarbone just peeks out of your collar.

[00:22:24] Katie Dooley: It's okay if you jump off the curb and get a glimpse of ankle. It's fine. Don't flog yourself over that.

[00:22:33] Preston Meyer: Ben did actually describe himself as a deist, but he also believed in a god that took an active role in establishing American independence. So he falls in that weird part of the spectrum where he says he's a deist. He does believe a lot of deist things, but he also doesn't believe 100% all of the core deist principles. It's kind of interesting. He interestingly enough, I thought also he tried to introduce Daily Common Prayer in the 1787 Constitutional Convention, which immediately got shut down so hard it didn't even go to a vote. So this dude was a praying man, wanted to make it requisite in government meetings.

[00:23:20] Katie Dooley: They were like, fuck no.

[00:23:21] Preston Meyer: Yeah, exactly. Which is interesting because there was still a lot of very religious people in that room, but they also agreed on this whole idea of disestablishment.

[00:23:34] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:23:37] Preston Meyer: And it's weird that those two are connected. You can pray without it being denomination specific prayer, but they decided, no, let's avoid the problem. Not happening, Ben.

[00:23:48] Katie Dooley: Well, because then you get people like me.

[00:23:51] Preston Meyer: Sure. People who don't want to pray.

[00:23:53] Katie Dooley: Don't want to pray.

[00:23:54] Preston Meyer: Yep. Makes perfect sense. I grabbed a little snippet out of Ben's autobiography. He says I never doubted the existence of the deity. He made the world and governed it by his providence, that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to men, that our souls are immortal, and that all crime will be punished and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter. So an awful lot of deists agreed with this, especially the ones that he hung out with on the regular, including the Founding Fathers. Of course, Americans really like to promote the documentation of all of the Founding fathers being Christians. There's only one exception who has never been associated with a church, but that's an outlier.

[00:24:41] Katie Dooley: Yeah, and that's where Preston did a great job digging into this, because if I googled, is Benjamin Franklin a Christian, you'd get yeah, for sure. And then is he a deist yeah for sure. Okay. Really good.

[00:24:55] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:24:55] Katie Dooley: Okay. Thanks.

[00:24:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's a little frustrating because well confirmation bias and Google, they are good buddies together. Very annoying. But there's a lot of scholarship on this specific subject, and there still remains a lot of argument on how Christian were these guys, how deist were these guys. So if you disagree with the conclusions that we're presenting, fine.

[00:25:27] Katie Dooley: Drop it in our Discord.

[00:25:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:25:30] Katie Dooley: I mean, your your research findings. Not just that you disagree with us.

[00:25:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Uh, James Madison almost always counted as a deist. He wasn't really religious at all. He did grow up in the Anglican Church. He was taught by Presbyterians, and he did read a lot of deist writings when he was young. And that's usually enough to convince people, oh, yeah, he was a deist, because when he got to make his own choices, it was deist writings, but he wasn't religious enough to be a deist. And then we come to George Washington, who people love to highlight. Oh, yeah, of course he was a deist. I'm not convinced until the people are convinced, that's fine. Not that I have any vested interest in him being a Christian. I really don't have any concern on the matter.

[00:26:19] Katie Dooley: It doesn't keep you up at night.

[00:26:20] Preston Meyer: Not even a little bit. Okay, good. But I'll share some of the things that I found. So he was baptized in the Church of England, which, of course in the colonies came to be known as the Episcopalian Church after the Revolution. And he was a devout Christian, at least until after the Great American Rebellion. During and after his presidency, he avoided any public reference or preference for any religion, and limited his religious vocabulary almost exclusively to what you would hear in a lodge or the Freemasons Lodge, where he actually served as Master of Alexandria Lodge 22, in Virginia in 1788.

[00:27:01] Katie Dooley: Cool.

[00:27:01] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Um, I've heard people say he was only ever in Lodge nine times. That would make him a bad master of a lodge, unless they didn't meet very often. I don't know.

[00:27:13] Katie Dooley: I've been to lodge nine times. Not quite.

[00:27:19] Preston Meyer: Maybe someday it'll stack up to that much.

[00:27:21] Katie Dooley: I've been at least twice.

[00:27:22] Preston Meyer: Yeah. This will be a little while. Okay. He loved the Bible and the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. And this is well attested, he would quote from both of them, especially the Book of Common Prayer. Really regularly that more than the Bible, actually. And religious tolerance was super important to him, which would actually be really annoying in, say, puritanical circles. Um, even the Episcopalian church wouldn't have loved that he was chummy with Catholics and everybody else.

[00:27:54] Katie Dooley: I was just going to say, we should point out that religious diversity at this point is literally just different flavors of Christianity.

[00:28:00] Preston Meyer: Yes. Uh, he would have meant he would have been counted as quite liberal for being not super pushy about religion. Anyway, contrary to popular accusations that started before his death, I don't think he was a deist. People accused him of it when he was still alive, and he was definitely a theistic Rationalist.

[00:28:27] Katie Dooley: Oh. Now we're splitting hairs.

[00:28:30] Preston Meyer: But a lot of Christians who don't come close to that deistic label are fairly labeled theistic rationalists.

[00:28:38] Katie Dooley: Would you consider yourself. I feel like you're pretty.

[00:28:41] Preston Meyer: Maybe.

[00:28:42] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:28:44] Preston Meyer: I don't know, probably. 

[00:28:45] Katie Dooley: Never explored that part of yourself.

[00:28:47] Preston Meyer: Oh, I've never tried to label in that way, but, yeah, I would say probably.

[00:28:52] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:28:53] Preston Meyer: I think that's fair. He was buried as an Episcopalian. There's some question on whether that's just because Martha was still pretty committed to the church, his wife. But that's what we've got. There's also, interestingly enough, a weird rumor circulating among Catholics that he converted to Catholicism on his deathbed.

[00:29:14] Katie Dooley: Wooo... Was Mother Teresa nearby?

[00:29:21] Preston Meyer: Uh, Teresa's not that old.

[00:29:23] Katie Dooley: No, but..

[00:29:25] Preston Meyer: In fact, they're separated by many decades.

[00:29:28] Katie Dooley: Century. Two centuries. 1700s and 1900s.

[00:29:33] Preston Meyer: More. Than more than a century. Yeah. So what's interesting is that, you know, when somebody gets baptized. Well, so the story for George is that he had.. Oh I've lost the word, it's, uh. It's gonna bug me.

[00:29:53] Katie Dooley: Like a religious experience?

[00:29:55] Preston Meyer: No. It's, uh. Because I can't remember the right word for it. I'll call it a "just in case" baptism.

[00:30:04] Katie Dooley: Oh okay.

[00:30:05] Preston Meyer: It's a thing like.

[00:30:06] Katie Dooley: Oh, my God, what if there is a God?

[00:30:08] Preston Meyer: No, I if I can remember the right word for it. This just in case baptism exists for scenarios like just in case your preexisting baptism had something going wrong with it wasn't documented properly. We're going to do it one more time to make sure you're covered.

[00:30:28] Katie Dooley: Make sure Jesus knows you're.

[00:30:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And so there's even a name for the priest who was specifically said to have been the one to do this baptism for George Washington on his deathbed. And the Catholic Church in, I think it was the 1960s, did a deep dive into all their records to see if there was any truth to it. Because, you know, if you're going to do a just in case baptism, like records weren't.

[00:30:54] Katie Dooley: There better be records! 

[00:30:54] Preston Meyer: You have to record it because that's half of the point. And they found no record of it. So it's very likely that it's not true.

[00:31:05] Katie Dooley: Or both of baptsim were fucked up.

[00:31:10] Preston Meyer: Maybe.

[00:31:11] Katie Dooley: No. Poor George!

[00:31:14] Preston Meyer: Provisional baptism. It feels like that's the right word. I don't know.

[00:31:20] Katie Dooley: Final answer?

[00:31:21] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that might be the word I'm looking for. If I find that it's not the right word, I'll send it on Discord.

[00:31:30] Katie Dooley: Just send me an audio recording with a single word.

[00:31:34] Preston Meyer: Perfect. All right, let's get back to Jefferson.

[00:31:39] Katie Dooley: I love this so much because it's my kind of Bible.

[00:31:44] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:31:44] Katie Dooley: So Thomas Jefferson basically wrote his own Bible.

[00:31:47] Preston Meyer: Pretty much.

[00:31:48] Katie Dooley: Called it. He called the... It's called the Jefferson Bible. It is 48 pages long, and it is also known as the Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. So he wrote this Bible by literally...

[00:32:02] Preston Meyer: I mean, he didn't do any writing except for putting the print on the cover page.

[00:32:06] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So he literally took, like, a razor blade and cut up a Bible.

[00:32:11] Preston Meyer: I think he would have had to have two Bibles 'cause the pages, yeah.

[00:32:14] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And then you, like, would glue them on paper to make his Bible. So there is parts where it is a little bit disjointed and I saw pictures of like the OG one and there's like passages, like vertically, like squeezing shit in. But in this Jefferson Bible, it purposely removes all mentions of miracles, including the resurrection.

[00:32:37] Preston Meyer: Mhm.

[00:32:38] Katie Dooley: Which is like what makes.

[00:32:40] Preston Meyer: It's the climax of the story, yeah.

[00:32:43] Katie Dooley: Uh, he would even cut text mid verse to remove any notions of the supernatural.

[00:32:50] Preston Meyer: I mean, that's what you got to do when this is what your project is.

[00:32:54] Katie Dooley: Uh, this confirms his deism to me.

[00:32:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I think so. I think that's fair.

[00:33:00] Katie Dooley: And, uh, so with him not including the resurrection, the Jefferson Bible ends with John 19, which says, now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a sepulcher, wherein was never man yet laid there, laid there they laid Jesus and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher, and departed.

[00:33:20] Preston Meyer: The end.

[00:33:20] Katie Dooley: The end. I kind of like that story.

[00:33:25] Preston Meyer: Sure. I mean, that is the story until you add the rest of it.

[00:33:32] Katie Dooley: Until we flip the page! But wait there's more.

[00:33:36] Preston Meyer: But then you've left the description.

[00:33:38] Katie Dooley: That's true. Then we're transforming.

[00:33:40] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's quite the project. One I actually thought about buying one a little while ago. Like a facsimile of the book. I mean, when we get to that part of our Bible study, you will have read it and then some.

[00:33:56] Katie Dooley: There you go.

[00:33:57] Preston Meyer: Yeah. But, I mean, it's a quick read. What was it, 48 pages.

[00:34:00] Katie Dooley: 48 pages and, uh, there was a quote that I probably should have included but didn't. But basically, Jefferson believed that Jesuss morals and teachings were really great and didn't essentially need all the stuff that was the miracles and revelations and things that can't be proven. So he really, really believed in what Jesus talked about.

[00:34:17] Preston Meyer: Just not the things that everyone else said about him.

[00:34:20] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So yeah, it is an interesting project and yeah, a very short read. If you're like me and haven't read the Bible yet, the 48 page reading will give you a pretty good summary of the greatest story ever told.

[00:34:33] Preston Meyer: Right? In theory, you could do that and just a couple hours. If you're a slow reader, I'm a slow reader. That's one of my struggles. Read plenty, but I do not read quick. I hate skimming articles or books just to get the gist of it to move on. I like to sit there and absorb my reading.

[00:34:53] Katie Dooley: I skip emails and then regret it later. I can't handle long emails. I'm like a three sentence email person. Hi. Here's your stuff. Bye.

[00:35:02] Preston Meyer: I like it.

[00:35:05] Katie Dooley: So like any of the major religions, we've been any of any other religions talking about, not even major religions.

[00:35:14] Preston Meyer: Everything over the last two whole years we've been doing this show and then some.

[00:35:18] Katie Dooley: Yes, thanks to the internet, you can find modern day practitioners and believers of all of these religions. So even though the movement did, uh, decline and basically end by the end of the 1700s, there has been a modern day revival.

[00:35:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And then to make things a little bit more fun, a little bit more diverse and a little bit more exciting. We've got people who have taken each of those individual ancient religions and taken a deist spin on it.

[00:35:50] Katie Dooley: Yep. There's a list and it is confusing.

[00:35:55] Preston Meyer: Yeah. But generally speaking, deists rely less on mysticism, more on reason. And this has gotten a little bit more interesting and bolder in more recent centuries since it has emerged, because science is managing to explain more and more about the world around us, instead of the weather being weird and unpredictable, and we're just kind of getting the hang of it, recognizing, hey, the sun has something to do with it and all that fancy nonsense.

[00:36:27] Katie Dooley: Fancy nonsense.

[00:36:28] Preston Meyer: Yeah, the world can operate with a without daily divine control. I mean, that's easy enough to get on board with and most days, philosophy is written as being compatible with science, rather deliberately and deliberately flexible to new scientific developments and discoveries. Because, you know, reason, logic.

[00:36:52] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And even when we're first studying or first doing the research for these, and it really did feel like, uh, well, we can't explain it with science yet, but we know it's not religion.

[00:37:03] Preston Meyer: Mhm.

[00:37:04] Katie Dooley: It's kind of how I felt about reading the early deist stuff.

[00:37:07] Preston Meyer: That's fair. Yeah.

[00:37:09] Katie Dooley: Many people wait. No I'm saying... So because humans there are lots of different versions of deism today. Again, we'll briefly skim them in the podcast and we'll put this great chart in our Discord. But this includes pandeism, panendeism, and polydeism. Not to be confused with their theism counterparts.

[00:37:32] Preston Meyer: Not that they're hugely different, but they're different enough to get different names and be worth talking about separately. In the same way that the deism that was popular in the 1700s was born from Christianity, new iterations are being conceived from other theologies and cosmologies. Many people want to say that deism is the irreligious belief in God, but it's still a little religious.

[00:37:55] Katie Dooley: I mean, this goes back to how do you define religion? It definitely doesn't have like the pomp and circumstance and the traditions isn't what I want. But the pageantry..

[00:38:06] Preston Meyer: Right. 

[00:38:06] Katie Dooley: They're regular...

[00:38:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Because we do avoid mysteries, but there's still organizations that are getting together and worshiping God and talking about their studies and sharing from the same book, all because of their belief in a God and about their belief in God. That's definitely a religion.

[00:38:27] Katie Dooley: Totally.

[00:38:28] Preston Meyer: We're not getting up into that area where Glen Faire told us, no, that's not really religious. That's ridiculous. And it's been kind of interesting looking at it through history. In fact, I found some notes about deism in Germany in the 1930s. The German nationalists liked deism. They were pretty comfortable with it. After the Third Reich took control of the churches in Germany, people decided, well, I guess I don't need church anymore because this propaganda is getting to be too much. I'm sure they had other issues too, but, you know, Nazis. So people are like, well, I don't need to be in church anymore. And eventually a lot of Nazi leaders also decided to leave the church, not because there was a big push to say, hey, don't go to church anymore. But there was growing distrust within the Nazi party against all of the churches, even though they had already kind of taken control, squeezing by the balls kind of business. Except Hitler. He never left his church. He insisted on being Catholic all the way through to the end of his life. Which is interesting because Goebbels and others said a lot of weird things about the things Hitler believed, religiously speaking. That definitely would have made him a heretic and...

[00:39:48] Katie Dooley: Hitler believed a lot of weird shit. Period.

[00:39:51] Preston Meyer: True story.

[00:39:52] Katie Dooley: If it was just his version of Catholicism, I think we would have been okay.

[00:39:57] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, you look at Mel Gibson, his version of Catholicism has a lot of overlap.

[00:40:04] Katie Dooley: I didn't even say that Right. Anti-semitism.

[00:40:06] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Yeah. Things got gross. Anyway, deism was a popular label to drop on all these people who left the church, which feels a little bit weird to me because they were still Christians. They just weren't going to church.

[00:40:24] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:40:25] Preston Meyer: A lot of people would answer surveys saying that I'm a God believer, which is a decent English translation of a word. They'll just butcher in German anyway.

[00:40:37] Katie Dooley: I speak German.

[00:40:37] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Do you?

[00:40:40] Katie Dooley: I'm taking it on Duolingo. I took it all through high school, so.

[00:40:42] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:40:43] Katie Dooley: If you had written down, I could have done the pronunciation on it.

[00:40:46] Preston Meyer: I didn't even write it down.

[00:40:49] Katie Dooley: Gott in Himmel

[00:40:49] Preston Meyer: It's close to that. But that's not quite it.

[00:40:50] Katie Dooley: Well, Gott is God.

[00:40:51] Preston Meyer: I know.

[00:40:52] Katie Dooley: And Himmel is heaven.

[00:40:54] Preston Meyer: Well no... God believer.

[00:40:57] Katie Dooley: I know.

[00:40:57] Preston Meyer: But that's what's German for God believer.

[00:40:59] Katie Dooley: I don't know what believer is...

[00:41:00] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:41:01] Katie Dooley: Gott beliebt something.. Belieben is believe.

[00:41:08] Preston Meyer: There's there's a different word that that I'm after. And anyway, it's gone. But all of these people weren't deists. Just because they left church. They didn't really adhere to deist principles at all. They were just Christians who didn't go to church. But either way, deism wasn't a problem for the Nazis as long as you believed that infidelity would be punished by the creator, the government was happy.

[00:41:34] Katie Dooley: Perfect.

[00:41:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:41:36] Katie Dooley: Uh, even more modernly, in 1993, the World Union of Deists was founded in Virginia by Bob Johnson, which is the first formal organization of deists since the 19th century. That's kind of cool.

[00:41:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Uh, in the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey report, they found that there were almost 50,000 deists in the United States. So not quite as many as Jedi, but it's still a big group. Yeah, I don't remember those numbers, but I believe you.

[00:42:06] Katie Dooley: It wasn't as huge as it feels like it is.

[00:42:09] Preston Meyer: I mean, it shouldn't be. They they do a good job of making themselves look big. Kind of like a lot of other groups.

[00:42:20] Katie Dooley: Do you want to go over this?

[00:42:21] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Let's take a look at some of these subsets of deists that have varieties of ideas.

[00:42:28] Katie Dooley: So we have the classical deists. So God is separate and distinct from the natural universe. This goes back to the watchmaker analogy that Preston had. And this would be a group that would follow Lord Herbert's five articles.

[00:42:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And the idea that God may or may not interact, but probably won't unless it's something big like the American Revolution.

[00:42:50] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:42:51] Preston Meyer: Modern deists are an extension of that, those ideals, uh, loosely following Herbert's five articles, but not super committed. Generally, they believe that God does not live in our universe, that there is multiple universes and God literally left completely out of our entire sphere of existence after creating it. Or maybe was never in it to begin with and created it entirely separate.

[00:43:22] Katie Dooley: Like, uh, like a ship in a bottle?

[00:43:24] Preston Meyer: Kind of. Yeah. Kind of an interesting philosophy.

[00:43:28] Katie Dooley: So don't confuse modern deists with neodeists. Uh, in this form of deism, God is not Earth centric and does not need to interact. God is this first cause or mover or creator that we talked about and doesn't give priority over humans versus Martians versus other planets that probably have life.

[00:43:52] Preston Meyer: They don't see God as personal. And certainly he has no need to intervene. And that's easy enough if you believe that he's not helping out. Yeah. There you are. The idea, the purpose of life is actually addressed by neodeists, that it is to further our understanding of the universe and teach future generations.

[00:44:15] Katie Dooley: I like that.

[00:44:16] Preston Meyer: I like that too.

[00:44:17] Katie Dooley: Then there's Christian deism. So this can be considered perhaps a transitional phase between your theistic and deistic beliefs.

[00:44:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Like some of our some of the American founding fathers who are like, I'm not so Christian anymore, let's lean into deism.

[00:44:32] Katie Dooley: Jefferson Bible. Great example of Christian deist. Yeah. You, uh, maybe believed in the teachings of Jesus, but don't believe that he was in any way magical, supernatural, divine and reject, yeah, church and miracle.

[00:44:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:44:47] Katie Dooley: I'm going to leave these two for you because I don't even understand the theistic version of these.

[00:44:53] Preston Meyer: All right. So for pantheist, there's that everything is God as or everything is a manifestation of God. That everything is part of God. It's complicated.

[00:45:10] Katie Dooley: Then pandeist.

[00:45:11] Preston Meyer: So pandeist believe basically that. And that God preceded the universe and created it more or less within himself or out of himself, and is now the equivalent of the universe. The God is the universe.

[00:45:32] Katie Dooley: Okay. I'm following.

[00:45:35] Preston Meyer: And so for this deist principle, if God doesn't intervene, we see that a pandeist God isn't troubled by the tummy aches that we're trying so hard to give him in the universe. And so it doesn't get involved terribly often. And then we have panendeists. Uh, so panentheism is that everything is within God, but God is greater rather than equivalent to the universe.

[00:46:04] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:46:05] Preston Meyer: And so the gods that... The God of pandeism, panendeism, the God of panendeism, uh, transcends all of nature and is fairly similar to the Native American concept of the Great Spirit. I guess that's fair. Spiritual deist.

[00:46:26] Katie Dooley: I love this one because we all know this person.

[00:46:29] Preston Meyer: So many people say I'm spiritual, but not religious.

[00:46:33] Katie Dooley: They're deists.

[00:46:34] Preston Meyer: I mean, not necessarily, but that the people in this category do say that. Spiritual deists will say that they're spiritual, but not religious. And that's fair enough, I guess. The idea that each person is an individualized expression of the divine is a pretty solid way to go through life, treating everybody like they are an expression of the divine. That's that's going to lead to healthy relationships, I think.

[00:47:04] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:47:06] Preston Meyer: And then there is the idea that there is a personal God manifested through the people you see day to day, which is kind of a kind of interesting, kind of complicated. This is what we got.

[00:47:18] Katie Dooley: Some of these are mental gymnastics, I find, but it's fine.

[00:47:22] Preston Meyer: It's the way it goes. It's not all solid reason, but they try.

[00:47:28] Katie Dooley: And finally, we have agnostic deists.

[00:47:31] Preston Meyer: It's, uh. Yeah, probably. But I don't have to worry about it if he's not worried about it either.

[00:47:36] Katie Dooley: We probably had a dad at one point, but he never came back for them from that convenience store, so I'm not going to worry about it.

[00:47:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:47:45] Katie Dooley: That's an agnostic deist. Logically I have a father because I'm here, but I've never seen him. Mom said he went for smokes and that was it.

[00:47:55] Preston Meyer: Yeah. There's no effort to build a relationship with him because there's the belief that he's not putting any effort either.

[00:48:02] Katie Dooley: Well. If he wanted to, he would. Mel Robbins.

[00:48:08] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:48:10] Katie Dooley: And that, my friends, in a nutshell.

[00:48:14] Preston Meyer: That's our diversity of deism.

[00:48:15] Katie Dooley: Deism. And here we go.

[00:48:18] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:48:18] Katie Dooley: Final thoughts feelings, questions.

[00:48:22] Preston Meyer: It's easy to see where this comes from and how it came to it. Be what it is. It's a religion of natural reason, denying everything that has no empirical evidence, but still believing there's a God. It's pretty easy to to get on board with that and and accept why people believe that. I think it's pretty interesting. And of course, a huge variety of ideas, a huge variety of philosophies come out of this.

[00:48:50] Katie Dooley: This is a very big spectrum.

[00:48:51] Preston Meyer: It really is. But we did our best to get you what we could in the time that you generously allowed us.

[00:49:02] Katie Dooley: If you want more of our time. What can. What can? What can you do?

[00:49:08] Preston Meyer: Oh, I mean, you can always go back and listen to our old episodes. You can get bonus episodes by signing up to our Patreon. Loads of fun there. Loads of social media content where we just blast out tiny little bits of data through the month.

[00:49:22] Katie Dooley: And of course, our discord, our growing discord community where we're having great religious conversations and.

[00:49:29] Preston Meyer: Some ridiculous meaningless..

[00:49:32] Katie Dooley: Rididculous conversations too.

[00:49:33] Preston Meyer: A two day, two day long chat about eyebrows actually stands out in memory.

[00:49:38] Katie Dooley: I have more on that. So please join our broader Holy Watermelon community and... 

[00:49:47] Both Speakers: Peace be with you.

The cult of Jim Jones, known as the Peoples Temple, is only one of many dangerous groups to deliberately shuffle off their mortal coils in large concerted efforts, but theirs was the most impactful. They are famous for "Drinking the Kool-Aid," an unfortunate and insensitive misnomer...

After leading his church to Guyana, in 1978 they became the victims of the single greatest loss of American life in a non-military action until the 9/11 WTC attacks. Jones got a lot of his ideas from Father Divine, from the Peace Mission, which he eventually tried to take over...

Jimmy was deeply religious in his youth, though his belief in God faded as he grew up. He was a Methodist preacher for a while, and later a Pentecostal preacher. He loved telling people how to live their lives, but he was one of those people who only did what was right under the threat of punishment for misbehavior.

Jim Jones was a serious communist, interested in building a racially diverse "rainbow family", but he was also a doomsday prepper, spouting some serious incel philosophy, which is on-brand for how things ended. While not all negligent parents raise mass murderers, but all mass murderers have negligent parents.

While Jimmy claimed to be the only heterosexual person on the planet, he has been known to rape men and masturbate for a all-male audience.  

It's all great until it isn't. If your community asks you to be willing to kill yourself at a moment's notice, you are in a dangerous cult. Some of Jones' followers weren't present for the massacre, but received orders by radio to commit revolutionary suicide. Some of these faithful followers took the opportunity to murder others before taking their own lives.

Family of victims and survivors of the massacre find the phrase "Drink the Kool-Aid" offensive,  and rightly so. Making light of such a tragedy is a poke at a deep wound. It's also an odd case of brand confusion: the real juice that was mixed with cyanide was Flavor-Aid. 

Jones claimed that a nuclear attack was coming,  and he was able to convince people to move away from their home, eventually to Guyana. When people got concerned, they took their problem to congress. Unfortunately, having the government come to take some children away is a great catalyst for the worst action any cult could take. 

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[00:00:17] Katie Dooley: Let's ASMR guys. Oh, shit.

[00:00:22] Preston Meyer: We haven't even begun yet and you're a mess.

[00:00:24] Katie Dooley: I haven't even taken a sip and I'm a mess. This is why I don't imbibe. Alright.

[00:00:34] Preston Meyer: Hi, Katie.

[00:00:36] Katie Dooley: Are we? We should introduce ourselves.

[00:00:38] Preston Meyer: Let's do it. I don't think we've done that in a long.

[00:00:40] Katie Dooley: Okay, so I would start with. Hi, everyone. My name is Katie.

[00:00:47] Preston Meyer: Hi, I'm Preston.

[00:00:49] Katie Dooley: And we are the. 

[00:00:51] Both Speakers: Holy Watermelon Podcast.

[00:00:55] Katie Dooley: We have talked about a lot of spooky things in the last few weeks, and. 

[00:01:01] Preston Meyer: This one gets a little dark, a little fast.

[00:01:02] Katie Dooley: It does. And we're like, moving away from spooky to just like, right. It's not October anymore. And now we're just like an outright horrible. Today we're talking about Jonestown.

[00:01:16] Preston Meyer: Yep. The terrible misnamed Kool-Aid massacre.

[00:01:21] Katie Dooley: Yes. I always point this out. Poor Kool-Aid.

[00:01:24] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean, Kool-Aid is still around. Kool-aid is still popular. Do you see Flavor-Aid on the shelves anymore?

[00:01:33] Katie Dooley: No.

[00:01:33] Preston Meyer: So. Well, we'll we're going to go through this pretty chronologically, but the massacre was facilitated with a knockoff brand called Flavor-Aid, not actually Kool-Aid. So they did not drink the Kool-Aid.

[00:01:45] Katie Dooley: Was it a knockoff or just a...

[00:01:47] Preston Meyer: Different brand? I don't know. I was born. I was born in the 90s. And with that, I will also quickly add, I feel like we're already digressing. Survivors and relatives of Jonestown victims actually find the term drink the Kool-Aid really offensive.

[00:02:05] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:02:06] Preston Meyer: And, Preston, there's a really good reason for that.

[00:02:09] Katie Dooley: Yeah. The '78 Jonestown Juice party was the single greatest loss of American life and a deliberate, nonmilitary action, and it held that title until 2001, September 11th.

[00:02:23] Katie Dooley: Which is insanity. So I think, you know, it's easy when you're born in the 90s to kind of make. And Jim Jones is a whack job.

[00:02:31] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:02:31] Katie Dooley: Um, to kind of make fun of this. But yeah, like over 900 people were killed. And there's video footage that's incredibly disturbing. I don't know if we need a trigger warning on this episode, but if you do decide to go YouTube any of the video footage. Absolutely. It is horrifying.

[00:02:46] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So I didn't YouTube any of the footage, but the story of Jim Jones ended up being used in, um, American Horror Story in there apocalypse season. No. Not apocalypse. Uh, cult?

[00:03:00] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I mean, I think he's like the cult guy.

[00:03:04] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So the weird thing is, I love American Horror Story. Cult actually had very little to do with the good old fashioned cults, but there was one episode where they touched on the big ones, but mostly about the political cult in the States.

[00:03:21] Katie Dooley: And, uh, he he was a cult, but he almost wasn't like he came from very traditional, mainstream Christian backgrounds. He had some divergent beliefs, and even some of those weren't bad or weird, which we'll get into. But there is this, this switch that goes off in his head. And it kind of it absolutely changes from your regular old Sunday church to a death cult.

[00:03:48] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's mind boggling. It's all nuts.

[00:03:53] Katie Dooley: Absolutely. Let's start with the man himself, Mr. Jim Jones.

[00:03:59] Preston Meyer: All right, so our boy Jimmy was born on May 13th, 1931. So it's a long time ago in Crete, Indiana. He had a weird upbringing. His family was communist.

[00:04:15] Katie Dooley: Yeah, he was a big old commie which is one of those beliefs that's, like I said, divergent at the time, but not really that weird or dangerous.

[00:04:22] Preston Meyer: Right, but people are super worried about communists. Thanks to everything that was happening in the world, especially after the Second World War. Um, as he was a young adult.

[00:04:33] Katie Dooley: Yeah. By the time he's by the time he's in his 20s, the Red scare is in full swing.

[00:04:37] Preston Meyer: Yeah. But back to his youth. Things were tough. His mother was pretty negligent. His father was a disabled World War One vet, and they just were poor all the time. And so Jimmy didn't make it to school. Really... I mean, not with any regularity.

[00:04:55] Katie Dooley: Now, this is one of a few red flags that we're going to come across. And obviously, not every child with negligent parents becomes a serial killer. But all serial killers have negligent parents.

[00:05:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:05:08] Katie Dooley: Not all squares or rectangles, but all. Wait. Not all rectangles are squares, but all squares are rectangles. This is one of those situations where all almost all serial killers have negligent parents. And Jimmy sure did.

[00:05:23] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Bad stuff. Uh, reflecting on his youth, he himself once said I was ready to kill by the end of the third grade. I mean, I was so aggressive and hostile, I was ready to kill. Nobody gave me love, any understanding. In those days, a parent was supposed to go with the child to school functions. There was some kind of school performance, and everybody's parent was there but mine. I'm standing there alone. Always was alone.

[00:05:51] Katie Dooley: Which is really sad.

[00:05:52] Preston Meyer: It is.

[00:05:53] Katie Dooley: And it's amazing that it turned into that kind of aggression which never left.

[00:05:57] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:05:58] Katie Dooley: He was also, as a child, fascinated by religion and death. I believe he liked killing things. Um, which is another trait of serial killers. He's killing killing small animals.

[00:06:10] Preston Meyer: Follow the red flag. 

[00:06:10] Katie Dooley: ...Is a very solid red flag for serial killers. And he was a very charismatic child. Adults liked him. People just generally liked him. He was outgoing. He was happy to get in front, in front of an audience. And he attended Pentecostal church services, which are known to be a charismatic evangelical church group. So this is starting to pour that perfect cocktail of the death cult leader.

[00:06:37] Preston Meyer: Yeah, obviously, not everybody who has negligent parents and goes to a Pentecostal church is going to find all of the ingredients. But he did. He managed to weird people out. One of his childhood friends, Chuck Wilmore, later described him saying that Jimmy was a really weird kid and that he was really impressed with how Hitler won against the Allied forces by killing himself in his bunker. That's a weird thing to latch on to.

[00:07:07] Katie Dooley: That's a very interesting perspective, too, because demonstrably Hitler did not win. I mean, he wasn't taken in for he didn't go to trial. He wasn't in prison. He wasn't executed for his war crimes, but he didn't win the war. So that's also very...

[00:07:24] Preston Meyer: He went out on his own terms.

[00:07:25] Preston Meyer: Sinister foreshadowing.

[00:07:25] Preston Meyer: Absolutely it is. It's absolutely nuts.

[00:07:31] Katie Dooley: It's all I have to say about that. When he was a teenager, Jones was one of those lovely, abrasive, religious people that loves to tell their peers how to live their lives. Uh, he would disparage his and remember he's a teenager. He's in high school. At this point, he would disparage his friends for drinking, smoking, dancing. You know everyone's favorite person.

[00:07:54] Preston Meyer: Good old Footloose.

[00:07:55] Katie Dooley: Right?

[00:07:55] Preston Meyer: Being enforced by your peers.

[00:07:58] Katie Dooley: By your peers. Wow, I. I'm surprised you has friends... 

[00:07:58] Preston Meyer: But, I mean, we know at least Chuck Wilmore identified himself as a friend, so...

[00:08:10] Katie Dooley: Good. Good guy. Chuck.

[00:08:11] Preston Meyer: I never found great details, but I have to assume that Chuck Wilmore was also pretty into all these rules.

[00:08:20] Katie Dooley: Yeah

[00:08:20] Preston Meyer: Otherwise, Jimmy wouldn't have had time for him.

[00:08:23] Katie Dooley: That's true.

[00:08:24] Preston Meyer: Who knows? Ancient history. Kind of. So in 1952, Jimmy became a Methodist minister and then later went on to become a Pentecostal preacher. And this was just some good experience to lead into his real solid cult leadership. But we'll get into that later.

[00:08:46] Katie Dooley: And as we said that in the 50s, Jimmy and his family faced a lot of government harassment. Again, this is in the thick of the Red scare as well as their neighbors because of their affiliation with the Communist Party. And this really just made Jimmy double down on his Communist beliefs.

[00:09:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Like most people, you say, hey, don't do that if you liked it to begin with. You don't lean into it harder.

[00:09:09] Katie Dooley: You don't know me!

[00:09:11] Preston Meyer: Right? You just don't get it.

[00:09:13] Katie Dooley: You don't get it, dad. You just don't get me. Uh, sorry.

[00:09:20] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Uh, yeah. He was also a huge fan of integration, which was really unpopular at the time. He hated racism in all its forms. In a time where things were getting ready to bust out into riots all over the nation. So he was on the right side of this argument, this argument.

[00:09:43] Katie Dooley: Which is where I find this part so interesting. And then obviously in the 50s, people just say, hey, Jimmy, if you're for integration or a black person, but knowing how evil he becomes, it's really weird for someone to be so kind in that it messes with my head.

[00:10:01] Preston Meyer: Right? Yeah, yeah. But it really helped out when he was trying to build a religion. If he could really make people feel loved and welcome, that that's something a lot of people weren't getting out in the broader community.

[00:10:16] Katie Dooley: Yeah, he was able to grow a huge church because of integration.

[00:10:21] Preston Meyer: Which might feel a little bit like love bombing in some situations. When we talked about cults before in general, that was on our list of red flags. So Jimmy had some some weird personal beliefs, though. According to Joyce Houston, who used to belong to the People's Temple, Jimmy believed that he was the only heterosexual on the planet.

[00:10:42] Katie Dooley: Preston, I had no idea.

[00:10:44] Preston Meyer: I mean, we see a lot of weird rhetoric coming from the involuntary celibate community online. Those good old incels saying real weird things like loving a woman is gay. True if you're a woman. Not if you're a man, anyway. Yeah. Jimmy was really adamant, at least for a little while. I mean, we don't have a long history of this rhetoric, but we have some. That he was the only heterosexual man on the planet. Wow. All men were gay except him. All women were lesbians. And everybody who showed any interest in straight sex was just compensating to fit in.

[00:11:28] Katie Dooley: So a lot of people fitting in.

[00:11:30] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean, if everybody was gay, this would not be happening.

[00:11:36] Katie Dooley: No, they would all just go for it.

[00:11:38] Preston Meyer: Right. So the irony here...

[00:11:41] Katie Dooley: Also wouldn't last very long,

[00:11:44] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean because we'd die.

[00:11:45] Katie Dooley: I hate the, you know, protect the family argument. But yeah, that if you're the only straight man on the planet that wouldn't last very long.

[00:11:53] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So the irony here that Jimmy saying he's the only heterosexual on the planet in '73, there was some testimony that came out that Jimmy had raped a male congregant.

[00:12:06] Katie Dooley: Oh.

[00:12:06] Preston Meyer: Meaning Jimmy's not as straight as he says he is. Problematic. I mean...

[00:12:11] Katie Dooley: There's there's several layers of problems there, Preston.

[00:12:15] Preston Meyer: The behavior is a problem in itself and the instance itself and then the speech around it even more so. Well, no, not even more so. It compounds it. But it's not as bad as the original rape. That's...

[00:12:29] Katie Dooley: Really bad.

[00:12:29] Preston Meyer: Taking the cake right there. That is the big one.

[00:12:32] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:12:33] Preston Meyer: And, uh, probably wasn't just one time. Probably wasn't just one person. And of course, there's coercion in other situations as well that. Yeah. Bad things. Bad dude.

[00:12:47] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I mean, this is this is in the 70s and this is where he really starts to go drastically downhill. The massacre again did happen in 1978. So 1973 is three years or, sorry, excuse me, five years before that. He's really in his mental decline at this point.

[00:13:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And then I found a headline while I was going through digging for stuff, uh, that made it look a little bit like he had beat Peewee Herman to the whole theater punch by almost 20 years.

[00:13:16] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:13:17] Preston Meyer: But I did. I did more digging past the headlines as a responsible reader should do, and found that the story's a little bit more interesting. He wasn't just chilling out in the theater, watching a movie, enjoying himself. No. On December 13th, 1973, while attending a theater in LA. Uh, a cop came in to talk to Jimmy. Jimmy waved at him and said, come on, come join me up here in the balcony. And the cop was like, no, come with me, walks into the men's bathroom. So Jimmy walks into the bathroom with this male police officer. And the story is that while Jimmy was in the bathroom, he started masturbating. And you know, any reasonable human being when trying to converse with somebody, sees the other person start masturbating, would have, you know, an issue with this. So he was arrested for masturbating in that public bathroom.

[00:14:12] Katie Dooley: I mean, fair.

[00:14:13] Preston Meyer: So not quite a pee wee Herman situation, but, you know, exciting and sheds a little bit more light on the mental state broadly of this fellow.

[00:14:26] Katie Dooley: Oh. He's just, uh, like you said, a whack a doodle.

[00:14:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:14:29] Katie Dooley: Cuckoo bananas.

[00:14:30] Preston Meyer: Right. So this it went to court. And the file... Everything got sealed. Nobody was allowed to hear about this because the judge was like, no, this is nonsense. And he was acquitted and all that fun stuff. And then after he died, the judges are like, oh, let's open it up again because...

[00:14:51] Katie Dooley: He's crazy.

[00:14:51] Preston Meyer: This is evidence that this dude's been nuts the whole time.

[00:14:54] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Then in a 1976 interview two years before the massacre. So again, kind of right in the thick of it, Jones actually came out and said he was an atheist. So that's super interesting. Power for the sake of power? Um, even after a teenager. I mean, that's a commitment to some greater. And I don't mean greater as a good purpose. I mean, greater is a bigger purpose of, uh, becoming a minister. All that schooling you need starting a congregation. Again, at this point, people's temple is thriving. Yeah, that's a big, Uh, big wool to pull over everyone's eyes.

[00:15:36] Preston Meyer: Right. Well, it's not like this was like a private discussion that nobody ever heard. Over the next couple of years. This this was a thing that got published.

[00:15:45] Katie Dooley: Yep, yep. Interviews get published.

[00:15:48] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So it's like people just stuck around, which tells you a little bit about the kind of power that he had over this group that was not super religious in ways that you would expect.

[00:16:01] Katie Dooley: There. There wasn't a strong there wasn't strong theology necessarily. It was your basic Christian theology, but there was a very strong community.

[00:16:10] Preston Meyer: Well, and they were pretty light on any sort of differences from the mainstream theologically.

[00:16:16] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:16:16] Preston Meyer: It was until it started looking more like, hey, we're worshiping this dude. 

[00:16:21] Katie Dooley: Jim Jones instead of Jesus. That's right, I said, Jesus.

[00:16:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I noticed.

[00:16:26] Katie Dooley: Jesus. 

[00:16:27] Preston Meyer: Just let it go.

[00:16:28] Katie Dooley: Thank you.

[00:16:30] Preston Meyer: It's, uh. It's just so weird. Well, let's let's get more into this People's Temple. This whole deal.

[00:16:36] Katie Dooley: Absolutely. So Jones's first church was the Community Unity Church, which he founded in 1954. After the Methodist church he pastored that barred black congregants. So, again, this...

[00:16:49] Preston Meyer: Let's bail on them because they're racist. Yeah, easy to get on board with that decision.

[00:16:54] Katie Dooley: And it was that this church that Jim Jones started doing faith healings, which is super core to how the People's Temple grew and grew so quickly. It's, uh, he loved doing healings because of the publicity and the money that it brought.

[00:17:10] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah. If you can do miracles, obviously you deserve my money. Because what if I need those miracles for myself?

[00:17:16] Katie Dooley: Right. Uh, and so, of course, these were fake.

[00:17:21] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:17:21] Katie Dooley: Uh, members of the church that participated knew full well that they were acting. People were brought in and as he got more popular, he just didn't have time for actually sick people. He would always have too many people ahead in the line that were his congregants.

[00:17:39] Preston Meyer: So I did some digging into this because we need details, especially some fun, juicy ones. So they weren't just actors saying, you know, they feel better. They put on full cancer prosthetics to remove like really intense, great stage stuff. And so the Indiana State Psychology Board started investigating, and they asked for tissue samples of these chunks of body that are falling off people when they get healed. Which of course pissed off the congregation leadership like, no, no, you can't have that stuff because you'll find out. Which is super obvious that it's a scam.

[00:18:21] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:18:24] Preston Meyer: But they they went even further to make things more convincing, they actually drugged a woman named Irene Mason, and while she was unconscious, they put a cast on her arm. And then when she woke up, they're like, oh, yeah, no, you you broke your arm. That's why you're in a hospital now. And so. Okay, well, that's that's weird. I don't know why I don't remember that. And go to church like we do. And so Jim Jones brings her up onto the stage, cuts off the cast and does his blessing thing to heal her. And bam, that arm is fine because it was never broken. It was just cast while she was unconscious.

[00:19:04] Katie Dooley: Yeah, there was a great video I watched researching for this. There's a ton of great stuff on YouTube on Jim Jones. Uh, parts of documentary, actual footage. And there's a lady. She's actually, like, a phenomenal actor. I will give this to her. She's like a little lady, and she's in a wheelchair and she's never walked before. And Jim Jones commands her to heal, and she ends up running around the church with her arms over her head. And like...

[00:19:28] Preston Meyer: That's a hell of a miracle.

[00:19:29] Katie Dooley: It's a hell of a...

[00:19:30] Preston Meyer: If you don't use your legs. There's no muscle to run.

[00:19:32] Katie Dooley: Even if. Yeah. Even if your paralysis is miraculously healed, you haven't stood on them.

[00:19:37] Preston Meyer: Right? All of the effects of atrophy. Oh, yeah. Uh. Miracle indeed.

[00:19:43] Katie Dooley: A miracle. Praise be!

[00:19:48] Preston Meyer: Uh, so in 1956, Jim Jones, he got real popular with this. The believers never stopped believing. And he became a minister with the Independent Assemblies of God. And eventually the congregation he built would be known as the People's Temple Christian Church Full Gospel.

[00:19:48] Katie Dooley: I'm glad he... Yeah, I'm glad you shortened that.

[00:20:10] Preston Meyer: But it looked pretty good. It would have to to attract people. And I mean, people were progressive, accepting people of different backgrounds and ethnicities, like we mentioned, super anti-racist. Pretty cool. And just the group of people as it was as a congregation.

[00:20:29] Katie Dooley: I just said that...

[00:20:29] Preston Meyer: People really were flocking to that.

[00:20:33] Katie Dooley: The energy and the community that he was building.

[00:20:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:20:36] Katie Dooley: Just like we're... Not quite just like we're trying to build here. We're not building a death cult, just a regular cult.

[00:20:44] Preston Meyer: Not a danger.

[00:20:45] Katie Dooley: Not a danger cult.

[00:20:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Katherine Barbour, who is an ex member of the People's Temple, said the people were the attraction of the temple. So much of it was revolving around Jim Jones and he was the one who was always given the credit for everything, but the people were the attraction. It was amazing to be walking into a place and have African-Americans really warmly welcoming you and talking to you and sharing stories with you. It was sweet. So I couldn't find whether or not she was African American. I would guess the way that that's worded, she was probably white.

[00:21:22] Katie Dooley: Laura Johnston Cole, another ex-member, said we all felt that we were a family rather than a church. We, all of us, were doing the right things but in the wrong place with the wrong leader.

[00:21:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah, so people liked it. I mean, you don't stay in a place that you don't like until it's too late to leave, and we're not there yet. It's not too late to leave.

[00:21:42] Katie Dooley: Yes and Jim Jones made it very hard to leave, too, even when people knew. Well, I wanted to get too far. But even when people knew it was bad, it's hard to get out of South America.

[00:21:55] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:21:56] Katie Dooley: We'll get there.

[00:21:57] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's just I think it's interesting that when we talk about a lot of the big cults historically, like Charles Manson, people are really drawn to that one central figure, and they really want to latch on to him, try and get into that inner circle. And that was kind of a little bit part of what we saw in The People's Temple. But generally people just really wanted to belong to the group.

[00:22:22] Katie Dooley: They came for the faith healing and stayed for the community.

[00:22:24] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:22:25] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Fair enough.

[00:22:26] Preston Meyer: At least generally speaking, there. Certainly.

[00:22:27] Katie Dooley: Obviously. Jones wanted the church to be a rainbow family. His own family included an adoptive Native American girl, three Korean kids, an African American boy he named Jimmy Jr, and a white boy named Tim.

[00:22:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah, he did have one natural son with his wife name that he ended up naming Stephan Gandhi.

[00:22:52] Katie Dooley: Okay, Jim.

[00:22:53] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean, you're a white guy with a pretty white name. Naming your son Gandhi feels weird, but you do what you do. You're allowed to name your kids whatever you want. Generally speaking, in most jurisdictions.

[00:23:07] Katie Dooley: Cotton.

[00:23:10] Preston Meyer: Uh, and he did end up having a few kids with other women from the People's Temple, which is is interesting. We'll talk about Father Divine next. Um, one of the things that he adopted from Father Divine's teachings was the idea that nobody should be having sex, and that you should just adopt kids from families that are breaking this rule. But he still had kids of his own with more than one woman.

[00:23:41] Katie Dooley: I mean, I think more people should adopt and foster than do. There's lots of kids without homes.

[00:23:46] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I got fully on board with the adoption.

[00:23:50] Katie Dooley: Don't steal people's children.

[00:23:52] Preston Meyer: But.. And, well, we'll get into a situation that looks a lot like that later, too.

[00:23:56] Katie Dooley: Oh, no.

[00:23:57] Preston Meyer: Um, lots of problems. You know, cult leader style.

[00:24:01] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Like, this is definitely a flawed idea.

[00:24:06] Preston Meyer: Yeah. But Jim encouraged the People's Temple to be deliberately diverse and actually specifically ask the people to adopt kids from Korea in particular because of the whole Korean War thing. A lot of kids without parents were around. So, I mean, it sounds really good until you realize what's happening to these kids, it gets really creepy.

[00:24:28] Katie Dooley: Oh no. Tell me about Father Divine.

[00:24:31] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So as he was trying to expand his cult, he started reading some of the writings of Father Divine, watching videos of Father Divine sermons. And he got actually pretty much obsessed with this guy for a little while. And Father Divine had this weird habit of getting people to think that he was a god. Which really inspired Jimmy.

[00:24:53] Katie Dooley: I was going to say is that a habit? Can I start that habit?

[00:24:57] Preston Meyer: Uh, I mean, in theory, you could. So Jimmy decided. Well, I need to to go down and and study with this guy. And he did for a few years. Eventually... Well, back to Father Divine first. So he was the founder of the Peace Mission movement, which started back in the 1910s.

[00:25:17] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:25:17] Preston Meyer: This had been around for decades and was growing decently. By the time Jim got to find out about it and he had a multiethnic congregation which was right up Jim's alley. It was pretty great. I mean, he also had a lot of really weird things. Bibles, no good. It was translated by King James himself, rather than by a whole bunch of scholars that just got approval from King James. Weird thing to believe, but...

[00:25:43] Katie Dooley: That feels like a lot of work for King James. I'm trying to read the Bible, and that's a lot of work on its own.

[00:25:47] Preston Meyer: He was too busy writing demonology.

[00:25:49] Katie Dooley: Right?

[00:25:52] Preston Meyer: Anyway, this dude crazy nuts.

[00:25:57] Katie Dooley: Cuckoo Bananas.

[00:25:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Absolute mess, but in such a powerful way that people followed him and including Jimmy. He died in 1965 and Jimmy swooped in to take over the Peace Mission. He wanted that bad.

[00:26:13] Katie Dooley: Right?

[00:26:13] Preston Meyer: Exact style congregation and...

[00:26:16] Katie Dooley: They think you're God.

[00:26:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:26:17] Katie Dooley: I'm...

[00:26:18] Preston Meyer: A huge amount of power he had. He didn't manage to pull it off, but he did manage to take some people back to California with him. Weird flavor stuff. Not not really Christian. Like it it had started out Christian, just like Jimmy did and went really all worship me.

[00:26:36] Katie Dooley: Cuckoo cuckoo banan. I couldn't even I couldn't even say it. I got too excited.

[00:26:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So, like, Father Divine, Jimmy hated the Bible in particular, the King James Version. He blamed the King for the corruption of the text that obscured the true gospel, and that the king's capitalism would be the downfall of America, which, of course, he had to compare to what was in the Bible. The Babylon of John's revelation.

[00:27:03] Katie Dooley: Thinks the King of England will be the downfall of America?

[00:27:07] Preston Meyer: His capitalism. Oh yeah. King James was a capitalist. The creator of the salve trade and and all of that brought over to America with the King James Bible tradition. It's it's hard to follow because it's not true.

[00:27:22] Katie Dooley: Yeah

[00:27:22] Preston Meyer: That's the problem.

[00:27:23] Katie Dooley: Well, and again, a deceased king in a foreign country is not going to be...

[00:27:27] Preston Meyer: I mean, America was largely initially populated by.

[00:27:31] Katie Dooley: Absolutely, but not by the 1960s. Anyway, it just feels very far removed. Yeah. I'm blaming Queen Victoria for the downfall of Canada. It's too long ago. Anyway, uh, so we know that, uh, Jim Jones and the People's Temple ends up in Guyana in South America. And the move to Guyana was one of several moves that the People's and the last move of the People's Temple made after receiving criticism for integrating his congregation. Jim. Jim's. Jim's Jim Jones moved his family and about 70 people from the temple in Indiana to Redwood Valley, California. So he told everyone that there was going to be a nuclear attack on July 15th, 1967.

[00:28:21] Preston Meyer: That's a hell of a prediction.

[00:28:22] Katie Dooley: Yeah, and the deadline convince people to go to what Esquire magazine had called one of the safest places in the world in such an event.

[00:28:32] Preston Meyer: It was upwind from all really good military targets.

[00:28:36] Katie Dooley: And small. Yeah. Small enough. It wouldn't be a target. Perfect. Of course, just like with all death cults, this attack never happened.

[00:28:45] Preston Meyer: But it came close! I mean, almost.

[00:28:49] Katie Dooley: Yeah. 

[00:28:49] Preston Meyer: In May of 1967, just a couple of months before this predicted attack, there was a solar storm that knocked out NORAD early warning radars. And so America was super on edge, like, oh, no, is this an initial strike from Russia before they bomb all of America in the heat of the Cold War. Of course, that got solved relatively quickly, and there was a realization it was a false alarm, just solar flare. No nuclear attack.

[00:29:24] Katie Dooley: From Redwood Valley, the People's Temple expanded to both Los Angeles and San Francisco. People's Temple got really popular in California in the 60s. Yeah!

[00:29:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Hippie dippy time.

[00:29:35] Katie Dooley: Drawing in thousands of locals and all sorts of politicians, including Harvey Milk, the one most famously played by Sean Penn.

[00:29:43] Preston Meyer: It wasn't until the late 60s that Jimmy openly talked about apostolic communism. He had, you know, let it know, let it be known that he leaned pretty hard to the left, but still within what was socially appropriate under the Red scare. But late 60s is like, fine, you know what? It's time. I'm a Marxist.

[00:30:05] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:30:05] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And I mean, he got in trouble. He got more government observation, but it didn't really ruin things for him. And the church really wasn't hurt too badly by it. People were committed to it. People give their money to the church in exchange for having all their needs satisfied. It's a pretty good deal.

[00:30:26] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:30:26] Preston Meyer: As long as you have enough people bringing in enough money that everyone's needs can still be satisfied, you're golden. And so he was really convinced that Marx was right, that religion is the opiate of the masses. So he fully leaned away from Christian theology, you know, would talk about himself as a messiah type figure. But religion was a thing that needed to be walked away from. And instead just work on hanging out with each other. Spend Christmas and Thanksgiving just with people from the congregation.

[00:30:59] Katie Dooley: Fellowshipping!

[00:31:01] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And and like specifically, don't go hang out with your blood family. Be with your covenant family.

[00:31:06] Katie Dooley: Which as we know is a BITE model red flag.

[00:31:09] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that kind of controls not ideal. 

[00:31:09] Katie Dooley: Now, the real hero of People's Temple is Mr. Muggs. The church had a mascot for a little while. A chimpanzee named Mr. Muggs.

[00:31:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:31:28] Katie Dooley: Jim told people that Mr. Muggs was rescued from a lab. But Jeff Gwynne, Jones's biographer, says he just bought him at a pet store. And the 1960s were wild man. If you lived in the 1960s. Please email me [email protected], because...

[00:31:47] Preston Meyer: I just remembered a movie that I watched as a kid and it wasn't new when I watched as a kid. It was called Monkey Shines.

[00:31:53] Katie Dooley: Oh no.

[00:31:54] Preston Meyer: People are so obsessed with monkeys in the 60s 70s that people would buy monkeys.

[00:32:00] Katie Dooley: Yeah, Jim Jones sold monkeys, guys!

[00:32:04] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:32:05] Katie Dooley: The 60s.

[00:32:05] Preston Meyer: From door to door.

[00:32:06] Katie Dooley: The 60s were fucking wild.

[00:32:10] Preston Meyer: So Monkey Shines that the movie that just came in my head that I have to tell you a little bit about. Okay, lay it on us. It's about this quadriplegic. He's stuck in his chair. He's, you know, moving around with a little stick and in his mouth, and he gets a monkey to help him out around the house. And the Shine... Psychic.

[00:32:33] Katie Dooley: Oh no, that's weird.

[00:32:35] Preston Meyer: And, like, he gets all kinds of stuff done.

[00:32:37] Katie Dooley: Is it endearing? Because it sounds creepy.

[00:32:40] Preston Meyer: The first third of the movie is pretty good. Like everything's hunky dory.

[00:32:46] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:32:46] Preston Meyer: And then things turn dark.

[00:32:48] Katie Dooley: I was gonna say this sounds like a fucking horror movie.

[00:32:52] Preston Meyer: The dude and... The paraplegic gets some negative feelings about the people around him, and the monkey starts killing them.

[00:33:00] Katie Dooley: What? No!

[00:33:02] Preston Meyer: A thing that monkeys and chimps are known to do when you keep them as pets.

[00:33:07] Katie Dooley: Kids don't buy monkeys from door to door salesmen. I don't think that's the thing anymore. But, uh, don't do it.

[00:33:15] Preston Meyer: I've haven't seen a door to door salesmen for...

[00:33:16] Katie Dooley: Period. 

[00:33:17] Preston Meyer: Anything other than religion.

[00:33:18] Katie Dooley: Uh, said by our resident Mormon. Uh. So we got a letter from a Jehovah's Witness in our neighborhood. And Bryant wrote. Return to sender and hail Satan on it and put it in the mailbox. And the postman put it back in our mailbox because of the Hail Satan. And I was like, you should have just put return to sender. But thanks, babe.

[00:33:45] Preston Meyer: And you just put Hail Satan on the other side of the envelope next time.

[00:33:48] Katie Dooley: Well, they have a return address, so I actually just want to, like, send them a letter that's like, hail, Satan! Um, please stop mailing us. Save a tree. Uh, instead of. Anyway, I digress.

[00:34:00] Preston Meyer: Every time I try to study with the Jehovah's Witnesses, I get one visit and they never want to come back.

[00:34:06] Katie Dooley: You need to...

[00:34:07] Preston Meyer: It's really frustrating to maintain a conversation over several visits.

[00:34:11] Katie Dooley: We should find an ex-Jehovah Witness. We probably have more success than...

[00:34:15] Preston Meyer: I know a few.

[00:34:16] Katie Dooley: I do too. All right. We have that little aside now. Jonestown, Guyana. It was named after Jim Jones.

[00:34:27] Preston Meyer: Of course it was. Who else would it be named after?

[00:34:30] Katie Dooley: So Jonestown started because Jim was getting more and more paranoid. So in the early 70s, the Temple was already being accused of fraud and abuse. Rightly so.

[00:34:39] Preston Meyer: Well, and like a lot of cults have have done the whole let's leave America to avoid government supervision and whatnot. Usually like Mexico, you know, somewhere close by. Nah, bro, let's go to South America.

[00:34:54] Katie Dooley: Let's go to South America! Jones also being an integrationist and a communist probably didn't help matters with him being watched closely by officials.

[00:35:04] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:35:06] Katie Dooley: And he chose to build his utopia in Guyana. So Guyana is a country in the northwest part of South America. It's kind of like south of the Caribbean islands.

[00:35:14] Preston Meyer: Nice and diverse. You got a lot of people who are involuntarily immigrated from India, from Africa. A good handful of European descent options.

[00:35:26] Katie Dooley: There's still a large indigenous population, which is quite unique for South America being colonized.

[00:35:32] Preston Meyer: Right. So it's actually a pretty nice place for Jones' whole rainbow family idea. Absolutely.

[00:35:39] Katie Dooley: And there were prominent black leaders in Guyana, so something to make his black congregants feel really comfortable. And it was an English speaking and socialist country. So checks all the boxes for a whole bunch of people who have probably never left the United States before.

[00:35:53] Preston Meyer: Right. It's the perfect place to set up this little...

[00:35:58] Katie Dooley: Literally a commune in a socialist country.

[00:36:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:36:01] Katie Dooley: Also, I love that he is living the communist life.

[00:36:05] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean, even China and Russia never really lived...

[00:36:08] Katie Dooley: Not like this.

[00:36:10] Katie Dooley: So Jones purchased 3800 acres of jungle west of Georgetown, the capital, and 500 members of the temple went down to clear literal jungle vines, palm trees, to... 

[00:36:24] Preston Meyer: Snakes.

[00:36:24] Katie Dooley: Venomous snakes, probably giant spiders. Ugh. Things like...

[00:36:29] Preston Meyer: There's a lot of things that make me not want to go.

[00:36:30] Katie Dooley: I know I was in the jungle in, um, Guatemala.

[00:36:33] Preston Meyer: Mhm.

[00:36:35] Katie Dooley: Like. It was. It was enough.

[00:36:41] Preston Meyer: You need more secure shelter to go to sleep at night.

[00:36:44] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I mean we were, we were good I but I don't want to know what those first few nights and... Yeah I'm fine. It gets worse. I don't know why I'm freaking out about clearing a jungle when they're all about to die.

[00:36:56] Preston Meyer: Right? Yeah. So we talked a little bit about some of the, the the red flags, you know, controlling people's time and whatnot. Tell me... Tell me about white nights.

[00:37:07] Katie Dooley: White nights are terrifying. If your organization practices white nights, you are in a danger cult. Leave immediately. Uh, white night at Jonestown was a suicide drill. You know, fire drills where you practice if there's a fire. A suicide drill is where you practice killing yourself. Really good. Um, I feel like...

[00:37:32] Preston Meyer: Healthy thing.

[00:37:33] Katie Dooley: I feel like I should. Sorry. I feel like I should put a trigger warning before I go any further. The intensity of white nights would vary. So one or on 1 or 2 occasions, community members would arm themselves with weapon and stay up for days at a time waiting for this like impending invasion. Some instances were less intense and simply called upon people to pledge their willingness to die in front of the congregation. These would happen randomly and in the middle of the night, which is I mean, what is going on is a scary red flag, but the random in the middle of the night is also a huge red flag in the BITE model of manipulation and deprivation of sleep. So you are no longer thinking straight during the day because you're literally sleep deprived. So these intensified leading up to November 18th or sorry, the frequency increase leading up to November 19th, November 18th, 1978.

[00:38:31] Preston Meyer: There's there's an interesting story to the lead up of all this mess.

[00:38:37] Katie Dooley: This has been a long time coming, which is almost scarier. It's...

[00:38:42] Preston Meyer: So in 1972, we're looking back a few years right now, uh, Grace Stone, who was a member of People's Temple, gave birth to a little boy named John. Jim Jones claimed to be the father. Even though Grace had a husband named Tim. So I have to assume that Jim and Grace have been sleeping together. That seems like a reasonable conclusion here. The weird thing is, Jimmy didn't like people being romantic or sexual and told people don't do it. But you're the exception of the rules, Jimmy. You do your thing anyway, Tim, Grace's husband signed an affidavit confirming that Jimmy was the baby's daddy without getting a paternity test.

[00:39:25] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:39:26] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Weird move. Four years later, Grace abandons her family to escape the cult. And then her husband left a year after that, leaving little John...

[00:39:39] Katie Dooley: No!

[00:39:40] Preston Meyer: With Jimmy and the cult.

[00:39:43] Katie Dooley: Uh oh.

[00:39:44] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So they went to the US courts to try and get John back. Let's get some. The power of great America to bring our kid back from Guyana. They got some traction. One of the congressman from California, uh, Leo Ryan, went to Guyana with several family members of people who were still trapped in the cult. Like they... A small army. Let's get our family back. And things, well didn't go super well. Some of the congregants told Leo that they wanted help leaving. The people who were in Guyana. Hey, take me with you when you go. Which was the goal, so that's kind of cool. But this really pissed Jimmy off. So when they were waiting to to get onto the airstrip or to get onto the plane at the airstrip, Jimmy had a truck of gunmen keep them from leaving by killing them.

[00:40:41] Katie Dooley: Oh.

[00:40:41] Preston Meyer: They killed Leo Ryan and four others and wounded a whole bunch more. And Jimmy then told his faithful congregants that the Guyanese military was going to come and take their children, which is easy enough to believe because they just had people come and try to take the children.

[00:40:56] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:40:57] Preston Meyer: Uh, so that really sucks. And the only way to prevent that was for everybody to take Hitler's way out. Bad day for everyone involved.

[00:41:06] Katie Dooley: Absolutely. So some people have described the death of over 900 people on November 18th, 1970, as a mass suicide, but is very much a mass murder. As audio and video recordings, which again you can find on YouTube and they're very disturbing.

[00:41:24] Preston Meyer: Haunting. 

[00:41:24] Katie Dooley: Demonstrate that people were coerced to drink the cyanide-laced flavoring. Basically, they held a gun to your head. Which way do you want to go? Because you're going. 300 of the deaths were of minors.

[00:41:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah, fewer than 10% of the people present survived the Jonestown massacre. That's that's really bad.

[00:41:48] Katie Dooley: Right. And you know, a it's a little bit of apples to oranges. But if you think of the number of people at ground zero, and obviously there was a huge loss of life on September 11th, definitely more than 10% of people survived. So this is this is scary numbers like no, I won't say nobody made it out alive, but very a very lucky few. Lucky few. There's probably some survivor's guilt there.

[00:42:14] Preston Meyer: Yeah. There was about 11 people escaped in the jungle. Of course, mentioned some people died on the airstrip. There were 14 who survived the gun attack. Wounded, of course mostly, most of them. Four people survived the Flavor-aid cyanide because they hid or played dead. I wonder if any of them, like, pretended to drink and then played dead. Or if they just...

[00:42:41] Katie Dooley: I, I read, I read two and one lady hid under a bed and there were guards checking rooms, so she was very lucky.

[00:42:48] Preston Meyer: Wow.

[00:42:49] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Everyone was called out to where this was. I was outside and she hid under a bed. And then one person claimed to have not heard what Jim was asking people to do. But when he saw people falling down dead, he swooned and laid there until it was over. Could you imagine being one of those four people walking? And there's footage, like I said, there's if you have any sort of morbid curiosity, there's footage of 900 bodies lying there. I would I don't know if I would want to be one of those four people.

[00:43:23] Preston Meyer: God, no, no no, no. Yeah. And the murder/suicides weren't just limited to Guyana. Radio orders were released by Jones to everywhere, where the church had any sort of presence, that it was time to commit revolutionary suicide.

[00:43:39] Katie Dooley: And some people did kill themselves or the people they were with or killed the people they were with, and then themselves, and then some people didn't. So if you were in America, you had a higher chance, depending on who you were standing next to when those orders came in.

[00:43:55] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So Jim was found with a gunshot wound in the head. Uh, which tells us that he couldn't stomach the idea of drinking cyanide. Like, you know, like a quitter. Um, his nurse, Annie Moore, was also found in a similar state. And I think it's really interesting that there remains some confusion about which of the two pulled the trigger on the other before killing themselves. It's a little bit weird.

[00:44:24] Katie Dooley: That's interesting.

[00:44:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah, there's authoritative voices saying both sides of the story. They're both... Both of these options.

[00:44:33] Katie Dooley: And there'd be no witnesses. So.

[00:44:35] Preston Meyer: Right? It's just crazy. Mr. Muggs the chimp.

[00:44:40] Katie Dooley: No.

[00:44:40] Preston Meyer: Was also shot and killed that day. They couldn't convince him to drink the Flavor-Aid. So it was time for the bullets.

[00:44:48] Katie Dooley: Poor Mr. Muggs.

[00:44:50] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And of the small number of survivors, some of them later killed themselves out of guilt or despair. Others, like Mike Proulx, defended the group after the massacre, but then went on to kill himself. Mike killed himself in a hotel room just so that he could die faithfully like those in Guyana.

[00:45:12] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:45:13] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And to be with the group, uh, there was a young man who. I did read his name, and I don't want to share it. Uh, you can you can go dig it up if you want, on your own. Who had his family all die in the massacre. And then he decided, well, it's time for me to go on a murder suicide rampage in a schoolyard. Yeah. So that happened in LA, uh, very shortly after the massacre. And then many others who escaped before and after the massacre. Uh, like Al and Jeanie Mills were tracked down by faithful members of the congregation and were murdered in their homes. So it's not just Jonestown, but it was a much bigger problem.

[00:45:58] Katie Dooley: Absolutely.

[00:45:59] Preston Meyer: Lasted for a little while.

[00:46:01] Katie Dooley: Yup. It's wild.

[00:46:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Danger cults. We need to be better at recognizing them before they get to this level of scary.

[00:46:11] Katie Dooley: Yeah. There are other dangerous cults and other death cults, but I think Jim Jones kind of takes the cake from, uh. I want to say pop... pop culture is probably the wrong word, but he's probably the best known death cult leader.

[00:46:27] Preston Meyer: For sheer numbers alone

[00:46:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah

[00:46:27] Preston Meyer: Gained him that spot for sure. And the scary thing is, it's it all sounded, at the very least decent when it was started.

[00:46:39] Katie Dooley: It was great until it wasn't.

[00:46:40] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's the trick. That's always the way it is. Whether it's NXIVM or Scientology or who knows what the next one's going to be. It's it's good until it's not.

[00:46:53] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I, uh, belief is a crazy drug.

[00:46:57] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:46:57] Katie Dooley: And I, I mean, I guess all you can do is teach people about the BITE model and how to recognize it in both the groups you're involved with and then your friends and families behavior, because there were definitely red flags. But if you had dedicated ten years to the People's Temple.

[00:47:14] Preston Meyer: That's your whole life.

[00:47:15] Katie Dooley: Your entire life.

[00:47:16] Preston Meyer: Red flags is enough.

[00:47:17] Katie Dooley: And then even if you did remove yourself, you weren't safe necessarily, right? I don't know how to wrap this up. I'm sad.

[00:47:28] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's, uh, it's bad news. It's. It's weird because before things got really weird before people were in too deep to get out, for the most part. They were not really talking about anything that was weird relative to what every other church was.

[00:47:46] Katie Dooley: No, I mean, the faith healings were a bit out there, but it was the 60s and. 

[00:47:50] Preston Meyer: People are still doing faith healings.

[00:47:52] Katie Dooley: Well, it was the 60s and people sold monkeys door to door. There was weirder shit happening.

[00:47:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:47:59] Katie Dooley: Uh oh. Brutal. Uh, pet rocks were popular and...

[00:48:06] Preston Meyer: When did that?

[00:48:06] Katie Dooley: I don't know, I'm not that old, Preston.

[00:48:09] Preston Meyer: Okay, well, anyway, what's the name of the episode where we talked about the BITE model? Fake Me T Church.

[00:48:16] Katie Dooley: Fake Me To Church.

[00:48:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah. For some more detail on cults in general, Fake Me To Church talks about a lot of the red flags.

[00:48:25] Katie Dooley: We also have a lovely interview with our good friend Sarah, uh, who talks about her experience in a cult. Uh, she was obviously not in the People's Temple because she's far too young for that. Um, but she does talk about her experience as well. Um, just again, good to be aware of these red flags. Even if you just Google the BITE model, it breaks it down very nicely.

[00:48:46] Preston Meyer: Yeah. A couple of months ago we had a nice chat about communism and in particular religious communism. That helps give a little bit of context to how these people were living as well.

[00:48:57] Katie Dooley: Look at how our episodes are just building on each other, Preston.

[00:49:00] Preston Meyer: Right? I feel like our plan is starting to really show itself.

[00:49:05] Katie Dooley: Oh, careful. That makes us sound like a danger cult. Uh, yeah. Just wait until July 15th, 2023, when the world ends. Okay? Um, and our plan comes to fruition. We're kidding. We're just going to keep recording this until you're sick of us.

[00:49:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, so far, it hasn't stopped being fun. And we have a lot of fun with many of our listeners on Discord, Facebook, YouTube.

[00:49:34] Katie Dooley: Instagram. Hey, Preston. If our listeners wanted to flesh out more of their learning and get a deeper understanding, is there a resource for that?

[00:49:43] Preston Meyer: We've got actually a whole bunch of bonus episodes that's exclusive to Patreon that we've also had a lot of fun recording those.

[00:49:52] Katie Dooley: And did you guys hear about our Patreon book club?

[00:49:57] Preston Meyer: Man, we're gonna have some fun with that. Yeah. So it's a completely separate tier, uh, for the price of $5 a month, every two months, we are going to read a book with you guys and have a discussion with our lovely patrons. So if that sounds super interesting to you, subscribe today.

[00:50:15] Both Speakers: Peace be with you!

Is there any truth to the anti-semitic conspiracy theories that Kanye and your weird uncle have been muttering for years? Probably not, but let's take a look at the seed that grew into such an ugly tree. Israel hasn't enjoyed its current form for very long, but there was a not-so-secret plan in place long before the Allied Forces established the nation of Israel after the Holocaust. Join us as we examine the accusation of fascism within one of the groups that suffered the most under its heel.

We take a look at Baron Walter Rothschild, the Russian emigration to the Ottoman Empire, the current conflict and the measures to preserve peace, and everything in between.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion has done an incredible amount of harm to the Jewish Community, and the Anti-Defamation League has done lots of work to counter the decades of trouble caused by the hoax and the countless loud voices who repeat that nonsense. Anti-Semitism has no place in a civilized society.

Zionism is a movement not isolated to Judaism--in fact, while many Jewish people are not Zionists, many Christians are.

In addition to a survey of the history of Eretz-Israel, we critically examine the claim of fascism, comparing reality to Umberto Eco's 1995 checklist of fascist red flags.

The conflict in Gaza and the West Bank are only recent developments, and Hamas is a powerful group causing troubles in already contentious situations. Israel is having a hard time looking like the good guy, too, so it's important to know the history here.

All this and more....

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Join the Community on Discord

Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram

[00:00:10] Katie Dooley: It's been a minute since we recorded.

[00:00:15] Preston Meyer: I suppose so. Yeah.

[00:00:17] Katie Dooley: It feels like it's been a long time.

[00:00:18] Preston Meyer: Not that our audience would ever know, because we very reliably post every two weeks.

[00:00:23] Katie Dooley: We're committed to you, and you're committed to us forever here on the... 

[00:00:29] Both Speakers: Holy Watermelon Podcast!

[00:00:31] Katie Dooley: That soft opening. Really didn't allude to what we're talking about at all, but, uh, it feels good to be back from our little summer hiatus.

[00:00:40] Katie Dooley: Right? Even though it's December now. November?

[00:00:45] Preston Meyer: November.

[00:00:45] Katie Dooley: It's November, now.

[00:00:48] Preston Meyer: In case you haven't picked us up, we're recording way in advance of these releases.

[00:00:53] Katie Dooley: So that we could release consistently here on the...

[00:00:57] Both Speakers: Holy Watermelon Podcast.

[00:00:59] Katie Dooley: I don't know what we're even doing anymore. Um, today we're going to talk about a controversial topic.

[00:01:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah, kind of picking up on some themes that we'd laid out earlier this year. We've talked about fascism, nationalism, as well as socialism, communism. We talked a little bit about the religious conflict in Ireland. And so we're going to talk today, as promised previously, about some religious conflict in Israel and Palestine.

[00:01:33] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So today we're talking about Zionism. Uh, actually, one of the things I went down the Reddit rabbit hole for this episode.

[00:01:41] Preston Meyer: Dangerous.

[00:01:41] Katie Dooley: Little bit. And one of them said they didn't actually like the term conflict because there was an obvious oppressor. A conflict implies that there's two sides fighting, and they didn't like the term conflict because they're saying that Israel is oppressive to Palestine. Just thoughts. But Preston doesn't agree with that from his face but...

[00:02:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah, Israel's got a a pretty uncomfortable grip on things and people are being treated poorly. But the Palestinian Arabs have a long history of, hey, we don't like you here, let's blow you up. And so it's just kind of a, a constant elevating game of no, my stick is bigger.

[00:02:24] Katie Dooley: It's also interesting. This is basically where we're going to start is obviously the Jewish population has been through a lot historically. So for them to be possessive of a place that is their own, I don't want to say we can't fault them because they're not being very nice over in that part of the world. But there is a very long line of generational trauma that has led to what we have today over in the in that part of the world. So the Oxford Dictionary defines Zionism as a movement for originally the reestablishment and now the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel. It was established as a political organization in 1897 under Theodor Herzl, and was later led by Haim Weizman. Thank you. Someone who's taken Hebrew. Yeah.

[00:03:16] Preston Meyer: It's not "chaim".

[00:03:18] Katie Dooley: That's literally what I wanted. Or like. Yeah. The term Zionism comes from the word Zion, a hill in Jerusalem which symbolizes the land of Israel.

[00:03:27] Preston Meyer: There's all kinds of important historical baggage behind this word, but ultimately it's, hey, Zion is our home, and we want it.

[00:03:38] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And it's important to know that there's no overarching governing body for Zionism or Zionists.

[00:03:45] Preston Meyer: There are Zionist groups, but to say that they're all tightly affiliated and mutually governed is simply not the case.

[00:03:53] Katie Dooley: Well, I think I mean, even arguably I don't know if their goal is the same. I know the debate on how the land of the Jews would be run is or governed is one thing that really hasn't been decided, but they all have different motives for sure. There's a whole bunch of different types of Zionism as well.

[00:04:09] Preston Meyer: Yeah, as we've said before, it's a spectrum. That not all Jews are Zionists. Not all Zionists are Jewish. It's a huge bag of marbles.

[00:04:23] Katie Dooley: Yeah, and there might be some Zionists that are surprising to you that I think we've talked about earlier, Christian Zionism. Um, we'll get to that later in the episode.

[00:04:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Judaism is a weird sort of thing that it's generally talked about as a religious organization or not organization, but a religious umbrella religious group. But there's cultural and ethnic divisions as well. Hitler wasn't trying to get rid of the Jewish people because of their religion. He wanted to get rid of them because of their race. That the Jewish people as a race were inferior and problematic. Not a great position to hold. But here we are.

[00:04:34] Katie Dooley: And it is a weird. We don't talk about the Christian race or the Muslim race. It is a...

[00:05:09] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:05:10] Katie Dooley: But I have definitely met people that identify as secular or cultural Jews because of, you know, their grandparents were Jewish, and even though they have no religious practice, they still identify in some way as Jewish. So it's a that is also an interesting bag of marbles.

[00:05:28] Preston Meyer: It's it's weird in today's globalist culture, but go back 2000 years, it was like the Slavs or the Nords or the the...

[00:05:40] Katie Dooley: Totally. And there's there's still groups. I mean, I for audience members that might not know me personally, I grew up Irish dancing and there's like an Irish look, especially to like middle aged Irishmen. There's just. They just look Irish. And I can say that as a white Irish person, I'm not going to say that about any other culture, but they're, you know, even with globalism, there are still groups that have a look to them. So I get it, and I don't get it all at the same time. Um, so secular Zionism is a thing where people who identify as cultural Jewish people still want a Jewish homeland.

[00:06:21] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So because the people of this ethnic group have been abused so consistently for such a long time. Yeah. A nice, safe place to call home. Who wouldn't want that?

[00:06:36] Katie Dooley: And this is where I'm. It's such a difficult conflict because we're going to start talking about the history of anti-Semitism in 2.5 seconds here. And they've been through a ton, but now they're doing terrible things to other people. So, you know, hurt people, hurt people, preston.

[00:06:55] Preston Meyer: Exactly.

[00:06:55] Katie Dooley: And that's kind of how we're here. So the history of anti-Semitism is very long, like 2000 plus years.

[00:07:04] Preston Meyer: I mean, if you look back through their own reflection on their history, there is never a time where things are going well for them. They're always on somebody else's land and that somebody hates them.

[00:07:18] Katie Dooley: They're kind of the eeyores of religion, aren't they?

[00:07:20] Preston Meyer: A little bit.

[00:07:21] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:07:22] Preston Meyer: A little bit. The earliest point of Hebrew history. We have them in Egypt enslaved, and then they escape that, only to fight other people in the land that they claim as their own, because they won't be good neighbors. And it just gets worse. They get enslaved. Well, not enslaved, but they get conquered. Conquered a whole bunch of a long series of external nations. You got the Syrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, and things are bad.

[00:07:52] Katie Dooley: And this is all told in the Hebrew Bible.

[00:07:55] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:07:56] Katie Dooley: But we also know historically that Judaism was the first major monotheistic religion.

[00:08:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:08:03] Katie Dooley: When and maybe this. We live in the West. It's weird to think of anything other than monotheism when the majority of people are Jewish, Christian or Muslim, and they all believe in Yahweh. That at the time they would have been the outsiders and the weirdos, only believing in one God. How can one God handle both the rain and the sun and the plants and life and death?

[00:08:28] Preston Meyer: Mhm.

[00:08:29] Katie Dooley: You got to have different people for all those.

[00:08:31] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:08:31] Katie Dooley: How do you know who to pray to?

[00:08:32] Preston Meyer: That's how all their neighbours looked at it.

[00:08:32] Katie Dooley: Right. Uh, they were already othered by just the format of their religion.

[00:08:39] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Yeah. If you were traveling from one nation to another, it was polite to go to the local worship station and offer a sacrifice.

[00:08:49] Katie Dooley: Worship station.

[00:08:50] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:08:50] Katie Dooley: I like that. I mean like church or shrine or...

[00:08:53] Preston Meyer: Shrines, temples.

[00:08:55] Katie Dooley: Worship station like an eyewash station.

[00:08:57] Preston Meyer: And if you went to Jerusalem and you were gonna do the thing you do everywhere else, you'd get in huge trouble because you're not welcome in their temple as an outsider.

[00:09:07] Katie Dooley: Then what happened?

[00:09:09] Preston Meyer: Then the temple was destroyed.

[00:09:10] Katie Dooley: No, you're skipping ahead. So next we all know about JC. Jesus Christ, the world's most famous Jew.

[00:09:18] Preston Meyer: Oh, no. my thing comes first.

[00:09:19] Katie Dooley: Oh, right. There were two destructions at the temple. Excuse me.

[00:09:23] Preston Meyer: And then there were.

[00:09:24] Katie Dooley: Because, my...

[00:09:25] Preston Meyer: Very often things were hard in Babylon and Persia. And then they got to go back home, rebuild the temple, and then Jesus.

[00:09:34] Katie Dooley: Then Jesus.

[00:09:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:09:36] Katie Dooley: So the JC world's most famous Jew.

[00:09:39] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:09:39] Katie Dooley: Maybe not next to Moses, I think more famous than Moses.

[00:09:43] Preston Meyer: I mean, I really hope...

[00:09:47] Katie Dooley: I was just gonna make...

[00:09:48] Preston Meyer: are aware of Moses.

[00:09:49] Katie Dooley: I was just going to make a really terrible joke. I'm gonna refrain.

[00:09:54] Preston Meyer: But, like, I want to say that Jesus might not be as popular as Moses because all Christians should be aware of Moses. But an awful lot of people outside of the monotheistic dome probably have heard of Jesus more than Moses, just because Christians are loud as hell.

[00:10:12] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, now we've debated who the most famous Jew is of all time, Jesus, was crucified by Roman governor Pontius Pilate. But the Gospels blame the Jews.

[00:10:26] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:10:26] Katie Dooley: And.

[00:10:27] Preston Meyer: Well. Okay. Preston and I have to be real. Pontius Pilate didn't want to crucify Jesus.

[00:10:33] Katie Dooley: We disagree on this.

[00:10:34] Preston Meyer: The authority that said, yes, let's do it.

[00:10:36] Katie Dooley: Preston, I disagree on this. Um. And I'll say why. I read a great book by Reza Aslan on Jesus. Historical Jesus and Pontius Pilate had complaints sent to Rome about him for crucifying too many people, so I don't think he cared too much about another another rebellious person.

[00:10:57] Preston Meyer: He had been warned. If you stop, if you don't stop messing around, you're going to lose your job.

[00:11:03] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:11:03] Preston Meyer: And... 

[00:11:04] Katie Dooley: That's how many people he crucified when crucifixion was the way to do it.

[00:11:08] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:11:08] Katie Dooley: Like it's not like, you know, in we're in Canada where we don't have the death penalty and let's start killing people. It's like, no, we this is how we deal with people. And he was doing it too often.

[00:11:20] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:11:21] Katie Dooley: So that's really bad. Yeah. So.

[00:11:23] Preston Meyer: But the Jews demanded this time we're serious. We want this.

[00:11:27] Preston Meyer: So the gospels, as they get newer, the blame gets put more and more on the Jews because Christianity was now the religion of the Roman Empire, and it can't be looking like the Romans killed JC. So they blame. I mean, Preston, I disagree on this, but the books aren't so new that the the Christians were in charge of the Roman Empire when they were published. There's a couple hundred years between the publication of the fourth gospel and the rise to power of Christianity.

[00:12:00] Katie Dooley: Oh, interesting.

[00:12:01] Preston Meyer: Yeah

[00:12:02] Katie Dooley: We should get Doctor Glenn answering this question.

[00:12:05] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:12:05] Katie Dooley: We disagree. Anyway, so Christ killer is a slur for a Jewish person. Is the important point in this conversation.

[00:12:15] Preston Meyer: Which is ridiculous because giving anybody credit for a murder that happened centuries before their own birth fully ridiculous.

[00:12:26] Katie Dooley: I, I mean, again, yes and no, because if we're still having to, you know.

[00:12:33] Preston Meyer: Are you are you defending the use of Christ killer?

[00:12:36] Katie Dooley: No, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. But the way Christians treat their current people as still having to like, do things for Jesus because he sacrificed himself 2000 years ago. You know what I mean?

[00:12:49] Katie Dooley: I'm not sure that I do.

[00:12:51] Preston Meyer: Are we going to cut this out? Because I'm not making any sense? We'll see. Um, okay. Because I'm reading all these books on, like, evangelical Christianity, and it's all like, well, because Jesus died for your sins, you have to do x, y, and Z.

[00:13:04] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:13:05] Katie Dooley: So if we're still carrying that someone died for us 2000 years ago. Of course we should care who killed someone 2000 years. You know what I mean?

[00:13:12] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:13:14] Katie Dooley: Does that make sense?

[00:13:15] Preston Meyer: I follow you now.

[00:13:16] Katie Dooley: Okay? I mean, I say, I'm not saying it's a good thing, right? But if we care what someone did for me when I wasn't born and didn't ask him to do it 2000 years ago. Ergo, I should probably care who killed the man 2000 years ago. If I care about those two, well, the one thing I should care about the other.

[00:13:35] Preston Meyer: I still don't think there's a valid equivalence but I guess that's just me.

[00:13:43] Katie Dooley: I mean, I'm an atheist, so it doesn't matter to me either. But like I said, if I'm going to care that someone died for me, shouldn't I not care who killed him or no. Okay.

[00:13:53] Preston Meyer: I, I don't think it's fair to transfer the the burden of the murder across people and. 

[00:14:03] Katie Dooley: No, absolutely.

[00:14:04] Preston Meyer: That's the thing.

[00:14:05] Katie Dooley:  [00:14:05]But I can see why people do it. [00:14:06]

[00:14:07] Preston Meyer: Because people are simple.

[00:14:08] Katie Dooley: Because people are terrible. Yeah.

[00:14:10] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:14:11] Katie Dooley: Because we've been taught to care about this thing that happened 2000 years ago.

[00:14:15] Preston Meyer: Yes. Parents teach their children a lot of things they shouldn't.

[00:14:20] Katie Dooley: Yes. So then Preston and I got ahead of myself and talked about the second destruction of the temple.

[00:14:28] Preston Meyer: Mhm. And then around 70 CE, there was enough trouble in Jerusalem that it was time to destroy the temple again. And things have just been super hard ever since.

[00:14:44] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:14:45] Preston Meyer: People are scattered across all of Europe and treated poorly everywhere they go.

[00:14:51] Katie Dooley: Yep. So for many centuries, the Jews weren't allowed to hold land or public office or vote and were treated as aliens, predominantly across Europe, I imagine through the Middle East as well.

[00:15:03] Preston Meyer: A little bit, yeah.

[00:15:05] Katie Dooley: We just have great records of European history all the way back to the year 1000.

[00:15:10] Preston Meyer: Mhm.

[00:15:11] Katie Dooley: And they were also othered because the Jews take a line from Exodus 22:25 very specifically. I remember learning about this and I thought this was great when I learned about it. So the line from Exodus 22:25 says, if you lend money to any of my people with you, who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him. So this is God telling people don't charge interest on loans.

[00:15:36] Preston Meyer: Yeah, but if anyone's read The Good Old Merchant of Venice, the story is about a Jewish guy who charges interest.

[00:15:44] Preston Meyer: So the Jews took this line very literally of my people, meaning other Jews and Christians take this as my people being everyone.

[00:15:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:15:53] Katie Dooley: So historically, Jewish people have been bankers and become quite wealthy from it. Been charged with usury and a stereotype that still stands today as being either like money grubbing or really cheap. So no one likes paying back their loans.

[00:16:09] Preston Meyer: Of course, things have changed a little bit since then. Now Christians love.

[00:16:13] Katie Dooley: Now everyone loves charging interest. Usury is not even a thing anymore.

[00:16:16] Preston Meyer: I mean, it is. We just don't use that word anymore because it's a normal practice.

[00:16:21] Katie Dooley: Yeah. We don't. We're not going to send anyone. Well, we might send people to hell for it. We'll have to ask JC when the time comes. But, uh, it used to be like a really big sin, and now it's like, literally, I could get an extension on my credit card right now if I wanted to.

[00:16:37] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:16:39] Katie Dooley: You want a car loan, Preston? I could get you a car loan. Like, right now,

[00:16:43] Preston Meyer: I'm pretty comfortable with my situation. Okay.

[00:16:45] Katie Dooley: You want a car loan?

[00:16:47] Preston Meyer: No.

[00:16:48] Katie Dooley: 3% interest.

[00:16:50] Preston Meyer: We owe $0.78 on our car right now.

[00:16:52] Katie Dooley: Why haven't you paid it off yet? Amanda tried, and they wouldn't let her.

[00:16:55] Preston Meyer: Oh. I was like, I will give you $0.78. Um...

[00:17:00] Katie Dooley: They're like, no, you have to wait until next month when the interest on that $0.78 makes it most of it.

[00:17:06] Preston Meyer: Well, then give them $3.

[00:17:08] Katie Dooley: It won't be that much.

[00:17:10] Preston Meyer: I know, but just then they can't when they can't harass you about it. Um, anyway, so that's how we, you know, have Jewish stereotypes. And this is, like, literally happening. You're like 1000, like, this is like, we obviously know about anti-Semitism in the early 1900s, but this has been going on for literally centuries. So the Jewish community was never fully accepted. They were often just tolerated. Many countries enforced segregation in Jewish ghettos. And again, this is as early as the 1000. We hear about Jewish ghettos a lot during World War two. There have been Jewish ghettos for a thousand years.

[00:17:48] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Of course, one of the great titles you'll hear about in discussions of antisemitism is The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

[00:17:57] Preston Meyer: No!

[00:17:57] Katie Dooley: This great book that was supposed to expose all of the terrible plots that the Jews were.

[00:18:03] Preston Meyer: It's the great Jewish conspiracy theory.

[00:18:06] Katie Dooley: It's...

[00:18:07] Preston Meyer: It's garbage.

[00:18:08] Katie Dooley: Yeah. It's terrible. The Jewish plan for global domination. Well, such a small group of people pulling that off.

[00:18:17] Preston Meyer: I mean, pre-World War One, their population were pre-World War Two. Their population was much bigger. I still don't know if it's enough for world domination...

[00:18:24] Katie Dooley: But compared to, like, the rest of the world, they're still a small group. So this book was published in 1903. It is a fake text that describes the plan for the Jewish Plan for Global Domination. It was read to school children as fact after the Nazis took over Germany in 1933.

[00:18:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah. People suck. I mean, if you want to make people hate any group, here's a good example of how to do it.

[00:18:52] Katie Dooley: This one, I will say, is quite interesting because again, it was published well over 100 years ago. And if you stay in a Facebook or Reddit argument long enough, this conspiracy theory of it's the Jews will come up. And that's terrible.

[00:19:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, there was a conspiracy. That was the Jews. Let me tell you what the conspiracy was.

[00:19:17] Katie Dooley: Oh, no. Now, now you're sounding like the sketchy one, Preston.

[00:19:22] Preston Meyer: Because a conspiracy is a shared vision with intent to act. A whole bunch of Jews got together and said, we want to go home. 

[00:19:22] Katie Dooley: Fair.

[00:19:31] Preston Meyer: Technically a conspiracy.

[00:19:33] Katie Dooley: Not world domination, though. Just Katie after a night out drinking. I just want to go home.

[00:19:39] Preston Meyer: Right. That that's it. That's the conspiracy. We want a safe place to go to sleep at night.

[00:19:48] Katie Dooley: Hasn't worked yet, unfortunately.

[00:19:50] Preston Meyer: Uh, no. Even though they've had their own nation for most of a century now.

[00:19:56] Katie Dooley: 80 years.

[00:19:57] Preston Meyer: It's still kind of sucks.

[00:19:59] Katie Dooley: Yep. So modern Zionism, which led to the creation of the nation of Israel. Let's talk about that.

[00:20:09] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So let's start at the where things were about 150 years ago, maybe a little bit further back than that. Jewish religious thought had always talked about returning to Jerusalem. That was always a big thing, that there would be a new Jerusalem. The temple would eventually be rebuilt. There was never any specific plans to make it happen. It was just a thing that everyone looked forward to one day. Nobody knew what circumstances it would be. It was just a thing that was hoped for. For centuries, the Ottoman Empire controlled Jerusalem and the rest of the Land of Israel, and anti-Semitism was getting pretty rough in Europe, to the point that through the 1860s and 70s, people actually started talking about getting out of these unfriendly nations that maybe, hey, let's try going home. Makes perfect sense. So they could actually enjoy self-determination instead of being governed by people who hated them because they'd had enough after more than a thousand years of that in Europe. Just terrible.

[00:21:10] Katie Dooley: Yep.

[00:21:11] Preston Meyer: And so it didn't take long to decide that Jerusalem should be their refuge. A lot of people said, no, let's head off to New York. That'll work out really well for us. And for some people, it did work out. But there was still...

[00:21:23] Katie Dooley: They have a huge population.

[00:21:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah, yeah. Huge population in New York, but a lot of them said, hey, let's go back to Jerusalem. And they started growing. The individual people and some larger nationalist groups started buying up land so that Jewish immigrants would have a place to live in the Ottoman Empire, which was ruled, of course, by Muslims. That was the majority religion. It was kind of the the symbol that we have for Islam, recognized everywhere, is always that moon and star has nothing to do with the religion that was the symbol of the Ottoman Empire. So that's how the Ottomans connected to the rest of the world that way. And really, the modern Zionist movement began in about 1896. Well, that was the year that Theodor Herzl published his little pamphlet, The Jewish State.

[00:22:17] Katie Dooley: Der Jungen statt. No Juden judenstaat. Jungen in his child der Judenstaat. 

[00:22:17] Preston Meyer: Yes. And so the argument was that an independent Jewish state would help escape anti-Semitism. We've we've seen this state finally erected. Turns out it didn't work. Anti-semitism is still a problem.

[00:22:41] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I don't think... It's such a weird thing and I'm in a place of privilege to not really talk about it, but it's one of those things where I feel like othering yourself further doesn't help anything... Yeah. I mean, again, I'm not in a place to say, but just thoughts.

[00:23:02] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It didn't solve the problem.

[00:23:04] Katie Dooley: Didn't solve. Yeah.

[00:23:04] Preston Meyer: Or at least not the whole problem. It did solve part of the problem that people were able to live in a space where anti-Semitism didn't actually ruin their lives.

[00:23:13] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:23:14] Preston Meyer: Not a perfect solution. There's still a lot of murders.

[00:23:19] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And I mean, again, just spend a little bit of time on the internet and you'll see that anti-Semitism is still a thing, you know, day to day in your home of Israel. Can you avoid that? Probably just don't go on the internet. But that doesn't mean people, unfortunately, think differently.

[00:23:37] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:23:39] Katie Dooley: Early Zionism discouraged assimilation, encouraged the revitalization, revitalization of the Hebrew language. Say something for us, Preston.

[00:23:48] Preston Meyer: My Hebrew studies were really quite light, and I'll admit that I did not attend every class when I was doing it, but I did pass in the end.

[00:23:55] Katie Dooley: That's good. I thought you were going to say Mazel tov.

[00:23:58] Preston Meyer: Sure. Uh, in my command of the Hebrew language is not enough to call it command.

[00:24:06] Katie Dooley: All right. As Jewish families and organizations bought up land and facilitated immigration into Palestine, conflict wasn't actually that frequent. Between 1882 and 1908, only 13 Jewish people. I shouldn't say only 13 Jewish people were killed by Arab people in Palestine, but only four of those were because of nationalistic circumstances.

[00:24:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I mean, over the course of more than 20 years, 13 murders, pretty light compared to a lot of conflicts that we see. But that's still people dying.

[00:24:44] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:24:44] Preston Meyer: So that sucks.

[00:24:45] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:24:46] Preston Meyer: Things started to heat up even more when Jewish landowners started evicting tenants to make room for more Jewish immigrants on their land, which was technically legal, but also really sucks if you're the one being evicted.

[00:25:00] Katie Dooley: Totally.

[00:25:01] Preston Meyer: And so the Ottoman Empire started worrying about the possibility that all these immigrants coming in from Russia and other parts of Europe might still be loyal to those countries. Publicly anti-Semitic countries.

[00:25:13] Katie Dooley: And they're leaving because they're anti-Semitic... Probably not.

[00:25:16] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:25:18] Katie Dooley: I mean, even when we talk about immigration now, I'm like, it takes a lot for someone to leave their home country.

[00:25:22] Preston Meyer: Yeah. 

[00:25:23] Katie Dooley: People don't just do that lightly so...

[00:25:27] Preston Meyer: Moving house is a big deal.

[00:25:28] Katie Dooley: Even moving houses is too much. Moving countries, I couldn't imagine.

[00:25:31] Preston Meyer: Exactly. You're abandoning everything, you know, for what is absolutely uncertainty.

[00:25:37] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:25:38] Preston Meyer: High risk. But people are doing it because they need to.

[00:25:42] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:25:43] Preston Meyer: But of course this displaces a lot of people. So back to that question of can these Jewish immigrants even possibly be loyal to the Ottoman Empire? The Turkish people actually did have problems with the same sort of thing um, of these nationalist groups breaking away from the empire. All of the Balkans used to be under Ottoman power for a while, and then lost it because nationalist power. In 1892, the Ottoman government banned the sale of land to foreigners. Which I mean makes sense when you realize a whole bunch of your property is being bought up. You're losing money. I mean, we see that today in North America. China is buying up all kinds of property. Probably not for the same reason. No, it's all about that money, which, you know...

[00:26:37] Katie Dooley: I mean, when the climate climate crisis meets its peak and everything goes into the ocean, property values inland will skyrocket.

[00:26:46] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:26:47] Katie Dooley: I mean, I guess it is for money.

[00:26:49] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:26:49] Katie Dooley: But you could live there, too, if your home is underwater elsewhere.

[00:26:53] Preston Meyer: Sure. So this didn't actually stop people who were living there buying land and renting it to Jewish immigrants. So we still see a growing influx of ethnic Jewish people because religion wasn't the issue, even though a lot of them were faithful, religious, practicing Jews.

[00:27:16] Katie Dooley: Yes. Again, because you can't look at someone and know what their religion is.

[00:27:21] Preston Meyer: No, it doesn't work that way.

[00:27:25] Katie Dooley: Because the number of people that clutch their pearls at me when they find out, Preston.

[00:27:30] Preston Meyer: Right. Because they look at you and assume, oh, she's white. She's probably Christian.

[00:27:33] Katie Dooley: Nice white Christian girl. Wrong!

[00:27:35] Preston Meyer: She's an Atheist.

[00:27:36] Katie Dooley: Satan! Kidding. Not even Satan. I wish I knew that episode number to quote that right now. Episode 37 Not Even Satan.

[00:27:47] Preston Meyer: I don't think it was that one. Anyway...

[00:27:52] Katie Dooley: Then what happened?

[00:27:53] Preston Meyer: The First World War broke out.

[00:27:55] Katie Dooley: Oh...

[00:27:56] Preston Meyer: Yeah, and the Ottoman Empire joined Germany. Because why not?

[00:28:02] Katie Dooley: Losing side. Losing side.

[00:28:05] Preston Meyer: I don't want to say one side is better than the other in this specific detail, that the Ottomans joined the side of Franz Ferdinand, the assassinated fellow. But also they saw great power in Germany and Austria, saw allies there. And Germany already hates Jewish people... Not as much as they will 20 years from now, but at this point in history, it's a problem already.

[00:28:34] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:28:35] Preston Meyer: And I actually think it's worth noting that an awful lot of Muslim Arabs actually don't like the Ottoman Empire. They don't like the Ottoman power. It's causing problems for them. There's lots of different factions within Islam, lots of different denominations, and some of them were treated very poorly by their government. Yay, theocracy! So things were kind of rough for a lot of people, not just the Jewish people in the Ottoman Empire and even some of them... Some of the Arabs agreed with the Jews that it would be better to ally with Russia and France and their allies.

[00:29:16] Katie Dooley: Interesting.

[00:29:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's a spectrum. Many sides, many subgroups.

[00:29:21] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:29:23] Preston Meyer: Uh, of course, France and their allies were really excited to split up the Ottoman Empire as soon as they could, because...

[00:29:31] Katie Dooley: It was huge.

[00:29:32] Preston Meyer: It was huge territory. There was a lot of power there, but not enough to win a war.

[00:29:38] Katie Dooley: Like Canada. Big, but spread out.

[00:29:40] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:29:41] Katie Dooley: We're not winning any wars here either.

[00:29:43] Preston Meyer: Well, also, we don't dump a full half of our funds generated every year into the armed forces like America does. So there's a serious military advantage on one side of that.

[00:29:55] Katie Dooley: I looked it up once because I have a friend. Our friend Sarah and I told her what Canada budgets for military versus what the States budgets for military. And it's gross the difference.

[00:30:07] Preston Meyer: Absolutely it is.

[00:30:08] Katie Dooley: I think we budget in the billions and they budget like I think we budget in like the two digit billions and they budget in the three digit trillions.

[00:30:16] Preston Meyer: That's insane.

[00:30:17] Katie Dooley: It's like an and that's the huge that's a huge difference. The difference between 1 billion and 1 trillion is a lot.

[00:30:23] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:30:24] Katie Dooley: Like a lot.

[00:30:26] Preston Meyer: Well anyway, so in 1915, the British government agreed to recognize the independence of individual states after the war if they agreed to rebel against the Ottoman Empire.

[00:30:38] Katie Dooley: Hmm. Interesting.

[00:30:39] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So let's let's poke at this hot bed of coals and see what fires pop up. And they got their fires. Uh, the next year, 1916, France and Great Britain got support from Russia and Italy to divide the parts of the Ottoman Empire between the two powers in what is called the Sykes-Picot agreement. And England got the southern half and France got the north half, basically at least of the Levant region. Other things were divided a little differently too. In 1917, the British government pronounced their intent to make a home for Jewish people in Palestine. They were pretty overt about it, and it was a little bit weird. The British government in the Balfour Declaration, named for the British Foreign Secretary, Balfour. There's actually a lot of argument around Balfour's motives. Some are like, is he trying to get people in trouble? Is he secretly a Zionist himself?

[00:31:40] Katie Dooley: No one knows.

[00:31:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah, we just don't know. Kind of frustrating. But the Balfour Declaration was sent from the Foreign secretary to Baron Walter Rothschild, a Jewish lord of the British Parliament. A lot of times when people are talking about these Protocols of Zion, the Rothschilds running the world. No. But the Rothschilds are part of the conspiracy to find a home.

[00:32:06] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:32:08] Preston Meyer: So we have that. Anyway, he sent it to Rothschild to take to the Zionist Federation, who then forwarded it to the press. And it's actually not terribly long. I included it in our notes. The full text of the letter.

[00:32:24] Katie Dooley: Read it.

[00:32:25] Preston Meyer: And so it's dated November 2nd, 1917, so pretty close to the end of the war. Dear Lord Rothschild, I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations, which has been submitted to and approved by the cabinet. His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

[00:33:16] Katie Dooley: There you go.

[00:33:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah, like he didn't get in trouble for it. And the guy who took over for him supported it all the way through. But it's it's still like a lot of people investigating why this was written and all that. But before the end of the year, and this was in November, a British forces seized Palestine and they ultimately held it until they acknowledged Israeli independence a few decades later.

[00:33:43] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:33:45] Preston Meyer: There's not much of a conspiracy. It's just a concerted will and plan to find a home.

[00:33:53] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So, as Preston mentioned, the English held what is now known as Israel, Jordan, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Kuwait and part of Iraq and France held Lebanon, Syria and another part of Iraq.

[00:34:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And other little parts of land here and there. But those are the big bits.

[00:34:09] Katie Dooley: Those are the big bits. And it's interesting. I mean, is it colonialism? Kind of. It's just like how much conflict has been in that part of the world since. It's like a weird kind of colonialism.

[00:34:20] Preston Meyer: I guess.

[00:34:21] Katie Dooley: Because it was spoils of war...

[00:34:22] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:34:23] Katie Dooley: But it's still not yours.

[00:34:25] Preston Meyer: Well, so the thing is that the English and the French didn't actually didn't actually colonize the lands. They just took it, controlled it, and facilitated other people immigrating.

[00:34:39] Katie Dooley: Yeah, but that's having a government that isn't a government you wanted, right?

[00:34:44] Preston Meyer: Yeah, they certainly weren't an elected government by the locals in this part.

[00:34:47] Katie Dooley: So I guess not. Yeah, it's different than colonization, but it is some sort of weird.

[00:34:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, still very English.

[00:34:56] Katie Dooley: I wanna say, sticking your dick in places it doesn't belong. That's the best way I can describe it.

[00:35:03] Preston Meyer: Sure. I mean, a better example of exactly that would be what the English did in India, where the more coastal you are in India, the more likely you are to have pale skin because of sticking things where they don't belong. But here we are.

[00:35:22] Katie Dooley: Here we are. So immigration accelerated after the First World War. So Jewish immigration, funded mostly by English speaking Christians, displaced more Arabs even though they said it wouldn't.

[00:35:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah...

[00:35:36] Katie Dooley: But it did.

[00:35:37] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:35:38] Katie Dooley: This, of course, made a lot of Palestinians uncomfortable because they wanted self-determination, just like Jewish immigrants did. While I'm all for immigration, I don't want it to be the cost of me, or I don't want to be ousted from my own home.

[00:35:51] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:35:51] Katie Dooley: I'm happy to find resources for people who are immigrating here.

[00:35:55] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, we see people complaining about this all the time here in the West, where people are complaining about immigrants all the time and immigrants are taking our jobs while simultaneously saying immigrants are lazy and just a drain on things. You cannot be both ways.

[00:36:16] Katie Dooley: Canada. That's like I was talking to some friends about this that are also business owners, and they were just we're talking about the States versus Canada, where the States has this massive population and actually makes it really hard to do business in Canada because there's just not there's not enough people.

[00:36:30] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Yeah. A lot of people don't think it's worth doing business outside of the United States.

[00:36:34] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:36:34] Preston Meyer: No matter where in the world they're at.

[00:36:36] Katie Dooley: There's just not enough people.

[00:36:38] Preston Meyer: It's ridiculous.

[00:36:39] Katie Dooley: So I'm fine with more immigrants.

[00:36:40] Preston Meyer: Where there are people. There is money to be made. 

[00:36:42] Katie Dooley: And money to be spent. And people are buying things more. And, yeah, it's just, uh. I don't think we have to worry about that in Canada yet when our entire population is like the population of New York State.

[00:36:55] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:36:58] Katie Dooley: Anyway...

[00:37:00] Preston Meyer: so here we see nationalism starting to build up within this new set of almost nations. And of course, you have the immigrating Jewish people and the now...

[00:37:16] Katie Dooley: Existing, but...

[00:37:17] Preston Meyer: Fairly not fully oppressed, but they're not really being helped much, Palestinian Arab population. They both really lean into nationalism and because their ideals conflict with one another. Neither groups can be satisfied with either of them in power.

[00:37:36] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:37:36] Preston Meyer: Things just get worse. Nationalism is always bad. Always. I cannot think of any exception.

[00:37:44] Katie Dooley: In the 1920s, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a muslim, incited conflict by telling the Arabs that the Jews were going to destroy the Dome on the Rock so that they could rebuild their own temple. And this is actually a big part of the conflict, is that the Dome on the Rock is a very religious Muslim place, but it is where the temple is.

[00:38:04] Preston Meyer: Right. But I couldn't find anything saying that any Jew had said that they were planning to blow up the Dome on the Rock.

[00:38:13] Katie Dooley: Oh, interesting. I thought that was a big part of the conflict, is that that is the most holy place in the world.

[00:38:18] Preston Meyer: I mean, yeah, but the Grand Mufti. 

[00:38:22] Katie Dooley: Is the was the guy who...

[00:38:23] Preston Meyer: Who he just accused the Jewish people at large in general of wanting to blow up the Dome on the Rock so they could rebuild the.

[00:38:31] Katie Dooley: Where would they build the temple?

[00:38:32] Preston Meyer: No, that is the location.

[00:38:35] Katie Dooley: But nobody ever...

[00:38:37] Preston Meyer: No, no group of Jewish people in power have ever made any plans to do that.

[00:38:45] Katie Dooley: It doesn't help that Christians also,

[00:38:47] Preston Meyer: Christians, talk about blowing up the Dome on the Rock all the time. All the time. I heard it so often in the last 20 years. It's insane.

[00:38:57] Katie Dooley: That's probably where I'm getting this idea from.

[00:39:00] Preston Meyer: Probably because it seems like a natural. Effective way of rebuilding the temple. Get rid of what's there. It's not like there's a whole lot of love between most Christian groups and all of Islam. So it's it's an easy thing for a lot of people who are completely separate from this scenario to talk about. And since most of the world has a violent history, what's another bombing? Apart from, you know, actual murder.

[00:39:31] Katie Dooley: You know what I like? Nihilism.

[00:39:34] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:39:36] Katie Dooley: In 1937, after the conflict had gotten really rough with lots of deaths on both sides, the Peel Commission recommended a two state solution. The Zionist Congress approved the plan, but the Arabs didn't want to share the land. The English weren't too keen on the idea either, because it would essentially force countless families to relocate. I was actually in one of my rabbit holes I went down. They actually are saying that the two state solution is not the most popular one right now, and for a lot of years it was like, if you would ask me and I mean, I didn't try not to go down this rabbit hole too far. But, you know, for the longest time I was like, yeah, separate them. So it's interesting to me that it's no longer the most popular idea.

[00:40:15] Preston Meyer: Well, it's kind of interesting that, uh, in popular media, in the last, I'm going to say 4 or 5 years, there's been a lot more people telling their stories about the partition of Pakistan and India, and that it was just... 

[00:40:33] Katie Dooley: Devastating. Devastating. Yeah.

[00:40:36] Preston Meyer: And that was the exact same plan and the exact same year in Israel. And things didn't go well there.

[00:40:48] Katie Dooley: Interesting. And that's a good comparison to make. Yeah. Because that really was not good.

[00:40:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Partition of a forced partition of nations, where you have a winning group and a losing group who's still within your borders, who now desperately want to escape for their lives. That sucks.

[00:41:09] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:41:11] Preston Meyer: But we'll get into the governmental bits of that a little bit later on.

[00:41:16] Katie Dooley: We haven't even got to World War Two yet.

[00:41:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:41:19] Katie Dooley: In 1939, the British government implemented their one state plan and banned Jews from buying land from Arabs. The intent was to stop the conflict by helping the Palestinian Arabs feel more secure. Jews then started immigrating illegally, making things worse. And the Jewish rebellion stirred up because of these British policies.

[00:41:40] Preston Meyer: Yeah, things didn't get better with these new laws. And then World War Two broke out. And again, the Arabs allied with Germany because, hey, Germany's got this great doctrine of Jews are awful, and we also feel exactly this way. It's not a great reason to join a war, and it's not a great reason to pick such a terrible ally. But it was what they did.

[00:42:07] Katie Dooley: They also overlooked something pretty important.

[00:42:10] Preston Meyer: Yeah, the Jews were super anti-Semitic in general. Arabs are part of the Semitic family.

[00:42:17] Katie Dooley: Yeah...

[00:42:18] Preston Meyer: But Germany went along with it well enough.

[00:42:23] Katie Dooley: The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

[00:42:25] Preston Meyer: I guess? The Grand Mufti, the same one who incited public panic about the destruction of the Dome on the Rock, called for a holy war against the United Kingdom. Because, you know, United Kingdom's cause of all our problems recently. And so Hitler promised him that he would wipe out the Jews in Palestine after he had won the war in Europe. So he tried real hard in Europe, but he didn't win.

[00:42:49] Katie Dooley: That's good.

[00:42:50] Preston Meyer: Agreed.

[00:42:51] Katie Dooley: That's a different world I don't want to live in. And even that, I mean, do I want to live in this world? So, and this is something that, you know, I remember learning about Israel being created in 1948? 47? But we talked 48, 1948. But, you know, the Bible talks about the nation of Israel. And I was like, what do you mean? Israel wasn't a country until 1948? But it wasn't.

[00:43:17] Preston Meyer: Not technically.

[00:43:18] Katie Dooley: No. So because of the Holocaust, an event that killed 6 million Jews, many Jewish people sought refuge in Palestine and really started to embrace the idea of Zionism. Um, if they hadn't already, losing all your loved ones sure brought that home.

[00:43:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah. 

[00:43:35] Katie Dooley: Forgive the pun, but there was a huge exodus of Jews. I'm so sorry. From Europe to Israel. So 57% of Jews lived in Europe. Of the world's population, Jews lived in Europe before World War two. Afterwards, only 35% resided in Europe. And that's also obviously removing the deaths.

[00:43:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:43:59] Katie Dooley: So huge population drop.

[00:44:01] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, a lot of that wasn't emigration. A lot of that was extermination. But there was also an emigration.

[00:44:11] Katie Dooley: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

[00:44:13] Preston Meyer: So in 1947, the United Nations recommended a partition of the state. And this time Britain agreed. And it was the same year that they did the whole Pakistan-India partition. So I guess just different people in the Foreign Secretary's office, I guess. Palestine was only one third Jewish in 1947, but the Jewish people were awarded most of the land, and then Jerusalem was a separate state as well as its own city state.

[00:44:45] Katie Dooley: Kind of like the Vatican.

[00:44:46] Preston Meyer: Kind of, yeah. Under the control of the United Nations.

[00:44:49] Katie Dooley: I'd also like to just remind everyone that the UN is literally a baby right now.

[00:44:54] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's a very new organization.

[00:44:57] Katie Dooley: After the League of Nations failed and we had another world war.

[00:45:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So this partition, it went not half as well as it did in Pakistan. War broke out immediately. No hesitation. Not like weeks later. Immediately.

[00:45:15] Katie Dooley: The 1947 to 49 Palestine war was the first conflict of what we have today.

[00:45:22] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, first feels a little bit weird, but the way we define the warfare that's going on there...

[00:45:29] Katie Dooley: And I mean, it was the first conflict of the nation of Israel, and it has not stopped since. I guess it's my... What I'm trying to say.

[00:45:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I get you. And so it was called the War of Independence by those in Israel. And it finished with the Independence Day, May 14th, 1948. Thanks to Great Britain and their help in keeping some control over the situation, that honestly, they didn't have any real right to get involved in.

[00:46:03] Katie Dooley: And this is where it gets complicated, because a group of people that we can be really sympathetic to after thousands of years of oppression, now the tables are turning. So this war displaced more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs.

[00:46:20] Preston Meyer: Not counting the ones who died.

[00:46:21] Katie Dooley: Not counting the ones who died, just all of a sudden, people who had nowhere to go.

[00:46:24] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Let's head off to other nations.

[00:46:27] Katie Dooley: So again, the the Jewish population has just had however many years of World War two. My husband would know that answer. I don't know that answer. And been displaced and atrocities. And now, I mean, obviously they weren't put into concentration camps, but displacing creating 700,000 refugees is a huge problem. 

[00:46:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah and then Palestinian Arab rebels continue to illegally claim Dominion over pretty much the same area that was legitimately granted to them in 47, despite having lost the war. And then in 2012, the UN granted observer status to Palestine, officially recognized them as a state of their own.

[00:47:06] Katie Dooley: But it is not a country.

[00:47:07] Preston Meyer: Not technically speaking. It's it's funky. It's like...

[00:47:12] Katie Dooley: It is Wales.

[00:47:14] Preston Meyer: Well, it's it's an interesting, separate example. I want to say it's more like North and South Korea.

[00:47:22] Katie Dooley: Fair. Yeah, that's a good one.

[00:47:23] Preston Meyer: There's no reason for anybody on the planet to recognize two separate Koreas. There is one Korea with one capital city and a rebel state that controls the other half of the nation. To be honest, in your politics means to be friendly with one and just not recognize the other. Trump decided to make friends with the fascist half. 

[00:47:23] Katie Dooley: Oh, boy.

[00:47:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:47:49] Katie Dooley: No, again. This one's harder than north South Korea, though. It's harder. You know, like I said, with the long history of Jewish oppression. Like, who's the air quotes bad guy in this one, whereas we know North Korea is. Not the people just later.

[00:48:04] Preston Meyer: Right. Well, and we don't have such an easy border between the two like we have in Korea. We have people all over the place like, yeah, there's borders drawn up, but that's not actually a fair outline of where these people really are.

[00:48:20] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:48:21] Preston Meyer: It's actually really a big problem. So in '47, I think it was we had one third of the population were Jewish.

[00:48:32] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:48:33] Preston Meyer: Today, 75% of all the people in Israel are Jewish. Out of the whole global population, more than 40% live in Israel.

[00:48:42] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:48:43] Preston Meyer: That's shows a lot of population movement in those 80 years.

[00:48:48] Katie Dooley: And we've just I know we talked about this in previous episodes, but I'll just reiterate, we've now hit the number of Jews in the world that is pre-World War Two losses.

[00:48:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:48:59] Katie Dooley: So the population is finally recovered.

[00:49:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Which to say, recovered. It doesn't mean where they could have fairly expected to have.

[00:49:09] Katie Dooley: Right. If you.

[00:49:10] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:49:10] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:49:11] Preston Meyer: Reminds me of the Thanos snap. You know, solve all the world's problems by cutting the population in half. Our population has fully doubled. The human population on this planet has fully doubled since my parents were born.

[00:49:26] Katie Dooley: I don't I don't like that.

[00:49:28] Preston Meyer: So if we were to snap half of the world's population away...

[00:49:32] Katie Dooley: In 40 years, we'd be back.

[00:49:34] Preston Meyer: I mean, my parents aren't young.

[00:49:36] Katie Dooley: 50?

[00:49:38] Preston Meyer: My parents are in their 50s.

[00:49:39] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:49:40] Preston Meyer: So that's not even setting us back a whole hundred years. That means the problem comes back very quickly.

[00:49:46] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I know people are talking about that... With Biden wanting to get rid of student debt, that if he wiped out the debt, then the rate would in like four years would be back to what it was.

[00:49:57] Preston Meyer: Probably.

[00:49:58] Katie Dooley: So anyway. Numbers, man.

[00:50:04] Preston Meyer: It's also interesting that nearly half of the Jewish population in Israel not religious at all, but they did their census. Turns out 49% had no real religious inclination. They just...

[00:50:19] Katie Dooley: These ethnic cultural Jews that we talk about.

[00:50:23] Preston Meyer: They specifically 49, responded on the survey as secular Jews.

[00:50:27] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:50:28] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:50:28] Katie Dooley: One of the things that benefited the growth of the Jewish population in Israel is the law of return, which I find super interesting. Every Jew in the world has an unrestricted right to immigrate to Israel and become a citizen. If you can prove you're Jewish, you can move to Israel.

[00:50:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Through any family ties, which of course, come through the mother's side, legally speaking. But if you convert to Judaism, you can actually go ahead and get your Israeli passport.

[00:50:57] Katie Dooley: Yeah. You need your rabbi to, I presume, to vouch for you because they don't just give passports out. But.

[00:51:03] Preston Meyer: And converting to Judaism is not nearly as easy as converting to Christianity.

[00:51:08] Katie Dooley: No. It's interesting. Of the of the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism is the only one that's not evangelical.

[00:51:14] Preston Meyer: Yeah. There's. 

[00:51:16] Katie Dooley: And obviously there's...

[00:51:17] Preston Meyer: They're pretty suspicious of converts.

[00:51:19] Katie Dooley: Yes. I mean, obviously there's a spectrum of everyone who will knock on your door and try to convert you, or people who just, like, want to tell you the good word or whatever, but they actively do not want you to join them because they believe they're God's people and you're chosen.

[00:51:32] Preston Meyer: Yeah, of course there's a spectrum. I definitely got tracts from Jews for Jesus when I was in New York one time.

[00:51:39] Katie Dooley: Oh, wow.

[00:51:39] Preston Meyer: So, spectrum.

[00:51:41] Katie Dooley: Spectrum. Bu our shirt! And then what I find even more interesting and moderately terrifying is Christian Zionism.

[00:51:51] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So Jews don't generally talk out loud in front of strangers about, oh, yeah, let's blow up the Dome on the Rock so we can rebuild the temple. I have no idea. I've lost track of how many Christians I've come across who think that this should be a plan that we need to act on soon.

[00:52:09] Katie Dooley: You should hang out with different Christians.

[00:52:11] Preston Meyer: I mean, I'm trying. Uh, it's it's been a little while since I've heard anybody say it, but that means it can't be far around the corner.

[00:52:22] Katie Dooley: That's true. I just want to, like, put a random Christian in front of you and see where the conversation goes.

[00:52:28] Preston Meyer: Some people really like war.

[00:52:32] Katie Dooley: War. What is it good for?

[00:52:35] Preston Meyer: The economy?

[00:52:36] Katie Dooley: No. You ugh!

[00:52:39] Preston Meyer: Absolutely nothing.

[00:52:41] Katie Dooley: Say it again.

[00:52:42] Preston Meyer: Absolutely nothing. If the economy is just rich dudes yachts, that's fine. Get that away from me. So yeah, in the 1830s, even before the Jewish people were even making any serious plans about returning to Jerusalem, because remember, we talked about that was like 1850s, 1860s when they really started thinking about it 20 years before that. Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, would talk about the gathering of Jews in Palestine. And he even sent church leaders there to bless the land for such a gathering.

[00:53:15] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:53:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Of course, for the Latter Day Saints, the New Jerusalem isn't on the land of Old Jerusalem. It is here in North America. So a little different than the standard Christian idea of, hey, we need to pave and just get rid of everybody in the way so that things can be what they are in the Bible because yeah, that's the thing people think about.

[00:53:40] Katie Dooley: That is the thing people think about. This is where this gets really scary. So American evangelicals in particular are huge supporters of Israel in this ongoing conflict. Evangelical groups have raised millions of dollars for settlements on the West Bank. And the West Bank is a strategically critical area of the conflict surrounding Jerusalem. So yeah,

[00:53:59] Preston Meyer: If you were to put...

[00:54:00] Katie Dooley: Palestinians will put up a tent and Israelis will put up and they just try to out wiggle each other out of there much more violently than that, but wiggle each other out of there.

[00:54:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's terrible. Um, Jerusalem, if you were to put it in the center of a clock, less than half of that arc of the circle would be actual Israel, and the majority would be West Bank. Like, they're they're really serious about making sure that the people they want can control the land, which, I mean, that's most groups, I guess, but Christian outsiders can keep their hands off of it. Thank you very much.

[00:54:41] Katie Dooley: But but, Preston, why do Christians want the Jews to have the West Bank?

[00:54:46] Preston Meyer: Ugh. Christian Zionists, and to be fair, a fair bit of Jewish people believe in biblical prophecy that there will be a gathering of the Jews in Israel as a prerequisite for the coming of the Messiah, or the second coming of Jesus. Pre-millennialists believe that the Jews have a right to the land of Israel. It sounds fair without context, with context super complicated because people live there.

[00:55:19] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:55:19] Katie Dooley: And people deserve to live there.

[00:55:21] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:55:22] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:55:23] Preston Meyer: But if it's ever going to happen that Jesus is going to have his thousand year reign on earth and have that as his capital city, then they need to control that land. We need the Jews and we need the... Do we need the temple rebuilt before Jesus comes? Or will Jesus rebuild the temple? The temple has to be rebuilt before Jesus.

[00:55:42] Katie Dooley: So they need... That's why they need to... Okay.

[00:55:44] Preston Meyer: Which, of course, means wiping out what's there. Not great.

[00:55:48] Katie Dooley: Nope. Seems like a really dumb reason to kill people to me, but I could be wrong.

[00:55:54] Preston Meyer: I mean, there's there's better reasons to kill people.

[00:55:58] Katie Dooley: Wow, Preston.

[00:56:00] Preston Meyer: There are better reasons to kill people than over ideas that are based in a tradition that can't actually be validated empirically.

[00:56:09] Katie Dooley: Wow, that's interesting to hear from a Christian. Well...

[00:56:13] Preston Meyer: And that's why I don't kill people over religion also, because that's morally bankrupt.

[00:56:19] Katie Dooley: Fair. And it's contradictory to the religion. Most often. I've not seen a religion yet that says kill people is good. Killing people is good. Kill peopleing.

[00:56:32] Preston Meyer: Thanks for that.

[00:56:33] Katie Dooley: Thanks.

[00:56:34] Preston Meyer: So a lot of this comes from the prophecy of Ezekiel, which gets basically repeated in the Revelation of John. It talks about a city state called New Jerusalem that I mentioned before that apart from the Latter Day Saints, most people are just like, yes, a renewed city of Jerusalem. And the temple will be there on Mount Zion. So, I mean, the whole apocalyptic literature genre is all about things are going to be good for us again, and we'll have a home, and God's going to wipe out the people who are being so mean to us for so long. So it makes sense that this becomes part of the national tradition, the religious tradition. But to say there's no flaws in this act playing out in real life, that that's problematic.

[00:57:24] Katie Dooley: But it is terrifying how much money and arms get sent.

[00:57:28] Preston Meyer: Absolutely.

[00:57:28] Katie Dooley: Because of this Prophecy.

[00:57:30] Preston Meyer: Yes. Yeah.

[00:57:33] Katie Dooley: I have a question.

[00:57:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:57:35] Katie Dooley: LDS believe that New Jerusalem will be in North America. Is that why we have Zion National Park in Utah? Is that what we... Mount Zion? Is that where we think Jesus will be?

[00:57:46] Preston Meyer: No, that's just. 

[00:57:47] Katie Dooley: Or The temple just we call it Zion because it's pretty.

[00:57:50] Preston Meyer: It's so for latter. For latter day Saints, Zion is wherever the people are. And so, ideally in Latter Day Saint thought the whole world should be Zion. The it is the pure in heart. It is the people of God, which in... Ideally would be the whole world.

[00:58:14] Katie Dooley: Jesus ain't gonna be picky. Maybe that's what he's waiting for. For all to just love each other and build him a new temple anywhere.

[00:58:21] Preston Meyer: Well...

[00:58:22] Katie Dooley: He's got a long way.

[00:58:23] Preston Meyer: People suck, so it'll be a while.

[00:58:25] Katie Dooley: Wow. That's probably the secret?

[00:58:28] Preston Meyer: Probably.

[00:58:29] Preston Meyer: I think I gotta figure it out, guys. I should start my own church. The San Lanatus Fellowship?

[00:58:36] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:58:37] Preston Meyer: The Church of the Holy Watermelon.

[00:58:39] Katie Dooley: Church of the Holy Watermelon. Cool. Thank you for that answer.

[00:58:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:58:42] Katie Dooley: 'Cause I was curious.

[00:58:44] Preston Meyer: So we talked about nationalism before, and we can't really do this whole thing without getting back into it. Israel is very proud of what they've accomplished, most of it with a lot of outside help, and they see the return to Jerusalem as their own manifest destiny, which is, of course, a really troubling slogan of American nationalism. The Israeli Declaration of Independence identifies the state as a Jewish state, but not as a theocracy, but specifically as a home for all Jews. All Jews are welcome, and this is home. The Israeli government isn't theocratic, though there was an attempt in 1984 to make it a theocratic nation. In the absence of a constitution, they thought they could get away with it. That didn't work out so well for them. There is not any state religion, though, you know. There's always that hope for the Messiah in the future. But in 1984, some new laws were put in place that no person or list of people can participate in the election if they can be connected to any of the following actions or goals. Number one negation of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. If you want to make Israel not Jewish, you're going to have a hard time. You don't get to run for office. If you want to hurt democracy, Not cool. Not going to happen.

[01:00:11] Katie Dooley: That's fine.

[01:00:12] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[01:00:12] Katie Dooley: First one.

[01:00:13] Preston Meyer: It's it's a good step against fascism. Yeah. Because there's always that dictatorial nature of fascism that steps in. Number two is incitement to racism. If you want to say I don't like Arabs? Bam! No public office for you.

[01:00:29] Katie Dooley: Okay, well that's good, I like that.

[01:00:32] Preston Meyer: And number three, support for armed struggle by a hostile state or terrorist organization against the state of Israel.

[01:00:39] Katie Dooley: This feels like one step back.

[01:00:41] Preston Meyer: No, no,

[01:00:42] Katie Dooley: I mean, like, I get it.

[01:00:43] Preston Meyer: If you support armed struggle against the state of Israel, you don't get to hold public office in Israel. That makes perfect sense to me. I can't argue against that.

[01:00:53] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[01:00:55] Preston Meyer: I don't know. I don't see any holes in that. Anyway, this whole thing is intended to keep Israel's obviously nationalist tendencies from sliding into overt fascism.

[01:01:07] Katie Dooley: Good. Because they know how bad fascism can be.

[01:01:10] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, nationalism is just baby fascism and...

[01:01:15] Katie Dooley: Got its little training wheels on.

[01:01:16] Preston Meyer: Yeah, and they're still riding that bike, but they've got things in place to keep them from getting super fascist or even ultra nationalist, which is a good thing. And then, of course, there's the Palestine Liberation Organization, who have caused their share of problems. Their charter states that it is a national duty to purge the Zionist presence from Palestine. But because nationalism is taught in Israeli schools, this does extend to literally every Jewish person. So let's wipe out the Jews. This is a really bad policy.

[01:01:54] Katie Dooley: Yeah. But hurt people, hurt people, right?

[01:02:00] Preston Meyer: Exactly.

[01:02:00] Katie Dooley: If you've been oppressed for 80 years.

[01:02:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Uh, Palestinian Arabs are not satisfied that they are guaranteed religious, political or economic liberty under Jewish rule, even though they're written into law. It... They just don't feel secure there.

[01:02:16] Katie Dooley: Well, when you're only one quarter of the population.

[01:02:19] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[01:02:20] Katie Dooley: What are the chances you get in?

[01:02:22] Preston Meyer: Right? Things are tough.

[01:02:25] Katie Dooley: Yep.

[01:02:26] Preston Meyer: But is it fascist? Is it even too close to that line?

[01:02:32] Katie Dooley: I don't know, Preston. You tell me.

[01:02:35] Preston Meyer: Uh, so back when we were talking about fascism, Umberto Eco gave us a really good list in 1995. I'll just get through the bullet points of what we had talked about in a previous episode. Umberto talked about the cult of tradition. Kind of? Maybe? It depends on who you talk to. Sometimes, yes. Sometimes not so much.

[01:02:57] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Let's keep going because there's like a solidarity that might not be tradition, but there's a solidarity. Yeah, I can see people saying it's true.

[01:03:06] Preston Meyer: Right? Yeah. Remember, if...

[01:03:09] Katie Dooley: It's like when we, you know, stick with our families, even sometimes when our families are garbage people, you know what I mean? There's less solidarity because of tradition. Does that make sense?

[01:03:18] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[01:03:18] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[01:03:19] Preston Meyer: Of course. A couple of red flags on this list may or may not mean they're fascist. It depends on the point.

[01:03:26] Katie Dooley: Just like the BITE model.

[01:03:28] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[01:03:28] Katie Dooley: Everything checks off. Our podcast checks off the BITE model. A couple of things. We're not a cult, but you get free watermelon if you join.

[01:03:37] Preston Meyer: It's a good deal.

[01:03:38] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[01:03:39] Preston Meyer: But if we see too many of these checked off, then we can say yes, the State of Israel is fascist. We'll see how it goes. Okay. All right. Cultural tradition. Maybe next. Yeah. The rejection of modernism. Not so much.

[01:03:52] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[01:03:52] Preston Meyer: Like there's still a part of their legal system. That is the biblical law. But I wouldn't call that a rejection of modernism. There's still plenty of good modernism in Israel. Next, we have the cult of action for action's sake. I've never heard that accusation against them. I don't think that's a problem. Unless I'm missing out on something. You know of anything?

[01:04:19] Katie Dooley: I would say in some of the more violent factions that are on the West Bank....

[01:04:25] Preston Meyer: Right.

[01:04:25] Katie Dooley: Like right in the heart of it, probably. But your average everyday Jew in Jerusalem probably not.

[01:04:29] Preston Meyer: Right? And not in the government either.

[01:04:31] Katie Dooley: Okay. We're talking about government.

[01:04:33] Preston Meyer: I mean, mostly. 

[01:04:33] Katie Dooley: Okay,

[01:04:34] Preston Meyer: But the people as a whole too.

[01:04:36] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[01:04:38] Preston Meyer: Disagreement is treason. I don't think so. Democracy is still really important to the people in Israel and even the people in charge, not just the people who vote and like written into their laws fairly recently, even next on our list. Fear of difference. I mean, for some people, yes, but by and large I don't I've not seen. 

[01:05:04] Katie Dooley: I... Again, I wouldn't know in the government, but I think the I think there's some othering of the Arabs versus the Jews.

[01:05:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah for sure. But that's, that's a little different than just outright fear of what is different. I think. There's appeal to a frustrated middle class. Yeah. Sometimes. Maybe. I mean, an awful lot of politicians lean into that when they're running for office. Hey, I'm going to help the middle class. I'll accept that as a thing that can be terrible, but is not in itself strictly a big problem. And I can only say probably, sometimes, maybe. As far as the Israeli situation goes. Uh, next on our list, we have the obsession with the plot and the hyping up, hyping up of an enemy threat here, the othering of the Palestinian Arabs. Absolutely a problem. And they are painted as a constant, dangerous enemy, a problem. Definitely a big red flag on this list. Our, in fact, our first for sure big red flag. Uh, next on our list, we have fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies at the same time too strong and too weak. Maybe? I mean, it depends on who you talk to.

[01:06:23] Katie Dooley: I feel like I'd say probably, especially if you're talking about, like, indoctrination of younger people on both sides.

[01:06:30] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[01:06:31] Katie Dooley: I'd say probably.

[01:06:32] Preston Meyer: Next is pacifism is trafficking with the enemy because life is permanent warfare. There must always be an enemy to fight. I mean, there's always going to be Arabs in the area. So.

[01:06:44] Katie Dooley: So, yes?

[01:06:45] Preston Meyer: So yeah, this one's a of decently solid red flag at least has the perpetual potential and probably is might even be worse than I think it is. Is there a contempt for the weak? Sometimes. I don't know if it's ever as bad as we saw it in Germany, but I don't know. It's not a complaint I've specifically heard of either, but maybe. All right, we're getting close to the end of this list that Umberto Eco gave us. It says everybody is educated to become a hero. This one's kind of a tricky one. That military service is mandatory for all Jewish adults, male or female. Whereas for Druze and Circassian men, they're also conscripted, but not their women. And Christians and Muslims are also never conscripted, so...

[01:07:41] Katie Dooley: Interesting. So there is a weird Jewish army thing. I shouldn't say that. Oh, weird that was sounded more anti-Semitic than I meant it to be. There's a Jewish army being built.

[01:07:55] Preston Meyer: I mean, yeah, for a long time, it's been a conscripted army.

[01:08:00] Katie Dooley: Interesting.

[01:08:00] Preston Meyer: Machismo, where everything that's not the straight man is...

[01:08:07] Katie Dooley: Gay!

[01:08:08] Preston Meyer: Is a problem for the nation. I mean, Homophobia is definitely still a problem there.

[01:08:14] Katie Dooley: I mean, it's I guess we said it's not super religious, but I think it has the feel of being ultra religious, even if you're not religious.

[01:08:22] Preston Meyer: A little bit.

[01:08:23] Katie Dooley: So there's I mean, between the Muslims and the Jews and the Christians. Yeah. It's probably.

[01:08:28] Preston Meyer: But thanks to this, whole women are conscripted into the army. If they're Jewish, Israeli women kick ass.

[01:08:36] Katie Dooley: Fair.

[01:08:37] Preston Meyer: And that does help kind of negate machismo a little bit, at least sometimes it's got to. Of course, my perspective is definitely maybe not the perfect perspective on this particular...

[01:08:49] Katie Dooley: Because you're a...

[01:08:51] Preston Meyer: Because I'm a straight man attracted to women.

[01:08:53] Katie Dooley: Fair, white Christian man in Canada.

[01:08:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[01:08:59] Katie Dooley: You Don't get any say in this.

[01:09:01] Preston Meyer: Fair.

[01:09:02] Katie Dooley: I don't get much more say.

[01:09:04] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The next thing on Umberto's list is selective populism. I mean, the way he describes what that means is that a dictator gets to interpret the will of a diverse people. And there have been some presidents and prime ministers who have been not great guys. But I don't think that it's gotten to this point really bad yet, to the point that it creeps up on fascism, I think. And the whole Newspeak thing is the last thing on Umberto's list where people are forced into a dumber language to prevent independent thought. Not an issue.

[01:09:46] Katie Dooley: No.

[01:09:47] Preston Meyer: Even religiously, the Jewish people are quite diverse and are allowed to speak out, which is really helpful.

[01:09:55] Katie Dooley: I mean, Jewish people are known for debating.

[01:09:57] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's that's the entire rabbinical principle is let's argue about the law. So I don't think we had suggested before, is it fascist, is it not? I think the answer is no, but it's pretty nationalist,

[01:10:12] Katie Dooley: I was gonna say doesn't mean there isn't a conflict.

[01:10:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah. No, there's there's still a problem.

[01:10:17] Katie Dooley: A huge problem that I don't know how it's gonna be solved.

[01:10:20] Preston Meyer: I mean, we've talked about all the history and why there's a variety of what you might call the aggressors. It's complicated and it sucks. And there is no easy solution.

[01:10:32] Katie Dooley: Everyone should just put down their weapons and go home and eat a meal with their family.

[01:10:38] Preston Meyer: Where is home?

[01:10:41] Katie Dooley: I don't know, Preston.

[01:10:42] Preston Meyer: That's the problem. Like we talked about in Ireland. I don't feel like this is a religious conflict. It's super easy to say it's religious.

[01:10:53] Katie Dooley: I was gonna say it started as religious, but it did and it didn't. Well, no, because Hitler didn't care if you were a religious Jew or not.

[01:11:01] Preston Meyer: Right. Well, and...

[01:11:02] Katie Dooley: Historically, again, yeah.

[01:11:04] Preston Meyer: People that were suffering under anti-Semitic Governors, they just wanted to get out because they were being tortured for their heritage. Not just their religious heritage, but their ethnic heritage.

[01:11:16] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[01:11:17] Preston Meyer: So as easy as it is to say, yeah, religion is at fault here, I really don't think it is.

[01:11:24] Katie Dooley: No, but I think that it adds fuel to a flame.

[01:11:28] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[01:11:28] Katie Dooley: Right. We look at the evangelical Christians sending money and arms over.

[01:11:31] Preston Meyer: Yeah. That does make things work.

[01:11:32] Katie Dooley: That's religion making it worse.

[01:11:35] Preston Meyer: Anytime you have any person or group of people saying God is on my side, that makes things worse every time.

[01:11:44] Katie Dooley: Yes. It's also so funny to me that they all believe in the same God and...

[01:11:48] Preston Meyer: Yeah, but they interpret their God differently and believe different things about their gods that it's pretty hard to say they really are the same god.

[01:12:00] Katie Dooley: Fair. But we said this. I don't even remember what episode it was, but it might have been our Ireland episode that today God is Jewish or today God is Muslim, depending on what happens in the conflict that day.

[01:12:14] Preston Meyer: Yeah, yeah, that was definitely our Irish episode today God was Protestant.

[01:12:18] Katie Dooley: Right? Yeah. So beyond that. It's tough.

[01:12:25] Preston Meyer: The world is a messed up place, and it doesn't get better when people want to make it worse for other people.

[01:12:32] Katie Dooley: Yeah. But I think even after the political, socioeconomic gets solved, I'm going to speak about this optimistically. At the end, there will be left a religious debate.

[01:12:49] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[01:12:49] Katie Dooley: It might not be violent, but there's still the Dome on the Rock to deal with.

[01:12:54] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[01:12:54] Katie Dooley: Like for all of the Abrahamic religions, they have some they all have some stake in that game.

[01:13:00] Preston Meyer: Absolutely.

[01:13:01] Katie Dooley: So I'd say It is symmetrical in that it thought it was religious. It is not religious now and will become religious at its end.

[01:13:12] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[01:13:13] Katie Dooley: Because that'll...

[01:13:15] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[01:13:16] Katie Dooley: Again, optimistically thinking that we can solve these, uh, sociopolitical, economic land rights, racism and get it down to where we have people having a civil conversation about what to do with the Dome on the Rock.

[01:13:34] Preston Meyer: Well, the the giant space that is on the top of Mount Zion, which is bigger than it was originally, thanks to the the landscaping of King Herod, there is space to build what is effectively actually quite a small temple, if it's the same size as Solomon's original temple on that mount, without displacing...

[01:13:56] Katie Dooley: The Dome on the Rock, interesting.

[01:13:58] Preston Meyer: But that doesn't mean that everyone wants that to happen.

[01:14:01] Katie Dooley: Right. Again, once we... we have bigger problems to solve before we get to that.

[01:14:07] Preston Meyer: Yes, much bigger problem.

[01:14:08] Katie Dooley: Unless someone solves that for them, which would be terrible.

[01:14:13] Preston Meyer: Christian Americans very likely will one day solve that problem for them, which is an alarming idea, and I'm very uncomfortable with it. But here we are.

[01:14:25] Katie Dooley: Well, that was a depressing end to our episode. Can we pick this back up?

[01:14:30] Preston Meyer: I kind of want to celebrate that some people have found a home, but also that still makes bags too.

[01:14:40] Katie Dooley: Yeah, because at what cost, Preston?

[01:14:42] Preston Meyer: Exactly.

[01:14:42] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[01:14:44] Preston Meyer: At the beginning, it was legit aboveboard. Let's move in. Let's buy up some land.

[01:14:49] Katie Dooley: Again. Yeah. They needed to.

[01:14:50] Preston Meyer: Then it got gross.

[01:14:51] Katie Dooley: Yeah, well, you know what always makes me feel better, Preston?

[01:14:56] Preston Meyer: Hanging out with friends?

[01:14:57] Katie Dooley: I was actually gonna say shopping, but that too. Shopping makes me feel better. So if you're depressed after this episode. Wow, this is a great sales pitch.

[01:15:07] Preston Meyer: Check out our SpreadShop, buy some merch!

[01:15:09] Katie Dooley: Buy some merch and if, uh, you don't want some merch, join our Patreon. We have a bunch of bonus episodes on there, early releases of all our regular episodes. Um, and hopefully we have some more treats and goodies for you coming down the pipe as well on Patreon.

[01:15:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Uh, follow us on Facebook. Instagram, join us on discord. Uh, follow us on YouTube. All kinds of fun places to get some more social content. Join the discussions that we have. Check out the great memes.

[01:15:41] Katie Dooley: I come, come and stay for the memes.

[01:15:43] Preston Meyer: Right? So so much fun! Anyway, thanks for joining us.

[01:15:47] 

Both Speakers: 

Peace be with you!

Trickster gods are often depicted as malevolent, or as plucky antihero sidekicks (looking at you, Loki). Some are more benevolent, seeking to teach through the medium of struggle. Tricksters can lead even the pious off their course, sometimes to test their wills, or to teach them a better way to live. Join us as we explore the great tricksters of the old traditions.

Lewis Hyde calls them "Boundary-Crossers," and for good reason; these guys won't be controlled, if they have their way. These characters aren't quite the chaos monsters of the last episode, but chaos serves their ends well--or at least, the appearance of chaos....

We examine Momus, Loki, Kokopelli, Gwydion, Lugh, Sun Wukong the Money King, Eshu, and Anansi; and we tell a couple spider stories along the way.

All this and more...

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram

Learn more on our official website

[00:00:12] Preston Meyer: Trick or treat.

[00:00:14] Katie Dooley: What's the appropriate response to that?

[00:00:17] Preston Meyer: Get off my porch.

[00:00:19] Katie Dooley: Besides just silently handing a child candy and walking away. It's like a knock knock joke. But you know what you're supposed to say after.

[00:00:27] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:00:27] Katie Dooley: Anyway, trick or treat. We're in the depths of spooktober. What are we talking about today?

[00:00:36] Preston Meyer: We're talking about trickster gods. One of these days, we're actually going to do an episode about the the legacy that built up what we have as modern Halloween, but not this year.

[00:00:46] Katie Dooley: We actually haven't said... 

[00:00:48] Both Speakers: Holy Watermelon Podcast!

[00:00:51] Katie Dooley: Yet. So welcome to all our all our listeners today. We just were so excited to do Trickster Gods. I didn't actually, I couldn't have told you what a trickster god was before doing this episode. I could have only said Loki is a trickster god.

[00:01:07] Preston Meyer: Okay, well.

[00:01:08] Katie Dooley: So I learned lots.

[00:01:09] Preston Meyer: I'm glad.

[00:01:12] Katie Dooley: So let's start there with what the heck is trickster god? Lewis Hyde, an imagination and creativity scholar, says that tricksters are boundary crossers, breaking societal norms and disrupting things. Basically a shit disturber.

[00:01:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's a pretty great summary. Done.

[00:01:30] Katie Dooley: Done. Uh, because I was reading about some of these gods and I was like, it says they're trickster god, but then, like, that's kind of it. And so you have to read between the lines about what attributes actually makes them a trickster. Which is why I, I do a whole bunch of research on specific gods. And I was like, I don't get this. So I went back.

[00:01:48] Preston Meyer: A bunch of the trickster gods that we're going to talk about, and broadly trickster gods in general. They aren't objects of worship. So very often, it does happen, but it's it's not normal because trickster gods by their nature aren't trustworthy, which means you wouldn't pray to them so much as pray to somebody else to keep them away.

[00:02:12] Katie Dooley: Yeah. They're in in polytheistic religions, they're this antagonist that often can be used to, not always, but can be used to describe the bad things that happen. Yeah, kind of like chaos monsters, right?

[00:02:26] Preston Meyer: Yeah. They in some cultures, they take on a new popularity in in folktales and whatnot, and they're always great for stories. They're just not great for worship. They're they're clever, they're cunning, and sometimes they're foolish. They're almost always keepers of secret knowledge. Even the foolish ones. I think that's kind of fun. They're rude to authority. One of the great stories of Loki that's really popular that I don't think is really that exciting of a story. It's just him roasting literally everybody at a feast until Thor comes in and says, no, this is over now. You're terrible.

[00:03:07] Katie Dooley: You're the worst. Yeah, that happens a lot. Mocking authority figures is a big thing.

[00:03:14] Preston Meyer: Yeah, sometimes they're shape shifters. Like Anansi is almost always a spider, but sometimes not. We'll talk more about him later. Um, we've talked about Loki. I feel like a lot through the course of this series. He's fun. Plus, you know, popular pop culture figure.

[00:03:31] Katie Dooley: There's a lot of info on Loki, too, which is nice.

[00:03:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah, and we'll say it again, Marvel is not a credible source for the mythology around this character. But yeah, he's all about that shapeshifter. We've talked about that one time he turned into a horse that was nuts.

[00:03:48] Katie Dooley: A female horse, yes. To carry a baby. Yeah, yeah. So lots of shape shifting, gender bending, disguises. Those are also common with trickster gods. These gods blur the lines between what is right and wrong, and they're often used to teach moral lessons in whatever religion they are. They're not necessarily evil, but they do bad things.

[00:04:13] Preston Meyer: Well, is doing bad things evil?

[00:04:17] Katie Dooley: I mean.

[00:04:17] Preston Meyer: Evil is a tricky thing.

[00:04:18] Katie Dooley: That's true, yes.

[00:04:21] Preston Meyer: But yeah, they tend to be defined by the chaos that surrounds them. Not that they're the same thing as chaos monsters, but they're dicks.

[00:04:30] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Selfish is also a really great way to describe them. So acting in their own self-interest, they don't care about the humans or the other gods in their pantheon. They just want what's theirs.

[00:04:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And sometimes what belongs to other people.

[00:04:47] Katie Dooley: Oh, I see what you're saying. I thought you meant generosity. No, you mean stealing?

[00:04:51] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:04:51] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:04:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Sometimes it's nice to have what somebody else has.

[00:04:54] Katie Dooley: Somebody else has, fair.

[00:04:57] Preston Meyer: Loki's a fun example out of dozens of trickster gods. It's a good example. I think we can start with even.

[00:05:05] Katie Dooley: Sure, I'll just say we're not. There's dozens and dozens and dozens of trickster gods across the globe.

[00:05:12] Preston Meyer: Most polytheistic traditions have 1 or 2.

[00:05:15] Katie Dooley: So we're not going to cover them all.

[00:05:17] Preston Meyer: No.

[00:05:18] Katie Dooley: We've selected a handful. Kind of at random.

[00:05:21] Preston Meyer: Yeah, pretty much.

[00:05:22] Katie Dooley: To go into detail and talk about. So I'll let Preston start with Loki.

[00:05:26] Preston Meyer: All right. So if you, uh, know Loki from Marvel only, some of this is not going to be very congruent with what you are familiar with. That's okay. So Loki is the son of Farbauti and Laufey. Laufey is his mother, and she may or may not have been a giant. Some sources suggest that she may have been a goddess. Whereas Farbauti was a giant, one of the Jötnar. Marvel combines these two figures. Giving the mother's name to the father... Doesn't confuse anybody.

[00:06:04] Katie Dooley: I mean, Loki's already confusing.

[00:06:06] Preston Meyer: It's weird that in the old sources, Loki is referred to as Laufeyson, and traditionally you would refer to somebody by their father's name. But the old texts are very clear that Laufey is the mother's name. So there's something that's a little countercultural about the Jötnar, which plays into Loki being a trickster.

[00:06:26] Katie Dooley: Oh, I like that.

[00:06:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I like it too. Oh, Marvel also seriously butchers the arrangement of the family tree. Uh, Loki has a wife named Sigyn, and she is a goddess of some kind. I couldn't find anywhere any clear statement of her being a Vanir or an AEsir. Together they had two sons, Narfi and Vali. But as we've talked about in our last episode, Loki does have another lover, the giant Angrboda. So at least Loki did find somebody of his own race as well as this goddess. But they don't have normal children at all.

[00:07:04] Katie Dooley: Oh no.

[00:07:06] Preston Meyer: There's Jormungandr and Fenrir and there's Hel. Hel is normal ish. I mean necrotic, but she's...

[00:07:15] Katie Dooley: That's fine. Yeah. Happens to the best of us.

[00:07:17] Preston Meyer: And then Fenrir the wolf and Jormungandr, the giant snake monster. No big deal.

[00:07:23] Katie Dooley: That's weird.

[00:07:24] Preston Meyer: And like we had alluded mentioned before, bonus of being a shapeshifter. You can have sex with a stallion. There's a story that is important, kind of, that Loki had to distract the stallion Svadilfari from his work. And so the best way to do that is present a sweet piece of ass. And instead of going to find another horse. He's like. I got to distract him now. I guess it's going to be my own ass.

[00:07:57] Katie Dooley: I'm just imagining doing it like a sexy horse dance.

[00:08:00] Preston Meyer: Right? Walking backwards.

[00:08:01] Katie Dooley: Yeah, it's just a real, like, exaggerated saunter. Da da da.

[00:08:07] Preston Meyer: Well, anyway, Svadilfari knocked Loki up, and that's how he got Sleipnir, Odin's eight legged horse. Because if it's not Sigyn, those babies are coming out bad. Yeah, all kinds of great fun. Being a trickster can be fun, I guess.

[00:08:28] Katie Dooley: Da da da.

[00:08:30] Preston Meyer: Good old archeological research. Nobody has found any ancient devotional statuettes of Loki. And most scholars are like, well, obviously, because you would pray to Odin to keep Loki away. Because he's a troublemaker. He ruins your plans. He's connected with all kinds of bad stuff, so just keep that fella away. Loki isn't technically a god, even though we usually call him a trickster god. The god of mischief. Whatever. But he is a sworn brother of Odin. Sometimes they call them blood brothers. It just means they're share blood. But that they have shared blood. Yeah...

[00:09:09] Katie Dooley: You lost me, okay. Okay. I just gave Preston a look that showed I did not comprehend.

[00:09:17] Preston Meyer: They're not genetic siblings.

[00:09:18] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:09:19] Preston Meyer: But they have sworn a blood oath together. That's the way to phrase that.

[00:09:23] Katie Dooley: Oh. Thank you.

[00:09:25] Preston Meyer: So not the adopted son of Odin. Not the adopted brother of Thor, but the sworn blood brother of Odin.

[00:09:33] Katie Dooley: Perfect.

[00:09:34] Preston Meyer: So Marvel screwed the whole thing up.

[00:09:37] Katie Dooley: Whole thing up.

[00:09:38] Preston Meyer: It's terrible.

[00:09:39] Katie Dooley: They paraphrased excessively.

[00:09:43] Preston Meyer: I guess. Yeah. To the point where you start saying things that aren't right.

[00:09:48] Katie Dooley: Excessive paraphrasing and creative liberties.

[00:09:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So all of the stories about Loki pretty much are of him spoiling the gods plans or just being a dick to them. And he always makes things right, or accepts his punishment with at least some poise.

[00:10:09] Katie Dooley: As we all should.

[00:10:11] Preston Meyer: But there's always this moral that not even the Jötnar can escape the consequences of mischief. So don't be a dick.

[00:10:18] Katie Dooley: Don't be a dick.

[00:10:19] Preston Meyer: Yeah, because humans are certainly inferior to the Jötnar as far as might and power goes.

[00:10:25] Katie Dooley: Absolutely. Our next trickster god is Momus, from the Greek pantheon. He is the personification of satire and mockery and also of ridicule and harsh criticism. So he is dick.

[00:10:40] Preston Meyer: Pretty bold for a trickster.

[00:10:40] Katie Dooley: Right? I found one article saying he's the god of trolling.

[00:10:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:10:46] Katie Dooley: Which I thought was great. Great way to put it. He was actually kicked out of Mount Olympus for constantly mocking the Olympians.

[00:10:53] Preston Meyer: See, the Olympians have a lot less patience than the Asgardians. The AEsir just. They're more or less took Loki's punishment. And then Thor is just like, okay, you need to stop now. These guys are like, no, no, we're getting rid of you. We don't want you on this mountain anymore.

[00:11:11] Katie Dooley: Now, there are also versions of Mom's that have softened him to a more harmless figure of fun. So more modern artwork. Can I say modern artwork? Still really old artwork. When we're depicting Greek gods, but not nearly as old as the ancient Greeks, paint him as a jester.

[00:11:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's fair.

[00:11:29] Katie Dooley: So quite literally a trickster or jokester.

[00:11:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:11:34] Katie Dooley: I'm going to interrupt this trickster god with a mini story. We have a couple stories today. This one's actually paraphrased from Aesop's Fables. So Zeus had created a bull, Prometheus, a man and Athena a house, and they selected Momus as the judge of their handiwork. Momus was jealous of their creations, and began by saying that Zeus had made a mistake in not putting the bull's eyes on the ends of his horns so that he could see where he was striking, and he said that Prometheus was wrong and not hanging man's heart on the outside so that scoundrels could be detected, and so that it would be evident what everyone had on his mind. Finally, he said that Athena should have put wheels on her house so that a man could easily move if he had a bad neighbor. Zeus lost his temper with Momus over this spitefulness and threw him out of Olympus.

[00:12:26] Preston Meyer: Well, at least we've adopted Athena's ideas. We all love the mobile home.

[00:12:29] Katie Dooley: Loads of mobile homes. I've also seen one version also said that he told Prometheus that there should be a window, as opposed to it being on the outside, so you could look in and see but..

[00:12:40] Preston Meyer: Okay,

[00:12:41] Katie Dooley: Anyways.

[00:12:42] Katie Dooley: That couldn't go wrong at all.

[00:12:44] Katie Dooley: I mean, having your heart on the outside. I'd rather have a window in than my heart hanging out.

[00:12:48] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:12:49] Katie Dooley: But yeah, Momus's just a judgy bitch.

[00:12:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:12:55] Katie Dooley: Oh, I love Kokopelli. Can I do Kokopelli, too?

[00:12:59] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:13:00] Katie Dooley: All right. We're gonna talk about Kokopelli, another trickster god. I need to figure out a different... That's the theme of the episode. So Kokopelli is a deity in the Hopi First Nations indigenous tribe in southwest United States. This is prominent primarily in Arizona. So Kokopelli is a fertility deity, but also falls under the trickster umbrella. He's a master braider and the spirit of music. There's actually a really common depiction of Kokopelli playing a flute. A modernized version, because... The original version actually just had him with a big old schlong because he's a fertility god.

[00:13:47] Preston Meyer: And so we modified it and put the tip in his mouth.

[00:13:51] Katie Dooley: No, he always had the tip in his mouth. But then he also had a penis.

[00:13:55] Preston Meyer: Oh.

[00:13:56] Katie Dooley: He had his flute and a giant dick. We got rid of the giant...

[00:13:59] Preston Meyer: He's holding fewer things now.

[00:14:00] Katie Dooley: Holding fewer. He was never holding the dick. It was just. It was holding itself. 

[00:14:03] Preston Meyer: Fully erect.

[00:14:03] Katie Dooley: Always erect.

[00:14:04] Preston Meyer: Like a champ.

[00:14:05] Katie Dooley: Like a... if you have an erection for more than four hours, please see your doctor. So the symbol of him without this, this wiener has become, has become a really common symbol throughout the southwestern United States. We actually have a choir here called the Kokopelli Choir. And it is exactly that symbol, sans phallus. So...

[00:14:28] Preston Meyer: Nice.

[00:14:30] Katie Dooley: He represents the playfulness of music and is represented as this minstrel figure. There is one story, so we haven't touched on indigenous religion yet. Often deities will cross pollinate.

[00:14:44] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:14:45] Katie Dooley: So there's a story from the Winnebago tribes, not the Hopi tribe, that he would detach his penis.

[00:14:54] Preston Meyer: This is traumatizing already.

[00:14:56] Katie Dooley: He would detach his penis and then send it down the river to have sex with any innocent maidens that might be bathing in the river downstream. He just like pew! and his penis would go and sentiently.

[00:15:11] Preston Meyer: So this is a weird, alarming story. But imagine the...

[00:15:19] Katie Dooley: Thinking it's a fish and?

[00:15:21] Preston Meyer: But like, what's better? Like having a fish slime its way up in there, or a water snake or whatever. You got a lot of options here.

[00:15:29] Katie Dooley: Eels. 

[00:15:29] Preston Meyer: Or a trickster gods wiener. I mean, what's worse?

[00:15:36] Katie Dooley: I have I have follow up questions that cannot be answered so... To make that determination, Then there's like a, there's like a size and girth factor, like you got to compare whatever river creature and wiener. Yeah. And there's a rigidity factor you need to know as well. So there's a view. Oh my goodness. I don't know how much of this. This is trigger warning X rated episode. This is too late. We're too late.

[00:16:05] Preston Meyer: But for real, there's definitely real world encounters that people have had. And this was the explanation they came up with.

[00:16:13] Katie Dooley: I mean...

[00:16:13] Preston Meyer: For sure.

[00:16:13] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:16:15] Katie Dooley: So yeah, if you're ever traveling the southwest United States, like I said, the the symbol of Kokopelli is quite common. So enjoy that now.

[00:16:23] Preston Meyer: And be careful in the rivers.

[00:16:24] Katie Dooley: Be careful in the rivers, children.

[00:16:27] Preston Meyer: All right, let's move on. The Celts have a trickster god known as Lugh. Celtic god of mischief, as they call him. He's also a representation of kings, justice and rulership, which is a little irregular, kind of like when Loki pretended to be king for a little while.

[00:16:44] Katie Dooley: Totally. This was the one where I had to go and look up what made a trickster god a trickster god. Because Lugh is like the top of the pantheon.

[00:16:52] Preston Meyer: But he's a little chaotic.

[00:16:54] Katie Dooley: But he's also a trickster god. So I was like... Yeah. Chaotic neutral? Chaotic good. Something...

[00:17:01] Preston Meyer: Hard to say.

[00:17:01] Katie Dooley: Hard to say. I don't know enough about him.

[00:17:04] Preston Meyer: He was known for being cunning, and that's where a lot of people just staple the trickster god label on. Because of that. Possession of hidden knowledge is also super important in this particular situation. But he was also a stealer, a stealer, a thief.

[00:17:22] Katie Dooley: There's a word for that, yeah.

[00:17:24] Preston Meyer: And a liar and a cheat and would do whatever it takes to win. Which, I mean, you got to do what you got to do.

[00:17:31] Katie Dooley: Gotta do what you gotta do.

[00:17:32] Preston Meyer: Especially when, say, a Christian empire is rolling into your gates and just tearing stuff up.

[00:17:38] Katie Dooley: Or the Fomorians.

[00:17:39] Preston Meyer: Sure, all kinds of stuff needs to happen. So here we have a tricky king God.

[00:17:46] Katie Dooley: Pretty cool. You can take Gwydion to do a couple Celtic ones.

[00:17:50] Preston Meyer: I feel like we've talked about Gwydion recently. Or maybe.

[00:17:54] Katie Dooley: Maybe you're just so into our research.

[00:17:56] Preston Meyer: Maybe. Who knows? Anyway, Gwydion is Welsh. He is a magician and a trickster, known for being witty, as one would expect. He's also compared to Merlin because of his magicalness. Merlin of the good old Arthur tales. Because Wales, close to England. He's not good. He's not evil. He will do all kinds of things. He can help you out in a time when you're in need, sometimes. Especially if your needs might put somebody else in harm's way. Yeah. Good and bad.

[00:18:30] Katie Dooley: Yes. Yeah. He has deeds attributed that are really good. And then I read one that about sexual assault. So. 

[00:18:37] Preston Meyer: Of course. 

[00:18:37] Katie Dooley: Also really bad.

[00:18:38] Preston Meyer: He takes what he wants.

[00:18:39] Katie Dooley: Takes what he wants when he wants it. So. Eh...

[00:18:43] Preston Meyer: Right. Just like in good old Kokopelli. Sending it down the river when he wants. And he can surprise you because he doesn't have to have his head out of the water to breathe.

[00:18:54] Katie Dooley: Hahaha. Get it? It's a wiener joke. Do the balls go with it?

[00:18:59] Preston Meyer: That's a great question. Is he there for enjoyment or is he there to inseminate? It's all magic.

[00:19:06] Katie Dooley: I was gonna say. Why not both? Uh.

[00:19:11] Preston Meyer: Anyway.

[00:19:12] Katie Dooley: Wow. Am I taking Sun Wukong? All right. Sun Wukong is or also known as the Monkey King, comes from Chinese culture and probably the Chinese native religion, Taoism. He is a very important character in Chinese culture, and he's been adapted often for television movies, including like Dragon Ball and like super common things. He was born from a rock.

[00:19:39] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:19:39] Katie Dooley: I included that because I thought it was a great detail.

[00:19:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it is a great detail.

[00:19:44] Katie Dooley: So he has a lot of stories associated with him. And again, a lot of these have been adapted for television and film and books and whatever. But one of the first tricks he played was actually escaping death. So Yan Wang, Yan Wang and the Ten Kings of Hell came to collect the Monkey King. However, he tricked Yan Wang and managed to get a hold of the Book of Life and Death. So the Monkey King erased his name from his book and put his soul beyond the reach of these kings of hell.

[00:20:14] Preston Meyer: Fun.

[00:20:14] Katie Dooley: So that was the first trick he... So immortal. Then he spent some time hanging out in the heavens. Not like we think of it in like a Judeo-Christian dead heavens, but in the heavens. Things like Mount Olympus and...

[00:20:27] Preston Meyer: The realm of the gods.

[00:20:28] Katie Dooley: The realm of the gods above. Thank you, preston. And the Jade Emperor was so sick of his shit. He got kicked out.

[00:20:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:20:35] Katie Dooley: He spent time mocking the Emperor and being critical and doing all sorts of trickster things like that, just generally being a dick. And they were like, we've had enough of you.

[00:20:47] Preston Meyer: I really like turning the monkey into the trickster god. It makes perfect sense that you would warn people, be careful around monkeys. They're just going to take your stuff and ruin your day.

[00:20:59] Katie Dooley: Right? There was a great National Geographic show. I forget what it's called now, but yeah, like followed monkeys in Jaipur and they would break into homes and.

[00:21:08] Preston Meyer: Yeah

[00:21:09] Katie Dooley: Yeah, yeah. I like binge. I binge watched on New Year's Day because that's what was on TV. I don't. It's a mad, wild day. I'd like fallen asleep and then watch these monkeys.

[00:21:22] Preston Meyer: Nice.

[00:21:23] Katie Dooley: Anyway.

[00:21:26] Preston Meyer: So Eshu is a cool Yoruba African spirit. He is the deity of orderliness and law enforcement, which is really weird for a trickster god.

[00:21:37] Katie Dooley: Right? But it all makes sense when you read more.

[00:21:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Keep listening. He is the personification of mischief and teaches that there are always two sides to every story. You worry about the law, but you got a lot of freedom within that law, I guess.

[00:21:57] Katie Dooley: Well, I think it's more of a like you need to hear both sides before you make a judgment.

[00:22:03] Preston Meyer: Absolutely.

[00:22:04] Katie Dooley: Right. That's where the law enforcement piece comes in.

[00:22:07] Preston Meyer: So Eshu is necessary to an ordered life. This also makes sense from a law enforcement justice perspective, Eshu controls and regulates the extremes by balancing happiness and hopelessness, destruction and fulfillment, joy and sorrow. In the 1800s, the name Eshu was incorrectly translated as Satan. Back when, people were translating their records because people are super racist and let's just make people from Africa look bad, I guess. People suck. Because he is kind of a devil's advocate playing for that second side of the story.

[00:22:43] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:22:44] Preston Meyer: That's pretty cool.

[00:22:45] Katie Dooley: I thought that was an interesting kind of like Lugh, where you don't expect the God of law and order to be the trickster god. You don't expect the king King god to be the trickster god.

[00:22:56] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:22:56] Katie Dooley: A couple of interesting ones.

[00:22:58] Preston Meyer: We got some great diversity in these various pantheons.

[00:23:00] Katie Dooley: Oh, is it a spectrum, Preston?

[00:23:03] Preston Meyer: I don't know if this is a spectrum, but maybe.

[00:23:05] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:23:06] Preston Meyer: I guess if you were to chart things out, it would look pretty spectrum-y. My instinct was no, but that was a wrong instinct.

[00:23:13] Katie Dooley: Oh, Preston learned something new today, too.

[00:23:17] Preston Meyer: That's what this is all about. All right. And from another part of Africa, in West Africa, the Akan people have a pretty awesome chaotic. Well, he's not that chaotic sort of, sort of crazy.

[00:23:32] Katie Dooley: Wild, wild child.

[00:23:34] Preston Meyer: He is a wild child. If you can picture Orlando Jones. That's what I do when I think of Anansi. Mostly because. Well, specifically, exactly because of the American Gods TV show.

[00:23:46] Katie Dooley: There you go.

[00:23:48] Preston Meyer: So Anansi is a spider. He is the god of knowledge of stories, not of knowledge in general, but of knowledge of stories. In fact, he had to trick the Creator God into giving up his stories.

[00:23:59] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:24:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So trickery is super important here. He is super important in West African folklore, but also all across the Caribbean. And anywhere you have people who are transferred around the world because of the slave trade from West Africa. So Jamaica is where you get some really great stories too.

[00:24:18] Katie Dooley: Oh, nice.

[00:24:19] Katie Dooley: One of the stories I want to tell a little bit later on comes from a Jamaican tradition. So he's known for his cunning and wit, just like all the other trickster gods, because he can always outsmart his opponents. Every time, even when it's the creator God. Not even Loki could trick everybody. Thor always saw right through him. Well, almost. And they actually have, well, they're called spider tales. None of this fairy tale nonsense. Spider tales.

[00:24:47] Katie Dooley: This one here doesn't like spiders. Eh.

[00:24:51] Preston Meyer: Well, well, it'll be great.

[00:24:52] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:24:56] Preston Meyer: And outsmarting his opponents is always the climax of these stories. And the moral of most spider tales is generally don't mess with weaker people. They're probably smarter than you are.

[00:25:07] Katie Dooley: I like that. As a kid who was smart and not particularly strong.

[00:25:12] Preston Meyer: Right. Also worrying about spiders being tricky. Really good reason to stay away from what is definitely a wide variety of very dangerous venomous spiders in Africa.

[00:25:22] Katie Dooley: Smart. Yeah. That's true. To be able to be like. That's Anansi.

[00:25:27] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:25:28] Katie Dooley: Don't mess with him.

[00:25:29] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:25:30] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:25:31] Preston Meyer: He's also very greedy. Not terribly considerate. All kinds of fun stuff. Uh, there is some lore that tells of Anansi getting temporary powers from other gods. So as much as we say you don't generally pray to trickster gods, um, Anansi is one of the exceptions that sometimes you might. You could pray to Anansi for rain or some sort of blessing instead of asking other gods, even though it's not specifically encouraged. My inclination is to say that people started praying to him and then validated the practice by saying, well, yeah, he got temporary powers from other gods that had been forgotten in the moment of need, but that's just my instinct. It's super hard to prove any of that because that's ancient history. But overall, his divine status not really thought of as terribly important. Kwesi Yankah, one of the great scholars on the subject, says that it's way more important that he has a connection to the Akan people through their folk stories, rather than through any claim to divinity.

[00:26:35] Katie Dooley: And I was I was going to add that, much like Sun Wukong, Anansi appears in like a lot of popular culture, you can find kids storybooks on him. Like to this day, I'm sure he's a feature on television and kids movies as well.

[00:26:50] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I feel like Neil Gaiman has helped a lot in that. But of course, we can't give all credit to a white guy who's not from Africa. He's not the only one writing. He's just the one that makes white people aware, I guess?

[00:27:04] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I definitely found kids books that told Anansi stories, so that's pretty cool.

[00:27:08] Preston Meyer: Yeah. All right.

[00:27:09] Katie Dooley: A longer storytime. Longer story than mine but.

[00:27:12] Preston Meyer: So I, I paraphrased this to make this shorter.

[00:27:15] Katie Dooley: Okay, well I'm ready.

[00:27:17] Preston Meyer: We're doing what we can. One day, Anansi was hungry and couldn't find anything to eat. He grabbed a basket and a pot and went to the sea to go fishing. The spider made a fire for his pot and shouted toward the sea. Hey big fish, come here! Big fish came and he caught some of them, putting them in his basket. Next announced Anansi shouted, big fish, go make little fish come! Scaring the big fish away. Smaller fish came and he caught them too, putting them in his pot. Anansi spared no time cooking all of the fish he'd caught in his pot and started eating them. When he was full, Anansi picked up his things and headed back towards his home, hiding his empty pot in a bush along the way. On his way home, Anansi met Tiger and he was frightened because Tiger was very intimidating. Because, you know, tigers be intimidating.

[00:28:06] Katie Dooley: Tiger versus spider. Yeah.

[00:28:09] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And Anansi didn't hide because we're not talking spider the size of a dime. This is a spider that can't hide from a tiger.

[00:28:18] Katie Dooley: Like an Aragog.

[00:28:20] Preston Meyer: I mean, I think spider would be afraid of an Aragog. I mean, a tiger would be afraid of an Aragog.

[00:28:25] Katie Dooley: Fair. Okay, it's a little smaller.

[00:28:27] Preston Meyer: Like somewhere in between. Yeah, kind of like Jesus is somewhere between the size of a baby and a temple.

[00:28:34] Katie Dooley: Join our Discord for that reference.

[00:28:36] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Uh, anyway, Tiger demanded to know what Anansi had in his basket. Anansi told Tiger that his his basket was empty, so Tiger let the spider go about his way, but he was suspicious of Anansi because you should always be suspicious of Anansi. So he decided to spy on the spider. Tiger watched as Anansi sat near a tree and opened his basket with all the fish that he had caught earlier. Then Anansi emptied his basket of fish and gloated over them, counting them out, naming them, real happy with himself. Then Tiger jumped out of his hiding spot and confronted Anansi about his obvious lie. Anansi made an excuse that he'd gone to take a bath after they had met, and that he'd caught some fish while he was bathing. Tiger said, no, that's not. That's not what happened. And demanded that Anansi gave him all of the fish that he'd caught and the spider obeyed. Tiger ate all of Anansi's fish and left only the bones for Anansi to eat. Who took them up reluctantly and ate those instead. So at least he got something. Anansi complained under his breath that all of his hard work had gone to waste, and he decided to spy on Tiger, looking for some opportunity to trick him. The two continued down the road and saw a fruit tree. Knowing Tiger was greedy, Anansi pointed out that there was beautiful and delicious fruit in the tree. Tiger ordered Anansi to climb the tree and get some of the fruit, and Anansi obeyed. Anansi reached the top of the fruit tree and noticed that Tiger was standing directly beneath him. The spider warned Tiger that he could see lice in his hair. Tiger fell for Anansi's trick and demanded that Anansi catch the lice for him, but Anansi told Tiger that he needed him to lean against the tree first, Presumably so that he could wouldn't have to jump, but just climb down. Who knows? The tiger agreed, and Anansi came down, pretending to search for the lice that he had claimed to have seen. Because of how long it took, Tiger fell asleep while announce he climbed through his hair, and the spider wasted no time tying Tiger's hair to the bark of the fruit tree. When he finished the task, Anansi woke Tiger and told him that he couldn't find any other lice in his hair.

[00:30:53] Katie Dooley: Very thorough.

[00:30:54] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean, for all the time it took, it would have seemed thorough. Anyway, Tiger demanded that Anansi capture them all and not give up, but Anansi refused to help him. Tiger tried to attack Anansi in anger because he was stuck. Tiger realized that Anansi had what he had really done was tie him while he was asleep, so he ordered Anansi to untie his hair, but Anansi refused and he taunted Tiger, bragging that he'd tied him like a hog. Anansi was no longer afraid of Tiger, and he left him there while he returned home. Tiger's luck got worse. A hunter came and saw the tiger tied to the fruit tree and killed him.

[00:31:39] Katie Dooley: Wow. I don't know who to feel bad for in this story.

[00:31:45] Preston Meyer: Well, the tiger was the antagonist, and the spider was a bit of a dick, but only to exact his cruel form of justice. So neither of them are the good guy. But there is a moral to the story of don't screw around with the little guy because he might be smarter than you.

[00:32:05] Katie Dooley: I think we need to bring Eshu in to like, determine who's at fault here.

[00:32:09] Preston Meyer: Right? Little justice measured in not just Anansi's style.

[00:32:15] Katie Dooley: Right? There's definitely two sides to this story. And both of them are dicks.

[00:32:21] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:32:22] Katie Dooley: Terrible. Ah what a nice story. Thank you for sharing.

[00:32:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:32:25] Katie Dooley: "Nice" story.

[00:32:27] Preston Meyer: It's a fun story.

[00:32:28] Katie Dooley: Fun story. Thank you. That's a better adjective.

[00:32:31] Preston Meyer: Trickster gods are all kinds of fun. And if this inspired you for Halloween. Cool.

[00:32:39] Katie Dooley: Oh, yeah. Dress up as Anansi.

[00:32:42] Preston Meyer: Right? Dress as spiders. No one will get freaked out at all.

[00:32:46] Katie Dooley: Be an obscure deity for Halloween.

[00:32:49] Preston Meyer: Right? All kinds of fun to be had. Don't be a dick.

[00:32:53] Katie Dooley: Don't be a dick. Um.

[00:32:55] Preston Meyer: There's all kinds of morals that these trickster gods leave us with. But mostly. Just don't be a dick. Is really what you can boil it down. To. Which I mean, we've been saying that for years.

[00:33:06] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Years now. Is this all we had? 52. We're well past our second year anniversary.

[00:33:13] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:33:14] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:33:16] Preston Meyer: I mean, we started in October of 2020 as releasing these anyway.

[00:33:20] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Nice.

[00:33:23] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:33:24] Katie Dooley: If you want this podcast to go for another two years.

[00:33:27] Preston Meyer: Or longer.

[00:33:27] Katie Dooley: Or longer, please, uh, there are some things you can do to help.

[00:33:31] Preston Meyer: Yeah, you can help by buying our merch from our merch store. You can subscribe on Patreon, get all kinds of exclusive content.

[00:33:41] Katie Dooley: Leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

[00:33:44] Preston Meyer: That goes a long way. We love that. Uh, we've also got Facebook and Instagram where you can learn more throughout the week as we post little things that you might not know about ancient mythology or the world of religious studies in general.

[00:34:00] Katie Dooley: All of the links are in the show notes, so check it out and thank you for listening.

[00:34:07] Both Speakers: Peace be with you.

Monsters play a huge role in most of the old religions. From Jormungandr to Leviathan, monsters can embody chaos, or they can protect sacred ground. Generally, they are used to instill obedience in people, but sometimes they simply help to explain why the world is a mess. Join us as we dive into the realm of religious traditions surrounding chaos monsters.

Monsters serve to *demonstrate* or reveal the evil within the hearts of a people--or, that's the theory, anyway. They delineate the realm of chaos from the orderly cosmos, and they preserve that boundary.

Also, we talk about Cthulhu and the outer gods, and the risk of insanity that comes with knowing the unknowable.

From the Litani River, to the Jordan River, to the Norwegian Sea, the great sea monster is a foe of the gods of thunder and lightning. Whether Tiamat or Typhon, the king of the gods will preserve order by putting chaos in it's place.

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Join the Community on Discord

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Learn more on our official website

[00:00:10] Preston Meyer: Yeah. You do.

[00:00:14] Katie Dooley: I know. It's just so boring.

[00:00:16] Preston Meyer: Read your Bible, Katie.

[00:00:20] Katie Dooley: Okay. Pastor Preston, um, how do you podcast?

[00:00:26] Preston Meyer: I don't know. I've only been doing this for two whole years.

[00:00:30] Katie Dooley: As of! No, that was our last one. We didn't celebrate our two year anniversary. No, this one would be because we missed Christmas last year. This is our two year anniversary.

[00:00:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah, this is the beginning of October, two years later.

[00:00:41] Katie Dooley: Ahhhh! This is our two year anniversary episode, guys of. 

[00:00:49] Both Speakers: The Holy Watermelon Podcast.

[00:00:52] Katie Dooley: So I just squealed but didn't actually do like, a preamble of what we're talking about.

[00:00:59] Preston Meyer: That's okay. I have an idea.

[00:01:01] Katie Dooley: Oh

[00:01:02] Preston Meyer: Well, I guess we should share it with our listeners. The world is a chaotic place, especially in Spooktober. It's filled with children who want to dress up as princesses, cats, culturally insensitive depictions of historical figures, and racial stereotypes.

[00:01:17] Katie Dooley: Of course.

[00:01:17] Preston Meyer: Superheroes, Transformers, pumpkins and monsters of all kinds. How do we explain all of that chaos? So maybe we explain all of the chaos in the world. Monsters.

[00:01:29] Katie Dooley: Monsters! Can we put in. Thriller... That's all I'm going to say so we don't get sued.

[00:01:37] Preston Meyer: Uh. Monsters are messing around with the world. On this episode, the two year anniversary episode of. 

[00:01:44] Both Speakers: The Holy Watermelon Podcast.

[00:01:47] Katie Dooley: I don't know which one we're gonna keep. Maybe both.

[00:01:49] Preston Meyer: We'll see.

[00:01:49] Katie Dooley: All right. So what? Monsters. Why are we talking about monsters?

[00:01:54] Preston Meyer: Cause it's Spooktober.

[00:01:55] Katie Dooley: I guess so, but what? Okay, what do monsters have to do with religion.

[00:02:00] Preston Meyer: Monsters actually have a huge role in a lot of religions, and we'll get into that. They're not necessarily evil. The word demonstrate shares a common root connecting monsters to revelation. Which. 

[00:02:13] Katie Dooley: De-monster-ate. 

[00:02:15] Preston Meyer: Exactly.

[00:02:17] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:02:18] Preston Meyer: But not in the de- as in like defenestrate but like de-, as in like delineate, to add lines so that you are able to understand what you're looking at. And so this idea of demonstration connecting monsters to revelation brings to mind the monsters of the revelations of Ezekiel and John in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles.

[00:02:43] Katie Dooley: Oh, yeah. The one with all the legs and heads and stuff.

[00:02:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:02:46] Katie Dooley: Yeah!

[00:02:47] Preston Meyer: The things that are just insane to imagine.

[00:02:50] Katie Dooley: Oh, or once you see them, you go insane. We'll touch on those.

[00:02:57] Preston Meyer: Sometimes we'll hear stories of monstrous births. These are seen as communications of divine judgment, either on the family or the person giving birth, or the father of the child, or sometimes as the whole community.

[00:03:11] Katie Dooley: Oh....

[00:03:12] Preston Meyer: Yeah, lots of fun. And now the monster from 300 comes to mind. And he's not even that monstrous compared to the fellows we're going to talk about.

[00:03:22] Katie Dooley: I was going to say I haven't seen 300.

[00:03:24] Preston Meyer: Fair enough. He's just a severely deformed man.

[00:03:28] Katie Dooley: Oh, that's not very nice.

[00:03:29] Preston Meyer: Right? But when we talk about monsters, historically speaking, that is actually what we're talking about.

[00:03:35] Katie Dooley: Fair. Yeah. You know Frankenstein's monster?

[00:03:39] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Who's just a... 

[00:03:41] Katie Dooley: Hodgepodge!

[00:03:42] Preston Meyer: He's not just a deformed man. He is a jigsaw puzzle where you took different pieces from different boxes and hope you got something looked okay.

[00:03:52] Katie Dooley: I mean, we do it with Lego all the time.

[00:03:54] Preston Meyer: Right? Kitbashing is a real thing if you're into building models of cool things.

[00:03:59] Katie Dooley: Right? So Timothy Beal in his book Religion and Its Monsters, says that "the otherness of the monster is not only horrifically unnatural but also horrifically supernatural, charged with religious import."

[00:04:13] Preston Meyer: And Maryellen Hewitt wrote about these monstrous births that they were seen as sometimes the product of the mother's imagination or even unfulfilled desires, which brings to mind the the Jersey devil. That's the cryptid of New Jersey, I guess. I remember hearing about it before I even lived there. And it's this woman had had so many children. I think it was a full dozen. And then this. She was pregnant one more time, and she's like, let this one be the devil. And then it turned out to be the devil.

[00:04:47] Katie Dooley: Cool.

[00:04:49] Preston Meyer: And a lot of people died. And there's still sightings every now and then. It's crazy.

[00:04:54] Katie Dooley: Wow. Cool.

[00:04:56] Preston Meyer: Even the word awful reveals religious respect. Now I'm thinking of, um, George in the Jungle, where the the narrator says that the people respond with awe and they go, "awwwww," but there's like, a-w-e. "Ooh."

[00:05:15] Katie Dooley: I remember I had a I think it was an English. It must be an English teacher saying that we use the word awesome wrong. Like we use it for everything, but very rarely do we use it for something that actually describes awe.

[00:05:26] Preston Meyer: Right. It's a problem. We just get lazy with our language.

[00:05:31] Katie Dooley: I mean, at one point it would have been a $10 word and then it became a ten cent word. We cheapened that word, awesome. Very few things in life are truly awesome, but I know I throw it out far too often.

[00:05:45] Preston Meyer: I think that is just generally the case for our whole culture.

[00:05:48] Katie Dooley: Our show is awesome though.

[00:05:50] Preston Meyer: I think so. But you're already listening. You don't need to be convinced.

[00:05:57] Katie Dooley: But you could share it with a friend and get them in on the Ahhh. Ooh.

[00:06:04] Preston Meyer: So chaos. A wild concept.

[00:06:07] Katie Dooley: Ahhhhhh! yeah. So today we're talking about chaos monsters specifically. And the name chaos comes from the Greek tradition describing the void that existed before the creation of the cosmos. And so, yeah, that's a generally accepted definition. I have a few other quotes and things to flesh that out.

[00:06:26] Preston Meyer: Good old Pherecydes of Syros, who lived like 2600 years ago, described chaos as being the water that surrounds the world that the earth had come up from, which is a pretty cool idea, especially when you're in a nation that's a lot of islands. That makes a lot of sense and pretty easy to to buy into here.

[00:06:50] Katie Dooley: Yes, there's a lot of water descriptions of chaos when you start researching chaos.

[00:06:55] Preston Meyer: Right? And of course, life on the sea. The waves get chaotic. Now we're talking about a guy who lived in the Mediterranean. Not really that big of a body of water compared to any of our oceans. Imagine if this guy had seen the Pacific Ocean. There is chaos.

[00:07:11] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:07:12] Preston Meyer: And from this idea kind of going a different way than Pherecydes of Syros, the Dutch gave us the word gas from a different interpretation of chaos, that it's more ethereal, still fluid technically, but not liquid.

[00:07:28] Katie Dooley: Yeah. We'll, we'll see some examples when we talk about some monsters of both. Chaos is said to be the disorganized, true foundation of reality. That's a good definition.

[00:07:40] Preston Meyer: Sure. Everything comes from chaos. And if you're the kind of person who believes in the final entropy, then that's what everything's going to come back to as well.

[00:07:50] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So the term chaos is used in science as well For, you know, what was here before the Big Bang. And it's used throughout religious studies. So yes, it was in the Greek tradition, but we use it as a term in religious studies. And that's what we're talking about today because we're a religious studies podcast.

[00:08:11] Preston Meyer: That's right.

[00:08:11] Katie Dooley: That was a terrible segue over to you, Preston.

[00:08:16] Preston Meyer: Yep. Ovid described chaos as rude and undeveloped mass that nothing made except a ponderous weight and all discordant elements confused were there, congested in a shapeless heap.

[00:08:32] Katie Dooley: Love it.

[00:08:32] Preston Meyer: Right. I think it's interesting, just reminded that a lot of Christian philosophers like to talk about how God created the universe from nothing, and that's not a popular belief among all the world religions. A lot more are inclined to say no, it was a disorganized mess of stuff and the gods formed.

[00:08:58] Katie Dooley: They organized it. Yeah. They're the professional organizers of the skies.

[00:09:02] Preston Meyer: Right? They create order out of chaos.

[00:09:04] Katie Dooley: I like that.

[00:09:05] Preston Meyer: The cosmos literally means order.

[00:09:07] Katie Dooley: Yeah and, I mean, that makes sense from, um, you know, I mean, we shared a post on our discord recently as a reason to believe in God, which I disagreed with. But, you know, that was one of the things is he creates order. He makes things make sense.

[00:09:21] Preston Meyer: Mhm.

[00:09:21] Katie Dooley: There you go.

[00:09:22] Preston Meyer: You don't have to be a god to make things make sense but...

[00:09:25] Katie Dooley: No.

[00:09:26] Preston Meyer: But apparently it was enough for him.

[00:09:27] Katie Dooley: Enough for him. Hesiod um described chaos as the gaping void above the earth, created when earth and sky are separated from their primordial unity.

[00:09:39] Preston Meyer: I guess this connects to the idea of, um, the sky actually being a firmament, a solid dome. So you put all that work into separating these two solid things, and then you get chaos in the middle. I mean, a vacuum is a little chaotic.

[00:09:54] Katie Dooley: I mean, it's the black hole would actually be a great example of chaos.

[00:09:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's the opposite of what I said, but it's still true.

[00:10:01] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:10:02] Preston Meyer: Black hole is very much the opposite of a vacuum.

[00:10:04] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Well, yes, but I... In my brain, it sucks things in.

[00:10:08] Preston Meyer: Absolutely.

[00:10:09] Katie Dooley: So that's a vacuum.

[00:10:10] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:10:11] Katie Dooley: It sucks. Don't at me. So when we're doing an episode on Chaos Monsters, I was like, you need to write an outline because I have no idea what a chaos monster is. But doing this research here is my definition as we move on to actual chaos monsters, is that they're the creatures that fill the void before whatever god you prefer stepped in to make things happen. Chaos monsters!

[00:10:36] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:10:36] Katie Dooley: You take the chaos and you take the monster definition and you smoosh them together.

[00:10:43] Preston Meyer: Sure. Broadly speaking, the wild, everything that is unknown, out in the forest, out in the wilderness, beyond the the boundaries of our community is the visible chaos of the world. So a lot of times you'll see just animal, the wild animals in general, they embody chaos and wildness, and that makes some pretty good sense. And there's also a struggle between chaos and the people who try and impose order. Are you trying to expand the boundaries of your community? You trying to travel safely in the wilderness? You have to impose this order on these creatures. And that's all just microcosms of the great struggle, I suppose. This chaoskampf and I wish I'd written down who had first coined this word some German fella.

[00:11:39] Katie Dooley: Clearly. 

[00:11:41] Preston Meyer: That struggle against chaos, usually from Gods trying to impose order.

[00:11:47] Katie Dooley: I like it.

[00:11:48] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So my favourite of the chaos monsters is Jormungandr.

[00:11:53] Katie Dooley: Oh, Jormungandr!

[00:11:55] Preston Meyer: I'm pretty sure I've mentioned him before on the podcast, probably in our Norse Mythology episode. Uh, he is the World Serpent. His name Jormungandr literally means huge monster. Not a terribly descriptive name, but a little bit. We have some measure of beauty and some measure of size. He big, he ugly. Jormungandr.

[00:12:19] Katie Dooley: I laughed really hard at that post about Jesus.

[00:12:22] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah.

[00:12:23] Katie Dooley: Being bigger than a...

[00:12:25] Preston Meyer: Bigger than a baby and smaller than a temple.

[00:12:27] Katie Dooley: This reminds me. I showed a lot of people that brought joy to my life.

[00:12:32] Preston Meyer: Uh, more reasons to be on our Discord. Uh, the link is in our show notes. Uh, so Jormungandr is the son of Loki and Angrboda. Has a couple of siblings.

[00:12:46] Katie Dooley: Sleipnir would be his...

[00:12:47] Preston Meyer: Sleipnir. There's Fenrir and Hela. Loki and Angrboda are both giants, roughly human-shaped giants. They have one human-form child that I can remember off the top of my head, and that's Hela.

[00:13:03] Katie Dooley: Everything else is a weird animal.

[00:13:05] Preston Meyer: Yeah, well, okay. To be fair, Sleipnir is not the son of Angrboda.

[00:13:11] Katie Dooley: And he's not. I was gonna say he's not even Loki's son. No, Loki isn't his dad. Loki is his mom.

[00:13:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah, because you can be gender fluid when you're a shapeshifter. Life is great.

[00:13:22] Katie Dooley: Right?

[00:13:24] Preston Meyer: Uh, yeah. So a weird family tree. All weird. Jormungandr was this serpent thing. And there was this prophecy that warned Odin that Jormungandr, Fenrir, and Hela would all be trouble. Sleipnir, not so much. Sleipnir ended up being helpful to Odin. But those three, the three children of Angrboda would all be trouble. So Odin split them up. He sent Jormungandr to the seas of Midgard, where he grew enough to make sure that he was going to be a problem. And when Ragnarok comes, Thor and Jormungandr will kill each other in this epic battle, one of many conflicts that build up Ragnarok.

[00:14:07] Katie Dooley: But Thor's final conflict.

[00:14:09] Preston Meyer: Yeah, Jormungandr does kill Thor. There's... They have a few stories where they are in conflict with each other. Um, there's one time where Thor is having his little contest with the Giants, and they say, here, lift up this cat. It's not a cat. It's Jormungandr with a glamorous spell over it. So..

[00:14:34] Katie Dooley: I was going to say is he wearing cat ears?

[00:14:37] Preston Meyer: It's almost that bad. And Thor is able to lift up Jormungandr a little bit. Now, remember, this is a giant serpent that goes around Midgard, and Thor just pushes him up over his head. And this cat that everyone else can see because they don't see the snake gets one of its feet off the ground because Thor has lifted it so high off the ground. And everyone's super impressed because a bunch of other people recognize this cat is not what it looks like. And so they they start getting a little nervous, because if Thor had lifted Jormungandr off the ground completely, that would symbolically bring absolute chaos to the world.

[00:15:27] Katie Dooley: Yeah, you're lifting something... That displaces a lot of water.

[00:15:30] Preston Meyer: It displaces a lot of water. It's symbolically moving the boundaries of reality. We got problems.

[00:15:39] Katie Dooley: Well, that's a good story.

[00:15:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And then there's another time where Thor goes fishing specifically for Jormungandr, and he is about to pull Jormungandr out of the water because Thor is just that strong to pull a world-encircling serpent out of the water, and somebody else cuts his line for fear of ruining the boundaries of the world.

[00:16:06] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:16:07] Preston Meyer: Because he sees Thor is gonna do it. Thor is the mightiest of all of the gods in Norse mythology, according to the tales that we have. So some fun stuff.

[00:16:18] Katie Dooley: I like it.

[00:16:20] Preston Meyer: The one who is able to control and actually have meaningful conflict with Jormungandr, who will eventually kill him. So Jormungandr is the embodiment of the chaos of transformation. As most specifically, this is a pretty common symbol for snakes throughout most of the Old World, throughout Eurasia and Northern Africa at least that, you know, just as snakes shed their skin, that's a transformation. The symbol comes along, but specifically Jormungandr is also really tied to chaos. And so he's given credit for earthquakes, floods, tidal waves, all of the bad things that are the ground moving.

[00:16:59] Katie Dooley: Then we have Tannin, who is a Canaanite chaos monster, also a sea monster depicted as a serpent. Most of them are, which is interesting to me, like Jormungandr, Tannin embodies chaos, but is a servant of Yam, god of the sea.

[00:17:18] Preston Meyer: Which is different than a sweet potato.

[00:17:21] Katie Dooley: Could have fooled me. Oh, boy, that was a terrible joke. Uh, before the end of all, Tannin is defeated by Baal, or the equivalent of Thor of the Middle East and his sister, Anat. So as the Hebrews monopolize the lands of Canaan, they adopted some of their mythology. Tannin is the great whale from Genesis 1:21 and the King James Version of the Bible. In Isaiah's prophecy, Jehovah takes the are we saying Yahweh?

[00:17:51] Preston Meyer: You can say what you want... I spelled it with four letters.

[00:17:54] Katie Dooley: I know. What do you say?

[00:17:56] Preston Meyer: That depends entirely on who I'm talking to.

[00:17:58] Katie Dooley: I'll say Yahweh, even though it's spelt with a J, and it's going to confuse me. Yahweh takes the place of Baal in the defeat of Tannin. The word Tannin appears more than a dozen times in the Hebrew Bible, variously translated as a sea monster, great whale, dragon, or jackal. The jackal is interesting to me because it's not water-based.

[00:18:17] Preston Meyer: Right? It's more connected to Egypt specifically, and the Hebrew relationships with that nation.

[00:18:25] Katie Dooley: Fair.

[00:18:25] Preston Meyer: Jeremiah and Ezekiel both used the name tannin to refer poetically to the kings of Egypt and Babylon, which is how we get that jackal.

[00:18:34] Katie Dooley: Okay, I get it. Aaron's stick that turned it into a serpent turned into a Tannin.

[00:18:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I think it's really nifty that the word Tannin in Hebrew today refers to crocodiles, which would have been a way more epic scene in The Prince of Egypt. If... Throws down a stick and it turns into a crocodile instead of a snake, and then we've got crocodiles eating each other in the king's court, that would have been epic.

[00:19:03] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And I feel like, I mean, there's a wide variety of things.

[00:19:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah,

[00:19:08] Katie Dooley: But if I had to pick between a snake and a crocodile to take on, I'd pick a snake most times.

[00:19:13] Preston Meyer: Mhm.

[00:19:14] Katie Dooley: Just saying.

[00:19:14] Preston Meyer: That's fair. Crocodiles aren't venomous as far as I know, but. 

[00:19:19] Katie Dooley: They're big and move fast.

[00:19:21] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah. Snakes are pretty quick, though. Well, I guess it depends a lot on the snake,

[00:19:25] Katie Dooley: Right? That's why, i mean, I put an asterisk on the snake, but, uh. Yeah. Anyway,

[00:19:31] Preston Meyer: So as much as we could postulate all kinds of ideas, it is generally agreed that it was a stick turning into a snake. But the word we have is tannin, which usually is treated like a serpent, but could totally be something different.

[00:19:51] Katie Dooley: Words man and ancient history,

[00:19:53] Preston Meyer: Right? Language has changed too much over time.

[00:19:56] Katie Dooley: In the Ugaritic tradition, tannin is also known as lotan, meaning coiled. So definitely a pfth pfth.

[00:20:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah, we can say with great certainty here that we're talking about a serpent.

[00:20:07] Katie Dooley: And some sources. The Lotan is said to have seven heads.

[00:20:11] Preston Meyer: It's... it's rare enough to see a two headed snake.

[00:20:14] Katie Dooley: Is it Saint John the Baptist?

[00:20:18] Preston Meyer: I doubt it.

[00:20:19] Katie Dooley: Okay

[00:20:20] Preston Meyer: That's a little. A few too many heads.

[00:20:22] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:20:22] Preston Meyer: For John the Baptist, uh, Litani River in Lebanon is named for Lotan. As it winds through the valley. This is the visible representation for their chaos monster in their day to day life.

[00:20:35] Katie Dooley: And the Leviathan, which I think is probably one of the most well known chaos monsters. When you say chaos monsters, that's where my brain went, at least, is also derived from the Lotan referring to the same monster in a very similar story.

[00:20:49] Preston Meyer: Yeah, the word Leviathan today is used in Hebrew to refer to whales, but anciently there's still loads of argument about what it is they were actually talking about at the time.

[00:21:00] Katie Dooley: Godzilla?

[00:21:02] Preston Meyer: Who knows? Um. It is theorized that Leviathan's power was deliberately downplayed in the Hebrew Bible by later editors to reflect a stricter monotheism, so that there wasn't. 

[00:21:14] Katie Dooley: "Oh the Leviathan was so powerful that..."

[00:21:17] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:21:18] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:21:19] Preston Meyer: I mean, there's still parts of it that are left in. Isaiah talks about how Yahweh will overcome Leviathan, in the same way that we saw Baal and Thor defeat their chaos monsters. But it doesn't jump out at you so much in the Hebrew Bible text as it does in a lot of other traditions.

[00:21:38] Katie Dooley: Cool. The Babylonian tradition calls this serpent the Tiamat, and he is slain by Marduk.

[00:21:47] Preston Meyer: The Babylonian version only has one head, contrary to the D&D Tiamat that has five heads like Hiram McDaniels and John the Baptist, and the Greeks adopted this dragon slaying god king motif from the further East, and this gives us Typhon, who was killed by Zeus, though part of the story is also connected to Set, the Egyptian god of the desert and chaos and destruction and whatnot.

[00:22:11] Katie Dooley: Nice.

[00:22:12] Preston Meyer: Yeah, but the idea of the many headed dragon is a thing that is also familiar to those who only passively read the Revelation of John. You don't even have to have read it through or been seriously interested. If you've got a passive interest. You've seen images of the dragon.

[00:22:31] Katie Dooley: Absolutely.

[00:22:32] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Even, um, the Red Dragon, the Hannibal Lecter book, um, all about this imagery of the dragon.

[00:22:39] Katie Dooley: Uh, the. Movie we talked about a couple weeks ago... A Thief in The Night... Mentioned, I think you even see a many headed dragon in the movie from the 70s, so highly recommend. 

[00:22:39] Katie Dooley: Yeah. No, every story that's based on trying to set the revelation of John into developing history and the modern world as we see it. If you don't have a dragon, what are you doing? Dragons are pretty cool and pretty popular. And of course, I've shown up all through European mythology.

[00:23:14] Katie Dooley: They're my favorite mythical creature. Fun fact.

[00:23:17] Preston Meyer: Dragons are pretty great.

[00:23:18] Katie Dooley: Right?

[00:23:19] Preston Meyer: All right. Now we've played with some Irish folklore a few times before, and I'm not sure how we let this one just kind of slip away unnoticed.

[00:23:31] Katie Dooley: We I mean, we talked about the Fomorians in passing in our episode, for sure.

[00:23:35] Preston Meyer: Ever so briefly.

[00:23:35] Katie Dooley: Yeah, because we had a whole... However many century history to go through. So we'll deeper dive. Still not a deep dive, but we'll go a little deeper for the Fomorians. So they were the inhabitants of the island of Ireland before the Tuatha de Danaan, and they were said to have embodied the wild aspects of nature.

[00:23:58] Preston Meyer: Chaos.

[00:24:01] Katie Dooley: Also representing darkness, destruction and death. And they either come from the ground or.

[00:24:07] Katie Dooley: You guessed it, under the sea.

[00:24:10] Preston Meyer: Under the sea!

[00:24:10] Katie Dooley: I was literally going to say under the sea.

[00:24:14] Preston Meyer: I'm glad we share wavelengths.

[00:24:17] Katie Dooley: We've been doing this long enough.

[00:24:19] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:24:20] Katie Dooley: They are thought of either as fae folk or as giants. And we'll see the giants being. I don't want to call them chaos, but I guess they are chaos monsters and a lot of traditions that there were giants before there were other things.

[00:24:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Giants Gigantes tend to represent that wild, uncivilized part of the world. Anciently, giants weren't necessarily like eight, nine, ten feet tall or anything. They were just wild, feral people. But we've decided we can make them scarier if we make them bigger. And that that became the standard for giants.

[00:24:57] Katie Dooley: Oh

[00:24:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:24:58] Katie Dooley: Cool.

[00:24:59] Preston Meyer: And now when we talk about giants, you have to think of somebody who's taller than average.

[00:25:03] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I have a friend, and her dad is one inch shorter than me and considered a giant. And her mom is one inch taller than being considered a little person. The daughters are all average height.

[00:25:16] Preston Meyer: I like this.

[00:25:17] Katie Dooley: There you go. The Fomorians are also described as sea raiders. So connecting to the Vikings at the time, that would have raided the island. So it's easy to make someone look extra bad.

[00:25:30] Preston Meyer: Right? But it's also a great way to make your tradition more concrete, more real. Something that somebody has actually experienced. But Vikings.

[00:25:42] Katie Dooley: They lost the Battle of Montura, and the mythological value of this battle is comparable to the battle between the Greek Olympians and the Titans. So the Titans existed before the Olympians and to the battle between the Norse AEsir and the Vanir. But this. But this Irish tale is more about overcoming chaos than the other two are.

[00:26:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's. The other two are more about just taking power rather than \

[00:26:11] Katie Dooley: Organization.

[00:26:11] Preston Meyer: Organization, yeah.

[00:26:12] Katie Dooley: So they weren't eradicated, just pushed out of the land. But they reappear in stories occasionally.

[00:26:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I, I would imagine you still hear stories that are like recent history of somebody talking about the fomorians.

[00:26:25] Katie Dooley: We'll have to check.

[00:26:26] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:26:27] Katie Dooley: In the weird way that the British are obsessed with connecting to the Bible, the Rawlinson manuscript connects the Fomorian Bres to a line of 25 generations to the biblical Noah.

[00:26:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:26:39] Katie Dooley: We'll see that actually, in the Hawaiian tradition when we talk about it as well.

[00:26:43] Preston Meyer: Sure. Cool. I remember when I started doing my family history, I right away had a line all the way back to Adam. Because you go back enough generations and I connect to the royal family through William the Conqueror, who, of course, I mean, if you're English, you got like a 50% chance of connecting to William the Conqueror. It's terrible and questionable in legitimacy. But then he connects himself through a line that's almost 100% made up into the royal family of Israel, of which, of course, family history from royal family of Israel is is written down in the Bible all the way back to Adam. So I've got a line that's recorded. It is dubious.

[00:27:32] Katie Dooley: Uh, Bryant, my husband and our sound guy, we got him all the way back to the year 100.

[00:27:36] Preston Meyer: Nice.

[00:27:38] Katie Dooley: For the same reason he hit some royal family on one side or the other. And then it's then the work is done.

[00:27:45] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:27:46] Katie Dooley: But yes, dubious at best when someone hopefully someone's fact checking it. But I remember hearing on Qi that anyone of like white Caucasian Anglo-Saxon descent is related to Charlemagne. Because if you do the math of like, I have two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, 16 great great grandparents, 32 on and on and on that there were more fewer people on the planet than you would have ancestors in the time of Charlemagne.

[00:28:24] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:28:24] Katie Dooley: Right. So if you did the math and.

[00:28:26] Preston Meyer: Then you're good.

[00:28:27] Katie Dooley: Right? So I thought that was interesting that, you know, at some point you have because it's all exponential.

[00:28:33] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:28:34] Katie Dooley: Eventually you hit more ancestors than there were people on the planet. So ergo, you are your own cousin.

[00:28:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The math of the constantly exponentially expanding tree becomes a problem when you do. When you fail to recognize that a lot of these people are the same people in separate branches.

[00:28:55] Katie Dooley: Yup. Bryant's my 10th cousin.

[00:28:59] Preston Meyer: Only 10th. Yeah. Look at that.

[00:29:02] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Just so our listeners know, 10th is not actually very close at all. It's not weird.

[00:29:07] Preston Meyer: It's not the 10th child of your uncle. No.

[00:29:10] Katie Dooley: He's ten removed.

[00:29:14] Preston Meyer: Ten degrees of separation genetically?

[00:29:16] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:29:17] Preston Meyer: So that's A-ok.

[00:29:18] Katie Dooley: We're not having kids anyway. So this.

[00:29:20] Preston Meyer: One, you first cousins are legal in a lot of the world.

[00:29:24] Katie Dooley: I think even where we are, I think where we are.

[00:29:27] Preston Meyer: It's not a thing I've looked at.

[00:29:28] Katie Dooley: You haven't looked into that? No interest. Okay.

[00:29:32] Preston Meyer: I'm married to somebody who's not my cousin. It's not something I've been stressed out about.

[00:29:38] Katie Dooley: Oh, boy. This was a digression. So anyway.

[00:29:42] Preston Meyer: Back to chaos.

[00:29:43] Katie Dooley: The Fomorians are related to Noah. That's all you need to know. Maybe.

[00:29:46] Preston Meyer: That's what they say.

[00:29:47] Katie Dooley: That's what they say. If they have too many ancestors, that's probably what they mean. 25 generations.

[00:29:56] Preston Meyer: I think it's interesting. I'm going to carry off on this tangent just a little bit again. Um, in genetics we talk about a genetic Adam and a genetic Eve. Y chromosome Adam and mitochondrial Eve specifically. And I think we because of the biblical narrative, it's a little bit weird that we do that. We could talk pretty fairly about a y-chromosomal Noah.

[00:30:24] Katie Dooley: I was going to I was actually I was going to say, yeah, I would talk about it later, but God wiped off everyone on the planet except for Noah and his family. So Adam and Eve are moot.

[00:30:34] Preston Meyer: Well, so we can still talk about a Y, a y chromosomal Noah and a mitochondrial Eve.

[00:30:40] Katie Dooley: But you'd never be their descendants.

[00:30:42] Preston Meyer: No, that's that's the whole point that you you have. Okay. You are connected to what is scientifically designated mitochondrial Eve.

[00:30:50] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:30:50] Preston Meyer: And I am for sure scientifically proven connected to Y chromosomal Noah or Adam, depending on which label you want to prefer to use. But there is absolute certainty that these two speculative figures in, in our scientific world, scientific certainty that they are far removed in time from one another.

[00:31:15] Katie Dooley: Interesting.

[00:31:16] Preston Meyer: So.

[00:31:16] Katie Dooley: Oh, so even Noah isn't...

[00:31:18] Preston Meyer: Adam and Eve. You do want Noah and Eve for this analogy.

[00:31:22] Katie Dooley: Interesting. Okay, thanks.

[00:31:24] Preston Meyer: Some nifty science.

[00:31:25] Katie Dooley: That was interesting on a religion podcast. Who would have thought?

[00:31:29] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:31:32] Katie Dooley: Our next chaos monster is from the Japanese Shinto tradition, Amatsu-mikaboshi.

[00:31:38] Preston Meyer: It's a little bit of a mouthful.

[00:31:40] Katie Dooley: I saw it hyphenated a lot, and that helped a lot. Yeah, I'm Amatsu Mikaboshi. So originally the origins of this deity are of malevolent Shinto god also known as Primal chaos.

[00:31:56] Preston Meyer: I love it.

[00:31:56] Katie Dooley: This. This is great. You'll love this one. His name translates to the dread star of Heaven. Metal song in the making.

[00:32:05] Preston Meyer: That's a great name. I'm curious which star in the sky is connected to this figure. For this to be a name, there has to be one star in the sky that's connected.

[00:32:15] Katie Dooley: I feel like it'd be something like Venus, where like they didn't realize it was not.

[00:32:21] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:32:21] Katie Dooley: But it'd have some color to it and...

[00:32:23] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Something that moves a little bit in the sky. Like not reliable. Yeah, I'm on board. Something that deserves a little bit more research later, I suppose.

[00:32:32] Katie Dooley: Yes. You know it was tough because records are spotty on this guy, but the general consensus is that he doesn't have a corporeal form, but is instead described as a dark force that existed before the universe. Chaos.

[00:32:46] Preston Meyer: Yeah, sure. Before the universe, you got darkness. It was cool.

[00:32:49] Katie Dooley: Some sources say that he is an aura or energy that kind of floats around the world and influences things.

[00:32:56] Preston Meyer: Right now, I'm thinking of that weird green smoke from Charlton Heston, the Ten Commandments. Except that was actually an agent of God, not chaos.

[00:33:07] Katie Dooley: How do we know?

[00:33:09] Preston Meyer: We only have the story to go on.

[00:33:12] Katie Dooley: That's an old story.

[00:33:13] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:33:15] Katie Dooley: Shinto, the the religion, religion Shinto promotes balance, so Amatsu-Mikaboshi is associated with the negative emotions that bring the world out of balance, like greed or anger or envy. And I also read that he's attracted to those people feeling those things and he like, amplifies it in them. Which kind of makes sense, right? If you're an angry person, you have a really chaotic, angry life and.

[00:33:41] Preston Meyer: Well you can see this in mob mentality. If you see somebody who's got a little bit of negativity and if it has any value to the group, they will amplify it.

[00:33:51] Katie Dooley: Yeah, that's a good way to describe this guy.

[00:33:54] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:33:55] Katie Dooley: I like that. Another descriptor I saw of him that I really liked was destructive disharmony. This guy is super badass.

[00:34:04] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:34:04] Katie Dooley: Which is exciting because Amatsu-Mikaboshi is actually in the Marvel Universe. That was actually a lot of the records I found on him were like Marvel Comics, and I was like, that's not a good source for this.

[00:34:15] Preston Meyer: This isn't religious stuff. Maybe he'll show up in the future Shang-Chi project.

[00:34:20] Katie Dooley: Right. So I actually am excited to see what I don't know. I just saw a bunch of stuff on phase six, so I'm sure we'll start to see. We're going to start pulling more obscure characters now that the popular ones are retired.

[00:34:33] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:34:34] Katie Dooley: Or Dead.

[00:34:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah. A lot of dead superheroes.

[00:34:37] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So maybe he'll show up soon.

[00:34:40] Preston Meyer: All right, next on our list of chaos monsters. I want to throw in some fiction just 'cause.

[00:34:45] Katie Dooley: How do we know it's fiction?

[00:34:46] Preston Meyer: Well, the fellow who wrote about Cthulhu, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, introduced Cthulhu and never said, oh, yeah, this is a real thing I think about. He was an atheist. He just really liked writing stories about cosmicism, the idea that nothing on earth matters and only persists because the chaotic forces, the Great Old Ones and the Elder Gods. Actually, he never used the term Elder Gods. That was later writers, the Outer Gods, allowed the world to persist.

[00:35:19] Katie Dooley: H.P. Lovecraft has an extensive pantheon, to the point where I think it almost deserves its own episode. I also just want to point out that H.P. Lovecraft was a huge racist.

[00:35:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:35:30] Katie Dooley: So I always a little torn on, like, enjoying his novels.

[00:35:33] Preston Meyer: As he aged, he did become less problematically racist. He was he.

[00:35:39] Katie Dooley: Problematically racist though.

[00:35:40] Preston Meyer: He wasn't wildly racist compared to his contemporaries back when racism wasn't thought to be a problem. Um, but yeah, he was super racist relative to what we're familiar with in the world today. He definitely, really, really preferred people who were white or who were doing a good job of adopting white culture. Um, and not just all whites, specifically English. So you could be German. Polish, Irish, French...

[00:36:17] Katie Dooley: Doesn't like you. No jobs for Italians or Irish.

[00:36:21] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's not as good as English, but that's neither here nor there. I have spent a lot of time reading Lovecraft. I had a nice little stint for a little over a year where that was the only fiction I was reading for a little while, just because some fun stories.

[00:36:37] Katie Dooley: Did you go insane?

[00:36:39] Preston Meyer: No.

[00:36:39] Katie Dooley: Oh.

[00:36:41] Preston Meyer: Of course, that's not how you get that answer. You can't ask somebody if they're insane.

[00:36:45] Katie Dooley: That's true. That's catch-22.

[00:36:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Because in reality, everybody on this planet is insane. Except me. Wow. If you believe this, this sentiment for yourself, get checked.

[00:37:00] Katie Dooley: So, back to the Great Old Ones. They defy any laws of space and time. So this is why they fall under chaos.

[00:37:06] Preston Meyer: Well, on some of them exist outside the universe as we know it. H.P. Lovecraft wrote about different dimensions. He wrote about gods that existed in weird ways that don't even make sense, and that exposure to them would cause you to be insane. For sure. 100% of the time, which is actually a really cool form of internalized chaos. That madness. So I think it's kind of interesting. So I've decided to to highlight a couple of my favorites for you. I've got Nyarlathotep, who is modeled after the old Egyptian styles. Mostly when you see him, he's described as looking distinctly like an old pharaoh. He is called the Crawling Chaos, and he manifests the mockery of the universe against the attempts of mortal man to understand and rule the world. It's just he's here to mess you up. It's really the short form of it. Um, he doesn't like murdering people. That's not a thing that's entertaining to him. And he's all about fun. But his fun, not your fun. It brings him great pleasure to make you go insane. 

[00:38:23] Katie Dooley: That's cool, I guess...

[00:38:25] Preston Meyer: Right? He is actively engaged in ruining the world instead of being asleep at, like a lot of the gods, or drifting out in space in exile, like a lot of Lovecraft's old gods. Just an absolute agent of chaos. It's perfect. Then there's Azathoth, who is chaotic in what I think is a really interesting yet weird way that he is the accidental creator of the universe. A little. It's a little bit deistic, but even in deism it's usually acknowledged that the universe is created on purpose. But like a watch, you just let it go. And here we have a God who is called the blind idiot, because Azathoth has no idea that this universe even exists. He isn't paying attention to it, but it is the product of his sleeping imagination.

[00:39:18] Katie Dooley: Cool.

[00:39:19] Preston Meyer: Yeah. He's just unaware. And chaos populates this world with everything. And as he shifts in his sleep, the universe shifts. Which sounds terrifying. At any given moment the things that you are familiar with. Gone. Or terribly changed. Insanity. Lovecraft is a weird kind of nuts.

[00:39:47] Katie Dooley: Yeah. He had a great imagination. I'll give him that.

[00:39:51] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:39:51] Katie Dooley: He's probably really fucked up.

[00:39:53] Preston Meyer: I mean, probably.

[00:39:54] Katie Dooley: I mean, um, I just want to point out that during a contentious political election one year, I had a sign that said, why choose the lesser evil? Cthulhu 20. Whatever. I don't remember what year it was. It's 3 or 4 years ago.

[00:40:11] Preston Meyer: I think you printed a few of these when we bought one, I think.

[00:40:13] Katie Dooley: Yeah, that's when we were neighbors.

[00:40:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:40:16] Katie Dooley: And I don't remember what year that was. Clearly it was at least...

[00:40:19] Preston Meyer: It's been a little while.

[00:40:20] Katie Dooley: 3 or 4 years ago now. Yeah so why choose the lesser evil?

[00:40:29] Preston Meyer: The sounds mixed with the miming of the face tentacles? Why not vote Cthulhu?

[00:40:34] Katie Dooley: Why not vote Cthulhu? That's his debate.

[00:40:41] Preston Meyer: The great thing is, if you see Cthulhu and most of these great old ones, you just go nuts.

[00:40:48] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:40:49] Preston Meyer: So show up to a rally, and you might just vote for him.

[00:40:53] Katie Dooley: Right? Oh, boy. So let's, uh, move on. We're gonna maybe go to something less terrifying and talk about Ku-Kaua-Kahi, a Hawaiian chaos god.

[00:41:10] Preston Meyer: That's. That's a lot of Ks.

[00:41:12] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Did you know the Hawaiian alphabet has, like, 11 letters in it? And k, u and a are definitely three of them. Also, H and W. Uh.

[00:41:24] Katie Dooley: I'm pretty sure. And then I have a brackets Hawaiian, so we know what we're talking about. That's like the entire alphabet.

[00:41:31] Preston Meyer: Ku-Kaua-Kahi

[00:41:34] Katie Dooley: Oahu. O because Oahu, I can't.

[00:41:39] Preston Meyer: Ku-Kaua-Kahi.

[00:41:40] Katie Dooley: Thanks.

[00:41:40] Preston Meyer: That's how I read that. I hope I'm doing it right.

[00:41:45] Katie Dooley: That guy. Wow. Ku-Kaua-Kahi is a triad of three gods Kane, Lono, and Ku. And they existed before creation. Ku and Kane are twin brothers, and Kane is, like, at the top of the Hawaiian pantheon. So think of Zeus, even though he's in this triad.

[00:42:05] Preston Meyer: Right? Zeus was in triads we talked about.

[00:42:07] Katie Dooley: Oh, right. Thank you. Yeah. And Hawaiian chiefs are said to be the descendants of Kane. And the three of them represent sound, substance and sunlight, which I really like. That alliteration. That encompasses a lot of stuff.

[00:42:23] Preston Meyer: Right? And also, that's some great poetry when we're talking about things across linguistic boundaries. That's good work.

[00:42:30] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Po is the Hawaiian name of chaos in their creation myth. So at some point, Cain realized that he was a separate entity from Po, and he worked to separate himself. But there are there are multiple versions of the Hawaiian creation myth. So one is where Kane is the initial mover, and he existed in this chaos before time, light or space, and he created Ku and Lono, and all three of them created the universe together. And another version of them has all three of them existing in a deep and intense night, and then creating the universe together by shattering into pieces.

[00:43:06] Preston Meyer: Wow.

[00:43:07] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And then to the point of the everyone likes to make things part of the Bible. They talk about Kane as like the sun of the universe, and they talk about the land of Kane. It's like they're really just trying to get those in there.

[00:43:24] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:43:24] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:43:25] Preston Meyer: Cool.

[00:43:25] Katie Dooley: So that's the Hawaiian story. And reading this, I... We have it on our list. But I'm very excited to do the Hawaiian religion. I read a lot of cool stuff.

[00:43:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah, we'll definitely have to get on that.

[00:43:36] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:43:38] Preston Meyer: All right. So I figure some of these biblical figures deserve just a little bit extra attention. Um, we talked about Leviathan already. That it's a primeval sea monster, generally considered specifically to be female, as opposed to Jormungandr that was male and, of course, connected to other Near Eastern and Middle Eastern and Mesopotamian sea monsters as well. But Leviathan is very often paired with this other fellow called the Behemoth, which of course is a word that's tricky and loss to us in the antiquity, just like Leviathan and sometimes the word is used to describe an ox or an elephant or a hippopotamus. We don't really know for sure what the monster looked like. Uh, yeah. And there's a there's a third monster that in rabbinical writings and in Jewish mythology, you'll hear about paired with them. Uh, Ziz the a primeval bird monster. Some versions of the monster. He looks a lot like a griffin. Persian version of Ziz is very certainly a griffin. Um, but he's also equated with the phoenix of Greece and similar things. But he is so huge. I think it's pretty fair to compare him to Roc of Northern European traditions, where he's just this giant bird. He is mentioned twice in the Hebrew Bible, but not given any detail at all. It's just, and this animal does this thing, he eats stuff. Cool this context. It could have been a dog.

[00:45:26] Katie Dooley: Smaller than a temple. Bigger than a baby.

[00:45:29] Preston Meyer: Right? Though, Zia is generally thought to be much larger than a temple.

[00:45:35] Katie Dooley: Okay. Bigger than a temple.

[00:45:37] Preston Meyer: There's there's one spot where he's written in the rabbinical writings as bonking his head against the firmament. He is that big.

[00:45:45] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:45:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Now, imagine having a creature that size in this world. That would be a very bad thing.

[00:45:52] Katie Dooley: Terrifying. I like how there's an earth, water and air monster.

[00:45:55] Preston Meyer: Right? Those are the three big monsters. And they are all connected to chaos, though, Leviathan more than the other two in within the Hebrew Bible. But in greater tradition, they're all pretty chaotic, and they'll fight each other. All kinds of fun.

[00:46:12] Katie Dooley: Cool.

[00:46:13] Preston Meyer: And we had talked about giants before. We have the Gibborim and the Nephilim, or the Gibborim and Nephilim.

[00:46:23] Katie Dooley: You're the one who speaks Hebrew, right?

[00:46:25] Preston Meyer: And even I don't have a solid answer for this. They are basically the giants before the flood. Of course, we could be talking about two different groups, maybe giants and Titans. Being a mediterranean people, their cultures were borrowing myths all around that body of water for a long time. And so things get a little bit fuzzy. But the stories are very similar in a lot of ways, and I'm pretty sure we're looking at giants and titans, and I think that's kind of nifty.

[00:46:56] Katie Dooley: Nice.

[00:46:57] Preston Meyer: And the unicorn shows up in the Bible, too. I don't think it's ever been a chaos monster. It's just an animal that gets mentioned a few times. And for some reason, King James Version and and later versions that like it a lot, stuck with the word unicorn. It's wasn't a unicorn.

[00:47:17] Katie Dooley: What. 

[00:47:18] Preston Meyer: The re'em is, what is translated as unicorn. Um, a lot of people were pretty sure that it means a one horned animal. It may have been a rhino. It may have been a wild buffalo. It could potentially. Actually, even a lot of people are very sure it was very likely the extinct aurochs, or it could have been a ram or an antelope. There's so much the language has changed too much since then that we just don't know for sure what they're talking about.

[00:47:48] Katie Dooley: Hey, is this why people believed in unicorns? Like, well, into the 1400s?

[00:47:52] Preston Meyer: Probably.

[00:47:53] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:47:54] Preston Meyer: Well, okay, we can't blame the King James Bible translation for the belief in unicorns, because that wasn't published until 1611. But people talking about unicorns and labeling things as unicorns that were definitely not... A long tradition of white folks.

[00:48:12] Katie Dooley: Yes. Neigh.

[00:48:16] Preston Meyer: Chaos monsters are a lot of fun, and it's a great answer for why things are the way they are. You know, we pray to God for good weather and we have these storms. Is there a God of storms that we've angered? No, it was a chaos monster. Earthquakes? Well, it's not the gods in the heavens giving us earthquakes. It's the chaos monster underneath the short, easy answers.

[00:48:44] Katie Dooley: Easy answers!

[00:48:44] Preston Meyer: Easy answers that develop into really cool mythologies over time.

[00:48:49] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I also think it's really interesting how many of these creatures have entered pop culture. Great weather. I mean, Brant was reading a book called Leviathan, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, yeah.

[00:49:03] Preston Meyer: It's all civil politics and whatnot, though.

[00:49:06] Katie Dooley: Sure. But the fact that the name appears elsewhere and there's Marvel characters and I'm sure there's other comic books or.

[00:49:14] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah. For sure.

[00:49:15] Katie Dooley: I mean, man, even googling Chaos monsters, I had to, like, omit Yu-Gi-Oh! I googled chaos monsters it was all Yu-Gi-Oh! So I had to, like, figure out how to eliminate a search term when I was googling.

[00:49:26] Preston Meyer: Google needs to learn your...

[00:49:28] Katie Dooley: Fun fact. If you put a minus sign in front of a Google search term, it will admit it. So I said Chaos monster minus Yu-Gi-Oh!

[00:49:36] Preston Meyer: It didn't even give me Yu-Gi-Oh stuff.

[00:49:38] Katie Dooley: It gave me so much. What?

[00:49:40] Preston Meyer: No. I don't know. It knows my patterns better.

[00:49:43] Katie Dooley: Okay, I was gonna. What does it say? Why does it think I like Yu-Gi-Oh?

[00:49:48] Preston Meyer: I don't know.

[00:49:49] Katie Dooley: I'm offended. Google. Uh, anyway. Yeah so.

[00:49:54] Preston Meyer: We get get.

[00:49:55] Katie Dooley: We get what we get. Wow. If you want to make order from chaos, you know how you can do that?

[00:50:03] Preston Meyer: Join our discord.

[00:50:04] Katie Dooley: Join our discord. I actually got a message from someone recently that said they are obsessed with our discord.

[00:50:10] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's some good.

[00:50:12] Katie Dooley: Yeah, it made me very happy. So if you want to be obsessed with social media too... Check out our discard. Lots of memes. Lots of great conversations. We're having a movie night. Movie nights on a semi-regular basis.

[00:50:27] Preston Meyer: Of course. We've also got our Facebook, our Instagram, YouTube. We've also got Spread Shop where you can buy some pretty cool gear mugs, aprons, onesies, t shirts, tote bags, whatever you're after, we've got some great pictures to slap on those things.

[00:50:43] Katie Dooley: Help us. Yeah, help us support the podcast and keep it going.

[00:50:47] Preston Meyer: And if you don't want to buy stuff but you still want to help us out. Patreon is great. We've also got a lot of exclusive content on there that you can't get anywhere else, so help motivate you to pay a little bit to help support our show. Thanks for joining us.

[00:51:02] Both Speakers: Peace be with you.

We've explored the fallacy of pagans and atheists bowing to Satan, and outlined some of the "Satanist" groups that don't believe he's a real personality. Now let's look at the real deal: the folks who genuinely worship a living Satan. Even with these groups, it's probably not what you would expect.

Most of these groups grow out of a resentment for the Christian establishment. Some of these groups are terribly anti-semitic, and in wonderfully odd ways; others have a troubling history of domestic abuse. The Order of the Nine Angles and the Joy of Satan Ministries get to join the list with the Temple of Set and the Luciferians on this new look at the spooky traditions that are growing in the world around us.

We also talk about Freemasons again, and the Leo Taxil hoax of the 1890s.

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

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[00:00:01] Katie Dooley: Hail, Satan!

[00:00:11] Preston Meyer: Once more with feeling!

[00:00:13] Katie Dooley: Hail, Satan! Is that how we're starting this episode?

[00:00:18] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:00:18] Katie Dooley: I love it!

[00:00:21] Preston Meyer: Yeah, we're getting ready for Spooktober again. We're. We're not really in October yet, but you know how it goes. We..

[00:00:27] Katie Dooley: Gotta. 

[00:00:27] Preston Meyer: Celebrate when you can.

[00:00:28] Katie Dooley: Yeah, we gotta do a big, long lead up to the spookiest of the spooky. I don't know what the spookiest of the spooky is this year.

[00:00:34] Preston Meyer: We'll see. So we've already talked about Satan a little bit and Satanism. We're going to do a different group of Satanists. 

[00:00:42] Katie Dooley: On today's episode of... 

[00:00:44] Both Speakers: The Holy Watermelon Podcast.

[00:00:51] Katie Dooley: So this time last year, I think it was actually, it wasn't quite Spooktober last time we talked about it, because we paired it with our atheism episode.

[00:00:58] Preston Meyer: We did. 

[00:00:58] Katie Dooley: Also spooky.

[00:01:00] Preston Meyer: For some people. It's terrifying.

[00:01:02] Katie Dooley: Right? And we talked about how most Satanists, the majority of Satanists don't actually worship Satan. But this group, they are theistic Satanists, so they do believe in Satan and worship and venerate him.

[00:01:19] Preston Meyer: Yeah, he's a real personal figure for these people. And of course, we're not just talking about Christians.

[00:01:28] Katie Dooley: No, we're talking about Satanists.

[00:01:30] Preston Meyer: Yeah, generally speaking, Christians believe in Satan a lot more than the average. 

[00:01:34] Katie Dooley: Person.

[00:01:35] Katie Dooley: Satanist.

[00:01:36] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:01:36] Preston Meyer: Well, sure, if you want to generalize the whole population, even easier to say that.

[00:01:40] Katie Dooley: Yeah, they're a very niche group that believes in Satan.

[00:01:44] Preston Meyer: Yeah. These contrast really well with The Satanic Temple, which is obviously atheistic and all into their really great publicity stunts, which I definitely find enjoyable. I can appreciate their actions and we're going to talk about some Satanists that are a little harder to appreciate, I suppose.

[00:02:03] Katie Dooley: Yeah, we're mostly yucky.

[00:02:06] Preston Meyer: They're not all bad but yeah, there's there's some really gross groups.

[00:02:10] Katie Dooley: Yeah, so they're basically a separate group of anti-christians that are theistic Satanists, so and again, they are a minority group under the bigger Satanist umbrella. And they're actually mocked a little bit.

[00:02:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah. That's fair. A lot of the Satanists that haven't tried to separate themselves from Christianity, who openly accept the anti-Christian label are often called diabolists or reverse Christians, sometimes, depending on who you talk to.

[00:02:46] Katie Dooley: Diablo.

[00:02:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah, some some fun wordplay there, but a lot of them will deny that their religion is a reaction to Christianity. But when you look into the formation of the group, it becomes really obvious that either they're lying or they have lost track of that detail.

[00:03:03] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I we'll get into it. The Joy of Satan ministry says that Satanism existed before Christianity, and maybe if we're looking into the Hebrew Bible, but that's about it. It wasn't. It's not nearly as old as they think.

[00:03:20] Preston Meyer: Yeah, but generally for theistic Satanists, Satan is a real deity that is worthy of worship. Some... You get variety, some are monotheistic. That Satan is the only real God. You got groups that are willing to accept that there are an awful lot of gods, but Satan is the only one worth worshiping.

[00:03:38] Katie Dooley: There are also ones I saw that worship a whole pantheon of demons, or recognize the pantheon of demons, with Satan being at the head of those demons.

[00:03:48] Preston Meyer: That's exciting.

[00:03:49] Katie Dooley: A little bit like, well, we'll get to this a little bit like Lucifer on Netflix.

[00:03:54] Preston Meyer: Popular culture and Lucifer are really an odd pair. Of course, we've talked before how Lucifer is the Latin name for the Greek god Phosphoros, which of course is just the morning star. That's Venus in the morning and in the evening. Nothing terribly special about that, nothing terribly devilish about it. It's just it's a light bearer.

[00:04:22] Katie Dooley: Theistic Satanists reject Christianity and the Christian definition of evil, which we'll get into a little bit more. And they also reject the Judeo-Christian obsession with laws, which, to be fair, there's whole chapters on laws. So yeah, who could blame them?

[00:04:37] Preston Meyer: Well, and not all Christians are super concerned about rules. There's some that are like, I'll do what I'll do, and God's either going to forgive me or he's not. It's predetermined and I get to do whatever I want in the meantime. And of course, it's a spectrum. You got everything in between. Yay!

[00:04:53] Katie Dooley: Yay! It's a spectrum!

[00:04:55] Preston Meyer: But Satanists reject all of these ideas. They reject the idea that there is any need for salvation from anything but ignorance. Which of course, the only cure for ignorance is learn stuff.

[00:05:08] Katie Dooley: Yeah, and that's actually similar to the rest of Satanism as well.

[00:05:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah

[00:05:12] Katie Dooley: Yeah, we see that a lot in the broader umbrella of Satanism, encouraging free will, individuality, independence, and knowledge seeking. Though we'll get into some of that... Knowledge seeking in theistic Satanism is super skewed.

[00:05:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah, there's in addition to rejecting atheism because they believe that there are gods, they also have a tricky relationship with science.

[00:05:37] Katie Dooley: Oh boy.

[00:05:38] Preston Meyer: They see science in the same way that a lot of Christian groups do, where they think it's this monolithic thing that can't ever change and must be evil because everyone just assumes that science is good. When science is, of course, a constantly evolving field of study. It's the sum of human knowledge.

[00:06:00] Katie Dooley: It's neither good or bad. Yeah, it's just facts.

[00:06:04] Preston Meyer: Uh, well, I mean, there there is bad science. There is science that we thought was good for a long time and have since found out isn't.

[00:06:13] Katie Dooley: Fair.

[00:06:13] Preston Meyer: It's just science is the sum of human knowledge. Rejecting science is really dumb. And the scientific method is reliable. That's how the whole thing works.

[00:06:26] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:06:27] Preston Meyer: But Satanists in general, because obviously there's exceptions, either personal or group wise, don't love the whole thing. Oh, well.

[00:06:40] Katie Dooley: Religious people.

[00:06:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:06:42] Katie Dooley: I'm kidding.

[00:06:42] Preston Meyer: So yeah, there are a handful of parallels with regular atheistic Satanism. You mentioned free will, individuality. Something that's really important to them is living by your own strength, that you are able to take care of your own needs and stand up and fight your own battles rather than rely on some force that's probably not going to come to do it for you.

[00:07:06] Katie Dooley: So Satan's really is not going to come and help out.

[00:07:09] Preston Meyer: Exactly.

[00:07:12] Katie Dooley: Oh.

[00:07:12] Preston Meyer: But a lot of these groups believe in magic. So there is things you can do that may have some sort of influence there too.

[00:07:18] Katie Dooley: That'll help that a little bit.

[00:07:20] Preston Meyer: Again, it's a spectrum. 

[00:07:20] Katie Dooley: Buy our t-shirts! I don't want to spend too too much time on this, but it came up a lot in my research is the left hand path and the right hand path. And these are, from my understanding, strictly magical terms.

[00:07:39] Preston Meyer: Pretty much.

[00:07:40] Katie Dooley: But again, it comes up a lot in Satanism. And to sum it up, it's like left is bad, right is good, left is black magic. White is right. White is right. Oh, no. Oh, white is good magic.

[00:07:55] Preston Meyer: Let's just step away from those statements then.

[00:07:58] Katie Dooley: Let's step away from the colour statements. Left is rad. Right is good.

[00:08:02] Preston Meyer: You say left is rad?

[00:08:04] Katie Dooley: Left is rad. Blue is blue. I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. Left is bad. Right is good.

[00:08:13] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Okay. Generally, um, we've got people who talk about it where the left hand path tends to be a lot more self-serving, and the right hand path is more other-serving, I think, is a more generally, culturally acceptable way of outlining this.

[00:08:33] Katie Dooley: I like that.

[00:08:34] Preston Meyer: Because a lot of people who use black magic don't see it as bad.

[00:08:38] Katie Dooley: Right.

[00:08:38] Preston Meyer: And probably what's labeled as black... well for sure, what is labeled as black magic to some is not black magic to others.

[00:08:46] Katie Dooley: Well, and to my point that like in our last episode with Doctor Fairen, he kind of talked about how, you know, what is a cult to some is fine to others, and it's just really public or societal perception of what is a cult versus what is a pseudoscience or a spiritual experience. One thing I read said that the Abrahamic religions are often considered the right hand path, which I kind of love because it recognizes that there is magic in the Abrahamic religion, which they try to be like, no, magic is bad. But again, Doctor Glen Fairen and the zombie zombie rabbi, um, that's pretty magical.

[00:09:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's... Magic is pretty loosey goosey word, as we've talked about before. And there is a difference between magic and witchcraft.

[00:09:36] Katie Dooley: Right.

[00:09:36] Preston Meyer: But that also depends on who you talk to. Because if you want to be super simplistic, if you're wielding magic, you're a witch. Bam! That's it. You're trying to do something by shouting words and doing a ritual. Bam! Magic.

[00:09:49] Katie Dooley: Magic. It's honestly so super vague, but because it will come up later in our episode talking about the left hand path, I want to define it, but the magister of the cultist Sabbatai and occultist Andrew Chumbley stated that they were simply theoretical constructs that were without definitive objectivity, and that nonetheless, both forms could be employed by the magician. And then I put a footnote if you even believe in magic at all.

[00:10:19] Preston Meyer: For sure. So it's hard to use magic if you don't believe the magic is real. In fact, one could say you're not going to succeed. Do I believe in magic?

[00:10:29] Katie Dooley: Do you remember that song? It's a super old song.

[00:10:31] Preston Meyer: Maybe. Maybe it sounds a little bit familiar.

[00:10:34] Katie Dooley: I mean I'm singing it. No...

[00:10:35] Preston Meyer: That's the trick.

[00:10:36] Katie Dooley: That's the problem. Oh wow. Ouch!

[00:10:39] Preston Meyer: I've got Queen's, It's A Kind of Magic in my head now from the Highlander movie.

[00:10:44] Katie Dooley: I mean, there was another good song about magic. I forget who does it. I...

[00:10:48] Preston Meyer: There's loads of songs about magic.

[00:10:49] Katie Dooley: I know the words, but I'm not going to sing it.

[00:10:51] Preston Meyer: You got Santana's black magic woman. You got so many options. 

[00:10:55] Katie Dooley: But now you've embarrassed me, so I'm not going to sing it.

[00:10:58] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:10:58] Katie Dooley: But maybe we'll insert music here. Maybe we'll do special magic outro for this episode.

[00:11:06] Preston Meyer: We'll see.

[00:11:07] Katie Dooley: We'll see. All right, so left hand path. Right hand path. Good, bad. It's a spectrum.

[00:11:14] Preston Meyer: Yeah, really.

[00:11:16] Katie Dooley: Just know that those terms are real.

[00:11:19] Preston Meyer: The paths aren't so far apart that you can't have one foot on both.

[00:11:22] Katie Dooley: We both have a left and a right hand.

[00:11:25] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:11:26] Katie Dooley: Oh, profound.

[00:11:28] Preston Meyer: Right. Anyway...

[00:11:33] Katie Dooley: We spent far too much time on that. I was like, this is going to be quick. It's been like 15 minutes of me.

[00:11:33] Preston Meyer: Back to Satanism. So we talked about how some of these groups are really, really awful. So let's start with those.

[00:11:49] Katie Dooley: Yeah so there are two really awful main groups that I found when researching theistic Satanism. They really like neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism.

[00:12:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:12:01] Katie Dooley: So ew. So the two big ones are the Joy of Satan Ministries, which I mentioned earlier in the episode, and the Order of Nine Angles.

[00:12:11] Preston Meyer: So I love one of these names and I hate the other name.

[00:12:15] Katie Dooley: Do you love Joy of Satan ministries?

[00:12:17] Preston Meyer: I love the name the Joy of Satan. It reminds me of Bob Ross.

[00:12:21] Katie Dooley: It reminds me of, like, every church you drive by.

[00:12:25] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:12:26] Katie Dooley: And it's just like except Satan. So it does. It makes me a little bit happy.

[00:12:30] Preston Meyer: I like that name.

[00:12:31] Katie Dooley: It's sad they're racist fucks.

[00:12:33] Preston Meyer: And the order of the Nine Angles. In theory, this name would be kind of cool for a group that's way into geometry. Freemasonry comes to mind. This could be one of the groups that attaches to it. Apart from the fact that these are, you know, Satanists. The other part is I keep expecting it every time I look at it to be the order of the nine angels.

[00:12:54] Katie Dooley: Oh, I did that a few times. I did a couple double takes. I was like, is that angles or angels?

[00:12:58] Preston Meyer: Right, but it's the Order of the Nine Angles. Their logo, I don't see how they picked nine angles. It's actually still bothering me.

[00:13:08] Katie Dooley: It's a pentagram, so there's ten angles.

[00:13:11] Preston Meyer: But no, it's not, the Order of the Nine Angles is super... It's not a pentagram. It's a bunch of lines. It's like somebody deliberately made. This isn't a pentagram.

[00:13:25] Katie Dooley: Did you go on their website?

[00:13:26] Preston Meyer: No.

[00:13:27] Katie Dooley: Okay. I didn't want to because I didn't want. Actually, we'll get to it. I don't even know if you can.

[00:13:27] Preston Meyer: It's not a pentagram. Yeah, we'll put it in the discord so everyone can see it. 

[00:13:37] Katie Dooley: I count easily 13 if not more.

[00:13:40] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:13:40] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I don't get it. All right. Well, and I did some super scientific research and went on Reddit, and even Reddit says that these guys are super racist. So I feel like if the general public is posting that, then it must be true.

[00:13:55] Preston Meyer: I mean, tricky business just asking the public what they think about something satanic.

[00:14:02] Katie Dooley: Well, the one post I found was I am a theistic Satanist and want a group to join and everyone was like, don't join these ones.

[00:14:09] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:14:11] Katie Dooley: So...

[00:14:11] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:14:11] Katie Dooley: Yeah, they were like pretty chill about the fact that he was a theistic Satanist, but they're like, they're racist. And he was like, okay, I'll leave them alone.

[00:14:20] Preston Meyer: Well, at least he followed the advice.

[00:14:22] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:14:24] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So more about the Joy of Satan specifically. It was founded only 20 years ago by a woman who now calls herself Maxine Dietrich. I've found not her full previous name, but she used to be Andrea something. It's a little weird digging into people that aren't super important to me, you know?

[00:14:50] Katie Dooley: I understand. So the Joy of Satan is a polytheistic group like we talked about, that believes in demons and Satan that they call Enki, who is the demon's ruler and key is the Sumerian god of water and creation.

[00:15:04] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So it's like, yeah, obviously this is Satan.

[00:15:07] Katie Dooley: This is clearly Satan.

[00:15:09] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Oh, well, you've got to pick a cool name. Here we go.

[00:15:14] Katie Dooley: I like it. We should look at Pazuzu from The Exorcist one day.

[00:15:20] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:15:20] Katie Dooley: Just weird demon names. We should do a whole episode on demons.

[00:15:23] Preston Meyer: Sure. Maybe next year.

[00:15:25] Katie Dooley: Maybe next year. Yeah. We've already. We're already booked out for Spooktober.

[00:15:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah, we'll figure it out.

[00:15:31] Katie Dooley: In their practice, they summon and make pacts with demons who, like Satan, are extraterrestrial aliens. Makes sense.

[00:15:40] Preston Meyer: Sure. I mean, to be fair, it's super easy to say anything that's not living in the visible world must be an alien. That's super easy. Even Mormonism leans into that. So... 

[00:15:51] Katie Dooley: Fair.

[00:15:52] Preston Meyer: I get it. Though it does sound really corny.

[00:15:56] Katie Dooley: It gets even cornier.

[00:15:59] Preston Meyer: Give me the corn.

[00:16:00] Katie Dooley: I will give you all the corn. Or shall I say lizard grub?

[00:16:04] Preston Meyer: Oh

[00:16:06] Katie Dooley: So the demons and the lizard people have been at war for millennia.

[00:16:10] Preston Meyer: Okay, okay.

[00:16:11] Katie Dooley: And even better, the lizard people mix their DNA with humans to create the Jews, Preston.

[00:16:20] Preston Meyer: See, that sounded kind of cool. And then it's like, obviously super racist.

[00:16:26] Katie Dooley: And then I can't believe those words came out of my mouth.

[00:16:29] Preston Meyer: Good thing we're just sharing what somebody else is publishing.

[00:16:33] Katie Dooley: What somebody else believes. So they believe that the Aryan race was the most important race ever created. Yucky.

[00:16:38] Preston Meyer: But of course, this is a group that loves Hitler and follows his definition of Aryan instead of. 

[00:16:46] Katie Dooley: What the area is actualy yeah.

[00:16:46] Preston Meyer: The Indo-aryan people. Definitely the Norse Aryans, which is a group that didn't ever exist.

[00:16:56] Katie Dooley: They don't believe in the Abrahamic God. I guess that makes sense because they don't believe in the Abrahamic devil either.

[00:17:02] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:17:03] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:17:03] Preston Meyer: Their Satan is Enki.

[00:17:05] Katie Dooley: Enki. And they're really into what would be called black magic or the left hand path, performing spells and rituals of all different levels of complexity.

[00:17:14] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So I looked a little bit into their idea of rituals because, you know, it's a thing that I'm curious about. And their rituals apparently don't need to have all the fancy trappings. They say Satan isn't concerned about having all the gear. He understands that times are hard and resources are scarce.

[00:17:31] Katie Dooley: What a good guy

[00:17:32] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:17:33] Katie Dooley: I will say, and we're gonna get into the Order of Nine Angles and their worse, surprising. But I still never found anything on humans like actual human sacrifices or actual black masses being performed by any Satanist group. So the Satanic Panic of the 80s, 90s, 2000s and 2010s and 2020s is not there.

[00:17:55] Preston Meyer: The Black mass is, you know, people gathering together, not let's burn people or...

[00:18:01] Katie Dooley: Desecrate a church. Yeah, like I haven't found any actual. 

[00:18:05] Preston Meyer: Any real corroboration, yeah.

[00:18:07] Katie Dooley: Like this Satanist group did this black mass in our Catholic I haven't found. So I did something I regret and I went on to the Joy of Satan Ministries website.

[00:18:17] Preston Meyer: You told me not to, so I didn't.

[00:18:18] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I mean, it's terrible from like a web design perspective. It's very like 90s early 2000. But it also you get, like, the weird ass remarketing.

[00:18:30] Preston Meyer: Sure. Yeah. You start getting the weird pushes from Amazon?

[00:18:35] Katie Dooley: Yeah. It's like, oh, you're a Satanist. Oh, you don't like the Jews, eh? No I do. It's fine. Yeah. So I mean, whatever, but it's, you know.

[00:18:46] Preston Meyer: Web design as old as the church.

[00:18:47] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:18:48] Preston Meyer: 20 years ago.

[00:18:49] Katie Dooley: And uh, we'll talk about Bitchute in a minute. It's hosted by Bitchute as well, so.

[00:18:54] Preston Meyer: Mm. Okay.

[00:18:55] Katie Dooley: Yeah. That's. Anyway, yeah.

[00:18:58] Preston Meyer: I also thought it was interesting. Their logo, as hard as it is to describe. Just put it up on discord for everyone to see. It's distinguished from other churches that use the goat star by putting the Assyrian cuneiform letters at the corners of the star. So, you know, if you see weird little collections of arrows around the pentagram, these are people to avoid.

[00:19:24] Katie Dooley: So now on to the Order of the Nine Angles. Angles. And so they're worse than the Joy of Satan Ministries, which is scary to think. And again, while they're a minority of Satanists, they're actually one of the groups that do do terrible things in the name of Satan, including sexual assault, murder, weapons trafficking, and air quotes human sacrifice. So no Order of Nine Angles ONA has never admitted to a ceremonial human sacrifice, but there are enough murders and crimes that you could probably count those.

[00:19:59] Preston Meyer: It's. It's tricky. Like they don't claim them, and there's not actually enough evidence to lock anybody away. There's some tricky business. 

[00:20:09] Katie Dooley: It is.

[00:20:09] Preston Meyer: But, I mean, these guys do publicly say truly terrible things that say, oh, yeah, no, you probably are connected to this, but you're talking isn't enough to get me there.

[00:20:19] Katie Dooley: So they're so bad that Bitchute and I had to look this up. Bitchute is an alt-right web host and they host Joy of Satan Ministries, and they host conspiracy theory websites and they put air quotes, freedom of speech. You know, people who say it's freedom of speech just to say really horrible things. Um, they're so bad that Bitchute removed them.

[00:20:41] Preston Meyer: Well...

[00:20:42] Katie Dooley: What!?

[00:20:43] Preston Meyer: This is alarming.

[00:20:46] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So when you're all about freedom of speech and people can say whatever you want and you're removing someone, that's... And I mean, like, again, next level freedom of speech where you're okay with hate speech and...

[00:20:57] Preston Meyer: And they're not being removed for being Satanists. No.

[00:21:00] Katie Dooley: They're being removed because they commit a lot of crimes.

[00:21:03] Preston Meyer: Wonderful.

[00:21:05] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So if you're thinking about theistic Satanism, maybe avoid this one for sure.

[00:21:10] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Some of what they're into, they have adopted neopagan traditions, some hermetic ideas, particularly surrounding forbidden knowledge, alchemy, things like that. Forbidden knowledge is that sweet, sweet fruit of Satanism that you get to know things that no one else knows because nobody else dares to openly worship Satan.

[00:21:31] Katie Dooley: Dares to try and find out!

[00:21:35] Preston Meyer: They they do loudly and proudly proclaim that the teachings of Lucifer and Adolf Hitler will support their promised militaristic regime to rule the world and the whole galaxy.

[00:21:45] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:21:46] Preston Meyer: If the Aryans can get the Judeo-Christian oppressors off their back.

[00:21:51] Katie Dooley: This is a really weird intersection of like we talked about in our occult episode, the Occult and Naziism and Satanism and like space. And it's like a really weird intersection of you've lost your mind.

[00:22:04] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:22:04] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:22:06] Preston Meyer: I mean, the idea that humanity will spread out into the stars. Sure. I'm on board. I don't see any reason why not. But just the Aryan race with the help of Satan. 

[00:22:21] Katie Dooley: And Hitler. 

[00:22:22] Preston Meyer: And and Hitler. That's... I have a problem with that.

[00:22:28] Katie Dooley: So because you're not Aryan.

[00:22:30] Preston Meyer: I mean, I'm white. I got blue eyes. They got no reason to really pick on me. Apart from being Christian. But that's... That doesn't mean that I want this.

[00:22:42] Katie Dooley: Fair, because Preston's a good man.

[00:22:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I try. So I actually really like the origin story for this group.

[00:22:51] Katie Dooley: Tell me.

[00:22:52] Preston Meyer: In the 1970s, a fellow named Anton Long met an old lady in the Welsh Marches of western England. The old lady was one of the last of an ancient pre-Christian religious tradition, and she initiated Anton Long into their group. And after only a few years he was their grand master. And the sounds like made up. Because it is.

[00:23:17] Katie Dooley: Oh.

[00:23:20] Preston Meyer: Nobody knows who Anton Long is because the whole story, including the name, is fiction. David Myatt is the founder of the group, and all of the publications that come out under the name of Anton Long were pretty sure were written by David Myatt.

[00:23:38] Katie Dooley: I mean, clever on his part.

[00:23:40] Preston Meyer: Using a pseudonym to make your stuff more legit. 

[00:23:45] Katie Dooley: And older. 

[00:23:46] Preston Meyer: Is a thing that people have played that trick for a long time, but I'm just thinking of the the weird workout cult from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

[00:23:55] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:23:56] Preston Meyer: Where you're trying to get people to to buy your magazine and whatnot and help make you money without using your real name in this magazine. So nobody knows that you're the person in charge.

[00:24:08] Katie Dooley: Mmmm yes.

[00:24:08] Preston Meyer: It just it feels really weird. Well, and especially when in-person meetings will have this guy in charge. I'm not saying that there's a higher authority. I guess legitimizes his position as a slightly lower authority.

[00:24:26] Katie Dooley: You gotta write in your story how it was bestowed upon you.

[00:24:28] Preston Meyer: Oh, that's that's definitely part of the story that I just left out because it wasn't part of the interesting bit.

[00:24:33] Katie Dooley: Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Talk about how he passed on the horns to David Myatt.

[00:24:40] Preston Meyer: I mean, that's it. Yeah. Passed on the horns.

[00:24:44] Katie Dooley: The devil horns.

[00:24:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:24:47] Katie Dooley: Just to be clear.

[00:24:48] Preston Meyer: So people put a lot of work into hiding their tracks, I guess, which I mean...

[00:24:54] Katie Dooley: If you're a racist fuck, good.

[00:24:57] Preston Meyer: Sure. And it fits into the way that most of the world sees Satanists as deceptive. Not really helping your image.

[00:25:07] Katie Dooley: Fair, yeah.

[00:25:08] Preston Meyer: But luckily, not all Satan worshipers are white supremacists.

[00:25:11] Katie Dooley: Yay! So if you are a theistic Satanist, try the Temple of Set.

[00:25:16] Preston Meyer: Temple of Set's kind of interesting. So we talked about the Church of Satan and Anton LaVey the last time we talked about Satanists. This is one of those groups that split off in 1975. Of course, they now deny being Satanists. They don't like that label. They are Settionists, which I think I've said before. It's it sounds real close. If you stumble your way through that word falsely. You got Satanists.

[00:25:43] Katie Dooley: It's like when you spell Santa wrong.

[00:25:46] Preston Meyer: Right? Dear Satan, I want a pony. Well, some of these kids who grew up in this tradition might say that. 

[00:25:54] Katie Dooley: I like it.

[00:25:56] Preston Meyer: So Satan revealed himself to a fellow named Michael Aquino and then decided, well, I have to tell you that my true name is set, which of course is an Egyptian god of the desert and chaos, which actually, I think we didn't even talk about him. He wasn't one of the great gods of Egyptian mythology, so we left him out of our Egyptian episode. We'll talk more about chaos gods next month.

[00:26:21] Katie Dooley: Soon, yeah.

[00:26:22] Preston Meyer: And that's all. It really started out as is this idea that it's not the Christian Satan, it's this other god from a very old Egyptian tradition. Sure. That's cool. Aquino didn't actually know much about Egyptology and ended up doing a lot more studying into it after he had made these public proclamations. So at least he decided he needed to go out and learn more. Good for him.

[00:26:48] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Good. Like a true Satanist.

[00:26:51] Preston Meyer: Right? The weird thing is that they claim the name Satan is a corruption of the name set, which is really why they still fall into this category of Satanists when they claim not to be Satanists. Of course, the statement is linguistically false and super easy to fact check Set is a Semitic equivalent or the equivalent of the Semitic name Seth. There's a couple of Seth's in the Hebrew Bible and, you know, genetic connection between these people. You also have cultural connections. The name, it's the same name. Whereas the name Satan comes from the Semitic word for adversary. So not really the same thing. One is not a butchering or a corruption of the other.

[00:27:37] Katie Dooley: They're not even close.

[00:27:38] Preston Meyer: No.

[00:27:39] Katie Dooley: The temples that are strict monotheists claiming that all other gods are fiction. So this is different from the Church of Satan's position on praising a rebel against an overbearing creator God.

[00:27:51] Preston Meyer: One God only.

[00:27:53] Katie Dooley: Yep. And they are a perfect example of the groups that deny being simple anti-christians by denying their roots.

[00:28:00] Preston Meyer: Yep. Now that they're separated from the Church of Satan, it's none of that is important to them anymore. Of course, they do still use a little bit of magic that is definitely taken from the Church of Satan as it was in '75. Like the Church of Satan, they also took that system of degrees that bear some minor resemblance to Freemasonry. There are six degrees. I think it's the third degree is what makes you actually a full on satanic priest.

[00:28:32] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:28:32] Preston Meyer: Yeah, there's Settionists Like once you're initiated, bam, you're a Settionist., and then something like a fellow or whatever. And then then you're really in the priesthood after that third degree.

[00:28:44] Katie Dooley: Cool.

[00:28:45] Preston Meyer: And then, of course, all the pentagrams that they wear on their necklaces, different colors to show which degree they're in.

[00:28:52] Katie Dooley: Oh. That's fun.

[00:28:53] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:28:54] Katie Dooley: I like that. 

[00:28:54] Preston Meyer: Colour code stuff.

[00:28:55] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I love a good colour coding.

[00:28:57] Preston Meyer: Right. You arrange them, right? You got yourself a spectrum. I actually don't know what the colors are. I couldn't find those details. I'm sure somebody out there can track that down.

[00:29:07] Katie Dooley: We got a rainbow. We got some pride going on!

[00:29:09] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:29:10] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I like that.

[00:29:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Aquino was really into the idea that Set had given life and understanding and light to the to the world through whatever divine means he has, and that there was a handful of symbols that kind of represent this idea. And one of them was the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey, that this is a symbol of Set.

[00:29:42] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:29:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I guess this movie really spoke to him. I mean, I enjoyed it, but it was slow.

[00:29:48] Katie Dooley: Did the Set designers know what they were doing?

[00:29:55] Preston Meyer: Uh. Very nice.

[00:29:57] Katie Dooley: Thank you, that was terrible.

[00:30:01] Preston Meyer: Uh, so 2001 A Space Odyssey came out before 75 when this church came into existence.

[00:30:08] Katie Dooley: I've never seen it, so...

[00:30:10] Preston Meyer: It's so slow. But I do enjoy it.

[00:30:12] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:30:13] Preston Meyer: But it's I mean, at the time, most movies were pretty slow, action wise.

[00:30:20] Katie Dooley: Fair. That's why Star Wars was so revolutionary.

[00:30:22] Preston Meyer: Yeah, star Wars was super fast-paced for its time.

[00:30:25] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:30:25] Preston Meyer: And compared to what we're familiar with today, it's... It drags.

[00:30:32] Katie Dooley: Fair enough. So one of the high priests of the church of Set, John Webb, says that Setians don't worship Set, but revere him as the leader and a guide. Which, as we know, is not really different from worship. And when combined with the title of a god, that line gets real blurred.

[00:30:53] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Still looks like worship to me.

[00:30:56] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Oh, no, we venerate him.

[00:30:58] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Most Satanists will say that if they worship anything, they worship themselves. That's a bold thing to say out loud, but. 

[00:31:09] Katie Dooley: My body is a temple.

[00:31:11] Preston Meyer: Right. But that's different, isn't it?

[00:31:15] Katie Dooley: That's a blurred line too... Post in our discord. If you think worshiping yourself and saying your body is a temple is same same or different.

[00:31:27] Preston Meyer: All right. And Luciferians, which still has nothing to do with the Netflix show. Is it even a Netflix show?

[00:31:37] Katie Dooley: Yeah, the last season came out fairly by the well, by the time it was time this airs...

[00:31:41] Preston Meyer: Was it Netflix exclusive? 

[00:31:42] Katie Dooley: I think it was a Netflix exclusive.

[00:31:44] Preston Meyer: Good enough for me.

[00:31:45] Katie Dooley: That's the only place I have ever seen it, and I haven't watched the last season yet. And Tom Ellis, if you're listening, I'd love to have you on the show.

[00:31:53] Preston Meyer: Sure, that'd be fun.

[00:31:55] Katie Dooley: Did you know Tom Ellis... At least his dad and sister are pastors.

[00:32:01] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah. I think there might be three in his this family, and he's literally the devil. I think it's comical. It makes me way too happy.

[00:32:10] Katie Dooley: That's great.

[00:32:12] Preston Meyer: So followers of Lucifer again, the guy from the books, not the TV show. The bearer of light. Not the weird action drama star.

[00:32:22] Katie Dooley: Most do not equate Lucifer with Satan. Typically, Lucifer is worshiped not as the devil, but as a guardian, liberator, destroyer, or light bringer. Lucifer is a symbol of enlightenment and independence, which we do see a lot in Satanism. Generally speaking, Luciferians believe that Lucifer is the true God as opposed to Yahweh. This agrees with the Platonic and Neopythagorean doctrine that the creator of the world is unfit and will be cast down with his physical, physical creation, but the one who enlightens the spirits will endure. I think that's pretty cool.

[00:32:59] Preston Meyer: Right? It's nice and poetic. Instead of recognizing Lucifer's parity with the Greek phosphoros, they conflate him with Prometheus, the one who gave humanity fire in defiance of the gods. And like some of the old Greek mystery schools, enlightenment is the ultimate goal. There is knowledge to be gained that will make you so powerful that the gods will praise you. And like we mentioned before, self-worship definitely important.

[00:33:24] Katie Dooley: Interestingly enough, we have reports dating back as far as the 1230s for the first instances of Luciferian worship, which is like super old compared to Satanism. So in our Satanism episode, we talked about how the Church of Satan and the Satanic Temple are all relatively new, and same with the Order of Nine Angles and the Joy of Zion ministries are all mid 1900s at the earliest, so it's interesting to see something so old.

[00:33:52] Preston Meyer: I'm curious how legit these claims are, because just accusing somebody of worshiping Lucifer was just the thing you did for any enemies of the state or the church during the Crusades and the Inquisition. So it's like there could have been organized Satan worshipers. I can't say there definitely wasn't because. 

[00:34:15] Katie Dooley: You weren't around 800 years ago, Preston!

[00:34:18] Preston Meyer: Right. But I'm skeptical. I'm willing to believe if sufficient evidence is shown. But I'm skeptical just because of how loosey goosey this was thrown around to hurt people's feelings and ruin lives.

[00:34:31] Katie Dooley: You're a Lucifer worshiper.

[00:34:34] Preston Meyer: In fact, even the Baphomet is a nonsense creation to discredit people. And the name Baphomet is a bastardization of the name Muhammad.

[00:34:45] Katie Dooley: Oh, wow.

[00:34:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:34:46] Katie Dooley: Spooky

[00:34:48] Preston Meyer: Right? Let's make people look bad for sympathizing with Mohammedans or Muslims as we know them today. But Mohammedan was the label that was, you know, common.

[00:34:59] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Interesting. So again, most Luciferians follow the left-hand path and use magic in ceremony and ritual.

[00:35:10] Preston Meyer: Fun stuff.

[00:35:11] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Then we have the Taxil hoax. Leo Taxil worked hard to convince people that Freemasonry was associated with Luciferianism.

[00:35:21] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:35:21] Katie Dooley: How do you feel about that, Grand Chaplain?

[00:35:23] Preston Meyer: No, I've. I've read about this.

[00:35:24] Katie Dooley: Okay. Tell me more.

[00:35:25] Preston Meyer: Actually, it's been a little while since I've done any reading on this, but it's a little interesting. There was actually a decent-sized Anti-Masonic force growing in the eastern states way back in the good old days. Going from memory, I want to say this is about 200 years ago, and there are a lot of people were just really uncomfortable with Freemasons around there, especially the Puritan parts of American culture at the time. And so this guy is like, well, yeah, I, can back you all up and we can get some some real steam getting rid of these Freemasons. Let's call them Satanists and accuse them of worshiping Lucifer. And there's a handful of statements that other people have said, and there's a handful of statements that Taxil said, other people have said about Freemasons worshiping Satan or revering Satan or not Satan, Lucifer. Definitely Lucifer, not Satan.

[00:36:24] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And the rituals are all Luciferian and.

[00:36:28] Preston Meyer: Right. I mean, we talk about getting more light, understanding the world better. Sure.

[00:36:35] Katie Dooley: Enlightenment. Oh, no.

[00:36:39] Preston Meyer: And it's it's easy to make that step of, well, we appreciate the light bringer. Even the revelation of John in the Bible calls Jesus Lucifer, the morning star. So. Sure, sure. If you want to say Freemasons worship Lucifer. If you're willing to accept that use of Lucifer for Jesus, then you're fine. Because at the time, the vast majority of Freemasons were practicing Christians. Most of the Freemasons you would see in your community, you would also see in church on Sunday. So accusing the people you go to church with of worshiping Lucifer. Very bold move.

[00:37:27] Katie Dooley: Very bold, I like it.

[00:37:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So this whole thing that Leo Taxil had put together was exposed as a hoax relatively quickly, apart from, you know, the outright denial, because you're going to get that immediately. But it was shown to be fully false fairly quickly too.

[00:37:50] Katie Dooley: Question to tie this in with our Freemasonry episode.

[00:37:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:37:53] Katie Dooley: Could you be a Satanist and a Freemason?

[00:37:55] Preston Meyer: So we've had this conversation several times over the last ten years that I've been going to lodge meetings.

[00:38:00] Katie Dooley: Interesting.

[00:38:01] Preston Meyer: And the consensus is always no.

[00:38:06] Katie Dooley: Oh, because you believe in a higher power.

[00:38:09] Preston Meyer: Well, okay. So most Satanists are atheists, so that's. 

[00:38:13] Katie Dooley: Right. So let's say Luciferian.

[00:38:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So the idea of a Luciferian being a Freemason feels antithetical to Luciferianism.

[00:38:24] Katie Dooley: Mhm. Okay. Fair. 

[00:38:26] Preston Meyer: That.

[00:38:27] Katie Dooley: But we also know Catholics don't like Freemasonry and they're Catholic Freemasons. So let's suspend disbelief for a minute.

[00:38:32] Preston Meyer: Right. The idea of praying to the great architect of the universe, which is different than the creator of this world, the demiurge that needs to be overcome is a problem for Luciferians, or really anybody who subscribes to a Neoplatonic or Neopythagorean philosophy or cosmology. So I just don't see any reason why a Luciferian would even knock on a mason's door and say, hey, I want to join. And upon investigation, the committee who goes and gets to know you and they hear you say, yeah, I worship Lucifer. I find it hard to believe that committee would be, oh yeah, cool. You can join us. I think that there would be a conversation in there like this probably isn't for you. And here's some good reasons why.

[00:39:25] Katie Dooley: Okay. Yeah. Fair. I guess.

[00:39:28] Preston Meyer: It's not like we have any hard and fast rule saying thou shalt not admit Luciferians. It's it just doesn't seem like a thing that would. 

[00:39:35] Katie Dooley: Thou shall not hang out with taxi drivers or actresses,

[00:39:41] Preston Meyer: Race car drivers or actresses.

[00:39:43] Katie Dooley: Right. Excuse me. Thank you.

[00:39:45] Preston Meyer: I'm glad I remember what you were referring to.

[00:39:47] Katie Dooley: Yeah, and if you don't, listener, go back right to our past episodes and find it. No. I'm kidding.

[00:39:56] Preston Meyer: That one was. 

[00:39:57] Katie Dooley: Celibacy and scandal!

[00:39:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just cut me off and get there. But yeah. No. You're right.

[00:40:04] Katie Dooley: Sorry. Final thoughts on theistic Satans. Theistic Satans. Theistic Satanists.

[00:40:13] Preston Meyer: I think I've mentioned before that I was a theistic Satanist for a short time.

[00:40:18] Katie Dooley: Oh I knew you were a Satanist, I didn't know it was a theistic one, though.

[00:40:18] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I wasn't an atheist Satanist. Looking back 20 years, it was. It wasn't a thing that I was seriously involved with. There was certainly no group that I was meeting with. It was just a philosophy that I had slowly adopted. I, I don't even remember how it came to be that I identified this way, but it didn't last terribly long either. And luckily I didn't fall in with which group was it that was founded the year that I identified... The Joy of Satan was founded in 2002, so it wasn't the same year I was a Satanist. I was. It was 2001 that I was doing that.

[00:40:55] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:40:55] Preston Meyer: So I had started it and abandoned it before the Joy of Satan had really become a thing.

[00:41:02] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:41:03] Preston Meyer: But I'm glad that I didn't come across groups like this that I'm sure that young Preston would have recognized. Oh, this group, not cool. But it's hard to say.

[00:41:17] Katie Dooley: But I will say on the Joy of Satan Ministries website, just like any sort of cult or danger group, there are some things that sound really reasonable and good.

[00:41:27] Preston Meyer: Sure. How do you convince anybody to join you if you sound completely unreasonable in everything?

[00:41:33] Katie Dooley: Lizard DNA. It's the Jews.

[00:41:39] Preston Meyer: You gotta start with things that people are already willing to accept. And then you get into the crazy.

[00:41:44] Katie Dooley: Then you talk about the lizard people, right.

[00:41:47] Preston Meyer: We'll talk more later about some of the anti-Semitic conspiracies and put that off for a month or so. We're going to enjoy Spooktober first.

[00:41:57] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:41:58] Preston Meyer: Well, thanks for joining us. Definitely check out our Discord, all of our social media. We're on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and...

[00:42:05] Katie Dooley: Anywhere your pods are cast. Yeah, but you're listening to us already?

[00:42:10] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Tell your friends. Also, don't forget we've got Patreon to help support the podcast and our Spreadshop where we got some great merch that our store is expanding fairly regularly.

[00:42:25] Katie Dooley: If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review on Apple as that also helps our podcast grow. It only takes a couple minutes.

[00:42:31] 

Both Speakers: 

Peace be with you.

This week, we’re joined by Dr. Glen Fairen, PhD, a religious studies professor at Oklahoma State University, for a thought-provoking discussion on academia, religious history, and the unexpected ways we engage with belief systems. Dr. Fairen shares why some of his favorite moments in the classroom come from students challenging his ideas because questioning is at the heart of academic growth. We also dive into how religious studies can be made more accessible, engaging, and even sexy—because let’s be honest, history and theology should never be boring.

Beyond the classroom, we explore Dr. Fairen’s fascinating research on the Qumran and Nag Hammadi groups, as well as the study of witchcraft—which, despite popular misconceptions, is a legitimate area of religious scholarship. We break down the ways occult traditions and witchcraft aren’t inherently evil, but rather, how societies tend to label unfamiliar or uncomfortable beliefs as “occult.” .

Our conversation with Glen is packed with humor, laughter, and plenty of insights. Dr. Fairen brings both expertise and wit to the table, making complex religious concepts approachable and entertaining. Whether you're a scholar, a skeptic, or just curious about the history of Christianity, alternative spiritualities, or how academia shapes our understanding of faith, you won’t want to miss this episode. 

This interview continues on Patreon

Dr. Fairen is the author of As Below, So Above: Apocalypticism, Gnosticism, and the Scribes of Qumran and Nag Hammadi. You can find it on Amazon.

You can find Holy Watermelon merch on our Spreadshop

Join the Community on Discord

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Learn more on our official website

[00:00:11] Katie Dooley: Hi, Preston.

[00:00:12] Preston Meyer: Hi, Katie. It's another great one. We're doing another interview on the Holy Watermelon Podcast.

[00:00:19] Katie Dooley: We're supposed to say at the same time. 

[00:00:20] Preston Meyer: You're right.

[00:00:21] Preston Meyer: I didn't lead up to that properly at all.

[00:00:24] Katie Dooley: We're doing another interview today on. 

[00:00:26] Both Speakers: The Holy Watermelon Podcast.

[00:00:29] Katie Dooley: Yeah, it's a little bit corny.

[00:00:31] Glen Fairen: No. It's excellent.

[00:00:34] Katie Dooley: Would you like to give our guest the professional introduction? And then I'm going to tell a personal story.

[00:00:40] Preston Meyer: All right. So, Doctor Glenn Farren is a visiting assistant professor at Oklahoma State University and an adjunct lecturer at the University of Texas, El Paso. Glenn received his PhD in religious studies from the University of Alberta in 2015, which happens to be the year I started at the U of A. He is also the author of "As Below, So Above: Apocalypticism. Gnosticism and the Scribes of Qumran and Nag Hammadi", published by Gorgias Press in 2008, which is long before your PhD.

[00:01:11] Glen Fairen: It was my master's dissertation.

[00:01:13] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:01:14] Glen Fairen: Yeah. I don't know how that happened.

[00:01:16] Katie Dooley: Cool.

[00:01:16] Glen Fairen: The reviews have been terrible. So it's been... It's great. Yeah.

[00:01:20] Katie Dooley: Well, thank you so much for coming to do this.

[00:01:23] Glen Fairen: Oh. Thank you.

[00:01:24] Katie Dooley: Interview. I'm super excited to pick your brain on all sorts of religious studies things.

[00:01:30] Preston Meyer: So I'm curious what prompted you to get into religious academia?

[00:01:35] Glen Fairen: I want to say it's something deep and profound, but I actually was failing, not failing, but doing poorly in my science degree. I was in pre-med for a little while and my undergrad then I was I ended up getting a minor in astronomy, I think, but I sucked at the numbers and I took an intro to World Religion class and yeah, that changed it. A teacher, she looked at me and said, so Glenn, why can't you have sex with your parents? And that was like, that's a good question.

[00:02:00] Preston Meyer: Is it?

[00:02:01] Glen Fairen: One kid behind me said, because mom's ugly. And I'm like, well, that's probably the wrong answer. But the whole idea, we talk about taboo and classification and then it just I'm like, I guess I'm doing this now so...

[00:02:13] Preston Meyer: I feel weird about that being the question that comes up.

[00:02:16] Glen Fairen: It was it was, well, she would she's like a brilliant flake. She'd sit on the desk and swing her feet like a five year old. She's like, so why can't you have sex with your parents, Glen? I don't know. You know, it was like it was just... So we talked and then it just went off on some weird tangent and I started taking, you know, New Testament classes, Gnosticism classes. New prof, showed up at the U of R in Regina. And so I started working with him. And here I am on your couch.

[00:02:46] Preston Meyer: Nice.

[00:02:47] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:02:47] Preston Meyer: I feel like we skipped a lot of steps.

[00:02:49] Glen Fairen: Yeah, there was all the boring hand-wavy stuff. Yeah, sure.

[00:02:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:02:52] Glen Fairen: No. It was. I always liked stories of gods and myths. And I grew up religious. Family was pretty. They were pretty devout, but vanilla flavored. Like nobody really had a denomination, but we were really believed in whatever, and I just assumed. I don't know, because I didn't hate gay people and I didn't follow the Bible literally, that I must be a bad person. So then I thought, I'm going to study this, and then here I am. So yeah, that's sort of what happened. And then I taught a witchcraft class, which is so weird.

[00:03:24] Katie Dooley: Which we'll get into.

[00:03:25] Glen Fairen: Yeah, sure, sure and people tend to like that one a lot. Yeah.

[00:03:30] Preston Meyer: So did you attend church pretty regularly then, as a kid or growing up?

[00:03:34] Glen Fairen: No. We did, off and on. My mother, when she remarried, she married some guy who wanted to have like biweekly or twice weekly Bible studies. So we had to go to church and we had a Bible study, and it was just this sort of patriarchal, you know, end of... Kind of Pentecostal almost vibe to it. Like we were told, like, if you don't convert, Jesus is going to come in and, like, rip your head off like it was really, I don't know. I can't remember the movies. There were these movies that the evangelical church put out in the States where the like, the the rapture, and they had like, it was like a whole series of them.

[00:04:10] Katie Dooley: Yeah. From the ones from the 70s. Yeah. Um. Oh, shoot. What are they called? I know they're, like, fantastically bad.

[00:04:15] Glen Fairen: Oh. But terrifying when you're, like nine.

[00:04:19] Katie Dooley: I watched them all and it's like, what are they called? Oh, we've talked about it in past episodes. It's gonna bug me. I'll think about it.

[00:04:26] Glen Fairen: I'll never forget this. Oh, what was it? It was a stainless steel guillotine. That was the thing. And they would cut your head off if you didn't believe. Because you missed out on the rapture. Barcodes were the mark of the beast. That was a big thing.

[00:04:40] Preston Meyer: Um, I mean, it's the vaccines now.

[00:04:42] Glen Fairen: The vaccine. I know, I know, I mean, I'm like, in the original 666. That's the mark of the beast. Thank you very much. Thank you. But, um. But, yeah, like, so that just had me terrified of anything vaguely religious. And then I started thinking for myself. That sounded condescending. I didn't mean that. Quite the condescending it was, but I was more interested in the history of all this stuff. And then I just started taking classes and had to take languages.

[00:05:07] Katie Dooley: The movie's called A Thief in the Night, and you can find it on YouTube. And it's got this, this intro song, just like slaps. It's so good.

[00:05:14] Preston Meyer: Oh, right. We have talked about this before.

[00:05:16] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I played it for you. Yeah.

[00:05:18] Glen Fairen: Oh, yeah. Yeah, we used to. We went every week to watch like an hour and a half. So we went about eight, eight times. And it was just this, you know, if you don't repent God's going to come in and F you up. Like, that was sort of the vibe, I was terrified. Like, I thought, I'm dead. Like...

[00:05:35] Katie Dooley: How old are you at this time?

[00:05:37] Glen Fairen: I was probably about 9 or 10. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then I kind of started rebelling around 12. I bought Iron Maiden's Number of the beast, and I'm like, okay, this is going to mess people up. So then I started listening to that and then direct route to where I am today.

[00:05:52] Katie Dooley: Nice.

[00:05:53] Glen Fairen: I did listen to it on the way here, actually. 

[00:05:53] Katie Dooley: Get you in the right frame of mind, in the right religious studies podcast.

[00:05:58] Preston Meyer: I like it.

[00:05:59] Glen Fairen: Exactly. Yeah.

[00:06:00] Preston Meyer: So the academic path requires an awful lot of writing. Can you tell us about your master's thesis that made it into a book that got published?

[00:06:08] Glen Fairen: Yeah. Um, well, the master's. I didn't know what I wanted to write, which was weird. Um, I was studying under a gentleman named William Arnell. He's pretty renowned, you know, New Testament religious studies scholar. Somehow ended up at the University of Regina. They lucked out getting him. I was I just started taking classes and wasn't sure I'd found an article somewhere that said the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gnostics were not the same religion. And I remember thinking, well, that's stupid. You know, you're not even talking like it seemed really weird to say. So I started writing, and then 200 pages later, I defended my dissertation. And then about a year later, I was at the U of T for a little while. A publisher approached me because a friend of a friend sent it to them, and they gave me a book contract. It was really weird. Yeah.

[00:06:55] Katie Dooley: Nice.

[00:06:55] Glen Fairen: Yeah. It was. It was a real shock. I I'm it I'm still not sure what to make of it. I haven't published my PhD. I got too busy right after I finished, but it was so weird to have my first publication be a book. I mean, it's a small publisher, but it still counts.

[00:07:11] Katie Dooley: Absolutely it does!

[00:07:12] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:07:13] Katie Dooley: And to be a I mean, I have the odd in my career, the odd client that wants to publish a book, and very rarely do they get someone approaching them.

[00:07:22] Glen Fairen: Yeah. That was I thought it was fake. Like I was convinced it was some scam. Like, who's going to scam me? I'll give it to you for free. But, um. Yeah, it was it was a real shock, actually. And I think the argument more or less still holds up. I changed quite a bit of it still, but I mean, that was 12 years ago. Something like that. 14. Oh, God. How long ago was that?

[00:07:40] Preston Meyer: That was 2008. So... 

[00:07:42] Katie Dooley: 14.

[00:07:43] Glen Fairen: Oh, my God, it's...

[00:07:44] Preston Meyer: Been a while.

[00:07:44] Glen Fairen: I better get back. Back in writing some more, I guess.

[00:07:50] Preston Meyer: So what is the thesis of this book? See if we can sell it a little bit.

[00:07:55] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:07:56] Glen Fairen: Oh, yeah because, I mean it's...

[00:07:57] Katie Dooley: Available on Amazon?

[00:07:58] Glen Fairen: Yeah it is.

[00:07:59] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:08:00] Glen Fairen: It's on Amazon, which is so cool. The argument is that for some reason, the so-called Gnostics, while they're actually Christians, would be ignored by the average everyday person in the in the last century. But the Dead Sea Scrolls, they look for things about Christianity when there's nothing about Christianity. So I was like, well, this is really strange. Why is one ignored and the other kind of embrace? So I started thinking about, you know, what kind of shape these writers were or what their what kind of arguments they were trying to make. And so basically my argument was that they are very similar. Just one is apocalyptic and one is Gnostic. They're both using the Book of Enoch as sort of a big I mean, that's assuming they're not all monolithic. There isn't like Dead Sea Scrolls coherent Gnostic stuff, coherent, but there's hints that do seem to overlap more than what people want to assume that are different, and I think they're more similar than they're different, at least some of the arguments anyway so...

[00:09:00] Preston Meyer: I think that's one of the things that we remind people all the time on our podcast is that no group is monolithic.

[00:09:05] Glen Fairen: No.

[00:09:06] Preston Meyer: There's so much variety.

[00:09:07] Glen Fairen: That's the more fun part, right? The variety. Like, I mean, when I teach a class, I call it Christianitys or Judaisms because it is not one monolithic thing. I mean, students get all twitchy about it and the grammar is really awkward. Like, Islams sounds really dumb, but it still gets the point across. But yeah, I mean, there's this huge variety and saying absolutely this and that are opposite is, I think, sloppy scholarship. So whoever wrote that article bad I don't remember who wrote it actually. It was so long ago, but it really got me angry. I was weirdly upset by that article, and that sort of got me writing,

[00:09:48] Katie Dooley: Hopefully it made your Masters a little easier to be that angry about something.

[00:09:51] Glen Fairen: Yeah.

[00:09:51] Katie Dooley: Okay, good.

[00:09:52] Glen Fairen: Yeah. Like, any sort of long academic stuff is so exhausting. I mean, I spent what was it? I think I started writing it in January, and then I finished in November, and it was just me, you know, reading books and writing and complaining about it to my ex. And yeah, it was it was lovely, but it finished, so that's all that matters. So yeah.

[00:10:16] Preston Meyer: One of the things I love best about academia is the arguments on such niche topics between experts. And so where do you find yourself disagreeing with other experts?

[00:10:28] Glen Fairen: Huh, well...

[00:10:29] Preston Meyer: Or scholars in general?

[00:10:31] Glen Fairen: Yeah. I mean, I think with me, like I tend to... There's a bunch like when I think about it, there's so many like one of the ones is I don't think there's any such thing as Gnosticism or Gnostics. That's not a thing.

[00:10:42] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:10:43] Glen Fairen: Scholars that kind of got that was sort of the dominant idea about ten years ago. It sort of shifted again, the shift's wrong. They're completely wrong. Yeah. I mean, the four other people who know what I'm talking about will agree with me or disagree.

[00:10:57] Preston Meyer: I took a few classes with Lorne Zelyck.

[00:10:59] Glen Fairen: Oh, yeah? Yeah, yeah Lorne. He was on my committee.

[00:11:02] Preston Meyer: Yeah and he was very clear. Like the Gnostics. Not what you think they are.

[00:11:07] Glen Fairen: No.

[00:11:07] Preston Meyer: The whole time I was working with him.

[00:11:09] Glen Fairen: Yeah, Lorne and I. It's funny, Lorne is so smart. Smarter than I am. But we have very different takes on topics. Like, we both taught a class on Jesus the same semester. And, I mean, if you went into his class and went into mine, they'd be completely different kind of set of arguments and set of discussions, like the evidence for the historical Jesus. There just isn't.

[00:11:32] Preston Meyer: Yours was in the evening, wasn't it?

[00:11:34] Glen Fairen: Yeah. 

[00:11:34] Preston Meyer: I was gonna do it, but couldn't do evenings.

[00:11:37] Glen Fairen: I... Yeah, I always get stuck with the evening classes, but I tend to like I'm not really awake until about noon.

[00:11:43] Katie Dooley: Sure.

[00:11:43] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I went to school for 20 odd years, so I didn't have to get up early. But yeah, it was. It was fun. Like, that's one of one of my, uh, colleagues and friends, uh, uh, Patrick Hart, he has his doctorate as well. We've been arguing about evidence for the historical Jesus for ten years, I guess. And it's just one of those, like, just chasing your own tail. Like, it's sort of what questions you want to ask, and that's usually where you end up. So, um, I just got my evaluations from OSU, and some kids said that I, you know, as an atheist, I shouldn't deny the historical presence of Jesus. Like I never said that. I thought it, but I never said it. I would never say that in class in Oklahoma. Yeah, that's, um, what else do I argue about? I will argue about anything for the sake of arguing. I mean, there's like the Jesus one is a big one. How to define religion? Is it special? That's one we get. And that's the problem with like theology. It tends not the problem, but the different assumptions that it's somehow unique or special. And I'm like, no, it's just we classify things as religion. It's not like it doesn't exist in the wild.

[00:12:51] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:12:51] Glen Fairen: Go around pointing. That's religion. That's not. It takes work for something to be religious. A religion gets tax exemption. That's one of the defining features of modern understandings in North America of religion, which strikes me as hilarious. That's what you need the state to authorize your your thing to be really religious, not divine, not anything else but the state. Great stuff. Fantastic. That sounded sarcastic. I meant that legitimately. Yeah.

[00:13:19] Katie Dooley: I mean, I don't think churches should be tax exempt, so.

[00:13:22] Preston Meyer: But as long as they are, let's take advantage.

[00:13:25] Katie Dooley: Take advantage of it.

[00:13:25] Glen Fairen: I mean, some like I'll say United Church of Canada, pretty progressive social agenda. Been on the forefront of, say, same sex unions since the 80s. Yeah they should be tax exempt. Other ones, not so much.

[00:13:38] Katie Dooley: Church of Scientology? 

[00:13:40] Glen Fairen: Well, you know what? I. I have a weird soft spot for the Church of Scientology and the Mormons. Well, there, so the Mormons are just they're so nice and they're just in their little white shirts and being polite. And, I don't know, there's something really charming about Mormons. I don't know why. But the Scientology is interesting because people keep pointing out how it's not real. And it's like this science fiction writer who made up this stuff and who could believe in an alien, you know, Xenu or whatever. I'm like, yeah, because the dead Jewish zombie is so much more. 

[00:14:15] Katie Dooley: Real.

[00:14:16] Glen Fairen: Real, right? Like...

[00:14:17] Katie Dooley: So a lot of your work is done in spooky religious traditions. Can you expand on the work you do there? What draws you there and what keeps you there?

[00:14:27] Glen Fairen: Sure. I feel like there should be this really profound academic reason, but I was really a New Testament scholar and Gnostic scholar, so-called Gnostic. And then I was given the witchcraft class in like 2011 at the U of A, and I thought it was done poorly. So I retooled it and make it about theory and method. Then I started researching, you know, occult, so-called occult stuff and, you know, Theosophical Society and Scientology and Wicca. That was my undergrad. I spent time with a Wiccan coven in Regina and interviewed them a lot. That is the weirdest thing that ever. I mean, hanging out with Wiccans in Regina, Saskatchewan, that is deeply bizarre. So I went to a ritual I wrote Skyclad.

[00:15:10] Katie Dooley: Oh. 

[00:15:11] Glen Fairen: Yeah, I know right? Did not expect that. I walked in like, oh, we're going outside, are we? You know, Regina in spring. So it's like three feet of snow. Like you guys go outside. Skyclad if you want. I'm going to just take notes over here. 

[00:15:25] Katie Dooley: In my parka.

[00:15:26] Glen Fairen: Yeah, well, I'm not going to say whether I went Skyclad or not.

[00:15:28] Katie Dooley: Oh, wow.

[00:15:29] Glen Fairen: Well, I mean, if you're in a room full of naked people and you're the only one clothed, you stand out. Yeah.

[00:15:35] Preston Meyer: When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

[00:15:36] Glen Fairen: Exactly.

[00:15:37] Glen Fairen: Yeah.

[00:15:37] Katie Dooley: When in Regina. Yeah.

[00:15:39] Glen Fairen: Drop trow and go outside. Yeah. Um. But, uh. Yeah, I... So I was really interested in like goddess movements and alternative religions, alternative to Christianity. And I just started kind of, you know, I got the class that was sort of the weird thing. It wasn't my area, and I just sort of morphed into, you know, we talk about Harry Potter and we've been talking about QAnon and how it's the new Satanic panic that was this semester, and Dungeons and Dragons and board games and all that kind of stuff. So it goes the whole gamut, you know, so it gets to indulge all my weird quirks, and I get to pretend I know what I'm talking about. It's fantastic.

[00:16:19] Katie Dooley: I love it. We, I, we've kind of found in our research and talking to other people that whenever someone kind of bashes the occult or we had a guest on. But he was accused of being involved in the occult, that people who say that actually have no idea what the occult is.

[00:16:33] Glen Fairen: No, that's the best part. Yeah. Yeah, I used to. I don't wear it today, but I have a little Wiccan pentagram or a little pentagram. I got it in Salem, so it's super legit.

[00:16:43] Katie Dooley: Nice.

[00:16:43] Glen Fairen: Yes. And I was at a meeting of the religious studies group in Oklahoma, and I'm sitting there and this guy asked me, he goes, are you an occultist? And I said, no, I play one on TV. And he was wearing a crucifix. So are you a Roman executioner? And he didn't think it was funny, but it's true. No, it's a cipher for negative.

[00:17:05] Katie Dooley: Right.

[00:17:05] Glen Fairen: Occult means bad. It doesn't. Nobody knows exactly what it. It's a basket they put things in. It's not. It's about the the classification, not about the thing itself. It's like magic. And you know what makes. Why is Jesus not a necromancer? You know, it's because, well, we like him. So he gets to be religion. Occcult, we don't like it, so we'll call it occult. That's usually how it comes down. Like it's really a point of preference, I think.

[00:17:29] Katie Dooley: Yeah,

[00:17:29] Glen Fairen: Yeah. But yeah, I'd love to be accused of occult stuff. Nobody ever accused me of that. It's not fair.

[00:17:36] Katie Dooley: Are you a part of the occult, Glen?

[00:17:37] Glen Fairen: Yes, I am, but I can't tell you more. Or I'd have to summon, I don't know, Gozer the Gozerian from Ghostbusters. Yeah. Deep cut. Yeah.

[00:17:54] Katie Dooley: Is there is there a two sentence definition you can give us of the occult? Or is it literally just air quotes? Bad magic?

[00:18:02] Glen Fairen: Um. You know, there's a bunch that have come up with definitions and they're not bad, but they never quite encapsulate everything. For me, it is that which is like what we would call religion, but there's something inappropriate about it. However you want to define it. So it's it's kind of religion with a quarter turn off I think.

[00:18:23] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:18:24] Glen Fairen: So it's simply I mean, there's I mean, people will disagree with it, but for my purposes, I don't want to make a distinction between, you know, Catholicism and Scientology. Why should we make that distinction, for instance? Why not compare them in parody and see what happens?

[00:18:39] Katie Dooley: That's one of my questions, is, are there any intersections between the occult and mainstream religion that people that might surprise people? Is there anything?

[00:18:47] Glen Fairen: I think there's I mean, it's to me that people find distinctions. That's the surprise to me. Like, if you pull back and think about it as something you've never experienced. So if you've never experienced, say, Catholicism and you've never experienced Scientology, you look at them. Yeah, there's differences. But is one good and bad? Like that seems to be the, the, the overarching way that people think about it. So I think the definition or the overlaps are almost too numerous in a lot of ways. It sort of depends what questions you're asking for. You know, like if I want to talk about the Gnostic heretics and their occult or if I want to talk about them in a different way than they get to be Christian. Right? Like, it really does depend on the questions you ask. So when somebody says occult, it always, if I'm out, like out and about, that's different. But if it's in class, that's like, you got to define that. You got to define that shit in the paper. I'm going to I'm going to come down on you.

[00:19:40] Preston Meyer: I feel like we need definitions included in papers on almost everything we talk about in religion.

[00:19:46] Glen Fairen: Well, and the thing is, people assume they know what religion is. That's the problem. Like, I go into a class and everybody already knows about Christianity. So how do I talk about that? You know, I try to deconstruct it or make it a little more unfamiliar so you can think about it. So it's usually jokes and making fun of stuff so people laugh or not, as the case may be. Or not, I guess. But yeah, it is one of those weird topics where people come into it. No understanding of it, but they know it already. Like Richard Dawkins for instance. No idea about religion, but he's apparently an expert on it, so it's very strange. I find that really weird about religion. Nobody would go into quantum physics and just say, well, you know, I heard a guy talk once, so I'm an expert and, you know, I'm going to take a class on it. Like, that's just so weird to me.

[00:20:32] Preston Meyer: Dawkins knows why he's an atheist.

[00:20:36] Glen Fairen: Yeah.

[00:20:36] Preston Meyer: And that's the whole yard.

[00:20:40] Glen Fairen: It is. I mean, like I was reading The God Delusion. I'm there like 90% of it. And that's why I think he pisses me off because I'm 90% there. But he made some comment about how Buddhism isn't a religion. It's a philosophy because there's no God like, well, that's stupid.

[00:20:56] Preston Meyer: That's not how we define religion.

[00:20:57] Glen Fairen: That's not how anybody's defined religion. And then he said something about the problems in Ireland would not exist if it wasn't for religion. I'm like, have you heard of history?

[00:21:07] Preston Meyer: Right!

[00:21:07] Glen Fairen: Yeah. Like, uh. And that's when I shot him, your Honour. Like that was my reaction. And it's funny because, you know, people are so sure that they know it when they don't, you know, and, you know, I find that really interesting.

[00:21:23] Preston Meyer: So what have you been teaching most recently?

[00:21:26] Glen Fairen: Actually not very much. My job is just starting as a visiting assistant professor. So I taught six sections of Intro to World Religion and one section of witchcraft.

[00:21:38] Preston Meyer: Okay

[00:21:39] Glen Fairen: But we changed the term. We changed the name. It's a magic, witchcraft and occult, I think, is how we framed it. We kind of played around with it a bit to make it a little more palatable to the folks down there, because it was weird, because I took the class and it was kind of full, but like, here is like I was pulling in like 120 people and I was like, why are you guys here? I'm in Canada. I'm a total rock star. But yeah, that's what I was teaching there. And I'm teaching a class on apocalyptic narratives next year.

[00:22:08] Katie Dooley: Oh. 

[00:22:09] Glen Fairen: Yeah, I taught it once before. I didn't like how it worked out. So I'm going to reframe it. And I'm working on contemporary religious movements class. So but I mean, I'm trying to worm my way into a more permanent position there. So.

[00:22:24] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:22:25] Glen Fairen: Yeah.

[00:22:25] Katie Dooley: Fair enough. And then you get sabbaticals.

[00:22:27] Glen Fairen: Well, yeah. I mean that tenure, then you get the sabbatical. Yeah. I'd just be happy to get a steady paycheck like that. Sounds terrible. But, you know...

[00:22:34] Preston Meyer: That's the way it goes, though.

[00:22:35] Glen Fairen: Yeah.

[00:22:36] Preston Meyer: You need to get paid.

[00:22:37] Glen Fairen: You do, yeah and it's, you know, I mean, I it feels like stealing in a lot of ways. Like, I get to talk about shit I like, so. And you got to listen. This is awesome. You're giving me money. Fantastic,

[00:22:47] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:22:48] Glen Fairen: And I get to pretend to be a doctor, so, yeah.

[00:22:50] Preston Meyer: You're not pretending.

[00:22:51] Glen Fairen: I know. 

[00:22:52] Katie Dooley: He's the real doctor, everyone.

[00:22:54] Glen Fairen: I it still feels weird to me. Like I see a medical doctor. I just that they totally know more stuff. But again, if you're having a heart attack, don't come to me. You need an abstract worked on. Come to me. You need something translated Latin. I'm your guy. Anything else? No.

[00:23:09] Preston Meyer: Did you do Latin for your college or your university language?

[00:23:13] Glen Fairen: I had to do. I did Latin in my undergrad because I thought that's. I wanted to learn about religion. Of course, none of the stuff I studied was written in Latin.

[00:23:21] Preston Meyer: Of course not.