Holy Watermelon

Religious communism isn't just for the weird new cult that bought up a farm down the road. People often forget, especially in the west, that Christianity was strictly communist in the first century, and that the Jewish nation from which they were born enjoyed a tightly regulated, moderately socialist dictatorship. Join us for an exploration of these and other groups who decided not to put arbitrary economic qualifications on "Love your neighbour."

Socialism isn't the bogeyman vaguely remembered from the Cold War--those governing parties used the title without admiring or espousing the core principle: common ownership of all goods and services. Religious groups often do a much better job of applying socialist and communist principles; but, like the "Second World," they tend to lean heavily into authoritarianism, the real enemy of freedom.

We take a look at Communal cults, hippie communes, ancient Hellenic and Vedic communal groups, and of course Christian groups--not just the Anabaptists, but the Latter-day Saints (Mormons), too. We also talk about some of the big Christian thinkers that have influenced western culture on the subject before the rise of Leninism.

All this and more....

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[00:00:10] Katie Dooley: I just need to reach the limit to know.

[00:00:12] Preston Meyer: Pretty confident it's not going to happen in regular dialogue.

[00:00:15] Katie Dooley: Yeah, we'd have to get pretty passionate about this. Hey, Preston. Nope.

[00:00:24] Preston Meyer: It needs to be right over that leg. Otherwise, it's coming down.

[00:00:27] Katie Dooley: That's what she said.

[00:00:30] Preston Meyer: Hi, Katie.

[00:00:33] Katie Dooley: Hi, Preston.

[00:00:36] Preston Meyer: Oh, man. What are we doing?

[00:00:40] Katie Dooley: What are we doing today? Sharing the wealth.

[00:00:43] Preston Meyer: Wealth of knowledge on the... 

[00:00:45] Both Speakers: Holy Watermelon podcast!

[00:00:49] Preston Meyer: It's a bit of a stretch, but here we are.

[00:00:51] Katie Dooley: We could share other wealth, too.

[00:00:52] Preston Meyer: Sure. If I had someone to share.

[00:00:56] Katie Dooley: That's fair.

[00:00:59] Preston Meyer: Uh, yeah. Today we're going to talk about communism and socialism more broadly.

[00:01:05] Katie Dooley: Cue the Soviet national anthem, please.

[00:01:11] Preston Meyer: Uh, but this is not an economics podcast. So we're going to focus more on how this sort of nonsense gets tied to religion. And when I say nonsense, I mean people's reactions to communism. 

[00:01:25] Katie Dooley: Or even that we look to our religious leaders to make political or economic decisions for us. In this day and age blows my mind. I guess it's a residual from a time when you would have. But you don't need to ask your priest who to vote for politically anymore. You can decide that for yourself.

[00:01:44] Preston Meyer: Right? Yeah. No. The church I belong to is fairly diverse, and there's people on both sides of this political divide.

[00:01:53] Katie Dooley: I think in most religions there's people on both sides of the economic political divide.

[00:02:01] Preston Meyer: In the good ones, I would expect so. But if there's anything that makes the conservative religious crowd freak out as much as allowing personal autonomy for women and homosexuals and anybody who isn't the straight white dude in charge, basically, it's the idea of communism. And I mean, all the best cults lean pretty hard into communism.

[00:02:30] Katie Dooley: I mean, yeah!

[00:02:31] Preston Meyer: Join our little farm and everything's gonna be dandy.

[00:02:34] Katie Dooley: Com-- here, words, guy. Did you know communism and commune come from the same root word?

[00:02:40] Preston Meyer: I'm not the tiniest bit surprised. This is what I fully expected.

[00:02:46] Katie Dooley: If you've ever talked about living on a commune, I have, you might have some communist tendencies. Community also.

[00:02:56] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that which is common.

[00:03:00] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:03:00] Preston Meyer: It's a good thing. Yeah. And it's really frustrating because most of the the most visible forms of communism that we've seen over the years also rely very heavily on authoritarianism so much to the point that a lot of people get really confused and think one is the same as the other.

[00:03:20] Katie Dooley: Well, they kind of come back full circle. There's a point where the line blurs and then you're just, I think even right and left-wing politics do that, where if you get so extreme action. Yeah, exactly. Eventually meet in the middle. So yeah. And in some of our examples. Right. We know communes can work. But then you get the problem where it's so big. Now you need a hierarchy which is counterintuitive to a commune.

[00:03:47] Preston Meyer: I mean you can have authoritarian communism like we've seen plenty of and there's plenty of anarchist communism.

[00:03:55] Katie Dooley: Right.

[00:03:56] Preston Meyer: And anarchist communism in large groups is doomed to fail, for sure. You do need leadership. There needs to be somebody making decisions on how you're interacting financially with the world outside your commune. All kinds of stuff. But when they're dictators, that's when you're going to have a real problem.

[00:04:17] Preston Meyer: But it's hard because how do you get people to agree? You need a final decision-maker. You see this in business all the time. People trying to do lateral leadership in business. But you need a final decision-maker or nothing gets done. Yeah. So democracy is pretty great for a lot of reasons. Absolutely. Yeah and a lot of people love saying, oh, communism is so dangerous because they've they've tied it to authoritarianism, libertarianism more or less the opposite of authoritarianism, combined with capitalism, more or less the opposite of communism has also caused all of the same terrible problems.

[00:04:58] Katie Dooley: Yeah. It's weird. It's like moderation, like we talk about on our podcast is somehow a good thing,

[00:05:05] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:05:07] Katie Dooley: Weird.

[00:05:08] Preston Meyer: Funny how that works. Ah, now we should talk about some definitions of what we're really talking about here. Unfortunately, much like the word religion, socialism also is kind of a tricky thing to peg down.

[00:05:21] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:05:22] Preston Meyer: If you want a concise definition and one that's broadly accurate, you're going to have a bad time. It just doesn't work that way.

[00:05:29] Katie Dooley: But Preston's gonna try.

[00:05:31] Preston Meyer: There's there's so many different forms of socialism, but generally the one thing they have in common is the idea of social ownership of services or products. And there's a lot of different ways that that gets implemented as well. Communism is a kind of Socialism, a very specific kind, that it is fairly counted separately in most conversations where communism is group ownership of everything, everything, without exception, that the public library would be the idea of a place where you could get the car that you need this week, as well as the books and video games and whatnot. Doesn't sound that terrible if implemented correctly and equitably and justly, which is where things fall apart because people suck.

[00:06:25] Katie Dooley: Yeah, same reason capitalism falls apart is because people suck.

[00:06:30] Preston Meyer: Exactly. Wealth distribution super important to socialism. Generally, we're distributing wealth to elevate the poor. Eliminating poverty is fully impossible. The most frustrating thing about poverty is that it is a relative measure, which means that it will be redefined as circumstances evolve. Right now, poverty for us is people have a hard time surviving. It would be pretty nice if poverty could be redefined to people who have just a little bit less. That'd be cool. But that's not our reality right now.

[00:07:05] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I think in Canada, living below the poverty line means you make I think it's less than 40,000 a year. But obviously 30 years ago, that number would have been different.

[00:07:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Has... Well, the difference there is that what is the buying power of the dollar?

[00:07:20] Katie Dooley: Inflation.

[00:07:20] Preston Meyer: What is it that you need to to live the good life. All kinds of things.

[00:07:27] Katie Dooley: Yeah. What is the basic standard of living where you are, where you are living in Toronto is much more expensive than in Saskatchewan.

[00:07:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:07:34] Katie Dooley: So that changes the poverty line just within the country.

[00:07:38] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Yeah. So if we can eliminate the can't afford to live class, not by wiping them out but by elevating that poverty group. That's a win for every decent human being. But of course, there's people who want to fight against even that. And that sucks. The variety of socialist philosophies and social economic policies way too diverse. To be more specific on what com... What socialism is, really. It's a lot of things, a lot of different ideas.

[00:08:11] Katie Dooley: Is it a spectrum?

[00:08:13] Preston Meyer: Absolutely.

[00:08:14] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:08:17] Preston Meyer: Ideologies range from totalitarian to anarchist. Like I said before, that word I was looking for. I did write it down in my notes.

[00:08:23] Katie Dooley: Good, good.

[00:08:25] Preston Meyer: But a lot of people really think of socialism as this boogeyman.

[00:08:30] Katie Dooley: Russia

[00:08:31] Preston Meyer: Right? Mostly Russia. People also talk about Cuba, China, all that nonsense. The Soviet Union and everybody who modeled their political philosophy and economic philosophy off of them, was essentially founded on Marxist ideas to begin with, but the way they operated their authoritarian command market was fully corrupt. And I mean, you look at Stalin, super murderous. That's not an accident. That's just terrible people in charge, and they hoarded wealth themselves so that they could look good while they traveled abroad. And a lot of economists are recognizing, oh, yeah, that wasn't actually socialism. It was just really, really messed up capitalism.

[00:09:13] Katie Dooley: Yep. Yeah. Because they kept the poor, poor.

[00:09:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And I mean, Russia hasn't changed a whole lot since the fall of the Soviet Union. You still have a very small number of very rich people and everyone else has nothing.

[00:09:27] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:09:28] Preston Meyer: That's not communism, that's capitalism.

[00:09:31] Katie Dooley: But there are some good examples of communism communes or socialist socialism in action. Hippie communes.

[00:09:42] Preston Meyer: So much fun.

[00:09:43] Katie Dooley: So much fun. If you like marijuana or LSD or planting plants and singing songs.

[00:09:50] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:09:52] Katie Dooley: These were obviously incredibly popular in the 19 and 1960s and 70s during the hippie movement, but you can still find commune living today. There are about 3000 communes in the United States in these decades.

[00:10:06] Preston Meyer: That's a lot.

[00:10:07] Katie Dooley: It is if you think, even if you think that, I think I have the stats somewhere in here that there was about ten, ten or so families to a commune. Okay. So let's say 40 to 60 people times 3000. It's 20,000 people living in communes. Is that right? 

[00:10:07] Preston Meyer: Sure, sure. That's a conservative estimate?

[00:10:27] Katie Dooley: Probably.

[00:10:28] Katie Dooley: Yeah. It was a lot of people.

[00:10:30] Katie Dooley: A lot of people.

[00:10:31] Preston Meyer: And when communes are smaller, it's pretty easy to make sure everything is just and equitable, but a little harder to have some real economic power for dealing with outsiders.

[00:10:42] Katie Dooley: Absolutely. Which we'll get into. Commune life is characterized by members sharing basically everything in some weirder communes or cults. This even includes sexual partners.

[00:10:54] Preston Meyer: Mhm.

[00:10:55] Katie Dooley: Not that I want to judge polygamy or polyamory, but if you're in a danger call and aren't consenting,

[00:11:02] Preston Meyer: That's when you've got problems. Authoritarian versus libertarian communism.

[00:11:07] Katie Dooley: The idea is that you share the necessities for life, whether that be food, clothing, resources or skills. If you're living in a commune, it is expected that you're an active contributor to the function of said commune.

[00:11:19] Preston Meyer: Much like in capitalism, we expect people to contribute.

[00:11:23] Katie Dooley: Have you ever looked into cooperative housing? I can't say that I have. I have recently for a client, but someone told me about cooperative housing years ago, and there's some in our city and it's basically that, so you get subsidized rent, but whatever skills you have, it's expected you bring them to the. It's typically apartment or townhouse-style condominiums, so rent's way cheaper. But if you're a handyman,

[00:11:48] Preston Meyer: You're gonna be helping out.

[00:11:49] Katie Dooley: You're gonna be helping out.

[00:11:50] Preston Meyer: That's fine, that makes sense.

[00:11:52] Katie Dooley: I kind of love that because rent is very high in the city.

[00:11:55] Preston Meyer: Right? Should we start a commune?

[00:11:58] Katie Dooley: I mean, we could definitely add it to part of our Holy Watermelon foundation.

[00:12:05] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:12:05] Katie Dooley: Communal living. It is easy, like Preston said, for tribes or for communes to develop a tribe mentality. But people have always, almost always lived communally, dating back as far as early Neolithic tribes. So really, this idea of... 

[00:12:21] Preston Meyer: Capitalism is new.

[00:12:22] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:12:23] Preston Meyer: And clearly problematic. Communism while has its problems, has worked for a long time.

[00:12:31] Katie Dooley: So hippie communes weren't necessarily found in religion. They were basically mini cults. But I'm not saying that that they were danger cults necessarily. But you do get this hive mentality of obviously protecting what's yours. And working together.

[00:12:45] Preston Meyer: And and there's usually a charismatic figure that pulled everybody together to be like...

[00:12:50] Katie Dooley: Let's do this thing. Yeah. 

[00:12:50] Preston Meyer: Doesn't mean it's dangerous. It just has made a lot of people very uncomfortable.

[00:12:58] Katie Dooley: I have a friend and I kind of love it. She wants to start, like a commune with her girlfriends where there's, like, 5 or 6 houses altogether. And the idea is that she stays married to her husband. But husbands don't do anything. So when she actually needs help, all her girlfriends would be there to help.

[00:13:20] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:13:20] Katie Dooley: And she wouldn't have to rely on the honey-do list that never gets done anymore. And I was like, I love that. Sorry, Bryant. And I'm talking to a husband right now. So you're probably also offended by that.

[00:13:34] Preston Meyer: I can easily choose not to be offended.

[00:13:34] Katie Dooley: Thank you.

[00:13:38] Preston Meyer: But, yeah, there's perks to communal living, for sure. Um, in fact, a lot of religious groups have leaned into communal living over the course of history, even as deliberately separate from the rest of the the broader community. Usually we see them in things like monasteries, which exist in a lot of religious traditions. The Indo-Aryan ashrams have been around since at least 1500 BCE. So a good three and a half millennia, I was going to say centuries. That's the wrong word.

[00:14:12] Katie Dooley: That's long, longer.

[00:14:12] Preston Meyer: Three and a half millennia, these ashrams have been around.

[00:14:15] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:14:16] Preston Meyer: Pythagoras started a vegetarian commune when he was about 50, which is kind of cool. I mean, he did also have a pretty serious cult-like following.

[00:14:25] Katie Dooley: I mean, I love the Pythagorean theorem, so... 

[00:14:28] Preston Meyer: I mean, that's handy. He was his religion was very science and math-based, mostly.

[00:14:37] Katie Dooley: Do we have to do an episode on him?

[00:14:39] Preston Meyer: I think we might have to.

[00:14:40] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:14:40] Preston Meyer: But is... He he did live a culty life. It was kind of cool.

[00:14:45] Katie Dooley: The vegetarian piece intrigues me mildly.

[00:14:48] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean, you don't have to go off into the woods to hunt stuff.

[00:14:52] Katie Dooley: I guess so back then. Yeah. Fair. 

[00:14:56] Preston Meyer: Buddhists have also been building monasteries since around the same time the late sixth century, so that's kind of cool. BCE, sixth century BCE.

[00:15:06] Katie Dooley: Yeah. When you're that close to zero, you got to clarify.

[00:15:08] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The Qumran community, the the group that's famous for producing the Dead Sea Scrolls, was also a puritanical commune. There, like those other Jews, are far too liberal for us, those city Jews and their Greekness, even though, I mean, the people of Jerusalem weren't super Greek. There were Greek elements, but it was. 

[00:15:31] Katie Dooley: Way too Greek for them ,fair enough.

[00:15:32] Preston Meyer: For the Qumran community. And then, of course, Christians famously picked up the tradition very early in their history with building up monasteries all over the place and having monks and friars and whatnot.

[00:15:46] Katie Dooley: Absolutely. And then, I mean, I guess this is historical, but then we see a whole bunch of modern-day cults living communally, too.

[00:15:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So there's a pretty strong historical element of communes that are seen as people that are in the mainstream, more or less looking at these communes as people living the ideal, closer to God life. And here we are in 21st century North America, where most people of faith look at communists and the communist tradition as fully evil, which is just weird.

[00:16:26] Katie Dooley: Which kind of back onto the word thing. If you ask the average person on the street is community a good thing, and to define community, they would basically be defining communism.

[00:16:39] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:16:40] Katie Dooley: Right? Our community league asks for volunteers and helpers, whether that's a food drive or to paint the skating rink or whatever. And to know your neighbors and to help your neighbors. While it's not communal ownership, there's like maybe social communism that's... 

[00:16:58] Preston Meyer: Even the stock market buying shares in a company. That's a form of socialism, which gets even worse when you have governments bailing out these companies that actually don't need the help. That's another really frustrating form of socialism.

[00:17:18] Katie Dooley: I, uh, I read some meme somewhere, and some lady was losing her shit about paying $0.05 for a bag and was calling everyone communists and socialists. And the cashier was like, ma'am, paying for a bag of capitalism. Me giving you a bag for free is socialism.

[00:17:35] Preston Meyer: Yep.

[00:17:37] Katie Dooley: Because I treat everyone equally then. Not based on whether they have money or not.

[00:17:41] Preston Meyer: Mhm. People way too often get way too confused about what socialism is.

[00:17:50] Katie Dooley: I mean, I, I don't think it's any secret that we're in Alberta. And I think that's a huge problem here where people will spew their beliefs and then say they vote for the Conservative Party. And it's like those things don't match because you don't realize that they don't match, especially in very conservative Alberta.

[00:18:10] Preston Meyer: The civic religion is really frustrating that a lot of people don't realize that they are sticking with their party for what amounts to religious... 

[00:18:21] Katie Dooley: Reasons. Yeah, that's a different episode.

[00:18:23] Preston Meyer: Their commitment is fully religious just without any thought. There's lots of people who go to church every Sunday or twice a year, or anywhere in between, without thinking about the details. And people will go to the ballot box in the exact same mindset. Yeah, it's it's frustrating. But anyway, these these monasteries, the idea is to separate yourself from the ungodly pursuits of the wider public culture, especially like we saw in the Qumran community. That's pretty easy narrative to get yourself figured out around. Asceticism is thought to be the the ideal, and it is definitely the deal with these things. You renounce all personal possessions, you give everything you have to support the community, and then you work to meet the needs of that community, and you'll get the benefits coming back at you.

[00:19:16] Katie Dooley: And then ideally, you receive what you put in, in return. You're the handyman. And then you need an electrician because that's dangerous. And he just does it for you because you did something for him. Or someone baked you a pie.

[00:19:31] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Your life is comfortable because you're helping out in a community. Communism. Or at least socialism.

[00:19:39] Katie Dooley: Right.

[00:19:40] Preston Meyer: And I want to I want to look a little bit deeper into how some of these traditions get preserved in Christianity, in a few different forms.

[00:19:48] Katie Dooley: Sure.

[00:19:50] Preston Meyer: So mainstream Christianity has typically really emphasized this phrase of be in the world, but not of the world means interact with your neighbors. But don't be like your neighbors.

[00:20:04] Katie Dooley: Be better than your neighbours.

[00:20:05] Preston Meyer: Exactly. And a lot of people are really bad at that.

[00:20:09] Katie Dooley: Please see our last episode!

[00:20:12] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So anyway, capitalism as well as prosperity churches have shown that they sometimes don't even really work that hard to walk that line. It's frustrating, but a few groups have fully embraced communism in a way that actually separates them from the world. Leaning the other way to fail in this be in the world, but not of the world. And it's kind of become a weird popular form of Christian totalitarianism, especially within the Anabaptist movement. We've got a few different Hutterite branches. There's a lot of Hutterites in the plains of Canada and the United States.

[00:20:57] Katie Dooley: The northwest United States. Yeah.

[00:21:00] Preston Meyer: So Jacob Hutter established the first Hutterer colonies that later came to be known as the Hutterites, back in 1528. So almost 500 years ago.

[00:21:10] Katie Dooley: A very long time ago.

[00:21:11] Preston Meyer: Big anniversary coming up for them.

[00:21:13] Katie Dooley: Nice. Will they celebrate? No one knows.

[00:21:16] Preston Meyer: Not likely. I don't well, yeah, maybe. I don't know, I'm guessing. And with zero real feeling behind the the guess. But after centuries of moving around the world, they went to Russia after they got pushed out of Germany and then ended up here in North America. And there's about 570 Hutterite colonies around the world. There might be a little bit bigger, a little bit smaller. It fluctuates. And there's some in Japan, apparently.

[00:21:46] Katie Dooley: Yes. That was really interesting. They like, aren't related. They just are just a group of Japanese people that got, like, the stamp of approval to be Hutterites.

[00:21:56] Preston Meyer: That's cool.

[00:21:56] Katie Dooley: We'll talk about that more when we get to our Hutterite episode. But yeah, so 569 of the colonies are here, and there's one in Japan.

[00:22:07] Preston Meyer: Okay, that's pretty cool. Uh, so everything is owned by the colony in these situations. They are fully communist. And then there's a minister who's in charge, and he gets to make a lot of the of the decisions, most of the financial decisions and arranging who goes what, who gets what is the job of the secretary actually most and there's a little bit of variation from one group to the next.

[00:22:35] Katie Dooley: Did you look into how this person is appointed, elected? Hired? Does it change every year? I'm just curious. We can.

[00:22:45] Preston Meyer: I actually don't know the answer to that.

[00:22:46] Katie Dooley: Just again, kind of back to that fairness thing. If to keep it from being a dictatorship, to have turnover elected democratically or I'm just. 

[00:22:58] Preston Meyer: I don't know the answer to that.

[00:22:59] Katie Dooley: We'll look into it.

[00:23:01] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So company owns everything. And they cite a couple of passages in the Acts of the Apostles in the Christian Bible, where it says that they had all things in common. This, describing the church and as much as a lot of Christian thinkers like to deny that communism was ever practiced in Christianity. It absolutely was. It's in black and white in the Acts of the Apostles. It's super obvious. If you're intellectually honest, you'll see it.

[00:23:35] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:23:36] Preston Meyer: And so the Hutterites really jumped onto this and said, this is the way we want to live our life. This is the way God wants us to live it. So we're going to do it. And we've got 500 years of this tradition working for them.

[00:23:49] Katie Dooley: Mostly.

[00:23:51] Preston Meyer: I mean, there's weirdness. There are some bad actors, as there are in any group, but they still are economically surviving just fine.

[00:24:00] Katie Dooley: That's true. They actually where we are, there are some very wealthy colonies. They... You can find them at farmers markets. They're big farm communities. So they produce, meat. Very, very wealthy communities. They don't have to pay taxes because they are a religious group. So some people don't like supporting the Hutterites here because they make a bunch of money, don't have to pay taxes. Fun fact that I've included Hutterites are so closed off you can't just like, convert to Hutterite-ism.

[00:24:29] Preston Meyer: Joining a colony is so hard.

[00:24:30] Katie Dooley: Yeah, it's not like I could walk into a Christian church and they'd slurp me up, right? So Hutterites generally don't want you.

[00:24:39] Preston Meyer: They're they're very suspicious of...

[00:24:42] Katie Dooley: Why someone would want to. It's they are one of the most inbred communities in the world.

[00:24:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's it's tricky when the when the colony gets too big, they split. And they will very often look to other communities that aren't so closely genetically related to hopefully keep them safe, genetically speaking.

[00:25:04] Katie Dooley: Yeah, they'll typically send their daughters out to a new community. And they do. They keep really close track of genetics because it's an issue.

[00:25:13] Preston Meyer: Yeah, they do keep close track. There's this urban myth that's been going around for decades at least.

[00:25:20] Katie Dooley: Which I just heard today.

[00:25:22] Preston Meyer: Of, you know, you'll hear somebody say, oh, yeah, the Hutterites picked me up, put me in the back of their truck, and paid me 50 bucks to knock up a few of their daughters. There's some huge problems with the idea of that happening...

[00:25:34] Katie Dooley: Theologically.

[00:25:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's it's strictly forbidden to have sex outside of marriage in the Hutterite tradition, as in almost every Christian tradition.

[00:25:44] Katie Dooley: And Adultery?

[00:25:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Like we got a lot of reasons why this is a bad policy. And everybody who has made the claim who has said, oh, yes, I've experienced this because you hear a lot about, oh, yeah, my uncle told me, but everybody who says I have done this, they can't substantiate their claim at all.

[00:26:05] Katie Dooley: Fair.

[00:26:06] Preston Meyer: If you are one of these people who has told people and you can back it up, I guess I'd like to hear about that.

[00:26:15] Katie Dooley: I would like to. Parts of it.

[00:26:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I don't need the gross details, but, you know, whatever. Let's move on. Uh, yeah. So Hutterites are allowed to leave, generally speaking. But it's hard to leave a Hutterite colony because everything you have is owned by the company of the colony. So you don't get to take a whole lot with you when you go. And some families are more generous than others. You know, some might give you a little bit of money to see you on your way so that you don't freeze overnight kind of deal. But that's not the norm. Which does make it look a little bit culty sometimes.

[00:26:58] Katie Dooley: We also don't I mean, if you're one of the ones coming to the farmers markets every week, you probably do speak English, but they don't speak English.

[00:27:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah, they speak German usually,

[00:27:08] Katie Dooley: And it's like a... But it's not like German German.

[00:27:12] Preston Meyer: No, it's Hutterite German.

[00:27:13] Katie Dooley: It's Hutterite German. So I kind of compare it to like Yiddish was this amalgamation of German and Hebrew.

[00:27:19] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:27:20] Katie Dooley: And that's kind of what Hutterite German is.

[00:27:24] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's kind of nifty.

[00:27:25] Katie Dooley: Yeah, it is pretty cool.

[00:27:28] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's, uh, it's kind of cool. And then if a Hutterite wants to keep going to church when they leave a Hutterite colony, they very often will end up joining a Mennonite church. They're theologically identical, or at least very similar, of course. Variety, diversity, because people. The Mennonites are closely connected. I want to say Hutter was... 

[00:27:56] Katie Dooley: Hutter and Menno knew each other.

[00:27:57] Preston Meyer: Yeah, they had a lot of agreements on things but didn't agree on the communal living.

[00:28:03] Katie Dooley: Right.

[00:28:04] Preston Meyer: And so it's an easy conversion for Hutterites when they leave the colony. I'm curious if a Mennonite would be more welcomed to join a Hutterite colony than the average other outsider.

[00:28:19] Katie Dooley: I don't know. I'd love to interview a Hutterite.

[00:28:22] Preston Meyer: Sure, I might be able to hook that up. We'll see.

[00:28:24] Katie Dooley: All right.

[00:28:26] Preston Meyer: It's kind of cool.

[00:28:29] Katie Dooley: Amish you a very merry Christmas.

[00:28:34] Preston Meyer: Do the Amish celebrate Christmas?

[00:28:35] Katie Dooley: I don't actually know.

[00:28:37] Preston Meyer: You know what they definitely don't do? Is put electric lights around a tree.

[00:28:41] Katie Dooley: Absolutely not. So the Amish are another Anabaptist group that live communally. The big difference between the Amish and the Hutterites is the Amish are scared of technology, whereas the Hutterites 100% use GPS combines.

[00:28:57] Preston Meyer: Yeah for sure. Because why not?

[00:29:00] Katie Dooley: Because work is meant to make you sweat.

[00:29:02] Preston Meyer: Absolutely. This idea comes from Genesis, where you'll get your bread by the sweat of your brow. And the Hutterites are like, well, we can do it better. And the Amish are like, but we're going to be better. So, you know, you got perks either way.

[00:29:17] Katie Dooley: And then the Hutterites wipe their brow with all their money.

[00:29:20] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:29:21] Katie Dooley: Because they can produce more.

[00:29:24] Preston Meyer: Yeah, but it's not just the Anabaptists that are into communal living historically. Back in the 1830s, Joseph Smith was way into communism. So a few a couple years ago, I was talking to the missionary that was teaching me before I was baptized. I haven't actually seen either of them...

[00:29:50] Katie Dooley: A couple of years ago? I feel like this... you were only baptized a couple of years?

[00:29:54] Preston Meyer: No, I was talking to him a couple years ago.

[00:29:55] Katie Dooley: Oh, the ones who baptized okay, it sounds like you were only baptized. I understand. I'm with you.

[00:30:00] Preston Meyer: I was baptized 20 years ago. Give or take a little change.

[00:30:04] Katie Dooley: And a couple years ago.

[00:30:06] Preston Meyer: A couple years ago, talking to one of the missionaries. That was the one I was teaching me, and she, well, she had started this conversation with communism is bad. And it was a really weird conversation because, like, I hadn't said anything pro-communism up to this point. And then I'm like, well, you do know Joseph Smith was a communist, right? And she's naturally a big fan of Joseph Smith. She immediately blocked me. I've never heard from her since.

[00:30:41] Katie Dooley: Oh, no.

[00:30:44] Preston Meyer: And it was such a weird exchange.

[00:30:47] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:30:48] Preston Meyer: I mean, to be that immediately offended by the statement Joseph Smith was a communist. Feels like you don't know anything about it.

[00:31:00] Katie Dooley: Yes. Yeah.

[00:31:03] Preston Meyer: But in the early 1830s, very shortly after establishing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which at the time was just the Church of Christ, Joseph instituted the United Order, which was also known by a couple of other pseudonyms, for legal reasons. They wanted to actually keep it super hush hush that it was a communist group. But if you read the church's publications, the the Doctrine and Covenants is a good example where they lay out a whole bunch of specific commands, telling the bishop, you're going to deal with these things, all kinds of stuff like that. It's super obvious that it was communism. To deny that is fully ludicrous, that everybody was meant to be equal in all measures of wealth. Every member of the church, without exception, and bishops, were to receive everything that you had that you didn't need and would redistribute so that everybody's needs were met. That is communism.

[00:32:03] Katie Dooley: Well even today, from my understanding, jump in obviously if I'm misinformed. But we know the LDS church has a tithe, a mandatory tithe, and a high tithe. But you also have your food stores and I know you have your fast day, but I mean, it looks like from the outside, if you're a member of the church, you're pretty well taken care of if you're in a decent community or ward.

[00:32:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's a little different when you have a bishop who is super anti-socialist and is super withholding.

[00:32:39] Katie Dooley: But the food stores are like a real thing.

[00:32:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And you just you talk to the Relief Society president and they'll give you your checklist of. Yeah, I want four cans of pork and beans and two turkeys and three watermelons and four blocks of cheese. 

[00:32:57] Katie Dooley: Thank you for saying watermelon.

[00:33:00] Preston Meyer: And then you take that checklist to the bishop's storehouse and you get that stuff for free. Yeah, as long as the bishop consents.

[00:33:08] Katie Dooley: Oh, interesting. So would there be a reason to store food and not give it away?

[00:33:14] Preston Meyer: None at all.

[00:33:14] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:33:17] Preston Meyer: What's food for? Eating.

[00:33:19] Katie Dooley: Is it for eating? Um. Because then you have your fast day. And is it the money you save from not eating? Or the food you would save from not eating, you donate? I guess the Bishop's storehouse manages what they need.

[00:33:32] Preston Meyer: Generally it's money, and everybody's encouraged to give generously. The the baseline suggestion is. Yeah, the money that you would have saved by not eating. Pass it along so that somebody else can eat when they don't get to normally. And if you're serious about helping out your neighbors and you have the means, a generous fast offering is pretty standard. Yeah, of course, the church didn't stick around with this united order for very long. Few elders abused the system, and also Joseph Smith made some really poor banking decisions. And then the whole church is just like, screw it. This United Order thing is not okay because I'm greedy. I want to keep my stuff for me. I work hard. I'm a capitalist. Communism is not okay for me because I want to be rich and I don't care about you guys. And that's the way we see capitalism work.

[00:34:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Modernly, we have Koinonia Farm, and I found this in our research. It's looks like a nondenominational Christian farm in Georgia, where you can go and save for some good old-fashioned communal living.

[00:34:50] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:34:50] Katie Dooley: The the word, the name comes from the Greek word meaning common or shared life. But it's it looks like it's, um, more like a retreat. Like you'd stay for two months or four months or six months, and then you'd...

[00:35:05] Preston Meyer: So it lets you try out communal life.

[00:35:07] Katie Dooley: I mean, I'm sure there's people who are long-term tenants, but to get back to the earth and to Jesus.

[00:35:14] Preston Meyer: Okay, that's kind of nifty.

[00:35:16] Katie Dooley: I mean, we should go for a week.

[00:35:21] Preston Meyer: Is it really communal living if you're only going to do it for a week?

[00:35:24] Katie Dooley: I guess it depends on how much money they take from us.

[00:35:29] Preston Meyer: I guess so. It's it's really weird. I mentioned this before. There's a lot of scholarly debate about whether the first generation of Christians practiced communism.

[00:35:39] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:35:40] Preston Meyer: I don't understand why it's a debate.

[00:35:42] Katie Dooley: Because, I mean, even if you just looked at the date, everyone was still living well, for the most part communally. Then I guess we obviously had imperialism and emperors and things like that. But for the most part, Any sort of small town or village would be pretty communal.

[00:36:00] Preston Meyer: Pretty communal, like not full community owns everything business, but... 

[00:36:05] Katie Dooley: A lot of help your neighbor and. 

[00:36:07] Preston Meyer: Oh for sure, a lot of that. 

[00:36:09] Katie Dooley: Becky knows how to bake and because there would be a Becky in the first century. 

[00:36:13] Preston Meyer: There would be a lot of socialist action. Yeah, not necessarily socialist government policies everywhere, but that's a... It's not a big step away from communism. Anyway, it's it really bugs me that there is scholarly debate on whether there was communism practiced in early Christianity. It just doesn't feel like there's intellectual honesty in that argument. The Acts of the Apostles in every Christian Bible outlines in the first five chapters that they did not hold personal property. It it was banned. And chapter five specifically tells the story of a couple who were killed for withholding their wealth from the church.

[00:36:56] Katie Dooley: Jesus whipped the bankers.

[00:36:58] Preston Meyer: He did because they were trying to make a profit off of a religiously mandated system. So yeah, Jesus was pissed off about that. The only genuine debate that scholars can have on the matter and still be intellectually honest, is how long communism persisted in the church. Some people say that it was less than a month, which. 

[00:37:23] Katie Dooley: That just feels like a pain.

[00:37:25] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:37:26] Katie Dooley: I'm not giving you my property for three weeks or less.

[00:37:29] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:37:29] Katie Dooley: It's just more of a administrative headache.

[00:37:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah, some people say that it was just because a bunch of people were in town too long for the Pentecost, which, if you read the Acts of the Apostles, that that argument falls flat on its face, real hard. The Pentecost was five weeks after or 50 days, not five weeks, 50 days, about seven weeks after Passover when Jesus died. It was this great outpouring of the spirit and great miracles were seen. And so people who stuck around to see that stuck around a little bit longer to see what's going on with this community. And so a lot of people argue that they just asked for donations to help house these people for the extra few days or whatever it was. That's nonsense. If you're killing people for withholding money, that's communism. A lot of people like to say, well, Paul said that God prefers a willing giver and that if you don't want to, if you don't want to give, you shouldn't give. Well, if you're a biblical literalist, God killed this couple for withholding money. And any other position other than this whole book is fiction. The reasonable intellectual conclusion is the church killed these people for withholding their money. So enforced communism was a real thing and would not have happened if they were looking at a very short, temporary thing. That's nonsense. But in this setting, Israel and Judah had legislated some pretty intense socialist policies. The corners of every field were the right of every beggar. Nobody was ever going to go hungry because farmers were not allowed to harvest from the corners of their fields. And now you see a lot of farmers not even ceding the corners of their fields because yay, capitalism! Charging interest on debts was forbidden.

[00:39:42] Katie Dooley: Usury, yeah.

[00:39:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, the Jewish population changed their policy on that in the Middle Ages, around the Renaissance.

[00:39:50] Katie Dooley: I guess the line in the Bible that I heard in religious studies is like, you're not allowed to charge interest to your own people or to your to the people. And Christians took that as everyone, and Jews just took it as other Jews. Which I kind of love.

[00:40:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, the The Merchant of Venice is a a great popular story that you see this come up as an issue. Also, all debts were to be forgiven every seven years, regardless of how long the debt was in place or how big it was.

[00:40:25] Katie Dooley: That could come back.

[00:40:26] Preston Meyer: Right? That'd be just fine. Oh, no. I went seven years without paying off my student loans. Thanks. Oh my mortgage, 25-year term. Nope.

[00:40:38] Katie Dooley: Interest rates would go up.

[00:40:40] Preston Meyer: Ah, but I mean, if we're going to use the Bible to defend this seven-year cycle, we're going to get rid of interest I mean, loans are super predatory right now anyway, and it's probably only going to get worse.

[00:40:55] Katie Dooley: Yep.

[00:40:57] Preston Meyer: Also, there were different sacrifices to be offered by poor people for the same blessings that everyone else did. 

[00:41:03] Katie Dooley: So you didn't have to bring a whole cow. If you couldn't afford a whole cow.

[00:41:05] Preston Meyer: Yeah, if you're if you're poor and you can only catch a pigeon,

[00:41:11] Katie Dooley: Awwww

[00:41:11] Preston Meyer: Then that's okay.

[00:41:12] Katie Dooley: Awww

[00:41:13] Preston Meyer: That's a valid sacrifice.

[00:41:14] Katie Dooley: I appreciate that.

[00:41:15] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:41:16] Katie Dooley: It's kind of cute.

[00:41:17] Preston Meyer:  A pigeon is a way easier...

[00:41:18] Katie Dooley: You know, like when a kid, when a kid pays for a candy with some pebbles and a button and you're like, you can have the candy.

[00:41:23] Preston Meyer: Right? Yeah, so this hardcore capitalism was really not okay in the eyes of the Jewish people until, you know, more recently when that was how they needed to survive. Because Christians have sucked for a long time as neighbours. The Jesus we have on record was not really vocal about political or economic policies, but I mean to say that he was socialist is a very fair representation of fact. He demanded the unqualified liberation of prisoners.

[00:42:01] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:42:02] Preston Meyer: Yeah. He commanded people to sell everything they had, and then give all of that money from the sale to poor people.

[00:42:10] Katie Dooley: That's pretty extreme, because now you're poor.

[00:42:12] Preston Meyer: Right? And he commanded this fairly often, by the looks of it. He condemned people who tried to profit from religious and civil laws, like, you know, do your job. Cool. But if you want to get rich off of doing this thing that we straight up need as a community. No, that's not cool.

[00:42:32] Katie Dooley: Scientology getting rich off of religious.

[00:42:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. And Jesus also never condemned the poor for being lazy. He never told them to get jobs, never told them to solve your own problems, you're poor. Like we see so many Christians doing today.

[00:42:48] Katie Dooley: I mean, people in general.

[00:42:50] Preston Meyer: Yeah, well, okay, there's there's an awful lot of people who have no value or worship for Jesus who hate the poor. Fine, but...

[00:43:00] Katie Dooley: When you're when your dude is telling you something and you're not listening. Yeah, absolutely. That's a different story.

[00:43:05] Preston Meyer: There's there's an awful lot of people in love with Jesus who don't love Jesus enough to even learn what he says, let alone do as he says. And that's frustrating to me.

[00:43:23] Katie Dooley: Yeah, yeah. Now we're going to talk about some specific communists.

[00:43:29] Preston Meyer: So we talked about the fellow Saint Thomas More a little while ago. He was a saint who maybe. 

[00:43:34] Katie Dooley: Shouldn't have been a saint, but not for this reason.

[00:43:39] Preston Meyer: No, there's there's more,

[00:43:40] Katie Dooley: There's more. So we talked about his love of book burning specifically. That's why he wasn't allowed to be a saint, right?

[00:43:49] Preston Meyer: Well, yeah, it's weird calling him a saint when he's like, no, if you read the Bible, you're a bad Christian.

[00:43:54] Katie Dooley: Oh, right, yeah.

[00:43:55] Preston Meyer: And I mean, there's a lot of Christians in North America today who seem to have jumped on that bandwagon.

[00:44:01] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So he was the first person I thought this was super interesting. He was the first person to use the word Utopia was the title of one of his books. It's a pun from the Greek word utopos, meaning good place and outopus meaning nowhere.

[00:44:18] Preston Meyer: A place that is so great it couldn't possibly exist, wouldn't exist.

[00:44:21] Katie Dooley: So in this novel, he talks about communal ownership, equal education for men and women, religious tolerance. Except they still hate atheists. So like anything other than an atheist is fine and legal euthanasia like these are some very 20. Like we're still debating this today. 20th and 21st century ideas of. 

[00:44:40] Preston Meyer: I mean our federal government has legalized euthanasia.

[00:44:43] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:44:44] Preston Meyer: It's it's a little bit weird how easy it is.

[00:44:47] Katie Dooley: It's very easy.

[00:44:49] Preston Meyer: Yeah. In fact, our government basically encourages people with mental disabilities or mental illnesses to just go ahead and kill yourself. It's it's kind of gross.

[00:45:00] Katie Dooley: That's too much. Yeah. No, that's actually terrible. But, uh, yeah. Someone I am acquainted with, her father in law has chosen this this assisted death. So. Yeah. Interesting. Uh, he has cancer. So not the gross stuff of. Oh. You're sick. Goodbye. I mean, I guess he is sick, but obviously it's terminal cancer, so. Saint Thomas More is known and he was executed for refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, making Henry the eighth head of the Church of England. So he was sainted for his martyrdom. But yeah, he had all of these very like what we would call left policies now of utopia and sharing everything and women getting an education. What the fuck?

[00:45:43] Preston Meyer: Right? What a mess.

[00:45:44] Katie Dooley: What a mess, women getting educated. I'm kidding.

[00:45:48] Preston Meyer: Speaking of the 1500s and the the weird beginnings of Protestantism in Europe, there's a fella named John Calvin. We've mentioned him a couple of times before.

[00:45:58] Katie Dooley: Yeah, we have. Weird guy.

[00:46:01] Preston Meyer: I mean, a little bit. He was a French pastor who didn't stay in France. He traveled around a lot, learned a lot, and really jumped on board this Reformation business. In addition to claiming that the Catholic Church couldn't possibly be Catholic because they hate the diversity of thought. He also claimed that all people are predestined to eternal glory or damnation. Nothing you can do will ever change your fate. This is one of the things that people highlight when they think of Calvinist theology.

[00:46:30] Katie Dooley: Calvinism is pretty brutal.

[00:46:32] Preston Meyer: Yeah, and it's not that he liked this idea. He did. He has said on a couple of occasions. He doesn't think that it's a terribly hopeful theology, but he can't see any way around it. He's convinced that this is the way it is, and I think most Calvinists feel exactly the same way. It's not hopeful. It's not great. But this is what we believe.

[00:46:51] Katie Dooley: I mean, I'm kind of the same with atheism. People are like, so you think there's nothing after death that must be horrible? I'm like, yeah, it kind of is. I don't like it. But yeah.

[00:47:01] Katie Dooley: Right?

[00:47:02] Katie Dooley: Shit. 

[00:47:03] Preston Meyer: Makes sense. He declared that there are only two sacraments baptism and the Lord's Supper, though he also was very strictly anti-transubstantiation. He's like saying the bread is flesh is crazy, but the bread is important, the wine is important. 

[00:47:20] Katie Dooley: But it is not literally..

[00:47:21] Preston Meyer: It's not literally Jesus.

[00:47:25] Katie Dooley: Because that's cannibalism.

[00:47:27] Preston Meyer: Right? And cannibalism is not a bandwagon that we should be excited to jump on. But I mean, it's not the worst possible thing to be teaching people. It's just really weird.

[00:47:42] Katie Dooley: Only if there's consent to be eaten. 

[00:47:45] Preston Meyer: And there's a growing market in this field, so we've got that one. I mean, as far as the story of Jesus, if you believe in transubstantiation, there is consent to be eaten. He did say, eat this.

[00:48:00] Katie Dooley: This is my body and this is my... Fair. Yep.

[00:48:05] Preston Meyer: So there's not a consent problem here. So that's good.

[00:48:08] Katie Dooley: Good.

[00:48:09] Preston Meyer: Anyway, Calvin was one of the early advocates for the complete separation of church and state.

[00:48:13] Katie Dooley: Love it.

[00:48:14] Preston Meyer: Right? Except for when he actually talked about it. Turns out, as much as he said he liked the separation, he could not actually wrap his head around it. He also, he said that rulers who turn against God should be deposed and that the state should execute heretics. So that's still...

[00:48:32] Katie Dooley: That's confusing.

[00:48:33] Preston Meyer: Not separation.

[00:48:34] Katie Dooley: That's not. Nope.

[00:48:37] Preston Meyer: But an interesting fella. Anyway, he was also one of the first Christians to defend capitalism and usury, yeah.

[00:48:46] Katie Dooley: He sounds like a confused man.

[00:48:49] Preston Meyer: I mean, he thought of himself as an intellectual and pragmatic guy. Like some of these things, they just don't make sense in the world anymore. So let's abandon them. Thanks, John. He did like the idea of democracy, but definitely felt that it was important to preserve aristocracy. And so combining those two. So like, yeah, you can have the vote, but these people's votes are more important. Calvinism very popular in the States, especially if you want to look at how their electoral system is built. It's a disaster. And I'm not a fan, but I mean, the country hasn't actually burned down yet. Yet, Yeah. Interesting. John Calvin's an interesting fella. And a lot of people really like his thoughts. And some of them are easy to get on board with. Others are like, what? How is your day going, John? Anyway.

[00:49:48] Katie Dooley: I liked how sassy he was for sure. I do have some respect for him for that.

[00:49:53] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Recognizing that a lot of the relics are problematic and weird and and very weird. Go and check out that episode. You Want A Piece of

[00:50:14] Katie Dooley: Red scare. Yeah.

[00:50:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The communists are our enemies. Those godless communists, I mean. Yeah. Russia and China were their state religion to say was focus on the community and the head of state. There is no God was the official stance of these states. So. Okay, godless communists is more or less factual, but their economic policies wasn't why they were the enemy.

[00:50:44] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:50:45] Preston Meyer: Oh, well, it's it's weird that there are so many Christians who are way too happy to say that God only wants your willing gifts when God wants all of our best. If you believe in God, he wants you to be a specific way. And sure you can rebel against that. That doesn't mean that God wants you to be super awful to each other. It's easier to just say there's no God than try and be a believer in a God that definitely is your own fiction.

[00:51:24] Katie Dooley: Yes. And then, you know the doctrine. We talked about the piece of the Bible we've talked about. Then it's like, well, why wouldn't it be willing then? Right. So there's sure maybe he doesn't want you to give unwillingly, but why? What are you unwilling to give? You know, do you give your like, why wouldn't you give your money to the homeless man on the street corner? Why are you unwilling to do that? Yeah. And if you have your own poverty, that's a different story. But if you're in a place to do it, why would. Right. So, sure, maybe he doesn't want you to be give unwillingly, but it sounds like there should be no reason for you to be not willing to give.

[00:51:59] Preston Meyer: It's another thing that really frustrates me in this, this whole thing is that, like the missionary that refuses to talk to me anymore. There's... It's a really weird position to to stand in where you can say, I'm a Christian. I believe the Bible and everything in it, but socialism is evil. No, no. If you think socialism is bad, Then you can't possibly have cared very much about the things Jesus says.

[00:52:33] Katie Dooley: Or you don't understand what socialism is.

[00:52:35] Preston Meyer: Right. And there is a fair bit of that. A lot of people just jump on the Red scare socialism bad without putting any thought into it. That's embarrassing, but it is a reality. It's frustrating to see people stand up at the pulpit and knowingly contradict Jesus and then say, follow me and still wear the label of Christian. That's gross to me, but I see it a lot more often than I would like.

[00:53:06] Katie Dooley: I'm sure. I just see it in like pop culture and social media, the things you see about churches, you see. I mean, we'll do a whole episode on prosperity gospel one day, and that's super gross.

[00:53:19] Preston Meyer: Learn more about communism. Learn more about socialism. Learn more about the world around you.

[00:53:25] Katie Dooley: Christianity.

[00:53:26] Preston Meyer: And if you really believe in a thing then learn more about that thing. If you're going to be reading the Bible. Read it to see what's in it. Read it to learn what's in it. Not just looking for something that validates your prejudices.

[00:53:46] Katie Dooley: I like that that was a good summary.

[00:53:48] Preston Meyer: And we've also got Katie's first real Bible study on our Patreon.

[00:53:53] Katie Dooley: Two Bible studies on our Patreon.

[00:53:54] Preston Meyer: Yeah, we're we're a couple episodes in now. We're having some good times with that.

[00:53:59] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I'm all the way to First Kings.

[00:54:03] Preston Meyer: Very nice.

[00:54:04] Katie Dooley: So there you go. If you want to know more about the Bible specifically, we are doing. Katie does a Bible study on Patreon. Patreon. If you want to share the wealth.

[00:54:17] Preston Meyer: Let's make this a real business.

[00:54:19] Katie Dooley: You want to share with the poor. I'm kidding. We do have our Patreon. It does help us keep this podcast going and hopefully be producing more content more frequently. If the subscription model is not your thing, we also have our Spreadshirt.

[00:54:33] Preston Meyer: So much good merch.

[00:54:34] Katie Dooley: So much good merch. We have new merch launching as well all the time. So that's the the socialism plug for money. But also please join us on our social media which is free.

[00:54:47] Preston Meyer: Right? Yay socialism.

[00:54:49] Katie Dooley: Socialism. Social media. Socialism. Right. What?

[00:54:54] Preston Meyer: What a coincidence.

[00:54:55] Katie Dooley: We're building a community on discord. Uh, yes. Check out our discord. Instagram. Facebook. We have some great conversations on Discord in particular. And that's all for this week.

[00:55:08] Preston Meyer: Thanks for joining us.

[00:55:10] Both Speakers: Peace be with you.

This week we have the pleasure of interviewing another friend. Vernon Boldick shares with us the details of his journey preparing to enter the seminary and the priesthood of the Catholic church, only to find his faith shaken. He tells us his story of religious and philosophical reflection that led him from devout Catholicism to atheism. Becoming more involved in his faith in high school, by University Vernon felt called to be a priest, even though he was reluctant. When its evident the priesthood isn't for him, Vernon goes on a spiritual and intellectual journey to figure out what he truly believes.

Spoiler alert: Today he's an atheist (and a bit of a nihilist). The journey is what we're here for.

This interview continues on Patreon

You can also watch this interview on YouTube.

You can find our merch in our Spreadshirt store

Join the Community on Discord

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Learn more on our official website

[00:00:12] Preston Meyer: All right. I see the red dot. That must mean we were recording now.

[00:00:16] Katie Dooley: Yeah. We're live. Preston, how are you?

[00:00:19] Preston Meyer: I'm doing great. How are you, Katie?

[00:00:21] Katie Dooley: I'm awesome. Mostly because we have another guest today on the. 

[00:00:26] Both Speakers: Holy Watermelon podcast.

[00:00:30] Preston Meyer: I don't think we synced up very well at all this time. Oh, well.

[00:00:33] Katie Dooley: No, it's hard when we're recording. Welcome to Vernon. Vernon is...

[00:00:38] Preston Meyer: Hi!

[00:00:39] Katie Dooley: Vernon is a good friend of mine. I didn't ask you for a bio. What do you want us to tell people about yourself before we get into the nitty gritty of your.

[00:00:48] Vernon Boldick: Oh. Thank you. Uh, yeah. My name is Vernon. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be on the Holy Watermelon Podcast. I heard a lot of good things. Listened to it. Uh, something to subscribe to. I a little bit about me. So my background is really theater and acting and performance. Um, and as we're going to talk about Catholic Church as well. And so we got a lot of, uh, you know, that's I think, a good place to play my background is that I really like to perform, and I think that's part of what attracted me to what we're going to talk about.

[00:01:21] Katie Dooley: Awesome. Do you want to talk about any current projects or want to leave? Want to leave that out?

[00:01:27] Vernon Boldick: Uh, I'm going to leave it out for now, but I appreciate the general, uh, offer to promote myself within your show.

[00:01:34] Katie Dooley: I mean...

[00:01:35] Preston Meyer: No shame

[00:01:36] Katie Dooley: Right? We promote ourselves every episode.

[00:01:39] Vernon Boldick: As you should. Uh, click like, if you like this. 

[00:01:44] Katie Dooley: I mean, yeah, seriously. Click like. Uh, yeah. So we're going to get started. We wanted to have Vernon on our podcast because he's had a really interesting journey from the Catholic Church, and now he identifies as an atheist. But you got really deep into the Catholic Church. Is that the right way to word it?

[00:02:07] Vernon Boldick: You know, it's funny. People will say stuff like that. And I'm like, no, not really. But like, I guess I did compared to a lot of people like you don't think it when you're living it. It's like, this is just who I am. I'm just a guy who does rosary every day and goes to church and prays multiple times a day, and that's just who I am. And people are like, oh, that's really extreme. I'm like, no, but I guess on vantage point, yeah. To me, I was just another guy.

[00:02:34] Preston Meyer: An awful lot of people only go to church on Christmas and Easter. So relatively speaking, to go as far as you did. That's extreme for a lot of people.

[00:02:44] Vernon Boldick: Yeah, it really is. And you don't think about that. You're right. Like the C and E Christians as they're called, right?

[00:02:49] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:02:50] Vernon Boldick: And uh, or whatever term, there's lots out there. And, uh, we always hated those ones, right? Because they're not the true. Judge them. When when every time you're in mass, you're like, "you're not here normally. Get out of here!" That's how Jesus would have wanted it, right?

[00:03:08] Preston Meyer: Those are just great days for collection.

[00:03:10] Vernon Boldick: I think.

[00:03:12] Katie Dooley: Yeah, you're.

[00:03:12] Vernon Boldick: The Catholic Church needs more money, so I'm glad that they're getting it.

[00:03:18] Katie Dooley: So, I mean, let's start off. Were you raised in a Catholic household? What was your childhood like?

[00:03:25] Vernon Boldick: Oh, man. I get in a therapy session for.

[00:03:27] Katie Dooley: I mean, good thing your wife's a therapist.

[00:03:30] Vernon Boldick: Yeah. So it's weird, you know, like, yes and no. Like, I was definitely raised in a Christian household, and it was Catholic, but it wasn't Catholic. It was. My dad was United. My mom was Catholic. Uh, my dad eventually kind of lost. Lost favor? Not favor, but he just didn't like the United Church after a while, he felt that they were a bit. They weren't a good place to raise your children in. And so we were raised in the Catholic Church, but at the same time, we we never went like, I wasn't, uh, baptized in the Catholic Church or confirmed until I was 16 years old. Right. It was never like it was something to do, but it was never the thing. So yeah, I was raised in a Christian household, but I got more of my my Christian upbringing from my, my Nana, uh, my mom's mom, uh, who was very Catholic and, uh, definitely was one of my first memories, uh, with God and religion comes with a memory of with her. And I would say after that, once my sister got to university, I was in grade nine or so, grade 11, no, grade nine. And then she joined, uh, Christian or Christian Catholic Outreach, CCO, which is uh, group that's on university campuses across Canada. I think maybe in the States that those two were CCO, and my Nana were probably my two biggest Catholic influences, even more than my parents or the household that I was raised in.

[00:04:56] Preston Meyer: Okay, so at what point did you decide to devote your life to God a little bit more.

[00:05:02] Vernon Boldick: I was thinking, you know, like, when did I decide to devote my... And I think everybody probably has different answers. Like, if you're a born again Christian, maybe you have this eureka moment when the light shines through your window and you're like, ah, God is speaking to me. I never I can't say I had that. I had moments for sure when I have memories, but when I have moments when I have memories, I have moments that were definitely affected me from a religious sense. But I also had like on a daily basis when you would just renew yourself with God, right? And it would be a chance to reopen that relationship and to build that relationship like that. First time I prayed again with my Nana visiting her cottage in Hidden Valley just by Siksika Nation, uh, down, uh, by Strathmore down in Alberta. Siksika Nation is a wonderful place and they are a wonderful First Nation here in Canada. A bunch of bunch of stuff just in the news about them really quickly, where they just got a bunch of their artifacts back from, from the United Kingdom, which is fantastic. That's a side note that I think is really exciting. But yeah, so I was with my grandma, my nana, and we were praying and she I never she taught me to pray and taught me who God was. And I hated it. I didn't want to pray to God. I wanted to play games. I didn't want anything to do with God. I was 5 or 6. I had no interest in God. But I ended up praying that night and I remembered that. And I remember, you know, growing up, I was never the cool kid. I was never the popular kid. I was very much an outsider. And so I would often find myself praying to God. And God had been the one, you know, friend I had. And so I would talk to God and speak to God. And I remember having dreams where I'd see Jesus or I'd see different, um, religious kind of things with religious connotations. I felt that that was God talking to me and speaking to me. And I remember one time, the first time I was probably about 19. I had this dream, and in this dream I was, I was... It didn't feel like a dream. I had been laying in bed and I wasn't asleep. And then all of a sudden my room went black. It was midday, but the room went black. And then I just felt this. This thing on my chest, just trying to gnaw and scratch into it and break into it and it was... I interpreted it as a demon trying to break into me and gnaw me, and I felt like I must be on the right path. If demons are attacking me, and I didn't really learn about sleep paralysis until much later, and really, that's what that was, was a moment of sleep paralysis. Um, but I would continue to have sleep paralysis on a multiple times in a month as I grew, as you know, in my, my early 20s and late teens and for a while first, when it started, I was very much a religious experience to me. And so that's another thing that I would count towards that. And of course, I think the biggest one that, uh, religious experience to me, uh, was on a trip with uh with CCO, Christian Catholic Outreach, we'll give them a shout out here. And um, I was in grade 11, so I actually wasn't in university, but my sister was going to Vancouver on a retreat called Rise Up, which is their big Christmas get together, where you get all the university students to a hotel and celebrating God. And so my sister asked if I wanted to join, and I said, yeah, why not? I mean, I Vancouver is pretty cool as a kid, and I grew up in a town of 300 people, so it was really cool to go to Vancouver. But I went to this, this retreat to Rise Up and I remember, like, praying cause I was in grade 11 and you're like, what am I going to do with my life? I'm going to do I go to university? Grade 12. Right up next, what am I doing with my life? And I prayed and I prayed and I prayed and I said, God, what do you want me to do with my life? Send me a sign. I need something, please. And the next day, no sign. Nothing happened. So I was like, oh, well, I'll just, uh, I'll keep trying to figure it out. And then eventually it got the next day. I actually had a priest come up to me and just randomly say, you should be a priest. Now, I don't know if priests just do this and this is the way they recruit. They go up to young men and say, hey, you look like a good priest. But to me, that was that sign from God. And it was very much a real moment for me and at the same time, I'd been sharing a hotel room with two other men who were in the seminary and just really just kind of hit me. I'm like, yeah, this is definitely God speaking to me, saying, you should go be a priest and you should go to the seminary. Um, and I didn't like that. I really didn't want to be a priest. I it's not that I was in any way like a ladies man or anything like that. I was terrified of women. I had never had a girlfriend at that time in my life. Um, I didn't know how to speak to women. And I didn't want to be a priest because I really wanted a relationship. You know, it was an interesting time. And so I fought that. I fought it for quite a while. Um, because it happened in grade 11, and I didn't actually end up going to seminary until what would have been my second or third year of university. Really? So, you know, 3 or 4 years in between that first calling and actually taking the plunge.

[00:10:06] Preston Meyer: Wow. Cool.

[00:10:08] Katie Dooley: I was just going to say, has everyone seen It's Always Sunny and Rickety Cricket? Is that you, Vernon?

[00:10:18] Vernon Boldick: I can't confirm or deny.

[00:10:21] Preston Meyer: Oh, no. Oh. Poor Cricket.

[00:10:25] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Oh, boy. Sorry you had another question, Preston?

[00:10:32] Preston Meyer: So what is the difference between Discernment House and Seminary?

[00:10:37] Vernon Boldick: Oh, that's a great question. Okay. So the Discernment House and a seminary, a seminary is where you actually go and you take your classes and you do all your work. And I think it's like 7 or 8 years. And I think you get a master's in theology, or you do all that work and it's really, you know, it's like a Priest's university, if you will. It's where you go to learn discernment house is you don't stay there nearly as long. You're not even there probably for a year. And really, it's a place where you you go and it's kind of like the seminary with training wheels. Right? And you kind of go and talk. There's a priest there. He's a leader, he's a guide. And you talk with him. You take part in doing mass and doing all these different things. And you think a lot about is the priesthood where I want to go, do I actually want to go to seminary? And so, um, it's kind of like that first step to the priesthood and not, not not all all seminarians go to the discernment house. Some go right to the seminary because they just they know. Um, so it's kind of it's it's an option.

[00:11:40] Preston Meyer: Like an aptitude test.

[00:11:43] Vernon Boldick: It... You know what, as we're going to talk about this, it very much so.

[00:11:47] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:11:48] Vernon Boldick: Um, I yeah.

[00:11:50] Preston Meyer: I don't think I've ever actually heard of a discernment house. I've heard of a lot of people who just go to seminary, and maybe some of them did the Discernment House thing. I don't know, but I don't think I've ever heard of it in discussion.

[00:12:00] Vernon Boldick: I think by and far, I think most people just go off to the seminary. Those of us who are a little bit more not sure. Uh, we'll go to the Discernment House.

[00:12:09] Preston Meyer: I guess it's a good thing that's an option that makes good sense to me.

[00:12:13] Vernon Boldick: Yeah. In in practice and in theory, it's a great idea.

[00:12:17] Katie Dooley: I have other follow-up questions, but I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. Maybe we want to talk about the moment you decided to go to the Discernment House, and then I can and talk about your experiences there, then I can sure make follow-up questions.

[00:12:33] Vernon Boldick: Yeah. So I think the moments leading up to that, um, I was I was taking a psych course in university. Uh, it was an abnormal psychology class, uh, which is a fantastic class to take. And I highly recommend to anybody, uh, because then at least we can learn what to call OCD and what not to. Because most of us are saying it the wrong way, but that's a whole nother story. As I just read, I'm sorry about that. So I was taking this abnormal psychology class and I had a paper and it was to do, you know, pick whatever and do a do a write up on it. So I picked schizoid personality disorder. I found it very interesting and I was really wanting to learn more about it. And so like any good kid that would do in like 2010, I just went to YouTube and typed in schizoid personality disorder. I didn't know where to start my research, and I came across this girl who's about a year older than me, who in the video she talked about having schizoid personality disorder. Now, she did not have schizoid personality disorder. And she would later on say, yeah, I didn't have that. I thought I did, didn't. And she was just amazing, interesting person. Uh, she was in Australia and I just found myself enamoured with her. I very much had a crush, I would say. But everything she talked about. And then I found out she was an atheist who had once been Christian. And Katie, how dare she! The nerve! And I found that. I thought that was so interesting. And I would listen to her. And we actually had a lot of good conversations talking about religion and talking about, like, Batman comics and everything from there to here. And it was really, it was really nice. And the more I talked to her, the more I felt compelled by God to go to the seminary. And I'll tell you a funny story with that, too. Like, you start to see how humans are fantastic seeing patterns. Right? And so I started to see patterns in everything. I saw patterns in like she was from Australia. And I would go into Wikipedia and there'd be all these stories about Australia and like, how is this not God talking to me? It is kind of where I was at. And and you kind of laugh, but like, you really you feel that because it is God. And that's what makes sense, even if it is not right. And you learn about all these things, about pattern recognition later on. And, you know, I remember like, yeah, just weird things like looking at the tires and seeing the tires would have her name on it, on people's cars. And I'd be like, whoa. And it just so happens that there's a Kelly tire. And, you know, lots of cars have those, but you didn't recognize that it's a sign from God. So I kind of felt like at that point I was like, okay, I can't ignore this. I was doing not so great at university. And the professor for the that class was actually a Catholic professor. And she kind of went and we talked about it and she was kind of like really inspired me to do that as well. Now, at the same time, one thing you don't know about discernment houses maybe, or even seminaries at least this is how it was for me. I don't know if it's how it was for everybody. I actually had to get a priest to recommend me to go to the Discernment House. So I had to go and speak to a priest who had gotten a pretty good relationship with, who had also been a professor at the university. His name was Father Ed, and he is a really good man, a fantastic man. If we have time, I can tell you. Father Ed's joke that he told me the first time I met him, it's really good and I think people find it really funny. But I don't want to. We don't want to get too much off track, but it's a great joke. Uh, coming... An you remember when I tell you it's coming from a Catholic priest. So he he was kind of like the bad boy, Catholic priest, Father Ed. The university students, because the way it was, I went to the University of Saskatoon and it's, uh, partnered with Saint Thomas Moore College, and they're both right there. Saint Thomas More College, obviously Catholic. I... They would offer mass. And if Father Ed was there, all the CC0 people didn't like him. They would leave because he wasn't a true Catholic. Uh, he didn't believe in he or he believed rather in gay marriage. He believed in abortion. He was he was the priest who taught those things. So he actually maybe this is kind of somewhat, uh, a sign here that this man is telling saying, yeah, Vernon should go, uh, to become a priest. So he gave that and he sent it off to the to the Discernment House and they approved it, and I ended up there. Uh, and I think it was September of 2010 or 2009. I can't remember, but that's when I ended up at the Discernment House.

[00:16:58] Katie Dooley: And then what happened?

[00:17:01] Vernon Boldick: Uh, I just don't I can keep speaking, but I don't want to, like, you know, an hour later and you're like, hey, Vernon, we have questions.

[00:17:09] Katie Dooley: No, my questions still need your experience at the Discernment House.

[00:17:13] Preston Meyer: Okay, good.

[00:17:13] Katie Dooley: Unless Preston wants to jump in with anything.

[00:17:15] Preston Meyer: I think if you just keep talking for an hour, hopefully in that time you'll cover our questions. Go for it.

[00:17:21] Vernon Boldick: It might happen. So, yeah, I went off to the discernment house, and I remember as I was traveling, it was in Calgary and I was still in Saskatoon at university, and I was driving my lovely Pontiac Wave to the... From Saskatoon to Calgary, which is about a seven-hour drive of flat, flat prairie. Uh, and then for a little bit, you get some hoodoos, uh, but mostly flat prairie. And I just remember, like, I was going, uh, having this conversation in my head about, okay, I'm going the discernment house, I'm doing God's will, and I have this relationship with God. And God has shown me so many times that this is what he wants. And I've tried to run from it. Right. And we think of all the prophets and all the people in the Bible, and they run from God and God's, "no, you're going to go here", right? We read all those stories, and you can't help but think, this is my story, too. And you really start to personalize it because it is personal. It's yours. And I start going off on this trip and I'm just like, I just probably for about an hour, I start shouting like, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. I do not want to do this. And just expletives like everywhere. I truly didn't want to do it, but I felt compelled. I felt called by God. I felt that this was and I wasn't doing great in university. I wasn't interested in what I was. I was taking psychology and I just wasn't interested in writing papers. I'm still not interested in writing papers. I think psychology is a phenomenal field. I know it's a great field. Anyways, I just I needed something and this was just something that I got was God. And I remember, like, at one point in university, I'd been walking around campus and I was like, I need to be good at something. If if I want to grow and and be successful, I need to be good at something. I was thinking about what am I good at? And the only thing I could come up with is I'm good at being Catholic. I follow all the rules and I have a really good relationship with God. I pray and I love God. God loves me and we're so close. And I have these beautiful moments in prayer when I. I find myself in tears because I just feel. I feel God's presence. I feel him enveloping me. And it's so poignant and so powerful. How could I be anything but called to be good with God, and to follow God, and to pray and to and to tell his stories and to, to, to to go and feed the hungry and help the sick and to go find that one, right? And there's that one song I was listening to about. I forget what it's called, one of those Christian groups. It's probably from Hillsong, to be honest. If you watch that Hillsong documentary. Um, so it was just all these powerful things in my mind, in my heart, where I felt like, I don't want this, but God will make sense of it for me. And it was that ability, like, that's what you're taught, right? Like, follow God, be humble, allow yourself to to give up your free will. Right? And God will give you riches you cannot imagine. Right? And and I've always been like, I read the Bible, I've read the complete Bible. And it's like I, I wasn't very Christian. I read the whole Bible. Like how many Christians read the whole Bible like, and I and I would go to like Bible studies and I would do all this. And it was just in this moment as I'm driving from Saskatoon to Calgary. I didn't want to be there, but I felt I felt God was with me and I felt God would make sense of all this and God would help me. So I... To this discernment house in Calgary. So my parents actually came with me to drop me off because they're loving parents. We actually went to, uh, Japanese Village that night to celebrate, little shout out for Japanese Village, and we then went to the seminary or to the Discernment House rather. I dropped off, I moved in, and I met the head priest there, and I'd met him before, a few times before. He was. He's well known. Uh, the way the Catholic Church works is there's dioceses. So the Calgary diocese is where this is centered in. And I had grown up in the Calgary diocese. Uh, even though it was a small town that, uh, covers quite a large area. And so I had known this priest for a while. We'd had been connected. My nana knew him. Uh, she thought very highly of this man. Uh, she had gone to, uh, a pilgrimage with him to Rome many years ago. Uh, so he was a he was a very well respected priest, and I, I met him, and I paint this picture, I think, to give everything justice. You have to remember, like I was even though I'd been in Saskatoon. Saskatoon was a big city to me, right? Imagine what Calgary was. But here I was. And part of the part of the thing that you had to do, they wanted you to have a job when you got to the Discernment House. Now, I hadn't had a job. I was just finished university, uh, or finished that those semesters. And so I hadn't actually, I'd applied for some, but I hadn't had a job yet. So that was, I think, one thing where he saw was like, that's not good. You were supposed to have that by now. Um, I think that might have been a failing in his eye. And I can't say that for sure, because he also said not everybody gets a job right away and you can take your time to get it. But he was a tall, intimidating man. Uh, he he was a lawyer, uh, before he became a priest. He was a smart man. And I was terrified of him. Just terrified and not because he did or said anything to me, but because I tend to give people a lot of respect if I admire them and if I want to be like them. And so I didn't know how to act around him because I just wanted to impress him. I don't know if I ever did. Uh, my one of my very first things that I remember with him was, uh, he was gone and the phone was ringing, and I was like, do I answer the phone? Do I let the phone go to message? And I was having an anxie--, like, anxiety about this. Like, Will he be mad if I don't answer it? Should I answer it? It shows boldness if I answer it right. So I should definitely answer it so he can see that I'm I'm an initiative type of man. So I went and answered it and I took a message. And uh, later that day he said, just let it go to voicemail. I felt so defeated. So I ended up, you know, having, uh, I spent four and a half days at the discernment house before he kind of came to me and said, Vernon, can you come into my office? Once that happened, like, you kind of get that sinking feeling. You're like, oh, something's not right. Because that's not the way that this normally goes. Now every day what we do is first thing in the morning, you get up and you do mass together. You have Eucharist, which is very important in the Catholic tradition. You would, uh, have an opportunities to have time to be just with the Eucharist as well. And just in, in, in, in no one else around you and just to be with God. And so that's how I spent most of my evenings. And there was a library. So I spent a lot of time reading, and I spent some time talking with him, too. We talked about just trying to get to know each other. You know, he was a big Raiders fan. I wasn't much of a football fan at the time, but it's good to know. I remember that we talked about hockey. We talked about working out. We talked about all kinds of things. We talked about, you know, what I was feeling and how I was feeling I was doing at the Discernment House. And when I was going to get a job, I was applying to a lot of places like I would one time I took I called a taxi because, uh, I was I didn't know Calgary very well, so I thought I'd take a taxi and go. I figured if I was going to going to go drop off resumes or whatever. And so then there's a taxi at the door and he says, who called a taxi? And I said, oh, I did, and apparently I had answered him in a way that he felt was very disrespectful. And I would learn this later. Um, so I think we got off to this wrong foot kind of situation where I just don't think he understood who I was or, you know, my fear of him, my intimidation, being intimidated of him. I think maybe he saw that as me being rude or disrespectful. So this day comes and he says, come into my office. I'm like, oh, okay. And he's just starting to start, like grilling me, you know, asking me what kind of music do I listen to? What if in saying that I have an attitude problem and that I would be I bring, I bring, I'd separate a church if I was ever a part of it, I'd wreck it, I'd wreck havoc on it. And then he asked me if I'd ever been a member of the occult, which was an interesting moment. I hadn't been, and I was just terrified of the man. So I was basically in tears at this point. I just, you know, it kind of hits you and you're like, I'm not wanted here. And he talks about going to talk to Bishop Henry at the time in Calgary. And for those who don't know, Bishop Henry was the bishop of the Calgary diocese. And he was, uh, very outspoken, uh, for family values, family traditions. Very... People know Bishop Henry when they hear that name. So he talked about the bishop to the bishop about me, which is insane that like, why is little old Vernon matter enough to the bishop? But apparently I did, which is kind of neat and cool. And the bishop and him kind of felt like that maybe this wasn't my calling. And so I was very much encouraged to leave after four and a half days. And, you know, it hurt me at the time. And I was in a lot of pain and a lot like I cried and cried and cried. And my aunt, uh, came and picked me up. Which I was very grateful for, uh, shout out to Auntie Margo. And so I kind of camped out at her house for a little while, but I remember, like, later on, you know, four and a half days, and this guy's telling me, like, I have an attitude problem. I have this and that. And really, I was just a frightened child who had never been in a big city. And not to say I'll just if he was, I'd love for him to be on here and say, you know, Vernon, this is the perspective I had. And I actually I did call him up two years later to talk about this. And we'll get to that. I'd love to hear his perspective because I don't get what happened. I, I do not get what happened. Like I didn't like sorry to the viewers. Um, but I like to make this joke like I'm like a 20-year-old boy at this time, man, young man. And, you know, I went like a week without masturbating. Like, that was hard. Like, I was really involved with this. Like, I was trying my best. I don't think he realized that. And maybe I should have said, you know, Father Myles, I haven't masturbated for a week for you. Uh, well, for, you know. But I didn't say that. Maybe I could say that now.

[00:27:35] Preston Meyer: Would it have helped?

[00:27:40] Vernon Boldick: I mean, I don't know. Maybe I went a week and I shouldn't have. Who knows? Um, but, yeah, like a lot of people, like my friends and family from this will wonder, like what happened in there. And I don't have an answer as to what happened. You know, you read like, uh, or like, this was going with my earlier, and I got off on a tangent. I met a gentleman years later who had been in and out of jail and done all kinds of things, and he went and found himself at a Bible school. And, uh, the, the pastor in charge of the Bible school kept on letting him come back and come back after mistake after mistake after mistake. And I'm like, that's isn't that more of Jesus to be like, hey, you messed up, but I forgive you and I love you opposed to "have you been in the occult?" Right? And it's like these two versions of men of God are very different. But I mean, I think I definitely have some anger still at what happened to me, because I felt like there was an injustice done. So I do come here with a lot of bias to your listeners who are wondering, I know I'm very biased and I'd love to hear his idea of what happened. I did call him up two years later because I just I wanted to get this out of me because it just didn't sit right. This whole experience, because I'm not a bad person, I'm I'm not disobedient. I'm not, well, maybe I'm now, I'm not I don't have an attitude problem again maybe I do now. I wouldn't bring dissension upon a church. I love the church. And so I called him up a couple years later, and he just one of the first things he said to me was like, just talking to me. He's like, I can tell that you're a very different person now. And you, you you sound a lot more mature. And I just... How can you tell that from a phone call? And where is that coming from? And like, I was that same person, I hadn't changed. I had not changed at all and very fact, like I definitely have changes in my life, but I still feel very much the same person today that I was back then. You know, I'm a lot more social. I'm a lot more confident in who I am. But the base values have not changed.

[00:29:51] Katie Dooley: Um, could you describe like, is it discernment house? Like just a house, like a single family home? Or is it like a dormitory? Like what is like paint a picture for our listeners.

[00:30:03] Vernon Boldick: Yeah, that's a great question. So it was a house. It has a backyard. It had a barbecue. We would barbecue our meals. Um, there I think there's like 4 or 5 rooms. There was a bit of a library in it. There was... It was right next to a lovely Korean church, our Korean Catholic Church. And that's where we would do our mass right next door to it. It was it was. Yeah. It was very much a family home. It was, uh, you know, I had my own bedroom. I had a bathroom downstairs to myself. But it was really just like there's a laundry there. And if, you know, like in schools, they have like the they're separated the stalls. It was just a toilet stall like that. And that was my bathroom downstairs. So it hadn't been renovated, but it was just a it was just a house.

[00:30:46] Katie Dooley: Okay. I was just curious.

[00:30:48] Vernon Boldick: Yeah. Yeah. Um, and like, I, like I said, I spent a lot of time at my time just reading. And maybe that was one thing. Maybe I wasn't social enough because I kind of. I was scared of everyone. I spent a lot of time just reading. And at this time, too, I was, um and this is why I think a lot of people don't know who know me. I was already starting to question, uh, some of the Catholic teachings. Prior to that, I had had a... I was in. Oh, my terrible... I forget all my Catholic, uh, sacraments here when I was confessing my sins to a priest and I confessed that, uh, I, I was questioning God, and I questioned Catholicism. I talked to them and I thought, like, I'm definitely going to have some type of penance to do here. And I remember him saying, and this is a different priest. He said, you know, Vernon, it's okay to question this. You're going to. That's normal. And I walked away with that being like, huh? And I continued doing a lot of questioning. This girl who I mentioned earlier from Australia, who was who had at one point done the schizoid video, schizoid personality. She, um, I think I start questioning a lot from her, too, and seeing her path that she took. Starting to question my own faith. And I, as Catholics, the Catholic Church as a whole accepts evolution. I grew up in a house that didn't believe in evolution, so I didn't believe in evolution. I remember I was I was really interested in this, and I felt that the the right answer like, if evolution was real, then how could God be real? And I was reading all kinds of books. Um, I remember the one that I read, uh, by Carl Sagan was, I forget the title of it... Uh, Dragons of Eden or Dragons of Paradise, I can't remember. And reading about evolution in there. And that started to really change my direction and started me on the road of questioning. You know, if evolution is real and if all these things have happened, how can God be real? And then, you know, reading books about the universe and how the universe began, it got very, very philosophical. And I didn't at first, you know, I was doing this while I was at the Discernment House. I don't think that he ever picked up. We never talked about it, and I wouldn't have a lot of books that said, hey, I'm questioning everything right now. And maybe he picked up on it in a way that I could never know. Maybe God told him. He said, this guy is not right. So I, I left that and I was still questioning my faith even throughout that whole experience. And that really, I think, kind of shook it too, as I started to see this and I started thinking about all these different people who call themselves Christians, who really didn't practice in the way of Christ. And it just disillusioned me more and more and more. And I thought, well, maybe. And maybe I'm not a religious Christian. Maybe I'm a spiritual Christian, a non-denominational Christian. That's what all the cool kids are. They can tell themselves how great they are without having to say they're religious. I did a bunch of readings on that. I went to some other churches. I remember I went to I went to an Alliance church. I went to all kinds of different churches. I started reading the Quran. I started reading the Bhagavad Gita, the Talmud, everything, every kind of religious text. I was searching for answers. And I, I lost that, that faith in Christianity. And I a couple times like it came back, right? Because I didn't want to let it go. It was so important to me. It was literally my core. It was who I was. It's how I identified. And I think anytime a person loses their identity is tragic, because if you don't have an identity, what do you have? And I remember one time just praying to this God I no I no longer believed in saying, I don't want to wake up tomorrow. It was too hard to believe to, to, to. It was too hard to live because the promises that God gives you are amazing. Like eternal life. Being with your family, being with your loved ones, getting to see the progression of humanity, the fact that justice will be done. I mean, those to me were were so great and to lose all of this was... I lost myself. And I think for a time I definitely had a period of of depression. I was never I never went to a therapist to diagnose me with that. But, uh, from what I know of depression, I was very much depressed. I didn't go outside, I didn't eat, I didn't talk to people, I slept, and I slept some more. I didn't I didn't know how to function. Yeah, it was just it was it was a painful experience. Like, I do not wish that on anyone. Losing your your faith. Losing God is the worst thing that can happen in my mind to a person. When you have that relationship, there's nothing better to believe that there's this being who loves you unconditionally and wants the best for you and is walking there with you. And this being is all mighty and all powerful. And to lose that was was literally to lose myself. And so I probably went for, you know, 2 or 3 years of just this back and forth of, okay, I'm a non-denominational Christian. Oh, I know, maybe I'm a deist. You know, maybe there's a God once, but he kind of left us. Um, maybe I'm agnostic and then maybe I'm an atheist. And then at this point, when I'm kind of getting to be an atheist, I ended up meeting this, this lovely young woman and falling in love with her. And she was very Christian. And her, her Christian faith was very important to her. And so I wanted to have that so that I could connect with her in that way. So I started going to church again. I started reading all these, like these, these, these books that by Christian authors and doing all that I could. And in the end, it just it didn't work. I couldn't I couldn't go back to Christianity. I couldn't go back to religion because I just felt that it was not scientifically accurate. It was it was outdated and it was it wasn't who I was anymore. And so I needed to go become who I was. And that took some time to figure out that. I think that's still something I still learn. You know, I, I, I remember like seeing and talking to people about their changes of faith, whether becoming religious or leaving religion. And I always I'm so fascinated by these people's stories because some of them change it so fast and so quickly. Some of them are like ten years old and they're like, I knew this. Then I was like, wow, I did not. Um, either way, right, to become religious or to leave religion. And some people, it takes a lifetime. And for me, I find I definitely ascribe myself to atheism and I, I still have moments where it's like, that really sucks because I don't like what that means for the future, because it means that, you know, I'm a very much a nihilistic atheist where it's like, well, I don't know if good will happen. I don't know. And then, of course, you know, I debate this like, oh, you have so you say good. Well, that must mean, right? And you kind of like, have these internal I have these internal dialogs all the time. But yeah, that's kind of a very quick and fast story to where I am now and how I got there.

[00:38:04] Katie Dooley: I totally feel you, Vernon. I think I was saying to Preston the other day, it's like, I don't like that there's nothing after this, but it is what it is. That doesn't mean I don't. It's not a nice belief to hold, but it's the belief I hold. Morbid, but yeah, that's what it is, right?

[00:38:21] Vernon Boldick: It's like I would absolutely wish to have something better than this because it's not fun. It's not great. It was it was so lovely to have those times when you could pray to God and and you felt like I said, like I would truly have moments where my eyes like I would maybe this is I should get my eyes checked, but like, I would have these moments when my like, my eyes would become this luminous light would be around me and I would have these moments of just being feeling warm inside and just these, these transcendent moments of just feeling God's love. And you're like, go and learn about your brain and brain chemistry and and how your brain can do all kinds of wonderful things. I happen to choose to believe that that is, you know, neurons and all these different things, synapses firing. Some people decide to believe that that's God. And I mean, I don't... We disagree, but hopefully we can live together in some type of harmony.

[00:39:17] Preston Meyer: Belief is a pretty tricky thing. I'm inclined to believe that a lot of the things that that we believe aren't chosen, but they're just kind of hoisted upon us as we see evidence for things. When you have, uh, what's the word I'm looking for? A lack of evidence. Because the other word I'm looking for. If you don't see the evidence that you're looking for, it's hard to believe in the thing that that evidence should be testifying of. So losing faith is perfectly reasonable, it would seem, since there's not a lot of solid, concrete, empirical evidence of very many religious doctrines.

[00:39:57] Katie Dooley: It's called faith.

[00:39:58] Vernon Boldick: And that's that's the big thing, right? At the end of the day, I think if you are religious, the only way that I can truly understand someone being religious is, it is faith. They decide to say, I don't know, I can't know, I trust, and I have faith. Right? Because if we I if we debate it from a purely empirical lens, I don't think you can prove it. It has to be something that is faith. And maybe there's people out there saying, no, you, you're wrong. And this and I'd love to hear I don't know if I actually would, but there's lots of people with a really good. And that's the one thing I started doing right, is I read these books. I read by all these really intelligent authors, and I came to this point where I was like, there are people who are far more intelligent than me, which isn't that hard, that are going to be Christian, they're going to be Muslim, they're going to be Jewish. They're also going to be atheists. And there are people who are a lot dumber than me, who are all going to be all those as well. And it's it's not a matter of intelligence and being smarter than someone. And I used to love I still love a good debate and I love going to debates. I remember one time, uh, University of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, had a debate featuring William Lane Craig, who is a well known Christian apologist. Uh, very smart man. He could debate you into a circle if he wanted. And I just like, after a while, I was like, it doesn't matter how smart you are and how intelligent you are, it is about faith. It's about making that choice, I think part of me hopes that there is something out there. I don't believe there is. But that's all you have at the end of the day. Do you have hope? Maybe. Maybe something. My hope right now is that, uh, you know, maybe many, many millennia down the road, people will be like, hey, we can bring people back to life, and I'll get brought back to life, and I can see all the wonders of humanity and where we went and where we went wrong, and how we got back up and how the the birds overruled us. And then it was the giraffes and all those other Futurama references. But that's that's kind of where I'm at now.

[00:41:55] Preston Meyer: I guess I'm a little bit of a pessimist. I see the future like that, and there's no way they'd be bringing me back.

[00:42:03] Vernon Boldick: Yeah, yeah, I just yeah.

[00:42:05] Katie Dooley: I would upload my brain to the cloud.

[00:42:08] Vernon Boldick: Right?

[00:42:09] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's the way.

[00:42:10] Katie Dooley: If that's an option, I totally would do it.

[00:42:12] Vernon Boldick: Uh, that's just going to cost lots of money so we can all see Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk in the future, but maybe not ourselves.

[00:42:20] Katie Dooley: Hey, I still got like, I hope, 70 years to make a bunch of money and have the technology become cheap enough that I can upload my brain to the cloud.

[00:42:29] Vernon Boldick: Please put mine in the cloud too.

[00:42:31] Katie Dooley: Oh, absolutely.

[00:42:32] Vernon Boldick: Thank you.

[00:42:34] Preston Meyer: Our whole digital footprint, everything that we leave behind on the internet that will help inform our digital brain. So maybe we're helping you be immortal right now.

[00:42:45] Vernon Boldick: Uh, and, you know, as you mentioned, like that digital footprint. And I think, like, sometimes, like, it's so interesting, like when we think about, like, anthropology now and how we went and we dust off all these things and we learn about humans from millennia ago. But now we, like, have all these things on the internet. And you're thinking like my dumb tweet when I was in grade 12, like some poor person is going to be like, what does this mean? And then they're going to write, uh, university classes about it, and they're going to talk about all the symbolism. And all it meant was that I was horny and dumb.

[00:43:20] Preston Meyer: The universal feelings of people that age.

[00:43:25] Katie Dooley: Vernon, how has your life changed post-Christianity? Or can you talk about some of the differences in your community or your family from when you were a Catholic to now that you're an atheist?

[00:43:38] Vernon Boldick: Yeah, I mean, in some ways it hasn't changed at all. In some ways, it's changed drastically, right? I still think my core self is very much the same person. I'm a fun loving person. I like to joke around. I like to have fun. I like to just, you know, I like sports. I like all these different. All my hobbies and interests are more or less the same. You know, like all my interests are the same. Like they haven't changed drastically. I'm more I'm far more outgoing and far more confident. Like I said earlier, um, with my family, I have a very loving family, a very kind family, a very good family. It was hard for me to, you know, quote unquote, come out as an atheist, if I can use that term. But that's what it very much was. It was hard because I, I felt I was letting my family down. I felt like I was letting my parents down. I love them very much and it shows. You know, I didn't want to disappoint my parents and I felt like I was doing that. Um, and my family really likes a good debate, so of course, that comes with debate. And, uh, we would do that and but in a loving, respectful way, I would add, like it was never, you know, you need to do this, you're going to hell! I never got that from my family. I was very fortunate. A lot of people get that. I never got that I never got. You're going to get cut off from us or anything like that, like Christmas and stuff like that. I had already started being, like, hating Christmas, and I very much still do, but not because it's a Christian holiday. I hate Christmas because of the commercialism. It is so anti Jesus and I hate it for that reason I love Jesus, I love what Jesus represents, but I really hate. And I at the time I really hated Christmas. So my family is used to me not liking Christmas and other Christian holidays. You know, I... Easter. I think that Easter kind of grew out of as chocolate wasn't for you, and it was started to be for the younger kids. I didn't really care about Easter, but it was. I can't say in those senses nothing changed. But in my perspective, you know, of being hopeful and joyous. That changed. Like, I'm very much more nihilistic and I very much more hopeless general feeling. And that affects my mental health and that affects my well-being. You know, those are things that then I have to go to therapy for and talk through and work on, because that impacts me every day. Like, if you ever talk to my wife, she'll probably be like, if you ask her. Like, what are Vernon's most common thoughts? One of my very most common thoughts is death. So it's you know, I didn't have that before because it didn't matter. Death was exciting, you know, because I get to be. And that's another thing. Why isn't death more exciting to Christians and other religious people? You get to be with God, but now it's not. It's not so exciting because it's the end of everything I know. Everything I love and I really love life. There's so much beauty in it. And so much wonder in it. And it really sucks that one day I won't get this. I won't get to see where where humanity goes in the future. I won't get to see whether, you know, if we kill ourselves out with climate change or if we overcome that and we overcome aliens and all of that, I don't get I don't get to see the first time we make first contact. Um, unless Star Trek is right. And then I do. And I'm very excited for Zefram Cochrane, who might just be Elon Musk, and then maybe I'm not. But there we are. That's that's me in a nutshell. And this has been a lot of fun. So thank you.

[00:46:55] Katie Dooley: Awesome.

[00:46:56] Preston Meyer: Thank you so much for joining us.

[00:46:58] Katie Dooley: Did you want to pitch anything. Last chance.

[00:47:01] Vernon Boldick: Okay. So I do want to pitch one thing. If I can. Uh, for those of you who might have enjoyed me talking, I do have, uh, a podcast upcoming in the works, and that's going to be myself and a friend of mine that's going to be coming out, uh, probably, uh, in a month or so, we're going to have our first episode released. We're really excited for that. So, uh, I can't give you too much more details on that, but it's going to be basically two people talking and interviewing other people very much like this show, um, about a variety of topics about anything under the sun.

[00:47:34] Katie Dooley: Amazing. When it launches, please share in our Discord and we'd be happy to share it with our.

[00:47:40] Vernon Boldick: Oh yeah.

[00:47:41] Katie Dooley: Audience. Thank you.

[00:47:42] Vernon Boldick: Um, can I say hi to the discord?

[00:47:45] Katie Dooley: Yes, say.

[00:47:46] Vernon Boldick: I love I love your discord. I absolutely like the whole the Holy Watermelon discord is fantastic. So many good memes. So much like intelligent conversation. No, nobody like picking on each other or hating on each other. Uh, I absolutely love it. I wish that there was more hate mail or shade, as you call it, because.

[00:48:04] Preston Meyer: It's been awhile.

[00:48:05] Vernon Boldick: I actually don't want you to have that, but I've really enjoyed the one you had because it was funny. Yeah, I love your discord. Discord. The Holy Watermelon discord is one of the best discords I'm on.

[00:48:15] Katie Dooley: Thank you So.

[00:48:16] Preston Meyer: That's a great review. Thank you.

[00:48:18] Katie Dooley: Listeners, join us on Discord. We're also on Facebook and Instagram. We will have a part two of this interview available on our Patreon. If you want to subscribe for a small monthly fee or if a subscription model is not your thing, check out our Spreadshirt. Preston, we have some exciting stuff on our spreadshirt.

[00:48:40] Preston Meyer: Yeah, we've got all kinds of great designs, a few references, and callbacks to some of the great lines from a few episodes. We just released a brand new shirt for John the Baptist, the Hydra.

[00:48:56] Katie Dooley: Multi-headed John the Baptist.

[00:48:58] Vernon Boldick: It's very well done.

[00:48:59] Katie Dooley: It's pretty great.

[00:49:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Good stuff. So thank you very much.

[00:49:04] Both Speakers: Peace be with you.

The puritanical roots of western colonialism may have obscured this for some, but several religious traditions are tightly tied to the use of hallucinogenic substances. Some may find that their origins are reliant on them. In this week's episode, we explore the phenomenon, as well as a quick survey of those who might protest too much... and this time, Katie's had a bit to drink.

Entheogens are a trippy way into religion--or at least cosmic faith. Religious intoxicants aren't exactly common, but they're certainly not an oddity in the wide array of traditions on this planet. Sacraments can take a great variety of forms, from DMT to mescaline, to cannabis (marijuana), to mushrooms. Who are we to judge what others have believed for millennia? We look at sacraments of the Rastafarians, Indo-Arab Aryans, Wixáritari, and the Greeks. We also examine the American "Religious Freedom Restoration Act" of 1993.

All this and more....

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

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Learn more on our official website

[00:00:01] Katie Dooley: Hey Preston. 

[00:00:12] Preston Meyer: Hey, Katie. You look a little, uh, prepared.

[00:00:16] Katie Dooley: I am very prepared for today's episode. Accidentally prepared. Um, I'm so sorry. On today's episode of. 

[00:00:29] Both Speakers: The Holy Watermelon Podcast.

[00:00:32] Katie Dooley: So today we're talking about drugs and religion. I had a cider on an empty stomach, so I'm a little tipsy recording this. Oops. But let's just get. I'm just getting into character. Just getting into character for the today's episode. So sorry. Um.

[00:00:56] Preston Meyer: What's terrible is that if there's going to be positive feedback about. Hey, Katie should be tipsy more often for this show. We'll have so many episodes to record before this actually airs that it'll be a little bit weird going back to it.

[00:01:11] Katie Dooley: I like it. I approve. So people, including Katie have been altering their state of mind for a very long time. And for many different reasons. Some religions are entirely based on drug use, which we'll get into. And every religion has a stance on whether or not you should be taking drugs or alcohol. So I say this episode is about drugs, but we do address alcohol consumption as well.

[00:01:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah, so kind of interesting to go through and research all of this. I've learned a little bit more than I knew before.

[00:01:40] Katie Dooley: Yeah, absolutely. Especially I mean, I knew Christianity was a gray area of religion, but Hindu has a great stance.

[00:01:47] Preston Meyer: Mhm.

[00:01:49] Katie Dooley: Which we'll get into.

[00:01:50] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Let's start taking a look at those religions that are more generally opposed.

[00:01:58] Katie Dooley: Yeah. We're going to talk about, um, just the larger world religions that we talked about last year, as opposed because there's hundreds of religions that would take us forever to go through each stance. But we're going to go through the big, uh, I think big six today.

[00:02:15] Preston Meyer: All right. So Buddhism, if you remember our Buddhism episode numbers, is a big thing. And on the Eightfold Path there is a principle of right livelihood. And there's a few businesses they should avoid to be a quote unquote, good Buddhist.

[00:02:33] Katie Dooley: Yes. So to have your right livelihood.

[00:02:36] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:02:37] Katie Dooley: Now, quick, run through. Don't trade in weapons. Don't trade in human beings. Meat.

[00:02:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It expands into slave trading, prostitution. 

[00:02:52] Katie Dooley: And human trafficking.

[00:02:53] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Just generally...

[00:02:55] Katie Dooley: Don't buy and sell other people.

[00:02:57] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:02:58] Katie Dooley: It's terrible. Businesses in meat. Meat referring to the bodies of beings after they are killed. So, or breeding animals specifically for slaughter. So this is where obviously vegetarianism comes into Buddhism.

[00:03:12] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:03:13] Katie Dooley: And then the one that is relevant to this episode is Businesses in Intoxicants. So manufacturing or selling alcohol or drugs is prohibited. And then lastly businesses in poison. So any producing any toxics toxic chemicals designed to kill.

[00:03:33] Preston Meyer: I mean as far as right livelihood, it's pretty easy to get behind most of these. I mean, I like meat, so I can't say I agree with all of them.

[00:03:43] Katie Dooley: And I mean, I would say as an atheist, obviously, you know, the LDS church, which we'll get to, has a much firmer stance on intoxicants. But I also think intoxicants are a gray area. So, but the other three are great. Don't tell humans. Don't sell guns. Don't sell toxins. That's pretty good.

[00:04:05] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So there's also in the five precepts, the statement that I undertake the training rule to abstain from fermented drink that causes heedlessness.

[00:04:15] Katie Dooley: Am I a little heedless right now?

[00:04:17] Preston Meyer: I mean, a little bit, yeah, but that's okay. But generally, if something would make you careless when you should be careful, that is a problem. Of course, situations vary an awful lot, and we're pretty safe here in the studio today.

[00:04:37] Katie Dooley: Right? So basically, Buddhists do not encourage any consumption of drugs or alcohol in any way. Uh, I made a note in this. This goes across all the religions will talk about. That doesn't mean there aren't Buddhists out there who do drugs.

[00:04:51] Preston Meyer: There's groups that differ from others. There's always exceptions to the norm. And of course, there's bad actors. We're not terribly concerned about the bad actors today.

[00:05:02] Katie Dooley: And I mean, I was yeah, I wasn't going to use the term bad whatever, because, I mean clearly we know I don't have a problem with drugs, drugs or alcohol. I don't do drugs. I feel like, can you clarify that? But I don't have problems with people who do them. So yeah. Yeah. There'll just be people who don't prescribe to this rule and still will be religious. So anyway. So don't don't at us on Discord and say, well, I know a Buddhist that drinks alcohol. Of course you do. Of course you do.

[00:05:36] Preston Meyer: Yep. Next on our list we have Islam. Alcohol and drugs are very strictly forbidden in the vast majority of Islamic traditions. The word is haram. They're pretty straightforward on it, especially opium and alcohol. A lot of other drugs are kind of newer introductions into the culture. And there's various judgments on these substances, but they're not so 100% firm as the ancient prohibition.

[00:06:09] Katie Dooley: Which would be in the Quran or the hadiths.

[00:06:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah, exactly. Coffee, kind of a new introduction into the tradition. And for a while, coffee was judged to be haram, because it's a stimulant. It does affect the brain. And so a lot of people were, like, I'm really uncomfortable with that. We're going to put a rule against it. But that judgment has been overturned in most Muslim groups.

[00:06:32] Katie Dooley: Well, and I agree. And and we've clarified a little bit on social media again about the LDS church and and pop. Um, and you know, I've heard people say before, well, because it's caffeinated it affects your brain. It's like even if it's uncaffeinated, the sugar will affect your brain. Like there's so much that affects what goes on in your brain that there'd be a lot of stuff that would be disallowed if we just went on, does it affect your brain or not?

[00:07:03] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:07:04] Katie Dooley: And then what's positive for some people is negative for others. I mean, everyone knows a paranoid cannabis user, right? Where it's fine for some people, then some people get super fucking paranoid.

[00:07:17] Preston Meyer: Paranoia associated with cannabis makes perfect sense when the most dangerous thing about cannabis is being caught with it when it's illegal.

[00:07:25] Katie Dooley: Fair or how hungry you're going to be.

[00:07:27] Preston Meyer: I mean, cannabis use does not help with weight gain.

[00:07:36] Katie Dooley: I tossed this in here because I learned this recently, and I don't know when we're going to get a chance to talk about it again. So even though it's completely unrelated. Did you know that cats are halal and dogs are haram? So I know we talked about like, you can't eat a dog. Muslims aren't even allowed to own a dog.

[00:07:53] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I actually did know that.

[00:07:54] Katie Dooley: Oh wow, I did not know that. But they can have pet cats, but not pet dogs. Mm.

[00:08:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's kind of interesting. I'm a cat person myself anyway.

[00:08:04] Katie Dooley: I'm a.

[00:08:05] Preston Meyer: We know you're a dog.

[00:08:06] Katie Dooley: We know where I stand on that. Get out of my house.

[00:08:09] Preston Meyer: It's not that I don't like dogs. I do just happen to have a preference.

[00:08:14] Katie Dooley: You have the wrong preference.

[00:08:20] Preston Meyer: All right.

[00:08:21] Katie Dooley: Oh, boy.

[00:08:22] Preston Meyer: Back to the subject at hand.

[00:08:24] Katie Dooley: So Islam was pretty short because they are very cut and dry, black and white. 

[00:08:29] Preston Meyer: And simple. Yeah.

[00:08:30] Katie Dooley: But Judaism has a lot more gray area. And then Christianity has even more gray area than that.

[00:08:38] Preston Meyer: Mhm.

[00:08:39] Katie Dooley: So. If you're Jewish, you believe that your body belongs to God. And therefore they encourage that you don't harm yourself.

[00:08:50] Preston Meyer: Makes sense. I mean, that's good advice anyway.

[00:08:54] Katie Dooley: Yes. So they, you know, they discourage excessive risk-taking, uh, with your health or your behaviours. So obviously, like, heroin would fall under this. But now, like I said, we have some gray areas.

[00:09:08] Preston Meyer: I feel like you're stepping way too close to that stereotype of Jews live boring lives. Be an accountant.

[00:09:17] Katie Dooley: I mean.

[00:09:19] Preston Meyer: It's a stereotype, and it's not fair.

[00:09:21] Katie Dooley: Thank you. That's exactly what I was going to say, Preston. Um, but that means. Right? Like. I mean, cannabis is legal in Canada. So how harmful is it? Obviously, you know, maybe excessive use, just like excessive alcohol. You don't want to, but if you imbibe, sometimes it's not particularly risky. So now we have this gray area in Judaism.

[00:09:44] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Um, I actually recently found some stuff that are some articles that talked about how they found cannabis residue in some of the holy spaces in Old Israel.

[00:09:58] Katie Dooley: Cool.

[00:09:59] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Dating way back to about 800 BC. They found some residue that's like. Yeah with this here, we're pretty sure it was part of religious use, which is entirely possible. They were all about having a little smoke censers thing in the temple and all over Israel you would have smaller altars where they would burn stuff for the gods, which we'll get back to a little bit later. And also alcohol, pretty normal thing in Judaism. Wine for every Sabbath. Pretty standard deal.

[00:10:39] Katie Dooley: There is ritual and religious use of alcohol in Judaism. The most common being Purim and Simchat Torah, which is the Ritual reading the Torah on the Shabbat.

[00:10:55] Preston Meyer: And if you watched One of Us with us at our movie night a little while ago, you'll notice that they have no problem with cigarettes in the Hasidic community.

[00:11:03] Katie Dooley: Lots of smokers in that movie.

[00:11:05] Preston Meyer: And I feel pretty comfortable assuming generally this is true of most Jewish communities.

[00:11:11] Katie Dooley: Which is actually interesting to me because we know how bad it is for your health. But I guess it's such a long-term decline, right? You're not going to overdose on cigarettes

[00:11:23] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:11:23] Katie Dooley: It's a long it's a long game.

[00:11:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So and then of course there was the nazirites like Samson or myself for a very short time back when we were first starting this podcast of this oath to never drink or consume anything made from grapes. So the Nazirites were kind of an exception to the standard Jewish practice. Don't drink wine.

[00:11:48] Katie Dooley: But it is a very niche. There aren't any...

[00:11:51] Preston Meyer: There's not a lot of nazarites.

[00:11:53] Katie Dooley: Running around right now. But an interesting exception to the rule to make note of. Then we have Christianity, which, thanks to Protestantism, which we've been talking about for the last couple of weeks. Um, there's different takes.

[00:12:06] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:12:07] Katie Dooley: Different takes.

[00:12:07] Preston Meyer: A lot of different opinions from a lot of different sources. The, the puritanical movement got way into... 

[00:12:16] Katie Dooley: Prohibition. Teetotalers!

[00:12:18] Preston Meyer: Yes. The Teetotalers and their prohibition.

[00:12:21] Katie Dooley: Yeah. That was a religious backed uh, initiative. So predominantly that was Baptists and Methodists that were big influences on the temperance movement. And we all know how well that worked.

[00:12:36] Preston Meyer: It just meant more violence and crime as people continued to drink, but got in bigger fights. 

[00:12:42] Katie Dooley: And more people went blind because they were drinking.

[00:12:44] Preston Meyer: Moonshine.

[00:12:45] Katie Dooley: Moonshine.

[00:12:46] Preston Meyer: Bad moonshine.

[00:12:47] Katie Dooley: Don't drink bad moonshine. Christians do across the board have the general stance like don't do hard drugs. I think most people have the general stance of don't do hard drugs.

[00:12:56] Preston Meyer: Don't do things that aren't healthy for you, more or less. Yeah.

[00:13:00] Katie Dooley: So it really comes down to, um, alcohol consumption in Christianity. I think cannabis use is probably not discussed too, too much. I don't I feel like that's like cigarette smoking where they probably just don't care unless you are one of the more. I don't know if conservative is the right term to use, but like a Latter Day Saints don't drink. I'm sure their stance on cannabis is the same.

[00:13:23] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Pretty much. Well, so the don't drink thing. There's exceptions to that in the LDS tradition.

[00:13:31] Katie Dooley: Really?

[00:13:31] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:13:32] Katie Dooley: Tell me. I did not know this. I know, like you can, if I like, cooked with wine. My chicken. You're allowed to eat my chicken.

[00:13:41] Preston Meyer: And there's very, very little alcohol left in it by the time you consume it. So cooking with alcohol? Not a problem because eating alcohol ends up not usually being part of that practice. Uh, but the communion that is done every Sunday is usually water in the tradition.

[00:14:03] Katie Dooley: Right, that's what I thought yeah.

[00:14:05] Preston Meyer: Yeah. But there are cases. Well, generally speaking, it can be any liquid, but water is preferred. But you actually are allowed to use wine as long as the wine is produced by a member of the church. And so there are several congregations around the world that regularly use Latter Day Saint-produced wine for the communion.

[00:14:27] Katie Dooley: Interesting.

[00:14:28] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:14:29] Katie Dooley: I think it's interesting that a Latter Day Saint would be interested in making wine. Right. Because you've grown up being told no.

[00:14:37] Preston Meyer: Yeah, and I think that's why it's such a small.

[00:14:41] Katie Dooley: Small portion.

[00:14:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:14:42] Katie Dooley: You should make some wine, Preston.

[00:14:44] Preston Meyer: Honestly, I have no interest because I hate the taste of the wines that I have tried.

[00:14:49] Katie Dooley: Um, I like, want to figure this out.

[00:14:53] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's a it's a real thing and it's it's not even really an exception to the rule. It's a reversion to the standard when everybody's comfortable with it kind of thing.

[00:15:08] Katie Dooley: I feel like you don't know the answer to the question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Would there be members of the church who would decline member made wine?

[00:15:17] Preston Meyer: Very likely.

[00:15:18] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:15:20] Preston Meyer: I can't say I've gone and done a survey, but.

[00:15:23] Katie Dooley: Does it need to be like a consensus? Like we're going to drink Bob's wine? Or if you want Bob's wine, you can have it. If not, there's water.

[00:15:31] Preston Meyer: I feel like the situation would be bishop approves wine. Somebody goes, I don't want this red stuff. And then afterwards goes to the bishop and say, don't do that. And then they have a long talk with the bishop and the bishop says it's okay. And then the naysayer is like, well, I'm not gonna. And then they have to decide if they're going to change it to be more inclusive and they probably would.

[00:15:56] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:15:57] Preston Meyer: Thank you. That's how I see that.

[00:15:59] Katie Dooley: Thank you for that uh sideshow.

[00:16:02] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:16:05] Katie Dooley: General rule. Most Christian denominations again, there are a few exceptions, like the LDS church figures since JC, Jesus Christ drank wine, that it's okay to drink wine and alcohol in moderation.

[00:16:18] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And the way it's developed in the LDS tradition is kind of interesting that, um, a lot of people think that Joseph Smith said, don't drink wine, don't drink any alcohol. Not true. He specifically forbade what is classified as strong drinks. We're talking like whiskey. Yeah. So wine doesn't qualify as a strong drink, and it's fine. Beer doesn't count as a strong drink and was fine.

[00:16:47] Katie Dooley: He's literally saying this to someone who's tipsy on cider on an empty stomach. So, yes!

[00:16:56] Preston Meyer: But it wasn't until Brigham Young was the head of the church and they were... They decided to crack down on things just a little bit more and really decided, okay, this rule against drunkenness isn't enough because people are still drinking and getting more drunk than they should be. And so we're just gonna say, no, cut it out outright. Let's just say no more alcohol.

[00:17:23] Katie Dooley: How? I don't know if you know... How much time... How close was this to the temperance movement? Because I feel like a lot of this was happening at the same time where, looking back, I'm sure, as mental health was just collapsing and everyone was drinking to excess, because that was where the temperance movements began, as you know.

[00:17:40] Preston Meyer: What year is are we looking at for the at for the temperance movement?

[00:17:43] Katie Dooley: I don't have my phone on me because I'm a good podcaster?

[00:17:48] Preston Meyer: All right, well, let's whip out my Google.

[00:17:50] Katie Dooley: Ew, Preston.

[00:17:53] Preston Meyer: That's not what I call it.

[00:17:55] Katie Dooley: Oh, wow.

[00:17:57] Katie Dooley: Cause I just feel like a lot of this overlapped.

[00:18:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah, this would have been before the the widespread temperance movement.

[00:18:04] Katie Dooley: But, like, how long before?

[00:18:06] Preston Meyer: A couple of decades.

[00:18:07] Katie Dooley: Okay. But not like 200 years before.

[00:18:10] Preston Meyer: No.

[00:18:10] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:18:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Yes. Tradition isn't that old. We're just reaching 200 years now.

[00:18:17] Katie Dooley: Oh. Happy birthday. Yeah, I just felt like there was a whole, like, movement, but I guess two decades in the grand scheme of things isn't that far apart. So they were just ahead of the curve.

[00:18:30] Preston Meyer: Sure. I mean, outright banning tobacco, which did happen during Joseph Smith's time, was way ahead of the curve.

[00:18:38] Katie Dooley: Wow. We didn't even know it caused cause cancer then.

[00:18:41] Preston Meyer: Right? We didn't really have a good idea of any of the health.

[00:18:45] Katie Dooley: Interesting. That is actually interesting.

[00:18:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah, because he banned it in the 1830s. And we learned the harmful effects of tobacco and what, the 90s.

[00:18:53] Katie Dooley: Yeah, yeah. No, that is actually really interesting because, I mean, you can visibly see the harm that alcohol. Alcohol.

[00:19:03] Preston Meyer: We've got a long history with alcohol. It's kind of obvious.

[00:19:06] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Right. And I mean, if you look at old temperance things, it was because they were drunk men in the... And I know a lot of this is propaganda, but drunk men in the streets and beating their wives and missing work and spending all their money on alcohol, like we can visibly see the ramifications of drinking to excess. But like smoking, we don't see it until. Yeah, you know, 40 years later and you're dying of lung cancer. So that is actually super interesting that he banned it in the 1830s.

[00:19:32] Preston Meyer: Well, and it's kind of nifty that in the same breath almost as saying, hey, don't use tobacco for chew or smoke or anything like that. He does lay out why it's so useful for us that it's good for treating bruises, which apparently had been a thing for a long time that nobody does anymore.

[00:19:52] Katie Dooley: Like you just put it on.

[00:19:53] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:19:55] Katie Dooley: A bruise? 

[00:19:55] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I think you paste it.

[00:19:57] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:19:58] Preston Meyer: And then, yeah. But nobody does that anymore.

[00:20:02] Katie Dooley: I don't even know where you get tobacco leaves to make a paste. I know where you can get dried tobacco to smoke, but not...

[00:20:10] Preston Meyer: Well, you might be able to try it out with snuff, but I bet you it's probably not going to work.

[00:20:16] Katie Dooley: Snuff has too many chemicals in it, for sure.

[00:20:19] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I don't think you want that on your skin.

[00:20:21] Katie Dooley: You don't? No. Okay.

[00:20:26] Preston Meyer: Anyway.

[00:20:28] Katie Dooley: So what about religions that like drugs?

[00:20:33] Preston Meyer: Oh, man. So there's a whole bunch of them, and I'm going to drop a new word on you.

[00:20:39] Katie Dooley: Okay. I love words.

[00:20:40] Preston Meyer: The new word is entheogen.

[00:20:43] Katie Dooley: Entheogen.

[00:20:44] Preston Meyer: And it is a pretty new word as people have been studying psychedelics and religion together. A fellow named Carl Ruck kind of coined this word. Entheos is the Greek word that more or less means full of God, or God is within. Uh, the word enthusiasm. If you're feeling enthusiastic, you got God in you. That's what the word means.

[00:21:08] Katie Dooley: Oh, really? Wow.

[00:21:09] Preston Meyer: And so the entheogen is that you are becoming full of God with this substance. So it's used to describe psychoactive plants and funguses fungi that have been used to facilitate spiritual experiences. Carl Ruck said, in a strict sense, only those vision producing drugs that can be shown to have figured in shamanic or religious rites would be designated entheogens, but in a looser sense the term could also be applied to other drugs, both natural and artificial, that induce alterations of consciousness. Similar to those documented for for ritual ingestion of traditional entheogens. So now you have a new word.

[00:21:53] Katie Dooley: Cool. Thank you so much.

[00:21:54] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:21:54] Katie Dooley: Put that in my back pocket.

[00:21:56] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The idea is that they when talking about religious drug trips. They don't want to use the word hallucinogen because it's just I guess doesn't match exactly what the function is. And psychedelics also doesn't pair nicely in this field of study I guess.

[00:22:19] Katie Dooley: It is it is interesting and I don't know if you I added some notes sort of to that point of like there's almost like an intent of why you're using drugs and neither of us are drug users. So if you're if you're listening, post on Discord, but it sounds like there's like this intent to why you're doing it can actually change for sure the experience you're having. I think some of that is also your background too. So we'll talk about a study they did at Johns Hopkins.

[00:22:48] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah.

[00:22:48] Katie Dooley: Did you read that?

[00:22:49] Preston Meyer: Yeah I did.

[00:22:49] Katie Dooley: Yeah. They gave a bunch of drugs to religious leaders so...

[00:22:53] Preston Meyer: We'll get into that. All right. So most famously, the Rastafari are very pro-cannabis.

[00:23:03] Katie Dooley: Yep. It's probably the most famous drug religion.

[00:23:07] Preston Meyer: And only famous, really because of Bob Marley. And then later on, Snoop Dogg.

[00:23:13] Katie Dooley: And just like, I think there's this North American drug culture that, like.

[00:23:20] Preston Meyer: That latched on to those two figures very strongly.

[00:23:23] Katie Dooley: Those two figures, but also like for so many years, until recently, we had the Marijuana Party of Canada where it's like, okay, so now I'm like allowed to do it, right? So if I say I'm a Rastafari. Then I can do it. You know what I mean? Like, just as an excuse to smoke weed. As opposed to actually being in the belief system and the culture of.

[00:23:46] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:23:47] Katie Dooley: Rastafarianism.

[00:23:48] Preston Meyer: So an excellent example of the negative form of cultural appropriation.

[00:23:55] Katie Dooley: Yes. And it will one day do. It's on our list of full episode on Rastafari. Super misunderstood because we do that to predominantly black religions. Thanks racism.

[00:24:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's a bummer.

[00:24:10] Katie Dooley: Yeah, just like Voodoo. It's... people think it's one thing and it's another.

[00:24:15] Preston Meyer: Right. It doesn't help that Rastafarianism is relatively new. Like it's about 100 years old. Like, not even yet, which is a little bit weird and easy to forget sometimes. But cannabis is very important. Just in the same way that there was special incense that we burned in the temples and at the altars in Judaism, and starting to look like there's evidence that that included cannabis. The Rastafari tradition leans heavily into this idea. Before we had archeological evidence to back it up.

[00:24:50] Katie Dooley: You're on to something.

[00:24:51] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's kind of cool. Scholastically speaking anyway. And most Rastafarians, I think, identify as Jewish or Jewish adjacent, which is kind of cool. They do use the Hebrew Bible, and there's a good handful of passages in it that reinforce the practice pretty nicely. So there's a part in Genesis chapter three that says, thou shalt eat the herb of the field. So yeah, that's.

[00:25:20] Katie Dooley: That's I mean, it's not a crop.

[00:25:22] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:25:22] Katie Dooley: They said herb.

[00:25:23] Preston Meyer: Yeah, yeah, that's the trick. It's pretty wide open. It can be interpreted in a lot of different ways. It certainly can't be used against Rastafarianism.

[00:25:32] Katie Dooley: There aren't a lot of field herbs.

[00:25:34] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:25:35] Katie Dooley: Truly.

[00:25:36] Preston Meyer: We got dill.

[00:25:37] Katie Dooley: That is. Yeah.

[00:25:40] Preston Meyer: Then in Exodus chapter ten, it says, eat every herb of the land. Now that's a little bit more explicit of if it's there, it's good. So easy enough to jump on board with that and go with this. And then in Proverbs chapter 15, there's a great line that says better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith. So basically that means that it's good to have a meal without any meat, which is nonstandard in the Jewish tradition. If there is love of the table, then to have the expected meat and be surrounded with people that suck or who hate you.

[00:26:28] Katie Dooley: Ah well, good thing we're having a vegetarian meal with love tonight.

[00:26:32] Preston Meyer: Yay!

[00:26:34] Katie Dooley: I don't know. We're having pizza. There could be meat on it.

[00:26:36] Preston Meyer: I expect there to be meat.

[00:26:39] Katie Dooley: If you have your say.

[00:26:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah, exactly.

[00:26:44] Katie Dooley: It's important to note that Rastafari discouraged the use of other drugs and alcohol, and that cannabis isn't meant to be used lightly or recreationally. It is a sacrament to connect with God. You don't just like blaze it, 420.

[00:27:02] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:27:04] Katie Dooley: Can you tell that I don't.

[00:27:07] Preston Meyer: Uh, don't have the lingo, not part of the culture.

[00:27:10] Katie Dooley: Right.

[00:27:10] Preston Meyer: Basically, the cannabis is meant to be smoked at groundings and a couple other things sometimes, but it's a special religious thing. Not a pastime, not a thing to do because you're bored or it's Friday night and let's light up. It's obviously very different from a lot of the appropriation that we have seen.

[00:27:36] Katie Dooley: Absolutely. In addition to smoking cannabis, which is the most common way to partake at these grounding ceremonies, they often use it as a tea or in or as a cooking herb.

[00:27:49] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Yeah. And there's I mean there's so many different things that you can do with cannabis. Moving on to the Hindus, what they do is kind of novel. In India there's this thing called bhang, which sounds a lot like bong but isn't.

[00:28:05] Katie Dooley: B-h-a-n-g, bhang.

[00:28:07] Preston Meyer: So bhang is a paste made from cannabis leaves. And it's legal because it's the leaves, not the flowers or the fruits or the buds.

[00:28:17] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:28:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's weird that they've defined cannabis legally as a specific parts of the plant in India, to being the flowers and the fruits and also the stems is part of it too.

[00:28:33] Katie Dooley: Is illegal?

[00:28:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:28:35] Katie Dooley: But the leaves are good to go.

[00:28:36] Preston Meyer: The leaves are good to go.

[00:28:40] Katie Dooley: Well, so they can smear it on toast or drink it mixed with milk.

[00:28:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's like your Nesquik, except green and thick.

[00:28:51] Katie Dooley: I mean, I don't like the smell of cannabis, so I can't imagine that tasting good, but... 

[00:28:56] Preston Meyer: That's my problem.

[00:28:58] Katie Dooley: Just like I don't understand why Preston doesn't like wine. I'm sure someone's thinking I'm crazy.

[00:29:04] Preston Meyer: Sure. Yeah. So bhang is typically associated with Krishna, who is one of the great figures of Hinduism, pretty widely worshiped as well as the holiday Holi, especially in northern India. You'll find it a much bigger deal, which is kind of interesting. But that's not all, Hinduism also diversifies!

[00:29:28] Katie Dooley: Yes, So the Rigveda. So this is one of their religious texts, mentions the spiritual use of a psychedelic drink called soma. So the quote from the book says, we have drunk soma and become immortal. We have attained the light and discovered the gods. What can our enemies mouths do to harm us now?

[00:29:45] Preston Meyer: So this is a really empowering drug. My instinct is to jump to, like, PCP, but I don't know for sure. And it's actually still a mystery.

[00:29:59] Katie Dooley: Yeah, there's... We don't really know what Soma is. It's the name of the drink as well as the name of the plant, but also the god associated with them according to the Vedas.

[00:30:10] Preston Meyer: But without a good handy drawing in the book.

[00:30:14] Katie Dooley: We don't. We don't know what they're referring to.

[00:30:17] Preston Meyer: I... it's it's kind of weird that it has fallen out of common use so that it has become a mystery. Maybe there's somebody in the depths of the Indian rainforest that knows and still uses it, and we just haven't made contact with them. I don't know. But as it stands right now, we only have guesses on what soma is.

[00:30:40] Katie Dooley: What are some of those guesses?

[00:30:43] Preston Meyer: We've got guesses that maybe it's the ephedra flower, or maybe the harmala or esfand flower, which sounds like a terrible idea because that stuff will kill cows.

[00:30:53] Katie Dooley: Cool.

[00:30:56] Preston Meyer: That's some mighty potent stuff. Uh, there's also the gold cap, psilocybin mushrooms, the magic mushrooms you hear so much about. Right. A lot of people think that might be the key ingredient. And then there's also the Amanita mushrooms, which those are the.

[00:31:14] Katie Dooley: Mushrooms.

[00:31:14] Preston Meyer: The ridiculous mushrooms of Mario, the red with the white spots. And those things are so incredibly, powerfully intoxicant that when it passes through your system and into your bladder and you pee it out. It'll still offer a trip to whoever's willing to drink that urine. But not just that guy. He can pee it out. It can go through this cycle five times and still have an intoxicant effect.

[00:31:39] Katie Dooley: Wow. I don't I don't think I'd want to be the first person to take it.

[00:31:46] Preston Meyer: Right? It can be lethal to the first person. Not always.

[00:31:51] Katie Dooley: How do you get their pee, then?

[00:31:52] Preston Meyer: Okay, so in some places, there's stories of people who are just so poor, but so desperate for a trip that they'll go out with a wooden bowl and catch it when somebody comes out of the party to take a leak. And then they'll hide in their little dark corner and they'll they'll enjoy it for themselves. And you can recycle it for so long. This is actually a thing that we saw as really handy for the Viking Berserkers. That they would have somebody consume the mushrooms, and then the Berserkers would drink that person's urine and intoxicated enough that they could go through the battle and not worry about pain and blood loss, but without the risk of the red mushroom firsthand.

[00:32:46] Katie Dooley: I don't know if I think that's disturbing or super cool.

[00:32:49] Preston Meyer: I mean.

[00:32:50] Katie Dooley: I'm kind.

[00:32:50] Preston Meyer: It's interesting.

[00:32:51] Katie Dooley: Yeah, that's a better word. It's a more politically correct word.

[00:32:55] Preston Meyer: Yeah. We actually didn't talk about the Berserkers in our Norse mythology episode.

[00:32:59] Katie Dooley: No.

[00:33:00] Preston Meyer: Uh, the Berserkers are kind of cool. That's... I mean, it's not really an aspect of their religion, but their interpersonal, cultural tradition where they would send people who would where would they call them bear shirts? That's what Berserker means, where they would have a pelt of a bear with the head on, and that would be kind of their hood. And yeah, they would they would do this. And they were so raving mad that they were called shield biters because this was a thing they would also do. Crazy stuff.

[00:33:33] Katie Dooley: That is. Drugs, man. Drugs.

[00:33:36] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:33:39] Katie Dooley: We just talked about the Buddhist, Preston.

[00:33:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It turns out there's exceptions.

[00:33:44] Katie Dooley: What? Exceptions to rules. No.

[00:33:48] Preston Meyer: Not all groups are so teetotaly. Uh, most groups do advise against mind-altering drugs of all kinds. But some tantric and casual traditions actually encourage the use of Amanita mushrooms, the ones that make people into shield biters.

[00:34:08] Katie Dooley: Oh, okay. That's terrifying.

[00:34:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah. They're particularly popular among Mahasiddha Buddhists. About a thousand years ago, from the eighth to the 12th century, it was really common. But there's also a growing advocacy among Western Buddhists lately.

[00:34:25] Katie Dooley: What? Western people want to do more drugs? No.

[00:34:27] Preston Meyer: Right. And just use religion as an excuse. Mhm.

[00:34:35] Katie Dooley: Well, it's an interesting exception to the rule.

[00:34:37] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:34:38] Katie Dooley: Another one. And we, we talk about this pretty broadly because there are so many divisions to North American indigenous religion. It really depends on what tribe you're a part of, what part of North America you're a part of. But we had to talk about peyote.

[00:34:54] Preston Meyer: Mhm.

[00:34:57] Katie Dooley: So not common in Canada because it's a cactus. So we don't have peyote up here. So this is not a part of Canadian North American indigenous religions.

[00:35:07] Preston Meyer: You got to go a little further south.

[00:35:08] Katie Dooley: A little further south. That's like Arizona, New Mexico.

[00:35:12] Preston Meyer: Northern Mexico and the states that border it.

[00:35:16] Katie Dooley: Is where you'll find peyote used in their indigenous religion practices.

[00:35:21] Preston Meyer: Mhm.

[00:35:22] Katie Dooley: So it is a cactus that produces mescaline and has been used ritually for more than 5000 years.

[00:35:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:35:30] Katie Dooley: A peyote trip usually takes up your whole day.

[00:35:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah, we're talking like ten, 12 hours.

[00:35:36] Katie Dooley: You know, the double rainbow meme?

[00:35:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:35:38] Katie Dooley: He was on peyote.

[00:35:39] Preston Meyer: That's not even surprising.

[00:35:41] Katie Dooley: Just. Wow.

[00:35:44] Both Speakers: Double rainbow. 

[00:35:47] Katie Dooley: All the way across the sky. Yeah, he was on peyote. So, but it's nature, right? We're eating a cactus. I don't actually know how you take peyote.

[00:36:00] Preston Meyer: I don't know how it's prepared, but you just straight up eat it.

[00:36:06] Katie Dooley: I'm sure you could. Yeah. There's no solidly reliable stats on precise mescaline content in a particular peyote button.

[00:36:13] Preston Meyer: Because natural things are always unpredictable. Yeah, yeah.

[00:36:19] Katie Dooley: It is known to cause auditory and visual hallucinations. While the double rainbow was real, I'm sure he saw a lot more than that.

[00:36:26] Preston Meyer: He very likely did.

[00:36:28] Katie Dooley: And is credited with all sorts of spiritual insights.

[00:36:32] Preston Meyer: You just feel close to God. Sometimes you'll hear the whisperings of God. At the very least, you're definitely going to hear your subconscious reach out and become a lot more part of your conscious life for a minute.

[00:36:49] Katie Dooley: Research shows that peyote, in isolation from other substances, has no long-term cognitive effects, and does not create a physical dependency. That's actually kind of cool.

[00:36:59] Preston Meyer: Right? But like anything else that you really like, there's a possibility for a psychological dependency.

[00:37:07] Katie Dooley: Right. You want that whatever, escape.

[00:37:09] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Chasing the dragon. Right?

[00:37:12] Katie Dooley: I wouldn't know, but some people would.

[00:37:16] Preston Meyer: A phrase that I've only ever heard from a DARE presentation.

[00:37:20] Katie Dooley: I was going to say from cops in junior high. Yeah. So mescaline is a controlled substance in both the US and Canada, but peyote is legal for religious and personal use. Get a little peyote cactus in your house just go. It is. Peyote is commercially available as anilinium from dispensaries, where it is advertised to treat hysteria.

[00:37:47] Preston Meyer: Which, of course is a nonsense diagnosis.

[00:37:51] Katie Dooley: Just so you can get whatever you want to get a vibrator, peyote, just cite hysteria.

[00:37:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Good times. As I dug into this, I thought it was really nifty to find that, though. I'm going to try and say this. I have not said it many times before. The Wixaritari religious tradition, which is centered in northern Mexico and also the also the bordering American states has four primary gods. There's more as you get into the more complicated doctrines. But there there's the eagle, the deer, corn and peyote.

[00:38:32] Katie Dooley: Interesting.

[00:38:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So peyote is not just like a sacrament.

[00:38:36] Katie Dooley: It's a god.

[00:38:37] Preston Meyer: One of their important gods.

[00:38:39] Katie Dooley: God they get to munch on just like corn and deer, I would guess. You don't munch on an eagle.

[00:38:45] Preston Meyer: No, no, you don't munch on an eagle. Or at least I've never heard of it being a thing. But I thought that was really nifty.

[00:38:56] Katie Dooley: Yeah, that is really interesting.

[00:38:59] Preston Meyer: But even back in the ancient Greeks, they were into their mind-altering substances, too. The Eleusinian Mysteries used kykeon. There's a few different formulas that are associated with kykeon, but the common intent is to get you drunk. Historians think that ergot, a psychoactive fungus, commonly tainted their barley, and that that was actually the thing that made.

[00:39:25] Katie Dooley: The trip interesting.

[00:39:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:39:28] Katie Dooley: That's cool. Rye beer that gets you high, right?

[00:39:32] Preston Meyer: Mushroom beer.

[00:39:33] Katie Dooley: Mushroom beer. Isn't that just kombucha?

[00:39:37] Preston Meyer: I don't know, what kombucha?

[00:39:38] Katie Dooley: Kombucha is made from mushrooms. Oh, we're gonna we're gonna go on a kombucha trip when we're done.

[00:39:44] Preston Meyer: Oh, are we now?

[00:39:46] Katie Dooley: It's like mushroom tea. But I'm gonna show you a scoby, and you'll hate me for the rest of your life.

[00:39:53] Preston Meyer: Well, we'll see how that goes. Okay, this may be the last episode.

[00:39:56] Katie Dooley: Maybe the last episode. Uh, don't Google Scobys unless you want to be disturbed.

[00:40:03] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:40:03] Katie Dooley: But I'm gonna show you. You don't get a choice, Preston.

[00:40:06] Preston Meyer: Um, also, in old Greece, oracles, especially the Delphic oracles, also used to trip on some mystery substance. Some people say it was mists that would just come out of the ground.

[00:40:19] Katie Dooley: No

[00:40:19] Preston Meyer: That's unless we're talking about spores coming from mushrooms in the ground, in their tents and huts and whatnot. I think that's really unlikely. I think there's more to it.

[00:40:27] Katie Dooley: Smoking something.

[00:40:29] Preston Meyer: Probably, but it's an undetermined substance. We don't know what's up. But generally speaking, scholars are pretty sure they were high on something.

[00:40:39] Katie Dooley: What is the union of plants?

[00:40:42] Preston Meyer: Ah the union of the plants was a Brazilian Christian group very syncretic. They combined a lot of their pre-colonization indigenous religion elements into Christianity in Brazil, and then have spread around the world since 1961, when they were founded. And so there's a bunch in the USA and they love huasca tea or ayahuasca. It's not technically tea. It's not made from the tea plant, but they make a beverage out of it the same way you would make tea.

[00:41:19] Katie Dooley: It's a herbal tea. Then if it's not made from the tea plant.

[00:41:22] Preston Meyer: I guess and so for all those Mormons who are like, I don't only drink herbal tea. Watch yourself. Right.

[00:41:30] Katie Dooley: Because you won't get high.

[00:41:32] Preston Meyer: Uh, so ayahuasca is made from the leaves of the mariri and chacruna plants, and it contains a lot of DMT, which isn't a terrible thing for the body. Your body does naturally produce a little bit of DMT. Not nearly the levels you see in these plants. And it's part of a sacrament of the church. Super important. Um, just like the Rastafarian cannabis, it's not meant to be abused. It's just for the sacrament in the church. Uh, UCLA actually says that these people are healthier than the average Americans. So that's kind of interesting.

[00:42:18] Katie Dooley: I feel like that's not a great...

[00:42:20] Preston Meyer: I mean, it's a low bar.

[00:42:20] Katie Dooley: Baseline, but that's good.

[00:42:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So over the years, especially since through the 90s, it became a really big problem. American police seized a lot of huasca tea as it crossed the border. And then for years, years of fighting in the courts. In 2006, the Supreme Court decided that since it's connected to a religion, it's actually a good excuse for breaking the laws against drug imports and consumption, which sounds a little bit funky, but they cited the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was a thing that was signed into law very shortly after Bill Clinton took over as president of the US. Yeah, and deviating a little bit from our main course, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act is actually kind of kind of interesting. It promises the free exercise of religion can break existing laws. If there is no good reason for the government to enforce the laws in a way that would be detrimental to the group being policed. So if I'm doing drugs for a religious purpose and it doesn't hurt anybody, I get to keep doing it even though it's illegal.

[00:43:37] Katie Dooley: Which is why I'm kind of on the let's decriminalize all dwugs. Dwugs, drugs, let's decriminalize all drugs. Because truthfully, for the most part, you're only hurting yourself. Which is I'm not saying that's a good thing but then it breaks this this chain of supply.

[00:43:56] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Yeah. If drugs are legal you get a much safer chain of supply and you.

[00:44:04] Katie Dooley: Can monitor and.

[00:44:06] Preston Meyer: And it's a lot less scary to get help.

[00:44:08] Katie Dooley: Yep.

[00:44:09] Preston Meyer: All kinds of benefits. So basically if your church regularly or traditionally uses mescaline or DMT or cannabis. If it's not causing any harm, you have the green light according to the Supreme Court of the United States of America, if you're outside of America, you're going to have to rely on a different authority or figure something else out.

[00:44:30] Katie Dooley: Stick with cannabis in Canada, it's fine.

[00:44:32] Preston Meyer: Right? Which I thought was really interesting as I read up on this. This is a defense that polygamists are very likely to use because if it's not hurting anybody, we're going to exercise our freedom of religion.

[00:44:44] Katie Dooley: I have no problem with polygamy, right?

[00:44:47] Preston Meyer: Honestly, it it feels really weird to me that we have any laws at all that refer to marriage, all of the bad things about marriage, like using it to control people who are too young, because we have decided to allow old people to marry 13-year-old girls. If we don't have laws about marriage, that doesn't mean, oh yeah, now we can have old people marry seven-year-olds. It means that a marriage has no power over those people.

[00:45:16] Katie Dooley: Interesting. Interesting. I just think as long as it's consenting adults and I mean, we've definitely all watched the TLC like Sister Wives.

[00:45:25] Preston Meyer: No, I have not.

[00:45:28] Katie Dooley: I'm surprised, I'm shocked. But there's a few. There's a few of them and they're all like FLDS.

[00:45:32] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:45:32] Katie Dooley: And I wonder how happy they are if they're just doing it for religious reasons. Um, but if you were like, ah, literally like, I would like a second wife and everyone's on board and like, as long as you don't feel like you're pressured to, for religious reasons, go hard, my friend. I remember watching years ago an episode of QI with Stephen Fry. It's a British game show. Um, I highly recommend if you haven't checked it out. And he basically was like, how is polygamy illegal with consenting adults and adultery is legal when it's non-consensual for obviously the person that's being cheated on.

[00:46:09] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:46:10] Katie Dooley: He's like that like, that makes no sense.

[00:46:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:46:13] Katie Dooley: Not that I think people should go to jail or be for adultery, but, like.

[00:46:17] Preston Meyer: Change the other law.

[00:46:19] Katie Dooley: I don't know. Again, as long as you're a consenting adult, I don't care.

[00:46:22] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I have a couple of friends that are openly polyamorous and a few more friends that openly advocate for it without being into it themselves. So it's I think I am seeing a lot more outside of religious contexts.

[00:46:38] Katie Dooley: And I think that's the key piece is, you know, you see all these sad sister wives on television. It's like, how, how into this are you? Uh, but I also believe that there are polyamorous people out there. I don't... It's valid.Um, so yeah why not go hard. Go hard all seven of you like together? Not that there's only seven polyamorous people. I'm picturing that one of our listeners is in a seven-way relationship.

[00:47:08] Preston Meyer: Uh, generally speaking, there are a lot of scholars who think that these drug trips are the seeds of religion. That religion wouldn't have existed without these kinds of hallucinations. Easy enough to speculate on. I think it gets a lot trickier when you try and get specific. I don't.

[00:47:27] Katie Dooley: I mean, I think some of this comes it's hard because everything's so old, right? But I like I know enough people that are artists in whatever sense that will get high to create art.

[00:47:39] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:47:39] Katie Dooley: So maybe you get high and then wrote your gospel. Right? And you fleshed it out when you were sober. Ernest Hemingway said, write drunk, edit sober. So.

[00:47:49] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:47:50] Katie Dooley: Um, I've tried that for design. It was terrible.

[00:47:54] Preston Meyer: I bet.

[00:47:55] Katie Dooley: Yeah. It's brutal. Uh, right. So I think there I mean, it's all speculation, right? But, uh, you know, there could be something that's 5000 years old and someone smoked a bunch of peyote and then wrote a religious book. We don't know. We don't know.

[00:48:16] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's all guesses. Most of history is guesswork until we find hard, concrete evidence. And even then, it's tricky to interpret the concrete evidence that we get.

[00:48:28] Katie Dooley: And then throw in drugs, which happen all in your head.

[00:48:32] Preston Meyer: Right? It's tricky.

[00:48:35] Katie Dooley: Which makes a 2017 study by Johns Hopkins a super interesting study. So what they did is they found about two dozen religious leaders and just gave them a bunch of magic mushrooms. It was more controlled than that. But that was the premise.

[00:48:50] Preston Meyer: There was a control group, too.

[00:48:53] Katie Dooley: And they picked religious leaders across multiple religions. The only two they struggled to find was a Muslim imam, which isn't surprising.

[00:49:02] Preston Meyer: Because they would be pretty strictly against it.

[00:49:04] Katie Dooley: And a Hindu priest, which I thought was weird because Hindus pretty loosey goosey about drug use.

[00:49:09] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Oh, well.

[00:49:11] Katie Dooley: But they couldn't find them. So generally, the participants reported having deep, transcendental, transcendental religious experiences as opposed to just like a wild acid trip. No double rainbows here.

[00:49:26] Preston Meyer: But maybe other colors. Maybe just not in the convenient rainbow shape.

[00:49:31] Katie Dooley: Right. So they all had these deep religious experiences as opposed to just being high and eating snacks.

[00:49:39] Preston Meyer: Mhm.

[00:49:40] Katie Dooley: You can tell Preston I have no experience whatsoever. They also reported a more universal view on religion. So this was a trend that they viewed each other as different paths to the same goal as opposed to. I mean obviously if you're willing to take mushrooms you're a pretty chill clergy member. But uh, as opposed to opponents, they saw the, I guess, like the bigger picture and that we're all the same man.

[00:50:13] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:50:14] Katie Dooley: So I thought that. 

[00:50:14] Preston Meyer: The Dude Abides.

[00:50:15] Katie Dooley: The Dude Abides. So I thought that was also really interesting, especially when we get into I mean, obviously in North America we see a lot of Christian fundamentalism and they're hard line. And and then here they're leaders getting high and they're like, nah man it's good.

[00:50:30] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Yeah it's kind of a cool study.

[00:50:35] Katie Dooley: I thought it was great. I recommend reading up on it.

[00:50:38] Preston Meyer: So yeah tricky thing to talk about when we don't have any first-hand experience for the vast majority of things we've talked about today.

[00:50:45] Katie Dooley: Right?

[00:50:47] Preston Meyer: Uh, armchair scholarship it is.

[00:50:52] Katie Dooley: Uh, but if you've used drugs to have a religious experience, we'd love to interview you for the Holy Watermelon podcast.

[00:50:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I think that'd be a good time.

[00:51:00] Katie Dooley: Yeah. What else do we need at the Holy Watermelon Podcast, Preston.

[00:51:05] Preston Meyer: Oh, if you want to tell us more without throwing your voice out for the whole world, you can join us on our Discord and just share your words without the voice behind them. We have some good discussions on Discord, great memes and all. We've got our merch on Spreadshop that's getting to be pretty good and we've got all of our social media, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, all the things. Can't forget Patreon. We would love your support. If you don't want to buy shirts or tote bags, but just want to get maybe some extra content that we are putting together. Patreon is the way to go.

[00:51:47] Katie Dooley: Love it! Blaze it!

[00:51:49] Preston Meyer: Thanks for joining us

[00:51:51] Both Speakers: Peace be with you!

After a brief look at the occult last fall, we're taking a closer look at the Hermetic tradition, including some of the most popular literature on hermeticism and a survey of some of the sources behind the mythical figure of Hermes Trismegistus.

We explore some of the pseudepigraphical writings like the Emerald Tablet, the Corpus Hermeticum, and the Perfect Sermon, and the wild figure of William Walker Atkinson (AKA Magus Incognito, Yogi Ramacharaka, and many other names), who had some professional connections with the Freemasons.

Hermeticism is more than alchemy and astrology, and even these aspects have allegorical utility in addition to their physical scientific claims.

All this and more....

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Learn more on our official website

[00:00:16] Preston Meyer: Kermit the Frog.

[00:00:18] Katie Dooley: Hi ho! Kermit the Frog here.

[00:00:20] Preston Meyer: I was actually just reading a thing earlier today that every time somebody does an interview with the Muppets, they always forget the Muppets aren't people.

[00:00:29] Katie Dooley: You know what I'm going to tell you that like, it was far too late in my life when I realized how Muppets work. Because, like, I knew they weren't real, but I didn't know how they were not real. You know what I mean?

[00:00:43] Preston Meyer: No. You're gonna have to tell me more. 

[00:00:45] Katie Dooley: Like like I was like, it's clearly a puppet, but I can see his legs and he's talking, and he's sitting in a chair with Stephen Colbert. So where is the puppet master. I was just, like, always very. I was like, I recognize they can't be, but how are they not.

[00:01:09] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:01:11] Katie Dooley: And then I looked up how Muppets work.

[00:01:13] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I think it's funny when they put the microphone on the Muppet instead of on the person providing the voice, and then wonder why the sound is bad.

[00:01:24] Katie Dooley: So you gotta get the Muppet a fake mic.

[00:01:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah. For sure.

[00:01:29] Katie Dooley: Uh. Suspend disbelief. Yes. And then put one on. Frank Oz. Frank Oz is dead. But whoever it is now.

[00:01:36] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:01:40] Katie Dooley: Muppets, man, I fucking love a good Muppet.

[00:01:42] Preston Meyer: Mhm or when they're recording an ad and the director shouts at the puppet instead of redirecting the voice at the person controlling the puppet.

[00:01:54] Katie Dooley: Right. I also think I would have been a very good puppeteer.

[00:01:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Have you done a lot of puppeteering?

[00:02:01] Katie Dooley: No. But from what I have done, I think I'm quite good.

[00:02:04] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:02:05] Katie Dooley: I think with some practice and some lessons, I could have been a great puppeteer.

[00:02:09] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:02:10] Preston Meyer: Because I'm dramatic, but I don't like being the center of attention. So I could live vicariously through my puppet.

[00:02:16] Preston Meyer: I get you. I mean, that's I feel like that is very much the way Grover lived his life. Or the person underneath Grover.

[00:02:27] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Anyway, we're not talking about Muppets today.

[00:02:31] Preston Meyer: No Kermiticism. Better pronounces Hermeticism.

[00:02:35] Katie Dooley: Hermeticism, oh, man. Is Bryant going to elave the entire preamble about me and the Muppets?

[00:02:42] Preston Meyer: I'm okay with that.

[00:02:44] Katie Dooley: I kind of am, too. Yes. So we talked briefly about Hermeticism in our Occult episode, but we actually think it deserves an entire episode on today's. 

[00:02:57] Holy Watermelon podcast.

[00:03:01] Preston Meyer: Yeah, there's there's a lot more to it than our very brief gloss back in. What was it, October?

[00:03:08] Katie Dooley: Yes, Spooktober.

[00:03:11] Preston Meyer: Our Cursed Occultism Episode that took several takes.

[00:03:15] Katie Dooley: Far too many takes. 

[00:03:17] Preston Meyer: Before we could actually have a saved product that was shareable. It's not that we screwed up over and over again in the performance, but.

[00:03:29] Katie Dooley: The Devils took the audio.

[00:03:30] Preston Meyer: Yeah, the audio files just kept getting corrupted or lost or whatever.

[00:03:35] Katie Dooley: We're better now.

[00:03:37] Preston Meyer: We've we've grown.

[00:03:39] Katie Dooley: Yes. Hermeticism is also known as Hermeticism or Hermetics. And I mean, all of that comes from the Greek god Hermes.

[00:03:49] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The the phrase hermetically sealed As much as it doesn't sound like it should come from this, it does. Not even Hermes could get through to the hermit is a handy little reminder of what it means that something is fully airtight, which is tighter than watertight. For those of you who may not have to deal a lot with containers.

[00:04:21] Katie Dooley: For those of you who don't own Tupperware.

[00:04:25] Preston Meyer: But it's actually a really important process in making the Philosopher's Stone, which of course is something that is lost to history. We just we don't know how to make the Philosopher's Stone anymore. Katie's shaking her head at me. It's not real. There's no evidence that the Philosopher's Stone is real, but an awful lot of stories like to use it in their in their narrative. 

[00:04:53] Katie Dooley: Fair.

[00:04:54] Preston Meyer: Harry Potter went after it. Indiana Jones went after.

[00:04:57] Katie Dooley: Notably, Indiana Jones went after.

[00:05:01] Preston Meyer: From a much smaller audience.

[00:05:03] Katie Dooley: Right. While Hermetic philosophy has wormed its way into monotheistic traditions. Old Hermeticism is pantheistic. God is the ultimate reality and is itself all.

[00:05:18] Preston Meyer: Yeah. While also the creator of all. It's it's a weird well...

[00:05:26] Katie Dooley: Self-fertilizing.

[00:05:28] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's kind of like what we talked about with Ra back in our Egyptology episode, or it's a really common way of looking at God in that part of the world. This is a pretty standard stoic theological declaration that God is all but also the creator of all. Which is a tricky thing to wrap your head around.

[00:05:54] Katie Dooley: The Nag Hammadi library is that the one that was found because of a murder where the Gnostic Gospels were found? Okay, that's a wild story.

[00:06:08] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So they just found a whole bunch of books in Nag Hammadi in modern-day Egypt, and calling it a library is a little bit weird. It was a collection of books in a space that was purpose-built. So it is kind of a library.

[00:06:24] Katie Dooley: They were found in like ceramic massive, like terracotta jars and buried. If this is the same one I'm thinking of.

[00:06:34] Preston Meyer: The Dead Sea Scrolls also fit that description.

[00:06:36] Katie Dooley: Oh, interesting.

[00:06:37] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:06:37] Katie Dooley: No, I read Elaine Pagels Gnostic Gospels and she says how they were found. And I think it's Nag Hammadi.

[00:06:44] Preston Meyer: Yeah and so they were discovered back in 1945. So relatively recent history. This is like after the Second World War.

[00:06:54] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So a huge breakthrough in theological and religious studies, but a whole bunch of them were destroyed. Because of the murder that they were related to when being found. We'll, do a whole episode on that.

[00:07:12] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:07:13] Katie Dooley: Basically, someone murdered someone and they had found the Gnostic gospels, and so they were burning them to hide the fact that they had murdered, like, they didn't want proof that they had put them at the scene of the crime. Except these are super valuable it's a historical text, anyway.

[00:07:33] Preston Meyer: Anyway, all of the things that we have found in the Nag Hammadi library basically take up a decent-sized book on the shelf. I've had them on my shelf for years and years now, And it's roughly the size of a Bible, which of course the Bible more or less means the books. It is also a library. The Nag Hammadi library is a lot more, I want to say, contentious. There's there's a lot more arguing about whether or not it's worth reading the texts from the Nag Hammadi library, or at least there used to be. Nowadays, there's a handful of people who find them valuable, and everyone else is like, meh, don't care.

[00:08:19] Katie Dooley: Yeah, and I mean, we're not here to talk about Gnostic gospels or rejected Christian gospels, but I think that was a big part of it, is that they didn't make the Bible. So now we have to get rid of them or hide them or whatever.

[00:08:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah, well.

[00:08:37] Katie Dooley: Because for whatever reason, we've chosen these records to not be the ones we want people to listen to anyway.

[00:08:45] Preston Meyer: It's more of a system of deciding which are authoritative and then just kind of not worrying about the rest. Once you get into the point of banning a specific book, that does help make it more popular, unless you're really good at that first job.

[00:09:01] Katie Dooley: I hope our podcast gets banned.

[00:09:04] Preston Meyer: That'd be all right.

[00:09:05] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Mm. Anyway, so importantly, they found, um, hermetic writings in the Nag Hammadi library before we had this digression.

[00:09:17] Preston Meyer: Not very many, but they did find a few. A couple specifically attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, a very important figure in the Hermetic tradition.

[00:09:28] Katie Dooley: What?! 

[00:09:29] Preston Meyer: If you couldn't have guessed by his name.

[00:09:32] Katie Dooley: We now know that Hermes Trismegistus is a fictional amalgamation of Hermes, the Greek Hermes, and the Egyptian Thoth with other elements that have been added throughout history.

[00:09:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah, we pointed out in our Egyptian theology episode that the Greeks had just automatically assumed that Thoth and Hermes were equivalent, because that's that is how they looked at the world.

[00:09:56] Katie Dooley: Yeah, but no.

[00:09:58] Preston Meyer: That's that's not how any of this works. Um, and then, of course, as years went on, aspects of both Imhotep and Amenhotep also ended up getting fuzed in making the character a little bit more rounded and other aspects of whatever people found valuable at a given time also got thrown in.

[00:10:22] Katie Dooley: Trismegistus is important in some Muslim traditions, especially in Sufism, which is the mystical tradition. He is often equated with the prophet Idris as well, or the biblical Enoch.

[00:10:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah, the creator of writing and the Jewish tradition makes sense to be equated with.

[00:10:43] Katie Dooley: Thoth in particular, yup.

[00:10:44] Preston Meyer: The Egyptian equivalent.

[00:10:47] Katie Dooley: People who invented writing.

[00:10:50] Preston Meyer: Yeah, stories lining up even kind of closely make it really easy for people who don't like thinking about complicated things to combine the figures.

[00:11:03] Katie Dooley: Preston likes pizza and I like pizza ergo, wear the same person.

[00:11:08] Preston Meyer: Right? It's like when the Pope decided that three different Mary's and somebody else who goes fully unnamed in the New Testament are all the same person.

[00:11:18] Katie Dooley: Well. You don't want to put that much effort into it. He thought, there are too many Bible characters.

[00:11:27] Preston Meyer: You know, these stories that take place in the real world have too large of a cast.

[00:11:35] Katie Dooley: So eliminating three of literally thousands of characters is.

[00:11:40] Preston Meyer: Yeah that's And simplified things. So sure, it happened anyway.

[00:11:46] Katie Dooley: Back to the Muslim tradition. Muhammad is said to have encountered. 

[00:11:51] Preston Meyer: Trismegistus.

[00:11:52] Katie Dooley: Trismegistus. I was like, which him are we referring to in the fourth Heaven. 

[00:11:59] Preston Meyer: Or Idris, I think is probably the name that it showed up now that I'm thinking back. Having written these notes, I'm going off of memory now because clearly I just I put him anyway. Also, there's a lot of Christian thinkers that thought Hermes Trismegistus was a pagan prophet who foretold the rise of Christianity.

[00:12:24] Katie Dooley: Interesting, like a Nostradamus. 

[00:12:28] Preston Meyer: Kind of. Yeah, there's there's a lot of people in Christendom that have decided. Well, yeah, if they were real prophets at all, and they jumped on the bandwagon saying Hermes was. Then obviously they would know that Christianity is coming because we're committed to it. It's kind of weird. There's also within this group of Christians who really like Hermes, there's a subset that are fully committed to the idea of the Trismegistus as a name means that he was fully committed to the Trinity, that he praised the three rather than what the name actually means.

[00:13:13] Katie Dooley: He's thrice great. Yeah. Not that the Trinity is great.

[00:13:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Yeah. The name Trismegistus is taken from Thoth. The great, the great, the great. Uh, which should be understood as the greatest among the greatest of the great. So this dude is the absolute top.

[00:13:35] Katie Dooley: He's the bee's knees.

[00:13:36] Preston Meyer: Exactly. It's kind of like how we see the convention in the Middle Eastern languages. How they talk of the Holy of Holies, or the sanctum sanctorum is the holiest of the holy places. So easy enough to get on board with simple language for a simpler time.

[00:13:59] Katie Dooley: Not particularly quantifiable, but.

[00:14:03] Preston Meyer: Right. But.

[00:14:06] Katie Dooley: But we get there. I pick it up what they're laying down.

[00:14:08] Preston Meyer: Now you're talking about qualities.

[00:14:10] Katie Dooley: Quality, not quantity.

[00:14:14] Preston Meyer: Uh, it's like the name Megan, which I think you should never name your child Megan.

[00:14:19] Katie Dooley: I was supposed to be a Megan.

[00:14:20] Preston Meyer: Unless she is more than 8 pounds at birth or more than 22in long at birth. Because the name Megan means big or great, but great really, to be fair, means big.

[00:14:39] Katie Dooley: I don't know how big I was when I was born, but I didn't get named Megan, and I was supposed to be named Megan. So I had big feet when I was born. Yeah. First thing the doctor said.

[00:14:50] Preston Meyer: Oh, those big old Wiley coyote feet.

[00:14:52] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Basically. You got a clown, baby, ma'am!

[00:14:58] Preston Meyer: That's great.

[00:15:01] Katie Dooley: There's also a theory that Hermes Trismegistus may have been a real king. What is that term again?

[00:15:09] Preston Meyer: Hermeneutics?

[00:15:11] Katie Dooley: No, no.

[00:15:12] Preston Meyer: That's something different entirely. Why is the word... Euhemerism!

[00:15:16] Katie Dooley: That's okay. That's what I thought.

[00:15:18] Preston Meyer: I don't know why. I'm just going through words in my head.

[00:15:21] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So euhemerism where they believe he may have been a real king with the amalgamation of these gods associated with him, because there are writings attributed to him. So how? But we also know that he's the amalgamation of two gods, so the chances of him being a real person with these gods slom.. Glommed on to him later is.

[00:15:45] Preston Meyer: It's possible, but my bets are against it.

[00:15:48] Katie Dooley: Then who wrote the stuff?

[00:15:50] Preston Meyer: Well, there's an awful lot of strong traditions all over this area, geographically and historically, where people like writing and publishing a book under somebody else's name. Egypt and Greece and all over the Middle East. Actually, it's.

[00:16:10] Katie Dooley: Another Middle Eastern religion.

[00:16:12] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, Egypt isn't strictly Middle East, it's Northern Africa. But culturally they're well connected to Greece and the Levant. Yeah. So that's it's a thing that we see. And so my inclination is that literally all of the writings credited to Hermes Trismegistus are what we call Pseudepigraphical, which means written under a false name.

[00:16:41] Katie Dooley: Oh, that's a great word!

[00:16:44] Preston Meyer: Right? 

[00:16:45] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:16:46] Preston Meyer: It looks long in writing. And the only reason I could say it in one go like that is because I've said it many times before.

[00:16:56] Katie Dooley: All I saw was the word pig.

[00:16:58] Preston Meyer: Sure. Right in the middle. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. You can put lipstick on a pig, but.

[00:17:06] Katie Dooley: You can't pseudepigraphical a pig.

[00:17:10] Preston Meyer: Sure you could

[00:17:11] Katie Dooley: I guess.

[00:17:13] Preston Meyer: And this book was written by Babe, the pig in the city.

[00:17:18] Katie Dooley: It's autobiographical. So because of these god-like associations, Hermes Trismegistus, if I guess, if you're a Hermetic is considered to be the founder of science, math, philosophy and more.

[00:17:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah. What a pitch! I like it.

[00:17:42] Katie Dooley: Run! Don't walk to your nearest Hermetical society.

[00:17:47] Preston Meyer: Sure. Uh, yeah. So among the writings that were found in Nag Hammadi, there is one hermetic text that talks about the Egyptian mystery schools and the nature of the great mysteries of God. I thought it was kind of interesting. Uh, basically, mystery schools are an Asiatic traditions that offer a knowledge that's secret for some reason or another, and a little bit at a time given by degree to their priests or magi or whatever they want to call the members of their order as they rise through the ranks of that order. And there's usually a mythological narrative wrapped around all of that. This is pretty familiar to people in the temple of Set, I want to say, the Church of Satan, and Freemasons, a couple of Christian churches, um, not any of the mainstream ones though, and shows up kind of sort of in the Latter-Day Saint tradition as well, but not really in the same way, but it's kind of nifty. Secret knowledge is, in most mystery schools, more of a distinction between classes than a reason for different classes. Just kind of a deliberate here's separations between the orders.

[00:19:09] Katie Dooley: Okay

[00:19:10] Preston Meyer: makes people feel special.

[00:19:12] Katie Dooley: Unless you're not in any of them.

[00:19:14] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:19:17] Katie Dooley: Hermetic writings got really popular during the Renaissance, and until Isaac Casaubon published that he could find no evidence that any of the texts dated before the second century CE. So this is super frustrating to the Christians who thought that Hermes was a real person, contemporary of Moses or even older.

[00:19:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:19:40] Katie Dooley: This is interesting to me that I mean, now I don't think anyone well, I shouldn't say that's unfair. We did our episode on Greeks, but very few people think anyone in the Greek pantheon was actually real, and very few people think that they're still real. So it's interesting to me that Christians, one God, were like disappointed that another God didn't exist.

[00:20:05] Preston Meyer: So for Christian Hermetics, Hermes Trismegistus wasn't a god or god combo figure, but he was just, that was the name given to a triply great prophet.

[00:20:20] Katie Dooley: That triply loved the Trinity.

[00:20:22] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Before Moses.

[00:20:24] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:20:25] Preston Meyer: Most Hermetic philosophical writings are based on the ideas of Platonists and Stoicism combined into traditional Egyptian wisdom, and fairly often there's little sprinklings of Persian and Jewish ideas thrown in there, too, just to make it look exotic to whoever is reading.

[00:20:45] Katie Dooley: Oh, I love that. Ooh. So there's two categories. There are two categories of writing. They're either technical or philosophical or religious. Technical is how to do magic things. So alchemy, medicine, astrology, that kind of stuff.

[00:21:04] Preston Meyer: The things that you get to do, yeah.

[00:21:07] Katie Dooley: Practice and then the philosophical is how we think about the world to gain power over it. And this also includes things like anthropology and theology.

[00:21:18] Preston Meyer: Understanding people, understanding God, all tricky nonsense. And so as much as you can you can argue all you want against the technical stuff of I tried this alchemy process a hundred times, never worked. It's a lot harder to argue against the philosophical writings in a concrete way. You can say, yeah, I disagree with that, or no, that this idea has no value, but more discussion.

[00:21:49] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I mean, it's literally what we do here every other week. And, uh, ties in with our belief episode. Like, you can think you know, someone you never really know, someone.

[00:22:02] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:22:03] Katie Dooley: Or how their beliefs come out or that's a rabbit hole. I'm not willing to go down right now.

[00:22:13] Preston Meyer: There's some pretty cool texts in the Hermetic tradition, though. The Emerald Tablet is a nifty thing. It's attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. It's basically lost to time whether or not there ever was actually an emerald tablet. We have no way of knowing.

[00:22:32] Katie Dooley: I was very confused when I was researching it, because there's quotes that will be familiar to our listeners that come from the Emerald Tablet. But I couldn't actually find if it existed or not.

[00:22:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The oldest reproduction of the text is an Arabic manuscript, dating to around 800 CE. And if it's a copy of text that somebody had carved into the Emerald tablet, or just something that somebody wrote down and...

[00:23:04] Katie Dooley: Said it came from an Emerald tablet, yeah.

[00:23:05] Preston Meyer: Yeah, we we don't know. But there's a bunch of different interpretations that came out as it has been translated into Latin by different editors in different places at different times. Unfortunately, at this point, we don't really have the authoritative text of the Emerald Tablet. Of course, the question of did it ever exist? But it's kind of cool.

[00:23:32] Katie Dooley: It is a revered document, but I guess it's a tablet.

[00:23:38] Preston Meyer: I mean, at this point, it's a document.

[00:23:39] Katie Dooley: It's a document. It's revered by alchemists. It's supposed to be part of the finding the philosopher. It's a piece of the Philosopher's Stone puzzle. And it's where we get the popular phrase "as above, so below". And the full quote of that. Again, this is where I was like, is this real? Because it says from the Emerald Tablet, but clearly it's from the reproduction is "that which is above is like to that which is below, and that which is below is like to that which is above". And it gets abbreviated to the much more common as above, so below.

[00:24:12] Preston Meyer: Because it's way easier to remember four words without screwing it up than that whole line.

[00:24:17] Katie Dooley: But what the heck does that even mean, Preston?!

[00:24:20] Preston Meyer: It basically means that the world that we know is more or less a facsimile of what we see in the heavens and the world beyond that we can't actually see. But also in that same way, what we see in the heavens is, what we can see in the heavens is a great way of understanding the little things. This helps... This seems more valid when we compare the atomic model to the heliocentric model of our solar system, that we've got a thing in the middle and a whole bunch of stuff whizzing around it real quick.

[00:25:00] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:25:06] Preston Meyer: Yeah, so that's basically it. If you can understand yourself, you can understand the bigger concepts like spirituality, the universe, physics, everything's connected.

[00:25:17] Katie Dooley: This kind of gave me gave me some Buddhist vibes.

[00:25:20] Preston Meyer: That's fair.

[00:25:22] Katie Dooley: I mean this part of it. We'll get into other principles of Hermeticism in a moment, but this particular one where they're, you know, understanding the self is understanding God. I was like, that's given me eastern tradition vibes, Buddhism in particular, but a little bit of Hinduism.

[00:25:40] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that seems pretty fair to me.

[00:25:42] Katie Dooley: Anyway, just interesting how everything works together.

[00:25:47] Preston Meyer: Right. Well, and something else that is a common idea in Hermeticism is the idea that there is a true theology that is presented in some sort of flawed way in every religion around the world. And so it does basically pull everything really tightly together or less tightly if you're a little more off the beaten path.

[00:26:17] Katie Dooley: Unless you're a jerk.

[00:26:19] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:26:21] Katie Dooley: We haven't said, don't be a dick in a long time, so...

[00:26:24] Preston Meyer: So don't be a dick.

[00:26:25] Katie Dooley: Just a gentle reminder, dear listener. Don't be a dick.

[00:26:34] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Uh, the Emerald Tablet also contains the three disciplines taught by Trismegistus. Alchemy, astrology and theurgy. We get a little bit more into that later on, but these are the three important wisdoms of the universe.

[00:26:52] Katie Dooley: And this is where. And we're we'll we'll chat about this. But the lines I don't want to say the lines blur, but when we in our... This is why Hermeticism came up in our Occult episode because of these practices. Honestly, digging deeper into Hermeticism, I think the Occult is just a bunch of hooey. Like, I don't think. I think you asked anyone to, you know, people who are scared of the occult and were like, don't read Harry Potter because of the occult, couldn't actually explain to you what the occult is.

[00:27:25] Preston Meyer: For sure.

[00:27:26] Katie Dooley: Right? Anyway

[00:27:28] Preston Meyer: Unless they very often the default is it's magic and magic is bad, I guess.

[00:27:39] Katie Dooley: Which this makes the next point interesting to me. Again, especially when you get the people who are whatever scared of Harry Potter or fill in the blank. The Emerald tablet appeared in The Eternals and now I actually need to go back and watch it.

[00:27:57] Preston Meyer: I only watched the movie once, and I'm gonna be honest, I did not jump out at me.

[00:28:00] Katie Dooley: No, it was like. It was like in I when I was doing the research, it was in passing that I know Druig was involved, but I don't know if he said it or was like the recipient, but someone was like, where did you get that cool Emerald tablet is basically the where'd you pick that up? Was sort of the reference. And so I don't know if it'll be important later or if it was just like a this is cute.

[00:28:24] Preston Meyer: Sure. I mean, pretty often when it shows up in any narrative, it's a big deal. It shows up in Dark, show on Netflix it's a time traveler thriller, and it's a dude's got a tattooed on his back. It shows up on a door. Both of these images are actually taken from a drawing of somebody's impression of what the Emerald Tablet probably looks like. The dude had it drawn into a book about 800 years after the stone was supposedly lost or more. Kind of tricky.

[00:29:04] Katie Dooley: But back to my point, and we can elaborate on it when we wrap up the episode. But again, these people get all mad about Harry Potter and the occult. It's like A) did you even notice it in The Eternals? B) do you know what it means? And C) like, do you care?

[00:29:22] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:29:24] Katie Dooley: Like there's and when we get into the seven principles, like there's so much Hermeticism just in our everyday lives that if you equate Hermeticism with the occult and again, I think most people can't actually define the occult because we had a hell of a time doing it. Um, like, I, I don't know what my final point of that was. My brain stopped.

[00:29:48] Preston Meyer: Don't slam a thing you don't understand.

[00:29:51] Katie Dooley: Thank you.

[00:29:51] Preston Meyer: Don't be a dick.

[00:29:52] Katie Dooley: Don't.... Thank you. It just. I don't think people realize how much of our stuff comes from non-Christian places, especially in the West.

[00:29:59] Preston Meyer: Yeah, yeah.

[00:30:02] Katie Dooley: I'll just step down from my soapbox.

[00:30:05] Preston Meyer: All right. Uh, next text we have on our list is the is the corpus hermeticum, which I think is kind of nifty.

[00:30:14] Katie Dooley: I just thought the first fact was nifty because I am an art history nerd. If you are like me and an art history nerd, you'll appreciate that Cosimo de Medici had the Corpus Hermeticum translated into Latin from Greek.

[00:30:32] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's kind of funny that Cosimo had paid a couple of translators to do a whole bunch of work of translating the works of Plato, but as soon as they got their hands on the corpus hermeticum, they dropped that.

[00:30:47] Katie Dooley: Like, stop that shit.

[00:30:48] Preston Meyer: We got to do this. This is way more important.

[00:30:51] Katie Dooley: So if you're not an art history nerd, I'm not going to spend like, two seconds on the Medicis. So the Medicis were the first family of influence that didn't have a royal... they weren't royals. They just had a ton of money. They were bankers when usury was still a thing. So they got a lot of wealth and power from just being bankers. Um, to the point where one of the Medicis became pope. But Cosimo in particular, he paid for so much art in Florence, like some of the best things that you go and see and learn about in school were paid for by Cosimo, including Donatello's David and the Duomo, the big dome in Florence. Um, and a whole bunch of other crazy cool art stuff. So. But he had...

[00:31:39] Preston Meyer: I've never even heard of Donatello's David.

[00:31:41] Katie Dooley: What? Oh

[00:31:42] Preston Meyer: I've heard of Michelangelo's David.

[00:31:45] Katie Dooley: Oh, no. Yeah. No. Yeah. No, it's Donatello's David. It's like a little boy.

[00:31:50] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:31:51] Katie Dooley: Um. And he's, like, naked and holding a sling. Okay. Donatello was also a raging homosexual so.

[00:31:57] Preston Meyer: As opposed to a normal homosexual?

[00:32:02] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:32:03] Preston Meyer: He was just a very angry fella.

[00:32:05] Katie Dooley: I mean, yes, I don't know.

[00:32:09] Preston Meyer: This would have made a lot of people in the church very uncomfortable.

[00:32:12] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And I'll show you Donatello's David.

[00:32:14] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:32:15] Katie Dooley: Afterwards, and it would have made a lot of people in the church uncomfortable. Very different.

[00:32:20] Preston Meyer: A lot of people in the church are uncomfortable with Michelangelo's David. Just because.

[00:32:24] Katie Dooley: Did you know? I think we talked about this in an episode where they chipped off all the penises, and it's someone's job to now match the penises with the statues.

[00:32:31] Preston Meyer: Yeah, we talked about that.

[00:32:32] Katie Dooley: Yeah we did. Anyway, so that's why Cosmo is interesting. We're not an art history podcast, but if you like that stuff. The Medici's are bitchin.

[00:32:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah. For me, Donatello is a ninja turtle. And I know that all of the Ninja Turtles are. 

[00:32:48] Both Speakers: Renaissance artists.

[00:32:49] Preston Meyer: Yeah, but no, for me, Donatello is just the turtle with the stick.

[00:32:55] Katie Dooley: Okay. Anyway, so the Corpus Hermeticum is the theological and philosophical text, and the name suggests that it is a collected writings on the subject when it is just actually a very small collection of treatises, kind of like the Bible.

[00:33:12] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's not the whole of everything. It's just a handful. The first in the collection is Pomandres. There's a lot of different ways this word is pronounced depending on...

[00:33:28] Katie Dooley: Pomandries!

[00:33:28] Preston Meyer: Who you studied with, really. Um, and the great thing is that no matter how you're saying it, you're saying it wrong. It's actually a butchered remnant of an old Egyptian name that translates to the knowledge of Ra. Poimandres is the Greek name that's generally accepted, and it means man shepherd when it's forced into that Greek pronunciation. But that's just not what it is. It's the knowledge of RA, which makes perfect sense considering the subject matter. We're talking about the theology in Egypt. So that's what it is. Anyway, that's struggles, language, things. I nerd out over the language bits.

[00:34:27] Katie Dooley: And I nerd out over art history.

[00:34:29] Preston Meyer: But like a lot of hermetic writings, the Corpus Hermeticum is basically mostly a dialogue between Hermes and various others. In fact, another great text is the dialogue between Hermes Trismegistus and Asclepius.

[00:34:50] Katie Dooley: What a great name.

[00:34:51] Preston Meyer: Yeah, the book is sometimes called the Perfect Sermon, or sometimes just Asclepius, because this is who Hermes is talking to. Asclepius, if you don't remember, is the Greek god of medicine, and the rod of Asclepius is a fairly common symbol, with medicine of the snake around the stick different than the caduceus, which is. 

[00:35:16] Katie Dooley: Two snakes.

[00:35:16] Preston Meyer: Two snakes wrapped around a stick with wings. But they're both pretty well used around the world. So Asclepius is another god that Hermes, a god, is talking to.

[00:35:28] Katie Dooley: Cool.

[00:35:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And this is part or at least part of it survived into the library. And so I've read it, and it is a trip. It's fairly apocalyptic.

[00:35:44] Katie Dooley: Cool.

[00:35:45] Preston Meyer: Um, it talks about how Egypt will one day be a desert. So here's the problem. The book was written after Egypt had been a desert for a long time.

[00:35:57] Katie Dooley: I was gonna say, hasn't it always been a desert?

[00:36:00] Preston Meyer: There are about 10,000 years ago it was in the monsoon path and so it was actually. 

[00:36:06] Katie Dooley: Quite lush,

[00:36:06] Preston Meyer: Fairly green and nice. But it's been a desert for more than 4000 years. And these writings are not that old. They're not.

[00:36:18] Katie Dooley: What a prophet!

[00:36:20] Preston Meyer: Uh, but it's a great way of making it look old and presenting a prophecy that has already been fulfilled. So obviously, the next prophecies are going to be great. It talks about how the Nile will run with more blood than water.

[00:36:37] Katie Dooley: Don't like that.

[00:36:38] Preston Meyer: Right. That's gross. Some people will see this as being fulfilled in the days of Moses or in our just in future. You got options. And then, of course, there's this weird statement that says that when atheism pervades, the air will be unbreathable.

[00:36:56] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:36:58] Preston Meyer: I mean, atheism is getting more popular and we are working really hard to make our air unbreathable, but I don't think we're there.

[00:37:05] Katie Dooley: Causation does not equal correlation! Wait, correlation does not equal causation!

[00:37:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's an interesting prediction.

[00:37:14] Katie Dooley: I feel attacked!

[00:37:15] Preston Meyer: It's an interesting prediction. But yeah correlation causation tricky nonsense. Yeah. What I found is really interesting is when I cracked open my book yesterday to go through and read Asclepius again, it starts with a talk about sex.

[00:37:33] Katie Dooley: What kind of talk about sex? Like birds and the bees or like porn?

[00:37:38] Preston Meyer: More birds and bees than porn. But he's, like, very serious about sharing fluids and sharing strength while sharing fluids and don't have sex in front of people who haven't had sex yet.

[00:37:52] Katie Dooley: Don't have sex in front of people, generally.

[00:37:54] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's a weird talk.

[00:37:58] Katie Dooley: Can you please read it to your future child when it comes time?

[00:38:02] Preston Meyer: Uh, sure. I can say that that is a plan. And whether or not that happens, we'll see.

[00:38:10] Katie Dooley: Perfect. If not, I'll. I'll take on the role as Auntie Katie and be like, sit down, son. We're gonna have a talk about the birds and the bees.

[00:38:20] Preston Meyer: Well, and I mean, the way it's worded does actually make it fit as a perfectly reasonable text to read from when you want to have that first chat about the birds and the bees, even though it feels a little bit weird. Read it yourself before you read it to your kids.

[00:38:40] Katie Dooley: Okay. 

[00:38:40] Preston Meyer: I think, but I think it's not wildly inappropriate to share with a ten-year-old. That's fine.

[00:38:47] Katie Dooley: Okay. Okay. All right. Um, and then the last book we're going to talk about today is The Kybalion. It was originally published in 1908, and it conveys the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus.

[00:39:02] Preston Meyer: As much as anything does.

[00:39:04] Katie Dooley: As much as anything does. It is published with the author credit to three initiates, but it looks like it was written by William Walker Atkinson, a prolific occultist writer known to have written under the false name under false names like Magus Incognito and Yogi Ramacharaka.

[00:39:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:39:27] Katie Dooley: Charaka. Excuse me. I got too excited. Yogi. Ramacharaka. Charaka. Ramacharaka.

[00:39:35] Preston Meyer: Charaka.

[00:39:36] Katie Dooley: Ramacharaka. I just I'm making it worse. Look at the audio on me trying to say it. Oh, boy.

[00:39:44] Preston Meyer: Uh, yeah. Good old Bill used a lot of false names to write a lot of different books. Kind of interesting. Uh, Yogi Ramacharaka is one of his more popular names. And Magus Incognito is my favorite.

[00:40:03] Katie Dooley: That's a great name.

[00:40:05] Preston Meyer: Right? Just the priest that doesn't want to be known.

[00:40:08] Katie Dooley: I love it. It also sounds like a really weird detective from the 1920s. Sure. Like, I want to write a novel about Magnus Incognito.

[00:40:18] Preston Meyer: Mhm. I thought it was nifty. The Kybalion on the title page says that its publisher's home base, the Masonic Temple in Chicago. So I couldn't find whether or not he was a Freemason or just well-connected in that community. I don't think it makes a big difference, but it's kind of nifty. And William Walker Atkinson was also really into Hinduism and yoga in particular, which we've talked about a couple of times already in our podcast as well. And this dude was a lawyer, that he passed the bar in Chicago and served as a lawyer all over Illinois while also writing a lot of books.

[00:41:05] Katie Dooley: Interesting. Good for him. Good for him.

[00:41:07] Preston Meyer: I don't think he was quite as prolific as, say, L Ron Hubbard or.

[00:41:11] Katie Dooley: R.L. Stine.

[00:41:12] Preston Meyer: Right but...

[00:41:15] Katie Dooley: We're big fans of Goosebumps here.

[00:41:19] Preston Meyer: I did read a lot of Goosebumps as a kid.

[00:41:21] Katie Dooley: Didn't we all?

[00:41:24] Preston Meyer: But he's got more than 100 titles under his belt.

[00:41:27] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:41:28] Preston Meyer: Most of which are still in circulation in collected works today, which is kind of cool.

[00:41:33] Katie Dooley: It was really cool. The Kybalion is where we get the condensed seven principles of Hermeticism.

[00:41:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's interesting that people are so scared of the occult. If you read self-help or life coaching books, these concepts are going to show up. That's kind of The Secret. That was a big thing, what, ten, 15, 20 years ago?

[00:41:57] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I mean, it's still they're still reprinting it.

[00:42:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:42:01] Katie Dooley: With updated stories from like a belief standpoint. As the resident atheist, I don't hate this.

[00:42:09] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:42:10] Katie Dooley: And, you know, Bill was an occult writer, and we talked about astrology and alchemy and theurgy, but from, uh, occult perspective, this doesn't have anything to do with that. They talk about energy, which will chat about. And, you know, I don't really believe in crystals or Reiki, but we do scientifically know everything is made of energy. So I think there and when we get to the points, there is some truth to all of these points. But there's probably I mean, any religion, there's some truth to all the points. That's how they get you.

[00:42:48] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The things that we have in this book, they're not strictly classically hermetic ideas, but it adds to Hermeticism for anyone who's interested in them. And they have they've wormed their way into most modern hermetic thinking.

[00:43:09] Katie Dooley: So principle number one is essentially visualization. Or like Preston mentioned, The Secret. If you focus on wherever you set your focus to, you can manifest things into being. There's been a ton of research done on visualization. So while there are some wild stories in The Secret, there's one about a man who, like, willed his eyes to be better, to be 20/20. I'm like, ehhhh, there has. You know, there's lots of benefits if you're an athlete or a performer or goal setting to go through some visualization practices.

[00:43:48] Preston Meyer: This idea fits kind of nicely into Scientology, too. And Neil Gaiman, who I didn't know was a Scientologist until you told me he was, at least for a little while. He incorporates this idea into the creation and how gods come to be. In his book, American Gods, which I just finished reading and really, really loved.

[00:44:12] Katie Dooley: Nice. I think some of this like from a, I mean, lots of people, lots of coaches and things like that. Like Tony Robbins talks about visualization. There's also the I forget what it's called your something activating system in your brain. So when you buy a red car, all of a sudden everyone owns a red car.

[00:44:35] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah yeah.

[00:44:36] Katie Dooley: Right. There's actually something I forget what it's called. Someone's gonna like at me for this. But there's something in your brain that, like, when you're focused on it now, you see it everywhere. So I think that plays. And it's an actual part of your brain that plays into this as well, right? Like if you focus on, you know, my friend always says she gets rock star parking all the time. She probably doesn't because she focuses on all the time. She's gotten rock star parking. Now she always thinks she gets rock star parking. She probably gets rock star parking more often because of it. Rock star parking being like, right outside the store. Yeah. Minus the handicap stalls.

[00:45:13] Preston Meyer: I get ya, because those handicap spots are always empty.

[00:45:18] Katie Dooley: Well, and you can't. Those are not rock star spots. Just to be clear.

[00:45:23] Preston Meyer: I mean, they are, if you want them to be.

[00:45:27] Katie Dooley: Wow. Preston, what are we to say? Like three minutes ago about being a dick.

[00:45:31] Preston Meyer: Don't be a dick.

[00:45:32] Katie Dooley: Yes. Thank you. Number two, please.

[00:45:36] Preston Meyer: Uh, correspondence. This is the whole as above, so below concept that the world is the same thing on different levels.

[00:45:46] Katie Dooley: That was an easy one.

[00:45:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I mean, we've talked about it so we can move on to the next one.

[00:45:51] Katie Dooley: All right. Number three is vibration. So good vibes. If you have a coffee mug or a notepad that says good vibes on it. And you're a devout Christian scared of the occult, you better smash and or burn it because it is a hermetic. It is a hermetic thing. Good vibes. So everything is energy. We know scientifically, everything is energy, which is where again, I find Hermeticism super interesting.

[00:46:15] Preston Meyer: But smashing the coffee mug that says good vibes is bad vibes.

[00:46:21] Katie Dooley: Fair. Maybe donate it if it's a problem in your world. Um, and everything is moving constantly. Like we know atoms are always moving, some faster than others, some looser or tighter than others. So the idea is that if you want to resonate at a higher frequency, you surround yourself with higher vibration things. So from like a practical perspective, like we all have that friend that's Eeyore and you never feel good after spending time with Eeyore. As cute as Eeyore is or your Eeyore friend. Um, so that's the idea, right? We like hanging out with people that are fun and positive and whatever. And when you hang out with those people, you feel more fun and positive and energetic. That's the concept there.

[00:47:09] Preston Meyer: Not that you should never hang out with Eeyore, but...

[00:47:12] Katie Dooley: You set boundaries around Eeyore.

[00:47:13] Preston Meyer: Yeah, Eeyore needs boundaries.

[00:47:15] Katie Dooley: Eeyore needs a lot of boundaries and your need personally needs therapy. You need to set boundaries around Eeyore. And Eeyore needs to see a therapist.

[00:47:26] Preston Meyer: Yeah. For sure. Anyway, next on our list.

[00:47:33] Katie Dooley: Oh, this episode, Muppets and Winnie the Pooh.

[00:47:38] Preston Meyer: At least Winnie he is in the public domain now.

[00:47:41] Katie Dooley: Ah heck yeah.

[00:47:42] Preston Meyer: I don't know if I'm sure Eeyore was in those first books.

[00:47:47] Katie Dooley: I don't know.

[00:47:48] Preston Meyer: I could be wrong.

[00:47:49] Katie Dooley: I don't think we're going to get sued for saying Eeyore.

[00:47:51] Preston Meyer: We're not going to get any trouble for saying it. No.

[00:47:54] Katie Dooley: Eeyore!

[00:47:56] Preston Meyer: But...

[00:47:57] Katie Dooley: Eeyore is gonna sue us for defamation. I don't need therapy.

[00:48:03] Preston Meyer: Ah. Truth is a perfect defense. Anyway, fourth on the list of these seven principles is polarity. That everything is the same thing, just on varying degree. A really obvious example of this is temperature. Both hot and cold are temperatures. Cold is just a lot less warm than heat is, but that's more or less the the basics of it. Everything's the same. There's also this idea that comes up the the phrasing is all truths are but half truths. Feels a little bit weird, but when you think about trying to communicate with somebody, you can present facts and you can present truths. And if you're trying to accomplish one over the other, the words you use are different. And there's... It's hard to present a thing in a way that encompasses all of the truth of a thing.

[00:49:06] Katie Dooley: I mean, this is kind of like the the phrase there's, you know, three sides to every argument his, hers and the truth.

[00:49:11] Preston Meyer: Right? Yeah.

[00:49:13] Katie Dooley: That's what I think of immediately.

[00:49:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Actually, going back to Neil Gaiman, he describes in American Gods, I think it was in the appendix or at the very end of the book, how if you want a perfectly accurate map, the only way to do that is to have the land itself, which, if you're looking for a map is functionally useless. So truth is a tricky thing.

[00:49:46] Katie Dooley: Number five is rhythm. So there, the idea is that there's an ebb and flow to life, and you can work with those ebb and flows to reduce the dramatic fluctuations of your life. So basically accepting that sometimes things will be awesome, sometimes things will not be so awesome. Sometimes it's summer, sometimes it's winter in Canada. If you're in Florida or something, lucky you. Uh, but to accept that, uh, waning and waxing will make your life much easier. 

[00:50:24] Preston Meyer: And happier.

[00:50:25] Katie Dooley: And happier. So you can be a high-vibe person. Mhm.

[00:50:29] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Uh, next on our list, point number six is cause and effect that everything has a cause and an effect. Every cause has an effect. Every effect has a cause. And it's actually really important that these principles are laid out in that way, that nothing just happens out of nothing. Which is weird when you look at the theology of Hermeticism, that the God that is all, but also created all actually doesn't have a cause, but is the cause.

[00:51:07] Katie Dooley: Mhm.

[00:51:08] Preston Meyer: It's tricky.

[00:51:09] Katie Dooley: I like it.

[00:51:10] Preston Meyer: It's so tricky.

[00:51:10] Katie Dooley: I like it.

[00:51:12] Preston Meyer: But you can either be active and make things happen, or you can just be a vessel that is acted upon and that's going to not work out for you.

[00:51:23] Katie Dooley: Yes. So Hermeticism encourages that you are the cause in your life as opposed to being the effect of your life.

[00:51:30] Preston Meyer: And I've, I've heard a few religions use this as well that you need to be the agent, the actor, the one making things happen rather than being passive and receptive.

[00:51:42] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And number seven is gender. So I reworded this. But basically it's regardless of your genitalia or your gender identity. We both have masculine and feminine energies within us. This kind of ties into polarity and even rhythm, and that the goal is to find a healthy balance between your masculine and feminine energies.

[00:52:06] Preston Meyer: I'm pretty comfortable with my current balance. Not that nobody needs a little bit of adjustment, but I'm comfortable.

[00:52:15] Katie Dooley: You're not toxically masculine, so that's good.

[00:52:18] Preston Meyer: Right? Uh, yes. Toxic masculinity. The perfect red flag for somebody who is naturally a lot more feminine than they want to admit.

[00:52:30] Katie Dooley: Just embrace it. You'll be so be so much happier, right? You'll vibe higher. We don't have an episode name at the time I'm saying this, but I feel like it should be like good vibes and bloody tears. I'm kidding. That's a reference.

[00:52:49] Preston Meyer: Uh, Blue Jeans and Bloody Tears is a weird song.

[00:52:53] Katie Dooley: It is one of my favorites.

[00:52:55] Preston Meyer: I feel weird about it being one of your favorites, but I do have to go back to it fairly often.

[00:53:01] Katie Dooley: There's two great key changes and I just get way too excited every time.

[00:53:05] Preston Meyer: Man. Machines. A great evidence of some sort of alchemy.

[00:53:12] Katie Dooley: I like it. Speaking of alchemy, Preston.

[00:53:16] Preston Meyer: Yes. The three parts of the Wisdom of the universe that we talked about briefly before. Instead, we talk about later. Alchemy is the first. It's basically chemistry, but fancier. It has more power than the chemistry that we're familiar with. Alchemy is the power to change small things in the material world. Turning mercury or quicksilver into gold or lead into gold or mercury into silver.

[00:53:47] Katie Dooley: Iron into gold. I just read a book about that.

[00:53:49] Preston Meyer: Yeah, you've got honestly an awful lot of options. If your alchemy practices are legit, then you can turn base metals into precious metals, and that's kind of cool in theory.

[00:54:03] Katie Dooley: In practice...

[00:54:04] Preston Meyer: In practice, the heat that would be produced by changing atoms would be devastating. Not that it's impossible. We've proven that you can change one element to another. It takes a lot more effort than alchemy suggests.

[00:54:28] Katie Dooley: You can't get it hot enough.

[00:54:31] Preston Meyer: Uh, I mean, I don't know if you can produce the pressure to turn lead into gold. It's a little more complicated than that. There's also a nice little allegorical value to the principles of alchemy that if you are sensitive and thoughtful, you have the power to change a weak man into a strong one. There's some good value there. That turning yourself from lead into gold is the real goal.

[00:55:06] Katie Dooley: Steve Rogers. Mhm.

[00:55:10] Preston Meyer: The golden boy.

[00:55:14] Katie Dooley: Then we have astrology, which is of course the power to read the stars as the handiwork and message board of the gods. Um, so yeah, being able to predict the future and learn things about people based off of the stars.

[00:55:33] Preston Meyer: Not a thing I'm on board with there. I don't I don't even find allegorical value in it. But it's interesting to see that people have been studying the stars for so long and have put so much value into it.

[00:55:45] Katie Dooley: Um, astronomy, on the other hand...

[00:55:49] Preston Meyer: Astronomy is super cool and a lot of people get the two confused. It doesn't help that astrology is a word that means the study of the stars, and astronomy is the study of the stars for a different purpose.

[00:56:05] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:56:06] Preston Meyer: It's frustrating.

[00:56:08] Katie Dooley: Yep.

[00:56:10] Preston Meyer: And so many of the genuinely accepted sciences and with -ology, biology.

[00:56:20] Katie Dooley: Chemology.

[00:56:21] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:56:22] Katie Dooley: Physicology.

[00:56:23] Preston Meyer: Thank you for pointing out the perfect flaw in my scheme.

[00:56:28] Katie Dooley: Botanology. Yep. All my favorites end in -ology. You are correct.

[00:56:34] Preston Meyer: There's a lot of sciences that do end with ology. And thanks to you, I'm blanking on any of them.

[00:56:40] Katie Dooley: Herbology is a real science. Um, animal husbandology is a science.

[00:56:50] Preston Meyer: Astrology is legit as Scientology and that's where I'm stuck now.

[00:56:57] Katie Dooley: Oh, poor Preston, if you can think of an ology, that's a real science, because I sure can't post it in our Discord.

[00:57:05] Preston Meyer: Uh, well, that's what we get. When preparing for this, I didn't think I would need a list of legit sciences that end in -ology.

[00:57:15] Katie Dooley: You didn't think Katie was so smart on her science? Eh?

[00:57:23] Preston Meyer: Let's just move on.

[00:57:24] Katie Dooley: Human sexology. Medicineology. Sorry, I gotta stop. Uh, kinesiology!

[00:57:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah. That's real.

[00:57:39] Katie Dooley: There you go. Sorry. Theurgy.

[00:57:44] Preston Meyer: Uh, I feel bad that the only one that could come to my mind right away was biology. But anyway. Next on our list of the three parts of the wisdom of the universe, we have theurgy, which relies a little bit on alchemy and astrology, but is the powerful acts of God in the universe that is, a power that even people can actually wield, in theory, by union with benevolent spirits that grant this power to man, as opposed to making a deal with the devil and having a totally different power, which is still a reality within the principles of Hermeticism. Theurgy is a rather complicated bit because it's having the power of God, which is, of course, the dream for literally anybody who's really into Hermeticism, or even people who just aren't satisfied with their personal power, in this life, whatever your religious tradition is. But getting that power is a pretty tricky business. And that's part of the the pursuit of alchemy and astrology is to be able to understand and prepare yourself to wield that power, which is kind of cool. Like many other religious traditions, Hermetic Theology states that humanity has fallen from perfection and will live through cycles of reincarnation until the cycle is broken by obtaining and applying the wisdom of the universe. It's a pretty decent goal, a decent understanding that explains why people are so terrible to each other because we're fallen. It's a fairly common statement among religious traditions, especially from the west side or no, the east side of the Mediterranean Sea.

[00:59:47] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:59:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I don't know why I got my directions mixed up, but it is the east side of the Mediterranean Sea where this idea is really an important principle of religion.

[00:59:56] Katie Dooley: Yeah. To wrap up, I just kind of want to talk about how it connects to the occult. Do we think it's occult, especially when there's so much of it, I guess, hidden in plain sight in our everyday lives. What are your thoughts?

[01:00:12] Preston Meyer: I think that's a weird question. Okay.

[01:00:15] Katie Dooley: Um, did I word it weird?

[01:00:18] Preston Meyer: Maybe. Maybe that's the that's the problem. Um, generally when we use the word occult, we're talking about knowledge or power that needs to be hidden from the masses. And even though the literature of Hermeticism is fairly available, there's still secrets that are very effectively hidden. And so that makes it pretty easy to say that it is occult. And is alchemy fitting into that category of pseudosciences that is more, more recently applied to what we consider occult? I think fairly so. Astrology? Yes. 100%. But a lot of people look at occult as, oh that's dangerous.

[01:01:10] Katie Dooley: Right.

[01:01:10] Preston Meyer: Don't touch that and...

[01:01:14] Katie Dooley: Good vibes is pretty positive.

[01:01:16] Preston Meyer: I mean, I don't see any danger in Hermeticism. So if that's how you describe what is occult, I'm going to say no. But needing to have a conversation about definitions before talking about a thing is it's annoying... But it's a very real and necessary part of having religious discussions.

[01:01:43] Katie Dooley: Especially in this worlds. Yes. Um, when people toss around a whole bunch of things that are just wrong.

[01:01:53] Preston Meyer: Right? Like, you can have somebody say something to you and go, yes, all of those words that you have used in that order make a true statement. But the idea that you have behind those words and ideas is false. Or sometimes you have the the opposite, where it's like, I know that what you're thinking is right, but what you said is dumb. And there's everything in between those two extremes too.

[01:02:22] Katie Dooley: I love it. So Hermeticism, fascinating, influential and not dangerous.

[01:02:30] Preston Meyer: I think so. I think it's fascinating. Not that I've put in enough study to have a stronger grasp on it than I have, but I think it's cool.

[01:02:40] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[01:02:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[01:02:42] Katie Dooley: Sweet.

[01:02:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Speaking of alchemy, you should get your hands on some Holy Watermelon merch.

[01:02:49] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[01:02:51] Preston Meyer: It's not a great segway.

[01:02:53] Katie Dooley: No, it was really bad, but I'll. I'll accept it. He means it because it's like it will transform you from that lesser man to a greater man. If you wear a Holy Watermelon t-shirt.

[01:03:07] Preston Meyer: Oh, it'll make you. It'll take you from your current state into a billboard for the Holy Watermelon.

[01:03:13] Katie Dooley: A higher state.

[01:03:15] Preston Meyer: I like it.

[01:03:15] Katie Dooley: You will vibe higher. Wearing a Holy Watermelon t-shirt, oh boy.

[01:03:21] Preston Meyer: We've also got all kinds of other merch. You should check out our shop.

[01:03:25] Katie Dooley: Or if you. That's if you want to support us on an ongoing basis we also have a Patreon where for a small monthly fee, you can get early access and bonus episodes.

[01:03:37] Preston Meyer: Yeah, we're having some good fun with our bonus episodes.

[01:03:40] Katie Dooley: Yes! Also, check us out on Discord. We're building a great community and having some awesome conversations about religious studies, which is nice to see and have and questions and challenges.

[01:03:53] Preston Meyer: And our meme game is fantastic.

[01:03:56] Katie Dooley: Our mean game is chef's kiss. Mwah!

[01:03:58] Preston Meyer: Thank you for joining us.

[01:04:00] Both Speakers: Peace be with you.

There's some misunderstanding surrounding celibacy, so we're going to explore why it's such a prominent part of the Imperial Christian Priesthood, and we'll take a look at some of the damage that the policy has caused. We've made a point of keeping the trauma-triggers to the later portion of the show, so everybody can enjoy the more interesting bits of history before we get to the more sensitive content.

We explore some of the history of the celibacy policy, as well as other rules that have been ignored over time. Chastity and celibacy are not the same thing, and they're not mutually assured, but they're not mutually exclusive either. We also take a peek at the work of Vincent Doyle and Coping International.

Trigger-Warning: Halfway through (with deliberate break and warning), we talk about priestly sex scandals around the world.

Catholicism has taken a few hits since the priestly diddlers hit the news, but it turns out that antidisestablishmentarianism is still strong in the American federal government. After the trigger warning, learn more about the statistics around the Catholic sex abuse scandal, and some of the profiling of those priests who have been identified. It turns out an awful lot of external reports encourage the Catholic church to let their priests marry, with good reason.

All this and more....

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

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Learn more on our official website

[00:00:11] Katie Dooley: I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be for this episode.

[00:00:14] Preston Meyer: Yeah, there's some things that I'm not excited to talk about, but it's important.

[00:00:18] Katie Dooley: I mean, we try to laugh here on...

[00:00:21] Both Speakers: The Holy Watermelon Podcast.

[00:00:23] Katie Dooley: But this episode is no laughing matter.

[00:00:27] Preston Meyer: No, not so much.

[00:00:29] Katie Dooley: Uh, trigger warning. We're talking about the Catholic Church.

[00:00:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah, we're gonna keep it light for a little while. We'll let you know when you should duck out. If that's a thing you feel the need to do.

[00:00:44] Katie Dooley: But we are talking about the Catholic Church.

[00:00:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:00:48] Katie Dooley: So I hope that's enough said.

[00:00:51] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I wanted to talk a little bit about the the foundation for the problem.

[00:00:57] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:00:58] Preston Meyer: Which is how I built most of my notes in trying to figure out how to put this all together.

[00:01:03] Katie Dooley: Yes, it is such a big thing, it is very hard to make it. I mean, it's hard to make it digestible for a few reasons. One, because it is terrible.

[00:01:12] Preston Meyer: Indigestible,

[00:01:13] Katie Dooley: Indigestible and then it's just...

[00:01:15] Preston Meyer: It's unpalatable.

[00:01:17] Katie Dooley: Yes. And then it's just so it's so big. Like, where do you start and finish?

[00:01:23] Preston Meyer: And yeah.

[00:01:24] Katie Dooley: You don't.

[00:01:25] Preston Meyer: So anyway.

[00:01:26] Katie Dooley: Sorry. Yes. Preamble, this is preamble.

[00:01:30] Preston Meyer: This whole preamble, we actually haven't said anything meaningful, but let's get into it. Celibacy, that thing that a lot of people are familiar with the word. And a lot of people misuse this word a lot of the time. Celibacy is not going without sex. I don't care what version of the dictionary you use. If it says it's going without sex, it's incorrect.

[00:01:55] Katie Dooley: That's abstinence.

[00:01:57] Preston Meyer: Well, abstinence is a big umbrella term. And celibacy is a kind of abstinence. But going without sex is chastity. Chastity is voluntarily refraining from participating in extramarital sex. According to some definitions, or all sex in general, depending on your dictionary, extramarital chastity is explicitly demanded in both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles and most other religious traditions as well. Celibacy is voluntarily choosing not to get married. Sex has nothing to do with it. Self-described incels aren't celibate. They're just assholes. An awful lot of people think that celibacy means abstinence from sex, because that's how they see most priests. And at this point, it makes sense, because most priests, at least in the Catholic tradition are also supposed to be chaste. Even a lot of priests misdefined celibacy because of the long tradition of how the word just gets used. They don't bother looking it up to see what the word actually means. They just use it and hope that they're using it right. I think everybody knows somebody who does that with words.

[00:03:21] Katie Dooley: Yes, I've definitely made up words before.

[00:03:26] Preston Meyer: But even if you have a weird uncle that goes around having sex every weekend with total strangers but refuses to ever get married, he is also celibate. He just isn't chaste. Chastity is expected in every tradition that places any value in the biblical law, and so priests are supposed to be both. In the Catholic tradition, both chaste and celibate so people can get confused by this issue. There's no reason they should though.

[00:04:02] Katie Dooley: But I do not equal sign.

[00:04:03] Preston Meyer: Yes.

[00:04:05] Katie Dooley: Between those two words.

[00:04:06] Preston Meyer: Yes. Bible-believingIf you're going to be a quote unquote good Bible-believing Christian, then you're not going to be having sex outside of marriage. That's chastity.

[00:04:19] Katie Dooley: But you will probably get married.

[00:04:22] Preston Meyer: Probably.

[00:04:23] Katie Dooley: So you're not celibate.

[00:04:24] Preston Meyer: Right. So this is a tradition that we see in the Catholic Church, especially that the Church of Rome does not allow any clergyman to marry except deacons. There are exceptions to that, of course. Any converts from other churches, like an Anglican priest, for example, can convert to Catholicism and stay married.

[00:04:48] Katie Dooley: Right.

[00:04:49] Preston Meyer: Yeah, they can stay married and actually still serve as serve as priests as long as the right permissions are signed. It's it's a.. I don't want to say common exception, but it happens.

[00:05:01] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:05:02] Preston Meyer: And it's it's legitimate. Which of course raises the question over and over again and more and more often, why won't they let the regular Roman Catholic priests marry? We're going to get into that.

[00:05:19] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:05:20] Preston Meyer: It's it's weird to see how strict the Latin Church is about marriage, like straight up banning it for priests, but also turns out they're really not worried about sex. That and of course, there's the Orthodox tradition, which is like Catholic. They're both the old ones that split apart from each other. In the Orthodox tradition, priests cannot get married, but there's no actual problem allowing somebody who is married to become a priest and stay married.

[00:05:52] Katie Dooley: So I feel like a lot of people do that first.

[00:05:55] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah.

[00:05:55] Katie Dooley: And then go to seminary. 

[00:05:56] Preston Meyer: For sure. In fact, there's a nice tradition in some parts of the world where there's a family tradition of raising priests. Like I served as a priest. And so my son's going to do the same, but he's going to get married first. That's that's normal.

[00:06:17] Katie Dooley: Sounds even healthy!

[00:06:19] Preston Meyer: Right? It really is. What's interesting, though, is that if you're a priest and you have been widowed, you're not allowed to remarry. Even in the Orthodox tradition, they don't allow priests to marry. You got to be married first, and then that's just the way it goes.

[00:06:37] Katie Dooley: I think women outlive men more times than not.

[00:06:41] Preston Meyer: Right? So both churches, both the Orthodox and Catholic churches, claim that these are necessary Sees and they acknowledge that they're not any sort of dogmatic law. It's not that we believe this law came from God. It's just over thousands of years we've noticed this is a policy that we're pretty committed to.

[00:07:02] Katie Dooley: Ehhhh....

[00:07:03] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:07:04] Katie Dooley: There might be a few of those episodes.

[00:07:06] Preston Meyer: Yeah, there's there's good reasons to reconsider, at least. And we'll get into.

[00:07:12] Katie Dooley: I can think of like 200,000 good reasons to reconsider but...

[00:07:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:07:18] Katie Dooley: We'll get to that statistic later. It's as sad as you think it is.

[00:07:22] Preston Meyer: Yes. On the flip side, Protestants generally encourage clergy to be married, even their bishops, which is straight up unheard of in the imperial traditions further east.

[00:07:34] Katie Dooley: Yeah and Protestantism, it's almost weird if you're a pastor isn't married.

[00:07:39] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:07:41] Katie Dooley: 'Cause you gotta be repping the good Christian family.

[00:07:44] Preston Meyer: Right, family is a huge deal, just like it was in the Jewish tradition that all of this comes out of. Yeah, you know, innovations and new decisions and claims of revelation. Weird things happen sometimes. It's it's kind of interesting, though, that within the Protestant tradition, clerical celibacy is recognized as fully antithetical to good theology and obviously harmful in the real world. We'll get into that later. And to add another layer to that, a lot of Protestant churches will not allow divorced people to serve in the clergy. So you need to be married and never get divorced.

[00:08:30] Katie Dooley: Yes. And then, I mean, divorce is still frowned upon in most Christian groups. Even if it's allowed, it's still, I think even outside of Christianity, it's still pretty frowned upon just societally.

[00:08:44] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:08:44] Katie Dooley: It shouldn't be, but... 

[00:08:46] Preston Meyer: It's generally, broadly speaking, divorce is a broken promise, but ruining both people's lives within the community because one of them broke the promise is a pretty crappy thing to do.

[00:09:04] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:09:05] Preston Meyer: So the stigma of divorce is a little ridiculous.

[00:09:10] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Don't stay with anyone you don't want to be with.

[00:09:13] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:09:14] Katie Dooley: It's my. It's my PSA for the day and don't be alone with the priest. Uh.

[00:09:22] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:09:23] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:09:27] Preston Meyer: Terrible. Terrible things.

[00:09:29] Katie Dooley: We're gonna try and keep it light-hearted.

[00:09:31] Preston Meyer: But at least until we have to get into the the bad stuff. I mentioned a little bit the the history of marriage in the priesthood. Super important in the Israelite and Jewish tradition that the priests of Israel and Judah were expected to be married. Their whole deal was that the priesthood duties were assigned by families for a couple of weeks of the year. The priesthood in general was a very patriarchal lineal family thing.

[00:10:04] Katie Dooley: Aren't there aren't there gospels that say Jesus would have had to have been married because it was weird to have a Jewish priest that wasn't married?

[00:10:11] Preston Meyer: I've never heard of any that say that Jesus was a priest.

[00:10:15] Katie Dooley: Prophet Person. 

[00:10:17] Preston Meyer: Um, as a rabbi.

[00:10:18] Katie Dooley: Rabbi, thank you.

[00:10:20] Preston Meyer: It would have been weird for him to not be married. Yeah. And Jesus was a very popular and well-known rabbi. Not that they use that exact verbiage for that role during his lifetime. The traditional rabbinical system that we're familiar with today started just a little bit after he died. But that's basically the role he filled.

[00:10:44] Katie Dooley: Yeah,

[00:10:44] Preston Meyer: Yeah, anyway, yeah, the Levites were very family-oriented. In fact, the entire Israelite religion, religious tradition was very family-oriented. And the only thing to really take away from that into the tradition that we see in the Catholic tradition, is the idea that you were not allowed to work in the temple or visit the temple if as a man, if you had ejaculated since the last sunset, and only then if they had had a bath before sunset as well, which sounds a little bit weird, but they have some really strict laws about cleanliness. If you're on your period, no visiting the temple, all kinds of things like that. If you're dumping fluids, you're unclean.

[00:11:35] Katie Dooley: How do they know?

[00:11:36] Preston Meyer: It's all self-discipline business. If you want to break the rule, you can break the rule.

[00:11:43] Katie Dooley: You'll be smoted, though.

[00:11:46] Preston Meyer: Sure and then, of course, we have Paul the Apostle. His writings are relied on very heavily. In fact, Paul is far more important in the Catholic tradition than any other writer, which feels really weird to me. But he did write the bulk of the New Testament, or at least what got accepted into what we now call the New Testament. But he asked temporary, full-time ministers to keep it in their pants while travelling abroad, but also specifically encouraged bishops to follow the Roman law of having only one wife, as opposed to the Hebrew tradition of allowing multiple wives, which means that there was a time in the Christian tradition before Catholicism destroyed everything and took power and monopolized Christianity, that priests and bishops would be married and sometimes with more than one wife.

[00:12:44] Katie Dooley: Wow. Lucky guy.

[00:12:46] Preston Meyer: If that's the way it goes.

[00:12:50] Katie Dooley: I feel like more than one wife would be difficult to manage. I know how hard I am to manage.

[00:12:56] Preston Meyer: Sure, but that's not the only time the Catholic Church has deviated from the biblical standard.

[00:13:05] Katie Dooley: No.

[00:13:07] Preston Meyer: Jesus said that if you can't look at a woman without breaking the law, cut out your eyes and your balls.

[00:13:13] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:13:14] Preston Meyer: Jesus was very straightforward about this. And there's a lot of people who argue that he was just being figurative. No, no. Some of the stories are figurative. When you have a man giving advice to an audience, he means exactly what he says.

[00:13:33] Katie Dooley: Gouge out your eyes, sir.

[00:13:35] Preston Meyer: Right. Of course. The first ecumenical council in AD 325 strictly forbids following Jesus advice in this way. Mystifying.

[00:13:47] Katie Dooley: I mean, people are really easily can ignore the whole love your neighbor stuff too, from Jesus so...

[00:13:53] Preston Meyer: Yeah, but nobody's preaching against love your neighbor. There's a big difference between.

[00:13:58] Katie Dooley: Fair.

[00:13:58] Preston Meyer: Failing to follow the rules and preaching against good doctrine.

[00:14:04] Katie Dooley: Cutting off your own balls..

[00:14:05] Preston Meyer: Yeah. 

[00:14:06] Katie Dooley: I like that you call that good doctrine.

[00:14:08] Preston Meyer: Well, I was being more general, but I'm comfortable including that specific statement in the doctrine under the umbrella.

[00:14:16] Katie Dooley: I would like to see a pastor make his congregants follow through with that.

[00:14:23] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean, if you got somebody who keeps shouting, you can't let her wear that because it makes me have dirty thoughts. Fix your own problem, buddy. Don't mess with her. Deal with your own business.

[00:14:39] Katie Dooley: And just hands over a pair of scissors.

[00:14:41] Preston Meyer: Right. Keep it simple.

[00:14:45] Katie Dooley: Oh. That's terrible.

[00:14:47] Preston Meyer: People think a little harder before they shout about somebody else's problems. And the way you dress is nobody else's problem.

[00:14:58] Katie Dooley: No it's not.

[00:15:00] Preston Meyer: In fact, speaking about councils, the records of the Council of Elvira, which is in Spain in the early fourth century of the Christian era, the records of this council are the oldest written records that require priests to be celibate. It also banned the married ones from having sex with their wives at all.

[00:15:21] Katie Dooley: That's horrible. And then they couldn't get divorced. Because this is the fourth century.

[00:15:26] Preston Meyer: Right? It's terrible. The logic behind it, of course, is that rule about the Levites of if you have mass every day, Then you can't be messing around.

[00:15:38] Katie Dooley: Yeah, it's too bad they can't come up with, like, a, like a schedule or something.

[00:15:43] Preston Meyer: Quick, off the top of my head. Morning mass, have sex with your wife in the afternoon, have a shower before sunset. You're good to go for the next day.

[00:15:50] Katie Dooley: I'm just thinking like maybe Bob does it Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. And you do Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Like...

[00:15:57] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:15:59] Katie Dooley: We're really overcomplicating it here, right?

[00:16:02] Preston Meyer: Well, the number of priests to a parish would have to double for your scheme, wouldn't it? So.

[00:16:09] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:16:11] Preston Meyer: And the church doesn't want to have to take care of twice as many mouths, especially when they're having a hard time finding volunteers. It's not the perfect solution. I like it, but it's not the perfect solution. 

[00:16:23] Katie Dooley: Yours is pretty elegant too, I will say.

[00:16:26] Preston Meyer: Morning mass, have sex with your wife, have a shower all before sunset.

[00:16:31] Katie Dooley: Get back to work.

[00:16:32] Preston Meyer: And just keeping your pants overnight.

[00:16:34] Katie Dooley: Wash, Rinse, repeat.

[00:16:36] Preston Meyer: Exactly.

[00:16:39] Katie Dooley: Ha ha. Oh. I'm terrible.

[00:16:41] Preston Meyer: So the the exact line that we have here is from Canon 33, from the Council of Elvira. It says it is decided that marriage be altogether prohibited to bishops, priests and deacons, or to all clerics placed in the ministry, and that they keep away from their wives and not beget children. Whoever does this shall be deprived of the honor of the clerical office. So we're going to get into this a little bit more later. Having kids will you will be deprived from the clerical office is how that ended. This rule is very poorly enforced.

[00:17:17] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:17:19] Preston Meyer: There are some scholars who think that this is meant to reinforce an older policy or practice that had previously been ignored by many. The the way it reads doesn't really indicate that. It's kind of ambiguous whether or not that's the case from the wording that we have here, but that's what a lot of people believe, and it's pretty hard to change their minds. But this same council of Elvira had some other really great rules. I wrote down a bunch of them.

[00:17:50] Katie Dooley: It looks like we ignore all of them.

[00:17:53] Preston Meyer: Almost. So number 34 was don't burn candles in cemeteries during the day. It feels weird. The context for that is witches do it, so we don't want to catch you doing it.

[00:18:06] Katie Dooley: Okay. It's a candle.

[00:18:10] Preston Meyer: Right? 36 was don't paint icons or pictures on the church walls.

[00:18:17] Katie Dooley: Uh oh. Who's gonna who's gonna let Francis know? Who's gonna tell Francis?

[00:18:23] Preston Meyer: Well, I'm just thinking of Michelangelo. And this huge Sistine Chapel.

[00:18:28] Katie Dooley: Exactly, literally the entire pope's residence is shit painted on the walls.

[00:18:33] Preston Meyer: Right? But here we are. Number 50 was don't share meals with Jews. I'm sorry. I rather enjoy the handful of Jewish men that I share meals with occasionally. But also, I'm not Catholic, so I have to live by this rule.

[00:18:51] Katie Dooley: Jew. David.

[00:18:54] Preston Meyer: Yes, he is Jewish.

[00:18:56] Katie Dooley: It's funny for a multiple... It's on multiple levels funny?

[00:19:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Um, another one that actually bothered me was canon 59, which says that watching a pagan offer a sacrifice makes you guilty of the same. Yeah, there's ten years penance just for learning about your neighbors, which is antithetical to our whole Holy Watermelon deal.

[00:19:20] Katie Dooley: Wouldn't that be great if they applied that guilt by association to their greater problem that we're about to talk about?

[00:19:26] Preston Meyer: That'd be so great. Canon, 60, says that being killed for smashing an idol does not make you a martyr.

[00:19:37] Katie Dooley: Wow. Okay.

[00:19:38] Preston Meyer: I looked into it because it says that there's no scriptural background for it, and there's some apocryphal stories about Abraham smashing a whole bunch of idols, which contradicts their statement that there's no scriptural or patriarchal figure who has done this. Of course, he didn't get killed, so maybe that's the detail they're missing. Number 62, I felt was really weird. Don't baptize race car drivers or actors. Actually, it says pantomimes or chariot drivers but. 

[00:20:11] Katie Dooley: Let's bring it into the 21st century.

[00:20:13] Preston Meyer: Right, obviously, we need to be updating policies for modern verbiage. So don't baptize race car drivers or actors.

[00:20:20] Katie Dooley: Oh... Who's going to tell Mel Gibson?

[00:20:23] Preston Meyer: Right. On the flip side of that, article 44 was baptized prostitutes without delay.

[00:20:32] Katie Dooley: Do not wait. Run! Don't walk to your baptism.

[00:20:36] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I felt a little bit weird, uh, juxtaposing those two. But,

[00:20:42] Katie Dooley: I mean...

[00:20:42] Preston Meyer: That's what we get.

[00:20:44] Katie Dooley: We got Tom Cruise on one hand and pretty, Pretty Woman on the other.

[00:20:49] Preston Meyer: Mhm.

[00:20:49] Katie Dooley: I see why we pick Julia Roberts.

[00:20:53] Preston Meyer: Sure. Cannon in 81 was a woman cannot receive mail of her own at all.

[00:21:00] Katie Dooley: Fuck.

[00:21:00] Preston Meyer: It must be addressed to the household, the head of household and and wife.

[00:21:08] Katie Dooley: Is that why it's still a thing? It's still very much a thing.

[00:21:11] Preston Meyer: Probably.

[00:21:13] Katie Dooley: I so... I didn't take my husband's last name, but I so often get Mr. and Mrs. Bryant last name.

[00:21:21] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Yeah. Strict rule from the Council of Elvira.

[00:21:27] Katie Dooley: I just got a check made out to Katie Bryant's last name, and I was like, I don't know if I can deposit this check because that person doesn't exist.

[00:21:35] Preston Meyer: Right? You pop into the bank and say, this was up,

[00:21:37] Katie Dooley: Please! 

[00:21:39] Preston Meyer: Can I have my money? 

[00:21:40] Katie Dooley: Monies?

[00:21:40] Preston Meyer: Uh, another weird rule for women. Um. Canon 67 says women must not associate with hairdressers or men with long hair.

[00:21:53] Katie Dooley: Double fuck. For those of you who don't know my husband, he has long hair.

[00:22:00] Preston Meyer: Uh, it's just. I'm thinking of the whole world that we live in.

[00:22:06] Katie Dooley: Didn't Jesus have long hair?

[00:22:08] Preston Meyer: Yes.

[00:22:09] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:22:09] Preston Meyer: Well, okay. So there's there's a debate about what counts as long hair.

[00:22:13] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:22:14] Preston Meyer: Is a man's hair truly long? If it only just rests on his shoulders? That's that's the line where a lot of people put it.

[00:22:22] Katie Dooley: I feel like if you can put it into a ponytail, it's long hair. And Jesus could definitely do a man bun for sure.

[00:22:30] Preston Meyer: Sure. Why not? Yeah. So those are some of the really weird ones. And then another couple that that bothered me, canon 63 and 68, basically point out that killing a living child by smothering is far more favorable for your church situation than having an abortion.

[00:22:51] Katie Dooley: So it's better to birth a child and then stuff a pillow down his throat? Yeah, okay.

[00:22:55] Preston Meyer: According to the Catholic Church and the Council of Elvira 1800 years ago or 1700 years ago or whatever.

[00:23:02] Katie Dooley: Let's not listen to that one.

[00:23:03] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:23:04] Katie Dooley: Let's not listen to most of these.

[00:23:08] Preston Meyer: I mean, the vast majority of these have been solidly ignored for a while, and...

[00:23:14] Katie Dooley: Including this one.

[00:23:15] Preston Meyer: Including this one, canon 71. Those who sexually abuse boys may not receive communion even when death approaches. That means permanent end to your fellowship in the church, permanent end to your clerical status. We're not going to get into that yet there's... 

[00:23:35] Katie Dooley: Still more groundwork we're going to frame a bit.

[00:23:39] Preston Meyer: There's more good things before we lose people. Hopefully. Uh, yeah. The Catholic Church leaned really hard into this no ejaculation that it's unclean. Even though Peter had received a vision that can be fairly said to abolish that whole principle. And it's recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, where all of the Catholic priests ought to be reading on the regular. Anyway, that's the way it goes. They decided that since mass is every day no sex for the man in the dress. But there's exceptions, or rather failures on the part of the clerical superiors. Did a little bit of digging in the news, and I found that a few years ago, a priest knocked up a 17-year-old girl in Pennsylvania. This is not really that far out of the norm, unfortunately. The weird thing is that this priest went ahead and forged the signature of his boss to let them get married or forge a signature on their marriage certificate. And then, just a few months later, divorced the girl. And everybody found out about it. And he wasn't able to continue working in that parish in Pennsylvania. And but a priest somewhere out of state said, hey, come to my parish, come in this little town.

[00:25:13] Katie Dooley: What? They just shuffled them around?

[00:25:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:25:16] Katie Dooley: Wow. Foreshadowing.

[00:25:19] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:25:21] Katie Dooley: In 2012, Kevin Lee, a priest in Australia, revealed that he had been secretly married for a year and that the church leaders knew about his marriage, but disregarded the celibacy policy and he stayed on as a priest. This one I'm like, not so bad. Not as bad as the other one. But he also lied about it.

[00:25:40] Preston Meyer: I mean, is secretly married really that much better than forging your bishop's signature? I don't know.

[00:25:49] Katie Dooley: I mean, it's better if. As long as he was. I'm assuming there's no context here that he was happily married. It's better than knocking up an underage girl and then divorcing her.

[00:26:01] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:26:04] Katie Dooley: Presumably after the baby was born. So it wouldn't be a bastard. Not that that matters anymore, but if you were a priest, it probably does. And...

[00:26:12] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:26:13] Katie Dooley: Anyway.

[00:26:16] Preston Meyer: Such a weird world we live in.

[00:26:18] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I just wonder why there are these rules at all.

[00:26:23] Preston Meyer: Yeah, hopefully we've laid some groundwork to understand at least part of the explanation. Whether or not we agree is an entirely separate matter.

[00:26:34] Katie Dooley: Fair. I will let it.

[00:26:37] Preston Meyer: So looking into this wide world of people who are born to priests, I found this fella named Vincent Doyle, and he's kind of an interesting fella. He was born to a Catholic priest named John Doyle way back in the 80s, the early 80s. And interestingly enough, John wanted to care for the child. And so John and Vincent grew close, and I guess I couldn't find whether Vincent's last name was always Doyle. But I have, from what I found, I've just been assuming that which should have been a handy flag that says, hey, there's a family relationship between these two people. Could be. And really, that's a lot of how John was involved in Vincent's life is like a really close, loving uncle. Vincent thought he was his godfather, which may or may not have been a legit on paper thing.

[00:27:38] Katie Dooley: I mean, he was a god... father! Ah!

[00:27:43] Preston Meyer: Very nice.

[00:27:44] Katie Dooley: Thank you.

[00:27:46] Preston Meyer: Anyway, the priest, John, died in 1995, when Vincent was 12 years old. And then years later, when reading some of the things that the priest had written, Vincent found out, much later, in 2011, 16 years later, that the priest was his real father.

[00:28:09] Katie Dooley: Daddy!

[00:28:11] Preston Meyer: He's he's not really okay with it as he realizes this. This really sucks.

[00:28:18] Katie Dooley: No, surprise parents are never good for anyone.

[00:28:23] Preston Meyer: Right? Yeah. So anyway, Vincent launched Coping International just a few years later, but chose not to promote it. His plan was to see how many people would find it on their own, through search engines, to see how big his problem was in the world. After two and a half years, 13,500 people from 175 countries found his site just by googling phrases like "children of priests", "dad is a priest", "pregnant with priest's baby". Yeah, more than 13,000 people just stumbled across his website by trying to find somebody out there that had something in common with them. This is a very large problem.

[00:29:09] Katie Dooley: They definitely weren't all podcast researchers, that's for sure.

[00:29:13] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:29:14] Katie Dooley: But we found them through podcasts. No one here is pregnant with a priest, baby, I think.

[00:29:21] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, I am one of the Google hits, but...

[00:29:24] Katie Dooley: I literally thought you were gonna say I am pregnant with the priest's baby.

[00:29:31] Preston Meyer: Oh, you got me.

[00:29:33] Katie Dooley: Congratulations, Preston.

[00:29:36] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah. So today, Vincent is a psychotherapist. He leads a sort of international support group through Coping International, where he has shared documents published by the church on the subject. And very recently, just in late 2020, he published a book called Our Fathers, a phenomenon of children of Catholic Priests and Religious. I don't love the title because it really feels like there needs to be another word after religious.

[00:30:05] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:30:05] Preston Meyer: Somebody called him on this and he's explained religious refers to priests and nuns who belong to religious orders as opposed to a diocese. It doesn't fix it for me, but I accept that he's committed to what looks like a misprint.

[00:30:24] Katie Dooley: Yes, usually it's an adjective. And then here he's used it as a noun, which I see why it's not incorrect. The religious, But you're right it does. It doesn't roll off the tongue like it should. Right.

[00:30:36] Preston Meyer: It feels like there should be another word. But anyway.

[00:30:38] Katie Dooley: Sorry.

[00:30:39] Preston Meyer: Um, it's doing well as a book. Um, it tells his own story. It tells the history of Coping International. And it also offers advice and explanations of canon law. The Church of Rome has responded directly to Coping International about the whole situation and the book, and they just call the phenomenon inevitable. It's not, if you let priests marry, then this whole situation would be solved.

[00:31:09] Katie Dooley: It goes poof. I mean, the children, random children is solved. The next part is not necessarily solved, but probably greatly improved.

[00:31:19] Preston Meyer: Yeah, so fun fact the Scottish name McTaggart means son of the priest.

[00:31:27] Katie Dooley: Oh.

[00:31:29] Preston Meyer: All right. For those of you who, uh, might want to get off the train, now is the time. We're going to get into some of the really the grosser details, and...

[00:31:41] Katie Dooley: We're gonna be less funny.

[00:31:42] Preston Meyer: Now. Yeah, we'll just catch you next time. Thanks.

[00:31:45] Katie Dooley: Bye.

[00:31:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:31:48] Katie Dooley: So, fun fact the Catholic Church has a long, dark history of sexual abuse.

[00:31:56] Preston Meyer: I don't know if that counts as a fun fact, but it. 

[00:31:58] Both Speakers: Is a fact.

[00:32:00] Katie Dooley: So, as Preston mentioned, the Catholic Church holds its clergymen to outdated standards of sex and gender. The celibacy, chastity and having an all-male clergy still. There are records of sexual abuse and sexual misconduct that go back as far as the 16th century.

[00:32:21] Preston Meyer: And that's just records of sexual abuse. It'd be weird if it was a new thing in the 1500s.

[00:32:28] Katie Dooley: Yeah, this is just when we actually wrote things down.

[00:32:32] Preston Meyer: Yeah. With the Protestant Reformation, it just, I guess, better record keeping? Maybe, I don't know.

[00:32:39] Katie Dooley: Probably a more educated public? Than that, where it wasn't just the priests keeping records.

[00:32:43] Preston Meyer: Generally speaking, I think you're right.

[00:32:45] Katie Dooley: The priests wouldn't keep those records.

[00:32:48] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:32:50] Katie Dooley: So many of the victims at the time were young women who, of course, weren't often believed. And disclosing abuse to an authority would be dangerous for them. And the authority was often the church. This is different from the modern crisis where the majority of victims are young boys. In 1622, Pope Gregory the 15th, he denounced solicitation. So asking these young women for the sexual favors. So at least they knew it was wrong then, what?

[00:33:22] Preston Meyer: I mean, it's like it's weird that that's noteworthy when, like, regularly speaking, if there's a problem in the community, somebody brings it up and says, hey, fix it. Soliciting anybody for sex in.. At any point or position within the Catholic Church is inappropriate. Unless you're already married.

[00:33:44] Katie Dooley: And it's your wife you're soliciting.

[00:33:45] Preston Meyer: Yes.

[00:33:46] Preston Meyer: Or husband.

[00:33:47] Katie Dooley: Very important detail. Yeah.

[00:33:48] Katie Dooley: Just 'cause you're married doesn't mean you get to solicit.

[00:33:50] Preston Meyer: Correct.

[00:33:51] Katie Dooley: So a lot of these solicitations would happen, of course, during confession. And, like, I was reading a whole bunch on, like, the mechanics of confession, they're supposed to be like, you're supposed to be able to see the people just obviously not hear what they're saying to protect exactly this from happening.

[00:34:12] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So gross.

[00:34:14] Katie Dooley: So records show it was cracked down on. But internally only, of course, which we will see more of. So during the Inquisition, heretics were publicly exposed and shamed. But in contrast, those charged with solicitation were dealt with privately. So I mean, this just it's basically never stopped.

[00:34:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It was counted as a smaller problem. A problem one worth talking about, but not one worth fixing. Apparently?

[00:34:45] Katie Dooley: No. And then more modernly, so, like you said, there's been the shift from young women to and we'll talk more about reasons they think it's happening and reasons we can "fix it". But one of the things the modern crisis of, again, it being young boys is there's a blame on the air quotes "gay subculture of the Catholic clergy".

[00:35:11] Preston Meyer: I mean, it makes sense that in a religious institution where your feelings make you have to wear the label of evil so very often, which is a gross thing for any group to do that the best way for them to solve it while still staying in the community they value is go and join the priesthood. And then it doesn't matter who I want to have sex with, because then I don't get to have sex. But then.

[00:35:40] Katie Dooley: Yes. So I just want to be clear that pedophile does not equal homosexual and vice versa. Not that there aren't.

[00:35:49] Preston Meyer: But they're not equivalent.

[00:35:50] Katie Dooley: They're not equivalent because the correlation does not equal causation in this case. So yes, Preston's right. Because you can't get married in the Catholic Church. If you're a gay man, it's a sin to have sex with a man. And if you love your faith and want to stay with your family, then yeah, joining the clergy isn't a terrible thing. Secrets of the Vatican is a great PBS documentary, which you might watch for movie night. And it actually does address the gay subculture of the church. But the content of the documentary is consenting adult male priests getting it on with each other.

[00:36:23] Preston Meyer: I mean, that just sounds like a whole popular subgenre of gay porn probably.

[00:36:31] Katie Dooley: Yeah. I mean, they could probably make a bunch of money on it.

[00:36:36] Preston Meyer: I mean, the church has money issues thanks to related problems.

[00:36:42] Katie Dooley: So and then, you know, again, when I'm saying correlation does not equal causation, it's also what these abusers have access to. So if you're in a seminary with a bunch of young boys and you're an abuser, it really doesn't matter if that's what you have access to.

[00:36:57] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:36:58] Katie Dooley: I hate even saying it. That's what you're gonna seek out?

[00:37:03] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Take advantage of what you got. Like prison and drama school.

[00:37:07] Katie Dooley: Right? But worse because these are children.

[00:37:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So much worse.

[00:37:14] Katie Dooley: But I gay for the stay is a pretty good analogy.

[00:37:17] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:37:19] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:37:21] Preston Meyer: Ah. Smoke em if you got em, is what they say. And it's so much worse in this context.

[00:37:26] Katie Dooley: So bad. So while some reports go back as far as the 1950s, we know that survivors often feel shame about what has happened to them. So cases really started to gain media attention in the 1980s in North America. And by the 2000, the Catholic Church was facing a global crisis.

[00:37:45] Preston Meyer: Hmm. Yeah. And of course, they just shuffled the priests around. We mentioned that one specific case before, and that's just one case of the whole phenomenon that we see worldwide. There's some really awful statistics, and we've managed to pull a few from a few different countries. We don't have global stats. That gets really tricky, but we tried. We got some numbers for you.

[00:38:12] Katie Dooley: I'm sure the church's global statistics that they don't want to publish.

[00:38:15] Preston Meyer: I'm very confident that that's the case. Since 1950, over 200,000 children in France were sexually abused by clergy members.

[00:38:28] Katie Dooley: There was some number related to that. I think it was something like 2000 or 3000 pedophiles in the French Catholic Church. To get to those numbers.

[00:38:39] Preston Meyer: That's awful.

[00:38:40] Katie Dooley: Still, a lot of kids I don't even know say it.

[00:38:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:38:45] Katie Dooley: One statistic that I found incredibly staggering. And this, to be fair, this is higher than the global average. But since 1950 7% of Australian clergymen have had an allegation against them. And most of most of these accusations happen in the church. So the global rate is 2% of clergy. This is higher. But I always think about.

[00:39:10] Preston Meyer: It's weird. It's weird that Australia is that much worse than the rest of the world. That seems unlikely. I could see Australia being twice as bad as the global average.

[00:39:24] Katie Dooley: There's probably countries that haven't disclosed nearly as much as it could. I don't want to say Western countries, but if you think there's probably countries that haven't disclosed. And yeah.

[00:39:35] Preston Meyer: Um, Vincent Doyle found stats that he saw very regular hits on his website coming from Africa and that it was not as it wasn't the exact same as the Western world, but comparable just for Africa.

[00:39:55] Katie Dooley: Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I can see. Yeah, the 7% of Australian clergymen always bothers me. Because if you think of your child's school and imagine there's 50 staff members, that means four of them are child abusers. And I'm just like, if I knew that, I would not. I don't have children, but I would not send my child to school anymore. Yet we still send kids to church.

[00:40:24] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Usually, though, parents are with their kids at church, or at least for mass, that kind of thing.

[00:40:31] Katie Dooley: I was going to say.

[00:40:31] Preston Meyer: There's there's an awful lot of opportunities to get the kids alone.

[00:40:35] Katie Dooley: There's 200,000 and I don't want to say negligent parents. That's unfair but instances.

[00:40:39] Preston Meyer: Some tricky situations. Bad, bad bad things.

[00:40:44] Katie Dooley: Between 1975 and 2018, 314 minors, mostly boys under the age of 14, were sexually abused in Cologne, Germany. That's just Cologne, not Germany.

[00:40:55] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Yeah. An investigation of the whole country of Germany found that 1670 clergymen had committed some kind of sexual attack against more than 3600 minors. Boys, mostly under 13. Yeah, between 1946 and 2014. That's staggering numbers. The official report says that this is certainly an underestimation. So the news does not get better.

[00:41:33] Katie Dooley: No. Ireland is one of the worst offenders. So an investigation found that 150. Excuse me, 15,000 victims were sexually abused between 1970 and 1990. So in only 20 years. And that since that time, the church has been so obsessively or has so obsessively concealed the abuse, they couldn't get any reliable stats.

[00:41:56] Preston Meyer: Yeah. If you remember our last episode, Ireland and the Catholic Church are real tight.

[00:42:05] Katie Dooley: It is interesting. The more, let's say conservative or devout a country is, the scarier the numbers per capita are.

[00:42:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's not that people behave better in an ultra-conservative environment, it's just that they hide their issues more.

[00:42:23] Katie Dooley: Yeah, because your air quotes are supposed to be better, yeah.

[00:42:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah and hiding things often makes the problem worse. Yeah. Terrible, terrible things. In the USA, a little closer to home. More than 11,000 victims have come forward, and the church has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements just to get those people to go away.

[00:42:48] Katie Dooley: Yes, very few of these ever actually go to, like, the police level of anything.

[00:42:53] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:42:54] Katie Dooley: At best to just get dismissed by the Catholic Church.

[00:42:56] Preston Meyer: Yeah. There's there's no jail time happening. Uh, there's a report, um, of 11,000 names. Not the exact same 11,000 that I just cited for the USA. But the John Jay report goes through 11,000 allegations, and they found that of the ones that they investigated, 81% of the victims were male. That's a huge problem considering the relationship the church has with the queer community and homosexuality. 22% of victims were younger than age ten, 51 were 51% were between the ages of 11 and 14, and 27% were between the ages of 15 and 17. Of course, we're only counting abuse of minors in all of this. Yeah. These ages are really gross. But of course, during the pandemic in 2020, the US government gave the church $1.4 billion.

[00:44:08] Katie Dooley: Is this not a violation of the separation of church and state?

[00:44:12] Preston Meyer: I believe that it is.

[00:44:13] Katie Dooley: I told my dad and he didn't believe me. He was like, is that from a reputable website? And I was like, yeah. And I like pulled up Forbes and CBC and CNN. And I was like, look.

[00:44:22] Preston Meyer: Yeah, the First Amendment to the American Constitution has this fancy establishment clause that prohibits the government from making any law respecting an establishment of religion. And this. So giving a billion and a half dollars to the church isn't a law, but it falls into this category that forbids the government from taking any actions that favor one religion over another. It was it was designed with the with the express intent of preventing the tax dollars of any citizen from going to any church to which they do not belong.

[00:44:57] Katie Dooley: Perfect. I'm surprised more people weren't outraged by this.

[00:45:02] Preston Meyer: So when this was written, an awful lot of Catholics and Non-Anglican Protestants were fed up with their taxes supporting the Church of England specifically. Of course, the state of Maryland was specifically Catholic for a little while before it... That changed around, and a lot of states had their own state religion. But federally, and this 1.4 billion was federal money. Federally, there is no state support for churches, or at least that's supposed to be the case. But the church was really hurting because they lost all their money paying off the families of the victims of these diddlers. And so the government's like, here's some money.

[00:45:46] Katie Dooley: No, we just need to let these organizations collapse. It's fine.

[00:45:53] Preston Meyer: Well, they still have a lot of money left over from Saint Teresa of Calcutta.

[00:46:01] Katie Dooley: Yeah. If it's such a big like if your parishioners feel so passionately about it, they'll keep you afloat.

[00:46:07] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:46:08] Katie Dooley: I'm not saying that's a good thing, but like.

[00:46:10] Preston Meyer: That is the reality. That's how a fair market works.

[00:46:13] Katie Dooley: Yeah. You can't have them tax-exempt and then give them money.

[00:46:18] Preston Meyer: Right? Yeah. It's all a terrible mess. So I also did a little bit of digging into the the profiling of the priests who are responsible for all this nonsense. Yeah, it's it's gross. By 2002, more than half in the United States, more than half of cases are full on statutory rape, which, let's not confuse. It is not different than rape. The median age for the first act of alleged abuse was 35.

[00:46:56] Katie Dooley: By the priest.

[00:46:57] Preston Meyer: Right. The a full half of all of the priests who have touched kids. Their first time was before the age of 35 or at the age of 35. So we're not talking about a bunch of dirty old guys, though there are some. We're a lot of young men, which when you're trying to convince a minor to have sex, I guess it helps if you're younger. I don't know. Terrible. Only 19% of priests had a substance abuse problem at the time of their first infraction. This number may have grown for more. Hard to say. Only about 7% were reported to have actually been under the influence of intoxicants.

[00:47:48] Katie Dooley: They all knew what they were doing. This is not something you can put on to something else.

[00:47:52] Preston Meyer: Right? 59% were accused of only a single allegation, which, I mean, it's still a problem, but that means only 41% have done this more than once. That we know about.

[00:48:07] Katie Dooley: That means they've done it a lot. Because how do you get those kind of numbers?

[00:48:11] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:48:14] Katie Dooley: Oh, I don't like this episode.

[00:48:16] Preston Meyer: Gross. We're almost done with the terrible, terrible things. Uh, just under 3% of priests were the subject of ten or more allegations. They have in this stats everything collected by 2002, which is unfortunately, 20 years ago. 149 priests had more than ten allegations against them and accounted for just shy of 3000 attacks.

[00:48:49] Katie Dooley: That's terrible.

[00:48:50] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:48:53] Katie Dooley: In the 1940s, an American priest founded an organization to treat Catholic priests who struggled with drug and sex addictions. After only a few years dealing with the priests, he wrote to the Pope warning him that sexual abuse offenders were unlikely to change and should not be returned to the ministry. The Vatican didn't want any reports of misconduct before 2001, so everything was handled in-house.

[00:49:20] Preston Meyer: Which, as we mentioned before, was just shuffling them around.

[00:49:25] Katie Dooley: Don't do that again there, Father Bob.

[00:49:29] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:49:30] Katie Dooley: That doesn't work.

[00:49:31] Preston Meyer: No, it doesn't solve the problem at all. It just means that somebody in a different community is going to get hurt.

[00:49:36] Katie Dooley: I didn't open this can of worms because I emotionally couldn't open this can of worms, but it probably should be. An episode in the future is that nuns were also abused by priests. Horrible stories for that. But nuns were also abusers. Most notable notable high-profile cases: residential schools in Canada. We didn't talk about residential schools and sexual abuse.

[00:50:05] Preston Meyer: It just fits into the category, right?

[00:50:10] Katie Dooley: There's a whole chunk of time.

[00:50:12] Preston Meyer: Terrible things.

[00:50:13] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And then the Magdalene Laundries is where they would, like, look after young mothers. But they wouldn't. They would just abuse them.

[00:50:22] Preston Meyer: So nice.

[00:50:23] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So, yes, we talk about priests, but there's.

[00:50:29] Preston Meyer: It's not just the priests.

[00:50:30] Katie Dooley: We talked about rpiests and young boys, but it's everywhere.

[00:50:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The problem is bigger than just the priests.

[00:50:39] Katie Dooley: Yes. So what causes this? How do we fix it? We are not meant... that Francis needs to fix it.

[00:50:49] Preston Meyer: We don't have the power to make the change.

[00:50:51] Katie Dooley: I'm an atheist. They don't even look at me.

[00:50:54] Preston Meyer: Uh, and the Catholic Church has no interest in me either. But somebody with a little bit more pull, I guess somebody who is seen as more authoritative than you and me. In Australia, there was a public inquiry back in 2015 that came back with some results on how to prevent child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. Yeah, it's unbelievable because they said you need to let the priests get married.

[00:51:21] Katie Dooley: What?

[00:51:24] Preston Meyer: They say this is likely the number one cause of rampant sex abuse within the church. But we also know the Catholic Church isn't the only institution with an abuse problem. That's not a good defence.

[00:51:38] Katie Dooley: No, but, yeah, I mean, if you let priests get married, you could. I mean, obviously we wanted to drop by more, but even if it dropped by 10% because people got to get married, it'd be amazing. And then if you let people gay.

[00:51:50] Preston Meyer: I mean, that's a really conservative estimate.

[00:51:54] Katie Dooley: Well, because some people are just actually horrible people.

[00:51:56] Preston Meyer: Yeah that's true.

[00:51:57] Katie Dooley: And will abuse regardless of whether they're married or not.

[00:52:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah, Josh Duggar.

[00:52:02] Katie Dooley: Right. I hope his kids are out of that house. And then I would even say opening up the clergy to other people, women, married men, because then you get to pull from a better pool of people.

[00:52:18] Preston Meyer: One can hope. Some argue that we didn't know enough about abusers and thought that they were cured after some psychological, psychological treatment, and they were sent back to work. But, I mean, I just read to you an excerpt from a letter decades ago warning, hey, this doesn't work.

[00:52:39] Katie Dooley: It doesn't work. There's a shortage of priests. So this causes problems from everything from, you know, there's just too many people for one person to serve. So things are... Checks and balances are gone. But that also means they're desperate for anyone who's willing to be a priest. And so checks and balances on the seminary side of things are obviously not happening. And then oversight. The entire Catholic hierarchical pyramid is short on people. The the shortage of priests, interestingly enough, the number of priests hasn't decreased. The population of Catholic people has doubled since 1970. And that always surprises me because a) I mean, just doctrinally, it's a very traditional religion. And then I can't believe people didn't leave in droves as we got some of these stats and numbers. But that's just me. That's just me being judgy.

[00:53:44] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's just crazy.

[00:53:48] Katie Dooley: So in the 1980s, there was about a priest per 1900 every 1900 Catholics, and now it's well over 3000 Catholics per priest.

[00:53:58] Preston Meyer: Could you imagine if all of the Catholics went to church on a regular basis?

[00:54:02] Katie Dooley: Well, there's. And then there's some parishes that I forget. There's some number like tens of thousands of parishes don't have priests.

[00:54:09] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:54:09] Katie Dooley: That are just are unserved.

[00:54:11] Preston Meyer: Huh. That's make for some pretty big congregations.

[00:54:16] Katie Dooley: Mega churches, if they wanted.

[00:54:18] Preston Meyer: Oh, man, I gotta get...

[00:54:19] Preston Meyer: That's a tradition that needs to stop.

[00:54:22] Katie Dooley: Their hymns hopping before they can have a mega church.

[00:54:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah, we'll talk about mega churches another time. Yeah, a lot of writers are pretty sure that the celibacy policy was put in place so the church wouldn't have to pay to support the families of priests. I've heard this a few times growing up. If that was the only issue, wave that against the legal expenses.

[00:54:44] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I mean, there's like billions of dollars spent in legal expenses. It doesn't take $1 billion to raise a family.

[00:54:51] Preston Meyer: Right? It's.

[00:54:53] Katie Dooley: Yeah, but then they don't like contraceptives, too. So a priest could have a really big family.

[00:54:58] Preston Meyer: Well, lots of people have big families.

[00:55:00] Katie Dooley: But still, having a big family is way better than our current alternative.

[00:55:07] Preston Meyer: Right? I'm trying to think of a way to brighten this up before we close off. And, I mean, this has been dark and crappy and kind of a weird thing to to dive into and see what's going on.

[00:55:26] Katie Dooley: Yeah, it didn't do anything for my mental health this week.

[00:55:30] Preston Meyer: Go listen to something fun as soon as possible.

[00:55:34] Katie Dooley: Maybe we'll put a happy playlist on there. Link to Katie's Spotify. I mean, we'll do that. Happy songs.

[00:55:41] Preston Meyer: You can find some good laughs on Discord. We've got all kinds of great memes. In fact, we've had a nice little sprint of them lately.

[00:55:51] Katie Dooley: Yes, you can always check out our Instagram or Facebook for more learning. And of course, our spreadshirt for some hilarious merch that'll put a smile on your face.

[00:56:03] Preston Meyer: Or, if you want to support us without filling your closet with clothes and whatnot, you can always pop onto our Patreon. All the links for all of these will be in our show notes.

[00:56:14] Katie Dooley: Hold your religious leaders accountable, everyone.

[00:56:17] Preston Meyer: Please.Thanks for joining us.

[00:56:21] 

Both Speakers: 

Peace be with you.

Looking again to Katie's Irish roots, the Troubles of Northern Ireland are a fascinating example of how religion gets tied to conflict. But is it really a religious conflict? What are the prerequisites for such a label. How much is religion really a part of the problem. Join us for an exploration of the history behind the Troubles, and the people who motivate them. It's easy to take sides, but solving the problem is a lot more complicated than agreeing to a cease-fire. Centuries of nationalism and colonialism have caused deep scars....

We take a look at the unionist "planters" who came from Great Britain to colonize Ireland, and follow through the Williamite Wars, and the Battle of the Boyne. We talk about Bobby Sands, and the assassination of Lord Mountbatten, and the Incredible Hulk's alter-ego, Bruce Banner.

The Orange Order has some interesting history, not all of it good. Colonial nationalism and defensive patriotic nationalism are all that's left behind when you strip away the religious labels, but is it really that simple?

All this and more....

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Join the Community on Discord

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Learn more on our official website

[00:00:10] Preston Meyer: Ah! Time to get back into the Irish. Have we ever been?

[00:00:17] Katie Dooley: Oh, I was like, have we ever been into the Irish? We did Celtic religion.

[00:00:21] Preston Meyer: We sure did.

[00:00:23] Katie Dooley: Fair, fair.

[00:00:25] Preston Meyer: So it's time for another episode of... 

[00:00:28] Both Speakers: The Holy Watermelon podcast!

[00:00:33] Katie Dooley: What the heck are we talking about today? If not potatoes or Morrigan.

[00:00:39] Preston Meyer: The green and orange.

[00:00:41] Katie Dooley: Oh, no. Very controversial topic,

[00:00:46] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:00:47] Katie Dooley: Still.

[00:00:51] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's... Ireland is a country that's had a really hard time for so long. And it's, relatively speaking, in a pretty good point in its history right now.

[00:01:07] Katie Dooley: It is. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there are many examples of countries that have been divided by religion. I'd say probably most famously, is Israel and Palestine.

[00:01:19] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:01:20] Katie Dooley: And this is one conflict that I, that most people aren't even aware of is still to some extent, happening today. Like you said, it's better than it's always been. But there is a religious...? We'll get into that conflict in Ireland and Northern Ireland against the Catholics and the Protestants.

[00:01:43] Preston Meyer: Between the Catholics and the Protestants,

[00:01:46] Katie Dooley: Between the Catholics and the Protestants.

[00:01:49] Preston Meyer: Yeah...

[00:01:50] Katie Dooley: It's Catholics against Protestants.

[00:01:53] Preston Meyer: Yes, and Protestants against Catholics. There's an awful lot of violence coming from both sides, and it's super easy to say, obviously, this is a religious conflict because one half is Catholic and the adversaries are Protestants. But we'll get into the details. It's not that simple.

[00:02:15] Katie Dooley: Well absolutely not. It's morphed over the centuries that it's happened, and I think it's a good conflict to look at and extrapolate information to other conflicts around the world, to really see if it is a religious conflict or not. This one's always blown my mind because they're both Christian.

[00:02:40] Preston Meyer: Well, and they're not like just Christian. We're looking at Catholics versus the Protestants, which are mostly Anglicans. There's a few other groups thrown in there too, but mostly Anglicans, the Church of England or the Anglican Church of Ireland, I guess would be more accurate. And like the Anglican Church is basically basically Catholic light. If you look back in history, they're like...

[00:03:11] Katie Dooley: As far as Protestantism goes. Yeah, it's a pretty let's say traditional. It's probably not the best word. Traditional Protestantism.

[00:03:22] Preston Meyer: It's only a couple of steps away from the good old imperial religious tradition of Christianity, because it's just like the king wanted to start his own thing, but didn't come up with a whole bunch of new stuff. It's just like, I want to be able to divorce my wife. And other than that, I like Catholic doctrine, and things did slowly evolve a little bit. They're not exactly Catholic light anymore, but it's not a big step.

[00:03:52] Katie Dooley: Oh, the singsong. Singsongy voice is really, um, so why don't we run through what the differences are between Catholicism and Protestantism? Not Jesus. That's not a difference.

[00:04:06] Preston Meyer: So Catholicism isn't one monolithic thing. You've got a handful of of subsets. You've got the Roman Catholic tradition, which actually, over the course of history isn't strictly Roman either. There was a time where it was almost dead everywhere except for a couple of little places, one of them being the British Isles, which I thought was an interesting thing to learn. Um, but you've also got Ukrainian, Catholic and those groups that you would expect to be Orthodox with Catholic Orthodox split about a thousand years ago. But they aren't Orthodox, they're Catholic. They're part of the Catholic communion. Kind of funky. Protestantism a lot more broad. It's basically anybody who said, hey, this Catholic thing isn't quite where we want to be, so we're going to protest that make some changes become our own...

[00:05:05] Katie Dooley: Protestantism.

[00:05:07] Preston Meyer: Exactly. I'm glad you picked up on that.

[00:05:11] Katie Dooley: Thank you. I it didn't come out very good, but I think everyone got the point.

[00:05:19] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And of course, you've got a really good bush of what Protestantism is. You've got Episcopalian where that the idea is that there's a bishop at the head of the church versus Presbyterian, where you've got a council of elders as the head of the church. And of course, all of this subdivides even crazier.

[00:05:46] Katie Dooley: Baptists, anabaptists, evangelicals. Those all fall under the Protestant.

[00:05:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah, there's there's very few churches that can't be classified as Protestant or a lot of, I'm going to say, the imperial tradition, Christians, where you can safely lump together the Catholic and the Orthodox, who are so different in a lot of ways, too, that they definitely deserve their separate labels, even though neither of them really deserves the exact label they have taken upon themselves.

[00:06:24] Katie Dooley: That's a different episode from the sounds of it. But. So, I mean, Protestantism started with the Reformation and Martin Luther. 

[00:06:34] Preston Meyer: Pretty much. 

[00:06:35] Katie Dooley: Who was a German guy who didn't like what the church was doing. As Preston mentioned, we have this little bush, a little bush. It's a big bush.

[00:06:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's a large, diverse bush.

[00:06:47] Katie Dooley: Hundreds of Hundreds of denominations. But the biggest difference is, especially at the time of the Reformation, was getting English or local language Bibles and services. The Catholic Church at the time only had Latin.

[00:07:02] Preston Meyer: Well, the Catholic Church was killing people to prevent the publication of the Bible in any language to the common masses, and especially in any language other than Latin.

[00:07:14] Katie Dooley: Now, my religious studies professor said that it got so bad that, like, priests didn't even know Latin. They just like stand up there and be like fettuccine bikini marscapone. And nobody knew, including the priest. Because... 

[00:07:32] Preston Meyer: That's embarrassing.

[00:07:33] Katie Dooley: And I mean, it's a good argument for reformation if no one knows what you're saying, no one's reaping any benefit from it.

[00:07:38] Preston Meyer: Right? Which is why the Second Vatican Council, only like 60 years ago, helped introduce a little bit more of the the common everyday language of the people. That was a good move.

[00:07:53] Katie Dooley: Yes, it was because everyone was falling asleep or going next door to the Anglican church.

[00:07:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I it was funny because when I would tell people what I was studying in school and you need a language credit to get your Bachelor of Arts, it's like "you're studying Latin?" No, totally without any value in my field of study. Because I was basically a biblical studies was part of my thing. It was also my profession before school. So Greek was useful. Hebrew was useful. I studied those in university. Latin got no use for me.

[00:08:32] Katie Dooley: File it under G

[00:08:32] Preston Meyer: Yeah, even. Well, that tells you a little bit about how I connected to the the ritual tradition of the Catholic Church. One visit, at least using Latin anyway.

[00:08:51] Katie Dooley: A couple other big differences are clergyman in Catholicism have, I guess, more authority. They are believed to have God's authority over parishioners or congregants. And you have to be a man and you have to be celibate in Catholicism.

[00:09:08] Preston Meyer: Yeah, mostly there's exceptions to that, too. The Ukrainian Catholic Church is actually very comfortable with having their priests be married and some other places. If you're previously married before you get ordained, or if you've been an Anglican minister, for example, can become a Catholic priest and remain married. It's funky. It's weird.

[00:09:35] Katie Dooley: Very few exceptions to the rule.

[00:09:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah, but there are exceptions.

[00:09:39] Katie Dooley: Yes. And then there's that documentary where they show a bunch of priests having gay sex.

[00:09:46] Preston Meyer: That sounds a lot more like a porno not a documentary.

[00:09:51] Katie Dooley: There's I... Well, maybe we'll do a movie night. Um, no, it was, um. It was. I forget what it was called Inside the Vatican or the Vatican Scandals. And like, a reporter, like, went clubbing with a bunch of priests. And then he went home with one of the priests, and. 

[00:10:10] Preston Meyer: Lucky him, I guess.

[00:10:12] Katie Dooley: Good for him. Um, but that would. That's not an exception to the rule. That's breaking the rule. Anyway, I digress. And then, then in Protestantism, you can be a woman, and it's like much more casual, like it's just a vocation as opposed to something divinely bestowed upon you.

[00:10:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:10:34] Katie Dooley: And then we've talked about lots in the past, Catholics venerating. 

[00:10:40] Preston Meyer: Saints!

[00:10:42] Katie Dooley: Or things related to saints. 

[00:10:44] Preston Meyer: Relics! Oh man, we had some fun talking about relics a couple weeks ago.

[00:10:47] Katie Dooley: Yeah, whereas there's basically none of that in Protestantism.

[00:10:54] Preston Meyer: Yeah, like there's there's a little bit of the saints business and relics in, in the older. Yeah. Like the Church of England, the Lutheran church, they, they do pay attention to saints. Relics are still kind of cool to them. I mean, let's be real, people who aren't Christian find Christian relics to be at least a little bit cool. Sometimes. 

[00:11:20] Katie Dooley: I'd see the Shroud of Turin if I didn't have to see it with all the pilgrims.

[00:11:24] Preston Meyer: Sure. But I mean, with how infrequently that's public...

[00:11:29] Katie Dooley: That... My wish of not seeing it without the pilgrims will never happen. I'll have to elbow my way in there. So those are in a very short nutshell. Small nutshell.

[00:11:43] Preston Meyer: Some of the important differences.

[00:11:45] Katie Dooley: But other than that, they both believe in Jesus and the Trinity and Adam and Hell, but for different reasons.

[00:11:56] Preston Meyer: Yeah, the Bible is still hugely important to their tradition. They're very close cousins, only recently separated like 500 years or so.

[00:12:07] Katie Dooley: That's pretty recent. That's pretty recent...

[00:12:08] Preston Meyer: For a religion.

[00:12:11] Katie Dooley: So this is not a framework for the conflict in Ireland, which has been going on for a long ass time I mean almost.

[00:12:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah. About 400 years. Yeah, kind of crazy. It's been that long. And maybe this peace is actually going to finally settle. Maybe we'll see.

[00:12:37] Katie Dooley: We have our final thoughts on that.

[00:12:40] Preston Meyer: So about 400 years ago, there was this pretty decent relationship, I guess, kind of between Ireland and the United Kingdom of England and Scotland. And when land would default to the King because there was no heirs to take over the land, then the king would be like, all right, let's, uh, let's go send some Scottish people and a handful of English to go and populate this land. Not that Ireland had any population problems. The King was being a bit of a dick.

[00:13:21] Katie Dooley: It's called nepotism.

[00:13:22] Preston Meyer: Sure. I mean, they were colonizing Canada and, well, basically all of the Americas at this point, all of Europe was colonizing all of the Americas, way more land. Ireland, pretty small spot of land, relatively speaking, but it's closer, so it's more convenient. Not a good reason, but they called these people planters. They would go and plant the Irish lands that had defaulted to the Crown. And naturally, the native Irish folk didn't really like this passive aggressive colonization is what it was. And this is basically the seeds of all of the troubles... Is the king is being a dick, we need this to stop.

[00:14:14] Katie Dooley: Yes. So the native Irish. So at this point in history, they're all still one country.

[00:14:22] Preston Meyer: Yes.

[00:14:23] Katie Dooley: The native Irish to the island of Ireland are predominantly Catholic. And the people the king is planting are Protestant.

[00:14:32] Preston Meyer: Well, because if you're faithful to the to the king at all, you'll be in his church.

[00:14:38] Katie Dooley: Right? And the king's not gonna... Yeah, exactly. Especially this is at a time when, like, we're burning heretics still. So the king is not going to plant someone that is Catholic.

[00:14:50] Preston Meyer: Yeah, he's going to show favour to the people who are faithful to him. Yes. Which is not great when he also really just wants to have vice grip control over all of the land in his power, which yeah, no good.

[00:15:12] Katie Dooley: If only they knew what this would cause.

[00:15:14] Preston Meyer: Right? It's ridiculous.

[00:15:17] Katie Dooley: So starting in the mid 1600s, the Catholic Irish decided to fight against their new neighbors and their Protestant king. But the Protestants won a lot.

[00:15:30] Preston Meyer: Every single war, every time the Protestants won because they had the British Empire backing them up instead of just the local Irish fighters.

[00:15:43] Katie Dooley: And some sheep. I can say that as an Irish person.

[00:15:48] Preston Meyer: Sheep aren't great fighters there's a reason they fill the role they do in our society.

[00:15:52] Katie Dooley: I mean, that's what I'm. That's what I'm saying, preston.

[00:15:54] Preston Meyer: Yeah. 

[00:15:57] Katie Dooley: And as with any war, the Crown would penalize anybody who didn't conform to the Anglican Church of Ireland afterwards.

[00:16:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah, they had some pretty terrible laws put in place. And even though the laws ended up being worded as we will penalize the Catholics, the reason for that, as I've gone and studied into this, is because you can't just say, oh, Irish nationalists can't can do this and that, because you can't legally define that in the time. It doesn't work. But it's so much easier to go, oh, you're on this list of people who belong to this parish. All right. Now, you can't own land anymore. Which really sucks.

[00:16:51] Katie Dooley: Yes. This is the start of a whole bunch of sectarianism.

[00:16:56] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Um, non-Anglicans. So not just Catholics, but basically anybody who didn't have an Anglican baptismal certificate was forbidden from sending their children abroad for school, which would have been really nice. Say, oh, yeah, our family is being oppressed because of what we believe. We believe in Irish nationalism, that we want to be our own people and we happen to be Catholic. It would be really nice to kind of to become a refugee, head off to Europe somewhere. France is friendly right now. Kind of. Sometimes.

[00:17:34] Katie Dooley: Things flip-flop for a really long time.

[00:17:36] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Um, it would be nice to head off to Europe. And King says no, no, no. You are our subjects, and you will be punished. No sending children abroad for school. The Catholic clergy was actually banished from Ireland for a little while. Not a really long time, but for a little while. So I think it was about 30 years or something. Something like that. In 1704, that idea was replaced with a strict probation for priests. All the Catholic priests had to be examined on a pretty regular basis, and they're constantly watched. It was terrible. Non-anglicans were forced to subdivide their property between their heirs instead of just giving it to it to the oldest son.

[00:18:28] Katie Dooley: Therefore losing power because lots of land equals lots of power.

[00:18:32] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Now, I... it sounds a little bit weird because today this is generally speaking, you give out your stuff to all your son, all your children, more or less evenly. Unless you happen to have a large land holding. That would obviously have to go to one person. That practice was outright forbidden for non-Anglicans. Yeah. Losing power, deliberately undermining the whole Irish nation. And of course this made it a lot easier for land to default back to the crown because very often people would die without heirs if you subdivided it. That really raises your probability of this happening. Really crappy.

[00:19:20] Katie Dooley: Yeah, yeah it is.

[00:19:22] Preston Meyer: And of course, Catholics were barred from voting in parliamentary elections for a long time.

[00:19:27] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Like centuries.

[00:19:28] Preston Meyer: This is a big deal that lasted. It's weird how favorably people look at the English system when it was deeply messed up for a long time.

[00:19:41] Katie Dooley: We'll get into, you know, more violence. And, you know, no one is innocent in this conflict. But there were definitely things put in place to make it worse for certain people.

[00:19:57] Preston Meyer: Yes. For sure. Yeah, so the king claimed ultimate authority, of course, being the head of the church, basically claiming divine authority, which, as we've seen in the Anglican tradition, especially with King James a little bit later on, if you don't conform to exactly what the King wants. You can be burned as a witch. This is pretty gross.

[00:20:29] Katie Dooley: He burned a lot of people. 

[00:20:31] Preston Meyer: Yeah, and not only for being witches, they would come up with all kinds of reasons,

[00:20:36] Katie Dooley: All kinds of crazy things to burn you but... 

[00:20:39] Preston Meyer: Yeah, and the king just exercised more and more authority as time went over. I'm feeling pretty good about the Queen right now, relatively speaking. There's some grossness in that family, but relatively speaking, things are a lot better off.

[00:20:56] Katie Dooley: Yes, she's definitely the most normal that we've probably had. Maybe her dad was pretty normal, but his dad wasn't.

[00:21:09] Preston Meyer: No.

[00:21:13] Katie Dooley: So fast forward, but not very far to 1690 and the Battle of the Boyne. This is wild.

[00:21:25] Preston Meyer: So the Boyne is a river in Ireland. And so the battle of the Boyne was one of many battles of the Williamite War, but fought on the basically on the river banks.

[00:21:38] Katie Dooley: Yep. I've been there.

[00:21:40] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah. Nice.

[00:21:42] Katie Dooley: It is. It was a battle. Okay, guys, stay with me. It was a battle between a Catholic king and a Protestant king. One was Dutch. One was English. In Ireland. Got that?

[00:21:58] Preston Meyer: It's weird.

[00:21:59] Katie Dooley: It's very weird.

[00:22:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah. William of Orange, the Dutch one.

[00:22:02] Katie Dooley: The Dutch one. So they're fighting for the English crown in Ireland. And like, that's why everyone hates each other to this day. They were fighting for the English crown on Irish land. And everyone hates each other to this day.

[00:22:18] Preston Meyer: What a bunch of dicks.

[00:22:20] Katie Dooley: That's like. That's like me punching out Preston on your property and you fighting with your family for the rest of your life. Because I punched Preston on your property.

[00:22:34] Preston Meyer: I mean, it is more than that.

[00:22:36] Katie Dooley: I know, but, like...

[00:22:37] Preston Meyer: We've we've laid a solid foundation already. But this did not make things better.

[00:22:43] Katie Dooley: No. And it's just. What? It doesn't make things better. You're right. But it's like the Protestants still celebrate the victory today. And I'm like. But you didn't do anything.

[00:22:54] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:22:54] Katie Dooley: Like Protestant Irish because it was an English battle.

[00:22:57] Preston Meyer: Well, and it's it's kind of funny that the Protestants won this small battle because it was relatively small. And the day before, the Protestants had actually lost a huge naval battle on the other side of England, but in the time that has passed since then, a good three hundred years. The naval battle loss has really basically counted for nothing. And this Battle of the Boyne has just contributed to more problems.

[00:23:38] Katie Dooley: So, as Preston said, William was the Dutch king. He was William of Orange, which is why the color of the Netherlands is orange. And it's also why Protestants around the world represent themselves with orange. And so the orange and the green and the Irish flag is because of this king. He was also the King of England at the time, and the battle was King James the Second, a Catholic king. He was trying to win back the throne from William and bring Catholicism back to the United Kingdom and Ireland.

[00:24:14] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's so weird to see people fighting over the throne because for so long in our history recently speaking, there hasn't been fights for the crown because honestly, there's pretty limited power in the crown anyway. And you can be rich and be a prince and everything's fine.

[00:24:35] Katie Dooley: We can thank the Medici for that.

[00:24:37] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:24:37] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So this is where the Irish Catholic population gets invested because if James won, it would mean an end to the sectarian abuse and rules that they've lived with at this point for about 80/90 years.

[00:24:55] Preston Meyer: Yeah. What a mess. Restoring peace would have been nice, but it didn't work out.

[00:25:02] Katie Dooley: I mean, we can what if. Would it have restored peace? It just would have made the Irish Catholics happy. But the Irish Protestants unhappy.

[00:25:12] Preston Meyer: At this point in history, it would have been easy enough to deport the Protestants. 

[00:25:18] Katie Dooley: Or burn them, yes.

[00:25:19] Preston Meyer: Right, but it would have been easy enough to do a good old Saint Patrick and just get rid of the people that aren't going to...

[00:25:29] Katie Dooley: Get rid. Wink, wink. I'm kidding. Don't burn someone.

[00:25:34] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:25:34] Katie Dooley: I don't condone that.

[00:25:35] Preston Meyer: No, but based on what was going on at the time, it's. That would have been in character. Anyway, that would have been terrible. Okay.

[00:25:49] Katie Dooley: Unfortunately.

[00:25:50] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Unfortunately for the Catholics, William won the battle and retained his control of a very Protestant United Kingdom and Ireland. Things haven't... Things go a long time before they get better.

[00:26:06] Katie Dooley: Now, without getting too historical, this is a religion podcast, and this could be could be a whole history episode. But in the early 1920s, Ireland divided into two. So at this point, Ireland and United Kingdom are one country where the Isle of Ireland being predominantly Catholic and the rest being predominantly Protestant. But there are a lot of Protestants in Northern Ireland, which is where we see the current divide between Great Britain and Ireland on the island.

[00:26:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah, a handful of counties that were mostly Protestant basically got fenced off from the rest.

[00:26:44] Katie Dooley: Yes. The 12th. This is the what is the day is called the 12th.

[00:26:51] Preston Meyer: The 12th of July.

[00:26:52] Katie Dooley: It's the 12th of July is a day that commemorates the battle of the Boyne to this day, 200 years later. The Protestants are still celebrating.

[00:27:04] Preston Meyer: The Protestants are still being dicks about it.

[00:27:07] Katie Dooley: So this is. This is an interesting issue. It's an incredibly controversial celebration because they will hold orange marches. That's what they're called. And it basically rubs in the face of the Catholics and the Protestants. And the orange is typically held by an orange order or a chapter of an Orange Order, which is a Protestant fraternity. They generally, especially in more recent years, try to stick to Protestant neighborhoods. But some marches are purposely antagonistic and walk through Catholic neighborhoods.

[00:27:44] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's been happening a lot less in the last, I say ten years. Realistically, it should have been happening a lot less 20 years ago when the Troubles officially, legally speaking, ended. But mostly the last ten years have been nicer.

[00:28:03] Katie Dooley: So in 2013, I was in Northern Ireland. I left like two days before July 12th. It was the craziest thing I have ever seen in my life. Yeah?

[00:28:18] Preston Meyer: It was the craziest thing I've ever seen in my life.

[00:28:22] Katie Dooley: And why is that? So I got off a train in Belfast. As a Canadian, I don't know. Disclaimer as a Canadian atheist, like I wasn't concerned. I can see why if you are a Catholic Irish person, you would be. But I ended up in a Protestant neighborhood and they had painted the sidewalks like the the curb. So you know how sidewalks have the lines in them for expansion and contraction. So every chunk was painted red, white or blue. They went all down the curbs. And then there were Union Jacks between all the houses and Union Jacks on all the doors. It was like you knew immediately where you were. And then I'll post a picture in the Discord. I only saw a small one, but they also light massive bonfires, and I have a picture of myself by one and their pallets. And it was taller than me. It was easily 15ft tall, but there are ones that are like stories tall.

[00:29:27] Preston Meyer: That's alarming.

[00:29:27] Katie Dooley: And it was like... And the best way I can describe it is like a Best Buy parking lot is where this was. It was like in the middle of Belfast city, like, imagine going to the local shopping center and just having a 15-foot pallet that they're going to burn. It was yeah, and this is 2013. So not even ten years ago. So yeah, that's what they do. And you know again hopefully they're sticking to Protestant or Unionist... These they're not quite interchangeable... Neighbourhoods, but I think it we'll get into this conversation. But like it means people can't let it go.

[00:30:11] Preston Meyer: Mhm.

[00:30:12] Katie Dooley: And if they can't let it go then they're going to be Catholics or Republicans that can't let it go either because it makes them angry. 

[00:30:12] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Uh, what a mess.

[00:30:25] Katie Dooley: Also, just a fun fact for your dinner conversation. Police in the United Kingdom do not carry guns except in Northern Ireland.

[00:30:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that would make sense. Northern Ireland is the the home of the troubles.

[00:30:41] Katie Dooley: Oh, it's it's super interesting, mildly frightening.

[00:30:47] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:30:49] Katie Dooley: I'll leave it at that. I'll interject more stories as we go.

[00:30:52] Preston Meyer: All right.

[00:30:54] Katie Dooley: So, yes, they still to summarize: they still celebrate the winning of the Battle of the Boyne today. Sometimes by being dicks.

[00:31:04] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:31:05] Katie Dooley: So and actually that's quickly I'll just say many unionists believe it's their historical right to celebrate.

[00:31:05] Preston Meyer: Right. Because they won the war. Gross.

[00:31:17] Katie Dooley: I mean, is it grosser than Canada Day or...

[00:31:22] Preston Meyer: Canada Day having organized a nation is, I guess, the real celebration?

[00:31:31] Katie Dooley: Yeah, we're not celebrating specifically a massacre. 

[00:31:34] Preston Meyer: Right now if we were celebrating the dates where treaties were forcibly signed.

[00:31:41] Katie Dooley: The 60s Scoop. Yeah,

[00:31:42] Preston Meyer: Sure. There's an awful lot of things that are not celebrated that are part of Canada's history. 

[00:31:51] Katie Dooley: Fair.

[00:31:51] Preston Meyer: At least not celebrated among people that I care for. Anyway, in 1798, there was an Irish rebellion. Why is this news? Because it failed. It was one of many disastrous attempts to try and free Ireland from the Empire. Big bummer. Lots of people died. But the Irish Rebellion of 1798 was the big one, because obviously there have been lots of attempts before and since. Yeah. Politics, religion and economics were all super intertwined and more or less stayed that way ever since.

[00:32:39] Katie Dooley: To literally present day.

[00:32:40] Preston Meyer: Yeah. What a mess.

[00:32:45] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So basically, even 100 years later, after the battle of the Boyne, they're still trying to get independence.

[00:32:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah. There came to be an interesting nickname thrown up for the Republicans. And the name is Fenian, which when I initially found it, they didn't explain where this name comes from or anything. I had to go digging. But basically it's connected to the fictional hero Finn McCool and his legendary Irish warriors. Fenian is basically a really shortened form of Fianna Éireann I don't.. 

[00:33:25] Katie Dooley: Éireann

[00:33:25] Preston Meyer: Sure that's there's too many letters there for that to just be Éireann

[00:33:32] Katie Dooley: The Irish are very good at that.

[00:33:34] Preston Meyer: Okay. Well thank you. The Fianna Éireann, uh. So Fenians, basically Finn's soldiers or Finn's Irishmen,

[00:33:44] Katie Dooley: Dumbledore's Army. 

[00:33:45] Preston Meyer: Kinda, yeah and the the name Fenian is used as a slur against pretty much anybody who is Irish. Traditionally Irish by anybody who is a fierce loyalist to the Crown.

[00:34:03] Katie Dooley: So we're going to again, because this is not a history podcast. We're going to fast forward about 120 more years to when Ireland becomes its own country in 1922. And this is the geography we have today, where Ireland is a country. There's the Isle of Ireland, and part of that island belongs to United Kingdom in the form of Northern Ireland.

[00:34:28] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Ireland has an unfavorable hat.

[00:34:35] Katie Dooley: Yes. So, Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom. Bojo's their prime minister. They use the pound. They use kilometers. Whereas when you cross the border, they use miles, they use the euro and they have their own president.

[00:34:53] Preston Meyer: They use miles?

[00:34:54] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:34:55] Preston Meyer: What the hell is wrong with this country?

[00:34:57] Katie Dooley: I, I forget which, but the signs change. I'm pretty sure England uses kilometers because we use kilometers?

[00:35:03] Preston Meyer: They should all use kilometers. Everyone in Europe should be using the European standard. That's just weird.

[00:35:09] Katie Dooley: I'm pretty sure anyway. But yes, there's all these differences. There is no like customs border. You can just drive over the border. They don't monitor that. But everything changes. So if you're going from, you know, Dublin to Belfast, you need to change your currency, but no one's going to stop you.

[00:35:26] Preston Meyer: Right. Uh, if you're Northern Irish, you can actually get an Irish passport as well. If you really want to cross the border permanently.

[00:35:37] Katie Dooley: Totally. And you can work. They have commuter trains between Belfast and Dublin, so you can live in Dublin and work in Belfast or vice versa. You can work in an entirely different country.

[00:35:46] Preston Meyer: I mean, most of the European Union's that loosey goosey too. It's kind of nice.

[00:35:50] Katie Dooley: So I will say and I don't we don't need to keep this in. I thought it was really weird because when you go from Ireland to Northern Ireland, you don't have to have your passport checked. But when I went from Northern Ireland to Scotland, both the United Kingdom, they checked my passport. I thought that was really weird.

[00:36:05] Preston Meyer: That does feel a little odd. Did you plane it or take a ferry?

[00:36:10] Katie Dooley: I took a ferry.

[00:36:11] Preston Meyer: Okay. That'd be a long ferry ride.

[00:36:14] Katie Dooley: I don't remember, but it was great. It was, uh, it was, uh, rail and sail. So you got dropped off. So I took a cab to the ferry, and then I took the ferry over to... I don't even know where it docks in Scotland. And then you got a rail pass to take you from the dock to Glasgow.

[00:36:33] Preston Meyer: That's cool.

[00:36:34] Katie Dooley: It was great.

[00:36:35] Preston Meyer: Sounds like a nice adventure.

[00:36:37] Katie Dooley: It was a nice adventure. But back to geography. So at this point they are two very separate countries. But there are some people who want it to be one country.

[00:36:51] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that makes sense. 

[00:36:53] Katie Dooley: On both sides, funnily enough.

[00:36:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, it's so much easier when there's not two Ireland's problem is there's a lot of strong feelings...

[00:37:06] Katie Dooley: On which way to go. Enter the IRA.

[00:37:12] Preston Meyer: But not the Internal Revenue Agency but the Irish Republican Army.

[00:37:19] Katie Dooley: And it basically what it sounds like it was a paramilitary group, is a paramilitary group that wanted to unite the Isle of Ireland to the Republic, which would be "predominantly" Catholic. But now we're entering the 1960s and things get way more complicated.

[00:37:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Over the course of the 40 years between the foundation of an independent Republic of Republic of Ireland and the really terrible time when the Troubles really pick up. The IRA actually splits up into a few different groups, and going digging into this was tricky. It's way more complicated than even Wikipedia is really on top of, but it does a really good job of summarizing more or less the big groups, the big players. So that's kind of cool. But the provisional IRA is the the big scary militant group.

[00:38:24] Katie Dooley: The one that will blow up your car.

[00:38:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah. What a mess.

[00:38:29] Katie Dooley: Yes. And then there's also Sinn Fein, which is the political arm. Sure. It still exists today. And they again, I mean, they have the same goal, but they do it through, you know, Parliament and voting instead of car bombs and kneeling cappings. 

[00:38:29] Preston Meyer: It's pretty easy to pick a favorite. Yeah, but generally there's one goal unite all of Ireland in, at least for the IRA, a socialist republic. It's all right. I mean, so far it's easy enough to be on board, or at least to accept the idea.

[00:39:08] Katie Dooley: Yeah. At this point, there's still, you know, a lot of have and have nots between Catholic and Protestant or Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods. You know, there's until Sinn Fein shows up, there's no representation in Parliament for Ireland. There's still a lot of problems and it escalates to violence. Fun fact not so fun fact the IRA participate a lot in guerrilla warfare. Like you said, car bombs were a popular thing. Um, the Taliban learned a lot from the IRA.

[00:39:46] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Honestly, the CIA, the real CIA that you're aware of in the United States. And this IRA, the two biggest influences on the Taliban. It's kind of gross. Luckily, the IRA did actually officially disband in 2005 after a cease fire of, like, eight years.

[00:40:11] Katie Dooley: That would be the Good Friday Agreement. I believe you're referring. Yeah. Did you know that Brexit actually breaks the Good Friday Agreement and they're quite concerned about the ramifications?

[00:40:25] Preston Meyer: I... There's so much that I don't know about Brexit. All I know is it has been terribly mismanaged in a lot of ways for a lot of reasons.

[00:40:37] Katie Dooley: But yeah, it breaks the Good Friday Agreement, which is the ceasefire essentially with the IRA and everyone else.

[00:40:45] Preston Meyer: Well. That's exciting.

[00:40:49] Katie Dooley: A key figure of the IRA. And this is in the late 70s or early 80s, was Bobby Sands.

[00:40:57] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:40:57] Katie Dooley: I didn't know his real name.

[00:40:59] Preston Meyer: His. Well, his Irish name is Roibeard O'Shaughnessy,

[00:41:05] Katie Dooley: Not Bobby Sands.

[00:41:07] Preston Meyer: And, like, it's not like he came up with this new name, Bobby Sands. His parents were Sands as well. They just. Apparently there was a need to have a very different English name. Yeah. But, yeah. Roibeard O'Shaughnessy.

[00:41:24] Katie Dooley: So he was a member of the provisional IRA, and he was connected to bombings, uh, to a bombing of a furniture company in Dunmurry in 1976. And he was arrested after a gunfight with police.

[00:41:39] Preston Meyer: Makes sense. What's weird to me is that the charge that he was arrested for was just having a gun?

[00:41:47] Katie Dooley: Yeah, they did a lot of that too. So he was sent to Maze Prison, also called H block, uh, with a whole bunch of other IRA members and everything from, like, silly, I won't say possession of firearms, silly, but minor to murder, IRA members. And he and a bunch of other people went on a hunger strike, and he eventually died of hunger after 66 days. And. 

[00:42:20] Preston Meyer: But you're missing the best part of... During this hunger strike. He was a member of parliament.

[00:42:28] Katie Dooley: Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Yes, he was elected to Parliament while he was in prison.

[00:42:34] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:42:34] Katie Dooley: And then he went on hunger strike.

[00:42:38] Preston Meyer: Uh, yeah. Margaret Thatcher was not a fan. But I mean, they they act, they both did their job and Margaret Thatcher pulled no punches when it was time to celebrate his death.

[00:42:54] Katie Dooley: And the interesting thing about his this is interesting, this martyrdom and causes this all becomes very interesting. So Bobby Sands died again. He was in jail. He was blown up things so arguably not a good person. And again, there were other hunger strikers who died, who had committed murder the day Bobby Sands died, not that I want to dox us, but he was on the front page of our local newspaper here in Canada. He made front pages worldwide, and most people were like, "what the fuck? How could you let him die, you monsters!"

[00:43:34] Preston Meyer: Force feeding somebody doesn't count as not torture. So there's that.

[00:43:41] Katie Dooley: I mean, they could have given... So he was on hunger strike because he did have demands that he wanted met and were not met, so he died.

[00:43:49] Preston Meyer: You're choosing not to eat like it's like a child throwing a fit, except for a really good reason. It's frustrating and it sucks.

[00:44:00] Katie Dooley: So this led to IRA recruitment going up.

[00:44:05] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I went looking into his story a little bit more. Like that's that's the really cool part of his story action-wise if you want to make a movie. But there's some parts of his story that are actually they make sense on why he would be doing what he's doing. He went to go get a job down south, and he I think it was train cars. I'm going for memory now, building things because he wanted to have a real job, make something good of himself. And every day he showed up. Sorry. He showed up for work regularly for a while. And then one day, all the guys are like. We don't want none of you stinking Fenians around here. If you come back, we'll kill you. So all of a sudden, these unionists become the villain in his life. A couple years later, they attack his parents in their home. He has a reason to become an extremist. So it's. There's an awful lot of violence on both sides of this. It's super gross.

[00:45:16] Katie Dooley: Oh absolutely yeah. I was talking to an Irish friend, and he. He said that. I mean, I don't think there was any love lost for Margaret Thatcher, but one of the problems is, while Bobby Sands was dying in prison, again by choice as Preston said, Margaret Thatcher's son went missing and it was like would, like anything they could do to find him. And, you know, he was like but then she let 13 people sons die in prison.

[00:45:48] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it sucks.

[00:45:51] Katie Dooley: And it's hard and it's complicated and. Yeah, but he, Bobby Sands got a lot of sympathy for the Republican cause worldwide. Yeah. Very bad luck for the British government.

[00:46:05] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So a little bit before that, this was this idea that was launched. It was Operation Banner. I love this name because of my own personal biases. And I'm going to tell you my version of why this is named Operation Banner instead of the true version.

[00:46:27] Katie Dooley: And then will you tell us the true version?

[00:46:29] Preston Meyer: No.

[00:46:30] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:46:32] Preston Meyer: So the British armed forces kept the peace in Northern Ireland, kept the peace in air quotes because they were incredibly violent at the slightest provocation. It was a mess, not always, but really often. And the whole goal was to keep the Green monster the Catholics, from causing too much damage and protect the mild-mannered Bruce Banner of the civilized Protestant population.

[00:47:06] Katie Dooley: I like it because it's green,

[00:47:08] Preston Meyer: Right? Yeah. So Operation Banner was destroy the green Hulk, protect Bruce Banner. So that's not where the name comes from. I actually couldn't find where the name comes from. If I had to guess, it would be. Let's fly the banner of the Union.

[00:47:31] Katie Dooley: I like Bruce Banner better.

[00:47:32] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:47:35] Katie Dooley: One of the events that happened, speaking of keeping the peace during Operation Banner was Bloody Sunday.

[00:47:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So Ireland has more than one Bloody Sunday. There's three of them within 100 years and they're all connected to the same conflict.

[00:47:54] Katie Dooley: This one is the most recent?

[00:47:55] Preston Meyer: Yes.

[00:47:57] Katie Dooley: Um, yeah. It's terrible. It happened on January 30th, 1972, on a Sunday in Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland.

[00:48:11] Preston Meyer: Is it known by both names?

[00:48:12] Katie Dooley: It's okay. I'll have a digression. So Derry is the Catholic name and Londonderry is the Protestant name so... 

[00:48:20] Preston Meyer: That makes sense.

[00:48:21] Katie Dooley: Most people call it Derry/Londonderry to, like, not stir any shit up. You'll know immediately if someone's Catholic or Protestant based off of what they call it. They also call it. So we call this punctuation a slash in North America, they call it a stroke. So a lot of people call it Stroke City too.

[00:48:39] Preston Meyer: Okay.

[00:48:40] Katie Dooley: Instead Derry/Londonderry. So that's why I'm saying Derry/Londonderry. 

[00:48:43] Preston Meyer: Stroke City sounds like a name you would give to a geriatric facility.

[00:48:48] Katie Dooley: I know that's why I said they call it a stroke over there, we call it a slash over here. Slash city doesn't sound much better.

[00:48:54] Katie Dooley: No, that's Murderville,

[00:48:56] Preston Meyer: That's Murdersville. Um, so yes, it happened in Derry Londonderry, Northern Ireland, and for literally decades it was like a who shot first scenario. 26 civilians were killed by British forces, and the British forces claimed that they had rocks and debris thrown at them, which instigated the shooting. These protesters were violent, and the Catholic Derry marchers always maintained that the British forces shot unprovoked. Preston, it was in 2010 that the report of the investigation, nearly 40 years later. Exactly, yeah, nearly 40 years later, came out saying that the British forces were attacked unprovoked. And I forget which Prime Minister had to apologize, but he did.

[00:49:48] Katie Dooley: The British forces attacked unprovoked.

[00:49:51] Preston Meyer: Yes.

[00:49:51] Katie Dooley: Yeah. That sucks. We've seen who the Prime Minister was at the time, but it's he he did issue an apology in the city.

[00:50:01] Preston Meyer: Right. We've seen a lot of that here. Just only two years ago with a lot of the Black Lives Matters protests. That's... We see an awful lot of people get real gun happy when given the opportunity.

[00:50:18] Katie Dooley: And this is where, like, you know, we talk about the Battle of Boyne 300 years ago. This is all still very just under the under the surface, especially if you're from Derry or Belfast.

[00:50:30] Preston Meyer: Well, if you live there, you're going to be constantly reminded of it.

[00:50:33] Katie Dooley: So I did a tour in Derry. It's called a Bogside tour. This is where a lot of the Bogside is a neighborhood where a lot of the conflict happened. And my tour guide was the son of someone who was killed on Bloody Sunday.

[00:50:51] Preston Meyer: Dang.

[00:50:52] Katie Dooley: So, like, it's still... You think he liked the British and the unionists?

[00:50:58] Preston Meyer: The wounds are too fresh.

[00:50:59] Katie Dooley: Right? He grew up without a father. Like we go this... You know, when you and I go it's 300 years ago.

[00:51:07] Preston Meyer: It's not.

[00:51:08] Katie Dooley: It's not.

[00:51:09] Preston Meyer: Yeah. That sucks.

[00:51:11] Katie Dooley: But we have a IRA murder that was quite prominent, too, during this time. I guess I'm telling that story as well,

[00:51:21] Preston Meyer: I guess.

[00:51:21] Katie Dooley: So if you're a fan of the royal family. William and Kate, then you probably already know that Lord Mountbatten, so this is Prince Philip's father, Prince Charles's grandfather was assassinated by the IRA in 1978. The statement released by the IRA, they owned it. They were happy to kill someone from the royal family. It does point out the continued sectarianism in the country. Not that this justifies the murder, but the statement they released says the IRA claimed responsibility for the execution of Lord Louis Mountbatten. This operation is one of the discriminate ways we can bring attention of the English people, the continuing occupation of our country. The death of Mountbatten and the tributes paid to him will be seen in sharp contrast to the apathy of the British government and the English people, to the deaths of over 300 British soldiers and the deaths of Irish men, women and children at the hands of their forces. So yeah, it got a lot of media attention because it was Lord Mountbatten,

[00:52:28] Preston Meyer: Kind of a big deal.

[00:52:29] Katie Dooley: And it was sad. Six years prior, 26 people were killed and no one would take ownership of it. Eh!

[00:52:38] Preston Meyer: Right. Yeah. So that's one of the things that I like about the IRA is that when they do a thing, they take ownership of it. There was an attempt that I thought was kind of interesting to frame the IRA. That really got my attention. Actually, my wife pointed it out to me and said, you need to include this.

[00:53:02] Katie Dooley: I've never even heard of this. And I think I'm like, I mean, I'm far from an expert, but I have read quite a bit.

[00:53:07] Preston Meyer: Right. So arguably the biggest band in the country, the Miami Showband, was touring all over the place until 1975, when about half the band was murdered.

[00:53:22] Katie Dooley: Oops.

[00:53:23] Preston Meyer: Yeah. They were driving back home to Dublin in their band van after a show in Banbridge in Northern Ireland, and they were stopped by a bunch of guys in British Army uniforms. They're like, well, we're going to do as we're told. We're going to play this safe, we're going to get home, everything's going to be fine. Turns out they weren't just British Army, they were part of the Ulster Loyalist Army, and they were here to do some damage. So they lined up the band on the side of the road. They had a couple of guys take a big old bomb, put it in the van, and they were going to execute the whole band. Bomb went off as they were putting it in the van, instead of at the border crossing, where they were planning to have it go off, and only three of the band members were actually killed. The other two managed to survive the wounds in all of this confusion. Huge mess, disaster, because the loyalists just fumbled everything.

[00:54:30] Katie Dooley: They didn't have the same bombing prowess as the IRA.

[00:54:34] Preston Meyer: Right? But they really wanted it to look like an IRA attack at the border. Kind of embarrassing.

[00:54:41] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:54:42] Preston Meyer: And it actually took a long time before people could really nail down what was going on here. Who was in charge. Fingerprint evidence in the last ten years have actually identified. Yeah. No, the guy in charge of this was high up in the. 

[00:55:00] Katie Dooley: Ulster loyalist. British?

[00:55:02] Preston Meyer: The British.

[00:55:03] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:55:04] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Why is the word the British Armed Forces. A director or something like that. It was crazy.

[00:55:11] Katie Dooley: That is crazy.

[00:55:12] Preston Meyer: The fact that fingerprint evidence 30 years after the fact proved helpful is really cool. Yeah, but yeah, the IRA, they take ownership, they say, what's up? None of this sneaky nonsense. When somebody doesn't take ownership in the Troubles, expect that it was loyalists.

[00:55:35] Katie Dooley: Another fun, fun? story I was told when I was in Belfast was there was a Deutsche Bank and it was robbed, I want to say, in the early 2000 by the IRA for like I was told, millions of pounds and I used to work at a bank, I was like, you should never have millions of pounds or dollars on hand. But apparently they did.

[00:55:58] Preston Meyer: Different practices. No biggie.

[00:56:00] Katie Dooley: Yeah, and no charges were laid because the cost of the money stolen was less than the ramifications of breaking the Good Friday Agreement and pressing charges against the IRA. They were like, okay, It's cheaper to just let that money go.

[00:56:19] Preston Meyer: Well, and every bank has insurance, that sucks. Huh?

[00:56:29] Katie Dooley: So Northern Ireland today, new IRA is still sporadically active, with most the most recent report reported incident being in April of 2021. About a year ago, a bomb was discovered behind a police vehicle in Northern Ireland. There were no casualties, fortunately, but it was traced back to the IRA and that was just last year. Preston is right in that these are becoming less frequent, which is good, and the IRA activity cycles with the economy. Funnily enough, when Celtic Tiger was happening, there was hardly any violence. And when the economy gets bad, it starts to bubble up again.

[00:57:13] Preston Meyer: Oh, you mean it's an economic conflict?

[00:57:16] Katie Dooley: We're gonna get into that, Preston, in a second. Let me wrap up, please. The Orange Order still exists, and...

[00:57:26] Preston Meyer: We have some here in the city here.

[00:57:29] Katie Dooley: Just interrupting me. Well, it's an international organization. The Canadian arm is the Grand Orange Lodge of Canada, and it's the Imperial Orange Council in the USA. So, yeah.

[00:57:40] Preston Meyer: So are they properly united or are they distinct but friendly to each other?

[00:57:44] Katie Dooley: Um, they all stem from the Orange Order in Ireland, so but I...

[00:57:48] Preston Meyer: But Freemasonry is like that too, where they stem from a common home and then are separate but communicate.

[00:57:56] Katie Dooley: I feel I didn't look into it, but that would be my guess. They do march and all their regular orange things so... 

[00:58:04] Preston Meyer: Cool. So I don't know a lot about the Orange Order other than we're loyal Protestants. 

[00:58:10] Katie Dooley: We're loyal Protestants to get old William of Orange. Now the part Preston's chomping at the bit to get to. It's is. Is this a religious conflict? Is it a socioeconomic conflict? What role does discrimination against other religions play? Does religion make it worse? Does religion make it better?

[00:58:35] Preston Meyer: It's complicated and juicy.

[00:58:37] Katie Dooley: Okay, that's a good political answer. Very good.

[00:58:41] Preston Meyer: Obviously, it's super easy to say. Obviously it's a religious deal because one side is Catholic, one side is Protestant. If it were that simple, then it could have been solved in the churches, I think? Right?

[00:58:59] Katie Dooley: Well, see, I, I see what you're saying and absolutely like you said, with Celtic Tiger, socio economic historically Catholics were have nots and Protestants were haves because they were gifted Lifted stuff from the king.

[00:59:12] Preston Meyer: Royal favour goes a long way.

[00:59:14] Katie Dooley: Absolutely. But if the people within the conflict see it as Catholic versus Protestant, then is it? You know what I mean.

[00:59:24] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:59:25] Katie Dooley: If you're raised to hate Catholics or hate Protestants, depending on the side, then you might not even see the socioeconomic issues. And therefore, do the socioeconomic issues matter unless you're an outsider trying to fix it. But if you're in it, it probably is religious conflict.

[00:59:43] Preston Meyer: So I'm going to dig into that a little bit more. When you're taught to hate somebody, you're going to be told why. When people in the South say, you got to hate anyone who is not white. There's a reason white people are better. That's obviously deeply flawed logic, but that's what they got. That's what they go with. And so when people say, hey, you need to hate the Protestants when you're living in Ireland. The reason why? Pretty easy to get on board with. They have been ruining our lives for 400 years. And unfortunately, the Protestants have a similar thing thrown at them of we hate the Catholics because they are tearing our country apart, even though that's not really the deal.

[01:00:35] Katie Dooley: It is quite easy in this conflict to be sympathetic towards the Catholics.

[01:00:40] Preston Meyer: It really is.

[01:00:41] Katie Dooley: I try not to be. I try to be neutral, but it's tough.

[01:00:45] Preston Meyer: Well, the history shows us that the Catholics are just systematically picked on. They are the victims in all of this. Not to say that they're innocent, because an awful lot of damage has been done by both sides, not by every person on both sides, but by both sides as wholes. It's a mess. And as it would be, it would be really nice and easy to say. Yeah. Religion is the problem here. But if Ireland was never Catholic, if they were just happy more Protestants, they would still be nationalists trying to protect what was theirs. Unfortunately, nationalism looks an awful lot like a religion too. And arguably by many scholars and even the subject of my last paper before I graduated. Nationalism is a religion. It's not the same sort of thing.

[01:01:54] Katie Dooley: Okay, well, then I still kind of disagree.

[01:01:57] Preston Meyer: That's fine,

[01:01:58] Katie Dooley: Because I think if the people think it's a religious conflict, then it is a religious conflict. Perception is reality. Not that there aren't socio economic and political parts moving parts to it. Does religion make it worse? You're turning a regular conflict into a holy war.

[01:02:15] Preston Meyer: Every conflict that lasted a while. Religion comes into it. Even the Cold War. Religion came into it with the good old Christian. America needs to defeat those godless communists.

[01:02:31] Katie Dooley: Godless communists!

[01:02:33] Preston Meyer: Which I mean, really weird way to spin it. But it's a great way to convince people that you're right. If you can convince people that God is on your side in a conflict, you don't have to worry about it anymore. You've got their help through to the very end, which is pretty gross. People lean on religion for utilitarian purposes that get really nasty all the time. The conflict in the Middle East has nothing to do with religion. It never had anything to do with religion, but people use religion as a great way to other the other side as a perfectly valid victim for all of the bullets. And that sucks.

[01:03:29] Katie Dooley: So you should all just become atheists! I'm kidding.

[01:03:35] Preston Meyer: Pluralism doesn't do any harm. And yet, for some reason, all of the great powers of America really lean away from that as you need to join this. Be one with us. Be just like us, or you're the bad guy. And it was the same way in Ireland, on both sides. It's been that way for most of human history.

[01:04:05] Katie Dooley: Here's another big question. Can this be solved? Will this ever end?

[01:04:12] Preston Meyer: I believe it will. I believe it can be solved. And it's a lot more complicated than just saying, oh, guys, stop being dicks to each other. It's a lot more complicated than just putting up walls in between neighborhoods like they've been doing. It's a lot more complicated than simple deportation or execution. You need to actually fix the problem, which nobody wants to do, because nobody can agree on what the problem is for some reason.

[01:04:50] Katie Dooley: Part of it. I have some ideas on how to fix it, but first I just want to say if you do want to learn more about the Troubles, there are a lot of great books and books and movies on the topic. I listed some historical fiction ones here, but there are obviously scholarly nonfiction books. Belfast by Kenneth Branagh. That was just an Oscar nominee. It was exactly about this. There's a movie called '71, which takes place in. 

[01:05:17] Both Speakers: 1971.

[01:05:19] Katie Dooley: The Crying Game, Patriot Games, and Trinity are all great pieces of historical fiction.

[01:05:26] Preston Meyer: Historical fiction is a pretty great tool.

[01:05:28] Katie Dooley: I think it's good. You know how I'd solve this Northern Ireland problem?

[01:05:33] Preston Meyer: How would you solve this problem?

[01:05:35] Katie Dooley: I'd make everyone listen to the Holy Watermelon Podcast, and I'd make everyone follow us on our social media. That's Facebook, Instagram and Discord. And to show that you're a true believer, I would get people to purchase merchandise and subscribe to our Patreon. Because when you have a comprehensive religious education. Preston's not taking me seriously. I'm not even taking me seriously. When you have a comprehensive religious education, you can solve global issues.

[01:06:12] Preston Meyer: Well, okay. At the very least, you can recognize when something is a genuine religion problem or if it's something entirely different. At the very least, you'll get that far.

[01:06:25] Katie Dooley: Yes. Thank you for minimizing my pitch.

[01:06:30] Preston Meyer: But yeah, we are grateful that you have joined us for as long as you have. And we're going to keep doing this, and we hope you'll keep joining us,

[01:06:41] Katie Dooley: And especially this episode, 

[01:06:41] Both Speakers: Peace be with you.

Scientology gets a lot of bad press (and most of it is hard to refute), but we're going to shed a little light on the sci-fi religion of L Ron Hubbard, and explore the aspects of this authoritarian cultus that make it so enticing to initiates and so terrifying to survivors.

What happened to Shelly Miscavige? Why is Tom Cruise reported to be leaving the church when he's up to his neck in it with David Miscavige? There's a lot more to this space-age religion than Dianetics, pseudo-science, and alternative facts. It's all fair game, now. Hail Xenu!

They say you can't take your engrams with you across the Bridge to Total Freedom. We can't make you operating thetans, but we can give you the tools to protect yourself from them. These suppressive persons will take you on a voyage that rivals the power of Hubbard's Sea Org.

Check out our previous episode, "Fake Me to Church," to learn more about authoritarian cults.

All this and more....

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[00:00:11] Katie Dooley: I'm waiting for you to say hello to me.

[00:00:13] Preston Meyer: Hi, Katie.

[00:00:13] Katie Dooley: Hi, Preston.

[00:00:16] Preston Meyer: Oh, man, what a good day.

[00:00:18] Katie Dooley: Today is a blessed day. If you're a Scientologist,

[00:00:22] Preston Meyer: Right? Yay! Dianetics it's the anniversary.

[00:00:27] Katie Dooley: Happy anniversary, Dianetics! Today on the. 

[00:00:31] Both Speakers: Holy Watermelon podcast.

[00:00:34] Katie Dooley: Um, I feel like we should say that we're not actually that excited about Dianetics having a birthday,

[00:00:40] Preston Meyer: Right? I mean, as far as anniversaries of books go, meh. I've never celebrated the anniversary of a book before today, so there is something special about this.

[00:00:52] Katie Dooley: I guess so. And as far as religions go, also meh. Or maybe even more ehhhhh.

[00:00:59] Preston Meyer: It's not so meh

[00:01:00] Katie Dooley: . We're here living in 2022 and Scientology is living in 3022.

[00:01:09] Preston Meyer: Yeah, they they play with a bigger calendar though to. That Xenu business was like 75 million years ago.

[00:01:17] Katie Dooley: Wow. We're gonna get into Xenu. I just have, like, a fun little note that usually we're pretty tolerant about religions, but we're gonna rake this one over the coals.

[00:01:28] Preston Meyer: Yeah. This, uh, we'll try and be pretty objective, but there will be times where it gets really hard to do that.

[00:01:38] Katie Dooley: Yes. But again, so this is the anniversary of Dianetics. It is actually a very important Scientology holiday, May 9th. Um, so yeah, let's get this crazy show started.

[00:01:50] Preston Meyer: All right. Oh, man. Yeah. So being a Scientologist gets really expensive. It's remember how I talked about how Freemasonry and the ancient Egyptian religions and some of the Druids traditions? They're like tiered mystery schools where you got to move up from one layer to the next. That's an expensive process. Here it is.

[00:02:14] Katie Dooley: I've heard. I was trying to figure out how much Tom Cruise in particular had spent on Scientology, and it's estimated about 25 million. But there was a multi-millionaire in Atlanta who has spent 360 million on Scientology.

[00:02:27] Preston Meyer: Okay, that's definitely more than the cost of going through the the Operating Thetan levels. There's definitely some extra donations there and whatnot.

[00:02:35] Katie Dooley: Still far too much money to spend on this organization. Um, so some stats that I thought were interesting and keep this one in mind in particular as we get into the cost of things, is that on national censuses, there's only about 30,000 Members of Scientology. So that's across that was taken from the US, Canada, Great Britain or sorry, United Kingdom. And I think Australia or New Zealand censuses, it only totaled about 30,000 people. And then when we started talking about how much money they have, I think there's a little bit of like churn and burn where people give them all their money and then leave because they can't afford to keep going. Or then you have these high-profile people who give a fuck ton of money. I've also compared this to Wicca a bit, because Scientology claims to be the newest modern religion, started in 1953, but Wicca was introduced to the public in 1954. And Wicca has 300,000 members in the US alone. Now, they don't give them Wicca millions of dollars, so it doesn't have the profile that Scientology has. But suck it, scientology.

[00:03:52] Preston Meyer: Well see Wicca. Wiccam is an economic powerhouse, but it's not a whole bunch of people giving money to the Church of Wicca. It's just a huge population of people engaged in the market of buying and selling paraphernalia and goods and tools and whatnot. So a much healthier reality. But you said newest modern religion and calling Wicca modern when it's based on a quite old tradition does flavor that a little bit.

[00:04:28] Katie Dooley: Fair. But suck it, scientology.

[00:04:31] Preston Meyer: Right? There are newer religions still.

[00:04:35] Katie Dooley: Absolutely. NXIVM,ehhh...

[00:04:37] Preston Meyer: So L Ron Hubbard,

[00:04:44] Katie Dooley: LRH.

[00:04:45] Preston Meyer: So I always every time I hear L Ron, I think of Elrond from Lord of the Rings.

[00:04:51] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Don't give him that much credit.

[00:04:53] Preston Meyer: But Ronnie Hubbard was a popular writer, or at least prolific writer before Lord of the Rings was ever published. So it's not any rip-off of a name of this dude renaming himself to sound like the fanciest of the elves. He's actually, let's be real, elrond is not the fanciest of the elves. He's just important. Uh, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard was born in 1911, March 13th. Dates not super important. Hella long time ago. More than 100 years ago. So you can reasonably expect the man is dead.

[00:05:34] Katie Dooley: Oh. Is he?

[00:05:36] Preston Meyer: We'll get into that.

[00:05:37] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:05:39] Preston Meyer: But he has published more than 235 works of fiction in his life, mostly sci-fi, which is interesting since that's the sort of religion he ended up starting.

[00:05:55] Katie Dooley: Yep.

[00:05:56] Preston Meyer: In 1950, he published a book called Dianetics. Dianetics is a wacky idea about the relationship between the mind and the body. We do recognize the mind and the body are attached, but the way this guy talks about it gets really weird. He hated psychology, and Scientologists kind of stick to that tradition. They still abhor psychology today, but for some reason, Dianetics, which is definitely a kind of psychology, is just the best thing ever. Which is why today is a special day. Uh, Dianetics is a pseudoscience. Um, but it never really caught on. Really, there's obviously some people who like it. Hubbard realized that there was way more money in religion, so that's okay. Let's shift gears a little bit. And he's actually quoted several times saying things like this, that writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make $1 million, the best way would be to start his own religion. Big red flag. So L Ron Hubbard also has a history of lying. Naturally, this is a thing that should also raise alarms. Most of his lies are about his military service. Saying that he was far more decorated than he was. He did get a couple of awards, but really nothing fancy, nothing terribly special.

[00:07:25] Katie Dooley: Not the Purple Heart or whatever he claimed to have but he definitely claimed to have been awarded combat medals for World War Two. He didn't have any. Yeah, some pretty big ones he didn't have at all. Which is... I mean, the military keeps track of that. This is very easy to prove.

[00:07:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah. I mean, he was in active service in the Navy during the Second World War. But not everybody gets all the medals. That's not the way it goes.

[00:07:52] Katie Dooley: No, I will say before we jump on to the next section, this is a very brief overview of all that Scientology is, and we can, if anyone wants, we can do a full episode on LRH, or we're about to talk about David Miscavige or some of the more nitty gritty details of Scientology, but it is vast and wild. So I feel like we're just glossing over things, but we have to for an hour-long episode. So after L Ron Hubbard, the current leader of the Church of Scientology, is a man by the name of David Miscavige. He was the captain of the Sea Org or the Sea Organization, Sea Org for short. A private navy and the chairman of the board of the Religious Technology Center. So this made him the de facto leader of the church once LRH died...

[00:08:45] Preston Meyer: I love the suspicion on that word.

[00:08:48] Katie Dooley: Well, he's coming back or he's already back. They believe in reincarnation. So anyway, his personal website, highly recommend if you want to go down a crazy rabbit hole, advertises that he's been awarded by the Colombian National Police for humanitarian contributions.

[00:09:07] Preston Meyer: I thought that was such a weird thing to see prominently placed on his web page but...

[00:09:14] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I thought it was weird how many video testimonials he had about being a great person. Like, I fully as a business owner. Testimonials are great, but there's like a point where when you have 300, I start to not believe it.

[00:09:27] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Yeah I saw I flipped through these and I saw one for this old guy and he was just credited as CEO of a software company. Generic. Meaningless. Super weird. I had to google the dude's name. It makes sense that that's the only credit they gave him because the company is super small.

[00:09:49] Katie Dooley: Ah, he's he is the company.

[00:09:53] Preston Meyer: I mean, pretty much he's since retired. The company is now defunct, but that's the way it goes.

[00:09:59] Katie Dooley: Uh, David Miscavige grew up in new Jersey, and over the course of more than 20 years, David fought to get tax-exempt status for the church. And eventually he decided that they needed to harass IRS employees. And it was. It's wild. This is like a whole actually quite interesting part of the history of Scientology. Um, and it eventually worked. He is married to a woman named Michelle Miscavige. She was also in the sea organization growing up. And we'll talk more about her later.

[00:10:29] Preston Meyer: Poor Shelly.

[00:10:30] Katie Dooley: Poor Shelly. Yes. She was known as known as Shelly. Or is known as Shelly. Foreshadowing! And David in the church spent a lot of time and energy trying to convince people that he is only a conduit for Hubbard's message, rather than being a real person with his own agenda. But as wild as Scientology was with Hubbard, it's even wilder now, so... 

[00:10:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah, because Scientology needs to work.

[00:11:03] Katie Dooley: KSW - Keep Scientology Working!

[00:11:07] Preston Meyer: And of course, we can't really talk about Scientology without talking about people like Tom Cruise.

[00:11:13] Katie Dooley: Okay. Like he's the third highest in the church. L Ron. David Miscavige. Tom Cruise. Like, not even a joke.

[00:11:22] Preston Meyer: He's a big deal.

[00:11:26] Katie Dooley: There are a lot of kooky celebrity Scientologists Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, Juliette Lewis, Danny Masterson. Masterson, to name some. And then formerly, Leah Remini and Leah Remini will talk about as well, and whose she was actually born into it and has since left and been incredibly vocal against Scientology. She has a great podcast and TV show. Neil Gaiman, Laura Prepon, Priscilla and Lisa Marie Presley are all former members, but Tom Cruise is beyond the couch-jumping crazy eyes. He is David Miscavige's right-hand man.

[00:12:00] Preston Meyer: Yeah, he's he's a big, important fella. He's like, second to the Pope, kind of important.

[00:12:06] Katie Dooley: Yes. Which is terrifying for an actor.

[00:12:11] Preston Meyer: I mean, America has hired Hollywood faces for president more than once and every time, it has been disastrous.

[00:12:20] Katie Dooley: I feel like that's like something as a nation they need to reflect on. Anyway, Miscavige was Cruise's best man at his wedding to both Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes, and Tom Cruise has his own home next door to Miscavige's at the Scientology headquarters in California.

[00:12:40] Preston Meyer: So they're buddies.

[00:12:41] Katie Dooley: Apparently, it's a really creepy bromance.

[00:12:44] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah?

[00:12:45] Katie Dooley: This is all from. This is such a weird episode to even study because they ended up on, like, TMZ websites. 

[00:12:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Cruise has spent a lot of time trying to convert other celebrities to Scientology. Cause, you know, that's what you do if you're part of an evangelical style religion, and you need to convince more appealing people to your organization to help it grow. That's what you do. And Cruise has that kind of pull. He tries so hard. So tried getting the Beckhams in, the Pinkett-Smiths. He's lobbied politicians all over the US and Europe to get the church recognized as a proper religion too,, which has had some pretty mixed results. France hates this business.

[00:13:39] Katie Dooley: Yes. Which, man, we have so much to talk about. Also, an interesting fact is that anytime you see an article come up about saying that Cruise is like leaving the Church of Scientology or whatever, I guarantee you he has a movie coming out and that's like planned because people know how, even if you don't know how gross Scientology can get, it's weird. At the best, they always are. Like, "oh, he's not really a Scientologist anymore". Then they release his film and then he ends up couch-jumping on Oprah or releasing crazy promo videos with crazy eyes for Scientology.

[00:14:18] Preston Meyer: He's so cool. He does his own stunts.

[00:14:23] Katie Dooley: I mean, it is pretty cool how often he's jumped out of planes. I'll give him that.

[00:14:27] Preston Meyer: The Mission Impossible movies are fun, but crazy guy... Yes. Bryant, my husband and sound guy, we were just talking about how, like, even if Tom Cruise wanted to leave the church, he basically couldn't. And there's the sunk cost of all the money he's put in. But Scientology, I saw you put a question mark in the notes, and I didn't have a chance to expand on it, but one of their policies is to put everything in writing, so when you're getting audited, it's all written down. So they know everything about Tom Cruise. It also gives him a lot of power. So they've actually helped him find all of his girlfriends including Katie Holmes. They like interview and vet them for him so he doesn't have to do that work.

[00:15:07] Preston Meyer: I mean convenient for him.

[00:15:10] Katie Dooley: Creepy for the creepy for the poor woman being interviewed.

[00:15:14] Preston Meyer: Yes, that's pretty gross.

[00:15:17] Katie Dooley: Dear listener, dear listener, that is not how you find a mate.

[00:15:21] Preston Meyer: I mean, arranged marriages are actually not terribly uncommon around this world. They're getting less common as years go by.

[00:15:30] Katie Dooley: I don't know, there's just something about, like, David Miscavige staring at a bunch of women and I'm like, ehhhh,

[00:15:35] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:15:36] Katie Dooley: It's one thing if it's your parents looking out for your best interests, but... 

[00:15:40] Preston Meyer: Yeah, we'll get into this a little bit more for how this works, generally speaking. But the sunk cost this that's an interesting turn of phrase. There's a lot of things he's gotten for free.

[00:15:54] Katie Dooley: That's true. 

[00:15:55] Preston Meyer: That they will bill him for if he left that at this point would be crippling.

[00:16:00] Katie Dooley: That's true. And there's a lot of he gets a lot of perks that probably other members would have to pay for, and they've just given him because he's Tom Cruise. We'll get into how Scientology has this weird relationship with celebrity, and they put a lot of value on celebrity anyway.

[00:16:17] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Scientology. Like I mentioned before, France doesn't really like this business. It's a really interesting case study on how different countries use differing definitions of religion we talked about before. There is no one definition for religion that everyone can agree on. That doesn't help.

[00:16:35] Katie Dooley: Right? And this is even, you know, a good episode to pair this with is our parody religions episode of, you know, the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster trying to get tax-exempt status to see how, you know, maybe we can be a little more is decisive the word I want to use or...

[00:16:52] Preston Meyer: More discerning.

[00:16:53] Katie Dooley: Thank you. Yes, discerning. Thank you, in how we pick what is considered a religion or a charity in whatever nation we're in.

[00:17:02] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So the IRS did give tax-exempt status to the Church of Scientology in the United States in 1993. It's a big win for David Miscavige because he'd been fighting for 37 years with the IRS doing all kinds of really shady stuff, including blackmail, harassment, and of course, just straight-up tax evasion.

[00:17:25] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I think there was a case where a bunch of people broke into the IRS to steal documents. Um...

[00:17:31] Preston Meyer: They were also harassing IRS employees in their homes.

[00:17:34] Katie Dooley: Yeah, yeah. Privately and personally.

[00:17:36] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Gross.

[00:17:38] Katie Dooley: But it helps. I mean,

[00:17:41] Preston Meyer: It got the job done.

[00:17:42] Katie Dooley: It got the job done. Um, tax-exempt status is huge for a, I mean, any religion or charity. Um, but when you are dealing with the kind of money that the Church of Scientology is, it's huge. And then also it kind of legitimizes it as a church or a religion. Ehhhh.... You're gonna hear that sound a lot from me this episode.

[00:18:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Legitimizing this religion feels icky. But here we are

[00:18:12] Katie Dooley: Uh, here we are hearing Canada, the Church of Scientology, does have tax-exempt status and is allowed to perform marriages, but is not a federally registered charity. So it's more like a... France is actually openly hostile to the church, as Preston alluded to, and they fined them for fraud in 2009.

[00:18:33] Preston Meyer: Good move.

[00:18:35] Katie Dooley: New Zealand, for example, doesn't legally recognize Scientology as a religion, but they are a tax-exempt charitable organization. So there is there's a Wikipedia article you can look up. Not every country in the world, but probably every country scientology is in and see what they... How the country has chosen to dealt with it. It is everything from France being openly hostile and not considered a religion to it's a religion and tax exempt and as all of the rights and privileges of a religion. So it's wild.

[00:19:06] Preston Meyer: Let's take a look at this Dianetics thing.

[00:19:08] Katie Dooley: Yeah. What do Scientologists actually believe? We know they spend a lot of money, and we know there are a lot of celebrities

[00:19:08] Preston Meyer: Right? So it's mostly really tied pretty tightly to the original publication of Dianetics. The full name of the book was Dianetics: A New Science of the Mind. It was published in the May 1950 issue of a pulp magazine called Astounding Science Fiction. 

[00:19:33] Katie Dooley: Red flag

[00:19:35] Preston Meyer: And then a few weeks later, a full book came out called Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. And this is the book that... 

[00:19:43] Katie Dooley: Was published today.

[00:19:45] Preston Meyer: Published and republished. They actually lost the rights to it a little while, for a little while, when L Ron Hubbard just kind of really lost control of everything. It was terrible, but well deserved. But he managed to get the rights back and managed to secure all of it to a point where he could start a religion. Anyway, this book is generally trashed by real experts of psychology. This is a really important detail, but also good old Ronnie hates psychologists and psychiatrists. So it makes sense.

[00:20:24] Katie Dooley: And I mean, this is where the church is very good at public relations and marketing is their sort of spin on it is that we're giving too many people too many drugs, which, you know, probably, um, but... 

[00:20:41] Preston Meyer: A lot of little statements that in isolation are actually. 

[00:20:46] Katie Dooley: Probably true.

[00:20:47] Preston Meyer: True. Um, one of the big things that he pushed in this book is the idea that humans are instinctively trying to survive.

[00:20:55] Katie Dooley: Yep.

[00:20:55] Preston Meyer: And then everything else complicates that. Yes. That's true. Easy to get on board, but that's how they get you.

[00:21:03] Katie Dooley: That is absolutely how they get you.

[00:21:04] Preston Meyer: Little bits of truth, little things that you agree with mixed with a couple of things that you don't instinctively agree with. But then you just kind of accept because they're in the pudding. And eventually that pudding gets pudding gets worse and worse and you don't notice. That's what a cult is.

[00:21:23] Katie Dooley: Wow, Preston, you've done it. We're SPs.

[00:21:28] Preston Meyer: Oh, no.

[00:21:28] Katie Dooley: Well, get on what that is. But this was the moment.

[00:21:31] Preston Meyer: I guess so.

[00:21:32] Katie Dooley: Well done, preston.

[00:21:35] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Anyway, Ron claimed that he spent 12 years doing research for this book, but both scientists and his friends say there's no way that's true.

[00:21:46] Katie Dooley: Just like I wrote it one night.

[00:21:48] Preston Meyer: Like, he may have just jammed it out sitting at a typewriter throughout 1949. And that's it.

[00:21:54] Katie Dooley: Well, I mean, if you were working on a research, I mean, I knew when you were going to university if you were working on a serious, huge research project for a decade. I think I would know.

[00:22:03] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:22:04] Katie Dooley: Hey, Preston. I don't see you around so often. What's keeping you so busy?

[00:22:08] Preston Meyer: I'm doing research for this great paper.

[00:22:10] Katie Dooley: Well, tell me more.

[00:22:12] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's not what Ron was doing.

[00:22:15] Katie Dooley: That conversation did not happen with L Ron Hubbard or any of his friends.

[00:22:20] Preston Meyer: To be fair, he was always writing, and so I think people just got used to the fact that he was always writing. Remember, he produced about 250 books.

[00:22:29] Katie Dooley: That's a lot of books.

[00:22:30] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's Stephen King level of prolific writing. So except the quality.

[00:22:37] Katie Dooley: Yeah, I was gonna say Stephen King is much better at writing than L Ron Hubbard is.

[00:22:43] Preston Meyer: As far as volume goes, or maybe, to be fair, let's compare them more to somebody like R.L. Stine.

[00:22:50] Katie Dooley: Yeah, that's probably more accurate.

[00:22:54] Preston Meyer: But sci fi. Anyway, the basic idea is that we need to get rid of fears and other mental blocks that keep us from being happy. And of course, this goes all the way down into healing psychosomatic illnesses.

[00:23:12] Katie Dooley: And I'm sure it's later on in our notes. I just don't remember where. But Scientologists believe that we are reincarnated so that we have to get rid of these blocks and fears from past lives, which is what auditing is, which we'll we'll get there. But, uh, it's not just, you know, my daddy didn't love me in this life. How far back did your daddy's not love you? And you have to go through all of that.

[00:23:39] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's a struggle.

[00:23:43] Katie Dooley: Which, again, generational trauma we know is real. But that's not reincarnation. Anyway. Good thing I'm covered in thetans.

[00:23:55] Preston Meyer: Yeah, I guess, except according to the church, that's a very bad thing.

[00:23:59] Katie Dooley: I mean. Ron Hubbard says the name was conceived by his wife, Mary Sue. And a thetan weighs about 45g, or 1.5oz. But what the heck is a of that. 

[00:23:59] Preston Meyer: A Thetan. 

[00:24:14] Katie Dooley: Thetan. Excuse me.

[00:24:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it's actually deliberately named after the Greek letter theta. Yeah.

[00:24:19] Katie Dooley: Thank you.

[00:24:20] Preston Meyer: A Thetan is a living soul. The individual. The individual that operates your body. Katie proper. The eternal Katie is a Thetan but then there's also other Thetans.

[00:24:33] Katie Dooley: My reincarnated Thetans.

[00:24:36] Preston Meyer: Sure.

[00:24:36] Katie Dooley: Or other things that have glommed on to me?

[00:24:39] Preston Meyer: Yes, that. Yeah, yeah. A person does not have a Thetan. They are a Thetan, except the lesser body Thetans. Though you do have those. The terminology gets a little funky, a little inconsistent, but not to the point that it's totally incomprehensible, but. 

[00:24:58] Katie Dooley: Enough that you need to pay someone to help you figure it out.

[00:25:01] Preston Meyer: Yeah, yeah.

[00:25:03] Katie Dooley: Convenient. Yes. So you are infested with Thetans and you are also a Thetan. But you only want your Thetan, not the other Thetans.

[00:25:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And so all of these infesting Thetan parasites 75 million years.

[00:25:16] Katie Dooley: Oh, that's nothing. 

[00:25:17] Preston Meyer: Since Xenu banished them to Earth, which is the secret of OT3. But we'll get more into that story later.

[00:25:26] Katie Dooley: So thetans are immortal and perpetual, and they willed themselves into existence at some point several trillion years ago. After they originated, thetans generated points. Points to view or dimension points causing space to come into existence. They agreed that other thetans dimension points, existed, and that's how they brought into existence the entire universe. Is that like the Spider-Man meme where they're all pointing at each other? Hey, and recognizing that they exist.

[00:26:01] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:26:01] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Okay, the universe has no independent reality, but persists because most thetans agree it exists. Thetans fell from grace when they began to identify with their creation, rather than their original state of spiritual purity. Mhm. Eventually, they lost their memory of their true nature, along with the associated spiritual and creative powers. Now, most of thetans think of themselves as nothing but embodied beings. Oh, I think of myself as a body being,

[00:26:34] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:26:34] Katie Dooley: Oh, no.

[00:26:35] Preston Meyer: See, You find yourself where you are.

[00:26:38] Katie Dooley: Okay. But through the powers of Scientology, you can get your spiritual and creative powers back to your true thetan form.

[00:26:48] Preston Meyer: That's enticing. I'd like to have that power now. So if there's somebody listening to me.

[00:26:54] Katie Dooley: Hey, we're pointing at each other. I'm pointing at Preston. He's not participating. Yay! There we go. Thank you. If you don't figure out thetans are reborn again and again in new bodies through reincarnation.

[00:27:07] Preston Meyer: So there's this great process of auditing. 

[00:27:11] Katie Dooley: And the Bridge to Total Freedom!

[00:27:14] Preston Meyer: So in real neuropsychology, engrams are theoretical units of memory storage in the physical brain, more or less. It's really complicated. That's the best way I could bring it down to one digestible phrase is.,,

[00:27:31] Katie Dooley: I like it.

[00:27:31] Preston Meyer: Theoretical units of memory storage in the physical brain. In Scientology, engrams are a little different. They use the word differently. Engrams are traumatic memories that need to be rooted out so that we can heal. I mean, getting rid of trauma to heal, that's a good.

[00:27:48] Katie Dooley: That's a good thing. I'm sold. No.

[00:27:54] Preston Meyer: There's so much that feels easy to sell, but there's there's ickiness to it. It's sticky and gross. And ew. Anyway. When all your engrams are gone, you can and you can reliably stop making new ones, you are certified clear. Which is a big deal.

[00:28:18] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:28:19] Preston Meyer: And so to accomplish that, you have to reveal your darkest, most traumatizing, most damning secrets to an auditor who may or may not use those secrets to control you or blackmail you. 

[00:28:29] Katie Dooley: Again, everything is. This was a L Ron Hubbard piece of doctrine is that everything needed to be written down. So all auditing sessions are written down and stored in your Scientology file.

[00:28:42] Preston Meyer: Yeah. No. Confession is a thing that exists in an awful lot of religions, but this is different.

[00:28:51] Preston Meyer: It is because, I mean, I've never I've never confessed in a religious form because I'm not. But my understanding is that is that it's all willing. You go to confession when you want and you tell them what you want them to know.

[00:29:06] Preston Meyer: I've never been hypnotized while meeting with my bishop.

[00:29:09] Katie Dooley: Also important, but it sounds like, especially as you go up the bridge to total freedom, they really start to dig. Which, you know, if you're with a psychologist or a trauma specialist, sure, that knows what they're doing and when to push you and when to let you sit with it. But they literally just want your dirt.

[00:29:28] Preston Meyer: Well, and the process is like, oh, it's. You go in and they hypnotize you and they tell you to go back to a memory that you are ready to face. So okay. That's fair. They're not, at least in the documents that I've been able to to read. They say, go back to a thing that you're ready to face, and they make you go through it over and over and over again, knowing that it does have trauma attached to it. But you did say you're ready to face it. They didn't pick it for you. You pick it for yourself, and then you keep going through it until you can smile about it. I mean, dealing with trauma is good. This feels weird, but eventually you're getting into stuff that is like serious shame. Very likely, occasionally some criminal stuff just seems likely.

[00:30:28] Katie Dooley: I mean, for all the people on all the planet. Who? Yeah, probably.

[00:30:33] Preston Meyer: And then they do this thing where they promise that at the end of this session I'm going to say canceled. And this isn't like cancel culture. This is the thing that lets you know that you're allowed to feel okay about the end of the session, because we promise that when I say cancelled, you are no longer hypnotized, and you will be in the present. I mean, you just spent an hour or two hours or more digging through trauma. Ehhh... Okay, now, go on your way.

[00:31:09] Katie Dooley: Bye bye. Have a good day.

[00:31:13] Preston Meyer: Thanks for your moneies. I mean, guaranteed there's at least one psychologist who is also that same level of crappy.

[00:31:22] Katie Dooley: Oh, absolutely.

[00:31:23] Preston Meyer: But that. That's not religion. And we're not dealing with that.

[00:31:27] Katie Dooley: No. And at least they have checks and balances by psychological associations.

[00:31:33] Preston Meyer: Right? You can pull somebody's psychological license.

[00:31:36] Katie Dooley: Yes. You cannot pull your auditor's license.

[00:31:39] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Well are they. I would imagine if you have the job, you are licensed, more or less.

[00:31:46] Katie Dooley: Yeah. You would have some sort of training through the church, but I think anyone can do it.

[00:31:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Uh, ehhh. Yeah, a clear person is somebody who no longer has his own reactive mind and therefore suffers none of the ill effects the reactive mind can cause. Sounds good. Surface level. But all of these words have a really slightly - they've got extra baggage in Scientology. And that extra baggage feels weird too.

[00:32:27] Katie Dooley: Yeah. And I part of me is like, I think there's some things you want your reactive mind for.

[00:32:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah. To be able to react reflexively is a good thing, but to be fully controlled by it is problematic.

[00:32:41] Katie Dooley: Yeah.

[00:32:42] Preston Meyer: So again, it's one of those things that's kind of tricky and like telling a person that they can they can be in be in control is nice, but it doesn't have the same effect as showing them and allowing them to realize it, which is really the philosophy behind all of this auditing too. At least, what is being told to the people giving in their money. But mostly it's give us your secrets. Can we control you?

[00:33:15] Katie Dooley: When you're being audited, you use what's called an E-meter, which is basically like two tin cans that you hold and it creates an electrical circuit. And so they'll say something and they'll watch a spike happen on this E-meter. So they're saying, so you have a reaction to it. This is how they're monitoring your reactions.

[00:33:34] Preston Meyer: Um, it's kind of like a lie detector, but it's that's not what it is.

[00:33:39] Katie Dooley: Yeah, it's just trying to see if you're having some sort of reaction to it. So they will pick at whatever this scab is until the E-meter doesn't show anything,

[00:33:50] Preston Meyer: Until you're cool with it,

[00:33:51] Katie Dooley: Until you're cool with it and you can.

[00:33:54] Preston Meyer: And that's why Tom Cruise is fully dead inside.

[00:33:58] Katie Dooley: They have killed him.

[00:33:59] Preston Meyer: I mean, he still has a pulse. He still does his own stunts, but... 

[00:34:04] Katie Dooley: He's emotionally dead inside.

[00:34:06] Preston Meyer: Yeah. 

[00:34:07] Katie Dooley: A thetan, who is completely rehabilitated, can do everything a thetan should do. Such as? Move MEST.

[00:34:15] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that. So in this quotation, MEST comes up a few times. MEST is an acronym for matter, energy, space and time.

[00:34:24] Katie Dooley: So it can move MEST and control others from a distance or create his own universe. A person who is able to create his own universe, or living in the MEST universe, is able to create illusions perceivable by others at will to handle MEST universe objects without mechanical means, and to have and feel no need of bodies or even the MEST universe to keep himself and his friends interested in existence. So Tom Cruise can literally create a level three vision spell.

[00:34:53] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Um, for those of us who are familiar with the Riddle of Steel role-playing system,

[00:35:01] Katie Dooley: What would be a Dungeons and Dragons equivalent?

[00:35:03] Preston Meyer: I mean, generic conjuring of magical beasts, maybe, I don't know. I don't know DND well enough.

[00:35:11] Katie Dooley: Right. Neither do I. Um, but, hmmm.

[00:35:16] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's quite the claim.

[00:35:17] Katie Dooley: That's why he can do all his own stunts because he's actually living in a different plane of reality. He's not going to die.

[00:35:26] Preston Meyer: I mean, that's what they say about Ron is that he didn't die. He was so clear that when he was living in his motorhome in the desert in 1986, instead of dying, the church claims that he chose to shed his body so he could continue his research in another universe.

[00:35:45] Katie Dooley: Wow. Wow. Ron. Good for you.

[00:35:50] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:35:51] Katie Dooley: Just... It's not funny, but it's funny. Another piece of Scientology doctrine is a Suppressive Person or an SP, which we are now. An SP is someone with an... They say it's someone with an antisocial personality.

[00:36:05] Preston Meyer: When you're anti a specific society. Sure.

[00:36:08] Katie Dooley: Yeah. They are people in your life who are trying to prevent you from going clear in your Scientology journey, or the Bridge to Total Freedom. In practice, however, an SP is basically anyone who speaks out against Scientology. So Remini from King of Queens fame, and Mike Rinder, who is a former senior executive of the Church of Scientology and Sea Org with their popular podcast, Scientology Fair Game, are SPs because they talk about how shitty Scientology is all the time. And because Preston called it a cult about ten minutes ago, he is now an SP as well.

[00:36:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah, but we're small potatoes.

[00:36:48] Katie Dooley: Yes. Yeah. I don't think we'll be, uh fair game.

[00:36:53] Preston Meyer: No.

[00:36:53] Katie Dooley: Which is another piece of Scientology doctrine. So the title of the Remini Rinder Podcast, Scientology: Fair Game, comes from a policy that states that threatening SPs like Remini and Rinder can be harassed by any means possible. They are fair game. So there have been some very prominent figures in the church who have left that are fair game, including Mike Rinder, Ron Miscavige, so David's father and longtime Scientologist, David, was born into the church, and Mark Rathbun, another former senior executive. So they are all fair game and they experience harassment from the church on the regular. Friends and family are also encouraged to disconnect, similar to disfellowship with SPs in their life. So, for example, this one's actually really sad as Nicole Kidman has not spoken to her two children with Tom cruise because she is an SP and they were raised in. Yeah,

[00:37:50] Preston Meyer: But she got out so good for her.

[00:37:51] Katie Dooley: She got out married that country singer who I can't think.

[00:37:56] Preston Meyer: Keith Urban. 

[00:37:56] Katie Dooley: Keith Urban has a big farm in Australia and they have a kid, so I hope she's better. You know, I don't like, want to care about celebrities, but that's pretty sad that you can't, like, see your kid. And I'm sure there's other stories that are not celebrity stories. So you don't hear about them of people not ever seeing their kids again.

[00:38:12] Preston Meyer: Let's move on to Xenu.

[00:38:15] Katie Dooley: Xenu! Bryant, like, put in a guitar riff here. Xenu!

[00:38:21] Preston Meyer: Xenu or Xemu, depending on sources. Both spellings are acceptable. 

[00:38:26] Katie Dooley: Because nobody could read L. Ron Hubbard's handwriting is kind of what it comes down to.

[00:38:29] Preston Meyer: So there was a time where he did, he said Xenu like pronounced it with an n, but then immediately afterwards spelled it. 

[00:38:38] Katie Dooley: Xemu. 

[00:38:39] Preston Meyer: X-e-m-u. Yeah, it was it was weird. And so you'll have books that will use one consistently or the other. Anyway, this figure is very controversial.

[00:38:54] Katie Dooley: Very controversial. Yep.

[00:38:56] Preston Meyer: No active Scientologist will ever confirm the existence of the belief in Xenu, but a lot of people who have left the church have been willing to come forward and say, here's the weird thing they taught me.

[00:39:06] Katie Dooley: So this was actually I didn't follow up on it for the research for this. But when I had previously rabbit holed down the Scientology path, that was actually what got Leah Remini out of Scientology was she got to OT level three and she was there with her mom, and they're like, here's, Xenu, and she was like, what the fuck? Like, after growing up in the church, she was, well, probably into her 40s because this was like after King of Queens. She left the church in 2013, when she couldn't find her best friend and she was like, what the fuck is Xenu? So that's when she really started, like questioning. And then the Shelley thing, which we'll get to.

[00:39:47] Preston Meyer: Any church that holds back on significant doctrines that are important narratives higher up. But the the peons don't get to hear why, what do you think you're doing?

[00:39:59] Katie Dooley: Well and then like, so like Remy was in the Sea Org. Like she was in it.

[00:40:04] Preston Meyer: Mhm.

[00:40:05] Katie Dooley: And then to throw something at her that she's like what? Huh? Anyway.

[00:40:11] Preston Meyer: Super weird.

[00:40:12] Katie Dooley: Super weird. But there are interviews where they asked people in Scientology and they're like, what about Xenu? And they're like, that's not even real.

[00:40:20] Preston Meyer: What?

[00:40:20] Katie Dooley: Yeah, they they gaslight you like right back. Yeah.

[00:40:24] Preston Meyer: Uh. It's terrible. So anyway, Xenu was the leader of the Galactic Confederacy, but his totalitarian regime wasn't very popular. So he got the help of a bunch of psychiatrists.

[00:40:35] Katie Dooley: What?

[00:40:36] Preston Meyer: To evaluate the expendable and seditious parts of the population. He trapped them in a gel made of alcohol and glycol, so that they couldn't escape, and shipped them off to the Australia of the galaxy, an underdeveloped world called Teegeeack, which is Earth.

[00:40:55] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:40:57] Preston Meyer: Uh, anyway, the spaceship didn't just look like generic airplanes. It specifically, Hubbard insisted, they really looked exactly identical to DC8 planes, but without the engines.

[00:41:11] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:41:14] Preston Meyer: Yeah, he was very specific about that. And it's... That feels weird. Anyway, spaceships don't even need wings.

[00:41:25] Katie Dooley: Nope.

[00:41:25] Preston Meyer: But here we are. So they dropped them on Teegeeack. But that wasn't enough. They needed to be dumped into volcanoes and nuked. Of course, he called them hydrogen bombs because that was the verbiage of the 50s.

[00:41:45] Katie Dooley: And this is 75 million years ago.

[00:41:47] Preston Meyer: Yes.

[00:41:47] Katie Dooley: That we were nuking thetans.

[00:41:50] Preston Meyer: We weren't this no galactic civilization of which we are not part of.

[00:41:54] Katie Dooley: Right. Okay. So they had nukes long before we had nukes?

[00:41:58] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:41:58] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:41:59] Preston Meyer: It would be weird if a spacefaring community didn't have nukes. It'd also be weird if they insisted that their spaceships have wings, but.

[00:42:09] Katie Dooley: Okay. But here we are.

[00:42:11] Preston Meyer: Yeah. But of course, thetans are indestructible and Xenu knew that. So Xenu's military captured the hundreds of billions of disembodied thetans with an electric ribbon and forced them into two cinemas. One in Hawaii, one in the Canary Islands to watch a 3D movie that lasted 36 days. What?

[00:42:37] Katie Dooley: This doesn't even sound real, Preston.

[00:42:39] Preston Meyer: No, but this is the story.

[00:42:41] Katie Dooley: Oh, dear. I guess that's the whole point. Is that it doesn't sound real.

[00:42:45] Preston Meyer: Yeah. And so all of these disembodied thetans chilling out in two cinemas, hundreds of billions.

[00:42:55] Katie Dooley: But they're tiny. They're like only 1.5oz.

[00:42:59] Preston Meyer: I guess. 

[00:43:00] Katie Dooley: They don't need big seats.

[00:43:01] Preston Meyer: Well, we don't know how big they are. They just don't weigh much.

[00:43:04] Katie Dooley: They weigh much. I guess so.

[00:43:07] Preston Meyer: Because they're disembodied.

[00:43:08] Katie Dooley: Right.

[00:43:11] Preston Meyer: Uh, anyway, this movie that they're watching for more than a month, which I have to assume is based on our calendar because it's written by a dude who understands only our calendar.

[00:43:22] Katie Dooley: Yes.

[00:43:22] Preston Meyer: He likes sci-fi, but he's not that far into crazy time measurements. These movies are supposed to be the brainwashing event behind the existence of the various religions of the world and every other unsubstantiated belief, and every other sort of thing that could ever cause trauma.

[00:43:41] Katie Dooley: All the isms.

[00:43:43] Preston Meyer: Yeah, all of them. It's quite the burden to throw on this.

[00:43:49] Katie Dooley: I'm surprised. Honestly, I'm surprised it only took 36 days to explain sexism and racism and ageism and ableism and every world ism. 

[00:43:59] Preston Meyer: And fascism and capitalism and Christianity and... 

[00:44:03] Katie Dooley: Every world. Wow. That's actually. I'm impressed. Yeah, cause we've been doing this for a year, and we've barely scratched the surface on any of those religions.

[00:44:13] Preston Meyer: Right. Hubbard specifically said that the idea of the crucifixion is born from this trauma that's remembered from these propaganda brainwashing videos.

[00:44:28] Katie Dooley: So he doesn't think it's real. It was just in the video.

[00:44:32] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:44:32] Katie Dooley: Okay.

[00:44:34] Preston Meyer: It's quite the position to hold.

[00:44:37] Katie Dooley: I mean, again, I am impressed that a spacefaring civilization was even creative enough to hang an Arab man on a wooden cross. 75 million years ago.

[00:44:51] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:44:52] Katie Dooley: Because they would have been there living in 3022, writing something for the year zero on a shitty ass planet.

[00:45:01] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:45:01] Katie Dooley: Wow. They were just so creative.

[00:45:05] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The way that Hubbard describes the way the people of the galactic community, the Galactic Confederacy, were living their lives identical to living in the 50s and 60s.

[00:45:18] Katie Dooley: Wow. Like nothing better.

[00:45:21] Preston Meyer: Nothing better at all. There are so many great science fiction writers living in his time, and I don't think he read anything anybody else wrote because he could not think of anything that wasn't already in his face in day-to-day life.

[00:45:37] Katie Dooley: Which means you're a really shitty sci-fi writer,

[00:45:40] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:45:41] Katie Dooley: Like it's just garbage. Can you just, like, imagine? This is way funnier than it should be. Oh, like, can you imagine a sci-fi writer today just writing about 2020? Oh. I'm dying. And there, there were some cars were gas-powered and some were electric. Whoaa! and you could fly from Toronto to London in four hours. Whoa!

[00:46:30] Preston Meyer: Like he wrote sci-fi. He did write about things that didn't exist. But I guess he just he recognized that they were all bullshit and just said, this is stuff that nobody's going to believe if I say they existed in the old Empire, so they didn't.

[00:46:47] Katie Dooley: Oh my goodness. I'm literally weeping on this side of the mic. Uh...

[00:46:54] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So anyway, these thetans who had to go through this really long 3D video in these giant cinemas in the Canary Islands in Hawaii are now sticking to humans and giving them anxiety disorders.

[00:47:07] Katie Dooley: So there is like archeological proof that there were two giant cinemas in Hawaii and the Canary Islands. Right?

[00:47:16] Preston Meyer: Is there?

[00:47:17] Katie Dooley: No, I'm being facetious. 

[00:47:20] Preston Meyer: Here I was thinking you did more research and found something I didn't see.

[00:47:23] Katie Dooley: No, no, I'm being facetious.

[00:47:29] Preston Meyer: Ah, that's what I get. Xenu was eventually deposed by all these people. Well, not the same people that he tried to get rid of, but some of the people who were left behind. And he was locked away on Teegeeack which remember that that is our earth. This is our home. Some people say that it's in the Pyrenees mountains. Other people are like, no, no, that was a Martian outpost. That's different. Either way, Xenu is still here today because he's immortal. A little piece of me is like, is there another level that hasn't been published that calls his rebirth the actual manifestation of the end of the world the equivalent of an anti-Christ.

[00:48:17] Katie Dooley: So, I mean, this is actually a thing in Scientology where because people have reached the end of the bridge to total freedom that they keep adding, because people aren't actually being able to move physical objects with their mind.

[00:48:32] Preston Meyer: Well, there's eight Operating Thetan levels, and I mean, the last one is very exclusive. And of course, you have to repeat levels sometimes if you're not getting it, if you aren't getting the benefits or don't fully believe what you were told, you just keep doing it. Which of course costs more money.

[00:48:52] Katie Dooley: Absolutely. Yes. They've definitely found ways to prolong it because at some point they need more money from you. But be like, what's been promised has not come true.

[00:49:03] Preston Meyer: Which and what a great cop out of, oh, you just haven't gotten it yet. Go through it again. Do it again.

[00:49:11] Katie Dooley: Well, and we've had this conversation in past episodes. This is one where I'm like, does David Miscavige know this is a whole bunch of bullshit, and he's just reaping in the money from it, and he's okay with that?

[00:49:22] Preston Meyer: Or is he a total dumbass?

[00:49:23] Katie Dooley: Or is he actually insane? I mean, either way, he would be insane to be able to just like, take people's money and know it's a bunch of bullshit because I'm pretty sure he's not moving things with his mind. So either he's like, really upset with himself that he hasn't gotten clear, like L Ron Hubbard, or he's like, what a great job. Never gonna leave.

[00:49:46] Preston Meyer: Well, imagine being able to tell people, you've got all this power, you can control the world, but I'm going to have to pay a security force to suppress all these other suppressive persons and harass them in their homes and murder people, make people disappear. When if you had control over the world in a psychic, telekinetic kind of way, you could you could pinch off a vein or artery in somebody's brain, give them an aneurysm, and they would die on the spot. Why would that not be the way you handle your suppressive people if you actually had power?

[00:50:22] Katie Dooley: Right? I hope Mike Rinder and Leah are okay.

[00:50:28] Preston Meyer: Ah. It's terrible.

[00:50:30] Katie Dooley: It is. So now we're going to get into practices of Scientology.

[00:50:34] Preston Meyer: I mean, we've scratched that surface a little bit. Ickies. But let's get into the other stuff.

[00:50:41] Katie Dooley: So in 1969, Yvonne Gilliam established the first celebrity center to achieve the goal of attracting powerful people.

[00:50:51] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Hubbard had said this thing back in about '55 that is now called Project Celebrity. The idea was that the best way to grow your group is to attract people, to have more power, to influence others. Which reminds me of a book I lent you a little while ago, the How to Start Your Own Religion. That that was one of the chapters, and it was find somebody like Harrison Ford to be the face of your religion and you are set for life.

[00:51:19] Katie Dooley: I mean, especially when you look at the numbers like and obviously the Celebrity Center is in LA and they have special courses for people who want to be actors. If you look at the numbers and think there's only 30,000 Scientologists. Like it wouldn't take you very long. It would take you a fuck ton of money, but it wouldn't take you very long to move up the ranks enough to actually start meeting real celebrities. And if that's what you want to do for a living, I can see how a desperate actor would, you know, get into that. You probably aren't meeting Tom Cruise because he's the right-hand guy, but you'd probably meet some B-listers and work your way up. Or even people that aren't actors, but people in the industry. I mean, and then just the fangirls that these people or yeah, if you really wanted to meet John Travolta. Yeah.

[00:52:11] Preston Meyer: Or if you want to get into politics, they appeal to artists and politicians too.

[00:52:15] Katie Dooley: It's a good tactic, but also a toxic tactic.

[00:52:20] Preston Meyer: For sure. And there's actually several of these celebrity centers all over the place where they have... 

[00:52:25] Katie Dooley: Celebrities. There's probably a celebrity center in London.

[00:52:29] Preston Meyer: I think so. I went through the list and there's there's a good handful of countries that have celebrity centers, but I clearly didn't write those names down.

[00:52:39] Katie Dooley: That's fine. Maybe we'll throw it in the Discord after the episode airs.

[00:52:42] Preston Meyer: Now there's another organization that I think is. 

[00:52:46] Katie Dooley: Terrifying. 

[00:52:46] Preston Meyer: An interesting topic. So like I mentioned before, good old Ronnie, he was in the Navy during the Second World War and then in the reserves for another five years after the end of the war. So the Sea Organization, usually just called the Sea Org, is an actual paramilitary navy that had a full fleet of ships. And they don't anymore or. Well, they sold off all their ships years ago and then bought one new one a little while ago. It's kind of crazy, though. Hubbard said that their mission was to explore time and space. They floated in the two-dimensional space of the ocean. But time and space, here we come.

[00:53:33] Katie Dooley: Oh, boy. So members of the Sea Org were, and probably still are given a small weekly allowance, but they also had their rooms and meals taken care of, which sounds kind of good.

[00:53:45] Preston Meyer: If you're in the actual Navy, you get paid a little bit and room and board is covered.

[00:53:50] Katie Dooley: But then it gets a little scary. Because they sign a billion-year contract,

[00:53:56] Preston Meyer: Right?

[00:53:57] Katie Dooley: Never sign a billion-year contract. I don't care what it's for. The only...

[00:54:01] Preston Meyer: When you believe in reincarnation though, this has meaning.

[00:54:05] Katie Dooley: But what if the. I guess so, but the what of the reincarnation version of you's changed. What if you're different? Yeah. What if you've gotten rid of a thetan and now the car's not right for you?

[00:54:18] Preston Meyer: Unfortunately, that is exactly directly contrary to their beliefs.

[00:54:23] Katie Dooley: The more thetans you get, the more the Sea Org is for you.

[00:54:27] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:54:28] Katie Dooley: But that would be so scary because then you could get audited and they'd be like, oh, what is this, thetan? It says you didn't like the Sea Org. That means you had a contract with the Sea Org, which means you need to get back on that ship.

[00:54:39] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Yeah it's terrible.

[00:54:42] Katie Dooley: Right.

[00:54:43] Preston Meyer: So if you leave the Sea Org you are billed for every item and every service you ever received during your service.

[00:54:51] Katie Dooley: That's your food and board!

[00:54:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Which is terrible. That is absolutely crippling cost if you've been in it for a while. So people don't like leaving. If you do, this bill is not legally enforceable. People have fought it and succeeded in their fight. However, you can't get any more services from the Church of Scientology until you pay this bill. So hopefully you were planning on actually leaving the church if you also... 

[00:55:23] Katie Dooley: Leave the Sea Org, yeah.

[00:55:25] Preston Meyer: What's weird, though, is that the Sea Org is a really elite, I guess, group.

[00:55:31] Katie Dooley: It's definitely not for everyone. Not every Scientologist is a member of the Sea Org.

[00:55:35] Preston Meyer: Right? If you were in the Sea Org, you're forbidden to marry outside the organization. Like, generally speaking, not even other Scientologists. Which is really weird because if you get pregnant in the Sea Org, you have to leave the Sea Org.

[00:55:55] Katie Dooley: This is how David and Shelley met. They were both in the Sea Org.

[00:55:59] Preston Meyer: Nice. So it's really weird. You can't have babies and be in the Sea Org. So Scientology does speak out publicly against abortion, but privately they encourage and sometimes even force women to get abortions so that they don't get demoted out of the Sea Org.

[00:56:22] Katie Dooley: So they're just Republican politicians. I said it.

[00:56:26] Preston Meyer: I don't think there's a lot of Democratic appeal within the Church of Scientology.

[00:56:32] Katie Dooley: I just mean, like Republicans are usually vocal against abortions. And then you hear about an affair and an abortion.

[00:56:38] Preston Meyer: Yeah, 100%. Yeah. The Republicans are two-faced at best. Anyway, the Sea Org did sell all of their ships in 1975, moved to land, but then in 1987, they bought a new ship, La Boheme, which they renamed Freewinds. And it's a pretty fancy boat. It's a decent size, a little bit bigger than a football field, and that's the only place where you can reach OT eight, which is currently the top operating thing.

[00:57:17] Katie Dooley: So you can just like go for a boat ride. Or do you have to join the Sea Org to reach operating thetan level eight?

[00:57:23] Preston Meyer: I don't know the answer to that.

[00:57:25] Katie Dooley: Okay, I'm curious,

[00:57:27] Preston Meyer: But because the boat is operated by the Sea Org for sure.

[00:57:30] Katie Dooley: Oh, absolutely. I just like Tom Cruise isn't a Sea Org member because he has a career

[00:57:30] Preston Meyer: He's OT8.

[00:57:38] Katie Dooley: I think even John Travolta's up there, but they also make a lot of, um, exceptions for powerful celebrities. So it's hard to say.

[00:57:47] Preston Meyer: Good old David Miscavige met his wife in the Sea Org, as you mentioned. And whatever happened to her?

[00:57:52] Katie Dooley: Nobody knows. She's probably dead, is the short answer.

[00:57:55] Preston Meyer: Oh, good.

[00:57:55] Katie Dooley: Um, this was the question that got Leah Remini in trouble and eventually was part of the reason she left Scientology. So. Shelly Miscavige is the the wife and has not been seen since 2007 in public. As recent as 2020, the Church of Scientology has said that she's fine and alive. But that's a really long time to not see someone.

[00:58:21] Preston Meyer: It sure is.

[00:58:22] Katie Dooley: Remini filed a missing persons report in 2013, and unfortunately, the church has so much pull that they basically were just able to turn the police away by telling them that Shelly is fine.

[00:58:32] Preston Meyer: That's suspicious. Right? This is after she's been gone for six years.

[00:58:36] Katie Dooley: Yes. And Remini filed the missing persons report after the Tom Cruise Katie Holmes wedding, where David Miscavige was best man and his wife wasn't there. So you're the leader of the church. You're the best man at the wedding of the year, and your wife's not there.

[00:58:53] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Suspicious.

[00:58:54] Katie Dooley: Don't be suspicious. Um, so, you know, I made this point that. Remini is a celebrity. And, you know, I made the point about Nicole Kidman, and it's easy to be not sympathetic towards celebrities. Remini and Shelly Miscavige grew up together in the church.

[00:59:11] Preston Meyer: Best friends.

[00:59:12] Katie Dooley: This is like your best friend going missing and nobody telling you what is happening. So yeah, like, we have one weird cult leader's wife and a celebrity, so it's easy to be like, whatever. But like, please imagine your best friend disappearing and nobody having answers for you and the police not giving a shit. Like that's terrifying. 

[00:59:34] Preston Meyer: And all your other close your circle are gaslighting you.

[00:59:39] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So yeah, that might make someone leave a church and become a suppressive person.

[00:59:46] Preston Meyer: You'd think, yeah.

[00:59:47] Katie Dooley: Yeah. So some people believe she's being held at the Church of Spiritual Technology, a Scientologist compound in California. That's like former senior execs. Mike Rinder, Mark Rothman if she's even alive. Um, they think she's being held there, uh, probably against her will. I mean, I'd like to go out in public in the last. What is that, 13 years? Yeah.

[01:00:12] Preston Meyer: Uh, that's that was 15 years ago. She's been gone, 2007. It's a long time.

[01:00:19] Katie Dooley: It's a long time to not know where someone is. But she's fine, guys, she's totally fine.

[01:00:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah. When I was living in Jersey, um, which is where David Miscavige grew up, I didn't actually look up the town. It said he moved around a little bit. It's not even where he was born. But he grew up in Jersey, and I lived there for a couple of years. And I came across a group called the Nation of Islam, which is a dangerously racist cult with actually minimal interest in the Prophet Muhammad, but they use the name Islam anyway. Louis Farrakhan is a big deal. He was the leader for quite awhile, and he's been using Dianetics since 2010.

[01:00:58] Katie Dooley: Wow. Weird.

[01:01:00] Preston Meyer: Which is the year that I learned about them and ran into them. So that's interesting little detail. For my personal experience, and he's been encouraging his whole branch of Muslims to connect with Scientology and get audited and just fully embrace Scientology, which feels really weird.

[01:01:21] Katie Dooley: It does. And I'm curious what Scientology thinks of a very racist cult. They probably just want the money. They probably don't give a shit.

[01:01:30] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Louis Farrakhan is a very gross figure. A lot of people call him Black Hitler because he is super racist. He teaches. He didn't start the story, but he actively advocates for the idea that white people are the worst part of humanity, created by and deliberately created by a black scientist.

[01:01:55] Katie Dooley: That last part's weird. I almost agree with the first part.

[01:01:59] Preston Meyer: I mean, white people have been pretty terrible to this planet, but honestly, on every cultural group on this planet has done a lot of damage, so... 

[01:02:09] Katie Dooley: It's because of that video. The 36-day movie, Preston. We've all been brainwashed for so long.

[01:02:16] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So Scientology is definitely saying, hey, Islam not so great. And Farrakhan's like, well, you know what? We're not that kind of Muslims, so. Sure.

[01:02:27] Katie Dooley: Oh, dear. Oh, boy.

[01:02:29] Preston Meyer: It's weird. But that's just one example of how Scientology is creeping its gross little tendrils into really weird places.

[01:02:41] Katie Dooley: I mean, they will go anywhere you will have them. Actually, and before we wrap up with your wrap-up quote, I will just caution to our listeners is obviously, we encourage you to explore and learn about other religions. Preston and I are going to go visit some other church services in a little bit here. Be very careful when you approach Scientologists.

[01:03:03] Preston Meyer: Don't use your real name. Don't use your real phone number. Do not give them your home address.

[01:03:09] Katie Dooley: You can get their books from the public library as opposed to buying them if you're interested in reading anything. But yes, they even my religious studies professor was like, they will harass you to get you to come back and spend more money, so go for it. Watch a bunch of Scientology TV like I did this week. Just don't give them any personal information.

[01:03:30] Preston Meyer: Yeah. High risk. I've got one final great quote from good old Lafayette Ronald Hubbard "Writing action pulp doesn't have much agreement with what I want to do, because it retards my progress by demanding incessant attention and further actually weakens my name. So you see, I've got to do something about it. And at the same time strengthen the old financial position. I have high hopes of smashing my name into history so violently that it will take legendary form, even if all books are destroyed. That goal is the real goal, as far as I'm concerned." Mission accomplished bro.

[01:04:13] Katie Dooley: Yeah. Uh, yeah. What a weird guy,

[01:04:17] Preston Meyer: Right?

[01:04:18] Katie Dooley: And there's even more about L Ron that we could have covered.

[01:04:21] Preston Meyer: Oh, yeah.

[01:04:22] Katie Dooley: Um, so, yeah, I'll just reiterate. If there's any piece of this that you want us to deep dive into, we are more than happy to, but we're at over an hour, and, uh, we've just, like, glossed over all of Scientology, so... 

[01:04:34] Preston Meyer: There's, like, every religion. There's a lot to it. And there is a lot of baggage here.

[01:04:43] Katie Dooley: Well, there's a lot to pick through. I remember trying to read Dianetics before and I mean now. And oh, it's brutal. Now that I have a better understanding of where it fits into the Scientology puzzle, I probably should read Dianetics again, but yeah. Oh, boy.

[01:05:00] Preston Meyer: It's tricky though. You can you can watch a lot of Scientology publications and definitely feel the appeal that draws so many other people in. You just be very careful because it's dangerous.

[01:05:17] Katie Dooley: Yes. Remember, Tom Cruise has spent $25 million on Scientology. Uh, Leah Remini has said it's easily $500,000 to get... I forget what level, but easily $500,000 to move up the Bridge to Total Freedom. So, um, if it's your jam and that's where you want to invest your money, cool. But just know it's about you're looking $1 million easily.

[01:05:37] Preston Meyer: Have I got a great alternative, though? The Holy Watermelon Podcast.

[01:05:43] Katie Dooley: Wow. Tell me more about this religious organization.

[01:05:46] Preston Meyer: Oh, man. It's great.

[01:05:49] Katie Dooley: We help people. 

[01:05:49] Preston Meyer: I would love to get to a point where we have the funds as an organization, as the Holy Watermelon Podcast, to help people escape situations like this. We're not there yet. It'll probably be a long time, but it's a goal that one day we can accomplish that. Right now, basically, we're accepting donations through Patreon, and also we've got a Spreadshop. 

[01:06:16] Katie Dooley: Spreadshirt merch shop. Yeah. Where you can buy some sweet, sweet, Holy Watermelon gear. If you want to tell us how much of a suppressed person you are, feel free to join us on our Discord or Instagram or Facebook. Thanks for joining us.

[01:06:31] 

Both Speakers: 

Peace be with you.

Everybody collects something; but for the Imperial Tradition Christian churches, that collection has some really weird stuff. Not just the bones of saints and a handful of miraculous statues, but enough "holy prepuce" to fill your cereal bowl, and the miraculous rehydrating blood of the saints of Naples can help wash all that down. This isn't your regular daily mass - join us to see what other strange relics the Catholic Church has been collecting.

Learn more about John the Baptist, Hiram McDaniels (from Welcome to Night Vale), St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the rose petals of St. Catherine, the shroud of Turin, Mary's milk, the True Cross, the Bones of the Magi, the official classification of holy relics, and the veneration (WORSHIP!) of saints.

All this and more....

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[00:00:11] Katie Dooley: It feels like it's been a long time since we've been here, but it really hasn't. We recorded last week.

[00:00:17] Preston Meyer: We did record last week, but you know where it is a while since we've been in this place talking about weird things in Christianity.

[00:00:28] Katie Dooley: Yes. If you liked our Saints episode, you're gonna love this episode of

[00:00:34] Both Speakers: The Holy Watermelon Podcast.

[00:00:38] Katie Dooley: So what are we talking about today? That's...

[00:00:40] Preston Meyer: Well, we're looking at holy relics. There's a lot of relics of a lot of different religious traditions. Today, we've decided to focus on just Christian relics. I think it's interesting, most people really hate comparing churches to Ripley's Believe It or Not! Exhibits.

[00:00:58] Katie Dooley: What? No!

[00:00:58] Preston Meyer: This whole... Because we all know Ripley's Believe It or Not! Is mostly nonsense and weird things pushed together to make cool things to look at. And sometimes religion is a little bit that way. But the parallels go deeper than the inclination to doubt the veracity of outrageous claims. We also do have jars filled with human body parts.

[00:01:21] Katie Dooley: So many jars, so many body parts, so many body parts from the same person?

[00:01:25] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:01:26] Katie Dooley: When you should only have one.

[00:01:28] Preston Meyer: Mhm. Yeah. It's it's really crazy. We've got saints that according to the evidence of if you can call it that, of the claims of various churches around the world, the saint had two full bodies and extra legs and arms.

[00:01:49] Katie Dooley: Yep. So man... And Saint Bernard is gonna appear again just briefly but...

[00:01:56] Preston Meyer: Good times. 

[00:01:57] Katie Dooley: If you're a fan of Saint Bernard, our our Discord family sure likes Saint Bernard. So, yeah, there's a relic just for him.

[00:02:08] Preston Meyer: Yep. Uh, relics of religious importance come in all shapes and sizes and a variety of classifications. As I was looking into this, I thought it was kind of cool that the imperial tradition Christians, mainly talking about Catholics and Orthodox Christians, and that tradition that survives a little bit in Lutheranism and a handful of other Protestant groups, the old Protestant groups like the Church of England, um, there's three classes, more or less strictly this three classifications is the Catholic, Roman Catholic tradition, but it's observed a little bit by others as well.

[00:02:46] Katie Dooley: It's also just a nice classification system.

[00:02:48] Preston Meyer: It's handy.

[00:02:49] Katie Dooley: I saw it come up in some of my research.

[00:02:52] Preston Meyer: Yeah. So the first class is literally anything directly connected to Jesus, or in addition to that, the earthly remains of a saint. Their body parts, pretty much.

[00:03:06] Katie Dooley: Their body parts.

[00:03:07] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Uh, the second class is any object associated directly with a saint. Uh, like something they touch, something they owned, something that was theirs. Um, and these first two classes are officially "the sacred things". And then the third class is just devotional. It's pretty much anything that has touched anything in the first two categories.

[00:03:30] Katie Dooley: Wow.

[00:03:31] Preston Meyer: Yeah. If you put Saint John's head's plate on your table, bam! Your table is now a third-class relic.

[00:03:41] Katie Dooley: I'm like, can we get this done?

[00:03:44] Preston Meyer: In theory, yes. In practice, complicated. These things are well-guarded. Well. Kind of. You'd think they're a lot better guarded than they are. We're going to talk about a lot of things that have gone missing.

[00:03:57] Katie Dooley: So what we need to do this actually is probably not as hard as we think. It's just going to take time. So you need to finish your doctorate.

[00:04:04] Preston Meyer: Yep.

[00:04:05] Katie Dooley: And then you got to get a research position studying something in one of these areas. And then I will bring you like my laptop. And you'll just be like "bink" and no one needs to know. No one needs to know. Except I do want people to know I have a third-class relic in my house, so.

[00:04:21] Preston Meyer: Right.

[00:04:23] Katie Dooley: I'm terrible.

[00:04:27] Preston Meyer: Well, what's really clever, there are opportunities where you could take a handkerchief and you have in locker room, you whip people with a wet handkerchief. You know what I'm talking about?

[00:04:38] Katie Dooley: I do, but it's such a man thing. 

[00:04:40] Preston Meyer: Not exclusively, but maybe more than women, I don't know, I don't spend a lot of time in the ladies locker room.

[00:04:45] Katie Dooley: Good. Good, from the sounds of it.

[00:04:48] Preston Meyer: So you take your handkerchief and you do exactly that at a relic in a church. Bam! You've got yourself a holy relic of the third class.

[00:04:56] Katie Dooley: Oh, yeah. Okay, let's go to Italy. Let's go to Italy.

[00:05:00] Preston Meyer: I should not advocate this behavior that would cause over time. Probably not a lot of time. The destruction of these relics. Yes.

[00:05:10] Katie Dooley: And if you get caught, you'd get in a lot of trouble.

[00:05:13] Preston Meyer: Oh, for sure I would because it definitely sounds like some serious disrespect. Just whipping John the Baptist's head.

[00:05:24] Katie Dooley: I was gonna say, once we get to John the Baptist's head, you have at least a five in six chance of not being disrespectful. Anyway. Anyway, we're getting ahead of ourselves. We're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's start with the bones of the Magi.

[00:05:41] Preston Meyer: The first on my list is. Honestly, really? I don't know how they ever thought that these were the three Magi.

[00:05:49] Katie Dooley: We don't even know there were three!

[00:05:51] Preston Meyer: Right? So in Germany, there is a shrine in Cologne to the three wise men that we hear talked about in Matthew's gospel. Now, if you go back to Josh and the Wise Guys, our Christmas episode from last year, talk a little bit about more how there might these people might not even have existed.

[00:06:11] Katie Dooley: And again, there's no way that we didn't know if it was 1 or 3 or 7 or 45.

[00:06:16] Preston Meyer: Yeah. The scriptural account doesn't give us a number of people, just a number of gifts. And so we've leaned really hard into this tradition of three wise men. So the bones that are currently enshrined in Cologne, in this shrine to the three wise men, their bones have been moved around a lot. It's said that they were exhumed in Constantinople in 1164. So midway between here and the time they would have lived, why they would have been buried in Constantinople is a mystery. It's just... 

[00:06:51] Katie Dooley: Because they were from the East. I'm trying to like, picture my geography, so that doesn't make any sense.

[00:06:57] Preston Meyer: It doesn't make any sense at all. It's really weird because.

[00:07:01] Katie Dooley: I'm like, Turkey's northwest of Israel, am I right?

[00:07:06] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:07:07] Katie Dooley: So yeah, they're from the east.

[00:07:10] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's like they couldn't return home when they fled Herod, which they had no reason to do in real life. It's just it seems really weird. And it's, uh, it's called the shrine of the Three Kings. Usually when we talk about it, which helps build up the English tradition of calling them kings when we don't know the story we have in Matthew gives us no reason to call them kings. No, they were mages, Magi,

[00:07:40] Katie Dooley: Priests.

[00:07:41] Preston Meyer: Yeah, yeah, it's. The whole thing is super weird. But we have bones of.

[00:07:48] Katie Dooley: Some guys.

[00:07:49] Preston Meyer: Three. We believe they're three guys, but because of how poorly we have been taking care of bones throughout history, it could be composites of more people. It's it's a little bit weird, but people go there all the time. They report healings. It's it's kind of cool as far as a tradition goes. But it... I don't believe that we really have any grounds to call it legitimate, but it has decent pilgrimages from year to year.

[00:08:25] Katie Dooley: We'll say that a lot.

[00:08:26] Preston Meyer: Yeah. It's only going to get worse.

[00:08:28] Katie Dooley: Yeah. All right. So are we gonna jump into this big one next?

[00:08:33] Preston Meyer: Yeah. Let's do it.

[00:08:34] Katie Dooley: All right, so pieces of the True Cross is another holy relic. So the true Cross being the cross on which Jesus was crucified. And you can find pieces of it all over the place. So the hunt, the hunt for the cross began with Emperor Constantine, which we know from our two previous episodes where we were talking about the death of religion is that he was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. So one... The story around this claims that Constantine's mother, Saint Helena, traveled to Jerusalem to find the true cross, and she found a pagan temple, a destroyed pagan temple. Or no, she destroyed the pagan temple. Excuse me. She found three crosses. So reflecting the story that Jesus was crucified with two thieves.

[00:09:24] Preston Meyer: Mhm.

[00:09:26] Katie Dooley: And so she got all excited that there were these three crosses that she had found. And so they found a dying woman, brought her out to this site.

[00:09:34] Preston Meyer: I mean, in the story, I don't think it would have been that hard to find somebody who was dying. They had just destroyed a temple. They that included a fight, for sure.

[00:09:44] Katie Dooley: Fair. And I mean, you can find a dying person in any city. You just gotta ask around.

[00:09:50] Preston Meyer: Right? I think that in this particular situation, there was one a lot more convenient than one would hope.

[00:09:55] Katie Dooley: Oh, no. So they found this dying woman, and they asked her to touch these three crosses, and she touched one and was healed. So this is the true cross. Um, then Helena chopped it up into pieces. Which feels really blasphemous to me, even though, I mean, so whatever. I'm the atheist. I don't think she found the true cross at all. But like, if you thought it was the true cross, you're like, you know what? The thing to do is chop it up.

[00:10:26] Preston Meyer: See, that doesn't seem so blasphemous to me.

[00:10:28] Katie Dooley: I mean I guess it's hard to transport, but, like.

[00:10:30] Preston Meyer: Well, yeah, a full crucifix and actually not that huge of a burden to transport. You pull it out of the ground, it's just a giant beam of wood but to say that such an artifact should be preserved because it killed our God feels really weird.

[00:10:50] Katie Dooley: I mean, I'm also. This is why I like the Latter Day Saints church and where the cross isn't prominent because it was a torture device. Yeah. And I mean, there's also that great meme on our discord. Why are they worshiping crosses? Why would they think I would like a cross?

[00:11:06] Preston Meyer: What about my story? Makes you think I'm into this?

[00:11:11] Katie Dooley: Okay, fair. No, that's a good take on it. So I in in my research, I read one thing. And then when I was in religious studies, I had heard another thing. So my religious studies professor had said that there's so many pieces of the cross out there that you could actually make more than one cross. Like there's like three. Like you can make 3 or 4 full crosses with the amount of pieces of the cross relics around there. I also read one that said there's actually not enough pieces of the cross to make a full cross, which to me a little more believable, especially if it was chopped up and sent all over the place.

[00:11:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah, john Calvin famously said that there was enough pieces of the cross to build a ship.

[00:11:54] Katie Dooley: John Calvin hated relics, and we've actually quoted him a lot. Um, we'll do a whole episode on Calvinism, but, uh, yeah, he's got some good zingers.

[00:12:06] Preston Meyer: Right? The problem with, uh, with this great sounding statement is that only about 40 years ago, they actually the Church of Rome took an account of all of the chunks of the cross that were officially documented, and they found that it adds up to a little less than 4 pounds of wood. So like you had said, not enough to build a whole cross.

[00:12:30] Katie Dooley: But again, that I mean, that's like there's pieces of the Berlin Wall. It's not enough to make a wall anymore because. Anyway, uh, there is much debate about what type of wood the cross was made out of. And there's a whole bunch of scientists have studied and carbon dated and tested, so dogwood comes up frequently. Dogwood has religious connotations. The other two that I found in our research is that is pine and olive wood. However, some historians argue that it wouldn't be made of olive wood because olive trees were an important. Olive trees were an important food crop. So you wouldn't waste it on crucifying people.

[00:13:10] Preston Meyer: Unless, of course, your olive tree was no longer fruitful. Like there's an argument that says that it's possible but...

[00:13:16] Katie Dooley: Had too many criminals.

[00:13:19] Preston Meyer: Sometimes you had to crucify an awful lot of people. You would just take the wood that was available to you. Yeah, sure. Why not?

[00:13:26] Katie Dooley: Yeah. What else did you find, Preston? Because at some point, I had to tap out of this one.

[00:13:30] Preston Meyer: So in addition to these chunks of wood, we also got a lot of chunks of iron. The Catholic Church acknowledges that there are at least 30 nails that claim to be the tools of the crucifixion. But since there weren't more than four, that we've got a little bit of a math problem here.

[00:13:50] Katie Dooley: What?

[00:13:51] Preston Meyer: But the Catholic Church has an explanation for this as well. In their encyclopedia, they say officially probably the majority began by professing to be facsimiles which had touched or contained filings from some other nail whose claim was more ancient, without conscious fraud on the part of anyone. It is very easy for imitations in this way to come in a very brief space of time, to be reputed originals. Basically, it's them saying we don't know.

[00:14:22] Katie Dooley: And I mean, the thing is, it's like we obviously have artifacts far older than 2000 years. So absolutely, you could have a nail in carbon dating and have it be 2000 years old. It doesn't mean it's used on Jesus. So especially when we know how much crucifixion was happening at that time.

[00:14:38] Preston Meyer: The Romans loved crucifying people. 

[00:14:41] Katie Dooley: Loved it. Um, so it could just be. Yeah, absolutely. You can find a nail from 30 BCE and. Yeah, sure. Probably was.

[00:14:54] Preston Meyer: But like you mentioned before, the veneration of an implement of torture seems a little psychotic.

[00:15:01] Katie Dooley: I mean, I mean, I don't know if we want to dive into this one, but, I mean, lots of Christians wear cross necklaces and have cross tattoos. And so.

[00:15:08] Preston Meyer: And generally speaking...

[00:15:09] Katie Dooley: It's obviously broader, a broader topic than relics. But. 

[00:15:12] Preston Meyer: Yeah, recognizing the cross as the symbol that unifies Christianity as the worshipers of Christ is a thing I can get my head around. A symbol that unifies us. Fine.

[00:15:26] Katie Dooley: To actually own a own a piece, to. 

[00:15:29] Preston Meyer: To own it and celebrate its ownership and venerate the item and invite people to come and bring their worship to this item.

[00:15:37] Katie Dooley: I guess it's like owning a gun that killed your mother.

[00:15:42] Preston Meyer: A little bit, but like, not just owning it, but like putting it on display in your home.

[00:15:46] Katie Dooley: Guys, look at this thing.

[00:15:47] Preston Meyer: Yeah, that's. 

[00:15:49] Katie Dooley: I see it.

[00:15:49] Preston Meyer: That feels a little psychotic.

[00:15:50] Katie Dooley: I can see the. Yeah. Okay.

[00:15:53] Preston Meyer: That's my feelings on it anyway.

[00:15:56] Katie Dooley: Oh, our first of many heads.

[00:16:01] Preston Meyer: Yeah.

[00:16:02] Katie Dooley: So we have the head of Saint Catherine. So Catherine was born. Cathy. Thanks, Preston. Cathy was born in 1347, in Siena, Italy. She was one of the great mystical and spiritual writers of the church at the time, and is honored with the title of church doctor since 1970.

[00:16:22] Preston Meyer: Yeah, it took a long time for the popes to give her that honor, but that's okay, because they did eventually.

[00:16:28] Katie Dooley: Oh, I like this next fact about her. She famously referred to the Pope as is Babbo, the Italian equivalent for daddy instead of Your Highness. I like that level of sass and confidence that she's got.

[00:16:44] Preston Meyer: Yeah, but her story gets a little bit weird. At age 21, she married Jesus. She claims Jesus came to visit her and engage in a spiritual marriage. Because, of course, Jesus had been dead and gone for a thousand years. No big deal. She had been a nun, but Jesus told her to go out into the world, which, okay, that seems like decent advice, go out into the world if you want to spread the message. That's how you do that.

[00:17:12] Katie Dooley: Is this where consecrated virgins come from?

[00:17:15] Preston Meyer: No, no, that's an old,