Loading summary
Transcript178 lines
- [00:00]
Julian Walker
Hey, Kristen, how's it tracking with Carvana Value Tracker?
- [00:04]
Matthew Remsky
What else? Oh, it's tracking, in fact. Value surge alert. Trucks up 2.5%, vans down 1.7, just as predicted.
- [00:15]
Julian Walker
Mm. So we gonna.
- [00:16]
Matthew Remsky
I don't know. Could sell.
- [00:18]
Julian Walker
Could hold the power to always know our car's worth.
- [00:21]
Matthew Remsky
Exhilarating, isn't it? Tracking Always know your car's worth with Carvana Value tracker. Did it occur to you that he.
- [00:32]
Julian Walker
Charmed you in any way? Yes, it did. But he was a charming man.
- [00:38]
Derek Barris
It looks like the ingredients of a really grand spy story.
- [00:43]
Julian Walker
Because this ties together the Cold War with the new one.
- [00:46]
Matthew Remsky
I often ask myself now, did I know the true Jan at all?
- [00:53]
Julian Walker
Listen to Hot Money, agent of chaos, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:12]
Derek Barris
Hey everyone. Welcome to Conspirituality, where we investigate the intersections of conspiracy theories and spiritual influence towards uncover cults, pseudoscience and authoritarian extremism. I'm Derek Barris.
- [01:23]
Matthew Remsky
I'm Matthew Remsky.
- [01:24]
Julian Walker
I'm Julian Walker.
- [01:25]
Derek Barris
You can find us on Instagram and threads. Conspirituality Pod. We are also all individually over on Blue sky and you can access all of our episodes ad free, plus our Monday bonus episodes on patreon@patreon.com conspirituality. You can also access just our Monday bonus episodes via Apple subscriptions. This is what we do for a living, so your support makes this possible. If you can afford to support us, we would greatly appreciate it.
- [01:59]
Julian Walker
Conspirituality263 the Apostle Assassin dad went to war last night. Read Vance Belter's text to his family in the early hours of June 14th. This after his attempt to murder four Democrat government officials and their families in their home homes, left two dead and two critically wounded. Turns out that the shooter was an ordained pastor in a church associated with the new Apostolic Reformation, which sees the world as a spiritual battlefield and whose leaders have preached that Kamala Harris and other political enemies are possessed by demons. But this is not some small fringe movement. Key figures in America's government are adherents of its teachings and Fly itself an Appeal to Heaven flag at home and at work. Today we'll revisit this apocalyptic evangelical Christian cult and think out loud about political violence and religious extremism. Meanwhile, the Maga cult keeps monetizing, as Derek's story about instant pot illustrates, while Matthew exposes how Trumpian political strategy is infecting Canada.
- [03:11]
Derek Barris
This week in Spirituality. Well, we're going to get into a conversation about the spiritual battlefield underlying all of reality right now. But let's start with something more mundane. Do you guys use an instant pot?
- [03:23]
Matthew Remsky
You know, if, if I had had a pressure Cooker for the 10 years that I was all yoga and vegetarianism, I think my gut would have done a lot better. So sorry listeners for the top of the show image. But I loved it. I love it. I still use it like a lot of food prep gadgets from Asia. It' super smart. So yeah, I love it. Are you going to tell us something shitty about the instant pot?
- [03:46]
Julian Walker
I have no idea what it is.
- [03:48]
Matthew Remsky
Okay.
- [03:48]
Derek Barris
What an instant pot is.
- [03:49]
Julian Walker
Yeah, no idea.
- [03:50]
Derek Barris
Oh, wow. Oh, it's just a pressure cooker that allows you to make things much, much faster. And for, for people who don't cook, they are, they are fantastic. And if you want to get soups done in like 10 minutes, yeah, absolutely fantastic. But some bad news if you're not manga instant pot. The company is releasing the 4547 collection in what Eater calls a cynical Cal cash grab. You think the upcoming pots will feature MAGA written on them? The same month that most corporations have gone radio silent with pride merchandise, Semaphore reports that a number of companies are getting in on the Trump grift and yes, the Trump family will profit from it. This includes Lennox. They're going to be releasing fine porcelain dinnerware with Trump's face and a White House logo on it.
- [04:42]
Matthew Remsky
Oh, man.
- [04:43]
Derek Barris
Yeah. And also they'll have some gold plated FL wear and snow globes because of course live comfortably and simply interior homes pitched Mar a Lago and White House sheets collections. Though at the time of recording we don't know if those are going to happen. I'm not sure about all the details behind these deals, but Instant Pot announced that they are donating proceeds to the Trump Presidential library because everyone knows what a voracious reader he is.
- [05:11]
Julian Walker
Oh, yeah.
- [05:12]
Derek Barris
All the companies listed are represented by Nest Point Associates, whose deputy director told Semaphore.
- [05:20]
Julian Walker
All of these companies, including those not listed, such as LL Flex and Anchor Hawking, are extremely supportive of President Trump and the MAGA agenda, standing with the President with their efforts to onshore and show public support.
- [05:34]
Derek Barris
Now, the irony here, there's a lot of it, but Instant Pot a few months ago complained that is going to have to raise the cost of their pots by $40 due to Trump's tariffs. And now cheese, they're turning around. Meanwhile, we have Trump Mobile, which is going to infect the cell phone waves very soon. The branded gold T1 phone will retail for $499, which I'll get back to four of four media. Pre ordered one. And the site, which is filled with typos and grammatical errors, charged the reporter, his name is Joseph Cox, the wrong amount. He was going to pay $100 for a down payment. It charged him 64.70. Cox then received an email saying that he'll receive an email when the phone is shipped. The problem is the webpage failed when he tried to enter his address, so he never actually put it in.
- [06:26]
Matthew Remsky
We have to get like the QAnon influencers on that because there's got to be some like, numerology with the problems and like the failed website and all of that. There's. There was a DDS attack. All of that.
- [06:36]
Derek Barris
Well, I have some more numerology. 1999. Okay, so the Trump Organization claims the phone is going to be built and designed in the U.S. but the guys over at the Hard Fork podcast kind of took this to task last Friday. There's only one phone that is currently actually built and designed in the US and that is the, the Purism Liberty phone.
- [07:00]
Matthew Remsky
Oh my God.
- [07:01]
Derek Barris
Which cost $1,990. Because it's fucking expensive to make phones when you're not relying on Chinese slave labor.
- [07:07]
Matthew Remsky
That sounds like it's for Mike Johnson and his son to block porn or something like that.
- [07:14]
Julian Walker
Is that. What if they actually are able to surveil each other to maintain the accountability buddy system?
- [07:19]
Matthew Remsky
Right, right.
- [07:20]
Derek Barris
Ok. That comes pre built into the phone, actually. I'm going to get to that too. So Hard Folk brought up a terrifying possibility. One thing Trump could do to lower the costs of the design and building of the phone is to force companies like Google and Meta to pay to preload their apps on the T1 phone. Given how much money is flowing into Trump's coffers from corporations, this isn't a stretch.
- [07:44]
Julian Walker
I'm still, I'm still kind of. I'm struck here by the fact that they're selling the phone and then talking about how it will be designed and built in the US So they're selling a phone that actually doesn't exist yet.
- [07:55]
Derek Barris
Right. They're pre orders available. So where they're actually being built is unknown. They're claiming it's going to be, but all of Trump's products are predominantly made in China. So.
- [08:07]
Matthew Remsky
So either he has like, I don't know, he has deals that are out in the future, or everything is. Is like a Kickstarter for him or something like that.
- [08:17]
Derek Barris
Yeah, this model exists. So I'll get Geeky for a moment. But major cell phone companies that hold their own satellites, they have extra bandwidth every month. So they sell it to smaller companies. Like I use Mint Mobile. Mint Mobile is now bought by T Mobile, but they honor Mint Mobile's original pricing, which is relatively inexpensive because they are sort of a tertiary brand. And so that is what this phone is going to do, is they're going to buy bandwidth from a different company. And so that model actually exists. It's well founded, but. But the phone itself is what's really in contention here. Hard Fork brought up one other point worth considering. Unlike other wannabe dictators or actual dictators who actually give their supporters something in exchange for their allegiance, Trump might be the first one who just continually leeches off the people who support him without ever giving a damn thing back.
- [09:19]
Matthew Remsky
All right, so my story this week is Trumpism is, or the Trump effect spreads across borders, even paradoxically under the guise of resisting Trumpism. So I'm going to be flagging two pieces of legislation that are crashing over where I live here in Toronto. So Bill 5 is now law here in Ontario, brought into law by the Conservative government, and then Bill C7 is being speedrun by Prime Minister Mark Carney's liberals. It's kind of like, you know, Pam in the office with, you know, these are the same picture meme. Basically, these bills are both trying or pretending to resist fascism by making capitalist extraction more efficient.
- [10:01]
Derek Barris
When these bills were introduced, were they specific to Trump's agenda? Like, were the leaders saying, we are taking influence by him, or are you just saying that it's broader the way the world is going right now?
- [10:13]
Matthew Remsky
Well, they wouldn't ever cite him as an influence. That wouldn't be very nationalistic. Right. But the fact is we do have two Trump adjacent premiers in like, like very big economic centers, so Ontario and Alberta. And now we have this like federal deregulatory response that favors the business class over everyone else. But they're going to dress it up. That's part of the story. They're going to dress it up as something different, as something opposing Trumpism, actually. So to flesh out my framing, I've been doing a series of briefs and Patreon bonuses called Anti Fascist Woodshed, where I explore these basic terms that I think are pertinent for people who want to resist rising fascism here and everywhere. And a core tension is on this definitional level of what is fascism really? And, you know, there's two big forks, there's a fork in the road, there's a division on one side, there's the kind of Tim Snyder argument that the concentration is on authoritarianism. And it can be either right wing, it can be left wing, and it kind of emerges in the form of mass psychosis fueled by really bad actors. And the antidote is to not obey in advance, to be vigilant about protecting institutions, and to really have faith that proper values can be restored and institutions can be rebuilt. But on the really leftist side, which doesn't get a lot of play, the explanation is a lot more mundane, it's a lot more stark. It's that fascism is like an intensification of capitalism and, and a means by which the powerful try to hold on to power when capitalism itself is in crisis from, you know, the environment or AI or unemployment or what have you. So the slogan on that side really is socialism or barbarism?
- [11:59]
Derek Barris
Is this specific to these bills or is this more of a wide ranging slogan that claims that anyone who doesn't fully agree with socialism is therefore contributing to barbarism?
- [12:11]
Matthew Remsky
Oh, no, it's very old. It's a really old slogan. So I didn't mean to imply that somehow people resisting Canadian laws are sort of chanting that in the streets. It's really just saying it goes back like a hundred years. It's saying that if your society doesn't focus primarily on redistributing wealth to reduce or eliminate inequality and cruelty in ways that hopefully empower people and are not, you know, authoritarian, you'll probably wind up looking like the US does today. So, yeah, it's just, it's a very, it's a very old slogan. And part of, I'm bringing it up because the choice, the fork in the road, I think, that Canadians have to look at is are we going to try to be better capitalists in order to bolster our sort of national prestige and our sort of self defense? And that's why I think it's kind of apartment because the country has to respond to Trump's may or may not invade you bullshit and, you know, also his very real tariffs. So the question for me is, what does our own nationalism dictate? And so far it kind of dictates the attempt to beat Trump at his own grift while pretending to be folksy and local and pro worker. So, you know, I think Canada is probably going to choose more barbarism before it chooses more socialism. You know, and Carney is a great representative for this because he's a soft spoken but direct guy. He's also a really solid hockey player and his Slogan to rally the country under attack from the Trump tariffs is this old phrase that Gordie Howe used to say, which is elbows up, which. It means you play dirty on the ice in a way that the ref can't see when you're battling over the puck in the corners. There were big ad campaigns around this. They even got Maggie Atwood to cut a PSA with a captain of the women's national hockey team.
- [14:08]
Derek Barris
Is that still used? Because there are cameras everywhere now. We can kind of see the hockey players playing dirty. I don't know if they know that.
- [14:15]
Matthew Remsky
Yeah, I think when Gordy was playing, the refs were like at center ice or whatever, or they. Yeah, yeah, you can see everything from every angle. And, yeah, no elbow is left unseen. But what does elbows up mean now in policy terms? Basically, it seems to echo something like the general brand of the abundance agenda. Now, not necessarily as detailed by Klein and Thompson, but by the libertarians who are taking this up as a kind of meme. So elbows up means going back for them to playing deregulation against unions, climate activists, First Nations. So in Ontario, our former drug dealer, Premier Ford, used his majority to cram through something called the Protect Ontario By Unleashing Our Economy Act. And it even sounds Trumpian. It's like this long executive order type thing. It creates rules, free special economic zones, allowing companies to be exempt from provincial statutes, regulations, or municipal bylaws, or full consultation with first nations people. It repeals the Endangered Species Act. It narrows habitat protections. It gives the government more power to override scientific assessments of species at risk. It exempts some projects from public notification requirements. So we did this episode on the Ontario Place redevelopment a while back. It also preempts lawsuits related to all of this stuff.
- [15:40]
Julian Walker
So all of this is sounding a lot to me like Project 2025.
- [15:44]
Matthew Remsky
Yeah, but it's Canadian. It's dressed up right. It's nice. Bill C5 federally is basically the same thing. It's called the One Canadian Economy Act. It grants the cabinet authority to designate infrastructure projects as being in the national interest. And this allows, like a single federal minister to just approve projects and override regulation, regulatory protections. So, you know, the kind of sweeping power that we see, you know, exercised by a number of cabinet members in the states, you know, including RFK Jr. This enables the government to bypass environmental and social and public health safeguards and also to just run over constitutional obligations to First Nations. So elbows up actually means, I think at this point, if you can't beat them, join them, especially if they give you good reason to finally force through the deregulatory regimes that you've always wanted. So so not becoming the 51st state involves having to let everything that makes Canada Canada fall by the wayside, unfortunately. And to me, the other way would be like an actual nationalist reaction to Trump might be built on nationalizing industries and resources and actually bolstering the commons of the country in a way that distinguishes the society from American society. And maybe if things get bad enough, that's the direction they'll have to go. When you hear Lululemon, you probably think.
- [17:14]
Julian Walker
Of aligned yoga pants, weightlessly soft, like.
- [17:17]
Matthew Remsky
You'Re wearing next to nothing. That's why you see them in class, at the grocery store and in the park. But did you know about skirts with.
- [17:26]
Julian Walker
Built in liner shorts so you can still jump for the Frisbee and tanks and bodysuits? With the line's iconic stretch, you won't want to take it off. And with endless style options, you don't have to shop in store or online@lululemon.com.
- [17:42]
Matthew Remsky
Did it occur to you that he.
- [17:44]
Julian Walker
Charmed you in any way? Yes, it did. But he was a charming man.
- [17:50]
Derek Barris
It looks like the ingredients of a really grand spy story.
- [17:54]
Julian Walker
Because this ties together the Cold War with the new one.
- [17:58]
Matthew Remsky
I often ask myself now, did I know the true Yan at all?
- [18:05]
Julian Walker
Listen to Hot Agent of Chaos Wherever you get your podcasts, do you feel like life just keeps getting more out of control? Like, do you regularly come across something that is terrifying or enraging, but you don't even understand what's happening? Are you frequently wondering if what you're coming across is even real? Well, there's a show that definitely can't make things better, but it can at least explain why we are all losing our minds On Panic World, Internet culture writer Ryan Broderick from the Garbage Day newsletter breaks down how the Internet warps our minds, our culture, and eventually reality. With guests like Michael Hobbs, Akilah Hughes and Matt Bernstein, Panic World will let you laugh at the chaos running the world. Whether it's the Tide Pod Challenge, what Happened to Kanye, or the Secret Playbook to Kill Me Too, Panic World gives you answers to the questions you wish you didn't need to ask. Check out Panic World wherever you get your podcasts. Vance Bolter sent out several texts while he was the subject of an extended manhunt in Minnesota on June 14th and 15th. Words are not going to explain how sorry I am for this situation, he said to his wife. There's going to be some people coming to the house armed and trigger happy and I don't want you guys around. Dad went to war last night, he said in a group text to the family. I don't want to say more because I don't want to implicate anybody. Now as we've all heard, this was after he had shot and killed Minnesota Democratic House leader Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark. He had shot Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette, who survived each multiple times and then attempted to do the same at two other Democrat officials houses. A massive manhunt ensued in Sibley county until Bolter was finally taken into custody at 9:30 on Sunday evening. Who is he? He's this 57 year old married father of five who traveled for work and spent a few nights a week living in a rooming house. His fortunes seemed to have been in decline given his work history. Bolter had gone from working in the food industry and then managing a 711 and gas station before working delivering dead bodies to funeral homes and then being on call to extract eyeballs from corpses slated for organ donation.
- [20:32]
Matthew Remsky
That seems pretty specialized.
- [20:34]
Julian Walker
It does. He must have had some training for that, right? He appears to also have had a brief stint working for a security firm and he had tried and sort of maybe had a full start trying to have a security firm of his own. Perhaps more significantly, Vance bolter is a 1990 graduate of the Christ for the Nations Bible College in Dallas, Texas. It was founded in 1970 and Christ for the nations is one of the early proponents of a theology now associated with something called the New Apostolic Reformation which has gained considerable influence over the last three decades in American non denominational Christianity and extremist politics. The original co founder of the Bible college that he attended, James Gordon Lindsay, was part of the New Order of the Latter Reign which preached that a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit was underway to raise up new apostles and prophets and amass an End Times army to do battle with satanic forces and establish God's kingdom on earth.
- [21:38]
Matthew Remsky
Really have to give good marks for the names which have like an Elden ring or D and D, kind of like ring to them. The New Order of the Latter rain. So was there a prior rain that wasn't wet enough or something?
- [21:51]
Julian Walker
Yeah, I don't know if it's so much about the prior rain, maybe about the current rain not being wet enough and we need a real outpouring. Yeah, there's an immediacy of lived religion that is missing. Bolter has been deeply critical of churches where the Gifts are not flowing. Right, Right. The gifts of the Spirit. Rather than accepting a kind of secular present that pales in spiritual comparison to the biblical past. They want all of the signs and wonders, the apostles and prophets, to be really serving the Holy Spirit right now.
- [22:22]
Matthew Remsky
Right. A flood. They want a flood.
- [22:24]
Derek Barris
The name of Christ for the nations before that was actually voice of healing. And so that also implies that there was something that they need to be healed from. So it seems like he has a constant refrain of looking into the past. We should also note regarding to Lindsay's theology that it was derived from a movement known as British Israelism which taught that white people were the true Israel of the Bible. Lindsay himself was connected with white supremacist networks throughout North America. A partner of his was directly implicated with the kkk. And this could help explain why there's this contingent of Americans who are so invested in the Bible, reflecting their reality as they've liter rewritten the narrative to pretend it's about them.
- [23:09]
Matthew Remsky
So you're saying that the true Israel of the Bible, not in terms of a geographical location, but like the. The. The tribe of the Israelites, that the. The true Israelites are just white people.
- [23:20]
Derek Barris
Generally, I believe it's the tribe, but they could go full Mormon and think that it actually did occur in the land of America. Of American land.
- [23:28]
Matthew Remsky
Right.
- [23:28]
Julian Walker
Yeah. And in fact, Derek, after being saved at 17 and going door to door distributing a pamphlet about that experience, Bolter also traveled to prosp oselytize in Gaza, the West bank and Lebanon. Now, we've covered various aspects of this movement in previous episodes about white Christian nationalism, political religion and even some cultish organizations. Derek, you and I talked about them for our brief on leaked internal media from something called Zik Lag in August of last year.
- [23:58]
Derek Barris
Yeah, listeners, if you want to get a deep dive into that, it's linked to in the show notes. But that cult's founder, Ken Eldridge, who is the current and. And the current prophet of Ziklag, who's a man named Lance Waln, who we should add, has hosted events in which JD Vance has spoken at. They are the forces behind this. Walnut is an evangelical preacher and a business consultant based in Dallas. He is widely considered the person most responsible for mainstreaming NAR. And this came about in the late 20th century as a distinct movement within American Christianity and which Bolter is a longtime member of. It's rooted in earlier Pentecostal and charismatic traditions, and you can find its influence dating back to the Azusa street revival of 1906. To 1909, this revival catalyzed the global Pentecostal movement and it emphasized speaking in tongues, prophecy and healing. And since that time, it has gained momentums through various waves in American culture. And it's definitely cresting right now.
- [25:06]
Julian Walker
Yeah. And one of those would be the second Great Awakening with William Miller and this whole idea that he knew exactly when Christ was coming back and that then gave birth to Seventh Day Adventism. And it's right around the time you see Mormonism and the Jehovah's Witnesses springing up. So it's one of those big waves.
- [25:24]
Matthew Remsky
Yeah. And I'm assuming that the glossolalia would have been just part of their ritual gatherings. And I mean, it's still going strong. Like just the other day there was this gathering of maga women outside of the White House perimeter. They were. Were. They were doing their Jesus scat.
- [25:38]
Derek Barris
It fascinates me too, with the crossover, for Mallory always sends me videos and she sent me one. And now on my Instagram algorithm, I get all of these Ayahuasca shaman esses who are doing their own version of glossolalia for the Ayahuasca deities. So it definitely seems pervasive in the atmosphere.
- [25:58]
Julian Walker
Yeah, Matthew, I saw that Instagram video too. And they're really following Paula White's lead as well as the Capitol Insurrectionist, this type of consecration prayer while on the property. Right. Bradley Onishi talks about this, that at each stage of broaching the perimeter of the capital, they're reconsecrating the land because they believe that geographical locations can literally be ruled over by demonic forces.
- [26:22]
Matthew Remsky
Do they have to go step by step? Because you can't like, you can only sort of what, like 10, 10ft of diameter or whatever at a time is enough for the particular prayer you have to stage it. Is that the idea?
- [26:35]
Julian Walker
Yeah, maybe something like that. But I also think it's sort of symbolic at each new sort of threshold that you're crossing deeper into the inner sanctum of the Capitol building.
- [26:45]
Matthew Remsky
Right, right. It might be like the Seven Mountains or something like that. Okay.
- [26:49]
Derek Barris
Talking about this movement cresting in waves. C. Peter Wagner is a former professor at the California based Evangelical Fuller Theological Seminary. He coined the term New Apostolic reformation in the 1990s, and he called it the most rad change in the way of doing church since the Protestant Reformation and focused on its decentralized leadership. So a little bit of cryptocurrency here by self identified prophets who claim direct revelation from God. And this part is important because it speaks to the General diversity within the movement because anyone can say they're a prophet or an apostle and they can spin up a chapter. Basically a rejection of denominational structures is written into its DNA, as is the focus on character charismatic leaders.
- [27:36]
Matthew Remsky
So do they use prophet and apostle like interchangeably? Because apostle like it carries historically a more administrative meaning, whereas like prophets are always the madman in the wilderness.
- [27:48]
Derek Barris
It's not interchangeable. But both prophets and apostles are the two highest leadership roles in nar. From my understanding, you can basically just call yourself one. The difference being is the prophet's the one who's bringing the messages back for people. Where the apostle, as you flag there, it is more administrative. But I guess at that point you would need the business chops to be able to create the LLC and the organization, et cetera.
- [28:14]
Matthew Remsky
Right. And the coin.
- [28:16]
Julian Walker
Yeah, it really is, it's, it's populist religion. Right. It's this notion that we can, we can build our own, we don't need to listen to the experts and we can have a decentralized power system that essentially is based on revelation, which is actually the ultimate way of establishing authoritarian top down control. That's my understanding too, regarding the prophets and the apostles. The apostles serve to support the prophets in their unfolding mission based on the messages they receive directly from God. To me it's a bit like having the Supreme Court on your side as a wannabe dictator instead of them serving as a check on your power institutionally. Right.
- [28:50]
Matthew Remsky
I just have to say as like a cradle Catholic, the notion of the prophet being centralized like that is very far from like my DNA, my experience, because like the version of apostolic in the Catholic context is about delegation and obed and like relevant to this particular sort of period. You can see that in action on this same political battlefield when Pope Leo makes Michael Pham, who's like a Vietnamese refugee, the Bishop of San Diego and then encourages him to go to LA and stand with the protesters and he shows up at an immigration hearing and reportedly the ICE agents like scatter. Like I don't know why they, they're afraid of him, but maybe that version of the apostle is the representative of the Big Kahuna, carries more gravitas than somebody who's self appointed. I don't know.
- [29:43]
Julian Walker
Well, and this is interesting too, right? Because it's where Protestantism, especially in America, has this very like wild dynamic, kind of fascinating history and an ongoing legacy in terms of this continuous self reinvention and being visited by the gifts of the spirit. And Derek, you mentioned C. Peter Wagner calling his new development the most radical change in the way we. We do church since the Protestant Reformation. While the Southern Poverty Law Center, I think, has. Has also said that the new Apostolic Reformation is the most dangerous movement in America right now in terms of, like, threats to democracy. And C. Peter Wagner, by the way, worked very closely with Lance. Well, now, another guy that you mentioned earlier, I forget who's the mentor of who, which way that goes, but they're, they're. They're part of the lineage.
- [30:31]
Matthew Remsky
Jesus mentored them both.
- [30:32]
Julian Walker
Yes.
- [30:32]
Matthew Remsky
Just to get that straight.
- [30:34]
Derek Barris
Well, it sounds like a little elbows there. When the ICE agents see Pope Leo, they're. They're trying to throw the elbows without. Without him seeing.
- [30:41]
Matthew Remsky
Yeah.
- [30:41]
Derek Barris
And then he comes into picture. Oh, right. So there are up to 30 million adherents of N in the United States, and the core belief centers on Dominion theology. Which brings us back to Ziklag and the Seven Mountains Mandate. We talk about that extensively in that episode. And it really is the key to understanding the modern incarnation of Christian nationalism in America. Adherents have a God mandated duty to take control of the Seven Mountains. Government, business, education, family, arts, media, and religion. Anyone who doesn't agree with those is an enemy in the spiritual warfare always percolating under the surface of reality or when it rises to the lever of Bolt are very much on the surface of society. That means up to 30 million Americans believe they're in a cosmic battle to reclaim America for their God, while Trump can come out and condemn violent actions like he kind of did after Bolter. That infamous photograph of Christian leaders praying over our president in 2019 included many, many NAR leaders, including Paula White, Kane and Samuel Rodriguez, and NAR leaders such as Becca Greenwood and Dutch Sheets. What a name. They met with him, With Trump officials. Sorry. In the White House a few days before the January 6th insurrection. But speaking of Dutch sheets, Julian, what's the 101?
- [32:14]
Julian Walker
He sounds like he should be a character in a. In a mobster movie from, like, the 1900s, right?
- [32:19]
Matthew Remsky
Yeah, totally.
- [32:20]
Julian Walker
Yeah. So this all goes back to Bolter's Bible college roots, because one of his teachers who was there during his training was a guy named Dutch Sheets, and He currently has 358,000 YouTube subscribers, many of whom were motivated by him to participate in the 2021 attack on the Capitol. Dutch Sheets has prayed on his podcast that God would arise and scatter his enemies. And that was in direct reference to judges who he believes disrespect God's holy word because they oppose Donald Trump. Another advisor and Frequent guest lecturer at Christ for the nations is Cindy Jacobs, who was also at the Capitol that day, praying with insurrectionists on the steps before they stormed the building. And friend of the POD who I mentioned earlier, Brad Onishi, has written about these threshold crossing prayer groups spontaneously gathering at various stages of the insurrection to sacralize the violence that they were doing. Jacobs and her husband founded Generals International, which they describe as a prayer and spiritual warfare organization. They founded this.
- [33:26]
Matthew Remsky
Also an mlm.
- [33:28]
Julian Walker
Absolutely. Yeah. And that's actually a through line with all of this stuff, is that there's an element of evangelical entrepreneurialism at play here. Whether you succeed or not is another question. And so they founded this organization in 1985, and it now runs a TV show, a podcast, and some online courses that you can sign up for. Jacobs, as it turns out, enjoys referencing numerology in her sermons. She believes that Donald Trump was elected in 2017 because the number 17. Where have I heard this before? The number 17 somehow represents absolute victory and also correlates with the year 5777 in the Hebrew calendar, which is supposedly the year of the crowned sword, in which America needs an anointed leader ready for multiple wars against the enemies of God.
- [34:17]
Matthew Remsky
And of course, q is the 17th letter of the Alphabet.
- [34:21]
Julian Walker
That's it. That's where I said that before. Yeah. So it all actually. It tracks. It all actually does add up in the end, if you're willing to stay with it. These attitudes are consistent with what we know about the new Apostolic Reformation, which encourages adherents to see the world as a cosmic battleground, to see themselves as spiritual warriors who are fighting demonic forces in this world, even though an official statement from Christ for the nations has tried to distance them from what Bolter did, saying, this is not who we are. This is not what we teach. There's a quote from the founder adorning the entryway of the college that reads, every Christian should pray at least one violent prayer a day. So an important detail here about the new Apostolic Reformation is that it's not officially its own church. Rather, it's this religious ideology that we've been detailing so far that is then adopted by preachers in various independent evangelical churches, along with that Christian supremacist 7 Mountain Mandate agenda that you mentioned, Derek. They preach spiritual warfare against demonic forces. This is all in preparation for the end times. And it's associated with speaking in tongues, faith healing and prosperity theology, which may be why their original name had to do with healing. Right, so let's talk about the Pine Tree flag for a moment. It goes back to the Revolutionary War, but today the flag is often associated with this movement. It's a white flag with a green pine tree on it along with the words an appeal to heaven, which I've usually seen written in black. This indicates that believers see God as a higher authority than governments or political leaders and therefore that people, believers have a religious right to revolution. And we've seen this flying at the Stop the Steel rallies and then during the capital riots that came after that. It's been seen flying outside the vacation home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Mike Johnson has flown the flag outside his office and it was recently flown by Kelly Loeffler, the former Georgia lawmaker who called for the resignation of Brad Raphsonsberger, who refused to find those 11,000 votes. She flew it. Flew it outside the small administration which she now runs. The national association of Christian Lawmakers is campaigning to have the flag flown over all government buildings alongside their parallel agenda to push for religious education in schools and a biblical worldview in state laws and policies. Paula White, who is the preacher who went viral during the 2020 election count for speaking in tongues from her podium and praying for angels from Africa and South America to strike and strike and strike to ensure victory. As you've mentioned, Derek is a prominent apostolic leader. She's the current senior advisor to the White House faith office. She didn't go anywhere. And then former Secretary of state from the first Trump administration, Mike Pompeo and Trump Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk also have ties to the movement. In fact, JD Vance appeared a couple months before the 2024 election at a new Apostolic reformation town hall hosted by Lance Wallnau, who had said recently that Kamala Harris was possessed by demons.
- [37:46]
Derek Barris
I want to also flag a great article on religion dispatches about the violent prayer that you mentioned there, Julian. They point out that one endorsements of this movement comes from Dottie Osteen. That last name sounds familiar. She is the mother of mega millionaire prosperity theologian Joel Osteen.
- [38:05]
Julian Walker
Say it isn't so. Not Joel Osteen.
- [38:07]
Derek Barris
He's so nice, you could see his very white teeth on many book. Turns out his mom worked directly with Gordon Lindsay, among other revivalists. Now the writer Carrie Lander points out that quote, any revival that spawns a New York Times best selling author cannot be considered fringe. And in fact the school that Joel Osteen's mother endorses is quietly far more influential than many people outside of the NAR want to believe.
- [38:37]
Matthew Remsky
Okay, so you guys have Both referenced this prayer of violence. And I'm wondering what it actually is. And I. A quick search and it looks like it's taken from Matthew 11:12. Quote from the days.
- [38:49]
Julian Walker
Please, please lead us.
- [38:50]
Matthew Remsky
Well, I think they're getting it wrong. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. Isn't that a bad thing? That sounds like a bad thing to me.
- [39:01]
Derek Barris
There's something about NAR and the violent prayer specifically is that they do this thing that we kind of see often on the. Right. I would argue a lot of places where there's a call for violence, but it's spiritual violence. So when actual physical violence occurs, they can wait their hand cleans of it. Say that I wasn't talking about that. And that has been common throughout NAR leadership.
- [39:26]
Julian Walker
Yeah, it's. It's metaphorical, if. Yeah, absolutely. So put a pin in that. Matthew, the last thing that you said there from the prayer, which is that the violent take it by force.
- [39:39]
Matthew Remsky
Right, That's Matthew Taylor book title. Right. Where he does his whole study of nar.
- [39:44]
Julian Walker
Exactly. Yeah. So back to Vance Bolter. He seems to have gone through fits and starts in founding his own ministry after graduating from this lineage that we've been talking about through his Bible college. And he actually traveled regularly to Africa. Listeners have probably seen this video, it's been kind of viral online of him preaching on a visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo in around 2023. This is actually from a series of sermons he gave at this particular church over a three year period. So we'll play the clip here. You'll hear his passionate voice preaching with a translator, speaking his words in French in between.
- [40:22]
Derek Barris
First, people, especially in America.
- [40:28]
Matthew Remsky
They don't.
- [40:28]
Julian Walker
Know what sex they are.
- [40:31]
Matthew Remsky
They don't know how their sexual orientation. They're confused in a soft.
- [40:38]
Derek Barris
The enemy has gotten so far into their mind and their soul.
- [40:45]
Julian Walker
But this.
- [40:46]
Matthew Remsky
Word cuts deeper because it's living active.
- [40:56]
Julian Walker
And God goes down there and pulls that out and he sets every person free.
- [41:06]
Matthew Remsky
I'm pretty sure that the translator left out the sexuality and gender stuff. I did not hear that in the translation. My French is not that great, but I did not hear her translate that. I think she skipped over it.
- [41:19]
Julian Walker
It sounds like she just said they're confused. Right?
- [41:21]
Matthew Remsky
They're confused. Right, Exactly. Yeah. And she left it at that. And who knows, right? Maybe she knows what sells, what doesn't and her neck of the woods goods. Right.
- [41:31]
Julian Walker
So there he is, Vance Bolter, talking about how the enemy can be overcome. It seems that the next step in his Christian holy war turned out to be disguising himself as a cop. To enact this well planned killing spree. Police found what they describe as voluminous writings at his home, along with a list of at least 70 potential targets, including other politicians, civic leaders and Planned parenthood offices. The SUV he made to look like a police vehicle contained three AK47s and a 9 millimeter handgun, in addition to another disassembled 9 millimeter he had tossed nearby, presumably the one he did the shooting with, along with the tactical vest and silicon mask that he had used. Now, I'll finish here by saying that during his recent appearance on the excellent podcast that we've referred to several times in the past, straight white American Jesus. Matthew D. Taylor, who you just called out, Matthew, is the author of a definitive recent book about the new Apostolic Reformation titled the Violent Take it by Force. And he said this There are probably thousands of guys like this. Radicalization can happen very fast.
- [42:47]
Matthew Remsky
I'm Nomi Fry.
- [42:48]
Julian Walker
I'm Vincent Cunningham.
- [42:49]
Matthew Remsky
I'm Alex Schwartz. And we are Critics at Large, a.
- [42:52]
Julian Walker
Podcast for from the New Yorker. Guys, what do we do on the show every week?
- [42:55]
Matthew Remsky
We look into the startling maw of our culture and try to figure something out.
- [42:58]
Julian Walker
That's right, we take something that's going.
- [43:00]
Matthew Remsky
On in the culture now.
- [43:01]
Julian Walker
Maybe it's a movie, maybe it's a book, maybe it's just kind of a.
- [43:04]
Matthew Remsky
Trend and we expand it across culture.
- [43:08]
Julian Walker
As kind of a pattern or a template.
- [43:10]
Matthew Remsky
Join us on Critics at Large from the New Yorker. New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow wherever you get your podcasts.
- [43:18]
Derek Barris
Overwhelmed by Investing if you're anything like.
- [43:21]
Julian Walker
Us, the hardest part is getting started. That's why we created the Investing for Beginners podcast.
- [43:26]
Derek Barris
Our goal is to help simplify money so it can work for you.
- [43:29]
Julian Walker
We invite guests to demystify investing.
- [43:31]
Matthew Remsky
At least try to be setting aside.
- [43:34]
Derek Barris
Like the minimum 10% into the 401k. I'll teach you the basics of the market. Yeah, I think compound interest should be at the start of any discussion about investing. And we've had investment professionals who teach in a simple way a valuation driven bear market.
- [43:50]
Julian Walker
You know, we we haven't really seen yet and I think everyone's thinking about it, but we haven't really seen yet.
- [43:56]
Derek Barris
Our Q and A episodes feature questions from listeners just like you.
- [44:00]
Julian Walker
So what do you think about the situation with etbi, which is Activision?
- [44:05]
Derek Barris
I'm Dave Ahern. And I'm Andrew Sather and we hope.
- [44:08]
Julian Walker
You join us on the Investing for Beginners podcast. On the Investing for Beginners podcast. Comedy fans, listen up. I've got an incredible podcast for you to add to your queue. Nobody listens to Paula Poundstone. You probably know that I made an appearance recently on this absolutely ludicrous variety show that combines the fun of a late night show with the wit of a public radio program and the unique knowledge of a guest expert who was me at the time, if you can believe that. Brace yourself for a rollercoaster ride of wildly diverse, diverse topics. From Paula's hilarious attempts to understand QAnon to riveting conversations with a bona fide rocket scientist. You'll never know what to expect, but you'll know you're in for a high spirited, hilarious time. So this is comedian Paula Poundstone and her co host Adam Felber, who is great. They're both regular panelists on NPR's Classic Comedy Show. You may recognize them from that. Wait, wait, don't tell me. And they bring the same acerbic, yet in infectiously funny energy to Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone. When I was on, they grilled me in an absolutely unique way about conspiracy theories and yoga and yoga pants and QAnon and we had a great time. They were very sincerely interested in the topic, but they still found plenty of hilarious angles in terms of the questions they asked and how they followed up on whatever I gave them. Like good comedians do. Check out their show. There are other recent episodes you might find interesting as well. Well, like hearing crazy Hollywood stories from legendary casting director Joel Thurm or their episode about killer whales and killer theme songs. So Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone is an absolute riot. You don't want to miss find Nobody listens to Paula Poundstone on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
- [45:58]
Derek Barris
Within minutes of the shooter's identity hitting social media, major right wing voices condemned Bolter's actions, taking full responsibility for helping Foeman online anger at the left with their divisive rhetoric. Obviously I'm being facetious because the conspiracy theories were immediate. None addressed gun violence. They didn't even mention Christianity. Twitter and right wing media were convinced that Bolter is a Democrat. He's a leftist loony, he is a Marxist. I was planning on doing an overview of people like Donald Trump Jr. And Elon Musk getting into all this bullshit. Then I realized the uber conspiracist churning out all possible theories is Benny Johnson. I want to step back into our conspiracy theory Lane for this last section and discuss the implications of their spread and continued misinformation. Because the machine, even today, a couple weeks later, is still pumping out content about him. So a little background we haven't covered. Benny Johnson, I don't believe before he's someone who's been in the periphery of my own research, but he started working at Breit News in 2010. He bounced around to the Daily Caller and National Review. He landed at Buzzfeed where he was fired in 2014 for multiple instances of plagiarism. Put a pin in that.
- [47:18]
Matthew Remsky
Oh no, oh no. So, so too too many listicles that he stole from other people.
- [47:24]
Derek Barris
In 2019 he became chief creative officer at Turning Point USA, which is Charlie Kirk's MAGA nonprofit that invades high schools and college campuses. And if you follow us on Instagram, you might have seen a recent video I posted of Kirk telling a group of 14 year old girls that the only reason they should go to college is to find a husband, as that's the age they will peak at. This is the quality of the people we're discussing today. Back to Benny Johnson, who is wildly popular. He has 4.8 million YouTube subscribers, 3.7 million Twitter followers. His CV includes claiming the drones over Jersey a few months ago were alien invasions orchestrated to steal Trump's swagger. And yes, he is a 911 truther, because of course he is. Johnson spends an inordinate amount of time calling the left hateful while his entire feed is just filled with vitriol and spites. I can see how he plagiarized at Buzzfeed beyond listicles even, because having watched four of his YouTube videos on bolter for this episode, that's basically all he does.
- [48:35]
Matthew Remsky
Wow.
- [48:35]
Derek Barris
Calling Johnson news or even media to me is a stretch. He's a gossip columnist at best. Here's the vibe of his content as a story is breaking, he speaks to the camera and his laptop while scrolling through some of the 30 to 40 tabs that are open in his browser, which are almost all pointing to Twitter. He reads posts and articles aloud sometimes as he's just learning this information. Then he pontificates on it all in real time. His videos have hundreds of thousands to millions of views. He has over 4 billion YouTube views alone, and he's often just reading other people's content and occasionally offering some random thought that he hasn't researched and definitely hasn't been verified. And he's getting paid probably a lot of money given his view count for that work.
- [49:25]
Matthew Remsky
That's what an Incredible gift. Big. So is it just parasocial news sharing and BSing? Like, what's the vibe like? What value do you think he adds to his viewers? Is he like the friend or the uncle you're hanging out with at the bar or something like that?
- [49:43]
Derek Barris
He's the guy you turn to to hear things. But I don't get the friend vibe from him. He's pretty dorky. His presentation isn't very charismatic, but it's always up leveled. It's always. There's a nervous energy behind everything he does. And he's always just trying to be like, this is happen, this is happening. And I can see how it appeals to that specific demographic.
- [50:04]
Julian Walker
Yeah. And my sense of like watching some of his stuff is that he does try to come across like he's a. Like he's a fairly serious figure. He's not just. He's not just some guy like telling you what he's reading on the Internet. He's. He's sort of filtering it through you for you, through his intellect in a way.
- [50:21]
Matthew Remsky
So he's like, like a voice AI for Twitter, basically. With commentary.
- [50:26]
Derek Barris
Yeah, that's a good way to put it. And to your point, Julian, he often caveats in the weakest way possible. But he'll go through this whole conspiracy about Bolter and then reference the people who are killed and then say something that's horrible and then move on. So he does try to seem like an empathetic person at times like that, to caveat and possibly avoid lawsuits. I don't know. But within hours of the this story breaking, okay, Johnson spins a theory that Bolter is wearing a Walter White mask. He clips a famous scene from Breaking Bad where White tells his wife Skyler that she shouldn't be scared for him, but of him. It's the moment he reveals to her who he really is. I don't know if you've guys seen the series, it's fantastic. That moment, that episode was huge.
- [51:12]
Julian Walker
Yeah, that scene is unbelievable.
- [51:15]
Derek Barris
That becomes the conspiracy at the heart of Johnson's identity around Bolter. He then says, this is Johnson repeating Walter White. I am the danger. I'm the one who knocks. So for the rest of his commentary on this story, Johnson refers to Bolter as the one who knocks. This is over weeks. It's still going on. You can literally see the cork board being constructed. Bolter's wife apparently interned for Governor Tim Walls in 2010, before he was governor, obviously. So therefore Bolter must know him and Walls Walls must support him. Johnson keeps referring to Bolter being appointed to a governor's board by Tim Walls. He never mentioned specifics, which is this is the Governor's Workforce Development Board. It's a routine nonpartisan advisory group that focuses on workforce issues. Bolter served as a volunteer business sector representative along with 59 other people. And Johnson never mentions that he was appointed to the board board in 2016 by the previous governor, Mark Dayton. Johnson keeps repeating that Bolter worked four Walls and was a left wing appointee, but there's no evidence of any of that. Then after all of that speculation which he never clarifies on or corrects later in later videos he goes full galaxy brain here.
- [52:40]
Matthew Remsky
Lance Vance Bulletron was also working for a non profit called the Red Lions.
- [52:45]
Julian Walker
Group that received federal funding.
- [52:47]
Matthew Remsky
What was their goal?
- [52:48]
Julian Walker
Their goal was to relocate Africans from Africa into Minnesota. Now why would somebody who was part of a shady nonprofit want to commit murder? Especially right on the eve of the moderate Democrats deciding to shut off off free Medicaid and Medicare for illegal aliens. Well, you connect the dots. But if his if his livelihood is tied to as like how many Africans can you relocate to Minnesota for free health care? Then I have a feeling this guy took a massive hit.
- [53:24]
Derek Barris
Yeah, so the Red lion group is either fictitious or definitely exaggerated. There's no real operations or staff. It's a website that promotes Bolter's security work. Bolter's Room for Mate who was interviewed shortly after the shooting. He told the News that Balt never appoint, provided security services or had any employees. He does have a connection to the Congo which you flagged earlier. Julian. Somehow Johnson, himself a staunch Christian, fails to discuss any of this in all of his galaxy brain conspiracy theories. Instead he churns out fabricated nonsense about an NGO that doesn't exist while pinning Bolter to walls. John then goes on to say Walls should be investigated by the DOJ for the murders. And then he calls leftism a mental illness. Then he added this on Twitter.
- [54:16]
Matthew Remsky
It's not random. Violence is hard coded into the Democrat Party Kill for power. Check out what leftists were doing in the 1960s and 1970s. Democrats have never disavowed the violence. The Democrat Party needs to be treated like the domestic terrorist organization it truly is. Okay, just fact checking that if we're talking about domestic murder, never mind the Democratic Party, anti fascist, anti racist anarchist activists are nowhere near as violent as right wing extremists or fascists are. There's this famous 2020 report that examines political violence related murders in the US going back 20 years, 25 years rather, and found that right wing extremists are six times as likely to engage in violent assault than left wing activists and had killed 329 people. People. While only one murder was committed by a self described anti fascist. Just for the record there.
- [55:12]
Julian Walker
Oh, you and your. Your data, your facts, your evidence. How dare you.
- [55:16]
Derek Barris
Were those 329 metaphorical people?
- [55:19]
Matthew Remsky
No, I. I think they were real people. Yeah.
- [55:21]
Derek Barris
Yeah. Oh, wow.
- [55:22]
Julian Walker
Yeah. Some of whom were reproductive health providers.
- [55:26]
Matthew Remsky
Right.
- [55:26]
Derek Barris
Nearly every day since the shooting, Johnson has released a video about Bolter. And every day he opens up articles, reads them on air, reactions off the cuff. Every video has hundreds of comments cheering him on. As you guys know, I'm stepping back into journalism mode here. I've been working on a very big project with a major media organization since November. Hopefully it's coming out in a few weeks. I've been working with one main journalist, but dozens of people have weighed in on this project. Lawyers have scrutinized every single word. Just last week I spent five hours on calls, going over line by line, word by word, refining it. When it is released, it will have been reviewed dozens of times and will account for hundreds of hours of work. And that's just one investigation.
- [56:15]
Matthew Remsky
Derek, you could just bullshit on Facebook live like all day long and you would make more money. How do you feel about that?
- [56:23]
Derek Barris
I would make a shit ton more money. I feel very screwed by the fact that this is the ecosystem we live in. Because. Because people like Johnson and the entire right wing media ecosystem, they just don't have any oversight. Not even that level. I've just discussed any oversight. He can literally read shit online, make shit up that turns out not to be true. Never issue a correction. That's to the COVID contrarians who are hung up on the COVID vaccine stops to spread. Oh, it was corrected two days later. They never bring that up. Then people like Johnson keep repeating those errors which lead to a bigger problem point. You can't possibly stop the spread of conspiracy theories in this environment. The families and friends of the Hortmans and the Hoffmans are suffering right now. And people like Johnson are using that and them to radicalize people and make a ton of money. And you just know that if any of Johnson's followers actually commit violence due to his videos, he will not take responsibility. Their online Personas are as weak as their supposed journalism. They bluster without facts, make shit up, then wipe their hands clean when a mirror is held up to them. As this all trickles down as even people not captured by right wing propaganda default to making statements like both sides are just as bad.
- [57:45]
Matthew Remsky
Right. Yeah.
- [57:46]
Derek Barris
If you spend any amount of time consuming this content, you'll know which side is really calling for the not metaphorical violence right now. And then they go and they hide in their living room bunkers when the violence comes knocking.
- [57:59]
Matthew Remsky
You know, I just want to tie these two broad themes together because I see some kind of continuity between social media conspiracism and speaking in tongues. Like I think we've alluded to this with regard to, you know, Alex Jones getting into a trance state on air. I think the conspiracy babbling is on the cognitive slope downwards into glossolalia. I mean, they would say, you know, glossolalia is at the top, I guess, so it's a slope up. But to do it, you have to increasingly like unhitch your, like your brain from your mouth and just trust what's flowing forth from this raw emotional whirlwind. And I think that can feel really good. And I know that I haven't disclosed this, I don't think, but when I was at Endeavor Academy in Wisconsin, glossolalia was actually a common response to the preaching of the guy who was in charge there, Charles Anderson. Most of the time it was like big size laughs or moans. Occasionally somebody would break out into full blown tongues or light language. And it was involuntary, you know, except that the person usually prepared for the induction by standing in the space for a time.
- [59:05]
Julian Walker
When you say a common response. Just, just. I'm just wondering if part of what you mean is that it was part of the culture.
- [59:13]
Matthew Remsky
It was definitely part of the culture. And it was. Yeah, I would say that it was contagious, emotionally contagious. And when somebody broke out into things, we looked at that person as the one who had transcended like the rules of normal human cognition, which is how people regard. Like Alex Jones.
- [59:28]
Julian Walker
Yeah. So the bolt of truth had penetrated enough for them to now go into this response.
- [59:34]
Matthew Remsky
Yeah. And on your behalf. They were embodying everything that we secretly knew, but somehow were suppressing or we couldn't articulate. So they were fully imbued with a spirit or God. They had the pure pleasure of not having to think things through. Through, you know, which is a terrible burden. They had the ability to discharge rage. So, you know, like Paula White, for example, is like one of the people who grows up in this environment and to whom it comes easily, but she also realizes that it gives her a kind of social power and then that's how the skill grows. And then we have Johnson on social media. I think the same logic is in place play, but it's slowed down in text form or, like, live stream form. Most followers are, like, shouting out Amen in the comments. Is that right, Derek? Or like, everybody's, like, responding, basically, yeah, Yahoo. Amen. Hallelujah. And then some rise up to mimic the tongues on their own. Right. But also, like, this Glossolalia doesn't just bend to the right politically. Like, it happens everywhere. Like, it happens in the black Baptist church during music and sermons. And so, like, like, it seems that there's just this thing that we do when we get high, and they've found a really effective way of hacking into it.
- [60:51]
Julian Walker
Yeah. And, you know, one of the things I find kind of ironic is that a lot of folks of these particular kind of charismatic religious persuasions, they will often raise the alarm about how unless you are specifically within our particular initiatory stream, be careful, because you. You may be being taken over by demons. You don't know who's actually doing the speaking.
- [61:11]
Matthew Remsky
Exactly.
- [61:12]
Julian Walker
And they're so close, right? They're so close. Because you look at someone like Paula White and it's like, well, what is actually speaking through you right now, honey?