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Derek
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Interviewer
Got a guest here from Mexico today doing really impactful work. Derek, thanks for coming on, man.
Derek
Thanks for having me on, brother.
Interviewer
Be a fun week with bitcoin conference.
Derek
Yeah, I was there yesterday. It's. Yeah, I have my feelings on that. I was saying to you, like I'm there to do media. You know, I'm always trying to interview people and. And you were talking about gotcha questions a moment ago. Not gotcha questions. But I do try to put myself in a space where I can ask hard questions. And at the bitcoin conference, unfortunately, like a lot of that community, if a politician shows up and says the right things, then they kind of ignore a lot of other things going on.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Derek
So I find myself in a position of like, all right, I'm going to be there to see if I can maybe get a question in. When they're not expecting, you know, they're expecting mostly I think, a favorable audience. Right.
Interviewer
Layups.
Derek
Yeah. And I've been involved with the bitcoin space since 2012. That was when I first got my first transaction. Specifically because of, to me, the original purpose of bitcoin and crypto is like to try to avoid banks, to avoid taxes, to you know, really like an anti state or non state currency is really what inspired me and got me interested. And it's a little different now to go especially to the bigger events like this. That's definitely not the mentality of most of the people there. Like the space has kind of shifted in a lot of ways towards the thought leaders, especially at these bigger events, kind of focused on.
Regulation, mainstream acceptance, et cetera, and, and treating Bitcoin like a stock as opposed to like actually something that use, that could compete with the dollar or you know, any other government currency, which is what originally got me excited about it. So I come with like, you know, been involved in the space for a long time, but definitely skeptical about some of the ways it's added.
Interviewer
Yeah, the crypto space has changed a lot. Yeah, you probably couldn't even recognize any of the speakers from 10 years ago. Now it's all these celebrities and politicians.
Derek
Yeah, that's. And that is an interesting aspect. Again, like, I mean it's. There's of course celebrities and other people are always going to try to make a quick buck. Not to say all of them are in that space. But I mean you can. We could list off a number of projects in the crypto space over the last few years, including Trump, Trump Coin, Melania Coin, et cetera, that largely just seem to be pump and dumps that people capitalizing on the fact that they have an audience and like, hey, I'm gonna lock. Launch a crypto launch an NFT has no purpose, has no real value. It's just like attach your name to this project and you know, more power to do whatever you want. But I think that's diluted the space again. So people who maybe originally were learning about it, like myself coming out of the, in the Fed movement, you know, sort of ron Paul movement, 2010, 2011, Occupy movement, you know, this movements that were focused on like criticizing the economic system, the financial system. Bitcoin presented itself as like, oh, this might be the tool, it's non government currency, you know, it's decentralized, et cetera. All these different benefits and things that.
Are important, they're not as, I think, as it's not exactly what people may have believed. Like for example, we learned pretty quickly that it wasn't anonymous like a lot of people thought in the beginning with Bitcoin, but nevertheless it was, it presented itself as like this alternative. So that's kind of the space that I was coming into it. I was already in a position where when I started waking up, like I stopped talking to certain government agencies, I stopped using banks in 2008 and made that like really important part of my life. So then when I discovered something like Bitcoin, it's like, oh, okay, here's a way I can, you know, sell my services. What I had a business I was doing. So I was like, okay, I'll start accepting bitcoin as a business. Right. Okay, maybe I can sell my, my shirts and my merch and stuff for bitcoin. This got me really excited about the idea. And then over the years I even, I mean, I did two US tours in 2017, 2018, sponsored by Roger Vere, who's now facing tax charges in the US because of his bitcoin related stuff. But he sponsored two US Tours traveling around the country where my specific goal was every city to talk about decentral, talk about sovereignty. And bitcoin as part of that conversation, like trying to encourage adoption. Because to me that was the key. It's like, if this is going to be something that can compete with the mainstream system, it's a cool idea. But if people can't use it anywhere, then they're like, okay, what am I supposed to do with this funny Internet money? You know? Yeah, that was before it was worth a hundred thousand dollars or whatever. Right. But then it was just like, okay, so the idea is show people that it can actually work. Encourage entrepreneurs to take it. I'd go to festivals, freedom festivals, crypto festivals, whatever, and like, and on the local level too. And encourage people, if you're an artist or just a business owner, just start taking this thing called bitcoin. So first you have to what is bitcoin? How does that even work? And then try to convince them to open up a wallet. But that was definitely my goal for a good period of time where I really believed in that potential of that.
Interviewer
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Derek
I don't think that's really there anymore, at least not in bitcoin. There are things like Monero and other more private cryptos that I do still support. But, you know, so I kind of like have all those thoughts. And then I'm also just there at the bitcoin conference as a journalist to just ask questions. But definitely, I think the space has shifted into a direction that is more supportive of working with government and regulation. And that audience was always there. You know, back in the day, in the early bitcoin conferences that I started attending, like, as a journalist just to like, what the heck is this thing? I need to figure it out. There was always the crypto anarchist crowd, and there was always the people who were like, we need mainstream acceptance. It's just that crowd appears to have won.
Interviewer
They're much larger now, right?
Derek
Yeah, they're definitely the more vocal, large voice. There are still crypto anarchists out of there. I think many of them have shifted away from bitcoin into things like Monero and other projects. But. And then of course, there's a whole swath of, like, I would say, people who follow my work, and particularly my work on technocracy, who are just completely afraid of crypto at all, of, like, any kind of digital currency because of the potential for it to be you know, manipulated or used by governments to limit freedoms in different ways, like central bank, digital currencies, stuff like that. So there's definitely that part of the crowd, I think, who thinks central bank, digital currency, Bitcoin. I don't care if it's digital, it's bad. You know, I just want to stay with physical money, which I support as well. But I do think there still is this potential for it to like have some kind of paradigm shifting life. And I don't think that really is what's happening with Bitcoin. Sure, it's growing in value. So the more it grows in value, the more people get involved. BlackRock's involve a lot of big companies. So in some ways people look at that and like, oh, this is the mainstream acceptance we've always needed. But in my mind it's like, well, the government's talking about having a bitcoin strategic reserve, you know, and there's nothing wrong with governments choosing to hold Bitcoin, but it definitely isn't where the average person is going out and paying for their goods with Bitcoin and then, you know, avoiding the US dollar and the Federal Reserve is crumbling or something. You know, these sort of grand visions that a lot of people had in the beginning don't think they've borne out.
Interviewer
So you actually stopped using banks in 08 though?
Derek
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I, I. And that was before I got into any of this sort of activism and journalism. My current awareness, it kind of just happened naturally, honestly. I mean, I was, I was in my early, I think I was, got turned, got my First bank at 18, you know, started doing banking, got started, you know, becoming an adult and I sucked at the bank. I, I overdrafted, I did all this kind of stuff. So it literally started out like that where I was just like, I'm just gonna not have a bank for a while. And then I think I shared with you offline before that. I ended up getting locked up at 20. So I had this whole experience by time I got out, I was like 23. I just kind of, that was really the beginning of me starting to question the banking system, economics, et cetera. And so I just kind of continued on. I was like, all right, well, I've already gone at that point, five years without a bank. Maybe I don't really need a bank. Maybe I don't need a credit card. Maybe I can just find a way to exist outside of that. And I've been able to. I mean, it's definitely difficult and I think it's also as our work and our, the business side of things grow, that becomes more difficult as well. Yeah. You know, I host an event in Mexico. I sell my books, I have different business aspects. And so I've had to find, I guess you could say what I call like half measures, half steps. Right. So I don't have a Chase bank, bank of America, any of those things. And if people are doing that, I encourage them to like look into a local credit union. Like, I kind of see this in terms of like steps of moving away from these systems that aren't aligned with our values. Right. So on one level, you're using Chase bank, the same bank that helped Jeffrey Epstein launder money, or hsbc, the same bank that was involved with, you know, human trafficking and drug trafficking or, you know, on and on and on.
Interviewer
Right.
Derek
We could name the crimes of the various banks. That's like where most people are. But then maybe you make a conscious choice and say, I want to not support that system. I'm going to look up a local credit union or smaller bank or something like that. Right. So you're taking a step. You're still within that same economic system, but at least you're not supporting the big banks. Right. And then maybe the next step for some people is like, I'm going to learn about this Bitcoin thing and you start kind of taking steps. That's, that's what I tend to call exit and build. But it's like this process. And so I've been in that process the last 15 years or so. And so I've been sometimes where I'm completely plugged out. And then now in the last year or so I've tried to, I've had to make some compromises to run the business side of my work. So I do use and not endorsed or worked with them directly, but I use, you know, certain cards that are what they call neo banks, just online bank. Right. Essentially, like I don't have a physical banking location. This is like wise revolut. There's all these different services.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Derek
That allow you to transfer money internationally. If you want, you can get a card, you can do that kind of thing. So again, technically still under that same operating system, but not using the traditional banks. That's been a compromise I've made the last couple years, but for a good chunk of time, like I haven't used, I don't have a driver's license or a cell phone or. Wow. And it's not any kind of like I'm a sovereign. I have this it's just. It's just part of my life, you know, I just kind of stopped. And again, it kind of came naturally because of my. My past. Like, I ended up getting a felony. They suspended my driver's license, and they wanted me to pay them, like, $15,000 to get it again. And I just. You know what? I think I'm just done with that. You don't mean I don't drive. It doesn't mean I don't communicate with people. I just sort of, you know, do my own sort of thing.
Interviewer
You don't have your real id, bro.
Derek
I mean, I have a. That's the one thing people will be curious. I have a passport, right? And that's largely because I do travel internationally. You know, whether it's coming home, going to Mexico, and coming back to Texas, or doing events in other places. You know, passport just keeps things convenient. But, yeah, actually, it's funny because I'm on a. A road trip right now. Part of it was to come here and connect with you. Bitcoin conference. And I'm going on tour for my music. But I got pulled over the other day and I got a ticket for not having. Oh, yeah. In some small town in, like, nowhere Texas, headed. Headed this way. So, yeah, that still does happen occasionally. I guess I'll decide what I want to do. I'm probably never going back to that town again.
Interviewer
So there's ways to talk out of that. I heard if you say you're a sovereign citizen or something.
Derek
So there's. I mean, I'll say there. I'm definitely skeptical. A lot of that crap, because. Because of my work and because of me talking about exit and build, people hear that. And I, you know, I do in how to opt out of the technocratic state. Talk about my own experiences. Here's how I got out of the banking system. Here's some steps to consider things like that. And so people hear that and they're like, oh, you should check out these other systems. Sovereign citizen, which many people say is an oxy oxymoron in itself, because citizen is kind of like a term of, like, citizen to the state. But still, when people hear that, they know what we're talking about. There's other things, like state nationals. There's. I mean, and I've had a lot of people, when I'm out doing public speaking, come up to me and like, hey, you talk about exit, build, you talk about crypto, but have you heard of this system? And they always have, like, a manifesto and, like. And so I'VE got these, like a stack of them at home. And like, it's a little book. This book tells you the real way to get out of this. And sometimes it's like you got to write your name in lowercase or you have to reclaim your birth certificate. And I'm just skeptical of all this stuff. I don't think that there's any. Like, while I try to live my, my life in that way, I don't think there's some super secret way out of the Matrix, so to speak. Right. That they created. And if you're just lucky enough to figure it out and you show them, look, I figured it out, then you're forever good. But that's what some people out there will try to claim. And a lot of those people have programs they try to sell to teach you how to do this thing. But at the end of the day, I mean, let's imagine even if that was true, like, even if there is really some way, because I've gotten out of police interactions just by like, standing on my rights, you know, not necessarily talking shit or being rude, but just being like, hey, you don't have a right to mess with me this and that and being confident about it. And then, you know, things turn out fine and they're like, okay, you're right. I'm, I'm out of here. Have a nice day.
Interviewer
You record them.
Derek
While you definitely used to do a lot more police recording, I mean, you can find some viral videos of stuff like that back in the day. It's not so much something I do now, although I do encourage people to stand on their rights anytime they get that opportunity. But that's different than being like, um, you know, like one of the other things they'll do is they'll create their own license plates. Right? And, and again, I think there might be elements of this that could be true, but let's say it is true. Let's say there is some secret code out of the Matrix. And if you make your own license plate and you put sovereign. And if you write your names in lowercase.
Interviewer
I hope you guys are enjoying the show. Please don't forget to like and subscribe. It helps the show a lot with the algorithm. Thank you.
Derek
Or whatever the different, you know, solutions these people propose. The average cop on the street doesn't know shit about that. You know, I would argue the judge probably doesn't even know about that, like, if that's true because people will point back to like, I can't remember what year 18 something. U.S. code. I mean, I've seen these things a lot, and I think there, again, is some element of truth there. But even if that is accurate, the cop on the street is still going to be like, oh, I got one of those sovereign citizen people, these crazy guys, you know, like, you kind of open yourself up when you start making those arguments. I've had friends who've tried to go that route, did the I'm going to drive with my own license plate. I made my own license card. I'm not bound by your laws, and this and that, which again, I think is true in one instance. And now he, a buddy, is like, fighting a lawsuit with the city in California because they think he's crazy. And now they're, like, coming after him extra hard because he was traveling. But, you know, so even if that was true, I'm not saying it doesn't matter. Maybe there's a conversation to be had, but the people in power have so much power that if that was, if that is true, they've done everything they can to sort of make. Make it impossible to use that. Yeah. Now people argue, no, no, no. There's this guy I know. I follow him on YouTube and he's got out of 200 tickets, and he knows how to do it. You just have to follow his program. I mean, I'd be happy to be proven wrong. I'm just super skeptical every time somebody claims this is the one single way. Because that's not what I try to claim. Like, hey, here's some ideas. Here's some things I'm trying. Maybe you can take them, use them for yourself. But when someone's like, I've got the one program, it's, you know.
Interviewer
Yeah. People get extreme with it. Like, I had one guy talk to me, he revoked his U.S. passport, his U.S. citizenship.
Derek
Yeah. I mean, I definitely know people have done that. I mentioned Roger. That's one of the things he did. He did it more of like a political statement. I also have another friend who, she did it because she was trying to reclaim some, you know, like her sovereignty in a way. And yeah, on a philosophical stance, I do think it's true. I mean, it's crazy just to think about the fact that we're born into a world and most of our parents are just people who've been educated in the mainstream education system. They probably believe mainstream things. And so the idea of giving your child a number at birth and putting them on a birth certificate, it just kind of seems like a normal thing to do. Right. But maybe some of us, you get Older. And you start to question that, the very foundations of those systems, like, well, I wasn't really given a choice. And so I have friends, for example, who have kids and they don't get their kids birth certificates or Social Security cards and they want to wait for them to get old enough to decide like, do you want to be a part of this system? Because it's sort of this unquestioned thing that, you know, all of our parents, again, it's just the normal thing, especially if you're born in a hospital, those kind of things happen. Whether you want them to or not. They're going to be.
Interviewer
People don't even think about it.
Derek
Yeah, exactly. You never question it. But there are, I would, you know, and some of the, and I'm using the term really broadly, but freedom community that I'm, you know, networked with and connected with. They're definitely, you know, like homeschoolers, unschoolers, world schoolers, home birthing, this kind of movement where people are more and more thinking like not only do they feel like the hospital is the safest place to have a kid and just concerns around that, but just like the sort of unnatural aspect of just being born into that system and not being given a choice. I do think there's something there. And so questioning those foundations is important. Now whether or not we can get out of it is another thing. I mean, I think it's worth trying, but yeah, I've always appreciate that idea. I'm not a parent myself yet, but the friends that I have who did give their kids a choice and that doesn't mean it doesn't come with its own complications. Right. Trying to travel with the child who doesn't have any sort of identification and, and you know, it's going to be.
Interviewer
Harder now with real ID laws.
Derek
Oh yeah, exactly. I mean, in trying to tell like the cop on the street, like let's say you get pulled over or whatever, you deal with law enforcement and they ask for your, you know, everybody's, you know, your children's IDs or information for whatever, for example, and you're like, I don't have a birth certificate. Again, I appreciate the people who are hardcore about it. I think it's, I always think you do need people on the extremes, you know, like, and it doesn't necessarily mean you have to join them, but I do think it's interest, it's important to have kind of like a broad range of perspectives and all things. Right. So if you have somebody like even myself maybe. Sounds extreme. Some of the steps I take for some people. But the hope is that then other people who are in a different part of that spectrum maybe take inspiration and they might not go as far as that extreme person and say, I'm not going to get my kids birth certificates or this sort of thing, or I'm going to change my driver's license or my license plates. But maybe it leads to people just questioning, you know, the foundational systems. And that's important too.
Interviewer
Yeah, you've exposed a lot of systems, man. Pyramid of power, 17 systems you exposed.
Derek
That has been. Oh, man, it's been a labor of love and it's been an evolution of a project. I mean, it started out as a three hour in person presentation. Like I mentioned. I went on tour in 2017, 2018 and 2018. The tour was called the Liberate youe Mind Tour. And there was 54 cities spread out over like three months. And just me and some friends traveling around the US Just doing. My partner Miriam was doing meditations. I was giving these deep presentations and then, you know, just going deep and I wanted to do. So much of my work is always focused on solutions outside of my journalism. Like my book. I talk a lot, obviously about like crypto and the potential there, opting out in different ways. And I had, and I'd done a lot of journalism, but I hadn't at that time done any specific deep dive into my view on like the foundational systems. Right. And you know, I'm a conspiracy theorist. I woke with, woke up with watching Alex Jones in 29. I don't really trust him these days or listen to him anymore. But I'll say listening to some of his stuff in 2009 definitely made me like question a lot of things. And that led to other places and I think to better sources and stuff like that. But I hadn't really seen anybody do a deep dive in the way that I felt satisfied. I do think I have a certain standard that I don't always see other places, especially in independent media and alternative media, where. And this is not a call for government regulation or censorship or anything. You know, do what you want, say what you want. But some people don't care how loose they are with the truth, you know, and they can say this is, you know, unfortunately it's one of the criticisms from the mainstream that is accurate, that is true, that there is a sect of the podcasting world, the online research world that will say something one week and it's completely false. And never issue a correction, never go back and Update their audience and just keep moving on. And then there's audience and sometimes the millions of people who are consuming this information, then taking that data in, believing it's true, carrying it with them, telling other people, you know, and that I think is dangerous.
Interviewer
Yeah, there's no accountability.
Derek
Yeah, there's there. So that's a big problem I've had with independent media. But so anyways, that has made me just strive to be more accountable. Like, and if I'm going to put my name on it, whether it's a book, a documentary, an article, like, I stand by everything in there and I can prove it to you and I can show it to you, and then if I have to speculate, that'll be clear as well. Right. So that's something that I strive to do. And I wanted to do a presentation that could look at these systems and do it kind of with that type of attention to detail. And so I did the tour and after doing 50 cities in this freaking two and a half hour, three hour conversation, which people were nice enough to sit in and listen to, you know, in every city, I realized I'm like, maybe there's a better format for this. And I kind of started working on it in my head. And then by 2020 I was like, all right, I think this needs to be a documentary series. It started out as 6 parts, 8 parts, 10 parts, 12 parts, and then now it's ended up being 17 parts. So I released the. The idea was to release them in seasons of four, so four episodes at a time and kind of give myself and my editor some time. And I do all the research, I write all the scripts, I do the audio narration and. And then we. I send it over to some great editors who make it visually appealing and make people actually want to watch and listen to it. And people can go to the pyramid of power.net and watch all of them and listen to all them. And you'll find all of my transcripts with all the links and references to everything that I'm talking about. And the idea was to keep it 30 minutes or less because I wanted it to be like, the goal is imagine you want to get a family member or somebody you care about to start asking questions about the world. They're probably not going to watch a six hour conspiracy documentary, right? Especially if it's done in a particular way that a lot of them are, which is like sometimes doom porn, fear porn, too much speculation, making logical leaps, stuff like that that I can spot and I can watch and still look for the Good. But if you're trying to convince somebody, it's not a very effective tool. And that is very much what my work is motivated is like, how do I reach more people? How do I get people questioning the world around them and looking for solutions? And so I wanted to take that with that approach. And the idea being like, start off very simple with the first one's education, then it's, I think the second one's the big tech. And then we just progressively get deeper as we go up this pyramid, so to speak. And it would be 30 minutes or less. Taking all of the best books and documentaries that already exist out there, combining them with my own original research and presenting that, and then ending each episode with solutions like, hey, if you want to learn more, maybe check out these ideas and, and yeah, and progressively getting deeper. And so you start with episode one. I think it's 27 minutes. You could probably get a friend or a family member to sit down and watch a half hour episode, right? And if they're interested, then maybe they click on the next one, which is also 30 minutes. And just to make it bingeable, you know, so that ideally somebody can go from 1 through 17 and maybe by the end their entire paradigm is, is changed or shifted or at the very least they have a lot more questions that they want to ask. And so we've been working on it since 2021. All 16 episodes are out now for free and will forever be available for free. And I just finished maybe about two or three weeks ago, riding the 17th one, which turned into a three hour episode. Damn, it's going to be two volumes. I mean, my partner told me, she's like, just write, just write. Just don't stress yourself out. Just write everything you think needs to be written and then you can edit down later. And so I just, I took that advice, which is great advice, but also at the end I'm like, holy crap. I. This is. It was four hours originally. I was like, okay. So me and my editor went through and trimmed down and even that was hard to do because I am somebody who's very much pays attention to details. Like I don't want to present the same information that you can find in conspiracy documentaries 15 years ago, 20 years ago. Some of that stuff is foundational, so it'll be in there. But also through my research I was able to kind of uncover new details or maybe more hidden or less known details about familiar topics like say the Bilderberg Group or something like that. And, and so I wanted to include those in there. So it's like this battle of, like, all right, is this detail really necessary to the audience? Maybe not. I'll pull that. But in the end, we're going to print. We're going to make a book version where that full. My original full version will be included. But so now I'm. I've finished that. The 17th episode. We decided to split it in two volumes. The first one's going to be an hour, and the next one's going to be two hours. And I've recorded the audio for part one. It's in the hands of my editor right now, and he's a super talented guy, and we just work with a really small team of people. I mean, with. The whole project's been crowdfunded over the last five years. I think we've raised $55,000. And all of that has gone to just paying my editors over the years. I haven't been paid for any of it yet. I've just been like, this is important to me to get done because it's. You know, one of the best piece of advice I got from an editor years ago was to focus on evergreen content, you know, because there's something about, like. And everybody has their own space that they operate in. But, like, you know, you're doing, say, a video about the news of the day. Nobody's watching a video in 10 years about the random news on Tuesday, May 20th. You know what I mean? Like, it's. Unless it's something that's. That really is valuable it. And that serves a purpose. I'm not saying there's not a place for that, but for me, it felt like, all right, that's what I want to focus on. How can I do content that is going to be important in five years, 10 years, 15, 20 years? And so this documentary series is written in that way to be timeless, to be, like, if somebody picks it up in 10 years, it's not talking about, like, the details of the 2020 election. It's talking about how these systems operate historically and where they are now. And, I mean, the response. It's still, I would say, an underground series. It hasn't, like, gone mega viral. There's a few episodes who've gotten a lot more. Some more attention as more people learn about it. But I constantly get rave reviews of it. The best ones I think I've heard are parents telling me that they use it to homeschool their kids.
Interviewer
Wow.
Derek
That's kind of cool. Yeah. Actually, like, about a week and a half ago, this dude reached out to me and he's actually the student. He's 18 and he's about to graduate from his homeschooling program. And he invited me to come to his graduation a couple weeks ago. Yeah. Out in Houston. So that's awesome. I'm gonna go check that out. Yeah. But he basically just reached out and said like, hey, my mom used your series to, you know, for my government curriculum, as my homeschooling curriculum, and you've shifted my paradigm. You know, I, I'm just, just all this positive stuff, which is just super humbling to hear in the first place. It's like, holy crap. He's like, would you come to my graduation? I'm like, oh, yeah, that's so that, I mean, that to me is like, that's exactly what I wanted to do, you know, to serve that purpose. Like, it's one thing to just make an epic documentary and everybody has their own purposes, but for me, this is, I've been trying to let my audience know, like this is a tool, like if it's okay if some of this information is familiar to you, you're a deep researcher and you're like, oh, I know all this, that's great. But I made it in a way that to keep it, like I said, concise. And I would say 10 of the 16 episodes are 30 minutes or less. There's a few where the topics are just too deep. And I went 35, 40, 45, but that's about the max. Now these last ones again are going to be a bit bigger because the final episode is trying to answer the question, who's at the top of the pyramid? So I spent an extensive amount of research, like revisiting some of the things I read when I first woke up. And I mean, it's funny even just using that phrase, but I think a lot of people in the conspiracy culture, or awake, aware, community, whatever people want to call themselves, you have this experience where something in your life shifts. For me, it was going to prison, like at a young age. And that just kind of caused me to rethink everything. And that eventually led to like, you know, questioning the whole world around me. Right. Like I said, I discovered Alex Jones read this author, Jim Mars, who's now deceased, his book Rule by Secrecy, heard Ron Paul speak in Houston. There was just a couple of things. I was listening to this metal band that was all like, super anti government. Yeah. These things are just happening within like the span of my 23 year old life. And it just kind of everything just clicked, you know, What I mean. And also have, after getting out of prison, having kind of been in a space where I was kind of open to, like, just my. My whole mind had changed. That caused me to. Yeah. Just start questioning things. And I think in that beginning space, you find infowars, you find some other things. And of course you find YouTube. And YouTube used to be even more wild than it is now, especially with conspiracy stuff. Like, a lot of people don't realize that some of the first videos that went viral, YouTube, were conspiracy documentaries.
Interviewer
I used to watch those.
Derek
Yeah. I mean, those were just everywhere. Right. That was the. When it wasn't algorithm driven and it was just based on peer reviews, like that's what people would be shown. Yeah, a lot of it was conspiracy stuff. And so I was finding that stuff and. But now I look back and I'm like, okay, some of those things I was reading or watching, they're not as true as I thought. Doesn't mean the general theme of, like, powerful people and organizations manipulating the world. That is absolutely true. But there was some details. And so for me, writing this last episode was kind of a fun exercise because it's like I'm going back and looking up, picking up my book books off my shelf that I read 10 years ago and I haven't looked at. I'm like, okay, this was true right here. He's kind of making a little, maybe a jump there and doing my best to incorporate that plus my own original research into this episode. And like I said, doing the least speculation possible. Now, there's some things like, for example, I interviewed David Ike, and David Ike talks about how, you know, he believes this is really, I guess, in his words, he would say an interdimensional sort of evil. Right. He talks about the reptilians and things like that. But he also talks like, more than that. People give him a lot of shit for that. But more than that, what? Because I asked him to clarify, like, do you still believe that? And what does that even mean? You know, he believes it's more of, like, it's a. It's a state of consciousness. You know, maybe you label that evil, you label it reptilian, label, whatever. But he says, like, this state of consciousness possesses human beings and allows them to do evil things and stuff like that. Right. So obviously he doesn't got the documents to prove that. Right. So there's some level of necessary speculation. But in that final episode, I interviewed everybody from David Icke, from James Corbett, G. Edward Griffin, who's been doing this for like 70 years. He's, you know, one of the original conspiracy researchers and all these different people to provide their opinion. So I look at everything, all the controversial stuff, including, like, it's the Jews or it's the Zionists. So I've got.
Interviewer
That's a big one these days.
Derek
Yeah, I mean, that's like, it's. And I kind of. I've got my. My. My suspicions about why that's becoming so popular. Not to say there isn't some level of truth to that, but it's. It definitely seems like it's blown up on the Internet, where there's a lot of people, oh, Hitler was a good guy. You know, that's become like. And I think that in itself is kind of a psyop. But so I interviewed people who said, yeah, it's the Jews, it's the Zionist, it's the Venetian Black nobility, which is another one a lot of people aren't familiar with the committee of 300, the Jesuits, the Freemasons, and interviewed different people who are kind of experts in those fields. And, you know, I look at the historical data and see what actually is true and what's not true and try to point out, like, hey, people make this claim, but we can't actually prove it. I interviewed this dude. You should talk to him sometime. His name's Professor Richard Spence. He's a really brilliant guy. And the reason I love his work is because he does come from an academic background, but not in the sense of, like, some academics where, oh, that's conspiracy garbage and just turn their mind off. Like, he. He has a very historical view and kind of forensic view of history that is open to conspiracies and secret societies. And the fact is, it's because it's true. I mean, you can look at the French Revol, the American Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Spanish Revolution, the annexation of Hawaii. I mean, there's so many different, like, major world events that involve secret societies to some degree or another. And much of this is acknowledged. It's not like a big secret. It's just that's. You got to go look for the information. So he's taken an approach of, like, studying how secret societies impact history.
And what is the truth and what's, you know, what's the lie. So I got to interview him, and he has, I think, a very balanced kind of view of, like, there clearly is something going on. Can we say for certain, like, we've got some. You know, people don't realize that conspiracy theories are really the foundation of the US Ever since The beginning of the US People have had conspiracy theories, and I think some of them are true. Like, immediately there was conspiracy theories about the Freemasons trying to take over the US George Washington was written letters, and we. These. You can find them digitized online letters to him, where he's being sent this book from this Scottish guy named John Robeson. It was called Proofs of a Conspiracy. And he wrote this book about how in Scotland and France and parts of Europe that the Freemason lodges were kind of starting to subvert governments. A lot of people point to the French Revolution as a really big example of that. Of course, the nuances. There was Freemasons on both sides of the revolution, but they were definitely playing a role, you know, but it wasn't just like they guided one side. It seemed like they were trying to be in charge and be, you know, have some influence either side, you know.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Derek
But nevertheless. So John Robeson writes this book and this priest mails it to George Washington and kind of warns him and says, Mr. Washington, I think you need to read this book. My concern is that the Freemason lodges in the United States are being infiltrated by these same people who were involved in the French Revolution. Not saying that we can 100% prove that, but I mean, that's like part of the US History and we don't learn about that. Right. That there was like, and Washington email, not emails. He writes back and says, like, that he is very aware of the Illuminati and aware of these different groups, but he doesn't think that they're influencing the US Lodges. Then later on, like, one of the final letters in this correspondence between this guy, it's the guy he's writing is Snyder. His last name, Snyder. In the last letter between the two of them, Washington kind of actually ends up acknowledging that he does think that, like, this is like, you know, months down the line. Of course, letters take time to get back and forth. Where he comes to eventually believe that he's like, I do think that the American lodges are being influenced by these groups. Right. So that's just one piece of history. There's so many others. And, you know, there's stuff about the Jesuits and there's stuff about these different groups. And I find that those are the most kind of common conspiracies that, you know, if you get to the top of trying to name who's who, you're going to find people who say, it's the Jews, it's the Jesuits and the Vatican, you know, the Pope. That sort of thing, it's the Freemasons or the Rosicrucians, some, you know, element of secret society. And there are levels of truth to all these things. Like I don't think there's any way to 100% conclusively say, like if we were to try to put those three groups in a hierarchy, I think it might shift throughout history. Right. And they work together at times, they collaborate. They also appear to attack each other. There's definitely like been Freemasons and Jesuit kind of rivalry going on. The details can be murky. Now of course, everybody hearing this who has a pet favorite theory of who's at top will call me a shill for not saying it's their specific. No, come on man. It's clearly the Jews. And absolutely there's a lot of influential Jewish people. Banking, you know, and all like all kinds of industries and, and sectors. There's no doubt without Zionism is something that has unquestionable in a lot of circles. And I mean you don't have, you don't have many, many governments or many institutions like the state of Israel being able to get laws passed. For example, in the US and Arkansas, there's like a bill that the politicians have to basically pledge loyalty to Israel that they can't, they won't support boycott sanction movements. Right. You don't see that about any other country. So clearly there's some influence there. Right? I mean AIPAC has major influence. Like so the people who point in that direction, they're not totally crazy. I think they're a little bit simplistic by just saying like, oh, it's just, it's all Jews. Right. And like it gets to the point of like we were saying like, well, everything is a lie. Hitler was actually a good guy. He was trying to save the world. And anybody who's in a podcast or in an interview, if they have a Jewish last name or have Jewish ancestry, even if they're really not connected to it, well, they're part of the plan. You know, it gets to that point where it's just super simplistic and I think it actually does damage to people who are trying to take an honest look at these questions of who is at the top. And same thing could be said with the Jesuits and the Freemasons. Yeah, but I tried to look at all those things and then Mark Passio is another really brilliant researcher. He focused on natural law. He's actually an ex member of the Church of Satan, like from the 90s. Yeah, late 80s 90s. And he gives these 10 hour presentations on natural law. But he also focuses a lot on the occult and kind of some of the, the hidden teachings and his own experience within the Church of Satan. And he believes it's what he calls Dark Luciferians at the top or you know, Satanists. And so I give everybody like their time to say their piece and then try to explore some of the claims that they make. And if I can debunk it like pieces and say, well they claim this but actually this is what's going on and if it's not clear, I just make it clear we don't know, you know. And then of course in the end I do draw some conclusions. But yeah, it turned into a three hour, two part documentary.
Interviewer
I'm definitely gonna watch that. That's cool.
Derek
Yeah, I'm hoping so. The first part of that, Volume one, I believe it. So we're coming up to June here, so I would say by July it'll be out and then we're pretty much just gonna immediately jump to the working on part two, which will hopefully come out by August, September. And then once it's all done, I'm gonna be collecting them all. All, all 17 episodes. And they're like I said, they're already available for free, but we are going to make usb so if people want to purchase those and have like the download file, plus we're going to include like for each because every episode as I mentioned says if you want to learn more, watch these documentaries, read these books. We're going to have all the PDF files of all that material, all the references to like the police documents, like in the case of the finders and some of these other cases where I have documentation. We're going to put those on USBS and sell those. We're probably going to make some DVDs for people who still want DVDs.
Interviewer
Old school, huh?
Derek
Yeah. And then, and then I'm going to make it into a companion book and turn all the scripts for all 17 episodes into the Pyramid of Power book. So like I said, this is going to be kind of a project that I will be promoting for the rest of my life.
Interviewer
I love it.
Derek
This is just like the finishing not as done. It'll be available forever for free if people want to buy their own copies. And then the other thing. Cool. Like I have so much information that I haven't released because you know, you interview somebody for a documentary, you might ask them a dozen questions. You're going to use 30 seconds to a minute to two minutes, you know, maybe three minutes at most. Right. Spread throughout episodes. And so there's a lot of people that I sat down with and asked a good amount of questions and they're featured in the different episodes that are relevant there. But I've never released those full interviews. So, like the DVDs USB will have like, here's the full interview with G. Edward Griffin, here's the background, you know, and all that stuff. And then it'll have copies of the script. So I'm going to try to make it as just publicly available. That's just sort of how I roll with my work. My book's available download for free. The documentaries are available for free. Like I want the information to be out there and for people to have access to it. And so it's been a labor of love, but now it's like, now that it's wrapping up, I feel like this is really just going to focus, the move to the marketing, focusing on getting it out there in front of as many people as possible.
Interviewer
I love that man. I want to ask about secret societies real quick because I'm fascinated with those. Do you think they're still as powerful as they used to be in modern day?
Derek
I do think so. I do think so. And I think it's a lot harder for us to tell. Maybe we'll know more, you know, after the fact hindsight. Because, for example, a lot of the books and things that we're reading about and referencing now are, were written 200 years ago. Like proofs of a conspiracy is one engineer corps of hell. I'm just going to throw out some books that I'm. That I've been reading recently. There's a lot about the Jesuits. And again, one thing to remember, this is an appeal. This isn't an appeal to history. Just because something's old doesn't mean it's necessarily true. Right. People can be wrong a thousand years ago, 200 years ago, whatever. But it does show you that these theories have existed since like the founding. It wasn't just the Masons. There was theories about the Jesuits. There's theories, of course, about the Illuminati. The Illuminati being one of the, I don't want to say the original secret society, but obviously the most well known. It's become an Internet meme. It's become sort of a joke. But the, the real history of it, I mean, is a real group, the Bavarian Illuminati from what is now Germany in Bavaria. And a very specific plan by Adam Weishaupt to use Freemason lodges to spread his illuminated philosophy, which, in some ways, this is what's been really interesting diving into it, is that in some ways, the Illuminati, the Freemasons, what many of them were actually about, and this again, isn't an endorsement of them or anything like that, but was promoting free thought, promoting freedom of religion, promoting ideas that I think were necessary and that many of us value right now. Because you have to put yourself in the context of the time. So 1776 of the Illuminati is founded. There's been secret societies before them, but just for them, just as one example. And. And before then, 1600s, 1500s, we're in the time of, like, kings and queens have ultimate power. You know, speaking against one of them gets you beheaded. Right. Not believing that their word is the divine, you know, come from God direct is essentially a crime. Right. So people were rebelling against those ideas. And of course, what they want is freedom from monarchy. Freedom from, like, religious dogma, superstition, some might say. And so a lot of the philosophers of the time, which were influencing Adam Weishaupt and some of these other creators of secret societies, were rebelling against that, like, including the Freemasons, like the French Revolution, and obviously the American Revolution was a rebellion against, like, monarchy and these sort of tradition. So in a way, I think that what they are, were at least originally about, is something that a lot of people would actually support if they really, you know, thought about it. That doesn't mean. I'm saying that whatever the current Illuminati, if they even were to use that name, if such a group even still exists. But we know that it did exist. Right. But the basic theory is that once they started to grow, Adam Weishop started to infiltrate different Freemason lodges. And this actually became well known by the authorities in Bavaria and by the king. And they banned them. They banned them several times. Like, they were like, okay, it's illegal to be associated with the Illuminati. And these secret societies, it was like, okay, they banned them one year, then they banned them the next year. And they, like, literally like that, like, years in a row, because they were realizing that it was like, how do you actually do that? You know, people are working in secret.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Derek
And. But then they officially got banned. Adam Weishaupt, you know, was. Was kind of chased out. And. And the theory is that they never officially did disband, though, is that basically just went more underground. Whether such a group exists from that time, 1780, to the Banning till now, I think is where it gets A little murkier. Right. A lot of the conspiracy theorists and conspiracy researchers, including colleagues of mine, you know, make what I think are sometimes logical leaps or just leaps of faith that this. We can probably say it might be true. Right. But can we find a trail of documents that goes from Adam Weishaupt to then the next group in 18, whatever, and then the next group that doesn't exist. Like, a lot of people claim that's what the Freemasons are and that the Freemasons, that basically Weishop plan worked, that he went underground and continued to influence and use the Freemason lodges. Because the Freemason lodges have been around since, depending on your, your, your source and different people's claims, 1600s or so. Wow. And he, his goal was to try. They basically said, look, they've already got all this infrastructure, they've got lodges all over the country, all over the world. Let's go underground, let's start joining them and then influencing them with our illuminated ideas. And then with time we'll take over. And that was kind of the plan. So some people believe that he succeeded. And so the modern Freemasons are the Illuminati. You got theories about that? I don't know if we can say for certain. And I also, I do think that there are a fair amount of Freemasons and others who are just look at, look at it as what it's promoted as a fraternity, a club. People get together, you know, it's like they're like. So they hear these kind of theories and like, what are you talking about, man? I go there to the lodge every Sunday and we sit, sit around and, you know, play cards or whatever. Like, there's no world domination here. And that may very well be true. But these lodges also have a lot of influence and power and, and if you read some of the original writings, the Anderson Constitution, if you read Morals and Dogma by Albert pike, who was one of the. He's a 32nd degree Mason in the Scottish Lodge. Like Morals and Dogma is a massive book, but you can. And it's a lot to read. And I haven't read the whole thing, but I've consumed quite a bit of it. And there's some famous quotes you'll see online. If people look up Albert pike, he was pretty open about some of the goals of at least his particular brand of Freemasonry. Again, like, people need to understand that Freemasonry, just like a religion, is filled with different sects of divisions and like philosophical debates and. Right. So it's you can't just say Freemasonry and throw the blanket over every type of Freemasonry in the world. There's Oriental Freemasonry, there's Scottish. Right. Freemason, you know, there's. And even within that you've got further breakdowns and you have Freemason leaders who write their own books and their interpretations and this and that. Right. So I think it is an oversimplification to kind of say that there's like one Freemason voice.
Interviewer
Right.
Derek
So that's one thing that's important to know. But, yes, there have been some Freemasons who seem to advocate for things like Adam Weishop was talking about, like using the Freemason lodges as a way to influence politics, to influence the world around them. Of course, they would argue for the betterment of society, but that's a. That's debatable. Right. The point is, though, that absolutely secret groups have influenced these revolutions I mentioned. Like the one that I include in the Pyramid of Power that I haven't seen anywhere else is the annexation of Hawaii, which is really interesting. Of course, it's like part of the colonial project. You've got the. The Americans and. And other nations there in Hawaii trying to claim it to their own. Of course, you've got the indigenous people of Hawaii, including the Queen, who are there. And basically what was called the Committee of Safety, which is made up of, I think, three fourths of the members, if I remember correctly, maybe more. But I found data for sure on 3/4 of their members were all connected to different Freemason lodges. Now it's just about how you interpret that. Does that mean the Freemasons sat together in a room, like, and plotted to take Hawaii? Or was it just coincidence that there's a lot of Freemasons there, they're in influential positions and they make this decision to annex Hawaii. You know, that's debatable. But what's not debatable is it absolutely was a conspiracy in the truest sense of it. Like, these men got together, they called themselves the Committee of Safety. One thing is they weren't. None of them are Hawaiian. So these are like foreigners just plotting like what's going to happen. And the indigenous people have no, you know, voice. So it's not a surprise. It's kind of a pattern we've seen throughout history. But this Committee of Safety made up of Freemasons, gets together and starts plotting to do a couple. And so they work with some armed contractors. They basically storm the Queen's palace. And it's like a bloodless, you know, coup. Nobody gets killed or anything. And the queen just kind of. It realizes she's got no way to fight. So she. She kind of cedes the power to them. And then this group kind of becomes the next interim government of Hawaii. And then within, like, two years, the US Annexes Hawaii and it becomes a state of the United States. And that was the plan of the Committee of Safety the whole time. Right. So that's a conspiracy that exists involving members of various Freemason lodges to make a pretty important geopolitical move to make Hawaii become part of the US and afterwards, I found a quote from the queen where she, you know, said specifically she's, like, not one Hawaiian person either of, like, indigenous ancestry or of mixed ancestry. Because by then, you know, the Americans and Hawaiians were mixing.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Derek
Had a voice in this at all. Like, it was completely planned by foreigners. You know, disconnected.
Interviewer
Wow.
Derek
You know, things like that happen. But, yeah, so there's examples like that where the. Clearly, the, you know, secret societies had some role in that and had some planning. And as far as, like, you're at your question about they still have power. Look at things like the Bohemian Grove, you know, the Bohemian Club. They still meet every year in the Redwoods in California. There was a little, you know, Saul story last year. I mean, it didn't get much attention. But ProPublica, they did some reporting on. You know, people were looking at the Supreme Court justices and what kind of influence they've had. Well, Clarence Thomas has actually been beside. There was some articles about, like. Well, he received money from this billionaire. And of course, that's maybe an interesting story. But the other piece that they kind of glossed over was he met with the billionaire at Bohemian Grove. Like, so the Supreme Court justice is going hanging out in Bohemian Grove. And for those. I mean, I know people have heard about it again over the years because of Alex Jones. Maybe seen his old video from back in the day. Like this grainy video of showing the sort of giant owl. And they're. They have this, like, baby effigy that they bring out. And, you know, it's a whole ritual. But there's actually much better footage and I included in chapter 16 of the pyramid of Power, which is focused on religion and secret societies. There's some footage that came out last year. There's this train hopper dude who has like a. He's an anonymous train hopper.
Interviewer
I saw that video.
Derek
Yeah. So he. He snuck in. He actually snuck in like, two or three times. Bohemian Grove. But him and some of his guys snuck in there while the ritual is actually happening. And this is like they're like up on the hill and you can see these guys just marching. I mean, they're in like red hoods, some of them black hoods, and they got like lanterns and they're singing songs. Of course they claim it's just like, you know, grown men going to the woods, just having fun, having a play. But I don't know. I don't know, man. It doesn't. It seems really weird. Just that's not really the kind of thing I. I would imagine that friends just get together and do. There definitely seems to be some more symbolic elements to that. And of course people point out the, the historical symbolism of the owl. Some people have tried to say that it's the God Moloch, but Moloch was never represented as an owl. It seems, based on what I've read in some of the original exposes of Bilheman Grove, that those rituals are kind of based on Druidism. Now, depending on your perspective, is that evil? Is that satanic? I don't know. I mean, it's just. Maybe it's just different. This is a point I was going to make earlier is I noticed that some people in the conspiracy circles when they're researching the Freemasons and the Illuminati, like I was saying earlier, most of the original ideas are about liberty, individual liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom from monarchy, freedom religion. I can get behind that for sure. Right. But if you're a religious person, the idea of telling people that maybe the churches shouldn't control every aspect of our life, then that might sound satanic. It sounds evil. Right? It sounds bad. So I think that there's a portion of the conspiracy research community that does come from a religious background. And I'm not, you know, that's. That's their freedom. That's the right to do so. But I think that's a bias that they might not always account for. Right. So then if somebody is doing a Druidic ritual, then it's automatically satanic. Or they'll use this term pagan, that gets thrown around, which is a problem as a term I have a lot of problem with because it's just kind of a catch all term, which originally just meant like the people from the countryside. You know, it was just a way for the people from the city, the kind of urban scape which was starting to evolve to kind of look down their noses. Like it's like saying Redneck or something. It's like, oh yeah, the pagan people, those from, those, those from the countryside, the, the rural areas, the outside. And that kind of became a catch all term for people who had essentially indigenous spiritual practices that weren't Jewish, Christian or Islam. Right? Oh, those are pagan. They practice pagan evil, satanic rituals. Right. That doesn't mean. I don't think there is an element of that because I have done quite a bit of research on claimed satanic abuse and the Finders cult and some of these ritualistic things. I do think that exists. But I also can hold both those things at once and see. Well, I think some people, if they have a very religious perspective and they see somebody doing a ritual or doing something that they don't understand, then it's automatically evil, it's automatically satanic. You know what I mean? It's automatically pagan. And I just again, things aren't as black and white as people want to believe. So the documentary, the final episode is probably going to piss off everybody because it's not going to make the conclusion that they want it to make.
Interviewer
This stuff makes me wonder how many celebrities, celebrities, how many notable figures, presidents are part of these secret societies.
Derek
Well, I mean we know like, and I do include some lists in the chapter 16 and there will be more names named in 17. We definitely know like the amount of presidents who've been Freemasons. We know the amount of presidents who visited the Bohemian Grove. And there's, I mean there's been decisions made there. Like, you know, if I'm remembering correctly, I believe it was Richard Nixon who, his choice to run for president. It was pretty much made at Bohemian Grove. And you know, so they have a motto there that says weaving spiders come not here. And what they mean by that is like, leave the work out of here. So they just like with groups like the Bilderberg and this and that, they claim we're not making any official decisions, we're just hanging out and getting together. But I mean, think about it. Just like in our own circles, we might meet and network with friends and plan out, hey, how can we do this cool thing together? If these guys are going out and hanging out in the woods for a week, but they're not doing any business, it's just going to happen either way. You're just going to start talking and maybe the CEO of some big company and you're a, you know, a politician, you guys start talking and before you know it, you're buddies. And so that leads to later on you helping pass a bill that benefits that person. Right. It doesn't have to be this like crazy thing that people think it's just relationships. And so to imagine that they are able to just, okay, we're gonna go hang out in the woods, but we're not gonna do anything that's going to affect other, you know, our political world or our business world, which is what they essentially argue. And the same thing with like the Bilderberg Group. They say, like, there's no official decisions made there, we're just getting together to discuss things. Right. Even if you tried to stick by that, it's naturally going to affect your views and the way you approach things. Right. I mean, if you become friends with somebody, become allies with somebody, get comfortable with them, then you're more likely to work with them and collaborate with them and support them in different ways. Right. Maybe not on everything, but. So, yeah, I mean, we do have lists of, like, we have lists of monarchs. And in 17, I list like some of the most famous monarchs that were Freemasons, some of the most famous presidents of Mexico that were. Because it's, it's in Mexico.
Interviewer
Oh, really?
Derek
Yeah, I mean, I mean, the Mexico has. I've learned. So I've been living in Mexico for five years. And I'm from Texas originally, but my family's from Mexico like three or four generations back. And then the other part of my family is. Is indigenous to the U.S. that's kind of why I was saying I have a problem with this term pagan, because I think people just sort of like dismiss indigenous views and it's all satanic. But anyways, the CIA and the Freemasons have had a huge history in Mexico and Mexico's history. I actually went and I was finding some old Spanish books that were referencing Freemasonry, and I found a quote from one of Mexico's presidents, one of the most well known presidents from like the late 1800s. And he's just stating as plain as day how the role between Freemasons and the founding of Mexico has been, you know, so crucial, so essential and wow. And like, is that a crazy conspiracy theory? I mean, it's just the fact that, like, the presidents, whether it's Mexico, US and other countries, and monarchs, prime ministers are in this club. Again, they're rubbing elbows. So then if you're a freemason and I'm a Freemason and we're both out there in the world doing our thing, we have this sort of camaraderie with each other. Right. So again, if there's a way I can help you as a Brother Mason, then I'm gonna do that. Right. And vice versa. So it's people. Sometimes they think they, like. It's like this cackling. It's just. It's just business deals. It's just business deals, you know? And you have relationships from hanging out the Bohemian Grove or hanging out the Bilderberg Grouper because you're a Freemason or because you're a Jesuit. Those relationships matter a lot more than people want to believe. They just think it's like, no, no. We're just all. Everything that we see above the surface in the political world. That's where the decisions are really being made. It's kind of like that iceberg meme. Right. That's like the tip of the iceberg. And then all the real action is in the secret society meetings and private relationships and things like that. That I think it's just. It's more natural than people want to believe.
Interviewer
Yeah. I think people think they're conspiring behind everyone's backs. I don't know if it's that evil.
Derek
Sometimes it's not even in behind our back. Sometimes it's right in front of our faces. I mean, that's the other thing, too, about my. The research I was doing on the Pyramid of Power. I mean, you can. This is one area that Jones has been right over the years, is if you study the books of, say, David Rockefeller and his book memoirs is one example. It's a big new Brzezinski who is now dead. And he was a presidential advisor from Carter to Obama and, like, you know, advised every major president. He helped fund the. The mujahideen in Afghanistan. And just this super deep state guy, I would say, right. He's got a book called Technocracy called Between Two Ages America. Between Two Ages, the Technotronic Era. And it's in this book where he describes much of what I'm warning about in my book, where he describes, like, a future police state that's run by technology. And he acknowledges, like, we probably would have to curtail individual liberty quite a bit to get to this world, but it would have all these great economic benefits. Right. It's an academic book that the average person's not paying attention to. Right. But his peers are paying attention to it. The people they run with. And that's somebody that's in a position of government. It's often like that. Like in these. In their memoirs or in these think tanks like the World Economic Forum or whatever else they put out white papers they put out, they have their own conferences. The average person is just trying to pay their bills, go about their day. They're not reading all that stuff, they're not keeping up with it. But that doesn't mean there's not an open conspiracy, like an open plan by people who again have relationships and might have different goals than the average person has.
Interviewer
That makes sense. Where could people find your book, man, and watch all your stuff? This was a fun episode.
Derek
Yeah. The book is at my website. My main website's theconsciousresistance.com people can pick it up there. The conscious resistance.com how to there's a free audiobook, there's a free PDF there and of course you can buy. It's available in Spanish, German, French and Japanese is coming soon. And yeah, like, I mean it's, it's got, got all my ideas that I've lived and practiced myself. I think if people take them and take what works, not saying it'll all apply for everybody, but I think it gives people some ideas of how we can face this pyramid of power. Plus this growing kind of push towards the digital world and find tool, you know, find ways to navigate that. Because I think that's what's going to be most important. You mentioned real id. We got facial recognition, things like social credit scores. There's some potential for a very, you know, very not good world coming. Yeah, there's also potential for a lot of good and it really just depends on how we each relate to technology and what steps we take. So that's kind of the focus of that book is give people some ideas and some tools.
Interviewer
Love it, man. We'll link it below. We'll link the 17 part series as well. Thanks for coming on, Derek.
Derek
Appreciate you, brother. Yep. Check them out guys.
Interviewer
See you next time.
Episode: DSH #1442
Published: July 11, 2025
Host: Sean Kelly
Guest: Derrick Broze
In this thought-provoking episode, independent journalist, author, and activist Derrick Broze joins Sean Kelly to critically examine the evolution of Bitcoin and broader issues regarding control, sovereignty, and the hidden forces that shape society. Broze reflects on a decade-plus in crypto, the shift of Bitcoin’s ethos, the role of secret societies in historical and present-day power structures, and his investigative documentary project "Pyramid of Power." The conversation traverses personal experience, skepticism, activism, and solutions for individuals seeking more autonomy in a shifting digital world.
[01:15 - 02:43]
Derrick attended the latest Bitcoin conference, reflecting on its changed atmosphere—where challenging questions are unwelcome, and politicians are “let off the hook” if they say the right things:
Early Bitcoin culture was about personal sovereignty, avoiding banks and taxes, and offering a true alternative to government-backed currency. The original excitement centered on anti-bank, decentralized principles.
Bitcoin’s shift: Now, the major players are increasingly focused on regulation, mainstream adoption, and treating bitcoin more like a stock than a revolutionary tool.
Cultural commodification: Broze critiques the proliferation of crypto projects with celebrity backing for quick profit—diluting original ideals.
[07:45 - 09:46]
Derrick’s personal practice: Since 2008 he has made efforts to extricate himself from traditional banking, using tactics like local credit unions, digital “neo-banks,” even living without a cellphone or driver’s license for years.
Skepticism toward “sovereign citizen” movements: Derrick distances himself from dubious exit strategies sold online, advocating instead for practical incremental steps (“exit and build”).
[17:14 - 19:58]
Challenging defaults: Broze highlights friends who don’t register their children with birth certificates, questioning the “automatic” enrollment into systems.
Role of extremes: He contends that having people challenging authority on the “extreme end” helps others reconsider mainstream practices. Even if one doesn’t go that far, it seeds questioning.
[19:58 - 38:59]
Documentary genesis: Broze’s multi-year, 17-part series traces the interrelated systems—big tech, banking, secret societies—shaping our world.
Standards & methodology: Broze calls out the alternative media’s lack of correction culture and vows transparency.
Structure: Each episode builds in depth, always ending with potential solutions—designed as an accessible gateway for skeptics or the curious. All transcripts and references are public.
Notable impact: Homeschoolers use the series as curriculum. Young people have reached out to Broze, crediting it for “shifting their paradigm.”
[39:55 - 57:25]
Examining real and alleged power: Broze discusses the Freemasons, Jesuits, Illuminati, Zionists, and more. He emphasizes that "secret society" is too broad: groups ebb and flow in influence, and their stated values sometimes align with liberty.
Modern-day influence: Institutions like Bohemian Grove, Bilderberg, and others persist—American presidents, Supreme Court justices, and elites attend.
On the limiting power of such groups: Much of the so-called "conspiracy" is overt, in think-tank whitepapers and memoirs—ordinary people simply aren't paying attention.
Cautions on simplification: Dismisses reductionist claims that any single group is "at the top" (e.g. "it's all the Jews" or "it's the Freemasons"), instead arguing for complexity and nuance.
Occult & symbolism: Explores religious bias in conspiracy research, notes how different practices (e.g. Druidic rituals) are often labeled “evil” by default by those from strict religious backgrounds.
[57:25 - 58:27]
Broze's toolkit:
All his documentaries, transcripts, and reference PDFs are available free. USBs and DVDs will be available for those who want hard copies with extra content.
On Bitcoin’s changing spirit:
"If this is going to be something that can compete with the mainstream system, it's a cool idea. But if people can't use it anywhere, then they're like, okay, what am I supposed to do with this funny Internet money?" (Derrick, 05:24)
On “exit and build”:
"I kind of see this in terms of steps of moving away from these systems that aren't aligned with our values..." (Derrick, 11:22)
On the danger of unchecked alternative media:
"Some people don't care how loose they are with the truth... and that I think is dangerous." (Derrick, 21:50)
On the pervasiveness of conspiracy theory thinking in history:
"People don't realize that conspiracy theories are really the foundation of the US. Ever since the beginning... people have had conspiracy theories, and I think some of them are true." (Derrick, 33:11)
On the value of pushing boundaries:
"I always think you do need people on the extremes... but maybe it leads to people just questioning, you know, the foundational systems. And that's important too." (Derrick, 19:09)
Derrick Broze offers a rare combination of lived experience, rigorous research, and critical skepticism—questioning both mainstream and alternative narratives. He advocates for incremental, practical ways to reduce reliance on centralized systems, pushes for accountability in “truth-seeking” media, and invites listeners to question foundational social structures without succumbing to simplistic answers. The “Pyramid of Power” series embodies these values, serving as both a resource and an invitation to critical, solution-oriented inquiry.
Links Mentioned: