The Nonbinary Prophet History Tried To Erase | TMT 180

Summary

Too Many Tabs with Pearlmania500

Episode 180: "The Nonbinary Prophet History Tried To Erase"

Date: June 7, 2026
Hosts: Pearlmania500 (Alex Perlman) & Mrs. P

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Overview of the Episode

In this episode, Alex and Mrs. P, the husband and wife team behind "Too Many Tabs," dive deep into the remarkable and oft-forgotten history of the Public Universal Friend—a person in the late 1700s now recognized by many historians as the first recorded nonbinary figure in the original 13 colonies. This is a listener-suggested, research-heavy episode weaving together radical religious movements, gender expression, early American politics, and the ongoing battle for inclusive historical narratives. The conversation is lively, irreverent, insightful, and draws pointed parallels between 1776 and today.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Origins of the Public Universal Friend (PUF)

• [02:01] The episode topic was suggested by a Patreon supporter: "someone suggested the public universal Friend."
• [06:25] Born Jemima Wilkinson in 1752 Rhode Island to a large Quaker family connected to colonial leadership.
• [07:55] Raised with the Society of Friends (Quakers), with parents Amy and Jeremiah—Jeremiah was cousin to Stephen Hopkins, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
• [09:04] Jemima described as strong, athletic, and “the horse girl” of the family.

Family Turmoil & Social Upheaval

• [13:14] By the mid-1770s, after associating with New Light Baptists who focused on individual enlightenment (in contrast to collectivist Quaker values), Jemima and siblings are “disowned” by the local Society of Friends.
• [14:53] The entire Wilkinson family, for various reasons—from military service to illegitimate births—is ejected from the church.
• [15:22] Mrs. P contextualizes this as a "world crisis of faith" during the Revolutionary War, amplified by misogyny and church politics.

The Transformative Near-Death Experience

• [16:18 - 19:43]
  • In 1776, Jemima contracts a severe illness (likely typhus), is bedridden and nearly dies.
  • Upon regaining consciousness, Jemima claims to have died and been resurrected with a new spirit—now known as the Public Universal Friend, charged by God to preach.
  • Quote [19:04], Mrs. P: “They received revelations from God through two archangels who proclaimed... ‘room, room, room in many mansions of eternal glory for thee and for everyone.’”
  • The Friend insists that Jemima's soul is gone, replaced by a new, genderless spirit with a divine mission.

Nonbinary Identity & Social Disruption

• [23:40]
  • The Public Universal Friend firmly rejects binary gender: “The friend refused to answer to the name Jemima Wilkinson... identified as neither male nor female. The Friend asked not to be referred to with gendered pronouns. Followers respected these wishes.”
  • They are addressed strictly as "the Public Universal Friend," "the Friend," or "PUF," and even contemporaries avoid gendered pronouns in public/private writing.
  • Quote [29:55], Mrs. P: “When someone asked if the friend was male or female, the preacher replied, ‘I am that I am,’ adding... ‘I am not accountable to mortals.’”

Preaching, Community, and Radical Theology

• [33:26] The Friend, accompanied by siblings also exiled from the Quaker community, travels widely, preaching throughout New England and Pennsylvania.
  • Preaches repentance, salvation, and the coming of judgment, predicting a mysterious “dark day” (which many believed was realized in 1780’s historic darkening of New England skies).
• [37:37] The Friend rarely carries a Bible but quotes large sections from memory, earning respect as a preacher with a clear, direct style.
• [43:39] Founds the Society of Universal Friends, attracting both women and men (predominantly under 40, and largely ex-Quakers/extremely "youth vote" vibes).
• [46:25] Group’s theology is radical for the era: gender equality, spiritual egalitarianism, and rejection of predestination.
  • Quote [53:26], Mrs. P: "They held that anyone, regardless of gender, could gain access to God’s light… with free will to choose how to act and behave."

Social Impact: Gender, Race, and Women's Power

• [53:52] The Friend actively urges manumission of enslaved people; at least some formerly enslaved Black members help legally witness manumission documents—an act with serious personal risk at the time.
• [66:29] The "Faithful Sisterhood"—dozens of unmarried women—assume leading, often-male-coded roles within the group, forming communal households, eschewing marriage, and living radically independent lives.
  • Quote [66:59], Mrs. P: "Women should obey God rather than men."
  • [67:22] High proportion of women as heads of households in Universal Friends settlements (20%—extraordinary for the period).

Scandal, Slander, and Institutional Resistance

• [47:24, 50:22] Newspapers, especially in Philadelphia, attack the Friend and followers, focusing on gender ambiguity over theology. Sensational rumors—about forced divorces, property theft, and miracle-working—abound, though unsupported by any evidence.
  • Quote [50:28], Alex: “Most papers focused more on the preacher’s ambiguous gender than on their theology.”
• [77:25 - 83:51] When some male followers turn against the Friend (notably after land disputes in New York), they organize posses and legal attacks: failed blasphemy charges, a dramatic horseback escape, and women in the commune physically fighting off would-be arresters.
  • Memorable segment [81:23]: "25 women… with rollers and pans and nails and hoes… chase them out of the home."
• [83:00] Ultimately, the Ontario County Court dismisses blasphemy charges, inviting the Public Universal Friend to deliver a sermon to the courtroom—a triumph archly noted by the hosts.

Relationships and Historical Visibility

• [69:23] Sarah Richards, a close companion who adopts similar dress, manages property for the Friend and is appointed a preacher—indicating both the centrality of women and the gender nonconformity in leadership.
• [72:32] The Public Universal Friend is "in the orbit" of Founding Fathers, even speaking at events with (or hosted by) figures like Thomas Morris (son of financial system architect Robert Morris) and Secretary of State Timothy Pickering—evidence of real political engagement and contemporary status.

Decline and Legacy

• [84:40] The Friend dies in 1819; by 1860s, the Society of Universal Friends fades away, though not without having planted seeds for abolitionism, women's leadership, and radical religious dissent.
  • Quote [85:43], Alex: "...the seeds that the Friend planted in American society...they bloomed. Because things like abolition, universal suffrage...the pushback against gender conformity...what they started ended up having repercussions further down, even though we don’t remember the fact they planted."
  • [86:48] Mrs. P makes the pointed observation that when "founders" are invoked as anti-progress, it's forgotten that America's founders literally met and heard out a nonbinary religious leader.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the importance of respecting pronouns even in the 1700s:
  Mrs. P [27:52]: “There are historical records of people that were friends with the public universal friend who maintained their understanding of the way they wanted to be described, even in those private diaries.”
• On radical inclusion:
  Mrs. P [64:00]: “They were very hospitable towards indigenous people, to whom the preacher generally held a very cordial relationship.”
• On slander and the press:
  Alex [50:28]: “Most papers focused more on the preacher's ambiguous gender than on their theology. A shock.”
• On property disputes degenerating into violence:
  Mrs. P [81:23]: “25 women... chase them [the would-be arresters] out of the home... with farm equipment.”
• On erasure and history:
  Alex [72:54]: “That’s amazing. And we’ve never heard of this person.” Mrs. P [86:48]: “The public universal friend shared meals with the founding fathers. The founding fathers sat across from a non-binary person and respected them.”

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Timeline of Important Segments

| Timestamp | Topic | |-----------|-------| | 02:01 | Episode topic is revealed: Public Universal Friend | | 06:25 | Introduction of Jemima Wilkinson and family background | | 13:14 | Ejection of the Wilkinsons from the Quakers | | 16:18 | Wilkinson falls ill—beginnings of transformation | | 19:04 | Near-death vision and resurrection as Public Universal Friend | | 23:40 | Name, pronouns, and strict avoidance of gendered language | | 29:55 | Famous exchange: “I am not accountable to mortals.” | | 33:26 | Beginning of itinerant preaching | | 37:37 | Preaching style: memorization and charisma | | 43:39 | Society of Universal Friends is founded | | 46:25 | Radical positions: equality, manumission, abolitionist work | | 50:22 | Media backlash & gender scandal | | 66:29 | Female leadership: “Faithful Sisterhood” & communal living | | 69:23 | Relationship with Sarah Friend and proto-feminist organization | | 72:32 | Connections to key political figures and power brokers | | 77:25 - 83:51 | Failed legal attacks & dramatic defense by women of the commune | | 84:40 | The Friend’s death and legacy | | 86:48 | Rethinking the Founders vs. inclusive narratives |

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Original Language & Tone Highlights

• The conversational style is witty, irreverent, and peppered with asides and pop culture references (from Hasan Piker to Slay the Spire to Bruno Mars).
• The hosts blend meticulous primary source research with comedic banter:

  Alex [29:55]: “Watch them back the fuck... Everybody backs the fuck up on that one.”

• Use of historical context to comment on current affairs: connections to pronoun discourse and ongoing fights over American history.
• Memorable running gags: frequent callbacks to horse girls, Pennsylvania/Philly pride, and the Partridge Family model for dissident religious groups.
• References to modern right-wing backlash, COVID-era psyops, and the erasure of radical history are woven throughout.

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Final Reflections & Takeaways

Mrs. P [86:48]:
"Whenever we hear people screaming that the woke mob is making this up and… 'This is not what the founding fathers wanted for America'... The public universal friend shared meals with the founding fathers. The founding fathers sat across from a non-binary person and respected them."

• The hosts challenge not only the erasure of the Public Universal Friend but also the contemporary weaponization of “history” as a tool against gender/diversity justice. They demonstrate that radical inclusion, gender nonconformity, and abolitionist activism are not new American stories—they are central, if often erased, chapters.

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Listen For...

• The complete narrative arc of the Public Universal Friend, from marginalized Quaker child to nonbinary prophet and movement builder.
• Sharp, contemporary connections between 18th-century religious “cancel culture,” gender discourse, and present-day culture wars.
• Historical deep cuts about land law, Black emancipation, blasphemy charges, and forgotten feminist movements.
• Plenty of off-the-wall, smart, and funny digressions to keep the history lesson fresh.

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A fascinating, detail-rich, perspective-flipping episode on forgotten American prophecy, community, and queer/trans historical erasure—both a lesson and a call to rethink what (and who) counts as American history.

Transcript

[Mrs. P]

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[Alex Perlman]

You didn't start a business just to keep the lights on. You're here to sell more today than yesterday. You're here to win. Lucky for you, Shopify built the best converting checkout on the planet. Like the just one tapping ridiculously fast acting sky high sales stacking champion at checkouts. That's the good stuff right there. So if your business is in it to win it, win with Shopify. Start your free trial [e-mail] win. Some people think that woke is dead. But what happens when a woman dies so hard that she becomes woker than anyone else back in 1776. That's right. We're covering non binary history from 250 years ago that involved the founding Fathers. You're not gonna get this from the United States government. They've literally banned it today on too many times. Remember to smile. Welcome to Too Many Tabs, a podcast where a husband and wife duo sit next to each other at table. And this is the table. This is the wife. I'm the husband. And this is the episode. And I've been told that today this is a very special episode.

[Mrs. P]

It is very special because we're taking suggestions.

[Alex Perlman]

Today we took a suggestion.

[Mrs. P]

That's right.

[Alex Perlman]

From where?

[Mrs. P]

On our Patreon.

[Alex Perlman]

Our Patreon.

[Mrs. P]

Every once in a while I put up a Google Doc.

[Alex Perlman]

You do.

[Mrs. P]

And I take suggestions from our Patreon on what they want to hear us

[Alex Perlman]

talk about over at Pearlmania500.

[Mrs. P]

Net. Yes, that's right. And so I did a big Patreon poll and I said, what do you guys want to hear me talk about?

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

And somebody suggested the public universal Friend.

[Alex Perlman]

The public universal Friend.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Alex Perlman]

That is a very crazy name.

[Mrs. P]

Y Listen, I know. And we're going to get into how this name came about, but basically they're a Quaker gone rogue.

[Alex Perlman]

Rogue Quaker.

[Mrs. P]

Rogue Quaker. We love a rogue.

[Alex Perlman]

We do love a rogue Quaker. But a rogue Quaker can go one of two directions.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Alex Perlman]

One is amazing, which is Benjamin Lay, a dwarf that lived in a cave that was an abolitionist in the mid-1700s who used to stab a Bible full of blood to scare people like Benjamin Franklin to be coming against slavery.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

And the other side is Richard Nixon.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, gross.

[Alex Perlman]

Richard Nixon is also a rogue Quaker. A lot of people forget that. We've had two Quaker presidents, both of them horrific for America in the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

We like. We like the kind in the cave. We like.

[Alex Perlman]

We like a cave Quaker. Give us a cave Quaker. Is this more along the line of a cave Quaker story?

[Mrs. P]

Yes, but no caves.

[Alex Perlman]

No caves.

[Mrs. P]

No caves. Okay, so here's. Here's the episode, right. The public universal friend is one person.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

And we're going to be discussing them in the historical context of the 1700s. So things are not going to be as accurate as they would be today in 2026 with our language. And I want to kind of give some buffer room.

[Alex Perlman]

I'm noticing you're using specific pronouns.

[Mrs. P]

Yes. So the public universal friend is the first non binary person recorded by historians in the original 13American colonies slash states.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay, got it. So. So this is the way historians are looking at it. What they're discussing it, obviously. Obviously. When it comes to Native Americans, indigenous people, two spirits, and the history and cultures of those and that were already here.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Alex Perlman]

They're not being considered for this in that same way as this, I'm assuming, white person that's living in a colony on the eastern seaboard of the United States.

[Mrs. P]

Yes, exactly.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay. The now United States. Got to. Got to.

[Mrs. P]

Got it. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so wait, let's start in the beginning.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay, let's start. But before we start real fast, we have an announcement.

[Mrs. P]

What is it?

[Alex Perlman]

Because we've been saying it on the Patreon. We've been saying on the audio only portions of this podcast.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

We haven't said it on video.

[Mrs. P]

Oh.

[Alex Perlman]

Because this episode is being dropped on June 7, but next weekend.

[Mrs. P]

Next weekend, June 14, you're doing your first live event. I'm going to be at my first

[Alex Perlman]

live event in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

[Mrs. P]

Lancaster or Lancaster? Let me know in the comments.

[Alex Perlman]

It's Lancaster.

[Mrs. P]

I get it wrong every time.

[Alex Perlman]

But you're going to be in Lancaster at Pocketbooks.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. No, I'm not gonna be at Pocketbooks.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Bookstore. They actually rented out a venue called the Inn at Leola Village. And we are. I'm gonna be part of it, doing a big horror wedding theme event. And so basically everyone's coming dressed up there's gonna be a three course dinner and then a literary salon where authors of four different horror books are gonna sit with me, yours truly, who's going to be the host of the literary salon, and we're going to discuss horror books. And the whole central theme is wedding. So if you want to come dressed as a wedding guest or a bride or a zombie or a zombie bridegroom, whatever you want.

[Alex Perlman]

What about a Dracula?

[Mrs. P]

Is, is it wedding themed?

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, Wedding, Dracula.

[Mrs. P]

Wedding Dracula.

[Alex Perlman]

Wedding Dracula.

[Mrs. P]

You are not invited.

[Alex Perlman]

I am not going to be there. Because it's your event.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Alex Perlman]

It's Mrs. P's first, first ever live event. She's. She's doing this and I think isn't one of the authors is one of the books that we covered on the Story report.

[Mrs. P]

Yes. Rachel Harrison from the Story report episode called Black Sheep.

[Alex Perlman]

Yes.

[Mrs. P]

Is going to be there because she is putting out a new book called Kiss, Slay, Repeat, I believe. And it's a wedding themed horror book.

[Alex Perlman]

But real fast, real fast. But I just want to tell everyone here, go down to the link in the description below, you can find out more information about that. Uh, but we just kept forgetting to cover it. And so I was like, oh, that's next week. We need to tell people it's next week. It's next week. So if you can't make it, we'll have a new episode of Too Many Tabs. But with that being said, now we've teased you, we've given you a little taste of everything. We've been there. Tell me, Mrs. P. Yes. About the public universal friend, America's historically recorded first non binary person with addendums and asterisks.

[Mrs. P]

Yes, absolutely, yes. So Jemima Wilkinson was born an assigned female at birth.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

November 29, 1752.

[Alex Perlman]

1752. Okay, so there's no overlap with Benjamin.

[Mrs. P]

No, I did check. I was like, I wonder if the public universal friend ever met Benjamin Lay. And once you learn more about them, you're going to be like, that would have been the craziest meeting.

[Alex Perlman]

It would have been a crazy.

[Mrs. P]

But actually Jemima was born about four or five years right before Benjamin Lay passes away. So they never. Their timelines, never.

[Alex Perlman]

They don't have an intercept.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, so Rhode Island Jemima was the eighth child of Amy and Jeremiah Wilkinson.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay. They had a lot of kids back.

[Mrs. P]

A lot of kids. Numbers up.

[Alex Perlman]

You got to get the numbers up because you're losing them all the time.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, exactly.

[Alex Perlman]

There's losing them all the time back in those days. Tiny caskets tiny casket sales were up. But don't worry, RFK is bringing that back. Here's a video of him fighting snakes.

[Mrs. P]

No, don't.

[Alex Perlman]

I am putting on putting for fk. Fighting snakes right behind.

[Mrs. P]

Why would he be here?

[Alex Perlman]

Because. Why not? It's this show. It's our show. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

We could do we want.

[Alex Perlman]

All right.

[Mrs. P]

Jemima Wilkinson. Oh, I'm sorry. Jeremiah. So the dad, Jeremiah Wilkinson, was a cousin of Stephen Hopkins, the colony's longtime governor and signer of the Declaration of Independence.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

So important.

[Alex Perlman]

So there's this crossover.

[Mrs. P]

Little crossover.

[Alex Perlman]

Got it.

[Mrs. P]

The. Their family participated in traditional worship with. With the Society of Friends, the Quakers, at the Smithfield Meeting House.

[Alex Perlman]

Got it.

[Mrs. P]

So they're a Quaker family.

[Alex Perlman]

You know what's funny? It's like the. The way the Quakers speak already is like a little non binary because I was like, we're friends. We're friends.

[Mrs. P]

Like this thing. Welcome, friend.

[Alex Perlman]

Welcome, friend. It's like it already has like that, like gender inclusive, like language. So that's. That's kind of interesting to be there in the first place.

[Mrs. P]

Jemima's mother, Amy, dies when she was 12 or 13 ish. In 1764.

[Alex Perlman]

Mom wasn't 12.

[Mrs. P]

No.

[Alex Perlman]

When.

[Mrs. P]

When Jemima was.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Their mom passed away when they were like 12. Because they had given birth to the 12th child.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, that happened a lot too, back then.

[Mrs. P]

Same thing. It's like, because you have to have maternal care. Because maternal mortality rates. Yeah. Also uptick.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, we're bringing that back to.

[Mrs. P]

No, no, we don't want to bring it back.

[Alex Perlman]

I didn't say we want want to. I just said we as in the America.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. So Jemima Wilkinson was described as having fine black hair and dark eyes, and from an early age was strong and athletic and became an adept equestrian as a child.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Horse. Horse girl.

[Alex Perlman]

So. But real fast, though. Dark hair, dark eyes, strong, athletic, rode horses. We just found the 1760s Hasan Piker. Put up a picture of Hasan Piker on a horse. No, that. There it is. That's a young Hasan Piker riding a horse. I don't know.

[Mrs. P]

Hasan here because it's fun. You just going to throw as. I'm just going to the walls because,

[Alex Perlman]

listen, I need to throw things at this for SEO. So that way the algorithm robots will grab random names.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, you're right.

[Alex Perlman]

Because when we're talking about the public.

[Mrs. P]

Universal friend.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah. From the. From 1760 or whatever. Like, it just. It's. I'm just telling you right now. Yeah. This is an interesting story for a very Small niche of people. This is not going to reach summer house.

[Mrs. P]

There it is.

[Alex Perlman]

Oh, there it is. Oh, my God. Hold on. Real sad. What would Candace Owens think about this? There we go.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Alex Perlman]

We don't want to know.

[Mrs. P]

We don't want to know.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah. All right.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. Let's see. There is. Okay. Little else is reliably known about Wilkinson's childhood. Some early accounts describe Wilkinson as being fond of fine clothing and averse to labor. But there is no evidence of this and some scholars consider it doubtful and that it may have been invented to fit a then common narrative that people who experience dramatic religious awakenings were formally lazy sinners.

[Alex Perlman]

Oh, okay.

[Mrs. P]

So you can see where I'm. Where it's going.

[Alex Perlman]

This is also a thing, though. This is. This is also a thing. I was actually recently learning about, like, different, like, like gods from like pre. Pre Muslim tradition. And the. The difference that we have in a lot of these. These areas, especially when it comes to historical record. Most historical record is about rich men.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

And so women are always forgotten. Commoners are always forgotten. And that was what was interesting when I was learning about this, because they were talking about these gods that were being directly prayed to by like shepherds versus stuff being written by priests because of the way that this society works. But in this case, there probably isn't much matter because they were just like, oh, yeah, the horse girl.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

Oh, she's a horse girl.

[Mrs. P]

That was what they had eight of 12 kids. Yes. In a small quick.

[Alex Perlman]

In Rhode Island.

[Mrs. P]

Rhode Island.

[Alex Perlman]

I want you to think real fast. What do you know about anyone from Rhode Island? Name? Rhode island has two senators. Name one of them. You can't. They've been a senator for a while probably too. You have no information. Where is Rhode island exactly? Is it real? It has more counties than Delaware. That's a fact. You just got pearled.

[Mrs. P]

In the mid-1770s, Wilkinson began attending meetings with the New Light Baptists, who had formed as part of the Great Awakening and emphasized individual enlightenment and stopped. And then they stopped attending meetings at the Society of Friends. Okay. So they. They meet some Baptists, basically. And the Baptists are like, what about individual enlightenment? Because a lot of times, especially in. In Jewish culture, it's about our God. It's not about my personal relationship with God. It's more about our relationship with God.

[Alex Perlman]

And in Quakerism too, it's about the community.

[Mrs. P]

It's about the community as a whole. But this New Light Baptist group was like, but what about your personal relationship with God? God and personal enlightenment. Right. Yeah. And this is against the teachings of Quaker.

[Alex Perlman]

This is also the idea of the born again idea starts to pop up and purity and the Great Awakening is a very insane time in American history that has repercussions to today.

[Mrs. P]

But this is not that episode.

[Alex Perlman]

Not about that.

[Mrs. P]

No.

[Alex Perlman]

No.

[Mrs. P]

The Wilkinson ends up being disciplined for hanging out with the New Light Baptist in. In February of 1776.

[Alex Perlman]

To be fair, you should hit people for hanging out with Baptists. Sometimes you gotta. You gotta walk, be like, are you hanging out with Baptists? That's a Canaan.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, I don't think so, buddy. So in February 1776, they get disowned by the Smithfield Meeting group.

[Alex Perlman]

Oh.

[Mrs. P]

So they're like.

[Alex Perlman]

Their whole church is like, get out of here.

[Mrs. P]

Go on out. Get.

[Alex Perlman]

Go on, get.

[Mrs. P]

Now, Baptist lover. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. It wasn't just Jemima. Basically, their whole family starts getting dismissed from the Smithfield meeting house for different reasons. Reasons. Wilkinson's sister Patience was also dismissed around the same time for having an illegitimate. Illegitimate child.

[Alex Perlman]

Oh.

[Mrs. P]

And their brother Stephen. Stephen and Jephthah. Jepthiah. Jephthah had been dismissed by the Society in May of 1776 for training for military service. Because again, 1776, the Quakers are not war people.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, Quakers. Quakers are pacifists. Yeah, they're pacifists. And they all usually are conscientious objectors. So if there's a draft, a lot of Quakers will go to war, but they'll usually be in medical or they'll be in the staff side.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

Not holding a rifle.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

Is typically the go to on that one. And so this is crazy. Yeah, it's also. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So the whole family's getting. Literally kicking them out.

[Alex Perlman]

Like The Wilkinson, literally 250 years ago.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, exactly.

[Alex Perlman]

America 250, baby.

[Mrs. P]

This is my America 250 episode.

[Alex Perlman]

This is. Look at that. We're bringing a lot of things together here.

[Mrs. P]

In June of 2026, amid these family disturbances, I do love that the entire

[Alex Perlman]

family is getting canceled.

[Mrs. P]

The entire family is getting the one sister or weirdly.

[Alex Perlman]

But also for weirdly being too woke for Quakers.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

Like wild. All right.

[Mrs. P]

Amid these family disturbances and the broader ones of the American Revolutionary War, the Jemima is also dissatisfied with the New Light Baptists.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

And so they're really not hanging out with them either. They're. They're basically. They're having a real. Not a come to God moment, but like a real breakdown of their belief system. Every. It's 1776, America is a world crisis of faith, but, but also a crisis of their American dream at that time.

[Alex Perlman]

And they're like what, like 25, 24,

[Mrs. P]

their sister is having this baby. Yeah, they're, they're witnessing the misogyny of probably the man in this situation not being held at account, but the sister being kicked out of the church.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So there's like, there's all this stuff happening.

[Alex Perlman]

They've been about, it's been about their mom died almost half their life ago.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

So reaching the second half of their life now has been completely without their mom, which, which can affect people in different ways. And. Yeah, yeah. There's the Great Awakening too, is a big period of time where there's so much shuffling that's happening. Yeah, there's these churches used to be basically their own districts. And around the Great Awakening you had traveling preachers who'd come through and just like talk shit on the local church. People like started schisms and then like families would fight. And it went from like this period of relative calm to, to like a lot of turbulence.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

And then on top of that you have the American Revolution, which is like wild.

[Mrs. P]

So In October of 1776, Wilkinson contracted an epidemic disease, most likely typhus, and was bedridden and near death with a high fever. Okay, okay.

[Alex Perlman]

Seven, 250 years ago.

[Mrs. P]

250 years ago, the family summoned a doctor from about six miles away and neighbors and friends kept death watch at night. Okay, this is bad. This is very sick, very high fever. So we have people literally watching all night to make sure that they don't die or that there is a witness if they do. Their fever does break after several days. Okay, Now Jemima Wilkinson had died of this illness, according to Jemima. Okay, okay.

[Alex Perlman]

She wakes up and was like, I was dead.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Okay, let's take a break and see what happens after they die.

[Alex Perlman]

Get Premium Wireless for 15 bucks a month with Mint Mobile. No gimmicks or gotchas. Just unlimited talk, text and data with fast and reliable coverage, all on the nation's largest 5G network. Choose from a 3, 6 or 12 month plan and say goodbye to that pricey monthly phone bill. Bring your current phone and number over to Mint. No long term contracts, no hassle. Mint makes it Easy with a 7 day money back guarantee. And not only do we use mint, Mrs.

[Mrs. P]

Yes, absolutely.

[Alex Perlman]

Our family uses Mint, our friends use Mint.

[Mrs. P]

Everybody we meet, we're like, are you using Mint Mobile?

[Alex Perlman]

When you call us, legit people will be like, oh man, Gas is so expensive. Food is so expensive. I'm like, but your phone doesn't have to be. And they're like, are you pitching me an ad right now? And I go, yeah. Yes. Because Mint Mobile has been a sponsor of this podcast for a while now, and they've been a sponsor of us. Saving money. To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com tabs. That's mintmobile.com tab tabs. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a [e-mail] tabs. That's it. There's no catch. $45 upfront payment required. Equivalent to $15 a month new customers on first three months plan only. Speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply. So they died.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

They had a fever. They died.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Alex Perlman]

Then they woke up.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. So they. According to Jemima, they died. Okay, okay. They had. When they died, they received revelations from God through two arch archangels who proclaim that there was quote, room, room, room in many mansions of eternal glory for the and for everyone.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay, yeah, wait. Okay. So this is the opposite of usually how that goes. I just want to say that usually when people have near death experiences, especially a fever, they end up like Caligula, the emperor of Rome, who just starts declaring themselves God and killing people.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

This is a very different way. I think when men. I think maybe that's what it is. When men have high fevers and nearly die.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

They come back and yell, I am an evil guy.

[Mrs. P]

But first they're super whiny while.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, very whiny.

[Mrs. P]

I feel sick.

[Alex Perlman]

I have a cold.

[Mrs. P]

It's everybody's problem.

[Alex Perlman]

It's a man cold.

[Mrs. P]

Anyway.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, okay, so. So they. There's room, room, room, room, room, room

[Mrs. P]

in many mansions of eternal glory for thee and everyone.

[Alex Perlman]

This is very different than Jehovah's Witnesses.

[Mrs. P]

Yep.

[Alex Perlman]

Jehovah's Witnesses are like.

[Mrs. P]

It's so much space, buddy.

[Alex Perlman]

Wow. Listen, this is. We got. It's a timeshare. Heaven is a time.

[Mrs. P]

I don't get people to join the religion if they know there's only so much room.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, that's. That's a. That's a fair point. That's. I've thought about that a lot. And I asked them, when they knock on the door and then they go,

[Mrs. P]

they're like, oh, maybe I'm just being sent here so that people will be mean to me. So I'll stay in my cult because

[Alex Perlman]

I think it's dangerous That's Mormonism.

[Mrs. P]

It's all of them.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. So accounts by the doctor and other witnesses state that the illness was real, but none of them say that Wilkinson's died a physical death.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Alex Perlman]

I will say I've had a pretty. I've had a moment where I thought it felt like I was dying.

[Mrs. P]

Uhhuh.

[Alex Perlman]

I had food poisoning from meatball in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

And it was when we were living in that really tiny house in Pennsylvania. Philly.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

Remember our first one that.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, the first one that doesn't even exist anymore.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah. It got tore down. It got torn down. But the bathroom there was so small and my food poisoning was so bad that I was sitting on the toilet. Throwing up into the sink.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Because the sink touched your knees.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah. It was so. It was so close. And I remember resting my head on the sink. The coolness of the sink.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

And. And I felt my body shut down. And with really old televisions, you could cut them off, and you actually watch the light kind of dissipate to this single dot that would blink out.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

And I remember my consciousness going down to this single dot, but just, you know, it was a very hot day. I think it was, like, June or July.

[Mrs. P]

It was. We didn't have air.

[Alex Perlman]

We didn't have air conditioning. The window was open, and we were next to this public park where these really jerk kids used to hang out. And they had a stack of speakers and. And I'll never forget, it was the one kid, he was a bully. He was a bully kid who would steal bicycles.

[Mrs. P]

He steals his bike and be so mean to everybody.

[Alex Perlman]

He was mean to everybody, including us.

[Mrs. P]

Including adults.

[Alex Perlman]

Including us. I remember at one point, he got into a fight with me, and I was like, your dad's name isn't even on your birth certificate. It's on your mom's neck, though. And then it was, like, a whole thing. But anyway, I remember, like, I was dying and looking out the window, and he was circling his bicycle, and this big stack of speakers was playing a Bruno Mars song. It was like. It was like, one of, like, the lovey ballads from, like, Bruno Mars.

[Mrs. P]

Sure.

[Alex Perlman]

And I just started, like, looking at that and just feeling it turn, like life slipping away and just being like. I guess. And then in this moment, like, it. Like, it, like, basically snuffed. And then there was an explosion, and it felt like the big bang. And I opened my eyes, and it was like I got to the other side of the food poisoning. Yeah, it was whatever. That last bit of food Poisoning. It was out of me. I don't know which direction it went. All of them. But I went. Oh. And I was fine then. Yeah. But that was that moment. And like, I. Like if I. If this was the 1700s and I didn't know what food poisoning was.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

Where. If this was a different period in my life, if I was in a cave, if I was in a cab, I would have 100% been like, I had a vision. I want to be a billionaire so freaking bad. To quote Bruno Mars, like, that was. That wasn't the song. It was a very. Oh, it was the flower song.

[Mrs. P]

The flower song.

[Alex Perlman]

I would have brought you flower. You know what I mean? It was that one I'll never get. He was this chubby little bully.

[Mrs. P]

He was so mean.

[Alex Perlman]

He was so mean.

[Mrs. P]

You would be. He'd ride around.

[Alex Perlman]

He always had oversized.

[Mrs. P]

Our dog.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah. He was just this, like, Irish white kid and he was always sunburnt with a shaved head and like an oversized shirt. He was never indoors because he had a bad house. Like, you look at him like, listen, I have empathy. I have empathy. I can tell nothing's going well for you. Why are you being a jerk to me? I'm walking the dog and the dog had a cone on. It was a whole thing. The dog always had a cone on. I'm sorry. This is about a person in the 1700s.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So they.

[Alex Perlman]

They die.

[Mrs. P]

They die. Non physical death.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Wilkinson stated that Jemima's soul had ascended to heaven and that the body had been reanimated with a new spirit, charged by God with preaching his word. And that the quote, public universal freedom friend, that's describing the name of themselves now.

[Alex Perlman]

So they actually are trying to claim that. They're stating that actually they are two spirits. They're saying that their actual original spirit up until that point is now in heaven.

[Mrs. P]

Yep.

[Alex Perlman]

And they've been replaced by an angelic parasite.

[Mrs. P]

The public universal friend.

[Alex Perlman]

Yes, got it. So the public universal friend now inhibits the body. That was.

[Mrs. P]

That was once Jemima.

[Alex Perlman]

Jemima Wilkinson.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay, got it.

[Mrs. P]

The name referenced the designation of the Society of Friends used for members who traveled from community. Community to preach. Those are the public Friends. So in the Society, we're Friends, but if you start going and preaching, you're a public friend. You're of the public. So they are the public universal friend.

[Alex Perlman]

And so this is actually a thing in Quakers and this is part of, like, they've had some schisms over the years. Traditional Quakers, for those of you guys who don't know. They sit in a room of silence.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

Until someone feels the hand of God touch them and tell them to speak. That was the old idea. Yeah. And the Quaker name comes from them, like, literally shaking from being touched by the hand of God and then having to say what they need to say. And what they're saying is the word of God.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

The public friends. You ended up having some meetings where everybody was boring.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

Nobody had anything to say. So you end up having. These people are like, God has touched me in a way and told me I have to go from meeting to meeting and spread this very specific message.

[Mrs. P]

I've got charisma. You need this nerve and talent.

[Alex Perlman]

Yes. 100. And so they become traveling. So what. What they are saying now.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

Is that they are the public universal friend. They're not just peak speaking at Quakers.

[Mrs. P]

No. They're going.

[Alex Perlman]

They're going everywhere.

[Mrs. P]

Everywhere, baby.

[Alex Perlman]

We're breaking out. We're. We're actually going to snap out of the algorithm.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

We're not just going to be on beauty TikTok. We're going over here to sports TikTok.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, that's a crazy cross.

[Alex Perlman]

Get ready with me to become the public universal friend.

[Mrs. P]

So from that time on, from that moment on, the friend refused to answer to the name Jemima Wilkinson, ignoring and or chastising those who insisted on using it. They identified as neither male nor female. The Friend asked to not to be referred to with gendered pronouns. Followers respected these wishes. They referred to them only as the public universal friend or short form, such as the friend. Or my favorite puf. Puff.

[Alex Perlman]

I was gonna say puff. I was like, there's no way.

[Mrs. P]

Puffy.

[Alex Perlman]

No. Okay, maybe not puffy. Maybe not puffy. Maybe not puffy. Maybe not puffy. Okay.

[Mrs. P]

I just. Love isn't. Don't in the uk Isn't. Poof. Isn't that like. No, don't do that.

[Alex Perlman]

Don't go down that road.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, it's not.

[Alex Perlman]

No, that's a slur.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, it's a slur.

[Alex Perlman]

That's in the. You in the uk. That's a. That's a slur for.

[Mrs. P]

Wow. Okay. I didn't know that.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So they go by puff or puf.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay. I think they probably won by Pu. I think they would say, I don't feel like.

[Mrs. P]

You don't feel like. They said puff.

[Alex Perlman]

Not in 1777.

[Mrs. P]

Puff is so good, though.

[Alex Perlman]

Puff is. Okay. Stop saying puff is so good. Okay. We're in a time of context collapse where the ditty of it all. Oh. Is right there. Did you not pick up what I was putting down or was it too slippery from the baby oil? Okay, all right.

[Mrs. P]

You stop it.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

They.

[Alex Perlman]

Most people, gather yourself, take a breath because I threw a lot at you very fast. It was like a Diddy party.

[Mrs. P]

God damn it. What are you, Katt Williams?

[Alex Perlman]

Hey. No, I'm not that funny. I know, But I do hold a grudge, so fuck you, Kevin. Kevin Hart's a bitch. All right, go ahead. Yeah, so unless he wants to give us money.

[Mrs. P]

Well, okay, stop. You stop. So most people avoided gender specific pronouns when describing the public universal friend, even in private diaries. So there are historical records of people that were friends with the public universal friend who maintained their understanding of the way they wanted to be described, even in those private diaries.

[Alex Perlman]

Yes. Because they viewed them as a person.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Alex Perlman]

And they were trying to be respectful.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Alex Perlman]

Because the whole thing with pronouns, the right and very specific content farms and content creators and literal psyops made it seem like non binary terminology or pronouns in the bio or was a way of control in a very conspiratorial time, especially around Covid. And the thing is, is somebody with a name that men and women have. My first name is Alex. My full name is Alexander, but my first name is Alex. There was. When I've had communications with people via email.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

They oftentimes thought they were talking to a woman because I was explained to me when dealing with men and women in the business world. And I think I've told this story before, maybe I would add, I would try to make sure that I had calmer language because you've dealt with me in text. You've also seen me write emails. And Mrs. P and some mentors have had over the years were like, hey, just so you know, you write your emails a little bit too abrupt to the point where they come off like, you sound like an asshole.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

So I added a little bit more flowery language. I added a couple more happy exclamation points and some emojis here and there. Yeah. And to some people, they then read that as, oh, I'm talking to Alex Perlman, the lady. And so then when I would answer the phone, I would go, hello? They're like, that's not what I was expecting at all. So for me, putting he him pronouns in the bio. Yeah, that would help some people for when they couldn't get the signifiers of a deeper voice or my love of Warhammer 40,000.

[Mrs. P]

Wow.

[Alex Perlman]

So I mean, those things come together and then you go, all right, that guy. That. That's a. That's a very specific.

[Mrs. P]

When someone asked if the friend was male or female, the preacher replied, quote, I am that. I am saying the same thing to a man who criticized the friend's manner of dress, adding, quote, there is nothing indecent or improper in my dress or appearance. I am not accountable to mortals.

[Alex Perlman]

To mortals, yeah. All right. For the people out there that are still. That are still in the non binary fight, who are. No, this is bullshit. This is backlash to the backlash. That's what you're going to say. Yeah, I am not accountable to mortals. Watch them back the fuck. Everybody backs the fuck up on that one.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

Also, I am what I am. I bought by the sailor. Like, that's what I mean. I started.

[Mrs. P]

I am what I am not accountable.

[Alex Perlman]

I am what I am.

[Mrs. P]

The friend dressed in a manner perceived to be either androgynous or masculine.

[Alex Perlman]

This is just like Joan of Arc.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. This Joan of Arc is put in clerical robes. They were most often black, and they wore a white or purple kerchief or cravat around the neck. Oh, kerchief.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Like the men of the time did. Okay, but they were also a preacher.

[Alex Perlman]

But they're also wearing robes. They're like, hey. They're like, hey, you. You're not supposed to be dressing in those long robes.

[Mrs. P]

That's no pants on.

[Alex Perlman]

That's manly. That's. That's just for. Hey, take that robe and wig off. What are you talking to RuPaul? Jesus Christ.

[Mrs. P]

RuPaul doesn't wear robes. They wear fancy corsets.

[Alex Perlman]

No, but this is back in the time when they would wear the big powdered wigs and everything. Yeah, the judges and everything. Yeah. That's my favorite is watching somebody like Clarence Thomas be like, no, butch it up now. Excuse me, I gotta dance in my robe out of here. Clarence.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, there's so many reasons to hate that guy. The preacher did not wear a hair cap indoors like the women of the era. So a lot of women wore cover their hair.

[Alex Perlman]

Oh, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

But the. The public universal friend did not. Okay.

[Alex Perlman]

They were like, that's dumb. I'm an angel.

[Mrs. P]

I like that. There's so much knowledge about what they wore because people were like, what are they wearing?

[Alex Perlman]

No, because this is. This is the controversy of the thing that they can remember.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

And these are going to be the sticking points. Like, they're out here like, no, what are they preaching? What do we have with.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, well, we'll get there.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

It's not. It's good. It's good.

[Alex Perlman]

No, I know. That's what I'm saying is like, so their message is good.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

So then people are going to stick on. Yeah, the dumb shit.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, you're not wearing a lady hat. But when they were outdoors, they wore broad brimmed, low crowned beaver hats. The style worn by Quaker men. And I'm saying that just sounds like a good hat for the outdoors.

[Alex Perlman]

The non binary persons wearing beaver hats. I'm just throwing it out there. This is just feels very much. Did they have a wolf cut?

[Mrs. P]

Accounts of the Friends quote, feminine, masculine tone of voice varied from. Hearers described it as clear and harmonious or said the preacher spoke with ease and facilitate facility. Faculty, faculty, faculty. Clearly, though without elegance.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay, so they're speaking in plain language to people that they can understand.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, exactly.

[Alex Perlman]

But they're not using flowery language like some guy who went to Harvard who's coming around the corner being like, no, you must bequeath to me the obsequiousness.

[Mrs. P]

The Friend was said to have moved easily, freely and modestly, and was described as being decent, graceful and grave.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay, decent. Great. All right, all right. You can't be all of those things at the same time.

[Mrs. P]

Yes, you can.

[Alex Perlman]

Decent grace.

[Mrs. P]

The public Universal friend is.

[Alex Perlman]

Am I, Am I graceful and great? I'm not graceful.

[Mrs. P]

You're not graceful.

[Alex Perlman]

I'm not graceful. I could be graceful though.

[Mrs. P]

You'd have to really try.

[Alex Perlman]

I'd have to work at it.

[Mrs. P]

So the Friend began to travel grave, though. Grave is so funny.

[Alex Perlman]

I guess. I mean, but there are. They are from Rhode Island. Yeah, There is a graveness to New Englanders.

[Mrs. P]

There it is. Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

You know what I mean? Like that's a New England thing I want to say.

[Mrs. P]

The Friend began to travel and preach throughout Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, accompanied by their brother Stephen and sisters Deborah, Elizabeth, Marcy and Patience. All of whom were disowned by the Society of Friends.

[Alex Perlman]

So we just have a traveling canceled band. Yeah, they're pushing their new scroll triggered.

[Mrs. P]

The whole family is just like, listen, wrap it up. We're going out here to these streets.

[Alex Perlman]

This is so. What was that? It's the Partridge Family. Yeah, this is just the 1770s, 1780s Partridge Family.

[Mrs. P]

I'd watch this show. Maybe they have public universal friend.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, Come on. Yo, Puff is coming to town.

[Mrs. P]

You said we weren't allowed to call them Puff.

[Alex Perlman]

But it's Puff the Magic Dragon. No, the magic Quaker.

[Mrs. P]

Early on, the public Universal Friend preached that people needed to Repent of their sins and be saved before an imminent day of judgment.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

According to Abner Brownell, the preacher predicted that the fulfillment of some prophecies of revelations would begin to happen around 1780. 42 months after Universal friend began preaching this, the New England's dark day happened. And many felt that this was a fulfillment of that prediction. So the new. The New England's dark day occurred May 19, 1780, when an unusual darkening of the daytime sky was observed over the New England states and part of eastern Canada. The primary cause of the event is believed to have been a combination of smoke from forest fires, a thick fog and cloud cover. The darkness was so complete that candles were required from noon on for through the day, and it did not disperse until the middle of the next night.

[Alex Perlman]

Oh, wow.

[Mrs. P]

So the public Universal friend had been saying, a dark day is upon us for quite a while. They said around 1780. They actually, they said around April of 1780. Around April of 1780, a dark day.

[Alex Perlman]

They called their shot.

[Mrs. P]

A dark day is coming. And then May of 1780, the lights fucking went out in New England. And it was, of course, because of smoke from Canada, because smoke from Canada fucking always be taking us out.

[Alex Perlman]

And we had that. It was 23. Yeah, 2023. A lot of people I've. Or it's crazy how many people already wiped this from the memory. It was three years ago. I'll never forget. Because you were pregnant with our baby.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

And I was really concerned. But Canada caught fire. And the skies down here with the eeriest skies I've ever seen. Yeah. We also had never had to deal on the east coast, particularly, and in Pennsylvania, in the Philadelphia area, we had never had to deal with air quality index before. Yeah, we've never. It's never been a thing. I know people on the west coast of the United States and especially people up in Canada where there are a lot of fire, wildfires and forest fires, who. They have to deal with air quality indexes because of wildfire season, which is also more of a newer thing since the 80s because of overdevelopment. But we have one, like the worst air quality is like in the. In like the world at one point.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

And so, like, I ran out. Everybody ran out. We all tried to buy air purifiers at the same time. There was all these things that we tried to do. But I can 100 see if some. If some person that was different, that. That is so different that everyone remembers them.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

Was just like. Just so, you know, on the first half of this year, the skies will turn orange and the radio will tell you to stay indoors, but your boss will make you go to work. And then one day, the sky, because it was like the craziest. It looked like. Yeah, it looked like Blade Runner 2047. Yeah, it was this weird orange. The darkness was extra dark every. And I just quit smoking too. It was like 13 days into me quitting smoking and it just smelled like smoke. Everywhere I turned, smelled like smoke. It drove me fucking crazy. My other thing I was gonna say was it might be maybe like an Iceland volcano or one of those.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

I like the winds blowing in a certain direction, but I guess the trade winds would push that towards Europe.

[Mrs. P]

So the friend did not bring a Bible to worship meetings, which were initially held outdoors or in borrowed meeting houses because again, they're just going around to all the different meeting.

[Alex Perlman]

And they're also banned from a lot of places.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, yeah. But they preached long sections of scriptures from memory.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

They. They memorize basically the whole Bible or at least their favorite parts.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, well, that's. And that's. People used to do that. A lot more people used to really do that.

[Mrs. P]

I have memorized the pow pout fish.

[Alex Perlman]

You have? Go ahead.

[Mrs. P]

No, I don't want to get a copyright claim people. Although I'm happy to give them my

[Alex Perlman]

money, my pow pow fish with a pow pow face for spreading dreary wearies all over the place. Blub, blub, blub. Yeah, the.

[Mrs. P]

You didn't think we're gonna bring that in?

[Alex Perlman]

I think we're gonna just randomly throw pout belt fish out there. What I was gonna say though, is people memorizing big long books.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

That is such a pre video game thing. It's like some people blame television. To me, it's video games because people memorize whole video games. They do for speedrunning.

[Mrs. P]

What?

[Alex Perlman]

For speedrunning?

[Mrs. P]

What's that?

[Alex Perlman]

It's when you want, like beat a video game as fast as possible and you want to be the fastest person to ever beat a video game, then what do you get your name on a website or something? I think pat on the back and a good job destroyed economy and society. A crumbling civilization. People that aren't into bugs anymore.

[Mrs. P]

I love bugs.

[Alex Perlman]

But bug people, though, there used. People used to be like into bugs.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, you got to get into bugs.

[Alex Perlman]

No, no, but people that used to be like into bugs in a way that was mad different. Yeah. Like, oh, look at this bug stab and then they put into a wall. Yeah. People don't. People Don't. There's nothing.

[Mrs. P]

There's not enough bugs to do it anymore.

[Alex Perlman]

Well, there's also not enough people that do it there. People used to do it a lot. Yeah, it used to be a whole bug. It doesn't matter. But the memorizing books.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

So what else were you gonna do?

[Mrs. P]

People memorize books now you play Balatro.

[Alex Perlman]

That's what I do.

[Mrs. P]

That's what you do.

[Alex Perlman]

You play Slay the Spire One, because I don't have two yet. What's that mean? It's another card game. It's another card game. Okay. People play card games and they collect Pokemon cards. Now. Back in the day, they used to memorize the entire Bible and then put on a robe and then yell about it in the woods. And then people will go, what's going on over there? That sounds pretty good.

[Mrs. P]

The meeting is attracted now.

[Alex Perlman]

Instead they go to crashingouttour.com and see me come live to a city near the. You look at that. I dropped a promo in it.

[Mrs. P]

Let's drop a break right here too.

[Alex Perlman]

Hey, you know what? Let's drop a break of the promo of the crashing outdoor. We just finished a sold out show here in New York City city and it was. The energy was amazing, Phil. It was great. You had a chant going. It got weird, it got fun, it got crazy. But we have more coming because we go. We are going to be doing live shows in Seattle, Portland, Boston, Philly, San Francisco, Phoenix, Denver, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Paul, D.C. and Pittsburgh. Crashing out toward dot com. Get your tickets now or check the link in both of our bios.

[Mrs. P]

Woo.

[Alex Perlman]

The summer heat is here, so you need to stay cool and look even better with Quints. Everything from Quints is well made, versatile and built to last. From activewear to formal wear and everything in between, Quince is high quality at a price that makes sense. Check out Quince's amazing summer lineup. European linen shirts and shorts for classy, casual outdoor parties. Protect golf sets built to take you from the course to dinner and clean looking Italian swim trunks for days on the water.

[Mrs. P]

I'm obsessed with Quince. I just ordered a pair of like linen. I would call them culottes, but they're like wide leg, shorter pants. They're so good because it's hot and breezy, but I need to be covered up because I'm running around chasing that toddler.

[Alex Perlman]

And also the thing I love about Quince is that it goes everywhere. Yeah, you can go from the office right to a party or right from a party, right to court. If you Already love Quince's clothing. Check out their premium accessories. Italian leather belts, bags and shoes, 14 karat gold jewelry, even polarized sunglasses for just 50 bucks. Quints partners directly with ethical factories and top artisans. No middlemen means you spend 50 to 60% less than similar brands. Refresh your wardrobe with quince. Go to quince.com TMT for free shipping and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. Go to quincy.com TMT for free shipping 365 day returns. Quints.com TMT quints.com TMT well, just like the rest of the world, chaos reigns on this podcast. So I'm gonna let you get back into talking and then I'll probably interrupt you again.

[Mrs. P]

We don't need a timer this time.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

The meetings attracted large audiences, including some who formed a congregation of universal Friends.

[Alex Perlman]

Oh, okay, okay. All right. I feel what's happening here.

[Mrs. P]

Schism making the Friend the first native born American citizen to found a religious community.

[Alex Perlman]

Huh? Yeah, look at that. Checking it off. To be fair, they're like the third. They're like three years into America.

[Mrs. P]

But yeah, they're. They're really early into the technical America.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, technical America. And by native born, they mean they were born in the land that was a colony when it got converted into a country. And then they said. But also like they, they're a citizen. But I think they wouldn't have voting rights back then.

[Mrs. P]

No.

[Alex Perlman]

Because you had to be a landed white male.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

If you didn't have land when the Constitution was written, you could vote.

[Mrs. P]

You had to own land to vote.

[Alex Perlman]

You had to own land.

[Mrs. P]

They're trying to bring that back too.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, it was landlords only. White landlord, white male, landlords only type of country.

[Mrs. P]

Yuck. Okay, so these followers included roughly equal numbers of women and men who were predominantly under 40. The youth vote. Yeah, it's hip, it's hip, it's young, it's cool, it's new. We love it.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Most were from Quaker backgrounds, though. Mainstream Quakers deceased discouraged and disciplined members for attending meetings with the Friend. So now it's even cooler.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, you can't tell a Quaker your

[Mrs. P]

parents don't want you to go see the public universal Friend.

[Alex Perlman]

Oh, my God.

[Mrs. P]

And the only thing you guys are doing is like farming or going to meetings. You're going to go to the public Universal Friend.

[Alex Perlman]

Don't forget reading your Bible.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, but they already know the Bible.

[Alex Perlman]

That's crazy.

[Mrs. P]

I just love that the public universal Friend is the cool quick.

[Alex Perlman]

Also, I Love. I love the idea of being like Jebedia. You stay away from that friend. That's not going to work. Get back to threshing and churning the butter.

[Mrs. P]

The Society of Friends had disowned the friend. Disproving of what I just did.

[Alex Perlman]

Let's just sit.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. I'm going to read it again. Society of Friends had disowned the public universal friend. Okay. For clarity's sake.

[Alex Perlman]

They not like us. They not like us.

[Mrs. P]

Disapproving of what they. The society, classic Quakers, considered, quote, pride and ambition to distinguish themselves from the rest of mankind.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay. But they respected the pronouns in the thing they did. They're like, they're not good, but. But also they aren't good.

[Mrs. P]

Pride and ambition.

[Alex Perlman]

Oh. In June. Pride in June.

[Mrs. P]

Now free Quakers disowned the main society. Wait, okay. I'm sorry. Free Quakers had been disowned by the main society of Friends for participating in the American War of Independence.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Those Quakers were particularly sympathetic and open to the universal public. I'm sorry. The public universal Friends that like. So these free Quakers who had fought the War of Independence really liked the cut of their jib, appreciating that the public universal friend had sympathized with the patriot cause. So the public universal Friends started to gather. All of these free Quakers who had fought in the war.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah. Who. Many of them would be younger because they fought in the.

[Mrs. P]

Again, this is the young, cool, hip queen.

[Alex Perlman]

They literally are going around being like, all right, let me pick up all the activists that you guys have shed.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

From your institution.

[Mrs. P]

Yep.

[Alex Perlman]

And let me just build something over here.

[Mrs. P]

It's pretty cool.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Although the public universal friend identified as genderless, neither a man nor a woman, many writers at the time portrayed the preacher as a woman and either a fraudulent schemer who deceived and manipulated followers, or. Or a pioneering leader who founded several towns in which women were empowered to take on roles often reserved for men.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

Because they're like, yeah, Anything a man can do, you can do. Yeah. That's basically what they're kind of pushing as they're founding these towns.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Alex Perlman]

There's also a time, too, when you could just found towns because you. There was just.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

You'd walk up and be like, hey, I found this hill.

[Mrs. P]

Yep.

[Alex Perlman]

Do you want to. Found a town?

[Mrs. P]

Dibs, Colin. Dibs on. Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

What are you going to call it? Puffville.

[Mrs. P]

Damn.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, Phil. That's hard. It was pretty good one F, though.

[Mrs. P]

The. Yeah. One F the Right. Okay. These same writers. So again, we're talking about journalists, newspaper men.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

These writers circulated myths about the Friend, saying that they often force their followers who are married to get divorced. They tried to take property or even attempted and failing to raise the dead or walk on water. There is no evidence for these stories. And people who knew the Friend, including some who were never followers, said these rumors were false.

[Alex Perlman]

Hey. Hey, man. Stop being a dick to people. Oh, God. Look at you.

[Mrs. P]

I gotta walk on water.

[Alex Perlman]

So stupid.

[Mrs. P]

Maybe we should be accepting of people.

[Alex Perlman]

Boo. This feels very much like everything the New York Post has written about Mom. Donnie.

[Mrs. P]

Yes, exactly.

[Alex Perlman]

Hey, if you. If you're a bad landlord, we're gonna. We're gonna seize your property and give it to the.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, you're just gonna raise the dead then.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Alex Perlman]

All right.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Alex Perlman]

Woke.

[Mrs. P]

Popular newspapers and pamphlets from Philadelphia were particularly critical.

[Alex Perlman]

Oh, no. The Philly Quakers were like, get out of here. I was holding. I'm literally wearing a.

[Mrs. P]

Not even just the. The Quakers, just Philly newspapers in general.

[Alex Perlman]

I'm literally wearing my Phillies.

[Mrs. P]

I know.

[Alex Perlman]

My Phillies shirt.

[Mrs. P]

I didn't even warn you.

[Alex Perlman]

You didn't. I was like. I was like, I'm gonna wear my Phillies baseball jersey shirt.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

Because it's. It's warm in here and it breathes. Well, I feel good.

[Mrs. P]

I love a breathable fabric.

[Alex Perlman]

I love a breathable fabric, especially the ones you can get at quints. That's a callback to the ad that's already run. But I just wanna. That's. Oh, no. Philly.

[Mrs. P]

Why so.

[Alex Perlman]

The City of brotherly love. Oh. They were like, that's what it is. We now have a saying. The city of brotherly, sisterly and otherly love.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

That's how we cover them. I have all of our bases.

[Mrs. P]

The Philly newspapers became incredibly critical against the public universal friend. They actually talk so much shit in Philadelphia about the public universal friend in the newspapers and pamphlets and whatever that noisy crowds began to gather outside of each place the preacher stayed or spoke at in 1788.

[Alex Perlman]

Wait, they were doing what they do to ice guys at hotels?

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, like.

[Alex Perlman]

Like the Friends just trying to sleep. And they're like, go on, get out of here.

[Mrs. P]

Go on now. Get.

[Alex Perlman]

Why you wear it? Why are you wearing robes like a. Like a man? How dare you wear a button down black robe that's reserved for men who wear wigs and powder their nose and when every now and then.

[Mrs. P]

High heel shoes, High heel buckles and garters.

[Alex Perlman]

High heel buckle shoes and garters to show off their sexy calves. How Dare you. How about Public Universal Enemy? That's what I. You're the pew we should sit on. You like a pew.

[Mrs. P]

Most papers focused more on the preacher's ambiguous gender then on their theology. A shock.

[Alex Perlman]

The Public Universal Friend is not for us. The Public Universal Friend is for they. Them. That was an ad they ran against Kamala Harris here a lot. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, my God.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah. And then they're gonna do it against James Talarico.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, they are.

[Alex Perlman]

Telerico. I never get it right.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Alex Perlman]

But no, because they're running the thing. They're trying to label him. He's going up against Ken Paxton now.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

And they're like, here's him saying that there's maybe six genders and God's non binary. That's why we call them Low T Talarico.

[Mrs. P]

Low T Talarico.

[Alex Perlman]

It does kind of stick. They also tried. They also tried Talo Frico.

[Mrs. P]

Talafrico.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah. And Jimmy Gender.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Alex Perlman]

I'm like, listen, they. Ken Paxton won the primary and then he got up and he was just like, I'm going to try all of them. We'll see.

[Mrs. P]

What known criminal. Ken Paxton.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The guy who cucked his wife, who's currently being divorced in the middle of a divorce proceeding because his wife had to sit out of his own impeachment because they had to sit there and explain how many times he cheated on her.

[Mrs. P]

Well, this is not that.

[Alex Perlman]

This is not that.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, so the thing is that the Public Universal's Friends teachings were broadly similar to the teachings of most Quakers.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

One person who had read the reports from Philadelphia, but then attended the Public Universal Friends preaching event anyway had said quote from Common Report. I expected to hear something out of the way of doctrine, which is not the case. In fact, I heard nothing but what is common among preachers.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, you guys just don't like it because a non binary person is saying it. It's literally. It's literally the old. Wait, so what is Communism and socialism sharing. But you told me to share in school. Shut up. Yeah, that's basically what happened.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, literally. It's basically that the Public Universal Friend rejected the ideas of predestination and election.

[Alex Perlman]

I just realized I'm holding my Philly Bird Gang Yeti.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, you've never been more.

[Alex Perlman]

I've been more Philly right now, and I'm accidentally. And I've never been more disappointed in my city.

[Mrs. P]

Well, if there's one thing Philly is going to do, it's going to create a lot of crowd anger.

[Alex Perlman]

It's a thing. We do. Love a mob.

[Mrs. P]

They love them up.

[Alex Perlman]

Hey, guys. Mr. There put up the few times Philadelphians are happy behind us. That's going to be people.

[Mrs. P]

That's them having a good time, climbing grease poles.

[Alex Perlman]

We do that for fun.

[Mrs. P]

They literally do in sport.

[Alex Perlman]

The Italian export, the Italian Market Festival. They climb up Greece shirtless men climb up grease poles to pull meat off

[Mrs. P]

of it to find out who's the winner.

[Alex Perlman]

Yep. And then also when we win sporting events.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

We burn our city to the ground.

[Mrs. P]

Well, it had it coming.

[Alex Perlman]

And when things are going good, things are going bad, we complain a lot.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, we complain.

[Alex Perlman]

We complain.

[Mrs. P]

We yell into our phones.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Alex Perlman]

Some of us do. Some more than others.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. So they. They held that any. Okay. This is the public universal friends teaching. Okay.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

They held that anyone, regardless of gender, could gain access to God's light and that God spoke directly to individuals who had free will to choose how to act and behave. They believed in the possibility of universal salvation. They called for the abolition of slavery. The public universal friend persuaded followers who held people in slavery to free them.

[Alex Perlman]

So this sounds like a bunch of woke garbage. We're gonna have to push back. Let me go line by line on this one.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, go ahead.

[Alex Perlman]

Actually, the big one in there actually is the idea of universal salvation. Believe it or not. That's a. That's actually a new idea.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

There was a belief in the Catholic Church and others have had the belief that basically, like, it's a thing called predestination. You're gonna go to hell because you were deemed hell worthy before you were born.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. And then you have to baptize to get out of that jail free a little bit. A little bit.

[Alex Perlman]

But you still are gonna sin and you're still probably gonna go to hell. Yeah. Only the elect. Few are actually godly enough to go to heaven. This is where, like, the Jehovah's Witnesses ideas and others come in. And this is a big fight during the Great Awakening and then the revivals that have happened over time because there was this whole thing of you're a. You're a dirty sinner.

[Mrs. P]

Yep.

[Alex Perlman]

And now our view of it has changed from the sin side of it, of you're just gonna go to hell or heaven or whatever. Now through prosperity Gospel, that has changed into what your life is like now.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Is your life hell now? That's your fault.

[Alex Perlman]

Because they couldn't. They couldn't push that. You have a good life now because it wasn't. It wasn't good. We were living in the middle of the wilderness. Kids and moms were dying all the time. There was the threat of attack. You were always in the middle of wars. The economy was constantly on the verge of collapse. You. You had to do so much for yourself.

[Mrs. P]

They're like, but listen, if you suffer through this.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah. Then when you die at the end, it's going to be really good when you're dead.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. And they keep trying to tell us that now. They're like, well, listen, if you follow Jesus or these specific teachings, you'll get a reward at the end. I'm like, it sucks too hard now.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, it sucks too hard now. But this is the thing. That's why prosperity gospel is kind of flipping it. Yeah. Just to bring it to the modern. And so what they're pushing here, and the idea of gender, this is pushing back against Adam and the Eve at the apple, you know, like, there's a bunch of stuff in here that at the time is insanely radical, that now we're just like, yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So the friend persuaded followers who actually held people in slavery to free them, which is great.

[Alex Perlman]

This is amazing.

[Mrs. P]

This is a person who. They brought them in.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Several members of the congregation of the Universal friends were black, and they acted as witnesses for manumission papers. I hope I said that right. Do you know what a manumission paper is? I looked it up, because.

[Alex Perlman]

Is that like an emancipation paper?

[Mrs. P]

Basically, a manumission paper, also known as deeds of manumission or freedom papers, were legal documents used to voluntarily grant freedom to an enslaved person. These records frequently identified the enslaver, the enslaved individual, and the terms or age of which freedom took effect. Unlike broad government decrees like the Emancipation Proclamation, manumission was an individualized private act usually initiated by a specific enslaver. So the public universal friend. The universal Friends group, had brought in people, convinced them to free their enslaved people, and then those freed slaves. I don't know how to word this. Right. The. The freed slaves began, become part of the congregation, and then bore witness to the manumission papers to other formerly enslaved people.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Did I get that?

[Alex Perlman]

I don't. I. I'm. I'm a little lost. I'm not gonna lie. I'm a little lost. So what I feel like what you're saying. And you can tell me if I'm explaining this back to you.

[Mrs. P]

Correct. Okay.

[Alex Perlman]

The universal friend preach to white people.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Alex Perlman]

Free these. The black people that you own because they're people.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Alex Perlman]

And you shouldn't do that.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Alex Perlman]

And so some of the white people freed the black people.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Alex Perlman]

The black people then hung around the universal friend.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Alex Perlman]

And listened to their preaching. And then when more black people were being freed by white people, the already freed black people bore witness. Meaning that they were probably signatories on the piece of paper.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Alex Perlman]

Stating that that newly freed person is freed. And the thing you also have to keep in mind is those pieces of paper were the most important document that that person held. Because if that document got destroyed or lost, they had no proof. That they weren't a slave.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Alex Perlman]

That they weren't enslaved.

[Mrs. P]

So you needed witnesses.

[Alex Perlman]

You needed witnesses, you needed proof, you needed documentation to be able to be stored. And also, mind you, I want you to think about this, because there are people who do want to bring slavery back in this country and world. This ends up being that the last person who owned you is the one who made the decision. It's not being like, you have to hope that you get to a person who then decides that, okay, I'll actually let you live. Because this is, like, the situation. We're at a time where this is very broken.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Alex Perlman]

And very insane. And Pennsylvania did allow slavery around Washington, around George Washington's time. We actually have a place called the President's House in Philly. It's actually very controversial right now because the Trump administration has been removing plaques from the walls. And what the plaques were and the video screen and a few other things I went there and I watched them were about the slaves that Washington brought to Pennsylvania during things like the Constitutional Conventions, Declaration of Independence, and others. He had to rotate them out and send them back to Virginia every six months, because if they're there for six months in one day, by being in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, they were automatically freed under state law.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

So he knew that. So he would send them back. Some of them escaped. A few of them escaped. Escaped further into New England.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

And Washington spent the rest of his life writing to them and begging them to come back, because he did not. The first president, United States, did not understand freedom and why someone would crave it. So when you're sitting here and you're watching the 2:50 celebrations and you're. You're watching our current president claim that all the presidents are amazing, all these things. The first president, United States, did not understand liberty or freedom for all people inherently. He believed they had a mental disease that made them want to run away from his patronage as being the good father. And then he also worked because, like, his wife wanted to free the slaves when she died, it was like written into her will.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

Because she was like, okay, well, I'm done with them. So. And he like flipped that and like, to keep them longer in a slavery. It's insane the things that Washington actually believed around slavery. And so the fact that you have a person who is like, hey, just so you know, gender is a construct and so is racism.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

That's like brain breaking for people. Because we're still having these arguments today, 250 years later. 250 years later. There's literally court cases of. The current government of the United States does not want this taught about the government of the United States. We're currently fighting about this right now.

[Mrs. P]

Is this the most dangerous podcast?

[Alex Perlman]

This might be. This might be.

[Mrs. P]

Well, they don't want you to know what I'm telling you.

[Alex Perlman]

Well, listen, we haven't had Ashley St. Clair on here to repeat things that everyone already knows,

[Mrs. P]

and we're not going.

[Alex Perlman]

We're not going to. Because I'm sorry, you can't be. You can't be an Elon vessel to build his legion via turkey baster and then come back to me and be like, oh, did you know that the White House talks to conservative influencers through signal group chats? Yes, yes.

[Mrs. P]

It was on our episode about the house inhabit.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, it's also very obvious. It's been obvious the entire time. Oh, the entire Internet's a psyop. I wonder who covered that. Throw up the jubilee picture. Anyway, this is about 1789 or whatever.

[Mrs. P]

The public universal friend preached humility and hospitality. Hospitality towards everyone. They kept religious meetings open to the public and housed and fed visitors.

[Alex Perlman]

Oh, now, Joel. Joel Olstein said no to that. Absolutely not. What if a hurricane came? He needs to get on his jet and hop in his mansion. Or the other really evil one. No, no, the really evil one. With the face. When they.

[Mrs. P]

With the face. With his.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, when they got on the plane.

[Mrs. P]

When they asked him about his plane. I knew.

[Alex Perlman]

I rebuke you.

[Mrs. P]

I don't know.

[Alex Perlman]

Whatever he said.

[Mrs. P]

Let us know in the comments.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, we'll put. Mr. Third's already put it behind us, probably.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, he knows. Including real fast.

[Alex Perlman]

I'm sorry, I don't want to cut you off. I want to hold you up. I just want to. Just real fast. Thank you so much to Mr. Third

[Mrs. P]

for the work you do.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

We don't leave this in.

[Alex Perlman]

You leave this in. We want. This is. I know. Look, I can feel your brush blushing as you're watching this, but the way you pick up references that even we kind of half forgot about and then you throw in there.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

What you're able to do. It's so amazing. And we want to thank. We want to thank you.

[Mrs. P]

What you do with the absolute garbage we send you.

[Alex Perlman]

We send you dog sometimes, and you cut it together in a way that make us sound sane and not like we forgot very basic words because we're older parents and we're very sleep deprived and we live in hell. But hell being the current times. Yeah, but just thank you, Mr. Third. And thank you to our patreons who. Who've been supporting this show and all of our sponsors. So that way we can keep Mr. Third on payroll. So with that being said, let's talk about the Universal Friend some more. I've really derailed this episode a lot.

[Mrs. P]

That's fine. That's kind of the whole point of too many tabs, isn't it?

[Alex Perlman]

Whenever there's a comment, someone's like, I wish I would stay on topic. I'm like, this isn't for you.

[Mrs. P]

That's never been the mission statement of this.

[Alex Perlman]

Not every show is for you. Get out of here. But the rest of you, stay.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, okay.

[Alex Perlman]

I've been doing this a lot.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. Can't you just. Okay. The Friend preached humility and hostility towards everyone. They housed and fed visitors, including those who came only out of curiosity. So, you know, they understood that some people were just coming by because they were reading the newspapers.

[Alex Perlman]

Freak show stuff.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. And so they. They still. As soon as you came in, if you needed lodging to stay overnight, you could get it. If you needed a meal, you could get it. They also were very hospitable towards indigenous people.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

To whom the preacher generally held a very cordial relationship with. The Friend had very few personal possessions that. And if they had any, they were given by followers, and they never held any real property except in trust. Okay, okay. The Friend preached sexual abstinence and disfavored marriage, but did not see celibacy as mandatory and accepted marriage. So they're like, I don't get it, but if you want to do it, go for it.

[Alex Perlman]

I'm going to throw it out there.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

The Universal Friend is an ace. That's just. That's just where Universal Friend is an ace. That's just what this feels like. Yeah, very much so. The Universal Friend's like, I don't get it. That's weird. But whenever you do what you do.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, sure.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah. But you know what I do get?

[Mrs. P]

What?

[Alex Perlman]

These ads. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try. @mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for

[Mrs. P]

3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full [e-mail] Instacart understands that not all bananas are created equal. Some people want them green, some want them ripe, some want them ready. Right now with Instacart's preference Picker, now available at most retailers, you can choose how you like certain items like banana ripeness, deli thickness, even avocados before your shopper even starts. So instead of crossing your fingers and hoping for the best, you get groceries picked the way you would pick them. It's a small thing, but it makes a big difference. Download the app and get bananas just how you like. With Instacart.

[Alex Perlman]

Today we'll attempt a feat once thought impossible. Overcoming high interest credit card debt. It requires merely one a Sofi personal loan. With it you could save big on interest charges by consolidating into one low fixed rate monthly payment. Defy high interest debt with a SOFI personal loan. Visit sofi.com stunt to learn more. Loans originated by Sofi Bank NA member FDIC terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891 okay, so before we took that break, we found out that the universal friend is an asexual non binary. Basically it seems like at least that's

[Mrs. P]

the way that for now, for now where we're going. Wow, we're about to get really feminist. The preacher public universal friend also held that women should quote obey God rather than men. Oh, now this is wild takes out there. This is a wild take for the 1700s. And the most committed followers including included roughly four dozen unmarried women known as the faithful sisterhood.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Took leading roles that were often reserved for men in other like communities. Okay, so the portion of the households headed by women in the society settlements were much higher than surrounding areas, about 20%. And some women lived in large commune style housing together.

[Alex Perlman]

Oh, we got a bunch of ladies living together.

[Mrs. P]

Yes, single unmarried women taking on the roles of men led by the public universal friend. It's crazy out here.

[Alex Perlman]

This is, this is getting very specific. I'm picking up what you're Putting down the friend.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, okay. There was drama inside the sisterhood. Okay, Okay. A friend named Sarah said that Abigail tried to strangle her while she slept, but accidentally choked Anna by mistake.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay, you're just throwing names out here. And they have. There's just. It's so dark in these commune houses.

[Mrs. P]

What do you got? The candles are blowing out.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay, okay. All right.

[Mrs. P]

Anna denied that anything like this happened. Other people that were present attributed Sarah's fears to a nightmare. They're like, that didn't happen. That was just a nightmare.

[Alex Perlman]

Got it, got it, got it. Was your sleep paralysis demon sitting on your chest?

[Mrs. P]

Nevertheless, Philadelphia papers got a hold of the story and printed an embellished version with accusations and several follow ups, alleging that the attack must have been at the Public Universal Friend's approval. And the story eventually morphed into that the public Universal Friend was actually the one that strangled Abigail.

[Alex Perlman]

Oh, I love that. I love that. It just keeps spreading and shifting and changing, you know, that's kind of like now with the data center stuff. I've now seen a flowchart of them trying to claim that any attacks on data centers actually have been funded directly by Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party. So anybody with anti data center actually is pro China in this. Weird.

[Mrs. P]

I'm like, where's my Winnie the Pooh doll?

[Alex Perlman]

That's what I'm asking.

[Mrs. P]

So around 1785, the public universal Friend meets Sarah and Abraham Richards. Richard's Sarah is in an unhappy marriage, but the marriage ends because Richard, Abraham, passes away.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

And so the husband dies, the husband dies, okay. And Sarah and her infant daughter take up residence with the friend.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Then Sarah adopts a similarly androgynous hairstyle, form of dress and mannerisms, as did many of the other close female friends of the public Universal Friend. And they became. They came to be called Sarah Friend. So they changed their name to Sarah Friend.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

The friend entrusted Sarah withholding the society's property in trust and sent her to preach in one part of the country when the friend was in another. Sarah had a large part in planning and building the house in which she and the preacher lived in the town of Jerusalem. And when she died in 1793, she left her child to the public Universal Friends care.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay, so they were roommates.

[Mrs. P]

They were roommates. So you were wrong.

[Alex Perlman]

They were roommates.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

Also. It sounds like she was also a deputy in the organization. Yeah, yeah. And they were roommates. I just want to just. They were roommates also. Yeah. They. Yeah, there's a. Okay. You know what? I'm gonna. There's enough there. And I've been doing this long enough. I've been on the Internet long enough to know when I know a reference, to know what I can say about it, and to know when I should. Shut the fuck up.

[Mrs. P]

Shut the fuck up.

[Alex Perlman]

I'm gonna. And this is it right here. This is me. It's like the Marc maron bit. I'm 85% woke. Yeah. 15% is when I. Shut the fuck up.

[Mrs. P]

Shut the fuck up. You don't know what you're talking about.

[Alex Perlman]

This is me. I didn't know they had U hauls back then.

[Mrs. P]

Wow. Okay. See, see? In October 1794, the friend and several followers dined with Thomas Morris, son of financier Robert Morris. And I looked him up because I was like, why is this highlighted? He was Robert Morris, the dad of the person they ate with. He was one of only two individuals to sign the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the U.S. constitution.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

From 1781 to 1784, he held the post of Superintendent of Finance of the United States, a role that earned him the title the Financier of the Revolution alongside Alexander Hamilton.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Morris is often regarded as the founder of the financial system of the United States. Well, Buddy, that's over 250 years later. Done. So they ate with the son, Thomas Morris. Got it. Now, the place they ate, I cannot pronounce it. It's Canada. Deguia. That's my guess.

[Alex Perlman]

Canada.

[Mrs. P]

At the invitation of Timothy Pickering. Now, Timothy Pickering was the third United States Secretary of State serving under President George Washington and John Adams.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Who you just brought up.

[Alex Perlman]

I did just bring up.

[Mrs. P]

So I just really wanted to highlight. The reason I brought this up is that the public universal friend was meeting with power players.

[Alex Perlman]

Yes.

[Mrs. P]

People that were really constructing the United States as we know it.

[Alex Perlman]

And the public universal friend was there, was having conversations with people in the orbit of the Founding Fathers. And the Founding Fathers themselves.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Alex Perlman]

And because they also were probably advocating on behalf of their constituency and trying to show where their influence could be.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

That's amazing. And we've never heard of this person.

[Mrs. P]

No.

[Alex Perlman]

Literally, there's one say sometimes Mrs. P is like. And you've never heard of it. I'm over here inside.

[Mrs. P]

Like.

[Alex Perlman]

Well, I've heard of them.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

This one. Absolutely no idea. Never heard none of them. And apparently Philly hated them. Like, that's crazy, because we usually remember. We usually.

[Mrs. P]

Journalists hated.

[Alex Perlman]

We usually remember who we hate. So the fact that there is somebody Dallas, Texas. Hey. Oh.

[Mrs. P]

So the public Universal Friends accompanies Timothy Pickering in talks with the Iroquois because they were trying to produce the Treaty of Contigua, which is also known as the Pickering Treaty, which is what I'm gonna refer to it as because it's so much easier for me to say. And so, with permission from Thomas Pickering, the universal. The public universal friend and interpreter gave a speech to the US Government officials and the Iroquois chiefs on the importance of peace and love, which was really enjoyed by the Iroquois. Okay. Okay. Now, the Pickering Treaty was, of course, largely dishonored. Everything I looked up about it, we did not hold our end of the deal.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

At all.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, it's pretty classic British treaty in that type of way.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

American, British, that style thing. I'm just like, oh, no, we're totally. Listen, guys, we're totally.

[Mrs. P]

We're going to honor this. We're totally going to have you, like, we're going to treat you guys well. Yeah, go. Great.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Public universal friend didn't know that, of course. Okay.

[Alex Perlman]

This is also at a time when everybody. This is much like the United States post. The United States on the international stage post World War II. Everybody like to act like. Like it was a born again, like, oh, everything that we've done before, that's old shit. We're different. Oh, no, baby, I changed. I've changed. Iroquois nation. I'm not like those colonists that you were fighting all the time. No, no, no. This. We're the United States now. We believe in, like, peace and love and, like, equality for most people who are landed white gentry.

[Mrs. P]

I'm not in the imminent domain. I'm not gonna build a data center in your town without asking.

[Alex Perlman]

No. Oh, my God, you have so much bison in Buffalo, man. That'd be so great for you. You're gonna be able to live on that. Just keep going over that way a little bit. Just keep going over that way a little bit. Yo, what do you call this place? Michigan. This is nice.

[Mrs. P]

In the mid-1780s, the universal friends began to plan a town for themselves in western New York. So, like, western upstate New York.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay. I know a non binary in western upstate New York. I do. All right.

[Mrs. P]

By late 1788, members of the society had established a settlement in the Genesee river area.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

By March 1790, it was ready enough that friends of the Universal Friends set out to join it. So the friends are on their way.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

We have a big settlement in New York, and a bunch of the Friends are coming however problems arise.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, it's upstate New York. It's going to be, I'm guessing lake effect snow.

[Mrs. P]

No, it's a people problem.

[Alex Perlman]

People problem.

[Mrs. P]

James Parker spent three weeks in 1791 petitioning the governor and land office of New York on behalf of the Society to get a title to the land that the Friends had settled. But while most of the buildings and other improvements that the Universal Friends had made were east of the initial line of New York, there was some line outside of New York. So, like, again, this is when the states are just being drawn.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah. We don't even have the full maps.

[Mrs. P]

We don't have full maps. So when they started this settlement, they were like, we're in New York, but the line isn't right. And so they're like crisscrossing over this line. So we have James Parker, who's going to be kind of the. The voice of the Friends, going to the governor and the land offices on behalf of the Society.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

And so eventually they get area. Their area granted by New York, but the residents are forced to repurchase their lands from the Pulteney Association. And I had to look this up. The Pulteney association was a small group of. Of British investors who in 1792, purchased a large portion of western New York land. So they had to go to this group of British guys and be like, well, can we buy this from you? And they were forced to do this multiple times because they actually, like, the investors were bad at their job and kept having to resell and then have bankruptcies and resell. So they kept having to get this title over and over again because of the line of where New York was.

[Alex Perlman]

Got it. And the line and the way the lines and the lots were being drawn versus. Versus where you're physically standing. Anybody who's ever had a property line dispute with a neighbor.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, you. You get this.

[Alex Perlman]

You're in hell.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

All right. And that's not even counting tree law. All right, go ahead.

[Mrs. P]

Tree law. The community lacked a solid title to enough of its land for all of its members. And some people left because of all of this commotion.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, like, where am I going to live?

[Mrs. P]

Others began to want to profit off of ownership of the land, including Parker, because he's working so hard at this point.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And there's this other guy, William Potter, who's also one of the. With friends. And these two guys are like, no, we should be allowed to profit off of land ownership. Okay. Now what's going to happen is that one guy, William Potter, who's a judge. Judge William Potter, Ontario County Magistrate. James Parker. So they're. They're becoming.

[Alex Perlman]

They're getting. They're getting titles.

[Mrs. P]

They're getting titles in the community.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Along with several disillusioned former followers, led several attempts to arrest the public universal friend for blasphemy. Now, some historians argue that this was actually motivated by disagreements over land ownership and power. And instead of it just being blasphemy,

[Alex Perlman]

you know, that's what. That's what Trump claims about his falling out with Epstein. He claims it was over, like, a property dispute.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

Not over other stuff. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

The officer try. So an officer tried to seize the friend while riding. Okay, wait, I have to backtrack because this is such a funny part of the story.

[Alex Perlman]

Just real fast. I just. I'm already stuck on the officer tried to seize that friend. It's crazy.

[Mrs. P]

So basically, the judge and the county magistrate, because they've taken power at this point, because they've been working in that

[Alex Perlman]

system, they have secular power.

[Mrs. P]

It was secular power. They are gathering up people who are her former followers. Former follow. Fallen fans.

[Alex Perlman]

Fallen fans. They're the worst ones.

[Mrs. P]

Fallen fans. And one of the things, they get some cops of the time. Some. Some cops. And they're like, we're gonna hunt down the public universal friend to arrest them for blasphemy. Okay. Now they decide they're gonna do this just in general public. Right. So they're out there. They got these cops riding on horseback.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

They got posses. They're gonna seize the public universal friend who's out riding with one of the other friends, Rachel.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Now here's what we. I told you in the beginning. The public universal friend is equestrian.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

They are big in horses.

[Alex Perlman]

No. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

They're skilled horse rider.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah. Just like Hasan Piker.

[Mrs. P]

Damn it. Put a Putin.

[Alex Perlman]

All right.

[Mrs. P]

And so they escape easily and quickly. They are like, zip, zap around, all them. They ride out. They cannot catch the universal friend, baby.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah, yeah. Body of a horse, girl. That's just how it goes. Mind mind of Metatron, the Archangel or something.

[Mrs. P]

Probably.

[Alex Perlman]

I don't know. But yeah, just like. Oh, no, I got. I remember this. I used to ride horses all the time before I died. Snap.

[Mrs. P]

The officer and an assistant later tried to arrest the friend at home, but the women of the house drove the men off, tearing their clothes from their body, chasing them out of the home.

[Alex Perlman]

Oh, my God.

[Mrs. P]

Remember, the public universal friends live with a bunch of independent women who are not taking any of this shit. A bunch of dudes pretending to be cops who Self proclaimed cops are showing up. Absolutely. The fuck not.

[Alex Perlman]

That's got. Okay.

[Mrs. P]

This would be such a good movie.

[Alex Perlman]

It would be. Okay. I'm just picturing. I'm just picturing these dudes be like, we're going to go in there, we're going to get the friend. Oh, there's a couple of ladies in the way. We got this. Open the door. And it's just like 25 women.

[Mrs. P]

Women who've been working in the farmland

[Alex Perlman]

alone just with rollers and pans and nails and hoes. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Because they have farm equipment.

[Alex Perlman]

Oh, hoes. Okay, got it. I thought you meant hoes were among the women.

[Mrs. P]

I would never say that. I know about the universal friends. Okay. A third attempt to kidnap the public universal friend was attempted and carefully planned. A posse of 30 men surrounded the home after midnight and broke down their door with an ax. I need you to know that if you are in a group of 30 men surrounding a home in the middle of the night with an axe, you are not the good guys. You are not the good guys. You are not speaking on the voice of any God.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay?

[Mrs. P]

Okay. So they break down the friend's door with an axe with an intent to carry the preacher off in an oxygen cart. Now, within the 30 men, there was a doctor who had come with the posse and stated that the friend was in too poor a state of health to be moved. So they made a deal with the friend and the women of the house that the friend would appear before Ontario County Court in. In June and. But just not before Justice Parker. That was their only thing.

[Alex Perlman]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

So the women and the public universal friend argue that I will come to court. I will appear in front of your court saying that I'm a blasphemer. But the justice Parker can't be the judge.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Because that's unfair.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah. Because he has bias.

[Mrs. P]

Yes, exactly.

[Alex Perlman]

Clearly has bias and he clearly has motive.

[Mrs. P]

I want land and property and money. Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

That's what he wants. Yeah. And what the universal friends wants is. All right, listen, I'll go in front of your fucking banana court. Yeah, you're. But you have to have somebody who is a nonpartisan.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, yeah. So the public. When the friend appeared before court, the court ruled that. Again, not Parker, a different court, different judge. Ruled that there was no indictable offense had been committed and invited the preacher to give a sermon to everyone in attendance, which they did. I listen, I would watch the fuck out of this. Also. Also, Are you kidding me? The judge in this case was like, why are you Even here, you did 1790s, right?

[Alex Perlman]

1790s. Like, they just invented the First Amendment.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. You know, and they were like, you know what you're speaking at? You're out of standing at a podium. Turn it around.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Everybody that you're talking that's been talking shit to you, preach love, peace, kindness and humanity. Go for it.

[Alex Perlman]

This feels dumb.

[Mrs. P]

Y' all love it.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

The Public Universal's friend had been Health had been declin since the turn of the century. By 1816, the preacher had begun to suffer from a painful edema, but continued to receive visitors and give sermons. The friend gave a final regular sermon in November of 1818 and preached for the last time at the funeral of their sister, Patience Wilkinson Potter, in April of 1819. So patience, ride or die the whole time.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Literally.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah. Sister Patience.

[Mrs. P]

I love that. I love that patient. They got kicked out of the church together. Oh, geez. And then just stayed together the whole time.

[Alex Perlman]

Yep.

[Mrs. P]

The Public Universal friend passed away on July 1, 1819. The congregation's death book recorded that 25 minutes past 2 on the clock. The friend went from here. That's how they describe. That's how they went from here.

[Alex Perlman]

The friend went from here.

[Mrs. P]

In accordance with the friend's wishes, only a regular meeting and no funeral service was held afterwards. The body was placed in a coffin with an oval glass window set into its top and interred four days after death in a thick stone vault in the cellar of the friend's house. Several years later, the coffin was removed and buried in an unmarked grave. In accordance with the preacher's preference. Obituaries appeared in papers throughout the eastern United States. Close followers remained faithful, but they, too, died. Over time, the congregation's numbers dwindled due to their inability to attract new converts. Not new converts. And the Society of Universal Friends disappeared by the 1860s. The end.

[Alex Perlman]

The end. But the. The friends preaching and the. The seeds that the Friend planted in American society, they bloomed. Yes, because things like abolition, universal suffrage, universal salvation, the pushback against racism, the pushback against gender conformity, but also about women being able to get the vote. That took a long, long time.

[Mrs. P]

Absolutely.

[Alex Perlman]

But what they started.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

Ended up having repercussions further down, even though we don't remember the fact they planted.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. And also, I think it was really. When I was getting all this information together, one thing that really stuck out to me is, like, whenever we hear people screaming about how, you know, the woke mob is making this up and this isn't real, and blah, blah, blah, blah, and they always go back. This is not what the founding fathers wanted for America. The founding fathers didn't want this. The bubba.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And they always, like, when they're demonizing different groups of people, they're always like, this is not what the founding fathers wanted. The public universal friend shared meals with the founding fathers.

[Alex Perlman]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

The founding fathers sat across from a non binary person and respected them and asked them to speak to others on

[Alex Perlman]

their behalf and use their pronouns.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Alex Perlman]

But also beyond that, the reason why that is is because our history, whether it be American or worldwide, is taught to us when we're very young. And it's taught to us as a very simplified version. And not everyone gets the more complicated version. As time goes on, on, what happens is you get like, we have, we have a toddler right now. We have those golden books. And we'll be reading through one of the golden book things about like, Dolly Parton.

[Mrs. P]

Right.

[Alex Perlman]

That's one example. But there's others that there've been in there. And we're reading and I'm like, this is a very simplified explanation and biography of a person.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

It's leaving out all the warts, it's leaving out all the gray. It's leaving out many of the cast of characters. And this is where I got crazy about things like the P.T. barnum movie because of what it the decisions that are made ends up them becoming the quote history. Because we leave out so much to make the story simple for people to understand when they're very young.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex Perlman]

And that's just how it goes.

[Mrs. P]

But now you're older and you listen to the Too Many Tabs podcast, and I'm gonna sit here and tell you, everybody, all about intricate history that is very interesting and important and should not be forgotten.

[Alex Perlman]

And we want to say thank you once again to our Patreons for recommending this, suggesting this is a great suggestion. This is the type of thing we're always kind of looking for. And thank you guys so much for liking subscribing listening. Go find the information down below about Mrs. P's first ever live event. Check me out at crashingouttour.com Follow us everywhere. Promania500.net we love you. We'll see you soon. Good night. Too many frauds and too many scammers that we wish weren't real. Too many cons and too many spammers and we're starting to feel like we've got too many tabs. Open it. Too many tabs. Remember to smile. Marketing is hard. But I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn ads, go to Libsynads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today

[Mrs. P]

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