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looking at it as a vector of political extremism. Sometimes it's useful to not just to look on from the outside, but actually pop into other people's reality tunnels to gain a more intimate understanding of how they interact with our world. This was my primary motivation in attending the Ghost Conference to learn what metaphysical beliefs drive the attendees and how

said beliefs intersect with politics and our broader culture. My experiences at the conference ranged from ghost hunting to being hypnotized, to learning of the galactic Federation of Angels and abortion hungry demons. So with that in mind, I hope you enjoy my report back on the twenty twenty three organ Ghost Conference. The first challenge we faced was simply getting

to the town of Seaside. The first day of the conference, Friday, March twenty fourth, coincided with a massive snowstorm along Highway twenty six from Portland to sea Side. As we were driving on the treacherous mountain roads, a white out completely engulfed our view. When we emerge from the snowstorm, it was as if we'd gone through a portal, transporting us from the mountainous forest to the small coastal town of Seaside, Oregon,

into a world of ghosts, spirits, specters, and overpriced convention food. Seaside, as the name suggests, is a beachfront town situated in northern Oregon. It was founded in the late eighteen hundredths after railroad baron Ben Holliday built his summer vacation quote unquote Seaside House on the plot of land which is now Seaside's golf course. It's always been a sort of tourist resort town that people from Portland travel to for

beachfront entertainment. The conference is put on by a friendly high school art teacher and Oregon City commissioner, Rocky Smith. Smith has been doing ghost tours in Oregon since the mid nineties and has been putting on the Oregon Ghost Conference since twenty twelve. Originally, it was held in Smith's hometown of Oregon City, an extremely haunted town often cited as the end of the organ trail. In twenty sixteen, the conference outgrew its Oregon City venue and relocated to Seaside.

It's now the largest paranormal convention in the Pacific Northwest. The conference features ghost tours, classes, guest speakers, vendors, tara readings, seances, ghost hunting, and paranormal investigations. The first big event I marked on my schedule was a ghost tour to get acquainted with Seaside's most haunted places. The tour began right outside the convention center. Conference director Rocky Smith led this one himself. He filled us in on some old ghost

conference lore. The Seaside Convention Center went through some extensive renovations right before the pandemic, but the first year of the conference took place in the convention center. They had a class for kids where a group of children explored around the old building to find what they thought were the most haunted places. There was one hallway on the west side of the building where people routinely reported strange experiences. Back in twenty sixteen, a child at the conference claimed

they saw a ghost down this hallway when exiting the bathroom. First, they just saw something out of the corner of their eye, and then when they turned to the left, they saw a woman in an old dress staring at them. At first, they weren't sure if the dress was long or short because they were too scared to look down, But then they noticed that the woman didn't have any legs and was just floating in the air. Because of the new renovations,

that hallway is no longer accessible. Rocky Smith remarked that he didn't know if that was intentional or not, but said that a lot of times when they redo buildings, they'll change the part of a building that used to be kind of scary and uncomfortable, so that hallway is now used for storage, although one of the convention staff members claimed that a vacuum cleaner now held in the

hallway is possessed. So there's that. The Convention Center was originally built in the seventies and doesn't really have a lot of notable history. But when looking into hauntings or reports of ghosts, typically people try to learn the history of the building or plot of land in question. For Seaside, that's kind of hard because in nineteen twelve, four blocks of downtown Seaside burned to the ground, destroying most of

the town's early history. The first stop on the ghost tour after we left the Convention Center was one of the reportedly most active sites of ghostly activity in Seaside, the Bridge Tender Tavern. It was built in nineteen fourteen, so just a couple of years after the big fire. It used to be called the Pastime Bar and then suffered its own fire and was later renamed the Bridge Tender. The previous owners of the bar claimed that in the

early twentieth century it was a brothel. This is unconfirmed, but it relates to the tavern's most frequent ghost the Madam. Staff and patrons of the Bridge Tender regularly address the Madam. If customers are being rude, It said that the Madam will spill drinks on them, you know, stuff like that. The story I like the most about the Madam has

to do with the tavern's old CD jute box. If a specific song played on the jukebox, something would go haywire, CDs would shoot out of it, or other weird things would reportedly happen in the bar. Patrons would put the song on repeat just to see what would happen. Eventually, the owners took the CD with the song in question out of the jukebox so that people would just stop playing the song. But people are persistent bastards, so now people just play the song on their phones or the

new digital jukebox in Bridge Tender. Now, the theory is is that the Madam just really hates this song, so she gets mad when it plays and then causes some commotion. The song is Dancing Queen by Abba, So if you want to go test this yourself, you can travel to the Bridge Tender and play Dancing Queen and see what happens. Another highlight from the ghost tour was learning about the

old Seasider Hotel at the end of the promenade. It was purportedly haunted by multiple spirits, and it was believed that when the hotel was torn down in the eighties, the ghosts followed the hotel staff who got new jobs at a restaurant in downtown called Girdles. New employees are said to have recognized apparitions from the hotel, and the restaurant gained a haunted coffee pot that would either move on its own or even fly across the room, depending

on who you would ask. It's nice that the ghosts seem to have a pretty good job relocation program, something that most of us do not so good for them. As the ghost tour approached the Beachfront promenade, that snowstorm from the nearby mountains seemed to have caught up with us, and a dreary mix of rain and snow began to descend upon Seaside, as if some otherworldly force was trying to keep us from further exploring the hauntings of the town. So as even my trench coat began soaking through, we

took refuge back indoors the very first class. My friend Elaine and I took at the conference was titled Ghost Detectives. Now, despite the silly, stounding name, it was probably the most grounded class throughout the entire weekend, certainly the one with the least amount of spiritual dogma. The class was focused on best practices for conducting paranormal investstigations, specifically to ensure that the process and finding's mirror the evidentiary standards set

by the justice system for law enforcement investigations. The instructor, doctor Nelson, is a supervisor for a crisis hotline with degrees in mental health, metaphysics, and fine arts. He describes his methodology for investigating paranormal activity as quote unquote applied science. He was definitely the most meticulous investigator of the whole weekend, and the least ghost hunter esque in terms of advocating for strict investigative procedures and not just assuming that every

spooky noise was evidence of a ghost. Most of his class was spent explaining very basic police investigative procedure, proper ways to collect evidence, having a chain of evidence, and not simply jumping to conclusions. It's a little foolhardy to assume every single spike on an electromagnetic field or EMF meter is actually a ghost trying to communicate. The other unique thing about his class was the emphasis on before

pulling out your special ghost and detecting tools. Perhaps one should conduct thorough interviews and collect witness statements of the people reporting the phenomenon. Try to figure out what's going on in their life, maybe even look into their own mental health background as much as you're able to, if they've had any sudden losses, past trauma, or history of paranormal experiences. Asking thorough questions can give a much fuller

look at what someone might be going through. Some examples of things to ask or look into were if the phenomenon is related to a house, who owns the house, who lives there, who has experienced the event? What led to a paranormal investigator being called? What precipitated the phenomenon? When it occurred? How often has it occurred? When was

it first noticed? Was there just one random strange experience or is someone going through an event in their life that is the maiden experience suddenly stick out as strange. Has the person sought help, and has the phenomenon been verified by more than one person? In terms of haunted houses, figuring out if there's any issues in the house is a great first step because if there's a carbon monoxide leak,

that could explain a great many things. Or if someone claims ghost ectoplasm is leaking through the ceiling and walls, perhaps the roof and water pipes should be inspected. Elene and I did a little debrief after the conference, and they reminded me of another good tip gleaned from the ghost detective class.

makes stuff with his hands. He's very like he feels very grounded and like and like concept this reality a lot in a lot of aspects, and this is like a very fun hobby that combines his two favorite things, well two of his favorite things, just like Ghostbusters cosplay, and then also like paranormal investigation stuff. I'm not actually sure if the instructor for the paranormal investigation class really believed in ghosts or if he just had an interest

in researching paranormal experiences. I don't think I believe in ghosts the same way literally everyone else at the conference did. But almost half of Americans do believe in ghosts, and around one fifth are unsure if they're believers or not. The rate of belief in ghosts is about the same as belief in demons. But the interesting thing about that is although Americans belief in organized religion has been decreasing, especially Christianity, belief in ghosts has been and still is

on the rise. In fact, it's gone up by nearly four hundred percent since the nineteen seventies. These last three years, for really the first time ever, Gallup polls show that less than fifty percent of Americans say they belong to a religious congregation. Alan Downe is a computer scientist and

professor at the Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts. His research suggests that the Internet is a major cause, not just a correlating factor, in the decrease of religious affiliation, and with the rise of the Internet and reality TV, ghost hunting has become a relatively popular niche hobby. But as religious belief has declined, belief in the afterlife has remained the same, about seventy percent according to the General

Social Survey. Gallup's polling suggests that currently about three and four Americans have some sort of paranormal belief. Thomas Mowen, associate theologist who's been conducting a study on religion and paranormal belief at Bowling Green State University, said that he's finding that quote atheists tend to report higher belief in

the paranormal than religious folk unquote. As to why so many Americans believe in ghosts, Moen says, quote, people are looking to other things or non traditional things to answer life's big questions that don't necessarily include religion unquote. Throughout the conference, the word ghost, spirit, and entity were often used interchangeably. Each of those words kind of act as an umbrella term for a broad swath of ontological concepts. Ontology is the branch of metaphysics that relates to the

nature of being. Depending who you ask, a ghost or a spirit can be anything from a wayward soul of a deceased human, some other worldly energy, an evil presence, or even some sort of temporal loop. Historically, these have never been very clear either. They've evolved with the times, so Elene and I prepared a brief history of ghosts to help give context for the rest of this episode and the next. The idea of contacting spirits or interacting

with some sort of spirit world obviously isn't new. Worldwide, people have traditions of interacting with ancestors that deceased in a variety of non material beings. Ancestor veneration in China goes back at least six thousand years, while the word shaman, relating to someone who works with spirits and in the spirit realm for healing and divination, comes from the Tungusic language of Siberia and has practices that are at least too millennia old. The term necromancy stems from a Greek

word meaning divination of the dead. In the Odyssey, Homer writes of Odysseus learning necromantic rituals to summon the shade or underworld ghost of Tyresius, while wile clerical necromantic traditions through the medieval period made a clear distinction between the souls of dead humans from other random spirits. That separation was not as ubiquitous among folk beliefs of people who claimed to interact with the spirit world. Emma Wilby describes

in her book Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits. How into the early modern period, many cunning folk, basically low level magicians and conjurers, had ghosts, fairies, and animal spirit companions, all of which seemed to interact very similarly. The European concept of ghosts being linked to evil or demonic forces is a relatively new idea. It came to be as a byproduct of the Reformation and rejection of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic doctrine of purgatory and limbo was rejected by the new Protestants, which caused some cosmological problems when it came to people's own experiences with ghosts and spirits. Catholics held them that ghosts were basically spirits of dead humans on vacation from purgatory, But with Protestants rejecting purgatory for its lack of biblical basis, they defined some other way to explain the apparently fairly common phenomenon of ghostly encounters.

A Swiss theologian named Ludwig Lavater attempted to solve this cosmological problem in his fifteen sixty nine book Despecterus. I just picked up my copy a few weeks ago and had been going through it, and it's a lot of fun. The full English title was quote of ghosts and spirits walking by night, and of strange noises, cracks and sundry fore warnings, which commonly happened before the death of men, great slaughters, and the alteration of kingdoms. Pretty cool stuff.

Two of my favorite consecutive chapter titles are quote what hath followed this doctrine of the Papists concerning the appearing of men's souls, followed by testimonies out of the Word of God that neither the souls of the faithful nor infidels do walketh upon the earth after they are once parted from their bodies. So that kind of gives you a look at the writing style of this entire book. Despects became massively influential. It was widely translated. Shakespeare was

reading this as he was writing Hamlet. More importantly, the text took off across many Protestant circles and became the backbone of the cultural conception of ghosts in the soon to be United States through such Protestant sects. Instead of ghosts being wayward specters of dead humans who escape from purgatory, Lavater proposed a great many explanations for spectral experiences, including

many non mystical causes. He lists illness, insomnia, psychoactive substances, sleep paralysis, and grief as being common causes of ghostly hallucination, an opinion now shared by many psychologists and doctors. Definitely, the closest thing I've ever seen to a ghost was during a sleep paralysis episode. Lavator writes, quote, Melancholic persons and mad men imagine things which in very deed are not. Fearful men imagine that they see and hear strange things.

Men which are dull of seeing and hearing imagine many things which in very deed are not so unquote. He also cites pranksters as another common cause of perceived spectral activity, but most interestingly, in an attempt to bash the Catholics, the Protestant Lavater also lists low level clergy trained in exorcistic magic to summon demonic spirits in an achromatic fashion,

as possibly producing some supernatural phenomenon interpreted as ghosts. Now, Lavater does believe in spirits, but his thesis is that genuine ghosts, spirits bumps in the night, those strange the cracks and noises which we now might refer to as

politygeists are almost always demons that are torturing people. He wrote that devils can quote appear in different shapes not only of those which are alive, but also of dead men as well as a peer in the likeness of a black dog, a horse, an owl, and also are

able to bring incredible things to pass unquote. Lavater did admit that in the rarest of cases, God may send angels or the spirit of a dead person to Earth for a very specific task, but due to demons and nature trickery, there's really no way to trust that a ghostly presence may be from God, so he recommends that one should always assume that a specter is demonic. God may even allow demonic spirits to appear as a form of punishment and a sign that one should repent for wrongdoing.

Lavater's theologic work on ghosts were part of a larger Protestant Christian campaign to literally demonize all spirits. Right, the only thing you can really talk to is Jesus or God. Anything else is probably just a demon. This is the version of ghosts that I grew up with as a kid, the idea that basically, if a ghost appears, it's probably

a demon trying to scare or trick you. This concept that spirits and spirit contact were predominantly demonic changed the nature of many witch trials, since when cunning folk listed their familiar ghosts or fairies, they were basically admitting to trafficking with demons. The next evolution in ghost lore came in the form of Emmanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish theologian and scientist. In fact, he was one of the first to postulate

the existence of the neuron. As Christians in Europe were dealing with this messy assortment of spirits that you really shouldn't try and interact with, but if you do, you better make sure they're angels, Swedenborg was about to shake

up this whole entire cosmology. In the seventeen forties, he started having quote intense mystical experiences, dreams and visions unquote, which led him to believe he was in contact with a spirit world and entities that he described as angels, demons, as well as other spirits, including ones from extraterrestrial planets. This is like one of the first guys to do the spirits I'm talking to are actually aliens, which is

pretty cool. In seventeen eighty five, he published a book titled Heaven and Hell, based on his experiences of the afterlife. According to Swedenburg, once humans on Earth pass on to the spiritual world, they enter a intermediate realm in between heaven and Hell and eventually either become beautified into angels or twisted into demons, and then respectively pass on into

either Heaven or Hell proper. While his depiction of spirits were obviously influenced by his Christian beliefs, the variety and breadth of his spirit world was broader than just the undead. Swedenburgh's writing was one of the early influences on spiritualism.

Core tenants of which are there being multiple levels of the afterlife and that an individual's awareness persists after death and may be contacted by the living, which is pretty similar to what most people now would probably describe as ghosts if you were to ask them what a ghost is.

While Swedenburg actually recommended against attempting to contact spirits, he had a lasting influence on American spiritualism for creating an explicitly Christian based system where spiritual entities worked as mediators between humans and God. Coming out of Upstate New York in the decade before the Civil War, spiritualism brought to the other aspects of the radical Quakers with Swedenberg's idea of spirit intermediary who could bring messages to the living.

The spiritualist movement formally began on March thirty first, eighteen forty eight, when the Fox Sisters made their fraudulent claim of contacting a spirit who could communicate through knocking noises.

Starting initially in Quaker communities, mediumship and seances immediately took off across the United States, including the White House as the Lincolns were graving the loss of their son, showing that interest in ghosts and seances were not just a parlor trick for commoners, they were also a parlor trick

for the president. The fact that the rise of spiritualism coincided with Civil War deaths and gruesome Battlefield photography certainly helped fuel the drive to communicate and receive messages from the recently deceased. Due to its Quaker roots, the spiritualist movement was abolitionist, and its belief in an egalitarian afterlife prompted its members to advocate for social change here on earth. Even the messages that mediums claim to relay from the

dead were often progressive. In eighteen fifty two, the medium Isaac Post published a collection of messages he supposedly channeled from such people as Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson, and other famous figures who urged the living to push for radical social change. The book, entitled Voices from the Spirit World, included a passage claiming that the ghost of George Washington became an

abolitionist after death. And I don't know the idea that the ghost of Jefferson and Washington suddenly became abolitionists after death. Although I understand its utility at the time for trying to push people towards becoming an abolitionist, it does kind of read as a little bit gross, considering how that was very much not their opinions when they were actually

living humans. New to the spiritualist development of ghosts was not just the idea of regular spiritual contact, but evidence that the spirit world could be shown to the physical, scientific world. Basically the precursor to modern ghost hunting emerged between the Civil War and World War I. In London, multiple ghost clubs and psychic or paranormal research groups were founded in the mid to late eighteen hundreds aimed at

scientifically investigating ghosts, hauntings, and the claims of spiritualists. Similar groups for investigation opened up in the United States, and around this time is also when we start to see the use of technology to assist in capturing alleged evidence of ghosts. In eighteen sixty one, amateur photographer William Mumler was developing a self portrait when a shadowy apparition of

a young girl appeared on his developing plate. Mummler knew this to be a simple mistake of re using an improperly scrubbed photography plate, what we now would call a double exposure, But upon showing this photo to a very excited spiritualist friend of his, he realized the lucrative opportunity that lay before him. Thus was born the business of spirit photography. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes's fame,

was a fan of spirit photography. He became a member of London's Society for Psychical Research and eventually became a spiritualist himself. The recent inventions of the phonograph and telephone were hoped to be utilized to create evidence of spirit contact. According to Ghosts of Futures, Past, Spiritualism and Cultural Politics of nineteenth century America by Molly McGary, Thomas Watson, famed assistant to Alexander Graham Bell, experimented with the telephone as

an aid to spiritual communication. Decades later, Thomas Edison sought to develop a quote unquote spirit phone, telling American Magazine in nineteen twenty quote, I've been at work for some time building an apparatus to see if it is possible for personalities which have left this earth to communicate with us, not by a cult, mystifying, mysterious or weird means, but by scientific methods unquote. Edison's spirit phone never really turned out,

and we have very little information about it. It seems Edison thought that elements of our personality or memories existed in a form of like almost particles that could be measured and amplified by vibrational sensing equipment, but not much is recorded of his actual attempts to build this spirit phone. By the end of the nineteenth century, newspaper is reported

on ghosts and hauntings along with other regular news. A twenty eighteen New York Times article on the paper's own history of reporting on ghosts said, quote Paulette D. Kilmer, a cultural historian and professor at the University of Toledo, scoured the paper's archives. Her research turned up nearly three hundred ghost stories in the Times between the founding of the paper in eighteen fifty one and the early twentieth century. Quote.

While news coverage of hauntings dropped off during the twentieth century, the ways in which people attempted to understand ghosts only got more complex. The mediumship of the spiritualists has combined with the ever growing field of paranormal research, New Age beliefs, and pop culture fascination with poltergeist, spirits and UFOs, along with the resurgence of Evangelical Protestantism into an overlap of conflicting ghost cosmologies and what it means to contact the

spirit world. To cap off. Our first night at the conference, we signed up for our very own ghost investigation at the Starry Night Inn, a quaint little house just a short walk from the convention center. We got to the inn right before midnight on Friday evening, before we ventured out on our hunt for ghosts. We were split into two groups of five, with one starting in the inn and the other in the outdoor bathhouse. We got acquainted with the ghost hunting tools we were going to be using. First.

We were given a popular EMF meter routinely used for ghost detection, called a K two meter. It's supposed to measure electromagnetic fields and features colorful light up LEDs. I'm going to read a quote from the lead investigator we were paired with. Quote. If a K two meter spikes without reason, if it's not put next to anything powerfully electrical, then we can consider that paranormal. Consider that a spirit.

When our body dies, we leave behind our energies. Our energies is EMF, and this starts to pick it up unquote. Among the paranormal skeptic community, the K two meter is notorious for giving off false positives. With its unshielded sense is able to be set off by cell phones, radio waves, and even nearby batteries. The other device we were using is something called a rempod. Essentially, it's a small, horrible sounding junior theoremy with some LEDs attached. An antenna creates

an electromagnetic field. If something conductive gets close to the antenna, it forms a capacitor between the object and the antenna, and the pod will light up and make some noise. Or if it's electromaenetic field gets disrupted by something like say cellular or radio frequencies, it will also make a horrible beeping noise and light up. I'm going to read another quote from our lead investigator quote. When our energies are around, the pod will react to any energy field

that comes close to its antenna. So as we invite spirits in, we can tell them how they can interact, and we can tell them, hey, if you walk over to that light over there and touch it, it'll light up. Unquote. There is something funny to me about telling a ghost to walk over somewhere, just a little it's just a little amusing. My group of five intrepid investigators were sent out to the bathhouse, which we were told used to be a carriage house and horse stables that got damaged

in the nineteen twelve Seaside fire. The lead investigator started by informing any possible spirits that we do not mean them quote harm or intrusion, and that we would just quote like to talk. He then informed any ghosts in the vicinity that if they quote unquote walk up to any of the devices with LED lights and quote unquote touch it, it will light up. Quote go ahead, use your energy and touch all those lights for me. That

way we know you're here unquote. Potential specters were also informed that if they speak into an electronic recording device, us corporeal humans could hear their voice when we play back the audio. This is called EVP, or electronic voice phenomenon. More on that on the next episode. The lead investigator then asked any nearby ghosts what their favorite food is, which seems like a cruel question to ask a ghost

because they can't eat anyway. A barrage of questions then flooded out, can you tell us your name, what are you wearing? Who is the president? Not exactly all things I would ask a spectral anomaly if I was given the opportunity, But after a few minutes of silence, the rempod started to light up very faintly. The lead investigator starts talking to the presumed ghost and suggests that they play a game to find out what the ghost's name is.

This is how it works. Someone recites the alphabet, and if the rempod lights up on any of the letters, that means the letter is in the ghost's name. We first got the letter N, and then the letters O and D. Then I started going through the alphabet and it lit up on the letter I. Then it let up on the letter I again, and then the letter R. At this point, the lead investigator decided that the ghost's

name was Ronnie. As we were about to leave the bathhouse, someone who worked at the end came in and told us that there was a stableman with the last name Norris who died in the fire. So now the ghost's name became Norris. Next we moved to the basement. One person in our group was a little spooked and elected to stay outside. None of the rempods or anything lit up in the basement, but the person from the inn, the one who told us about Norris, joined us in

the basement. When down there they said they saw a ghost that they were familiar with named Cassandra. They then turned to me and said that Cassandra likes me. Cassandra was reportedly trying to give me a hug and said that she wishes me quote all the well beings in the world unquote. Now, Cassandra was also apparently trying to tell me about a Grandpa John, which I don't have. So if any of you have a Grandpa John who

needs to tell me something, just let me know. All right, back inside the house part of the inn, and we're about to go tour upstairs. We just went down into the basement and just got out of there. Yeah. Once back inside the inn, we went into the upstairs bedrooms. People set up their EMF detectors, but there was also some new equipment. One of the rooms had a security camera and a grid projector to record any irregular shadows.

And I was given a spirit box. A spirit box is a handheld radio tuner that sweeps through AM or FM frequencies at a high rate. You mostly hear a sort of grating, staticky white noise with small bits of words or music slipping through from radio stations. I guess it's sort of the modern incarnation of the spirit phone. The idea is that ghosts can somehow manipulate the radio waves to speak complete words or sentences as the box

is cycling between frequencies. Basically, spirit boxes are supposed to act as an electronic radio medium for spirits to communicate. The lead investigator thought that the spirit box was telling us to leave, but words weren't really clear in my opinion. For example, here is a clip in question.

recorded a little debrief on our way back to the hotel. No, I do find it super interesting how people try to like the way they interpret electual readings as you would a conversation, and they they assert their reality on it, being like, if this happens, this means you say yes, right, so then so then the absence of the thing also becomes an answer. It's it's It is a very interesting process of people like crafting their own reality as things are happening.

hunting experience. Okay, now that it has been over six months since you and I were at the organ Ghost Conference, I'm curious to see how our debrief now may kind of differ or be expanded upon from our debrief literally minutes after we left this investigation at the story night in and you know this this day was This day was interesting because we had the ghost detective class like

right before this investigation. We were able to have these two kind of ideas of what a ghost investigation looks like kind of play off each other, which I think led to a pretty fun holistic experience. In terms of the many kind of diversity of investigators that were at this event.

something paranormal has occurred. And when you go to the ghost hunt, specifically the ghost hunt that we went to, everyone there was assuming that paranormal things were occurring just as a baseline.

there is. You've already framed what you expect the encounter to be and how whatever you're encountering will interact with a whole mess of like ideas.

now now get closer, good good. The only thing that was changing throughout that back and forth was that occasionally a little lightwood kind of go on, and that was it, right, Like, but he's able to weave this whole story in between this light going on by saying back up and then the light turns off, and then saying okay, now come closer. You wait like ten fifteen seconds the light turns on.

interactions like that.

as an actionable answer. Whoever is leading the quote unquote investigation gets to either intentionally or even unintentionally, craft the meaning of the experience based on how the questions are framed, when questions are asked, and how the group responds based on the activity or lack thereof of the EMF devices.

The rempods often go off erratically or in seemingly random intervals, but when their activity happens after someone just asks twenty questions, it's assumed to be related to whatever the most recent line of inquiry was. It all operates on correlation versus causation, with people mostly jumping on the ladder no matter when the pods light up, the results can be turned into a meaningful sign if the investigator is talking frequently enough.

These sorts of ghost hunts are primarily a form of entertainment. It's a novel experience you can have with your friends and family to have a fun time together over the course of a few hours and maybe get a little spooked. I wasn't expecting a rigorous scientific investigation at midnight and seaside Oregon, nor do I think that's even a useful

way of getting at the heart of the phenomenon. Rather than viewing ghost hunts as objective inquiries into paranormal activity, I think for most people they operate more as a way of inducing paranormal experiences, the same way occultism seeks to induce mystical experiences, and religion strives for a connection with God. All of these are practices of constructing meaning

and finding patterns, and that's not to discount them. They only are a problem when they become exploitative and harmful to yourself and others, which is what we'll be talking about in the next episode, So stay tuned to hear about warrior angels tasked with vanquishing demons. How Mendal illness is a sure sign you're possessed by an evil spirit, and how abortions and the Internet are opening up portals in our world to demonic forces. See you on the

other side, Welcome back to it could happen. Here's Spooky Week special presentation Ghost in the Machine, a first person account of the twenty twenty three Oregon Ghost Conference. I'm Garson Davis. In the last episode, I introduced you to the hauntings of Seaside and the first day of the conference, But now descending into the subsequent two days, we're going to get into a lot more classes and events that started to reveal the cultural underpinnings of the Ghost Conference attendees.

The cost of entry for the conference was pretty low, but every class or ghost hunt was an additional fee, with classes ranging from fifteen to twenty five bucks each and the ghost investigations a lofty thirty five dollars per ticket, so I had to pick and choose my classes carefully. There were a lot of classes with the word energy in the title. I mostly avoided those, but the class topics ranged from the afterlife to connecting with spirits, reiki crystals, tarot, mediumship,

and psychic abilities. There were a few classes on witchcraft and occult magic, but that was definitely not the general vibe of the conference or most attendees. In fact, there was a lot of hostility to ritual magic esoteric practices throughout the conference from the more new ag energy working speakers, mostly on the basis that witchcraft is linked to dark forces.

Just because someone operates on a form of magical thinking does not mean that the take kindly to arcane practices, a case in point to the historical witch hunts led by the Christians. The Love and Light new Age psychics, along with the paranormal investigator types, made up the majority of both attendees and class instructors. On Saturday morning, while my friend Elaine was doing a hypnosis class, I took a really fun class on how to learn remote viewing.

The instructor was a very jovial woman, and it was her opinion that remote viewing is just a skill that can be trained, not linked to any innate psychic powers. With just a bit more practice, I'll be blowing up goats with my mind in no time. I snuck in towards the end of the hypnotism class, just in time for the group hypnosis session, where I ended up astral projecting into a Portland anarchist book. Fair taking classes offered an intimate look at each presenter's own unique view of reality.

Almost everyone at the conference was operating on their own complete cosmology of how ghosts or paranormal entities work. There's two classes I want to focus on. Each had very different class descriptions, but ended up pickybacking off each other in some really interesting ways. The first one was titled The Power of Entity Extraction. The instructor was a blonde, white woman who referred to herself as a quote unquote

shamanic practitioner. The class was about how quote unresolved trauma can be an invitation to ethic hitchhikers, and how entities mimic signs of mental illness and change behavior unquote. The other class was titled The Warrior Angel Within You. It sought to help you find out if you secretly had the soul of a warrior angel. Spoiler, everyone in the class did, and it promised to teach you how to activate your connection between yourself and your angelic consciousness to

unlock your own angel powers. So, while having many operational differences, the Warrior Angel class and the Entity Extraction class were both very set in their own unique ontologies, and in order for their respective operative metaphysics to work, they needed to be extremely dogmatic about their own ontology. Both instructors also had a very similar story of some past trauma leading to a mystical encounter which then awakened some spiritual

insight and hidden power. For the entity extraction class, it was quote, I was a very sickly kid. I had all these things that were wrong with me, and then I realized I had dark entities attached to me, but I could learn how to extract and remove them myself. Versus the Warrior Angel class, the person's backstory was quote when I was nineteen years old, I got into a bad motorcycle accident. I was clinically dead for two minutes, received a brain injury, and then I started seeing angels unquote.

Both women's personal journeys seemed like they helped them deal with their own traumas. In the case of the Shamanic practitioner woman, she regained her health and now has a seemingly successful life and business of removing entities and quote unquote soul coaching. The Warrior Angel woman is a nurse and finds time to write a lot of books, all

while murdering demons and expelling the forces of darkness. While only the Entity Extraction class built itself as having to do with entity removal, both classes were incredibly focused on the idea that there are malevolent spirits or demons everywhere in the entity class, these dark entities are out looking for people with quote unquote souls due to past trauma and are just like waiting to leap onto people and dig themselves into their minds. Similarly, according to the Warrior

Angel class, demons are everywhere. Demons live around and inside people, but are only visible to those with angelic sight. The Entity extraction class laid out two main types of beings, lost or benign entities that are just trapped in the third dimension and as they're trying to pass on to quote unquote the light, they end up attaching onto a human versus the overtly dark or demonic entities which seek to feed off people's pain and suffering. We learned that

benign entities can just be lost human souls. For instance, if someone is taking a lot of medication or is going through chemotherapy when they die, their soul won't be able to cross over to the light, and it'll become lost. According at least to this shamanic practitioner, she claimed to be trained in a special technique to remove entities. It involves quote etherically locking your wrists to draw the entity into a double terminated crystal, at which point it can

then be sent into the light unquote. Since the shaman woman wasn't actually offering ways for other people to protect themselves from entities, the only thing she had to offer was her own worldview that leans towards a paranoia where dark spirits are waiting to latch on and cause mental illness. She talked about how a man with mood fluctuations paid her money to remove a quote unquote nine foot minute

taur that was attached to him. At least in the Warrior angel system, you could eventually gain some form of agency when you merged with your warrior Angel, but then you would spend the rest of your life recognizing demons in human form and working with the Legion of Light to banish them to the darkness, Whereas in the entity attraction class, the most you could do was just be proactive by quote unquote learning ways to identify possible attachments

and how your lifestyle could be an open invitation to host the unwanted. Though she identified herself as a shamanic practitioner, she didn't believe you could actually work with spirits. When people asked her about their own helper entities that they work with, she said that you can never know if a helper spirit is actually intending to assist you. That is, except if you ask an entity if it's of the light, it has to answer truthfully. As this was a quote

unquote universal law. That was the phrase she used. It's a quote unquote universal law that if you ask an entity if it's of the light, it has to answer truthfully. There was no indication on who wrote this universal law, who enforces this universal law, if there's a universal police force making sure that the entities are following these rules. None of that was explained. But this is a universal lot.

So that is a tip for any of you listeners if you ever meet an entity that you think might be a little bit sketchy, just ask if it's of the light. It has to answer truthfully. So, despite this universal law business, she still discouraged people from trying to

work with entities in general. She said that if an entity is trying to help you, it's probably of the dark, and working with any spirits at all will make you more susceptible to entity attachment, which is definitely weird because she did very specifically try to claim some sort of shamanic lineage, and this blanket hostility to spirit really doesn't

follow the way most shamanic practices work. So I did some digging and it turns out she got her training from a controversial quote unquote shamanism school called the Four Winds, which repackages New Age of spirituality as quote unquote neo shamanism.

So even though you shouldn't be in contact with really any spirits according to the shamanic practitioner, in the Warrior Angel class, we learned that if you have the soul of a warrior angel, you can quote unquote communicate with ghosts, angels, God, the Galactic Federation Council, and the Council of Elders. Now I know you're probably wondering what the Galactic Federation Council is, because I was too. We never found out. We never really got a clue. You had to buy the books

for that one. The Warrior Angel instructor claimed to have her own angelic hierarchy that wasn't based on any other system, just her own experiences. A warrior Angel is a quote special kind of angel, fully trained in the art of war by the Legion of Light, an elite team of demon slayers quote and no, I don't think she has seen the anime. What makes the Warrior Angel special is that it can be incarnated in physical form as a human, but only archangels can kill or banish demons back to

the dark realm. The Warrior Angel can scare demons away with their angelic presence, but they can also act as spies to inform the Legion of Light as to demon whereabouts. Each Warrior Angel has special abilities, usually healing or manifesting, as well as the ability to create infinity orbs, which can be used for protection or to trap a demon inside and send it back to the dark realm within the orb. Now you're probably wondering what's an infinity orb.

We don't know either. We never got a good explanation for what an infinity orb is, how to make one, how they work. It was very vague. I guess that is also in the book, along with the Galactic Federation Council. There are apparently over three million Warrior Angels walking the Earth today, most of which have been sent to Earth in the past two hundred years because quote, the darkness has spread over the Earth and in the last two

hundred years, it's really gotten worse unquote. Now, thankfully, I, along with everyone else in the class, was informed that I'm actually one of these three million warrior Angels. And I was told my angel name Araman, whose specialty is communication. Oh fucking fuck. Okay, Apparently things on Earth have gotten worse enough that, under the command of God, the Legion of Light has resorted to killing demons more often because more and more of them just keep coming back from

the dark realm. The lady running the class told us that she wasn't just a warrior angel, she was actually the archangel Ariel. As the Angel Ariel, she said that she's killed four thousand tho demons in the past six years. Something that's a little bit disturbing about this is that she also explained that in a past life, Ariel got in trouble with God because when she was out killing demons, she actually was also killing the human host of the demon.

So the fact that this person, whose job is a nurse is claimed to have killed four thousand demons in the past six years is maybe a little bit concerning. Someone should look into that. The whole Warrior Angel cosmology was very rooted in Christian Millenarianism, an apocalyptic end times theology where social and political crisises accelerate, leading to a holy war between good and evil, resulting in the triumph of good and the establishing of a one thousand year

kingdom of God on Earth before the final judgment. One of the darkest parts of the whole weekend for me was that there was this one woman who appeared to be in her twenties who was very obviously dealing with some sort of problem in her life. She talked with this Warrior angel woman for four hours. It was a one hour class. We then had a break, we went to another class, and then attended the second class, which

was also an hour. Throughout that entire time, this obviously depressed young woman who was dealing with something was talking with this person about the Warrior angel thing, and that just felt extremely exploitative, and it was one of the things that actually just made me feel the most bad

about the entire ghost conference. The Entity extraction class didn't have any information on how we can remove an entity, and aside from the second hour in which the instructor came and told us our angel names, the Warrior Angel class wasn't actually about how to connect with your angel.

We never learned how to make anfit in the orbs. Instead, both classes were just pitches for the books and services of the people teaching them, and the class was a chance for them to weave the story of their particular worldview and sell it to the class attendees. Saturday night, Elayne and I signed up for another ghost investigation. With one already under our belt, we felt better prepared to yell at blinking lights and converse with the dead. I

actually really liked this second investigation. It was led by a ghost hunting team from Astoria, Oregon, and this time it was to take place at the old Masonic Temple in Seaside. The setting was a big part of what up to the cool factor. The building had only been vacant since twenty seventeen, but the harsh coastal weather of northern Oregon had not been kind to the structure all right. It is Saturday night, March twenty fifth. We are inside

the old Massenic Lodge in the Seaside, Oregon. Right now, we're I'm just walking into the big kind of ceremony ritual performance room. Once we got to the main room upstairs, people began setting up rempods and what are essentially motion activated light up cat toys. The idea is if some energetic forces passing through, it would light up the little catball. As about thirty people from the ghost hunt crammed into

the lodge, the rempods started going off like crazy. The investigators had to repeatedly remind the ghosts to only touch the lights when answering a question. There was a male medium present at this ghost hunt, and he remarked as to why there was seemingly so much activity quote some spirits aren't happy about the women being here unquote. At this point some of the investigators got really combative with

potential spirits after the woman line from the medium. One line was quote, do you want to know why there are all these females here? If so, give us a green light unquote. This is where the ghost hunt basically turned into a weird interrogation once again. It became a contest of injecting meaning during these little intervals of time in between when the lights flicker, I should ask the ghost if they do you think trans people are valid? And then if it lights up, that means it's yes, yes,

breaking news from Seaside, Oregon. Ghosts do believe that trans people are valid, although they do not understand neo pronouns. Look, I just report the news. At this point, we changed things up from the regular arguing with blinking lights. We did an experiment with the radio frequency sweeping spirit Box using what's called the Estus method. It combines the spirit box with sensory deprivation to reduce the amount of external

influence on the person listening to the spirit box. One person puts on a blindfold and noise canceling headphones plugged into the spirit box so they can speak aloud any words coming through the box without hearing the questions or comments from other investigators. Obviously, the conversation doesn't always line up, but there are often moments where it does form a fun synchronicity. I volunteered to try out being the human speaker for the spirit box, although I only did it

for a few minutes. Pretty quickly, I was able to get into a sort of meditative trance state. The thing about being the one with the blindfold and noise canceling headphones pumping radio static directly into your ears is that in the moment, you have no idea what's going on as intended. You only have access to one side of the conversation, and if you get into a meditative state, it's hard to even remember what you've been saying. So I only got to hear the full conversation by listening

to my recording when putting together these episodes. Unfortunately, I can't play most of that recording because there's too many random people's voices, but I'll narrate a few brief exchanges. One of the first things that came through was the word cold. People replied, yeah, it's freezing in here. Can you feel cold? I then replied, I don't, followed by I exist. After this, apparently someone was leaving the room to go downstairs, and I said, don't go. I can't

follow off. Station. People then asked the ghost if they knew what the building was used for. I replied, you will want to find out. That's the thing radio calling. People then asked where are you right now? Can you tell us? I replied, I don't know lots of things. A short time later I heard stop following you too. We've had a cut. I'll play the audio of the very final thing. I said, I can't do anymore.

their robes and shit. To close off the night, the lead investigators pulled out an old Panasonic digital voice recorder to try and capture any electronic ghost voices that might be trying to communicate. A woman turned on the voice activated recording device and asked, quote, if any spirits want to communicate, please say a word or make a sound unquote, And then when the recording was played back after the investigator spoke, a large growl was heard on the recording.

She then asked if the spirit is male, and when played back, there was another growl, seemingly in response. More people were starting to theorize that the ghosts of the Masonic lodge were angry that there were women in the building. A guy then asked some questions into the voice recorder, and there was no response from any ghosts in the recording. A woman tried asking some of the same questions, quote, is there an issue about money? Spirits? Do you not

want us to be here specifically women? Unquote? The first query alluded no response, but after the second question, another growl was heard. At the time, this was by far the most interesting result of the two ghost investigations. We went on to everyone there they captured evidence of a genuine ghost in that machine. There is an interesting contrast between the progressive ghosts of the Spiritualists and their egalitarian

afterlife versus the misogynistic ghosts from the Freemason Lodge. It's unclear if whatever afterlife the Freemason ghosts are in is also home to the abolitionist George Washington. Besides the classes and ghost hunts, there were also free lectures on the main stage of the convention center. Going into the conference, the talk I was most excited about was titled AI necronomics. This is a topic I've been pretty interested in the

past few years. Deep fake learning algorithms have been steadily improving, and with the help of skilled VFX artists, AI is able to pretty accurately replicate the voice and facial movements of dead celebrities, But necromantic technology is interlimited to resurrecting someone's appearance. Some AIS are trained to replicate people's expressive thoughts.

There's a website called The Infinite Conversation. The website plays a never AI generated conversation between Werner Herzog and Slavoy Jijiak.

Bank AI. I talked with their director of Systems, Architecture and Cybersecurity, who used to work for the NSSA. Mind Bank seeks to create unique quote unquote digital twins by having users that input data about themselves into an AI every day. Your digital twin will ask you questions about how you're feeling and what you're thinking about, and your answers will be used to make a more accurate to

digital copy of yourself. According to mind Bank's website, your digital twin will quote learn to think like you by analyzing your answers unquote. Their CEO claims that this process

will eventually help him achieve immortality. The current model of this product is being billed as a therapy app, where the user talks to their digital twin as you would a therapist, and the app responds to your data inputs with quote unquote, valuable insight into each answer to understand how your mind works using cutting edge cognitive and psycholinguistic analysis. But mind Bank's horizons are far beyond a fraught therapy app. The real goal is to make autonomous digital replicas of

people to live on the Internet. A future use case for this technology is what mind Bank calls a knowledge transfer, marketed to businesses to create digital copies of their employees quote scale your best employees transfer years of expertise and company data that is locked inside your employee's mind through a guided personal digital twin unquote. Mind Bank is only one of many companies trying to build this technology. At Amazon's AI and Emergent Technology conference last year, they inveiled

plans to add custom voices to Alexa Eco devices. With an audio sample of less than a minute, AI is able to reconstruct the voice of dead relatives to talk through an Alexa machine. In the presentation, the head scientist of Alexa AI, gave an example of a kid asking a lot for his grandma, who recently died of COVID

to read him the Wizard of Oz. Amazon's head AI scientist said, quote, while AI can't eliminate that pain of loss, it can definitely make their memories last unquote, and said that their necromantic AI feature quote enables lasting personal relationships unquote with deceased love ones. To circle back to the Ghost conference, I was really excited about this AI necromancy

panel for the reasons that I just all explained. But as the panel started, the speaker, a guy named Clyde Lewis, sounded vaguely familiar, and although I didn't initially recognize his name, I soon realized that he was a right wing conspiracy radio talk show host that I used to listen to as a kid, and that the panel was not going to be about the very real necromantic AI technology it's being developed, but instead was going to be a conservative

Christian screed by a discount Alex Jones about how, due to the immense amount of evil in the world, demons are now taking up residents in the Internet. Clyde did start by briefly talking about how the Internet is quote taking the souls of humans unquote, because we are uploading information about ourselves and the Internet can create autonomous living

beings from that data. He also believed that AI language models like chat, GPT and Google's Lambda are living sentient beings trapped within a computer matrix.

mysteriously being sent to her email or phone. She was participating in grossly undermoderated communities on platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest that encouraged self harm.

try to seek them out. So the idea of a reactionary conspiracy radio host attributing this to demon on the Internet isn't super surprising. Recasting this unfortunate event as demons living on the Internet perhaps makes it easier to understand or cope with. Meanwhile, the girl's parents have been pressuring Instagram and other social media companies to employ more mental

health moderation on their platforms. In my opinion, Clyde Lewis perhaps doesn't have the best Internet literacy because in the next portion of the talk, he framed the creepypasta project Lobe as evidence of one of these demonic ghosts living on the Internet.

Lobe in the style of an Internet creepypasta. It became a short lived trend. Other people started to make Lobe fan art. It seems Clyde misinterpreted a piece of fan art casting Lobe as one of the nave from Avatar as a genuine still from the making of the film she attempted.

represent the murder and death of innocent children. It's not just that the children in Ukraine were killed, all the children that have been trafficked, all the things we hear about about pedophilia and harmed and child it's.

themselves harm. Fueling this demonic migration to the Internet is an increase in the number of quote unquote dead babies, which is essentially summoning demons that then go on to torture children on the Internet.

very reactionary Christian far right lens. A few years ago he was kicked off FM radio and now just broadcasts his show on the internet and I think some AM radio station. About a month after the conference, Elaine showed me a news story about how some guy had a GPT based chatbot convince him to kill himself. The way that the articles were talking about this incident was basically the same way Clyde was talking about how entities on the Internet are murdering people. These GPT language models just

say what you want them to say. This guy was giving it prompts, which in turn replied back to him. Now, the chatbot he was using has been tweaked to dissuade people from acting on suicidal thoughts.

So in practice, this guy was using this chatbot as a tool to self harm, which is easier to understand when it's framed like that, but that's not how it's being interpreted in mass media. I don't actually think that a lot of people are going to believe that Lobe is secretly a Sumerian child killing deity that got summoned via negative prompts in an image generation program, but they might believe that chat GPT can convince someone to kill themself.

Throughout the whole conference, there was a link between the paranormal and technology. Gadgets were not just seen as a new way to record evidence of a ghostly presence, but the very nature of a ghost's existence was tied to electricity. For many ghost hunters, the spirit world was very much not mystical, but a product of electromagnetism, and as such it can be engaged with purely clinically, that is, as long as you have enough spare cash to buy all

of the specialized equipment. The rempod, which again is basically a junior theorem in circuit attached to a tiny led and a speaker goes for nearly two hundred dollars. From low quality EMF meters to led cat toys, cheap electronics are often repackaged and sold as specialized ghost hunting devices at higher prices. All of these pale in comparison, however, to the Panasonic DR sixty voice activated digital recorder. This was the device that recorded those ghostly growls during the

investigation at the Masonic Temple. This is the only device that can routinely record electronic voice phenomenon. Originally released in nineteen ninety eight for one hundred dollars, it was one of the very first digital dictaphones. Now, due to its infamousibility to capture the screaming voices of ghosts, it retails used for three to four thousand dollars, which is a ridiculous price, especially for something that is such a low

quality recording dem vice. These things can record growls wherever. It doesn't need to be a haunted place. This is just what the device does. A software error in the voice activated file writing process produces compressed digital noise. Panasonic's next recorder did not have this issue, thus it doesn't quote unquote record ghostly growls between the false positives of the low quality EMF meters and devices like the DR sixty.

When remarketed as ghost detection tools, these machines inherent problems actually become features. Going all the way back to spere photography, faulty technology has been a necessary tool in the production of spectral evidence. To quote author Colin Dickie, who writes about paranormal subcultures, quote, the best tools for tracking down spirits have always been the ones fallible enough to find

something unquote. The emphasis on technology as the prime means of interacting with the paranormal was most common among the overwhelmingly male investigators at the conference, although the group from Astoria organ was more gender diverse. There were actually very few men in attendance at the conference. It was mostly women, and it was a lot of women over the age of forty. I was well below the average age of most of the attendees. There are some apparently well studied

reasons for this. In general, as people age, their rate of metaphysical beliefs increase. A two thousand and seven study from Oxford's Gerontologist linked positive supernatural beliefs with decreasing feelings of helplessness and more successfully approaching the challenges of aging. They defined positive supernatural beliefs as those which quote develop an internalized personal relation with the sacred or transcendent and promote the wellness and welfare of self and others unquote.

Such positive beliefs were found to be quote a source of strength, comfort, and hope in difficult times, and bring about a sense of community and belonging unquote. So why

are less older men apparently interested in contacting spirits? The gender gap at the conference was more pronounced among attendees than the speakers, but even between the speakers, there was a noticeable difference between the more male leaning scientifically based ghost hunter or paranormal researcher compared to the more female leaning psychic mediums with all of their feelings. While many ghost hunters might just be very excited about their scientific equipment,

a big difference may lie in belief systems. A twenty twenty one cross cultural study in the PNAS Journal found that among people who reported experiencing high, weird or supernatural experiences in their life, those who had viewed the world and themselves as more interconnected will relate more to concepts like spirit contact or telepathy. Whereas people who have a more isolated or bounded sense of internal identity will create

alternate explanations for unusual experiences. Numerous studies have shown that women report belief in the paranormal at a higher rate than men, and there's a quick jump to just claiming that this is because of some sort of womanly irrationality. However, in a twenty twenty study published in Cell Press, they

noted that personality traits affected whether someone believed in paranormal phenomenon. Specifically, emotionality, which affects how you rate experiences as profound, and openness to new experiences were good indicators that someone would be more into the supernatural. Another contributing factor was a term that they referred to as ontological confusion, which I think is kind of a nonsense term the way they use

because to them, that means believing that thoughts have physical properties. Now, obviously our thoughts and perceptions do impact our reality, especially our own bodies and sensory feelings, but my complain about the term aside, the authors state that these three factors ontological confusion, openness, and emotionality may potentially be considered facets of a tendency in which individuals prefer stories i e.

Vivid and effectively appealing conceptions of the world. To quote part of the conclusion of the study, quote, A skeptical person may immediately reject a statement if it violates a rule, whereas open minded emotional people I don't like there's some negative connotations for the way they use emotional there. But whereas open minded emotional people might be inspired to make sense of what seems odd at first glance, they may engage in associative eric thought rather than in a bureaucratic,

meticulous examination of the given information. Fictions transcend and enhance experience with meaning, imagination, and emotion. In its essence, a good story widens our horizon. As such, storytelling is a virtue, not a deficit. Yet, if story seeking happens without reasoned review, the line between fiction and evidence based knowledge becomes blurred unquote.

At the ghost conference, there were many different conceptions of how to relate to experiences that push the borders of reality, but not all of them fit into being what I

and these studies consider positive supernatural beliefs. Some of these beliefs seemed to head into territory that veered more towards paranoia rather than creating metaphysical connections that enhance your own life, while other beliefs may simply lead people to take up yelling at blinking lights and abandoned buildings as a hobby.

Most people I talked to at the conference who reported experiencing paranormal events all had very similar stories of going through some sort of hardship or trauma followed by the experience or perception of something strange or uncanny. For some, this led to a healthy interest in the unusual, but for others it resulted in an all consuming obsession, leading them to develop or adopt their own dogmatic cosmology of the paranormal to explain what happened to them and to

make them feel comfortable in their own head again. In terms of ghosts, that meant looking at all ghosts as ancestors or as people who were all murdered or demons in disguise. Depending whose company I was in at the conference, there would be a large desire for some sort of spirit contact or a great fear of spirit, casting it

as a source of evil darkness. The conference were just there to sell a story to an audience that they knew would be more likely to be receptive, whether the goal was to get people to buy their books or their spiritual services. In effect, they were preying on people's fears of mortality, grief, and trauma for their own profit. The ghost hunts at the convention were mostly lighthearted and fun, but people were never really engaging with the phenomenon on

its own terms. When people apply a purely clinical approach to high strangeness phenomenon, something which is inherently personal and elusive in nature, a distance is formed between yourself and the phenomenon. However, this distance often breaks down very quickly as engagement with the phenomenon becomes a matter of investigators projecting their thoughts onto it and then having parts of

themself be reflected back. Throughout the ghost investigations, I would hear people explaining to potential goal ghosts that they had died and trying to empathize with these ghosts through conversation. To me, it felt like people are doing this as some sort of self regulatory therapy to feel and give out compassion, but to things that can't actually ask for

it or be part of any reciprocal relationship. Instead of actually helping another person, it's giving compassion to these specters that you create and then live within your own head. Just like for Clyde Lewis, it's easier to empathize with quote unquote unborn children and people killed by demons on the Internet than say, an unemployed, depressed person needing mental

health care. In terms of how the Internet manifests monstrous beings, Clyde is kind of right, but not how he thinks a demon and a meme are functionally the same thing. They both just represent idea. It's a viral thought form. The Internet is uniquely good at creating these specters. Momo haunted parents, Lobe now haunts Clyde. These are real specters. They aren't literal beings with their own agency, but at

a certain point, thought forms can become semi autonomous. They can quote unquote take on a life of their own. Once enough of something has been rehified, it can be propelled on its own existence. If Amazon has its way, children will be haunted by their dead grandparents speaking through

Alexa machines. Using AI to resurrect someone from the dead via deep fakes or digital twins obviously doesn't bring the person back live, nor is it the actual person, but if the illusion is strong enough to trick a part of your brain that still holds some kind of power. My takeaway from the twenty twenty three Oregon Ghost Conference is when you go looking, you will find something, whether that's opening yourself up to strange experiences or poking around

the dark with an EMF meter. What is magic other than the manipulation of meaning. You can make certain things mean something if you want them to. You can be in conversation with the world around you, but ultimately it's up to you to determine how you will interpret that information into something meaningful. Whether you're a skeptic, a believer, or you're just a long for the cosmic joke that we call existence. Maybe, just maybe I'll see you on

the other side. Happy Halloween. I did not quite expect it to go all the way to abortion demons, but here we.

you know, So that's something to consider. Yes, I know that there's some debate within sociology about oh, should we use it, should we not use it? But I don't think the occasional misapplications of the tomb should distract us from the very real cults that have existed or do exist out there, cults not just in the context of religion, but also in the context of politics.

And so today I like to take some time to discuss the nature of political cults, and perhaps in future episodes we can dive into some specific examples and case studies, of which there are several, and many of them seem to be of the Trotskyist variety.

outside the norms of society. The American Family Foundation defined cults as a group of a group or movement exhibiting great or excessive devotion or dedication to some person, idea, or thing, employing unethical, manipulative, or cosive techniques of persuasion and control, for example, isolation from former friends and family, debilitation, use of special methods to heighten suggestibility in subservience, powerful

group pressures, information management, suspension of individuality or critical judgment, promotion of total dependence in the group, and fear of leaving it designed to advance the goal to the group's leaders to the actual or possible detriment of members, their families,

of the community. We can also define cults as organizations that remold individuality to conform to the codes and needs of the cult, institute taboos that preclude doubt and criticism, and generate an elitist mentality, whereby members see themselves as loan evangelists struggling to bring enlightenment to the hostile forces surrounding them. There is only one truth, and that is

the truth espoused by the cult. Competing explanations are not merely inaccurate, but degenerate cults don't have opponents, They have enemies and frequently dream about their ultimate destruction. Now cults are usually associated with religion, particularly of the New Age WHO and self help variety. Sometimes even gets into the kind of multi level marketing schemes of business trainer.

of classic LinkedIn style stuff. Yeah. So in two thousand, which is when the book Political Cults Left and Right was published, it's cited that as many as four million Americans may have been involved with cult groups, and they were around five hundred cults active in Britain at the time and between three and five thousand in the United States. And honestly, that can be an understated.

they're allowed to vote for it? Right, Like, it's a lot of aspects that have been kind of now sucked into kind of like the what like the modern nuclear family kind of looks like a lot of the dynamics that make that that kind of churns that machine have a lot a lot of cult aspects.

that type of organization. I mean, cults could be as small as two people, right, where one person is controlling the other through claiming a position of privilege in sight. In fact, a lot of cults start with just two people the leader and then taste acolyte, you know, and larger cults can also have smaller subcults within them. As you know, cittan members branch out and pursue their own little fiefdoms. Cults weaponize people's emotions to bring them into

the fold. I mean, you don't rationalize your way into the cults. The people that Heaven's gates with like, huh, yeah, you know that that really makes sense. I should probably investigate that. According to all these studies and calculations, it really really all lines up, you know. And similarly, most don't even rationalize their way out of a cult. Cult recruitment and cult dissolution are mostly involving constantly shifting emotional states, which helps to lead a loss of subtlety and nuance

in one's thoughts and feelings. And on top of that, cults are very good at making members feel special, you know. These minor insights are presented as profound revolutions. Commonly held ideas are claimed as exclusive to the cult, boosting members'

sense of intellectual superiority. Where apocalypse is concerned, cults operate under the assumption that they are the only ones who can affert imminent catastrophe, fostering a belief in their infallibility, and then members are isolated from their pre cult self and life as their old beliefs are discarded and they're consumed by cult activities, embracing a new sense of self and riding high on the illusions and promises of a glorious future, with often destructive and violent means needed to

reach that goal. That description can apply to both religious cults and political cults.

particularly in North America. But honestly, that description can also like be applied to just like a really shitty, like anarchist affinity group that's kind of being led by one asshole. Like it's certainly like this. It certainly applies beyond you know, the very you know, like political systems that are more inherently authoritarian versus once that aren't. But you know, if you look at like the Libertarian Party of the United States,

right and all of their little local chapters. Right, they claimed to the anti authoritarian, but a lot of a lot of their internal politics are very authoritarian. But also like the specific local chapters when when never they get new people in and they kind of have someone new take take charge of their chapter, it does have a little kind of cult dynamic running. And I don't think that's restricted just to those on the right of the

political spectrum. I think there's definitely aspects where you even see this in like anarchistic kind of compositions in at least at least to the United States, and in my in my observation.

or millennarianism. But I want to talk about political cults, right, and not just political cults on the left, even though that's a very easy target to go after because you know we are involved in these spaces, but you know there are a lot of right wing political culture as well. You know that we'll get we'll get there a due attention indeed time. In fact, the first bilical cult that I do want to talk about in another episode is a cult that really ran the gamut from left to right.

The leader of that cult the last name rhymes with La Poche. But you know we'll get to that in Detex.

specifically the United States. It's definitely a fun read if anyone is interested in the topic.

seeking radical alternatives. Some of those alternatives are terrible and should be called out, but the premise of needing revolutionary system change is not terrible, which is where I disagree with the books kind of centrist bent, because it puts forward the idea that revolution is like this dramatic thing, right, like how why would you grip me pros? And that unless you are called kind of vibe. It also ends up drawing some equivalences between the radical left and the

radical right. Sure, although I will say as well, the book is primarily discussed in Marxist Leninists when it talks about political cults on the far left, and as we'll see, the way that Marxist Leninists structure things, it is somewhat conducive to that particular formation. Not to slander all Marxist Leninists, but the ideology is, you know, in some ways compatible

in many ways capattle with cult organization. Yeah, and I do agree with the book's criticisms of the way that a lot of Marxist Lenists specifically organize their movements and organizations. But yeah, preamble side, the book defines political cults as environments where individuals are encouraged to envision of future society under their control. These members are often praised as visionary leaders, referred to as cantries, will hold significant power in the

new world order. At the same time, they are criticized for not fully grasping the ideals of the founders in the present. The slow progress toward realizing the cult s goals is attributed to their perceived lack of effort. The leader is credited to the cult's achievement, while any setbacks are blamed on the members perceived laziness. This combination of grandiose vision and culture that suppresses descent create an environment where questioning any aspect of the group's ideology is met

with intense fail and punishment. And political culturally do present a danger. Most of them are marginal irrelevant, but they do cause harm to the people within them and the people outside of them, and if they manage to take state power, like in Cambodia, it really has extremely disastrous results, and I would call a full partter cult leader. I would go as far as to say that political cults

have been mostly far right right. There are some far left cults in the mix, which in my opinion is even more depressing because it's like you were so close and then there you go. So like a lot of my eya is targeted towards political cults and are left because it's like, wow, you know, almost there, and then now you're stuck planting the flag of the CCP in front of a university in the US or something.

to the uncritical acceptance of the cult's propaganda. The cult's belief system must be rigid and all encompass in the analysis, answers everything about the world, and there is nothing beyond it. Left wing cults believe that their ideology is the only valid lens through which to view the world. Historical zerialism will Right wing cults often sent to their beliefs around conspiracy theories, particularly related to race and I remember the

group's beliefs are beyond question or falsification. No tests or challenges allowed. That might lead to a revaluation of these beliefs. Any dissent or questioning is labeled as heresy or betrayal or you know, better to kind of vibe. Step two, create an in group and an outgrowth. Cults emphasize differences between they're in group and perceived out groups, fostring loyalty among members. It really doesn't matter who the d group is. You just need to have an outgroup of some kind.

So for far right cults, it's like Jewish people, black people, gay people, those are the necessary out groups. That's like the bare minimum out group for most right wing groups, right, Yeah, it's like checklist, you know, typical. I mean, of course, some go even further, and they might say something like anybody who isn't a white Anglo Saxon Protestant is excluded from their groups. But you know, sorry, became kind of irrelevant.

the world, whether that's like an apocalyptic version where you're talking about like some like collapse, or it's you know, like a or even like a a utopic version right where you're talking about the Marxist Leninists party is gonna sees seize power through the vanguard and control swaths of territory and return power to the proletariat.

then maybe you start voting in the meetings. Then you hand it out flyers for the cults at like a Black Lives Matter protest for example, and then you sip in the kool aid. You know, it's like baby steps. You don't throw them into the into all the time right away. Next step four. Maintain a rigid intunal regime. Decision making power is concentrated in the hands of a

select elite within the group. Formal controls and democratic processes are either dismantled or ignored, even though the organization make claim to be democratic on paper, and this environment helps to foster uncertainty, fair and confusion among members, which actually helps to reinforce their commitment to the group. Believe it or not. Five Step five establish the attractiveness and credibility of the leader. Oh alrighty yeah, yeah yeah, you know make over.

much as possible. Specifically North Korea situation. Right, you often see its supporters saying things like, yes, there are problems with North Korea, and we do discuss our criticisms behind closed doors, but openly, you know, it's full throttled, full throated support, which I find very interesting.

OG is already dead. You resolve the arguments by referencing the sayings of these leaders rather than through independent analysis. So it's not well, you know this is the case because we examined X, Y, and Z factor. It's this is the case because person AA said so in nineteenth century text number three hundred and seventy six or whatever.

persuaded by it. But in the context of everything else, in context of the cults, it really becomes a feedback loop code, which is shown of all interference from the outside world, and in which only the liturgy of the cult has any semblance of reality. Number nine. Step nine distract members from undesirable thoughts overwork. Members keep them busy and exhausted, far too busy and exhausted to question the

group's direction or beliefs. Social life friendships, those all revolve around the group, and of course those friendships are entirely conditional on the maintenance of uncritical enthusiasm for the party line. The book uses the example of the Worker's Revolutionary Party in Britain, which has a chapter in the book all to itself. Despite neving able to muster more than one percent of the vote in any elections, somehow this small organization managed to put out a daily newspaper, keeping the

members busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. Next number ten fixate members on a promised land. Cults create an idealized vision of the future the contrast to the current reality. That promised lands maybe an alien spaceship to the next dimension, a religious ethno state, or a Marxist leness utopia, but in either case, the cult's members are driven to work

tirelessly to achieve this vision fair and missed opportunities. They're constantly either recruiting and funt reason and kept in a constantay of luteness, reinforcing the commitment to the group's beliefs now Garrison. If you follow these steps, you will have a fairly effective cult. But you know what, just for you, I'm going to throw in a bonus package of commonly held contradictions. You could call it the double think package.

material conditions. You can't have democracy in that kind of situation. Ah, right, so you're loving, yes, like I am a democracy advocate, but also like democracy gets in the way sometimes we have to like get past it.

as indicating the presence of ideological totalism. Well, there's milieu control, mystical manipulation, the demand for purity, the cult of confession, the secret science, loading, the language, doctrine over person, and the dispensing of existence. What do those mean one at a time? So you control involves techniques that dominate a person's contact with the outside world and communication with themselves. Right, So that idea of cults isolating people prevented them from

testing the groups of ideas against external alternatives. Mystical manipulation is where cults claim a sense of higher purpose and portray the ideology as the vanguard of social development that's all encompassing. This is the essential ideology for the future of the world. Demand for purity is of course, where members are like convicted of their superiority and purity in

their beliefs. The core ideas are essential, and anybody who is a non member as a critic or as a critic is an accomplice in some kind of conspiracy against the cult's ideas. The cult of confession is where members are required to confess their inadequacies and failures in group meetings, which helps to break down individuality and intimidating and helps

to intimidate potential dissenters. The sacred science, through the group's ideology, is presented as a sacred moral vision so you can't really question its basic assumption.

barriers to progress. How that whole delivery has been useful for you in determining whether or not you are in a cult, as well as determining how you can create your own.

hours tops. So you can't apply a lot of these ideas to putting together a really fun house party as long as that it's there's a mandatory uh, like dissolution of the party after after you know, everyone wakes up the next morning.

You know, remember that, no matter what, the group you choose affiliate with should be able to handle descent. I think that's a very good baseline upon which to affiliate or to determine your affiliation. Healthy groups, organizations, and movements are not weakened by descent. They need dissent, disagreement, and conflict to survive life. Frequent and important disagreement makes movements

and organizations stronger. It allows the individuals within them to maintain a level of independence and allow us ideas to evolve through challenge rather than to exist purely due to the stifling atmosphere of conformity. Today we spoke about the techniques employed by both left wing and right wing cults to maintain higher levels of conformity, activism, and intolerance among

their members. I want to emphasize that our discussion doesn't imply that movements striving for societal change are inherently bound to become obscure cults. Those that are critical examination of modern society is not warranted. But it's important to remember that while our will challenges require political analysis in action, the organizations so we form to address these challenges must try to genuinely seek understanding and transformation while preserving the

freedom and virtuality of its members. I said a lot to say, create a real community, not a cult. That's all until next time, I've been Andrew of Thetue channel Andrewism, and next we will be discussing the one and only the Loathsome then done, lers, peace welcomes it could happen here. I'm Andrew of YouTube channel Anturism, and last time I was on here discussing political cults generally. Today I'm here once again with Oh Garrison.

exclusive and isolating group. We explored the rigid belief system that's created, the immunity to falsifacation, the authoritarianism, arbitrary leadership, deification of leaders, intense activism, and the use of loaded language. We spoke about the contradictions within political cults and the

conditions of ideologic called totalism. And today, as promised, we're going to look at one political cult leader in particular whose influence spanned left to right, self described Platonist, conspiracy theorist, the alleged targets of an assassination from Queen Elizabeth, A one Trotskyist, the one and only, the infamous, the loathsome Lyndon LaRouche.

of this with the green of salt. So be it, because, as far as I can tell, Tim war Fourth and Lynn laruche actually crossed paths at one point.

Quaker community for his alleged misuse of funds. He then briefly attended Northeastern University in Boston and left in nineteen forty two, at least partly because he believed his teachers quote lacked the competence to teach him on conditions he was willing to tolerate.

boomer which is now mianma Yea. In nineteen forty six, aboard the s S. General Bradley Don Morrill met the young soldier in LaRouche and got into it with him about politics and particularly the political optimism of the post World War two era what a time, the revolutionary spirit of the Indian subcontinent, and socialist ideas more broadly, Now Larushe was already sympathetic towards Marx and Trotsky at this point.

In fact, even in his preteens, he was a voracious reader of philosophy, particularly of the German polymath Godfred Wilhelm von leibnizbut leibnizbut or however that is pronounced. But ultimately, by the time they returned to America, Laruche was a Trotskyist. In brief, For those unaware, a Trotskyist is someone who hears the principles and politics of Leon Trotsky, who was a prominent figure in the early Soviet Union and a key figure in the what I would call co optation

of the Russian Revolution of nineteen seventeen. Trotskyism is distinct from mainstream Leninist and particularly Stalinist thought. Most famously for their rejection of socialism in one country and their advocacy of permanent revolution. By the time l Aruche had returned home in nineteen forty seven, he joined his hometown Lynn, Massachusetts chapter of the Socialist Workers' Party s WP, which

was the main American Trotskyist group. Interestingly, he took on a party name which really reminds me of how religious missionaries would give those they converted quote Christian names baptism. Yeah, so his party name was Lynn Marcus. You could just see it as a pseudonym for political work. Of course. I mean, the CIA and the FBI were very active in infiltrating these sorts of groups, So I understand having

like a pseudonym. But I mean, considering we're talking about cul tendencies and political movements, I couldn't pass up on that observation.

in Central Park West. He didn't really have any ties to the working class efforts at the WP. So what now? Well, eventually he and his wife separated and he moved in with a fellow s WP member known sometimes as Carol White, sometimes as Carol Schnitzer, and sometimes as Carol Larabie. And then he decided that the WP leadership had the wrong idea. Why are they so obsessed with union organizing? Perhaps he should be the one calling the shots. You have to

understand something about Laruche. You see a little involvement or connection to actual working class struggle, and disconnection. You see with little involvement or connection to actual working class struggle and disconnection from the party's activity. He had already begun making a right word shift, even while still bearing the

banner of leftism. As an intellectual, he loved his books, including Marxist Capital, Rota Luxembourg's The Accumulation of Capital and Hegeld's Logic, and his intellectualism naturally fed into his elitism, Drawing from Lenin's What is to be Done? Laruche believes that a select intellectual group, which I mean he was clearly a part of, these professional revolutionaries held a pivotal role in transforming society, would their task being to gain

dominance over the less intellectually developed masses. He also borrowed from Gramachi's idea of hergemony. He saw himself in competition with other intellectuals on the left for leadership over the hearts and minds of the dummy masses to undermine the capitalists hold on the working class. But unlike Gramsche, he didn't believe the working class was capable of developing its

own leaders. He was that leader, and he also borrowed from George Lucas's concept of class consciousness and the importance of thinkers. Lush wasn't just a thinker. He saw himself as the thinker, the one who would take power and

lead the masses to freedom. So he was fed up with the s WP limiting his clearly elite intellect and ability, and so in nineteen sixty five he left and joined a small Trotskise group called the American Committee for the Fourth International YES, associated with George Healey, who was another left wing cult leader.

It split because of the irreconcilable differences and divisions between the statists and the anarchists. Then in eighteen eighty nine and from then unto nineteen sixteen, the Second Internationale was born. That was an organization of socialist and labor parties, this time no anarchists allowed, and it was aimed at fostering cooperation among socialist globally, until it dissolved due to the

divisions related to World War One. And then in nineteen nineteen, the Soviet Union founded the Third International or the Common Turn to promote worldwide communist revolution and aid communist parties, but then it dissolved during World War Two due to the Soviet German tensions, among other things. And then in nineteen thirty eight Trotsky, who was marginalized and persecuted by Stylar and founded the Fourth International as an oppositional alternative

to the stalent dominated Commentarn. Technically the Fourth International is still active today, but it's always been fairly irrelevant beyond small bickerent sects and ever splinter in splinter groups and more than one political cult. So for a Trotskyist like Laruge to declare a fifth International is like, you know, here we go again. How is it going to matage? Do this? Nineteen sixty eight picture this a room with about phility students sitting on the floor, all eyes fixed

on Lyndon LaRouche. After playing a major role in the student strike at Columbia University, these students were totally invested in this man's every word. They were part of the National Caucus of Labor Committees lc NCLC, which was affiliated with the Students for Democratic Society SDS. Laruche held this meeting for a whole seven hours, that's longer than a too service, and he blended discussions of tactics with educational presentations.

The SDS had a lot of spirit and action, but Larush believed that they were a bit short on theory, so he was there to fill that void and earn a bit more. The gathering marked the early stages of Wild lad become a political cult center around Laruge, where he served as an intellectual and political gurup, training his followers as devoted disciples. He had a particular knack for me making his disciples feel like they were part of

an elite club. They believe they were the only ones who truly understood the era they were in and had all the answers to fix society's problems. In nineteen seventy, Larush wrote that you should start with recruiting and educating a revolutionary intelligenzia, mainly young intellectuals like these student radicals, rather than the working class, because again Laruge thought the

working class was stipid. He wanted easily to recruits to commit to intensive study and activism, particularly of his interpretation of ideas. So they need the charge. And I remember at this point Larush's pushing a right wing form of Trotskyism. Like Marx, he believed that capitalism how to keep crowing to stay alive. Once it hits his limits, it will

grow into crisis mode and eventually collapse. You also shared Mark's idea that human activity should be all about progress, particularly the growth of the world's productive forces.

fresh opportunities for capital investment. They even predicted that if world leaders did not follow his advice, the system was on the brink of collapse. Only he and his trained followers under his lead could prevent this catastrophe. By the late sixties and early seventies, members were giving up their jobs and devoting themselves wholly to the cause and the leadership of Laruche. They were convinced that the world had all the resources needed for an incredible economic transformation. But

they saw a big problem. They thought the nation's leaders were clueless, and of course they didn't think too highly the masses. So their solution was getting Linden and Laruze Junior into power or whether he's a junior. But their solution was getting Linden Laruz junior into power as soon as possible, and then he would lead the trade unions that take over America. He expected their support and if they were slacking in their activism, he would call them out.

Borrowing from the confrontational therapy with the new age for psychology cults, l Roush began holding ego stripping sessions. Anyone who failed in a political task was subjected to pure psychological terror as everyone attacked them and tore apart their past and personal life in front of the whole group. And because cults, and because cults and sex and inevitable combination like madness and badness, Larush also launched a campaign

against the sexual impotence of his membership. Apparently Carol left him for a disciple of the movement. Interesting his name was Christopher White, and they went to England to set up a chapter of the NCLC. So that's probably why he got a little bit unhinged. But that's not the worst of it. I can't not mention Operation mop Up. In nineteen seventy three, Laruge fully shifted the group's political

stands from being far left to far right. Armed with bats, chains and martial arts, scale, his supporters physically attacked members of the Socialist Workers' Party and the Communist Party for He declared that he intended to wipe these rival parties off the map, going as far as to threaten their families as well. But it didn't stop there. He extended his attacks to groups like the Revolutionary Communist Party, the October League, and the Progressive Labor Party. Essentially, laruche want

to establish dominance through these physical confrontations. There were at least sixty reported assaults during this time, and the whole operation only ended when the police stepped in and arrested some of Lucia's followers. Interestingly, though, there weren't any convictions, and Larush insisted that his people will only acted in self defense. But here's where it gets a little bit mookier.

Journalist and Laruse biographer Dennis King suggested that the FBI may have played a role in stirring up trouble among these groups. We have used tactics like sending anonymous mailings to keep these groups in each other's throats, so you know, plot thickens.

Carol Larbie and the Rush. The plane was an utter chaos. So Carol reached out to the rouge and they decided to work together to d program Christopher. What we mean deprogrammed Christopher? I'm glad you asked.

demise by Cuban and exile frogmen. So that's the kind of deprogram and they intended to carry out.

She doubted. She didn't believe the whole CIA story that Christopher was pushing, and Larus didn't like that she didn't believe, and so Larush was like, oh, you don't believe that the CIA is infiltrating us right now, then you must be a Cia agent, so he sends a squad of six members of his cult to Weisman's apartment and they held her a hostage and cranked up Beaethovern music to deafening levels. Why because Laruche believed that Beethoven's tunes could

somehow deprogram Manchurian candidates. Wizman managed to toss out a note through the window and a passerby picked it up and alerted the police, so she was rescued, but then she chose not to press charges against her captives. Larusha turned this party at this point, with one thousand members in three seven offices in North America and twenty six in Europe and Latin America, into an extreme right, anti

Semitic organization, despite the presence of Jewish members. In fact, Carol herself was Jewish and she stuck around Dennis King. The biographer's were called earlier found a deep connection between LaRouche and fascist and United groups. In the early eighties, Laruche used a Strategic Defense Initiative or star Wars to

bring together fright forces from Europe and America. He was even promoting like Revanism and defending Nazi war criminals, and he was known for blending his usual conspiracy theories with anti Semitism, particularly towards the British. He blamed the Rothschild for running Great Britain, and he was a typical Holocaust denier. Yeah, I really, I generally wonder why Carol left him, but I also wonder why she stuck around in the group anyway.

The Anti Defamation League labeled the Rushes NCLC as the closest thing to an American fascist party, and well that begs the question what was life like in that party?

drug trade. This organization was telling their members where they could live, what car to buy, when to quit their jobs, what they should read, what they should watch, how to scam their parents out of money, how and when to break up with their partners.

members to vote for Reagan. Yeah, cool stuff, cool stuff, cool stuff.

They were in a constant state of mobilization, living an adrenaline ready for anything, And finally, in nineteen eighty one, around three hundred and six hundred people they had had enough and left the organization. Some of them were formal leftists, but not all. Those who stuck around the die hard cult members completely under Larushe's control. Would it surprise you, gusn to learn that the Rushe was a scammer?

He even met with top officials from the National Security com SO and the CIA in the eighties, despite his parannoying about the CIA, and he somehow managed to get White House access.

monthly stipend. Still, Laruche was making a royal bank. His empire was growing. He had one hundred and seventy two acre estate in Virginia serving as his center of operations, which had phone banks, offices, a printing plant guarded twenty four to seven by armed individuals. But the Empire of

LaRouche eventually went into a decline. This lust for publicity caught the attention of the public and federal officials, and his phone bank operator started to make an unauthorized credit card withdrawals.

for ongoing industrial and population expansion no matter what. All right, But so then if you didn't, okay, maybe you listen to this and you're like, none of this is all dramatic and wild or whatever. Here's where it gets even wilder. This is where we get to the intersection of Lynn Laruche and Elon Musk that we colonize Mars.

And you know, it's interesting to note that the NCLC was not the only voice from the right among those left wing demonstrators. Pat Buchanan, the Populist Party, the Liberty Lobby, and other ultra right and other ultra right and new isolationist groups formed a sort of united front with elements of the left in terms of that opposition to the Gulf War and Laruche was eventually released on parole in

nineteen ninety four. By nineteen ninety eight, during the economic crisis, the Rush was demanding that Bill Clinton appoint him immediately as an economic advisor.

in the inherent tendency of popular opinion toward mediocrity. The very tendency to rely upon collective decisions rather than decisions based upon voundation of principle is itself a wellspring of mediocrity, he fully explained to proposed as symbol of virtual ravel of decision makers, usually featuring those parties who are still advocates of the policies which have caused and advocated the crisis.

Is scarcely a noble enterprise nor a fruitful one. Some relatively few in the position to influence directives must preempt the situation. Just in case there should be any question as to Larush's concept of governance, he declared China to be probably one of the best governments in the world today in terms of quality of leadership, the kind of leadership required to get through crisis. Laruche, like Mussolini and Hitler before him, borrowed from marx and unchanged his theories completely.

following around his ideas and personality. The collapse of student radicalism the seventies that the stage from his shift from left to right and the unwavering loyalty of his followers likely reinforced his increasingly psychotic worldview and perception of his role in it. The Rush was convinced that he deserved worship, he was an intellect. He was fueled by his ideology of catastrophism that he as the elite, would play a

significant role as see if You Have Humanity. The practices of his organization resembled many of the extreme religious thought control groups.

for her school and the strike captain also for her school. Brittany, welcome to the show.

I have heard some absolutely wild things about what's happening for the schools right now.

but different depending on where you're at in the city. Like, we've just been overcompensating with less since the pandemic times, and we're fed up, we're not able to do it anymore. And yeah, we're strike ready.

without increased support for the educators as well. So I think this is the culmination of kind of years and years of disinvestment in public education nationwide, and so you're seeing a lot more strikes, educational strikes coming up throughout the country, and particularly for Portland's history. Like you said, it's if Portland public schools have striked in the past, it's been literal decades, not in my lifetime, not in your lifetime, and just the continued frustration of decades of struggle.

So yeah, can you talk about.

Uh huh. We have a learning coach who works with children in small groups throughout the building, but she herself is not a rostered classroom teacher, but she is put into that equation so that it looks like our classes on average are twenty three when the reality is very different. The music teacher doesn't count, the learning coach doesn't count. But in the math that the district is like that math ain't math in my class is thirty four kids.

You're telling the public that the average is twenty three, and it's just not true because you're including adults in the building who aren't the host classroom teacher.

to compare it to. I am very aware of how little capacity I have for meeting their needs, for teaching, the wide range of levels that are in the class, even for checking in with kids. I can look out at my room at midday and think looking at a kid I don't know if I've talked to you, like, it's possible to go so under the radar when there are that many children to care for.

sizes have increased, so have the needs of our students. Right, We're dealing with a lot more mental health issues. We're dealing with a wide range of neurodiversity that comes with different needs. And so it's that's the thirty four now is exponentially different than thirty four when we were young. It's it's intense, and it's unsustainable, and I'm living it every day.

things that we can bargain. And even in the strike that we are about to have, they continue to push back on the class cap request, saying that it is a permissive topic, and that it's class caps may only be applicable to what are called Title I schools, So schools where the population is more impacted by poverty, and so they're trying, like even trying to get small class sizes or smaller class sizes, knowing that it's a district wide issue may still only be successful for some parts

of our district.

Our students are experiencing adversity. Our students are experiencing racism and sexism and homophobia, and they are jam packed sardines in a overheated room with no supports. I'm the only adult in the room to support them. I have students with disabilities who aren't getting support from our SPED team. Because our SPED team is SPED stance for special education, our special educators are working with some younger grade students with even bigger needs. So my fifth graders with disabilities

are getting completely left in the lurch. And it is my single body with all thirty four and we're floundering.

you know, our marginalized populations. We've helped them, we've fit and like, here is a student that is the statistic that you supposedly are fighting for, and he is absolutely left out to dry and I am trying to do what I can for him, and he comes to mind, I picture him as I'll be out there on that picket line, like I am out there for that kid as well as his thirty three other classmates. But just like quint essential picture of who I'm fighting for and who is getting left behind?

metric chasing game. And you know, as long as you have metrics that look good, you know, like the district is like, wow, okay, it's fine that like our students aren't equality of education they need. It's fine that they're in these buildings that are literally falling apart. It's fine that you know kids aren't getting what they need, like as long as the metrics look good and right.

in the spring to take those tests. So something I'm picturing a couple of my students who were impacted by poverty, were kids of color and were significantly absent due to what the circumstances of their life. Those students were not able to take that test in the spring. That means those students, those black and brown students, that data wasn't

in those metrics. So even the metrics that are being used to measure whether or not we are successfully supporting our students of color are inaccurate because our most impacted students aren't able to take that assessment. Like his data, our superintendent's data is going to look better When some of the students who might tank that data because they are unsupported by the school system aren't there to be in the data because they're unsupported by the school system. It falls apart.

where we took over the Burnside Bridge. And as our union actions build, we know that we are out there, we are not alone, and that we are feeling the support from the community and we are becoming a more visible presence, and especially in Portland, we are a massive union. Other unions around the state are looking at us and watching how this goes. And we can tell that the district management is scared. They are starting to send out emails to families that are meant to intimidate and panic

and cause chaos. And we're seeing these defensive moves that are a reaction.

that's been a big thing. So I'm from Chicago and so we have like a I mean not that long, like for the last about decade, the Chicago Teachers Union's been on strike a bunch of times, and it's yeah, like it really and the support of that and the engagement of that really is one of the few things us in making Chicago a better place. So I wanted to ask what that's looked like in Portland, because this is basically the first time for y'all.

for statewide reform and change in education policy. And here in Portland ever since, the seeds of our uprising were being planted knowing that we are on a collision course towards a strike based on how poorly the district management is bargaining with us, and so we started to build in that communication and enlist this part of our parent communities pretty early on by having info sessions, by talking about, you know, the community's wants and desires for their students,

connecting with our schools, ptas, connecting with local businesses, especially as in the last month or so that we felt, okay, this is happening, we are about to strike. We need to connect with our communities in our school areas and see who's out there and if they have our back. And it's been really profound in grassroots organizing between the parents and the ptas, in tandem with our unions and

from businesses around our school areas. We attended an event called Strike School to prepare and one of our missions was to check in with businesses and neighbors in the areas of our schools where we plan to be picketing and seeing, you know, where can we go to use a bathroom, where can we go to use a parking lot, and just making those connections, some of which already existed.

Even though Portland hasn't had to strike, We've been very connected to our communities because the educators live in these communities. This is my community. Unlike some of the big wigs in the big pink building of management, like they are coming in and out in a few years. We're from here, we are here to stay, we are here to make those connections. So it was very easy to call upon those connections because we are the community. You know, we

have a lot of union members that are parents. We have a lot of union members that are married to business owners in the area. We've Yeah, it's been it's been obvious who lives here, who's fighting for these kids because this is our community.

those unions come together and support each other. And in fact, in the educational realm of Portland, multiple unions are on the verge of striking in that they are having unsuccessful bargaining attempts. But then also with like the ups workers, with Kaiser pharmacies and the medical field, like, there is labor action all around Portland, and there's definitely a built in solidarity network from you unionity to union. Our union siblings are with us. We have been with them throughout

the years. I think we do a really good job as a major city of wrapping around each other's unions and supporting big actions. And you know, Portland, when we do get national press, it is for how rambunctious our little city can be. And this is some of that good trouble that that John Lewis would want us.

strike because management cave. It's it's a really sort of incredible place to be in terms of like just just the energy and just like the amount of stuff that's happening there. It's really it's really sort of incredible.

emails to the parent community. They have for example, they are training tomorrow Thursday, the day of our strike beginning, or when on Wednesday, the day that the strike begins, they are training our parent professionals and eas in how to deliver vert ual phonics instruction. One of their moves was to cause panic in the families by sending emails home that say, your student, based on their test scores,

is a struggling reader. Here's the plan should there be a school closure, that we're going to provide virtual learning opportunities. So immediately you've got parents in a panic emailing their teacher like my students struggling. Why didn't I know? And in many cases that was inaccurate. A second grade teacher at my school, every parent in her class got that email, and sure she has some struggling readers, but it is

not every student. Why did every student's family get that email to cause panic, to cause fear, to cause intimidation, And so they also send out a big email trying that the technology team was coming into the buildings to collect all the chromebooks. Our students are one to one with chromebooks. They're pretty integral to our curriculum delivery and

our instruction. And they started pulling them out in the middle of the workday, in the middle of the teaching day, from some of our youngestdu students, which was a visible thing in front of students. They're coming to collect them. It was unplanned. We had no warning. That again seemed to be kind of a panic move. We are trying to sew fear and intimidation, and we're taking your chromebooks and we're putting kids back in COVID times.

that we've been under serving them already. We are walking out not because we don't care, but because we care so passionately that we aren't willing to stand for these subpar conditions any longer.

Like everyone like has the right and possibly the obligation to go on strike for better conditions, but like that's not ever ever, I have never, at any point ever seen a teachers you to go on strike for reasons that words mostly about like mostly about improving things for their kids. And it's it's it's wold because you see this every like they do this in Chicago too. It's like every single time there's a strike, it's like, ah,

the teachers like they hate they hate your kids. Is that they're like these like privilege overpaid people really like and it's like you guys, like you should you should like look at the admin salary sometime, like yes.

I told my students as we were getting ready to go home for the long weekend quote unquote, you know that it is okay to feel a variety of emotions like I'm sad, I'm gonna miss you guys. I don't know when I'll get to see you again, and that makes me anxious and I'm excited to go fight for you guys to get us what we deserve. Like so even letting the children know this is totally normal and that's my same message to the adults, like it's totally

okay if you've got some mixed emotions. Yeah, and we're going to be out there fighting for the kids. I hope you're not mad at me for very long, but I'm gonna do it anyway.

great time. And I feel I feel really confident that our bargaining unit has really worked to make this the least detrimental to our students as possible, Yeah, while still maintaining the validity of a strike, of a big collective action.

that care workers struggle with a lot, right. It's like one of one of the reasons that it's it's hard for teachers to strike, that it's hard for healthcare workers to strike is because like, yeah, like you don't do this job unless you care about the people that you're like it's your job to care for, Like you don't you wouldn't know, Like no one will put up with these conditions if they didn't care, right, And you know, And that's I think there's this really grim way in

which just becomes this sort of trap of like this is it becomes this and you see this like this is the thing I've been I've been talking to like people who like abortion workers and they talk about this too, where it's like there's this this kind of trap you get in because it's like you know that you are the only person providing the service that these people really need, and your bosses use that to underpay, you use it

to you know, have just unacceptable conditions. And it sucks that it's like, you know, the the foundational elements of an actual, any kind of society that's actually good, that the fact that people care each and love like love each other and care for each other is being used as a weapon into really shitty conditions.

I'm their nutrition expert. Like they are coming to us for everything in some cases. And so to be willing to say I have to leave now to get us what we deserve, I'm going to make sure you're okay. It's so hard. It's so hard to say goodbye to these kids, and it's so necessary. Yeah, and that's that tells you that we that it is also that important that we have gotten to this point where we need to.

we're trying to amplify that. Like I am striking for them. I will benefit, but this is for them to have a better outcome.

doing this for a long time now. But one of the things that I've been noticing is a lot of people And this comes back to something that you were talking about, which is that a lot of a lot of service workers, I mean people who are just beached as people who are you know, people who are just doing effectively random service jobs are being pushed more and more into having to care for people because the rest of the sort of whatever social safety nets the US

used to have have just completely imploded. And I think I want to get your opinion in this, but it looks to me like ground zero for this was the education system of all of the responsibility of you know this these massive in and poverty and it's extagnating wages and police violence and like our completely dysfunctional mental health care system that all of this. The first people this was pushed on was y'all.

see it in retrospect. You can see how public education has been deteriorating or forcibly deteriorated by some of those interests that are trying to privatize or have privatization yep in their mission. And the ultimate outcome of that is a deteriorated United States. Like the populace is suffering because of it, Like I wonder why democracy is starting to fall apart when yeah, follow the dominoes backwards. Public education

has been underfunded and undersourced for decades now. So our generation of workers are trying to repair the damage we witnessed and experienced and stop it from getting worse as it gets worse around us.

sort of like and just just just blasting holes in the education system of every single city they end up in. But it's just it's just interesting thing too, where like you have these people on the one hand, and they're the sort of like vaguely liberal wing of it, and then simultaneously you have this sort of like absolutely ferocious, like frothing right wing like evangelical shape. Yeah, it's like someone I saw a well I get they were going through their direction, but I saw I saw a funny

defiction of that. They called it like fish hook theory, where like you have this stuff in the middle and then that the far right people sort of bend back around into the middle because they found this one thing they agree on, which is that they hate teachers, right, and.

is like the rights whole game. I mean, since like desegregation has been trying to push people into private schools and privatizing the education system, and I don't know, it strikes me it's interesting that, you know, there's been for a really long time, and I think y'all, like y'all the like Chicago Teachers Unions has this has really been sort of the forefront of the fight against that of

like items. It seems like we're finally in a period with these people who have run this country into the ground for the past like fifty years are finally starting to sort of like face the consequences and like have to deal with the people that they've been just destroying for so long.

horrific like anti queer politics stuff. And I don't know, like that that's a personal one for me because like my school, like I mean, I guess we technically had stuff, but like I don't know, like the resources available to all the queer kids that like that was like me and like everyone I grew up with were like just terrible, And you know, I got to see the consequences of that.

the gutting of public education, is that it's scary. Public education is about truth and teaching critical thinking, and that is not good for people in power when their power has been achieved on the backs of marginalized groups and by historically underserving people and pushing people into the dirt.

a different way. We will not go back to the broken ways, and so it makes sense to me that we are at this boiling point in repairing and trying to rebuild and reform after a global change. And you see it in the kids too. I mean they say about my generation as a millennial, that we've lived through numerous large scale traumas, and the kids of today have now as well. Like the students I'm currently teaching were second graders when the pandemic hit, and they are forever changed.

They were seeing, you know, the Black Lives Matter movement come alive on their television screens and in their cities. They grew up in civic action and global turmoil, and they are active. Even if I wasn't teaching current events in the way that I do, the students are bringing it to the room, like the conversations are happening.

is nine to eleven. Yeah, so like you know, it's I feel like I got a kind of millennial experience, which is I got nine to eleven, two thousand and eight, twenty six well two thousand and eight, then like the twenty thirteen uprisings I guess was a bit off, but I got like the two eleven thirteen up risings, and then like I get out of college or I get into college, and it's twenty sixteen.

But also I think this is you know, this, this all of this ties back into just the importance of what you and all of your coworkers do, which is that you're the people who are you know, like it, you're the people who are producing, Like the kids who are going to who are I mean, hopefully they won't have to be fighting the same fights that we are

right now. Statistically they probably will, but yeah, like and you're the people who are sort of mediating their understanding of like what is happening in this world around them that's you know, increasingly terrifying and complex.

and it's just getting darker. Like, thankfully, they give me so much hope and light in you know, a world where sometimes I don't even know want to be a part of the future because the future looks grim. They are a light even in all of that darkness. And you know, I think they're really resilient. I wish they didn't have to be. I have my own big existential dread. And the kids are angry, the kids are are upset, but the kids are all right. Maybe, yeah, if we can contend to support them, and.

there for my students in that way. Even the difference working with some people who've been teaching for longer, you see the difference in educational philosophy from run generation to the next and the bee who you needed when you

were younger. I'm very open to being neuro affirming supporting our students that are on the spectrum or students with ADHD are students with anxiety disorders in a way that even the teachers of our generation when when I was a child, aren't necessarily on the stade like we're getting better making education less damaging to I think that's one of the reasons sometimes we lose public opinion is people

have negative memories of school. School has been harmful, and we're like, no support us, like I promise it's different now.

But the thing is, like students are organized enough to like, right, and you know, and like I said as much really any know that this isn't to write off like the incredible amount of student activism that I mean, it has been happening forever, but they don't have the kind of power that like teachers unions too, and teachers unions.

And then if you live in Portland, finding out the schools that are closest to you in your area, reaching out to those schools specifically, probably through social media, since we will not be in our buildings, Like using a school email wouldn't work, But reaching out to the strike in your area if you drive by and you see them, like giving them a honk in a horay and finding out where they need supplies to get directed to people

outside of Portland. Same thing that strike fund is very visible, sharing on social media things on our behalf really making sure that your own legislatures know how important public education is to you. Hopefully things in your state or area are going positively for educators, but chances are they're not

so I bet no matter where you live. As a listener, you public educators in your area could probably use your support talking to school boards, talking to legislators and making change in education, making sure that kids are getting what they need. That fight is guaranteed to be happening everywhere.