Part Two: The Diggers, the Levelers, the Ranters, and John Darnielle

If you want to know more about Sophie's job as a producer, you should watch the nine seven mel Brooks documentary called The Producers. It's all about Yeah, it's it's it's like they stole my life and put it into a documentary called The Producers. Yeah yeah, which is true in music production as well. I believe all producers are just mel Brooks. Okay. We also have Ian as our editor and our theme music is by a woman, and

you should check out more music by women. So today is part two of our two part series on those wacky religious radicals of the English Civil War, the Levelers, the Diggers and the ranters. And in part one we talked about the levelers, who don't really seem all that radical by today's standards, but who put their bodies on the line for a republic instead of the dictatorship that

they got. But today I want to talk about people who took things a step further, the diggers who wanted to abolish private property, and the ranters who didn't believe there was such thing as sin, very theologically based. Have you ever heard much about the Diggers? Uh? Yeah, I mean you're across their name a lot, but I mean I never have pursued it that much, in part because this is a there's an English movement, right yeah, yeah, So I mean I've heard about it, but I haven't.

I'm not an English history uh you know, in the history expert in any way. So so yeah, so I know roughly like what space they occupied politically, but but

it's about it. Yeah, that makes sense. I I kind of had this like distaste for English history and was like much more into Irish history and things like that, and then, um, honestly, hearing about some of the complexities the English Civil War was the first time I was like, oh, right, there's actually really interesting stuff going on with all of that. It is it's uh, it can be quite arcane, and

there's so a few points of reasons. And history is like history always refers to itself, right, So at the time you're by the time your ten in the US, whatever country you grow up, and you have some basics we can talk about whether or not you know, it's basically good. They always bear some interrogation, but you know, at the very least the governing myths, right, and so whereas uh, most of English history there's no reason really for us to learn that less we're curious, right, So yeah, totally.

And then there's the sort of like it's the land of myths, like you know, I kind of I like English history and that I liked when I was a kid. I liked things of swords in them. You know, yeah, it's not actually yeah, um which actually you know actually is to deal with the whole world actually has a lot of really interesting sword time and stuff. Well yeah, but the thing is with a lot of English history, if it's pre if it's prior to the modern era,

it's prior to you know, good documentation. It why it turns out to be French history, you know. So yeah, well, there's a major theme in my new book is that, you know, we think of English castles, but the castle is unquestionably a Norman import. You can't you can't find a castle prior to the French building castles. But the English tradition of the English castle is very much you know, that's this English thing and it's probably I think it

might actually be Saxon eventually. But um, but there was a lot of argument about this in the forties, fifties and sixties about you know, no, no, the English had their own castles. Who don't and there's no was a Norman import. So what that does to English prehistory, to the stuff that you know, to the myths is as well. You know, this is a big thing in Devil House in my new book, that King Arthur, King Arthur has a castle and the knights of the Round Table lived there, right,

but King Arthur. Yeah, but no, The thing is there probably was a King Arthur, but he was English, right, and he reigned in England before there were castles in England, right, and before there were kings who ruled England, right, So so all all this stuff is maybe not No, he would have he would have predated Alfred. So, um, I'm like, I'm not a king's guy, do you know me speaking?

But I did a lot of work on this, and like, so so what what what A lot of these kings turned out to be rather is local things, right th h E g N and if you know the term. But they're trying to be things, you know, and their castle was probably like slightly less modest dwelling than everybody else's. You know. It's like this stuff is very interesting to me. So yeah, well that's a good pitch. That's actually, Um,

I've read two of your books. I don't actually remember how many novels you have out, um, but I have not read Devil House yet. So this is telling me that there's castles or lack of castles kind of Well, I'm kind of giving you a little bit of a spoiler for one of the big reveals there, but it

won't it won't take anything off the plot. Okay, cool, Okay, So the Levelers, they they get called the Levelers by people who don't like them very much, right, They get compared to the original Levelers fifty years earlier, who had been following that guy with a little magic bit of green cheese who told them to tear down all the

fences and kind of got them all killed, Captain pouch. So. But then the levelers that we talked about last time, they they didn't want to redistribute the lander of the wealth. They just wanted political quality, uh, not to overturn the economic order. So they didn't really see themselves as leveling, which is fair because they weren't leveling today's here, as though they sure as hell wanted to do a leveling. They they said, and a paraphrase here, those people aren't

the levelers, were the true levelers. And but it's a possible to name your own political movement back then, apparently because the levelers who wanted to be called the agitators, and the Quakers who wanted to be called the Society of Friends, the the the people who wanted to be called the true Levelers get called the diggers, and the

name stuck m hm. And they they first announced themselves to the world is after they had started doing some of what they'll do, which I've got to with a pamphlet called the True Levelers Standard Advanced in this case standard meaning flags. So we've moved forward the flag of leveling and and you know, so they were like, we are the true Levelers. That's our book are Manifesto. It's as true Levelers on it, and people are like, but

it was Britain. So they were like, well, we're gonna call you the diggers because I mean, look at that, you're digging a hole, So you're the diggers. I think. Also, self branding is is usually a fairly failed effort. People really try to do it, but but you wind up

getting getting cold. What what you know, if it's a vast movement, the other people in the movement would up naming it, yeah, totally, or in this case, a lot of the the people who are outside the movement who are either looking down on you or or not, you know, like the name that the media runs with is going to be what lasts in history. And a lot of

these cases. But they did dig uh. Specifically, they wanted to get onto the commons, the land or land that they should believe that they believe should be the commons, and grow food communally. And I don't know everything about what they wanted to plant. I I did look up and check that potatoes had been introduced from the New World to the old world by this point, so potatoes were a possibility, um. But but mostly they planted peas and parsnips and carrots and barley and corn, which are

all perfectly good, fine plants. It's fine. And they got their justification for what they were doing from the Bible, uh specifically the the verse that they quoted a lot was Act for thirty two. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul. Neither said of any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own, but that but that they had all things in common. And so this

was there. You know, all of us who believe we will share everything, that is what the Bible asks us to do. And they also got their justification from the fact that food prices were at an all time high because of the war, and everyone was hungry, and the country was absolutely ravaged by these deep political divisions, which

is of course totally unfamiliar to listeners today. I mean, the thing is, trying to reconcile the Bible with gigantic nations is a fool's Errand you know, the Bible is a book for for people who are living in a much more in smaller communities. Right, So it's like the Bible's a book of community, not nations. In my view, Oh that makes sense. I like that idea, um. But but that hasn't stopped everybody from trying to insist that.

Like when the word nation whatever it's Hebrew or a Sebtulian equivalent, is when it appears like it's supposed to be, especially Americans have a constitutionalist reading of everything. It's like, well, a nation and they said nation, and now nations are big,

so it has to apply to us. But none of the authors of the Bible would have had any notion of a nation having a sort of size and scope and power that that even the smallest nations have now really um, yeah, so yeah, it's trying trying to trying to harmonize stuff in the Bible that seems fairly clear isn't often isn't often compatible with modern facts on the ground.

Now that makes sense. And then there's the kind of this, um, you know, the difference between nation and state, right, Um, Nation, state and country are all kind of actually different things that overlap in a lot of ways. But yeah, and there's another thing always worth remembering is like in these readings of the Bible that are happening in the US. Uh, they tend to disregard that the disciples thought Jesus was

coming back next week. You know. They didn't think, oh, he's gonna go away for a very very long time in some future generation we can't conceive of we'll see him again. They expected to see him again in their lifetimes, you know. So, so when they're talking about sharing and stuff, they're talking about sharing going forward until the thing that we expect to happen happens. Right, that's my understanding. Yeah, now it's interesting. This is absolutely why I wanted you

to be the guest for this particular episode. But so, but this isn't so by the time you get the hundreds, you're doing this sort of building a functional public ideology, right that's rooted in what was a much more communal faith. Right. Um, So there's it's no accident that these these people are are ye utilizing Christian concepts and everything, but those concepts are very hard to use at scale. Yeah, totally, as

we have noted. Yep. And so one of my friends I was talking to about the Diggers, I was like, Okay, what why are they so important to you. You know. I was looking, I was reading about them, and one of my friends was like, I'm so excited about the Diggers. I'm excited you're doing an episode about the Diggers. And what she said that she particularly liked about them is that there's sort of an essential gentleness for them. There's they come out of years and years of war and strife,

and they're these like frustrated, hungry peasants. A lot of them had been soldiers in the war and they were like, you know what, fuck it, I'm going to go plant vegetables and never touch a sword again. And that was like a lot of the basic idea of and it's the sort of essential gentleness. And a lot of discussion about political radicals tends to leave out the the gentle radicals. So I think that's why it's one of the things

I get excited about about the Takers. Yeah. No, I mean that's extremely true in radical spaces, and people tend to there's a couple of ways, a couple of spaces along the growth they get that way. But there's many many people who froom gentleness is not an affirmative value, right, Yeah, And they make and they tend to make extremely uh, you know, they want to argue about that as a

general rule. They want to they want to say, you know, you're failing to stand up for the people who can't afford to be gentle, right, and so is it compelling argument? Quite often, you know, But but I'm not sure that it's true. I mean, but you know, right now, you know, there's a lot of talk about there's been a lot of talk about especially like, you know, shouldn't a marginalized community arm itself, you know, if if the entire power of the state is weaponized against it, super valid point.

But but I think I think those wind up sort of polarizing. Then you said, well, if we're doing that, then the values of gentleness aren't part of our deal. And it's like you want to be folding in gentleness because that's where you want to wind up at the end, and you sort of can't you know, table gentleness and

then come back to it later. Yeah. Well, and actually, I mean that's kind of interesting to me because as someone who you know, um, I think people have listened to the show before now that I'm like, I'm armed. I'm a transwoman who lives in the South, and I chose to to be armed. But but the idea that like being armed in gentleness should be counter to each other, it just seems absolutely ludicrous to me. You know. Um, and there's I think your possessions have you know, they come,

they come to define you. You know. It's like I'm with I'm glad you're armed, even though I'm an anti gun guy. It's like, I don't I would prefer the nobody be armed. And so you know, I I support really intense legislation about firearms, but but in the absence of that legislation, I think it makes also good sense for somebody who might find themselves to be a target to be armed. You know, I don't like, it doesn't do any good to say, well, because I'm against people

owning firearms, I won't have one. That's not really good position, because it's like, you know, it's like I'm also against uh,

you know, I'm against people inequably making money. But right now, if I can make more money than somebody, I'm not gonna say, oh, no, you have to pay me less, because because it's like that's that's foolish, it's you know, uh yeah, but but yeah, it's it's a but but I do think you know, it's like the whole weapons are in and of themselves not gentle you know that that It's like what you want to avoid is is thinking about them in certain sorts of ways. You know.

It's like, yeah, you want to But then C. S. Lewis has a riff about this, how you know, if you're going to war you should do it with both hands instead of you don't go to war. Good, well,

I hate to have to kill this guy. It's no, you should kill your enemy when you're at war, you know, right, But I mean, I mean, it's actually kind of interesting to me because that's one of the things that I I didn't prepare anything about this at all, but it's one of the things I've been thinking about a lot lately, is about this, like how do we hold onto Maybe there's a tension and holding onto a gentleness as like while going armed right or while trying to become more

capable of expressing self defense or a community defense. But you know, I have to think about the C. S. Lewis part of it, because part of me is like, well, I actually some of the people that I respect the most are people who do the hard work of holding onto you know, however there they'll view it their their humanity or their holiness or their you know, their soul

or however they want to phrase it. Things. You know, there's there's stuff of the bood Gita about this where our juna uh on the battlefield, et cetera, and uh and the whole bad that kicks off because he says to his friend Christia, he doesn't really want to fight, and don't the scriptures forbid us from doing this? And Christia, who is God and also is his friends, says, oh no, no, if your role as soldier, you should be a soldier, right, It's like that's that's your that's it's kind of like

it's it's to me, it's actually labor relay. You should do your job and do it wholeheartedly. The only way to do any kind of work for the Buda is to give it all to God. So when you are cooking, you're cooking for God. You're cooking the best you can, you know. And when you're fighting, you're you're at war for God, you know, whether it's a holy battle or not. And that's as it's much bigger than the scope for discussion here. But but those are, but they're they're both

in both traditions. There's a notion that that whichever role you're inhabiting, you should inhabit wholeheartedly, rather than rather than trying to sort of cut, you know, trying to hedge bets. You know. Yeah, no, that's interesting and it gets into you know, one of the things that we're gonna talk about a little bit later in the script is that the people are also pacifist, right, and that is a big part of their their movement. Um, And yeah, I don't know, it's still love to think about it. I'm

gonna think about some more of that. Okay. So there's this there's this guy who gets called the leader of the Diggers. He's not the leader of the diggers. He's not the founder of the Diggers. There's no particular evidence that he was the leader besides the fact that he was the writer. And his name is Gerard Winstanley, and and he's kind of he's the guy who showed up and saw what was going on and wrote about it and spread the word. So in some ways he's a leader,

but he's not the leader of this particular movement. And he was born in sixteen o nine, he was middle class. He moved to London became a tailor. In sixty three, he goes bankrupt and he didn't like capitalism. Well capitalism doesn't really exist yet, but you know, he doesn't like this particular system that's developing. And he blames the quote cheating sons and the thieving art of buying and selling. So he really hates buying and selling, probably because he

wasn't all that good at it. But and the Civil War doesn't help his business either. So he's bankrupt and he foxed off to the village of Cobham to get a job as a cowherd. And I prefer to imagine a cow herd as a cowboy, so I'm going to refer as a cowboy. And it's he's like a shepherd, I think, so yeah, yeah, no, yeah, he's not actually moving cows across the planes or anything like that. He's

keeping track of them. Okay, fine, the cow shepherd. And it's during his time as a cow shepherd that he starts turning his thoughts to religion and theology and he's looking for answers to what has wrecked his life and how he might make it and the lives of other

people better, and he also winds up a leveler. And I like how the levelers basically was this big mass of the people who thought things should be better somewhat, and then all of these different factions within the levelers came out and and did other things and went in different actions with that leveling or with being a leveler. So when Stanley and the Diggers the true levelers, they branch off from the same philosophical starting point as the levelers.

And when Stanley, during his time you know, pondering all this theology or whatever, he believes in a few things. First and foremost, he believes in reason. He saw reason within each person as the godliness within each individual. Man and woman um. And he did explicitly in his earlier writings say man and woman um, not just using man as a catch all for all people, though he used that occasionally. Also later he gets in his post digging works, which I don't like as much, he gets um real

explicit about how man is the head of the household. Um, the leveling stops at the door, But why doesn't say it? Doesn't phrase it the leveling stops at the door, But that's a you know, But he talks about how the word God can't sum up the divine and how he and so many others were led astray by that word think of God as an external thing. So he pretty much called God reason. And he said that it was chill if everyone came up their own word for God. Yes,

this is a very nineteenth century English position. Okay, well he's he's two centuries ahead of time, three centuries. This is when the sixteenth century, this is the seventeenth century, the sixteen hundreds. Wow. So this, yeah, this sort of thinking in the nineteenth century becomes pretty I mean, obviously American transnittalism goes into that you know, and you and you wind up, you know, after the you wind up with the twentieth century with you know, the A Creado

people saying you have something you call a higher power. Right, it's it's all that's on a continuum, I think, mm hmm. Yeah. I've I've actually been interested. I've watched some of my friends go into a A and have to learn how to work that into how they consider I don't like a lot of my like. Right. The thing is in a you don't have to believe in God. You just have to believe that there's the power greater than yourself, right,

which seems self evident. But when you are an active addict, you may or may not actually believe that you're running on ego all the time when you sit down and actually look at how you're behaving. So it seems that I don't think there are powers greater than myself, you know. So so yeah, so like you know, it can be. I had one guy explained too points we say we can be a chair because I can't change the nature

of this chair. What you're wanting to, what you're wanting to learn is a serenity, for ability to accept the things you can't change change things you can, and to be smart enough to know the difference beween those two things. So when Stanley believes that it's entirely biblically justified, if not necessitated, to abolish kings, that there ought to be no masters and servants, no aristocracy and commoner, and for this he's seen as like generally the father of Christian socialism.

And although you've already pointed out that you can sort of biblically justify a lot of things, and it's all based on these different scales and contexts. But um, now, sorry, I got lost thinking about how like this was. This is like two censers typical about what you're just saying.

It's like two centuries before a lot of other people are saying this, And that's like one of one of the things that's so interesting about the Diggers is their outsize impact theologically and politically for how small of a movement they actually were. So that's kind of interesting that I knew about how it influenced some of the like the political movements, or prefigured some of the political movements.

But it's cool to know that also prefigured a lot of theological ideas, just thinking yeah, okay, and so he he also to prefigure a lot of nineteenth century socialism. He said that the enclosure of the commons and the creation of private property was essentially an act of theft

and banditry. It's a way of stealing from everyone else and from his a declaration from the poor oppressed people of England the name of one of his pamphlets, The power of enclosing land and owning property was brought into the creation by your ancestors by the sword which first did murder their fellow creatures, men and after plunder or steal away their land, and left this land successively to

you their children. And therefore, though you did not kill or thieve, yet you hold that cursed thing in your hand by the power of the sword, and so you justify the wicked deeds of your father's And that sin of your father shall be visited upon the head of you and your children to the third and fourth generation and longer too, so your bloody and thieving power be

rooted out from the land. And I thought this is interesting partly because that's also not a terrible description of what it means to live as a white person in the United States in terms of like kind of like, well, I didn't do the colonizing, you know, and and that's true, but then like realizing that like we have inherited what

has been stolen at the point of the sword. And he was also, I believe, the first person in English, not the first person overall, but the first person in English to espouse Christian universalism in writing, which, as I understand it, again not a huge theology. Girl of this podcast is turning me into one because it's so tied into history that I like um, which is the concept

that everyone, even the most sinful people eventually get into heaven. Yeah. Yeah, I mean most people wind up believing that there's a great deal to say about that. Uh, And it's not. Once you get into the subjects, you sort of can't just open the door and and say, well, here's a there's thumbnail and we'll move back to the other thing. You know. But I mean it's the exact opposite of of you know what Calvin John Calvin, and there are

there's an active Calvinist strain right now. It's like Calvinism has actually been Uh there's been a resurgence of Calvinists thinking you know, of of and you know, that's predeterminism that like you're either getting into heaven or not based on how it was already decided when you were born, right, Uh, which is like I'm not a Calvinist in any CID.

So I can't see who having this position why. I mean, I can't conceive of it within any understanding of the God that I serve um you know, uh, and and the guy that I served with lots of faces and I consider you know, like I can understand many different perspectives on that, but I can't imagine asking anybody to behave any kind of way. If if everything is predetermined, you know, then then there's no reason for me to

do anything. And you know, then you have to construct all theology around possibly of losing the grace that you were born with. Right, Um, and none of that, none of this has has scriptural support in my view. But but at the same time, it's and this actually has to do with with issues of gentleness versus I don't know what you'd call the opposite of that ferocity. Yeah, I guess, I mean it's you search for for masculine feminine archetypal terms, right, you know, for the feminine versus

the masculine. The feminine receives, the masculine puts out cues, right, and all that kind of stuff which we're at present, you know, in tearing getting intensely and for the better. But um, but when you say everybody's getting in, right, I mean, I like this idea, uh, but it also becomes harder to ask people to care about any of

the thought that went into that. Right, And and I get that, And this is where I have a conservative part of me, like I think, you know, if everybody had to spend more time with these ideas if it was you know, when when people talk about religionistation in the schools, well, obviously I don't want that, right, but I think it does almost anybody good to contemplate the

world's religions. It's like I would if somebody said there ought to be an actual course on world religion for high school students or junior high students, and then and the course had to be mandated, so it really did fairly cover you know, all the Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam. You know, I'd I'd be in favor of that. I think, you know, wrestling with those ideas does a person in

a society good. And an absence of contact with those ideas, direct contact and forny wrestling contact, I think leaves it leaves a person wondering, you know, this person missing something. You know. I think everybody goes out and does it on their own is maybe not the most functional way of of of having people on the same page about some of the bigger questions than that opens up. Not that people don't have their own good thoughts about this stuff.

They do, right, but but they're huge thoughts, right, And it's not really unless the type of person who's naturally drawn to them. You're not going to naturally dig deeper and have big moral and ethical self searchings about them unless that's fun for you, right, so so so so yeah. But but as far as universalism goes, I think we do wind up. Uh, most most people who aren't kind of really reactionary wind up at the type of universalism.

And in part I think that's because many people don't aren't, including me, aren't really convinced that most of the stuff they believe is real anyway. And they say and they say, look, the most important part of this, that that that that not be real for me is the notion that somebody can be condemned for you know, I mean older versions of before the I don't know when well all the Augustine dealt with this, but you know, the notion that somebody who never heard the name of Jesus doesn't get

to see God because they didn't confess it. I mean, it's this run's counter to the whole, to the whole God that you're supposed to be teaching there. And so that's how I lost that's how I lost my faith or whatever. When I was very young, as I just was like this whole concept of like, I don't know if I if I don't follow the following thing, that feels very arbitrary. I like spend eternity and damnation that it made me kind of throw away the rest of

it for a very long time. I don't find a lot of biblical support for damnation, is the thing I find. I think that Jehovah's witnesses have a nice thing on this. They also have several things that are really quite out there. But but Jeovah's witnesses will tell you there is no fiery hell at all that that's not supported by the Bible, and it's not right what what they paint is like, Look, a hundred thousand people are going to go, uh live with God forever. Okay, That's such a tiny number, is

the thing. It's like it seemed big to them at the time, But now we have such a broad view of history. I mean that means there's no way there's any of those hundred forty four thousand left. You have to have already had a right. But but beyond that that, the people who don't make it will just die and cease to exist, not that they will go and be punished because eternal punishment is not compatible with This is one of the things I go in on. From the very beginning of the Bible to the end, God as

a father figure is a huge idea. Now, historians of religion will tell you this is partly because we were coming out of a period in which God was a mother figure, and it was very important to the patriarchal religions to establish clearly we have a father now and not a mother. And then the Catholics have, to me the most fun way of of reconciling this and understanding that the absence of the maternal energy is a real absence, you know. And then we get Marian cultson worship, which

it is great in my view. But but from the beginning of the Bible to the end, God is the father. The fatherhood of God is so central, right, it's it's such a part of God that we sort of we begin with that parent to Adam and Eve, and then Adam is the father to the human race. Right, all this stuff, Well, what kind of father under any circumstances, no matter what their child had done, no matter what

the most monstrous child in the world. I would say, well, you know, what you never get to see me again, and you suffer eternally. Yeah, there is literally I have two children. There is nothing they could do. I don't care what they do, right, I mean, obviously I would be I would grieve forever if they become hard people, you know, and there's no condemned them to an eternity of suffering. That's monstrous and any understanding of God that would do that is monstrous in my view. It's like

and I don't think the Bible supports it either. I don't. I don't think I certainly don't think Jesus has to say. You know, it's like I think it's a very I think it's a keep people in line teaching. I mean, I think the same things that you know, the boring Satanists think about this is like, you know, but but they're right. It's like it's a it's crowd control, right, so so you know, and the thing is what they would say, this is the Machiavellian view, is that you know, well,

some people need that kind of crowd control. A lot of people do, actually, right, and that is a hard you know, that's a hard thing to pars And I don't I'm not necessarily an acceptance of it. But it feels about right. You know. It's like plenty of people are not going to do all the hard work of thinking about this stuff, and it will probably be better

off if they're just told what to do. And there's plenty of circumstances in which I am that guy where I don't don't don't give me all the complicated stuff and let me make my own decision. I'll make a poor decision. Tell me what I'm supposed to do, right. I think I'm better off that way. You know. There's a lot of situations where that's me. So these are complicated issues and I forget what they're taking off point

no sor right. Um. I also don't have a good ad segue to go from there, but I have to now because of the the constraints of the capitalistic system that I live with in well, Friends, Royal pudding, royal pudding more food energy than sweet fresh milk. Eat royal pudding in your home exactly rich wis sweet foots, flavors, smooths, the sield more and more more food energy than sweet fresh milk. Royal more more more food energy than sweet fresh milk. Welcome back, to the Cool People Who Did

Cool Stuff podcast and host John Darneil today. Who are we talking About's Croatian literature. It works for me, I think, alright, So yeah, no, I think the Christian universalism thing is it's really interesting because yeah, like I like, I, like I said, I kind of I moved away from thinking about a lot of these things because I saw how transparently there they were designed to systems of control and well no, no, but not designed, its utilized by I mean.

The thing is we're seeing this in in politics right now, in real time, that there's a lot of ideas out there that might seem good or bad, and they always every idea is available to everybody, and the bad guys utilize the ones that are effective, right and so. But but the notion that they were constructed for that purpose, I don't think that's true very rarely. Like even Augustine.

You know, Augustine has a lot of loathsome stuff, But I don't think Augustine was was was trying to construct, uh, you know, a method of oppression so much as he was passing stuff. The way he thought about it, and

some of his thoughts are all sucked up. But you know, then Augustinian thought can be used to uh, you know, deposit this well split between the mind and the body, which is another thing right, well, no, I mean like and that's why you know, I mean frankly as part of why I'm an anarchist, although it, as any other ideology, is capable of following into this. But you know, Tolkien's whole thing with like you actually must cast the ring of power into the fire, you know you can't. Yeah,

that that's my whole thing. Um. So you know, all like nations either you're you, you would envision a world in which all the in which we live in smaller communities. I would say, like smaller communities that are federated. So there's like still organizational systems that are larger, um, but the the decision making is more bottom up than top down. I'm not like hardline about exactly how I envisioned like

the entire world living. And so anarchism is like a combination of like a way of critiquing power, and then it's also a way of thinking about larger societies but some of the larger maybe I used to I used to idea as an anarchist. I don't know what I do now. I think I think anarchism is an extremely uh optimistic philosophy. I'm middle aged, and often I mean, I'm I'm considering the more optimistic people, you know, But I'm not sure that I would trust people with anarchism

at this point, you know, yeah, fair enough. I mean not that I wouldn't trust anarchists. Anarchists are great, right, so I share many of their values. But but but I know a lot of my a lot of my communist friends who believe in, like some some fairly robust state systems of control. I take their point in recent years that like sometimes you actually tell people what to do. So I think it's like a there's like a a balance that isn't like a fifty fifty balance, It's not

like a little listen a little bit of that. I think it's a lot of like both. And in terms of like like what you're talking about about, um wanting to be told what to do by a priest, let's say, because because you're not. It's like, there are many times that I want to be told what to do because

that is not where I'm putting my energy. So like, on some level there's people who I like would trust to develop certain ideas and then be like, Okay, I trust you the same as I would trust someone to design the wind power that powers the neighborhood I live in. Let's say, you know, I there's a this is completely up, so we should probably go back to the Diggers. We should because all right, let's go to the Diggers. So

what the Diggers actually did? As far as I can tell, the first Digger commune was started by five people, which does not include this guy's Gerard win Stanley, but it does include a guy named William Everard who had been a scout in the Parliamentarian Army, who kept getting arrested for various rabble rousing, and at one point, uh, he stormed a church to declare various religious truths. This is the way to go. You gotta be stormy church. Yeah, exactly. A lot of the people that I come up in

the show storm churches. And he gets called a madman constantly. All the different accounts of him are like, oh, he's just a crazy guy. But he's the he's probably the founder of the Diggers. He didn't write, so we don't know as much about him. But in sixte these five folks, including this guy head up to a place called St. George's Hill in Surrey, which is a county in the middle bottom of England, and they found some enclosed land that they felt like should not be enclosed, should be

commons and so they just made it commons again. They started tilling the soil and planting their crops. By the end of the week, thirty more people joined them, including Gerard Now and basically they said, anyone who wants can come here and plant and grow and we'll all share. But not that many people came. Various accounts of people visiting the communist city. They saw like twelve people, twenty people,

and they loom really large in history. But this was not a mass movement, uh, not compared even to the thousand people that Captain Pouch had gotten together fifty years or so years earlier. And it's possible that the diggers weren't even popular with the locals. This part's hard to parse, but it's like one account from the time says the first crop of barley they planted was ripped up by

annoyed locals. And I don't know one way or the other whether this meant commoners who were like, ah, these fucking hippies get out of here, or whether it was the Lord of the manner sending like his people to go funck this thing up and drive them off. And I can really I see it either way, I don't know.

So they put out a manifesto which is probably the reasoning to it all in the first place, and it's written by Girard and it's signed by forty six people called a Declaration from the Poor Pressed People of England, and yeah, um, their their beliefs are throw open the prisons, till the land in common, be pacifists and respect The quote Earth our Mother, which I hadn't run across this before, as like a medieval Christian thing to say, to talk

about mother Earth. But um, apparently it's completely normal for medieval Christians to refer to the Earth as the mother. This is one of my old hobby horses. We we

tend to think anything that we've heard of originates with us. Yeah, and uh and yeah, it's like no ideas like that are are very old, and uh, yeah it's a I mean, yeah, it's But however, it is also I think fairly radical at that point to be talking like that, not because it's new, but because because it's not because its old, because in a lot of ways, yeah very good, Yeah

that's right, and so um. And they were opposed to buying and selling in general, they are opposed to buying and selling, but in particular selling the earth or products of the earth was like really bad. And because the earth is the common treasury that we all share. And they said they had no need for laws amongst each other and that um, basically, whipping people and locking them

up doesn't make people into better people. So and at this point, I really you know there basically Christian anarchist pacifists and Gerard win Stanley sums up their pacifism at the time, quote, the way to cast out kingly power is not to cast it out by the sword, for this doth but set him in more power and removes him from a weaker to a stronger hand. The only way to cast him out is for the people to leave him to himself, forsake fighting and all oppression, and

to live in love towards one another. The power of love is the true savior. And then again later he goes on to say, like after he's no longer a digger, and he's like writing all these laws he's as a totally show for husbands to beat their kids and wives with a stick. So well, you know, people change, Yeah, yeah, exactly, So right now they're all diggers. The local lords write letters to the government and they're like, hey, this weird

thing is happening. Maybe send Calvary. So Calvalry comes general the general, this guy fair Fax. He sends Calvary and they show up and they talk with two people present themselves as leaders, William the wild rabb arouser and Gerard the theologian. Um. The cavalry guy writes back to his general and he's like, yeah, Williams a total madman, and says,

William and Gerardo present yourself to the General. So they present themselves to Fairfax and they refuse to take off their hats in the presence of the General because all people are equal, and this causes a huge stir and then they defend their case basically to this revolutionary leader. William. He says he's of the Jewish race at this point, and I spent a while trying to figure out what

he means by this. Um. I can't tell whether he's saying I am Jewish, like religiously or culturally or if he's saying his family converted recently or more likely, I think it's some kind of reference to being descended from the original Christians. I don't know. Well, man, that's that's a This is a giant question for a lot of English thinkers, is what's their connection? And uh, and there's a lot of you know, William Blake thinks about this stuff,

and so does the Church of Jesus Christ. The latter they saying it's right. They their whole teaching is that Jesus came to North America. R. Another whole teaching is central that after after the Resurrection, he came over here, right. Uh. This is a way that the nations that are Christianized grapple with the fact that this is a Sinemitic religion from the Middle East, and and well that it becomes

very powerful religion. So everybody wants it right, but but they want to find a way They want to sort

of claim claiming natively. Yeah, this happens a lot. A lot of people are always claiming communities that they may may not belong to, right so, but when they see that they have some power cultural cachet or something, you will often find people say, well, you know, I'm not actually one of you, but I'm a lot like you can hang you know, and so and and because coalition building is powerful, often it's it's in his interest to say yeah, yeah, I know, yeah, you're good. Yeah no,

no that that that that makes sense. Um, And so he says, I had a vision that people should go up and dig and plant in the earth, and that they were peaceful and they wouldn't resist, and they just wanted to plant the commons and then everyone would see that it's a better way to live. And so Fairfax is like, alright, sure, whatever, I'm not dealing with this, go away, and Gerard the theologian, uh the writer, He

goes back to the diggers. But William, the rabble rouser whose visions started the whole thing, he kind of just wanders off at this point and doesn't go back. He starts working in various different fields like like not feels like fields of study, but like literal fields where people grow things. But one town he shows up in as soon as he shows up, people start acting weird, like people start walking around in trances and ship as soon

as he shows up. So he gets accused of witchcraft and Eventually he gets thrown in uh Bethleem Royal Hospital, which is a psychiatric hospel it's been around for eight hundred years, whose reputation is so grim. It's where we get the word bedlam. Yeah, and his trail goes dark in bedlam. And so the diggers keep digging without their their profit. There there visionary founder. But the thing is that this land there on, they claim it's commons, but

someone else claims it's his right. Francis Drake to be specific, not the famous slave trader um who also was the first person's circum navigate the world in a single trip. A different Francis Drake. This guy was not much nicer. He sents gangs to go beat everyone up, and when that didn't work, he burns one of their houses down. And finally the diggers all get arrested and put on try and they get accused of being ranters. Who will get into it a little bit. They actually had beef

with so they were kind of annoyed. It's kind of like now, if like they arrested communists and we're like, you damn anarchists, you know, they'd be like what the hell? Like the communists very angry. Yeah, And so the diggers got told if you go back to Francis Drake's land, the whole army is going to come. So they move on to another enclosure on a different lord's land. The new lord does the same ship to them. By April sixteen fifty, they're driven out from there too, and the

trail goes dark for these diggers. Um, I don't think they ever got a single harvest out of out of their work. And and we mostly hear about this particular group because that guy when Stanley, hung out with them, and he's the wh who wrote all the pamphlets and ship. But they weren't the only group of diggers. Colonies cropped up in at least six other towns. And I don't think history knows the fate of these colonies, or at least I wasn't able to determine it. And my my

guess is it's about the same. They were probably dispersed by this sort of one too punch of legal harassment and mob violence. I like to imagine that they like went on for a long ast time and just kept doing their thing, you know, but they probably didn't. After the Diggers, when Stanley goes on and he writes his utopia called Utopia, where he lays out all of his new beliefs and these aren't really the beliefs of the Diggers. There this guy's theories. He says there's two types of governments.

There's monarchies, which are bad, and commonwealth which are good, and that if the commonwealth ever starts doing monarchy ship it becomes bad. And his commonwealth are this sort of strange communism like the Diggers wanted, but with all these governmental systems, which is like no longer though, we don't need laws amongst ourselves era. And he wrote out all

of the laws in great detail in his book. And I have a feeling that people write utopias are doing it because they're really excited about like the like engineering they've done, the like this is the laws and this is how it all works, you know. Yeah, I mean I think it's a big question is is how these people it this way and what's really going on with them? Yeah? Totally. Well, I think you've got a sense of it because his very first law and one of the only capital offenses,

it's a capital crime to be a lawyer. Yeah, things like that. You hear, that's kind of stuff in Shakespeare too. It's a it's pretty it's pretty uh entrenchedingda. We also always got to remember what they mean by lawyer is different what we mean that lawyers. Just like when you were mentioned prisons, we do your prison history. Prison is madness today also. But but the nature of prisons back then pretty chaotic. It was like a building with a lock on it, you know, it's about it. So yeah,

now that's a good point. I don't I don't really think the pen opticon is better. But but but it's like, at the same time, it's like if it's just me in a room with a bunch of other people who have been deemed authorities, that I don't like my chances, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, fair enough. Yeah, that actually comes up some of the times and some of the histories I do, where you know, the political radical just gets thrown in the cage with all the other people

and it goes really badly. Um. Yeah, so some of the other laws in this utopia, anyone who hurts anyone gets hurt in exactly the same way in return by an executioner. So the execution doesn't only kill people. Also, like you punch someone in the face. The executioner comes and punches you in the face, eye for an eye, black eye for a black eye, um, except if you hit a cop, which he calls overseers. Then you become

a servant for a year. And the punishment for almost everything else is a is servant for a year where you are like a slave to the state, and anyone who wants can just show up and like the general pool of like slaves and borrow you for the day and some of the other things that get you sent to become a servant for a year. If you refuse to grow food, um, if you don't learn a trade, if you buy or if you buy yoursell land, you get executed. If you if you claim to own land,

then mean words get written on your forehead. You're sit in a stool in front of everyone, and then you have a year of servitude hiring people for wages that gets you a servitude. Anyone who claims to be holy but then trades for possessions of the earth gets put to death and as a witch. Yeah, that's just ustopia. I don't want to live there. But it's actually probably better than Evil England at the time, but it still

doesn't sound. I mean, he's when guy writes like something like this, he sounds to me like he doesn't have a lot of interlock euters. Right, it's like most utopias, I think Thomas More there's a good job of having demonstrated he's been sitting around some tables with some people, but most of they don't bear a lot of scrutiny. You can ask two or three questions and it starts

to come apart. Yeah, totally, totally. So after a couple of years he so he comes out hard with to kill all the lawyers and everyone who buys and sells stuff and every wants to share everything. And then a couple of years later he does with huge trunk of middle class revolutionaries do. He gets given some land by his family, his in this case, his father in law, and then um settles down to join the own stuff

for a living class. He he becomes a Quaker, and he ends up going on and moves to London and becomes a merchant. Again. That's that's that's that guy. But the thing that's really interesting me, right is that you've got this like it's a couple dozen people who squats some land never actually get to harvest it, and then four hundred years later people are still talking about them, and like a lot of people still talk about them, and they they're the ideas and practices they developed, like

those are what have echoed. And that's what's interesting to me. The greater harvest of their work or whatever. And basically just that the smallest movements, which don't seem to accomplish their goals sometimes actually can be a huge deal is really interesting to me. Three years later, in the nineties sixties, you get other people called themselves Diggers. This time it's an anarchist guerrilla street theater group in San Francisco, and

they're basically like the Rattis hippies around. They combined the underground art scene with the new Left. They're trying to create a society without capitalism or money. They perform plays for free. They distribute free food every day in Golden Gate Park. They opened up free stores stores which everything in the store is free. They founded free medical clinics.

They distributed their papers for free. And the way that they printed their papers is that they snuck in in the middle of the night to the Students for Democratic Society offices and used their printers They put on free shows with all the like big sixties artists, Grateful Dead Jen It's Droplin, Jimi Hendrix. They offered free housing for homeless youth. They popularized hidi um in the hippie scene,

and they popularized whole wheat bread in America. It's wild, yeah, like, and it's funny to be because um, I don't actually like whole wheat bread because I don't eat bread because I want to be healthy. I eat other food to be healthy. M yeah, well, I mean the thing is, whole grains are better for you than before, and great it's a so so yeah, that's the that's the thing.

But they also, you know, the diggers in San Francisco are very much romanticizing uh if it passed, and they're doing a thing where you know that I think is not without merit. That says, you know, hey, the more process your food is, the less healthy it's likely to be. And uh no, it's not absolutely true. It's like it's

got nutrients, and I thing it's got nutrients. It's fine, you know, but but I think your body it sort of seems, you know, it self evident that like, you know, the food that gives your body the least trouble is the one that's going to take give you more energy than it takes, you know. Yeah, which is why this show is sponsored by whole wheat bread that I don't even like. You know, John, I've been thinking about whole wheat bread and I've been thinking, I don't even like this,

but I think I'm going to eat it. Let's see, this is what you know I've been I was what we're talking about, whole wheat bread. Have you considered the Roman meal? Yes, friends, Roman Meal, And we are also supported by these other advertisers, and we are back from those ads, and I hope all of them are from polesome foods and not terrible things, because sometimes terrible things ads come through and we only have retroactive control about that kind of thing. Yep, we live in a hell escape,

yeah exactly. Um. Yeah, it's it's so interesting to me that when I didn't realize that one of the biggest influences that the Diggers had was on the American diet, you know, and the popularizing whole all foods right, not the store, and well that was that. The thing is that also had They're not the first you know, Uh, what's his name up there, um CTW Post up in

I think Michigan. Um, they're all there are all these movements that trace back to the time of American Transcendentalism and to the turn of the twentieth century where and they are kind of indivisible from some religious ideas that many of these are more universalist ideas. But but uh, but yes c W. Post and I feel like there's

another one in Michigan. But maybe it's all him. And so they have some very sound ideas about nutrition, and they have some very wacky ideas stuff too, you know, because I think some of these people are also into like Oregon energy and stuff like like they I mean, you know, I learned about from you always all right, there's a cloud busting is about. I think that guy's an Oregon Guy's kid. I actually don't know that. I

don't know it. Well. I learned about learned about organ energy from a band called the Supreme Dicks, rather more obscure musicians from western Massachusetts. Okay, So that to keep talking about these new diggers, they also coined a bunch of radical slogans that have filtered out into the mainstream, such as do your own thing and today is the first day of the rest of your life. And much like how the original Diggers had more than one commune, the new Diggers did too. They operate at least one

other chapter in the Lower Asside of Manhattan. And I want to quote from an amazing food historian Ran Awry about these East Coast Diggers from article in Blindfield Journal. The famous Digger stew, which is made daily in huge white enameled pot in a kitchen behind the office, is ladled out free of course, to anyone who wants it,

every afternoon around five o'clock in Tompkins Square Park. Reads a New Yorker Talk of the Town article from seven about a faction of theater centric anarchist group that made the Lower east Side home in the nineteen sixties. When Clyde, Susan Diego, and Ritchie asked were asked to explain why they are performing these services for the Lower east Side community, each repeated the enigmatic Digger motto diggers do. The Diggers saw sharing free food as a way to teach people

about their anti capitalist ideals. Um. And I just really like this whole quote because I like, I'd never run across this phrase. Diggers do before. But I feel like it connects the spirit that connects these two groups. Because there's a problem. People don't have food, and there's a solution. You get food and you give it to people, And so existing impediments like the enclosure of the commons or the system that the enclosure led to capitalism should just

be ignored. Um, which isn't always work, but it's a really fucking cool thing to do anyway. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's something I'm always talking about, Like we live in a time of incredible abundance. There's no reason for anybody to be hungry, you know, and so but the thing you the only thing you really do about that

is giveaway food. You can't systemically unless you Yep, that's that's the argument for robot state power is like it's hard to conceive of local solutions that result in in, uh in feeding all the people who need food, right, but I can conceive of a very giant state apparatus that sees to it, you know, right, Yeah, I mean, you know, my my my cheap excuse or my my my cheap work around is be like, oh well that has handled at a federated level where you know, we

distribute the resources to the local groups that are doing that work. Um. But like I don't. I'm not trying to be like and that's the structure that everything needs, you know. Yeah, And the new fangled Diggers, at least all the history that I found is like, we don't

know how they funded all of this. But I would argue that I have a sense of how they funded it, because I'm going to assume they fund it the way that modern anarchists fund it, which is some combination of crime which is primarily selling of drugs and sex work and scams, sympathetic people who have regular jobs, and folks who come from generational wealth. I I don't feel like this, I would say the I would say the latter quality

is probably the biggest. Probably you didn't come and hitting up people for money fund fundraising essentially, yeah, exactly, Like it's to me, it's not this huge mystery. They am like, yeah, they did it, like everyone does it, you know. Um. And they lasted longer than original Diggers, um, which is sort of amazing because the original Diggers huge in history.

Small thing. But I want to talk about another splinter off of the Diggers, or rather, these are the people that they got accused of being that they were unhappy that they get called of the ranters. If you combine the sixteen forties Diggers and the nineteen sixties Diggers, you might get the Ranters if if they existed as an actual movement and not just a few writers who sparked a moral panic. Because it's actually hard to be sure, right. One of the writers is this guy named Claxton. He

was born Lauras Clarkson in sixteen fifteen. But he was exactly the kind of cool guy to go by one name in this case of variation of his last name, and he somehow managed to evade the like I think he got to pick his own nickname, which is like the only time that happens in today's story. And he's an itinerant preacher, and he supported the Levelers in their fight for the republic, and he spent some time digging

with the diggers. In sixteen fifty, thirty five years old, he writes a pamphlet called A Single Eye in which he claims there's no such thing as sin, specifically, sin was quote invented by the ruling class to keep the poor in order um, which actually gets to what you were saying about like that might not be why they invented, you know, like yeah, yeah, I don't think there was a meeting. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, the only commandment he respected was thou shalt not kill. He's a pacifist as well.

And the ranters Claxton among others, they caused this moral panic and soon how everyone is complaining about how these ranters are running naked through the streets, preaching naked to naked crowds, and they cuss and they drink and they fuck, and they ruined monogamous marriages and they talk about the

sexual liberation of women and yeah, yeah, no, yeah, they rule. Um, it's likely that they formed some kind of free love, communitary and counterculture of some size in England in the sixteen fifties that believed in the same Christian socialism and passipism of the Diggers, just plus sex and fun. Uh. They had nude rituals. Some of them were vegetarian. It's hard to know just how far it all went, though,

because moral panics are always applied really broadly, right. There might have been thousands of them, There might have been dozens of them. There might have been five of them. Um, left wing historians want to say it was tons of people. Right wing historians like to focus on the possibility that it was mostly a media construction and there was only

the writers. My my best guess is that there was at least half a dozen or so of these preachers each with the following of a couple dozen to a couple hundred people, which probably participated to various degrees in the religious de battery. But it was also all played up entirely, you know. But they wrote books, and they got locked up for writing those books, and those books

were also burned. And as unpopular as the ranchers were the royalists, they were also unpopular with the parliamentarians, despite having basically all of them served in the war against the king that had just overthrown the king. One of the books they burned was called a Fiery Flying Role by a bees or cop, And I think role means like scroll in this context, so it's like basically like

a fiery flying book. Yeah. The main message was that God was going to come down and level some ship himself, specifically cut down the rich and raise up the poor. And here's a quote from it that I just liked because I like this kind of ship. How how ye nobles, how honorable, how ye rich men, for the miseries that are coming upon you, for our parts we here that here the apostle preach, will also have all things in common.

Neither will call anything that we have our own. We'll eat your bread together in singleness of heart, will break bread from house to house. And a beezer had been in jail when he had a religious experience that lasted four days and four nights, and that turned him into a renter. And during this religious experience he heard go up to London, to London, the great city, and right right right, we had it to London. And he preached

to the poor on the street. Probably he was clothed, probably both him and his audience, And he preached about the evils of the rich. And he was known to like hug and kiss beggars, men and women on the street. And I hope the beggars were comfortable with that um. And and they believed that God is in everyone and every living thing. They rejected the dualism of heaven and earth, since God was an all cre Sure's sex was holy, it was communion, it was God making love to God.

And they said rogues, thieves, horrors, and cut purses are every whit as good as the great ones of the earth. And the holiest people are those who would clothe and feed the wicked, and at least a couple of them were gay. Sources at the time complained about a ranter who had a quote man wife as well as liaisons with women and the man will interesting. Yeah, no, right, Like I want to learn more about I've actually learned a little bit about uh women husbands, right, but I

haven't learned as much about man wives. So I'm also

interested including the wicked. I'm like, that's a you know, now where we're at at the moment, and it's hard to you know, the wicked, the wicked or not a third category from the people who you think are are messed up the same people, right, and so so I don't have any any concrete or good ideas about this, but but I'm interested, Like in these radical movements, you often find this tendency to want to um, you know, you want to be righteous, as you would put it

in Christian terms, you know, to what to want, you know, to spend time with the sinner, right, with the sinner and the wicked. These are abstract, doesn't tell you anything, you know, I say, but but I think about you know, people who you and I would both consider our enemies. Those those are the wicked, right, And then how are you supposed to behave to them according to the renters,

according to Christian what you're supposed to give them your stuff? Yeah, it's hard to it's hard to square, right, It's it's it's hard to do. I'm reading a Nursula like wind book right now. It's one of my favorite authors, and it's a very pacifist book. It's called The Eye of a Heron and it you know, it um you know, and it gets that I mean to me, it's like I'm like, oh, this is why I am influenced by pacifism. But I am not a pacifist. I actually think it's

okay to have enemies. I think what for me, what matters is that there's like a an off road that someone can no longer be my enemy. Know, Like, it's not like hounding someone to the ends of the earth, right, it's like stopping this movement that is trying to bring fascism to the United States or whatever, like you know, Christian nationalism or whatever. These different phrases are right, like, like I am interested, I'm okay with presenting them as

my enemy. Um, these people that I am dedicated to trying to stop. And yet there's still the like not in not in a dehumanizing way, and not in a way that doesn't allow them to like cease being this Like it's a it's a set of behaviors rather than a rather than a intrinsic quality to a person. Maybe is um Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, that's that's

a big question. Um okay. So the man way, his name is John Oregon, and I just had to get that out there because that is the best name for a seventeenth century gamistic radical that I could possibly think of. Pretty good, pretty good. And they don't get to pick their own name, right, they didn't pick the ranters. It was a media's word for anyone who had wild ideas. Um. Yeah,

Gan Oregan is totally a stage Yeah, definitely. Um. And but one of the one of the pamphlets that they put out was called a Justification of the Mad Crew. And so at least this guy wanted to be called the Mad Crew. Um. And Nigel Smith a modern person,

not a not a Ranter. In his introduction to a collection of Renter texts, he says that the Ranters believed that there can be no afterlife save amer emerging through decomposition of the dead body with glorious nature, and the literally the reason I include this, this is the most

religious episode I think we've done. But the reason I include this is because that's like a core religious belief of mine, Like possibly the only thing that I would call a religious belief of mine is that um decomposition of the dead body with glorious nature is like what the afterlife is. And so it's just interesting. I've never seen it presented in a Christian context, but I don't know.

Parliament doesn't like these Ranters much. Right in sixteen fifty they pass a Blasphemy Act and an Adultery Act pretty much designed to root out the Ranters, which also gets applied against the Diggers and anyone Parliament doesn't like. It was this whole culture war thing because nothing ever changes. Basically, the Blasphemy Act made it illegal to say that God quote dwells into creature and nowhere else, and it made it illegal to say that swearing and drunkenness aren't sins.

And the Adultery Act made fornication a capital crime, so society picks some group to have a more panic about uses it to justify repression on society well wide level. A few of the writers get rounded up. One fellow had a whole board through his tongue with a hot iron for his blasphemy. Some of the ranters said, hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, and they got out of punishment by you know, repenting or whatever, and a few did the whole like, I don't respect this court.

I'm not going to talk to you. A bees Are cop took a differ intact. Whenever people tried to arrest him. He just would run the funk away, Like like one time they came to his house and he was like, oh, I left my coat inside. I'll just run inside and get my coat really quick, and they're like okay, and then he just runs out the back door and takes off.

Eventually they catch him and he gets put in court, and he interrupts the court by throwing apples and pears and nutshells at everyone until like basically trying to prove to everyone that he's crazy. He still gets thrown in prison until he writes a I'm sorry letter, and then he does that. He gets out of prison. He changes his name to high Him, which is a Bible reference to a line I am what I am, and then he keeps preaching everything for everyone. What I have I

share freely oppressed. He just stays at it under a new name. Claxton, for his part, also was a repent to get out of jail person, and he used to argue with the Diggers um Gerard the Digger was like this rancher guy fox too much, and Claxton was like this Digg says he wants a religion separate from money,

but he takes tithes um. And of course while they're busy in fighting between the renters and the Diggers, they're both getting hauled up in front of court, and all these anti ranterer laws are being passed that effect everyone um and the persecution of the rancher's works, or at least it stops them from publishing. Their actual culture carried on for a while behind closed doors, but we lose track of it soon, and it's possible it died out with so many of its spokespeople and profits having moved

on or away. UM. I like to imagine that it didn't. I like to imagine that just went underground and became multigenerational and they all took up digging, and then are the same people as the nineteen sixties diggers. And but none of that's true. It probably it probably died out. One more really short sect to tell you about. Have you ever heard of the Muggletonians? Uh words crossed my desk. I have no idea who they are? Yeah, no, I

I had never heard of these people. And I was just like, oh, the levelers, the diggers, and then the ranters, and then it was like and the Muggletonians. So Claxton didn't go Quaker like a lot of the ranters did. He went something stranger. At sixteen sixty, he's done being a ranter. He becomes a Muggletonian. And they get their name from literally the most British named person to have overlived,

lot of Wick Muggleton Pretty good. Yeah, And it got This sect got its start when lot of Wick and his cousin John Reeves went around basically around London being like, hey, buddy, you want to hear the one holy truth? All the others will get you damned to hell fire and they were convinced that. Um. They were convicted of denying the Holy Trinity, which I guess was a crime at the time, and they spent six months in jail. When they got out, people had read their pamphlets and they had a following.

The Muggletonians believed that Heaven is six miles above the earth, and that God is somewhere between five and six ft tall, and that he does not give a shit about what happens on earth because there is no incarnate devil, just bad thoughts people have. Um, the diggers are actually on this kick to that the devil is the part of ourselves that tries to be selfish. The Muggletonians believe that the soul dies when the body dies, and both will

be resurrected in the end times. And they also managed to do some pretty cool stuff like they didn't believe in the supernatural. So because of that, you couldn't witch hunt under their beliefs, right, um, because it's just isn't real, So you just there's no such thing as which is, so don't fucking burn people or whatever, um, which isn't not whatever. They never pointed any leaders, held any conferences

or organized themselves. They had no public worship or instruction, and despite all of that, they lasted three hundred years. The Muggletonians, the last Muggletonian died in at least that we know of, I mean probably um, and yeah, those are this whole time period is overflowing with sex and heresies and people trying out both cool and uncool ideas. Uh. There was another one called the Fifth Monarchists, who followed

a parliamentary officer who called himself King Jesus. And it's tempted to overthrow Cromwell um, and later trying to over attempted to overthrow King Charles the Second. Um. I mean you never know how many of these people had bad paint in their houses, you know, Yeah, totally totally Um. But that's where we're gonna leave it today. We're not we're not gonna talk about the Fifth Monarchist. They're just

a weird random one liner about someone who followed King Jesus. Yeah. Uh, them's them was the Diggers there they are may they be will Yeah? Yeah. So uh let's see, do you have, um,

either final thoughts or anything you'd like to plug? Oh I don't really do concluding thoughts really really really not good at those obviously by by the entire back catalog The Mountain Goes to better understand the subject of today's podcast, Uh, we haven't we have a new record, but but but yeah, it's like I always feel like, you know, when you're

when you're appearing on somebody's thing, that's that you're promotion there. So, however, friends, if you're looking for an album that might energize you in these hard times, it might restore to you the energy you felt was lacking in your daily movements, you might try bleed Out by the Mountain Go. It's available now on Merge Records and Tapes. Bleed Out the only album that encourages you and all your friends to bleed

out really moving away from your earlier work. I'm excited for people to hear the title track, to be honest, it's it's one of the uh, it's got, it's got. It's sort of a gonzo old old energy to it. I mean it's actually it's the one mellow song on the record, but but ric lyrically it's pretty old school. Okay, I haven't heard it yet, so I'm excited too. Well, yeah, there's it's it's coming soon. It's it's later this month.

So ah well that's why I haven't heard it yet. Okay, cool Sophie, you have anything to plug, no, just just fall at coles on Media on Twitter and Instagram sees see all the shows we have there, um, but including

this one which is lovely. Yeah. And I have a book that's coming out on September called we Won't Be Here Tomorrow and its collection of short stories from that I've been publishing for the past while, um, some of which you might have heard on cool Zone Media on the show It Could Happen Here And it's available for pre order now and if you preorder it you get an art print um of a he's from the book cool and good And we'll be back next week on Monday.

Yeah yeah, until the heat death of the Earth whatever universe. Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media. But more podcasts on cool Zone Media. Visit our website cool zone Media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Didn't Do