All the media.
Welcomes it could happen here. I'm Andrew of Future Channel Anturism, and last time I was on here discussing political cults generally. Today I'm here once again with.
Oh Garrison, Yes Hello. I am also here to talk about cults because Andrew told me.
To Yes yes, and I'm the I'm the leader in this dynamic.
In many ways, this zoom call is kind of a mini cult where you are the leader.
Indeed, in need, there is nothing except this call. There's no outside world, there is no cat on your desk. It is just this the cult. The cat is a revisionist. So last episode, we discussed how cults operate, essentially the rule coaster emotional ride that individual's experience during cult recruitments, where their feelings and ideas are manipulated and they're drawn
into an exclusive and isolating group. We explore the rigid belief system that's created, the immunity to falsification, 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 ideological 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,
a presdential conspiracy theorist. The alleged targets of an assassination from Queen Elizabeth are once Trotskyist, the one and only, the infamous, the loathsome London LaRouche.
As soon as you said platon is, I knew we were in for just a horrible time, just just the worst. The only people who self described as Platonists are the worst. Actually, the last person I knew who self described as a Platonist was the target of an assassination because it was the daughter of Alexander Dugan was at.
Anyway, what an interesting cast of characters.
Indeed, indeed, and speaking of.
Cast of characters, by the way, I should note that Tim wall Fourth, one of the cool authors of the book, that this research was based on the book being on the edge particular cults left and right. Tim wall Fourth, the other author's tenant is Dennis Torrish was a Trotskyist called leader at one point, oh like cult underling or whatever. But he was kicked out and then he needs a cool authored this book to call out some of their
cultish tendencies. If you need that sort of backstory to take some of this with the grain of salt, so be it. Because, as far as I can tell, Tim Warforth and Lynn and laruche actually crossed paths at one point.
Interesting.
So, as always, let's start from the beginning and get an early portrait of this guy. Laroche was born in Rochester, New Hampshire, in nineteen twenty two, then moved to Lynn, Massachusetts. He was the oldest of three children in a Quaker home, where eventually his father would be expelled from the local
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.
Sure, sure, I'll take a first word on that one. Yeah.
Yeah.
At first, he was a conscientious objector to enlistment in World War Two, because you know, Quaker I Instead he joined a civilian public service camp in what is what you know, which is what conscientious objectors did at the time. But Eventually he would enlist with the US Army and serve with the Medical Corps in India and boomer which
is now Myanmar Ye. In nineteen forty six, aboard the s S, General Bradley Don Morrill met the young soldier in Laruche 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, Laruche was
already sympathetic towards Marx and Trotsky at this point. In fact, even in his preteens, he was a voracious reader 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, LaRouche 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 what I would call co optation of the Russian Revolution of nineteen seventy. 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 Laruche 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 Christian names baptism. 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. You know, Don Morrill, who was also from Lynn, Massachusetts, was also part of the SWP and very active in their union organized and activities. LaRouche
Tho not so much. He was very intellectually oriented. He wasn't very into the union scene, and he eventually left Massachusetts in nineteen fifty two and settled down in New York City. He got married, he had a son, and he was focused in his career as an economic consultant in the shoe industry, with a nice, nice apartment in Central Park West. He didn't really have any ties to
the working class efforts of the s 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 they so obsessed with union organizing, Perhaps he should be the one calling the shots. You have to understand something about Laruche. You see, with 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 for Lenin's what is to be Done larushe 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 Gramacy's idea of hergemony. He saw himself in competition with other intellectuals on the left for leadership over the hearts and minds of the dommy masses to undermine the capitalists hold on the working class. But unlike Gramcy, 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. Larush 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 SWP 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 Healy, who was another left wing cult leader.
A lot of a lot of left wing cults came out of the Fourth International, some of which are very cool, some of which are not.
Very cool indeed indeed, but guess what, he didn't like the Fourth International. He only stayed there for six months. And apparently Healey did not even like him. I mean, I wonder why, right, I know, I mean.
He seems like a very agreeable fellow.
And not only that, I mean, when have you ever heard of cult leaders getting along? You know, call leaders sent to view other cult leaders as threats to their total control.
You know, it would be funny if there was just like a conference for leaders to like share like tactics and they all have their dinner together.
Yeah.
So laruche pus out of that party. And then he joined the Spartassist League, which was another trot party, and again he didn't stay for too long. He decided he was going to put all those factions and leaders behind him and declared himself the pioneer of the Fifth INTERNATIONALE. So, for those unaware, the First Workers International from eighteen sixty four to eighteen seventy six was a coalition of labor and socialist groups seeking to promote workers' rights and international solidarity.
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 socialists 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 Internationale 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 Stalin, founded the Fourth International as an oppositional alternative to the
Stalin dominated comment tern. Technically, the Fourth International is still active today, but it's always been fairly irrelevant beyond small bi current 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 match? Do this? Nineteen sixty eight picture this a room with about fility students sitting on the floor, all eyes fixed
on Lindon LaRouche. After playing a major role in the students 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 meet in for a whole seven hours, that's longer than a church 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 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 nach 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 our revolutionary intelligenzia, mainly young intellectuals like these student radicals, rather than the working class,
because again laruthe thought the working class was stipid. He wanted these elite recruits to commit to intensive study and activism, particularly of his interpretation of ideas, so they'd lead the charge. And I remember at this point Larush was pushing a right wing form of Trotskyism. Like Marx, he believed that capitalism had to keep growing to stay alive. Once it hits his limits, it would go into crisis mode and
eventually collapse. He also shared Marx's idea that human activity should be all about progress, particularly the growth of the world's productive forces.
Do you know who's organizing the next International? Actually right now, right now, it is in fact that the products and service services that sponsor this podcast, So they're making the great shift the same way anarchism was expunged from the Second International. Now communism is going to be expunged from this this next upcoming international, and it's just going to be capitalists. So here, here, here are the sponsors organizing the next, the next international.
Marx thought copalism was just a phase in human society, as crises would paved the way for a working class revolution, which would lead to socialism. Under socialism, the productive forces would flourish. Thought those pesky copleist constraints. Laruche came up with something he called the theory of re industrialization. He claimed that copulism, in its third stage of realism, needed
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 Laruxe Junior into power or whether he's a junior, ah, 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, Lrush 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, Gale 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 six day reported assaults during this time, and the whole operation only ended when the police stepped in and arrested some of Larushe's followers. Interestingly, though, there weren't any convictions, and Laruche insisted that his people were only acted in self defense. But here's where get a little bit mokier.
Journalist and Laruse biographer Dennis King suggested that the FBI may have played a role in stirring up trouble among these groups. Do we have used tactics like sending anonymous mailings to keep these groups in each other's throats, so you know, plot thickens.
Yeah, I mean that way, that was very typical kind of conel Pro stuff that was happening around this time period.
That would not surprise me. Yeah, it's safe to say though, in this period of Larush's life, all the folks on the left were wondering if he was really still one of their own. Back to nineteen seventy three, Carol and Christopher, like I said, they were going to the UK to set up their own version of the NCLC, but then the Rush called them back to the US for a national conference, and during the flight, Stepher lost it. He started yelling that the CIA had plans to off Lwerby
and the Rouche, 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 deprogram Christopher. What we mean deprogrammed Christopher? I'm glad you asked.
I think we have mentioned called deprogramming before, kind of been passing, but never never too much on it.
I think yes. What I mean in this instance, though, is not that they were trying to inculcate him into the cult or deprogram him from mainstream ideology. You see in his Rantins and Ravens on the plane, Christopher claimed he was a Manchurian candidate who had been tortured by the CI and British intelligence in a London basement. He then said he was programmed to do some stuff like often his wife and setting up Laruge for a watery
demise by Cuba and exile frogmen. So that's the kind of deep program and they intended to carry out Hmmm.
I have some notes, but I suppose I'll just let them do their thing.
Yeah. Yeah, So Christopher was saying that he was a Manchurian candidate, and so then the whole group was in a frenzy. LaRouche and his disciples were releasing statements left and right, training their members and how to spot other Manchurian candidates and how to handle CIA torture. And here's what I guess, really crazy. One of the members, Alice Weitzman, she made a critical mistake in a political cult. She doubted.
She didn't believe the whole CIA story that Christopher was pushing, and Larush 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 Wisman's apartment and they held her a hostage and cranked up Beethoven music to deafening levels. Why because Laruche believed that Beethoven's tunes could somehow deprogram
Manchurian candidates. Whitesman 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 book called Earlier found a deep connection between LaRouche and fascist and United groups. Nearly eighties. Laruche used a Strategic Defense Initiative or star Wars to bring together far right 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 denial. 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, it begs the question what was life like in that party?
Yeah?
I mean I remember you Garrison describing a good party as a color and.
See, I think part of part of the problem is when you know, a house party turns into a political party and then.
Turns into a fascist party.
Yeah, that never ends.
Yea.
So Larush was using these really sneaky tactics to drive a wedge between Laruge members and their families, partners, and spouses. There were members of Laruciu's elite who convinced one person that their own dad was laundering money secret leave for
the drug trade. This organization was telling their members where they could live, what carter buy, went 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.
Yeah, that's a.
Yeah.
And then while all this is going on, lari movement is also swapping out the red flags of Trotskyism for good old or red, white and blue. Members were soon educated with the ideas of Alexander Hamilton.
Right, oh god.
Hamilton's economic policies were basically the American version of what Marx represented in Europe, according to Laruge, And forget about Marx. They're not reading Marx anymore. Now, they're reading Plato and Dante. In nineteen eighty they even told the members to vote for Reagan.
Yeah, cool stuff, cool stuff, cool stuff. They dropped their left platonist philosopher Ronald Reges.
Yeah. They basically dropped any ven air of left lean in in their recruitment tactics. And then they started doing things like soliciting people at airports and bus terminals. And these members they were caught in this whirlwind. They didn't have time to read, to think, to get a decent night's sleep. They were working twelve hour shifts and getting paid peanuts, like one hundred dollars one hundred and twenty five dollars a week, and sometimes they'd even get paid
at all. 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 decided they had had enough and left the organization. Some of them were formal leftists, but not all those who stuck around with the die hard cult members completely under Larusia's control. Would it surprise you gun to learn that the Rush was a scammer?
Oh, you're saying that the person involved in in running the cult was also a prolific grifter, as someone who tried to scam other people are really really.
Yeah, A lot of people don't know this, but cult leaders and scammers actually go hand in hand.
Ah yeah. Yeah.
The Rush was a master of operating through a network of front organizations. He created the Fusion Energy Foundation, getting support from nuclear and aerospace industries to run a private intelligence to this focusing on terrorists and drug cartels. Get this. He even met with top officials from the National Security Council and the CIA in the eighties. Despite his parannoy about the CIA, and he somehow managed to get White House access.
What yeah, yeah, why how.
Yeah. He eventually infiltrated the Democratic Party and ran for president several times, and he launched the Proposition sixty four initiative in California in the eighties, aimant to impose strict public health policies for AIDS, which public health officials rejected. But basically he was instrumental and spreading a lot of unnecessary fear about AIDS. In fact, he was advocating for lynch mobs to deal with the AIDE crisis.
Oh so he wasn't like spreading good health information when everyone was ignoring the problem. He was being like, we should, we should just killed everybody.
Yeah, pretty much?
Okay, I got h But you know.
Every scammer has their day, and one of his scams got him in the pen. You see, laruche had a knack for recruit in the offspring of the wealthy and separating them from their money. To put it euphemistically, One of his most famous fruits was Lewis DuPont Smith A DuPont here that DuPont who gave a whop in two hundred and twelve thousand dollars to Laruge. He even moved close to Laruge, but eventually the DuPont family intervened, had him declared mentally ill and put him on a monthly stipend.
Still Laruche was making a royal bank. His empire was growing. He had one hundred and seventy two acre as state 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 lost for publicity caught the attention of the public and federal officials, and his phone bank operator started making an unauthorized credit card withdrawals.
I mean he he was like going to the White House. How did he how did he? He like trying to stay under the federal radar. He was literally in the in the one spot, the one.
Place exactly exactly. It's it's baffling, But Dennis Kidding has a book all about it, so you could check it out. In nineteen eighty seven, he faced a trial on credit card fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice, which ended in a mistrial. Then a subsequent trial convicted him out in various charges, and he ended up in a federal penitentiary in nineteen eighty nine. And what do all great cult leaders, or what do many great cult leaders do when they in jail? Some of them write book books.
Yeah, all right, all right, I'm back on now. Okay.
So Lurci decided to write a book called In Defense of Common Sense. It's a mix of obscure geometric illustrations, defense of Platonism, attributes to the seventeenth century astronomer Johannes Kepler, and some heavy denunciations of philosophers like Kan't and most philosophers post Plato. In fact, as far as Larus was concerned, every philosopher after Plato sucked.
That's so funny, that's really funny.
Incredibly, But at its core his book In Defense of Common Sense was laruse re stating his modernist, somehow marks inspired worldview. We argue that scientific and technological progress set humanity apart from all other creatures, and it naturally leads to increased population density. In Larucie's eyes, there's no room for any entropic view that suggests a limit to human
technology and population growth. Even coined the term neganthropic to advocate for ongoing industrial and population expansion no matter what. All right, 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.
Well, I mean, honestly the whole his other what was the term he just said, like ner Trup, Yeah, that that is pretty similar to Musk's ideology as well, though pretty much.
Yeah, And so LaRue says, let's go, let's colonize Mars, and what's that's done? In about forty years according to his estimation, then his philosophical standpoint will clearly rule all of humanity for all of time. But while the Rush is deep in thought, behind bars his followers, they're not twiddling their thumbs. They joined forces with other anti war demonstrators pose the Gulf War in nineteen ninety nineteen ninety one.
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 neo 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, and by nineteen ninety eight, during the economic crisis, the Rush was demanding that Bill Clinton appoint him immediately as an economic advisor.
Sounds like a good idea. Yeah, now he seems, he seems well qualified.
And I coulte it was now time to abandon crisis management and Chile Shaian in other words, democracy. Laruge believed in the inherent tendency of popular opinion towards me mediocrity.
The very tendency to rely upon collective decisions rather than decisions based upon foundation of principle is itself a wellspring of mediocrity, he fully explained to proposed as symbol of virtual rabel 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 Laruci's concept of governance. He declared China to be probably one of the best governments in the world to be 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 then changed his theories completely.
Yeah.
Yeah, Marx's internationalist outcolook was abandoned in favor of the nation state. Marx's goal of abolish and capitalism replaced by a model of a tutalitarian state that is still primarily in the hands of private corporations and their owners, who, by the way, would have to take orders from the rouge. Now. Hitler called his national so his schema national socialist socialism interesting, curious.
Larusha was a fan, but he was like, you know, let's add a little spice, let's give it some American branded. So Larush called his system and ideology the American system.
It's a little bit less catchy.
I gotta say, yeah, I mean, that's that's the story. Other than the rush.
He died obviously, most people do. There's there's only a few that have not died Enoch and I think I think like one or two others, but most people, most people do do in fact die.
Yeah. Yeah, he was quite the guy. He died into onto nineteen by.
The way, Oh no, that that recent.
Yeah, yeah, he lived a really long time. He had He lived for a hundred years for Cornald.
Load did not realize he was still kicking around so so recently.
Yeah, gone too soon him a right, yeah, yeah, absolutely, at least at least now he's in heaven with Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
That's that's yeah, that's why.
Why do the good die young? You know?
Oh, he was just a kid.
So as we conclude our journey and the enigmatic will live in the rouge, I think we left with more questions and answers. How did a man on the fringe of radical politics end up in the White House?
Yeah? That is that is That is one question I actually still have thinking about his What what were the conditions to his White House visits and.
What led to his transformation from a committed leftist to a fascist. I mean I think we could see the science of that right early.
Yeah, yes, yeah, in.
The sixties, the Rouge displayed egotism and hints of instability, but he was also an intelligent individual who attracted serious intellectuals. His ideas, well sometimes peculiar, were generally rational because the adulation of students allowed him to gather a 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, that he was an intellect. He was fueled by his ideology of catastrophism, that he, as the elite, would play a significant role as savior of mnity. The practices of his organization resembled
many of the extreme religious thought control groups UH. The practice of ideological totalism is very clear, The authoritarian structure is very clear. The paranoia foster to create a clear boundaries in the group and the outside world don't be likely.
The l aruche please please.
And watch out for his I want to be is I feel like Mopin is the Laroche of this generation.
I mean, yeah, I mean, I hope. I don't see Mappin getting invited to the White House anytime soon, nor other characters like like Chairman Bob. Yeah, I don't know. We live in a different time. I think because of how the Internet works, there's a lot there's there's much more cult leaders just dispersed everywhere all the time.
But it's almost it's almost the democratization of cult leadership.
Yeah, but it's also made them more or less isolated to the Internet with occasional flare ups in the real world, which kind of which kind of limits their engagement with you know, normal people, so to speak. It's kind of.
Help cults, right, they can't even communicate with people outside of them anymore.
Yeah, And I think part of part of that is definitely happening here on on on on the Internet, where there's just so many of them that they they're all very small, they're all very isolated, and they don't ever really break out of their bubble, which which you know is common with with with a lot of a lot of cults.
Right.
The ones that we only really know about or hear about are the ones that you know, ended up doing some big, big horrific thing at some point you know, in that that generated you know a lot of eyeballs on them. But for every for every Heaven's Gate, there's like, you know, a dozen New Age holds that just fly right under the radar that are still like horribly horribly abusive.
They just still going on to this day.
Yeah, they just they just might not be tied to like a horrific act of like mass murder and mass suicide.
And that's a scary thoughts. You know how many cults have not yet break broken containment as it will.
Yeah, Yeah, it's uh, it's a fun time to to be alive.
Surely indeed, So yeah, I mean, I hope, I hope that the audience has enjoyed this cautionary tale, a reminder of the profound and sometimes dangerous paths the ideology can take individuals and groups down. Once again, I'm Andrew, and Andrew. This is Garrison of Garrison of of myself. Yes, and this has been it can happening.
Peace, It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can find sources for It could happen here, Updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot com, slash sources. Thanks for listening.