Welcome to tonight's classic episode of Stuff they don't want you to know. Ah, you've read the news, folks. The world is full of garbage, and believe it or not, there is a cult of people in the United States who eat some of that garbage on purpose. Yeah.
I mean, this one sounds so strange on the surface, just that phrase, right, cult of the garbage eaters.
Unfair unfair pr on.
This sounds like something Harmony Kourn would make a movie about, you know, like, well, he did make a movie called Trash Humpers.
Maybe this could be the sequel.
But yeah, it turns out in some small towns and some rural parts of the world college campuses across the Flotso flyover States Middle America type locations, there are a small group of nomadic bearded wanderers who make their own clothes and claim.
That they know when the end of times is coming.
Yeah. Well, you know, we recorded this in twenty eighteen, right or thereabouts?
Is that correct?
Matt?
Oh, yeah, again, we're still in June twenty eighteen.
Okay, so they haven't been right so far. It's twenty twenty three. Times have not ended, not quite, but they're getting pretty close. Oh, everybody says that they said that during the Bronze Age collapse they were wrong, Then you're right. But this is the question. You know, how many of these cults or cultic organizations exist on the very fringes of public knowledge. This is our attempt to learn more about it.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt Nola's not here today.
But we'll be returning soon. They call me Ben. We are joined with our super producer Paul Mission controlled decand you know, maybe for this episode he is our elder evangelist. Oh wow. Second, but most importantly, friends and neighbors, conspiracy realists and skeptics alike, welcome to the show. You are you, and you are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
That's right. And today we're going to delve into another cult. We've discussed them on this show before, how to start them, how to identify them, how to deprogram yourself from them. Cults are you know, a troubling but fascinating thing to discuss.
And much more common, especially here in the States, than the average person might get. There's something very American about cults in the global idea or concept. You know, when you if you ask somebody in the United Kingdom about a cult, they might tell you something about Charles Manson or Jim Jones.
You know. Yeah, there's something very American about the need or the want to be an independent or breakaway group from a major thing.
Oh good, call man, I didn't think about that yet. Yeah, that's interesting. Now. This group we're discussing today goes by many names, and we started thinking about this off air when we ran into some strange stories on the edge of the news for the most part. So here's the skinning. We've all heard of dumpster divers or survivalist other people living off the grid for one reason or another. Often people are driven to this lifestyle through some sort of necessity,
maybe poverty, homelessness. Escaping law enforcement also happens way more often than you would think. Or they may be pursuing a philosophical position. It may just be a temporary situation, a form of vacation. In some cases, however, people are driven by something deeper.
Yeah, the spiritual movement a calling, and they'll just latch onto a set of beliefs, or find a set of beliefs to be latched onto. It compels them to leave just the everyday mundane, all the stress, the studies, the career, the family, the expenses, everything, just leave it behind.
Just hit the road, right, hit the old dusty trail, and light out for the territories. As Mark Twain was wont to say, so when people disappear because of this spiritual calling, this revelation, right, this imperative from a supernatural force. Right, When this happens for most people, at least most people here in the States, it's just another example of freedom of religion. If you're not hurting anyone, you're allowed to do what you feel like doing.
Right. Yeah, if you're over eighteen, you can move wherever you want to move, if it's within the legal constraints of citizenship and everything.
Right. Yeah, So if you want, if you just decide. If Paul one day, for instance, halfway through this recording says.
You know what.
Done, I'm Donzo, I'm out of this. I am going to Mississippi, Mississippi. I'm going to Mississippi. I'm only gonna wear blue clothes. These are the two things I realized. I'll build the religion around that. Then he can absolutely do that, and there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with people doing this as individuals or as intentional communities, unless that is. There's more to the story, but let's start as the Mad Hatter was rumored to say at
the beginning, yeah, I believe that he doesn't. I don't believe he actually makes that quote. He is also not called the mad Hatter.
Oh yeah, yep, yep. I remember we discussed that on this show before, did we. Oh yeah, yeah, I think we briefly brought that up. The mad Hatter not actually being the mad Hatter.
He's just that mad, just the hatter, Yeah think, oh man, but he.
Is a okay, so he is mad, but he is not the mad Hatter.
Right, and he's mad because that's an allusion to the mercury right used to form hats, the felt of hats. I remember we talked about this, Oh man, the past is blurring, you know, a watercolor in the rain. Oh, thank you, We're done now. So here the facts. We're talking about this group that, according to itself doesn't really subscribe to the concept of names. You know what I mean.
Correct, It's not about the name.
It's not about the name.
It's the system, man, That's what it's about.
And we would like to introduce you to the leader of the group we're exploring today, brother evangelist jim Roberts.
According to Jay Gordon Melton's Encyclopedia of American Religions, this gentleman Jimmy T. Roberts was born in Paducah, Kentucky, on June fifth, nineteen thirty nine. He was the son of a part time Pentecostal preacher named Coy Roberts. Now Jimmy was one of six siblings and his family was not very well off. There impoverished, living in poverty, and Coy
couldn't seem to hold a steady job. This is the father, Jimmy's father, and most of the family's income came from the mother, Missus Roberts, job down at the town drug store.
Absolutely, and for the Roberts family, we see that the idea of material gain is it's not the primary focus of their lives. They're the primary focus of their lives seems to be religion or spiritual calling both parents of deeply religious. We mentioned that he the father was a part time Pentecostal preacher. He was at a place called the Church of Jesus Christ granted not the most creative name.
It was a small, independent church pastored by a man named Herbie Reed, and Jim's mother was a member of an anti Trinitarian United Pentecostal church.
And well, we'll discuss what that means a little later.
Yeah, I thought of you. I was reading some of this stuff. I knew you were going to be our go to pick. Yeah, to explain this because you know some of the doctrinal differences there.
It's a bit strange, but we'll get to it.
So Jim himself was preaching by the age of fifteen, and Irbie Reed's relative recalls him at a very young age saying, hal is hot and there's no ass water.
Oh man, just such an observation, you know, it's I think it gives us a sense of the type of.
Oration he was presenting.
Yeah, it's a simple image that he's giving you. There's something that you won't be able to have while you're in this place. That's really bad. So you got to keep yourself away from it.
And also it is a fire and brimstone message. It's very much like that early American work Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Yes, it's dwelling, not on the good stuff, the nice things that might happen, or you know, the glory the kingdom of heaven. It's dwelling on the punishments and the dangers.
It's that stick. This is really interesting for as we're getting into this a little late, what Jim's views are or the way he shaped his beliefs about spirituality.
Yeah, he kept this consistent theme. He was also a smart kid who was only child in his family to finish high school. And we're not equating intelligence necessarily one to one with going through an educational system successfully, as anyone who has experienced with rural America or rural parts of the world will know, often, very very intelligent children are not able to participate in the education system because they have to work on maybe in an agricultural field
or somehow provide income for their family. But despite these obstacles, Jim Roberts made it out of Paducah in nineteen fifty eight. He joined the Marine Corps. He became a sergeant. He served until nineteen sixty one, and he was a Vietnam veteran. He returned to civil life and he moved around the United States working a number of jobs. He ended up in Chicago with the chance that the American dream version of life in the sixties, you know, he found love.
He found love, and he thought, is this my chance to have a spouse, my two point five kids, my nine to five job for a few decades with the gold watch at the end.
You don't get those anymore. He probably would have yeah at that time.
But the answer is no. His romance failed, and around the same time he encountered a very eccentric group known as the Jesus People on the North side of Chicago in a neighborhood called Uptown.
Yeah, it's one of those intentional communities there. You might find a few around. I know in Atlanta there are several you can go and visit. Just a group of like minded people living together.
Who how do we describe them in a previous episode, These sorts of communists, just people who are extremely on the same page about this very specific fate. And there's a lot of stuff that a spiritual, intentional community is just not going to care about Yes, they picked like a number of very small things, and then everybody is
in lockstep ideologically about them. This encounter, you know, his experience spending time with the Jesus people provide some high octane fuel to Jim Robert's spiritual journey, and he doubles down on his lifelong dedication to religion. He moves out. You'll hear a couple of different stories about this. One story will tell us that he moves to Missoula, Montana in nineteen seventy one, and then you'll hear other people say, no, he joined a movement in Colorado. He met a small
group of fundamentalist, extremist Christians. So these would be people who recognize a Bible and use it right, read from it, and study it as any other Christian would. Christians in the audience, you know, there are multiple versions and iterations of Bibles, which also we're setting up as a little bit of foreshadowing here. But Roberts began to exert influence on this group. He was not content to be a member.
He wanted, you see, to be a leader. And coming out of the Vietnam War, his experience as a marine as a marine sergeant gave him some hardcore, take no poop skills when it came to leadership.
Oh yeah, everything from the stone cold stare at someone when you're having let's say, a theological argument, to keeping someone in line when they're incorrect or when you believe they're incorrect. There are all kinds of things like that. There was a quote that he had a piercing, mesmerizing gaze.
Yeah, kind of rasputant esque perhaps, so he would stare people down, he would mentally dominate them, kind of a Darren Brown. Probably a little bit of pickup artistry in there, you know, the same thing that charismatic religious figures will use. And he successfully became the leader of the group. He had also grown to hate the world, the modern world.
Yeah. Remember now this is him coming off of this relationship that didn't work out after he probably saw it as the golden opportunity and his entire life was ahead of him, and he saw it and then it failed. So now he's kind of in a way spiraling into this Like in a way, you could say that, but we're not. You know, you can't ascribe all of this person's actions to this one thing that happened to them,
but you can definitely see how it's morphing. Uh, and Roberts realized that, oh my god, the end of the world. It's about to happen. The world is going to end. He felt like his world was ending. He thought he was seeing the signs. You know, there wasn't some date that he told everyone the world is going to end, but you know, he knew it was coming. He could feel it right.
He had a divine revelation. It was something where he thought, you people have always said this before, but now I know the end truly is nigh. And this means that we must purify ourselves. We have a very small window of time TikTok TikTok, TikTok TikTok, and a lot of work to do as individuals and as a group. Return to homespun clothes, don't own a car or a house or a bank account, live off the land, end and bear witness or proselytize ofangelize so that other people get
the message. It's the only way we can be saved. He planned to drop out of society entirely, and he ordered his followers to do the same. In the decades afterwards, this group traveled widely and separately. If you attended college in the United States, by the way, you might have seen one.
Or had a conversation with a small group of people.
If they thought you were vulnerable. Right, So, they would scour college campuses looking for the quote called out. These are the people the group believes will join them to escape the imminent looming judgment day. This is the birth of the group that would come to be called the Brethren.
And we'll continue to explore that group. After a quick word from our sponsor.
Well, old friend, what'd you say, Shall we play the name game with the Brethren?
Oh? Yes, let's begin with what they're known as externally to the outside world. Ooh, laid on me, the Jim Roberts Group or the Roberts Group.
I get that. That's probably from some law enforcement or cult hunting networks, right yeah.
And also the parents of group members. They have a group and they call them the Roberts Group.
Internally, we'll hear conflicting things. There will be some ex members or survivors of the group who say that it never has a name. Maybe was referred to as the Church, or they would refer to each other as the Brothers. And sisters, the Body of Christ, the Brethren. But there is another name that has recently surpassed the other names in terms of popularity.
The garbage eaters.
And you did them, you did some digging on this, Matt. Where did that come from?
Well, it comes from their mode of attaining sustenance, at least the groups preferred mode of getting food and water, and that's by either making arrangements with stores that have food that's about to expire and then taking it from them, or just by scavenging, going through dumpsters and dumpster.
Diving, right, yeah, dumpster diving.
And oh yeah, and it was named this or it was coined to this on an episode of twenty twenty that was discussing the Roberts Group.
And they called them garbage eaters.
Yes, I believe the host said that name.
So that's a little a little hyperbolic, little derogatory.
It does not describe in any way the beliefs of the group or what it stands for anything besides the way that they get food.
And freakinism. I know, we have a lot of people who've done dumpster diving before in the crowd. Freakidism is not an objectionable thing. Especially when we consider the shear just staggering, tragic and disgusting amount of food waste, things that are thrown out when they're perfectly good and they could be feeding starving people. But yeah, of course we can't legally tell you that that's a good idea to go dumpster diving and live off the wasteful spoils of
these supermarkets. But we can tell you that in many places it is against the law. It's trespassing, and some cases, if you don't know what you're doing, you could easily give yourself some sort of food poisoning.
Yeah, but we can say that you can make some kind of arrangement with maybe a local store or something. I mean, you can at least reach out and see what they say.
Yeah, you can go to the manager of a store at the end of the day. A lot of places like bakeries have to throw stuff out things like that, So they're living in a very low impact weight and they've been mocked or I guess characterized as somehow vile or repellent because they're doing something with the noblest of intentions, you know what I mean. And it's it's strange that that would be what people latch onto. So we do want to say very clearly, it's not a it's not
a cult that worships garbage and eating it. No, I would be fascinated by that. I think you would too.
Sure. But but okay, so we know so far, this is what we've established. Jim Roberts is the head of this group that we're let's I guess we'll call them the Brethren, because that's what they're known as internally.
Mm hmmm.
And we know that they scavenge for food. Let's talk about what they believe.
Yeah, what are there actual beliefs? Matt?
Okay, So they officially they follow the teachings of the Old and New Testament, so both books major books of the Bible, but it's taught as interpreted by Jim Roberts, the leader, and literal meanings are given to passages in the Holy Writings, and they tell you know, they we go through some of these, right, don't We have some quotes somewhere in here. You'll get into that, like specifically what pieces of scripture are used to develop the group and kind of control the group and maintain it.
Yes, and as we established earlier, there's not just one Bible you know, there's just one Tora, there's just one Quran.
There are different translations, but that doesn't mean the books are different.
Right, And then there are when we get to the Bible, you got all you got, all kinds of stuff you got some some have extra books added, some have books taken away. All of these, by the way, are created by people who feel like they're reaching the purest form of it. Yes, and then others will rely on different translations. And this great game of telephone essentially proceeds from the
ancient eras to our modern day. And they the Brethren, have a particular version of the Bible that they feel is the best.
Oh yeah, and it's the King James version. You might have seen that one coming. It's according to Robert's this translation is the one, and all other translations are corrupt, as well as the beliefs of most other outside Christian organizations besides the Brethren.
And it sounds strange at first when we think about the King James version being touted as the purest version of the Bible, because of course, the original books that would later come into the Bible were not written in English. No, right, and the I believe that the King James version is
the third English translation improved by English church authorities. But I don't know, man, Although it sounds crazy, I've heard this reasoning in other rural communities where someone says, well, the King James Bible, and I heard someone say this, Matt is the closest to what Jesus Christ actually said.
Oh yeah, that was big where I grew up, particularly with members of the Southern Baptist Church, some of those.
Which is still do you see what I'm saying? Is still confounds me because when I first heard it, I thought, well, Jesus Christ didn't speak English, so what in the purest form of whatever was said be something that occurred in the language and which was spoken and then originally written.
Rationally, Absolutely, I would say, in my experience, I did not think about that at the time.
Well, I mean again, it's a spiritual matter, right, So yes, According to Roberts, the King James version, that's the one, that's the only one except no substitutions.
M h.
And when it comes to the nature of God, like his mother, Jim Roberts is a staunch anti Trinitarianist, believing that God is not three separate things. Instead, the Brethren are moodalists. They think it's all one thing, one God. But Matt, what exactly is trinitarianism because I feel like we can only get a rough sense of what it is by, say, you know, just by the etymology. It's against threeism. What does that mean?
Yes, trinitarianism or the trinity doctrine. This is the belief that God exists as three separate but equally important persons. And the word persons is used a lot when describing these separations of God. The only thing is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Those three separate things are each made out of the same essence, the same being, the same matter. It's the same thing, it's but at the same time as three separate persons. It's a little
weird the way I think about it. Is water. You know, water exists as liquid, gas, and a solid, and it can be that the same water can be each of those three states at any time. But it's still h two. Oh, It's still made of the same exact essence or matter. But then when you get into modalism, this is this one is a bit confusing for me. This is the belief that God is a single being or person that has revealed itself to people in different ways at different
times in history. Okay, so when God created the universe, God manifested itself as the Creator. Then when Jesus was born and came down to Earth, it was again the same God, but manifesting itself in a different way.
Like an incarnation of sorts kind of.
But again when you when you talk about it this way, it seems like it's the exact same belief system.
Right, Oh, that they're built of the same substance.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's definitely a deep doctrinal point. Yes, But what you're saying about modalism makes me think of the old story of the mice and the elephant, you know, where these tiny mice run into an elephant for the first time, and one hits against its leg and thinks it's discovered a tree. Yes, one hits its nose and thinks it's discovered a snake, and so on, without realizing that this is all a greater, single thing.
That's a great point. I just I I kind of don't want to sit in a room and have an argument with somebody who's a trinitarian and a modalist and just have them argue, because I don't think I would enjoy that.
I would watch it, but only if I could have snacks and leave whenever I want.
Okay, totally, totally if.
I would love to hear this doctrinal argument, so long as I do have popcorn with like the option for I don't know, what's what's your snack of choice when you go to the movies?
Oh, I bring my own? I don't.
I mean, matt we can't legally tell people to do that.
I don't do that. I just don't go to the movies anymore.
Oh man, Yeah, you are a man of principle, my friend.
Well, speaking of principles, yes, let's get into the key scriptures. Yeah, the Brethren uses.
There are several key lines of scripture guiding the Brethren. One is from Luke fourteen thirty three. So likewise, whosoever he be of you, that forsaketh not all he hath, he cannot be my disciple. It's a literal interpretation. If you don't give up everything, you're screwing up already from the jump. And then there's Matthew as well.
Right, I'll read Matthew there we go nineteen twenty nine and says, and everyone that hath forsaken houses or brethren or sisters, or father or mother or wife, or children or lands. For my name's sake, shall receive an one hundredfold and shall inherit everlasting life. So if you give up everything, you forsake, all the people in your life, all the stuff in your life, you're going to live forever, at least in a way. Tight.
Yep, No, seriously, I think that that sounds like a cool promise, right, if that's a real thing.
Yeah, but you're the loco. You're giving up.
Yeah, you're inheriting everlasting life away from everything you love, well, away from your worldly loves. Okay, Right, that's the idea, is that your real family is going to reward you. Your real family being God and your proximity to God. There are a few more you can look up and read to yourself, such as Acts four thirty two, Matthew six twenty five. They're big Matthew fans. I mean, who is it? I'm I'm a Matthew fan.
Parents in the eighties were huge Matthew fans. There we go.
What else do we have?
Mark eight thirty five and two, Timothy six seven and eight, And we'll just read that one really quickly, for we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out and having food and raiment, let us be therewith content.
As we mentioned before, there are no metaphors in this church. In this group, all of these things are literal interpretations, and they have a rigid, one would say, militaristic hierarchy. The members of the group are put into smaller groups, subgroups cells, in other words, similar to the organizational principles used by some terrorist groups. And they are small, they are nomadic. They might squat in a house, they might find a cabin, they might camp in the woods. They
can range in size. It can be just one person sent to a city or area as a scout, as a harbinger of sorts, or it can be as many as fifteen people.
Yeah, there are stories of groups that will find a house that's abandoned and then actually, rather than just squatting per se, just being in that house while there's no one living there, making an arrangement with the property owner to clean the house, to keep the the yard and everything spick and span and looking nice, but be able to live.
There, which sounds kind of cool if you're a if you're a landowner and you're aware of these folks. They seem like pretty cleaned up people. They're not out doing drugs, right, They're not going to be committee crazy, heinous criminal acts on your property.
I could see it being really troublesome though, because if you've got a house that's either abandoned or maybe just no one has rented for a long time, and then you have someone a tenant like that in your home, and then let's say somebody is interested in renting that home or buying that home, you can't just kick him out. There's some very complicated rules and laws having to do with that.
Oh he squatters, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. They kick in at various times, depending on the state or the country you're in. So when and where these groups move is ultimately going to be up to the Brother Evangelist Jim Roberts, who's known as Brother Evangelists. He's the elder of Elders now, which is important to the group. The membership of these
groups always changes. So let's say you, Paul, and I were a three man unit and we were sent out to maybe scout for a place in New Orleans or near New Orleans, right, and then well, I'd say we hung out. We were we just got too cool with
each other. We said, you know, well this has been a fun ride, but maybe we should just stay in New Orleans, you know, start a band, I play the obo or something whatever we play in that situation, Well, that would damage the overall group and as a result, the membership of these groups, these subgroups, these cells changes frequently, and they're sent in different directions to prevent them from getting any kind of relationship, whether a friendship is something
like a collegiate thing or even a romantic thing, to prevent that from ever becoming a competing focus. Right, and it's a very effective way to control people. The additional control system for every cell is what's called the elder.
Yes, this is the person who has been in the group the longest. It's not we're not talking to elders as in the oldest alive person. We're talking about the oldest member of the.
Group, right right, the oldest in terms of if we count them joining the church, yes, like day one.
Yeah, absolutely absolutely. And then an elder is placed in charge of each group or sell or camp, whatever you want to call it. And these elders then as these cells function take orders directly from Roberts.
Yes, and there are. They're not going to be questioned by the people who are beneath them. No, they're just going to jump when they're told to jump. Because Brother Evangelist Roberts, he did to change his name to Evangelists. By the way, he has the first and last word on any and all issues, questions, declarations, and decisions. Furthermore, they have stark gender division with prescribed duties for each person based on Oh, and we should go ahead and
say they only have the two genders. Yeah, it's only male or female. And and what kind of stuff are they required to do?
Well, let's say you're a brother of the Brethren. You're gonna need to gather all the food. You're gonna have to protect the sisters physically, you're gonna have to witness to people wherever you travel. And then if you're a sister, you're gonna have to cook and clean and sew and serve all the meals to the brothers, and on top of that, witness. So everybody's got a full plate here of things to do. The big issue here is that women are subservient to the brothers. And you know that
is a biblical thing. If you're taking the Bible literally, that is one thing that you will find in there. Unfortunately. But here's the weird thing for a group of this kind, in my opinion, the weird thing there is, according to the Parents Network, there is no sexual or intimate physical relationship of any kind between these members, the male and female members of the.
Brethren, not even for the purposes of procreation.
No, just they are I don't know, they're brothers and sisters literally anyway.
Right, soldiers for their cause. The one common task for both genders in this group is to witness, in other words, to evangelize. And that's a little bit about how they interact with one another. But we have to get to the biggest question, which is this how do they interact with the rest of the world.
And we'll get to that right after a word from our sponsor.
Here's where it gets crazy. It's the end of the world as we know it, according to the Brethren. And while there is a certain allure to the idea of shucking off all these social constraints and living as a wandering as setic or a monk, or a none of sorts, survivors of the group and the relatives describe it as much less romantic than we might believe, much more oriented toward the belief in a coming apocalypse, right, and much more rigid than outsiders may be initially led to think.
So we talked a little bit about their recruitment tactic, or we mentioned it, but let's dive in. Let's dive in because I think longtime listeners are going to recognize
some of these tactics from earlier works. Right. Yes, So, one of their big recruitment tactic of quote unquote calling out people, finding lonely, vulnerable college aged individuals and converting them works as both the carrot and a stick in a very a very smart and somewhat subtle way, because the carrot is hello, welcome, this is the one true church. We are doing the literal work of God, and you can be part of this community, the only one that
will survive Judgment Day, the only one. And along the way you will experience such freedom as you've never felt before, a freedom from all financial encumbrance and material goods.
And if you don't go for that, you get the stick.
What's the stick?
Oh? You remember that thing? Judgment Day? Oh? Yeah, where everything burns and becomes just charcoal on everywhere. Well about that, everybody else on the planet, every other human that you've ever met, that has ever existed, they are damned and they've well here's why they've turned away from the true church obviously.
Even mom and dad.
Yeah, even mom and dad. They didn't accept the carrot. So they're you know, they're going to hell. This is literally the first and last chance. This right here, me coming to you and talking to you about my thing. This is the last chance you get before just fire.
Well, I was gonna go to biology one o one, but now I'm freaked out.
You're gonna go to biology? Why do you what are you gonna What are you gonna study in biology?
I was gonna be a doctor.
Oh, I'd recommend chemistry because all you're gonna have is carbon. That's all it's gonna be here, just carbon.
Uh. And at this point, I guess the prison, say, and you've convinced me. Yeah, away with these Adidas that I'm wearing, away with this book of biology. There's only one book I need, right, That's that's how it would happen.
It's this King James.
It's this King James specifically accept no substitutions. What's fascinating about this carrot and this stick is it sets the first precedent for interaction between the initiates and existing group members, whether they're brothers or sisters, or elders or what have you, because it puts forth a dichotomy and for the rest of their lives, if they're in this church, there is
no gray area. There is only the black white yes, no, follow, don't follow, salvation or damnation for every decision, which is amazing and terrifying. Yeah. And additionally, as you said, Matt, the inner hierarchy of the church is absolutists. They're determined entirely by when someone joined and how long they've been
a member of the group. We found a pretty pretty interesting crowdsourced interview from a survivor who wished to remain anonymous, and he said, if you joined the church one week before someone else, you had to quote obey that dude as if if he was a servant of God that was sent to be your elder. The women that were in the group for twenty years were to be subject and obedient to a brother that was there for only a year. Young women were subject to everyone.
One thing that comes to mind is that there was a seventeen year old boy that was an elder according to the length of time that he was in the church, which was all of his life, so members must be totally subject to him, even forty year olds. If you were a fifty year old and joined eight years ago, you were subject to anything that seventeen year old said, unless it was super unreasonable, like told to do some atrocious act.
Right right, or told to do something physically impossible. Yes, grow another hand, No, out of your butt. Oh you know, I hopefully this kid wasn't say that sort of stuff. But yeah, it's entirely time based. I don't sorry, man, I just I went blue.
I went to blue joke. Okay, hey, I'm with you. I'm trying it just and this is not working. Okay, No, please don't try. No one listening to attempt that.
So that's that internal communication is troubling communication with family and or authorities. This is where we find the really sticky stuff and the most direct stuff they don't want you to know. In regards to this organization, whether you want to call it a church, whether you want to call it a spiritual movement, whether you want to call it a cult. They do not want you to know where they are going, what they're doing, or why. They have been told that they must abjure, hate, and loathe
everything from their past life. Their life started over when they joined the church.
Yeah, there's no contact with family members who are outside of the structure whatsoever at all, unless, of course jim himself, old Jimmy says hey, you can talk to these guys, and if he says it's okay, then it's okay. But the majority of the time, just parents, siblings, friends, the rest of the family. They're just completely locked out of the lives of the members of the.
Brethren, right, and it can happen suddenly. You can reaccount detailing how Roberts would instruct people to isolate themselves or to maintain contact.
And write a letter to their parents. That's one of the first things they did. Write a letter and say, hey, sorry, can't be in your life anymore.
Right, and I don't want you to be all gloried to God. You know this is consensual on my part. That's what their letter says, and for it to be sent in root while they are traveling by bike or by bus often or occasionally by train hopping. I think a few still do that. And additionally, we have to mention several of these these people who are joining this movement or we're joining it, are not necessarily on the fringes of society. We're talking about the owners of multimillion
dollar businesses. We're talking about people who were attending Harvard, which, from what you may have heard, is an okay school, and they're throwing away all their worldly possessions to join this thing. They're throwing away their relationships, and they are chastised if they attempt to reach out to their parents. And you can see or their parents or their spouse or whomever, and you can see the way that this
splinters the group. But you can also just imagine if you don't have access to a cell phone, you don't have access to an internet connection unless you go into a library, right or unless you find a quarter for a payphone. You can use a payphone if you can find one. In twenty eighteen, that's the only way you can communicate. I guess you could also in the letter, but you can't wait around for that letter to return because you don't know when your leader will tell you
to move somewhere else. You don't know where they're going to just tell you to move.
It's complete speculation. But I imagine if word got to Roberts that you had sent a letter of any kind to someone in any way, you might get a notice to get on the move, just because that idea of you've got a a from address. You know there's a return address on there, and that could you could give up the whole cell. Ugh awful to think about it that way.
But you could. It's just so easy to use a fake address. Yeah, just write down the name of a building in the zip code where you happy to be mailing the letter from.
Yes, but when you mail the letter from that zip code, it's going through the postal services or however you got it there right system, and you're you know, you can at least get a rough area of where it came from.
That's true, that's true. But who doesn't love getting mail? Also in this stage, I feel like I have to point that out. You can always send us mail, by the way, if you wish. And that's a little bit of levity because we're going into some dark territory here. Discussion with outsiders is only allowed to the extent that it encourages more people to join the group, or that
it attends to a need of the existing group. Discussion internally the way that we would understand discussion is not allowed at all, verboten, the Germans would say, similar to the Marines. Oddly enough, the Brethren follow a strict chain of command wherein contradictions are not only not allowed, they do not exist.
They're impossible.
They are impossible. It's bad double plus on good.
Yeah, exactly.
Due to the eminent approach of the end of day, single members are banned from marrying, as, according to Roberts, there's not enough time. In other words, members are supposed to dedicate themselves entirely, just spreading the message of the church. Couples with children were allowed to join back in the day, but the rules for those kids were incredibly strict, including get this, a ban on playing, which is just disastrous to me.
Yeah, that's the way you become a human. So you play.
And the bulk of their conversation is conducted through payphones only they we don't know. In the modern day, for whichever members of the Brethren are out there, we still don't know if they're using burner.
Phones not as effective anymore as concealing for concealing your location. Absolutely, they still work.
That still work. You know, it's still better than buying a cell phone service plan. Yes, when you have renounced all worldly possessions.
Yeah, I guess the cell phone is a worldly possession.
Yeah, but so we're closed, right.
But they make those.
Do you think they can make cell phones?
Maybe if they make.
Self this changes everything for me. I might think they're I would just be impressed by the magiverishness of it.
Yeah, it's tough to dumpster dive for all those rare earth minerals. But maybe I don't know, who knows. Maybe the recycling program for electronics. M There you go.
So in the darker realm, here we see the allegations of abuse. The good news is that they're not allegations that we can find of sexual abuse, other than forcing people to ignore their own sexuality, right, which is a form of abuse. The big thing we found was emotional abuse. Members are held hostage to this group by the fundamental belief that leaving the Brethren is tantamount to committing suicide.
It's actually worse than committing physical suicide, because you are sacrificing your soul Yeah, the real thing that matters, and when members are suspected of straining off the path, they are harshly warned. They're probably putting a new cell with
strangers or people they don't know very well. And if they are ex members, they are completely and successfully shunned because you know, like the practice you've probably read about with the Amish or maybe some other groups, this group will as a community, as a unit, ghost on its x members and they're very very very good at hiding.
At least, you know, they don't sue the pants off of them they're ex members the way some other conversations you know have anyway, Laaran, Yeah, that's what it is, Lauren Hubbish, Yep, I'm almost there.
Who is it?
I can't think of it. All I know. All I know is that when it comes to going to the doctor or getting medicine any kind of prescription, there is some weird stuff going on with the Brethren.
Yeah. The second the second tier or type of abuse would be negligence in terms of medical treatment. You see, the Brethren believe that the use of medicine and doctors does not give the example of living by faith. That's a quote. So in some cases members are believed to have died from curable conditions or injuries due entirely to the group's opposition to modern medical treatment or any medical treatment.
So for anyone wondering why we're using the phrase are believed to have, Yes, it's because again a lot of people go off the grid. And like we discussed in our Missing for one one episodes a couple of other things, it is still in the age of GPS and spookily sophisticated satellites. It is still possible to disappear in this country, easier in fact than you might think.
Certainly and disturbingly so. Correct.
But they have found some people, right.
Yes, they have, and some people have come forward. Some We found a Reddit thread where people were discussing this group and a couple of people saying that they were for members. It's out there and you can get out. And that's the big thing. I don't know how you would be listening to this if you are a member. It's much more likely that family members of someone who became a part of Brethren is actually listening to these words. And let's take a moment in describe perhaps what you
can do. The first thing that we found when we were looking into. This is something called the Roberts Group Parents Network, and it has a website n FI sh e l dot tripod dot com. It's an old Tripod website. It's pretty great though, if you go through there. The mission of the website says in the group is to release the members of the control of the Roberts Group and establish two way communication and an open and loving
relationship between members and their families. So they just want to reconnect family members with members of the Roberts Group, right, And it goes on to say that if you recognize anyone on these pages, or if you suspect your loved one is a part of the Roberts Group, we empathize with you. We know the pain you feel and deeply regret that you share our situation. On the other hand, we'd like to welcome you into our fellowship. We've been brought together from all parts of the country by our
common loss. Our sorrow is the same. In supporting each other, we find new strength to make it through one day at a time and the new hope that we'll be re united with the loved ones that were taken from our lives. So really, I mean it's a sobering thing to go through that website because it describes exactly the
types of people that are usually joining this group. It talks about in full the scriptures, it talks about how the recruiting occurs, and there are even letters there written to the sons and daughters of people who have joined the group and chosen to leave their family behind. I would say this is probably a good group to join if you are dealing with something like this. If you don't like to join groups, maybe don't do that. If you're suspicious of all groups now at this point I
can I would understand that. However, this is one to at least look at.
Yeah, well, said Matt and agreed. And currently this brings us up to speed on the background and the nature of the very very secretive group traveling off the grid entirely here in the US and possibly in Canada and Mexico at times known as the Brethren or thanks to twenty twenty, the garbage Eaters. We do have one last piece of news here in conclusion, Brother evangelist Jim Roberts passed away at the age of seventy six in twenty fifteen,
likely due to cancer. He had not seen a doctor in forty years who was practicing what he preached, and he had been alternately described as a sweet and harmless man or a quote paranoid megalomaniac who wanted to control every aspect of his followers' lives. As of a few years ago, the population of the group, which was never super super large, had reduced to around sixty or so men. Are they still out there today riding the rails somewhere?
Is there still someone who wants to contact their loved ones and people from the life they left behind, but are too intimidated to do so. These are open questions. We do not know the answer, and there are very few people who do. Many of those who do know the answer don't want to be found.
Yeah, I don't know where we go from here, Ben. Besides just saying, beliefs are tricky things. They can be like viruses sometimes.
And they function almost exactly like viruses. A good belief can spread and infect and reproduce itself in the minds of others, which is a beautiful thing and a terrifying thing. And one of the most important parts of this show that we have to touch on here is the following. If you are or someone you know is involved in a cult like group, or let's say, if we don't want to use the C word, let's say an organization that is forcing them to do things against their will
and isolating them. And you're starting to see some of these red flags. Do not be afraid to reach out to groups like the Jim Roberts parent group that you mentioned, Matt. Don't be afraid to call someone for advice or look
on forums. The resources are there. And many times it sounds easy to say, oh, there's nothing physically keeping someone in a spot, but we must remember that the heaviest, strongest chains we have ever put on a human being are always chains of ideas, not chains of steel or iron, and the chains that exists in your mind and sometimes you need help to be free of them.
You can find Ben and Nolan I on Twitter where we're conspiracy Stuff, the same on Facebook. On Instagram we are a conspiracy stuff show. We have a website stuff they don't want you to know where you can find every podcast we've ever made and some videos and other stuff on there. And that's the end of this classic episode. If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode, you can get into contact with us in a number of different ways. One of the best is to give
us a call. Our number is one eight three three STDWYTK. If you don't want to do that, you can send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.