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When my daughter ran off to hop trains, I was terrified I'd never see her again, so I followed her into the train yard. This is what it sounds like inside the box-top! And into the city of the rails, there I found a surprising world, so brutal and beautiful that it changed me, but the rails do that to everyone. There is another world out there, and if you want to play with the devil, you're gonna find them there in the rail yard. Undenough Morton, come with me to find out what waits for us in the city of the rails. Listen to City of the Rails on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Or cityoftherails.com In 1967, Joseph Stalin's only daughter, flees Russia for her new home, America. Hello, everybody. I am very happy to be here. That story alone is worthy of a podcast, but Spedlana Spedlana is about what comes next, and it's the craziest story I've ever heard. It has KGB agents, a Frank Lloyd Wright Commune, weird sex stuff, three Olga's two Spedlana's and one neurotic gay playwright. That's me. Listen to Spedlana Spedlana on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ah, we're back. It's behind the bastards. Sophie, I'm going to do that many more times. You know, I think the audience likes that, just like they like my flawless Boston accent. They also like updates from my life. So I want to let them know I finished decorating my living room. You know, ever since I got my house, I've been wondering what to do now that I have a TV with this huge screen in the middle of my life. It didn't feel right for it to only exist for TV. I wanted it to be kind of a perpetual art project. So I found on the internet archive a complete repository of every episode of Walker Texas Ranger. And I have it set up so that they're just always playing on my television, even when it's off. So anytime I turn on my TV, there's just automatically Walker Texas Ranger happening. Low-res, it looks like TVs from the 90s used to look. And it's really done wonders for my mental health. Just that's a little health hack for all of you people. I don't know if wonders is the right word. It's had an impact on your mental health. Sure has had an impact. I've learned how to do roundhouse kicks, which I've come to support as like the primary method by which society should be organized. I think that's my illuminati. It's all going to be a roundhouse kick based. I mean, honestly, it would be an improvement. Yeah, it's pretty good. Some of the most racist things I've ever seen. There's an episode that's like set in the past when they're all cowboys. And like Walker's partner in the TV show is like in the normal show is like a black Texas Ranger. And in the episode in the past, he's a former slave who was taught how to be a doctor by his master. And when he tells the Mormon missionaries they're hanging out with that he used to be a slave. They're like, oh, that's so terrible. And he's like, no, it was fine. It is it is wild. The things you used to get away with on 90s, D.V. Good stuff. Good stuff. Margaret killed Joyce. Have you ever created a secret society? God damn it. You were just telling us about this. So I know you have. Okay, so I like maybe 10 years ago back to you up Magpie. You have. Wow. Wow. Wow. Obligation to tell this story. No, no, it's it's fine. The worst. The consequences of starting a secret society have already happened. Which is that we started a secret society. We put out a pamphlet. We claimed to have been around for several thousand years. We distributed it at a few places. Yeah, you pull the net. Yeah, exactly. And that's why I was like laughing so hard. That's like, I was like, what an asshole. Why would you do that? And in the back, it had this, you know, if you would like more information, please write to the following physical address, because we'd say that that was like spookier than an email address. You know, and then within six months, the house that was at the address burned down. Do you know why? I don't know. I have no idea what a house burned down. Oh, okay. Curious. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Should have a should have a should have bought a PO box, huh? Yeah. Yeah. It was a amateur mistake. Yeah. That's why people cannot currently send us anything. So, a fan post on the subreddit that their package got sent back. It's because we need to get a PO box set up. But that would fire me leaving my house. This is secret society advice 101. Get a get a PO box. Or use the address of an enemy. Maybe someone who you think is like at risk of losing their mind and just have them suddenly receive hundreds of letters from strangers around the world. Do you think they're the center of a conspiracy? That's actually where the story will end in like three or four episodes. That's a point where that tracks very clearly. We're talking about the illuminati, which has just been formed by Adam Wychop, and he has decided the way to save the world is to lie to a bunch of rich people and make them think they're wizards so he can buy nice books. That is the center of the actual illuminati conspiracy theory. So there is a conspiracy theory. It's just a lot funnier than I think most people tend to believe. Yeah. So one of the things that's interesting to me is that kind of like as the organization changed over time, the main thing about it, because Adam goes through some ideological shifts himself, the main thing that's consistent about the illuminati is that he's lying to nearly everyone in it. That's like the part of it that carries through the most. So he recruits a couple of dozen people successfully, but then kind of like stalls out and can't get more people. And he gets some advice that like, well, maybe if you join the masons, you could recruit people from within the masons. And that would allow us to like get some more blood in the organization. So he joins a masonry organization like a Masonic lodge in Munich. And his plan there is he wants to like rise up high enough that he can get his own official lodge and started an Ingolstadt and then kind of move the illuminati into this Masonic lodge that he creates and just have this Masonic lodge actually be the illuminati. So he's basically trying to like, incept a secret society within the free masons because it will help him recruit. So it's entriusum. It's like the yeah, the communist tendency of entry is like that. This sort of thing happens a lot with these like esoteric groups and these secret societies and orders. Like this, this style of growing your own little weird cult is very consistent. Like this is this is a technique that gets used like even, even, even till today, but across a lot of the different kind of orgs that popped up that were like inspired by the illuminati and by the free masons. This thing happened a lot. This is this style of trying to. Yes, this is a nested all of conspiracy society. Exactly. Like joining one group to like feed off their members and start your own branch off organization. And it's like it's very, very consistent. Yeah. And this says this is a popular idea like there's only a tiny number of people who are going to do this. So we have to snipe each other. So we have to steal from another. We have to, is it, is it actually a magpie? That's that bird that like lives in the nest of another bird? We have to do that. Oh, no, that's like, isn't that the cuckoo? Is that the cuckoo? I'm not good at birds. Magpie's steel shit. Welcome to the hind the bird. You're kind of do broadcast where we get into. We're Robert. We're Robert lists the two facts about birds that he knows. So one of the, it brings in. This works really well. And the fact that like he is now recruiting through a Masonic lodge for the Illuminati, and everyone knows who the Masons are, this brings in hundreds of new members. And one of these new members is a 28 year old diplomat from Hanover named Adolf Kniig. Kniig, it's really weird. K and I, GGE. I'm just going to pronounce it the way that, that feels best to me. I don't care. So secret societies and fraternities had been the coolest organizations in Kniig's world when he was a little kid. He is a secret society nerd. And so as a teen, he's reading everything he can about these new fraternal organizations spreading around Europe. He describes himself as a child as stricken with our era's greatest disease, a yearning for secret connections and orders. As a little boy, he'd actually created his own secret society and invited his friends to join. They'd worn silver cross pendants and drawn up a list of bylaws. I think I'm certain they excluded girls. There's a very like Calvin and Hobbes aspect to this guy's childhood. I hope they used a PO box. Yeah. This child's house burned down after defeating a vocal bug with its neighborhood, in a lineage of secret mystics, dating back to the Dostock period. So Kniig had maybe Kniig was a Kinnostic. So Kniig had joined his local Masonic lodge and risen as soon as he could, right? He's big known for this stuff. And he meets pretty very quickly, as quickly as possible, rises to the highest rank within his lodge. And then he's like, oh, really? Is that all there is? All there is. Yeah, I think it's a Kniig. He is Kniited. Yeah. And Kniig is like, was that all there is? Because this is just like. I looked at Potter for Nuts and but I really don't think it's. Oh, yeah, I mean, that was part of part of my thinking on the matter too. So, I think it's who you both seem stupid, but I think we should go with that bit after. Kniig is going to be less problematic. Yeah. Oh my God. So. Oh. I don't think I'll buy his first name, huh? Yeah. Never thought. Yeah. We'll call Adolf. Yeah, that's not a problem. There's no bad history with Adolfs. So I still such a common name. Oh, we should call him. It really is. This is all Stagin, Sophie. There's not a lot that's funny about Hitler, but it is kind of funny that he's not kind of funny that he just torpedoed the German equivalent to like Bill. Why? Just nuke it. Oh, man. Good stuff. Good stuff. Every now and then when you're reading about like particularly like German Jewish communities, pre Holocaust, you're running to like a German Jewish Adolf and be like, oh, man, what an unfortunate name for you to have. Like 1931. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, as a little boy, Kanig is all into these secret societies and he joins his local Masonic lodge. He gets his eyes he can. And then he's like, is this really just like a discount club for rich people? This is basically Costco with costumes. Yeah. Yeah. So Adam gets very disappointed. And he's hanging out in the lodge one day and bumming out. Adam gets disappointed. Oh, so not Adam. Adolf gets his appointment. A little young Adolf. A little Adolf. And he's hanging around this lodge one day, kind of bumming about the fact that the Masons are silly. And then one of these dudes, because by this point Adam by shopped his scent agents of the Illuminati out as recruiters to other lodges. And one of these people walks up to Kanig and is like, you seem like you're kind of bored with the Masons. And Kanig is like, yeah, it's a little silly. And this guy's like, you know, there's a real secret society that's hidden in the Masons. That only a small number of people get to join. And so yeah, he makes his pitch. And yeah, Kanig is like, that's exactly my shit. And he goes to a bunch of his friends who were in the Masons. And he tells them this guy, he says there's a secret society inside the Masons called the Illuminati. And I should join. And his friends are like, I don't know, dude, it's probably bullshit. And Kanig boldly does not listen to his friends. Why shopped since him a letter later that year where he thinks Kanig for his interest. And he's like, you must be a super smart guy, to have figured out that the Masons, there's nothing there, right? You're so smart, we think you're ready for our little organization. So so ginger dead. This is like, there's like the secret truth. What's really funny is soccer. Yeah, exactly. We go to the group of suckers to get suckers. Next. really funny is when you learn why we know all this. So, Kinnig ends up promising, or Adam ends up getting Kinnig to join the Illuminati in part because he promises to fund Kinnig's experiments in alchemy. Because he wants the guy to act as a recruiter. Kinnig is very charismatic, he's very connected, he's a diplomat so he's good at talking to people who's really respected. And this proves to be probably the best administrative decision that Adam's going to make. Because in a very short order, Kinnig is brought in more than 500 new members. Wow. Yeah, he's very good at this. At the same time, Wyshop succeeded in pushing changes to the Masonic bylaws that allowed him to establish additional Illuminatus lodges in the larger organization. In time, the Illuminati grew to around 2,500 men. Although there's debate about whether there were ever more than like six or seven hundred active at a time. Which seems reasonable. That makes sense. Yeah. A good size for a secret society at this period of time. So the problem is that Kinnig rises through the ranks as he had with the Mason's basically immediately. And he is not a dumb guy. He is at least intelligent enough to realize something's up. And I'm going to quote from the book The Illuminati by the Charles River Press. The recruits began to raise their eyebrows, badgering Kinnig with questions about exactly who it was that they were serving up until this point. No one seemed to have an inkling as to who the other members of the supreme superiors were apart from Wyshopped. And when Kinnig failed to produce these names, many began to grow wary. Kinnig approached Wyshop on a number of occasions and he grew even more discouraged when Wyshopped could dodge his questions. In an effort to distract him, Kinnig was tasked with composing pamphlets about recruiting guidelines and constant updates featuring the most minor of changes. By the next year, Kinnig's patience had worn thin. It was only when Kinnig threatened to walk that Wyshopped finally came clean. To Kinnig's horror, Wyshopped admitted that the supreme superiors, the ancient texts behind the topmost level of the Illuminati pyramid, were entirely made up. So Kinnig learns there's absolutely nothing here. Now at this point, Kinnig is balls deep in the Enlightenment. He is very obsessed with these ideas of truth and openness that are kind of revolutionary in a Europe that was still largely run by Catholicism. He's offended by the fact that Wyshopped had lied and basically recreated this kind of system of secrecy and lies just in a different form. Adam realizes that Kinnig is going to be a problem because he's got these kind of principles and so he begs him not to tell anybody. He instead tells Kinnig that I've been waiting all this time, all this time I've been building the Illuminati for a worthy collaborator on the great work of creating this organization. And quote, I have found none other than you who penetrates into the spirit of this system as deeply as I do. Meeting, meeting, he's the only one that can smell the bullshit. Yeah, he's the only one who's realized I'm lying to everybody. So to keep Kinnig from leaving, he offers to let him write the curriculum for the inner mysteries of the Illuminati. I mean, that is the right call at this point. Yeah, that's smart move. It's kind of like if Elrond Hubbard had taken an apprentice to help him write about like Zenu or whatever. Kinnig takes the deal, but he's not thrilled with it. He is devastated when he realizes the Illuminati is younger than him, but he's recruited all these guys. So a big part of why he doesn't leave is like he doesn't want to tell all of his friends that he got conned and that they all got conned too. So he is like, he's like into deep. It's the sunk cost fallacy. He now has like, he has like, he has like, make it real now. Yeah, and he does. He writes a whole curriculum filled with the kind of elaborate magical rituals and ceremonies that were all the rage in central Europe. Now this was the right thing to do for the Illuminati, but this really pisses off Adam Weishaupt because Weishaupt hates all that stuff and is only doing it to take money for rich people. The two fought constantly and after four years Kinnig resigned. Sources dissent on exactly why this happens, but there are claims he messed left in the middle of a loud fight, shouting that Adam was a megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur. So it is the way, all radical political organizations and... Kinnig would later write his version of events out in a pamphlet, but basically a zine, which remains our best source of events. It is funny how all of this has never changed. That's a good stuff. Talked to the zine. So as an aside, I should note here, because we've used Massimo Introween as a source for a couple of these quotes here, one of the problems when you go to research the Illuminati is that it is a bitch to Google. I have used also a couple of different chat systems or search systems, including an AI-powered one. But one of the problems with researching this is that a lot of the people who legitimately are experts on the Illuminati are also cranks themselves. So that brings me back to Massimo Introween, because I have quoted him a few times, because this is interesting. We got to talk about him just a second. Now, I have cross-checked his write-up with other sources. His write-up on the Illuminati is extensive and accurate. It's geared towards dispelling conspiracy theories, and it does this well. However, Massimo is, as I stated, a sociologist of religion. He's also an intellectual property attorney, which is interesting given the connection between that and secret societies. He is very knowledgeable about the history of secret societies. He is also the founder of the Center for Studies on New Religions, which mostly exists to defend cults from governments trying to stop them from hurting people. Massimo has spent much of his career defending the Church of Scientology in court, and he has described as a cult apologist by his critics. Although I believe he is a Roman Catholic. Whoa, that's interesting. Yeah. He's an interesting guy. He's one of the less sketchy people who writes about the Illuminati, because at least he's doing it from a historic basis, but he's also a professional cult apologist. It's very strange. Yeah. It's just while working for the largest established cult in the world. It's awesome. It's just, it's fun. You keep running into shit like that. Is she like, go through books and articles, and you're like, who is this guy who seems to know a lot about these, the Adam Weishaupt? Oh, he's a crank, too. It's certainly interesting, because stuff like Scientology does have a direct lineage back to this Bavarian Illuminati. It sure does. Yes. How it, especially through like the Golden Dawn and Alistair Crowley, which I, I assume we'll get to it somewhat. We sure will, Garrison. But speaking of Alistair Crowley, you know what Crowley would do if he were here right now by one of these products and services. Make money by selling at. Oh, yeah. And our podcast is supported by gold, and if you move all of your investments to gold, it will let you weather a financial crash so that your investments can live to see the next dawn. Dawn. A on. There we go. There we go. Okay. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. When you're at your best, you can do great things, but sometimes life gets you bogged down and you might feel overwhelmed or like you're not showing up in the way that you want to. Working with a therapist can help you get closer to the best version of you. Because when you feel empowered, you're more prepared to take on everything life throws at you and life's thrown a lot at all of us these days. So if you think therapy might be worth a try, BetterHelp could be a great option for you. It's convenient, flexible, affordable, and entirely online. You just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. If you want to live a more empowered life, therapy can get you there. Visit BetterHelp.com slash behind today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelpHELP.com slash behind. Again, visit BetterHelp.com slash behind today to get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp online therapy. There's no better time than the new year to resolve to protect your identity and finances. Identity thieves can take out loans in your name, take over and drain your banking and investment accounts, and more. It can be dangerously easy to become a victim of identity theft. LifeLock makes it easy to help protect your identity and financial future. LifeLock monitors your accounts and credit and detects potential threats to your identity that you may miss on your own. And if you do become a victim of ID theft, a US-based Restoration Specialist will work to fix it. No one can prevent all identity theft or monitor all transactions at all businesses, but LifeLock by Norton is the New Year's resolution that's easy to keep. So join today and save up to 25% off your first year. Go to lifelock.com slash news. That's lifelock.com slash news for 25% off. During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations. And you know what? They were right. I'm Trevor Aronson, and I'm hosting a new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. As the FBI, sometimes you get to grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation. In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy voice, cigar-smoking man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse we look like a lot of guns. He's a shark, and on the good bad ass way. He's a nasty shark. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to heaven. Listen to Alphabet Boys. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. We're back. Good stuff. The greatest form of flattery is the sigh of recognition. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's true. I find the greatest form of flattery to be people giving me gold. I would like to say that once I get the PO box set up, send gold. Mail gold to Margaret Kielscher. I'm going to argue with you both because I think the greatest form of flattery is becoming a cult apologist, Roman Catholic, who builds an entire website to defend the fallen gong from the chase, government. What the fuck? Really? She's just like me. She's just like me, uh, Garrison. That's where his right up on the Illuminati is hosted. No. The full gonger is such like boring as the coast. I know. I know. I know. It's disappointing. The Bavarian Illuminati. Yeah. So. All right. So. So by this point, as the Illuminati has actually grown somewhat influential, including a number of like moderately prominent thinkers and some political people in, in, uh, central Europe, Adam's own ideology has grown ever more radical. In letters to his followers, he expressed political attitudes that were adjacent to anarchism. Quote, when man lives under government, he has fallen. His worth is gone and his nature tarnished. Um, so he has, he has gotten pretty radical by this point. And Massimo, our, our cult apologist for a note in his right up, one element that distinguished the Bavarian Illuminati from other German, Masonic systems continued to be its politics. Again, up to the degree of Scottish knight, the rituals preached submission to the authorities. But in the more secretive degree of priest, there were illusions to the advantages of replacing monarchy with Republic, such as if the king is not the best of the citizens, let the best be king. So it's a little problematic. There's like elements of we should tear down the system and also we should build a system whereby most people don't know that we want to tear down the system because we can't trust them with that knowledge. Um, and yeah, this is, this is moving right along. But as with Nigg, there are a few people who grow disillusioned with Adams leadership. And one of them is a former member who starts popping up in bars and public places in Ingolstadt, getting drunk and telling stories of the Illuminati's initiation rituals. Now these are based off the Masonic ritual. You're sitting in this like blind room alone for a while, blindfolded, and then at some point, the blindfold is taken off and you're kind of like wandering around this space that's been set up to be kind of mind altering. History includes like an empty red throne with a bunch of ceremonial robes, a skeleton lying on a table with a crown and a sword at his feet. And then at a certain point, the initiate is taken to his feet and asked questions and he's hit in the face whenever he answers them wrong. Um, so you've got that that aspect of it too. Um, and there's, you know, that's probably broadly accurate to what the initiation rituals were. But more lurid stories than that start to spread both from former members and from people who were just lying in that way that people do. And this starts to provide fuel for a movement directly opposed to the Illuminati. And now we're going to talk about the Rose accrucians. Now we've mentioned them before. And I think I kind of derivatively referred to them as a fake secret society. I did. I did get kind of upset in your in your blavatsky episodes when they are a fake secret society. But not that way. Yes. So the Rose accrucians are an intellectual movement that's bubbled up in the early 1600s. And like the Illuminati, it began with a con, a bunch of anonymous pamphlets that claim to be the writings of a man who definitely did not exist. And we're published again, Zine like claiming that a secret group called the Rose accrucians were working to reform Europe's political order and use science to advance mine kind. Now, again, the person that was supposed to have written these never existed, but an actual movement in philosophy and theological thought evolves as a result of this. And kind of in its wake because of how well it spreads. And so there are different secret societies that are like the order of the Rose across that call themselves Rose accrucians, they're not necessarily connected in most cases by anything other than ideology. And they're not, there's not like a central one that is the original one that we can specifically name. But there are different Rose accrucian societies up until the present day where I just read an article about how the Rose accrucians now that they don't need to be secret are recruiting primarily on Facebook. Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, that makes sense. Yeah. And like viewing like in terms of like thinking about their organic spread, they chapters and like different splinter groups start the same way like different food not bombs chapters start around the country. Like it's like that is this style of growth when it's like this decentralized zine format that are, you know, of pamphlets being passed off between, you know, weirdos who like reading in the late 1600s. Well, in like food not bombs, the primary motivation in forming chapters is less a desire to be a part of a specific organization and more adherence to a set of values and beliefs. Like it is, and there's a, there's a, I am. So what are their beliefs? Hmm. The Rose accrucians. Um, they're broadly, they're not a secular organization, but they are broadly like pro science and pro kind of natural, like using kind of natural science to gain more knowledge about the world. They're also, there are elements of religious mysticism to it as well. So they are kind of like a Christian religious mystic tradition that is also pro science would be the broadest way of describing it, I think. Um, and again, most of like if you, if you read like historians who are experts on this, they'll say that like, well, there were, there are Rose accrucian chapters, Rose accrucian societies more than anything. The accurate way to view it is as a, an intellectual tradition that takes off across Europe. Um, and the Rose accrucians are very influential, not just in their own societies, but within masonry. A lot of masons are Rose accrucians. And one of these Rose accrucian masons, who's in Bavaria, is a guy named Johann von Volner, who starts to organize a campaign against the Illuminati based on some of these rumors that are spreading in bars. He accuses Y shopped not inaccurately of promoting atheism in 1783 for Illuminati members, all professors are arrested and interrogated. They broke basically immediately, testifying that the organization existed to disavow Christianity. Furthermore, they said the Illuminati, and this is the thing that really pisses off everyone, supports the right to commit suicide. Interesting. Yeah, that is a huge part of the campaign against them that they are pro people having the right to commit suicide and also their pro abortion. Like this is very, I mean, this is not uncontroversial today. Yeah. So you can see why a bunch of dudes talking this kind of shit in the late 1700s are going to piss off the powers that be. And one of those, these, these university elites are talking about having bodily autonomy and voting and, and, and, and not liking any kind of deity. They're, they're closing themselves off from the great blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's very, because it's, the, it's complicated because they're all a bunch of like, they've created this like very weird, like, series of lies to hide it. But like the core of Illuminati ideology is people should be autonomous over their own bodies and maybe voting is better than kings. Yeah. Um, which up until about seven years ago was not a particularly controversial thing to preach in the West. Yeah. Word gets out about all of these, these scandalous deeds to the King of Prussia who orders the Berlin Lodge seized by police. In this, in the Berlin Lodge are files and files of Y shops, political and social theories, all of which are deeply heretical. So this pisses off everybody even more. And in order is issued to the free masons by the king to cut all ties with the Illuminati. The mason swiftly disavowed the Illuminati and Adam by shopped, you know, find some self kind of cut out and left in the cold, right? But it's red goes through the roof. Oh my gosh. Imagine all of the discourse going on at the time. Oh, I would be fascinating stuff. If all these people had had Twitter. So interesting. Go to Twitter, threats and just like random people complaining about what's going on. Yeah. I hear they let you, I hear they believe in the right to kill yourself. Um, it would have been quite a time. So by 1785, the Illuminati has been banned in Bavaria and all across Prussia. Y shopped attempted to carry on. And this time he's kind of truly underground because it is now in a legal secret society. And for a while, they're able to like keep up contact between the different parts of the Illuminati. They've got like writers traveling between these hidden lodges, bringing like correspondence and books between them and stuff. But one of these guys, who's also one of Y shop's closest advisors is a man named Jacob Lands. And he is traveling from one cell in Bavaria to another Illuminati cell one day with like a big bag full of books and paperwork when he gets struck by lightning. Oh, okay. So there's a bunch of detail that I've given in in this story about like, about like specific conversations people had. We know that because this guy gets struck by lightning and his corpse is found by the cops and being German police, they take it all into evidence and it's preserved to this day. That's why all of this is known, right? Like all of these papers were taken into evidence and like people who do care about the actual history can go read them. Like it's still available. This is like, this is like getting arrested when you're like scrolling on signal and now the cops have access to all the cats. Yeah. I think probably the other people of papers and you got smited. And yes, and it's like, and you were clearly killed by God. They fight your body with your phone open. And they're like sweet. It's like some disc world shit in this world. No, it's an atheist because the gods go around and fucking murder you. I'm going to read a quote from the book Illuminati again. Just damning of the indictments where the set of instructions drawn up by Wyshopped and stressed and addressed to the ostensibly active Illuminati members in Celizia. The members in Celizia were ordered to spy on the officials and gauge the authorities knowledge and opinions of the order. They were also asked to provide input on who it was. They believed had ratted them out to the authorities. So like literally it is he's open with his signal for his like crime loop being like, hey guys, spy on the government. No, like this is this has gotten considerably more cool. It's like the past. New development. Yeah. So obviously the police don't like this and neither does the government. So there are more raids on more Illuminati safe houses because now they know where all of them are. They find more documents in the home. Which is the problem with the style of organization. Let's just be honest. Yeah, it is. And another problem is that again, Wyshopped has continued putting out propaganda lying about the real nature of the Illuminati. So when they raid this dead guy's house, they find all of these these like pamphlets about how the Illuminati secret leadership has total mental control over its members and like they can't they can be commanded to do anything. And all this is why you never ship post on Twitter because it's going to be used in court against you. They were shit posting. It gets them in a lot of trouble. There are also other documents found order arguing in favor of the right to abortion, the right to commit suicide and in favor of atheism. All of which is dope. And now I'm going to read another quote from that book that's very funny. You're going to like this, Garrison. Most I catching of all with a blueprint for unscrupulous machinery and devices. Each diagram was given its own description. For example, there was one for printing knockoff official seals. Another showed a safe of sorts equipped with multiple locks which would be used to stash classified documents. The last showed a device that produced false receipts which could be used for underground abortions. And one of the folders there was even evidence found of why shop procuring an abortion for his sister in law. Which is like, that's the base. Yeah, yeah. Well, now they're not just advocating abortion. They're helping create the infrastructure to allow. Yeah. It kind of seems like what happens because again, five shops motivation is like I want to trade and and like push illegal books on scholars. And once they get actually banned as an organization, it's like, well, I guess let's create an underground abortion railroad. But yeah, which is what we're doing. What we're doing is already a crime now. We may as well just do all the crimes. Yeah. Unfortunately, the lightning guy, but you know, it was a good effort. It was a noble attempt. So the media at the time goes into overdrive at this point, painting the Illuminati as a conspiracy to overthrow all of the governments of the world. Now this is true. This is true, yeah. They hadn't, they didn't want to. Okay. They're to say they weren't pro overthrowing the governments of the world. They just didn't really and probably never would have had the ability to actually do this. Yeah. And of course, it's also worth noting most Illuminati members knew very little if anything of this. Yeah. In 1787, the same year the United States got its constitution, the Elector of Bavaria prescribed beheading for anyone found associated with the Illuminati. They are. It's interesting because they don't kill anyone over this. They arrest a bunch of people. There are a number of folks, including Wyshopper, forced out of Bavaria. They have to like leave. But the folks who are like charged and like getting trouble and stay in Bavaria, they're allowed to keep living their lives, but they have a bunch of prescriptions placed against them. One of them is that they can never communicate with anyone else who was in the Illuminati, even if they're like at a bar having a beer. Like they can be punished for so much as communicating with anyone who had ever been in the Illuminati. I mean, that still happens. I've had friends be like, you can't talk to any other earth first or including your boyfriend ever again. Yep. That's another tragic piece of continuity in radical history. So Adam flees the country. He winds up kind of holding up in a nearby city called Regensburg where the local government offers him a yearly salary if he promises not to make any more secret societies. They put him on the tater like Adam, like we'll give you money. Stop doing this. That's why you're creating a huge problem for everybody. That's why. That's like a government paying you not to write any more anarchist attacks. Don't make any zines. We'll give you a salary if you stop making zines. That's so funny. As far as we know, he takes it. Now, there are conspiracies that he basically goes underground and either sends agents or travels to the US and starts spreading Illuminati values there. But yeah, as far as we know, he obeyed the edict. We have a pretty good idea of what he spent his life doing just because he writes a shitload more books. He writes a, and these are all like basically he spends the rest of his life writing books and pamphlets defending the Illuminati against allegations against it. He's basically having like the 18th century equivalent of a flame war for the rest of his life, which is like 35 more years or 45 more years. He kind of never gets over this and he's always angry that people have unfairly judged the Illuminati. But he dies around 1830. Dr. Tony Page, who translated one of Adam's defences of himself, summarized the man's life this way. Wyshopped's plan was to educate Illuminati followers in the highest levels of humanity and the morality based on his teachings on the supremacy of reason, allied with the spirit of the golden rule of not doing to others what one would not wish done to oneself. So that if the Illuminati alumni subsequently attained positions of significance and power, they could exert a benevolent and uplifting influence upon society at large. His project was utopian and naively optimistic and he himself was certainly not without flaws of character, but neither he nor his plan was evil or violent in and of themselves. It is one of the deplorable and tragic irides of history that a man who tried to inculcate virtue, philanthropy, social justice and morality has become one of the great hate figures of 21st century conspiracy thinking. And that is kind of sad. Yeah, that is not the legacy that you would want as like a guy whose goal was to kind of spread enlightenment and knowledge in a more open society that like you become sort of the central figure of obsession for the people who work to destroy that society, what's pieces of it get built. That is, I can't really think of another story that's bleak in exactly that specific way. Yeah. The whole the whole lineage of this illuminate anything has such an interesting like backfire effect. Yeah. It makes you like contemplate what types of tactics are worth, are worth using when in this type of like long term, long term strategy of like passing down knowledge. Yeah. And I think an argument could be made that like well, probably part of why this backfire so much is that as much as he was committed to these enlightenment virtues of openness and like reason, he did it by lying and pretending to be teaching people magic like. So maybe the fact that maybe that's part of why things went so bad. It's probably not a non factor. Yeah. I mean, and it's like, there's a reason that say at least leftism, at least anarchism, it does a similar trajectory, does this trajectory where you start off with like Bakunin is really into secret societies. And then eventually anarchists start moving away from sort of conspiratorial work and towards this like open organizing still of crime, right? Like in the in the 1920s, I think in Germany, the main people who were providing abortions were syndiclists. And syndiclism is literally just a method by which to do crime at scale. But it's like open instead of closed and it uses different types of things in order to provide safety. And it's interesting because I think, you know, he's a vice-hopped a little early to be calling, there were very few people in this period calling themselves anarchists. No, I don't think anyone is at this point. Yeah, but I mean, like just in terms of radicalism. But people did. It is interesting. People did like elites in Europe who were angry and opposed to the Illuminati did accuse him of being an anarchist. Oh, interesting. Not in like the poll because again, it's not a term with much political meaning at that point, but it is sort of means terrorists at that point. Exactly. And I think he, if he'd been a century later, he might have been. I don't think he would have been a syndicalist. He was kind of very fundamentally an elitist, right? Yeah. That's why the Illuminati is what it is. You would have been Blonkey. Oh, I don't know much about them. Is the French guy who kind of predates the Lenin in some ways? Yeah. It's kind of like a vanguardist. Yeah, very vanguardist, right? Like you have to have this party and they have to hold power in certain ways to themselves and yeah, part of the story here is that we are still dealing with the side effects of how problematic that can be. Because a lot of this is going to echo on through the ages, but you know what will echo on through the ages most? The, the, the, the dulcet tones. Gold. Mm-hmm. These messages. Yeah, these get you to buy gold. The products and services that support this podcast are like those pillars in the desert that are built to warn future people away from nuclear waste sites. But instead they're there to tell future people where value is and what promo codes they can use to get access to truly quality products and services. So have a, have a gaze at that. This podcast is sponsored by Life Lock by Norton. There's no better time than the new year to resolve to protect your identity and finances. Quality thieves can take out loans in your name, take over and drain your banking and investment accounts and more. It could be dangerously easy to become a victim of identity theft. Life Lock makes it easy to help protect your identity and financial future. 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In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy voiced cigar-smoking man who drives a silver purse and inside his heart was like a lot of guns. He's a shark and on the good bad ass way. He's a nasty shark. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to heaven. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you, hey, let's start a coup? Back in the 1930s, a marine named Smetley Butler was all that stood between the US and fascism. I'm Ben Bullitt, and I'm Alex French. In our newest show, we take a darkly comedic- And occasionally ridiculous, deep dive into a story that has been buried for nearly a century. We've tracked down exclusive historical records. We've interviewed the world's foremost experts. We're also bringing you cinematic, historical recreations of moments left out of your history books. I'm Smetley Butler and I got a lot to say. For one, my personal history is raw, inspiring, and mind-blowing. And for another, do we get the mattresses after we do the ads, or do we just have to do the ads? From I Heart Podcast and School of Humans, this is Let's Start a Coo. Listen to Let's Start a Coo on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your favorite shows. Ah, we're back. The Illuminati, they fall apart in the mid-delay 1780s. Not all that long after the Illuminati gets banned and threatened with beheadings if they try to reform in 17. Yeah, that's legit. Right around the time they start to be purged, the French Revolution starts. Not that long after it all comes to an end in 1799, that's when the first French Revolution kind of comes to its end, right? After about a decade of pretty gnarly shit, it would be fair to say. And the nature of the French Revolution, the fact that it comes so suddenly, the fact that it is so bloody, that it is so radically up in the power balance in Europe, it's one of these things that like particularly elites in Europe cannot believe could happen organically. Now obviously, if you actually look at the history of the French Revolution, it makes total sense. Everything economically that's happening, the measures that the government takes, kind of as resistance to its spreads, like the different kinds of austerity that people are asked to endure, it makes total sense that there's a revolution and it makes total sense anytime there's a revolution, there's a pretty good chance it's going to turn into a killing spree. But people in Europe are like, not normal people, like elites, particularly rich people in like England are like something this can't have happened organically. Like there must have been some sort of conspiracy behind this. And so they start looking at like, well, what are these French revolutionaries? What are these people, especially at the early stages, like what are the three things they're all shouting for? Liberty, Egality, and fraternity, right? Well, those are the same things the Illuminati advocated. Yeah, we've just, we've just purged this thing in central Europe that came out of the Mason's that are speaking for this. And then there's a revolution just a few years later, once these guys go underground in France, that can't be just a coincidence, right? Yeah. So I'm so humbled. I now understand the connection. Thank you, Robert, for doing this podcast, explain the French, the Bavarian Illuminati caused the French Revolution. Oh, yes. A problematic number of people are going to become convinced of that, Margaret. And one of those guys was an abbot again, all these Catholic motherfuckers is always, yeah, it's an abbot named Augustine Berrol. And another guy who gets convinced is John Robinson and Robinson writes a tract with a banger title, proofs of a conspiracy against all the religions and governments of Europe carried on in the secret meetings of Freemasons, Illuminati and reading societies. Serious, serious banger of a title. Now, I love how literal titles used to be. I want to kind of go into some detail about how wrong he is, especially when he connects like the, the, the, the Masons and reading societies to the overthrow of the French government. Because the Freemasons are, as we've talked about, influential in spreading enlightenment ideas, particularly in France. But one of the things that's happening in France with the Masons is that like pretty much alone in the rest of Europe, in France, the Masons admit women. And this is because France is just a lot more advanced and this is before the French revolution, right? They start taking in female members and they are female mis-masonic lodges, which doesn't really happen anywhere else. This is going to be an extended aggression, but I think it's worthwhile because what happens here is fascinating. I'm going to quote again from Janet Burke's paper in the journal of the history of European ideas. Quote, as they ascended to ever higher degrees, always after having mastered and lived to the ideas and feelings of the preceding degree, the women were exposed to the enlightenment concepts of liberty, equality, and even a budding uniquely 18th century form of feminism. They were taught to understand their rights as women and demand them from the world dominated by men. Yet the force of fraternity remained strong in each degree. Bonds with both their Masonic sisters and their sisters outside the lodges were solidified through the ritual process. The powerful rituals, the emotional bonds of sisterhood, the assertiveness of the ins, their insipiate feminism, and the novel Feelings of Friendship as a union of virtuous souls made their impact on these women and altered the way they face their day-to-day tasks. From the wives of judicial mobility heavily populating some of the provincial lodges of adoption, the glittering court lodges in Paris, powerful women worked both alone and with their husbands to alter environments outside the lodge just as they had done behind the closed doors of their temples. An intense spirit of independence, strong dedication to charity, an interest in new ideas and profound loyalty to friends characterized many of these women. So contrary to this conspiracy theory, the Freemasons in France are part of the ruling class. Now, there's a contribution that is made to the revolution in that. Anytime you have a revolution, it often is preceded by an authoritarian regime slightly opening up aspects of society in an attempt to release steam. This is a thing that has happened in a number of cases. There's a piece of that going on here. It's interesting to discuss how integrated the power structure female Masons often were. Princess Marie de Limbaugh, superintendent of the household of Queen Marie Antoinette, was one such of Lady Mason. She was outspoken, a reformer who got in constant trouble for her refusal to throw the kind of giant, expensive, hideously wasteful parties that the French royal family was known for. This is a problem when you're the superintendent of the Queen's household. So eventually she gets fired because she's protesting against the wastefulness of this kind of lifestyle that the court has. And she's pushed out of court until the revolution breaks out in 1789. Now, when that happens, all of the Queen's like friends abandoned her, right? All of these kind of courtly friends who'd been attending the parties. Marie de Limbaugh, she's very much invested in these these Masonic attitudes of fraternity, which for female Masons, a big part of what they're, the female like Masonic lodges are pushing is not just solidarity with other female Masons, but cross feminine solid solidarity in a society that's male dominated. So even though she'd gotten fired by the Queen for her beliefs, the Limbaugh comes back after the revolution breaks out to stand by her because of this kind of attitude of radical solidarity that she feels like she has to show for the Queen. Interesting. She stays with her until the end. And in fact, when they are all captured by revolutionaries, Marie de Limbaugh is beheaded. Her corpse is mutilated and it is left directly in front of the Queen's cell. So she has to look at it while her head is paraded around Paris. Now, that's a bummer of a story. But I bring it up because it is also shows another really weird continuity to modern day. Conspiracy theorists starting in the 1790s claimed the Masons and the Illuminati had started the revolution. In reality, a good number of the people massacred in the terror were Masons. And this is kind of the start of a long pattern in conspiracy culture of blaming victims for their complicity and some sort of convoluted scheme that they were actually the victims of rather than the perpetrators. Yeah. That goes back pretty far too. Well, that's what's always so funny about all of this is like you're like, oh, the connection to QAnon and stuff, which I'm excited to hear more about later. But it's like the the the cranks are not the conspiracists. They're the conspiracy theorists. The people who spent around the conspiracy is the people conspiring about the conspiracy. Yeah, the conspiracy is Marie de l'Embal being having like coming to the conclusion that it is important to show radical solidarity with other women and then dying for it. Right. Like that's that's the conspiracists in this case. Right. Anyway, none of what actually happens in France matters because by this point it has become a conspiracy theory. And in very short order, Barrow and Robison's tracks traveled across the pond to a little place you might have heard of called the United States of America where a Massachusetts minister, oh, you're not going to like it anymore. The story goes on, Margaret. A Massachusetts minister named Jedadaya Morse comes across them and he grows obsessed with the Illuminati, which he decides is still out there and was clearly responsible for why things in France went so bad. He starts preaching and writing tracks about how the Illuminati is out there trying to quote, root out an abolished Christianity and overturn all civil government. Now Jedadaya Morse is a textbook author as well as a preacher. So he had a lot of influence and his shit spreads and it spreads and it spreads. On May 19th, 1798, President John Adams had proclaimed a day of solemn humiliation, fasting and prayer. But Morse did not give a lecture on any of those topics from a write up in slate. Quote, in that day's speech, Morse unspooled a bizarre conspiracy theory alleging that a shadowy Kabbal L'Evillans called the Illuminati, an offshoot of the Freemasons, were aiming to destroy everything that Americans held dear. This group of philosophers, zealots according to Morse had secretly extended its branches through a great part of Europe and even into America. Their goal was to abolish Christianity, private property, and nearly every foundation of good order around the world. According to Morse, they opposed marriage, encouraged people to explore all kinds of sensual pleasures and proposed a promiscuous intercourse among the sexes. This is just your average 2023 Senate hearing. He is a normal Republican member of Congress. Yeah. So, whereas a lot of people are like, yeah, yeah, no that, but not with pretending like it's bad. Yeah, but that's all right. That's all like normal stuff. Yeah. I'm going to continue that quote. Morse told his congregation that the Illuminati hoped to infect the people of America through a kind of cultural warfare. They were spreading their doctrines by warming their way in among leading and debating societies. The reviewers, journalists, or editors of newspapers, or other periodical publications, the booksellers and postmasters. Oh my gosh. It's just the drag shows. Culture war is coming for the libraries. The culture war has never stopped. I bet those people protecting drag shows are the Illuminati. Now one of the things that Morse also points out is that there are even some influential members of the founding fathers who were Illuminatus. You want to guess who he names? Franklin. No. Jefferson? No, neither those guys are based enough. Pain. That's exactly right. Thomas Payne, famed Illuminatus, which is nothing but a compliment to Thomas Payne. Yeah, totally. The only truly based founding father. Franklin kept wanting to be based and kept being like, or I could buy people and his friends were like, no, you were against that. He got it. He became an abolitionist. Okay. Yeah. He just was not like one of the things that run the reasons Payne gets picked is that Payne is very, especially by the end of his life, very anti-Christian. He writes a book of critiques against Christianity. Yeah. In a way that's like, which is like, you know, sketching at the time. This is the 1800s. Yeah. No matter. Some are not afraid. Yeah. Like right in a fucking book against Christianity and the 18th. I'm willing to take a stand against Christianity in the year 1800 and fucking dot. Yeah. It's yeah. He's a bold man. And again, more such a piece of shit, but solid pick for member of the Illuminati among the founding Chinners. Yeah. Yeah. He's the Bernie Sanders of the fucking. Yeah. And one's like, oh, that guy. He's a little different. That crank. Yeah. Now, other notable figures in America at the time who jumped on the Illuminati conspiracy bandwagon included the president of Yale. And the attitude like this guy's attitude, the Yale president's attitude is that Americans have to come back to God to defeat this satanic conspiracy. Where religion prevails, Illuminism cannot make disciples. A French directory cannot govern. A nation cannot be made slaves, nor villains, nor atheists, nor beasts. He reminded his readers that if this dangerous society succeeded in its plans, the children of evangelicals would be forced to read the work of deists or become conchabines of a society that treated chastity as a prejudice, adultery as a virtue and marriage as a farce. Yeah. Uh-huh. It's just all the same. Yeah. This specifically that the religious freedom is to not let their children read stuff. That is the religious freedom that they need. I mean, it's interesting because it gets framed a lot as like, look at how crazy the GOP is gone. But the only thing religious freedom has ever meant in the context of the United States of America is the freedom to stop your children from learning things. This is the only supportable conclusion by the actual evidence. That is what people who talk about religious freedom primarily mean in a political sense in this country. I want the freedom to stop my kid from encountering ideas other than what I believe. Yeah, totally. Which is cool. Anyway, home schooling is good. So the mania over the Illuminati spread as far as the former president of the United States. George Washington, who stated that he was satisfied that the Illuminati had in fact spread to the United States in an attempt to destroy it. Abigail Adams recommended Robinson's book, which was basically an unhinged conspiratorial screed to all of her friends. America's founding fathers and mothers bought into the Illuminati conspiracy theory so hard that some scholars argue it helped set a tone for the new nation that has remained with it ever since. In his infamous essay, the paranoid style in American politics, which is probably the single most important piece of reading anyone can read in order to understand the American right wing in a meaningful way. Richard Hofstadter describes how the anti-illuminati conspiracy hysteria of the 1790s merged with a broader anti-masonic movement in the 1820s and 30s. At first this movement may seem to be no more than an extension or repetition of the anti-masonic theme sounded in the outcry against the Brevarian Illuminati. But whereas the panic of the 1790s was confined mainly to New England and linked to an ultra-conservative point of view, the later anti-masonic movement affected many parts of the Northern United States and was intimately linked with popular democracy and rural egalitarianism. Although anti-Masonry happened to be anti-Jacksonian, Jackson was a Mason, and manifested the same animus against the closure of opportunity for the common man and against aristocratic institutions that one's fines in the Jacksonian crusade against the Bank of the United States. The anti-masonic movement was a product not merely of natural enthusiasm, but also of the vicitudes of party politics. It was joined and used by a great many men who did not fully share its original anti-masonic feelings. It attracted the support of several reputable statesmen who had only mild sympathy with its fundamental bias, but who, as politicians, could not afford to ignore it. Now, what does that sound like? I mean, it's just all of it. The thing I was thinking when you're reading that is just how much of the current stuff we're dealing with now will be viewed in this same way in like 200 years. Like, all this stuff around like, like, drag shows and COVID and all this type of thing is like, this will be viewed in this same weird, like, weird, like, conspiratorial ones in the future as there's, like, you know, groups of Antifa defending these drag shows and there's people in the government talking about this organized effort to blah, blah, blah, blah. It's all the same style of conspiracism that just, it's always interesting to think that you're like, that you actually are like living through history and what you're experiencing now will be reminisced on the same way we reminisced on these weird, like, these weird anti-Mason movements in like the early 1800s. Yeah, optimism about the continuation of society. I think the future, at some point, the future version of a podcast or which will probably like be a guy sitting around a barrel fire in the ruins of Chicago. We'll tell all of this story, but with like an extra couple of chapters. Yeah. Good stuff. Margaret, what's the best way to start a barrel fire? Is it lots of gasoline? I mean, that's the fastest way to start a barrel fire. That's the fastest way to start almost any type of fire. What you do is you take a... You take the mystery gas can because it's always a mystery gas can. Yeah, the one that's been there for a few years past what you want to try putting in your car. Yeah, and it's also like you're not... You don't remember if it's diesel, you don't remember if it's gas, you don't remember if you added some oil to it. It might have been the one that you did like one to five. Maybe where you live floods a lot and there might have been like water might have gotten into it and you're not sure. Yeah, that untrustworthy gas can. The untrustworthy gas can is how you start a barrel fire in my experience. That is the best way to start a barrel fire. That's why you got to rotate out your good and bad fucking fuel cans. Yeah, um, label them? No, no, no, that's never going to happen. Okay. I don't know. I'm like 80% good at tasting the difference between diesel and regular fuel. I see the people who... You know, the... There was that campaign you can't drink oil or... Yeah. Like, so then all the right way people... Which is a lie. Yeah, well, that was the... I mean, kind of reasonably in some ways, the right way people would go on YouTube and then drink motor oil, like clean motor oil, not used motor oil. Yeah. And be like, look, it's kind of neutral. It's so funny. I think that we should have just gone harder with that and like basically tried to do like the gallon of milk challenge, but with... I don't know, like diesel fuel. Yeah. Just see what we can get them to do. Yeah. We're never... We're never... The lips need to accept that we are never going to argue our way out of this. You cannot convince people of anything like about the irrationality of any of these movements because they are based in irrationality. But we could probably get them to drink diesel fuel if we all work hard at it. And that would be really funny. This is what I'm going to read to the transcript. The Bard who has this as a transcript to read around the barrel fire got it from court transcripts. Yeah. No. Thank you. After the entire state of Florida dies in a diesel accident. Yeah. A freak diesel drinking accident. The remnants of Florida of the cool zone media. Well, thank you for being a part of passing off this arcane knowledge to the... To the future generations. You're all in a secret society. Tell anyone who asks that this podcast is just about, you know, Hitler or whatever. That'll get him... No, tell him it's true crime. Tell him some broad got murdered and we're going to like spend 30 hours talking about it. Anyway, the broad who got murdered was civil democracy. Yeah. Mark, you got anything to plug? Yeah. I have a podcast. I don't know if you're listening, if you like podcasts or not, but if you do, maybe you like history podcasts. And if you do, I've got a podcast for you. It's called Cool People Did Cool Stuff. It's available on cool zone media. Hell yeah, it is. It's still on media. It still exists and has not been sued into oblivion by the remnants of Florida. Up until we go down taking out Florida like Gandalf fighting the bowelrog. Yeah. Just falling into a pit together. Okay. As someone who lives in West Virginia, I have to be a little bit careful when you blank and get me make fun of people of a state. But that said, look, man, I grew up in Texas. If there's one thing that entitles me to do, it's make fun of Florida. Yeah. Okay, fair enough. And then also, if you want to make fun of a bunch of other people, you can read my book Escape from Insul Island, which is about making fun of in cells and then feeling sort of like trolls remorse halfway through writing it and actually start talking about what's wrong with the prison industrial complex. And that is available from tangled wilderness.org. You can get it wherever you get books, probably. I don't know. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Well, be strange and a tangled wilderness and we'll continue to be normal here in not a tangled wilderness. Do you want to ask Garrison if they have anything they'd like to plug? Or is this just clear, Garrison, or be sure to happen. Bold. Garrison is so secretive about what they do. Would they want people to know? Would they want to still be? No, why don't you let them speak for themselves? I can't leave them. So anyway, I can't leave them. I can't leave them facing this type of a genetic discrimination. No, you're trying to silence my enlightened knowledge. But no, if you want to hear about a collection of people who the Georgia government, that is the state of Georgia, alleges is a secret coalition of organized people who are who are fighting against the government. You can listen to my recent series on the Defense the Atlanta Forest Movement and the different types of state repression that they are facing using very similar kind of conspiratorial group association type language to try to hurt the people that are actually trying to stop a forest from being cut down. So that batch of four episodes just came out on it could happen here. It is most of what I've been doing the past months. Woo! So go do that. Check out those episodes which should be out by the time this airs. We'll certainly be out by the time this airs. And go again, I really can't advise you enough. Go weld galvanized steel without wearing a respirator. It will reveal to you hidden truths from the secret masters of the world. That's their hidden galvanized steel. It's like a genie's bottle. You got to break it open so that you can fuck a genie like that new Frank Miller movie which was pretty fucking dope in my opinion. Wait, what's the movie where they fuck a genie? Oh, it's like it's like 3000 years of solitude or something like that. I forgot the exact title, something of solitude. But it's like it's told a Swinton fucking an Idris Elba genie. It's pretty dope. All right. I think you should tell people to not specifically the liberals don't want. Biden is coming for your right to to talk to you. The famous Swinton respirator. Oh, yeah, that too. Yeah, Joe Biden just said during the state of the union, the late part of it that you didn't hear that he wants Americans to stop welding galvanized steel without respirators. First, they came for our gastaves and now they come for our. You know, we're feeling a real alpha male. Does the word respirator? There you go. Oh, God, don't let that be the last word of the podcast. It's got. Behind the bastards is a production of Cool Zone media. For more from Cool Zone media, visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. When my daughter ran off to hop trains, I was terrified I'd never see her again. So I followed her into the train yard. This is what it sounds like inside the box car. And into the city of the rails, there I found a surprising world so brutal and beautiful that it changed me. But the rails do that to everyone. There is another world out there and if you want to play with the devil, you're going to find them there in the rail yard. I'm Denon Morton. Come with me to find out what waits for us in the city of the rails. Listen to city of the rails on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts or cityoftherails.com. In 1967, Joseph Stalin's only daughter, flees Russia for her new home, America. Hello, everybody. I am very happy to be here. That story alone is worthy of a podcast, but Spedlana is about what comes next. And it's the craziest story I've ever heard. It has KGB agents, a Frank Lloyd Wright commune, weird sex stuff, three Olga's two Spedlana's and one neurotic gay playwright. That's me. Listen to Spedlana on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jason Alexander and I'm through to coven. We know you've been pining for a brand new podcast hosted by a beloved television icon. And a largely unknown talk radio host. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wrote that. Pine no more because we're the hosts of really no really. The funny informative show that seeks the answers to things that make us say, really no, really, you'll lay off your learn and we'll get paid. That's really no really with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilledon on the iHeart radio app on Apple Podcasts or where you get your podcasts. And anybody who uses the word pining, let me know because I don't think it's very close to the middle ages, very common word.