0:00

A fellow conspiracy realist. We're

0:02

doing an episode on cults

0:04

today. This is a classic episode

0:07

where Matt, as you recall off

0:10

air, I probably said this with great

0:12

regret. I had to admit there

0:15

was a bad Ben Ben Tino,

0:18

Yes, yes, been Tino Masorrow

0:21

is to some a

0:25

thought leader, to some, a

0:27

prophet to supporters.

0:30

It's a person who has changed their lives.

0:33

To critics, this

0:35

is a bad Ben has

0:38

been accused of cultic

0:41

practices, has been accused of

0:43

some untoward behavior,

0:46

and we really dig into this in

0:49

our episode. Just heads up,

0:51

everyone, A lot of stuff

0:53

has happened in the intervening years

0:56

with Massara's movement, and

0:59

we wanted to learn more about it.

1:01

So when you hear this, you're hearing the information

1:03

we have at the time. You're also

1:05

hearing a hopefully helpful

1:08

conversation about what defines

1:11

a cult. And I don't know,

1:13

Matt, what do you remember from this one?

1:16

What really stuck out to you?

1:17

Well? I remember signing up for Benino's

1:19

newsletter and never turning back.

1:22

Ah, he got you, all right.

1:24

Well, here's the show. From

1:27

UFOs to psychic powers and government

1:30

conspiracies. History is riddled

1:32

with unexplained events. You can

1:34

turn back now or learn

1:36

this stuff they don't want you to know.

1:51

Hello, welcome back to the show. I'm an expression

1:53

of the infinite one creator in sixth density.

1:56

Do you have a name?

1:59

That's it?

2:00

Oh? I felt like you left off with an ellipse? Is like

2:02

you're gonna give me more, like some sort of celestial

2:06

title.

2:07

Do you introducing myself?

2:08

Do you want to be the movement formerly known as

2:10

Matt or the vibration formally known

2:12

as Matt.

2:13

I am an expression of the infinite one creator

2:15

in sixth density.

2:16

Okay, I'll take it.

2:16

I'm still Noel, I'm Noam Shabbai.

2:19

Folks they call me Ben. You or you were joined

2:21

with our super producer Paul Deckint that makes

2:23

this stuff they don't want you to know. Welcome

2:26

to the show. As you can tell, since

2:29

we last all got together, there have

2:31

been a few changes, spiritual

2:34

changes, vibrational changes.

2:36

Yeah, Matt is basically just this kind of like

2:39

neutron cloud that's just

2:41

slowly filling up the studio. And

2:43

he does still have a mouth, yes,

2:45

thankfully.

2:46

So I'm an expression of infinity.

2:48

So you know right now what he's

2:50

reminding me of Noel is the gaseous

2:54

creature in that Rick and Morty episode

2:56

called Fart, voiced by Flight

2:58

of the Concords actor similar

3:01

similar, well, thank you for coalescing

3:04

into a physicali ish form.

3:06

Somebody open a window.

3:08

I don't want to lose him.

3:11

I'll be here for as long as the podcast is.

3:13

What is time. Hopefully

3:16

we have enough time before

3:18

you ascend to higher planes, Matt

3:21

to journey into a very

3:23

interesting rabbit hole, which Noel,

3:26

you were the one who showed us, introduced

3:29

us to this guy off air when we

3:31

first learned about this fairly recently,

3:34

right a few weeks ago.

3:35

Yeah, there was a medium article that was making the rounds

3:38

online and a friend of mine actually sent

3:40

it to me as a potential topic

3:42

for the show. And more

3:44

so than talking specifically about this one individual

3:46

who we will get to, it kind of opened

3:48

the door to talk a little bit more about cults

3:51

in the digital age, right exactly.

3:54

We have talked about cults before,

3:56

both in these broad structural

3:59

terms and through more specific examples

4:01

such as the ants in the

4:04

Czech Republic, the

4:06

Jonestown massacre with Jim Jones,

4:09

and many more. And although it's

4:11

a little by the book. Let's start

4:13

with the biggest, most obvious

4:15

question, how do we define cult?

4:19

And for that we head on over to Merriam Webster,

4:21

which defines cult as a religion

4:24

regarded as unorthodox or spurious.

4:27

It's also it's referring to the body of

4:29

adherence to said movement,

4:31

and it also defines it as great

4:34

devotion to a person, idea object,

4:36

movement, or work such as a film

4:39

or a book.

4:39

Yeah, like a cult film, a cult classic

4:42

being something that has a small but

4:44

incredibly loyal following, often for being

4:46

trash, yes, or

4:48

cult of personality, you know, which can

4:50

also refer to a cult leader.

4:52

My problem with these definitions you guys, though, is

4:54

that to me, this is what religion

4:57

is, right like it's it's to some

4:59

one person's unorthodox belief is

5:01

another person's faith, so

5:04

right the station right right.

5:05

So, for instance, to the

5:08

Pope. While many other

5:10

religions would have value, they

5:13

all are unorthodox or

5:15

at the very least erroneous if

5:18

they are not Catholicism as

5:20

practiced by the Catholic Church.

5:22

And if you're an Orthodox Jew, everyone else

5:24

is completely unorthodox, right.

5:26

Right, right, and maybe just

5:28

has a short attention span, right, That's

5:30

how one I explained it to me. We

5:33

see two different approaches here in the definitions,

5:36

with some overlap between them, and

5:38

I appreciate you raising the point that

5:40

we wanted to make here about cult.

5:45

The idea of what makes a cult

5:47

is the idea of what makes something beautiful

5:49

or it's very similar. It's in the eye of the beholder,

5:51

and it's a subjective thing. At the

5:54

very most basic, first

5:56

density level, a cult is

5:58

just a group of people worshiping something,

6:01

and they almost never outside

6:03

of pop culture described themselves

6:05

as a cult. It's

6:08

a tricky term. It's usually regarded as

6:10

an insult. If our super producer

6:12

Paul Decatt started what he felt was

6:15

a religious movement and we started referring to

6:17

it as Paul's cult, Paul and

6:19

his followers would be properly

6:21

offended. Well,

6:24

Paul's nodding in a way that makes me think I

6:26

may have already crossed the line.

6:27

Well, yeah, because Paul's journey

6:30

is the way, the light and the truth for me as

6:32

a follower of Paul's journe How many cults.

6:34

Are you in, bro?

6:35

All of them? Yeah?

6:37

Funny story. We Matt and I in

6:39

an earlier video audio

6:42

series, we delineated

6:44

the commonalities between cults

6:46

and the ways in which these things function

6:48

if you think of them as an engine, and.

6:51

We taught people how to start

6:53

one.

6:53

We taught people how to start one. It was a little controversial

6:56

that was in the same era when we had

6:58

a video just describing how people

7:01

get away with murder, which

7:03

is still up if.

7:04

You want to see it. We should probably we

7:06

should probably take a look at that again.

7:08

But despite the slippery slopiness

7:10

of that word cult, we are making a conscious

7:12

choice, an editorial choice, to use that word

7:15

today, right Ben.

7:16

Yeah, exactly. For the purposes of today's

7:19

episode, we are going to use the

7:21

word cult, and we're going to use it to describe

7:23

organizations that share some of

7:26

these commonalities from our earlier videos

7:28

and some will explore today. And we're

7:30

also using it more as shorthand

7:33

rather than an insult,

7:35

because it goes back to that point whe're

7:38

underlining here. We're emphasizing one

7:41

person's cult is another person's

7:43

real religion. And the point of this show has

7:45

never been to tell people what to believe. But

7:48

the reason we're choosing to use

7:50

the word cult is because today's

7:52

overall question is how

7:54

do cults exist in the digital

7:57

world. Are these organizations,

7:59

these movements adapting? Are

8:01

the lines between a fandom

8:04

and a legit actual

8:07

cult blurring? And if so,

8:09

how, First we have to look at

8:12

the facts. The world is chock full

8:14

of self described movements, intentional

8:17

communities, spiritual institutions,

8:19

and on and on and on, and often

8:22

mainstream culture, culture

8:25

interesting etymology. There only hears

8:27

of these fringe movements when something goes

8:29

horrifically catastrophically wrong, such

8:32

as the destruction of the Branch Davidian

8:35

compound in Waco, Texas, the Aum

8:37

Shinriko terrorism in Japan, or

8:39

of course, the Jonestown massacre.

8:42

But as we know,

8:44

the bloody headlines sell

8:47

the best, right, and there's a motivation

8:49

in most media to only

8:51

show you the bad news. This

8:54

does not jibe with the reality of the

8:56

situation, which is this around

8:58

the planet, probably in your home

9:00

country, maybe even in your own neighborhood.

9:03

As we record this, These sorts of movements

9:05

are much less uncommon than

9:07

you might think, maybe not cartoonishly

9:10

common or ubiquitous, but they're definitely out

9:12

there, and often they're

9:14

harmless. They are a group of people

9:17

who have all decided to get

9:19

severely on the same page about

9:22

something, whether it's a diet.

9:24

Right, we see a lot of we see a lot

9:26

of people organized by their

9:28

diet or by their environmental

9:31

beliefs. Right.

9:31

You'll even see the C word

9:34

applied to certain workout

9:36

regimens and groups getting together

9:39

having you know, working out at a gym mm hmm.

9:42

You'll see it applied to a lot of different things.

9:45

Somebody said, how can we be both fit

9:47

and cross? Yes, So,

9:52

in the days before the digital era,

9:55

as we have examined before, these

9:58

groups would typically be isolated.

10:01

They would tend to self isolate. They

10:03

would be isolated by a leader who sought,

10:06

unfortunately and often inevitably, to

10:08

gain complete control of the group

10:11

or community by eliminating any

10:13

other source of information.

10:15

It's one of the most common things

10:18

about cults. And we can talk

10:20

a little bit about some of these commonalities.

10:22

Well, yeah, you can imagine it, especially if you go back

10:25

just before the advent of the internet, if

10:27

you didn't have a machine that you could access

10:29

in your home that had all of the information out there,

10:31

and you only had the books, the physical books

10:33

that are available, the telephone that

10:36

you can make a call, and

10:38

only one person can really use a phone

10:40

at a time. In that way,

10:43

you realize how much information control existed.

10:46

And we do know that the cognitive and

10:49

emotional isolation of followers is very important

10:51

to starting and maintaining a cult.

10:54

Like if you're in one, you can't read unapproved

10:57

books, you can't watch unapproved

10:59

shows, you can't really communicate

11:01

much with your family because maybe your family

11:03

is encouraging you to not be in this

11:06

cult anymore. You can't speak

11:08

with those relatives, and you know, it just moves

11:10

on and on and on. And that's one of the primary goals

11:12

of a cult leaders.

11:14

It's to isolate, not

11:17

only isolate, but break people

11:19

down psychologically by

11:22

instilling in them this notion that nothing they do

11:25

is good enough or they can't actually,

11:27

you know, better themselves without the direct

11:30

input and influence of

11:32

the person that is kind of

11:34

setting themselves up as being the cult leader. And

11:37

then you have sexual control as

11:39

well.

11:40

Yeah, typically this

11:43

and this is common. The cult leader will

11:45

eventually have some sort of divine

11:47

revelation, whether they

11:49

see themselves that divinity or see themselves

11:52

as a messenger of that divinity, and the realization

11:54

will be that either no one can

11:57

have sex, that he or she the

11:59

cult leader can be the only

12:01

person who has sex with anyone, or

12:04

that the followers must obey

12:06

the sexual dictates of the

12:08

leader. That's where you hear about someone

12:11

saying it has come to me

12:13

through whatever my brand

12:15

name of God is that person

12:19

A is the spiritual spouse of person

12:22

B, and that's the only people that

12:24

these are the only people that can fool around now to

12:26

elect with.

12:27

David Koresh, for example, he received

12:30

visions, one of which told

12:32

him that the sister of one of his wives

12:35

was to be his new wife, and everyone

12:37

else, the males in that cult were celibate.

12:40

Yeah, and it never really starts

12:43

that way.

12:44

No, No, I mean that's it's

12:46

salesmanship. One oh one. You get your foot

12:48

in the door, and what happens

12:51

with this, I know it's lurid and it seems

12:54

it's incredibly gross. I

12:56

really appreciate Noling you mentioning the David

12:58

Koresh example, because I

13:01

believe that sister may have been underage

13:03

at the time. Is that correct?

13:05

I do believe so. Yes. So.

13:08

In Koresh's Bible

13:10

studies, which were these ten

13:13

hour, ten to sixteen hour performances

13:17

of him just yelling at people in those

13:20

things. He would he

13:22

would constantly and increasingly

13:26

make them of a sexual nature and find

13:28

Bible versus where he would

13:30

interpret this as you know,

13:32

this passage of the Bible says this,

13:34

what's he really saying. He's saying that the women

13:37

want dix and pardon the crudeness

13:39

here, this is a quote. He would say, what does

13:42

this Bible verse mean? It

13:44

means they want big dicks. Everybody

13:46

say it, and he would make people say it.

13:49

And to us on the outside that sounds

13:51

insane, But this is after, this is

13:53

after how many days of how many

13:55

solid hours have been yelled at having

13:58

your personal life controlled, having

14:00

and this is one of the most important parts, having

14:03

your ego erase, the obliteration

14:05

of the eye. And this occurs

14:09

in a lot of organizations. Militaries

14:11

attempt to erase the ego. And

14:13

you'll hear people say sometimes that they

14:15

had a friend who entered into a

14:18

very intense branch of the military

14:20

or something, and that they came out changed,

14:23

maybe for the better, maybe for the worse.

14:25

Maybe just different cults

14:28

actively, like in our earlier stuff

14:30

with the Charles Manson family, colts

14:33

actively obliterate the

14:35

agency of the followers,

14:38

which is why it is so important to

14:40

us. A cult is A podcast is

14:42

not and should not be a cult. But that's why it's so

14:44

important to us that you listening.

14:47

Specifically, you

14:49

still get to be yourself and make your own decisions.

14:52

We're not gonna yell at you.

14:54

Yeah, yeah, you be. You

14:57

don't listen to what we're saying, don't follow

15:00

every word.

15:01

Says the cloud.

15:02

Yes, seriously, I'm starting to

15:04

doubt your credibility on these issues.

15:07

But let's just rattle off a few other destructive

15:10

patterns that cults operate

15:12

under so we can get into the juice

15:14

of today's episode.

15:15

Yeah, let's do a worst case scenario.

15:17

Yeah, so that we've got leaders who emotionally

15:20

exploit the vulnerable, and

15:22

oftentimes the folks that flock to these

15:24

types of leaders are very vulnerable.

15:26

They're seeking answers, and

15:29

often they are attracted

15:31

to strong personalities who

15:33

cult leaders typically are. Eventually,

15:36

as Ben said, things change

15:38

and can take a dark turn as that exploitation

15:41

goes from emotional to physical, and

15:44

then we have leaders who start to obliterate

15:47

the ego, like Ben said, through

15:49

social pressure, physical

15:51

abuse, shaming people putting

15:53

their business out in public, having

15:55

people judge them completely, wearing

15:58

them down to the point where they can be molded

16:01

in the image or in at the

16:03

discretion of the leader.

16:05

And then the next one is important for today's

16:07

discussion. The leader's rambling

16:09

word salad becomes the primary

16:12

narrative of the group, and then

16:14

the group's narrative. After all, this rambling

16:17

starts to turn dark, sometimes violent,

16:20

and often self destructive,

16:22

as this leader is seeking to increasingly

16:25

say things that are shocking or something

16:27

that will be new and incredible

16:29

for their followers to grasp onto

16:32

things to do, even and

16:34

they need to maintain this

16:37

unpredictability or be

16:39

viewed as unpredictable, and maintain

16:41

control of all these people listening.

16:43

Yes, that's important, because you

16:45

have to be providing revelations

16:48

right and no one can ever be good enough.

16:50

Your authority cannot be challenged. So

16:53

this unpredictability, this increasing

16:56

escalation of shocking behavior is

16:58

an important to a crucial tool

17:01

for maintaining control. And that's when again,

17:04

in the worst case scenarios, we

17:07

see situations involving suicides

17:10

or murders or other horrendous

17:12

crimes. Now we enter the

17:15

digital age, if isolation is

17:17

a key to the formation, growth,

17:19

and ultimate decay of cults. Surely

17:22

the glut of information available via

17:24

phone or text or tablet

17:26

or social media would reduce

17:28

cults. You're always in contact with someone,

17:31

right.

17:32

You'd think, but it might not be.

17:34

Let's hear a word from our sponsor.

17:42

Here's where it gets crazy.

17:45

There are digitally powered

17:47

movements for meing today and

17:50

growing successfully that

17:52

fit, according to their critics, a lot

17:55

of the definitions of

17:58

a cult. And this is where

18:00

we arrive at the

18:02

story that No, your friend introduced

18:05

us to a character named Beninho

18:08

Massorrow.

18:08

You may have also heard him called Benino.

18:11

Yeah, so I was turned onto an article on

18:14

medium that came out in December of

18:16

last year by a writer

18:19

by the name of B. B. E. Schofield,

18:22

who alleges that Massorrow

18:25

is a cult leader empowered

18:27

by the ever

18:30

evolving nature of

18:32

digital communications. In fact, the

18:35

headline of the article is the

18:37

very salacious tech bro guru

18:40

inside the Sedona cult of

18:42

Bentino Masorrow, and

18:45

the top of it is emblazoned with

18:47

some pictures from this man's Instagram

18:49

account, one where he's dressed up

18:51

as Hugh Hefner with like a captain's

18:53

hat on surrounded by scantily clad

18:56

playboy bunny esque women. And

18:58

there's one where he's like the

19:00

real bad joker from the

19:02

latest Batman.

19:03

Movie with what's his face?

19:05

Suicide squad were doing a mirror

19:07

selfie. And then there's one where he's got

19:10

a cigar in his mouth. In the background you see some

19:12

real, real fancy scotches. Who

19:15

is this guy? And what's see after? And what

19:17

does it mean to be a tech bro cult leader?

19:19

Well he started

19:22

well, at least from what we can tell. He started

19:24

posting on a YouTube channel in twenty

19:26

ten. And this

19:29

is just what we know from the surface, and we'll get

19:31

into what we know after some

19:33

research on the surface. First

19:35

video understanding life

19:38

is impossible, and here

19:40

here are just some ideas from that video. We

19:42

as human beings, every situation

19:45

we encounter, we constantly try to analyze.

19:47

We constantly try to understand everything

19:50

in reality. The life that's just here,

19:53

it cannot be understood. We have to

19:55

stop trying to understand everything.

19:58

Life wasn't meant to be understood.

20:00

It's the embrace of the mystery that instantaneously

20:03

reveals the beauty of what's right here.

20:06

The funny thing is when we stop trying to understand

20:08

what we perceive, we naturally understand

20:12

in here.

20:12

At that point, he points at his.

20:14

Chest, thinking, is just

20:16

another aspect of reality and

20:18

it cannot understand itself. Life

20:21

doesn't care why it's here. It's simply

20:23

here.

20:24

Uh huh.

20:25

I mean overall, that sounds like, first

20:27

off, a restatement of things that have been

20:30

said pretty often. And do

20:35

people understand life? I

20:37

mean it's a it's a fair question.

20:40

And just to say in the video he appears

20:42

to be a young man. I mean,

20:44

you know it seven eight years ago you

20:46

said, yeah, twenty ten, you

20:49

know, just a young man giving his beliefs

20:51

into a laptop computer.

20:52

Sort of a manifesto, right, And these,

20:55

these selfie manifestos

20:57

are super common on YouTube.

21:00

Literally anyone with an Internet connection

21:02

and a camera can make a YouTube

21:04

account or make a Google account and post them.

21:07

Personal spirituality is nothing new to

21:09

YouTube. And you might

21:11

not be familiar with this guy, although

21:14

he is a YouTube sensation.

21:16

He's built a massive following

21:18

since that video in two thousand

21:21

and ten. We have stats

21:23

for you. His Facebook page has over

21:25

three hundred thousand people on

21:27

it. His Instagram is over twenty

21:30

thousand they've got Facebook groups that

21:32

follow him. His YouTube

21:34

videos have over

21:36

two million views. I think that's total,

21:39

not per video.

21:40

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean his videos of individual and

21:43

he's got a ton of them. They're in the thirty to forty

21:45

thousand views apiece. And

21:47

I would argue these numbers

21:49

are not earth shattering by any

21:51

means. But where it gets interesting is when you start to

21:53

see the kind of money he's able to bring in with

21:56

this semi modest following

21:58

right, he has an organization called the Infinity

22:00

Academy. It's a website sort

22:03

of a self help kind of guru type

22:05

website, and on it you can read

22:07

these courses that he has laid out and

22:10

it's got kind of like a radiohead pay what

22:12

you will model. But apparently,

22:15

according to the media article,

22:17

he brings in around sixty thousand dollars a month,

22:20

which is more than enough to cover the fourteen

22:22

thousand dollars a month rent for his

22:25

lavish offices in Sedona,

22:27

Arizona, which is his home base.

22:30

And Ben, you said earlier you felt

22:33

like that sixty thousand wasn't all

22:35

donations that could account

22:37

for people that are

22:39

paying to come to his seminars.

22:42

Well, you know, no, they do. They suggest at

22:44

the very bottom, on the left hand side of the

22:46

page, they suggest that if you're going to take

22:48

one of their one of their courses

22:51

on their website, they suggest one hundred

22:53

to a three hundred dollars donation

22:56

per one that you're gonna read right on?

22:58

Sure, I mean, you know that would that's sort of

23:00

like what's the honor system kind of situation.

23:03

It's like when you go to the Met Museum in New

23:05

York and they say recommended donation

23:07

of thirty dollars.

23:09

You know, I usually give ten?

23:11

But is it I'm a cheap skate.

23:12

Is it thirty? I thought it was twenty?

23:14

Is it twenty?

23:15

I think they may?

23:15

Okay, well, I know they're actually not to get too

23:17

off topic, but the Met is actually going to start

23:19

imposing an actual ticket price.

23:21

Very soon, so probably a good idea get in there while

23:23

you can. Yeah. Well, and but this isn't their only

23:25

source of income, these online

23:27

courses.

23:28

Right yeah. Masaro

23:31

also has in person retreats

23:33

that gather crowds of up

23:36

to hundreds, and when

23:38

we were talking off air, that

23:41

was that was one of the things that perked

23:44

our collective ears up because

23:46

it seems like if you're going on an honor system of

23:48

suggested donation, sixty thousand

23:51

a month seems like a really tall

23:54

milkshake for that. But if

23:56

people are booking the seminars through that, does

23:58

that count the income as well? And we

24:00

also have to ask We will ask later,

24:02

just to be fair, the motivations

24:05

of best skillfold the writer who

24:07

did a fantastic job with this article. By the

24:09

way, so back

24:12

to the digital age, Masorrow

24:14

has effectively used things like WhatsApp

24:17

or Facebook Live to reach

24:19

new followers. And although,

24:22

you know, although as Noel pointed out,

24:24

these are not especially earth shattering

24:26

numbers, it's not like the you

24:29

know, a musician with billions of views or

24:31

something doing this.

24:34

Reaching this level of success independently is

24:36

pretty impressive. It's still small

24:39

time in comparison to some other spiritual

24:41

movements. And again, let's keep in mind spiritual

24:44

movement describes everything from

24:47

a closely held personal belief you've

24:49

never told anyone to things like Buddhism

24:51

or the Catholic Church. There's a wide

24:54

range of things here, but

24:56

still it is there

24:58

and it's present. So

25:01

now we have to ask ourselves what

25:04

exactly is he teaching

25:07

from the article. Schofield

25:10

describes it thusly a

25:12

mashup of Adveta, Vedanta

25:14

and the law of attraction. Other

25:17

influences include Osho Bashar,

25:19

the Law of One channeled by Raw. This

25:22

is Gadata Maharaj and some yogaic

25:24

text as well, So there's a lot of stuff

25:26

in the mix.

25:27

Yeah, yeah, And the Advaita Vedanta

25:30

school is a particular

25:33

type of Hindu philosophy and

25:36

a path to spiritual realization

25:38

that focuses on the

25:40

teachings of the Upanashads and

25:43

finding basically

25:45

the highest levels of metaphysical

25:48

reality. This is brahmin or

25:51

sort of something like achieving nirvana.

25:54

And more interestingly to

25:56

me is this idea of the

25:58

law of one is something I'd

26:00

never heard before. And I found

26:02

a page lawvone dot

26:05

info that goes through the different

26:07

levels of enlightenment than one can achieve

26:09

by following this path. I'm

26:12

gonna read a little bit from that. The law

26:14

of one states that there is only one and

26:16

that one is the infinite creator. It

26:18

also invokes the name of Raw,

26:21

the Egyptian god. Raw

26:24

also calls infinite intelligence and

26:27

intelligent infinity. It's impossible

26:29

to describe the one, undifferentiated,

26:31

intelligent infinity, unpolarized,

26:34

full and whole, but it can be activated

26:36

or potentiated. Each portion of

26:38

the creation contains paradoxically

26:41

the whole.

26:41

Ah, it is like an ocean.

26:43

Well, it's hologrammatic thinking

26:45

as well.

26:45

And there is a book called The Raw Material. An

26:49

ancient astronaut speaks the

26:52

Law of One by a man by the name of Don Elkins,

26:54

and the synopsis that on Amazon

26:56

is pretty interesting.

26:57

Poses a few questions.

26:59

What are the ancients? Why did they

27:01

first come to Earth? Why are they returning

27:03

now? What part did they play in building the great

27:05

monuments of antiquity? What

27:07

part did they play in the formation of present

27:10

and earlier civilizations?

27:12

With? What other beings do we share our

27:14

universe? And where does the Earth

27:16

fit into the cosmic scheme of things? Almost

27:19

twenty years of experimental work with telepathy

27:21

led to the breakthrough contact recorded

27:24

in this book The Raw Material, as

27:26

an account not only for the events leading up

27:28

to this contact, but of over two hundred

27:30

pages of verbatim transcripts

27:33

of each and every conversation.

27:35

Two things real quick, Yeah,

27:38

noel, I swear you have heard this

27:41

concept before, but it

27:43

was packaged very differently. You're

27:46

a Bill Hicks fan, right, sure, Bill

27:48

Hicks talks about this sort of thing.

27:50

He probably got it from a very

27:52

similar He

27:54

probably got it from his very similar source, maybe

27:57

even the opponishods. He was

27:59

a concert reader. It's interesting.

28:01

The second thing is really interesting about this is

28:04

what we're seeing is syncretism,

28:07

combining of aspects from different religions,

28:09

and the Danta itself is kind

28:12

of syncretic. So we're seeing an

28:15

I don't want to say a mixtape of a mixtape

28:17

because I don't want to be dismissive, but we're

28:20

seeing like combinations of combinations

28:22

coming through, which honestly

28:26

I applaud if we're talking about spirituality,

28:28

I really feel like you should find

28:31

what works for you.

28:33

A little later, we're going to get into a

28:35

direct message from Benino

28:37

Massorrow, and it says that very

28:40

thing that you're talking about. Ben where his

28:42

teachings over time, he says, have been a collection

28:45

of different teachings and different movements

28:48

and all these paradoxical even at times

28:50

things.

28:50

It seems less about worshiping a god too as much

28:53

as it is kind of treating yourself

28:55

as a god or an extension of the universe.

28:58

And it's interesting because the law of Wine has

29:00

these layers, almost scientology

29:03

esque layers. They're called densities, and its

29:05

first through eighth density.

29:07

And it's something that Masorro touches a lot in

29:10

the teachings.

29:11

Absolutely, he definitely talks about it, and it's

29:13

a little hard to wrap your head around. And I think, for

29:15

good reason, just to read a couple of these, I'll

29:17

go do the first and the last. The first density is the

29:19

density of awareness in which the planet moves

29:21

out of the timeless state into physical manifestation.

29:24

Its elements are earth, air, water, and fire.

29:26

On Earth, after matter had coalesced and space

29:29

time had begun to quote unroll its scroll

29:31

of livingness, first density took

29:33

about two billion years. Then eighth density

29:36

is also the beginning of the first density of the next

29:38

creation. It is both omega and alpha,

29:40

the spiritual mass of the infinite universes

29:42

becoming one central Sun or Creator

29:45

once again. Then is born a new universe,

29:47

a new infinity, a new logos, which

29:49

incorporates all that the Creator has

29:52

experienced of itself.

29:54

So what this sounds like to me is essentially

29:56

the Big Bang. They're describing in the first density

29:59

right after after the big Bang has occurred,

30:01

and now we actually have an Earth, we have

30:03

a place where consciousness can exist. Then

30:06

going through all these other densities through here to

30:09

getting to the eighth density is when it's

30:11

snapped back together. Essentially, if

30:13

you look at some of the

30:15

there are infinite universe models that

30:17

believe big bangs occur as

30:20

expansion, and then there's a collapsing back

30:22

down into essentially one singularity, and

30:24

then another expansion, and then it just continues

30:26

on.

30:26

This cycle of contraction and

30:28

expansion.

30:29

And that's one model.

30:30

That's one model. And then also this has

30:32

a lot in common with the

30:35

views of alchemical experts,

30:37

right with alchemical scholars and the great

30:39

work. This is not the I

30:41

think the point we're making is this

30:44

is not, by any means a new idea.

30:47

But also a Masara's

30:49

defense, he's not really saying

30:51

it's a new idea either, correct, right,

30:53

And it would be it would be unfair of

30:56

us to say that he thinks he discovery.

30:58

He does believe that he put it all

31:00

together in the right way, but he

31:02

doesn't claim that he did everything.

31:05

Another interesting part about this

31:07

in the digital age is that a lot of

31:10

his teachings or courses

31:12

or videos or lessons or talks

31:14

have a quantifiable

31:17

aspect to them. It's not

31:20

just reach level, you know, reach

31:22

this density, density x or whatever. It's

31:25

how to reach it an x amount

31:27

of steps, how to understand concept

31:29

a in why amount of time?

31:32

And this clicks with a lot of people

31:35

in today's age where

31:37

we want to we have so many things

31:39

to pay attention to or spend time on that

31:42

we want to know about how long

31:44

it's going to take, or how to measure our

31:46

steps to success. As appealing

31:49

as sitting under a tree for an indeterminate

31:51

length of time to reach enlightenment may

31:53

sound in theory, very

31:56

few people are doing it in practice or

31:58

fewer now.

32:00

And even see it in the furniture a lot

32:02

of us choose to purchase if

32:04

you imagine like getting just some

32:06

wood and making a table, or you could

32:08

get the Ikia one that has a

32:11

list of steps to follow and then you got

32:13

yourself a table man.

32:15

And this kind of results based, quick, results

32:17

based attitude really plays into that kind

32:19

of you know, lightning fast communication.

32:22

Everyone's attention span is shorter than it's ever

32:24

been. We want everything in blurbs

32:26

and nuggets and like give it to us quick. Even

32:29

his videos. He's got longer videos, but

32:31

a lot of them are distilled down into

32:33

like ten or twelve minutes little soundbites

32:35

that are easier to digest for folks. So he's

32:38

very much aware of his audience.

32:39

I would say they are not easy

32:41

to understand, at least as a layperson who has

32:43

not taken all the courses yet. I've attempted

32:46

to watch six videos today

32:48

again, like rewatching videos to just understand

32:51

some of the density stuff to understand,

32:53

taking two to five seconds

32:56

out of every like x seconds,

32:59

and the I don't understand

33:01

a lot of the messages.

33:02

Will let me rephrase I don't either.

33:05

I guess all I'm saying is that I'm at least

33:07

able to watch ten minutes

33:09

of this stuff rather than two

33:12

hours. And it's interesting because Masarrow's

33:14

followers themselves, a lot of them. We

33:16

found some there's a SoundCloud page from

33:19

Batgirl that interviews some folks

33:21

from some of these conferences. They

33:24

say that it's totally fine

33:26

to not understand what the hell he's talking about.

33:28

The message, they say, is between

33:31

the words.

33:31

And that's another thing you see with

33:34

gurus or light masters throughout human

33:37

history. There's this idea

33:40

that the leader functions as sort

33:42

of an antagonistic rarshack ink

33:45

blot. You see what you

33:47

want to see and hear what you want

33:49

to hear, and you're

33:52

always bad, You're always wrong,

33:55

unless you're no longer you. We'll

33:57

be back after a word from our sponsor.

34:06

So Masorrow speaks often about

34:08

interpreting vibrations,

34:10

what he would term his vibrations. His followers

34:13

claim to be able to interpret and

34:15

internalize the vibrations he puts

34:18

out, and they feel that

34:20

a lot of the content or the message

34:22

or the enlightenment that he is conveying

34:26

comes from these vibrations, more

34:28

so than maybe the actual

34:31

words.

34:31

And this quote should be on the jacket of his

34:34

first book.

34:35

It is you are a vibrator, and

34:37

you are a vibrator, and you.

34:39

Are a vibrator. Okay, that is

34:42

a verbatim quote there.

34:44

But he said that to me, I'd slug him.

34:45

Well, in a way, He's kind of right, guys.

34:48

All of our energy is just vibrating.

34:51

It's true. Physical matter is relatively

34:54

illusory.

34:55

Can we talk a little about Sedona and just the

34:57

scene in Sedona, like not

34:59

with too much detail, but just in case anyone's

35:02

not familiar. And I really wish I'd had a chance to talk to

35:04

our coworker Julie Douglas, who just

35:06

did kind of a tour of that part of

35:08

the country. But Sedona, Arizona

35:10

is kind of ground zero for a lot of

35:12

this New Age teachings and

35:15

self betterment through self actualization

35:17

and yoga, and there are all of these different retreats

35:20

and it is a really rife with

35:23

these kinds of gurus. And what makes

35:25

it interesting to us is that it feels

35:27

like a new approach

35:30

to this kind

35:33

of thinking or this kind of

35:35

recruitment.

35:36

And I'm not sure it's an amalgamation

35:39

of startup culture which leads to that other

35:41

thing, right, is what's the difference between

35:44

startup culture and what's the difference between, you

35:46

know, an old school cult,

35:49

Because we do have in startup

35:52

cultures we see this sent up in so many

35:54

satirical pieces like Silicon Valley

35:56

or something. We see these commonalities.

35:59

There is a cult of personality, right,

36:02

and there is a there

36:04

is a drive to dedicate

36:07

oneself entirely to a cause, whether

36:10

it's making the newest

36:12

app to hand deliver bags of

36:14

artisanal badgers to people or

36:17

you know, or whether it's to figure out a way to

36:19

have a drone that will

36:22

I don't know, bring you shoes and

36:24

pizza and pizza, you know, shoes

36:27

and pizza.

36:27

And like the best startups, they

36:30

begin with a product that's

36:32

kind of tangible you can get like Ben

36:34

Bentino's teachings in the videos.

36:37

But then there's this much larger

36:39

goal, Like you said, Ben, it's down the

36:41

road.

36:41

Oh, I'm so glad you mentioned this. Yes, because

36:44

Masorrow's trifinity, which which

36:46

Noel introduced earlier, is a

36:49

step in a larger plan,

36:51

and his seminars and his speeches are

36:54

part of a much larger goal, a four

36:56

phase plan to create an

36:58

enlightened society by twenty

37:01

thirty five. So not that far down,

37:03

one.

37:04

Hundred percent enlightened, right, Let's hear

37:07

from the man himself with.

37:08

The work that I'm doing, what I'm trying to achieve,

37:12

quite frankly, as to have a one hundred

37:14

percent enlightened civilization by twenty

37:16

thirty five, to make it specific,

37:19

so that gives us twenty years

37:21

to share

37:23

this message in many different kinds of ways,

37:25

not just educational ways, but also in

37:28

terms of products, inventions, technology,

37:31

and education, obviously, so that

37:33

everyone can start to act on their inspiration

37:35

and be guided by that higher intelligence

37:38

which thicks in our heart in the sense

37:40

of passion and excitement and inspiration.

37:42

When the whole world starts to listen

37:45

to that impulse and be aware of

37:47

the fact that they are already free beings,

37:49

that they're already awake, powerful

37:52

beings, then the

37:54

world would be amazing place to be.

37:58

So steps along the way in this planning the

38:00

creation of apps, film,

38:02

TV and record studios, VR

38:06

technology and astral projection

38:09

inducer. What yeah, a couple

38:11

of labs and you know, you could

38:13

ask yourself, is that astral projection inducer

38:16

encouraging lucid dreams? Or

38:18

is it real remote viewing? The US

38:21

government did work on remote viewing

38:23

for a long time. That is true. Publish

38:28

we have an episode

38:30

on it. I think that we want to

38:32

interview one of those guys one day, So if you're

38:34

listening, hit us up

38:36

or you might be in the room now. But

38:39

they also have, interestingly,

38:41

a system to foster open contact

38:44

with aliens. This all culminates in

38:46

the construction of something called Trinfinity

38:48

City, a metropolis built

38:50

in hopes of being prepared for open interstellar

38:53

contact in contrast to the clandestine

38:56

contact that Masorrow believes has occurred

38:59

in the past. That might sound controversial,

39:01

but he has plenty of beliefs that might

39:03

seem controversial to the mainstream.

39:05

I wonder if he and Stephen

39:08

Greer have ever gotten together, because

39:10

you know, Stephen Greer's The Encounter

39:12

of the Fifth Kind is all about contacting

39:14

aliens through meditation.

39:16

Yeah, and it's also about you know, getting

39:19

gullible rich people to drop mad cash

39:21

to go on these excursions.

39:23

Burn. You have to wonder though, you

39:26

know, from from what we could hear, Masorrow

39:29

has been controversial with other

39:33

teachers, like other

39:35

spiritual teachers. We have examples

39:37

of that, so I could see him also being

39:40

controversial with other secular

39:43

leaders of movements as well.

39:45

And we have to give serious credit to b. Schofield

39:47

again for this media article. It is very, very

39:49

in depth and I recommend you guys seeking

39:51

it out, their clips, their videos, their audio

39:53

samples, all kinds stuff. Because she actually

39:56

embedded herself in one of his groups

39:59

under an assumed name. And

40:01

you know, we'll get to this a little later, but the

40:03

Trinfinity folks and Benino did

40:07

publish a response to

40:09

this article, but in

40:12

the article, she talks about the fact that in

40:15

his early days, he was invited to be

40:17

part of a collection

40:20

of speakers by

40:22

a group called Sounds True,

40:25

which I think is a really funny name for

40:27

an organization like this, Like, wow, it

40:29

sounds true. I guess it must

40:31

be.

40:31

True Spiritual Symposium,

40:34

Spiritual Symposium, But I just feel like it's a it's a little.

40:36

The name is almost sounds sounds

40:38

a little joky to me. But some

40:42

of the other speakers you might have heard of Eckhart Toley,

40:44

who is much beloved, and I

40:46

know people who I find completely

40:49

rational, intelligent people that are really into his stuff.

40:51

But he kind of wanted to distance himself

40:54

from these types of folks and just sort of talked

40:56

a lot of trash and really did

40:58

not want to be associated with the anymore

41:00

after this first symposium

41:03

that he was a part of, and wanted to kind of go out on

41:05

his own and make it all about him and his specific

41:07

teachings and not have to answer to anyone else's

41:09

worldview and as

41:11

attle cult leaders.

41:12

To me, yeah, well maybe it's

41:14

just the question is always

41:16

do these people genuinely believe this

41:19

stuff, or is it sort

41:21

of a flam flam show. Are

41:25

they objecting to the

41:27

views of another spiritual leader

41:30

because they feel

41:32

that those views are business competition,

41:34

or are they objecting because they honestly believe it's

41:36

wrong.

41:37

You know.

41:38

Yeah, and that's a question that's tough to answer.

41:40

But we do know that

41:44

we do know that he has several beliefs that would

41:46

be considered controversial,

41:49

not just not just controversial amongst

41:52

spiritual peers, which of course he and

41:54

his followers believe he has none, but not

41:57

just in the sphere of the spiritual, but in the

41:59

secular as well. One of the big

42:01

ones is suppress technology, which,

42:04

for the record, I'm not going

42:06

out of my way to unfairly defend

42:08

someone that I've never met. We

42:11

do know suppress technology exists, So

42:14

now we're just as a species

42:17

arguing about the degree of suppression.

42:19

Yeah, in Bentino's mind, we're

42:22

decades, if not centuries behind

42:24

with the known technology

42:27

to the average consumer. Let's

42:29

read a quote here. We

42:31

have bases on the Moon, a bunch

42:33

of slave colonies on Mars that have been

42:35

mining the asteroid belt. We have been

42:37

colonizing galaxies, of our solar system.

42:40

We haven't needed fossil fuels for the last

42:42

eighty years because we have anti

42:45

gravihic mechanisms. The Nazis

42:47

won the war, the US government gave

42:49

up their control, their governance, so we

42:51

would not be exposed to free energy devices.

42:54

If free energy gets released and we're working

42:57

on it, he's referring to Trinfinity Corp. It

42:59

changed everything. We've had

43:01

free energy for eighty years.

43:05

That is a direct quote. Also,

43:07

Masarro absolutely believes in aliens,

43:10

by which we mean extraterrestrials.

43:12

Another quote would be, don't be surprised

43:14

that the aliens will meet and we will meet them

43:17

look like the things you see in movies. Don't

43:19

be like, oh, this story

43:21

of this guy's nonsense, because I've seen

43:23

that in the movies. He just got it from the movies.

43:25

Well, did he get it from the movies or did

43:28

the movies get it from them?

43:30

And this ties into a belief

43:32

that we've touched on in the past,

43:34

where you'll see people arguing

43:37

that there is a large

43:40

and largely hidden movement in pop

43:42

culture to acclimatize

43:44

the general public with the idea

43:47

of extraterrestrials by making them a

43:49

familiar trope in fiction.

43:51

But the issue for me here is

43:53

there's no evidence. This isn't evidence based claims

43:56

at all. It's just stuff that he

43:58

says, taking it face value,

44:01

and you know, it goes so far as

44:04

to say things we talked about those density levels.

44:07

Apparently he and his

44:09

followers and he also has a very close

44:11

team that he keeps around him talk

44:13

about folks like Buddha and

44:16

Jesus being sixth maybe

44:18

seventh density. And again this

44:20

is from the medium article.

44:21

And that's the density of unity.

44:23

Density of unity exactly. But that Bentino

44:26

is at eight. He just blows all of those

44:28

other spiritual leaders out of the water.

44:30

That's not even on the thing. No,

44:32

it is, it is eighth is the new coming.

44:35

It's it's him, and that that's one of the one

44:38

of the errors

44:40

that Masorro points out about Jesus

44:42

Christ is that Jesus, he

44:45

says, is pretty much well and good, did some good

44:47

stuff. I think he called him a fabulous

44:50

person, but he claimed

44:52

he was the son of God and not a

44:55

God. So it's a differentiation

44:57

there. And the density that

45:00

Trifinity ascribes to as

45:02

an organization does have the

45:05

one to seven depities, with the eighth density

45:08

being, as Matt said, forthcoming, You're

45:11

probably wondering how far this goes,

45:13

folks. There are claims of extraordinary

45:16

powers as well, and several of

45:18

his videos, Massorrow claims have supernatural

45:21

powers that have come easily to him, but

45:25

there are reasons why he doesn't use them all

45:27

the time. He says, it's

45:30

not more important that I'm able to teleport

45:32

and bylocate and levitate and move mountains

45:34

at will. That's not what's most important

45:36

to me, because my soul knows that's easy.

45:39

It's not hard at all, It's absolutely easy.

45:41

So one of these powers would be weather

45:44

control. Several of his followers claim

45:46

he has the ability to control weather to

45:48

a degree, specifically stories

45:51

about dispersing clouds before they

45:53

cause inclement weather or

45:55

storms, similar to William

45:58

Wrake attempting to bust

46:00

clouds with Oregon energy, but without

46:03

the mechanisms or the artifacts

46:06

that Reich builds.

46:08

There's a quote from one of his followers that we found

46:11

that says, I've watched him control the weather

46:13

a lot of times. We'll be at a party and I'll be like

46:15

Bendino, these clouds are not good. It

46:17

looks like rain. Within ten minutes, they're gone.

46:19

He does it all the time. I've watched him move

46:21

objects on tables. I've seen him

46:24

multiple times change weather or

46:26

move clouds.

46:27

Of course it's telekinesis. Also in there,

46:29

you have the ability to move objects,

46:32

specifically at a table, without

46:34

physically touching them.

46:36

Magicians and skeptics in

46:38

the crowd, I am

46:40

sure that you know the

46:43

numerous ways in which people

46:45

can create things that appear

46:47

to be that effect. I'm not saying

46:50

that Masorrow is purpose

46:53

Again, I'm not seeing Masorrow is purposely

46:55

misleading people, But I'm saying

46:57

between between

47:00

physical manipulation and between

47:03

credulous observers, it's

47:06

very possible for somebody to mistake something

47:08

kind of mundane for something like telekinesis.

47:11

I think the next two are really interesting because

47:13

they are attributes often ascribed

47:15

in Catholic doctrine to

47:17

saints and religious figures.

47:20

So we've got something called by

47:22

location, and

47:24

what that is is the supposed phenomenon of

47:26

an individual being able to be in two

47:29

physical locations at the same time. It's

47:32

kind of this isn't exactly the same thing, but it's kind of like

47:34

in the Catholic Eucharist the

47:36

concept of transubstantiation, where supposedly

47:39

the bread and the wine that you partake

47:42

of actually transforms physically

47:44

into the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. But

47:46

more specifically, a really interesting example

47:48

of this is from a man by the name of

47:50

Padre Pio, who lived

47:52

from eighteen eighty seven to nineteen sixty

47:55

eight. Was an Italian friar. A Caputian

47:57

priest, he suffered from digmata

48:00

wounds, and he was ultimately

48:03

made a saint and was said to possess

48:05

the power of bilocation. So

48:07

tell us a quick story. As a seminary student,

48:10

he claims to have teleported during

48:12

prayer to the home of a wealthy couple,

48:15

where he witnessed a woman giving birth to

48:17

a child, a daughter, all

48:19

the while her husband lay dying. He

48:22

claims the virgin Mary appeared to him, told him

48:24

she was entrusting this newborn child to him

48:27

and that he should take care of her. Po

48:29

asked how he would know her, and was told

48:31

that she'd find him first and they'd meet

48:33

in Rome. Then, it said the

48:35

mother saw him leaving the room. So

48:38

supposedly the daughter gave confession to

48:40

Po seventeen years later in Saint

48:42

Peter's Basilica in Rome, and

48:44

that he took her in and took care of her

48:47

physically and spiritually a.

48:48

Year later, Mmmm, seventeen

48:51

year old girl.

48:51

Often conflated with, or

48:54

closely related with, the concept

48:56

of claravoyance, which is not telling

48:58

the future. It's realizing events

49:01

that have transpired in a way

49:03

that would not normally be observable.

49:06

So it's sort of sending your mind or your

49:08

awareness to something. By location is

49:10

different by a location is appearing

49:14

right, either appearing in some

49:16

sort of intangible but visible form

49:18

or appearing in illegitimate

49:21

physical substance. So Masara

49:24

says he can do

49:26

this, but says it's not really the

49:28

point of his mission

49:30

or his existence here on this plane.

49:32

He also says it's easy. It's

49:35

so easy, I could bilocate.

49:36

Well, he doesn't. From his perspective,

49:38

he doesn't want it to distract from

49:40

his actual calling, sort

49:42

of the same way that Anthony Hopkins

49:45

doesn't want you know, like

49:47

Anthony Hopkins is acting. He's an amazing

49:49

actor, but his first love is piano, and

49:51

that's why he feels like he's here on earth.

49:53

Massaro actually claims to be purposely blocking

49:56

these abilities because they are

49:58

not what he wants to be known for. And his

50:00

followers often say that, like with that

50:02

quote, that they have seen him do some of

50:05

these I'm going to call him miracles, but

50:07

never does he offer to demonstrate them in any

50:09

of his dozens and dozens of YouTube videos.

50:11

Well, you know, if they're really on that plan to

50:14

buy twenty thirty five have a one hundred

50:16

percent enlightened society, what's going to have

50:18

to happen is Bentino is going to have

50:20

to teleport, which is the next thing we're going to talk about

50:23

in one of his YouTube videos somehow or

50:25

in public somewhere where people have cameras

50:28

on him. And then that's when he starts

50:30

getting three hundred million followers,

50:33

four hundred million followers, then he

50:35

can really start changing society.

50:37

So at this point, what we have described are

50:39

the aims of the organization

50:42

a brief description of Massar himself, and

50:44

we didn't we didn't talk about his childhood,

50:46

we didn't talk about some of the criticisms

50:48

of his personality that you could you

50:50

could read at length, and please, you know, read

50:53

them with a grain of salt, because we

50:56

have to winner with the motivations. The people might

50:58

be sure that's that's been but

51:01

we do know that former core staff

51:03

members have talked about darker

51:06

sides of this. One said, I feel

51:08

he is setting people up for mass suicide.

51:10

He talked about the harvest. I

51:12

always had a weird feeling

51:15

about this. And on

51:18

Thesimber ninth, I

51:20

want to say twenty seventeen, one

51:23

of Masorrow's longtime devoted

51:26

students, a fellow named Brent Wilkins,

51:29

committed suicide by jumping off a cliff

51:31

near the Midley Bridge in

51:34

Sedona, Arizona, and you can see news

51:36

stories about it. You can see some I

51:38

don't know, some different media

51:41

mentions. But the

51:45

thing is that for people who are opponents of

51:47

this guy or this movement, this budding

51:50

movement, this is

51:53

taken to be a sign that something

51:55

is woefully rotten in the town

51:57

of Sedona. However, be

52:00

fair it is. You

52:02

know, it's difficult to ascribe

52:05

the exact cause for that suicide without

52:07

more information. Every suicide is a tragedy,

52:10

and it may be that mister Wilkins

52:12

was troubled for other reasons unrelated

52:15

to his involvement in the movement,

52:17

but the reason this thing becomes disturbing

52:20

to people, whether they consider

52:22

themselves neutral observers

52:25

or whether they consider themselves already

52:28

prejudiced observers. The

52:31

troubling thing with this is that is

52:35

that we have seen precedents before

52:37

in the United States. The United

52:40

States is a hotbed

52:43

of movements that, for

52:46

one reason or another goes

52:48

sour. I personally

52:50

do not think it is fair, nor

52:52

do I think it is productive to

52:56

call a leader of a YouTube

52:58

movement a new him Jones

53:00

or new David Koresh or new Charles Manson,

53:03

because at this point, thank god, no

53:05

one has been murdered. Right,

53:09

But we would be remiss if we

53:11

did not mention that that suicide occurred.

53:14

And we would also be remiss if we

53:16

didn't mention this harvest concept.

53:18

And what is it? Is it a Is

53:22

it supposed to be a massive spiritual

53:25

awakening and ascension of

53:27

the group?

53:28

Yeah, it's weird when you when you put

53:31

whatever concept the harvest is and then you

53:33

line it up with that enlightened society by twenty

53:36

thirty five goal, Like what is that? Is

53:38

that what the harvest is like? By

53:41

harvesting all of the egos,

53:43

maybe so that we're all enlightened. Maybe

53:45

that's what he's talking about, but that's just me thinking

53:48

on the top of my head.

53:49

He did post on his Instagram page an excerpt

53:51

from a book about a yogi

53:53

by the name of Sara Dama, and

53:56

in it it says, whatever the Guru does is correct.

53:58

The Guru is the self. He cannot do wrong,

54:01

even though his actions may well appear to be wrong

54:03

in the side of the world. If a devotee

54:05

sees the guru's actions as bad and thinks

54:07

badly of the Guru, bad power

54:09

will come to the devotee. If you think

54:11

that whatever the Guru does is correct, then good

54:14

power will come.

54:15

So this is almost Nietzschean and

54:17

it's beyond good and evil idea.

54:19

There's also there's

54:21

also a quote from an ex member named Gabby

54:24

Petris, who is able to go on record

54:26

or with their name. According

54:28

to Petris, Masaru predicts planet

54:30

Earth is at the crossroads of splitting into

54:32

two planes of existence. High vibration

54:35

fourth dimensional beings who embody love,

54:37

as to his students, will ascend to

54:39

a less physical realm featuring telepathic

54:41

group consciousness, low vibration

54:44

third dimensional beings that's you,

54:47

me, and Paul Nol that MAT's

54:49

a cloud load vibration. Third

54:51

dimensional beings who embody negativity

54:53

are on a quote ship going down.

54:55

So there's nothing specific

54:59

or physical, right. I think

55:01

that's very important. There's no prediction of

55:03

an imminent physical apocalyptic

55:07

event. However, for

55:09

people who again are reading

55:12

into this, there seems to be

55:14

a dark disturbance. And

55:16

this is so new that we

55:19

you know, we're we're

55:22

reporting on something that is happening

55:24

now. It's quite possible that it changes in

55:27

the future and we have to update

55:29

it.

55:29

For me though, the thing that's that's striking about

55:32

this this guy is, you know, when you

55:34

think of a true

55:37

guru or a true leader, often

55:40

they eschew material things.

55:42

But if you check out this guy's instagram,

55:44

he is a big time all about

55:47

material things fall or he has you

55:49

know, rented million dollar mansions,

55:52

and is you know, constantly

55:54

taking selfies, smoking fine cigars

55:56

and posing shirtless in the mirror.

55:59

I mean, he is clearly quite into himself,

56:02

and not to say there's anything wrong with that, and in fact,

56:04

part of his rhetoric is that that is okay

56:06

and that that's a part of it. You are a god, you

56:09

know, you are the best version

56:12

of yourself. You should be this kind of hedonism,

56:14

the idea of sort of pursuing

56:17

your bliss, I guess, but it doesn't quite

56:19

jive with his, you

56:21

know, sort of self actualization kind

56:24

of.

56:26

But it actually, it actually it jives

56:28

perfect. Really, I'll tell you why. There's

56:30

a video on there on the co Infinity

56:33

page called Meet Bentino Masorro,

56:35

a spiritual teacher for the Next Generation.

56:38

Here is a quote from that video, and it's

56:41

Bentino talking after after

56:43

it has him like a setup to the video.

56:45

Then it has a long montage of

56:48

like a dance party,

56:50

rave kind of thing in the middle of wherever

56:52

it is that they're having this talk, a long like

56:54

slow motion dance party. Then it cuts

56:56

back to Bentino and he says this, technically,

57:00

feeling good is your only job because when

57:03

you feel good, literally everything else

57:05

takes care of itself. Now, this doesn't mean

57:07

that we don't take action, we don't act in

57:09

our visions. It simply means that without

57:11

feeling good first, you're not even

57:13

in the same wavelength as inspiration.

57:16

You cannot get access to thoughts that offer

57:18

solutions instead of problems, joy

57:21

instead of depression. So in order to

57:23

be in the proper state, all you have

57:25

to do is be in the moment, tune

57:28

into yourself, and ask yourself

57:31

intuitively, what is the

57:33

most exciting thing I could be thinking

57:35

of or doing right now. So

57:38

I think for me, that's that perfectly

57:40

embodies smoking a fine cigar,

57:43

hanging out at a mansion using the money that I

57:45

got from these donations. I'm doing what's

57:47

making me happy right now.

57:48

And yet he pushes fasting on his followers,

57:51

where he says they can only drink grape

57:53

juice and shouldn't eat any food or water.

57:55

It just kind of feels like the rules don't apply to

57:57

him. That's all I'm saying.

57:59

It's really important that put this in here, because

58:02

gosh, those folks, as you're listening, you're wondering

58:04

why one of us doesn't say this. This

58:06

is spot on with l

58:08

Ron Hubbard, aka the commodore in

58:11

scientology. This is spot

58:13

on with the pigs

58:15

in animal farm. There is

58:17

a very it's very

58:20

there is a convenience

58:22

of equality, a quality for

58:24

me because I get it, because I'm in

58:26

on it. That's why I'm in charge, right And

58:29

the people who are in the fasting programs

58:33

are not experiencing this kind

58:35

of joy. What they're experiencing are chronic

58:37

health problems. Their teeth are falling

58:40

out, their hair is falling out. And

58:42

this is similar to things you'll hear

58:44

like the scientology's infamous

58:46

niasin treatments. Yeah, or the whole or

58:49

the whole. Right, So we

58:53

we want to be want to

58:55

be as fair as possible with this, but

58:57

that is that is paradoxical, and

58:59

it does stick out. And paradoxical is a word

59:01

that Masorro uses in

59:04

his own defense. Because, as we mentioned

59:06

earlier at the top of the show, we

59:10

felt it necessary to

59:13

give you a couple excerpts from Trinfinity's

59:17

reply to this article.

59:20

The blog post was called our first official

59:22

response to the cult accusations. Quote.

59:25

At some point something like this was going to rise.

59:27

It always does for people in my community.

59:29

I encourage you to exhibit no anger or judgment

59:32

towards the author. That's nice.

59:34

You could pick the most saintly figures in history,

59:36

and if you really wanted to, you could pick them

59:38

apart and reassemble them to meet any

59:40

agenda you may have in how you wish

59:43

to think of them. There's an important

59:45

part there too, where they say the author of this article

59:47

was out to create a false sensationalist piece,

59:50

and my transparency and paradoxical

59:53

but innocent expressions over the years

59:55

made this an easy picture for her to

59:57

paint.

59:58

It says, I am not an abuser, and I

1:00:00

am not out to gain power over others. But

1:00:02

decide for yourself.

1:00:04

If I have any upset over this, it is for the people

1:00:06

who have put in tremendous effort and commitment

1:00:08

to applying the work and elevating their

1:00:10

lives and are now left represented as people

1:00:12

who have no ability to discern and are lost

1:00:15

in their following of me. And then he goes on

1:00:17

to say that calling it a cult is quite

1:00:19

an assertion to make and honors no one.

1:00:21

There is ever so much more to an

1:00:23

entity than meets the eye. This

1:00:26

is part of the message I wish to embody through

1:00:28

my occasionally paradoxical appearances.

1:00:30

Never judge the surface of any situation, person

1:00:33

or motivation. In fact, never judge

1:00:35

at all. See beyond the surface and be

1:00:37

free, be love. And I

1:00:39

do want to say too that with the

1:00:42

SoundCloud page from Batgirl

1:00:44

that you can find there's

1:00:47

an interview with one of the followers,

1:00:49

and the person very casually

1:00:51

asks how they feel about being referred

1:00:53

to as a cult, and the person says, well,

1:00:56

if it's a cult, it's a cult I want

1:00:58

to be in. You know,

1:01:00

there's that.

1:01:01

There is a lot of positivity that

1:01:03

you will see, at least again, I'm

1:01:06

trying not to judge them on the surface, but on

1:01:08

the surface there seems to be a ton of positivity,

1:01:10

sure, and things that you

1:01:12

would want to take away that feel good,

1:01:14

Like that when we were talking about, you know, find

1:01:18

joy and pursue joy and

1:01:20

everything else is going to fall into place.

1:01:21

That sounds great, Yeah, but

1:01:24

what how do we define joy?

1:01:26

A great deal of human tragedy is people selfishly

1:01:29

pursuing something that brings joy to them

1:01:31

at the expense and the physical

1:01:33

emotional danger of others.

1:01:35

People are selfish dicks, It's true.

1:01:38

And this leads us to some questions. Is

1:01:40

it's a shame. There's a lot of stuff we didn't get to today,

1:01:42

folks, but we're running a little

1:01:45

long, so we may have to come back for an

1:01:47

update. As we said, this is

1:01:49

developing. We hope that we have fairly

1:01:52

represented both the concerns and

1:01:54

the claims in here, so

1:01:57

as Matt said, not to judge at the surface,

1:02:00

but these things sound inspiring, hopeful,

1:02:02

and even attainable.

1:02:05

And Matt, you you

1:02:07

dropped a quote here in the notes that I want to

1:02:09

give you the honor of.

1:02:10

Oh yeah. Well, basically, what he's saying

1:02:12

is let your passion guide you follow your dreams. Right.

1:02:15

Uh. For some people it means I'll

1:02:18

finally make that podcast about Badger Bags

1:02:20

that I've been talking about for the last two years. For

1:02:22

others, it means I will become the

1:02:24

next top chef.

1:02:25

I feel like you took an indirect shot

1:02:27

at me there, buddy.

1:02:28

Oh the Badger Bags podcast.

1:02:30

It's coming, man, And I think you can follow your

1:02:32

passion one day, and you're gonna be able to do it.

1:02:34

I believe in both of you, even you and your

1:02:36

current gash of state.

1:02:38

Oh thank you so much. But the question

1:02:40

I wanted to leave here is with these kinds

1:02:42

of teachings, they are very

1:02:44

positive for somebody who has an

1:02:46

aspiration that is positive for other

1:02:49

people or even for themselves, but it's not going to harm

1:02:51

anybody else. What if somebody's joy

1:02:53

that they're really following kind of the point that Ben made earlier,

1:02:56

what if their joy is harming other people.

1:02:59

What if they're the most exciting

1:03:01

thing they could be doing right now is

1:03:04

a brutal crime.

1:03:06

Have you guys heard of mccamee manner.

1:03:09

No M A N O R. Right.

1:03:11

Yeah.

1:03:12

It's like an extreme haunted house that

1:03:14

was in San Diego for a long time where

1:03:16

they like kidnap you and you

1:03:19

and shave your head and force feeds

1:03:21

you horrible things. This is a really extreme example.

1:03:24

But the guy that runs it, last name

1:03:26

is McCamey. He videos

1:03:29

everything. Everyone that comes in there. They all come in

1:03:31

there willingly, right waiver

1:03:34

that totally signs away all their rights to

1:03:36

sue. There's no safe word. You're

1:03:38

in there until he's done with you, and

1:03:40

he's up in your face the whole time, you

1:03:43

know, getting footage of you being brutalized

1:03:45

and tortured. And some people sign up and come back and

1:03:47

do it again. I'm not saying that is directly with

1:03:49

this his life, but it's sort of an extreme example

1:03:52

that I think warrants comparison because,

1:03:55

like you're saying, if people will

1:03:57

willingly submit to something that is not ultimately

1:04:00

good for them, right sure,

1:04:02

and especially given the promise of

1:04:05

something new you know, something different.

1:04:08

Something beyond, something not understandable,

1:04:11

like.

1:04:11

The same reason people open the

1:04:13

Lemo Kond configuration in

1:04:16

hell Raiser.

1:04:17

Exactly, pushing yourself as far as possible,

1:04:19

whether spiritually or physically.

1:04:22

Yeah, quite possibly. I mean we know

1:04:24

that for many

1:04:26

people many

1:04:29

For many people, joy emotions

1:04:31

in general are complex, often

1:04:34

difficult to discern things. We

1:04:37

have questions for you

1:04:39

as well. We'd like to hear from you. Do

1:04:41

you think what's

1:04:44

your take on these sorts of movements

1:04:46

and how they exist in the digital age?

1:04:49

Are the harmless new

1:04:51

iteration of some tale as old as time

1:04:53

to steal the line from Beauty and the Beast? Is

1:04:56

there something new that's fun

1:05:00

na mentally changing them? And if so, how is it for

1:05:02

the better? Is it for the worse? Is it dangerous?

1:05:05

Do you consider this movement

1:05:07

and things like it a cult, as

1:05:09

our author b. Schofield clearly does,

1:05:12

and this one I really want to know. Do

1:05:14

you have any other examples for

1:05:16

us?

1:05:17

And also have you been to a Masorrow

1:05:20

retreat or maybe been to a talk or

1:05:22

you know, and you feel like you've come out with

1:05:25

something positive and you're

1:05:27

okay with everything?

1:05:28

Is the author being unfair?

1:05:30

Yeah?

1:05:30

Are we being unfair?

1:05:31

Let us know, right, and that's the

1:05:34

end of this classic episode.

1:05:36

If you have any thoughts or questions

1:05:38

about this episode, you can get

1:05:40

into contact with us in a number of different

1:05:42

ways. One of the best is to give us a call.

1:05:45

Our number is one eight three three

1:05:47

st d WYTK. If

1:05:49

you don't want to do that, you can send us a good

1:05:52

old fashioned email.

1:05:53

We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio

1:05:55

dot com.

1:05:57

Stuff they Don't want you to know is a production

1:05:59

of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts

1:06:02

from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio

1:06:04

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

1:06:06

to your favorite shows.