0:01

Good morning Stuff you should know listeners. This

0:03

is one of your faithful co leaders, Charles

0:06

W. Chuck Bryant, here to tell you

0:08

about cult de programming. This

0:11

is my Saturday Select pick for the week. It's from September

0:13

two thousand fifteen. You

0:16

know that Josh and I love to talk about cults

0:19

really fascinate us. But here's the flip

0:21

side cult deep programming. After you leave

0:23

the cult, you can't just walk out of there. It

0:25

takes a lot of a lot of effort to normalize

0:28

yourself back into society, and cult

0:30

de programming is how you do it. So here

0:32

you go. Check it out right now. Welcome

0:38

to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I Heart

0:41

Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,

0:48

welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with

0:50

Charles W. Chuck Bryant. I'm not always

0:52

whacky Jerry, So

0:55

this is stuff you should know once

0:58

again. Sixty twos

1:00

preceding the record button being pressed is

1:02

the gold. I wish we could

1:05

sell that stuff, sell

1:07

it on the street. People be hooked

1:09

on. You know what the street value of that

1:11

ment it is? What right

1:13

about five bucks? And it's not bad? Yeah? Uh

1:18

Chuck, Yes, have you ever been in a cult.

1:21

Um. No, not

1:24

technically, not at all. Remember

1:27

we've done episodes on cults, on

1:30

brainwashings. Uh,

1:32

this is pretty much the natural extension of

1:34

that progression. Yeah. And we talked a little bit

1:36

about deep programming and the cults

1:38

one probably, but this

1:41

one, it turns out, has a lot of interesting

1:43

history I didn't know about. Yes, man, it is

1:45

Are You Crazy? A dark spot

1:48

on America's recent path yet

1:50

again, yet another one because

1:52

apparently the powers that be really got everybody

1:55

so scared over things like

1:57

the communist threat or

1:59

new clear weapons or what have you

2:01

that America is basically it's like a herd

2:04

of spook cattle for many decades,

2:06

and they they

2:08

we channeled our anxieties

2:10

out on anything other or

2:12

different, and this is a great case of that.

2:15

Yeah, and the courts will get to this.

2:17

But they said roundly that you

2:19

can kidnap and torture and rape people as

2:21

long as it's out of love, as long as

2:23

those people are weirdos. Yeah,

2:26

as long as it's apparent loving their child

2:29

in the harshest extreme way. Man,

2:31

it's a good imagine crazy what people

2:33

went through. So um,

2:37

the whole thing we should say, like America did lose

2:39

its mind collectively for many years. And

2:42

it happens from time and time. Started in a

2:44

good old Salem before there wasn't

2:47

even in America. It's

2:49

a long tradition here in this country

2:51

of everybody, yeah going

2:53

crazy. Um.

2:55

And like I said, this is a case of it. But this

2:58

case did coalesce or round

3:01

certain things. It wasn't just out of the blue.

3:03

It wasn't out of nowhere, um

3:05

for the to start off with. In

3:07

the late sixties, early seventies,

3:10

um, the there

3:12

was a real division between

3:14

generations in the United States. Huge.

3:18

There was the parents who

3:21

still remember the fifties, were raised

3:24

in the fifties, born in the fifties maybe, but definitely

3:26

we're a little more button buttoned up

3:28

and up with ike. Then their

3:31

kids were. Okay, So

3:34

imagine if you have kids and they're going through this

3:36

rebellious phase and they're smoking

3:38

pot and they're like wearing motorcycle

3:40

boots and rocking out to the Beatles

3:42

and like flipping you off every time you look at

3:45

them. And then all of a sudden, this

3:47

weird tranquility comes

3:49

over them and they start wearing robes and

3:51

they shave their head. Except for there's a long ponytail

3:54

in the back, or they're still wearing boots and smoking

3:56

pot listen to the beetles right, or

3:58

or they start wearing bow ties

4:01

and um, like quoting

4:04

scripture to hear. Wouldn't

4:06

you be like, well, that's a little weird. This is a little

4:09

odd. Something's going on here with

4:11

with my kid. My kid who's

4:13

twenty underwent like a serious

4:15

religious conversion that has

4:17

never been seen before in our family. That's

4:19

a little weird and that's not one I approve of. Yeah.

4:22

So there's these groups that at the time were

4:24

called cults, but today if you

4:27

read sociology texts

4:29

or studies or whatever, they're called

4:31

new religious movements sex

4:35

right with the ct Y Yeah,

4:38

um, And these groups are basically

4:41

at the time they were all termed cults.

4:44

And you usually when you think cold especially United

4:46

States, it's like, um, some sort of Eastern

4:49

religion or something like that. But it

4:51

turns out the cult movement of

4:53

the early seventies, late sixties

4:55

and into the eighties we're actually

4:57

um, for the most part, Bible

5:00

based like Christian cults, but

5:02

they they took Christian

5:05

beliefs and teachings and went really far out

5:07

there with them, um or

5:10

there was a huge influx of Eastern

5:12

thought, in Eastern religion into

5:14

the United States too, and anybody who

5:16

joined this group joined a cult. But today

5:19

if you call him a cult, it's not very

5:21

nice. You call him a new religious movement or

5:24

a sect, right, or in the case of the

5:26

Source Family, which I've talked about as being my

5:28

favorite cult, Yeah, they just like to

5:30

have sex and do drugs a lot, the

5:32

Source, right, they

5:36

were a cult though, Uh well yeah,

5:38

sure by those definitions right at

5:40

the time. Yeah, I'd call him a commune

5:42

now probably that had a

5:45

band and a charismatic hang gliding frontman.

5:48

Right. The charismatic

5:50

thing is a huge thing. That's

5:53

usually the one thing that is the commonality

5:56

and all new religious movements they are centered

5:59

around um a central

6:01

figure. But as

6:03

the guy who wrote this article, um,

6:06

which is a pretty good article, I have to say, this

6:08

is not the Grabster, was it. No, it was

6:10

a a newbie. This

6:13

newbie has taken the Grabster's stuff. Yeah

6:15

it should have been the Grabster. Well, the Grabster has gotten

6:18

a serious focus on

6:20

all things dungeons and dragons these days

6:23

over I Ohn nine. Yeah,

6:26

he's moved on and up. But

6:29

anyway, the author of this article points

6:31

out that cole is it's a very slippery

6:33

word. It has like an in group

6:35

out group kind of sentimentality attached

6:38

to the point

6:40

is over the over

6:43

the years. Um. This whole

6:45

idea of your kid going undergoing

6:48

a religious conversion and then just

6:52

kind of becoming different. It was

6:54

a bothersome and worrisome to

6:56

the parents. But then Jones Town

6:59

happened, and all of a sudden, any

7:01

kind of semblance of law

7:04

or religious freedom or anything like

7:06

that went right out the window because it

7:08

was shown and even before that, thanks

7:10

to the Manson family, but really UM, with

7:13

Jonestown, it was shown that these

7:15

cults that supposedly, up to that point

7:17

people thought were harmless or

7:20

even helpful, um, could

7:22

be very destructive. Over nine

7:24

people died. Uh.

7:26

So you know, I get it. I

7:29

get why people would be upset about

7:32

perhaps their children joining something

7:35

that in any way, shape or form resembles

7:37

Jonestown. So

7:39

what do you do? Well,

7:42

you could hire someone to kidnap and torture

7:44

and beat them and yell at them into

7:46

submission a k A D

7:49

D programming a k a uh

7:53

brainwashing or I guess

7:55

they would call it reverse brainwashing. Right.

7:57

That was kind of the key is this idea that, um,

8:00

you were combating this conversion to

8:03

a new religious movement or a cult

8:05

group or whatever, um,

8:08

based on the idea that your kid

8:10

couldn't possibly have undergone

8:14

this conversion and joined

8:16

this group based on his or her

8:18

own free will. That's right. So

8:21

thanks to that mindset, UH

8:23

and a guy named Ted Patrick we'll

8:26

talk about right now, the Cult Awareness

8:28

Network was formed, and Ted

8:31

was There were there were many

8:34

D programmers, well I don't know about many, but

8:36

there were a handful of D programmers in this

8:38

time period, but Mr Patrick sort

8:40

of led the way. Uh. He

8:42

was born in the Red Light District of Chattanooga,

8:45

Tennessee, and apparently had

8:47

a really bad speech impediment such

8:49

there that he couldn't even communicate with people.

8:52

So he dove into religion

8:54

and what he said was,

8:57

quote, it wasn't long before I could think

8:59

of was health are in damn nation? And

9:02

um. So he had a bad experience with

9:04

religion growing up and then

9:06

had an opportunity in the early seventies

9:09

to uh go and

9:12

save somebody's

9:14

kid who fell into what

9:16

they called a cult. Well, it was offered

9:19

a job. Yes, so there it

9:21

was a scriptural based um

9:24

Christian group called

9:26

the Children of God now

9:29

called the International Family, and

9:31

apparently, um they had tried to recruit

9:33

Ted's son and nephew out

9:36

on the beach in San Diego and

9:38

Ted was like, what do you mean some group

9:41

tried to recruit you. I

9:43

guess I'll just go infiltrate this group. Yeah.

9:46

Well he was also approached by parents who's

9:49

children were in this what they called

9:51

a cult. So yeah, he Infiltrateed

9:54

and said you know what, Uh, they

9:56

were brainwashed and I'm the guy that can fix

9:58

it for a fee. Yeah, which is weird

10:00

because um so, Ted Patrick and

10:03

somebody uh named Mia Donovan

10:05

came out with a documentary recently

10:07

called Deprogrammed to see

10:09

that. Uh yeah, apparently it's very tough

10:11

to find and get your hands on, but it's

10:13

out there somewhere, um, and

10:16

it's all about Ted Patrick. Ted black

10:18

Lightning Patrick is his name, and

10:22

he um. He was an unlikely

10:24

candidate to become

10:26

the face and the leader of

10:29

what was an anti cult movement that had

10:31

arisen in the United States thanks to Jonestown

10:34

and thanks to the fact that kids were joining

10:36

cults left and right. Um,

10:38

he was a high school dropout, Like you said, he was

10:40

a he had had his own um

10:44

experiences with scripture and

10:46

Bible beating and all of that kind of stuff,

10:49

and he, I guess was his

10:52

heart was in the right place from what I understand,

10:55

But he did some really really questionable

10:58

stuff over the years after reform. The

11:00

COLT Action or Awareness network.

11:03

Do you think it start was in the right place. That's that's

11:05

how MEA. Donovan puts it. Really. I

11:07

think he's trying to make money. So that was

11:09

another thing too. Supposedly

11:12

he was working not for

11:14

profit, that his expenses were paid

11:17

and he wasn't really pocketing the money

11:20

himself. But he went the other way pretty

11:22

quickly because at

11:24

one point he was charging up to grand

11:26

which would be the equivalent of about a

11:29

hundred and twenty dollars for each

11:31

case today to uh to

11:33

deprogram, to kidnap and deprogram your child.

11:36

Yeah, a lot of money.

11:38

Uh so he uh, he

11:40

basically at the very beginning said you know what,

11:43

uh, how do we get away with this?

11:46

And he said, I think if

11:48

we are working with the parents, then

11:50

we won't be prosecuted for kidnapping

11:53

because it's their own kid. So

11:55

I won't buy proxy beat affiliated

11:59

an accomplice because

12:02

it's their children. Yeah, you can't kidnap

12:04

your own child in ninete, No, you

12:06

can't, UM, And so that worked

12:08

at the time. Twenty one was the

12:11

federal age for miners,

12:14

right or for an adult. Anything

12:16

below twenty one you were a minor

12:19

unless the state had gone in and rewritten

12:21

law and said now it's actually eighteen

12:24

or nineteen or whatever. So

12:26

that that covered like a pretty decent amount of

12:28

the UM emerging cult

12:30

population. Yeah, and he also

12:33

figured that I won't get in trouble because once

12:35

we have freed these people and deprogrammed

12:37

them, they won't breast charges. It's like they'll be

12:39

delighted, right exactly there, they're

12:42

brainwashed. All we have to do is on brainwashed

12:44

them. The other way that he figured out

12:47

UM they could be protected by law

12:49

was if if the member,

12:52

the cult member was an adult, they

12:55

could apply for what's called the conservatorship.

12:58

Yes, and this is basically UM

13:01

based on that old kind of law where uh

13:04

husband could have his hysterical

13:07

wife committed if he didn't like our attitude,

13:09

that kind of thing where there's a very very

13:11

loose burden of proof

13:14

on demonstrating that the person was out

13:16

of their mind, so much so that in

13:18

this point in time in America, if

13:21

you were um high, if you

13:23

hired a cult deep programmer, all

13:25

you had to do was also shell out five

13:28

dred bucks or something for a psychologist

13:30

who would come in and say, the very fact that

13:32

they're a member of this cult demonstrates that they

13:35

are mentally ill, and therefore

13:37

power over them should be granted to their parents,

13:39

even those persons an adult. And

13:42

once that power was granted to the parent, the

13:44

parent could extend that power to the cult

13:46

deep programmers, who would then go and kidnap

13:49

the cult member and then begin the

13:51

process of deep programming. Yeah, and they wouldn't

13:53

even make any attempts to assess their mental state.

13:55

It was just sort of I don't know about grandfather

13:58

Inn, but it was just sort of lumped in under

14:00

the umbrella of the conservatorship. Yeah,

14:03

thank you again. Psychology Where to go?

14:06

So, well, should

14:08

we talk about some of his greatest hits? Well, let's

14:10

take a let's take a break first. Okay,

14:43

alright, so Patrick, the first thing he did when

14:45

he first started doing this was because he

14:47

didn't really have a shop set up or a

14:50

staff at this point. He hired

14:53

um thugs street thugs

14:56

too do the kidnapping. He

14:58

would just pay dudes that, look, we're tough

15:01

Ruffians as they were called, you know, how to

15:03

abduct these kids, you know, like with UM. Whenever

15:05

you hear like of a UM

15:08

a private investigator making

15:10

air quotes like is also

15:12

involved in like a jewel heist or something

15:14

like that, where there's that real like gray

15:17

area that's occupied by some

15:19

people who are maybe working

15:21

on the side of the law, but really they're doing really

15:23

unlawful things to achieve those ends.

15:26

These are the kind of people that were hired by

15:28

the Cult Awareness Network, that's

15:30

right. Uh And he uh eventually

15:33

was joined by someone named

15:35

Sandra Sachs, who was a housewife whose

15:38

son was deprogrammed, and from

15:40

I believe the Harry Chrishnas. And

15:43

then he got to think of a guy named

15:45

Goose. I'm not sure of Goose's real name,

15:48

but he was his became ultimately

15:50

his like a big henchman. So

15:52

they were sort of the three heading up the network early

15:54

on at least. So one of the things he did,

15:57

UM it wasn't always uh

16:01

religious cults even he was hired

16:03

basically anytime a parent didn't like what their

16:05

kid was doing, they could hire him

16:08

to kidnap them and scream

16:10

at them and handcuffed

16:13

them to a bed for a week until

16:15

they said they didn't want to do what they were doing,

16:17

whether it was being a lesbian or

16:20

just being a converted Catholic. Yeah.

16:22

There was one case that he got in trouble for

16:25

for false imprisonment I believe, out

16:27

in denver Um where

16:29

a woman had left the Greek Orthodox

16:32

Church to go live her own life,

16:34

and her parents didn't like that, so

16:36

they hired Ted and his

16:39

company two deep programmer

16:41

yeah I guess or reprogrammer

16:44

back into the Greek Orthodox Church. There

16:46

was two girls, two daughters, and uh.

16:48

Their quote at the end of this ordeal was

16:51

there was nothing to deep program, right,

16:54

we just left the church for another one. Yeah.

16:56

Yeah. There's another woman, an English professor

16:58

out in California and Sam this go named Sarah

17:01

Worth, and she had

17:03

become an anti nuke activist,

17:05

civil rights activist as well. Her

17:08

her mother back in Pennsylvania thought that

17:10

that just was very unbecoming, so

17:12

she hired the Cult Awareness Network

17:15

to deprogramm or daughter. That's

17:17

right, this is going

17:19

on, and it was legal, well not I don't

17:22

know about legal, but it was protected. Here's the thing,

17:24

so let's talk about why this was legal

17:26

or quasi legal at the time. Again,

17:29

America has really really scared

17:31

that there's this cult movement

17:33

going on, that the youth of America is

17:36

losing its free will. This is what the whole thing

17:38

is based on, that there are groups,

17:40

insidious groups out there who are recruiting

17:43

and brainwashing our kids. What's

17:45

to become of America If all of our kids are

17:47

running around its harrid Christnas or Bible thumpers

17:50

or what have you. They're the future. So

17:52

we have to fight this. And if they're being brainwashed,

17:55

you need to de brainwash them. So not only

17:57

was it groups like the Culti Earnest

18:00

Network who were thinking these things, they

18:02

were also like drumming up a lot of publicity

18:04

as well. Yeah, they thought it was a big conspiracy.

18:07

Yeah, a communist conspiracy is

18:09

what a lot of people said too, that this is the Ultimately

18:11

the Communists were behind it. So not

18:14

only is it this obscure fringe

18:16

group that knows how to work the media, who believes

18:19

this. It's also the people reading

18:21

the newspaper like parents, cops,

18:23

judges, juries, and

18:26

if you take someone to court for

18:28

kidnapping you and beating you

18:30

up until you agree to stop being

18:32

a harrid Krishna, and the judge

18:35

is convinced that you

18:37

are have been brainwashed by the Harry Christmas,

18:40

the judge is not going to rule in your favor.

18:43

And therefore, this whole

18:45

technique, this whole method that was used

18:47

for more than a decade was

18:50

quasi legal. For as many times as

18:52

he was dragged into court, Ted Patrick

18:54

was only imprisoned twice, one

18:56

time for like ten days and another time for

18:58

sixty. Yeah, there was one famous

19:00

case, uh Stephanie Ryth

19:02

Miller in Ohio. Um,

19:06

she her parents

19:08

hired her or hired Patrick and his

19:10

crew because, uh, well

19:12

because she was a lesbian. Well, they suspected

19:14

she was a lesbian, Yes, was she in fact?

19:17

Yes? So they paid eight thousand dollars

19:19

which would be twenty one grand today

19:21

to kidnap her. She was nineteen

19:23

years old. She was walking on the

19:25

street with her friend on the sidewalk. They pull up in a

19:27

van, They mace her friend, and

19:30

they throw her in the back of the van and uh,

19:32

you know, subdue her. She was

19:34

driven to Alabama from Ohio.

19:37

Uh and over the course in the next seven days, was

19:39

raped once a day um

19:42

by a guy named James Row who was one of

19:44

the henchmen that worked with Patrick

19:47

right in order to get her back into the

19:49

heterosexual mindset, right yeah.

19:52

Uh. Which we're going to do a whole

19:54

podcast on gay d programming at some point,

19:57

um, because that's a whole different thing, but

19:59

that has a roots and something like this obviously,

20:02

Uh. At the trial, they um, because

20:05

this did go to trial, Um, the

20:07

defense attacked

20:09

her roommate who was gay

20:11

and said, you know, look at her boots

20:14

and her pickup truck, and she has a Doberman pincher

20:17

like this is very unbecoming. Uh,

20:20

she has a very over overbearing

20:22

style. Where they were trying to prove was that

20:24

the roommate had brainwashed her

20:26

into becoming a lesbian and

20:28

just look at her with her boots and her pickup truck.

20:31

So eventually goes to

20:34

trial and the judge, UM,

20:37

Hamilton County Judge Simon Lese

20:39

l e I s he was not very

20:42

sympathetic at all of her lifestyle of

20:44

course. Uh. He said homosexuality

20:47

was immoral and uh. Even

20:49

he told the jury that the lifestyle was an

20:51

issue, but I'm not going to represent

20:53

to you that I approve of the sexual preference.

20:56

And she called it unnatural. So

20:59

eventually he said what the parents

21:01

did was wrong, but I don't think there's any question

21:03

that they did was totally done out of

21:05

love for their daughter. Uh. And

21:07

he described the tactics, even the rape, as

21:11

to detract, like you said, from her lesbianism

21:13

and attractor to heterosexual activity.

21:15

Lord. So he got off with that one, huh

21:18

uh yeah, And I don't think he was actually in

21:20

the room like it was. There was a lot

21:22

of back and forth on like what he knew and what he

21:24

didn't know about this case. But the guy who

21:27

raped her got away with it. And this was

21:29

I mean, that was again he was dragged

21:31

a court over and over again, and

21:33

it wasn't a lot of the cult

21:35

groups did not fight back, and

21:38

in some cases because they didn't want to open their

21:40

books from what I understand, which

21:42

they may have had to had they fought

21:44

anything like this in court, but also

21:46

because America as

21:49

a whole was against them, Like have you

21:51

remember airplane the original one. I

21:53

just watched it the other day where he just beats up a

21:56

bunch of moonies in the airport who are trying to

21:58

like offer him a free flower. Yeah, one

22:00

of them is Joe Iszuzu. For God's sake, he's

22:02

America's sweetheart. He should have been beating

22:05

up for that. So, um, there

22:07

was this this It was a joke,

22:09

obviously, but it it definitely pointed

22:11

out this whole sentiment that America

22:13

had towards cult at the time, which was like they

22:16

it was open season, man, they were fair game

22:18

inside and outside of court. There's

22:20

an indictment in New York where

22:22

they indicted some Harri Christna leaders

22:25

for using mind control. In

22:27

an indictment in a court of law,

22:30

the words mind control were used

22:32

to indict somebody for a crime which

22:36

whis never been even improven, Like, how

22:38

do you mind control somebody?

22:40

It's crazy. But this was like the kind

22:42

of the sentiment that was going on at the

22:44

time, right, And so

22:47

you could be if you were a member

22:49

of what was considered

22:51

a cult group and your parents were well

22:54

healed enough to afford the cult awareness

22:56

network, you could be sitting there hanging

22:58

out in the commune one day, playing

23:00

your acoustic guitar, what have you

23:03

thinking about consciousness and the

23:05

universality of it? And all of a sudden,

23:07

the door gets kicked in and Ted Patrick

23:10

and some of his henchmen enter

23:12

grab you. Your buddy

23:14

stands up to be like, hey man, you can't do that,

23:17

and they mace him and they

23:19

take you, throw you in a van, drive you several

23:21

states over, maybe to your

23:23

parents house. I think they frequently used

23:25

the parents house because it added like an extra

23:28

sense of legality to it. And

23:30

then they would keep you there for as

23:33

long as they wanted to. They would

23:35

beat you. They would um

23:37

abuse you physically, emotionally,

23:39

verbally um. They would starve

23:42

you, they would deprive you of sleep

23:44

um, and you weren't allowed to leave. You

23:46

were berated constantly. They would take shifts,

23:49

they would have your family come in and berate you.

23:51

And all of this was completely

23:55

made up out of whole cloth by Ted Patrick,

23:58

Like he he had no training. What's however,

24:00

in any kind of brainwash techniques, Well,

24:02

there is no training, right he but he just

24:04

kind of intuitively got that, like if you

24:06

deprive someone of sleep or food, they'll start

24:09

to do what you want them to and

24:11

Um, the whole goal of it, as

24:14

far as he was concerned, it was to

24:16

create um, to snap somebody

24:18

out of it. And when somebody

24:20

snapped, they basically gave

24:22

into your will and that they

24:25

were no longer resisting. They were no longer saying,

24:28

uh, my right to be a hard Christian is protected

24:30

by the First Amendment. You have kidnapped

24:33

me. I want to go, Please

24:35

leave, Please leave me alone. They

24:37

just said, fine, you're right, I don't

24:39

want to be a hard Christian anymore. That

24:41

could be snapping. It could also be something that

24:43

was a lot closer um

24:46

and complexion to something like that religious

24:48

conversion, but it would be like a conversion

24:50

back where they'd start crying and weeping.

24:53

And these are the ones that were frequently

24:55

pointed to as proof positive

24:58

that deprogramming actually work, because

25:00

there are a lot of people who are d programmed. You said, this

25:03

is a great thing for me, um,

25:05

But it has been explained time and

25:07

time again as basically

25:11

a lot of kids who joined cults did so

25:13

because they felt like they weren't accepted at home

25:15

or by their families or whatever. And they would

25:17

see once they were kidnapped and

25:20

and take them back to their parents house that maybe

25:22

their parents actually did care about them more than they

25:25

realized. They were willing to spend some money and hire

25:27

Black Lightning to come beat me up until

25:30

I agree to come back home. So

25:33

maybe that was the reason for this this snapping.

25:35

Yeah, and sometimes they would fake it all together

25:38

to get out of that prison, which

25:40

is the case which we'll talk about right after this break

25:42

of Jason Scott. All

26:13

right, So Jason Scott, this was not a Patrick

26:16

affair. This was a guy named

26:18

Rick ross H and another guy,

26:20

two guys named Mark Workman and Charles

26:22

Simpson. Yes, but they

26:25

were referred by the cult Awareness

26:27

Networks, that's right, was involved.

26:29

Well, yeah, they were referred, But this wasn't Patrick

26:32

heading up this operation. Uh

26:34

And this is a guy named Jason Scott, and he

26:37

was kidnapped and brought

26:39

to uh out in the Booney's

26:41

in Washington State and he was held there for days against

26:44

his will, physically abused,

26:46

all the stuff that we've been going over because

26:49

they wanted him to leave this

26:51

Pentecostal church that he was in with

26:53

his brothers. I think his mom was in it

26:55

at one point, but she left. The sons

26:58

decided to stay and she was like, I don't like what's

27:00

going on over there, so she hired

27:02

them uh to to

27:05

de program him. Um

27:08

it failed in that Scott

27:10

eventually um faked

27:13

that he was after four days of torture.

27:15

He faked it and said, I don't

27:17

believe that stuff anymore. He broke down

27:19

in tears and said he completely

27:21

rebuked everything that he had stood for. And

27:24

so they said, well, this is great.

27:26

It worked. Let's go out for a celebration dinner

27:29

with your family and um

27:31

he was allowed to use the bathroom at the restaurant

27:34

by himself for the first time in a week,

27:37

and he ran to the police and

27:39

the police arrested these guys. Um,

27:42

there were there was a civil suit filed.

27:45

This is where it gets really interesting. There was a civil

27:47

suit filed on Jason Scott's

27:49

behalf by counselor for the Church

27:51

of Science, lead counsel by the Church of

27:53

Scientology. So now

27:56

Scientology is getting involved. They

27:58

they end up bank erupting through

28:01

this court case. They awarded eight hundred

28:03

seventy five dollars in compensatory

28:06

damages, a million and

28:08

damages a punitive nature against

28:10

the Cult Awareness Network and two point

28:13

five million against Ross himself. It

28:15

ended up bankrupting them, and then

28:17

the Church of Scientology buys out the

28:20

Cult Awareness Network in bankruptcy

28:22

court, buyser assets, buys your logo,

28:24

buys your name, renames it the new Cult

28:26

Awareness Network, and now it is run by the Church

28:29

of Scientology. Right, So, if you're looking for help

28:31

to get your kid out of a cult, including Scientology,

28:34

the helpful people there will explain to you how

28:36

great Scientology is. What's

28:38

funny, though, is that like this

28:40

this Um Jason Scott case was

28:42

one of about fifty that were brought

28:45

at the time through Scientology

28:47

lawyers. This this just happened to be the

28:49

one that stuck. Yeah, it went all the way to the

28:51

Supreme Court where they denied the

28:53

appeal and in the end Scott only

28:56

got about five thousand dollars

28:58

and two hundred hours of profess sational services

29:01

from Ross, which I didn't understand.

29:04

I'll explain it to you. So, um, they became

29:06

buddies. Apparently they did become buddies.

29:08

So apparently Jason

29:10

Scott did. He forgave

29:13

his mother. He also forgave Rick

29:15

Ross. He broke from the

29:17

Scientology Um lawyer.

29:20

He had a different look after I guess he felt a little

29:22

fleeced maybe by the Scientologists or

29:24

used, I should say, and ended up being chummy

29:26

with Rick Ross. So he sold

29:29

Rick Ross his settlement,

29:32

which should have been three million dollars for five grand

29:34

and two hundred hours of his services

29:37

of deep programming services right to deep

29:39

program I think his daughter something like

29:41

that. I don't know. That's what I couldn't find. Yeah,

29:43

so, um, Rick Cross is

29:46

still at it. He's a he's an exit counselor

29:48

um and he if you listen to

29:50

him talk, it's really weird. Man. While

29:53

approaching this from the outside, like

29:55

there was a war that was going

29:57

on that is still being fought here there, but the

30:01

average person wouldn't know about it in

30:03

the media. Between the anti

30:06

cult movement, which is headed

30:08

up by people like Ted Patrick and Rick Ross

30:10

and the Cult Awareness Network the old version

30:12

of it, and the I

30:15

guess cult movement, which has as

30:18

disparate members as the

30:21

Church of Scientology, the

30:23

the Catholic League First

30:25

Amendment people like the a c l U on

30:28

another side. So there's this

30:30

weird like this battle

30:33

that went on in Scientology ultimately

30:35

one just because they bled the anti

30:38

cult movement out in the courts.

30:41

But like I said, Rick Cross is still at

30:43

it. What he's doing now is exit counseling.

30:46

And if before de programming was

30:48

coercive brainwashing, then

30:51

UM exit counseling is

30:55

the opposite of that. It's basically

30:57

like a drug intervention, but

31:00

as far as cults are concerned. Yeah,

31:02

the idea is that you get the whole family involved,

31:05

You get the person

31:07

you're trying to UH counsel

31:10

I guess involved, and they all agree

31:12

to meet and they talk to them

31:14

about what they were doing, and they explained to them

31:16

about the harmful practices

31:19

of that cult or not cult,

31:21

depending on what it is and UM

31:24

essentially involved. It's a it's a really intensive

31:27

therapy group therapy with your family,

31:30

but again not coerced, supposedly

31:33

voluntary and the proper way to go about

31:35

it. It's still expensive though, right, But like

31:37

a normal intervention or like a drug related

31:40

intervention, like it'll probably be a surprise

31:42

to the UM the

31:46

cult member UM,

31:48

but in a in a exit

31:51

counseling seminar session

31:54

or whatever, that that person has to

31:56

agree to stick around and listen, like they

31:58

can leave at any point in time.

32:00

There's no more kidnapping and duct taping. So

32:03

that's the state of affairs now. And it's

32:06

really weird again because this

32:08

is the remnants of this this

32:11

info war that went on between the anti

32:14

cult movement and the cult

32:16

movement or the New Religious Movement movement, and

32:19

um,

32:21

it's really kind of the

32:23

whole thing is muddy morally

32:26

speaking, because there are people walking

32:28

around, including ones that were abducted

32:30

and beaten up or mistreated or abused

32:32

or tortured by Cult

32:34

Awareness Network or other d programmers,

32:37

who say, if it weren't for those guys, I'd

32:40

probably still being a cult right now. And I'm

32:42

really grateful to my parents for showing

32:44

out the money to have these guys kidnap

32:46

me because I was really I was

32:48

lost in life and

32:51

very vulnerable at the time, and this

32:53

really helped get me back on track. Well

32:55

yeah, and cults can be destructive and

32:58

in uh, destroy peoples

33:00

lives and kill people. Um,

33:02

but what you can't do is just I think the problem

33:04

can when everything was lumped together in

33:07

one big under, one big umbrella called

33:09

cult Exactly. That's exactly right, because

33:12

who was Ted Patrick or anybody else

33:14

the great decider of what made

33:16

acceptable religious beliefs and non

33:19

acceptable religious beliefs? Like where

33:21

was that dividing line? And who gave him the right

33:23

to do it? Man, could you imagine if

33:26

this was going on today with the way things are. Well,

33:28

it kept going until was

33:31

when the judgment came down to that bankrupted

33:33

Cult Awareness Network. Yeah,

33:36

I mean, with the way things are, I could see

33:39

I could see Wacko's left

33:41

and right hiring people to abduct their children

33:44

and set them straight. Yeah. You

33:46

know, well, supposedly they made out pretty

33:48

well in the Satanic Panic of the eighties

33:50

too. That that documentary

33:52

D program is largely about

33:55

the director's stepbrother, who

33:57

was deprogrammed by Ted Patrick because

34:00

their parents thought that he was a Satanist or whatever.

34:02

Because he listened to me, we should do

34:04

one on the p MRC and backmasking

34:06

that whole We'll just call it like eighties

34:09

Satanic panic or something. Let's do it.

34:11

It would be a good one. Uh. There's a book.

34:14

Ted Patrick got a book called let Our Children Go.

34:17

There's an exclamation point in the title. That's

34:19

right, because you better, uh, in

34:21

nineteen seventy six, and here was one quote,

34:23

uh something he bragged a lot about some

34:25

of these things. He said, Uh, he's

34:27

so him out West, one of the people he d

34:30

programmed. He said. West had taken up a position

34:32

facing the car with his hands on the roof and his legs

34:34

spread eagle. There was no way to let him inside

34:37

while he was braced like that. I had to make a quick decision.

34:39

I reached down between West's legs, grabbed

34:42

him by the crotch and squeezed hard. He

34:44

let out a howl and doubled up, grabbing

34:47

for his groin with both hands. Then

34:49

I hit, shoving him headfirst into the

34:51

back seat of the car and piling in on top of

34:53

him.

34:56

And then the Jason Scott I think was you

34:58

know duct tape put face down in a van and

35:00

like this three pound guys sat on him

35:03

and that can kill you. Yes, I can

35:06

pretty cookie stuff, man. Yeah, let's

35:09

uh how to combat brainwashing by brainwashing?

35:12

I love pretty looking back

35:14

in America's recent path to see how

35:16

crazy it's been from time to time. Every

35:18

once in a a while it just goes nuts. We

35:21

just go crazy. Yeah.

35:24

Um, let's see you got anything else? I

35:27

got nothing else. If you want to

35:29

know more about deep programming,

35:32

you can type those words in the search bar how

35:34

stuff works dot com. And since I said search

35:36

bar, it's time for listener mail. Hey

35:39

guys, just finished listening to your Hot Air Balloons podcast.

35:42

I'm calling this Hot Air Balloon email.

35:45

I jumped the gun having worked for a

35:47

hot air balloon company for two years in Napa Valley, where

35:49

I grew up. I worked on the ground crew, by the

35:51

chase crew, as we called it. The company

35:53

I worked for a Napa Valley balloons as

35:56

balloons that can fit two people all the way

35:58

up to twenty people. The envelope,

36:00

although it looks like, can weigh an excess of six hundred

36:02

pounds, and the basket is easily twice

36:04

that, if not more. And he wrote a lot

36:07

about the getting all

36:09

the hot air out and what an arduous process that

36:11

was. And then he has another

36:13

good little story here. One day after we launched

36:15

the balloons from just north of Napa, the

36:17

wind picked up and one of the pilots couldn't find

36:19

a safe place to land. Uh. I'm

36:22

gonna call this Josh's worst nightmare of fortune.

36:25

The balloon kept going south and what was supposed

36:27

to be in our flight was getting close to two hours.

36:30

The balloon got so far south that it

36:32

was approaching the San Francisco Bay,

36:34

and if it got over the bay, the balloon wouldn't

36:36

have enough fuel to make it to land again. So the pilot

36:38

made an emergency landing in a wheat field

36:41

that was the last land before the bay.

36:43

He tried not to land somewhere without permission, but in

36:45

this case it was an emergency. The pilot

36:48

left with the customers, so we had to contact the

36:50

owner of the land and had to be let onto

36:52

the property get our balloon. Understandably,

36:54

the owner was angry, but we gave him a bottle

36:56

of champagne as you said, they still do

36:59

that, uh, and offered to pay

37:01

for the damages to US crops. While most flights

37:03

had now wishes whatsoever, this one sticks

37:05

out of my mind because it was a particularly

37:08

exciting day. Nice

37:10

That is Ryan from Washington, d C.

37:13

The Napa Valley. I like the

37:15

the part about champagne, sure.

37:19

I like the part where the pilot left

37:22

with the customers really quickly after you landed,

37:24

right. Who

37:27

is that Ryan? Thanks Ryan,

37:30

that was a good story. Again.

37:32

I like the champagne part. The monk. If

37:34

you want to get in touch with us and tell us all of your

37:36

Champagne wishes and Kavr dreams.

37:38

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37:41

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37:43

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37:45

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37:47

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37:49

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37:52

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38:00

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