Madness Madness!

Today we squint quizzically at James Bernard Schafer, a teleporting doctor who founded the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians and set out to raise an immortal baby! Until the baby's mother showed up and wanted her back. Still totally immortal, possibly.* We keep going, though, and end up with a look at “the most famous con man you’ve never heard of,” except that if you listen to this podcast you’ve almost certainly heard of him.

Meanwhile, you know what's not a transparently fraudulent Depression-era cash grab? Native American languages. You know what's not a great segue? The previous sentence. Anyway, we also learn about Native American code talkers, who during World Wars I and II saved the lives of a whole entire shitload of American GIs by baffling German and Japanese code breakers with a language that had somehow not made inroads into Hitlerton and Tojo's Gated Community. Naturally the U.S. returned the favor once the war was over by giving Native Americans their land back!

... I'm being told the U.S. did not give Native Americans their land back.

Link! The recently(!) declassified Navajo Code Talker dictionary. 

This week we examine a real insane person and fake books! Lyndon LaRouche ran for president 8 times and was less coherent with each successive run. Though he started out as a semi-Marxist pro-labor kinda guy, he quickly moved squarely into right-wing pro-insane bullshit territory. No matter what, there was always room in his heart for all sorts of old-fashioned racism, anti-semitism, and an undying conviction that Queen Elizabeth II was trying to kill him. 

Meanwhile, did you know that sometimes books are not what they seem to be? They're not just small objects in your home or files on your electronic reading device—they can also be secret plots by cabals of authors with a fairly hilarious point to prove! Today we thumb through the literary hoaxes Naked Came the Stranger, Atlanta Nights, and I, Libertine.

This week on Madness Madness we're out here lookin' for starters, but all we can see is a bunch of jackoffs. First off we take a surprisingly thought-provoking journey to the '80s and '90s for a look at the Church of the Subgenius, a cult that wasn't actually a cult from the heady days of heavy 'zine-ing! Straight out of Dallas, very close to our home base in central Oklahoma, this one got us right in the Gen-X Nostalgia part of our brains, the part that makes us think about how if we wanted to hang out with people in the '80s and '90s we had to get in a car and drive around to places where we thought people might be. It's a total mind fuck, friends over 40. Next, we ask the question everyone must confront at some point: If a high school doesn't have a building, classes, a field, or a coach, is it strictly ethical to have them play one of the highest-ranked teams in the country on national television? Is it even loosely ethical? You might still remember the memes, folks: It's Bishop Sycamore "high school," a baffling fraud that turns out to be an incredibly depressing reflection of the nation's fundamental racism! A hoot and a holler, I tellya. Join us, won't you?

we're back / from a brief hiatus / time off is a predatory bird, and it ate us //

This week we step away from cults for a bit, and look instead at an ongoing mystery and a straight-up conspiracy theory! Oak Island is, as the name suggests, an island! In Canada! With a hole in it! Several holes now, in fact, since about once per generation, some dude (it's always a dude) is absolutely sure he's figured out how to get to the very bottom of it without getting flooded out like literally everyone else who's ever tried. (The hole floods! Did we mention that? It floods.) Truly remarkable, folks. We try to talk these dudes out of it, but it's their hole! It was made for them!

Speaking of things that were made for us, apparently there's quite a bit of evidence* that the U.S. Government faked the moon landing! Not only that, lauded film director and Real Piece of Shit Dude Stanley Kubrick did it all, and then felt so guilty about it that he peppered "The Shining" with clues about how the moon landing is fake and he filmed it and now feels bad about it! Don't worry, he never felt bad about abusing Shelley DuVall on the set. On the plus side, Buzz Aldrin definitely didn't feel bad about punching a dude in the face for saying Aldrin lied about walking on the moon, so at least there's that. Join us, won't you?

*there is the literal opposite of evidence

Today we learn how to live forever, but for real this time, from People Unlimited Incorporated! (We also take a moment to mourn the death of its founder, Charles Paul Brown, who died in 2014 NO YOU SHUT UP!) Are we ready to spend our immortal lives eating the worst food imaginable? Before we decide, we'll take a look at The Waldorf School, founded by Rudolf Steiner, who dared to ask the question, "What if we did like that Montessori lady but without applying any provable facts at all?" Steiner hated facts, so thank god he started a school.

Speaking of school, this week it's book fair! Bring your rolls of pennies, as Amanda is not accepting loose coins. 

We don’t have a new episode this week, so please accept Brian’s alternate rendition of the Terasem … anthem? from last week's show. The song might be called “Earth Seed” because every line in it has the words “Earth Seed” in it but also seriously who gives a shit. Content Warning: Some really bad white person “rhythm” comes into play and honestly the whole thing never recovers. See you next week! Ricky Williams! 

One of this week's cults is a rare example of a cult not primarily being a financial grift. Terasem's founders are already super fucking rich, and so they're really more interested in your unquestioning allegiance, their own desperate desire to cheat death, and your interest in hanging out with a deeply disturbing AI automaton named BINA48. It's pitted against Access Consciousness, which is a more traditional grift, but one that has a secret star from the wide world of sports! Described as "Scientology Adjacent," where "Adjacent" means "Shitty Clone," Access Consciousness has currently shelled out for paid ads in Google search when you look for "access consciousness cult." Try it! It's pathetic!

This week we're throwin' a party! A POLITICAL party! Under the smug, starfucking veneer of leader Daisaku Ikeida, a Japanese Buddhism rip-offshoot called Soka Gakkai that is also a political party? With like 20% of the vote?!? I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation (there isn't). We're also partying down in an abandoned secretarial school, in Paris! That's thanks to Thierry Tilly, a run-of-the-mill creep who bled a family of French aristocrats dry, and if you're not noting any sadness in this sentence, you're not imagining things. Hon hon! Bread! Also this week we realize our podcast's long lost tag line: "Something to look forward to; and something to do."

I think we can all agree that what we really need in these troubled times are more diploma mills. How else are we gonna get more unlicensed group psychotherapists? THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. The founders of Ganas, which as it happens began as an unaccredited school for group therapy, are entirely with me on this one, and would like to interest you in a completely different, entirely legitimate diploma. But before you accept, two questions: Men, have you ever asked yourself, "Am I denying my sacred manliness by not acting like some horrifying post-pubescent toddler all the fucking time?" Women, have you ever thought, "I sure wish a gross little Boomer twerp from some shithole suburb outside Boston could tell me a lot of dumb fucking garbage about what I'm doing wrong in my relationship!" Boy oh boy, is A. Justin "My real name is Arthur Kasarjian" Sterling the guy you should be burying alive as he kicks his stupid little baby legs in weak protest. Join us, won't you?

There are cults where you skulk around the racist fringes of Southeastern Oklahoma planning terrorist attacks, and cults where the Daughter of God tells you to go out and do crimes so you can all keep staying in luxury hotel suites. Obviously the second kind of cult is way better for everyone, but whatever, we're examining both on today's show! Elohim City's most notable claim to fame is as a stepping stone for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, and it's crawling with birds of precisely his feather. Queen Shahima is basically just not into having a day job, and would like to minister to people from really nice hotel suites, and look, all I'm saying is maybe I'd be more open to ministering if I was doing it from the Lieutenant Governor's Suite at the Residence Inn, the really nice one by the highway.

We’ve only come to this conclusion 70 to 90 times on the show, but did you know that a lot of cults are basically just outlets for white Boomer men to plaster over their obvious insecurities? You did, huh? Yeah. 

Well, you’re already here, so why not learn about two more of them? Today’s white guys are Gabriel of Urantia, who has a “University” in “Arizona,” which may not even be a real state, and John “Tubby” Miller, who I guess decided he actually wanted other people to call him that. “The University of Ascension Science & the Physics of Rebellion” squares off this week against, I swear to god, “The Gentle Wind.”

Huhuh. Huhuh. Huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuh. Huhuhuh. Huhuh. Huh.

Cults! Cargo! Colonialism! John Frum is a mythical and beloved figure to many native people of the island of Tanna in Vanuatu, and could, maybe, MAYBE, be part of a vanishingly rare time when the arrival of white people from the United States was an improvement on the squatting of white people from Europe. MAYBE. Our alternative to John Frum is Love Has Won, a cult whose name makes sense if you replace "Love" with "Our Super Drunk Colloidal-Silver Fiend Karen of a Cult Leader" and "Won" with "Been Dead in the Other Room for Several Months and We Put Christmas Lights on Her to Cheer Things Up a Bit PLEASE DON'T CALL THE COPS." Join us, won't you?

Sometimes you run into cults that remind you why people start cults to begin with: An abiding love of cultural appropriation; a penchant for exploiting others for sex; and the run-of-the-mill belief among white men that we should somehow be getting even more free passes than we're already getting.* Such is definitely the case this week, when Adidam, a cult started by some schmuck from Queens who stole a mishmash of eastern religious ideas and at one point called himself "Bubba Free John," and  the Divine Madness Running Club, run by Marc Tizer, a guy with a drinking problem and a penchant for ultramarathons, forced abortions, and sexual assault. Join us, won't you?

*This show description was written by Brian, a white man. An insufficient number of white men were harmed during the production of this podcast.

Much like the rest of you here in the rapidly crumbling United States, we took some time off this week to give thanks for the people and things we still somehow have. Thus, in place of an episode, please enjoy Erin's reading of the very long poem "Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana," by Aesthetic Realism founder Eli Siegel.

Happy Cultsgiving! We're celebrating today with Aesthetic Realism, a cult based on the belief that Eli Siegel, a white guy who in 1925 wrote a very long poem that includes a lot of talk about Indians and I guess solved literally everything by doing so; and Happy Science!, which doesn't actually have an exclamation point on the end of it but I refuse to stop typing it that way, and whose leader insists he has eradicated COVID-19 among its members using a "spiritual vaccine" that can be administered online. Also they have made a significant number of anime films and they're super into Trump. Enjoy!

This week's episode is not that depressing at all! Relatively speaking! Taylor Camp was camp started by movie star Elizabeth Taylor('s brother)! He didn't really live there; it was less a traditional camp and more of a swath of undeveloped shoreline he gave to some hippies to piss off local Hawaiian authorities. It's that or a sojourn with Father Divine, a guy who was just straight-up God, according to him. (I mean why not, right?) He sure did feed and house a lot of hungry and desperate people during a time when it was needed most! Naturally he got arrested for it a lot. Join us for an episode with a legit surprise ending!

Erin and Amanda are back, and cults have not improved while they were away! Today we examine MOVE, a '70s-era group that some might describe as The Cult Philadelphia Deserved. It was certainly better than former mayor and lifelong shithead Frank Rizzo deserved, but that's not saying a lot. You'd think literally anyone going toe to toe with Rizzo would come out looking better, but cult leader John Africa ... had some problems of his own. These problems would become an entire neighborhood's problems and would fuck up everything for a lot of people for coming up on 50 years now.

Meanwhile in California, skeezy shithead Bikram Choudhury heated a room up to 104 degrees and cooked up a little project called Bikram Yoga! It's great for him because he gets to shriek at people like an infant because he thinks they're fat, and also he gets to sexually harass women and charge people a lot of money for it! Literally zero downside on this one. Join us, won’t you?

We’re putting the final touches on our bummer cults and headed back to the studio. We can’t wait to talk shit with you. 

Hello Lifestylers, 

Please accept this meager apology. We here at Madness Madness want y'all to know that we're eager to get back into the studio (living room) and delve deep into some fucked up mind control shit. 

Thank you for sticking with us. We've got some good stuff planned and can't wait to share it with you. 

Lylas*, 

Erin

*Love You Like A Sis

The eternal dilemma: Get groped by a creepy Australian, or get terrorist-tastic with a creepy Japanese guy? Today we're rocketing to the bottom with Universal Medicine ("UniMed"), a cult literally dreamed up by a guy on the toilet to get to second base with the ladies, and Aum Shinrikyo, a cult dreamed up by a weird bully with a thing for constant terrorist attacks. Spoilers: There's "medical" groping. And homemade weapons. And cops who aren't great at their jobs because there is seriously very little crime in their entire country. G'day!