Halloween is almost here (at the time of posting) and doing a show about the Salem Witch Trials is perfectly on-brand for this spooky holiday. The Elizabeth that our episode is about is Elizabeth Parris - whose child Betty Parris and her niece Abagail Williams - were the first to be "afflicted" by alleged Satanic influences in 1692. Parris with her husband, Samuel, and another neighbor diagnosed the so-called nefarious symptoms of their children, and accused three of being Witches - two townswomen and Tituba, who was the slave who lived in the Parris household. This first case of "Witchcraft" started the fire (to paraphrase Billy Joel) and an epidemic of satanic activity across Salem and even parts of Connecticut. Do Elizabeth and her child Betty (a variation of Elizabeth) get a pass from Gideon and Kathy? And what caused these symptoms? Kathy and Gideon go through some of the theories including "Mass Hysteria" and ergot mushroom poisoning.

Later in the episode, Gideon and Kathy welcome guest Jane Borden, author of "Cults Like Us" and discuss whether the Puritans, who founded America, were essentially a cult, and how does the Puritans' cult-like behavior and thinking manifest in our modern society in America. In a twist, we channel Henry Louis Gates, and help reveal the descendant of our guest Borden...can you guess?

----------------------------------------

A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience by Emerson W Baker

https://a.co/d/8k3xxRF

Hysterical by Dan Taberski

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hysterical/id1753789609

Cults Like Us: Why Doomsday Thinking Drives America by Jane Borden

https://a.co/d/g6Frn5F

I Totally Meant to Do That by Jane Borden

https://a.co/d/eh0c3Ot

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

https://a.co/d/383dc3f

John Proctor is the Villain by Kimberly Belflower

https://a.co/d/ez6xt4z

The Day of Doom - by Michael Wigglesworth

https://a.co/d/6q4G470

----------------------------------------

Hosted by Gideon Evans & Kathy Egan-Taylor

Producer & Engineer: Will Becton / Executive Producer: Amber Becton

Recorded @ Jett Road Studios

----------------------------------------

Jett Road Studios - Website - YouTube - Instagram - Substack

Bad Elizabeth - Instagram - YouTube - Substack

Welcome to Battle Elizabeth.

I'm your host, Gideon Evans,

and I'm your host Kathy Egan Taylor.

The premise of this show is exactly what it sounds like.

Each episode we profile a different Elizabeth or

derivation of that name like Eliska

or Bebe.

Or Isabel,

who deserves to be called bad.

Yes.

And the word bad is subjective.

So we've decided we are the deciders.

This episode is a witch hunt.

That's our producer and engineer will Beckton of Jet Road Studios.

Hi guys.

Our episode today is about Elizabeth Paris.

Whoa.

Welcome to Bad Elizabeth.

I'm Gideon Evans,

and I am Kathy Egan Taylor, your co-host Bad Elizabeth, which is as stupid as it

sounds, it's stories about Elizabeth's past and present who we consider to be bad

pop culture history.

There's lots of Elizabeths that are kind of shitty.

Liz is Betty's,

but we're not anti Elizabeth.

No.

If you're Elizabeth out there and you're listening, don't think

that we're like attacking you.

We're just singling out certain Elizabeths who do some bad shit.

Well, there's, it's like the fifth most popular names, right?

Female names in the world.

Yeah.

It's Law of Averages, right?

There's

good Elizabeth, there's Elizabeth Warren.

We like her.

There must be bad Gideons, but I highly doubt it.

No, you come from the Bible, so Right.

There's tons of bad Kathy's.

Oh yeah.

The cartoon.

Kathy is pretty bad.

I, I hate, but she's a Kathy with a C.

Okay.

So that doesn't even count.

That

makes her bad automatically.

If someone writes on my Starbucks cup, Kathy with a C,

I'm like, I'm not taking it.

Time to go to Pete's.

Yeah.

Someone's getting hot coffee spilled on their hill lap

and then they can sue for $40 million.

Right.

That's

a good thing.

You want to be scalded with hot coffee.

It's a good thing, as Martha would say.

Yes.

We're here at Jet Road Studios with the wonderful Will Becton.

Hi guys.

He's gonna chime in.

Don't be alarmed at a third voice.

He's gonna say some stuff and it'll be funny and interesting.

My

mom's name Elizabeth.

How about that?

Well, both my sister's middle names are Elizabeth.

Interesting.

I just watched part one of the Billy Joel documentary and his first wife

was Elizabeth and she was pretty wild.

You know, where my mom was born.

Elizabeth, New Jersey, Hackensack.

Oh, nice.

You want to, okay, so yes, let's get into our, Elizabeth today.

Her name is Elizabeth Paris.

The Paris is spelled with two Rs, so this is a little different

from some of our other episodes.

It's not very true crime at all.

We're gonna be talking about the era of the Salem Witch trials, which was 1692.

That general era in Salem, Massachusetts,

the term witch hunt is obviously connected to something like this.

Yeah.

It's when people accuse other people of immoral behavior.

Yeah, it happens in politics.

Our current president uses that term, but we'll go into this era a bit.

And Salem was kind of like the town of Salem and the village of Salem.

And now, today, I think the village is Danvers, Massachusetts.

Correct?

Yes.

It's a larger area than you think.

It's not just one tiny little village.

And actually, apparently there were accusations of witches

in like Connecticut, but like Hartford witch trials doesn't sound

as good as Salem witch trials.

When you

think about Hartford, you think about insurance,

right?

No offense to people who live there.

It's a wonderful town.

So Elizabeth Paris.

I had a husband named Samuel Paris and they were essentially puritans

as were a lot of people in this, uh, Massachusetts Bay Colony Colony.

Yeah.

Yes.

'cause this was a long time ago.

We're talking 17th century before America became a thing.

Exactly.

And uh, Samuel Paris was a reverend.

He was like that whole fire and b brimstone thing, religion and God,

and basically putting the fear of God into people was a big daily activity.

Detonation of hell

Yeah.

Fire and b brimstone like.

It's gonna be tough to escape going to hell as far as, uh, Puritans are aware,

and, and these were a group of people who left England specifically because

of the Church of England, so they could go to because of religious persecution.

Right.

And then came to America and basically turned in and did the same

thing amongst their own population.

Yeah.

People misinterpret the freedom to practice religion.

You could still do some terrible things.

Well, I mean, we're all human.

Yeah.

But basically the entire sort of the concept of religion and is

basically about controlling people and controlling people in a like-minded

way, whether it's good or bad.

Right, exactly.

You can control people to not sin, which is a good thing.

Or you can control people to be completely anxiety ridden

over every act that they do.

It's, everybody has a different method and sometimes it's heavy handed.

And I think the Puritans were pretty heavy handed.

Very heavy handed.

And

I just wanted to mention, we have a great guest coming up, Jane Borden, who's an

author and just a such a smart person.

Uh, she has a book called Cults Like Us, and she will be with

us later talking about Puritans.

It's very exciting.

And

so they are living their lives.

Samuel and Elizabeth Paris, they have two kids in their household.

One is their daughter Betty, and one is like a niece of Elizabeth and Samuel.

And the two kids are cousins.

The niece is called Abigail Williams.

And at some point.

The kids start like there's something up with the kids.

The kids are not, all right, their limbs are twisted and

they're kind of having spasms.

Like one of them has their chin is jutting forward in a strange way.

There's something wrong with them, and the parents think it's sickness at first.

They're hoping that these kids will get better, but it doesn't.

It just continues to get worse.

And a friend of theirs.

Reverend John Hale also, Puritan comes over and there's a discussion about

what's going on with these two girls, and they all decide this must be witchcraft.

That they're essentially touched by Satan.

They're possessed, or

they're possessed, and they call it afflicted, but I don't know if that's

appropriate, but we can call it that just because it, it's the common

way of referring to this fiction.

Yeah.

So that immediately like that begs the question, who did it

Exactly.

Who's the source of the witchcraft?

Who's become the vessel of Satan?

Yeah.

In

order to wield such

power.

Yeah.

When you think about what we fear day to day pollution and crime and

financial instability, those types of things, right.

Normal illness, actual illness, cancer.

Yeah, exactly.

There were probably some of those things they fear too, but like Satan.

It

was a real presence.

It

really was a big thing because that's what everybody talked

about when you went to church.

This was also at a time when, you know, church was a place

where everyone publicly gathered.

So everyone had an opportunity to view each other.

They could judge each other, they could leave, they could convene

and say, so-and-so was acting funny in the row right there.

What's wrong with him?

And this is also a society that controlled people by deep shame.

This is a, the years of the stockade where the town drunk had a D, is that right?

Written on his forehead.

And he had to stand on a box where everyone could walk by and people were

encouraged to throw trash at them.

Yeah.

They even had the original, I was reading paddy wagon in that you would have to walk

through a line of people who would slap you on the ass as you went through Wow.

As a means of humiliation.

Like

that.

What?

What was that?

Game of Thrones where that one character walks through town.

Shame.

Shame.

Yeah, exactly.

Patty Wagon.

That's a Irish pejorative of Irish, right?

Patty?

Patty's a policeman getting

the back wagon.

Maddy, I remember when we were kids, we.

Do that as a fun little game.

Oh yeah,

it was, yeah, exactly.

A fun little game.

But now you'd be called into the principal's office and they're

like, your son is a sexual predator.

Right.

He's six.

So they were really into public shaming.

The stockades, the paddy wagon or whatever, labeling with Scarlet let

you know, letter A for adult Ultra.

Yes.

That type of stuff.

And what came of these first kind of crazy incidents, or this one with the

parises is they decided to name these like vessels of Satan as you put it.

And they blamed immediately Tbo, who was like the slave that lived

with them in their house household.

And they blamed two other women, Sarah Goode and Sarah Osborne.

And uh, those were just.

Townspeople town.

Women.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it should be said that they tried to take action to make these spasms go away.

Nowadays, you probably get a psychiatrist or a doctor to look at the kids, but

their first instinct was much different.

There was an neighbor, Mary Sibley, who with

tba, who was the slave, the accused slave.

Yeah.

Who was the slave.

They decided to bake a witch cake.

Which I guess they knew about, which had like rye meal in it.

But then they took the urine of the two girls and they baked

the cake with the urine and then they fed it to the, to the dog.

Why would they feed it to, what's the dog have to do with anything?

I guess

it's like just kind of part of this, uh, a ritual

sacrifice.

Yeah, something like that.

But it doesn't sound very Christian really.

It probably

came from the big

book of spells.

Yeah, it sounds like more witchcraft.

And I think it actually did get the people who did this witch kick in more trouble.

That didn't work.

I know.

You'd be surprised.

I think they were supposed to bake it at 325 and they, they baked it at 400.

We also know that dogs will eat anything.

That's true.

That's true.

So that's who the audience was.

Dogs

love urine, but it sounds like vaguely abusive too, to like do this to the kids.

To like take their piss and put it in a cake.

All right.

I think we're spending a lot of time on the Syria cake.

I know.

Sorry about that.

That,

no, it's curious.

This was the first of these cases and the parises aren't that involved

in the story after this, but it was kind of like the match that

lit the spark for this whole thing.

So I think if we are going to say this, Elizabeth is bad, it

would be like the Billy Joel song.

We didn't start the fire.

She started the fire.

The other thing I wanted to bring up, and I wanted your opinion on this Uhoh.

I think we can look at Elizabeth Paris as possibly a bad Elizabeth,

but then we can also look at her daughter, Betty Paris, who was

probably the one who named Tibula tba.

Tibula is a bone, right?

That's

a bone.

Thank.

Got it.

So I think the 9-year-old girl was Betty and she was the

one who said, Tua is a witch.

Essentially.

I mean, my, what?

My opinion about a 9-year-old girl.

I think that they're so impressionable.

Any child, you could tell them to say something and they will.

You think it might have been the parents' wife?

I think the parents

planted that seed in her

because she was like, is it her?

Or

if you look at it as it a hierarchical system or a class system, a status system.

Unfortunately, at that time, the 9-year-old had more

agency than the Slave did.

Yes, the slave girl.

So technically she was above her in class, so she probably

said, I'll blame something.

It's a kind of almost like blame it on the dog.

You know what I mean?

Right.

So I think that it's two things.

I think she's very impressionable.

9-year-old girls are brats.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, I'm sorry I was one, but I think it might have been coercion.

And also, how can I pass the buck?

Everyone passes the buck on this poor woman, so I'll

just join in with the ranks.

And she's nine.

She doesn't know any better.

Yeah,

she doesn't really know right from

wrong, so we're giving her a pass.

So yeah.

What, what did the trials look like?

It was not a good scene.

It was, you're gonna be guilty, basically.

Because the only evidence that came up was spectral evidence they

called it, which was the testimony of these afflicted and the accusers.

And it's not like you can have fingerprints or DNA or anything that

could prove that somebody's a witch.

And we all know this, like the whole thing with the water test, where if

they sink and die, they're innocent.

But if they float, they float.

They're witch witches.

They're witches, and they get killed.

So there was stuff like that.

And the governor, who's Governor Phipps of Massachusetts, he

appointed all these people.

The judges and stuff were people that were prone to convict.

So they're basically in a system that there was, they were set up to fail.

For example, the water test, if you sink and drown, you sink and drown.

Yeah.

And if you float, you float.

But we're gonna kill you anyway, so we're gonna be right in any direction.

Yeah.

And when there's a hysteria, you know what it's like when there's a

horrific crime and the public is angry.

There's all this like pressure where they're like, we gotta get somebody.

Yeah.

We have to find a scapegoat.

We have to find s. Yeah.

To make the

public shut up and better to the people.

Exactly.

We have to find our boogeyman.

Do we know if it was like in a courtroom and a church or, or like a to have square?

I think it was in a courtroom.

Yeah.

It's funny because my two images, neither of which are based on any

like real history, is just like a church like in like kinda like

Blazing saddles and they all have the meeting at the church and that.

But then I pictured like a lunch break.

And then they do the water test.

I always try to figure out what the trial part was and then how that related to

the throwing them into the water thing.

Yeah,

I mean, I imagine that a lot of Quaker meeting houses were also courthouses

and meeting rooms and prayer rooms like that, and that was kind of

the model they had, like right.

Commonly if you go up to any sort of New England church or whatever,

it also looks like it was a common space where they held court.

Totally.

Totally.

Whether it totally was governmental or religious.

Well,

the another weird thing about these trials was a lot of the afflicted would

be at the trials, like there'd be like six or seven of them and they'd be

like speaking in tongues or whatever, and then there'd be moments where.

All of the afflicted people would stop like speaking in tongues at the same time.

So there was this like drama and histrionics that was also going on,

and I'm sure that like affected how these decisions came down of like,

you're guilty or not ultimately.

There were people who had become afflicted all over the place, even outside of Salem.

I guess news got out too that this was happening, and then it just replicated

itself, I guess, in the churches.

There were all these reverends who would talk about it, and then it

just made other people flip out.

So there was kind of like spores of churches all over New England growing up.

But it actually, if you look at this in a, in a positive light, mm-hmm.

If we look at some of like the murder trials that go on now, or

the trials that go on for years.

Yeah,

whether it was justice or not, it was swift,

it was quick.

Right.

Good point.

And it's expensive too.

It's very expensive.

You only have to pay a lawyer for five days and then they hang the witch.

That's a lot easier to bear.

So was hanging the primary method of execution, it seems like that was a

big one and it sounded really terrible.

Like, and again, it's kind of gruesome, but I think like when you

fall from a hanging and you break your neck, I think you die quicker.

And I don't think that's the way these things happened.

I think like you just be hung and then you just run out of air.

And

I think it was also very much a spectacle.

You'd be in the middle of the square waiting, they'd like,

let's go watch the hanging happen.

There'd be like, because it took so long for them to die, they'd be twisting,

like family members would actually try to pull them down so they'd die quicker.

It was really sad.

That's interesting.

Oh, out of mercy

or not,

there were other tests.

Like the water test.

Yeah.

Where they put a board on you and they put stones on the board and you basically

would just become crushed to death.

Well, I mean, I think a lot of these witch tests, so to speak, have been

tropes in comedy over the years.

Yeah.

Like Monty Python.

Oh, right.

Why is she a witch?

Because she looks like one, right.

She's got a funny nose.

Right.

She's got warts.

I mean, that's the other thing too, that a lot of these sort of trials

have become things in pop culture too.

Like either fun things like Bewitched is basically born of the sale.

Oh yeah.

And the Vampire Diaries comes from that.

Oh, is

that right?

Well, of course Arthur Miller's The Crucible.

Right.

The play.

And that

was like a metaphor for communism.

Exactly.

And Joseph McCarthy, this idea of like this crazy out of control witch hunt,

like the blacklist and things like that.

Exactly, exactly.

And I remember my late dad used to say, well.

There actually were communists.

Yeah.

But there weren't actually witches.

So that was a difference.

I think he had a point there.

That's a good as assertion.

Uh, yeah.

If you're looking for a distinction, that's a good one.

And I think if you confess to being a witch, sometimes you would not be killed.

I think it was the people that wouldn't confess that got killed a lot of the time.

Well, also confession would give you agency and power.

Yeah.

Saying, yeah, I'm a witch.

And they'd be like, oh shit, we invented this thing.

Right.

Let's bully the weaker ones and get them And put them up as our scapegoats.

Exactly.

So those are original witches.

Sarah Osborne, Sarah Goode.

Yes.

They all died.

Both of these women were put on trial and found guilty.

Sarah Goode was put in prison and her infant daughter died in prison.

Oh God.

Uh, yeah.

Horrible shit.

But you have a good quotation from her.

Yeah.

Uh, this is Sarah Goode.

The last words to Reverend Nicholas.

No, were you are a liar.

I'm no more a witch than you are a wizard.

And if you take away my life, God will give you my blood to drink.

Wow.

Yeah.

I can't wait till I have the opportunity to say that to someone.

And Sarah Osborne, I think, died in jail, right?

She

was older, you said.

And so, and the jail.

Horrible conditions in jail.

Horrible.

There's like typhus from fleas and like body odor and poop.

But I know you don't want to talk about poop.

Oh, I could talk about that.

Well, you told

me not to like talk scaly.

Oh,

no, that was,

remember that?

No,

I didn't think you listened to me when I said those things.

I Oh, thanks.

So Betty Paris, the child and the mom, although you're giving the child a pass,

but the mom, because she's a child, the mom was probably, and the dad, let's face

it, the Reverend Father Samuel Paris.

Yeah.

He was to blame too.

But this shows about Elizabeth.

Well, the other thing too, is that, what I wanted to bring up is that

you also have to look, this was an extremely patriarchal society.

Mm-hmm.

So the first people to be attacked were the women.

And also weaker than that the children.

And even weaker too, were the slaves.

Yeah.

'cause we had slavery going on, you know,

were all the witches female?

No, there were men who were killed.

Like there was like a reverend who was killed.

And so it wasn't only women, but it was, the majority were women.

Women.

And that's also, and the majority of accusers were women too.

Yes.

But the one thing that was interesting, these women accusers as horrible

as this kind of accusing is, they didn't have legal authority.

So only the husbands could press charges.

So really.

It might not be fair of us to just blame like Elizabeth Paris,

because Samuel had to press charges.

She had no standing.

Elizabeth Paris in this society.

Well, that's what you even think about.

I I look at women in the seventies.

Their checking accounts were attached to their men even.

Mm-hmm.

So that was not that long ago.

And the, the psychiatrist would like call the husband and talk.

Yes.

The wife's psychiatrist.

So this is like,

that time's 30.

Things

have changed a bit recently, but, uh,

yes.

But it's been their,

their standing was very low in society.

And your thing about the patriarchal society is Right.

And that brings us to like, what were the explanations

Yes.

Uh, for why these things happened.

And that was one of the ideas that like, this was almost like a rebellion

from the women to rebel against the men in this like oppressive society.

That it was intentional and that, you know, they were dancing in the dark to

kind of piss off the men that fornicating.

Yeah.

And even if it wasn't a rebellion against the patriarchal society, some people

do think yes, there are all faking it.

Like the thing that was going on in the courtroom that I talked about where

the, uh, afflicted would like talk in tongues and then they'd be quiet.

Like, that's kind of crazy.

Doesn't it seem like that's like a play or something?

Yeah, it's pageantry.

It seems.

I could picture like a fun, like Christopher guest treatment of witches

or people that speak in tongues conveniently or whatever, you know?

Yeah.

Just trying to keep your story straight in that context.

Right.

Or even like, I just think of being a teenager, going to an all girls school.

We would just do things, stupid things.

Yeah.

On a goof, like, I don't know.

I'm a teenage girl.

This is what I do.

Totally.

And I, I did, I recently saw that Broadway show, John Proctor is the

villain and it is about these girls.

In a rural like Georgia high school studying The Crucible, and they decide

that it was a rebellion kind of, and that John Proctor, who was the hero of the

Crucible, is actually kind of an asshole.

Do

people think that the initial affliction, like the first one that happened at the,

in the Paris', uh, household, do people generally assume that that was like

a seizure or something legitimate or like did it, like the very start of it?

I didn't run across like a specific accepted take, but that is one of

the theories of, of a lot of these cases, that it was some sort of like

mental illness or like psychogenic so-called illnesses, which is

otherwise known as like mass hysteria.

Yeah, you were calling it, uh, also conversions disorder.

Right?

Conversions disorder, which

is mass, uh, psychogenics illness.

It's like when stress in your personal life, imagine being a community that's so

anxiety ridden and stressful, and you're being warned of doomsday all the time.

It's an infectious Yeah.

Like a disease.

A mental disease becomes these weird manifested physical Yeah.

Physically, you know, and, and as I was thinking, well to your point

too, if you ever witnessed a seizure, you looked like you're possessed.

So that could have been the spark to one of them, you know?

And you imagine the health conditions suck there anyway.

Well also, if people keep mentioning Satan.

You're gonna start like flipping out, you're gonna have a fit because

you're so terrified of Satan.

And if people keep saying it and saying it, well, if you're looking

for Satan, you'll find Satan.

Right?

And God forbid Satan finds you.

There was some weird case where there was a bus driver and a passenger got off

the bus, I forget where this took place.

And the, the passenger said to the bus driver, like, you'll be sorry.

Some like threatening thing.

And the, uh, the bus driver started vomiting and people thought it was like

some chemical warfare or something, but it was like, just like a weird psychological

reaction to the guy saying it.

And after the bus driver vomited, like a lot of the people on

the bus started vomiting.

And it's not like fakery.

It's real.

Like you can go blind.

Well, vomiting can be contagious.

Oh yeah.

And the other thing too, when you just said that was like a trigger

when he made the bus driver throw up.

Yeah.

I was listening to an interview with Martin Short about

his Jiminy Glick character.

Mm-hmm.

Oh, I love that character.

Everyone just says, Jiminy Glick is Martin Short's opportunity to be

flat out mean to everybody, you know?

Right.

Called him on things.

But he said he was interviewing Edie Falco, you know, asked her a question.

She started to answer and then he suddenly looked at her and he went, shh.

And he hushed her and he said he could see her face drop.

Oh wow.

And afterwards, she said, my father used to do that to me.

Oh my God.

It was a trigger.

So even just saying you'll have a bad day, made the guy vomit.

Right.

You never know what triggers people

and then the reaction triggers more people.

Exactly.

And which is a term that we use today.

Basically.

You can say like, we can't talk about weight 'cause it triggers me.

Yeah.

You know, it's your way of getting out of any uncomfortable situation to people.

It's like that's a trigger.

Which is interesting 'cause people never really respected them.

Now everyone's got triggers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You have to warn people ahead of time.

Well, there was another case in this Laroi, which I guess was

a town or a city in New York.

The Roy or

Leroy, depending.

Yeah, exactly.

It

could be both.

They use both.

Well, we're referring to our old colleague and friend Dan

Tab Burke's Amazing podcast.

Hysterical.

Yeah.

He talks about that.

And he also mentions the Salem witch trials.

The other thing too that's also interesting about the Salem

Witch trials and dance, a podcast about hysteria, it happens upon

prepubescent or pubescent girls.

And it's always the story too about this is when girls start menstruating, right.

And you get your period, the story of snow white.

The prick of the apple.

Blood.

Blood, oh, interesting.

The blood, everything's about warning, is about protecting your virginity.

But we can't procreate without.

You know, losing our virginity, so to speak.

Right.

We put so much on the, the sexuality of these young girls who don't even

know what it is yet, and they have this power that they're not aware of that.

I think sometimes people liken that to witch like

qualities, which is Beatlemania.

Yeah.

Be bewitching, bewitch bewildered.

Yeah.

All that type of stuff is the seductiveness of women and their wiles

that they don't even know the power they have to wield against men to control them.

That's all we have against you.

It's

like that

Jezebel idea, a Jezebel, but even in the idea of aristo

Estrada, how do we stop the war?

We don't give them sex.

Right.

That is fascinating.

And apparently when hysteria, so-called hysteria happens, it

usually starts with higher class

Yes.

People, and then it goes to lower.

For some reason, like so in the Laroi thing, they were all

cheerleaders at first, and then there are other girls that started.

I mean I guess it's kind of, and we're gonna talk to Jane about this later on.

Yeah.

That we derived, we both read.

Her book is about this sort of our idea of, of achieving perfection.

So obviously these types of things are gonna hit the people that already

think they've hit the perfect level.

Yeah.

Because you can only go down from there versus the people at lower class

stratifications or whatever, they're just worried about not sleeping on a floor.

Yeah.

I mean it's the same type of thing.

Like when I was little, like I had my siblings and are all close in

age, so if I had a belly ache, my little sister would get a bellyache.

Right, right.

I mean, it's very common.

You sometimes just want to mimic other people in completely unpredictable ways.

Like I remember when we were kids, if someone was like,

oh, did you see that movie?

I love that movie.

You, even if you didn't see it, you always wanted to say, I love that movie.

Like quoting Die Hard when you hadn't even seen Die Hard.

Exactly.

But that's kind of like human nature.

Of course.

I once, do you remember Kim's video in New York?

Oh yes.

Which is the greatest.

That was

great.

I walked in there.

At the time it was like always the best looking hipsters work there.

Mm-hmm.

And I remember once going in I wanted to rent looking for Mr. Goodbar 'cause it

was on my list of things I hadn't seen.

And I said to him, I'm like, it's my favorite movie and I hadn't seen it.

And uh, I creeped the guy out afterwards, after having watched it.

I didn't realize it was about a woman who picked up men in bars.

Oh, that's so funny.

I was like, I love this film.

That's hilarious.

Hilarious.

So much.

I love it.

This is one of the theories.

And then there was this other theory about ergot poisoning.

Yes.

You know, the last of us is a big thing about the killer mushrooms that inhabit

people's brains, but really there are some dangerous mushrooms out there.

Yeah.

And ergot is a fungus that grows on like wet rye grains and other grains.

And people have this theory that like the whole community got this ergot

poisoning and it can kind of like make you hallucinate or whatever.

But there were problems with that theory because it

would've impacted everybody.

Yeah, it didn't make sense that they'd all eat from the same brain.

It's like,

like, uh, Legionnaires is a waterborne illness.

Right?

Which, so you'd say, okay, now we understand how this all came to be.

Totally.

And also it didn't like come and go when you got or got poisoning,

which is what happened with these cases of afflicted people.

So I think that probably was ruled out, but it was, that's a fun theory.

Anyway,

give us a grant and we'll, we'll explore.

So I guess one of the lines we straddle here bad or good and we

both basically said what we've thought about Betty Paris, the kid,

the mother was Elizabeth.

I think you're right.

I think she was under the powers of her husband too.

So she wasn't necessarily speaking freely.

She was probably like her daughter coerced into it.

'cause she might as well have been a nine-year-old girl at this point.

Right.

That's a, that's an interesting way of looking at it.

They certainly, adult women certainly were treated like, had no legal authority.

Actually tba, she went through a lot of hell.

She actually didn't end up getting executed.

We didn't talk about her fate like she essentially confessed.

She probably was beaten to confess, but they, they let her off the hook.

And there were a few women, like some older women that got.

Led off the hook,

but weren't there like 19 executions and all.

Yeah, definitely.

But

it was for a short amount of time.

It was like a period of two years, I believe.

Exactly,

exactly.

And the the interesting thing too, like if you look at it from a broader

picture, all these founders, the founding fathers or whatever, they

all were part of the age of reason.

And that wasn't that much after this.

So I wonder if that age of reason and that deism was sort

of like a result of the madness.

A reaction to that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's, it's like George W. Bush and then we got Obama and then we got Trump.

Or like, like the pendulum swinging really hard

the other way.

And I think also the Salem craziness which went on that were

laws that were put in effect.

They banned people writing about it in truthful ways.

Yes.

I thought that was really interesting about that.

Yeah.

It's kind of like, you know, Hitler's picture never being published in

a German newspaper after that.

Oh, I didn't know that.

Like, how, how can we not make sure, let's not start this revival.

And even CO, like people have not wanted to write about it.

And I think it, it happened with the Spanish flu too, of like, we're so

ashamed of the way our society behaved at this time that we're just not

going to even like mention it anymore.

Well, 'cause we're all culpable.

Absolutely.

And we don't have the answers.

Totally.

I mean, I

think as Will was bringing up how the pendulum slips obviously

and political thing is because it's just a way of coping.

We, we really don't often come up with answers.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's reframe it and look at it this way and pretend that

didn't happen and move forward.

Yeah.

You know, and these people, for all intents and purposes

were disposable people.

Mm-hmm.

You know, to the society at the time.

This is what I love those shows.

Like, who do you think you are?

Or the one that, uh, Henry Lewis Gates does?

Oh,

yeah.

Like about genealogy.

Genealogy and like where you're descended from.

And I think

Ben Affleck famously tried to retract a section where he found out that

his ancestors were slave owners.

He wanted to cut it out of the, I mean, frankly, all of we're all

connected to something like that.

Yeah.

I mean, what can I tell you?

So George Bush, George W. Bush is descended from one of

the accused married Bradbury.

She was an accused witch.

MIT Romney and Zach Braff are both descendants of Rebecca Nurse.

And she was accused and was accused and

executed.

She was 70 years old.

The very fact that she lived that long, they should have given her the respect.

Maybe that's why she floated.

Right?

That's true.

But she's 70

Too soon.

Too soon.

Walt Disney and John Ritter were descendants of George Burrows,

who was an executed minister.

I wonder if they're considered warlocks.

That was the one thing that I wanna bring up.

Warlock, male witches are far sexier too.

Mm.

That was the Grateful Dead's original name was the warlocks.

Is that right?

Well, thank God they gave it to a motorcycle gang.

Since you're talking about descendants, I had a really good friend growing

up in high school, and his name was Charles Cotton Butler because of cotton.

Oh.

Which is interesting because they kept it, they kept the name as a family name.

Oh, wow.

Because isn't it Cotton Mathed, one of the Reverend, he was a big Reverend Cotton

Mathed.

And then Gene Smart is a descendant of Dorcas.

Galley whore.

What the hell is that?

That's a name you just wrote.

You wrote, oh my God, dork is Galley four.

That sounds like a fish restaurant in Maine, like where the lobster men go.

Oh man, I, I just pictured that in the context of like morning announcements

in a middle school, like good luck.

It's like Mo the bartender.

Yeah.

Dork gall.

But you said Gene Smart is descendant of Dork is Galley.

Who accused and convicted.

So we don't know what gender that is.

I don't know if it's

Yeah, I know.

Or is it a Mistyping of Doris is a Dorcas

God, that's a all timer.

That's a great name.

If I become famous, that's gonna be my checking into a hotel name.

Yes.

So everyone likes to be sort of connected to these founding fathers,

but we have to realize that they were also, uh, some awful people.

But these aren't founding

fa Yeah.

If those shows, those genealogy shows are all boring and it's

like you're descended from a poet.

It's like, eh, it's, it's interesting.

But like, but if you could say you were descended from somebody who was accused

of being a witch and hung, that's like ratings gold for these shows.

Oh,

serial killer.

Yeah.

Exactly.

So did you, have you ever practiced witchcraft or any of your siblings?

Of course.

Of course

I did.

In what sense?

Well, I was a latchkey kid

when I was, you stayed at home?

Is that what that means?

No, it

means I came home to an empty house.

Oh,

oh, oh, I see.

I never understood that term.

Latchkey means your mom may have worked.

Your mom worked.

Yeah.

She let the door open.

Yeah,

we had her own keys or whatever.

Our house was never locked.

Right.

But

he latchkey.

I mean, I was a latchkey kid too.

It's like there's a key hanging under a base or something.

I see, I see.

With a neon light that says the key's Here, kiss the key's here.

Like I remember reading a book called Witch's Sister The Brother's Grim,

or the Hans Christian Anderson.

There's fairytales Warning Girls about the danger.

It's part of like stories of witchcraft.

Bob Yaga.

Yes.

And I think little girls, we feel like we have this power

scaring each other is a big girl thing too.

Right?

Oh, we love that.

Like I know horror movies are huge with little girls.

Well, I mean,

I think girls like young, young girls have ity to witchcraft

and horror and the Unknown and

the Ouija board.

Yeah, and

And also, and also, you know, at Slumber party, sticking her

hands in water while she sleeps.

Oh yeah.

That type of stuff.

That's

sort of like crude witchcraft.

And just bullying.

Yeah, that's

true.

Which is what witch Pack could, and in case people don't know what

happens when you put your hand in warm water while you're sleeping.

I think you wet the bed,

but then you can make a uh, cake and feed it to the dogs.

Yes.

But I was gonna say about witches, I mean, it's such a rich topic and it's no

wonder that people love Salem Witch stuff.

Well, I mean, I think that's the thing that's interesting 'cause like

this also brings up, like we have another episode where we talk about

Lizzie Borden and Fall River, right.

Which is not far from Salem, Massachusetts.

And that whole area is sort of like witch is tourism for both Salem and Fall River.

And it's got like sort of ecosystem of, of haunted houses and whatnot there.

And it's go it away like New Orleans.

I've been on the witch tours, you know.

Oh,

interesting.

I think Savannah's a good witch town and Savannah's a great witch town.

Yeah.

Any of

these sort of southern gothic places.

And they're always like, based on a true story about someone like

Impaling their grandfather by mistake.

Yeah.

Uh, in the barn and, and then suddenly

this led to the, well one of the interesting things about the Salem witch

tourism is that it's kind of somber.

The Lizzie Borden thing maybe is more fun.

The tourism there, the Salem Witch thing is fun, but it's also like

20 people did get executed well.

There's a cautionary tale aspect to it too.

Oh, for sure.

You know, like

of mass hysteria, like, let's

not do this again.

Yeah.

And the, the funny thing is both the Lizzie Borden story and the the Salem

Witch story have like Halloween parades, so I was imagining that it would be

funny if they met somewhere because the towns are close to one another.

Well, uh, you know what, like, this is interesting because our guest

coming up is last name is, uh, Borden.

Oh, Jan. In terms of like figuring out the final.

Verdict as far as like being bad or not, given what we know about

the backdrop of how this hysteria happened, what's your final take?

My final take is I'm giving the women a pass.

Wow.

Because I just think that they were in this environment where they really had

no agency, nowhere else to go, and they did whatever they could to survive.

And if it was like throwing someone else under the bus,

then that's what they had to do.

Even if it was your own daughter,

I hear you.

They were living in shitty times.

It was a rough, rough go of it.

And there were diseases that we don't have now, and the life expectancy wasn't

much and everyone was terrified of Satan.

So I give them a pass to some degree.

I do.

I feel bad for tba.

As bad as I, I feel for the child and for the mother.

It's like, that sucks to just like blame your slave.

Like fuck that.

But uh, you know, it wasn't fun for any of them.

I'm still concerned about the dog.

So I think this has been really interesting.

I think it'll be interesting to talk to Jane Borden, author of

cults like Us to, um, hit on a different kind of angle on Puritanism

having a more educated, uh, explanation of what we're talking definitely about.

Well, definitely

more educated.

That's, that's a given.

Well, let's bring on Jane and uh, this'll be great.

Okay.

Joining us now is Jane Borden humorous author and culture critic.

She wrote the memoir, I totally meant to do that.

A humorous exploration of Southern culture and urban life.

She's here to talk about her most recent book, cults Like Us, which examines

America's fascination with cults through a satirical and personal lens.

Jane's book has some great insight into the Puritans, which

is perfect for this episode.

Jane Borden, it's been a while.

We know each other from the UCB Upright Citizens Brigade world.

Remember those years?

Oh yeah.

Very well.

Well, not that well, actually.

When there was a lot of drinking

there certainly was, what was it, McManus?

That was the bar.

Yes.

My gosh.

But, uh, no, those were.

Beautiful years, I think of them fondly.

I love how in your fascinating and entertaining book cults like Us, you

even mentioned in the beginning that like when you were doing all that

Upright Citizens Brigade stuff, your parents thought maybe you were in a cult.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They actually had a conference call, my sisters and my parents

like, what's going on with chain?

What's she up to?

Because one of my sisters was in New York at the time and it's like,

well, she's there every night.

She works for free sweeping floors.

She's taking a hierarchy of classes and they all revere a bearded white

dude who's pictures on the wall

tell close.

Yes.

Is he second city or upright?

He was, um, he was second city.

They're

both

improv groups.

Second City does sketches and improv.

Yeah.

Second City definitely was cult-like too.

I think they even saved Del Close's skull after he died, didn't they?

Oh

yeah.

The skull I think was to be used in Hamlet to be York.

Oh

yes.

And it's actually a myth.

Oh, is on Napa.

Then there's that.

Well, that's what he wanted in Hi.

I mean, we could just spend the whole episode talking about Les.

I know.

No, that was his request and his will, but it's was impossible to

fulfill the request because there's a lot of laws about human remains.

Oh, so there is a school that is supposed to be his, but it's not actually his

Aha.

Mm-hmm.

Got it.

Good to know.

Good

myth-busting.

Reverse my bubble.

Yeah.

Well, let's talk about cults.

What drew you to cults?

How did you come to write this book?

Well, I've always been fascinated by belief and how it informs identity.

I was a religious studies major in school, so I've sort of always

been in this world a little bit.

I was actually, my plan was to enter academia in religious studies

and, but then I was like, I'll take a gap year in New York, and

then fell into the UCB theater kind of by accident and pinball in a.

Different direction.

Oh wow.

So this book is almost those two paths converging together.

My comedy path and my predilection for research based argument driven nonfiction.

But I started reporting on cults for Vanity Fair in 2017, I think.

Oh, wow.

It was also around that time that I became very preoccupied by the division

in our nation and and just wondering how can people who are really not that

different see themselves as so opposed?

And so I started looking into us versus thinking and the origins of it, and

specifically the American origins of it.

And I just kept.

Pulling the threads, like where does our knee jerk anti-intellectualism come from?

Where does this like strive for perfectionism come from?

And, and the more I pulled the threads, it just all went back to the Puritans.

And one day I was kind of like, oh my God.

I, I think the Puritans were a cult.

That's amazing.

And this is perfect for this episode.

'cause we're talking about Elizabeth Paris and the, the whole

Salem Witch craziness trials.

Yeah, yeah.

The trials.

So we definitely want to get to the Puritans.

Mm-hmm.

And I wanted to ask you, like, I know when I read about abnormal psychology,

you start to think you're coming down with everything you're reading about,

like it's this weird phenomenon.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Like, was there a part of you when you started writing this, that you were gonna

start to become enamored with the cults?

No.

I mean, yes and yes.

The, the, it happens.

Oh, it does it, it did.

Did you?

Well, look ev, everyone who's ever seen a cult documentary, you know, the first.

Third, the first act, you're like, I would join that.

Right.

Are they still going on?

You know, where, where do I sign up?

I want to get branded.

What would your brand be?

Gideon.

Didn't the NM brand?

Nm they branded.

Oh yeah.

Well it's even like getting back to me, the Puritans in the church.

And I remember my mom would bitch about having, you know,

four kids as any mother would.

Right.

And she'd say, I just wanna be a nun.

You don't have to shave your legs and you get two weeks at the Jersey shore of you.

You know?

So these predictability is kind of attractive.

Exactly.

Yeah.

You know, and, and sort of a controlled environment.

Mm-hmm.

And that's when people turn to cults is when they feel out of control.

And back in the 17th and 18th centuries, our world and our

country was pretty outta control.

Mm-hmm.

Well, do you wanna start back to what we derived from your book as well is

like sort of the Puritans being the original cult, they came here and

then how they sort of turned on each other and how to control each other.

So I describe the Puritans as a high control doomsday group, and

that's because they didn't have a charismatic leader, so to speak.

I guess you could say Jesus was their charismatic leader, but they

have all the hallmarks of a cult.

Other than that, high control just means that whoever was in power was controlling

belief behavior, and information intake, all with high pressure to conform.

And the longer the settlement was around, the more controlling.

The church magistrates became because power corrupts right?

It's the same story, and so they started making it harder

to gain entry to the church.

They started kicking more people out.

They made it so that strangers weren't allowed to join a community unless they

had been vetted by the church leaders.

They started doing away with like the question and comments section

following sermons because they couldn't handle any disagreement.

In fact, it was illegal to disagree with the ministers.

People got turned into informants.

They were supposed to title on each other.

If you did disagree with the ministers.

And we see the effects of this most profoundly on the second

and third generations, and that's always the case with, with cults.

It's the kids who were born into them that are the most damaged.

And scholars who have poured over diaries from the second and third

generations in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, see significant

increases in melancholy, nervous breakdowns, suicide, suicidal thoughts.

So it was definitely not a super fun place to be.

What was their doomsday like?

How was their belief different from other types of religious groups

they believed in?

Uh, the Book of Revelation, the last book in the New Testament, quite

literally the most popular book at the time it's been called America's

Bestseller, was a long form poem about what doomsday was going to look like

in inspired by the book of Revelation.

The idea is that Jesus would return, there'd be a big battle,

and then following some years of peace, Jesus would come back.

There'd be another big battle.

He would pull out the book of names and everyone would either get to go to Heaven

or burn for eternity in the lake of fire.

That's not a fun place to hang out.

No.

Although honestly, getting to go to Heaven didn't sound that

great either because Right.

The first thing they did when you got chosen was you had to help Jesus

damn everyone else, including like.

Your family members.

Getting back to it was the Day of Doom by Pastor Michael Wigglesworth,

you were saying was the best seller.

That's right, yes.

The interesting thing you were talking about, yes.

Once you went to heaven, you worked with Jesus and you had to damn other

people, which was like a reflection of what was going on on Earth.

It was suddenly like, turn on everyone, accuse everyone.

Mm-hmm.

And go after the most vulnerable, which were women and children.

But also you sort of talk about in your book about how in Puritan households,

children are often told to leave the household at puberty age to work and

study other, other people so they wouldn't be attached to their families.

And that That's right.

When women were widowed, they were encouraged not to mourn

because that meant you had love.

You know what I mean?

So it was like a very way of controlling people and their emotions, like you

simply were not allowed to have them.

So it made it easier to condemn others, I suppose, or judge others.

Yeah, I think that's right.

I mean, you, you weren't allowed to love anyone more than God.

That was, that was the supposed reasoning for the fact that you had to get your

children outta your house lest you love them too much and you couldn't mourn your.

Or people who mourned their widows were, were often very concerned

about how sad they were like, oh no, did I love them too much?

Does that mean I'm going to hell?

But I think you're right.

When we break those empathetic bonds, it makes it much easier to judge others.

Um, and it was an incredibly judgmental community.

And you know, we should say that there were a lot of great

things about the Puritans too.

And, and I think what we're really seeing here is how power and a need to be chosen.

Can destroy communities and can destroy community bonds because first

of all, power corrupts as we know.

And I get into some of the psychology behind that in the book.

But it's, you know, we we're all familiar with it.

Well, we're talking about judgment and turning on one another and the

lack of emotion when you have it.

No.

Like sort of emotional ties to things.

It makes it much easier to control people.

Yes.

I think what you were saying was we're gonna get more into,

specifically to Betty Paris.

Yeah.

Well,

yeah.

Elizabeth Paris was, I'm sorry, yes.

Was the mother and then the daughter was Betty Paris.

Well, it is what both of you were talking about where there was Betty Paris was

nine and then she had a niece living in the same home was Abigail Williams.

So it is that kind of thing where there's like lots of children

all in different places, not necessarily the homes of the parents.

That is something you see with like Waco and Yeah, and just like, it's

weird that Elizabeth Paris treated both children, even the niece.

Like they were both their children.

I mean, it was a practice that was common in England at the time.

Okay.

What made it unique in Massachusetts is that girls were

doing it in addition to boys.

So the idea was that you were supposed to go learn a trade, but kids were doing it

when there wasn't even a trade to learn.

Boys as well.

The reasoning in Massachusetts scholars believe is so they

wouldn't love their kids so much.

Yeah.

So, so interesting.

Abigail was living in the home with them.

Yeah.

Like, okay.

Basically Elizabeth Paris, you know, and the father who was, you know,

a reverend and one of these mm-hmm.

Guys who could have been like a cult leader.

He was like a very powerful reverend who had the fire and B brimstone stuff.

They noticed that these two kids, one was the daughter and one was

the niece were like spazzing out.

Uh, if I could say that, that may not be PC anymore.

Mm-hmm.

They were sping out.

How about they were exhibiting hysterical uhs.

Yeah.

They were

like body parts traits were twisted and stuff.

Mm-hmm.

And they thought they were sick at first.

And then ultimately there was another religious leader

that came over and was like.

This is the devil for sure.

Mm-hmm.

And then they basically coaxed this like confession from the kids that like the

slave who was living in the house was practicing magic voodoo or black magic.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

But it's weird that this was all going on without Abigail Williams' parents.

I don't even know what, where they were.

Well, it's an interesting sort of like sort of at this time,

sort of the mocking was sport.

Like sort of the things that they used to do.

Like if you committed adultery right?

You had to wear the A or shaming.

Mm-hmm.

Or if you burglary B, or like you had to stand on a box.

It's kind of like they have on the memes on the internet with dog

shaming, like yeah, I ate my own poop and they have to wear a sign.

Mm-hmm.

But that

is a big cult thing I would imagine.

Exactly.

Is a shaming thing.

Is that like something that you see in Modern Cult?

Oh, for sure.

And in America, which is part of your thesis.

Yeah.

It's a way to control people.

Absolutely.

And it was used that way in the colonies.

And England also had, was a culture of extreme punishment, but.

In contrast, Massachusetts didn't have as much crime.

Interesting.

They had

hardly any crime at all.

They weren't overrun with like burglars and sex industry and the

things that England was policing.

So it was a form of control.

Yeah.

And shame

and shaming like women and children and mm-hmm.

People that are not white people.

Yes, exactly.

And so T of the Slave would've been like the, had the least power in the community.

And there have certainly been scholars who've argued that the witch trial was

kicked off and fueled by the fact that power had been kept from such huge

portions of the community to the degree that it kind of bubbled up in this way.

One thing that I think was interesting, I think, is that we kind of see the puritans

because of these Thanksgiving pageants.

And you write about this in your book, they're kind of cute and

they have those buckle shoes and the hats, but really that was not.

The way they actually were.

We, uh, have mythologized them for sure.

Yeah.

And whitewashed them.

Well, there was a concerted effort, I'm trying to remember.

I sometime, I think in the early 18 hundreds to find an avatar

and the pilgrims were chosen.

The pilgrims and the puritans, of course, were distinct groups.

The pilgrims were separatists.

The puritans were reformists, but they were basically the same for at least

for our intents and purposes here.

And so it wasn't necessarily that they were.

The founding of America, it's that we chose for them to

be, well, I, I take it back.

Their influence has always been with us because they were such an incredibly

successful colony and because New England was so successful, not just culturally but

commercially, uh, and then that kind of spread through the nation, but we didn't

kind of tell this story of the pilgrims as our founders until much later in history.

Right.

And they were chosen because they were supposedly like, good as

opposed to, you know, some of the colonies in the south that were much

more focused on the marketplace.

And how do they manifest today?

I mean, how do you think we've kind of inherited the Puritan spirit?

You're sort of applying the math of the Puritan, so to speak, into

modern culture in terms of control and, and the way that we turn on

each other as a way of existing.

Yeah, I, I mean, I think we, we hear the echoes of the puritan

doomsday thought throughout modern American secular culture.

For example, the, the knee-jerk, anti-intellectualism, anti-elitism,

that all comes from the Puritans.

Our tendency to buy and sell salvation on the open market can be traced to

the Puritan desire for salvation, our tendency to worship the wealthy

and blame the poor for their own poverty that comes from the Puritans.

Wow.

You know, and not all of human culture was defined by them, but

quite a bit, and in ways that we just don't recognize or acknowledge.

And, and a a lot of times people will push back against my argument

and, you know, I, I, I trace, um, our obsession with superheroes,

for example, to Puritan thought.

Hmm.

How is the puritanical?

Well, it's the book of Revelation, ultimately westerns and superhero stories.

And we see it in vigilante films.

We see it in disaster films.

The narrative is about a small community, an Eden like community, if you will,

that is under threat and can't save itself because, uh, the police are

bumbling, the politicians are inept, but then out of nowhere comes an outsider.

Or sometimes the person is within the community, but they're

always a loner and they rescue the community through violence.

It's always violence.

It's precise violence.

Only the bad guys get it, and therefore it's cleansing and righteous violence.

And this is ultimately the story of revelation.

And so, but sometimes people will push back against me and say, well, superheroes

were invented by some Jewish guys.

And it's like, yes, that's true, but they were American, like by this point,

the Puritan doomsday ideology had shed its religious skin centuries earlier.

Right.

So the book is really looking at their cultural legacy.

And I know you mentioned like films like Death Wish are

sort of part of that cannon.

Mm-hmm.

The Jack Reacher series, even Jaws Yeah.

Fits that bill Falling down with Michael

Douglas.

Right.

Wearing a pocket protector.

Well, speaking of that, like a shark, you also have this idea that cults usually

feel like something is out to get them.

There's a paranoia.

Yeah, paranoia about something.

It could be like a cabal of child molesters in a pizza restaurant

or communists, but it's usually not just, this is what we believe.

It's like this is what we fear.

Right?

Mm-hmm.

That's a great way to put it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Because the belief system, uh, honestly, is, is beside the point.

We focus on what these groups believe in.

'cause it always sounds so wacky, but it's really neither here nor there.

I mean, you can get people to believe whatever you want.

And you know, we can get into the psychology of that, but the

way you control people is by getting them to fear someone.

You manufacture a threat, you manufacture an enemy, and then that

triggers an evolutionary response in us.

We evolved in small groups that were either attacked by outsiders

or that attacked outsiders.

And so we evolved toward us versus them thinking, and

it's still very much with us.

So when you can trigger that within a group, it's very easy to control people.

And of course we see that happening today in politics quite a bit.

We see cult-like thinking at the societal level.

And the puritans were afraid of, uh, a lot of stuff.

They feared outsiders.

Um, you know, if Quakers could be hung.

They kicked out a lot of people, anyone who disagreed with them, they kicked 'em

out because they thought that this was going to keep Jesus from coming back.

That was their biggest fear, was that doomsday would not occur.

Right.

They wanted it.

They didn't want the violence to fall on them.

They thought England is where it was gonna start.

That's why they fled to America in the first place.

But they absolutely wanted it to come because that's when they

got to be chosen, and that's when they got to go be with God.

Who's the guy?

Um, who used to be governor of Arkansas?

Oh, Mike Huckabee.

Mike

Huckabee.

Well, he is the Yum.

Israeli Ambassador.

Ambassador.

Ambassador now.

Oh, that's fine.

And he is all about doomsday.

So this idea that you're talking about, Jane, is.

Alive and well.

But it's the interesting thing too is, is the paradoxical nature of doomsday too.

It's kind of like, oh, you know, go to heaven, be with

Jesus and then we judge others.

Mm-hmm.

Like any religion, you're born into sin because you were born.

'cause Jesus died for your sin.

So like it's kind of cyclical and there's no answer for it, but when

you're in the mindset, it seems to work.

Hmm.

I mean, I guess the belief in doomsday also probably affects

how you treat people on earth.

'cause none of that, does that even matter at this point?

Well, people who believe in a literal doomsday often care very

little about, for example, ecology or building for the future or any of

these sorts of things because they think, well, what does that matter?

Right?

The world's gonna end next year.

But you know, doomsday preppers often go deeply into debt

because they think they're not gonna need their money anymore.

Groups have been known to contract out to build their shelters

and not pay their bills because they think, what does it matter?

Your company's not gonna be around next month anyway.

My in-laws still have their Y 2K water.

Oh yeah.

Oh

wow.

So it's kind of like we survived Y 2K and nothing happened, but still it

could have happened and we prepared.

So no one said to you like, but it didn't happen.

The computers did not go down, the world didn't end.

We have water.

And everyone was like, but still we were ready.

I mean, that's a great water brand name Y 2K water.

This is a horrible story, but you know, when you go to Lords in uh,

in France, you get the holy water.

I went to Rome and I got holy water from the Vatican.

Got it from my mom.

Never gave it to her, but I was traveling.

Said I had terrible allergy.

So we got Mucinex, which cost like 18 bucks, and he's

like, I got you the Mucinex.

And I'm like, well, how the hell are we gonna carry it on the plane?

And so we dumped out the holy water.

Oh my God.

Where did you dump it

to?

This tap?

Where?

From which it came.

No doubt.

I filled it with Mucinex so I could take it on the plane.

So it was a holy vessel and the plane didn't go down and I

didn't have an asthma attack.

So

Kathy and I were, uh, reminiscing earlier.

We worked with this guy, Louis Thru, who is this British presenter

guy, and he used to interview all

investigative journalists, a

lot of apocalyptic like cults and stuff.

And they would always say like, the world's gonna end in two weeks.

And then he'd call them in two weeks and was like, what happened?

The world didn't end.

They were like, no, it's gonna end in three weeks.

Mm-hmm.

Is that an American thing that.

You can retain your followers even after you just like,

were proven completely wrong.

Like, I think we look at government and they say such crazy things

like, COVID is gonna go away in two weeks, and then it doesn't.

And people still are like, okay, I'll forget that.

Well,

I guess what you're saying is kind of like, as Americans we

always buy what they're selling.

Yeah.

And are we, are we particularly like vulnerable

to

that?

So a couple of things I, I think it's a human tendency to kick the can down the

road following a failure of prophecy.

That's what it's called.

When Doom state doesn't come and the leader goes, oh, well

it must be happening next week.

Or the leader, the leader says, um, oh, well, you know, it was

actually a spiritual apocalypse.