Chris: Welcome to Culture. Just weird. I'm Chris.
Kayla: And I'm Kayla.
Chris: And I.
Kayla: It's a completely different year if you listen to our first episode, which if.
Chris: You haven't, go back, like, subscribe and what's the other thing? Donate, Patreon? Share? Like, share, subscribe. Terrible influencer.
Kayla: We don't have a Patreon currently, but if you listen to our first episode and are joining us for episode two, things are a little different now.
Chris: Okay. Just like we procrastinated an entire year between episodes. So longer than. Longer than a year. So hopefully next episode will be more like, you know, a couple weeks, because we'd like to put these out every few weeks, I think, is the intent.
Kayla: The goal is for this to be a bi weekly podcast.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: Please try and hold us to that.
Chris: A year, though, that's so bad.
Kayla: We're very bad at things.
Chris: It's mostly my fault because the first episode was, you did your research, and then you told me a story, and then I did my research and took a long time. But to be fair, there was a lot going on last year. There's a lot of stuff to do.
Kayla: True.
Chris: Whatever. The listeners don't care about that.
Kayla: No. Anyway, welcome back to Cult or just weird. We are here with our second episode. Thank you again for joining us. If you listen to the first one, you'll probably remember that I told a story about a cult or just weird group. Do you remember how we ended it? Did we say that? Best friends, animal society or the foundation?
Chris: Oh, spoilers.
Kayla: Millennia.
Chris: What if people haven't listened to the first episode yet?
Kayla: I can't protect them.
Chris: Guess that's true.
Kayla: I'm sorry.
Chris: Listen to stuff in order, you guys. Yeah.
Kayla: Did we say it was a cult?
Chris: No, we said it was just weird, I think because. Okay, why did we say that? I think we said it because there was no harm. Yeah. Like, it was mostly a beneficial, like.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: Like, they did add some weird beliefs, but, like, ultimately they're helping animals and, like, there's no, like, charismatic leader that's like, brainwashing people and.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: Making them leave their families and shit.
Kayla: So, anyway, we are back for our second episode, and we're going to kind of do the exact same format. Except this time, you're telling me a story, right?
Chris: I am.
Kayla: Hell, yeah. And I'm. Oh, my God, I'm so excited for this.
Chris: Why are you so excited? Well, actually, don't tell me. Cause I don't. Yeah, no spoilers.
Kayla: I know what the topic is. I don't know what you've uncovered in your research. I just know what the broad topic is here. Yeah, I could tell when you were doing your research that there was stuff coming up for you, so.
Chris: Yeah, there was some stuff coming up.
Kayla: So, how do we want to introduce this week's topic?
Chris: Well, I already have a script. I almost knocked the water over there. That would have been awesome.
Kayla: Good job.
Chris: No. So what I want to start with this week, actually, is to give a quick overview of one of the most famous physics experiments that has ever been done.
Kayla: I'm out, so.
Chris: Oh, you hear that sound? That's the sound of everybody's phones turning on all their podcast apps, all of.
Kayla: Them switching over to reply.
Chris: All right. Yeah.
Kayla: Everyone's switching over to my favorite murder.
Chris: Something much more interesting, much less dry. No, but. So it's just. So it's a really interesting experiment, and you'll understand why I'm talking about it as the episode goes on. Okay, so it's called the double slit experiment.
Kayla: Okay.
Chris: You've probably heard of it. A lot of our listeners maybe have heard of it, too, because it's famous. But it's basically the experiment where, like, science was sort of like, physics in particular is progressing along, and then shit just kind of, like, totally went off the rails with this experiment. There was some other stuff. Like, things had already been kind of like, you know, what the hell's going on with physics, right? Like, for those of you that are in the know, you know, there's, like. There was the. The experiment where you can cut this, I guess, whatever. There are some other weird experiments that happened that. Well, are you talking, like, shorting, sort of unraveling the. The concept of reality as we knew it? Okay, so. No, so this was actually a precursor to Schrodinger's cat.
Kayla: Gotcha.
Chris: This was the experiment that let people know that at a quantum level, things were fucked. Fucking weird. Okay, so try to bear with me. I'm gonna explain this as best as I can, as quickly as I can, and not have it sound too, like, mathy and fucked up. So there's two different types of, like, entities in physics. There's particles and there's waves. So particles is, like, shooting bullets. Right, right. So it's like a physical thing that's traveling through space and waves. Think of it like an ocean wave. There's no physical. Like, the water isn't traveling all the way from, you know, wherever the wave starts to the beach.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: There's just a wave traveling through the medium. It's energy traveling, but not particles.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: So people are kind of wondering about, due to some earlier experiments, like, what is light? Is light a particle or is light a wave? Like, what is its. What is its nature? And so they did this experiment where they basically said, so I want you to picture, if you will, because we have to have people picture this podcast. Imagine. Imagine, if you will, in your mind's eye, a pool. And just imagine, like, it's like there's a wave machine at one side of the pool, and it's making waves go across the pool. That's kind of what they're doing with this light. Now imagine the middle of the pool. There's a barrier, and it's stopping the waves from going through. They were doing the same thing with. With the light waves, right? It's just a light source.
Chris: The same way that there's a wave source in the pool. Now, imagine that you cut a little hole into the wall. Now, on the other side of this water, instead of having these, like, flat waves, you have this sort of, like, round, like, circular, concentric circles kind of going out from this little hole.
Kayla: Got it.
Chris: Same thing with the light. Now, if you do that a second time, if you make two holes, you'll have a source of waves one side and a source of waves on the other side coming from each of the holes.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: And when those concentric circles all overlap with each other, you get what's called interference. Okay, sometimes that overlapping based on the position of it, sometimes the overlapping makes the waves bigger, and sometimes it cancels them out and makes them smaller.
Kayla: Okay.
Chris: Can you kind of picture all that right now? Yeah, sort of.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: It's a little rough, but.
Kayla: No, it's not. It's just that I remember, like, learning about this in high school and not understanding it then. And I've tried to understand it.
Chris: I'm really. I'm trying as hard as I can to make this not obtuse.
Kayla: It's not you. It's the nature of physics.
Chris: Yeah, no, I know. So that's why I'm trying to, like, you know, have you, like, pictures of. So, if you can picture that happening with a wave pool and with a. With a wall and two holes in the wall, then that's basically what's happening with light. So if you look at the. At the wall at the other end. So basically, you shine the light through these holes, right? And then there's an additional wall beyond that the light shines onto, or a detector, or what you'd call it. And so if you look at that, you'll see this banding pattern? And the reason you get the banding pattern is because these waves, at various intervals, will either stack with each other or they'll cancel each other out.
Kayla: Got it.
Chris: So therefore, it looks like you have, like, if you see that banding pattern, you know, okay, that must be waves that we're going through, right?
Kayla: Right. I have no idea how this relates to your topic, and I'm so freaked out right now.
Chris: Well, it's just because I want to.
Kayla: Like, you're setting the stage.
Chris: I'm setting the stage. Okay, so. So here's the thing, is that people are so not so. Okay, we did that with light, and light has this banding pattern, so light must be a wave, right?
Kayla: Right.
Chris: Now, there's some stuff we did with light as well, but let's shelve that and not talk about it. Let's talk instead about electrons. We also said, well, what about electrons? Electrons are definitely particles, right? So if you shoot electrons through these slits, then it should look like if you were trying to shoot bullets through the slits, you should just see, essentially two slits on the other side. It should just look like, here's where these electrons went through this one hole. Here's where they went through the other hole. But you don't actually see that.
Kayla: No.
Chris: What they observed is that when you fire a beam of electrons through these slits, you actually also see a banding pattern.
Kayla: That's fucked.
Chris: So they're like, okay, electrons aren't actually particles. They're waves. But wait, I know I can fire them through one at a time. So how do they do? They can't be. So they must be. That was their first hypothesis. Like, okay, maybe they're interfering with each other. Okay, maybe each particle, maybe each electron. What it's doing is it's like, it's a particle, but when we send a beam through, they interfere with each other. And so, like, each. Each electron is maybe like a wave, and then that's. That's what the wave is. So let's just send them through one at a time, and then we'll totally see just the, you know, just the two slits. So what you find is that as you send electrons through these slits one at a time, over time, it looks like the first few hit the detector randomly.
Chris: But if you send enough of them through overtime, one at a time, it will still form the banding pattern.
Kayla: Why?
Chris: They weren't really sure. And actually, we're still not 100% sure today.
Kayla: When did this experiment happen?
Chris: What is the wave if it's not interfering with each other, and you're only sending them through one at a time, and it's still creating this pattern. What exactly is the wave? The water wave. There's energy traveling through water. This is what. What the fuck is this?
Kayla: Right, right.
Chris: So there's different theories about what is being interfered with. There's like, well, maybe they're being interfering with. This is where you get the many worlds hypothesis. Like, maybe the electron is actually hitting all of the different places in an infinite number of universes. But were only observing one. That's where that comes from. Right. And the other weird thing is that when you observe, when you actually put a detector at the slits and you determine. You observe which Slitzenhe the electron went through, because you don't know which one it went through. You just kind of fire it at the slits generally.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: But when you actually determine which one it went through, it doesn't form the pattern anymore. So if you are measuring which slit the electron went through doesn't form a pattern now. It looks like a particle. And so that's where you get this wave collapse theory of, like, when you. And that's where the whole quantum Schrodinger's cat thing comes in.
Kayla: Right. So, so what you're.
Chris: The bottom line is. Yeah, go ahead.
Kayla: What you're saying here is that the study of physics is a cult.
Chris: Yeah. So anyway, we'll talk next week. No, the reason, so this whole experiment basically broke physics. People were like, what the hell is going on here? Why is me observing something having an effect? What's actually happening at a base level here? What's the wave? What is it interfering with? And this spawned essentially the whole rest of the 20th century, up until now, of research into quantum mechanics and into different. And that's why you'll hear people talk about interpretations like the Copenhagen interpretation or different interpretations of what this actually is implying about the world.
Kayla: Gotcha.
Chris: So the reason I'm telling the story at the end of the day is that quantum mechanics is fucking weird, and reality at that fundamental level is fucking weird. And it's very hard to intuitively grasp and understand, and you might even say it's impossible, and it confuses physicists. And because of that, quantum weirdness has this annoying habit of opening the door to people believing really strange things.
Kayla: Got it.
Chris: Pseudo scientific and unscientific things.
Kayla: Right. I feel like anytime someone tries to sell you their MLM product or their, like, essential oils or their new age beliefs, like, oh, it's quantum. I remember hearing somebody trying to explain, like, and not that this is a bad interpretation, quote unquote. But somebody trying to explain that, like, you, that quantum. How quantum mechanics accounts for, like, the miraculous acts in the bible and things like that.
Chris: Right, right. Yeah. It's because of its nature as like. Oh, like I observed something that changed. Holy shit. Maybe things aren't objective. Maybe everything's based on, like, my subjective consciousness.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: You get all these new age things. So it's just. It's very fertile ground to be misinterpreted and interpreted in a way that is, you know, powerful to the thing that you're trying to push.
Kayla: Got it.
Chris: One of those things is a little movie called what the bleep do we know? And by the way, bleep is spelled using, like, greek and latin letters. You know, like the b in bleep is like beta. So like, you know, so it looks all like science y. So it's like you gotta. You got to paint that science on top of it.
Kayla: I just want. I know that you already know this, but I want to. I don't know if you talk about this, but I just want to.
Chris: I have a spot for it.
Kayla: I know you're going to audience a heads up that this topic is a personal trigger and I'm sacrificing a lot to sit here and talk about this.
Chris: Yeah, we'll get to that.
Kayla: Just. I'm taking one for the team, guys.
Chris: Well, we'll get to that. We'll get to that. I have a bullet point just for that, actually. But you know where to begin with this movie? I've seen it a couple times.
Kayla: When did it come out? Do you know?
Chris: Geez, I'm not sure.
Kayla: I think early two thousands.
Chris: It was early two thousands. I want to say, like 2003 ish, maybe.
Kayla: Right post y two k?
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: But not, you know, not the 2010s.
Chris: It did depressingly well. You might call it, in fact, a cult hit.
Kayla: Oh, please.
Chris: But it had a lot of distribution and success in the US. Like, for such a. Theatrically. Theatrically. For such a tiny movie. Right.
Kayla: Because it was not. This isn't a studio film.
Chris: Not a studio film. This is indie.
Kayla: As indie funded. It's barely. It barely has a plot.
Chris: Like, it's.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: So, you know, I only encourage you to go watch this movie if you have some alcohol with you. I did this with a friend of mine where we watched the movie as a drinking game and every time something crazy was said, we drank.
Kayla: Did you die?
Chris: And we had to stop. Yeah, no, we had to stop doing that and just watch because it got real bad.
Kayla: But that would kill you.
Chris: Yeah. So that's the only way that I really suggest that you go experience this. But, so it's a movie that starts out with a very reasonable and compelling question about our reality and the physics that govern it. In fact, like, one of the. I think the movie actually opens us with one of the people that they have. They have a bunch of pundits in this movie, right, which they. They never say who they are until the very end. They just have random.
Kayla: Are you kidding me?
Chris: Nope. All of the pundits, they have, like, seven or eight guys, right? And they're all these experts talking about stuff, and they don't say what they are, who they are, or what they do until the very end. And they're like. They range from, like, we'll get to that today.
Kayla: I don't know if I can make it.
Chris: But the first pundit starts with, get into the mystery. That's how he opens the movie. Yeah. And so, like, there's all these platitudes early on about, like, reality is very strange and, like, weirder than you think. And it's like, okay, oh, we're gonna learn some stuff about science. It's kind of like a science or Discovery Channel show.
Kayla: Right, right, like ancient aliens.
Chris: Yeah, but less like that. More like something where you'd find, like, Michio Kaku or something. Right, where it's like.
Kayla: Like a Neil degrasse Tyson show.
Chris: I'm gonna. Yeah, I'm gonna learn an interesting thing about the universe. So. So it starts that way, and then pretty early on, it just goes right the fuck off the rails. So it's. So it's like you're watching this movie. You're watching this movie and you're like, okay, some sciency stuff. And then. And then some of these pundits that they have, which. Okay, I can talk about them now, I guess. Like, some of them are actual respected physicists. Some of them are. There's a chiropractor.
Kayla: Are you kidding me?
Chris: There's a. He's one of the guys that talks. Does the most talking. He's just some random chiropractor that works with an organization we'll talk about in a minute.
Kayla: I'm gonna throw up.
Chris: And one of them is. Oh, jeez. There's like a. Like a priest that got excommunicated. Cause he was, I think, like, molesting someone or something, but now he's, like, doing this new agey stuff, and then there's, like, a physicist. There's a physicist that is still, I believe, is a professor at the University of Oregon. He's like a theoretical nuclear physicist, but he is all up in this new age shit.
Kayla: I can't do.
Chris: Believer. Capital B. It's very distressing. So anyway, so there's all these guys, but they don't say who any of them are. They just say, like, they just pop them on screen, right? So some of them start talking about things like, did you know that when the Europeans came to the Bahamas, I believe they say the Bahamas. It's been a while since I've seen the movie that the natives there, because they had no concept for galleons, for, you know, sailing ships at the time, that they were actually invisible and they could not see them. Not like you're saying.
Kayla: That's why, like, the folks there were able to get, like, plundered by the European.
Chris: Yeah, exactly. Because the ships were invisible. Not that they had no context. Not that it was like, you know, what are those clouds? Not like they had different context and they described it in a way that was. No. Literally invisible. Literally invisible because they didn't know what they were.
Kayla: That's not how things work.
Chris: No, that's not how reality works. So. And then also, apparently, and I didn't write this guy's name down, but there's some guy who did some studies where he took some bottles of water.
Kayla: No, Colin.
Chris: Yeah. You remember this? And they write different words on the bottles of water. And, like, some of them, they write, like, love. And some of them, they write, like, hatred or, you know, poopy pants or, I don't know, what the hell. And then they look at the water, they freeze them, and they look at the ice crystals, and, like, the ice crystals on the water bottles that they write, love are all beautiful, and they all look shitty for the ones where they write hate and poopypants.
Kayla: Can I explain for our listeners what is happening in the plot of the film while they're explaining this experiment?
Chris: You may. Or do you talk about it? I do a little bit, but it would help to have, like, a little. Well, hold on. Before you do that, though, just so we're clear. That didn't actually happen. Like, the water didn't. The water doesn't respond to words written on it. Water molecules don't know English. Just in case you weren't sure, this.
Kayla: Experiment is not a scientific experiment if that wasn't clear from the get go. But I just want to make it known to folks who may have not seen the film yet that. So the movie is both plot and pundits. It's this weird mix of, like, a story is happening and then also it's corresponding to these science guys talking.
Chris: Pseudoscientific docudrama is a word that I.
Kayla: Heard that sounds about right. So the main character in the pseudoscientific docudrama is going through some sort of crisis. And in a moment of crisis, she sees herself in a mirror and starts saying really horrible words about her body. And that, of course, only makes it.
Chris: Worse because it makes the water in.
Kayla: Your body sad because we're all, what, 80, 70% water. So that if you say hurtful words to your body, it makes your body sad. And then the way it remedies it is it has her take a bath in the film and she starts writing loving words all over her body. And her roommate comes home and sees her and she's all serene and ethereal in the bath.
Chris: So for those of you suffering from real mental health issues and from actual complex, you know, issues with addiction, just all you have to do is write some happy words in yourself and everything's fine.
Kayla: It'll make the water molecules everything better.
Chris: By the way, if you are suffering from any of that stuff, you know, more power to you in your quest to get better.
Kayla: Don't watch this film.
Chris: Don't watch this movie. But I mean, that's sort of a common thing with groups that begin with a c. Maybe that's sort of a common thing is to say, like, hey, do you have a complex mental health issue? Well, don't, you know, I have, like, a really simple solution to your complex problem.
Kayla: I've got the magic bullet.
Chris: I have the magic bullet. So that's a really common thing. So some of the other things that this movie says is that people can travel backward in time. And then there's this thing called all you have to do is think it right. And then the Maharishi effect, which is apparently there was like thousands of meditating gurus and they meditated at, I think, the city of Washington, DC, I think. And they. And the Washington and DC experienced a reduction in crime during when that happened. Except if you actually look at the real data from the real city, from real police, there was actually an increase in crime during that time period. But that's not really important because what's important is that these meditating gurus totally reduce crime by meditating at the city. That's another thing that the film purports. So.
Chris: Yeah, but bottom line is that the film really espouses this very common new age idea, which is that your thoughts create reality. It's a core tenet of pretty much every single new age belief.
Kayla: Right. It's basically saying, here's the explanation for quantum mechanics. It's your thoughts.
Chris: Right. Well, so that's the thing that really that this film does that a lot of new age things don't. I think that's what really gives it a lot of potency. That's what really made it, you know, like, people go, like, ooh, interesting.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: Is that it does do more than your average marriage of quantum mechanics and new age. Because, like, what it basically says is, like, well, shit. If the observer can change reality. Based on whether it's observing or not. Then that implies that nothing is objective and everything is in my head. And so I can just create whatever reality I want. That's not what that implies. And if we had more time, I would talk about why I believe that is. A lot of it has to do. Well, actually, let's just tan it for just a second here. I think that part of the Problem is with and this is maybe just me ranting. But part of the Problem with quantum mechanics is that it's we do a really poor job of educating about it. And that's not really, you know, it's nobody's Fault.
Chris: Like, quantum mechanics is very difficult to kind of get a Grasp on. Because one of the examples here. Yeah. We barely understand it. But the example that I'm thinking of here is that, like, when you say observer, what do you mean? Right. A lot of people say observer. And that's in a lot of the literature about quantum mechanics. But the actual nature of the observer is such a key component to interpreting the whole thing. That never really gets addressed. And so then people just kind of take it to mean whatever they want.
Kayla: Right? Observer. Well, that means.
Chris: Clearly that means observer. Yeah. That means me. That means I can create my own reality when it's not like that. Right. That's not the way it is. And so actually defining what counts as an observer is crucial to. And it's still sort of like an up for debate. Like, what counts as an observer? That's what the Schrodinger's cat thing. One of the debates about Schrodinger's cat was, does the cat count as his own observer? Do you have to be a certain level of consciousness to count as an observer? But I think a lot of that pulls it out into this realm of, like, well, observing means that there's a human brain. Attached to an eyeball looking at something. When that's not what it means.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: Observer, it's really better thought of, and it's been a while since I've taken my physics courses, so hopefully I'm not misrepresenting here, but it's better thought of as interactions than observing interactions between wave functions collapse into the more classical particle physical substance that we think of as reality. That doesn't mean that those interactions have to happen with a conscious human being with a brain.
Kayla: Gotcha.
Chris: And a lot of people don't know that. So a lot of people are just like, oh, observers is at the center of this. Okay. Anything's possible. So anyway, this ability, this your thoughts control your reality tied to this quantum mechanics thing is like, where a lot of this, a lot of the power comes from in this film.
Kayla: Gotcha.
Chris: And that. And that message is, you know, something that's. Yeah, like that a lot of cults use to say, like, hey, you can unlock your inner power with our help, you know, just with these simple course, you can totally unlock your. Your inner goddess.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: I don't know how much you want to go into this. Cause, you know, there's still a lot to cover.
Kayla: Well, I mean, are you. Are you. Are you saying that this film is the cult that we're discussing?
Chris: It is not. There's a lot.
Kayla: What's behind it?
Chris: Please hold on that, because I figured we should maybe briefly discuss an experience that you had that was a little messed up. So where did you first experience this movie?
Kayla: I'm really upset that I have to talk about this. It's honestly like my blood pressure is really high right now. Yeah. So obviously my husband knows this story.
Chris: And that would be me, by the.
Kayla: Way, for those of you that are my husband. In the other room. No, we know this story. But just to give y'all some context, when I was in college, I enrolled in a course called eastern concepts of health and healing. And I was under the impression we would be talking about things such as traditional chinese medicine, acupuncture, you know, that kind of world.
Chris: You mean eastern concepts of health and healing?
Kayla: Yeah, yeah. I was in the class for what, two weeks, three weeks? Less than a month, when one day walk in and the professor, you know, we're all sitting down and she.
Chris: I think I'm going to go ahead and say, we need to name shame here.
Kayla: Are we gonna get sued?
Chris: Okay. Fuck, yeah.
Kayla: I mean, yeah.
Chris: There's nothing publicity, bro.
Kayla: There's nothing untruthful here. The course was taught by a renowned professor and sports medicine person named doctor I think she's doctor. Doctor Rhonda Wimmer. And Rhonda, basically one class pops a dvd of what the bleep do we know into the, like, av system.
Chris: Was this at? This was in a black galley class. Oh, you don't want to name.
Kayla: I don't want to name university, but just know that this is not a.
Chris: Well regarded private university.
Kayla: Yeah, like, I paid a lot of money for this class and a. The fact that we're being shown like, a low rent film as like, part of the class is already questionable, in my opinion. And we start watching this movie. I had not heard of it before. I didn't really know what I was in for. And it obviously took us multiple class sessions to get through it. And I think after the first viewing, I watched the first half of the film. I went home and g chatted you. We're very fresh in our relationship at this point. I g chatted you. Have you ever heard of the movie what the bleep do we know? And do you remember what you said?
Chris: I remember my heart leaping up into my esophagus.
Kayla: You said, the future of our relationship hangs on where this conversation goes. I was being truthful and, you know, I kind of laid out my concerns. This is being presented as a scientific documentary film and it seems like it's a bunch of bullshit. And you were like, yeah, it is. And I guess what proceeded to happen? Trying to teal deer this. Finished watching the movie. The first thing that is said, the first thing the professor says after we finish this film is, okay, any questions? And a student raises their hand and specifically asks about the water experiment and asks, did that really happen? And the response, I remember it clear as day from the professor was, everything in this film is true. And I kind of. I kind of. I think that I had already armed my.
Kayla: Yes, I had already armed myself at this point with, like, research because I was really pissed off that, yeah, this movie was being taught to us as.
Chris: Facts in a university class, as fact.
Kayla: In an eastern concepts of health and healing course, which it didn't really seem to racist. Yeah, a little bit, because there were.
Chris: Like, nothing eastern about it.
Kayla: It was a bunch of new age. Yeah, I had, you know, done my research on the film. I had learned some things about it that I'm sure you're gonna get into. I was ready to kind of like, put up a little bit of a stink about this. And that's, you know, when she came back at me with things like, I'm a closet physicist. Scientists are throwing we know that there are. I think it was. We know that there are other dimensions because scientists are throwing robots into black holes and they're sending information back to us, which is very false.
Chris: Yeah, that's. We don't. That's a whole other podcast worth of how many reasons that's false.
Kayla: Very false. And this was a formative experience for me.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: Because it was like, oh, my God, this woman is teaching falsehoods as fact in a very.
Chris: In a classroom, university sense, and in.
Kayla: A very transparent way. And unfortunately, it seemed like everyone around me was very eager to kind of jump on board.
Chris: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Your classmates were nothing.
Kayla: I made the mistake of sending out an email that night being like, hey, class, just want to let y'all know that I've done some research on this. It's all kind of bullshit. Here's. Here's some links to some, you know, proper information. Don't believe everything you hear kind of thing. And got a lot of angry emails back from my classmates. Sorry, guys. And I just dropped the class and never went back. I was like, I can't do this.
Chris: I'm out. You know, you saying that actually reminds me of something that I hope is actually going to be a through line for. For this show to some degree. Is that, like, you know, I bet there was at least one other person in that class that was skeptical like you were, and I'm sure there was. And so I hope that this show can kind of be like a. Hey, like, if you're thinking that everything's crazy out there, because it certainly fucking seems that way in 2019, right? Like, I hope this show can kind of be like a, hey, it's there. There is a real thing. There's reality out there. There are truths. There are facts. Like, that is a thing. We're not so far down that we can't come back. But, like, you know, I would like to think that if that type.
Chris: If somebody was listening to this podcast and had a class like that, they might be able to say, like, wait, no, right? No, no, no, right? Because that probably is like. I mean, you felt so isolated. I remember that. And that was even with me being there and being like, dude, these people are nuts.
Kayla: And my mom was also, like, on my side. Like, I had people being like, no, you're right.
Chris: Yeah, no, this is crazy. So I'm just. I'm hoping that, you know, if somebody else experiences that and listens to this podcast, they won't feel isolated. They feel like, no, this is wrong.
Kayla: I also want to clarify that at the time, I was probably slightly judgier than I am now. But even then, you were a college student. I was terrible then and now. My intent is not to pass judgment on anyone's beliefs. My issue was that were being shown something that is not based in fact and reality, and being told that this is based in fact and reality, that was the problem. It wasn't like, hey, here's something I believe. Here's something that some people believe. Here is a belief system. Here are some cool ideas that you might want to learn about. It was the statement, everything in this film is true. And that's what I, you know, that's what I take issue with. Like, I'm just as woo as the next person. I just scheduled my first Reiki section today.
Chris: We're gonna talk about. We're gonna talk about what the bleep. And you're gonna say, okay, just to be clear to our listeners, we're not necessarily saying we think, like, no energy healing is like, there's energy. Maybe there is, but it can be efficacious.
Kayla: Some things are fun to engage in.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: I'm not gonna go into a classroom and say, this is true.
Chris: Right. You're not gonna say Reiki is true. You're gonna say, I did it, and it was relaxing and helped me. Right.
Kayla: That would be totally fine. I also want to say that part of why I dropped the class was because in the syllabus, there was like, here's what we're gonna be studying. And the very last question, this is my favorite part, actually, was evidence based paradigms.
Chris: Out of, like, 13 units, there was one unit at the end called evidence based paradigms.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: So, like, the other twelve units were like, what? Not evidence, but like, what? Oh, my God.
Kayla: Well, she also said she was gonna have bring in speakers that were able to communicate with angels, and it got really.
Chris: Oh, boy.
Kayla: Just, you know, something that I didn't think really matched with what the class description was. Now, I feel like I've talked about this for way too long, so please continue.
Chris: No, it's okay. Cause that's. I mean, that's an important part of the experience here, is that shit like that happens in real fucking life. So, yeah, so this movie is weird. And as I mentioned, there are a lot of people that they interview for this movie, and they don't tell you who they all are until the very end. One of them is this blonde lady.
Kayla: Oh, God.
Chris: That has a weird way of speaking.
Kayla: She's got a weird accent.
Chris: And actually, this is more or less the lead, which I've completely buried, like, 30 minutes into the show. So she's not. It may look like a blonde lady from Washington, but actually she is a 35,000 year old warrior spirit from the civilization of Lemuria by the name of Ramtha. Not making this up. The actual human being speaking is known. Her name is Jay Z Knight, which.
Kayla: Is also a fake name. Just saying.
Chris: We'll get to that. Who claims that she channels this being Ramtha, and there was actually a little bit of a rabbit hole we don't have time for. But, like, there's this whole thing about, like, mediators and channelers, right? And she was like, part of this, like, movement.
Kayla: Can you just explain to me something?
Chris: Sure. That's what I'm here for.
Kayla: 35,000 years ago, what was actually happening? What did humanity look like at that point?
Chris: You know, I'm not. That was, like, an interesting period because I think it was, like, right around when were doing agriculture for the first time. I want to say, like, just barely. Maybe I'm not super clear on that period of history. Like, like, I'm only really clear when you get to, like, 4000 bc and after. Because that's like, you know, where we have, like, recorded civilization history.
Kayla: When did we become humans?
Chris: Well, modern humans, less than a million years ago. And that. I mean, homo sapiens, there were actually a lot of different human species.
Kayla: Okay.
Chris: And I think the last one died off a lot more recently than that, though. That. And that was neanderthal. In any case, this warrior spirit was from the civilization of Lemuria 35,000 years ago. Jay Z Knight channels this person, and indeed, she has built a commercial empire on the claim that she channels this person.
Kayla: Is that what we're going to call it, a commercial empire?
Chris: It is. Students of her school, which is called the Ramtha School of enlightenment, were actually the producers of this. What? The bleep film. Oh, so this whole time. Oh, this enlightening, interesting, pseudoscientific docudrama was actually being produced by students of the Romtha school of enlightenment. And that's why they were interviewing Jay Z knight as she was channeling Mister Romtha.
Kayla: Is that where we're gonna call him, Mister Romtha?
Chris: I actually don't have it written that way, but we totally should.
Kayla: So Mister Rompa essentially produced this film?
Chris: Yeah, basically. And so that's the type of thing that, like, you didn't hear in your class, right? You, like, all you heard was like, oh, this is totally real science. But it was actually a movie being produced by a, well, cult or just weird. A cult or just weird. So here's the Wikipedia intro for the Ramta School of Enlightenment, which I'm probably gonna call RSE for the rest of the podcast. Rsedhe Rse Gramfe School of Enlightenment.
Kayla: Oh.
Chris: It is an american spiritual sect near the rural town of Yelm, Washington. The school was established in 1988 by Jay Z Knight, who. It's, I think, Judith Zebra Knight, who was actually born. She changed her name.
Kayla: Zebra is a badass name.
Chris: Yeah, but she was born Judith Darlene Hampton.
Kayla: Okay.
Chris: Which is about the most, like, mom, like, housewife name I can possibly think of. Not to shit on anybody's name, but was established by Jay Z Knight, who claims to channel a 35,000 year old being called Ramtha, the enlightened one. The school's teachings are based on these channeling sessions.
Kayla: So, wait, so she doesn't teach the school or whatever as Jay z Knight? She teaches the school as Mister Ramtha?
Chris: It's possible that she does some lectures as Jay Z Knight, but I think for the most part, she does it as Ramtha.
Kayla: So is the school about, like, how to channel ramthas, or is this school is Ramtha?
Chris: Yeah, it's about that. So the school is Ramtha giving you a bunch of, like, banal, pithy, like, new ageisms? That's. That's what the school is.
Kayla: How did Mister Romtha figure out the key to reality?
Chris: I think he. Because something. Something Lemuria warrior. Because he's ancient or something. I don't know.
Kayla: Is Lemuria actually a thing?
Chris: Oh, no. So I think I have a note for this somewhere, but Lemuria is. It's sort of like it's Atlantis, but for the Indian Ocean.
Kayla: Okay.
Chris: So it's like a fantastical, like, mythical, you know, continent slash civilization, and it actually features pretty heavily in a lot of different new age beliefs.
Kayla: Interesting.
Chris: Yeah. Lemuria is very popular with new age. Yeah. Yeah. So. And actually, speaking of Atlantis, Ramtha, the warrior spirit, well, he wasn't a spirit at the time. At the time, he was just a warrior, and he led armies of upwards of 2.5 million troops. But there weren't that many people in the world at the time in battles against the Atlanteans, so they actually battled, and I think he didn't die. I'm not super clear on, because there was a part where I did this research and then I lost it. But I think that he didn't die in battle. I think he just like transubstantiated. I think he just meditated himself away.
Kayla: Okay, well, because he can probably travel through time.
Chris: Yeah. He can do all that stuff. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, the standard package of spirit warrior beings. So let's go back to Jay Z.
Kayla: But I do want to say if somebody is as enlightened as Mister Romfa is saying he is, I question why he is at war with the Atlanteans. That doesn't feel very enlightened.
Chris: He may not have been enlightened at the time. That may have been the process of enlightenment for him. I don't know. I don't know the guy. So back to Jay Z. So she grew up poor. She didn't have too much of a career. She dropped out of business school. She worked at a cable station, but mostly was just a housewife. In the late seventies, she started getting into pyramids, which I guess that's like a thing. Like, people can just, like, get super into pyramids and they think that, like, the pyramid shape has, like, all these mystical properties and supposedly you can, like.
Kayla: Make your razors, like, sharp again and, like, heal your.
Chris: Yeah, that's a whole other thing. So she started getting into that and then probably apocryphal, but I guess she had a bunch of these pyramids, all these models scattered around her house. And she was in the kitchen one day, and I don't know why, but she put one of these paper pyramid models on her head and she said that is when she was visited by the 35,000 year old warrior spirit Ramtha.
Kayla: There is an episode.
Chris: Thanks, pyramid.
Kayla: There's an episode of the acclaimed television series Seinfeld where I do not remember this. Where George and Jerry and I think Kramer go to see, like, an alternative healer.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: I forget what.
Chris: I don't remember this episode. You're shitting me.
Kayla: No, it's the one where George turns purple at the end. Do you know, is this.
Chris: Am I getting Mandela?
Kayla: No. The only reason I'm bringing this up is because at some point during the.
Chris: Show, we have to go watch this.
Kayla: George has one of these pyramids on his head.
Chris: Really? Yes. Oh, I wonder if it's a reference.
Kayla: Well, I mean, I think they're just referencing, like, the pyramid.
Chris: So there's actually. There's a skeptic website out there that calls it pyramidacy or pyramidiacy, I think, like, it's a portmanteau of pyramid and idiot.
Kayla: Gotcha.
Chris: In any case, so she threw a pyramid on her head and then, you know, as happens when you do that there's a warrior spirit that appeared to her. So I have note here. Okay, so civilization was like Atlantis for the Indian Ocean. They fight against the Atlanteans. And then he, like, meditated himself into the spiritual realm or something. But he knew that he would revisit humans throughout the ages to guide them. He knew that was a thing that he had to do. He was going to guide humanity into enlightenment or cake or whatever the fuck. Jay Z claims that. Or maybe Jay Z as Ramtha, I get confused, has inspired other great philosophers and artists over the ages, such as Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci.
Kayla: Ramtha has.
Chris: Yes, Ramtha was the one inspiring them because, you know, Jay Z is like essentially a Socrates or a Leonardo of our time.
Kayla: I mean, this film was definitely a.
Chris: Masterpiece art, but it's, you know, if you listen to her channel Ramtha. So her voice is kind of just like this. I'm going to make my voice a little bit deeper and then use like a pseudo indian accent.
Kayla: Right? It's like a weird fake.
Chris: So, like, Ramtha, I guess, like speaks English but with like a modern, like, indian accent.
Kayla: That makes sense for a 35,000 year.
Chris: Old being total sense.
Kayla: I feel like we're being very judgy.
Chris: We are, because she deserves it. Okay. She and Ramtha mispronounce the same words. Interestingly enough, I read at some point.
Kayla: And you can tell me if you found this in your research. I read at some point that somebody took her vitals one time while she.
Chris: Was the next thing. That was literally the next thing is that there have been some studies conducted by people on the RC payroll to confirm that there are indeed physiological changes when Jay Z channels Ramtha. Pretty typical legitimization tactics, right?
Kayla: Right.
Chris: Look. Oh, totally. There's something.
Kayla: Her blood pressure changes.
Chris: Her blood pressure changed. Weird. So, yeah, so it's a little suspect. In case you weren't sure. Ramtha, unfortunately, is a pretty influential character, so.
Kayla: Why do you mean unfortunately?
Chris: Because it's crazy.
Kayla: Okay, well, I just meant like, I'm just. It's an interesting choice of words.
Chris: No, that's just me being judgy again. So Jay Z has drawn the criticism of some pretty important and amazing people, including magician and skeptic James Randy, who.
Kayla: Is the literal greatest person on earth.
Chris: Who is the current Jesus of our time, a scientific american contributor and skeptic columnist Michael Shermer, and wrote about, actually with the bleep. And even Carl Sagan himself in the eighties talked about how dumb this Romtha thing is.
Kayla: So Romtha has been around.
Chris: He's been around. Oh, yeah, he slashed she or whatever. She's also appeared on the talk circuit, including Larry King back when he was a big deal in the eighties.
Kayla: Oh, my God.
Chris: MSNBC and the Merv Griffin show as this 35,000 year old warrior spirit. This is what's fucked up about all this is that it's like, it's not just this little thing. It's like it's not just Steven Ronda Wimmer. It's everyone. People are nuts. You can't. Nobody is immune. Nobody is immune. I'll talk about that later, actually. Anyway, and then this is going to be totally blah expected. But obviously, there's a bunch of celebrities that have fallen to her schtick who names. Shirley MacLaine is the big one. And then also Salma Hayek.
Kayla: Really?
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: Salma.
Chris: Yeah. So just in case you're curious, here are the core tenets of Ramtha's teachings. The first one is the statement, you are God.
Kayla: I mean, I'm down with that. I tell myself that in the mirror every morning.
Chris: Yeah, I knew that one already. Number two is the directive to make known the unknown. Number three. Wait, number three. Just swallow it. Number three, the concept that consciousness and energy create the nature of reality. And number four, the challenge to conquer yourself. So, number one. Number one is basically every single new age religion says you are God. Like, every single one. That's, like, default. Number three is just like your vanilla, like, consciousness first, relativism. Your consciousness creates reality. That's fucking everything.
Kayla: You look at that electron and then it changes.
Chris: And then it changes. And therefore, you can invent your reality, but nobody's testing it by jumping off buildings and seeing if they can think their way into being safe. Weird, right? But anyway, and then the other two are just totally banal. They're just totally, like, the directive to make known the unknown. Okay, yeah, done. We should do that. Okay. You're not breaking any new ground there.
Kayla: How is Romtha achieving this? Are they a scientist? Are they throwing robots into black holes?
Chris: No, it's because he meditated himself. I don't know, warrior or something. Lemuria, blah. If you're a 35,000 year old warrior spirit, that just automatically gives you all the authority and cachet you need to tell people how they can not be mentally ill anymore.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: So what about her empire?
Kayla: Yeah, I'm interested. You keep calling it an empire, and I'm like, okay, when do we get to the cult? Or just weird part? I mean, like, I don't mean it in that way.
Chris: I mean, in the 35,000 year old lemurian warrior. I don't know. I've heard weirder.
Kayla: I can say I'm a 35,000 year old lemurian warrior, and that doesn't make me a culture. Just we.
Chris: That's right.
Kayla: Does she have a following? I mean, you mentioned some celebrities, but like, what is this school?
Chris: What are these people currently as the time as of when I did this research, says that she has over 6000 students in over 20 countries.
Kayla: That's a lot of people.
Chris: And her company, which. I forget the name of it. Yeah, she has a company.
Kayla: Why does she. Why does Romtha need a company?
Chris: Because she sells all kinds of shit. Million dollars a year on this.
Kayla: Why does Romtha need money? If you can just think your reality, why do you need to do anything? Why can't you just think money into your money?
Chris: It's not about the money. They're helping people.
Kayla: Okay. I'm just saying, why make money if you can just.
Chris: That's right. They should be giving it for free. But they're selling it, so I don't know why they're doing that.
Kayla: It just doesn't really.
Chris: And selling it they are. There's a lot of books you can buy, a lot of online lecture material. But at the center of it all.
Kayla: I'm assuming they also made a lot of money off of this movie.
Chris: Well, the movie actually was not produced by RSC. The movie was produced independently by students. So it's not like, officially.
Kayla: So people trying to make their own cult kind of.
Chris: Or just like being like, rah, sispumba, Ramtha's great.
Kayla: Okay.
Chris: I think is more like that.
Kayla: Sorry, I interrupted you.
Chris: No, no. It's okay. But at the center of all this is the RSC campus in Yelm, Washington.
Kayla: Oh, Yelm.
Chris: This campus is not accessible to the public. It sort of reminded me of wild country. I don't know if you guys have seen that documentary on Netflix. I would totally check it out. But it's the documentary about the Rajneeshpuram compound that was in Oregon. That's why it reminded me of it. Because it's like, here you have another crazy cult. Because Yelm is not anywhere near Seattle. So it's like in the countryside. Like it's in the wilderness. Yelma's a small town. However, I will give them. I will give some credit here where credit is due. At least from that documentary, it looked like the Rajinishis were like, very antagonistic and very aggressive with their tactics to essentially invade the town. I forget the name of the town.
Kayla: I do, too.
Chris: Was it moose town or.
Kayla: Definitely, it was Moose town.
Chris: No, it had, like, the name of animal in it.
Kayla: I don't remember Mooseville.
Chris: I don't know. Just whatever.
Kayla: Go watch the documentary.
Chris: Watch the documentary. But Yelm doesn't seem to be quite like that. Like, they seem to have a pretty, like, hands off relationship with each other for the most part.
Kayla: They're not trying to take over.
Chris: They're not trying to take over the town, and the town doesn't really, like, hate them.
Kayla: Okay.
Chris: Apparently they're pretty good for business because they're like. They tend to be rich, these. So they call them ramsters, by the way. No, ramsters. Yeah, the townsfolk call them ramsters.
Kayla: Ramsters are what you call. Call, like, the Los Angeles Rams fans.
Chris: Yeah. Well, not anymore.
Kayla: Oh, my God.
Chris: Go rams, by the way. But, yeah, so they call them ramsters and they spend money in local businesses, so that part's good. And there are, like, known establishments where it's like, that's where they all go.
Kayla: Okay. And they all are wealthy.
Chris: You said not all, but, like, you know, to go up to the actual ranch. I mean, you're spending a pretty penny, right? You're not just, like, dropping a few dollars?
Kayla: Definitely. In 2000, 2019, when Ramtha is, like, here to spread the good word. Definitely. They should make it inaccessible to some folks and accessible only to the wealthy.
Chris: Totally. But it's not all hunky dory with Yelm because a lot of the local traditional religious groups are kind of scared of their influence. Apparently. It's not uncommon to see advertisements for a local church before a movie, if you watch a movie. And.
Kayla: Interesting.
Chris: So they do, like, a lot of, like, counter sort of, like, you know, don't. Don't get taken in with the ramsters. Come to the church of the blah, blah. So, like, they do a lot of that. Gotcha. But there's not, like, guns or poisoning people the way there was. Sorry, sorry. Spoilers for wild country. So that's sort of like their relationship with Yelm. And that's why they have that campus up there. It's not accessible to the public. It's very closed off. You can't get in there. But it's not all. It's not all, you know, nicey nice either. Like, you go up there to learn stuff, but apparently there have been some issues. There was an interview that was done with a former associate who described that one evening, Knight suggested that the students should stay overnight because it would be good for energy.
Chris: And I guess that was like, that was before they installed some flooring into, like, the arena where everybody, like, hangs out and meditates or whatever the hell they do.
Kayla: Okay.
Chris: And as a result, there was a lot of dust in the air and there was a very old woman among the students.
Kayla: Oh, no.
Chris: Who begged that she did not want to do this, wanted to go home. But Ramtha said that she can stay under Ramtha's protection. Leaving the following day, the old woman died of pneumonia.
Kayla: They killed someone?
Chris: So they kind of killed someone. As far as cult deaths go, it's a little tame because it wasn't like.
Kayla: Don'T call someone's death tame.
Chris: I'm nothing minimizing it. I'm just saying, like, you know, it was. It was more of a death by omission than commission, I guess. But, I mean, it's. It's still bad, right? But is it a cult or is it just weird?
Kayla: Who are we at that point?
Chris: Kind of not. Not really. Like, I still think there's. There's more to cover.
Kayla: Okay.
Chris: But I want to kind of go into some of the things that might help us judge this.
Kayla: Gotcha.
Chris: There's some very. Because of. So this isn't, like, best friends where it's like, whoa, what? This is, like, about as close to a call as we can get while still remaining in a liminal space.
Kayla: Right? Right. We're not, like, discovering this because we accidentally heard somebody drop a word during lunch. Like, this is a. This is a new religious movement, right?
Chris: Yeah, this is a new religious movement. And it's definitely been so, like, it's been called a cult. I mean, so Jay Z and RC, the organization, have outright stated that they are not a cult. So, I mean, I guess that solves it, right? We can just. Okay, we're done. Thanks for coming. Kind of a weird thing to have to deny, though. Yeah, right. Like, we're not a cult.
Kayla: I kind of think that should be one of the criteria, like denial. If you say you're not a cult, is that right? Does that put a tick in the cult column?
Chris: Well, is that. But what if you say you are a cult, then does that mean you're not?
Kayla: I don't know. I don't.
Chris: Or are you. Is that one of those, like. Like, what does the lying liar say? How do I determine.
Kayla: I don't know if there are any groups that have gone, hey, guys, we're a cult, right?
Chris: Yeah. They generally don't do that. I mean, that's like part of the thing, though, right? Like, we talked about this, I believe, in the previous episode is that's why the scholarly preferred term is new religious movement.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: Because the word cult is so, like, fraught with, you know, connotation, right. And nobody wants to call themselves that. So it's like, what is a cult? Right? But, you know, we're making a podcast, so fuck it. We're gonna totally determine that. So, yeah, so they deny it. Knight's former husband. Jay Z's former husband.
Kayla: Oh, the divorce.
Chris: Jeff Knight. Well, unfortunately, he's not alive anymore.
Kayla: Oh, no.
Chris: But in an interview with. It doesn't matter. But this was in 1992, specifically said that at this point, they were divorced, that Ramtha's teachings are a, quote, farce and, quote, just a money making business for Jay Z Knight.
Kayla: Okay. But he's clearly just trying to malign her.
Chris: Totally. He also said the students of Ramtha School of enlightenment are, quote, involved in a very dangerous, very evil, corrupt thing, end quote. But attacks don't end there. They've also been made by former students. So a Yelm resident, David McCarthy, and a former student of the school, has accused the school of being a cult.
Kayla: Okay.
Chris: He further claims that. And this is all from, I believe from a Wikipedia article. So I'm reading a little bit verbatim here, but that he was intimidating, intimidated during his studies there, and felt like mind control was being exerted by night in the school. He said at one point, I was running around scared that I was going to be eaten by the lizard people.
Kayla: The lizard people. So they get into the lizard. They get into it.
Chris: Oh, they get into it. Yeah, dude. They have a lemurian warrior prince thing. Like, it. They get into all that stuff.
Kayla: Why are the lizard people.
Chris: It all comes together. I don't know. It's just everybody. It's all part of the same thing. They all believe in Lemuria, and they all believe in, like, you know, weird lizard people and UFO, all that stuff.
Kayla: Right?
Chris: So, yeah. And then McCarthy became disappointed not only with his own experience of Ramtha's teachings, but also as he had cut ties from his family to become a student as they lived in a different country. Red flag. This led McCarthy to form a group called Life after Ramtha School of enlightenment, which questions the authenticity of Ramtha and encourages people to come out and express their experiences after their realization that RSE is a cult. So there is a group designed to, like, help people after they've left this thing.
Kayla: That's pretty damn.
Chris: But they claim. They claim, hey, we're just a school. People come in, pay money, we teach them stuff, and they go home.
Kayla: It's not a cult, right?
Chris: That's what they claim. Former bodyguard.
Kayla: If you are a follower of Romfo, you're not required to stay on the compound. You're nothing.
Chris: I think technically they say that, but, I mean, that one lady was sort of pseudo required.
Kayla: Like, don't go.
Chris: You're gonna hurt the energy. Oh, now you're dead.
Kayla: Okay.
Chris: She also has a former bodyguard, Glenn Cunningham. So he was the one that actually gave that interview about. Broke the story about the lady that died. And he has also criticized them, saying that he had felt compelled to lie to students to help them or, quote, just when he saw Fitzhe. Okay, so he's criticized them as well.
Kayla: Interesting.
Chris: So there's been a bunch of, like, high profile skeptics that have criticized them and former members that have criticized them. So now let's talk about the court cases.
Kayla: Ooh. Ooh. This is the cause I was. There's something I. There's a little tidbit that I'm just chomping at the bit to get out here.
Chris: Gonna talk about three.
Kayla: Okay. I hope it's one that I.
Chris: One of them is Knight versus Knight. What? Where Jeff Knighthood alleges that he lost. This is sad, actually. So trigger warning. Jeff Knight alleges that he lost years of his life by postponing modern medical treatment for his HIV infection due to advice from his wife.
Kayla: Oh, my God.
Chris: That Ramtha could heal him. The court decided against him, and he died before he could appeal the court's decision.
Kayla: That is hella fucked injustice. Like, I know that our court system has a lot of injustices. I think that. That.
Chris: That's right up there.
Kayla: One of the more horrifying things I've heard.
Chris: Yeah. Yep.
Kayla: Ugh.
Chris: And so there's been more than just this three, by the way, but I'm just going to talk about these three. And there's a fourth one I may be talking about in a little bit, but night through JZK Inc. Which I think is her company, JZK Inc. Has accused someone called White Wind Weaver.
Kayla: I'm looking that up right now.
Chris: Of stealing her ideas and using her and Ramta's teaching in her workshop. So. And this person is a citizen of Washington state as well. A trial began in March 2008 and the county superior court. And at the end, Knight was awarded about $10,000 in a decision against white.
Kayla: Wind Weaver, this bitch has a lot of money. Clearly she's got good ass lawyers.
Chris: Oh yeah, she's litigious.
Kayla: Are they gonna come after us?
Chris: They could, which would be rad.
Kayla: Can we just be like, we'll take our podcast down.
Chris: No, no, we could free pub for the podcast. What is she gonna sue us for?
Kayla: We can take all our money.
Chris: We don't have money.
Kayla: Oh, that's true.
Chris: What's she gonna do? Also, like, all of this is just stuff I read online. Like, what am I gonna be like? My favorite court case was, and this is probably the one you're talking about, is that she brought a suit against a woman from Berlin named Julie Revell.
Kayla: What?
Chris: For disturbing night's psychic state and leaving her hanging in spiritual limbo during the five years that Ravel claimed she was also channeling Ramtha.
Kayla: So a woman in Berlin said, oh yeah, yeah, that Ramtha, he.
Chris: I'm channeling him too.
Kayla: Mister Ramtha hangs out in my.
Chris: He's a spirit. Maybe he can chant. Maybe she can channel him.
Kayla: And that left Jay z knight in psychic limbo.
Chris: Spiritual, spiritual limbo. The case was brought to the supreme court in Vienna and lasted over five years at the end of which Austria supreme Court awarded copyright tonight as the sole channeler of Ramtha.
Kayla: So you can copyright an entity, you can copyright a psychic transcendent 35,000 year old entity? That sounds right.
Chris: Yes. And in order to do this, I believe, and I didn't read like the details of the court case, but in order to say that you have, you can copyright something, you have to say that you were the one that made it up, right.
Kayla: You created it.
Chris: So in order to win this court case, which was crucial to her preserving her monopoly on this commercial product, right? She essentially had to admit in court that she created Romtha.
Kayla: So Romtha's a character. She admitted to Romtha being a character.
Chris: Because either she made it up, right, and she gets to keep it right, or she didn't make it up and he's just reel and around. And who's to say that the other person didn't channel?
Kayla: That's like a crazy version of that, like Bible story of like cutting the baby in half. It's like if you admit that it's fake, then everybody knows it's fake. But if you don't admit that it's fake, then it gets taken away from you. But maybe people will keep it.
Chris: But what she knew is that it doesn't matter if she admits it's fake in court. Because if you're the type of person that's gonna pay her thousands of dollars to, like, legitimately think that she's channeling a spirit.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: Like, one statement in court is she can just go back and be like, oh, I had to say that because this person was damaging me, and blah, blah. Right, right. And my. One of the funny. This person was also made to pay $800 to Jay Z. 800 in damages. And in the Wikipedia article, it says, was made to pay $800 in psychic damages tonight. So I guess that's a thing. I guess there's, like, how is this.
Kayla: Laughed out of court?
Chris: I don't know.
Kayla: Okay.
Chris: And now, because it's 2019, of course, politics is involved in this as well.
Kayla: No. Why? I don't want to talk about politics.
Chris: Well, we have to, because it's really great. So trigger warning, racism and homophobia.
Kayla: Everybody fucking goddamn it.
Chris: And I'm gonna just apologize for saying these horrible things, but I'm quoting them. Just keep that in mind, please. The first thing I want to mention when I'm talking about politics is that Jay Z has been flagged by ye olde Southern poverty Law center for some comments she's made.
Kayla: Some of you want to explain what the southern poverty Law center.
Chris: Oh, yes. Good call. Southern Poverty Law center is a highly regarded anti. It's kind of like the anti defamation league a little bit, but general.
Kayla: They're like a hate group watchdog.
Chris: It's a hate group. Yeah, hate group watchdog. And they, like, you know, they will flag hate groups as hate groups and put out literature and information and, you know, help people. They, like, help combat this stuff. They do a lot of, like, legal work. It's all pro bono.
Kayla: If you're ever looking to donate some cash. Southern poverty Law center is a wonderful place.
Chris: Yeah, they do the Lord's work. They do Ramtha's work, really. Anyway, any case, like, you know, if you get flagged by them, that it's like, that's not good. So some of the stuff she's been caught saying on video, which she's been trying to squash a particular video about that with another court case, in any case, it's pretty wretched stuff. She tried to wave it off as being taken out of context. You know, everybody that says something shitty and gets caught. And there's a libertarian group that was sort of, like, in Washington, like, sort of, like, anti her that, one of their guys basically said, like, if somehow their claim is the videos are not being represented correctly, why not just put the whole video up rather than attempting to litigate it out of existence.
Kayla: Good point.
Chris: Good point. In her teachings, Ramtha has made. Or his. I don't know.
Kayla: Wait, so is Romtha saying.
Chris: Ramtha sang them rompthes, Jay Z as romp.
Kayla: The same. Ramtha's a racist.
Chris: Ramtha is a horrible racist. Yeah. Okay, some of the statements include. Yes. Include that Christianity is a backward religion and Jesus parables can be explained by means of photon waves and probability that, quote, murder isn't really wrong or evil if one believes in reincarnation. And during the court case of knight versus knight that I mentioned earlier, Jeff Knight stated that Ramtha had declared that HIV is nature's way of getting rid of homosexuality. Not exactly a new thing.
Kayla: No, but a horrifying thought to harbor.
Chris: Awesome partic God and esplc. Southern poverty Law center has observed that Ramtha has made anti semitic comments such as, fuck God's chosen people. I think they have earned enough cash to have paid their way out of the goddamn gas chambers by now.
Kayla: That might be as Ramtha the most. That's one of the more, like, horrifying.
Chris: But it was totally taken out of context, though.
Kayla: Like, there's no. There's no context for that. That makes it not one of the more.
Chris: One of the worst things you've heard.
Kayla: Yes. Like word salad that's ever been uttered into this.
Chris: Yeah, I have one more before we end the trigger warning in the. I believe this was in the video that she's trying to get squashed, which is the invasion of the Mexicans who breed just like rabbits. They're poisonous.
Kayla: I kind of think that Romtha is poison.
Chris: Really? Yeah.
Kayla: That is disgusting.
Chris: Yeah. So trigger warning over for that. Sorry about that, everyone. Now for the more. So that's sort of political. Now it's like political.
Kayla: Oh, God.
Chris: In the past, Jay Z has been a big donor to the Democratic Party.
Kayla: Oh, no. God.
Chris: Yep.
Kayla: We got too many weirdos in the world.
Chris: Please hold. After some of these statements had been made public, the Washington Republican Party had called upon the donations made to Jay Z to be returned. Eventually, $70,000, which I believe was the amount of the donations, was returned from the Washington Democratic Party and given to the. I don't know if this is the proper name or just a lowercase, but the campaign to uphold gay marriage. So they did do the right thing. They did return the money. And to their credit, I mean, Republicans. I mean, obviously, it's easy to do that if you're not the ones getting the money. But they said, hey, you should return the money, right?
Kayla: Everybody acted correctly.
Chris: Everybody acted correctly, which is super weird. That was probably the weirdest thing I read all day.
Kayla: Don't take money from Jay Z Knight. Don't take money from Rumtha. It's not good.
Chris: So I'm gonna surprise you big time here. All that stuff went down, like, in, I think, the early 2010s.
Kayla: Okay, but now I don't really want to talk about now. Can we just skip this part?
Chris: But now, surprise. Ramtha is a big supporter of Trump game. Gotta respect game, right? Apologies for Trump supporters if you're listening, but it's true. Go look it up.
Kayla: Just why does Romtha need to get involved in the affairs?
Chris: Oh, no, that's great.
Kayla: So 2016 american politics, because it's, you.
Chris: Know, that's important or something. I don't know. So this is from an article I'm.
Kayla: Just, I run in a lot of QAnon circles for research purposes and this person has never come up and I'm questioning why this is like right in the sweet spot.
Chris: I know, I know. And that's why I didn't even spread, like, even if I had never read any of the, like, racist, like, let's ignore the racist stuff, right? It doesn't. It still doesn't surprise me that this is something that she would do, right? Because it's like culty and huckstery. Like I said, game recognized game, right? So anyway, Ramtha told his students Trump doesn't need the money or power. He already possesses them and is beholden to no one. And he paid for his own campaign. He is your courageous warrior and he is going to do exactly like the great entities before him have done. He's going to raise up the many and let prosperity for all and not just a few. He is brilliant and clever, wise, remarkable. He is courageous and true.
Chris: Ramtha said, for those who are not Trump supporters, if you dont like that, you dont have to like me anymore and be off with you. Then reiterated Trump, in the future will spare the country and the world from a world war. Poverty, disease and pestilence. Romp. The prophesied Trump will have an experience with alien spaceships while aboard Air Force one.
Kayla: Okay, well, has that happened?
Chris: According to Romtha, it either will or has. In the first time he looks out the window when he sees two silver disks as escort. He is going to know it all. And this is a man who is not afraid. He is going to know it all, Ramtha said.
Kayla: What does that mean?
Chris: Ramtha added both vague and specific prophecies, including an attempt on Trumps life that will backfire. They will try to kill him. A bomb will blow up in their face. Ramtha also expo about an attack by aliens coming soon at the end of spring. In a year to come, that attack will kill many, but it's just a ruse to frighten the masses. I don't know how it's a ruse if the aliens are actually attacking. I don't know. Ramtha also said a ship with a tractor beam will lift the buildings in the country of Qatar.
Kayla: That's very specific.
Chris: I believe that's actually pronounced Qatar. Excuse me. And that a secret government is, quote, hiding free energy, as well as, quote, immediate health. Again, this is all just like, from the smorgasbord of conspiracy theorists. Like, just, you know, you go, you pick, you go back to your table, you eat it.
Kayla: I dated a guy who tried to convince me that, like, free energy was a thing being hidden from us.
Chris: Yeah, of course. That's great. Was this.
Kayla: It was pre you, obviously.
Chris: I hope so, because we dated and now we're married. So one of her final predictions regarding Trump was that he would come to understand the deception on the people and file bankruptcy on the national debt against the Federal reserve. As someone who has a degree in economics, I can tell you that sentence doesn't make any sense. Last quote, I think that's his finest hour. Ramtha said, adding, the markets will crash, but there will be, quote, no more debt for the american people.
Kayla: Okay. Isn't that the end of Fight club?
Chris: Yeah, that's the end of Fight club. Probably stole it from that. And then I discovered that as of December 20, so December 20 of 2018. 2018 of about a month ago, one Jay Z Knight donated $10,000 to the GoFundMe campaign. We the people will fund the wall.
Kayla: Oh, that means she got her money back.
Chris: So she got her money back. So that's good.
Kayla: Why can't they just think the wall into existence? Like, that's my question.
Chris: I don't know.
Kayla: Why can't they just think the wall into existence?
Chris: She has to donate money. I don't have a good answer for you.
Kayla: Does Jay Z Knight live in a world where the wall exists?
Chris: Maybe.
Kayla: Then why does she need to donate money for the wall to exist?
Chris: Maybe in her world it exists, but it doesn't in ours. So she's donating to build it in our world.
Kayla: Why does she care if it exists in our world?
Chris: Because she's just trying to help. Okay, do you remember those quotes? She's trying to help everyone except for those groups that she hates. So except for Christians, Jews, homosexuals.
Kayla: She loves the homophobes.
Chris: She loves the homophobe. She is a homophobe. And Mexico.
Kayla: Okay.
Chris: And you and me, right? Romp, the school of enlightenment, everyone.
Kayla: I. Wait, okay. Okay. Well, I just need. Okay. Going back to what the bleep. The part where it's like you can create your own reality. Just my favorite part was that Jay Z knight as Romtha the. I think it's at the end. I don't remember if it's the end or the beginning, but it's like at some point we're supposed to be like, oh, my God. Mind blowing. The example he or she gives as to how, like, our minds create the nature of reality is that I think the quote is with a single thought a man gets an erection. And that with a single thought a man gets an erection. That's supposed to be the most demonstrative metaphor as to how we are in control of quantum mechanics.
Chris: Right. And that. And therefore I can. I can think my way into a different reality.
Kayla: Right. Because like, when you think and then get a boner, that's like totally not physiology, right.
Chris: There's totally not an actual physical thing stretching literally from my brain to my penis.
Kayla: So I just wanted to make sure we got that in there.
Chris: Yeah, no, thank you.
Kayla: Okay.
Chris: That's crucial. So I guess we're at the point now where I want to ask you, are they a cult or are they just weird? Well, do we have the criteria? It's been a long ass time.
Kayla: I do. I wrote it all down and I'll just run through our criteria again, just as a reminder. So the 123456 criteria are one, expected harm, two, population of cult, three, antifactuality. Four, percentage of life consumed. Which means, like, how much of your life do you devote to this thing? Six ritual or five ritual? Six. Charismatic leader. So I think that they clearly have. Charismatic leader. Yeah, they clearly have anti factuality.
Chris: Yep.
Kayla: And how do you feel about population? Do you feel like 6000 is a small population or a large population?
Chris: It's weird, right? Because like, I think the population of like actual enrolled students is small.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: But God knows what the population of like people who have like bought a book or watched the movie. So I don't know.
Kayla: I don't think they really have like the ritualistic behaviors, like, as far as we know. But I mean.
Chris: Well, no, so actually. So I forgot about this. One of the things they do, according to a former students, is they will put students in a dark maze, blindfolded. And they're supposed to, like, find their way to the center of the maze, and that helps them, like, reach some sort of enlightenment, find their own center or some shit.
Kayla: Okay, so what you're buying is ritual.
Chris: You might be buying some ritual itself. Yeah.
Kayla: Okay. So, okay. Like, there is some charismatic leader antifactuality, I'm gonna say ritual. And given that the charismatic leader is channeling a spirit, which I think is, like, very ritualistic in a way.
Chris: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Kayla: That I'm gonna give that. Is that three?
Chris: Mm.
Kayla: Percentage of life consumed? I'm not sure, because I don't know how much, like, they seem to be really into the money they can get from people, but they don't necessarily didn't.
Chris: Want to eat your whole life necessarily.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: It's just then some of the ex students say they do.
Kayla: We didn't really get into that, so I can't.
Chris: Yeah. Except I couldn't really find much on that either. Like, I mean. I mean, I found a little bit, but it was just like, at a certain point, I had to stop researching.
Kayla: I think, that population of cult, we don't get harshly because of what the bleep do we know.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: That kind of, like, blows that out of the water and makes it, like, kind of mainstream.
Chris: Right. Right.
Kayla: Expected harm. I think that's a little bit of a judgment call on our end. And I'm gonna say that there is a high amount of expected harm here, potentially. I mean, we've talked about a death. We've talked about, you know, ex students who had to be ex who had to cut themselves off from their families. We've talked about her own husband being severely injured by this belief system and dying because of it and dying because.
Chris: He didn't get medical attention. Yeah.
Kayla: The cult seems. Or the cult or just weird group seems very litigious, which I think also has, like, a harm aspect.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: And to think to this entire thought process that's being preached feels harmful to me.
Chris: Yeah, me too.
Kayla: To kind of delude people into a. Giving you money because you can, like, cure everything that ails them and turn them into a God.
Chris: Right. Particularly because harmful. Yeah. Like the Marlee Matlin. Sorry. The main character in what the bleep was presented as, like, somebody who is suffering from real mental health issues.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: From depression and addiction, anxiety and anxiety, you know, which are all things that you should seek actual medical help and to manage evidence.
Kayla: Evidence based.
Chris: Yeah. You know, they're important things for you to take care of yourself with. Right.
Kayla: You can't think your way out of addiction, you can't think your way out of depression.
Chris: You need and you can't read a book by a 35,000 year old warrior spirit. So every person that does that and doesn't receive the help they need for those real issues, right. That's harmful.
Kayla: So given that we have expected harm. Anti factuality, charismatic leader in ritual. I'm calling it a cult.
Chris: Yeah. You know, now that you go through it all, I kind of agree. Like, I was when I was doing this, at first I was all ready to be like, well, I don't know, they just teach people stuff. But, like, when you really do all the research, I think you're right.
Kayla: At the end of the day, I think that Romtha's school of enlightenment is not just weird. I think it has crossed the line over into cult.
Chris: I think it's pretty clear. And some people I really respect agree with that. Oh, you should check out their website, though. I have a note here. Their website and their Facebook page are just like really bizarre, as you'd expect. They're like web pages from like 1998. It's really awesome.
Kayla: I'd get a better it guy. Or actually, that would be like social media coordinator at this point.
Chris: Yeah. So, you know, my takeaway, and until I did a little bit more of this was, I mean, I still have some of the same takeaways. So if it's not a cult, it's extremely close because of all those criteria, I think it is.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: But one of the things that I sort of like, again, like, what's the nugget that you take away from research? Like, this is just how easy and tempting it is to be drawn in by these false beliefs. So my main thought after doing all this research was like, what are the weird, crazy, or unsubstantiated things that I believe? What are the irrational thoughts floating around in my own head? Beliefs like this tend to be intellectual shortcuts. As one writer mentioned when they were talking about in the film. What the bleep? How all this brain chemistry produces consciousness is actually one of the most challenging questions facing brain scientists today. It's not something you're just going to be like, oh, it's quantum, and you just make stuff. You have a boner.
Chris: It's literally like how non conscious biochemical processes create consciousness is something that we don't know. And no God of the gaps argument is going to solve that. Only a lot of hard work and research by actual scientists is going to give us any insight into that. And the thing that was really so scary about doing some of this research is that there were so many. And we've talked about this, but really smart people that believe some of this weird stuff, right? I talked about all the pundits and some of them are chiropractors and communicated priests, but one of them is this guy, Amit Goswami, PhD and theoretical nuclear physicist. And he's been a member of University of Oregon. So like a real university. We can cut that if you don't want to do universities.
Kayla: But no, I just didn't want to do it.
Chris: I mean, it's in. Yeah, I mean, it's in the film. What the bleep. You know, it says where he's from, of theoretical science since 1968, and he's lectured at RSE and he was one of the craziest dudes in the film, okay, theoretical nuclear physicist. And he has all sorts of writings about, like, consciousness creating reality and like, all that weird stuff. Like. And you think like, okay, well, a guy, like, if there's a guy like that, he's gonna be a skeptic, right? But it turns out that's not fucking true. It blew my mind. So. And like, the other thing is, like, when the film came out, there was newspapers across the country reviewing the film, giving it high marks for being enlightening and educational.
Kayla: It's not educational. I know it's not educational. It's not based in fact. It's not based in reality. And it's produced by. I know the group that is like, reaching the teachings. Like, every documentary has an editorial bias. This is an extreme bias.
Chris: And that's the thing that's so. That so fucks me up, is that it's like, it's not just like, well, it's some woo shit. The scientists are like, whatever, you know? It's like, no, at the bottom of this is somebody is a random woman, right? Who is clear, racist homophobe, right? Channeling, claiming she's channeling a 35 year, like, thousand year old warrior spirit from a non existent civilization. And there's a physicist that's like, yeah, I don't know, maybe he's just as unauthentic as everybody else and he just wants to make a buck. It could just be that, right? But that's the part that really makes it scary, right? It may not seem important to combat this stuff sometimes because you think, like, well, we've taught. We've had this conversation right in our off hours. Like, what harm is it doing? What harm is it doing.
Chris: You know, people can believe whatever they want, which is true. Like, I want to shit anybody's beliefs, but when you let this stuff go and say, oh, Rhonda Wimmer ou, when you let that go long enough, and then, like, suddenly you find yourself in this post truth society where nothing is real and everything is fraudulent and who is our president? And then you're like, how the fuck did we get here? And that's how.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: So that's why I think it's so important to combat this stuff. And I hope that people listening can take some inspiration and solace and be like, there are other skeptics out there. Things are still real. It's okay.
Kayla: Not everything is fire fest.
Chris: Not everything is fyre festival. But, yeah, so there's. I don't know if you're ready to close, but I'm ready to close.
Kayla: I just. I need you to. I need you to say what you're gonna.
Chris: So there's so of. Again, we've talked along this episode a lot about the different people that appeared on the multiple pundits on the show, and some of them were true in the movie. Excuse me. One of them is Ramtha, and one of them is this weird physicist.
Kayla: True believers, an excommunicated priest and a chiropractor. And a.
Chris: But then there are also some people that, like, unfortunately, were interviewed for this, not really knowing what the hell they were doing it for, and were taken way out of context to the point where they had to make statements afterwards about, you know, like, hey, I don't support any of this, like, quantum pseudoscience crap.
Kayla: Right? Like, the nature of the interview was misrepresented to them, and they were basically kind of tricked into saying, using their scientific expertise and their clout to, like, lend legitimacy to something they don't actually believe in.
Chris: Right. And so one of these guys in particular that this happened to was one doctor David Albert, who is, I believe, a professor of the philosophical underpinnings of physics and science.
Kayla: That's a cool.
Chris: And I believe that this is, you know, of all the things that have, like, kind of come out of this movie, this is probably the best thing, because I believe this was in regar. Don't quote me on this, but I think it's in regards to the movie. But I want to leave with this quote because it's just a really good quote. It's one of my favorites now. Okay, so, quote, there is a deep and perennial and profoundly human impulse to approach the world with a demand to approach the world with a precondition that what has got to turn out to lie at the center of the universe, that is what has got to turn out to lie at the foundation of all being, is some powerful and reassuring and accessible image of ourselves.
Chris: And that more than any of their particular factual inaccuracies, talking about the film is what bothers me the most about them. It is precisely the business of resisting that demand. It is precisely the business of approaching the world with open and authentic wonder and with a sharp, cold eye and singularly intent upon the truth. That's called science.
Kayla: Hits me right in the fields.
Chris: If that is cheesy, we can totally cut that.
Kayla: No, that's a. He deserves to have his actual words out there in the world be. That's. Yeah, that's if we're gonna be talking about what the bleep. Which unfortunately, like, we're probably causing some people to.
Chris: Yeah, some people go watch it and I'm sure at least one person will like it. And so they'll probably not want to listen to our podcast.
Kayla: It's good for us to give some publicity as well to doctor David Albert, particularly when he's spoken out against his portrayal in said film. Right, so we're off. The school of enlightenment.
Chris: That was a doozy.
Kayla: Oh, man.
Chris: There was a lot.
Kayla: There was a lot. But I feel like we uncovered some fundamental truth.
Chris: Yeah, maybe we did.
Kayla: Okay, so now we've done. This is episode number two. Thank you so much for listening. We hope that you've gotten something out of it.
Chris: We hope you listen to episode three in a year.
Kayla: No, episode three will be out shortly. In the meantime, you can follow us on Twitter ulterjustweird. Or if you want to send us an email, get in touch. Tell us how we're wrong. Give us ideas. We're cultorjustweirdmail.com, so feel free to get in touch.
Chris: Yeah, especially if you're Jay Z Knight and you want to, like, inform us that we're being sued or something.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: Just email us there.
Kayla: Culterjustweirdmail.com.
Chris: Yeah. And, like, share and subscribe.
Kayla: Like share and subscribe.
Chris: I'm Chris.
Kayla: And I'm Kayla.
Chris: And this is cult or just weird?