Chris: Here we are on our final drive of season five. Season five drive. That was a good rhyme, wasn't it?
Kayla: It was a rhyme.
Chris: And then we're never gonna drive again, ever. This is it.
Kayla: You'd be okay with that?
Chris: I'd actually really like to never drive again because right now in LA, the ten is shut down at part of it. Like, the ten is like the biggest artery highway in this. Anyway, it's bad stuff.
Kayla: It's taking us a lot longer to get to where we're going today than it would before the ten got burnt down. So, Chris, let's talk a little bit about where we are going today.
Chris: Well, Kayla, I have sort of a deep question for you. Since this is our last episode of the season, where do podcast seasons go when they die?
Kayla: It's a morbid question. I didn't think so much of it is dying as ending, but I guess those are similar things. And it's interesting that you asked that question, because for us today we actually return to whence we came. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. This season of culture. Just weird. Season five, we are actually returning to where it all began, the philosophical research society.
Chris: So that's the. Is that the ashes or the dust or is it both?
Kayla: It's. It's all a cycle. We're all. We're bringing it back around. The activity we are going today is taking place within the walls of the philosophical research society. I thought it would be nice and thematic if we put this season to restore where it all. Where it was born.
Chris: As long as I get cake.
Kayla: Hey, Chris.
Chris: Hi, Kayla.
Kayla: How do you feel about death?
Chris: I don't care for it. I vote no.
Kayla: Second question. How do you feel about me asking you that?
Chris: I feel like there's going to be a topic today involving death or feelings about death or is it a death cult? What's a death cult?
Kayla: I don't really know.
Chris: You hear death cult all the time. What does that mean?
Kayla: I think it means that the end goal is mass death, I guess.
Chris: Oh, so, like, is Jonestown. Is that a death cult?
Kayla: Heaven's gate.
Chris: Heaven's gate. So are we doing one of those finally?
Kayla: No. Oh, we'll get to that. Actually, first we should introduce the show. This is welcome to cult or just.
Chris: Weird final episode of season five.
Kayla: Here we are. This is Kayla. I'm a television writer.
Chris: I'm really sorry that I sang that.
Chris: I wish I hadn't.
Kayla: You're still going?
Chris: Chris is me, and I'm a game designer and sometimes data scientist.
Kayla: Welcome to the season finale. We're so excited that you're here with us. This has been an interesting season. It's been different than our previous seasons in that we've had a fewer episodes.
Chris: I am just thinking about how I wish I didn't sing that.
Kayla: Yeah. Do you want to do it again? No, you can redo it.
Chris: No, it'll be funny.
Kayla: We've had fewer episodes, but we've basically gone and had an experience along with every episode. So we've just been grateful to have you all along on that journey with us.
Chris: Yeah. Thanks everyone for journeying with us. And especially thank you to our patrons, including a new patron since last episode. Thank you to tiny for supporting us. It means a lot, as it does for every one of our Patreon supporters.
Kayla: If you'd like to support the show, go to patreon.com culturagesweird. If you want to talk about the show to other people who are weird enough to want to talk about the show, you can hit up our discord, which there's a link in. Anywhere.
Chris: Anywhere you find us show notes is probably the easiest one.
Kayla: Okay, are you ready to get into the episode proper? Do you have any other banter?
Chris: Am I prepared to die?
Kayla: Are you?
Chris: No. I guess some people are. I don't know. What's the topic?
Kayla: Before we get to the topic today, I want to have a little discussion with you.
Chris: Like, it sounds like a pretty big discussion, actually.
Kayla: A mini salon, if you will.
Chris: I will. Only if you don't say salon.
Kayla: Salon. Like, I'm Frasier, so I have some questions to help facilitate that. Okay.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: But also really quick, you might be wondering why I have these plates that.
Chris: You'Re bumping into the microphone.
Kayla: Well, I want the sound of it. Why? We've got plates with cake.
Chris: Yes.
Kayla: Here, I'm handing this to you. Make some noise with your plate. Yeah, my plate.
Chris: So I can eat the. Here first is the, like, pretend noise.
Kayla: Part that doesn't sound like anything. Just please stop doing that.
Chris: You do, and then I will eat. Oh, is that how you. Okay, but then I actually want to eat some of the cake.
Kayla: So we're actually going to eat cake while we talk. Probably just have a little bite right now and then don't.
Chris: I already had my bite.
Kayla: Don't chew and don't chew and talk. But the point is, cake is here.
Chris: So there's cake involved as well. I think it might be funnier if I chew and talk, though. Like if I, you know, do like. Especially if it's like an exaggerated, like. All right, Carlo, what are we talking about today?
Kayla: I don't want. That would be funny, though. It's too late, so. Okay. Got our cake.
Chris: Eating it, too.
Kayla: Got our questions. Let's get back into it. How do you feel about death?
Chris: Wait, did you poison me with this cake? Is this Kool aid cake?
Kayla: Get prepared. Be prepared. No, it is not. It's not Kool aid cake. It's just. This is just normal cake. It's regular cake. The cake is not a lie.
Chris: Okay. Well, I mean, it tastes good. I don't feel great about death. Still, the answer remains the same.
Kayla: How do you cope with your fear or anxiety about that?
Chris: Big questions at the top of the show here.
Kayla: It's real life.
Chris: I don't really cope super well with it most of the time.
Kayla: What, do you just ignore it? Do you, like, pretend it's not gonna happen?
Chris: Yeah, I think on the daily, on, like, a day to day basis, it just. There's sort of just, like, a blind spot for it where I just, like, am not thinking about it. And that's how I kind of just go through my day to day, is not thinking about it. Sometimes, of course, I do think about my own mortality, and sometimes I can do that in, like, a calm, sober way. And then sometimes it just, like, freaks me the fuck out. And then I have to, like. Like, if I. Sometimes I can really spiral on it and think about the finality and the nothingness and it just. And then I have to really. Should we trigger warning this for people? Because, like, I can get pretty freaked out sometimes. Yeah, I don't want people to get freaked out.
Chris: So we're gonna be talking about death today.
Kayla: In case that wasn't clear.
Chris: In case that wasn't clear, I can get.
Kayla: Sometimes I will, like, lay in bed at night and I'll start thinking about, like, how little time there is left, quote, unquote, like, even if I'm lucky enough to live, like, a. Quote unquote, like, live up my natural life cycle. Like, if I don't die as a result of an accident or illness, if I die of old age, blaze of glory, it still feels like, oh, God, there's not enough time. There's not enough time. And then I think about, like, the. The time left with my loved ones, if they are also lucky enough to die of old age. And I'm like, well, that's not enough time either. And I can just, like, lay in bed and, like, I get, like, I have physical sensations in my body. It's so anxiety inducing, like, I will get.
Kayla: There's a specific kind of, like, hot inside my body that is reserved for I am ruminating on, like, my anxiety around my mortality and the mortality of my loved ones. And not. And not in the, like, fear of the afterlife kind of way, but in a fear of, oh, there's not enough time. There's not enough time. There's not enough time. And then I'll think about the fear of the afterlife or the finality and it's like, that's a whole other thing.
Chris: Yeah. So I normally wouldn't bring this up, but since this is an episode where we are apparently talking about death and we have appropriately given warnings, there is this sort of like, semi bleak but also informative way of thinking about time with loved ones that another data scientist back when I was working at Blizzard shared with me at one point. I don't even know why, it was like I was friends with this guy, but I don't even know why he was talking about this. Whatever. Anyway, the interesting bit is that if you actually track. If you think about the amount of time that you spend with your loved ones, especially ones that are medium to very distant, it's not even like, okay, well, I have 40 years left with my loved ones if I live out a normal lifespan.
Chris: But the amount of time you actually spend with them is intermittent. So it can actually be like somebody actually made a chart, basically is the idea of this is like, if you spend two days a week hanging out with your parents for lunch, then you will have another six months hanging out with your. I don't know what the exact numbers are, but the times are shockingly small.
Kayla: I personally, I've seen that analysis elsewhere and I personally don't care for it.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: And not that I care for it because I can't handle it kind of way. I think that it's. I think it's a false. I think it is a false, like, quantifying of what it means to, quote unquote, spend time with your loved ones.
Chris: Right. Cause I'm not, like, when I'm spending time with our loved ones, it's not like, all right, we're staring at each other the whole time and I'm not sleeping or pissing.
Kayla: Well, we're also spending time with our loved ones, especially us now in this, like, we're extremely connected kind of society. Like, we're spending time with our loved ones even if they're 3000 miles away from us. Like, texting is part of that. Emailing, video calls, Skype calls, even just, I think there's a difference between knowing you have access to a loved one versus they're dead and you can't. That's a different. That's not like, oh, I only have six months with them. I think that's a false way to quantify what it means to, oh, I only have 40 years left with so and so alive.
Chris: I don't think it's like, I don't think there's any sort of fundamental truth to it. I think it does help illuminate a little bit, though, the limited time that we do have on earth. Sometimes I cope a little bit better. I guess sometimes I am able to think about death without getting too freaked out. Like, I don't know. Right now, I kind of feel all right about it.
Kayla: Oh, I'm freaking out.
Chris: You freaking out right now? I will let you know if I get there, because there's definitely, like you said, a hot inside, sort of like, oh, my God, at some point, there's gonna be nothing.
Susan Barsky Reid: Yeah.
Chris: I don't know. I think ultimately, though, I don't really have a great. This is something that I don't know if I'll ever have a great, pithy answer to. Like, I don't know if I'll ever have, like, a. All right, so here's how you think about death. Okay? Like, I don't think I'll ever have that.
Kayla: Right. I read. I think I've talked about this on the show before, but when I was in high school or something, I read in a textbook about death and dying that most people, when they are on their deathbed, don't have any regrets about their. Have very few regrets about their life. And I know I've talked about this on the show before, and I'm like, I will never fact check that because I need to believe it. That's my religion. I have faith in that because I need to think that, because as I get older, I'm realizing there is so much I'm not gonna get to in this life. There is so much I'm not going to get to.
Chris: Dude. I know.
Kayla: And that's gotta be okay.
Chris: I know. It has to be.
Kayla: Yeah. It just has to be. And I'm not old. I'm young. And I still. I'm very aware there is so even more than I. Even more than I am, like, aware of. I'm not gonna get to.
Chris: You're old enough to have back problems randomly.
Kayla: Yeah. Slept on the mattress wrong.
Chris: Yeah. No, I. This may be going a little tangent y, but I do think that we place a weirdly powerful emphasis on what we think about, regret wise on our deathbed. Like, that's a very specific situation. Right, right. Like, our lives comprise of a multitude of moments, and only one of those moments is me on my deathbed. So, like, is what I regret or what I wish I had done or what I hadn't done or whatever, is that important? Like, yeah, it is, but it's also not like, the be all and end all. We also have to consider how we feel in our everyday lives, as well. It's not all about. I think, like, oh, man, I regretted that I never visited Korea, actually. I will really regret that. That's a bad example. But you get what I mean.
Kayla: I mean, yeah. It's like, the moment of death is so important and profound and also, like, nothing compared to the length of life. Yeah, I think that's a good point. What legacy would you like to leave behind?
Chris: Geez, dude, I don't know. I would like to have a giant pyramid built in my name.
Kayla: God. Same.
Chris: That will last thousands and thousands of years. You ever hear a quote about the great pyramids? This is my favorite quote about the great pyramids. I got this from. I don't know if it's real. I think it's real, but I got it from civilization. When you build the pyramids. No, it isn't one of the civ computer games. It's. Man fears. Time fears the great pyramids.
Kayla: Ooh, that's very good.
Chris: Isn't that good? Suck at time.
Kayla: Would I want that to be my legacy? Because I do think about that specifically with, like, the ancient Egyptians. And, like, you know, you and I went and saw, like, that. That museum, that traveling museum exhibit of King Tut.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: And, like, I remember them talking about in the exhibit, like, oh. Like, there will never. Like, there has never been a time where, like, King Tut's name has not been spoken. Like, he's the most famous Mandev. His legacy is never ending. And I'm like, is that good or bad?
Chris: Yeah, they dropped the other famous quote, which is the two deaths quote.
Kayla: Right?
Chris: Like, you die your first death when your body dies, right? And you die your second death when nobody ever speaks your name again.
Kayla: And, like, maybe it's good to become nothing at some point. And, like, obviously King Tut will become nothing at some point. Like, even. Even if we're still talking about the heat death of the universe, eventually that will blink out, too, and it's like, he'll be gone. Dead. But I just wonder if. If, like, is that if I. If I had the choice of, like, sharing in the ritual and experience of death that, like, you know, 30 billion other people have experienced in versus, like, having that kind of legacy, which one would I. Which one would I pick?
Chris: Yeah. I can't lie and say that legacy isn't something I've ever thought about or wouldn't be important. Like, I do have some desire to be remembered or important in some way, but at the same time, it's never been, like, a huge thing for me. And I think it's because of kind of what were just talking about, like, death. Like, the death of your legacy is also inevitable.
Kayla: Right?
Chris: So a legacy just kind of feels like, I don't know, overtime. You know, it's like there's, like, regular time when I'm alive, and then my overtime is, like, my legacy, but eventually that ends, too. So it really just kind of feels like an extra period of time. Right. All fades to dust regardless.
Kayla: What do you think happens after you die?
Chris: This is too profound for 06:00 on a Saturday.
Kayla: 625, what do you think happens after you die? Really? What do you think happens to your soul, your consciousness? What do you think happens?
Chris: Is this a gun to my head scenario? Because that would be pretty meta.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: What do I think happens? I don't think we have souls. I don't think that whatever we are experiencing right now persists in any way that we would recognize it. I think that something. Something resembling consciousness is not impossible, but in some, like, weir, like, because here's the thing. I'm already, like, just a bunch of atoms, like, stuck together as me that thinks I'm conscious when it's. I'm not. And we already think of consciousness, neurologically speaking, as, like, an illusion. So I don't know why there might. There couldn't be another illusion when I'm no longer stuck together as Chris. As Chris meat. You know, maybe when I become one with my atoms, disperse again, maybe there will be some sort of consciousness at the universal level. I don't know, but I kind of feel like that's also wishful thinking.
Chris: Like, you know me, I'm a materialist. Like, I. I don't think there is anything after we die. But here's the thing, though. Like, sometimes I get. Okay, so here's when I'm at my healthiest thinking about death is when I acknowledge that it's not a curse, but a gift. Like, true infinity. True immortality is the only thing that's worse. I think the thought of not being able to have an end to something is hell.
Kayla: I mean, supposedly it's what the gods envy of us, right?
Chris: Yeah.
Chris: And I think that, you know, you hear a lot of, like, oh, well, it's, you know, death makes life so much sweeter because it's limited in time. And I think that's true. Like, it's always felt a little cheesy, but I think it's still true. But on the same side of that coin, though, is I just don't think that living truly forever would be a great experience for anyone. I think it would be terrible. And I hate to say, oh, go watch the good place. But they answer that question, or they deal with that question, I think, pretty deftly with what ends up happening on that show. Yeah.
Kayla: If reality could be what? Like, if the reality of death could be what the good place depicts, that would be heaven. That would be the dream, right.
Chris: I don't think there's anything wrong with extent, like radical life extension. Cool. Permanent life extension. Not good. An ideal world for me would be everybody actually chooses when they get to die.
Kayla: So what we just did was kind of a slice. See what I did there?
Chris: I barely had time to eat any of this because I was just yapping.
Kayla: A little slice of our topic today for this episode, we're talking about death cafes.
Chris: So is this a death? Are we in like, virtually or really like, because we have cake and I'm actually drinking a coffee right now.
Kayla: Well, my next question was, but what are death cafes, you might ask. Which is what you are asking.
Chris: That's essentially what I'm asking.
Kayla: We will head to the about section@deathcafe.com to learn more.
Chris: Are they gonna be able to tell me what happens after death?
Kayla: We'll get to see.
Chris: Nobody knows.
Kayla: That's the thing.
Chris: Nobody truly knows.
Kayla: Through a black hole.
Chris: The only truest. Yeah, it's like going through black hole.
Kayla: The only true information cannot come back unless you're doctor Gary Schwartz and you have your soul phone.
Chris: Oh, well, yeah.
Kayla: God. Quote, at a death cafe, people, often strangers, gather to eat cake.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Drink tea.
Chris: Nailed it on the cake thing.
Kayla: Drink tea and discuss death.
Chris: Whoops, I'm drinking coffee.
Kayla: Our objective is to increase awareness of death with a view of helping people make the most of their finite lives. A death cafe is a group directed discussion of death with no agenda, objectives, or themes. It is a discussion group rather than grief support or counseling session, end quote. How does that sound to you?
Chris: I think that a place to talk about this stuff sounds pretty good.
Kayla: Yeah, it feels like there's not there's just not a lot of venues to talk about death. Like, obviously, it features heavily in, like, religion and spirituality, but I'm not gonna lie. A lot of the religion and spirituality that I've been exposed to, yes, it.
Chris: Talks about death, that's why.
Kayla: But it doesn't talk about, like, mortality.
Chris: That's why da los Muertos fucking rules. That's why it's the best holiday of the year.
Kayla: I would also argue that dia de los muertos, which I love the fuck.
Chris: Outta here with whatever you're about to say.
Kayla: Provides a framework that our loved ones are still around in a material sense. And I think about christianity, and it provides a framework of, oh, we're gonna beat death by having eternal life. Or I think about some of the spirituality we've talked about on this show, and it's like, I'm either gonna, like, reincarnate, or I'm going to be one with the universe, or I'm going to, like, annihilate the self and become one with everything. I don't feel like I've run into a lot of spirituality that grapples with the idea that, what if death is the end? I'm not saying that this is, like, what's being solely addressed here. I'm just saying there's not a lot of venues to talk about, like, what happens if we die and then we're dead.
Chris: Yeah, my understanding, and I don't know very much, but my understanding is, at least of the more famous religions, I think Judaism does that. I think a lot of when you die, you're dead. Jews believe that, yeah, there is no afterlife, and they grapple with that and their rituals. But please correct me if I'm wrong on that. I think that's the case. I will also say, sorry, one more thing. Regarding Dio de los Muertos. I think my feeling from it is less that it's trying to conquer death. It feels less like a lol JK heaven or like, don't worry, you'll reincarnate. It feels less like that and more. It's less about what happens after you die and more about giving comfort to living people by allowing them to feel togetherness with their loved ones who are no longer here.
Kayla: That's a good point. And I'm not saying any of this to denigrate or say that it's wrong of religion to talk about or consider or have a framework for an afterlife. I only bring it up because we say things like, oh, there's not a lot of venues to talk about this, and there are some kind of mainstream venues to talk in a specific way about death, but there's not a lot of venues to have a freewheeling conversation that, like, maybe grapples with death in a way that isn't, like, prescribed by a faith or something like that. Does that make sense?
Chris: Yeah, totally. And, like, the tea and cake thing is kind of clever. Like, it.
Kayla: It's not dissimilar to dia de los muertos.
Chris: It, like, casualizes it. Yeah.
Kayla: And D? De las Muertos, obviously, is, like, more celebratory, but, like, it involves food and booze and, like, making a party out of it and. Yeah, having, you know, this specifically, you're supposed to have tea and cake because it's. It normalizes it. It adds an air of, like, oh, this is casual. This is a conversation.
Chris: Well, I'm done with my cake, so, like, can we wrap this up so I can go get another slice of cake?
Kayla: So part of why I wanted to talk about death cafes in our finale episode is because it feels like there's something connective here. Like, we've talked about so many different groups this season and in the past four seasons, obviously, that often use things like fear of death to gather followers or provide answers surrounding the nature of death to do the same. And so I'm thinking of things like, you know, like we mentioned, you know, the Hare Krishnas offer a way out of karmic cycles and into a beautiful afterlife. Or Doctor Gary Schwartz, that's my second reference for him. He offers a phone, his cell phone.
Chris: Project, which is to this day, one of the best episodes of cult are just weird.
Kayla: He sells people on a yemenite quote, unquote scientific method to communicate with their dead loved ones.
Chris: Like, he is lying.
Kayla: It also made me think about how some of these groups offer a place to talk about taboo subjects that you can't really talk about anywhere else. And it's like, if you feel that need, you can attract followers. So, specifically, obviously, Teal swan and her method of, like, straightforwardly talking about suicide and suicidal thoughts and suicidal ideation.
Chris: We did a whole episode on the, like, the destigmatization of talking about suicide because of teal swans ability to kind of crack that barrier.
Kayla: So I was moved to hear that a place like death cafe exists like a casual, secular, not for profit, decentralized collective of groups that provide a space to talk about our fears around the taboo subject of death. In short, much like that episode about suicidality was called the Antidote. I wonder if Death Cafes offer antidote for some of what drives us to seek out the high control or toxic groups you and I might end up labeling as cults on our show.
Chris: Yeah. One of the overarching themes of the show is these high control groups, these cults, these abusive places fill a need, and there might better ways to fill that need. It sounds like Death Cafe is one of those things that could maybe feel this need to be able to talk about this kind of thing, but in a healthy instead of a toxic environment.
Kayla: You got it. Before we get too deep into it, I know that we're like a half an hour in. Let me.
Chris: Before we get too deep into it, we're twice as long as most podcast episodes.
Kayla: I want to give a little background on how death cafes got started.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: Again from deathcafe.com, comma, quote. The Death Cafe model was developed by John Underwood and Sue Barsky Reid, based on the ideas of Bernard Kretatzenhe. Who is Bernard Kretatz?
Chris: I don't know.
Kayla: Let's get into it. Born in 1938, Bernard Krataz was a swiss sociologist and ethnologist, educated at the University of Geneva who studied funeral rites and customs along with his wife, anthropologist Yvonne Preiswork. But perhaps his most well known, at least in the mainstream work, came about.
Chris: I'm sorry. That husband and wife team would have had a killer podcast. They would have had a better podcast than us.
Kayla: They should have made a podcast. Unfortunately, Yvonne died in 1999, which is before the era for the advent of.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: Bernard's most well known mainstream work came about as a result of his wife's death. When she died in 1999, Cretatz developed the idea of Cafe mortales, which were casual gatherings in restaurants to discuss one death.
Chris: Mortals.
Kayla: Mortals. The first cafe mortal took place in 2004 in the swiss town of Neuchatel, and word began to spread. Cretatz began hosting more and even began inviting others to host. He once said during an interview, by talking about death and dying all the time, you prepare yourself a little for your own death, which means you're not terrified of it. It's perhaps a way of facing it as in the past. We dared to look it in the face, but death will always remain a taboo, a fundamental enigma.
Chris: I think I agree with that. Although don't sound like people have near death experience, like they come back or whatever. So do they. Do you think they have like a window? You know what? This sounds like a whole other episode. Never mind. It's like you don't know. Cause we can't come back from it. But, like, some people are, like, dead for two minutes or whatever.
Kayla: I don't know. I just had surgery and I went under and I was like, am I the same person?
Chris: I never know.
Kayla: I never know.
Chris: Le Petit Morte, it's every single night we die the little death.
Kayla: I thought Le Petit Mort was. Was it orgasm?
Chris: Oh, hold on now. I need to look this up. Hold on.
Kayla: Le Petit Mort is an orgasm.
Chris: Okay. Okay. I looked this up. It's somewhat ambiguous modern usage of lip. You're correct. In modern usage, that's the main thing, is that you won. Le Petit Mort refers to the brief loss or weakening of consciousness in the post orgasm sensation.
Kayla: Okay, so if le big mort, is that just. Does it feel really good? Does dying feel like that's if you have multiple orgasm? Orgasm? Yeah, sounds fine to me.
Chris: But I did see here that there is, like, sort of archaic usage. There's a biblical and even older saying that sleep is the little death.
Kayla: Okay, so you were just referencing the biblical.
Chris: So I was just. Whereas you were just horny.
Kayla: Well, that sounds right. Okay. Eventually, Bernard Cretaz would be known among some as more french. L'homme quai pour la mort, the man who carries death. Crtaz hosted more than 100 cafe mortales across Switzerland and even traveled to Paris in 2010 to host one. An article appeared in the Independent about this event and was read by John Underwood, who was living in London at the time, and he took the idea and ran with it, developing it into the current iteration of death cafes.
Chris: Cool.
Kayla: Bernard Cretaz died at age 84 in 2022. But.
Chris: Oh, that was, like, yesterday.
Kayla: It was, like, recent. Yeah, it's a fairly new phenomenon.
Chris: I didn't know that. I guess you just said it.
Kayla: I just said it.
Chris: Now I do.
Kayla: This cafe mortal experiment that he ran now spans the globe. John Underwood held his first death cafe in Hackney, London, in September 2011, facilitated by Susan Barsky Reed, a psychotherapist, and John's mother. Oh, I just.
Chris: I love that they did a mother son business time.
Kayla: It's not a business time, and it's not a business. It's a not for profit. It's simply just a thing.
Chris: They just did something for, like, the good of doing it. Losers.
Kayla: While death cafes have no formal staff, John and Susan produced a guide to running your own death cafe in 2012, which was soon picked up in the US and allows essentially anyone, anywhere who would like to host a death cafe to do so for themselves and those in their community.
Chris: That's really cool. It's cool. Yeah, it's cool. They did something together.
Kayla: John Underwood ran death Cafe on a voluntary basis until June 2017. He died suddenly on June 27, 2017, and is missed by his family, his friends, and the many people he touched via his work with death cafe. I guess that. I guess that brought the mood down a little bit.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my lack of response is the response, I guess. I don't know, like, that. That sucks.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: But that's kind of what this seems like we're talking about, is just responding to death by saying, this fucking sucks.
Kayla: Yeah. Yeah. Now, in theme of this season, you and I are, of course, going to go attend a death cafe. We're going to attend a virtual one so we can speak on this topic from a place of experience. But first, there is so much more to say about John, about Death Cafe, about how it's traveled the world. But we might do with some help in that arena. So first, I've arranged for us to sit down and have a conversation with Susan Barsky, Reidden, John Underwood's mother.
Chris: Whoa.
Kayla: And the psychotherapist who helped develop death cafe. We'll talk to her, we'll learn more about the singular project John's legacy, and then we'll attend our Zoom death cafe.
Chris: That. I'm so glad that you. Yeah. Wow. You got Susan Barsky Reid herself. That's amazing.
Kayla: Are you ready?
Chris: I am quite ready.
Kayla: To start us off, could you introduce yourself for our audience?
Susan Barsky Reid: Yeah, sure. My name is Susan Baskie Reed, and I am the mother of the person, John Underwood, who started teh cafe. And unfortunately, six years ago, John died. So now it's run by my daughter, Jules Barsky, and with help from me. And I usually do the interviews and talk to people because she's in her final year of training to become a doctor, so she's very busy.
Kayla: That would make one busy.
Kayla: Yeah, for sure. We're very sorry for your loss. Obviously, this is a big part of the story of death cafe. How did you and your son come to kind of build this thing together?
Susan Barsky Reid: Well, it was John's idea to start with. He was a devout Buddhist, and from what I understand, I'm not a Buddhist, but I believe that Buddhists are told to contemplate death and dying every day. And I think that influenced John, who was at the time working for the council, doing town planning. He decided he wanted to do some work around death and dying. He wasn't sure what at the beginning. Then my husband was reading the newspaper one day, saw a cutting about a man called Bernard Kritaz, who's a swiss sociologist, who'd run something called Cafe Mortel, which is a death cafe translated into French. And Alastair, my husband, cut out the cutting, actually posted it to John and said, what do you think of this? And John said, that's what I'd like to do.
Susan Barsky Reid: So he took the idea and ran with it, gave up his well paid job and decided to concentrate on work with death and dying, and thought that talking about death and dying would be a good way of helping people to live more fully, which is why he chose to do that. And so I'm a psychotherapist and I was always interested in group work. So that when he said he wanted to do this, I was very keen to have a part and actually run it. And he was less keen. He wanted to be more behind the scenes. So the first death cafe he organized was in his. His home in London, Hackney, and it was in his kitchen. And I came down to London with cakes because I live in the north west of England.
Susan Barsky Reid: And he was the waiter, and he'd organized with his friends several tasks that people were supposed to do in order to help them think about death and dying. We were supposed to talk about death and dying for three quarters of the time and for the last half an hour, talk about life and living. So it was very prescriptive and we did a lot of tasks that, sadly, I can no longer remember what they were, but they involved people writing things down and talking, and they burnt some pieces of paper because he had a coal fire in his kitchen that day. And after we'd done two or three of them, we decided that people could talk quite well about death and dying without any prompts. So we just decided it worked better to just give people the space to talk.
Susan Barsky Reid: So a death cafe starts, or should start, I don't know whether all of them do, with some rules about being respectful, turning off your phones, letting people talk.
Chris: What exactly is a death cafe like? What's, like a succinct summary of what it is just to kind of baseline for our listeners.
Susan Barsky Reid: Okay, so a death cafe is a meeting that can be online or in person, where people choose to come together to talk about death and dying whilst eating cake and drinking tea or any other drink that you fancy drinking. That's what it is. That's all it is. And the thing is, people choose to go. They're not made to go. People say, is it morbid or weird or whatever? Well, you know, it isn't. But if you don't want to go, you don't have to go. You know, people choose to come and it's grown enormously from when John and I did the first one in 2011. There have been, I think, are we up to 14,000 now? In 85 countries. Wow, it's really taken off. So there seems to be a real need for it.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: I was going to ask, what do you think is the driving force behind rapid growth?
Susan Barsky Reid: I think Covid people were all of a sudden faced with a disease that when we didn't know what it was like, it was very frightening that if you went out, and particularly me as an older person, I was told to stay in the house all the time because if you go out, you might catch something and die. So were forced to actually think more about that. And I think the reason it's grown so big is because people have a need to talk about death and dying and it's not encouraged in lots of places or with lots of people. I've got friends who say, oh, you know, why would people want to go to a death cafe? And that's a terrible name. Somebody said to me, I think it's a really brilliant name, some paradoxical name.
Kayla: I was going to ask why you think that. That is like, it's. It's so obvious when you say it, like, we experienced that too. And it just. There's not a lot of space to talk about death. Why do you think it is such a taboo subject?
Susan Barsky Reid: Because thinking about your life ending is frightening and it's like you almost believe if you don't talk about it's not going to happen. You know, you might live forever and so you don't need to think about it, so you won't talk about it and then you'll stay alive forever. But in fact, every single one of us is going to die. It's the only thing we've all got in common, really, isn't it?
Chris: Right, yeah. Do you participate in your own death cafes? Like, do you go to death cafe as a participant?
Susan Barsky Reid: No, I haven't. And I don't run very many now because of grief, really, because I'm grieving still for John and it makes me sad to do it because we did a lot of them together and it was such a wonderful experience for me to work with my son and do this very life affirming thing that when he died, I didn't do any for a really long time. And I've done two or three, I think, now, since he died, but I.
Chris: Am still raw yeah, that makes sense.
Kayla: What was John like? If you can share a little bit, just. I'd love to know more about what he was like.
Susan Barsky Reid: He could.
Kayla: If that's something you want to talk about, we also don't have to.
Susan Barsky Reid: I love talking about him. He was a brilliant father. He's got two children that are now 16 and 13, and he was. He was a stay at home dad because Donna, his wife, went out and earned the money, because he was doing death cafe and not earning any money at home. So he looked after the children and he was a great dad. He said it was a privilege. He was very kind and thoughtful. He could get very angry and be quite sharp at times if you got on the. The wrong side of him. But we got on really well. He was very political, left wing political, had a great interest. He studied philosophy, politics and economics at university and particularly loved the politics. And whenever anything happens, I really wish he was here to ask him, what do you think about that?
Susan Barsky Reid: Because he had such wonderful ideas about things and such insight. He was very bright, as are all my children, I better say, because I've got two others. Yeah. He was clever. He didn't always work to the best of his abilities. When he was a child, he was quite independent and not always compliant. So bringing him up could be a bit of a struggle at times, because his dad and I split up when he was eight, I think, though, I brought them up. I had two boys then. Jules was a late addition, so I bought him and his brother up on. On my own, more or less. It wasn't like nowadays where you have shared care, you know?
Chris: Yeah.
Susan Barsky Reid: So. And he was quite a rebellious teenager, but when he got to about 18, he all of a sudden became a person that you'd want to spend time with. And he was lovely. He went away. He did a gap year and went to Israel. I don't know whether that's contentious or not, but we're a jewish family, so that was something he did and went and volunteered on a kibbutz for six months or so. And he came back, sort of went off as a boy and came back as a man between finishing school and going to university, that's what he did. And after that, he was a great person to be with. Really good. Good company and fun, and he could be very funny.
Kayla: What brought him to Buddhism?
Susan Barsky Reid: It seems to me he was always looking for something. We used to go away to these holidays where you studied things like light things, and one, he went to do the supernatural, because I think he was trying to he was only about, what, 616 in a group of adults who sort of adopted him. And I think he was just looking for a religion that or a meaning to life, and Buddhism gave him that meaning. And he actually went to work in the buddhist center, where he studied for a while as the centre manager and became very good friends with Geshitashi, who was his spiritual teacher and helped to run the centre. And they became really good friends. Geshitasi did his funeral at the Jamyang buddhist center.
Susan Barsky Reid: John was on a committee to organize how buddhist funerals could run, and his was the first one that they ran from the centre. I don't know whether they've run any since then. Yeah. Does that give you some idea about him?
Kayla: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Chris: Yeah. It gives a lot of idea. And it's just, it's. It's amazing that you guys were able to create something that's. That's clearly been helpful or, like, filled a need for so many people. That's. That's a wonderful gift that you guys have been able to give and receive.
Kayla: Yeah.
Susan Barsky Reid: I'm so proud of him.
Chris: Yeah.
Chris: What have you seen in terms of the people that attend death cafes? Have you seen, do you feel like they have gotten. Because you mentioned the taboo. The thing behind the taboo, you think, is the fear is sort of the existential fear of death, which I totally get, by the way. I understand that and I feel it too. Do you think that you've seen people, do you think they've been able to process that emotion more from attending death cafe? And if so, how?
Susan Barsky Reid: I think the process probably begins at a death cafe, but it's not going to, you know, happen in the hour and a half that or whatever that you're speaking. The deaf cafes that I've run, we've had different groups of people come each time, but from what I understand, other people run regular ones, and people come again and again to the death cafe. And I think that's how they may process it. It's difficult to know because the people that I've seen have passed through. Some people have said they'll come again, but nobody actually has, in my experience, to the ones that I've run. Maybe it's something about the way I do it.
Chris: Have you seen different. Because across the world we're talking about Buddhism and you've talked about your heritage with Judaism. There's different ways that different cultures think about death and the afterlife. Do you see that with the people that participate in death cafe? There's Christians who believe in a heaven and hell, and there's Buddhists who may believe in reincarnation, and there's other beliefs where there's just nothing after death. Do you see a wide variety of that?
Susan Barsky Reid: Yeah, absolutely. And lots of religious groups of all types run death cafes as Buddhists, Christians, Jews. I'm trying to think if there haven't been other religions that I can recall, but, I mean, then they're not the ones that are run by the different. Religious organizations are open to having different, you know, denominations come, even though sometimes it's a religious person who leads a religious service running a death cafe. I don't know whether that answers your question or not.
Chris: Yeah, it does. I think I'm also. I'm just kind of getting to this. This question that we have, too, of, like, does processing death, do you tend to see that be more about thinking about an afterlife, or do you tend to see that more around acceptance of the finality of death? And I'm asking you this. I don't know what your own personal view on death is, and you're welcome to tell me what it. I'm curious what it is, but do you see in the death cafes, do you see, like, people with a belief in an afterlife and also people that are able to process the thoughts of the finality of death as well?
Susan Barsky Reid: I think people who come to a death cafe are as different as the people you'd meet if you. I don't know, you went to a restaurant and interviewed all the people who are eating dinner. I think people come for such a variety of reasons, or just out of curiosity. And some people will be trying to process death or think about it, and other people want to talk about deaths they've experienced, or that they are terminally ill, or that they've thought about suicide or any number, because it's not just one thing. I mean, talking about death and dying sounds like there's only one topic of conversation. Well, there are thousands of different aspects to it.
Susan Barsky Reid: I went to one where there was a woman had come who made shrouds and was talking about how she tested them out, which was that she wrapped up dead pigs and buried them and then looked at what happened to the material after. I meand, people who have worked in the deaf industry and attend look at the remains that come out of the crematorium. So we talked about what happens to the bones, and there are those sorts of things. There are people talking about what they want when they die. There are people talking about what they've experienced when they've watched other people die. So the actual dying, that's quite a common topic. Just so many things. And also about legacies of all different types, both, you know, psychological and financial and all those aspects. What happened to the one you went to?
Kayla: Yeah, it's actually interesting that you're talking about how many different things can come up at a death cafe, because a lot was talked about. But I was almost surprised at how much of the conversation at that particular one ended up being about practicalities and talking about just the practicalities of seeking hospice care. And. Okay, well, if you have this experience, you can call this number and this person can help get you into hospice.
Chris: They talked about the difference between palliative and hospice care. It was really technical, almost like you said, practicality is useful information for people who are going through potentially end of life processes.
Susan Barsky Reid: As a psychotherapist, I would be wondering whether people were avoiding talking about death and dying. That's like a one little bit. If that took up the whole of the death cafe. I think there's a bit of.
Chris: That's a good insight. I'm not sure. I mean, it was a lot of it. I don't think it was the whole time.
Kayla: It was also, in that particular group, there was also a lot of talk of near death experience and what that might have to teach us about the process of dying. There were a few, and I've noticed this elsewhere, not just in death cafes, that there is kind of a new movement going on right now of something called, like, death doulas or like, end of life care that is nothing solely relegated to the hospital. So it was interesting to have those voices in the room as well. And. Yeah, the conversation after kind of having this very technical conversation, the conversation then turned to almost the opposite of this very spiritual conversation, of thinking about what death might look like, what it might feel like, what afterlife there may be, if any at all, which was a little.
Kayla: I think were a little, I guess, not surprised. But it was just interesting that so much conversation was about the possible afterlife in a death cafe. And I don't know why that was surprising. It shouldn't be.
Chris: Yeah, I think some of it has to do with, I think, like, our expectations coming into it. And I think that hearing you talk about how the topic of death is actually, like, you know, 10,000 different topics makes a lot of sense. But that was. Yeah, that was our experience. I don't know if you have any comments on that.
Susan Barsky Reid: Well, only what I said. I suppose as a psychotherapist, I might be wanting to say a different thing than as a death cafe host. It just struck me that sometimes, well, I'm a gestalt psychotherapist, and there's somebody called Polster who talks about ismouse when you talk about something rather than your experience of it, if that makes sense. So that.
Chris: Yeah, yeah.
Susan Barsky Reid: And so you want remove from the feelings. But I'd be questioning, I suppose, if I was hosting. Whether that was my place to point that out or not, I don't know. Would depend on how I felt.
Kayla: So it sounds like then, in general, death cafes are the almost kind of, yes, there's a facilitator, but they're generally kind of run by the folks that are in attendance.
Susan Barsky Reid: Absolutely. That's the agenda is to be group led and not led by the person hosting, which is one of the rules. And sometimes people will say, we'll talk about this and this. And if they do, I will email them and say, no, that isn't a deaf cafe. If you call it that, you've got to just let the group. And partly it's because people aren't confident about the fact that people will actually talk. I think they are concerned. I did, actually, I was asked to host one with somebody else that I did a couple of years ago, and the person running it could not allow there to be any space for silence and thinking. I think that's really important, that people have time to think and process, and that the host can hold the space and be comfortable with that, because it's really important.
Susan Barsky Reid: The space is as important to say what people say.
Chris: Yeah, our host was very good, and our host did give space for silence, which I agree. I think that's difficult, but very important. We're actually going to. So that was on Zoom, which makes it even harder. But we are going to attend an in person one here in a couple days. So if one of our audience members wanted to also attend a death cafe, what advice would you have for someone attending their first one?
Susan Barsky Reid: Go with an open mind. Listen carefully to what people say, and be respectful of whatever anybody says. Even if you don't agree, you don't have to say something. If you don't want to, it's fine to just listen. That was something John and I disagreed about, because he would actually pick people out and ask them, what do you think? If they didn't say anything, I didn't think that was what I wanted to do. Just be open to it, go with an open mind. And actually, sometimes people laugh a lot. There are lots of there is fun to be had at a death cafe as well as tears to be shedded.
Kayla: And then also, I don't know if we got this in the recording, but you did recommend to us if we attend virtually to bring our own cake.
Susan Barsky Reid: Oh, bring your own cake. Absolutely. Yeah. Yes.
Chris: Yeah. The cake. The cake is crucial.
Kayla: I feel like, I feel like we need to go back and do the virtual one again just to have the cake experience.
Susan Barsky Reid: I'm interested. Which ones you went to, which one you went to and which one are you going to?
Kayla: So we, the virtual one, we attended Washington. It was out of Florida and it was like you mentioned, a kind of result of COVID I think they were meeting in person and then moved strictly to virtual during COVID and just kind of kept it that way because that way folks from all over the world could attend and all over the country and yeah, were 3000 miles away and able to attend. And the one we're going to on Saturday, it's in Los Angeles and it's at a, what do you call an organization? It's an organization called the Philosophical Research Society, which is like a very old building. And how would you describe it?
Chris: It's like a research facility, library.
Chris: Community for folks who are interested in studying or perhaps also believe in the supernatural and spiritualism and new age type beliefs, different philosophies.
Kayla: Yeah. It'll be an interesting space for it.
Susan Barsky Reid: Yeah. And what time of day is it?
Kayla: I think it's at like 02:00.
Chris: Yeah, this one will be in the afternoon at 02:00 I sometimes think I.
Susan Barsky Reid: Should go to some other ones, but I, I think I should. But I haven't done it yet. But maybe the time is coming when I will.
Kayla: It's, it's just I do want to go back to something you said about how one of the reasons why you haven't attended is because grief is still very fresh for you, very raw. And they did make it clear in the one that we attended, like, this is not a grief support group. And so I guess what are some differences there? Because Chris and I, we are also just full disclosure, we also are grieving. A son who did not live as long as John did was not an adult. He was a young baby. But I did feel a little like, oh, this is not a grief support group. I don't really have kind of like the vocabulary for what this is. I understand a grief support group. So I kind of need to go experience death cafe for myself to figure out what this is.
Kayla: So what are some differences I guess for people who may not know between a grief support group and death cafe.
Susan Barsky Reid: I think a grief support group is for people who want to talk about grief and they're grieving and the person that they're grieving and a death cafe. You can talk about grief in a death cafe, but I think that is John's guideline. And I think that he thought that they would, people who were freshly grieving or their grief was raw would better served in a group of other people who are also grieving rather than to go to a death cafe. But I've lots of. I've heard grief discussed many times in death cafes. I'm sorry about your child.
Kayla: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, and same with John. So just kind of bringing it back to the specifics of our podcast. So we tend to talk about things that might be colloquially called cults, or a better term for that is high control groups. And oftentimes these groups we've seen will use things like the fear of death to attract followers. Or we've talked a lot about some cults, or some groups like this will provide a space to talk about taboo subjects that you cannot talk about anywhere else. We've had several episodes about suicide in particular. There's one high control group that will openly talk about it, and that's a way that they attract followers.
Chris: They fulfill a need, kind of, that doesn't get fulfilled elsewhere.
Kayla: And so we're kind of thinking that something like death Cafe can be antidote to this practice. It seems like this is a communal group. This is providing a safe space to talk about something that is taboo. Can you talk about what death cafe? The need that death cafe is filling for people.
Susan Barsky Reid: Well, John's idea was that realizing that you're going to die means that you can think about your life and enjoy it and not. He also believed that people's acquisitiveness was about their need to put off dying and stop thinking about it.
Kayla: I think a lot of what I've been thinking about as we've been talking is just like, through the years of going to therapy, I've heard time and time again of like, well, the happiest people are the people who think about death frequently. And I think that does come from like, buddhist schools of thought or things like that. So I don't really have a question there. I think that you basically answered it.
Chris: Yeah, I mean, I'll chime in. I've heard the same thing. I don't know, I guess it's maybe less of a question and more of a little bit of a thank you for providing this space, because it's taboo, it's hard to talk about, and it's hard to talk about in a way that I think causes people to. And I'm just maybe introspecting here, but it seems like it causes people to talk about it in a roundabout way or to find a way to sort of COVID up that fear. I think you mentioned that with John, how he believed that the acquisitiveness of our society is tied to that fear. So I think that anything that gives an outlet for that is just great. It's a really good thing to have. It's a really healing thing.
Susan Barsky Reid: Yeah, I absolutely agree.
Chris: I think we're kind of coming to.
Chris: The end of our questions. Would you mind if I asked, what are your beliefs about death? Like, how do you. What's your relationship with death?
Susan Barsky Reid: Well, you know, I'm quite old and I know that the time I've got left is much shorter than the time that I've had. And there are some things about my health that have made me think, oh, that's what really old people have. So, you know, my life's getting shorter. And sometimes I push the thought away and sometimes I think, well, you know, that's what happens. That's what happens when you get old, actually. You know, you die. And what happens after? My mum used to tell me that she would meet all her dead relatives again and I would really like to believe that was true, but I'm not sure that it is. And John would believe that he was going to be reincarnated. I'm not sure I believe that either. And the answer is, I don't know.
Susan Barsky Reid: I suspect probably, you know, you stop living and nothing else happens, which is a bit pessimistic. But I think really at the moment it does change, though. I don't always. It's not a static thing with me. Sometimes I think, well, it would be nice to believe some other things, but I'm not sure that I do.
Kayla: That's exactly kind of where we are. And it feels like that can also just. Even within the conversation around talking about the taboo of death, that can also be a taboo to talk about having feelings of. There is an end and then maybe there is not anything beyond. And it would be nice to believe that there is, but maybe there isn't even. That can feel still difficult to bring up, even in these spaces.
Chris: It's like a taboo within a taboo. It's like hard to talk about death and then also hard to talk about. One of the many ways that death could potentially manifest as being this end is also even harder to talk about. But I totally feel you on. Like Kayla said, I think I feel the exact same way. Like, there are different. There's different beliefs sort of surrounding me that could all be true. I'm not sure I believe any of them, but I really would like to. And then there's also a part of me that would like to be more at peace if it isn't. If it isn't true. So, I don't know. It does in our little three person mini death cafe here. I think it helps to hear even just you kind of thinking through it that way, if that makes sense.
Susan Barsky Reid: Yeah. So you haven't got a strong view, either of you, of what happens after we die.
Chris: I have this thing that I think is probably somewhat common in that I was raised religious, so I was raised Catholic. And so up until I sort of lost my religion or at least lost the. I still have the cultural bit, but not really the belief bit. And when that evaporated, the safety net of the afterlife evaporated with it. And so the young adult and adult part of my life has been a little more of a struggle that way because I was used to having the safety net, and now it's not there. So I don't know if it would have been easier if I was raised without that belief or if it's just hard for anyone to think about death as being final, but I don't know.
Chris: Yeah, I think part of why it's confusing, too, is because literally nobody knows because we're all still alive, so we're all just speculating, but, yeah, I don't know. Does that answer your question? Maybe Kayla should also talk to herself, give her a chance.
Kayla: Yeah, I think for me, at least, what I'm. You know, you mentioned that it kind of can go back and forth or vacillate or be different on any given day. And I kind of think where I am these days is I'm trying to figure out how. What it means to kind of return to being one with everything, if that makes sense. Like, is there a way to feel like I will be reunited with my loved ones in some way, even if that is not necessarily, like. And we're all going to be, like, hanging out like we just were. But is there comfort? I can I find comfort in knowing that, you know, we as people, we as conscious beings, we're all kind of just pieces of the universe? That have become conscious and have woken up to themselves.
Kayla: And then one day we will return back to just simply being pieces of the universe. And I'm trying to find comfort in. In that and knowing that in some way, I will be one with my loved ones again. Maybe it'll be in that way, maybe it'll be in a different way, I don't know. But it's hard to think about. Sometimes I will lay awake at night and have to calm myself down because I'm thinking about the inevitable reality that even if there is something beautiful, or even if there is something after death, it is still. I'm enjoying being here. And I don't necessarily want this to end. So the thought of that ending in that transition is scary. And I think that something like death Cafe is really beneficial for folks that are having these thoughts and grappling with it.
Kayla: And it was nice to sit in, even if a virtual room with other people who were grappling with it in, I think, different ways. I think there was more widespread, firm belief in a clear afterlife, but it was medicine to sit with other people and think about this and grapple with it.
Chris: I think what you were saying, too, even if it is wonderful and beautiful and whatever it is, or which it may be, it's still the greatest possible change. And change is scary, and it's an unknown change. So unknown is also scary. So it's like this big, huge change, whatever the change is, and it's unknown, which makes it quite frightening, even if it's wonderful.
Susan Barsky Reid: Yeah.
Chris: Is there anything else that you feel like we didn't cover, or a story you'd like to tell or anything you'd like to add about Death Cafe or your own story or John's story that.
Susan Barsky Reid: I didn't say that. Death cafes are always free and are not meant to lead to any conclusion, or you're not sold anything or promote. Nothing's promoted. I always forget to say that. And that's really important as well.
Chris: It is, yeah, yeah.
Kayla: That makes it such a. Such a service. Like, again, you know, you, Chris, already said thank you, but, you know. Yeah. Thank you for providing this space. And it's wonderful that it's become so widespread because it is a service and it is filling a need that so many people do need and a need that people need, a need that people have.
Chris: I also want to mention that, yeah. By not making it have an agenda, it's its own end, it's not a means to another end. And I think that's what would insulate something like this, from being the high control groups that we talked about. This is a means to an end. It's a means to accruing power or followers or cash or whatever for a charismatic leader. Whereas if there's no stated agenda and it's not to turn a profit, then I think you insulate yourself against that kind of thing. So that is important.
Kayla: Thank you so much for chatting with us today, Susan. Are there any links you would like us to share with our audience of where they can, like, find you on the Internet?
Susan Barsky Reid: Www.deathcafe.com. That's it. Simple.
Kayla: Perfect.
Chris: All right.
Chris: We will absolutely share that.
Susan Barsky Reid: Right.
Kayla: Thank you.
Susan Barsky Reid: And it's very good to talk to you.
Kayla: So, Chris, I. I want to ask for your thoughts and your feelings on the interview, the virtual death cafe experience, and so much more I want to ask you.
Chris: Okay. I want to answer you, but first.
Kayla: I have a little surprise for you.
Chris: Ooh, is it more cake?
Kayla: Yeah, actually, wait, what?
Chris: Really?
Kayla: We have one more stop to make before we're fully rounded out on the topic and can come back to process with our audience. We are now going to visit an in person death cafe. It's not just any in person death cafe, but this particular event is gonna. It's gonna. It's gonna help us wrap up the season nicely. Okay, so we're back in studio for reels this time. No more surprises. We have, obviously, no more cake.
Chris: I am full.
Kayla: No more cake. I'm sorry. We have a lot to talk about. We attended two different death cafes. We did an interview, and I don't know about you, but I have many different thoughts and feelings here. But do you want to kick us off?
Chris: Well, there's a lot. Okay, so our audience will have just recently listened to this interview that we did. They will not have any context from the death cafes that we attended. So maybe we talk about them first.
Kayla: Okay.
Chris: And then we just kind of freewheel it from there. I don't know.
Kayla: Yeah. So kick us off.
Chris: First and foremost, this latest one that went to in person had cookie, not cake.
Kayla: Well, it had cookies and brownies.
Chris: That's not cake, my friend.
Kayla: A brownie is a cake.
Chris: Is a brownie a cake? I don't think so.
Kayla: Let me look.
Chris: Get out of here. It's a confection.
Kayla: It's a confection.
Chris: Oh, get dunked on.
Kayla: A chocolate brownie is a chocolate baked confection.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: They can be fudgy or cakey.
Chris: Huh. Huh. Can be cakey. That doesn't make it a cake. You know what else isn't a cake?
Kayla: A cake.
Chris: Those fucking crepe. Those layered crepe things. I'm sorry, those are stacks of crepes. Not a cake.
Kayla: It's not a cake.
Chris: Get the hell out of here.
Kayla: Get the hell out of here.
Chris: All right, so whatever didn't have cake had cookies. Still delicious. They also. They did have tea, but let's. Let's. Since that's the one we just did, let's go back a few days to when we did the Zoom death cafe. The zoom death cafe was. It lasted about an hour and a half. It was very well moderated, I have to say, which. That's a quality that it shares with the in person death cafe that went to the moderators for both of these, what do you call it? Events, sessions.
Kayla: Cafes.
Chris: Salons.
Kayla: Salon. Somebody in the in person cafe referred to it as, like, oh, like a 1920s parisian salon. And I was like, I know that's.
Chris: What we said on the podcast, but, yeah, it was. What would you say? There was, like, 15 people on the zoom ish? 15 to 20. It was mostly older folks on the zoom, which was, again, an interesting contrast in person. The in person death cafe was, I would say, skewed much younger.
Kayla: Yeah, more like middle aged. Thirties and middle aged.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. The Zoom death cafe also included. It was fascinating. It included, like, there were three or four students that were attending the death cafe based on a university class they were taking on death and dying, which I was, like, fascinated by. And I wish that I had either seen that class or taken that class. Known of that class when I was in college.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: It was cool to have them there, too. But, yeah, it was sort of just like a group led discussion on various topics around death and dying. One thing I will say is that, as Miss Barsky Reid mentioned, there are. So it's not just like death sounds like it's one topic, but it's actually, like, a thousand topics. And that definitely came through in both the zoom and the in person death cafe. And the Zoom death cafe, there were people talking about grief from loved ones that they had lost. There were people talking about their own fears. There was sort of a lengthy discussion about hospital care around palliative and hospice care, which I learned a bunch, actually, from listening to those conversations.
Kayla: Yeah, it was very technical and actionable of, like, here's knowledge that you need for end of life, or if you become ill or loved one becomes ill. Like, here's the difference between palliative care.
Chris: And hospice, which I don't even know the difference. I guess the actionable thing here for you guys ask for it is basically the actionable thing you receive.
Kayla: A diagnosis doesn't necessarily have to be.
Chris: It doesn't have to be a terminal diagnosis.
Kayla: It's more about quality of life while you're receiving medical treatment to that extensive degree. So palliative care is available to you not only when you are actively dying.
Chris: Right. And even if it's just a consult, like, it still is helpful. And then, yeah, hospice care is for when you are actually in the process of dying. There was also, I believe there was a death doula that was present at both meetings. Multiple death doulas.
Kayla: I think that death doulas are frequently present in death cafes. At death cafes. I think that death cafes, again, there's all kinds of people go to death cafes, but there are a lot of people who are personally an end of life, are elderly people who are death workers. So, like these death doulas and then healthcare workers who maybe deal with palliative and hospice care. I think those are some of the big populations.
Chris: Yeah. I'm not even sure I knew that there was such thing as a death doula before we attended these things. But it's fascinating. I mean, it's very similar. It sounds like very similar to a birth doula, where you're not responsible for the medical pieces of it, but you're kind of responsible for support and everything else and guidance through the process. That is a process that is pretty fucking unfamiliar to everyone. So the existence of that profession is very cool. What else did we talk about in the zoom one?
Kayla: In the zoom one, it was interesting because it almost felt like it was half. Half this technical, pragmatic conversation, and then half a very spiritual, metaphysical conversation, because then the conversation dipped to things like near death experiences or some of the stuff that you and I talked about at the top of the show. What do you think happens after you die? What is the afterlife? What does the process feel like? And so I thought that it was interesting to see how exactly what Susan talked about. Such a huge topic. So to see that play out, even on the virtual death cafe, which, you know, I'm grateful that it is virtual.
Kayla: And like we talked about in the interview, it's virtual because of COVID and stayed virtual because it grants greater access to more people and brings in people from all over the world into one space.
Chris: Yeah, the one we attended, we're in Los Angeles, and the one we attended was from. I think it was based in Florida.
Kayla: Yeah, it was cool that our experience reflected what we then talked with Susan about.
Chris: Mhm. Yeah, it definitely felt group led because someone in the group brought up the topic of palliative care and hospice care, and then someone in the group brought up the topic of ndes near death experiences. The other thing I will say for both, and especially for Zoom, is that the moderator was good about allowing time for silence. So hard to allow silence to be a thing, especially in a group setting. Like, if silence happens for more than 3 seconds, your brain just starts going, oh, my God, somebody needs to talk or else I'm going to explode. But especially, I think, in like, in any sort of salon type setting where you're just like, thinking about stuff, I think silence is beneficial, but then especially about something like this, I think the silence is critical.
Chris: And it was really good that, like, I don't know, were able to have some of that, and it didn't feel like people were like, gotta fill the silence. Holy shit.
Kayla: Right?
Chris: We should have saw. We should, we should do like 10 seconds of silence now. Just shh.
Kayla: No. I was also surprised at how, like, kind of easy it was to talk about death in the environment. Like, sometimes you know, you join a new support group, and it's like, it takes a little while before you can kind of, like, feel comfortable talking about stuff. But I didn't feel that in the virtual death cafe, and then I think I felt that even less in the in person one where it was just like, this is everybody's topic. Like, this is, there's, this is everybody's topic.
Chris: There's no one that doesn't belong there.
Kayla: Yeah. Yeah. And that can be a hard thing to feel. It can be hard to feel like you are, that you belong to any particular group, and this is a group that you like. There's no way you can't belong. Even if you've never had somebody close to you die, you're gonna die. So this is for you. Like, even if you have not experienced death, you're going to. So this is for you.
Chris: Yeah, I felt that too. It felt easier, I think, I don't know, to talk about my own.
Kayla: Experiences and just kind of in keeping with talking about the in person one, it was really cool to go back to the philosophical research society and do another event there. Like, we'd kind of been talking about going back there since went for the Source family documentary screening and conversation with the source family members.
Chris: And we mentioned it like, two or three times. This. We definitely mentioned it last episode with theosophy yeah. So it's always there under the surface of Los Angeles. Esoteric. Although I wouldn't call this esoteric. That's what was interesting about this, too. Not to steal your thunder here, but I didn't get the, oh, boy, this is gonna get weird vibe. Like, I didn't get the, and it.
Kayla: Could, it could have, and that could have been okay, but it wasn't like.
Chris: Yeah, it would have been okay, but.
Kayla: This isn't a place for wizards to talk about esoteric concepts regarding death.
Chris: Right. This was like a all welcoming. Like, I think it would have been totally fine if somebody was there that was like, I'm woo, and I think that I channel Ramtha or whatever. But the vibe I got was not necessarily like, oh, yeah, this is gonna turn into something like that. It was more just like open discussion. And like, all the people there, by the way, were like really sharp. Like, everybody that spoke, I was like, man, you have just really interesting insight.
Kayla: Yeah, you've thought about this. You can articulate it well. It was a good group of people to be in conversation with at 02:00 on a Saturday.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: And the facilitator, the host, was very good. Fantastic. And they were different. It was different than the way the virtual one was kind of hosted. And in this one, this facilitator asked follow up questions.
Chris: Oh, her follow up questions were so fucking good.
Kayla: And they were really good. And it was, you know, she also.
Chris: Did the, like, go around the circle, introduce yourself, and talk about why you're here. Which we did do that on the zoom, but it got so much more in depth on the in person. I'm not sure if I feel like that was because her prompt was slightly different. Yeah, on the zoom, it was more like, hi, my name's Chris. I'm here for X. Whereas the in person was like, hi, my name's Chris. Like, here's an experience that I have had, or here's something that I am currently experiencing. And, yeah, her follow up questions were just like, knives is a bad word.
Kayla: Just knives and sliced you up and then you died.
Chris: No, they were like, sharp and incisive. Cut right to them. Yeah, they were very good follow up questions.
Kayla: And I'm just grateful that there was something that, like, I connected to without any caveats at the philosophical research society because, like, I love esotericism and I love Wu and I love the occult, and I love everything that is kind of present at a space like that. And also I'm aware that, like, it's not entirely for me, it's not entirely. I like thinking about it. I like learning about it. It's not necessarily my actual belief system. And so to be able to go to a place like the philosophical research society and have an experience that did align more with my belief system or how I think about the world in this secular way was really refreshing.
Chris: Let's put it this way. When were there for the source family documentary, I felt like an observer. When were there today, I felt like a participant.
Kayla: Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. There's one more thing I wanted to talk with you about, and you might have other things that you want to talk about, but I wanted touch on this, and I. We did touch on it in our conversation with Susan Barsky Reid, but I wanted to talk about it with you. One of the things that death cafe sets out to do is flout the taboo of talking about death.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: But even attending these groups and having these conversations, it does still seem like there is a taboo, even when you get comfortable talking about it, not necessarily in these groups, but just kind of among death centric conversations. And that seems like there's maybe still a taboo around talking about the finality of death, like we talked about with Susan Barsky Reed. Is there anything else you want to say about that we didn't cover in the interview? Like, you and I have talked about this. We've talked about it before. We knew Death Cafe was a thing, and now having kind of gone and experienced it, how do you feel about this idea that it's difficult to say. I don't think anything happens after death. What do you want to say about that?
Chris: Well, first of all, that was very difficult for me to say. Back when were recording the intro to this episode, it felt hard for me to say what I believed, because what I believe is that right? Not even so much. I mean, a little bit, I guess, is because I am scared of it, but it's also just because it's like. It's a bit of an information hazard. And I don't want to be just, like, shooting, you know, like, crappy. I don't want to be, like, giving our listeners crappy days by saying, like, I. I think the bleak nothingness awaits us all, you know?
Kayla: Like, I also feel like it's hard to. I feel like I'm going to, like, hurt someone's feelings. Like, if somebody believe. If somebody has a belief in the afterlife, which, like, you should, like, I have nothing against with believing in an afterlife or life after death or eternal life, whatever youre belief in that is, I have absolutely nothing against that. And I think there's a lot of.
Chris: Frankly, I'm a little jealous.
Kayla: I'm quite jealous of it. But I do worry about, like, if I say I don't think anything happens after death, is that going to hurt the feelings of somebody who believes differently than me, which is kind of like infantilizing.
Chris: It's a little infantilizing for me. It's not so much hurt the feeling, it's a little bit that, but for me, it's more, I don't want to put somebody else in the same existential crisis that I.
Kayla: Yes, that's true. Yeah.
Chris: You know, like, if somebody has, like, a nice, steady belief, I think that is why it feels like taboo. That's what I'm saying. Right.
Kayla: Like, it would have still been hard. I didn't say in any of these groups, like, I don't think anything happens after we die, and that's because I didn't necessarily feel like were comfortable saying that.
Chris: Yeah. And I think, and what was weird is this kind of feels like it's the group where you're supposed to feel okay with that.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: And it's not on the group, it's on us. But what's interesting is that even in the group where it's like, no taboos here, you still can't escape that feeling of taboo.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: And I think it's because of that. It's because you don't want to poop in people's oatmeal. I don't. You know, if people are, like, when people are talking about near death experiences on the zoom, I don't want to chime in and be like, guys, come on. Nothing happens. You know what I mean? Nothing happens like, that. Just feels shitty.
Kayla: And you wouldn't say it like that, but it's hard to.
Chris: No, I would definitely say it like that because it's hilarious and I want to hurt people's feelings.
Kayla: Well, near death experience is also what got doctor Gary Schwartz into his work, so.
Chris: Well, yeah, that's a whole other topic.
Kayla: I really have it out for that guy.
Chris: As you should. But, yeah, I just, I definitely feel like there's sort of, like, layers of taboo, right? There's like, there's, like, the first order taboo, which is like, just talking about death at all.
Kayla: Right?
Chris: Like, oh, I don't want to hear about so and so with cancer. I don't want to hear about the hospital. I don't want to hear about that. Whatever. Let's. Let's talk about something nice. And then there's, like, this second order taboo, which is, like, even when you're talking about death, there's, like, if your belief system involves the finality of it, that's even harder to talk about.
Kayla: Right, right. I'm gonna say something controversial.
Chris: Oh, controversial.
Kayla: I wish you were in the middle of a thought.
Chris: No, I'm always in the middle of thoughts. Cause that's how brains work.
Kayla: I don't hate hospitals. That's, like, such a common refrain of, like, I hate hospitals. I don't hate hospitals. I have mixed feelings, and I've experienced a lot of death in hospitals. And I've experienced.
Chris: Yeah, wait, why don't you hate hospitals?
Kayla: This is what I'm saying. I've experienced a lot of death in hospitals, and I've experienced a lot of, like, needing of hospitals and, like, being in extreme physical peril in hospitals. And I think that's why I don't hate them. Like, they're. I don't know how this connects back to what we're talking about, but it's just. I am comforted by the fact that there is a place where you go when you are hurt, that there's a place where you go when you are dying. There's a place where you go when someone else is dying, and there are people caring for you, and there's an entire science behind caring for the sick and the dying and the people being born, which is also a physical trauma.
Kayla: I think that the reason why I don't hate hospitals is because it makes hospitals make this, like, really scary thing less scary to me. And I understand the inverse, that, like, hospitals make illness and death and pain more real. But it also makes it, like, less scary to me.
Chris: Yeah, I mean, I get that. I think that people that hate hospitals don't. I think they would agree with you that it's like, you know, oh, it's good that it's there, but it sucks to be reminded that you need it. Right? It's like, the same reason why you don't like people avoid going to the doctor, because they're like, I don't want to get this diagnosis until I get the diagnosis. I am comfortable avoiding it. La, la. I'm not listening. But that kind of goes back a little bit to the taboo. One of the things that I did want to talk about is we say a lot, oh, there's not space to talk for this stuff. We've said it on this podcast, we talked about it in the death cafes.
Chris: We talked about it with Susan, just like, oh, you know, western society, we don't have a lot of space to talk about death. It's very much a taboo. We put it out of our minds. And I think that is true. But there's also, like, today when were at the death cafe, there was this little part of, like, nagging part of me that was like, or is that also a cope? Is it also a cop?
Kayla: I mean, I know how I feel about. I know exactly how I think about this.
Chris: Do we just say that it's not polite to talk about and, like, our society has a problem with it and we've stigmatized and tabooed? Is that 100% true, or is part of it that we say that? Because that gives us a feeling of power that, like, well, if we could just change how. Well, if we could just change how society works, then we would all be, like, super chill with death after that.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: And I just, like, part of me kind of goes like, yeah, it's taboo. But I don't know if it would be like, I don't know what. I don't know what it would look like if we did live in a society that treated it better. Going back to what were saying before. I love dia de los muertos. I think more of that kind of stuff. It would be great. But there's also this thing that we always just come back to when we talk about this, which is, like, nothing takes away the fact that it sucks.
Kayla: Right, right.
Chris: Nothing.
Kayla: My grief over my kid being dead would really only, like, marginally be made better by living in a society where, like, death and grief are more openly talked about, it would make it better.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: But, like, when I think about what the. Like, what that ocean of grief looks like, the size and gravity of that ocean of grief. Yeah. The society that I live in is just a part of it.
Chris: Yeah. Like, it would make the sky look better, but the ocean would still be there.
Kayla: Yeah. Which isn't to say I do think that we can improve in a lot of ways in talking about death. I think death cafes are materially making people's lives better.
Chris: Yeah. I don't want to. When I say all that, I don't mean to be like, this is all stupid, too. I just mean, like, I don't know what I mean. I guess just acknowledging that there is some ocean that's still going to be.
Kayla: There, I think we can make ourselves more comfortable with death, but that doesn't necessarily mean, we have to be happy about it.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: And I don't think that death cafe intends for you to set out to feel good about death. I think it intends to set out for you to feel more comfortable with it.
Chris: Right. Or just, like, a space to talk about it, because. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And just, like, full disclosure, too, of all the groups that we've visited this season, I want to go back to this one the most. And this is the only one where I'm like, I would actually go out of my way to see where this would fit on my calendar to try to go there again.
Kayla: Right. All right, so death cafes, we have covered them inside and out. There is only one thing left to do.
Chris: Determine whether it's a cult or just weird.
Kayla: It's the reason we do this. Show the criteria. I know that we didn't really approach death cafes. It's like, there's this occult. We approached it with, like, is this anti cult? Maybe this is anti cult thing, but, you know, it's the finale. It's what we do. Let's go ahead and apply the criteria to death cafes and see how it shakes out. Right.
Chris: Yeah. It's like we have to just, like, power forward with the criteria, like, no matter what the situation is.
Kayla: Right. Charismatic leader.
Chris: I liked Susan. I thought she was pretty cool.
Kayla: I liked Susan, too. I think that Jon sounded like John sounded quite charismatic. Yeah.
Chris: And that other guy you mentioned, I.
Kayla: Don'T think that it's high on this because this is such a decentralized thing that I would not call John or Susan or Bernard the leader.
Chris: Yeah. Founder is different than leader. Totally agree. Decentralized. Charismatic leader. Score. Low.
Kayla: Expected harm.
Chris: Expected help.
Kayla: Expected help, expected.
Chris: Thank you for making this a thing, because it's very needed, and I got a lot out of it.
Kayla: So. Low expected harm, low negative. This will not hurt you. This will only hurt you.
Chris: Negative 100.
Kayla: Presence of ritual. That's there. That's high. You got your cake, you got your tea.
Chris: Cake and tea. You got your.
Kayla: Sitting around in a circle. You got your. Talking about death.
Kayla: It's there.
Chris: It's not tremendously ritualistic because there isn't, like, a lot of jargon that's, like.
Kayla: Right. That's true.
Chris: You know, in group jargon, there's not a lot of, like, we're gonna say the opening prayer. There's not a lot of. But, like, they do the. Yeah, the cake and tea thing. But I think that's also.
Kayla: It's not like walking into an AA meeting where, like you said, there's, like, a lot of jargon and, like, existing things. It's just like a chat. So, yeah, you're right.
Chris: We did have to stand and then kneel and then sit and then stand and then. And then I. Neil.
Kayla: And then I did have to, like, stain my palm and let the blood drop into a fire, and then, like, a ghastly figure appeared.
Chris: That was my favorite part, the way.
Kayla: That I'm going to die. So that felt pretty ritualistic.
Chris: Yeah. Jelly beans, too, which is like, I don't even think you like jelly beans.
Kayla: I don't care for jelly beans. So presence of ritual, it's there, but it's fair. But low niche within society. What do you think? It's, like, really widespread. It's widespread around the globe. Expansive.
Chris: There's probably the reason I laugh is. Cause it's like you could just say, we're talking about death and everybody dies. It's the least niche topic we've ever done.
Kayla: Yeah. What do you think? I think it's still niche.
Chris: I think it's still niche because we're talking about the death cafe, the event, not dying.
Kayla: And while they are widespread, I feel like I couldn't really walk down the street. If I walked down the street and asked ten people, do you know about death cafe? Probably all ten would say no.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. So I'll say it is niche, which means if it ends up scoring, then it's a cult, not a religion.
Kayla: Antifactuality.
Chris: I don't even know how I'd apply this here. There isn't really an agenda. Right? Like, there's no, like, documents. There's no. The secret doctrine by Madame Blavatsky that doesn't exist for this. So, like, what are the facts? I don't know. Like, there's not even any centralized dogma fact, which also is going to answer our dogma question. Yeah, but, like, there's no logical fallacies either going on.
Kayla: It's not antifactual, it's not dogmatic. You can knock those two out.
Chris: Yeah. Lolo.
Kayla: Life consumption, percentage of life consumed.
Chris: Well, since you die, that's a hundred percent, 100%.
Kayla: But we're not talking about death cafes. They generally. I guess we didn't say this. The both that we attended meet once a month for 2 hours.
Chris: Yeah. So very low. They do not consume your life. They do not ask you for more. They do not. They don't ask for donations.
Kayla: They do. Well, it's at least the one we attended in person. There was an optional donation for the ticket.
Chris: Oh, there was. Okay. But I didn't like, the fact that I'm saying this right now means that I didn't even realize that. Not solicited.
Kayla: No. Correct. There was not, like, a give us money. It was like, there was less asking for money than even, like, going to, again, an AA meeting.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: Chain of recruits.
Chris: Again, did not feel solicited, monetary or otherwise.
Kayla: They did ask us, like, okay, here's, you know, if you know anybody who wants to come, like, here's the information you can give them.
Chris: Oh, yeah. They said, like, here's some flyers if anybody's interested. But they weren't like, go get your downline. No. Or else you won't make platinum death member.
Kayla: And there were people who were there who was like, oh, yeah, I'm here because my friend came, and so I wanted to see what it was all about.
Chris: Oh, so there is a chain of recruits. Hey, man. Chain of recruits. Can not. Can be, maybe.
Kayla: I don't think there is a chain of recruits because chain of recruits generally feels more like there's, like, a system in place.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: It's like either you, like, have kids and they go in the thing or you, like, have your downline or you, like.
Chris: Yeah. Yeah.
Kayla: It just felt like regular life.
Chris: Can we give it, like, a small score?
Kayla: Sure. Just because you want it to be there. Like, 10% safe or unsafe exit.
Chris: We're all getting out of this life not alive or something, right? I keep going back to. I keep going back to this death. Well, for the jokes.
Kayla: Death cafes.
Chris: Yeah. So, we left and nobody got upset.
Kayla: I don't think they're gonna come hand us down for if we go back or not.
Chris: We didn't even leave, actually. Like, the meeting dispersed our chairs away and ended, but nobody said, you better come back or else you're getting shunned. So I would say completely safe exit.
Kayla: So, ergo, cult are just weird.
Chris: Just weird. And I will say if you think maybe. Oh, it's not weird. Death itself is weird.
Susan Barsky Reid: Oh, yeah.
Chris: So talking about death is weird.
Kayla: Yeah. And when we say weird again, for anybody who might be listening for the first time, weird is a celebr. Oh, we like weird celebratory term on our show. Weird means because you're cool as hell.
Chris: That's right.
Kayla: So death cafes. Just cool as hell.
Chris: Cool as hell.
Kayla: Okay, before we wrap up.
Chris: Wrap up the season, the entire season.
Kayla: Five of culture, just weird. We should talk about next season because I feel like we should kind of get into how next season's focus actually brought us to this episode's topic. So I'm gonna hand it over to you, Chris, to guide us through that convo.
Chris: Well, much like the fecundity of life itself, where the death of one season provides the fertilizer and the inspiration for the life that is the next season, this season's death cafe. And we've actually done this for two or three seasons in a row now, where the previous season's finale sort of directly led into the next season's theme. And that's true again for this. So next season we are going to be focusing on groups, organizations, yada, the usual laundry list. Cults are just weirds that are oriented around death, maybe extending life, maybe taking advantage of people's fear of death, much like TL Swan and Gary Schwartze. Maybe groups like Death Cafe that are treating the topic with a more healthy helping hand.
Kayla: I'm mostly interested in. I want to talk about people that are trying to not die. That's my big one.
Chris: We'll get to that. We will definitely get to that. So, everyone, I know that it's going to be a long winter without culture. Just weird. It always is. But we have some really exciting stuff. We've actually already visited a place. We went on a little bit of a field trip a few weeks ago and visited a place that we're going to talk about next season.
Kayla: It was nuts, you guys.
Chris: It was crazy.
Kayla: It was nuts.
Chris: It's just been the. It was.
Kayla: Can I tell the story?
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: I want to tell.
Chris: Great party. Like cocktail party fuel.
Kayla: Yeah.
Kayla: Oh, I've not talked about anything else with this. We went to do a topic on this place, and as were leaving it, went, this is too big for a single topic. This is an entire season and you're gonna have to just wait to learn what it's about. But cliffhanger, it did bring us to the topic of, like, death, life extension, life after death, all of that, which brought us to wanting to talk about death cafes. So, you know, it's all goes full circle. Just like going back to the philosophical research society. It all goes full circle.
Chris: It just randomly falls. It is actually funny that were like, oh, let's talk. Let's do this thing on death cafes. Because yada. And then there was death cafes at PRS. That was, like, very fortuitous. But, yeah, I'm super excited for next season. I hope you guys are too.
Kayla: Chris, thank you for going on this journey with me. Not just to the death cafes, but on this kind of new experiment for season five, where were able to visit all of the cults and weirds right here in our own backyard. I really encourage anybody who's listening to try this out, to see what weirds might be in your own backyard and really take the time to go visit, because went and did a lot of things that I don't think I would have done otherwise without the framework of the podcast. And there are so many things that were exposed to that I cannot wait to go back to. Ecstatic dance, the philosophical research society, death cafes, theosophical society, the Hare Krishna. Like, it just kind of like on and on.
Kayla: I'm really grateful that we decided to take this kind of journey and next season's journey will be different. I think we're going to go back to. I think we're going to go to a more frequent format next season. Don't quote me. But I think we're, you know, we're toying. We're kicking around some things.
Chris: I'm quoting you right now.
Kayla: Quote me.
Chris: Yeah, we did talk about like, perhaps changing the format to do so instead of like once a month episodes, we do once a week episodes. But it's the same amount of content. We just chop it up by four. Whatever. You guys don't care about the administrative stuff. I also thank you for going on this journey with me. It's been super fun. Like, it was definitely more challenging to do the show with having these in person events and trying to schedule things around that. But I think it was well worth the challenge. Even if we never recorded any episodes, it was worth it just to visit these places and get these experiences. It was really cool. And like Kayla was saying, if you go and do something crazy or weird or interesting in your own backyard, we would love to hear about it.
Chris: So here's one more call to action to come join us on discord. There's a link in the show notes and also anywhere else we are on the Internet. Please come tell us about that stuff. And if you just want to shoot us an email cultorjustweirdmail.com dot.
Kayla: I want to leave us all with a quote from Albert Camus, who had a lot to say about death in his writings, but this is probably the best quote he has about the topic. There is but one freedom to put oneself right with death. After that, everything is possible.
Chris: This is Kayla, and this is Chris.
Kayla: And this has been season five of cult or just weird.